shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)

On this day 1700 years ago The Nicene Creed was first adopted.

This is a very short (less than 100 pages) book taking you through the Nicene Creed— what the Council was all about, what the creed says, what it means, and why it matters.

DeYoung wrote a similarly short book on The Lord’s Prayer and these also remind me of Jen Wilkin’s book, Ten Words to Live By, about the ten commandments. All three books take specific ‘statements’ that the church practices or believes and fleshes them out in deeper ways than an average church-goer may even know about.

Just because something is tradition and been taught for years and years doesn’t mean it’s to be discarded, but you should know what it means and why you memorize it and quote it. These books help your understanding.


I was interested in The Nicene Creed book because I realized I had never memorized it and knew only a little about the creed and the Council of Nicaea.

When I heard people making claims about the council and the creed saying that it was where people of power got to decide what books would be in the Bible or claiming that the council was evidence that the church has never agreed about anything, I knew that I needed to learn a little more about what actually went on there.

To the first argument, THIS is also a good, succinct explanation about how the Council of Nicaea was not a council to pick the books of the Bible (Kruger is a New Testament scholar and an expert in how the Bible was canonized). The Council was about articulating what the Church believed about the divinity of Jesus.


Historical Context

I thought Kevin DeYoung did a really good job of explaining the history and context of the Council and acknowledging the intentions behind the differing views.

“We learn something about heresy by examining Arius’s logic: heresy almost always involves denying one truth in an attempt to safeguard another truth.”

In Egypt, 318 AD, Arius publicly declared his theological views on the divinity of Christ.

“The issue in Arius’s mind was not how a man could be God but how God could become a man. Arius wanted to protect monotheism and the unity of God. He saw himself as defending the majesty and sovereignty of God the Father.”

“The issue was how to understand the Son’s begottenness. Arius argued that begetting implies a beginning…. Arius’s famous phrase was ‘there was a time when he was not.’”

So the Council met to better articulate what we believe about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the end, Arianism was condemned and the divinity of Jesus upheld.

One of the key words in the creed is homoousios which was the term they landed on to describe how the Son was of the ‘same essence’ as the Father.


It should be noted that the original creed was overwritten in 381, but the theology remained the same:

“The Council of Constantinople (381) didn’t simply repeat or revise the Creed of Nicaea (325). In fact, Nicaea’s creed is largely forgotten. In one sense, Constantinople established a “new” creed, probably taken from a liturgical formula that had developed since the original council. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the bishops at Constantinople did not see themselves as writing a new creed but merely expanding and reestablishing the orthodox truth affirmed in 325… Even though the words didn’t come directly from Nicaea, the theology did.”


I will say that I think it could have been helpful to have some sort of diagrams or maps to help visualize what groups were located where, etc.



Solid Doctrine or Right Living?

If you’re wondering about creeds in general, I thought it was interesting that DeYoung reminds us how different Roman religion was in the ancient world compared to what Jesus taught. Roman religion cared far less about doctrines and focused more on cultic rituals of sacrifices, experiences, civic virtue, and the practices done in temples.

It can’t be overstated that for Christians— what we believe (our doctrines) are of utmost importance. Right doctrine (orthodoxy) should lead to right living (orthopraxy) but we can’t have one without the other.

“To be sure, the apostolic message exhorted people to live godly lives but only in conjunction with a robust message about sin, salvation, incarnation, resurrection, atonement, reconciliation, and eternal life. Any gospel that denies these essentials or ignores them or skips over them to get to something else or leads people to doubt them or does not deal straightforwardly with them is, in effect, a different gospel. The Christian faith is more than a doctrine to be believed, but it is never less.”

This is forefront in my mind because having read Alisa Childer’s book, Another Gospel?, and watching a video from The New Evangelicals (linked in previous linked review), it is clear that Progressive Christianity has chosen leniency and ‘freedom’ in doctrine and it truly changes the gospel message and everything about what Jesus taught.


Here are just a few verses that remind us that right doctrine is not just a modern convention or a tactic invented for control or power, it was understood by Jesus’s disciples as essential to the faith:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)

“but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone…” (Eph 2:19-20)

“so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” (1 Tim 1:3)

“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Tim 6:20)

“He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it… This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.” (Titus 1:9, 13)

“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.” (Rom 16:17)

“‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” (John 14:15)


Having established the importance of the creed (the first of its kind), DeYoung spends the next chapters taking specific phrases from the creed, explaining why it was included or the principle of truth that it was articulating:

Only Begotten; One Substance; For Us and for Our Salvation; Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son; One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; One Baptism for the Remission of Sins


[If you are interested in the doctrine of the Trinity and how we can believe this doctrine, I would recommend this narrative, logic-focused book called Monothreeism that explores how believing the Trinity makes as much sense as believing in our own existence.]


Church Unity and False Teachers

I won’t go into all of them, but one that stuck out to me was the one holy catholic and apostolic church. Again, because of the claims of Progressive Christianity.

Progressives often condemn conservative Christians for sacrificing unity in the church by holding to traditional doctrine. Conservatives are being the divisive ones, not progressives, they say.

But DeYoung rightly states

“The oneness of the church is not a call to discount doctrine and to foster institutional unity at all costs… Paul celebrated unity in the midst of diversity, but that diversity was not theological.”

Ephesians 4:1-16 describes the unity of the church including that it is called to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all”.

As the verses earlier stated— sound doctrine is important and at the center of what binds Christians together in Christ because it is about Christ and his work on the cross.

We don’t have councils to make up new doctrine, “new threats to the faith merit new efforts to delineate truth from error” and The Nicene Creed, which has stood the test of time, is an example of when better articulating the doctrine taught in Scripture keeps the Church unified in what matters most.

We are warned about false teachers. And I think a lot of Christians get false teachers mixed up with pagans. Those who practice other religions are not the false teachers, those are just pagans. The false teachers are in the church, twisting God’s words. They are masquerading as light; they are often subtle and hard to detect.

This helpful article delineates the patterns of false teachers: question what God says, defy or reject what God says, and offer a ‘better’ alternative that appeals to natural appetites.

The way we protect against false teachers is by guarding the deposit of sound doctrine that Jesus taught and entrusted the apostles to uphold. Jesus told them he would send the Holy Spirit to help them understand everything he had already been teaching them so we can trust what they say.

That is why ‘apostolic’ is important and the basis for which the New Testament books had authority.



I can’t help but also think of Gavin Ortlund’s book— Finding the Right Hills to Die On— which is a book about theological triage. He seeks to consider a gradation system on issues that are top tier, nonnegotiable doctrines (i.e. what is stated in the Nicene Creed), down to the lowest tier issues that are matter of opinion (i.e. what worship musical instrumentation should be).

He writes to give a good reminder not to let your passion for truth and upholding solid doctrine cause you to lose humility or care for others’ hearts. These things are not opposed to one another. To be upholding truth and following Jesus’s teachings and example should also look like humility and love. Humility and love, when practiced, should not be void of truth and the light of salvation as taught by Jesus.

To be a unified, global church does not require our worship services to look the same or even our baptism practices to be identical, but it does require theological unity in salvific doctrines.


Summary Statements

I really liked that he included six statements of summary— our takeaways from looking at the Nicene Creed. I’m including them simplified here, but he gives a little bit more explanation in the book

1. The Nicene Creed stresses the importance of believing the right thing

 2. The history of the Nicene Creed teaches us that new statements (and modified statements) are often necessary to combat new errors

“The Nicene Creed is a creedal floor, not a creedal ceiling…”

3. The Nicene Creed models for us the central importance of the Trinity

 4. The Nicene Creed underscores the importance of “religion” for Christian life and worship

“Christians have gotten into a bad habit of making ‘religion’ the bad guy opposite the good guy of the gospel. If religion means man-made worship or man’s attempt to earn God’s favor on his own, then Christianity has no place for religion. But usually when people talk about being ‘spiritual but not religious,’ they mean that they want a faith that is unencumbered by doctrinal boundaries, sacred rites, and the institution of the church with its authority structure and obligations.”

5. The Nicene Creed is not embarrassed to view Christianity with a soteriological focus

 “Sometimes you hear people say that modern evangelicals invented this salvation-focused gospel… or that medieval people were scared into believing in a God of judgment because the church wanted to control them… but we see right here in the fourth century that the church conceived of the Christian faith as irreducibly about sin and salvation, about judgment and forgiveness, about how we can be saved from the human problem that is sin and death.”

 6. The Nicene Creed points us to the future… it deliberately ends on a note of expectation and hope


Recommendation

I definitely recommend this book. You can probably read it in one or two sittings and it will bring clarity and transparency to some of the doctrines you may have started wondering why you adhere to or recite. 

It’s not meant to be exhaustive, but the ancient creeds the Church has upheld has not done so for no apparent reason or for nefarious purposes. We have creeds that affirm what God’s Word already revealed and if you haven’t been taught the ‘why’ then you should read the book. 

And definitely, if you think the Council of Nicaea was a power struggle about choosing the books of the Bible, you should do some more research about that, including reading this book. 

This is a low commitment, high reward kind of read. 

