Gerald Sittser
11 min read ⭑
“The entire history of the church is at our disposal. Why confine ourselves to one food? It all belongs to us! And we all belong to Jesus.”
Gerald “Jerry” Sittser is a bestselling author and professor, as well as a former pastor and college chaplain. His nine books flow from his calling to bridge the academy and the church, often taking everyday believers on a journey with him through the inspiring — and sometimes terrifying — history of the church. His latest, Resilient Faith, examines the quiet “third way” many early Christians chose to transform their culture for Jesus.
In this interview, Jerry gets honest about the heartbreaking loss of his wife, young daughter and mother in the same car accident and how God has healed his heart over the decades. He also opens up about the joy he finds in working with wood and dirt, how people can call forth the gifts within us and the books, media and music that draw him closer to God.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
Food is always about more than food; it’s also about home and people and love. So how does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
My wife, Pat, and I have been married for 15 years, although we have known each other far longer. We share five children between us. All are married; all have children. Our tribe now numbers 24.
Our kids scattered, as many do, after college. But four of five moved back to Spokane when the babies started coming. They persuaded us to move across town to live closer to them so we could do life together.
Our side of town boasts a hip grocery store, Huckleberries. The name says it all. It offers a wide variety of organic foods. It also has a bistro. Quirky and diverse, it welcomes every age, every hair color and style, every kind of tattoo (or none at all), every kind of clothing and every food fetish. An old rocker with long white hair often hangs out there.
Pat and I often shop there, too. We’re the conventional people. We also take our kids and grandkids to the bistro for Sunday brunch, as well as occasional breakfasts or lunches during the week. So much so that whoever is at the counter will ask, “Well, Jerry and Pat, who do you have with you today?” Our tribe can create chaos. But the people at the counter always welcome us.
The food is eclectic, the silverware vintage, the chairs and tables worn. It makes me feel like I’m young and cool, living in the big city. Our grandchildren love it. It is our family place because “everybody knows our name.”
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QUESTION #2: REVEAL
What “nonspiritual” activity have you found to be quite spiritual, after all? What quirky proclivity, out-of-the-way interest or unexpected pursuit refreshes your soul?
Pat and I just returned from two weeks in Belgium and the Netherlands. Toward the end of the trip, we visited the villages where my grandparents and other relatives lived until they immigrated to America in the 1890s. Those villages were small, tidy and manicured, with canals, vegetable gardens and flowers everywhere.
I felt the connection. My grandparents imported much of the culture and character of the Netherlands when they moved to America. They passed it on to me.
We returned from the trip to outdoor work. We took some 100 dahlia tubers we stored over the winter and planted them in pots and then, two weeks later, in the ground. I’m now ready to get to my next woodworking project.
I love dirt; I love sawdust; I love creating. Pat does, too, often embroidering at night. There is something about working with hands, sweating under a hot sun and seeing the results of physical labor that makes me feel alive. Benedict required all monks to do physical labor. They grew food, made furniture, raised sheep for wool, sculpted stone, brewed beer. I devoted a chapter of my book “Water from a Deep Well,” which I recently released as a new edition, to the monastic way of life, which was rhythmic, sacramental, physical and creative. For them, the spiritual enveloped and transformed the material. Working in dirt and with wood — touching it, smelling it, shaping it — does that for me.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite and how do you confront its power?
I tend toward heroism. That is one of my weaknesses. There is a kind of superhero embedded in my personality, which ignores the hard fact that I am not one. No one is.
Over the years, I have developed a habit of beginning my morning prayers with this: “God, you’re God, and I’m not. I’m finite and fallen. I’m fragile, flawed, often faithless and foolish and feckless. I’m prone to wander.” When I do wander, it is in the direction of trying to play God. I am very bad at it.
I lost my first wife many years ago. My kids were very young. She was omnicompetent. I did a lot of parenting through her because she was so good at it. Suddenly, I had three young children almost entirely dependent on me. Never have I felt less like a superhero. I was good at my profession. But being a single father? I was lost.
My own incompetence stared me in the face. It still does. But I’m more comfortable with it now. Was I desperate? Did I feel helpless? Most certainly. Looking back, I’m not sure that was a bad thing. Twenty years later, I remarried. Now I find myself a grandfather of 12. I am calmer now. I gaze, delight and cherish all hard-fought disciplines that grew out of the fertile soil of learning how unlike a superhero I am.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
I served as a university professor for many years. During the January term, professors teach only one course, many off-campus, which posed a problem for me as a single parent. I solved the problem by teaching a course at a camp in the Cascades Mountain Range, which allowed me the luxury of taking a young family with me.
The remote setting made it ideal for introducing students to the history and practice of Christian spirituality. We could study, to be sure, but we could also experiment and apply.
Along the way, I discovered the richness of the church’s spiritual past: the desert mothers and fathers, monastic rule and rhythm, mystical silence, Reformation Bible study, medieval sacramentalism, evangelical hymnody. I introduced all this and more to the students. Over time, they met their long-lost spiritual relatives and grew to love them: Macrina the Younger, Abba Macarius, Menno Simons, Fanny Crosby.
The apostle Paul contended with a party spirit in the church in Corinth. Some followed Peter, some Paul, some Apollos. Paul’s answer was simple: “All things are yours!” God has invited us to a banquet. The entire history of the church is at our disposal. Why confine ourselves to one food? It all belongs to us! And we all belong to Jesus.
That experience changed my life. Years later, it led to a book, “Water from a Deep Well,” which came out of the deepest places in me.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Whether we’re cashiers or CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need God’s love flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
No calling and contribution comes out of a vacuum. We are all subject to the influence of a community of people, for good or ill. My sixth-grade teacher called me stupid one day before the entire class. It was a bad day. But I’ve had some good days, too, again due to people.
We have power to call forth gifts in people, and equal power to commend them when people use their gifts. It is what Jesus does for all of us.
I never aspired to be a writer. It happened by accident. Many years ago, Leighton Ford, a key leader in the early neo-evangelical movement, read some of my stuff while visiting the campus at which I served as chaplain. By his own initiative, he wrote to InterVarsity Press about me. That resulted in my first book. His advocacy changed the entire course of my life. He called forth something in me I never knew was there.
I’ve had a few commendations along the way, too, which reminded me I was contributing something of value. I wrote a book on loss many years ago titled “A Grace Disguised.” I’ve received many letters and emails about it from readers. The first was from a mother from New Zealand whose daughter witnessed the death of seven classmates and a teacher in a flash flood. She asked me to write a personal letter to the families of the victims, which she gave to them along with a copy of my book. It was her way of saying, “Jerry, your book is doing good work.”
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
I married at 21. That marriage of two eventually became a family of six, which a car accident reduced to four. Now, our family numbers 24.
I don’t struggle much with anger, bitterness or depression. I’m pretty steady and stable. I do struggle with bewilderment, vexation and sadness. So much of life doesn’t always make sense to me, including the accident. I feel like Joseph after the butler forgot about him once he was restored to his position in the court of Pharaoh. I’m reasonably sure Joseph felt betrayed, not simply by the butler but by God. God had forgotten Joseph, who was left to rot in prison. But Joseph had no idea what was going to happen two years later. Was the wait worth it?
I seek silence. It’s a discipline, to be sure. But it’s more than that. It is pure necessity for me. Sometimes I don’t know what to say to God because of the glorious and terrible mystery of life. I think about the people in my life who are suffering acute distress. I have no idea why. It seems a waste. In many cases, they are young and talented. I think about the troubles in our nation and world. My vexation and sadness force me into silence. I do pray, yes, but only after sitting in silence. If anything, it is the silence that keeps me praying. It clears my head; it attunes me to the God I know in the face of Jesus; it keeps me steady and persistent.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and changed your heart?
Over the years, I have found three sources that focus my energy, inspire my prayers, and keep me going. They carve neural pathways in my brain as deep as the Grand Canyon, down which the river of God’s life flows.
