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

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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.

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.

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.

This is my first attempt at a review of a book for public consumption. The book I am reviewing is "Fall to Grace" by Jay Bakker. You may remember Jay's parents, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker from PTL Network fame,or in-fame as the case may be.

The first thing that struck me about the book was the title, "Fall to Grace" as opposed to "fall from grace". I often heard the phrase "fall from grace" as I was growing up. It was usually a description of someone who stopped following the rules and started doing things or saying things that were unacceptable for a Christian to do or say. Fallen was something I always felt in danger of becoming. "Falling to Grace" implies something very different. It's almost like you need to fall to a level so low that grace is all you have left and the only thing that can save you. And in fact, grace is the only thing that can save you no matter who you are or what you do. You cannot be "good" enough to gain your salvation. It can only be gained as a free gift from God because of and through Jesus. It turns out, much to my surprise, that you don't have to earn, in fact it is impossible for you to earn, your salvation. Wow, what a revelation. I have heard preachers say as much many times in my youth, only to learn that they expected me to earn that salvation by being a "good boy". Like Jay, I found that to be an impossible task. I remember one day I decided that repenting and getting saved all over again every Sunday night was a hassle. I heard that God would hear your prayers and answer if you were earnest in your payers so I devised a plan and carried it out. I prayed and asked God to forgive all my sins and all the sins I was going to commit in the future. It lifted a great burden off my shoulders and for a time I was content in my faith. I made a fatal error, though, that ended my contentment. I told others about my plan. Some people just found it amusing, but others were appalled and said I was just making excuses to be as bad as possible without the eternal consequences. Thanks to Jay, I now find that I was very close to a sacred truth. Thank you Jay, for putting into words what I have always felt but was unable to express.

The last two or three chapters deal almost exclusively with debunking the conservative fundamentalist tunnel vision regarding homosexuality. Wow, it is refreshing to run across a Christian who actually has the cajones to expose the hypocrisy. Even if homosexuality is a "sin", and I don't believe it is, spewing hatred of homosexuals from the pulpit must be a much worse sin.

I highly recommend this book for people like myself who want desperately to remain Christian, but cannot abide the current trends in Fundamentalist Churchianity. I also recommend it to those who reject the fundamentalists, but find the Liberal "High Church" too cold and uncommitted, perhaps ritualistic.

Harvey Childers

May 1, 2011

Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, and Society is author Jay Bakker's call to re-examine our individual and collective thoughts on grace--what it really is, who really gets it, and what it would look like if we really extended it to everyone.

Jay Bakker is the son of the well-known (infamous?) Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of 80's televangelism. Most of us remember how that turned out. Suffice it to say that Jay has a leg to stand on where a conversation around grace is concerned. Indeed, he spends the first couple of chapters describing what it was like for him to be part of that family at the highest and lowest points.

With humorous and earthy tones, Bakker takes us on a journey that explores , in order, who this God is who freely bestows grace, who we are as individuals working (unnecessarily so--it's grace after all) to receive grace, and what it would look like if we extended grace to the world around us. Indeed, he calls it a revolution.

If we could see God as a loving, doting parent who wants the best for all of God's children--that we are punished by our "sin" and not for it--and as the parent who welcomes all of your friends over to the house with a stocked pantry and fridge, how would that change the way we view grace?

If we could see ourselves as broken, yes, but still loved by this God of grace, unconditionally and without exception, how would that change the way we receive grace?

If we could look at the society and people around us, with all of their bent and broken ways, with all of their flaws, knowing what we do about God's grace and having received it as we have, how would that change the way we welcomed others?

These, I think, are the points Bakker tries to make over the course of this book. He provides plenty of scripture--primarily using Galatians as the backdrop. He offers a reasonable base for why so many in the church have botched it. He includes personal accounts from others who have re-discovered grace. And just about the time you've considered joining this new revolution (if you're not already there), he offers up a platform for why the lines we draw in religious organizations around the issue of homosexuality are way off base.

As for this reader, I was with Bakker the whole way. For those who struggle with accepting grace (or bestowing it), this just might be the book for you to really think about who God is, what it means to really and truly receive grace, and how well you include or exclude others from participating in the work of the Kingdom on matters that, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter at all.

This book was a quick and easy read--and well worth the time.

Jay Bakker goes outside the box and takes a revolutionary new approach in teaching us all how to love one another without limitations. Christians are caught in a paradigm, as they slap the sinner label on gays and other folks like it's become sport. But Jay's not throwing any stones here, as he exemplifies the path of love and acceptance through grace that we all can learn. He uses his own life experiences and others' life anecdotes to illustrate this common theme. Jay approaches the use of the Bible from a facet rarely seen by the Christians of today. But Jay exposes the irrefutable truth that common Bible Bangers of today deny to recognize!

I was brought to tears while reading a moving episode from Jay's childhood. Little Jaime is crying, and his mother, the late Tammy Faye Bakker, expresses comforting words making a profound turning point in Jay's life. But, you'll have to read that impacting exchange of dialogue for yourself when you get his book.

Jay Bakker's refreshing look on modern Christianity. For those of you looking for support on the nature of Grace, this is the book for you. Informative, but not preachy. Jay reminds us that no one comes to the Father but through Christ, the original rebel. Lepers or lesbians, God has Grace for us all.

Without mincing words, this is a book with honest and frank dialogue on this thing we call Christianity. I paw through books professing a lot of theology with little to no teeth and little traction for the world I live in. Jay is the product of a Christianity that no longer exists..or never really did, actually. For those of us whose faith was formed in this incubator of artificiality and easy, tidy answers, this is a fresh wind of honesty. It is evident that Jay has wrestled with and has some scrapes and bruises from his struggle with Protestantism. What a relief! Great reading...Challenging and often good for those of us who find themselves 'outlaws' for our hard-earned faith. It's not all smiles and blessings, but at the end of the day it gets me through the night. This is a narrative about gettin' through the night.

Jay Bakker's book is the perfect antidote for the hate filled rhetoric that comes from so many conservative religious authors. Jay puts into words what I have always felt Christianity should be and encourages us all to accept God's love and use his grace to be people of quality. Anyone who needs a shot of hope in his or her life should read this book.

This book was really good!!! It was an easy read and I love the fact that Jay Bakker has no issues with approving of the gays...that's not what the book is about but then again it is...it is about approving of all people no matter what they have done wrong in life... =-)))))))