Here is the new giveaway! I am giving away the books that won the INSPY Award, which is an award created by a group of bloggers for "excellence in faith-driven literature"? Check out their website: http://inspys.com/ for more information.
I will be giving away these books one at a time, so be sure to come back again in a day or two for the next one!
Here are the rules:
A. Post a comment to this post to indicate you would like to be entered for this book.
B. Answer today's random question for fun.
Today's question (forgot to change it when I first posted, sorry!): What got you started with your passion for reading?
My answer: I had an aunt who supplied me with great books and parents who read to me a lot. I also had neighbors who babysat me and acted out the Narnia books for me.
C. If your name is drawn, I will send you an email to let you know. Please respond within 10 days or the winner will be redrawn.
D. Enter by January 13 for this book. Winner to be announced the following day.
E. Come back again soon for more giveaways!
Today's book: from the category Creative Non-fiction, Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans.
Description:
She learns that in order for her faith to survive in a postmodern context, it must adapt to change and evolve. Using as an illustration her own spiritual journey from certainty, through doubt, to faith, Evans adds a unique perspective to the ongoing dialogue about postmodernism and the church that has so captivated the Christian community in recent years. In a changing cultural environment where new ideas threaten the safety and security of the faith, Evolving in Monkey Town is a fearlessly honest story of survival.
My Thoughts:
Well, this one gave me a lot to think about. I'm not even sure how I feel about it; but I think that's kind of the point. To think about this stuff I mean. I didn't always agree with everything she wrote and I worry slightly about some of the text where I felt like the author was standing on the edge of a slippery slope as far as absolutes of the Bible and my faith go. But again, I think that was kind of her point. She wanted to be able to ask hard questions about God and feel like that was ok. Sometimes I had to take a deep breath and try not to read too much into her illustrations and recognize the purpose of asking the questions.
I think the reader has to remember that this is a record of her journey. I have a journey in my faith too. I, too, used to be in a place where I thought it was wrong to ask questions of God; to wonder why we could give Him credit when our plane was on time, but not wonder why someone else's plane crashed. I like that Held Evans gets her questions out and allows for tough questions that don't have answers.
This book has opened a door for me, in a sense, because it is prompting me to research some of my own questions. Questions that I had been ignoring before, which only became a separation between me and God. So, I am reading some more books and looking for my own journey. I think Held Evans would be pleased that her book sparked me to explore and develop a more interactive give and take faith discussion in my own life. I don't think it would matter to her so much if I agreed with her conclusions completely, as long as I was asking the questions and doing the work to find my own discoveries.