The first is classical music: Dvořak’s New World Symphony, Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto and Borodin’s 2nd String Quartet. After my wife and daughter died, Faure’s Requiem kept me alive for the next two years. That is no exaggeration.
The second is the best Christian writing that has emerged over the centuries. It affects me in two ways. It awakens in me the sense that the Christian movement has remained recognizably the same for some 2,000 years. Read “The So-Called Letter to Diognetus,” written in the second century. It is like exploring a landscape that seems new and alien, and yet discovering along the way that it is the familiar home of our youth. But more, it reminds me that I don’t know it all. I have much to learn, and Christian writers over the centuries have much to teach me, including those who swam in very different streams from mine, which is why, once again, I wrote “Water from a Deep Well.”
The third is contemporary essays in magazines like “The Atlantic,” which help me to think critically and creatively about the very world in which I live.
And I’ll throw in one more for good measure: novels. I always keep a novel going. The one I’m currently reading is Niall Williams’ “Time of the Child.” It reads like a slow-moving river.
Certain things can be godsends, helping us survive, even thrive, in our fast-paced world. Does technology ever help you this way? Has an app ever boosted your spiritual growth? If so, how?
I’m not much of a modern media junky. My appetite trends in the direction of print. Besides, when driving or walking, I relish the silence. My diet is lean, but I digest most of it. I try to keep the diet balanced, too; I avoid the junk food on both right and left. I think I drive the algorithm masters crazy.
I do use two apps with some degree of regularity. One is Lectio 365, which is emerging as a major liturgical source for people, offering morning, midday and evening prayers. The other is “The Rest Is History,” featuring Tom Holland. He knows a lot, but he also knows how to communicate it winsomely and practically. It is about more than names and dates; it is about real people living in a real period of time who did really consequential things.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
My calling has been clear to me for many years. I see myself serving as a bridge between two worlds: the church and the academy. A number of my writing projects have come out of that calling: “A Grace Disguised” (on suffering), “The Will of God as a Way of Life” (on decision-making), “Water from a Deep Well” (the history of Christian spirituality, just released as a new edition), and “Resilient Faith: How the Early Christian “Third Way” Changed the World.” I always draw on the history of the church as a resource.
This last book, “Resilient Faith,” inspired me to write a modern-day “catechumenate,” an adaptation of the early Christian catechumenate, which the church used to train — or better, form — people in the faith. I’m also working on a sequel to “Resilient Faith,” titled “Dominant Faith: How the Church Used—and Abused—Power during the Age of Christendom,” and “What We Can Learn from It.” Yes, the title is too long! I’ll come up with something better if it ever makes its way into print.
Western society has entered into a post-Christendom phase of history. We are having a hard time adjusting to the church’s loss of power. The worst thing we can do is try to reassert it coercively. Such shortcuts never work.
I am persuaded that early Christians have a great deal to teach us because they survived and even thrived before there was a Christendom. They maintained the church’s independence, integrity and unity much better than we seem to be doing, largely because of their radical commitment to Jesus and his kingdom. We are now living among the ruins, as Isaiah 58 tells us; I want to help rebuild from the foundation up.
As Jerry pointed out in his interview, our culture has carved itself up into discrete groups — political, religious and otherwise. Sadly, what the apostle Paul encountered in the Corinthian church is still happening today. Believers are often more eager to assign themselves a label and judge others by their own than they are to dig deep and understand.
But what if being a “good Christian” is less about labels and more about being faithful to the Word of God — the written breath of our Creator — and, in natural extension, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ?
He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The ultimate authority. The beginning and the end. There is no other label by which we must be saved.
Are we willing to live that way?
Gerald Sittser (Ph.D., University of Chicago) has served as a pastor, college chaplain and, most recently, professor emeritus of theology and senior fellow at Whitworth University. He’s written nine books, including A Grace Disguised, Water From a Deep Well and his latest, Resilient Faith. Jerry and his wife Pat live in Spokane, Washington, where they are active in both university and community affairs. He has three children and two stepchildren, all married and on their own.