First sentence from the introduction: I, like you, want to be accepted. I want the approval and applause of others. I hate to cause conflict or to offend. I like it when other people like me. But these are polarizing days, and complete acceptance is hard to come by. Most of us--whether we're in a classroom, a boardroom, a coffee shop, or online--keep a low profile and keep as quiet as we can, so as to not be seen as arrogant or rude. We want to be genuinely humble and kind, and we want to be perceived so too. That's what's hard about this book.

First sentence from chapter one: We live in a unique moment that was delivered to us by a specific timeline in history.

What you see is what you get. Will you like what you see and what you get? Maybe. Maybe not. Oshman seeks to call out, to confront, five false views, five HUGE deceptions facing our culture today. She writes specifically for women and girls. (I don't personally know why she limits herself to reaching out to one gender. I think ALL five issues/deceptions/worldviews effect everyone.)

So Oshman writes of culture, society, worldviews, etc. This is balanced out by the Word of God. She sees the world through the lens of Scripture and she encourages readers to do the same. She counters lies with the truth. This is the best way, perhaps the only way. She assumes (rightly) that the Bible is the Word of God. That it is all the things--authoritative, infallible, inerrant, inspired. We are all immersed--to one degree or another--in our culture. There's no escaping the messages that are being thrown at us 24/7. But we can counter those messages and hold them up to scrutiny, to see them in light of the one thing we know to be true--the Word of God.

These are the five chapters that share the five topics.

Obsessed: Bodies, Beauty, and Ability
Selling Out for Cheap Sex
Abortion Has Not Delivered
Trending LGBTQIA+
When Marriage and Motherhood Become Idols.

Some seem like obvious deceptions. (At least to me). But others surprised me. It is easy to see how the world is 'lying' to us in x, y, z ways. But there are subtler ways as well. In particular, I doubt many believers could ever make the leap to thinking that marriage and motherhood are idols. (Now, this chapter is contrary to others. This message that idolizes marriage and motherhood over singleness and/or childlessness most often comes from the church. And I think, to a certain degree, it is subtle and perhaps an unintended consequence. By focusing on biblical womanhood, biblical marriages, biblical gender roles, it can seem that marriage and motherhood are everything, absolutely everything. That to be single, to be childless is to be "less than." Again, I think that more often than not this is not intentional, more unspoken. But the chapter does resonate. I can see it both ways. As a single, childless christian, it can be frustrating that many/most books written for Christian women by Christian women about Christian women, assume that you are married with a couple of kids. On the other hand, I don't think anyone means any offense. There's something to be said for NOT being offended by every little thing. I think to find offense anywhere, everywhere, at all times, always is problematic.

Cultural Counterfeits
Confronting 5 Empty Promises of Our Age and How We Were Made for So Much More
by Jen Oshman
Pub Date 22 Mar 2022
Crossway
Christian



I am reviewing a copy of Cultural Counterfeits through Crossway and Netgalley:




Jen Oshman addresses some of the most significant and sensitive issues we are dealing with today, with biblical insight.





Cultural Counterfeits reminds women to reject the idols of today, and instead to find real hope in Jesus. We are reminded too the importance of embracing our identity in Christ and recovering his design on our lies.



If you’re looking for a book to use for discussion at your women’s Bible Study, or would simply like to read it as part of your own spiritual growth journey, I highly recommend Cultural Counterfeits.




I give Cultural Counterfeits five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Since the first sin committed by Adam and Eve, the human race has been living with emptiness in their hearts. Cain was deemed to become a restless wanderer. People become vulnerable to all kinds of temptations. The biggest weapon used by the evil one: Idolatry. As long as people could be led away from the Truth of Jesus, idols are pretty effective ways to stumble all people, especially believers.

The author begins by showing us how our modern culture has shaped our perceptions of feminism, liberal sex, free choice, and negative images of Christianity and the Church. Sadly, mainstream media has coloured people's general perception of the Christian faith. "The Handmaid's Tale" TV series caricatures Christianity as some fundamentalist cult that degrades women into mere child-bearing slaves. The "Da Vinci Code" makes people question the Church about hidden "secrets" of the past. For all the well-intentioned beginnings, parts of modern feminism have degenerated into detrimental movements that promoted the Sexual Revolution, of free love, including illicit sex. On the #MeToo movement, Oshman is convinced that this movement would never have happened "without millennia of influence from the Bible." In this book, author Jen Oshman highlights five of the idols that pose extreme dangers to our spiritual lives. With women as her key audience, the author describes the five empty promises of the following idols:

1) Beauty & Ability
2) Cheap Sex
3) Abortion
4) LGBTQIA+
5) Twisted View of Marriage and Motherhood.

