What if evangelical marriage advice actually mimics coercive control? A few months ago I was emailed by Bethany Jantzi when I started talking about The Excellent Wife online. She had just done her dissertation on how The Excellent Wife actually has the same advice and...
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...
There are few books as harmful to women as The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace sells like hotcakes in biblical counseling/ fundamentalist/ homeschooling circles, and even though it seems like a “fringe” book, it’s affecting tens of...
Callous and smug. That's the impression I got about those high up in the Southern Baptist Convention after reading the report that dropped on the weekend about the sexual abuse scandal in the denomination, and how it has been ignored, covered up, and minimized, while...
What happens when we stress forgiveness over authenticity and confession? I want to start this morning with the story that got me thinking in this direction, and then propose 7 guidelines for how we, as Christians, handle taking sides when abuse is made public....
I read two terrible news articles over the weekend that had me grieving and got me all riled up. News article #1: A woman reports her rape to her Christian college, and is then is banned from campus for having pre-marital sex. NBC News explains what happened:When Mara...
Sheila here! Last week I published some "Fixed it for Yous" from biblical counselors which were extremely disturbing. My husband Keith was just infuriated, and asked to write his response. He's quite passionate about this, and he'll be recording this for our podcast...
We misunderstand women in the Bible--and we misunderstand gender aspects of research! So let's talk. We've got Joanna visiting, so we've recorded a whole bunch of segments about how not to misuse research! Plus today Mary DeMuth joins us to talk about her new book The...
Biblical counseling is a "school" or method of counseling that believes the Bible is sufficient for the problems that we encounter in life. It eschews psychology and "secular" research, and focuses on using the Bible to counsel people. Many Christian counselors are...
Yesterday I caused quite a stir by talking about some of the problems with how the biblical counseling movement started, and some of the problems with some places it's currently being taught. I want to stress that we don't need to think of biblical counseling vs....
Biblical Counseling Can Be Dangerous. Julie Roys has been doing an expose of how John MacArthur handled counseling Eileen Gray, whose husband was physically and emotionally abusing her children (and later found to be also sexually abusing them). When she went to the...
Sometimes church is a toxic place. Not always. Not even usually! Study after study has found that religiosity actually helps people, and people who go to church tend to have better mental health, better relationships, and better lives overall. HOWEVER--and that's a...
Dads shouldn't need their adult daughters to give them adulation and affection. That's called emotional enmeshment and triangulation, and yet that's what Voddie Baucham, who has been nominated for President of the Southern Baptist Convention (he may not actually run)...
Do you know who reads marriage books and seeks out marriage advice? Usually it's people having trouble with their marriage! And yet often the advice that's given isn't helpful for unhealthy couples, and can even be harmful. And then authors say, "but it's not meant...
Okay, everybody: raise your hand if you're pro-abuse! Of course no one is pro-abuse. So what does it mean to be anti-abuse? Just a few quick thoughts on a Tuesday (I try not to write long posts on Tuesdays to give myself a day to get a lot of work done), but I had...