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shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)
“While true faith is filled with holy fire, it is a fire that is meant for refining and healing, as opposed to dividing and destroying.”
Division and destruction is the currency of the day. I’ve addressed this environment of ‘us vs them’ in many of my other reviews. It’s pervasive and it’s toxic.
How do we handle disagreements, attacks, or divisiveness?
Scott Sauls tells us: with A Gentle Answer.
This is the posture of Jesus and it’s what we should exemplify.
Sauls has written an excellent book that is absolutely necessary in today’s world. Giving gentle answers in impassioned communications is very hard. This book has challenged me and convicted me in the best ways. For when we remember our position before the Lord, how can we respond to others except with gentleness?
Why Be Gentle?
The first half of Sauls’ book shows how Jesus is gentle towards us.
We must recognize the ways that we are sinners, Pharisees, and cynics. We are no better or superior than anyone else.
When we are humbled to remember how dead we were in our sins until Jesus made us alive, when we are humbled to remember how often Jesus forgives our sin, when we are humbled to remember the ways we don’t always live in accordance to our beliefs, we will be slow to anger, derision, contempt, and dismissal.
“The scandal around Jesus is a reality that distinguishes Christianity from every other world religion, as well as from all forms of human philosophy and politics: Jesus and Christianity do not discriminate between good people and bad people. Instead, Jesus and Christianity discriminate between humble people and proud people. (James 4:6)”
I thought this was a very insightful distinction to make. We cannot separate good people and bad people because we are all bad people. It’s shocking, but true, to say that the same evil that resided in the heart of Hitler is in us too.
Humans are capable of unthinkable things. We can look all around the world in every culture and era and find evidence of this.
Humility to recognize our propensity to choose sin and selfishness helps us interact with others with gentleness because we see we are not so different from them after all.
“Some condemn Pharisees in order to keep their distance from biblical truths and commands that make them uncomfortable… just as we shouldn’t shoot the messenger because of a message we find difficult, neither should we shoot the message because of messengers we find difficult…
…If we are harboring an agenda to protect ourselves from having to deal with certain parts of God’s Word so as to free ourselves to think, believe, and live however we choose, we are no different than the scribes and the Pharisees.”
The discussion here is evaluating our motives behind our words— are they in error or self-serving? Are we all law without love? Are we love without truth? Are we condemning others as Pharisees and becoming Pharisees ourselves as we do it? Are we rejecting biblical truths because we don’t like the people who are saying them?
[An appropriate book to plug here is The Intolerance of Tolerance by D.A. Carson— the definition of tolerance has dangerously morphed.]
Gentleness Changes Us
Part II of the book describes 5 ways we are changed because of Jesus’ gentleness:
1. We grow thicker skin.
2. We do anger well.
3. We receive criticism graciously.
4. We forgive all the way.
5. We bless our own betrayers.
He talks about suffering as Christians, locally and globally. How we have strength to endure.
He reminds us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Christ died for our sins and imperfections. And he forgave us while we were still his enemies.
He talks about sinful anger vs righteous anger. That healthy anger is characterized by patience and is life-giving. Unhealthy anger is life-diminishing and is characterized by resentment, retaliation, slander, and manipulation.
Tim Keller says, “Even if only 20% is true, we can profit from criticism given by people who are badly motivated or whom we don’t respect.”
We need to look for truth everywhere and see opportunities to continue to grow in Christ.
“We must learn to love the light, even when it exposes the darkness in us, as opposed to hiding from the light and shielding ourselves from exposure… We need a gentled posture before the Lord, his Word, and his truth-telling messengers, to become the people he desires for us to be.”
Jesus’ gentleness radically changes how we interact with people and sadly, you won’t find this humility very often. As followers of Christ, we need to respond like Christ and set an example in speech and behavior, with our words, our tone, our motives, and our deeds.
[Two appropriate books to plug here: 1) The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt which discusses the increasing demand for ‘safe spaces’ on college campuses which require the removal of ideas or rhetoric they don’t like or agree with. But everyone loses if we remove critique from our lives. 2) Fortitude: American Resilience in the Age of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw which implores us to be unoffendable and resilient and gracious. Sauls actually references Crenshaw’s ‘run-in’ with Pete Davidson on SNL and commends his handling of the situation]
Conclusion
Scott Sauls’ book is practical, gentle, and world-changing if we would all seek to give gentle answers, be gracious with criticism, humble, unoffendable, and slow to anger.
Refuse to be used by either political side, but find the path of Jesus that does not divide people by good and bad. It’s not an easy path, but it is where we are called to tread.
“Make no mistake: Jesus’ gentle answer was bold and costly. His gentle answer included pouring out his lifeblood and dying on the cross. Our gentle answer will be costly as well. We must die to ourselves, to our self-righteousness, to our indignation, and to our outrage.”
I highly recommend this book to all people who ever have to talk to people they disagree with. So yeah… that means you.
Sauls’ charge is a biblical and worthy one:
“To those who are prone to injure, the call is to repent and to engage in the noble work of renouncing hatred and exercising love. To those who are vulnerable to becoming injured, the call is to participate in the noble work of resisting bitter and retaliating roots of anger while embracing truth-telling, advocacy, and forgiveness. To all of us, the universal call is to lay down our swords, listen, learn from our differences, and build something beautiful.”
Other Quotes:
“In the same way that it would make zero sense to call Beethoven a substandard composer because a six-year-old plays a Beethoven piece sloppily and out of tune at a piano recital, it makes zero sense to call Jesus a substandard Savior because his followers imitate him poorly.”
“When we come to the realization that the line of good and evil cuts through our hearts just as it does through the heart of every kind of betrayer, it gives us pause about assuming a holier-than-thou or fiercely oppositional posture in our dealings with others. The more attuned we are to this reality of in dwelling sin in us— and of the war that goes on inside of us between flesh and spirit, the old man and the new creation, good and evil—the more empathetic and gentle and kind we will likely become, even toward those who’ve done horrendous and unspeakable things.”
“We, too, are susceptible to warming ourselves at a fire created by the enemies of Jesus, surrendering our wills and ways to the tide of popular opinion. We, too, protect ourselves from having to take up crosses that Jesus— whose will and ways are counterculture to every culture— is calling us to carry in such a time as ours. In our modern context, a growing number of people who identify as Christian can, like Peter, allow themselves to become disciples of popular opinion as opposed to living as cross-bearing, counter cultural disciples of Jesus. This is especially true in areas where staying true to Jesus feels threatening socially, vocationally, politically, or otherwise. When blending in to popular opinion and staying on good terms with a world that does not love Jesus becomes priority, these Christians will eventually find themselves in a world of compromise.”
Follow me:
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
Division and destruction is the currency of the day. I’ve addressed this environment of ‘us vs them’ in many of my other reviews. It’s pervasive and it’s toxic.
How do we handle disagreements, attacks, or divisiveness?
Scott Sauls tells us: with A Gentle Answer.
This is the posture of Jesus and it’s what we should exemplify.
Sauls has written an excellent book that is absolutely necessary in today’s world. Giving gentle answers in impassioned communications is very hard. This book has challenged me and convicted me in the best ways. For when we remember our position before the Lord, how can we respond to others except with gentleness?
Why Be Gentle?
The first half of Sauls’ book shows how Jesus is gentle towards us.
We must recognize the ways that we are sinners, Pharisees, and cynics. We are no better or superior than anyone else.
When we are humbled to remember how dead we were in our sins until Jesus made us alive, when we are humbled to remember how often Jesus forgives our sin, when we are humbled to remember the ways we don’t always live in accordance to our beliefs, we will be slow to anger, derision, contempt, and dismissal.
“The scandal around Jesus is a reality that distinguishes Christianity from every other world religion, as well as from all forms of human philosophy and politics: Jesus and Christianity do not discriminate between good people and bad people. Instead, Jesus and Christianity discriminate between humble people and proud people. (James 4:6)”
I thought this was a very insightful distinction to make. We cannot separate good people and bad people because we are all bad people. It’s shocking, but true, to say that the same evil that resided in the heart of Hitler is in us too.
Humans are capable of unthinkable things. We can look all around the world in every culture and era and find evidence of this.
Humility to recognize our propensity to choose sin and selfishness helps us interact with others with gentleness because we see we are not so different from them after all.
“Some condemn Pharisees in order to keep their distance from biblical truths and commands that make them uncomfortable… just as we shouldn’t shoot the messenger because of a message we find difficult, neither should we shoot the message because of messengers we find difficult…
…If we are harboring an agenda to protect ourselves from having to deal with certain parts of God’s Word so as to free ourselves to think, believe, and live however we choose, we are no different than the scribes and the Pharisees.”
The discussion here is evaluating our motives behind our words— are they in error or self-serving? Are we all law without love? Are we love without truth? Are we condemning others as Pharisees and becoming Pharisees ourselves as we do it? Are we rejecting biblical truths because we don’t like the people who are saying them?
[An appropriate book to plug here is The Intolerance of Tolerance by D.A. Carson— the definition of tolerance has dangerously morphed.]
Gentleness Changes Us
Part II of the book describes 5 ways we are changed because of Jesus’ gentleness:
1. We grow thicker skin.
2. We do anger well.
3. We receive criticism graciously.
4. We forgive all the way.
5. We bless our own betrayers.
He talks about suffering as Christians, locally and globally. How we have strength to endure.
He reminds us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Christ died for our sins and imperfections. And he forgave us while we were still his enemies.
He talks about sinful anger vs righteous anger. That healthy anger is characterized by patience and is life-giving. Unhealthy anger is life-diminishing and is characterized by resentment, retaliation, slander, and manipulation.
Tim Keller says, “Even if only 20% is true, we can profit from criticism given by people who are badly motivated or whom we don’t respect.”
We need to look for truth everywhere and see opportunities to continue to grow in Christ.
“We must learn to love the light, even when it exposes the darkness in us, as opposed to hiding from the light and shielding ourselves from exposure… We need a gentled posture before the Lord, his Word, and his truth-telling messengers, to become the people he desires for us to be.”
Jesus’ gentleness radically changes how we interact with people and sadly, you won’t find this humility very often. As followers of Christ, we need to respond like Christ and set an example in speech and behavior, with our words, our tone, our motives, and our deeds.
[Two appropriate books to plug here: 1) The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt which discusses the increasing demand for ‘safe spaces’ on college campuses which require the removal of ideas or rhetoric they don’t like or agree with. But everyone loses if we remove critique from our lives. 2) Fortitude: American Resilience in the Age of Outrage by Dan Crenshaw which implores us to be unoffendable and resilient and gracious. Sauls actually references Crenshaw’s ‘run-in’ with Pete Davidson on SNL and commends his handling of the situation]
Conclusion
Scott Sauls’ book is practical, gentle, and world-changing if we would all seek to give gentle answers, be gracious with criticism, humble, unoffendable, and slow to anger.
Refuse to be used by either political side, but find the path of Jesus that does not divide people by good and bad. It’s not an easy path, but it is where we are called to tread.
“Make no mistake: Jesus’ gentle answer was bold and costly. His gentle answer included pouring out his lifeblood and dying on the cross. Our gentle answer will be costly as well. We must die to ourselves, to our self-righteousness, to our indignation, and to our outrage.”
I highly recommend this book to all people who ever have to talk to people they disagree with. So yeah… that means you.
Sauls’ charge is a biblical and worthy one:
“To those who are prone to injure, the call is to repent and to engage in the noble work of renouncing hatred and exercising love. To those who are vulnerable to becoming injured, the call is to participate in the noble work of resisting bitter and retaliating roots of anger while embracing truth-telling, advocacy, and forgiveness. To all of us, the universal call is to lay down our swords, listen, learn from our differences, and build something beautiful.”
Other Quotes:
“In the same way that it would make zero sense to call Beethoven a substandard composer because a six-year-old plays a Beethoven piece sloppily and out of tune at a piano recital, it makes zero sense to call Jesus a substandard Savior because his followers imitate him poorly.”
“When we come to the realization that the line of good and evil cuts through our hearts just as it does through the heart of every kind of betrayer, it gives us pause about assuming a holier-than-thou or fiercely oppositional posture in our dealings with others. The more attuned we are to this reality of in dwelling sin in us— and of the war that goes on inside of us between flesh and spirit, the old man and the new creation, good and evil—the more empathetic and gentle and kind we will likely become, even toward those who’ve done horrendous and unspeakable things.”
“We, too, are susceptible to warming ourselves at a fire created by the enemies of Jesus, surrendering our wills and ways to the tide of popular opinion. We, too, protect ourselves from having to take up crosses that Jesus— whose will and ways are counterculture to every culture— is calling us to carry in such a time as ours. In our modern context, a growing number of people who identify as Christian can, like Peter, allow themselves to become disciples of popular opinion as opposed to living as cross-bearing, counter cultural disciples of Jesus. This is especially true in areas where staying true to Jesus feels threatening socially, vocationally, politically, or otherwise. When blending in to popular opinion and staying on good terms with a world that does not love Jesus becomes priority, these Christians will eventually find themselves in a world of compromise.”
Follow me:
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
“Don’t come here,” she whispered, “It’s not safe.”
This was my first Ruth Ware novel.
I would say the suspense was definitely there. There were parts that were predictable and a few that weren’t. Without giving too much away, there was part of the ending that I appreciated and part that I didn’t like.
Is this review vague enough for you so far?!
I will probably try another Ruth Ware book, but if it has as many f-words as this one did, I don’t know if I’ll stick with it.
As to this particular story:
Rowan has accepted a nannying position in an isolated house in Scotland. The house has a haunted history, and though it retains only part of its original Victorian ‘parts,’ the renovated sections are just as creepy. The smart house technology connects everything from the light switches, shower settings, music, temperature, curtains, intercom features, etc. on electronic panels and tablets. Oh and there is a camera in almost every room.
The family has cycled through numerous nannies at a remarkable speed. Someone or something is driving them away. Or that’s what Rowan feels within days of her post.
Mysteriously locked doors. Blaring music in the middle of the night. Her room is always freezing. Missing keys. Dinging doorbells with no one there. A poison garden. Creaking footsteps every night.
And the mysterious locked door in her bedroom. One of the few doors with an actual keyhole.
The paranoia is real.
“To lie here, night after night, listening, waiting, staring into the darkness at that locked door, that open keyhole gaping into blackness.”
Is the technology just going haywire, are the kids playing tricks, or is there something more sinister at play in this schizophrenic house? And what is behind that locked door?!
“That sounds as if I’m building something… piece by piece. And the truth is, it was the other way around. Piece by piece, I was being torn apart.”
The child was not wrong when she said it was unsafe there!
The whole book is written as a letter from Rowan to a lawyer. Something happened to one of the children and she is in prison for it. She maintains her innocence and seeks his help to get her out of the hopeless predicament she is in.
