It almost sounded too good to be true… Those who worked in the sex-trafficking arena and dealing with people trapped in addictive behaviors were saying it was working. People were finally starting to get some breakthrough.
To be honest, I was excited when I first saw it. I saw a glimmer of hope. Only hope, because, while what they were presenting on the outside was certainly some good language towards some of the deeper things of looking at the heart, I also know the trickery of modern moves of Christianity.
So I gave it a look. I watched all the promotional videos. I searched for more information on the subject. And, eventually, I bought the book, Feels Like Redemption, by Seth Alan Taylor (http://www.sethalantaylor.com/). And this is the text of the 1* review I left on Amazon after reading the first few chapters (I did eventually continue on in the book, but it didn’t actually improve).
Good Principle, Absolutely Wrong Book – Heresy
I was excited about this book, because XXX Church lauded it, and proclaimed the hope that was in my heart– that you can be free from sexual addiction without an ongoing battle for the rest of your life. Real and lasting victory without fear! This is what I had hoped this book would be, but it is not. Instead, while it may contain some things that might help some on this path, it is about the author’s personal angst with and departure from the church and all “orthodoxy,” such as what the Bible says about salvation, sin, righteousness, Christ’s sacrifice, and eternal punishment.
From the forward, where Mr. Gross participates in “Hawaiian chanting” in a “spiritual retreat” in Alaska, to the introduction where Seth Taylor wraps up his opening thoughts with the statement, “I do not think one’s beliefs regarding Jesus are the determining factor as to whether they can be transformed by the Spirit of God or not,” this is anything but a “Christian” book. Seth states his belief at the end of chapter one, saying, “Divine nature is inside of us all, if only we are willing to do the work of chipping away at the stone.” This is humanistic to its core and is the same New Age nonsense that is being broadcast through mainstream media all over the place. And while it isn’t clear if he intends this to indicate non-Christians as well, if he does, it is the same historical Pelagian heresy from centuries ago that all are “good.”
The premise of Craig Gross’s reasoning for supporting this book may be sound: “[M]any people don’t actually struggle with PORN but rather USE porn as a means to cover up some deeper hurt or wound” (from his January 16, 2016 blog article). However, this book is a mouthpiece for Seth Taylor to bad-mouth the faith, talk people out of their convictions, and lead them down the path of gauging the truth of something based upon personal “experience” rather than the Word of God. The fact that this book is endorsed by Rob Bell should have been the first clue, but I somehow missed that while starting in.
There are godly resources out there that can help people get maintenance-free victory from sexual addiction. This is not one of them.
The book actually has a few good principles (which, of course, are found in other literature on the subject in other forms) in the following basics:
- Most men don’t want to look at porn; they are using porn to ‘medicate’ their pain. The question then is, “What are you medicating?”
- “Triggers” are the emotional things– feeling rejected, abandoned, etc.– and the things that cause those feelings, more than simply seeing something questionable.
But as Taylor indicates in an interview with Ryan Meeks, pastor of East Lake Community Church, the book is not really about porn addiction, but is, in actuality, a “Trojan horse” to bring in “another message.”
Taylor’s stated goal is to bring people into an awareness of their ‘unconscious’ pain. This is, indeed, a clear Gospel theme, as indicated in Luke 6:48 where Jesus said that those who heard and obeyed His teaching would be like those who “dug deep” to the rock, and built upon it. Of those that did so, their building would not collapse during a storm. And to be honest, if you could read this book and simply get that out of it, you might be able to get some healing.
But this book is not really about that. As Taylor states in the book, what people say has changed the most is what some might call “atonement theory.” In a short email conversation with Taylor, he confirmed what it appears to be his clear meaning, that he does not believe in “Penal Substitutionary Atonement” (PSA). He does not believe that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins to make peace with God. Rejecting PSA has become kind of ‘trendy’ thing to do these days. People such as Rob Bell, who endorses this book, have been recorded saying that if God brutally murdered His own Son to free us, it would be “divine child abuse.” But despite the attempt at a theological rationale against PSA, they offer “emotional” pleas, talking about how good God is, and how mean that horrible historical notion is. On the contrary, as one theologian wrote, while there may be many other ways of looking at the atonement other than PSA because different books of the Bible show different aspects of it, PSA is found in nearly all of the New Testament books. It is not one or the other, just as God can be called by many various names.
But the book (and the program) demonstrates its outright hatred of traditional Christianity and its doctrine and teachings right from the beginning, using the same intellectual assault against the veracity of the Word, claiming the Scriptures were only picked by some ‘religious’ folks, and are simply tradition. It is the same tired, repetitive argument the atheists use, over and over and over, and holds no weight. A careful historical and factual analysis of the matter shows that the church did not “choose” which books of the Bible to include; it merely recognized the ones that were already being chosen by the Spirit.
Despite its good intentions, the movement is fatally flawed. From a deliverance perspective, the thing is “crawling.” The “encounter” Taylor had smacks of nothing less than a chi energy healing from a shaman witch-doctor who might claim some sort of ‘Christianity,’ but from the book’s own telling, the place was littered with occultic and religious relics as one might find in a place of darkness. This doesn’t bother Taylor. Rather, he charges in boldly, saying that God can reach anyone. Clearly, he lacks the discernment to realize that participation in false religions and false religious practices, regardless of apparent results, is the very definition of spiritual adultery, the very concept of “another spirit,” and the entry point of demonic working. For anyone who has participated in any inner-healing or deliverance work, these are the types of practices from which one must repent, renounce, and turn away.
So what did Taylor “experience?” Many native and eastern cultures are very well aware of the body, its energy, etc. Prayer and meditation (to which the author refers repeatedly, making no distinction between true Christian meditation upon God and His Word as opposed to Eastern meditation, which is occultic) are the garden plot of the east. But, while ‘eastern medicine’ may be able to get someone ‘unblocked,’ it is always in an improper way. God’s healing is by His Spirit and His Kingdom, and Christ is the healer. Throughout the book, Seth talks about all the work He is doing. He is talking about his experiences. Nowhere does he ever indicate that it is the Holy Spirit that is guiding these sessions. Nowhere does He give credit to Jesus for his dramatic and profound breakthroughs. And nowhere in any of it is his focus in this process on the Great Physician.
The problem with these experiences is that they do tend to a ‘level’ of comfort, but at what cost? The entire remainder of the book, from the first chapter all around the rest of his intentions to get people to look inside themselves, is all about his anger and hatred of the Christian church. He mocks and ridicules his upbringing as a missionary kid, whose focus was on whether people were “saved” or “damned.” If that is no longer the Gospel he ascribes to, as I said in my Amazon review, he is no longer writing a Christian book.
The sad thing is that Seth Taylor doesn’t care. It’s “Freedom At Any Cost,” including your Christian roots.
What happened? Taylor went off to college in a secular school that mixes philosophy indiscriminately with religion. Paul wrote to Timothy regarding this, saying,
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge “–
1 Timothy 6:20
But as I talked to several people involved with this project via email, it became somewhat clear… Well, it’s what they all do– the same back-and-forth.
When presented with Scripture, they argue that this makes an “idol” out of Scripture, destroys the ‘spirit’ of the book, etc.
When faced with the obvious questions, however– Why do they believe anything at all? Why do they even call themselves Christians?
They answer by quoting the Bible.
The blindness was astounding. “Behold, the goodness and the severity of God,” as it says in Romans 11:22. They have faith in the things they were taught as children in church, but they do not have the honesty to say that if the parts they like are true, what about the parts they haven’t accepted? No… They are too full of their programming– what they’ve been taught in secular institutions has led them to hate Christ, hate His Gospel, and hate His Word.
Perhaps it would be better if they would just go the whole way, rejecting Christ outright and completely severing themselves from this odious Book assembled by the Catholic Church (a church that, of course, is also to be hated). “Just go all the way and castrate yourself,” as Paul said. At least then they’d stop muddying the water.
Oh, did I mention this book was about getting free from porn?
Neither did Seth, David, or Craig.
It’s about how much they hate the church, its teachings, and, ultimately, its Christ.
It really is.
As an aside, I thought one of the other negative Amazon reviews offered something that I felt was possibly more useful than even a review. It left an alternative.
For anyone who is looking for a different resource to use, other than this, that is sound from a counselling perspective, you can try “Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction” by Mark Laaser.
