Confessions of a Reluctant Complementarian

Rebecca McLaughlin

Editors’ note: 

A version of this article first appeared on the author’s blog.

I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University when I first grappled with Ephesians 5:22. I’d come from an academically driven, equality-oriented, single-sex high school. And I was repulsed. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

I had three major problems with this verse.

The first was the premise that wives should submit. I knew women are just as competent as men—often more so. If there is wisdom in asymmetrical decision-making in marriage, I thought, surely it should depend on who was more competent in that area: sometimes the husband, sometimes the wife.

The second was the idea that wives should submit to their husbands “as to the Lord.” It’s one thing submitting to Jesus Christ, the self-sacrificing King of the universe. It’s quite another to submit to a fallible, sinful man—even as one thread in the fabric of a much greater submission to Christ.

The third—which perhaps grieved me most—was how harmful I believed this verse was to my gospel witness. I was offering my unbelieving friends a radical narrative of power inversion, in which the Creator God laid down his life, in which the poor out-class the rich, in which outcasts become family. The gospel is a consuming fire of love-across-difference with the power to burn up racial injustice and socioeconomic exploitation.

But here was this horrifying verse seeming to promote the subjugation of women. Jesus had elevated women to an equal status with men. Paul, it seemed to me, had pushed them back down. I worried this verse would ruin my witness.

Picture of Christ and the Church

In my frustration, I tried to explain Ephesians 5:22 away. In the Greek, the word translated “submit” appears in the previous verse, “Submit yourself to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21), so I tried to argue that the rest of the passage must be applying submission as much to husbands as wives. But this didn’t stick: the following verses lay out distinct roles for husbands and wives.

Then I turned my attention to the command to husbands. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). How did Christ love the church? By dying on the cross; by giving himself, naked and bleeding, to suffer for her; by putting her needs above his own; by giving everything for her.

I asked myself how I would feel if this was the command to wives: Wives, love your husbands to the point of death, putting his needs above yours, and sacrificing yourself for him.

If the gospel is true, none of us comes to the table with rights. The only way in is flat on your face. If I want to hold on to my fundamental right to self-determination, I must reject the message of Jesus, because he calls me to submit completely to him: to deny myself and take up my cross and follow him (Luke 9:23).

Then, the penny really dropped. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church. This model isn’t ultimately about any individual wife and husband; it’s about Jesus and the church. God created sex and marriage to give us a glimpse of his intimacy with us.

Because our marriages point to a greater marriage, the roles are not interchangeable: Jesus gives himself for us; we submit to him.

Three Concerns

So, much to my surprise, the three problems I had when I first read Ephesians 5:22 were resolved. But I now have three concerns about how complementarian marriage is often taught.

1. Attempts to summarize

Complementarian marriage is often summarized as “Wives submit, husbands lead.” But this summary doesn’t reflect the biblical commands. Wives are indeed called to submit (Eph. 5:22; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1). But the primary call for husbands is love (Eph. 5:25, 28, 33; Col. 3:19), and the additional commands call for empathy and honor (1 Pet. 3:7). The command to wives in Ephesians certainly implies that husbands should lead with the sacrificial love of Christ. But if we must boil the Scriptures down, “Wives submit, husbands love” is a more accurate reflection of their weight.

2. Attempts at psychological grounding

Hoping to uphold the goodness of God’s commands, Christians sometimes try to ground complementarian marriage in gendered psychology: women are natural followers, men are natural leaders; men need respect, women need love; and so on. I’ve heard the claim that women are naturally more submissive, but I’ve never heard anyone argue that men are naturally more loving.

I’ve also heard people argue that we are given the commands because they address what we’re naturally bad at: women are good at love, men are good at respect, so the calls are reversed. But to say that human history teaches us that men naturally respect women is to stick your head in the sand with a blindfold on and earplugs for good measure.

At best, these claims about gender are generalizations, analogous to the claim that men are taller than women—though far less verifiable. At worst, they cause needless offense to a generation that already misunderstands and misrepresents what the Bible says about gender. They also invite exceptions: if these commands are given because wives are naturally more submissive, and I find I’m a more natural leader than my husband, does that mean we can switch roles?

