This is a response to a reader's question: "What changes would have to happen for you to return to the fold?"

The issue is the enabling of toxic marital dynamics within evangelical culture. This is a best-case scenario. In the worst cases like the one depicted in the Netflix documentary "Death of the Preacher's Wife," toxic marital dynamics are blatantly taught from the pulpit and run rampant through the structure of the organization.

One of the problems with addressing it is the varying degrees to which people experience it. I have this problem in discerning where I got the unhealthy ideas I believed for so long. I know I didn't get them from my parents. And I think much of my church experience as a child was relatively free of it. The rise of the "religious right" in the 1980s trickled down to my home church at some point in my late teens, influencing some of my leaders more than others.

More of the toxic stuff came to me in college and beyond through new people, churches, and organizations I was involved with. All this variation makes it hard for people like my reader, who is immersed in evangelical culture but hasn't personally felt the effects of toxic marital dynamics, to recognize.

I could not possibly provide a blueprint for the changes needed over the entire spectrum of evangelical culture, which ranges from traditional denominations. A comprehensive list is found here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/appendix-b-classification-of-protestant-denominations-2014. Evangelical culture also includes schools and universities sponsored by such churches, music and other media that these churches consume, Bible studies, Focus on the Family........

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