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books

Hating Harry Potter, giving Gandalf a free pass.

July 15, 2010 by Jon

Once upon a time, there was a wizard. Though his background was shrouded in mystery, there was little doubt he was the most powerful wizard in the land. He had a deadly enemy, but good friends, including a red headed guy he always hung out with. People that should have loved him, once instead made him spend his nights in a small, prison like room. He rode the backs of winged animals and had a bitter rival who hated him. Christians had an incredibly strong reaction to the books he was in, which were written in the United Kingdom. I am of course talking about …

…

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Filed Under: books

Break up books.

July 13, 2010 by Jon

The other day on a plane, I saw that the girl behind me was reading a book called “Before you get engaged.” I immediately thought, “That has got to be a Christian book.”

So when we started unloading the plane I asked her if it was. She verified my assumption was right. Then I asked her, “Does your boyfriend know you are going to dump him?”

…

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Filed Under: books

Christian Romance Novels.

January 19, 2010 by Jon

Easy Jon, easy. This is one of those subjects that could get you on the couch. It’s true, my wife has a stack o’ Christian romance fiction. It’s right next to her bag of knitting on our bedside table. And should I open up one of those books and poke the genre a little on Stuff Christians Like, I’d be in a world of trouble.

So I’m not going to. I’m not going to write about the books. But what I am going to do is create one. Instead of picking on Christian Romance Fiction, I created my own. It’s called “Lonesome Crick” and I’m debuting it today.

Best part? It’s a choose your own adventure. I went back through the Stuff Christians Like site and hid parts of “Lonesome Crick” at the bottom of old posts. When you choose a path for the characters to take, you’ll get to a page that has the next section of content on the very bottom of the page.

Ready to roll? Ready to fall in love with “Dalton McCoy?” (He’s the main character and spoiler alert, he’s just moved into town and he’s got a troubled past but a heart of gold.)

Lonesome Crick

A novel by Jonathan Acuff

Chapter One

The sun rose high and strong, the way it always did on main street in Lonesome Crick. A small Western town that was barely a footnote on the journey to California, Lonesome Crick was a quiet sort of place. Kids played in the street, chickens ran free on farms, apples tasted sweet and crisp in trees that were tall and generous. It was simply one more fall day in 1869, with simply one more sunrise lighting up the dirt covered streets, until …

Click here if a stranger with a mysterious past rides in on a horse.

Click here if a man who used to live in town but went off to find his fortune only to realize that what he always truly wanted was right there in Lonesome Crick.

Click here if some sort of orc or other mythological creature walks into town for an epic battle.

Filed Under: books Tagged With: books

The Husband and Wife Ministry Team.

August 20, 2009 by Jon

A few weeks ago, in addition to emceeing the rehearsal dinner which I mentioned on Monday, my in-laws asked me to speak during their daughter’s wedding. They basically wanted me tell a story during the ceremony. As long as I promised not to make any sex jokes, I could handle the “charge” portion of the wedding. I said sure and proceeded to write some ideas down.

As with most speaking opportunities I get, the first thing I did was consult the two people who are closer to the raw coolness of creativity than I am, my kids. I asked them what I should say that would make the crowd laugh.

McRae, my 3 year old, scrunched up her face, thought for about 2 seconds and then said, “Tell people that you spanked a house.” Logically that joke doesn’t make any sense but McRae, much like the music group Another Bad Creation, knows all about the playground, you know?

Apparently spanking inanimate objects humor is killing right now in 3 year old circles.
After getting my daughters seated on the second row once they completed their flower girl obligations, I walked up on stage and did my thing. My daughters proceeded to play with “distraction crafts” (those crafts whose only purpose is to keep your kid quiet during things like weddings) and then I sat back down when I was done.

At the end of the ceremony, as we were getting ready to walk out of the sanctuary, McRae leaned over to me in the aisle and said with no small degree of disappointment, “You forgot to tell people you spanked a house. You forgot to tell people you spanked a house!”

Not only did she listen to what I said during my speech, but she noticed I didn’t use her material. As she shook her head in disbelief in the aisle I felt like she was saying, “I gave you some comedic gold. Gold, dad, gold. Why even ask me for advice if you’re not going to take it? Seriously, this whole thing is amateur hour.”

