Combatting “Leatherbound Terrorism”

As the author of a book titled Fed Up with Fundamentalism and of a soon-to-be-published book whose last chapter is about grace, I am happy to introduce readers of this blog to Chris Kratzer and his recently-published book Leatherbound Terrorism.

Who is Chris Kratzer?

On his website (see here), Chris Kratzer identifies himself as “a husband, father, pastor, author, and speaker.” He has been a pastor for 23 years, mostly serving “conservative Evangelical churches.”

Kratzer is now the pastor of The Grace Place (in Shelby, N.C.), which is billed as “a contemporary, progressive, affirming church.”

I have not met Chris personally, but I have carefully read his book, which was self-published in September. Its subtitle is Crucified by Conservative Evangelicalism, Resurrected By Jesus.

The book is quite personal. In the first chapter Chris talks about meeting Jesus for the first time when he was seven years old. By reading the book, one comes to know much about the author, from that time until the present.

I have become a Facebook friend with Chris—as have more than 3,200 others. In addition, I am a subscriber to his blog (see here).

What is Leatherbound Terrorism?

Kratzer graduated from seminary and became a Lutheran pastor, but after a few years he was lured into becoming a conservative Evangelical. That shift is described in Chapter Three, “Drinking The Poison.”  

Even though he had a long and deep association with Evangelicalism, Chris came to realize that that form of Christianity is poisonous and that the conservative use of what is claimed as an infallible Bible is nothing other than leatherbound (as used for expensive Bibles) terrorism.

The seventh chapter of Leatherbound Terrorism bears the same title as the book. There he asserts that “declaring the infallibility of the Bible and the exclusive, divine authority of one’s interpretation of it” often leads to “power, control, and privilege” (p. 87).

Reflecting on his acceptance of that stance, Kratzer confesses that he committed “countless acts of leatherbound terrorism, deserving of nothing less than the status of a vicious war criminal” (p. 90). Strong words!

Later he writes, “We [Evangelical] Christians have been drastically wrong . . . about racism, wrong about equality, wrong about violence and war, the list keeps growing” (p. 137). He also admits that he has been wrong in his evaluation of and treatment of LGBT people.

But it is not just the beliefs of Evangelicalism that Chris now thinks are wrong. It is also their common method of operation.

“My heart is saddened and filled with deep compassion,” Chris writes, “for those Christians and pastors who have been sucked into the black hole of a success-driven, corporate, narcissistic, elitist church culture overflowing within much of American Christianity” (p. 161).

The Antidote

The remedy or antidote for all of that toxic, terroristic Christianity he had encountered and embraced, Kratzer found, was the central message of grace.

He writes in the fourth chapter how he was liberated when he “encountered Grace—unconditional, irrevocable, unremovable, pure, undiluted Grace” (p. 55). And that is the main message of the rest of his book—and of his ministry ever since.

If I was “fed up with fundamentalism” when I wrote my book with that title, Kratzer's book clearly reveals that he had become sick to death of fundamentalism, which he calls conservative Evangelicalism.

And if as I have written in Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now  (see the last paragraph of this link), “for Christians—and for all the people of the world—God’s first and last word is grace,” Kratzer’s praise of grace is even stronger.

Grace is truly the last word and the best word for everyone.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.