As women, we are often served “fluff.” I don’t know if it is because we tend to make emotional decisions, or if we just think we aren’t smart enough, but when it comes to theology, we seem to stay on the surface. And as I’ve faced difficult seasons in my life, I’ve recognized that shallow Christianity can’t sustain me. Phylicia Masonheimer’s book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful: Finding Soul-Deep Strength in a Skin-Deep World, invites women to dive deeper.
Because we tend to dine on shallow theology, we often feel empty and purposeless. We struggle to find God’s will for our lives, and we are dissatisfied with our lots in life. And we search for our purpose, our tribe, and our worth in all the wrong places.
I first met Phylicia Masonheimer on Instagram and, shortly thereafter, I started listening to her podcast, “Verity.” After binge-listening to season 1, which discusses the chapters in her book, I knew I had to read it. And I am so glad I did!
“We are so sinful, so unable to bridge the gap between ourselves and a holy God, that He sent His Son to die on our behalf.” Chapter 1: Stop Calling Me Beautiful
Phylicia encourages us to recognize our sinfulness and its impact on us and those around us rather than seeking out pithy quotes that sound good but keep us at the shallow end. Once we recognize the problem, we can see how only Christ is the solution.
“Jesus was a theory more than a person. I read my Bible, but it was like I closed it on Him when I got up to go. I could defend Christianity intellectually, rationally, even emotionally, but God wasn’t real to me spiritually…As my eyes were opened to God’s character in the Bible, my entire outlook was transformed.”
Chapter before the First
Do you resonate with this quote? I do. I grew up in a missionary’s home and knew all of the “right” answers, but it wasn’t until adulthood that I took ownership of my faith and pursued a deep relationship with Christ.
Rather than tell you what I think of Phylicia’s book, I’m going to let the book speak for itself by listing some of my favorite quotes from each chapter. Remember that quotes should be read in context, so, if one of these quotes strikes you the wrong way, read the chapter that contains it for clarification before you make a judgement.
Chapter 1: Stop Calling Me Beautiful
“We’ve been sold a message of all comfort and no strength, and because of this, many of us find following Christ joyless, hard, and empty.”
“Self-focus is why so many Christian women are exhausted by the Christian life. Our attention is constantly being turned away from the One who could bring us real change.”
Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Women
Chapter 2: Hungry for More and Better
“A deeper spiritual life doesn’t happen by accident.”
“Our self-discovery is not God’s goal. We are meant to know God and make Him known.”
Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Women
“He invades the hardest places of our hearts to teach us the truth about abundant life.”
Chapter 4: Why the Instagram Bible Won’t Free You
“The guilt we struggle with when we miss a quiet time might not be so heavy if we didn’t add so much to something that should be so simple.”
“Our time spent with God should be focused on learning more about Him and in doing so, we will learn how to view ourselves.”
“Spiritual depth and maturity never happen by accident. They are always the product of intentional exposure to the heart and Spirit of God.”
“Coffee and Jesus are great. But at the end of the day, all you really need is Jesus. Don’t wait for the coffee—just come to Him.”
Chapter 5: Skirt Length and Bible Translations: Overcoming Legalism
“Legalism is any action added to the gospel in order to please God.”
“We can’t earn peace with God through the law; we choose holiness because we have His peace!”
Chapter 6: The Courage to Trust: Battling Anxiety and Overwhelm
“Rest for our souls is found in choosing trust when trust doesn’t make sense. We can do this not because our circumstances are ideal, but because our God is trustworthy.”
Chapter 4: Why the Instagram Bible Won’t Free You
“Every weapon we use against anxiety must start with who He is, because only then do we invite an objective perspective and power into our circumstances.”
Chapter 7: A Time to Weep: Grappling with Grief
“Our grief is known and carried. Our loss is not pointless.”
“Christian grief is all the pain and loss plus the presence of a loving and faithful God.”
Chapter 8: Used Goods: Redeeming a Broken Sexuality
“Our sexuality has kingdom purpose. Naturally, the enemy is after it. We fight back by trusting God’s love and goodness, even in the face of doubt.”
Chapter 9: Known and Wanted: Cultivating a Lasting Community
“Isolation might seem like an easy way to avoid conflict or pain, but it is one of the most foolish decisions we can make.”
“Loving God and others opens us up to a world of hurt—but it also opens us up to a life that matters.”
“We can’t always trust people, but we can always trust Him. He is our confidence and our healing, and He empowers us to have relationships that defy everything we’ve known before.”
Chapter 10: An Audience of One: Conquering Fear of Man
“A spirit of fear results in weakness, fakeness, and confusion. God’s Spirit leads us to a life of strength, kindness, and wisdom.”
