(Part 2) Best christian women issues books according to redditors

Please take a look at this if you are any kind of Christian or have to deal with abusive people who purport to be. This book changed so much for me,


https://www.amazon.com/Making-Sense-Your-Confusing-Marriage/dp/B07V8427GK/ref=nodl_

Ok.. so I don't have multiples either and WOWZA that would be wild to hear. But I DO have this book that I really love designed to help moms organize and manage large families. The ideas are fantastic.

Not sure how much help it will be when babies are young.. but many ideas helped make our house run smoother.

Large Family Logistics: The Art and Science of Managing the Large Family https://www.amazon.com/dp/1934554782/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fTlzzbYA158QD

I’d recommend reading Eve in Exile. My wife went through it with her Bible study group and really enjoyed it.

https://www.amazon.com/Exile-Restoration-Femininity-Rebekah-Merkle/dp/1944503528

> I'm depressed about my appearance. Not many men find me appealing.

You are beautiful, and someone finds you beautiful even if they aren't around you and saying that - assuming you /want/ a man, you only need 1 :-) And as a young women, you have plenty of time! There isn't a rush, even though culture might swirl around you and scream that there is.

> I'm a caregiver.

You work in a profession that is chronically poorly treated, and poorly paid. This sucks, and is wrong, and I'm sorry! There are places that do treat you well, and if you keep in the work you hopefully will work for one. Otherwise it is a lot of playing focus-on-the-good you are doing and ignoring the rest. And that does get very tiring.

> And it hurts me because I'm too afraid to defend myself.

Learning to stick up for yourself at work without verging into being the aggressive one is... tough. Most folks struggle with it :-) I would suggest finding someone in your profession that you respect and befriending them, take them to lunch, and ask their advice. It is a challenging thing, particularly when you are timid naturally.

> I know I need God but I don't know how to find him.

I would try and find a community that offers love and support. Either through friends, offering your general area here and finding a good community around you, or just trying churches around you. But that involves people :-)

Non-people options, here are three books that may interest you: Wait and See, Becoming Myself, God Loves Broken People: And Those Who Pretend They're Not.

And of course, we here on reddit are not medical professionals, just random strangers that want other random strangers to find joy in this life - always always seek and accept medical help for medical problems like depression and anxiety!

Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul.

There's an awful lot to unpack in your post. I'll try to hit the key points, but please let me know if I miss something. To be clear, I am speaking to you explicitly in my capacity as a member of the clergy, ordained and out of seminary over twenty years.

1. This is not a punishment for sex. Clearly he's a jerk, and not worthy of your time, affection or intimacy - but that doesn't mean that it was a mistake to be sexually intimate with someone you loved and trusted.
   
2. You did not make a "marital commitment" to him. There is no magical boundary of emotional or physical intimacy that - once crossed - goes from "romantic affection" to "sex and marriage." It's your body, and you get to decide what touching you or not touching you means.
   
3. Consensual sex does not damage or soil us as people. We aren't ruined or reduced in value by it. The question isn't, "Would a Christian man still want you?" The question is, "Why would you want a man who still has a medieval understanding of sexual intimacy?"
   
4. You are not broken. This hurts right now, in a way nearly all of us have experienced at one time or another. But the breaking you feel is the pain of growing, and growing stronger. You will learn from this, and - in every way - be a healthier person.
   
5. You don't need to know if, or what, you believe in God right now. Scripture, the Church, and the love of God are all here for you, in whatever way you can receive them, just as you are. We sing and talk about grace all the time in church, but somehow it's hardest to believe it is real when we need it the most. But I assure you, the same beautiful grace that made you want to open a Bible and study it, is still here. God loves you, and knows you, and sees you - and whatever shape your faith takes, God will still love and know you.
   
6. "Sin" is a very complicated concept, and never as clearly delineated as fundamentalists want it to be. Many people take advantage of Scripture to cram their own fear and biases into eternal commands that don't hold up to scrutiny or scholarship. There are countless mainline and progressive Christian books that can help you work out a sexual ethic that is faithful both to your values and to the tradition. Don't let this bad experience cause you to fall back into dangerous and damaging "purity culture."
   
7. This is the most important one. You are a good and worthy person. You deserve to be loved by someone who respects you enough to always be honest with you. Never settle for less.
   
   For your own reading, or others looking for an understanding of Christians sexual ethics that goes beyond fundamentalism, here are some resources:
   
   - Good Christian Sex - Bromleigh McCleneghan
   
   - Unprotected Texts - Jennifer Wright Knust
   
   - Shameless: A Sexual Reformation: - Nadia Bolz-Webber
   
   - Shameless: How I Lost My Virginity and Kept My Faith - Dani Frankhauser
   
   - Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics - Margaret Farley (this one leans toward the academic)
   
   - God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says - Michael Coogan
   
   and, for a wonderful critique of the devastating impact of "purity" culture...
   
   - Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation - Linda Kay Klein

These are some good books that convinced me to go from pro-choice to pro-life. The first two are history books that demonstrate the universality of the pro-life movement as opposed to it often being relegated to being a conservative issue. The latter two are books that address major concerns held by pro-choice people. They're pretty academic and respectful of the other side.

• Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. Williams - a history of the pro-life movement before Roe, and its roots in the anti-war and progressive movements. Though it elaborates on the arguments the non-religious used to justify the preservation of the fetus. It's unfortunately a very neglected historiography and this book does a great job of chronicling the motivations driving and influences of the pro-life movement.
  
  
• After Roe by Mary Ziegler - a history of the pro-life movement after Roe.
  
  
• Defending Life by Francis Beckwith - A book with arguments for why abortion is wrong. The arguments are not at all rooted in religion and is accessible to most everyone.
  
  
• The Ethics of Abortion by Christopher Kaczor - Another great apologetics book on the morality of abortion.
  
  
  This Atlantic article article demonstrates how modern medical advances have given the pro-life movement new and important ground.
  
  If you'd like more resources, I'd be more than happy to supply more links to good resources online for pro-life arguments.

Non-fiction. A lot of people seem to discount anything that's not fiction, on the grounds that it will be boring, 'hard', or extraneous to their lives. What's I've found is that I'll often pick up a book because I'm interested in a particular topic, and 'new' non-fiction often takes you into many other related topics, how they've influenced/been a symbol of that society, etc.

A few of the books that really stick in my mind are

The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America. I'd originally picked it up because I've got an interest in serial killers (yeah, I know), but all of the information about engineering, the history of the World's Fair, Chicago etc. was just fascinating.

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. It's supposedly about Prohibition, but it says a lot more about the political/religious climate of the U.S. from the mid-1800s on, ties prohibition in with women's rights, churches, gangsters etc. And it's a great read.

Pretty much anything by Jon Krakauer. A lot of his books are about 'individualism vs. society', but they cover a lot of ground. Into Thin Air is one of the best extreme sports books I've ever read, Into the Wild is incredibly sad, Under the Banner of Heaven was a very interesting look at Mormon-related culture, etc.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life is just interesting, accessible reading, that touches on everything from why we have closets to when the desire for privacy influenced house design.

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement is ostensibly about a splinter fundamentalist group that started in the U.S., but eventually ends up touching on everything from PACs, to racism, education styles, women's rights, how Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Islamic fundamentalists are coming to an accord on some fairly major issues, and how that's likely to play out.

And because I'm a Tudor history nut, Henry VIII: the King and his Court, and The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen were both very interesting, and go well beyond the standard royal biography. I think that it's pretty awesome that so much new information and scholarship is turning up around facts that we've 'known' for centuries.

Pretty much anything by Nathaniel Philbrick or David McCullough.

Non-fiction is just great, especially right now. I think that we're in a bit of in a Golden Age of non-fiction right now, as there's a demand for it, and authors are making it more accessible and interesting than ever.

Community: Try some new things. Church takes up so much time/energy that a lot of our potential interests get discarded. (I took a gardening class at a local nursery on a Sunday.) Or get involved in something that would have been verboten before, that you are interested in. This is particularly useful, I think, because leaving christianity can also feel like leaving all our ways of being charitable and of addressing pain/evil in the world; you can meet other awesome people and do good secular deeds. (I took my 'tithe' money and started donating to social justice and environmental groups and have volunteered at the local library, etc.) Can you take your musical skills and volunteer somewhere non-religious?

Rejection: There is no easy answer for this. I have found it difficult to maintain relationships with serious believers (even family) even when they don't reject because we just don't have much in common anymore. Like you said, all of the relationship is wrapped up and mediated by the religion. If you take that away, what's left? It is sad, and I've had to give myself space to grieve that loss. With some of my family I've just had to accept that the relationship is going to be very shallow as the only way they know to connect is through Christianity. And, what's been even more difficult is figuring out that I didn't really know how to build relationships w/o that religious framework. Its been a slow process; it may take a lifetime.

Sexuality: Listening to other people is my only real suggestion here, and get therapy if necessary. Hearing other people as real, fully human, diverse, thriving (or struggling) human beings I've found very helpful. Also, real scientific information (does brith control really cause abortions? NO. Do people who engage in pre-marital sex really regret it? NO. and so, so much more.) Reject shame by bringing it all, as much as possible, into the light. I found it really helpful to spend some time/thought developing a sexual ethic for myself. It may be less scary to reject repression if you have a new framework to rely on. (Mine primarily revolves around respecting other people as whole people with agency.)

​

Resources that I found helpful in addressing these issues:

Ryan Bell's podcast Life After God (he was a pastor who deconverted). Also, Voices of Deconversion

Linda Kay Klein's book Pure, for understanding the purity movement that has shaped christian teaching on sexuality, together with this critical interview with the author by C. Stroop. (The book focus mostly on the impact of purity culture on women, but I think it'd be useful for a man trying to understand and deconstruct how those teachings impacted and permitted the modern christian view of sexuality. Someone needs to write a similar book about the damage repressive sexual teaches have had on men and masculinity.)

ETA: another option for community: Sunday Assembly

Happy B-day and Congratulations!
I'm reading this book to prepare myself to be a good wife when my SO and I get married Wife After God's Own Heart

Her husband has the pairing for the Husband After God's Own Heart, my SO got that one.

I can only tell you that I am loving the Wife's book, it's got a workshop and also gives you a way to look at marriage in a very Christian way, how to be one in flesh as God commanded.

God bless you in your new adventure!

If my memory is correct, Women Who Do Too Much is one. Although this is aimed more at people-pleasing and superwoman-syndrome.

Step 1: Read Brain Over Binge. it's a book about a woman overcoming bulimia by separating herself from her addiction.

Step Two: Know that you are choosing what you eat. You control your choices, not your food. Every time you want to choose to overeat, ask yourself, "How will I feel about this in the morning?" If the answer is anything negative, then stop.

---

I know that's easier said than done, I have been exactly where you are. The hardest part is taking yourself out of the moment. Separate your mind from the voice telling you that you need the food. You don't need that food, it'll only bring you temporary joy and long-lasting pain. You are an intelligent, amazing human being and that voice in your head, that urge pushing you towards food is just an animalistic addiction. It's a craving. You're not a lab rat proving the addictive qualities of sugar, you're stronger than that.

---

If reading is your thing, you might want to check out a book called Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength. If you're a Christian, I'd also recommend Made to Crave.

You're welcome! I also enjoy stories of "faith in times of oppression." You've probably read The Hiding Place. Also intriguing is I Found God In Soviet Russia (Kindle), If I Perish, The Pastor's Wife (Sabrina, wife of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand in Romania), In God's Underground (Richard Wurmbrand), Out of the Far Corners, God's Double Agent, Under The Same Sky. If you like missionary stories, Bruchko is awesome. You may have watched the "Girl With Seven Names" author Ted Talk. How 'bout the awesome missionary short Never the Same? Anyway, may the Lord bless you, brother! Have a great day!

I have this book, I love it! https://www.amazon.com/Top-100-Women-Bible-ebook/dp/B004OEK7N8 :)

Hey, this is cheap today if she has a Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A7GC45Q

https://www.amazon.com/Unveiled-Wife-Embracing-Intimacy-Husband/dp/B00U6M30U4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524227457&sr=8-1&keywords=the+unveiled+wife

This book talks a lot about your situation as this lady and her husband were in the same situation.

@RachelWojo:
>2015-01-20 01:28:28 UTC

>R U a ministry leader? The Making of a Mom makes mentoring easy & missional! The ebook is ONLY $1.99 amazon.com @themominitativ

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Apparently, the violinist argument was first made in 1971. It was a moral philosophy paper by Judith Thompson. If you want to know how the debate looked in the 60s and before, I'd suggest reading Defenders of the Unborn. https://www.amazon.com/Defenders-Unborn-Pro-Life-Movement-before/dp/0199391645

From this book: it’s real. You are so ignorant.

https://www.amazon.com/Walls-Are-Talking-Abortion-Workers-ebook/dp/B01DL0PS0C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493050361&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Walls+Are+Talking%3A+Former+Abortion+Clinic+Workers+Tell+Their+Stories&pldnSite=1