Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Boundaries (Henry Cloud & John Townsend) is one of those evangelical books that sold 4 million copies because it says what (controlling) people’s itching ears want to hear…most notably, that erecting boundaries, issuing ultimatums, and managing others to have things your way, is Godly…presumably because you study the Bible, are in God’s exclusive family, and have a divine calling to define right living. The unmistakable take-away from the book: Take control, lest you be taken by control…it’s bad when others control you, but good when you control them. It’s 'my-way-or-the-highway-ism' disguised as Godliness. No doubt this book sits on the coffee table in the waiting room of many Christian therapists, but I think it belongs on the back shelf. If everyone followed the spirit of condescension advocated by this book, we’d all either be butting heads, or brooding alone in the corner. Self-absorption leaves little room to live and let live. Power games reduce family life to low-level warfare. Marriage is cheapened into adversarial drudgery. The boundary-setter sentences other family members to life in a minimum-security prison, walking on eggshells, hoping to avoid the boundary enforcer’s sighs, cold shoulder treatment, and pouting. Boundaries trap people, not make them free. Me-centered individualism is the bane of modern culture. This book divinizes individualism. In a nutshell, the premise of the book: If you want to take control of your life, build a wall with a gate, and appoint yourself gatekeeper. Sound familiar? Learn to say yes to open the gate if the person knocking is useful to you. But if the person knocking is not useful to you, then pretend no one is home. Life is a sailboat race. Catch the wind (i.e., use other people) when you can. When you can’t, ignore them. Yuk! If a seminar were held for this book, Simon & Garfunkel’s 'I Am A Rock' would be an appropriate song to warm-up the crowd. Tweak the words a bit… I have my books, and my 'boundaries' to protect me. I am shielded in my 'righteousness.' Love has many imposters. This book mentions love but describes it as control. Ostensibly, you’re entitled to control because you’re exceptional. And you’re exceptional because you go to church. That’s how it dovetails with religion, because absent the scripture-snippet sprinkles, the book outlines management tactics taught in business school. The jacket cover states the authors are corporate consultants. I believe it. I’m mindful however that a corporation has no soul, no warmth. I read this book as I traversed 10 days for 101 miles in a canoe down the Green River, Utah. It made me want to paddle harder. It’s Pharaseeism on steroids. It’s anti-Jesus to the hilt. If you want to conquer and control a spouse or your kids or your parents, this is the book for you. It’s evil because it justifies selfishness and manipulating others as Godly. God forbid. Many of the specific ideas in his book are just plain wrong. The phrase, 'healthy boundaries' is used repeatedly, but it becomes apparent that “healthy” is a euphemism for self-serving. I do like how the book promotes honesty. There’s so much phoniness these days. If she looks fat in the dress, tell her. White lies have descended into lying in general. Lying erodes trust. Without trust there can be no love. Then again, this book is not about love. It’s about control. Sadly, lying can be a potent weapon of control. To hear it, God directs you to have dominion over all that he’s given you, but good stewards must always be on guard to patrol the boundaries of behavior, especially the inappropriate behaviors of loved ones who are insufficiently sanctified (i.e., not as holy as you are). The heady, 'God-directs-my-path' theme jumps from nearly every page of the book, as if its fans live in a holy silo of self-indulgent clairvoyance. According to the Biblical worldview espoused here, God’s invisible hand opens/closes doors, and places/removes people in your life. Paraphrasing Shakespeare: All the world's a stage; and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and you’re His chosen one in sync with His plans. You know what’s right because you’re a Godly Christian who plucked down $15 and bought the book. Really? And you hate the sin, but love the sinner (yes, that’s in the book too). This view sounds more like self-righteous delusion to me. More like living in an echo chamber of your own ego. No wonder evangelical Bible thumpers can be stuffy. Apparently, other people with whom you may disagree must be misguided (because you’re never wrong because you’re in-the-know and bolstered by an inbred Bible-study small group, or a paid therapist), hence you are obligated to shake the dust off your feet and shun them. Nuts. The authors spin this as 'individuation.' I call it exceptionalism. It’s a form of narcissism. The 'love-must-be-tough' tactic of arrogantly erasing people until they grovel, first made famous by James Dobson (and advocated here), pops up throughout the book. But in the real world, ultimatums more often backfire because distance usually makes the heart grow yonder, not fonder. If you want someone to hate you, turn your back on them and tell them they need professional help (especially if they don’t). Infuriating. The authors do not allow for the real possibility that the person who, “finds their voice,” and militantly threatens, “do what I say else I’ll erase you buster,” may be immature, thin-skinned, unreasonable, ungrateful, or mentally ill. Talk about logs and specs. Ultimatums are a sure-fire recipe for relational failure. But the book says ultimatums let you get your way. Yikes. Dobson got that wrong. So does Cloud. This is the fallacy of fictional examples that are good in theory only. Sells books, ruins lives. This book is full of contrived examples that don’t fully resolve with reality. More on that later. Of course, the book also is full of good advice, especially on how to utilize people with the efficiency of a corporate manager, primarily through contract, quid pro quo bartering, reward/punishment, and especially by the threat of estrangement (“you’re fired”) when boundaries are violated, but it misapplies these business management principles to relationships with loved ones. The workplace and the home are not incarnations of the same game-playing. People who say I have a boss at work and a boss at home, miss the mark. But people who say I am the boss at work, and I am the boss at home, probably would love this book (and really miss the mark). The authors fail to fully switch gears between boundaries for, e.g., your spouse versus your boss. I tend to think of the workplace more as a competitive rat-race and to regard my boss in a strictly professional fashion. In sharp contrast, I perceive my home as my castle and my spouse as my enchanting, romantic lover. My spouse epitomizes everything that my boss is not. I enjoyed my career very much, but I strove to keep it separate from family as much as possible. The dynamics are totally different too. But if you want to think of your family as a business, with you as the self-appointed CEO and HR Director, and your spouse and children as employees under your management and control, then this is the book for you. Many people make the mistake of treating every human relationship as some form of business. Imagine the warmth from an Ebenezer Scrooge (the reclusive curmudgeon) or Carrie Nation (the morose temperance union lady) as your spouse, and you get the picture. Scrooge’s tool of control was business. Carrie Nation’s was a ball-peen hammer. If good fences make good neighbors, then good fences make good lovers too, or so the book seemingly would imply (although it’s squeamish about sex). I’d rather make love to a fence post than an adherent of this book. In fact, for a book that dwells so heavily on the marriage relationship in particular, the absence of any discussion about sex is conspicuous. It made me wonder if the authors are any good at it. I always regarded sex as the canary in the coalmine of marriage. The quality of the sex is a direct indicator for the quality of the marriage. No sex, no romance, no joy, no fun, no love, no bond, no intimacy. No thanks. Perhaps the authors hold to the sex-is-for-procreation-only boundary. I don’t know. I’m thinking, H.L. Mencken: “Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” The 'boundaries-are-Godly' ethos has inspired a franchise of spin-off books. There’s Boundaries for: Kids. Teens. Dating. Marriage. Leaders. No Pharisee should be without the boxset. Rather than a necessary evil, boundaries are championed as an intentional virtue. Silly me, I thought boundaries were bad. But to hear it, if you want to take control of your life to your ends, apparently you cannot lay down too many boundaries. I say, be careful what you want, because as the book warns, you may reap what you sow. I want love, fun, and joy. So did Jesus. The Pharisees were the bad guys…the control freaks…the rule makers…the boundary enforcers. Jesus frequently exchanged barbs with them. Right? Jesus turned water to wine as his first miracle. Right? I’d rather share a cold one with Jesus and his friends than suffer a Bible study with the Pharisees. The sinners are much more fun… Many critics describe the book as “too religious,” but it’s worse than that. It’s as if the authors wrote a secular book on how to control others, then went on a scripture hunt and sprinkled the pages with cherry-picked Bible verses, however tortured the applications. Most are from Apostle Paul’s letters (he had no wife), and Solomon’s Proverbs (he had too many wives). Boundaries are biblical. The authors insist. I agree, they are. But so is Slavery (Ephesians 6). Genocide is biblical (Joshua 10). Stoning a disobedient son to death is biblical (Deuteronomy 21). Demonization of homosexuals is biblical (Romans 1). Predestination is biblical (Romans 9). Subjugation of women is biblical (1 Timothy). Did Jesus command us to follow the Bible, or to follow him? I don’t think the authors appreciate the distinction. Another pet peeve I have about this book is the author’s contempt for one’s childhood family, referred to by the cold, clinical term: Family-of-origin. One’s family-of-origin is treated as a temporary but necessary evil to incubate, hatch, and ween offspring into their true family (the so-called Family of God), the sooner the better to minimize the damage from dysfunctional parents (aren’t they all?) The insinuation that nearly all childhoods are beset by abuse from bad parents, victimization, and sin makes me wonder if the author is tainted by his own resentment or ingratitude. I had a great childhood and provided a great one for my kids. My mom made me eat my peas & carrots; somehow, I didn’t suffer a complex. For me, family is something to cherish and hold high and have fun with, but you’d never know it to read this book, such is the perverse emphasis on individuation and the contempt for parents who want to love and enjoy their adult children and grandchildren for the mutual benefit of all. Instead, the book advocates deliberate abandonment of parents and substitution of a cult-like nuclear family to aggressively replace and discard the family-of-origin. I say, don’t drink the Kool-Aid. A familiar reference to Jesus’ boyhood is used to drive home this agenda but misses the mark completely. ----- Page 68 – “Remember when Jesus’ mother and father left Jerusalem without him? When they went back and found him teaching in the temple, his mother admonished him. Jesus’ words to his mother were, ‘Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?’ (Luke 2:49). Translation: ‘I have values, thoughts, and opinions that are different from yours, Mother.’” ----- The author’s presumptuous translation suggests he knows what Jesus was thinking. Really, we can do that? Tiering off the translation, this reader wondered if Jesus might additionally be thinking: “Hey, Mary and Joseph, I’m moving on to my true family of God now that I’m 12, and Joseph, you’re not even my real father.” But we don’t know what Jesus was thinking, do we? All we have is conjecture. And we don’t know all the details of the story because they’re not in the text. But Boundaries is full of such conjecture, telling the reader what God thinks. Many best-selling evangelical books are guilty of telling readers what God thinks. Problem is, no one has seen God, so how could authors possibly be so cocksure they know what God thinks? I think it’s more like clever authors know what readers would like God to think. Ka-ching! If God made us in his image, we’ve returned the favor. Most of the book’s vignettes seem fictional. Show me your data. There also is a decided bias that men are bad (they yell, drink, watch porn), but women are good (because the absence of what men allegedly do makes women good by default). Only passing reference is made to passive-aggressive tactics; playing the victim, lying, thin-skinnedness, and emotional blackmail (typically the venom used by women to control men). I’m mindful that the market for books of this kind is lopsided in favor of women. The great majority of advice columnists, therapists, and their clients also are female (except for unwitting husbands who are dragged into counseling by their disgruntled, controlling wives). I will close with a vignette from the book about Brian, because it struck a personal chord with me. ----- Page 276 – “Brian was having difficulty with his father, a wealthy man who had always used his money to control other people, even his family. He had taught his children to obey by threatening to cut off his financial support or cut them out of his will. As Brian got older, he wanted more freedom from his father, but he found himself addicted to the family money and the pleasures it afforded him. He liked being able to take his wife on vacations to the family summer home. He liked the country club membership and tickets to Big Ten basketball games. But Brian didn’t like what his father’s control was costing him emotionally and spiritually. He decided to make some changes. He started saying no to some of his father’s requests that were disruptive to him and his immediate family. He declined to go on some of the holiday trips when his children wanted to do other things. His father did not like that. Predictably, he started to cut Brian off from the resources he had access to. He used him as an example to the siblings. He began to lavish more privileges on Brian’s brothers and sister to show Brian his mistake. Lastly, he changed his will. This was hard for Brian. He had to streamline his lifestyle and do without some of the things he was used to. He had to make different plans for the future, for he had always planned on inheriting his father’s money. In short, he had to deal with the consequences of his choice to free himself from his father’s control. But for the first time in his life, he was free…In Brian’s case, he had to plan to find a way to make more money.” ----- Let’s tally the score for Brian. He lost his sizable inheritance, access to a vacation home, a country club, free trips, college basketball games, and fellowship with his family-of-origin. That’s a big hit. Perhaps his wife enjoyed swimming at the country club, and his kids liked going to the basketball games with Grandpa too. And we don’t know if Brian succeeded in making more money. It’s not like your boss will double your salary for the asking. We don’t know Brian’s credentials. Everyone cannot be a surgeon. Everyone hopes to win the lottery, but few do. Perhaps Brian had to take a second job to pay his mortgage, put his kids through college, and the rest. Consequently, now he’s consumed by 70-hour workweeks, and isolated from his immediate family by frequent business travel away from home. In other words, Brian is not free. He likely is less free than before. Perhaps he’s now captive to his boss and dare not complain lest he get fired. Or maybe his wife also is from a wealthy family, and now Brian is indirectly on his father-in-law’s dole. That’s very controlling and humiliating. Meet the new boss, same (worse) than the old boss. He’d been far better off to swallow his pride and stick with his own father. The old man is what he is. Live and let live. If Brian resents living in his father’s shadow, that’s Brian’s (pride) problem. No parent should apologize for making more money than their kid, or vice-versa. It must be one, or the other. Get over it. Revenge returns evil for evil. But ingratitude returns evil for good. Brian’s dad likely was a more benevolent controller than Brian’s new boss. Everybody’s got to serve somebody. What I do like about Brian is that he wants to feel like a man who made it on his own. Good for him. But he would have been better served to stick with his dad while upping his performance through other avenues. It’s no accident that C.S. Lewis labeled “pride” as the great sin from which most of the others are derived. Jealousy and pride go hand in hand. Repent, then your free. Setting punitive boundaries on parents is no substitute for repentance. It just makes you a slave to your unjustified resentment. I’ve known several sons who could not bear to live in their father’s shadow. It killed them all. My wife asked me what I learned new from this book. I sat in silence for several minutes. Even the excellent chapter on the Digital Age held no new ideas for me. The book mostly just confirmed long-held suspicions about evangelical family values and worldviews, especially regarding the deliberate distancing and contempt between parents and (adult) children. I find the notion that parents and children desire to be free of each other, the sooner the better, the more the better, to be abhorrent, however biblical. As we marry and children are born, we add them to our cloud of loved ones who we will spend eternity with (or so I hope). We wear many hats simultaneously. I’m a husband, son, father, brother, uncle, grandfather, nephew, cousin, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and son-in-law, all at once. There’s no room for jealousy or power-plays, nor should nuclear families isolate themselves, lest they greenhouse their children with inbred ideas and foster indifference, ingratitude, and resentment. Churchianity is no substitute for extended family-of-origin relationships, not even close. It’s warped thinking. Just watch documentaries on the Jim Jones or David Koresh cults to see the 'family-of-God' concept taken to the extreme. I have expressed a strong aversion to boundaries. Boundaries are born of fear. Perfect love drives out all fear. Of course, I realize I impose boundaries too (I close the bathroom door and mow up to my property line), because I fear the reaction if I didn’t. I’m just mindful that most human pathologies are born of fear, so I’m very wary of boundaries, rules, and ultimatums that would oppress, censor, and restrict others. In my heart of hearts, I am a freedom lover. I obviously do not hesitate to express my opinions. Freedom of speech is a cherished right. I’m not preoccupied with imposing boundaries on others because the list of things that annoy me is short. I prefer to maximize fun and enjoyment, especially with loved ones. The measure of a successful life is how much fun you had, how many spiritually rich experiences you’ve enjoyed (typically in God’s stunningly beautiful outdoor cathedrals), and how much true love you’ve been lucky to know, not how comfortable you were, how often you attended church, or how much you controlled others. Power struggles are foolish. Estrangement is tragic. Ego is a waste. Live and let live. This book promotes exclusivity. Jesus promoted inclusivity. I encourage the authors of Boundaries to give a listen to Imagine (John Lennon). You may say I’m a dreamer, but…