457 - How to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities w/ Dr. Andrew Bauman

Pure Desire Podcast

Pure Desire Ministries

Healing, Aa, Christian Recovery, Sa, Self-improvement, Christianity, Sexuality, Celebrate Recovery, Sexual Addiction Recovery, Recovery, Porn Recovery, Health & Fitness, Religion & Spirituality, Betrayal Trauma, Porn Addiction Recovery, Biblical Recovery, Education

4.8 • 750 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the Pure Desire Podcast, Dr. Andrew Bauman joins us to discuss why the church so often becomes an unsafe place for survivors of sexual betrayal. Drawing from his work as a licensed mental health counselor and his research with more than 2,800 women, Dr. Bauman shares what led him—from pastoral ministry into clinical practice—to expose the systemic sexism and abuse he documents in Safe Church. We explore how misogyny disguised as theology retraumatizes betrayed women, how men’s recovery spaces can drift toward self-protection rather than true repair, and why meaningful repentance must be victim-centered. Dr. Bauman unpacks distorted interpretations of power, forgiveness, and the biblical term Ezer, and offers practical “green flags” for identifying church communities that genuinely support healing, equality, and spiritual safety for both men and women in recovery.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, good listener. I am your host, Nick Stumbo, and you are listening to The Pure Desire
0:10.2	podcast, your biblically based and clinically informed approach to healing from betrayal and breaking
0:16.0	free from all forms of compulsive sexual behavior. And whether this is your first day with us or your 10,000th day
0:23.2	in recovery, we hope that you hear life-giving conversations that you have maybe never been a part of
0:29.0	before. Today is episode 457 and here joining me as my co-host for this series is the one and only
0:36.4	Heather Cole.
0:38.9	Heather, welcome back to the podcast.
0:40.6	Thank you. It's nice to be here.
0:47.6	Yeah, always good to see you and really enjoying this series that we're doing right now on new books that you must read.
0:51.9	Encouraging people to immerse themselves in recovery material.
0:53.6	Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, this is episode three of five,
0:56.3	and we interviewed a gentleman by the name of Dr. Andrew Bauman, and his book, Safe Church,
1:02.8	had been recommended to me by a number of people, and I admitted even on the podcast that I've
1:07.7	not read much of this stuff, but after today's interview, I'm pretty sure I will.
1:11.9	Yeah, it's on my Amazon order as we speak.
1:15.7	Yeah, a great conversation today about how perhaps our unaddressed sexual brokenness,
1:21.9	particularly as men and as we found out, because the vast majority of church leaders are men,
1:27.1	that our unaddressed
1:28.4	challenges are bleeding over into the way church's function, the way they handle abuse, the way they
1:33.4	talk to women that are in betrayal trauma. And I felt like it was just a very, very eye-opening
1:40.4	conversation. I agree. It's one of those conversations that at one point is kind of sad to me.
1:47.1	It's sad that we're still having to have this conversation, and yet there's hopes surrounding
	...

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