Spirit in Action
If Grace Is True - Philip Gulley
Philip Gulley has authored 14 books, including the very popular Harmony series, but today we focus on 2 books co-authored with James Mulholland - If Grace Is True and If God Is Love. Phil visits with us today about his and Jim's growing and evolving conviction, moving them from a traditional fundamentalist viewpoint to a belief in Universal Salvation, and the implications of this revolution of thought.
- Broadcast on:
- 06 Jun 2010
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing better song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Better sing better song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ I'm very pleased today to introduce you to a fine writer, humorist, and dare I say, theologian, Philip Gully. Phil Gully first caught my attention because of the thoughtful humor of his series set in the fictitious town of Harmony, Indiana. But Phil and his co-author, James Mahaland, absolutely riveted my attention with their books, if Grace is true, and if God is love. Deep and insightful looks at universal salvation. If you've ever wondered how the loving father, Jesus speaks of, can fit in the same Bible with the God who promises heaven for a select few and the eternal torture of Hellfire for the most of us. These books and the grace-filled words of Phil and Jim have hopeful food for your soul. With great pleasure, we'll join Philip Gully by phone at his home in Indiana. Phil, thanks so much for joining me for "Spirit in Action." Thanks for having me, Mark. Whereabouts in Indiana are you located? I was born in Danville, Indiana, which is about 20 miles west of Indianapolis, and moved back here about 10 years ago. And are you still doing a pastor at in the Friends United Meeting churches down there? I am a pastor, Fairfield Friends Meeting, a little quicker meeting, about 15 miles or so from my house that was begun in 1826. This must be a pretty busy thing. I think you're putting out a book or so a year, maybe more. How can you do that and do the pastoral thing, or actually how does your pastoral work function there? Quakers tend to do this a little bit different than many other religions. Well, it only works because I'm not a very good pastor, so I don't devote a lot of time to it. Actually, my congregation is very self-sustaining, and when they invited me to come be with them, it was with very prescribed rules about what they wanted. More specifically, what they didn't want and what they didn't want was for me to do everything, but to really help equip them to do the work of the meeting. So my role there is pretty limited. Could you describe for our listeners in case they're not familiar with Friends' way of doing things? How you function as a pastor, a number of the people listening might be unprogrammed Quakers, and some of them might be just traditional, used to mainstream religion. What is your role, how does a pastor of a Friends' meeting work in particular compared to other religions? Well, we'd really have to depend more upon the local meeting. Some Quaker meetings I know have an expectation that the pastors will have a great deal of authority, will make a good deal, a good number of the decisions. It's almost a very Protestant model where the role of clergy is really elevated. The congregation that I'm affiliated with, Fairfield Meeting, has a different understanding. Consequently, my role is a bit more modest, I would say. I bring a focused message three Sundays a month. That message is very brief. It tends to focus on theology or ethics. It tends to teach people how to think, theologically, as opposed to telling them what they must think or what they must believe. It's more, in that sense, I guess, an equipping ministry. And then the balance of our service is open worship. And if you're Quaker, you know that that's worship in the manner of friends where we wait in holy silence and people stand in chairs. They feel led to do so. I don't do any administrative work. And really, I'm not accorded anymore authority than anyone else. And if I do have authority, it happens by virtue of any weight. That is, any moral credibility or spiritual credibility, I might have earned by virtue of my history with them. I just don't get it because the word pastor follows my name. Hey, you don't get called your most holiness, you're exalted? No, I tried to work that into the contract, but they wouldn't stand for it. No, they're pretty low church folks. You've written a number of books. I don't know what the number is exactly 10, 12, 14. How much are you up to now? Number 15 comes out in April, April 14th. I want to talk about two of your books specifically. And I want to talk about a lot of the specifics in the two books, if grace is true and if God is love. Before I delve into any kind of specifics, would you please provide us with your statement of the thesis behind if grace is true? This book had its origins in my kind of unfolding embrace of universalism. When I was in my early 20s and was becoming much more intentional about my Christian and Quaker faith, I began to be concerned about the exclusive nature of much religion. A were in and you're out kind of approach that left me dissatisfied with the reach and the breadth, I guess, of conventional orthodoxy and began to seriously study and reflect on this notion that God was unswervingly committed to the well-being of all people everywhere and that that commitment wasn't just limited to life on this side of the veil, so to speak, but was an eternal commitment that transcended our earthly experience and somehow involved us in an eternity that was hopeful and redemptive and complete and that that was true for all people. Since then, I began to really question the, I guess, aspects of life after death. But I've not changed in