Jeffrey Epstein apparently found James Dobson useful.
TW: I will be talking in generic terms about sexual abuse in this article, and mentioning Jeffrey Epstein. And I will be including several snippets from evangelicals that sexualize little girls.
Over the weekend, another 3.5 million documents, part of the Epstein files, dropped. There are still over two million files that the government is keeping back, including videos of victims being killed, according to deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s press conference. So what we have is still the tame stuff. And yet still the only person in prison is Ghislaine Maxwell–even though they have tapes of murder. The corruption is astounding.
Of course it is horrific, and many who are named in the latest batch who reside in Europe have already resigned from their positions. The same is not true of the Americans who have been named.
While I don’t want to go into detail about the Epstein files themselves, or the horrific abuse in them, or the accusations against the president and members of his cabinet (so far 37 of them have been named), I do want to talk about how our work intersects with the Epstein files. And for that, I was very interested to see a post by D.L. Mayfield on Threads, where Mayfield shared this screenshot of one of the files:
We don’t know much about the context of this exchange, but the article itself that Epstein is recommending to a victim is one on forgiving an absent, neglectful, and cruel father. In the article, Dobson is addressing a woman named Martha, whose father shows little interest in her and has never been emotionally available. Here is part of what Dobson says to her:
I would guess that your dad’s own childhood experiences account for his emotional peculiarities, and can perhaps be viewed as his own unique handicap. If he were blind, you would love him despite his lack of vision. In a sense, he is emotionally ‘blind.’ He is unable to see your needs. He is unaware of the hurt behind the unpleasant incidents and disagreements–the funeral of your baby, the disinterest in your life, and now Bob’s wedding. His handicap makes it impossible for him to perceive your feelings and anticipation. If you can accept your father as a man with a permanent handicap–one which was probably caused when he was vulnerable–you will shield yourself from the ice pick of rejection.
Dobson concludes the article with how much his advice helped Martha:
What is Dobson saying about this absent and neglectful father?
The message Dobson is giving is not “your father has chosen to be evil” or “your father has chosen to neglect you and has revealed his character in how he treated you” or “your father has been abusive.”
Instead, it’s basically “your father is wounded and it’s not his fault and you need to understand what he has gone through.”
Can you see how this changes the dynamic of the situation? Can you see how this lets the father off the hook? No matter what he does, she can’t think of him as a bad man or as abusive; she just needs to see him as someone with a “handicap.”
Who does Dobson’s advice benefit?
Dobson’s advice is really beneficial for anyone who wants to abuse others. They can just say, “hey, I have a handicap because of how I was born, so you need to feel sorry for me”–right as they’re abusing someone.
I read Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl when it was released in the fall (fair warning: It is not an easy read). In it, one of the themes that kept coming up about Epstein was how Epstein portrayed himself as almost having a disability. He just NEEDED sex in a way other people didn’t. He saw himself as naturally having these predelictions in a way that other people didn’t, but he saw them as outside of his control. Exactly as a handicap.
He saw himself, as an abuser, exactly the same way Dobson portrayed abusers.
Is it any wonder that he recommended Dobson’s article?
A Sobering Reality: Dobson’s Work is Useful to Abusers
There’s no way of getting away from it: James Dobson’s work is useful to abusers. And it doesn’t stop at just this article or just this snippet in the Epstein Files. D.L. Mayfield has been writing a huge series on how James Dobson and purity culture was just enabling pedophilia. D.L. and Krispin Mayfield have been researching this for quite a while (you may remember Krispin from our wonderful podcast interview on his book Attached to God), but they’re connecting the dots about how much of purity culture is just pedophilia in disguise.
One of the things we kept circling back to in our book She Deserves Better is how modesty culture attracts abusers. Think about it: If you were a pedophile, where would you want to hang out? Likely at a church that taught that if little girls (literal children) showed too much skin, it might cause grown men to get out of control (as Dannah Gresh taught, the sight of an 8-year-old’s belly can make an adult man intoxicated). Remember this?
Instead of putting the onus on adult men to not sexualize children and teenagers, purity culture painted the children as the problem, normalizing adult men sexualizing little children. Remember Josh Howerton doing the same thing, calling a “shady little girl in a miniskirt” in a church parking lot more dangerous to an adult man than the literal devil?
All of this is the language of pedophiles.
And pedophiles will flock to churches that teach this, because they can hide in plain view. Their desires are normalized. If they do abuse, the girl will be blamed. It’s a paradise for them!
