Lies the Church Teaches Women

In this episode, Sheila Gregoire and Amanda Davison explore the harmful lies about gender roles, marriage, and church teachings that impact women's well-being and spiritual growth. They discuss biblical interpretations, the importance of voice and equality, and how to challenge systemic injustices within faith communities.

Sheila and Amanda dive into:

 - Harmful gender roles in church and marriage
 - Biblical interpretation and misapplication
 - The importance of women's voices in faith communities
 - The connection between theology and health outcomes
 - Challenging patriarchy and systemic injustice in church

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Transcript

Amanda Davison (00:00)
In this episode, we're talking about the lies the church tells women, why women are so afraid to say what they need, how we are conditioned for oppression, and how the Christian culture normalizes pornography. We are talking about all of this with Sheila Ray Greguire. Let's get brave.

Amanda Davison (00:18)
there's so much that that we are taught as Christian women, that is hurting us and the relationships we're in. ⁓

Why don't you just talk to us about that? What are these lies that you have found? Because if you've never heard of Sheila, if you're if you're new here to her work or you're just getting tuned into the podcast, Sheila and her team, they do their own research. And it's it's it's phenomenal. So I'll just let you go where you want.

Sheila Gregoire (00:33)
Okay. Yeah.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Okay. So yes, we've done four research projects now, serving over forty thousand people. five books later, four peer reviewed papers later, you know, like we've we've done a a lot of research and what we found is that the the messaging that is given to women about sex and marriage ends up hurting both women and men, ends up hurting men's mi marital satisfaction, men's sexual satisfaction, women's marital satisfaction, the chance that she'll marry an abuser, the chance they'll get divorced, like it's all uniformly bad.

And and what I'm talking about, the advice that's given is when we're told things that relate to the husband being in authority over the wife, to the husband's needs mattering more than the wife, to the husband having these sexual needs that she has to fulfill. So we're taught so much about male entitlement. And I've written a lot about marriage and sex, and we talked about that on your podcast before.

But there's something underlying it that goes beyond marriage and sex. And that's what we're actually I'm working on on my next book, which is coming out next year. And I can give you a bit of a preview of what of what I think the essential issue is. So in Isaiah 40, there's this amazing passage about how God wants to make the crooked path straight. He wants to bring He wants to bring the mountains low and He wants to bring the valleys up so that the path will be straight and ready for the day of the Lord. Right. Like that is the

The vision. And we can read that. It sounds very poetic, but what does actually mean? And what it means is the things that are high should be made low, and the things that are low should be brought up because God likes an even playing field. Right? Like God likes an even playing field. He doesn't like it when certain people have entitlement, priority, et cetera, and other people are oppressed. He doesn't like that. And so what does that mean for us as Christians? It means that those who are who are high up.

Are supposed to lay down their privilege, just as Jesus did, just as we see in Philippians 2, right? That Jesus didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing and took on the likeness of a servant. So those who are high up should should you know become humble, should should lay down their privilege so that they can lift up those who are low. So those who are low need to be told, hey, you're allowed to speak up, like you're allowed to take hold of what's yours. And those who are high should be taught, hey, you need to be humble. You need to lay some of this down.

That's what should be happening. But what if in the church we're doing the opposite? What if we're telling the mountains, hey, you need to get higher? And we're telling the valleys, hey, you need to get lower?

And that I think is what we're doing. Because if you think about it, you can find verses in scripture that apply to both getting high and getting low, right? There's verses about how we need to be humble, how we need to not speak, how we need to, you know, be be slow to speak. And then there's verses that say, Hey, you need to speak up. There's verses that say, Hey, you need to be brave, be strong and courageous. Right? Like there's verses that that apply on both sides. But what we tend to do

Amanda Davison (03:06)
⁓

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (03:28)
Is we give women who are already low, we give them the verses about going even lower. And we give men the verses about going even higher. And so in the church we've got everything completely backwards, and we have made it about making sure that certain people stay in power and certain people never get there. And that's become far more important than Jesus.

Amanda Davison (03:34)
Yeah.

Mm.

I hear so many listening and watching right now saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sheila, Sheila. Not at my church. At my church. Because here's the problem. I don't know. I I do know. There are churches who would outright say, you are correct in that at our church or within our denomination, we absolutely do subscribe to the notion that men ought to be leading.

Sheila Gregoire (03:51)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (04:13)
And in charge and domineering and the ones making the decisions and in power within their homes and in their blah blah blah, all the places, right? Yes, we would agree that that is the teaching that we hold fast to and firm to.

Many would say we are not outright teaching that because we don't say those things here, even though that is in action how we are operating.

