So Much More - The Bad

Picture taken from
book's Goodreads page.

**Missed the first two posts? Part 1 and Part 2**

My Amazon review can be found here.

My Goodreads review can be found here.

As per usual, anything of note and/or not directly on topic will be written in this blue.

Welcome to the third and final part of my review of the book So Much More. This has been something I have been working on slowly for more than five years, so it's nice to finally be able to move on with my life.

I want to bring up something first. This is the part where I talk about what is bad in the book. I will not mince words, as some of these topics are awful and harmful to people.

I am not trying to say that the Botkin sisters are awful humans. I am not trying to say that the Botkin sisters are horrible people that want to destroy the world. I am not saying that the Botkin sisters are abusive Christians themselves.

Also, I am not trying to excuse their writings or beliefs in this book.

What I am saying is that the authors were young. What I am saying is that their writing is thinking that has been carried on in the church for hundreds of years, and that this thinking is wrong. What I am saying is that this thinking has led to many painful instances that could have been avoided and need to be stopped in the future as both bad theology and wrongly placed blame.

Or else we get to experience the "Debt-free Virgins Without Tattoos" that the Transformed Wife discusses. There's a lot of problems with that, but I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole and better people have talked about how it's wrong.

With that being said, here are the bad things of So Much More.

1. There is a lot of weird views of femininity all throughout this book.

One main point of this book is reclaiming femininity and how we should then proceed to act. "Amidst a generation of giddy, silly, loud, boisterous, undignified, clumsy teenaged girls, picture a girl who radiates dignity, respectfulness, grace, a gentle and quiet voice, poise, discretion, self-command, sincerity, peace, compassion, cheerfulness, and humility. That girl would stand out as a woman of quality." (p. 79)

Guys, I have lasted as long as I possibly can. I can't do it anymore. I'm allowing myself one reaction meme. And it is this.

Source: Meme Generator and me.

For the sake of my sanity, let's break this down. But first, ground rule #1: For a lot of people, mental maturity does not finish until you turn 25. It's sometimes been suggested that women don't finish mentally maturing until 35, and men 42. With this in mind:

"Giddy, silly..." I'm sorry that having fun and enjoying something in a way that is uncomfortable for your personality type is such a problem. I'm an INFP, meaning I like calm and introverted celebrations and that people who are extremely extroverted in their reactions make me uncomfortable (and somewhat nervous), but this does not mean that my way of enjoying something is the right way.

"...loud, boisterous..." (This is one of the topics they talk about a lot, but for the sake of brevity, I'll only discuss this part.) There is a time for everything. Sometimes you need to be a loud woman. Being a quiet woman definitely makes you a boring person during play time, and quite frankly is not always healthy.

"...undignified,..." With all due respect, the two of you are not the authority on what is dignified and what is not.

"...clumsy,..." Makes the same face as the meme above. This is not something that is controllable. Believe me, if I could fix my depth perception problems and not smack my hand against things and stop running into the corner in the hall located in my house, I would. Clumsy is something we all struggle with at one point or another; some just have better spacial awareness/muscle control than others.

With all of this in mind, I'd like to introduce ground rule #2: Mental illness is something that is not discussed, if not actively repressed, in the ultra-conservative circles such as this. The list that the authors' use of what a girl should be is unrealistically idealistic on a good day. Now throw in a young girl (remember, the target audience for this book is 13/14+) who is possibly dealing with an undiagnosed mental illness, or even just a warped perception on life and self, and this list becomes not only unachievable, but dangerous as well.

Finally, being a 'woman of quality' is not defined by what it is we do or say, but it is defined by our Imago Deo, or Image of God. Full stop, non negotiable. As soon as we start adding subjective rules to what makes a person a quality person, we allow footholds for people to start choosing who is "quality" and who is not.

2. There is no female responsibility...

They start this thought early on in the book. "Never in Scripture are women given the responsibility to provide for their families." (p. 24) They also act as though it is a horrible thing for women to hear unChristian ideas, as "Christian women have a duty to protect themselves from defiling ideas and trivial pursuits that may falsely be called 'education'." (p. 129, quotes theirs)

The implications of that last statement are astounding. First, who decides what is trivial and what is not? Who determines what is  considered defiling ideas? Second, there is so-called 'Christian' ideas that are anything but good. Defiling ideas can come from both sides, and to be closed-minded like this has far-reaching implications.

Going deeper into the 'defiling ideas' topic, a lot of their beliefs hint that women have no ability to have any say in what happens to them and that telling a man 'no' is unacceptable. For example, on page 176 that there is a "danger in a woman working for a man who is not her husband for father." Like, one on one, or in an office setting with a lot of co-workers?  I'm genuinely confused and want clarification. 

Then in Appendix A, the authors interview their father and get his perspective about the topics mentioned in this book. While talking about different deceptions that dads today will face in correctly (I say 'correctly' loosely) raising a daughter, the topic goes to traditional college. The dad asks, "Why does a young girl need college? To be initiated into modern degeneracy? To become acceptable to the state? To be sorted by the state for service to the state?...Because she needs to become a wage slave at a place that only hires people with questionably-obtained bachelors degrees? So she can get a job later in life when her deadbeat husband refuses to work, or leaves her for a younger woman?" (p. 300)

How does this tie into a woman not telling a man no? The father finishes these questions by stating that these are good reasons to go to college if she is "abandoned by her father," "incorrigibly undisciplined and unresponsive to her father," "incapable of working with her father," and "her father will not protect her from dangerous suitors." (all quotes are on p. 301)

Nowhere on this list, or really in this book, is having a desire to grow in knowledge of other ideas (or subjects best studied under learned/professional supervision) considered a good idea; in fact, it is frowned upon. So with the logic in the above paragraph, if a daughter desires college for the reasons above, but the father says no, the daughter would be considered rebellious.

Another example of a hinted lack of female autonomy is the father's role in the daughter's love life. The authors start out by writing that "God created men to be more than just optional lifestyle accessories. He created women to be dependent on them, in a good way;" (p. 19) this quote comes directly on the end of stating that women who want to wait to get married because they are doing "important work" (p.19) are foolish. They also use the 1 Corinthians 11:9 verse of women being created for men to justify this. (p. 19)

1. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 7:8 "to the unmarried and widows, I say that it is for them to remain single." Unmarried in this context is gender-neutral.
2. Male and female were made to complement each other, and to show different attributes that reflect God. Big difference. If you want clarification, feel free to leave a comment of send me an email through the template on the right side.

They later have a quote from one of their 'heroines' that "[m]y father is responsible before the Lord of the guidance of his family." (p. 48) This is true and I do no dispute this. What I do dispute is that the authors do not discuss the girl's part in also being responsible to God for what she does. This book talks a lot about what the father should be in relation to her, but very rarely does it give advice on how the daughter needs to keep herself right with God. It is always about how the father is the one with the relationship with God and the daughter needs to respect the father.

This is a) wrong on so many different levels, and b) a missed opportunity to present the gospel.

There are more examples that I could present, but for the sake of time these are the most important ones.

3. ...Except when it favors the authors' views.

In the middle of all of the instructions of what a father should be and how a daughter should view him, there are a few statements about how the daughter should act. Good, right? Wrong.

First, if we want our father's protection, we have to be worthy. Yes, that is a thing in this book. If a father is not being protective enough (whatever that means), the authors give advice on how to fix it. "Before you can accuse your father of being unprotective, ask yourself: do you make it clear to him that you are a woman of virtue, worthy of his special protection? If your behavior was more gentle, feminine, respectful and lovely, would he be more inclined to feel protective of you?" (p. 55)

It is not up to the daughters to be "worthy" of a father's protection. That is what a father is supposed to do, regardless of how the daughter acts. This is harmful, because the daughter can only do so much; it puts too much pressure on the wrong party.

In fact, they end up going so far as to encourage their younger readers to find another family to live with if their family of origin does not believe in women staying at home: "It would be safer if she could be taken in by and become part of another godly family, serving and ministering to them and their church, until she is married." (p. 279)

*Sighs and points to the meme above*

Let that sink in...

Moving on:

4. Dinah and Deborah are the focus of the Botkin sisters'/Vision Forum Shame-fest when it comes to working outside the home and how single women should never be missionaries.

*Sighs and once again points to meme*

Yep. Dinah is shamed for getting raped because by visiting friends she was outside her father's protection. "Look her up in Genesis 34 and see what a mess she made for herself, her family, and the entire neighboring kingdom" (p. 172)

You want to know what makes this worse? Rahab is seen as a hero of faith, even though the story never states that she stopped being a prostitute.

Story time: It was my senior year in high school when I first read this book. After I had read this, the teaching pastor at my church came down to the youth (because the youth pastor was out of town that Sunday), so he took the time to do a Q & A to see how all of us were doing. So I took the time to ask him about this, thinking that maybe I had missed something.

He stared at me like I had lost my freaking mind.

(Thankfully, another girl there had heard of this and backed me up.) He did bring up a good point: the Bible has never had a problem showing when someone has made a mistake and the following consequence; the Bible also does not include too many details of the people in it, as they are not the point. Because of this, if we are to imply that Dinah was outside of her father's authority when the Bible says nothing about it, we are within our rights to imply that Rahab... (we're all big kids/adults here) serviced the spies of Israel.

I'm not even going to touch the Deborah situation, except to point out that they describe one of their 'heroines' as a "Deborah wanna-be." (p. 125)

5. It's basically either a woman being holy or a woman working outside the home.

Though they never bite the bullet and specifically state it, there is an attitude throughout this book about how if a woman is working outside of the home, she is sinning against God due to working outside of His created order. This feeling is hinted at in each chapter with the stories of the 'heroines' being used as examples.

If you look closely at the first chapter's roll call of the 'heroines,' you see that they all have one thing in common: They had desires to work outside of the home, but were 'redeemed' from that desire to correctly work under their fathers.

Here's some specific quotes that shows how they feel about a woman's 'real' job. "[A female] has the ability to provide for herself, but in restraint does not. Instead, she channels that ability by supporting and building up her husband, enabling him to fulfill his God-ordained role." (p. 98) Then later, they write, "Learning to 'survive' can teach girls attitudes of independence, hardness, authoritativeness, [and] cynicism. Can this be wise or godly if it damages our ability to become Proverbs 31 women?" (p. 160, quotes theirs.) Working outside of the home is not the problem; the woman's sinful heart is the problem. One can be very hard and cynical while working at home and being a "good" Christian. I would probably be one of those women except for the grace of God.

This article goes into more detail about why being a "strong" women is good, and why we women should not care if we're not falling in line to traditional femininity.

Obligatory disclaimer: I do not always agree with what Desiring God says, and that is ok. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He did not leave John Piper and his associates in charge.

Also, about that Proverbs 31 comment? Aaaaaaalll of this.

Finally, they have a whole chapter (Chapter 17, pp. 253-285) dedicated to why any single woman who wants to be a missionary is wrong and if they do it they are bad women.

6. Their version of a woman is the 'true woman.'

On page 31, the authors talk about how "becom[ing] true women" is important to restore a Biblical view of manhood/womanhood. These different lists found in the book are part of the Botkins' beliefs/desires for how a true woman acts. But again, they write as though they are experts at the young age of 15 and 17, and finished at 17 and 19.

One of the saddest examples of this is about motherhood. After serving one's father for their whole single lives, a woman is expect to marry and have children. "Woman's hope and future is fulfilled through motherhood, one of the greatest blessings God gives women." (p. 288)

Now I do not disagree that children are a blessing. I would like to possibly be a mom someday. However, I do not agree that a woman's future is tied to having children.

Saying that a woman's future is tied to children is not true. A woman's future is tied to God. Period. Children do not save, only God does. End of discussion.

Remember how we discussed suppressed mental illnesses/bad body image above? This point is another marker for possible harm, as not all women are able to have biological children. So when it is stated that children are a saving grace and a woman isn't able to have them biologically (and adoption is  expensive; fostering children is difficult and isolating), the already warped perception/mental illness gains more power and makes the reader look like less of a woman.

Also: "Having [children] is not an absolute anymore." John Piper, (5:32 minute mark)

7. These standards presented on how a woman, especially a single woman, should act and believe are extremely (almost impossibly) high.

Having a high standard is admirable, but there is a problem with their standards. In this book, there is no true room to be yourself and to find where you really are supposed to be in your life. Instead, one is expected to be in a small role without flexibility and adaptability. They themselves even admit that this standard is extremely high, and we have the lists that they have given to prove it.

This is not made any easier with the woman's spiritual life, as it is rarely mentioned. It is expected that the woman should just start acting as a dutiful daughter without any spiritual change. Page 31 talks about how women should repent when starting to work on becoming real woman. But what does that mean? Nowhere in this book does it actively talk about what specifically Jesus has done and why this is important. If one does not understand why repentance is necessary and then do it, one will not be able to experience a life change.

Leading off of this point...

8. There is no actual mention of the saving work of Jesus.

As touched on above, there is no mention of Jesus except in passing. There is not one discussion on why being a Godly woman is important. There is no excitement to live out the Bible in the way that (they believe) God has called women to do.

It is treated as simply an obligation. It is treated as though what they are saying is 100% true without any thoughts as to whether or not they are adding or subtracting from the Bible. There is no joy.

The authors mention Doug Phillips a lot, as Vision Forum was the publisher for this book. This lack of Jesus (and overall joy) is how all of Vision Forum operated and is not just the authors' beliefs.

From one woman to another (or from a woman to a man reading out of curiosity on how females think/act): Having absolutely no joy in serving God as a woman should not be the case. There will be times that you doubt and there will be times that sadness overwhelms you. That is unfortunately normal, as joy and happiness are not easy to maintain sometimes. What is not normal is going through the motions of life out of obligation.

Ladies, if the above is you, I want you to reach out to me. Let's talk and learn from one another. That's the real way to learn about 'true' womanhood; not trying to please a fallible human, but in community together, inspiring one another to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.





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*Hands self a sock* I'm finally free. After five years, it's done!

Next time on the blog, I'll be reviewing Marie Lu's Batman: Nightwalker.