1000 Gifts vs Amber at Homemaker by Choice

[makepeace]

Amber at Homemaker by Choice is no longer promoting '1000 Gifts' by Ann Voskamp, which really surprised me because it seems popular with fundie bloggers. She says she became aware of negative reviews of it which changed her mind.

I found one review, lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=6604 - one point talks about 1000 gifts using terms such as intimacy with God, which that website find offensive as it can suggest a sexual relationship.

Bloggers who use the 1000 gifts in their blogging - listing 1000 gifts - well I quite enjoy reading them because it's a technique anyone can use to look at the positives in life, and reminds me to think of the 'gifts' in my life.

Can't help but think Amber is trying to prove herself more fundie and therefore better than other bloggers, such as the YLCF lady, who document 1000 gifts.

[Sola]

Can't help but think Amber is trying to prove herself more fundie and therefore better than other bloggers, such as the YLCF lady, who document 1000 gifts.

Well that's never happened before with fundie bloggers :roll: :roll:

[GenerationCedarchip]

That does have a "fundier than thou" ring to it. I think some folks just can't be content unless they're trashing something, though, and it's no different on the fundie-farm.

I got curious and went over to Amazon and even there, most of the negative reviews have more to do with people who don't click with Voskamp's writing style rather than the actual content of the book.

[oolong]

Bluh. I don't want to read her post, but I just want to say that suggesting "intimacy with God" implies a sexual relationship is... um, gross? It reminds me of people fretting about men bathing their infant daughters because that might be incest, and I think that's sick. Sex on the brain, all the time, so much so that you can't even have a real relationship with your own God.

So, if it's possible to have a sexual relationship with God, that means somebody must be doing it. What do our fundies think of this? Is it cheating on your husband? Is it actually the devil you're having an affair with? Since God would never consent to any such thing, is it rape? Can you defraud the Lord? So many questions.

[FJismyheadship]

OMG reminds me of that episode of South Park where Cartmen had a band and he turned a bunch of songs into Christian songs by changing the word "baby" to "Jesus" and then people questioned him about it until; he said something along the lines of "I don't question the way YOU worship" or something.

[oolong]

OMG reminds me of that episode of South Park where Cartmen had a band and he turned a bunch of songs into Christian songs by changing the word "baby" to "Jesus" and then people questioned him about it until; he said something along the lines of "I don't question the way YOU worship" or something.

Oh Jesus, I want to get down on my knees and feel your sweet love all over my face! :o

[Burris]

That does have a "fundier than thou" ring to it. I think some folks just can't be content unless they're trashing something, though, and it's no different on the fundie-farm.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. Grace over at Are Women Human? makes what I believe to be a similar point in her April 2 post, "Why is Ann Voskamp's Mysticism a Problem?"

NT Wright talks about "intimacy with God" and I'm fairly sure he was accused of "heresy" by some finger-waggers as well -- because if there's one thing the approximately 38 000 sects of Christianity around the world are known for, it's doctrinal consistency. Jackasses.

I actually don't like Voskamp's writing, based on the content of her blog, and so I don't own any of her books. I like my mysticism a bit rougher and more straight-forward.

That's not the reason some of these fundies don't like her, however: I think they don't like her because she's a popular Christian female writer who doesn't devote book after book to the topic of gender essentialism in some form. (I'm hard-pressed to think of a single 'Reformed' woman who writes popular material that isn't heavily linked to this nonsense about the home and the public sphere. Popular women who fall outside that genre are almost invariably accused of heresy over one thing or another - even if their comments fall squarely into Christian tradition.)

Where Voskamp's book, 1000 Gifts, is concerned, the Lighthouse Trails Editor makes this remarkable claim:

We find Voskamp’s mixture of sexual and spiritual language when referring to a relationship with God offensive. The most “intimate†relationship anyone ever had with God on this earth was the one Jesus Christ had with His Father; but nowhere in the Bible does Jesus (or the disciples) use sexual language and innuendos to describe the relationship between God and man.

So all that talk about how the church is the bride of Christ (which is part of where all that gender essentialism comes from in the first place), or of Israel as the bride of God, or of God impregnating Mary to produce Jesus are not sexual in nature, such that "...nowhere in the Bible does Jesus (or the disciples) use sexual language and innuendos to describe the relationship between God and man."

Oh, come on already! I mean, it's one thing to be Biblically illiterate, or even to have a different reading on some passages, but it should be impossible (even with a cursary reading) to ignore the metaphors of intimacy between people and God.

