Sheila
So if you’re a Pastor who’s been involved in a big scandal, do you get to reinvent yourself? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today on the Bare Marriage podcast. I’m Sheila Wray Gregoire from BareMarriage.com, where we, like, talk about healthy, evidence based biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage. And I am joined today by my daughter, Rebecca Lindenbach. I think it’s funny, I’ve actually taken a couple of weeks off. I don’t think we really announced this, but I took a little bit of a break for a few weeks, and so we recorded the whole lot in advance. So this is like my first time back at work in a while.

Rebecca
Yeah, in a long time

Sheila
So I’m actually kind of excited about this one. We had a whole bunch of other things planned. In fact, we had another podcast so that I didn’t have to record this right as we got home. And then all of this stuff broke about Carl Lentz’s new book, and I was involved in a big Twitter conversation about it, sorry, Threads conversation about it on the weekend. And I just thought, you know what? Let’s just talk about it. And so thank you to everyone who sent me stuff and who are concerned about this. And I just want to talk about why I’m concerned about it, too. We are recording this right after you just been forced into panic attacks.

Rebecca
No, I didn’t have a panic attack this time, I just had to do a pulmonary function testing to see if my asthma is worse now than it was. Anyway, I had to do the second half of my pulmonary function test, which they give you all these different things. You breathe in that is meant to irritate your lungs and pretty much induce an asthma attack. And, then they give you a bunch of Ventolin puffers to help undo it. So I’m just if I’m like, so.

Sheila
So, yeah, your heart rate’s up here, and I’m like, I’m relaxed because I just had vacation.

Rebecca
I’m feeling a little spicy in the lung area.

Sheila
So we’re going to see how this goes. We do want to say a special shout out to the people who encourage us and show up for us. Our Patreon group and those who have donated to the Good Faith initiative. We’ve just finished a whole month of our Spanish launch. So our Spanish social media was going really strong. We hired someone who speaks Spanish since we do not, to run that and put a whole lot of things out there in video form, in real form and social media, so that if Spanish speakers are searching for healthy stuff, they’ll be able to find us. So please check that out. We’ve got the link in the podcast notes, share it with everybody. And yeah, that’s the kind of thing that when people donate to the Good Faith initiative, that’s the kind of thing that we’re trying to do. And you and Joanne are going to be filming another documentary series at the end of this month. We’re working on some more translation efforts, and of course, Joanna’s I think she’s got two different papers.

Rebecca
She is working on so many papers, and it’s so hard to keep track of them, but she’s already got a lot of projects going on.

Sheila
So very, very exciting stuff. And working with academics at a whole bunch of different universities on our data sets to get more academic papers published. So thank you for that. And thank you to our patrons. And we were talking about this Carl Lentz situation in our patreon group, too. And so I want to set this up.
I want to set this discussion up. So first of all, actually, before I even do that, what do you know about Carl Lentz?

Rebecca
I know Carl Lentz, Hillsong pastor.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Beaver buddies. I know he had a bunch of affairs. And I know he’s got a book, and I know that I’m going to react to the things you show me about it.

Sheila
Okay, so. So for those who don’t know, Carl Lentz is one of these in many ways. He was like the first celebrity pastor. Like, we think of Mark Driscoll as a celebrity pastor. But Carl Lentz was actually a celebrity pastor, like, he was a pastor to celebrities.

Rebecca
And also Carl Lentz was more mainstream. Mark Driscoll has always been fringe. Yeah. Like people who say no, Mark Driscoll is mainstream. No Mark has always and will always be fringe. And so if you think Mark Driscoll is mainstream, you need to realize that you are also amongst a fringe group. Carl Lentz is a lot more mainstream.

Sheila
Yeah. Like he was on The View. He was like, he was in like TCU and like he was in a bunch of magazines before the scandal. He was good friends with a whole bunch of different celebrities. Celebrities went to his Hillsong Church in New York City. And then in 2020, it came out that he had had multiple affairs and lost his pastorate. Hillsong New York has never fully recovered from that, for other reasons. To, the founder of Hillsong, Brian Houston, was also accused of covering up the sexual abuse of minors that his father had done, and he was charged for that in Australia. He was found not guilty last year. But just because you’re criminally not guilty doesn’t mean that you’re morally not guilty, right?
He has been charged with DUI. He had to take a sabbatical because of inappropriate relationships with, like, lots of stuff was going on with Hillsong a lot. And so in the midst of all of this, Carl Lentz has stepped back for a couple of years. But more recently, he and his wife Laura have done a podcast. I think it’s called Lights On or something like that. And they have just released a book in the last week and a half called Overcoming Infidelity. And that and because they released a book, he’s been featured on all kinds of podcasts, including like Relevant Magazine did a feature on him. Annie Downs had them on her podcast. Dave and Ashley Willis from Naked Marriage had them on like. And so this has ignited a big social media debate about is it okay to platform someone who blew up a church and who had multiple affairs and many people have been saying, no, it’s not okay. Okay, so here’s a comment that is quite typical pushing back. Do you want to read it?

Rebecca
Yeah, sure. Here’s the comment. Wow, what a Pharisee. And a bunch of Pharisees in this comment section haven’t taken accountability for his actions. People. Are you kidding me? It’s wild to me when people cast judgment, point the finger and gossip, including straight up lies you’ve clearly forgotten or have never known about the redemptive heart of the Lord. He has owned it over and over and over again. And he is forgiven. And he is helping so many women and men heal their marriages.

Sheila
Okay. So I want to address that because I think what she’s bringing up and it was a woman who left this comment is a lot of things. Look, he’s forgiven. He has owned his stuff.

Rebecca
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So like you’ve forgotten the redemption of the Lord.

Sheila
So. So why are you gossiping?

Rebecca
All right. So here’s the thing. I feel the rest of the podcast is going to be addressing this. Yeah.

Sheila
So let’s jump in. So, a couple of years ago, there was a Hillsong documentary that was done that Carl Lentz actually participated in. And here’s just a few seconds of the trailer from that to introduce you to Carl Lentz.

“Hillsong is a megachurch and Carl Lentz is the celebrity pastor. Carl is so charming, people idolize him. There is a sense that pastors can be hot. He was so special. It was cool.”

Sheila
Actually, our editor for our new book, Fawn, was quoted in there. She was one of the voices, Katelyn Beaty. So that was kind of neat to see her. Hello, Katelyn. I, for those of you who are listening instead of watching YouTube, my introduction to Carl Lentz. I had never heard of the man before. Was that one picture of him with Justin Bieber with his pants so low, like his swim trunks? And I’ve just never quite gotten over that visual image there.

Rebecca
Like, I could have gone my whole life never seeing that. Yeah, I think on my whole I’ve never known how much Carl Lentz land manscapes.

Sheila
Like it’s, it’s, I mean, and it’s just an odd choice of clothing. Like I can’t imagine.

Rebecca
It’s like not even just shirtless, it’s shirtless plus like.

Sheila
No, like those pants were. I can’t believe they weren’t showing anything, low kind of thing. Yeah. Like questions about anatomy. Like.

Rebecca
It’s like guys, the girls did the low rise in the 2000. Boys, you don’t have to do it. I’m just saying. Yes, we already agreed it was a bad idea,

Sheila
When it came time to tell my daughters about sex and puberty, I did a really bad job.

Rebecca
Yeah, I mean, not your strongest suit.

Sheila
I got a lot better as they got older. But you and your sister Katie and I were talking a couple of years ago, and you were joking with me about how bad a job I did. And I said, okay, well, then you do a better one. And you guys got together and you created a course called The Whole Story, a video course where you and Katie tell the girls about sex and puberty. And then there’s discussion questions and activities that parents can do with their kids to solidify the lesson and make sure that you are the one talking to your kids too.

Rebecca
And after resounding positive feedback from the girls version, we decided to add a boys version too. So don’t worry moms and dads of boys, we’ve got you covered. So if you have kids from ages about 10 to 16, you should check out the Whole Story. Don’t put off having these conversations because if you don’t have them now, someone else will have them with your kids. This is a conversation that we want to help you have. Feeling empowered, not awkward.

Sheila
And the link to the Whole Story is in the podcast notes.

Sheila
So, when the news broke in October 2020, I guess it broke in November. Early early November 2020. So, the height of Covid. There’s a whole lot of stuff going on in the world. And when it was found out that he had had this affair, and people at the church who worked for him saw text messages and called him in, contacted Brian Houston, who runs Hillsong, and they fired him. And Brian Houston said publicly at the time, this was kind of before all Brian Houston’s problem. So when he was still thought of as someone good, they had actually been thinking of firing Carl already because of his narcissism and bullying behavior. And in the documentary and in other things that I’ve read, that Hillsong was such a celebrity culture. And so it was like, if you are involved in Hillsong, we are doing you a favor. And so there was a lot of abuse of like, unpaid interns and all the things that tend to go along with these types of churches. So this was not only a problem of him having affairs. This is a bigger problem of the culture of Hillsong.

Rebacca
We have a character problem here, of which affairs are not surprising.

Sheila
Right? And then Hillsong, at its height in 2019, I think, had 150,000 people attending Hillsong Church’s worldwide by 2024 it’s less than half. And many of those who have left Hillsong, I saw another documentary where someone followed up with people who had left Hillsong. Many of them have deconverted, are not going to church now, and are really disillusioned because, you know, Hillsong sold itself as like we are the new way of doing church, right? We’re the way to connect with the culture. Yeah. And it had all this great music that we, that you probably still sing in your church. Right. But it really has had a problem. And so in and so this is the, this is the background to this book being released. And the book was just released in October 2026. The affair was made public in October 2020 – six years. Now, Rebecca, you’ve written several books. Yes. How many years does it take to write a book?

Rebecca
I mean, from start to finish, it takes about the quicker end. Two years? Yeah. On the quicker. Usually close to three.

Sheila
Yeah. Because you had to get the contract signed and then the book actually written.

Rebecca
And then in print and on shelves.

Sheila
Right. Like for it, like right now. Right now it is October 2026. Fawn , our book is out on March 23rd, I believe, of 2027. And it’s already in design and we’re working on the absolute final edit. I’ve already sent it to people to endorse like it’s already and it’s been done for several months now, so it’s usually done almost a year before it is out. So you have to like pitching the idea and get through the bidding wars. If you, if you’re something like Carl Lentz, you’re probably going to have a bidding war. You know, you have to actually write the book .That’s what takes at least a year. Yeah. Like usually longer. Yeah. So that’s a minimum two year situation. So that means that four years after everything was discovered is the latest that this could have been a book idea.

Sheila
Now it was published not by a Christian publisher, but by Simon and Schuster. I think they have a new religious imprint or something. And so this is one of their newer ones. But this isn’t something that we can blame. Thankfully, this isn’t like Xander’s in Harvest House Baker.

Rebecca
So this is not someone who claims to have a moral standing behind what they publish. They are just a publishing house, right? Their moral standing is just that they publish everyone.

Sheila
Yes. Okay. Here’s how the book is described. Deeply vulnerable and filled with gripping narrative, this book is no mere men memoir. It’s a practical roadmap for how to restore trust and truly heal. Guiding readers through ten critical conversations that arise in the aftermath of infidelity.

Rebecca
And we are at the first problem. Okay, here’s the thing. I think people get to tell their stories. Yes, you got to tell if you know what, if Andy Savage wanted. Is that his name? Yeah. Yes. Okay, good. If Andy Savage wanted to write a book and talk. He was the one who. He was one of the first ones who
sexually assaulted Jules Woodson when she was a teenager under his care. Right. If he wanted to write a book and talk about, in essence, like the making of the monster kind of thing, like how did I get to this point? How would this happen? He gets to do that. And I actually think these things are important. I am someone who studied psychology. Of course I’m going to have that perspective.

Sheila
Yes. Right all true crime aficionados.

Rebecca
It’s important that we hear not just from one perspective. We actually do need to hear from all perspectives including the perpetrator’s. This however is objectively not someone sharing their story. They’re trying to teach, they are giving the way forward. They’re saying here’s the ten conversations you need to have. That’s not the same thing as telling your story. That’s objectively not the same thing. This should be just a memoir.

Sheila
Yeah. And honestly and honestly the memoir parts of it were the best parts of it.

Rebecca
Of course they were, because they were because you’re allowed to exist. That is the thing that you like when you talk about, like having a platform or telling a story, something. Like, we are allowed to exist. Okay. You can’t get mad at someone for existing. I think that’s fair. Yeah. Bottom of the barrel. Kind of like standing here, right? Like people get you to exist having done terrible things, you know, because they do. What’s the other alternative? We just shoot them on site like, nah. But these people are trying to get a platform and put themselves in positions of teaching.

Sheila
And that’s something different.

Rebecca
When there is literally no reason for them to think that they’re okay.

Sheila
Hold on to that because we’re going to come back to that at the end, okay? We need to walk through what they say in the book and then hold on to that and then you can, you can give your verdict as to whether they were okay doing this.

I want to read the very, very first line of the book. Are you ready? Yeah. On October 25th, 2020, our marriage disintegrated. There is no other way to say it.
Do you have a reaction to there is no way to say it?

Rebecca
It’s very telling us the day she found out is the day that it disintegrated. Yeah. Not the day he slept with another woman.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Right. Like, not the day that he made a choice.

Sheila
And, like, I can think of. So this is like, I’m reading this, and I’m like, I can think of so many different ways to say it. Okay. On October 25th, 2020, Carl confessed to multiple affairs and threw Laura’s life into turmoil. On October 25th, 2020, Carl wrecked Hillsong Church on October 20th.

Rebecca
2020. You know, if you had to do it from his perspective, right on a 2020, I had to watch life die in my wife’s eyes or something like, yeah. It’s like it’s about her and her experience.

Sheila
Yeah. But instead, our marriage disintegrated, not I. And the book is written by both Carl and Laura, so not like I, Carl did something or like our marriage. That’s passive language there.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Sheila
And it’s just so weird. Like, I can’t believe they put there is no other way to say it. You could use the active voice. On October 25th, 2020, my wife learned how I had betrayed her multiple times.

Rebecca
Even on October 25th my secret life was revealed or died or did something interesting, obviously.

Sheila
And then they say this, later that day, a public statement was posted on the church’s website stating that Carl had been terminated due to leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures. The early details were vague enough that the rumor mill spun at warp speed, and by the following morning, speculation online was widespread. Who was the other woman, was she famous? Was there more than one? And the early part of the book focuses on how hard it was for them because of all the paparazzi. I can see that that would be hard.

Rebecca
Actually, I think that’s fine. I know when we looked at, in the patreon group, we actually reacted to a video that Ariel Fulmer did with her ex-husband Ned, who was a big internet guy who cheated on her. And she’s like one of the most universally loved women on the internet. And so that was a bad move for multiple reasons on his part. And what she said is that it was so traumatizing having the paparazzi and people asking questions and looking at her, like, through a fishbowl like that was just like that. That was like she was talking how that was just that was quite traumatizing for her to have the paparazzi at that time of her life. So I think that could happen to both of them equally.

Sheila
Yeah, I don’t know. I still don’t think the equal thing is there.

Rebecca
Like, I think if you listen to women who are famous, what has happened to them that equal, I’m going to push back on that hard.

Sheila
Well, I think it was terrible for Laura. I’m just saying I don’t think it was as bad for Carl.

Rebecca
Oh, you don’t think it was as bad for Carl?

Sheila
Like, no matter what he was feeling from the paparazzi, I’m not going to give it the same level of what Laura was feeling.

Rebecca
I thought you were saying it wasn’t as bad for Laura because I’m like.

Sheila
No, no, no, no, the paparazzi were bad for both. I’m just saying that, like, for them to start talking about and they actually do that.

Rebecca
Even if it caused the same amount of distress, one of them is a natural consequence of their own actions and one is unjust which is a different level of distress.

Sheila
Exactly. So here’s what they say.
As the world consumed the pain of our implosion, we were increasingly isolated. So there you have the sharing and equalization of the pain here, they say, yes, it happened to us. They said we were devastated for different but equally profound reasons.

Rebecca
Ha equally profound.

Sheila
It reminds me of Tim LaHaye and The Act of Marriage when he talks about Aunt Matilda. So he describes in The Act of Marriage, he describes how, Aunt Matilda’s husband had raped her on their wedding night and continued to rape her throughout the marriage.

Rebecca
Because Aunt Matilda just didn’t like sex, and so it was portrayed as him having no choice.

Sheila
Right. And so Tim LaHaye talked about, you know, choice and Matilda and her equally unhappy husband is like. That equally is doing a lot of work there, and equally is doing a lot of work here, too.
We were both gasping for air and wondering if continuing to gasp was even worth it. There is nothing in either of our lives that has hurt us more than infidelity. Yeah, I mean.

Rebecca
But the thing is, we think this could be technically true, but the problem is that this can’t be talked about like it’s something that both of you are going through the same way. Yeah. Because one of you did it and the other one didn’t.

00:20:35:16 – 00:20:50:10
Sheila
Yeah. And yet the whole first half of that setting up the book is completely equalizing, like, and using equally like, like using the passive voice for what happened to them, making the paparazzi into the bad guys. And

Rebecca
And they are the bad guys. Let’s be real, the paparazzi are also the bad guys.

Sheila
Oh yeah, paparazzi are terrible. But like, there’s a reason all this happened and it was Carl.

Rebecca
The first chapter wasn’t about like it would be one thing if the first chapter was like all about Carl talking about how he was living a double life and how he had hidden all these things. And this was so awful, and how he didn’t even recognize himself in the mirror. How is he doing this stuff? And how terrible is this?
That’s not what it is. It’s like Carl’s like, this hurt me too. Yeah, yeah. You could have also just not had sex with someone who wasn’t your wife, so like. Right. We don’t have sympathy for that right now.

Sheila
Actually. Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, Daniel Silverman from the Roys Report wrote an article about this as well, and he called it Hillsong Pastor Carl Lentz’s new book should have been titled Overcoming Responsibility. And I read his article as I was getting ready for this podcast, and he starts his article the same way that I started my thread over the weekend. I could think of so many other ways to start this book. Like, you know, this is the same thing I did. So it’s really funny. I’ll put a link to his article in the podcast notes. Okay. One of the ways that they equalized it was in the next chapter in chapter one. But, they said to survive the immediate blowback of a marital betrayal, you have to stop rushing to repair anything and prioritize caring for the two traumatized people standing in the rubble.

Rebecca
Yeah, you don’t have to prioritize helping the two traumatized people. You have to prioritize helping the one traumatized person.

Sheila
Yes, yes.

Rebecca
And it’s like, yeah. And if the other person is also traumatized, then they can get a therapist who can help them.

Sheila
Yeah. And actually, what’s interesting is that Carl did, like Carl was the one who was sent for trauma therapy right away. Yeah not Laura.

Rebecca
People also don’t make bad decisions in a vacuum. Yeah, there’s a false idea that we have. We simply believe that people who do awful things are just inherently evil. Yeah, people do terrible things for reasons. Doesn’t mean that it’s excusable. And that’s not what I’m saying at all. Don’t hear that. But it does mean that, like, yeah, if you do something that you’re like, I don’t know why I did that, you probably need to get help.

Sheila
It’s still, it still really rocks me that the priority was getting him help and not her.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Sheila
You know and I want to talk about privilege for a sec. This isn’t this isn’t a big thing, this isn’t something they said in the book. It’s just as they’re telling their story, my mouth kept kind of dropping. So, to set the context for when all this happened. They had sold their house and they were living in Justin & Hailey Bieber’s apartment in Brooklyn. And while they were living there, I assume Justin and Hailey weren’t there or something.

Rebecca
I think they have multiple homes.

Sheila
Okay. And when the news broke suddenly and then after a little bit, I think Justin was getting dragged in the news because of guilt by association here. So they were told, you need to get out today.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Sheila
And so they had to get out and lo and behold, Tyler Perry, the producer and director offered to give them, to pay for them to have a home in California by the ocean for six months. Okay. So they moved to California.

Rebecca
But first of all, well, how did they have no money? Because I know they just sold a huge house in New York. Yeah. And also he was like, a major mega pastor, like, they make a lot of money.

Sheila
I know, but they kept talking about how they had no money.

Rebecca
Like they have no money for their desired lifestyle?

Sheila
I don’t know, or whatever. So Tyler Perry pays for them to go there. They also talk about how helpful it was, like people would take like, they gave them, someone let them a car, like a really nice car. They got to go horseback riding whenever they wanted. Surfing whenever they wanted. Bob Goff, sent Carl to this rehab facility, residential rehab facility, paid for therapy for both him and Laura.Like, and then and then they got paid to go live in Florida for a while, and then, Mike Todd, who’s a pastor of a large church in I think it’s Oklahoma, had like two years later, had them come on staff, not as pastoral staff, just as counseling, whatever that means. So and so like all along they had this really big name rich people give them all this stuff. And I’m just thinking about all the stories I have heard from women whose husbands have had affairs and have their lives blown up and like they have not been given homes by rich people.

Rebecca
And like in a similar what you’re talking about another big affair and divorce that has happened recently in the news is, of course, Jen Hamilton, the internet sweet. Right? Where she found out that her husband was having an affair with another woman and she, luckily is the one who has the money and the job. And, he’s been unemployed forever. And so she was able to support herself and leave. But where she lives, the laws are such that if you don’t have the money, you’re trapped and you can’t even get a divorce until you’ve been separated for a long time. And so if you’re married to someone who’s, like, abusive, it’s wrong. So she’s actually doing a big petition to change laws right now, right. Because for a lot of women, if you aren’t ridiculously wealthy, you find out your husband’s having an affair and you’re stuck, like you actually can’t leave. Like what are you supposed to do?

Sheila
Like and I guess to me, the whole thing just that’s what the Bible’s talking about I think when it talks about showing partiality, like all of these people who were giving this man and his family.

Rebecca
Even though he already has money and fame and fortune and all these things, you’re giving all this to somebody who already had it? Yeah. Okay. So why don’t they have money to do this, squander it all that, like what happened?

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
And unless these people don’t have money because they were giving away like 90% of their income, right? I don’t understand giving these people a whole ton of sounds like, okay, you have to live in a suburb. I’m so sorry.

Sheila
Yeah, but no, they literally lived on the beach. I know, like, where they could look out that, like, I’m. And I’m just thinking about how much this will cost.

Rebecca
But this is just another reason why it doesn’t make sense.I’m sorry, but the average person whose husband has an affair doesn’t have someone who’s going to buy them an Airbnb for like $300,000 for five months or whatever.

Sheila
Where you can go horseback riding, you don’t have to worry about a job and you can just get therapy.

Rebecca
This isn’t normal. It’s just so, what’s the word like? It’s just audacious to assume you can just give advice.

Sheila
The privilege was really astounding.

Rebecca
Like, you’re just you’re not in the real world, right? Like, they don’t exist in the real world. They exist in a very strange bubble, and they don’t realize how out of touch they are. Yeah.

Sheila
And I am also still thinking about all of the unpaid interns at Hillsong who really got messed over by this whole thing and lost their face. Like, who really needed the money more? I don’t know, it’s just difficult. move on to let’s get the facts straight because the book appears and claims to be telling their story. Very strangely told. All right. So I want to read you one quote.
This was not the first time I was unfaithful to Laura, but it was the first time I felt the depths my choices had taken me after years of conceding my convictions.

Rebecca
Okay, so he’s like, he’s been doing this for years.

Sheila
This isn’t one page. That’s not even the best part. Here’s what it says on the very next page. So this is like four paragraphs apart okay, okay. To calm the fear, I resorted to minimizing and rationalizing. I told myself that the failure wasn’t that bad. It was only once.

Rebecca
Is he talking about the first time he did it?

Sheila
I think he’s talking about the fact that the current woman that he was with, it was only once. Now, I will challenge that, because the woman that this is talking about has come forward publicly. And it was not just once, but so he said so like it’s not even clear what he means by it’s only once.

Rebecca
So he says he’s only done this once

Sheila
Only once with the one woman, but it isn’t clear.

Rebecca
Even so, but the woman said it wasn’t only once.

Sheila
Yeah, but she had. I know, but that one sentence. This was not the first time I was unfaithful to Laura. That is the only time in the whole book that it mentions that there was more than one woman. Every other time. Every other time the affair is talked about, it’s talked about as if it was just this one woman.

Rebecca
Do we know there was more than one affair? Yes. So it’s confirmed that there was more than one affair. Because this could be maybe talking about porn.

Sheila
No, no, that there is more than one affair is confirmed. As you are reading the book, like someone who didn’t actually know. And the only thing I really knew was that stupid photo that I couldn’t get out of my, like, wash my eyes kind of thing. I knew there was an affair. I didn’t know much about it. People online had talked about how it was an employee and he was the pastor. And so there was a clergy sex abuse angle, but I didn’t know any. I didn’t know anything beyond that. And in reading the book, I still didn’t know anything beyond that. And it was still very, very, very confusing.

Rebecca
You can’t call it taking responsibility if you haven’t been honest about what’s going on. Even the stuff that’s in the public sphere of knowledge, you’re not being honest about.

Sheila
And here is how he characterizes this affair that they actually do admit to in the book. Okay. I parked two blocks from an apartment I had no business visiting, but had been invited to because I’d been playfully dancing around an invitation for weeks. So he talks about the reason that he went there is because he was an invitation and he’d been invited, and he very much frames it as it was her. It was all on her and not on him. And I just, I just think that’s important to note. Now, here’s the time when that doesn’t make sense.

Rebecca
Well. I also think it is normal if you’re getting flirted with by some person, one person’s going to be the aggressor and instigator and stuff. She could have very well been the aggressor instigator. That’s perfectly acceptable to note. Yeah. The issue is that.

Sheila
Except we’re not sure who this was. And there’s several stories about that. So, Leona Kimes is okay. About six months, seven months later, she came forward. She was the wife of Hillsong Boston pastor Josh Kimes, and she accused Lentz of. And I’m quoting manipulation, control, bullying, abuse of power and sexual abuse. She served as Carl and Laura’s nanny. Okay, okay. And she says the assaults happened between 2011 and 2017. Okay, okay. And then in a People magazine and in the second episode of that Hillsong documentary. All right, Laura Lentz describes learning that Carl was sexually involved with the family’s nanny. So she hadn’t known before that, right. But she also says this.
One night I found them in a compromising position. I ran into the room and I shoved Carl and hit him. And then I jumped on top of Kimes, and I punched her.

Rebecca
Right. So she found out on Zoom.

Sheila
So she says she found out on Zoom. But also sometime between 2011 and 2017, she caught them and she punched her.

Rebecca
Did they find out? And then she caught them later?

Sheila
No, because all of this happened before 2017. Like I’m just saying, the narrative doesn’t make any sense that they are that they are telling, okay, there’s a lot of problems with this, and I think it’s because there’s another woman there and there’s another woman who, did get really blasted in the news as someone who didn’t go to the church and, didn’t know he was a pastor. And supposedly she’s the woman they’re talking about, but because they would rather talk about her than the nanny.

Rebecca
Because there is not an abuse of power with the other woman.

Sheila
Right.

Rebecca
And so the one who isn’t a congregant who doesn’t care, didn’t know he was pastor and there’s no abuse of power there

Sheila
So there’s two women, two named women that we know about. But it was also said there were multiple and multiple serious significant relationships.

Sheila
So anyway, I’m just saying, like the only one they talked about in the book was one. And what they say doesn’t make sense with what the news stories were saying and was really downplaying it. Yeah. Okay. Now let’s see how the book talks about what caused the affair. Okay. And I’m going to give you a bunch of quotes on this. All right. So this one’s kind of long. So again this is Carl speaking about what caused the affair.
When I decided to pursue ministry as a profession, I had no idea that it would lead where it did. I wasn’t prepared for it mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Without realizing it, my life became a professional pressure cooker where I was carrying the hopes and expectations of the thousands of people who attended our church services each week, and the countless others who followed my ministry from a distance, to keep going I’d whisper encouragement to myself every day, you’ve got this, Carl. You’re still working, still showing up, still preaching, still smiling. Everything is fine, but keeping up the facade puts my mind continually at war with my spirit. I did my best to ignore the internal warnings. Later he says this, I did what every addict does. I learned to live in a cycle of bad behavior and crushing regret. I started turning down invitations to speak at conferences, telling those asking that I was trying to create boundaries to prevent burnout. And why did all of this happen? Because he just cared too much. For me, the engine was the desire to escape the pace of my life, and the never ending pile of responsibilities had become unmanageable. My strength of helping people feel supported and set up to win had become a maze in which I’d lost track of myself. I longed for a single moment where my mind could stop spinning, strategizing and solving. One moment where I could find some respite from the obligations of being a husband, father, friend, brand, and well-known pastor of a well-known church. Like so many others, my infidelity began long before I made the decision to cheat. It began with burnout, with self isolation, with secret struggles, with patterns of self-medication.

Rebecca
Yeah, I’m okay, you’re probably disagreeing with me. That whole thing is why we actually need to hear from people who did it. That is really an act. I think that that actually shows a level of insight that is important. Yes. Like how do we get to this point? And it’s like, you know what, the way that we do, pastorship is untenable. Yes. The way that we do ministry is not healthy. And it’s asking too much of individuals and the family systems.

Sheila
Yes, I actually agree with that. And I don’t have a problem. What I have a problem with is what’s missing. I don’t have a problem with what he said but what is missing.

Rebecca
What do you think is missing?

Sheila
He never talks about the respect of women, or objectification. He never talks about that, even though as it’ll come clear later that was a factor.

Rebecca
I think but I think the point that he’s making is this is the mentality he’s in at that point he was so burnt out and all these things. And the fact of the matter is when you are in survival mode, when you are in burnout, you are not able to exist at your best self. Yeah. Like so that’s the whole thing. So the point is like we need to be able to set stuff up so that we are not, in essence, looking for unhealthy ways to self-medicate.

Sheila
I agree, and this is actually part of the larger problem at Hillsong.

Rebecca
Yes in churches in general. Right.

Sheila
Yeah. But especially at Hillsong which was so focused on celebrity. He also, I did have a problem with this sentence, managing a secret affair is a full time job. It takes far more than it ever gives. Leave you exhausted, overwhelmed, irritable, and depressed.

Rebecca
So don’t do it. I’m sorry. I am so sad that this is a thing that everyone has to do. That’s weird.
Such a weird thing. I think you can, I think I see with you. I’m trying to get this guy grace, okay? I’m trying to. I’m trying to be on the other side here. What he’s trying to say is, in essence, like, everyone thinks this is going to be some fun, sexy thing if you are the kind of person who finds that thing. But personally all right, I would get stomach ulcers just thinking about the logistics.

Sheila
The problem is I think you are reading yourself into it.

Rebecca
No, no, no, I’m just I’m trying to, What? I’m what I’m hearing him say here, though, is like, I think if we give him the benefit of the doubt, then what he’s trying to say, in essence, is like the whole thing where it’s like you chase something and you don’t realize that it’s actually, like, bad for you until you’re in it. I would argue we can know with this particular one it’s bad for you before you’re in it. But like, I can kind of but like that it’s a full time job. Well good news, you can quit the job.

Sheila
Okay. So basically here’s, here’s all the things that he blamed his affairs on okay. Addiction, depression, the church was too busy and too demanding and he cared too much. Okay. What he didn’t mention was pride and entitlement. And those are two things which he had in spades. And I don’t know that you can become a megachurch pastor. Well, maybe it’s very rare to become a megachurch pastor without some degree of pride, entitlement and even narcissism, I think. Yeah. And he never mentions those things. So I’m not saying the other things don’t matter or weren’t. I think that they were what made him emotionally fall apart. But I think there’s also huge, huge, huge issues of pride and entitlement in this man.

Rebecca
I think that, you know, when it comes to making these awful decisions and doing terrible things, we like to believe that predestination exists. We all want to be Calvinists. We want to believe that bad people are bad and good people are good. Yes, bad people who do bad things would have always done those bad things. And there’s nothing that we could do to stop that from happening. And there’s nothing that we could do that makes it more likely that it would happen. Because then that means that it could happen to like someone we love too. Right? That’s just the fact that that’s how humans work. We tend to believe that other people do bad things because there’s something inherently wrong with them. But when we do something bad it’s because our circumstances are around us. Right. It is not that simple. And so yeah knowing. Understanding like hey if you are someone who is a very moral person, but you are constantly running on fumes, you are not having issues and you’re like you do not have boundaries, you are in a toxic work situation. All these things. It’s not like you won’t have a choice. It’ll always be your choice. But we will be making decisions with fewer resources. Yes. Which means your decisions are not going to be as good as they could be if you had more resources. Even if it’s just little things like not exercising anymore as much, like not eating well, not spending time just having fun with your kids and playing board games. So even when we’re not talking about sin things. Right, like just in general, I think the message is that you do things that don’t feel like you when you’re in a bad place.

Sheila
Yeah that’s definitely true.

Rebecca
It’s really important. And it’s true. And we like to believe that people only have affairs because awful horrible things. Often it’s like you were someone who was kind of neutral. Were you good or bad? Yeah. And then maybe things tip.

Sheila
But my argument would be that when you look at the Hillsong culture, it was never a neutral thing.

Rebecca
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Sheila
And that and that’s what he never mentions. He never. He never talks about it before. Yeah. He never talks about the toxic elements of the Hillsong culture and the major power dynamics that were set up there. He never mentions any of that. Yeah, right. It’s only how burnt out he felt because he was trying to care for so many people. Okay, here’s just a weird anecdote. Okay, okay. This is just weird. And a lot of this is, of all the things that are mentioned about this, but this is the one that has shown up the most on social media. So this is chapter eight on avoiding triggers. Okay. And he says this, I decided to start working out without contacts or glasses. I’ve worn one or the other my whole life. Without them, anything beyond ten feet is a blur. And I thought, if I can’t see clearly, I can’t get triggered, problem solved. And so he went to the gym, basically blind and I don’t really know what to say about that. Like he does. He does talk about how this should only be temporary. And how we need to learn to deal with our triggers so that we can heal, which is good. He just never talks about, like, the idea that you shouldn’t objectify women. It never comes into the picture. Ever.

Rebecca
Yeah. It’s the every man’s battle mentality of, like, oh, once the women aren’t dangerous to you anymore, you can wear glasses.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Rather than like, once you’ve healed your relationship with the opposite sex.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. So it was just. It was just an odd, odd thing. Yeah. Just don’t go on a treadmill if you can’t see people.

Rebecca
I’m picturing this. You’re at the gym and you’re on a machine, and you just see this guy squinting at you.

Sheila
Isn’t that going to be worse? I know. Okay. And then this just struck me the wrong way, and I might be wrong on this, but the way that God is talked about in this book, is very like grace filled towards the person who has committed the adultery, but seems to leave out the victim. So let me just read this to you.
So Carl says God was there all along. I felt him even in my darkest moments. I heard God whispering kind, gracious truths to me about who he is and how much he loves me. At times, his voice brought tears. He was always reaching out to rescue me, but I was too lost in my sin to lift my arms and grab his hand.

Rebecca
Yeah. Which, if you also have something for Laura, that’s fine.

Sheila
Yeah, but like to say that God was always, like, just being really, really kind to you. Even when you were betraying your wife and was only ever saying sweet things to, I don’t know, like, I like to think that God would fight for his daughters. Maybe. Maybe not. Like this is where I might, I might have the wrong view of this here. But I like to think that if someone was betraying their wife and kids, that God might get angry at that.

Rebecca
Oh, yeah. Sin angers God. But I also think that it’s like we don’t know how God speaks to people. And sometimes people, the way people are going to come to repentance is not through getting yelled at.

Sheila
Yeah. Here’s another way the book feels a little weird. All right. It almost feels like you know how in Love and Respect they have to give the abuse disclaimer. Like, obviously we don’t have to put up with abuse. And so you should call the police. But here I’m going to give an anecdote about abuse and not call it abuse.

Rebecca
About how an abused woman respects her abusive husband. And then he became a wonderful husband, right? She stopped having needs.

Sheila
So this kind of has the same idea because they make a really big deal at the beginning of the book about how and they say this divorce is the most reasonable, logical decision after infidelity. And they talk about how for many, if not most people, it’s the wisest thing to do. And then they go on to talk about how but your marriage isn’t like, your marriage can be saved. Yeah. And so it’s just weird.

Rebecca
One thing if they said, listen, someone has an affair. You’re free. You can get out. The wise thing. The majority of people should do this. If, however, you don’t think you’re in that group, this book is for you. That’s fine. Yeah. How do they handle that? That’s actually totally fine. Yeah. We’re allowed to then write a book that had a big, decent beginning and then not repeatedly give that disclaimer.

Sheila
Yeah. It’s just it’s just like it was just. It was just strange. And there’s a lot of things, like, it almost feels like there’s two different writers, and I believe there’s probably this is probably a ghost writer. I’m sure this is a ghost writer. And I feel like the ghost writer was trying to make them sound, and was trying to put some of the stuff they were saying to make it more palatable and more real. I don’t know, but it was just weird. Another thing that kind of got me was how it handled their children. So at the time this happened, I think their son was 11. They had a 14 year old girl who was having mental health issues that I’m not going to talk about more because I don’t think they should be talked about, and they’re talked about in detail in the book. And then I think there was a 16 year old daughter and the book focuses a lot on the kids. And when kids are minors, I’m not sure that’s completely appropriate to tell their stories. Like at one point, Carl talks about how one of his daughters says something to him, which makes him basically suicidal. And I just don’t think that it’s appropriate to talk about your children like that. Like, I, I, as a mom. And this, you know, this. I think you’ve got to protect your kids. And their kids have been on their podcast now and their kids are like, oh my parents are great. They’re all healed and everything’s wonderful. I think the oldest child is now 22. I think they’re 22, 20 and like 17 now. So there’s one that’s still a minor. They’re still young.

Rebecca
It’s also still fresh for them, like. I’m sorry. Like, it’s not that fresh, but it’s still like it’s not right. Isn’t like you’re, like, starting to be on solid ground. You’re not solidly there yet.

Sheila
Yeah. And this is what they said about their kids. It was something brutal that became something beautiful in time. I was talking to their kids. Again, I’m just glad.

Rebecca
They said that you should talk to your kids about it.

Sheila
Yeah, and they were quite like they said that you should be honest with your kids, which is great. The execution of it I found problematic in the book. I just think your kid’s story should be your kid’s choice. One of the Duggar girls, Or Duggar women. I’m sorry. I think it was Jill, I read her, I read her book Growing up Counting. She made a really conscious choice to never talk about any of her siblings’ stories.

Rebecca
She did a good job.

Sheila
And I just really respected that. How she only told her own story.

Rebecca
Yeah, that’s her story. I do think that when you’re writing a book about infidelity and you are a parent, you actually do have to address the kids’ situation, because that’s what a lot of people also are dealing with. But I don’t know how to do that well.

Sheila
Yeah, but I was very uncomfortable about how open they were, about one of their children’s mental health struggles that I just, even if she, if she was telling on her own platform.

Rebecca
But it feels weird that they’re profiting off of that.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. I’m just a strange thing. It’s a strange thing. Okay. The sex chapter. Yeah. Carl wrote it. Okay. Of course. Yeah. Wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He did say this about sex. At times, sex morphed. It’s really unclear. Nothing’s clear. At times, sex morphed into something we didn’t recognize. It became a weapon to withhold.

Rebecca
Ah. Yes. Yeah. The weapon of withholding sex.

Sheila
Yes.

Rebecca
Fun fact to the police office to report a sexual crime. Say, the girl I want to have sex with didn’t want to have sex with me. That would be like. That is not a crime. That is called consent.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
And anyway, that’s all right. If you’re having affairs, there is no more withholding. You can have no sex for the rest of your life.

Sheila
Yes.

Rebecca
And, that is a natural consequence.

Sheila
What I find so interesting about this chapter is it is so much better than a lot of the reels he’s been doing lately. So again, it’s like there’s these two different voices.

Rebecca
There’s an editor who made this more palatable.

Sheila
There’s the book, and then there’s the release. And that’s what I found so strange. It’s like it’s two different voices

Rebecca.
Like the reels he doesn’t have someone telling him hey so that is super bad.

Sheila
Yeah. So here, let’s listen to two different clips about Carl with sex. Okay. So here we played this one on a podcast a couple of months ago. But let’s listen to this one again.
You’re out of your mind if you think you can be in a marriage that has no sex. You’re just kidding yourself. When women withhold, it’s very dangerous for both parties on both sides. There comes a point where you have to realize, like you’re saying, if there is tension in, there’s things going on. Maybe he just needs to have sex.
And then and then of course there’s this one about how he approached sex right at the beginning of all of this breaking.
I said, I don’t want to get a divorce. I don’t know what other options there are. Like, should I talk to Laura about having an open marriage? And she was like, oh, that’s unique and special. How about this in a year’s time, we’ll come back and talk about the open marriage question. Okay. But you do your work and let’s see what happens. We get back to it a year later. She goes, oh, by the way, do you want to talk about an open marriage? Both laugh because of course not. Of course not. But I didn’t know.
So let’s have an open marriage. Right?

Rebecca
Yeah.

Sheila
And the problem was in the book that is never talked about.

Rebecca
Because any editor worth their salt would get rid of that in the book.

Sheila
In the book, it’s like as soon as the news breaks, he’s repentant. He never wants to do it again.

Rebecca
He just wants to have an open marriage, guys, he’s so repentant.

Sheila
So, like, it’s really wild. Okay. All right. Another thing. And this I want to talk about something Laura wrote. Because I’m reading between the lines here, but I think it’s a really important point that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere. So, what she’s arguing is that you need to find a good community. Okay.
Because often people lose their community when there’s infidelity, which is very true. And she talks about how, like, the people that reached out to her that were able to listen to them like they would have said they had hundreds before, but they ended up with barely a handful. Right. Here’s what she doesn’t say is that some of the people who didn’t stick by them may simply have been telling her, you need to get out, and this isn’t safe for you, because I have talked to so many women in destructive relationships, whose sisters, whose best friends, whose moms like everyone has said, I will get you a safe place to live.
I think about Anna Duggar, right? Like her brother said, come live with me. Bring all your kids. Let’s get you out of that Duggar clan. Like I will help you. And she didn’t go, right.

Rebecca
She would say that person wasn’t supportive of her.

Sheila
Exactly.

Rebecca
Because he was asking her to leave her marriage.

Sheila
Exactly. And I just wonder how many. How many people that she said abandoned them, didn’t actually abandon them.

Rebecca
They just wanted to abandon Carl.

Sheila
They just wanted better for Laura.

Rebecca
Yeah, exactly. It’s like, yeah, Carl can do his own thing if you want to have multiple affairs, but like. You have to like it if you’re not willing to talk about things truthfully, which it does not seem that these people are, if they’re not being honest about timelines and how many affairs and then. Yeah, no one needs to know sordid details but it needs to at least match up with what’s already in newspapers.

Sheila
Yeah. And it really didn’t. Yeah.

00:52:39:24 – 00:52:53:04
Rebecca
Yeah. Then, like, it doesn’t sound like people who are actually willing to be honest about the situation. And so then, yeah, I don’t think that it’s hard to believe that, like a lot of the people who are unsupportive and judgy. I highly doubt they’re judging Laura.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Unless they are quite unquote judging her for saying because they’re like he’s abusive and narcissistic and has cheated on you multiple times. I don’t think that this is healthy or safe.

Sheila
Yeah. And that’s and that’s kind of what she says in another chapter. So later on in chapter nine, we come back to this. She says this chapter nine is about will it happen again? Right. Like, how do I get to the point where I’m not worried about it happening again? And she says this. She talks about how friends will tell you once a cheater, always a cheater. And then she says believing a cheater can’t change feels safer than hoping for healing. Yeah. And again, it just gives me these vibes that she had a lot of people telling her, Laura, you don’t need to put up with this.

Rebecca
Like, I’m gonna be real sorry, but this guy having, like, multiple affairs over many years and not stopping isn’t just like, a red flag or a mistake. It’s like, no, this is a pattern. This is a consistent pattern of behavior. Yeah. Like a long term. This is part of his thing. Like, this is what he does.

Sheila
And then she talks about how, you know, she isn’t worried anymore, how they’re so open and how they’ve gotten over triggers and, like, honestly, a lot of the stuff in the book is not bad advice. And I’ve watched a lot of reels from them. They’re not like a lot of it is not bad. The problem is, I don’t think it’s being completely honest. And I also am not sure that any of this is needed. And so I want to read to you something else that is straight from Carl. Lauren DeMoss. She’s wonderful. I follow her on social media. We’ve quoted her before here. She has said funny social media clips. Anyway, she got in a conversation with Carl back in 2024 when he was talking about writing this book and starting a podcast.
Okay. And she said, and I don’t have, she didn’t take a screenshot of what precipitated this, but evidently it was him talking about going through a trial.

Yeah. Okay.

Sheila
Yes. And so how about if we just take turns reading this? I will read Laura’s part. You read Carl’s? That’ll make sense, right? Okay. Because this is a conversation going back and forth.

Sheila
Watching you go through a trial. You cheated on your wife, bro. You were unfaithful. You broke your marriage vows and were justly removed from your position as pastor. This was a sexual sin against your whole family and your own body, not a trial. Words matter.

Rebecca
And then Carl said, Lauren bro, your bio as a legalism expert is really interesting. Trial works great for us because that’s what it was.

Sheila
Doesn’t say expert bro. You said watch you walk through this deep trial. No. You sinned. It’s not a trial. Maybe for your family, but it was every bit your choices that led to their harm. Own it. Don’t downplay it as a trial. That’s disgusting. Not to mention the gaslighting, which apparently you’re good at. Yikes. This is so gross.

Rebecca
Going to have to listen to the episodes, bro. I’m not going to name every sin committed each time I reference what happened. So trial shall remain when you talk about your sin, etc.. Use what you want. I think that’s fair. And when you do, I will not pick at your words. I’ll pray for you.

Sheila
No, Carl, words matter. You’re purposely downplaying this as something that happened to you, rather than a heinous and disgusting sin you committed against your family.

Rebecca
This reminds me of a really funny, really funny example that I had from another group that I was in. I used to be big, like I was. I had a big blog when I was in university, and I was in the, Christians blogging group, but I had to leave because I just couldn’t handle it.
And this woman, put out a prayer request, and I feel bad about this. It’s like, I don’t I don’t, I can’t, I can’t even with people who do this, that to me it feels very disrespectful of my religion. God
So she posts in this group for support because the devil has been testing her and her family. The devil is testing her. And when you read the story she’s talking about how, you know, they’re, they, they have to pay so much on their car loans because they all got new cars. And so they have all these fancy cars and like she bought all this stuff for her blog which is all like Louis Vuitton. And she’s trying just to understand God’s timing with all of this. But you know, they made these things and the money’s just not coming. And the devil is testing them. And just like we just need a hedge of protection around our family as we’re going through this, like this, this spiritual war. And I’m like, tell me that feels remarkable. That feels like we are putting on God things that are not of him, and that feels like we are actually giving power to like, if, like. When you attribute things to someone when they’re not their job. That’s not that. I’m so sorry, but Satan did not buy a Rolls-Royce. Sorry, but that was all you, sweetie pie, right? Like, yeah. You were not being tested there. What you’re doing is you’re dealing with the consequence of your actions, and you get to ask for support. Like, hey, we made awful financial decisions, and we’re now reaping the consequences, and I just, I need some community that can just listen to me about this because, like, I’m just so stressed.

Sheila
Yeah, that would have been fine. That would’ve been great.

Rebecca
So fine. Yeah. You know what? We get to mess up and then dig our way out of these pits. Sure, but not like I am being tested by the Lord or tested by Satan. I am like a girl , it’s your Amex card.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Anyway, I feel like the same thing here where it’s like our family went through a large trial. No they didn’t. You put your family through a large trial? Yeah. I’ve gone through trials of my own making. You can say that? Yes. Trials of your own making.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
But it’s like it feels to me when we use spiritual language to absolve ourselves of guilt. What we’re actually doing is lying in God’s name and actually, what I believe is that do not take the Lord’s name in vain.

Sheila
Yeah, that’s. And that’s the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Rebecca
I do genuinely believe that that is what that is. That’s why it bothers me so much where it’s like, yeah, words actually do matter. And you get to use whatever words you want, but you have to operationalize them and define them. Yeah. Like if she wants to call it a trial, then he needs to be very open on that.
This is my fault.

Sheila
And it’s interesting because in one of the People magazine articles or maybe it was the Hillsong documentary, maybe was the People magazine talking about the Hillsong documentary, I don’t know. Anyway, they’re talking about the woman, the nanny, who was the wife of the pastor as well, and who worked for them from 2011-2017. And he said this because she had said this was sexual abuse, and he said it wasn’t. Yes, there was a power differential. Yes, I was the employer, but this wasn’t sexual abuse. And it’s like, yeah, but if you are the employer, if there’s a power imbalance like that’s kind of the definition.

Rebecca
I think what they mean by that is like I didn’t force her. Right. And it seemed like it was reciprocal. Like, yeah, that’s what they mean. Yeah. Like and also like if that’s, that’s often what they mean by that.

Sheila
Yeah. But again none of that was ever brought up in the book. None of that. So I want to play.
To play another clip where the clip initially sounds actually quite good, and I just want to talk about the implications of it. Okay.
Shame is a genuine part of changing your life. It’s a moment, you just can’t be a freaking house. I want to sit in shame because it feels better and feels more righteous. And then you start looking at me like that also takes me off the hook again. Because if I’m, if I’m a man that’s living, shame me. I’m ashamed that I hurt my wife. And the shame that I let my girls down. The shame that my son has to see this. My shoulders are down. My eyes are down. If anywhere, they’re on me. The only way to get out of this stuff is to get your eyes off of yourself. I don’t judge you for living in shame. I will ask you, are you aware of the impact it’s having on the people that you want to help heal? Because if you truly love them, and I know people love the people that they’ve hurt often because that’s true. You can’t make that choice anymore. You can’t. And the only antidote for shame is ownership. In my opinion.
All right. Can I read you the caption that went along with that reel? Okay. It says this shame focuses on who we are, while accountability focuses on what we’ve done and what we’re willing to do about it.
Shame often sounds like I’m a bad person, while accountability says I did something hurtful and I’m responsible for making it right. Shame can keep us stuck in self-judgment, sometimes making our own pain the center of attention instead of the people we’ve hurt. Accountability moves us toward ownership, empathy, changed behavior and repairing the harm we’ve caused. Feeling bad about what we’ve done isn’t the same as taking responsibility for it.
Yeah. So here’s the question. Has he actually taken ownership and accountability?

Rebecca
Yeah. Because this isn’t wrong or bad if ownership and responsibility have been taken. Yeah. There are a lot of people who will do something bad and then will punish the person who they harmed by making their emotional state that person’s problem. Yeah. Like people who confessed initially bad and then like, they need to be consoled by the person that they just disclosed to.

Sheila
Right. Because they’re so sad or suicidal.

Rebecca
That person or when you do, you say like, well, I feel awful. So you can’t hold me like, what do you want? I already feel awful. Yeah, right. Like those kinds of people. Like, yeah, he’s correct here. The question though is. Or have you just figured out how to not feel bad about it anymore?

Sheila
And that’s what I wonder because like, honestly, a lot of the advice they’re giving is not bad. Like a lot. Some of it I have problems with, like one of the things that was missing from the book was the idea that you have to tell the entire truth, like you do have to disclose everything to your wife. That wasn’t really talked about.

Rebecca
I think that also, like you have to disclose everything that matters. You don’t need to disclose.

Sheila
Yeah, you don’t need to disclose we did these positions or anything. But like, people should know how many people they were like, you need to know basic stuff. But. There was nothing about Hillsong. There was nothing about the fact that the pain wasn’t just to his wife and kids.

Rebecca
He probably cannot mention Hillsong for legal reasons. Yeah, but to be honest.

Sheila
But then, and I think this is the problem that I’ve had with Josh Harris as well. And I really appreciate, you know, what he’s done deconstructing I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And I really respect a lot of what he’s done. But he’s never talked about how he was really involved in the sovereign Grace ministry CJ Mahaney cover up of sexual abuse. And again, he may not be able to mention it, but then.

Rebecca
But then came the then why are you speaking. Yeah.

Sheila
Like there’s just because there’s a lot of repair to be done there. And that’s the thing. And this is, this is what bothers me is people are saying, well, they’ve come so far in the marriage. He has a lot to teach.

Rebecca
First of all, do we know they’ve come so far in their marriage? They’re saying they spent 33% of their time post awareness writing a book about how great they’re doing, which means they’ve only spent two thirds of that time actually making things better. Yeah. So they’ve had four years total of, like, healing before they started.

Sheila
During which they had the road paid for them by rich people.

Rebecca
But also it’s like how many people know after only four years if they’re doing well or not? A lot of people feel, yeah, and then they aren’t five years later. Not to be depressing about it, but like, let’s be honest about the statistics, right. Like you can get into a honeymoon phase and then it wears off again.

Sheila
But also like what one of the things that caused this in the first place was that he was involved in celebrity culture and what is right and what is he doing right now? He’s trying to build a really big podcast and they’re saying, oh, but he’s not a pastor, but he’s still trying to build a really big podcast.

Rebecca
Yeah. He’s still trying to be famous

Sheila
And that’s a problem. And so that to me is the thing is that I didn’t see a lot of real truth in the book.
So I want to read two comments that came in on Facebook that I thought were really good. Okay. And then I have something that I want to end with some basic thoughts on evangelicalism that I think are important. So one woman said this one thing,
One thing I want to say, and I think people ignore or genuinely don’t know, is that Paul lays out the characteristics that church leaders are to possess, and if they do not, they are disqualified. This ties in with Jesus words, but anyone leading one of the sheep astray, which also connects to passages in the Old Testament where God speaks through prophets about how he despises shepherds who lead his flock astray, and how he will seek after them himself, after they have been abused and mistreated. If a leader’s sin is exposed and he or she earnestly repents and there is evidence of repentance, then they absolutely should be restored to the body. But that is not the same thing as being restored to leadership. And if we think it is, I think we’ve missed a huge aspect of God’s character.
You know, like. Yeah, you can be forgiven and you can be restored to the body. You can get to go to church and you can be embraced as a full member of the church. Absolutely.

Sheila
Do you need to be famous? Like why do you need to be famous? And I think that’s the question that I keep coming back to, because he never talks about that as one of the reasons for his fall in the first place, even though it so obviously was. And now he’s back trying to be famous again. But what he keeps saying on reels is, oh, but I’m not a pastor. Okay, well, as soon as you start giving advice to people, you’re pastoring them and that’s the problem. Okay. Another woman said this.
I think it’s the outcome of cheap grace. Be nice, love, has become the battle cry of those who think these things should stand in place of accountability and consequences. Men can absolutely be restored by God’s grace. But ministry is a privilege. And once you have broken and abused people, you don’t get to pastor a megachurch anymore. Their insistence on doing so demonstrates their focus on their own well-being, rather than on repentance and restitution.
Allowing them to do so demonstrates the biblical illiteracy of our culture. Now they’re not trying to pastor again, but again, they’re still trying to build a huge podcast network.

Rebecca
The first thing that they did was cut out an advice book about the ten. Yeah, you must have. And all these things like, well, with what credentials with. Yeah.

Sheila
It reminds me, like, you know, Mark Driscoll. Okay, so he blew up Mars Hill and all the elders at Mars Hill. Said that he had to go through this big restoration process and repentance process. And instead of doing any of it, he moved his family down to Arizona and started a new church. And people let him, you know, and right now, what people are doing is they’re letting Carl and Laura have this big platform. And again, a lot of what they’re saying is not bad. But you know what? There are so many people talking about how to have a healthy marriage. You don’t need this.

Rebecca
There are people who are actually experts who have books on how to navigate affairs. After an affair, or how to figure out if your marriage is salvageable. And there’s lots of people who are talking about this who are actually educated and credentialed and whose credentials isn’t I had an affair less than like, I mean, for pity’s sake, the affair, like the marriage, since knowing you had affair is barely even a kindergartner at the point that they. Yeah. Wrote the book. Yeah. I’m sorry. In Ontario, you go to kindergarten at age four. Yeah, I know that’s not the case everywhere. Yeah. But I and that is this is not having slept with multiple people who are not your spouse is not actually a credential.

Sheila
Yeah, it’s really weird. So this is something that I want to talk about tomorrow on our Friday roundup. Okay. So for those of you who are not subscribed to us on YouTube, please go to YouTube and subscribe. You know, with algorithms and social media changing all the time, you could be watching us or you could be tuning in on Facebook, which is currently our biggest platform. But as soon as Facebook changes the algorithm or my page gets stolen. Again, which it has been. In the past, hacking like that happened all the time. You could lose me. And so please follow me in at least 2 to 3 different ways, especially our email list, because I can’t get hacked. So yeah.

Rebecca
But we download the list every time.

Sheila
Yeah. So, please do that. But on our YouTube we tend to do like a 20 minute unscripted, unedited video. And I want to talk about this a little bit more tomorrow. But I think that there is a real culture in evangelicalism that is so focused on saying the prayer, and now we’re forgiven and we’re restored, and we’re right with Christ that we miss out on, like, growth and discipleship and healing. And, Jay Mallow, I was writing, I was writing about this on threads, and Jay Mallow sent me his Substack article, and I’m going to put a link to it in the podcast notes about why it is that evangelicals are so committed and so intent on restoring everybody all the time, even when they shouldn’t be restored. And he opens it with several examples, like the restoration of Johnny Hunt, who was the head of the SBC and sexually abused someone. The apparent conspiracy to challenge the narrative surrounding David Sills and Jennifer Lyle. The most recent is the restoration of Matt Chandler. Right. So these things keep happening, and he says that he thinks there’s deeper theological presumptions at work. It’s a really good article. I can’t quote the whole thing. I want to quote just a little bit of it, okay.
He says this even talking about evangelicalism and specifically the holiness movement. All right.
So a person lives and their chosen sin until they reach a crisis point and have a revelation. They then pray a prayer that often includes some form of repentance and belief. And then the sin problem is overcome. This mode of thinking from the moment of conversion, the believer has the ability and in fact should have the ability to be effectively sinless. This doesn’t mean that the believer never sins. Rather, they move from victory to victory where sins are conquered. In this view, the believer’s greatest threat to sin is external. The world and the devil often become prime antagonists, with temptation becoming the believer’s greatest threat. The believer’s problem, then, is almost always external, because the believer themselves is a new creation.
And then it goes on to talk about other issues. And he sums the whole thing up like this. So talking about several other issues I don’t have time to get into, we’ll get into them tomorrow. But he says this,
This brings us to an obvious problem of what happens when a believer, since even egregiously, what I have observed is that there’s a disconnect. There has to be an explanation as to how the sinless believer fell. Often multiple things happen. First, the sin is expressed in as momentary language as possible. The sin is couched as a mistake, a one time failure, a slip up where the person gave into temptation.
Secondly, the fault of the sin almost immediately lies with the temptation that the person fell in. The temptation was too much. The proximity to close, the temptation simply to be attractive, to be avoided. Well, the temptation is exaggerated. Inversely, the sin itself isn’t minimized. Physical sins are worse than emotional. If physical, the amount and severity became an issue. If sexual, how far did it go? It is important for us to say that this isn’t just a matter of saving face, nor is it a matter of wanting to believe the best. It’s a matter of fundamentally being unable to square someone’s behavior with theology. The offender should not sin in this way if they are a believer, and add in Conservative ideologies and organizations are quick to prescribe a conventional remedy.
And so what he’s basically saying is that the redemption story is necessary for us to make sense of our theology. Because if people can’t be restored, it means that our theory, our shared theology must be wrong. In some way. And so it’s like people are running after this restoration so we can say, see, it works, as opposed to saying, maybe our theology needs to be deeper than just saying a prayer and everything’s fine.

Rebecca
Yeah. Like maybe we actually need to understand faith as something that is not messy in the way that it’s often discussed in evangelical circles where it’s like, oh, well, sometimes our pastor sexually abused people. Yeah. Like that’s not what we mean by messy faith. We may have ideas like, no, like this is a developmental pathway like anything else. And so they are going to be like, yeah, you’re going to sin. You are not going to be perfect overnight. And maybe we don’t need to have such a sensationalized faith.

Sheila
But also maybe like we need to get out of the idea that just because I say a prayer I have now like arrived and that’s all that’s necessary for faith like that is simply not in Scripture in the way that we think, like Scripture talks so much about if you endure to the end that we should be that someone who truly believes should be demonstrating the fruits of the spirit that you.

Rebecca
Now, I think that often we think that it’s because we have this very I will say very like, sorry, that keeps one of the best but very Americanized views of faith where there’s a big moment like in a movie and then everything changes. And some people have that experience of faith. Some people are truly just all of a sudden just old is gone, new has come. Right. Yeah. Most people. It’s the start of a really important journey. Yeah. Most people you now know have a new heart but you still have old habits. You still have the same desires. Often you have deeper desires. Now. Now, they’re competing. And that’s a lot of what Paul talks about, how we have to compete with the flesh in the spirit. It’s not that you don’t have the flesh anymore. Yeah. You have to put the flesh to death, right? Like we’re competing. The sanctification of you is already saved. You are already and yet not yet sanctified. Right? Like ready. And not yet is a big Wesleyan thing, right?

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Yeah, but I think that’s a very tricky thing to talk about. Or. How do we? And then the question gets to then what do we do about leadership? If we accept that Christians aren’t all going to be perfect, then do we let leadership who has like, yeah. It gets really tricky.

Sheila
It gets messy and it’s so much easier to just say, as long as I’ve said the prayer and they said they’re sorry, they need to be restored because and that’s kind of what Jay was arguing. And again, it’s really good I’ll put a link in the podcast notes. But, you know, because what he’s saying is we’re just we’re just fighting for this shared narrative

Rebecca
I mean, yeah, if we’re ever going to get a better way of doing this, unfortunately, I do think that we have to just fully rethink how we do it. Like church and space and all these different things, because right now, the evangelical way of doing it is just weird. There’s too much responsibility on one person. Often that’s just and we know that pastoring is a job that burnout doesn’t even begin to describe.

Sheila
Right. And what Paul says about the gifts, the spirit that the gifts have been given to many for the edification of the body. And so and yet in our churches, what happens is like one person is supposed to have all of the gifts, and everyone else is just supposed to sit in the pew unless, you know, and obviously that’s not true because we need volunteers. But like, that’s the thing we’re asking for volunteers as opposed to like say, oh, she’s really got a gift of teaching. Let’s make sure she’s teaching somewhere. Oh, he’s really got the gift of nurturing. Let’s make sure that he’s on the care committee and going to hospital visitations and stuff. Like, we’re not, we’re not doing that. We’re expecting it all to go on this paid staff. And then we show up on a Sunday morning to get this amazing worship service, which is like entertainment. And that’s and it’s really tricky. So I mean, I might as we wrap up, I really, really hope Carl and Laura Lentz are good. Yeah, I wish them nothing but the best. I hope their kids are good.

Rebecca
That would mean that he stopped sleeping with other women and that would be good for the world.

Sheila
Would be good for everybody. I don’t wish them any ill will, but I think that there’s been a huge blind spot here because they never talked about how it was the celebrity culture in part that led to this. And now they’re just pursuing it again. And once you have once you have used your platform to abuse others, which he did, not just sexually but in other ways.

Rebecca
He even said that like the burnout and the stress from all of the platform is what led him to be in a terrible place. Yeah, and now he’s like, let’s hear it for the remix.

Sheila
Yeah. Once you don’t get to have a platform again. And yeah, you just don’t. And that doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian. It doesn’t mean you can’t be in a church, but you don’t get to have a platform again. And that doesn’t. That shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say. And even if someone has oh, but they have a great message. Do you really believe? No one else in this world has that message? Like, do we really believe no one else in this world can give a good message on how to recover from affairs? I don’t, I know there’s amazing books out there. I’ll try to get a list of them and put them in the podcast notes. But this isn’t a book that is needed. It isn’t a book that is honest in every way. It isn’t a book where he honestly takes accountability and.

Rebecca
Yeah, because you can say, like I said, I was an awful person. I did all these bad things. But then if you’re minimizing and not being honest about what that was then. And if you listen, this book will not have sordid details. So, you know, don’t like it if you’re looking, you know, you’re not going to hear her address it then, but you can’t then say things that are not true.

Sheila
Yeah. Like it’s really problematic. And so yeah, I wish it were different. I wish that as Christians we were more discerning. And I think that if we stopped allowing people to re-platform themselves they would be a lot better off. And Mark Driscoll again, just keeps coming to mind because he’s someone who shouldn’t have a platform at all. And the only reason he has a platform is that people still go to his church. People are willing to overlook the fact that he blew up thousands upon thousands of lives in Washington state. And then just moved on and, and decided to do it somewhere else. And is that Mark Driscoll’s fault? No, I actually don’t think it is, because he couldn’t have that church in Arizona unless people were in the pews.
There are always going to be narcissists. A lot of them are going to be pastors. The problem is not that narcissists are pastors. The problem is that people are willing to sit in the pews of narcissists who are pastors.

Rebecca
When in his first church, before everything blew up. Like you could believe the thing. Or it’s like, well, we just got weirder and we just didn’t notice it until it’s too late. But like, so it’s like we didn’t realize that it was like poison soup that we were eating. But then Mark takes poison that is now labeled poison soup. Has had multiple like national news articles about poison soup by Mark Driscoll. Yeah. Hey, Arizona, would you like some soup? And they were like, gobble, gobble, give me that soup, unfortunately that’s on you.

Sheila
Yeah, yeah. That is.

Rebecca
Sorry. Like my hot, my hottest thing that people might get mad at me for. Yeah. Come out from Mark Driscoll’s Arizona church and want to talk about how they were tricked. No you weren’t. Yeah. You actually don’t get to use that. That’s it. I actually think that’s offensive and cruel to people who are in actual cults or who were children. Like, if you are a kid, you get to say it like if you were an adult who post
Mars Hill. Yeah. We’re like, give me some of that good slurp slurp soup like that’s on you, like fully. Now you are welcome here to deal with why you believe that stuff. We love having you here. But like, we don’t get to claim the same. Level of, like. Being like, you know, taken advantage of as someone who was given something that didn’t have a warning label plastered all over the literal entire internet about it. Yeah. So it’s like I’m just saying there are levels.

Sheila
Got to be a little more discerning. Yeah, you have to take responsibility for who you choose to platform, who you choose to follow, who you choose to read. And a lot of these people have disqualified themselves, and that’s on us. Not us, but like us as a community.

Rebecca
Like when we did the Great Sex Rescue, the books that we talked about are not books that had obvious red flags attached to them. They are the mainstream books where they are touted as experts, they’re seen as this. There aren’t, like obvious. They’re not risen out of the mire of someone’s destruction. Yeah, right. Like they’re normal books. Which means if you’re, like, taken astray by one of them, you’re trying to follow those up. Yeah. You had good reason to believe. Yeah. What God wants you to do, everyone is past the most. Famous because he had sex with a bunch of people who aren’t his wife, and now he’s trying to get famous again, and then he wants to lead you straight. You must take personal responsibility for that. Like, I’m so sorry.

Sheila
Yeah. You know, and that’s evangelicalism is not going to heal until we confront that culture, that celebrity worshiping culture. And, you know, that part of the problem with both Driscoll and Lentz is that they weren’t qualified to do anything else. They were making a whole ton of money off of church. I mean, look what Carl Lentz got. Like he had these mega rich people who were giving him stuff even after this all blew up, right? Like they had mega rich donors and people and they weren’t qualified for anything else.

Rebecca
There’s no way that man couldn’t have gotten a marketing job somewhere. Yeah, he had options.
You know, as I’ve always said, animal shelters always need help. You can pay penance to the universe by cuddling bunnies. Yes. Like so. So this is always an option.

Sheila
So anyway, I hope that explains because I had a lot of followers who like my stuff, say, but their book is really good and their podcast has really helped me. And like I said, what they’re saying, it’s not necessarily that bad in a lot of cases, but there are other people talking about how to recover from affairs from an evidence base standpoint, and they’re more worth your time. I think a lot of people are reading this book because they are in the middle of infidelity, and they’re really hoping that their marriage can be restored. And the simple fact is, as they even admit in this book, most can’t. And if you’re reading this to think that, oh, but ours is going to be different, this is going to give you hope. You know, what it might do is it might make you, like, stay for another two years before everything blows up. Whereas you had all these friends coming alongside you saying this, this isn’t okay, you deserve better than this.

Rebecca
And if you want your marriage, if you’re in the middle of it and you’re like, I just need to know that there’s hope, the fact of the matter is you’re not going to get through it unless you’re able to be fully in, like, irrationally honest. Yeah. Like that is the way forward is complete honesty with yourself, with each other.
Like that is the way forward. Yeah. So again, not like addressing why you’re looking for the sensationalized Hollywood story instead of just looking truly into what the experts are saying or being like, why are you holding out hope by projecting your story onto someone else who seems to be doing well? Because I don’t care how Carl and Laura are doing, I care about how you’re doing. You should care about doing how you and your spouse are doing. You should care about what your road looks like. Yeah.

Sheila
And what they didn’t do was they didn’t spend time talking about red flags of how to know when it’s not working. They just said, these are the things that you need to do to work towards health. And it really isn’t a helpful book. Like if you are in a marriage that is going to be restored. Sure, maybe, but most of
you aren’t when you’ve gone through infidelity. And for those people, this book is not going to be helpful. It can actually make things worse and.

Rebecca
For whom it could work. The ones that are written by people with qualifications will also work.

Sheila
So let’s just think I yeah, it’s.

Rebecca
I think that’s a red flag when I hear people say that. But this book is so helpful. It helped me so much. I’m like, okay, but why do you need a celebrity? Sensationalized. Yeah, that’s what that’s the homework from this. If you’re saying yeah like she’ll I normally like what you do but like this one. I just love this book so much. My question is just. Yeah, why do you need this sensationalized story?

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Because I’m not saying that you’re wrong for having lights, that sometimes we need a story. Story just to. Just to help. Our brains think I don’t know when like there’s. I’m not saying it doesn’t help anyone. I’m just saying I think that’s worth some introspection. Yeah. Because that often can show us what’s the core fear. What’s the core need? What is this book actually fulfilling for me? And is it a healthy way of filling that need? Because we can fill needs in healthy or unhealthy ways, and the need is still filled, and it feels good and it feels filled. But was that actually a healthy choice? Yes. Not a shaming conversation. That’s just an introspective one.

Sheila
So let’s not have, let’s not have Chip Grace, you know, let’s not platform people that have lost their platform. And yeah, let’s just remember that pastors and teachers need to be above reproach.

Rebecca
Can I say one final?

Sheila
Okay, one final thing.

Rebecca
A great example of how we should do this is, again, Ariel and Ned Fulmer. I’m sorry. Okay. I’ll run Ned under the bus whenever I possibly can for cheating on that wonderful woman. Okay, so again, really big internet guy. Part of something called the trial guys cheats on his wife, and then he comes out a year later with that one year later, two years a year later, I think, with a podcast called Rock bottom with Ned Fulmer. In the first episode, he interviews his wife. That episode has so many views. The next episode has crickets. And that is what we should be doing. Give the woman, give the betrayed partner the voice. Everyone showed up for Ariel. No one is showing up for Ned.

Sheila
Yes.

Rebecca
And it’s like, why is Carl needing to be a part of this is my question. Why didn’t Carl step back and say, you know what, we have a story that is, Laura it’s going to be in your voice. Yeah. That also would have been different. You know that also. But he didn’t do that. Instead he’s like I want to be. I need to be up in the spotlight too. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the question I would, I would have for you is like why did this. Yeah. Like we need to show up for the betrayed partner and recognize that, like, I don’t actually need to show up for the one who did the betrayal.

Sheila
Yeah. Which doesn’t mean that we don’t think they’re forgiven.

Rebecca
Doesn’t mean that they don’t have great friends.

Sheila
Doesn’t mean they don’t have a great church, but they just don’t get to have a platform again. And that’s not being mean. That’s just being biblical. And that’s just saying, yeah, leaders are held to a higher standard. So that’s us in Bare Marriage. I hope that’s clear. Thank you for joining us. Please tune in tomorrow on YouTube because we’re going to have a different conversation about this kind of culture from a different point of view. And I’m excited about what we’re going to be sharing. And we’ll see you again next week for another edition of Bare Marriage. Okay. Bye bye.
Rebecca
Bye