26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fall To Grace, January 25, 2011
This review is from: Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self & Society (Hardcover)
Jay Bakker's Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society, is something of a surprise to me. Bakker, as you might guess, or know, is the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, dis-graced (as Bakker puts it) leaders of the PTL club. Jim Bakker as you recall, went to prison and sadly Tammy Faye died not long ago from cancer.
Jay Bakker, candidly reviews his life, its ups and downs. Predictably he, as a young child, had a ball being in a famous and wealthy family. As the family's fortunes fell, so did his own, and he went the route of many kids in his position: drugs and alcohol. Also, as you might suspect, his hold on faith broke as well.
Like many, Bakker struggled with how he could redeem him life after years of bad choices and bad living. It did not happen over night, but finally he "heard" the words of a friend who patiently stuck with him, repeating again and again, that God's love never wavered. After long arguments, night after night, often in a fog of alcohol, Jay finally fell to Grace.
And grace is what Jay Bakker preaches, and what he believes with all his heart. He carefully explains the concept to those who may be unaware, largely through the voice of Saint Paul in Galatians, his admitted hero.
Jay was undoubtedly brought up in a fundamentalist mind-set, but as regards the bible, he has grown from that limited view, into a more mature and nuanced understanding. He notes that not all of Paul's letters may actually be written by Paul, and he notes the work of Robert Wright's, The Evolution of God, as well as the work of Karen Armstrong, and Henri M. Nouwen.
Those who might shy away from the book on the grounds that it is but another fundamentalist tract, need not worry. I found little in the book that I, as a fairly liberal/progressive Christian, would quarrel with.
What Bakker sets out to do, is to show others how they, steeped in their own screwed up lives, can find a way out of the wilderness through the offering of God's unlimited grace. Grace, as he explains, is God's offering of favor to us, completely unmerited by anything we have done or could do.
It is release from the Law, the Law that Paul spoke of as regards the Torah, but also the Law that we impose today in the manner of morals and accepted behavior in a modern world. We don't have to live up to some mark, God is always offering us the grace of forgiveness and favor.
When one comes to this belief, then and only then, Jay argues, one can by choice begin to see a better way of living, one that is not self destructive and hurtful to others. We can begin to value ourselves as we now realize God values us. And that is the first step. Once we value ourselves we automatically want to do those things that enhance our newfound goodness as humans.
This leads, as we study Jesus' words and Paul's, to a realization that love is the controlling factor in the world. It is the aim of our lives, to love and to continue to grow in love, thereby squeezing out the fears, the angers, the greed, and jealousies we are all too prone to.
When love is freely given, not attached to our hope that it will gain us anything (salvation), then we begin to love the doing of things for others more than any other thing. We embody God's grace, and offer it to others.
This is the way we change hearts and minds, this is the way we build the kingdom.
Perhaps in the most stunning fundamentalist reversal, Bakker has been able to find his way through the ugliness of homosexual bullying that is so prevalent in the fundamentalist world. He has correctly (in my analysis) understood the flimsy "biblical evidence" against homosexuality and come out the other side as a clear and loud voice supporting the gay community.
He, today, preaches to those he calls the freaks and geeks, the unlikely and the unwanted of society. I suspect he brings both comfort and joy to their lives.
While the experienced reading and thinking liberal Christian will not find much new here, those new to faith, or those who are outsiders and wonder if the church has a place for them, will find a welcoming spirit and reason for joy.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Much Needed Message of Graceful Acceptance, January 25, 2011
This review is from: Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self & Society (Hardcover)
From the introduction to the co-author's notes at the end Fall to Grace is one of those books I simply could not put down. I read into the wee hours of the morning as the snow fell and piled high (for Tennessee) outside the windows. Using the book of Galatians as his backdrop and sprinkling first person testimonies called "Grace Notes" between the sections of his text Jay Bakker issues a call to a hurting world and an all too often legalistic bullying church/political culture to understand the revolution that is God's Grace.
As I read reviews of this book elsewhere I was shocked to see all kinds of things that in my opinion the reviewer had to read into the text. One such review claimed that this is a gospel of Universalism, one that denies the need for the individual to accept God's grace and in so doing denies the core of the Christian faith. I am baffled as to where this reviewer got that idea. In the first sentence of Chapter 4 he states "At the core of Paul's idea of Grace is the belief that man is freed from religious law and reconciled with God through Jesus' life, death and sacrifice." Seems pretty orthodox to me.
I suspect that those who take issue with Jay Bakker's message do so for one of two reasons. The first being that he is the son of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker and the second being that like his late mother, Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay is LGBTQ affirming and accepting, arguing for full equality including the right of same gender couples to marry. Regardless of your position on the LGBT issue "Fall to Grace" is a thought provoking biblically sound message and one that many who have been hurt by the church need desperately to hear. I highly recommend it.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Message We are Afraid to Hear, January 28, 2011
This review is from: Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self & Society (Hardcover)
Jay Bakker's new book, Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self and Society carries a message that is altogether empowering and frightening for the Evangelical church. I say frightening because it exposes a deep rooted belief system that has existed for centuries in the church, that has repelled the very people Jesus wants to embrace.
I can remember having a conversation with a gay friend of mine about church, and can still see the look in his eye when he said "I don't believe in God because the people who are supposed to carry His message of love, don't love me."
In his book, Jay addresses these issues with candidness and compassion, carrying the message of love and acceptance which I hope will help to heal those who have been broken and hurt by the church, and shed light into the hearts of Christ followers that we all are victims of grace.
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