What if our deepest wounds drive us to fundamentalism? A few months ago a reader sent me a beautiful story of healing that exemplifies a common dynamic that I see: People who can’t face the wounds they have from childhood often gravitate to a very legalistic form of...
My son Christopher died 28 years ago today. That's such a strange phrase to say--"My son Christopher died." I remember practising saying it when he was in the ICU, preparing myself for what may come. The words didn't seem to go together, like they were fighting hard...
Women have pretty much always attended church more than men. Christianity started off as a religion of “women and slaves”, which was a common insult hurled at the fledgling new religion by the Romans. And it has continued to be a religion with more women than men....
Ever feel like faith and holiness are out of reach? You want to look like Jesus, but you know you need to pray more. Read your Bible more. Do more spiritual disciplines. Volunteer at church more. It's a long list of things you don't get to, and you know God must be...
Should we be nuanced about the effects of purity culture? On episode 247 of The Bare Marriage Podcast, we decided to open things up to all of you to ask us anything you’d been dying to ask about sex, marriage, purity culture and everything else related to healthy...
Does abuse show up more in complementarian circles? If you missed episode 246 of the Bare Marriage podcast, you missed out on a great one (and I highly recommend going back to listen when you have a chance!). I had the privilege of sitting down with Bethany Jantzi....
The Excellent Wife is a horribly depressing book to read. It was profoundly heavy and sad. When I started writing these onesheets, they didn’t really affect me that much. Most of the books I was going to be reading were ones I had read already, or were ones I had read...
ONE OF THE THINGS WE’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT ON THIS BLOG IS MAKING SURE THE SELF-HELP AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE IN THE EVANGELICAL WORLD IS HEALTHY. Over the last few years, our team has surveyed over 32,000 people, measuring how certain teachings common in the evangelical...
With thanks to Zonderkidz for sponsoring this post. When my girls were small, one of their biggest pet peeves with church was that they always did the same Bible stories. Whenever they went to summer camp, it would inevitably be: Daniel and the Lions’ Den David and...
Sexism on the mission field can do so much damage. In so many parts of the world, patriarchy is already baked in. Jesus should be rescuing us from that! But what happens when missionaries come in and teach about Jesus--but also bring patriarchy? Then instead of being...
Deconstruction often means losing loved ones and becoming estranged from parents. We’re just finishing up our deconstruction series on the podcast, talking to four different people about different aspects of deconstruction. In several of our stories, a common theme...
When we change our minds, we rarely do it all at once. Over the last decade, Keith and I have changed our minds about a lot of things. But we've done it at different rates, and it's been messy. We're pretty much at the same place today, but in some areas he beat me...
You can’t honor your husband into greatness, people. Do a thought experiment with me today. Imagine that you had recently moved to Louisiana, and you hadn’t made a lot of friends yet. Your kids had been playing with some kids down the street who went to a church...
Can there be justice for how the church has hurt people around marriage & sex? I was thinking about that question yesterday after episode 239 of the Bare Marriage podcast dropped, looking at the phenomenon of deconstruction. Specifically I was thinking about the...
Why do people deconstruct and become exvangelicals? Today on the Bare Marriage podcast author Sarah McCammon, an NPR journalist, joins us to talk about her experience with deconstruction, and what she learned interviewing so many people for her new book explaining the...