My Beautiful Idol by Pete Gall我的美丽偶像，由Pete胆

I f fourth century saint Augustine ever met up in a dark alley with twenty-first century author Donald Miller… and then instead of coming to blows, they skipped hand in hand to the nearest pub…and then it was decided upon to sit down over a pint and share their stories with one another…and then somehow they self-published their collaborative journey only to see it picked up by Zondervan and spread to eager bloggers—the result would be awkwardly similar to Pete Gall’s spiritual memoir i f四分之一世纪的圣奥古斯丁以往任何时候都会面，在一个黑暗的胡同与二十一世纪的作者唐纳德米勒…然后不是来打击，他们跳手到就近的酒吧…然后，它决定后，坐下来超过一品脱和分享他们的故事与一的另一个…然后在某种程度上，他们自己出版了他们的合作之旅，只看到它拾起由zondervan ，并蔓延到急于博客-其结果将是笨拙类似皮特胆的精神回忆录 My Beautiful Idol 我的美丽的偶像 . 。

And if you think my intro was a bit scattered, just wait till you get your hands on a copy of the book, where the journey goes from the tempting delicacies of the corporate Chicago landscape to the spiritual violence done at a half-way house in Colorado. 如果你认为我的介绍是有点分散，只是等到你得到你的手就一本书，那里的旅程从诱人的佳肴，该公司在芝加哥的景观，以精神暴力在中途宿舍在科罗拉多州。 Gall has a knack for robbing any sense of control from the reader without taking it so far that the pages stop being turned. 胆，有一个诀窍劫任何意识，控制从读者没有考虑到那么远认为，页面停止被拒绝。 His prose shoves the reader forward, even when the first paragraph of the next chapter seems to hardly connect with the last. 他的散文shoves读者提出，即使当第一段下一章似乎难以连接，与去年。 You’re just along for the ride, manning shotgun with Gall as he encounters a populace he couldn’t possibly make up such as Critter; “the thirty-year old Cajun grade school dropout pedophile” and Hungarian Vince; “whose second-biggest disability is that he doesn’t quite look retarded.” But the last thing you would want on this ride is for the safety locks to be disengaged because somewhere along the voyage, Gall has begun to read your mail. 您刚才一直为坐，曼宁鸟枪与胆，因为他遇到的民众，他不可能弥补，如critter ; “ 30岁的cajun年级辍学pedophile ”和匈牙利文斯; “ ，其第二大残疾是，他并不很期待迟钝“ ，但最后一件事，你会希望在这坐的是安全锁，要脱离，因为某处沿线的航程，胆，已开始阅读邮件。 You see a glimmer of yourself in his tale of idolatry and being the “nice guy” for all the wrong reasons and you must read on to find some sense of hope for your own self constructed hiding place. 你看到了一线希望自己在他的故事，偶像崇拜和作为“好人”为所有错误的原因，和您必须阅读上找到一些责任感，希望为您的自身建设藏身之地。

But back to original metaphor… 但回到原来的隐喻…

It’s Pete Gall’s absolute honesty that brings Augustine into the frame. 它的皮特胆的绝对诚实，使奥古斯丁到帧。 At times he’s self-deprecating. 有时，他的自我deprecating 。 Like Augustine’s 像奥古斯丁的 Confessions 招供 , much of My Beautiful Idol is the journey of one man who desperately wants to be all God’s, but enjoys the few toes and fingers still reserved for the self. ， 我很多美丽的偶像是的征途上，一名男子谁迫切希望得到所有上帝的，但享有数脚趾和手指仍预留作自我。 The symptoms are different, but the disease is the same. 症状不同，但疾病是相同的。 For Augustine, the pleasures of sex and lust were a little too fun to give up just yet. 为奥古斯丁，乐趣性别和欲望是一个有点太好玩放弃刚才还。 For Gall, it was faking the part of being the “tremendous man of God.” He’s that “nice guy” who manipulatively, yet secretly, wants everyone to notice how pleasant he really is. 为胆，这是假的部分，作为“巨大的男子上帝” ，他的“好人”谁manipulatively ，但秘密，希望大家预告，如何愉快，他真的是。 Both as a successful brand strategist and as an inauspicious non-profit engineer, Gall was merely looking to be defined by how much love he could suck from those around him. 作为一个成功的品牌战略家和作为一个不吉利的非营利性工程师，胆，只是看加以界定多少爱，他可以吸吮从这些身边。 He was wading through life, attaching little trinkets to his shell like the collector crab (a metaphor that encompasses the entire book). 他涉水通过的生活，重视小饰物，以他的壳一样，收藏家蟹（一种隐喻涵盖了整本书） 。 God becomes our own personal brand that we slap on to hide from the “squids” in our lives. 上帝成为我们自己的个人品牌，我们打就隐藏从“鱿鱼”在我们的生活。 “And so long as we remain uneaten, it feels like it’s working.”(19) The problem with these hiding places is that “they’re more like prisons than protection.”(43) “只要我们保持”对此，感觉就像它的工作“ 。 （ 19 ）的问题，与这些藏匿的地方是， ”他们更象监狱大于保护“ 。 （ 43 ）

