Anne Lamott: A Humorous “Theologian”

This year, I have read four of Anne Lamott’s books. Some of you have also read some of her many books, but others may not know much, if anything, about her or her writings. In this post, I will briefly introduce her and share a few of her “theological” ideas and statements.  

Anne Lamott was born in San Francisco on April 10, 1954, so tomorrow will be her 71^st birthday. As a girl, she grew up in a lower-income neighborhood of Marin City, Calif., a few miles northwest of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Marin City was originally built as housing for shipyard workers during WWII and later became home to a predominantly Black community. Lamott described it as "the ghetto in this luscious, affluent county," noted for government housing, drugs, and crime as well as strong families.

For several years, she also lived in a small houseboat in Sausalito, a more eclectic and artistic environment, where she struggled with addiction and financial instability before finding her footing as a writer.

Most people try to present themselves as better than they are, but in her self-deprecating writing style, it seems that Lamott probably presents herself as worse than she actually is. Still, until she was in her early 30s, her lifestyle was characterized by alcoholism, drug abuse, and promiscuous sex.

Things began to change for the better when she started attending what became St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, an interracial congregation that met for years in borrowed/rented facilities. She was baptized there in 1986, and she wrote that “one year later I got sober” (TM, 51).

For many years, Lamott’s pastor was Veronica Goines, a wise Black woman from whom Anne learned much. It will soon be 40 years since Lamott was baptized, and she has been a faithful member and lay-leader of that church up to the present.

In 1989, her son Sam was born, and in her books she repeatedly writes about her dear son, whom she raised as a single mother.*¹

Lamott’s books are a mixture of humor, ordinariness, and profundity—at least that is my impression from her books that I have read:

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999, TM)

 Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (2005, PB)

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith (2007, GE*²)

Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy (2017, HA)

As one who spent considerable time in graduate school studying Søren Kierkegaard, I was surprised that early in TM, she wrote that reading SK’s Fear and Trembling changed her life " forever.” Then, she wrote words directly related to last month’s blog posts about certainty and faith.

She realized that “since this side of the grave you could never know for sure if there was a God, you had to make a leap of faith, if you could, leaping across the abyss of doubt with fear and trembling” (27). Because of reading SK, she “actively made, if not exactly a leap of faith, a lurch of faith” (28).

I was surprised to find such theological statements embedded in her humor-laden writing. Further, her theological understanding of Christianity, as was also true of Kierkegaard’s, is not about “pie in the sky by and by.”

In Plan B, she states that her faith tells her that “God has skills, ploys, and grace adequate to bring light into the present darkness, into families, prisons, governments.” In that regard, she quotes Pastor Veronica: “Nobody gets into heaven without a letter of reference from the poor” (citing James Forbes*³.)

Here are some insightful “theological” nuggets from Lamott’s books:

* We “are not punished for the sin but by the sin” (TM, 128)

* “… not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die” (TM, 134)

* “God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this” (TM, 135)

* Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back” (PB, 47).

* Fr. Tom told her that “the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty” (PB, 256).

* “… we’re punished not for our hatred … but by it” (GA, 129-130).

* “Mercy means compassion, empathy, a heart for someone’s troubles” (HA, 51).

* “God doesn’t give us answers. God gives us grace and mercy” (HA, 104)

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*¹ Lamott’s memoir about the first year of motherhood as a single parent, Operating Instructions, was published in 1993. I have not read it, but according to CoPilot (Bing’s AI tool), that book, written in journal format, “captures her joys, fears, and struggles raising her son.” Further, it “was widely praised for its raw honesty, humor, and heartfelt portrayal of single motherhood.”

*² You can hear Lamott talk about her faith in this 2016 interview regarding her book Grace Eventually.

*³ Forbes (b. 1935) served as pastor of historic Riverside Church in NYC from 1989 to 2007, the first African American minister to hold that position.

The Amazing Gregory Boyle, S.J.

