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Feminine appealNot the party-pooper’s handbookFEMININE APPEAL Feminists, like Marilyn French, get very cross and call it the evangelical backlash — this steady output over the last decade from Christian women writers commending biblical womanhood. This book is one of the best to date. It is up there with God’s Design for Women and Disciplines of a Godly Woman. Its subtitle, Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother, indicates that we are dealing with a list. People like lists, as is manifest by the briefest glance at TV programming schedules. But unlike The Ten Worst TV Programmes Ever Made, this list of seven virtues is neither subjective nor random nor whimsical: it is biblical. It takes the seven virtues listed in Titus 2.4-5. Carolyn Mahaney, as the older woman addressing the younger woman (i.e. the reader) examines each of these virtues in turn to unpick its meaning, relevance and application. Now it has to be said that if you read this list, even to some Christian women, they would think it sounded like the chapter headings for The Party-Poopers Handbook: devotion to husband and children, self-control, purity, working at home, kindness and submission. These things would seem, to many women’s ears, about as negative and po-faced a bunch of attributes as you could dream up on a wet Sunday in Scunthorpe. But Carolyn Mahaney demonstrates through her treatment of each one of them the beauty and pleasure of femininity as God intended. Nor are her wise comments and applications confined to those who are embroiled in the challenges of marriage and motherhood. This book would make an excellent resource for any women’s discussion group. There is a study/question section included at the end. Let the feminists gnash their teeth — that’s the thing they do best. Meanwhile let the wiser of the sex learn and apply God’s ways, as unpacked in this book. I know who will find greater joy and liberty. Ann Benton, © Evangelicals Now - October 2006 |