Customer Reviews

Fidelity: What It Means to be a One-Woman Man

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This book is disturbing and should never have been written. It's all about sex. Sex, sex, sex. Oh, and more sex.

Why, you ask? It's disturbing to know the severity of unfaithfulness toward one's wife and it should have never been written because it's not easy owning up to dishonoring one's spouse.

This book is excellently written. The style is smooth and the outline is fluid. Doug Wilson once again writes in a style that is easy to digest, follow and research his points by referring back to the authoritative standard from which he argues, namely, the Bible.

The chapters: lust and pornography, fornication, adultery, divorce, prostitution, rape, polygamy, sodomy, masturbation, celibacy, sexual solutions, questions and answers and sexual glory.

This book is really not intended for women. It is much too directly addressing shameful areas of a man's life that fall short that dishonor his wife.

I really can't even get into the subject matter of the book other than to say that Wilson makes points in this book that every Christian man should seriously consider and contemplate.

Please don't misunderstand...this book is not crude or indecent. It is Biblical. It is instructional. But it does handle many topics which only Dr. Ruth has dared to tread. And that's a point Doug Wilson brings up: The Christian must take pleasure in his wife, with his wife, not according to society's standard of fulfillment, but of the Scriptural instruction on true enjoyment.

It's about avoiding the problem areas of dishonoring one's wife and sinning against her. It's about the glory of the bed. It's about the gifts of God and how to enjoy them more, Biblically.

Wow. Good stuff.

Fidelity by Douglas Wilson is a welcome sound biblical teaching about many sexual issues. One of which is men and women as husband and wife and their call to be co-helpers with each others Christian walk and salvation (as in growth in grace). My wife actually purchased this book and we both read it, and found it wonderfully encouraging and helpful for the two of us. Douglas Wilson speaks directly and frankly to the issues that are overwhelming to a much uninformed church today in American.

This book is NOT a treatise on the man getting his way with the woman nor is it the contrary. Someone reading that into this book would have much difficulty intellectually digesting a Sunday comic strip. Among many of the issues it addresses is the struggle with fidelity and temptation from Satan, flesh and the world that both husbands and wives struggle with, and for which BOTH are protectors of the others weakness. Furthermore, IF you love your wife or IF you love your husband, and do not protect the other by the marriage bed (yes that means sex under the God given covenant of marriage for all the medieval dinosaurs out there) then you should examine yourself and your love toward your spouse.

Those who read this and think it is about women giving in to "their ape of a husband's sex drive", are grossly ignorant of what Scriptures say to the issue and this book. And men who would read this and think that it is about "their wives being slave like concubines to them" are equally grossly ignorant of what Scriptures say to the issue and this book. If spouses love the other and are Christian one will 1) love them enough to protect them and their souls for in marriage God has given one to the other as a gift, no less from Christ Himself; 2) and it is manifestly obvious that if one spouse despises the other so much as not to desire to be close to them in the marriage bed and otherwise...I would question that kind of so called love in the first place as more likely infantile at best and selfish at worst. I love my wife so much that I would literally die for her and she does me, and we found this book to be uplifting and encouraging. Far from some of the witless diatribes to the contrary that I've read on here to date.

As I was working my way through the Canon Press family series I went ahead and read Fidelity. Although it's written for men, I think many (though not all) Christian women will find, as I did, that it is a useful corrective to the misinformation they've been assaulted with all their lives. It's not that I learned anything new or surprising about sex in this book; it was more that, especially in the last chapter, Mr. Wilson creates a picture of godly sexuality that puts all the old information into the right context and in the right proportions -- like reassembling a Picasso into a Rembrandt.

I wasn't sure if I should read this book -- it might as well have a "No Girls Allowed" sign on it -- but I am glad I did. Someone needs to write a version that women aren't afraid to buy or read. (Yes, I've read Elisabeth Elliot's books, but they aren't quite on the same level.) Ironically, it may be the very desire to protect the purity of Christian women that tends to keep such a purifying book out of the hands of those whom it might benefit. Granted, women who were lovingly shielded from exposure to what the world has to say (and show and tell) about sex probably don't need it, so Fidelity might do them more harm than good. But for women to whom the harm has already been done -- by their own sin or others', by misinformation or abuse, by media or "education" -- it should be considered as a possible curative. For me, reading Fidelity was like giving my soul a long-needed bath.

