As you’ve kicked off your new year you probably have been eager to find ways to grow and learn more as you make progress in your faith. Great! Keep it up! My amazing wife has some help to send your way in that regard. She loves reading good books and recommending them to others for their edification. So I’m posting some of her recommendations here along with her brief synopsis. She and I hope these books will help you grow more to live out the gospel in every part of life. Here’s the first book.
Gay Girl, Good God by Jackie Hill Perry (get the book here)
I loved every bit of this book, from the Foreword to the Afterword and everything in between. The Foreword brought a smile to my face as Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth contrasts her background with JHP’s and explains how Jackie has introduced her to a new meaning of the word “dope.” In the Afterword, Jackie relates her motivation to the psalmist’s, “Come and hear…and I will tell you what He has done for my soul” (Ps. 66:16). God has done a beautiful thing for her soul, and she cannot keep it to herself.
The book is less than 200 pages and easy to read. As a hip-hop artist and poet, Jackie has a way with words and I so enjoyed her writing. She tells her story in Parts 1 and 2, “Who I Was” and “Who I Became,” and sprinkles in exhortation throughout those sections. I found Part 3, with chapters on identity, endurance, and the “heterosexual gospel,” to be particularly instructive for the church. Here is just a tidbit that I hope will entice you to read this book: “When an SSA (same sex attracted) Christian pursues heterosexuality as the goal instead of Christ, they will ultimately find themselves merely replacing one idol for the other…If sexuality was their (and our) primary identity, then that would make sexuality our primary call. But we were not ultimately made for sex; we were made for God and His glory alone (Col 1:16).”
I did a lot of underlining in this book but won’t clutter up this review with more quotes; I just encourage you to read it. As Christians, we need to think rightly about not only the topic of homosexuality but also about the people who are same sex attracted – men and women who were created in the image of a good God, who need to be loved and discipled just as Jackie was.
