Jay Bakker is the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the fallen leaders of the incredibly popular PTL Christian Ministry, now defunct because of father Jim’s shady financial dealings and subsequent incarceration. Jay is a survivor who faced his own demons, examined in his autobiography, Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows.
He’s started a new ministry called the Revolution Church. The unusual aspect of this Christian ministry is the viewpoint concerning many human actions usually condemned by more conservative Christians, especially the issue of “consenting adult” homosexuality. The central message in his new book, Fall to Grace: A Revolution of God, Self, and Society, is one of inclusion. Everybody has sinned, but grace is the way for Christians to get together and stop pointing fingers at this sin or that sin. It’s a fascinating book to read with some pretty logical ideas that have more conservative Christians scrambling to condemn Jay and his arguments, primarily based on texts of Paul, Galatians, and innovative translations of both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Bakker also writes about his own challenges to find peace and recover his faith. He found that grace was the key; it inspired him to become a minister.
His title Fall to Grace is a repurposing of the1990 tv-movie about his parents’ ministry, “Fall from Grace”, which starred Kevin Spacey and Bernadette Peters. Jay Bakker definitely shows the reader that Christianity has just as many ways to look at human life as the other major religions, and shares his own story while offering encouragement for others to find and share faith as he explores the true nature of grace.
One Response to Fall to Grace by Jay Bakker
Robert Webb
March 28, 2011
Glad you reviewed this book, which I probably would not have thought about reading otherwise. Now I’m going to take a look, especially since I’ve never trusted monolithic ideologies.