For seventeen semesters from the autumn of 2006, I had the privilege of teaching one course a semester at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, a Jesuit school founded in 1910. It was a rewarding experience for me, and I grew in appreciation for the Jesuits, whose Order was formed in 1534.

I regret that I did not know about Father Gregory Boyle back then in order to introduce him to my students. He has now been a Jesuit for 50+ years and has had a remarkable ministry in Los Angeles for 35+ years. Let me share with you some highlights about this amazing man. 

Gregory Joseph Boyle was born in Los Angeles in 1954. Upon graduating from a Jesuit high school, he joined the Society of Jesus (S.J., the Jesuits). Following his graduation from Gonzaga University, he then earned master’s degrees from three other Jesuit schools.

After being ordained as a priest in 1984, Boyle lived/served for a year in Bolivia. He then returned to LA, where he was appointed pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in LA and with the highest concentration of gang activity in the city.

In 1988, Boyle began what grew into Homeboy Industries, which, according to their website “is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.” They go on to say,

For over 30 years, we have stood as a beacon of hope in Los Angeles to provide training and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community.

Fr. Boyle has written three major books that I highly recommend. His first book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (2010) became a “New York Times Bestseller.” It is a delight to read—as is his second book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (2017).*

The third of Boyle’s Power trilogy doesn’t have such a catchy title, but it is an equally engaging book. It is The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (2021). Like the two predecessors, this book is also a delightful blend of theological reflections and conversations with “homies.”

Consider these key quotes from Boyle’s books:

** “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” (Tattoos)

** “Compassion isn't just about feeling the pain of others; it's about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. 'Be compassionate as God is compassionate,' means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.” (Tattoos)

** “God, of course, is unchanging and immutable. But our sense of who God is changes as we grow and experience God, and God is constantly nudging us toward that evolution.” (Barking)

** Kinship asks us to move from blame to understanding.” (Barking)

** “It is our lifelong task … to refine our view of God. We won’t be able to speak the whole language until we know the wholeness of God” (The Whole Language, p. 12)

And then there is this quote (which is directly related to my Feb. 16 blog post): 

This is one of more than 50 Boyle quotes found at
Top 50 Gregory Boyle Quotes

I am deeply grateful to Fr. Boyle for what I have learned from him about compassion, kinship, and tenderness. But most of all I am grateful for how he has expanded my understanding of God.

The first chapter of my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018) is “God is Greater than We Think, or Even Can Think.” Reading Fr. Boyle’s books has increased my awareness of the greatness of God and God’s unconditional love (grace).

That unconditional love is personified in the life and work of Father Gregory Boyle, an amazing man, indeed.

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* In reading Barking, I learned that G-Dog, a nicely done documentary of Fr. Boyle, was produced in 2012, and last month June and I really enjoyed watching it (on Amazon Prime; it is also available on other streaming services.)

Walking Up “The Road Less Traveled”

Most of my blog posts are about religion/theology, social ethics, and political issues, areas in which I have studied and read about extensively. But even though I haven’t studied psychology so much, this post is about a book by M. Scott Peck, a psychotherapist who died on September 25, 2005.

M. Scott Peck was born in May 1936. He completed his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University in 1958 and then earned a medical degree in 1963 from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Peck was a psychiatrist in the United States Army for nearly 10 years, and then was the director of a mental health clinic and had a private psychiatric practice in Connecticut.  

He is said to have been among the founding fathers of the self-help genre of books. His first and most widely-read book is The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology Of Love, Traditional Values, And Spiritual Growth (1978; 25^th anniversary ed., 2002). It has sold over 7,000,000 copies!

Peck’s The Road Less Traveled is a self-help book, but it is far different from the get happy quick emphasis of so many books of that genre. The opening sentence is, “Life is difficult.” The way to overcome life’s difficulties is also hard. Since most people prefer easy ways, it is the road less traveled.

Section I of Peck’s book is titled "Discipline.” He writes, “Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing” (p. 15). The necessary discipline tools are delaying gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing.

The latter refers to achieving the delicate balance between conflicting needs, goals, duties, responsibilities, and directions that gives us the flexibility required for successful living in all spheres of activity.

