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Rachel Held Evans’ new book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, is deceptive on multiple levels.

She invites readers to join her on a year of experimentation in which she identifies twelve traits of Biblical Womanhood and then attempts to apply them, some rather literally, to her life. After all, she wants answers to the raging question, “What is Biblical Womanhood?” and what better way to find answers than to live the questions. But this is where the deception comes in: the book isn’t primarily about womanhood, or egalitarianism, or even the entertaining escapades upon which she and her husband Dan embark. It’s (thankfully) not about baking or taking etiquette classes or calling her husband master for a month.

It’s actually a wonderful deception, because her book is about something much more foundational: it’s about how we as Christians approach scripture, and how our interpretations of it will bring life or death to those around us.

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I thoroughly enjoyed Rachel’s first book, Evolving in Monkey Town. I like books that ask big questions and point towards difficult answers. I like books that engage ideas everyone is whispering about but are ideas for which the establishment will only give pat answers, allowing for no discussion, no questions. Period.

But when I first heard the title of Rachel’s second book, I was secretly uncertain. I wasn’t sure if I could get excited about a book of immersion journalism that involved Martha Stewart and the Levitical Purity Laws. So I prepared to offer Rachel every ounce of support that I could, all while hiding a tiny flicker of disappointment.

But as soon as I started reading, I found the Rachel Held Evans who signed off at the last chapter of her previous book. And as I followed her smooth writing through chapter after chapter, reflecting on traits like Silence, Modesty, and Valor, I began to appreciate the process of thought through which she led me. More big questions. More thought-provoking ideas.

One quote toward the end of the book remains in my mind:

For those who count the Bible as sacred, the question when interpreting and applying the Bible to our lives is not, “will we pick and choose?” but rather “how will we pick and choose?” We are all selective…If you are looking for verses with which to support slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to abolish slavery, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to oppress women, you will find them. If you are looking for verses with which to liberate and honor women, you will find them.

Even now, there are plenty of people who are more than happy to use the Bible to support continued suppression, oppression, or war in various degrees and forms. There is no doubt that we all, in some form or another, are selective in our reading and application.

So disagree with Rachel’s conclusions if you want, but don’t hate on the book, because this idea, this subject, this discussion about how the Bible should be read and interpreted is one of the most important discussions Christians can facilitate. Don’t try to delete what she has to say (as Lifeway Books would seem to prefer, by choosing not to carry the book) – respond to what she has written (preferably with respect), and contribute to the ongoing dialogue.

Check out Rachel’s new book HERE.

I can just about hear the rain outside, the slow prelude to some giant storm sliding in on the Atlantic. In spite of the prediction of wind and power outages, floods and uncertainty, there is peace in these hours of waiting for the storm. There is a stillness.

As I think back through my recent experience of learning to trust God with my life, I recognize two distinct phases. First there was a period of time where I wondered if God knew what he was doing. But I slowly learned to be okay living the life he has created me to live, even if it doesn’t always look the way I want it to look.

And I thought, in that moment, that I had arrived. Being okay living a simple life, and taking the opportunities that arise: this is what it means to trust God! Or at least that’s what I thought. But soon after that I realized that when you decide to trust God, when you decide to sit quietly and wait, when you decide to stop striving and start listening, the next phase begins.

This round is characterized by the voices of those you love questioning your sanity, usually in small ways. “I understand you’re a writer,” they say. “But most writers don’t make a living that way, right? Maybe you should think about getting a job.” Or, “It’s wonderful that you are chasing your dream, but what about the bills?”

And these are all valid questions. Except for this: I know what I’m supposed to do. I know the path that is spread out before me. I believe in the journey I’m on, and I’m prepared to learn from it one way or another. So I’ve discovered that trusting God means you will look foolish to some. This can be a more difficult phase than the first, because these voices, they are the voices of your friends and family, the ones who, up to this point, were perhaps your greatest cheerleaders.

Of course maybe they weren’t such great encouragers, and then you will see how that has been a good thing, because if they are old stick-in-the-muds and have always been telling you what you can’t do, then they will be easier to ignore at this crucial junction.

But, then again, you know what I mean. You’ve written that book without their approval. You’ve made a decision regarding your children without their agreement. You put up a blog post your friends read without blinking even once, so shocked were they to discover your political leanings or religious views. You quit your job or went on the “dangerous” missions trip or moved into the city. All because there was a voice inside of you, a gentle urging, something telling you to trust, and to do.

The way of trust is, in the end, a lonely way. And this is as it should be, at least for a time, because it’s only when all of your supports have been removed that you will have the courage to open your eyes and see that trust is enough.

From Brennan Manning’s Ruthless Trust:

Moralizing surges to the fore in this unbalanced spirituality. At the very outset, it presents a warped idea of the relationship between God and humans. From her parents a child learns of a deity who strongly disapproves of disobedience, hitting one’s brothers and sisters, and telling lies. When the little one goes to school, she realizes that God shares the fussy concerns of her teachers. At church, she learns that God has another set of priorities: she is told that he is displeased that the congregation is not growing numerically, that irregular attendance is the norm, and that his recurring fiscal demands are not being met.

