Powlison on the 5 Love Languages
I’ve been finishing up work for my Biblical Counseling class, and in Seeing with New Eyes, Powlison has a chapter that is a critique of Chapman’s ever popular The Five Love Languages. It was both surprising and eye opening, and I think he hits the nail right on the head. I don’t think I’ll be recommending this book to anyone in the future.
In summary…
“Chapman’s reasons for giving appropriate love to others, his explanation of what speaking another’s love language does, his ultimate goal in marriage, and his evaluation of the significance of love languages are deplorable.” p.229
Why are love languages bad?
“A love language (or lust language) instinctively tends to look at all reality through the lens of “my needs.” I’ve found that one acid test of my heart is how I handle being misunderstood, caricatured, dissed – not how I handle being accurately known and loved! It’s when someone doesn’t speak my ‘love language’ that I find out what I’m made of, and by God’s grace begin to change what I live for. Desires for good things easily become imperial demands that would enslave the very people who might try to speak my language- or yours. The lust that perverts such languages sets up unholy law, by which to command and judge the performance of others in the eyes of an unholy king.” p.234
The list here was the kicker for me… ouch!
“You and I need to learn a new language if we are to become fit to live with each other and with God. The greatest love ever shown does not speak the instinctively self-centered language of the recipients of such love. In fundamental ways, the love of Christ speaks contrary to your ‘love language’ and ‘felt needs.’ Does anyone naturally say, ‘For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is great’ (Psa 25:11)? Does anyone naturally say, ‘My greatest need is for mercy, and then for the wisdom to give mercy. I long for redemption. May your kingdom come. Deliver us from evil?’
God’s grace aims to destroy the lordship of the five love languages, even while teaching us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency. Consider what Chapman’s five so often sound like in real life.
- Affirming words? I feel loved when the crowd cheers, and when you offer me flattering compliments, like, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?’
- Quality time? I feel loved when you drop everything to focus on me, are completely understanding, give me unconditional love, agree with all my opinions, and never disagree with me, question me, or interrupt me.
- Gifts? I feel loved when you are my Sugar Daddy, giving me money, buying me lots of nice stuff, taking me on exotic vacations, and pampering me.
- Acts of service? I feel loved when you do exactly what I want, and don’t make any demands on me, and say, ‘Your wish is my command.’
- Physical touch? I feel loved when you go along with my kinky sexual fantasies and when you make me feel like the most special person in the world.
Notice how each of the five love languages often speaks with a dark and greedy growl.
Notice the black hole of insatiable demand when love languages call the shots, when the emotional love tank rules with an iron will or a self-indulgent smirk or a pouty tantrum.
…
At the end of the day, a book such as 5LL make some interesting observations. It can point out some details you might not have noticed. You ought to pay attention to the varied languages of human experience, your own included. It offers a few helpful tips that might help you love someone better. That’s good. But you’d better not buy the reasoning. 5LL speaks essential ‘unwholesome words’ (Eph 4:29) when it comes to identifying and addressing the real needs of the human condition.” p.236-237
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Powlison makes some interesting points, but I find his interpretation of Chapman a bit arrogant. Never in the 5LL’s does Chapman set up the love languages to take on a lordship role in our life nor does Chapman present the LL’s as extremes or absolutes. The reality is that we all were created uniquely with different giftings, callings, etc. even to the point of experiencing love differently. This is seen in its dramatic difference in the different needs of men & women…respect/love…to just completely throw it all out, as I said, seems a bit arrogant and short sighted to me.
Having sat in his lectures for a week, I can tell you that Powlison was NOT in the least bit an arrogant guy… keep in mind these are a few quotes pulled out of the context of a 13 page chapter.
I agree with you that we all have unique giftings, and experience love differently, and in the quote above, Powlison acknowledges that we should pay attention to the “varied languages of human experience.” He -never- suggests we don’t, or shouldn’t, or that we aren’t wired differently.
What he does suggest is that the reasoning in the book is faulty. I shouldn’t fill up my husbands love tank because I’m trying to get him to fill mine. Christ says to “Expect nothing in return.” (Luke 6:35)
If I'm not getting my tank filled, I don't have an excuse to sin, but there are places where Chapman makes those excuses…
"thousands of husbands and wives have been there – emotionally empty, wanting to do the right thing, not wanting to hurt anyone, but being pushed by their emotional needs to seek love outside of the marriage" (p 131)
and in regards to kids with empty tanks
"If the emotional need is not met, they may violate acceptable standards, expressing anger towards parents who did not meet their needs, and seeking love in in appropriate places… most misbehavior in children and teenagers can be traced to empty love tanks… the growing number of adolescents who run away from home and clash with the law indicate that many parents who may have sincerely tried to express their love to their children have been speaking the wrong love language (p163, 169, 175)"
The reasoning is faulty – what about the kids/spouses who don't sin? The ones who have full tanks who do?
hmmm . . . interesting thoughts there. That seems to be a pretty extreme and one sided view of the 5LL book however and a bit out of context with how it was originally intended. I’m not sure Chapman really had that extreme or same interpretation as the reviewer infers. The 5LL are not meant to be the entire rounding out end all end all of love or a relationship, as God’s love and grace is in our relationships, but merely a means and a tool for learning how to better communicate, understand, and appreciate each other and how an individual person receives and communicates love. Just as there are many ways people experience God (academically, theologically, in nature, in music/worship, in art, etc.) there are different and biblical ways we each experience love from one another in how God created us. I think the illustrations of each LL are pretty slanted and scewed, which is easy to put them in that context. Put in a biblical and righteous context as they were originally intended, is perhaps more fair to the original idea of the 5LLs.
Hey John!
Powlison is pushing the languages to their potential extremes to make a point. He doesn’t deny that we have different ways to experience love from each other, or even that it’s bad to understand them. But there is a BUT. We are living as less than perfect, sinful humans, so distortions are more likely to happen than not. Does Chapman deal with that???
Boiled down, the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord with all our hearts, and all our souls and all our minds, and love our neighbor as ourselves. ” Chapman’s model seems to tack on “so that they will love us how we want to be loved in return.” I don’t think you can make a biblical case for that.
It also seems to imply that if we aren’t getting our love tanks filled by others, that we aren’t expected to love others, and again, I don’t see an exception to the great commandment anywhere.
The concept of love languages is valid… but I think Chapman builds it on faulty logic. We should love because he first loved us and gave himself up for us.(1 John 4:18-20) Loving first and giving ourselves up is the model. We aren’t supposed to expect anything back. (Luke 6:32-35)
Julie, this is pretty interesting. I respect Powlison and have heard him speak several times. I’ve never read the Chapman book, but have used his love language stuff quite a bit. Because I haven’t read his stuff, I really have no idea about the philosophy or methods behind the languages.
The way we have found it helpful is not really in a self-centered capacity, but rather in an other centered capacity. In other words it has made me more aware how much it means to my son Zach to take trips alone with me or to just sit alone with me to watch a movie. With some of my other kids, I have found that those kind of activities aren’t as meaningful to them.
My conclusion is that Powlison has some great points and that we should be extremely careful with personality assessment tools like this because they can very easily feed our egocentric tendencies; however, in the right hands, I feel they can also awaken us to more effectively fulfill the great commandment to “love our neighbor more than ourselves.” Just my 2 cents.
I do have the Chapman book, though admittedly when I read it, it was a quick breeze through.
I agree with you that understanding the categories can be helpful. I also agree that the categories can help us to love our neighbor – as long as we are taking care to make sure that Christ is central and our motives are as pure as we can get them this side of heaven.
[...] Halitzka (cool name, huh?) summarises David Powlison?s critique of Gary Chapman?s Five Love Languages concept. Got to be careful, because it?s only a summary, but it certainly lines up with a couple [...]
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