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Credo Book Review

Every woman a theologian: Aimee Byrd calls on women to think theologically (Amy Steward)

Aimee Byrd’s Housewife Theologian is a collection of theological reflections from a modern Christian housewife— former coffee shop owner, now wife, mom, and current writer and blogger.  Even though the title is Housewife Theologian, this isn’t a book about homemaking or even about being a housewife.  This book was written to challenge women to embrace the calling that all Christian women have to be theologians.

9781596386655-1mIn the introduction to her book, Byrd states that a theologian is often thought of in terms of “a specialized field of study,” but (quoting John Gerstner) Byrd argues that every Christian is “called to be a theologian.”  A true theologian is one who “has a true knowledge of God which he understands in nontechnical, nonprofessional, nonacademic terms.”  We can never exhaust our learning of God, and if you truly love someone, you will want to learn all that you can about them.  It is with this conviction that the author makes an emphatic call to set a new standard of atypical living for the modern Christian housewife.  This book seeks to answer the all important question: “How does one’s knowledge and beliefs about God affect our everyday, ordinary lives?”

Byrd’s book is wide-ranging and covers a variety of topics that are relevant to all Christian women, married or single.  A repeated theme is on how the gospel should affect all of life, or as she puts it “how the gospel interrupts the ordinary.”  She also discusses questions like:

  1. How does my knowledge of God relate to my role as a woman; my thoughts on beauty, identity, hospitality, and sin; and my influence on others?
  2. How is a Christian’s thinking different from an unbeliever’s?
  3. What is the relationship of the church to the broader culture?

Byrd stresses that the way women view themselves and their roles should be understood in light of who they are in Christ and not according to the world’s standards or ideas.  Women need to be counter-cultural in their thinking, and Byrd shares many stories from her own life that illustrate the journey that she herself has been through in her own thinking. As life-long learners, Byrd also encourages women to be teachers who influence others in the spheres in which God has placed them.

The book has many positive features that will make it a helpful springboard for further reflection or group discussion.  The end of each chapter includes journaling questions that could be used for either personal reflection or in a small group setting.  The chapters are not overly-heavy and contain numerous thought-provoking quotations from writers such as Charles Spurgeon, D. A. Carson, and Tim Challies, to name a few.  Each chapter is full of stories, personal anecdotes, and reflections, and is written in a punchy, colorful way, with a self-deprecating sense of humor.

While the author’s choice of subject material touches numerous topics, perhaps a better choice would have been to have gone deeper on just a few main points and also address the heart-issues behind so much unbiblical theology in Christian culture today.  (For further reading on heart-related issues, I highly recommend Lies Women Believe, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and Calm My Anxious Heart, by Linda Dillow.)  This aside, The Housewife Theologian does deserve to be widely read and discussed by Christian women in today’s culture.  Aimee Byrd’s call to women to become theologians is one that every housewife needs to embrace.

Amy Steward, Louisville, KY

This review is from the new issue of Credo Magazine. Read others like it today!


To view the Magazine as a PDF {Click Here}

We live in a day when those in the church want to have their ears tickled. We do not want a sermon, but a “talk.” “Don’t get preachy, preacher!” is the mantra of many church goers today. What is preferred is a casual, comfortable, and laid back chat with a cup of coffee and a couple of Bible verses to throw into the mix to make sure things get spiritual. One wonders whether Timothy would have been fired as a pastor today for heeding Paul’s advice: “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). Paul gives such a command to Timothy because he knew what was to come. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4). Has that day come? Are churches filled with “itching ears,” demanding “teachers to suit their own passions”? Have we turned “away from listening to the truth”?

In a day when ears itch and truth is shown the back door, what could be more needed than men who actually preach the Word? George Whitefield (1714-1770) was one of those men. He was a preacher who preached in plain language, so that even the most common man could understand God’s Word. Yet, his sermons were incredibly powerful, often leading men and women to tears as the Holy Spirit convicted their souls. Whitefield not only preached the truth, but he pleaded with his listeners to submit themselves body and soul to the truth. He preached God’s Word with passion because he understood that his listener stood between Heaven and Hell. His robust Calvinism, in other words, led to a zealous evangelism.

This year, 2014, marks the 300th anniversary of Whitefield’s birth. These articles are meant to drive us back to Whitefield’s day, that we might eat up his theology, and drink deeply his passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Contributors include: Thomas Kidd, Lee Gatiss, Michael A.G. Haykin, Thomas Nettles, Ian Hugh Clary, Mike McKinley, Mark Noll, Doug Sweeney, and many others.

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