More Vacation Reading

My good friend Jen Austin has her first book out and vacation finally gave me the time to give it the attention it deserved. I read it before it came out, but read it in bits and chunks and missed the flow. Jen has asked me to write some things for the promo material for the book. I thought I would use the blog as a place to try out some of my thoughts.

If you are interested in the book, you can purchase it here:

Jen Austin - Coming Out Christian - Finding Wholeness in Faith and Sexuality

Here is the rough draft of my review:

As a pastor, I spend a lot of time trying to help people to read the Bible. I try to get them to understand that the Bible is a story of the history of God'’s people and their struggle to be God'’s people. If we read it that way instead of as a list of legalistic and contradictory codes of conduct we start to truly see who God is and who we are.

I believe that the Bible is perfect the way it is, but I don'’t think that we are done telling stories. In order to continue to grow we must continue our struggle to be God'’s people. In order to do that, we need to share our stories, our stories of our own struggle to be faithful to God and to each other.

I try to be patient with the intolerance of others, but I try to help people understand our need to hear each other's stories. Before one can even begin to understand how someone else lives in relationship to God, one must hear their story. One can not proclaim someone as sinful or Godless or anything else unless they truly know them.

JenÂ’s story of her struggle to understand herself and her creator shows us what can happen when we truly put our faith and trust in God and the struggles that can occur when anyone, gay or straight turns their back and fails to accept the unconditional love that God offers us all.

Jen truly helps us to see the broader understanding of sin as she leads us through her struggle from seeing her homosexuality as a sin to seeing her failure to accept God'’s unconditional love as the sin. In not accepting God'’s acceptance, Jen had separated herself from God much more than any violation of some misconstrued law from Leviticus could. It was only by starting to realize that God had made her and loves her as she is that she was able to fully embrace God'’s love.

When you read this book, sexuality gains such a deeper definition. It is far more than our impulses toward the opposite or same sex, it is something that exists at the depth of our soul, something given to us as a gift from God. Jen seems to understand this and treats her sexuality accordingly with a much better sense of the presence of God than most heterosexuals Christians I know.

We should consider it a great gift the Jen has felt obliged to share her story with us. In it, we can find ourselves, God, and love that surpasses the rules and boundaries that humanity has placed on it.