Spiritual Manipulation in The Excellent Wife
I’ve written before about 7 elements of spiritual manipulation that are often found in Christian marriage books. As I write my critique of The Excellent Wife, I want to take the time to see if we can identify those elements in that book. 1. Out-of-context scripture There are many instances throughout this book where the author […]
Continue readingSpiritual Manipulation in Christian Marriage Books
As I’ve written before, although the authors of Christian marriage books may be well-intended, I nevertheless have a problem with the vast majority of books written for Christian wives or couples. Popular books like Love and Respect, The Power of a Praying Wife, and The Excellent Wife have an underlying theme that can cause vast damage […]
Continue readingBitterness and “The Excellent Wife”
In my last post I began an examination of some of the concerning content in the book The Excellent Wife. That particular post was about how the author portrays a wife’s fear of her husband as a sin. In this post I will identify the ways the author uses the concept of bitterness to guilt women who […]
Continue readingFear and “The Excellent Wife”
The Excellent Wife is a popular book within conservative Christian circles. However, the author’s interpretation of many biblical passages is incredibly troubling to me. I will examine much of the problematic content in this book over the course of several posts. This particular post will be dedicated to the author’s portrayal of the emotion of […]
Continue readingThese women disclosed domestic abuse to their church leadership. Here’s what they were told.
I recently tried to raise awareness with a group of people that there are women at their church on Sunday who are hiding in the bathroom crying because their husband is smiling and chatting with everyone in the lobby and everyone thinks he’s just great. But she knows that the image he portrays at church […]
Continue readingA Review of Married Sex by Gary Thomas
One thing I get asked to do fairly frequently is to give my opinion about various marriage books and whether the material in them is safe for abuse victims. (The vast majority of Christian marriage advice is harmful to those in abusive marriages.) This post will address the book Married Sex by Gary Thomas and co-authored […]
Continue readingWhy Most Christian Marriage Advice is Harmful to Abuse Victims
We live in a world where information is available everywhere we look. Books, seminars, sermons, social media — there are so many avenues for speakers and authors to reach their audience. Authors and speakers who offer marriage advice for Christians are numerous, and they use all of these channels to spread their message. Some are […]
Continue readingWhy God Hates Divorce
Have you heard that God hates divorce? Have you been discouraged from pursuing divorce from an abusive spouse because divorce is something to be avoided at all costs? The problem with using the phrase “God hates divorce” to discourage any divorce is that the context of the scripture passage from which this idea comes is […]
Continue readingDo You Want to Be a Safe Person for Victims? You Must Develop This Skill.
Most people would say they absolutely stand against abuse of any type. BUT…in all actuality I have seen victim after victim further traumatized by people who say they want to help. Perhaps you are thinking, “Well I would never do that! I genuinely care about people and would do anything I can to help!” Great! […]
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