Valerie Tarico was raised in a staunch fundamentalist family, attended Wheaton College, where the Billy Graham Center houses a museum dedicated to the history of Evangelism in North America. She obtained a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa before completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington. She subsequently joined the staff of Children's Hospital Medical Center, Seattle and ran Children's Behavior and Learning Clinic in Bellevue, Washington, before moving on to a private clinic.

For years Valerie maintained a psychotherapy practice and practiced "don't ask, don't tell" about matters of faith. But as it became clear that George Bush and Evangelicals were opening a public conversation about Christianity, she decided to join the fray. She shrunk her practice and began writing and speaking about fundamentalism, American style. She currently writes for exChristian.net and hosts a monthly series on Moral Politics Television in Seattle.

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Product Description

Most Evangelical Christians earnestly strive to worship the God of Love and Truth. But a belief that the Bible is literally perfect puts them in the odd position of defending falsehood, bigotry and even violence. What do Evangelicals teach? How are these teachings distorted? How do they contradict humanity's shared moral core, including the highest values of Christianity itself? Psychologist Valerie Tarico is an ex-fundamentalist and a graduate of Wheaton College, bastion of Evangelical education. As a young adult, secure in the confidence that "all truth is God's truth," Dr. Tarico committed to follow her questions wherever they might lead. Ultimately they led her out of Evangelicalism. Tarico's book, The Dark Side, examines the moral and rational contradictions that caused her to abandon those beliefs that once structured her life. In their place it offers perspectives that are compatible with love, logic, and the quest for truth.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #255896 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-17
• Released on: 2006-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 284 pages

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Customer Reviews

Amatuer theology that simply preaches to the choir
"The Dark Side", by Valerie Tarico, presents itself as an attack against extremist elements of Christianity. Yet while this endeavor is a noble one, the cause is hijacked and Tarico's book ultimately becomes an attack against Christianity as a whole. This proves to be a grand mistake for the author's case, for "by throwing the baby out with the bathwater" she reveals her ignorance in regards to early Church history, understanding, and theology, as well as the true issues facing modern Christianity.

My first problem was how she refers to modern Christians as "orthodox" Christians; she constantly interchanges the terms orthodox, fundamentalist, and evangelical. Any one who is a true Orthodox Christian, or belongs to the eastern Church, would most likely take great offense to that. To us, the majority of modern Christian denominations are about as close to original Christian thought as fundamentalist Muslim terrorists are to the hadiths and sunnah. The reason Orthodox Christians label themselves as such and those like Benny Hinn do not is because Orthodox Christians retain the tradition of the early Church, going to tradition right up to Pentecost, while men such as Benny Hinn take Christianity and distort it for their own personal use, deviating away from the original scripture and customs. There is very little mention of the eastern Church, except for a casual mention on page 34 and page 56, and then it is only fleeting.

Once she gets started attacking early church history, she reveals her true ignorance, and displays some deceit as she plays with the facts:

"Competing interpretations of Christianity flourished during the first centuries of the Christian Era. Both Arianism and Gnosticism had particularly widespread followings...

...To combat such beliefs, the Council of Nicea established the doctrine of the trinity and then drafted a creed to be recited by believers, specifically asserting that Christ was equal with God...

...Once an Orthodoxy became established, communities of believers that disagreed with this orthodoxy were persecuted and their sacred texts destroyed. As a consequence, much of the rich early history of Jesus worship is lost. More than twenty gospels were produced during the first three centuries of Christianity. Many were systematically purged by believers who held the dominant views..." (pg 46-47)


This is a major distortion of what the councils truly were. The creed and doctrines decided at the councils had existed in the church years before, and years after, the council had been held. Besides, to defend the Gnostic gospels, Tarico suggests they are just or more than credible as the Gospels we know today, which reveals she has never read the Gnostic gospels. A woman who wonders how Jesus could have healed people would probably be just as credulous reading a Gospel where newborns speak like adults, packs of dragons pop out of caves, and clay animals come alive. Tarico places all of the heretical teachings alongside the true gospels, treating them all as equal in authority or legitimacy despite Church tradition and historical evidence that suggests otherwise.

It should also be noted that Tarico toys with history here. She claims that the believers in the Gnostic gospels were "systematically persecuted", then in a footnote states that the first crusade against fellow Christians took place in the 14th century AD...about 1100 years after the First Ecumenical Council. By then the Eastern Schism had occurred, and the First Ecumenical Council had for the western Church become irrelevant. Her statement that people were persecuted "once" the orthodoxy had been established is therefore misleading.

The "contradictions" Tarico speaks of are often not contradictions at all, but her own poor grasp of Biblical texts. For example, on page 56 she says that Jesus contradicts himself by telling people not to call people fools (Matthew 5:22) and then turns around and calls people fools (Matthew 7:26, 23:17; Luke 24:25). She admits in a footnote that moros, the Greek word translated as "fool", is used in Matthew 5:22 and 23:17, while in other passages he uses a stronger word translated as "fool" (although she incorrectly says the word is moras, which is used only twice in the New Testament and both in Epistles). The passage to deviate from moros is Luke 24:25, which uses anoetos, a word that stems from another word meaning "to comprehend", and simply signifies an unwise person. However, Tarico deceives herself by interpreting Jesus words to mean that simply saying the word "fool" condemns one to Hell. Matthew 7:26, for example, leads into the parable of the man who built his house on sand, meaning that Jesus is simply comparing lack of faith to foolish behavior. The verse commanding a person not to call a brother a fool is in fact commanding someone not to spiritually judge a brother, or let hate build in your heart. The verse before speaks of killing your brother, and the verse after commands that if you are going to the alter with hate in your heart, then you are to leave at once, reconcile with your brother, and return.

This is one of the great hypocrisies of this book: Tarico condemns the sola scriptura of Protestant thought, then condemns the Bible through her own sola scriptura. She interprets Bible passages the way she wants to interpret it, as a flawed book full of human errors. She takes single passages and distorts their original meanings, ignoring the context of the full chapter and fails to consider the thoughts of the Church fathers or how ancient Christianity viewed these documents. Upon reading a passage or hearing of a contradiction she immediately jumps to conclusions and leaves it at that.

I could write an entire book on how she distorts contradictions and scriptural meanings, but I will give one more example for the sake of time. On page 61 she says that Jesus claimed when He died all men would be drawn to Him, (John 12:32) and that His prophecy is therefore false since there are millions who are not Christian. Tarico would do well to read the study of scripture by the Church fathers: both Chrysostom and Theophylact stated that Jesus' message here is that all men were open to his message, not that once he died all men would automatically become Christians. Keep in mind the passages before it (which Tarico "forgets" to cite) has Jesus explaining that judgment will come across the entire world, and the passage immediately following says that the importance here is Jesus hinting at the way he was to die (ie "lifted up from the earth" meaning crucifixion).

Tarico actually responds to the idea that much of this is metaphor or figure of speech on page 54:

"Many oddities are explained, even by biblical literalists, as figures of speech...the figure of speech argument doesn't work, though. When an author uses a metaphor, he or she understands that it does not represent reality. So do his or her readers. Authors, even fallible, human ones, take care not to use figures of speech that readers will mistake for non-figurative speech. Yet this is what happens with the Bible. For centuries, virtually everyone regarded these passages as literal...Would an all-knowing God dictate metaphors that he (sic) knew people would interpret as the truth?"


Here I wonder if she truly has read any of the New Testament. Jesus Christ Himself uses a slew of parables in nearly every chapter to explain a point, many of them without explanations because the point was obvious. Some of them have been misinterpreted, as have other stories from the Bible. Would God dictate metaphors He knew people would misinterpret? God does not control us - He gives us free will, and gives us the chance to seek knowledge and truth. As the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, "Just as we don't want any dictators on Earth, so we don't want any dictators in the Kingdom of Heaven." Those like Tarico whose hearts are hard or refuse to dig deeper to find the meaning of scripture cannot be helped.

"The Dark Side" could have been an excellent critique of the distortion of Christian scripture over the past few centuries, but instead it becomes a sad and desperate attempt to attack scripture. As I stated before, Valerie Tarico is a fine example of those faithful who "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and instead of discovering her heritage or reading deeper into history seeks to destroy an entire religion because one denomination didn't fit her. No one will really agree with Tarico except those atheists or agnostics who already share her beliefs.

Excellent book...
In this book Valerie Tarico successfully and effectively argues why all "Godly" religions are products of the imagination. The book is broken down into easy to read sections. While she focuses on evangelical Christianity, many of her arguments can be extended into other religions as well. This is not my main topic of interest, but the book captured my interest. Of course, those who believe in fairy tales will continue to do so, despite sound reasoning to the contrary, and probably won't even read the book. Such is life.

Agenda Alert! Agenda Alert!
Let me start out by saying that this is actually a very well written book. Her points are concisely written in small, easily digestible chapters, and they are easy to follow. Her ideas even follow a logical order that keeps you in sync with her thought processes and the language is simple, yet concise. I also happen to agree with a lot of what she says. Her indictment of Evangelicals is spot on. Having met and befriended various Evangelicals myself, I found myself coming to the same conclusions as the author. I even toyed around with becoming an Evangelical myself and eventually decided that it was not for me pretty much for the same reasons as the author. Even her questions concerning general Christianity itself were questions that occurred to me as well. Like what kind of person could be truly happy in Heaven while others are agonizing for eternity in Hell?

With all that said, why would this not be a 5-star review? For one thing, she has a tendency to over-generalize. All Evangelicals are depicted as clones of the most outrageous amongst them. Though she does make some attempt to differentiate the behavior of other Christian sects, ultimately she lumps them in with the Evangelical lot as well. The usual references are made to the sordid history of Christianity over the years and the wars, crusades, and inquisitions that resulted. Yes, these historical events are true, but no effort is made to explain the context in which they occurred nor how they are relevant to today's Christians. She even suggests that the war in Iraq is a 'Christian war', I guess because she sees our Evangelical president having started it. Wasn't that war effort approved by Congress? Aren't there non-Christians in this country who support the war as well as Christians who oppose it? Can a Christian president start a war, even if it is in the best interests of the country, without being accused of 'Christian aggression'?

She also tends to use Christian hypocrisy as an indictment of their beliefs. The trouble with this is that hypocrites are not necessarily wrong in their beliefs. They just don't follow them very well. For example, let's say that I smoked cigarettes. Now I tell you that you should never start smoking as it is a very bad habit. That would make me a hypocrite since I myself smoke, though my advice about not smoking would still be good advice. Christian beliefs are similar. You can always find Christians (or at least those who claim to be Christian) who fall short of their own Christian values. That does not mean that those values are bad. The danger of using the 'hypocrite defense' is that it eventually erodes all moral behavior over time. As long as you can find a 'hypocrite', you can do anything you want until nothing, even civil behavior, is sacred.

Ultimately, what bothered me most about this book, was that I sensed an agenda being formulated. It's funny how Atheism can be shaped to support feminist goals and socialized governance. The bible's 'silence' on abortion somehow turns into tacit approval of it. Christian charity is seen as motivated by the desire to evangelize amongst the poor while social programs, where you get to force your social agenda on the tax-paying public, are somehow honorable. I suppose if Christian charity were 'more honorable' then they could garner church donations from the tax-roll too? Probably not. My guess is that the author became an Atheist more to align her feminist and socialist agenda with her beliefs than because of any real concern about Christian ethics.

Still, this book is useful in understanding this particular point of view. Evangelicalism is presented pretty accurately, though a tad bit 'over-hyped'. Her knowledge of Christianity is thorough. You can tell she is no fraud on this matter. Just prepare yourself for some Christian fear-mongering (this is what the left does while they accuse the right of Muslim fear-mongering) and keep an open mind. It is a worthy read though with some valid points - 3 stars.