A Lesson From Alice Miller

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For some time, I have thought about quoting Alice Miller on this blog.  She was a psychologist in Europe, living in Switzerland for some time, and she passed away earlier this year.  She wrote about the “poisonous pedagogy” or the “black pedagogy” as it translates from German, a term which describes oppressive practices that people use when raising children.  She defines this term as “the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child’s will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or cover coercion, manipulation, and emotional blackmail” (from the preface of The Truth Will Set You Free).

I don’t agree with her on some points, and I don’t like the anger that I discern when I read sections of her work, particularly other books.  Yet at the same time, she was a brilliant, brilliant diagnostician in terms of developmental growth and patterns of family dysfunction.  She also struggled with aspects of Christianity including aspects of the gender debate, and though I don’t always share her conclusions about all of these matters, she was honest and fair to read and consider the Bible.  I have great respect for those who do not share my religious opinions but have honored me by thoughtfully considering my own.  She brings a valuable perspective that I think Christians would be wise to heed.

I have also been reluctant to bring her name up on my blogs because she has worked as an anti-child abuse activist, contributing to the UN’s initiate regarding children’s rights.  At this point, I’ve been called so many things from Communist to lesbian, I don’t really care anymore.  I quoted Stalin in a paper that I wrote, something I cited from a book by Donald Howard, so I guess this is proof that I am a Marxist?  My quoting her does not mean that I think that the UN is a terrific organization or that I am some Communist that wants to give our country to China and other third world nations.  (I think that this has already happened in many respects.)  I have read the literature and mailings concerning groups like HSLDA’s activism against the very causes that Alice Miller advanced.  This does not mean that I support any of these groups.  If you like, consider my cause for citing her as what PG Wodehouse once placed in the literary mouth of his Jeeves character when he said “It is best to know what tunes the devil is playing.”  I don’t feel at all threatened by the cogent things she had to say, and it is my hope that we can learn from her wisdom.

On the night of what I understand was originally scheduled as a pre-trial hearing for Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz after the events that you can learn about elsewhere, I thought it would be fitting to quote Alice Miller since so little accountability for all of this matter has been shown by the Christian community.  Caesar will apparently keep us honest, or will make fools of us for burying our heads as a Church, the group that should set ethical standards, not be shamed by secular ones.  I think that we can learn, at least, from her honesty and from her compassion for wounded and hurting children.  I wish I could quote more of her book here.  I think that though many of those who are healing from “Botkin Syndrome” would also not agree with her on some points, I believe that many would find it insightful and validating.

I believe that, from the epistemology through which I best make sense of the world (How we know what we know), that truth is transcendent.  Some say that all truths must come from the Bible first, and that what our senses tell us about the world is a lower order of truth.  I am often criticized for being too much of an evidentialist, putting too much emphasis on worldly facts as opposed to Godly wisdom.  In short, I do not think that these types of knowledge compete with one another, but I see them as “coherent” and “corresponding.”  Statements from unbelievers can that bear truth can be very true in this sense, if they correspond to what is real.  I am going to agree with Winston Churchill about truth who sums it up quite eloquently:  “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.”  I don’t think that he would be intimidated by Alice’s statements either, because “here they are.”  I think they stand on their own merit.

This section appears in “The Truth Will Set You Free” in the epilogue entitled “From Ignorance To Knowledge and Compassion.”  (In my edition, this section appears starting on page 190 and concludes with a section appearing on page 195.)  The book speaks of “generational faithfulness” as old patterns of dysfunction, of how parents unknowingly use their children to medicate their old pains of the past.  The whole chapter speaks respectfully of the Bible, but it draws into question the traditions of men. 

The figure of Jesus confounds all those principles of poisonous pedagogy…  Long before his birth Jesus received the greatest reverence, love and protection from his parents…  His earthly parents saw themselves as his servants… Would it not make eminent sense to encourage believers to follow the example of Mary and Joseph and regard their children as the children of God (which in a sense they are)?

[T]he members of the upcoming generations will have the courage to call evil by its name…It is high time to relinquish the destructive models and to mistrust the principle of obedience.  We have no need of docile children brainwashed by their upbringing to be ideal targets of seduction by terrorists and lunatic ideologists, ready to fall in with their commands even to the extent of killing others.  Children given the respect they deserve from their earliest years will go through life with open eyes and ears, prepared to fight injustice, stupidity, and ignorance with arguments and constructive action.  Jesus did this at the age of twelve, and the scene in the temple (Luke 2:41-52) demonstrates eloquently that, if need be, he could refuse the obedience his parents asked of him without hurting their feelings.