[Nothing2CHere]

Where Voskamp's book, 1000 Gifts, is concerned, the Lighthouse Trails Editor makes this remarkable claim:

So all that talk about how the church is the bride of Christ (which is part of where all that gender essentialism comes from in the first place), or of Israel as the bride of God, or of God impregnating Mary to produce Jesus are not sexual in nature, such that "...nowhere in the Bible does Jesus (or the disciples) use sexual language and innuendos to describe the relationship between God and man."

Oh, come on already! I mean, it's one thing to be Biblically illiterate, or even to have a different reading on some passages, but it should be impossible (even with a cursary reading) to ignore the metaphors of intimacy between people and God.

Evidently the KJV doesn't have Song of Songs in it, either?

[emeraldskull]

Where Voskamp's book, 1000 Gifts, is concerned, the Lighthouse Trails Editor makes this remarkable claim:

So all that talk about how the church is the bride of Christ (which is part of where all that gender essentialism comes from in the first place), or of Israel as the bride of God, or of God impregnating Mary to produce Jesus are not sexual in nature, such that "...nowhere in the Bible does Jesus (or the disciples) use sexual language and innuendos to describe the relationship between God and man."

Oh, come on already! I mean, it's one thing to be Biblically illiterate, or even to have a different reading on some passages, but it should be impossible (even with a cursary reading) to ignore the metaphors of intimacy between people and God.

Very, very true. All through the Old Testament God talks about "wooing" Israel, making her his bride, how she turns away from her lover and has affairs with other nations, etc... You'd have to be blind to miss them... or maybe reading a different Bible?

[cate]

Oh Jesus, I want to get down on my knees and feel your sweet love all over my face! :o

He sang, "I want to get down on my knees and start pleasing Jesus! I want to feel his salvation all over my face!"

There's also, "And I just want to feel you deep inside me, Jesus!"

7uu-TtAKpCw

[oolong]

LOL. Thanks for the link, Cate.

[fundies_like_zombies]

so has every other blogger who was OMG so EXCITED for the book link up study thing given up based on what amber said?

[Soldier of the One]

I noticed that review too. Voskamp was also criticized for referencing Catholic mystics.

Apart from being all over Prophetic literature and the NT, imagining God as the Divine Lover/Husband is classic fare of mystics. Maybe the blogger is afraid that mysticism will lead to doctrinal laxity. Or, God forbid, a more universalist and tolerant theology. And the ultimate discrediting claim is that Voskamp is a 'panentheist'.

It's a shame, really. I was wondering where Voskamp stands on the fundie spectrum. I read the opening chapter of her book and actually quite liked it. Her writing is obtuse but she deals with theological themes honestly, bringing her anger as well as her joy and I appreciated that.

I guess no more Voskamp for the Dominionists... although I'd be hard-pressed to label Voskamp a religious 'progressive' based on her Sola Scriptura approach (see the statement on her blog).

[GenerationCedarchip]

I noticed that review too. Voskamp was also criticized for referencing Catholic mystics.

Apart from being all over Prophetic literature and the NT, imagining God as the Divine Lover/Husband is classic fare of mystics. Maybe the blogger is afraid that mysticism will lead to doctrinal laxity. Or, God forbid, a more universalist and tolerant theology. And the ultimate discrediting claim is that Voskamp is a 'panentheist'.

It's a shame, really. I was wondering where Voskamp stands on the fundie spectrum. I read the opening chapter of her book and actually quite liked it. Her writing is obtuse but she deals with theological themes honestly, bringing her anger as well as her joy and I appreciated that.

I guess no more Voskamp for the Dominionists... although I'd be hard-pressed to label Voskamp a religious 'progressive' based on her Sola Scriptura approach (see the statement on her blog).

I haven't read the book, but in seeing her blog, she strikes me as fairly mainstream evangelical. On the fundie spectrum, I'd call her fundie lite.

[Austin]

Oh Jesus, I want to get down on my knees and feel your sweet love all over my face! :o

There is a sub-genre of praise & worship music of the Contemporary Christian Music variety that is actually called, "Jesus is my boyfriend". :D

[Soldier of the One]

I haven't read the book, but in seeing her blog, she strikes me as fairly mainstream evangelical. On the fundie spectrum, I'd call her fundie lite.

Any idea where she stands on Egalitarianism/Complementarianism/Patriarchy?

[fundies_like_zombies]

i looked on the amazon preview thing and it didn't look bad - not sure what scared the fundies off.

wish i had bookmarked the blogs that linked to ambers site saying they would read it would be interesting to see if they all followed like sheep.

can they not make their own mind up?

[dianapavelovna]

There is a sub-genre of praise & worship music of the Contemporary Christian Music variety that is actually called, "Jesus is my boyfriend". :D

iTwYcS0YLg8