Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jim Palmer is author of widely acclaimed Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces. He encourages the freedom to imagine, dialogue, live, and express new possibilities for being an authentic Christian. With an MDiv from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago, Jim has also worked in pastoral ministry, inner-city, service, and international human rights work. Through writing, speaking, blogging, conversation, and friendship Jim is a unique voice for knowing God beyond organized religion. He and his wife, Pam, and daughter, Jessica, live in Nashville. Jim is a triathlete, enjoys eating pizza, and has a dog named Jack. You can find Jim at divinenobodies.com and on Facebook and Twitter.

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WIDE OPEN SPACES

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Introduction................................................................xiiiWhere's Stephen King When You Need Him?1. My God Can Whup Your God!................................................1Is God a Belief System?2. Humankind Is from Mars, God Is from Venus................................13Can What We're Feeling Inside Be God?3. Here Is the Church, and Here Is the Steeple .............................24Can Church Be Everywhere, All the Time, with Everybody?4. Here's to All the Walking Wounded........................................45Is the Bible a Landing Strip or a Launching Pad?5. A Divine Autopsy.........................................................62Does It Matter WWJD if We Can't Do It?6. The Devil Wears Levis 501 Jeans..........................................79Is the Reality of Evil an Inconvenient Truth?7. For the Least of These...................................................91Are We Too Religiously Minded to Be Any Earthly Good?8. Spiritual Living.........................................................103Do We Need a Purpose in Life to Live?9. Follow the White Rabbit..................................................116Is God Slipping Messages to Humankind Through Netflix?10. The Freedom Filter......................................................131Can We Trust Our Gut?11. If I Ever Meet an Angel.................................................148Are We Receiving Help from Another World?12. Quantum Wonderosity.....................................................161Has Science Discovered God?13. If Everyone Loved.......................................................179Where Have All the Little Christs Gone?A Final Word................................................................198The Love I FoundAcknowledgments.............................................................203About the Author............................................................205

Chapter One

There are certain memories that stick with you. Like the first time I was given smelling salts. I was lying flat on my back on the thirty-five-yard line of the Blacksburg High School football field. Carroll County had just kicked off the ball, which sailed high but wasn't making much forward progress down the field. In fact, a sickening feeling grew in my stomach as the football began angling toward me, the guy who normally blocks. I was looking up in the sky, the opposing team charging down the field, my arms stretched out wide to receive the ball, and ... [??]. The next thing I remember was being rudely jolted back into the land of the living.

These last few years, God has supplied a few jolts of his own to rouse me from my religious slumber. One of those jolts was Connie's July 13 blog post, only nineteen words long. Connie is one of my MySpace friends, and from time to time I read her blog. July 13 was one of those times. I clicked on her blog and read this:

I Hate You.

You Hate Me.

We Hate Them.

They Hate Us.

What does it take to change this?

These words planted a seed within me that has continued to germinate. Religion teaches that God is synonymous with a specific belief system. Each system claims to have "right" beliefs about God, which are passionately held by its adherents-so much so that hate, bitter resentment, bloodshed, and even war can result from disagreement about God. A brief overview of world history shows that bad things happen when religious belief systems clash. This is what Connie was feeling. She had experienced religious hate in her own world, was fed up, and voiced it in nineteen sobering words.

But what if God isn't a belief system? What if God is bigger than self, bigger than family, bigger than tribe, bigger than nation, and even bigger than any set of doctrines we try to wrap around him? Whereas religion sometimes brings out the worst in people, could the vision of a bigger God cause us to place higher value on expanding our circles of care and compassion and working toward a more peaceful world?

One of the most freeing discoveries these past few years in my relationship with God (and it's still sinking in) is that God is not a belief system or a fixed set of theological propositions. On the one hand, it seems patently obvious that a list of claims about God can't actually be God himself. There isn't a lockbox at the center of the universe containing a divine computer program with doctrinal code. Hopefully we've all realized that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is fiction and that the number forty-two doesn't answer anything of ultimate significance. And yet for many years, my Christianity was basically a well-worked-out and defined set of propositions and practices in the name of God. I said Jesus Christ was my Savior, but in reality I treated my belief system as if it were my savior. It was my belief in the right suppositions about Christ that made me eternally saved.

When the basis for being a Christian is your specific set of beliefs about God, the most important thing is being right. If someone comes around with contrary ideas, the logical conclusion is ... well, their ideas must be wrong. It doesn't take an MIT grad to figure out two people with divergent views of God can't both be right. Therein lies all religious conflict; there must be winners and losers. It's a zero-sum game. The "win-win" mentality just doesn't fly.

For many years, my sense of well-being, comfort, safety, security, identity, and superiority in the world was based largely on being right about God. I was eager to take on theological debates. After I received my masters of divinity degree, I was confident I was "right" about God. When threatened, my response was akin to the little boy yelling, "My daddy can whup your daddy!" I was happy to be counted among the few, the proud, the saved who could emphatically say, "My God can whup your God! My belief system wins over your belief system. My book is better than your book. I win, you lose. I'll pray for you."

But from time to time, interactions with some people prompted me to notice the difference between upholding certain doctrinal beliefs about God versus actually experiencing God on a firsthand basis. Take Melanie, for instance. Melanie worked at a nearby Panera Bread, where I often went to drink coffee and work on my laptop. I was normally the first one there when the doors opened, which afforded some chitchat time with Melanie before the morning rush. When things slowed down, she'd be out wiping tables, and we'd pick up our conversation where it left off.

Melanie is one of those people who is good at planting an inspiring thought in your head. One early morning I came in still half asleep, and she said with an endearing smirk, "You better wake up. You might miss something." Once while toasting my bagel, she suddenly turned to me and asked, "Jim, why do you think people fear God?" Melanie enjoyed talking about God. Her face would light up as she described feeling God's love during her drive into work. I was convinced she must be smoking something. Melanie seemed to experience God everywhere and saw all of life from a spiritual perspective.

It was difficult to pin down the theological specifics of what Melanie believed about God, because she spoke of God like one would a neighbor or friend. It was maddening! I could never seem to find a natural opening to pop the question concerning her view of the Trinity. I,...