The second section of Peck’s book is “Love.” His definition of love is, “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” And he asserts, “Love is as love does” (pp. 81, 83).

Section III is “Growth and Religion.” Peck states that people tend to define religion too narrowly, but he believes that everyone has a religion. Everyone has a worldview, he says, and a person’s worldview is that person’s religion whether he/she recognizes that fact or not.

Following the road less traveled, it is possible, Peck declares, “to mature into a belief in God” (p. 223). In his case, his own journey of spiritual growth led him to affirm the Christian faith. In his second book, People of the Lie (1983; 2^nd ed., 1998), he wrote,

After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment—signified by my non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March 1980 (p. 11).

The fourth section of Peck’s book is “Grace.” On the opening page of that section, he begins with four verses of “Amazing Grace,” which he calls an “early American evangelical hymn.”**

In this section Peck asserts, “Spiritual growth is the evolution of an individual,” and “God is the goal of evolution.” Further, God is also “the source of the evolutionary force” (pp. 263, 270). God wants us to grow into mature, loving people—and assists us in that process. That is God’s grace.

But sadly, humans often resist grace. Peck says that the reason for that resistance is laziness, which, interestingly, he says is the “original sin” of us humans.

The last subsection of the book is “The Welcoming of Grace,” and there Peck avers that “our human growth is of the utmost importance to something greater than ourselves. This something we call God” (p. 311).

Jesus sadly said, “the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:14). 

Yet those who walk up the road less traveled, welcoming grace rather than resisting it, experience a joyful, meaningful life for themselves and a life of loving service to others. How amazing is God’s grace!

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** On Sept. 12, Christianity Today posted an informative/inspirational article titled “We’ve Sung ‘Amazing Grace’ for 250 Years. We’ve Only Just Begun.” 

What about Hell? In Memory of Jitsuo Morikawa

Most of you likely have never heard of Jitsuo Morikawa, a Japanese American who was born 110 years ago and died on July 20, 1987.

It was about 25 years before his death that I heard Morikawa speak for the first time—and the main thing I remember from that occasion is what he said about hell. 

Jitsuo Morikawa was born in British Columbia, Canada, in 1912. His Japanese parents were Buddhists, but when he was 16, Jitsuo became a Christian. After graduating from UCLA, he enrolled in The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS).

The year after graduating from SBTS in 1940, he was interned in a relocation center for Americans of Japanese ancestry. From 1944 to 1956 he was a pastor of the First Baptist Church in Chicago and then served for 19 years in the headquarters of the American Baptist Churches.

In 1976-77 Morikawa was the interim pastor of the prestigious Riverside Church in New York City, and I had the privilege of attending a Sunday morning service there and hearing him preach during that time.

Morikawa came back to SBTS to speak when I was a graduate student there. I don’t remember what his talk was about, but during the discussion that followed he was asked a question, or perhaps questioned, about hell.

I have never forgotten his response. He said that it was strange to him that so many Christians seemed to be disappointed and disapproving whenever he or anyone suggested that perhaps there was not a literal hell where non-Christians are punished forever.

Morikawa was questioned, and his views on hell were opposed, by many who heard him that evening, for, as was included in the revised Baptist Faith and Message in 1963, Southern Baptists generally believed that after death, “The unrighteous will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment.”

I have dealt with the issue of hell in two previous blog posts. The most recent was on Jan. 20, 2019. In that article, I raised a question that was similar to what I heard Morikawa say in the early 1960s:

Here is the biggest question of all: Why do conservative Christians get so upset with the idea that most of the people of the world—that is, all who do not trust in Jesus as their Savior—might not be punished in Hell for all eternity?

Then back in 2011, I made a blog post titled “Bell on Hell.” It was related to Rob Bell’s controversial book titled Love Wins. I encourage you to read that article (again).

