Meet Jennie Baddeley

The contributor for October's book The Feminist Mistake is Jennie Baddeley. (You can find out more about each contributor via the sidebar on the right if you are new to this blog.) We asked Jennie a few questions to get to her know her a little before we begin.

How did you come to faith in Christ?

I was eight years old and had wanted to be a Christian for a fair while, having heard the Gospel again and again as I was growing up. I didn’t get that Jesus wanted to save me and had done everything necessary for my salvation. I kept trying to figure out what I had to do. Then it clicked one day that Jesus had already done everything and I just needed to trust what he’d done for me or put my faith in him. So, I asked Jesus to save me from my sins and he did. And then I did a cartwheel down our hallway.

What do you most love about reading?

I love how reading throws the doors open to the wide world. You can read and enjoy whole other perspectives on life, ‘see’ times and places you can’t possibly visit for yourself and meet amazing people. I confess to joining Nicole in missing people and places after finishing books. I also like how reading transforms the way you think by giving you new categories for things and critiquing existing ones. Struggling to read a really complex book isn’t just an effort of reading but of thinking and is usually rewarding in more ways than one.

What is your favourite novel?

Favourite is such a difficult word! I loved Lord of the Rings and Robin Hobb’s trilogies. However, I have to confess to being a serious George Eliot fan, re-reading all her novels every three years. Her ability to show people in relationships is second to none, I think and Daniel Deronda is probably my favourite.

What book has helped you the most in growing in your knowledge of God?

I would have to say a book I read when I was about 17 called The Christian Soldier by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. It was the first time I’d read anything that understood life as being lived under God’s merciful and sovereign rule. Previously I had thought that my choices were the most important things and that God dealt with me according to those alone, sometimes punishing, sometimes rewarding me depending on how good I’d been. After reading this book I realised that it was God who ordered my life and that what Jesus had done in dying on the cross for my sins did not just take care of the sins I’d already done but my whole sin problem forever and always. It has taken a long time to understand the whole of life and doctrine in those categories (of grace), but I have always been grateful to Lloyd-Jones for pointing me in this direction.