I hope DeYoung continues to put out these short books that help the average church-goer to see the foundation of the church as it pertains to Scripture instead of a set of traditions with no real meaning.


**Received a copy via Crossway Publishers in exchange for an honest review** 

“They need to see that there are many ways to be brave; many ways to be caring and compassionate; many ways to be adventurous and creative; many ways to be strong.”


I always thought I’d be a boy-mom because girls were too complex and hard to share a bathroom with. And of course, because I can control that, I had two girls. After having girls, the thought of raising boys felt foreign and hard and gross to share a bathroom with. So of course, because I can control that, I had twin boys. Because if boys are difficult, we might as well do two at once.

Needless to say, having two girls and two boys, I see the differences between boys and girls every day— the way they play, the way the interact with others, the way they handle conflict or injury, the connections they make, the things they observe.

While some negative reviewers gave up on the book claiming it to be too gendered or sexist, I find that claim obvious and unfounded respectively. ‘Obvious’ because there are so many biological differences between boys and girls. It doesn’t make one gender better or smarter than another. It’s just biology. (Generally speaking) Boys learn differently than girls whether we like it or not. Boys’ brains function differently than girls’ whether we like it or not.

“The male brain is wired for activity; the female brain is biased toward personal connections.”

This book acknowledges those differences like this and seeks to help parents love their boys best by recognizing their biology and helping nurture them into the men they will be.

‘Unfounded’ because this doesn’t make it sexist. And it doesn’t make it outdated. It makes it curated to the realities of boys and how we can nurture their nature.


Especially in terms of how boys learn best, it reminded me a lot of the book The War Against Boys by Christina Sommers. If you’re interested in the education system and the challenges boys face and the realities of how this influences their futures, this book would also be a good read.


Now, is this the only book you’ll need to parent well and understand everything about your child? No. And it’s not trying to be. Let this one be one of many. No one book can cover everything you need as a parent to love and teach your child everything they need to know. HERE are all the parenting books I’ve read and reviewed if any of them pique your interest.


I would also say that this book is not full of groundbreaking information and advice. You’ve probably heard a lot of it before. You probably observe a lot of it already. For me, it was a lot of ‘oh yeah, I’ve seen the boys do that or react that way.’

I’m not sure if I totally agree with everything they put forth. I’m still processing some of it, especially in terms of how we engage emotions and feelings. In some ways I wonder if they make too much of that. While I want to make sure my boys have the words they need to express their feelings and understand their emotions, I don’t want to dwell too much on what they’re feeling without directing those feelings towards truth.

They mention allowing boys to “express the fullness of his heart” and I’m not entirely sure what that means. My boys often throw fits and execute a lot of whining to express the fullness of their hearts and I’m not sure always allowing that is appropriate or good for them.

They also talk about being careful not to shame our sons. I’ve pondered this concept of shame quite a bit and maybe I get hung up on it because I’m looking at it a different way.

If my boys do something wrong, I want them to know it’s wrong and to feel some gravity from the weight of their choice and how it might affect others. I think feeling shame for our sin is right— as long as we are directing them to forgiveness in Christ and the one who lifts the burden of their sin. Shame that leads to repentance and reconciliation, not in a domineering way but in a way that recognizes the human condition and the divine remedy.

And so it gets a little murky at times to know when you’re crossing the line of right shame into wrong shame.

So the things surrounding emotions and shame are things I may diverge a little bit on what they wrote in this particular book— and that could just be that though they mention God and sin periodically in the book, their focus is not necessarily a spiritual one in every way and so some of the language that I might use with my kids wasn’t provided here.

I am definitely a ‘list’ person but I also started to get a little overwhelmed by all the lists they suggest for different things because how many lists can I realistically utilize or create? I like the idea of lists and think they’re helpful but I’m not in an organizational place right now to add a bunch of lists.

However, even if you don’t totally align with their parenting style or methods, I think the book provides a lot of good topics to think about and ponder. To decide how you’re going to parent the variety of circumstances or facets of boys.



From the start they recognize that while boys are different than girls, not all boys are the same. They have different personalities, interests, and tendencies.

“We don’t offer a black-and-white list of do’s and don’ts for raising boys; instead, we create a framework that will help you engage, guide, and walk with the boy you love throughout his life…”

They divide their book in three parts:

- The way of the boy: developmental view (differences between 5 different age groups 2-4 through 18-22)

- The mind of the boy: neurology and physiology (how the brain works, how they learn, etc)

What I liked here was when they went through common mistakes caregivers make that push up against the way a boy’s brain works:

“Common mistakes many caregivers make with boys: confining them, verbally or emotionally flooding them, sparring with them, rescuing them, squelching them, shaming them, guilt-tripping them, and sabotaging them.”

- The heart of the boy: emotional, spiritual, moral development (how to nurture their heart, father and mother’s different relationship with a son, rite and rituals)

What I liked here was the idea of creating some sort of rite of passage for a boy ‘entering into manhood’. There is a lot of flexibility here in tailoring it to your son’s interests and personality but the idea of including other men in their life to help send him forward with the right mindset of what it means to a be a godly man in this world can be very grounding and helpful for a boy in shaping his identity and place in the world.

“Before a boy steps into his teenage years, he needs to have a handle on key character traits such as compassion, honesty, self-control, discernment, respect for self and others, personal responsibility, the courage to do what is right, and the strength to stand up for personal convictions.”


“Though environmental influences (primarily family and culture), life experiences, socialization, and inherited genetic personality traits directly influence who a boy is, we cannot overlook his essential nature. And we can’t nurture out the nature (nor would we want to.)"



One thing I’m glad they talk about is how in today’s world our boys are outright told or at the very least made to feel like just being male is a negative thing- men are violent and they hurt and dominate and females need to be hyperaware of all males.

There is some wisdom to have in females interacting with males in certain contexts, but the idea that to be male is to be a danger is not something I ever want my boys to grow up feeling the weight of.

There is so much out there right now that is an attempt to make males more female. Their aggression and confidence and strength are portrayed as negative things.

“At their core, boys are not calm, quiet, or neat. As they face the world, they are told more often than not that who they are is not who they need to be.”

And in truth, they totally can be negative if used improperly. But nurturing boys’ nature is to help them see that these traits are good and can help you serve and protect others. As with all traits— they can be used for good or bad.

I’ll recommend here the book Reclaiming Masculinity. And before you get triggered by the word ‘masculinity’ it is not a book championing rugged wilderness men who wrestle bears and flex their muscles all the time. It’s a book describing the principles of what godly (not traditional) masculinity looks like, and it’s very helpful in combating the label ‘toxic masculinity’ which is a term that I think we will see is very damaging to young boys growing up in this world and trying to figure out how they belong.

“Helping boys grow and mature into men means providing an environment that acknowledges and supports them in their maleness, not one that demands they be different.”


I thought it was interesting when they said:

“With boys, most rebellion and trouble stem from one of two sources: an impaired expression of what is going on emotionally inside their hearts or an immature attempt to answer their heart’s core questions… When boys can’t articulate what’s really going on in their hearts, of when they come up empty in their core questions, they often resort to behavior that can be completely irrational.”

The heart’s core questions that they list are: ‘do I have what it takes?’, ‘am I the real deal?’(I’m not sure what this one means), and ‘do I matter?’.

So when we’re struggling with rebellious kids, we help them understand what they might be feeling (and direct it to truth) or we help them answer the core questions. The last one is important for both boys and girls— everyone wants to know that they matter and caregivers play a huge role in helping children answer that question.


I also liked how at the end of each chapter they had a section about putting the principles into practice with some tips on how to actually integrate the information into real life.

I think I still would have loved some more specific examples, but I understand that to do that for all the different age groups would make the book so much longer.

In that way, this may be a good book to read with a group of caregivers who have kids in varying age groups and help each other through the different stages and share experiences of what you’ve done that has or has not worked.

Again, the book is not prescriptive but allows for a lot of attuning to your specific child so no two families will look the exact same in terms of how they parent their boys and that’s fine, but to have others going through it speak into each other’s experiences can be really helpful.


At the end of the book they have a section that covers 15 ‘hot topics’ like spanking, homosexuality, pornography, ADD, abuse, etc. They just give one or two pages per topic with a brief discussion.

That is followed by a list of further resources, including where to find a list of movies to watch with your boys and some books that aid in teaching boys about the changes happening in their bodies.



Recommendation

This is a good book and reference book to have as you raise boys from toddlers to adults and seek to nurture their natures and help them discover what it means to be a man in the world.

Even if you won’t agree with everything they say, I’d still recommend it because it will bring up areas that you will need to know how to parent and so it will offer a perspective and help you think through what works with your own family.

There are ways that you need to parent and teach boys and girls differently. You just do. It’s not sexist, it’s loving because it understands that God loves diversity and created males and females differently and we want to help our children be who God created them to be.

If you are interested in a girl-specific book, one that I would recommend is Raising Worry-Free Girls that addresses some of the struggles girls might have— again, I wish it went without saying, but none of these books are meant to be exhaustive. They have a focus and that’s why you should read more than one.

I would also recommend Raising Confident Kids in a Confusing World by Ed Drew.

