Let’s look at how specific discipleship materials actually enable marital rape.

But first, a bit of background. Last week on my Substack I re-ran a post I wrote a few years ago on this blog about the two kinds of marital rape (here’s the Substack post and the original post here).

The original post was part of a longer series I was writing about sexual recovery in marriage when the dynamics have become toxic. I originally started that series thinking it would be six posts; it ended up being much longer because the comments section was filled with women describing marital rape situations.

My thesis about the 2 kinds of rapists is quite simple.

One the one had are abusers who would abuse regardless. They were always going to be abusive, entitled, narcissistic people.

But on the other hand we have men who wouldn’t have otherwise raped their wives, but ended up doing so precisely because of evangelical teaching that normalized it.

When evangelical teaching says:

• Men have an insatiable need for sex that women will never understand
• God made women to help men defeat lust and porn
• The worst thing you can do is to lust after other women or watch porn
• Wives are men’s lawful sexual outlets
• God’s will is that you have lots of intercourse with your wife
• Women don’t tend to want sex
• Women aren’t to deprive you

Then you’ve created a culture where everyone thinks it’s normal for men to pressure or force their wives to have sex with them. Men assume it’s normal for women to have sex against their will, because women never want it anyway but God wants us to have lots of sex. And since it’s wrong to watch porn/lust, and wives are the ones that are supposed to reduce that temptation, then it’s more righteous to use your wife than to do the other things.

Rape becomes normalized among immature men who may not otherwise have done so, because in some twisted way they think they’re honoring God. We spent two chapters on this in The Great Sex Rescue, and these were the most important chapters we wrote. And every single day I get so many emails from women telling me story after story of rape happening in their marriage.

Often they aren’t able to identify it as such, but as I explain, any time you have to have sex to prevent something bad from happening, there is a lack of consent and that is coercion.

When we were discussing this on social media, so many people denied there was a problem.

They said this wasn’t prevalent in evangelical materials; they said that I was just attacking the church for no reason.

And so today, I thought I’d share just one particular book. It wasn’t a huge seller, but a huge discipleship organization used it as a men’s study. They still advertise it. It’s the Every Man a Warrior series, and it was written by Lonnie Berger who worked at Navigators.

After my article on marital rape, a woman sent me a screenshot of a page, and I want to include it here because this is absolutely typical of the way that marital rape is normalized in evangelical materials. I’ve talked about the best-sellers that call women methadone before. Here’s a book that went moderately big, but is representative of the general approach that evangelical material took towards sex in marriage:

I know that can be hard to read, so let me highlight some of it:

Can you see the marital rape implicit in that story?

Here is a traumatized woman, and what does Kevin do? He has sex with her that she hates repeatedly throughout their marriage, and when she shuts down, he “demands” it once a month, after which she feels so horrible she sleeps on the couch and seethes at him.

Can you see what is happening?

Nowhere is it acknowledged that HER sexuality has been stolen too. Nowhere is it acknowledged that he was compounding her hurt. Nowhere is it acknowledged that she had very good reason to say no, and he should have been part of her healing, not the cause of her suffering. Nowhere is it acknowledged that women don’t shut down like this and seethe at their husbands for no reason.

Here’s the next part of the story:

Again, I know this is hard to read, but it talks about how Kevin sought help from a mentor and from counselors. The counselor told him to divorce Carol basically because she was withholding sex, but Kevin didn’t want to do that. And the solution to all of this? Kevin had to realize that it is godly to do right when you are suffering. And he was the one suffering. 

So after telling this story, the resolution is that Kevin decides that, despite his suffering, he will do what is right and stay with Carol.

Kevin is the one who is suffering! This is Aunt Matilda all over again (hello to those of you who get the reference).

This is beyond disgusting.

Where does Every Man a Warrior fit in to evangelicalism?

Here’s how the Every Man a Warrior organization describes it:

So they have trained 100,000 men all over the world to believe that men are the victims when they are forced to rape their wives, and then when their wives are upset about that they are doubly victimized.

And all of this is being done in the name of discipleship. It is being done as they are trying to win converts to Christ and teach them what it is to be a Christian.

This book was widely used by Navigators, and the author once worked with Navigators (he has since gone out on his own).

This is what I mean when I say that evangelical materials normalize marital rape.

It is not that they explicitly say “raping your wife is okay or understandable.” It is not that they explicitly say “sure, this is coercion, but God gave you needs.”

No, instead it is that they describe dynamics that are coercive in nature without ever naming them as such, and then they do a major DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) by painting the husband as the victim here.

And, honestly, I think this is worse.

By obscuring what rape actually is, they make it so that people have difficulty identifying coercion. And then when men participate in this, they think this is normal, and even of God. They don’t even realize what they are doing because books and resources have told the same story as their marriage and clearly said that this was normal.

And that’s why marital rape is so high in evangelical circles. We’re taught not to name it or even see it, and to judge the real victim as the man who isn’t getting all the sex he wants.

Even when the woman is experiencing classic signs of PTSD and coercion, we’re taught that this is just her being unjustifiably angry rather than her being traumatized and wanting to get as far away from her abuser as possible.

There simply is no excuse. This has to end.

And the thought that this is being taught in the name of Christian discipleship right now, on the mission field, should be a huge wake up call to what we are supporting with our own tithes and offerings.

What do you think of these excerpts? Do they surprise you or seem “normal”? Let’s talk in the comments!