Finding God in Unexpected Places

Book: Finding God in Unexpected Places
Basic Information : Synopsis :  Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Philip Yancey

Edition: eBook

Publisher: Waterbrook Press

ISBN: 0385513097 (ISBN13: 9780385513098)

Start Date: September 17, 2020

Read Date: November 1, 2020

288 pages

Genre: Christianity, Essay

Language Warning: None

Rated Overall: 3 out of 5

Religion: Christianity

Religious Quality: 3 out of 5

Christianity-Teaching Quality: 4 out of 5

Synopsis:

Yancey has 49 articles broken into seven concentrations

• Part I: Finding God Without Really Looking
• Part II: Finding God on the Job
• Part III: Finding God in the Rubble
• Part IV: Finding God in a Fractured Society
• Part V: Finding God Among the Headlines
• Part Six: Finding God in the Cracks
• Part Seven: Finding God Within the Church

Expectations:

Using in a Bible Study.

Thoughts:

One thing which Yancey really never addresses is how to find God. In places in the book, he talks about how God’s light comes into our world. It would be nice to have a short chapter to summarize what he was trying to present and how it ties in with the chapter.

Yancey notes that The original book went through a major revision in 2005 as I felt the need to add a section on the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West.

Introduction

Sign on the road to Alaska: Choose Your Rut Carefully, You’ll Be In It For the Next 200 Miles.

Yancey’s books take one to two years to write. This book is a combination of articles he has reworked and original pieces. They read like magazine columns are about that length.

Yancey feels that there is a push to have religion on the fringe of society and that Christianity is a fringe religion. The question then arises, how do we react to this? How do we become the salt and light to our society?

We tend to see what we are looking for. So true in so many ways. Sometimes this narrows our scope of looking. Other times it leads us to conclusions which are not appropriate. How to break out of that.

A South African woman when asked about her work in some of the worst prisons said that God was already present in the prison, I just had to make him visible.

rumors of transcendence. Transcendence: existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.

Part I: Finding God Without Really Looking

Rumors of Another World

Yancey must have really liked this title. He previously used it in a different book by the same title, Rumors of Another World. I am thinking thi sounds almost like a CS Lewis phrase. But I cannot find where Lewis ever said it.

Yancey is on UCTV talking about his thoughts on the Rumors title.

Kierkegaard-Yancey summarizes him to say the thing which differentiates humans from animals is that we know we are going to die. We have this self-awareness.

We have health clubs which keep us physically fit. Do we have the equivalent of spiritual health clubs?

We spend lots of time trying to keep people alive. Why? Yancey also raises the question of is it possible to honor a person’s body without honoring the God who made the body?

Make Today Count: Two goals: survive today and prepare for death.

Yancey says that the doctrine of heaven is one of the most neglected doctrines of our time.

Not Naked Enough

Contrasting the increase in technology/sophistication with the increase in sensuality. Yancey does not see much value in preaching morality to those who already do not adhere to Christian morals. Question: can we substitute the spiritual for sex drive? Yancey does not think so.He thinks that they both come from the same source-a search for transcendence.

sex is not a rival to spirituality, but rather a pointer to it. He says that when a society no longer is interested in the spiritual, then it will seek another avenue. In this case, it is the physical, namely sex. He somewhat says that maybe we need a more naked approach to things, to go deeper, than to cover.

Interesting take Henri Nouwen has-people are wanting love so much, they will risk being killed for it.

Yancey sees sex as becoming more like idolatry. Taking the place of God.

Goes through the Woman at the Well from his point of view. Jesus was able to quench her thirst. He takes this as that Jesus was able to quench the woman’s spiritual thirst so her behavior changed to more of a satisfaction.

The Lost Sex Survey

The lost survey: Sex and Culture by J. D. Unwin. Found that as a culture loses its need for single partnerships and goes about with more “liberated” moree’s, they lose their energies as a society. Eventually the culture deteriorates and collapses. Societies flourished when sexual fidelity is valued. Has Unwin’s study been refuted?

Yancey talks about that sex resists reductionism. I wonder what he means by this and is it important? He talks about jealousy still is present. Also birth control options have not stopped unwanted pregnancies.

For the Christian, sex is not an end in itself, but rather a gift from God.

Yancey gets a quote right: The man who rings the bell at the brothel, unconsciously does so seeking God. The World, the Flesh and Father Smith by Bruce Marshall. According to a quote checker, this is usually attributed to GK Chesterton. Certain sounds like him. Sounds like an interesting book. The fuller passage is even more interesting.

Looking Up

Yancey seems to have combined up two book titles into Starry Nights, The Soul of the Night by Chet Raymo.

The present moment did not comprise all of life. Psalm 8 seems to fit right in. He goes on and notes that as people have looked at the stars, they realize how insignificant they are. Do we feel more proud as we achieve or is there a sense of immenseness which comes with discovery.

Of Whales and Polar Bears

The Intelligent Design argument of how we originated resonates with Yancey. There is so much which points to purpose which makes you wonder how it could not be obvious that something intelligent created the world.

Walker Percey points to that there are pointers to each side.

When we witness a wonder of nature, we tend to drop everything and just gawk. Then go back to our more mundane lives.

Reading Genesis in the Wild

Where and how we read the Bible seems to make a difference.

Yancey notes that God waited on man to see what he would name the creatures in Genesis 2. Interesting take. I had seen this sentence before. But my emphasis had been on the man named part. But there is another equally important emphasis on God waited. Why did God wait? Couldn’t God do it all Himself? There seems to be a sense of anticipation here. Does not God know what man will do? Or has he said I want to see what man does, see what new surprise he has for Him.

From this pinnacle where man has God holding His breath, we have man descending into depravity which he has not recovered from.

The question of why has not God acted in a situation, such as the pandemic we are in. We expect God to be the cosmic housemaid. But do you think God would do what we would expect? Yancey wonders how hard it has been for God not to act in history or now.

Disturbing the Universe

We as Christians live in two worlds. The physical one we all see and feel and that universe beyond where we do not know, except for glimpses of it. Where battles rage between Heaven and Hell.

For me, living in a fallen world, doubt seems more like forgetfulness than disbelief.

What is the proper way to view our world? Through the lens of great civilizations and thought or through a spiritual glass? Yancey presents this how little overlap there is between a standard accounting of the world in a text book and when events are viewed through the Bible.

Why did Jesus come to earth? Yancey’s answer is God-centric: Because God loves matter, the physical. He brings in the questions and accusations Job asks of God-that God does not know what it is like to be human. God’s answer to Job, maybe a bit slow coming in our eyes, is Jesus.

Part II: Finding God on the Job

They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Click

Talks about Yancey’s wife’s work-with the homeless and then after moving to Colorado, in a hospice. Yancey’s, by contrast, is spending his day with a word processor. Yancey recognizes that what he does, he is good at doing, while he would be incompetent at someone elses job. Also he has strengths which complement his wife’s and vica versa. He equates this to the body of Christ, we each have our place.

How do you measure your worth?

Letter Bombs

Looks at the letters he had received. Yancey talks about how even though he writes a lot, most of the time there is little feedback in proportion of what he writes. More of a fun little piece, where I do not understand why Yancey put it into a book on Finding God.

The Never-Never Land of Religious Media

Yancey goes on a writers tour after publishing Disappointment with God.. Some pretty interesting places and shows. Interesting in the sense that no human should have to put up with what he had to. One of the places was James Bakker’s Heritage USA.

Interesting statement which Yancey makes about the workers he met after Heritage USA was taken over by Jerry Falwell: They seemed humble, genuine, broken. They seemed Christian. I wonder about this. Does a Christian need to be broken in order to be genuinely Christian? Was this brokenness there because of Bakker? Or was this the type of people whom Falwell attracted?