Sheila Gregoire (04:28)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (04:35)
That's not. But in reality, it's how it's played out.

Sheila Gregoire (04:39)
Right. So

they say, no, we we completely believe that women are equal in value. We completely believe they're equal in value. It's just that God made men and women with different roles. But that doesn't mean that they're not equal in value. And then they'll say something like, I mean, you can have a pilot and a copilot, but you don't say the co-pilot isn't equal in value to the pilot. Like in you know, in human terms, they're both valuable, aren't they? And here's what I would say to that. Often the analogies they use, like

Amanda Davison (04:48)
That's what we typically

Sheila Gregoire (05:02)
you know, a soldier and a captain, right? They have different, they have different roles, but they're of equal value. The the the the analogies they use, whether it's soldier, captain, employee, employer, pilot, co-pilot, even child parent, whatever they, if you think about those analogies, the thing about them is they're not permanent. They are that way for a time and for a reason, often for a function. So pilot, co-pilot, well, one day the co-pilot could be the pilot.

One day your employee could be an employer, one day your child is going to grow up. But the thing about men and women is that women are always going to be women. And if you're saying that the reason that she is subordinate to him and the reason that she has an inferior role is because of her very essence as a woman, then you cannot say that you believe they are equal in essence, equal in value in essence. Because if it is her essence,

that makes her inferior, then they are not equal in value. And so you can say they're equal in value, but that's a logical fallacy and that is not what you actually believe.

Amanda Davison (06:03)
That's so helpful and so sad.

Sheila Gregoire (06:06)
Yeah, I

know, isn't it? Well, the the the crazy thing, I'm Canadian, okay, so I'm I'm north of the border. and I I when I hear this stuff, I like, do Americans just not remember Jim Crow? Like, do Americans just not remember the Supreme Court, like separate but equal, and how that doesn't hold water? Like, 'cause the rest of the world remembers that. Like it didn't work in the fifties and the sixties.

Amanda Davison (06:28)
Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (06:31)
when it came to race, like it was very clear that no, you cannot say separate but equal. Either they're equal or they're not. And yet we're using the exact same arguments now with men and women.

Amanda Davison (06:31)
Yeah.

Mm.

Sheila Gregoire (06:40)
I do not mean to disparage what what people of color went through in the United States because I know that the you know, the history of slavery is abhorrent and traumatic and I'm not trying to minimize that. I'm just saying the arguments are similar.

Amanda Davison (06:53)
Yes,

yeah. number one, I'm hopeful and prayerful that all the work that you're doing, anyone listening now will be challenged to like we're always talking about in each episode, to dive into to get curious, to ask themselves questions. You know, how where did this come from? Why do I feel this way?

What have I been taught that makes me think that or believe that? And part of it then goes back to, you know, if we are taught things within our church culture, it's hard, especially for myself. You know, I started my life to Christ when I was 29. If this is what I'm hearing Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday after Wednesday, from my spiritual leader.

or leaders about this is what it looks like, this is what the scripture says. And so there's always a response, right? There's always like, like you're pointing out, well, who's supposed to make the decision then? I mean, how are things supposed to run smoothly? the buck stops somewhere, right? so you hear these growing up or you know within the church culture and you're like, well, I guess, you know,

Sheila Gregoire (07:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (07:55)
And you hear the scripture taught in such a way to affirm that dominance, that state, that I don't know how you would word that, that position of I guess, power over a woman. Do you want to speak to that? how can women actually discern for themselves and understand what scripture really does say instead of just swallowing that as true?

Sheila Gregoire (08:10)
Yeah.

We need to

just start listening to our intuition and what we know is wrong. Like, would you put up with this anywhere else? Would you put up with it in the workplace? Would you put up with it if you were in school and a teacher was saying that the, you know, the boys got to do things that the girls didn't? Would you put up with it there? And we wouldn't, because we would say, No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that's not fair. Why is it that we expect to be treated better everywhere?

Except the one place that is supposed to be our safe haven.

Amanda Davison (08:44)
Okay, Sheila, but actually, you know, our church teaches that men, because their position of authority over women, and leadership within the home, they're supposed to treat us really well. They they don't treat us, you know, they're not supposed to treat us bad. They're they're supposed to treat us like Christ loves the church. So

Sheila Gregoire (09:00)
Right. Why does

they why do they need authority to do that, though? Okay? Like they're saying, so you don't believe that husbands are to love their l wives as Christ loves the church? Of course I do. My husband's supposed to love me as Christ loves the church? Absolutely. That doesn't mean he's in authority over me. Why is it that you will only treat her well if you're in authority over her?

Like can you not see how twisted that is? Why do you want authority so badly?

