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Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity
240 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 8, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic is a wake up call to the American people to consider how exactly the modern culture values women and children, human life, and the broken systems of education, medicine, and spirituality in the nation. This book is quite frankly, haunting and terrifying. Williams did her research, and the data at least is verifiable facts. This book may lose people, even despite how honest it is, because the author is very openly Christian and that informs 99% of this book and its points. I am in fact one of the actively religious pagan, childless women that this book rails on and on about and against. I haven't been a Christian a day in my life, and I probably will never have kids. HOWEVER, even though the author and I don't see eye to eye on spiritual matters, I still stuck with her book to the end because--
This is important.
It's important to be able to listen to differing points of views and come to civilized, measured conclusions, together. That's what's lacking in the West; the ability to Love Thy Neighbor. This book is important, and God willing, it's able to kick start a much needed discussion across all sorts of different religions, creeds, and political backgrounds about, how exactly do we put the focus back on humanity itself? This book doesn't shy away from being controversial and I respect that. It delves into heavy, relevant topics like lab grown babies, declining birth rates, abortions, how the American education system makes robots of us all, changing attitudes in the Christian church, and so many other important topics. The author is educated, succinct, and would've been a great research attorney if that's what she wanted. She wanted to be a Mom in a culture that devalues Moms on everyday but Mother's Day, and she had the courage to write about her frustrations with the societal attitude about this choice. This book gets nothing but respect from me, even when I strongly disagreed due to my own religious background and upbringing. Christian women ESPECIALLY would benefit from reading this book, and I would recommend it to Christian friends for sure. I think there's a lot though, that non-Christians like myself can get out of this book and hopefully, conversations can lead to change that benefit all sides.
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic is a wake up call to the American people to consider how exactly the modern culture values women and children, human life, and the broken systems of education, medicine, and spirituality in the nation. This book is quite frankly, haunting and terrifying. Williams did her research, and the data at least is verifiable facts. This book may lose people, even despite how honest it is, because the author is very openly Christian and that informs 99% of this book and its points. I am in fact one of the actively religious pagan, childless women that this book rails on and on about and against. I haven't been a Christian a day in my life, and I probably will never have kids. HOWEVER, even though the author and I don't see eye to eye on spiritual matters, I still stuck with her book to the end because--
This is important.
It's important to be able to listen to differing points of views and come to civilized, measured conclusions, together. That's what's lacking in the West; the ability to Love Thy Neighbor. This book is important, and God willing, it's able to kick start a much needed discussion across all sorts of different religions, creeds, and political backgrounds about, how exactly do we put the focus back on humanity itself? This book doesn't shy away from being controversial and I respect that. It delves into heavy, relevant topics like lab grown babies, declining birth rates, abortions, how the American education system makes robots of us all, changing attitudes in the Christian church, and so many other important topics. The author is educated, succinct, and would've been a great research attorney if that's what she wanted. She wanted to be a Mom in a culture that devalues Moms on everyday but Mother's Day, and she had the courage to write about her frustrations with the societal attitude about this choice. This book gets nothing but respect from me, even when I strongly disagreed due to my own religious background and upbringing. Christian women ESPECIALLY would benefit from reading this book, and I would recommend it to Christian friends for sure. I think there's a lot though, that non-Christians like myself can get out of this book and hopefully, conversations can lead to change that benefit all sides.
February 22, 2025
Any book about Christianity’s influence to dignify and rescue women and children held up with copious references to Homer and Hesiod is … totally my jam. I could be best friends with anyone who feels the same. So I loved this so much, but I felt like the very end of the book (talking about the environment and agriculture) really flew off the handle. I wished I had been an early reader who could have challenged the author: a few references to Wendell Berry’s idyllic works does not constitute a reliable reference basis to a thorough understanding of agriculture, the environment, or Christian care for the earth. It’s a common pitfall in many Christian books, and the disconnect between Berry’s work and agriculture in the real world is leading many Christians towards a broken, weak understanding of theology and practice on this topic. I’m a theology nerd (with a deep love for classics) and married a scientist working in plant biotech, so this is absolutely one of my hills to die on and the inclusion made the book much weaker than it was until that point.