Brian McLaren writes briefly about hell on pages 193-4 of his new book Do I Stay Christian? Hell, however, is the underlying theme of The Last Word and the Word After That (2005), the third volume of McLaren’s A New Kind of Christian trilogy.⁺⁺

The 17^th chapter of that book is called “Deconstructing Hell.” That chapter, and that book, and that trilogy are well worth reading with thoughtful consideration. It was reading those books that led me to become a firm “fan” of McLaren.

In his new book, McLaren speaks of “repurposing hell.” That means that he is thinking hell “is not a threat of divine retribution in the afterlife but a dire warning about the inevitable negative consequences of harmful behaviors in this life—like war, ecological overshoot, or gross economic inequality.”

Partly because of hearing what Morikawa said in the early 1960s, through the years I have questioned the traditional Christian belief about hell. And because of McLaren’s 2005 novel, I questioned that traditional position even more.

The first sentence of McLaren’s introduction to that book is straight to the point: “I believe that God is good.” And then in the 17^th chapter he has Casey, one of his characters, say that “if hell seems to have the last word, there’s got to be a word after that.”

Pastor Dan, the central character, asks her what that would be, and Casey says, “Grace . . . I think the last word is always grace” (p. 101).**

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⁺⁺ This month I have reread this book and (again) found it to be of great value. If any of you harbor troubling questions/doubts regarding the traditional (conservative) doctrine of hell, I encourage you to read this book (which is a serious theological book written in the form of a novel).

** I didn’t consciously remember those words when I wrote my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018), but the last chapter of that book is “#30  God’s First and Last Word Is Always Grace.”

Remembering Flannery, Gloria, & Aretha: In Observance of Woman’s History Month

Flannery O’Connor, Gloria Steinem, and Aretha Franklin were distinctly different, but all three are definitely worth remembering in Women’s History Month (March) as they embodied this year’s theme, “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.”

These three outstanding women are especially worth remembering today as all three were born on March 25: Flannery in 1925, Gloria in 1934, and Aretha in 1942.

Remembering Flannery O’Connor

Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Georgia and had a short, difficult, and productive life before dying at the early age of 39 in 1964.

In 1949 while living in New York City and making her mark as a promising young writer, she was diagnosed with lupus. Consequently, she moved back to her mother’s home in Milledgeville, Georgia.

Even though she continued to write, gradually she was able to work only two hours and then only one hour a day. Yet, she completed two novels and 32 short stories. Wise Blood, her first novel was published in 1952, and “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” her best-known short story, the following year.

O’Connor was a woman of strong religious faith, and she is widely considered the best Catholic woman author of the 20^th century. God’s grace was an underlying theme of her writing.

One of O’Connor’s well-known statements is, “People without hope not only don’t write novels but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.”

Remembering Gloria Steinem

Despite a humble Ohio childhood, Gloria Steinem graduated magna cum laude from prestigious Smith College in 1956 and earned the Chester Bowles Fellowship, which enabled her to spend two life-changing years in India.

Steinem’s essay about her hopes for the future of women was published in the Aug. 31, 1970, issue of Time magazine. Here is the link to the March 5, 2020, issue of Time that reprints the original essay with Steinem’s comments 50 years later.

Indeed, for more than 50 years Steinem has pursued healing the of gender, ethnic, and other factors that have separated people, favoring some (men, Whites, etc.) to the detriment of others (women, Blacks, etc.). The world is better off because of her ground-breaking and ongoing lifework.

Steinem’s contributions were recognized when she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993 and awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama ten years later.

Her book The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! was published by Random House in 2019 (when she was 85!). Singer and actress Janelle Monáe dubbed it a “fearless book full of passion, resolute perspective, and unbiased hope for the future.”**

Remembering Aretha Franklin

Though born in Memphis, after age five Aretha grew up in Detroit where her father was pastor of the influential New Bethel Baptist Church from 1946 to 1979.

Respect, a 2021 “biographical musical drama film,” features “Ree” (Aretha) from 1952 to 1972. “Respect” was the song recorded in February 1967 that became her first #1 hit song. And, indeed, much of her early life was seeking respect as an African American and as a woman.