And another one I recommend that I haven’t finished reading yet but is written by a dad of all boys— Habits of a Household —which is about creating good rhythms in your home from morning through play, work, meals, bedtime and everything in between! 

I usually start my book review with a quote from the book that I like. I didn’t do that with this one: 1) because I decided to just read it as if I was sitting at one of his shows, not wanting to be distracted by writing anything down and 2) it’s so anecdotal that to reduce it any of his bits to quotes feels like you miss too much.

If you’ve seen him live or watched one of his Netflix specials (do it) then reading this book will feel a lot like the show. You can hear his voice and delivery as you read, the same straight-faced humor about weird jobs, his dad being a clown, the dynamics between him and his wife, and his love of McDonalds.

I think my favorite part of the book were the blank pages he included to give us a break every now and then. In one of his bits about how ‘books are the key to smart,’ he mentions how he wished books had more of that so I applaud that he got to see that dream come to fruition.


This book is part memoir, part funny story-telling. He says from the very beginning that there is not really an overarching message:

“This book is never trying to say anything even close to important… you can open it to any random chapter you want and you’ll be just fine. There isn’t any real order. No rhyme or reason behind much of anything.”

And I would say he delivered on that. In a good way! It’s an easy, enjoyable read that will make you smile. It’s something you can come back to and read part or all of again whenever you just want something light and funny to escape from the chaos of the day.

There is a little bit of overlap with what has been in his shows but there were lots of new stories or details and background to previously mentioned moments that kept it fresh. There are even pictures— although I wish they would have been in color so you could see them better.


The first time I watched Nate Bargatze was with friends when he performed at our local comedy club, The Funny Bone. There were like 50 people there. The second time was a slightly bigger audience in the college town of Ames, Iowa. The third was a bigger audience at a bigger venue, and the last time was the Wells Fargo Arena— the biggest venue in Des Moines and it was packed.

It’s been fun to see his success and his audience grow. What’s even better is that he did it without resorting to using profanity, sexual innuendo, or controversial material. It’s just relatable stories about his life that connects with people and allows us to watch his comedy with our families.

I wish more comics had the same principles because it shows that you don’t have to be raw, raunchy, or explicit to be hilarious!


I’m surprised by people who give this negative reviews if they’ve seen his shows before. If you haven’t, then you might be underwhelmed by the book. If you have, you should understand that the underwhelm is part of his schtick. He’s not dramatic or over-the-top or super expressive or loud. He’s just a normal guy talking about normal stuff. He’s just a friend pointing out the humorous parts of ordinary lives.

It appears that the main qualms people have with this book, other than if they thought it was boring (it wasn’t), were basically two-fold:

First, he talked about God and faith, mostly in relation to his dad. I just read Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (the Olympian)’s book and people were upset she talked about faith too. Which is really wild to me. For Sydney’s book it was the primary objective. What Nate does with it is not even close to how explicitly Sydney delivers the gospel and yet people’s feathers are ruffled by it. As if a comedian isn’t allowed to ‘bring religion’ into anything. For a culture obsessed with identity a lot of people really want to limit what can be allowed to shape a person.

Second, he mentions his dad’s abusive mother and her deathbed scene where he apologizes for not being a better son or trying harder to include her in the family. It’s a very short part but readers who had experienced abuse were really turned off by the way it was described as if he was the problem, not the abusive mother. I can see how that puts a bad taste in your mouth when you’ve dealt with abuse and manipulative people— why should he be the one to apologize?

I’m not entirely sure why he included that in the book— perhaps to share the tenderness of his father’s heart and his desire for reconciliation in his life?— and I think it could be argued that this wasn’t the right place to put it. I’m sure there is a lot more to the story and information that wasn’t shared that may speak into the dissonance for us. He chose not to go into all that, which makes sense to me, and I’m not going to use that moment to tear apart his entire book.


I will say that the chapter on Vanderbilt threw me a little bit. Maybe if I listened to his podcast more I would have heard him mention Vandy more— it hasn’t really been in his shows that I can remember. So to hear his passion for Vandy and read an entire chapter about it felt like seeing a new facet of Bargatze that I hadn’t known was there— the sports fanatic Nate.

I can see how some might not care about that and you wouldn’t really be missing much to skip over that one. That’s the freedom of the book— you can pick and choose what you want to read when you want to read it.



I think it’s cool that Nate decided to write a book. It’s an accomplishment, especially for someone who’s never read one before. I mean there’s part of me that laments how easy it is for famous people to get a book published when all of us nobodies are sitting on a story we can’t get in front of anyone, but I am happy for him and his success.

It looks like he’s most likely stepping off the stand-up track to pursue movie-making. I would venture to guess that his time will be spent wrapped up in that rather than more book writing, but I believe this book achieved what Nate wanted it to achieve. I’m pretty much here for anything he does or will do because I think he’s a funny guy and a good dude and I appreciate his willingness to hold the line of clean comedy even when he gets pushback about it.

Stay strong, man!



Recommendation

I totally recommend it.

Also, shoutout to P.P. Hopefully I can hear the story behind your name sometime. 

“I’m going to the Wilde Trials. For two weeks, it will be me, the forest, and these fifteen people. One of whom is a bully, another who used to be my best friend, a third who used to be my boyfriend, and a fourth who is annoyingly loyal to said ex-boyfriend. Great.”


I mean. Yeah. This book is wild.

I read Reed’s debut novel, The Rosewood Hunt, and enjoyed that one a lot (for a YA novel). Unfortunately, her second novel, a similar world to the first book (even mentions Rosetown), didn’t hit me the same.

I did like that there was less swearing than the first book and more positive familial relationships, however, I think the biggest downside for me was that the plot of the book would have been much better in a dystopian or sci-fi setting rather than a realistic modern-day world.


The whole book centers around The Wilde Trials which is an invitation-only event for seniors at a private ‘rich people’ high school in which they compete for a $600,000 prize. But they go out in the forest, sleep in an abandoned estate and compete in dangerous challenges and there is not a single adult around.

At first it didn’t seem like a big deal, but the more the story progressed the more outlandish the situation became. Fifteen high school seniors supervised by three college kids in the wilderness? There wasn’t even a medical team on hand just in case an accident happened.

Not to mention, a kid had literally just died during the last trials (the main character’s ex-boyfriend’s brother so it’s a big plot point). The author is very clear about how the school ‘fixed’ a lot of things— which largely meant walling off a section of the estate and putting caution tape around it— but just saying ‘its safer now’ a hundred times, doesn’t actually mean it’s safer. There’s no way a school already in hot water for an unexplained death can legally run the trials with no supervision or medical team. That’s insane.

One of the challenges they are climbing up a cliff face. Yes, they get harnesses and the ropes were installed by 'professional climbers.' But the contestants are responsible for clipping themselves into the harnesses and no one is there watching. One of the ropes is almost frayed through (well, because, sabotage) but don’t they realize that adult supervision prevents sabotage and keeps a lot of accidents from being serious?

If this was a different world, something dystopian or sci-fi, then it would be more understandable that these kids are competing in potentially fatal challenges without adults. I don’t know entirely why it would be more acceptable, it just would.

In the last challenge the prize money was literally bagged up and placed throughout the forest for the competitors to find and bring back as part of the challenge. Who in their right mind would send out $600,000 in cash with 18-21 year olds into a forest with no adults and expect that it would all come back alright?!

Oh, and by the way, the main character didn’t even tell her parents she was going out there and competing. They had no idea. Sure, she’s 18 years old and legally an adult, but this is a school-sanctioned event. Parents being unaware of a student participating in two-week long trials in the woods with no adult supervision is also ridiculous.

Oh, and by the way, the college kids in charge of the whole thing? Well one of them decides to change up what the challenges are last minute. Because of course they would have the freedom to make up whatever they want and one of them could just change everything and decide to not tell the other ‘supervisors’ and there’s no problem.



I wanted to like the book. I like that the main character, Chloe, wants to win because her younger sister has cancer and her parents can’t afford the medical bills because they paid to send her to a private high school. It’s a good heroic premise.

I liked that she was being blackmailed about a secret which kept her from bringing the saboteur to attention. That was something that made a little sense and added some mystery.

I don’t mind that there is the romantic thread of her and her ex-boyfriend competing with each other where they absolutely hate each other but you know they most likely don’t and will probably end up together again. I don’t even mind that I predicted part of the ending at only 5% of the way through the book. Some of those things are to be expected in a YA novel.

But I just could not get past the ridiculousness and insanity of the whole situation. Because so much of the plot and the suspense of the book revolved around the trials and the outcome of the trials. The implausibility of everything wrecked the tension. I like high stakes, but I want the stakes to make sense.

For example, the YA novel Heist Royale is about teenagers in the modern day world competing in dangerous missions in which there isn’t a lot of oversight or rules. But it takes place in the context of the thieving, dishonest, dangerous world. So it works. The setting and context of The Wilde Trials does not work.



I like the seven traits that they structured the trials around:

“The seven traits the trials are based on each year are strength, collaboration, wit, ambition, fortitude, agility, and adaptability.”

