One of life’s greatest challenges is learning to deal with people who are draining, unsupportive, difficult, and adversarial; with people who are bent on systematically diminishing—and even finally destroying—your inner life. And, given the teeming ecosystem of toxic people laid before us in history and public life, how can we go about identifying the archetypal [ Read More ]
Now that we have explored the concept of toxicity and delved into how we can identify people who are toxic to us, we can explore the concept theologically, employing biblical-theological categories to understand the phenomenon and to craft a faithfully Christian posture toward toxic people. As Gary Thomas writes in When to Walk Away, Scripture [ Read More ]
Author Robert Tew once wrote, “Don’t let negative and toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and kick them out.” And he’s right; his modern proverb expresses well the way Jesus and other biblical exemplars such as Nehemiah treated toxic people. Thus, the first installment of this series focused briefly on the [ Read More ]
Does somebody in your life continually and intentionally distract you from who you need to be and what you need to do? Can you identify people who—whether in-person or on social media—seem to enjoy pestering you, guilt-tripping you, and manipulating your emotions. If so, you might be dealing with a toxic person (TP)—a person who [ Read More ]
One of life’s greatest challenges is learning to deal with people who are draining, unsupportive, difficult, and adversarial; with people who are bent on systematically diminishing and finally destroying your inner life. In this series of posts, I will talk about how to identify and respond to the words and actions of such toxic persons. [ Read More ]