Over at the Evangel blog I posted a summary and link to David Powlison’s review of Gary Chapman’s wildly influential and perennially bestselling book, The Five Love Languages.
Update: Powlison responds to some of the critics of his review over at the FT-E blog:
Fascinating responses. I think that my article acknowledges and promotes the various good things about 5LL that several commenters point out and defend. Love languages, in principle creationally, are ‘natural affections’ for good things. It is helpful for us to learn these things about others and ourselves, to seek to bless others, to recognize what brings genuine blessing to us. The “fumbling and mumbling” can be partially redressed by helping both men and women to pay attention to another’s LL. Paying attention to LLs creates more “win-win” in human relationships, and that is a good thing. The first third of the article commends the positive aspects of 5LL, and encourages readers to take those good things to heart. I mean those commendations and encouragements: “God’s grace teaches us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency,” as I say towards the end of the article. In the language of the General Thanksgiving from the Book of Common Prayer: “We thank you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life.” To speak another’s LL brings some of those blessings.
But, on balance, was my article too critical?: “both barrels,” “making something out of nothing.” It would be unbalanced toward the negative if the final purpose of my review (and of Christian ministry) were simply to encourage more win-win relationships. But I chose also to trace the implications of 5LL for harder, deeper problems, both relationally and psychologically. As the General Thanksgiving goes on to say: “But above all, we thank you for your inestimable love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.” There are things about us and our relationships that need better medicine. In order to learn to love well, we need Jesus Christ to love, to die, to be raised, to reign, to return, to work in us transforming the dynamic of inner modus operandi. Wise ministry is never less than common grace, but it surely brings something more than common grace.
As the article discusses, Chapman brings a troubling logic to his treatment of adultery, and rebellious teens, and loveless people—and the human condition. He gives no indication that it’s important to understand how natural affections for good things segue into inordinate cravings. As I say, this makes his theory simultaneously overly-sentimental and cruel. The observations and behavioral advice about LLs are fine as far as they go; it’s the theory and the outworking of its implications that become sentimental and cruel. I’m not sure that respondents adequately weighed those issues on the balance sheet. The thoughtful ambivalence of the couple in my opening paragraph set the shape of the article.
The 5LLs really are “the whole story” in Chapman’s book. Whatever Chapman might think in private, we only have his written work before us. Struggling people have only the book, and LLs are the only story the book tells. This is why throughout the book there is no place where Jesus’s love really matters. For that reason, I conclude that his schema for helping people brings light remedies to the deep troubles of life.