Amanda Davison (09:22)
Can you speak then to the scripture? Because it's coming to my mind, and you might not know it off the top your head of where, you know, the husband is gonna answer to how he has led the led the home. Is that what it is? It's not. So what is that scripture that a man will is it is it's not, it's not in scripture.

Sheila Gregoire (09:32)
That's not in scripture. No. Nowhere.

No. No. They say they

talk about it like it is, but it's nowhere in scripture.

Amanda Davison (09:42)
Wow, would you look at that?

Sheila Gregoire (09:43)
I know, it's wild. It's

absolutely wild. Yeah, it's nowhere in scripture.

Amanda Davison (09:48)
So okay, talk talk about this because I know so many women are probably thinking this, but isn't my husband supposed to lead the home? Be leading me and the kids?

Sheila Gregoire (09:58)
There is no command

to men in scripture to lead their wives. There is absolutely no command in scripture for men to lead their wives. Yes. No, actually the head of the house in scripture is the woman. the the closest, the the the phrase the head of the house appears like the leader, the manager of the house is actually the woman. I think it's in a verse in Titus. so the closest we have to the head of the house is referring to the woman.

Amanda Davison (10:05)
It's h it's the head of the house and we we then

Sheila Gregoire (10:21)
It does say that the husband is the head of the wife. but but the the verse in Titus where it says that she is the head, it it doesn't use the word head. It really literally uses the word like manager, like over the executor over it. So she's the one managing everything. which has a connotation of like she's in authority, she's over this, over the household, right? The word for head in Greek did not have a connotation of authority.

Amanda Davison (10:21)
So where do we get this then? Is it

That's it in Ephesians five, right?

Sheila Gregoire (10:42)
It it it really it literally meant like source, like the one who takes initiative. Okay. It doesn't mean authority. Like in English, when we hear head, we think head of a corporation. But think instead head of a river, because that's how that Greek word would have been used, is head of a river. When when they translated the Old Testament, there were several places, because the Hebrew word for head is similar to the English word in that it can mean multiple things.

Amanda Davison (10:43)
That's right.

Hm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm.

Sheila Gregoire (11:07)
So in Hebrew, the word is, I believe it's Rosh, ⁓ I think. and and there were places where it was like head of the army, right? When they translated into Greek at the time, so that was the Septuagint, so the or Septuagint, I guess. So the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was in use when Jesus was walking around, when they had that Hebrew word for head, they didn't translate with the with the Greek word that Paul used. They translated it to a

Completely different Greek word.

Greek word that Paul used did not have a connotation of authority.

Amanda Davison (11:37)
So, like, okay, I understand that because I had to, the Lord, thank God, put me in a church right off the bat where I'm so grateful I was saved at, but it was also a cult. Did not know. How would I know? I'm a new believer, right? I have no idea what's going on. I'm grateful because what was being taught made me feel so oppressed for the first time in my life. I had not experienced oppressed.

Sheila Gregoire (11:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (12:01)
Until I became a Christian in that church. And I'm grateful because it al it forced my husband and I to dive deeply into this. And it was about four years into it where I finally felt like, okay, I have enough biblical understanding around this to make sense of this. And essentially what you just said was what the Lord finally showed me. And I but it's frustrating because you cannot tell me that pastors

Do not understand that.

Sheila Gregoire (12:26)
Yeah.

I know it's wild, right? Because like and when you ask women, you know, well, don't you want him to be your spiritual leader, right? And and most women will say, like we've asked this on our surveys, you know, do you want your husband to be your spiritual leader? And and the vast majority of evangelical women say yes. But when you dig down and you ask, what do you mean by spiritual leader? Right? If it and and the most common things that are listed are things like I want him to to initiate prayer, I want him to talk about spiritual stuff with my kids.

I want him to just notice what needs doing in the house. I like I want him to take some responsibility for things, to notice, okay, like, you know, Jimmy and Susie are fighting a lot and I don't want Jimmy and Susie to fight. So it I don't want it all to be on me. I want him to notice and do something. So that's not actually leadership. That's initiative. Right? Like that is that is noticing what's going on and saying, okay, what is what is in my purview to do something about?

Like what can I what can I do something about? What what is needed from me right now? And then it's it's doing something about it without being asked. That's what women want. Now here's the thing. Are women already doing those things? Yeah. And so if we don't call it leadership when she does it, why do we call it leadership when he does?

Amanda Davison (13:30)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And I think that's the tricky part, right? 'Cause I hear so many women say, I don't want to be doing it. And I'm I'm ri I know. I know.