That’s why I get so upset when we normalize the idea that “all men struggle with lust” and that teenagers and girls have to watch what they’re wearing.
No, absolutely not. That is red flag behaviour, and instead of teaching girls not to attract a man’s gaze, we should be teaching girls how to recognize red flags in men! But that’s not what our churches have done. Instead, like Dobson and Gresh and Howerton, the evangelical church has normalized pedophilic behaviour. And monsters like Jeffrey Epstein eat it up and spread it around.
Take a look at how these passages normalize pedophilia
The Mayfields scoured evangelical books about dads and daughters to show how pedophilic tendencies and incestuous language and behaviour is normalized. It’s scary. They document a lot of different quotes from books, but I’ll share just a few here:
“I wish I had a dozen granddaughters like the little ladies whose pictures grace the cover design of this book . . . I love the way God created little girls, romanticized in a classic song written for the movie Gigi: ‘Thank God for little girls, for little girls get bigger every day! Thank heaven for little girls, they grow up in the most delightful way.’—James Dobson, Bringing Up Girls (p 13) (it should be noted Gigi is a 1957 musical about a 14 year old girl being groomed to be a courtesan who ends up marrying a much older man).
“Some fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girls already have the bodies of women, and their dads are not supposed to notice — but they do . . . His attraction to her is involuntary and usually quite innocent.” -James Dobson, Bringing Up Girls (p 94)
“[When I was a teenager] I made a really, really, really strong wish for my life: Please, God, no matter what, I want to be surrounded by beautiful women. Today I am. Their names are Victoria, Whitney, Hailee, and Madison, and they are 17, 16, 15, and 13 respectively. I share life with these beauties every day…[God] was having a gut laugh remembering my hormonal teen fantasy about how I wanted to live in the company of the lovely opposite sex.” – Greg Wright, Daddy Daughter Dates (5)
“Show me a little girl whose father rejects her spontaneous expressions of affection, and I will show you a girl with a predisposition toward [sexual] frigidity before she is six to eight years of age.” – Tim Lahaye, Spirit-Controlled Family Living (p.6)
Honestly, this is all so seriously creepy.
The Epstein Files need both a political and an evangelical reckoning.
Why is it that the most horrific abusers we’ve ever heard about gravitated towards purity culture writings? Why is it that evangelicalism supports pedophiles as leaders? Why is it that evangelicalism refuses to protect children in their congregations, or deal with the sexual abuse in their midst?
When we set up a church culture with men at the top, and we want men to stay there unchallenged, then we also set up these narratives where anything bad that a man might do is normalized and explained away, so that men’s power can’t be challenged. By protecting men, we normalize the predation of women and children.
That’s what the evangelical church has largely done, and I hope that the fact that Dobson was quoted like this in the Epstein files is a wake up call.
Because if Jeffrey Epstein found you useful, that speaks volumes.
What do you think? Have you seen this overlap between pedophilia and purity culture before? What did you think of Dobson’s advice to Martha? Let’s talk in the comments!
It’s always shocking when the Church imitates the world. Dobson and the rest are very much reflecting the world of their times, and the more p0rnified the world, the more sexualized the statements.
I see Dobson as a typical man of his generation – men must stay in power/women’s lives are about being beautiful and useful to men. The younger pastors truly seem to be aroused by what they are teaching. I don’t get that as strongly from Dobson. But the super gross part is that the people you quote in this article, Sheila, show us the spectrum of this age: the older generation who seem unable to see females as equals and the younger generation who seem unable to see females as human. It is shocking to note that things are getting worse.
Totally not surprised that one of the sickest people on the planet went to Dobson for material. It proves just how much Evangelicalism has been about hierarchy and control.
I hope people realize that at the heart of evangelicalism is not Jesus, but is instead power and control. Because as Jesus said, you will know a tree by its fruit.
“The younger pastors truly seem to be aroused by what they are teaching.”
“Aroused” in the way I think you mean?
(I assume your use of the word was deliberate. I tend to select the word with the most impact all the time in my comments.)
Also, noticed your use of “man” and “female”, the same inconsistent terminology as the Alpha Male Manosphere and InCel culture. I’ve used the same as a subtle dig on where these guys are coming from. (“Man and woman” or “male and female” are consistent; but when you mix the two, that’s usually an unwanted peek under the user’s Angel of Light mask.)
I don’t think Dobson deserves the excuse that he was a “man of his time.” His whole career was built on opposing the scientific consensus. I think it’s more accurate to say that he was a trendsetter, or at best a bridge who transmitted outdated ideas from one generation to the next.
