As we close out the month of October, I want to close Spooky Month out with what evangelical leaders are saying about the end of an evangelical marriage. For many years, both evangelicals’ troubled marriages and their divorce rates have been the subjects of observation from onlookers. For years now, Read more…
Once again, a complementarian pastor has revealed why so many evangelical men like their sexism-for-Jesus relationship rules. And once again, evangelical women struggle to reconcile that truth with the indoctrination they’ve absorbed. (The 80s songs are linked throughout the post because before I gained the vocabulary to describe my unhappy Read more…
You’d think someone might have told the guy much earlier that his ideas perpetuated some really sickening and toxic dynamics between spouses. But nobody did. Really, nobody could have.
Years ago, I started a long blog series called The Unequally Yoked Club. It aimed to help Christian couples deal with a spouse’s deconversion at a time when the available advice sucked beyond all logical measure. Today, we’ll see that Christians’ marriage advice to the unequally-yoked has gotten worse in recent years.
Lately, we’ve been discussing the terrible Christian marriage-advice book If Only He Knew. Written by Gary Smalley, the book seeks to walk men through repairs to their failing marriages. But his fans only want advice that will allow them to keep the ideology destroying their relationships. They especially protect one central idea, the pillar of complementarianism: women as less-than-human. Indeed, complementarianism only works if women aren’t really people. Here’s why.
Last time we met up, we talked about why Christians have such a bizarrely-regressive view of marriage. In essence, rigidly codified relationships help keep their authoritarian vision alive. Today, let’s dive into the rules that get that rigid view ensconced in people’s everyday realities.
Today, we’re going to look at why Christian leaders push so hard to get their flocks following rigid, unworkable rules about marriage. There’s a reason for it, of course. It isn’t a pretty reason. But it is absolutely key to understanding why Christians can’t quit their unworkable ideas about marriage.
Some years ago, I ran a series called the Unequally Yoked Club (UYC). It was one of my most popular series–and also one of my longest-running! It was about how Christian couples navigate when one partner deconverts from the religion. Today, let’s return to that topic. Together, we’ll see what’s changed Read more…
I’ve been wanting to return to the UYC lately, since I’ve seen new developments on that front in recent months. So today, I want to show you what happened after I deconverted from Christianity, and the ups and downs of how I handled sharing the news of that deconversion with my then-husband Biff. I didn’t do everything perfectly, but then, I reckon almost nobody ever does.
The ironic thing is that out of all the made-up, manufactured terrors that Christians burden themselves with, this one actually is a problem. Today I’ll show you why Christian leaders put so much emphasis on never being unequally yoked–and why they should fear it.