"Imagine if being a Christian were about life?"

For once, the back cover "blurb" of the book alone is worth the price:

"Look, if this whole deal with God is at all real, it has to do better than drone on in hypothetical and scholastic debates. It has to apply to premarital nudity, dreams of personal glory, colossal lapses in judgment, family dysfunctions, battles with addiction, and frustration with fools. It must have something to say about tenacity, idolatry, heroes, love, sunsets, demons, prayer, miracles, worms, rivers and hard-won orgasm. Tell me about that stuff. Admit that you’ve somehow come to believe that the sin of the world can hold a candle to the wretchedness of your own heart. Take on questions that are bigger than your answers. Fight to let pain serve its purpose. Let grace shine through if it’s so real and so great and so worth living for. Show me a Jesus who gives a shit about the world I inhabit, and I’ll keep reading."

This writer has a lot of gall.

He even named his book after himself:

"Gall."

Pete Gall's book is about to killed, he informs me. So buy two copies now. It's actually the "underground" version that will be killed soon, to make way for the "official" Christian version on an official Christian publisher, Zondervan.

Thank God for Zondervan having the holy gall (If you ever have asked "What would Jesus do"at a Christian booksellers convention, read this) and guts to pick up and publish one of the most beautiful and brutally honest books ever.

At first I was upset that they were (predictably) editing out the profanity. But Pete says he has come to terms with that being for the best. So i guess I'm good with it.

&8%%$!!

But I would hate for anyone to miss the wonderful chapter ,"Chocolate, Bible Study and Blowjobs," (!!) available for a limited time free right here.

It's message to the church had better not go unheeded, or I may have to srat selling cars.

The Zondervan version will be called "My Beautful Idol".

The underground version (buy it here) is fully titled "Gall: Five Years of Unfettered Christian Exploration Somewhere Between Youth Group and the Rest of Life"

Check out Pete's myspace site here.
And at this link, he addressed the common questions about profanity.

Here are some of the topics he speaks on:

For those a bit worried about this guys faith or credaentials, it may (?) relieve you to read hs bio, and/or know that he's done a visual edition of a Philip Yancey book. And finally, the main course; here are a few of my favorite quotes from "Gall, " I hope they all make the cut.

If you can't relate and amen any of these , you are likely way on the wrong website.

Enjoy, and buy the book quick.

"And then what, send them to church? Right. I hate church. It was fine for high school cutesy stuff, but I have no idea why adults attend, except that they feel like it's what they're supposed to do. It's another 'should' argued by people who have been told by some nameless 'them' that this is how God wants things. It's just a holy rubber stamp, and it's more fake than any beer commercial could ever be. A leftover tradition. A group masturbation. A dead end. I'd feel better about selling motherhood to a teenager than church to a person looking for God." (12)

"It doesn't make any difference how mind-blowing a given experience is , you'll still have to wipe your ass the next morning" (75)

"...I spend a lot of time qiuetly disgusted and fuming about gluttony here, even as I keep finding jyself taking a second helping of whatever's on the table or the television. Jesus freak, and a dick. I wish the two didn't come up as a pair so much of the time." (120)

"I don't know, maybe it's enough to live as if life were for real, not just a metaphor or trial run in which we are only killing time before the headliner of heaven comes on the stage. Imagine alf thw evangelicals deciding that life was actually worth embracing, not just cramming into Jell-O molds so they'd come out shaped like every other Promise Keeper with a ten percent tithe and a mini van to pull into their vinyl-clad house every night, whilst most of the world shivers in the dark, muttering a confused curse of betrayal about Americans and the God they sold to the whole village. Imagine if being a Christian were about life, and not mastering the formula for Christian living. And why, by the way, is there a difference between living and Christian living?" (209)
The book on amazon.com

Intrigued?

Here is a chapter (on, of course, Trinitarian relational ontology,Mountain Dew and nakedness) of the "revised" version.

Here are some of the topics Pete teaches on:

- Tears for Chelsea Clinton: privlege didn't cure the Fall
- Idolatry of Personal Brands, and the foolish wisdom of nudity
- The Bad News About Comfort
- Noblesse Oblige: philanthropy is the soul's response to blessing
- Some & Substance: encountering relational ontology
- The Bride's Guide to Harlotry: 10 things the Church can learn from Madison Ave about ethical communication
- Brokenness & the Bruised Reed: the death of utility-based Christianity
- Will & Wanna: listening to Jesus
- The Voice of the People is the Voice of Their God: pursuit of powerlessness
- Sexual Morality According to Genesis 3:16
- Death of the Inevitable: family may not even be in the top 10 most important things
- Harmony: where the real you, the the real us, groove with the real them

He's hired.