shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)

“The sad reality is that this new, contemporary tolerance is intrinsically intolerant. It is blind to its own shortcomings because it erroneously thinks it holds the moral high ground.”

“No culture can be tolerant of everything or intolerant of everything: it is simply not possible.”

The idea that tolerance is intolerant is something we need to wrap our minds around. How can this statement be true? If the culture of ‘tolerance’ seemed intolerant in 2012 when D.A. Carson wrote this book, then this book is even more relevant today where any differing viewpoint from the majority is labeled as ignorance and bigotry. People are less and less apt to express an opinion or viewpoint for fear of being ‘canceled’ or publicly and negatively called out. “Tolerance” as defined decades ago, is indeed, it would seem, a thing of the past.

In this book, D.A. Carson talks about semantics, traces historical lines through ideologies or movements that have influenced our understanding of tolerance, and exposes the inconsistencies of this ‘new tolerance’ as it is wielded today. He also discusses how the separation of church and state plays into the equation. Because the new form of tolerance requires acceptance and validation of all views, Carson reveals what that means for truth claims of Christianity (and other religions). He wraps up the book by recounting political implications of intolerant tolerance and how it will make a successful democracy increasingly harder; and then he offers some practical steps/thoughts for us moving forward.

Be warned, the book is a bit scholarly and dense and will take some concentration to follow and understand, but it is not impossible and definitely worth it.

Carson explains the subtle but significant difference in definition. ‘Tolerate’ means the “accepting the existence of other views", but ‘tolerance’ now means the “acceptance of different views.”

“To accept that a different or opposing position exists and deserves the right to exist is one thing; to accept the position itself means that one is no longer opposing it. The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another’s position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own….we leap from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid. Thus we shift from the old tolerance to the new".”

“An older view of tolerance… in line with the famous utterance often (if erroneously) assigned to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”… makes 3 assumptions: 1) there is objective truth out there, and it is our duty to pursue that truth 2) the various parties in a dispute think that they know what the truth of the matter is, even though they disagree sharply, each part thinking the other is wrong; 3) nevertheless they hold that the best chance of uncovering the truth of the matter, or the best chance of persuading most people with reason and not with coercion, is by unhindered exchange of ideas, no matter how wrongheaded some of those ideas seem.”

“The fact that the new tolerance is prone to label all of its opponents intolerant… has come to wield enormous power in much of Western culture… It functions as a ‘defeater belief.’ A defeater belief is a belief that defeats other beliefs… rules certain other beliefs out of court… the person who holds a defeater belief may listen with some intellectual interest but readily dismisses everything you say without much thought. Put together several such defeater beliefs and make them widely popular and you have created an implausibility structure .”

[In terms of ‘free speech’, a look at the book The Coddling of the American Mind is relevant here.]

Society has linked tolerance with inclusion, yet has no issue with excluding those who do not agree with them.

“it is sometimes easier for a Christian to find a place at the table today than it was thirty or forty years ago. But the price is high: if the Christian maintains that there is an exclusive element in Christian confessionalism, which of course implies that others are in some measure wrong, the place at the table is often quickly withdrawn. The grounds for the withdrawal are not, formally speaking, that the Christian is a Christian, but that the Christian is intolerant, which cannot be tolerated. Thus the world of academia exerts not-so-subtle pressures for Christians to develop a form of Christian expression that disowns or at least silences the exclusiveness claims that are grounded in Scripture itself.”

“When New York’s Central Park allows New Yorkers to set up a Christian nativity scene, a Jewish menorah, and a Muslim star and crescent, each paid for by private citizens even though the displays are on public property, that’s inclusion. By contrast, a few years ago when Eugene, Oregon, banned Christmas trees from public property because this would not be inclusive, they were exclusive.”

“The point is that, while claiming the moral high ground, the secularists are unambiguously attempting to push their own agendas. They have every right to do so, of course, but they do not have the right to assume that their stance is ‘neutral’ and therefore intrinsically superior.”

The most significant thing about this whole ordeal is the matter of truth. Tolerance is now seen as a virtue and is attached to moral relativism. The main tenet of moral relativism is that there is no standard for truth, we can’t know what the standard for truth is or means, and/or we don’t care about whatever standard of truth there is. But as Christians we must uphold the truths of the Bible. If we cave in to secular forces, and make ‘being nice’ of supreme importance and moral value, what do we lose?

Carson answers, “…my aim is to unpack some of the ways in which Christians who attempt to be faithful to the Bible are bound to uphold certain truths- truths that remain true whether anyone believes them or not, truths that are bound up in the gospel, truths that cannot be sacrificed on the altar of the great goddess of relativism… none of this makes Christians intolerant in the old sense of that word. If they are judged intolerant in the new sense, the price of escaping the charge is too high to pay: it would mean abandoning Christ.”

“Relativism promises freedom but enslaves people: it refuses to acknowledge sin and evil the way the Bible does, and therefore it never adequately confronts sin and evil, and therefore leaves people enslaved by sin and evil. Even at societal levels, it is an invitation to destruction, for if everyone does that which is right in their own eyes, the end is either anarchic chaos or cultural cries for more laws in order to establish stability…”

I will not go into detail about the political aspect of the tolerance conversation contained in one of his chapters, as he gives several examples of how this has played out for different people/organizations, [Another good resource discussing Christianity in the public square is Jonathan Leeman’s book How the Nations Rage ] but I will drop this quote here as I believe it is a startling and accurate depiction of the waters we, as a country, are dipping our feet into.

“Democracies become progressively more difficult as their citizens become progressively more polarized… Add enough polarization, however, and a democracy will drift toward a) a revolt in the ballot box that brings a reforming group to power; or b) increasing intrusion by the government into every area of its citizens’ lives in order to preserve order where there is no longer a unified vision; or c) in the worst case, civil war.”

The last chapter of the book includes Carson’s ten “words” (FYI it’s definitely more than ten words. Let’s call it points instead.) They range from advocating for intellectual and religious diversity, to preserving truth, evangelizing, and practicing civility, to exposing secularism’s arrogance, wrongly attributed neutrality and superiority, and to preparing to suffer as we trust in the Lord who is our hope in all things.

Finally, here are two very good quotes to sum it all up!

“We need to distinguish between the tolerant mind and the tolerant spirit. Tolerant in spirit a Christian should always be, loving, understanding, forgiving and forbearing others, making allowances for them, and giving them the benefit of the doubt, for true love ‘bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ But how can we be tolerant of mind of what God has plainly revealed to be either evil or erroneous.” - John R W Stott

“The purpose of an open mind is the same as that of an open mouth- to close it again on something solid.”- G.K. Chesterton

“Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”

This book, written in 2018, was an expansive follow-up to their 2015 article in The Atlantic. The premise is even more relevant now than it was then. Greg, a First Amendment lawyer & fighter for academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus, and Jon, social psychologist, have teamed up together to develop and explore this statement: “Many university students are learning to think in distorted ways, and this increases their likelihood of becoming fragile, anxious, and easily hurt.”

