by Brian Knowles

Toxic Faith by Stephen Arterburn & Jack Felton
A Shaw Book published by Waterbrook Press
Colorado Springs, CO, 2001, $11.99

Toxic Faith is a reissue of a book originally published in 1991. The need for it is clear. Many well-meaning Christians continue to find themselves caught up in what can only be described as "toxic" church environments. This book offers an antidote for those who seek healing from the poison that is slowly contaminating their spiritual life.

One of the authors, Stephen Arterburn, is well qualified to counsel on these issues. He is the founder of New Life Clinics and host of the "New Life Live!" national radio show. He is also creator of the Women of Faith Conferences.

His literary confederate, Jack Felton, is a licensed therapist, minister and founder of Compassion Move Ministries. In addition, he serves as a counselor at the New Hope Christian Counseling Center.

The subtitle of the book is "Experiencing Healing from Painful Spiritual Abuse." The problem here is that many do not recognize that they have been spiritually abused. They are what the authors call "religious addicts." They are so caught up in the cult of personality of which they have become a part that they, like the proverbial "frog in the pot," have no idea what has happened to them. They are toxic and they don’t know it.

The authors offer many helpful ways of determining whether or not one is a part of a toxic group. Of particular interest to me, in light of a book I’ve written myself (Because There Was No Shepherd), was a chapter listing ten characteristics of toxic faith. They are as follows:

· The members of the toxic-faith system claim their character, abilities or knowledge make them "special" in some way.

· The leader is dictatorial and authoritarian.

· Religious addicts are at war with the world to protect their terrain and to establish themselves as godly persons who can’t be compared to other persons of faith.

· Toxic-faith systems are punitive in nature.

· Religious addicts are asked to give overwhelming service.

· Many religious addicts in the system are physically ill, emotionally distraught, and spiritually dead.

· Communication is from the top down or from the inside out.

· Rules are distortions of God’s intent and leave him out of the relationship.

· Religious addicts lack objective accountability.

· The technique of labeling is used to discount a person who opposes the beliefs of the religious addict.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should – especially to former members of the original Worldwide Church of God. Some points will also resonate with some members of WCG spin-off churches.

Speaking of the leadership of toxic groups, the authors state, "In a toxic system, the toxic minister sets himself or herself up as having a special destiny or mission that can be performed by no one else." This is the appeal to uniqueness. The man is uniquely called. His doctrines are uniquely revealed. It is their uniqueness that makes them true. Those who challenge them, or the man who formulated them, are challenging God himself, for the leader is "God’s anointed."

"The only hope to protect other potential victims," explain the authors, "is for the leader who claims to be God’s special officer to be forced into accountability or dethroned." We are all familiar with the power struggles that have followed attempts to discipline leaders within the Churches of God universe. Boards have been created. Boards have disciplined. The discipline has been rejected. The object of the disciplining action strikes out on his own recreating a new cult of personality with himself at the center of it. The religious addicts who follow him dutifully fall into line after him.

In order to meet legal requirements, or merely for appearances, the leader may create a new board. As the authors write, "There may be a board of directors, elders, or deacons, but when the authoritarian ruler picks them, he or she picks people who are easily manipulated or easily fooled. What appears to be a board of accountability is in fact a rubber-stamp group that merely gives credibility to the leader’s moves." Board selection can include cronyism, nepotism, or simply deselecting anyone who might challenge the autocratic views or behaviors of the leader.

Reviewing all of the piquant points of this timely book would take a book itself. Also included in Toxic Faith are the following topics:

· The extremes of toxic faith

· What are toxic faith and religious addiction?

· Twenty-one beliefs of toxic faith

· When religion becomes an addiction

· Religious addiction: the progression

· The five roles in a toxic-faith system

· Ten rules of a toxic-faith system

· Treatment and recovery

· Seventeen characteristics of a healthy faith

The book also includes two helpful appendices: Do you have toxic faith? And twelve steps to overcoming toxic faith.

Importantly, Arterburn and Felton show how toxic faith can produce toxic families, ruled by a tyrant. Recovery from such toxicity is analogous to recovering from any other addiction: the addict must first acknowledge that he or she is indeed addicted. This may be the most difficult step to take. Many will probably never take it. Those who do will eventually experience a feeling of liberation. They will come to understand something of what Jesus meant when he said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free."

Truth, if it is truth, does not bring one into bondage but into freedom. I do not mean freedom to sin, but rather freedom to develop a one-on-one relationship with God that has no humanly imposed boundaries.