Bulletproof Faith
Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians
By Candace Chellew-Hodge
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008
Review by Carl McColman
There’s a book called UnChristian, by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, which provides an eye-opening look at how young people who are non-Christian perceive Christianity. The single most common descriptor that the outsiders used to describe their perception of Christianity was that it is anti-homosexual. Not just that most Christians think homosexuality is wrong, but that “Christians are bigoted and show disdain for gays and lesbians… Christians are fixated on curing homosexuals and on leveraging political solutions against them.”
With this in mind, I am writing this review of Bulletproof Faith as a heterosexually-married Christian, and I am speaking to the majority of Christians who do not identify as gay (for those gay and lesbian Christians who happen to read this review, I trust you do not need my encouragement to buy and read this book). I think every Christian needs to read this book. I say this because I believe most “straight” Christians have no idea how much suffering their gay and lesbian friends and relatives experience as they try to make their way in a faith that all too often is explicitly hostile to their very being. (more…)
Why Should Evangelicals Read the Mystics?
My co-worker and fellow Lay-Cistercian Jacquie alerted me to the following essay (and blogger’s commentary thereof):
Why Should Thoughtful Evangelicals Read the Medieval Mystics?
Christian History Blog: Prominent Reformed Evangelical Promotes Medieval Mystics
Since I’m not an evangelical (in the sectarian sense of the word), I’ll refrain from commenting on these essays, other than to note that I since I don’t share the perspective from which these writers come from, naturally I don’t share all their values or even all their conclusions. Even so, to their overall message I can only say a hearty “Amen!” — which is why I am now commending their words to you, my readers, of whatever persuasion you might be.
