Book Review: Dirty God by Johnnie Moore

Most of the time, I love to be surprised. But I'm not easily surprised by a religious book anymore.

 The book I just finished is a wonderful exception.

Most of the 3.5 faithful readers of my blog will know that I'm a recovering fundamentalist. In my early 20s, my faith was a  somewhat radicalized one, in a judgmental kind of way. Grace was a theological concept to be debated, not a life to be lived and shared.

But what you may not know--what I have only recently realized myself--is that I'm also a recovering anti-fundamentalist.

You see, when I experience fellow followers displaying that same judgmentally immature faith that I had at 20, it frustrates me. It angers me. I hate the man-made barriers we have Pharisaically thrown up between God and the most vulnerable, "sinful" of people. But in my own desire to radicalize grace and oppose fundamentalism, I may have not shared the same grace I have received.

For we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All. Me too. But I've gotten away from the point of this post.

As a recovering anti-fundamentalist, the mere mention of Liberty University can raise my hackles. I've got some friends who went there and loved the place. It's probably a wonderful university experience in many ways. But I have a hard time getting past the fundamentalist reputation of Liberty having no liberty or grace. So when I received a copy of Johnnie Moore's "Dirty God" to review from Thomas Nelson, I was actually looking forward to reviewing a book that I probably had some issues with. Boy, was I wrong. This is a great book, and all the more great because it was written by a VP at Liberty. Johnnie (I hope I can call him Johnnie and that's okay, but I really don't know him at all) has written a book about God and grace that is excellent. Moving between his own experiences around the world, his wide reading, and his passion for an abiding grace in his own life, Johnnie makes an excellent case for loving God and especially for loving neighbor.

This book is well worth the time invested in reading. And he wrote an afterword just for me--at least that what it says. He challenges me to not just theologically understand grace, not even just to practice grace, but to be involved in a grace movement that changes me. But not just me, the circle of people around me. And not just them either, but the whole world. I finished this book just now, and needed to write this review immediately, but hopefully I can do just that: be a piece of God's wave of grace splashing and crashing around the world.

To quote the great French/British philosopher Jean-Luc Picard, make it so.

San Pedro Sula Day 3

Today was long. And still full of worship and awe.

We went to 2 orphanages today, both about a 90 minute bus ride north of San Pedro Sula, on the northern coast of the country. The trip was beautiful as we went along the mountains, then saw the Atlantic ocean come into view.

The first orphanage was a girls home run by an evangelical organization and church. There were 25 or so young ladies in the home, and they were an incredible group. Excited to see us, they were grateful for the shoes and the play. Less rambuctious than the kids the day before (I guess that's a testimony to leaving testosterone somewhere else), they nonetheless pursued us with gusto in the games and stories and bad Spanish. We had lunch with them (the traditional Honduran meal from...wait for it...Wendy's) and then were on the road for 20 minutes to the boys home.

The boys home (Hogar San Ramon) was run by a nun and several volunteers, and had another 20 or 25 boys in it. They too pursued us with passion--and testosterone--and for another 3 hours we played and loved. It was tough to leave. My new friend Jair began to cry after our goodbyes started, and he cried as I held him in my arms and told him God loves him and I do too. I told him we were friends. Jair's mom is a prostitute in the city there, and comes to visit him once a month. I cannot imagine his life (he's 4 right now--I'll have a great picture up soon of the 2 of us standing beside each other) but I pray that it is full of grace, and that the love of God overcomes the evil he's experienced.

The most amazing thing about these 2 places is the sense of contentment we found there. The volunteers and staff in both places do a great job loving these kids, and it was obvious. They knew grace, they knew love. We were not giving them something they weren't getting, even if they weren't getting it from their birth parents. That won't be the case tomorrow as we visit a couple of government-run orphanages, with 4 and 5 times the number of kids.

But the privates homes we visited today were as good as you can imagine an orphanage being. In fact, I often wonder if those Honduran saints that serve these children don't pull them in before we arrive and say, "now you know those needy Americans are about to be here. Their culture is a little funny, and they don't exactly know about love and grace the way we do, so we're going to show it to them. You love those American real hard."

And they did.

San Pedro Sula

It's moving day for me. Left the house at dark-thirty, flew to Houston, then to San Pedro Sula, in the north of Honduras. There were about 10 of us flying from Houston, then another 10 or so come from points further east so they had changed in Atlanta. We all met up in Honduras, got everyone through customs without too much trouble, and were met by Buckner's staff person here, Frances. Everyone was crammed into a bus made for just the right number of people we had, the luggage strapped to the top, and off we went.

I've always been amazed at the home security systems in Central America. You've got the low end (nails and glass stuck on top of the cinderblock fence), middle tech (razor wire), high tech (electric fencing) and REALLY high tech (men with automatic weapons). We saw them all on the trip to the hotel.

It's a beautiful place, mountains, clouds, trees. Incredible old buildings. I can't wait to get going tomorrow.

Tonight I lead the first devotion for the group. I've chose to use Isaiah 49.6 as my launch pad. "It is too small a thing..." Boy if we could just get that phrase in our heads. Isaiah over and over says that the love of God and his ways is NOT just a blessing for Israel. That is too small a thing. He also wants the chose one to be a light to the Gentiles, so that they may turn to God and know life.

What in your life has gotten too small? What people have you written off as beyond grace, beyond redemption? Who have you said is outside the circle of the love of God?

It's too small a thing.