AN ABUSE SURVIVOR AND ADVOCATE’S BOOK REVIEW AND ANALYSIS
I’ve read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers three times: once pre-deconstruction and twice post-deconstruction. I’ve also read a great many articles, reviews, and blog posts from religious sources and ex-religious sources. I’ll admit I’ve had much trouble wading back into this book. But I spent seven long hours today combing through it. I will be sharing quotes and phrases as well as much commentary.
With the premiere of the film (which I have not seen, this is a BOOK review/analysis only), I knew it was long past due.
In a quick summary, Redeeming Love is loosely based on the Biblical story of Hosea and Gomer. Set in the late 1800’s, it features a trafficking victim/survivor named Angel who has endured all manner of travesties and horrors in the industry since she was a child. The deuteragonist is a man named Michael, the self-proclaimed love interest who is portrayed as a God-seeking, kind and good man, who simply wishes for a wife to help with his loneliness and life on a farm. When he sees Angel for the first time in town, he understands she is his future wife according to God’s will. Learning she is a prostitute begins their turbulent and arguably ill-fated romance.
At the end, I’ll provide ways for readers to understand and support trafficking and abuse survivors, better fictional portrayals on trafficking than Redeeming Love, and other critiques on the Redeeming Love movie and book.
PRE-DECONSTRUCTION:
I was in the camp of those who appreciated the book on multiple levels and even used it as a source of inspiration for two characters in book four of my anti-trafficking dystopian, The Uncaged Series. However, as I was still in the introductory stages of the anti-trafficking movement, there was much I still needed to learn, research, and process when it came to trauma and the damages of abuse and trafficking. I also hadn’t processed my own abuse trauma or how it had impacted me.
No, I am not a trafficking survivor. However, I do understand what child abuse, early and ongoing emotional/psychological/spiritual trauma, secondary sexual trauma i.e online predators/cult sexual trauma, and sexual assault i.e #metoo feels like.
Since there were not many books on trafficking at the time, especially in the fictional realm, I was attracted to the potentiality of a redeeming romance.
At first, I fell in love with the book.
ANGEL: I believed Rivers did an excellent portrayal of the reality of abuses in trafficking, the impact and damages it has on the victims, the PTSD responses, trauma, inner processes of a victim/survivor―Angel, and survival strategies/coping mechanisms.
MICHAEL: I also believed Michael was uplifting, encouraging, patient, kind, and loving to Angel, especially after he carried her away from the brothel where she worked and brought her to his mountain farm.
My greatest beef at the time I read was the character of the brother, understandably, who used Angel for sex in a transactional exchange of power by returning her to the town as was her wish.
With deconstruction and therapy came a new era of processing and research. My second time reading brought a wave of suppressed triggers exploding to the surface.
POST-DECONSTRUCTION
First, I will address some of the characters, their portrayals, and then highlight some of the greater issues with Redeeming Love.
ANGEL: My advocate heart truly went out to Angel during the entire book. In delving deeper into the messages and reactions of the other characters and Angel’s inner shame, hurt, and damaged self-worth, there were times I wanted to throw the book against the wall. Not due to any anger toward Angel but due to her portrayal via the other characters’ reactions to her.
Like other critiques I have made on secular fantasies where women are portrayed as weaker and in need of a man to“rescue” them, validate them, and help them heal, that women cannot heal alone, nor find agency on their own, thereby reinforcing patriarchal power and excusing misogyny, this was my greatest issue when it comes to Redeeming Love. Especially in its portrayal of a trafficking survivor.
In listening to and researching countless survivors, who spent years working to leave the industry, stripping apart their old behaviorisms, choosing to get up and heal and overcome every day, I can attest Angel deserved a better portrayal than a woman who needed a man to trigger her into a state of healing.
MICHAEL: Perhaps one of the greatest flaws in this cult classic is how much the story works to balance, always reminding the reader Michael is a “good” man. He seeks God. He has good intentions. His motives are worthy and pure. And therefore, he has the right and entitlement to do some bad things in order to accomplish the greater good.
However, as one who has examined this book as a trained advocate, a deconstructed ex-fundie, and one who has processed their own years of abuse, I find the scales for Michael tipped more to the negative than the positive.