With the best will in the world we cannot truly emulate the example of Jesus.  None of us were carried by our mothers as the child of God; indeed, for far too many parents, children are merely a burden.  What we can do, provided we really want to, is learn from the attitude displayed by Joseph and Mary.  They did not demand docility from their son, and they felt no urge to inflict violence on him.  Only if we fear the confrontation with our own histories will we need to have power over others and cling to it with all our might.  And if we do that it is because we feel too weak to be true to ourselves and our own feelings.  But being honest to our children will make us strong.  In order to tell the truth we do not need to have power over others.  Power is something we only need in order to spread lies and hypocrisy, to mouth empty words and pretend they are true.

I hope that we are not too pious as a Body to fail to honor and learn from her words before it is too late.

Please pray for the Schatz family and everyone whose lives have been touched by them.  I don’t even have words to express my great sorrow or to find words to pray.  What confidence that I have in Him, for He understands groans.

Women Are Not Sex Objects

Another entry from Adele Hebert,
Independent Scholar.

There are numerous occasions recorded in the Gospels where women are treated as second‑class citizens, even as sex objects, and it was expected that Jesus would do the same. One such occasion occurred when Jesus was invited to dinner at the house of a skeptical Pharisee (Lk 7:36ff.) and a woman of ill repute (harmatolos, a sinner) entered and washed Jesus’s feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and anointed them. The Pharisee saw her solely as an evil sexual creature: “The Pharisee ...said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is who is touching him and what a bad name she has.’” But Jesus deliberately rejected that way of thinking. He rebuked the Pharisee and spoke solely of the woman’s human, spiritual actions; he spoke of her love, her unlove, i.e., her sins, her being forgiven, and her faith. Jesus then addressed her (it was not “proper” to speak to women in public, especially “improper” women) as a human person: “Your sins are forgiven.... Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

A similar situation occurred when the scribes and Pharisees used a woman reduced entirely to a sex object to set a legal trap for Jesus (Jn 8:2‑11). It is difficult to imagine a more callous use of a human person than what the “adulterous” woman was put through, by the enemies of Jesus. First, she was “taken” in the act, then dragged before the scribes and Pharisees, finally brought before an even larger crowd that Jesus was instructing, “making her stand in full view of everybody.” They told Jesus that she had been caught in the very act of committing adultery and that Moses had commanded that such women be stoned to death (Dt 22:22ff.). “What have you to say?” The trap was partly that if Jesus said Yes to the stoning he would be violating the Roman law, which limited capital punish­ment, and if he said No, he would contravene Mosaic law. It could have been to expose Jesus’s reputation for kindness toward, and championing the cause of, women in opposition to the law and the condemnation of sin.

Jesus, of course, eluded their snares by refusing to become entangled in legalisms and plots. Rather, he dealt with bth the accusers and the accused directly as spiritual, ethical, human persons. He spoke directly to the accusers in the con­text of their own personal ethical conduct: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” To the accused woman he spoke with compassion, but without approving her conduct: “‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’”

Regarding the status of women, the woman being caught in the act of adultery, according to the Law of Moses must to be stoned to death. But since the type of execution mentioned was stoning, the woman must have been a “virgin betrothed,” as referred to in Dt 22:23f. It states both the man and the woman must be stoned, although in the Gospel story only the woman is brought forward. However, the reason given for why the man ought to be stoned was not because he had violated the woman, or God’s law, but “because he had violated the wife (property) of his neighbor.” It was the injury to the man (not the wife or betrothed) that was the great evil. Jesus defended her; he did not condemn her; he declared her a person, definitely not the property of a man.

Adapted from Leonard Swidler

Biblical Affirmations of Women

Want to read more by Adele Hebert?

Link HERE

Forgive Then Forget?

Excerpts from "Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves" by Drs. Stoop and Masteller.


From pages 185 -186:

[Following the discussion of the details of a woman named Myra, seeking to forgive her abusive father.]


“Now, Myra, I said, we’ve talked a lot about forgiving your father. I’ve told you how important forgiveness is. But listen to me: I do want you to forgive your father, but I do not want you to forget what he did. Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting. Do you understand? Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting.”

It is easy to become confused. The Bible says repeatedly that God is able to forgive and forget. For example God says “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 21:34). But it never says that we are to do the same. We cannot. Only he can. One reason why God can forget is that there is nothing he needs to learn by remembering. There is often a lot of important information that we can learn by remembering, even though we may not want to remember.

I understood how Myra felt. I’ve felt the same way myself many times. Haven’t we all? We want to get rid of the pain of harmful things that have happened to us, and we think that the way to do that is by getting rid of the memory of those harmful things. If we can work ourselves around to believing that the hurtful incident never happened, then it can’t hurt us anymore.

