Dear John Gray: Christian relationship coach Tony Gaskins is promoting faithfulness among men
Article By Donald Harris // Marriage & Relationships // EEW Magazine
As the Christian community is left reeling from news that Pastor John Gray of Relentless Church publicly promoted fidelity while privately cheating on his wife, a Christian relationship expert is being vocal about the need for faithfulness, honesty, and integrity among men.
Popular Christian coach and best-selling author, Tony Gaskins, condemned the phony façade of perfection, and challenged men to really step up.
While promoting his new release, Make It Work: 22 Time-Tested, Real-Life Lessons for Sustaining a Healthy, Happy Relationship, the husband of nearly 12 years suggested that cheaters stop “trying to look like the knight in shining armor,” only to get “exposed later.”
He shared these thoughts during an interview with The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1 FM.
Gaskins, whose book is currently Amazon’s #1 best-selling new release, told hosts DJ Envy, Charlamagne tha God, and Angela Yee, “I was telling guys, stop calling your woman your rib, but then treating her like your pinky toe, or like your heel,” meaning stop “stomping on her head [and] walking on her.”
It makes no sense to claim to love someone you consistently mistreat and hurt.
During Lakewood Church’s associate pastor’s highly controversial appearance on a talk show called Sister Circle, he said of his wife, Aventer Gray, “My wife has endured more pain birthing me than both of our children. She has sacrificed these last eight years, uncovering the painful areas of my manhood, and covering the areas that could have exposed me. She deserves anything I could give her.”
John and Aventer Gray stop to pose for a photo with a fan at Essence Fest (Credit: Paras Griffin/Getty )
Though Gray gifted his wife and first lady with a $200,000 Lamborghini, Gaskins suggested some even greater gifts that money can’t buy: good character, integrity, and a private life that matches one’s public persona.
“Stop calling your woman your rib, but then treating her like your pinky toe, or your heel.”
According to Gaskins, to fake happiness and wholesomeness is to “set yourself up for failure.”
He said, “Don’t come out here promoting love and pushing love, and you know that you’re not living right, and then you get exposed at the highest level, and then everybody loses faith in love.”
Tony Gaskins poses for a picture with the crew from The Breakfast Club (Left to Right: Charlamagne tha God, Tony Gaskins, Angela Yee, DJ Envy")
While some may excuse a leader’s sinful, toxic patterns of behavior, and separate the message from the messenger, Gaskins is not one of them. He said on air, “The messenger is the message. I believe that.”
He believes it so much, the international speaker, whose tours sell out around the world, said, “I tell people, if you can find somebody [other than my wife] sleeping with me, I’ll give you ten million dollars... I live what I teach. I wish they would give me a camera twenty-four hours a day. I pride myself on being who I am in the dark when nobody’s looking, living that lifestyle.”
The self-proclaimed student of love, whose social media posts frequently go viral, admitted to gleaning wisdom from the missteps of leaders like Gray.
“When other men fall, I take a lesson from it, and I see how eventually, what’s done in the dark, comes to the light, and you’ll be exposed,” he said.
Truer words were never spoken.
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