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Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Feminism

Introduction to the Review Series: "Lies Women Believe"

[update on me: I know it’s been quiet around here for a couple weeks– between period week and an IBS flare-up, I’ve been sort of miserable. I have been developing some ideas for blog posts, though, and I think we should have some interesting conversations over the next little while. I’ve also been watching Parks and Rec and reading David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, and both have been highly entertaining. The Honor of the Queen was especially interesting to read– the main plot revolves around a complementarian and benevolently sexist-patriarchal society where the fact that they have to deal with a woman in command throws them all into a tizzy.

Anyway, we’ll be leaving on vacation next week, and then it’s period week again, so I’m not sure how regular posts will be. My goal is to write a bunch this week and schedule them to go up, but I’m trying to go easy on my body, so we’ll see.]

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How to Win Over Depression and Redeeming Love were neck-and-neck in the last poll I did, but since my friend Dani Kelley is doing a review of Redeeming Love, I decided that my next review series would be the runner-up: Nancy Leigh DeMoss’ Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets them Free. In the comments, a lot of you mentioned how toxic this book was for you both personally and in your marriages. I received it as a gift when I was still at Pensacola Christian, and I remember feeling vaguely uneasy about it, although at the time I chalked up that reaction to “being convicted.”

In fact, as I flipped through it today, I discovered sections I’d highlighted, and it made my stomach sink all over again. The first time I read this was after I’d become engaged to my abuser and rapist, and the fact that I needed to mark “Every married couple is incompatible” (156) and that submission is a “gift we voluntarily give” (151) is disturbing in retrospect. I will continue screaming this until the cows come home: books that command “submission” from wives keep women in abusive relationships. End of story.

It’s a fairly popular book– the cover I have shouts “OVER ONE-HALF MILLION SOLD”– and over 70% of the people who reviewed it on Goodreads gave it 4 or 5 stars. Reviews generally follow along these lines:

This is one book that I will always go back to for a right and true perspective on God and His ways for me. Nancy’s insight gives genuine hope for all of us women who need perspective that is true and holy… some of it is not easy to hear but often what is best. November 2007

This book challenged me from the first word to the very end. So many of us don’t realize how many of Satan’s lies we are believing and acting upon day after day. Nancy Leigh DeMoss is candid, to the point, and unapologetic as she writes truths and supports them with scripture. I believe that every Christian woman could benefit from reading this book. August 2012

This is an excellent book for those women who actually care what the Bible says, and want to renew their minds to think more Biblically. Eve’s diary entries at the beginning of each chapter were really thought provoking and helped me to see the differences between what God’s plan was and what we fallen humans now have to live with. I went through this with the ladies Bible study at my church and I value it so much that I’m going to be facilitating a study using this book with college-age girls who want to live their lives in line with a Biblical worldview. I highly recommend it, and I even bought 2 more copies to give to my sister and my best friend! December 2014

This is one of the best books that I have read regarding women in the church. DeMoss makes no apologies for telling it like it is, and she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Some of the issues she addresses have been accepted practice within many churches, and though some may have a problem with what she says, she is right- on. I recommend this book to my Christian women friends often. June 2004

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As you can tell, one of the most common reactions to this book is that it is eminently biblical and should be received as God’s Own Truth. Even the title contributes to that notion, which claims that this book contains the truth that will set you free. It seems as though many of the women who read that took it at least somewhat literally– the hundreds of reviews I skimmed over echoed the idea that Nancy has repackaged The Truth in an accessible format, and that if you reacted poorly to this book, it’s only because you’ve accepted Satan’s dirty feminist lies.

Many reviews contained kernels like “hard to swallow,” or “she pulls no punches,” or “unapologetic,” and I find that response oh-so-interesting, because they tended to attribute this not to her writing style or voicing, but to the veracity of her content. These women had the same reaction to this book I did in college– we assumed any negative reaction we had was ultimately due to her being right. If we found something “hard to swallow,” it wasn’t because we thought something was illogical or unhealthy, it was because we were being convicted. God was using Nancy to tell us how wrong we were to believe things like “I get to have a say in the course of my life.” I think this is going to be an interesting dynamic to explore as we move through the series.

There’s twelve sections to the book, but some are significantly longer than others– and I think some sections (like chapter six, “About Marriage”) might take us even longer to get through. I’m going to do my best to keep this down to three months, although that all depends on things like how angry I feel like being on any given Monday. I’ll be working with the original version published in 2001, although I believe it’s been slightly updated since then.

As always, if you have a copy of the book on hand and would like to read through it with me and and your thoughts in the comments, please feel free! The best part about doing these series is hearing from y’all.

July 6, 2015 by
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which book should I review next? your pick!

I have a small-ish library in my office, with four filled-to-bursting bookcases (English major, what can I say?). One of those bookcases has what my partner refers to as the “caution tape shelf.” It’s the shelf I set aside for all the books I’ve amassed that are anything from mildly irritating to absolutely horrific. I don’t want their bookjackets contaminating all my other lovely books, after all.

I’m sitting here looking at it, and was attempting to decide which book I should choose next for my Monday review series. Eventually I gave up and decided to ask all of you. It’s a a slightly different list than the last time I did this– not all of them are in the “marriage-advice” category this time around. Each of them, however, is a well-read book in evangelical circles and all have some pretty serious problems.

