Out of the Wardrobe: A Personal Odyssey Toward Bold Thinking Faith

By Michael Phillips

The acclaimed Christian author shares his spiritual and intellectual journey away from received dogmas and toward a personal relationship with God.

“When I began writing, I recognized that God’s primary call on my life was to speak through my writing to Christians. That call was to challenge readers to think beyond formula-faith. I desired to present no new formulas, but to point to the deeper truths toward which Jesus persistently urged his disciples about his Father. It was a call directed as much toward myself as anyone else.”

Novelist and devotional author Michael Phillips takes the reader on a personal journey of faith, chronicling his quest to move beyond learned formulas of belief to an intimate knowledge of God’s Fatherhood. The Salvation Conundrum, the Hell Conundrum, and the Cross Conundrum all came under Phillips’ scrutiny as he learned what it means to be a bold thinking Christian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780795350696

Michael Phillips

Professor Mike Phillips has a BSc in Civil Engineering, an MSc in Environmental Management and a PhD in Coastal Processes and Geomorphology, which he has used in an interdisciplinary way to assess current challenges of living and working on the coast. He is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation, Enterprise and Commercialisation) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and also leads their Coastal and Marine Research Group. Professor Phillips' research expertise includes coastal processes, morphological change and adaptation to climate change and sea level rise, and this has informed his engagement in the policy arena. He has given many key note speeches, presented at many major international conferences and evaluated various international and national coastal research projects. Consultancy contracts include beach monitoring for the development of the Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay, assessing beach processes and evolution at Fairbourne (one of the case studies in this book), beach replenishment issues, and techniques to monitor underwater sediment movement to inform beach management. Funded interdisciplinary research projects have included adaptation strategies in response to climate change and underwater sensor networks. He has published >100 academic articles and in 2010 organised a session on Coastal Tourism and Climate Change at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in his role as a member of the Climate, Oceans and Security Working Group of the UNEP Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands. He has successfully supervised many PhD students, and as well as research students in his own University, advises PhD students for overseas universities. These currently include the University of KwaZuluNatal, Durban, University of Technology, Mauritius and University of Aveiro, Portugal. Professor Phillips has been a Trustee/Director of the US Coastal Education and Research Foundation (CERF) since 2011 and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Coastal Research. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Victoria, British Columbia and Visiting Professor at the University Centre of the Westfjords. He was an expert advisor for the Portuguese FCT Adaptaria (coastal adaptation to climate change) and Smartparks (planning marine conservation areas) projects and his contributions to coastal and ocean policies included: the Rio +20 World Summit, Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands; UNESCO; EU Maritime Spatial Planning; and Welsh Government Policy on Marine Aggregate Dredging. Past contributions to research agendas include the German Cluster of Excellence in Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) and the Portuguese Department of Science and Technology.

Book preview

Out of the

Wardrobe

Michael Phillips

Out of the Wardrobe

Copyright © 2017 by Michael Phillips

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Electronic edition published 2017 by RosettaBooks

ISBN (Kindle): 978-0-7953-5069-6

www.RosettaBooks.com

DEDICATION

To you, my dear friends . . .

companions in my life, fellow sojourners in the eternal pilgrimage who have been knit with me in the love of shared brotherhood. You have been and always will remain dear to my heart. I thank God for the spiritual treasure of your friendship. You have enriched my journey.

We are all travelers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world . . . and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many.

We travel, indeed, to find them.

They are the end and reward of life.

They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for them in every corner.

The public is but a generous patron who defrays the postage . . . Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his—friends?

—Robert Lewis Stevenson

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction: A New Year’s Greeting

1. Early Directions and Quandaries

2. How Beliefs Develop

3. The Salvation Conundrum

4. Tongues and False Doctrines

5. The Unity Conundrum

6. Moving Beyond Formula

7. Out of the Wardrobe

8. No Tame Lion

9. Who is the God We Worship?

10. The Cross Conundrum

11. God’s Eternal Symphony

12. Bold Thinking Faith

13. Character Persuades

14. The Quiet Quest Continues

FOREWORD

I originally wrote the contents of this small booklet exactly ten years ago as a letter to family and friends. When I began on the first day of the year, I had no idea how long it would turn out to be (obviously long for a letter, not so much for a book) or in what directions it would go. I did not finish that day because it quickly took on a life of its own, and indeed became much longer than I envisioned. I don’t know why I should be surprised—everything I write turns out longer than I envision!

