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shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)
“When you read an autistic memoir, you’re not just getting an account of one life or gaining specialized knowledge about a tiny subsection of the population. You’re learning about what it means to be human. You’re learning about 1 in 45 people.”
When I first saw this book, it caught my attention. I realized all I really knew about autism was mostly from movies/shows like Rain Man, Parenthood, or Big Bang Theory. But as Bowman points out in his awesome book, On the Spectrum, much of what is produced about/including autism is not created by or for autistics and tends to center around the neurotypicals’ experience and suffering.
To get a more complete and authentic look at what it can be like on the spectrum of autism, listen to autistic voices. He clued me in to the hashtag #OwnVoices which is applied to works authored or created by someone in “the same minority or disability category” as the subject matter.
This book is that. This is a collection of essays— a memoir—written by Daniel Bowman Jr.:
“What’s reflected in this book are signposts from an autistic poet who is a Christ follower, a progressive Episcopalian living in the Midwest, a husband and dad and teacher at a small liberal arts college.”
I found this book to be beautiful and vulnerable and really helpful in understanding autistics better.
“You’re learning how to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s really the core of this book.”
From an open explanation of his own diagnosis journey that brought clarity to his childhood to essays about misconceptions of autistics and things people do or say that are hurtful, to ways the church can better come alongside autistics, this book covers a lot of important things.
And, of course, Bowman is just one person on the spectrum and reminds us many times that he can only speak his own experience. To read this book is just the beginning. We must continue to hear more stories— allowing people their own dignity— and not make one person’s story definitive for the whole spectrum.
What is Neurodiversity?
Bowman advocates for a neurodiversity paradigm as opposed to the pathology paradigm.
The pathology paradigm is centered on the premise that autism is something in an individual that needs to be fixed or corrected and often utilizes the practice of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy that is harmful for autistics.
“ABA doesn’t change an autistic into a neurotypical—it just teaches them to act neurotypical so they won’t be punished.”
The neurodiversity paradigm, on the other hand, promotes the idea that people can function out of different operating systems. Autism is not an illness, it is a different process of functioning. He likens it to Windows vs OS.
Autistics don’t need to be fixed, they need to be understood and accepted. We all have challenges we may need tools to help us manage, but that is true across the board.
I have read some reviews concerned that he is applying critical theory here. I assume they are referring to the discussion around ableism. There is a form of critical theory that rejects a standard society has deemed ‘normal’ and denies the idea that disabilities could be negative. Not just that a person should have worth no matter what situation they’re in— I think we all agree with that— but they denounce any medical professional trying to fix any disability. To correct a disability is to conform all people to society’s “superior” able-bodied people and is wrong. They also would say that any disabled person who desires medical treatment to fix their disability when it is possible has internalized their oppression. (Read more about this in Cynical Theories)
Though there is inclusion of autism in that discussion, I agree with Bowman that autism is not something to be fixed but to be understood. I do not believe to state this is to apply critical theory. I think it is applying wisdom and compassion. This is the same with Down Syndrome as well. The critical theory discussion does not belong here.
To sum it up:
“Neurodiversity brings with it a sense of hope that all individuals, regardless of how they read, think, feel, socialize, or attend, will be recognized for their gifts, and accorded the same rights and privileges as any other human being.”
The Highlights
“What autistics need so deeply, just to function from moment to moment, seems often to run counter to what people need from us. Maybe we need structure and predictability at the very time the people in our lives need whim, impulse. Maybe we need to be alone when they long for companionship. Maybe our senses are overloaded when theirs are underwhelmed. It can seem like we’re acting unkindly, or worse; though almost always we’re just trying to survive in a world that was not made for the likes of us.”
One of the first takeaways for me was when Bowman explained that to use the phrase ‘person with autism’ is harmful to autistics. They prefer to be called autistics. To say ‘person with autism’ implies that they “have something” or are “dealing with something” which, per the section above, we already determined assumes there is something intrinsically wrong with them.
I was surprised by this. I always thought it was better to say ‘person with autism’ because to say “Daniel is autistic” feels like I am unfairly reducing Daniel to one aspect of his identity. Though my intentions were in line, I now know the correct terminology to use.
As the quote above states, the world is generally made for neurotypical people. It was really interesting to see Bowman’s perspective on certain social expectations. How nearly every interaction with others requires a lot of effort to ‘read between the lines’ of what people mean, what people are expected to do, say, or act. The sensory overload alone is one neurotypicals can never understand!
I’m not sure how we change the world in so many ways, but it definitely provides plenty of space to think about how we can help autistic people engage in a more comfortable environment.
When he talked about the challenges he faces in serving in his church, some of the points he made resonated with me, even as a neurotypical. For example, if he volunteers to serve at a pancake breakfast, he wants to know exactly what his job will be, what time frame, what is appropriate to wear, will he be expected to help clean up, is he expected to communicate with people and if so, about what, will anything else be happening at the same time, etc. He also brought up popcorn prayer— I find this uncomfortable too!
I was like- Right on! We do need to respect people’s time and willingness to serve by putting forth expectations and boundaries that allow people to understand their role, their goal, and know when they complete their commitment. I also understand the need for flexibility or spontaneity in certain situations, but I don’t think his points are a hard ask for a church to consider in accommodating autistics and frankly, a lot of other people, who need a comfortable environment.
I thought this was a beautiful statement he made:
“I have to count the cost, and because I do, I know what it’s doing to me, how it’s changing me, inviting me to transformation, to renaissance, to being born again over and over through each sacrament of service, each month, each year.”
Though he says no to a lot of things, when he does say yes, they impact him. And isn’t that what serving is about? It’s not about checking the boxes or having the longest resume. It’s about doing meaningful work that changes people. We give of ourselves for others. It is the heart that counts.
And as Christians, we should count the cost (Luke 14). The Christian life is one of sacrifice, exemplified by Jesus. Bowman may have to count the cost more often and more tangibly, but I think it draws him nearer to Jesus who understands and it reminds Bowman (and us) how much we really need the Lord.
Another important thing that stuck out to me was when he compared the list of characteristics you would find if you googled autism with a different list written by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He pointed out how the former was listed as ‘symptoms’ and worded in a negative way using terms like ‘difficulties,’ ‘troubles,’ ‘tendencies',’ and ‘outbursts.’
“How do you think it is to be autistic and be described in those ways? To have your everyday traits and habits, which you’ve been made to feel ashamed of in brutally harmful ways since childhood, described to every Google user around the world as “abnormal,” “inappropriate,” “lack[ing],” “disturb[ed],” “withdraw[n],” “self-abusive,” “poor,” and “odd”?”
The latter (list by the ASAN) he quoted in length in his book which was very good. You can tell that the phrasings do make a difference. You can read it linked here.
He also included a parody someone wrote describing neurotypicals’ habits as weaknesses that begins, “Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity…” It was humorous and affirmed Bowman’s point that autistics and allistics have differences but that doesn’t make them weaknesses. The way we talk about things matters.
Another comment he made was this:
“In response to a question like, “Should we play a board game now?” an allistic person might say, “Um, yeah, I mean, like, we totally could do that, I guess.” And you’re supposed to understand that, pretty much, no, that person is not enthused about the prospects of a board game. But I may be too stressed, or more likely my senses may be too overloaded, to pick up on the meaning of the nonverbal signals and evasive answer. I generally wish to hear just a friendly yes or no so it’s clear where people stand.”
I think all of society would benefit if people spoke with more clarity and less undertones. Just say what you want to say (obviously respectfully)! Evasiveness is annoying. I probably do it too. But how bout we don’t!?
The Gifts of Neurodiversity
“Neurodiversity’s gifts do not form a discrete list. I think they are ways of being, of approaching our days; they are lenses through which the autistic person sees and feels the world uniquely.”
Autistics are stereotypically seen as geared toward math and science (think Rain Man). It’s not that that’s untrue, but it’s incomplete. Daniel Bowman Jr. is more of a creative.
“One of the reasons I started to write essays about autism is because I discovered that almost no one was writing from the perspective of an artist on the spectrum.”
The sheer volume of literary references in this book and his poetic voice speak to this. He wanted more to be written and shown by creative autistics.
He quotes a professor, Michael Fitzgerald, who “argued that certain features of [autism], such as persistence, singlemindedness, intelligence, and nonconformity, can enhance not just the analytical process, but the creative process as well.”
Bowman proves throughout his book that autistics see the world and people differently but we can learn so much from different perspectives and that really is a gift. Our God is a God of diversity and we worship Him when we recognize and dignify the differences he has created and grow with each other.
A Few Caveats
One thing Bowman commented on many times was the disrespect he felt when people took his lack of eye contact as disinterest or that he wasn’t listening and they would stop looking at him and including him in the conversation.
Autistics don’t feel comfortable making constant eye contact. I get that. And if I know someone is autistic I can put into practice to not ignore them when this happens, and autistics should expect that from me.
But if I don’t know someone is autistic, as a neurotypical, I do see lack of eye contact as someone who isn’t listening anymore. This has happened with friends numerous times and it does hurt my feelings if I’m telling a story and they stop looking at me. I usually just stop talking. No one wants to be ignored.
This will probably be an ongoing interacting challenge between autistics and allistics.
He talked about how bad storytelling is bad theology. He never named names for what Christian material he was referring to but he had some criticism— he says,
“I want to focus on the fact that bad Christian stories are prescriptive. Though they may contain characters and a plot, they exist not to discover or examine truth but to deliver a message. In that way they’re similar to propaganda used by oppressive regimes in times of war and genocide in attempts to control and manipulate people.”
I am really curious what books/movies he is talking about. I agree that there is some cringeworthy stuff out there, but to relate it to propaganda is a strong comparison that I would like to explore with more context. I wish he would have given titles, though I can see why he wouldn’t.
This wasn’t the purpose of the book and to me it doesn’t change my opinion of it, but he alluded to gender and sexuality in some essays that makes me think we may hold different beliefs about the Bible and gender/sexuality. I do not believe the Bible teaches that gender and sexuality is on a spectrum.
Final Thoughts
I am so glad I read this book. Sure, many of the literary references and quotes didn’t speak to me as much as they might to a lit-lover or a poet, but I gained a lot of insight and new ways of considering and caring for my neighbors.
I’m also excited to explore the #OwnVoices hashtag to see what else is out there!
I really appreciate his vulnerability in sharing the shame he carried and the feelings of guilt and failure he felt because he couldn’t participate in church the way others were. He wrestled with the Scripture about “bearing fruit” and worried that his saying no to so many things because of his mental health made him less of a Christian.
I struggled with those verses myself and lamented them here.
But I love how he points us back to grace:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Not by works. This is truly good news—gospel—for those of us on the spectrum, whose works can often be uneven. Others may be tempted to rest on their achievements, but we autistics are as likely to screw everything up as to produce a great outcome. Or sometimes we do both at the same time. No matter—our grace through faith is a gift, not from ourselves or the result of our works. This opens the door to do things according to the way our brains were made, according to, as the next verse says, “God’s handiwork.” We too can make culture.”
God asks us to be faithful and to trust him. It is not up to us to do all the work.
I would highly recommend this book to all people. For autistics, to feel heard and known and seen in ways society sadly doesn’t project, and for allistics to better understand and accept the complexities and differences in neurodivergent operating systems.
This truly is a book to help us love our neighbors.
Some last thoughts from Bowman:
“Learn about the spectrum, about sensory processing, adherence to routines, social interactions, special interests, stimming, meltdowns, and the rest. Then respect the complexities of individuals as you come alongside them.”
“Gentleness, kindness, sensitivity to the fact that the experience of another person may render their way of being in the world completely different from your own…”
“Grace is not merely transactional, but relational.”
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
When I first saw this book, it caught my attention. I realized all I really knew about autism was mostly from movies/shows like Rain Man, Parenthood, or Big Bang Theory. But as Bowman points out in his awesome book, On the Spectrum, much of what is produced about/including autism is not created by or for autistics and tends to center around the neurotypicals’ experience and suffering.
To get a more complete and authentic look at what it can be like on the spectrum of autism, listen to autistic voices. He clued me in to the hashtag #OwnVoices which is applied to works authored or created by someone in “the same minority or disability category” as the subject matter.
This book is that. This is a collection of essays— a memoir—written by Daniel Bowman Jr.:
“What’s reflected in this book are signposts from an autistic poet who is a Christ follower, a progressive Episcopalian living in the Midwest, a husband and dad and teacher at a small liberal arts college.”
I found this book to be beautiful and vulnerable and really helpful in understanding autistics better.
“You’re learning how to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s really the core of this book.”
From an open explanation of his own diagnosis journey that brought clarity to his childhood to essays about misconceptions of autistics and things people do or say that are hurtful, to ways the church can better come alongside autistics, this book covers a lot of important things.
And, of course, Bowman is just one person on the spectrum and reminds us many times that he can only speak his own experience. To read this book is just the beginning. We must continue to hear more stories— allowing people their own dignity— and not make one person’s story definitive for the whole spectrum.
What is Neurodiversity?
Bowman advocates for a neurodiversity paradigm as opposed to the pathology paradigm.
The pathology paradigm is centered on the premise that autism is something in an individual that needs to be fixed or corrected and often utilizes the practice of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy that is harmful for autistics.
“ABA doesn’t change an autistic into a neurotypical—it just teaches them to act neurotypical so they won’t be punished.”
The neurodiversity paradigm, on the other hand, promotes the idea that people can function out of different operating systems. Autism is not an illness, it is a different process of functioning. He likens it to Windows vs OS.
Autistics don’t need to be fixed, they need to be understood and accepted. We all have challenges we may need tools to help us manage, but that is true across the board.
I have read some reviews concerned that he is applying critical theory here. I assume they are referring to the discussion around ableism. There is a form of critical theory that rejects a standard society has deemed ‘normal’ and denies the idea that disabilities could be negative. Not just that a person should have worth no matter what situation they’re in— I think we all agree with that— but they denounce any medical professional trying to fix any disability. To correct a disability is to conform all people to society’s “superior” able-bodied people and is wrong. They also would say that any disabled person who desires medical treatment to fix their disability when it is possible has internalized their oppression. (Read more about this in Cynical Theories)
Though there is inclusion of autism in that discussion, I agree with Bowman that autism is not something to be fixed but to be understood. I do not believe to state this is to apply critical theory. I think it is applying wisdom and compassion. This is the same with Down Syndrome as well. The critical theory discussion does not belong here.
To sum it up:
“Neurodiversity brings with it a sense of hope that all individuals, regardless of how they read, think, feel, socialize, or attend, will be recognized for their gifts, and accorded the same rights and privileges as any other human being.”
The Highlights
“What autistics need so deeply, just to function from moment to moment, seems often to run counter to what people need from us. Maybe we need structure and predictability at the very time the people in our lives need whim, impulse. Maybe we need to be alone when they long for companionship. Maybe our senses are overloaded when theirs are underwhelmed. It can seem like we’re acting unkindly, or worse; though almost always we’re just trying to survive in a world that was not made for the likes of us.”
One of the first takeaways for me was when Bowman explained that to use the phrase ‘person with autism’ is harmful to autistics. They prefer to be called autistics. To say ‘person with autism’ implies that they “have something” or are “dealing with something” which, per the section above, we already determined assumes there is something intrinsically wrong with them.
I was surprised by this. I always thought it was better to say ‘person with autism’ because to say “Daniel is autistic” feels like I am unfairly reducing Daniel to one aspect of his identity. Though my intentions were in line, I now know the correct terminology to use.
As the quote above states, the world is generally made for neurotypical people. It was really interesting to see Bowman’s perspective on certain social expectations. How nearly every interaction with others requires a lot of effort to ‘read between the lines’ of what people mean, what people are expected to do, say, or act. The sensory overload alone is one neurotypicals can never understand!
I’m not sure how we change the world in so many ways, but it definitely provides plenty of space to think about how we can help autistic people engage in a more comfortable environment.
When he talked about the challenges he faces in serving in his church, some of the points he made resonated with me, even as a neurotypical. For example, if he volunteers to serve at a pancake breakfast, he wants to know exactly what his job will be, what time frame, what is appropriate to wear, will he be expected to help clean up, is he expected to communicate with people and if so, about what, will anything else be happening at the same time, etc. He also brought up popcorn prayer— I find this uncomfortable too!
I was like- Right on! We do need to respect people’s time and willingness to serve by putting forth expectations and boundaries that allow people to understand their role, their goal, and know when they complete their commitment. I also understand the need for flexibility or spontaneity in certain situations, but I don’t think his points are a hard ask for a church to consider in accommodating autistics and frankly, a lot of other people, who need a comfortable environment.
I thought this was a beautiful statement he made:
“I have to count the cost, and because I do, I know what it’s doing to me, how it’s changing me, inviting me to transformation, to renaissance, to being born again over and over through each sacrament of service, each month, each year.”
Though he says no to a lot of things, when he does say yes, they impact him. And isn’t that what serving is about? It’s not about checking the boxes or having the longest resume. It’s about doing meaningful work that changes people. We give of ourselves for others. It is the heart that counts.
And as Christians, we should count the cost (Luke 14). The Christian life is one of sacrifice, exemplified by Jesus. Bowman may have to count the cost more often and more tangibly, but I think it draws him nearer to Jesus who understands and it reminds Bowman (and us) how much we really need the Lord.
Another important thing that stuck out to me was when he compared the list of characteristics you would find if you googled autism with a different list written by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. He pointed out how the former was listed as ‘symptoms’ and worded in a negative way using terms like ‘difficulties,’ ‘troubles,’ ‘tendencies',’ and ‘outbursts.’
“How do you think it is to be autistic and be described in those ways? To have your everyday traits and habits, which you’ve been made to feel ashamed of in brutally harmful ways since childhood, described to every Google user around the world as “abnormal,” “inappropriate,” “lack[ing],” “disturb[ed],” “withdraw[n],” “self-abusive,” “poor,” and “odd”?”
The latter (list by the ASAN) he quoted in length in his book which was very good. You can tell that the phrasings do make a difference. You can read it linked here.
He also included a parody someone wrote describing neurotypicals’ habits as weaknesses that begins, “Neurotypical syndrome is a neurobiological disorder characterized by preoccupation with social concerns, delusions of superiority, and obsession with conformity…” It was humorous and affirmed Bowman’s point that autistics and allistics have differences but that doesn’t make them weaknesses. The way we talk about things matters.
Another comment he made was this:
“In response to a question like, “Should we play a board game now?” an allistic person might say, “Um, yeah, I mean, like, we totally could do that, I guess.” And you’re supposed to understand that, pretty much, no, that person is not enthused about the prospects of a board game. But I may be too stressed, or more likely my senses may be too overloaded, to pick up on the meaning of the nonverbal signals and evasive answer. I generally wish to hear just a friendly yes or no so it’s clear where people stand.”
I think all of society would benefit if people spoke with more clarity and less undertones. Just say what you want to say (obviously respectfully)! Evasiveness is annoying. I probably do it too. But how bout we don’t!?
The Gifts of Neurodiversity
“Neurodiversity’s gifts do not form a discrete list. I think they are ways of being, of approaching our days; they are lenses through which the autistic person sees and feels the world uniquely.”
Autistics are stereotypically seen as geared toward math and science (think Rain Man). It’s not that that’s untrue, but it’s incomplete. Daniel Bowman Jr. is more of a creative.
“One of the reasons I started to write essays about autism is because I discovered that almost no one was writing from the perspective of an artist on the spectrum.”
The sheer volume of literary references in this book and his poetic voice speak to this. He wanted more to be written and shown by creative autistics.
He quotes a professor, Michael Fitzgerald, who “argued that certain features of [autism], such as persistence, singlemindedness, intelligence, and nonconformity, can enhance not just the analytical process, but the creative process as well.”
Bowman proves throughout his book that autistics see the world and people differently but we can learn so much from different perspectives and that really is a gift. Our God is a God of diversity and we worship Him when we recognize and dignify the differences he has created and grow with each other.
A Few Caveats
One thing Bowman commented on many times was the disrespect he felt when people took his lack of eye contact as disinterest or that he wasn’t listening and they would stop looking at him and including him in the conversation.
Autistics don’t feel comfortable making constant eye contact. I get that. And if I know someone is autistic I can put into practice to not ignore them when this happens, and autistics should expect that from me.
But if I don’t know someone is autistic, as a neurotypical, I do see lack of eye contact as someone who isn’t listening anymore. This has happened with friends numerous times and it does hurt my feelings if I’m telling a story and they stop looking at me. I usually just stop talking. No one wants to be ignored.
This will probably be an ongoing interacting challenge between autistics and allistics.
He talked about how bad storytelling is bad theology. He never named names for what Christian material he was referring to but he had some criticism— he says,
“I want to focus on the fact that bad Christian stories are prescriptive. Though they may contain characters and a plot, they exist not to discover or examine truth but to deliver a message. In that way they’re similar to propaganda used by oppressive regimes in times of war and genocide in attempts to control and manipulate people.”
I am really curious what books/movies he is talking about. I agree that there is some cringeworthy stuff out there, but to relate it to propaganda is a strong comparison that I would like to explore with more context. I wish he would have given titles, though I can see why he wouldn’t.
This wasn’t the purpose of the book and to me it doesn’t change my opinion of it, but he alluded to gender and sexuality in some essays that makes me think we may hold different beliefs about the Bible and gender/sexuality. I do not believe the Bible teaches that gender and sexuality is on a spectrum.
Final Thoughts
I am so glad I read this book. Sure, many of the literary references and quotes didn’t speak to me as much as they might to a lit-lover or a poet, but I gained a lot of insight and new ways of considering and caring for my neighbors.
I’m also excited to explore the #OwnVoices hashtag to see what else is out there!
I really appreciate his vulnerability in sharing the shame he carried and the feelings of guilt and failure he felt because he couldn’t participate in church the way others were. He wrestled with the Scripture about “bearing fruit” and worried that his saying no to so many things because of his mental health made him less of a Christian.
I struggled with those verses myself and lamented them here.
But I love how he points us back to grace:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Not by works. This is truly good news—gospel—for those of us on the spectrum, whose works can often be uneven. Others may be tempted to rest on their achievements, but we autistics are as likely to screw everything up as to produce a great outcome. Or sometimes we do both at the same time. No matter—our grace through faith is a gift, not from ourselves or the result of our works. This opens the door to do things according to the way our brains were made, according to, as the next verse says, “God’s handiwork.” We too can make culture.”
God asks us to be faithful and to trust him. It is not up to us to do all the work.
I would highly recommend this book to all people. For autistics, to feel heard and known and seen in ways society sadly doesn’t project, and for allistics to better understand and accept the complexities and differences in neurodivergent operating systems.
This truly is a book to help us love our neighbors.
