Conversations with Leaders: Jen Oshman on Cultural Counterfeits
Spotting, resisting, and turning away from empty idols of our age
This week our conversation is with Jen Oshman on her new book Cultural Counterfeits. Jen Oshman has been in women’s ministry for over two decades as a missionary and pastor’s wife on three continents. She’s the mother of four daughters, the author of Cultural Counterfeits: Confronting 5 Empty Promises of Our Age and How We Were Made for So Much More, and the host of All Things, a podcast about cultural events and trends. Her family currently resides in Colorado, where they planted Redemption Parker, an Acts29 church.
What are some of the “cultural counterfeits” you discuss in this book, and how do they impact women in our culture today?
Cultural counterfeits are the values or ideas that our current culture tells us to live for. We might also call them empty promises or idols of our age. They promise us life but deliver death. They promise freedom but instead enslave. As John Calvin famously said, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.” So the book could have been endless, highlighting any number of idols of our day. Having been in women’s ministry for over 20 years, I chose just five. All five are related to our bodies and identities as women. These are the five that, in my observation, are the most tenacious and cause the most harm in our current context. The first is outward beauty and ability, which applauds the pretty and the able, but despises true human beauty. The second is cheap sex, which entices us to hook up over and over, but never provides real soul satisfaction. Third is the idol of abortion, which is in cahoots with cheap sex, promising us self-determination. Fourth is the newer and resolute counterfeit of LGBTQIA+ identities, which promise a home to any girl wrestling with who she is and what she feels. And the fifth idol in the book (discussed further in question four below) is marriage and motherhood—the idea that women cannot be fully mature or beneficial until we are married and have children.
You write that human well-being requires “harmony with reality.” In what ways has our culture lost its harmony with reality, specifically among women?
We live in an age that tells us we can be self-made. Everything from pop songs to legislation declare that we can be whoever we want to be. This has caused both men and women, and boys and girls, to pursue happiness within themselves—to create an identity of our choosing and to conjure up the energy to make it happen. But here’s what’s true: we were made by God and for God. We have a Creator, who also desires to be our Savior. To be well—to be at peace, to be satisfied, to be truly content in who we are—we must know him, abide in him, and live for his glory. While living according to our own invention sounds nice, it ultimately rings hollow. To make this really practical, for example, women and girls are conditioned to believe a certain body type and appearance will fulfill us, or another sexual partner, or a different gender identity. But none of those deliver true human well-being. Reality is that we have a merciful and kind Creator who makes us well as we walk with him. To live otherwise is to our own demise. And this is true for all humans, not just those who profess Christ.
How is the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15 relevant to the idols or “counterfeits” in our culture?
While named for only one brother, this parable is about two brothers and their father. I love the story because I think we can see ourselves in both brothers. The prodigal brother takes his father’s money and runs to a far country, seeking the good life through reckless living. His foolishness can be equated to our efforts to find fulfillment in the first four idols: outward beauty and ability, cheap sex, abortion, and LGBTQIA+ identities. The older brother stays home on his father’s estate and lives morally and carefully, seeking the good life through strict obedience. His moralistic living might be equated to putting our hope and satisfaction in marriage and motherhood (see the next question to elaborate here). The point is, both brothers want the father’s gifts, but not the father. Neither brother is after his dad’s love and companionship. Rather, both pursue their own vision of the good life, and in both cases, they come up short. The younger brother’s reckless living leads to his downfall. And the older brother’s pride in his own perfection leads to his. The real beauty and joy of this parable, though, is the father. In both cases, the father goes out to both sons, lavishes love and forgiveness, and invites them in to feast with him. Our Father in heaven made us for so much more than the counterfeits of our age. He made us to come home to him. His arms remain wide open no matter what we’ve done. My prayer with this book is that every reader will reject the empty promises of our age and receive the endless love of our Father in heaven.
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