I think in a different context these traits could have been fleshed out more and really been showcased in the trials and in the character development creating a deeper experience and invoking more investment from the readers.

There was definitely potential to the idea behind this book; it just fell short.


It probably makes me a boring adult. Maybe young adults— the target audience— reading this book will have no qualms with the lack of adults. That’s fine. I understand that my interest in YA books tends to be more particular than most. I’m okay with that.

You can discern if my concerns match your concerns or if you are hyped up for the adult-free zone of The Wilde. Go crazy.



Recommendation

I’m sure there are people who might like this book, but the outlandish context and execution of the trials was too over-the-top for me to stay engaged with the story and the characters.

This was a book I was happy to get over with.

I did like her first book so it’s possible I’ll give this author another chance, but this book will definitely make me more wary of her next one.

Unless you are more into the romance and teenage relationship side of things, I would not recommend this one.



[Content Advisory: 29 f-words, 34 s-words, 5 b-words; a few prominent characters are LGBTQ and in relationships; a teenage couple has sex in the back of a car but it’s not described]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

“All of us want to know who we are, why we are here, and what’s going to make us happy and fulfilled. We want to have a purpose, a strong sense of identity, and clarity about how we are supposed to spend our days.”

“When I left Rio, I thought I was leaving behind the biggest challenge of my life. I had no idea that the next two years would be even harder. And to reach joy, I had to go through trials too big for me to face on my own.”


I wouldn’t be caught dead running on a track. 

Scratch that, I would most definitely be caught dead if I was running on a track because I’m a firm believer that running— especially my hardest— would kill me. My knees and legs hurt just thinking about what Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone does for fun. So no, I didn’t read this book to help me get off the starter blocks better or get my legs over hurdles in a graceful way—I pulled a hamstring just writing that sentence—but her story did really resonate with me and it was a true joy to read. 

Because even though she’s a 4-time gold medal Olympian with world records, she’s just like you and me. She struggles with fear, anxiety, identity, and the desire to find meaning and purpose in life. 

This book chronicles not only her literal races and Olympic experiences, but the race the author of Hebrews refers to: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (12:1) 

Far Beyond Gold is Sydney’s story that beyond her gold medals, she found freedom and life she never knew existed and now could never live without. And she wants you to know about it too. 

I think this would be a great book for people who compete in track and field but also for young people in general. She is transparent about her physical and emotional struggles but also real life things like navigating dating relationships, food, and social media. I think it would be an inspiring read for a lot of young women to see that you don’t have to capitulate to cultural ideals for sex and fame and appearances. 



It’s interesting reading the negative reviews on this book because they largely all say the same things: too much Jesus; it was preachy; too much about her faith journey and not enough insights on her career. 

But man! To take Jesus out of this book would be completely missing the point. She wrote to show how HE is the center of her life— not running, not winning. That’s the ‘beyond’ part. She can’t tell her story without Jesus, the catalyst for her life transformation, the basis of her character, the strength for each day and each race.

I appreciated her candidness in sharing truth. Because it was genuine. She didn’t just put in bite-sized pieces that appease the masses without making them feel uncomfortable. No, she is overflowing with love and praise for her Savior and she should shout it from the mountaintop. 

Her Career

On the track side of things, Sydney is known for running the 400m hurdles. In fact, she holds the world record for this event (50.37 seconds). She won gold at the 2020 Olympics and then at the 2022 World Championship. After this book went to publishing, she won gold again in the 2024 Olympics, breaking her own previous world record. 

She has also won gold for participating in the 4x400 m relay in 2020 and 2024.


Her career began as a teen and has only progressed from there. I suppose it’s not really a surprise: both her parents were track stars and her brothers also ran track. It was her destiny in a lot of ways.

But her own competitiveness and the pressure to succeed created a growing and debilitating fear of failure.

“It wasn’t enough just to be a runner; I had to be a winner. I viewed victories as value… I convinced myself that I was put on this earth to win. And in order to receive love and respect from others, I had to finish first. If I didn’t, what good was I?”


I imagine the pressure and anxiety and fear she felt is what a lot of young actors and actresses face as well. They have achieved something great, and yet are treated beyond their years or have expectations put on them that they are not ready to bear.

“Inside, I felt like I still needed good role models to help me through all these wild changes, yet everyone was already looking at me differently, expecting me to share wisdom I did not yet possess.”

I think Caitlin Clark probably feels the same weight. We see these young people in the spotlight and they’ve done great things, but then we look to them for wisdom or to portray something beyond where they are and feel disappointed when they misstep or misspeak.

They are young and still figuring out their identity, still learning how the world works. We can definitely admire their work and achievements, but we should watch how we burden them with our needs or expectations that they should not be responsible for.

“Everything that had once seemed to be my peace quickly became my nightmare. I couldn’t fix myself. I couldn’t let go of my fear, anxiety, and need for approval on my own.”


Sydney shares the struggles she faced in relationships, during Covid and how that affected her training and Olympic hopes, and her mental health. She’s looking in hindsight now, but it’s perceptive of her to realize that when she sought help for her anxiety and depression, she wasn’t treating the root of the problem.

“I knew I needed to overhaul my life, change how I thought about my worth and my purpose, but everywhere I went for help I was getting only temporary solutions for my problems. Remedies for the symptoms of anxiety and sleepless nights, not the disease of self-focus and a misplaced identity.”

In many cases medication is wise to help us, but in so many cases there is a problem that sinks deeper into every fiber of our being and cannot be remedied by a pill, but a Person. Who bears the weight of our sin and our failures and gives us hope for tomorrow, a future.



To piggy-back off the Covid thing, I thought it was really interesting to hear how Covid impacted her ability to train. She was living in LA at the time and the stay-at-home order closed down tracks. A hurdler can only practice so much in a studio apartment.

To also think of the anxiety all of those Olympic athletes must have suffered under the duress of Covid testing that could so easily end their chances to compete.

“Each day, we endured multiple rounds of testing, knowing that if we got a positive, our Olympic dreams were over. I became hyperaware of my body. Am I showing any symptoms? Am I feeling tired, congested, or lightheaded? Twice a day, I had to take a COVID-19 test. Those were always nerve-racking, facing the possibility that we had flown all the way to Tokyo just to not be able to compete.”

We all can share ways that Covid influenced our lives— for starters, my twins were born in 2020 and spent almost two months in the NICU where my daughters were not allowed to visit. But I’m always interested to hear how others were impacted and how they grew during those times. I hope the next time stay-at-home orders are on the table, our 2020 experiences can better speak into future decisions, weighing people’s quality of life above uncertainties.


Her Faith

I’ve read many memoirs and heard many faith stories. Sydney’s is the real deal. She very explicitly shares the gospel message. And she shares the thoughts she had had about Jesus and the Bible that we’ve probably all thought at one point and brings good counsel. 

She also avoids preaching a prosperity gospel that says, once you find Jesus all your problems go away and you always find health, wealth, and success. That is not the true gospel. Jesus actually promises us that we will have hardship and pain. Health, wealth, and success are never guaranteed. But nonetheless, we have all we need in Christ. 

Her career could be over at any moment. She may suffer an irreparable injury. She may lose a loved one. But Sydney knows that her hope is not in her ability to win. It’s not in the people who love her most. It’s in the God who holds the world together, who calls us his own, and who has plans better than any we could come up with on our own. His race is always best because it goes far beyond gold. It takes fear and it turns it into faith. It takes captives and sets them free.



Other Negative Reviews

Besides people being annoyed by Sydney’s confident and evident faith (because how dare she?!), there were a couple other themes I noticed.

A few reviewers thought she wrote her memoir too early and she should have waited until more of her career had happened. If she had waited another year, she’d have had the 2024 Olympics to include.

But no one knows the future. It’s clear that God had laid it on her heart to use her platform to share the Good News of life and freedom for all who call on the name of the Lord. Share it while you can! We don’t know what tomorrow holds, we don’t know how many days we have left.

Plus, who says you can only write one book? Now that she has shared this, maybe she’ll write one with more details about her coach Bobby Kersee who also coached Allyson Felix and Flo Jo. Or maybe she won’t because it’s none of our business. I don’t know.


Some reviewers commented on the ordinariness of her life and how her ‘trials’ weren’t really that big a deal. I guess they were looking for stories of things hardly anyone has ever endured?

I mean, I would argue that not many people have endured the training she has, but even so, doesn’t that make her story more relatable and useful for us ‘normal’ people? We are a fickle people, the way we treat the ‘elite’ or the ‘famous.’ We put them on pedestals, place our own expectations on them, complain about their privilege or how they are or are not using their platform, complain that they had it too easy, or that they just could never understand what it’s like to be us. And then when we find out they’re just normal people with struggles just like us, we’re bored, unimpressed, and looking for the next ‘AMAZING’ thing.

We need to stop comparing our hardships with others. Everyone battles fear and anxiety—Olympian or not— and she shares how Christ freed her from that. That’s not a training or therapy reserved for the elite- that’s a remedy for every normal run-of-the-mill person. She wrote this book, not to raise herself higher, but to bring something down to us.