I should have taken her advice and I might have if I hadn’t been distracted by a sighting of the husband and wife ministry team during the wedding. (HWMT)

The HWMT, a married couple who both go into the ministry together as kind of the church equivalent of a wrestling tag team, are kind of like a unicorn to me right now. It’s been so long since I’ve seen one because North Point Community Church, where I attend, doesn’t tend to have many old school HWMT.

The only problem with the HWMT at the wedding was that they didn’t fit all the stereotypes I fell in love with so long ago when I was growing up. They seemed way too normal and balanced to fit the crazy definition of HWMT I grew up with in church. And I miss that, so when my wife and I recently decided we would give this whole Stuff Christians Like thing a whirl (spend money on redesigning the site so it is easier to use, use vacation days to go speak places etc.) I saw a grand opportunity.

What if me and my wife became a Husband Wife Ministry Team?

How awesome would that be? I’m not going to lie to you, she’s resisting the idea right now mostly because she doesn’t want to wear the denim jumpers I assured her all good HWMT teams wear, but if I am able to convince her to get on board with team SCL, here is what you can expect:

The Ultimate Husband Wife Ministry Team
1. We will be getting new haircuts.
My wife isn’t a big bun fan, but from what I can remember, the two hairstyle options for the wife in the HWMT are either buns or a beehive with the thickness and girth of a car radiator. And I think as the H in the HWMT I need to have a bald head with silky smooth side hair. So we’re both going to work on that.

2. My wife will need to learn an instrument.
Preferably the organ, but given the down economy probably a recorder or a tambourine.

3. Puppets.
During year two of our SCL tour we will develop a puppet show called “SCL Kidz” in which a lovable gang of misfit kids go on adventures and along the way learn that loving God is the biggest adventure of all. (One of the kidz will be named “Gus” and he’s kind of dirty and always gets in trouble but he’s got a heart of gold.)

4. We will get mad at each other during performances.
We will have awkward moments of marital strife when I miss a note in a song I’m singing and look over at my wife with unmasked frustration, blaming the misfire on her tambourining.

5. Our clothes will match.
We will not have matching denim jackets with our ministry logo stitched into the back. That’s just silly. The jackets will be leather and they’ll be classy.

6. There will be blood.
We will at some point get into a turf war with the Power Team, the weightlifters for God, as we realize they’re on the same circuit of church performances as we are. We will lose that war when one of them rips a telephone book in half in front of me and I tinkle a little on my leg in fear.

7. This will be a family affair.
We will at some point incorporate our kids into the show, mortifying them greatly and ensuring countless therapy sessions in the future.

8. Animals will be involved.
We will eventually and briefly add an animal routine to our performance, which will yield disastrous consequences and result in me yelling at my wife as we speed away from a church, “Well how was I supposed to know lizards can even do that?”

9. I am going to RV like few people have ever RV’d.
We will get a small motor home behind which we tow a car with a wry Philippians pun written on the back windshield that says, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward my goal of making it up this hill!”

10. We will go down in a blaze of glory.
We will eventually get caught in a “love offering scandal” that rocks the HWMT world, forcing us to retire and hang up our tambourine and matching leather jackets.

Wow, that’s a pretty bleak future. Maybe we shouldn’t become an HWMT. Maybe that road is too bumpy for the Acuff crew. But you never know, you might show up at church some day and hear the soft jingle jangle of a tambourine floating from behind a curtain as the SCL Kidz emerge and tell you about the lesson they learned when they stole some of old Farmer McGee’s cucumbers. That Gus, he is such a rascal.

I can see it all now and it’s magical.

Filed Under: books

Reading books that are not the Bible.

July 17, 2009 by Jon

(A while back, talented writer Brannon Golden gave us a chart that clearly laid out the awesomeness of specific types of serving. Now he’s back with sharp look at our penchant to p.s. the Bible when it comes to the list of books we read. Long live the guest post. Hope you enjoy.)

A few months ago, I was visiting with a guy from our church who became a Christian about a year ago. Before that, he had spent something like the previous thirty years of his life practicing devil worship. I was just a little intimidated. (True story.) We were talking about the Holy Spirit, so of course I asked him if he had read The Shack, and he shook his head no. “In fact,” he said, “the Lord has me reading only His word right now.” And I thought, “How adorable. This little guy is so new to The Game, so fresh. He just has no clue how this works.”

