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...
Does complementarianism lead to good marriage outcomes? I'm going to answer that question in this post, but I want you to keep something in the back of your head as you're reading this. One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t...
When it comes to marriage, teamwork is associated with all the good stuff! Hierarchy, on the other hand, is associated with all the bad stuff. We explain today on the Bare Marriage podcast some of our biggest picture findings in The Marriage You Want, and how we...
I often get accused of just hating all evangelical marriage books. Surely there's SOMETHING you like, Sheila? Right? Or are you just trying to badmouth everything so that you can sell more books? The critiques often go like that. But here's the thing: It actually...
The idea that men want respect while women want love doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. We've studied it, as have others, and we can now definitively say that it's bunk. And I wanted a post that outlined some of it here on the blog--not just in our new book The...
It's the podcast where we finally get to disprove the love & respect thesis! Did God make men to need respect, while women need love? Do men prefer respect over love? We've been told this for decades, starting with James Dobson popularizing it, and then Emerson...
When evangelical teachers say “men need respect”, what do they mean? On both Facebook and Threads, I posted this question:“Men have a unique, God-given need for respect.” When evangelical leaders teach this in regards to marriage, what, practically, are they saying...
Focus on the Family thinks life was better in 1964. You know, when many minorities in the U.S. had few civil rights. When women couldn't leave abusive husbands. When women couldn't get credit in their own name, or get a mortgage. That was better! When Rebecca and I...
Why did we all get sucked in to toxic teachings about sex and marriage? Because here's the thing: Unless we understand the why, then even if we leave those toxic teachings behind, it's very likely that we'll get sucked into other forms of toxic teachings about...
For years, we've been showing how the vast majority of Christian marriage books contain toxic teachings. It started with us reading Love & Respect, and seeing how terrible the sex advice was. When the powers that be ignored us when we tried to bring up concerns...
Vashti is an often-forgotten woman from the Old Testament. I love the Bible because it’s filled with stories–heroes and villains; kings and peasants; rulers and prophets. And often the Bible leaves us with stories without giving any commentary on them. We’re supposed...
She wanted to follow God and be a good complementarian wife. But after a few years it all fell apart! Before I jump into our story, a few definitions. Complementarianism is the belief that God created men to be in authority over women, in the church and the home (some...
Let's celebrate being a woman who loves God! I've been following the Her Cherch account on Instagram for a while, and she has awesome cartoons that cut to the heart of so much of what we talk about here on Bare Marriage! The artist is Marcia Takasaki, and we've been...