Your Fig Leaf
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Wells without water, clouds without rain, temples without gods, a wax figure, a dry riverbed, poetic nonsense - all are phony. They are mere suggestions of meaning, the shells without the substance. They promise but cannot fulfill. They are false because they are dead things that resemble life, nothings that pretend to be something, beautiful emptiness. In this same class are personality masks, those little innocent pretenses we use to cover our inadequacies. Everybody is aware to some extent of his own subtle hypocrisy. This book treats its cause, its gravity, its present and final consequences, and its cure. The idea for the title and the analogy of the fig leaf grew out of my contacts as speaker in retreats with university students. During group discussions the questions that came up were largely the same as those listed at the end of some chapters. Those discussions were very revealing--and therapeutic. I make no attempt here to cover the whole panorama of the human problem, merely one phase of it. Still, I feel obliged to relate personal honesty to almost everything else. What we do reflects what we are, and that is ultimately discovered in terms of our relation to God. In this book we want old truths to strike home in terms of everyday life. We want non-church people to understand the thought perfectly and church people not to conclude that they understand the thought simply because the words are familiar. After all, what we have considered for years to be an authentic Christian experience may turn out to be nothing more than fig leaves.
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About the Book
Using the fig leaf story of Adam and Eve and examples from modern life, this book traces the universal human tendency to pretend to be something we are not, then points the way out to freedom and honesty.
About the Author
Paul Heisey Sheetz is a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He got his start in journalism on his family’s weekly newspaper in a small town in Pennsylvania. Has had articles published in Moody Magazine, Christian Reader and a number of Spanish language magazines. Your Fig Leaf is his eighth full-length book on practical Christian living. Others are missionary biography, Malla Moe (Moody Press, 1956); The Sovereign Hand, missionary history of TEAM Mission, 1971; The Elizabeth Sheetz Story, 1999; and four titles in Spanish (Como Vencer la Inseguridad, Hambre Oculta, Ser y Tener, y Más Allá de la Culpa). He served in Christian journalism for thirty-five years, more than twenty years in Latin American countries, between 1948 and 1975, served on staff of four periodicals in Argentina, including Decision, the Spanish version of the Billy Graham magazine. He served for brief periods as a church planter in Aruba (194401937), before transferring to Venezuela and Costa Rica. Five years in the home office of TEAM Mission, Wheaton, Illinois (1950-55) as editor of their publications, then eighteen years in Argentina. At present, he serves on the elder board of the First Alliance Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and edits the church newsletter. He has written dozens of tracts on patriotic and apologetic subjects. At present, he is working on several new books on Christian life and practical theology. He was married to Charlotte Hall of Chicago, who died in June 1998. He has four children and six grandchildren. Three of the families live in the Atlanta area and one in Plainview, Texas. He resides in Decatur, Georgia, and is still active as Bible teacher in both English and Spanish in the Atlanta area. His hobby is gardening, and he attends a three-time weekly gym program at Emory University Clinic. He is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute with extra subjects at Georgia State University. He keeps in touch with missionaries around the world via the Internet.