(Adapted from a post on my blog.)

I have read other books like this before, but none hold a candle to Wilson in this regard. Fidelity is a must read for every Christian man, married or not. Wilson is blunt, biblical and pastoral in how he treats topics such as fornication, masturbation, rape, adultery etc. He provides a balanced perspective that doesn't pull punches - he truly calls a spade a spade.
His use of contemporary jargon and slang to heighten the sense of obscenity in ungodly actions is excellent - and makes for a memorable and entertaining read.
Wilson uses solid exegesis that doesn't bend or twist the text. He hits the nail on the head every time.
Please buy this book and when you're done reading it, pass it around.

I enjoyed this book because he gets to the heart of the issue surrounding our struggle with lust. I am so used to church talks and lust conquering books that offer a somewhat self-reliant approach. "Struggling with pornography? Get rid of your computer." Well, you may not have a computer, but lust is still festering inside you and as all of us know, you are still going to struggle. Douglas goes beyond the typical approach and convicts the sin. He plainly shows you how ugly lust is and what it does. Then the Holy Spirit steps in and does the necessary work to change the ROOT of the problem.

Instead of offering a bunch of cute ideas on how to boundary your life, he just attacks the sin. From there, if we are honest with our selves, we know what needs to be done. It seems that nothing is better for dealing with sin than good'old conviction.

I recently read this book prior to being married. It was invaluable. Very eye opening and stimulating. Mr. Wilson uses plain, no-nonsense language to speak to men in the way they need to hear, to tell them the things they need to know of the Bibles stance on a variety of sexual issues. My now wife read a chapter that I showed her prior to our wedding and said that it helped her immensly and even releived some of the wedding night anxiety she was feeling.

The book is right on, but rather discriptive. Not for children, but an excellent resource book for men.

ummmm...I think the author of the preceeding review has never read the Bible: namely, 1 Cor. 7:4.

This essay is thorough in its presentation of the Scriptural passages relevant to the different issues of sexual morality: adultery, homosexuality, abstinence before marriage, etc. But that's it. The relevant passages from Scripture are presented, Mr. Wilson assures us that he agrees with them, and that's that. In other words, anyone seeking to understand WHY the Scriptures testify to a certain code of sexual morality will find nothing here.

Most people are familiar with the principles of strict Christian sexual virtue, even if they cannot recite the verses of the Bible that teach it. So teaching abstinence and chastity is not primarily a matter of explaining to people what they must and must not do: they already know all that. What most people are confused about is WHY they must be chaste. So many Christians today say, my faith and trust for eternal salvation are in Christ, I am saved... so why shouldn't I have sex with my girlfriend? Or my gay lover? They just don't see any connection between the Western Christian message of salvation and a strict code of sexual morality, and Wilson's book here will offer them no further insight.

Why does God care how we conduct ourselves sexually? Didn't Christ say, "Let no one call anything the Father has created unclean?" And didn't the Father create sex? So why would sex upset Him? How is chastity relevant to the spiritual life? How and why will unchaste thoughts and behavior corrupt our hearts? When people encounter sexual temptations they are very powerful and without a thorough grasp of the implications of our moral choices and lifestyles to the spiritual life and salvation, very few find themselves strong enough to resist it.

Again, this book only outlines the principles of chastity in a legalistic manner that is based in Protestant Pietism. If the moral reprimand of Scripture strikes fear into your heart, this might be enough to keep you straight. But few people today, Christian or not, are afraid of the Bible.

Sexual virtue as rightly understood in the context of the historical, apostolic Christian faith is a matter of asceticism: to understand why one must struggle to remain sexually chaste, one must first understand why he must fast, why he must deny his impulses and desires generally. So a substantial explanation of the necessity of asceticism is prerequisite to any discussion of sexual chastity; but Wilson does not seem to understand this, and offers no insight in this regard. If you seek a deeper understanding of Christian sexual morality, then, I recommend The Freedom of Morality by Christos Yannaras and Ascending the Heights: A Layman's Guide to the Ladder, by Fr. John Mack.

A narrow view of how a marriage should be, with not much given to understanding our culture