Part 2 of Honolulu, Whores, and a Hallowed Moment: Whatever Became of Agnes?

This is the conclusion to the story from my previous blog about Tony Campolo throwing a birthday party for a prostitute at a diner in Hawaii...

A lot of people want to know what happened to Agnes?

Tony became friends with Harry and Jan from that night forward, and keeps in touch with them and whenever he returns to Hawaii.

Campolo continues: “Agnes gave up the streetwalking life shortly after that time. She ended up going to work at that diner. And she, Harry and Jan have turned that diner into a place where people come for help day and night. The word is around town: if you’re in trouble, go to that little restaurant…the people there will listen to you, talk with you, and help you if they can.

After that event, I was at Linfield College, a conservative Baptist college that’s related to Jesus somehow in Oregon to speak at their spiritual emphasis week—you know…“Be Kind to God Week.” It was Feb. 25^th—easy to remember the date because it’s my birthday. The place was decorated with balloons, streamers, banners, and there was a sign that said:

“Happy Birthday, Tony!”

-Agnes (your friend from Honolulu)

She had somehow found out when my birthday was, where I would be on that date, and contacted some officials and students at the college and set this up for me.

This account says a lot of good things. First of all, it says something about prostitutes. It says you can’t judge people superficially. Agnes is one of the good people…kind, caring, and thoughtful. When all the other prostitutes show up it’s because she’s been so good and kind. And when I prayed I asked that God would deliver her from what dirty, filthy men had done to her…making another point that all sociologists knows: that generally every prostitute is somebody who got messed over at the age of ten, eleven, or twelve. When I share this story I always make it clear that Agnes was not an evil person, but she was a victim.

When I tell the story and I say, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning” and people laugh, it sets me up for the line: “that’s exactly the kind of church that Jesus came to create.” And I always add, “I don’t know where we got this other one that is half country club.” Down deep inside everybody knows that’s true.

The reason why this story clicks is very simple—it does what Jesus does. It takes Christianity outside of a religious institution—we’re outside of the church—outside of the stranglehold of the religious environment. Once you get the truth of God out of the church, and come up with its bare realities, its impact of loving care rings true to people.

I find that people don’t reject Jesus—they reject the religious institution that is presenting Jesus. If we can just get Jesus out of the institution and into the real world situations, if we can just get rid of the trappings, it comes alive for all of us. That’s what Jesus did in his day. He took the truths of the Torah, most everything that He taught was already in the Jewish Bible—but He takes all of that stuff out of the religious institution and puts it on the street where people live. When that happens, everyone says, “Yes!” Because they agree with the truth. They do not agree with these structures that have hidden the truth, or smothered the truth--that are into a lot of money-making on many occasions. They just don’t seem valid valid. But remove Jesus from “the church,” and people are drawn to Him.

I go to the book of First John—this cuts it down to the bottom line: “God is love.” We all know that verse. I don’t think many people know the verse that comes right after that. “And whoever loves is born of God.” And there is a sense in Agnes’s story that all those prostitutes who showed up that night, and Harry and Jan who ran the diner—that they all were expressing the love of God. Some will ask, “Well do they theologically agree and believe this doctrine, or live by these creeds, or confess in such and such way?” My response is to point to those verses: “God is love, and whoever loves is born of God,” and that’s what I want people to carry away from this story.

This true story was adapted into a short film called The Least of These, which won 27 film festival awards. The link on how to find out more about it is below.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/movies/reviews/2004/leastofthese.html

More Five Star Reviews on Embracing the Gray

The kind and insightful reviews of my book, Embracing the Gray: A Wing, A Prayer, and a Doubter’s Resolve (Wheatmark Press), continue to come in via Amazon.com. To this point, of the seventy reviews that have come in, 97% of the reviews have been “Five Stars” (with the other 3% being” Four Stars”). Here are four more recent entries:

So, here's the thing...the little I've come to know...

1. Life persistently offers up more questions than answers.
2. Along this rutted and circuitous course, we laugh, cry, praise, curse, believe, doubt, rise and fall. Through it all, it's best to have some good music playing.
3. Critical lessons DO present themselves, on occasion. Often from the least expected places.
4. At times, the ground is so parched that just one more crack might make it appear smooth, and no amount of fancy dancing seems able to inveigle the rain. Other times...well, when it rains, it pours.
5. Who is your brother? Everyone. Who is your sister? See the previous answer. Who is your mother? ('You see where I'm going with this?)
6. We have stories. It's worth it to tell them. They're of even greater value when told well.

Mark Hollingsworth gets all of the above. And more. YOU'D be well advised to get this book. Embracing the Gray: A Wing, a Prayer, and a Doubter's Resolve is an inspiring thing of beauty. -P.M.


A scenic tour of a remarkable life. Well, first of all, don't be confused by the title. This isn't about a man who loves the South or the Confederacy. Nor is it about West Point. This is a series of vignettes of Mark Hollingsworth's life that are sometimes humorous, sometimes touching, and sometimes tragic. Although written from a Christian perspective, the book is not preachy nor does it attempt to convert anyone. Rather, each chapter gives insight into his own physical and spiritual journey. Mark is a masterful storyteller. You will want to pick up this book for your summer vacation trips. -C.S.


Embracing the Gray may be the most honest and open book I have encountered, which made it difficult to put down, even on my vacation. I loved the short, chronological, but powerful vignettes that show an ordinary guy with ordinary struggles-who holds on to an extraordinary God (even when it gets hard). Mark has also done some very cool things, which also makes this a fun read, but He shares those stories in a way that doesn't sound like a know-it-all braggart. If you have it all together, you will like this book. If you don't (like me), you will love the adventure of Embracing the Gray!!! -J.B.


Embracing the Gray captures that same bittersweet sense that we are all made for a world better than the one in which we currently find ourselves. Mark's stories and reflections inspire us to not look at people as if they are only flesh and bone, to not consider anyone or any circumstance beyond redemption, and to constantly look for those transcendent moments of eternity that we glimpse in a well-crafted lyric, a lover's kiss, or the passing of a parent. I read Embracing the Gray through in a day, but parts of Mark's story stuck with me for months. I commend this honest, poignant, joyful book to you. -V.W


I continue to be humbled by these thoughtful words. And equally excited that the book is connecting with so many others. If you would like to read more reviews, or write one of your own, or order a copy (now available in Kindle format as well) go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Embracing-Gray-Prayer-Doubters-Resolve/dp/160494417X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

-or-

http://www.wheatmark.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=9781604944174&Category_Code=

-or-

Contact me directly if you would like to purchase a signed copy. : )

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it," and other quotes from Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from her. Let me know which ones resonate with you.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

Anyone who survives childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life.

Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.

I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.

We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.

There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.

If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.

Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.

Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.

When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.

Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.

Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.

I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.

I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.

Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.

I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.

The greatest dramas naturally involve the salvation or loss of the soul. Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama.

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

More next week. Any thoughts on these now?