Some last thoughts from Bowman:
“Learn about the spectrum, about sensory processing, adherence to routines, social interactions, special interests, stimming, meltdowns, and the rest. Then respect the complexities of individuals as you come alongside them.”
“Gentleness, kindness, sensitivity to the fact that the experience of another person may render their way of being in the world completely different from your own…”
“Grace is not merely transactional, but relational.”
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
[Full review here- not enough space on Goodreads]
“If God designed women for a specific purpose, if there are fixed limits on the feminine nature, then surely it would follow that when we are living in accordance with those limits and purpose we will be in our sweet spot. That’s where we’ll shine. Where we’ll excel. And where we will find the most fulfillment. If your hackles are already going up at that, then it’s probably because you’re afraid that in the end, what God designed for you is unexciting, unfulfilling, demeaning, and generally dull.”
This is a great book that elevates the importance of the home, affirms women who have not chosen careers, and reminds us how integral all women are to the Creation Mandate (subdue, fill, help, glorify) and its expansion— the Great Commission (spread the gospel to all the world).
With a fiery boldness, Merkle doesn’t back down from the truth but defends the beautiful and meaningful boundaries God has placed for all people in accordance with his design and purpose for humanity. She critiques historical figures in the feminist movement and reiterates throughout the book how we can trust God with our role in his design.
I think this book is best if read with another person— ideally a group of women— to discuss and hear others’ perspectives as women who are married/non-married, kids/no-kids, careers/no careers, etc.
However, it is not a perfect book and there are places I would rewrite when I think of some of the women who may be reading these pages. But there is wonderful news for women in this book if we have ears to hear it.
My review will take you through the best and worst and offer a recommendation at the end.
Who is Rebekah Merkle?
In a book like this, who the author is matters. There were parts of this book that struck me in a way that made me defensive for working moms. At first it felt more geared toward women who stay at home full-time, so is she condemning working moms or claiming they are all selfish for choosing careers over their families?
By no means!
Merkle has a career herself. She runs her own clothing line and is a high school humanities teacher. So if we find ourselves questioning what she is implying, we must be careful because we can know she is not saying women should not work outside the home.
Other notable items in her biography are her familial connections. Her sister is Rachel Jankovic, author of Loving the Little Years and one of my favorite books, You Who?: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It.
Her father is Douglas Wilson, author of many books—none I have read or reviewed yet.
I don’t know much about their other family members, but all three of these are highly intelligent people with a solid grip on biblical truth. They are bold truth tellers and oftentimes their personalities or writing styles can rub people the wrong way.
But we can’t let our sensitivities to certain words or phrases cause us to dismiss their entire rhetoric.
Merkle has a lot of great things to say in this book and we would do well to hear her out.
[I want to note here in the spirit of transparency— I recently read Jesus and John Wayne and criticized KDM’s tone for being “accusatory reviling.” Many positive reviewers of KDM’s book appreciated her tone and found it witty and sarcastic. So is the situation with Eve in Exile like that but in reverse? Am I appreciative of Merkle’s boldness just because I agree with her whereas I wasn’t with KDM because I did not find her convincing?
As I reflect on this, I do believe it is different. I do find Merkle’s tone different than KDM’s. I find Eve in Exile to have more grace and truth. Reading more about Merkle I am convinced her words are all chosen deliberately, not emotionally driven, and are directed toward a given truth. Yet, this was a good consideration for me to keep in mind as I continue to read and process controversial books.]
Her Driving Point
“The question is not where a woman is standing but which direction she is pointed.”
Because Merkle talks about God’s directive for women to tend the home which typically involves husbands and children, there seems to be a void for groups like single women, single moms, working moms, women who can’t have children, and probably others I haven’t mentioned, and I felt the void too.
But her point is not that a stay-at-home mom is the pinnacle of womanhood biblical or otherwise.
She says,
“A household is bigger than the house itself, and as Paul describes the duties of a wife and mother, it is clear that her duties are defined by the people she is surrounded by and not simply her street address. What it looks like to keep a household running varies from century to century, from country to country, from family to family, and from season to season. A woman keeping a house full of small children looks different than a woman keeping a house full of teenagers…
…I would never say that a wife’s place is in the home, but I would absolutely say that a wife’s priority should be her home.”
The void we feel may not exist after all!
With each chapter Merkle points out the ways that the ‘feminist attitude’ (as she has defined) has the woman pointing inwards to herself, away from her people, and/or away from God’s design.
Merkle’s heart for this book is to jolt us out of our lethargic slumber, hypnotized by the draw of the culture’s “promises” of “freedoms,” and to reorient ourselves to the incredibly meaningful and important design God created us for— where we will find our true freedom and fulfillment.
The Outline
Merkle opens the book by observing the culture’s obsession with removing boundaries, particularly regarding gender. The battle against gender stereotypes has devolved into just the idea of gender being offensive. But instead of being disheartened, Merkle notes that we have a unique position now.
By giving historical context of the feminist movement, Merkle points out the very real unjust boundaries forced on women in the past (i.e. no voting rights, barred from education, etc) and explains the very divergent trajectories of a solution based in feminist thought and one aligned with the Bible.
Boundaries are a good thing. She says they are “essential to freedom” just as adhering to rules and boundaries are essential to excelling in a game of basketball.
I have to insert this applicable quote from Carolyn McCulley’s book, Radical Womanhood, here:
“The real problem is that a man once stood by his wife as she listened to God’s enemy question His authority, His goodness, and His boundaries. The man did not intervene in any way. Instead, he was a monument to passivity. His only action was to eat the forbidden fruit his wife gave to him. For her part, the woman knew the life-preserving boundaries the Lord God had established, but in her quest to be like God, she violated those boundaries, sinfully judged God’s motives and orders, and gave in to her own assessment of the situation.
… Every one of us is prone to agree with Satan’s character assassination of God. We often chafe at the good boundaries God has given us. We are easily tempted to think the worst of God. And we doubt that what God has provided is anywhere near as good as what He has restricted.”
So here we stand in the rubble of boundaries leftover from deconstruction in decades past, able to rebuild the boundaries that help us live as women in the world as God has purposed it, keeping out the unjust and replacing what is right.
She then warns us of the two ditches, or distractions, that send us veering off course. We could swerve into escapism, believing if we lived according to an earlier and “better” era like Pride and Prejudice or Little House on the Prairie, we can avoid the ‘ungodliness of society’. But that’s a pretend world.
Or we could jerk the other way and start believing that our worth and fulfillment lies solely in career advancement and recognition. The self is the most important. Do whatever it takes to achieve your dreams and don’t settle for anything less. Personal achievement is the noble path. But that’s an empty lie.
We can’t isolate ourselves in our homes or ignore them altogether.
Merkle then runs through the three waves of feminism highlighting figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Margaret Sanger and their contributions.
This is followed by a look at the Creation Mandate found in Genesis— subdue, fill, help, glorify— and what that means as women and how those could be applied to our lives today.
The Best Parts
“A woman raising her children is not only shaping the next generation, she is also shaping little humans who are going to live forever. The souls she gave birth to are immortal. Immortal. And somehow, our culture looks at a woman who treats that as if it might be an important task and says, ‘It’s a shame she’s wasting herself. She could be doing something important— like filing paperwork for insurance claims.’”
I am a stay-at-home mom and I have felt the inferiority surrounding that title. Any version of small talk usually begins with ‘So what do you do?’ My reply is often met with an awkward pause as if there is nothing further worth talking about. Oh, you’re just another one of those… I feel my abilities and intelligence is sized up on that fact alone.
I feel the culture at large looks at ‘stay-at-home mom’ and sees a woman who has settled into a demeaning traditional role of wife and mother, given up on her dreams, lacking in ambition. Pitied for not wanting more for herself, for not recognizing that women can and should have careers now! We need more women CEOs and doctors and engineers and astronauts and I’m ruining the cause of women everywhere because all I do is housework and change diapers.
Well I have news for you, world! I don’t do housework!
Ha. Just kidding. Well I’m mostly serious about the housework, but I reject that perception of what my life looks like. There is nothing demeaning or ‘sorry’ about raising children full time. It is an honor and should be seen that way.
Merkle does a fantastic job of elevating and validating what women who choose to stay home are doing. God created women alone to bring life into the world! He created our bodies to make and sustain life. He created us to be nurturers, managers of a home that brings people together and points them toward the Lord.
To be clear, in all the ways she defends the housewife in intelligence, worth, and work, she is not simultaneously tearing down the working woman. She is focusing on destroying the stigma of what “staying at home” has been reduced to in a culture fixated on “equalizing” literally everything.
“Our jobs are not important because they keep us just as busy as if we had “real” careers. They’re not important because we can come up with important sounding words to describe them. Our jobs are important because they are poetry. Because they share loves and they shape loyalties, they teach and they convict. They’re important because they take glorious truths and make them incarnate, make them visible, and weave them into the souls of the people around us.”
What I love about this quote is that I believe God created women as multitaskers. And because we can hold multiple lines of thought in our head, we can do this weaving of souls and truth as we go about our day in ways that men can’t. We can incorporate biblical truths and make connections with all kinds of things as we teach and live with our kids. I think that’s really cool to think about!
I think it’s also important to insert this caveat, lest we paint Merkle as someone who think only ‘true women’ have children.
“There is nothing inherently blessed about the physical act of childbearing. A woman can have children to the glory of God or in defiance of God, and a woman can be childless to the glory of God or in defiance of God.”
We are no more or less biblical women if we can or can’t have children. Again, it’s not where women stand, but what they are pointed at. What is the attitude and the mindset? Where is the heart?
I had my own journey of feeling like a failure because my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to to make a baby. Why would God command us to be fruitful and multiply and then close our wombs?
Everyone’s journey is different, and we can’t begin to explain the hard paths God allows us to walk, but having our own biological children is not the only way God has created us to fulfill his command. We need to open our minds to the possibilities.
If you are home with your kids and constantly second-guessing the choices of your life, feeling like you’ve failed your true self in some way or have ‘settled,’ this book is for you.
Merkle will lift your head and infuse those heavy-laden arms with God’s truth that those arms are holding and caring for eternal souls and there is nothing flippant or wasteful about that. God will bless your very hard work.
Other quotes that resonated with me:
“Running away from the scriptural requirement to submit to one man, as an equal, within the protection of marriage (because that’s just too demeaning), has resulted in women living with the reality of abject submission to numerous men, with no protection at all, and with her bearing the entire weight of responsibility for the outcome. The fruit of this lifestyle must either be killed or she must raise the child alone.”
“I happen to think that the role of women is massively important and incredibly fundamental to the mission God has given us, and if I were the devil I would definitely make the goal of distracting the women one of my primary objects.”
“God wants women to tend the home— tending the home must therefore be a hugely meaningful task.’ The way we respond to the command shows whether we trust God or whether we doubt Him… We should not read that command as God telling the women to get out of the way and make room for the important stuff—He’s telling them to get out there on the front lines.”
“No Christian should ever really be asking, ‘How can I fulfill myself?’— the question should always be pointed outward. Who can I bless? How can I use my gifts to build up those around me? How can I embrace my femininity in such a way that I shine the light of the gospel into a lost and sinful world? How can I be truly excellent in the opportunities that God has placed in front of me? The answers will vary wildly, but the questions are always the same for every woman— married, single, old, young.”
The Hard Parts
I think the hardest part readers will have with this book is the author’s voice. In a lot of ways I found it refreshing just as I found Rachel’s bluntness inspiring in her book You Who?.
But there’s also part of me that feels it worked better for the content of Rachel’s book whereas Eve in Exile has some more controversial and sensitive material. She has called out a group of women, named feminists, and criticized their motives.
While I believe that truth does not always need to be gentle and doesn’t always make us feel good, I can see how some phrases may have gone a bit far or would turn people off to considering the author’s intent (see link to full review).
Having read some of Merkle’s blog posts I got a better sense of her person and realize her voice is not in anger but just boldness and some humor, part of her passionate and fiery personality. But the written word is often misinterpreted and people who are already anticipating to disagree with her will not be persuaded otherwise by her tone.
[A couple other discussion points in the full review about the expression "the woman is the glory of the glory", husband worship, and what it looks like for women to 'enflesh' the gospel.]
In Summation
I can give grace for her word choices and I ultimately believe her writing voice is in love. I see and commend the passion to jolt Christians from assimilating into a culture set against God’s design.
When it comes down to it, I, personally, found this book to be both uplifting and challenging.
She reminded me that everything I’m doing at home for my husband and my kids has eternal value and importance and I am playing an essential, God-ordained role in the plan for his glorious kingdom. There is nothing wasteful about it, and when I start to resist the boundaries God has designed, then I am starting to believe that God has nothing exciting or meaningful for me within that framework and that’s a pretty small view of God.
Whether we stay at home full-time or we have work outside the home, we need to be asking ourselves which way we are pointed— at ourselves and our own dreams and desires we feel we deserve, or are we pointed outward at our people, serving as Christ served? Are the decisions we’re making about how we spend our time keeping our family’s best interests in mind or are we convincing ourselves that anything less than self-fulfillment is demeaning? Are our choices benefiting and adding to the home or taking away from it? What is our attitude?
We can’t deny that feminism has influenced the culture’s war on boundaries, and I will stand with Merkle in seeking to rebuild the ones that God has lovingly designed for us to find ultimate freedom and fulfillment within.
Would I hand this book out to every woman on the street? Probably not. At least not without addressing the primary caveats of writing voice and author intent.
Radical Womanhood (fantastic book) is very similar to this book in terms of content but a little gentler. I would probably lean more towards this one as a recommendation if I am in doubt of a reader’s disposition.
Two final quotes:
“If I set the sun beside the moon,
And if I set the land beside the sea,
And if I set the flower beside the fruit,
And if I set the town beside the country
And if I set the man beside the woman
I suppose some fool would talk
About one being better.”
- G.K. Chesterton
“The good news is that when we trust God, He’s never waiting at the other end to say “Haha, tricked you!” God is faithful, and He gives what He promises. Obedience and faith never turn out to have been a trap.”
Visit my book blog: www.shelfreflection.com for more reviews and 'further reading' lists!
“If God designed women for a specific purpose, if there are fixed limits on the feminine nature, then surely it would follow that when we are living in accordance with those limits and purpose we will be in our sweet spot. That’s where we’ll shine. Where we’ll excel. And where we will find the most fulfillment. If your hackles are already going up at that, then it’s probably because you’re afraid that in the end, what God designed for you is unexciting, unfulfilling, demeaning, and generally dull.”
This is a great book that elevates the importance of the home, affirms women who have not chosen careers, and reminds us how integral all women are to the Creation Mandate (subdue, fill, help, glorify) and its expansion— the Great Commission (spread the gospel to all the world).
With a fiery boldness, Merkle doesn’t back down from the truth but defends the beautiful and meaningful boundaries God has placed for all people in accordance with his design and purpose for humanity. She critiques historical figures in the feminist movement and reiterates throughout the book how we can trust God with our role in his design.
I think this book is best if read with another person— ideally a group of women— to discuss and hear others’ perspectives as women who are married/non-married, kids/no-kids, careers/no careers, etc.
However, it is not a perfect book and there are places I would rewrite when I think of some of the women who may be reading these pages. But there is wonderful news for women in this book if we have ears to hear it.
My review will take you through the best and worst and offer a recommendation at the end.
Who is Rebekah Merkle?
In a book like this, who the author is matters. There were parts of this book that struck me in a way that made me defensive for working moms. At first it felt more geared toward women who stay at home full-time, so is she condemning working moms or claiming they are all selfish for choosing careers over their families?
By no means!
Merkle has a career herself. She runs her own clothing line and is a high school humanities teacher. So if we find ourselves questioning what she is implying, we must be careful because we can know she is not saying women should not work outside the home.
Other notable items in her biography are her familial connections. Her sister is Rachel Jankovic, author of Loving the Little Years and one of my favorite books, You Who?: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It.
Her father is Douglas Wilson, author of many books—none I have read or reviewed yet.
I don’t know much about their other family members, but all three of these are highly intelligent people with a solid grip on biblical truth. They are bold truth tellers and oftentimes their personalities or writing styles can rub people the wrong way.
But we can’t let our sensitivities to certain words or phrases cause us to dismiss their entire rhetoric.
Merkle has a lot of great things to say in this book and we would do well to hear her out.
[I want to note here in the spirit of transparency— I recently read Jesus and John Wayne and criticized KDM’s tone for being “accusatory reviling.” Many positive reviewers of KDM’s book appreciated her tone and found it witty and sarcastic. So is the situation with Eve in Exile like that but in reverse? Am I appreciative of Merkle’s boldness just because I agree with her whereas I wasn’t with KDM because I did not find her convincing?
As I reflect on this, I do believe it is different. I do find Merkle’s tone different than KDM’s. I find Eve in Exile to have more grace and truth. Reading more about Merkle I am convinced her words are all chosen deliberately, not emotionally driven, and are directed toward a given truth. Yet, this was a good consideration for me to keep in mind as I continue to read and process controversial books.]
Her Driving Point
“The question is not where a woman is standing but which direction she is pointed.”
Because Merkle talks about God’s directive for women to tend the home which typically involves husbands and children, there seems to be a void for groups like single women, single moms, working moms, women who can’t have children, and probably others I haven’t mentioned, and I felt the void too.
But her point is not that a stay-at-home mom is the pinnacle of womanhood biblical or otherwise.
She says,
“A household is bigger than the house itself, and as Paul describes the duties of a wife and mother, it is clear that her duties are defined by the people she is surrounded by and not simply her street address. What it looks like to keep a household running varies from century to century, from country to country, from family to family, and from season to season. A woman keeping a house full of small children looks different than a woman keeping a house full of teenagers…
…I would never say that a wife’s place is in the home, but I would absolutely say that a wife’s priority should be her home.”
The void we feel may not exist after all!
With each chapter Merkle points out the ways that the ‘feminist attitude’ (as she has defined) has the woman pointing inwards to herself, away from her people, and/or away from God’s design.
Merkle’s heart for this book is to jolt us out of our lethargic slumber, hypnotized by the draw of the culture’s “promises” of “freedoms,” and to reorient ourselves to the incredibly meaningful and important design God created us for— where we will find our true freedom and fulfillment.
The Outline
Merkle opens the book by observing the culture’s obsession with removing boundaries, particularly regarding gender. The battle against gender stereotypes has devolved into just the idea of gender being offensive. But instead of being disheartened, Merkle notes that we have a unique position now.
By giving historical context of the feminist movement, Merkle points out the very real unjust boundaries forced on women in the past (i.e. no voting rights, barred from education, etc) and explains the very divergent trajectories of a solution based in feminist thought and one aligned with the Bible.
Boundaries are a good thing. She says they are “essential to freedom” just as adhering to rules and boundaries are essential to excelling in a game of basketball.
I have to insert this applicable quote from Carolyn McCulley’s book, Radical Womanhood, here:
“The real problem is that a man once stood by his wife as she listened to God’s enemy question His authority, His goodness, and His boundaries. The man did not intervene in any way. Instead, he was a monument to passivity. His only action was to eat the forbidden fruit his wife gave to him. For her part, the woman knew the life-preserving boundaries the Lord God had established, but in her quest to be like God, she violated those boundaries, sinfully judged God’s motives and orders, and gave in to her own assessment of the situation.
… Every one of us is prone to agree with Satan’s character assassination of God. We often chafe at the good boundaries God has given us. We are easily tempted to think the worst of God. And we doubt that what God has provided is anywhere near as good as what He has restricted.”
So here we stand in the rubble of boundaries leftover from deconstruction in decades past, able to rebuild the boundaries that help us live as women in the world as God has purposed it, keeping out the unjust and replacing what is right.
She then warns us of the two ditches, or distractions, that send us veering off course. We could swerve into escapism, believing if we lived according to an earlier and “better” era like Pride and Prejudice or Little House on the Prairie, we can avoid the ‘ungodliness of society’. But that’s a pretend world.
Or we could jerk the other way and start believing that our worth and fulfillment lies solely in career advancement and recognition. The self is the most important. Do whatever it takes to achieve your dreams and don’t settle for anything less. Personal achievement is the noble path. But that’s an empty lie.
We can’t isolate ourselves in our homes or ignore them altogether.
Merkle then runs through the three waves of feminism highlighting figures like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Margaret Sanger and their contributions.
This is followed by a look at the Creation Mandate found in Genesis— subdue, fill, help, glorify— and what that means as women and how those could be applied to our lives today.
The Best Parts
“A woman raising her children is not only shaping the next generation, she is also shaping little humans who are going to live forever. The souls she gave birth to are immortal. Immortal. And somehow, our culture looks at a woman who treats that as if it might be an important task and says, ‘It’s a shame she’s wasting herself. She could be doing something important— like filing paperwork for insurance claims.’”
I am a stay-at-home mom and I have felt the inferiority surrounding that title. Any version of small talk usually begins with ‘So what do you do?’ My reply is often met with an awkward pause as if there is nothing further worth talking about. Oh, you’re just another one of those… I feel my abilities and intelligence is sized up on that fact alone.
I feel the culture at large looks at ‘stay-at-home mom’ and sees a woman who has settled into a demeaning traditional role of wife and mother, given up on her dreams, lacking in ambition. Pitied for not wanting more for herself, for not recognizing that women can and should have careers now! We need more women CEOs and doctors and engineers and astronauts and I’m ruining the cause of women everywhere because all I do is housework and change diapers.
Well I have news for you, world! I don’t do housework!
Ha. Just kidding. Well I’m mostly serious about the housework, but I reject that perception of what my life looks like. There is nothing demeaning or ‘sorry’ about raising children full time. It is an honor and should be seen that way.
Merkle does a fantastic job of elevating and validating what women who choose to stay home are doing. God created women alone to bring life into the world! He created our bodies to make and sustain life. He created us to be nurturers, managers of a home that brings people together and points them toward the Lord.
To be clear, in all the ways she defends the housewife in intelligence, worth, and work, she is not simultaneously tearing down the working woman. She is focusing on destroying the stigma of what “staying at home” has been reduced to in a culture fixated on “equalizing” literally everything.
“Our jobs are not important because they keep us just as busy as if we had “real” careers. They’re not important because we can come up with important sounding words to describe them. Our jobs are important because they are poetry. Because they share loves and they shape loyalties, they teach and they convict. They’re important because they take glorious truths and make them incarnate, make them visible, and weave them into the souls of the people around us.”
What I love about this quote is that I believe God created women as multitaskers. And because we can hold multiple lines of thought in our head, we can do this weaving of souls and truth as we go about our day in ways that men can’t. We can incorporate biblical truths and make connections with all kinds of things as we teach and live with our kids. I think that’s really cool to think about!