I don’t think I could seriously consider myself a “believer” if I hadn’t prayed that God would expand my territory, just like that guy Jables. The only way I know of to learn that kind of thing is to read a book about it. How else could I learn how to pray in just 28 days? That’s less than a third of the time it takes to do P90X! And I don’t know how I’d fight my everymanly-battles without lassoing those old mustang thoughts of mine into the old corral. I’ve often wondered how those delightful people from the early church managed to keep themselves unstained by this world. But then I remembered that there was that huge library in Alexandria, Egypt. People were probably coming in there all the time, like, “Hey man, has that new scroll Your Worst Life Was Yesterday come in yet? No? Well I wanna reserve a copy. Will I get an email when it’s in?”

My wife Kendra works for our church, and part of their success is that they read (and even also sometimes apply) all sorts of principles from business and other books. In fact, when Kendra discovered her strengths, it was very helpful to our relationship for me to learn that Ideation is her number one. Previously, there were times I would feel a little sheepish when it would occur to me, “You know, Kendra, that’s literally the 218th insanely great idea you’ve come up with…today.” It made me wonder why she married me, and I kept nosing around looking for secret life insurance policies she had taken out on me. I never found any, but I can honestly tell her, “Because of you, I never stray too far from the sidewalk.”

And why are all these management principles floating around anyway, if not for us to effectively apply to ministry? Certainly the Holy Spirit can speak to us however It sees fit, whether through a secular book or some other donkey. (I used to only refer to the H.S. as “He,” but ever since The Shack, how can I really be sure? And I certainly don’t want to offend H/er/im—I’m pretty sure that’s the unpardonable sin.) There are just so many good, dare I say, even great, models that we can learn from. I mean, just imagine the Relevance quotient of grabbing some of the headlines these guys do. I’ve had Getting Things Done for two years and recommended it to several people (although I’ve only made it up to chapter five myself—I keep starting over from the beginning).

Please don’t misunderstand me. The Bible certainly has its place of due honor in my life. I’m all about firing off some heavy revvy from James: “You know, Nick, the tongue is a fire, setting your life on fire with the fires of hell. But it’s also a rudder, like on a ship. Kind of fire-rudder, if you will…” And it’s certainly not beneath me to work in an analogy about the intricacies of Melchizedek’s lineage during a casual conversation about which restaurant chain has the best bacon cheeseburger. Knowing scripture is the only way I can put all those other books in their proper context.

A few months ago, I asked some acquaintances involved in ministry to tell me some good books that I could read—like big, important, seminary-level works. I ended up with a list of about 15 or so, tomes like A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God , C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, and even Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. Since then, I’ve been dutifully, methodically slogging through my list, and I’ve really learned a lot about how I think about God, life, the universe, and everything.

Then just recently I heard Francis Chan in an interview, and the guy asked him what sorts of books he reads to keep himself challenged and fresh. I leaned slightly forward in my chair with smug anticipation. He answered, “You know, I’m not much of a reader,” and he laughed. “At least not things besides the Bible. There’s still so many challenging things in there that I know I should be doing that I’m not yet.” I worry about the future of their church. But a book I read once said that when I feel like worrying, I should pray instead. I thought that was pretty good advice. So I’ll pray for them. And maybe send them my copy of Cost of Discipleship.

Random haiku disclaimer:
Exceptions exist
Jon’s book drops Spring 2010
I will buy a case

What are you reading?

And what is God showing you through it?

Filed Under: books, Guest Posts

The best book for blogging.

March 4, 2009 by Jon

Sometimes people ask me for tips about blogging. I don’t feel particularly qualified to answer that question even though I do blog a lot. What I can tell you though is the name of the best book ever written about blogging:

“The Way of the Heart” by Henri Nouwen.

Here are three things I can tell you about this book:

1. It is only 84 pages long.
2. It only costs $9.31 on Amazon so it’s super cheap.
3. I underlined almost every line on every page.

The challenge with a blog is that it tends to make your life loud. It’s easy to put this blog filter on everything you do or experience and I sometimes catch myself with this running, babbling conversation in my head, “Should this go on the blog? Maybe this should? Should it? Is this blog worthy?” You might not experience that but this book’s focus on seeking solitude with Christ really challenges me to put Him first and not my blog.

