Out Of Sorts: Making Peace of an Evolving Faith by Sarah Bessey
(Format used for this read: Audiobook…and a teensy flip thru of the e-book)
My friend Sarah (not this author LOL….but that would be SOOOO NEAT if I knew her in real life!!!!) recommended this book to me recently.
My friend has been witness to my disenchantment and disentanglement with the American church the past few years….she has shared in some of my heart wrenching frustrations, my mind blowing revelations, and my ever growing process of dismantling and unlearning of problematic theology and doctrine.
The thing is though….as hurt as I personally have been in the church and as much hurt as I have watched the church bring to many others….something inside me just hasn’t let go of following Jesus.
While I have recently walked away from the church as an institution, I can’t seem to shake my desire to walk alongside Jesus.
When I read the author’s words in this book….there were SO MANY TIMES I thought to myself “She knows EXACTLY how I feel…THIS is what I am experiencing.”
Reminds me of how I felt when I read “Searching for Sunday” and also “Inspired” by Rachel Held Evans ….
(Makes sense because they had a real life friendship before Rachel’s passing💔)
Like when she said this:
“I found progressive, thoughtful, and brilliant people among Christians. But for me and the Bride of Christ? Well, it still felt like I was just hanging on to a relationship that had already ended. When I made the decision to stop going to church and to stop calling myself a Christian, it didn’t feel good. But there had been a long litany of abuses, burn-out, and exhaustion. The trail of hurt people, wounded souls, and even dead bodies was too great. It weighed on my soul, and I felt tremendous grief. I couldn’t align myself with this anymore. I could no longer reason away or gloss over the systemic abuses of power, the bitterness, the bigotry and hypocrisy, the sexism and racism, the consumerism, the big business of church that was consuming people and spitting them out for the “greater good.” Church became the last place I wanted to be. I didn’t trust Christians. And I was tired of pretending that those things were not real. But through it all, I somehow knew one thing: this wasn’t Jesus.”
Here is an official summary of this book real quick before I peel back more of my thoughts on it:
“From the popular blogger and provocative author of Jesus Feminist comes a riveting new study of Christianity that helps you wrestle with—and sort out—your faith.
In Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey—award-winning blogger and author of Jesus Feminist, which was hailed as “lucid, compelling, and beautifully written” (Frank Viola, author of God’s Favorite Place on Earth)—helps us grapple with core Christian issues using a mixture of beautiful storytelling and biblical teaching, a style well described as “narrative theology.”
As she candidly shares her wrestlings with core issues—such as who Jesus is, what place the Church has in our lives, how to disagree yet remain within a community, and how to love the Bible for what it is rather than what we want it to be—she teaches us how to walk courageously through our own tough questions.
In the process of gently helping us sort things out, Bessey teaches us how to be as comfortable with uncertainty as we are with solid answers. And as we learn to hold questions in one hand and answers in the other, we discover new depths of faith that will remain secure even through the storms of life.”
As I continue my review of this book, I am going to sprinkle in some of Sarah’s words that really sat with me as I read.
Yall….THERE WERE BUNCHES.
I listened to the audio version of this book which I really do not recommend because it is NOT Sarah who reads it…and the narrator who DOES read it is NOT the best with verbal emotion. 😬
Plus…there was SO MUCH I wanted to write down or highlight or underline or revisit.
THANKFULLY, I was able to go back and peruse the e-book on my laptop (no I still do NOT have a kindle or ipad yall…I just can’t DO IT, okay?!?) since I listened to the book on the Scribd app.
I sang the praises of this app a few reviews ago yall…if yall still using Audible, you need to QUIT IT NOW and head on over to be a Scribd convert…TRUST ME ON THIS.
As I continue my thoughts, I will put Sarah’s words in pink alongside them like I did above.
And get ready yall….so many of her thoughts and words just spoke DIRECTLY to this tired and bitter heart of mine….I literally typed PAGES of her quotes when I went back thru!