my conviction that whatever there is and whether there is something or not after we die, that it necessarily involves all people and works for good for all people. I've just reached a place in my life that exclusive theology, which rejects more people than it ever redeems, is finally not a fit theology for me or for our world. What were you raised? Were you raised Quaker? How did you get to Quakerism? Raised Catholic, but in the town that had been founded by Quakers in 1824, and so there was a strong Quaker presence in this community, our next-door neighbors were head of the young friends group who met at the little Quaker meeting. And when I turned 14, my mother said, you are free to do whatever you want in your religious life to participate or not. It is your decision, which I think was wonderful. And it really freed me up. So for several years, I didn't go anywhere. Then, one Sunday evening, I was sitting on our front porch and noticed car loads of attractive young Quaker girls pull up at my neighbor's house and felt called by God to join them. And for about three years, that was my only motivation. And then, as is often the case in our late teens, early 20s, we begin to think more more deeply about existential matters. And I found that the answers, if not the arena that the Quakers had created was a very satisfying one for me, that I could ask hard questions and think it a little differently and not be rejected. Did you go to Earlham School of Religion or where did you go to seminary? How did you connect up with Jim Mahaland? I met Jim the first day of seminary. I went to a disciples of Christ seminary in Indianapolis, a Christian theological seminary. I'd come there from a Catholic college, Marion College, a Franciscan college in Indianapolis, where I studied theology and sociology. But met Jim the first day of seminary, but then did my Quaker studies at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. So kind of a dual degree between those two institutions. One of the kind of amazing miracles that I don't think you give sufficient credit to in the writing of both of these books, if grace is true, and if God is love, is that you and Jim wrote them together and you wrote them as if you were a single person. You're always using the I format. So there's a whole bunch of personal experiences I know about from the books that are either yours or Jim's. And so I'm going to shoot in the dark to do this. It's just amazing that you could write this together. How did you do that? There must be some real tough dynamics going together to make a seamless garment out of two different people's experience. Well, it actually ended up being the easiest avenue for us. We had tried writing the conventional approaches to books that are authored by two people, but I would write a chapter, Jim would write a chapter. We found out that when we did that, it lacked a real cohesiveness and also a flow because our writing styles are different. We decided similarly that it would be awkward for us to write I and then in parentheses, Jim. And so we just resolved that these books would take a long time to write, that we would not put anything in there that we both didn't have clarity on, and that if that took an extra three or four years, so be it. And it did, but it seemed to be the voice that worked for us. And it also gave us great deniability because then if we were ever challenged about all you told this story, we could each say no, that was the other one's story. (laughing) I really can't tell in the books which part is your experience and which part is Jim's until the start of the second book, and if God is Love, I noticed an introduction of kind of levity, a kind of jocularness at the very beginning of that book that I said, that is Phil Gully speaking there, right? Do you know where I'm referring to? - First story in the second chapter. - It's so clear that this is you and not Jim. - Now you have me, uh... - Have you pegged? (laughing) - Actually, that's Jim's story about Mr. Rice and about the church that he grew up in. But I remember when we wrote that story. It's Jim's story, but I wrote it. (laughing) - And the reason of course I recognize it as yours is because of all the harmony books you've written. - Yes, actually Jim grew up in a very harmony-like environment in Southern Illinois, and so that kind of bleeds through, and I think that's why we've gotten along so well is because he had the kind of childhood that I often dreamed of having. I mean, I had a great childhood, but Jim was really, really small town and where you know everybody. And my life was a bit like that, but Jim's was very much more that way. - So you maybe learned about Dale Hinchall from him. We'll get into harmony a little bit later, but I wanted to deal with some specifics from, let's start with if Grace is true. The subtitle is, "Why God Will Save Every Person." And you've already said that that, what that means, has already changed for you from what it was originally. Say what it meant to you originally. - Well, what it meant originally, and why we chose those specific courts for a subtitle, was our concern that salvation had become a weapon, as opposed to a gift. Treasure or gift given to us, relative select few, who managed to believe the right things or belong to the right church. And so the selection of that subtitle was an effort to recall to the mind of the reader, the universality of that kind of shalom, of that kind of redemptive experience, that it isn't owned by a group, that it is God's gift to all people everywhere. And it seemed to me then, and seems to me now to be the case, even though my thoughts about it have changed a bit, that that is probably the trump card for all religion, and that is their insistence that they alone are the true path and the way to