“Our minds and hearts can’t be full of fear and love at the same time, because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).”
Chapter 11: Everything I Ever Did: Overcoming Shame
“When we allow our brokenness and shame to loom larger than Christ’s sacrifice, we’re submitting to an ungodly authority.”
“Your heart does not have the right to tell you who you are; God does.”
Chapter 12: What Difference Would We Make?
“Evangelism is our gift to the world: a testimony of what Jesus has done in our lives.”
“While we should be constantly maturing in faith, God doesn’t tell us to work on ourselves before walking out His call.”
You may be thinking this is “too deep” for you. I would just remind you that your personal relationship with Christ is just that: personal. No one else can develop that relationship for you. It is time to dig deeper, to go beyond the “fluff” and platitudes and discover what it means to know God.
My husband, Mark, and I have wanted to own a business since before we were married. We would pass empty storefronts and daydream about the best business for that space. In 2011, God saw fit to put all of the pieces in place for our dream to become a reality.
Since our business is a brick-and-mortar (meaning a physical building), no one has ever questioned its legitimacy. We’ve never had to defend our choice or convince anyone that we are “real business owners.” The same cannot be said of my network marketing business. Since I consider myself to be a savvy businesswoman, it has never made sense to me that I have this struggle. I want to compare our brick-and-mortar business model to a network marketing business model so you can understand why it is absolutely a viable business.
(If you’re wondering what this has to do with my normal content, check out this blog post from 2018.)
Why Network Marketing Is a Viable Business Model
When we started our business, it cost us more than $100,000 just to open the doors. We had to pay for our equipment, our building, our utilities, our products, etc. This led to a lot of debt. Most network marketing companies, however, let you “open your doors” for less than $1000, most for far less than that. The company I joined has starter packs for as low as $199. There is no other industry where you can start a business for such a small investment.
Each month, we have to make enough money to cover our overhead costs before we turn a profit. Our monthly costs include our building, utilities, insurance, salaries, etc. For a network marketing business, there is no overhead. You can work from your couch or the park. As long as you have an internet connection, your business can thrive.
In our business, we only make money when the doors are open and when we have a customer in the shop. If our doors are open and our lights are on, but there aren’t any customers, our business is costing us money instead of making us money. In my network marketing business, I can wake up to find that I’ve made money. I can choose to focus on only those activities that bring in sales from current or new customers. I can create content once that brings in customers over and over again.
In any brick-n-mortar business, the average is 5 years before you make a profit. Remember the debt we incurred to open our doors? That coupled with the cost of overhead makes it difficult to make a profit. And 5 years is the average, which means there are some businesses that take much longer. In a network marketing business, you can turn a profit very quickly. In the business I do, you can turn a profit in your first weekend!
Hobby vs. Business
So you might be asking, “then why do so many people ‘fail’ at network marketing?”
It boils down to treating the network marketing business like a hobby instead of a business.
One of the things we have to do in our brick-and-mortar is to let people know we are here. We have to talk about the business and the products. We have to put feet to the ground and go places where our ideal customers hang out. In your network marketing business, you have to share, and you have to share often! You can’t keep it to yourself and expect people to come to you. This is why it is so important that you believe in the products you are selling. When you believe in the products, you’re excited to talk about them.
Another thing we have to do if we want to succeed in our business is to show up! When we talk about “time freedom” in our network marketing business, it means that we can work fewer hours, and we get to decide which hours we will work, but we still have to work. So often, we believe the lie that we don’t have to work and we can still get paid. Schedule your hours and show up for them just as if you had a boss looking over your shoulder. This can be flexible, but it still has to happen.
If you’ve been looking for a way to create something for yourself and your family as we stare into an uncertain future, I would love to tell you about the company I chose. Click here to check it out, or send me an email at [email protected] to ask me your questions.
For so long in our country, Christianity has been the norm. Events weren’t planned on Sundays because it was expected that most families would be in church. Telling someone you were at a church event didn’t raise any eyebrows. Even now, when the tide seems to be turning, you will find people in church at least twice each year: Christmas and Easter.
But as times change, the pendulum appears to be swinging, and it is no longer “cool” to be a Christian. There is a certain amount of pressure being applied for people to leave the church and disregard its teachings. And one thing is clear, our churches have been full of cultural Christians and nominal Christians.
Nominal and Cultural Christianity
Nominal Christians are those who aren’t firmly grounded in the Word. They may know all of the Sunday school answers and may even be familiar with most of the stories in the Bible, but they don’t have a deep personal relationship with Christ. And when it is a little uncomfortable to stand on biblical principles against their friends, neighbors, or family members, they fall away.