Greg and Jon discuss three underlying ‘Untruths’ found woven into the ways we think that influence how we interpret and react when faced with uncomfortable situations or opposing viewpoints. They expose ways we react that are harmful and dangerous (physically and ideologically) and they trace six threads in an attempt to solve the mystery of how we got to where we are now. Finally, they wrap up with advice and action steps to correct our thinking and ways of engaging with others, in parenting and in our education systems.

They say, “We will show how well-intentioned overprotection—from peanut bans in elementary schools through speech codes on college campuses—may end up doing more harm than good.” The result is a culture of ‘safety.’"

The Untruths are:
- What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker (fragility),
- Always trust your feelings (emotional reasoning)
- Life is a battle between good people and evil people (us vs them)

You may read those and think- those are ridiculous, I don’t actually operate from that mindset! But as you read from their research, experience, and psychological knowledge, we function from the Untruths a lot more than we realize! Jon and Greg include a list of distorted automatic thoughts people have that I thought was super helpful and eye-opening to the way I often perceive things I read or hear. Every person should engage in recognizing these in themselves. They talk a lot about Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) which is a therapy that helps people identify destructive thought patterns that result in negative emotions and give examples throughout the book of how this plays out. (i.e. labeling, dichotomous thinking, overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, etc)

I found this to be a fascinating, jarring, and helpful book. I minored in Psychology so maybe I’m biased to this method of analysis and was geeking out too much (“Correlation does not equal causation!”) but I would highly recommend this book to all people. I don’t agree with everything they say in the book, especially in terms of their evolutionary explanations, but this is an intelligent and perceptive discourse that must be taken seriously. Many reviewers claim the article was sufficient and find the book superfluous and repetitive, but I don’t agree. Though I have not read the article, I believe every part of the book to be advantageous, relevant, and necessary in supporting the premise of the book.

Our minds are powerful and if we can’t recognize when we are falling into distorted thinking patterns, our relationships and our world as a whole are worse off. The most prevalent and obvious evidence to that effect is the severe political polarization happening in America. If Jon and Greg thought everything leading up to 2015 was bad, think of what would be included with another 6 years of data!

So what qualifies these statements to be untrue? Jon and Greg give us three criteria:
- contradicts ancient wisdom (ideas found widely in the wisdom literature of many cultures) 
- contradicts modern psychological research on well-being 
- harms the individuals and communities who embrace it 

Before I impart some of the more notable findings and remarks, I’ll offer two disclaimers. One: I wouldn’t classify this as a partisan political endeavor. Both authors align with Democrats on a lot of social issues and have never voted Republican, but I believe they offer a fair assessment of all political parties and critique interactions from all sides. And Two:

“To repeat, we are not saying that the problems facing students, and young people more generally, are minor or “all in their heads.” We are saying that what people choose to do in their heads will determine how those real problems affect them.” 

Society has advanced in the last couple decades to increase safety for our kids- like better medicines, seat belts, etc., but if we take away all opportunities to experience risk, we are preventing our children from growing experiences.

Developmental psychologist, Alison Gopnik, says, “Thanks to hygiene, antibiotics and too little outdoor play, children don’t get exposed to microbes as they once did. This may lead them to develop immune systems that overreact to substances that aren’t actually threatening—causing allergies. In the same way, by shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren’t risky at all and isolate them from the adult skills that they will one day have to master.”

The concept of ‘safety’ has also evolved. Even though our society is overall safer than it was 20 years ago, what constitutes as ‘safe’ has broadened.

“A culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.” 

“If we protect children from various classes of potentially upsetting experiences, we make it far more likely that those children will be unable to cope with such events when they leave our protective umbrella. The modern obsession with protecting young people from “feeling unsafe” is, we believe, one of the (several) causes of the rapid rise in rates of adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide.” 

So if safety is now determined by emotional comfort levels, then feelings become very powerful. Feelings start to dictate to us what is true or moral. But that hinders our ability to learn and consider opposing viewpoints or contrary evidence.

“It is not acceptable for a scholar to say, 'You have shown me convincing evidence that my claim is wrong, but I still feel that my claim is right, so I’m sticking with it.' When scholars cannot rebut or reconcile disconfirming evidence, they must drop their claims or else lose the respect of their colleagues. As scholars challenge one another within a community that shares norms of evidence and argumentation and that holds one another accountable for good reasoning, claims get refined, theories gain nuance, and our understanding of truth advances.”

This also plays into the newly adopted term “micro-aggression” that identifies commonplace encounters that are perceived as hostile and derogatory, usually used in terms of race. This brings up the conversation of intent vs impact. A lot of activists say that bigotry is more about impact (how it makes someone feel) instead of intent (the ‘aggressor’s’ motive.) Obviously, impact matters, but so does intent.

“If you teach students that intention doesn’t matter, and you also encourage students to find more things offensive (leading them to experience more negative impacts), and you also tell them that whoever says or does the things they find offensive are “aggressors” who have committed acts of bigotry against them, then, you are probably fostering feelings of victimization, anger, and hopelessness in your students… if someone wanted to create an environment of perpetual anger and inter group conflict, this would be an effective way to do it. Teaching students to use the least generous interpretations possible is likely to engender precisely the feelings of marginalization and oppression that almost everyone wants to eliminate.” 

This inevitably leads to grouping people together which inevitably leads to an ‘us vs them’ mentality.

“What happens when you train students to see others—and themselves—as members of distinct groups defined by race, gender, and other socially significant factors, and you tell them that those groups are eternally engaged in a zero-sum conflict over status and resources?” 

 “Identity can be mobilized in ways that emphasize an overarching common humanity while making the case that some fellow human beings are denied dignity and rights because they belong to a particular group, or it can be mobilized in ways that amplify our ancient tribalism and bind people together in shared hatred of a group that serves as the unifying common enemy.”  

Part II discusses violence that has resulted from all the previously mentioned ideas working together. This happens when speech is viewed as violence. A startling survey shows that 30% of undergrad students surveyed agreed with the statement: “If someone is using hate speech or making racially charged comments, physical violence can be justified to prevent this person from espousing their hateful views.” This is a dangerous road to travel down. Especially if impact reigns supreme, intent doesn’t matter, our feelings establish truth, and people are seen according to whatever group they’re part of. If it’s based on subjective interpretation and perception, it will be a small step to justify violence in almost any (personally deemed) offense.

“In 2017, 58% of college students said it is “important to be part of a campus community where I am not exposed to intolerant and offensive ideas.”

The idea that disagreement is violence is a severe detriment to learning and understanding. College years are very formative years where students learn how to learn and to seek truth and function in a group of diverse people. “Hannah Holborn Gray, the president of the University of Chicago from 1978-1993 once offered this principle: ‘Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.’”  If students can’t be exposed to opposing viewpoints or material that is (increasingly) deemed “triggering” and therefore “unsafe”, they will not learn how to handle adversity when they enter the real world, and we will be creating a politically and ideologically uniform body of people of can’t think for themselves.

[I wish I could tell you all the things, but I’m lucky if you’re even still reading this. So I’ll wrap it up. Just know that there is so much more information in the book that is definitely worth your time.]

