BOOK REVIEWS by Gordon Pettie

Porn addiction: Helping couples heal

A practical guide for women, written by a husband who overcame sexual temptation

The Wife’s Heart

By Mike Genung

Blazing Grace Publishing

Sex sells. A survey of television adverts shows that images, especially the female image, are vital for selling a product.

Christians are not exempt from sex, nor the addiction to sex that sometimes follows.

The Christian Institute stated in July 2022 that “more than half of young men aged 18-39 watch porn at least once a month”. The Guardian stated in June 2021 that 50 per cent of all UK adults watched pornography during the Covid pandemic. A survey of UK Christians found 42 per cent of Christian men admit to being addicted to pornography, and even 30 per cent of church leaders admitted to viewing pornography regularly.

I was not looking forward to reading this book. Most books I review, I buy. This book arrived as a complimentary copy. When I read the subtitle, ‘Healing from Your Husband’s Porn Addiction and Adultery’, I was even less thrilled at the idea of reading and reviewing it! But I am so glad that I did.

The publishers of the book are called Blazing Grace, an American ministry helping those with sexual addictions. It is not an “Oh dear me, isn’t this a terrible situation” book, nor does it condemn.

Can you trust church leaders not to gossip under the pretext of prayer concern?

The author, Mike Genung, has been through the trauma of his addiction and his wife’s discovery of his secret. They give practical steps for a couple to take, when porn addiction is confessed or discovered.

There is an entire chapter of advice to a wife regarding with whom she should share details of her husband’s addiction. Is the pastor, or the pastor’s wife the best person? Can you trust them not to gossip it to others under the pretext of prayer concern?

Then there is a helpful chapter on the five essential steps to recovery, assuming that both the wife and husband want it to happen.

1. The husband agrees to meet another man or group at least once a week for accountability. In the first 90 days, there needs to be daily contact.
2. All stumbling blocks of temptation must be removed, even if this means no smartphone, and switching off the television.
3. The husband and wife agree to meet weekly, and agree that at the meeting everything is up for discussion.
4. All lying and hiding must stop.
5. They work to resolve the heart issues that drive lust.

This is not a book for everyone. But if the statistics are correct, and events we read and hear about in our newspapers and on television are real, then there are many marriages where one of the partners is struggling with sexual addiction.

This a practical and helpful book, written by Christians, particularly to help wives who might be struggling with a husband’s addiction but still want to save the marriage.

Mike Genung will be speaking at CRE, Cranmore Park, Birmingham, on ‘How to help those struggling from porn addiction and adultery’ on Wednesday 8 November, 11am, Talk Area 1. He will also be on stand P79

How the spirit of Baal is destroying America

A giant statue of Baal stands near the New York Stock Exchange. Is this a clue to America’s accelerating moral decline?

The Return of the Gods

By Jonathan Cahn

FrontLine (an imprint of Charisma Media)

“This book will touch the sacred cows of our culture and age,” Jonathan Cahn warns in the introduction. It certainly does that!

His first book, ‘The Harbinger’, was an instant bestseller when it was first published in 2011.

America has said goodbye to the living God and allowed other gods to fill the gap

Soon afterwards, I had the fascinating opportunity of interviewing him for TV. He told me his story of being the son of a Holocaust refugee, raised in New York and regularly attending the synagogue. Aged 20, after a near-death experience, he accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah.

His seven subsequent books have each gone onto the New York Times bestseller list, and I am sure that this one will do the same.

Although the book does not have a distinct beginning, middle or end, its 52 short chapters gripped me. The author’s love of Scripture clearly comes across. The basis of the book is Deuteronomy 32:7: “They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals…”

Cahn writes how America was established after the pattern of ancient Israel and founded on the principles of the Puritans. The Puritan John Winthrop warned: “If our hearts shall turn away… we will… be seduced, and worship and serve other gods…”

“If a nation changes its god,” Cahn notes, “The nation itself will be changed. So as America turned from God to the spirit of Baal, a transformation took place.”

He shows how America and most other Western nations have said goodbye to the living God and allowed other gods to fill the gap: “They rejected his statutes and his covenant… made for themselves a moulded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal” (2 Kings 17:15-16).

