Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 15
January 19, 2022
Why Does Emerson Eggerichs Consider a Woman Crying in the Shower Before Sex “A Goldmine”?
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 abuse in their marriage. That series served as the catalyst for us to do our huge research project of 20,000 women, looking at how teachings in best-selling evangelical books affected women’s marital and sexual satisfaction (you can read the results in The Great Sex Rescue).
Every year, around this time of year, I like to revisit it. In 2020 we published our open letter to Focus on the Family about their support for Love & Respect. Last year I wrote a viral Twitter thread about the problems with how evangelicals see sex, and penned an editorial for RNS.
And this year, I’ve asked my son-in-law Connor, who works behind the scenes on the blog, to analyze one of Eggerichs’ problematic podcasts, bit by bit (similar to how Connor looked at the gaslighting Eggerichs did to abuse victims in a sermon series in Houston).
Tomorrow Connor will be walking us through this in a podcast, but here it is for you to analyze today.
Sheila Wray GregoireMy wife’s birthday is coming up again, so as per tradition, it’s time to celebrate by once again looking at what Emmerson Eggerichs has to say about marriage.
Yay…
Let’s analyze an episode of The Love & Respect podcastSo let’s launch right into the subject of today’s critique. The Love and Respect Podcast is a podcast put out by Emerson Eggerichs and his son-turned-psychologist, Jonathan Eggerichs. The episode in question? Episode 039 – Tuesday Night is Coming Part 2 – A Good Woman’s View of Sex. One of our patreons sent us this podcast link because she found the episode very disturbing and right in line with what Sheila, Rebecca, and Joanna talked about regarding the obligation sex message and coercion in their book The Great Sex Rescue.
In this episode, Emerson responds to a letter that a woman sent in where she discusses the struggles with sex in her marriage. Emerson declares this woman good, wise, and a gold-mine thanks to her view of sex.
So what is this good woman’s view of sex, you ask?I’ll sum it up before going into a detailed breakdown of the episode.
Our ScenarioThis woman was afraid to live in sin and didn’t want her husband to mistreat her. Consequently, every three days for two years she cried in the shower and then initiated sex with her husband.
That’s it. That’s the dream. That’s the goal. “If you’ve got a wife like this woman, you got a goldmine” (15:38).
I think to most people reading this, that last paragraph will seem ridiculous. And it is. But what we need to do is break down the points Emerson makes around this statement to show how he got there using mainstream ideas and teachings that are commonly accepted as fact in some places–and especially in his best-selling book Love & Respect, which is still a widely used marriage curriculum in North American churches..
A few notes about my methods before we begin: Anything bolded in quotation marks is a direct quote from Episode 039 of the Love and Respect podcast, and will include a timestamp of where it appears in said podcast. If you want to listen to the original, or hear any of the quotes yourself, you can find the episode on the Love and Respect site here.
Without further ado, let’s get into it, starting with Emerson’s recap of his previous episode where he talked about what to do when your wife says she wants a divorce.
Your wife says she wants a divorce? “Don’t take those words at face value” (1:48).Emerson backs this up by saying to the husbands that he knows they have heard their wives say “you always do this” or “you never do that,” and his point is that “she will overstate things” (2:14). He goes on to argue that when women say they want a divorce, that is an extreme example of this overstatement of things, so you don’t need to believe her. She’s just exaggerating emotionally because that what women do apparently
He does provide another reason that a woman might say she wants a divorce, or is done with the relationship. He explains that sometimes, rather than being an emotional outburst that they don’t mean, they are throwing that out there just to test the marriage and make sure it’s still solid. Emerson gives the analogy of kicking a fence from time to time to make sure it’s not going to fall over. The wife is testing her husband’s commitment.
So these are two reasons that Emerson claims women tell their husbands they are done with the marriage. Does he acknowledge that a third reason might be that something is seriously wrong in the marriage? No. All he adds is that, whatever the wife’s motivations, she is always wrong to bring up divorce.
“One should never use the d-word” (2:27).Here is the longer quote. “That can pop out in some people’s marriages. It’s- it’s really taboo, it’s something one should never use. One should never use the d-word as we say. It’s uh, off limits. It’s out of bounds…” (2:27). No caveats, no recognition that maybe there’s a good reason for someone to bring up divorce, or that maybe if a wife does bring it up, the husband should at the very least take it seriously. No, his only advice to the husbands is this:
“Stay the course on loving her” (3:00).That doesn’t sound quite right to me. I hear him saying that if Rebecca were to approach me and tell me she wanted out, I should just keep doing what I’m doing. Stay the course. Whatever I’m doing is working.
I think if this actually happened to me and I wanted to save the marriage, then yes, I should keep loving her… But there’s clearly also a lot of work to do there. I need to ask, among other things, if I even actually am loving her.
Maybe I’m being selfish.Maybe I’m not loving her enough.Maybe there are subtle ways I am being cruel to her.Maybe she is running low on the emotional resources she needs to cope with life, and I am one of the big things actively draining those resources instead of lightening the load.There are a lot of things to consider.
And if my wife is just saying that to kick the fence and test me, that’s also manipulative and unhealthy behavior from her. Either way, we need to have some serious talks and work out what is happening and how to fix it.
Also, why does the bad advice have to be so gendered?Emerson plays off the never and always talk like it’s a thing we all know women do, but I looked for research to support this and came up totally empty. There’s no reason to believe that this kind of thinking in extremes (which is called absolutist language, thought, or cognition) is an inherently female thing. What researchers have found is that it is correlated with depression and anxiety. So if your spouse is using a lot of language like this, it may be a sign that they are struggling and could use your help and support. And if you come from a culture where wives actually are a lot more likely to use absolutist language, maybe it’s time to examine how your culture treats wives.
Pretty much everything here that Emerson accuses women of doing, men are equally capable of.
Emerson’s son, Jonathan, actually came in clutch here. After Emerson finished talking about the previous episode, Jonathan chimed in seemingly agreeing with Emerson’s advice, but while subtly sneaking in that either partner can use this kind of language, and that the answer is patience, proper counsel, deeper examination, and not jumping to conclusions. It was a neat little sleight-of-hand course correction from Jonathan. I’m sure there is plenty for me and Jonathan to disagree on (like the fact that he didn’t outright call Emerson out on the sexism), but you better believe this little bit elicited a small fist bump from me.
But now let’s talk about the main section–a woman is crying in the shower before sex.So a woman wrote in to the Love and Respect podcast talking about how she believed that her husband had a need she had to meet, and if she ever said no she would be in sin. So she never said no and she initiated every three days for two years even though she had a low sex drive. Nothing in their marriage improved, and she would often cry in the shower beforehand specifically because of the feelings of obligation and coercion. She cried because she felt God didn’t afford her any choice, and that if she didn’t initiate every third day her husband would mistreat her. She says “even thinking about it to this day is so painful” (9:06).
Emerson’s response is to bring up the passage from Corinthians that she references, and how it is about mutual submission and equal say. And then instead of acknowledging that maybe that actually does mean she can say no sometimes (and seek a change that doesn’t leave her crying in the shower when faced with something that is supposed to be beautiful and intimate), he affirms her decisions, actions, and interpretations and talks about what a good and obedient wife she is for meeting her husband’s needs. He holds her up as the gold standard for other wives to imitate, and simply tells the guys that it doesn’t make sense to mistreat a wife who is doing everything right like this. The message for men essentially boils down to this:
Emerson Eggerichs’ Message to MenIF my wife is making sacrifices and being obedient so I never have to endure the horror of not being able to use her for my climax whenever is convenient for me, THEN I should reward her by not being a jerk. And if she could show some initiative on this, that would be appreciated.
That is the ‘beautiful’ image of mutuality that Emerson is trying to paint here.
Here’s the problem. No one NEEDS sex.I hate it when people talk about MENS needs. Men need food. We need air. We need God. We don’t need sex. When we are teenagers, we are expected to go without sex. If our wives pass away, we are expected to not have sex. If you aren’t married yet, you aren’t “totally deprived” (15:48), you aren’t “subjected to demonic attack” (15:50) by not having sex. If you sin while unmarried, that’s on you and you need to own it and repent. We understand THAT in the church, but why do think that suddenly changes when a guy gets married and becomes an issue of her disobedience?
Sex, like marriage, is an OPTIONAL part of life that I believe God intended for situations where it can be a spiritually enriching way for two people to experience Love together. It is NOT a need that entitles you to physically use another person’s body. It’s a want. We can WANT sex, but so can women.
“She’s not tortured here. This is not a situation where she’s being crucified” (12:36)His further advice to wives is along these lines. If you are doing all this suffering and he is still mistreating you, that’s fine. To stop would be to disobey God and to deprive your husband, but to continue is to please God.
He says of the woman who wrote in, “nothing she’s done is wasted, everything she’s done has touched the heart of Christ” (11:30). And then Emerson makes sure to minimize her unhappiness, her crying in the shower, and her being coerced into sex every three days by a man who holds emotional neglect over her like a stick that he isn’t afraid to swing if he doesn’t get what he feels he is owed. He puts her suffering in place by saying “She’s not tortured here. This is not a situation where she’s being crucified” (12:36).
I don’t even need to tell you why that is a messed up thing to say. But I will anyway! Here we go!First off, the metric for whether something should be allowed to continue or not isn’t ‘is it as bad as crucifixion?’ And frankly, using the crucifixion of Jesus (who gave himself in the ultimate sacrifice to do the impossible for every man, woman, and child by allowing us to come before God washed clean of all our sins) as a yardstick for human suffering both diminishes His crucifixion and misses its point.
Secondly, being emotionally coerced into an unwanted violation every three days for two years doesn’t sound like it’s not torture. If she doesn’t want to have sex, that’s rape. If she can’t say no, but wishes she could, that’s rape.
You know who isn’t being tortured or raped? A husband who’s wife says no sometimes. Heck, she can say no ALL the time, and he’s still not being tortured or raped. But Emerson says “sex is a huge, huge issue to men” (21:29).
Again though, men don’t NEED sex any more than women do. Despite that, not once in this podcast about a good woman’s view of sex does Emerson talk about women enjoying sex, much like how he doesn’t talk about men being disobedient to God. And I think this points us to a big problem that I see whenever I look at Emerson’s work.
I don’t think Emerson Eggerichs understands anything about women.Hear me out.
According to him, “you turn on a woman sexually by not having anything to do with her sexually” (16:35). “This is a classic truth, an axiom, a basic principle” (16:47).
Emerson talks about how men are able to compartmentalize the emotional and spiritual from the physical, and be totally energized by just the physical aspect of sex. Meanwhile women are turned on by non-sexual things like husbands ‘helping’ with household chores or spending time with them.