If you’re going to start a blog. Get this book. If you want to grow a blog, get this book. Bottom line, I heart this book.

p.s. It was written in 1981 so it doesn’t use the word “blog” in it at all but that’s what books written before their time do. Twenty eight years later this book rocks a medium that didn’t even exist when it was published.

Filed Under: books, online

Great Sex! Flat Abs! And Jesus!

January 7, 2009 by Jon

If Men’s Health magazine was true, you would never need to buy more than one issue. If the articles that promised flat abs and less stress and better sex really worked as promised, you’d never need to have a subscription because every issue is the exact same thing. This was the thought I had while standing at the magazine rack at Wal-Mart watching my daughters read My Little Pony books. (Long live Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie by the way. Toola-Roola is a punk. I don’t even know what Toola-Roola is into, at least Rainbow Dash is all about rainbows.)

As I stood there though, I noticed something else kind of weird. The promises that the front cover of men’s magazines make were eerily similar to the promises that the back cover of Christian books make. So I thought it might be fun to play a little guessing game and see if you can figure out which is which:

1. “Build your perfect life and strip away stress for good”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

2. “The Secret to Effortless Success”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

3. “Total Health Starts Here”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

4. “967 Secrets of Happiness”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

5. “Supercharge Your Brain”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

6. “Keep Yourself Happy”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

7. “Gain control over your mind”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

8. “Uncover the proven process that will lead to a life of success and total fulfillment”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

9. “The Anatomy of a Successful Life”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

10. “Stress Proof Your Brain “

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

11. “Living Life without Limits”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

12. “10 keys to fulfilling your destiny”

A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

13. “10 Essential Success Secrets”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

14. “Hold on to your hair – 5 new cures”
A. Front Cover of Men’s Magazine
B. Back Cover of Christian Book

OK, that last one was easy, but it reminded me of that Richard Marx song, “Hold on to the Night” and I promised myself I’d make at least three Richard Marx references on this site in 2009, sooooo one down. (Click here for the answers to the quiz.)

I didn’t use the titles of the books because I’m not trying to denigrate those authors. I haven’t read what’s inside the books and ultimately, I’m not sure what this little exercise means. But standing there that day in the midst of My Little Pony land, seeing how similar the two types of headlines were, and knowing that publishers of both items used those sentences because they knew those would motivate people to buy the products, I had to question my own motivations.

Am I that different from the world?

I’ve got God, the very power of Christ inside of me, shouldn’t my desires be different and not so interchangeable?

Do I ever go to God with a laundry list of better demands? Give me a better marriage, a better ministry, a better life, a better job, a better everything?

Do I chase the blessings of God sometimes more than the presence?

Do I ever treat God like a really good self help guru that is there to meet my needs?

Do I look weird scribbling this all down in a small moleskine notebook by the magazine rack in Wal-Mart?

Yes, yes I do. But I don’t want God to simply be a new vehicle for the things I want. I want God to be what I want.

I want Him to be enough.

Filed Under: books, jesus, Serious Wednesdays

Pretending to like C.S. Lewis.

November 3, 2008 by Jon

I want to like Jazz. When I am with cool people and they talk about Jazz, I want to have something to say other than, “Oh yeah, Jazz. That’s some good stuff. Very jazzy and freeform with the whole sound. Yeah, how about that Jazz?”

But it all sounds the same to me. The other night when my wife put on a Miles Davis CD (that I bought years ago under the assumption that you had to own at least one Miles Davis CD in case anyone looked at your music collection) I was reminded that I don’t care that much about Jazz. I just care that you think I care about Jazz because it seems like something cool people should care about and I want to be cool.

So I own a Miles Davis CD and I know the name John Coltrane and I’ve even started using a Jazz analogy at work. Last week in a meeting I described a project by saying, “That project felt like jazz, it developed as we went along, very freeform. I’m used to more traditional projects with two verses and a chorus.” People kind of chuckled and hopefully thought, “Wow, that guy is such a huge fan of Jazz that he incorporates his love of it into project analogies.”

If I’m being honest though, I’m only pretending to love Jazz and I think I’m only pretending to love CS Lewis.

I know, I know, that’s borderline sacrilege and right now you’re furiously removing this blog from your favorites list, but I think it’s true. It’s not that I dislike Lewis, it’s just that somewhere along the way I figured out that to be considered a cool or intellectual Christian you needed to like Lewis a lot. So I started name dropping him and quoting him occasionally, but I realized the other day that the only book of his I’ve ever finished is “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I didn’t finish watching that movie about his life starring Anthony Hopkins. And when I went to a play about him, I thought about basketball during most of the second act.