He has five observations from his tour:

1. Christian TV stations hire beautiful women.

2. Hosts have not read his book

3. Charismatics cannot figure out why a book like this was written.

4. Southern Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists were the best organized

5. Secular callers cannot understand why God allows suffering. Christian callers have all the answers on why God allows suffering.

We are a society which seems to want answers in 60 or 90 seconds. He notes that some of these people had a closer relationship with their television sets than with any living human being. I am glad I have a group of friends which I can have fellowship with in which we are able to talk about our problems.

The Power of Writing

Works through the power of writing, but also some of its limitations.

Yancey notes that For the epic poets, writing proved entirely too constraining: no longer could they play to the audience by adding embellishment to the recitations. It is a good thing to remember that writing may not be the highest form of communications. But it is a good form.

Church has had a mixed relationship with communications-it wanted to control the message.

Reading allows light to shine in or can lead astray. Very powerful. Orators can use inflection, but writers can make a lasting impression.

Notes that the Bible, and Jesus, is called God’s Word. Not only spoken, but the written.

Gary’s thought: Writing is symbolic of the spoken word. It is an imitation of something else.

God at Large

How do we pray? Is it for ourselves and our comforts or for us to be steadfast in him. That is the thrust I get from this chapter. Does the American gospel sound like good news? In other countries it does. Yancey talks about nations being in three phases: honeymoon, divorce and mature marriage. He says that in the United States, church operates more like an industry and a living organism. Yancey’s theory is that God goes where he’s wanted.

When difficulties come, Christians in affluent countries tend to pray, “Lord, take this trial away from us!” I have heard persecuted Christians and some who live in very poor countries pray instead, “Lord, give us the strength to bear this trial” What do I pray? That I will be strong in Him? Or grant respite from something?

What does Yancey mean by industry and a living organism? I think he means that the church tends to worry more about organization and power than being alive and expanding.

God goes where he is wanted.

Part III: Finding God in the Rubble

Grace at Ground Zero

Yancey was invited to look and see what was going on at Ground Zero of the Twin Towers after 9/11. He particularly observed the Salvation Army. He noted that With military discipline and commitment, they join together to bring grace and healing to a desperately needy world. I think of Christian organizations having heart but not logistics. Apparently the Salvation Army has both.

Interesting division: stars and servants. Stars get the glamour for being there. Servants do the work. And then you get people like Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter who are both, at least in my opinion.

9/11 brings the question of where is God when something like this happens? But in reality, it is how does the church respond: Where is the church when it hurts? If the church is doing its job—binding wounds, comforting the grieving, offering food to the hungry—I don't think people will wonder so much where God is when it hurts. They'll know where God is: in the presence of God's people on earth.” This sums it up.

Watch what they do, not what they say.

Jesus and empathy: 1 Peter 3:8; Romans 12:15

Turning into the lives of people requires us to get our hands dirty.

Gordon MacDonald I love the toughness of his Christianity.

Grace and healing-do I have this in my life? If I do not, how can I share it with someone else?

A Muslim Seeker

Yancey gets a letter from a Pakistani Muslim student who is seriously considering Christianity.

The Muslim’s conclusion is that As I got to know more about the Christian faith I got to realize that the Christian faith is really not that simple as some people think it is. He understands that this is a step which will cause his family to sever ties with him and potentially death if he returns home. The letter he wrote to Yancey is his search. Yancey continues to correspond with him

Why Do They Hate Us?

We as Americans do not understand how we influence other countries. Even when we try to be “good” Americans, we can also be seen as the ugly American. We feel like a jilted lover. We try to do good to the person we date, but they end up hating you. (Yancey’s analogy)

He[a Pakistani panelist] also observed that terrorists had to launch their attack on American soil because the U.S. does not occupy other countries, a policy that terrorism, ironically, changed.

But what makes other cultures hate us? Yancey points out that a lot of their perception is by what they see on TV. Much of the world draws conclusions about “the Christian West” by watching MTV, Baywatch, and violent movies. Muslims speak of nuclear weapons as “the Christian bomb.”

I am noting this mostly because he is referencing Jacques Ellul: Jacques Ellul noted a paradoxical trend that the Christian gospel tends to produce values in society that directly contradict that gospel. Why is this so? Where does Yancey get this reference from (I am not an Ellul expert, just am interested in tracking it down.) Maybe in The Subversion of Christianity (1984)

Yancey reminds us that We hold a dual citizenship, he said, and must carefully weigh whether loyalty to one conflicts with loyalty to the other. This is so hard to do, particularly in our political climate. It is easy to say look at the other Christians, I am not like that. But it is harder to look at ourselves and see the same error.

Yancey notes that the judgement in Matthew 25 between sheep and goats is for the nations. Mat 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. That is interesting considering our current debates on helping others.

The Great Divide

We as Christians need to understand the Moslem faith.

Islamic criticisms of the West often center on the fusty[smelling stale, damp, or stuffy.] word materialism. Probably Christians should be concerned about that word as well.

Martyr comes from the word witness. The difference between Christianity and Islam is that one dies another’s hand, the other seems to use it when they day after killing others. you hear very little talk in the West about eternal rewards and much talk about techniques to keep death at bay. Interesting how far we have fallen. Christians should be the ones least fearing death. Our society’s fears have invaded Christianity.

Yancey concludes the chapter with the Islam has a sense of the awe inspiring mystery which provokes allegiance to God. We have an allegiance to the material

Does It Matter What Others Think?

After 9/11 there was a sense of go-it alone instead of with allies. Radio talk shows were saying this. But in reality, foreign newspapers ran headlines like WE ARE ALL AMERICANS NOW. But with comments like going alone, there is a fear by other governments that as the Cold War receded and the clash between a brutal and gentle giant was being resolved, that the only giant...is becoming brutal. Does this matter?

Yancey says this 15 years before Trump: Even our closest allies view the U.S. as a loner nation which pulls out of treaties that don't serve our interests. I think he is saying we no longer have a world view, but a selfish view of the world. It is ours for taking.

He goes on to quote M. Scott Peck saying, hard to escape the conclusion that in the years since, our political and spiritual leadership has declined in inverse proportion to the increasing amounts of money and effort we have expended to manipulate other countries. This gives pause to understand how we have gone downhill.

Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad in New Orleans

Chapter came out of a gathering of Jews, Moslems and Christians convened by M. Scott Peck. He was trying to find out, can different cultures live together. There is a resentment by those who are seceded. It is because they are made to feel inferior. It was the common language of pain that seemed to bring the three groups together.

In this case, the Jewish and Moselms were battling it out and the Christians were on the sidelines watching.

All three come from the same roots. Yancey notes that family disputes are always the stubbornest, and civil wars the bloodiest.

He also notes that by the end of the three day gathering there was a lot more understanding of each other. Maybe not agreement, but understanding of where they come from.

Along the Frontier

He goes through a little bit of Christians living in a Moslem country. Most countries [Moselm] outlaw proselytism, and without fresh blood the churches tend to rely on familiar rituals, shunning innovation. Interesting take. He says that without fresh blood, the church descends into ritual instead of life.

I remember my trip to the Middle East, I think how easy it is to write about the gospel from my serene perch in Colorado, and how hard to put it into practice on its home turf—now the literal frontier of faith.

Part IV: Finding God in a Fractured Society

Eccentric on the Front Lines

Article in the November 17, 1989 issue of Christianity Today. The start of the chapter has Yancey thinking about what does he do with the homeless and addicted he meets in his journey’s into downtown. He then tells the story of Louise Adamson. Yancey calls her a modern day full time Good Samaritan.

What would it look like if a Christian took literally Jesus' sweeping commands and acted on them. What would a Good Samaritan look like today, in urban America?

This is what missionary vision looks like. When a neighborhood changes and an influx of “other” people come in, Adamson says that God is saying: Don't run! Stay! I have brought the masses to you.