Yes, exactly. What he preached at the time was outside of scientific consensus. He was bucking the academy, which has been proven right again and again.
Dobson left out the most important part—so now that you know this, consider how you are going to set up healthy boundaries. Jesus did.
Exactly! There was none of that in the article. Just realize how “handicapped” he was and have mercy on him.
I keep coming back to Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline. My paraphrase – we’re called to submit to one another’s needs *unless it becomes destructive.*
Martha can forgive her dad for the sake of her own sanity, but is under no obligation to continue to subject herself to the disappointment of his rejection by trying to maintain a relationship that he clearly doesn’t care to also put effort into.
I have terrible eyesight. So I do my part to wear glasses and get regular eye exams and undergo procedures that keep me from going blind. What I *don’t* do is refuse to wear glasses and expect my husband to drive me around everywhere and my children to do all my fetching because I can’t be bothered.
Disability can be a reason for having limitations, but it’s not an excuse for trampling on others.
Well said!
I think it’s worth repeating the comment I wrote on the August 2021 post titled “Love and Respect is Being Recommended to Coerce Women into BDSM Relationships.” Nothing has changed except my husband is now my STBX.
Is this what will finally wake up Christians who continue to promote this book?? Sadly, I doubt it.
Along with other commenters, I wish I could say this surprises me. But given my personal experience and my trauma response to anything remotely BDSM, I’m not surprised in the least.
Because L&R encouraged that type of experience in my own life during the time when my husband and I were following the manual that teaches men how to abuse their wives. (L&R)
Thank God my husband and I stopped reading garbage like that, and things have changed. Not perfect, but a far cry from my past misery I suffered.
It doesn’t help that churches try to blame women for men’s sin. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “If you’d just be more submissive, then he wouldn’t [fill in the sin here].”
No, no, no! Just no. We are all responsible for our sin.
It is okay for women to stand up against sin. We do not have to suffer through abuse.
Abigail hid her actions from Nabal. David fled from his king, Saul. Moses’s parents defied their king’s orders to save him. Joseph and Mary fled with the baby Jesus to save him. Christians in Acts fled persecution. What about Annanias and Saphira? If she’d have defied her husband and not lied, she’d have spared her life.
The Bible is full of these examples. We do NOT have to put up with abuse. We do not. The church needs to start following the Bible and stop cherry picking verses and stop promoting these abusive authors.
Wake up, church!
What is BDSM and STBX?
BDSM is the short form for bondage, domination, sadism and masochism, and STBC is “soon-to-be-ex”
“It doesn’t help that churches try to blame women for men’s sin. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “If you’d just be more submissive, then he wouldn’t [fill in the sin here].”
So says the Taliban as well, and NOBODY does Purity Culture like the Taliban.
Thank you for this essay. It helps to cast fuller light on the moral depravity that permeates not only the Epstein crowd but has profoundly effected the Church in America. I have long suspected Purity Culture was steeped in a craven desire for power, exploitation, pedophilia, and dominance over women.
This: When we set up a church culture with men at the top, and we want men to stay there unchallenged, then we also set up these narratives where anything bad that a man might do is normalized and explained away, so that men’s power can’t be challenged.
I question the wording here of “we set up narratives…” I think it’s deeper and more assumption than strategic.
“We” — as in the entire Evangelical Culture — are indoctrinated to a misogynistic lens. They apply their filter to EVERYTHING without even considering the disservice they do to the other half of the church. As if the female perspective or narrative does not exist.
It’s so embedded in the way they think, teach and live!! And they, honest to God, think it’s normal.
The male filter colors everything Christian—which is why women are suspicious and have lost trust with the entire institution (industry?)
It is going to be interesting decades down the line when all the stuff with the files has come out and we can separate between ok was this somebody who knew Epstein incidentally or was this a collaborator in depravity?
I will say I find it disturbing indeed how the all men lust message is bad enough but taken to its logical conclusion yeah you do wind up with Epstein or the kinds of child abuse you see out of Afghanistan.
Rather than telling someone that they are an addict and have not only moral culpability ,but the power to change for the better this is saying Epstein just needed to have a bank account named BAAL and create a prolific trafficking ring because he was just born with some really kooky settings.
It acts like he doesn’t have any agency when he clearly did.
Dobson’s advice is garbage. If everyone gets a free pass to abuse others because they themselves have suffered trauma, where does it end?