“Why is it that your wife wants you to vacuum? Um, it isn’t necessarily because she’s this domestic engineer who has a whip in hand and wants you to abide by every command she gives you. Maybe it’s because she realizes it’s a sexual turn on to her” (17:27).
But that’s not foreplay. Those are basic requirements for being a grown-up in a relationship. The only time I am ‘helping’ with housework is when Rebecca is actively doing something and I jump in with her. The rest of the time it’s just called ‘doing’ housework.
Oh, there isn’t room on the counter to make dinner later today because there are dirty dishes? I am going to ‘do’ the dishes. Not ‘help’ with the dishes. I am part owner of the dishes. I am partly responsible for dirtying the dishes. I will take part in eating the dinner that one or both of us prepare on the newly cleaned counter of the house we own together.
I don’t spend time with Rebecca to ‘get’ something out of it. I spend time with her because I like her and I am emotionally fulfilled by spending time with her. That’s kind of why she is the one I married. Even if we both have stuff to do, if there is a way for us to sit on the couch with our feet in each other’s laps while we do it, then that’s what we’ll do. Because we like each other, and healthy men have just as much desire for emotional intimacy as healthy women do.
And also, can Emerson think of no other reason that the wife might want the husband to vacuum? Like maybe because the floor is dirty? Maybe some women get hot watching their husband vacuum (in which case, rock on. You two do your thing), but it’s far more often the case that when the husband does basic adult stuff in the wife’s place, the wife feels she finally has just enough emotional energy to let her husband use her body for his physical urges.
Granted, for some women that may be the closest their husbands have come to turning them on. Like the sexual light switch is still off, but at least the husband lit a candle.
Emerson makes no recognition of the fact that women are also designed to get sexually turned on by sexual things.Well, except for three days a month when women are capable of getting pregnant, and may therefore experience sexual appetite, according to him.
Now, there is no shame in it if you really struggle with sexual arousal in your marriage. There are a lot of reasons for that to happen, especially when we are hearing people like Emerson who all but say ‘sex isn’t for you, ladies.’ There are also ways for you to reclaim that part of yourself, like Sheila, Rebecca, and Joanna’s The Great Sex Rescue or The Orgasm Course. And in Sheila’s upcoming books The Good Guy’s Guide to Great Sex and The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex (totally revamped from the 2012 edition!), there are huge sections on how arousal works for women.
The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church.
What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now!But the fact is, women are designed to get turned on by sexual things. And they are capable of physically enjoying sex.
Saying that women aren’t turned on sexually by sexual things, only housework and talking and such, is almost as bad as saying something like “you can’t tell if a woman is sexually turned on.” If someone were to say that, it would make me want to question whether that hypothetical person has ever actually gotten their wife turned on. That’s certainly not someone that anyone should be taking sex or marriage advice from.
Anyways, later Emerson says “You can’t tell if a woman is sexually turned on” (18:16), which is just… wow. I don’t really have a comment to make about that (though in tomorrow’s podcast, Sheila will share her eloquent thoughts on that quote).
Emerson seems really confident about his generalized assumptions about female sexuality though.He explains to men how their wives will respond to his advice. Not how they might respond. How they will respond.
He says to men that if you are doing the non-sexual stuff for her, you can still communicate your sexual interest “and she will get that, I mean in fact she’ll go along with that. She enjoys that” (24:17).
If you are doing the non-sexual things, “it does turn her on sexually, she will engage in the sexual intimacy between husband and wife, not unlike the Song of Solomon. She’s not going to be unresponsive” (24:33).
Like we’ve said about most things Emerson has put out there, this seems like a really dangerous thing to tell people as a blanket statement. Because what happens when the manipulative, emotionally abusive, self-centered husband tries this advice and it doesn’t magically make him sexually appealing to his poor wife? Cue the gaslighting and exploitation.
“She must be broken; she must be wrong; she is living in sin; she is being disobedient; Emerson said it would be like Song of Solomon, and that’s in the bible so she has to do it; he is doing everything right; she is failing; he is being tortured; she literally gives him no choice but to turn to porn; he can’t be blamed for getting his NEEDS met elsewhere; she needs to give him what is owed…
Emerson sounds like a man who doesn’t know to get a woman to say yes, but rather just how to get her to stop saying no.He doesn’t seem to get that sex is supposed to fulfill the same longings in women that it does in men and vice versa. Sex is supposed to be about physical, spiritual, and emotional intimacy, but Emerson says guys are perfectly fine with just the physical component, and women don’t want the physical, they just agree to it if they get the emotional and spiritual. He splits it up, and in so doing makes sex into a hollow shell of what it should be.
If a husband can’t make sex physically enjoyable for his wife, they need to stop and figure that out. Because otherwise he is the one depriving her. And if he can’t be emotionally and spiritually intimate with her, meaning he is only pursuing sex for the physical, that sounds like lust to me. That’s not God’s design for sex. It’s meant for more than just making a man’s penis feel good for a few short minutes at the expense of his wife’s happiness.
There’s a lot more to say about the Love and Respect podcast, but these are the points I really wanted to make in this post. We will be talking about it as well on our podcast tomorrow, so be sure to check that out if get the chance!
All in all, I feel really sorry for the woman who emailed in about crying in the shower, and I wish she got better advice than “Yep, you’re doing great and you are very wise. Good job.”
What do you think? What will it take to get people to understand how toxic Emerson Eggerichs’ advice is? Let’s talk in the comments!
Other Posts in our Love and Respect Series:THE MUST READ: An Open Letter to Focus on the Family about Love & Respect and Emerson EggerichsA Review of Love and Respect: How the Book Gets Sex Horribly WrongLove and Respect: Why Unconditional Respect Can’t WorkThe Ultimate Flaw in the Book Love and Respect: Jesus Isn’t at the CenterDissecting a Sermon Series where Emerson Eggerichs Gaslights Abuse VictimsDissecting a Podcast where Emerson Eggerichs Ignores Marital Rape and Says You Can't Tell if a Woman is ArousedIs It Okay if Christian Marriage Books are Just a Little Bit Harmful?Love & Respect is Being Used by the BDSM Community to Convince Wives to Submit to DominationPODCAST: Why Unconditional Respect Isn't a Thing (and how the verse the book is based on, and the survey data the book is based on, don't hold water).PODCAST: An Example from Eggerichs' blog of Eggerichs Gaslighting Women (we work through line by line)PODCAST: Dissecting Eggerichs' Love & Respect Sermons at Houston's First Baptist Church, with His Dismissal of AbusePODCAST: Our Love & Respect Wrap UpI’m Passing the Torch on Love & Respect. 10 Ways You Can Pick it UpPlus our Resource Pages:Summary Page of Issues in Love & RespectResources to let others know of your concerns about Love & Respect The Biggest Supporter of Love & Respect is Focus on the FamilyThey publish the book and heavily promote it, and promote video series with Emerson Eggerichs. They also heavily promote his book Mothers & Sons, which primes the next generation of boys to feel they deserve unconditional respect, regardless of how they act. Please consider your giving to Focus on the Family, and contact them about your concerns. Without Focus on the Family's support, the Love & Respect ministry would dwindle considerably.
The Following People Have Endorsed Love & Respect"Millions of lives and marriages – and in many ways, our whole culture – are completely different today because of the work of Emerson Eggerichs and Love and Respect ministries." Shaunti Feldhahn, best-selling author of For Women Only"Occasionally I run into somebody whose material, what they’re teaching, and the quality of the person rocks my world." Dave Ramsey"probably the most helpful [marriage book and seminar] we have ever experienced." Michael Hyatt"With his Love and Respect concept, Emerson Eggerichs has discovered what can only be described as the Holy Grail of marital counseling." Eric Metaxas"Dr. Emerson Eggerichs …is … balancing this scale [towards respect]" Dr. James Dobson"People around the world, in every kind of business need to hear this simple yet life changing message." Anne Beiler"I couldn't recommend Dr. Eggerichs highly enough. I call him the Billy Graham of marriage." Kendrick Vinar, lead pastor Grace Church of Chapel HillIf any of these people would like to rescind or qualify their endorsements, please reach out, even confidentially. If any would like a confidential conversation about the problems with Love & Respect, please reach out.
Connor Lindenbach Connor Lindenbach is the technical face behind To Love, Honor and Vacuum, managing the website and keeping it running. He's also the husband of Rebecca, and together they take turns working and caring for their two adorable children. A psychology graduate, he plans to transfer into mediation to help couples find peaceful solutions to thorny problems. He loves fitness, rock climbing, but most of all giving his baby daughter funny shampoo hairstyles. Related Posts The Podcast Where YOU Can Speak Up, Too, and Become Part of the Change Jan 13, 2022 | 25 Comments
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The post Why Does Emerson Eggerichs Consider a Woman Crying in the Shower Before Sex “A Goldmine”? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
January 18, 2022
Does a “Christian” Marriage Need to Suffer to Grow?
And should that make a difference for how we see marriage?
On Tuesdays I like to post something super quick rather than write a long post, and I’ve been listening through older episodes of the podcast recently when I came across this 11 minute discussion between Rebecca and me on the problematic way we can sometimes see suffering–and how we think it’s superior to joy.
We’re talking this month about putting the “Christ” back in Christian marriage advice, and I think this perspective is an important one. It’s not that God doesn’t use suffering (He does!), but that God can use EVERYTHING. And if we’re to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus, that means being joyful, too, not just being holy.
Listen through to around 12:30 when the conversation changes–or, if you want to just hear about the marriage portion of this conversation, skip forward to 8:50 and listen through to 12:30.
Listen through to 12:30 (fast forward to 8:50 if you only want the marriage part) When we think that it’s suffering that God uses to grow us, then we can stop seeing red flags in relationships, and we can stop realizing that something is wrong and needs to change.To me, that’s the central problem. We start framing God as wanting our suffering, and so suffering is good, rather than understanding that suffering is a sign that we should be trying to change something.
I’ve got more posts on that here!
What if we don’t have to suffer in marriage to be made holy?On an unbiblical view of suffering, marriage, and Created to Be His HelpmeetAre You Doing Marriage on Hard Mode? (our series!)I’m not saying that God doesn’t use suffering; only that we need a more complete picture of who God is and what He’s like. God doesn’t rejoice in our suffering because now we can grow; and when we start to think that way about God, it makes him into a monster. God uses everything, and suffering can be a cause of great emotional growth. But people can also learn things in joyful times as well, so let’s not idolize suffering for suffering’s sake.
Here’s a long story by a woman who thought she was supposed to suffer in marriage.This is the first comment I woke up to this morning, and it’s quite the doozy! It shows how a mistaken view of what God wants for us in marriage can actually mess everything up–and when you realize that God actually wants you to be well, that can change everything for the better–including those around you.