Adamson says that We've made missions so difficult, don't you think. She calls her style of ministry a “Jericho Road ministry.” She just walks down the road looking for victims.

Louise Adamson-Fred Propst was her husband. After he died, Joseph L. Adamson became her husband. Baptist Press biography Died May 28, 2013-see legacy.com.

Dr. Donahue’s Crack Solutions

Starts with a summary of a Donahue show on crack babies. Is education the answer? If so, why is so many middle-class families having troubles with drugs? Yancey talks about Alcoholics Anonymous. This is a column from Christianity Today from September 24, 1990

Yancey sees three components in Alcoholics Anonymous which are opposites, but seem to work together for them: compassion that still insists on moral responsibility; community support that somehow fosters individual dignity; self-actualization that comes from dependence on a Higher Power

Those Were the Days My Friend

Yancey notes that he had never developed a taste for music written after 1890, and mind-altering drugs never tempted me. While I do appreciate music after 1890, drugs have not been a temptation for me, even though I was around them in college. I am thinking that each person has their own attraction, some of them will lead to addiction.

The 60’s were a fluke. How much has changed because of them? Where did they end up? At the end, the generation coming out of the 60’s looked more like their parents in that they got jobs and provided for their families. Probably in a bit higher style. So what will happen to our current generation of activists?

A passion for ideals … is always difficult to sustain … This led more to style and maybe a bit of conscience, more of an evolution than revolution. Still the ideas of peace, love, community, justice, and equality seems to remain and is the building block for current times. So it is not a total waste of time and energy. Yancey find[s] it ironic, and sad, that so many of the lofty ideals from the sixties have evaporated away, leaving us with mere physical emblems. By this, he means the involvement outdoors, music that has a beat, meditation, …. And sex.

Maybe the main problem with the spirit of the sixties is that it surfaced thirty years too soon. … I have a vague premonition that we haven't seen the end of convulsive protest. He wonders if those in the sixties will take to the streets again. He wonders if it will be for causes external to themselves, such as the ideas of the 60’s or if it will be in self interest, like Social Security increases and health care.

Health and the God Factor

David Larson studied the connection between mental health and faith. He faith that there was less depression, lived longer, less health problems, … Larson's researchers point out that the key factor is the degree of religious commitment. The type of religion did not matter. Connects it to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

Who is Dr. David Larson? Washington Post obituary, March 14, 2020. Connected with the Paul Tournier Institute.

To paraphrase John Locke, Christianity makes sense in this world as well as in the next

As a note: recently in a discussion, a Stanford researcher has come to similar conclusions.

Shakespeare and the Politicians

New Year’s resolution stretched over five years: to read all 38 plays of Shakespeare. I always looked forward to the designated Shakespeare evening. Yancey notes that the themes of Shakespeare seem oddly in-sync with the modern work. He goes through them.

Shakespeare finds that The real villains were rich and powerful, people like Macbeth and Richard III who had every advantage of education, wealth, and fine breeding. But there is also a sense from Shakespeare of where is God in all of this mess? Couldn’t God fix things? But then in certain plays, the mess seems to be God’s judgement.

In Shakespeare, it is not the events, but the people which control their destiny. Modern society says more that the situations we are in is what drives people. These are not automatons or victims, but free individuals making choices, some malignant and some noble.

A.C. Bradley: No one ever closes a tragedy with the feeling that man is a poor mean creature. He may be wretched and he may be awful but he is not small.

We should remember this, that we are not a pawn in some sort of deterministic game, but we have the ability to move anyplace on the board by our own will.

Whatever Happened to Deism

Christianity Today article. April 5, 1999. Vaclav Hvel’s edition of Civilization appears to be the April/May 1998 edition. Basic thrust is that deism will fail, as good as it sounds.

The only backbone to our actions, if they are to be moral, is responsibility. Vaclav Havel

I have become increasingly convinced that the crisis of the much-needed global responsibility is in principle due to the fact that we have lost the certainty that the Universe, nature, existence and our lives are the work of creation guided by a definite intention, that it has a definite meaning and follows a definite purpose. Vaclav Havel-unknown where Yancey got this from. He references the Library of Congress’ Civilization magazine.

Yancey says that Havel’s theology remains vague, akin to classical deism. So even though many of Havel’s words sound Christian, they have a more general basis. But that is not what Yancey is concerned about in this chapter. He compares Havel with TS Elliot.

Elliot approaches morality from a different end of the spear. He (source unknown) says that To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous diversion. And that is why our thrust of trying to put Christian morals on a secular society is doomed to failure unless our nation accepts the Christian truth.

Yancey’s reason why deism fails is the lack of a deistic god being personal. The Christian God is one which says Father, and a father which we do not understand His actions, but do understand that He is good. We need more than a mere watchmaker who winds up the universe and lets it tick. We need love, and mercy, and forgiveness, and grace—qualities only a personal God can offer.

Could It Happen Here?

Yancey talks about the church in Holland, the deterioration of it from being dominant to only a small minority are church goers. He throws in the question concerning Holland, but it could very well be the United States, What does our [Christian] culture offer as an alternative? Is the United States going to be a model of a nation which has kept its faith? 15 years after this book was written, I wonder. The vocal parts of the church is very intertwined with the politics. So I can see where as the political situation falters, so does the church’s influence on society.

Yancey quotes AN Wilson concerning the loss to our society: For the first time in history, many people no longer feel the need to pray or worship. Also uniquely, many see no world of value outside ourselves, no objective transcendent truth.

Running Away from Fugitives

The central question of this essay is Does God really judge the United States or any other country as a national entity? Yancey thinks that in the Old Testament, God worked with nations and with some people. But in the New Testament, God is working with people rather than nations and institutions. CS Lewis I think agrees with this as he talks about how people will live on while nations die. I sense that much uneasiness among Christians today stems from a confusion of the two kingdoms, visible and invisible.

The implications of this is that God really does not give a rip about the United States. But as long as we are able to be in alignment with his objectives-see various places, particularly Jesus mission in Matthew-he will continue to work with us as a nation.

Yancey cites that historians think that as the Church gains power it loses its vitality. That has been one of my unsubstantiated themes. Yancey cites the current situation with Poland where the new coziness between church and government has resulted in a loss of respect for the church. The new is from when communism fell to the current.

Our real challenge, the focus of our energy, should not be to Christianize the United States (always a losing battle) but rather to strive to be Christ's church in an increasingly hostile world.

In a world of fugitives the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion

Robert Bellah-an American sociologist and the Elliott Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was internationally known for his work related to the sociology of religion

Part V: Finding God Among the Headlines

28. Russia's Untold Story

He recounts how Christianity has exploded in Russia after the downfall of communism. Yancey and a group of Christians went on a field trip to Russia. There he met with several people. He tells the story of Basil who was imprisoned for his Christianity. Later on when Yancey saw Basil in a meeting, Yancey felt unworthy to be in the presence of this giant. Yancey notes that God was not gone from Russia, but was with the prisoners in the camps and isolation.

He also tells of meeting with the Communist philosophical leaders. How they seemed to be more akin to a stump preacher, preaching atheism. But how they were also receptive to dialogue when not talked down to, but open to dialogue.

One of the people in the US delegation was Kent Hill. Yancey says that he gave a model for reaching out to the Russian people. I think it may be larger than Russia.

• he had begun with a genuine respect for the Russian's own beliefs, even those diametrically opposed to his own.

• he had listened with courtesy

• committed himself to incarnational ministry

• pointed to the source of truth latent in the Russian culture itself

• It was also through reading Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn reports, that he first began to understand the primacy of the spiritual over the material

For many decades, prisoners had been the primary carriers of truth in a society based on lies. Is this true of Russia only, or is this a universal truth?

