Tag: purity culture

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The Great Sex Rescue

The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky

Sheila Wray Gregoire’s ministry, Bare Marriage, has been very helpful to me in recovering from some of the messages I learned growing up in conservative evangelical circles.  I was a teenager in the 1980s, so I was a bit early for the full-fledged purity culture movement of the 1990s, but I still heard many harmful teachings about sex and marriage during my dating years and my first marriage.

Note: This book is aimed at straight married people who have received messages from the church or from Christian resources that have caused harm to their marriage. It does not get into sex outside of marriage or LGBT relationships. Despite that, I believe it is a very helpful resource for the intended audience.

There is a lot of research that went into the writing of this book, and it shows. The authors provide a lot of statistics from the large survey that they did as well as discuss their reviews of academic research on evangelicalism and sexuality as well as bestselling Christian sex and marriage books. They also provide anecdotes from their own lives and from (primarily) women who wrote in with their stories.

I only wish this book had been around twenty years earlier. It could have made a big difference for me.

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What I’m Reading – April 2024

What I’m Reading Now:

What Is Love? by Jen Comfort – I think this was a free book from Amazon First Reads. I just started it and it looks like it will be cute, if formulaic.

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight with Cody Matchett – I just started this one but I like it so far.

What I Recently Finished:

Sunshine of Your Love by Kirsty McManus – I got this book for free from Stuff Your Kindle Day. The premise was a bit odd – two people have to job share for three months to compete for a job. It’s a typical enemies to lovers story.

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth by Juliet Gauvin – Another free book. This is about a woman trying to find herself after losing a mother figure in her life. I really enjoyed it.

Airborne Hearts by Maggie Louzella – Another free book. A cute romance.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky – 5 stars to this one. It is written to mothers and daughters specifically. I don’t have a daughter, but I was raised with a lot of harmful teachings in this area, and this book was very helpful in recognizing and addressing those issues.

Return to Serendipity by Liza Lanter – Another free book. A standard story of a woman who both gets a divorce and inherits property from a deceased relative. Not bad.

Cottage at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Another free book. Another divorced woman who inherits property, this one also includes three friends who all move to the location where she inherits property over the course of the next few books. I enjoyed this one enough that I kept reading the series.

Bakery at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 2 in the Bella Beach series

Bookshop at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 3 in the Bella Beach series

Lighthouse at Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth – Book 4 in the Bella Beach series

Payback in Death by J.D. Robb – This is book 57 in the In Death series. I love these books, and this one did not disappoint. The series centers around Eve Dallas, who is a homicide detective in futuristic New York City. So good!

Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope by Rachel Gilmore, Candace Lewis, Tyler Sit, and Matt Temple – I read this Lenten devotional in conjunction with a virtual Bible study led by my pastor. It was very good. It dealt with a lot of topics that are new for me to consider and showed me areas that I need to learn more about.

The Worst Christmas Ever? by Rebecca Paulinyi – Another free book. Woman gets cheated on and runs away to find herself. Ends up starting a new business and a new relationship within a few weeks.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

The Last List of Muriel Beaumont by Laura Pearson

Secrets of Bella Beach by Kate Wentworth

Return to Bella Beach by Kate Wentwortj

Christmas at Bella Beach: A Novella by Kate Wentworth

Random in Death by J.D. Robb

Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Lawyers and Lattes by Rebecca Paulinyi

The London Flat: Second Chances by Juliet Gauvin

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!

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What I’m Reading – March 2024

The Irish Cottage: Finding Elizabeth by Juliet Gauvin – A charming story about a woman who goes to a faraway place to grieve the loss of the woman who raised her and reevaluate her life choices.

She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky – I don’t have a daughter, but I have heard that this book can be good to help reframe some of my own past.

I am also still reading my Lenten devotional, Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope.

What I Recently Finished:

That’s What Love Is by Amy Rose – Got for free on stuff your Kindle day. It was not terrible, but not very good either. It ended quite abruptly, I thought.

Coming Home by Piper Reece – Another stuff your Kindle find. Cute story.

The Beauty of Perhaps by Eryn Marie – Another stuff your Kindle find. I actually liked this one quite a bit. I seem to enjoy stories where people go to faraway places to get away and find a new job or love interest.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan – I read this one because I had watched The Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime and had never read the books. I will probably not read anymore of the series because this book was just so long and didn’t hold my interest very well. It’s also hard to keep track of everything that’s going on, which I also found true of the show.

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister – This was a really good book illustrating how a book can affect different people at different times and in different situations. Very enjoyable.

The Lighthouse Cafe by Bebe Reed – Another stuff your Kindle acquisition. It was okay, a sweet story.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pledging by Sara Marks – This was a decent retelling of Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t great.

What I’ve Added to my TBR list:

Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark? The Bible and Modern Science and the Trouble of Making it All Fit by Janet Kellogg Ray – Very interested in this topic

God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines – One I have wanted to read for a while

What Is Love? by Jen Comfort – This is my free Amazon First Reads for March.

If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!