The Hillhurst Review

Memoir, Religion

Does Jesus Really Love Me? [Video]

Does Jesus Really Love Me? A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America, Jeff Chu (Harper, 2013) $26.99

Jeff Chu’s book, Does Jesus Really Love Me? charts a new course in the emerging conversation at the intersection of sexuality, politics and Christianity in America. It is a not exactly a memoir (“My life is not interesting enough to warrant a memoir,” he told me). Nor is it a historial or theological exploration of the topic of homosexuality. It is journalism of the best sort—where the journalist does not pretend to be writing in a vacuum, unrelated to the topic. In this book you know the author is present. You feel his pain, you sense his amusement. You are aware, from page to page, that he is personally invested in these stories. The title calls this a “pilgrimage” after all, and pilgrimages are personal. But he is also remarkably fair and generous—something I ask him about in the video below.

With remarkable clarity Chu navigates the widely divergent terrain of Christianity in American to try to understand how faithful Christians are approaching this controversial subject. To his New York Times reviewer, Dan Savage, Chu is far too generous with the Westboro Baptist Church and critical of the Metropolitan Community Church, and to Christianity Today reviewer, Jenell Paris, Chu is, in the end, too critical of the church; too testimonial when he describes the church as “our Lord’s dismembered and terribly dishonored remains.” All this, perhaps, proving the old adage that you must be doing something right when you offend everyone.

I sat down with Jeff Chu following a reading and Q & A at Fuller Theological Seminary, hosted by the student led OneTable organization. You can listen in on our conversation in the video below.

Apr 08 2013

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Culture, Memoir, Religion

Torn and Not Mended

Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, Justin Lee. (Jericho Books, 2012) $21.99

It all started with the kid in high school who called me “God Boy.”

Justin Lee, co-founder, director, and public face of the Gay Christian Network, has been building bridges between evangelical Christians and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people since the late-1990s. Torn, his memoir, describes his work as a gay Christian to increase understanding between two communities that have clashed in churches, the media, and the courts.

As Justin explains, his goals for writing and advocacy are to elevate love, transcend too-common battles, and work with individual people. In part because of his focus on the individual—a natural focus for an evangelical whose religious tradition emphasizes personal piety—Justin doesn’t offer much comment on the systems of custom, culture, or law that nurture individuals, shape their beliefs, limit how they read their scriptures, and govern whether they feel free to accept people different from them.

Tagged evangelical, gay Christian, GCN, homosexuality, Justin Lee, Uganda

Apr 02 2013

Interfaith

An Interview with Chris Stedman

Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious, Chris Stedman (Beacon Press, 2012) $22.95

Chris Stedman is gay. If that proves an uncomfortable introduction, the rest of Faitheist: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious will continue to unsettle you.

The first four chapters are spent introducing and grounding Stedman in plum evangelical youth culture, with memorable and detailed accounts of altar calls, Bible studies, hushed prayers with friends at school, complete with religious paraphernalia, clothing, and reductionist bumper sticker-theology. But rather than stay there and perhaps explain why he rejected the faith of his childhood for an educated and “liberated” atheism, he begins to tell a different story. Slowly, he begins to introduce what it means to realize you have same-sex attraction in evangelical culture. He tells about his first tentative “dates” with boys, his crushes on television swimsuit models and Justin Timberlake, and his first breakup. Underneath the tension of sin and shame is still another story – how he realized, again ever so slowly, that he had given up on God.

What struck me the most was how relatable Stedman’s experiences are to me, as a straight evangelical. The fear of his “sin” being exposed, the musical interests, the life-long desire for community, frustration with the things done in God’s name, and the lingering resentment of a God who rarely – if ever – shows up. Like a modern Holden Caulfield, Stedman chronicles his journey through evangelical culture, disillusionment and disenchantment, college, first loves, and the screw-ups of the early twenties. But unlike The Catcher in the Rye, Stedman possesses the requisite maturity to make meaning of the chaos. He went to college to study religion, trying to make sense of it all – his life as a gay man, the faith of his childhood, and the irreconcilable incongruency between the two. He find himself working in an assisted-living home, reading the “Lutheran Prayer for Courage” at the request Marvin, a developmentally disabled resident.

