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All items for January, 2017

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The Shack:The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

 

My thoughts concerning Wm. Paul Young’s best-selling novel (Note:this review was written in 2010, but with the movie coming out this year, I thought I would republish it)

By Jesse Jost

Like most reviews of The Shack, I start out by telling you that my curiosity was piqued by hearing friends rave about the book, both in favor of it and against. It’s hard to resist reading a book that draws the fire of trusted conservative voices such as Mark Driscoll and Hank Hanegraaff, while at the same time garnering from Eugene Peterson one of the greatest compliments a Christian work of fiction can receive:  He compared it to Bunyan’s classic Pilgrim’s Progress. Curiosity finally got the best of me and I picked up a copy of this story that has been on the bestseller lists for months and now fills the pages of over three million books worldwide. Now that I have read it, I understand the controversy and compliments this book has stirred. My own journey to the shack increased my dangerous leaning towards schizophrenia…part of me loved certain aspects of the book, while the other part of me was battling feeling “queasy” (to use Hanegraaff’s word) and agitated. So this review will be written by two people in one body. The parts praising the book will be written by my “ego”, while my concerns will be written by my “id”. (I may be using Freud’s terminology wrong, but only because I don’t care to do the research needed to accurately portray Freud’s theories. If he doesn’t like it, he can blame it on my repressed memories.)

Continue reading…

  • Bill Taylor

    Awesome review! My thoughts put down in your words. Hope it is okay to share.

  • Heidi

    Just take what God gives you & let go of the rest…don’t taint & polute for others. Who are we to even begin to touch on what God may do or heal another through a means he so chooses? He used a donkey…enuf said?

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What is a Woman’s Value?

By Jesse Jost

In her recent award-winning book, Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape, journalist Peggy Orenstein surveys the host of sexual challenges and dilemmas the modern girl faces. On the one hand she encounters men who objectify her and tell her she is responsible to dress in a way that doesn’t “distract” or “tempt” men, but she hears little corresponding outcry for the way boys are “distracting” girls through inappropriate groping and lewd comments!

Girls are taught that they can dream big and be whatever they want, but many of the women who have made it to the top have done so by exploiting their sexuality. The implications of this and the corresponding advertisements are crushing: yes, they can be doctors, singers, and lawyers, but their value will still be rated by how closely their bodies conform to the unrealistic sexual ideals found in film and porn.

A woman seeking to make it through high school and college faces the unsolvable dilemma of trying to walk the line between being sexually active but not a slut, and retaining her privacy but not being a “virgin” or a “repressed prude.” Either way she will be relentlessly criticized and degraded for the path she chooses.

I was shocked to read what is expected sexually of a girl, even before she begins to date. Peggy Orenstein interviewed dozens of girls across cultural lines. Many of these girls were strong feminist dynamos with great ambitions to free women from inequality and fight for women’s rights. Yet almost all of them in the heat of the moment admitted to passively submitting to pressure from guys to give sexual favors. In each case the young woman was so eager to please, or so afraid of hurting the guy’s feelings,  she meekly surrendered, and what is sacred and wonderful in its proper context became a gross act of humiliation.

This is a toxic environment where guys beg and pout for graphic snap chats and then publicly humiliate the poor girls for the slightest provocation. Women are regularly described in obscene degrading language, made the objects of cruel hazing rituals, and face demeaning expectations to be a “friend with benefits” or be left behind.

What a confusing world, where a young woman dresses for a party and feels empowered by her revealing outfit, then quickly feels powerless as she is groped and objectified! There were so many times throughout Orenstein’s book that I felt like weeping. I can only imagine what God thinks as He sees this beautiful gift of sex, designed to thrill and satisfy, turned into an instrument of psychological torment.

As I read, my 7 year old daughter Sophia walked by. I had to put the book down and give her a big hug. I inwardly vowed to do all I could to protect her from such a horrific mess. Continue reading…

  • A. D.

    I don’t read blogs very often so I’m especially glad that I read this post. True, I’m a girl, but this is something that applies to all of God’s children – basically, anyone who has been let in on the secret that every person ever alive is worth dying for to the perfect Dad who made us and treasures us all. I’ve been praying for a response that I could have toward what’s going on in our world today which would actually make a difference and bring honor to God and I think you’ve just voiced it. Thank you.

  • Ethan

    Thanks Jesse, This is so powerful and needs to be spread so far and wide. Not only is the World suffering, the church is extremely suffering the confusion of this very thing and you have a God-given gift of bringing such gospel clarity.

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