Will Jesus Buy Me A Double Wide? (and other questions for author Karen Spears Zacharias)

Karen Spears Zacharias has a thing for trailers.  She grew up, found Jesus, fell in love, and even delivered her first child in a trailer.  She recently published her fourth book, Will Jesus Buy Me A Double Wide?, and took time out of her busy book tour schedule to answer that question and share her thoughts on God and money with BWC contributor Sarah Thebarge.

Sarah: Karen, I finished Double Wide tonight.  I read it in one sitting- the stories (and the storyteller) were so compelling, I couldn’t put it down!

Karen:  Sarah, writers sometimes spend years trying to write a book that readers will devour in one sitting. Thanks for investing your time in this book.

Sarah: What was your inspiration for Double Wide – both the project and the title?

Karen:  To be honest, the title was initially intended as a joke, “a laughter through the tears” moment. A couple of years ago, I was traveling from Fort Stewart, Ga., to Fort Benning, Ga. while working on another book, that one about the widows and children from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the daughter of a soldier killed in action, I was overwhelmed with grief.  As I drove through rural Georgia I pronounced that one day I was going to write a funny book and title it, Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublewide?

A year later I read an article about a Georgia couple who won hundreds of millions in the lottery. They attributed their winnings to the goodness of God. I didn’t even know God was the gambling type, so I was both amused and annoyed by the remark. I passed the article, along with the title, to my editor, Andy Meisenheimer at Zondervan, and told him I wanted to write a book addressing that sort of “God Gimme” theology.

Six weeks later, Andy called to tell me he’d sold the book.

“What book?” I asked confused. There was no book. There wasn’t even a draft of a book. There wasn’t nothing more than a title and a bemusing story about a couple who won the lottery.

“The Doublewide book,” Andy said.

Sarah: The book seems particularly relevant now, with so many people concerned about their finances.

Karen:  The book was sold on the basis of the title alone in March 2008. In September, the nation’s economy took a suicidal plunge and what had started out to be a tongue-in-cheek book swiftly morphed into another serious subject matter, albeit, tempered by some very funny stories.

Susan Isaacs jokingly refers to me as the trailer trash Queen. It’s a title I gleefully accept. When you grow up in a 12 by 60 perched on cinder blocks, as I did following my father’s death, you believe that rich people are those people who own the Doublewides.

What defines us as rich is truly a matter of perspective, and the stories in Double-Wide confirm that truth over and over again.

Sarah: If you could sum up the message of Double Wide in a sentence or two, what would you say?

Karen:  The favor of God is not found in the number of cars in our garage or the square-footage of our home — it’s found at the foot of a rough-hewn and bloodied cross. Any theology that suggests material riches are a reflection of God’s favor is simply wrong-headed. That’s Capitalism, not Christianity. When we demand stuff as proof of God’s love, we are in essence saying to Jesus — Your blood isn’t enough. I want more than that.

Sarah: In Double Wide, each chapter is essentially a profile of a person that tells the story of what money and God look like in their life, from a multi-millionaire evangelist to your friend who was dying of breast cancer.  But you refer to them all with titles instead of their names – The Evangelist, The Redhead, The Marine, etc.  Why did you decide to make the subjects of your profiles anonymous?

Karen:  Sarah, we’re friends.

Sarah: Thank you.

Karen:  We’ve talked about some very personal matters, some even intimate, but I don’t have a clue how much money you have in your bank account. I don’t know how much money you make annually. I don’t know which charities you support or the sum of debt you owe. It is considered the height of rudeness to ask another how they’ve spent their money.

It might be telling that in our society we’ll go on national television and discuss the details of our sexual performance, or lack thereof, yet, if our own mothers inquire about our finances, we tell her to mind her own business. Granting people anonymity gave me permission to be the nosy journalist, and it gave the participants a certain freedom to speak to the record about things they would not typically discuss.

Sarah: So your interviewees have the safety of speaking off-the-record.

Karen:  But that’s not why I initially decided to make the subjects of the profiles anonymous. I did it for literary reasons. My friend Sonny Brewer had just written a book, The Widow and the Tree. He’d asked me to read the draft and give him feedback. In his book, Brewer referred to some of his characters by their titles instead of by their names. I loved the way Sonny’s book read so I just borrowed the idea from him. My friends often make me look smarter than I really am, and I love ‘em for that.

Sarah: If I’m not mistaken, Double Wide is your fourth book!?  As an experienced author, have you developed a writing ”process” that you apply to every book project?