When she reaches high school, she discovers that God’s interests have expanded to an obsession with sex, drinking and drugs. After twelve years of Christian indoctrination at home, school, and church, the teenager realizes with resentment that God has been used as a sanction by all those who have been responsible for her discipline – as when Mommy and Daddy, at their wits’ end over her mischievous antics as a toddler, alluded to “the eternal spanking.” Through this indoctrination, God is unwittingly associated with fear in most young hearts.

Moralism and its stepchild, legalism, pervert the character of the Christian life. By the time young people enter college, they have often abandoned God, church, and religion.

Do you evoke particular images of God to control the behavior of others? Does it work? What do you think are the long term affects of a child regularly being told that their behavior disappoints God?

I think the Internet makes it more difficult than ever to be myself. Messages bombard me, persuading and cajoling and berating.

“Listen to this!”

“Agree with me!”

“Think the way that I think!”

Even worse, if you’re a people-pleaser like me, you find your true identity evaporating in an attempt to keep everyone happy, to prove to everyone that you somehow agree with them. In an era where your beliefs make you smart and important in the eyes of those with whom you agree, it is tempting to walk that subtle line of conformity. It is far too easy to be devastated by the unkind contradiction of a stranger.

We are a culture where the individual is quickly defined by what she believes. “He’s a democrat.” “She’s a libertarian.” “He believes in legalizing same-sex marriages.” “She’s pro-life.” “He’s an Eagles’ fan.” “She doesn’t like Nutella.” And after hearing even one of these pieces of information about someone, it’s so easy to fill in the rest of the gaps, to turn them into a caricature, to reduce them to a flat character about whom we know everything we could possibly need to know.

Beliefs: the litmus test of our culture.

And, as has been the case in far too many instances, Christianity conforms to culture. Christians of every ilk set up idols of particular beliefs, polarizing themselves into camps of Correct and Incorrect. This, it seems, is where we find ourselves in the waning days of 2012: grasping desperately for beliefs, as if holding dearly to the right ones is the last thing keeping our civilization from complete and utter annihilation.

Beliefs have become our salt and light. Taking the “correct” position on every issue imaginable has become our way of declaring the Good News. It’s no wonder church attendance is dwindling and the broader culture is becoming increasingly disenchanted with Christianity – when the message of Good News has been watered down to consenting to various positions or beliefs, the Good News transforms into the Right News. Which is actually rather annoying, and not much fun to listen to or to help spread.

Most of us Christians today, mistaking “right belief” for saltiness, have lost the very trait of saltiness about which Jesus spoke: love. Helping the poor (and not JUST voting for the candidate whose policies we think will benefit them). Jesus’ saltiness means having a love for our neighbor that transcends whatever belief system we espouse.

When Jesus encouraged his followers to be salt and light, these words weren’t couched alongside some sort of list of correct beliefs. No, his exhortation to be salt and light comes during his Sermon on the Mount – it’s mixed in with wisdom on the importance of the posture of one’s heart; he names as “blessed” people who are merciful and meek and peacemakers (adjectives describing action, a way of life), not those possessing or understanding of correct doctrine.

Jesus more closely associates salt and light with good deeds than good beliefs. Soon after the salt and light metaphor, he challenges the cultural paradigm of loving your neighbor and hating your enemy and says, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” He never said, “Make sure someone knows what you believe before you help them.” He never said, “Love them only after they fully understand that you believe what they are doing is wrong.”

This is salt and light: not right beliefs, but love.

I’m afraid for Christianity today. I’m afraid that we’ve gone so far down the path paved by “correct” beliefs that we have lost the only trait that could make us truly salty: radical love, not only for the poor and downtrodden, but also (perhaps more incredibly) for one another.

But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

Are we Christians good for anything anymore? Can we still be salt and light through our deeds, our acts of love? Or, leaning increasingly on our beliefs to serve as that which makes us different, are we suitable only to be trampled underfoot?

“Tales of Creativity and Play” is TED speech given by Tim Brown. Are you ashamed of what you create, or are you excited to share it with your fears? What role does playfulness have in creativity and productivity?

Some excerpts from my favorite blog posts of the last week:

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“What a relief it is to hear someone say, you can do better.”

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“…and some days, it’s hard for me to know how building a retreat space for writers and musicians will really make a difference to people living in poverty, to children being trafficked as slaves, to women forced into prostitution, to the homeless.  Sometimes, I feel like my dream is so selfish.“

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“It’s true, sometimes God says no. And we may not like it or agree. But we trust that even in his no, there is a yes, waiting to be revealed.”

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“I come home from a third world country and I keep it moving.  We had a hard year last year that in many unstoppable ways keeps bleeding into the present.  It’s simply too much to process except in bits and pieces, over time, in-between snuggles and arguments and houseguests and memories.”

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“I’ve brought you here today to send you away. Normally I want a lot of readers and a lot of traffic, but I don’t want you here today. I want you to go elsewhere.”

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“Obama is getting my vote. I think he’s the better choice. But I do wish that he would talk about assassinations and drone strikes in a way that shows these killings are somewhat troubling to his conscience as a Christian. Because everyone I talk to — liberals and conservatives — think that we should go for a few years with no new wars.”

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“It does not seem unreasonable to me that as a Christian I both affirm the truth of Christ and also maintain the very real possibility that I’m wrong. To be sure, that is a difficult tension to maintain, but not impossible. And that is not a weakness of faith, or a lack of faith, but a realistic faith that entertains the possibility that I am mistaken.”