Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 06:1 (Spring 2024)
Article: Review Of "Five Lies Of Our Anti-Christian Age"
Author: Allie Beth Stuckey

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 124

Review Of Five Lies Of Our Anti-Christian Age

Allie Beth Stuckey

Allie Beth Stuckey is host of the Relatable podcast where she analyzes culture, news, and politics from a biblical perspective.

Rosaria Butterfield, Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023.

I struggled with an eating disorder in college. I told myself it was just a stage, that I could stop the vicious cycle anytime I wanted. But I was wrong. It took the grace of God working through the forthrightness of a biblical counselor for me to stop.

“This will kill you,” she told me at the start of one of our sessions. She then led me through the scientific facts and Scriptural truths to support her dire warning. I knew she was right, and I didn’t want to die at twenty-two. So I quit.

I often wonder where I would be if she had not been honest with me that day. She knew I would be offended. She understood there was a risk I would walk out

Eikon 6.1 (Spring 2024) p. 125

in anger. But she cared enough to tell me what I did not want to hear. She had done enough of validating my feelings and listening to my pain. It was time for her to say things plainly. In doing so, she potentially saved my life.

We live in an age when pointing out the repercussions of bad behavior is verboten. In fact, even saying that some behavior is objectively wrong is often deemed judgmental or cruel. The mainstream view is that hurting someone’s feelings is worse than whatever the consequences of their actions may be.

But our comfort has a cost: lives are at risk when we choose cowardice over courage.

In theory, Christians know this. “The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23 warns. Yet our actions often fail to reflect our purported theology, particularly when it comes to calling out the sexual sins that have been embraced wholesale by American culture. Homosexuality, transgenderism, the subversion of gender roles, and promiscuity are all manifestations of depravity even Christians are reticent to condemn for fear of appearing unloving.

But if we really believed what we say we do — that sin brings death and God’s ways bring life and goodness — then we would stand firm against the lies of our age, warning in love anyone who will listen: “This will kill you.”

In Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age, Rosaria Butterfield fills the role of both a trusted counselor and pleading prophet, lovingly yet insistently urging Christians and unbelievers alike to wak...