She must tell him everything that led up to that fateful night, she insists, in order for everything to make sense. All the little things compounding on each other that created the storm leaving a child dead and a young woman in jail.
“It was the lies that got me here in the first place. I have to believe that it’s the truth that will get me out.”
This was actually my least favorite part of this book. I wish it would have just been a story or just snippets of letters. It was entirely too detailed and long to be considered a letter and was not written how you would actually write a letter to explain everything to someone.
Audrain was trying to be clever, but I don’t think it worked. The letter aspect ties in nicely to the ending but the writing style kept annoying me because it just did not mesh with how anyone would write a narrative letter.
I wonder if it would have been better if Rowan was just talking to us as an audience?
Since I’ve never read any of her books before, I can’t compare it to anything. It seems like a lot of reviewers were disappointed in it.
I feel like I was pretty engaged with the story.
I wasn’t entirely sure where she was going to go with it:
Was it going to be a supernatural thriller?
Was it going to be about her inner psychological struggle?
Was it just going to be a normal whodunit type of tale?
Was it going to be a more domestic suspense novel where she is pitted against one of the family members?
Is it building up to a big reveal about the teenage daughter that was coming home soon?
Was it going to play into the history of the house and those who died there before?
Was it going to be an unreliable narrator trope?
Is one of the kids possessed?
There were all of these threads given to us at the beginning and it could have taken any number of directions.
Am I happy with the picture Audrain wove with these threads?
I think so?
I like when I can’t figure everything out. I like that, for the most part, we get to know ‘what happened’ by the end.
But I did feel like there were certain parts that could have been played up more instead of the ones she chose that would have been more interesting to me. I’m not much into supernatural elements in thrillers.
I prefer putting more concrete clues together than having to decide- is it ghosts? or real people?
But that’s just a personal preference.
If you like creepy psychological thrillers, and can get past the f-words, I’d say to give this book a try! It will be a fast, twisty read.
And stay tuned, I’ll eventually read another Ruth Ware book and I can evaluate better what I think about her books…
Bonus News: It looks like this book has been optioned for film so hopefully that comes to fruition. I do think it would make a good movie!
Follow me for more updates and reviews!
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
This was my first Ruth Ware novel.
I would say the suspense was definitely there. There were parts that were predictable and a few that weren’t. Without giving too much away, there was part of the ending that I appreciated and part that I didn’t like.
Is this review vague enough for you so far?!
I will probably try another Ruth Ware book, but if it has as many f-words as this one did, I don’t know if I’ll stick with it.
As to this particular story:
Rowan has accepted a nannying position in an isolated house in Scotland. The house has a haunted history, and though it retains only part of its original Victorian ‘parts,’ the renovated sections are just as creepy. The smart house technology connects everything from the light switches, shower settings, music, temperature, curtains, intercom features, etc. on electronic panels and tablets. Oh and there is a camera in almost every room.
The family has cycled through numerous nannies at a remarkable speed. Someone or something is driving them away. Or that’s what Rowan feels within days of her post.
Mysteriously locked doors. Blaring music in the middle of the night. Her room is always freezing. Missing keys. Dinging doorbells with no one there. A poison garden. Creaking footsteps every night.
And the mysterious locked door in her bedroom. One of the few doors with an actual keyhole.
The paranoia is real.
“To lie here, night after night, listening, waiting, staring into the darkness at that locked door, that open keyhole gaping into blackness.”
Is the technology just going haywire, are the kids playing tricks, or is there something more sinister at play in this schizophrenic house? And what is behind that locked door?!
“That sounds as if I’m building something… piece by piece. And the truth is, it was the other way around. Piece by piece, I was being torn apart.”
The child was not wrong when she said it was unsafe there!
The whole book is written as a letter from Rowan to a lawyer. Something happened to one of the children and she is in prison for it. She maintains her innocence and seeks his help to get her out of the hopeless predicament she is in.
She must tell him everything that led up to that fateful night, she insists, in order for everything to make sense. All the little things compounding on each other that created the storm leaving a child dead and a young woman in jail.
“It was the lies that got me here in the first place. I have to believe that it’s the truth that will get me out.”
This was actually my least favorite part of this book. I wish it would have just been a story or just snippets of letters. It was entirely too detailed and long to be considered a letter and was not written how you would actually write a letter to explain everything to someone.
Audrain was trying to be clever, but I don’t think it worked. The letter aspect ties in nicely to the ending but the writing style kept annoying me because it just did not mesh with how anyone would write a narrative letter.
I wonder if it would have been better if Rowan was just talking to us as an audience?
Since I’ve never read any of her books before, I can’t compare it to anything. It seems like a lot of reviewers were disappointed in it.
I feel like I was pretty engaged with the story.
I wasn’t entirely sure where she was going to go with it:
Was it going to be a supernatural thriller?
Was it going to be about her inner psychological struggle?
Was it just going to be a normal whodunit type of tale?
Was it going to be a more domestic suspense novel where she is pitted against one of the family members?
Is it building up to a big reveal about the teenage daughter that was coming home soon?
Was it going to play into the history of the house and those who died there before?
Was it going to be an unreliable narrator trope?
Is one of the kids possessed?
There were all of these threads given to us at the beginning and it could have taken any number of directions.
Am I happy with the picture Audrain wove with these threads?
I think so?
I like when I can’t figure everything out. I like that, for the most part, we get to know ‘what happened’ by the end.
But I did feel like there were certain parts that could have been played up more instead of the ones she chose that would have been more interesting to me. I’m not much into supernatural elements in thrillers.
I prefer putting more concrete clues together than having to decide- is it ghosts? or real people?
But that’s just a personal preference.
If you like creepy psychological thrillers, and can get past the f-words, I’d say to give this book a try! It will be a fast, twisty read.
And stay tuned, I’ll eventually read another Ruth Ware book and I can evaluate better what I think about her books…
Bonus News: It looks like this book has been optioned for film so hopefully that comes to fruition. I do think it would make a good movie!
Follow me for more updates and reviews!
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
This was a great sequel with the same suspense and humor that marked the first one!
Book One, A Deadly Influence, left us on a cliffhanger (Uh… I just started writing hangover, maybe that’s how it left you, who’s to say…) and this book picks up two months later.
As with the first book we have two plot lines.
The first is the continued thread of Abby Mullen, cult survivor, trying to figure out what happened the night of the infamous fire and who she’s been communicating with via text, having just discovered it’s not the person she thought it was.
The second is the driving force of the book— a group of conspiracy theorists known as The Watchers is convinced a sex-trafficking ring is happening at a high school and attempts to ‘rescue’ the kids but find themselves in a standoff with the police, holding hostages, and slowly spiraling into chaos.
Hence- damaged intentions. Good intentions can help people but they can also kill all of mankind. (That is a dramatization that does not depict any scene in this book but is nonetheless worth pondering.)
Abby Mullen is their negotiator and we are reminded that Mike Omer has been subtly equipping us as readers on how to become fluent in negotiating techniques. Thanks for looking out! I’ve been practicing on my kids and if I could just get the ‘keeping my voice calm’ aspect down, I think I could give Mullen a run for her money!
Omer has created great characters, his humor is spot-on, and he continues to throw in surprises at just the right times!
My one critique is some of the content— swearing and some descriptions of the perv’s activities. Don’t really like reading that.
But overall I’ve really enjoyed this series and am looking forward to more of his books!
BONUS:
Also, using my powers of observation I have figured out his method of titling his books and have taken it upon myself to offer suggestions for his next books that I think he will find most helpful should he ever read my phenomenal review.
- Destroyed Identity (boring but compelling)
- Dissected Imposter (this could get gruesome)
- Dented Impala (I’m envisioning an epic car chase which may make a better screenplay than a book)
- Deducted Income (hello white collar crime)
- Dedicated IRS (a surprise look into the real people behind the curtain of hate)
- Delineated Integers (a math genius murderer?)
- Dropped Icees (the biggest disaster I could think of)
- Disgusted Idiots (I have no ideas for this one but I’m sure we could come up with something worth reading)
Thanks for reading!
Visit my book review blog and share all my awesome book reviews to your social media so more people will read them. kthanksbyeeee
And come follow me and book friends!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book One, A Deadly Influence, left us on a cliffhanger (Uh… I just started writing hangover, maybe that’s how it left you, who’s to say…) and this book picks up two months later.
As with the first book we have two plot lines.
The first is the continued thread of Abby Mullen, cult survivor, trying to figure out what happened the night of the infamous fire and who she’s been communicating with via text, having just discovered it’s not the person she thought it was.
The second is the driving force of the book— a group of conspiracy theorists known as The Watchers is convinced a sex-trafficking ring is happening at a high school and attempts to ‘rescue’ the kids but find themselves in a standoff with the police, holding hostages, and slowly spiraling into chaos.
Hence- damaged intentions. Good intentions can help people but they can also kill all of mankind. (That is a dramatization that does not depict any scene in this book but is nonetheless worth pondering.)
Abby Mullen is their negotiator and we are reminded that Mike Omer has been subtly equipping us as readers on how to become fluent in negotiating techniques. Thanks for looking out! I’ve been practicing on my kids and if I could just get the ‘keeping my voice calm’ aspect down, I think I could give Mullen a run for her money!
Omer has created great characters, his humor is spot-on, and he continues to throw in surprises at just the right times!
My one critique is some of the content— swearing and some descriptions of the perv’s activities. Don’t really like reading that.
But overall I’ve really enjoyed this series and am looking forward to more of his books!
BONUS:
Also, using my powers of observation I have figured out his method of titling his books and have taken it upon myself to offer suggestions for his next books that I think he will find most helpful should he ever read my phenomenal review.
- Destroyed Identity (boring but compelling)
- Dissected Imposter (this could get gruesome)
- Dented Impala (I’m envisioning an epic car chase which may make a better screenplay than a book)
- Deducted Income (hello white collar crime)
- Dedicated IRS (a surprise look into the real people behind the curtain of hate)
- Delineated Integers (a math genius murderer?)
- Dropped Icees (the biggest disaster I could think of)
- Disgusted Idiots (I have no ideas for this one but I’m sure we could come up with something worth reading)
Thanks for reading!
Visit my book review blog and share all my awesome book reviews to your social media so more people will read them. kthanksbyeeee
And come follow me and book friends!
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/shelfreflectionblog
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
“Christians must display faith in God’s design, faith in God’s Word, and faith in the power of the gospel.”
“The great threat we face is not to the church’s existence, but to its faithfulness.”
Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, hosts a popular podcast called ‘The Briefing’ where he analyzes news and current events through a biblical worldview.
This book is basically an extension of many of the topics he discusses in his podcast.
It is an intelligent, relevant book that will spur us on as Christians to be on guard against the secularization of our culture and to stand firm on the truths of the Bible.
He enlightens us and exposes the trajectory of a secular worldview and how it opposes true freedom. His arguments are logical and easy to understand.
Mohler has a really good handle on politics and current affairs as well as what the Bible teaches. He is very qualified to share this information with us.
“Only the Christian worldview is sufficient to answer the demands of secularization, nor can any other worldview provide the framework for true human flourishing.”
What is the Storm?
Mohler borrowed the phrase ‘The Gathering Storm’ from Winston Churchill who used it to describe the rise and threat of Hitler in Germany. The threat here is not the same, but Mohler presents throughout his book ways that secularization has produced a ‘storm’ between biblical beliefs and cultural demands.
These storms revolve around Western civilization, the church, human life, marriage, the family, gender and sexuality, generations, engines of culture, and religious liberty. These are his chapter titles.
The Gathering Storm hits all the most controversial issues including abortion, same-sex marriage, the nuclear family, transgenderism and binary sex, freedom of speech, the Supreme Court, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, social media giants, language and more.
His main point is that many Christians, when forced to choose, follow what the culture tells them is ‘the right side of history’ and thus compromises God’s design, the authority of Scripture, and the power of the gospel for the appearance of cultural acceptance.
His secondary point is that we are in a war between revolution and revelation. The secularization of society is radical and eternally unquenched. Mohler quips, “Revolutions are never satisfied.” People who used to be considered far left are being pushed further to the middle by the continuous radicalization of the left. The implications of this shift are grave for religious freedoms and the church’s ability to publicly stand in their beliefs and share them with others.
[Carl Trueman’s interesting book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self traces the historical path of the sexual revolution and how the culture has changed how it identifies and views the self.]
[The book The Coddling of the American Mind is written by Democrats who see the loss of freedom of speech and diversity of opinion on college campuses.]
These are no small things.
What Does ‘Secular’ Mean?
So what does Mohler mean by secular?
“In terms of contemporary sociological and intellectual conversation, it refers to the absence of any binding theistic authority or belief. It is both an ideology (secularism) and a consequence (secularization).”
As Christians our authority is God and his word. He defines our identity; he has created the design for marriage and the family— life in general— that we follow; he reveals objective truth. The culture is trying to remove God and his principles and replace them with ever-changing subjective truth and authority rooted in fluctuating feelings.
The Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The rights of human dignity that the culture claims to uphold are 1) self-evident, meaning objective, and 2) come from their Creator. If they remove God from the picture, where is human dignity rooted? If everyone determines their own truth, how are these ‘rights’ self-evident to all?
[This idea is the main point of Rebecca McLaughlin’s book, The Secular Creed— that human rights come from God and they are in jeopardy if we remove him.]
Mohler quotes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous words, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” He is referring to the Communist oppression in Russia. Is it any wonder why virtually all totalitarian and communist governments reject and remove religion? When God is not the authority, the government becomes god.
[The similarities between the current American state and what happens in Communist countries is interestingly explored in the book Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher.]
Some may claim that Christians are trying to force our religion on others as we oppose certain cultural demands, but what they fail to recognize is that atheism is also a belief system. There is no morally neutral opinion or policy in the public sphere. There are certain belief systems that are easier to target and keep out because they recognize a deity like God or Allah or Buddha, etc, but atheism as a religion is sneaky because their god is themselves.
There is a discussion here about who gets to decide what is right, but it is dishonest to claim that Christians are the only ones promoting their own beliefs.
[Jonathan Leeman talks about this important realization in his book How the Nations Rage.]
Secularization is a slow and often subtle process. But if we don’t think critically about the implications of its trajectory, we may find ourselves in a very dangerous and compromised position.
So What Now?
This idea of ‘being on the right side of history’ is noble and right. We want to look back and see that we loved people and took care of them, especially the vulnerable and outcasts. And it is true that the church, along with the rest of humanity past and present, does not have a perfect record of that.
But when Christians start believing that the culture presents the right path more than the Bible, they are deceived.
If 'the right side of history' asks you to tame the word of God to be more palatable and universally acceptable, we must recognize this deception for what it is. God doesn’t need us to ‘fix his mistakes.’ He is not embarrassed by his truth.
Paul was not ashamed of the gospel and neither should we!
We are here to trust God’s design, obey his Word, and preach his truth.