I tried for 16 years to “die to self”:to have no feelings, opinions, needs, or limits different from those of my husband in order to “respect him.” Doing so left me confused, shrouded in guilt and shame, and steeped in self-hatred for always doing something wrong. I tiptoed and still cracked eggshells all over the place.
“Respecting” him meant:Going alone to a dear friend’s evening wedding 2 hours away because I had the audacity to ask him to please wear pants that didn’t have torn pockets to this special event. I “micromanaged him” and “made him feel badly about himself” with my “criticism,” and I paid for doing so with humiliation, loneliness, and driving home alone late at night. (He didn’t wait up. Why should he when I made him feel so criticized?)Panicking within as I made the choice to grab our young toddler as she reached toward a pot of boiling water on his watch. Would I be accused of “undermining” and “disrespecting” him for doing so? Or would he be grateful that I happened to see something he didn’t? (It was the former. “She’s got to learn somehow,” was his argument for why he didn’t grab her himself when, in fact, he did see her heading that way.)Driving myself for a root canal after a tooth-shattering fall on the street, enduring the procedure alone, and driving myself home again to care for our young children. He didn’t even check in on me that entire day because I had made him angry by disagreeing with him, so I deserved what I got. (“I was angry at you. Why would I check on you?”)Hating myself for not being able to change our Thanksgiving plans two days beforehand. We had made plans weeks in advance to have friends join us for the holiday, then suddenly he wanted to be able to include another couple. Because they had plans with their family that Thursday, he wanted us to change our plans to eat on Friday so we could accommodate them. When I said this wasn’t possible—and even rude—he flipped the script on me: “Well, I don’t recall us ever having a conversation saying we were celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday. How was I supposed to know that? Why do you always call all the shots without telling me?” I was clearly inflexible, inconsiderate of his needs, and controlling. (It took two hours in the counselor’s office for our bulldog therapist to hold him to reality and FINALLY get him to admit that he DID know we were eating Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and that MAYBE it would be rude to expect others—including me and our children—to rearrange our plans at the last minute.)These are just a smattering of examples of the 10%-of-the-time dynamic between us. Lemme tell ya: 10% of the time is more than enough to make you feel like you are losing your mind.
After 16 years of trying to accommodate and appease him in the name of “not sinning against him” as his subordinate, and of despising myself for failing so miserably as a wife, I had a Complete Breakdown of Self.I simply couldn’t go on in such self-hatred and cognitive dissonance. The entire situation was killing me.
I could no longer endure the shame, and knew I needed to confess how terrible I was for regularly triggering him. I knew I needed help to repent properly and obey the Lord so as to please and support my husband.
I started to gain courage to share scenarios with a counselor and trusted friends. They were horrified, but not with me: they were horrified about his patterned mistreatment of me, about his sin against me. (It took me many years to believe them.)
A conservative Evangelical sister-friend of ten years had a different response: she accused me of being a sinful temptress who was “seducing” her husband and, after telling me she never wanted to see me again and refusing to give me any justification, sent a detailed email to my husband of how unfaithful, vicious, manipulative, and deceitful I had been to him and everyone who thought they knew me. The traumatic impact of her words and actions reverberated through me for years after, causing nightmares and cold sweats and crying breakdowns because, well, maybe she was right. We all have blind spots after all…
Over the past five years, I have regained myself.I have, with significant, ongoing therapeutic support and a strong tribe of wise friends and sister-friends, broken free from the lies of “Christian” marriage teaching that is, well, not a whole lot different than what the Taliban teaches about male-female roles and relations.
And you know what happened to our marriage? I released the outcome. I didn’t have a choice: holding on and pulling with all my might to keep it together was simply costing me too much.
As I fought to trust God and to focus on detoxing and rebuilding myself and caring well for our children, my husband began going to counseling on his own.
I have invested my energies into believing my pain, into learning how to clearly assert my needs and feelings and to stand in the truth of them, and to set steady boundaries and high expectations for him as a man who professes Christ. I have held him accountable when he attempts to discharge his emotional pain onto me, or when he refuses to take ownership for his (very human) mistakes, or when he defaults to old manipulative strategies for avoiding responsibility. I disengage when he shows signs of adolescent emotionality, and I wait for signs that he is living into his renewed self.
He is rising to the new rhythm. He is doing his work with his counselor, taking ownership of his words and actions in the rare event he falls back into old ways, and repenting before me, our children, and our God.
Our marriage has much more growth to undergo, but I daresay I feel safe at last.And he feels better about himself, his actions, and his relationships than he did when he was in perpetual emotional immaturity and sin. He is growing in empathy, flexibility, selflessness, compassion, honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, and self-control. Wise, fruitful words and choices make us feel confident about our masculinity and femininity, by God’s very design!
Blog CommenterWhat a story! I love that. I know that this is a special case, and many abusers never change, but I love hearing this.
Do you think we can put suffering in its proper perspective? What would that look like? Let’s talk in the comments!
Putting Christ Back in Christian Marriage SeriesPutting Christ Back in Christian Marriage Introductory Podcast6 Ways Christian Marriage Advice Leaves Christ OutWhy There's More to Christian Marriage Than Just 5 PassagesDoes a "Christian" Marriage Need to Suffer to Grow?What to do when Christian Marriage advice, if followed, would make you look less like ChristDo We Need to Jump out of the Boiling Water? How Advice for Christian Men Got So Off TrackPlus please see my submission series!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts A Book Review of Married Sex By Gary Thomas and Debra FiletaJan 12, 2022 | 111 Comments
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The post Does a “Christian” Marriage Need to Suffer to Grow? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
January 17, 2022
Christian Marriage Advice Is More than Just 5 Passages
In January I want to talk about how to put the “Christ” back in “Christian marriage advice”, and how to focus on Jesus again. And it reminded me of the difficulty that we had trying to choose Scripture readings for Rebecca and Connor’s wedding.
We googled “Bible readings for weddings”. And all the typical ones showed up: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8; 1 John 4:16-19 (about how God is love, even though the passage has nothing to do with marriage); Ecclesiastes 4:12 (a cord of three strands is not easily broken).
It seems that only certain passages are deemed worthy of a wedding. But in reading many of them I didn’t even think they fit a wedding all that well. So we chose different ones instead:
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:5-6and:
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Colossians 3:12-14We thought those were beautiful for a wedding–and for a marriage! In fact, I’ve been praying that passage from Romans over my own marriage ever since, because I think it’s so wonderful.
But it occurs to me that we do something similar when it comes to marriage advice.If a marriage problem pops up, we immediately pull out “the marriage passages” of Scripture, and often leave it at that.
The Bible’s Marriage PassagesEphesians 5:22-33: wives submit to your husbands and respect them; husbands love your wives.
Proverbs 31: Be a virtuous woman!
1 Corinthians 7: Don’t divorce and be generous sexually with your spouse.
1 Peter 3:1-7: Wives, obey your husbands and “win them without words”.
And maybe we’ll throw in 1 Corinthians 13 (about what love is) or Genesis 2 and 3 (about the creation story and the fall, too).
It’s as if God wrote this massive book sharing His heart with His people, and yet we’re only supposed to search out those few verses when it comes to marriage.Don’t get me wrong–these passages are wonderful and give lots of wisdom and direction for our relationships. Bu they are not the WHOLE picture. When we look at those passages in isolation, we often distort them and, I believe, interpret them wrong. Context matters, and you can only interpret Scripture by looking at the rest of Scripture.
God uses marriage as the analogy of how He feels about His people. And so don’t we think that the REST of the Bible may also have important things to say about marriage–important things about this very messy relationship which can’t always be summarized in pithy sayings or stitched on a pillow? We need to get away from “pat answers” about marriage.
And what’s a pat answer?
A pat answer is a suggested solution to a problem which DOES work–in some situations. But it’s presented as if it’s the answer to every situation, even though quite often it doesn’t fit at all.
Pat answers in the Christian life make two kinds of errors:Either they make a big problem seem small (by minimizing the severity of the problem and suggesting a solution that won’t solve it at all), or they make a small problem much bigger by giving advice that sends a woman in a completely wrong direction.
An example of the making a big problem small: “just have sex more and then he won’t watch porn!”
An example of making a small problem big: “God is close to the broken-hearted, so if you’re sad, just pray more!”
The first won’t work because it misunderstands the problem.The second won’t work because it misunderstands God and what God wants from us.And we aren’t going to grow in our marriages until we start thinking differently–getting rid of these pat answers, many of which we’ve heard our whole lives in church and in Christian culture–and getting back to what God wants for us.
And that’s quite simple: He wants us all chasing after Jesus and looking more like Him everyday.Jesus didn’t live by simple formula. He lived His life always seeking out to do God’s will, and as He did that, He found great joy and brought joy to those around Him. His aim was always the same–to bring people closer to God–but His actions varied with circumstances. And that’s how we should live, too.
You may also enjoy:On Debi Pearl and Created To Be His Helpmeet (how her view of submission has the wrong aim)A few years ago a reader, Kim M., left a comment on this blog about how we need to consider all of Scripture, even for marriage, and allow the rest of Scripture to help us inform our interpretation of verses. She used as an example 1 Peter 3:7, where Peter told the wife of an unbelieving husband to “win him without words.” Here’s what she said:
Some religious groups use “win without words (1 Pe 3:1)” to silence wives married to unbelieving and/or disobedient husbands in ways that the Bible never intended.
ALL Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). Last time I checked, ALL wasn’t limited or confined to just the verses that Paul and Peter wrote about women and wives.
The Bible tells us that “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: (Ec 3:1) a time to be silent AND a time to speak (v. 7B).”
Being silent (without words) and speaking up are both Biblical and purposeful. It’s important that the wife of an unbelieving and/or rebellious, disobedient husband understand the purpose and benefits of both methods: silence (without words) and speaking up.
What the Bible says about being silent:A wife who knows when and how to restrain her words has knowledge. “Whoever restrains his words has knowledge.” Pr 17:27A
A wife who controls her mouth can protect her own life, but the wife who has a big mouth could ruin everything. “Whoever controls his mouth protects his own life. Whoever has a big mouth comes to ruin.” Pr 13:3
Watching her tongue and keeping her mouth shut could help a wife stay out of trouble. “Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.” Pr 21:23
What the Bible says about speaking up:A wife can protect herself by speaking wise words. “What a fool says brings a rod to his back, but the words of the wise protect them.” Pr 14:3
A wise wife can bring healing by speaking up. “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Pr 12:18 “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Pr 16:24
A wife can deflect anger by giving her husband a gentle answer. “A gentle answer deflects anger…” Pr 15:1
When a wife gives her husband an honest answer, metaphorically, it’s like kissing her husband on the lips. “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.” Pr 24:26
Pr 31:10 tells us that a wife of noble character “opens her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.” Therefore, one of the primary functions of a wise wife is speaking (opening her mouth) with wisdom.
