Marriage Advice From Bethesda to Grace City Church
Taking a look at more striking similarities between Grace City Church and Bethesda Christian Center
Grace City Church recently published a marriage guide titled “30 Days to a Stronger Marriage” written by executive pastor Josh McPherson and his wife Sharon.
Couples who follow the guide are encouraged to focus on a specific topic each day. “Wife, Stop With The Criticizing” is the focus for Day 13, and “Fire in the Bedroom: Meeting Her Needs Sexually” is the focus for Day 24.
The advice from the McPhersons is nothing new for anyone who has listened to their preaching on sex and marriage, or read or listened to anything Mark Driscoll has to say on the subject. What is interesting, however, is how much of what the McPhersons write echos what Bethesda Christian Center leaders had to say on the subject nearly a half-century ago.
Bethesda Christian Temple (later Bethesda Christian Center) was an independent evangelical Christian organization headed by Larry and Devi Titus throughout the late 60s and 70s which amassed a large and influential following in North Central Washington before imploding in scandal after a Federal trial in 1979. I’ve covered the entire saga in the past, and you can read Part I and Part II by following those links.
I’ve even written about ties between Bethesda and Grace City Church in the past, but we’ve never looked at the similarities between the two independent evangelical organizations when it comes to their teachings on sex and marriage.
So in this article, we’ll take a comparative look at relationship advice from the Tituses and the McPhersons.
And for clarity and expediency, I’ll break it down into a few general themes:
The Duties of a Wife – “Helper” and Lover
According to Sharon McPherson and Devi Titus, it’s a wife's job to make sure her man’s ego is unchallenged and going strong.
“You single-handedly can make your husband feel like a man or a little boy,” McPherson wrote. “Always watch your tone of voice. Never speak down to your husband. Thank him for how hard he works. Praise him in front of other people. Let him know how much you admire him. Give him a crown and he’ll become a king.”
Devi Titus’ advice in a 1979 article titled “Keep The Spark In Your Marriage” in Bethesda’s Christian women’s magazine called Virtue is very similar.
“Compliment him and encourage him often. Tell him how handsome he is, how nice he looks or perhaps how skilled he is,” Titus wrote. “he needs to hear these compliments from you because others throughout his day are continually complimenting him.”
It’s also a wife’s job to make sure her man knows she is sexually available.
“Your husband wants to be your lover,” Titus wrote in 1979. “There is much power in touch, and touching can communicate love during times when quietness is appropriate. Pat him tenderly, and when he reaches for your hand, squeeze his. When riding in the car together slide into the center of the seat and sit near him.”