Another seven books on my recent and current book list.
The Armor of God – Bible Study Book by Priscilla Shirer
This is an impactful study I completed with a lifelong friend over Skype. I greatly dislike “fill in the blank” Bible studies because it makes it seem as if the answers to faith are easy and the same for everyone if they’re doing it right. This study is totally the opposite. The questions are highly personal and thought-provoking. The more honest I was with my responses, the more insight I gained into the analogy of the armor of God. I used to think it was just another list of practices I needed to put into place to be a good Christian (one more thing at which I could fail), but I began to understand instead that the armor is a gift provided to us by God to help us in our interactions in this broken, fallen world.
Gender Born, Gender Made: Raising Healthy Gender-Nonconforming Children by Diane Ehrensaft
Self-described as “A groundbreaking guide to caring for children who live outside binary gender boxes.” I loved almost all of this book. It speaks to parenting gender non-conforming children and allowing flexibility and freedom. I’ve always been for that, shopping in the boys department with my twins when they despised the hot neon pink, and cutesy, sparkly clothing that dominated the girls department when they were small. I was disappointed in the final chapters of the book which don’t just encourage non-conforming gender expression, but also social and physical transition, which to me caves in to cultural expectations of gender rather than helping us stretch their boundaries.
Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling by Andy Crouch
I am friends with an apologist who recommended this book to me as an entry into a deeper world of thinking. From the book cover, “Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us.” It retold the story of the Bible through the lens of culture and challenged people of faith to do more than condemn, critique, copy, or just consume culture. Rather he challenges us to create culture following in the footsteps of creator God.
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Fascinating! I’ve never read about heredity and evolution before so I didn’t really understand the processes. The author weaves in stories of how genetics affected his family’s history, along with a thorough history of the gene beginning with Plato and Aristotle up through current day. It’s amazing how far we’ve come in understanding how things work, especially within the last 50-100 years. It’s also amazing that knowing how things work doesn’t even begin to answer why it works that way, or how it got that way.
Transgender A Talking Points Book by Vaughan Roberts
This book is a part of a series of books that address current cultural issues. It communicates how a traditional viewpoint of God’s creation of male and female should impact our views and choices. It definitely is not in support of identifying as transgender, but it does have a very compassionate tone and attempts to speak kindness, patience, support, and hope in place of the individualistic ideology of current culture.
Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul’s Path to God by Gary Thomas
Just starting to read this with the same book partner that read Culture Making with me. This book focuses on the fact that each of us, with our unique personalities and spiritual temperaments, will not relate to God the same and by the same methodical, prescribed routine. Just like my relationship with my friend is not the same as someone else’s relationship with her, my relationship with God will look different from yours.
Recommended to me by a fellow seeker and deep thinker. I haven’t cracked the cover yet, but I’m looking forward to diving in. I think doubt is important in life, and especially to faith because it causes us to keep seeking, keep learning, keep growing. If you just accepted everything at face value, it wouldn’t mean as much. From the professor of my Christian Doctrine class, “Doubt locks us into searching for realities that aren’t seen.”
When reading I try not to just let the information go in one ear and out the other, but rather apply, absorb, act on, or in some way respond to what I’ve read. If the pursuit is wholly mental and theoretical and doesn’t fuel my life and actions, it doesn’t seem a worthy expenditure of time. Because my reading preferences are usually pretty serious, I also try to engage in other activities that take me out of serious mode and let my brain take a breath every now and then – hiking, game playing, cooking and baking, soaking in the hot tub (though that usually involves reading…), watching movies, playing tennis. All reading and no playing makes Jill a dull girl! 
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