If we look closely, however, we’ll see that these claims are nowhere to be found in the text. Ephesians 5 grounds our marital roles not in gendered psychology, but in Christ-centered theology.

3. Attempts to justify “traditional” gender roles

Ephesians 5 sticks like a burr in our 21st-century, Western ears. But we must not misread it as justifying “traditional” gender roles. The text doesn’t say the husband is the one whose needs come first and whose comfort is paramount.

In fact, Ephesians 5 is a withering critique of traditional gender roles, in its original context and today. In the drama of marriage, the wife’s needs come first, and the husband’s drive to prioritize himself is cut down with the axe of the gospel.

One Challenge

But my greatest concern when I hear Ephesians 5 taught is my failure to live up to it. I’ve been married for a decade, and it’s a daily challenge to remember what I’m called to in this gospel drama, and to notice opportunities to submit to my husband as to the Lord—not because I’m naturally more or less submissive, or because he is naturally more or less loving, but because Jesus submitted to the cross for me.

My marriage isn’t ultimately about me and my husband, any more than Romeo and Juliet is about the actors playing the title roles. My marriage is about reflecting Jesus and his church.

Ephesians 5:22 used to repulse me. Now it convicts me and calls me toward Jesus: the true husband who satisfies our needs, the one man who deserves our ultimate submission.

Rebecca McLaughlin holds a PhD from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill seminary in London. She is a regular writer for The Gospel Coalition and her first book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion, will be published by Crossway in 2019. You can follow her on Twitter or at www.rebeccamclaughlin.org.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/confessions-reluctant-complementarian/

The Esther Option

Mike Cosper

In the not-too-distant past, the momentum of our culture seemed clear. Progressive values were on the rise. Christianity was in decline. Supreme Court decisions like Obergefell were underlining this fact, and it seemed that, over time, Christians themselves would be pushed to society’s margins.

Around that time, a number of Christian leaders and thinkers began to offer pathways for where we might go next. John Inazu gave us Confident Pluralism [read TGC’s review]. Russell Moore gave us Onward [read TGC’s review]. And Rod Dreher gave us one of the more provocative suggestions in The Benedict Option [read TGC’s review].

Dreher had been writing about the Benedict Option for several years. His blog—at times alarmist (though to be fair, the times can be quite alarming)—left many readers with the impression that the Benedict Option was a panicked cry of “head for the hills.” As Dreher describes it, we’re living in a time akin to the last days of Rome. Our culture’s institutions and sources of authority and tradition are eroding, being replaced with progressivism and secularism, and those who object to these values (like conservatives in general and conservative Christians in particular) are going to become the targets of increasing persecution and ostracism.

Dreher’s actual response is more sophisticated than “Run for it!” Instead, he argues Christians need to intentionally work to strengthen their own communal bonds, to renew or build new institutions, and to revitalize their programs of spiritual formation so they have stability to endure the coming times. Rather than run away, it’s a call to root down.

I’m sympathetic to Dreher’s view. My own church, a conservative evangelical congregation in a progressive neighborhood of a progressive city, has experienced firsthand the pressures that come from angry leftists. I think we’re in for quite a storm.

From Bad to Worse

I also think the election of Donald Trump, the rising tide of nationalism, and events like Charlottesville cast another light on our situation that needs serious consideration. Conservative evangelicals lined up quickly to support Trump—a man whose reputation includes sexual conquests, adultery, and bad business deals. He was elected amid a swarm of accusations of sexual harassment and assault. Even now, while embroiled in the Stormy Daniels scandal, many evangelical leaders continue to stand beside him and (most tellingly) refuse to condemn his actions. Along with the Trump phenomenon, we’ve seen the rise of the so-called Alt-Right (a nice way of saying white nationalism) and, with it, ever-increasing racial tensions.

