A New Outlook on What it Means to Be Chrisitan

In previous posts, I have mentioned that I have become more interested in religion and have begun some self exploration in and about how I feel about it.  At Christmastime, my younger sister lent me some books which she thought I might be interested in.  Two of these books were Captivating by John Eldredge and The Shack by William P. Young.  I really enjoyed these books and there were some ideas addressed in them which I found particularly interesting.  I thought I would post about a few of them in case anyone may be interested in the topics and picking up one of these books too.

Captivating, is about the soul of a woman.  It discusses God's creation of the woman's soul and the parts of God's own self that woman embodies.  The book talks about Adam and Eve as the embodiments of the first man and woman.  It suggests that men have an innate need to be heroes, to be leaders and women have an innate need to be nurturers.  This is not to say that women cannot be leaders, and men cannot be nurturing but that we are naturally wired to be predisposed to certain feelings.  As a soldier's wife I believe my husband really is a hero in more ways than one but even if he was a business man doing a desk job somewhere I don't think I would feel any differently.  Before we were married he used to call me his princess and that made me feel special in many ways.  I think every girl wants to be some one's princess and he really made me feel like one.  The book also talks about the story of Adam and Eve and about the portrayal of Eve as the cause of man's exile from the Garden of Eden.  The author points out that although Eve is the one who eats the apple first, Adam just stands there and does nothing.  He fails in his role as Eve's protector and therefore is equally to blame for their exile.  He doesn't even protest when Eve offers him the apple as well.  I like the fact that Adam and Eve are equally to blame for man's downfall.  It's an interesting book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the roles of men and women and it is enlightening in how it explains the hearts of women.

The Shack, is a very different book.  This book does not set out to be a text on religion.  Rather, it is a story about a man whose daughter is murdered and how he learns to come to terms with her loss.  The main character has a religious experience in which he meets God.  God is embodied in three people, rather like the trinity.  One of the three is a black woman who loves to cook, one is an Asian woman who loves to garden, and the third is a middle eastern man who goes by the name Jesus and loves carpentry.  The main character is uncomfortable at first with the idea that God is a woman.  She doesn't fit his stereotypical image on Jesus or God as a white man with a beard and long white robe.  I like the idea that God could be someone other than the stereotypical image.  In the book, God also tells the main character that he does not care for the institution of religion at all.  He thinks religion creates rifts between people because they put to many rules on each other and use them to exclude each other.  There are a few ideas in the book that I don't entirely agree with but some of the ideas are intriguing.  It's worth reading if you are interested in viewing God and religion from a different perspective.