Have evangelicals abandoned truth?
I’ve been on several dustups on Instagram lately about the same issue. Popular trad wife influencers are creating reels using the false stat that when dads come to Christ first, in 93% of cases the families follow, compared with just 17% for moms.
I did a podcast with Beth Allison Barr and Miranda Zapor Cruz last year completely debunking that stat. Even though it’s widely quoted, there is no such study. Promise Keepers stated this in a workbook in 1996, with no citation, and everyone has just repeated it since. Promise Keepers has never been able to come up with any actual study that this is based on.
And actual studies show that mothers’ and fathers’ influences are roughly similar, with most showing that moms are slightly more influential.
I want to tell you how the conversation around that first reel went, because it’s unsettled me for the last few weeks as I’ve been mulling it over. I think it’s indicative of something concerning, and I’d love your input on how we combat this.
So bear with me as I set the stage!
I left a comment on the reel saying this:
She ended up replying, saying, “here’s the study it came from”.
Note how she said she was linking to a “study”, even though that was merely an article with no actual citations.
Many others chimed in, some saying how the original stat shamed them as single moms, or as moms without involved husbands. Many others called her out for using a “stat” that wasn’t true.
I replied with this:
There is no actual citation to an actual study. There is no academic study that says this. It was claimed in a 1996 Promise Keepers book with no citation. Just Google “myth of the 93%” and dads and the info will come up. It’s also good to learn to recognize the difference between an article claiming something and an actual study!
But then another commenter said this:
that’s actually not true, those percentages are correct. Making negative comments like this is allow the enemy confuses people [sic]. Take the high road and be an encouragement to others and it will also change the posture and lens you look through each day.
Meanwhile, on other threads, someone wrote:
Guys, whether the percentages are accurate or not doesn’t matter. The point is we know that this is true. The man is the priest of the home.
Here’s how the original poster ended it:
praying for our husbands, praying they rise up as the spiritual leaders, seeing the influence they have on our families and kids and knowing the high calling the Lord has placed on them as head over us as women is not why people are leaving the church left and right. People are leaving the church left and right because of hypocrisy. Because the church looks no different than the world. Because so many churches are dead. And a lot of that is because as a culture we have diminished the role of the man in the church.
Please stop all the division on this post.
Most of these women don’t follow me and don’t know my heart behind this. You do. You have for a long time. I’ve messaged with you. This post has already encouraged 10’s of thousands of women to pray for thier husbands and I’m so GRATEFUL for that! I’m not trying to be deceptive in the stat, I’ve seen it lived out all around me. But I also am not taking this post down because this is a call to unite in prayer for our husbands.
So we’re the ones being divisive, even though she is spreading a false stat that is hurting people.
And she won’t take it down because–why exactly? It’s got people praying for their husbands? Like they wouldn’t do that if you shared a REAL stat?
So you have to lie to get women to pray?
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The lying didn’t end there.
In the second reel that surfaced, after being called out repeatedly for using a false stat, the poster ended with this:
the overarching message remains: fathers play a crucial role in guiding their families’ faith journeys. I think the end result we all want is leading our children to the Lord.
So just because it’s untrue doesn’t mean the overarching message doesn’t remain. Except that the overarching message–that fathers matter way more than mothers–is simply untrue. And that matters.
(Again, listen to our podcast on the myth of the 93% if you haven’t already!)
Here’s the other instance of lying:
I was recently in a political conversation with a stranger.
He was doing his devotions out in public where I was sitting, and we got to talking. He told me that a politician that he supported lies all the time, but that this was necessary. The lying didn’t bother him.
I asked him if he saw a disconnect with that, since Jesus aligns Himself with Truth to the extent that He says He is Truth. I asked whether he thought aligning himself with lies was a good witness to the world if we want to represent Christ.
He didn’t say anything after that.
Now, this post is not about politics. It’s about whether Christians care about truth or not.
All of these people were saying that the ends justified the means.
They were delighting in lies because it advanced what they thought the world should be like.
On Instagram, they believed that men should be in leadership of their families. They believed that men are in authority over women. And they could use these made-up stats to justify men being in authority, but also to push men to take more authority and initiative.
It didn’t matter whether these stats were true. It didn’t matter that they were devastating to any single mom who read them. It didn’t matter that they were devastating to any woman whose husband wasn’t stepping up to the plate. No, all that mattered was that their version of the culture wars was promoted.