Part III follows the six threads (below) to see how they have influenced students who are coming out of college or have recently entered the workforce. We know in psychology that correlation does not equal causation. We have to consider all of the variables and realize it’s a complex fabric that produces the tapestry of a generation.
- Political Polarization
- Increased Anxiety and Depression
- Paranoid Parenting (I’m one of the moms who still fears my kids will be kidnapped! This was a really good chapter for me)
- Decline of Free Play (Kids not getting enough unstructured, unsupervised play time to develop autonomy and the ability to assess acceptable risk)
- Bureaucracy of Safetyism (Universities treating students like customers/consumers and overcompensating for potential liabilities)
- The Quest for Justice (interesting studies on equal inputs/outcomes; looking for both just outcomes but also just processes that determine those outcomes)

If you are still wondering why any of this matters consider this: The broader and more subjective terms become, the more likely you are to end up on the wrong side of the majority. We don’t have to like or approve of offensive rhetoric, but who gets to decide what is offensive? How can everyone always agree? Chances are, at some point you will want to express an unpopular opinion that someone somewhere finds offensive. Would you like to be able to do that without your statement being labeled hate speech just because you are disagreeing with the majority? Free speech is paramount to maintaining a free society. Too much power on any side without the ability to publicly dispute it is a dangerous place to be, and we need to protect our right to speak, even if people use it to say some really stupid things.

Jon and Greg didn’t write this book about “snowflakes"; they don’t support the term and wanted to move past the simplistic response “Young people are too fragile” to understand what factors are shaping our young people, what could be responsible for the polarity, violence, call-out culture, and loss of civil discourse. It’s not a blame-game but an honest and introspective book that I truly believe could make a difference in our relationships and in our world.

Progressive activist Van Jones said this when speaking at a university, and I think it appropriate to end on:

“I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.”

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I read 25% and I couldn’t finish this book... the premise was so interesting and I was excited to read it but man, I just couldn’t do the writing style. It was confusing and jumpy and I had the hardest time following or trying to understand what the author was trying to portray. I couldn’t tell what emotions I was supposed to be feeling by certain encounters. The perspective changing wasn’t handled well and a lot of background info was thrown in with no setup or context and was hard to follow. Others who have liked the book have mentioned the ‘poetic’ writing as a factor. To each his own. To me, an example of poetic writing is The Book Thief. This didn’t feel poetic. Just because you use one word sentences and run on sentences and big beautiful words doesn’t make it poetic. I don’t read it and say ‘This is so so confusing so it must be so deep that I can’t grasp the importance and intentionality.’ Who would? What’s the point of poetic writing if it doesn’t illicit emotion or take the reader on the proper journey? I was frustrated because I wanted to see it through and I want to see where it goes but I just can’t take the writing. I can only read so many books in a year and I didn’t want to continue wasting my time to read something that just frustrated me.

**Thank you NetGalley for the ARC and I’m sorry I couldn’t give a better review for this one**

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I did not like Ted Dekker's recent books (i.e. The Mystic books) but I did like Rachelle Dekker's Seer trilogy, so I decided to give this book a try. Based on the previously mentioned books, I kind of knew what to expect: dystopian-ish setting, tangible evil (here- the Fury), a seductive evil person, a bunch of references to light and darkness, a Jesus-like child character who is either smiling, singing, or laughing, a green water experience, the seeming death of a 'savior'-type character, and a supernatural showdown. It had all the elements, and though the characters had new names, and now there was a crazy cult and a red rope, the story read like nothing new to me. Really, it was entertaining to read until the last 40 pages or so. The Dekkers know how to create a suspenseful story to be sure, even if it's a 'remake', but sadly, Ted Dekker's writing has been more focused on this abstract theology than either a solid theological book (i.e. The Slumber of Christianity) or a thrill-focused book (i.e. Boneman's Daughters). I wish he would pick one or the other.

I am very curious to know how someone who is not a Christian would read and view this story. Which leads me to ask- who were the Dekkers targeting in writing this? Christians who have become legalistic or focused on fear and obedience instead of truth and grace? People who have not met God and known the truth at all? I think the answer to that would better inform how I review this book. But since I don't have that, here are some of my observations.

The theology Dekker has been touting is very abstract: 'we are light. light is love. love casts out fear. darkness can't threaten the light. you need to know who you are- light and love. open your eyes.' None of this is unbiblical. But if this is the only message you hear, there is no substance. There is no gospel. There is no 'object' of your faith. It leaves you with more questions than answers. Why are we light? Where is our hope? Why do we need it? What happens next? Maybe it's more 'beautiful' or poetic to just stay in the light/dark analogy, but you don't REALLY have the truth without Jesus, our sin nature, our need of a savior, Jesus' perfect atonement, and our subsequent gratitude and loving obedience.

For example, "Yes, Jesus, who made a way for all to see and be who they are beyond their blindness. This is the only way to know yourself in and as the light. You don't let go of the world because it's bad. You let go because your attachment to your fear-based self blinds you to who you are as the light. Simple." is how it's described. I don't find an intuitive gospel message here.

They say in the book that there is no death, just a passing. But there IS death. Death to self and our sinful desires. Death to our old life. It contradicts what Dekker says in his book, The Slumber of Christianity: "Our enemy has turned death into something to be feared and, by extension, swept under the rug. But when you sweep death under the rug, you will likely sweep the afterlife under the rug with it. By hiding death, you hide the afterlife, and by hiding the afterlife, you hide any hope you have in it." Sure, the 'don't fear death' message is the same. But he pleads here that if we don't see death for what it is, then the afterlife and the hope of eternal life is not our focus. And this story doesn't tell us what they are hoping in. The push of the story is that they don't need to fear. They need to love. But why? How do they know they don't need to fear? Who is their hope? What exactly are they escaping and accepting by rejecting fear? It's all very vague.

The cult itself made me a little uncomfortable because it was supposedly based on Scripture and they called themselves Christians. I think the Dekkers are trying to shock Christians into recognizing the ways fear has taken control over parts of our lives or how we have watered down our faith to just be following a set of rules to obtain salvation. And I get that. And I suppose there really are cults in the world that probably claim to be Christians and claim to follow the Bible but operate similarly to this cult. But without detailing the full gospel message of Christianity it felt a little bit like they were battling the cult's ideals with another set of crazy cult ideals. Same with the manifestation of 'Wisdom.' They didn't reveal until later that it was wisdom *according to the world*. I kept struggling with that relationship and evaluating how it fit into the truth of the gospel and biblical wisdom. It might have been better to reveal that earlier, but I suppose that was a revelation meant to be hidden until the end.

