Not everyone who ends up dominating their wife is actually an abuser at heart. What they are doing may be abusive; the same dynamics may be at play, and the same harm may be being done. But it doesn’t always come from the same place. Over and over again since we have...
What if marriage isn't supposed to be that hard? This is one of those weird years where Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday land on the same day. For non-liturgical folks who don't follow the church calendar, Ash Wednesday is the day that Christians confess their sins...
ONE OF THE THINGS WE’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT ON THIS BLOG IS MAKING SURE THE ADVICE THAT IS GIVEN ABOUT MARRIAGE AND SEX 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...
What can be wrong with telling wives to pray for their husbands? Absolutely nothing! But when you tell them that the answer to your husband's abuse, addictions, or bad treatment of you is prayer, and that you have to believe those prayers will work in order for the...
One of the things we're passionate about on this blog is making sure the advice that is given about marriage and sex 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...
Sheila here! My husband Keith has taken over the blog on Mondays this month for his series on the Danvers Statement, that statement that codifies what those who believe in hierarchy in gender relationships believe. He's been thinking through their quadrant of errors...
Sheila here! Our June series on Bare Marriage is all about the four problems that those who believe in hierarchy in marriage say we can encounter. And my husband Keith’s the one writing the series! It’s based on the Danvers Statement, a codified statement of...
Sheila here! Keith’s had something gnawing at him for quite a few months, and asked if he could write the series for June where he can build his case. He’s recently read the Danvers Statement, the statement that solidifies the complementarian view of marriage based on...
Apologies are wonderful to receive. And to be honest--I had given up hope that I would ever receive any. I've been calling out the harm of toxic teachings in the church for four years now, and asking the church to do what's right. In return, I've often been villified,...
What exactly does "purity culture" refer to? Our recent book She Deserves Better spends about half of its pages addressing many aspects of purity culture, that was so common in youth groups between 1995-2015, and shows how it deviated from the gospel and from what we...
She Deserves Better is officially launched, and we're doing so well! It's selling really, really well (we woke up to #140 on Amazon, which is INCREDIBLE), My mind is going in a million different directions this morning, and I'm elated, and I'm happy, and I'm actually...
Have we been selling our daughters an incomplete gospel? Let's do a thought experiment for a minute. Imagine everything you've been told the gospel is--about how Jesus saves, and what that means. Now imagine that you're actually Jesus (if that isn't too sacreligious...
I'm often accused of trying to swing the pendulum to the other extreme. This week, a commenter wrote about her husband who was accusing me of trying to make sex only about the woman. Because the husband now had to care if his wife was interested in sex, and now had to...
I'm supposed to be at the zoo today. My cousin and her daughter are visiting from out of town, and I cleared the calendar today so that I would be free to go the zoo. Rebecca and Connor and the kids and Keith were all available, and it was going to be a big family...
There's a thread that runs through the toxic teachings we've measured: Intimacy is a pipe dream. Now that we've done surveys with over 29,000 women, we can take a step back and look at the toxic teachings we've measured as a whole--the ones given to adult women about...