Do we only care about ‘the most’ extraordinary people/lives? Those are the only ones worth knowing and learning from? Are we really going to read this book and say- hey, cool story, but why don’t you go experience something more life-threatening or what we’ve ‘agreed’ to be super hard things, and THEN we’ll give you the time of day’? Is that how you would want someone to treat your story and what has shaped you? Is that how we measure value?

We may not have death around the corner or extreme emotional or physical challenges that constitute ‘major hardship’, but we all still have to go through every day. We all still have our struggles. We all still hunger for purpose and meaning and identity. We all still matter. You don’t have to wait to experience the highest highs or the lowest lows to matter. In the everyday, the mundane, you matter, and that’s why Sydney wrote this book. Because she knows you need the freedom of Christ in the everyday and the mundane. She knows we need the freedom from our own aimless stumbling.


Recommendation

There will always be people that put down books that preach the name of Jesus.

But I hope you are willing to listen to Sydney share her story and the freedom from fear she has found in her life. She wrote this book for you, I hope you’re open to hearing from her.

Is it a literary masterpiece? No. Is it a story of epic proportions? Depending how you feel about the Olympics, maybe not. But it’s genuine. It’s real. It’s hope. It’s truth. And I think we could all use a little bit more of that!

"It’s not about what medals I win or how history will remember my career. It’s far beyond gold. It’s about glorifying God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, through whom the Spirit works to bring redemption to those lost in sin."

“The police will presume one of two things: tragic accident or foul play. And if they discover I am not who I say I am, they’ll certainly lean toward the latter. Should they learn my true identity, they’ll know doubt charge me based solely on the circumstantial evidence already in hand.”


I think my thoughts of this book are going to be a bit skewed because it was a nostalgic setting for me.

The book begins with a missing person on the Pipiwai Trail on Maui, a trail that leads to a huge waterfall. I’ve visited Maui twice and hiked this trail both times. It was beautiful! This trail, the Road to Hana, and Maui in general hold a special place in my heart. It was really unique to read a book that was set in such a specific and not-so-traveled place that I’ve actually been to.
[Picture in my original post to prove it!]


There is some content in this book that is a bit hard to read and I’m sure could be a trigger for many readers. The main character, Kati, and her daughter, Zoe, have escaped to the secluded town of Hana. There are clues that her husband, Jeremy, was violent and abusive emotionally and physically. Katie and Zoe have assumed new identities and lived off-grid to avoid being found by Jeremy again.

“We cannot put anything past Jeremy’s vengeful family and their motley army of well-compensated minions.”



In the second half of the book we get more flashbacks to Kati’s previous life and the abuse she suffered not only from Jeremy, but in childhood from her own mother as well, who would often tell her she wished Katie was never born.

Katie isn’t a super likeable character in the book. Corleone frames her as an unreliable narrator type of character, which is not my favorite. She partakes of drugs and alcohol frequently enough that her gaps in memory are not super shocking or worrisome to her.

Yet, when you think of everything she’s been through, of course she’s going to be a bit messed up. I’m not sure we really see much character development for Kati as the story is more of the thriller variety than how Kati overcomes the trauma of her life to make something new.



The person who goes missing at the beginning of the book is Eddie, Kati’s new fiance. Not too long after that Zoe disappears too. Zoe and her mother have a pretty contentious relationship which doesn’t help either character’s likeability. The strained relationship makes Zoe’s appearance look like a potential runaway situation rather than a kidnapping.

Katie is sure Jeremy has found them again but as she discovers more about Eddie’s life, she realizes she never really knew him and there could be more players in this conflict than just her own past.



At times the plot felt a little convoluted and I lost track of who knew what when and what the important details were that I should be remembering for ‘solving the mystery.’

The twists were mostly surprising but I’m not sure I’d call them satisfying.

I think the overall vibe of this book for me was more 'sad’ than anything else. Sad for the characters, sad for the ending. The solution doesn’t have much redemption or hope.

The beginning of the book starts slow but picks up in the second half. Unfortunately, this book needed more than good pacing to save it.

I loved the initial premise and the title ‘Falls to Pieces’ with the waterfall and disappearance and previous life in ruins—all factors of a good concept— but it just wasn’t my favorite execution.



One thing that this book inspired was thinking about the Hawaiian islands in general. The wildfires in Lahaina happened during the writing of the book. Covid is mentioned in the book and how it was nice to not have all the tourists around for awhile.

It just made me very curious to know more about how the locals feel about tourism on their islands. I know tourism is a major aspect of their economy and brings a lot of jobs. However the book alluded to the fact that a lot of the tourism (hotels and such) are owned by non-Islanders/non-locals. That locals are pushed out of their homes.

“‘Transnational corporations are the ones exploiting Native Hawaiian culture, values, and traditions, all while crowded beaches and commercial tour boating destroy the shorelines and coastal fishing. It’s horrific.’”


I have a lot of questions now about how their economy works. Who benefits? Who gets taken advantage of? What would an actual better way of doing it be? What do locals want? Would ‘locally-owned only’ tourism be workable and able to sustain economic ups and downs? Do locals want tourists to stop coming all together? What benefits do tourists bring? Do Hawaiians like sharing their culture with us or is it a ‘well, what else can we do to make a living but really we’d rather you leave’ kind of situation?

I’m headed back to Maui this summer and now I’m wondering if my presence on the island is burdening the people.



Another aspect that was integral to the plot of the story was casinos. I didn’t realize that Vegas was called the ‘ninth island’ of Hawaii as there is a large and growing Hawaiian population there and a lot of Hawaiians who visit there regularly. In the book, one of the characters wants to build a casino on the islands. It is currently illegal to gamble and there are no casinos.

They saw an opportunity to create something akin to the casinos on Native American reservations for the locals of Hawaii. If this is a real consideration currently in Hawaii amongst certain groups, I hope they really consider the affects of inviting that environment onto their islands.

I understand this is a complex issue. This was my high school debate speech topic, and in the last 20 years my stance has only been affirmed by new evidence, but I’ll spare you all my arguments. I think Hawaii is a beautiful place and I do think there should be a conversation about how to keep the locals from being trampled by outside companies coming and doing business, but I would hate to see an environment like that which accompanies casinos taint their islands.



One other side note: the book mentions the island of Lanai: “Today, 98 percent of it is owned by the tech billionaire who founded Oracle.” The very first time we went to Maui, we were actually booked to go to Lanai. But then, shortly before our trip, it got purchased by the Oracle guy who decided to do a bunch of renovations. Our trip got moved to Maui, which was still awesome. But I do remember how baffled we were to discover the circumstances of our itinerary change!



Recommendation

I loved the setting, reminiscing about my time there, and learning about life in Hawaii, but there’s not much else to rave about with this book. With all the swearing and other content and lack of character development or redemption, this is a book I’ll label ‘not for me.’

I think there are readers who can enjoy it if those things don’t bother them, but generally speaking I’d say there’s probably a better book out there for you than this one.



[Content Advisory: 61 f- words, 40 s-words; sexual and emotional abuse, domestic violence]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

“In Progressive Christianity there is general unity surrounding three topics: The Bible, the Cross, and the gospel— everything else is built on this foundation… It’s an entirely different religion—with another Jesus—and another gospel.”


I read Alisa Childer’s book Live Your Truth (and Other Lies) and I’ve listened to her podcast quite a bit. Another Gospel? is her first book and tells the story of her crisis of faith.

Alisa Childers grew up in a Christian home and was part of the Christian music group ZOEGirl (2006-2010). But later in life she encountered a pastor that made her question everything she thought she knew about God and the Bible.

As the subtitle of the book notes, this pastor adhered to what is identified as ‘Progressive Christianity.’ Childers shows throughout her book the subtle changes that churches have made to their theology that are sometimes hard to detect but actually really change the gospel.

“Many Christians sit in pews every Sunday completely unaware that their church has adopted progressive theology.”

The cover of the book was designed well, showing the ‘Gospel’ being gradually watered down, which is the natural result of Progressive Christianity.



Perhaps ‘Progressive Christianity’ is a buzzword to you. I would encourage you to read this book and follow along on Alisa’s journey because she is naturally a skeptic. She wasn’t just going to let someone tell her what to believe, she was going to do her own research, to get to the source, to challenge the ideas and see if they held up to scrutiny.

The questions she asks in this book, the ideas she challenges, are not straw men. They are real questions and ideas that I see all over the place. I’ve seen people espouse them and defend them and they are central to the ‘Christianity’ that too many people hold to today.

“Like historic Christians, their beliefs are built around their responses to questions like- Why did Jesus die? What is the Bible? And What is the gospel?”



Her ‘Definition’

She does a careful job in her book of fleshing all of these out, but if you’re wondering about the big picture— what’s so different about Progressive Christianity?— we could boil it down to this:

Progressive Christians tend to…

- deny the inerrancy of Scripture and its authority in their lives, believing that we can’t trust how the Bible was written or canonized or how early Christians interpreted it

“Dr. Walter Bauer had the theory that the New Testament is simply a compilation of books that were picked by the theological ‘winners.’”

