Here in the last few months or so, I’ve been reading a lot more than I usually do. I’m not a big reader and tend to be a slow reader, but there are a lot of books that I’ve been wanting to read and never got the motivation to do it. As a preview of book reviews to come, here are my latest reads: Velvet Elvis, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Lord, Save Us from Your Followers, (read most of) Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts, (started on) Jesus Wants to Save Christians, (started on) The Fellowship of the Ring (I haven’t gotten past Tom Bombadil, which I hear is the hardest part of the book), Love is an Orientation, and (started on) Crazy Love. Wow. Now that I’ve actually named them all, I’ve read a lot of books since October/November of last year. This is compared to my having read barely one or two books a year since fifth grade. lol.
I wanted to do my first review on Love is an Orientation mostly because it’s the freshest on my mind. The author is Andrew Marin of the Marin Foundation in Chicago. I first heard of Andrew at the Youth Specialties Conference in Nashville, TN last year. (As a youth worker, I STRONGLY urge any of you who work with youth at any organization, religious or otherwise, to attend this conference this year in Atlanta, GA. Go here http://www.youthspecialties.com/ for more info.) Derf and I had arrived just in time to hear him speak during the big worship session. After that we realized we wanted to go to his small break-out session. It was worth it. I was told that during the big worship session, people were walking out during his speech/”mini-sermon.” I really don’t remember because I was too captivated in what he was saying. I could go on about that, but I won’t this time. :)Anyway, let’s get back to about the book. First of all, the guy who wrote the forward made an excellent point: you will either finish the book hating it or loving it. I finished it loving it. I love it because it hit so close to home for me. Not only by having gay family members, but with how church and culture had brought me up to think about, not only gay people, but those who didn’t “follow” my/our way of thinking.
The book is about raising the bar on a conversation (as a communication major, I LOVE this. :) ) and to not just assume, not just judge right off, not just act like you know it all, not just act “holier than thou,” but to actually sit down, shut up, and listen to people’s stories and give a crap about what’s going on in their lives and not what they are doing or how much they are sinning. The book addresses many questions that conservative Christians and the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) group will throw out. Many people will throw out close-ended questions and through this book with some simple rewording Andrew Marin helps you figure out how to respond to those close-ended questions with open-ended answers.
I would and could go on about specific details of this book, but I don’t want to give away some of the major points that Andrew Marin has made. It’s his book after all. lol. The book itself is well laid out. It is a factual book, but doesn’t overwhelm you with many statistics. There are lots of stories and personal accounts of Andrew’s work and how God has worked in his life through the Marin Foundation to balance the factual side. I will say, though, there are some things (like with any book, movie, or any medium) you will find that will not mesh with your way of thinking. I did find some in this book. However, I do ask this: please do not let those few insignificant things turn you off from a book that is so sincerely written to the church to change their way of thinking. He is not asking you to agree with the GLBT community. He is only asking that you drop your judgmental/hateful thinking to accept people into your life who are genuinely trying to find a place in this world the same way you are. Most are looking for love, some are looking for Christ, and some are looking for ways around the pain of rejection and humiliation.
This is a must read for the church today. I believe with all my heart, we are not getting something that was taught by Jesus. Yes, we are not perfect and never will be anything close to what Jesus was and is, but I feel wholeheartedly we are straying further and further away from His original intentions—to love God and to love our neighbor as ourself. He didn’t mean to pick and choose who that neighbor is. If He did, it would be worded “love your neighbors, who are similar to you, like yourself.”
And this now segues me to Crazy Love…… :)
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