Or can it? The fact is that very often the harmful effects of past injuries stay with us whether or not we consciously remember the injuries themselves. This is why we say that remembering, not forgetting, is the key to forgiveness. Only when we are clear on what has, in fact, happened to us can we deal with it effectively.

We may make connections between current difficulties and painful experiences from our past. The way a friend treats us today may trigger memories of the way our parents or siblings treated us years ago. These memories, in turn, may uncover connections to other past hurts. Many of the problems people bring into counseling stem from things in their past that they needed to remember clearly before they could deal with them.

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop & Dr. James Masteller's
"Forgiving Our Parents, Forgiving Ourselves:
Healing Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families"
Regal/Gospel Light, 1996 (Servant, 1991)

Learning to Say "No"

OK to say NO!

By Adele Hebert

Jesus used images concerning the end of time. Both men and women are in these stories; both must be ready; both treated equally. Both involve hard choices, even saying NO!

What sort of servant, then, is faithful and wise enough for the master to place him over his household to give them their food at the proper time? Happy that servant if his master arrival finds him at his employment. I tell you solemnly, he will place him over everything he owns. His master will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not know. (Mt 24:45-51; Lk 12:42-46 says female servants as well.)

Immediately following is the second story, about the wise and foolish bridesmaids. Jesus took great effort to illustrate the same point, this time focusing on women. The big difference is that the women in this parable use their voice. This is a powerful lesson for women. They are not simply told what to do. In fact, they do not obey. Jesus gave women dignity, always defended them, and taught them about boundaries, not to allow abuse.

Jesus NEVER once told women that they had to submit to anyone. The word submit does not occur in the Greek; the actual word is Support. There is much confusion concerning submission. We want to do the right thing, but we don know where to draw the line. Often, we don draw any lines at all, or the lines that we do draw are way past the safety zone. We realize it when we are over our heads in trouble; then we get depressed and don know why. So where are the lines to be drawn that will keep us safe, walking in truth, and in the center of God's will? The word submit is still used to keep women in bondage. Without knowing these boundary lines, we allow others to use us. Jesus ADVISED women to use boundaries.

Ask yourself, would God want me to do this? Women, this is the boundary line! We have been taught that we are to blindly obey our spouse, but that is not from God. So we obey out of fear. We obey to keep the peace. But Abraham made Sarah lie. Ahasuerus wanted Vashti to show her beauty; she rightly refused. God gave us His Word so we will not be deceived. The Lord would not have us do anything ungodly or under coercion or manipulation. You are NEVER to submit to abuse. Here Jesus tells women they SHOULD say NO!

Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise: the foolish ones took their lamps, but no oil, whereas the wise ones took oil as well as their lamps. The bridegroom was late, and they all grew drowsy and fell asleep. But at midnight there was a cry, he bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him. At this, all those bridesmaids woke up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones said to the wise ones, ive us some of our oil: our lamps are going out. But they replied, NO, there may not be enough for us and for you; go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves. (Mt 25:1-13) At times we Need to say NO. One of the most crucial lessons for women in the whole bible is right here. Jesus gave women permission to say, NO! Check out another woman with boundaries and a voice Lk 1:60.

*NO! an extremely valuable word for women*. Jesus gave women the right to say NO to stand up for themselves, for what is right, to protect themselves. Jesus Advised, even Encouraged us to say No!

Women, get boundaries or you will get used!

Want to read more from Adele?

Link HERE

Adapted by Stephen Gola and Leonard Swidler.

Asking God For Help With Forgiveness

A Christian perspective on forgiveness ~
From Dr. Stoop’s “Making Peace with your Father”


Pages 238 -239:


God knows our pain, our loss, our disappointments. He longs to heal our brokenness. He could do so instantly – but then we would not learn the lessons that are vital to our healing. For most of us, His promise to heal our broken hearts will be fulfilled over a period of time.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews assures us that “this High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses...So let us come boldly to the throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need” (Hebrews 4:15-16). We can stay there as long as we need to in order to experience the fullness of God’s healing grace.

As you work through the process of healing... invite your loving heavenly Father into the process with you. Allow him to heal your shame and guilt. Bathe each step you take in prayer. Ask God to empower you to follow through on each step and to endure the pain and hurt you experience. Ask him for the courage to risk making changes, both in your behavior and in your expectations. Ask him to give you the grace to forgive, so that you may be released from the bondage of the past.

Then ask him to give you the robe of honor, the ring of authority and the shoes of a beloved son or daughter. Let God show himself to you as the Father to the fatherless.

He has already made peace with you. He is waiting for you to come home.

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop in
"Making Peace With Your Father:
Understanding the Role Your Father
has Played in Your Life – Past to Present"
Regal, 2004 (originally Tyndale, 1992)

About Apologies that Aren't

Following some correspondence with Voddie Baucham, I posted this information about apologies on the Under Much Grace Blog. The information on apologies can be helpful when working through forgiveness, and I think this is a good place to start on the subject.

What exactly is an apology? The word originates from the Greek (and the Latin) word “apologia” which literally means a "plea" or “a speech in one’s own defense.” This straight definition more closely resembles the meaning of the word “apologetics” which we use to describe giving an account of one’s faith and the hope within us, with both meekness and patience. It also corresponds with the third possible definition that the Oxford Dictionary lists: “a justification or defense.” But in terms of asking for forgiveness (the process of repentance for causing an offense), what the Oxford describes as “a regretful acknowledgment of regret or failure” and how we most commonly use the word, using a defensive approach usually proves to be a poor one.

In terms of asking for forgiveness, using just the Oxford dictionary’s first description alone, an apology includes a few components – something that gives it meaning and substance.

• Failure
• Acknowledgment
• Regret

Both parties must acknowledge that the offending party committed an act that either failed to meet a certain standard or resulted in some undesirable outcome. The person offering a sincere apology must be specific about this action and the outcome, because the rest of the apology builds upon this foundation. That is why general, blanket apologies which do not make clear that the offending party understands what they’ve done lack substance. An apology teaches each party more about their own boundaries and the boundaries of others, hopefully effecting some lasting change for the better of both as a result of the learning process. If there is no identification of the specific failure, can there be any way to avoid repeating it in the future?

Many weak apologies avoid assignment of responsibility for failure, because it is a painful and disappointing process to do so. Our human nature tends to discourage an objective view of ourselves, complete with all of our faults. Taking responsibility for failures points out to us that we are flawed, inadequate, limited, and sometimes, powerless. And sometimes that acknowledgment of our responsibilities reveals the dishonor in our own hearts. Apologies become even more difficult when circumstances beyond one’s control contributed to the failure or offense, particularly when the person responsible for starting the chain of events never intended and could not foresee the end result of the negative outcome. When a person behaves responsibly and another suffers harm or offence as a result, the offending party comes face to face with the limitations of their humanity, and this can challenge beliefs such as the idea that “Life is fair,” or “I am a basically good person that is in control of my environment.”

All apologies must include some expression of regret. Regret poses an even more difficult aspect to measure, though it is also an essential element of a true and sincere apology. Sometimes apologies are offered with all the right components, but sometimes, the party offering them can only be making the effort for their own personal gain. If they experience negative consequences as a result of their actions themselves, if the offer of apology proves to be just a public show to promote a certain persona of themselves to others, or if the party has been compelled against their natural inclination to make amends by some outside influence, then the apology can be more offensive than the original act of offense for the one who "sees through" the ingenuous apology. These insincere apologies only draw attention to the lack of care, respect and consideration that the offending party holds for the offended. It only intensifies the injury.

As it is often difficult to measure regret, it is here where one’s actions often speak louder than our words when conveying an apology. Efforts of restitution speak powerfully to the offended on behalf of the one who committed the offense, as true regret includes a desire to restore the other party. An effort to make restitution serves to seal an apology and can become a measure of the apology’s essential element of regret. Timing and the manner in which one offers an apology also adds to the effectiveness. The person offering an apology must show contrition and contrition regarding the right elements, as apologies should never serve as license to commit the offense again. Without contrition, there is not impetus to avoid the act in the future.

Read the whole post HERE.

Ideas About How To Approach Peacemaking

A Christian perspective on forgiveness ~
From Dr. Stoop’s “Making Peace with your Father”


Facing the Truth

pages 189 - 232:


Step One:

• Identify the Symptoms

Step Two:

• Get the Facts

Step Three:

• Identify Family Secrets and Family Myths

Step Four:

• Speak the Unspoken

Step Five:

• Rewrite History

Step Six:

• Process the Losses

Step Seven:

• Wait

Step Eight:

• Forgive

Step Nine:

• Invite Others to Share Your Journey

Step Ten:

• Explore New Roles

Step Eleven:

• Redeem the Past

Excerpt from
Dr. David Stoop in
"Making Peace With Your Father:
Understanding the Role Your Father
has Played in Your Life – Past to Present"
Regal, 2004 (originally Tyndale, 1992)