The Dirty-Minded Christian
How to Clean Up Your Thoughts with the Adapt² Principle
The Dirty-Minded Christian is a self-help book for the spiritually minded that offers healthy and appropriate tools for personal change.
The Dirty-Minded Christian from Kirk and Linda Thomas pairs mindfulness and pop psychology with evangelical Christian teachings, resulting in a warmhearted self-help book.
The book draws from the authors’ ADAPT² system—an acronym for Attitude, Discipline, Action, Patience, Training, and Trust—to encourage ending negative thinking and harmful self-talk to instead focus one’s energy on embracing more biblical ideas.
Concentrating on its core ADAPT² ideas, the book employs biblical notions, references, and illustrations to build its case for change. For example, it draws from Ephesians to discuss being “made new” and mixes lines from Proverbs with a mindful call for patience. Each idea is described in a sermon-like style, bolstered by scriptural references and personal anecdotes.
Writing reflects both authors’ voices, with the Thomases taking turns narrating sections. Each author explores their own struggles, such as gambling and depression, and shows how the ADAPT² system helped them refocus their lives, priorities, and dreams. The couple’s struggles are paired with a deep sense of reliance on God.
The book’s style is light and punchy, reminiscent of a blog. Each chapter is broken up into bite-sized sections, often set apart with quirky headlines and framed with real-world or pop-culture references. For example, a chapter on attitude includes such topics as “baggage is meant for vacation” and “make self talk your BFF.” Other chapters include fictional Q&As, bulleted lists, and cartoons. Taken together, the material is easy to understand and very approachable.
In addition to this light material, the book employs psychological studies and references popular psychology books like Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. At one point, it references an Associated Press poll to show the United States is an impatient nation. Such references are interesting but simplistic, functioning more as sermon illustrations than psychological proofs. This book is as much about soul cleansing as it is a work of self-help.
Structurally, ADAPT² functions as an effective memory device to help refocus a believer’s efforts and life choices, and its principles can be easily put into practice. The book makes a convincing argument that virtues like patience and discipline can be treated as life techniques and that practicing them can lead to great personal changes or help with handling challenges, including depression and divorce.
The Dirty-Minded Christian is a self-help book for the spiritually minded that offers healthy and appropriate tools for personal change.
Reviewed by
Jeremiah Rood
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