Sheila Gregoire (13:40)
Mm-hmm. But why not? This this actually bugs me. No, it's not that she doesn't want to do it, is

that she doesn't want to do it alone. Right? Like, like we all need to be doing it. This is a big thing that we say in our book, The Marriage You Want, which is which is our findings about marriage, is like the the some of the key things that we need in marriage are we need each of you to take responsibility and each of you to take initiative. You know, like take initiative for your own emotional growth. Take initiative for your own physical health.

Amanda Davison (13:46)
Yes, yep, yep, yep.

Sheila Gregoire (14:06)
Take initiative for seeing, like for n paying attention to what I am going through. And so just keeping tuned in to me and then seeing how you can help me, right? Take initiative to see what's going on with the kids. Take initiative to figure out like, okay, what needs doing in the house? Like just take initiative. You know, and that's a huge part of marriage, right? but it's like what we do is we say, but men bear the burden of of leadership.

Amanda Davison (14:23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (14:33)
So men bear the burden because they might one day, or Emerson Egrich Love and Respect says, he has to die for you. You don't have to die for him, but he is called to die for you. So if there was ever a bullet, he would have to take it. And so because of that, you know, he needs you to do everything else for him in this world. Right? Like because he has to die for you, he he might hypothetically, in a very, very rare scenario, have to die for you. Although it be honest, w we would die for our husbands too. Like that's

That's crazy, right? We would certainly die for our kids. Heck, a lot of women have died for their kids. Childbirth is one of the most dangerous things we can do, right? Or at least we've had our bodies permanently changed from childbirth. Like we're the ones who actually put our bodies on the line for the family, right? You know? You know? like speaking of one who's had a daughter who had like a really, really touch and go birth, you know, like not me giving birth to her, but her giving giving birth to my grand my granddaughter. But like

Amanda Davison (15:02)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yes, yes. Amen to that.

Sheila Gregoire (15:30)
You know, we we're the ones who put our bodies on the line. And just because he just because their interpretation of scripture is that hypothetically he he might have to die for you if there was ever a bullet, does not mean that he doesn't have to ever do anything around the house or that he doesn't have to take initiative with anything else. Like that's crazy.

Amanda Davison (15:33)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gregoire (15:45)
And that and yet that

is the way that often this stuff is interpreted is that, this is the men bear such a big burden of leadership, like John Piper says that, right? Like the men bear this burden of leadership. and it's just such a heavy burden. It's not, we've measured it. It isn't a burden. When you are in a relationship where he literally bears the burden of leadership, so he's the one making final decisions, et cetera. She is the one who does far worse. He is the one who is much happier. So he is that is not a burden.

Amanda Davison (15:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (16:11)
That is a

Amanda Davison (16:12)
There's so much that it's like that's why I love the work that you do and every time I see something I just want like a megaphone and I wish they could like all of your things could be played before church on Sundays ever in every single church because I think I know that it would bring so much freedom to men and women, like you say, to both.

Sheila Gregoire (16:29)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (16:31)
If you if I were to be like, okay, here is a paintball, I don't know, a paint machine gun or whatever, and you can boom boom boom like list off some lies that have been told to women by the church, what would they be?

Sheila Gregoire (16:47)
Think I think huge ones are that we are too emotional. Like that God that that God l made us to be keepers of the home and we are too emotional for anything else. You know, and that's for our protection. There's nowhere in the New Testament that any woman is praised for typical homemaking things. Nowhere. All the women who are praised in the New Testament or mentioned or whatever are done so because of kingdom work that they do.

and that doesn't mean that raising kids isn't important. Like like I was a stay at home mom and then a work at home mom. My kids are both stay-at-home moms and work at home moms. well, one of my daughters is completely stay at home. Like like I am not against homemaking. I think if you can stay home with your kids, that's that's wonderful. but that that isn't women's identity.

Our identity, we are put on earth. God put us on earth and we have things that we are called to do for the kingdom. And some of that for sure is raising kids. And I'm not trying to say it's not. But the idea that because we are women, we aren't to do anything else. And they often the there there's such a thing called benevolent sexism where they they make it sound like they just want to support us and they so appreciate this about us. And so they don't want to lay the burden of anything else on us, you know. But what they're really doing is excluding us from.

Amanda Davison (17:30)
Yes. Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (17:57)
places where our voices need to be. Because anytime women's voices are not present, that means that women's perspectives aren't present, and that means that there is going to be abuse of some sort.

Amanda Davison (17:59)
Amen.

Absolutely.

Sheila Gregoire (18:10)
Any time

that a s a group of people doesn't have their voice heard, that group is going to be diminished, oppressed, and even abused. And that's what we see over and over again in church spaces.

Amanda Davison (18:20)
Yes.

