#21 Does Complementarian Theology Cause Trauma to Women?

Unshaken Faith

Alisa Childers & Natasha Crain

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An article has been making the rounds in which Shannon Harris, ex-wife of 90’s purity culture icon Josh Harris, claims that complementarian theology caused her harm and trauma. In the late 1990s, purity culture emphasized abstaining from sex until marriage while often employing a lot of unfortunate fear and shaming tactics along the way. Fast forward to 2018. Josh Harris disavowed the book and apologized for the harm he says he caused with his writings. A year later, he announced he was leaving Christianity completely and ending his marriage to his wife, Shannon. That’s where our episode today picks up. Shannon is now speaking out about her own deconstruction and about the harm she says she suffered while living as a Christian wife in a complementarian church environment. In today’s episode, Alisa and Natasha talk about some of her claims and her understanding of complementarian theology that she believes is so harmful.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Natasha Crane, and I'm Elisa Childers.
0:05.0	Welcome to Unshaken Faith, where we equip you to live your Christian faith
0:11.0	boldly in a chaotic culture. In the late 1990s, Josh Harris released a best-selling book called I Kiss Dating Dating Goodbye that took the Evangelical Church by storm.
0:35.2	Harris's book was a huge part of what is sometimes today called the Evangelical purity culture
0:39.8	of the 1990s and early 2000s that emphasized abstaining from sex until marriage
0:44.6	while often employing a lot of unfortunate fear and shaming tactics along the way.
0:48.8	Well fast forward to 2018 Josh Harris disavowed the book and apologized for the harm he says he caused with his writings and then a year later
0:56.7	He announced he was leaving Christianity completely and ending his marriage to his wife Shannon
1:01.5	Well, that's where our episode today picks up. Shannon is now
1:04.8	speaking out about her own deconstruction and about the harm she says she suffered
1:09.0	while living as a Christian wife in a complimentary and church environment.
1:13.6	Today, Lisa and I want to talk about some of her claims
1:16.0	and her understanding of complementary theology
1:18.5	that she believes is so harmful.
1:20.6	But first, let's hit our announcements of the week and some tips that we've got.
1:24.0	Well we're so excited in just two days we are heading to Tucson actually three days now.
1:30.6	On Saturday we will be at Tucson, Calvary Chapel for the
1:34.9	Unshaken Conference. We're so excited. It'll be Natasha, myself, and our friend
1:38.7	Frank Turrick. Tickets are still available. You can go to unshaken conference.com to register for that.
1:45.5	And also don't forget we're coming to Nashville on November 4th.
1:49.2	So you can get tickets for all of that at unshaken conference.com.
1:53.5	So my tip for today is to pray for everyone you criticize.
	...

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