To top it all off, I haven’t even read Mere Christianity, which makes me a “Mere D+ kind of Christian.”

None of that however has stopped me from answering “CS Lewis” when asked about my favorite Christian writers. I’ve mentioned Lewis a few times on this site and used his awesome accent as part of the litmus test for induction into the SALACBHOF. I might even recommend “Mere Christianity” if forced into a corner or keep a copy of the “Screwtape Letters” in a visible place on my bookshelf if you come over for a dinner party.

So there’s my confession for this Monday morning. My public adoration to CS Lewis is woefully different than my private dedication to his writing. I pretend to like him more than I really do because I think to be a good Christian you have to.

What about you? Has there ever been something Christian you felt compelled to pretend about? Did all your Christian friends fall madly in love with something and you secretly thought, “Ehhhh, it’s OK I guess?”

Let it out.

What do you pretend to like?

Update:
My hope is that we can be honest with each other about things we feel compelled to like in order to be considered a “good Christian” and not create a pinata fest list of things/people/books we don’t like. Let’s disagree, not destroy. (That last line felt a little “We are the World” but you know what I mean.)

Filed Under: books

Remix – #92. The Shack

July 29, 2008 by Jon

“The Shack will change the way you think about God forever.” – Kathy Lee Gifford, Co-Host of NBC’s Today Show

If you know me at all, you know that when Kathy Lee Gifford speaks, I listen. So when I saw KPG, something we fans call her, gave the Shack a shout out, I decided to read it.

Actually, I decided to read it because I wanted the remix to be different than the original post I wrote on the Shack, a Christian novel that has become one of the best selling books in the United States.

But I initially didn’t want to read it for a few reasons:
1. I tend to stay away from massively popular books, music, etc.
2. A handful of people I like and respect disliked it.
3. Other people I know aggressively promised me it would “change my life.”
4. I was jealous of the success the author, William P. Young, was experiencing.

Those reasons don’t make me look particularly good and are mostly prideful, shallow excuses not to engage in something. So I got over them and picked up the book.

What is about to follow is not a book review. Bloggers like Tim Challies have already written great reviews with more depth and analysis than I am capable of. This is not a detailed theological study into the author’s handling of the Trinity or anything else. While I hold such discussions as dear, that’s honestly not my strength or the purpose of this site. And lastly, this is not about the author, who my friends at North Point say is a pretty amazing guy. I don’t know him and to focus this strictly on him would be fake.

Despite revealing a few plot spoilers, this is going to be a look at the ripples this book has caused. The reactions the Christian community has had and the impact the work has made on the culture of our faith. They are not difficult to find. They fill up Amazon reviews and I got some good, honest comments on this subject the first time I wrote about it. But that’s enough introduction.

Here are some questions or statements people are raising about the book, “The Shack.”

1. It was written for his kids and published in his garage.
Sometimes, hardcore fans of the Shack will defend it by saying, “Don’t get all bent out of shape, this is a book he wrote for his kids.” And that’s true. Young has said often that he wrote this book for his kids. But upon realizing the power and potential of it, he enlisted two other men to help craft the version that was published. And he’s really upfront about that. On page two of the book it clearly states, “A novel by William P. Young in collaboration with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings.” In the back of the book Young further states, “His (Wayne’s) enthusiasm brought in the others to refine the story and to prepare it to share with a wider audience, both in print and we hope in film. He and Brad bore the lion’s share of work in the three major rewrites that brought this story to its final form,…” I think that is awesome. I have been touched by this book and would not have experienced that if Young and his team did not dedicate more than a year to create what I experienced. I think when we amplify the origin of the book, by pretending that we have secretly found something one person wrote for their children we can sort of insult the deliberate skill applied to creating this novel by a team of experts.

2. “Jesus says ‘True Dat’ in the book.”
I wish. This is a common misconception about “the Shack”. I did some careful research and I think this urban legend originated because on page 119 of the paperback version, the God character says, “Sho ’nuff!” But when you go back and study the book, you’ll realize that that on page 110 the Jesus character actually says, “True, that,” and not “True Dat.” I was hoping he did, because that would have felt a little hip hop to me and I think hip hop needs all the love it can get considering what is going to happen this fall. What’s happening? My mid-50s minister father is taking hip hop dance lessons. I am torn between thinking, “Hooray! I hope when I am that age I still do new stuff” and agreeing with the rapper Nas, “Hip hop is dead.”