I’m gonna try SUPER hard to be selective and not share ALL the gems with yall….I mean, I DO want you to actually read the book yourself 😁…but me trying to not be “wordy” when I feel really impacted by something is a challenge in and of itself.
Anyways….
Get comfortable and settle in for a plethora of my thoughts mixed in with Sarah Bessey’s as well.
When you enter into a season of your life where you begin to question long held beliefs and thought processes, you can feel lonely….lost….OUT OF SORTS.
Things that used to make so much sense, just DON’T anymore.
Things that used to seem so easily identifiable as “wrong” or “right”, just DON’T anymore.
“Whether it’s in our relationship with God or with our own families, at some point we find that it is time to sort. It’s time to figure out what we need to keep, what we need to toss, and what we need to reclaim. And we need to tell our stories in order to move forward. Every ending is also a new beginning.”
Sarah grew up in a charismatic evangelical Penecostal faith…..and in her adult life she went thru a faith “wilderness” –as she describes it— for six years.
She wrote this book just to share her story…to make others experiencing something similar not feel so lost or alone…and I really appreciate that.
She isn’t trying to “convince” anybody that HER journey and revelations are the ONLY and CORRECT way to walk…she is just sharing her heart and her life in case it helps someone else.
I appreciate that SO MUCH.
No agenda. No persuasion. No judgement. No condemnation.
“This book isn’t an argument to make or a point to take. It isn’t a single story with a plot and a climax and a denouement, and it doesn’t have a simple three-step program to follow with nicely spaced headers…..This book is my way of leaving the light on for the ones who are wandering.”
Listening to her speak about the beginning of her questioning and dismantling and reexamining process REALLY got to my own heart and brain…. the past few years I have been dissecting theology and long held religious doctrine I have been taught and almost blindly absorbed.
That means some things I used to hold onto as rigid and solid truth just do not hold up as foundation anymore.
“I have had to toss some stuff out entirely. I’ve had to build up a bonfire in my backyard and throw a few cherished beliefs and opinions right into the flames. There is something so satisfying about watching an ugly lie burn away to ash.
Here are just a few questions about theology, Scripture, and doctrine I’ve had over the years (yours will be different): Was a six-day creation literal? What is the point of the whole “accepting Jesus into my heart” thing? If you don’t say the words right, are you going to hell? By the way, what is hell? Is it real? And while we’re at it, what’s heaven? Why did Jesus have to die? Is the God of the Old Testament stories of genocide and tribal war the same God as Jesus? Why won’t God heal my friend? My child? Me? Why are there so many kinds of Christians? Does God still speak today? Can I trust how the Bible came to me? Is the Bible literal, inerrant truth? I’ve heard that God is sovereign and that we have free will, but I don’t understand either one or how they work together. Is God to blame for suffering? Does God choose who goes to heaven and who goes to hell? What is the purpose of church? What makes a church a church instead of just a bunch of people hanging out? What’s the deal with communion? Baptism? Why are we here on earth? How do I figure out what God wants me to do with my life?
Don’t even get me started on the Book of Revelation. I think I have answers for some of them now. But those might change too.”
In my church experience, when you as a believer start thinking of questions like she mentions above (which BTW have alllllllll gone thru my brain more than once) and the answers you have received from pastors or teachers just do NOT make any sense anymore…..so you keep on questioning and searching……many other “church people” don’t like that.
Many have told me that there is only ONE answer and only ONE way to get to that answer…and it just so happens that “correct” answer is the way THEIR denomination/faith practice interprets it.
And sometimes just there mere fact that you have ANY kind of questions AT ALL automatically means your faith is “weak”.
😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑😑
“God isn’t threatened by our questions or our anger, our grief or our perplexed wonderings. I believe that the Spirit welcomes them—in fact, leads among them and in them. We ask because we want to know, because it matters to us, and so I believe it matters to God. And sometimes the answers are far wider and more welcoming than we ever imagined; other times our answer is to wait in the question, and sometimes the answer is another question altogether. After all, in the Gospels, Jesus answered a lot of questions with more questions, pushing us to think in a new direction.”
And interestingly enough….there are usually only a select VIP crew in the Church that are even considered QUALIFIED to dissect theology or doctrine “correctly”.
That never sat right with me.
A seminary degree doesn’t make you more qualified to hear from God and teach about God than anyone else…..that sure does put God’s power into a TEENSY and LIMITED little box with quite a small list of available people….
I mean let’s be real here….NONE of the early of the disciples were “formally trained”….
I LOVED what Sarah had to say about this.
“Theology belongs just as much to the rest of us—the mother folding laundry, the father coaching basketball, the university student studying to be a nurse, the construction worker, the artist, the refugee—as it does to the great scholars.”
“We need to hold the “yes, and” more than the “either/or.” Yes, we need scholars and academics, leaders and ministers. And we need people like me—low-church, untrained laity who are a bit sloppy at times—to grapple with the deep theological issues, bringing our stories, our wisdom, our experiences, our knowledge to the larger conversation. Everyone gets to play.”
“If our theology doesn’t shift and change over our lifetimes, then I have to wonder if we’re paying attention. The Spirit is often breathing in the very changes or shifts that used to terrify us. Grace waits for us in the liminal space.”
And while we are talking about who is “qualified” to interpret Scripture “correctly”….let me tell yall what ELSE is bothersome to me along those lines.
Why do American Christians (ESPECIALLY Protestant evangelical ones) think that the way WE read the Bible and worship is “THE” way?
“If we assume we hold the market on God’s truth and redemption, we miss all the different ways that God is at work in the world right now. If we narrow the holy vocations to a select few, we turn a blind eye to the places where God is already active in the world. The redemptive movement of God includes all creation. God doesn’t need our stamp of approval to be at work.”
It is truly ridiculous to think that the American church has some type of magical trademark on correct Christianity.
But for YEARRRRRSSSSSSS I thought this.
I was taught this.
I STRONGLY and FIRMLY preached this to others.
And yet…….
Something deep down just didn’t sit right with me….
“I’m a recovering know-it-all. It seems that just when I finally have an opinion locked into place, exceptions abound. Black-and-white thinking has been denied me repeatedly. Some days, I can’t figure out if this is a cross to bear or a mercy to enjoy.”
And again, the limits I have put on the AMAZINGNESS of our Creator…geez.
What extraordinary things we can miss out on….
“I know that some people are discouraged by the lack of unity among Christians in the world. We point to the three main branches of Christianity—Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant—and their own convoluted histories with sadness, as an example of the ways that the Church universal is fragmented and divided. Protestant denominations number around forty-one thousand.
But I sort of like how we’re spread all over the place and how we each have our own way of worshipping or understanding God while still being part of the same family. I think it’s one of the beauties of Christianity.
I see the different kinds of Christians not as exclusively a lack of unity, but as affirmations of our diversity— the ways that God has reached us and spoken to us, the ways that God works with us and in us, with unique beauty.
For the one who craves logic, there is a stream for you. For the one who craves liturgy and tradition, there is a stream for you. The ways I need redemption and community may be different from yours. But we need each other, and we need to learn from each stream, because our stories don’t happen alone; our roots are all tangled together.”
During the past few years of dismantling and “relearning”, one important thing that I have learned is that I do not take every single word of the Bible literally.
Saying that has given me a WHOLE lotta side eye and pearl clutching from folks I used to sit in the pews with.
But the learning and research and studying I have done has shown me that there is SO MUCH MORE to the Scriptures than taking words ONLY at face value…there is some history of course…but there is ALSO storytelling and poetry and beauty and of course parables.
“I had to learn that taking the Bible seriously doesn’t mean taking everything literally. I had to learn to read the whole Bible through the lens of Jesus, and I had to learn to stop making it into something it wasn’t—a glorified answer book or rule book or magic spell. I had to stop trying to reduce the Bible to something I could tame or wield as a tool. I had to let the Bible be everything it was meant to be, to cast away the idols of certainty, materialism, and control.”
Reading Sarah’s words in this book not only gave me comfort knowing I am not alone in my struggles and doubts, but she also filled me with HOPE.
So much of it, yall.
And I gotta be real…with the way the past few years have been…and the way 2020 has been especially…I REALLLLLLLLY have been thirsty for some of it.
Like I mean…stranded in the desert for days kind of PARCHED.
Let me share some more of her words that really curled into my heart:
“Sometimes we have to cut away the old for the new to grow. We are a resurrection people, darling. God can take our death and ugliness and bitterness, our hurt and our wounds, and make something beautiful and redemptive. For you. In you. With you. But there is never a new life, a new birth, without labor and struggle and patience, but then comes the release.”
“I believe God hides in plain sight in your right-now life. And if you have the guts to taste and see, confront and wrestle and rest, you’ll encounter the most holy— maybe most strongly when you are most uncomfortable.”
“Still I wonder about faith and the nature of answered prayer. I still hold my understandings loosely. Faith isn’t certainty, I know that by now. If I were certain, I wouldn’t need faith. I think faith is both a gift and a choice, sometimes at the same time. I think it’s a confidence in the midst of doubt, it’s work, and it’s rest. Faith is a risk, and it’s gorgeous to leap out into the free fall.”
“My friend, don’t stay in a religious institution or a religious tradition out of fear. Fear should not drive your decisions: let love motivate you. Lean into your questions and your doubts until you find that God is out here in the wilderness too.1 I have good news for you, brokenhearted one: God is here in the wandering. In fact, you might just find, as Jonathan Martin wrote, that the wilderness is the birth- place of true intimacy with God.”
“I know that some people find comfort in believing that God’s sovereignty, His plan for all things, is behind their suffering and grief. It gives meaning to our grief, I get that. But I don’t think it’s true. In fact, I think that’s a crappy thing to say and a crappy thing to believe about God. God’s sovereignty is not an excuse or a reason for the bad things that happen in our lives: God is light, and there is no darkness to Him. No one will ever convince me that God made my babies die or that God killed our friend with cancer or that a hurricane is an act of God as punishment for sin. Instead, I think sovereignty is the promise that it will all be healed in the end. Sovereignty means that all will be held”
“Everything you do is Spirit-filled if you intend it to be. There isn’t a hero in the kingdom; we are all beginners.”
“May we be the ones who don’t give up on radical inclusion. May we remember to whisper to one another, every now and then, on purpose, at the right time: You belong here. There’s room for you. There’s room for all of us.”
“This is how we will be known: by our love. I want my work and witness to be marked by whom I build up, not whom I tear down. I want to be known as one who speaks life, not death, one who empowers and affirms and speaks even the hard truth in love and invitation. I want us to be the ones who boldly deconstruct and then, with grace and intention and inclusion, reconstruct upon the Cornerstone.”
I guess you can see by now I seriously enjoyed this book.
Obviously I recommend it…ESPECIALLY if you are a Christian who has felt as I have…
Maybe you’ve been wandering for a long time now or maybe the current events have just plopped you out in the forest and you have no idea what step to take next….
This book may comfort you and encourage you as it did me.
But I also think that this read is valuable for those of you who DO feel strong and solid in your Christian faith…
maybe this will give you empathy and understanding for others…
or maybe it will even have you stretching your own faith vision.
Reading back thru all my words here I realize I seem a tad scattered…and that’s okay.
Because I am 😄
I could go back and edit so it all flows better….but I think I’ll just leave it as it is for this one….the mess seems fitting …and also kinda great.