Peter Witkowski Book Reviews

Abigail Shrier, Transgenderism, and the Danger of History

Though Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage helpfully lays out how the transgender movement is abusing teenage girls, it also contains a flaw that Christians should take note of and avoid. Namely, Christians should reject Shrier’s belief that history can determine right and wrong.

Throughout her book, Shrier makes science and history the foundations of her morality. For example citing science, she characterizes gender affirming therapy as endorsing “a falsehood: not that a girl feels more comfortable presenting as a boy – but that she is actually is a boy (98).” The scientific realities of the XY chromosomes cannot be denied. A girl cannot be a biological boy.

But the hard sciences do not justify Shrier’s defense of homosexuality. Consequently, she must turn albeit somewhat briefly to the historical record to prove why homosexuality is moral and transgenderism is not. She explains that homosexuality “can’t be eliminated through socialization – because it hasn’t been for thousands of years, in all kinds of cultures that specifically attempted to repress it.” Thus, it is moral. Conversely, she writes of transgenderism: “We don’t have any similar weight of history telling us that we can’t treat gender dysphoria.” In other words, if some practice survives the persecution of past ages, then it must possess some degree of goodness. But if it gets crushed by past ages, then it must be evil. Historical survivability determines right from wrong.

What History Cannot Do

Readers do not have to be historians to discern the unsatisfactory nature of this argument. Despite the efforts of the cultures that birthed the Ura Nammu, the Ten Commandments, and the Magna Carta, stealing, adultery, and murder have survived. The same can be said of sexual abuse and a host of other moral evils that have escaped past socialization efforts to squash them. Evil proves just as resilient as good.

In the later half of her book, Shrier indirectly acknowledges that history is an unsatisfactory determiner of good. She notes that George William Jorgensen’s transition to Christine Jorgensen in the 1950s was not condemned but rather met with “a warm media reception.” She also acknowledges that the United States culture has granted Bruce Jenner the acceptance he sought during his transition. Towards the end of the book, she also uncritically accepts one transman’s claim that her medical transition, “saved his life (205).” In short, the historical record which is generally against gender dysphoria also has rooms with adults who have successfully transitioned. Keeping in step with the historical record, Shrier concedes at her books end that some adult men and women should be allowed to transition in certain cases.

Moreover since the historical record keeps expanding, Shrier’s thesis could soon be undone by history. Once some white, teenage, middle-class teenage girls who have successfully undergone hormone treatments and reassignment surgeries become part of the historical record, she will have to concede that other teenage girls should also be allowed to medically transition. Those previous teenagers’ ability to survive the cultural suppression of Shrier and others would reveal that the teenagers’ actions were good, acceptable, and ultimately worthy of societal acceptance. In other words, the very history that Shrier cites today could destroy her argument tomorrow. History makes a poor judge of right and wrong and of good and evil.

What History Can Do

I suspect Shrier is aware of history’s ethical limits. She appeals to the discipline not out of conviction but necessity. Her Judaism does not justify the homosexual lifestyle. If she were she to fallback on the proofs of secularism, her argument would be reduced to: “I think it right therefore it is.” History, however poor, is one of the few authorities that Shirer has left. In other words, Shrier has not so much as mined morality from history as overlaid her ethics onto history.

Evangelical readers should not fault her for this move. Christians also make sense of history by overlaying their ethics onto history.

And in so doing, Christians (like Shrier) do not seek to recreate the truth of history but to make sense of it. For example, Christians do not deny the inconvenient truths of history. They admit that heroes like King David committed adultery and that the apostle Paul was complicit in murder. They embrace all the embarrassing moments of history because their faith depends upon the veracity of the historical record. In other words, Christians follow Jesus and embrace his morality because his resurrection was attested to by “more than five hundred brothers at one time (1 Cor 15:6).” Historical facts are the foundation of the Christian faith. The empty tomb proves that Jesus was the Son of God.

Consequently, the crux of Christian opposition to transgenderism and homosexuality does not rest primarily on scientific justifications nor upon some ideology’s presence in the historical record. It rests on the revelation of God’s Word which contains both facts and an interpretation of those facts. To quote Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “The Gospels are not simply objective statements; they are objective statements plus interpretation.”

Christians affirm that both science and history evidence the rightness of biblical sexuality. But, Christians base their rejection of homosexuality and transgenderism on Genesis and on Jesus’ interpretation of that history, especially the creation account. In Matthew 19:4-5, Jesus said, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Christians claim that God created two genders and that sex belongs in the union of heterosexual marriage because the Lord of the universe has told them that creation serves as the template for what is good, moral, and best when it comes to understanding gender and the proper modes of sexual expression. God has made sense of history through the Scriptures. As Dr. Albert Mohler notes, “The affirmation of biblical authority is central to the church’s consideration of this issue or any other issue.” The Christian’s highest authority – an authority that never changes – is the Word of God. To quote the children’s song, “This I know for the Bible tells me so.”

Conclusion

True definitions of goodness cannot be mined from the historical record. Though Shrier claims the opposite in her book, her appeals to history prove it to be an inadequate judge of what is right and wrong.

But goodness can be found in the historical Jesus who triumphed over sin and death. The tomb is empty. When Christians enter the public square, they should never shy away from acknowledging that their morality rests on the Messiah who has interpreted history for them. He alone is the same “yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8).” May he and not the historical record by our final judge of right and wrong.

Peter Witkowski Book Reviews, Parenting

Bad Therapy: A Review

Parents and those passionate about equipping the next generation for adulthood should read “Bad Therapy.” The book challenges many popular parenting assumptions, arguing that most children do not need more therapy but more of their parents parenting. As the book’s author, Abigail Shrier notes, children, “aren’t weak – unless you make them that way. They’re remarkably sturdy and naturally very strong (217).” In other words, today’s children need loving and yet strong parents.

Admittedly, I do not agree with the totality of Shrier’s argument. She does not reason from a Christian worldview. She encourages her readers to reconnect with their cultural heritage and the natural order, neglecting the importance of biblical instruction. For example, she reduces successful parenting to the following maximum: “That’s all a happy childhood is: experiencing all of the pains of adulthood, in smaller doses, so that they build up immunity to the poison of heartache and loss.”

She also somewhat ironically puts forward a few logical fallacies in chapter 2 as she seeks to show the nonsensical nature of our therapeutic culture.  

Despite those concerns, the main thrust of her argument should be headed. Her diagnosis and even many of her solutions reflect the realities of nature and parallel biblical principles. Shrier argues that this generation’s excessive self-focus, willingness to allow teachers to playing therapist, endless talk of trauma, and embrace of gentle parenting, and other unproven therapeutic principles has produced a generation of confused, miserable, and angry children. The therapeutic culture has also left the “nice” and empathetic parents miserable and anxious because their kids “are frequently contemptuous of them (170).” Instead of listening to parenting experts (many of whom failed to recognize the danger of smartphones), Shrier encourages parents to lean into the parenting traditions of their communities and to firmly and lovingly…well parent. To quote Shrier, 

“How do you know whether to put your thirteen-year-old in therapy? Simple: don’t take your kid to a shrink unless you’ve exhausted all other options…In all but the most serious cases, your child is much better off without them. In all but the direst of circumstances, your child will benefit immeasurably from knowing you are in charge – and that you don’t think there is something wrong with her (247).“ 

But don’t take my word for it, I encourage you to read her argument for yourself. 

Peter Witkowski Book Reviews

The Sin of Empathy: A Mislabeled and Yet Timely Book

In The Sin of Empathy, Joe Rigney reveals that evangelism most prominent sacred cow is not an innocuous beast to be snuggled up to but rather a violent bull to be vanquished from evangelicalism. Without apology, Rigney pursues this sacred cow of empathy in a provocative manner. One needs only to read the book’s cover. That being said, readers passionate about the church and the health of evangelicalism should press beyond the kneejerk reactions of some reviewers and give Rigney’s argument a fair hearing.

The Danger of Untethered Empathy

When Rigney labels empathy a sin, he is not criticizing all expressions of empathy (or what he prefers to label compassion) but rather the most prevalent popular abuse of the term. Rigney candidly declares, “this book is not primarily interested in the “‘true definition of empathy, but rather its use and influence in our culture (5-6).”’ He is concerned with how men and women misuse the following definition of empathy: “feeling with people (6).” Again, Rigney sees some merit in the work of Brené Brown who introduced this idea of empathy to western culture. Rigney believes that the Scriptures call us not to apathy but to compassion…to weep with those who weep. Rigney writes, “Often the best immediate response to deep suffering is a simple and heartfelt acknowledgement that the pain is real and deep. Or perhaps no words at all, just presence (9).” As Rigney notes in Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, a companion volume to The Sin of Empathy, “Empathy or emotion-sharing, is in itself a good and natural thing (41).”

But Rigney also sees danger in what he calls “untethered empathy” or “untethered feeling,” understanding that “vices typically hide within virtues (122).” When men and women eliminate the boundary between the comforter and the sufferer to such a point that the sufferer’s feelings, inclinations, and desires trump the truths of Scripture, empathy becomes dangerous and deadly. Rigney offers the following illustration:

After we’ve climbed down into the pit with them [those swallowed by grief and distress], they demand that we agree there is no way out. They may even demand that we destroy the ladder we are offering them. And empathy, in its zeal to stay out of the judgment, is often willing to burn the ladder in the name of fueling connection (11-12).

Because of empathy, the evangelical church has become enamored with the approval of the urban and cultural left, has uncritically listened to the voices of “She-wolves.” Both actions have pushed evangelicals to water-down or to ignore essential biblical truth with increasing frequency over the last fifteen years or so.

Instead of heeding the progressive and “she-wolves” call to burn their ladders, Rigney encourages Christians going down into the hole to keep their ladders anchored to the truth of Scripture so that they both feel with and rescue the hurting. He calls Christians to have “their passions governed by what is true and good through the habitual exercise of trained emotions (103).” In other words, sober minded compassion consists of recognizing the sufferer’s hardship, acknowledging the sufferer’s feelings, identifying with the sufferer’s emotions, and finally offering spiritual truth to the sufferer.  As Rigney concludes, “The ultimate goal of the emotional connection is to bring the sufferer to Christ so that he can comfort and heal them (104).”

A Few Criticisms

Though Rigney draws on his knowledge of C.S. Lewis’ essays and writings, Rigney makes little use of other theologians. He cites John Piper, Wayne Grudem, and a handful of other authors a time or two. He also fails to interact with the church fathers or the reformers on this topic. While Rigney aptly uses Lewis’ The Great Divorce to show his readers that one does not make demons out of mice or fleas but out of archangels, appeals to other interred theologians could have both strengthened his argument and expanded its appeal. The historical depth of his thought on this topic seemingly comes at the expense of his historical breadth.  

Conversely, the fourth and fifth chapters of Rigney’s book designed to show “how professing Christians have used empathy, credibility, and respectability to sabotage the church over the last fifteen years or so (xix)” proved so broad that they lacked the citations needed to sway his critics. Admittedly, Rigney did encourage his readers wanting more information on the transformation within evangelicalism to read Megan Basham’s book Shepherds for Sale. But in so doing, he missed an opportunity to provide his readers with more evidence they would need to answer the critics of this book.

Moreover, such evidence does exist.  A few years ago, many well-meaning pastors within my own denomination embraced reforms compiled by those who had been abused without stopping to compare those reforms and their outworkings to the text of Scripture. I knew one person who voted for the reforms though he opposed the counseling practices embedded in the reforms. He was persuaded by the emotion of the moment. After all, who wants to be against abuse.

When interviewing Rigney on his Thinking in Public podcast, Dr. Albert Mohler shared a similar experience. Mohler said he was once asked to address something not because it was true but because his audience felt it was true. I wish Rigney had made use of such evidence, especially given the provocative nature of his argument and the vitriol of his opponents.  

Lastly while I applaud Rigney’s attempt to replace empathy with compassion as the latter term possesses the biblical foundation that empathy lacks, I also wish Rigney had added the adjective “untethered” to his thesis. This slight nuance would not only more accurately reflect his argument in this book as well as his argument in Leadership and Emotional Sabotage but also may have won him more readers. Seemingly some reviewers of his book have gotten no further than his title. They falsely accuse Rigney of having argued for apathy or for the removal of anything emotional or female from evangelicalism. I fear that some of those who would benefit most from this volume may never pick it up because they feel the title alone is enough to condemn it. We may all argue that it’s ridiculous to judge a book by its cover but the discussion around The Sin of Empathy seems to evidence that readers make this judgement far more than we might otherwise think. In short, the author who advocated for “tethered compassion” should also argue against “untethered empathy” instead of “empathy (104).”

A Book Worth Reading

Though Rigney’s book is plagued by the challenges that come with being a shorter volume and could use a touch more nuance in its thesis, its content proves timely and helpful. He has demonstrated that the sacred cow of untethered empathy will harm evangelicalism if it is permitted to freely wonder about evangelism churches and institutions. I hope the readers of this volume take its argument to heart, keep one hand on their ladders, and slay this sacred cow upon the altar of biblical truth before it does more harm.