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. FOR IF YOU REMAIN SILENT AT THIS TIME, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Es 4:12-14
Those who have read the book of Esther know that she didn’t remain silent (without words). She spoke to her husband about what was going on. As a result, Esther helped save the Jews from annihilation.
Some religious groups quote 1 Pe 3:1 (without words) disproportionately. Being silent (without words) is Biblical, and it can beneficial. However, the win without words response is NOT the only Biblical or beneficial response. The Bible also has a lot to say and illustrate about the value of speaking up in a timely, wise and gentle manner.
Kim M.Another woman left this comment about how “pat answers” about marriage have affected her, when well-meaning Christians assume that they can just pull out those marriage verses and they’ll apply on their own to whatever she’s going through:
There is wise and relevant advice for mostly normal and relatively healthy married couples. Then there is wise and relevant advice for neglectful, abusive, destructive, or addiction bound marriages.
THE ADVICE IS NOT THE SAME.
Women who have married good men who listen to them, show them affection, and work hard to support their families think they can look at other women (in marriages absolutely nothing like that) and say things like, “Encourage encourage encourage, just pray more! Step back so he can lead.”
Women whose husbands are faithful and not addicted to porn tell women whose husbands ARE addicted to porn, “Be more free with your body. Let your husband see you naked a lot. Have sex regularly so he doesn’t look to porn even more.”
It’s hogwash.
People need to stop further damaging these wives who come for some empathy, help, and support by telling them that they should just wish, hope, pray, and submit more and their husband will stop sinning. The wife goes home, martyrs her sanity some more, goes on meds just so she can get out of bed and take care of the kids, and has sex in the dark while crying her eyes out and trying to pretend she’s on a beach somewhere because she listens to these people who DON’T UNDERSTAND they shouldn’t give blanket marriage advice.
My husband has been addicted to porn for 5 awful years and after being at the point of self-harm and meds, I finally realized the people “speaking into my life” were wrong. I didn’t need to “forgive my dad” and then the porn wouldn’t bother me so much. I didn’t need to “be naked more and have more sex” so he wouldn’t look to porn. I didn’t need to “cover his sin in love” and live an isolated lonely life just to protect his reputation.
I needed people to confront his sin. I needed people to look at me and say, “It’s normal you feel this way because your husband’s sin has caused great harm to you.”
I needed people who would stand up for God’s best for both my husband and myself with the goal of reconciliation–NOT a goal of me being more submissive and forgiving and sexual in an effort to break his cycle of sin.
I love her point–that we’re to “stand up for God’s best for both my husband and myself”.
I sometimes think that many would define “God’s best” as women always submitting to what their husbands want.
No, God’s best is that we be transformed to look more like Jesus.Submitting ourselves to our husband’s welfare–to what is best for him and to what God is doing in his life–is how we can start to accomplish that. But submitting to a sinful husband’s will is submitting to sin. And we are never asked to do that (and Sapphira, in Acts 5, is struck dead for submitting in that manner). And the only will we are supposed to submit to is Jesus. “Seek first His kingdom…”
We submit to each other in the way that Jesus did in Philippians 2:1-11–by serving one another, through humility, through caring for one another. But ultimately we’re in submission to God so that we can be a part of building Jesus’ upside down kingdom, where it’s about love and serving rather than power.
When we only look at 5 marriage passages, and forget the rest of the Bible, we get a distorted view of marriage.In every facet of life the point is looking like Jesus and furthering his kingdom, including marriage. The point of marriage is not furthering your husband’s kingdom; it is furthering Jesus’ kingdom. Any marriage advice that we take has to be about the MAIN THING. If it’s not, we’re going to go off track.
The verses we chose for Connor and Rebecca’s wedding were exactly the right ones.May we all live with Christ first, demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit in our relationships with each other, and keeping Christ always as the focus.
You may also enjoy:My submission series (a 5-part series, starting here on what it means to “obey like Sarah”)My podcast on what headship really meansThe Slippery Slope of Hierarchy Theology— Plus the podcast where we elaborated on hierarchical teaching
What do you think? Do we distort marriage advice when we ignore the rest of Scripture? Let’s talk in the comments!
Putting Christ Back in Christian Marriage SeriesPutting Christ Back in Christian Marriage Introductory Podcast6 Ways Christian Marriage Advice Leaves Christ OutWhy There's More to Christian Marriage Than Just 5 PassagesWhat to do when Christian Marriage advice, if followed, would make you look less like ChristDo We Need to Jump out of the Boiling Water? How Advice for Christian Men Got So Off TrackPlus please see my submission series!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Why We Have to Stop Ignoring the Orgasm Gap by Saying Frequency is all that MattersJan 11, 2022 | 44 Comments
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The post Christian Marriage Advice Is More than Just 5 Passages appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
January 14, 2022
Theology in the Raw (Really Raw!) Plus More on Frequency
It’s been a big week on social media and podcasts. Although, honestly, every Friday as I go to write these round-ups I realize it’s been a big week, and maybe I should just slow down a bit! I had a lovely chat with a mentor yesterday who was saying something similar and suggesting ways I can hand off some work, which I really appreciate.
But in the meantime…
The Frequency Debate moved on to FacebookI wrote a post on Tuesday commenting on how once again Focus on the Family was insinuating that if you don’t have enough sex your husband may have an affair. But I also wanted to make a bigger point, which is that too often in Christian circles we use frequency as the measure of whether or not a sex life is good.
This spanned several posts and debates on Facebook (see here, here, and here), and culminated in this:
See it on Facebook--with all the comments! My issue is simply that. If we’re judging a sex life by how often they have sex (which is often the first question counselors ask), we’re prioritizing his experience and ignoring hers. After all, she could be feeling coerced; in emotional pain; or even just bored. She could have no pleasure at all. She could be in a “sexless marriage in disguise” as we talked about in chapter 10 of The Great Sex Rescue, where she gets nothing positive from sex, but she’s still technically having intercourse.
We need to start judging the sex life by QUALITY and whether it is mutually satisfying. Because her needs have to matter too.
The Theology in the Raw podcast dropped this week!Rebecca and I joined Preston Sprinkle and the podcast just went live yesterday! We’re getting tons of positive feedback already. Sometimes it’s helpful to listen to OTHER PEOPLE’s podcasts with us, because we sum up the whole Great Sex Rescue, which we rarely do on our own podcasts. And you’ll hear more of our story!
I love how Preston gave this podcast his “extra raw” rating! (I think I don’t realize how weird I really am).
LIsten to Theology in the Raw The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church. What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now! I caused quite a hubbub with my review of Married Sex!I published it on Wednesday, and followed up with this culmination of the review:
Too many Christian marriage books demand far more of women than they do of men–while framing women as the cause of most of the problems, especially with sex.
Today I wrote a review of Married Sex by Gary Thomas and Debra Fileta on my blog, and here’s the summary: At the end of the book, Gary tells us that sex should feel like a sacrifice at least some of the time.
What should this look like? We should approach sex the way we do feeding babies in the middle of the night.
He then explains that women sacrifice by having more sex that they don’t want; while men sacrifice by having as much sex as they do want, but making sure that she enjoys it too, and making sure that he also talks to her and makes some effort around the house.
Where, exactly, is his sacrifice?
Since when is doing the bare minimum of being a decent human being considered a sacrifice?
That’s the big problem with Married Sex and other books like it. If men do the bare minimum, they’re lauded. But women? In Married Sex, we’re encouraged to sleep naked; cook naked; get aroused giving handjobs postpartum; send naked pictures; adore sex even when burdened by mental load. Ideally we should be sexually available always; never say no (and treat “no” like foreplay); understand that sex is what bolsters his ego.
I hope and pray the next book that is published about sex in the Christian publishing world takes the messages of our study of 20,000 women in The Great Sex Rescue to heart, rather than merely using catchphrases to cover their bases, while continuing to double down on the same harmful tropes that evangelicalism has been teaching for far too long.
To Love, Honor and Vacuum PageSee it on Facebook, or read the original review!
A funny thing happened in my Instagram stories…Last week my husband Keith had 199 Instagram followers. The only thing he posts is his bird pictures. That’s it. Only birds. And they’re good pictures, too!
So I posted about it in my Instagram stories…and he got so many new followers! But the best was the replies that I got from the post:
And a number of people commented that if I wrote about bees, we’d have everything covered. You can follow Keith (@drbirdnerd) on Instagram! But there is seriously only birds. That’s it.
So that was my week! Pray for me write now, because I am about to spend my day doing two things: Recording next week’s podcast where Connor critiqued a big thing Emerson Eggerichs said about having sex when you don’t want to (I haven’t read it, so my reactions will be live), and then I have to read Every Young Man’s Battle for our research for our mother-daughter book.
Ugh. #ratherbeknitting
Anyone have any thoughts on Every Young Man’s Battle? Anything I should look out for? Let me know in the comments! (or comment on something else too!)
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts 6 Ways Christian Marriage Advice Leaves Christ OutJan 10, 2022 | 13 Comments
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January 13, 2022
The Podcast Where YOU Can Speak Up, Too, and Become Part of the Change
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:
Timeline of the Podcast
0:10 Exciting/Encouraging Things
4:30 RQ: How can I speak up more at church?
19:00 Why are you staying at your church?
29:00 Ngina joins to discuss rethinking our faith
40:40 The missing element in marriage advice
48:00 Pro Marriage vs Pro health
55:05 Encouragement!
Two reader letters shaped this segment. Here’s the first one:
I started following you this year and also read your book, The Great Sex Rescue. Thank you so much for addressing the unhealthy aspects of evangelical views toward women and marriage. Like you, I have young adult daughters and remember being so uncomfortable with the unhealthy emphasis in our evangelical community on modest dress for girls when they were in their teen years. Increasingly I have also been bothered by how I am treated by men at my church. In early 2020 an elder told me “of course I just asked the men for Input” regarding a ministry that many women, including me, are also involved in. I set up a meeting with my pastor to discuss this and while he listened, he didn’t seem to “get it.” This was just one example of many where men at church, often pastors or leaders treated me like I was a potential temptress to be avoided or that if I was a proper Christian woman, I was to submit, shut up and stay in my lane. As a result of your encouragement I spoke up to my daughter’s university bookstore about Love and Respect and they pulled it from their shelves. More recently, I emailed my pastor to ask why our church platforms someone who has been in the news as being abusive. While I never heard back after an initial response that was defensive but also said “I’ll look into this”, on the most recent church calendar it appears that they have switched to a different curriculum. My oldest daughter attended a women’s Bible study event at her friend’s church where she heard harmful teaching about marriage and also books like Love and Reapect were recommended. She emailed and then later met with the lead pastor to share her concerns and he asked for her recommendations for how to do better. These are such small opportunities and changes – but we took these steps because you helped us be able to see and articulate the issues well.
That’s awesome! She and her daughter took some opportunities to speak up, and they saw some real change. (And that’s the SECOND university bookstore I’ve heard of that has pulled Love & Respect off its shelves, so that’s amazing).
Sometimes people listened, and sometimes people didn’t. But they spoke up and tried to make change, and the results aren’t up to them.
Then there’s this woman’s question:
I go to a church that i love even though they promote gender role ideas I don’t gree with. However just recently my church is promoting and hosting the love and respect conference!!!! They are encouraging one and all to attend.
I feel distressed every time the conference is brought up, especially if my married friends are wanting to go. I feel even more distressed knowing young people would attend who have no idea what marriage is like and are learning a foundation that is possibly unhealthy. I have stayed quiet because I’m not sure what to do. I would appreciate any recommendations that you may have for me!! Thank you and keep up the Godly research and teaching. (I wish our church was hosting you instead!)
Rebecca and I took some time to talk about how to approach churches and why you should approach churches, and what to do if they just won’t listen. I do think at some point we need to ask if, by remaining in this church, we’re propping up something that is unhealthy. There are more people who believe that this is unhealthy than that think it’s healthy, and yet these teachings keep spreading. If all who believed in a healthy way spoke up, we could make change.
Should you stay in such a church? Some people should, because the church is changing, and you feel called to be a “missionary” of sorts there. But maybe more should leave. I know I stayed too long, and Rebecca shares some passionate thoughts about her opinion on going to a church “because it has a good kids’ program” or “because it has a good youth program.” She attended those kids’ programs and youth programs at churches which taught an unhealthy picture of gender roles and power and sexuality, and on the other side, she has things to say.
Want to Speak Up but Don't Know How?Download our healthy sexuality rubric, our report from The Great Sex Rescue, and get access to the scoring sheet to see how our best-selling books fared! Then you can show your pastor/church librarian/women’s ministry leader what’s wrong with specific books.
Download it here Ngina Otiende: The New Turn of Intentional TodayI really enjoy Ngina Otiende, who blogs at Intentional Today. She’s been on my radar for over a decade, and I’ve even met Ngina in real life!
Lately Ngina’s been changing her focus as she blogs, because she realizes that some of what she had been teaching was cultural, not biblical, and wasn’t helpful if people were in destructive marriages. She’s on a journey very similar to mine!
Now she’s posting things like this:
See it on Facebook! We had a lovely conversation about how and why she’s evolved (which so much mirrors my own), and I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Things Mentioned in This Podcast: Our Patreon: Support our research for as little as $5 a month!The Great Sex Rescue:Open Letter to Focus on the Family about Love & RespectOur Love AND Respect MerchDownload our scorecard and rubric for how we scored the books:Lucy Maud Montgomery’s short story The Strike at PutneyNgina Otiende’s blog, Intentional Today and her Facebook page and InstagramMy post about Christopher that affected how Ngina saw faith
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Why We’re Going to See a Divorce Surge in the Church–and More!Jan 7, 2022 | 37 Comments
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January 12, 2022
A Book Review of Married Sex By Gary Thomas and Debra Fileta
I’ve been talking about Gary Thomas’ and Debra Fileta’s new sex book Married Sex off and on on this blog and my podcast for the last few months, and there’s been quite a hubbub about it on social media. The book has also been largely panned in reviews on Amazon.
I’ve been asked by many when I was going to write my review. Originally I was thinking that I wouldn’t (I’ve said enough in podcasts), but I think it’s useful to have one place where all of these things are mentioned, because there haven’t been many comprehensive reviews published listing the concerns.
This post is long because I wanted to cover everything in this book review. Thanks for your patience!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Married Sex opens with a story of a naked 60-year-old couple pretending to be Adam and Eve and having sex in their backyard.There’s nothing particularly wrong with a 60-year-old couple having sex naked outside, but this odd opening sets the stage for a very odd book. I couldn’t help asking, “Do they live in a subdivision? How high is the fence? Are there mosquitoes? And why is role playing Adam and Eve supposed to be better than just having a wonderful, intimate experience as simply Tom and Nancy (or whatever your names are)?”
The first chapters then set up strange expectations. Look at Danny and Jocelyn! They sleep naked, even when they’re cold. They sleep in a small double bed. Jocelyn never says no to her husband, and loves talking about her climaxes with her women’s Bible study group. Be like Jocelyn!
In fact, everyone does stuff naked! The whole beginning of the book is a parade of naked people. Darrell and Joanne even counsel couples to cook naked (you’re allowed to wear an apron, at least). I just hope they never cook anything with grease splatter.
Do you remember when you were a teenager, and there was the “cool crowd” at your high school you never quite fit with? You may have changed your wardrobe, adopted a new hairstyle, and started listening to new music, but you still were never quite “it”.
This felt like the book version of the clique you never managed to join; all through the book were unrealistic stories of people who embraced sex to the extreme–and the unspoken accusation was, “why can’t you be hot like them?”
Whether it was Janell who gave her husband sex and blow jobs multiple times a day over their 9-day trip for her husband’s father’s funeral; or Rebekah who always gives sexual favors whenever she doesn’t feel like intercourse because she doesn’t want her husband to feel rejected; or Izzy who did a nude photo shoot so that her husband “neurologically” is attracted to her naked body rather than porn, we’re left with examples that leave us feeling we’ll never measure up.
We’re invited to listen to women who love sex and get in the mood because they get Brazilian waxes; go out on dates panty-less; or wear crotchless panties.
Do you like sleeping in warm pyjamas in a king sized bed and snuggling watching Netflix? You’re just not hot enough.
To be honest, I wanted to like Married Sex.Debra Fileta has been a friend of mine for a long time, and Gary and I were close for years.
But also, professionally this was the first big sex book coming out by an evangelical publisher since The Great Sex Rescue had been published, and we know that Gary had read The Great Sex Rescue, and the editors at Zondervan were familiar with our rubric of the twelve markers of healthy sexuality teaching. So I was hopeful that the book would be a sign that the conversation was changing.
Instead, while much of the book was positive, I was left feeling very saddened, because the harmful messages that we identified in our survey of 20,000 women were repeated–but sneakily. It almost felt like we had taught Gary Thomas how to give the obligation sex message without sounding like the obligation sex message. We had taught him what NOT to say, but he hadn’t taken our findings to heart to understand what TO say. Instead, he just doubled down on the same old messaging: Men need sex in a way that women will never understand. Men are visual creatures and they can’t control it. Sex should feel like a sacrifice for women.
This surprised me. I felt like I was reading something written by someone that I didn’t even know, and it seemed so out of character given other things that he has written.
But let me give specifics.
First, What’s Good in Married Sex by Gary Thomas and Debra Fileta?The book does an excellent job of describing the sexual response cycle; explaining different types of libidos; talking about how to bring a woman to orgasm, and the importance of valuing her orgasm; talking about how sex is more than just physical, but is meant to be a uniting experience on every level. The description of En Gedi sex is beautiful.
Debra uses anecdotes tastefully and chooses them well; she teaches how our bodies work and how to satisfy them using technical and appropriate language, and I thought they were overall great and helpful. But Debra’s chapters read very differently from Gary’s. As Lisa, an Amazon commenter, aptly put it:
This book has two authors. I’m left wondering if they’ve ever met? This book literally contradicts itself on the same page. And the chapters written by one author are so vastly different than the chapters written by the other author that I’m left wondering why they chose to team up at all. They seem to have such different perspectives and standards.
LisaMuch of Debra’s advice is emotionally healthy, and is backed by evidence-based research (there was a notable exception in the way she talked about vaginismus; it is not a psychological disorder, but a physiological disorder that can have both physical and psychological roots).
There was so much that concerned me in the book as a whole, though, and so many strange elements that I do need to go into detail about these concerns. Many people told me that when reading Married Sex at first they were really confused. The advice seemed good, but it felt “off”. Gary uses lots of God language and proof texts many of his points, making it difficult to disagree (I must disagree with God then!). But the teaching often contradicts itself, and the anecdotes and the teaching points often don’t match up. You need to read between the lines–and once you do, it’s hard to look away.
Most of these concerns focus on the chapters that Gary wrote himself. Here are the problematic things that I identified:
In Married Sex, Gary Thomas Objectifies His WifeI’ve mentioned this on a podcast before, but it is undignified and disrespectful to say about your wife, “her nipples were like superpowered, high-octane sexual excitement boosters.” It’s dishonoring to talk about how she bites the pillow when she orgasms. Saying these things invites people to picture your wife in a sexual way. When authors do this, they normalize it in the wider Christian culture, and women should not be subjected to husbands engaging in locker room talk about them.
It is very possible to be explicit about sex without being voyeuristic about your spouse. And you don’t need to brag about the specifics of your own sex life to make it sound as if you know what you’re talking about.
Gary Thomas’ Anecdotes in Married Sex Have an “Ick” Factor that is Hard to DescribeLet’s start with the non-sexual, more PG stuff that makes you cringe. Rather than saying “Erica and Timothy have four children,” Gary says:
Erica has four young children, and she calls her care for them a twenty- four-hour-a-day job. Her husband, Timothy, helps, but he works outside the home, which means decisions throughout the day tend to fall on her shoulders alone. (p. 149)
Gary Thomas' chapterMoms know that there has only ever been one virgin birth, and it happened two thousand years ago. Those children don’t belong to Erica alone. And note to Gary and other male authors: Dads don’t “help” with their kids. It’s called parenting.
But while that’s strange, at least that’s not painting an erotic picture about using a silk scarf on his shaft while you use makeup brushes on his testicles (all the women reading that are thinking–”are you CLEANING those brushes afterwards? Or do I buy specific “ball brushes” so I don’t transfer germs? And do you know how expensive makeup brushes are?“) And implying that a man will brag to his friends about how well you give a hand job is intrusive and violating.
I’m not sure if it’s generational (except Gary and I aren’t that far apart in age), or if it’s because this is the first sex book that either author has written, but it reads as if the two did not know how to talk about sex well, and think describing explicit stories is the best way to teach (or maybe these give them street cred).
Take the disturbingly erotic sequence with Liam and a headboard: there is no other word for it other than erotica. It is not educational, because Connor, Keith, Rebecca and I have all read the same passage, and none of us agrees on what specific sexual act is even being described. It seems merely intended to titillate.
That’s even their stated aim, since in that chapter they said, “Hopefully you’re already getting a little warmer as you read.” (p. 44) Even Amazon Audible automatically classified this book as erotica!