[edit 3.29.15: I’ve narrowed the poll to the three most popular choices]

If you’re not familiar with these books, here’s a short break-down:

How to Win Over Depression is, in my opinion, one of the worst books written. Ever. I’m having a hard time trying to come up with a worse book. It’s one of the books that started the “you can pray away your mental illness!” approach to “biblical counseling” back in the 70s. This book has killed people.

Lies Women Believe I read when I was a student at PCC, and my memories of it are that it was vaguely encouraging. It would be interesting to go through this one an re-experience it now. I imagine it would be a bit like how some of you responded to going through Captivating again. Helpful at the time … but not so helpful now.

Redeeming Love is slightly different because it’s fiction, but it’s equally as horrible as all the rest. Rape? Check. Misogyny? Check. Horrible theology? Check. Thank you, Francine Rivers, for taking Hosea and Gomer and making that story worse.

Anyway, let me know which one you’d like to see me rip to shreds!

Photo by Ginny
March 27, 2015 by
Feminism

Fascinating Womanhood Review: feminine role vs. working wife

hammock

First of all, I want to address a comment that I keep getting on posts like this one: that Helen Andelin (or someone like her) doesn’t speak for modern, mainstream evangelicalism. That all of these women and men hold to rather extreme positions and the bulk of evangelicals today disagree with them. And, in one way, that is absolutely correct. They are extreme. They made their money and got to where they are today by being extreme.

However, and I’ve said this before and I will say it until I am blue in the face: For every single concept Helen has promoted in this book, there is a modern evangelical person making the same exact argument.

I’d like everyone, before we get into today’s post, to read “When a Woman Makes a lot of Money,” by Mary Kassian, published in June last year. Mary Kassian also published a book with Nancy Leigh DeMoss last year called True Woman 101: Divine Design, and you can find two posts I wrote critiquing an online interview they had with Focus on the Family here and here. Read through everything that they said, and tell me that what they say aren’t the same exact arguments Helen’s been making. They talk about how being “strong and independent” can only lead to “dysfunction” and ultimately depression and suicide. They say that not adhering to old-fashioned gender roles will make your children gay. They tell women in abusive marriages to “lay down their rights.” How is any of that substantively different from what Helen’s been saying?

And, they even say this:

Don’t make decisions based on practicality. You may have a job where you earn more money than your husband, and it may be practical for you to go out and earn the money and for him to stay home. But there’s something in terms of identity that you’re going against when you do that . . . Women have a unique and specific responsibility for the home in a way that men do not have.

Helen says this, almost word-for-word. And Kassian, in the article I linked to, said this:

Because when you boil it right down, you’re not going to be satisfied with a man who’s a beta boy. Deep down, every woman wants her man to be a man. And you’ll only inspire him to be a man when you act like a woman . . . when you choose to stand against culture and embrace, delight, and live according to God’s created design.

And you’ll only inspire him to be a man when you act like a woman.

That’s the only message in Helen’s book, really. She harps on it every single chapter:

When a man is in the presence of a tender, trustful, dependent woman, he immediately feels a sublime expansion of his power to protect and shelter this frail and delicate creature. In the presence of such weakness, he feels stronger, more competent, bigger, manlier than ever.

Yes, the language Helen is using is right out of the 60s. But it’s the same idea. And who are the people making this argument today? Focus on the Family. Moody Publishers. John Piper. Mark Driscoll. Some of the biggest, most influential people and organizations in evangelical culture are simply presenting the same argument in 2010 language. And if I sound frustrated, it’s because I’m terrified.

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Anyway, on to the actual chapter for this week. It’s about everything you could have expected: she lays out all the reasons a woman that could possibly justify a woman working outside the home, and it’s when your family is destitute and starving, you are putting your husband through college, or if you have no children at home (although she warns that you must be available to your children and grandchildren at all times).

Then we get the reasons for why you should never work, and one of them is “to do something important.” If a woman wants to make noble contributions, to use her gifts, talents, abilities, skills, or intelligence to try to make the world a better place: nope. You have a “false notion.” As amazing as curing cancer might be, you must be in the “simple routine of your home,” because, if you aren’t, your children are going to hell. No, really. That’s what she says. Then she goes on to give a few pages of quotes from “career women” who regretted having careers.

She also, fascinatingly, brings up something some of you have mentioned: someone apparently pointed out the hypocritical contradiction of telling other women that they’re not allowed to be career women when she herself is a career woman. Her response is hysterical:

Call me what you like, business executive, career woman, or working wife, but I never looked at it this way. To me it has been a mission of charity . . . the personal sacrifice has been well worth it.

I never wanted to be a career woman, see? I wanted to be a stay-at-home wife! That’s what makes it ok! I didn’t want to do this. It was a sacrifice, a necessary evil!

Uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.

Then she moves on to the age-old question: should daughters be allowed to go to college? Answer: no. Because it could make her independent (“by doing so she loses her need for manly care”), she could escape her marriage (“the ability to make money can be a dangerous thing for a woman”), and she’d lose out on the opportunity to read lots and lots of literature! (apparently, it “makes you more interesting” to men).

Also, if women go out to work, it could “rob your husband of his right” to be needed and masculine, and you could even lose your “womanliness” and your “charm.” (charm = attractiveness to men, as defined by Helen). Also, you’re destroying society when you work and wrecking untold damage on our national economy (something she says with absolutely nothing to support her).

So, there you have it, all you women who work: you’re hurting men, making yourself unattractive, and you’re also ruining the United States economy. Go you.

February 10, 2014 by