Some more short takes on four books I’ve read recently:

Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood, Lisa Damour. I really appreciate Dr. Damour’s books about teenage girls. In Untangled, she does a great job of helping the reader to understand the critical steps an adolescent girl needs to take as she heads toward adulthood, as well as give parents tools to both understand what is happening and how to help guide that process. She gives great advice, challenges readers to help guide young women to confidence and assertiveness, and helps navigate healthy approaches to processing emotions. One thing that jumped out at me as a parent of four adolescent boys was the concept of externalization; “a technical term describing how teenagers sometimes manage their feelings by getting their parents to have their feelings instead.” (p.85) In other words, it’s too overwhelming to feel the frustration, fear, or anger in a situation so they let their parents feel it instead – something I recognize in hindsight happening all the time with my teens and other teens! Definitely a good book for anyone parenting adolescent girls or working with adolescent girls. Strongly recommend!

How (NOT) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-Women, Anti-Science, Pro-Violence, Pro-Slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture, Dan Kimball. Spoiler alert: I will be recommending this book this summer to those who attend our Summer Series class on the Bible called “The Book.” Kimball did a great job creating a solid resource for Christians on understanding the Bible, how we got it, the different cultural and contextual impacts in understanding it, and how to read it in our modern culture. I don’t land in the same place as he does in every question he tackles, but the areas where I would take a different approach are ones where we can still be in unity in our pursuit of God despite our different interpretations. It’s a great introduction to many of the topics that confuse or frustrate readers of the Bible. His writing style makes it readable for adults and teens. Definitely worth checking out!

The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Beth Allison Barr. Dr. Barr, an associate professor of history at University of North Carolina, and the associate dean of the Graduate School at Baylor University, put together a compelling work with this book. She writes, “Patriarchy exists in the Bible because the Bible was written in a patriarchal world. Historically speaking, there is nothing surprising about biblical stories and passages riddled with patriarchal attitudes and actions. What is surprising is how many biblical passages and stories undermine, rather than support, patriarchy.” (p.36) Barr does a thorough job of addressing questions around the role of women and the Bible’s stance, the roots of patriarchy, and what place is has today. She used her expertise in ancient cultures to shed new light on controversial passages in scripture that was fascinating. Regardless of where you stand on the topic of women’s roles in church and ministry, this is an important book to read and process.

Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free, Linda Kay Klein. This is one of those books that I highlighted my way through. So. Many. Highlights. Granted, what Klein calls out is exactly what I grew up in – and drove me away from the faith for a season of my life. On page 14, while introducing the book, Klein writes, “The purity message is not about sex. Rather, it is about us: who we are, who we are expected to be, and who it is said we will become if we fail to meet those expectations. This is the language of shame.” Through interviews, her own story, and extensive research, Klein does an incredible job of mapping out both the issues around the topic of purity culture and the damage brought by it. It was the first time I read the term “Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS),” which mimics PTSD, and a host of other similar disorders, but I recognized it immediately in what I and many of my peers experienced. I think what she has written is important and well worth reading.