PODCAST: Let’s Revisit the Logical Inconsistencies of Unconditional Respect

by | Jul 7, 2022 | Abuse, Marriage, Podcasts, Resolving Conflict | 9 comments

Unconditional Respect in Marriage Podcast

Unconditional respect isn’t a thing.

And yet we’re often told that men need unconditional respect, just like women need unconditional love.

It’s summertime, so I’m taking a month off of recording new podcasts, and instead I’m going to highlight some of my favourites from over a year ago, and rerun them. We’ll be back in August with an awesome lineup of all new podcasts!

As you all may remember, in December we passed 1,000,000 downloads of the Bare Marriage podcast, and we’re still going strong. I have a lot of new listeners who may not have heard some of the podcasts from a while ago, and so we picked out four to rerun.

And the first one that I wanted to highlight was our podcast looking deeply into unconditional respect–why it wasn’t logical; why it wasn’t biblical; and why the whole idea was actually based on poorly done research.

You can watch the original YouTube video of the podcast here:

And get all the links and the original commentary from it right here!

We’ve also had a number of other podcasts where we’ve been the guest land recently.

I just want to highlight a few of them!

The New Evangelicals–talking about Minding the Gap

Keith and I were on The New Evangelicals, talking about our findings on men, especially men and porn. It was an interesting conversation, because the audience is far less conservative than we’re used to, so we had to make a case for why porn was bad. And we did!

Outgrowing the Good Christian Girl

Here’s one I was on a while ago where we focused on the fruit of the bad teachings about sex, and why I left a lot of those teachings behind (even some that I used to teach myself!). Plus we talked a lot about vaginismus, and someone in our Patreon community was asking about podcasts where I talked about vaginismus, so I thought I’d highlight this one again! 

"A groundbreaking look into what true, sacred biblical sexuality is intended to be. A must-read." - Rachael Denhollander

What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?

What if the messages that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these toxic teachings?

It's time for a Great Sex Rescue.

Great Sex Rescue

Don’t miss our piece critiquing the idea that evangelicals automatically have better sex!

Also, recently Tim Keller on Facebook shared Josh Howerton’s article on why evangelicals have better sex–and many sent it to me again. We actually did a thorough critique of his article and his poor representation of the research, and if you haven’t read it  yet, you simply must! 

Please spread this far and wide. Share it on social media. Talk to your friends about it! People are still sharing the original article, and let’s make sure that every time that original is shared, our rebuttal is shared too!

That’s it for today.

I’m taking it easy for the next two weeks, so I’ll be in and out of social media. But have some fun catching up on old podcasts. There may be some really, really old ones you’ve never heard! And we’ve got some great ones planned for the new season starting in August too!

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Sheila Wray Gregoire

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Sheila Wray Gregoire

Author at Bare Marriage

Sheila is determined to help Christians find biblical, healthy, evidence-based help for their marriages. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8

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9 Comments

  1. Noel

    At a 4th of July event last week, I apologized when I realized I had taken a stranger’s seat. His wife brushed it off and said, “It’s ok, he just likes to complain.” To me, this was a lack of respect, but it was a basic lack of respect to him as a person- not as a “lord and master.” I think people sometimes jump on the respect bandwagon as a rubberband reaction to general disrespect. Rather than coming to the middle ground of respecting each other as persons, they over-react in frustration and demand reverence as lords of creation.

    Reply
    • A2bbethany

      That’s something I learned without realizing it until an adult, as a kid. My sister insisted I respect her as my “elder”. Translation? I wasn’t obeying her and she happened to be 4-5 years older. By the time I was married I hated the word respect. It’s really only thrown out when they’re angry at being not obeyed as a dictator. Anyone else usually references the concept of basic human respect, which is almost always expected of adults.

      Reply
  2. Jo R

    Will someone, somewhere, and preferably with a penis, please shout from the rooftops that only HUSBANDS are given commands in the oft-quoted Ephesians 5 marriage passage?

    Women have been driving themselves crazy trying to “obey scripture” that in the original Greek doesn’t contain even ONE command to wives.

    Any takers????

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      I was blown away by Cynthia’s insight into that. Not a single verb in the command case (accusative) to women, but multiple to men. But in the English we begin and end with a command to women, even though it’s not there in the Greek. Just fascinating!

      Reply
      • Jo R

        I do so hate to disagree with you, Sheila 😉, but I’m going to question “fascinating.”

        How about calling the “standard” English translations deceitful, deliberate, fraudulent, disingenuous, deceptive, duplicitous, and just flat-out lying? And historically, who has done the vast bulk of the translation of Scripture? So shall we add self-serving to the list?

        Reply
  3. Mara R

    Thank you for reposting this podcast. I guess I thought I had seen it before (I like watching them on YouTube). But I haven’t.

    I really appreciate what Dr. Westfall said about the original Greek of the love and respect verse that Eggerichs uses to beat the life and spirit out of women.

    And now I know what you mean by “unconditional respect isn’t a thing”. You mean there is no legitimate biblical support for this being used as a command to women. There is no command in the original Greek.

    Cause I always say that unconditional respect is a thing. But it isn’t the thing Eggerichs says that it is.

    (Below link is only for those who haven’t seen this before. It is just about the different levels of respect that I see including the basic unconditional respect that I consider to be a thing, er, though not a biblical command thing.)
    http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2013/07/unconditional-respect.html

    Reply
  4. Healing

    I was listening to an interview between Dr. James Dobson and Dr. Eggerichs. About 8 minutes into the discussion, Dr. Eggerichs actually says, “Women need r-e-s-p-e-c-t and men need l-o-v-e. We believe both need those EQUALLY. The TRUE need is EQUAL. What we’re talking about is the FELT need during conflict that’s different.”

    Say whaaaaat?

    Now, I haven’t read Love & Respect cover to cover (due to the toxicity that I have been informed about) but I don’t recall the caveat that the Love & Respect book was ONLY about the FELT needs during FIGHTS.

    Did I miss something?

    Another thought I had was regarding the translation of Ephesians 5:33. In this podcast, Dr. Cynthia (a Greek Scholar) said that the transition is actually incorrect. She said that the verse SHOULD read “However, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself IN ORDER THAT the wife will respect her husband.” If the Bible was correctly translated in the first place, Dr. Eggerichs wouldn’t have his “shtick” of “unconditional love and unconditional respect” because… the later is actually conditional on the husband’s love of his wife. But again, according to the Dobson/Eggerichs interview mentioned above, Eggerichs claims love and respect are both TRUE NEEDS by both men and women?????

    I still kind of sort of want to read Love & Respect. The fact that it scored a 0/48 on the rubric, yet it is still talked about EVERYWHERE makes me curious WHY this book is regarded so high by churches.

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      Yeah, he definitely does not say it’s only the felt need during fights–or else his acronyms don’t mean anything for love and respect don’t mean anything! So men need hierarchy and authority (part of the CHAIRS acronym) to feel respected–but that has nothing to do with fights. So strange.

      I found Dr. Westfall’s insights fascinating, and so sad at the same time. Imagine how things could be different if people did their job properly!

      Reply

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