BOOKS

  • The Sex Change Society - Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male by Melanie Phillips (Social Market Foundation, £12.99, Tel 020 7222 7060)

Sunday Times columnist and author Melanie Phillips has written a book of tremendous courage. It confronts the most fundamental issue of our age: the proper relation between men and women, and their children.

Melanie exposes the divisive ideas of extreme feminism that have come to prevail in intellectual and political thinking. She believes that relentless pursuit of 'independence' for women as mothers is a false objective; it denies a hard fact of nature, that dependency is intrinsic to motherhood.

In infancy, a child depends on its mother for virtually everything; by definition the mother cannot be independent of her child. She in turn must depend on someone (or something) for bread-winning or childcare. That something can be the State, or it can be her husband. By opting to be responsible for childcare instead of providing benefits, the state undergoes the 'sex change' of the book's title.

The consequences? Men lose their role as bread-winners; they lose their incentive to protect and provide. Fatherhood, is, in Melanie's words "reduced to an emission in a test tube". Meanwhile, women struggle with their irreconcilable burden of motherhood and bread-winning.

Children bear the brunt of becoming fatherless, nearly motherless and without the kinship and roots of an intact family. In addition, the 'new' thinking has provided a no-fault divorce law and taxation and benefits which penalise marriage and promote the lone mother-and-child unit.

Melanie's answer? Commitment to marriage as the way to inderdependency and mutual support. Equal dignity and respect are due to men and women as they fulfil their complementary functions; equal opportunity for women rather than same. This book makes a brave statement - essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of the family.

Great holiday read

  • Paul: A Novel, by Walter Wangerin. Lion £16.99

    HAVING read and enjoyed Walter Wangerin’s previous attempt to turn the Bible into a novel in The Book of God, I was looking forward to his treatment of Paul!

    Wangerin chooses to start not at the predictable Damascus Road experience, but with the personal reminiscences of Prisca (Priscilla – Aquila’s other half) that are woven throughout the book.

    Another major thread running through the novel is a series of imaginary letters written by the Roman philosopher Seneca to his brother. These letters relate the parallel history of the rise to power of the Emperor Nero.

    The book is beautifully produced and makes for a very good read. Does it work? I do not think that the novel approach works so well for Paul as it did for the Bible as a whole. In the The Book of God there is a tighter grip on the story line and a bigger canvas to explore. There are some helpful insights into Paul’s character here, not least the reminder that he was a human like us. However, I felt uneasy about some of the creative reconstructions of Paul the man!

    Wangerin’s Paul is depicted as a jovial character full of laughs; this seems to bear scant resemblance to the Paul we see on the pages of the New Testament. In short, this is a great holiday read - but take your bearings on Paul from the New Testament!
  • John Woods is pastor of Lancing Tabernacle in West Sussex

    MUSIC

  • God's Zoo with the Homecoming Kids (Gaither Kids Series, Alliance Music, £9.99)

    A little hard to judge this, since it's really a soundtrack album to go with the video of the same name. However, it's entirely what you might expect, coming out of the Gaither stable: perky kids songs, polished production, large helpings of cuteness, and a fair dollop of sentimentality.

    Quite a few of the kids singing are offspring of the Gaither clan and their friends, and adults Guy Penrod, Jeff Easter and veteran Vestal Goodman pay their dues too.

    It's aimed at children aged 3-11 and it's likely to be the younger end that will get most from it in the UK. Our 8-11s will look for a more contemporary feel to the music and a touch more passion aka Jim Bailey, Ishmael or Doug Horley, one suspects.

    Mind you, any album that carries a blues-inflected song called Would You Pick That Nose? deserves a hearing for downright cheek, at the very least.

    • Christian Family Network Review Team

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