Jesus straight up tells us that the world will hate us because of him. If no one is offended by your beliefs, you have probably traded your Bible in for the Book of Post-Modern Geniality.
Mohler brings up many concerns we have with the culture and religious liberty. But he reminds us that we are not without hope.
The government can’t save us. Laws can’t save us.
The Lord alone saves. And he is sovereign and powerful.
And He promised that he has established his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18) He has faithfully shown us that he preserves a remnant and he protects his people.
Mohler writes this book to remind us of God’s truth and charge us to defend our right to believe it and proclaim it. He writes this book to remind us that God is pro-people and pro-human flourishing. Therefore, his design is best for humanity and when we fight for that design, we are loving our neighbor.
“We must defend the right of Christians, along with all other believers, to be faithful in the public square as well as in the privacy of our own homes, hearts, and churches. We must defend the right to teach our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We must defend the rights of Christian schools to be Christian— and to order our institutions around the Word of God without fearing the crushing power of the state. We must defend the right of generations of those yet unborn, to know the liberties we have known and now defend.”
“[Christians] know why every human life at every age under every condition is precious. We know why truth is truth. We know that sin is what explains the brokenness of the world, and we know just how broken it is, starting with ourselves. We know why marriage can only be the union of a man and a woman, and we know why the family best be respected and protected by any sane civilization. We know why right is right and wrong is wrong. We know that life is not meaningless, and that right is not merely socially constructed and up for negotiation. We know that we are responsible creatures— that one day God will judge us for our every thought and deed.”
Conclusion
I’ve read a lot of books along these guidelines and have tagged them accordingly— browse the ‘Cultural Books’ link below for more. I’ve always appreciated Mohler’s viewpoint in his podcast and helping us understand the world through a biblical perspective.
Likewise, I think this book is a really important book for Christians to read and consider. Capitulating to the demands of our culture is not what God has called us to. The pressure of the culture is great, but the power of the Lord is greater.
At some point, we have to make a choice. We cannot serve two masters.
Mohler will inspire you to defend truth, love people, and put your hope in our sovereign Creator.
“Hope gives us the reason to build a home and live in it. Love gives us the reason to build a home for others, for them to live in. Because we love our neighbor, we work for just laws, for righteousness and justice, for the protection of human life, for the good of our neighbors in all things.”
[Sidenote: Similar to Candace Owens book, Blackout, this book was written in 2020 before the presidential election. Mohler is not hiding the fact that he hopes his presentation will influence the way readers think as they cast their vote. The election is over, but nonetheless, this book will continue to be relevant.]
Additional Quotes:
“The cultural engines of progress driving toward personal autonomy and fulfillment will not stop until the human being is completely self-defining.”
“I am arguing that there can be no sustained defense of religious liberty without intellectual respect for belief in God and cultural respect for religious devotion. Even when Americans claim to rest their argument for liberty, for human rights and human dignity on a secular foundation, they are actually borrowing intellectual capital from Christianity…. we are witnessing the collapse and retreat of any secular notion of human rights and human dignity that would include religious liberty.”
“The secular age writes checks it cannot cash. It claims to uphold human rights even as it undercuts any argument for human dignity and natural rights. It invents new rights (like same-sex marriage) at the expense of fundamental rights (such as religious liberty). It claims a high view of human dignity, but aborts millions of unborn human beings in the womb.”
“No God, no truth. No truths, no liberty. No liberty, and nothing remains but the heel of someone’s boot.”
“The kingdom of Christ will not hide in a political platform.”
“The first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said that the power to tax is the power to destroy.” (This is what’s at stake when politicians threaten to remove tax-exempt status from churches and institutions that express beliefs they don’t agree with and demand they change their beliefs to keep their tax exempt status)
“On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.” (Surviving Religion 101 is a great book for students going off to these campuses)
“[Celebrities] have the social capital that allows them to influence others— and they are driven by a celebrity culture that now requires them to signal their moral precepts and politics, constantly. These celebrities usually have no expertise nor experience in the complex issues to which they speak.”
“The push of a secular worldview erodes the roles of parents in the upbringing of their children. Case after case, story after story, chronicles the downgrade of parental rights—secularism subverts the authority of parents who refuse to sing its seductive tune. If parents object to secularization, then they must be removed from the equation.”
“Language really matters. The use of language serves as a moral signal, and the moral revolutionaries understand the power of language and the influence words carry. The sexual revolution insists that society must alter its use of language and terms to accommodate its moral agenda.”
“Pornography represents one of the most insidious attacks upon the sanctity of marriage and the goodness of sex within the one-flesh relationship. The celebration of debauchery rather than purity, the elevation of genital pleasure over all other considerations, and the corruption of sexual energy through an inversion of the self, corrupts the idea of marriage, leads to incalculable harm, and subverts marriage and the marital bond.”
“A society that disbelieves in God will eventually disbelieve in marriage.”
“What morally atrocious age have we slipped into where we sacrifice babies on the altar of ‘women’s health, autonomy, and their right to the pursuit of happiness’?”
“While we must never demean the importance of elections nor diminish the responsible stewardship Christians have with their vote, we also dare not believe political victory will secure ultimate and lasting peace. Rescue will not come by mere politics. We do not need a political movement. We need a theological protest.”
Follow me for more content!
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
“The great threat we face is not to the church’s existence, but to its faithfulness.”
Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, hosts a popular podcast called ‘The Briefing’ where he analyzes news and current events through a biblical worldview.
This book is basically an extension of many of the topics he discusses in his podcast.
It is an intelligent, relevant book that will spur us on as Christians to be on guard against the secularization of our culture and to stand firm on the truths of the Bible.
He enlightens us and exposes the trajectory of a secular worldview and how it opposes true freedom. His arguments are logical and easy to understand.
Mohler has a really good handle on politics and current affairs as well as what the Bible teaches. He is very qualified to share this information with us.
“Only the Christian worldview is sufficient to answer the demands of secularization, nor can any other worldview provide the framework for true human flourishing.”
What is the Storm?
Mohler borrowed the phrase ‘The Gathering Storm’ from Winston Churchill who used it to describe the rise and threat of Hitler in Germany. The threat here is not the same, but Mohler presents throughout his book ways that secularization has produced a ‘storm’ between biblical beliefs and cultural demands.
These storms revolve around Western civilization, the church, human life, marriage, the family, gender and sexuality, generations, engines of culture, and religious liberty. These are his chapter titles.
The Gathering Storm hits all the most controversial issues including abortion, same-sex marriage, the nuclear family, transgenderism and binary sex, freedom of speech, the Supreme Court, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, social media giants, language and more.
His main point is that many Christians, when forced to choose, follow what the culture tells them is ‘the right side of history’ and thus compromises God’s design, the authority of Scripture, and the power of the gospel for the appearance of cultural acceptance.
His secondary point is that we are in a war between revolution and revelation. The secularization of society is radical and eternally unquenched. Mohler quips, “Revolutions are never satisfied.” People who used to be considered far left are being pushed further to the middle by the continuous radicalization of the left. The implications of this shift are grave for religious freedoms and the church’s ability to publicly stand in their beliefs and share them with others.
[Carl Trueman’s interesting book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self traces the historical path of the sexual revolution and how the culture has changed how it identifies and views the self.]
[The book The Coddling of the American Mind is written by Democrats who see the loss of freedom of speech and diversity of opinion on college campuses.]
These are no small things.
What Does ‘Secular’ Mean?
So what does Mohler mean by secular?
“In terms of contemporary sociological and intellectual conversation, it refers to the absence of any binding theistic authority or belief. It is both an ideology (secularism) and a consequence (secularization).”
As Christians our authority is God and his word. He defines our identity; he has created the design for marriage and the family— life in general— that we follow; he reveals objective truth. The culture is trying to remove God and his principles and replace them with ever-changing subjective truth and authority rooted in fluctuating feelings.
The Declaration of Independence says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The rights of human dignity that the culture claims to uphold are 1) self-evident, meaning objective, and 2) come from their Creator. If they remove God from the picture, where is human dignity rooted? If everyone determines their own truth, how are these ‘rights’ self-evident to all?
[This idea is the main point of Rebecca McLaughlin’s book, The Secular Creed— that human rights come from God and they are in jeopardy if we remove him.]
Mohler quotes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous words, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” He is referring to the Communist oppression in Russia. Is it any wonder why virtually all totalitarian and communist governments reject and remove religion? When God is not the authority, the government becomes god.
[The similarities between the current American state and what happens in Communist countries is interestingly explored in the book Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher.]
Some may claim that Christians are trying to force our religion on others as we oppose certain cultural demands, but what they fail to recognize is that atheism is also a belief system. There is no morally neutral opinion or policy in the public sphere. There are certain belief systems that are easier to target and keep out because they recognize a deity like God or Allah or Buddha, etc, but atheism as a religion is sneaky because their god is themselves.
There is a discussion here about who gets to decide what is right, but it is dishonest to claim that Christians are the only ones promoting their own beliefs.
[Jonathan Leeman talks about this important realization in his book How the Nations Rage.]
Secularization is a slow and often subtle process. But if we don’t think critically about the implications of its trajectory, we may find ourselves in a very dangerous and compromised position.
So What Now?
This idea of ‘being on the right side of history’ is noble and right. We want to look back and see that we loved people and took care of them, especially the vulnerable and outcasts. And it is true that the church, along with the rest of humanity past and present, does not have a perfect record of that.
But when Christians start believing that the culture presents the right path more than the Bible, they are deceived.
If 'the right side of history' asks you to tame the word of God to be more palatable and universally acceptable, we must recognize this deception for what it is. God doesn’t need us to ‘fix his mistakes.’ He is not embarrassed by his truth.
Paul was not ashamed of the gospel and neither should we!
We are here to trust God’s design, obey his Word, and preach his truth.
Jesus straight up tells us that the world will hate us because of him. If no one is offended by your beliefs, you have probably traded your Bible in for the Book of Post-Modern Geniality.
Mohler brings up many concerns we have with the culture and religious liberty. But he reminds us that we are not without hope.
The government can’t save us. Laws can’t save us.
The Lord alone saves. And he is sovereign and powerful.
And He promised that he has established his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18) He has faithfully shown us that he preserves a remnant and he protects his people.
Mohler writes this book to remind us of God’s truth and charge us to defend our right to believe it and proclaim it. He writes this book to remind us that God is pro-people and pro-human flourishing. Therefore, his design is best for humanity and when we fight for that design, we are loving our neighbor.
“We must defend the right of Christians, along with all other believers, to be faithful in the public square as well as in the privacy of our own homes, hearts, and churches. We must defend the right to teach our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We must defend the rights of Christian schools to be Christian— and to order our institutions around the Word of God without fearing the crushing power of the state. We must defend the right of generations of those yet unborn, to know the liberties we have known and now defend.”
“[Christians] know why every human life at every age under every condition is precious. We know why truth is truth. We know that sin is what explains the brokenness of the world, and we know just how broken it is, starting with ourselves. We know why marriage can only be the union of a man and a woman, and we know why the family best be respected and protected by any sane civilization. We know why right is right and wrong is wrong. We know that life is not meaningless, and that right is not merely socially constructed and up for negotiation. We know that we are responsible creatures— that one day God will judge us for our every thought and deed.”
Conclusion
I’ve read a lot of books along these guidelines and have tagged them accordingly— browse the ‘Cultural Books’ link below for more. I’ve always appreciated Mohler’s viewpoint in his podcast and helping us understand the world through a biblical perspective.
Likewise, I think this book is a really important book for Christians to read and consider. Capitulating to the demands of our culture is not what God has called us to. The pressure of the culture is great, but the power of the Lord is greater.
At some point, we have to make a choice. We cannot serve two masters.
Mohler will inspire you to defend truth, love people, and put your hope in our sovereign Creator.
“Hope gives us the reason to build a home and live in it. Love gives us the reason to build a home for others, for them to live in. Because we love our neighbor, we work for just laws, for righteousness and justice, for the protection of human life, for the good of our neighbors in all things.”
[Sidenote: Similar to Candace Owens book, Blackout, this book was written in 2020 before the presidential election. Mohler is not hiding the fact that he hopes his presentation will influence the way readers think as they cast their vote. The election is over, but nonetheless, this book will continue to be relevant.]
Additional Quotes:
“The cultural engines of progress driving toward personal autonomy and fulfillment will not stop until the human being is completely self-defining.”
“I am arguing that there can be no sustained defense of religious liberty without intellectual respect for belief in God and cultural respect for religious devotion. Even when Americans claim to rest their argument for liberty, for human rights and human dignity on a secular foundation, they are actually borrowing intellectual capital from Christianity…. we are witnessing the collapse and retreat of any secular notion of human rights and human dignity that would include religious liberty.”
“The secular age writes checks it cannot cash. It claims to uphold human rights even as it undercuts any argument for human dignity and natural rights. It invents new rights (like same-sex marriage) at the expense of fundamental rights (such as religious liberty). It claims a high view of human dignity, but aborts millions of unborn human beings in the womb.”
“No God, no truth. No truths, no liberty. No liberty, and nothing remains but the heel of someone’s boot.”
“The kingdom of Christ will not hide in a political platform.”
“The first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said that the power to tax is the power to destroy.” (This is what’s at stake when politicians threaten to remove tax-exempt status from churches and institutions that express beliefs they don’t agree with and demand they change their beliefs to keep their tax exempt status)
“On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their teaching role in these terms. Their agenda is nothing less than to separate students from their Christian beliefs and their intellectual and moral commitments.” (Surviving Religion 101 is a great book for students going off to these campuses)
“[Celebrities] have the social capital that allows them to influence others— and they are driven by a celebrity culture that now requires them to signal their moral precepts and politics, constantly. These celebrities usually have no expertise nor experience in the complex issues to which they speak.”
“The push of a secular worldview erodes the roles of parents in the upbringing of their children. Case after case, story after story, chronicles the downgrade of parental rights—secularism subverts the authority of parents who refuse to sing its seductive tune. If parents object to secularization, then they must be removed from the equation.”
“Language really matters. The use of language serves as a moral signal, and the moral revolutionaries understand the power of language and the influence words carry. The sexual revolution insists that society must alter its use of language and terms to accommodate its moral agenda.”
“Pornography represents one of the most insidious attacks upon the sanctity of marriage and the goodness of sex within the one-flesh relationship. The celebration of debauchery rather than purity, the elevation of genital pleasure over all other considerations, and the corruption of sexual energy through an inversion of the self, corrupts the idea of marriage, leads to incalculable harm, and subverts marriage and the marital bond.”
“A society that disbelieves in God will eventually disbelieve in marriage.”
“What morally atrocious age have we slipped into where we sacrifice babies on the altar of ‘women’s health, autonomy, and their right to the pursuit of happiness’?”
“While we must never demean the importance of elections nor diminish the responsible stewardship Christians have with their vote, we also dare not believe political victory will secure ultimate and lasting peace. Rescue will not come by mere politics. We do not need a political movement. We need a theological protest.”