My grandfather was abusive. Almost certainly, triggered by his wartime experiences (family members say they felt that the man who came back from the war was not the same one who went away). That is an explanation. It is not an excuse.
My mother was obviously traumatised by growing up with an abusive father, but that does not excuse her own abusive behaviour either.
I am affected by the abuse from both of them. But guess what? That does not give ME an excuse either. I don’t get to go around hurting other people because of what they did to me, any more than they had the right to hurt me because of what others did to them.
Exactly. It explains. But even then–he could have gotten therapy. And none of it means that you just have to let him off the hook and continue to have a relationship with him!
(Also, Angharad, I’m sorry about the generational trauma and abuse you grew up with. I’m so glad you were able to break free.)
My abuser wasn’t abused. I was abused. That doesn’t give me a free pass to abuse anyone else.
I have said this before, but the Christian church has been hijacked some time in American history. I believe certain powerful people are involved in this. And this is a clever scheme to get people away from God and the truth. These evil, awful things we’re seeing in the church, it’s because they’re practicing the evil of the world and calling it “Christianity”. Katherine C. Bushnell has a book that helped me understand this (God’s Word to Women). She talked about how the Jews during the Intertestament period loved the Greek things and adopted it into Judaism. So it’s godlessness, but labeled “Godliness”.
Hope, that book sounds informative. Are there any other resources (websites, podcasts, etc.) you would recommend to help me (or anyone) understand the history of the American church and how it was hijacked? I love to study and understand all this.
BEMADiscipleship.com, starting with season 3 episode 1 has several that explain, in bite-sized portions, how that happened and how it affected the beliefs and culture of the time and today.
https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/73
Hope, thank you for sharing this. The book sounds interesting as I love to study the history of the church. Are there any other resources (podcasts, websites, books, etc.) you would recommend related this subject, to help one understand the hijacking of the American church better?
I’m not sure if any resources explicitly talk about the American church and hijacking.
I reached this conclusion after reading multiple sources over a period of time – posts on Gab, Tartaria articles, Christian books.
Katharine C. Bushnell’s words finally helped me realize what was wrong with those kinds of Christians – the ones that say they follow Christ but hold so many godless beliefs and attitudes that are unbiblical.
Thank you for speaking out against the coercive control that evangelicalism has set up, whether it has been purposeful or not. I’m sure it has been purposeful on some people’s parts, as they desire power and will do whatever it takes to gain and maintain it. The revelation of such a deep level of evil is downright discouraging, but it is also best to know the truth! I trust that God will help us to process all this and to work for the justice of all victims of every form of abuse, sex trafficking, and corruption. It is so good to see that some people do understand how purity culture promotes abuse and control of women and children and of how harmful it is. Thank you all for sharing.
And this coercive control dogma goes all the way to the top, where an Omnipotent God holds the biggest Whip of all.
Boots stamping on faces, all the way down. “GAWD SAITH!”
(I thought the main difference between the Christian God and the Islamic one was that Christianity emphasizes Love as God’s primary attribute and Islam POWER. As for Calvinism, they say Calvin Islamized the Reformation.)
It absolutely overlaps. Your analysis is spot on.
I shared the Roy’s Report article about this with someone and they came back with, “that doesn’t mean much. People misuse the Bible to keep women in abusive situations too.”
Except the big difference is that you have to twist and misuse Scripture to do that. Epstein used Dobson straight up, no commentary. I don’t think there’s a chance in the world Epstein could have or would have used an article from here or Jimmy on Marriage or Matthias Barker or any number of other healthy relationship resources because the first words out of keyboards for the woman Dobson was responding to would be “boundaries”, “safety” and “healthy”. Three things no abuser in the world wants their victim thinking about. He would have had to redact, edit, and provide extensive commentary in order to get any healthy post to suit his needs, which means he wouldn’t. But he sent Dobson without even a hint of commentary like, “just ignore this one part”.
Because that person I shared that article with is right, people can misuse Scripture or really anything else, but I’ve yet to see someone who misuses the Bible do it by presenting a passage in full with proper exegesis and context. That Dobson article though was complete, with context, no editing required. Epstein didn’t have to twist words to make it say what he wanted, Dobson was saying what he wanted already.
Exactly. It isn’t twisting someone’s words to take them at face value or to take them to their logical conclusion.
Something about Dobson I realized way after-the-fact:
From his initial Christian best-seller “The Strong Willed Child”, Dobson viewed everything through the lens of Power Struggle. Everything about his parenting advice was about Power and Control — Win or Lose, Dominate or Be Dominated.