No doubt you know of the problems in our country,...I tell you, however, that the greatest problem is not that we don't have enough sausages. Far worse, we don't have enough ideas. We don't know what to think. This was said by the editor of a literary journal. Couple of thoughts on my part. First, when your thought process has been stifled for a couple of generations, you probably need something to kick-start the flow. The second is the sadness of the intellectual thought. I wonder if 20 years later if this is still true? Christianity can get this the same way. But for the most part, we have had robust thought, with some very notable downfalls (Galileo, Inquisition, …).

This thought is similar: The failure of Marxism, we were told again and again, is above all a theological failure. He quotes a speech by Solzhenistyn.

Jesus' parables about the kingdom and the fig tree and the great banquet make one truth explicit: God goes where he is wanted. He does not force himself on an individual or on a nation, whether it be first-century Jews or twenty-first-century Americans. And as I look back on my visit to Russia, one impression lingers above all others: never in my life have I been among people with a more ravenous appetite for God. I wonder what Yancey says about Russia now? Also is this what is playing out in the United States?

29. The God That Failed

Yancey looks at why communism failed in Russia. He says that communism failed because of two basic errors in what theologians call anthropology, or “the doctrine of humanity. First, he says that it ignores our fallen nature. Second is that there is no after-life. This left the Communists with the basic problem, How do you get people to be good?

Yancey says that we Christians need to learn our basic theology-we are fallen and heaven is real. In our culture, that is not a popular view.

30. The Wall Comes Tumbling Down

How come former Communist countries turned quickly to Christianity? Yancey’s answer is that the testimony of Christians who stayed faithful to their calling. How so is the obvious question. They did not have access to the wheels of power or the tools of propaganda such as radio and television. … early on the church adopted a commitment to care for the neediest members of society, especially the profoundly disabled

Makes you wonder what is the mark of the United States church? What will we be known as? Yancey notes that The U.S. church faces just that temptation today, with its emphasis on politics rather than spirituality. It seems like much of our United States church has succumbed to power rather than spirituality.

Yancey says that in East Germany, almost every form of protest began with worship in 1989.

31. Big Nanny Is Watching

Yancey looks at several books which analyze future society, including 1984 and Brave New World. Based upon Brave New World, Yancey thinks there four four points concerning a Brave New Society:

• Repairs the defects in human personality

• Simplifies morality-absolute truth and inalienable rights will be seen properly

• Solves problems through technology

• Elevates entertainment above all other values.

32. Tremors Underground

Talks about Christianity in China. The church there is growing without missionaries. Why? He talks to four leaders of various small groups. The testimonies of these show that there is a vibrant underground church. Yancey’s conclusion is that It appears the Holy Spirit did just fine [without Western missionaries].

33. Cry, the Beloved Continent

Here he looks at promiscuity in Africa, particularly looking at South Africa. Muslims can point to their strict code to cut down on this kind of behavior, while Christian pastors admit to having three or four partners.

AIDS has been one outcome. An HIV-infexted person remind[s] them[people who say that the person deserves it] that half the infections come about when a promiscuous partner infects someone ‘innocent' and unsuspecting.” All too often, HIV gets passed on to the resulting child as well, or else that child may become one of the millions of AIDS orphans who are now growing up in Africa.

Larger-than-life heroes such as Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela still inspire the nation with the power of grace and reconciliation. But AIDS is a crisis of compassion where hearts need to be changed, not the politics.

34. Doubting the Doomsayers

Have things degraded or remained the same for the last 20 years (Yancey is writing in the early 2000’s)? When he does research on certain things like illiteracy, malnutrition, and clean water he finds that substantial improvement has been made. He notes that teenage birthrate has been declining. Yancey understands there is still a lot of work to be done. But he also sees reason to rejoice.

Part Six: Finding God in the Cracks

35. Five Polluted Words

Interesting point Yancy’s wife makes: The poor express their gratitude not by saying thanks but by asking for more. Something seems wrong with this. As a statement of data, it makes some sense. Not sure what I would like to see as gratitude. Some of it may be that when you do something, you want it to take care of a situation. Maybe the thing which makes this grating is that the situation is not taken care of.

Yancey hits a point: how can those of us who give to others do so without somehow undermining their sense of dignity? He lists five misunderstood words concerning this:

• Pity. Comes from piety or pious. Originally a means of sacrificial love. Now it seems more demeaning.

• Charity. Direct translation of agape, the highest form of love. Now it means more of something given.

• Condescend. Originally had to do with God coming to our level to raise us up. Yancey’s take is that we have lost the fine art of condescension.

• Patronize. Originally artists of all types would have their patrons, people who would enable the art.

• Paternalism. Old days, this would be because someone reminded them of a kindly father.

Chinese proverb: Nothing atones for the insult of a gift but the love of the giver. (I do not see any other reference for this saying besides Yancey.)

I think this is true. It also goes along with what Yancey is saying. An institution cannot love; only people can love. While this is good and noble thought, does it answer the original question of dignity? How do you show that a gift is a gift of love? He does go on and say that the one way he knows of is by acknowledging that we are all needy beggars. Sounds rather religious, but not while practical on a day to day level.

36. Healing While Rome Burns

A bit of data, Aung San Suu Kyi who is lauded as having done her best to expose and oppose brutality. But in the last five years, she has been at least part of a regime which has had its own brutality concerning the genocide of the Rohingya people.

Aung San Suu Kyi did not like having organizations helping orphans. She felt that it was propping up a regime where the people were being oppressed. Yancey says In the end, though, the Christian relief workers could not simply close their eyes and sacrifice fifty thousand orphans to some political end.

Do we as Christians sometimes think in those terms? Why prop up this world when if things get bad enough Christ will return? Or what use is it to make things better in this world since it will be destroyed anyway? Or our mission is to save people?

Yancey notes that in 2 Peter 2, he says to live holy and godly lives. He notes that when we anticipate God working in this world with our own calling, we get in the way of God. The prophets talked about Christ being crucified. Should they have participated in his crucifixion? (Yancey does make a similar connection with the Antichrist: The New Testament speaks of an Antichrist, but I will not knowingly vote for him even though doing so might hasten the second coming. I wonder if he voted for Trump.)

37. Miracle on LaSalle Street
Talking about being a bridge church between communities in Chicago. Road there was not easy, including being physically being beaten. Apparently the pastor had no sense of portion, could be obnoxious, but according to Yancey, Bill Leslie did some things wrong, but he got one thing right: he understood the grace of God. This is a good obituary to have: He was biblical without being fundamentalist, spiritual without being withdrawn from the world, and actively engaged with the world but not conformed to it

38. The Surprise of Faith

Yancey summarizes stories of miracles and faith found in Jesus’ ministry He says that these stories threaten me, because seldom do I have such outstanding faith. He then goes through stories of people who knew him best who did not understand Jesus and His nature. They lacked faith in him. A curious law of reversal seems to be at work in the Gospels: faith appears where least expected and falters where it should be thriving. Sometimes familiarity with wonder makes us lack an appreciation of the specialness. As we mature in our walk, it is possible to lack faith. We are no longer impressed. Yancey’s theorem: faith appears where least expected and falters where it should be thriving

I can understand this. Yosemite is an awe inspiring place. But I go there several times in a normal year. Its waterfalls and sheer rock walls become a common place. It takes someone who has never seen it to cause me to see it through fresh eyes. In the same way, my 49 years as a Christian, has it left me jaded? Has it left me unimpressed with God? Grant me eyes to see.

I wrote these words on a hiking trip: It is usual for me to see beauty in uncommon in the unfamiliar; but it is unusually to see the uncommon beauty in my common life. Sort of falls in line with what Yancey is say.

