The Relief Of A Bad Review

(and how it helped prove the point)

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Just weeks before the launch of my book I received an email from my publisher containing my very first review from Publishers Weekly. As I scanned the email a few key words stuck out, including the phrase “not the most favorable”. As I paused considering wether or not to read the review (I had made a deal with myself that I would let Austin read “bad” reviews first to determine if they contained fair/thoughtful critiques that could serve to help me grow…or if they just were hurtful grenades lobbed online) I took a deep breath and chose to open the surprisingly short review. Here is what it read:

“Asking God “our hardest, deepest questions” builds a strong faith, according to this impassioned if problematic debut from Blain. After realizing that she was gay as an adolescent, Blain prayed to be straight “every single night for what felt like years.” She contemplated leaving the evangelical faith until a youth group leader encouraged her to work through her “struggles” in the church. Drawing on that experience and her challenges with an eating disorder, depression, and anxiety, Blain recounts how she brought her problems to God via prayer and received help, in the form of spiritual comfort and the kindness of others. Ultimately, Blain became involved in ministry work and married a man. Though she still experiences “the temptation of same-sex attraction,” she writes that she has found peace in the knowledge that “God could have made me straight, but because I struggle, I get to know the power of calling on the Holy Spirit.” While Blain’s candor is admirable, such statements raise the troubling notion that closeness to God is based in suffering, and her answers as to how exactly God provides succor can be vague. The result is an earnest yet unsatisfying account of reckoning with the challenges to one’s faith.” - Publishers Weekly review of “Can I Say That?”

A deep sigh of relief fell out of my lungs once I finished digesting. My first thought? They were kind, considering their world view. They didnt have to say they thought my candor was admirable or that they viewed my writing as impassioned, yet they included those words. Where the internet has been deeply withholding of every kind thing before, this review was not one of those things.

But the part that struck me as most encouraging was that…the things I wanted to be most clear on seemed to be exactly that.

While I am making a slight argument from silence (the author of the article does not specifically name what they found to be problematic), I do not feel it is a stretch to say it probably is the theme of self denial throughout the book. They highlight my sexuality a handful of times, including a pass at my marriage..swaying towards the notion of these things being the main point of tension for them. And what was my hope in writing about them? To suggest that someone else beside ourselves might be the Lord of our lives. And that God, the creator of our lives, might have our best intentions…even when it doesn’t feel good to us.

Which leads me to the second encouraging realization: there can actually be purpose in our pain when we choose to surrender to Christ. As the author notes with perhaps some confusion “…such statements raise the troubling notion that closeness to God is based in suffering”…they aren’t too far off from the point. While suffering is not the main means necessary to become close to God, it is something God desires to redeem in our lives. And in a broken world full of sin, all people will know suffering. To the secular world, it remains without purpose..and therefor a God who “allows” suffering is only ever seen as evil. But as followers of Jesus we can know that while God has never caused suffering, he has allowed free will. In free will, humanity chose rebellion. In great mercy and grace, God made a way for us to be redeemed, including our darkest night.

So while the secular world might find self denial problematic or suffering purposeless…there is another view that holds the reality of these things in the tension of a good God. If you’re wondering…how the H E double hockey sticks is that possible, then the book might be worth wrestling through.

Want to read some good reviews? Here are what a few Christian leaders are saying about Brenna Blain’s “Can I Say That?”

“Brenna is the kind of theologian this generation has been asking for. As expected, this work is very human. And yet, not so anthropological that we will leave it with more knowledge of Brenna and ourselves than what is true about Christ. Where there is symmetry between her story and our own, we are quickly led towards the divine as the point of everything. Having this, as in, exploring Brenna’s story and scripture, we may not find every question answered but at the very least, we will have important truths to carry us when everything is confusing. When the book is closed and all of the words are read, maybe, just maybe we discover what it means to trust God anyway.”

-Jackie Hill Perry, Author and Theologian 

“Brenna gifts her story to us, written with incredible vulnerability and candor. But even more she gives us the narrative frame that she developed as she lived through her life challenges. With the help of Holy Spirit, family, and friends, she shows us how she refused victimhood, but rather lived into a rich life with Jesus and with people. Give yourself the gift of joyful journey with her as you read.”

- Gerry Breshears, PhD, Professor of Theology, Western Seminary, Portland