You Who?

You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal With It by Rachel Jankovic

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I’ve made a habit of checking the New York Times best seller list regularly now for the last 3-4 months. One author has consistently had two titles in the top 10 the entire time: Rachel Hollis. “Girl, Wash Your Face!” “Girl, Stop Apologizing!” I admit I haven’t read Hollis. I trust the Gospel Coalition’s critical review of her, though, and it gave me pause.

Now, after reading You Who, by Rachel Jankovic, I connected the dots. Jankovic attacks head on the can-do, “you’re-good-enough” positivism Hollis doles out as a panacea for hurting women. The problem is Hollis cries “peace, peace” too soon, when there is really none to be had until you get to the denial and death of our petty and wicked self, and our recovery in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jankovic is at her best when substantively refuting Hollis’ shallow, self-affirming message with the basic gospel of the Christian Scriptures. We need to apologize to God and others for sinning against them. We need to do more than wash our face; God needs to wash us clean. We generate gunk on our own and need an outside cleanser in Christ. It isn’t the other way around: that we generate glory inside ourselves and need to shed the gunk the world tries to load us down with. The chapter on looking to Christ was especially good.

I had one quibble with a chapter where Jankovic inadvertently implies that we should rely on our obedience for our standing before God. She is so reactionary against letting emotions define you (mostly a right reaction), that in this chapter she fell into the other ditch of letting your actions define your faith. But it’s important to recall, too, the Romans 7 reality, that we don’t always behave how we know as believers we should.

Jankovic also suffers from a marketing weakness. She seems unwilling to come right out and say to whom she is responding. She knows enough to go after this big beast, but seems to want to keep the reader in the dark that she is refuting a precious author who affirms them as they are. You Who? really needed a subtitle like, “A Response to Rachel Hollis.” Maybe it is intentional to not turn away readers who haven’t heard of Hollis, though.

A solid read overall to re-center women in the Gospel and not heed the siren song of Oprah with a Christian veneer.



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The Importance of Being Earnest

Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Importance of Being Earnest

So this was my first Oscar Wilde read ever. Barely 70 pages long, filled with snarky yet penetrating social criticism, Wilde knew how to comically caricature a general behavioral fault so we could see ourselves, laugh and hopefully reconsider our ways. I’m not sure I’ll bother to go out of my way to read a lot more Wilde, though.

He plays with the social class’ self-awareness a fair bit. They try so hard to be dishonest, sometimes it backfires and they are found out. They know having a reputation for bad behavior is partly a help in their social ambitions, as long as they don’t cross a certain line. To stay in the socialite circles often calls for disingenuous hypocrisy, and Wilde calls us to sincerity.

Mean what you say.

Be earnest.



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A Memorial Day Thought

When we lived within a half hour's drive of 5 different military bases, the active duty guys were always keen to remind me that Memorial Day is a time to remember those in the military who died serving their country.  Many confuse this with Veterans' Day, a holiday to commemorate all those who have served.  It is akin to the difference between thanking Jesus for dying on the cross, and being grateful for Christian martyrs who kept the faith and died by lions in the arena.  Jesus gave, and these honored dead of our country gave, the last full measure of their devotion.

It's a good analogy, though all analogies break down somewhere.  Those we honor were not perfect and did not make a sacrifice to atone for anyone, nor did they establish a perfect nation.  Often we cannot see the direct effect their death had in the conflict in which they fought, while Jesus' death was efficacious.  He died to make men holy, so let us do what we can and live to make men free.

Memorial Day always has a small home town feel for me.  We had a small parade to the cemetery where the roll call of those buried there who served and died would be read.  Taps and silence.  A short sermon by a local pastor.  Several of the names in the roll call were direct ancestors of mine, or my wife's.  It brings to mind the sacrifices great and small made by our forefathers.  We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.  Some were spiritual giants.  Some performed acts of amazing courage.  Some simply kept plodding along, doing their duty.  Let us thank God for them this weekend.

One-Anothering // Racist Democrats? // Fossil Fuels

Here's a helpful infographic on all the "one-another" verses in the Bible.


And here's further evidence that the race and harassment cards are usually only enforced against Republicans/conservatives.


