Bat Tucker

Who Is Forming Our Hearts?

We Get to Choose

Are you ready to rebuild your heart and transform your life? In his spiritual book, Bat Tucker challenges you to move beyond surface-level understanding of the Gospels and dive deep into their application. Explore powerful questions like: How can you avoid manipulation? Why is blame so tempting? What drives feelings of despair? Tucker urges you to reflect on why the Church faces resistance and how we can each grow a Christ-like heart.

1. What inspired you to write this book?
   Over time, I saw what was happening to my heart. I was uncomfortable. I saw what was happening to others. We were changing. What was important was changing. What we talk about was changing. I think we all sense it. There has been a troubling shift. Our hearts are being pulled and formation is coming from many new places that weren't around in the last century. I could tell that these new places didn't have my best interests in becoming a better person. They didn't have our best interests to grow in courage to be leaders in developing Christ-like hearts. Slowly, I started to counter what was happening around me. I gently gave others a better path to choose, a better way to speak, a better way to think. The Lord gave me the courage to respond to emails that were infecting and hijacking Christian formation, emails that contained misinformation to form people politically. I became the one who didn't go along with the topics of conversations when a conversation would drift to negative heart formation. I saw the damage that was being done to hearts, to families, to churches, to Christian formation. These changes that are happening to our hearts are in plain sight. Everyone knows there is something wrong. After years of working at change, the push got harder for me to try and reach more people the same way I was pushed to respond to emails, conversations and to Christian formation groups. So I started writing to see if the Holy Spirit really wanted me to get involved. I was hoping He would stop pushing and let me off the hook. I hoped He would pick a better writer. That didn't happen. So, I was inspired by the Holy Spirit incrementally in steps to keep going, to finish the race to help turn the tide in heart formation back to the Gospels.

2. Summarize your book in one to three sentences as if you were speaking to someone unfamiliar with your book and its topic.
   Who do you think is pulling us into a world that has too much heart formation that is coming from opinion news shows, social media, political parties and candidates--the Lord or the evil one? Do you think the Lord is having more success today in forming Christ-like hearts or is the evil one having more success in harming our hearts? This book is a journey in discovering who is having the greatest success in forming our hearts so that we can always choose the holy path versus the path that is controlled too much by our desires for wealth, power, honor and pleasure.

3. What is the overall theme (central topic, subject or concept) of your book?
   The overall theme is heart formation. Good heart formation leads to more love, unity and forgiveness in the world. Bad heart formation leads to the heart growing hard.

4. Where does this book take place?
   This book take place inside us, deep down in our hearts and minds.

5. Who are the main characters and why are they important to the story?
   The main character is the Lord in the trinity along with each of us who are looking to grow our heart and apply the Gospels versus knowing the Gospels but not understading when and where to use them.

6. Why do you think that this book will appeal to readers?
   Because most of us know something is not right and the path we are living today is not leading to real hope. We have too much despair and frustration and anger in our hearts. We are being led to place our hope in politicians who are more interested in holding onto their power and having us hate the other party so that they can use Christians to stay in power. Families are divided. Churches are divided. The political path is divided. Opinion news shows are divided. People want real, visible hope. Journying with the Lord in heart formation is the path to hope and not the despair we see and have been feeling for decades. This isn't a moment in time issue.

7. How is your book relevant in today’s society?
   This book will help the reader determine what kind of soil they are:
   --the path,
   --the rocky soil,
   --the soil with weeds, or
   --the fertile soil that bears fruit in love, unity and forgiveness.

8. Is there any subject currently trending in the news that relates to your book?
   Yep, the news itself especially when it is opinion news that has a purpose to form hearts as progressive, conservative or liberal. These are not holy platforms. Opinion news shows and social media are not holy platforms. These platforms can have aspects of Christianity but that is not their purpose and they seldom sound like Jesus.

9. What makes your book different from other books like it?
   Most Christian books talk about the positives and benefits of being a Christian. Publishers want books that lift people up. Even though this book is meant to lift us up and bring us hope the reality is that we need awareness of who is forming our hearts and what it is doing to family, church, work, friendships and to eternity. There are harms and negatives that have been occurring in our hearts that must be discussed and not skirted with another positive message that affirms where we are, what we are doing and how we are thinking. When we skirt heart issues, we affirm these core issues harming our hearts by avoiding them. Jesus was not always about the sunshine that comes from knowing and loving the Lord. He gave us many stark warnings (gifts). This journey is focused on what is happening to us, how we are changing and who is having too much success in controlling our hearts and minds which then affects everyone around us because when we venture away from a Gospel way of thinking and living, we can give others the justification and affirmation they seek. This journey is about change and applying the Gospels, even the hard ones.

10. What do you want readers to take away from your writing?
    That there is hope. That heart formation is the path. Christ-likeness is the path. Love, unity and forgiveeness is the path. Recognizing the places that are harmful to our heart is the path. Learning and most importantly learning how to apply the Gospels to everyday feelings, thoughts, words and actions. I want readers to recognize how we got to where we are. I want to slow the anxiety in our young.

11. How did you learn about the topic? (i.e. personal experience, education, etc.)
    I learned about the need for heart formation by reading the Bible, the Catholic Catechism (vital) because it helps us understand the Bible and how to live it, by reading numerous Christian books, attending Christian retreats and seminars, being a catechist and going to Church every Sunday. Growing and learning and then striving to change and do a better job of living and applying the Gospels were instrumental on my journey. I was bothered by what I was learning when I compared it to what I was hearing in conversations and observing in how we were living. But, even the most unlearned person knows that Christianity is not having the overwhelming success that it should be having. So, I learned first through education and then personal experience.

12. Is there a particular passage from your book you’d like us to utilize? If so, please provide.
    Since the Gospels are always appropriate and applicable for all times and places, we must wield them as our weapon, our sword. Those involved in the current movement of using politics to help Christianity are so possessed with a feeling of righteousness that they are ready to bring those they call the “liberal commies” or the Far Right–wingers to the Lord so that they can be stoned like the adulteress in the Bible story. What do we think Jesus would do if both the liberal mob and the conservative mob showed up with their accusations against each other? Even though this is a serious matter, I have to chuckle at the thought of this going down. If this event were televised, it would break the record for the most-watched show of all time. But it wouldn’t go down the way either mob would expect. Whenever a Pharisaical person or mob engaged with Jesus, they always left humbled and exposed, and sometimes angry enough to kill the Lord. Political mobs would experience the same fate. Yep, Jesus would turn them away and have them look at themselves and their own sins. He would tell them how they have been deceived and have been weaving their political views into His truths in the Gospels. Below is second passage: We must recognize what we are becoming and how we are harming our churches and harming heart formation. We must think about this. Our kids are watching, and they are thinking about it. We must see heart formation as relevant to kids. Churches must become relevant to kids. Our children know if we are living our faith. They know what is important to us, if faith is really important to us, if church is important to us, and if church is changing us. And in practical terms, our children will continue to struggle as long as they have a family that goes to church but then lives differently the other six days and twenty-three hours of the week. They seek answers. They wonder, Why go to church if it has very little relevance to what my family, my friends, talk show hosts, and opinion/news anchors believe to be important? This is the way they see it. We can keep asking ourselves why society is in such terrible condition and never get anywhere. We are the answer to the question. Our lives and the way we live out our lives is the answer. It is always us.