“Messy Grace” by Caleb Kaltenbach tells the story of how a pastor with gay parents learned to love others without sacrificing conviction.
Caleb spends the bulk of the book fleshing out what it means to live in the tension between grace and truth. He accomplishes this through compelling personal stories and biblical exposition. He lovingly navigates one of the most heated discussions of our day with convicting words for both sides of the issue of how Christians should interact with the LGBT community.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is, “If we are going to understand messy grace, then we have to understand how to love people, no matter who they are” (p.19). Caleb isn’t just flinging platitudes, he has stories of how this has played out in his life. Growing up with gay parents and as a part of the LGBT community, and then becoming a Christian, he has seen these two groups of people wound one another. He includes stories of Christians protesting gay pride parades and stories of the rejection he faced from his family after becoming a disciple of Jesus. He weaves these stories among biblical exposition about loving others and what scripture teaches about sin. He focuses most of this discussion through the lens of grace and truth. He explains that the tension between grace and truth is love, and, that, for far too long, Christians have had far too little of it for people outside their tribe.
One of the most helpful paradigms he presents is the difference between acceptance and approval. He reminds readers that the two are not the same and that you can, and should, accept people who do things you don’t approve of, pointing out that Jesus did it all the time.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seeking to live out Jesus’ command to love their neighbor as themselves. I also recommend it to anyone in the LGBT community who is curious about how the love of Jesus applies to life today. And to anyone in the LGBT community who may read this review: I’m sorry for how people who follow Jesus don’t always look a lot like him (me included), but I’d love to hear your story over coffee.
“I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.”
Adventures with the Morgans 