Self-help

Review: The Love Habit

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Cover image of "The Love Habit" by Rainie Howard

The Love Habit, Rainie Howard. Broadleaf Books (ISBN: 9781506496740) 2024.

Summary: Learning to manage emotions, expectations, and relationships through daily habits enabling becoming the love one desires.

Rainie Howard believes good people can learn to become addicted to unsatisfying lives. As a result, they approach life from a victim mindset that attributes both happiness and lack of fulfillment to outside circumstances. In this book, she argues that one can transform from a victim to a “victorious creator” through developing a new set of habits, centering around the love habit technique. Specifically, LOVE is an acronym Howard uses that may be applied in a number of contexts:

  • L-Learn. Listen to and learn from oneself about goals, feelings, passions, hurts in a particular context.
  • O-Optimize. What results from my habitual response and what responses can I develop to care for myself and relate in healthy ways?
  • V-Validate yourself. What can you affirm about your strengths, gifts, and actions?
  • E-Experience. What does it feel like to be the person you desire to be in this situation?

She develops these ideas in three parts, the first of which is “Reinventing Yourself.” So often, nice people are mistreated. However, Howard maintains we allow this mistreatment, and teach people to treat us that way subconsciously. She discusses different personality expressions of this behavior. Reinventing ourselves involves letting go of our worries about others and how they think of us, which we cannot change. Rather, we accept responsibility for our own lives, evaluate how we want to be treated, set boundaries that reflect how we want to be treated, and write out a vision for how we want to experience our lives and relationships. This last includes a set of self-affirmations to use every day. Howard then deals realistically with the reality that this new self may not always fit in with our old friends.

The second part focuses on habit techniques to form a healthy self image. She emphasizes confident habits that build belief in and trust of oneself. These include trusting oneself, knowing and understanding oneself, allowing yourself to try new things, taking actions to support goals, becoming comfortable with being different, and surrounding oneself with positive people. She then applies these ideas in the areas of romantic relationships and one’s work context.

Part three focuses on discernment. Negatively, she discusses identifying deception and manipulation. I thought the principle of looking at patterns especially helpful. If a person mistreats others, it’s very likely they will mistreat you! Positively, she encourages intentionality, vision, confidence, seeking support and self-awareness. She coaches readers in becoming more influential through preparing one’s mind, nowing oneself, speaking one’s truth, and focusing on one’s strengths. She offers insights on using one’s intuitions. Finally, she concludes with a chapter on connection, including some wonderful insights from how she and her husband have grown in their love.

This is an excellent example of the genre of self-help books emphasizing the idea of “change your thinking, change your life.” Howard offers an abundance of practical insights into self-defeating behaviors, setting boundaries in relations, and discerning toxic people. And she recognizes the power of habit and how the exchange of good habits for bad is part of personal change.

However, as I read, it occurred to me that I was reading an outstanding example of moralistic therapeutic deism, which sociologist Christian Smith observed in a study of the beliefs of American youth. Yes, there is a God, but we change through our own thinking and moral efforts. God is a therapist who affirms our intuitions. I think the book offers a shadow of the substance of good Christian teaching on the transformative work of God through his grace in Christ. Through that grace we are reconciled to God and other. Our minds are renewed and God’s Spirit progressively bears his fruit in our character. Thus, he enables us to truthfully love others. And we approach work and all of life as calling.

What surprises me is that a Lutheran publishing house is the publisher of this work. The gospel of self-help seems the antithesis of the gospel of grace through faith. Self reinvention seems a far cry from salvation by grace alone through faith. But this seems a sad commentary on the dearth of good and compelling Christian instruction. Rainie Howard is right about malformed identities. She rightly recognizes the harms fallen people can inflict. Moreover, she recognizes our human dignity. But she grounds this in self rather than in being the redeemed image bearers of God. Her book is good as far as it goes. But where are those who speak with her practicality about the renewed self, renewed relationships, and renewed work in Christ?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Wisdom from the Witch of Endor

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Wisdom from the Witch of Endor, Tikva Frymer-Kensky. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2024.

Summary: A modern midrash on the witch of Endor and four lessons or rules we may draw from her story.

Tikva Frymer-Kensky was a biblical scholar from the University of Chicago Divinity School who passed away in 2006. She authored Reading the Women of the Bible and represented a school of scholars who platformed the voices of minor and marginalized figures in scripture. Often these stories are more significant than many, mostly male, dominant culture interpreters have credited (and there were reasons for their inclusion).

This book, drawn from the author’s papers offers us a close reading of the story of the witch of Endor, commending her as an exemplar of four qualities that we do well to follow to live effectively. In the Preface, this is described as a modern midrash on the biblical text.

The first part of this brief book re-tells the biblical story, and explains her work with the ‘ob, an instrument of unknown character used to communicate with the spirits of the dead. The author helpfully differentiates this practice, known as necromancy, from other forms of witchcraft involving incantations, potions, and spells. Nevertheless, she downplays the uniform prohibition of this practice in scripture, emphasizing Saul’s prohibition.

The second part of the book emphasizes “life lessons” we might draw from her. First she knew her power, even though forbidden, and did not give up but exercised determined commitment and self-knowledge. Second, she strove to excel, exercising proficiency in the use of the ‘ob. Third, she chooses the moment, after securing Saul’s promise that no harm will come to her. In her wisdom, she is cautious. Finally, she “won well.” She uncovers the king in his desperate hypocrisy and is an instrument by which the spirit of Samuel foretells Saul’s death. Instead of crowing or taunting, she persuades him to eat and is benevolent.

While in themselves, there may be nothing wrong with these rules or lessons (although, as I will contend, not all powers are good or pleasing to God), this platforming of the witch distorts the story and wrongly valorizes her. Here are my reasons:

  1. The uniform prohibition of necromancy. God speaks through the law, through Urim and Thummim, and through his sent prophets. Turning to necromancy is turning away from God’s ways of disclosing God’s self, and seeking knowledge God, in God’s wisdom, chooses not to disclose.
  2. The story of Saul offers a case study in disobeying God’s disclosures and, when God refuses to speak, he turns to means he himself has forbidden.
  3. The four lessons, good perhaps, are examples of moralizing. They may well be modern midrash but do not represent good biblical interpretation.
  4. Finally, good interpretation centers not on self-help principles but on the character and work of God.

This book reminds me of Bruce Wilkinson’s Prayer of Jabez, which was also questionable hermeneutically, but wildly popular. I suspect the title, the cover design, and the format (similar to The Prayer of Jabez) will be a draw for some. But I cannot commend the book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Anxiety Field Guide

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The Anxiety Field Guide, Jason Cusick. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A practical guide with daily exercises to help face anxieties and reduce feelings of anxiety integrating clinical practices and biblical insights.

We all know what it is to be anxious and we live in anxious times. The question is, how will we respond? Will we make healthy choices that face and normalize our anxiety? Or will we avoid situations that make us anxious or escape into unhealthy coping behaviors when we feel anxious? Will we step into anxiety-producing opportunities for growth and advancement, or will we choose the safe route?

Jason Cusick is an anxious person from an anxious family. Stepping into larger responsibilities, he experienced panic attacks. And it led to a season of therapy in which he learned about anxiety and about himself. He realized that anxiety is a gift of God for our safety, but can be awakened at the wrong time. He learned that healthy responses to anxiety are rooted in four principles;

  1. Normalization. Learning that anxiety is natural but can become unhealthy.
  2. Exposure. Learning to understand and face our fears rather than avoiding them.
  3. Habituation. Learning new skills that desensitize us to our fears.
  4. Care. Learning healthy ways to experience God’s love for us and others.

With this introduction, the remainder of the book consists of thirty short chapters. The idea is to read one a day and to practice the exercises at the end of the chapter which focus on the four principles above. Here’s one example from the early part of the book. It is to “Practice Pit Stops.” Noticing how good pit stops in a race occur in 10 seconds or less, Cusick advises 10 second pit stops when we are experiencing anxious thoughts. It begins with recognizing our need for help–that we are having an anxious moment, pausing what we are doing, allowing ourselves ten seconds, calling it what it is, noticing how it is affecting us, and using one of the other skills in the book to make a healthy response (e.g. put our anxiety in our “worry box”). He concludes with these three action steps: 1) When anxious, give yourself ten seconds; 2) Give yourself more than ten seconds if needed; and 3) Create a mood log to track our anxious moments.

Cusick’s practical helps include not only psychologically sound practices but also spiritual insights involving God’s care for us, practical prayer practices including lament prayers, practice resting with God, and choosing joy. He helps us learn to receive anxiety as God’s gift rather than something to be suppressed. Throughout, he shares instances where he struggled with anxiety, how he has practiced these ideas, and how he has been less than perfect. Perfection is anxiety-producing, and Cusick helps us see that progress can even be found in attempting and failing rather than avoiding what we fear.

We might be thinking of a particularly anxious friend to share this book with. It might not be a bad thing to get two and do it together. I suspect we all need an anxiety tune-up, or at least an anxiety pit stop!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.