We have a crisis of abuse in the evangelical church.

It’s hard to get exact numbers on it, but it seems as if marital abuse is just as high in evangelical circles as it is in the general population–BUT (and this is an important BUT) evangelical women take longer to leave these abusive dynamics because of theology and church culture.

Many women in evangelicalism are experiencing marital rape, abuse of every kind, and more. The estimate I see the most often is 25%, and I think that’s accurate.

I started a three-part series a few weeks ago on why it is that fellow Christians don’t seem to be energized to deal with the abuse evangelical women suffer and actually help them. We looked first at evangelical churches themselves, which obviously teach theology that enables abuse (male hierarchy), but that also de-prioritizes justice and community in favour of solely a personal faith.

We looked at mainline churches which just don’t notice or seem to care what’s going on in evangelical churches.

And today I want to tackle one more important piece of the puzzle: deconstruction spaces.

Deconstruction spaces are usually very anti-evangelical, for good reason

Deconstruction refers to the process of examining the faith that you were brought up in, and ripping it down to the foundations to see what is real and what is not. Some people end up leaving the faith entirely (deconversion), but many reconstruct their faith, letting go of the racism and sexism and power dynamics and individualism and rebuild something that is focused on community, justice, and bringing the kingdom of God to earth.

Much of what we do here at Bare Marriage is deconstruction: deconstructing what we’ve been taught about sex, what we’ve been taught about marriage, what we’ve been taught about gender roles, and bringing it all back under Jesus.

People deconstruct for a reason, and that reason is often pain

Deconstruction is not easy. It’s profoundly painful, because many people lose their friends and their church families and even their actual families. They lose the certainty they grew up with. They realize that much of what they were taught, and maybe even taught themselves, was harmful. They re-evaluate their childhood and see things that were definitely not okay.

It’s hard to rebuild and figure out what to believe, and figure out what to do with the pain and betrayal you feel from those who were supposed to lead you.

And much of the pain is due to anger: you see what the evangelical church has done to women, to different racial groups and people groups, to politics, to the environment–the list goes on. And you can’t believe that these people who claimed to love God so much honestly don’t seem to care that real harm is being done.

I understand that pain and that anger.

The problem that I want to talk about today is that it can be directed in the wrong place.

I’ve had to turn down speaking engagements because the deconstruction community would have been upset if I went.

I can’t give specifics on this because it’s sensitive, but I’ve been invited to speak about marriage, and even marital rape, in church circles that could accurately be described as toxic and abusive. Circles that we’ve even called out in the past. But the engagements have fallen apart because my allies in the deconstruction community believed that if I went I’d be supporting abuse, and the groups I was going to be speaking to didn’t want the publicity online about abuse.

These things have broken my heart, because to be honest, these are exactly the places I should be speaking (though I doubt I’ll ever get any other opportunities like that). It is these abusive communities where women are most being hurt and have the least ability to understand it. It is these places where they most need to hear that male hierarchy hurts, that sex isn’t just for men, and that women’s bodies do not exist as sin management tools and emotional regulators for men.

When you see the evangelical church as a whole as the enemy, though, then speaking into these spaces is often seen as aiding and abetting the enemy. 

If I were asked to speak to Focus on the Family staff; to Doug Wilson’s church; to Josh Howerton’s church; to Matt Chandler’s church–do you know how amazing that would be? If they were willing to hear a message that undercut the very toxic things that they teach? (this same situation was one that fell apart because the deconstruction space was upset; I don’t think I’d ever have such an opportunity again).

Aren’t these exactly the women who desperately need the message?

One of the problems we face at Bare Marriage is trying to figure out how to reach evangelical women

How do you reach women who are in a complementarian, evangelical bubble and who are constantly being warned against people like us–or even us specifically (remember the Alisa Childers’ debacle?) How do we break into that group?

Because, as much as I’m happy that my social media reach is growing, and that our podcast is growing, I’m afraid that it’s mostly deconstructionists or those who have already seen the problems with complementarianism who are listening. How do we reach those still in it?

I don’t just see it as a challenge but as a moral imperative.

When we know that women are being hurt because of doctrine that is justified using the very Bible we believe in and the very Jesus we love, then I believe it is incumbent on us who do claim Christ to rescue those who are being hurt in His name.

But that isn’t happening in the same way because often evangelical women are painted as the problem. This is framed as an intellectual and theological war that we’re waging, and we can’t give an inch. But I believe that this is the wrong way of framing it.

Yes, we are trying to defeat complementarian doctrine. But we are not doing that to defeat complementarians, but rather to win them, and, in the case of complementarian women especially, to save them. 

Real people are being hurt, but often in deconstruction spaces, once someone deconstructs, they leave evangelicalism behind and want nothing more to do with it. They see evangelicalism as the cause of many problems in the world, and especially the United States (and there is much evidence for that), and they’re sick of it. And so they try to build new communities that are healthy, and that is a valiant and good thing to do.

But in the process we often leave complementarian women and other vulnerable people behind, and I think deconstruction spaces feel justified in this, because there’s a feeling of “they deserve what they get.”

As I said yesterday in my post, though, we are hard wired to belong to a group. It helps our survival, and so leaving the group that has given you identity and safety and community is very, very difficult. It is not just an intellectual exercise, but so, so much more.

My plea to deconstructionists is this: Please don’t abandon evangelical spaces.

Keep some evangelical friends, if you can. Send people books. Share social media that is a good bridge between evangelicals and deconstructionists.

Think about it like this: Imagine a spectrum where hard core evangelicalism is at A and deconstructionism and love of Jesus, justice and community is at Z. If you’re at Z, it likely took you a while to get there. And how did you get there? Likely not by someone arguing Z. You likely got there by hearing someone argue D. And then maybe J. And then O. And then maybe T, etc. Once we’re at Z, we want to preach Z, because we feel it’s so obvious. But in your personal life, remember that most people you know who are A can’t be convinced by Z. They need all those middle points, too, likely just as you did.

Please don’t abandon those still in evangelicalism, or see them as the enemy. It is very, very hard to leave these spaces, even if they are hurting you.

Bringing the kingdom of God to earth, and being part of what Jesus wants for the church, involves not just cutting off evangelicalism but reaching out to those still there and offering a better way.

I don’t know how to do this exactly. It’s something we debate all the time, and the balance of finding ways to speak to that group in ways that don’t emotionally wear me out is tricky. But those still in harmful spaces matter. Those who are being abused matter, whatever their theological beliefs.

And I hope we can find a way to reach them where they can hear.

What do you think? How can we reach the evangelical community? Let’s talk in the comments!