Good gracious. As I’ve said before, if someone like Epstein used anything I ever published, I would be so quick to write an open letter decrying their actions and making clear I am in no way supportive or affiliated. Has anyone at Focus bothered to even acknowledge this link?
Thank you for writing this. I’m not surprised but saddened by this post. I’m also sad to hear he died before I got around to suing him. I thought about it a few times. I’m grateful that a non-church going atheist talked some sense into me about spanking. Yeah. Science. Brain scans. Stats of the high percentage of those incarcerated.
The spanking thing is not unique to him and certainly very damaging. It is damaging and wrong but he took it to a whole new level when he taught that if you spank your child and they do not cry actual tears that you will do more harm or something of that nature. So so sad and so so wrong.
If there are institutions or heirs or anything still in print I hope people do prosecute and at the very least, press for at the very minimum revisions of anything still in print.
I would love to see some of these people who built parenting empires and profited off of them held accountable somehow. Dobson pioneered a while genre of copycat books that betrayed millions of families.
Marissa, I appreciate your work a lot and agree that many aspects of Dobson's work contributed to a toxic subculture. But you refer in an early paragraph to "Christian cultural messaging about honoring one’s parents and offering forgiveness" as if these principles are a bug of a subculture rather than explicit and frequent Biblical commands. How do you differentiate the Biblical call to these from a cultural distortion? Have you written on this elsewhere?
Great question! And perhaps worthy of a separate article. The short version is: the ways these ideas are presented in Christian subcultures remove individual agency— forgiveness, as described in the Bible, is a choice for the offended to make if and when they choose, not a requirement put on them by the offender. So too with honoring parents.
And Christian teaching often mixes up forgiveness and honor with access and relationship. IOW, forgiveness means forgetting, parents being owed relationship etc that put a lot of pressure on children.
Unfortunately, spiritually abusive people are very skilled at taking biblical concepts and using them to manipulate others in harmful ways. This is especially relevant in eva family life where parental authority, spiritual catechesis, and coercive Christianity have been so intertwined.
Not sure if this gets at your question at all but perhaps a starting place to explore?
I like the distinction between what Christians are invited to offer versus compelled by another. Would be very interested in a separate article on the subject. Thanks!
They must know about the Epstein connection, right? That's crazy they'd send out that article now, but not surprising.
Good gracious. As I’ve said before, if someone like Epstein used anything I ever published, I would be so quick to write an open letter decrying their actions and making clear I am in no way supportive or affiliated. Has anyone at Focus bothered to even acknowledge this link?
Not that I know of! I will let you know if they respond to my email.
Thank you for writing this. I’m not surprised but saddened by this post. I’m also sad to hear he died before I got around to suing him. I thought about it a few times. I’m grateful that a non-church going atheist talked some sense into me about spanking. Yeah. Science. Brain scans. Stats of the high percentage of those incarcerated.
The spanking thing is not unique to him and certainly very damaging. It is damaging and wrong but he took it to a whole new level when he taught that if you spank your child and they do not cry actual tears that you will do more harm or something of that nature. So so sad and so so wrong.
If there are institutions or heirs or anything still in print I hope people do prosecute and at the very least, press for at the very minimum revisions of anything still in print.
I would love to see some of these people who built parenting empires and profited off of them held accountable somehow. Dobson pioneered a while genre of copycat books that betrayed millions of families.
Marissa, I appreciate your work a lot and agree that many aspects of Dobson's work contributed to a toxic subculture. But you refer in an early paragraph to "Christian cultural messaging about honoring one’s parents and offering forgiveness" as if these principles are a bug of a subculture rather than explicit and frequent Biblical commands. How do you differentiate the Biblical call to these from a cultural distortion? Have you written on this elsewhere?
Great question! And perhaps worthy of a separate article. The short version is: the ways these ideas are presented in Christian subcultures remove individual agency— forgiveness, as described in the Bible, is a choice for the offended to make if and when they choose, not a requirement put on them by the offender. So too with honoring parents.
And Christian teaching often mixes up forgiveness and honor with access and relationship. IOW, forgiveness means forgetting, parents being owed relationship etc that put a lot of pressure on children.
Unfortunately, spiritually abusive people are very skilled at taking biblical concepts and using them to manipulate others in harmful ways. This is especially relevant in eva family life where parental authority, spiritual catechesis, and coercive Christianity have been so intertwined.
Not sure if this gets at your question at all but perhaps a starting place to explore?
I like the distinction between what Christians are invited to offer versus compelled by another. Would be very interested in a separate article on the subject. Thanks!