Now I’m not against explicitness. Clinical terms are important. I’m simply against describing things deliberately in a way to titillate. Most people don’t buy Christian books to get hot and bothered, and to write in such a way as to invite them to is a breach of confidence.
I mostly write about sex; that’s pretty much my main thing. But like one of my co-authors of The Great Sex Rescue told me this morning, “I should not know more about Gary Thomas’ sexual preferences than I do about yours.” Yep. You can write about sex without getting personal and voyeuristic, and yet somehow Married Sex missed this memo.
Gary Thomas in Married Sex Sounds Like He’s Trying to Say Something He Knows He Can’t Get Away with SayingThe anecdotes in Married Sex are often diametrically opposed to the teaching they’re supposed to illustrate, showing that Gary’s conflicted. The book frequently states that women can have the higher sex drive; that men need to bring women to orgasm more and understand why women don’t orgasm; that sex is more than physical. The teaching aspect of the book is actually quite good and sound.
And yet in the anecdotes, it is pretty much always the woman who doesn’t want sex enough and who has to be cajoled into having it more and realizing how much she is hurting her husband and their marriage by not prioritizing his needs.
They take a firm stance against porn (Great!), but then they also tell you that sending naked pictures can help him resist porn. Gary says obligation sex is wrong and everyone should be allowed to say no, but then gives multiple examples of women who have decided never to say no, and how happy their husbands are.
On a personal level, we were also concerned that. However, as I read the book I saw that this was not limited to our work. I found myself saying, “Oh, there’s Kevin Leman,” “there’s us,” and even “there’s Doug Wilson!” (not that I’ve ever wanted to be in the same company as Doug Wilson). It seems like Gary is simply not sure of his message, because he incorporates so many other people’s messages into his work–even people with whom he would normally disagree.
Married Sex Glosses Over Abuse IssuesPower dynamics in marriage are dangerous. A power dynamic is inherently abusive.
And yet how does Gary suggest women address these power imbalances? We flash our boobs.
That’s right. God apparently gave women breasts in order to reset power balances. This passage needs to be read in its entirety:
By creational design and divine revelation, God clearly wants a wife’s body, specifically her breasts, to enthrall her husband; in fact, the root word in the original language is more specific than “breasts,” but I’m not going to type that out here; you’ll have to go to the endnotes for more on that. This gives wives an influence over their husbands that can reset any power balances that occur because of other issues. Many young women have learned how one quick flash of their breasts can change the climate in the room for their husbands like nothing else ever will. This ability to enthrall is a distinctly human characteristic, by the way. A woman’s breasts are unique among primates in that they amplify during puberty and stay enlarged throughout life. No animals share this trait. Female apes have breasts that enlarge when they are nursing, but they don’t become that way until the moms start nursing and don’t stay that way. Full breasts, throughout life, distinguish a woman from any other creature on earth. (p. 13)
Gary Thomas' chapterThat word that Gary is so reticent to type? It’s simply “nipple”. And saying that “full breasts” are important is rather humbling for those of us who have always been size challenged, or, even more tragically, have undergone a mastectomy.
To imply that the way we deal with power imbalance is to flash our boobs is just plain dangerous. To mention power imbalances in a marriage book and not also say that this is abusive and problematic is authorial malpractice.
This malpractice continues in the passage about Reggie and rage. Gary Thomas talks about how Reggie’s rage and anger has impacted the marriage, and says Sabrina now feels that “Angry sex was different. It felt different. It left her in a different place. Anger had wrecked a once beautiful connection.” (p. 219). But having sex with someone because they’re angry and raging at you is not sex. It’s very likely rape. To not even mention that this might cross the line into coercion is, again, highly problematic, and I wonder how this could have happened given a licensed counselor co-authored the book.
The Impetus in Married Sex is for Women to Give More so that Men Get What They NeedWhile the book mentions that she may need time off postpartum–it also talks about how women moan, get lubricated, and get excited giving handjobs postpartum (p. 70). These sex positive women get aroused even when they’re on their periods or just had a baby simply by giving him a handjob, so why don’t you? That’s the message that I heard, over and over: No, you don’t have to have sex when there are good reasons not to, but look at these awesome women who do anyway. Be like these sexy women!
Do they ask men to step up to the plate like this?
Let’s return to the intrepid Erica and Timothy, with the four kids. Erica is exhausted by the mental load of making so many decisions and carrying all the details for the household in her head, and sex is far down on her to do list. So they start making Fridays the day that Timothy thinks about the housework, picks up dinner, and arranges the kids’ schedules so she can have a bubble bath and get in the mood for sex (p. 150).
It’s not about Timothy sharing mental load so he can be a decent partner and decent human being; it’s about Timothy doing all of these things so Erica has the mental space to get turned on and have sex. If Timothy can be an involved dad on Fridays, though, it’s unclear why he can’t also be a good dad on Saturdays or Sundays or Mondays. Most women don’t want a man to share mental load so he’ll get sex; they want to have sex with a man who shares mental load in general. Having a decent partner is what makes her desire him. Gary’s got the order all wrong here.
Nevertheless, Gary wants us to know that men have it really, really bad. He repeats this theme so much–men get desperate if they don’t get sex. Men find the word “no” very difficult emotionally, because even a single no will make him feel rejected and affect his identity, so we should consider “no” an act of foreplay, and say “convince me” instead. Being sexually fulfilled means he can excel at his job, do more around the house, be nicer to his wife.
Men are also visual creatures, and have different brains than women. “Sexual thoughts flicker in the background of a man’s visual cortex all day and night, making him always at the ready for seizing sexual opportunity.” (p. 60). Despite current peer-reviewed neuroscience contradicting up these claims, and, in fact, these claims being critiqued soundly when they were first published twelve years ago, Gary Thomas chose to use this author to show how desperate men are for their sexual needs to be met, rather than sharing the broader scientific consensus about brain differences being minimal.
The culmination of this “men need sex in a way you’ll never understand” argument falls at the end of Married Sex.All through the book Gary Thomas has been telling us that sex shouldn’t be an obligation–it should be something that we do because we want to. But it’s clear that Gary’s concerned that this might let women off the hook too easily, so he needs to give it a different spin by the end. Now that you’ve read how great sex can be emotionally and spiritually; how hot it can be; how he can make you orgasm; what’s the big take away?
Sex should feel like a sacrifice at least some of the time.
After explaining how we should view sex the way parents view feeding a baby in the middle of the night, Gary Thomas writes, “It is not healthy for sex to always (or even mostly) feel like a sacrifice. But it also is not healthy for a spouse to think sex should never feel like a sacrifice.” (p. 227).
And what should this sacrifice look like? Gary now divides it into gendered terms. Women need to say yes to sex more and be generous.
And men? How do they sacrifice? This deserves to be quoted:
A compassionate husband thinks about what his wife is feeling and how he can make her feel better. He recognizes her natural fears about her body and reassures her of her beauty. He knows she has limited energy, so he does his best to help out. He empathizes with what his wife must feel to have children pawing at her body all day long, so he goes out of his way to offer giving touches, not taking touches. He is able to say, “Life isn’t easy for you,” so he seeks to make it a little better, to help ease her concerns rather than add to her burdens.
Some wives (by no means all) who read this may think, That means he needs to be leaving me alone! But does it? Perhaps at times, but if God designed you to be desired by your husband, adored by your husband, celebrated by your husband, and sexually pleased by your husband, wouldn’t “sexual compassion” motivate him to adopt an approach that allows him to accomplish this in a way you find inviting and exciting? (p. 227)
Gary Thomas' chapterSo women sacrifice by having more sex that they don’t want; and men sacrifice by having as much sex as they do want, but making sure that she enjoys it too, and making sure that he also talks to her and makes some effort around the house.
Where, exactly, is his sacrifice?
Since when is doing the bare minimum of being a decent human being considered a sacrifice?
Perhaps that’s really the big problem with Married Sex. If men do the bare minimum, they’re lauded. But women? We need to sleep naked; cook naked; get aroused giving handjobs postpartum; send naked pictures; adore sex even when burdened by mental load. Ideally we should be sexually available always; never say no; understand that sex is what bolsters his ego.
This book had so much potential, but instead it reinforces so many of the tropes that we found were harmful in The Great Sex Rescue. For that reason, I can’t recommend it, and strongly advise you to steer clear of it. I hope and pray the next book that is published about sex in the Christian publishing world takes the messages of our study to heart, rather than merely using catchphrases to cover their bases, while continuing to double down on the same harmful tropes that evangelicalism has been teaching for far too long.
Other Posts and Podcasts that mention some of the issues with Married Sex:My Resources:Do We Really Have “Pink” Brains and “Blue” Brains? A look at the neuroscience (podcast)How to Tell if the Science Being Quoted is Junk Science (an in-depth look at the neuroscientist Gary uses to support his claims)The All About Boobs Podcast (and how boobs should not reset power balances)The Postpartum Sexual Favors Podcast (Rebecca’s two weeks postpartum, and we look at the advice given in books, including Married Sex)External Resources:I do not necessarily approve of everything written here, but share these as other people’s opinions on what is happening
Amazon Reviews (there are many!)Shannon Ashley: But Have You Tried Sleeping Naked? and The Fragile Male Ego that Can’t Function without Constant Sexual ValidationHoly Tension blog: Married Sex Lacks Strong Biblical Exegesis
What do you think? Have you read Married Sex? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts The Putting Christ Back in Christian Marriage PodcastJan 6, 2022 | 11 Comments
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January 11, 2022
Why We Have to Stop Ignoring the Orgasm Gap by Saying Frequency is all that Matters
They’re advertising an older article on their Facebook page right now where it encourages you to look for “vulnerabilities” in your marriage to see if it’s vulnerable to adultery.
There’s no problem writing an article on signs your spouse may be cheating, or how and why to never consider cheating even if you’re unhappy. AND there’s no problem writing an article about how to prevent drift in marriage (and if that’s what this article was about, the points would have been almost okay). But to frame it as, “If you drift your spouse may have an affair so don’t drift” is problematic. I’ve done this in the past, too, and I’m trying to undo it.
Focus has a history of blaming people for their spouse’s affairs. This does need to stop.
Okay, with that preamble, here’s what I really want to talk about:
Mentioning frequency of sex without EVER mentioning the orgasm gap means you’re prioritizing his experience and ignoring hers.On Tuesdays I don’t write in depth posts, because it’s my day to get some serious work done. But I do want to just use this as an example of something important.
In the post on preventing affairs, they say this:
When physical intimacy diminishes in a marriage, couples are at a higher risk for affairs.
