The Quid Pro Quo God

A couple of recent conversations suggest how hard it is to exorcize the quid pro quo god. Quid pro quo is a Latin phrase meaning "something for something." The quid pro quo god is one who does something for us if we do something for him, and the one who refuses to do something for us, or even punishes us, if we fail to do something for him.

Put this way, it seems impossible that anyone in their right mind would believe in such a god. The rub, of course, is that none of us are in our right mind—that's one of the effects of sin. And one reason we're attracted to the quid pro quo god is that he's a god we can get our minds around. He makes sense. He seems reasonable and fair: We do our part, he does his, and all will be well.

The problem is our part, which we tend not to do well at all. And when repeated efforts at doing our part fail, we discover that the quid pro quo god turns out to be a demon. Naturally, we try to exorcise this demon without success.

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