The 30-Day Faith Detox, by Laura Harris Smith

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Chosen Books in exchange for an honest review.]

It is difficult to take this book seriously, the way that the author seems to feel that no matter what she is talking about, whether bad poetry or overhyped recipes on some kind of fad color diet, or her misguided thoughts on the nature of the problem that afflicted Paul or her own quirky interpretations of the health and prosperity gospel, all of which are ridiculous, or the way that she goes more than 40 pages into the book before she quotes scripture at all and feels comfortable making taking the scripture out of context and making it a mere pretext for her teachings. Given the fact that this book consists of so many laughably bad elements thrown together, where the best part is probably the short recipe book in the back, which takes advantage of certain chemicals to affect body systems (like the supposed effect of coffee beans on the endocrine system to hype up one’s adrenal glands with an overload of caffeine, among the most troublesome). That is not even to get into her awkward prayers, such as the following: “Lord, I want to be “unstuck.” I want to go somewhere new! I receive what You have for me. All of it! Heal me of the feelings of failure, embarrassment, jealousy, despair and anger I sometimes battle. You are my Provider! You have established specific plans to use and prosper me! I trust you to take me somewhere, God. Here we go! In Jesus’ name, Amen (115).” Much of this author’s embarrassment would be alleviated if she did not beclown herself by writing embarrassing books like this one, which reads like the cross of a part-time preacher who likes to meddle too much and has a poor theological background that blames people for their misfortune and trouble while simultaneously preaching a faddish version of the color diet that condemns the eating of food that God commands to be received with thanks, while promoting the idea that mangoes are somehow good for kidney health, among many other weird theories.

In terms of its structure and contents, this book comes in at slightly over 250 pages total, including about a dozen pages of somewhat simple smoothie recipes. Sadly, the smoothies are probably the best part of the book, even with their silly names and dubious health benefits. The book opens with a dubious metaphor comparing physics to health, and comparing the nonexistent Trinity of the godhead to the supposed tripartite division of mankind into mind, body, and spirit. The second section of the book prepares the reader to be amazed at the haphazard and scattered nature of this book, which seems to assume that the reader hates vegetables and responds accordingly. The next five sections deal with a six-day (why not a full seven-day week, to make it more biblical?) set of dietary prescriptions that encourage the reader to get rid of social influence toxins, financial toxins, health-related toxins, relationship toxins, and purpose and identity toxins. During the course of these thirty days the author discusses everything from tithing to soul ties to a supposed war on wellness [1] to the author’s love language [2]. According to the author, her biggest language of love is words of affirmation, which means she probably doesn’t want to read this review, and this discussion leads her to speculate erroneously on why women stay with abusive husbands. After this comes a brief chapter for day 31 and the recipes, but this book is a trainwreck long before it reaches its conclusion. Mercifully, the book does not take very long to read, which is almost the only positive thing that can be said for many of its contents.

In reading a book like this, one is tempted to view it as a parody of the ramblings of a charismatic Pentecostal who somehow thinks herself to be an expert on health and the scriptures when she lacks the kind of knowledge to be an expert on anything. This book manages to be spectacularly bad in an unpredictable way, as one does not know what is coming next, aside from the particular patterned organization in every chapter, in that the contents veer from bad exegesis to dubious social commentary to questionable health advice to awkward oversharing about her declining libido after having six kids, to any other number of topics that appear only tangentially related to the subject at hand. This is a book that could have used some strong editing presence to encourage the author to maintain coherence and avoid alienating and attacking her audience with sarcasm and nagging. The author simply lacks the credentials and the credibility to carry on in the fashion she does, to the point of indulging her verbal excesses to the extent that this book shows. One does not know whether to harshly critique this book for its many failures, or to pity the author for mistakenly thinking it is a good one that brings glory to God and credit to its author.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/book-review-a-more-excellent-way-to-be-in-health/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/book-review-the-food-and-feasts-of-jesus/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/book-review-hope-and-help-from-a-cancer-survivor/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/book-review-the-5-love-languages/