Practicing
Changing Yourself to Change the World
by Kathy Escobar
Pub Date 18 Feb 2020
I am reviewing a copy of Practicing: Changing Yourself to Change the World through Westminster John Knox Press and Netgalley:
There are parts of this book I agree with like when Kathy Escobar says “Part of an active, vibrant, tangible faith is becoming healthier human beings and learning to practice a better way.” The importance of personal healing and listening, really listening being emphasized are also something I agree with.
The fact that more ears and less mouth are emphasized are something I understand as well, because I believe truly listening is one of the ways we can reach out to others and show them that our faith is genuine. But as I said there are things that I don’t agree with, it’s almost as if the author is accusing Christians in general of not taking the time out to truly listen before forming an opinion, and though I’m sure that wasn’t her intention it was the vibe I got.
The fact that as a Christian she says we can spend to much of the loving God part and not enough of the loving our neighbor part gets to me as well, first of all we are supposed to love God with all our hearts, I do think we need to love our neighbors in a deeper and more profound way but that does not mean we should focus less loving God, if we do it right we can effectively do both.
I honestly found the way she lumped all conservative Christians into this broad category, of judgement and hate.
Honestly I struggled to get through this book because in many ways it felt like an unbalanced personal attack.
I give Practicing three out of five stars, only because this book was well written, and some of the arguments were well thought out!
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