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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2015
Not all of the advice in this book is bad. I am a submissive, stay at home, homeschooling Christian wife who agrees that women should respect their husbands, and I bought this book to help me learn how to be more respectful to my husband.
My issue is that this book contains a lot of commands and "exhortations" that I believe are dangerous and unscriptural. I am giving this book a negative review based on the lies and dangerous advice in the beginning section, "Walking With God", which focuses on Wilson's beliefs opposing the Christian counseling movement. Here are some statements that I found wildly out of line:
P. 27 "One popular idea is that your problems are all your parent's fault anyways.... what has happened to the doctines of forgiveness and holiness?" Wilson says that because God tells us to honor our parents, we somehow shouldn't look at how our childhoods affect us. Yet what about those of us with truly harmful childhoods that included abuse or neglect? We will never learn healthy patterns of relating if we don't allow God to go there with us and show us what He intended and His healing.
P. 27 "Another lie masked as Christian "help" is that you should search back into your past to resurrect old hurts and wrongs." Wilson concludes that to look at the past for insight into present problems and behaviors is to ignore the Bible's teaching about the human heart, and that forgiveness should be the starting point and not the final goal, whatever that means.
P. 29 "Don't allow the counseling world to label your problem with some fancy name. Calling it a syndrome does not change anything. Sin is sin is sin." Really? What if you were raped and have Post Traumatic Syndrome? How does saying "sin is sin is sin" provide any healing for flashbacks or depression?
p. 29 "Stay away from books that get you to look inward instead of away from yourself to Christ." And what if Christ wants to lead you to greater love for Him by taking you on an inward journey, like He did with the woman at Jacob's Well in John's Gospel?
All of this advice is opinion and in many cases against what the Bible teaches. I am concerned that this advice is damaging to marriages and to fostering respect, and I think it's inappropriate for a woman who was admittedly raised in a Christian home with a mother who made her her first priority to be telling other women not to examine their childhoods and how the way they were parented may have been harmful and how they made need to learn healthy ways to parenting and relating.
This is a broken world full of sin, not some Christian wonderland bubble where the word "syndrome" is just a cover for "sin is sin is sin". Many of us were (gasp) abused as children and may need to look at how it affected us before we can even begin to experience a man's authority in a positive way. Some of us were sexually abused or traumatized and yes, may actually have a "syndrome" or two that needs to be addressed by a godly counselor.
I was also concerned that the author claimed that the Bible teaches that women are more gullible and easily deceived than men based on 1 Timothy 2:4. I believe this is a very poor misinterpretation of the text. If Paul was teaching here that women are more easily deceived, why would he only prohibit women from teaching men, and not bar women from teaching at all? Surely if women are gullible and prone to theological error moreso than men, he wouldn't have allowed them to lead other women into error too. But we know that he commanded women to teach women in passages like Titus 2. This passage is about the fact the reversal of leadership that occurred at the fall, that Eve led Adam, not that women are more gullible. God is not misogynistic.
I don't think this book is all bad really. But I think this advice could keep women trapped in personal brokenness that causes them to be cold and withdrawn towards their husbands. It's all very harsh and black and white.
Some of the opinion in this book is clever and helpful and certainly convicting. Some of it is dangerous and hurtful. Proceed with caution.
Updated Edit: I'm downgrading this review to 1 star upon having noticed that pages 94-95 specifically call out sexual abused by commanding that they not look at their past abuse any deeper than to ask God to help them forgive their abusers. This brief section is concluded with an admonishment not to make your husband suffer because you were sexually abused. This is truly sick and hateful advice.
My issue is that this book contains a lot of commands and "exhortations" that I believe are dangerous and unscriptural. I am giving this book a negative review based on the lies and dangerous advice in the beginning section, "Walking With God", which focuses on Wilson's beliefs opposing the Christian counseling movement. Here are some statements that I found wildly out of line:
P. 27 "One popular idea is that your problems are all your parent's fault anyways.... what has happened to the doctines of forgiveness and holiness?" Wilson says that because God tells us to honor our parents, we somehow shouldn't look at how our childhoods affect us. Yet what about those of us with truly harmful childhoods that included abuse or neglect? We will never learn healthy patterns of relating if we don't allow God to go there with us and show us what He intended and His healing.
P. 27 "Another lie masked as Christian "help" is that you should search back into your past to resurrect old hurts and wrongs." Wilson concludes that to look at the past for insight into present problems and behaviors is to ignore the Bible's teaching about the human heart, and that forgiveness should be the starting point and not the final goal, whatever that means.
P. 29 "Don't allow the counseling world to label your problem with some fancy name. Calling it a syndrome does not change anything. Sin is sin is sin." Really? What if you were raped and have Post Traumatic Syndrome? How does saying "sin is sin is sin" provide any healing for flashbacks or depression?
p. 29 "Stay away from books that get you to look inward instead of away from yourself to Christ." And what if Christ wants to lead you to greater love for Him by taking you on an inward journey, like He did with the woman at Jacob's Well in John's Gospel?
All of this advice is opinion and in many cases against what the Bible teaches. I am concerned that this advice is damaging to marriages and to fostering respect, and I think it's inappropriate for a woman who was admittedly raised in a Christian home with a mother who made her her first priority to be telling other women not to examine their childhoods and how the way they were parented may have been harmful and how they made need to learn healthy ways to parenting and relating.
This is a broken world full of sin, not some Christian wonderland bubble where the word "syndrome" is just a cover for "sin is sin is sin". Many of us were (gasp) abused as children and may need to look at how it affected us before we can even begin to experience a man's authority in a positive way. Some of us were sexually abused or traumatized and yes, may actually have a "syndrome" or two that needs to be addressed by a godly counselor.
I was also concerned that the author claimed that the Bible teaches that women are more gullible and easily deceived than men based on 1 Timothy 2:4. I believe this is a very poor misinterpretation of the text. If Paul was teaching here that women are more easily deceived, why would he only prohibit women from teaching men, and not bar women from teaching at all? Surely if women are gullible and prone to theological error moreso than men, he wouldn't have allowed them to lead other women into error too. But we know that he commanded women to teach women in passages like Titus 2. This passage is about the fact the reversal of leadership that occurred at the fall, that Eve led Adam, not that women are more gullible. God is not misogynistic.
I don't think this book is all bad really. But I think this advice could keep women trapped in personal brokenness that causes them to be cold and withdrawn towards their husbands. It's all very harsh and black and white.
Some of the opinion in this book is clever and helpful and certainly convicting. Some of it is dangerous and hurtful. Proceed with caution.
Updated Edit: I'm downgrading this review to 1 star upon having noticed that pages 94-95 specifically call out sexual abused by commanding that they not look at their past abuse any deeper than to ask God to help them forgive their abusers. This brief section is concluded with an admonishment not to make your husband suffer because you were sexually abused. This is truly sick and hateful advice.
