-
What the Modest is Hottest Message Gets Wrong
Most of the time, when we talk about modesty and lust in the summertime, we’re telling the women what to wear. We want them to dress modestly so that men won’t lust. We forget that women can struggle with lust too. So I struggled to come up with some metric. Some balance when writing a post on swimsuits. What should you wear? What shouldn’t you wear? Then I realized, modesty isn’t really about what you wear. I grew up in a conservative Christian environment that had a dress code for swimming. Women had to wear one piece swimsuits, even when swimming with just the girls (because the lifeguards might be…
-
The One Word Christian Women Struggling with Porn Need to Hear
What if I told you there was one word that Christian women struggling with porn needed to hear? Just one word that could help eradicate shame and set them on the journey to freedom? What if one word could completely change the atmosphere of your church? Could it really be that simple? Five years ago, I had the privilege of speaking at the Set Free Summit, hosted by Covenant Eyes and Josh McDowell Ministries. It was a gathering of hundreds of pastors and ministry leaders addressing the issue of pornography use within the church. During my session, I shared about the shame experienced by a Christian woman struggling with pornography.…
-
Creating a Safe Space for Grace
In this series, where we’re tackling how to address porn in church, I would be remiss if I didn’t address this fundamental reality: our churches need to be safe spaces for grace. In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about how to change the conversation and help women find healing, but the fact is that if the culture of your church chokes out grace, you can talk until you’re blue in the face and it isn’t going to matter. There’s a parable in the Bible (Matthew 13:1–23, Mark 4:1–20, Luke 8:4–15) that is commonly referred to as the parable of the sower. The short version is this: a sower went out…
-
On Culture, Sex, Influence, and Why Personal Responsibility Matters
Before we start the Porn in Church series, I wanted to take a minute and talk about the importance of personal responsibility. We talk a lot about “accountability” in Christian circles. It’s the idea that we answer to other people and if you’re on a journey of recovery from porn use, then you’ve for sure heard it. In fact I’ve written several posts about it. But personal responsibility is probably equally, if not more, important than the idea of accountability. Accountability, the way we use it, says “others can check in on me and I answer to them.” It’s the motive behind things like accountability software, like Covenant Eyes, or…
-
Resource Review: The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Wray Gregoire
I’ve been looking forward to reading The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Uncover What God Intended since the moment I knew it was going to exist. As a writer tackling issues of sex and sexuality in the church, I’m a fan of Sheila’s work. The conversation on sex in the church needs to change. That’s just a fact. So, when Sheila and her daughter, Rebecca, started down this path of addressing lies women believe/are taught about sex, I jumped in support. I gladly donated a stack of old Brio magazines for their research. A couple months ago, I reviewed Talking Back to Purity Culture…
-
Should We Just Watch Porn Together?
This conversation recently went down in the “community” section of an app I use. “I really wish my husband would stop watching porn. He keeps telling me he’s going to stop but our accounts are linked so I can see that he’s looking at porn at work.” “Girl, give it up and just ask to watch it with him! Watch it together!” And this is an email I got in response to a recent blog post: “I think a woman should tell her husband what type of porn she watches so they can watch it together. That’s what a strong woman would do.” So, clearly, we need to talk about…
-
On Pedestals, Grief, and Finding Faith
The final report of the investigation into Ravi Zacharias was published, and it wasn’t good. In fact, it was scathing. For many, this week, a hero fell. I’ve been following this story since the accusations first came to light last fall. Ravi’s ministry had a great impact on my husband’s faith and a friend of mine was a speaker for RZIM. Sadly, we’ve seen this all before. Too many times, actually. In Ecclesiastes, it says, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” {1:9 ESV} Instances like this, where people abuse power and…
-
Resource Review: Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher
My last post addressed the question, “Does God Really Want Me to Save Sex for Marriage?” In it, I mentioned this book Talking Back to Purity Culture by Rachel Joy Welcher. I read this book through in January and, now that I’ve finished it, felt it was worth writing a quick review. I do this on occasion and hope to increase the frequency this year. On that note, I recently redid the resource page! Check it out for a more streamlined collection of books, videos, courses, and groups specifically for women who struggle with pornography. I’m also going to link up all of the book reviews I’ve done over the…
-
“Boys Will Be Boys” is Killing our Men
Where do I even start? The past few weeks have been filled with sexual assault in the news. There was the case of the high school student in Florida who had sex with several boys in the high school bathroom while dozens more watched. As a former teacher, that got under my skin. I’ve had students sneak away and have sex though. Yes, even at a Christian school. But this? The Stanford rape case? Is making my blood boil. Few things in life get me fired up, but raping a drunk stranger in an alley, behind a dumpster? And then passing it off like she wanted it, like she liked…