In Donald Miller fashion , the offhand and imaginative writing style of My Beautiful Idol is sure to agitate its fair share. 在唐纳德米勒时装， offhand和富有想象力的写作风格， 我美丽的偶像是一定要鼓吹其公平的份额。 In the process of deconstructing a false sense of self before an all loving God, Pete Gall also deconstructs some camouflage that many Christians will cling to such as the local church—“I’d feel better about selling motherhood to a teenager than church to a person looking for God.”(33) and the suburbs— “Zionsville…is proof to me that there was a reason we were kicked out of the garden.”(53) Being currently enrolled at Bethel Seminary, the author’s critique of seminaries as places that are more likely to mold salespeople than witnesses was hard to read. 在这一过程中解构虚假的意识，自我之前所有热爱上帝，皮特胆，也解构了一些伪装，许多基督徒将固守等地方教会- “我要感觉更好出售孕产到少年，比教会一个人在寻找上帝“ （ 33岁）和郊区- ” zionsville … …是证据，我认为有一个原因，我们被赶出的花园“ （ 53岁）被目前就读于伯特利神学院，作者的批判作为神的地方，更有可能塑造的销售比证人是难以阅读。 And it will only be a matter of time before Christian watchdogs will be all over Gall for comparing a genuine experience of God with his early days of smoking pot. 它将只是一个时间的问题之前，基督教看门狗将所有超过胆，比较真正的经验，上帝与他的早年吸烟锅。 But the readers need to heed the end of the story before jumping to conclusions. 但读者需要听取完这个故事的前跳到结论。 Gall comes to embrace the church as the terribly flawed, but finest alternative God has at His disposal. 胆来拥抱教会作为可怕的缺陷，但最优秀的替代上帝在他的处置。 He treks back to Zionsville to live with his suburban family who demonstrates the real meaning of love at the moment he needed it most. 他treks回到zionsville生活与他的郊区家庭谁体现了真正意义上的爱情在此时，他最需要的。 After roasting seminary, it is Gall who states that seminary professors are some of the most submitted people to God that he’s ever encountered. 焙烧后，神学院，这是胆，谁国神学院教授的一些最提交的人向上帝，他的以往任何时候都遇到。 But many will find it just as easy to pick on the parts of Beautiful Idol that upset our worldviews while disregarding the counsel that we “don’t get to decide who Jesus is.” (120) 但很多人会觉得一样易于操作的选择上的部分， 美丽的偶像破坏我们的世界观，而不顾律师说，我们“不要来决定谁是耶稣” （ 120 ）

Pete Gall was seeking a faith… “the sort that can flex and grow and be beautiful without needing me to shine it up and pose it just so.” (11) It is the style of his writing, while leaving numerous questions unanswered, that best captures such a dynamic faith. 皮特胆，正在寻求一种信仰… … “的排序，可以flex和成长，和美丽的，而不需要我照起来，构成它只是如此。 ” （ 11 ） ，这是的作风，他的写作，而留下许多问题没有答案，即最佳捕捉这样一个动态的信仰。 This reviewer can only hope that he too comes to the place where “success in life is not measured by what we achieve, but by what we admit.” (267) 这察只能希望他也来的地方“的成功，在生活中是没有衡量我们实现，但我们承认， ” （ 267 ）

Michael Cline is a co-editor of the Jesus Manifesto.迈克尔cline是一个合作的编辑耶稣宣言。 He considers himself a freelance pastor and and over-employed learner who currently attends Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.他认为自己是一个自由和牧师及以上的就业，学习谁，目前出席伯特利神学院在圣保罗，明尼苏达州。 When not snuggling with his wife, he’s blogging at当不snuggling与他的妻子，他的博客在 www.reclinerramblings.blogspot.com

for further reading .为进一步读。 . 。 . 。

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