★★★★★ 5
A Personally Challengiing Read
Don’t expect Rosaria Butterfield to coddle sin. She acknowledges the Biblical truth that we are at war with it. It is evil. Lies are rampant with it. The Bible’s solution is to kill it, nailing it to the cross of Christ. If we don’t, it will do great and lasting harm. That is the background premise of this book.
This book is for believers in Jesus Christ, especially those who identify as Evangelicals. Others may benefit by reading its pages, but I suspect that most of them will not be able to persevere through it because today’s culture is just not willing to sit through this much proclamation of Bible truth. They will react, not respond. Believers will be convicted, encouraged, and edified.
Butterfield’s style is plain, but today’s culture requires her to address and to use terminology that may be challenging to many readers. It was for me. Add a level of abstraction for some challenging spiritual truths. Add the fact that she is an intellectual dealing with cultural and theological subjects. It is mostly college level reading, except for the story parts.
Butterfield has credentials. A professor of English at Syracuse University, she was ten years in the Lesbian community with a mate. She was found by Christ, began to grow in Him, was discipled by faithful church women, met a wonderful man, was married to him--a Presbyterian pastor—became a mother, and began to minister to college students from a Christian perspective. She tells some of her story and the stories of others in the pages of the book. It is fascinating reading.
The book is organized around the five lies that Butterfield has chosen to expose, with two to four chapters dealing with each. She acknowledges that there are others that could be exposed as well. The last one, about our culture's attitude toward modesty, was the most surprising to me.
The book also has a Foreword by Kevin DeYoung, a Preface, and an Introduction. Don’t skip them. The Foreword is nothing short of a good sermon that should be shared in every church in America. In the Preface Butterfield spills the beans, revealing exactly where she stands on key topics and to whom she is addressing this volume. The Introduction is engaging and lengthy and pretty much summarizes the rest of the book.
Along the way Butterfield deals with homosexuality, changing gender, male leadership in the home and in church, the bedrock importance of repentance, progressive sanctification, intersectionality, “gay Christianity” (Side A and Side B), feelings and truth, empathy and sympathy, submission of the wife, feminism, inerrancy, envy and biblical contentment, suffering, modesty and exhibitionism, and even worship.
She quotes scripture, sometimes at length, and she gives copious Bible references. She also has footnotes, some of which are as interesting as the text. She names and uses or responds to contemporary authors on the topics at hand.
She gives solid directions for those dealing with contemporary issues. She also has suggestions for dealing with family members beset by these matters including a question-and-answer section. Page 301.
I recommend this book for all Christian leaders and for believers who want to understand contemporary challenges for the church from our modern culture.
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Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2024
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