Within their own circles, evangelicals didn’t have a strong record when it came to defending women against harassment and abuse. In the 1980s, for example, Dobson had recommended a healthy skepticism toward certain allegations of domestic violence. In Love Must Be Tough (1983), he warned of women who “deliberately ‘baited’” their husbands into hitting them, “verbally antagoniz[ ing]” them until they got “the prize” they sought: a bruise they could parade before “neighbors, friends, and the law” to gain a “moral advantage,” and perhaps also justify an otherwise unbiblical escape from marriage through divorce.

— Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Page 144)