Follow me for more content!
Book Review Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/shelfreflection
“Courage could be reckless, and recklessness brought consequences.”
I just went and saw the movie adaptation for Francine River’s most famous book, Redeeming Love. It was fitting then to see this book coming out this year as it also takes place in California’s gold country in the late 1800s.
The setting is the same, but this story is much different. It is a much more lighthearted tale.
This aptly and cleverly titled historical fiction/romance novel follows Kathryn Walsh, sent away from her wealthy stepfather and mother for ‘disturbing their peace’ to make a living in California with the inheritance she received from her uncle. Walsh, adamant about never getting married, gets to her destination of Calvada and meets Matthias Beck who quickly becomes determined to marry her… same as every other mining bachelor in the town.
‘The lady’s mine,’ he tells another suitor.
The second plot thread woven into this title is the aforementioned inheritance which includes a claim to a mine everyone in town assumes is worthless. Kathryn hopes there is more to the mine than meets the eye and that she can use it to help boost the economy and living conditions in the town.
This book has a lot going on!
There is Walsh’s adventure in finding a marketable trade and determination to revamp the newspaper her uncle had run and all the dangers that come with printing unpopular truths.
There is Walsh’s courage and fire in promoting women’s rights and her attempts to help the other women in Calvada in a variety of circumstances, from miner’s widows to brothel workers to abused wives to young single women just arriving in town.
There are the murders of two men in the town— one of which was her uncle from whom she received the inheritance— and what had led to the crimes. Why would someone kill her uncle? Are the two murders connected?
There is the community aspect of what goes into making a mining boom-town prosper and survive during this harsh and unpredictable time period and location. It’s about how one person can impact an entire community for the better or the worse.
And of course, there is the romance that develops between Kathryn and Matthias as he strives to win her obstinate heart and keep her safe as her courage takes her into reckless territory!
Honestly, I feel like this would make a good TV series. I’ve never seen When Calls the Heart, so this could be completely off-base, but it seems like it might be in a similar vein. Unless that show doesn’t have murders, in which case this would be more intense and mysterious.
Knowing the first-wave feminists fought for the right to vote to also promote prohibition, it was interesting to see where Rivers was going to go with Walsh’s strong beliefs in a town that was so centered around saloons and how that affected the women and families of the miners who frequented them.
Kathryn refused to marry because she had seen so many women lose their rights, their property, their voice when they became someone’s wife. I thought Rivers did a good job of promoting proper women’s rights while still maintaining the benefits and goodness of marriage and upholding the high value the Bible attributes to women.
Rivers includes a portion that talks about mishandled Scriptures involving women’s submission and their role in the church and the home. I liked how Kathryn did her own answer searching in the Bible and discovered what is true. There was definitely more to be considered in this discussion but a novel isn’t really the place for that. What was included felt sufficient.
One observation I’ll make here is that in both this and Redeeming Love there is a man who is determined to marry the woman. And I could see some thinking, ‘Uh, they’re a little pushy, leave the gal alone!’
But with Redeeming Love she is depicting the relentless pursuit of God for us when we push him away believing ourselves to be worthless and too unclean for him to love us.
In The Lady’s Mine Matthias is a bit pushy, but Kathryn has feelings for him that she’s trying to deny and he can tell. There are definitely some other pushy males in the book but they’re sketch and we are right to tell them to back off! Matthias is the type of man that would be a husband who would help his wife thrive, not try to suppress or control her. So we root for them.
I’ve said this before— romance is not my typical go-to genre, but I enjoyed this book. I liked the historical setting. I felt invested and engaged in the story and was able to visualize the world Rivers created. I also thought the Christian romance aspect of it was tastefully done and not too cheesy.
Rivers is good at depicting hard realities and passion without being graphic or using swear words. I’m glad for that.
If you’ve already read Francine Rivers and like her other books, I think you’ll like this.
If you’ve never read Francine Rivers but enjoy historical fiction and/or romance novels, I think you should give it a try!
[Sidenote: I guess if I had a criticism for this book it would be that she kept using ‘fillip’ when she said things like Kathryn’s heart did a ‘fillip.’ The actual definition of this word is appropriate for how she used it but I feel like she should have just said ‘flip.’ I felt like I was hiccuping when I read it in my head.]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
I just went and saw the movie adaptation for Francine River’s most famous book, Redeeming Love. It was fitting then to see this book coming out this year as it also takes place in California’s gold country in the late 1800s.
The setting is the same, but this story is much different. It is a much more lighthearted tale.
This aptly and cleverly titled historical fiction/romance novel follows Kathryn Walsh, sent away from her wealthy stepfather and mother for ‘disturbing their peace’ to make a living in California with the inheritance she received from her uncle. Walsh, adamant about never getting married, gets to her destination of Calvada and meets Matthias Beck who quickly becomes determined to marry her… same as every other mining bachelor in the town.
‘The lady’s mine,’ he tells another suitor.
The second plot thread woven into this title is the aforementioned inheritance which includes a claim to a mine everyone in town assumes is worthless. Kathryn hopes there is more to the mine than meets the eye and that she can use it to help boost the economy and living conditions in the town.
This book has a lot going on!
There is Walsh’s adventure in finding a marketable trade and determination to revamp the newspaper her uncle had run and all the dangers that come with printing unpopular truths.
There is Walsh’s courage and fire in promoting women’s rights and her attempts to help the other women in Calvada in a variety of circumstances, from miner’s widows to brothel workers to abused wives to young single women just arriving in town.
There are the murders of two men in the town— one of which was her uncle from whom she received the inheritance— and what had led to the crimes. Why would someone kill her uncle? Are the two murders connected?
There is the community aspect of what goes into making a mining boom-town prosper and survive during this harsh and unpredictable time period and location. It’s about how one person can impact an entire community for the better or the worse.
And of course, there is the romance that develops between Kathryn and Matthias as he strives to win her obstinate heart and keep her safe as her courage takes her into reckless territory!
Honestly, I feel like this would make a good TV series. I’ve never seen When Calls the Heart, so this could be completely off-base, but it seems like it might be in a similar vein. Unless that show doesn’t have murders, in which case this would be more intense and mysterious.
Knowing the first-wave feminists fought for the right to vote to also promote prohibition, it was interesting to see where Rivers was going to go with Walsh’s strong beliefs in a town that was so centered around saloons and how that affected the women and families of the miners who frequented them.
Kathryn refused to marry because she had seen so many women lose their rights, their property, their voice when they became someone’s wife. I thought Rivers did a good job of promoting proper women’s rights while still maintaining the benefits and goodness of marriage and upholding the high value the Bible attributes to women.
Rivers includes a portion that talks about mishandled Scriptures involving women’s submission and their role in the church and the home. I liked how Kathryn did her own answer searching in the Bible and discovered what is true. There was definitely more to be considered in this discussion but a novel isn’t really the place for that. What was included felt sufficient.
One observation I’ll make here is that in both this and Redeeming Love there is a man who is determined to marry the woman. And I could see some thinking, ‘Uh, they’re a little pushy, leave the gal alone!’
But with Redeeming Love she is depicting the relentless pursuit of God for us when we push him away believing ourselves to be worthless and too unclean for him to love us.
In The Lady’s Mine Matthias is a bit pushy, but Kathryn has feelings for him that she’s trying to deny and he can tell. There are definitely some other pushy males in the book but they’re sketch and we are right to tell them to back off! Matthias is the type of man that would be a husband who would help his wife thrive, not try to suppress or control her. So we root for them.
I’ve said this before— romance is not my typical go-to genre, but I enjoyed this book. I liked the historical setting. I felt invested and engaged in the story and was able to visualize the world Rivers created. I also thought the Christian romance aspect of it was tastefully done and not too cheesy.
Rivers is good at depicting hard realities and passion without being graphic or using swear words. I’m glad for that.
If you’ve already read Francine Rivers and like her other books, I think you’ll like this.
If you’ve never read Francine Rivers but enjoy historical fiction and/or romance novels, I think you should give it a try!
[Sidenote: I guess if I had a criticism for this book it would be that she kept using ‘fillip’ when she said things like Kathryn’s heart did a ‘fillip.’ The actual definition of this word is appropriate for how she used it but I feel like she should have just said ‘flip.’ I felt like I was hiccuping when I read it in my head.]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
The deer and the antelope took a backseat to Offerman’s pretentious politics that were salivating to get their chance to roam on the range.
This book is Nick Offerman sitting atop his high horse, thesaurus in hand, shouting ‘NUANCE’ and ranting about straight white males, racism, money, Republicans, climate change, Covid, and mass-produced beef in between his frequent use of swear words and Aldo Leopold references and infrequent recountings of national parks.
If Chris Pratt or Aubrey Plaza ever write a book, I might need to avoid it because both Nick Offerman’s and Amy Poehler’s (Yes, Please) books were disappointing!
I’m a fan of Ron Swanson. His pyramid of greatness held a prominent position at my desk when I worked. When you read this book you’ll hear Swanson’s voice— Offerman bears a lot of personality resemblance to his Parks and Rec character.
Though I picked this book to fulfill a reading challenge, I was looking forward to humor and the exploration of national parks and nature. I didn’t expect to agree with his politics and would not have minded some of his opinions incorporated into this book.
But man, this book failed on all three accounts:
Lack of Humor
His attempts at humor felt forced and trying-too-hard. His overuse of big and unnecessary words made his attempts at humor quite pretentious. I love words and big vocabularies so for me to be annoyed by his writing style in this way is saying a lot!
His humor either relied on obnoxiously worded sentences, an abundance of swear words, use of millennial slang, or name-dropping that didn’t mean anything to me.
The few parts I found funny were when he was making fun of radio ads and guys who aggressively rev their engines and his chapter called Sedona Blows where he highlights how ‘awful’ Sedona is and how much no one would ever want to visit such a ‘terrible and ugly place.’ I’ve been there, and I agree… Stay away from Sedona.
Lack of Nature
I love nature. I guess probably not as much as Nick Offerman. But I usually prefer vacations with hiking rather than urban tourist traps. I thought I was going to get more anecdotes and information about various National Parks that would remind me why I love to walk in God’s creation.
He says that nature “needs to be meditated on, not an attraction to view from the car.” I agree. Unfortunately, his book didn’t get his memo because there is not much meditation.
The first few chapters were more focused on nature and we hear about a few hikes and a whitewater rafting trip. Another chapter talks about a friend’s small family farm.
But even those chapters were often overshadowed by his ranting rabbit trails. He can’t help himself. I’m pretty sure his politics are more important to him than nature.
Also, he was really annoyed by families on the trails with young kids and their “constant” yelling at their kids to stay on the trail and to stop putting stuff in their mouths. Offerman doesn’t have kids, that is quite obvious. He wants everyone to appreciate nature, but that’s not necessarily an innate trait. If we want to teach our kids to love nature, we have to TAKE them to nature. And the nature of kids is to run off the trail and put everything in their mouth. What does he want from us?!
I found it interesting that he says this: “I appreciate a regular reminder from Mother Nature that, because her power is unfathomable, and her whims unpredictable, she demands the utmost respect. Humans like me who operate deep within the protective shell of civilization can easily forget that we are not ultimately in charge of things on planet Earth.”
Obviously I don’t believe in ‘Mother Nature’ and I don’t know if Offerman believes in God, but he is confirming what the Bible tells us:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1)
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7-10)
Though he may not voice it in these terms, he recognizes that we are finite creatures that should stand in awe and worship our sovereign Creator.
“The disciples were amazed. ‘Who is this man?’ they asked. ‘Even the winds and waves obey him!’” (Matthew 8:27)
The power of nature, which is under the power of God, reveals to us our Creator and that is why nature is so mesmerizing!
Bold and Baseless Politics
This book is exhibit A on why America is so divided.
We do not need to all have the same politics. We have the right to state our opinion and share our thoughts. We need to be able to accept criticism and improve our beliefs where they are weak or misinformed, and we need to be unoffendable when people disagree with us.
But Offerman is operating from a very strong belief that Republicans are all that’s wrong with the world and Democrats are the only ones doing the right things for the right motives. While there are truths to certain remarks he makes, he leaves no grace for anyone who thinks differently than him.
He says, “Most of the intelligent people I run into agree on what are the big-ticket, modern questions to which we should be devoting our collective attention.”
This, among many quotes I could include imply or directly state that those who do not agree with him are idiots.
Yet, not once does he provide any evidence or support for his beliefs. He sounds like a megaphone for the mainstream narrative. He says he avoids Fox and gets his news and information from CNN and NPR and you absolutely know it because he spouts it off to a T.
He mentions the right-wing propaganda machine. And I won’t deny that there is misinformation and manipulation on both sides of the aisle, but it’s a bit ironic that he points out right-wing propaganda while espousing every single belief the left wants people to uphold.
Thaddeus Williams provides three trademarks of propaganda in his book- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. Propaganda:
- Offers a highly edited history that paints the most damning picture it can of a given people group
- Encourages us to treat individual neighbors as exemplars of their damnable group
- Gives us a way to blame all of life’s troubles on that damnable group and its members
Williams points out that these three things were used to oppress black people in history past. But they are being re-employed today. We recognize these marks in the identity groups being constructed. And I definitely see this in Offerman’s portrayal of Republicans, Christians, or straight white males.
Williams reminds us:
“Telling damnable stories about entire people groups, seeing individuals as exemplars of their groups, and blaming the hardness of life on them are really bad ideas.”
Here are just a few problematic things Offerman says in his book:
- “The path to justice and equality for all Americans and ultimately all earthlings is going to require all of us safe, white, unoppressed softies to shut the h*** up…”
He thinks to acquire justice and equality for all the earth requires white people to stop talking? That seems pretty illogical. The world is more than America. The injustices happening in the Middle East and India and China will only be fixed if white people shut up? Explain that to me. He should probably take this down a notch.
- ‘Conservative’ politics (which is a polite term for discriminatory culture… white ethno-state…”
The irony in this book is amazing. He is pro-land-conservation and says, “In so many ways that are referred to as ‘progress’, we happily leave behind such an incredible wealth of accrued human knowledge.” Of course he’s referring to farming practices, yet rejects this idea when it comes to conserving the Constitution. Apparently he doesn’t see how progressive politics leaves behind a wealth of human knowledge and experience. Conserving land=excellent, conserving the Constitution and tradition=discriminatory racism and evil.
- “…white culture that has been in power so long has been wrong in almost every way, and finding out what actually is right will require a lot of listening and then the instituting of new ideas.”
‘Wrong in almost every way’? That’s a bold statement. Wrong in a lot of ways, sure. But this is a gross exaggeration. Also, could you explain to me what white culture is?
- “[the political party he ascribes to- aka the Democrats] are the ones striving continuously toward an actual democracy while doing its best to ensure every citizen has state-funded health care and have come under fire to see one form of empathy or another delivered to some group that is being victimized in some way. The heart of their efforts is out of compassion. The Republicans are open about their desire to see the liberals suffer pain, violence, or death.”