39. The Alchemy of Memory

Yancey notes that many times, times of pain, well maybe of some suffering, tend to be the ones we remember the fondest. Talks about an incident with his mentor, Dr Paul Brand and his wife. Every marriage has crisis times, moments of truth when one partner (or both) is tempted to give up, to judge the other undependable, irrational, untrustworthy. Great marriages survive these moments; weak ones fall apart. Yancey goes on and talks about marriages which stretch to the breaking point, but do not break. Deep strength comes through testing.

In the United States we tend to look at marriage like a consumer-what do I get out of it?

40. Will God Forgive What I'm About to Do?

He relates a story out of the movie, The Color of Purple where a nightclub singer comes back to her preacher Dad who will not accept her. Yancey says that By making a sinner the magnanimous hero, Hollywood dodges the scandal of grace.. He is talking about the story of the Prodigal Son has the Dad accepting his son, warts and all.

This leads into the main point of Yancey’s article: Do you think God can forgive something as awful as I am about to do? Yancey’s answer is yes, based on the Prodigal Son story. Yancey calls this the scandal of unconditional grace. The risk of sinning on purpose is that you do not want to repent and accept His grace.

41. Holy Secrets

Yancey can see why God does not make the future clear to us. He points us to a series of cases in the Bible where that did not work out so well: Balaam, Saul, David, and Hezekiah. On the other hand, Paul seemed to handle it pretty well. Bad news about the future didn't scare him: he went to Jerusalem despite strong warnings that a visit there would result in his arrest and imprisonment. Knowing the future is a test of faith-see Abraham, rather than a free ticket to the movies (my words).

Yancey does point out that we do have knowledge of the future: we know that our sins have been, is and will be forgiven. Like his friend in the previous chapter, do we push the limits of grace with our knowledge? Or do we live content knowing that this is certain? How do we stand this test of faith?

Part Seven: Finding God Within the Church

42. The Church Behind Bars

How does faith stack up for those who are tested to their limits? He asks: What does a “church” look like among lumpen people such as these? He is talking about prisoners in jails in Chile and Peru. Can the hope of the gospel survive? The answer is it looks very vibrant.

After a meeting, a group meets with the prison staff. The warden is interested in knowing if prisoners are better off with religion or not. His thinking is yes. The speaker’s conclusion is: I wish some of the dispirited Christians back in North America and Europe could travel with me and see the difference Christ can make in a person's life. God chooses the weak and foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the mighty.

The person who invited Yancey on the trip is perplexed: how can you work with the oppressed and the oppressor? Winston Churchill's observation that a civilization can be measured by the way it treats its prisoners. A quote of Churchill

A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State … a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment … and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it. House of Commons Speech, 20 July 1910.

His friend thinks that the failure of penal systems around the world is the greatest boon to Prison Fellowship International. He asks, can we subvert the world’s powers by working with their rejects, the prisoners? Prisons pretty much fail at reforming people.

Ron Nikkel says that the real solution to prisons is not reform but transformation.

I am thinking that this is the most moving and best chapter in the book. It raises thoughts about what a Christian is and how far I have to go to be measured in their league.

43. Two-Handed Faith

Dissidents in the Eastern Bloc realized they had succumbed to fear-the fear of discovery. The remedy was to talk openly, even if it meant reprisals. Yancey summaries that:

If you want freedom of speech,

    speak freely.

If you want an open society,

    act openly.

If you love the truth,

    tell the truth.

It was discovered that inner freedom gave sustenance, even when external freedom was snatched away. Prison, after all, provides an ideal setting in which to learn to cherish freedom.

I wonder what kind of courage it would take to do this? I am also wondering if I have that kind of courage. How to perform that experiment?

The power of fearlessness is astonishing. Richard Steele (I could not find this quote)

44. Don't Forget to Laugh

He starts off with an WH Auden reference: The human species is distinctive in at least three ways, … We are the only animals that work, laugh, and pray. Wonder how true this is.

Work-we excel at. He says that Work has become for Christians the only sanctioned addiction.

Prayer-Why is our prayer mostly intercessory? After 2,000 years you would think we would excel at it. And I after almost 50 years would have mastered it. I have not. For the masters, it seems more like a conversation than a chore. I need to understand how.

Laughter-laughter is simultaneously a protest and an acceptance. He talks about Carnival as a time to frolic and have fun. This is what Mardi Gras was, a time before Lent. Now it is a time of debauchery, not frivolity. Yancy notes that in some of the classical materialists—Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Bertrand Russell—and I have yet to find the slightest curve of a smile lurking among their words. The “politically correct” movement of our time shows a similar solemnity. I think I agree with him. Being correct has been promoted as being the best we can be rather than understanding that at the heart, we are all fools (my words).

It occurs to me, in fact, that laughter has much in common with prayer. In both acts, we stand on equal ground, freely acknowledging ourselves as fallen creatures. We take ourselves less seriously. We think of our creatureliness. Work divides and ranks; laughter and prayer unite. I like that.

45. Saints and Semi-Saints

Compares the approaches of Ezra and Nehemiah in carrying out God’s purpose. Ezra and Nehemiah got me thinking about the different approaches people take in living out their Christian faith. If Ezra was a saint, Nehemiah was a semi-saint. Yancey defines these two words:

• Saint-a moral extremist who shuns all compromise. Examples: Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Semi-Saint-Example: William Wilberforce, Abraham Lincoln

There are modern examples of both. Many Christians in the United States live simple lives, working everyday. I take comfort in the fact that the Bible seems to allow for both approaches.

46. In Search of a Both/And Church

There has been a belief in the United States that we can have a perfect place to live, a Utopia. There are now churches which by definition center on members' inability to be perfect, many of them have adopted the 12 step model. Yancey notes that Perfectionism keeps running aground on the barrier reef of original sin. Trying to be perfect will lead to defeat and despair. But are we not called to strive to be like Jesus? Which leads to Yancey’s question: How can we in the church uphold the ideal of holiness, the proper striving for Life on the Highest Plane, while avoiding the consequences of disillusionment, pettiness, abuse of authority, spiritual pride, and exclusivism? Basically grace abuse, or more accurately, we try to be good enough to be a Christian. In reading through Paul, he finds high ideals of holiness and also the safety net of grace. Conclusion: We should recognize we will fail, but we should strive to be like Jesus.

47. Having a Bad Hymn Day

Yancey reads Paradise Lost on Sunday mornings, but his church sings “praise songs”. This is pretty jarring to him (and to me-maybe I should be reading this as well.). Yancey poses the question: How does one appreciate quality without becoming a snob? This is not only a church problem, but a societal issue as well-quality is subservient to glitz. He takes to Augustine’s City of God where he preached about the values of this world and the values of God. The contribution Christianity has to make to this discussion are:

• Good things are a gift, not a possession. A good reminder that music is a gift from God to His children, whether they are in His fold or still wandering.

• In this fallen world, good things are remnants that have been spoiled. We have a tendency to spoil things which are gifts of God.

• Even spoiled things can be made good. Consider the people whom Jesus associated with. Also consider Jesus’ death.

To keep from being a snob, realize that the person who is singing them, I may not be fit to wash their clothes.

48. Dear Mr. Chicken: Please Send Money

Yancey goes through 3+ pounds of financial appeals in the mail. Some are humorous. But what he notices is that they all follow a similar pattern, even thoughts who purport to be evangelical Christian. On the other hand, Paul in 2 Corinthians 8-9 has a lengthy fundraiser appeal, but never says what he is raising funds for. Paul’s conclusion, with a Yaney paraphrase: Giving, like love, never diminishes us, for blessings redound upon the happy donor.

49. God's Colonizers

Gives background about preaching, particularly in America. Yancey notes that Tellingly, representative sermons from the twentieth century are half the length of those in prior centuries, far more genteel, and as likely to be psychological as theological in their thrust. He also talked about the fact that every era has its preferred sins. Today it is abortion, homesexuality and how the United States is going downhill because of a lack of morality.