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March 20, 2025This is such a vital reminder that Jesus called his community to love the least of these. Williams uses her skill in ancient history to show how in Roman times women and children and non combatants were abused and not valued and how the Christian community changed this. Williams is less effective when she is arguing that people don’t value mothers and children anymore—it’s not clear there has ever been a time when motherhood was supported and valued as it could and should be. Rather than blaming young women for not wanting to be parents, and focusing on language that sounds like the culture wars, it might be more effective to talk about the structural systems that prevent this. And there is zero emphasis on fathers and how men valuing parenting could also be the most counter cultural thing Christians could do. This could make it something men and women both want to do together. Currently it reads like blaming women for not wanting to set aside other callings to do parenting in a world that requires so much of mothers with so little support. This is more a story of modern economics and the Industrial Revolution and capitalism rather than just recent sexual revolution or cultural change issues. Still, the majority of Williams’ book is a vital reminder of valuing those that Jesus did and churches coming around mothers
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September 11, 2025The comparisons between ancient pagans and modern thinkers was very illuminating. And the way Williams set Christian thought up and against it to truly value all human life led to a crystal clear vision for the valuing of life that is "worthless" (considered so because it doesn't contribute to progress or war). She ends the book by locating people's flourishing mainly in relation to each other, unfolding this from the idea that this is even more key than a relation to land, which is a good seen in the writings of ancient Romans and Wendell Berry.
November 4, 2024
I liked the first few chapters, but once Williams got into all the classical myths and philosophers and such, I was not interested anymore. 😂 Guess I’m not a classicist at heart? I did come away with a renewed desire to notice those whose lives are devalued around me, and show God’s love indiscriminately.
December 16, 2024
This was very well done. Just like The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, Williams weaves mythology, scripture, ancient history, and current events into a portrait of our time and a warning for our future. I particularly loved her views on women in the New Testament, the sharp observation about Oedipus, and her analytical points about Medea. Here's hoping it was as groundbreaking in that time period as it seemed that it should have been.
She seemingly effortlessly brings you into the ancient world, a world where women were often nameless, always secondary, and usually victims. Some of the Catholic sentimentality didn't quite transfer to me, but that didn't make the stories about Perpetua and Felicity useless, though I did get a bit tired of Augustine. Dr B would be proud that I remembered The Consolation of Philosophy.
This came so close to 5 stars for me. But, ultimately, didn't quite sum up as well as it could have, nor did it provide enough solutions. But it was quite good.
She seemingly effortlessly brings you into the ancient world, a world where women were often nameless, always secondary, and usually victims. Some of the Catholic sentimentality didn't quite transfer to me, but that didn't make the stories about Perpetua and Felicity useless, though I did get a bit tired of Augustine. Dr B would be proud that I remembered The Consolation of Philosophy.
This came so close to 5 stars for me. But, ultimately, didn't quite sum up as well as it could have, nor did it provide enough solutions. But it was quite good.
January 15, 2025
Summary: Parallels the Western disdain for mothers and children with ancient Rome, and what early Christians can teach us.
Nadya Williams decided in 2023 to walk away from a traditional academic career. But it was not, primarily, to freelance, or consult. She walked away to homeschool her children. As a result, she experienced the incredulity of friends and professional colleagues who tried to make sense of her choice. They confirmed her assessment that in a Western, post-Christian world it makes no economic or professional sense to do this. Having children costs a lot of money both directly and indirectly. And the choice of motherhood ahead of professional career has been increasing framed as an inferior, or even oppressive choice, even when freely chosen. Williams argues that her experience reflects a societal devaluation of the personhood of children and mothers and a disdain for maternal bodies.
In the first part of the book, Williams elaborates this argument. She begins with the experience of expectant mothers in modern ob/gyn practices. She describes practices in which the office decor features contraceptive advertising and Botox advertising to remove the after effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body. Williams contrasts it to a midwives practice to which she switched that featured pictures of babies on the wall. [My wife sees a conventional ob/gyn at which pictures of babies adorn the walls, so this must not always be so.]. But she makes the point that one must prevent pregnancy or remove its effects on the body to maintain societal ideals of beauty.
