Why I'm glad that @bethallisonbarr is a historian, and how that makes The Making of Biblical Womanhood more powerful:

In Kevin DeYoung's review of her book for The Gospel Coalition, he derides Beth for frequently mentioning her credentials. Personally, I found it comforting:
The fact that Beth is a historian tells me:

1. She understands the breadth of Christian expression before The Founding Fathers. Especially as a Canadian, I often find the way faith is talked about in evangelical circles to be so rooted in one particular culture/time.
2. She is a scholar. She understands the importance of peer review. You don't have to be scholarly to be published by Christian publishers, or even to teach at many seminaries. That's why we're having our research for The Great Sex Rescue ALSO published in peer-reviewed journals.
There is far more scholarship and understanding of peer review in academic universities than there is in most seminaries.

3. She has done original research. She hasn't just relied on others' work; she is an expert on medieval Christian women. She has something new to say.
4. She has taken the debate outside the realm of the Greek meaning of kephale or whether or not Junia was an apostle or well known to the apostles, and looked at Christian life on the ground throughout the centuries.
We've been at a stalemate arguing Greek. A wider historical perspective on how Christians thought over the centuries helps. We can no longer believe, "well, obviously that's how things are," if, in fact, that was not how things were for the majority of history.
I've been so impressed with the actual scholarly work that evangelical women have produced in the last few years--@kkdumez , @bethallisonbarr, even my own The Great Sex Rescue (based on an academic survey of 20,000 Christian women). We are raising the bar, even if many resist.
(And one final note: Kevin DeYoung implying that Beth is not a reliable narrator on issues of patriarchy because she was hurt by patriarchy is disingenuous. He's implying that only those who have benefited have the right to talk about it. That's not how it works.)

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More from @sheilagregoire

19 Jun
Does the MODESTY debate affect BOYS? You betcha.
One thing we often overlook in the debate about teaching girls to dress "modestly" is the effect this has on the male gender. When boys hear that girls must dress modestly so that boys don't lust, they hear three things:
(1) lust is a HUGE issue for most boys;
(2) I can't control lust on my own;
(3) I'm not capable of treating girls as full human beings and as whole people unless they're dressed appropriately.
This is an extremely defeatist attitude.
Plus, even if every Christian girl dresses like the Amish, girls in the larger society won't. If you teach your son that he can only control his thoughts when women dress properly, then what is going to happen when he's at school? At the mall? Or even at the beach?
Read 6 tweets
18 Jun
A dad makes a video telling his girls that rather than wear shorts they should wear turtlenecks because “modest is hottest.”

This is wrong on so many levels.
Our survey of 20,000 women found that hearing the message “all men struggle with lust; it’s every man’s battle”—even if you don’t believe it—lowers marital satisfaction, trust in your future spouse, and arousal levels during sex.
When you are taught this message as a teen, even BEFORE you meet your future husband, your marriage and sex life will be worse.

Our girls deserve better.

And teaching girls that they are the gatekeepers for boys’ sins?
Read 7 tweets
17 Jun
My thoughts on the Southern Baptist Convention votes:

The gatekeepers are losing control. And that's a very, very good thing that we're seeing across evangelicalism.

A thread:
Leading up to the convention, I was discouraged. From what I was seeing on Twitter, @albertmohler was the frontrunner, & was considered "almost moderate", despite the fact that he tweeted approvingly about a slaveholder's view on women's subordination on Mother's Day.
I saw SBC bigwigs beat up abuse survivors on a daily basis. It looked hopeless.

I wasn't expecting an overwhelming vote investigate the enabling & covering for sexual abuse.

I wasn't expecting the most moderate candidate to win (though how moderate remains to be seen).
Read 13 tweets
7 May
Now that Josh Duggar has been indicted on possession of Child Sexual Abuse Materials (child porn), some depicting toddlers, we must confront the sexualization of children in evangelicalism.

Let's start with teenagers, and go all the way down to toddlers.
Shaunti Feldhahn, in For Young Women Only, tells girls "82% of boys feel little ability and little responsibility to stop the sexual progression." Telling girls that boys have "little ability" to stop legitimizes date rape and puts the blame at the girl's feet.
Furthermore, in a post to teenage girls, she warns that their date's dad will be tempted to "visually take in, linger on, and fantasize about all the details of this great body he's seeing." Let that sink in. Teens are being told that it is normal for adult men to sexualize them.
Read 16 tweets
6 May
Best-selling evangelical books instruct women to give their husbands sex to deal with their husbands’ porn addictions.

If any reporters are working on stories about Josh Duggar, I’d love to give background on how wives in these communities are told his porn use is their fault.
We just conducted the largest survey ever done of evangelical women’s marital & sexual satisfaction for our new book The Great Sex Rescue. One of the things we were looking at was the teaching, “women should have frequent sex with their husbands to keep them from watching porn."
In November 2019, Focus on the Family, in their broadcast, said the reason men watch porn is that women aren’t having enough sex. Every Man’s Battle (the book series sold 4,000,000 copies) told women they were like a “merciful vial of methadone” for him when he’s quitting porn.
Read 6 tweets
6 May
Can we talk COMPLEMENTARIANISM? What happens to marriage when couples act out the commonly taught doctrine that husbands make the final decision in marriage?

After surveying 20,000 women, we now know!

A thread with fun stats stuff:
Let's start with beliefs: 62.2% of Christian wives believe that a wife submitting to a husband's leadership is a way that she can love him. And 39.4% of wives believe that the husband should have decision-making power in the marriage.
And you know what? When women believe this, it doesn't affect their marriage. It's neutral--not good or bad.

UNLESS--and this is a big unless--they actually act it out.

You see, most people who believe this do not practice it.
Read 10 tweets

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