Some very cool things are happening with the publicity for the book! Â Interview requests are pouring in, looks like a trip to NYC is in the works to do some network stuff! Â Very, very cool.
Here is an interview I did with JR Briggs.  You may remember that I stole his quote for the blog yesterday.  If you shoot over to take a look at his review, you might want to nose around the rest of the site.  A very cool thing they are doing outside of Philly.  JR, thank you for sharing some bandwidth with me…  I am enclosing his interview here as I cannot get the hotlink to work.  What can I say?  I am a computer guru.
My friend Jim Pace pastors [nlcf] a church in Blacksburg, VA just off the Virginia Tech campus. Jim is a stud. But it takes a lot of grace to love Jim since I grew up in Charlottesville rooting for the University of Virginia (however, since the Cavaliers have been so mediocre in sports the past few years it’s been a very humbling experience being around Tech fans).
[nlcf] is a part of the Ecclesia Network and I have the privilege of serving on the board of directors with him. Jim recently wrote a book called Should We Fire God? (check it out here). I’m so excited for this book to release soon.
Rather than me telling you about the book, I’ll have Jim answer a few questions in his own words.
J.R.: I had the privilege of reading the manuscript a few months ago and was stirred by what you wrote. Tell us a little bit about the book.
Jim: Well, my mom loves it. I mean, she really does. Promises to buy at least two copies.
In all seriousness, it was something I did to try to work through some of the questions that we cannot help but have in our culture of instant, high-definition news. We see the suffering that is swirling around us with a level of clarity that requires we ask certain questions of God. Questions like why are you allowing this level of suffering God? Why don’t you get in the game and take care of some of this, or if this is the kind of god you are, why would I ever have any interest in connecting with you?
It’s quite a provocative title. Tell us a bit about how you landed on the title – and the topic of the book for that matter.
The book is a discussion of the question, Is God doing a good enough job at his end of the bargain to remain on the job? Should we fire God? I actually wanted the title “Firing God†but no one that I shared it with really liked it, so wiser minds suggested posing it as a question, hence, Should we fire God? The idea came from a friend who does not believe in God asking me if I thought God could ever do something bad enough, or allow enough horror to occur, that I would ever just walk away from him.
Publishers talk a lot about ‘target audience’ in thinking about specific books. Describe the type of person to which your book is written.
This one was a bit different because it really didn’t fit to many of the models that are out there. I am sure every author feels their book is “truly differentâ€, right? I have heard from Christian publishers that it is too aggressively written for what they would consider to be a classically Christian audience. And I have heard from a secular publisher that it is a bit to “Jesus-y†(my word) for their audience.
What I suspect is that it will actually appeal to a pretty wide audience. People that are frustrated by answers that seem too pat and easy will hopefully like that I really try to share the wrestling that I and many others go through in these areas. One of the more common responses I have gotten to those who have read it is that they feel like I get their level of frustration. That I get them. But they also seem to like that I don’t get stuck in hopelessness. That someone can question deeply and meaningfully and yet still have hope.
That is high praise.
But I have also found that those who don’t follow Jesus have liked it as a more in-depth explanation of His side of the issue. A couple of those readers have responded back to me that they had never considered a particular angle pertaining to God before. I have heard it has been helpful in their reflection about Christ. It is also an honor to have that said of something that I have written.
Overall, I think people that take issue with how much suffering occurs in our world and are curious about God’s role in all of it, I think they will connect with the book.
During the writing projects I’ve worked on, I have often described the process as giving birth literarily. What was the writing process like for you? Did you enjoy it? Was it difficult?
Writing is more fun and much more difficult than I expected. Since I teach regularly at my church, I am familiar with writing. So I am accustomed to the process, but I learned quickly this was a very different bird. The great fun of this project was the depth that I could explore this topic with. 64,972 words lets you go pretty deep!
So, writing is a lot of fun. Editing sucks. After correcting likely two or three hundred mistakes, with my use of dashes and semi-colons alone, I still would struggle to tell you what the rule is. Grammar is a cruel mistress.
You spend a lot of time in the book describing the horrific events of the Virginia Tech shootings and how your faith community has – and continues to – struggle with the pain and heartache. Was it at all therapeutic for you to write about the events in such vivid detail?
I think the expected thing is to say yes. I would probably answer that way most of the time. In our rapid fire culture, contemplation is not a natural part of life. So my experience is that anytime I can carefully reflect, my life is richer for that. So that was the good side. But there were other times that it felt very dark. I walked through suffering that happened here and around the globe, presently and in the past. Honestly, there were times when life started to feel quite heavy and hopeless.
So, to answer your question, it was both therapeutic and traumatic at the same time. Where that started and stopped, I don’t honestly know.
Tragedies of that magnitude shape and mark indelibly. How have you personally been shaped the most by the events of that day?
I have always been a nuance guy. The kind that always tries to see the shades of gray in an issue. Where others might see things as a black and white issue, I can tend to notice inflection. This experience has in some ways made that tendency stronger and in other ways, weaker.
I have seen suffering up close and have had to stare at it much longer than I ever would have wanted to. I have talked to people who had to remove the bodies from the classrooms. They spoke about hearing the cell phones in the pockets and book bags of the victims ringing incessantly. People desperately hoping that person would pick up and the Rescue personnel knowing they never would.
But I have also heard story after story about people who were, seemingly out of nowhere, led to pray for Virginia Tech in the days and weeks leading up to the shootings. One guy passed a girl on campus a few days before the shootings and felt a very strong urging to pray for her. He did, not really understanding why she got stuck in his mind like that. A few days after the shootings, he saw her again, but this time it was on the listing of the victims.
People from all around the country talking about how they had been led to pray for Va. Tech. God was doing something in all that.
I remember one morning about a week after the shootings waking up so refreshed and happy, but only for a moment. I had been dreaming about how someone had called me and told me that they were going to step up and lead our church through everything from that point on. I and my co-pastors could step aside and let them do it.
The great feeling drained away as I realized it was only a dream. But in that moment I felt the strongest sense from God saying to me, Yes it is terrible, and it won’t go away quickly. But I am with you, you have enough strength through me for your part. Walk in it.
Those things take a lot of the nuance off of evil, God seems to take it very seriously, and the harm it can cause us even more so. I have seen up close that even though he isn’t stopping it all, he is far from idle. It made things much less theoretical, it made them real.
How are you pastoring your community differently after the tragedy than you were before it?
I am probably more understanding of people when they suffer, I can relate to more of the world’s hurt. And I am more clear than ever that God is calling me to be an agent of change in this world.
Anything else you’d like to share with us about you? the book?
I guess, I was trying to have something that doesn’t back away from answering questions that can be answered. Sometimes the truth needs to be stated. Simply stated.
But I also tried to be fair with the complexity and difficulty of the process. It isn’t an easy one. Too many Christians have tried to answer too many questions with too simple of an answer. I tried to honor the dignity of the question, of the suffering that has caused the question, share some thoughts, and then hopefully get out of the way so that the person asking and the transcendent God of all universes, can take it from there.
I guess time will tell whether or not that is just what I wanted to do, or if that is what I did.
Also, I would want people to know this isn’t a book about a particular tragedy – but about tragedy itself and how we and God deal with it. Likewise, it isn’t just about the suffering we went through at Va. Tech, but about how we deal with suffering in our world today, and God’s part in that. It is much broader than one experience but it is clearly set within that experience.
When does the book come out and where can readers pick up a copy?
It comes out 4.8.2010 but is available for pre order now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble… just about anywhere. Amazon has it available for the Kindle which is awesome, and Oasis is publishing it as an audio book, read by yours truly. Warning with audio version… I tried to convince them to let me read it using my Charlton Heston or Dr. Evil voice, but they wouldn’t let me. So, it’s just me.
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1I love J.R. Briggs but it would have been much cooler if you had interviewed yourself. 🙂
Looks like a great read Jim.
03/17/10 2:43 PM | Comment Link