God. And that if we want to articulate a religion that the world can live with, it's finally going to have to be a theology or a moral expression that includes everyone. And we saw salvation as kind of the, forgive my militant words, but as the battleground for that expression and that thought. - I think I'll ask you more about what salvation means than and now too, but a lot of people I'm sure will experience as a stumbling block maybe in this, is that the Bible very clearly does have reference to hell and sheep and goats and all of those kind of things. So it's all in there, and you say that, and if grace is true, and you say specifically in there that if you believe that the Bible is inherent, then you can't believe in universal salvation 'cause those passages are there. My observation, you do a whole lot to bring out all the passages of the Bible that refer to universal salvation. Isn't it equally untenable to believe in eternal damnation that some people won't be saved if you believe the Bible is inherent? 'Cause the passages are there about the universality too. - Oh certainly, yeah, and that's been our experiences. We talk with people who are biblical literalists, that it's very clear that they select biblical verses which they believe to be inherent, and feel free to dismiss those verses which they don't believe to be true, which I think in the end makes this whole notion of biblical in there and see a fallacy that we're all picking and choosing and that the operative question then becomes, what are you gonna choose and what motivates your choice and what are the standards you use to test for truth? Is it grace, is it love or is it exclusion and hatred? And I decided some time ago that my test for truth would be, is this gracious? Will the world be better if I and others believe this and practice it or will this diminish life and demean others? And for me that is increasingly the test of truth, the effect, the practical effect of those beliefs. So, I'm often accused of cherry picking biblical verses to support my view and my response is absolutely and you should too because there is much in the Bible that I think is quite frankly horrible and certainly not helpful if one's interested in establishing a moral and ethical and life-giving faith. - So, you talk about the practical aspects of choosing your faith. But my question is, isn't it also important and I think you address this in the books? Both the carrot and the stick, so there's heaven and hell, there's the unending banquets in heaven and there's water shortage down in hell and the idea of the deadline. And particularly where I, in terms of practicality, where it runs in, for me, I think I'm a generally good person, generally do things for good purposes, but there's nothing like a deadline to get me off my procrastination. And if I didn't believe there was a deadline, might I not ever be motivated to get to the end? How do you deal with that in terms of your theology? - Well, I'll tell you what I tell people in my meeting, that any response of love, which has its origins in fear, is not love. And what we are called to do is to extend love and to respond to love freely, that is not under a thread of coercion, which is certainly what hell is. I mean, can you think of anything more coercive than telling someone they will suffer eternal torment if they don't comply with a certain religious code? But I would argue that decisions, that the moral decisions we make, those decisions which are based on fear of punishment, are, that's an inferior motive and ultimately selfish, because it reflects ultimately a concern only for our own well-being and not a concern for the wider world, which I think is why the concept of hell works so well, because I think people who are morally immature find the thread of hell such a threatening one, and will do anything they can to avoid it. - Including killing in God's name? - Right, yeah, precisely. - I'm assuming along with the other changes that came as you opened to universalism, the universal salvation, that your view of what constitutes sin has changed. A lot of people believe that you've got to find the passage in the Bible that says this is a sin, and therefore that's how you define sin. How do you, from your current point of view, figure out what's sinful or not, or how do you use that word sin? - Well, I define sin now and understand sin to be self-absorption. That belief and their corresponding activities suggests that my reality and my well-being is more important than any one else's, and that my ultimate allegiance then is to myself. So that any action I take, which accrues to my benefit, then is the action I will take. So I would define sin as self-absorption, and define salvation then as that which calls us beyond ourselves, that sense of super aliveness, that David Stendler Ross talks about, the Catholic mystic, in which we understand ourselves as participants in a whole, which includes and embraces all of creation. I'm speaking about that this Sunday, what I've come to understand it, what it means to be saved. My thoughts about that have changed dramatically. Over the years, I used to think that being saved meant accepting Jesus as your savior, so that your sins would be forgiven and you would go to heaven when you died, and that no longer interests me. I'm much taken with this phrase that Stendler Ross uses about super aliveness. That seems to me to have some real legs on it, and so I've been thinking about that more and more. - Did you have a born-again type of being saved type experience somewhere in your youth? - Not in my youth. I did in my early adult years, I was undergoing personal difficulty. I just married a wonderful woman, still married to her 25 years now, but we were very hard up financially, we were struggling. I was very