But she was not seeking respect for just herself, “Respect” became a demand for gender and racial equality and has been both a civil rights and a feminist anthem. About a year ago Rolling Stone selected the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,”—and “Respect” was #1 on that list.

Franklin’s life illustrates this year’s Women’s History Month theme. In August 2018, the month she died, The Guardian posted an article titled Aretha Franklin: a life of heartbreak, heroism and hope.

The climax of the movie Respect shows her healing in 1972 as she powerfully sang “Amazing Grace” as it was being recorded. It became the highest-selling album of her career with over two million copies sold in the U.S.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee three days this week, is poised to become the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. That possibility is due in part to the ground-breaking work of Gloria and Aretha.

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** The 2020 film The Glorias, based on Steinem’s autobiographical book, My Life on the Road (2015), “weaves a compelling, nontraditional tapestry of one of the most inspirational and legendary figures in modern history.” It is well worth seeing and is available free for those who have Amazon Prime and available for $6-7 on other streaming services.

~&~ Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian woman who is a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian, has authored a highly acclaimed book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (2021), which I mention here because the subtitle echoes the theme of this year’s Women’s History Month. 

A New View of the Beatitudes

The most basic teachings of Jesus Christ are found in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in chapters five through seven of the Gospel according to Matthew. What is generally called the Beatitudes are found in that fifth chapter, and I invite you to consider, newly, those verses. 

Following the Call: A Good Old View

On Jan. 2, the first Sunday of this new year, I started reading the book Following the Call (2021), edited by Charles E. Moore and issued by Plough Publishing House.**

There are 52 chapters in Moore’s new book (and I plan to read a chapter every Sunday morning this year). On the page before the first chapter, the “overview” begins with these words:

The beatitudes are a summary of the entire Sermon [on the Mount], shorthand for what is to come. They describe Jesus himself . . . . And they depict the character of those who strive to follow Jesus.

Each chapter of Moore’s book has one to four brief excerpts from the writings of a wide variety of notable Christians. Chapter 1 begins with words by E. Stanley Jones (1884~1973), the venerable Methodist missionary to India. Jones wrote:

Here is the key to the Sermon on the Mount. We mistake it entirely if we look on it as the chart of the Christian’s duty; rather, it is the charter of the Christian’s liberty—his [or her] liberty to go beyond, to do the thing that love impels and not merely the thing that duty compels.

American Saint: A Good New View

One of the intriguing novels I read last year was American Saint (2019) by Sean Gandert, about whom I was unable to learn much, even from his website.

The “saint” in Gandert’s book is Gabriel Romero, who was “raised in a poor neighborhood in Albuquerque by his mother and curandera [= medicine woman] grandmother” and who “grows up fervently religious, privately conflicted, and consumed by what he’s certain is the true will of God.”

Toward the climax of the novel, Gabriel preaches at the Sunday morning Mass in the unconventional (Catholic) church he started. In his sermon he paraphrases the Beatitudes, not as describing Jesus himself but rather suggesting what “love impels” (Jones). Here is what he says:

So who now, I ask, are those who Christ supports? Who are the meek, the hungry, the poor? Who are the pure in heart and the ones who mourn? I tell you they are the same now as they were two thousand years ago, and that God has not lost sight of them, no matter how much the rest of us have. God tells us this: blessed are the immigrants, for they shall find comfort in the land of God. 

Blessed are the homeless, for they shall find shelter. 

Blessed are the addicts, for they shall find relief. 

Blessed are those who suffer from racist oppression, for they shall find justice. 

Blessed are those who find themselves with child and choose not to carry to term, for they shall find compassion. 

Blessed are those whose lands have been stolen and colonized, for they shall own their own destinies. 

Blessed are the prisoners and the unjustly convicted, for they will find freedom. 

And blessed are those shunned because of their gender or sexuality, for they shall find love” (pp. 288-9).

Can We Agree with Gabriel?

As you might guess, some who heard Gabriel’s new view of the Beatitudes were offended and criticized his ideas as outlandish. In reflecting on that development, Anna, who was one of Gabriel’s most faithful supporters, declared,

You get a lot of hate for spreading a message of love. You get a lot of hate for acting out the words of Christ, who wasn’t particularly popular in His day either (p. 306).

So, what about it? Can we agree with Gabriel, or do we want to be judgmental of those who are hurting the most? Can we recognize and affirm God’s amazing grace?

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** (Moore, b. 1956, is a long-time Bruderhof member and currently is a member of the Durham House, a Bruderhof community in North Carolina. I first learned of him when I read Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, 1999, which he edited and which I highly recommend.)

There, But for the Grace of God . . .

The last somewhat personal blog post I made (here on July 26), was not widely read, but today I am sharing more personal reflections indirectly related to that post—and to my 83^rd birthday, which is tomorrow (Aug. 15).

A Wonderful Life

Although I am experiencing a definite decline in physical energy and the need for multiple 10-minute naps every day, I am happy to say that at the end of my 83^rd year I am basically healthy. (Yes, the birthday number marks the end of that year.)

Moreover, I am also basically happy. Last year I published a book mainly for my children and grandchildren. The subtitle of that 186-page book is The Story of My Life from Birth until my 82^nd Birthday (1938~2020). But the main title, A Wonderful Life, is problematic. 

I wrote in the book’s conclusion that “to this point I can honestly say that it has been a wonderful life—and I don’t mean wonderful in the sense that I should be praised for it, but wonderful in the sense that I have for the most part enjoyed the last nearly 80 years that I can remember.”

I can, thankfully, say the same thing now, a year later.

In the book’s brief conclusion, which I finished exactly one year ago today, I wrote, “I thank God for blessing me with a wonderful life. I have received God’s grace (unmerited favor) in manifold ways, and I am deeply thankful for those blessings.”

I fully agree with that statement now, a year later. But what can I say to those who have not been blessed so bountifully? I am more and more seeing this as problematic.

Miserable Lives

We have all heard the words, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Those words are generally spoken as an expression of humility, acknowledging that the good fortune one enjoys is due to God’s grace rather than to one’s own ability or goodness.

That is all well and good. But here’s the problem: why isn’t God’s grace more available for all the many people who are suffering so miserably?

Certainly, we must recognize that some people have miserable lives because of bad choices they have made in the distant or recent past. For example, more and more people are suffering right now because they spurned covid-19 vaccinations.

However, many suffer through no fault of their own. The miserable life of some people is directly linked to having been born into a dysfunctional or an economically poor family.

Or they haven’t experienced what I have because of my white privilege, male privilege, Christian privilege, and straight/cis privilege, etc. (This is in no way meant to demean BIPOC, females, non-Christians, or LBGTQ people; rather, it recognizes that many such persons lack advantages I have had.)

Compassionate Lives

Perhaps we hurt others unintentionally when we “brag” about what we have received “by the grace of God.” Instead of thinking about ourselves and how well off we are, we need to think more about the needs of others—and work to help disadvantaged people experience more of God’s grace.

That is, many of us need to talk less about our blessings and listen more compassionately to others talk about their needs.

I have a couple of cousins who regularly post Christian content (memes) on Facebook. Last week they both posted about how good God has been to them—and I am truly happy that they are experiencing and acknowledging God’s blessings.

But one of those cousins also often posts negative things about “illegal aliens” and the problems they cause in the U.S. Most of those she criticizes, though, are desperately seeking to improve their misfortunate lives.

Why isn’t God good to them also? Why does my cousin experience God’s grace so much more than the suffering refugees and immigrants from south-of-the-border?

And shouldn’t being graced by God make us more gracious?

So, I’m suggesting we change the old saying: There but for because of the grace of God, go I will . . . .

Serene Calvinism?

To put it mildly, I am not a big fan of Calvinism. It came as a surprise, then, when I learned that a noted contemporary theologian and progressive seminary administrator is a great admirer of John Calvin’s theology. That theologian is Serene Jones, president since 2008 of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

The Five Points of Calvinism

Long ago I was taught, and then through the years I taught, that the five main emphases of Calvinism can conveniently be summarized by the five letters of “tulip.” That is, Calvinism is primarily about theological beliefs that stress

Total depravity
Unconditional election
Limited atonement
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the saints

Growing up as a Southern Baptist, I heard some about the T and a lot about the P of TULIP, but little of the middle three terms--and while in seminary, I came to reject the traditional Baptist idea about the fifth term, which was usually expressed as “once saved, always saved.”

Actually, these “five points of Calvinism” were summarized after Calvin’s death in 1564 (at the age of 54) at the Synod of Dort (1618–19), convened by the Dutch Reformed Church to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism.

The latter theology, named for Dutch theologian Jacob Arminius (1560~1609), particularly opposed the Calvinist emphasis on predestination (unconditional election). More than a century later Arminianism was endorsed by John Wesley and has through the centuries since been the underlying theology of Methodism/Wesleyanism.

Serene’s Calvinism

About ten weeks ago, Serene Jones’s new book Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World was published. It is a very honest book, a mixture of memoir and theological reflection, that describes how the author has wrestled theologically with various personal issues. 

In the Introduction, Jones serenely states: “John Calvin is the one who exerts the most influence on my own theology.” Then she begins Chapter 1 with a brief quote from Calvin.

In the second chapter, Jones tells how in 1994 she was given her grandmother’s copy of the 1559 edition of Calvin’s major work, Institutes of the Christian Religion. But by then, she wrote, she had “already read my newer two-volume version from cover to cover at least half a dozen times” (p. 23).

(I don’t know what version Jones read, but the 1960 version published in The Library of Christian Classics is 1,800 pages long!)

Serene(’s) Theology

It turns out that the only one of the five points of Calvinism that Jones writes much about is the T of TULIP. Yes, there is a lot about grace from beginning to end--and the last word in the book is, literally, “grace.” But she really does not present it as something irresistible.

She does write a lot about original sin, though, about what Calvinism has long termed “total depravity.” That means that “sin is extensive, persistent, systemic, and collective” and that people are kidding themselves if they think they can get through life “without being tainted by it” (p. 259).

That understanding of sin helped her through the traumas of abuse by her grandfather, repeated verbal abuse by her bi-polar mother, and grief because of a painful divorce.

When I completed the reading of her new book, it seemed clear that now, in spite of the above-mentioned traumas and other trying experiences, Jones has developed a theology that makes it possible for her literally to be a serene (=calm, peaceful) advocate of Calvin’s theology.

On the last day of July, Jones will celebrate her 60th birthday. I wish her well on that special day and pray that she will have many more productive, and serene, years ahead.

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.

TTT #30 God’s First and Last Word is Always Grace

This blog article is the 30^th and last one based on my forthcoming book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (TTT). I will be informing you later when the book becomes available, but please give consideration now to the following matters taken from the final chapter of the book.

Introducing Grace

Before writing that final chapter, I read Philip Yancey’s outstanding book What’s So Amazing About Grace? (1997) for the third time. I consider Yancey’s book one of the most significant books I have read over the last twenty years. 

In the first chapter of his book, Yancey calls grace “our last best word,” and laments the “shortage of grace within the church” (p. 14).

I fully agree with Yancey’s assessment, so I decided to write about grace for the last chapter of TTT. We need to be reminded constantly that for the Christian, or for anyone for that matter, God’s first and last word is always grace.

I have been reading and thinking about God’s grace for most of my adult life. One of the first good books about grace that I read maybe almost sixty years ago was penned by R. Lofton Hudson, a Baptist pastor and counselor. His book was titled Grace Is Not a Blue-Eyed Blond (1968).

Sometime before writing his book, the author was talking with a man who attended church only occasionally. Hudson asked him “What do you think of when I say the word grace?” The man’s quick reply, “Why, Grace is a blue-eyed blond!”

