Customer Reviews

False Assumptions

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Oddly, though this "Christian" book was published in 1994, there are no reviews to date for it. Perhaps there is a good reason that books like this do not take off. However one of the authors, Dr. Henry Cloud has a website to promote his Public Consulting, Life-Coaching, etc. and it also identifies his book sales as one of his credits.



First of all, "False Assumptions" is a Hardcover book with a Dustjacket and on the back of that Dustjacket are photos of the authors. The two author's faces beam out at you cheerfully with broad, warm, engaging smiles, and eyes that fairly twinkle with the promise of reassurances, and the bright ties and white shirts and suits offer that air of professionality...etc.; and that's the first problem I have with their book, because exactly the same kind of photo endorsements appear in virtually every NEW AGE publication you find, for everything from faith healers, to psychics, to therapists and every imaginable modality of the "YER SICK, SO LET ME FIX YOU FOR $79.95!" approch to human problems.

Now keep in mind, I did offer that some "reasonable insights" do appear in their book; but basically they are trying to ally
"Christianity" with Secular Psychology, and Christianity was never intended to be a Secular Psychology. So I am pointing out that what the authors write is not always entirely Wrong; but what they write is also neither Right nor Logically Coherent with Orthodox Christian Doctrine.

For example, right off in the first Chapter, the authors begin employing vague terminology, which they bandy about with a wholehearted enthusiasm which is not justified by what they actually write about or vaguely allude to.
For example, terms like EMOTIONAL HERESY and NEEDS pop right out at the objective reader, who is trying to decipher precisely what the authors are writing about.

The authors specifically, are addressing TWELVE FALSE ASSUMPTIONS. So when they start off writing about
EMOTIONAL HERESIES, an objective reader would immediately have an alarm of sorts go off in their mind, if they are going to actually understand what the authors are doing. Clearly, the authors are employing an uncommon terminology.
EMOTIONS are not part and parcel Orthodox Christian Doctrine as it pertains to HERESIES. Heresies in point of fact, do not pertain to EMOTIONS, but to Ideas which are anti-thetical to either scripture or specific Christian doctrines which are long established.

So what the authors do is employ a new terminology, a kind of New-Speak, which permits them to write critically of some Christian Ministries and Christian Teachings, while appearing to represent a more "elevated" conception of Christianity, which is, just like Laundry Detergent in the TV Commercials, "New" and "Improved".

The problem with their ideas, is that they only make sense so long as they are presumed to correspond with concepts in a narrow and selective useage. Thus, NEEDS is written about vaguely, but not in an explicit way.
This way, the authors can draw gullible readers into their vague understandings of "things" like NEEDS, without any of the untidy baggage which any reasonable person would refer to as a NEED in the broader context of human experience.

Thus, when the authors write of NEEDS, they are not referring to a Father of Four abandoning his family for the weekend to gamble away the family savings in some distant casino. Certainly not. No, the author's are employing NEEDS in a vague and very conventional sense, such that NEEDS might refer to a "housewife" feeling left out of Love and Affection.
NEEDS, in the context of a "housewife" can be made palatable in such a way that it infers that the "housewife's" actions would never prove detrimental to her children or her husband. Thus, our natural sympathies for the NEEDS of the "housewife" are awakened, and we tend to be drawn into the Weavers carefully arranged web of conceptions.

I write about this because much modern and very popular literature employs "coy" language in this way.
There are persons also who seem to occupy a kind of "borderline" or "boundary" between thinking for themselves, and letting themselves be misled by a kind of "Wolf--In--Sheeps---Clothing".

Worse, what their Secular Psychological teachings become in the end, is a kind of Occultic Maxim as was set forth by Aleister Crowley, to the effect; DO AS THOU WILT, SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW.
That is a serious difficulty. The authors fail to clarify for the reader, precisely where their thinly veiled Moral Relativism must end.

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Secondly, permit me to show how such author's construct their reasoning, using a common Propaganda Technique identified as CARD--STACKING---ARGUMENTS. Assumption #1 that the authors address is identified as,
"It's Selfish To Have My Needs Met"; but before the reader is shown that, he reads as follows in the Introduction,
about some woman:

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"Faithfully, she tried to follow the principle,
"If I have God, I don't need people".----p. 9, "False Assumptions" by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, 1994

Now, if a reader is objective, they will notice right off that this "principle" as it is referred to, is not a Christian Doctrine. NEEDS is a term that has rather appeared out of some Magician's cloak.
What they are citing, is some confused understanding; but pay close attention to this "principle" about a person
thinking that they only needed God, and did not need People. It is critical to understand the irrational mind games such author's employ to misrepresent the "arguments" which are ongoing in the mind of man.

Eight pages later, the author's cite the scripture as authoritative, when they they write of Jesus Christ as follows:

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"Jesus experienced and expressed relational needs. He needed his Father.
He "often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16; Mark 1:35). ----- p. 9, "False Assumptions" by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, 1994

Can you see how this little Card-Stacking-of--Arguments works?
First, the authors are telling you that the "principle" that "One--Doesn't---Need---People---But---Needs---Only---God"
was a cause for "depression".
Afterward, they cite Jesus Christ, in his pursuit of solitary prayer to "the Father" on an "often" basis.

This is one methodology by which modern authors foist upon their reading public, an error in logic which is identifiable as
a violation of the Aristotelian Law of Non-Contradiction. This is one method for CARD-STACKING-ARGUMENTS.
It is rather like Stacking--the--Deck when playing cards. The Stacked Deck you see, is not a genuine deck. It's false; because at the same time they fault the Woman and her Depression, as being caused by thinking that people only need
Solitary Prayer to the Father, and "often," they offer the example of Jesus engaged in Solitary Prayer to the Father,
on an "often" basis.

Similarly, the "argument" upon which the mind of man operates, is not actually based upon the "principle" idenified in the author's book.

However, their identification of the problems associated with extremes of human isolation, is reasonable.
The problem with their presentation, is that it becomes part of a cunning combination, in which some TRUTH is presented, but it is also mixed with other HALF-TRUTHS. That is how these manipulative books are constructed.

It is a growing problem, rather than a lessening problem, as more Christians discover that they do not get immediately struck by Lighting Bolts every time they go out and indulge in some sin of the Flesh and so forth.

As Christianity continues to shift and change by a more enlightened populace, there appears every day,
more and more PIED PIPERS who appear to take advantage of a shortcoming in spiritual discernment in the Mind of modern people. They sell books, and moreover they create large followings in the phenomena referred to as MEGA-CHURCHES.

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Basically, what the authors are offering here, is consistent with Abraham Maslow's "Third Wave Humanism" because it is not substantiably different. Maslow employed vague terminology also, referring to some persons as
SELF-INTIATING and so forth, which was specifically intended to rob "religion" of its authority as to what a personal identity is.

Christians in particular, need to learn to search out the uncommon terminology, which can be effective in manipulating the minds of the unsuspecting public.

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