A Chilling Effect, Part I

Icicles on our eaves a few winters ago; photo by Husband

I started reading the book, Captivating, a couple of weeks ago after one of the young women in my Bible study group recommended it.

As a side note, when a whole bunch of people are doing something, or when someone particularly strongly recommends a course of action to me, my knee-jerk reaction is to avoid it. Everyone's reading The Purpose Driven Life? Fine, but no thanks. Loads of people are going to see a Lord of the Rings movie?  I'll pass. You say I would be good friends with Jimmy? Pardon me if I get squinty-eyed and suspicious, and ask what's wrong with him. The only reason I read The Shack was because I read it before people became generally aware of the book, when husband asked me to read it to him on a long drive down the Columbia River Gorge.  So the Wild at Heart and Captivating trends blew right on by me, by choice, while other people were picking up these books. But when Laura suggested it as a resource for our next study topic, I thought I should get acquainted with it.

I happened to be leaving on a trip to Canada for a weekend speaking appointment, so I buzzed by the local Christian bookstore and picked up a copy the day before I left. I started reading on the plane, and by the time I arrived home on Sunday, I had read, underlined, and starred (as in drawing stars in the margins) my way through a respectable chunk of the book.

I found myself deeply, profoundly moved. Not just moved, but also feeling deeply sad in ways I could only partially explain. I cried as I talked to my husband about it after arriving back at home.

I finished the book bit by bit over the past two weeks, reading the last page yesterday. Thinking that I would write a review of it here, I went first to Amazon.com this morning to see how the readers reviewed the book there, and clicked on the one-star reviews.

The critique was sharp. Point by point they dismantled the book:  bad writing, "twirly," not biblical, too many references to movies, warped theology, and so on. Although I actually agreed with some of the critique because it mirrored my own reservations, I was taken aback. I found that the emotional good that had been brought to me by the book, the quiet word of the Spirit in my soul as I read some things that really spoke to me, was being sapped away, dulled and tarnished by the criticism.

And I was fearful. Fearful of the chilling effect of the criticism, sarcasm, and cynicism expressed in the opinions of others. I saw my little light of hope flickering and trying to stay alive. It wasn't about the book, really. Of course it's flawed. It was about what started to happen in me, a little shift in perspective, as I read the book. I so desperately don't want to lose that perspective under the pressure of my own long-gelled habits of mind, let alone the devaluing critique of others.