Preventing Grace
Jesus contemplating Hollis’ heavenly vision in amazement with just a hint of horror.
I’m over at the Christian Research Institute today with that piece on Rachel Hollis I’ve been moaning about all these months. Here is the article, and here is the podcast wherein I exclaim in wonder over her very strange view of the afterlife. Here’s a taste to get you to click:
The active search for temporal happiness is the drum beat of her conferences and the bulk of the examples in her books. Aim high in your financial goals because being poor is stressful. Shape your body through diet and exercise because being overweight is unhealthy and you won’t be happy about yourself. Seek out people who will help and encourage you on your quest to become a better version of yourself because you need help on your way. You have no reason to settle for unhappiness, which, she hastens to qualify, means “discontented, unsettled, frustrated, angry — any number of emotions that make us want to hide from our lives instead of embracing them with arms wide open like a Creed song. Because happy people — the ones who are enjoying their lives 90 percent of the time—do exist. You’ve seen them. In fact, you’re reading a book written by one right now.”5
Indeed, happiness — defined by you — is an obligation you owe to yourself. As you cope with the lies that have held you back, you may turn your attention to what Hollis calls your “What if.” She writes, “That what if? That’s your potential knocking on the door of your heart and begging it to find the courage to override all the fear in your head. That what if is there for a reason. That what if is your guidepost. That what if tells you where to focus next” (emphasis in original).6 The “what if” is not just a useful tool for clarifying your desires, it is the key to unlocking the unique potential you are morally obligated to enact not just because you owe it to yourself, but because the world is impoverished without you.
Embrace Your “What If”
Hollis nowhere claims to be a theologian, but when she writes and speaks about human potential, her voice takes on a religious fervor. In Girl, Stop Apologizing she explains, “Our potential — the potential that resides in every single one of us — is our gift from our creator. What you do with that potential is your gift back to the rest of the world. The worst thing I can imagine is that you might die with that potential still untapped inside of you.”7 Discovering that gift and then exploiting it is the key not just to earthly happiness, her promise extends to the life to come. In a podcast episode with Ed Mylett, the two discuss what it will be like to die and go to heaven. Mylett explains, with the murmured assent of Hollis…
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