discouraged and depressed because it didn't seem that our future would be very bright, and that we would have a lot of difficulty because of financial reasons. I was driving home in my broken-down car, and it broke down. And I was sitting alongside the road, but instead of being anxious, I was just filled with this sense of deep joy and peace, and that God loved me deeply, and not only me, but loved everyone so deeply, that in the end all would be well. It was a remarkable moment. It didn't last long, several minutes, but it has sustained me. It was 25 years ago, and the power of it is still fresh to me. That's why this concept of super aliveness resonates with me because if I were asked to give a word for that, that's what it would be. I just felt super alive. I just felt as if every sense was heightened and the feeling of love within me, so deep and profound that I can't forget it all these years later. And that doesn't sound very much like what a lot of people describe as their born-again experience, where you're talking about sin and you're talking about repentance and all that. You didn't have one of those. - Yeah, and perhaps the feeling they have in those moments is akin to that. I've never had that, but sometimes I talk with people who define salvation differently, maybe define salvation that way, and in some ways it does sound synonymous with my experience, this feeling of being accepted, of being loved, graciously cared for. Yeah, we don't do a good job of articulating that in fresh language in the church. We tend to want to stick to old forms and patterns even after they've lost their power. But I think probably the secret to spiritual growth and maturity is to find new forms and find new language. - You put forward in the book some interesting responses to one of the most persistent objections to universalism. I've had this response come back to me from two of my brothers and I discussed this with them, and that is free will, that we've got free will. The thing you said in the book that captured me particularly was you said that we can reject God, but that God can reject our rejection. What do you mean by that? - Well, that's an old Karl Barth teaching in his book on dogmatics, which I think is just powerful. The idea that somehow if we reject God, reject the divine, reject the holy other, that then the only response God has is to say, okay, if that's what you want, which says she doesn't give God free will then, God's response then is defined and limited by our response. So I'll just simply suggest that if we are free to reject God, then God is also free to respond in any number of ways to that rejection and that one of God's responses might be to reject our rejection, which we do all the time as parents. I'm the parent of two teenage sons and I made one entry the other day and he told me that he didn't love me. I didn't then say, okay, you can't be in my house and you are no longer my son and I will no longer extend to you the blessings I have to give you. I just smiled at him and said, I can see why you would think that, but that doesn't change my love for you and my commitment to your wellbeing. I said, someday you will understand that. I don't expect you to understand that now. - But in the meantime, you still cannot borrow the car? - That's exactly what it was about. Yes, borrowing the car. And we as parents exercise this decision all the time to reject our children's rejection. I think, well, if we can do that, certainly God has that ability. I'd be low to suggest that I'm more gracious than God is. - You know, I really cannot emphasize enough for our listeners that this book written both by Phil Gully and James Mulholland or Jim Mulholland, that the book contains so much content that we can't do anything but scrape the surface here. And I do want people to go out and read if grace is true and if God is love. And I've just been talking about a fair number of things in if grace is true. I wanna talk a little bit more about if God is love, which is two years later or so I think that came out. In the meantime, I'll mention this is Mark helps me speaking. I'm visiting with Phil Gully, who is co-author of if grace is true, if God is love and the whole Harmony series, Frontport series, all of those wonderful publications. This is a Northern spirit radio production called Spirit in Action. And I'm particularly interested in these two books, if grace is true and if God is love. Because I think they represent a major way forward, revolutionizing, updating, civilizing our theology, which too often has been back in the dark ages and before. So again, I wanna thank you, Jim, for being here with me. I wanna thank you for putting up with I'm sure the firestorm of controversy that must have followed the publication of if grace is true. How bad was it? Did they put you on the rack or what happened? - Well, the response to the grace book was interesting. Even before it had come out, efforts had began to have my recording, the Quaker equivalent of ordination revoked a number of more fundamentalist Quaker ministers in our yearly meeting, took an objection to the book and its premise after reading about it in the Indianapolis star. Those efforts, though not yet successful, continue. And that's been somewhat disconcerting, but not surprising, I think. I think people have a lot of invested emotionally and philosophically in these old ways of thinking and don't easily give them up. And so it hasn't surprised me, but it is a bit sad. At the time I was writing for a Christian publisher, my first publisher, Moplin, the publishers. And I was immediately dropped by them, which I assumed would happen. And that's how I ended up writing for Harper Collins. So I kind of landed on a nice pillow with that when they've been a wonderful publisher. But five