Cultural Christians are those who think they are grounded in the Word. They might even be teachers and preachers. But when the Gospel butts up against a cultural issue, the cultural Christian twists Scripture to fit the culture rather than standing up for Truth.
If you visit a country where Christians are persecuted; where they are beaten and imprisoned; where they risk losing their families, homes, and jobs just for deciding to follow Christ, you will not meet any cultural Christians. Cultural Christianity only happens in countries where Christianity is comfortable and maybe even expected.
Scripture gives us a great example of cultural Christianity when the Israelites were in the wilderness.
The Golden Calf
The Israelites had witnessed the plagues in Egypt. They had watched God part the Red Sea and had wiped the dust, not mud, off their feet on the other side. They had witnessed the thunder and fire on Mt. Sinai before Moses climbed it. Yet they allowed the culture to dictate their beliefs instead of trusting what God had said.
In Exodus 32, we see the Israelites take gold they had plundered from the Egyptians (Ex. 12:35-36) that was meant for the tabernacle (Ex. 25:1-7) and give it to Aaron, Moses’s brother and the future priest of Israel, demanding he make an idol. Aaron’s leadership was dictated by popular opinion, not by what God had said or done. As soon as it was no longer popular to be godly, Aaron caved to what the people wanted.
Once the calf was crafted, the people worshipped it and said, “These are the gods who brought us out of Egypt!”
Every time I read this passage, I wonder if there was anyone in the crowd who spoke up. How could the Israelites watch Aaron make this statue from the gold they provided and then worship it, claiming it brought them out of Egypt? Surely there were those in the crowd who refused to worship. But did they speak up?
The other thing I wonder is how Aaron must have felt as soon as Moses stepped off the mountain and saw the sin of the people. We get an idea when Aaron immediately starts making excuses. He reminds Moses how the people are “set on evil,” and he claims he threw the gold in the fire and “out came this calf.” I’m sure his heart broke and he never forgot the consequences of this sin as he watched while 3,000 people died because they were determined to turn their backs on God.
Are We Any Better?
It is easy for us to shake our heads at Aaron and the Israelites. This seems like such an obvious infraction. Surely, we would never do such a thing! But as I watch my social media feed and hear respected Bible teachers offer up a false gospel that is motivated by cultural ideas rather than Scripture, I wonder if we are really that much better than the Israelites.
My pastor often says,
“What one generation tolerates, the next generation accepts, and the next generation embraces.”
As Christians in America, we have sat silent while the culture infiltrates our churches. We have been tolerant as cultural Christians preach a false gospel. We have “loved” others while accepting their sin.
There are things in Scripture that are open to interpretation. That is why there are different denominations. But there are many things in the Bible that God commands his followers to obey. There is no question. There is no doubt. They are clear. Yet we try to blur the line and redefine words to justify them through our cultural lenses.
True Christianity
But there is hope! I also see the church waking up! I see true believers standing for what is right and resisting cultural Christianity. I see preachers upholding truth against the attacks of the enemy that seem to be coming from every direction. It isn’t too late to stand up. It isn’t too late to teach Truth. We can push back against the cultural and social ideas that are threatening Christianity. But it will take courage; it might take sacrifice; it won’t be easy.
So how do we do it? How do we make sure our Christianity is true with all of the ideas being thrown at us? We have to start with Scripture, not culture. We have to know the Word so we can allow our worldview to be shaped by Truth. If we allow Scripture to dictate our worldview, when an unbiblical idea comes our way, we will recognize it for what it is.
That’s what it means to be a true Christian. It means the truth of the Gospel is more important than your comfort, your wealth, and even your life.
Have you ever read a book or a blog post and felt like the author must have special access to your life? You felt like she just gets you? You realized she is speaking to the very things that have been troubling you? This was my experience with Alisha Illian’s Chasing Perfect: Peace and Purpose in the Exhausting Pursuit of Something Better.
In her non-preachy, relatable voice, Illian addresses the very things that are pulling us away from seeking an intimate relationship with God and shows us how even the good things in our lives can be used by the enemy and become idols in our hearts. But she doesn’t stop there. She gives very practical, actionable steps to overcome the lies of the enemy and pursue a life of godliness.
Not only do you feel like Illian knows you, but also you get to know her through the pages of Chasing Perfect. She shares the struggles she has had, is real about her progress, and opens the door to her life (apparently, her dog throws up often). And though you might not be dealing with the same struggles she has faced, you understand the correlation to your own issues and how to face them head-on.