I realized that though I couldn’t decipher why the prayer was so important to him, it was. It touched him in a profound way. And because I shared in this significant element of his life, our relationship was more honest and real… I realized that a relationship that didn’t account for this important piece of Marvin’s life was an incomplete one.

Stedman goes on to have an epiphany of sorts. Even though he no longer believes in God, or any god for that matter, he sees the value in helping people – even people who do not believe the way that he does. He decides to devote himself to interfaith engagement, inspired by a copy of Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith, concluding that,

I wanted to learn from my mistakes and take concrete action to bridge the vast divide between religious communities and the nonreligious. The anger I felt after years of struggling with Christian theology and my sexual orientation transformed into something deeper, richer, and more complex: a combination of humility and empathy, a stance of conviction, curiosity, and compassion.

Tagged atheist, Chris Stedman, Faitheist, homosexuality, interfaith, LBGTQ

Mar 12 2013

Spirituality, Theology, Uncategorized

Talking About God

What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Rob Bell (HarperOne, 2013) $25.99

Rob Bell is in a new place with a new book. What We Talk about When We Talk about God is his first publication since leaving Mars Hill, the off-beat mega church near Grand Rapids, MI, that he founded in 1999. Bell is now writing, teaching, surfing and working on media projects in Southern California.

Despite these changes, people who are aware of Bell’s earlier material—books, speaking tours and Nooma DVDs—will find themselves in familiar surroundings within these newly printed pages. His signature cadence, humor and minimalism remain. Beyond these stylistic cues, major themes from previous works find new traction—the scientific wildness of Everything is Spiritual[i], the moral trajectory of The Gods Aren’t Angry[ii], the assumption from Velvet Elvis[iii] that all truth is God’s truth.

Readers of theology and philosophy will also find continuity with Bell’s established method of interacting with heady theology in subtle ways. Bell avoids the jargon of academia, and he rarely quotes the theologians he is wrestling with, but these thinkers are quite present just below the surface. From a communication perspective, this is one of Rob Bell’s greatest gifts. He guides readers over the difficult terrain of theodicy, epistemology and moral philosophy—all covered in this latest book—in ways that focus us on the important issues without the distraction of opening a theological dictionary. Bell demonstrates that wrestling with life’s most important questions does not require esoteric terminology. Only a certain type of reader can appreciate Peter Rollins’ style of writing in How (Not) To Speak of God, but anyone can understand Bell’s reference to Rollins as “my friend Pete” (95).

Tagged book, Rob Bell, What We Talk About When We Talk About God

Dec 27 2012

Fiction, Religion

Incorporation: A Novel

Incorporation, Will Willimon (Cascade, 2012) $29

PICKWICK_Template If you’re looking for the key to Will Willimon’s new novel, Incorporation (Cascade, 2012), you can find it here:

More humiliating was his desperate need for this building. For twenty years he had deceived himself, telling himself and the world that Hope was nothing but a hulking millstone shackled to his neck. Tonight he knew it to be the other way around. Tonight he adored every neogothic, incongruous inch of this imposing temple–sunlight streaming through blue windows, the amplitude of the Great Hall, the substantial oak pulpit, the warm domestic intimacy of the Walter Rauschenbusch Lounge. Hope’s plumbing and circuitry, once derided as crumbling and decayed, now seemed immortal. Tonight nothing was eternal except that tower rising before him in the darkness. For ever and ever, amen.

If it reads as potentially over-the-top, then congratulate yourself for your insight. This whole story is ridiculous in the best, most honest way.

Dec 15 2012

Spirituality

Help, Thanks, Wow

Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott (Riverhead Books) $17.95

Anne Lamott in conversation with Father Greg Boyle.
(Photo by Gary Leonard, courtesy of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles)

“I do not know much about God and prayer but I have come to believe, over the last twenty-five years, that there’s something to be said about keeping prayer simple.” Those are the opening words of Anne Lamott’s new book, Help, Thanks, Wow.