- deny Christ’s atonement for sin believing his death on the cross to just be an example of love and forgiveness because it would be cosmic child abuse for God to send his Son to die

“…Jesus was killed by an angry mob for speaking truth to power. God didn’t need his sacrifice, but in some way submitted to it in order to set an example of forgiveness for us all to follow. God didn’t require blood— humans did.”

- champion critical theory ideology as morally superior to Christianity for its emphasis on lived experience and the oppressed, believing that sin is not ultimately what’s wrong with the world

“Progressives reject original sin and believe we were all born beautiful and good.”

- deny that hell exists or that God would send people there, believing that eventually all people will go to heaven (universalism)

“they call the Christian image of God that would send anyone to hell as toxic and unworkable.”


Some of the names she brings up that are associated with these beliefs are: Peter Enns, Richard Rohr, Rob Bell, Rachel Held Evans, Brian McLaren, and Nadia Bolz-Weber.



I won’t go into it here because if you’re really questioning things yourselves or you realize you believe the things listed above but don’t see a problem with them, then you just need to read all the information for yourself.

As she points out in the book— none of these beliefs are new and none of these questions are groundbreaking. God, Jesus, the Bible, and the gospel have been challenged for hundreds and hundreds of years with these same arguments. And yet it has stood the test of time. There are answers and explanations for any challenge brought against historic Christianity.

Look up the Bible and you’ll find how we have thousands of original manuscripts and even atheist Bart Ehrman does not believe the differences detected in the manuscripts change the message or theology of the Bible. You’ll find that the canon councils were not to ‘decide’ which books got to be in the Bible but to affirm what was already viewed as the canon. You’ll also find that Jesus and the apostles believe in the trustworthiness, truthfulness, and authority of Scripture.

She goes through the problems of critical theory, the necessity for atonement for sins and how if Jesus didn’t die for our sins we don’t have a solution for our problem.



Same Wrapper, Different Candy

I thought it was really good when she laid it out this way:

“Jesus plus anything is a false gospel.”

She uses the example that was told to her concerning the pastor who had shaken her faith: he was just putting “a new wrapper” on the same candy. Same candy, just a different presentation. But this is an inaccurate comparison and Childers shows how it’s actually the same wrapper, but different candy. It’s called Christianity (same wrapper) but the core and the gospel is different (different candy).

“The progressive gospel is Jesus + social justice.” If sin is not our ultimate problem, and Jesus didn’t need to die for our sins and he is not our Savior, then the gospel is now about just following Jesus’ example of doing good works and forgiving others; social justice becomes the ultimate virtue. Many say that social justice is a gospel issue. But the gospel is good news about what has already been done. Social justice says what still needs to be done. Social justice flows from the gospel but it can’t be the gospel. Salvation is not ours only if we do enough social justice.

“The progressive gospel is Jesus + new knowledge.” Progressives believe that we have new and better ways of interpreting Scripture, that our view is more mature than the people in the Bible. They look at other sources to judge the Bible rather than the Bible being the authority. But just because our culture has united around an idea does not make it true. Plus, every person has a bias; truth has to exist outside of our own judgments. God didn’t preserve a wrong understanding of his Word for thousands of years only to decide that people in the 21st century are finally going to be the ones to ‘get it.’

“The progressive gospel is Jesus - judgment.” In this case, progressives have not added to the gospel, they’ve taken away God’s just judgment, believing they are morally superior to the God of the Bible and have to do some PR work to help his image— ‘God wouldn’t do that… he’s a loving God’. They believe that even though God’s wrath and judgment are all over Scripture, it’s antithetical to God’s love. But God doesn’t need us to polish his reputation. He is a holy God that has to deal with evil (an affront to his holiness) in an ultimate way. He doesn’t need us to protect him from people thinking he’s ‘mean.’ Who are we, created beings, to talk back to our Creator about what he can and can’t or should or shouldn’t do?



It was really interesting to read her recounting of the dialogue she had with the pastor and the others taking the classes that had derailed her faith. I think we can all recognize similar situations where we’ve been taught or told something but felt like something was off about it even though we couldn’t put our finger on it. Some might not know what to do with that niggling feeling and just ignore it, but let Alisa’s example be an encouragement to you to test the teachings you’ve been told and hold them up to Scripture.

It was perceptive of her to realize:

“For the pastor and my classmates, the questions mattered more than the answers. It didn’t really seem like anyone was interested in researching facts or reaching conclusions.”

If you find yourself surrounded by people challenging historic Christianity, listen to what they’re doing. Are the questions more important than the answers? Or they doing the work of looking for truth or are they just slowly aligning their beliefs to the accepted cultural norms of the day?

Alisa found that in her class “to say ‘I don’t know’ or to challenge the accepted opinion of most Christians, you would be regarded as open-minded and intelligent… if you affirmed or defended the historic view, you were dismissed as someone who was just living in fear or wasn’t willing to intellectually engage the hard questions of faith.”

Those are not the actual options.

Let Alisa give you courage that truth can be found and historic Christianity stands up to scrutiny when progressive beliefs cannot. Be vigilant of false teachers and hold every idea up to God’s Word. Most people who defend Christianity are not doing it blindly; we’ve asked the hard questions and we’ve found the answers (with a few exceptions that remain mysteries). Christianity is a reasonable faith.


She speaks of her crisis and what she went through emotionally and spiritually to get to where she is now and how she ‘limps a little.’

“But I’d rather walk with a limp on solid ground than run with strong legs on breaking ice.”

We should all care whether we’re on solid ground or precarious ice.



The Negative Reviews

I looked at some of the negative reviews of this book and noticed a theme of people taking issue with Childers’ definition, or lack of definition, of ‘progressive.’ Many identified themselves as progressive but then said they agreed with most of what she said. Others agree with some of what she said but differ in the extent to which they believe it. Some believe she’s making secondary issues into primary issues.

Definitions are important. So I googled ‘Progressive Christianity’ to see what the general consensus is. And it’s everything she said in her book. Then I looked at a Reddit thread asking the same question to see what the everyday person believes it means. That’s where the trouble lies. People take on labels for themselves that don’t necessarily match or encompass all their beliefs and then get upset when they’re lumped in with people that have differing beliefs.

If you agree with everything she’s saying, then maybe you aren’t as progressive as you think. *shrugs*

Many progressives take the label because they diverge from the biblical teachings of sexuality and God’s design for marriage. Many reviewers believed she made too much of LGBTQ topics in this book. I did not think those topics took up the most space in her book. I also think that what you believe about marriage is important because God created marriage as a representation of Christ and his bride, the church. That paired with the fact that differing opinions require interpretations of Scripture that undermine the authority of God’s Word makes it a top tier issue.

Many progressives take the label because they have a passion for social justice that they think separates them from conservatives. We would need to go into definitions of ‘social justice’ but conservatives are pro-social justice. There are, indeed, differing opinions on what doing social justice should look like. There is no better book that I’ve read to think about this than Thaddeus J. Williams’ book Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. He goes through twelve questions we should ask of our social justice that really drills down into what biblical social justice is and is not.

Personally, I’m not sure if a strict definition of progressive is necessarily needed to appreciate the book. She is not trying to attack a label. Let’s not argue about the wrong things here. She clearly identifies problematic beliefs, however you choose to label them. She’s not trying to evaluate a group of people who call themselves ‘progressive’, she’s trying to evaluate the ideas that are most associated with the term ‘progressive.’

People identifying themselves by all kinds of different labels without really knowing what they mean is what causes the convolution in terms of definitions, but based on other things I’ve read and what Google puts out there, I don’t think she got off track here.



There also appears to be some disgruntled people challenging her handling of the atonement and penal substitution and I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I fully understand the different facets of that doctrine and what different denominations hold. I’m also not sure if that’s really what she was trying to get into.

The way I understood her point is that if you don’t believe Jesus died to pay the price for our sins, voluntarily out of love becoming the sacrificial lamb in our place, then that’s the problem because it changes the answer to two core worldview questions: What is the problem with the world? What is the solution to that problem?

Since I didn’t understand other reviewers’ positions I did a little more research which helped me see what the different views might be. I found these articles that may be helpful if you want to dig deeper into this central doctrine: 3 Reasons I Changed My Mind About Penal Substitution or In My Place Condemned He Stood: Penal Substitutionary Atonement or Penal Substitution is the Heart of the Gospel and THIS ONE that specifically looks at what N.T. Wright believes about this doctrine.


Some may take issue with her writing style or her confidence, finding her book more polarizing than engaging the other side. Personally, I have always appreciated the way she handles tough subjects. Yes, she speaks with boldness and is not afraid to say what is truth even if it offends someone, but I would also never associate her with arrogance or lack of grace and love. If you listen to her podcast you will see that her writing comes from a place of urgent love to help people find the path of truth.

I think trying to write a book like this where every reader feels warm and fuzzy and completely understood and engaged intellectually and emotionally in a fair but gentle but also real way is just not realistic.

I respect this book. I appreciated her sharing her story. I think there are a lot of people that are going to find this book super helpful and hopeful and life-altering.

And truly, I don’t really see how this is just so far off a ‘correct’ definition of ‘progressive’ that justifies taking away all the stars.