Likewise, if one has children, they are increasingly designed through fertility practices and genetic testing. Then children endure an assembly line education to prepare them to be good and productive citizens. Thus, we deny by objectification and commodification their personhood. Finally, motherhood is denigrated in comparison to being productive creatives by feminist writers.
The second part of the book looks at the parallel devaluation of life in ancient Roman culture and the counter-culture of early Christians. She contends that women were largely considered mere sex objects. The value of children depended on their status and health. Deformed children killed, and others, often girls, left exposed to die. War only underscored the devaluation of women and children, who were raped, killed, or enslaved. She contrasts the ethic of the early church that valued all persons, including the single, childless, mothers, children, and others on the margins. They rescued exposed infants, and cared for the sick abandoned by families during plagues.
What may we learn from the early church in a parallel, though distinct context? In the third part of the book, Williams answers this by appealing to three writers, two ancient, and one contemporary. First she introduces us to the prison journals of Perpetua, who along with an enslaved Christian, Felicity, were martyred. Felicity bore a child shortly before her death, while imprisoned. Perpetua’s discussion of motherhood speaks powerfully to anti-motherhood tracts of modernity.
The second was Augustine, whose City of God speaks of the theological basis for valuing lives amid the dehumanizing sack of Rome. His writing to sustain the Christian community models redemptive writing for our day. He spoke life-giving words into a culture of death. Finally, she calls our attention to Wendell Berry, whose life work has been to connect human dignity both Godward and to the land which sustains us as we seek its flourishing.
Williams concludes with arguing that to be pro-life involves far more than preventing abortions. The diminution of mothers and the commodification of children is a far cry from the human dignity a consistently pro-life stance entails. Of course, this extends across the whole spectrum of human existence. Perhaps the most powerful and counter-cultural witness our communities can engage in is to value mothers and children, as well as other members of the human community.
Williams speaks powerfully to the “we need more babies” contention. This still treats babies as a commodity. Rather, she holds out the ideal of communities who love children.
She models a mother who is creative both in parenting and writing. I do think she needs to address the “Handmaids Tale” fears of women. There is a toxic patriarchy that also “affirms” motherhood at the expense of dehumanizing women. I also know families in which men have forgone careers to raise (if not bear) children. Such men are also denigrated. I’d love to see more said about the dignity of their choices, which equally affirm the worth of children.
I also appreciate the nuance she brings to discussions of education, in which homeschooling as well as public education are part of the assembly line. Each can equally commodify children instead of treating them as image bearers. And each reflects a contest over who controls the assembly line. It often feels to me that we “machine” children to be optimal cogs in our nation’s workforce.
It seems to me that the major challenge is to create a culture of life within our Christian communities that is more compelling than the commodifying culture around us that marginalizes or kills its “non-productives.” I think it means disengaging from the conflicting political narratives of our culture. Neither dignifies life. And I think it means forging communities where we deeply connect across generations and stages of life. Superficial fellowship times over coffee don’t cut it. Nadya Williams identifies a key place where we can begin. We can value our children. We can affirm the choices of moms (or dads) to stay home to raise children. And we can be the village that helps them do it. Yes, this is a costly choice but one Christian communities can embrace. We know loving a child or valuing a mother is costly but this is what God has done.
_____________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Nadya Williams decided in 2023 to walk away from a traditional academic career. But it was not, primarily, to freelance, or consult. She walked away to homeschool her children. As a result, she experienced the incredulity of friends and professional colleagues who tried to make sense of her choice. They confirmed her assessment that in a Western, post-Christian world it makes no economic or professional sense to do this. Having children costs a lot of money both directly and indirectly. And the choice of motherhood ahead of professional career has been increasing framed as an inferior, or even oppressive choice, even when freely chosen. Williams argues that her experience reflects a societal devaluation of the personhood of children and mothers and a disdain for maternal bodies.