To sum it up, the cultural situation—which looked bad prior to the 2016 election—looks even worse now. While progressives have faced losses, they remain fiercely committed to their agenda of sexual liberation and religious intolerance. Conservatives, on the other hand, have revealed their own moral bankruptcy, adopting a political strongman who promises them power in exchange for their discernment.

The cultural situation—which looked bad prior to the 2016 election—looks even worse now.

In this new, tormented climate, some of Dreher’s ideas—Christians banding together to strengthen their institutions and prepare for the storm—seem almost quaint. Not naïve; just not quite foreseeing how bad things were going to get.

It seems to me that more fundamental groundwork must be established before we can talk about surviving the coming storms. We need to return to the question of what it means to be a Christian in the midst of our cities, states, and nations, and what the shape of our public witness should be. We’re most assuredly a people in exile. The secular left of progressivism is now being confronted by the secular right of populism and nationalism. Both scramble for power. Both fill the air with toxic polemics. And people of faith and good conscience are sure to get caught in the crossfire.

The Esther Option

Enter Queen Esther. And what I call the Esther Option.

Esther’s heroism is unique in the story of the exile. While most exilic heroes are presented as devout and zealous for the cause of the Jews, Esther begins her story as a Jewish girl (Hadassah) living with a Persian name (a name that honors the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Ishtar) under the care of her cousin Mordecai (a name that honors the god Marduk). These names alone should set off alarm bells. Nehemiah dragged people into the streets and beat them for lesser offenses.

Not only do they pass for Persians, Esther willingly collaborates with the palace harem in preparation for her night in bed with the king, eating their food and doing whatever else might be described as “preparations.” In other words, Esther is no Daniel. She’s not part of the Jewish resistance.

The secular left of progressivism is now being confronted by the secular right of populism and nationalism.

As the story unfolds, the king—erratic and paranoid—appoints a new vizier, Haman, who is given unprecedented authority over the realm. Haman is an Agagite, meaning he’s a descendant of Agag the Amalekite. (The Amalekites were some of Israel’s most vicious and heartless enemies.) So Haman is far more than a savvy political actor. He’s the embodiment—both in his role as the vizier and also in his identity as an Agagite—of corrupt, win-at-all-costs power.

Awakening and Identity

The first part of the Esther Option is awakening. A decree is made that everyone in the kingdom must bow before Haman, and something in Mordecai awakens. He can’t bow to Haman, he says, because he’s a Jew. As compromised as he may be, Haman’s rise to power sends Mordecai back to his core identity as a Jew, one of God’s chosen people. Again, he will not bow. Haman, in retribution, convinces the king to put out an order that will mean genocide for all the Jews in Persia.

Esther, though, is comfortably living as a Persian queen, with no one suspecting she’s Jewish. When Mordecai appeals to her to go plead on behalf of the Jews, she’s reluctant at first. Until Mordecai says this:

Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? (Est. 4:12–14)

Preachers and motivational speakers are fond of quoting the last sentence of Mordecai’s speech, but the most fascinating section is the sentence before it. Mordecai expresses his faith that God will rescue the Jews (“deliverance . . . will arise from another place”) but he warns her of a greater loss (“you and your father’s family will perish”).

Do we want to identify with his people, no matter the cost?

Esther is an orphan, and Mordecai is essentially warning her that if she refuses to stand with the Jews now, she forfeits her place in her father’s family. Her family line ends, and she will live and die as a Persian, cut off from the promises of God’s people. This is Esther’s crossroads, and it’s the moment that motivates her to act. She too awakens.

We have to ask similar questions.

As the world around us applies pressure, trying to move us away from religion entirely, or to abandon certain historic and traditional principles and doctrines, we have to ask whether we want to be part of the family of God. Do we want to identify with his people, no matter the cost? Are we willing to endure persecution and ridicule for the sake of our inheritance?

Embracing Vulnerability

What comes next demands that we answer another question. How, in the face of extinction, in the face of monstrous power, can God’s people move and act in the world?