Evaluation:

 I have mixed feelings about this book. Yancey covers a lot of territory, not necessarily a straight line with seeing where God is in our world. Like much of what Yancey rights, you can look at it and ponder and see how you want to apply it. But do not look for something cohesive in this book. It is 49 article length chapters where he explores things from his own background to current topics of when this was written.

And that last sentence is the starting place of the weakness of this book. In the early 2000’s, this would have been interesting to read to see Yancey’s take on things. Now close to 20 years later-some of it is 30-35 years later-there is a sense of we have passed on from what he was talking about.

Also many of the chapters are lifted from his Christianity Today column. In many ways this book reads more like a “Best Of” book, created to fulfill a publisher's contract. If you are a Yancey fan, you will probably buy the book. But there are better Yancey books out there. By the way, I think the title, Finding God in Unexpected Places, is not very appropriate as that is not where Yancey’s emphasis is.

 
Notes from my Bible Study:

Used in House Church:

Theme: Finding God in Unexpected Places

Introduction

Show Sistine Chapel picture

Where did God find you?

Where have you seen God in the last week?

Yancey talks about things which blocks us from seeing God. What things block you?

Yancey has a phrase that as he began to believe, he found rumors of transcendence. What does this phrase mean? Why does he use the word rumor?

Matthew 5:13-16. Yancey notes that Christians are called to being salt and light to our world. He is discouraged because he sees that in so many places Christians are not this. What is the Christian message to our world? How is it relevant to your non-Christian friends?

Joanna in South Africa ministered in some of its worst prisons. When asked about how and what she does, she replied: God was already present in the prison, I just had to make him visible. How is that what the Christian is to do? How can you make God visible in your life? To others around you?

Yancey says that there is a sign on the way to Alaska which says Choose Your Rut Carefully, You’ll Be In It For the Next 200 Miles. What kind of rut is your life in now?

Part I: Finding God Without Really Looking

Rumors of Another World

When you read the title, Rumors of Another World, what do you think of?

Yancey talks about his thoughts on death. He uses Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death as a basis for his thinking of death. When you see our culture, what do you see about it as life-affirming? What do you see about it which denies death, or at least tries to avoid death? What does Christianity have to say about death? Where do you fit in? It is said that St Theresa felt a passion so strong to be united with God that only death could satisfy this desire.

Yancey shares about his involvement with Amnesty International to free people from political suffering. In what ways do we try to keep people alive? Why?

Are you going to die? How aware are you of this? What do you expect on the other side of death?

Yancey talks about this type of question as being the most worth asking and the most ignored. Why is it the most worthwhile asking? Why does our culture ignore such questions?

When he talks about the Make Today Count, he says that there are two basic questions: surviving today and preparing for death. What is your goal for tomorrow?

We exercise or do things physical to keep fit. Are there ways you keep spiritually fit? If so, share them.

Not Naked Enough

Do you agree with Yancey that both a thirst for the spiritual and the obsession with the sexual is a thirst for transcendence? Why do you think that?

Talk about Yancey’s statement that sex is not a rival to spirituality, but rather a pointer to it.

How does Yancey come to view sex as being like a modern idol? What symptoms do you see in our society which support his thinking?

Yancey does his take on the Woman at the Well. This is a passage we went over recently with the Encounters with God book by Tim Keller. Why does Yancey feel her thrust was quenched? Do you agree? How does this apply to our culture?

The Lost Sex Survey

sex resists reductionism.What does this mean? Why does Yancey say it? Is it important?

For the Christian, sex is not an end in itself, but rather a gift from God. How is this true? How does this fit into Yancey’s thinking that we find God in unexpected places?

Looking Up

Yancey notes that The present moment did not comprise all of life. Why is this perspective important? How easy is it to be myoptic? What is your remedy? What does it say about us humans?

Read Psalm 8. How does this fit in with Yancey’s chapter on Looking Up? What strikes you about this Psalm?

Of Whales and Polar Bears

Yancey talks about how he is able to see God in how Nature has been set up. But as Walker Percey noted, there is also an equivalent set of things which you could show that Nature is chaotic and not very well designed at all. When you look at the world around you, particularly that which is not man-made, do you see chaos or design? How do you avoid seeing what you want to see?

When we witness some of the wonders in the natural world, there can be a sense of awe. Has that sense of awe changed you? If so, how? For how long?

Reading Genesis in the Wild

Consider this challenge. Tomorrow morning when you have your quiet time and Scripture reading, find a different place to do the reading. Will it make a difference? Not advocating a constant switching of places.

Let’s spend about 10 minutes and read to yourself Genesis 1 and 2, Rev 21 and 21. Look for understanding about what God wants to do with our world.

Yancey introduces us to the idea that God waits. In Genesis 2:19-20, man names the animal and God sees what he will do:

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

Why does Yancey find that God waits and sees what man will name the animals? How did Yancey’s explanation make you see the passage differently? Why does God wait in situations where we want him to act? Maybe such as the COVID-19 crisis?

Yancey wonders how hard it has been for God not to act in history or now. Thoughts?

Disturbing the Universe

What is the proper way to view our world? Through the lens of great civilizations and thought or through a spiritual glass? If you choose one over the other, how come? If you chose a mixture, then how do you live in this as an amphibian?

“Humans are amphibians...half spirit and half animal...as spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation--the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Why did Jesus come to earth? What did you think of Yancey’s response, that in essence, it was a response to Job’s accusation that God does not know what it is like to be human?

What did you expect from the title: Part II: Finding God on the Job? How did it match up? (HC)

They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Click

How do you measure a person’s worth? By the effect they have on a fellow human? The relationships created? The money or possessions acquired? How about those who are retired, are they worth less than a productive professional?

In your relationships, who do you take pride in when something is done well? Who are you jealous of? Why?

How does Yancey compare his and his wife’s jobs? (HC)

The body is a good representation (HC)

The Never-Never Land of Religious Media

Yancey talks about his five observations from his tour. Did any of them bother you? Why? Is there a level of absurdity with this?

Who do you have a close relationship with where you can talk about things which bother you?

The Power of Writing

Reading and writing are powerful. Should they be restricted? If so, by what criteria? If not, would the world have been a better place if Mein Kampf, Mao’s Little Red Book, or The Communist Manifesto been suppressed?

The communications through radio, TV and the Internet has been a major force in our culture for the last 100 years. What controls should they have?

How do controls affect the spread of the gospel?

God at Large

How do we pray? Is it for ourselves and our comforts or for us to be steadfast in him?

Does the American gospel sound like good news?

Yancey talks about nations being in one of three states: honeymoon, divorce or mature married. What phase do you think the United States is in?

He says that in the United States, church operates more like an industry and a living organism. What does Yancey mean by this? What evidence does he give or do you see? Do you agree?

Yancey’s theory is that God goes where he’s wanted. Reflect on this thought. How so?

Part III: Finding God in the Rubble

Grace at Ground Zero

What characteristics do stars and servants have from Yancey’s point of view? Is one superior over the other?

Is it fair to divide Christians up this way? Are there other categories which you think should be included?

 

Do you have a calling for other?

When disaster strikes, where is God? Where is the church? Where are you?

A Muslim Seeker

Why does becoming a Christian so tramatic for a Muslim? What ties did you sever when you became a Christian? Should there be ties broken now?

Why Do They Hate Us?

Jacques Ellul noted a paradoxical trend that the Christian gospel tends to produce values in society that directly contradict that gospel. Is this true? Why is this so?

Yancey presents the concept that Christians hold dual citizenship. How does Yancey present this? Do you feel that tension of belonging to both worlds?

The Great Divide

Yancey talks about the awe which Muslims have towards God. Is that something we Christians should have a better understanding of? How is this developed?