I think it’s also important to insert this caveat, lest we paint Merkle as someone who think only ‘true women’ have children.
“There is nothing inherently blessed about the physical act of childbearing. A woman can have children to the glory of God or in defiance of God, and a woman can be childless to the glory of God or in defiance of God.”
We are no more or less biblical women if we can or can’t have children. Again, it’s not where women stand, but what they are pointed at. What is the attitude and the mindset? Where is the heart?
I had my own journey of feeling like a failure because my body wasn’t doing what it was supposed to to make a baby. Why would God command us to be fruitful and multiply and then close our wombs?
Everyone’s journey is different, and we can’t begin to explain the hard paths God allows us to walk, but having our own biological children is not the only way God has created us to fulfill his command. We need to open our minds to the possibilities.
If you are home with your kids and constantly second-guessing the choices of your life, feeling like you’ve failed your true self in some way or have ‘settled,’ this book is for you.
Merkle will lift your head and infuse those heavy-laden arms with God’s truth that those arms are holding and caring for eternal souls and there is nothing flippant or wasteful about that. God will bless your very hard work.
Other quotes that resonated with me:
“Running away from the scriptural requirement to submit to one man, as an equal, within the protection of marriage (because that’s just too demeaning), has resulted in women living with the reality of abject submission to numerous men, with no protection at all, and with her bearing the entire weight of responsibility for the outcome. The fruit of this lifestyle must either be killed or she must raise the child alone.”
“I happen to think that the role of women is massively important and incredibly fundamental to the mission God has given us, and if I were the devil I would definitely make the goal of distracting the women one of my primary objects.”
“God wants women to tend the home— tending the home must therefore be a hugely meaningful task.’ The way we respond to the command shows whether we trust God or whether we doubt Him… We should not read that command as God telling the women to get out of the way and make room for the important stuff—He’s telling them to get out there on the front lines.”
“No Christian should ever really be asking, ‘How can I fulfill myself?’— the question should always be pointed outward. Who can I bless? How can I use my gifts to build up those around me? How can I embrace my femininity in such a way that I shine the light of the gospel into a lost and sinful world? How can I be truly excellent in the opportunities that God has placed in front of me? The answers will vary wildly, but the questions are always the same for every woman— married, single, old, young.”
The Hard Parts
I think the hardest part readers will have with this book is the author’s voice. In a lot of ways I found it refreshing just as I found Rachel’s bluntness inspiring in her book You Who?.
But there’s also part of me that feels it worked better for the content of Rachel’s book whereas Eve in Exile has some more controversial and sensitive material. She has called out a group of women, named feminists, and criticized their motives.
While I believe that truth does not always need to be gentle and doesn’t always make us feel good, I can see how some phrases may have gone a bit far or would turn people off to considering the author’s intent (see link to full review).
Having read some of Merkle’s blog posts I got a better sense of her person and realize her voice is not in anger but just boldness and some humor, part of her passionate and fiery personality. But the written word is often misinterpreted and people who are already anticipating to disagree with her will not be persuaded otherwise by her tone.
[A couple other discussion points in the full review about the expression "the woman is the glory of the glory", husband worship, and what it looks like for women to 'enflesh' the gospel.]
In Summation
I can give grace for her word choices and I ultimately believe her writing voice is in love. I see and commend the passion to jolt Christians from assimilating into a culture set against God’s design.
When it comes down to it, I, personally, found this book to be both uplifting and challenging.
She reminded me that everything I’m doing at home for my husband and my kids has eternal value and importance and I am playing an essential, God-ordained role in the plan for his glorious kingdom. There is nothing wasteful about it, and when I start to resist the boundaries God has designed, then I am starting to believe that God has nothing exciting or meaningful for me within that framework and that’s a pretty small view of God.
Whether we stay at home full-time or we have work outside the home, we need to be asking ourselves which way we are pointed— at ourselves and our own dreams and desires we feel we deserve, or are we pointed outward at our people, serving as Christ served? Are the decisions we’re making about how we spend our time keeping our family’s best interests in mind or are we convincing ourselves that anything less than self-fulfillment is demeaning? Are our choices benefiting and adding to the home or taking away from it? What is our attitude?
We can’t deny that feminism has influenced the culture’s war on boundaries, and I will stand with Merkle in seeking to rebuild the ones that God has lovingly designed for us to find ultimate freedom and fulfillment within.
Would I hand this book out to every woman on the street? Probably not. At least not without addressing the primary caveats of writing voice and author intent.
Radical Womanhood (fantastic book) is very similar to this book in terms of content but a little gentler. I would probably lean more towards this one as a recommendation if I am in doubt of a reader’s disposition.
Two final quotes:
“If I set the sun beside the moon,
And if I set the land beside the sea,
And if I set the flower beside the fruit,
And if I set the town beside the country
And if I set the man beside the woman
I suppose some fool would talk
About one being better.”
- G.K. Chesterton
“The good news is that when we trust God, He’s never waiting at the other end to say “Haha, tricked you!” God is faithful, and He gives what He promises. Obedience and faith never turn out to have been a trap.”
Visit my book blog: www.shelfreflection.com for more reviews and 'further reading' lists!
[Visit my original blog for full review and further reading on this topic]
“God’s plan has always been diversity. Every tribe, tongue, and nation are part of his family and the Bible does not differentiate people based on race.”
This is a simplified version of his book— How to Fight Racism— released January 2021 and is written for children ages 8-12.
I have not read the adult edition of this book but I have read Tisby’s book The Color of Compromise.
Because I haven’t read the adult version, it’s possible some of the comments or questions I have regarding this edition may have been better explained in the adult edition. However, I found Neil Shenvi’s review of that book quite similar to the perceptions and notes I had for this edition, and was helpful as I processed what I read.
Providing a guide for young readers about racism is a worthwhile venture. To this end, he gives a comprehensive historical summary of race in America, and I believe he did a good job charging readers to treat people with respect and stand up for justice. I thought his emphasis on all people being created in the image of God— where our worth and rights find their basis— was strong. His ‘ARC’ acronym integrating Awareness, Relationships, and Commitment is a helpful model to think about in terms of fighting injustices.
The downside for me was similar to my impressions about his book The Color of Compromise— he seems to predicate the material of this book from the assumption that racism is everywhere if we just look hard enough, uses some ambiguous terminology, makes some unsupported claims, downplays the gospel, and communicates in a way that could perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy of hopelessness.
I will break it down a little more and let you be the judge of whether you feel this would be a good book for your child to read.
Geared Towards a Young Audience
The topic of racism is an increasingly complicated sphere so I commend his efforts in producing a book geared toward younger students and understand the difficulties of that. There’s only so much context and background you can provide and still keep the book short and simple enough.
One way he meets the needs of his younger audience is by pulling out the big words into ‘glossary boxes’ in the margins. A full glossary is also included at the end.
To keep the readers engaged in the material and remember the main points of each chapter/section, he includes a few questions at the end. I thought this was a good idea to break up the material and keep the kids involved with it.
He tries to include student-relatable experiences when describing certain terms, situations, or feelings. I loved his reminders for readers to stand up for their classmates who are being mistreated and to speak up when kids say inappropriate ‘jokes.’
He also gives some good activities for them to do— a little like homework: research a historical event to learn more, interview a person of another race to hear their experiences, be involved with student government or attend school board meetings where policies and decisions are made, start a book club with people of all races to discuss topics and hear different perspectives, visit cultural fairs and events, etc.
I felt like most of his suggestions were easy enough for any kid to carry out if they wanted to.
The Strength
The strength of this book is two-fold: educating the kids on the history of racism and things that happened that they might not know about (though I would guess it’s more likely to be taught in schools now) and the emphasis of diversity being God’s design from the beginning.
He says,
“The goal for everyone is to have a positive view of their racial or ethnic identity, one that does not require them to fit in with or reject the dominant culture or experiences, and one that values the diversity of other people.”
I like that he is teaching the kids to feel good about how God created them and that we treat others with love because we are all God’s creation. I am pro-positive-view. I am pro-diversity. I also like that that he said people shouldn’t be required to fit in with the dominant culture OR reject the dominant culture. That message isn’t heard as often.
I remember reading The Color of Compromise and hearing some of the historical events and stories for the first time and it is a shocking and uncomfortable feeling— hearing that many Christians believed the Bible supported slavery and the acts they committed in its name are atrocious.
Tisby didn’t include the most graphic stories but he didn’t sugarcoat it either and it will be shocking and uncomfortable for some students to read some of the things that happened to people in our past. I think some of this is a good thing. Might be too much for 8 yos, but 10-12 yos would probably handle it better.
Racial Identity
“Some white people can go their whole lives without ever having an encounter that causes them to think about race. This leads to a shallow relationship with an aspect of who they are.”
Tisby writes a chapter called ‘The Science of Race’ where he points out that ‘race’ is not a scientific term but a social one. Race is just varying melanin levels in the skin as people groups adapted to the sunlight in their geographic location.
“Although race is something imagined (or constructed),” he says, “its effects are real. From lifespan to salary to where you live, race has a measurable impact on a person’s quality of life.”
It felt like he contradicted himself on this point throughout the book. He wants people to recognize that God created people differently and that diversity should be celebrated, that race is an arbitrary exhibiting of melanin in our skin not a depiction of differing worth, but then proceeds to encourage people to research their race and attach significant meaning to that result as part of their identity.
It felt like he is telling his black readership— if you don’t know and “feel in your bones” the history of racism based on the color of your skin, you need to go research it until you do. It’s like he is telling his white readership— if you don’t understand how terrible white people were to black people in history, you need to go research it until you recognize your own part in this tragedy and work to make amends.
If race is not an aspect of who you claim yourself to be, he suggests this is evidence of the harmful practice of “colorblindness” where we fail to celebrate God’s created diversity. But this emphasis on a racial identity seems to be elevated over our identity in Christ where our sinful depravity levels the playing field of transgressions and the power of Christ’s mercy and grace saves, transforms, and unifies us.
Children are doing a lot of work on figuring out who they are and I have concerns about Tisby’s emphasis of a racial identity and attaching historical burdens to kids and telling them it should shape how they view themselves rather than offering spiritual freedoms to define them.
The Questionable
The thing about writing a book for kids ages 8-12 is that they are still developing critical thinking skills. They still view all adults as people of authority and tend to accept everything they say at face value. This gives adults a lot of power to influence the thinking of children and can become a dangerous tool that is wielded.
I feel Jemar Tisby presented some things definitively as common fact or in a more simplistic way that does not account for all the information. He makes certain statements and claims that I think students won’t think to question.
“No matter their level of achievement, people of African descent in the United States, especially those with darker skin, are always placed in the outermost ring of American social circles.”
“Racism today comes in the forms of mass incarceration and police brutality towards people of color. You can find it in the ongoing and widening racial wealth gap…”
“Since white people are in charge of how society is organized, they have a way of making the rules so they always get the best options and opportunities. Maybe this isn’t always intentional, but the results are usually the same.”
“Though Christianity is supposed to bring people together in love, we live in a world where black Christians who stand against police brutality under the banner of #blacklivesmatter are dismissed as radicals by white Christians who justify such police tactics as necessary to keeping the police.”
Though he doesn’t use these exact words, he seems to support Ibram X. Kendi’s words: “When I see disparities, I see discrimination.” He seems to support Robin DiAngelo’s telling people to ask the question ‘How is this racism?’ rather than ‘Is this racism?’
He commemorates every black person who has died at the other end of a police officer’s gun without providing adequate context for each occurrence. Police brutality happens, but I wouldn’t say it’s the ‘norm’ or characteristic of police and it’s helpful to research the statistics on this. We should be wary of making some interactions definitive of all interactions.
He does not provide the statistics that while white people may have greater wealth than black people, white people actually rank 16th in median household income by selected ancestry groups.
One of the major dangers of his emphasis on presenting the notion that America is an elaborate system rigged against black people, where white people will always prevail over them, where black people don’t have the tools they need to succeed, where their future is one of lesser pay, worse jobs, and discrimination, is that it’s likely to cause people to stop trying. After all, what’s the point?
While we always fight injustice, Tisby’s tone and presentation seems likely to perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy where black people do not see the value or hope in trying. Tisby ignores the psychology that- You tell a child they are kind, they are smart, they are hard-working, that they can try hard things and they will live up to the picture of them you present— they will be kind and more confident academically. If you tell them they are lacking something, disadvantaged, and their country is actively against them, they will believe it and act accordingly.
I must advocate for two really good, relevant, must-read books here:
The Coddling of the American Mind
Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth
I think these two books are essential to considering Tisby’s presentation of his ambiguously defined term ‘racial justice.’
Orienting Our Lives to Racial Justice
He advocates that fighting for racial justice is an ongoing battle and true commitment will focus on it daily or orient their lives to it.
“One of the most important racial justice practices is to keep race at the top of your mind even when you have the option of not doing so.”
My concern with this charge is that he’s dangerously close to making racial justice a bigger priority than the gospel. We don’t orient our lives to anything other than the Lord.
Living out of the gospel should spur us to seek justice, but racial justice is not the gospel. The gospel is the Good News that Jesus has died for the sins of the world (of which racism is one) and defeated death and our bondage to our sin so we could experience true life and freedom in him. We do not earn this gift by accomplishing racial justice. If we get this wrong, we have lost the gospel of grace.
The importance and power of the gospel is highly lacking in this book.
Monique Duson shares part of her story in Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth and says this:
“According to historic Christianity, salvation is the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection so sinners of all colors can be saved by a free act of divine grace. [Critical Race Theory] had pulled me away from that good news into a social justice gospel in which the finished work of Jesus wasn’t enough. Activism to end “oppression” as redefined by CRT became a gospel essential... According to CRT, humanity’s fundamental problems are whiteness and oppression. The beliefs of CRT weren’t ‘part of the gospel;’ they formed a different gospel altogether.”
To be clear: Tisby does not explicitly advocate or even mention critical race theory, nor does he explicitly say racial justice is a gospel issue. But this idea is worth thinking about because Tisby’s book hints at this belief. He seems to downplay the power of the gospel in seeing true change in the world and promotes activism more heavily.
Another example of Tisby's misleading ‘factual’ phrasings is this discussion question he included at the end of a section where he talked about Quaker Oats’ Aunt Jemima logo:
“What are some ways white people have sought to make less of black people through images and advertising?”
He states this as if advertisers are overtly seeking to hurt black people and asking kids to look for examples. There may be some examples we can prove the motivations of a company in the content they put out, but we have to be very careful when we judge motives. The wording of this question is problematic to me.
Tisby also stated that we need to look at impact not intent when considering evidence of racism. This is a very harmful practice to encourage. Both impact AND intent are important if we want to care about people and if we ignore either one the results will be damaging. (The Coddling of the American Mind discusses this phrase of impact vs intent)
Black vs White Culture
Tisby mentioned several times how the dominant culture is white and that black people have often been forced to change their culture to assimilate into the dominant culture.
This idea of ‘black culture’ and ‘white culture’ is not something I deny exists, but it’s something I was struggling to picture. I wish he would have been more descriptive on what ‘black culture’ is and what ‘white culture’ is. A quick look of google search results is just more ambiguity.
What aspects of black culture are being rejected, looked down on, or demeaned?
He did give the example of hairstyles— that black students are being suspended at schools because their hairstyles didn’t align with the school’s dress codes or ideas of what ‘normal’ or appropriate is. I was shocked to hear this would happen but I can confirm situations in both Texas and Florida where this occurred. Rightly, many states are passing laws that keep schools from using disciplinary actions because of hairstyles.
This is one example, but I think it would be beneficial for everyone to have more clarity on what he means here.
If he wants black culture to stop being suppressed then help us understand how to identify it and how to allow multiple cultures to coexist respectfully.
Tisby’s Solutions
“The bridge between a desire and a destination is a plan.”
“White people are in power because the system has been set up to favor them and something must be done to set historic injustices right.”
“Many people, particularly those in the racial majority, come at the issue of race like it’s something to understand mentally. They think solutions come from good ideas and that people can fix things just by thinking about them more deeply. They don’t realize that race is something other people feel in the bones.”
Based on Shenvi’s review linked above, I think he must use the term reparations in the adult version. He doesn’t refer to that in this book but he likens racism in America to a broken part of a used car you purchased from someone else. It may not be a problem you caused, but you are still responsible to fix it.
We do, as followers of Christ, have the responsibility to pursue justice, to treat others well, and to be generous.
Tisby offers some practical relational and school-related ideas for the students to do to work towards justice, but he still alludes to the bigger picture of correcting the systems that are rigged against black people and doesn’t give many specifics on what those are or how to repair them.
The historic redlining that pushed black people into specific neighborhoods did a lot of economic damage to be sure. School district lines can distribute financial resources unequally between school districts. Criminal sentencing for drug charges for white vs black people shows real disparity.
These are concrete things that I can see at work that disadvantage minorities compared to white people. Besides those, I didn’t feel like Tisby provided many details on what systems he specifically wants to see changed or solutions to do it. That’s probably out of the scope and purpose of this book, but something I thought would have been helpful.
Where Do We Go From Here?
“Whatever your reason for reading, my hope is that you’ll come away with a better understanding of where we’ve been as a nation, a deeper knowledge of who you are as a person, a vibrant connection to people of all backgrounds, and a stronger sense of purpose to fix what needs to be fixed in our broken world.”
This is somewhat his thesis. The first and third in the list are the strengths of this book and the second and fourth are the discussion points.
We all can agree that racism is sinful and should be treated as such. Injustices are wrong and should be fought against. Racism and injustices exist in the world and we need to see that the effects and damages of sin are widespread and long-lasting.
I agree with Tisby on the basis of our equality as humanity, our worth as image bearers, and God’s design of diversity not uniformity. We worship God when we love his creation and exhibit the fruits of the Spirit to our neighbors.
My hangups occur when I think about his perception of systemic racism, racial minorities not having the tools they need to succeed, the emphasis on racial identity, and sparse gospel-as-a-world-changer statements. It makes this an inadequate book for me to present to my child.
Maybe it’s less of a ‘don’t read this book' recommendation and more of a ‘you could probably read this book, but please supplement with some other viewpoints’ type of situation!
Visit my blog www.shelfreflection.com and explore some others!
“God’s plan has always been diversity. Every tribe, tongue, and nation are part of his family and the Bible does not differentiate people based on race.”
This is a simplified version of his book— How to Fight Racism— released January 2021 and is written for children ages 8-12.
I have not read the adult edition of this book but I have read Tisby’s book The Color of Compromise.
Because I haven’t read the adult version, it’s possible some of the comments or questions I have regarding this edition may have been better explained in the adult edition. However, I found Neil Shenvi’s review of that book quite similar to the perceptions and notes I had for this edition, and was helpful as I processed what I read.
Providing a guide for young readers about racism is a worthwhile venture. To this end, he gives a comprehensive historical summary of race in America, and I believe he did a good job charging readers to treat people with respect and stand up for justice. I thought his emphasis on all people being created in the image of God— where our worth and rights find their basis— was strong. His ‘ARC’ acronym integrating Awareness, Relationships, and Commitment is a helpful model to think about in terms of fighting injustices.
The downside for me was similar to my impressions about his book The Color of Compromise— he seems to predicate the material of this book from the assumption that racism is everywhere if we just look hard enough, uses some ambiguous terminology, makes some unsupported claims, downplays the gospel, and communicates in a way that could perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy of hopelessness.
I will break it down a little more and let you be the judge of whether you feel this would be a good book for your child to read.
Geared Towards a Young Audience
The topic of racism is an increasingly complicated sphere so I commend his efforts in producing a book geared toward younger students and understand the difficulties of that. There’s only so much context and background you can provide and still keep the book short and simple enough.
One way he meets the needs of his younger audience is by pulling out the big words into ‘glossary boxes’ in the margins. A full glossary is also included at the end.
To keep the readers engaged in the material and remember the main points of each chapter/section, he includes a few questions at the end. I thought this was a good idea to break up the material and keep the kids involved with it.
He tries to include student-relatable experiences when describing certain terms, situations, or feelings. I loved his reminders for readers to stand up for their classmates who are being mistreated and to speak up when kids say inappropriate ‘jokes.’
He also gives some good activities for them to do— a little like homework: research a historical event to learn more, interview a person of another race to hear their experiences, be involved with student government or attend school board meetings where policies and decisions are made, start a book club with people of all races to discuss topics and hear different perspectives, visit cultural fairs and events, etc.
I felt like most of his suggestions were easy enough for any kid to carry out if they wanted to.
The Strength
The strength of this book is two-fold: educating the kids on the history of racism and things that happened that they might not know about (though I would guess it’s more likely to be taught in schools now) and the emphasis of diversity being God’s design from the beginning.
He says,
“The goal for everyone is to have a positive view of their racial or ethnic identity, one that does not require them to fit in with or reject the dominant culture or experiences, and one that values the diversity of other people.”
I like that he is teaching the kids to feel good about how God created them and that we treat others with love because we are all God’s creation. I am pro-positive-view. I am pro-diversity. I also like that that he said people shouldn’t be required to fit in with the dominant culture OR reject the dominant culture. That message isn’t heard as often.
I remember reading The Color of Compromise and hearing some of the historical events and stories for the first time and it is a shocking and uncomfortable feeling— hearing that many Christians believed the Bible supported slavery and the acts they committed in its name are atrocious.
Tisby didn’t include the most graphic stories but he didn’t sugarcoat it either and it will be shocking and uncomfortable for some students to read some of the things that happened to people in our past. I think some of this is a good thing. Might be too much for 8 yos, but 10-12 yos would probably handle it better.
Racial Identity
“Some white people can go their whole lives without ever having an encounter that causes them to think about race. This leads to a shallow relationship with an aspect of who they are.”
Tisby writes a chapter called ‘The Science of Race’ where he points out that ‘race’ is not a scientific term but a social one. Race is just varying melanin levels in the skin as people groups adapted to the sunlight in their geographic location.
“Although race is something imagined (or constructed),” he says, “its effects are real. From lifespan to salary to where you live, race has a measurable impact on a person’s quality of life.”
It felt like he contradicted himself on this point throughout the book. He wants people to recognize that God created people differently and that diversity should be celebrated, that race is an arbitrary exhibiting of melanin in our skin not a depiction of differing worth, but then proceeds to encourage people to research their race and attach significant meaning to that result as part of their identity.
It felt like he is telling his black readership— if you don’t know and “feel in your bones” the history of racism based on the color of your skin, you need to go research it until you do. It’s like he is telling his white readership— if you don’t understand how terrible white people were to black people in history, you need to go research it until you recognize your own part in this tragedy and work to make amends.