Esther calls for a fast, and then fasts herself for three days. No food, no water. In one passage of the Talmud, it’s suspected that she spent those three days praying (of all things) the first verse of Psalm 22. Day one: “My God.” Day two: “My God.” Day three: “Why have you forsaken me?” Whether you give this view much authoritative merit or not, you have to admit that it’s poetic, given what happens next. Esther’s pathway from here is the way of the cross. She will enter the throne room uninvited and risk the wrath of the king on behalf of her people.

In many of the Sunday school versions of this story, Esther’s approach is portrayed as a moment of romance. The beautiful Queen can’t be rejected by the king, because he loves her so much. I think this version totally misses the point. Esther comes to the king after three days of fasting and terror. She comes not in strength, but in profound weakness. A weary, haunted presence. The king is moved not out of love, but out of pity.

Rather than fight power with power, we walk the way of the cross, stand by our convictions, and make ourselves vulnerable.

It’s a deliberate contrast. Haman represents the temptation to power. His fury at Mordecai leads to a radically outsized response—the destruction of the Jewish people. But rather than face that challenge head on, Esther embraces vulnerability. To face her death. To subvert power with weakness.

This, too, is a crucial piece of the Esther Option. Rather than fight power with power, we walk the way of the cross, stand by our convictions, and make ourselves vulnerable. That might mean vulnerability to persecution and ridicule, but it might also mean many other kinds of vulnerabilities—those that come from serving the poor and downtrodden, fighting social injustice, and generally moving toward the places in our culture where there is the greatest need.

Renewal and Tradition

As for Esther, we know what comes next. Haman walks into a Shakespearean downfall, Esther’s appeals lead to the rescue of God’s people, Esther and Mordecai rise to prominence in the king’s court, and the Jews inaugurate Purim.

This last step is one of the most significant in the whole book. Purim isn’t just a celebration of this particular story; it’s a celebration of Jewish identity. In his book God and Politics in Esther, philosopher Yoram Hazony writes:

The fact is that in Persia, being a Jew became—for the first time in history—a matter of choice, and a choice that had to be faced by every individual. . . . In the thousand years since Sinai, the Jews had strayed from observance of the law of Moses time and time again, but their identity as Jews had never been subject to their own volition. It was only after the dispersal throughout Babylonia and Persia that an individual born as a Jew found himself in immediate, constant, and personal contact with other possible identities—and had to choose for himself whether Jewishness would be something he would maintain, or something he would hide.

This explains why the great talmudist Rava argued that the Jews had actually accepted the law of Moses twice: under duress at Sinai, and voluntarily “in the days of Ahashverosh.” Sinai was the founding of a Jewish people whose members have no real alternative but to be Jews, and to take part in the unique history of their people. The Persian empire, however, represented the refounding of the Jewish people on an entirely different basis: Since each Jew was from birth exposed to other options, his entry into the history of his people would be voluntary.

Purim, then, celebrates this re-identification as God’s people. It’s a wisdom-filled return to tradition, to habit, and to liturgy, a reinvigoration of the diaspora Jews’ spiritual life. As Cormac McCarthy put it in The Road, “When you’ve nothing else, construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.” When you’ve lost your way, find anchoring practices that will reconnect you with a sense of who you are and what your place in the world is.

When you’ve lost your way, find anchoring practices that will reconnect you with a sense of who you are and what your place in the world is.

This is the third piece of the Esther Option. Along with awakening to faith and embracing vulnerability, Christians need to renew their formative traditions. (Here, I think Dreher and I are in wholehearted agreement.) We need renewal of our liturgies, our catechism, our educational institutions, and all our pathways of spiritual formation so that authentic character can flourish inside our churches. Some of this will require a return to the traditions of the past, but it will also demand something new, something to answer the specific spiritual challenges of our consumeristic, technology-saturated, sexually “liberated” age.

