The Boundaries series

There are books; there are workbooks; there are audio and video tapes. If your head is above the sand in the world of Christian books, you will have heard of the Boundaries series, authored by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend.

The phenomenon kicked off in 1992 with Boundaries. Follow-up volumes include Boundaries With Kids (1998), Boundaries in Marriage (1999), and Boundaries Before Marriage (2000; entitled Boundaries in Dating in USA). Their most recent title tackles a broader theme: How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth (2001).

For ten years the initial offering has been a Christian best-seller. It’s one of those sliced bread (“better than”)/ barge pole (“wouldn’t touch it”) books. People love it or hate it. I checked out the reader reviews of Boundaries at Amazon.com, the world’s largest online bookseller. The reviewer can rate a book from one star (dislike it) to five stars (love it). Nearly every review—and there were a lot of them—granted either five stars or one star. When you read some of the five star reviews, you get the impression it would be a tough call to decide whether Boundaries or the Bible would win the greatest Christian book of all time. And the one star reviews … well, let’s just say that some of them might feel uncomfortable even bringing home their groceries in a cardboard box made from pulped copies of the book!

This polarisation is understandable. The book abounds with helpful insights and directions for people who feel manipulated by the demands of others or struggle to set limits on their behaviour. For such people, it’s a potentially life changing book and the Amazon reviews bear testimony to such change.

Yet one can also understand why others accuse the work of being psychobabble, even heresy. Just picking up the book and seeing the subtitle gets the theological geiger counter ticking: Boundaries: When to Say YES, When to Say NO, To Take Control of Your Life. Isn’t the Christian life about giving control to Christ? Isn’t it a dangerous pretension ever to think we have control of our life? Furthermore, the focus on protecting my boundaries sounds like an argument to justify selfishness. There is enough pressure towards ‘me-ism’ from our world without Christian best-sellers rallying to the cause.

I have no philosophical commitment to the ‘golden mean’ or having a ‘balanced opinion”. But let me explain the reasons why I’d rate this book three stars.

The beginning and end of this book—its boundaries (sorry, I couldn’t resist)—tell its story. It’s a woman’s story, actually. Sherrie’s life is out of control. As we are led through a day in her ‘boundaryless’ life, we find a person who can’t say ‘no”. She wants to do the right thing in her relationships but her choices lead to chaos, guilt and resentment. That’s the start of the book.

In the final chapter, this situation is transformed. We read of ‘A day in a life with boundaries”. It’s the same Sherrie, but with a different life, “characterised by freedom, self-control, and intimacy” (p. 287)—all because she restructured her life according to the principles of the book. So, what are those principles?

The whole book is based around a model of how a person operates in relation to others and their world. In the physical world, boundaries separate one person’s property from another’s. The same applies to our personhood: “Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me.” The ‘boundaryless’ person (the Sherrie of chapter one) fails to appreciate these boundaries. Too often they try to take responsibility for the behaviour of others, or allow others’ behaviour to control their actions.

Cloud and Townsend argue that knowing the boundaries of your own self, “where my yard begins and ends” (p. 29), leads both to personal freedom and an appropriate sense of responsibility. We can control only our own lives and choices, therefore we can be responsible only for our own ‘yard”. This frees us from the frustration that invariably accompanies any attempt to ‘fix’ someone else’s ‘property”. “Nowhere are we commanded to have ‘other-control,’ although we spend a lot of time trying to get it!” (p. 30). Rather, we focus on self-control. We are not responsible for the behaviour of another; nor must we abdicate to another the responsibility for our own actions. “A common boundary problem is disowning our choices and trying to lay the responsibility for them on someone else.” (p. 42).

What, then, of the central New Testament virtue of loving and serving others? Cloud and Townsend’s position is clear: “we are responsible to others and for ourselves.” They make much of Galatians 6:2, 5. These verses instruct us “to carry each other’s burdens” (v. 2) and also tell us that “each one should carry his own load” (v. 5). “Burdens” are too big to bear on one’s own and the Christian community must help each other out on these matters: “Denying ourselves to do for others what they cannot do for themselves is showing the sacrificial love of Christ” (p. 30). A different word is used for ‘load’:

This word describes the everyday things we all need to do. These loads are like knapsacks. … We are expected to carry our own. We are expected to deal with our own feelings, attitudes, and behaviours, as well as the responsibilities God has given to each of us, even though it takes effort (p. 31)

Thus, having clear boundaries does not preclude Christian love. In fact, the authors argue that boundaries enable one to love in a mature and mutually beneficial manner, a point that is particularly stressed in Boundaries in Marriage.

The rest of the book is basically the outworking of these ideas. They outline ten laws of boundaries: “principles God has woven into life … that you can learn to begin to experience life differently” (p. 84). They attempt to debunk some common boundary myths and then apply the teaching to a range of relationships and life-situations (family, friends, work, etc).

In this book, Cloud and Townsend have tapped into a key biblical truth, that of human agency. The Bible affirms that humanity was created by God to be actively involved in life. We make choices. Our choices have consequences which affect us and others. We are held responsible for our choices, both by our society and ultimately by God.

Cloud and Townsend have done us a great service in affirming this truth. The spirit of our age has a particular psychological manifestation. We live in a therapeutic culture which has a tendency to deny individual responsibility. It is true that there are genuine victims in our world. There is no doubt that our upbringing and past experiences profoundly influence our emotional well-being. But we lose not a small amount of what it means to be human if then we say that these things mean that someone can no longer be held responsible for what they do.

The authors do not fall into this trap. A deep sense of personal responsibility pervades the book. Even when background circumstances have been difficult they still affirm “we are ultimately responsible for what we do with our injured, immature souls” (p. 178).

This is the great strength of this book. And this is why so many people have found it so helpful. It has put them back in touch with God-given reality. It encourages the compliant person to say ‘No’ to what is evil or inappropriate (pp. 49-51). It encourages the avoidant person to be open to receiving the help of another (pp. 52-53). It encourages a controlling person who places too much responsibility for his or her life on the shoulders of others to be able to accept the ‘No’ of another (pp. 53-57). It encourages non-responsive people to see that while they can never be responsible for another person, they do have a responsibility to love others (pp. 57-59).

So far, so good. Why, then, am I not a member of the five-star club?

For all the talk about the responsibility to love others, the overall ‘feel’ of the book focuses on the self rather than the other. I could imagine some readers using the ‘boundaries’ concept to escape their God-given obligations and responsibilities. The book helps you to stop saying ‘Yes’ when you really feel like saying ‘No”. But I’m not so sure it helps you to say ‘Yes’ when you feel like saying ‘No’ but when ‘Yes’ is the right thing to say.

I wonder whether an alternative paradigm would work better. Maybe ‘boundary’ problems are really ‘love’ problems. Too often, love is confused with being nice. Thus people find it difficult to say ‘No’ to another’s inappropriate requests or find it difficult allowing another to reap the consequences of their wrongdoing or foolishness. Biblical love is tough love, and recognises that what seems nice is not always what is best for another. Boundaries with Kids is particularly helpful on this point. If you love your children you will set boundaries that help them to mature in character. The real issue in our relationships as Christians is not ‘taking control of your life’. Wouldn’t a more helpful subtitle be, “When to say YES, when to say NO, so that you can faithfully love and serve others”?

There are also difficulties with the use of the Bible. While the authors handle some texts well (e.g. Gal 6:2, 5), very often verses are quoted without consideration of their context. One example gives you something of the flavour. Discussing a sexually lax woman, they say, “She had no sense that her body and feelings were a ‘pearl of great value’ (Matt 13:46), given to her by God, which she was to protect and develop” (p. 276). Such treatment of Scripture is not uncommon.

This problem probably stems from the authors trying too hard to integrate Scripture with the insights of psychology. Much of the content of this book fits into the genre of wisdom rather than biblical exposition. They would have done better to set up a theological framework for their ideas and place their observations and insights within this framework, rather than seeking to justify statements by a misleading appeal to Bible texts.

The book has other problems. It has an up-beat tone—take heed to the rules and you will undergo the Sherrie like transformation and your life can be wonderful. Is it as straightforward as this? What about notions of sin and suffering and sacrifice? One also wishes for a greater sense of God’s sovereignty and an acknowledgment of his work in our lives through his Holy Spirit. At times we find a portrayal of God who seems almost to be made in our image (eg see p. 234).

What of the other books in the ‘Boundaries’ series? These seek to apply the principles of the first book in a detailed way to specific situations. You won’t agree with everything they say; you won’t like the way they use the Bible. But there is much wisdom in these books. The authors are in touch with reality—they have observed life and relationships and have a good sense of God’s wise order in our world.

Boundaries with Kids is particularly helpful. It is not the complete Christian manual on child-rearing, but it is a valuable guide to raising children who are able to take appropriate responsibility for their life.

Finally, we consider the most recent Cloud and Townsend volume, How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth. The basic thesis of this work is that all personal growth is spiritual growth, and the source of spiritual growth is the Bible:

The Bible teaches everything that people need to grow. All the principles and truths necessary for spiritual growth and for relating to God and others, maturing, and working out personal issues and problems have been provided. … we view all personal growth as spiritual growth, whether it is religious, emotional, relational or behavioural (p. 200)

This is all well and good in principle. But what does it mean in practice? What does it mean in relation to depression, an anxiety problem, an eating disorder or a weight problem (all of which are mentioned in the book)? At this level I believe there is a fundamental theological weakness. The authors regularly apply bible texts to these and other issues in a way that ignores their literary and theological context. Scripture gets pressed into a shape it is not meant to fit. This is not to say that the Bible has nothing to say to people struggling with these issues. But we must not use the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture in such a way that compromises Scripture itself. Nor should we ignore the doctrine of creation that enables researchers to achieve scientific, medical and psychological insights into the treatment of these problems. To be fair, Cloud and Townsend acknowledge that psychology can help people deal with their problems (pp. 200f). But I’m not convinced that they have provided a valid model for how the discipline works alongside their theological principles.

This in no way means that the book gets it all wrong. On the contrary, I found myself agreeing with most of what was written. There is much helpful material. In particular, the chapter on guilt and forgiveness is very good.

The main thing lacking is theological coherence. There is an arbitrariness about the way the material is put together. Even more significant is the fact that they have not sufficiently related personal growth to the Christian growth that flows from God’s work in Christ. The gospel itself provides the basis for and our understanding of Christian growth. This theme is present in the book, but it is peripheral rather than central. Nowhere is this more evident than in the chapter on Jesus. The subtitle says it all: “Our example for living”. What about his atoning work and our union with him that provides the transformation necessary for true Christian growth?

I came away from reading this book with a greater sense of the importance of biblical theology and especially systematic theology. The book is flawed because it is weak in these areas. We really do need to understand the logic and coherence of the Bible’s teaching if we are to effectively apply it to people’s lives.

Overall, this book promised the most of all the Cloud and Townsend offerings, but perhaps it delivered less than the works in the Boundaries series. If this were Amazon, I think I’d rate it two stars.

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