Recommendation

I definitely recommend her books and her podcast. She has done a careful job of digging into hard questions and really seeking what God’s Word says.

Of course there will be push back of this book or reviewers who attack what she brings up because they disagree with what progressive means or disagree that progressive Christianity diverges from what the Bible teaches.

However, I believe Childers is rightfully exposing the hidden lies of false teachers that undermine who God is, how authoritative his Word is, and the atoning work of his son Jesus. These are not small matters and I hope you are a reader who is willing to read this book and others to see why historic Christianity is true.

“We don’t get to completely redefine who God us and how he works in the world and call it Christian. We don’t get to make the rules and do what is right in our own eyes and yet claim to be followers of Jesus. Our only option is to do it his way or not at all. He is love. His name is truth. His gospel is bloody. His way is beautiful. For God so loved the world.”



She has a section at the end of her book for additional resources for further reading. I’ll add links to the books she suggests that I’ve also read and reviewed:

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Tactics by Greg Koukl

Surviving Religion 101 by Michael Kruger (she actually lists other books by this author, but I’ve read this one by him and touches on the same information that can be found in his other books including the canonization of the Bible)

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Critical Dilemma by Neil Shenvi; also he wrote Why Believe? (she lists a different book by Shenvi on Critical Theory but this is his most recent one that also addresses the subject)

Is God Anti-Gay? by Sam Allberry

Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age by Rosaria Butterfield (she lists a different one by Rosaria but this book is her latest and is very relevant to this discussion)

A Change of Affection: A Gay Man’s Incredible Story of Redemption by Beckett Cook

What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung

“Diamonds have witnessed the past, and they will witness a future we can’t begin to imagine.”

At this point I’ve read five of her books and loved them all. Harmel just has a way of storytelling that is so compelling and touches on all your emotions. She has a knack for finding and creating unique WWII stories around regular people doing heroic things to help others.

In the Stolen Life of Colette Marceau Harmel explores how people stole from the Nazis in order to help the Resistance. In this particular story, Colette Marceau is a jewel thief, taught by her mother. In fact, it’s been a ‘family business’ of sorts as they descend from Robin Hood. They live by the code: steal from the bad, give to the poor.

“‘No one who has earned his money or his worldly possessions honestly should be parted from them, even if he’s far richer than anyone should be. But he who has evil in his heart, or has used his fortune to bring harm to others, no longer has a claim on his property. Those are the people Robin stole from then, and they’re the people we steal from now.’”



Side note: if this concept intrigues you, definitely check out Connie Mann’s book The Crown Conspiracy which is an awesome book but instead of a Robin Hood jewel thief, the main character steals previously stolen artwork and replaces them with forgeries, returning the originals to their rightful owners.


I enjoyed the concept of this book. I enjoyed the characters. I liked that we get another taste of WWII from a different angle but it was also nice not to get into the nitty gritty of the war. There were definitely segments that were hard to read— like Colette’s mother’s arrest and torture. At times we need to confront the past in all its realities, but sometimes I prefer a ‘lighter’ book that doesn’t throw you in too deep.

I think I’ve read so many books that the ‘twists’ this book ends up having weren’t really surprising to me, but I wasn’t mad about it.

I also liked the themes Harmel explores: How is right and wrong determined? Is our identity more than what we do or more than our ‘destiny’? Can a lifetime of good wash away a long-ago sin? How and to what extent do we let our history shape our future?

I also love the thread of ‘diamonds are forever’ and what that means historically— that they get passed down from generation to generation and what they’ve ‘seen’ or been through could fill tomes.

It is aptly named— The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau— and has a complex meaning— the actual theft of jewelry but also the ‘theft’ of life, physically and emotionally, the ‘theft’ of an identity, the ‘theft’ of what could have been.



As with a lot of historical fiction novels, we have a dual timeline.

The historic timeline takes place during WWII where a young Colette is experiencing the hardships of the war. When their Jewish friends are rounded up and their jewels stolen, Colette’s mother steals them back from the Nazi who took them. This puts their whole family in danger. Colette experiences a lot of loss, including the kidnapping and death of her younger sister.

The modern day timeline (2018) follows 89-year-old Colette who now lives in the states and continues to steal from Neo-Nazis to help fund the Boston Center for Holocaust Education and other charities. All these years she has still wondered what happened to her sister and who betrayed her mother, leading to her arrest.

What ultimately ties these two timelines together is a very special set of bracelets. Handcrafted with hundreds of diamonds, these interlocking bracelets were designed for Colette’s mother’s friend Helene Rosman by her husband in honor of her newly born twins. Separate they look like lilies; together it’s a beautiful butterfly.

“‘It’s perfect… Helene and I will give our children wings and they will soar.’”

These bracelets are what Colette’s mom steals back and sews into the hem of Colette and her sister’s gowns for safe-keeping and bargaining power if they ever get into a bind.

Colette kept her bracelet her whole life, searching for the other half and the answers regarding her sister. The bracelet shows up in a new museum exhibit in Boston and Colette is determined to find out who it belongs to and what they know about the past, not matter the cost.



Many historical fiction novels that tell WWII stories in dual timeline have an elderly person in the modern timeline but I loved that in this book even though Colette is 89 years old, she’s still very much an active character, not just a reminiscent one and I appreciated that about this book. Also, it’s a little funny to picture her still stealing from people— she’s correct that no one would suspect her!



One of the more interesting aspects of this book is the moral dilemma of what Colette’s family does. Is it ever okay to steal?

I think during war-time, when people are being wrongfully rounded up and killed, to steal from the perpetrators in order to finance papers to help people escape that fate, it’s hard to not see that as heroic.

But this line of thinking can be a slippery slope. Harmel intentionally wrote about this morally gray-ish area and mentions it in the author’s note. She comments how “it was fascinating to explore how someone like Colette rationalizes her thefts— and to ask myself whether that reasoning is valid.”

It’s easy to look back on WWII and be thankful for those who lied or stole in order to save lives, but I’m not entirely sure how much biblical support that position has. I also think that humans are really good at justifying things and bad at making fair, unbiased judgements. I’m glad for what people did during the war to save people, but I don’t know if my feelings about it are necessarily biblical.

Even if the US is not currently at war, I’ve already seen examples of people justifying violence or destruction or theft just because people had different beliefs than them. There are certain groups of people pushing to classify certain words or phrases as acts of violence. If we start labeling words as acts of violence then that becomes the catalyst to justify morally wrong actions.

I don’t trust humanity to make really good judgments on what is right and wrong and what is justified and what is not. Sure, we may all agree on WWII acts of rebellion but all of humanity can’t agree on everything all the time. At some point we’re going to be on different sides of what we believe is justified. Then how do we determine?

Our selfishness and sin nature are too strong to ever support this notion that it’s okay to steal from the bad and give to the good. The working definitions of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ are too fluid.

I do like that Harmel points out that Colette bettered the world in more ways than just stealing diamonds— “through her volunteer work— and through the way she chose to show up for Aviva in her darkest hour.”

We are often short-sighted, thinking the only way to solve a problem or bringing good to the world is using morally gray means to achieve a desired outcome, but if we use our critical thinking and creativity, we see that there are so many ways to make the world better than our own personally identified methods of ‘redistributing wealth.’

Sure, Colette ‘redistributed’ over 30 million dollars worth of goods, but it was no small thing for her to step into Aviva’s life and be a mother figure, to extend generosity and love with her time and her words. It’s often the small things that make more of an impact than some sort of flashy gesture or widespread action.

“Change happens one act of courage at a time, one act of kindness at at time, one act of faith at a time. And those are things that all of us are capable of.”



Another thing Harmel mentions in her author’s note that resonated with me was the idea of Colette’s identity being in her thieving.

“Colette has essentially spent her whole life clinging to the sense of identity that comes with being a thief… she’s a woman worthy of love, whose identity isn’t determined by her vocation…”

Even though Harmel does not look at this from a biblical perspective, I love how she has Colette’s character develop to the point of recognizing that her identity has been wrapped up in stealing. It’s their family’s legacy; it’s a way she feels close to her mom. But it’s also been a big burden for her to carry. A burden that she is afraid to relieve herself of because if she isn’t stealing like Robin Hood, then who is she, what good is she?

We do the same thing. We believe so much of who we are is tied up in our jobs or our kids, our hobbies, or even our sexuality. But if those things are taken away (and they can), we are left feeling empty and purposeless. Our identity has to be outside of those things.

The Bible has the answer to satisfy that longing. Our identity should be in Christ who is an unchanging constant in our life. If we are children of God that can’t be taken away from us. It is security instead of a burden.



Recommendation

As with every other Kristin Harmel book I’ve read, I would definitely recommend this one!

Lots of layers of themes and emotions yet easy to read and enjoy with likeable characters and a great ending!



[Content Advisory: 0 f- or s-words; no sexual content]

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

“Unlike drama or ballet or sculpture, you know when you’ve made comedy: it’s when people laugh.”


I guess this book should die because it really wasn’t very funny.

That sounds harsh and I’ll be up front that I don’t think I was the target audience for this book. It wasn’t quite the type of book I was expecting going into it.