If race is not an aspect of who you claim yourself to be, he suggests this is evidence of the harmful practice of “colorblindness” where we fail to celebrate God’s created diversity. But this emphasis on a racial identity seems to be elevated over our identity in Christ where our sinful depravity levels the playing field of transgressions and the power of Christ’s mercy and grace saves, transforms, and unifies us.
Children are doing a lot of work on figuring out who they are and I have concerns about Tisby’s emphasis of a racial identity and attaching historical burdens to kids and telling them it should shape how they view themselves rather than offering spiritual freedoms to define them.
The Questionable
The thing about writing a book for kids ages 8-12 is that they are still developing critical thinking skills. They still view all adults as people of authority and tend to accept everything they say at face value. This gives adults a lot of power to influence the thinking of children and can become a dangerous tool that is wielded.
I feel Jemar Tisby presented some things definitively as common fact or in a more simplistic way that does not account for all the information. He makes certain statements and claims that I think students won’t think to question.
“No matter their level of achievement, people of African descent in the United States, especially those with darker skin, are always placed in the outermost ring of American social circles.”
“Racism today comes in the forms of mass incarceration and police brutality towards people of color. You can find it in the ongoing and widening racial wealth gap…”
“Since white people are in charge of how society is organized, they have a way of making the rules so they always get the best options and opportunities. Maybe this isn’t always intentional, but the results are usually the same.”
“Though Christianity is supposed to bring people together in love, we live in a world where black Christians who stand against police brutality under the banner of #blacklivesmatter are dismissed as radicals by white Christians who justify such police tactics as necessary to keeping the police.”
Though he doesn’t use these exact words, he seems to support Ibram X. Kendi’s words: “When I see disparities, I see discrimination.” He seems to support Robin DiAngelo’s telling people to ask the question ‘How is this racism?’ rather than ‘Is this racism?’
He commemorates every black person who has died at the other end of a police officer’s gun without providing adequate context for each occurrence. Police brutality happens, but I wouldn’t say it’s the ‘norm’ or characteristic of police and it’s helpful to research the statistics on this. We should be wary of making some interactions definitive of all interactions.
He does not provide the statistics that while white people may have greater wealth than black people, white people actually rank 16th in median household income by selected ancestry groups.
One of the major dangers of his emphasis on presenting the notion that America is an elaborate system rigged against black people, where white people will always prevail over them, where black people don’t have the tools they need to succeed, where their future is one of lesser pay, worse jobs, and discrimination, is that it’s likely to cause people to stop trying. After all, what’s the point?
While we always fight injustice, Tisby’s tone and presentation seems likely to perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy where black people do not see the value or hope in trying. Tisby ignores the psychology that- You tell a child they are kind, they are smart, they are hard-working, that they can try hard things and they will live up to the picture of them you present— they will be kind and more confident academically. If you tell them they are lacking something, disadvantaged, and their country is actively against them, they will believe it and act accordingly.
I must advocate for two really good, relevant, must-read books here:
The Coddling of the American Mind
Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth
I think these two books are essential to considering Tisby’s presentation of his ambiguously defined term ‘racial justice.’
Orienting Our Lives to Racial Justice
He advocates that fighting for racial justice is an ongoing battle and true commitment will focus on it daily or orient their lives to it.
“One of the most important racial justice practices is to keep race at the top of your mind even when you have the option of not doing so.”
My concern with this charge is that he’s dangerously close to making racial justice a bigger priority than the gospel. We don’t orient our lives to anything other than the Lord.
Living out of the gospel should spur us to seek justice, but racial justice is not the gospel. The gospel is the Good News that Jesus has died for the sins of the world (of which racism is one) and defeated death and our bondage to our sin so we could experience true life and freedom in him. We do not earn this gift by accomplishing racial justice. If we get this wrong, we have lost the gospel of grace.
The importance and power of the gospel is highly lacking in this book.
Monique Duson shares part of her story in Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth and says this:
“According to historic Christianity, salvation is the good news of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection so sinners of all colors can be saved by a free act of divine grace. [Critical Race Theory] had pulled me away from that good news into a social justice gospel in which the finished work of Jesus wasn’t enough. Activism to end “oppression” as redefined by CRT became a gospel essential... According to CRT, humanity’s fundamental problems are whiteness and oppression. The beliefs of CRT weren’t ‘part of the gospel;’ they formed a different gospel altogether.”
To be clear: Tisby does not explicitly advocate or even mention critical race theory, nor does he explicitly say racial justice is a gospel issue. But this idea is worth thinking about because Tisby’s book hints at this belief. He seems to downplay the power of the gospel in seeing true change in the world and promotes activism more heavily.
Another example of Tisby's misleading ‘factual’ phrasings is this discussion question he included at the end of a section where he talked about Quaker Oats’ Aunt Jemima logo:
“What are some ways white people have sought to make less of black people through images and advertising?”
He states this as if advertisers are overtly seeking to hurt black people and asking kids to look for examples. There may be some examples we can prove the motivations of a company in the content they put out, but we have to be very careful when we judge motives. The wording of this question is problematic to me.
Tisby also stated that we need to look at impact not intent when considering evidence of racism. This is a very harmful practice to encourage. Both impact AND intent are important if we want to care about people and if we ignore either one the results will be damaging. (The Coddling of the American Mind discusses this phrase of impact vs intent)
Black vs White Culture
Tisby mentioned several times how the dominant culture is white and that black people have often been forced to change their culture to assimilate into the dominant culture.
This idea of ‘black culture’ and ‘white culture’ is not something I deny exists, but it’s something I was struggling to picture. I wish he would have been more descriptive on what ‘black culture’ is and what ‘white culture’ is. A quick look of google search results is just more ambiguity.
What aspects of black culture are being rejected, looked down on, or demeaned?
He did give the example of hairstyles— that black students are being suspended at schools because their hairstyles didn’t align with the school’s dress codes or ideas of what ‘normal’ or appropriate is. I was shocked to hear this would happen but I can confirm situations in both Texas and Florida where this occurred. Rightly, many states are passing laws that keep schools from using disciplinary actions because of hairstyles.
This is one example, but I think it would be beneficial for everyone to have more clarity on what he means here.
If he wants black culture to stop being suppressed then help us understand how to identify it and how to allow multiple cultures to coexist respectfully.
Tisby’s Solutions
“The bridge between a desire and a destination is a plan.”
“White people are in power because the system has been set up to favor them and something must be done to set historic injustices right.”
“Many people, particularly those in the racial majority, come at the issue of race like it’s something to understand mentally. They think solutions come from good ideas and that people can fix things just by thinking about them more deeply. They don’t realize that race is something other people feel in the bones.”
Based on Shenvi’s review linked above, I think he must use the term reparations in the adult version. He doesn’t refer to that in this book but he likens racism in America to a broken part of a used car you purchased from someone else. It may not be a problem you caused, but you are still responsible to fix it.
We do, as followers of Christ, have the responsibility to pursue justice, to treat others well, and to be generous.
Tisby offers some practical relational and school-related ideas for the students to do to work towards justice, but he still alludes to the bigger picture of correcting the systems that are rigged against black people and doesn’t give many specifics on what those are or how to repair them.
The historic redlining that pushed black people into specific neighborhoods did a lot of economic damage to be sure. School district lines can distribute financial resources unequally between school districts. Criminal sentencing for drug charges for white vs black people shows real disparity.
These are concrete things that I can see at work that disadvantage minorities compared to white people. Besides those, I didn’t feel like Tisby provided many details on what systems he specifically wants to see changed or solutions to do it. That’s probably out of the scope and purpose of this book, but something I thought would have been helpful.
Where Do We Go From Here?
“Whatever your reason for reading, my hope is that you’ll come away with a better understanding of where we’ve been as a nation, a deeper knowledge of who you are as a person, a vibrant connection to people of all backgrounds, and a stronger sense of purpose to fix what needs to be fixed in our broken world.”
This is somewhat his thesis. The first and third in the list are the strengths of this book and the second and fourth are the discussion points.
We all can agree that racism is sinful and should be treated as such. Injustices are wrong and should be fought against. Racism and injustices exist in the world and we need to see that the effects and damages of sin are widespread and long-lasting.
I agree with Tisby on the basis of our equality as humanity, our worth as image bearers, and God’s design of diversity not uniformity. We worship God when we love his creation and exhibit the fruits of the Spirit to our neighbors.
My hangups occur when I think about his perception of systemic racism, racial minorities not having the tools they need to succeed, the emphasis on racial identity, and sparse gospel-as-a-world-changer statements. It makes this an inadequate book for me to present to my child.
Maybe it’s less of a ‘don’t read this book' recommendation and more of a ‘you could probably read this book, but please supplement with some other viewpoints’ type of situation!
Visit my blog www.shelfreflection.com and explore some others!
“Libraries are lungs. Books the fresh air breathed in to keep the heart beating, to keep the brain imagining, to keep hope alive.”
“Words are worth fighting for, they are worth the risk.”
What great quotes!
Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my expectations for this one.
This is your classic historical fiction that jumps back and forth from past (1940s) and the present (1980s). It follows the life of Odile Souchet in Paris as a young librarian at The American Library, and then as an older woman living in rural Montana, befriending the teenager girl next door, Lily.
Almost all the characters (not Odile or Lily) are based on real life people working at this library in Paris during the Nazi occupation in WWII.
If you are a book-lover, especially of classic literature, this book will probably hold a special place in your heart because you understand the importance of books for the mind and the soul and all the quotes from the books will be familiar. (Also Odile memorized the Dewey Decimal System and frequently processes life through this categorization which is actually a pretty cool thing to include in the book.)
There were several bookish things that I really liked, but overall this book was a bit boring for me. Pretty much just day-to-day activities with some drama.
The book summary includes this teaser: “Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.”
I was anticipating a little more danger. Maybe they were passing messages with the books. Maybe they were hiding Jews in the library.
But ‘joining the Resistance’ is a bit of an exaggerated phrase. What this means in the book is that Jews were no longer allowed in the library or access to their books, and so the librarians secretly delivered books to them.
But no one ever really gets caught. A few people get sent to internment camps, but they return home at the end of the war. And even as the quote above talks about keeping hope alive, I didn’t feel like the author really got to the heart of books and words as hope or even as a weapon. I didn’t feel the tension, the danger, the risk, and I didn’t feel the hope, the power, or the endurance.
I definitely respect and admire their courage to keep books in the hands of their subscribers, but because I didn’t see that hope blossom for those subscribers, and I didn’t really see the influence of the library at that time, the story feels a bit bland compared to other WWII historical fiction out there.
The focus was on Odile and her relationships with the people around her. It’s like the author just tacked on the Paris library’s historical existence and real librarians into the story so she could call it historical fiction.
I would have rather her focused on the historical figures than the fictionalized Odile and Lily.
Boris the librarian— meaning “part psychologist, bartender, bouncer, and detective.”
Miss Reeder who said, “You’re nothing without principles. Nowhere without ideals. No one without courage.”
But instead we get a lot of Odile, the “prickly librarian” who is determined to work and earn money so “when the inevitable happened” (her future husband leaving her or cheating on her) she “could save herself.” But her careless words get her into trouble more than once. And her selfishness throughout the book is unlikable.
And we have Lily, who, since her mother recently died, is desperate for love and attention and not from her new stepmom. She becomes fascinated with Odile and obsessed with the French language. They become best friends. But Lily, like Odile, gets herself in trouble with her selfishness and careless words and hurts the people around her.
Odile regrets the mistakes she made in Paris and views mentoring Lily as a way to atone and correct them vicariously through Lily— advising her on all matters of family, friendship, and love, and the dangers of jealousy and resentment.
Some other things that took away from the book for me:
- Lily’s obsession with all things French. Sure the reader learns French words along the way, and maybe this obsession is on par with how youths would respond, but I found it mostly pretentious and annoying. She often wielded it as a weapon and saw it as a way to fashion her identity instead of just appreciating it for what it was.
- There’s a part where Lily is working as a maid at a motel where men come in from out of state and stay while they help cut down trees, and one comes up to her and tells her she’s really pretty and then helps her carry her vacuum and then kisses her on the lips and then leaves. Like what? That’s gross and highly inappropriate! But she’s totally fine with it, in fact, swooning over it. You can’t just do that people… I’m pretty sure this is some form of sexual harassment!
- The author includes a comment Lily makes about Sartre and Beauvoir finding each other as if this is her idea of romance she pines for. It’s interesting because there seems to be an emphasis on the infidelity of males in the 1940s that leave women stranded. Yet Sartre and Beauvoir are not the picture of committed lifelong love. They specifically had an open relationship meant to be “empowering” because they both slept around but Beauvoir would rather have had Sartre to herself and in the end Sartre cuts her out of his will and leaves everything to his last mistress. So good luck with that, Lily. [If you’re interested in more about Sartre and Beauvoir in terms of feminism, check out Radical Womanhood.]
- Odile’s impulsivity is super annoying. She has no regard for what her words and actions do to other people. Even in the terrible aftermath of the ‘betrayal’ the book summary alludes to, she doesn’t learn from her mistakes. Throughout the book we have the mystery of why she married Buck if she was in love with Paul and why she ended up in Montana and won’t go back to Paris. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say it’s because she couldn’t face the consequences and ran away with no regard for the people she left behind.
- Other reviewers have mentioned this too, but there is this elusive “Lucienne” character that is frequently brought up as a friend Odile hasn’t seen in awhile and needs to visit. And we never do find out anything about her. What seemed significant turns out to be either a loose end the author forgot to do anything with or just something hyped up and random that actually meant nothing. Either answer is unsatisfying.
IN SUMMATION:
A lot of people liked this book, and the premise was intriguing. But I’ve read a lot of historical fiction, and WWII historical fiction in particular, and this just doesn’t rank that high for me. There are others I’d recommend before this.
“Words are worth fighting for, they are worth the risk.”
What great quotes!
Unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my expectations for this one.
This is your classic historical fiction that jumps back and forth from past (1940s) and the present (1980s). It follows the life of Odile Souchet in Paris as a young librarian at The American Library, and then as an older woman living in rural Montana, befriending the teenager girl next door, Lily.
Almost all the characters (not Odile or Lily) are based on real life people working at this library in Paris during the Nazi occupation in WWII.
If you are a book-lover, especially of classic literature, this book will probably hold a special place in your heart because you understand the importance of books for the mind and the soul and all the quotes from the books will be familiar. (Also Odile memorized the Dewey Decimal System and frequently processes life through this categorization which is actually a pretty cool thing to include in the book.)
There were several bookish things that I really liked, but overall this book was a bit boring for me. Pretty much just day-to-day activities with some drama.
The book summary includes this teaser: “Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.”
I was anticipating a little more danger. Maybe they were passing messages with the books. Maybe they were hiding Jews in the library.
But ‘joining the Resistance’ is a bit of an exaggerated phrase. What this means in the book is that Jews were no longer allowed in the library or access to their books, and so the librarians secretly delivered books to them.
But no one ever really gets caught. A few people get sent to internment camps, but they return home at the end of the war. And even as the quote above talks about keeping hope alive, I didn’t feel like the author really got to the heart of books and words as hope or even as a weapon. I didn’t feel the tension, the danger, the risk, and I didn’t feel the hope, the power, or the endurance.
I definitely respect and admire their courage to keep books in the hands of their subscribers, but because I didn’t see that hope blossom for those subscribers, and I didn’t really see the influence of the library at that time, the story feels a bit bland compared to other WWII historical fiction out there.
The focus was on Odile and her relationships with the people around her. It’s like the author just tacked on the Paris library’s historical existence and real librarians into the story so she could call it historical fiction.
I would have rather her focused on the historical figures than the fictionalized Odile and Lily.
Boris the librarian— meaning “part psychologist, bartender, bouncer, and detective.”
Miss Reeder who said, “You’re nothing without principles. Nowhere without ideals. No one without courage.”
But instead we get a lot of Odile, the “prickly librarian” who is determined to work and earn money so “when the inevitable happened” (her future husband leaving her or cheating on her) she “could save herself.” But her careless words get her into trouble more than once. And her selfishness throughout the book is unlikable.
And we have Lily, who, since her mother recently died, is desperate for love and attention and not from her new stepmom. She becomes fascinated with Odile and obsessed with the French language. They become best friends. But Lily, like Odile, gets herself in trouble with her selfishness and careless words and hurts the people around her.
Odile regrets the mistakes she made in Paris and views mentoring Lily as a way to atone and correct them vicariously through Lily— advising her on all matters of family, friendship, and love, and the dangers of jealousy and resentment.
Some other things that took away from the book for me:
- Lily’s obsession with all things French. Sure the reader learns French words along the way, and maybe this obsession is on par with how youths would respond, but I found it mostly pretentious and annoying. She often wielded it as a weapon and saw it as a way to fashion her identity instead of just appreciating it for what it was.
- There’s a part where Lily is working as a maid at a motel where men come in from out of state and stay while they help cut down trees, and one comes up to her and tells her she’s really pretty and then helps her carry her vacuum and then kisses her on the lips and then leaves. Like what? That’s gross and highly inappropriate! But she’s totally fine with it, in fact, swooning over it. You can’t just do that people… I’m pretty sure this is some form of sexual harassment!
- The author includes a comment Lily makes about Sartre and Beauvoir finding each other as if this is her idea of romance she pines for. It’s interesting because there seems to be an emphasis on the infidelity of males in the 1940s that leave women stranded. Yet Sartre and Beauvoir are not the picture of committed lifelong love. They specifically had an open relationship meant to be “empowering” because they both slept around but Beauvoir would rather have had Sartre to herself and in the end Sartre cuts her out of his will and leaves everything to his last mistress. So good luck with that, Lily. [If you’re interested in more about Sartre and Beauvoir in terms of feminism, check out Radical Womanhood.]
- Odile’s impulsivity is super annoying. She has no regard for what her words and actions do to other people. Even in the terrible aftermath of the ‘betrayal’ the book summary alludes to, she doesn’t learn from her mistakes. Throughout the book we have the mystery of why she married Buck if she was in love with Paul and why she ended up in Montana and won’t go back to Paris. Without giving too much away, I’ll just say it’s because she couldn’t face the consequences and ran away with no regard for the people she left behind.
- Other reviewers have mentioned this too, but there is this elusive “Lucienne” character that is frequently brought up as a friend Odile hasn’t seen in awhile and needs to visit. And we never do find out anything about her. What seemed significant turns out to be either a loose end the author forgot to do anything with or just something hyped up and random that actually meant nothing. Either answer is unsatisfying.
IN SUMMATION:
A lot of people liked this book, and the premise was intriguing. But I’ve read a lot of historical fiction, and WWII historical fiction in particular, and this just doesn’t rank that high for me. There are others I’d recommend before this.
“Love your brothers and sisters enough to contend with them and for them.”
“Why are people so up in arms and claiming we’re teaching/preaching/perpetuating Critical Race Theory?! We don’t even know what it is! We just want all people to feel loved and accepted and to fight for justice!”
This may be a sentiment you’ve voiced yourself or have heard recently. [Check out Cynical Theories (below) for the best comprehensive discourse on Critical Theory]
Voddie Baucham, black pastor and professor, has written this book to expose the fault line that exists in the world today that is sure to widen and do damage to our society and our churches.
This particular fault line is the ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Intersectionality (I). Fault Lines exposes how prevalent and subliminal this ideology is in our culture and how we operate out of it, a lot of times without even knowing.
The concept of ‘social justice’ has picked up steam in the recent years.
Baucham says, “I believe that the current concept of social justice is incompatible with biblical Christianity… Our problem is a lack of clarity and charity in our debate over the place, priority, practice, and definition of justice.”
Accepting the risk of being attacked by people accusing him of “‘being a sellout,’ ‘trying to curry favor with white people,’ not being informed about the struggles black Americans currently face, or just not understanding ‘the black perspective,’” Baucham boldly steps out in love to call his brothers and sisters in Christ to keep God’s Word at center, to take every thought captive, and to “love the truth more than we love our friends, our reputations, or our platforms.”
This review could go on forever with all the meat he packs into each chapter so I’ll keep it short (so you can read the whole book yourself).
He doesn’t shy away from any hard question and talks about things like white privilege and white guilt, systemic racism, police brutality, personal responsibility, the impossibility of equal outcomes, the fact that disparities do not always mean discrimination, the idea that black voices should be elevated above other forms of knowledge, crime, the victimhood mentality, education standards, punishment disparities on drugs, abortion, the BLM movement, and the 2008-2016 elections, to name a few— and addresses them all with recent examples and statistics.
He reminds us that racism cannot be a gospel issue. Antiracism tells us it is an unending fight. The Gospel says that the Good News is Jesus Christ already paid for our sin and we are free from its chains— it is finished! There is no salvation or forgiveness in antiracism, only law. The Gospel says we are saved by grace through faith, not by works so that no man may boast. The biblical Gospel is at odds with the ideology of antiracism which burdens people with not only their own sin, determined merely by the color of their skin, but also the sins of their ancestors.
With every chapter, Baucham brilliantly dispels the lies and manipulations of CRT/I and turns us back to what Scripture says. I believe everyone should read this book.
It would seem that one of the main reasons reviewers don’t like this book is because of the ‘calling out’ Baucham does of very prominent evangelical leaders. I, too, was uncomfortable when, at the beginning, he placed Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, 9Marks, and the Southern Baptist Convention on the ‘wrong side’ of the fault line. He goes on to quote people like David Platt, John. O, and John Piper saying things that align with CRT beliefs.
But after reading this book I don’t interpret his purpose and tone the same as the critical reviewers.
Baucham is very clear that he calls these people his friends and he loves them. He does not call their theology into question or declare them heretics. He is clear that he doesn’t believe them to be actively embracing CRT/I ideology and makes clarifying descriptors—like ‘When he said this’ he was aligning with their narrative— and does not do the labeling other reviewers claim he does. I found him to be charitable and gracious. Plus I’ve read recent books by several of these leaders and can attest that they still hold high the Word of God and His Gospel.
“There are groups and ministries that have embraced CRT, and those are problematic. But there is a larger group that is sympathetic to it because of their desire to fight what they see as a problem of racial injustice. Most of the groups I will mention in this book fall into the latter category.”
I believe he is presenting these examples to show how dangerous and sneaky this philosophy is. If these solid theologians are unwittingly playing along with this narrative, how much more susceptible are their flocks.
Baucham is pleading with pastors to protect their churches from this wolf in sheep’s clothing that is leveraging Christians’ love for one another and their desire for justice to force them into a false dichotomy of justice: Either you agree with and espouse our definitions, histories, and paths to justice or you are anti-justice.
Fault Lines is a loving warning to friends of the dangers and implications of falling prey to the CRT/I belief system and shows the trajectory that puts you on as the fault line deepens.
