Robin Thinks! Deconstructing Books That Wrecked Us

Recently, I lost several hundred Christian followers on Twitter when I accused a well-liked member of the Twitter community of spiritual abuse and refused to bow to repeated demands that I take it back and apologize. Although many books have been written on the topic of spiritual abuse, they almost always examine or deal with abuse on an institution level, but rarely on a personal one. In fact, we love pointing fingers at the leaders of large institutions, because of how much power they have over those institutions. An institution is a group of people, however, and it is people that commit abuse.

We like talking about "institutions" however, because it depersonalizes the problem. It allows us to talk about abuse without actually having to examine who specifically is committing it. Talking about an institution allows us to reassure ourselves that since we are not an institution, then clearly we are not the problem. But if everyone is not an institution, then who is the problem? Well, no one, of course, which is why institutional abuse just goes right on happening because it is no one's fault. 

Of course, we are very comfortable pointing fingers at leaders, but leaders only make up only a tiny fraction of an institution and therefore only capable of committing the tiniest fraction of abuse. The truth is, the majority of people in almost every institution are participants in abuse. We are very happy with a light being pointed at a handful of leaders in an organization, but we don’t want it pointed at us. We don't to examine how our individual actions result in abuse.

Spiritual abuse is about power and control. It happens any time we put ourselves in the place of God in anyone else’s life. Any time we try and invoke the name of God or Jesus to give ourselves more power or authority in someone else’s life than we are entitled to have. Most people are probably familiar with the third commandment as a command to not take the name of the Lord “in vain”, which is commonly interpreted to mean not using it as a swear word. I don’t believe that is actually what it means.

The NIV says to not “misuse” the name of God. I believe it refers to using the name of God to give yourself more authority than you are meant to have. Similar to when children invoke the name of a parent to give themselves authority. If a parent sends a child with a specific message, then they are genuinely acting on the authority of the parent. Just like Christians, however, many children will invoke the name of a parent to force a sibling to do their will. That is abuse.  Too many Christians say things like “that is not of Jesus” or “that is not Godly” but that is not actually their right to decide.

Most of the teachings of Jesus are left open for individuals to decide what they mean. It is fine to quote Jesus directly, but it is no one’s right to decide for anyone else what it means to love your neighbor or what is or is not “loving.” Ultimately, we all pay a price for our own actions and decisions, which is why it is so important that we make them for ourselves. If another person is not going to pay the consequences for your choices, then they do not get to decide what you should or should not be doing - much less what God does or does not want you to do.

Recently I have seen several Person of Color on Twitter insist that deconstruction has to involve decolonization in order to be “real”. Although I am of the opinion that no one has the right to tell anyone else how they “should” be doing something (most of raised in churches have already been “should-ed” to death), I do think it is important to be aware of what colonization is, where it comes from and how deeply embedded in white Evangelicalism the principles of colonization are.

It is very fair to say that what Mark Batterson did was in fact to colonize a certain area in Washington D.C. For all intents and purposes, he walked out a square and claimed it as his own. That is colonization. But colonization doesn’t just apply to a physical space, there is also such a thing as colonization of thought, and mass colonization almost always starts with or involves colonization of thought.

The reason for colonization is generally based on the idea of “might makes right.” If there’s 200 of us that agree on something and only five of you, we get to be right simply because we have superior numbers. Sometimes, it isn’t about the superior numbers but about superior firepower. If I have more guns than you, I get to be right. This is all part and parcel of colonization, but it all starts with a single belief: I am right and anyone who doesn’t agree with me is wrong. In today’s episode I explore colonization from its tiniest seed to it’s broadest and farthest reaching outcome - and how to identify the most basic elements of colonizing behaviors in us all.

Mark Batterson claims that it is very important to pray very specific prayers. Jesus, on the other hand, gave us a very different model of how to pray. This is why it is so important to always be holding the messages of “Christian” books up to scripture - and not just to a single verse here or there. Batterson focuses on Jericho, where God delivered on the promise He made to the Hebrews he released from captivity in Egypt. Just looking at the fulfillment of the promise, however, wipes out more than 120 years of significant challenges the Hebrews faced before seeing the fulfillment of that promise.

God already had Jericho in mind long before Moses was even born. Yet it would be a full 80 years before God would send Moses back into Egypt to lead the Hebrews out of captivity and they would wander in the desert for another 40 years before God would lead their children and grandchildren into the Promised Land. None of the Hebrews who prayed for delivery from slavery ever actually saw the Promised Land.

Books like The Circle Maker often give the impression that God moves quickly and we only have to wait a few months or years to see answers to prayers. Mark Batterson walked a circle around his city and supposedly saw an answer to his prayer within a few decades. But was that really God? America was founded on colonization, where a group of white men laid claim to a land that was already inhabited by others. Mark Batterson walked a circle around a city where there were undoubtedly already churches operating and other people engaged in Kingdom work. So did God really “deliver” that area to him or did he essentially just steal it from others already working there?

While we may love the inspiring messages of books like The Circle Maker, it’s important to hold them up to the entirety of the Bible to determine their veracity. Christian leaders often make a lot of money by selling us truths we want to hear that may not turn out to be so true in the long run. Today. we’ll talk about prayer and whether Mark Batterson is really leading us to pray the way Jesus did and why that is important.

In Part 2 of my series on Love & Respect, I talked about some of the red flag language that Emmerson Eggerichs’ used that we should all learn to pay attention to. In this episode I talk about some of the details Mark Batterson shares early in the book that should also be pretty big red flags. All-too-often, we trust authors simply based on the fact that they are a Christian or pastor a large church or are a best-selling author. But this means we trust them simply based on what they tell us about themselves or because so many other people trust them. In many cases, however, those other people also trust a leader because even more “other people” trust them. Everyone just trusts and no one is actually asking why should we trust this person, or should we? In many cases, these people lead us to make massive changes in our lives, but are not going to be there to pick up the pieces when their advice turns out to be crap.

The whole reason I started this podcast was to help people recognize some of the red flags that remain consistent across a number of Christian books. For instance, in the podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, it was revealed that Mark Driscoll often claimed to read a book a day, which is a highly dubious claim. In Love & Respect, Emerson Eggerichs’ also claimed to have read thousands of books, and lo and behold - so does Mark Batterson. It is exactly these kind of grandiose claims that should be a huge red flag. And there are many others.

In today’s episode I will break down why that is a highly suspicious claim, and just one of many red flags found in just these first few chapters.

In The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson reaches deep into an ancient Jewish Book of Legends to extract the story of Honi, an eccentric sage who lived outside the walls of Jerusalem just prior to the birth of Jesus. Batterson introduces Honi after his homeland has experienced a year-long drought. He weaves a rich tapestry of hyperbole in which Honi boldy draws a circle, steps inside and begins to pray. First, his prayers result in a tiny sprinkle of rain, then a torrent and finally a gentle shower.

If this were an American Epic, Honi would return home a hero - and so he does in Batterson’s tale. Although Batterson casually mentions that Honi’s return does not quite result in Disney-esque perfection, he seems disinclined to expand on that part of the story the same way he did with Honi’s great miracle.

And therein lies the rub.

The Circle Maker is one more of what I like to call “Christian rah-rah” books, which are to me quite similar to fad diet books. Yes, they may produce some relatively spectacular results at first, but those results usually come at a far higher cost than we realize. Not only are they unsustainable, but if you do sustain them, they can cause incredible damage in the long run. Like so many “prosperity gospel” books, The Circle Maker chooses to focus on the miracle - or how to achieve success - without ever exploring the costs of success. Which are often quite high.

In today’s podcast I talk about how God is not fooled. There are many things man does that he likes to claim are for the glory of God that really aren’t. The problem is, you can achieve success regardless of your motivation but achieving success for yourself will always come at a much higher cost than what we genuinely do for God. God is not deceived and God is not mocked. God always knows exactly why we are really doing what we are doing and who it is really for.

Whether its your favorite Marvel characters or your own family tree, origin stories matter. One of the many reason slavery was so incredibly destructive is that it cut millions of people off entirely from their roots, leaving them completely incapable of knowing, understanding or exploring their own origin stories. The Genesis story is our origin story, and like all origin stories, it tells us a lot about where we came from and how we got here.

Whether you think that Adam and Eve were real human beings or whether their story is just an allegory, it explains a lot about the modern world and perhaps even more importantly - why men and women seem to be driven by such very different things. While I do believe men and women are different, I believe that mostly stems from where we find our sense of worth and value. I think we each chase something different but if we are not careful, we can just simply trade each other’s “curses.”

Unlike most Evangelicals, I do not believe God cursed us, but rather simply identified the new norm for us, much like a parent might clue their teenager in to the realities in their immediate future the first time they get drunk. The same way a hangover is not our natural state, I believe the point of understanding our origin story is to help us understand how to get back to how things were meant to be before the fall.

Men will often defend hierarchy as good and necessary and they are not entirely wrong. Sometimes, decisions just need to be made quickly and if there is no clearly designated decision maker, catastrophe can ensue. In some cases, lives may even be lost. Militaries, police & fire departments and medical teams have very clear and established hierarchies for a reason - because they are regularly in literally life or death situations. Most of us, however, are not. Yet the vast majority of businesses, companies and even churches continue to operate under and defend the necessity of continuous hierarchical systems.

While it can be critically important to have an established hierarchy in place in a crisis, it can be just as catastrophic to try and operate under a hierarchical system when there is no crisis. Men on top of hierarchical systems love the power and authority it gives them, but it is actually a recipe for disaster in most situations. This is even more true among couples. That’s why I developed the 49/51 principle.

I believe that the phrase “two heads are better than one” is absolutely true, but too often leaders in patriarchal/ hierarchical systems simply don’t listen to anyone else. In some cases they don’t listen because they simply don’t have to but in other cases it is because they think that doing so will make them appear weak. The 49/51 system provides a clear framework for hierarchical decision making when it’s most needed, while creating a more egalitarian framework the rest of the time.

The 49/51 principle allows couples to operate more along the lines of the U.S. Government, which has kept our nation stable for close to 250 years now. Getting a bill passed through congress requires an enormously high degree of cooperation and compromise, which is exactly how most decisions should be made. That being said, in a crisis, congress can cede complete authority to the President in order to make decisions quickly.

The 49/51 principle applies this same framework to couples or businesses, allowing them to quickly configure into crisis mode, while keeping regular day-to-day decision making in a more “congressional” or egalitarian model.

After I recorded this podcast, I started promoting it on Instagram and an IG follower left this comment.

I was a missionary for ten years in a Christian theater ministry, ministering to churches in America. I spent those ten years performing plays that were specifically written to address many of the issues that so many people are just now starting to see on a larger scale. These are not new issues, they have slowly been building for years. Organizations built on corrupt power structures can exist and even thrive for years, but over time, they slowly begin to develop cracks that weaken the foundation and make them susceptible to collapse. Which is exactly what happened in the theater ministry I was a part of.

Religious leaders frequently refer to themselves as having“God-given” authority, but is it really? Did God really give them authority or do we give them authority because they tell us it’s God’s intention for them to have it? If it is true, just how far does that authority go and where does it end? Today, I talk about my experiences with coming to understand how power was being misused in the theater ministry I was a part of and what I did about it. This is the first week in a two (or maybe even three)-part series on submission.

Next week, I will talk about Emerson Eggerich’s C-H-A-I-R-S and C-O-U-P-L-E acronyms and show how they set up an incredibly unhealthy power dynamic that is mirrored in and promoted in churches. I will also talk about how that power dynamic is a recipe for disaster - either a divorce in a personal relationship or a church or organizational split in a larger organization.

Religious leaders love to talk about "God given" authority, but does God really give men authority? The truth is, authority is the direct outcome of responsibility. No one is meant to have authority over something that they do not also take responsibility for, which is also called accountability. You are accountable for the things you try and take authority over and you are accountable for how you exercise that authority. There is a fine line between having authority over and controlling. What happens all too often in American churches, is that men try to take authority over things that they aren’t taking - or even can’t take - responsibility for and even worse, try and control others.

Parents have authority over their children because they take full responsibility for them, but that still does not mean they should attempt to control their children. Parents are responsible for (at the very least) feeding, clothing and sheltering their children and hopefully even providing for their emotional and spiritual needs as well. As children grow up and begin to take more responsibility for themselves, parents have less and less authority. Or at least that is how it should be. In too many cases, however, parents continue to try and have authority in the lives of children that are no longer their responsibility and this creates conflict.

Religious men frequently talk about “God-given” authority, but they don’t actually have authority for anything they are not taking responsibility for - unless we give it to them. Which we often do. They tell us their authority comes from God, but it really comes from us. They stop having authority when we stop giving it to them. A parent has authority in a child’s life regardless of whether the child gives them that authority or not, because they are completely dependent on their parents. They have no choice in the matter.

Pastors and religious leaders only have authority to the degree that we are dependent on them, which is why they do their best to create that dependence. They create a “product” that we believe we cannot live without and that is why we end up giving them authority. When you recognize and understand that you do not need a church, you free yourself from that dependence. While being a part of a church community can be a healthy experience, it will only remain that way so long as you do not give away too much authority.

A child cannot go out and get a job and pay their own bills and take care of themselves, which is why parents have authority. Conversely, however, a religious leader does not pay your bills put a roof over your head and put food on the table for you - which is why they do not have authority OVER you. Too often, religious leaders want authority without responsibility, but authority and responsibility go hand-in-hand. No responsibility = no authority and the less responsibility you take the less authority you have. The less authority you give religious leaders, the less authority they have.

Since Love & Respect is a marriage book, it can be easy to assume that the only damage it might cause is to someone’s marriage. The problem with any book that says “men need this and women need that,” however, is that no one is going to just apply these principles strictly to their own marriage. There are too many pastors reading these books who are also essentially the CEO of their churches, not to mention providing counseling of their own. The damage this book causes extends far beyond just the individual couples that might read it.

The same way the principles espoused in “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” continued to have a strong negative impact on people’s marriages - long after they left the world of dating - Love & Respect has a destructive reach that extends far beyond individual marriages. As a single woman, I know I have personally been harmed by the culture that is created by these teachings - because they do, in fact, extend far beyond just marriages or marital counseling.

In today’s podcast, I will also talk about what’s coming up for Robin Thinks!, why I originally started this platform and where I’m hoping to take it next. Although I did not do a podcast last week, I have been busy. I have opened new accounts on Twitter and Instagram specifically for this podcast.

The reason religion is so damaging is because men take a kernel of truth and wrap it in a bunch of rules that are designed to give themselves power and authority. All the way back in Leviticus when God first give Moses the 10 Commandments, it wasn't long before men had wrapped a gift God gave His people in a bunch of rules man created to give themselves power. Rules that Jesus got in trouble for breaking many times. He broke them because they were never God’s laws in the first place, they were man’s rules. Rules they never had a right to make in the first place.

In Love & Respect, Emerson Eggerichs takes a kernel of truth and wraps it in a massive shell of his own design. Today, we dig down deep to find that kernel of truth and unwrap it from all of the packaging placed on it by Eggerichs.

We’ve probably all heard the term “red flags” when it comes to recognizing narcissists and abusers, but many people are unaware of how to recognize those red flags when they see them - or hear them. This is complicated by the fact that our culture tends to value certain qualities and traits that should actually be red flags. Although an expert in certain subject matters should have confidence in their knowledge and expertise, there is a fine line between confidence and hubris or self-aggrandizement.

Today, I’m going to talk about some of the “red flag language” that Emerson Eggerichs uses to help people better understand what to look for when deciding whether to trust a certain author, pastor or speaker. This is particularly important to understand when it comes to people that use the Bible to support their premises. I believe those that take upon themselves the task of teaching the Bible to others are called to a very high standard. A standard I do not believe Eggerichs meets.

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs wrote an entire book on the idea that men need respect and women need love. A premise that he based on a single verse in the Bible. That, to me, is already problematic because the Bible is a compilation of books that cover a time span of several thousand years and is written by more than 50 different authors. Too often, when people pull out a single verse and build a premise on it, their premise doesn’t align with the rest of the book. I think that is true here.

Even more concerning is his idea that women don’t need to be respected, only men do. While that seems to be a wildly popular idea among men, it actually sets women up as being lesser beings. I think it is hugely problematic to assert that men and women have very different needs and I also don’t think it in any way aligns with either the overarching message of the Bible or the message of Jesus. Join me today as I examine whether men and women really have different needs.

What has been called “purity culture” should actually be much more accurately labeled “virginity culture.” Like so many Evangelical and religious teachings, virginity culture has far less to do with God’s will, pleasure or approval than man’s pleasure and approval. When we “come to know Jesus” in some way (often referred to as “getting saved”) the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit dwells within us and becomes our guide.

Every action we take or don’t take will have a consequence and there are too many people in our lives that want to tell us what to do but they will not pay the consequences for our choices - we will. A critical part of deconstruction, and of healing from purity culture, is learning how to silence all the voices around you that want to tell you what is right or wrong for you in order to hear that still, small voice inside of you that is meant to be your guide. 

Today, I share with you my story and why this podcast is so important to me. I decided to do almost no editing today (except for when Siri decided to butt in!) so it’s pretty raw. Also, since I’m talking bout sex and sexuality, probably NSFW!

Christianity likes to present itself as being not just opposed to “worldly values” but superior to them. The truth is, however, that Evangelical Christian views on sex and sexuality (like those of many other fundamentalist religions) are actually every bit as damaging as secular views. The truth is that neither blueprint or model is bound to lead to healthy sexuality.

The secular view is often that sex is just something you do to scratch an itch but Evangelical Christianity presents a view that all you have to do is wait until you get married and God will bless you with mind-blowing sex. The problem is that most Christian marriage books take the view that it is a wife’s “duty” to make herself sexually available to her husband. But if they are having this mind-blowing sex, why would they need to encourage a wife to “make herself available”? If she were having this mind-blowing sex, wouldn’t she be eager to have sex? Today we will discuss some of the many hypocrisies found in Evangelical views towards sex.

In Chapter Five of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris asserts that girls would be shocked to find out the lengths that guys go to create relational situations that they can capitalize on for their own gain. In Chapter Seven, Harris tells a story of a youth pastor, directing them to commodify their sexual activity by ranking it on a scale of 1-10, after which Joshua’s friends proceeded to name the specific girls they had been intimate with.

America is a capitalistic society whose values have seeped deep into even our most intimate relationships. Rather than standing up for the girls his buddies were maligning, Joshua instead simply held an inner disdain for their “lack of purity.” I Kissed Dating Goodbye is a study of focusing on the entirely wrong things. Instead of focusing on maintaining a purity none of us possesses in the first place, we need to focus on developing relational integrity.

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There may be few topics that are more widely discussed and hotly debated than what it means to love, particularly in relationship to sexuality. Popular culture obviously paints or presents one image of love as it relates to sex that often clashes fiercely with religious views. In my opinion, neither one actually aligns with how the Bible defines love when it comes to romantic or intimate relationships. In chapter 5, Joshua Harris tells the story of two couples: Jeff and Gloria and Eric and Leslie. Jeff and Gloria got a hotel room and had sex, while Eric and Leslie didn’t even kiss until their wedding day.

Needless to say, Joshua holds Eric and Leslie up as being the epitome of Christian virtue, but are they really? Joshua compares the secular view of love to I Corinthians 13, which is often called the “love chapter.” He seems to believe that somehow just waiting until you get married to have sex is the most “loving” think you can do. I would argue that most religious views on sexuality don’t align with I Corinthians 13 any better than the values perpetuated by secular culture. Join me as I take a deeper dive into the relationship choices these two couples made to determine who really acted more “Biblically.”

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At 18 years old, Josh Harris believed that intimacy is the byproduct of committed relationships and that it's not appropriate to engage in intimate relationships until or unless you are ready to make a life-long commitment. Like so many Evangelical Christians, Josh believed that sex and intimacy are the same thing. Millions of couples have bought this same lie that just by waiting and making a vow of commitment, they would experience deep intimacy in marriage. In Episode One, I discussed how dating is actually relationship practice and you can't become good at anything without practice. You can't just wait until you get married to start learning how to appropriately engage in relationships. 

The same is true of intimacy. Intimacy doesn't just "happen" you have to create it. Sex is not intimacy and intimacy is not sex. You can have sex without intimacy and you can have intimacy without sex. Unfortunately, thanks to buying the lie that all they had to do was wait to get married, millions of couples and singles are finding intimacy hard to find. In this episode I will talk about why intimacy is so important, how to find it and some of the obstacles that we all face to finding it.