3. “Stop analyzing it. It’s a work of fiction.”
When people disagree with the theology of the book or the way God is represented, readers often respond by reminding you it’s just a work of fiction. Again, that’s true. The challenge though is that so were the parables. And if you tried to tell someone how much you loved the prodigal son story and they replied, “Why are you analyzing it, it’s just fiction?” that would be really frustrating. We, as a culture, are constantly pulling truth and wisdom and knowledge from things that are fictional. Facing the Giants was a fictional movie but lots of people found truth and encouragement in that for instance. And clearly there’s a difference between Young writing a fictional novel and Jesus telling a parable, but that’s not the point. The point is that labeling something as fictional does not automatically mean that we should accept or reject the very non fictional ideas within it. Young’s characters wrestle with real things and just because they are done within the context of a novel does not mean we can’t approach them with care and consideration.

4. God is portrayed an African American Woman.
That’s true and I will admit, some of the folksy language that the God character used in this book threw me at times. Hearing her say things like, “Child, you ain’t heard nuthin’ yet” felt foreign to me. And sometimes the “she-ism” of the whole thing felt a little forced to get a rise out of the reader, like on page 177 when the main character remarks, “So I guess all I can do is follow her.” Young could have easily said, “follow God” in that situation but maybe it would not have had the same impact. But I didn’t have a huge problem with Young portraying God as a woman and here’s why – I do the same thing in my heart sometimes, only in a very different way. At times, I have made God an angry tyrant, out for my destruction and waiting for me to fail so He can punish me and shame me. I have twisted His nature of love with brutal clarity into a nature of judgment so many times. So instead of responding to Young’s interpretation, I was forced to look at how I often have written God in my own heart. And although what I found was gross, Young’s version inspired me to think on my own and for that I am extremely grateful.

5. The book is emotionally manipulative.
I think “manipulative” is a strong word and doesn’t reflect the heart of the authors, who appear to be genuine and compassionate in their desire to share this book. I will say however, that the book is “emotionally deliberate.” In choosing the death of a little girl as the framework for the story, the authors choose the most emotional situation known to mankind. And they admit as much in the context of the story on page 59, “Something in the heart of most human beings simply cannot abide pain inflicted on the innocent, especially children … Even in such a world of relative morality, causing harm to a child is still considered absolutely wrong. Period!” If instead of Missy, the adorable 6 year old, Young had told a tale of his 42-year old brother getting murdered the impact would not have been the same. The book would not have touched, “the heart of most human beings.” But I applaud Young for that decision. He wanted the most people possible to connect with this book so he chose the most powerful example. And that’s not unusual. If in the movie, “The Sixth Sense,” the main character had been a 38 year old dentist instead of the little boy that could see dead people, would you have liked the movie as much? I too understand the need to emotionally engage people. When I wrote about how I would like to start a charity I didn’t just say, “I should start a charity.” I started the post by saying that my four year old daughter thought a picture of a starving African child was pretend. I wasn’t t
rying to manipulate you. I was trying to engage you.

6. I don’t like one section, therefore the whole book stinks.
There are sections of the book I disagree with. Things that are different than what I believe or choices that are made that I might not make. But I struggle with the idea that because I don’t agree with certain pages or certain ideas, I must discount the entire book. The reason is that nowhere else in my life is that approach true. When I write about having my faith encouraged by a Pearl Jam lyric I am doing the very opposite. I am pulling one line out of a song and ignoring everything else about the band Pearl Jam that does not point me toward God. When I sense the story of Jesus in the movie Man on Fire, I am ignoring the violence and torture that dominate most of the film. When I celebrate the sunset as a sign of God’s love, I ignore the devastation and heartache of a hurricane. I am not sure I am right or wrong on this idea, but it is something I was forced to think about when I read the Shack.