- LACK OF CONSENT: From the beginning of their relationship, Michael knew Angel did not CHOOSE him. He felt a sense of entitlement and wanted things to be easy. He expected it as he was shocked that she didn’t automatically follow him when he told her that God had fated for her to be his wife. When they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, this is showcased with Michael and his “good” intentions. He did not consider Angel’s autonomy, her agency, her free-will, her consent. He did not accept her “NO means NO” words.
The only way Michael could get Angel’s “consent” to marry him was when her traffickers had beaten her to the point of near-unconsciousness. In reality, she didn’t even know who was putting a ring on her finger. Michael simply told her, “Just say yes.” A command. Not a true proposal. “Why not?” is her response because “she would agree to wed Satan himself if it would get her out of the Palace”. How is this better than the johns who used her?
There are other instances in the book where he does not respect her consent. When she wakes, he asks her where she’s hurting, she responds with “nothing I want you touching”. He proceeds to touch her temples without permission and tells her to relax when she keeps tensing.
Even little things like when Angel doesn’t want to stay in bed because she’s spent most of her life in beds, Michael ignores her protests, picks her up, and places her back in the bed. There is also a time where he kisses her against her will in order to try and prove to her that she can have sexual feelings for him. This is what we define as: sexual assault.
- LACK OF CHOICE:
One of the most important pieces of training I learned in all my years of anti-trafficking advocacy was this: you always give trafficking victims a CHOICE. (Note: this does apply differently in the cases of CHILDREN who are vulnerable, immature, and subject to authorities who must act on their behalf.) Since Angel was nineteen in the portrayal and therefore an adult, the worst way to help her and a further method of damage was Michael denying her a CHOICE. His behaviorisms and words reflect far more of a covert “nice” narcissist with the mentality of “ownership” rather than a self-sacrificial partner who does not seek his own.
Why is this so dangerous? It should be obvious. When a survivor has had every choice stripped from her from a young age in a process of such deep dehumanization, breaking her down, brainwashing, manipulation, bondage, entrapment, etc., the one thing she has left in the world is her VOICE, her WORD/NAME, and her CHOICE.
Ironically, Michael acts far more like a benevolent domestic abuser than a loving husband. He doesn’t simply carry her off to the mountain and then act out of sacrificial and unconditional love. He uses many of the same methods as traffickers and abusers.
A. NAME: Michael calls Angel everything but her chosen name. Quote after Angel wakes up following her beating: “By the way. My name isn’t Mara. It’s Angel. You ought to get the name right if you’re going to put the ring on my finger.” Despite her insistence, he argues with her and says he can call her whatever he wants because “you’re my wife.” He goes back and forth between Mara (which means bitter), Tirzah “my beloved who stirs a fire in me until I feel like I’m melting”, and Amanda. In a beautiful yet hardened moment of vulnerability, Angel reveals, “Don’t you know how many times I’ve heard those words before? I love you, Angel. You’re such a pretty, little thing. I love you, sweetheart. I love you, I’m sick to death of hearing it,”, Michael, unfortunately doesn’t listen and continues to call her what he wants.
B. GASLIGHTING: A little something I picked up on is how when Angel wakes from her beating, she is understandably in a mood. Not only from great pain, hunger, but also from her choices taken from her. However, whenever she responds with an ill word or turn of phrase, Michael proceeds to laugh at her. How demeaning and gaslighting this is. He is amused by her behavior rather than showing true concern.
C. CONTROL: Michael controls and wants to control everything about Angel. Again, this reflects a state of ownership rather than a man who truly cares for his partner. He controls the food she eats, the clothes she wears, whether she lies in bed or sits up, her healing, and even tells her on the first day she wakes that she will be up to doing chores in a couple weeks. No requests. No gentle encouragement. “You’re smart. You’ll learn,” is his response. He simply enforces that she will perform farm duties. He even informs her they will “consummate their marriage” once it “means something to her other than work”. He simply enforces and assumes she will get there.
One very triggering situation is when Angel wakes from a nightmare. Michael knows she’s in a state of FEAR. Instead of truly loving and caring for her, he tells her “there’s more than just sex between us”, and when she denies it, he throws the covers off their bed, and tells her “Get up now. You’re going whether you like it or not…We’re going for a walk…you can go dressed or naked. It’s all the same to me.” He even threatens to put her over his shoulder if she refuses to trust him! And even kisses her without her permission! This is one of the absolute WORST ways to treat a survivor who is in a state of fear-induced Fight or Flight with a PTSD trauma response.
D. MOTIVES: After Angel asserts her will and tells Michael he doesn’t own her, he refuses to listen. Because “He was doing God’s will, he had plans of his own, plans that kept growing.” This motivation is so dangerous. Beware of any man who automatically says, “God told me to choose you. This is God’s will and my plan.” It is a selfish motive and does not reflect true love. After only ONE week of knowing Angel, of carrying her off to his farm, Michael spills his plans to Angel in a monologue paragraph, “We’ll sit beneath it on hot days. There’s nothing smells better than grapes ripening in the sun. We’ll add a bedroom and kitchen and put a porch on the west side, so we can sit in the evenings and watch the sun set and the stars come out. On hot summer afternoons, we’ll sip apple cider and watch our corn grow. And children, someday, God willing.” Yes, God willing. Let’s completely forget about Angel willing. This entire statement is one of selfishness. Of Michael’s motives and plans. Never once did he ask about Angel’s. Immediately following this statement, Angel asserts that she has her own plans, and they don’t involve him, Michael proceeds to merely focus on her beauty as she’s sleeping, touches her hair, inspects her throat, and has an inner pity party for himself, wondering “is it always going to feel like this? Like there’s an ache inside of me?” What about the ache inside Angel?
VULNERABLE MOMENT: I had my own experience with this. A man who was almost ten years my senior when I had just turned eighteen years old proposed to me after only three days of a dating relationship. He had also sought me out when I was a minor at seventeen and spent months as nothing more than a pen pal. That’s all I saw him as. It took a great amount of strength to tell him “NO” when all other forces pressured me into a marriage I didn’t want. When I did this, he broke down and cried, like ugly cried with tears in order to shame me. His quote, I still remember to this day was, “Where is your heart?” Because in his view, I was destined by God to become his wife, bear anywhere from eight to ten children with him, be submissive and homeschool all of them, and barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen tending our home. So, naturally, men with motives, mannerisms, and messages like Michael make me very uncomfortable.
E. LACK OF CARE: Instead of seeking to understand Angel’s feelings/emotions/and motives, Michael simply tells her “you’re not running from this.” In this moment, he could have tried to read her facial expressions. Her inner response reflected the experiences she had learned due to her history and education. “Give them what they want”. So, Angel believes she must resort to pretending. She would even play the “Virgin” for Michael, but she hates it because it’s just another pattern of the way she’s always lived. She is still a prostitute with Michael. Simply a cleaner, more sanitized, and submissive prostitute.
E1. Why is this so dangerous? Because it’s reflective of thousands of women in domestic abuse or in toxic relationships. Not only toxic marital relationships but any type whether in the family, in the community, or in the Church: Simply suck it up, pretend, give them what they want, submit, be the dutiful wife/mother/church worker/daughter/sister/aunt, don’t complain, don’t be aggressive, don’t be difficult, don’t question, don’t make waves, don’t have free will, don’t have agency, don’t be independent, fit into the boxes you are assigned, conform, conform, CONFORM!
F. LACK OF CARE, cont: There’s even an instance where Angel tries to cook stew. But her new wool dress catches fire and she burns her hand. Michael is more concerned about the cabin and that she will “do better next time” than he is about her injured hand. We also see where he followed Angel after she stormed out of the cabin and watched her sitting beside the lake, knowing she felt dejected and alone with dark thoughts. But he didn’t reach out to her. “He might as well have been invisible.” It’s all about him. And he resents her for fighting him.
G. PLAYING THE VICTIM: As referenced before, Michael is very good at convincing himself he’s a victim while Angel is the stubborn shrew who simply needs to stop fighting and choose to trust him and love him. If only she would do this! The first time she chooses to be VULNERABLE and open up about something that she’s afraid of from her past, something that triggered her, Michael turns around and makes it about HIMSELF! “I’m afraid, too, Mara. Not of the dark, not of the past―but of you and what you make me feel when I touch you. You use my desire for you as a weapon. What I feel is a gift. I know what I want, but when you press yourself against me, all I can feel is your body and my need. You make me tremble.” Wow! This is Purity Culture at its grandest, people. It’s not about what a WOMAN feels, her emotions, her fear, her PTSD. It’s all about the man’s struggle with LUST and how a woman’s body makes him feel.