I’m a pretty hilarious person so the idea that I could become even funnier if I knew all the principles of comedy is what drew me to this book. While there were some decent things to learn here, it turns out I really don’t know much about comedy or at least in the pop culture world because there were very few references that I recognized. I don’t know if it was because they were British things or if I’m just so illiterate of the comedic world— which is actually very possible.

The Office and Nate Bargatze and some random SNL skits are probably the big rocks of my comedic knowledge.

And if that tells you— I probably shouldn’t care what this woman says about this book— you may very well be correct.

I’m not out to write a really good comedy script or do stand-up. I just wanted to become a better storyteller or joke-deliverer. However, my husband is tinkering with writing some sort of funny animated show and so what I did highlight in this book was mostly things that I thought may be helpful to him as he’s thinking through that.



This book felt very, very long (it’s 57 chapters; 364 pages). I think it would have been more effective if it was shorter. Sooooo much of it felt repetitive. We get it. Evolution and comedy make total sense (nope…) and nobody laughs if they’re in danger and comedy is about defining groups and making people feel safe and you need to confound them. But we don’t need like ten chapters of each thing.

Maybe it’s because I read it so sporadically and if I had read bigger chunks at a time it would have felt like it flowed better. The science of comedy and the evolutionary exploration was towards the beginning of the book and I was pretty ready to be done with that so I skimmed a large portion of the book. And then I skipped over probably the 60-80% section so I have no idea what was in there. I liked the last section better where it talked about characters.

I think I probably could have skipped the first 175 pages in general and been fine.

If you’re wondering, the book is split into 6 parts: Comedy is Human; Comedy is Music; Comedy is Us; Comedy is Character; Comedy is Story; …And the Punchline.



I think it’s interesting how hard evolutionary biologists have to work to make sense of the world. He points out how humans are the only animals that make jokes: “There is, as far as we know, no comedy in the animal kingdom.” And somehow they’re convinced that millions of years of evolving led to people (or whatever they would call them) to be like, let’s start laughing more and being hilarious so our tribe can survive more, I think that would be a good idea.

I’m not here to debate evolution, that’s for an argument for A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution, but when I read about people trying to explain certain things by way of evolution, it just makes me stand in more awe of a Creator. It just makes me appreciate and love God more that he created humans with the ability to laugh and the minds to create jokes and comedy, and that he created a way to lighten our spirits and bond with others and that’s really cool.



To give you a better sense of what kinds of things are in this book, here are some quotes. Some of them are pretty good. But just keep in mind, these are within the context of a really long book and you might get a whole chapter talking about just one of these quotes over and over again but just with different words (and some same words):

“[Comedy] can help declare our values, when we want to say who we are, or feel that identity is under threat. It can neutralise threats with absurdity. It can provide relief when we need cheering up. it can help us bond with friends. What makes us laugh is as much part of our identity as what makes us dance, or cry.”

“The feeling of bottled hysteria— the recognition of common values, the hint of transgression, the moment of relief, the warmth of ownership and intimacy, the sharing— is the pure essence of comedy.”

“Every transgressive, dark or shocking comedy is still meant to reassure, by testing the boundaries of our group values. Shock comedy can be a way of ‘othering’ nonmembers of the group whom we wish to test, or drive away, but every offensive joke that horrifies an outsider solidifies the in-group by contrast.”

“We laugh more readily and more often when we are in company, because laughter is intended to be a social act.”

“There is notable statistical bias towards prioritizing humour as a desriable trait in a potential partner by women…”

“Incongruity is expecting one thing and getting another. And that’s how comedy works… Comedy is a game that humans play, which challenges other humans to guess what is coming next.”

“different sorts of jokes, such as puns, seem to light up different parts of your brain, which is a fascinating idea.”

… a summation of the essential elements required to make comedy might be listed simply as 1) Expectation 2) Surprise 3) Relief.”

“Comedy might be seen as the silly relation of the finer storytelling arts, but it gives your brain more extreme mental exercise, faster, than almost anything else. And that is really good for you.”

“What I think comedy has, at its best, is not truth, but clarity. And that’s because it is an art form that relies for its effects on balance, mirroring, symmetry, rhythm, contrast, pace, harmony, juxtaposition, and surprise.”

“Here are your three keys: 1. Construct (Interesting…) 2. Confirm (Of course… as I expected) 3. Confound (Hey!)”

“Character needs to be established quickly, and then we relax, and look for pattern matches.”

“Comedy is always the art of reading the room. Comedy has become a very different beast on social media in recent years, precisely because the difficulties of defining that room.”

“The common features of a joke are that: it plays games of expectation and surprise using our pattern-detecting system, it returns us to a safe state, which we may indicate to others with laughter, and it forms or reasserts a social bond within a group.”

“There’s an old comedy writer’s trick that your ensemble of characters is only ready for use when you know instantly how every one of them would react to the same stimulus.”

“If characters change, or obfuscate their motives from the audience, that’s getting dangerously close to drama.”

“Comedy isn’t meant to make everyone laugh at the same things. It’s meant to divide us, and delight us, to appeal to niche audiences. it’s not mean to bring the world together in harmony to laugh at the ultimate joke that tickles us all equally. It’s meant to gather us in small tribes, under the flag of whatever joke we, and only we, like best.”


Recommendation

If you are in the business of or would like to be in the business of stand-up comedy or writing comedy, you might find this book helpful.

If you want to know how many obscure comedy moments you know about, this might be the perfect test.

If you just want to be the life of the party, you probably don’t have the stamina for this book.

This book is for a very niche audience and I cannot tell you if that’s you. You must look deep inside yourself, all the way into your funny bone, and see if these words are written on its heart.

If that sounds dumb to you, you probably would actually like this book.

Anyway, why am I still rambling on… I don’t have much to contribute to this situation.


**Received an ARC via NetGalley— also I thought this was a new release because it was on NetGalley but turns out it was published in March 2024**

“Be steadfast. Even when there appears to be no answers to prayer— persevere. Even if you must pray out of a sense of duty, do it! Soon it will turn to delight as you concentrate on the character of God more than the charity of God.”


I think this book is definitely worth owning, even if you’re not a mom, but especially if you are. It enriches your prayer life and gives words to all the things you want to pray but never knew how to. It also brings up things you didn’t realize you needed to pray for but are glad you can now.

I’ve been using this book for a couple months now. I would take one or two prayers a day, read through them, and then personalize the concept to my own life. Normally I’m a very distracted pray-er and not a very consistent one. I would lose focus or just not know what to pray about. My mind was either blank or too overwhelmingly full to know where to start. This book has really changed the way I’ve prayed. I’ve prayed for longer periods than I ever have before.

There are so many ways you can use this book. You can go through the book cover to cover and let it give you an area to focus. You can search for the type of prayer that resonates with you on a particular day. You can send these prayers to others you know are struggling. You can pray them on your own for other people. You can use them as launching points to talk to your kids about certain topics or teach them how they can pray about things they’re struggling with. You can also gift this to another expecting mom at a baby shower!


The prayers are divided up into 12 sections ranging from prayers about the self, your home, rhythms of life, things our kids will have to deal with, things you pray you never have to pray, things for church and school, and more.

Within each section they have prayers titled well to help you find what you need like:

- When God Feels Silent
- Pregnancy Loss
- When My Child is Bullied
- While Doing Laundry
- Before a Family Trip
- Cultivating Sexual Faithfulness
- Stewarding My Body Well

That’s just a sampling of the 147 prayers in this book. You can also access the index in the back that categorizes the prayers by topic like ‘anxiety’, ‘comfort’, ‘culture’, ‘fear’, etc.



I appreciated the afterword and appendix that talk a little more about what prayer is for and what could hinder our prayers. The idea of creating a legacy of prayer really resonates with me even though I think I’m doing a terrible job of it right now.

Because I don’t like to pray out loud I know I’ve already missed a lot of great opportunities to pray more with my kids than I have. I worry they won’t even really know how to pray and I don’t want them to turn into me! So a lot of my prayers will be centered around asking for help and courage and motivation to be more intentional and purposeful with my prayers around my kids and trying to disciple them in prayer.

I have many memories of my own mom praying daily. I’m not sure my kids have those same perceptions about what I do with my time, at least yet. But I want them to know that prayer is important and commanded and I want them to know they grew up in a home covered in prayer.

Let me be clear: this book did not guilt me, it has encouraged me and reminded me how easy it can be to ‘pray without ceasing.’



Recommendation

I just really love the whole Mama Bear inventory. I’ve read their other books (THIS ONE and THIS ONE) and highly recommend them. They provide so many tools for parents to disciple their children and to answer hard questions and broach tough subjects as we point them to Christ. I cannot recommend their stuff enough. 

Buy them because it’s not something you just read once and move on. It’s a reference and a resource and every parent should have them. This prayer book included. Although, one of their goals is that in using their book to help you pray that eventually you won’t need it anymore because you will have trained yourself in how to do it. At that point, then you can gift your copy to someone else. 

So yes, I recommend this book one hundred percent. It’s enhanced and grown my ability to pray so much. 


**Received a copy via Harvest House Publishing in exchange for an honest review**