Evangelical influencer culture appears to be very pro-spanking
I want to share a story today that I think has deep implications for our work here at Bare Marriage.
Earlier in July, Madison Prewett and her husband Grant Troutt shared on their podcast about their plans to spank their now 6-month-old baby Hosanna when she is older, claiming this will be “hilarious”, and describing how they will pull down her pants to hit her, since the Bible calls parents to use the rod to discipline.
For those who don’t know (and I’m one who didn’t!), Madison Prewett was the runner up on The Bachelor in 2020, and became quite famous that year. She has 1.8 million followers on Instagram. She married a pastor, and together they have had their first child.
Here’s a quick video synopsis of how this is all playing out:
Does it really matter what some instagram influencer says about spanking? I think there’s a bigger trend here we need to pay attention to, and as we come back from our month-long vacation (hello, everybody!), I want to talk about it. I think it sets the stage for some of the things that are coming up on some Bare Marriage podcasts in the next month.
So let’s jump in to the four things that I want us to pay attention to with this story.
1. Young influencers are parrotting the older advice.
Over the last few years, big name authors, and even some big organizations, have started being a little more careful in the advice they give. They aren’t necessarily healthy, but they’re not being as outwardly toxic. I mean, even Focus on the Family is putting disclaimers on its spanking advice, and says it should only be used as a last resort (if at all). This is the same organization that is largely responsible for evangelicals thinking that spanking your kids is part of being a Christian, and if you don’t spank you don’t follow Jesus.
And the books we critique? They’re simply not as influential as they once were. People know about the harm they contain (if someone recommends Love & Respect on social media, the comments section will be filled with how dangerous that advice is!). And even though the bad books are still selling, it appears from an analysis of the ratios of ebooks to physical copies sold that they are mostly being sold as gifts or study books, and may not actually be being read by the recipient. They aren’t being bought on the whole by the people who are going to read them.
And this trend is likely to end when Baby Boomers stop doing so much shopping for young couples getting married!
But here’s the problem: the messages themselves haven’t gone away; they’ve just got a different messenger.
The books aren’t as popular, especially among Gen Z and Millennials; the organizations are being a little more careful. But it seems like everywhere you look on social media there’s a new young evangelical influencer advocating for obligation sex, or explaining how marital rape isn’t a thing. There’s a new Millennial influencer explaining how men need respect and women need love; there’s a new Gen Z influencer arguing the modesty message.
Why?
Quite frankly, many of these influencers became famous and influential not because they’ve got unique ideas, but because they’re attractive, or they managed to figure out the social media algorithm. And so they’ve got hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of eyeballs on them. They’ve got to have content. So what do they share? All the things they’ve been taught over their lives. They share the typical stuff you hear in evangelical circles, because they haven’t done the work to realize if it’s healthy or not. They’re just parrotting what they’ve been taught.
2. Young influencers are making the harmful advice look attractive
Canadian sociologist Marshall McLuhan famously said in the 1960s that “the medium is the message.” What he meant by that was that the way that we consume the message is going to impact that message. TV, for instance, is a passive medium, and relies on sound bites, while newspapers can cover nuance and give a greater amount of information. As news consumption switched from newspapers to television, the medium changed the message. News had to be snappier, more attention grabbing. Things were dumbed down. What we would today call rage bait was born.
Well, the Instagram/influencer media has also changed the message.
When those delivering the message are very good-looking, with perfectly curated lives, they’re not just preaching “men need respect and women need love.” They’re telling teens and young people, “believing that men need respect and women need love is part of being successful like me and having everybody envy you and having an amazing marriage to a good-looking husband.”
It’s making the message look young and hip, because young people are giving it. And it’s making the message look really attractive.
3. Evangelical Influencer Culture allows celebrity culture to replace discernment.
Whether it’s hip pastors with little seminary training, let alone actual education in psychology or emotional health, plagiarizing sermons while donning in tight jeans, or it’s young, unusually attractive celebrities, people are tuning in in huge numbers. And they’re hearing toxic stuff which they make look aspirational, because they’re beautiful and they have their lives together and everything is properly curated.
And how do megachurch pastors get so popular? How do these influencers get popular?
It isn’t from exercising discernment and wisdom. It isn’t from doing research. It’s from figuring out how to deliver a simple message they didn’t have to do any work to think up in a way that people will gravitate to.
It’s about image, rather than substance. And evangelical influencer culture has replaced substance with image. We’ve abandoned discernment and evidence-based advice, and are going based on vibes.
I’m reminded of Matt Chandler’s appearance on the Focus on the Family broadcast a few years ago (Chandler is another one who has no relevant training at all, and not even a seminary degree). He was promoting his book encouraging men to lead family devotions, and made a joke about trying to get through devotions without having to whoop one of your children. So he was joking about whipping a child for wiggling or getting bored during devotions. The male hosts of Focus on the Family laughed too.