This IS the same guy who wailed with a belt on his ten-kilo Dachshund to show the dog who was Alpha.
And bragged about it like Chuckles Mahaney forciing himself on his wife while she was puking her guts from morning sickness.
Yes, and it’s interesting that Gary Thomas picks up on this in his marriage books too–that it’s all about who has power in the relationship at any one time.
“The only goal of Power is POWER. And POWER consists of inflicting maximum suffering among the Powerless.”
— George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
“There is no Right, there is no Wrong, there is only POWER. And those who are too weak to have it.”
— Lord Voldemort, top Bad Guy of the Harry Potter series
Quite a Gospel, eh?
It’s a bit like when you share a horrible quote from a modern marriage book and everyone starts howling ‘you’ve taken it out of context’ – only putting it back in context makes it just as bad, if not worse. (And honestly, most of the quotes are so horrific that no amount of ‘context’ would make them acceptable anyway, other than if the ‘context’ was “This is what you should never do” or “This is the most appalling marriage advice.”)
Whereas if they take a Bible verse out of context to prove a point, putting it back into context makes it clear that it doesn’t mean what they say it means.
Yes, exactly!
“There are still over two million files that the government is keeping back, including videos of victims being killed”
Epstein’s Island catered to SNUFF?
Well,when you’re Rich and Powerful, you can indulge any and all of your Appetites with impunity.
I wonder if Epstein was “into” Snuff himself.
“Instead, it’s basically “your father is wounded and it’s not his fault and you need to understand what he has gone through.” — Dobson
Sounds like a sociopath — “Pity Pity Pity Poor Poor MEEEE!”
They say the number-one characteristic of a Sociopath is the ability to act the Poor Poor REAL Victim at the flip of a switch. I grew up with one and I can attest to this.
“Likely at a church that taught that if little girls (literal children) showed too much skin, it might cause grown men to get out of control (as Dannah Gresh taught, the sight of an 8-year-old’s belly can make an adult man intoxicated). ”
Ayatollah Khomeini and Mullah Omar would agree 1000%.
The Taliban and ISIS teach the exact same “Koranic Manhood and Womanhood”.
Nobody does Modesty Culture and Purity Culture like the Wahabi.
Yep. And yes, there are snuff films. The Deputy Attorney General basically confirmed it.
I got something totally different from Dobson’s quote here. I mean, I suppose I can see how someone could misuse it as in J.E. case.
Let me give a quick example. My mom had a dysfunctional family, she was sexually abused by her father. Her mother was emotionally distant. Ad a result my mom was an emotionally distant mom. She was often angry. I learned to walk on eggshells to try to keep peace.
I worked hard (through Jesus’s help) in order to break those generational curses. Final healing came when I understood my mother’s history. She was broken (handicapped).
I had a choice to make. I could be angry and have nothing to do with her. Or I could forgive, give her grace and move on to an acceptable relationship with her, realizing I would never have the relationship with her I desired.
My mom pasted away 2 yrs ago at 80 and you know what, the last 5 yrs of her life she came to love Jesus and asked me to forgive her. I wonder if that would have happened if I had cut her off completely instead of loving her and showing grace.
I know, sometimes cutting people off is necessary but I also believe we’ve entered a culture where Christians have cutting off parents for things their parents may have just not known.
I can totally see how that advice may help you, Sharon. But what if the same advice had been given to your mom about her father? That’s really the problem.
And I am sorry for the pain you went through growing up! I’m glad that had that resolution at the end of her life and she found peace.
There is a huge difference between ‘setting boundaries’ and ‘cutting oneself off’.
I agree that it can help to recognise that the person who is hurting you is doing so, in part, because they themselves were also hurt. It is also helpful to reach a stage of accepting that you will likely never have the close relationship with that person that you long for.
But the part of Dobson’s article that I have the issue with is this – he compares a physical limitation, such as blindness, with an emotional ‘limitation’ of being unable to treat others well. He even refers to the father’s cruel behaviour as being a ‘permanent handicap’.
If you are blind, it is not possible for you to give yourself sight. But you CAN work on the emotional ‘injuries’ which cause you to go round hurting others. You say that you ‘worked hard’ on your own healing – but your mother could have done exactly the same thing, she just chose not to. By presenting abusive people as ‘victims’ of their past hurts, Dobson is actually encouraging people not to take responsibility for working on their own behaviours.
Yes, it sounds loving, but in reality, it’s continuing to allow and enable destructive behaviors and actions. Just like the permissive parenting Sheila mentioned. And it is possible that the toxic person may wake up one day and change, making all of our efforts feel justified. But they also may never change. Or do something truly terrible to harm us and others beyond repair. My mom has tried to love and serve her toxic family her entire life; she has had nothing but pain and suffering and dashed hopes to show for it. And utter emotional betrayal. I, for one, am done watching her (and the rest of us) get squashed in the name of “love.” It is absolutely pearls before swine and I see no end in sight. Finally, she is realizing this too. She can care for them from a distance and pray for them. THAT is transforming love when so much evil is at play.
Even God had to give his loved ones a certificate of divorce and he has a final boundary of all boundaries called Hell. He doesn’t want anyone to experience that–but what if a person refuses to be changed or transformed? To be truly, deeply loved? To see the truth? What if they keep hurting others without conscience or remorse?
As George MacDonald wrote (quoting Jesus) years ago, “They shall not get out until they have paid the uttermost farthing.” God loves us unconditionally and he will forgive the worst evil imaginable–but he will not enable or condone unrepentant evil. This is truly God’s greatest mercy and grace! Because sin destroys, but love transforms.
Sharon, I also did not initially think the advice (I read the whole article, not just the quote here) was completely harmful, but upon consideration, I’d say it is so incomplete that it has great potential for causing harm.
On the positive side- One of the hurts of having a parent who doesn’t love you is that young children tend to attribute bad things in life (divorce, illness, death) to themselves, mistakenly believing that they caused it. So, there is likely a very young part of this person that believes, “Dad doesn’t love me because I am unlovable.” So, it can help having someone tell that young part, you are lovable and your dad failed to love you because HE was broken, not because of anything you did. In that sense, presenting his failures as a “handicap” may be helpful.
But he leaves out some important advice: she needs to be encouraged to acknowledge the loss of accepting who her dad is, and grieve it. In a way, the relationship she always hoped to have has “died.” And that should be recognized. Dobson shouldn’t imply that she should still love her dad (as if he were emotionally whole but physically blind, say) in one breath, and advise her to completely emotionally distance herself in the other. Dobson never advises or encourages her to consider that emotional distance means deciding how much relationship you want to have and setting boundaries. He just implies that she needs to numb herself emotionally to the hurt, absorb it, and stop expecting anything.
Choosing to empathize with and extend compassion to someone who has hurt you can be an important part of the healing/forgiveness process (Dr Everett Worthington’s research on forgiveness was where I first read about this). HOWEVER, it needs to come from a place of empowerment and agency, not making excuses or false obligation. Dobson doesn’t make this distinction.
In comparing emotional stuntedness to a physical handicap, I think Dobson would have done better to say, it is highly unlikely that your dad will ever change, almost as unlikely that he would recover from a physical condition like blindness. Your dad would have to have an above-average capacity for self-examination in order to desire change in himself and work hard at it. This is not impossible, but it’s unlikely. A few people have the intelligence, drive and self-awareness to rise above the difficulties and wounds they inherited from their parents, such as poverty, addiction, criminality, bad habits and abuse. But the majority walk in the same path their parents walked. And if her father had a personality disorder, such as narcissism, research shows that change is almost impossible.
Incomplete instructions or advice can be harmful! If I ask, “tell me how to make scrambled eggs,” and the expert chef says, “put a pan on the stovetop and turn on the burner,” and doesn’t say anything else… I’m going to end up with a house fire instead of a nice breakfast.
The Mayfield quotes and the entire reality of grooming and distortion makes me sick. I grew up on Dobson and Purity Culture teachings and I am still trying to untangle it all. The fact that Epstein recommends Dobson is just another profoundly heartbreaking layer to the cake. Praying that God continues to use you and your team and those of us who want to shed light on the truth. My hope is our efforts to free those who are still under the spell of these harmful teachings will bear great fruit.
Another consideration is “power” in of itself is neutral, but the way it is manifested matters. There is power along side or under to nuture, empower the self of the other, that “self” the “higher self”, to nurture and en-courage the capacity for self love and self compassion, and ignite that sense of sovernity, and agency. I bristle and reject the phrase “He shall rule over you,” that is to me code for coercive control and that behavior insults the soul. Lastly some awareness is needed around the relationship between atonement theology (I know there are nuances to it and I find the idea entirely problematic) and suffering. There is this idea that women should stay in abusive relationships because it is a means to glorify suffering and the way Pauline theology speaks it seems to have that sentiment in it.