And we have been conditioned to be silent for a purpose ⁓

Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (18:27)
remember that

Paul says like like we're we we were all given gifts and if some of those gifts aren't exercised, that that hurts the body. And I think it's very similar to the parable that Jesus tells of the talents where some you know, with the one servant buried the talent and the master's angry. And I think that the servant that is bearing the talent is the church bearing women.

And the master's not happy about that.

Amanda Davison (18:49)
Mm.

Yes.

Sheila Gregoire (18:51)
⁓

and and yet, you know, whenever we say this, they're like, so why why is it that you are so proud that you just want to be in leadership? And whenever women are are you know are saying we want women in leadership, they call us wanting power. But somehow men wanting to maintain soul power is not seen as men wanting power. And it's like women don't want power.

Amanda Davison (19:11)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Sheila Gregoire (19:13)
We just simply know that the body flourishes best when all voices are heard. And we also know that women do have, and this has been shown on so many studies, that children are best protected when women are in power. Children are best protected when women's voices are there. Children are often ignored and and what would benefit kids is not implemented when women are not in power.

Amanda Davison (19:25)
Yes.

Sheila Gregoire (19:35)
We see this politically, we see this on a countrywide scale, you know, we we see this in so many different ways.

Amanda Davison (19:40)
Yes, yes. ⁓ wow. Why are women so afraid to say what they need?

Sheila Gregoire (19:45)
Because

we've been taught that if we do, that God will be angry at us and we'll lose important relationships. And for many of us, admitting the truth is really scary. Like give let me give an example. for our book, She Deserves Better, which we looked at purity culture messaging to teenage girls and how that impacted women long term. And so we asked about a number of different purity culture messages, things like the modesty message, for instance, right? Like a girl

Has a responsibility not to be a stumbling block to the boys around her and a girl should dress modestly. So, you know, all all of these things. And we looked at women who still believed that as adults, because most most women who took our survey had deconstructed those beliefs. But the adult women who still believed it tended to be in worse marriages. They often were in abusive marriages. They were in marriages where the husband was using pornography.

You know, like even even some of the people who wrote some of the big purity culture books, you know, have now written books on their husbands using pornography and their husbands like, you know, porn journey and stuff. So the same at the same time as they were teaching girls to cover up, they knew their husband was struggling with pornography. So, you know, rather than confront the fact that they're in a very tenuous marriage with a man who is participating in sex trafficking and, you know, because that's what pornography use is.

⁓ and and not disciplining himself. they're putting the responsibility on all the girls around them not to be a temptation because it's the only thing they can control. And so for many women, their locus of control is all the women around them. Because if they can just get the women around them to join the pro to get with the program, then maybe they can, you know, ⁓ make it so their marriage won't blow up.

Amanda Davison (21:20)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila Gregoire (21:20)
And a lot of women, the

only way that they have to get accepted by the group is to make other women get in line. And women who do that, women who make other women get in line, get really praised. You know, they get given the platforms and the microphones. And yeah. Yeah. but I think, you know, for so many of us, the idea of speaking out is really scary because

Amanda Davison (21:32)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Wow.

Sheila Gregoire (21:45)
Every time we spoke out as kids we were told that we we've got in trouble for it in some way. Yeah, and we think that God's gonna be angry at us.

Amanda Davison (21:52)
Yeah. And you're right, there is also such a cost when we put words to our needs, we understand that that can be quickly labeled as you know, c being divisive or making a big deal out of something and and our job is to be meek and quiet and you know, so many women have been taught that and so

Sheila Gregoire (21:57)
Mm-hmm.

Amanda Davison (22:14)
There the the consequence of s saying something of what we do need or what we are feeling, we know that cost and we're afraid of what that might cost us oftentimes.

Sheila Gregoire (22:19)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's in it's interesting what you said, right?

Like if we say something, we're being divisive. Why is the status quo considered peace, though? Like if the status quo is unjust, why is that considered peace? It reminds me of the verses in Jeremiah, where the prophet is calling out the religious leaders and he says, you know, you go around saying peace, peace, but there is no peace. And when when leaders are propping up an unjust system,

Amanda Davison (22:32)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Sheila Gregoire (22:48)
And then when people say, Hey, that's unjust, those people are not the ones being divisive. It's the leaders themselves are for propping up an unjust system.

Amanda Davison (22:53)
Right.

Yes. We're just

Sheila Gregoire (22:56)
Now that doesn't mean they're not gonna label you

divisive. I'm just saying we don't need to accept the label.

Amanda Davison (23:00)
yes. And to see that what you need, what you're experiencing, how you feel, your opinions, they matter. And if the reality, I think the sadness is a lot of women know that in the spheres maybe they're in or the relationships they're in, they know that actually it doesn't. It it's not valued. And that's the hard one because a lot of women know even if I do say what I need.

