It’s been a great encouragement to read the Amazon and Goodreads reviews of Daddy Tried and The Grace of Shame. Here’s one just posted on Goodreads for The Grace of Shame. And no, we don’t know Christopher, the reviewer:
Imagine me rooting through the attic of my mind, finding a box marked “Superlatives (Good),” and dumping them indiscriminately all over this book. I’ve never read better teaching on the subject. Ever. Pastor[s] Bayly and Von Hagen’s book is wise, hard-hitting and the timeliest book I’ve read in years.
[Their] basic point is that the church has failed homosexuals by muffling our witness about sexual evil in two ways. First, we have allowed (and often encouraged) worldliness to seep into the church in the form of language, definitions, and teaching. Second we have Bowdlerized the church’s teaching on sex by rejecting Biblical language, ignoring categories of sin, and twisting the gospel to allow us to coddle our lusts. This leaves homosexuals confused and lost in sin, but does help us show that we’re not one of thosesorts of boorish haters.
Significantly, Bayly lets a lot of high-profile conservative-ish teaching have it, taking on The Gospel Coalition, Al Mohler, Desiring God Ministries, Tim Keller, and others. In fact, Bayly talks quite freely about failing his own flock in some of these areas. He’s dead-on all over the place, and it makes for a powerful, refreshing antidote to the poison we have allowed into the church. Read it and then get your friends to read it. Few will be able to get through it and not get nailed at some point, but it will put the right kind of steel in your spine.
I’ll end with a quote: “If we think we are wiser than God in the choice of words addressing same-sex sin, we prove we are fools. The reason we shy away from God’s words is not because our own words are better, but because we don’t want to communicate the truth which His words communicate perfectly.” (pg. 125-26)
One final note: we would appreciate readers who haven’t already done so helping us get the word out by writing an Amazon or Goodreads review of Daddy Tried or The Grace of Shame. Also, please think about using social media to recommend them as Christmas gifts.
Thank God for the web! Now all of us can bypass the ironclad control rich legacy publishers used to have over what saw the light of day.
The church needs these books. Please do what you can, and merry Christmas!