He says,
“This book is, among other things, a plea to the Church. I believe we are being duped by an ideology bent on our demise. This ideology has used our guilt and shame over America’s past, our love for the brethren, and our good and godly desire for reconciliation and justice as a means through which to introduce destructive heresies. We cannot embrace, modify, baptize, or Christianize these ideologies. We must identify, resist, and repudiate them. We cannot be held hostage through emotional blackmail and name-calling. Instead, we must “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col 2:8)”
We don’t have to operate out of their false dichotomy. We are called to biblical justice and we can resist ideologies that twist, reject, or downplay the power of God's Word.
I loved this book.
I learned so much and many of my perceptions and thoughts about current people and events were corrected through the research he diligently shared.
Some say that Critical Theory and Intersectionality are just analytical tools to help us understand the world better, but Baucham does a convincing job of laying out how these ideologies function as its own religion with their own ‘priesthood’ and ‘canon.’ We would be naive to think we could use them as tools yet keep them from distorting the truths of the Bible.
Beyond his intelligent presentation on all these facets of a complicated topic, I really appreciated him taking his fault line metaphor all the way to Solid Ground. Many books don’t offer much hope or many solutions and you come away feeling a bit discouraged.
But Baucham knows the power of the sovereign Lord!
“Nevertheless, Critical Social Justice will not have the last word. God’s Church will neither fall nor fail. It is “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Pt 3:15), and God’s Word “is firmly fixed in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89)”
“I know God will save His people and vindicate His name. I also know that He will do it through Christians who heed the call to “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes” (Neh 4:14)”
As Baucham reiterated several times through his book. He is not trying to remove the divide— that is not possible. The fault line is there and it will most likely get worse— he has identified the two sides and now we need to decide which side we are going to be on when the chasm widens.
Further Reading
I have read many books on this topic and (as of this writing) this one is in my top 4 books on understanding social justice, CRT/I, and the interaction it has with society at large as well as the church specifically. I feel like I highlighted the whole book!
My other top 3 are:
- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice by Thaddeus Williams
- Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity— and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Baucham emphasizes the importance of broad reading and I concur. We can’t read in an echo chamber. Here are all the other books I’ve read on this topic— the ones I found problematic I mark with an *.
The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims by Rebecca McLaughlin
Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian by John Piper
What is the Mission of the Church: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission by Kevin DeYoung
How to Fight Racism Young Reader’s Edition: A Guide to Standing Up for Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby*
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby*
Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael O. Emerson*
How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age by Jonathan Leeman (Dealing with divisions in the church that are often caused by differing opinions on social justice)
The Intolerance of Tolerance by D.A. Carson (Another word that has been redefined and how it influences our exchange of ideas)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Fortitude: American Resilience in the Age of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw (Again, a secular book not social justice specific but focuses on relevant things like overcoming obstacles, being unoffendable, and fighting rage with clear-headed question-asking.)
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell (This looks at why we assume certain things about certain people and the psychology involved with interacting with strangers— the balance between proper suspicion and just paranoia)
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez*
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“Why are people so up in arms and claiming we’re teaching/preaching/perpetuating Critical Race Theory?! We don’t even know what it is! We just want all people to feel loved and accepted and to fight for justice!”
This may be a sentiment you’ve voiced yourself or have heard recently. [Check out Cynical Theories (below) for the best comprehensive discourse on Critical Theory]
Voddie Baucham, black pastor and professor, has written this book to expose the fault line that exists in the world today that is sure to widen and do damage to our society and our churches.
This particular fault line is the ideology of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Intersectionality (I). Fault Lines exposes how prevalent and subliminal this ideology is in our culture and how we operate out of it, a lot of times without even knowing.
The concept of ‘social justice’ has picked up steam in the recent years.
Baucham says, “I believe that the current concept of social justice is incompatible with biblical Christianity… Our problem is a lack of clarity and charity in our debate over the place, priority, practice, and definition of justice.”
Accepting the risk of being attacked by people accusing him of “‘being a sellout,’ ‘trying to curry favor with white people,’ not being informed about the struggles black Americans currently face, or just not understanding ‘the black perspective,’” Baucham boldly steps out in love to call his brothers and sisters in Christ to keep God’s Word at center, to take every thought captive, and to “love the truth more than we love our friends, our reputations, or our platforms.”
This review could go on forever with all the meat he packs into each chapter so I’ll keep it short (so you can read the whole book yourself).
He doesn’t shy away from any hard question and talks about things like white privilege and white guilt, systemic racism, police brutality, personal responsibility, the impossibility of equal outcomes, the fact that disparities do not always mean discrimination, the idea that black voices should be elevated above other forms of knowledge, crime, the victimhood mentality, education standards, punishment disparities on drugs, abortion, the BLM movement, and the 2008-2016 elections, to name a few— and addresses them all with recent examples and statistics.
He reminds us that racism cannot be a gospel issue. Antiracism tells us it is an unending fight. The Gospel says that the Good News is Jesus Christ already paid for our sin and we are free from its chains— it is finished! There is no salvation or forgiveness in antiracism, only law. The Gospel says we are saved by grace through faith, not by works so that no man may boast. The biblical Gospel is at odds with the ideology of antiracism which burdens people with not only their own sin, determined merely by the color of their skin, but also the sins of their ancestors.
With every chapter, Baucham brilliantly dispels the lies and manipulations of CRT/I and turns us back to what Scripture says. I believe everyone should read this book.
It would seem that one of the main reasons reviewers don’t like this book is because of the ‘calling out’ Baucham does of very prominent evangelical leaders. I, too, was uncomfortable when, at the beginning, he placed Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel, 9Marks, and the Southern Baptist Convention on the ‘wrong side’ of the fault line. He goes on to quote people like David Platt, John. O, and John Piper saying things that align with CRT beliefs.
But after reading this book I don’t interpret his purpose and tone the same as the critical reviewers.
Baucham is very clear that he calls these people his friends and he loves them. He does not call their theology into question or declare them heretics. He is clear that he doesn’t believe them to be actively embracing CRT/I ideology and makes clarifying descriptors—like ‘When he said this’ he was aligning with their narrative— and does not do the labeling other reviewers claim he does. I found him to be charitable and gracious. Plus I’ve read recent books by several of these leaders and can attest that they still hold high the Word of God and His Gospel.
“There are groups and ministries that have embraced CRT, and those are problematic. But there is a larger group that is sympathetic to it because of their desire to fight what they see as a problem of racial injustice. Most of the groups I will mention in this book fall into the latter category.”
I believe he is presenting these examples to show how dangerous and sneaky this philosophy is. If these solid theologians are unwittingly playing along with this narrative, how much more susceptible are their flocks.
Baucham is pleading with pastors to protect their churches from this wolf in sheep’s clothing that is leveraging Christians’ love for one another and their desire for justice to force them into a false dichotomy of justice: Either you agree with and espouse our definitions, histories, and paths to justice or you are anti-justice.
Fault Lines is a loving warning to friends of the dangers and implications of falling prey to the CRT/I belief system and shows the trajectory that puts you on as the fault line deepens.
He says,
“This book is, among other things, a plea to the Church. I believe we are being duped by an ideology bent on our demise. This ideology has used our guilt and shame over America’s past, our love for the brethren, and our good and godly desire for reconciliation and justice as a means through which to introduce destructive heresies. We cannot embrace, modify, baptize, or Christianize these ideologies. We must identify, resist, and repudiate them. We cannot be held hostage through emotional blackmail and name-calling. Instead, we must “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ” (Col 2:8)”
We don’t have to operate out of their false dichotomy. We are called to biblical justice and we can resist ideologies that twist, reject, or downplay the power of God's Word.
I loved this book.
I learned so much and many of my perceptions and thoughts about current people and events were corrected through the research he diligently shared.
Some say that Critical Theory and Intersectionality are just analytical tools to help us understand the world better, but Baucham does a convincing job of laying out how these ideologies function as its own religion with their own ‘priesthood’ and ‘canon.’ We would be naive to think we could use them as tools yet keep them from distorting the truths of the Bible.
Beyond his intelligent presentation on all these facets of a complicated topic, I really appreciated him taking his fault line metaphor all the way to Solid Ground. Many books don’t offer much hope or many solutions and you come away feeling a bit discouraged.
But Baucham knows the power of the sovereign Lord!
“Nevertheless, Critical Social Justice will not have the last word. God’s Church will neither fall nor fail. It is “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Pt 3:15), and God’s Word “is firmly fixed in the heavens” (Psalm 119:89)”
“I know God will save His people and vindicate His name. I also know that He will do it through Christians who heed the call to “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes” (Neh 4:14)”
As Baucham reiterated several times through his book. He is not trying to remove the divide— that is not possible. The fault line is there and it will most likely get worse— he has identified the two sides and now we need to decide which side we are going to be on when the chasm widens.
Further Reading
I have read many books on this topic and (as of this writing) this one is in my top 4 books on understanding social justice, CRT/I, and the interaction it has with society at large as well as the church specifically. I feel like I highlighted the whole book!
My other top 3 are:
- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice by Thaddeus Williams
- Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity— and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Baucham emphasizes the importance of broad reading and I concur. We can’t read in an echo chamber. Here are all the other books I’ve read on this topic— the ones I found problematic I mark with an *.
The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims by Rebecca McLaughlin
Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian by John Piper
What is the Mission of the Church: Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission by Kevin DeYoung
How to Fight Racism Young Reader’s Edition: A Guide to Standing Up for Racial Justice by Jemar Tisby*
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby*
Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just by Timothy Keller
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution by Carl Trueman
Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael O. Emerson*
How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age by Jonathan Leeman (Dealing with divisions in the church that are often caused by differing opinions on social justice)
The Intolerance of Tolerance by D.A. Carson (Another word that has been redefined and how it influences our exchange of ideas)
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Fortitude: American Resilience in the Age of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw (Again, a secular book not social justice specific but focuses on relevant things like overcoming obstacles, being unoffendable, and fighting rage with clear-headed question-asking.)
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell (This looks at why we assume certain things about certain people and the psychology involved with interacting with strangers— the balance between proper suspicion and just paranoia)
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez*
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“In the light of the gospel of God’s grace, we are called to live a gospel-centered life. We are called to let the message of the gospel impact every part of who we are and how we live… Change is possible through the power of the Word of God and the Spirit of God to transform us from the inside out.”
After finishing Volume 1 (the first 7 chapters of Romans), I moved on to Volume 2.
[FYI- Much of this review is copied from the first book because the format, look, and use of this book is the same as the other.]
As stated in Volume 1’s review, I discovered The Daily Grace Co. and began this study of Romans alongside my pastor preaching through Romans on Sundays. This second half took me longer to get through and was harder for me to stay in line with the preaching but it was still a really good study through one of my favorite books of the Bible.
Also as stated elsewhere— this company is (I think) endorsed by The Gospel Coalition if you’re wondering what theology will be taught, and if I’m wrong, they at least both hold the same beliefs. The Daily Grace Co. statement of faith can be found here.
The format is the same as the first book- 8 weeks, each week with 5 days of study and a weekly review page.
It would work great as a weekly group Bible study or you can do it solo like I did. If it’s just you, you can set a slower pace but I felt the design was very doable for my busy life. Each day’s reading was focused on a few verses at a time and had 2 short pages of exposition, followed by 3-4 questions to answer.
The book is beautifully designed— the color scheme, photographs, layout— and has nice glossy thick magazine-type pages. I’ve included some pictures on my blog post to give you an idea.
But there is nothing fluffy about the content. I was worried that such a pretty book wouldn’t have much meat, but the exposition was right on track with my pastor’s preaching and focused on the big themes of Romans: our sin and depravity, grace and hope, justification, and a contrast of life before and after the Spirit.
The second half of the study looks at the themes of The Person of God, The Gospel of God, the People of God, and the Glory of God. It talks about God’s goodness and sovereignty, justification by grace alone through faith alone, the gospel being for all people of all nations, and the purpose of it all— to bring glory to God!
One of my favorite things about this study was the incorporation of Scripture memory. And it was fortuitous to select Romans because the passage we are working on memorizing is Romans 8 which is one of my favorite chapters in Scripture and one I had tried to memorize in college.
Each week there are 2-3 verses to memorize. There were many weeks where I got behind in memorization. But don’t let getting behind cause you to give up! It’s such a rich chapter to memorize. Go at whatever pace you need to.
Since I did this study alone, one thing I started to do was take an extra day at the end of the week to work just on the memorization aspect. Then throughout the week I would often say what I had memorized before I began the devotional for that day just to keep the verses fresh in mind. The trick will be to continuing to reinforce these verses in my mind now that I’m done with Romans.
I would write my answers to the questions in a separate notebook (because I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful book, ha!) and would also write down each week’s memory verse.
Scripture memory is so vital to our walk with the Lord— to have his Word buried in our hearts and minds, dwelling on it, and being able to recall his words of truth in times of need strengthens our faith and trust in the Lord. After all, Scripture is God’s very words and his Word is powerful.
I love that this study encourages and helps us to treasure God’s Word.
If you are looking for something short, theologically sound and to the point, yet pleasing to the eye and fun to open each day, this is for you!
Pro Tip: I have learned since taking advantage of the aforementioned sale that The Daily Grace Co. actually has sales quite often. Their prices are pretty good. Most of the studies during sales are between $5-10 dollars and cover specific topics or just go through a certain book of the Bible. You can browse here. (FYI- I don’t receive any kickback for any purchases you make)
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
Facebook: Shelf Reflection
After finishing Volume 1 (the first 7 chapters of Romans), I moved on to Volume 2.
[FYI- Much of this review is copied from the first book because the format, look, and use of this book is the same as the other.]
As stated in Volume 1’s review, I discovered The Daily Grace Co. and began this study of Romans alongside my pastor preaching through Romans on Sundays. This second half took me longer to get through and was harder for me to stay in line with the preaching but it was still a really good study through one of my favorite books of the Bible.
Also as stated elsewhere— this company is (I think) endorsed by The Gospel Coalition if you’re wondering what theology will be taught, and if I’m wrong, they at least both hold the same beliefs. The Daily Grace Co. statement of faith can be found here.
The format is the same as the first book- 8 weeks, each week with 5 days of study and a weekly review page.
It would work great as a weekly group Bible study or you can do it solo like I did. If it’s just you, you can set a slower pace but I felt the design was very doable for my busy life. Each day’s reading was focused on a few verses at a time and had 2 short pages of exposition, followed by 3-4 questions to answer.
The book is beautifully designed— the color scheme, photographs, layout— and has nice glossy thick magazine-type pages. I’ve included some pictures on my blog post to give you an idea.
But there is nothing fluffy about the content. I was worried that such a pretty book wouldn’t have much meat, but the exposition was right on track with my pastor’s preaching and focused on the big themes of Romans: our sin and depravity, grace and hope, justification, and a contrast of life before and after the Spirit.
The second half of the study looks at the themes of The Person of God, The Gospel of God, the People of God, and the Glory of God. It talks about God’s goodness and sovereignty, justification by grace alone through faith alone, the gospel being for all people of all nations, and the purpose of it all— to bring glory to God!
One of my favorite things about this study was the incorporation of Scripture memory. And it was fortuitous to select Romans because the passage we are working on memorizing is Romans 8 which is one of my favorite chapters in Scripture and one I had tried to memorize in college.
Each week there are 2-3 verses to memorize. There were many weeks where I got behind in memorization. But don’t let getting behind cause you to give up! It’s such a rich chapter to memorize. Go at whatever pace you need to.
Since I did this study alone, one thing I started to do was take an extra day at the end of the week to work just on the memorization aspect. Then throughout the week I would often say what I had memorized before I began the devotional for that day just to keep the verses fresh in mind. The trick will be to continuing to reinforce these verses in my mind now that I’m done with Romans.
I would write my answers to the questions in a separate notebook (because I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful book, ha!) and would also write down each week’s memory verse.
Scripture memory is so vital to our walk with the Lord— to have his Word buried in our hearts and minds, dwelling on it, and being able to recall his words of truth in times of need strengthens our faith and trust in the Lord. After all, Scripture is God’s very words and his Word is powerful.
I love that this study encourages and helps us to treasure God’s Word.
If you are looking for something short, theologically sound and to the point, yet pleasing to the eye and fun to open each day, this is for you!
Pro Tip: I have learned since taking advantage of the aforementioned sale that The Daily Grace Co. actually has sales quite often. Their prices are pretty good. Most of the studies during sales are between $5-10 dollars and cover specific topics or just go through a certain book of the Bible. You can browse here. (FYI- I don’t receive any kickback for any purchases you make)
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
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“While Democrats have long acknowledged our struggles and the crimes enacted against us, they have done little to provide actual remedies or prepare us for a future that does not center on our brokenness.”
This is another one of those polarizing books where you see either 5-star or 1-star reviews.
It’s sad that many people will refuse to open the cover of this book because they don’t like Candace Owens.
Sure, she is bold and pulls no punches, but her goal here is to poke (rather large) holes in the mainstream rhetoric— awkwardly exposed by Joe Biden when he said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re voting for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”— and one cannot do that quietly without being drowned out by all the ‘woke’ noise.
It’s clear this book, published right before the 2020 election, was intended to persuade the black community to vote for Trump. She’s not trying to hide that. But whether or not you like Candace Owens or Donald Trump is irrelevant.
Truth does not stop being truth, facts do not stop being facts because they are said by people we don’t like. What is good and right is not determined by the number of people who voice it or to what volume.
As critical thinkers we owe it to ourselves to consider all the evidence— both sides of the political coin— and seek the truth. For true justice and freedom do not exist without it.
Her Goal
“Throughout the rest of this book, I will detail just why I believe the Democrat Party’s policies have led to the erosion of the black community by fostering a persistent victim mentality. I will explain how a radicalized push for feminism is both emasculating and criminalizing men who are needed to lead strong families, and I will reveal the fallacy of socialism, in its inherent argument for the very same government that crippled black America in the first place. Lastly, I will expose the inefficiency of the left-leaning public education system and tackle the media’s role in the collective brainwashing of our youth.”
To this end, her chapters are titled “On… Conservatism; Family; Feminism; Overcivilzation; Socialism and Government Handouts; Education; Media; Excuses; Faith; Culture; and Slavery.”
One-Star Reviews— Valid?
A brief perusal of 1-star reviews leaves me a bit confused with their critiques. There are a lot of claims of misinformation, half-truths, blurred context, opinions masquerading as facts, attacking without evidence, shutting down the conversation, dishonesty, hypocrisy, being demeaning, and writing the book as a ploy to profit off of white people liking this book because they already agree with what she says.
Yet, not a single one of them really points out specific examples of any of this, offers to correct the misinformation, statistics, or presents a fuller context of anything in her book. Many resort to personal attacks. Granted, there are many 5-star reviewers who are personally attacking 1-star reviewers as well.
Personal attacks won’t get us anywhere. We need to discuss the actual content and ideas of the book. Personal attacks shut down any meaningful dialogue.
I’ve read much on this topic and the abundance of the statistics and evidence she presented in this book I’ve read elsewhere and find their sources to be reliable. Ironically, one of her main points about fatherlessness cites large chunks of Barack Obama’s Father’s Day speech.
As to fuller context, I’m not sure where they believe they’d find a better context, because it surely isn’t Twitter or the media at large.
Voddie Baucham Jr. (also black) does the same thing as Candace Owens in part of his book, Fault Lines, where he looks at some of the most prominent #BlackLivesMatter shootings, education, and disparities and provides that extra context we don’t hear on TV or see on our newsfeeds.
It’s ironic that people accuse her of misinformation, half-truths, and honesty, because any critical thinker would take the evidence she offers seriously and consider that maybe there is more out there to consider than the simplistic and unhelpful explanation offered en masse— “systemic racism.”
Some of the topics like the education or welfare systems are areas I won’t pretend to know a lot about— it’s possible the programs work differently than she describes them, but I don’t know enough to evaluate that. What she presents seems verifiable if one needed to check.
The one critique of 1-star reviews that seems somewhat valid is that they claim she doesn’t offer any examples of Republican policies that would be better, she just tears down the Left without any solutions. More on that later.
The Biggest Problem…
Larry Elder says in the foreword of Blackout:
“The biggest problem in the black community is not racism, inequality, lack of access to health care, climate change, the alleged need for “common sense gun control laws,” or any number of the arguments Democrats pitch to blacks to secure that 90-percent-plus black vote. The number one problem in the black community, as Owens told Congress, is a lack of fathers in the home.”
Barack Obama echoed this sentiment in his Father’s Day speech in 2008 when he said fathers “have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it… We know the statistics— that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
Some might counter that fatherlessness in the black community can be attributed to slavery. But consider, “In 1963, 72% of nonwhite families were married and together, but by 2017 only 27% of black households were married, a 45% drop. In comparison the white population went from 89% married and together to 51% in 2017, a 38% drop.”
If the trajectory worsened after the Jim Crow era, can slavery still be blamed? Indeed, still today, 70% of black children are born to unmarried mothers.
Interestingly, the Black Lives Matter organization, founded by three black women, include this on their ‘What We Believe’ page: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
Notice the intentionally missing ‘father’ in that statement.
One of her points in emphasizing these stats is that the current welfare state incentivizes women to be single. They get more assistance without being married. [Honestly, I am not very familiar with welfare to know what all the stipulations and workarounds are for people. I am also aware of the WIC program that offers food assistance for families married or unmarried for kids up to age 5 based on income. Regardless, welfare reform is a definite must at the very least.]
She spends time detailing how democratic (and racist) President Lyndon B. Johnson instituted the welfare program (along with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights) in order to ‘secure’ the black vote for decades to come. Welfare sounds good on paper, but has it really done what it was intended to do? Or is it crippling people in poverty to stay dependent on the government?
Owens is not arguing that every problem for blacks in America can be boiled down to absent fathers, but we can’t ignore the evidence that a nuclear family with both parents leads to more success for children educationally, financially, socially, and educationally.
Democratic Slavery?
Reviewers also resented her claim that the black community is still on a Democratic Plantation, seemingly comparing the current Democratic Party with that of the Civil War and Jim Crow era.
Owens’ thesis is that the Democratic Party has done a good job of creating a ‘guaranteed’ voting bloc of the black community by instituting policies and perpetuating victimhood rhetoric— seen in CRT and the term ‘systemic racism’— that make black people more and more dependent on government, namely the Democrat Party themselves.
Is Candace Owens shutting down the conversation? Or is she opening it up? The mainstream narrative is pretty singular on these topics and to veer from it is often cause for public cancellation.
Owens says,
“Where is the thoughtful discussion about the fact that nearly one-third of abortions are performed on black women; that illegal immigration disproportionately hurts unskilled blacks; that the welfare state has incentivized women to marry the government and men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility; that the demonization of the police causes them to pull back, resulting in an increase of crime, the victims of which are disproportionally black; the lack of choice in education especially harms urban blacks; and that programs like race-based preferences for college admission and the Community Reinvestment Act are hurting more than helping?”
She further posits, based on her own experience of excommunication from the black community,
“It becomes clear then how through slander, libel, and media-sanctioned violence, the Democrats have not halted but merely updated their methods of abuse against black Americans who wander off their plantation of thought.”
It’s not a pretty analogy, to be sure. Perhaps it’s just inflammatory. Or perhaps there is some truth to the idea that the Democratic Party, though expressing solidarity with the black community, recognizes the importance of their voting bloc and seeks to retain that through whatever means necessary.
But what about Republicans?
Okay, so if liberal policies are so bad for black people, what are Republicans going to do? Owens doesn’t tell us, reviewers say.
There’s some truth to that too. She does not present a straightforward Republican plan of action.
But we could imply that if she presents crime statistics about unarmed black men and police officers that indicate “it’s more likely that an unarmed black man would be struck by lightening than shot by police officer” and that the vast majority of murdered blacks are done at the hands of other black people, then the Republican stance would be to keep funding the police and allowing them to police crime without fear of demonization, claims of racism, or violence simply for being a police officer.
If she presents statistics that the most unsafe place for a black person is in the womb because of abortion, the Republican stance would be to make the killing of black people in the womb illegal.
In terms of education she talks about affirmative action and school-choice (vouchers). To help black students achieve better in school, the Republican policy would be allowing parents to use vouchers and opt to send their children to different/better schools. Additionally, removing affirmative action policies that end up putting black students in higher education programs that are beyond their academic level where they can’t compete. (She referenced Thomas Sowell here.)
Those are just a few things, but really, I think her book is less about laying out Republican policies as much as pointing out the ways the Democratic Party has failed and, whether intentionally or not, created policies that actually hurt, not help, the black community.
The introduction to the book is called 'What do you have to lose?' (A quote from Trump to the black community.)
So then it goes: ‘Maybe Republicans don’t have all the answers, but I’ve just laid out all the reasons Democrats aren’t making things better, and often times a lot worse, so why not try something else?’
I suppose it’s worth noting here that currently I’m a registered Republican and tend to support most Republican policies. I find a lot of Democratic policies to seem good on paper with good intentions but unlikely to be able to be executed with the intended result.
So, yes, what she presented in her book did resonate with me as a Republican, but I would hardly call myself a blind or single-issue voter. I think my book review catalogue is one place that shows I spend a lot of time asking questions, seeking answers, and considering other perspectives.
I have yet to be presented with a convincing argument for very many Democratic policies.
I do not judge others for how they choose to vote because I understand the complexity of the act. I may advocate for Republican policies but I would never advise anyone to put a blanket political platform above their own conscience, convictions, and critical thinking.
I respect Candace Owens’ intelligence, so no, I don’t believe she is writing to pander to white Republicans. She is her own person with her own voice and she’s writing because she cares about the black community, of which she is part, and truly desires her community to succeed and thrive under the freedoms America has to offer.
But really…. Trump?
Like I said, this book was partly a political effort to persuade people to reelect Trump. So, no, there is no real critique of Trump in this book.
There are definitely things about Trump to critique— as the media spent 1460+ days languishing over every tidbit they could get their hands on— but Owens is careful in her representation of him. To me, most glaringly missing was her comment on the democratic people involved with the Epstein situation and not exposing any Republicans, or Trump, from that list.
Owen makes her point here:
“I am convinced that many black Americans are opposed to Trump because they simply do not understand who he is. The mainstream media has bombarded us with messaging about his flaws and indiscretions— as if leftists are somehow inherently holy— yet they fail to shed light on the true value that he brings to the presidency.”
First, the perfect candidate hasn’t, doesn’t, and will never exist, so I appreciate her pointing out the ‘unholiness’ of Democratic candidates.
Second, it’s also worth stating that there are certainly parts of Trump that we will never be convinced to like.
But third, we never got to hear the good things that came from Trump’s presidency for black people, including low unemployment rates and increasing wages for black people, increased federal funding to historically black colleges, the First Step Act, etc. Though it’s unpopular to say, there is more to the role of president than character (like policies) that are also important and wisely to be considered.
I don’t know what Republican candidates will be up for future elections, but the principles of this book are not only for the November 2020 Trump election.
We have the freedom to vote however we choose in any election. Don’t lose the forest for the tree of Trump. Think beyond the 2020 election.
Conclusion
I think Candace Owens gives a pretty convincing presentation of evidence and statistics to support her thesis.
To label the entire book as misinformation is irresponsible and, to me, doesn’t portray a pursuit of truth or justice.
Overall her book is definitely worth reading (and it reads pretty quickly).
This is a very political book, so, as a Christian, there are other books that include a better discussion on how we, as Christians, interact with the discussion of systemic racism, politics, and the like. Owens does include a faith chapter in Blackout, but other books pull those threads through every topic more completely.
Any discussion about sin requires a gospel message. If the world is looking for true freedom, peace, justice, and salvation, there is only Person who has the answer. (In case you missed it, that’s read: God, not Republican Party…)
The most notable book that first comes to mind is Voddie Baucham Jr.’s book Fault Lines as mentioned above. It is very similar to Blackout but through a comprehensive biblical lens.
I’ll end with Candace Owens’ final charge:
“Here is my call to arms… Once you discover… no politician owns you, no politically correct agenda dictates to you, no ideology subjugates you, no history binds you, and, yes, no one political party controls your vote— then you have found freedom.”
For more quotes and a more complete list of other relevant books to read, check out my original blog post HERE.
As of now, my top 4 recommended books on this topic are these:
- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice by Thaddeus Williams
- Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe by Voddie T. Bauchum Jr.
- Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity— and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
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Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
This is another one of those polarizing books where you see either 5-star or 1-star reviews.
It’s sad that many people will refuse to open the cover of this book because they don’t like Candace Owens.
Sure, she is bold and pulls no punches, but her goal here is to poke (rather large) holes in the mainstream rhetoric— awkwardly exposed by Joe Biden when he said “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re voting for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”— and one cannot do that quietly without being drowned out by all the ‘woke’ noise.
It’s clear this book, published right before the 2020 election, was intended to persuade the black community to vote for Trump. She’s not trying to hide that. But whether or not you like Candace Owens or Donald Trump is irrelevant.
Truth does not stop being truth, facts do not stop being facts because they are said by people we don’t like. What is good and right is not determined by the number of people who voice it or to what volume.
As critical thinkers we owe it to ourselves to consider all the evidence— both sides of the political coin— and seek the truth. For true justice and freedom do not exist without it.
Her Goal
“Throughout the rest of this book, I will detail just why I believe the Democrat Party’s policies have led to the erosion of the black community by fostering a persistent victim mentality. I will explain how a radicalized push for feminism is both emasculating and criminalizing men who are needed to lead strong families, and I will reveal the fallacy of socialism, in its inherent argument for the very same government that crippled black America in the first place. Lastly, I will expose the inefficiency of the left-leaning public education system and tackle the media’s role in the collective brainwashing of our youth.”
To this end, her chapters are titled “On… Conservatism; Family; Feminism; Overcivilzation; Socialism and Government Handouts; Education; Media; Excuses; Faith; Culture; and Slavery.”
One-Star Reviews— Valid?
A brief perusal of 1-star reviews leaves me a bit confused with their critiques. There are a lot of claims of misinformation, half-truths, blurred context, opinions masquerading as facts, attacking without evidence, shutting down the conversation, dishonesty, hypocrisy, being demeaning, and writing the book as a ploy to profit off of white people liking this book because they already agree with what she says.
Yet, not a single one of them really points out specific examples of any of this, offers to correct the misinformation, statistics, or presents a fuller context of anything in her book. Many resort to personal attacks. Granted, there are many 5-star reviewers who are personally attacking 1-star reviewers as well.
Personal attacks won’t get us anywhere. We need to discuss the actual content and ideas of the book. Personal attacks shut down any meaningful dialogue.
I’ve read much on this topic and the abundance of the statistics and evidence she presented in this book I’ve read elsewhere and find their sources to be reliable. Ironically, one of her main points about fatherlessness cites large chunks of Barack Obama’s Father’s Day speech.
As to fuller context, I’m not sure where they believe they’d find a better context, because it surely isn’t Twitter or the media at large.
Voddie Baucham Jr. (also black) does the same thing as Candace Owens in part of his book, Fault Lines, where he looks at some of the most prominent #BlackLivesMatter shootings, education, and disparities and provides that extra context we don’t hear on TV or see on our newsfeeds.
It’s ironic that people accuse her of misinformation, half-truths, and honesty, because any critical thinker would take the evidence she offers seriously and consider that maybe there is more out there to consider than the simplistic and unhelpful explanation offered en masse— “systemic racism.”
Some of the topics like the education or welfare systems are areas I won’t pretend to know a lot about— it’s possible the programs work differently than she describes them, but I don’t know enough to evaluate that. What she presents seems verifiable if one needed to check.
The one critique of 1-star reviews that seems somewhat valid is that they claim she doesn’t offer any examples of Republican policies that would be better, she just tears down the Left without any solutions. More on that later.
The Biggest Problem…
Larry Elder says in the foreword of Blackout:
“The biggest problem in the black community is not racism, inequality, lack of access to health care, climate change, the alleged need for “common sense gun control laws,” or any number of the arguments Democrats pitch to blacks to secure that 90-percent-plus black vote. The number one problem in the black community, as Owens told Congress, is a lack of fathers in the home.”
Barack Obama echoed this sentiment in his Father’s Day speech in 2008 when he said fathers “have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it… We know the statistics— that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.”
Some might counter that fatherlessness in the black community can be attributed to slavery. But consider, “In 1963, 72% of nonwhite families were married and together, but by 2017 only 27% of black households were married, a 45% drop. In comparison the white population went from 89% married and together to 51% in 2017, a 38% drop.”
If the trajectory worsened after the Jim Crow era, can slavery still be blamed? Indeed, still today, 70% of black children are born to unmarried mothers.
Interestingly, the Black Lives Matter organization, founded by three black women, include this on their ‘What We Believe’ page: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
Notice the intentionally missing ‘father’ in that statement.
One of her points in emphasizing these stats is that the current welfare state incentivizes women to be single. They get more assistance without being married. [Honestly, I am not very familiar with welfare to know what all the stipulations and workarounds are for people. I am also aware of the WIC program that offers food assistance for families married or unmarried for kids up to age 5 based on income. Regardless, welfare reform is a definite must at the very least.]
She spends time detailing how democratic (and racist) President Lyndon B. Johnson instituted the welfare program (along with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights) in order to ‘secure’ the black vote for decades to come. Welfare sounds good on paper, but has it really done what it was intended to do? Or is it crippling people in poverty to stay dependent on the government?
Owens is not arguing that every problem for blacks in America can be boiled down to absent fathers, but we can’t ignore the evidence that a nuclear family with both parents leads to more success for children educationally, financially, socially, and educationally.
Democratic Slavery?
Reviewers also resented her claim that the black community is still on a Democratic Plantation, seemingly comparing the current Democratic Party with that of the Civil War and Jim Crow era.
Owens’ thesis is that the Democratic Party has done a good job of creating a ‘guaranteed’ voting bloc of the black community by instituting policies and perpetuating victimhood rhetoric— seen in CRT and the term ‘systemic racism’— that make black people more and more dependent on government, namely the Democrat Party themselves.
Is Candace Owens shutting down the conversation? Or is she opening it up? The mainstream narrative is pretty singular on these topics and to veer from it is often cause for public cancellation.
Owens says,
“Where is the thoughtful discussion about the fact that nearly one-third of abortions are performed on black women; that illegal immigration disproportionately hurts unskilled blacks; that the welfare state has incentivized women to marry the government and men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility; that the demonization of the police causes them to pull back, resulting in an increase of crime, the victims of which are disproportionally black; the lack of choice in education especially harms urban blacks; and that programs like race-based preferences for college admission and the Community Reinvestment Act are hurting more than helping?”
She further posits, based on her own experience of excommunication from the black community,
“It becomes clear then how through slander, libel, and media-sanctioned violence, the Democrats have not halted but merely updated their methods of abuse against black Americans who wander off their plantation of thought.”
It’s not a pretty analogy, to be sure. Perhaps it’s just inflammatory. Or perhaps there is some truth to the idea that the Democratic Party, though expressing solidarity with the black community, recognizes the importance of their voting bloc and seeks to retain that through whatever means necessary.
But what about Republicans?
Okay, so if liberal policies are so bad for black people, what are Republicans going to do? Owens doesn’t tell us, reviewers say.
There’s some truth to that too. She does not present a straightforward Republican plan of action.
But we could imply that if she presents crime statistics about unarmed black men and police officers that indicate “it’s more likely that an unarmed black man would be struck by lightening than shot by police officer” and that the vast majority of murdered blacks are done at the hands of other black people, then the Republican stance would be to keep funding the police and allowing them to police crime without fear of demonization, claims of racism, or violence simply for being a police officer.
If she presents statistics that the most unsafe place for a black person is in the womb because of abortion, the Republican stance would be to make the killing of black people in the womb illegal.
In terms of education she talks about affirmative action and school-choice (vouchers). To help black students achieve better in school, the Republican policy would be allowing parents to use vouchers and opt to send their children to different/better schools. Additionally, removing affirmative action policies that end up putting black students in higher education programs that are beyond their academic level where they can’t compete. (She referenced Thomas Sowell here.)
Those are just a few things, but really, I think her book is less about laying out Republican policies as much as pointing out the ways the Democratic Party has failed and, whether intentionally or not, created policies that actually hurt, not help, the black community.
The introduction to the book is called 'What do you have to lose?' (A quote from Trump to the black community.)
So then it goes: ‘Maybe Republicans don’t have all the answers, but I’ve just laid out all the reasons Democrats aren’t making things better, and often times a lot worse, so why not try something else?’
I suppose it’s worth noting here that currently I’m a registered Republican and tend to support most Republican policies. I find a lot of Democratic policies to seem good on paper with good intentions but unlikely to be able to be executed with the intended result.
So, yes, what she presented in her book did resonate with me as a Republican, but I would hardly call myself a blind or single-issue voter. I think my book review catalogue is one place that shows I spend a lot of time asking questions, seeking answers, and considering other perspectives.
I have yet to be presented with a convincing argument for very many Democratic policies.
I do not judge others for how they choose to vote because I understand the complexity of the act. I may advocate for Republican policies but I would never advise anyone to put a blanket political platform above their own conscience, convictions, and critical thinking.
I respect Candace Owens’ intelligence, so no, I don’t believe she is writing to pander to white Republicans. She is her own person with her own voice and she’s writing because she cares about the black community, of which she is part, and truly desires her community to succeed and thrive under the freedoms America has to offer.
But really…. Trump?
Like I said, this book was partly a political effort to persuade people to reelect Trump. So, no, there is no real critique of Trump in this book.
There are definitely things about Trump to critique— as the media spent 1460+ days languishing over every tidbit they could get their hands on— but Owens is careful in her representation of him. To me, most glaringly missing was her comment on the democratic people involved with the Epstein situation and not exposing any Republicans, or Trump, from that list.
Owen makes her point here:
“I am convinced that many black Americans are opposed to Trump because they simply do not understand who he is. The mainstream media has bombarded us with messaging about his flaws and indiscretions— as if leftists are somehow inherently holy— yet they fail to shed light on the true value that he brings to the presidency.”
First, the perfect candidate hasn’t, doesn’t, and will never exist, so I appreciate her pointing out the ‘unholiness’ of Democratic candidates.
Second, it’s also worth stating that there are certainly parts of Trump that we will never be convinced to like.
But third, we never got to hear the good things that came from Trump’s presidency for black people, including low unemployment rates and increasing wages for black people, increased federal funding to historically black colleges, the First Step Act, etc. Though it’s unpopular to say, there is more to the role of president than character (like policies) that are also important and wisely to be considered.
I don’t know what Republican candidates will be up for future elections, but the principles of this book are not only for the November 2020 Trump election.
We have the freedom to vote however we choose in any election. Don’t lose the forest for the tree of Trump. Think beyond the 2020 election.
Conclusion
I think Candace Owens gives a pretty convincing presentation of evidence and statistics to support her thesis.
To label the entire book as misinformation is irresponsible and, to me, doesn’t portray a pursuit of truth or justice.
Overall her book is definitely worth reading (and it reads pretty quickly).
This is a very political book, so, as a Christian, there are other books that include a better discussion on how we, as Christians, interact with the discussion of systemic racism, politics, and the like. Owens does include a faith chapter in Blackout, but other books pull those threads through every topic more completely.
Any discussion about sin requires a gospel message. If the world is looking for true freedom, peace, justice, and salvation, there is only Person who has the answer. (In case you missed it, that’s read: God, not Republican Party…)
The most notable book that first comes to mind is Voddie Baucham Jr.’s book Fault Lines as mentioned above. It is very similar to Blackout but through a comprehensive biblical lens.
I’ll end with Candace Owens’ final charge:
“Here is my call to arms… Once you discover… no politician owns you, no politically correct agenda dictates to you, no ideology subjugates you, no history binds you, and, yes, no one political party controls your vote— then you have found freedom.”
For more quotes and a more complete list of other relevant books to read, check out my original blog post HERE.
As of now, my top 4 recommended books on this topic are these:
- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask about Social Justice by Thaddeus Williams
- Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe by Voddie T. Bauchum Jr.
- Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity— and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“On or off the bench, she has always been steadfast, and when the work is justice, she has every intention to see it to the end.”
“A woman who beat the odds to make her mark.”
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I disagreed about some fundamental things— namely same-sex marriage or abortion (what she termed “reproductive rights”)— and I knew that going into this book. I read it specifically for that reason as it fulfilled the 'read a book about a person with different beliefs than you' item on my reading challenge.
My low view of this book is not based on my differing viewpoint.
I desired to read this book because whether or not you agree with someone, they are still a human being. ‘Dissenters’ of our personally held views often get painted as opponents in our culture, and, especially when they are in the public eye and there is no interpersonal relationship, one’s humanity is lost in the ‘fight.’
I wanted to put some humanity on RBG.
All I know about RBG is the outcome of some of her Supreme Court cases, but more so, Kate McKinnon’s RBG character on SNL dishing out ‘Gins-burns’ left and right.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to this book.
Sure, it has a clever title— based on the viral site who coined ‘Notorious RBG’ after Notorious B.I.G. (which I know nothing about.)
And they hired a graffiti artist to design the chapter titles which was creative.
And it was interesting to see old pictures of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a young woman on the bar and with her family when I only know the image of her from the last several years.
Poor Writing
But frankly, the book was boring and poorly compiled.
It was disjointed. I think the authors thought they were grouping things together that made sense but one minute you’re detailing RBG’s fashion and then talking about the paintings in her office. Many times the things just didn’t flow together.
Plus it was not chronological, so, having not been familiar with RBG before this, I was often confused how different pieces fit together.
There was a timeline chapter with significant events but many of them just listed the name of case as if I was supposed to know the significance of the case and what it was for—which I didn’t.
They included more about her legal cases than her personal life, detailing large chunks of her dissents and offering marginal notes to explain different parts.
I was frustrated with the writing style. There were bits that I assume were sarcasm or jokes but to me it was often unclear. I didn’t know which quotes were serious and which ones were tongue-in-cheek. They explained in too much detail some legal anecdotes and not enough in others.
In one explanation of a case the writers comment about the lawyer providing an appendix listing “all the laws and regulations that treated men and women differently,” but then they don’t tell us what any of them were! This was a major bent of RBG’s law career, so tell us some more of ALL those laws that have unfair treatment.
The book starts off talking about her dissenting opinion on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act but I still have no idea which parts they were all fighting about. I know it had something to do with states having to have federal courts okay any voting rules changes they made, but that’s it. I’m sure there is more to be said about it than that.
Another reviewer commented about this and I agree— she spent time in Sweden that they said was a major influence on her life. But they don’t talk about Sweden hardly at all!
There were so many avenues they could have traveled down to flesh out the person of RBG and what made her who she was— her childhood, her motherhood, her travels. But they spent their pages in a very boring and unhelpful way.
Skewed Writing
There was entire two-page spread in table format of major dissents RBG wrote but it was so simplistic, I’m not sure what the point was. It stated the case name, dumbed the entire case down to a carefully worded question, provided a comment of the majority (conservative) opinion and then gave RBG’s ‘mic-drop’ comments.
Here’s two examples:
- Kentucky vs King: | What are the rights of a man whose apartment was searched for drugs? | Result: The police won 8-1, in an opinion by Alito. | RBG says: “The Court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases.”
- Walmart vs Dukes: | Can 1.5 million female Walmart workers sue for sex discrimination as a class? | Result: Nope, in an opinion by Scalia. | RBG says: “The plaintiff’s evidence, including class members’ tales of their own experiences, suggests that gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture.”
I don’t know… maybe I would agree with RBG but this doesn’t tell me anything about the cases. It is a table meant to paint RBG as the ‘Queen’ of dissents in which she takes all those conservative idiots to task on their antiquated ways of viewing the world.
This was a common theme throughout the book— to paint the conservative justices as idiots and total bros.
There was never a question about how the authors felt about conservative judges, lawyers, justices, policies, etc.
One quotes says this, “Two Bush appointees to the court gave a narrow majority to a conservative agenda of undermining remedies for racial justice, reproductive rights, access to healthcare, and protection for workers while giving corporations ever more rights and political influence.”
This is a very opinionated rather than a reportive statement. The conservative agenda is hardly an attempt to undermine a remedy for racial justice or access to healthcare. Plus they assume that what the conservatives are doing for corporations is inherently bad.
I think it’s fair to say that both political parties are both proponents of justice, fairness, equality, and the country’s economic success. They just have different ideas of what policies will accomplish that!
The authors are not taking RBG’s apparent advice to paint your opponents’ views in the most charitable light.
I’m not saying every conservative person, policy or opinion on a case is correct, but to any reader reading this book, they will only be spoon-fed the beliefs of the authors which is a dismissal of anything conservative, a clear vibe that it is all basically evil.
If RBG’s opinions are so righteous then presenting a complete picture of the case would not threaten the reception of her dissents. Their skewed writing indicates they maybe don’t trust RBG’s opinions to stand on their own without presenting her opponents in a selective and careful way.
Admiration
RBG did do a lot for women’s rights. I may disagree with her on abortion and same-sex marriage, but I can admire her tenacity to fight for her right to attend law school, to practice law, and to not be discriminated against for being a woman, a pregnant woman, or a mother!
