What happens to your marriage when you get dragged into fundamentalism? Tia Levings went to a flagship SBC church. She wasn’t supposed to get sucked into fundamentalism. But Tia ended up being stuck in an abusive marriage, trying to fix things by following advice from...
Four months ago I had never heard of Ballerina Farm. When someone–I think my oldest daughter–told me about her social media account, I still couldn’t understand the name. It’s a farm for ballerinas? But as I’ve been hearing more and more about trad wife content,...
A few months ago, I went viral on Twitter when I shared that atrocious clip of Josh Howerton telling women to "do what he tells you to do" on "his" wedding night. Many of Howerton's supporters, and Howerton himself, said it was "just a joke." Sam Jolman, who was on...
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...
On my Friday Round-Ups I like to focus on things that have happened around the web on social media, because that's where so much conversation takes place. And you can miss it if you only watch the blog! There are two big things from my own social media I want to share...
Everyday for the last month I've received multiple social media messages asking me to write a review of the Redeeming Love movie. Redeeming Love was originally a novel written by Francine Rivers in 1991, and it quickly became one of the best-selling Christian novels...
It's Time to Revisit Love & Respect! It's three years ago this week that we launched our first series looking at the problems with the book Love & Respect. Since then we've received over 1000 stories of how that book made people's marriages worse, or enabled...
When it comes to marriage and the church, I believe the ground is shifting beneath our feet right now. As I'v been sharing all week as we look back on 2021, things are changing quickly. God is shaking things, and people are starting to understand God's heart for...