Book Review: Fully Alive

Last week, I attended the 52nd School for Spiritual Direction led by Larry Crabb, the author of Fully Alive: A Biblical Vision of Gender That Frees Men and Women to Live Beyond Stereotypes (2013) and we were all given a copy of this book. Crabb's understanding of gender is refreshing. Examining the Hebrew and Greek words for men and women, he proposes an understanding of what makes men masculine and women feminine. He argues that to live most consistently with our gender, men must seek to "remember and move" and women were created to "invite and nourish." Through practical examples, he shows how a biblical understanding can work well and not so well. This was a good book, but I suspect things he says will cause people to rock back on their heels a bit, whether liberal or conservative. It will give everyone something to think about.