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Ever heard the stat from “a recent study” that found that, when a husband comes to Christ first, in 93% of cases the wife and kids follow, but when the wife comes to Christ first, it’s only 17%? Today Beth Allison Barr and Miranda Zapor Cruz, both academics looking into gender relations in church, join me to try to track down the source. Spoiler alert: People seem to have made this up about 30 years ago—and they keep quoting it! We look at what happens when churches assume this stat is true.

OUR SPONSOR

Ever, AJ: Uniquely crafted vegan leather Bible cases. These Bible Cases are GORGEOUS and FUNCTIONAL! Use it as a traditional case, or you can also buy purses and wristlets. Makes a great gift too!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!

THINGS MENTIONED:

• Miranda Zapor Cruz’: The Myth of the 93% 
• Julie Roys’ podcast with Amanda Cunningham
• Tim Clinton Clip
• Danny Akin citing the “stat” 
• Josh Howerton clip (around 20:15)
• J.D. Greear clip 
• The Baptist Press article
• The Orthodox Barbie clip 
• The Christ Church of the Valley handbook with the “stat” 
• Matt Chandler saying he preaches to men:  (around 36-37 minutes)

ABOUT MIRANDA ZAPOR CRUZ:

• Find Miranda Zapor Cruz on Facebook 
• Order her book Faithful Politics 

ABOUT BETH ALLISON BARR:

• Find Beth Allison Barr on Threads 
• Pre-order Becoming the Pastor’s Wife
• Our podcast on The Making of Biblical Womanhood

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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We're all about healthy advice for marriage and sex. But what if evangelical teachings around parenting have also been messed up? And how can we parent in a healthy way? David and Amanda Erickson join us to talk about their new book The Flourishing Family, based on Scripture, brain science, attachment theory, and more. THIS is how we should parent!

OUR SPONSOR

Ever, AJ: Uniquely crafted vegan leather Bible cases. These Bible Cases are GORGEOUS and FUNCTIONAL! Use it as a traditional case, or you can also buy purses and wristlets. Makes a great gift too!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

• The Flourishing Family
• Follow David and Amanda on Instagram
• Follow them on Facebook
• The clip of the Baptist pastor talking about spanking
• Our post where we look at the research about spanking
• Pre-Order The Marriage You Want (our new book coming in March!)

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

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The evangelical world has an orgasm gap of 47 points between husbands and wives. Only 48% of women orgasm almost always or always, and 33% orgasm never or rarely.

The good news is that if you're in that 33%--you can still get to the 48%!

Today Rebecca and I look back at all the other episodes we've talked about orgasms, and have a great time discussing how we can learn to help couples prioritize her pleasure!

THE ORGASM COURSE

It's on sale until Monday, September 23 at midnight! When you purchase the regular course, you'll get the men's version added for free!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

Things Mentioned in the Podcast

• The Great Sex Rescue
• Episode 74: You're Not Broken if Orgasm Is Elusive
• Episode 92: All about Orgasms
• Episode 129: Where Emerson Eggerichs Ignores Marital Rape (and doesn't understand women's arousal)
• Episode 222: How Sex Is Like Chef Boyardee
• Episode 168: The Myth of the Magic Penis

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

We know it’s not all men who are predators. But it’s far too many. And a recent horrible court case in France is reminding women all over the world that far too many men are willing and eager to do the unthinkable. The only way to tell who is safe is to look at their words and their actions. And the words of far too many evangelical leaders and authors and pastors are straight up rape culture. After what happened to Gisele Pelicot, I’m not willing to put up with it anymore. No more Every Man’s Battle rape culture mindset in the church!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

LINKS

Our Sponsor:

Rebecoming: Come Out of Hiding to Live as Your God-Given Essential Self.
This amazing book is one of the best I’ve read to explain basic counseling concepts, and gives you practical exercises to work through as you try to get unstuck. Highly recommend!

Things Mentioned

• The 7 Point Evangelical Confession of 2024
• Josh Howerton’s sermon clip
• A synopsis of the horrible ordeal of Gisele Pelicot
• The Great Sex Rescue
• The Great Sex Rescue Toolkit
• The Every Man’s Battle one sheet download
• Coinswallow's post on Instagram

Check out Sheila's books:

• The Great Sex Rescue
• She Deserves Better
• The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
• and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

It’s a complete therapy session—in one book and one podcast! Dr. Merry Lin joins us to explain why we so often feel stuck—and how to move forward. If you’ve been confused by terms like trauma, attachment theory, the Stone Age brain, and more, Dr. Merry Lin joins us for a primer that can help us get unstuck—and rebecome who we were meant to be!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

HELP US OUT AFTER THE HACKING!

• Please follow OUR NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
• If you see a Facebook page called Endlessly Stories with weird images—that is our old page. Please report it!

 

About Dr. Merry Lin:

• See her book Rebecoming
• Find Dr. Merry’s website
• Find Dr. Merry on Instagram

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:

• The Orgasm Course
• Self Awareness Test

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

 What does it look like to actually grow like Christ? Like, not from a sermon, or not from some lofty retreat, but just in the here and now? Can we actually grow “holier”? A beautiful conversation with Karen Stiller, author of the book Holiness Here. We tackle envy, joy, contentment—and even grief, as she shares about processing the death of her husband.

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

HELP US OUT AFTER THE HACKING!

• Please follow OUR NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
• If you see a Facebook page called Endlessly Stories with weird images—that is our old page. Please report it!

ABOUT KAREN

• Find Karen’s book Holiness Here
• Find the article Karen wrote about grief

THINGS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:

• The post I wrote for Karen about what churches need today
• Join the Bare Marriage cruise, February 2025!
• The Orgasm Course
• We're in the midst of revamping The Whole Story, our sex and puberty course! If you purchase it now you can still work through it, and then you'll have access to the new one when it's out in two months. 
• See Keith and me speak at a marriage conference in Lead, South Dakota, September 27 & 28

Check out Sheila's books:

• The Great Sex Rescue
• She Deserves Better
• The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
• and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

Sheila and Rebecca are answering your questions today! We covered how to find a new church when you feel like church has let you down; how to start your sex life well; what to do when people don’t think purity culture was harmful; and so much more! And we throw data and nuance into the mix too.

HELP US OUT AFTER THE HACKING!

• Please follow OUR NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
• If you see a Facebook page called Endlessly Stories with weird images—that is our old page. Please report it!

OUR SPONSOR

It's the Bible that lets girls see themselves in the story! The Kingdom Girls Bible from Zonderkidz--with profiles of all the women in the Bible (including many you may not have heard of!). It's an awesome Bible for girls 8-12--or for you too!

TO SUPPORT US

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Join our email list!

LINKS

• Download our rubric and scorecard for the problematic books
• Check out our Toolkit with handouts on all the toxic teachings, and more
• The Good Girl’s/Good Guy’s Guides to Great Sex (make them the engagement gifts!)
• The Great Sex Rescue
• My Instagram Channel where all the questions came from
• Last week’s podcast on authoritarian control
• Podcast from a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

What if you discovered that marriage books like The Excellent Wife actually follows Steve Hassan's BITE model of cult indoctrination? And what if these marriage books were giving advice that mirrored coercive control?

Bare Marriage podcast, episode 246, featuring Bethany Jantzi. Bethany did her thesis on coercive control, and today she shows us how these books use methods like: diminishing/devaluing personhood; undermining autonomy; creating psychological dependency; using a fear-based system of control; suppressing critical thinking; and conditioning compliance. And all of those things factor into abuse rates and coercive control. And we can do better than this!

OUR SPONSOR:

It's the Bible that lets girls see themselves in the story! The Kingdom Girls Bible from Zonderkidz--with profiles of all the women in the Bible (including many you may not have heard of!). It's an awesome Bible for girls 8-12--or for you too!


TO SUPPORT US:

Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work

For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation

And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!


FIND BETHANY:
Free From Control on Instagram
Bethany's website: Free From Control

THINGS MENTIONED:

How God Sees Women by Terran Williams
Marg Mowczko on Bible Interpretations
Our Series on the Danvers Statement

 

Timestamps

0.11 Intro

11.30 Complimentarianism

18.24 God Knows Best

31.50 Control and Domination

40.10 Wife as a Training Ground

59.30 Are We Under Undue Influence

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace sells like hotcakes in biblical counseling/ fundamentalist/ homeschooling circles, and even though it seems like a “fringe” book, it’s affecting tens of thousands of women. Today Marissa Burt and Tia Levings and I sit down to talk about the problems with this book that tells women they must obey their husbands and submit—no matter what.

Our Sponsor:

It's the Bible that lets girls see themselves in the story! The Kingdom Girls Bible from Zonderkidz--with profiles of all the women in the Bible (including many you may not have heard of!). It's an awesome Bible for girls 8-12--or for you too!

To Support Us:

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!

Things Mentioned in the Podcast: 

• Download our Onesheet on The Excellent Wife
• Our podcast on how Emerson Eggerichs misuses Scripture in Love & Respect 
• Marissa’s post on 10 reasons parents have a hard time giving up spanking 
• 4 Concerns with Biblical Counseling 

About Tia Levings:

• Tia’s book, The Well-Trained Wife 
• Find Tia on Instagram  and Substack (as The Anti-Fundamentalist)
• Listen to last week’s podcast with Tia

About Marissa Burt:

• Find Marissa on Instagram  and X 
• Read Marissa’s Substack

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.

Send us Fan Mail

She went to a flagship SBC church. She wasn’t supposed to get sucked into fundamentalism. But Tia ended up being stuck in an abusive marriage, trying to fix things by following advice from Gothard and more. It made her sick. It made her hopeless. But finally she realized, no one else is going to rescue us. I have to do this for me and the kids. And she did. Her story is riveting, touching, and relevant. Listen to a Well-Trained Wife!

Our Sponsor:

It's the Bible that lets girls see themselves in the story! The Kingdom Girls Bible from Zonderkidz--with profiles of all the women in the Bible (including many you may not have heard of!). It's an awesome Bible for girls 8-12--or for you too!

To Support Us:

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• For tax deductible donations in the U.S., support Good Fruit Faith Initiative through the Bosko Foundation
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!

About Tia Levings:

• Tia’s book, The Well-Trained Wife 
• Find Tia on Instagram  and Substack (as The Anti-Fundamentalist)

Things Mentioned in the Podcast:

• Tia's reel on Fundie Baby Voice
• The Dallas area pastors who have had to resign

Support the show

Join Sheila at Bare Marriage.com!

Check out her books:

• The Great Sex Rescue 
• She Deserves Better
• The Marriage You Want and the Study Guide
•  The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex
•  and The Good Guy's Guide to Great Sex

And she has an Orgasm Course and a Libido course too!

Check out all her courses, FREE resources, social media, books, and so much more at Sheila's LinkTree.