If you find yourselves arguing about sex or the frequency of sex, take this as a warning sign and find out what is going on. Is the culprit fatigue, stress, a medical condition, a mental health issue, loss of emotional connection or something else? Whatever the reason, address the issue before it makes your marriage vulnerable.
To protect your marriage’s physical intimacy, have honest conversations with your spouse about expectations and frequency. Some couples don’t understand that sexual desires can change over the course of a marriage. Different seasons of life and circumstances influence sexual intimacy. Consider, for example, the differences in physical intimacy when comparing a young newlywed couple with no children to a couple with several children, or compare empty nesters in their 50s to couples in their 70s or 80s.
Many couples experiencing difficulty with physical intimacy avoid talking about the problem. God created us to be sexual beings, and staying healthy in this area means we need to regularly tune in to our spouse’s physical needs no matter what season we’re in.
DR. ANGELA BISIGNANO"HOW TO RECOGNIZE WHERE YOUR MARRIAGE IS VULNERABLE TO AN AFFAIR", Focus on the Family
I talked about this problem a while ago with a Dave Willis article on XO Marriage, but here we see it again in action.
So let’s lay this out.
What is the main problem? Lack of frequency.
What are you supposed to do about it? Talk about it, communicate, and then make sure you meet your spouse’s physical needs no matter what season you are in.
What might be the things holding you back? “fatigue, stress, a medical condition, a mental health issue, loss of emotional connection…”
Okay, people, and I know I have you super primed right now, but do you notice anything that is missing?That’s right! No mention of the orgasm gap!
In chapter 3 of The Great Sex Rescue, we showed how we have a 47 point orgasm gap in the evangelical world (and other peer-reviewed research would suggest that’s a larger gap than the general population, likely because, as we found, certain evangelical teachings artificially lower women’s orgasm rates). 95% of men almost always/always orgasm during a sexual encounter, compared to roughly 48% of women.
To not even mention the orgasm gap as a problem is, quite frankly, major negligence.And it reveals much about how they frame sex, which leads me to Sheila’s Law:
Sheila’s LawWhen all someone talks about is the importance of the frequency of sex, and they do not mention the orgasm gap, her pleasure, or intimacy, they show that they believe that sex is really only about a husband’s ejaculation.
Frequency ensures that he climaxes, not that she does. And it tells us nothing about their emotional connection.
Stressing frequency is a sign that they do not understand sexuality and have chosen to see sex as a male entitlement rather than as something MUTUAL, INTIMATE, and PLEASURABLE FOR BOTH as God intended.
This simply needs to stop. It should no longer be acceptable to tell women to have more sex without FIRST telling couples that sex should feel good for her too.Frequency is usually a sign that there is something else wrong with the person or with the marriage; it is rarely the problem, in and of itself. To treat it as the problem is to elevate his needs while ignoring hers.
Talk like this is what is CAUSING the orgasm gap as well. We need to ditch our whole mindset when it comes to sex, and start over, and The Great Sex Rescue is a wonderful way to do that.
In the meantime, I take comfort from this: at the time that I’m writing this post, my comment on Focus on the Family’s post has more positive reactions than their whole post!
The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church. What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now!So that’s at least a little comforting! On Facebook, many are taking issue with this post and pushing back. If we all started doing this, imagine how things could change!
What do you think? How do we normalize talking about the orgasm gap? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts 10 Totally Life Changing Marriage Tips You Needed to Learn in 2021Jan 5, 2022 | 3 Comments
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January 10, 2022
6 Ways Christian Marriage Advice Leaves Christ Out
The overarching question I have for my life is a simple one:
How can I live out the kingdom of God and make Jesus take up more space? How can we make Jesus more evident in this world?That is the job of every believer.
On the podcast last week, though, Scott Coley was talking about how too often Christians “proof text” to make the Bible say what they want it to, rather than approaching the Bible with humility, and letting it teach us what it should.
In few spheres of the Christian life is this more evident than when it comes to marriage.
We have built whole doctrines of marriage on single verses, while often missing the bigger picture of Scripture.That’s what “proof texting” does.
This month I want to talk about how to put “Christ” back in Christian marriage, and I believe it starts with our attitude when it comes to how we think about what the Bible teaches about marriage.
Some people look at obscure, hard to understand marriage passages and use their interpretations of these to inform how they see the rest of Scripture, and some people use the whole story of Scripture to inform how they understand obscure, difficult passages.
I’m definitely in the second camp. The Bible tells a story of what God wants and what God is like, and that story should be consistent. Therefore, if the way that we think we should interpret a verse violates what we know God is like, that’s a sign that our interpretation is likely off.
The problem is that most denominations formed over people’s interpretations of obscure verses. That is often their identity; it’s what distinguishes them from other Christians. And so these obscure verses take on tremendous importance, and somehow in the midst of all of that Jesus is lost.
We run into a unique problem with this in marriage because the Bible only talks about marriage specifically in a few places, and does so using words that are not easily translated into English, or that have different connotations in the Greek than what their English translation would suggest.
When we’re trying to figure out gender roles and marriage, then, we look at these few verses and we create huge doctrines out of them that take on tremendous, oversized importance, and I fear in the process we often miss the forest for the trees.
I’d like to suggest we go back to first principles: God wants us to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33), and that includes with our marriages.The key question to ask when it comes to marriage, then, is how does my marriage play a part in bringing the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:10)? Our marriages should reflect the kingdom of God and should share characteristics of God’s priorities for the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells us what it looks like when the kingdom of God comes in Luke 4:18-19:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The point of the kingdom of God coming is right relationships with God and each other which involves an end to injustice. That’s God’s plan for the whole world. Now let’s look at a few things we know about how that plan will play out:
1. Relationships will be about serving, not about power and authorityAnd what will interpersonal relationships look like? He tells us this in Matthew 20:25-28:
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:25-28Relationships in the kingdom should never be about who has power over another person, or who has authority, but instead we should all be endeavouring to serve one another.
2. The point of our lives is to be transformed into the likeness of JesusIn Romans 8:29, we’re told that God’s purpose for us is that we look more and more like Jesus. And what does Jesus look like? In Philippians 2:1-11, we’re shown the picture of someone who gives up everything to serve. Again–life is about humility and servanthood.
Any advice which, if followed, would regularly result in someone being encouraged or enabled to look less like Jesus is not of Jesus.
Are you GOOD or are you NICE?
Because the difference matters!
God calls us to be GOOD, yet too often we’re busy being nice. And sometimes, in marriage, that can actually cause problems to be even more entrenched.
What if there’s a better way?
Take me to it! 3. We’re transformed by the work of the Holy SpiritThe Holy Spirit is given to all believers, regardless of gender, class, or race. The Holy Spirit gives gifts that we are to exercise. There are no artificial divisions in the kingdom of God based on race, gender, or class (Galatians 3:28).
4. We are to follow Jesus, listen to Jesus, and obey JesusIn John 10, we’re told that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. Over and over and over again in Scripture, too many times to count, we are told to follow God and obey Him and seek Him.
Any doctrine that tells someone to follow a human being first, and only follow God if we think that human being is sinning, is not of Jesus. Life is not all about “not sinning”; it’s more often being part of what God is doing on earth and following His will. His will is not just that we don’t sin, but rather that we be part of the bigger story. When we are told that we can’t hear directly from God, and so we have to have someone else mediate–well, that contravenes 1 Timothy 2:5 exactly:
For there is one God, there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human,
Jesus is our mediator with God, and we need no other. In fact, if we try to follow another, God will ask us, “why did you not follow me?” Any interpretation of submission, then, which tells women NOT to follow Jesus is not of Jesus.
5. When Christians are together, there should be unity in the SpiritGod tells us that unity is a sign that the Spirit is with us. God tells us that we are to seek the Lord when we are trying to make decisions. Therefore, if there is disunity, the answer is to seek the Lord more (as the apostles and disciples did numerous times) rather than have one person unilaterally decide. Why? Because the aim is always to put the Lord at the top, and to ensure that we are doing the Lord’s will, and not man’s.
6. In everything, seeking God is the main aim of lifeOur Christian life is lived out with God at the centre. The point of life is seeking God and obeying God and listening to God and hearing God. He is our aim.
These six things are all intrinsic parts of what life in Christ looks like.They are not hard to interpret. They are EVERYWHERE in the New Testament especially, but also in the Old. Jesus Himself taught them all. None of them is debatable.
When we look at passages that are harder to understand, then, we must never violate the things that we DO know about the kingdom of God.
We need to keep the main story as the main story. Anything else is secondary.
I often get people asking me what I think headship means, or how I interpret Genesis 3:16, and I certainly have some opinions (I think Marg Mowczko and Bruce Fleming and Cynthia Westfall have all thought of these things more than I have and have better answers), but to be honest I’m not that worried about it. I know that any interpretation of these verses cannot violate what we know for certain about the kingdom of God. When we try to put interpretations of these verses ahead of what we know about the kingdom of God, then we are no longer putting Christ and his kingdom at the head. We are missing the main story, and distorting the main story. And when we do that, we miss the boat.
Restoring Christ in Christian marriages means putting arguments about the marriage verses aside and concentrating on what we do know about Jesus.We can never go wrong if we focus on what we know for sure and for certain. The fact that so many people have allowed obscure doctrines to colour what we know for certain, and even supplant what we should know for certain, is a sign that we are not really following Jesus. That is how we go off track.
Jesus wants a relationship with every single believer. He wants us all transformed into His likeness, which involves serving others and humility. He wants the kingdom of God to come to earth, which involves righting injustices and having right relationships with others. Let’s make all of this evident in our marriages, and the disputes we have over interpretations of obscure verses will diminish as we simply focus on Jesus.
Putting Christ Back in Christian Marriage SeriesPutting Christ Back in Christian Marriage Introductory PodcastHow Christ Was Pushed Out of Christian MarriagesWhy There's More to Christian Marriage Than Just 5 PassagesWhat to do when Christian Marriage advice, if followed, would make you look less like ChristDo We Need to Jump out of the Boiling Water? How Advice for Christian Men Got So Off TrackPlus please see my book 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts 10 Most Talked About Posts from 2021 on To Love, Honor and Vacuum!Jan 4, 2022 | 4 Comments
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The post 6 Ways Christian Marriage Advice Leaves Christ Out appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
January 7, 2022
Why We’re Going to See a Divorce Surge in the Church–and More!
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 people–that it is about bringing the kingdom of God on earth, not about following legalism. And that means that God wants people whole, and healthy, and able to love, not trapped somewhere where they are hurt.
This month on the blog we’re going to be looking at how to put “Christ” back in Christian marriage. How do we settle on what Christian marriage is, and how can we make sure that we’re actually pursuing Him in it?
