Book Review: "Good Book: How White Evangelicals Save the Bible to Save Themselves" by Jill Hicks-Keeton

 

I was interested in this book after hearing the author on the "Homebrewed Christianity" podcast with Tripp Fuller. Unfortunately, I found myself bored of the seeeming repetition by which the author continued to express throughout the length of the book: that the Bible's contents are inherently misogynistic, and efforts to say otherwise are not in defense of the Bible but rather in defense of the people arguing on its behalf.

I do suspect that I may not be in the author's target audience, though I continued to feel frustration as I felt she continued on one path when I felt there could have been interesting thought exercises had she ventured off her main thesis.  Mainly, "so now what?"  If her readership concludes the book with her shared understanding that the Bible is misogynistic, and the people it describes were producted of a misogynistic culture and time and not sages who spoke of a true equality while pointing to what a true egalitarian society should be... she leaves unanswered what we're to do with the Bible then?

I genuinely am interested in learning the author's own conclusions after coming to the understanding about how the Bible may not be as pro-women as its defenders often try to make it seem.  And in that way, the book felt like it was at least a chapter short, if not more. For example, does she have another alternative for the many women who claim to be Christians, for how to understand their relationships with the Bible/ God?  Also, what ramifications would her conclusions regarding the personhood of Jesus and of his and Paul's misogyny have upon the Christian faith?  Is it null and void, or is there an evolved view of the faith that can exist/ thrive even with such an auspicious book of faith?

In conclusion, rather than saying that I didn't like the book, I should just say that it was more incomplete, and what Hicks-Keeton argues for in "Good Book" needs conclusions that need to be flushed out.  What we have now is just a readership that is left in a lurch, not knowing how to process the information she provides.