In the first part of the book, Williams elaborates this argument. She begins with the experience of expectant mothers in modern ob/gyn practices. She describes practices in which the office decor features contraceptive advertising and Botox advertising to remove the after effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body. Williams contrasts it to a midwives practice to which she switched that featured pictures of babies on the wall. [My wife sees a conventional ob/gyn at which pictures of babies adorn the walls, so this must not always be so.]. But she makes the point that one must prevent pregnancy or remove its effects on the body to maintain societal ideals of beauty.
Likewise, if one has children, they are increasingly designed through fertility practices and genetic testing. Then children endure an assembly line education to prepare them to be good and productive citizens. Thus, we deny by objectification and commodification their personhood. Finally, motherhood is denigrated in comparison to being productive creatives by feminist writers.
The second part of the book looks at the parallel devaluation of life in ancient Roman culture and the counter-culture of early Christians. She contends that women were largely considered mere sex objects. The value of children depended on their status and health. Deformed children killed, and others, often girls, left exposed to die. War only underscored the devaluation of women and children, who were raped, killed, or enslaved. She contrasts the ethic of the early church that valued all persons, including the single, childless, mothers, children, and others on the margins. They rescued exposed infants, and cared for the sick abandoned by families during plagues.
What may we learn from the early church in a parallel, though distinct context? In the third part of the book, Williams answers this by appealing to three writers, two ancient, and one contemporary. First she introduces us to the prison journals of Perpetua, who along with an enslaved Christian, Felicity, were martyred. Felicity bore a child shortly before her death, while imprisoned. Perpetua’s discussion of motherhood speaks powerfully to anti-motherhood tracts of modernity.
The second was Augustine, whose City of God speaks of the theological basis for valuing lives amid the dehumanizing sack of Rome. His writing to sustain the Christian community models redemptive writing for our day. He spoke life-giving words into a culture of death. Finally, she calls our attention to Wendell Berry, whose life work has been to connect human dignity both Godward and to the land which sustains us as we seek its flourishing.
Williams concludes with arguing that to be pro-life involves far more than preventing abortions. The diminution of mothers and the commodification of children is a far cry from the human dignity a consistently pro-life stance entails. Of course, this extends across the whole spectrum of human existence. Perhaps the most powerful and counter-cultural witness our communities can engage in is to value mothers and children, as well as other members of the human community.
Williams speaks powerfully to the “we need more babies” contention. This still treats babies as a commodity. Rather, she holds out the ideal of communities who love children.
She models a mother who is creative both in parenting and writing. I do think she needs to address the “Handmaids Tale” fears of women. There is a toxic patriarchy that also “affirms” motherhood at the expense of dehumanizing women. I also know families in which men have forgone careers to raise (if not bear) children. Such men are also denigrated. I’d love to see more said about the dignity of their choices, which equally affirm the worth of children.
I also appreciate the nuance she brings to discussions of education, in which homeschooling as well as public education are part of the assembly line. Each can equally commodify children instead of treating them as image bearers. And each reflects a contest over who controls the assembly line. It often feels to me that we “machine” children to be optimal cogs in our nation’s workforce.
It seems to me that the major challenge is to create a culture of life within our Christian communities that is more compelling than the commodifying culture around us that marginalizes or kills its “non-productives.” I think it means disengaging from the conflicting political narratives of our culture. Neither dignifies life. And I think it means forging communities where we deeply connect across generations and stages of life. Superficial fellowship times over coffee don’t cut it. Nadya Williams identifies a key place where we can begin. We can value our children. We can affirm the choices of moms (or dads) to stay home to raise children. And we can be the village that helps them do it. Yes, this is a costly choice but one Christian communities can embrace. We know loving a child or valuing a mother is costly but this is what God has done.
_____________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
November 4, 2024
One can learn a lot about a society by considering how they treat the least and weakest among them: women and children tend to fall into that group.
In Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity, (galley received as part of early review program), Nadya Williams explored a comparison and contrast between ancient Greek and Roman treatment of women and children with the ways ancient Christians spoke of and generally treated women and children, with a view of considering what it might mean for our society today.
