[Act Now] The future of truth and justice is at stake. Donate

Crooked Little Faith

Not long ago, my loving mother played an old cassette tape for some friends of mine, exposing one of my best-kept childhood secrets: I was once a 6-year-old evangelist wannabe.

I was Southern Baptist when I was little, with the accent to prove it. My father’s tape recorder served as both devoted congregation and patient baby-sitter. For two whole sides of that tape, I sang, I clapped, I gave my theological interpretation of Romans 6:23. I seemed to have a grasp on sin. But I knew about faith, too, changing the verse to call Jesus "my" Lord instead of "our" Lord. Apparently, I hadn’t yet found any scripture references to sharing.

Once I recovered from my embarrassment, I listened to the tape intently, surprised, trying to remember that little girl with the huge conviction. Lately my faith resembled a dried mudpie left in the sun too long: misshapen and lumpy, full of cracks and crumbling away at the edges. That’s about the time I heard lyrics by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in." I wanted to believe him.

Then I found Anne Lamott, a writer who calls that lyric one of her favorite theological lines ever written. This is a woman who knows cracks and who will tell you about them. She seems trustworthy enough; she is a 44-year-old white woman with dreadlocks who worries about her thighs. And she talks about loving Jesus as freely and fiercely as my 6-year-old self did.

"I may be giving myself such airs, but I think that I’m supposed to spread the word of the gospel," she says. "I think that my work as a writer is of no cosmic importance except that I can spread the word of God’s love and salvation." Anne Lamott is just brave, or foolhardy, enough to call herself a Christian evangelist.

Read the Full Article

Sojourners Magazine May-June 1999
To continue reading this article — and get full access to all our magazine content — subscribe now for as little as $4.95. Your subscription helps sustain our nonprofit journalism and allows us to pay authors for their terrific work! Thank you for your support.
Subscribe Now!