Justin Taylor does what he can to puncture the bubble surrounding Rachel Held Evans’ book A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Evangelicals, like Trillia Newbell, have been less than impressed. “In this book Evans is trying to build a bridge, but I wonder if it is not rather a comfortable bridge for shaky evangelicals to find their way into theological liberalism.” Even one secular-postmodern-feminist writer saw through the gimmicky nature of the project and judged that the whole thing ended up making a “mockery” of the Bible.
He includes a link to a lengthy review of the book by Kathy Keller, in which I think she takes the book more seriously than Evans took her subject.
Jason, Kathy Keller may be taking Rachel’s book more seriously than Rachel took her subject but I think that’s because she is aware that many readers will take Rachel’s book more seriously than that.
Unfortunately all too many readers take books more seriously than even their authors; responsible authors are aware of that and write accordingly, and I would expect this especially from Christian authors.
I cannot count how many times I have heard a view of prayer expressed which makes God’s power contingent on our incessant praying, and which is based on Frank Peretti’s novels; or more recently heard a spirituality espoused that minimizes sin and negates the church, on the basis of “The Shack.”
The same is likely to happen with Rachel’s book: readers will cite it as evidence that the Bible is a misogynistic book, and Rachel as the author cannot completely escape responsibility for that – which is Kathy’s point.