Isn’t threatening to whip kids hilarious, after all?
But this is what happens when we’re following influencers not because they’re wise and know what they’re talking about, but simply because they communicate well and they’re popular. We’ve abandoned discernment in favour of celebrity influencers. As one commenter on Facebook said:
First, their unwise, flippant approach to raising their precious child. Second, the fact that one unusually attractive person marries an unusually wealthy person and all of a sudden, people listen to them? Let’s just stop, can we please?
4. The wider culture is seeing that evangelical advice is harmful.
If you go back and watch the video I embedded at the top of the post, you’ll see the outrage that is being discussed in the wider culture about what Prewett and Troutt said.
Here’s the thing: because these teachings are being said by influencers with large social media followings, the toxic stuff is breaking through to the wider society in a way it didn’t before.
Sure Every Man’s Battle said awful and terrible and dehumanizing things about women, and made wives sexual objects, but the truth is that virtually nobody outside of the evangelical bubble had even heard of these books. No one was reading them. No one was talking about them. One of the things that astounds us as researchers is that there’s this whole genre of self-help books, selling in the tens of millions of copies, and peer-reviewed journals have largely ignored the phenomenon (we’re trying to change that!). Researchers aren’t paying attention to the conversations evangelicals have been having about sex and marriage.
When the messages were restricted to books or our own insular organizations (like Focus on the Family), the wider society largely didn’t see them.
But when those same messages are coming out of the mouths of influencers, all of a sudden people are seeing it–and getting appalled. Remember how viral that video went that I shared of Josh Howerton telling women to “stand where he tells you to stand, do what he tells you to do” on his wedding night? I shared that video, and two million people saw it, and lots of big news organizations wrote articles about it.
The culture is seeing that the typical evangelical advice about sex and marriage is incredibly harmful. They’re absolutely gobsmacked that people would say things this insane. Because evangelicals have been living in such a bubble we don’t realize what our teachings sound like when the wider culture hears it. And the wider culture IS hearing it today, and they want nothing to do with it.
In other words:
Celebrity evangelical influencer culture is hindering our witness for Jesus.
It just is. And it needs to stop.
You may also enjoy:
- Download our rubric of how the best-selling evangelical sex & marriage books scored about healthy sexuality
- Check out our Great Sex Rescue toolkit, which gives talking points and stats you can share about all the toxic messages we fight against
- Why my heart breaks for tradwife influencers
What do we do about evangelical influencer culture?
1. Stop feeding evangelical influencer culture
We’ve really struggled with this at Bare Marriage. What do we do when a young influencer, with virtually no education, who isn’t claiming to be an authority in anything, shares an Instagram reel that is so toxic? Do we call her out? On the whole we haven’t, because it seems like bullying. Even though she has a larger platform than we do, it seems like bullying to call out someone who is young who isn’t claiming to be an expert. We try to critique ideas instead, so people will learn how to recognize those ideas when they hear them.
But honestly, the best way to defeat evangelical influencer culture is to stop following influencers who aren’t experts in anything. Like knitting? Follow knitting experts. Like yorkshire terriers? Follow dog accounts. Like refinishing furniture? Follow accounts that teach you how to do that.
But what is the point in following people who are glamorous and that’s all they are?
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being unusually attractive, and there’s nothing wrong with having money and a beautiful house. But why do we think that because someone has money and beauty, they deserve our attention?
I’m constantly getting sent reels and posts from celebrity influencers, with people asking me to call them out, and on the whole I don’t (that bullying problem). But I do give the same advice: unfollow, mute, or block. Just get them out of your algorithm. Stop giving them eyeballs. The more time you spend engaging with their content, even if it’s just rage engaging, the more you’ll feed the algorithm and the social media platforms will show it to others.
2. Keep critiquing harmful ideas
While we can’t call out every single influencer, we do have to keep critiquing harmful ideas, because it seems as if some pockets of Gen Z is almost more likely to believe them now than Gen X.
So keep sharing our stuff, recommending our books. Keep speaking out when a friend shares something toxic. Let’s keep the conversation going!
3. We’ve got to figure out how to change the culture
And this is where I’m hoping for some answers. I’ve got some podcasts coming up in August about this, but how do we engage with young men who are following incel culture? How do we engage with young women following trad wife influencers? How do we help them to ask different questions, to be skeptical?
What do we do? I’m not sure, so I’d love your answers!
Because, as we start a new season here at Bare Marriage, I’m incredibly aware that the task is just as big, but it’s changing. It’s not about books and authors anymore as much as it is about the intersection of toxic ideas and celebrity evangelical culture. So what’s our next step? Let’s talk in the comments!
