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BOOK REVIEW

AMAZING GRACE: A VOCABULARY OF FAITH

By Kathleen Norris

By Dr. Mark Braun, Associate Professor of Theology

Wisconsin Lutheran College

The continuing challenge for Christian communicatorshas been to speak and write non nova sed nove notsaying fresh things but speaking familiar truths in afresh way. Authors, educators, and preachers haveborrowed frequentlyand shamelesslyfrom the likesof G. K. Chesterton, Flannery OConnor, Dorothy L.Sayers, Francis Schaeffer, and most of all C. S. Lewis.

One may surely disagree with some of her definitions,and Norris claims to speak only for herself. We go

with her where we may and part company where wemust. (We always did that with C. S. Lewis, too, forexample, in his assertion inMere Christianitythat we arenot obligated to accept any particular theory of theatonement.) Amazing Graceis most helpful where itdresses the familiar in uncommon or unexpectedidiom, where it makes us stop to consider a thoughtful

insight.

And now from Kathleen Norris, particularly from her

1998 book,Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith(NewYork: Riverhead Books). Norris volume was namedwinner of the Association of Theological BooksellersBook of the Year and Best General Interest Award for1998. The New York Times Book Reviewcalled Norris anideal escort along the semantically bumpy road to herconversion, and The Christian Centurysaid Norrisemploys the experience of her own life to breathe newlife into the words on which the church has relied forcenturies.

She callsperfectionone of the scariest words I know,partly because so many Americans are caught in itsgrip. Martha Stewart might be seen as the highpriestess of Perfection: one dare not let the mask slip,even in ones house, where all is perfect, right down tothe last hand-stenciled napkin ring. Norris foundrelief from perfectionism when she learned that the

word frequently translated as perfect (teleios) is bettertaken to mean complete, entire, full-grown. To beperfect, she concludes, is to make room for growth,for the changes that bring us to maturity. Christianperfection means becoming mature enough to give

ourselves to others (5557).

The autobiographical details make her story all themore compelling. After a church-going childhood inSouth Dakota, Norris abandoned her religious roots

during student days at Bennington College in Vermontand as an author in New York City. A hapless andmortally embarrassed adolescent lurked behind thesophisticated mask I wore in my twenties, she nowadmits. Faith was something for little kids andgrandmas, not me (25).

Norris frequently inveighs against the inclination todisincarnate Christ. Dignified pagans of Romeconsidered Christianity a repulsive and barbaric religionbecause of the doctrine of the Incarnation, andChristians have grown adept at finding ways todisincarnate the religion, resisting the scandalousnotion that what is holy can have much to do with themuck and smell of a stable, the painful agony of deathon a cross. Jesus taking on of our flesh remains ascandal to anyone who wants religion to be a purelyspiritual matter, an etherized, bloodless bliss (114).

Norris quotes Gregory Wolfe in The New ReligiousHumanists: When emphasis is placed on the divine atthe expense of the human (the conservative error),

Jesus becomes an ethereal authority figure who isremote from earthly life and experience. When he isthought of as merely human (the liberal error), hebecomes nothing more than a superior social worker ora popular guru (162).

Returning to South Dakota two decades later, Norrisfelt bombarded by the vocabulary of the Christianchurch. Even basic terms such as Christ, repentance,and salvationseemed dauntingly abstract, evenvaguely threatening (23). After an hour-longbarrage of heavyweight theological terminology every

Sunday at church, she typically felt so exhausted thatshe needed a three hour nap, only to awake depressed,convinced that this world called Christian wouldremain forever closed to her.

Instead, she resolved to reconstruct her theologicalvocabulary, and these formerly forbidding words havecome to new life. In the process, she has been forcedto shed the inadequate definitions she had received asa child (8).

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Norris makes us wince because her remarks are oftenregrettably on-target. Many mainstream Protestantpastors take it for granted that their congregations

wont know much about the Bible, she asserts, citingan incident in which a young parishioner told hisminister he could no longer read the Bible because in ithe had discovered accounts of human sacrifice.

Though granting that it is good advice to simply pickit up and read it because the Bible can and does openitself up to people as an instrument of faith, Norrisrightly notes that Scripture is in fact an ancient libraryof divine revelation expressed in a dazzling array offormshistory, poetry, prophecy, lament, and story.Most people need a little help (19091).

Norris is not surprised at the modern lament thatpeople cant find God in church or in organizedreligion, She once held that opinion herself, feelingsmugly superior to those who apparently neededChristianity. Churches can be as inhospitable as any

other institution, she acknowledges, and belonging toone is not like joining a hobby club; you will find allsorts of people there, not all of whom will share yourinterests, let alone your opinions. Yet shedistinguishes between the much-maligned organizedreligion and religion as people actually live it. Whenpeople complain about organized religion, shesuspects what they are really saying is that they cantstand other people (25859).

