Jay Bakker - Faith, Doubt, and Other Lines Ive Crossed: Walking with the Unknown God

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Copyright 2013 by Jay Bakker

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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First e-book edition: February 2013

Jericho Books is an imprint of FaithWords.

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ISBN 978-1-4555-1762-6

Son of a Preacher Man:
My Search for Grace in the Shadows

Fall to Grace:
A Revolution of God, Self & Society

For my sister, Tammy Sue

J. B.

For Mandy

A. M.

I will probably be eighty years old and still introduced as Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye. In my first book, Son of a Preacher Man, I wrote about PTL, my parents, and what it was like to grow up in the shadow of a scandal. In One Punk Under God, a documentary that the Sundance Channel produced about me, you can witness just the beginning of the troubles I had at Revolution, the church I started in Atlanta, as I began to be vocally inclusive of LGBTQ individuals in the church. A couple of years after the documentary aired, I wrote Fall to Grace, which reintroduces my story from the beginning all the way through to my church Revolution NYC in Brooklyn.

This book, however, isnt about my storyat least not like that.

Instead, this book is a chronicle of my doubt; my doubt about God, about the Bible, about heaven and hell, about atonement, about love, about grace, about relationships, about society, about church, and about theology. And in the end, I believe Ive discovered something deeper and more lasting than the evangelical framework I inherited from my family and my church.

In this way, Im nobody special. Im just a person walking with God, a person who has experienced loss and pain and doubt. Im just a pastor in New York City trying to find his way, fight for the marginalized, and welcome the outcast. Scandal will follow me forever, and scandal has made me famous, but my goal is to make grace famous. Because grace is nothing if not scandalous.

This is what happened to my thinking when I tried to let grace affect every part of my life, even my doubt. Thats the story of this bookgrace as theology and practice.

Love is the infinite which is given to the finite.

Paul Tillich, The New Being

God is good, all the time.

All the time, God is good.

Do you ever stop to consider some of the things people say about God?

How great is our God.

Our songs and prayers, often filled with worn phrases and clichsdo we consider what they sound like to those who are unfamiliar with them?

Ascribe glory to the living God.

Are we thinking about what they really mean? Or do we just assume that if we grew up saying them, if our pastors and leaders say them, they must be meaningful?

Lately Ive grown aware of these phrases. Ive tried to hear them as if Id never heard them before. And Ive realized that, for me, the questions they bring up are more concerning than the answers they supposedly give. I am beginning to doubt the benefit in our definitive statements about God. The more people say God is something, the more I find myself saying God isnt.

God is everywhere, and I dont mean in that mystical, as-close-as-your-very-breath way. There are Gods everywhere you go. Im capitalizing God when I use it this way because no one thinks that their God is just a god. This is not everyday idolatry, like money or football. My dad used to preach a sermon that archaeologists would someday say about us, What beautiful temples you built for your gods! and theyd be talking about shopping malls and sports stadiums.

Im not talking about shopping or sports.

This is dead serious, I-think-my-God-is-the-God idolatry. This is true idolatry.

There are hundreds of Godsevery nation, religion, denomination, culture, and family has them. And everyone calls their God God. On street corners and television stations, people try to sell you on their God. They arent secretive about it. They dont hint. They say outright that God told me this and God doesnt like that and Thats not of God. And if they are crazy enough, their sayings make it on YouTube and into the hands of bloggers and tweeters with their hashtag battles and flame warswith little thought about whats actually being said on either side. Everyones really just saying, Well, my God

Consider this popular idea: you and another person just happen across each other with what seems like perfect timing, but its not just a coincidence, right? Its a God thing. A moment that God ordained. This good, important meeting feels like destiny to you. Say you meet some Christian on an airplane who gets you a great deal on insurance. Youre thinking, What a God moment!

But what does it mean to someone who isnt familiar with a God moment? It sounds like Gods in the business of setting up meet-and-greets between wealthy Americans while ignoring the genocide raging in Darfur, the millions around the world living without clean water, the babies dying from malnutrition, and the drunks who get in cars and crash into new parents on their way home from the hospital.

Have we thought about what it says about God that God can arrange moments but fails to prevent catastrophe? What kind of God is that?

So these are our Gods:

God who wants me to have everything, from the perfect kids to the perfect 401(k) amount when I retire.

God who makes me feel guilty about my running water and functioning electricity and makes me wonder why Im not feeding children somewhere in a desert.

God who wants me to be a manly man and hunt and fish and look lustfully at my wife.

God who wants me to vote Republican and fight abortion and win wars.