Friday, February 5, 2010

Toxic Faith by Stephen Arterburn & Jack Felton


























From the Back Cover

Healing Your Faith

Most of us began our journey into faith with trusting hearts. Yet incidents of abuse, media accounts of perverted religion, personal disappointment, loss, betrayal, and even unrealistic expectations of God can cause us to develop a warped or damaged view of faith. Too often, what began as an authentic relationship with God deteriorates into a defective faith with an incomplete or poisoned view of God -- one that allows the religion, not the relationship with God, to control our life.
  • Heal your distorted view of God as weak, distant, and uncaring.
  • Find release from your striving to earn God's love.
  • Break free from an unhealthy dependency on religion.
  • Learn how you can once again grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
  • Learn how you can rediscover the reality of true faith in a loving God as you move beyond the suffocating limits of your own toxic faith.
Stephen Arterburn is the founder and chairman of New Life Clinics, host of the "New Life Live!" national radio program, and creator of the Women of Faith conferences. He is also a nationally known speaker, a licensed minister, and best selling author of more than two dozen books, including More Jesus, Less Religion.

Jack Felton is a licensed therapist, an ordained minister at New Hope Christian Counseling Center, and president and founder of Compassion Move Ministries. He is a frequent lecturer in the southern California area and has made numerous local and national television and radio appearances.

Table of Contents

Ch. 1 - The Extremes of Toxic Faith
Ch. 2 - What Are Toxic Faith and Religious Addiction?
Ch. 3 - Twenty-one Beliefs of a Toxic Faith
Ch. 4 - When Religion Becomes an Addiction
Ch. 5 - Religious Addiction: The Progression
Ch. 6 - Ten Characteristics of a Toxic-Faith System
Ch. 7 - The Five Roles in a Toxic-Faith System
Ch. 8 - Ten Rules of a Toxic-Faith System
Ch. 9 - Treatment and Recovery
Ch. 10 - Seventeen Characteristics of Healthy Faith
Appendix A: Do You Have Toxic Faith?
Appendix B: Twelve Steps to Overcoming Toxic Faith

Good and Bad Spirituality

If I were asked for a yardstick to discern good from bad spirituality, I would suggest three criteria to be detached from: material gain, self-importance, and the urge to dominate others. Unfortunately, much of what is labeled spiritualty in America today moves in the opposite direction. It means using the names of God and Christ to promote one's own importance, material gain, and right to oppress others.
-Rosemary Radford Ruether, Professor of Theology

You may obtain a copy of this book from www.newlife.com.

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