Here is a classic example of how he attributes anything good to Democrats and gives them pure motives and then attributes everything bad to Republicans and gives them evil motives. But I think we can all agree that the majority of people are pro-justice and pro-human-flourishing. We just disagree on how that is achieved.
Granted there is a lot of inappropriate trash talk and vitriol being slung by BOTH sides. But we cannot paint people with broad strokes and assume the worst of people because of their ‘groups’ that we are wrongly lumping everyone into as if that organizes the world in a healthy and beneficial way.
Here is a fair assessment of the two major political parties given by author, Jonathan Leeman, in his excellent book How the Nations Rage. It’s long but it speaks to our need to see the good in our ‘opposition’ and see places for improvement in ourselves:
“Let me give you my own evaluation of the two main American parties… A biblical strength of the Republican Party is its emphasis on personal responsibility and not looking to government as a service provider. A biblical strength of the Democratic party is its interest in representing the disenfranchised and downcast. An idolatrous trajectory of the Republican Party is its tendency toward an amoral libertarianism, which can function according to the utlilitarian principle of sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. Its good emphasis on individual responsibility can overlook larger structural realities and deny implicit biases. And these blind spots or idolatries—and it can be one or the other—end up leaving behind the poor, the foreigner, or the minority. This is unjust. An idolatrous trajectory of the Democratic party is toward a secular godlessness that literally boos God at its national convention while also treating government as the godlike savior for all of life’s ills. Many in the party have bought into the god of self-definition and self-expression, a religion that denounces and screens out biblical morality. The party’s platform and practices prize the “liberty” of sexuality and lifestyle decisions over the life and liberty of an unborn person.”
Offerman has a lot of ideas of how justice and equality are achieved. He has a lot of thoughts on agriculture and farming. But as with a lot of democratic policies I’ve seen proposed— they look good on paper and they sound pleasant to the ear, but they are not practical or sustainable.
Sure, it would be great if we could all eat organic food and if the animals we are eating didn’t have to live in cages and if the entire country’s agriculture could run like a small family farm. But how can we achieve this? How can we try to stop world hunger and lower the prices of food for those who are pinching pennies if we do that?
There is, indeed, an obsession of money, but Offerman wants to make billionaires pay to “mend our errant industrial methods.” People who want to keep taxing the rich and make them pay more money for everything don’t understand how the economy works. That de-incentivizes people to make money. It’s, again, a little ironic he makes these claims because Hollywood actors get paid millions for their work but they don’t really create new jobs. The Jeff Bezos’ of the world make a lot of money but then they create hundreds of jobs for others to build wealth. Sorry, Nick Offerman, everything can’t be free.
It would be really great if we could live in a world where everyone has lots of money and land and organic food and everything is equal and everyone lives according to this ambiguous sense of ‘decency’ Offerman believes everyone should agree upon. But unlike popular opinion, people are not inherently good. People’s sin nature causes corruption and indecency and taking advantage of others. (If you don’t believe me, have kids. They don’t need to be taught to be selfish or to hit or to take what they want when they want it.) Not to mention, I don’t know how he thinks everyone agrees on what ‘decent’ means.
Communist governments have tried to make all things ‘fair’ and ‘equal’ and we see where that leads to. As much as people seem to adore government mandates these days— they do not promote freedom, they promote dangerous precedents and they kill the economy.
I will be the first to say that I don’t know a whole lot about economics, and far less about agriculture (GMOs and pesticides and such) but there was nothing in this book that did any persuading or convincing. I will keep learning and see if there’s a way to accomplish what Offerman wants to do, but the things he portrayed in this was book were told like this- “We need to do this because it’s right and it should be obvious to you and if you don’t agree you are dumb and you hate people and want to see them cry.”
I think it’s funny that all of these celebrities speak out on complex issues as if we care what they have to say. What credentials do they have to tell us what is going on in the world and how to fix it? They have a big platform and they reach a lot of people but that doesn’t mean we accept what they say as fact. How much studying have they really done?
Truth is not always the loudest or most popular voice.
Offerman offered his opinions but there wasn’t much that told me it was true.
Is There Anything Good?
The cover art, for one!
There’s always SOMETHING you can learn from even the worst books.
What I think is a really interesting thing to reflect on that he touches on in this book, is the insane consumerism that America is drenched in. Everyone used to be producers. Their farms and their homes were their places of work. The industrial revolution brought about factories and work moved outside the home. Technological advancements have made things easier and cheaper but what have we lost along the way?
It doesn’t seem like we can stop technological advancements and it doesn’t seem like we can go back. So how do we live in the world today and still be producers instead of consumers? And how does this fit into a biblical worldview where we have less and less to rely on God for and we start controlling more and more of our life?
Another positive was this quote: “I feel like we can encourage one another to invest in human beings instead of billionaire yachts that remain docked and shockingly expensive hot rods that nobody gets to drive.”
Totally! I recognize the need for governments and the forces of an economy to focus on money, but as individuals, we need to steward our time and resources to help and care for others. Just because I don’t want the government to mandate all chicken farming to be free-range doesn’t mean I expect everyone to fend for themselves.
As the body of Christ, we need to watch out for each other and provide for others when we can. This is a huge role of the church (which I might also add in here that many Democrats would like to take away tax-exempt statuses from churches who will not comply with their ideology and belief system and thus destroy churches and their ability to help others financially, so there’s that to consider.)
So the good takeaways from this book are as follows: love and care for God’s creation which includes both nature and people; and stop buying all the crap you don’t need so people stop making crap we don’t need. (I’m obviously guilty of this one on the regular…)
Conclusion
Offerman shattered the peaceful range and introduced a divisive book that feels rather pointless though it’s clear he believes his thesaurasized words to be utterly important.
If you want to read this book for the humor— it’s scarce. (Thus, it’s nomination for Best Humor is misplaced.)
If you want to read this book for the reflections and descriptions of nature— they’re scarce.
If you want to read this book because you love bold, brash politics that lack grace and support, well, I guess you might enjoy it.
But overall, I can’t think of a reason anyone would want to read this long, misleading, and unnecessary book.
I have heard good things about his book The Greatest Love Story Ever Told and I may try that one. But if it has even half of the coarse language as this book, I will have to pass.
Find a funnier book.
For something that’s actually about nature read Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton. Something tells me it might be better.
To figure out your politics read some books that are more scholarly and actually present evidence and intelligent logic to go along with their opinions.
And if you want more Nick Offerman, just watch Parks and Rec and call it good.
P.S. When did ‘lousy’ become a positive adjective??
This book is Nick Offerman sitting atop his high horse, thesaurus in hand, shouting ‘NUANCE’ and ranting about straight white males, racism, money, Republicans, climate change, Covid, and mass-produced beef in between his frequent use of swear words and Aldo Leopold references and infrequent recountings of national parks.
If Chris Pratt or Aubrey Plaza ever write a book, I might need to avoid it because both Nick Offerman’s and Amy Poehler’s (Yes, Please) books were disappointing!
I’m a fan of Ron Swanson. His pyramid of greatness held a prominent position at my desk when I worked. When you read this book you’ll hear Swanson’s voice— Offerman bears a lot of personality resemblance to his Parks and Rec character.
Though I picked this book to fulfill a reading challenge, I was looking forward to humor and the exploration of national parks and nature. I didn’t expect to agree with his politics and would not have minded some of his opinions incorporated into this book.
But man, this book failed on all three accounts:
Lack of Humor
His attempts at humor felt forced and trying-too-hard. His overuse of big and unnecessary words made his attempts at humor quite pretentious. I love words and big vocabularies so for me to be annoyed by his writing style in this way is saying a lot!
His humor either relied on obnoxiously worded sentences, an abundance of swear words, use of millennial slang, or name-dropping that didn’t mean anything to me.
The few parts I found funny were when he was making fun of radio ads and guys who aggressively rev their engines and his chapter called Sedona Blows where he highlights how ‘awful’ Sedona is and how much no one would ever want to visit such a ‘terrible and ugly place.’ I’ve been there, and I agree… Stay away from Sedona.
Lack of Nature
I love nature. I guess probably not as much as Nick Offerman. But I usually prefer vacations with hiking rather than urban tourist traps. I thought I was going to get more anecdotes and information about various National Parks that would remind me why I love to walk in God’s creation.
He says that nature “needs to be meditated on, not an attraction to view from the car.” I agree. Unfortunately, his book didn’t get his memo because there is not much meditation.
The first few chapters were more focused on nature and we hear about a few hikes and a whitewater rafting trip. Another chapter talks about a friend’s small family farm.
But even those chapters were often overshadowed by his ranting rabbit trails. He can’t help himself. I’m pretty sure his politics are more important to him than nature.
Also, he was really annoyed by families on the trails with young kids and their “constant” yelling at their kids to stay on the trail and to stop putting stuff in their mouths. Offerman doesn’t have kids, that is quite obvious. He wants everyone to appreciate nature, but that’s not necessarily an innate trait. If we want to teach our kids to love nature, we have to TAKE them to nature. And the nature of kids is to run off the trail and put everything in their mouth. What does he want from us?!
I found it interesting that he says this: “I appreciate a regular reminder from Mother Nature that, because her power is unfathomable, and her whims unpredictable, she demands the utmost respect. Humans like me who operate deep within the protective shell of civilization can easily forget that we are not ultimately in charge of things on planet Earth.”
Obviously I don’t believe in ‘Mother Nature’ and I don’t know if Offerman believes in God, but he is confirming what the Bible tells us:
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1)
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)
“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” (Job 12:7-10)
Though he may not voice it in these terms, he recognizes that we are finite creatures that should stand in awe and worship our sovereign Creator.
“The disciples were amazed. ‘Who is this man?’ they asked. ‘Even the winds and waves obey him!’” (Matthew 8:27)
The power of nature, which is under the power of God, reveals to us our Creator and that is why nature is so mesmerizing!
Bold and Baseless Politics
This book is exhibit A on why America is so divided.
We do not need to all have the same politics. We have the right to state our opinion and share our thoughts. We need to be able to accept criticism and improve our beliefs where they are weak or misinformed, and we need to be unoffendable when people disagree with us.
But Offerman is operating from a very strong belief that Republicans are all that’s wrong with the world and Democrats are the only ones doing the right things for the right motives. While there are truths to certain remarks he makes, he leaves no grace for anyone who thinks differently than him.
He says, “Most of the intelligent people I run into agree on what are the big-ticket, modern questions to which we should be devoting our collective attention.”
This, among many quotes I could include imply or directly state that those who do not agree with him are idiots.
Yet, not once does he provide any evidence or support for his beliefs. He sounds like a megaphone for the mainstream narrative. He says he avoids Fox and gets his news and information from CNN and NPR and you absolutely know it because he spouts it off to a T.
He mentions the right-wing propaganda machine. And I won’t deny that there is misinformation and manipulation on both sides of the aisle, but it’s a bit ironic that he points out right-wing propaganda while espousing every single belief the left wants people to uphold.
Thaddeus Williams provides three trademarks of propaganda in his book- Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. Propaganda:
- Offers a highly edited history that paints the most damning picture it can of a given people group
- Encourages us to treat individual neighbors as exemplars of their damnable group
- Gives us a way to blame all of life’s troubles on that damnable group and its members
Williams points out that these three things were used to oppress black people in history past. But they are being re-employed today. We recognize these marks in the identity groups being constructed. And I definitely see this in Offerman’s portrayal of Republicans, Christians, or straight white males.
Williams reminds us:
“Telling damnable stories about entire people groups, seeing individuals as exemplars of their groups, and blaming the hardness of life on them are really bad ideas.”
Here are just a few problematic things Offerman says in his book:
- “The path to justice and equality for all Americans and ultimately all earthlings is going to require all of us safe, white, unoppressed softies to shut the h*** up…”
He thinks to acquire justice and equality for all the earth requires white people to stop talking? That seems pretty illogical. The world is more than America. The injustices happening in the Middle East and India and China will only be fixed if white people shut up? Explain that to me. He should probably take this down a notch.
- ‘Conservative’ politics (which is a polite term for discriminatory culture… white ethno-state…”
The irony in this book is amazing. He is pro-land-conservation and says, “In so many ways that are referred to as ‘progress’, we happily leave behind such an incredible wealth of accrued human knowledge.” Of course he’s referring to farming practices, yet rejects this idea when it comes to conserving the Constitution. Apparently he doesn’t see how progressive politics leaves behind a wealth of human knowledge and experience. Conserving land=excellent, conserving the Constitution and tradition=discriminatory racism and evil.
- “…white culture that has been in power so long has been wrong in almost every way, and finding out what actually is right will require a lot of listening and then the instituting of new ideas.”
‘Wrong in almost every way’? That’s a bold statement. Wrong in a lot of ways, sure. But this is a gross exaggeration. Also, could you explain to me what white culture is?
- “[the political party he ascribes to- aka the Democrats] are the ones striving continuously toward an actual democracy while doing its best to ensure every citizen has state-funded health care and have come under fire to see one form of empathy or another delivered to some group that is being victimized in some way. The heart of their efforts is out of compassion. The Republicans are open about their desire to see the liberals suffer pain, violence, or death.”
Here is a classic example of how he attributes anything good to Democrats and gives them pure motives and then attributes everything bad to Republicans and gives them evil motives. But I think we can all agree that the majority of people are pro-justice and pro-human-flourishing. We just disagree on how that is achieved.
Granted there is a lot of inappropriate trash talk and vitriol being slung by BOTH sides. But we cannot paint people with broad strokes and assume the worst of people because of their ‘groups’ that we are wrongly lumping everyone into as if that organizes the world in a healthy and beneficial way.
Here is a fair assessment of the two major political parties given by author, Jonathan Leeman, in his excellent book How the Nations Rage. It’s long but it speaks to our need to see the good in our ‘opposition’ and see places for improvement in ourselves:
“Let me give you my own evaluation of the two main American parties… A biblical strength of the Republican Party is its emphasis on personal responsibility and not looking to government as a service provider. A biblical strength of the Democratic party is its interest in representing the disenfranchised and downcast. An idolatrous trajectory of the Republican Party is its tendency toward an amoral libertarianism, which can function according to the utlilitarian principle of sacrificing the few for the sake of the many. Its good emphasis on individual responsibility can overlook larger structural realities and deny implicit biases. And these blind spots or idolatries—and it can be one or the other—end up leaving behind the poor, the foreigner, or the minority. This is unjust. An idolatrous trajectory of the Democratic party is toward a secular godlessness that literally boos God at its national convention while also treating government as the godlike savior for all of life’s ills. Many in the party have bought into the god of self-definition and self-expression, a religion that denounces and screens out biblical morality. The party’s platform and practices prize the “liberty” of sexuality and lifestyle decisions over the life and liberty of an unborn person.”