The work is quite strong in terms of its ancient evidence and its presentation. The author well exposed how the Greeks and Romans maintained viewpoints in which women and children were not highly regarded; they were reckoned as less than, and those belonging to “the other,” all the more so. Evidence for these claims is well reinforced: we meet the horrors of ancient war and the wanton killing of women and children just because. We see the degrading, dehumanizing treatment and portrayal of women and children in these contexts and societies.
And ancient Christianity did present a significant contrast. Jesus taught Christians to see Him in the least of those among them, which would mean to see Jesus all the more in women and children. The author presents compelling ancient Christian witnesses attesting to the imago dei in each person and demonstrations of love and hospitality toward those Greco-Roman society despised and/or rejected.
The challenges of the work come with the assumed “Christendom” framework which the author unwisely imported into her applications to modern society, presuming American society at some point maintained “Judeo-Christian principles” like the valuation of the least among them without any defilement or influence from its own Greco-Roman heritage, and the need to return to such a perspective. It is incredibly difficult to take such a claim seriously in light of how those who imagined themselves as upholding Christianity treated the Indigenous American populations, Black people, and many others. The author is rightly concerned about the utilitarian valuation of life in our modern secular context, and rightly warns about the dangers thereof. But this does not mean that our forefathers were really that much more enlightened about how they treated the least among them. In this the Preacher is right: there is nothing new under the sun. The challenges may be different, but society continues to disregard the value of at least some of the least among them. Who might be disregarded may be different today than who was disregarded in the past, but both then and now, people were disregarded.
And for Christians, that should be a problem. We should certainly not rush to disregard those being disregarded today, but neither should we give implicit endorsement of an imagined more enlightened past which was nothing of the sort, and confess and lament how many, many people professed the name of Jesus while treating many made in the image of Jesus very shamefully. Western society was as shaped by Christianity and its insistence on the imago dei in humanity as it was by the ruthless philosophical logic of the Greeks and Romans. Christians should thus resist treating and valuing people the way the Greeks and Romans did. Our ancestors in the faith should have done so as well.
In Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity, (galley received as part of early review program), Nadya Williams explored a comparison and contrast between ancient Greek and Roman treatment of women and children with the ways ancient Christians spoke of and generally treated women and children, with a view of considering what it might mean for our society today.
The work is quite strong in terms of its ancient evidence and its presentation. The author well exposed how the Greeks and Romans maintained viewpoints in which women and children were not highly regarded; they were reckoned as less than, and those belonging to “the other,” all the more so. Evidence for these claims is well reinforced: we meet the horrors of ancient war and the wanton killing of women and children just because. We see the degrading, dehumanizing treatment and portrayal of women and children in these contexts and societies.
And ancient Christianity did present a significant contrast. Jesus taught Christians to see Him in the least of those among them, which would mean to see Jesus all the more in women and children. The author presents compelling ancient Christian witnesses attesting to the imago dei in each person and demonstrations of love and hospitality toward those Greco-Roman society despised and/or rejected.
The challenges of the work come with the assumed “Christendom” framework which the author unwisely imported into her applications to modern society, presuming American society at some point maintained “Judeo-Christian principles” like the valuation of the least among them without any defilement or influence from its own Greco-Roman heritage, and the need to return to such a perspective. It is incredibly difficult to take such a claim seriously in light of how those who imagined themselves as upholding Christianity treated the Indigenous American populations, Black people, and many others. The author is rightly concerned about the utilitarian valuation of life in our modern secular context, and rightly warns about the dangers thereof. But this does not mean that our forefathers were really that much more enlightened about how they treated the least among them. In this the Preacher is right: there is nothing new under the sun. The challenges may be different, but society continues to disregard the value of at least some of the least among them. Who might be disregarded may be different today than who was disregarded in the past, but both then and now, people were disregarded.
