If God Is Love Don't Be a Jerk

John Pavlovitz came to my awareness a few years back, just in time to meet my social justice sensibilities as we were facing the aftermath of the election of 2016. In him, I saw a kindred spirit. Like me, he is a minister, an author, and a blogger. He had then and continues to have now, a large and growing following for his blog called Stuff That Needs To Be Said. In it, he tips sacred cows and shines the light on some dark subjects. He calls people out, himself included. He says the stuff that others may hesitate to say, for fear of rocking the boat. John seems to be adept at maintaining his sea legs even when the waves cast the ship we are all on, adrift. He is also a pastor and some of his writing and speaking calls his fellow Christians to walk the talk as he believes Jesus would have done. His words are translatable for people of all faiths and none. He is the author of a number of books, including A Bigger Table, Low, Rise, and Stuff That Needs To Be Said. His
clothing line allows people who want to amplify the messages to be walking billboards. I have two shirts that proclaim: “I will always stand on the side of love.” His latest is called If God Is Love Don’t Be A Jerk: Finding A Faith That Makes Us Better Humans.

I was fascinated while watching the interview that Maria Shriver conducted with him on her podcast as the book was being released. Watch and enjoy!

First, how are you feeling? I know you recently experienced a challenging surgery and recovery period.

Yes, last summer I was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor and my surgery was on October first. I am doing incredibly well. My body has responded wonderfully to surgery and my physical recovery is nearly complete. In two weeks, we’ll have blood work and an MRI to determine if any of the tumor still remains, and if so, what our treatment options are. But right now, I’m feeling great. The support and encouragement my family has received from people all over the world has been simply unbelievable. It’s really shown me the reciprocal nature of virtual community.

Who is the man behind the message of love, inclusivity, and social justice?

Hopefully, he is fairly similar to the one you encounter in the writing. Doing any kind of very public work, it can be challenging to stay authentic, to not be swayed by your critics or your cheerleaders and to become someone you aren’t. Every day, I work to make sure that my wife and my children recognize the writer and speaker out there on the platform: that privately and publicly I am fundamentally the same. I aspire to be a human being who cares deeply about people and about the planet, and who wants to use the brief time he has here making the world more compassionate and kind and diverse than when he found it. I am someone who loves music, cooking, art, old movies, comic books, laughter, animals, and nature.

Was there anything in your childhood that would provide clues that you would be engaged in the world wake-up work that you are doing now?

I’m not sure. I imagine you’d have to ask my parents, teachers, friends that! Actually, my mother recently reminded me of a report card that came home with me around third or fourth grade. My teacher (a Catholic nun) had written in the comment section: “John is a very good student, but he finishes his work quickly and disrupts the class with stories and silliness. We often send him to the library, so he won’t be a distraction to his classmates.” I suppose I’ve always been a storyteller and entertainer. In high school I was a musician, playing in bands and writing and recording music. Not long ago, I came across a friend’s dedication in my yearbook that read, “One day the world is going to know your words.” She was talking about songwriting, but it was a nice reminder that moving people with words has been a part of my journey for a long time, connecting emotionally with other human beings. Again, being a storyteller has been there all along. As I grew and had new experiences and widened by knowledge about the world, that storytelling found a purpose.

I heard you speak a few years back for a group of activists in our area, after the election of 2016 and those of us gathered were in a state of mourning, but also determined to make a difference. How do you keep on keepin’ on when it sometimes seems futile?

We keep on, by remembering that stopping simply isn’t an option; that at so many times and places in the past, human beings have faced unthinkable adversity and tremendous suffering, and we are here today because they refused to stop living well and fighting for equity and justice, despite the odds or the cost. We are these people’s legacies. This day is our inheritance. We are here at this place and time in the history of the planet, and to honor those who came before us and prepare for those who will follow, we can’t afford to squander these days.

How do you keep loving when what you may want to do is judge?

I think stories will save us. If I can look at another human being (even if I passionately disagree with them or find something they are doing incredibly damaging) and remember that there is a complex story there, it helps me err on the side of empathy, or at least to stay in a posture of curiosity about them. The greatest danger, is dehumanizing people we don’t like or who feel are our adversaries; to turn them into one-dimensional stereotypes or caricatures because then they are easier to judge or to hate—which is essentially what we find so objectionable in them to begin with.

What was the initial catalyst for your successful blog Stuff That Needs To Be Said?

The blog began very modestly. I started writing nearly a decade ago, simply as a way to reach parents of teenagers in our youth group and other student ministers. I had a few dozen regular readers for a long time, and that was fine with me. I never imagined that the writing would begin to reach outside that little world. Slowly, the blog began to find an audience outside our community. As that happened, I felt the tension between wanting to speak clearly into the world—and not wanting turbulence in my local church with the people I served. I was trying to balance the person I was called to be, with the pastor I was expected to be. I gradually began to couch my words and soften my stances to try and keep a tenuous peace. That all changed on the day of the Sandy Hook shooting. That day, I wrote from a much more emotional, visceral place, not thinking about how the piece might upset people in my church or how it might impact my ministry position. Those words reached an entirely new audience, and I realized I had a responsibility to write and speak with specificity and authenticity. That’s when the audience grew exponentially.

