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What Are People In the Church Unwilling to Talk About?A new book gets women talking about "taboo" topics...

Last spring, I was asked to contribute an essay to a new anthology of Christian women writers called Talking Taboo: American Christian Women Get Frank About Faith. I am honored to join the ranks of a host of women from a wide array of church backgrounds to discuss topics that have divided us or gone unmentioned in the past. The book comes out next fall, but today marks the launch of an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to help people talk more frankly about faith and doubt and the issues that Christians tend to avoid.

I hope that this blog has been a safe place to "talk taboo" in the past, whether discussing abortion or adoption or prenatal testing. For this book, I wrote an essay about how to understand the classic Christian text on marriage in Ephesians 5. I've found that the idea that wives should "submit" to their husbands gets little attention in either "liberal" or "conservative" circles. The liberals dismiss the idea as outdated and repressive. The conservatives either ignore it in practice or accept it without question or just don't talk about it. I wrote about why I'm hesitant to talk about this passage and also offered my own thoughts on the subject.

I'm eager to get my own copy of the book so I can read essays from women I respect, like Micha Boyett and Enuma Okoro and Marlena Proper-Graves (among dozens of other contributors). I'm glad this project has already been endorsed by the likes of Rachel Held Evans, Brian McLaran, Parker Palmer and Rosemary Radford Ruther.

If you are interested, please take a moment to take a look at the Talking Taboo blog, and consider supporting the campaign. $20 will get you a copy of the book, and giving at higher levels brings other perks with it too.

What are the topics/questions you're afraid to address when it comes to Christianity?

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