She did have to overcome a lot to get to the place of prestige that she did! Her work ethic is unmatched by many!
I am glad she fought for women to be required to serve on juries because this creates a fairer jury pool for defendants.
I admire that even under the immense pressure to resign before she is replaced by a conservative justice, she stood her ground as she always did, not allowing her future to be dictated by others. It takes a lot of courage to stand against that.
I admire that even though she and Scalia landed on opposite sides of numerous cases, she still maintained a friendship with him. As members of the highest court handling polarizing and controversial cases they are the ultimate representation of us vs them when the opinions are read and it is a powerful image if the justices can show us humanity and relationships amidst dissenting views.
I can admire that she was not just fighting for equality for women, but also for men. She had several cases defending men who stayed home with the kids who were not given the same rights as women were doing the same thing.
RBG says, “That’s my dream for the world, for every child to have two loving parents who share in raising the child.”
It’s a valid dream— one we disagreed in some ways as to the means to achieve that, but a good dream nonetheless.
I admire that she accomplished all that she did while still having a family she was devoted to. Her relationship with her husband was pretty special and lasted for many years.
Indeed, as a woman I can thank RBG for many things.
The Clash
I had not originally planned to address our differing viewpoints because I wanted to just interact with the story of RBG and who she was as a person.
But since the writers decided to spend more time on her legal cases and specifically on her fight for ‘reproductive rights,’ to engage with the content of the book would be to address this issue— which I will try to do briefly.
RBG says, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-bring and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
It was interesting to read that RBG was unhappy with the result of the Roe v Wade decision because it placed ‘reproductive rights’ as a matter of privacy rather than equality and thus, apparently easier to overturn. (No discussion is made that Roe v Wade occurred before the ultrasound machine where we now have better technology to see the life being formed from conception.)
All of her steps toward equality for women were meant take women off the ‘pedestal’ (read: cage) that men placed them on as creatures too fragile or incapable of certain work or decisions.
The argument that abortion should be illegal because women regret the decision after it’s over is particularly insulting to RBG because it perpetuates the social stereotypes that women’s choices are inadequate and we must protect them from themselves.
I don’t disagree with her that women are just as capable of men at working and decision-making.
And to some degree, women should have the choice as to whether or not they have babies— contrary to the media’s strongly held and voiced perception, the conservative belief is not a promotion of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Women can choose whether or not they have sex or unprotected sex since that’s what leads to a pregnancy. The conversation then becomes about sexual ‘freedom',’and access to contraceptives— not abortion. (Abortions due to rape are a very small percentage.)
I’d like to see RBG’s dream of children raised by both parents come to fruition. But then we need to incentivize and reward marriage. We should promote a nuclear family where a pregnant woman doesn’t have to worry about taking care of the baby and providing for it financially by herself. Men should be held equally responsible for babies they help to create.
And people wonder at God’s design for sex within marriage? God’s design is for equality for both men and women and a space where children grow up with both parents involved in raising them!
Because that’s not happening in the world today, RBG’s promoted solution is to allow women to kill the ‘inconvenient,’ ‘burdensome,’ and/or ‘unwanted’ baby.
But RBG doesn’t consider that far more female fetuses are aborted than male. Especially in China and India. This leads to a shortage of women to marry which creates an industry of human-trafficking of women and young girls.
This hardly sounds beneficial for women. Especially non-white females if we’re going to go there.
Then you consider the abortions of babies with disabilities or Down Syndrome. It’s estimated that about 67% of pregnancies of known Down Syndrome in the US are aborted. In Europe approximately 90%.
Is abortion not, then, a form of gender discrimination and ableism?
To term abortion as a ‘reproductive right’ is a political move. No one wants to infringe on someone’s right to reproduce or not. But it leaves out the second body with distinctive DNA that is inside that woman. A ‘reproductive right’ removes the fetus’ right to life.
RBG also says, “We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion. An abortion ban only hurts women who lack the means to go someplace else.”
What noble logic.
Really the only conversation that matters with abortion is whether or not the fetus is a life and abortion is murder. The answer to those questions dictate everything else. Equal access only matters if the thing being accessed is good. You don’t just legalize something because people are going to do it anyway.
Clearly murder in all forms would then be legal.
But we know that’s not right because…. it’s murder. And we protect life. Life is life whether it is wanted or not.
And so that is the fundamental clash between RBG’s beliefs and mine.
Conclusion
I fully acknowledge RBG’s impact on the world for women and thank her for fighting for those rights.
Unfortunately, this book was not written in a way that helped me see more of RBG’s humanity or understand more the legal battles she won.
(I will own that its probably due in part to my lack of knowledge and ability to understand legal stuff, aka, I’m not smart enough… but it can’t only be that. The burden is on the author in a book like this to make the material accessible. With the title paralleling a rapper, it’s not exactly packaged for the masses outside the imagery contained within.)
I did learn a few interesting things, and a few facts about RBG like: she’s a bad cook, she loves opera, her childhood nickname was Kiki, and she had a daughter and a son.
But I’m sure there are better books out there than this.
And again: My low rating of the book is due to poor writing style and compilation, and lack of clarity and charity, not because of differing viewpoints or because of any opinion of RBG I personally hold.
Further Reading:
- Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley
- a(Typical) Woman by Abigail Dodds
- Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“A woman who beat the odds to make her mark.”
The late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I disagreed about some fundamental things— namely same-sex marriage or abortion (what she termed “reproductive rights”)— and I knew that going into this book. I read it specifically for that reason as it fulfilled the 'read a book about a person with different beliefs than you' item on my reading challenge.
My low view of this book is not based on my differing viewpoint.
I desired to read this book because whether or not you agree with someone, they are still a human being. ‘Dissenters’ of our personally held views often get painted as opponents in our culture, and, especially when they are in the public eye and there is no interpersonal relationship, one’s humanity is lost in the ‘fight.’
I wanted to put some humanity on RBG.
All I know about RBG is the outcome of some of her Supreme Court cases, but more so, Kate McKinnon’s RBG character on SNL dishing out ‘Gins-burns’ left and right.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to this book.
Sure, it has a clever title— based on the viral site who coined ‘Notorious RBG’ after Notorious B.I.G. (which I know nothing about.)
And they hired a graffiti artist to design the chapter titles which was creative.
And it was interesting to see old pictures of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a young woman on the bar and with her family when I only know the image of her from the last several years.
Poor Writing
But frankly, the book was boring and poorly compiled.
It was disjointed. I think the authors thought they were grouping things together that made sense but one minute you’re detailing RBG’s fashion and then talking about the paintings in her office. Many times the things just didn’t flow together.
Plus it was not chronological, so, having not been familiar with RBG before this, I was often confused how different pieces fit together.
There was a timeline chapter with significant events but many of them just listed the name of case as if I was supposed to know the significance of the case and what it was for—which I didn’t.
They included more about her legal cases than her personal life, detailing large chunks of her dissents and offering marginal notes to explain different parts.
I was frustrated with the writing style. There were bits that I assume were sarcasm or jokes but to me it was often unclear. I didn’t know which quotes were serious and which ones were tongue-in-cheek. They explained in too much detail some legal anecdotes and not enough in others.
In one explanation of a case the writers comment about the lawyer providing an appendix listing “all the laws and regulations that treated men and women differently,” but then they don’t tell us what any of them were! This was a major bent of RBG’s law career, so tell us some more of ALL those laws that have unfair treatment.
The book starts off talking about her dissenting opinion on the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act but I still have no idea which parts they were all fighting about. I know it had something to do with states having to have federal courts okay any voting rules changes they made, but that’s it. I’m sure there is more to be said about it than that.
Another reviewer commented about this and I agree— she spent time in Sweden that they said was a major influence on her life. But they don’t talk about Sweden hardly at all!
There were so many avenues they could have traveled down to flesh out the person of RBG and what made her who she was— her childhood, her motherhood, her travels. But they spent their pages in a very boring and unhelpful way.
Skewed Writing
There was entire two-page spread in table format of major dissents RBG wrote but it was so simplistic, I’m not sure what the point was. It stated the case name, dumbed the entire case down to a carefully worded question, provided a comment of the majority (conservative) opinion and then gave RBG’s ‘mic-drop’ comments.
Here’s two examples:
- Kentucky vs King: | What are the rights of a man whose apartment was searched for drugs? | Result: The police won 8-1, in an opinion by Alito. | RBG says: “The Court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in drug cases.”
- Walmart vs Dukes: | Can 1.5 million female Walmart workers sue for sex discrimination as a class? | Result: Nope, in an opinion by Scalia. | RBG says: “The plaintiff’s evidence, including class members’ tales of their own experiences, suggests that gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture.”
I don’t know… maybe I would agree with RBG but this doesn’t tell me anything about the cases. It is a table meant to paint RBG as the ‘Queen’ of dissents in which she takes all those conservative idiots to task on their antiquated ways of viewing the world.
This was a common theme throughout the book— to paint the conservative justices as idiots and total bros.
There was never a question about how the authors felt about conservative judges, lawyers, justices, policies, etc.
One quotes says this, “Two Bush appointees to the court gave a narrow majority to a conservative agenda of undermining remedies for racial justice, reproductive rights, access to healthcare, and protection for workers while giving corporations ever more rights and political influence.”
This is a very opinionated rather than a reportive statement. The conservative agenda is hardly an attempt to undermine a remedy for racial justice or access to healthcare. Plus they assume that what the conservatives are doing for corporations is inherently bad.
I think it’s fair to say that both political parties are both proponents of justice, fairness, equality, and the country’s economic success. They just have different ideas of what policies will accomplish that!
The authors are not taking RBG’s apparent advice to paint your opponents’ views in the most charitable light.
I’m not saying every conservative person, policy or opinion on a case is correct, but to any reader reading this book, they will only be spoon-fed the beliefs of the authors which is a dismissal of anything conservative, a clear vibe that it is all basically evil.
If RBG’s opinions are so righteous then presenting a complete picture of the case would not threaten the reception of her dissents. Their skewed writing indicates they maybe don’t trust RBG’s opinions to stand on their own without presenting her opponents in a selective and careful way.
Admiration
RBG did do a lot for women’s rights. I may disagree with her on abortion and same-sex marriage, but I can admire her tenacity to fight for her right to attend law school, to practice law, and to not be discriminated against for being a woman, a pregnant woman, or a mother!
She did have to overcome a lot to get to the place of prestige that she did! Her work ethic is unmatched by many!
I am glad she fought for women to be required to serve on juries because this creates a fairer jury pool for defendants.
I admire that even under the immense pressure to resign before she is replaced by a conservative justice, she stood her ground as she always did, not allowing her future to be dictated by others. It takes a lot of courage to stand against that.
I admire that even though she and Scalia landed on opposite sides of numerous cases, she still maintained a friendship with him. As members of the highest court handling polarizing and controversial cases they are the ultimate representation of us vs them when the opinions are read and it is a powerful image if the justices can show us humanity and relationships amidst dissenting views.
I can admire that she was not just fighting for equality for women, but also for men. She had several cases defending men who stayed home with the kids who were not given the same rights as women were doing the same thing.
RBG says, “That’s my dream for the world, for every child to have two loving parents who share in raising the child.”
It’s a valid dream— one we disagreed in some ways as to the means to achieve that, but a good dream nonetheless.
I admire that she accomplished all that she did while still having a family she was devoted to. Her relationship with her husband was pretty special and lasted for many years.
Indeed, as a woman I can thank RBG for many things.
The Clash
I had not originally planned to address our differing viewpoints because I wanted to just interact with the story of RBG and who she was as a person.
But since the writers decided to spend more time on her legal cases and specifically on her fight for ‘reproductive rights,’ to engage with the content of the book would be to address this issue— which I will try to do briefly.
RBG says, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-bring and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
It was interesting to read that RBG was unhappy with the result of the Roe v Wade decision because it placed ‘reproductive rights’ as a matter of privacy rather than equality and thus, apparently easier to overturn. (No discussion is made that Roe v Wade occurred before the ultrasound machine where we now have better technology to see the life being formed from conception.)
All of her steps toward equality for women were meant take women off the ‘pedestal’ (read: cage) that men placed them on as creatures too fragile or incapable of certain work or decisions.
The argument that abortion should be illegal because women regret the decision after it’s over is particularly insulting to RBG because it perpetuates the social stereotypes that women’s choices are inadequate and we must protect them from themselves.
I don’t disagree with her that women are just as capable of men at working and decision-making.
And to some degree, women should have the choice as to whether or not they have babies— contrary to the media’s strongly held and voiced perception, the conservative belief is not a promotion of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Women can choose whether or not they have sex or unprotected sex since that’s what leads to a pregnancy. The conversation then becomes about sexual ‘freedom',’and access to contraceptives— not abortion. (Abortions due to rape are a very small percentage.)
I’d like to see RBG’s dream of children raised by both parents come to fruition. But then we need to incentivize and reward marriage. We should promote a nuclear family where a pregnant woman doesn’t have to worry about taking care of the baby and providing for it financially by herself. Men should be held equally responsible for babies they help to create.
And people wonder at God’s design for sex within marriage? God’s design is for equality for both men and women and a space where children grow up with both parents involved in raising them!
Because that’s not happening in the world today, RBG’s promoted solution is to allow women to kill the ‘inconvenient,’ ‘burdensome,’ and/or ‘unwanted’ baby.
But RBG doesn’t consider that far more female fetuses are aborted than male. Especially in China and India. This leads to a shortage of women to marry which creates an industry of human-trafficking of women and young girls.
This hardly sounds beneficial for women. Especially non-white females if we’re going to go there.
Then you consider the abortions of babies with disabilities or Down Syndrome. It’s estimated that about 67% of pregnancies of known Down Syndrome in the US are aborted. In Europe approximately 90%.
Is abortion not, then, a form of gender discrimination and ableism?
To term abortion as a ‘reproductive right’ is a political move. No one wants to infringe on someone’s right to reproduce or not. But it leaves out the second body with distinctive DNA that is inside that woman. A ‘reproductive right’ removes the fetus’ right to life.
RBG also says, “We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion. An abortion ban only hurts women who lack the means to go someplace else.”
What noble logic.
Really the only conversation that matters with abortion is whether or not the fetus is a life and abortion is murder. The answer to those questions dictate everything else. Equal access only matters if the thing being accessed is good. You don’t just legalize something because people are going to do it anyway.
Clearly murder in all forms would then be legal.
But we know that’s not right because…. it’s murder. And we protect life. Life is life whether it is wanted or not.
And so that is the fundamental clash between RBG’s beliefs and mine.
Conclusion
I fully acknowledge RBG’s impact on the world for women and thank her for fighting for those rights.
Unfortunately, this book was not written in a way that helped me see more of RBG’s humanity or understand more the legal battles she won.
(I will own that its probably due in part to my lack of knowledge and ability to understand legal stuff, aka, I’m not smart enough… but it can’t only be that. The burden is on the author in a book like this to make the material accessible. With the title paralleling a rapper, it’s not exactly packaged for the masses outside the imagery contained within.)
I did learn a few interesting things, and a few facts about RBG like: she’s a bad cook, she loves opera, her childhood nickname was Kiki, and she had a daughter and a son.
But I’m sure there are better books out there than this.
And again: My low rating of the book is due to poor writing style and compilation, and lack of clarity and charity, not because of differing viewpoints or because of any opinion of RBG I personally hold.
Further Reading:
- Radical Womanhood by Carolyn McCulley
- a(Typical) Woman by Abigail Dodds
- Eve in Exile by Rebekah Merkle
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“Our culture sings that we’re ‘born this way,’ as if that settles the matter. But I’m born again.”
“I want to show you that Jesus is beautiful, powerful, and worthy right at the heart of this conversation, right at the heart of our sexuality. He is not scared or unsettled by anything, and if we are rooted in him, we can be people of power and love and self-control.”
Is this an exhaustive book on the topic of same-sex romantic relationships and an exegetical work on what Scripture says on the matter?
No.
But it is the tender and transparent story of Rachel Gilson’s journey from living a lesbian lifestyle, to meeting Jesus and being confronted with the uncomfortable reality of the Bible, and how she came to believe that God and his word are more important than her feelings.
A Niche Book
Sam Allberry, author of ‘What God Has to Say About Our Bodies,’ acknowledges in the foreword to this book that it is a niche book for a particular subset of Christian men and women.
I would mostly agree with that. It seems Gilson is writing to share truth with and encourage fellow believers who find themselves attracted to people of the same gender as themselves.
From the reviews I’ve read it seems this book resonates with a lot of people— that they feel seen and heard and understood.
I am not part of this subset, yet I find a lot of value in this book.
Similar to Jackie Hill Perry’s book, ‘Gay, Girl, Good God,’ we hear another story of someone on this difficult journey. We can understand the struggles they face a little better. We can better understand how to come alongside them and help, to befriend them, to welcome them in the church.
For such a hot-button topic, these kinds of books are important for everyone to read whether it’s considered ‘niche’ or not.
Unpopular Opinion
Love is love right?
If we agree that people are born with same-sex attractions, what kind of God would give people them and then tell them they are sinning to act on them? What kind of God would deny someone the right to marry who they want to if it’s a monogamous and committed relationship?
For Christians, those are the big questions in debate.
To get a better exegetical understanding of the Bible passages that are used for either side of this debate, I would recommend Kevin DeYoung’s book- ‘What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?’ It’s very clear, easy to understand, and theologically sound.
Gilson does speak on some of these passages briefly. Having ‘come out’ in a supportive, atheistic home, it was interesting to see her confrontation with the Bible after becoming a Christian.
She was given a packet of information from two Christian girls explaining how same-sex romantic relationships are biblical but when Gilson studied the verses, even as a new Christian she recognized the misinterpretation of them.
“He is clear throughout Scripture that our desires are not a compass for goodness because they are broken. He is the compass for goodness, and he tells us plainly what pleases him and what will result in our thriving.”
I love how Gilson gets to the heart of the matter.
She goes back to Genesis when the serpent tempted Eve with the one fruit she can’t have. He says, ‘Did God really say…?’
Today we hear— ‘Did God really say that all homosexual relations are sinful?’
Rachel thought- “[Eve] looked at the fruit and saw that it was good, so she deduced that the serpent was right. God was withholding good from her. I looked at romance and sex between women, and it seemed good. Was God withholding good from me?”
That is indeed a hard place to be. When things seem good it’s really hard to discern if it is in alignment with God’s word.
But we have to consider our position to God:
“When God’s words about sexuality are not self-evident today— when they strike us as repressive— who will we consider more trustworthy: ourselves or God?”
That is the heart of this conversation— Do we trust God with our sexuality?
Having read about many of the arguments put forth that same-sex marriage is compatible with the Bible, I see they are less about what the Bible actually says and more about what the Bible ‘doesn’t’ say.
We can’t redefine marriage by ignoring the very words of Scripture and imposing additional implications that align more comfortably with the culture.
This section is titled ‘unpopular opinion’ but it’s really not just an opinion. As much as the truth pained Gilson and altered her life choices dramatically, she loved truth more than satisfying her feelings.
“it is symptomatic of human sin and rebellion that we confuse God’s good things with ultimate things. We always resist worshiping and honoring him. We prefer comfort to submission. We take God’s stuff and try to ditch God.”
“This is what is happening with the goodness of marriage. We see the parts we like— the trio of procreation, pleasure and partnership— and call this enough. And because we’re image-bearers with common grace, we can often build some decent things with these pieces along— which is why, for example, same-sex relationships can display affection, health, and commitment. But because we’re sinful, broken image-bearers, what we build with the pieces can never match the fullness that God intended.”
Marriage Isn’t Ultimate
Another strength of this book is Gilson pointing out that marriage and sexual relationships are not the peak of human fulfillment, unlike the narrative told by our culture.
The culture prizes sexual freedom and romantic relationships— and ironically, to find your soulmate.
“the Western cultural chorus is shouting ever louder that authenticity is only found in following your flesh. To specifically deny what your body wants is a scandal in our culture. When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero— brave and strong— denying it makes you a villain.”
The Christian church, too, emphasizes marriage over singleness and as Gilson puts it, seems “uncomfortable with celibacy.” At times the church has even gone so far as to present marriage as a ‘reward.’
“The vision of human marriage as the reward for faithfulness to Christ is a deadly lie. Nowhere in Scripture is earthly marriage promised to any of us. Not only is it not promised but it’s not even presented as the preferred state of being.”
We scoff at the idea of celibacy, but even as marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, singleness is another picture of the sufficiency of Christ and should not be looked down upon in the least bit.
“To choose celibacy, Jesus must be really precious to you. What a chance to testify that he is!... in today’s world, that witness of radical self-denial is almost impossible to hide.”
Part of the draw of seeking to find same-sex marriage compatible with Scripture is that we feel we could never deny someone a family.
But when we hold that up too high, we are diminishing the role of the church family.
Gilson charges the church with the important responsibility of being family for same-sex-attracted Christians. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Same-sex Christians who give up their gay-affirming community experience real loss, and the church should not ignore this but come alongside and wrap them into the unified, familial body of Christ.
To choose celibacy is not to be denied family. And it’s not to be denied children either. Gilson recounts a friend’s story in which they see their fruitfulness in discipling a multitude of young people. What great work for the kingdom of God!
Rebecca McLaughlin, in her book ‘The Secular Creed’ echoes these thoughts: “For far too long, we’ve bought the lie that marriage is the ultimate good. For far too long we’ve bought the lie that singleness is second-best. For far too long we’ve undervalued same-sex love and bought the lie that the nuclear family is more important than the church.” [her reference to same-sex love here is in regards to friendship and the sibling-like love of Christians in the church]
Rightful Critique
Rachel rightfully calls out wrong that has been done to same-sex-attracted people.
She talks about churches, especially in the 1980s and 90s that assumed people were choosing homosexuality in rebellion to God and that they needed to achieve heterosexuality to break that bond. Gilson critiques reparative therapy that was used for that end.
[Sidenote: There are now laws being placed to prohibit ‘conversion therapy.’ While there are certainly types of therapy being done to the detriment of struggling people, these laws, though appearing good, are broad and could mean challenging things for the church. What is considered ‘conversion therapy’? Well probably any form of discussion that indicates same-sex attraction is wrong, regardless of if they communicate a plan to ‘fix’ it. This would complicate any biblical counseling same-sex-attracted Christians would seek.]
Gilson critiques churches and Christians who viewed same-sex-attracted individuals as untrustworthy or disgusting or perverted.
These were all harmful and inexcusable responses to these image-bearers.
Gilson acknowledges that same-sex attraction is not something that can necessarily ‘be fixed.’ God may decide to change your attractions (and shares an example of this) but that is not a guarantee, nor even common.
