Book Review: My Little Golden Book About God

Most of my book reviews go on PRESBYTERIAN THOUGHTS but I thought that this one would be well suited for Life on Union Avenue:

We recently bought a book at the local Christian book shop called, My Little Golden Book About God. We flipped through the pages and noticed all of the classic 1950s pictures that make so many Golden Books irresistable; we also noticed that a lot of the words were quite good.

We grabbed the book along with our armful of theological tomes, and checked out. When we arrived at home we read the book to Anna and Owen. To our dismay, the book is actually quite deistic with a touch of Eastern thought. This book has three pages that are distinctly not Christian.

I know that I am a critic, but hey, that is the purpose of a book review right? Here are the three phrases that I find to be most problematic and why:

"Think of the snow-capped mountain peaks. Those peaks were crumbling away with age before the first men lived on earth."

Within the span of six days God created the heavens and the earth and all of the creatures that would inhabit it. The mountains would not begin to crumble within the span of a couple of days. This thought is taken from Darwinian philosophy, not Christian theology.

"He gives us a small still voice in our hearts to help us tell right from wrong."

This statement is true to a certain extent. If it is a Christian thought it belongs to the Quakers, who have always been seen as a fringe group and not as Biblical Christianity. God does give us a conscience, but he speaks through his Word and through his Son. This is how we can know what our consciences tell us is right or wrong.

"God is the love of our mother's kiss, the warm, strong hug of our daddy's arms."

This is plain Eastern though. God is NOT the love of a kiss or the warmth of a hug. God is love and our love can reflect his love, but our love IS not God. That is like saying that God is strong like a rock, so God is this rock.

We need to be careful when picking children's books for the purposes of teaching truth. As kids, we all had the books that teach that God created man because he was lonely. This is untrue. Or the older ones that teach that Cain was black and that was a part of his rejection. Untrue.

There are many good Christian books that can teach your young children about God. We need to use discernment in these areas. I would recommend these or these as great places to start. You can also teach the Bible in family worship...but that may be better for another blog.