Sheila Gregoire (23:06)
They do. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And you know what? It may not. But at least you've got clarity. Right? Like I think, I think, and this is a big part of the reason that women don't speak up, because if we don't speak up, we can pretend things are okay. As soon as we speak up and say, Hey, this this is the just thing to do, this is the righteous thing to do, if they do not agree, then now you have clarity that these are not safe people. And for many, for many of us,

Amanda Davison (23:23)
It doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (23:46)
We would rather live with the illusion that this is safe. But it has a cost. And, you know, there was a study by ⁓ two researchers, Homan and Burdett, it was published in 2021, and it looked at women's health in in sexually stratified spaces. So in churches where they were looking specifically at churches, where men and women shared power, then both men and women's health was better than the general population. And this is this has been like known for a long time. Like religiosity tends to be

A positive force. You tend to have better relationships, better mental health, better physical health, like religiosity as a whole is good for you. But as soon as women go to churches where women are not allowed to be in leadership, the health benefits of religion disappear. For men, they don't. Men still do better, but for women they do. For marriage, there are no health benefits for marriage.

when you live in a stratified marriage where he has authority over you. In fact, women are healthier if they're single.

Amanda Davison (24:37)
Wow.

Sheila Gregoire (24:37)
For men, they

are way healthier if they're married. And for men, their health drops off if they divorce. For women, it actually gets better if you divorce in a marriage like that. and living with higher cortisol levels, so cortisol is a stress hormone. And when our str when we're when our bodies are stressed and we are stressed, any time that our voices aren't heard and we have to self-silence, that increases cortisol levels in our bodies, even if we don't realize it. If we are constantly

self-silencing, if we are constantly not saying things that are important, we are elevating the stress hormones in our bodies. And when we do that, we get more autoimmune disorders. And they're still trying to figure this out. There's a lot of research on why it is that women have like eighty percent of autoimmune disorders, I believe it is. Or it's either eighty percent or women are eighty percent more likely to have autoimmune disorders, which wouldn't exactly be the same thing. But but it's it's huge. R the difference is huge regardless. And it's not

Only that, like with most health things, it's very multifaceted, very nuanced, there's hormonal issues, etc. But they do know that ⁓ that it that at least plays a part, that the fact that women have higher cortisol levels because we live more stressful lives, because we are on the bottom of the totem pole or sorry, the bottom of privilege in many places, it's gonna impact us. And it does, it impacts us in churches that don't that don't treat us as important.

Amanda Davison (25:48)
Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (25:52)
here's something we just published a paper in the Journal of Scientific Study Religion on this. ⁓ but when speaking of the modesty message, I want to give you this example. So girls who grew up in churches that teach the modesty message are more likely to get assaulted, sexually assaulted in that church, ⁓ and sexually harassed than girls who go to churches that don't teach it. So teaching the modesty message primes girls to be assaulted. So they would claim that they are doing this for the protection of girls, but they're not.

Because as soon as you treat teach the modesty message, what you're doing is you are putting the responsibility for boys' behavior on girls and you are normalizing the idea that boys will objectify women and girls. ⁓ and so we see 20% of girls report being assaulted or harassed in church as teenagers, and about half of them were from adults or pastors, and the other half were from peers. And as soon as you teach it, your chance increases i for both groups.

Amanda Davison (26:27)
Yes, yes.

Mm.

Sheila Gregoire (26:42)
And so what that means is not only are girls being primed to be abused, but boys are being primed to be abusers. Those same boys, if they had gone to a different church, probably would not be an abuser because they wouldn't have been given the message that it's normal to objectify girls and if you act on it, it's not your fault, it's hers for what she was wearing.

Amanda Davison (26:48)
Yeah.

I wanna on that note then talk about pornography and how the church, the message that the church teaches around pornography, the normalization of it, harms women and men obviously as well. Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (27:08)
Mm-hmm.

yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because what they're

saying, like if you think about the Everyman's Battle books, their message was that men, like when it comes to sexual sin, and this is a direct quote, we got there naturally simply by being male. And that's actually the title of one of their chapters, just by being male. So, you know, and then in another place they say men just don't naturally have that Christian view of sex. So they're literally saying that God made men to sin sexually.

And so if God made men that way, then there really is no way to stop it, except for women doing the right thing. And so women become sin management tools for men. Excuse me. And they and they have two options for how how men can stop sinning. And one is to transfer all their sexual energy onto their wife and to use her as their sexual outlet.

So ⁓ they say, you know, when you quit cold turkey, she can be like a merciful vial of methadone for you. So they literally call women methadone, which is so objectifying and gross. and they they say to women, like when where he used to come to you for five bowls of sexual gratification a week, now he comes to you for 10, whatever a bowl of sexual gratification is. That's disgusting, but whatever. and so really the the the the image they're giving is that.