The first empty promise drives home our culture's infatuation with what looks good, appearances, and abilities. This has implications for the way that we allow aesthetics to dictate how we behave instead of letting Truth be the primary motivation to be who we are. With regard to abilities, the author makes a keen observation about how the lack of abilities could become a strong driver for ending one's life! All of these aesthetics, appearances, and abilities, or the lack of them try to fill the hole in our hearts but they are by themselves empty. The second empty promise is about our culture's infatuation with sex, so much so that they reduce a person's worth in terms of sexuality. What is needed is a correct view of sexuality, marriage, and what it means to keep our covenant promises to one another and to God. The third empty promise focuses on the topic of free choice and abortion. We learn about how worldviews like dualism could give rise to justifications for abortion. The fourth is about the root of the LGBTQIA+ movement, where one's fixation on a particular form of sexuality as an absolute right could become problematic. Instead of allowing any form of sexuality to form our basic identity, Oshman pushes back by saying: "It's not who you love; it's who loves you" that should form our foundation. It is not us who define who we are, but God alone. Oshman's arguments are quite thought-provoking and counter-cultural. Finally, she looks at marriage and motherhood. Far too many women are feeling less fulfilled either because they are single or are unable to have children.

Oshman concludes with some powerful exhortations to help us move away from these empty promises to the Promise of God. To the question, "Why is it good to be a girl?" she provides ten answers to anchor readers on the Word of God.

My Thoughts
The problem of idols and empty promises from the culture around us is so prevalent that there are not enough resources to counter them. Thankfully in this book, Jen Oshman helps push back against this deceitful avalanche of false hopes. I think Oshman is spot on to identify the problem of appearances and abilities. For many people, especially the younger ones, the seductiveness of fame and self-promotion can be too enticing to avoid. Just see how many people are launching their own social media platforms and profiles to battle for more likes and followers. Is there a point at which they would sacrifice Truth just to get ahead of others? Appearances can affect one's self-esteem, but pretense and false facade could be worse. The empty promises of abortion and sex have been traditional areas of contention for decades. By listing them in this book once again, we are reminded that the problem is not old but continues to be a controversial area that Christians ought to counter. I know there are many in society who sees Christianity as a threat to their cultural way of life. I prefer to see it as a healthy counter, or to be politically correct, an alternative point of view. This counterview is increasingly more difficult. The rise of "cancel culture" has been used to deny or threaten the very expression of such counterviews. A true democracy needs to defend the right for all expressions of worldviews. Thankfully, Oshman's book is among the few voices bold enough to push back. More importantly, it is letting the Bible's voice speak amid a climate of unbiblical philosophies floating around. Without a biblical voice, even Christians could be misled by the world.

The chapter on LGBTQIA+ is probably one of the most difficult and contentious chapters for anyone to write. With the legalization of rights of this group, the concern is the eroding of religious voices, so much so that any alternative to the increasingly mainstream view could be labeled as bigotry or hate speech. I wonder. Such labeling is mischief at best and demonic at worst. Readers do not need to be female to benefit from the reading of this book. Fathers, preachers, husbands, and adult males can benefit too by knowing the struggles their wives, sisters, daughters, and female friends could face daily.

Jen Oshman has been in women’s ministry for over two decades as a missionary and pastor’s wife on three continents. She’s the mother of four daughters, the author of Enough about Me: Find Lasting Joy in the Age of Self, and the host of All Things, a podcast about cultural events and trends. Her family currently resides in Colorado, where they planted Redemption Parker, an Acts29 church. She blogs at jenoshman.com.

Rating: 4 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Crossway and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

"Cultural Counterfeits" by Jen Oshman could also be called "Lies Women Believe About Themselves". We, women, were created for so much more. There is a design and purpose for us.
It is an interesting read and I appreciate her biblical centering through out the book. I would have appreciated a little more dialogue from the male perspective and how this affects young boys. And it made me appreciate my own upbringing more, as there were parts of the book that I did not resonate with - lies I would never have believed.
My favourite part was when she explained the meaning behind the word "helper" in the Old Testament. It was very eye opening. Something that I will ponder in the days to come.
Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy of the book in exchange of an honest review.