Start a TikTok! 😀
The underlying result is these influencers and other Christians will think they’re suffering in the name of Christ. It just perpetuates what is believed in the evangelical world. I agree we need to unfollow, block and do what we can to tell the people we know that these issues are wrong. They don’t represent what Jesus taught us from His life , death and resurrection here on earth. The more we can speak out, at least in our small circles, hopefully Christians can see the damaging ideas and others can see Christ in our own lives.
My opinion, these types of people are paid to do these things to actually draw people away from Christ. I believe it’s been happening a long time.
Married 27 years. Together 29. Two children (1 male, 1 female), successfully raised and homeschooled, have become productive members of society and discerning followers of the One, True God. They do not like using the word “Christian” when identifying themselves as a believer; they both feel it places them into a group that is not spiritually mature and discerning, but rather only parrots bad messages of purity culture, submission/duty sex, and Christian Nationalism. My marriage isn’t healthy and is ending as a result of Love & Respect and the sermons of entitlement under which my marriage and children were placed – and NO, it is not my fault for the failed marriage. However, we, the older married group of women, have more to offer than the young influencer married couples ever will – we offer reality, rather than their idealistic view of “happy ever after.” So, this message is for all of the young, “Christian,” married influencers out there: 1) You do not know what you are talking about at all, and because of that, you are profoundly hurting people in your age range and generation. 2) Knowing what you are talking about means you have walked a walk for an extended period of time and collected, together with your spouse, a vast array of experiences and weathered them together in a healthy, functional way. 3) You do not recognize that you have and should exercise discernment. 4) You talk on your podcasts and in social media as if Generation X marriages are failing after 20, 30, or more years because we didn’t listen and embrace the Christian messages and household codes – this, possibly above anything, is highly insulting because what we are now are statistical by-products of those Christian messages. Valid statistics in such books as The Great Sex Rescue, and you refuse to read and acknowledge statistics – statistics that could save both husbands from perpetuating cycles of abuse, but more importantly, wives from decades of abuse. 5) You parrot. Period. The very things you parrot define some to most in your generation – you are unwilling to think for yourselves, you choose the path of least resistance, you want it and you want it now, and you carelessly place your trust in authority figures who write books without citations and valid statistics and plagiarize sermons. 6) In some cases, not all, individuals in your generation are children getting married and playing house, and then children having children. I do not mean to insult you, and I do mean for my words to land gently. But your messages color marriage from a fundamentalist point of view, and it is people my age who know what the direction of your marriages will take and the “who” will suffer most from it in the end – women and children. 7) Young women today are choosing to be alone, and quite honestly, I have more respect for them than I do you, the young Christian married social media influencers. 8) Lastly, you are following a terrible trend, and that is to not do your research for, and by yourselves. If the Love & Respect, Every Man’s Battle, et.al. models are so righteous and good in your eyes, why not challenge your position and take a poll from your podcast audience to see if what you believe should be true? Back in my day, we were taught to respect our elders for every contribution they made and could make to our lives. To Madison Prewett and everyone out there like her, you should really be speaking with women three to four times your age, and they should come from all walks of life. Honey, you are so, so young. Please consider my challenge to you to become discerning and better informed about the messages you are believing and sharing with others – I am trying to fend off a great deal of pain for your future self.
Well said!
This! Especially points 4 and 5. I see so many young influencers saying “The reason so many marriages are failing today is….” And it’s EXACTLY
the same stuff I heard in the 80s and 90s. Identical.
I will be honest having a behavioral psychology degree is a curse because people talk about parenting without punishment and me who knows the definition of punishment being “anything that you do that decreases a behavior” find out that what these people are doing are doing punishment, it just isn’t overtly stuff like spanking but if a kid makes a mess of something or breaks something and is told to clean it up and use their allowance to replace it, that is a form of punishment if it decreases the behavior specifically what is known as overcorrection.
Infact spanking could technically not be punishment if it increases the behavior, but rather reinforcement! Maybe the kid likes the attention or is neurodivergent and sensory seeking.
This means that I have a hard time reading any parenting books or taking them seriously because they never seem to get the true behavioral definition of punishment right! This makes it hard to know what disciplinary action is appropriate or not because some things can be completely benign but be punishment. Even praising a kid could be punishment if it decreases their behavior.
I am glad I am not a parent
Courtney you are speaking my LANGUAGE right now.
Don’t get me started on, “We don’t punish. We use negative reinforcement.” And what they mean is removing privileges, allowing kids to experience natural consequences. Friend, that’s a punishment.
Maybe I’ll have to ask to do a podcast segment on this… 🙂
The culture is actually going back to old ways of parenting. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/fafo-gentle-parenting-625da658?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAjnisQwlK_zBSD_VVSD1vYfVVTXpk4cE7lPCCVYuoj82nYs-8Ms8x3cEiMgBkg%3D&gaa_ts=6890d9dc&gaa_sig=6ulB_VcJwMIAX1QNfE8xVMSXltS0s3gWDLLwCGc1ev4kY-uxQJPui6awRts24c2d7_V9TqVY6hMu2233bDpH2g%3D%3D
Recorded in my baby book that I was first spanked at 10 weeks old.
It didn’t get better after that, and it didn’t make me a better person. It made me a traumatized person.
Oh, Terry, that’s heartbreaking! I can’t imagine.
I think it is helpful if we try to engage people in a non-judgemental discussion. When we feel strongly about an issue, it is easy to speak harshly, but that can actually turn people away. For example, whenever a debate about spanking comes up, there are always comments along the lines of “Oh, so you like abusing your children?” If you are talking to a parent who is spanking their child out of loving concern to raise them ‘right’, because they’ve been taught this is the only way to do it, equating them with people who enjoy abusing kids is never going to win them over! But a comment like “I used to think that was the only way, but when I tried…” or “Have you seen this article that looks at the impacts of spanking?” it is more likely to open up a discussion.
It also helps, if you are handing out child and marriage advice, if your own kids and marriage partner are good examples of your beliefs. When I was in my late teens, we had one family in our church that were very outspoken opponents to spanking, and their kids were the worst behaved in the area. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t win many folk over to their non-smacking views!!!
I’m not sure any amount of discussion would win this couple over though – their evident excitement at the thought of spanking their child is deeply disturbing and they come across as very proud of themselves. I doubt they would listen to anyone. And I fear for the welfare of their baby. I hope someone will keep checking up on that child as she grows.
Life is about trade-offs, and the Gen Z influencers seem to think that they have “hacked” life without trade-offs.
I’m late Gen X, and my grandmothers were adamant that we get an education and know how to support ourselves. Too many women of their generation could not support themselves and put up with philandering or abusive husbands. Then they watched their daughter’s generation scale back in their careers for their husbands, and have their husbands walk out after 20 years of marriage for a woman half their ages.
Gen Z doesn’t see a lot of that. Their parents got married later and their moms ensured that they had a solid backup plan. All they see are the downsides: tired mothers, women who (just like men) are tired of the corporate grind.
Life is roses when you’re 25 and married to a successful guy. Come back to us when you’re 55 and half of your friends are divorced, the husbands have been laid off, and no one listens to you because there have been at least three new batches of 20-somethings since your heyday.
It’s like that joke: “I don’t care what a young fitness influencer says. When I was her age, I walked around in stilettos and ate vodka and ramen, and was hot AF. Show me a fitness influencer who is 51.”
I think you’re right, Jane! Gen Z did see exhausted mothers because they didn’t want to end up like their mothers and grandmothers. So they don’t see what women in previous generations endured. And now the clock is turning back, and it’s scary.
It is scary. I worry a lot for what will become of them when they are 50, especially since so many of them push the attitude that men are only attracted to young, hot things.
I’m a huge proponent of inter-generational friendships and of listening to what the young people have to say. We evolve when the young folks say, “You have always done it this way, but wouldn’t this other way work better?” and given it a try.
But… the problems that these women are going to face in 20+ years! They haven’t discovered something new and revolutionary; they are going back to the way things were for thousands of years that *didn’t work.*
Did my comment get eaten by the internet, or did it go to spam?
It was in Spam! Thanks for leaving this one or I never would have seen it. I’ve let it through now!
Looking forward to the podcast being back!
When you mentioned trying to figure out how we reach people following toxic teaching my first thought was the importance of story. What is so powerful about these teachings is that they offer a compelling story, especially to young people who are unsure of their place in the world. And as they see the story the world offers, and find how destructive it is they are primed a pendulum swing to the damaging stories of toxic religious teaching. Instead we should offer up the good, true, and beautiful stories of true faith in Jesus and what a flourishing relationship I with Christ and his people can look like.
I’m especially interested in those things that are common to the self help books of “the old school” and the new influencer culture. I don’t think they are not that different in essence. Both offer very light-heartedly and frivolously some fluffy advice on very serious matters.
The medium is different, yes, and that has an impact on the message too. The fluffy contents are, however, quite similar.
The frustrating thing is that when we think we have refuted the self-help book culture with some succes and people have started to demand better books, we realize that somewhere, behind our backs, the same old fluffines has started to find other channels to disperse itself.
It’s so frustrating and infuriating!
I’m happy, though, that you already are on social media and you have a blog of your own. You already know much about the influencer culture and you are literate in that world. You don’t have to start the hard work all over again.
It really is frustrating that it’s all still out there in different forms for sure!