Well, probably not many people identify grace in such a manner, but many may need to have a deeper, more nearly adequate understanding of grace and the importance it has, or should have, in our lives.  

Concluding with Grace

After dealing with the issue of “grace vs. works,” sola gratia, and what some have called “grace abuse,” I concluded the last chapter in TTT when the assertion, “still, grace is God’s first and last word.”

Although probably not original with him, several years ago I read the following words boldly proclaimed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

There is nothing we can do to make God love us more.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us less.

That, truly, is the meaning of grace. And while it is necessary for us to recognize, and to beware of, grace abuse, we should always remember that the God’s first and last word is always grace.

The pivotal significance of grace is seen in the life and work of Jesus Christ.

In the first chapter of John we read, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (v. 14).

And then, ^“Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (vv. 16-17).

Toward the end of the first chapter of his book Grace Is Not a Blue-Eyed Blond, Hudson declares, “Primarily, grace is a face, the face of Christ and of Christian acceptance.” (p. 22).

Yes, because the Christian faith begins and ends with Jesus Christ, for the Christian—and for all the people of the world— the first and last word is grace.

Let’s never forget that, for it is certainly one extremely important true thing that everyone needs to know now.

[Here is the link to the entire 30th chapter of TTT.]

Are Sinners Really in the Hands of a Loving God?

Brian Zahnd, founding pastor of the Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Mo., is a man I consider a new friend. I first met Brian on June 25 when I went to St. Joe to hear him preach, and then I drove back to St. Joe to have lunch with him on July 13. I have found him to be a warm and genuine person, an engaging preacher, and an author of engrossing books.

A Bit about BZ

June and I started referring to Brian Zahnd as BZ, partly because we know other Zahnds and other Brians. I could take this whole article just to introduce him, but I will make this part brief.

BZ was born in 1959 in Savannah, Mo., the oldest son of an attorney who later became a county judge. Glen Zahnd was also a leading member of the First Baptist Church in that county-seat town.

When BZ was a high school student, he became a “Jesus freak,” and joined other young Christians who practiced their faith in “The Catacombs” in St. Joe. From that group he started the Word of Life Church when he was 22—and he is still the pastor of that congregation, which became and still is a megachurch.

Culminating in 2004, BZ experienced a rather drastic theological change. He turned from what he refers to as “cotton candy Christianity” to what he believes is a more authentic Christian faith based upon a fuller understanding of Jesus Christ.

Because of that change of emphasis, BZ told me that he lost about a thousand members from his church that had had a weekly attendance of about 4,000.

A Bit about BZ’s Books

BZ’s book Water to Wine: Some of My Story (2016) tells about his “conversion” in 2004. It was the first of his books that I read, and I found it fascinating.

Then I read BZ’s 2014 book titled A Farewell to Mars and really enjoyed it also. His views on war and peace are very much in harmony with that of the Mennonites—and he now often speaks at Anabaptist conferences, although his church is not affiliated with any denomination.

BZ’s newest book was released on August 15, and my reading of it prompted this article, for its title is Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.

The Point of BZ’s Newest Book

When he was a young charismatic/evangelical preacher, BZ made regular use of Johnathan Edwards’s (in)famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But his theological change in 2004 led BZ to reject what he came to call the “monster God” and to affirm God as the God of love for all people at all times.  

BZ’s emphasis on the unchangeable love of God led him to reject the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. (You can review here my recent article about PSA, which ended with reference to Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal son.)

The cover illustration of BZ’s new book is of the prodigal son being welcomed by his loving father. That depiction of God as always loving, always forgiving, always accepting is the key to an adequate understanding of God.

Further, BZ’s emphasizes that “hell” is the terrible conditions some people experience in this life rather than as some future state of eternal punishment decreed by God. To BZ, no one at any time who wishes to experience the loving acceptance of God is ever rejected or caused to suffer punishment by God for any reason.

BZ’s book may seem odious to some conservative evangelical Christians, but it boldly, and correctly, promulgates the “scandalous truth” that sinners really are in the hands of a loving God.