7. The book gives the elbow of death to seminaries and churches and WWJD.
The book does talk about the institutions and processes and systems we have tried to build up around our faith. The main character comments about his seminary and does question the church’s approach to tradition and rules. But so do I to a degree. I don’t think the book means to criticize the many people that have benefited from seminary or the beautiful things the body of Christ, as the church, can do. I think it means to tear down the negative stuff we’ve associated with God that might be of God. I will say that if I ever write about the whole What Would Jesus Do movement and get criticized, my first response is going to be, “Whoa, it’s not like I shacked it.” On page 149, the main character sarcastically says to the Jesus character, “You mean that I can’t just ask, ‘What Would Jesus Do’?” The Jesus character chuckles, “Good intentions, bad idea. Let me know how it works out for you, if that’s the way you choose to go.” Clearly that’s just a section of a much larger conversation that you should read on your own but I did verbally say, “Dang, Jesus just leg dropped those bracelets” when I read it the first time. (And it’s not that Young is slamming traditional religion so that he can say all roads lead to Jesus. On page 182, when the Jesus character is asked that direct question, he replies, “Not at all.”)

This is so much longer than I anticipated but I felt like the subject deserved some thought. And I won’t try to stand in the middle on the book. I liked the Shack. I felt like it really challenged how I view my relationship with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. There are some really beautiful parts that were encouraging and crushing and uplifting and a million other things. I rarely read books again but this is one that I will.

That’s what I think about the ripples and conversations the Shack has helped start. And I hope we can have a new one here on this site as we wrestle with this book.

Filed Under: books, remix

Liking the Bible less than Hunter S. Thompson liked the Great Gatsby.

June 26, 2008 by Jon

I’ve said before that I don’t read my Bible enough. I mean if I were asked, “What book would you bring on a desert island if you could only bring one?” I would say, “The Bible.” But I’m not on an island right now. I’m in the middle of a stimulus tsunami. I subscribe to eight different magazines. I am reading six different books. I am online and hungry for new ideas all day. I start a thousand things and finish about one. But in the middle of one of those magazines, I learned something about Hunter S. Thompson that stopped me in my tracks.

The only book I’ve ever read by Hunter S. Thompson was “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Regardless of what you feel about his life or his constant ingestion of drugs ranging from acid to horse tranquilizers, the man was a talented writer. His words are raw, a vein exposed to the eyes of readers, sentences seemingly scrapped from his own still beating heart with a razor blade.

Recently, in an issue of Rolling Stone, they profiled his life as a young man. Told through quotes from friends and family members, the article unfolded a curious look at the person who would one day invent the concept of Gonzo Journalism. The thing that struck me most was his approach to classic works of literature. Here is what is friend Porter Bibb said:

“We all believed we were (F. Scott) Fitzgerald incarnate. Hunter was as passionate as the rest of us about this. This is when he started typing out Fitzgerald and Hemingway books word by word. I used to kid Hunter a lot and say, “You’re not Fitzgerald. What the #*&^ are you typing The Great Gatsby for? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You know,” he said, “I just like to get the feel of how it is to write those words.”

The easy response to that concept is to write off Thompson as an obsessed addict that would one day kill himself. But when I read that, I felt a challenge from Hunter.

Here was a man that was desperate to be a writer, to be the greatest writer he could be, to unlock that part of him he knew was waiting deep inside. So he studied the masters, to the point of actually writing out entire books just to know how those words felt under his fingertips. All of which makes me wonder why I treat the Bible so casually.

Hunter showed more reverence for The Great Gatsby than I do the Bible. He invested more time and energy and heart and soul into understanding the inner workings of Fitzgerald than I do the inner workings of God.

I’m not saying I should write out the Bible word for word, I’m just admitting that I spend a shamefully small amount of time in it. Most mornings I read the Bible for a few minutes, but I don’t pour over it. Most days I look at it like taking a vitamin. It’s just something I do. It’s something I think is good for me, but I don’t really ingest it. It doesn’t necessarily shape the rest of my day or flavor my thinking for any given time. And I think that’s a problem.

That’s part of the reason I started writing that daily devotional on my other site. Not out of guilt or shame. Please don’t hear me trying to guilt you into reading the Bible. Those feelings might initially motivate change but they never sustain it. No, what I am saying is that I desire to desire the Bible. I admit there are many mornings when I don’t want to read. But I want to want to read. I want to want to read the Bible with the same passion Hunter S. Thompson invested in reading The Great Gatsby.

Filed Under: Bible, books, pop culture, Serious Wednesdays

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Jon Acuff is the New York Times Bestselling author of four books including his most recent, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average & Do Work that Matters. Read More…

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