Offerman has a lot of ideas of how justice and equality are achieved. He has a lot of thoughts on agriculture and farming. But as with a lot of democratic policies I’ve seen proposed— they look good on paper and they sound pleasant to the ear, but they are not practical or sustainable.
Sure, it would be great if we could all eat organic food and if the animals we are eating didn’t have to live in cages and if the entire country’s agriculture could run like a small family farm. But how can we achieve this? How can we try to stop world hunger and lower the prices of food for those who are pinching pennies if we do that?
There is, indeed, an obsession of money, but Offerman wants to make billionaires pay to “mend our errant industrial methods.” People who want to keep taxing the rich and make them pay more money for everything don’t understand how the economy works. That de-incentivizes people to make money. It’s, again, a little ironic he makes these claims because Hollywood actors get paid millions for their work but they don’t really create new jobs. The Jeff Bezos’ of the world make a lot of money but then they create hundreds of jobs for others to build wealth. Sorry, Nick Offerman, everything can’t be free.
It would be really great if we could live in a world where everyone has lots of money and land and organic food and everything is equal and everyone lives according to this ambiguous sense of ‘decency’ Offerman believes everyone should agree upon. But unlike popular opinion, people are not inherently good. People’s sin nature causes corruption and indecency and taking advantage of others. (If you don’t believe me, have kids. They don’t need to be taught to be selfish or to hit or to take what they want when they want it.) Not to mention, I don’t know how he thinks everyone agrees on what ‘decent’ means.
Communist governments have tried to make all things ‘fair’ and ‘equal’ and we see where that leads to. As much as people seem to adore government mandates these days— they do not promote freedom, they promote dangerous precedents and they kill the economy.
I will be the first to say that I don’t know a whole lot about economics, and far less about agriculture (GMOs and pesticides and such) but there was nothing in this book that did any persuading or convincing. I will keep learning and see if there’s a way to accomplish what Offerman wants to do, but the things he portrayed in this was book were told like this- “We need to do this because it’s right and it should be obvious to you and if you don’t agree you are dumb and you hate people and want to see them cry.”
I think it’s funny that all of these celebrities speak out on complex issues as if we care what they have to say. What credentials do they have to tell us what is going on in the world and how to fix it? They have a big platform and they reach a lot of people but that doesn’t mean we accept what they say as fact. How much studying have they really done?
Truth is not always the loudest or most popular voice.
Offerman offered his opinions but there wasn’t much that told me it was true.
Is There Anything Good?
The cover art, for one!
There’s always SOMETHING you can learn from even the worst books.
What I think is a really interesting thing to reflect on that he touches on in this book, is the insane consumerism that America is drenched in. Everyone used to be producers. Their farms and their homes were their places of work. The industrial revolution brought about factories and work moved outside the home. Technological advancements have made things easier and cheaper but what have we lost along the way?
It doesn’t seem like we can stop technological advancements and it doesn’t seem like we can go back. So how do we live in the world today and still be producers instead of consumers? And how does this fit into a biblical worldview where we have less and less to rely on God for and we start controlling more and more of our life?
Another positive was this quote: “I feel like we can encourage one another to invest in human beings instead of billionaire yachts that remain docked and shockingly expensive hot rods that nobody gets to drive.”
Totally! I recognize the need for governments and the forces of an economy to focus on money, but as individuals, we need to steward our time and resources to help and care for others. Just because I don’t want the government to mandate all chicken farming to be free-range doesn’t mean I expect everyone to fend for themselves.
As the body of Christ, we need to watch out for each other and provide for others when we can. This is a huge role of the church (which I might also add in here that many Democrats would like to take away tax-exempt statuses from churches who will not comply with their ideology and belief system and thus destroy churches and their ability to help others financially, so there’s that to consider.)
So the good takeaways from this book are as follows: love and care for God’s creation which includes both nature and people; and stop buying all the crap you don’t need so people stop making crap we don’t need. (I’m obviously guilty of this one on the regular…)
Conclusion
Offerman shattered the peaceful range and introduced a divisive book that feels rather pointless though it’s clear he believes his thesaurasized words to be utterly important.
If you want to read this book for the humor— it’s scarce. (Thus, it’s nomination for Best Humor is misplaced.)
If you want to read this book for the reflections and descriptions of nature— they’re scarce.
If you want to read this book because you love bold, brash politics that lack grace and support, well, I guess you might enjoy it.
But overall, I can’t think of a reason anyone would want to read this long, misleading, and unnecessary book.
I have heard good things about his book The Greatest Love Story Ever Told and I may try that one. But if it has even half of the coarse language as this book, I will have to pass.
Find a funnier book.
For something that’s actually about nature read Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton. Something tells me it might be better.
To figure out your politics read some books that are more scholarly and actually present evidence and intelligent logic to go along with their opinions.
And if you want more Nick Offerman, just watch Parks and Rec and call it good.
P.S. When did ‘lousy’ become a positive adjective??
“She was the runaway, the prodigal daughter who had split when the going got tough.”
“Juniper harbored the fear that she hadn’t left of her own free will—she’d been pushed out.”
Baart writes what she knows, which includes Northwest Iowa living! I grew up there too, so small rural farming town resonates with me.
As I’m realizing with Baart’s previous books I’ve read (Little Broken Things and You Were Always Mine) she writes a slower story but the mystery is always there. And familial relationships are a big part of her storyline.
In Everything We Didn’t Say, we have alternating chapters Winter- present day and Summer- 14.5 years ago.
Juniper has returned to her hometown of Jericho to help her friend and mentor with the town library, but her ulterior motives involve the unsolved murders of her childhood neighbors all those years ago.
The Murphys were murdered her senior year of high school and her brother was the prime suspect. No convictions would stick but in a small town, it’s hard to shake the reputation. Add to that a renewed interest in this case in the form of a podcast that has surfaced, determined to bring down her brother.
As with all stereotypical small towns, everyone has a secret to hide— including Juniper.
When an accident leaves her brother in a coma, the stakes get even higher. Someone has it out for her brother and if secrets don’t start getting revealed, she may never have a chance to repair all the relationships she needs to and get to the bottom of that fateful night that is still a little blurry in her memory.
The alternating time periods slowly expose what happened that summer that has led to Juniper’s current situation.
Many reviewers didn’t like this, but I thought it was an effective way to build the suspense. I didn’t think it was annoying. I felt it helped develop the characters.
I admit, it did take me a little bit to get into the story. I felt a bit thrown into it trying to get my bearings on what was happening and what the vibe was. But the disorientation was short-lived and I engaged and read the story pretty quickly.
I also felt like she wrapped it up a little too abruptly in the end. I suppose it makes sense to leave some of the questions open-ended for us to fill in the blanks, but it seemed like we jumped right from the climax to the epilogue which occurred a couple months after.
Some reviewers pointed out that there wasn’t much to the podcast aspect of the story and that they wished she had fleshed that out more. I read The Night Swim by Megan Goldin which also incorporates a true-crime podcast, and even though I wanted more from Goldin’s podcast, she gave us more than Baart did. I agree that more on the podcast would have strengthened the story.
A couple things I reflected on as I read was the name of the town- Jericho. It is a fictional town so Baart had to have picked the name deliberately. In the Bible as the Israelites were set to enter the Promised Land, Jericho was the first obstacle they had to conquer. I wonder if Baart envisioned Juniper coming back to her ‘promised land’ (aka coming back for her estranged daughter and repair their relationship) and she had to overcome the obstacle of the unsolved Jericho murders that plagued her life and triggered her separation from her daughter.
Another thought was that Jericho was defeated by the walls falling down. With all the secrets bound up in Jericho, Juniper had to pull the walls down that hid those secrets. People had to be honest and vulnerable to get to the truth. They had to say all the things that they hadn’t said before. When the walls came down, the truth came out, and people were restored.
Lastly, I reflected on the contrast of summer and winter. Baart intentionally labeled each corresponding time period not only with the year differentiated but with the season marked— summer or winter. The murders happened in the heat of summer with the heat of romance and the heat of anger. As she comes back years later with relationships on the rocks, there is cold isolation, she is frozen in time, stuck in the mystery of the past, lacking close relationships. The iciness that flowed from that fateful night has to be thawed.
I don’t know what Baart’s intentions and frame of mind was in writing those things, but it would make an interesting book club discussion!
All in all, I did enjoy this book and would recommend it. I will continue to read her books!
[Sidenote: I just read Nick Offerman’s book Where the Deer and the Antelope Play which briefly discusses pesticides and their effect on the land, water, and environment. I thought it was interesting that that was an important piece to the puzzle of this novel! Apparently I didn’t absorb much agricultural knowledge from my many years because it made me ponder many questions about farming practices today and what is actually happening back home. It has spurred me to do a little research!]
“Juniper harbored the fear that she hadn’t left of her own free will—she’d been pushed out.”
Baart writes what she knows, which includes Northwest Iowa living! I grew up there too, so small rural farming town resonates with me.
As I’m realizing with Baart’s previous books I’ve read (Little Broken Things and You Were Always Mine) she writes a slower story but the mystery is always there. And familial relationships are a big part of her storyline.
In Everything We Didn’t Say, we have alternating chapters Winter- present day and Summer- 14.5 years ago.
Juniper has returned to her hometown of Jericho to help her friend and mentor with the town library, but her ulterior motives involve the unsolved murders of her childhood neighbors all those years ago.
The Murphys were murdered her senior year of high school and her brother was the prime suspect. No convictions would stick but in a small town, it’s hard to shake the reputation. Add to that a renewed interest in this case in the form of a podcast that has surfaced, determined to bring down her brother.
As with all stereotypical small towns, everyone has a secret to hide— including Juniper.
When an accident leaves her brother in a coma, the stakes get even higher. Someone has it out for her brother and if secrets don’t start getting revealed, she may never have a chance to repair all the relationships she needs to and get to the bottom of that fateful night that is still a little blurry in her memory.
The alternating time periods slowly expose what happened that summer that has led to Juniper’s current situation.
Many reviewers didn’t like this, but I thought it was an effective way to build the suspense. I didn’t think it was annoying. I felt it helped develop the characters.
I admit, it did take me a little bit to get into the story. I felt a bit thrown into it trying to get my bearings on what was happening and what the vibe was. But the disorientation was short-lived and I engaged and read the story pretty quickly.
I also felt like she wrapped it up a little too abruptly in the end. I suppose it makes sense to leave some of the questions open-ended for us to fill in the blanks, but it seemed like we jumped right from the climax to the epilogue which occurred a couple months after.
Some reviewers pointed out that there wasn’t much to the podcast aspect of the story and that they wished she had fleshed that out more. I read The Night Swim by Megan Goldin which also incorporates a true-crime podcast, and even though I wanted more from Goldin’s podcast, she gave us more than Baart did. I agree that more on the podcast would have strengthened the story.
A couple things I reflected on as I read was the name of the town- Jericho. It is a fictional town so Baart had to have picked the name deliberately. In the Bible as the Israelites were set to enter the Promised Land, Jericho was the first obstacle they had to conquer. I wonder if Baart envisioned Juniper coming back to her ‘promised land’ (aka coming back for her estranged daughter and repair their relationship) and she had to overcome the obstacle of the unsolved Jericho murders that plagued her life and triggered her separation from her daughter.
Another thought was that Jericho was defeated by the walls falling down. With all the secrets bound up in Jericho, Juniper had to pull the walls down that hid those secrets. People had to be honest and vulnerable to get to the truth. They had to say all the things that they hadn’t said before. When the walls came down, the truth came out, and people were restored.
Lastly, I reflected on the contrast of summer and winter. Baart intentionally labeled each corresponding time period not only with the year differentiated but with the season marked— summer or winter. The murders happened in the heat of summer with the heat of romance and the heat of anger. As she comes back years later with relationships on the rocks, there is cold isolation, she is frozen in time, stuck in the mystery of the past, lacking close relationships. The iciness that flowed from that fateful night has to be thawed.
I don’t know what Baart’s intentions and frame of mind was in writing those things, but it would make an interesting book club discussion!
All in all, I did enjoy this book and would recommend it. I will continue to read her books!
[Sidenote: I just read Nick Offerman’s book Where the Deer and the Antelope Play which briefly discusses pesticides and their effect on the land, water, and environment. I thought it was interesting that that was an important piece to the puzzle of this novel! Apparently I didn’t absorb much agricultural knowledge from my many years because it made me ponder many questions about farming practices today and what is actually happening back home. It has spurred me to do a little research!]
“The world is both far worse and far better than we ever suspected… But God’s assurance of victory over that [chaos and evil] is far calmer and happier than we ever suspected.”
There are many kinds of suffering in this world— some of the suffering we experience is a result of our sin, sometimes it’s God’s way of producing spiritual growth. But sometimes we experience pain, suffering, and grief that is inexplicable.
Eric Ortlund, in his book Suffering Wisely and Well, homes in on this type of suffering by looking in-depth at the book of Job.
Ortlund (brother to Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly and Deeper and Gavin Ortlund, Finding the Right Hills to Die On) has written a very insightful book on a seemingly well-known story. There's much to be said on this topic and I highly recommend this book. I highlighted so much of his book but I can only share so much here.
Job is famous for his suffering and is often referenced that reason. But reading this book taught me so much more about Job-like suffering and put what I already knew into the correct context.
Ortlund provides a ton of Scriptural cross-references, contextual and historical background, and linguistic study to help us understand the poetic rendering of Job’s laments, his friends words of ‘encouragement,’ and God’s response to it all.
Ortlund teaches Hebrew and the Old Testament at Oak Hill College and focuses much of his research on Job and it shows. He is a good teacher and thoroughly explained more than I expected when I picked up the book.
I will say that some of it felt repetitive, but I suppose a good method of teaching is repetition. And the book is under 200 pages so it’s not like it lengthens the book exorbitantly. Plus each chapter ends with a ‘Here’s what we’ve learned so far’ section to keep us on track.
While reading this book, you will definitely want to have your Bible open and pen ready. I wish I had begun the book with taking notes in my Bible. He references many verses from Job (and elsewhere) and often paraphrases them so it’s fairly helpful to be able to read along or confirm what he’s talking about.
This would make a great study for a small group to deepen their understanding of the book of Job, of thinking about suffering, the goodness and sovereignty of God, and how to help and communicate with our loved ones who are suffering.
Ortlund begins by briefly describing a variety of kinds of suffering and reminding us that suffering wisely and well requires us to use discernment determining what we or our loved ones are experiencing. And we must be careful in making judgments. As with Job’s friends, it is hurtful to condemn someone in their suffering, adamantly protesting that there must be something they need to repent of!