(Kudos if you made it this far.) Knowing where to land on this book is a challenge. I'm a soft 3 stars right now. Because we absolutely need to battle the clutches of fear that has infiltrated our faith. Some form of 'Do not be afraid' is repeated over and over again the Bible- so God knew we would struggle with this. And I agree that the devil uses fear to draw us away from the truth of who God is and what Jesus has done. Amen and amen. And absolutely let's fight against the legalism of faith + works = salvation and the idea that all you need to do to be 'pure' is follow a bunch of rules and rituals. Again, amen and amen. But the gospel message was missing. And that's fine for a novel, I don't expect this in every Christian book, but if they're going to spend so much time on the light/dark analogy of faith and truth, than it's not so out of the realm to give a little more substance to their theology. And there is a place for obedience. The Bible talks a lot about obedience. We can't biblically rid ourselves of it. We just need to approach it the correct way. SO, lower rating due to the vague and abstract theology. But also because of the all-too-familiar plot line. The title and book cover and the co-authoring with Rachelle, led me to hope that this book would read more like his stand alone thrillers but was disappointingly carried out like another branch of his 'Mystic' series.

Sidenote: I was reflecting on Ted Dekker's book, The Slumber of Christianity, and it is a really convicting and rich book that calls out complacent Christians. I hope that he finds his way out of these abstract, borderline universalism analogies and gets back to his theology that says, "The fact is, nothing in this life can satisfy unless it is fully bathed in an obsession for eternity. Nothing. Not a purpose-driven life, not a grand adventure, not the love of a dashing prince or the hand of a beautiful maiden... Not our religion our faith, or any version of Christianity less focused on the prize that awaits." Or "We have been granted our inheritance as a matter of God's grace, not through any work we have done. Heaven is a gift to us. The enemy may make our lives quite miserable by robbing us of hope and rubbing our noses in sin, but when our eighty or so years on this earth end, we will see that his strategy has failed and we, the true followers of Christ, will only laugh at his desperate ploys." Or "No matter how man will find pleasure within its fears and contrive usefulness from its gadgets, the machine of life is destined to lie in darkness unless fueled by the pearl of great hope. But powered by that fuel, the great machine will awaken with a thunder and fill the heart with an inexhaustible awe. Happy is the man who finds this pearl of great price."

Ted Dekker has the ability to speak the gospel in a rich and beautiful way, I've read it. But this new way of describing it is not, I believe, doing what he thinks it's doing.


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A provocative title in the best way. This book is a great study in how we are fooled, just as Adam and Eve, to take to heart the doubt Satan markets with: "Did God really say...?" We must be reminded to be on guard to the ploys of the enemy who comes to "diminish God and exalt man."

"The prospect of the fruit promised the three things—fulfillment, beauty, and enlightenment—that we have been chasing in every tree ever since… We live our lives in exile, but we play ‘garden’ every day. We drink the mirage’s sand and call it living water. We indulge our flesh and call it glory. We worship ourselves and call it living at the ‘next level.’"

The lies Wilson dissects are spot on and illuminated in ways maybe I speculated but couldn't put into words- they 100% are touted as truth in Christian and secular circles alike and are more dangerous than we realize.

If any of your goals in life (or what you hope for your loved ones) include: just being happy, having no regrets, living your truth, living what 'feels' right, taking control of your life but also just 'letting go', living a love-only gospel, and doing more good than bad or more good than your neighbor, this book will rock your world in the best way possible. It is going to liberate you in ways you've only dreamed and it's going to make more sense than you could hope for. This book has helped recalibrate my thinking to reevaluate what/who I am truly worshipping when I say the things I say or do the things I do.

It is a sobering thought to consider: "The devil knows he doesn’t need the Church of Satan to get you. He just needs something shiny. He comes to us, remember, as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). He makes, as Paul called them, ‘arguments that sound reasonable’ (Col 2:4)… The devil makes his lies sound like common wisdom, religious insight, or motivational speeches."

We live in a culture that is trying to make all things gray, indistinguishable, and common. But Jesus said, 'It is finished'- he has already defeated the Liar and the Deceiver. We don't have to settle with gray, we can resist the fruits of fulfillment, beauty, and enlightenment. We are equipped and commanded to discern God's truth. This book, full of Scripture, is another tool to decipher some of this 'common wisdom' and illuminate it for what it is.

Will you check the author of your gospel?

**I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

See more of my reviews at www.shelfreflection.com!

There is a lot of controversy surrounding this book. You don’t find 51% 5-star ratings and 18% 1-star ratings (at the time of this review) on books unless it’s a highly polarized audience.

So I decided to read it for myself.

Before we go any further let me tell you what this book is NOT.

- It is NOT religiously motivated. This is not a Christian book. (Abigail Shrier is maybe Jewish?) There are no religiously motivated persuasions within. Shrier’s points and arguments are all based on interviews, psychological studies, and scientific data. I don’t believe there is a single Bible verse or mention of God. (And many of the doctors and people she interviews are not conservative politically, many never voted Republican)

- It is NOT anti-trans. Shrier says, “I have nothing but respect for the transgender adults I’ve interviewed. They were among the most sober, thoughtful, and decent people I had come to know in the course of writing this book.” She makes note of many trans adults who live happy adjusted lives and is not questioning the trans lifestyle in general. This book is targeted at the adolescent population and the rest of my review will explain why.

- It is NOT hateful. You may disagree with this, but it’s probably because we’re working with different definitions of the word ‘hate.’ I believe people can have intelligent discourse and disagree with each other without being hateful. I believe someone can publish a researched book with voices from all POVs to lay a case for their arguments without being hateful. She is respectful in her writing and does not resort to name-calling or degradation of any kind. This book was not a product of malice but a product of love for a vulnerable population that is being misled by the masses.

Why was this book written? Because this:

“Gender dysphoria—formerly known as “gender identity disorder”—is characterized by a severe and persistent discomfort in one’s biological sex. It typically begins in early childhood—ages two to four—though it may grow more severe in adolescence. But in most cases—nearly 70 percent—childhood gender dysphoria resolves. Historically, it afflicted a tiny sliver of the population (roughly .01 percent) and almost exclusively boys... Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls ages 11-21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all.”

What we see now is a spike in trans-identifying adolescents and the majority of them are natal females. You do not see surges like this unless something else is a major and contributing factor. Many medical professionals decided it was worth investigating.

Buck Angel, a well-known trans man, even says, “How can we not question it? How can our own community not question it? That’s the part that I’m a little upset about; my own community not saying ‘Hey. We need to take responsibility for these children.’”

Abrigail Shrier, writer for the Wall Street Journal, conducted hundreds of interviews with people of all sides of this issue, watched hours and hours of YouTube and social media footage, scoured many psychological and scientific studies, read pages and pages of research, and identified several contributing factors to what could be labeled a “transgender craze” in adolescent females (not unlike anorexia or bulimia spikes in previous decades). If you had the time, I am pretty sure almost everything she includes is completely verifiable if you find the stats unbelievable or the context lacking. For my part, I found everything to seem very credible and the few things I looked up rang true.

Her findings are separated into chapters titled: The Puzzle (what the data shows), The Influencers (social media and peer pressure), The Schools (indoctrination), The Moms and Dads, The Shrinks (requirement of affirmation therapy), The Dissidents (those cancelled for speaking out), The Promoted and Demoted (lesbians and women in general are the losers), The Transformation (the science of T and gender surgeries—a bit graphic), The Regret (stories from de-transitioners), The Way Back. (Note: Parenthetical additions my own)

I would also add that I do not agree with everything Abigail Shrier writes or supports in her book. However, I will not include any of that in this particular review because I believe it will detract from the gravity of what she uncovers in this book.