When we abandon Truth we abandon Christ.
It’s as simple as that.
If you need to lie to advance your cause, your cause is no longer a Christian one.
What do you think? Have you heard people justifying lying to advance Christ? Let’s talk in the comments!
May I get up on a soapbox?
Please?
(Straightens clothes, fixes hair, steps up)
If God is good all the time, and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light, we can and should expect that what the Bible tells us aligns with the reality around us.
Christians make great strides in the world when we plant a counter cultural flag and are proved right. We say X, the world around us an academic studies show that we are right, sometimes decades later.
That is an amazing witness. That is what converts people to faith. They don’t come over because Jill from book club also likes her church group; they come over because they are convinced of the truth of Christianity.
That’s why people are martyrs. That’s why priests have been tortured to death rather than break the seal of confession, and people have been killed rather than renounce Jesus.
People don’t do that over fakery and feel-good lies.
We should have the confidence in our faith to relentlessly follow what is true and trust that the end result leads to God.
Yes, I’ve seen what you’re talking about (I call it the “cult of nice”), and it’s awful. It makes people FEEL good. “We have a problem with fathers not being involved in their children’s lives so maybe this will help!”
Okay, theobros, tell me in small words how that is any different than feminists using the made-up stat about women being abused at insanely high numbers during the Super Bowl. Same idea – it’s made up, has no basis in anything, and is spread around until people believe it.
If we want to have little white lies for faith, what’s to stop anyone else in the world from spreading comforting white lies to undermine us?
Aren’t we better off standing on a foundation of truth, letting the chips fall where they may, and being utterly confident that God is in charge of where those chips fall?
Love your soap box, Jane! Thank you!
A fantastic soapbox imo!
“I’m not trying to be deceptive in the stat, I’ve seen it lived out all around me.”
Does it really matter if you are trying to be deceptive or not if you ultimately ARE being deceptive? if your heart is in the right place, if you truy want to live out truth that God IS, then LIVE OUT TRUTH! Set an example of how to accept correction with the grace and humble heart that Jesus had. (I think the one thing I’d have liked for Jesus to do that wasn’t done was be wrong some so that His example would be more concrete, but that’s getting off topic and opening a potential can of worms.)
For the people that read their words and see that they ultimately ARE deceptive and wrong, they DO lie, and they are NOT humble, they demonstrate they are going against their own belief that “they” are set apart from the world. If as a non-Christian I was to see someone claiming to know Christ and cliaming that His people are honest and humble then see their lies- whether intended or not- I am absolutely going to avoid them and the “Jesus” they are trying to sell me. They are selling a “product” they themselves are not willing to “use.”
Exactly, Nesslie!
Baffling. Just so baffling. We “say” we believe. We “say” we know Jesus. We “say” we would not take the mark. We “say” John 3:16 as our pledge. I have encountered this same frustration in reporting a heinous abuse of a child in their care. The Christians to whom it was reported concealed evidence. Because a conversation started with “Jesus told me…” I inquired if Jesus mattered or not, to which they responded, “Of course, He does.” I followed up with, “Isn’t Jesus Truth? If you’re denying Jesus, then aren’t you denying the Truth in this situation?” Cannot believe the word salad response mixed with Scriptural “support,” Matthew 18, and God told them. I am starting to see why the road is so narrow and the gate is so small. The epidemic of social media is the unveiling of continued dis- and mis-information at the expense of many. It is becoming nearly impossible to trust Christian women who promote complementarianism, the ARTICLES which support it, and the pastors and men who perpetuate it. You are trying, Sheila, to sound the horn to these young trad wives, and their ears are plugged, and there are scales on their eyes. Unfortunately, and quite painfully, they will have to learn the lesson the hard way, as many of us have – but your books will be on shelves in the future as they are today. Remember, they hated Him first and persecuted Him, driven by that hatred. The world of this sort of purity culture, complementarian, trad wife Christianity today is not our world, and that world hates being confronted with Truth.
Thanks, Max!
I do think there’s a lot of pain among the women promoting this stuff. They desperately want their husbands to step up to the plate, and their husbands aren’t, so they spread this false stat, hoping it motivates the men.
And it’s like: honey, you’re in a bad marriage to a bad guy. But they can’t admit that, so they’d rather spread false stats and lie to keep the facade going.