Norris is sympathetic toward regards Pentecostals,observing correctly that their exodus from mainstreamChristianity reflected class distinctions as much astheological ones. Pentecostal friends have helped her

realize their raucous worship offers many people avalidation of their emotions, and themselves, that islacking in other areas of their lives (34647).

Lutherans dont fare as well inAmazing Grace. At onepoint Norris complains about a Lutheran bishop with

whom she had a disagreement while attending acontinuing education seminar for pastors (17071; onthat one, I agree with the bishop). Her one brush

with greatness involving our kind of Lutheranism isrevealing if not especially pleasant:

Years ago, when I waswriting a series of human interest

stories for the Rapid City Journal, Iinterviewed a local undertaker whohad grown up in the business. Hisfather had entered undertaking in theclassic, old-fashioned sense; as afurniture-maker in a remote frontiertown, he was also called upon tomake coffins. This man was aboutto retire after more than fifty years,and he told me that the worst

experience he had had in all thattime was with a Lutheran pastorfor any reader who keeps track ofLutheran schisms, I should add thathe was a pastor in a branch of thechurch that had broken off from the

Wisconsin Synod because it was fartoo liberal. An infant, the first childof a young couple, had died, but

when the minister came to help planthe funeral and learned that the childhad died without being baptized, hesaid, Theres nothing for me to do.

That babys in hell, and walked out.The outraged undertaker was left tocounsel the parents, and he quicklycalled the pastor of a mainstreamLutheran church who provided thefamily with a funeral service. (31314)

At a book reading in Milwaukee last April, Norrisrevealed privately that the incident occurred in acongregation of the Church of the LutheranConfession. CLC folks were wonderful people, sheadded. They had belonged to their churches forgenerations but unfortunately had followed the lead oftheir pastors.

Most thought-provoking may be Norris reflections onevangelism. Once estranged, she has now returned tochurch, but not through what she labels therelentlessly cheerful and positive language about faithshe associates with the strong-arm tactics of

evangelism. In her view such methodology fails totake seriously biblical ambiguity about faith andunbelief.

Evangelism, she says, a scary word even to manyChristians. She recalls hearing even dedicated churchmembers say they hate evangelism or they dontbelieve in it, and it would seem she counts herselfamong them. Evangelism is often personified as thestereotypical glad-handing Christian proselytizer who

would soon have us spouting a strange new language,all but inaccessible to our family and friends: Imsaved, born again, washed in the blood of the

Lamb. Norris fails to mention, of course, in a booksubtitledA Vocabulary of Faith, that such words andphrases are indeed New Testament vocables of belief.

The language bothers her less than the strategy.Noting that the bulletin jacket for one Sunday at herchurch contained an article entitled SummerOpportunities, offering suggestions for how seasonalactivities could provide Christians with a God-givenopportunity to witness to their faith, Norris

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countered, Going up to people at a picnic and asking,Do you know the Lord? was a good way to getyourself stuck with a barbecue fork. And you woulddeserve it. She thanked her congregation for notusing such heavy-handed tactics as she made her wayback to the church and was most grateful that no onepressured her to return. Yet, she added,

The people in thecongregation did evangelize inanother sense, by saying and doingthings they probably dontremember. Most likely they didntthink of it as evangelizingthename of Jesus, for example, may nothave come upbut little things theysaid or did revealed their faith inhealthy and appealing ways.Something about the way they livedtheir faithor even failed to live it,failings I could recognize in

myselfconvinced me to throw inmy lot with them and join thechurch.

She concludes that evangelism is not a matter oftalking about the faith but living it. Likening it toEzra Pounds admonition to poets, Do not describe,present, Norris regards real evangelism as living yourlife in such a way that others may be attracted to youand your values. The best evangelism the show,dont tell kind arises from an understanding ofrelationship that precludes forcing your faith, and thelanguage of that faith, on another person (30002).

Here Norris seems to posit a false dilemma. We bothtalk about what is in our hearts out of the fullnessof the heart the mouth speaks andwe with ourlives our hopes confess. Evangelism need not involvea dichotomy of life againstwords, but our words may be(and need to be) authentically displayed in our lives. Asan author, Norris must have surely faith in words. She

will reach many more minds and touch many morehearts through her words than she ever will even byperforming many random acts of kindness.

One suspects she would never paste Come to the WELS

on her car bumper and that she would disagreepassionately with the outreach method I once heardcommended in which an avid evangelizer plotted howhe might deliberately crash his shopping cart into thecarts of other shoppers at the grocery store in order toinitiate witnessing opportunities.