He describes Job-like suffering like this:
“What distinguishes a Job-like ordeal from other kinds of suffering is the intensity of the pain and its inexplicableness. A Job-like ordeal is one in which it is impossible to keep a stiff upper lip and just keep going, and one in which the pain is so extreme that it’s impossible to imagine or even desire any return to normalcy. Any reversal of your fortunes seems pathetically inadequate to the loss you have suffered. A Job-like ordeal is also one in which our pain simply does not make sense. We try again and again to explain why we are suffering, and like waves crashing against a rock, every explanation fails.”
In Job we have the accuser who thinks Job is blameless and upright only because of all the blessings God has given him. Surely if God allows Satan to take away all of these blessings Job will curse God. People only love God for what he can give them, right?
God is not mad at Job. Job has not sinned. But God is proving to the accuser that Job loves God just for who He is.
“God puts Job in a position in which he has every earthly reason to give up on God; the only reason left for Job to endure in a relationship with God is God."
And indeed, this is what happens. Though Job laments and wrestles with God’s goodness and sovereignty, he never curses God. And all while he laments, he never asks for his blessings back. Feeling unloved by God puts him in anguish. Believing God must be mad at him, Job’s strongest desire is to be reconciled with his Lord.
I’ve had my own experience of inexplicable suffering when I miscarried during my first pregnancy. I became bitter and mad at God. I felt unloved by him. How could a good God give me life in my womb and then take it away? I struggled with feeling like I must have done something wrong that he was punishing me. Or maybe I had wanted a baby too much that I made it an idol and he was taking it away.
But long story short, since then, I have come to understand that I cannot explain that suffering and there is no reason for it that I can determine and I, like Job, must trust God through those times. I love God for who he is, not because of what he has given me.
“it becomes clear that what God wants from us in Job-like suffering is neither repentance nor deeper spiritual discipline. All he wants for us is to hold onto him—not to curse him and walk away from him, but just to maintain our relationship with him through tears and sackcloth.”
I love that. He just wants us to hold onto him.
Some things stuck out to me when Ortlund was talking about how we comfort others who are grieving inexplicable loss.
He pointed out that a lot of times we, like Job’s friends, place blame on our friends, assuming they must have done something or missed something or could have prevented it somehow; we try to explain it in a way that makes ourselves feel more comfortable. Those tragedies couldn’t happen to us because we’re different somehow.
“it can be extremely tempting, without even realizing it, to blame the sufferer as a way of quarantining ourselves from their agony. Regardless of whether we consciously intend it, blame is a way to reassure ourselves that such suffering will never happen to us, because we are morally superior to the person suffering.”
“As we speak to suffering, we must constantly be asking ourselves who we are really trying to comfort: our friend or ourselves. It is very easy to think we are consoling our friend when we are really more interested in our own comfort.”
This was a convicting thought. I can see how I would do this sometimes because psychologically we want to believe we live in a ‘safe’ world and don’t like thinking about experiencing hardship. We want to convince ourselves that when other people experience grief we can avoid becoming like them by ‘being better.’ It’s an uncomfortable yet compelling thought.
He also points out that we should be careful not to correct our grieving friends when they say things that aren’t true.
“When your friend starts saying things about God that are not theologically true, resist the urge to correct him. Your friend’s bad theology is only a symptom of a deeper trauma, so addressing the surface issue will do nothing to assuage his deeper pain. Your friend’s bad theology is also temporary. As God restores him, God will gently challenge those unworthy things your friend said about his divine friend. God will faithfully be at work to help him see what a perfect Savior he really is (42:5–6). Your job is not to fix your friend but to walk with him.”
I think this is good advice! I totally have the urge to correct bad theology but I can see how this is not helpful in these situations. We can trust that God will restore his people and gives grace for their grief-induced bad theology. He can challenge, convict, and comfort them and that’s not always our job.
I also love the references to the sea and God speaking to Job ‘from the whirlwind.’ Ortlund provides numerous references for when God appears in the storm and how “it is to do battle and rescue his people.” The sea is often symbolic of chaos and evil, yet God has bounded it. The sea has its limits. In the same way, God tolerates some chaos and evil in the world now, but God is sovereign over it and it is subject to him. We still recognize the tragedies that occur, but we can see that it is not because God isn’t powerful or good enough to stop it.
“As with the stable founding of the earth, the limitations of the sea highlight God’s goodness and protective care of his creatures. This is because the ocean is described in these poetic texts as a restless, relentless, un-organize-able force that, unless restrained, will overwhelm and annihilate all life.”
There is a good segment in the book that discusses God’s speeches about Leviathan and Behemoth and how these descriptions show that the world is far worse than Job ever imagined yet God is calm and provides confident assurance that he will destroy all evil. (Ortlund says many believe these two creatures are descriptions of a hippo and a crocodile but he provides a compelling case for an alternate interpretation.)
A few other things he touches on in this book are divine providence, the source of evil, the principle of retribution, Job’s Redeemer as a picture looking ahead to Christ, the evidence of God’s goodness in creation, lamenting, and more.
I really enjoyed this book and I know I’ll come back to it sometime to do an even deeper study of Job. The content is rich, easy to understand, and full of grace.
If you, like me, have experienced inexplicable grief or suffering, I think you’ll find this book to be a comfort, hope, and encouragement.
If you haven’t had a Job-like ordeal in your life, you might eventually, or someone close to you might, and this book would absolutely be a good bundle of truth to be able to access when the time comes.
Suffering is real and often unfathomable, but we need to approach it with a heart toward God’s heart and who he is not, not his hand and what he gives or takes away. Explanations won’t be as satisfying as we think; God, himself, is our ultimate satisfaction.
Sometimes God just wants us to hold on to him and wait for the restoration and victory that he has promised.
More Quotes:
“God says nothing about all things working together for good, true as that is (Rom. 8:28). He says nothing about guiding evil for his own good purposes, true as that is (Gen. 50:20). He says nothing about the glories of the eschaton overwhelming all the sufferings of this present age, true as that is (2 Cor. 4:17). He only tells Job that he is entirely aware of the problem—more so than Job ever could be—and will one day defeat and destroy the evil he presently tolerates.”
“The world is both far worse and far better than we ever suspected. The chaos and evil that God tolerates (but only for a time) is far more frightening than we thought; if we could see it up close, we would have a hard time keeping our feet (41:9). But God’s assurance of victory over that monster is far calmer and happier than we ever suspected. This does not make Leviathan any less frightening or the chaos it represents any less foreboding. Cancer and car accidents and human trafficking are still awful tragedies. None of us is entirely safe. But when God sees the whole of the world’s evil of which we get only a glimpse, and he speaks of his future victory with a calm joy, we too can engage with God’s sometimes dangerous world not just with courage but with joy and peace. God is not intimidated one iota by the evil that could easily swallow us—so we do not need to be either.”
“even if God does not literally appear to you in the storm as he did to Job, he is nonetheless able and even happy to draw near to you and speak gently but directly into your torment, so that, like Job, you are able to say from your roots, ‘Now I see who you really are, and I am utterly comforted.’”
“even when you find it difficult to believe that God loves you and attends to every word you say, you have the Son of God speaking on your behalf, who is far closer to God than you, who knows suffering more intimately than you do.”
Further Reading:
- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund (a fantastic book that reminds us what God’s heart for us is, one of the most encouraging books you’ll read)
- How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil by D.A. Carson (a really important read, but probably not best read in the middle of your suffering)
- It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength when Disappointment Leaves You Stranded by Lysa Terkeurst (an honest and transparent book that will help you reconcile your feelings with what you know to be true about God)
- Cultivating Compassion: Practical Advice as You Walk a Friend Through a Season of Loss by Lynne Hoeksema (a short booklet that gives super practical ways to helping your grieving friends and what are helpful or not helpful things to say/do)
- Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop (a great book that provides a framework for how to deal with your pain honestly through the biblical process of lament)
- If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil by Randy Alcorn
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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There are many kinds of suffering in this world— some of the suffering we experience is a result of our sin, sometimes it’s God’s way of producing spiritual growth. But sometimes we experience pain, suffering, and grief that is inexplicable.
Eric Ortlund, in his book Suffering Wisely and Well, homes in on this type of suffering by looking in-depth at the book of Job.
Ortlund (brother to Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly and Deeper and Gavin Ortlund, Finding the Right Hills to Die On) has written a very insightful book on a seemingly well-known story. There's much to be said on this topic and I highly recommend this book. I highlighted so much of his book but I can only share so much here.
Job is famous for his suffering and is often referenced that reason. But reading this book taught me so much more about Job-like suffering and put what I already knew into the correct context.
Ortlund provides a ton of Scriptural cross-references, contextual and historical background, and linguistic study to help us understand the poetic rendering of Job’s laments, his friends words of ‘encouragement,’ and God’s response to it all.
Ortlund teaches Hebrew and the Old Testament at Oak Hill College and focuses much of his research on Job and it shows. He is a good teacher and thoroughly explained more than I expected when I picked up the book.
I will say that some of it felt repetitive, but I suppose a good method of teaching is repetition. And the book is under 200 pages so it’s not like it lengthens the book exorbitantly. Plus each chapter ends with a ‘Here’s what we’ve learned so far’ section to keep us on track.
While reading this book, you will definitely want to have your Bible open and pen ready. I wish I had begun the book with taking notes in my Bible. He references many verses from Job (and elsewhere) and often paraphrases them so it’s fairly helpful to be able to read along or confirm what he’s talking about.
This would make a great study for a small group to deepen their understanding of the book of Job, of thinking about suffering, the goodness and sovereignty of God, and how to help and communicate with our loved ones who are suffering.
Ortlund begins by briefly describing a variety of kinds of suffering and reminding us that suffering wisely and well requires us to use discernment determining what we or our loved ones are experiencing. And we must be careful in making judgments. As with Job’s friends, it is hurtful to condemn someone in their suffering, adamantly protesting that there must be something they need to repent of!
He describes Job-like suffering like this:
“What distinguishes a Job-like ordeal from other kinds of suffering is the intensity of the pain and its inexplicableness. A Job-like ordeal is one in which it is impossible to keep a stiff upper lip and just keep going, and one in which the pain is so extreme that it’s impossible to imagine or even desire any return to normalcy. Any reversal of your fortunes seems pathetically inadequate to the loss you have suffered. A Job-like ordeal is also one in which our pain simply does not make sense. We try again and again to explain why we are suffering, and like waves crashing against a rock, every explanation fails.”
In Job we have the accuser who thinks Job is blameless and upright only because of all the blessings God has given him. Surely if God allows Satan to take away all of these blessings Job will curse God. People only love God for what he can give them, right?
God is not mad at Job. Job has not sinned. But God is proving to the accuser that Job loves God just for who He is.
“God puts Job in a position in which he has every earthly reason to give up on God; the only reason left for Job to endure in a relationship with God is God."
And indeed, this is what happens. Though Job laments and wrestles with God’s goodness and sovereignty, he never curses God. And all while he laments, he never asks for his blessings back. Feeling unloved by God puts him in anguish. Believing God must be mad at him, Job’s strongest desire is to be reconciled with his Lord.
I’ve had my own experience of inexplicable suffering when I miscarried during my first pregnancy. I became bitter and mad at God. I felt unloved by him. How could a good God give me life in my womb and then take it away? I struggled with feeling like I must have done something wrong that he was punishing me. Or maybe I had wanted a baby too much that I made it an idol and he was taking it away.
But long story short, since then, I have come to understand that I cannot explain that suffering and there is no reason for it that I can determine and I, like Job, must trust God through those times. I love God for who he is, not because of what he has given me.
“it becomes clear that what God wants from us in Job-like suffering is neither repentance nor deeper spiritual discipline. All he wants for us is to hold onto him—not to curse him and walk away from him, but just to maintain our relationship with him through tears and sackcloth.”
I love that. He just wants us to hold onto him.
Some things stuck out to me when Ortlund was talking about how we comfort others who are grieving inexplicable loss.
He pointed out that a lot of times we, like Job’s friends, place blame on our friends, assuming they must have done something or missed something or could have prevented it somehow; we try to explain it in a way that makes ourselves feel more comfortable. Those tragedies couldn’t happen to us because we’re different somehow.
“it can be extremely tempting, without even realizing it, to blame the sufferer as a way of quarantining ourselves from their agony. Regardless of whether we consciously intend it, blame is a way to reassure ourselves that such suffering will never happen to us, because we are morally superior to the person suffering.”
“As we speak to suffering, we must constantly be asking ourselves who we are really trying to comfort: our friend or ourselves. It is very easy to think we are consoling our friend when we are really more interested in our own comfort.”
This was a convicting thought. I can see how I would do this sometimes because psychologically we want to believe we live in a ‘safe’ world and don’t like thinking about experiencing hardship. We want to convince ourselves that when other people experience grief we can avoid becoming like them by ‘being better.’ It’s an uncomfortable yet compelling thought.
He also points out that we should be careful not to correct our grieving friends when they say things that aren’t true.
“When your friend starts saying things about God that are not theologically true, resist the urge to correct him. Your friend’s bad theology is only a symptom of a deeper trauma, so addressing the surface issue will do nothing to assuage his deeper pain. Your friend’s bad theology is also temporary. As God restores him, God will gently challenge those unworthy things your friend said about his divine friend. God will faithfully be at work to help him see what a perfect Savior he really is (42:5–6). Your job is not to fix your friend but to walk with him.”
I think this is good advice! I totally have the urge to correct bad theology but I can see how this is not helpful in these situations. We can trust that God will restore his people and gives grace for their grief-induced bad theology. He can challenge, convict, and comfort them and that’s not always our job.
I also love the references to the sea and God speaking to Job ‘from the whirlwind.’ Ortlund provides numerous references for when God appears in the storm and how “it is to do battle and rescue his people.” The sea is often symbolic of chaos and evil, yet God has bounded it. The sea has its limits. In the same way, God tolerates some chaos and evil in the world now, but God is sovereign over it and it is subject to him. We still recognize the tragedies that occur, but we can see that it is not because God isn’t powerful or good enough to stop it.
“As with the stable founding of the earth, the limitations of the sea highlight God’s goodness and protective care of his creatures. This is because the ocean is described in these poetic texts as a restless, relentless, un-organize-able force that, unless restrained, will overwhelm and annihilate all life.”
There is a good segment in the book that discusses God’s speeches about Leviathan and Behemoth and how these descriptions show that the world is far worse than Job ever imagined yet God is calm and provides confident assurance that he will destroy all evil. (Ortlund says many believe these two creatures are descriptions of a hippo and a crocodile but he provides a compelling case for an alternate interpretation.)
A few other things he touches on in this book are divine providence, the source of evil, the principle of retribution, Job’s Redeemer as a picture looking ahead to Christ, the evidence of God’s goodness in creation, lamenting, and more.
I really enjoyed this book and I know I’ll come back to it sometime to do an even deeper study of Job. The content is rich, easy to understand, and full of grace.
If you, like me, have experienced inexplicable grief or suffering, I think you’ll find this book to be a comfort, hope, and encouragement.