The truth is it doesn’t matter what your struggles are. You may find you relate 100% to each issue Illian addresses, or you may find that you are polar opposites. But all of the answers boil down to one: Chase Jesus. Stop chasing the temporary pleasures of this world: the promotion, the perfect house, a large following on social media, the book deal, the perfect family. Chase Jesus, the one who created you, knows you, accepts you, loves you, disciplines you, comforts you, and died for you.
If you are feeling spent in the monotonous routine of your life; or you wish you had a place to belong; or you struggle to understand how your Bible reading should change you; or you want to know why you’re here, what your purpose is, I recommend you pick up Chasing Perfect. Check it out here.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this critical theory and cultural marxism. I have pieced together what I know from sources who are experts, and I will refer you to them in this post.
Critical Theory
I was first introduced to the idea of critical theory when I was in college. As a literature major, one of the main topics in all of my classes was Literary Criticism and Theory. And if you took a literature class at any point in your college career, you were exposed to this idea, too. Literary criticism is the lens through which you see the piece of literature.
There are many different types of literary criticism. You could use feminist criticism in which you look at how women are treated in the piece of literature. You could also apply Marxist criticism, which looks at the economic status of the characters. Another option is historical criticism, where you look at the historical context of the piece and what it says about the culture as a whole, and the list goes on and on.
Critical theory is similar to literary criticism in that it is the lens through which you see the world around you. It is not limited to literature but colors how you interpret everything and everyone with whom you come into contact. It is a worldview.
The major difference between literary criticism and critical theory is that literary criticism leaves room for accurate interpretation whereas critical theory must find an oppressor and an oppressed. In other words, critical theory doesn’t look for a truthful portrayal of events, but it looks for how one person is being oppressed by another person. And if there is no real oppression, critical theory invents it.
If you are applying critical feminist theory, you are looking for how women are being oppressed by others, not how women are actually being treated. We see this play out when we look at the wage gap between men and women. Critical theory doesn’t take into account choices that men and women make in their careers that affect the difference in pay.
If you are applying critical race theory, you are looking at how minorities are oppressed by others, not how minorities are actually being treated, or what benefits come with being in the minority. We have seen this play out recently with claims that the police target members of minorities even though the data says otherwise.
The same goes for critical Marxist theory, which looks at how a lower economic class is oppressed by a wealthier class without taking into consideration the programs provided to the lower classes, which include such things as tax breaks, free and reduced lunches in public school, food stamps, etc. And there are many other types of critical theory.
Cultural Marxism
Critical theory is what has given a voice to marxism in the United States. Traditional Marxism is based on economic principles, but if you follow it through to its logical conclusion, it is actually based on power. Whoever has the money has the power, so marxism is about power, not economics. When you reframe it that way, it is easy to see that marxism can take many different avenues as entry points into a culture.
In America, a capitalist country, it was difficult to convince people that standing in a bread line was not only acceptable but also desirable. After all, we are the great American experiment and many have achieved the American dream. So an attack on the economic front didn’t work.
As a result, Marxism began looking for other points of disparity in our country. Marxists set out to convince women, minorities, and homosexuals that they are oppressed and took advantage of every opportunity to “prove” it. And unfortunately, the media only reports on events or incidents that appear to demonstrate the oppression.
Because there is always an oppressor and an oppressed, there can never be unity. Critical theory seeks to topple whoever is in power and replace them with a different group, who will then also need to be toppled and replaced. It is a never-ending cycle.
Not only does critical theory undermine the very fabric of our nation, but also it gives a platform for victimhood. Because there is always an oppressor and an oppressed, the “oppressed” feel empowered to lean into their victimhood. This idea will be discussed more in a future blog post.
Christian Response
As Christians, how do we combat the ever-growing popularity of critical theory? Because it is a worldview, the only way to confront it is with a biblical worldview. It can only be confronted with the truth. Critical theory is a worldview that does not hold up to the scrutiny of Scripture.
Scripture tells us that there is only one race, the human race. It also tells us to love God and love people (in fact, this is basically the theme of the entire Bible). If we do this well, there will be no oppression, we will see individuals as image-bearers of God and not as members of a group, and we will love people enough to guide them through a spiritual transformation instead of judging them for their choices.
As Christians, it is so important for us to spend time in the Word of God so we have the weapons we need to fight these lies from the enemy. If you struggle to study the Bible, I invite you to download my free workbook, 6 Steps to Study the Bible on Your Own. Just enter your information below to receive the workbook in your inbox.
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Resources
I know this is a brief introduction to this topic, and I encourage you to do some research on your own. Here are a few resources to get you started:
