Reviews for Reforming Marriage

The average rating for Reforming Marriage based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-12-03 00:00:00 Mona Varner This book gets a really bad rep. Whenever I talk to people about Wilson, many of them point to his views on marriage as their knife to the jugular of the argument against him. This is supposed to be what makes him vilified. I didn't see any of that in this book. At. All. I'm not a Wilson apologist. He and I have several key disagreements. But when he's right, he's right. In fact, this is one of the most practical and important books I've read on marriage -- ever. It's really easy to write a book on marriage from a Christian perspective that gives 10,000 comparisons between Christ and the church and the husband and wife. That may be very well true and important, but that is long term helpful. Not short-term helpful. There aren't feet to that. They don't walk through my doors. Those are concepts, not applications. How do I *apply* those truths to my marriage. What do I do when I wake up and don't feel the same love I felt on my wedding day? How do I actively work at killing sin in my life and in my wife? What are ways to avoid conflict? To absolve it? To forgive it? This is what I need and Wilson gives it with an extra scoop. Wilson's "Decluttering your marriage" is also a short, helpful, and perhaps a quick summary of what he writes here, but if you don't want just a bite, take the whole meal here in this book. One last note. Actually two. 1. I wished this book was used for premarital counseling. It would be tremendously better than anything out there. 2. I find it interesting that most people read to learn specific topics or to improve their understanding of a certain skill or idea, but when it comes to marriage we seem to be very complacent. As good as your marriage may be, it can always get better and deeper. As bad as it may be, there is always help. Marriage is a relationship and relationships always need constant and consistent work in order for it to be meaningful, so if you don't read this particular book on marriage (though I highly recommend you do so), then read something. Listen to something. Invest time into your marriage for time is the best seed and it always blooms.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-03-18 00:00:00 Ryan Tremblay Meh. I really don't understand the rave reviews. It's okay. It's not as horrible as the stuff that comes out of CBMW, but he doesn't go far enough with the notion of Covenant marriage, imo. I'm willing to accept and assert the notion of "male headship," but most of the authors that insist upon the idea are stuck in an earlier decade. Wilson is stuck in an earlier century. He makes the man/husband/father the center of the home, not Christ, and as a result he offers a very egocentric ethic on marriage. He offers some *new* corrections into the conversation (like the unreasonable expectation of consistently mind-blowing sex in evangelical marriages), but they are merely a spice not a whole meal. I'll give Wilson this too. He is better than the CBMW stuff about the whole "final decision-maker" status that they give to men/husbands/fathers. That's pure foolishness -- something that the CBMWs think is natural and normal, but it's actually very 20th century. Instead, Wilson talks about the husband's responsibility for all commitments -- like a captain on a ship, for instance. I understand that he's trying to recreate 16th-century patriarchy. I understand that he's trying to foil the Baptistic bent that is stuck in the throat of contemporary Reformed believers. That's fine. But Doug, honey -- if that's what you want to do, don't make feminism your foil. That makes you sounds simply reactionary and merely political.