It is rumored that the next edition of Webster’s Dictionary will have a picture of Randy Alcorn next to the definition for “gracious”. If the rumor isn’t true, it ought to be.

A couple years ago, Alcorn brokered a bit of a detente between Every Tribe Entertainment and Jason Janz of the Sharper Iron blog after the latter made some slanderous comments and over-generalizations about ETE and its casting of a homosexual actor to portray a Christian missionary in End of the Spear. That Janz reportedly made something of a mea culpa says to me that Alcorn did the right thing. That others — who simply couldn’t let go of the issue — derisively mocked Alcorn’s efforts says even more.

As I wrote back then, “[k]nowing what I do of Randy Alcorn, [his actions are not] at all surprising.” And today I stumbled on another instance of how God is working through this man.

LA Times columnist Joel Stein made his own contribution to those dorky little quotes on the side of Starbucks’ cups:

Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than hell.

Obviously, Stein has a lot to learn about the heaven that the Bible describes. And, unsurprisingly, he got a lot of angry emails about the quote, chastising him for his lack of knowledge. That’s right, boys and girls, ignorance is now a sin; even if professing Christians are responsible, to some degree, for spreading the ignorant thoughts in the first place.

Sadly, it is somewhat surprising that some Christians responded to Stein graciously, seeking to help to correct his error, not just lambaste it. And five people sent him copies of Alcorn’s book, Heaven, in which Alcorn details what Scripture actually does say about heaven. This impressed Stein so much, that he called Alcorn and wrote a column about the experience.

Alcorn, in turn, wrote a post on his blog about the entire experience. Granted, some of it was to clarify and/or refute some inaccuracies that Stein attributed to him in the column. But there is also a lot to be learned from what Alcorn wrote, and I believe that was probably his primary purpose for the post.

When writing about Shelly Migliaccio, who sent Stein an autographed copy of Heaven, and whom he also called, Stein’s column closes by saying:

In Migliaccio’s heaven, the colors are more brilliant, we all have jobs we love, we are free of the lies and horrible stuff she sees on the news. And, at least for the little while we were on the phone, I believed in Migliaccio’s heaven too.

Alcorn notes:

Wouldn’t you expect Joel Stein, whose columns can be crass, cynical and extremely hostile to the Christian faith, would end this column differently? Notice he doesn’t just say for a little while he wanted to believe in Shelly’s view of heaven, but that he actually did. He may not realize it, but he saw Jesus in Shelly, and for a little while, believed, because cynicism melts in His presence.

Whether he realizes it or not, Joel Stein took an irrevocable step that day. Hopefully, God will see to it that it’s one of many steps that eventually makes the real heaven a bit more crowded.

In the meantime, go read Alcorn’s post. And in the slightly longer term, I think that we would all benefit to remember his example of graciousness with others with whom we disagree.