Book Review: Untwisting Scriptures to Find Freedom and Joy in Jesus Christ: Book 6 Striving, Dying to Self, and Life
Summary:
In her 6th book on Untwisting Scriptures, Rebecca Davis successfully identifies harmful teachings and their biblical sources and explains that these damaging teachings are not, in fact, biblical. She quotes the Bible extensively, giving context, and provides alternative, healing ways of understanding these biblical passages. She presents an untwisted truth, using biblical evidence to oppose the messages telling Christians, mainly women, to deny themselves for other people. This book would be especially meaningful for those whose beliefs were formed in Fundamentalist, Baptist, or Reformed traditions. It showed me just how far fundamentalist, Reformed, and evangelical Christianity has strayed from the Bible.
Author: Rebecca Davis writes so that those who have suffered abuse (spiritual, domestic, or sexual) can know that God is good, opposes the powerful and lifts the oppressed. She was raised in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church and studied under Bill Gothard, the founder of IBLP who was forced out of his position after more than 30 women accused him of sexual harassment and ten women filed a legal claim of sexual abuse.
Rebecca Davis is a trauma-informed coach who attends a Reformed Baptist Church and identifies herself as an evangelical. When twisted church teachings hurt a person, Davis calls it spiritual abuse but she bypasses the term church hurt. I appreciate her articles which untwist some harmful teachings from Reformed and Baptist schools of thought. Her thoughts are available on her website: https://heresthejoy.com.
Publisher: New Morning Press (November 29, 2024), Copyright Rebecca Davis, 146 pages
Genre: non-fiction, Christian Fundamentalism, Christian Counseling, Religious Counseling, Women's Inspirational Spirituality
Why I Chose it:
Like Rebecca Davis, I have been deconstructing teachings from the church about the Bible that have turned out to be harmful, putting down the vulnerable.
Unlike Rebecca Davis, I was not raised as an evangelical, and since studying the Bible and my faith, I am no longer a member or supporter of Baptist or Reformed churches. I believe in calling out both spiritual trauma and church hurt, making Christian teachers accountable for the harm they have caused. I identify as an ex-vangelical, progressive Christian, LGBTQ- ally, and an advocate for biblical equality and equal rights regardless of gender.
Part One: Struggling with Striving
Rebecca Davis discusses the long list of moral behaviours that are taught and enforced by evangelical churches. She states that just as Paul said we no longer live by the law, Christians today no longer live by a list of rules for behaviour. Living by a list makes you proud, then discouraged, and when you can't be perfect, you may become apathetic or rebel against the list. We cannot become pure through our own moral efforts. We will not lose salvation by working on a Sunday. We rest in God.
Jesus gives us rest from working and striving to become godly or live a holy life or to try to please God. Godliness comes from Christ, not our own efforts to be good. Christ has already sanctified us. We should strive to gaze on Christ, and strive against evil and injustice in the world. We don't work to earn God's approval or prove our worth. Christ has already purified us and made us righteous and given us the Spirit to strengthen and guide us. The untwisted truth is that we don't need to strive to please God or to earn salvation; we are secure in God's grace and can walk with God moment by moment.
Part Two: The Christian and Daily Dying to Self
Rebecca Davis discusses the teaching that our proud self, our ego, must be broken, and that we must die to ourselves and have no personal self-worth or emotions. It's not biblical. And it enables oppression and abuse. Dying to self is like being in bondage to the law, not at all like freedom in Christ.
She addresses the false teaching that anything from within is sin, and we must have no plans, desires but be small, silent, and subservient. Women, in particular, have been spiritually abused by being told that their needs don't matter; pay attention only to the needs of others. Women are told not to have an opinion, be offended, or respond with natural emotions like hurt. They're told to sacrifice their minds, bodies, and emotions for the good of others or the good of everyone.
This teaching is a twisted way of telling people to lay down their life for other people, in contrast to the biblical teaching of being willing to suffer for following Jesus and proclaiming God's kingdom. Instead of daily dying to self, the untwisted truth is that we live by faith. The death of sin has already been accomplished by Christ. No other sacrifice is needed. We can be resurrected with new life with Christ.
There is a whole chapter addressing the false teaching that we are to be a living sacrifice. Preachers are encouraging wives to sacrifice themselves for their husbands. God does not want us to be sacrificed or abused. We use our bodies for God, for righteousness, not to enable wrongdoing. Adults must always protect children, period.
John the Baptist said "he must increase but I must decrease." That was in reference to John as the one announcing the Messiah. It does not mean we must decrease. In fact, empowered by the Spirit, we are tasked with important work and we cannot do it if we make ourselves small or invisible.
Christians have promoted a false teaching that we are worthless, sinful, and nothing in me that God should love. We cannot love ourselves. We must be disgusted by our own sinful depravity. Of course, this is both wrong and unbiblical. You must love yourself to have the confidence to love others. It's not about loving yourself for hedonistic pleasure, but about loving yourself so that you can have loving relationships with others.
The untwisted truth is that we can love ourselves because God first loved us. God calls us worthy. God no longer sees us as sinful but as washed clean. Learn to see yourself as God sees you.
Part Three: The Christian and Life
Rebecca Davis grew up learning the gospel means remembering how sinful we are being grateful for our forgiveness, and striving hard to do better, dying to self. She says the gospel is so much more. God is not an angry judge and we don't need Jesus to plead for mercy against God's wrath against us. God loves us as children; we don't need to live in fear. It's not about striving harder to do better; it's about being transformed through Jesus's resurrection and the Holy Spirit's power. Jesus offers abundant life. The Spirit makes us alive not only in eternity but even now. Spiritual death is not separation from God, but non-responsiveness, going through the motions like a zombie. Emotional and physical responses indicate you are alive. God does not need us to make ourselves smaller so he is great; God enables us to be more our true person, a distinct being.
The untwisted Scripture is that God has given us freedom and joy. There is no more striving to follow laws or rules, no more dying to self, but being filled with the Spirit and empowered with abundant life.
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