Toxic Faith
a book by Stephen Arterburn & Jack Felton
Its toxicity goes much deeper than the title.
Recently I picked up a book entitled Toxic Faith with the intent of critiquing it. Spiritual abuse and more specifically, churches that abuse, has been a topic that has interested me for several years. I suspected that Toxic Faith would be just another one of the many books covering that topic. One might wonder why so many books have been written about Spiritual Abuse. Many christians… too many in fact, know precisely why.
My first impression of the book (the 2001 edition), just from the 1,800-word introduction, was that it was not very well written. It lacked clarity and its ideas about religion were simple-minded and full of christian clichés. I spent (wasted) four days and easily wrote more than 1,800 words critiquing the errors I found just in the introduction alone. I wisely decided to do some research on its authors. What I found suddenly started to make sense why the book was so poorly written. Arterburn, as it turns out, has a dubious educational background.
An on-line article I uncovered about Arterburn was very enlightening. It was entitled The Porn Hustler: Evangelical author Stephen Arterburn says porn ruined his life. Did he lie about everything?
The Story of a Christian Con Artist
According to that article, Arterburn himself tells that he discovered in the 5th grade that it was easier to cheat in school than to study. In his own words, he told how he cheated in school all the way through college. He wanted to get a degree in music, but when he was unable to learn a foreign language, he was forced to drop out. In addition to cheating his way through school, he also touts credentials that he clearly has not earned. (Surprise, surprise!) He claims to be a respected christian psychologist and a licensed minister, but he has no educational degrees matching those claims. He sometimes adds “M.Ed.” to his name. That would represent a master’s degree in education, but it appears that we have no record of that degree. Sometimes he promotes himself as Dr. Arterburn. He admits that his Doctorate degrees were honorary. Clearly, he certainly didn’t earn them through the arduous process of higher education. The article shows that he’s a fraud, plain and simple, saying that Arterburn’s history is “a story of a Christian con artist”. And yet, his book Toxic Faith became a best seller, and he is considered (in christian circles) as a respectable expert in his field. Now that’s what I call TOXIC.
I immediately stopped critiquing the book. It was becoming too taxing anyway to expose his simplistic ideas about a complicated and real issue like spiritual abuse.
The fact that Toxic Faith became a “best seller” when it was released in 1991, speaks more to the brokenness of religion than to the skill and expertise of its writers. We will examine in future blogs why many “wounded” christians supposedly found hope in their book.
In the introduction of Toxic Faith, Arterburn talks about his grandmother, who he calls Nany. According to him she was “an amazing woman of faith” who gave away almost half of her income because she wanted to give back to God a portion of all that he had given her. Her motives were pure and set a great example for all who had the privilege to watch her. “When she gave a dollar, she knew how that minister was going to spend it. At least she thought she did.”
Unfortunately for Nany, she gave her money to the unscrupulous televangelists of the 1980s. Charlatans such as Jim and Tammy Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, and others took her hard-earned money and promised that they would do the work of God in the world. Instead, they cashed her checks and lined their own pockets. Thank you very much! Arterburn says that his Nany “turned off her heater at night so she might be able to save a few dollars and therefore give more.” Turns out she was giving her hard-earned money to religious frauds. What kind of example was she actually setting? Perhaps, what not to do.
Knowing what we know about Arterburn it’s ironic that he talks about his Nany being duped by christian charlatans who weren’t what they publicly appeared to be. It seems likely that the “wounded” christians who spent their hard-earned money to purchase a copy of Toxic Faith, (while Arterburn became rich and famous), might actually be suffering the same fate as Nany.
But this story doesn’t stop there.
Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes!
I also looked into his co-author, Jack Felton. I could only find two references to him in a google search. Both of them are similar to what might be found on a book jacket. “Jack Felton is a licensed therapist and an ordained minister at New Hope Christian Counseling Center and is president and founder of Compassion Move Ministries. Jack Felton is a frequent lecturer in the Southern California area and has numerous local and national television and radio appearances to his credit.”
I find it interesting, however, that Mr. Felton specializes in recovery from addiction and has co-authored a book about the toxicity of religion. There is, in fact, a chapter in their book entitled Religious Addiction. As someone who has made a full recovery from religion, I’ll have something to say about that in a future blog.
This is what Jack Felton’s bio on the New Hope Christian Counseling Centers website says about him.
“He sits in an advisory board capacity to Dr. Daniel Amen, the world’s leading expert on Spect Scan Imaging (a nuclear medical approach to brain function). Jack is well suited in supervising the integration of this cutting-edge technology into marriage family and child counseling.”
So, the next question was “Who is Dr. Amen?” (Great name, isn’t it?) Let’s find out! The following comes from Wikipedia.
Daniel Gregory Amen is an American celebrity doctor who practices as a psychiatrist.
Yes, you read that right: “celebrity doctor”.
“Amen has built a profitable business around the use of the controversial practice of SPECT imaging for diagnostic purposes. His marketing of SPECT scans and much of what he says about the brain and health in his books, media appearances, and marketing of his clinics have been condemned by scientists and doctors as lacking scientific validity and as being unethical, especially since the way SPECT is used in his clinics exposes people to harmful radiation with no clear benefit.”
“Neuroscience professor Martha Farah calls such use “profitable but unproven” and says, “Tens of thousands of individuals, many of them children, have been exposed to the radiation of two SPECT scans and paid thousands of dollars out of pocket (because insurers will not pay) against the advice of many experts”. Professor of psychology Irving Kirsch has said of Amen’s theory: “Before you start promulgating this and marketing it and profiting from it, you should ethically be bound to demonstrate it scientifically in a peer-reviewed, respected journal”, as otherwise, “you’re just going down the path of being a snake oil salesman”.”
Let’s connect the dots.
Felton works with addiction issues at a christian counseling center. He also sits on Dr. Amen’s board of directors. It seems highly likely that Mr. Felton might be counseling his patients (which include children) to subject themselves to these dubious and very expensive SPECT scan procedures, of which the only guaranteed and verifiable benefit is that Dr. Amen has become exceedingly rich and famous. I think another question that needs to be address, is whether Felton has profited from referring patients to Dr. Amen’s clinics. I truly hope not, but the dots are there.
It’s important to note that Dr. Amen received his MD degree from Oral Roberts University. We do not know, however, from where Mr. Felton got his MA degree.
But there’s more…
For that, we need to go back to the Medium article.
One of the people who left a comment after the article is Arterburn’s current wife. She doesn’t seem to dispute the claims made in the article but says that her husband is a man who “gets it wrong many times but is genuinely trying to learn and offer something helpful to others who struggle as he has. I invite you to step back from offense and instead consider wishing someone well who has suffered in life like you or anyone else has.”
Let me paraphrase. “He might be fibbing on most of his credentials and fleecing gullible christians in the process, but he’s a really good guy.”
Another woman for whom the article hit close to home, gave her perspective of SA’s story. She wrote…
“Sadly, my ex’s story is much like SA’s. He went to a religious college. Religious legalism and teaching warped him. He despises women. All of the years of hearing how women are responsible for men’s transgressions, twisted him into something horrible. He is a bigot. He is weak and feeble. He is abusive. He is a narcissist. He is a Christian.”
My favorite comment from the Medium article goes like this, “It’s funny, but from the first few paragraphs of this, I figured I’d write a comment about how the story of a degree-less, uneducated person can be elevated to therapist is something only to be found in the Christian Right. My second thought was how this is exemplified in reparative/conversion therapy, where people with no formal training call themselves religious leaders and counsel teens.”
Final thoughts!
Arterburn writes that the unscrupulous people who took his Nany’s hard-earned money to line their own pockets had a Toxic Faith that poisoned many who trusted them. He writes, “As a result, many today believe that all ministers are charlatans out to fleece the flock.”
It appears that the flock just might be justified in their distrust.
From Where I Stand
March 22, 2026
Dale Crum