In the grounds of the New York City Hall, the authorities erected an arch of Baal

Baal is portrayed in Scripture as a bull. In 1989, just outside the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, America installed a molten image in the form of a giant bull. In 2016, in the grounds of the New York City Hall, the authorities erected an arch of Baal. It toured other Western countries including London, where it was situated at Trafalgar Square.

Cahn goes on to show the link with the ancient gods of open sexuality, who were given full rein in the sexual ‘revolution’. These include the spirits behind the blurring of the male/female distinction, and the ancient practice of child sacrifice to the gods, which he parallels with abortion.

Cahn devotes a significant section of the book to Stonewall; I never knew there was an actual Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City. He provides much factual material about the Stonewall riots in 1969, the beginning of the gay pride parades and the rainbow flag.

As the book ends, Cahn writes: “The gods have returned. They have ascended the thrones of the modern world. But their kingdom is false, their authority illegitimate and their days numbered.” He points his readers towards the kingdom to come, and to the One who alone is God.

The book on revival I wish I’d written

A fresh call for “Spirit-saturated disciples”

Saturated with God

By Malcolm Macdonald

SPCK

According to Simon Ponsonby, pastor of theology at St Aldate’s, Oxford, “This is the most exciting book on renewal in a generation.”

I wouldn’t go that far, but as a writer, just occasionally I come across a book that I wish I had written. This is one of them!

Malcolm Macdonald is vicar of St Mary’s Anglican church in Loughton, Essex, and a keynote speaker at the New Wine conferences over the last 20 years.

He was brought up on the Isle of Gigha in the Inner Hebrides. His parents were dairy farmers who sold everything to join the Faith Mission and spend 25 years spreading the Gospel across the Highlands of Scotland.

Salvation Army founder William Booth warned that the 20th century would see “a religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell”

He says that he has really only had one sermon for the past 30 years: revival. Using the imagery of water flowing from Genesis to Revelation, he challenges believers to be “filled, drenched, soaked nd utterly immersed in God”.

He has spent hours listening to tapes of revival preaching from Duncan Campbell, AW Tozer, WP Nicholson, George Verwer and many others. He writes: “Duncan Campbell, who led the awakening on the Hebridean Isle of Lewis from 1949-1953  described revival as ‘a community saturated with God’.”

Arthur Wallis described revival in two simple words: “God came.”

The chapter headings describe the areas he covers: ‘Why are we not seeing revival today?’ ‘What could revival look like?’ ‘How can I cultivate revival in everyday life?’

He reminds his readers that Salvation Army founder William Booth once warned that the 20th century would see “a religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell”.

He reminds his readers we serve a God of miracles, and we should expect revival as has happened in Brazil, Armenia, Indonesia, China, Korea and elsewhere. “It is a well-known fact that the fastest growing Church today is in Iran,” he declares.

His parents were dairy farmers who sold everything to spread the Gospel across the Highlands

Turning to the UK, he writes: “We have not seen a national revival touching all corners of the UK since 1859, when one million people came to faith in Christ across every part of the country. Why are we not seeing such a revival today? We seem to be overdue.” Macdonald provides the keys for how revival could happen again in the UK.

This is not a book of doom and gloom. It is book of hope. He tells us of the men and women who went to God’s ‘school of the desert’ and ultimately birthed revival: John Wesley, Amy Carmichael, Mary Slessor, William Booth and Duncan Campbell.

He challenges us: “Where are the Spirit-saturated disciples who tremble at God’s Word? People like Moses who had to remove his sandals as he stood on holy ground.”

Let me give the final word to Rev CanonvJohn Dunnett, Director of Strategy and Operations for the Church of England Evangelical Council: “If this book does not encourage you to pray for more of God’s presence in his Church and world, you need to see a doctor!”

To advertise your book in the next paper, email adverts@heartpublications.co.uk

Gordon, along with his wife Lorna, is part of the leadership team of Revelation TV, a 24/7 Christian television station that broadcasts in the UK on Sky 581 and Freesat TV 692, and throughout the world via the Roku Box and Apple TV. Gordon’s passion is writing and he is the author of eight books.