Authentic Christianity: The Classic Bestseller on Living the Life of Faith With Integrity

Rating:
Summary: How to know that this book is for real...
Review: This may seem like an odd way to rate a book, but here it goes any way...YOU can rate this book yourself in a very easy way. In fact, this technique may work for ANY book written on the subject of authenticity and integrity.
Simply go to a bookstore, find the book you are interested in, look at the chapter titles or the index in the back as well as skim through it and look for the author to share real life black marks in his/her own past or where he/she has blown it with their own families or friends closest to him/her. This will show true integrity and character -- what we truly model to others, good, bad and ugly -- and NOT just what we WRITE about in books. Simply put, do the authors live what they preach? A growing number of church communities today are no longer enamored simply by the words in a book...especially one written on integrity. And this is even more the case for those presently outside a church community.
So, I start with a star-rating of 3. And in Ray Stedman's case, this means looking throughout the book for where he discusses about his five daughters and where he is at in his relationships with them, both in the past and at the present time. If Mr. Stedman has a difficult time revealing the 'misses' that he has had as a father in this area of his life, then I would give the book a lower rating because he is not really demonstrating for us the essence of the book's title. On the other hand, if Mr. Stedman is able to admit how all five of his daughters have been divorced and some of the role/reasons that he has possibly played in why that has happened, then I would give the book a higher rating.
This is not to be spiteful, but to help all of us as consumer readers to know when we may have a decent book on our hands or not. It is simply getting at the truth. Truth is a wonderful thing when we see it as our friend. We know we are afraid of truth (and subsequent growth as Christians), when we purposefully do things to hide the truth or not tell the whole story. The church has put up with way too much of this in the past and suffered for it as a result. It truly is a new day dawning and I look forward to see how Ray Steadman's book may give us real-life lessons in how to see truth as our friend in the areas of authenticity and integrity.