I started to write out all of the things I deemed worthy of your attention in the book and became overwhelmed at the task of paring it down. There is just too much to impart to you in a short review.

The things you will read are not what we're hearing in the media. But is it possible that there's more to the transgender movement than we're told? Wise people will consider all the information before shutting this down.

I found this book to be intelligent, enlightening, respectful but blunt, courageous, and absolutely imperative to be part of the conversation. I am thankful for the dogged work Abigail Shrier did to put this together.

Here’s a bulleted, non-exhaustive, list of some things I found significant. It’s a far less organized, coherent, and fleshed out version of what Shrier expounds upon in her book.

- Children and young adults who are claiming to be trans are seeing medical professionals but are self-diagnosing and self-prescribing treatment based on their own subjective feelings. Medical professionals must agree with their patients or risk losing their license. This is not done with any other reason you see medical professionals. And these self-diagnoses are permanent and irreversible bodily changes- testosterone courses and gender surgeries.

- Schools are passing policies that allow children as young as 12 years old to leave school and obtain cross-sex hormones from a doctor without parental consent or knowledge. Schools are also teaching kids as young as kindergarten a full gender spectrum vocabulary and having them imagine what it’s like to be the other gender, all in the name of anti-bullying training. Schools are also allowing children to claim a new name and pronouns, and then using those names and pronouns and concealing it from the parents.

- YouTube and social media influencers are coaching kids (who so desperately want to try testosterone) how to alter their stories and align their ‘symptoms’ to match up with the DSM criteria for gender dysphoria. They instruct kids to say that if they don’t get what they want that they’ll commit suicide. They encourage girls to try chest binders and tell them how to get them without their parents knowing. They chronicle their ‘AMAZING’ gender transformations as glamorous events but give no information on the medical dangers and the adverse side effects of all of these steps. Many of which are irreversible. And if gender is fluid like they claim, and they could change to a different point on the gender spectrum later in life, irreversible transformations seem pretty significant.

- The idea of a ‘boy brain’ in a girl body evidenced in different interests and abilities is taking away from what it means to be a woman. Schools are rewriting history to explain characters like Joan of Arc and Catherine the Great, that because they took on masculine roles and broke barriers they aren’t ‘as female’ as we thought they were—aka the more a woman breaks barriers and accomplishes extraordinary things, or the more ‘amazing’ she is, the less of a woman she is. Female athletic achievements are being hijacked by natal men. It actually reinforces gender stereotypes instead of allowing a woman to be “equal” to a man. Girls can like trucks and the color blue and short hair and math and science, and not like makeup and dresses and still be a girl. Females can be a diverse group of individuals. But now they are being told- no, that means you’re actually a boy.

And because it’s just easier for you to read it for yourself—a crap ton of quotes from the people who know more than me:

“But what is gender identity? It has no diagnostic markers, no measurable signs no blood test to confirm it. It is a feeling— an attitude, that does not mean that it does not exist. But it does mean that, like many psychiatric ailments, it poses challenges to diagnosis and treatment. When the prospective treatment is an irreversible surgery, the slippery nature of the condition would seem to justify measured and careful evaluation.”

“Adolescent gender dysphoria has surged across the West. In the United States the prevalence has increased over 1000 percent...In Britain, the increase is 4000 percent, and three quarters of those referred for gender treatment are girls...In 2016, natal females accounted for 46 percent of all sex reassignment surgeries in the US. A year later, it was 70 percent.”

“There is nothing particularly outlandish in feeling discomfort in one’s own body or in suspecting that one might feel better in another. There are so many things about our physical forms that cause us distress and regret. We lug around bodies we would never have chosen...For those with gender dysphoria, this unpleasantness must be excruciating, and we should expect mental health professionals to be respectful of it, sympathetic to those who bear it, and understanding of their pain...But the new “affirmative care” standard is a different matter entirely. It surpasses sympathy and leaps straight to demanding that mental health professionals adopt their patients’ beliefs of being the “wrong body.” Affirmative therapy compels therapists to endorse a falsehood: not that a teenage girls feels more comfortable presenting as a boy—but that she actually is a boy.”

“Turns out, adolescents really care what their friends think—quite a lot in fact— and this distorts all kinds of choices they make. Teenagers take more risks than any other age group. They may even be neurologically inclined toward risk, especially where peer approval is on the line. It isn’t just that teenagers do dumb things. It’s that, when faced with their peers, they almost can’t help themselves. The prefrontal cortex, believed to hold the seat of self-regulation, typically does not complete development until age twenty-five.”

“Lisa Marchiano says, genuine therapy pushes patients to question their own self-assessments. ‘If I work with someone who’s really suicidal because his wife left him. I don’t call the wife up and say: ‘Hey, you just have to come back!’ That’s not the way we treat suicide. We don’t treat suicide by giving people exactly what they want. We treat suicide first of all by keeping people safe, and by helping them to become more resilient.’ We ought to treat gender dysphoria that way, too.”

“Each of the desisters and detransitioners I talked to reported being 100 percent certain that they were definitely trans—until, suddenly, they weren’t. Nearly all of them blame the adults in their lives, especially the medical professionals, for encouraging and facilitating their transitions.”

“In a recent academic study, Kenneth Zucker found that the mental health outcomes for adolescents with gender dysphoria were very similar to those with the same mental health issues who did not have gender dysphoria. In other words, we have no proof that the gender dysphoria was responsible for the suicidal ideation or tendency to self-harm. It may have been the many other mental health problems that gender dysphoric adolescents so often bear.”

“’When you’ve stopped puberty with puberty blockers and go straight to cross-sex hormones, you absolutely guarantee that you will be infertile.’ When the gender clinicians pushed Katherine to start her preteen child on hormone blockers, they were proposing that she put Maddie on a path toward infertility… Katherine could not understand how psychologists would encourage this, how doctors would allow it, or why medical professional standards would permit parents to consent to eliminating such a vital human capacity on behalf of their minor children. And yet, right in front of her, schools were encouraging it, parents were going along with it, the media was celebrating it, and everyone was acting as if this were perfectly kosher… What’s more, even if her daughter did not start puberty blockers and instead waited puberty out and then began cross-sex hormones (testosterone), this carried all sorts of risks of its own. Endometrial and ovarian cancer. Hysterectomy.”

“A leaked 2019 report from the Tavistock and Portman Trust gender clinic in the UK, which showed the rates of self-harm and suicidality did not decrease even after puberty suppression for adolescent natal girls. The report was so damning that a governor of the clinic, Dr. Marcus Evans resigned. He told the press that he feared the clinic was fast-tracking youths to transition to no good effect and in some cases to their harm.”

"If the last decade has witnessed a rise to prominence for transgender Americans, it has also seen the demotion of women and girls. Biological boys identifying as girls are already overpowering the very best high school girl athletes across the country. Female runners, swimmers, and weightlifters are being routed by trans-identified biological boys, many of whom were only middling athletes on the boys’ team. Those who object to the unfairness are either dismissed or accused of bigotry."