One reason our synodical fathers were reluctant toembrace the English-speaking culture that surroundedthem in America a century agoalong with a parochial

loyalty toward German language and culture and thefear (real or imagined) that abandonment of the mothertongue would hasten the forfeiture of confessionalLutheranism was that our forebears found much todislike in Yankee style and manners. LCMS PresidentHeinrich Schwan early in the twentieth centuryassociated the American spirit with, among otherthings, emotionalism. The enthusiastic outbursts of

American revivalists and at camp meetings struck theless expressive Germans as crass and immoderate.Faith was a thing to be held deeply in ones heart. Ourfathers were suspicious of those who so easily woretheir hearts on their sleeves.

German Lutherans early in the last century alsodistrusted the American fondness for advertising whenapplied to the spiritual realm. Northwestern Lutheraneditorial writer Hans Mouussa disparaged churchpublicity in 1916 because it had to be addressed tothose who under ordinary circumstances never would

attend church. What will you write in anad that might interest them? Hardlya statement of your creed, unlessthat creed is no creed and isattractive to the unchurched massesfor that reason. . . . Some maycome, if they like the ballyhoomethods and the ballyhoo kind ofpreaching, but they will not comeagain if you try to preach a realsermon to them after you once haveinveigled them into attendance. . . .Our churches are the most eloquent

announcements of our intention topreach the Gospel; by running afterunwilling hearers with handbills weonly encourage them to wait formore coaxing.

Frederick R. Webber argued in 1918 that we believe inadvertising but urged it to be left for the departmentstores, the tobacco manufacturers, the chewing-gummen, and the automobile manufacturers. The trueLutheran knows that such tactics cheapen the church,and repels the sincere worshiper who goes to hear the

Word of God, and not to be amused or startled by an

eccentric pulpit clown.

Seminary Professor Joh. P. Meyer admitted in 1929 thathe was not enthusiastic about the canvass method ofmission work, going door-to-door and filling outname and address cards. The entire procedure seemedto him to be a sign of decadence, smacking too muchof modern business methods.

Having become fully Americanized by mid-century,

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responding to increased mission opportunitiesnationwide, and after formulating a serviceable

variation on the Kennedy two-key question approach(If you died tonight, do you know for sure where you

would be? If God were to ask you, Why should I letyou into heaven? what would you say?), the WELSdiscovered evangelism in the 1970s. One synodicalexponent insisted that shady meanings of the word,equating evangelism with hootn, tootn holleringhallelujahs and fire and brimstone sermons in revivaltents, were off the mark. Evangelism may never be anelective for Christians. It is the heart of the Church.Outreach workshops and earnest testimonials soonfollowed.

Some synod veterans resented the implication thatpastors and parishioners of previous generations hadnever done evangelism until the Wisconsin SynodsTalk About the Saviorappeared. (I remember one pastortelling me how his father was willing to talk to

anybody on the streets about Jesus and confirmedmany adults during his long ministry in the city.These young guys didnt inventevangelism, hegrumbled.)

There may remain among us some reticence aboutevangelism methods, though I doubt any of us wouldbe as vocal about our displeasure as Norris is. If wehave embraced the methodology of congregational andpersonal evangelism, along with more sophisticatedadvertising strategies, why is it that membershipstatistics in the WELS have declined over the past twodecades? Is it possible (or even advisable) to look forany sort of cause-and-effect relation between aggressive

outreach efforts and the actual number of souls won?Have we asked those who have joined (or, like Norris,rejoined) our churches what role such organizedevangelism methods played in their reclamation for thechurch? And how exclusively can we focus onevangelism, to the neglect of other aspects of spiritualgrowth, charity, and service in the community?

Kathleen Norris, of course, is a poet and a story teller,not a parish consultant. She quotes a Benedictine whotold her dying mother that in heaven everyone we love

will be there. The older woman replied, No, inheaven I will love everyone whos there a subtle yet

significant alteration. The utter democracy of theheavenly feast, the banquet to which anyone may comeand be fed, has long appealed to Norris. She quotes

Augustine on the value of belief in heaven formaintaining vision for life on earth:

Let us sing alleluia here onearth while we live in anxiety, so that wemay sing it one day in heaven in fullsecurity. . . . We shall have no enemies inheaven, we shall never lose a friend. Gods

praises are sung both here and there, buthere they are sung in anxiety, there insecurity; here they are sung by those destinedto die, there, by those destined to live

forever; here they are sung in hope, there inhopes fulfillment; here they are sung bywayfarers, there, by those living in their owncountry. So then . . . let us sing now, notin order to enjoy a life of leisure, but inorder to lighten our labors. You shouldsing as wayfarers do sing, but continue

your journey. . . . Sing then, but keepgoing. (36768)

Dont expect Norris to employ conventionalWELS language in her Vocabulary of Faith. That alonemakesAmazing Gracea worthwhile read.

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Comments and reactions to this review may besubmitted to Dr. Braun via the editor.

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