Sheila here! Last week, Bethany Jantzi joined us on the Bare Marriage podcast to talk about how the elements of coercive control are actually found in the marital dynamics that so much of our evangelical marriage advice creates. Which is horrifying! At the end of the...
Jesus would never have called a child an “enemy.” Yet that’s exactly what Josh Howerton did in a sermon on August 11, when he was telling men to fight for their families. I was sent this clip by someone who attends Lake Pointe church and was concerned–I don’t go...
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....
Are you married to a controlling husband? I first ran this post back in 2016, but as we're moving over to our new domain next week, and taking only the posts from 2018 and forward, I wanted to make sure this one came with us! I refer to it a lot. If you're in...
My heart hurts when I hear stories of what happens when women (or children or men, for that matter) are made powerless. In about a week or so we'll be moving the blog over to a new domain, taking only the posts from 2018 with us. I have some posts from pre-2018...
There's been an alarming and disturbing conversation happening on social media lately about how women should choose death over being raped. An abuse advocate was talking to me about it, and how scary this trend was. I then began to see it all over Twitter, and became...
Can we talk about how our messages about a woman's role can actually undermine her safety? Just a quick catch-up for today's post! I want to share a few things I've seen on social media and then throw this open for discussion. I'm taking a bit of a downtime this week...
Unconditional respect isn't a thing. And yet we're often told that men need unconditional respect, just like women need unconditional love. It's summertime, so I'm taking a month off of recording new podcasts, and instead I'm going to highlight some of my favourites...
Can we talk about something hush hush? What if spanking kids is also a form of sexual assault? Hear me out on this one, okay? I've shared a number of social media posts and podcasts about spanking lately, including what the large meta-analysis of 160,000 children...
Let's face the fact that fundamentalist Christianity in North America is basically a sex cult. That's Alyssa Wakefield's conclusion in Part 2 of her story on the Bare Marriage podcast! Listen to last week's episode, where she explains how she was groomed to obey her...
On Friday on his podcast, John Piper told a woman married to a harsh husband to just be gentle with him. Pray more. Remember it might be his personality. Win him with kindness. Show appreciation and call out the good in him. And don't talk to other people about it...
Many of us grew up with toxic faith. I just hope you know you can heal and grow! Did you all see the Humans of New York posts yesterday? Everyone was sending them to me! It was a 15-post story about a woman who "wasn't the first preacher's wife to run away." It's all...
What if you grow up in what you now call a sex cult, and you marry because your dad told you to? Did you really consent to that marriage? And how does it even happen in North America today that girls are being pushed into arranged marriages? Today's podcast sounds...
I've got an awesome example of how stats can be misused today! And why it's important when we hear someone who isn't trained in statistics using studies to "prove" their point, when the point sounds like a stretch, to actually check their sources. In February, Dallas...
This was one of those weeks that leaves everyone gasping for air and searching for hope. It started off with two things dropping on Monday: The Southern Baptist Convention report on sexual abuse, which was devastating, and the viral video from a church in Indiana...