This book was such an edifying read. I can tell Jen has such a passion for the gospel and women. Much of this book was challenging to my thinking, and I’m so thankful for that. I appreciate books that get me to stop and consider possible road blocks or areas in my life where I may need to take the time to reevaluate my stance. I recommend this book to any Christian woman, whether they’re just starting their walk or have been saved for many years. There’s something for everyone.

“My life has been littered with counterfeits because I didn’t know better or because I lacked the faith to believe that God’s ways really are for my good, your good, and everyone’s good”

Both engaging and easy to follow, Cultural Counterfeits sets up some of the most popular false idols of our culture and knocks them down one by one. Not only does this book contains some hard hitting truths about how Christians are being misled by the shiny counterfeit idols of our culture, but also provides practical ways to approach today’s culture while honoring God.

As I am currently the parent of a pre-teen girl, I especially appreciated the chapters on how our current culture and the false idols of social media and beauty are affecting teen girls today. In our home, we are currently struggling between the culture and worldview that we are trying to cultivate versus the false idols that are found in the wider culture and society, and this book provided both Biblical and practical ways to approach these issues.

The book ends with ten reasons why it’s good to be a girl. One of the highlights is when the author translates the word helper, which can feel to mean ‘less than’ by modern ears, back to the original Hebrew and points out that it is mentioned 21 times in the Old Testament, including sixteen times when describing God! That certainly puts that word in perspective!

This book will be dog eared, highlighted, and read again and again to remind myself of the truths that are in this book. A must read for every Christian!

Many thanks to Crossway and Net Galley for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

"In our fallen state we think we know best, that we can do better. And so we continuously set out to make our best lives happen right now."

This is the situation we often find ourselves in, the pursuit of happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment during our time here on earth. We look around at the variety of ways this seems to be achieved. In Cultural Counterfeits: Confronting 5 Empty Promises of Our Age and How We Were Made For So Much More by Jen Oshman, she helps us discover the ways culture seeks to provide this for us, and how Christ offers so much more.

In the first three chapters of Part 1 she reminds us of two stories we hear. The first-and loudest shared with us from culture and society - is that the world offers you and me an amazing life; we just have to go out and make it happen. The second is a quieter story, a whisper from our heart, speaking a longing and deep desire within us, that we were made for more.

How we interact with and the extent to which we believe each of them, determines our actions and exhaustion as we seek to fulfill them both from ingredients the world provides - "if only I have that, then I'll feel significant, valued, and have purpose."

Sound familiar?

Maybe we don't speak it out as brazenly...but it's there; expecting satisfaction and fulfillment from created things rather than the Creator - these are our idols.

Jen takes us through some history of the feminist movement to help us understand the biblical principles where it began and the tragic shift of the second wave where equality became defined as sameness, resulting in idolatry of our bodies and it's expression in our sexuality.

Part 2 she confronts the cultural expressions of freedom as defined by these movements for women and how tragically they differ from God's design, in our perception of beauty, hook-up culture, abortion and gender dysphoria. She also includes the idol of marriage and motherhood, as expressed when you hear people say things like, "motherhood is a woman's highest calling," when our highest calling in the Christian life isn't limited to a temporary role here on earth.

In Part 3, she moves from how the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, to how Christ came to give us abundant life. With love and passion, Jen shares the reasons why it's good to be a girl and how we can embrace the God who satisfies our longing souls and fills us with good things and who invites us to make our home in him.

The impact of culture through social media and governing policies on our worldview is similar to putting a frog in lukewarm water and then boiling it, the idea is the poor frog won't notice the temperature going up. We become used to the shifts in culture around us, and can easily find ourselves caught up in it without searching for biblical truth first.

I think this was most evident to me after Canada legalized marijuana. We had so many people present to the ER with adverse symptoms related to marijuana use, because they held the idea that since it was legal now, it must be okay and there wouldn't be any side effects.

Jen's book is a call for us to think critically and biblically about rising culture issues to provide us with a biblical worldview in how we perceive our womanhood and God's good design for us.

I hope you'll enjoy this one as well!

Quick Stats:
# of pages: 200
Level of Difficulty: Easy
My Rating: 5 stars

*A big thanks to Crossway and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.