Each of the cases discussed, some of which were unfamiliar to me, have had serious ramification beyond the walls of the courtroom. Understanding how a Supreme Court ruling, and by extension a Supreme Court nominee, affects society as a whole was astonishing. I will be paying more attention to cases in the Supreme Court from here on out.
The book also followed Cruz’s legal and political career, creating a resumé of sorts, should he decide to run for president once again.
If you are a teacher or homeschool mom, this is a great book to use in a high school government class to supplement the curriculum.
She uses her personal story to narrow the lies down to 5: 📌”You are enough.” 📌”You determine your truth.” 📌”You’re perfect the way you are.” 📌”You’re entitled to your dreams.” 📌”You can’t love others until you love yourself.”
Stuckey affirms at the very beginning that, “the self can’t be both the problem and the solution.” Throughout the book, she shows us that we can’t find the answer to our problem, insecurity, or unfulfillment in ourselves since we are the issue. Instead, we have to turn to God and His Word to provide the solution.
In a culture where women are being told they are no different than men, there is empowerment in sexual “freedom,” and they get to choose their own destiny, this book is a needed reminder that we are most content and fulfilled when we submit to God’s authority and live as He intended.
Thomas Sowell’s book, The Quest for Cosmic Justice, explains how, in an effort to accomplish equal outcomes, society actually makes things less equal by taking away opportunities and freedoms. The resulting policies end up being detrimental to a bigger portion of society than they benefit.
While I wouldn’t call this book an easy read, it is a necessary one. It is easy to look at one side of an issue and determine what we believe is the best course of action. But we should always count the cost—the cost to people, the cost to culture, and the cost to future generations.
Sowell uses extensive research, citing present and past policies and their ramifications, to prove his arguments. He demonstrates not only how the policies created for “the greater good” can be harmful, but also how they affect a society’s global standing. While his book is academic in nature (he is an economist, after all), it is not difficult to understand as he provides background information and explains the situations well.
If you are looking to make an informed decision about your position on the social justice movement among other ideologies, this is a great resource. Are you willing to count the cost?
Voddie Baucham’s new book, Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe, is a great resource for those trying to get their footing in the ever-changing landscape of the culture. Baucham’s upbringing makes him the poster child for the social justice movement—he was raised by a single mom in gang territory in Los Angeles—yet he sees the flaws of the movement and works to educate others of its downfall.
Using the words from prominent social justice warriors, Baucham defines the terminology of the movement. Because these movements take place mostly in academic circles, he takes the time to explain their position in laymen’s terms. He takes pains to demonstrate the false information that is circulated in order to grow the movement. Then he uses Scripture to show the cracks in the arguments and the fallacies in the philosophy.
“The antiracist movement has many of the hallmarks of a cult, including staying close enough to the Bible to avoid immediate detection and hiding the fact that it has a new theology and a new glossary of terms that diverge ever-so-slightly from Christian orthodoxy. At least at first” (67).
In Fault Lines, Baucham calls out Christian leaders and teachers who have fallen prey to the cult of antiracism, but he does so with compassion and Christian love. He encourages believers who understand the errors of social justice to graciously correct brothers and sisters in Christ, and he reminds the reader that the war is a spiritual one.
If you’ve been feeling like the ground beneath your feet keeps shifting, this book will be a great resource to help you get your footing as you plant your feet firmly in God’s Word.
Alisa Childers tackles the difficult questions that led to the deconstruction of the Christian faith and created progressive Christianity.
Have you ever heard someone say that most of what we learn is “caught not taught”? I’ve come to realize this is how a lot of us have seen discipleship. Rather than explicitly discipling, teaching detailed apologetics, or even catechizing kids in the at at home or in the church, we hope they will “catch” enough Bible teaching to hang in there when it gets tough. Or maybe we think as long as they are saved, that’s good enough. As a result, we don’t prepare them for the questions, from others and from their own minds, that will come one day. Certainly, living out what we believe for them to see is beneficial, but we have to know what we believe before we can live it out. There must be some teaching to support the “catching.”
Having grown up a pastor’s kid, many took my discipleship as a given. It was assumed that not only did I know what I believed, but also I knew why I believed it. While it’s true I knew what I believed, and I could answer all of the Sunday school questions, I wasn’t prepared to answer those who would question the truth of Scripture itself, the source of my spiritual confidence.
“…biblical faith is not a blind leap; it involves knowledge—that God has spoken and is trustworthy.”
Reading Alisa Childers’s book, Another Gospel? A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity, showed me I was not alone in this. Not only does she address questions with which I have wrestled–like what if Christianity was made up by a bunch of guys to see how many people they could fool?–but also she provides lengthy lists of sources so her readers can continue their research. Her presentation of the facts and evidence to support her position is thorough yet easy to read.
Childers addresses the progressive movement specifically in her book. This movement raises ideas that use the language of Christianity but originate from a questioning of what Christianity really is. They call into question the dependability of Scripture, the character of God, and the historical teachings of the Christian church. While we might be prepared to answer those who are outside the faith, we face increasing difficulty answering the questions raised by those who may know our Bible better than we do and call into questions things we have accepted at face value.
“… the Christianity I had known was deep and real and true. It wasn’t soiled by legalism or hypocrisy, ravaged by abuse, or oppressed by doubt. I wanted to progress in my faith…in my understanding of God’s Word, my ability to live it out, and my relationship with Jesus. But I didn’t want to progress beyond truth.”
Childers relates the events that took place in her own life when she was under the leadership of a progressive pastor. The process began as it usually does, with deconstructing her Christian beliefs. She defines deconstruction as “the process of systematically dissecting and often rejecting the beliefs you grew up with.” While many end the process and walk away from their faith during this phase of the journey, Childers set out to reconstruct her beliefs and find out the truth.
The questions Christians ask answered in her book:
Alisa Childers tackles the hard questions that led to the deconstruction of the Christian faith and created progressive Christianity.
What did the first Christians believe about Jesus?
What did they believe about the Scriptures?
How do we know the books in the Bible are the right ones?
Where did sin come from, and can we ever overcome it or should we even try?
What is critical theory, and what influence does it have on Christianity?
Is there absolute truth, and how do I know when I’ve found it?
How reliable is the Bible?
Does it contain any errors?
How do we recognize false teaching?
Is the Bible really God’s Word?
Is hell real?
If so, what is hell like?
Does God really send people to hell?
Why did Jesus really have to die, and who killed Him?
How can God be love and wrath at the same time?
How should a Christian handle same-sex attraction?
And so many more!
Many of these topics overlap and interconnect, so they come up over and over again in different chapters of the book. Childers tackles these difficult topics and admits when it is uncomfortable and even unpleasant. If you have ever asked any of these questions, this is a helpful resource to firmly know what you believe, why you believe it, and how to defend it.
By taking the reader back to the earliest Christian creed, helping navigate through history in the early church, and working systematically to explain each question and answer, Childers builds a foundation for a steady and solid faith. When I finished reading the book, I felt better prepared to defend my faith and answer the hard questions. It added “meat” or substance to areas where my knowledge was minimal.
Childers shows how the false teachings have infiltrated the Christian church and teaches how to recognize them. She defines the terminology that is common in the different progressive teachings and warns about subtle attacks. Ultimately, Childers proves that the false teachings give no answers and no hope.
“…progressive Christianity offers me nothing of value. It gives no hope for the afterlife and no joy in this one. It offers a hundred denials with nothing concrete to affirm.”
The depth and breadth of her research is impressive, but she manages to keep the tone and style of the book very clear and straightforward. While the book is rich with content, it was a quick and easy read, which is good for me because I will read it again and again!
Find Christian Author and Apologist Alisa Childers
Recently, I read Elisabeth Elliot’s book Discipline: The Glad Surrender. What a treasure trove of wisdom Elliot was, and her books continue to encourage Christian women around the globe! This book is no exception. While a struggled a bit with her style in the beginning, I finished the book with a renewed sense of purpose.
Elliot encourages us to live a disciplined life, one which is completely surrendered to God. She leaves no area untouched as she speaks to the discipline of our inner world as well as our outer world. In the book, Elliot addresses our body, time, possessions, mind, work, and even our feelings. Leaving no room for argument, Elliot gently pushes us to be better—better at worship, better at productivity, better at life, and better at walking with Christ.
Below, I have listed my favorite quotes from the book. Somehow, I was able to cut the list down to fifteen quotes. They are in the order in which they appear in the book. After reading these quotes, I have no doubt you’ll feel compelled to read the book for yourself. Therefore, I am not offering any explanation with the quotes but am simply listing them as she wrote them. Enjoy!
To learn more about Elisabeth Elliot, check out this website.
Top 15 Quotes in Discipline: The Glad Surrender
“If I trust Him, I will obey Him gladly” (12).
“The unwillingness to be obedient is a violation of our humanity” (16).
“Certainty comes with obedience. It is only through action that the call of God is known” (18-19).
“Discipline is not my claim on Christ, but the evidence of His claim on me” (27).
“He expects us to work, just as the designer of a precision instrument, if he understands the principles involved and designs it accordingly, expects the thing to work. It is no great credit to the instrument if it does” (30).
“Noah’s willed action and his faith went hand in hand. We see again that faith is a far cry from feeling or religious mood. It is not vague. It hears the Word of the Lord, and it acts. ‘If it does not lead to action, it is in itself, a lifeless thing’” (34).
“When the will of man acts in accord with the will of God, that is faith. When the will of man acts in opposition to the will of God, that is unbelief” (35).
“If we hold back our obedience until we have plumbed the theological depths of this mystery, we shall be disobedient. There are truths that cannot be known except by doing them” (38).
“The Bible does not explain everything necessary for our intellectual satisfaction, but it explains everything necessary for our obedience and hence for God’s satisfaction” (41).
“There is a common belief that a frank expression of what one naturally feels and thinks is always a good thing because it is ‘honest.’ This is not true. If the feelings and thoughts are wrong in themselves, how can expressing them verbally add up to something good? It seems to me they add up to three sins: wrong feeling, wrong thought, wrong action” (63).
“Christianity teaches righteousness, not rights. It emphasizes honor, not equality. A Christian’s concern is what is owed to the other, not what is owed to himself” (81).
“Frustration is not the will of God. Of that we can be quite certain. There is time to do anything and everything that God wants us to do. Obedience fits smoothly into His given framework. One thing that most certainly will not fit into it is worry” (101).
“People wish they had more leisure time. The problem is not too little of it, but too much of it poorly spent” (102).
“There is no such thing as Christian work. That is, there is no work in the world which is, in and of itself, Christian. Christian work is any kind of work, from cleaning a sewer to preaching a sermon, that is done by a Christian and offered to God […] A Christian finds fulfillment not in the particular kind of work he does, but in the way in which he does it” (118).
“Let us be honest in recognizing feelings and honest enough to reject them when they are wrong” (143).