Karen:  Yes. Thankfully, being a journalist at a community newspaper taught me all I needed to know about the “writing process.” Chiefly, write everything in a compelling way, get your facts straight and don’t even think about missing your deadline. I’ve found that the best way to do that is sitting down behind a keyboard with a phone nearby, for fact-checking and interview purposes, and keeping lots of fluids on hand to avoid dehydration.

Sarah: What do you think are the biggest errors in the way our culture views God and money?

Karen:  Our concept of God is whacked.  We take Matthew 6: 28-30: Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.  And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you?

Toss that in a saucepan with Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

Add in a cup of John 10:10: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

We let it simmer till it reaches a soft-boil state and before long the mixture has hardened into a Sugar-Daddy God, fashioned by us.

Sarah: That sounds like a pretty convenient recipe.

Karen:  It all works out just great until something in the recipe turns sour: You lose your job and can’t find another. Your home enters foreclosure or you fail to get the promotion you prayed so earnestly for.

Or your child goes off to Haiti on a mission trip and dies in an earthquake.

Or your employee robs you blind or you wake to find all your investments have gone kaput!

Sarah: And then what?

Karen:  There can only be two responses to such a theology:

One, you reason that God has failed to live up to his end of the bargain. He isn’t clothing you the way he did the lilies of the field. He is not giving you the abundant life he promised. He’s completely forgotten about his promise to prosper you. The more you consider all that God has failed to fulfill his part of the bargain the more angry at him you become.

Or two, you reason that the reason God hasn’t kept his promises is because of something you’ve failed to do. You haven’t tithed enough. You haven’t trusted enough. You haven’t stepped out in faith enough. You haven’t proclaimed his name enough. The more you consider all the ways you’ve failed God the more guilty you feel.

Sarah: And you’re not speaking in hypotheticals.  Many Christians are struggling with the guilt this theology creates.

Karen:  I was talking to a friend the other day who teaches a Bible study. She was bemoaning the fact that so many Christian women are either on anti-depressants or some sort of anxiety drug.

Is it any wonder, given our warped view of God, that far too many of us are left feeling either angry, or guilty, or both?

We are missing the abundant life altogether because we’re caught up in a theology of God Gimme instead of Gimme God. There’s a Grand Canyon expanse between Christians seeking God and Christians seeking the stuff Christians like.

Sarah: Do you remember a time in your life when your attitude and perspective on God and materialism changed?

Karen:  Probably the first time I walked into a Wal-Mart store and saw Joel Osteen’s eyes following me from behind the cover of Your Best Life Now. Remember that creepy picture of a Jesus where he looks like some spaced out Grateful Dead groupie? Folks used to say no matter where you stood in a room Jesus’ eyes would follow you. Joel Osteen’s eyes do the same thing. Do you think Osteen’s watching me shop?

Sarah: In a word, Yes.

Karen:  My father was a Staff Sergeant, and any Sergeant worth his weight has a pretty fine-tuned BS detector. I can’t say for sure whether I inherited that or whether it’s learned behavior, but my father’s early death taught me as a young girl the value of a life well-lived. Since age 9, I’ve understood that life is short, far too short to waste it pursuing after plastic and chrome.

While I never want to go back to living in a 12 x 60 with half-a-dozen people the way I did after my father’s death, I understand that my living conditions are not a commentary on God’s love for me.

To suggest that somehow our net worth, or our material possessions are evidence of God’s “Blessings” upon us is to say to Christ, your blood isn’t enough for me. I want more than that.

That’s the height of stupidity and arrogance as far as I’m concerned.

Sarah: You are on your book tour as we speak.  What have been some of the highlights so far?

Karen:  Getting an antibiotic to combat the bronchitis that robbed me of my voice and several nights sleep was certainly one highlight. Seeing the Mardi Gras parade put on by the children of Fairhope, Ala. was another — nothing happier than children with brightly-colored beads.

But I have to say that Moon Pie Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce the book club ladies served was, well, divine.

Sarah: Any thoughts on what your next writing project will be!?

Karen: It’s a true crime titled The Other Side of Wrong.

Sarah: I know you have to get back to your book tour, but can I ask you one more question? Off the record, do you think Jesus will buy ME a double wide?

Karen:  I don’t think Jesus deals in U.S. Currency, Sarah, so no. Besides, it would be a step down from that lovely townhouse you purchased all by your lonesome.