Are You My Spiritual Father?: Spiritual Fathers And Sons...Or Brothers? by Jonathan BrennemanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"I believe spiritual sons are not accepted or embraced, they are born of death, persistence, perseverance and passion. True sonship is earned by aspiring sons, not given by their fathers. So, pay the price."
Unknown Christian preacher that sets up why this book was written.
That sets up the premise of this book. Some teaching that the author has heard. He is not identified not the denomination or any other affiliation. That is my problem with this book. I have been a Christian for almost 40 years and I have never heard a teaching about being a spiritual father/son. To be fair, I have heard of and experienced a pastor that was borderline Shepherding movement. I submitted to him up to a point and then felt that it was getting abusive. It also kept me from going to Bible School. So, yes I have seen abusive teaching in the church. I just never have heard this type of teaching.
The author does try to balance the words of Jesus that 'no man should be called father' with Paul's words of fatherly affection. In doing so he seems to muddy the water a little bit.
I would like to think that the relationship that Paul had with others that he called sons was more a mentoring relationship. I have heard it taught that everyone needs a Barnabas a Timothy in their life. Barnabas was the one who mentored Paul, and Paul mentored Timothy.
It has some points that needed to be made, but since the main point is to refute a teaching that was made by an anonymous person, I can not recommend this book more than 3 stars.
View all my reviews
