Leadership and Emotional Sabotage - a review

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage: Resisting the Anxiety That Will Wreck Your Family, Destroy Your Church, and Ruin the World by Joe Rigney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Joe Rigney has done the Christian world a service with this short book. Addressing a particular kind of problem, he delves into what it takes to be a good leader when things go sideways in the family or church or community. Keep your cool, don’t get anxious. This is done by staying grounded in Scripture and the Gospel, and by detecting manipulation or sabotage. Don’t let the anxiety, anger, or any emotions of others drive things, whether it is a child, wife, church member or elder.

This book is mainly addressed to fathers and pastors, and they would do well to read it and strengthen their leadership by it.

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Men and Marriage - a Review

Men and Marriage by George Gilder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A detailed and devasting critique of the sexual revolution. A fascinating and insightful look at the differences between men and women. Written in the late 70s, revised in the early 80s, Gilder questions feminist assumptions in detail. Assumptions which have settled into conventional wisdom since he wrote. Many of his assertions are shocking, now, but would have been casually received wisdom 100 years ago. He goes a bit beyond PG13 in his vivid descriptions of sex differences, which was new and interesting territory, especially psychologically and sociologically. I found his writing style gripping, though it’s a bit academic. He is a social critic who disagrees with 90% of sociologists in his thesis.

Basic thesis: If young men are not tamed by female virtue and sexuality, and brought into civilization, they become a destructive force. The only way to tame them, by the laws of nature designed by God, is for them to marry and commit to a woman and their children.

Gilder is prescient on many fronts. Here’s one:
“Rather than defending society, the young men attack it and exalt macho foreign potentates and desperadoes” (158). Read, Putin, on the right. On the left: Che Guevarra. Hamas.

Here’s a sampling of other quotes, to get you to take up and read yourselves.

"women in the home are not performing some optional role that can be more efficiently fulfilled by the welfare state. Women in the home are not 'wasting' their human resources. The role of the mother is the paramount support of civilized human society. It is essential to the socialization of both men and of children. The maternal love and nurture of small children is an asset that can be replaced, if at all, only at vastly greater cost." (210)

"Crucial to creating a civilized society is inducing girls to say no to boys. This requires strong and usually religious rationales and sanctions that differentiate by gender. Value-free sex education is a powerful invitation to premature sex (223)."

"There are no 'human beings,' just men and women... Men will do most of the production and women most of the reproduction" (227).

"To the average sexual liberal, the role of women seems so routine that it can be assumed by a few bureaucrats managing child development centers.... the duties of the home are so undemanding that they can be accomplished with part-time effort" (228).

"The woman's role is nothing less than the hub of the human community" (230).

"…the desire for male protection and support, the hope for a stable community life, and the aspiration toward a better long-term future. The success or failure of civilized society depends on how well the women can transmit these values to the men... those matters that we consider of such supreme importance that we do not ascribe a financial worth to them" (230).

"[Sexual liberals] deeply misunderstand what makes people happy. The pursuit of sexual promiscuous pleasures, which many of them offer as an alternative to the duties of family, leads chiefly to misery and despair. It is procreation that ultimately makes sex gratifying and important, and it is home and family that give resonance and meaning to life" (240).

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The Count of Monte Cristo - review

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Read this years ago, but just finished it again.

A sweeping, dramatic, Romantic tale of unjust suffering, vengeance, and providence.

Edmond Dantes is wrongly accused of a political crime and locked away, so a “friend” can marry his girlfriend instead of him. After 14 years in a dank dungeon, Edmond emerges educated and fabulously wealthy, thanks to a fellow prisoner and priest. Edmond proceeds to wreak slow vengeance on each of his persecutors, seeing himself as an agent of God’s avenging providence. He is confident, patient, methodical, and unyielding, bringing each to their knees in terrible suffering for what they have done. But when at the very end his actions take the life of others he did not intend, he stops, realizing that God alone can bring justice to men. He saves the life of the innocent, leaving much of his wealth to them.

Dumas includes many different situations of injustice. A spoiled child, a jilted lover, a Romeo and Juliet scene, a son confident of his father’s innocence when he is actually guilty, a man wrongly imprisoned for 14 years, and more. Most of these are resolved in the story, giving the impression that justice CAN be done on earth. One wonders if Dumas had read Kant, about justice being left for the next life, and mostly demurring in this grand novel.

Providence is a recurring theme. The Count is repeatedly referred to as the hand, the very voice, of God Himself. He seems all-knowing, but can any mortal truly be so? To what extent can we carry out God’s will as human agents? Will we miscarry and harm others in the process? If we pursue justice over-much, does poetic justice turn into injustice? Is it right to take up vengeance personally, or should we leave it to much less competent and knowledgeable civil magistrates?

I HIGHLY recommend this book, both for these weighty themes and for the entertainment of the story itself, very well written. Dumas is a high romantic, so it may come across as overly dramatic and fraught at points. But it’s a great story, in the Princess Bride vein, which also raises important themes we should think more about.

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