It was in many respects a transition time in my life. I had recently completed my last book for Bethany. Though I did not know it at the time, I would not publish with them again for almost ten years. I envisioned taking a brief writing hiatus, but it turned out to last longer than I would have wished. At the time we were also contemplating whether or not to continue with Leben. The magazine had helped solidify my comfort level communicating on probing non-fiction ideas. I was feeling increasingly at ease addressing theological and scriptural topics. However, the magazine itself did not seem to be resonating with more than a couple dozen faithful individuals and was costing us a lot of money.

My mother had died three years before. Judy’s parents were reaching the end of their lives. I had just turned sixty. I found myself reflecting on many things.

Part of it was motivated by a growing need I felt to explain myself, if that is the expression I want. As my beliefs had deepened, expanded, and matured, I had increasingly allowed some of my unconventional perspectives (which for years I had zealously tried to keep from intruding into my writings) occasionally to find expression. Leben was obviously pivotal in this. All four of the 2006 issues focused on George MacDonald and universal reconciliation. It doesn’t get much more unconventional than that.

Through the years I knew that people had questions about my beliefs, especially the elephant in the doctrinal tent—the great boogieman of universalism (so-called, though not a very useful term in many ways.) And though Leben would never have been read by anyone at Bethany or even most of my friends, I was aware that a general perception was floating about that I didn’t exactly fit the evangelical mold. I had kept these things mostly to myself through my years, except in a few writings, and did not talk about them except when asked. A huge volume of correspondence had developed by that time with people who wrote asking penetrating questions about MacDonald’s theological perspectives. In letters I felt a freedom to be completely unbridled in responding to hungry truth seekers. But in my personal and daily relationships, I rarely talked about doctrine and theology for fear of rousing controversy and debate. Yet now I felt the time had come, in a sense, to set the record straight about who I was, what I believed, why I had come to hold some unconventional perspectives, and where I saw myself as a Christian. I thought that perhaps I owed that to those closest to me

Even though Leben did not intersect with their worlds, I had been gradually running afoul of the doctrinal police at both of my chief publishers for years. The tiniest statement in a novel (sometimes without my even realizing it) could send their editors into a frenzy. One of these publishers had essentially cut me off back in the 1990s because of their (unfounded) suspicions about universalism, though the relationship was resumed briefly in the early 2000s with the American Dreams series. Even then, however, their skepticism remained. Nothing I did or said convinced them that I was being honest in trying to explain my open-minded neutrality on this and other controversial doctrines. One of their top men essentially accused me of lying about my beliefs. The memory of his sarcastic comment stings to this day. This was a man I had been close to. I had stayed in his home with his family when visiting Chicago. I had dedicated a book to him. Yet he didn’t really know my heart at all . . . and didn’t want to. That was the deepest pain of all—that once people began doubting my orthodoxy, they didn’t want to know me. At that point they simply washed their hands of me, and that was that. The pattern repeated itself over and over. Doctrinal correctness was an idol at this company that outweighed everything—even the brotherhood.

And though my primary publisher had generally been more tolerant through the years—evidenced by their publication of the MacDonald books and MacDonald biography—the retirement of their president and managing editor, who had been good friends through the years, signaled a shift that directly impacted my career. The new guard saw their role through a much stricter doctrinal lens. I had had a great run in the 1980s and 1990s, but it now appeared to be over. A minor sentence or two in the final book of the Shenandoah/Carolina series incited angry editorial concern about my doctrine far more virulent than anything I had experienced with this publisher before. I don’t remember the specifics. It was an insignificant passage in my thinking. The offending portion was removed from the manuscript and the ruffled feathers settled down. Some time later I received a five page letter from the new chief editor, outlining the company’s doctrinal position and how I had violated it. The tone addressed me as a spiritual neophyte, as if I was unaware of the basic tenets of evangelical doctrine. It was high-handed, critical, almost pompous, and altogether patronizing and condescending. I felt like a boy taken out to the spiritual woodshed. This was after a thirty year history and seventy books with the company. There was no