Remember me calling out the stat that when men come to Christ, 93% of families follow, compared with just 17% for women? And how that's not based on research? And pastors should stop claiming it's true?

Megachurch SBC pastor Josh Howerton is pushing back. A 🧵 On a recent Bare Marriage podcast, Beth Allison Barr, Miranda Zapor Cruz and I showed how this stat has no basis in any peer reviewed study.

We called out Josh Howerton for doing so--he's now claiming he DID get it from a study.

He's still fudging the truth.

4 reasons why:

Instead of spouting about something he knows nothing about and showing his ignorance to everyone how about I answer this one based on our data from surveys of almost 40,000 evangelical couples?

https://twitter.com/paleochristcon/status/1849229647793295562

About 50% of married evangelical men currently use porn in some way, even if it's just intermittently. They are four times more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation.

They also have wives who don't reach orgasm as often.

You know that new book about Toxic Empathy that argues that empathy needs to have limits?

And how so many on the conservative side have endorsed it, like leaders of SBC seminaries?

This is the same crew that argues that wives must give husbands unconditional respect.
A 🧵 In this vein, respect for those in "spiritual authority" over us must be unconditional, but love in action for the least of these must have limits.

We talk a lot about how complementarianism--the belief that God wants husbands in authority over wives--hurts women.

But it hurts men too.

It allows men with major emotional wounds to hide their shame & feel validated without having to become emotionally healthy.

A 🧵 It allows men to coast and take shortcuts rather than pushing them towards growth and even sanctification.

In most evangelical sex & marriage best-sellers, women are told that men need sex, and women must provide it (ideally at least every 72 hours).

Where can I find a good counselor if the church is toxic?

I recently had a reader ask me this question. It's one that I get asked fairly often. It's a great question to ask!

So let's talk about it. 🧵

1/7 It's unwise to assume that all counselors are safe and good.

And before you invest money, time, and become very vulnerable with someone, you have to make sure they’re safe and a good fit.

Usually when we see counsellors we’re seeing one of two different types:

2/7

In this Billy Graham Rule discussion, many men are talking about how temptation is just everywhere, and it's better to avoid it. You don't want to sin.

Could it be that a lot of men are feeling guilty for something which isn't sin? And that's causing shame?

A 🧵 Jesus said that whoever "looks at a woman with lust in his heart" has committed adultery.

That's a deliberate action--"looking"--combined with a deliberate mindset--"lusting"--which involves objectification & dehumanization.

Does saying that men must never be alone with women because they may have an affair (because men are so prone to "falling") actually REDUCE affairs and harassment.

Nope. It increases it. 🧵 We asked 7000 women about their experiences as teens in church. Twenty percent reported being sexually harassed/assaulted in church as teens.

This was far more likely to happen in churches that taught that the modesty message and/or taught that all men struggle with lust.

I agree with Amanda that workplaces could be set up better to prevent people from being victimized where there are power imbalances.

That being said…

https://twitter.com/amandaheldopelt/status/1839065097202766234

The convo regarding Al Mohler’s comments is something different. He wasn’t talking about protecting women.

He was talking about men’s propensities to “fall” into “affairs”—even with someone 50 years younger than you.

What if you leave a super fundamentalist church for what you think is a safe one--and then discover it's not safe either?

A 🧵 This morning I received an email from a woman who had left an IFB church because it was far too legalistic, and gave a very distorted picture of God. Her family was suffering, and they wanted something better.

I do believe "not all men." But I also believe "way too many men."

Thinking about the intersection of the horrendous French case involving Gisele Pelicot, and Steve Arterburn, evangelical author, declaring loudly that "men just don't have that Christian view of sex."

A 🧵 In Every Man's Battle, Arterburn & Stoeker say that men sin naturally, "simply by being male."

In another book in the series, a woman wails that she feels like a "human toilet for semen." They don't sympathize, but tell her to understand what her husband is like--& satisfy him.

Here is amazing poem about megachurch pastor Josh Howerton, who jokes about women being essentially sex blow up dolls for their husbands, and about "shady little girls in mini-skirts in church parking lots" being his enemy.

🧵

1/14 But remember--like Josh always says--"it's just a joke!"

Grateful to commenter Julie Chupp who wrote this about Josh:

2/14

My origin story:

In 2019, our ministry took a turn. I read Love & Respect, a hugely successful evangelical marriage book.

I had been blogging & writing about marriage & sex for a decade, but I hadn't read other books for fear of plagiarizing. I figured, "they love Jesus, I love Jesus; we must all be saying the same thing."

When I read those Love & Respect, I realized that was the farthest thing from the truth.

I read the chapter on sex that told women that "if your husband is typical, he has a need you don't have."

Dear newlywed women: If you're feeling neglected or unimportant in your marriage, you may decide to push it aside and let it go. If sex is awful, you may think, "well, the main thing is that he's happy."

You can do that for a decade maybe. Then suddenly you can't anymore. There's something I like to call "The Unfairness Threshold." You can put up with a lot for about a decade or a decade and a half. Then you break. You can't convince yourself everything's okay, or it's not that bad. You're tired.

Here's the scenario: You know a couple where HE was a youth pastor/youth leader and SHE was a youth group member when they started dating, but they're married now. And they're doing great!

So you wonder: how can we say these types of relationships are wrong? Let me explain.

https://twitter.com/sheilagregoire/status/1820830444796916216

First, you assume they're doing great because of what you see on the outside. But you don't actually know. The number of memoirs coming out right now of women telling how they were being controlled and nobody knew, is astounding. We only see the outside of a relationship.

Does it really matter if a YOUTH PASTOR dates & marries a GIRL in his youth group? After all, an age difference of 23 and 17 isn't that big a deal, right?

A thread. Many of us approach the youth pastor/youth member dating thing from purely an age perspective. And we can all picture mature 17 and 18-year-old girls who would be fine to date a 23 or 24-year-old.

But there's more going on here we need to take into account.

Are we teaching our girls that they have the right to say a firm, "no" when they don't want to do something with a boy? Let's talk about it. 🧵 When purity culture teacher Dannah Gresh was teaching girls how to say “no” to a boy going too far, she had some questionable advice to share in her book "And the Bride Wore White":

What would happen if we all just stopped?

That question at the end of @bethallisonbarr 's book The Making of Biblical Womanhood is sticking with me today, because I am so absolutely and thoroughly DISGUSTED with the latest Matt Chandler news. Here's a man who leads a megachurch and a church networking/planting organization, who thinks he can tell us how to live--and his church hired his father, who is a self-confessed child sexual abuser, and didn't tell the congregation.

Christian book publishing rant:

I just saw that a big male sporting celebrity's wife, who has a large social media following, has a book coming out.

Can we talk about this? 🧵 A large platform that is based on celebrity can get someone a book contract, even if they have very little life experience; no relevant education; and no independent research and no innovative philanthropic initiatives.

The megachurch pastors who have been caught and lost their positions--were they really EVER "strong men of God"?

I'm seeing people on social media saying that the devil targets strong men of God. I don't think that's what's going on. It seems clear that these pastors have had issues for a long, long time. Robert Morris criminally sexually assaulted a child thirty-five years ago. He was NEVER a strong man of God.

He was an extremely charismatic, eloquent speaker.

Before approaching a woman about what she's wear, ask yourself:

If men are being made uncomfortable, why is it necessary to transfer that discomfort and shame onto a woman? Why not ask the men to deal with their discomfort? Several women messaging me have explained, “she’s really well-endowed, and that’s distracting to the men around her.” But a woman cannot do anything about being well-endowed. The issue can never, ever be about how her body is affecting the men around her; that’s on them.

Why do people cheat? New research says it has nothing to do with frequency of sex!

a 🧵 This new research about cheating was recently published online, and it is fascinating.

(and has been incorporated into our upcoming book on marriage!)

Here’s what it says: