From the introduction to the co-author's notes at the end Fall to Grace is one of those books I simply could not put down. I read into the wee hours of the morning as the snow fell and piled high (for Tennessee) outside the windows. Using the book of Galatians as his backdrop and sprinkling first person testimonies called "Grace Notes" between the sections of his text Jay Bakker issues a call to a hurting world and an all too often legalistic bullying church/political culture to understand the revolution that is God's Grace.
As I read others reviews of this book I was shocked to see all kinds of things that in my opinion the reviewer had to read into the text. One such review claimed that this is a gospel of Universalism, one that denies the need for the individual to accept God's grace and in so doing denies the core of the Christian faith. I am baffled as to where this reviewer got that idea. In the first sentence of Chapter 4 he states "At the core of Paul's idea of Grace is the belief that man is freed from religious law and reconciled with God through Jesus' life, death and sacrifice." Seems pretty orthodox to me.
I suspect that those who take issue with Jay Bakker's message do so for one of two reasons. The first being that he is the son of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker and the second being that like his late mother, Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay is LGBTQ affirming and accepting, arguing for full equality including the right of same gender couples to marry. Regardless of your position on the LGBT issue "Fall to Grace" is a thought provoking biblically sound message and one that many who have been hurt by the church need desperately to hear. I highly recommend it.
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