If you haven’t had a Job-like ordeal in your life, you might eventually, or someone close to you might, and this book would absolutely be a good bundle of truth to be able to access when the time comes.
Suffering is real and often unfathomable, but we need to approach it with a heart toward God’s heart and who he is not, not his hand and what he gives or takes away. Explanations won’t be as satisfying as we think; God, himself, is our ultimate satisfaction.
Sometimes God just wants us to hold on to him and wait for the restoration and victory that he has promised.
More Quotes:
“God says nothing about all things working together for good, true as that is (Rom. 8:28). He says nothing about guiding evil for his own good purposes, true as that is (Gen. 50:20). He says nothing about the glories of the eschaton overwhelming all the sufferings of this present age, true as that is (2 Cor. 4:17). He only tells Job that he is entirely aware of the problem—more so than Job ever could be—and will one day defeat and destroy the evil he presently tolerates.”
“The world is both far worse and far better than we ever suspected. The chaos and evil that God tolerates (but only for a time) is far more frightening than we thought; if we could see it up close, we would have a hard time keeping our feet (41:9). But God’s assurance of victory over that monster is far calmer and happier than we ever suspected. This does not make Leviathan any less frightening or the chaos it represents any less foreboding. Cancer and car accidents and human trafficking are still awful tragedies. None of us is entirely safe. But when God sees the whole of the world’s evil of which we get only a glimpse, and he speaks of his future victory with a calm joy, we too can engage with God’s sometimes dangerous world not just with courage but with joy and peace. God is not intimidated one iota by the evil that could easily swallow us—so we do not need to be either.”
“even if God does not literally appear to you in the storm as he did to Job, he is nonetheless able and even happy to draw near to you and speak gently but directly into your torment, so that, like Job, you are able to say from your roots, ‘Now I see who you really are, and I am utterly comforted.’”
“even when you find it difficult to believe that God loves you and attends to every word you say, you have the Son of God speaking on your behalf, who is far closer to God than you, who knows suffering more intimately than you do.”
Further Reading:
- Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund (a fantastic book that reminds us what God’s heart for us is, one of the most encouraging books you’ll read)
- How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil by D.A. Carson (a really important read, but probably not best read in the middle of your suffering)
- It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength when Disappointment Leaves You Stranded by Lysa Terkeurst (an honest and transparent book that will help you reconcile your feelings with what you know to be true about God)
- Cultivating Compassion: Practical Advice as You Walk a Friend Through a Season of Loss by Lynne Hoeksema (a short booklet that gives super practical ways to helping your grieving friends and what are helpful or not helpful things to say/do)
- Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop (a great book that provides a framework for how to deal with your pain honestly through the biblical process of lament)
- If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil by Randy Alcorn
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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"Sometimes, the secrets did indeed wither and die— but other times, they grew stronger, too strong, taking nourishment from the sunlight and wreaking destruction.”
I read a lot of Coben’s (Run Away) books several years back before I started writing reviews, so it was fun to read another one of his books.
Turns out this one is the second in a series which I didn’t find out until I had already started it. I would recommend reading book one first. I was still able to follow the story and enjoy it but there is quite a bit of background context that would have made some of the character interactions make more sense.
I’m going to have to go back and read it now!
As a boy, Wilde (I looked this up and I think you pronounce it with long ‘i’ sound) was found abandoned in the woods, somehow surviving on his own.
It’s now decades later and he still doesn’t know his origin.
Until he gets a hit on a DNA website.
Once Wilde meets with his biological father, he gets entangled in a series of murders that may or may not be associated with a vigilante group who has taken it upon themselves to enact justice against internet trolls that are out of reach of the normal justice system.
Wilde takes it upon himself, with the help of his foster sister, Rola (who is some sort of hacker, I think that would have been described in book 1), and his ‘stand-in’ mother figure and celebrity lawyer, Hester Crimstein, to track down the vigilante group and figure out how he and his blood relatives are involved.
Long- kept secrets have caused a lot of damage and when they finally come to the surface, more destruction will ensue.
I don't know how Coben intended to write Wilde's character but I couldn't help but feel like he was similar to Jim Caviezel's character on Person of Interest (Reese). Just throwing that out there.
There is some interesting discussion in this book about DNA websites and reality TV. Fans of the Bachelor may resist some of the proposed notions or maybe they already suspect some of the lies. Of course this is a fictional story, but I have no doubt that there is a good bit of truth to it.
One thing that I didn’t like about it was that Hester kept asking Wilde about what really happened when Wilde and Hester’s son got in a car accident that resulted in her son’s death. Wilde kept putting her off and she would acquiesce that they could talk about it later but by the end of the book we still don’t know what happened. If this was discussed in book one, then I retract my complaint, but if it wasn’t in the first one, then I’m annoyed that they didn’t offer any answers to that effect.
Here’s a couple random quote that I liked:
“If you are deluded and narcissistic enough to believe you should obey your gut rather than looking coldly at the facts, that’s your bias, not your gut.”
I wish more people looked at cold hard facts before they let their feelings dictate truth to themselves.
“I’m a big fan of punching Nazi’s in the face.”
This one resonated with me because of the first couple lines of my review for Kristin Hannah’s book The Nightingale.
I thought this was a really suspenseful story with some surprises that I didn’t have figured out. If you’ve liked Coben’s other books, I think you’ll enjoy this one, and if you haven’t read him before, I think this would be a good one to read (after you’ve read book one of course…)
Parental advisory: There are a few f-words and references to some inappropriate photographs but I would say it’s generally moderate.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
I read a lot of Coben’s (Run Away) books several years back before I started writing reviews, so it was fun to read another one of his books.
Turns out this one is the second in a series which I didn’t find out until I had already started it. I would recommend reading book one first. I was still able to follow the story and enjoy it but there is quite a bit of background context that would have made some of the character interactions make more sense.
I’m going to have to go back and read it now!
As a boy, Wilde (I looked this up and I think you pronounce it with long ‘i’ sound) was found abandoned in the woods, somehow surviving on his own.
It’s now decades later and he still doesn’t know his origin.
Until he gets a hit on a DNA website.
Once Wilde meets with his biological father, he gets entangled in a series of murders that may or may not be associated with a vigilante group who has taken it upon themselves to enact justice against internet trolls that are out of reach of the normal justice system.
Wilde takes it upon himself, with the help of his foster sister, Rola (who is some sort of hacker, I think that would have been described in book 1), and his ‘stand-in’ mother figure and celebrity lawyer, Hester Crimstein, to track down the vigilante group and figure out how he and his blood relatives are involved.
Long- kept secrets have caused a lot of damage and when they finally come to the surface, more destruction will ensue.
I don't know how Coben intended to write Wilde's character but I couldn't help but feel like he was similar to Jim Caviezel's character on Person of Interest (Reese). Just throwing that out there.
There is some interesting discussion in this book about DNA websites and reality TV. Fans of the Bachelor may resist some of the proposed notions or maybe they already suspect some of the lies. Of course this is a fictional story, but I have no doubt that there is a good bit of truth to it.
One thing that I didn’t like about it was that Hester kept asking Wilde about what really happened when Wilde and Hester’s son got in a car accident that resulted in her son’s death. Wilde kept putting her off and she would acquiesce that they could talk about it later but by the end of the book we still don’t know what happened. If this was discussed in book one, then I retract my complaint, but if it wasn’t in the first one, then I’m annoyed that they didn’t offer any answers to that effect.
Here’s a couple random quote that I liked:
“If you are deluded and narcissistic enough to believe you should obey your gut rather than looking coldly at the facts, that’s your bias, not your gut.”
I wish more people looked at cold hard facts before they let their feelings dictate truth to themselves.
“I’m a big fan of punching Nazi’s in the face.”
This one resonated with me because of the first couple lines of my review for Kristin Hannah’s book The Nightingale.
I thought this was a really suspenseful story with some surprises that I didn’t have figured out. If you’ve liked Coben’s other books, I think you’ll enjoy this one, and if you haven’t read him before, I think this would be a good one to read (after you’ve read book one of course…)
Parental advisory: There are a few f-words and references to some inappropriate photographs but I would say it’s generally moderate.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“Instead of being angry that things were going the way he wanted, Habakkuk had learned to walk by faith and not by sight. And the book of Habakkuk reminds us to do the same. It calls us to stop saying, ‘What if?’ and start saying, ‘Even if.’ Even if the worst possible thing happens in our lives, we have the Lord and in Him we have all that we need. This is the hope of Habakkuk.”
Habakkuk is a short, oft-forgotten book in the Old Testament, save for the final few verses:
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (3:17-18)
I appreciated this study that brought context to the book and the entirety of what the prophet Habakkuk faced.
Similar to Job, Habakkuk questions why God allows evil and suffering, why he doesn’t enact justice. He is trying to reconcile what he sees and feels with what he knows to be true about God. Can we still trust Him?
The Northern tribes of Israel have already fallen to Assyria a century prior, and now God is telling Habakkuk that the Southern tribes would be invaded by Babylon because the people were turning away from God.
But I love how God responds to Habakkuk when Habakkuk says, ‘How long are you going to watch all of this destruction and do nothing??’
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” (1:5)
And he was. The political rise and fall of many nations was impossible to imagine yet orchestrated by God in order to bring about his plan for his people, whom he preserved through it all.
God is still doing a work in our day that we wouldn’t believe if he told us. We, like Job and Habakkuk, first ask for explanations and answers, yet no answer is truly satisfactory. What both of these books of the Bible teach us is that it’s not answers that satisfy, but God himself.
We study who God is, what his heart and his character is and when we experience suffering and see what seems to be unrestrained evil, we hold on to our Lord because we can trust him and he is at work. He only reveals so much to us, but it is enough.
I took away 5 themes through what Schmucker parses out for us in her study:
1. God is listening
2. God is working
3. God is sovereign
4. God is trustworthy
5. God is victorious
Habakkuk is such a valuable book to study. It’s short but rich with truths we need every day. We are no strangers to suffering and confusion as to what God is allowing in our world. This study will realign your faith in the person of God:
“At some point in our lives we will need to reconcile our theology and our experience. We will have to wrestle with the evil in the world when we serve a good God. This is exactly what Habakkuk is about. And in those moments when we don’t understand where God is or what He is doing, we will be tempted to change our theology to align with what is happening in the world. And in those moments we must stand strong on the truth of the Word of God and the goodness of his character. In those moments we must not interpret God’s Word through the lens of our circumstances, but we must interpret our circumstances through the lens of God’s Word. And ultimately it is in those moments that we must trust the sovereign hand of God that is working in ways that we cannot see.”
I’m a big fan of The Daily Grace Co. studies. Their statement of faith can be found here.
This particular study is only 3 weeks with 5 days of homework— a page or two of reading and 3 questions per day. Each week concludes with a 6-question reflection that asks us to reflect on what we learned about God, mankind, how it relates to the gospel, how we should respond and what action steps we can take as a result of what we read.
I also like how The Daily Grace Co. incorporates Scripture memory into their studies. Over the three weeks you will memorize the last few verses as quoted above.
I completed this study with a small group of women. We had good discussions but, for us, the questions were a little repetitive or vague and we mostly led our own discussion with what resonated with us. I wish the questions would have been a little more specific or discussion generating. Depending on your group, you may need to prepare a little extra to keep conversation going.
As with all of their studies, the book is beautifully designed— the color scheme, photographs, layout— and has nice glossy thick magazine-type pages. (Note: some pens may smear on the glossy pages)
Visit my blog post to see some pictures of the book.
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)
Another Note: If you would like to study this topic of suffering in relation to Job, check out Eric Ortlund’s book: Suffering Wisely and Well: The Grief of Job and the Grace of God.
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
Habakkuk is a short, oft-forgotten book in the Old Testament, save for the final few verses:
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (3:17-18)
I appreciated this study that brought context to the book and the entirety of what the prophet Habakkuk faced.
Similar to Job, Habakkuk questions why God allows evil and suffering, why he doesn’t enact justice. He is trying to reconcile what he sees and feels with what he knows to be true about God. Can we still trust Him?
The Northern tribes of Israel have already fallen to Assyria a century prior, and now God is telling Habakkuk that the Southern tribes would be invaded by Babylon because the people were turning away from God.
But I love how God responds to Habakkuk when Habakkuk says, ‘How long are you going to watch all of this destruction and do nothing??’
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” (1:5)
And he was. The political rise and fall of many nations was impossible to imagine yet orchestrated by God in order to bring about his plan for his people, whom he preserved through it all.
God is still doing a work in our day that we wouldn’t believe if he told us. We, like Job and Habakkuk, first ask for explanations and answers, yet no answer is truly satisfactory. What both of these books of the Bible teach us is that it’s not answers that satisfy, but God himself.
We study who God is, what his heart and his character is and when we experience suffering and see what seems to be unrestrained evil, we hold on to our Lord because we can trust him and he is at work. He only reveals so much to us, but it is enough.
I took away 5 themes through what Schmucker parses out for us in her study:
1. God is listening
2. God is working
3. God is sovereign
4. God is trustworthy
5. God is victorious
Habakkuk is such a valuable book to study. It’s short but rich with truths we need every day. We are no strangers to suffering and confusion as to what God is allowing in our world. This study will realign your faith in the person of God:
“At some point in our lives we will need to reconcile our theology and our experience. We will have to wrestle with the evil in the world when we serve a good God. This is exactly what Habakkuk is about. And in those moments when we don’t understand where God is or what He is doing, we will be tempted to change our theology to align with what is happening in the world. And in those moments we must stand strong on the truth of the Word of God and the goodness of his character. In those moments we must not interpret God’s Word through the lens of our circumstances, but we must interpret our circumstances through the lens of God’s Word. And ultimately it is in those moments that we must trust the sovereign hand of God that is working in ways that we cannot see.”
I’m a big fan of The Daily Grace Co. studies. Their statement of faith can be found here.
This particular study is only 3 weeks with 5 days of homework— a page or two of reading and 3 questions per day. Each week concludes with a 6-question reflection that asks us to reflect on what we learned about God, mankind, how it relates to the gospel, how we should respond and what action steps we can take as a result of what we read.
I also like how The Daily Grace Co. incorporates Scripture memory into their studies. Over the three weeks you will memorize the last few verses as quoted above.
I completed this study with a small group of women. We had good discussions but, for us, the questions were a little repetitive or vague and we mostly led our own discussion with what resonated with us. I wish the questions would have been a little more specific or discussion generating. Depending on your group, you may need to prepare a little extra to keep conversation going.
As with all of their studies, the book is beautifully designed— the color scheme, photographs, layout— and has nice glossy thick magazine-type pages. (Note: some pens may smear on the glossy pages)
Visit my blog post to see some pictures of the book.
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)
Another Note: If you would like to study this topic of suffering in relation to Job, check out Eric Ortlund’s book: Suffering Wisely and Well: The Grief of Job and the Grace of God.
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest