EPISODE SHOW NOTES:
BMP is back for a second season! Join Kensi Duszynski this fall as she facilitates a conversation around marital health, relational dynamics, and the proper place of gender roles in Christian marriage. Conversations will take place biweekly.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to the Brave Marriage Podcast! A podcast for couples who want to grow as individuals, do marriage with intention, and live mutually empowered, purposeful lives! It has been a while, I know, and I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by.
If you’re listening to this, you’re probably already subscribed to the podcast so you most likely already know that I took some time off this year. But just in case you’re new here, here’s kind of the deal: At the beginning of the year, I decided to take a semester off of the podcast in order to teach a counseling class at the college level. And this felt like a really great opportunity, like a growing experience for me, but one I knew I would need to devote time and attention to, seeing as how I’d never taught a day in my life before that! I don’t love public speaking. I’ve pushed myself to do it over the years, because I know it’s important to my calling, but I’ve certainly never lectured or taught for hours on end before that, so I just knew something had to give in order for me to engage that new role well.
But here’s kind of what’s transpired since. And I want you to know that I’ve really been trying to wrestle down this first episode back. I apologize for the lengthy explanation, as I’m sure some of you would prefer that I just get back to the content, which I totally understand. But after trying to figure out how to jump right in and pick up where we left off, the fact of the matter is, I can’t—and I need to explain why.
So during class last semester, we were able to have some really engaging discussions around how counseling helps us become healthier as humans and as Christians, and how we integrate those two things, because all of us, no matter how long we’ve known the Lord, still grew up in families, churches, and communities that shaped us for better or worse. You know, they shaped our personalities, the ways we learned to interact with the world, they shaped the skills we have or don’t have to cope and to engage in healthy relationships.
And of course, in my line of work, I’ve thought about these things for years, having processed my own family background, church background, and context in which I grew up. But what was so fascinating for me to see through teaching was my students on the very front end of this processing. Still discovering who they are, in light of who they want to be, and wrestling through questions around faith and counseling and psychology and theology and their future roles as Christian counselors.
And it just so happened that as we were talking about all these things, a few professors got together during that same semester to host a series on purity culture. So I facilitated a short discussion with my students in a conversation around this topic, thinking surely, with them being ten years younger than me, that they’d grown up with healthier views than my generation did on sexuality, purity, and gender roles in marriage. But you guys, I was shocked at some of the messaging they’d grown up with, just some really unhealthy views, although maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, given the conversations my husband, Evan, has had in working with college students.
And so, as you all already know, I am deeply passionate about helping others learn how to do marriage relationships well. And what I’m seeing—both in the culture at large and in the classroom (you know it’s like, once you see it, you can’t look away)— is this subtly, yet deeply distorted way of looking at Christian marriage and of talking about marriage and sex in the church. In a way that doesn’t lead to life and freedom and valuing each other as we should, but instead leads to dysfunction and bondage and diminishing each other. And that’s not who we are as Christians, that’s not who we were created to be in the imago Dei, that’s not what the family of God is supposed to be, and yet, the way we continue to talk about marriage, unthinkingly, just repeating what we’ve heard before, it’s actually continuing the perpetuation of these relational ideals that are not good for everyone across the board. And end up landing twenty-something year olds in my classroom and couples of all ages in my counseling practice having to work through damage done to their relationships and to their psyches sometimes by the church when the church should be the place where we find the most healing and health and help for our relationships.
So clearly, all of this has led me to the inability to podcast about anything other than this topic for a while, this topic of healthy marital dynamics and our callings and roles as Christian couples. Until I’ve said all I’ve needed to say on it, until you’ve said all you need to think and say on it, and until the conversation around marriage and gender roles in the church looks more hopeful and creative than it does rigid and oppressive.
A few things have led me to this place: The first is, living on a Christian college campus for the past 4 years. We’ve seen what’s become healthier when it comes to living and relating in Christian community, but we’ve also seen some of the same old, unhealthy teachings from decades past just continue to live in the zeitgeist of the Christian community, and not only that, but we’ve also seen some really unhealthy things strengthen in the Church that are anything but Christlike. So there’s that, and then there’s this: I’ve really felt led over the past couple of years to speak more courageously to some of these topics, but to this point, have failed to do so. I’ve resisted and avoided, quite honestly, talking about these things publicly. I made excuses, all wrapped up in fear because who wants to give a minority voice to the majority Christian culture, right? Certainly, not me. Certainly not me.
But then after my class, after these conversations (and a slew of others over the past few years), I just knew I couldn’t not address the roles of men and women in marriage anymore, and how our understanding as Christians of these topics affects our marriages, because it affects our mental and emotional health, and therefore, our relational health!
When I first started the podcast, one of the very first questions I received was, “Which is a better model for Christian marriage: complementarianism or egalitarianism?”
And if you’ve engaged with that question at all, you know it’s not a small question to answer.
But at the time, applying my counselor brain to this podcast: I knew I hadn’t yet built a relationship with you guys to be so bold as to initiate that conversation—that’s not really my style of relating. The other part is, beyond my own personal experience with both positions, I hadn’t given that question three years of deep thought, as I have at this point in my professional journey. When I started the podcast, I knew I wanted to be practically helpful to you all, offering short teachings and action steps that would make an immediate difference in marriages for the better.
And I think, at least, to some degree, this podcast has accomplished that, as you guys have told me or left ratings and reviews saying, “I’ve never heard some of these things before, I’ve never heard marriage or sex talked about in such a positive light in the Christian community.” Not that it’s not out there—there are so many people doing really good work right now around these topics in the church. People I actually hope to talk to in the future on this podcast, so prayers that I’d be able to make some of those connections. But the thing is, the thing I can’t skirt around any longer is that, to those of you for whom this podcast feels different than what you’ve been taught elsewhere, that’s because it is! This isn’t what so many of us are taught! And I think it’s time that I make this teaching even more explicit for you. I want to give you understanding and language that you haven’t had before to engage these conversations in your own home, in your church, and in your community, if you find relational dynamics and gender roles in marriage relevant to your own life, to what you’re passing on to the couples you mentor and to your kids.
So, a few months later, here we are with the Brave Marriage Podcast shifting direction a bit. Unlike Season 1 I’ll call it, where there was a quick teaching, an action step, followed by a prayer for your marriage, Season 2, if you will, will be more educational, historical, and hopefully, conversational. I would love to hear stories from you and further understand your experience. I would love to talk to other experts specifically around these topics. And I would love for the upcoming episodes to serve as conversation starters in your own home and Christian communities.
There’s been a lot of talk in the public square about how everybody is deconstructing everything, and how millennials and younger are losing their faith and what does this mean for the future of the church, and more immediate than that, for our kids?
But listen, what I’m wondering is, is if we can move beyond that fear stuff? Or perhaps more accurately, as my friend reminded me of yesterday, can we add goodness to the conversation despite our fear? And I’m talking to myself here, too, maybe even more than I’m talking to you right now. I am just tired of adults in the room and the loudest adults in the room peddling fear instead of Hope, because we have a hope, y’all! His name is Jesus! And He has not given us a spirit of fear, other people have, but He hasn’t! He’s given us a spirit of power, and of love, and of self-discipline! 2 Timothy 1:7 And personally speaking, I’m tired of being the adult in the room who’s not peddling fear, but equally as bad, is too afraid to speak up.
So here we are, diving into marriage and gender roles and healthy relational dynamics because I believe that after all the pruning—after all the deconstruction of so many things that we’ve missed the mark on as a church, myself included—that there is fruit to be found. There is love and a Savior who says in John 10:10, “It’s the thief who comes to do nothing else but to kill and steal and destroy, but I have come that you may have life, and an abundant one at that.”
So I hope you’ll join me on this journey. On this second season of the Brave Marriage Podcast, if you will, where we’ll dive into marriage dynamics from a biblical perspective, a psychological perspective, and a relational systems perspective to see if we can’t create something better as Christian couples, to see if we can’t engage in relationships that emanate life and hope and healing in a hurting and broken world.
If you’re looking forward to this series, please leave a rating and review if you’re able on Apple Podcasts. And if not, no worries, I completely understand, and I will see the rest of you back here soon.