Does It Matter What Others Think?

When Yancey wrote this book in the early 2000’s, he noted that Even our closest allies view the U.S. as a loner nation which pulls out of treaties that don't serve our interests. Have we gotten more reliable as an ally? Should we be more of a lone nation? Does this have any bearing on Christianity?

Yancey quotes M. Scott Peck saying, hard to escape the conclusion that in the years since, our political and spiritual leadership has declined in inverse proportion to the increasing amounts of money and effort we have expended to manipulate other countries. Is this how you see the United States? Explain your view?

Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad in New Orleans

Yancey talks about the common language of pain that seemed to bring the three groups [Muslim, Jews, and Christians] together.

Along the Frontier

Yancey visited some Middle Eastern countries and noted the lack of fresh Christian blood. He correlates this with the church using ritual rather than relationship with God. Do you find this insightful?

Part IV: Finding God in a Fractured Society

Eccentric on the Front Lines

Yancey starts this chapter with the question What would it look like if a Christian took literally Jesus' sweeping commands and acted on them. What would a Good Samaritan look like today, in urban America? How would you answer this?

Is being a Louise Adamson practical? Why or why not? Is there a place for her spirit here? Do we have anything in Fresno which looks like it?

Dr. Donahue’s Crack Solutions

How does Alcoholics Anonymous’ way differ from either liberal or conservative answers to drug problems?

When confronted with societal problems, do the political solutions we hear seem like solutions? Are their Biblical solutions? If so, how do we find them?

Those Were the Days My Friend

The 60’s were known as a time of change-free speech, civil rights, free love. How much did society change during that time? Were the changes permanent? Today there is change in the air. How much do you think will permanently change after this go around?

Yancey said that Maybe the main problem with the spirit of the sixties is that it surfaced thirty years too soon. … I have a vague premonition that we haven't seen the end of convulsive protest. Is the current unrest what Yancey was envisioning?

How can a Christian bring the justice and redemption talked about in the Bible?

Health and the God Factor

How does a religious commitment allow the average person to live longer? Are there situations where it might shorten life?

Shakespeare and the Politicians

How does Shakespeare question God’s role in this world? Are these also your questions?

What does A.C. Bradley mean when he says that No one ever closes a tragedy with the feeling that man is a poor mean creature. He may be wretched and he may be awful but he is not small? Do you feel small in this world? What lessons can you learn from Shakespeare?

Whatever Happened to Deism

Why does Yancey think that deism will fail? How does having a personal God, a God who will interact with you, make a difference in the strength of your faith? Particularly in hard times. What warnings can we take from it?

Could It Happen Here?

Is Yancey’s portrayal of faith in Holland accurate? Is the United States on a similar trajectory as Holland? What is causing this? How do the millennials deal with faith? How can we as Christians respond?

Running Away from Fugitives

Yancey raises the question, Does God really judge the United States or any other country as a national entity? What do you think? Why? What difference does that make in how we engage with society?

Yancey cites that historians think that as the Church gains power it loses its vitality. Is this a true thesis? Should Christians shy away from power? What ramifications is there by your thought?

Part V: Finding God Among the Headlines

28. Russia's Untold Story

How much do you know about what happened in 1989 to the Russian people? He talks about that God was not gone from the Russian people, nor was truth, it was just in the prisoner camps and outcasts. Why do you think God would be there?

Yancey talks about opening up the country to Christianity. He notes the following attributes:

• Respect,

• Courtesy

• Listen

• Incarnational ministry

• Understand the culture and the truth God has embedded in it.

How is this relevant in other situations and cultures?

One of the Russians says that the problem with the country after Communism is that they lack ideas and how to think. Describe what this problem looks like. How did they get into this predicament? How do you generate ideas and thinking?

Yancey says that God will only go where He is wanted. Do you agree or disagree? Why? Does our society want God? In what way?

29. The God That Failed

What is your base theology? Does it include man as a fallen creature? Does it include an after life?

30. The Wall Comes Tumbling Down

Yancey talks about Christians being faithful to their calling as being a major reason why Christianity was accepted after the Eastern Bloc fall. How were these Christians true to their calling?

31. Big Nanny Is Watching

Yancey looks at books which talk about reordering society. In the Brave New World, it talks about:

• Repairs the defects in human personality

• Simplifies morality-absolute truth and inalienable rights will be seen properly

• Solves problems through technology

• Elevates entertainment above all other values.

What is the Christian answer to these initiatives?

32. Tremors Underground

If they can meet underground and explode, why can we not respond to restrictions to save people from the COVID-19.

33. Cry, the Beloved Continent

Yancey points out that there are innocent bystanders to when a person comes down with a disease like AIDS. These are people who are partners of those with AIDS, babies unborn, and others. Is it just to say the people with AIDS or some other disease deserved catching AIDS? Can we ever make such a blanket statement?

What do you think Jesus would do with someone who had AIDS? What does God do when someone sins? When you sin?

34. Doubting the Doomsayers

None

Part Six: Finding God in the Cracks

35. Five Polluted Words

How do you answer Yancey’s question: how can those of us who give to others do so without somehow undermining their sense of dignity? Do you think that his answer of through love is practical? How does that look in practice?

Yancey talks about five words where the meaning of words have been corrupted. How did these words get corrupted? How can they be redeemed?

36. Healing While Rome Burns

Yancey presents the case where Christians in Myanmar had a choice of either providing some support for a corrupt and brutal regime or letting orphans fend for themselves and probably some would die and a great many would have problems. On what basis would you chose your action? Do we have any similar choices in our country today?

Is living a holy and Godly life a private affair or is their a public component? How did you reach this conclusion? Is there a practical implication for your conclusion?

37. Miracle on LaSalle Street

Bill Leslie sounded like someone whom I would not have thought too highly of as a pastor. But what did he have going for him? Why would he have been worthy of you being part of his congregation? Is there a calling for our church here? Or is there another calling which we need to listen to?

38. The Surprise of Faith

Consider how long you have been a Christian. What do you expect God to do? Do you leave room for God to do something wonderful in your presence? How do you make room for that?

39. The Alchemy of Memory

No questions

40. Will God Forgive What I'm About to Do?

The main point of this article is that God will forgive sin. Do you think God’s grace covers all sin? Even the ones described? Why does Yancey calls unconditional grace a scandal?

How have you seen sin work in your life? Have you been tempted to sin and done so on purpose? How easy has it been to turn back from that sin and accept God’s grace?

41. Holy Secrets

Yancey intertwines foreknowledge with knowing about grace. How does he relate the two? Is he stretching this? How come and in what ways does knowing the future become a test of faith?

Part Seven: Finding God Within the Church

42. The Church Behind Bars

Where have you seen faith most vibrant? What did it look like? What did you take away from it? What did you contribute?

How does God use the lowly and rejected of this world to accomplish His purposes? How are you in tune with this? How do you help?

Yancey talks about Churchill’s thoughts. Churchill noted that the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it. House of Commons Speech, 20 July 1910. How does our nation stack up with the rest of the world? What do you imagine a prison would look like which would reflect Kingdom values?

Faith: paranoia in reverse. A faithful person organizes themselves around trust.

43. Two-Handed Faith

Yancey talks about how freeing freedom is. But in order to feel this freedom you need to act free. What things holds you back from being free? How is your life open? What parts of your life is closed? When do you keep the truth back?

What is the costs of being closed?

How does being ambidextrous a part of Christian life? Are you open to both pleasures and afflictions? How does being closed to one make your life less fulfilling?

44. Don't Forget to Laugh

Yancey, through Auden, identifies three human characteristics: work, Laughter and prayer. Why does Yancey emphasizes the need for laughter? How does he relate it to prayer?

How can all three be degraded from their original uses?

