Ester Ried Yet Speaking

This is a series I've enjoyed before but a different author. The author was the best friend of the original author and borrowed a character.

The first half of the book, I thought it was going to be a five stars read. A pastor prays earnestly for his congregation and they begin to wake up to the truth of the Gospel. However, it degenerates quickly into tawdry legalism and the focus comes off of redemption and onto “Christian” rules. When the book really lost me was when the author climbs her soapbox against dancing—even chaste ballroom dancing is bad. Even if the girl who meant to go dance was trying to talk to her date about God. They were condemned as being fleshly-minded and the exercise was overly vigorous and would make them invalids because of the raising of their blood-pressure. That was pretty funny and if I'd have been drinking something I might have spewed it. But when the woman went on to blame her love for dancing as being directly responsible for her husband cheating on her, I was extremely revolted. I thought about not finishing but I was only 50 pages from the end.

When you speak more about Pharisaical rules than about true religion, and when you speak about both more than about Jesus, how Christian is your book really being? I think I'm allergic to baseless legalism...