PURITY CULTURE HIGHLIGHT: Yes, there are a few good points about Michael. Like how Angel knew she was safe with him. But despite how her nightmares continue, how she shakes with sweat, how she can’t let him touch her, it’s when she finally returns to the bed, he doesn’t once consider WHY she has nightmares. He’s just considering what her body feels like, fantasizing about them having sex, and feeling frustrated and resentful the next morning.
H. PURITY CULTURE MESSAGE: When a woman’s beauty and her body is prioritized, when a man is fixated on his lust (even when trying to avoid it), it shows he cares more about HIS needs than HER needs. Would Michael have loved any of the other women at the brothel if they were less beautiful than Angel? When the audience reads this―the majority being women―they are taught to consider more about a man’s struggle with lust. They are taught that this is men’s mindsets overall, that women must simply “get over” their PTSD and understand a man’s battle. It also sends the message that men can’t possibly meet a woman where she is at, sit down in the ashes with her, and seek to learn about the fires that burned away bits and pieces of her childhood, her innocence, her youth, her heart! I am blessed with the fortunate few of men who have done this, innately, with me. So, I know it is POSSIBLE! (Not the man of my past but the man I CHOSE and fought for!) In the end, it’s about “Poor Michael” and “Angel, stop being so stubborn.”
I. MANIPULATION: If Michael were truly loving Angel, he wouldn’t need to manipulate her into remaining on the farm or doing chores. After a time when Angel tries and learns to do farm and housework, she starts yearning for freedom again, wants to leave Michael, and get her money from the brothel and go far away. He recognizes this and questions internally if he should “chain her up like a dog.” Instead, he manipulates her into “doing a job” which results in staining her hands for a couple of weeks. She is enraged. He reacts with smugness and even says he hasn’t “gotten nothing worth anything” from her.
J. SAVIOR COMPLEX: There is one moment, one moment where Michael expresses any desire to truly understand. “I wish I could open your mind and climb inside with you.” But following this is an internal expression: “God, how do I save her?” He then proceeds to urge her, “Talk to me, Amanda.” Perhaps if he had respected her enough to call her “Angel”, she may have been willing to open up to him. But when she did in the past, he made it all about himself, so highly doubtful. The conversation following, he urges her to tell him what she’s feeling. This is GOOD. When Angel responds with, “Pain,” he doesn’t delve deeper into the source of this pain. No, what ensues is a conversation about sex and God.
K. SEX BEFORE HEALING and TRUST: It has been such a short time they have known each other, and Michael interprets God’s mental command, “comfort your wife” as touch her sexually and have sex with her. In the height of irony, Michael tells her it must be “his way” and he wants to prioritize her pleasure by showing her how to make love, but she tells him “let me help you”. It’s clear he is letting her be the guide, and he is the one trembling once they are naked while contemplating how his deep feelings are what Adam must have felt with Eve and how Angel is perfectly molded to him. So, again, it’s still ALL ABOUT HIMSELF! He reaffirms that it’s all about him when he commands her to say HIS name over and over. “When it was over, Michael held her close, telling her how much HE loved HER and of the pleasure HE found in HER. He was no longer hesitant, no longer the least unsure, and with his growing assurance, her own doubts expanded.”
Following this scene, they return to their old dynamic. Angel runs, Michael hunts her down, drags her back, and the control/isolation dynamic ensues: “We play by my rules”. It’s clear who has agency and autonomy in the relationship. It’s NOT Angel.
L. DEHUMANIZATION: Why did Michael choose Mara first as a name? It means bitter. This automatically reflects how he had a bitter view of her. If he was truly a man of God and believed God saw Angel’s value and worth, then why not affirm her by calling her by her chosen name or perhaps asking her her real name or giving her the option if she wanted to choose a different name. No, he calls her “bitter”. Because she is not ultimately the wife and woman he wants her to be. It is a form of dehumanization and devaluing her.
- PAUL: That was a LOT to unpack about Michael and all his issues, and we will circle back to him. But now comes the point of the book featuring Paul, Michael’s brother. Of course, we know he is gruff. The first thing he notices about Angel is her backside, her body, her sexuality. It sets the tone. Ironically, Michael and he are very similar, but Michael is simply more SUBTLE about it. While Michael wrestles with internal thoughts of her sexuality and uses it to shame/manipulate her, Paul is PRONOUNCED about Angel’s sexuality. When Paul references Angel as “beautiful”, why on earth does the AUTHOR compare Angel to “Salome and Delilah and Jezebel”? LORD, HELP ME WITH THIS ONE! WERE not RAHAB AND RUTH also “BEAUTIFUL”? Were not ESTHER AND SARAH AND BATHSHEBA and TAMAR (the RAPE victimS) BEAUTIFUL, were not MIRIAM and JAEL and REBEKAH and MARY all BEAUTIFUL? WHY was Angel compared to the worst of the WORST of Biblical women in this narrative? This merely sends the HORRIFIC message that trafficking survivors are worthy of devaluing and dehumanization. That women who were sold into sexual slavery as CHILDREN may be compared to the “bitches of the Bible”. They are simply a vehicle for a man’s story i.e objectification. But I digress…
PAUL cont. Paul has made up his mind about what kind of woman Angel is. “Brazen hussy” is his term. He even tells her “You’re just asking for it”. To Michael’s credit, he gets physical with Paul when Paul refers to Angel as “dung”, and Michael shakes him and yells, “When you cut her, you cut me.” Despite Michael telling Paul that Michael would die for Angel and that he loves her, Paul does not respect his word. He loathes her more and agrees to take her back to the town in exchange for sex, telling her, “you owe me for the ride”. “His sole desire to hurt and degrade her”.
Sadly, Angel ends up in a prostituted horror. And we see Michael’s POV most when he retrieves her, using physical violence to bring her back to the farm. We also see how he directed most of his rage against her despite knowing that Paul was the source and knowing Paul used her for sex. It’s all about Angel’s betrayal, not Paul’s.
- ANGEL: After this “betrayal”, Angel internalizes her self-worth. In a word: worthless. Paul’s words overlap anything Michael may have said to her, though his underlining motives, manipulation, and message spoke volumes about his own victimhood vs. hers. She begins internalizing how much she has “hurt” Michael vs. acknowledging how Michael has hurt her. This, again, leads the READER to empathizing MORE with Michael and not with Angel. And while Angel internalizes her own deceit and worthlessness, going so far as to scrub herself raw in the icy creek, Michael internalizes her sexual betrayal and how can he possibly “forgive her”? God doesn’t tell Michael that “she doesn’t need to be forgiven” when Michael was the one controlling her and forcing a life upon her. God doesn’t tell Michael to “understand her trauma”. He simply states, “She’s your wife.”
Ironically, Michael tells Angel she’s drowning in self-pity, though he’s the one who says, “that’s right, blame me”. That’s the REAL difference between Angel and Michael. She’s drowning in self-worthlessness and trauma. He’s drowning in self-pity because he wants what he wants. He’s entitled. He’s the good one with the savior complex.
In an act of PURE VULNERABILITY, Angel tells Michael about ALL her history. Of how her father abandoned her, how she was sold into sexual slavery as a CHILD, how she tried to escape, but being a prostitute is all she will ever be. Instead of sitting in the ashes with her, empathizing with her, affirming her emotions, he tells her, “Amanda, we will make it through this,”…how “we belong together”, and he’s “not the wrong man”.
After this, when Michael takes her back and tells her she is his wife permanently, she works extra hard to be “enough” for him. Ironically, Michael asks God’s forgiveness for not leaving to get her right away. He never asks Angel’s forgiveness for not understanding her or trying to learn her history. And after knowing that history, how he quotes “how do I teach a hurt child to trust you when the only father she knew hated her and wanted her dead?”, Michael wonders if he took his pleasure at her expense, but then overlaps how “his body yearned for her”.
Michael convinces himself that Angel can simply “learn” to enjoy sex despite how their relationship was built on a foundation of deceit, lies, hurt, mistrust, manipulation, him thinking only of his emotions, and him even taking pleasure at her expense while she was still in a trauma-state. No, Angel, some things cannot be overcome. Nor should women feel the necessity to placate a man who has hurt them over and over again. It only breeds resentment and a false narrative for a marriage.
Another horror part of the patriarchal Michael is when he leaves Angel alone while he seeks fellowship at church, then tells Angel she may belong because “list of Biblical female figures” and references Bathsheba as an adulteress. It shows how he will never truly understand Angel and where she came from if he believes Bathsheba had any agency vs. how Bathsheba was a rape victim.
After this, Michael goes so far as to demean Angel’s mother, abandoned by Angel’s father, who treated her as his mistress. Just like carefully constructed abuser scenarios, Michael monologues about his TRAGIC past with a father, who was a plantation owner, a slaver, a murderer, who beat Michael in order to appear “sympathetic” to Angel AND to the audience. Again, we are meant to uphold the abuser’s narrative and not his victim’s. Michael became the abuser similar to his father. He simply became the covert narcissistic one. The author merely wants you to buy into a false construction of internalized misogyny rather than a story of true, redemptive love.
- MICHAEL’S NEIGHBORS: Things change for life on the farm when a family shows up and becomes neighbors, living in a nearby cabin. One of them is pregnant, Elizabeth, with her husband. One is their daughter, a teenager named Miriam, and some little children. Despite Angel’s fear and longing to retreat from them, Michael pressures her to “buck up” and interact with them because not everyone wants to “use you”.
However, Elizabeth triggers memories of Angel’s trauma from when her trafficker forced abortions upon her. This leads Angel to some old survival strategies/coping mechanisms/and trauma responses.
Angel feels shame because all Michael has given her to wear is old and worn hand-me-downs from his dead sister despite him stating he would buy her something else. (he spent his time in town going to church instead). So, when Elizabeth sends Miriam to give Angel some newer clothes of theirs, Angel refuses. And instead of trying to understand, Miriam condemns Angel for refusing to love them and hurting her mother and even calls her an “idiotic child”.
Michael’s neighbors continue to berate Angel for carrying her past around like “baggage”, call her “bitter”, reaffirm how amazing and upstanding Michael is, how everything will be better once Angel bears Michael a child, and even pressuring Angel into helping with Elizabeth’s labor despite knowing nothing about her history of miscarriages and forced abortions. Though Michael is fully aware of this part of Angel’s history and though she expresses her fear, he doesn’t advocate for her to Elizabeth. He simply pressures her to go through with acting as the role of the “midwife”. Understandably, Angel is overwhelmed and hurt afterward because she knows she cannot bear Michael a child.
COMMENTARY:
Later in the book when Angel is receptive to Michael and learning to be his wife, she asks if her being a blonde was the only reason he loved her. He quotes, “Actually, I think it was your even temper, your willingness to adjust to my way of life, your constant desire to please me.” Angel responds, “What do you feel now that I’m soft clay in your hands, Michael?” “Joy,” he said. “Pure joy.”
All along, Michael proves that it’s about him from the beginning. When God says, “I am the Potter, you are the clay,”, Michael forgets that verse applies to himself as well. He plays the role of God, and Angel is his victim. If this is the relationship of God and his Church, then Angel is entitled to and SHOULD run far, far away and the further the better.
In the end, Angel does run one last time. Because “Michael has never done a wrong thing in his life”. Because she still internalizes herself as worthless because she cannot give Michael a child. So, she leaves once more. For the first time, Michael lets her go and does not pursue her because God told him not to so Angel could learn to love God instead.
And after bringing the downfall of her original trafficker, Angel winds up at a wonderful convent of fellow survivors and spends two years with them helping lead other women out of trafficking. IF the book had ended with this healing journey, it would have been perfect!
Unfortunately, Paul, who is now married to Miriam (she was only seventeen at the time), finds Angel, and only apologizes because she has turned into this “good” person. Not because he truly felt remorse for his actions. Regardless, he tells her Michael has been waiting for her for the past two years.
Stunned, Angel returns to the farm. She idolizes Michael and his loyalty and faithfulness to her. And believes she has nothing to offer other than her body. So, she embarks on a “striptease” which the audience is supposed to interpret as “beautiful and meaningful”. One by one, she sheds her clothing, calling out Michael’s praises, while he stands in the field and watches her. She finally ends with giving him her true name: Sarah, who ironically was a Biblical figure whose husband gave her to a foreign king to be raped.
Why couldn’t she give Michael her true name as a gift WITHOUT resorting to this cringe-worthy striptease scenario? Why does it have to be about her sexuality all over again and not her humanity and identity?
After, he covers her with his coat, takes her inside, and they make passionate love. The conclusion is years later where Michael is playing with his child and Sarah/Angel has a full, pregnant belly.
PROSPERITY SEX GOSPEL: Along with Purity Culture, this conclusion emphasizes the Prosperity Sex Gospel. They are intertwined: The promise suggests that God has an erotic future with a hot spouse planned for those who devoutly follow His rules, primarily if they abstain from premarital copulating.
Or like Angel…if women conform to Michael’s way of life, throw off the oppression of their trauma, internalize themselves as having no worth other than becoming the submissive, obedient, hard-working housewife pleasing their husband, and having children.
Meanwhile, men internalize a woman’s worth as caught up in her beauty and body, in how she services and pleases him, in what he can gain from her with little to no sacrifice on his part, and in the end, they get a chaste and gorgeous woman who will meet all their sexual and labor needs.
Even the spotlight of the Redeeming Love book cover is cast upon Angel’s sexualized body dressed in a scarlet red dress (reminiscent of the Scarlet Letter), and not on her face.
This does not help women. This does not help men. This does not help trafficking/abuse victims or trauma survivors.
HOW TO HELP TRAUMA SURVIVORS:
Listen: Despite how I was a different abuse survivor, it was not my place or my story to overlap or intrude upon trafficking survivors. Listening and seeking to understand were my first priorities in my training as was emphasized by not only survivors but advocates, intervention workers, supporters, trained police, and others.
Research: Do the work. Educate yourself. Perhaps the most important way to learn about a survivor is to understand their trauma, how abuse impacts behavior, how healing is a lifelong process, how even the smallest of responses can be trauma-induced. One survivor during my training expressed how, even after she was married to a good man with three children, she felt the need to hide grocery receipts if she had gone over-budget. This was a trauma response bred out of fear from her days in exploitation.
Affirm: Never negate a survivor’s voice. Don’t accuse them of being overdramatic or too emotional or sensitive. Gaslighting is a prominent technique of abusers and traffickers. It has no place in a loving and healthy relationship built on a foundation of unconditional love.
Say Her Name: Her real name. Her chosen name. Look at her eyes and not her body. And when you look at her body, don’t focus on her physical attributes but rather on her heart and humanity.
Support Survivor-Led Organizations: Like the convent where Angel ended up, there are many organizations in dire need of help and support. I have listed these in multiple blog posts as well as on my website. Women At Risk, Int. and Exodus Cry are two international ones I’ve trained under. Breaking Free is a Twin Cities-based local one.
CONCLUSION:
It doesn’t help trafficking survivors to uphold a fictional portrayal and 90ies cult classic written by a former secular romance author who indeed can write well and does an apt job of portraying the trauma and PTSD a survivor experiences but whose healing journey is wrapped up in a narcissistic man with a savior complex rescuing her. I’ve already written on the damages of this for secular fantasy portrayals.
BETTER BOOKS THAN REDEEMING LOVE:
For those who want some better (not perfect but better) portrayals of the world of sex-trafficking, read the following books:
TRICKS and TRAFFIK By ELLEN HOPKINS
For the foremost authority of writing fictional portrayals of sex-trafficking, look no further than Ellen Hopkins. An author who writes “in verse”, her books speak to the emotive depth of the inner state of trafficking victims and survivors and the damage of trauma and how the words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.
Ironically, this work was inspired by Redeeming Love, but it is far superior and a modern rendition to the original novel, featuring a gritty and determined young woman named Sawyer, who has lived through far too much trauma than she should have. In this New Adult Romantic Suspense, the male characters do a far better job of seeking to understand Sawyer and prioritizing her pleasure while showcasing Sawyer’s agency and autonomy than Redeeming Love ever has.
THE UNCAGED SERIES By EMILY SHORE
Yes, I am listing mine. Again, it is NOT perfect. I had not fully deconstructed when I wrote the Uncaged Series. It is a byproduct of its time and the years of anti-trafficking knowledge I possessed at the time. If I had my way, I would revise this work heavily. However, I still see pieces of my inner heart and empathy as I read my past work: of how overcoming trauma was still the theme along with redemption.
In the third and fourth book of my series, I portray a former exploiter male who sets a course to love a trafficking victim named Bliss. Unlike Michael, Luc works to deconstruct his past, processes his own toxicity and education, chooses to protect her and meet her where she is, listens to his brother who challenges him to “love her without lusting for her” and to treat her like a “human and not a conquest”, affirms her value and the value of every other girl, and proves he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for her.
OTHER REDEEMING LOVE CRITIQUES: Please find the following links:
MOVIE:
The Daily Beast:
BOOK:
Christian Fiction Kidnapping and Sex Trafficking Edition
Shariall Blog; Redeeming Love Book Review
Love/Joy/Feminism: A Voice in the Wind