And for Christians, that should be a problem. We should certainly not rush to disregard those being disregarded today, but neither should we give implicit endorsement of an imagined more enlightened past which was nothing of the sort, and confess and lament how many, many people professed the name of Jesus while treating many made in the image of Jesus very shamefully. Western society was as shaped by Christianity and its insistence on the imago dei in humanity as it was by the ruthless philosophical logic of the Greeks and Romans. Christians should thus resist treating and valuing people the way the Greeks and Romans did. Our ancestors in the faith should have done so as well.
June 16, 2024
While this book was well written and an interesting topic, I am not sure what I gained from reading it, and I am not sure who even to point to as a possible recommended audience. Williams is obviously an expert in her field of the early church and her explanations of examples from Roman society were well researched and provided clear context to the relational points she was trying to compare to our society. But, there was very little scripture in it besides example stories she was using from the Bible. Why make a compelling argument about motherhood and childhood and what our society gets wrong based on imago dei and barely reference scripture and interpretation that argues for the points you are making around the pro-life movement? I think it hurts both the believer and the unbeliever reading this even if there is already some context to Christian values around the ideas of abortion and motherhood. Part of a necessary step in this topic is provide the reasoning behind her beliefs, and that can only be done by scripture if it is going to come from a Christian, which to be fair is said multiple times within the book. I feel like this book is the kitchen sink for such a divisive topic and for me, needed a lot more focus to be effective to the points she was trying to make. She is a brilliant writer and scholar so hope to see more from her in the future.
December 17, 2024
The ideas in this book will have me mulling them over for a long time. Williams, as a classic scholar, showed the tragedy of antiquity through the literature and historic wars that women, children, and the disabled were disposable and the “useless ones”. Though this is seen in ancient society, post-modernity hasn’t evolved from this but has returned to this dogma with a utilitarian twist. In post- modernity, children are valued only if the mother wants the child; motherhood is something that gets in the way of a woman’s true worth: what she can produce in the workforce; and human life is measurable based on quality of enjoyment, without suffering and need of help from others.
Williams reveals how our society places economic value on human lives based off of what they can produce and not on the Christian truth of the imago Dei. Because of this, abortion in America and euthanasia in Canada are rampant. When we place value on human life based off anything other than humans being made in the image of God we deny what Christ taught and lived out in his ministry.
I really enjoyed this book as it has helped me dig deeper roots in my framework of motherhood and children. It also helped me have a greater picture of how radical and countercultural Jesus’ ministry to the disabled, sick, outcast, women, and children truly was and still is today.
Williams reveals how our society places economic value on human lives based off of what they can produce and not on the Christian truth of the imago Dei. Because of this, abortion in America and euthanasia in Canada are rampant. When we place value on human life based off anything other than humans being made in the image of God we deny what Christ taught and lived out in his ministry.
I really enjoyed this book as it has helped me dig deeper roots in my framework of motherhood and children. It also helped me have a greater picture of how radical and countercultural Jesus’ ministry to the disabled, sick, outcast, women, and children truly was and still is today.
January 31, 2025
We are doomed to repeat the history that we forget.
Nadya Williams warns us that we are in danger of spiralling back to a more ancient way of viewing the world - and that this would be dangerous for women, children, and anyone vulnerable.
She understands the classical world thoroughly, and it’s chilling at times to read events of the past because the moral compass is so different.
It made me appreciate all the more that things that we think are “obvious”, like equality between men and women, or caring for the needy, are in fact not obvious. They only seem obvious because it is how our society has governed itself for centuries and is now an embedded notion. Outside of Christianity this notion does not hold much water. Why should the strong not rule the weak? Why should no one be a slave? Why should we care for the disabled, the vulnerable, the needy? Without the imago Dei the answers do not rest on anything stable.
I enjoyed reading this, even though at times I found her narration style a little confusing - she often starts in the middle of a story and then goes back and jumps forward again. It’s an interesting style in terms of reader engagement, but I found it harder to follow sometimes.
Nadya Williams warns us that we are in danger of spiralling back to a more ancient way of viewing the world - and that this would be dangerous for women, children, and anyone vulnerable.
She understands the classical world thoroughly, and it’s chilling at times to read events of the past because the moral compass is so different.