Christian teenager in his daily devotional. Young man reading the Holy Bible

We need pastoral innovators like Isaac Watts, who saw the poverty and ineffectiveness of the psalm-singing of his time and began to write his own theological translations of the Psalms, which ultimately gave birth to the English hymn. We need the best and brightest of our time to explore how they might develop similar pastoral, contextual innovations, which might require that some of their creative energy moves away from the typical investment of those energies—platform and celebrity—and back to institution-forming and institutional reform. This work is less glamorous, of course, but it might better prepare the church to thrive in whatever comes next in our culture.

Vulnerable, Faithful Presence

Finally, we must do this as a vulnerable people. We must reject the posture of the culture warriors, because the testimony of Scripture makes it clear this approach doesn’t work.

Instead, in spite of pressures to conform our doctrine to the new moral norms, in spite of a climate that increasingly scoffs at any notion of the supernatural, in spite of the outright hostility from those who think Christianity is a religion of bigoted, patriarchal homophobes, in spite of whatever challenges may come, we resist the temptation to fight power with power, and we resist the temptation to run away. We stay in our cities, in our world, in public view, faithfully present.

The whole picture, then, is this: While the church faces growing opposition, we pray for awakening and renewal in our hearts, we embrace the vulnerability of our identity as God’s people, we renew our commitment to the formative work and traditions that are both our heritage and our future, and we hope and pray our presence is filled with the aroma of Christ. That is the Esther Option, and that, I believe, is a constructive way forward in the dark days to come.

Mike Cosper is the founder of Harbor Media in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Faith Among the Faithless: Learning from Esther How to Live in a World Gone Mad (Thomas Nelson, 2018), Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted Worl (IVP Books, 2017), The Stories We Tell: How TV and Movies Long for and Echo the Truth (Crossway, 2014), and Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel (Crossway, 2013). You can follow him on Twitter.

Article posted at:  https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/esther-option/

Complementarians Should Be Toughest on Abuse

Article by Rebecca McLaughlin

“The great thing about Rebecca,” said my female, non-Christian friend on first meeting my boyfriend, “is that you can treat her like junk and she will always love you and always forgive you.”

If there is a type of woman who would hide domestic abuse, year after year, I conform. Had I married an abusive man, I would likely have done so. Thank God I did not. My then-boyfriend, now-husband channels his strength to protect me and our kids. But was I more at risk because I married a Christian man, and because after much wrestling I have come to complementarian beliefs about marriage?

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church” (Ephesians 5:22–23). Tragically, these holy words have been misused to justify horrible abuse. But using complementarian theology to justify abuse is like defacing a “Do Not Enter” sign until it says, “Enter.” Consider five reasons why complementarians, of all people, should have the least tolerance for spousal abuse.

1. God calls husbands to sacrificial love.

Some summarize complementarian theology as “husbands lead, wives submit,” but this is not what the Bible says. God calls wives to submit(Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1). But the primary command to husbands is not lead. It is love (Ephesians 5:25, 28, 33; Colossians 3:19). To be sure, the explanation for why wives should submit to their husbands implies that husbands should lead (Ephesians 5:23). But lest we should misunderstand what leading means (as we are wont to do), Paul calls husbands to self-denying, Christlike, sacrificial love: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).

How did Christ love the church? He loved to the point of rejection, beatings, nakedness, and death. Were this command given to wives, we might more easily imagine it justifying spousal abuse. But it is not. “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies,” Paul continues. “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:28–29). The command in Colossians comes with a prohibition: “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:19). It would take an exegetical gymnast to interpret Paul’s vision of marriage as an excuse for spousal abuse.

2. Strength is for honoring, not control.

From a biblical perspective, the relative physical strength of men is not a tool for power play, but a motivation for empathy and honor. “Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). Fail to honor your wife, Peter warns, and your relationship with God will be hindered.

3. Spousal abuse is a gospel-denying sin.

When a woman bravely acknowledges abuse, complementarian theology should drive her pastor (and other men in the church as well) to confront her husband with his sin. Not only is he sinning in the general sense of harming a neighbor. The abusive husband is committing the gospel-denying sin of disgracing his cross-shaped role of sacrificial love. Marriage to his victim does not excuse the sin. It compounds it.

God calls Christian men in general, and pastors specifically, to protect the vulnerable. This means taking sacrificial action to see that an abused wife, and her children, are cared for and made safe; that civil law-breaking is not covered up but reported to civil authorities; and that an abusive husband shows radical repentance and commits to ongoing accountability.

In some situations, we will need to provide a wife and children with alternative housing and support while we handle the husband (who also may be excluded from fellowship in line with the biblical teaching on church discipline, 1 Corinthians 5:9–13). We must not be naïve: abusers frequently say sorry and then continue in their patterns. Sin patterns are hard to break, and we do not want to enable them.

4. Jesus teaches vulnerability and protection.

Due to its distortions and misuses, some believe complementarian theology must be abandoned to keep women safe. But imagine Paul and Peter had said nothing about wives. An unthoughtful pastor might use Jesus’s own words to justify sending a woman back into a dangerous situation. “Do not resist the one who is evil,” says our Lord. “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). In Christ, we all enter the world with a posture of vulnerability. This is Christian Ethics 101. But on page after page of the Scriptures, God calls his people to protect the oppressed — particularly women and children.

This ethic emerges from God’s own character. As Psalm 146 proclaims, the Lord “executes justice for the oppressed,” “sets the prisoners free,” “lifts up those who are bowed down,” and “upholds the widow and the fatherless” (Psalm 146:7–9). God is “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows” (Psalm 68:5). He commands his people both to rescue the oppressed and to resist the oppressor (Jeremiah 22:3).

Jesus consistently modeled and reemphasized this. He came “to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18) and his relationships with women lifted them up in extraordinary ways. Jesus shamed Simon the Pharisee with the moral example of the “sinful” woman, who outstripped him in every measure of love (Luke 7:36–50). Jesus affirmed Mary as she sat at his feet with the male disciples (Luke 10:38–42). He rescued the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11) and spoke against divorce to protect women from abandonment (Matthew 19:3–9). If our churches abandon women to abuse, we are stopping our ears to the Scriptures.

5. You’re twice as safe with a Christian man.

We all know of instances where Christians have failed — individually and corporately — to protect women from abusive men. But philosopher Christian Miller cites evidence that church attendance is correlated with much lower levels of domestic abuse.

Indeed, men who do not attend church have been found to be 49% more likely to be abusive at home than men who attend once a week or more (The Character Gap, 235). But that differential is not enough.

Christian husbands who are striving to love your wives as Christ loved the church, we appreciate you — and we need you. We need you to show your sons what it means to man up and love. We need you to be your brothers’ keeper. We need you not to assume that there are no abusive men in your church, your small group, or your family. We all are capable of egregious sin, and without support and accountability, that can manifest itself in ugly ways.

No woman wants to acknowledge spousal abuse. Many will suffer in silence, while their husbands maintain a godly pretense. We need you to work with your wives and sisters in Christ to ensure that no one in your sphere is issuing scars or hiding them. We need you to be like Christ to your wives, and to be like Christ in your church, speaking up with courage, standing up for women, and hating abuse in all its forms. Twice as safe is not enough — let’s make women a hundred times safer with Christian men.

Showcase the Gospel

Christianity in general, and complementarian theology in particular, is no more an excuse for spousal abuse than a doctor’s license is an excuse for murder. Complementarian marriage rests on the bedrock of Christ’s love for his church — a love that took him to the cross. It is a covenant commitment between a man and a woman designed to mirror — however imperfectly — Christ’s sacrificial love for his church and our joyful submission to him.

Christian men who abuse their wives are committing egregious, gospel-denying sin. Let’s stand together in Christ to oppose them, not because we don’t believe the Bible’s challenging words about marriage, but because we do. The biblical sign says, “Do Not Enter.” Let’s keep the door firmly shut.

Rebecca McLaughlin (@beginwithwords) holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and a theology degree from Oak Hill Seminary. Formerly Vice President of content at The Veritas Forum, Rebecca is now co-founder of Vocable Communications. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Worldview (Crossway, 2019). You can read more of her writing at her website.