God is neither a salesman nor a jolly Santa. First, God doesn’t need anything from us. God is fully and completely self-sufficient and independent of his creation (Rom. 11:34-35). His power and self-sufficiency make negotiations with God a fruitless effort.

In his book Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, Miroslav Volf points out two ways we can tend to treat God as a superstition.

God the Negotiator

Volf first says that many people treat God like a negotiator. We can think of him like some kind of businessman who loves to make a deal. When we think of God this way, we tend to turn our prayers into bargains. “I promise to give so much money to your church if you will…” or “I promise to give up [insert personal vice] for the rest of my life if only you will get me out of this situation or solve this problem.” Our internal sense that God wants something from us makes us try to offer God good behavior in exchange for divine favors, thinking all he cares about is the best deal in the moment.

God the Santa Claus

An alternative is treating God like Santa Claus. We expect God to give us wonderful and beneficial gifts if we give him our best efforts. Rather than making a deal with an otherwise disinterested businessman (God the Negotiator), we treat God as the smiling and benevolent big-bearded gift giver. Like the boy in the movie Polar Express who just has to believe in order to see Santa Claus, we think if we believe in God and try to do our best to be good, we too will be able to see Santa Claus’s face beaming down on us.

God as Santa Claus showers the world with gifts and love while asking very little in return. Miroslav Volf describes it as, “God [as Santa Claus] solves our problems, fulfills our desires, and makes us feel good” (27). We send him lists of what we want, expect them all to show up, and eagerly take them while Santa Claus conveniently rides away and out of our lives until the next time.

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