We pray about it, talk it through, ask for advice for mentors, and don’t move ahead until we agree. It actually works well.
If people think “you need a tie-breaker” is a winning argument, I wonder if they don’t know what it’s like to do the real work of coming to agreement?
Like, if they can’t picture a marriage where it’s possible to work things out together, then perhaps that says something about their marriages?
We’ve had big decisions—including whether to let a child pass away or try one more surgery that wouldn’t likely work. It’s not easy.
We’ve had to decide whether Keith would go part-time or whether I would give up speaking; whether we would buy this house or that house. But we’ve always done it.
If they can’t picture that kind of life—then I’m sad for them.
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So @markgungor said yesterday: "At it’s core, marriage is a sexual contract. Refusing sex to your partner is a violation of the contract."
In our recent survey of 20,000 Christian women, we found that his take on sexless marriages is completely off base. Here's how.
When women (1) have high marital satisfaction; (2) frequently orgasm during intercourse; and (3) have husbands who don't use porn, marriages almost NEVER become sexless. Sexlessness is a SYMPTOM of a greater problem. Women don't suddenly up and decide to give up on sex one day.
Now there are many reasons why a marriage might become sexless. In this thread, I'm only going to address the most common scenario: She never orgasms; she feels distant from her husband; and she's one of the 16% of women who say their primary emotion after sex is "feeling used."
It's time for the evangelical church to realize that the way we talk about sex and lust and porn poses a danger to women, as the Atlanta shooting all too horrifically showed us--and 8 people, including 7 women, died for it.
Apparently the shooter has said he had a "sex addiction" and the spas were "a temptation ... that he wanted to eliminate." This language sounds a lot like how Every Man's Battle describes the temptation to lust.
Defeating lust involves "bouncing your eyes" away from women. The 1st step is to "make a list of your greatest enemies." Among your potential enemies? Female joggers, or a "female co-worker who tends to dress a little suggestively." Or women at the beach.
Biblically, sex is INTIMATE, MUTUAL, and PLEASURABLE. The whole point of 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 is mutuality. And sex is about intimacy; God describes His relationship with us in sexual terms.
Therefore, any interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7 that says to women, “You need to allow your husband to use your body on demand, no matter what you are feeling,” is completely unscriptural and taking that out of context to weaponize it.
We're all bemoaning the celebrity Christian culture that led to the Ravi Zacharias & Carl Lentz (& so many more) sex & sexual abuse scandals.
But what if the problem is not just--or even mostly--celebrity culture?
What if it's the evangelical view of sex?
A thread.
Yes, celebrity culture gave these men (and so many others) more access to victims, and it gave them cover for what they were doing.
But it was not celebrity culture that taught these men to objectify women. Our evangelical culture did that all on its own.
Take the Every Man's Battle series of books: Every Heart Restored says: "Because of male hardwiring, men don't naturally have that Christian view of sex."
EMB says: "We find another reason for the prevalence of sexual sin among men. We got there naturally--simply by being male."
Here’s my problem with the #TheWisdomPyramid : He says that books are higher than online resources.
But in our survey of bestselling evangelical resources for our upcoming book The Great Sex Rescue, it was the books that called women methadone for their husbands’ sex addictions.
It was books that said about sex, “if your husband is typical, he has a need you don’t have,” denying women’s sexuality (Love & Respect).
That book also said sex was about a husband’s “physical release”, rather than also about deep intimacy and knowing.
It was books that said that women had to give husbands oral sex & hand jobs during their periods & postpartum phase, because it was a difficult time “for him” (Sheet Music).
It was a book that called a rapist “equally unhappy” to his wife, his rape victim. (Act of Marriage).
One reason I find Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis so dangerous to our children:
In this age when too many Christians are believing conspiracy theories, Ham marinates kids in conspiracies from the very beginning when teaching young earth creationism.
He teaches kids: You cannot believe scientists or teachers or leaders. They are all trying to lead you astray. Only we, who aren’t actually scientists, know the real science.
(When kids grow up and learn science, they feel they have to abandon God).
From very young ages, then, our schooling of kids is predicated on conspiracy theories.
Think how much the church does this! Even with biblical counselling—you can’t believe anyone secular or medical. They are trying to lead you astray. You can only believe the Bible.