On Fridays I’ve begun to share what was big on my social media channels this week, and I thought I’d start with something I said on Instagram about divorce:
Could we see a surge in divorces in conservative evangelical spaces?I think so, and I explain why in this Instagram reel:
View this post on Instagram
Or, you can always check out the Twitter thread where I explain my reasoning!
Basically, if we look historically, between 1970 and 1980 the divorce rate surged, before starting to fall, and continuing to slowly fall even until today. We’re almost back at 1960s levels.
What happened? No fault divorce came in across the United States.
Before that, divorce was difficult and expensive to attain. You often had to “prove” that someone had broken vows or done something that in effect ended the marriage. So a lot of people were in miserable marriages but couldn’t get out. There was huge pent-up demand.
When no-fault divorce came in, suddenly people could leave much more easily–and they did in very large numbers.
Well, in evangelical churches today I believe we’re about to see a similar divorce trend.The no-fault divorce never really affected our divorce rate that much because even though wider society permitted divorce, the church did not. Focus on the Family, to this day, does not even permit divorce for abuse. Many people, then, and especially women, have stayed in marriages that were toxic and abusive because they felt that was God’s will. If they divorced, they would lose their church family, and often members of their biological family would turn on them. And most importantly, God would be upset at them.
But increasingly voices have been rising saying, “this message isn’t of Jesus!” Voices like Leslie Vernick, Gretchen Baskerville, Sarah McDugal, Patrick Weaver, Natalie Hoffman, and so many more. And women are leaving and finding freedom.
It’s a change on the scale of no-fault divorce. And I think we’re going to see a huge surge in divorces over the next decade, especially in the most conservative spaces, because the abuse rates are so high and there’s been pent up demand. There are so many people whose souls are slowly being killed in their marriages, and when they feel they can finally get out–they will in huge numbers.
The question this is: what will the church do with this divorce crisis?My hope is that they will realize the divorce crisis is really an abuse crisis and they will stop promoting theology that enables abuse (like giving men power over women; telling women that they cannot speak up and their selfish for wanting to be treated decently; telling couples divorce is never an option).
My suspicion is that churches will use this opportunity to double down, as proof that “the world” is “corrupting our women”, and blame women for it. I hope I’m proved wrong.
Can we please stop blaming women and girls for their own rapes?Honestly, this shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Jack Hyles has passed away (though he was credibly accused of sexual misconduct while he was alive), and his son-in-law, Jack Schaap, also a pastor, is currently serving a 10-year term of rape of a 16-year-old. Hyles trained pastors throughout the IFB, and is still largely revered. Hyles-Anderson College is named after him and still active. A number of different people sent me this quote and asked me to fix it because they were concerned about his influence over their denomination.
This can’t stand anymore. And if your denomination or church was founded by someone who believed like this, AND THEY HAVE NOT SPECIFICALLY REPUDIATED HIM, then that place is not safe.
See it on Instagram! And now for something a little more lightheartedThis video really represents Rebecca and me behind the scenes!
View this post on Instagram
Or check it out on Instagram!
See it on Instagram! Watch for it this weekend–HUGE sale on the ebook of The Great Sex Rescue!This weekend the ebook will be only $2.99 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble! So if you still haven’t bought the book (seriously, why not?), then you have no excuse! 🙂
And if you HAVE bought the book, but you don’t have an ebook copy, now’s a great time to pick it up! I like having ebook copies of all my reference books because I can search so easily for things and I can highlight stuff and then find my notes easily. So there are benefits to both types of books, and this weekend’s a wonderful time to pick it up!
The Great Sex RescueChanging the conversation about sex & marriage in the evangelical church. What if you're NOT the problem with your sex life?What if the things that you've been taught have messed things up--and what if there's a way to escape these messages?
Welcome to the Great Sex Rescue. Order Now!That’s all for me this week! But I’d love to know what you think about divorce surges? Do you think it will happen? Or have you ever belonged to a denomination like Jack Hyles’? Let’s talk in the comments!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts 8 Signs the Evangelical Conversation about Sex and Marriage Changed in 2021Jan 3, 2022 | 25 Comments
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January 6, 2022
The Putting Christ Back in Christian Marriage Podcast
In the last podcast of 2021 I was very, very tired. I took two weeks completely offline, knit a ton, and rejuvenated.
And then we had some really good news (including hitting 1,000,000 downloads of the podcast on December 31!), and I decided it was time to open the year celebrating what has happened, and reminding us why we’re doing all of this: so that we can put Christ back at the centre.
Plus there was an awesome Twitter thread I just had to share with you! So listen in:
Browse all the Different Podcasts
See the Last “Start Your Engines” (Men’s) Podcast
Or, as always, you can watch on YouTube:
Timeline of the Podcast
0:10 2021 in Review
3:10 Summarizing GSR/Christian Climate
18:10 Discussion on the life of male evangelicals
29:00 Interview with Scott and Melissa Coley
1:00:30 What will your belief outcomes be?
1:05:15 Keith discusses men in the church
Rebecca and I open up the year with a bit of a victory lap–plus we tell the story of The Great Sex Rescue. I realized that I tell the story so often when I’m on other people’s podcasts, but I rarely tell it on our own. We talk about elements of the book, but we don’t summarize the book as a whole. So I thought it was time to do that, and explain the four big teachings we found that were detrimental to women’s sexual and marital satisfaction:
Women are obligated to have sex when their husbands want itWomen should have frequent sex with their husbands to keep them from watching pornAll men struggle with lust; it’s every man’s battleBoys will push girls’ sexual boundariesWe talked about how it all got started when I read Love & Respect–and we created some merch to set the record straight on that, too!
“Love AND Respect” Accent Coffee Mug, 11oz $10.00 
“Love AND Respect” Canvas Tote Bag $15.00 – $19.00 
“Love And Respect” Unisex Jersey Short Sleeve Tee $20.00 – $22.00 
Square Stickers $2.50 – $3.00 Does Christian Marriage advice make life so easy for men?In December, Scott Coley, from the Faith, Philosophy and Politics podcast (here’s my episode with him!), published an awesome Twitter thread where he talks about how, if you follow Christian marriage advice about gender roles, life becomes so easy for Christian men. There’s no sacrifice. You get everything you want and you get to do anything you want:
While we’re on the subject of virtual church:
— Scott Coley (@scott_m_coley) December 15, 2021
What’s striking about large swaths of the American evangelical church is that if you’re a white American man with conventional tastes and modest abilities, being an evangelical Christian is just. so. easy.
Here’s the whole thing:
While we’re on the subject of virtual church:
What’s striking about large swaths of the American evangelical church is that if you’re a white American man with conventional tastes and modest abilities, being an evangelical Christian is just. so. easy.
In fact, if you’re a white male in the US just looking out for your own personal interests, you’d be crazy to choose any other way of life.
To start with, you get to just show up and start theologizing from your own point of view, that just counts as ‘theology’.
You get married and then you never have to make your bed or do laundry or cook ever again.
And you get to be the decider of things.
And you get to gain as much weight as you want but she can’t because if she does then you get a pass on infidelity—well not a *totally* free pass but she’s not allowed to get properly angry with you because she let herself go, so she kinda had it coming.
And all you really have to do, basically, is just keep the womenfolk in their place and the cultural interlopers at bay, and don’t look at pornography—unless the wife lets herself go, in which case you still shouldn’t do it but it’s a as much her fault as yours at that point.
So except for lusting after women that aren’t your wife—which shouldn’t be a problem if the missus is doing her part—you just do all the stuff you’d want to do anyway as a white American man, and it counts as Christianity.
No cross to bear.
No hating your father and mother.
No meaningful sacrifice.
No effort to understand perspectives that make you uncomfortable.
In short, it’s just nothing like the life that Christ tells his followers to expect.
So a lot of white evangelical men were doing virtual church long before live streaming came along.
And surely it’s of no matter whether such men attend virtual church in person or online.
Scott ColeyScott and Melissa Coley joined me to talk about how this isn’t a Christian view of marriage or gender roles, and how we have to get back to putting Jesus at the centre.
The Network of people who preach these thingsRebecca and I then talked about how these types of ideas get promulgated, and I made reference to this chart created by Josiah Hawthorne on Twitter (he gave me permission to share it):
I know it’s hard to read–you can see a bigger version here! A couple of things: the Bible that’s at the bottom is the English Standard Version, the one that was translated deliberately to obscure the importance of women and to subjugate them (more on that here). And my favourite part is Kevin Bacon at the bottom for no reason.
Reader Question: I have to have sex with my husband to control his irritabilityKeith joined me for this one, where we had a disturbing reader question:
A few years into our marriage, I read a book that recommended not going more than 3-4 days without sex. My desire to be a good wife and to take care of my husband’s needs led me to follow that advice. It actually made a lot of sense to me because it seemed then (and still seems today) like after 3-4 days without sex, my husband would become so irritable and grumpy. I have to think through family plans with that in mind. For example, if we are doing a fun family day on Saturday, I need to make sure he gets sex on Friday night so that he will be most agreeable and pleasant with me and the kids the next day. After 16 years of marriage, my mental clock still keeps track and if sex doesn’t happen, the kids and I pay the price with having to deal with a crabby dad/husband.
My husband will complain sometimes that sex just seems like something else on my to-do list. He is right. And while I enjoy it, I definitely would not want to do it so often but he is just easier to deal with when he has it on a frequent basis. Also I find that if I need to talk to him about something or there is a problem we need to work on, we need to have sex first so that he is more likely to be emotionally available.
Also, I have mentioned to him that he can seem irritable when he hasn’t had sex but he insists it is because physical touch is his love language.
Keith and I talked about how this doesn’t look anything like Christ–and how too often our advice looks nothing like Christ.
So we want to put Christ back in Christian marriage advice in January, and we decided to end the podcast with that perspective:
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1-11
Things Mentioned in This Podcast:Our Patreon! You can join for as little as $3 a month, and $5 a month gives you access to our awesome Facebook groupThe Great Sex Rescue, our book that is changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage because we actually listened to 20,000 womenScott Coley’s Twitter Thread, and Scott’s Twitter account, and Melissa’s Twitter accountJosiah Hawthorne’s graphic of the conservative evangelical networkThe Atlantic article showing how power changes the brainThe study showing that husbands are six times more likely to leave their wives if their wives get cancer than wives are to leave their husbandsOur Open Letter to Focus on the Family about the problems with Love & Respect (at the bottom there are links to all of the other things we’ve written about the book)My initial series I wrote on Love & RespectOur Love AND Respect merch!
Sheila Wray Gregoire Founder of To Love, Honor and Vacuum
Sheila is determined to help Christians find BIBLICAL, HEALTHY, EVIDENCE-BASED help for their marriage. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8 FacebookTwitter Related Posts Just a Personal Christmas Check-InDec 22, 2021 | 37 Comments
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