Nine out of ten Americans claim to believe in God, but who that person is varies a good bit. This report in USA Today spells it out. What we believe about God determines how we stand on social and political issues.
Asked about the Baylor findings, Philip Yancey, author of What Good Is God?, says he moved from the Authoritative God of his youth — “a scowling, super-policeman in the sky, waiting to smash someone having a good time” — to a “God like a doctor who has my best interest at heart, even if sometimes I don’t like his diagnosis or prescriptions.”
That’s an interesting poll in light of this Pew survey:
http://www.pewforum.org/Other-Beliefs-and-Practices/U-S-Religious-Knowledge-Survey.aspx
A cynic might argue that what we believe about social and political issues determines what we believe about God.
‘We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, “liked to see young people enjoying themselves” and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, “a good time was had by all”.’ — C.S. Lewis, “The Problem of Pain.”