Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design

Christian parents, facing issues of sexuality these days, must feel like firemen faced with a billion different brush fires. Deal with one situation and another pops up, raging harder than the first. And these issues that we and our kids face daily aren’t easy black and white issues at all. They’re complicated and require a nuance that many believe is beyond their abilities. I’d dare to venture that most Christian parents feel like they’re in over their heads when it comes to dealing with the thorniest of sexuality problems facing their children and themselves today. The main difficulty with instructing our children in how to think about the concepts of homosexuality, gender differences and sexuality in general lies with the fact that these are real people struggling with real issues and they definitely don’t need to be preached at or condemned. Since the goal of every Christian is not to be the enforcer of God’s law, but rather to be salt and light to a dark and miserable world, how do we handle issues that could easily lead a person to or force them away from hope in God forever? Well, (after a very lengthy prologue) may I present “Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality” by Hillary Morgan Ferrer with Amy Davison. With a great sense of humor married to details that add to the reader’s understanding, Ferrer and Davison walk all parents through the minefield of current sexuality issues. And they do it with an organized design, healthy doses of both grace and truth and enough examples to aid even the thickest of us readers. The way the book is organized is perhaps its greatest asset. The guide to sexuality begins with a discussion on worldviews, to see what’s really behind the current societal understandings on sexuality. Once that foundation of ideology is firmly in place, Ferrer frames a biblical picture of a healthy relationship before she tackles the mass warping of God’s design. Through its entirety, the book builds truth on top of other truth so that the immense amount of information isn’t overwhelming. General concepts form the foundation, before we delve into the more complicated aspects.As it walks through the different sexual situations currently being offered in the social cafeteria, they don’t simply present a stance, just so they can beat it into submission with logic. Instead, this book is not just directive, it’s explanatory. In other words, it’s not all “the bible says we should do this, this and this.” Instead, the issues are tackled from a scientific, sociological and biblical standpoint. There is so much good, balanced advice in this book that it’s difficult to narrow down the most helpful. “We don’t have to compromise conviction to show compassion.” “Guilt and innocence are derived from one’s actions, not one’s demographic.” “Sex-positivity may sound like freedom, but in reality, it’s saying your body has no inherent value and it’s not worth protecting.” The way Ferrer describes the submission/Authority of a God-designed marriage is especially inspiring. The heart of the book are the chapters on gender and sex-positivity, but again, those chapters are simply building blocks in its scope. All in all, the book is well-researched and backed with a plethora of outside information. In addition, it is constructed so that it picks at the inconsistencies in the ideology and never the person holding the view. Unlike a good chunk of apologetic material, Mama Bear Apologetics is aimed at redemption, at fully defeating the false ideology and offering freedom for the captured. The chapter dealing with pornography was inventive as it didn’t straight on attack the issue with a moral hammer, but dove more into the psychological underpinnings of porn. The chapter on same-sex attraction was wonderful as well. It was, at times, sympathetic, loving, biblical and honest. I liked that the revisionist position is explained carefully and completely without immediate refutation. It allows, hopefully, one to see that their position is heard in its entirety and that a strawman isn’t being constructed to be joyfully eviscerated later. At first, I questioned the inclusion of the chapter on True Love Waits. However, nowhere is this drive to pursue grace and truth no matter the cost more evident than the chapter on Purity Culture and the True Love Waits movement within the church. And that’s perhaps the one thing I appreciated above all else in this book is its unwavering ability to call out inconsistencies with ideologies even and especially within the church. If the church can’t own up to its mistakes, it has a sin and pride problem. Humility should start with Christians and extend out from there. If it seems like I’m praising this book too much, it’s because I am. Too often I’ve read books on the same subject which err on the side of truth and no grace or all grace and no truth. This book is the balance. It treats all humans with the respect and attention being created in the image of God should require. But it doesn’t hold back from correcting some seriously broken and inconsistent ideologies. It defines the stance, holds that stance up to a biblical comparison and then offers advice and real-world steps to dealing with the way our current society views and demonstrates its sexuality. Every parent and really any Christian that’s dealt with, wrestled over and sweated on how to consider these issues from a biblical and loving perspective should read this book. And, I’m not just saying that. I’m giving this book to each of my five kids for Christmas.

If you aren't a Christian or have a Biblical Worldview, you will not appreciate this book. I just led a book club with this book, and we all loved it! Hillary and Amy did a fabulous job explaining things and helping to equip us mamas for the war that's waging on our kids and their identities. There were many parts that left my jaw on the floor. I'm sad that churches aren't preaching/speaking more about this subject and just the Biblical view of sex in general. I'm incredibly thankful for this book and looking forward to the Discipleship Guide.

I’m on my third copy. That’s how you know a book is good. The information within these pages have helped equip my women’s apologetics group in providing truth, answers, and leadership. It has altered, for the better, many Christian-led communities we have the privilege of knowing and dwelling in. What a lens apologetics is to the Gospel!

If you think BLM was about race and your public school is only trying make all children welcome then this book is for. Grooming Marxism and perversion is unfortunately all too common.

I loved this book and found it to be incredibly helpful as a new mom with a Christian world view. It provided tangible lessons and conversations to walk through with your children on these topics. I actually read about half way through and went back to the beginning to highlight and bookmark helpful pages to refer back to before I continued reading on.

This book is jam packed full of Biblical help for dealing with issues surrounding sexuality in our current culture. As a mom with a teenage son, it has been an invaluable resource. Certainly one I will continue to reference for years to come.

This book contains so much biblical truth about who we are and who we were meant to be and it equips parents to understand those things in a logical and beautiful way so we can communicate that to their kids. In the culture we live in, a true identity and the truth about sexuality are rare gifts. May we bravely disciple our children to flourish with the power of the Holy Spirit and the help of the Mama Bears!

Super important book for this time and age. Every Christian, not just parents, should read. She outlines the Christian worldview and biblical sexuality so well, but also makes post-modernism easy to recognize and understand. I’m very grateful for this book and these authors.

I love this book. I’m on chapter 7. It is the most informative, well written, graceful, truthful while empathetic book I have found on the subject. I have been reading up on the subject (books such as trans-when ideology meets reality, also much recommended) but this had really practical and compassionate advice and ideas for how to equip and teach your kids in a way that gives them the ability to recognise and respond to the falsehoods and ideology that comes. I’ve also already learned and understood so much about gods design for the family that I wish I’d known 13 years + ago. It also had some brilliant, simple ideas for forming positive responses to and challenging the arguments for ideologies contradictory to the Bible and harmful for children. I thought this would be a relatively boring read, but I couldn’t recommend it enough

We are living in a culture that has an extremely distorted view of sexuality and identity. We are so bombarded with different sexual ethic than the one God gives us in His Word its easy to see how our kids are confused about it all. I really appreciated this book. It did a great job of taking the lies being taught and challenging them with biblical wisdom and compassion. I know this book is aimed at Moms but if you have grandkids, I really think this book would be a beneficial read as well. And don't let the word "apologetics" in the title scare you. It's a really easy read!

An excellent book and very relevant to our culture. I bought the audiobook and was so impressed that I also bought the paperback so I could highlight and reread it. 6/5⭐️