You don’t hesitate to poke the bear, calling out what you see as hypocrisy, especially in the Christian church. Is there trepidation when you put fingers to keyboard and think, ‘do I dare?’ which turns to, ‘oh, what the heck?’

It’s always a matter of asking, “What is my intention here?” and answering that honestly. Am I trying to show someone something they haven’t seen and I believe they need to see—or am I trying to put them on blast? Am I intending to point out a place of possible growth or change—or am I trying to make someone feel like a jerk. One of the central ideas of my latest book is that motives matter. Once I’m clear on why I’m writing, the challenge is to be as eloquent in expressing myself, and letting the reaction be what it will be, especially because you can never really predict that.

Please talk about your latest book, If God Is Love Don’t Be A Jerk.

At the heart of the book is a simple premise: if you’re a person of faith, that faith should make you more compassionate, not less. It should result in you living surrounded by greater diversity, not less variety. It should make you an advocate for more human beings, not fewer. If it doesn’t, then what’s the point? And beyond religious worldview, the book is for people of morality and conscience who know that empathy is the better path and who want communities that tangibly express that empathy.

I like that it is both a treatise and a roadmap for making a difference with actionable ideas. How has it been received?

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I have been overwhelmed by the response to the book. It arrived on October first, just three days after my brain surgery and watching it be so passionately embraced by so many was and is such an encouragement. I think it’s resonating with so many people because of the honesty we spoke about earlier, and also because it’s not a book about theology or politics or issues alone, but that it really operates and the deeper, more fundamental places of fear, grief, and hope that are universal and that transcend—the bedrock stuff of being human.

You have fans and detractors. How do you respond to the naysayers?

It depends on the day! Honestly, having lived and ministered in the church for nearly three decades now, I understand where this toxic theology comes from, the collateral damage to people when they’ve been raised for decades with a perpetually angry God who is out to squash them and other people. I know that their passionate objections to what I’ve written or said is usually far less about them than it is about me. I’m simply forcing them to confront an idea or ask a question that conflicts with the story they’ve told themselves or been taught to be true, about God or religion or privilege or equity. Circling back to the idea of clarifying motives, I do my best to make sure my heart is in a good place, I choose my words with as much care as I can, and rest in that. In many ways, someone else’s anger is none of my business.

Is there anything about this journey that has surprised you?

There have been beautiful and terrible surprises. Doing this work gives me proximity to people’s lives and places me on the front lines of relational and systemic fractures. I’ve come to imagine myself as a collector of stories, a kind of war correspondent. I travel to a new community either physically or virtually and I get into the trenches of life with people. I ask them to tell me what’s happening there on the ground so I can tell the folks back home, so to speak. I listen to those stories and then I try to translate those stories for my readers. Having this kind of access to people shows you human beings’ amazing capacity to both wound and heal. Both never fail to surprise me and fuel my work in different ways.

Who inspires you?

I’m inspired by people in so many different ways: writers, activists, musicians, people whose names you might recognize; those from the past and the present—but most often, inspiration comes from ordinary people living generously, courageously, and compassionately. I am inspired when I see people working in their communities, using their talents and voices and resources for the common good, when I see people existing for people beyond themselves.

How can we set that bigger table as you reference in your book by the same name, when we may feel that others don’t belong there because of their ideologies?

There’s a big difference between being in deep, authentic, interdependent relationship with people—and offering them simple decency. We don’t need to do the former, but the latter is always possible. The heart of the bigger table is not discriminating against them based on an unchangeable part of who they are: their gender, orientation, pigmentation, nation of origin. It is not excluding them based on something elemental about them, about seeing and respecting another’s inherent humanity. That doesn’t have to include abiding hatred or bigotry or being in relationship with someone actively harming us or other people. We can love all people but some we love from a distance.

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Do you have hope for a better world for your children?

I do, because I have hope in them. They reject bigotry and selfishness and hatred, and they have a love for diverse humanity. They know that empathy is the better path and they’re not alone. There is a generation of young people who are more aware of and engaged in the world than ever before. While I sometimes worry about the nation or the world they will inherit, I am encouraged because they and people like them will be there to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.

Anything else you want to share?

Just that life is difficult on its best days. Everyone around you is grieving and exhausted and in need of kindness. Whether you’re a person of faith or not, do something to make this world less difficult for the people around you. Try to help and heal and give and love. Strive to do no harm. Don’t be a jerk.