years after the book has come out, I continue to receive almost on a daily basis letters from people who've been deeply helped by the book. And so that's gratifying. And certainly the good certainly outweighed the bad here and the negative. You mentioned in the book, one of the initial things you talk about is your experience, or maybe it's gyms, of having been fired from the church, because you started voicing some of these questions. Was that you or was that Jim, and that was you? - Yeah, and it was me. Yeah, it lasted three weeks at my first church on the second week. I said something that made some of the church members question my orthodoxy and question about it. The next week, I shared with them my growing conviction that dualistic theology, heaven and health theology, was not appealing to me. It was not something I cared to affirm. And they asked me to recant and did so politely, and tenderly, these will give people. They just hadn't ever been encouraged to grow theologically. And I politely and graciously declined and was politely and graciously terminated. (laughs) But it was a wonderful opportunity. It didn't feel like it at the time, at the time I was very discouraged to have only lasted three weeks in my first job, but it led to such wonderful things. And by the end of the day, I had another church lined up who got wind quickly at what had happened, called to ask if I would be with them, and I consented to give that a try. And I was there for four years, and that experience was a good one. - You tell in the book about going to that second church, and you say they bring up the questions and that you had been somewhat of a slow learner. I guess that when you ask the questions, you didn't go to a recant position already. Did it really happen that way? And they took you in spite of the fact that you were a heretic? - They did, it was very interesting. They were all almost to a person far more conservative than I. But because, and I don't know what had caused it, something in their history, something in their story, they firmly believed in the right of conscience. And so while they made it very clear to me that they did not share my opinion about that, they also affirmed time and again, my right to hold that belief. And I deeply appreciated that and was there for four years. And I could say at the end of the four years that it was a good four years. I learned and they learned and it was a good, good experience. - And I'm assuming that because of their opposition, because of their skepticism maybe about what you were saying, it encouraged you to dig deeper to more clearly be able to speak of your growing conviction. - I assume that in a way they helped birth a deeper knowledge of what you speak about in this universal salvation because you were there. - That's precisely what happened. That is exactly what happened. And I've never thought of that intentionally until you said that, that's very perceptive, but that's exactly what happened. And it taught me the importance of communicating ideas in languages and stories that they can appropriate and appreciate. And that's when I really began to discover the rich vein of universalism in the Bible. Pretty in Luke 15, the story of the lost coin and the lost son and the lost sheep. God's concern about the rejected, about the lost, about those who've turned away. So there is a trove of these stories in the Bible, parables, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. I simply learned the point of those. And by the time I left, I think they were much more amenable to that philosophy. - You said, Phil, that you were raised Catholic, as was I, and you're younger than I am. So you grew up in a Catholic environment. By 14, you get to go free ranging, I guess. Catholic approach to scripture, I think, is a little bit less into this inerrancy and anything you say has to be justified by a verse of the Bible. How did your relationship to the Bible change from then, you know, from the beginning to when you wrote these books into now? How do you see it? I mean, because you clearly draw very heavily on the Bible in these books. You speak as one who has done the research, has done the reading, has sat with, and meditated upon. But I don't think you fit in a category with a lot of the people who want to quote the Bible consistently. - Right. Well, I tell you, I had little exposure to it growing up, other than the kind of rudimentary lessons that were taught as children in Sunday school, or I mean, if you can't, I can do CCD classes. - When I became more intentional in my faith, that, you know, in the last half of my teens and early 20s, I read the Bible voraciously over and over again, all of it, and it was just absolutely taken with it. And even for a period of time was, though I didn't know the word at the time, could accurately have been called a fundamentalist. If the Bible said it, that was sufficient for me. That obviously didn't linger that perspective. But what I never lost my appreciation for was the richness of the Bible. I alluded to it in almost all of my messages, but tried to do that in a way that opens the conversation, not closes it. The Bible, for all of its drawbacks, I think is a real friend to progressives. The words of the eighth century prophets about justice. Jesus' words about peace, I think are ripe and potent words and images for contemporaries. That the Bible has come in many religious circles and many progressive circles to be viewed as a backward document which has no credibility when we form our ethical and religious lives is sad to me. And I can always tell when someone thinks that way by how they talk about the Bible. And I can also tell that they've never really engaged it. Because if you wanna be a good liberal, progressive person of faith, you can find your story and you can find a lot of help in the pages of the Bible. Now, granted, you can also find a lot of stuff in there that isn't helpful, which I believe is argues for then a selective approach to scripture, which I think is not only justifiable, but wise. - Do you wanna share your personal favorite, most horrendous Bible story or quotation? - Oh, you know, those Old Testament stories where they really believe God wanted them to kill everyone in the village and dash the children against the rocks, you know, that kind of nonsense, but hell's bells. We don't have to look too hard today to see people who still believe that kind of thing. Jihad and chosen nation language that relegates the other to a life of condemnation and rejection and pain and violence. - You somewhere along the way, I believe, became a pacifist, I think what's called a pacifist. You tell me what you are, but how did that come about? Was that part of your fundamentalist period or is it after that or maybe as a child, maybe your family raised you that way? - No, my family didn't make me that way, although we weren't a military family. That happened during my, two things were happening during my fundamentalist period. I was studying Quakerism, specifically John Wollman, and I was reading the Bible, and I was listening to these old Quaker elders in the meeting that I began attending. It was a pastoral program meeting, but it had a rich history of pacifism in it. In fact, several of the members were older men who had been imprisoned, rather than filed in World War II, and their witness against war was a powerful one for me. This was during the days of the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, and President Carter had just ordered young men to register for selective service after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and those old Quakers took me by the hand and said, "Here's the problem with this." And taught me, taught me the Quaker Peace testimony, and I believed it, and I believed it still, that they cited biblical precedent, they cited a moral, ethical precedent, and historic precedent, and I found their arguments convincing and compelling, and so became a pacifist and have remained one to this day. - In "If God is Love," you and Jim speak about a lot of the implications of this theology of universal salvation, because a lot of people tend to think, as soon as you accept universal salvation, that means everybody's gonna go out and be a hedonist, they're gonna go out and kill everyone, because they don't have to worry about hell anymore, right? But you talk very differently about what this implies for how we live our lives, if we really accept universal salvation. - It's funny that people just naturally assume then that that's the ticket I can do whatever I want to do. I had one man that I was giving a talk, and he was very angry, and he said, "If what you say is true, why bother with Jesus?" And I said, "Well, that's interesting. "I've never found Jesus to be a bother." And I knew what he meant, but he didn't get, I don't think, what I meant. The assumption is always that to live selfishly with little regard for others to do whatever we want, is somehow a thing which will lead to joy, which will be fulfilling on some level for us. And I just contend that most of the people I know who are hedonistic, who are self-centered, self-absorbed, are not happy people. In fact, they're often very sad and lonely, miserable people. So this idea that there is a joy to be found in living with a callous disregard for others, that somehow that's ennobling and the bridging and good, is simply not true in my experience. Most people live that way, I'm miserable. I think that's the value of goodness right there, that if we are concerned about our own well-being, that there is no finer feeling than the feeling of doing good and loving well. - If you just tuned in, we're speaking with Phil Gully. He's author of a number of books. And in particular, we're addressing two books that he's written. He co-wrote with Jim Mahaland, If Grace is True, and If God is Love, my name is Mark Helpsmeet, and this is Northern Spirit Radio Production, called Spirit in Action. And if you wanna find this interview out on the internet, you can do that too. I have all of my programs archived out there at northernspiritradio.org. And I please welcome your comments. I'd love to get to know you better. And in the meantime, let's get to know Phil a little bit better. In the book, If God is Love, you talk about a number of different particular areas of our life, of policy, of viewpoint, that will be revolutionized by taking seriously universal salvation. One of them that you talk about, and I just have to applaud your courageousness, your forthrightness, when you talked about abortion. It's such a delicate subject for so many people, and you have such a thoughtful discussion in there, the related issues. First of all, would you care to describe what your point of view is about abortion, the related set of issues? Did this draw attacks on you from both sides, or did you actually feel like you got heard when you addressed this? - That's probably more than any other issue in the book. It seemed to resonate with people. It seemed to be kind of an understanding approach, that persons on both sides of the issue could appreciate. Of course, because this issue is so volatile, there are some people who want to appreciate any effort that doesn't exactly mirror their own. But essentially, our argument was that both Jim and I have served in inner city congregations, and have been exposed to situations where women have found themselves pregnant, pretty young girls, and that in those instances and opportunities, situations, the most loving thing was to stand by them, when they made the very difficult decision of electing to terminate a pregnancy they could not sustain, and a child whom they could in no way support. Often these women were the victims of molestation and sexual abuse, and while that was a difficult decision, because as a pacifist, we believe in the sanctity of all life, it seemed to both of us to be the fitting, dare I say, Christian response. I wholeheartedly encourage people to read what you wrote, and if God is love about abortion, it is, for me, the single most comprehensive, thoughtful addressing of that issue that I've ever seen. And you don't shy from saying the hard things. Some people want to pretend a little bit this way, that way I just had the sense that you were addressing truth with the greatest clarity that you could. You also take on, in both books, take on maybe it's not the right word, but you address concerns about homosexuality. I assume you grew up thinking that homosexuals were queers and dangers, and better not go into the bathrooms, 'cause they'll attack you or whatever. How did you get from where you were to where you are? - I was really fortunate in that regard. My little brother, I have a little brother who's gay, and I sensed that my parents knew that. And consequently, I never heard any disparagement of gay people from persons, namely my mother and father, whose opinion I valued. Of course I heard disparaging comments made in the locker rooms and by my peers, but their assessments never were authoritative to me, so I didn't leave there thinking, "Oh gosh, I must fear gay people." Instead, and I think this was the greatest gift that my parents gave me. My parents were very reluctant to speak ill of any subgroup, any minority group, including gays. So for me, it was just a natural thing when I became a pastor and when I began hearing that I should fear these people to just reject that notion immediately, that these were not people to be feared, they were people to understand. And as a pastor, I tried to carry that philosophy forward in my congregation. It isn't easy because I live in a very traditional part of the country, and some of the people in my meeting were graced the way I was, and feel very threatened by homosexuality, and so as we've had gay couples come in and out of our meeting, this is something we've had to wrestle with as a community of faith, but I'll give them credit. They're willing to wrestle with it, and certainly not every church is. - And you know Phil, of course, I'm from what a lot of people see as the liberal branch of Quakerism, homosexuality is for the most part, an on issue, or maybe it's even favorable, you know, it's... - Can you feel kind of bad if you're not dead? (laughing) - Exactly, I do have to say at our national summer gathering called the French General Conference Gathering, there's a worship that's held each afternoon by what used to be called friends for lesbian and gay concerns that is universally reputed to be the most spiritually deep experience of worship that a good number of people experience at the gathering, so. - I don't doubt that a bit I've participated in the gathering, I've participated in their worship services, and I don't doubt that a bit. And further, I think that sense of depth and authenticity is a direct consequence of their rejection that people who have experienced hate and rejection when they have to live with that and deal with that. It's been my experience, their spirituality can be profoundly affected and often in a rich, rich way. This might be one of the unforeseen blessings of rejection that we can, if we permit it, can help us draw deeper insights into the nature of what it means to be human. - Maybe in the same way, the old spirituals that we got from ex-slaves or from slaves that they're so inspirational, so deep to us because they lived in the midst of the real experience. - Yeah. - You know, this is, as I said, in the Friends General Conference, FGC circles, this is kind of a non-issue. I think that the controversy is still very much alive in Friends United meeting. Is there anything you can say about that without getting unrecorded as a minister? (laughs) - I'm in so much trouble, what's one more thing? It is, it's a matter of deep concern, and if you have driven largely, I believe, by the leadership of yearly meetings, which are more traditional, more theologically conservative, I think, with all my heart, that they are under, not only on the wrong side of history, I believe, if I can say this in a tender way, that they are on the wrong side of the divine movement in the world. And I say that openly, I say that often, I feel free to stand and say that whenever I can, and I think one day they will repent of that. Just as Southern Baptists have had to repent for their treatment of blacks, I think it is a less than noble moment in the history of Friends United meeting. I think it is one day we'll regret, and I hope they come to a deeper awareness of homosexuality and its causes, and the virtues that those wonderful people have to bring and have to offer to Quakerism. - And again, I encourage anyone please read these books. If Grace is true and if God is love, Phil Galley and Jim Mahalin wrote them together, and there's so much depth, there's so much intricacy, there's so much searching that goes into it. And your process of self-reflection, that you saw yourself maybe as having been a Pharisee in the way you approached God's promises, God's law. So I just say there's so much in there that everyone deserves to read, even if you disagree with it, because we can only touch the highest points of it here in this discussion today. You described something in an interesting way because it's not the way I usually hear people approach this. You said that your theological belief, your increasing belief in universal salvation and the clarity