It made me appreciate all the more that things that we think are “obvious”, like equality between men and women, or caring for the needy, are in fact not obvious. They only seem obvious because it is how our society has governed itself for centuries and is now an embedded notion. Outside of Christianity this notion does not hold much water. Why should the strong not rule the weak? Why should no one be a slave? Why should we care for the disabled, the vulnerable, the needy? Without the imago Dei the answers do not rest on anything stable.
I enjoyed reading this, even though at times I found her narration style a little confusing - she often starts in the middle of a story and then goes back and jumps forward again. It’s an interesting style in terms of reader engagement, but I found it harder to follow sometimes.
October 22, 2024
I was so excited to hear of the upcoming publication of this book on Dr. Williams' Substack a few months ago. Reading the introduction that was offered as a preview of the book, I was all the more excited to read it. The book intrigued me on multiple levels, from my personal interest in Dr. Williams's recent choice to leave her academic position to homeschool her children, to her analysis of how our culture devalues motherhood, to learning about how this compares to attitudes in antiquity and early Christianity. Somehow, even with these incredibly high expectations, the book delivered more than I expected. It was validating and encouraging to read Dr. Williams' experiences as a mother, and I learned so much from her deep knowledge of antiquity and the early church. I was inspired by the stories she included, from Perpetua to Augustine to Wendell Berry. The book ends with an inspiring call to extraordinary, lavish love for all humans who bear the image of God. Highly recommend this book to all Christians, or anyone interested in the current cultural devaluation of those who are seen as "useless" and how this relates to patterns throughout history.
June 10, 2025
Nadya Williams takes a very specific problem and answers it with a frustratingly general solution.
In response to the well-articulated issue facing our world today: motherhood is thought of as a ‘less-than’ calling, children are seen as hindrances, and our society seeks to machine-produce humans from conception through adulthood, Williams says, ‘abhor violence and love your neighbor.’
True? Gloriously so.
Helpful? Satisfying to the questions raised in the first part? I say no.
In response to the well-articulated issue facing our world today: motherhood is thought of as a ‘less-than’ calling, children are seen as hindrances, and our society seeks to machine-produce humans from conception through adulthood, Williams says, ‘abhor violence and love your neighbor.’
True? Gloriously so.
Helpful? Satisfying to the questions raised in the first part? I say no.
September 19, 2024
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic explores the devaluing of children, mothers, and women in current Western society. Author Nadya Williams does this by giving examples of policies surrounding maternal healthcare, maternity leave, and education. With a unique background as a history professor and a Christian, she shows how the literary works of ancient cultures demonstrate their view on the value of women and children, and how the introduction of Christianity changed the world in that regard. Sadly, as Western society becomes increasingly post-Christian, we are seeing a devolving of the concept of human rights, as indicated by how we treat "the least of these."
This book is pretty academic in tone, but I did appreciate the arguments and connections the author made. It reminded me a lot of Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey and The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener, but with the added viewpoint of literature. I would recommend this to anyone looking to further equip themselves to advocate for the value of women and children, especially from a Christian worldview.
Thank you to Netgalley and IVP for the advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.
This book is pretty academic in tone, but I did appreciate the arguments and connections the author made. It reminded me a lot of Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey and The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener, but with the added viewpoint of literature. I would recommend this to anyone looking to further equip themselves to advocate for the value of women and children, especially from a Christian worldview.
Thank you to Netgalley and IVP for the advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.
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November 8, 2024The focus of Mothers, Children and the Body Politic is the undervaluing of mothers, motherhood and children. We are letting the culture skew our (biblical) view, as has happened throughout history, and the only way to remedy this is to return to God.
We need selflessness, which is often epitomized by mothers. Where has the value for human life gone?
I haven't finished this book, as it is weighty, but I have appreciated it thus far.
I received an eARC from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
We need selflessness, which is often epitomized by mothers. Where has the value for human life gone?
I haven't finished this book, as it is weighty, but I have appreciated it thus far.
I received an eARC from NetGalley. Opinions are my own.
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March 15, 2025FPR's review: https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/20...
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