Marriage, she affirms, should not be entered into as a way to ‘turn straight.’
The church must acknowledge and repent of the ways it has hurt and mistreated same-sex-attracted people. The church family should be a safe place for all people to come and to unburden their souls, and to be able to talk about their struggles, not feel shame and be turned away or made to feel less than.
Yet, even as the church has failed in these ways, we cannot deny what God teaches in his word, even if those truths were applied hurtfully. We must do better, but we cannot change the truth.
Identity
“So much of the cultural drive recently has been to assert that if you have these attractions, then you must name them and base your identity on them. Not to do so is to live in the closet: a place of shame and woe.”
Something I wanted to point out is Gilson’s terminology— referring to herself as a same-sex-attracted Christian. I appreciated this language. While she does not state this usage as prescriptive, her explanation is valid:
“I worry that calling oneself a gay or queer Christian creates too much opportunity for this part of our lives to shape our identities in ways that are unhelpful— to perhaps close us off from things God may want to do, or allow types of compromise with attraction. It’s all too easy to slide from recognizing something as true about myself to seeing it as the truth about myself.”
To me, using the terminology ‘same-sex-attracted Christian’ defines the struggle without presenting it as a core identity marker or confusing it with the implication of a practicing gay lifestyle. Again, not a prescription, but something I agreed with Gilson about.
Awhile back I read Justin Lee’s book, ‘Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs Christian Debate’, and I remember one thing that struck me was how vital the adjective ‘gay’ was to his identity. Being a ‘gay Christian’ seemed to be the core of who he viewed himself to be.
Lee falls on the side of the debate that views same-sex marriage compatible with the Bible so I disagreed with his interpretation of Scripture, but even more so, you could tell that his identity was not actually in the gospel he claimed to be ‘rescuing.’
Gilson says,
“The Bible’s words on life and sexuality have offended every culture in every age, as people have risen up to try to save God from his own bad image. What if it’s not him who needs saving but us? If God never says anything that contradicts us, if we find ourselves in total alignment with a perfectly righteous all-knowing being who comprehends all mystery, which is more likely: that we’re just like him or that we’re missing something?” (1 Thess 4:8)
Conclusion
I thought this was a very thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate book full of vulnerability, authenticity, truth, and encouragement. Not just for same-sex-attracted Christians who are struggling with how to reconcile their feelings with their faith and find belonging in the church.
But for anyone who deals with any desires that are sinful— and we all have them!
“...the Bible points to a spiritual source of all desire that is contrary to God’s will. That it is spiritual doesn’t mean that it isn’t also “natural” (Eph 2:1-3)... Natural doesn’t automatically mean good, therefore. We may well have been “born this way,” but every one of us was born sinful.”
Indeed, we are born ‘this way’ but we are born again! And we are given the Holy Spirit who is at work conforming us more and more into the image of Christ.
“We are never promised relief from the presence of dangerous desires, but we are promised power to fight victoriously. (1 Cor 10:13)”
Philippians 1:6 says, “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
I love this book and highly recommend it!
A Few More Quotes
“Obedience will never lead us away from God’s blessing— it will always lead us toward it. That’s true even when it doesn’t look that way in the world’s eyes.”
“We have been formed by a culture in love with romance and sex but not in love with our Creator. We have to constantly poke at our expectations, our hopes, and our fears.”
“God doesn’t ask us to explain the history and occurrence of each desire for sin… Rather, he calls us to resist temptation and choose holiness, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“God is the designer of marriage and sex, and he gave them to us precisely to bless us and to tell us truth about himself and us. But we are wrong when we wrench the gift out of his hands and use it against its design. One of the reasons why cancer is so insidious is that it takes a healthy, good function of the cell—reproduction— and directs it toward unhealthy ends… Cancer doesn’t change the power of the cell, but it changes the purpose. Likewise, when we co-opt sexuality away from God, we don’t remove its power… But we can destroy its purpose… This is especially true with same-sex romance, because the lack of sexual difference in the partnership completely obscures the picture God intends for sex to carry, and instead turns it inward. The picture becomes one of idolatry, not true worship.”
Further Reading
[Many of these were linked throughout my review]
- Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry
- What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung
- What Does God Say About Our Bodies? by Sam Allberry
- The Secular Creed by Rebecca McLaughlin (There is a chapter called ‘Love is Love’
- a(Typical) Woman by Abigail Dodds
- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund
- The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“I want to show you that Jesus is beautiful, powerful, and worthy right at the heart of this conversation, right at the heart of our sexuality. He is not scared or unsettled by anything, and if we are rooted in him, we can be people of power and love and self-control.”
Is this an exhaustive book on the topic of same-sex romantic relationships and an exegetical work on what Scripture says on the matter?
No.
But it is the tender and transparent story of Rachel Gilson’s journey from living a lesbian lifestyle, to meeting Jesus and being confronted with the uncomfortable reality of the Bible, and how she came to believe that God and his word are more important than her feelings.
A Niche Book
Sam Allberry, author of ‘What God Has to Say About Our Bodies,’ acknowledges in the foreword to this book that it is a niche book for a particular subset of Christian men and women.
I would mostly agree with that. It seems Gilson is writing to share truth with and encourage fellow believers who find themselves attracted to people of the same gender as themselves.
From the reviews I’ve read it seems this book resonates with a lot of people— that they feel seen and heard and understood.
I am not part of this subset, yet I find a lot of value in this book.
Similar to Jackie Hill Perry’s book, ‘Gay, Girl, Good God,’ we hear another story of someone on this difficult journey. We can understand the struggles they face a little better. We can better understand how to come alongside them and help, to befriend them, to welcome them in the church.
For such a hot-button topic, these kinds of books are important for everyone to read whether it’s considered ‘niche’ or not.
Unpopular Opinion
Love is love right?
If we agree that people are born with same-sex attractions, what kind of God would give people them and then tell them they are sinning to act on them? What kind of God would deny someone the right to marry who they want to if it’s a monogamous and committed relationship?
For Christians, those are the big questions in debate.
To get a better exegetical understanding of the Bible passages that are used for either side of this debate, I would recommend Kevin DeYoung’s book- ‘What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?’ It’s very clear, easy to understand, and theologically sound.
Gilson does speak on some of these passages briefly. Having ‘come out’ in a supportive, atheistic home, it was interesting to see her confrontation with the Bible after becoming a Christian.
She was given a packet of information from two Christian girls explaining how same-sex romantic relationships are biblical but when Gilson studied the verses, even as a new Christian she recognized the misinterpretation of them.
“He is clear throughout Scripture that our desires are not a compass for goodness because they are broken. He is the compass for goodness, and he tells us plainly what pleases him and what will result in our thriving.”
I love how Gilson gets to the heart of the matter.
She goes back to Genesis when the serpent tempted Eve with the one fruit she can’t have. He says, ‘Did God really say…?’
Today we hear— ‘Did God really say that all homosexual relations are sinful?’
Rachel thought- “[Eve] looked at the fruit and saw that it was good, so she deduced that the serpent was right. God was withholding good from her. I looked at romance and sex between women, and it seemed good. Was God withholding good from me?”
That is indeed a hard place to be. When things seem good it’s really hard to discern if it is in alignment with God’s word.
But we have to consider our position to God:
“When God’s words about sexuality are not self-evident today— when they strike us as repressive— who will we consider more trustworthy: ourselves or God?”
That is the heart of this conversation— Do we trust God with our sexuality?
Having read about many of the arguments put forth that same-sex marriage is compatible with the Bible, I see they are less about what the Bible actually says and more about what the Bible ‘doesn’t’ say.
We can’t redefine marriage by ignoring the very words of Scripture and imposing additional implications that align more comfortably with the culture.
This section is titled ‘unpopular opinion’ but it’s really not just an opinion. As much as the truth pained Gilson and altered her life choices dramatically, she loved truth more than satisfying her feelings.
“it is symptomatic of human sin and rebellion that we confuse God’s good things with ultimate things. We always resist worshiping and honoring him. We prefer comfort to submission. We take God’s stuff and try to ditch God.”
“This is what is happening with the goodness of marriage. We see the parts we like— the trio of procreation, pleasure and partnership— and call this enough. And because we’re image-bearers with common grace, we can often build some decent things with these pieces along— which is why, for example, same-sex relationships can display affection, health, and commitment. But because we’re sinful, broken image-bearers, what we build with the pieces can never match the fullness that God intended.”
Marriage Isn’t Ultimate
Another strength of this book is Gilson pointing out that marriage and sexual relationships are not the peak of human fulfillment, unlike the narrative told by our culture.
The culture prizes sexual freedom and romantic relationships— and ironically, to find your soulmate.
“the Western cultural chorus is shouting ever louder that authenticity is only found in following your flesh. To specifically deny what your body wants is a scandal in our culture. When pursuing your desire for same-gender sex and romance would publicly mark you as a hero— brave and strong— denying it makes you a villain.”
The Christian church, too, emphasizes marriage over singleness and as Gilson puts it, seems “uncomfortable with celibacy.” At times the church has even gone so far as to present marriage as a ‘reward.’
“The vision of human marriage as the reward for faithfulness to Christ is a deadly lie. Nowhere in Scripture is earthly marriage promised to any of us. Not only is it not promised but it’s not even presented as the preferred state of being.”
We scoff at the idea of celibacy, but even as marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, singleness is another picture of the sufficiency of Christ and should not be looked down upon in the least bit.
“To choose celibacy, Jesus must be really precious to you. What a chance to testify that he is!... in today’s world, that witness of radical self-denial is almost impossible to hide.”
Part of the draw of seeking to find same-sex marriage compatible with Scripture is that we feel we could never deny someone a family.
But when we hold that up too high, we are diminishing the role of the church family.
Gilson charges the church with the important responsibility of being family for same-sex-attracted Christians. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Same-sex Christians who give up their gay-affirming community experience real loss, and the church should not ignore this but come alongside and wrap them into the unified, familial body of Christ.
To choose celibacy is not to be denied family. And it’s not to be denied children either. Gilson recounts a friend’s story in which they see their fruitfulness in discipling a multitude of young people. What great work for the kingdom of God!
Rebecca McLaughlin, in her book ‘The Secular Creed’ echoes these thoughts: “For far too long, we’ve bought the lie that marriage is the ultimate good. For far too long we’ve bought the lie that singleness is second-best. For far too long we’ve undervalued same-sex love and bought the lie that the nuclear family is more important than the church.” [her reference to same-sex love here is in regards to friendship and the sibling-like love of Christians in the church]
Rightful Critique
Rachel rightfully calls out wrong that has been done to same-sex-attracted people.
She talks about churches, especially in the 1980s and 90s that assumed people were choosing homosexuality in rebellion to God and that they needed to achieve heterosexuality to break that bond. Gilson critiques reparative therapy that was used for that end.
[Sidenote: There are now laws being placed to prohibit ‘conversion therapy.’ While there are certainly types of therapy being done to the detriment of struggling people, these laws, though appearing good, are broad and could mean challenging things for the church. What is considered ‘conversion therapy’? Well probably any form of discussion that indicates same-sex attraction is wrong, regardless of if they communicate a plan to ‘fix’ it. This would complicate any biblical counseling same-sex-attracted Christians would seek.]
Gilson critiques churches and Christians who viewed same-sex-attracted individuals as untrustworthy or disgusting or perverted.
These were all harmful and inexcusable responses to these image-bearers.
Gilson acknowledges that same-sex attraction is not something that can necessarily ‘be fixed.’ God may decide to change your attractions (and shares an example of this) but that is not a guarantee, nor even common.
Marriage, she affirms, should not be entered into as a way to ‘turn straight.’
The church must acknowledge and repent of the ways it has hurt and mistreated same-sex-attracted people. The church family should be a safe place for all people to come and to unburden their souls, and to be able to talk about their struggles, not feel shame and be turned away or made to feel less than.
Yet, even as the church has failed in these ways, we cannot deny what God teaches in his word, even if those truths were applied hurtfully. We must do better, but we cannot change the truth.
Identity
“So much of the cultural drive recently has been to assert that if you have these attractions, then you must name them and base your identity on them. Not to do so is to live in the closet: a place of shame and woe.”
Something I wanted to point out is Gilson’s terminology— referring to herself as a same-sex-attracted Christian. I appreciated this language. While she does not state this usage as prescriptive, her explanation is valid:
“I worry that calling oneself a gay or queer Christian creates too much opportunity for this part of our lives to shape our identities in ways that are unhelpful— to perhaps close us off from things God may want to do, or allow types of compromise with attraction. It’s all too easy to slide from recognizing something as true about myself to seeing it as the truth about myself.”
To me, using the terminology ‘same-sex-attracted Christian’ defines the struggle without presenting it as a core identity marker or confusing it with the implication of a practicing gay lifestyle. Again, not a prescription, but something I agreed with Gilson about.
Awhile back I read Justin Lee’s book, ‘Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs Christian Debate’, and I remember one thing that struck me was how vital the adjective ‘gay’ was to his identity. Being a ‘gay Christian’ seemed to be the core of who he viewed himself to be.
Lee falls on the side of the debate that views same-sex marriage compatible with the Bible so I disagreed with his interpretation of Scripture, but even more so, you could tell that his identity was not actually in the gospel he claimed to be ‘rescuing.’
Gilson says,
“The Bible’s words on life and sexuality have offended every culture in every age, as people have risen up to try to save God from his own bad image. What if it’s not him who needs saving but us? If God never says anything that contradicts us, if we find ourselves in total alignment with a perfectly righteous all-knowing being who comprehends all mystery, which is more likely: that we’re just like him or that we’re missing something?” (1 Thess 4:8)
Conclusion
I thought this was a very thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate book full of vulnerability, authenticity, truth, and encouragement. Not just for same-sex-attracted Christians who are struggling with how to reconcile their feelings with their faith and find belonging in the church.
But for anyone who deals with any desires that are sinful— and we all have them!
“...the Bible points to a spiritual source of all desire that is contrary to God’s will. That it is spiritual doesn’t mean that it isn’t also “natural” (Eph 2:1-3)... Natural doesn’t automatically mean good, therefore. We may well have been “born this way,” but every one of us was born sinful.”
Indeed, we are born ‘this way’ but we are born again! And we are given the Holy Spirit who is at work conforming us more and more into the image of Christ.
“We are never promised relief from the presence of dangerous desires, but we are promised power to fight victoriously. (1 Cor 10:13)”
Philippians 1:6 says, “being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
I love this book and highly recommend it!
A Few More Quotes
“Obedience will never lead us away from God’s blessing— it will always lead us toward it. That’s true even when it doesn’t look that way in the world’s eyes.”
“We have been formed by a culture in love with romance and sex but not in love with our Creator. We have to constantly poke at our expectations, our hopes, and our fears.”
“God doesn’t ask us to explain the history and occurrence of each desire for sin… Rather, he calls us to resist temptation and choose holiness, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“God is the designer of marriage and sex, and he gave them to us precisely to bless us and to tell us truth about himself and us. But we are wrong when we wrench the gift out of his hands and use it against its design. One of the reasons why cancer is so insidious is that it takes a healthy, good function of the cell—reproduction— and directs it toward unhealthy ends… Cancer doesn’t change the power of the cell, but it changes the purpose. Likewise, when we co-opt sexuality away from God, we don’t remove its power… But we can destroy its purpose… This is especially true with same-sex romance, because the lack of sexual difference in the partnership completely obscures the picture God intends for sex to carry, and instead turns it inward. The picture becomes one of idolatry, not true worship.”
Further Reading
[Many of these were linked throughout my review]
- Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry
- What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung
- What Does God Say About Our Bodies? by Sam Allberry
- The Secular Creed by Rebecca McLaughlin (There is a chapter called ‘Love is Love’
- a(Typical) Woman by Abigail Dodds
- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund
- The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
Whatever happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke?
Perhaps you’ve heard of this mysterious event.
Historical Context
The English first tried to establish a permanent settlement in America at Roanoke Island in 1585. When that failed, Governor John White returned with more colonists to try again in 1587.
The colonists thought they would be settling north of Roanoke but were forced to stay on Roanoke Island. John White returned to England to secure more supplies for the colonists, intending to return the following year.
However, the Anglo-Spanish War prevented him from returning until 1590. When he finally arrived back to the English settlement, it was abandoned with only one word— ‘Croatoan’— carved in a wooden post, indicating the nearby Native tribe they had relations with.
A storm and ship issues forced his crew to return to England before they were able to locate the missing hundred plus colonists.
No evidence has surfaced as to the fate of these colonists— did they willingly assimilate with the Native tribes? Were they massacred? Were they taken captive?
Artistic License
‘Elinor’ is Shannon McNear’s creation to explore what could have happened to this Lost Colony.
Elinor, the protagonist, is a historical figure— John White’s daughter— who birthed the first English child in the new land and named her Virginia Dare.
We follow Elinor’s experience as a new mother in a new land with new dangers. She endures and perseveres a variety of hardships— one that almost made me cry! We see her strength, resilience, and reliance on God through it all.
We often wonder— where is God in all of this?— and Elinor shares with us her resolve to trust God even when things seem to be going wrong.
I was impressed with all the research McNear did in order to write this book. We know little but she incorporated well what she could find, even including the language of the native tribes.
I had to keep reminding myself that it was a fictionalized account because it seemed so believable.
This is a Christian Fiction novel so she emphasizes the faith and evangelistic desire of the colonists. It is a driving part of the plot and resolution of the story. She acknowledges that we don’t know if the colony was that of Separatists or Puritans or something else so this was her own take.
Writing Style/Formatting
I was given access to an Advanced Reader’s Copy through NetGalley so my copy was not the final publication. I’m assuming my main problem will not be an issue in the finalized version.
McNear shifts from Elinor’s perspective to other characters quite often. However, in my version, these shifts were not indicated or set apart in any way. They ran together and the new character’s identity wouldn’t be revealed until a few sentences in. This made for some disjointed reading and frustration as I had to regularly reread things to recalibrate where I was at in the story and whose thoughts I was hearing.
She uses a lot of different vernacular— both Native words as well as period language from the English during that time.
I didn’t realize this until the end, but McNear includes a glossary at the back of the book as well as a cast of characters and other helpful resources. This is a little harder to regularly access in an e-book compared to flipping back quickly in a hardcover but it’s nice that she put it in.
I also appreciated the details she shares of which parts of her story were historical and which ones were imagined. It’s a fascinating part of history and I’m always curious about these type of ‘mysteries’!
Recommendation
Overall it was a unique historical fiction book. It was a bit slow going for me at first and some parts were a little boring, but about 60% in the plot really starts to thicken as a Native tribe ambushes their settlement and sets off a sequence of suspenseful events!
I liked McNear’s imagination and I liked the ending. Knowing we don’t know historically what happened to the colony created a little suspense in wondering which direction she was going to take the story.
If you enjoy Christian Fiction books, I think you’ll really like this one. If Christian Fiction isn’t really your jam, this might not be your favorite book, but the unique setting and reimagining of the Lost Colony of Roanoke still makes it worth reading— just be aware going in that it’s not a pulsing action-packed story.
We spent time in Virginia and North Carolina back in 2016 and I remember driving by the Roanoke area. Now I wish we had stopped and looked around! Guess we will have to go back!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
Perhaps you’ve heard of this mysterious event.
Historical Context
The English first tried to establish a permanent settlement in America at Roanoke Island in 1585. When that failed, Governor John White returned with more colonists to try again in 1587.
The colonists thought they would be settling north of Roanoke but were forced to stay on Roanoke Island. John White returned to England to secure more supplies for the colonists, intending to return the following year.
However, the Anglo-Spanish War prevented him from returning until 1590. When he finally arrived back to the English settlement, it was abandoned with only one word— ‘Croatoan’— carved in a wooden post, indicating the nearby Native tribe they had relations with.
A storm and ship issues forced his crew to return to England before they were able to locate the missing hundred plus colonists.
No evidence has surfaced as to the fate of these colonists— did they willingly assimilate with the Native tribes? Were they massacred? Were they taken captive?
Artistic License
‘Elinor’ is Shannon McNear’s creation to explore what could have happened to this Lost Colony.
Elinor, the protagonist, is a historical figure— John White’s daughter— who birthed the first English child in the new land and named her Virginia Dare.
We follow Elinor’s experience as a new mother in a new land with new dangers. She endures and perseveres a variety of hardships— one that almost made me cry! We see her strength, resilience, and reliance on God through it all.
We often wonder— where is God in all of this?— and Elinor shares with us her resolve to trust God even when things seem to be going wrong.
I was impressed with all the research McNear did in order to write this book. We know little but she incorporated well what she could find, even including the language of the native tribes.
I had to keep reminding myself that it was a fictionalized account because it seemed so believable.
This is a Christian Fiction novel so she emphasizes the faith and evangelistic desire of the colonists. It is a driving part of the plot and resolution of the story. She acknowledges that we don’t know if the colony was that of Separatists or Puritans or something else so this was her own take.
Writing Style/Formatting
I was given access to an Advanced Reader’s Copy through NetGalley so my copy was not the final publication. I’m assuming my main problem will not be an issue in the finalized version.
McNear shifts from Elinor’s perspective to other characters quite often. However, in my version, these shifts were not indicated or set apart in any way. They ran together and the new character’s identity wouldn’t be revealed until a few sentences in. This made for some disjointed reading and frustration as I had to regularly reread things to recalibrate where I was at in the story and whose thoughts I was hearing.
She uses a lot of different vernacular— both Native words as well as period language from the English during that time.
I didn’t realize this until the end, but McNear includes a glossary at the back of the book as well as a cast of characters and other helpful resources. This is a little harder to regularly access in an e-book compared to flipping back quickly in a hardcover but it’s nice that she put it in.
I also appreciated the details she shares of which parts of her story were historical and which ones were imagined. It’s a fascinating part of history and I’m always curious about these type of ‘mysteries’!
Recommendation
Overall it was a unique historical fiction book. It was a bit slow going for me at first and some parts were a little boring, but about 60% in the plot really starts to thicken as a Native tribe ambushes their settlement and sets off a sequence of suspenseful events!
I liked McNear’s imagination and I liked the ending. Knowing we don’t know historically what happened to the colony created a little suspense in wondering which direction she was going to take the story.
If you enjoy Christian Fiction books, I think you’ll really like this one. If Christian Fiction isn’t really your jam, this might not be your favorite book, but the unique setting and reimagining of the Lost Colony of Roanoke still makes it worth reading— just be aware going in that it’s not a pulsing action-packed story.
We spent time in Virginia and North Carolina back in 2016 and I remember driving by the Roanoke area. Now I wish we had stopped and looked around! Guess we will have to go back!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog