One of the most frequent questions I get from men is this one: How can I get my wife to understand my sexual needs? He feels like he’s in a sex-starved marriage, and he’s desperate for sex. But the more he talks about sex, the more his wife pulls away. What’s the...
With thanks to Zondervan and the book For the Love of Women for sponsoring this post! Complementarianism has a big problem. For those of you who don’t know, complementarianism is the belief that God placed men in authority over women, in marriage and the church (some...
Complementarians often use pretty words to obscure what they believe. They say things like "men are meant to be the protectors!", or "men bear the burden of responsibility" or "we are all equal, but we just have different roles." But when you break down what they're...
There's a deep rumbling in the evangelical church right now. I've been saying for the last few years that God is shaking the church--and I'm feeling that profoundly. Whenever I come to the end of a big project, and start something new, I get a little introspective and...
In 2019 I started critiquing Christian marriage books. Until then, I had been writing and speaking in evangelical spaces, but I hadn’t read a lot of Christian marriage books. I figured, they love Jesus, I love Jesus, we’re all saying the same thing! But in January of...
Does the Bible say divorce for abuse is okay? Lots of churches, and denominations, say no. You can only divorce for adultery, they say. But is that true? I've been wanting to do this podcast for a long time, and was prompted again when Naghmeh Panahi (who has also...
The medium is the message. And when it comes to Christian patriarchy, the medium is super pretty right now! Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian sociologist, said that famous “medium is the message” line sixty years ago now. He was explaining how the medium that we hear a...
Let's take a look at some new research on purity culture! Today Rebecca and I explain two new studies, and then Joash Thomas joins me to talk about his new book The Justice of Jesus. We take a look at how purity culture beliefs affect women's abilities to recognize...
My aunt Alison passed away on Friday. She saved more lives than anybody I know (including mine, twice, and maybe even yours!). Can I take a moment and tell you about her? I shared this earlier this weekend on Facebook, but I want to elaborate at the end on how I'm...
Shouldn't authors care if their teaching harms women? I shared a story on Facebook yesterday, and I wanted to expand on it a bit today here, since it resonated so much there. The last few weeks my mind has been replaying a convo I had a few years ago with one of the...
What does submission in marriage mean? The verses in Scripture addressing wives and talking about submission are some of the most weaponized in the Bible. They've been used to tell women that it's wrong to correct your husband (as Emerson Eggerichs does in Love &...
Who should we ultimately follow? I'm wrapping up my submission series soon, and today's post gets to the heart of the matter: too often we tell women that once they're married, their husband stands in the place of Jesus in their lives. On Monday we talked about how...
If I were to ask you what it means to submit to your husband, what would you say? When I’ve asked that question at marriage groups, people hem and haw and then eventually come up with something like this:When we’re disagreeing about something, the husband gets the...
Do you find reading the Bible off-putting sometimes? Has the Bible been used as a weapon against you, rather than as a tool for healing? And when you read the Bible, you just feel, well, upset? Maybe that's because the evangelical church's approach to the Bible has...
The doctrine of submission puts our emphasis in the wrong place Recently I decided to rerun a series that I did a few years ago on submission, because I point to the posts so often, and yet most of you weren't following me when I wrote them! And once I write...