Captivating: My thoughts

I have made my way to the end of Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge. There are a number of good reviews existing of this book, as I have already mentioned, particularly this one by Nicole Starling, and this one by Donna Thoennes, so this one will be brief (and I have discovered that it is quite time consuming to write a good book review!). Let me just preface this by saying that I like psychology. On my shelves you will find a number of books by Larry Crabb, even Cloud and Townsend (not so impressed with them though) and others. If I am going to err in one direction it’s in being too introspective. And I like romance. I own Kate and Leopold on DVD. I even, I am embarrassed to admit, own A Hazard of Hearts by Barbara Cartland on DVD (though I don’t take that one entirely seriously – and its redeeming feature is that I think neither do the actors). I devour poetry. There once was a time when I’d arrive at church and people would ask “is there a carriage stopped out front?” because I’d turned up looking like I wanted to be in Pride and Prejudice. I love artwork and nature and pink things that twirl. I also like exciting adventures, and I have had a few of those. And I will be honest and say that I have seen a psychologist, and a counselor, about some of my personal “stuff”, because I am aware that I have stuff (doesn’t everybody?) and I don’t mind facing it. And if there is something that will assist me to be a more “healthy” person or to live a more God glorifying life, well I am prepared to explore. All of that is partly why I thought I’d read Captivating. I just don’t think I am one of those hard-headed, cold-hearted women who is completely out of touch with her feminine self, afraid of her psychological make-up, or who is immune to romance and beauty. And God knows I’d like to be appreciated, fought for and be someone’s priority. But I still don’t like this book. (I write those things because the authors themselves imply that if you don’t like their ideas you are simply an inhibited woman who isn’t being honest with herself. Not so.)

To start, Donna’s article, linked above, has discussed in detail the problems in the book of projecting upwards from our human desires and relationships to the characteristics of God. I have to agree. I may have my theology wrong, and I would appreciate any feedback, but it seems to me that in the garden of Eden, in perfect relationship to God, it still wasn’t good for man to be alone. Whether or not you think what was required was a spouse, or more generally other human companionship, I think it is clear that even a perfect relationship with God was distinct from what was “not good” at the level of human relationships, and the two are not necessarily interchangeable. I felt that this book constantly blurred and merged the distinction and made Jesus and/or God answer to all our human needs. For example, there is a chapter called “Romanced”, which is intended to be about relationship with God. However, the next chapter is called “Arousing Adam” and begins with the sentence in brackets “We’ll bet you were thinking about the man in your life through most of the last chapter”. Well, I was trying hard not to think about men, because I didn’t think that was the purpose of the chapter (though it was hard to focus on the vertical I confess, because it was so couched in terms of horizontal romance). But then I certainly couldn’t apply the chapter “Arousing Adam” back to my relationship with God, and thus the book switches back and forth throughout between the human and the divine in ways that left me muddled for much of it. Similarly, I am told in “Romanced” that I don’t need to wait for a man to be romanced (page 113) and instead can picture myself in all my favourite romantic movie scenes and imagine myself as the Beauty and Jesus as the lover. Personally, I think that would be a problematic way of dealing with singleness (or a bad marriage). The writer’s rightly make the point that you don’t need a man to be fully a woman, but I think you do actually need a human relationship to engage in the kind of “romance” they describe, and that attempting to put Jesus into that place is rather foolish (and I believe they have misused the concept of Jesus as “Bridegroom” in doing so – and have also misused Hosea and Song of Songs). Instead I think that I, as a single woman, acknowledge the lack of that human relationship, but that Jesus answers to my deepest human needs, which I don’t think actually do include romance as they describe it, but rather the saving and surpassingly constant love of Jesus, which forgives me my sin and restores my relationship with the creator of the universe, and makes me a joint heir with Christ of eternal life. (In clarification, I do believe that Jesus is all you really need in this life, but I don’t believe that means that you paste Jesus in for all your other perceived needs and/or desires – I think that it means rather that you often need to get a different perspective on those needs/wants and see them in the light of eternity.)

In addition, there are three theological premises in the book, which I couldn’t substantiate in my bible. The first is set up in the beginning and constantly referred back to, and that is that woman is the crowning point of all creation, and that I can tell myself “creation reached its zenith in me”. Granted, creation was not good before the creation of woman, but I think the bible describes the woman as a sideways step from Adam, and not something yet more glorious. The writers then claim that women hold a special place in the heart of God. Building on from that argument is the chapter about the devil’s special hatred for women. The devil, apparently, particularly hates women, because they are uniquely glorious (and he is jealous because he longer can be), and so they are particularly the objects of his “assault”. I find those to be rather significant claims, which underlie much of what is written in the book, for which I can’t find any biblical basis. According to the authors, if you listen to any woman’s story it is one of “the assault on her heart”, beginning with the “assault”, from Satan, in the garden of Eden. Eve’s responsibility in the fall is given one paragraph, and then Adam takes the rest of the blame for doing “jack squat” and the way men sin through violence or passivity is discussed at greater length (and we are told that “Lord knows men are selfish and self-centred”). Now, I don’t for a minute dispute that Adam was culpable in the garden, but the disobedience and sin of women gets nothing more than a swiftly passing mention in the early stages book, and for the rest of the book women are described in terms of undeserving victims of the attacks of the devil and the damage inflicted on them by others. So, half way through the book any woman reader is buoyed along by the idea that Jesus yearns for me because I am beautiful, in my very essence, the devil only hates me because I am glorious, men disappoint me and don’t come through for me because they’re selfish, and I am wounded and assaulted but possess an “inner radiance that the world desperately needs to see”. Can anyone not see the problem with that?!

As a result of those premises, I feel that the authors greatly over-emphasis the need of women to be released to be their unique and beautiful selves, without any serious reference to sin and to pursuing a Christ-conforming godliness (though I think they would argue that “unveiling beauty” is becoming more like Christ, when the truth is more that the only thing that makes us beautiful, and what the world desperately needs to see, is Christ in us). An example of how this sort of approach is applied occurs in the chapter on motherhood, where there is a paragraph that I find quite astonishing:

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6 NKJV). This verse is not a promise about faith. It is not speaking of training a child to follow Christ or promising that if you do, the grown child will continue to follow him. Sorry. The proverb is about raising a child to know who he is and to guide him in becoming ever more himself. In the way he should go. Not in the way you would like him to go in order to validate you as a mother and a woman. It speaks of teaching a child to live from his heart, attuned to it, awake to it, aware of it, and when that child is grown he will continue to live a life from the heart. It is about seeing who a person really is and calling him out to be that person. The impact on a life that has been seen and called out is dramatic and eternal.”

Now, there is some wisdom in there, and I am not for a moment an advocate of squelching the individuality of children and I do believe in letting them be who they are (and I think I have suffered myself from being interested in, and good at, things that were of no interest to my family, eg when I won the athletics champion trophy in year 5, I went home and left it in my school bag and didn’t show or tell my Mum, because I knew she didn’t care for athletics – my dead father on the other hand would have been very excited – so I do have the personal experiences I can slot into this book). And neither do I think that verse promises that if you raise a child to follow after Christ the child will necessarily continue in him. But I do believe it is a proverb to that effect, as all the proverbs express general principles. (And my question to the authors would be, how could your impact on a child be eternal in the absence of teaching them Christ?) This interpretation of scripture illustrates what the authors of this book appear to most value, that being you, and your children, being set free to be your unique and lovely selves.

My conclusion on this book would be much like the last paragraph of Nicole and Donna’s, that our focus needs to be shifted back up to the true beauty of Christ and that the three longings of a woman to be romanced, to play a role in an irreplaceable adventure, and to unveil beauty would be better shaped to be to grow in love for Christ, to participate in his work of bringing the good news of the gospel to the world and to more and more reflect his beauty. It's been said that this book helps women appreciate how much God loves them, but I actually find it sadly lacking in doing so, precisely because it conveys that in order to understand God's love for you, you need to believe that he finds you captivating. But the true greatness, depth and enormity of God's love for us is that he sees more of our ugliness than anyone ever will, yet loves us so much more than anyone ever will all the same.

P.S. If you want to read something more helpful about the relentless longing of humanity for security and significance, then I would rather recommend Finding God by Larry Crabb. I am sure you could find problems with that book also, but it takes a much more biblical approach to the issue (I haven’t read it for a few years, but there is much in it that answers to some of what is raised in Captivating). And if you think he doesn’t understand the difference between genders, then read Men and Women: Enjoying the Difference.