Book Review: A Year of Biblical Womanhood

What an interesting cover. An interesting premise. An interesting author. Rachel Held Evans is a blogger and tweeter - and an author - who I have been following and reading with interest for over a year. She is always worth reading, and whilst I do not always agree with what she has to say, there is always a challenge and something interesting going on. So when she announced her newest book project, "A Year of Biblical Womanhood", I thought it would be interesting. I pre-ordered it at the time, and it thunked onto my kindle a few months later. Over a couple of lazy afternoons I read and enjoyed it.

Its first worth making a couple of observations. Firstly, that this is, in many ways, a non-theological book, being a sort of biography. For a year. Of literal obedience to a comprehensive if occasionally ridiculous reading of 'biblical womanhood . Secondly, this book has attracted a serious level of response - including some criticism. In my own corner of the Twittersphere, this book demonstrated the unfortunate and occasionally acrimonious divide between 'complementarian' and 'egalitarian' evangelical Christians - and those on the fringes of each of those labels. Kathy Keller wrote a widely publicised review for the Gospel Coalition, where she made some good points. Held Evans responded directly to that - and comparing the two makes for interesting reading. Indeed, the book has been praised, reviewed, critiqued and criticised all over the place. I don't particularly want to get into the murk of comparative reviews, so I'll leave it there and tell you what I thought.

I enjoyed reading "A Year of Biblical Womanhood".

Thats it. In a nutshell. I really enjoy the way Rachel writes, even if I don't agree with her conclusions or even her methods. Occasionally I got pretty frustrated with some of her biblical interpretation - read the Keller review and dial it down by about 50% to get my rough opinion - but for the most part I thought she offered a healthy and interesting critique of the way that evangelicals use the phrase 'biblical', especially in relation to 'biblical womanhood'. It was an interesting portrait of her marriage to Dan, and the change in dynamics that the experiment - lasting a year - resulted in.

I enjoyed this book, and I think it would be good for a lot of conservative Evangelicals to read it, to think afresh about presentation and storytelling, and how they would calmly and winsomely counter some of the arguments that Held Evans puts forward implicitly and explicitly. The author is a rising voice for many young Christians and evangelicals, the kind of person it pays to be aware of! 

I did, however, probably because I am at heart fairly conservative, struggle with a few things. I was saddened (For Rachel?) on reading "I was raised evangelical, which means I spent a good part of my life feeling sorry for the rest of humanity". Her explanation does little to remove my sadness - my experience (in one of the most conservatively faithful evangelical churches I've met) taught me something similar, but more liberating: that anyone can come to our gracious Lord and Saviour, Jesus. That said, this is not always the experience of people with Christian backgrounds. Some of us need to think again about what we teach and engage our children.

I was slightly frustrated with the overall attitude to the Biblical text - I know from Held Evans' blog that she has a deep respect and love for it - specifically the attitude that leads to taking the OT Law in the same way (regardless as Christ) as an OT Jew. Because of Jesus, we aren't there any more, and I found this slightly frustrating. That said, even as I was a little infuriated by the methods, Held Evans wisely points out something that all readers and interpreters need to be aware of; "Those who decry the evils of selective literalism tend to rather clumsy at spotting it in themselves". The subsequent open-ended appeal to Jesus and how he was selective was/is an idea I find/found fascinating and would love to see Held Evans explore elsewhere.

I enjoyed reading "A Year of Biblical Womanhood". It made me laugh, it made me murmur in agreement, it made me spurt some of my pint out of my mouth in disbelief. I got annoyed with it. But I enjoyed it. As a book its not perfect - but its an important book that is worth reading regardless of your particular brand or stripe of Christianity. I'd recommend it - even if only so that you know what it says. Otherwise, its good fun, often challenging, and will definitely make you think.