2021: The Biggest Year on the Blog.

What a year it was! The Great Sex Rescue was published in March. I had to wade through a lot of criticism and lawsuit threats and the discouragement that the Christian establishment didn’t seem to care about the harm they were doing.

But I also had such tremendous encouragement from everybody who read the book and said: This is what we need! This is so validating. I feel like someone sees me.

And I think the conversation about sex in the evangelical church actually is changing!

At the end of the year I often link to the 10 biggest posts on the blog in terms of traffic, but this year I thought I’d do something different. Sometimes Google sends me tons of traffic to posts that I think are kind of boring, so I thought this year I’d highlight the posts that garnered the most comments, both here and on social media. These were the most talked about posts of 2021!

So here we go! Let’s count out way to #1:

#10

10 Toxic Beliefs about Sex that Aren’t So Fringe

Readers send me links to interesting articles all the time, and one of the articles that was sent to me most often over the last year was one on a very fringe and toxic blog about sex. I didn’t want to link to the blog, because it is fringe and it’s just plain evil, but what got me about this particular post was that the toxic beliefs that he was spreading are actually not as fringe as we may think.

And in this post I show how each of his ten points are actually echoed in many of our evangelical bestsellers.

#9

Keith’s Disgusted with How Some “Christian” Men Talk about Women

Two of our most talked about posts this year were actually written by my husband–and here’s the first! I’m so glad that he’s chiming in a lot more lately, and I love that you all find it interesting, too.

Keith’s been interacting a lot more on social media and seeing how actually misogynistic so many supposed “Christian” men are–or at least how many true misogynists use Bible verses to justify how they talk about women. And he was just utterly disgusted, and he wanted to write about it.

#8

Compassion for Anna Duggar–and How We Judge Success in Marriage

I wrote this when the news of Josh Duggar’s arrest for possession of child sexual abuse material hit, but before the trial and the guilty verdict.

So often we feel a “successful” marriage is one that lasts no matter what. But is that the proper measure of success? What if what God really wants is people looking more and more like Jesus, and what if, by staying in a marriage, you could be enabling bad behavior? I’m afraid so much of the advice given to women about marriage, especially in very conservative church circles, actually works directly against people looking like Jesus. See what you think!

#7

4 Characteristics of Sexually Confident Men

Keith joins us again to talk about what it means for a man to be sexually confident. Love this one!

#6

My Take on the Josh Duggar Verdict: Amnon and Tamar Replayed

I wrote this one just last month when the Josh Duggar guilty verdict came down. To me, it seemed like the Amnon and Tamar story replayed from the Old Testament–a brother abuses a sister; he experiences few repercussions, while she isn’t defended; and it leads to catastrophe years later with ripples that affect so many.

We need to take sexual abuse seriously the first time it happens.

#5

How Do You Feel About Giving Sexual Favors Postpartum?

So much of our Christian advice about sex focuses on making sure that our husbands get enough sex, rather than making sure that she feels comfortable and honored. Nowhere is this more evident than the advice given around postpartum sexual favors.

I wrote about this several times last year, and this one got the most comments! And our podcast that Rebecca and I actually recorded while she was postpartum (you can even hear little Vivian cooing a bit!) got a ton of comments too. 

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#4

Elisabeth Elliot’s Courtship Revisited–and Dating Men “Sold Out for Jesus”

I didn’t realize what a firestorm this one would cause! We’re working on our mother-daughter book right now, and so I’ve been reading a bunch of evangelical books about dating aimed at young women, and one of those was Passion & Purity by Elisabeth Elliot. As I read it, I saw a lot of really scary things about her courtship. This was not a relationship that we should be holding up as an example. See what you think!

#3

Why I’m Not Trying to Cancel Other Authors

Our next two big posts relate to some of the criticism that we’ve been getting after writing The Great Sex Rescue. I often get very similar critiques, and I thought writing a definitive post about it would be helpful, so that I could just send people to it. But I am not trying to cancel other authors; I simply feel that we have to call out that which is harmful if we are going to minister to those who are hurting and who feel pushed out of the church because of the way that we are talking about marriage and sex.

It’s important to understand, when we’re talking about some of these critiques, that the victim in this scenario is not the authors who are being critiqued; it’s not me who is being critiqued; it’s the people who have been harmed. They need to be the priority. So read all about this–and about Uncle Joe. 

#2

I Have Become “She Who Must Not Be Named”

I was quite surprised that this post had the reaction it did–but also rather encouraged. The last few months of 2021 were harder for me than the first ones, even than the threats we got when The Great Sex Rescue was published. And a large part of why it was difficult was that someone I had considered a friend and ally proved himself to be neither. Here’s the story (and thanks for your support!)

#1

Emerson Eggerichs Gaslighting Abuse Victims in a Sermon Series

For several years my posts featuring Emerson Eggerichs have always been #1! In 2020 it was our Open Letter to Focus on the Family about Emerson Eggerichs and Love & Respect. In 2019 it was our post on how Love & Respect handled sex (the post that started us on the road to writing The Great Sex Rescue). And now this year it’s a post that my son-in-law Connor actually wrote, as he analyzed the two videos of a sermon series Emerson Eggerichs gave at Houston’s First Baptist Church.

Take a look at these video clips!

So that’s what you all were talking about and focusing on last year!

I wrote a bunch of posts that I think actually taught some really useful things, about sexual confidence; direct communication; emotional maturity; and more. I’ll share those tomorrow to make sure you didn’t miss anything!

But the things that get talked about? They’re rarely the teaching posts, and they’re more often the cultural commentary and church commentary posts. I think I’ve largely become a place where people can go and feel safe when they want to talk about these issues and they feel that their church community is ignoring them. When I do write a commentary post, everything flows out!

So go through some rabbit trails and check out these posts–and be sure to read the comments, too! Often the best part is the comments section, and these ones all have great comments!

Let me know–which post was your favourite in 2021? Or was there something that I wrote that you thought should have made the list? Let’s talk in the comments!