45. Saints and Semi-Saints

Is there a right way to accomplish God’s purpose in this world? A wrong way? How has God called you to do His work?

46. In Search of a Both/And Church

Yancey talks about the tension between perfectionism and our weakness. How does he resolve this? What are the checks which we can have to prevent the hideous attributes of trying to be perfect? How can we try to be like Christ knowing we will and our brothers and sisters will fail? How have you found that balance?

 

47. Having a Bad Hymn Day

In several ways there seems to be a quality divide in both the church and society. This is evident in music, drama, and literature, to name a few areas. Yancey poses a question: How does one appreciate quality without becoming a snob? How do you answer his question? How does Yancey answer his own question?

Yancey lists three things Christianity can contribute to the discussion:

• Good things are a gift, not a possession..

• In this fallen world, good things are remnants that have been spoiled.

• Even spoiled things can be made good.

How do these contribute to our view of quality vs popular?

48. Dear Mr. Chicken: Please Send Money

We are bombarded with appeals seems like everyday. What ones do you throw away? What ones appeal to you? The ones which you keep, why?

Yancey points out that Paul says that giving blesses those who give. Do you find this is so? How are you blessed?

49. God's Colonizers

Yancey talks about that sermons used to average about twice the length of today’s sermons. Why do you think that is? Would you stay through a sermon which lasted over an hour? I understand that in many black churches that is the case.

What do you regularly hear from the pulpit? Does it talk about the problems/sins of today? Does the preacher talk about the benefits of Christianity? Politics? …. What would perk you attention for an hour sermon?

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

• Why the title of Finding God in Unexpected Places?

• Does this story work as a series of essays?

• Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Predictable?

• Every book has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

• In what context was religion talked about in this book?

• Why do you think the author wrote this book?

• What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

• What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

• What central ideas does the author present?

  • Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific

  • What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?

    • Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?

    • Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?

  • What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?

  • Are these idea’s controversial?

    • To whom and why?

• Are there solutions which the author presents?

  • Do they seem workable? Practicable?

  • How would you implement them?

• Describe the culture talked about in the book.

  • How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

  • What economic or political situations are described?

  • Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?

• How did this book affect your view of the world?

  • Of how God is viewed?

  • What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

• Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

  • What was memorable?

Note: The book also has a Reader's Guide

New Words:

• Reductionism (Not Naked Enough): the practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a simpler or more fundamental level, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.

• Samizdat (The Power of Writing): the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.

• Theodicy (Grace at Ground Zero): the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil.

• Fusty (The Great Divide): smelling stale, damp, or stuffy.

• mysterium tremendum (The Great Divide): awe inspiring mystery

• numinous (The Great Divide): having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.

• Ineffable (The Great Divide): too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

• Supersessionism (Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad in New Orleans): a Christian doctrine which asserts that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ supersedes the Old Covenant, which was made exclusively with the Jewish people.

• Lumpen (42): (in Marxist contexts) uninterested in revolutionary advancement.

Book References:

• Mars as the Abode of Life by Percival Lowell

• The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker

• Sex and Culture by J. D. Unwin

• Hopousia by J. D. Unwin

• The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage by Chet Raymo

• Alone by Richard Byrd

• The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth

• Disappointment with God. by Philip Yancey

• What’s So Amazing About Grace? By Philip Yancey

• Confessions by St Augustine

• The History and Power of Writing by Henri-Jean Martin

• Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

• Letter from Birmingham City Jail by Martin Luther King

• Where Is God When It Hurts? by Philip Yancey

• The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

• On Being a Christian by Hans Kung

• The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

• Travels in Hyperreality by Umberto Eco

• The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

• People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck

• King Lear by William Shakespeare

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare

• Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

• Richard III by William Shakespeare

• Henry VI by William Shakespeare

• The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

• People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck

• God's Funeral by A.N. WIlson

• The Brothers Karamazov by Frodor Dostoyevsky

• Crime and Punishment by Frodor Dostoyevsky

• Brave New World by Audeous Huxley

• Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

• 1984 by George Orwell

• Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized by Jose M.R. Delgado

• City of God by Saint Augustine

• Decameron by Boccaccio

• Jesus in Beijing by David Aikman

• Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Philip Yancey

• The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich

• The Gift of Pain by Philip Yancey and others

• Foxe's Book of Martyrs by Foxe

• Born Again by Chuck Colson

• The Oak and the Calf by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

• Grace Abounding unto the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyon

• The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, translated Kitty Muggeridge

• Ascent to Truth by Thomas Merton

• The Way of a Pilgrim

• Less Than Conquerors by Douglas Frant

• Paradise Lost by John Milton

• American Sermons by Michael Warner

Good Quotes:

• First Line: I began my career back in 1971 as a magazine journalist.

• Last Line: No doubt the Puritans in England heard similar questions from their own children before sailing off to establish a City upon a Hill, a city whose ideals modern preachers are still urging us to realize.

• The present moment did not comprise all of life. Chp Looking Up

• We still don’t know how to put morality ahead of politics, science and economics. We are still incapable of understanding that the only genuine backbone of all our actions, if they are to be moral, is responsibility. Vaclav Havel, Speech to US Congress, February 21, 1990

• Our real challenge, the focus of our energy, should not be to Christianize the United States (always a losing battle) but rather to strive to be Christ's church in an increasingly hostile world. Chp 27 Running Away from Fugitives

• In a world of fugitives the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away. T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion

• If you want freedom of speech, speak freely. If you want an open society, act openly. If you love the truth, tell the truth. Chp 43. Two-Handed Faith

Table of Contents:

• Introduction

• Part I: Finding God Without Really Looking

  • Rumors of Another World

  • Not Naked Enough

  • The Lost Sex Survey

  • Looking Up

  • Of Whales and Polar Bears

  • Reading Genesis in the Wild

  • Disturbing the Universe

• Part II: Finding God on the Job

  • They Also Serve Who Only Sit and Click

  • Letter Bombs

  • The Never-Never Land of Religious Media

  • The Power of Writing

  • God at Large

• Part III: Finding God in the Rubble

  • Grace at Ground Zero

  • A Muslim Seeker

  • Why Do They Hate Us?

  • The Great Divide

  • Does It Matter WHat Others Think?

  • Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad in New Orleans

  • Along the Frontier

• Part IV: Finding God in a Fractured Society

  • Eccentric on the Front Lines

  • Dr. Donahue’s Crack Solutions

  • Those Were the Days My Friend

  • Health and the God Factor

  • Shakespeare and the Politicians

  • Whatever Happened to Deism

  • Could It Happen Here?

  • Running Away from Fugitives

• Part V: Finding God Among the Headlines

  • 28. Russia's Untold Story

  • 29. The God That Failed

  • 30. The Wall Comes Tumbling Down

  • 31. Big Nanny Is Watching

  • 32. Tremors Underground

  • 33. Cry, the Beloved Continent

  • 34. Doubting the Doomsayers

• Part Six: Finding God in the Cracks

  • 35. Five Polluted Words

  • 36. Healing While Rome Burns

  • 37. Miracle on LaSalle Street

  • 38. The Surprise of Faith

  • 39. The Alchemy of Memory

  • 40. Will God Forgive What I'm About to Do?

  • 41. Holy Secrets

• Part Seven: Finding God Within the Church

  • 42. The Church Behind Bars

  • 43. Two-Handed Faith

  • 44. Don't Forget to Laugh

  • 45. Saints and Semi-Saints

  • 46. In Search of a Both/And Church

  • 47. Having a Bad Hymn Day

  • 48. Dear Mr. Chicken: Please Send Money

  • 49. God's Colonizers

• Readers Guide

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book

• Author's Web Site

• Wikipedia-Author

• Amazon-Book

• Amazon-Author

• GoodReads-Book

• GoodReads-Author

• Renewal Fellowship’s review