Thought of the Day 07.09.09

Browsing around my local Christian bookstore recently, I came to the marriage section. Here I saw all sorts of advice books on how to understand and get along with the other gender, thereby creating a healthy home life.

As someone who has learned from many such books, I was suddenly bothered by the thought that most of them could easily be read and applied by someone who is a member of any religion whatsoever.

If so, one possibility is that the principles will work to improve their marriages, but without developing any faith in God. This means they would solve the pressing problem, but not the real problem in their lives. The other possibility is that the principles won’t really work when separated from faith in God, and the book would fail to help them very much.

At the very least, these books don’t seem to be saying that Christ is our most important relationship of all, which raises a question. Can a book which neither points to Christ nor directly glorifies Him by name be properly called a “Christian” book?