that you got about that, that it tempered your political views. And I find so much that people associate with a church that matches their political belief, and then maybe the theological stuff will come along. Did it really happen in that direction for you? You got the theological belief, and then the political view started changing as you felt that deep within you? - Yeah, definitely. I just became a lot more intentional and a lot more thoughtful. I've grown up in a, I think it's true for a lot of Midwestern Quakers, even though my family wasn't Quaker, the Republicans were considered the party of Lincoln, and it was almost a moral imperative to embrace that, which I did for many, many years. I am now at the point in my life where I am much more careful about my political affiliations and who I vote for. And I'm less impressed with past affirmations, political parties, and more concerned about what they're doing now and how they're living out their beliefs and what furthermore, the kind of world they aspire to. I tend to be suspicious of political claims and like looking them to the hood. - We'll say. (laughs) But that definitely happened as a consequence of my changing religious beliefs. I don't think anyone political party has a monopoly on morality. I get real concerned when political parties suggest that they do. And my response is, you know, prove it, show me. How will the world you envision and the world to which you aspire and the platform which you follow be a transformative effect and an effect for good in this world? And that's had a definite effect on how I voted and who I listened to. - Or to use a phrase that you use pretty often in If God is Love, would the policies be more gracious, more filled with grace? I love the way you use that. You address so many things in If God is Love about how we could live out a gracious world. One of them you talk about is religion and wealth. And there's a little statistic you toss out there that I was rather aghast at. I'd like you to explain where this statistic comes from, what it's based on. You said in there that we give only 1.8% of our income to charity. Is that true personally? Is that if you give money to the church, does that all count? What does that talking about really? - Yeah, that includes giving to churches. Jim found that statistic and most of the statistical work that is done in the book came from Barnat Polls which we were able to avail from their resource banks of course, their polls over the years and Gallup Polls. But that seems to be, that seems to be the case. This is the myth of American generosity that we don't give as much as we think we do. And interestingly, the less we make, the more we give. That is the higher percentage of our income we give, which I found to be rather disturbing. - You know, one of the critiques that I have, I guess criticisms I have of liberal religion, is I think that perhaps we give even less percentage wise than the so-called, you know, the people from the red states, the horrific, fundamentalist, the people that are demonized very often from the liberal side. That the conservatives are really much more generous and maybe that 1.8 reflects too many of us liberals out there. - Yeah, that is odd and I tell you, Jim Mullall and my co-author has been a real instrumental help to me in this matter because I grew up Catholic. So I was never taught about tithing. It just wasn't discussed. Consequently, you'd have these huge numbers of people gather every Saturday morning but effectively do very little because the church never had any resources. When I met Jim, he really began to challenge me about how I used my wealth. And he was an American Baptist at the time but really began to challenge me about simplicity. Saying, you know, you Quakers, you're supposed to live simply. He especially started dogging me after my book started selling well. He said, you have to be careful to not let your standard of living increase with your wealth, with your income. And I thought that was crazy. I thought, well, of course, that's the point of working hard so that your standard of living can increase. And Jim really challenged me about that and really urged me to give it generously as I could. I probably don't give as much as Jim thinks I should but I do try. And my wife has been good about this too to really make sure that the wealth that we have put a good use toward causes and toward persons who either need help or who are articulating a message or a mission that is compatible with our sense of what it means to be a person of faith and what it means to be gracious. Well, you do such a good job of talking about graciousness in your books and I love specifically how you address it in your harmony books. Can I have you back another time to talk about front porch tales and harmony? Oh, I would enjoy that. I've grown very fond of that little town. Found it in my mind. Well, I thank you for taking the time with me today. And before I hang up while the rest of our listeners are not listening anymore, let's make a date and talk again. And the brave and with such high integrity, the way that you talk about all these theological and really practical aspects of life that if God is real, if grace is true, have been so powerful for me and I know for so many people. So thank you for that work. Thank you, Mark. That was my spirit and action guest, Phil Gully. You can track him down by his website, philipgully.org, or simply follow the links from my own northern spirit radio.org website. The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World," performed by Sarah Thompson. This spirit and action program is an effort of Northern spirit radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit and action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. ♪ I'm really ♪