World Magazine lauds the virtues and necessity of fossil fuels.  Despite all the Green New Deal hype, we cannot survive without them and they aren't as dirty as we are led to believe.

Why Baptize Babies? // Against Mr Judgy Pants // Supreme Battle

Toby Sumpter gives a short yet comprehensive and clear case for infant baptism.


Jonathan Edwards had plenty to say against a censorious spirit, Nick Batzig reports.


Here's great insight into the Supreme Court's internal battle.

Bible Project // For Your Marriage // Google's Gags

The Bible Project looks like an engaging yet faithful way to draw in new readers.


Good marriage advice here from Mark Altrogge.


The Claremont Institute is an excellent conservative think tank.  Their president has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today relating their recent gagging by Google's groupthink.  I think you have to subscribe to read, so here's a little more for free: they ran a series critiquing multi-culturalism and identity politics.  Google shut them down.  They spent hours on the phone with Google and only got "you broke the policy in your treatment of multi-culturalism; there is no appeal."  Once Claremont went public with the story, Google reversed course and let them back online.

This is really ugly.  Any criticism of multi-culturalism today is assumed to be racist.  The liberal lie has won the day, that if you'd rather comparatively critique cultures instead of celebrate them without a hint of moral judgment, you must be a xeno-centric, white-supremacist. 

What a world.

Leadership and Self-Deception

Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Written in a business world context, this valuable book applies widely to anyone who works with others. It shows how we blame others and justify ourselves as a defensive response when we have not done what we should for others. We minimize our problems and exaggerate their faults, and don’t realize we are doing it. This self-deception, the authors call being in the box. A primary cause of this is objectifying others as tools for our agenda, instead of treating them as people.

There is a lot of sound theology behind this. It really defines conviction, sin, and repentance quite well regarding behavior toward others. It shows the slipperiness of sin. How anything can be used for sinful, self-serving purposes, even this book that exposes our self-serving tendencies! If we don’t give more weight to our own responsibilities than others’ faults, we’ll stay in the box. There is a difference between blaming others to get something for yourself, and assigning responsibility to them for their own good.

An important read for those in conflict with others, and those who have a “problem” person in their life, whether at work, church or home.



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Sunday Mornings

Sunday Mornings: An Introduction to Biblical Worship by Brian W. Phillips

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A colleague and pastor in North Carolina wrote this wonderful introduction to what worship should be. While there are more academic treatments of covenant renewal worship, which is characteristic of my denomination the CREC, this one is easily readable and meant to address the average church goer.

Phillips first attacks the problem, critiquing the typical church’s approach to worship today. It is too casual when we should cultivate reverence and awe. We exalt sincerity and give any and every worship experiment a pass in its name. The Nadab and Abihu incident from Leviticus 10 rebukes this attitude in force. We also remove our children from worship and cater a more entertaining program to them until well into their teen years. Then we wonder why they don’t like “adult worship” when they are brought in later on.

Phillips argues instead that there is a biblical pattern of worship, principles we still should follow found in the most specific instruction God ever gave His people on worship, in Leviticus 9, which Hezekiah follows in 2 Chronicles 29:20-36. I’ll leave the details of this for another time.

Phillips also argues for bringing the children to Jesus in the corporate (all together) worship service. A generation ago (maybe a bit less), this was known as family-integrated worship. The label has fallen on hard times, due to legalistic excesses and scandals in the movement, but the idea is still a good one: stop segregating God’s people by age and instead train the children in the thing you want them to arrive at: mature worship. I think a valid case can be made against this: why not teach to children at the level they can understand (Nehemiah 8:3)? But there’s a better case for the inclusion of children (they eat the Passover lamb, Ephesians 6:1 is addressed to them, etc.). An analogy might be teaching a foreign language using the immersion method early on when they don’t get it all yet, instead of teaching them the grammar and vocabulary later on.

Phillips addresses other hotly debated topics even more briefly:
We should give our baptized children communion with everyone else.
The Sabbath is an ongoing commandment but shouldn’t become a burdensome obligation.

The whole book will either turn people off early on and they’ll dismiss it, or it just begs for more study if Phillips’ assertions are taken seriously, as I heartily believe they should be. One place to go next is The Lord’s Service, by Jeff Meyers.

Highly recommended for thinking through what your church experience should be.



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