God wants man men, instead of objectifying every woman in the world, He wants men to find one woman to objectify for the rest of his life. Right? There's nothing about intimacy, there's nothing about mutuality, there's nothing about anything healthy. It's just you get to use her like a sexual outlet. And then the other thing you do is you bounce your eyes from other every other woman and don't look at her. and and so in both cases.

Like you are treating women as objects because whether you're bouncing your eyes or you're lusting after her, she still just exists as an object to you. And when they normalize the pornography discussion that way by making it, well, this is just the way men are wired, which is not true, by the way. meta-analyses have shown that women are just as visual. It's just that women bear a bigger cost for sex, so that we are much it's very complicated.

Amanda Davison (28:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (29:05)
But we have more arousal nonconcordance and we're less likely to act on things. And so we don't necessarily register that we are visually stimulated. But we are. Like it's not like men's brains are wired differently. They're actually not when it comes to this. you know, but they they do because when they say that men, that God are that God made men this way, they're saying that it's normal to watch pornography. And so then if it's normal, then the responsibility has to be on women to have enough sex so that he doesn't do it.

Amanda Davison (29:17)
Yes, right.

Right.

Right. Right. And that is so devastating. I mean also ⁓ go ahead.

Sheila Gregoire (29:34)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Because it also

like porn it it it treats sex and porn like they're the same thing, so that sex is a substitute for pornography. They're not, they're polar opposites. Right? Sex sex is supposed to be about knowing someone. It's supposed to be a deep intimate intimacy. Porn is about using someone for your own gratification. And if they can't see the difference, that's horrifying.

Amanda Davison (29:48)
Yes.

Yes.

Right, right. And the thing about it, I remember being in our previous church and the pastor literally talking about they were doing a study on the book, all the men they were encouraging every man to do it because it is every man's battle. And I remember, you know, our I think our son was maybe, I don't know, thirteen or ten maybe at the time. And I just remember looking at him like you're speaking this over the young boys in this church right now. But this is their future.

This is their forever. They will struggle with this. They this is how they were built. This is gonna be their lifelong battle. And I refuse to accept that. I was like first off, it's not my husband's. Praise God, it hasn't been. And my son, I I I prayed it never is. And you know, why would we assume that just because he's a man, that he will have that lifelong issue? But I also like you're saying, you're highlighting that if we do when we view women.

Sheila Gregoire (30:28)
Uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Davison (30:53)
as many do within the church, then it's easy. It primes men to be able to justify the use of pornography. It makes it makes sense. And it's so sad. It's so sad. Could you go into complementarianism? You know, sometimes I was actually at a ⁓ I got some gals together to go to a concert this last fall and complementarianism versus egalitarianism came up and you

Sheila Gregoire (31:02)
Yep, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Davison (31:19)
Some didn't know what that meant. Could you talk about each of them and maybe describe them for us and just share any thoughts that you have on them on what you found or you know, how you see the beauty of God's word really within one or the other?

Sheila Gregoire (31:33)
Yeah, so egalitarianism

is the belief that men and women are equal before God, and that the point is to ⁓ be in mutual submission to one another as we run after Jesus together. Complimentarianism is the belief that men are put in spiritual authority over women, either in church or in the home or both. and that ⁓ because of that authority, he needs to make decisions and be responsible. And she needs to submit to that leadership.

either in the church or in the home. And egalitarian like both complementarianism and egalitarianism believe that men and women are different. They don't believe that the sexes are the same. Okay? They're not. We men and women are have different bodies. We have different experiences. And so we're gonna go through life differently, right? So we are not the same. No one believes that the sexes are the same. both complementarians and egalitarians inter egalitarians believe

that women should submit to men and that men should love their wives as Christ loved the church. But egalitarians also believe that men should submit to women because Ephesians 5 21 comes first. And Ephesians 5 21 is the command submit to one another as you know in reverence for Christ. The only thing that complimentarians believe that egalitarians don't is that men are in authority over women.

Because people will often say, well, I'm a complimentarian because I believe that men and women are different. Yeah, so do we. Like like like complimentarianism is the belief that men are in authority over women. And ⁓ when you look at the total point of scripture, like even that Isaiah forty verse that I brought up at the beginning, like how is that not a picture of Jesus laying down his privilege and his life to lift up that which is lower?

Amanda Davison (32:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (33:08)
Right. And if you read Ephesians 4, which comes right before the marriage passage, that's what it's all about about how Jesus lifts us up and equips us and you know and and fills us. Like that is the picture of what Jesus wants, what the kingdom of God looks like. Is that is that we lift if we lift one another up. And and that's the picture of Scripture. Okay. ⁓ you know, Scripture is not about.

Amanda Davison (33:31)
Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (33:34)
people trying to get in authority and power over one another. Jesus said that it's the pagans that do that. You know, that what we're supposed to do is serve one another. And you know, and how how do we know that we're Christians by our love? Does the world know we're Christians by our love today? No. Because the church is running after power. In st you know, we're not feeding the hungry. We're not, you know, visiting

Amanda Davison (33:40)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

Nope. They do not. Yeah.

Sheila Gregoire (33:57)
those in prison, we're putting more in prison. Like we're, you know, we're not helping. We're if we we're not spreading the kingdom. We think we think the way to spread the gospel today is by spreading the idea that men are in power over women.

Amanda Davison (34:03)
Yeah.

Mm that's true. Right.

Sheila Gregoire (34:11)
That's not the gospel. But when you listen to the

gospel coalition, you know, when you listen to Mectruskull, when you listen to Josh Howarton, when you listen to some of these big names, what is it that they are what they are spreading? It's not what Jesus said.

Amanda Davison (34:24)
Right? Right?

Right. Right. ⁓ it's scary how we today have not been taught how to read scripture for ourselves and ask the Holy Spirit alive inside of us to for help in and to to discern. But like you said, we have a knowing.

We know what's right and wrong. oftentimes I think it's the fear of something changing if we admit or look at it long enough or question it or ask about it, and or you know, and it's keeping us from then living out the gospel. We are in bondage while we participate with.

the lies around us and it's so sad. And that's why you do what you do, right? I think s you get flack. I get flack. So many people get flack for exposing what's deeply dark among us in the church. And the whole point of doing that is so that we can actually accurately reflect who he is here on earth. It's to better the church. And

Sheila Gregoire (35:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Davison (35:30)
That's the hope. And I think so many people are waking up to that and refusing to settle for what it is we've, you know, been fed. And I'm so grateful for that. And I just thank you for all that you do because you at one season in my life helped me become more confident in what I knew the Lord was saying. And I'm just so I'm so grateful.

you should be honored because you're the work you're doing is brave and it sets so many women free and men.

Sheila Gregoire (35:59)
Yeah.

Amanda Davison (36:00)
But I'm I'm just so personally grateful for you. Yeah. And thank you for spending time with us. Is there anything like on your heart that you want to leave women with?

Sheila Gregoire (36:02)
thank you. That's lovely. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, ⁓

I would just encourage everybody to go read Luke Four. Okay, just read Luke Four. It's the fur it's Jesus' first time speaking in public and he unrolls the scroll and he reads from the prophet Isaiah ⁓ about how the spirit of the Lord is upon him. And in that passage he is explaining the gospel. And I want people to read it and then ask yourself, is this the gos is this what I've been taught the gospel is?

Amanda Davison (36:14)
Mm.

Sheila Gregoire (36:33)
And if it's not, ask yourself why. And what would it look like if the gospel really was about setting the captives free, about you know, preaching to the oppressed, about feeding the hungry? Like what would it look like if the gospel was not just I believe Jesus died on the cross so I can get out of hell free and get into heaven? What if it's not just a ticket to heaven?

And what if it's supposed to mean something for how we live our lives here? Because Jesus spent his whole life proclaiming the gospel and he hadn't died yet.

Amanda Davison (37:00)
Mm.

Sheila Gregoire (37:04)
You know? So what was he proclaiming if he hadn't died yet? And I think we have accepted such an anemic small version of the gospel where it's all very great for me, because I get to get to heaven and I get, you know, a free ticket to heaven. And we've forgotten thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Amanda Davison (37:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sheila Gregoire (37:24)
You know? And so go read that and do something

brave.

Amanda Davison (37:26)
I love that. I love that. And that's how we're ending this episode. Sheila, thank you so much for being with us.

Sheila Gregoire (37:29)
Thank you.

Amanda Davison (37:32)
Sheila Ray Greguire is the author of 11 books, including The Great Sex Rescue, the host of the Bear Marriage Podcast, and the founder of To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. An award-winning writer, Sheila calls the church to more than just pat answers by conducting original research to find out what advice works and what really doesn't.

You can find all of Sheila's links below.

Amanda Davison (37:56)
You're listening to the Amanda Davison podcast where we ditch the spiritual lies and pressure that's been dumped on us so we can actually live free and confident being who God created us to be. So let's get brave.

Hey, don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button. You can sign up for my Friday emails, follow me on Instagram, the Amanda Davison, watch on YouTube, or shop my Amazon. All are linked below.