"In February 2019, tennis great and proud lesbian Martina Navratilova wrote for the Sunday Times that allowing trans athletes to compete in women’s sports was unfair to biological women. She was labeled a transphobe and dropped by her sponsor Athlete Ally."

"Once used in chemical castration of sex offenders, Lupron is the go-to puberty blocker, FDA-approved to halt precocious puberty. What the FDA has not approved is using Lupron to halt normal puberty in anyone—transgender-identified or otherwise. In general, doctors don’t like to interrupt healthy endocrine signaling based on the say-so of minors, and gender dysphoria has no observable diagnostic criteria. There are as yet no reliable studies that show Lupron is safe for these kids. All available studies note the “low quality” of evidence, or contains similar caveats."

"This is the circular logic that pervades trans ideology: if you desist, you were never trans to begin with. Thus, no real transgender people ever desist. It’s an unfalsifiable proposition."

(Benji was trans from 13-19 but not anymore) "When she complained online about her parents, queer adults often coached her on running away from her family. At the time, she believed that these adults—not her parents—had her best interest in mind, and that they were generally helping her to escape mentally and physically from a tumultuous home. But she no longer sees it that way. They were “weaponizing it against me to kind of draw me into their community more, and draw me away from anyone who would give me rational ways of thinking about my life.”

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My favorite part of this book was seeing America circa 1878 through the eyes of an Englishman (Charles Lenox). Part historical fiction, part Sherlock Holmes, and a dash of wit, this book was a fun read for me. I love a good mystery and enjoyed learning some cultural differences between Britain and America during this time period as well as just some interesting facts.

It begins with Charles Lenox being asked by a superior to go to America so that he's out of the country while a trial is underway for the corruption in the Scotland Yard that he was part of uncovering. Being well-known in America, he is roped into investigating a suicide/murder case in ritzy Newport, Rhode Island.

I was not aware of the opulent summer "cottages" of Newport so it was really interesting to google these. And now I'm obviously going to go visit and tour them in person. They would have cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build today. (And these were second homes!!) You can actually walk the infamous Cliff Walk where the case in question took place so that would be pretty cool.

I love the historical parts of this story and all the descriptions of New York during this time period. It was well-written and reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie's mysteries. Lots of little clues to pick up on that you'll probably miss and then once you know whodunit you'll want to go back and read it again to see what you missed. This seemed like a wrap up book for the series a little bit so I'm not sure where the next one will go if there is, indeed, another one to come.

I've never read anything by Charles Finch before so reading this was jumping ahead of a lot of Charles Lenox's life and career. However, it didn't take away from being able to understand and still enjoy this book. I would like to go back and read some of the earlier books so hopefully knowing the future won't ruin any of them for me.

I can't speak too much about character development considering this is book #11. One could argue that Charles Lenox and his wife lacked depth in this book but I'm sure people who've read all the other books would see things differently. I thought Lenox was likable. He meets up again with a woman he had fallen in love with earlier in his life (who is now married to her second husband). I'm assuming that takes place in one of the earlier books. Since I hadn't followed his journey to his current wife and read much about their relationship, part of me held my breath hoping he wasn't going to be unfaithful while away from his wife. But thankfully, he stayed true. Well done, sir.

So anyway. If you are a fan of mystery novels, I would definitely give this one a try!

P.S. A few things I learned while reading this book:

- 'Godmanchester' is pronounced 'Gumster'
- Shrapnel was invented by Lt. Henry Shrapnel
- Saltboxes are a type of house common in colonial America
- Hearing something 'through the grapevine' came to be a thing because there was a tavern during the Civil War called the Old Grapevine where officers often dined and spies were usually lurking around to gather information
- The history behind the 'white elephant' gift exchange
- At this point in history, Trinity Church in New York was the tallest building in the city
- New York City used to be called New Amsterdam and began with Dutch settlers

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**

See more of my reviews at www.shelfreflection.com!

"This book is written for the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator...For those of us who know God loves us but suspect we have deeply disappointed him...Who wonder if we have shipwrecked our lives beyond what can be repaired...Who have been swept off our feet by perplexing pain and are wondering how we can keep living under such numbing darkness. Who look at our lives and know how to interpret data only by concluding that God is fundamentally parsimonious."

I think that about covers it. I'm guessing you, like me, fit into one of those categories. And so, this book is for you. Even if you don't fall into any of the above and you feel pretty good about everything, I would venture that you might just land here somewhere further down the road. Or maybe someone close to you could really use you speaking the truths from this book (and ultimately Scripture) into their life. I think you will find this book to be a true comfort and refreshment wherever you are.

It is actually pretty incredible everything he fits into such a short, quick read. It's one I know I will revisit. There is much to ponder from each chapter and I know I didn't do it justice without giving more time for introspection. I've grown up in the church. I read a lot of Christian living books, and yet this concept of Jesus' deep heart for us feels like a truth I've never really internalized. Throughout the book, as soon as I started feeling like, Oh I know this already, he would ask a question or make a statement and I would find myself startled- 'Oh yeah... that's a good question!' or 'I guess I do think that way...' Dane Ortlund dissects the original language and intent of the Scriptures and explains the profound Puritan teachings with beautiful and accessible writing. The time and care spent to compile these pages is very evident.

Ortlund focuses on one main Scripture passage or Puritan writing per chapter to flesh out what we know to be true about the heart of God and what that means for us, lowly sinners. He lays the foundation for this book (per the title) in Matthew 11. "The heart is a matter of life. It is what makes us the human being each of us is; the heart drives all we do. It is who we are. And when Jesus tells us what animates him most deeply, what is most true of him—when he exposes the innermost recesses of his being—what we find there is: gentle and lowly...What Jesus is, he does. He cannot act any other way. His life proves his heart."

Over and over again, Ortlund reminds us that there is nothing about our sins, failures, or sufferings that keeps Jesus away. He is drawn to us and desires for us to come to him, take his yoke, and find rest for our souls.

"For it is a yoke of kindness. Who could resist this? It’s like telling a drowning man that he must put on the burden of a life preserver only to hear him shout back sputtering, “No way! Not me! This is hard enough, drowning here in these stormy waters. The last thing I need is the added burden of a life preserver around my body!” That’s what we all are like, confessing Christ with our lips but generally avoiding deep fellowship with him, out of a muted understanding of his heart."

I was confronted throughout the book with the realization that we, as fallen human beings, can't help but try to control everything- even determining the terms and conditions in which God can love us (or not love us.) We are a pendulum swinging between our self-justifying pride, not feeling the true weight of our sin, and our self-deprecating despair, believing God doesn't love us because we are too messed up or too far gone. This book positions us right where we need to be: Attempting to understand just how evil we are and in NEED of a perfect Savior, and accepting that Jesus already paid the immense cost of our sin, willingly, out of LOVE, before we could ever do anything to deserve it. "With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resume items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required— first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until we are with him upon death."

I could go on and on about everything that impacted me, but I think you need to encounter these truths for yourself. To offer a little more information on what he discusses in his book, here are some questions you may be thinking that will be answered within.
- Isn't Jesus too holy to be approached by me, a filthy sinner?
- Do we neglect his wrath if we talk too much about his heart?
- Shouldn't we be careful not to lean too much on him, taking advantage of his mercy?
- Does he really understand what I'm dealing with?
- If I come to him now, will he turn me away later when I REALLY do something bad?
- Does Jesus ever hate me?
- How do our imperfect feelings compare to the emotions of Christ?
- Why does Jesus continue to intercede for us if he already paid for our sins?
- What does it mean for Jesus to be my advocate?
- If Jesus will never cast me out, and his heart finds joy in healing my sin, should I even care to stop sinning?
- Does God reveal his glory more by his wrath and power or by his kindness and mercy?
- Is it okay for Jesus to be angry?
- What does the Holy Spirit have to do with the heart of Jesus?
- The Father judges and required justice; Jesus loves and sacrificed himself for me- so does the Father and Jesus have differing dispositions towards me?
- How can God still love me if he afflicts me or allows bad things to happen to me?
- Where can we see evidence of his mercy in a life full of suffering?
- What am I supposed to do with all of this?

I truly believe this book will change your perception of God and the way he thinks about you. I will conclude this review with this quote from the book. And then, per my custom, a whole host of other quotes to whet your appetite until your book comes in the mail.

"The world is starving for a yearning love, a love that remembers instead of forsakes. A love that isn’t tied to our loveliness. A love that gets down underneath our messiness. A love that is bigger than the enveloping darkness we might be walking through even today. A love of which even the very best human romance is the faintest of whispers… On the cross, we see what God did to satisfy his yearning for us. He went that far… Repent of your small thoughts of God’s heart. Repent and let him love you."


More quotes:

"The dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels, the most vivid and arresting element of the portrait, is the way the Holy Son of God moves toward, touches, heals, embraces, and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly desire it."

"A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease...But as he seems to provide care. The afflicted refuse, they want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came."

"What is it about God’s glory that draws us in and causes us to conquer our sins and makes us radiant people? Is it the sheer size of God, a consideration of the immensity of the universe and thus of the Creator, a sense of God’s transcendent greatness, that pulls us toward him? No, Jonathan Edwards would say; it is the loveliness of his heart... “A sight of the greatness of God in his attributes, may overwhelm men.”...Seeing only his greatness, “the enmity and opposition of the heart, may remain in its full strength, and the will remain inflexible; whereas, one glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God, and supreme amiableness of Jesus Christ, shining into the heart, overcomes and abolishes this opposition, and inclines the soul to Christ, as it were, by an omnipotent power.” "

"A correct understanding of the triune God is not that of a Father whose central disposition is judgment and a Son whose central disposition is love. The heart of both is one and the same; this is, after all, one God, not two. Theirs is a heart of redeeming love, not compromising justice and wrath but beautifully satisfying justice and wrath."

“If your heart be hard, his mercies are tender.
If your heart be dead he has mercy to liven it.
If you be sick, he has mercy to heal you.
If you be sinful, he has mercies to sanctify and cleanse you.
As large and as various as are our wants, so large and various are his mercies. So we may come boldly to find grace and mercy to help us in time of need, a mercy for every need. All the mercies that are in his own heart he has transplanted into several beds in the garden of the the promises, where they grow, and he has abundance of variety of them, suited to all the variety of the diseases of the soul.” -Thomas Goodwin

"All of God’s attributes are nonnegotiable… God is not the sum total of a number of attributes, like pieces of a pie making a whole pie; rather, God is every attribute perfectly. God does not have parts. He is just. He is wrathful. He is good.. and so on, each in endless perfection."

“'Slow to anger'...Unlike us, who are often emotional dams ready to break, God can put up with a lot. This is why the OT speaks of God being “provoked to anger” by his people dozens of times. But not once are we told that God is “provoked to love” or “provoked to mercy.” His anger requires provocation; his mercy is pent up, ready to gush forth."

"Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it."

"Our naturally decaffeinated views of God’s heart might feel right because we’re being stern with ourselves, not letting ourselves off the hook too easily. Such sternness feels appropriately morally serious. But deflecting of God’s yearning heart does not reflect Scripture’s testimony about how God feels toward his own. God is of course morally serious, far more than we are. But the Bible takes us by the hand and leads us out from under the feeling that his heart for us wavers according to our loveliness. God’s heart confounds our intuitions of who he is."

"It is the sun of Christ’s heart, not the clouds of my sins, that now defines me."

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"Mainstream Cultural Christians aren’t wrapped up in promoting some kind of gospel message. They are simply trying to be nice to others, pursue their idea of personal happiness, pray when something bad happens, and rest in the belief that they are going to heaven after they die."

Does this sound like you or someone you know?

The Unsaved Christian is a straightforward, practical look into the false faith that our country is soaked in. This book does not condemn; the heart of this book is to help us identify ourselves or those we love who are actually Cultural Christians (as described above) and realize that this is a mission field. A commitment with eternal consequences, avoiding awkward or potentially offensive conversations with those we love is unacceptable. We are doing no one any favors if we refuse to ask the hard questions- of ourselves and those close to us. This is a book about drawing people into the family of God, not leaving them out by crossing our fingers in hopes that simple kindness unlocks those pearly gates. This is not a book of calling out and shutting out but of encouragement and open doors.

Inserra invokes these statistics: "According to a study of US adults, 80% of those polled believe in God, but only 56% believe in God as described in the Bible. Considering the fact that approximately 70% of the US population still identifies as Christian, we have a large group of people that would be likely overlooked in outreach or missions."

In a country where being a Christian is not a life or death label (though certain forms of persecution are increasing) it is easy to lay claim to this title. After all, we believe in God (you know, the loving, unoffensive God), we go to church (at least on Easter and Christmas), we pray (when we want to win our football game, it's expected of us, or when our health is in jeopardy), we are good people (well, at least better than our coworkers and our neighbors, and all those people from that other political party), we say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays, and God is all about love so he knows we try hard and if he knows what's good for him, he will definitely let us into heaven. Heaven is for pretty much everyone but Nazis and serial killers.

But any deeper probes into this line of reasoning and there are not many convincing answers. How good is good enough? How many more good things than bad must we do to be okay? Are there no consequences for breaking the Ten Commandments? If any good person goes to heaven, then why did Jesus die? What makes us any different than people who aren't Christians? How, specifically, has knowing Jesus changed the way you live?

Inserra gives these disclaimers:
"The gospel is not church attendance.
The gospel is not “be sincere and a good person”
The gospel is not theism.
The gospel is not heritage.
The gospel is not an ethnicity.
The gospel is not making Jesus your copilot or your lucky charm."

I think this is a great book to read alongside "Word-Centered Church" by Jonathan Leeman, as we take into consideration what kind of Christianity we're "selling" by our daily example and by the ways our churches function. Things you would think are harmless may actually be perpetuating this Cultural Christianity mindset of finding eternal collateral based on traditions, values, rites of passage, or some sort of generic deity that requires no real life transformation or repentance. The gospel message and the authority of the Word is essential in this conversation.

When we aren't sharing the exclusive gospel, we are allowing people to find false security in a shallow, club-minded, politics-driven, or tradition-keeping faith that has not truly wrecked their hearts with the reality of their sin and standing before a holy God, and his necessary and life-changing redemption.

"Jesus wasn’t looking for crowds, but rather a commitment." Scripture is clear that the path to eternal life is narrow and few find it. Many have been done a disservice, their faith validated that as long as they are good people and go to church every once in awhile, the big man upstairs can't turn them away. Because God would not offend anyone by being against anything the culture deems good and our hearts deem pleasurable. And thus God's love has been detrimentally separated from his holiness.

Throughout the book, Inserra addresses several types of Cultural Christians that he labels: The Country Club Christian, Christmas & Easter Christian, God & Country Christian, Liberal Social Justice Christian, Moralistic Therapeutic Deist Christian, Generational Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and Bible Belt Christian.

Are you uncomfortable yet?

I am confident in my salvation and the depth of my faith, but still felt convicted by a lot of the points he made. These mindsets are sneaky and creep in without you realizing. For me, it was his chapter about politics and Christianity. The polarization between Democrats and Republicans feels like it's an irreparable disparity today. And I find myself falling into group identities and allowing politics to often supersede the gospel when I consider other people.

Try this one on for size:
"Partisan politics might be the new religion of American, and the church is getting in step with the times, watch the social media posts of professing Christians and what provokes their most passionate writing, responses, and claims, and you will likely find it to be politics. It is a religion, but its idolatry is masked by Christian language and 'good causes.'" And then, "How many Christians would affirm that they have more in common with a Christian from a different political party than an unbeliever in their own registered party?"

Yikes. This should not be. Granted our faith drives our politics, we have to really hold captive our politics lest it undermine the unity of a gospel-believing church. Does being in a particular political party truly negate their faith and status in God's family?

Lots of relevant and important topics discussed in these pages. He presents the stark reality between Cultural Christianity and authentic faith, offering good examples of each kind of misguided mindset. Though a lot of it seemed a bit repetitive, it may take saying the truth several different ways for us to humbly realize- Oh. That's me. I do think that way...

This is a very practical and helpful book that I would highly recommend reading with an open heart and mind. It is not an open-ended questioning of salvation until any truth is subjective and future is a mystery, but rather a loving challenge to consider the truths of the Bible and a deep internal heart-check for yourself. It's a real 'aha' moment for churches to understand where a mission field is ripe for the harvest.

Each chapter has good discussion questions at the end making this book a Bible Study or small group option. Throughout each chapter he also provides practical tips on conversing with different types of Cultural Christians and offers some helpful questions. In addition to the types of cultural Christians he talks about, he addresses things like church membership, baptism, "perseverance of the saints," altar calls, and sermon content.

This is a hard reality, and reading this book is a step in the right direction of doing the most loving thing we can for people- bringing them into the family of God.

"When it comes to Unsaved Christians, one has to have the emotional discipline to accept the reality that just because someone is your husband or wife, son or daughter, brother or sister, or best friend, and raised in the same religious climate and church, does not mean they are saved… someone might know Christianity, but not Christ."

Some other quotes:

"Self-proclaimed Christians who worship a god that requires no self-sacrifice, no obedience, no submission, and no surrender are not worshiping the God of the Bible, no matter how much they claim they love Jesus. (Jn 14:15, 14:23) Many people want the good-luck-charm Jesus, not the sacrificial Lamb of God whose death requires action."

"Civic religion promotes a god without any definition and a generic faith that demands and asks nothing of its followers… In some areas, civic religion is even proudly theistic and likes the idea of Jesus. Selective words spoken by Jesus in the New Testament will be used and cited when the political cause of the day needs a rally cry...regardless of one’s adherence the authority of Scripture as a whole."

"A troubling reality in much of evangelical life is that convincing someone they are saved seems to take precedence over making sure someone is actually saved. This must change. Somehow questioning another person's salvation became taboo in evangelical culture, when it could possibly be one of the most loving things you can do for another; it could mean the difference between seeds that sprout and bloom and seeds that are snatched away."

"Unbelievers know when their friends who claim to be Christian don’t actually take their faith seriously. It is detrimental to the mission of God in a community when unbelievers see little distinction between themselves and friends who are associated with a church."

"If asked about their faith, [Cultural Christians] wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but would respond with answers about going to church and being good people. Church is a place where basic social expectations are met in the name of morals, family, and tradition… they are not defensive or awkward when it comes to questions about their beliefs. They certainly believe in avid and, as far as they are concerned, they always have and always will. But if the conversation moved to questions about Jesus, salvation, and the gospel. It would be a different story."

"I’ve never been able to figure out why Christmas and Easter would be the “can’t miss” church services for the Cultural Christian. What we acknowledge and celebrate in those days are not conventional or widely acceptable things. We acknowledge that a God-Man was born and then that He was brutally murdered and raised from the dead. These are not normal things! This has to create some sort of disconnect in the mind of a Cultural Christian, unless churches don’t preach to that disconnect."

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I finished this book with mixed feelings and had a hard time putting my finger on it. I've read a lot of apologetics books and I think the issue was that McLaughlin just presented the information in a different way than I was used to and caused me to approach the questions in a new way. Which is a good thing. She has a fresh perspective. It's similar to Tim Keller's book- The Reason for God, but I would say his book is more accessible to the general population and this book was a little more academic. It felt like she was writing this book for her academic colleagues- those who work at universities- yet I found it to still be helpful.

Rebecca McLaughlin is a British female with a PhD from Cambridge who has put aside her same-sex attractions and is in a happy marriage to a man, together having 3 children. Her journey to faith was heavily influenced by these factors and speaks into how she answers these 12 hard questions.

This book was well-researched. She provides plenty of resources for further reading as each topic could be an entire book in itself. I will say that some of her statistics, analogies, or examples didn't always connect for me. And a lot of her sentences I had to read multiple times to understand what she was saying. I have a fairly large vocabulary and there were several times I had to consult a dictionary. It's not necessarily a light read, but it is very helpful. Probably best read an entire chapter at a time and then verbally processed with someone else to get the most out of the material.

I especially liked her chapter on a loving God allowing suffering. Everyone has experienced grief and pain, and she brilliantly uses the story of Jesus and Lazarus to show us the reality of suffering and our relationship to God. She also:
- reminds us of the diversity of Christianity and its global reach. We tend to see it as an American institution and miss out on a lot when our perspective originates from there.
- won't let us take the easy way out of truth finding by letting us think all faith paths are true, but calls us to respect others as thinking human beings who have thought about their beliefs.
- is honest and doesn't gloss over the stains on Christianity's history, but provides plenty of evidence to the contrary.
- wrote her chapters on science, women, homosexuality, and slavery sensitively, yet blunt. Informatively, logically, and persuasively.

I would say, read this book, but don't ONLY read this book. I could recommend a specific book for each chapter that would expound more than her space allowed and that draws on more Scripture. She did a great job and I believe accomplished what she set out to do. This book is a great resource that touches on all the most common questions for Christianity, but if a chapter leaves you unsatisfied, I urge you to look for another book to inform your thinking. These questions are too important not to.

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