Lamott is best known for her memoir, Traveling Mercies, and her incredibly popular book about writing, Bird by Bird. In this short but enticing book about prayer she argues for honesty with God. “My belief,” she writes, “is that when you’re telling the truth, you’re close to God…. If you told me you had said to God, ‘It is all hopeless, and I don’t have a clue if you exist, but I could use a hand,’ it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real—really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table” (6-7). But more than mere argument, she models the raw honesty that she believes brings us into proximity to God. In this book, as in her earlier ones, she is transparent about her own weaknesses. She speaks often of alcoholism, drug addiction and the deliberate attention to her sobriety, the alienation of her childhood, the pain of loss, migrane headaches and other challenges of every day life.

In perhaps the most profound line in the book, Lamott writes:

If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

These three truths roughly correlate to the three prayers. In finally recognizing our ruined condition and how little control we have over virtually everything, we cry, “Help!” In response to the deepening sense of being loved we respond, “Thanks!” and then “Wow!”

Anne Lamott is nothing if not relatable. I laughed and nodded along with the rest of the audience as we listened to her easygoing conversation with Father Greg Boyle at the Library Foundation of Los Angeles event this past Monday evening. She makes you feel smarter and more spiritual by her self-deprecating humor. If only we could all wear our woundedness with such honesty we, too, could be best selling authors, I found myself thinking.

The “Help” chapter is the longest by several pages and Wow is the shortest. I pointed this out to her and asked whether it might be a function of her experience, figuring most human beings have more experience with Help than Thanks. Even less with Wow. She offered a different explanation. “‘Help’ is the hardest prayer,” she said, “and the most profound. It the stuff of great literature and movies; when a character is driven to their knees by the futility of their own ideas. If you can pray, ‘Help,’ you’re half way home.”

I was once again feeling better about my chances—chances of surviving the challenges life throws my way or of finding a deeper connection with God—even if I’m never a best selling author.

Tagged ALOUD, Anne Lamott, Greg Boyle, Help, LFLA, library, Los Angeles, prayer, Thanks, Wow

Sep 19 2012

Politics, Religion

To Change the World

To Change the World: the Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter (Oxford) $27.95

This summer of group of friends, including Hillhurst Review co-editor Ryan Bell, responded to James Davison Hunter’s recent book, To Change the World, section by section. Bell’s piece is re-posted below, including links to all the responses.

Essay 1 – “Christianity and World-Changing”

Essay 2 – “Rethinking Power”

Essay 3 – “Toward a New City Commons”

Sep 11 2012

Interfaith, Religion, Theology

Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?

Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, Brian McLaren (Jericho Books) $24.99

Brian McLaren has a gift for putting his finger on the challenges and opportunities facing the Christian church. Or, some may say, he relishes the chance to put his finger in the eye of the church. A close reading, however, reveals the heart of the author which betrays his deep love for the church and faith in her potential.

Published 11 years to the day after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, McLaren invites us to consider afresh a theme that has consumed him for years: generous orthodoxy. [1] Along with many who have been involved in interfaith partnerships and friendships, he is concerned that Christians are hung on the horns of a dilemma: we can either be generous to those outside the boundaries of the Christian faith or we can be orthodox in our beliefs, but not both. McLaren insists there is another way and it’s more than a nice balance of the two extremes. He calls it “strong/benevolent faith;” something many people consider impossible to achieve, not least the main stream commentators and scholars of American social and political life, some of whom argue that monotheism, in particular, is inherently violent. [2]

How can we arrive at this strong/benevolent faith? He proposes a “Great Reformulation” and His prescription is three-fold: doctrinal, liturgical and missional. The generosity McLaren so often speaks of is found in the tone with which he challenges some of the church’s most serious failings. Nevertheless, as with many of his books, this most recent contribution will push many people past their comfort zone. Continue reading →

Tagged Brian McLaren, Christianity, interfaith, liturgy, missional, Rene Girard, Samir Selmanovic, theology

Aug 28 2012