Angry Conversations with God: Interview w/Hollywood actress Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs is an author, an actress, a comedian. She's been in a long list of TV shows and movies, including Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. But in addition to her career she's been a woman of faith. She's taken some interesting twists and turns on her search for God and those show up in her intriguing book, Angry Conversations With God. In it, she takes God to couple's counseling so they can work through some issues.

One reviewer put it like this: God in couples counseling? Sounds sacrilegious, but in the adept hands of comedian, writer and actress Isaacs, it’s a success. Isaacs moves easily between recounting her life story and her counseling sessions ... Isaacs readily admits to being snarky, but she’s honest about her quest and its conclusion: “I saw now all too clearly why I had married God: for the power and the glory. For the money.” Isaacs goes on a Job-like search for explanations from God, but instead finds the problem to be her.

As I read Susan's book I ranged from laughter to a raised eyebrow (did she really just say that?) to moments of clarity where truth, cloaked in humor, zinged me. It's a great book and interviewing Susan was just as interesting.

Suzie Eller: Hi Susan, thanks for joining us on Christian Momlogic. In this book you took God to couples counseling. How did the counseling session help your relationship with God?

Susan Isaacs: Many of us have been encouraged to view God in an intimate way: as our husband, as the lover of our soul, as the silent, invisible partner who's guiding us along in life. I did that, but I also imbued him with personality traits that weren't necessarily his. I anticipated how he'd react to my success, my failure, my longing ... based on authority figures in my life or based on biblical ideas I'd twisted around.

Taking God to counseling forced me to verbalize, out loud, that "god" in my head. Turned out he was a drill sergeant jerk, profoundly disappointed and annoyed with me most of the time. And Jesus was a really sweet wimp -- he cared about me but didn't do anything to help. Taking God to counseling forced me to realize my ideas about God had gotten tweaked. "He" had to change and start aligning with the God in the Bible, or he was 'out.'

SE: Did you discover anything about yourself in the process?

SI: Oh, what DIDN'T I discover about myself. Very painful discoveries. ... Of course I knew I'd given God and Jesus personality traits that weren't theirs. I had to realize how much I'd fashioned my faith according to my own convenience ... It's convenient to turn God into a jerk ... Because then you don't really have to take him seriously! But if he really DOES love you and wants the best for you, then you have to take him seriously. Ultimately I realized that if this was indeed a marriage, then I'd 'married' God for his money -- what he could do for me. I was a spiritual gold digger. Not a pretty realization.

SE: In your counseling sessions, you like Jesus but are pretty angry with God. Why was God getting the bad rap?

SI: It was a combination of cultural stereotypes and what was modeled to me as a child. Our culture pegs God the Father as the vengeful, Old Testament God (even though there's lots on the OT about God's redeeming, tender love) and Jesus as Tender Jesus, meek and mild (even though Jesus was plenty dangerous and he pissed a lot of people off). I did the same thing. I gave God all my negative, judgmental emotions and Jesus all of my positive, non-confrontational emotions. I turned them into the Good Cop, Bad Cop.

(A note about God being judgmental: I thought it was ironic last fall, when those greedy Wall Street CEOs got million dollar bonuses. We all went ballistic and demanded justice, even vengeance. Yet we think God is horrible if he dares to pass judgment. We've tried to eliminate good and evil in our society so we can go and do what we please and we sure don't want a judgmental God. And yet when evil happens we rise up and demand justice. We've kind of tied God's hands).

SE: God says to you (page 96) "sarcasm is a viable form of communication". I loved that line. Are you using sarcasm to point out deeper issues that many people struggle with?

SI: Absolutely! Think of all the great comedy and social commentary we've seen on Saturday Night Live, All In The Family, MASH .. Even in "The Office" or "Extras (BBC). Look at Mark Twain, Samuel Johnson, Steve Martin, Ricky Gervais, Eddie Izzard. Sarcasm is definitely a great form of communication. It catches us off-guard and makes us look at ourselves.

The American church knows how to communicate through logic, sincerity, fervor, righteous indignation. But we don't know the power of sarcasm and irony. We read every jot and tiddle in the Bible with so much reverence, that we overlook the humor or the irony. What about when Elijah taunts the prophets of Baal, "Where's your God now? Is he asleep? Is he off relieving himself?" or when Job respond to his accusers with, "Oh, so the book of knowledge ends with YOU, huh?" or even when God responds to Job very sarcastically, "Where were YOU when I separated the water from the land?"

DOH! When the man born blind is healed by Jesus and the Pharisees grill him, the guy turns into a real smart aleck. It's fantastic!

SE: You are (brutally) honest about the flawed people in the church. Sometimes it was hard to read, and at the same time I could put a face (sometimes mine) with your prose. But you also said that God used many of those flawed people to show you Jesus. Are you one of those flawed people, and how do you hope to use Angry Conversations to show people Jesus?

SI: There's a rule in comedy: "never make fun of a group of which you are not a member." By chronicling the church's flaws, I wanted to admit what the church has done, admit what I MYSELF have done, so people who've been hurt wont' feel alone. But I also wanted to highlight the good, the beautiful, the true, in each of those churches.

I am most definitely one of those flawed people! I learned an important lesson working for a pastor who was filled with holes: he was "just a guy." We are all "just a guy." I hope that those who read my book will stop and differentiate between flawed people and institutions, and the real Jesus. Flaws aren't exclusive to the church. They're everywhere in human nature: in families, in relationships, in every organization from PETA to the Girl Scouts to the Screen Actors Guild to Congress.

It's not the church's fault, it's not God's fault. It's OUR fault. It's our responsibility to own our flaws and move on.

SE: I want to thank you for taking the time to interview. I really loved the book. What are you doing now? And how can people connect with you or buy your book?

SI: Thank you, I'm so glad you connected with the book! I've got a few things going. First I'm very excited to report that I'll be going on tour with Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz! He's promoting his upcoming book, "A Million Miles in A Thousand Years," and I'll be his opening act ... Kinda like the Christian literary equivalent of opening for U2!

Also, Angry Conversations was a solo show before it was a book. I'm now reworking the solo show, and after The Don tour I'll tour my solo show.

If readers want to find out about the Book tour or my subsequent solo show tour, they can join the ACwG facebook group: http://bit.ly/c9Vro or visit the book website www.angryconvos.com or my website. I'll keep that information online.

Thanks Suzie, it's a pleasure to have your time!

SE: I hope you will check out Susan's website and I really encourage you to buy the book!