Squires: Relationship gurus like Derrick Jaxn have millions of followers because preachers like Jamal Bryant promote abortion with more passion than marriage

Derrick Jaxn, the anti-Kevin Samuels, built a popular YouTube channel dishing out black women-friendly relationship advice.

Jaxn recently announced his divorce on Instagram.

Jaxn and his soon-to-be ex-wife, Da’Naia, became fodder for online content creators last year after he admitted to several affairs in an apology video. He acknowledged that his conduct fell short of a biblical standard and the reputation he created as a healthy relationship advocate. Da’Naia also made a video several months ago declaring curses on anyone who criticized the couple online.

Jaxn’s rise and fall, as well as Samuels’ popularity even in death, point to something much bigger than social media controversy.

The popularity of these types of relationship podcasts is a direct result of dwindling religious affiliation among black Millennials and Gen Zers and the failure of “progressive” black preachers to teach and model biblical sexual ethics.

In an ideal world, someone like Jamal Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, would be leading the movement to mend relationships between black men and women and strengthen the black family. Bryant is a charismatic and dynamic communicator who leads one of the most influential churches in Atlanta. But instead of using public appearances to extol the benefits of marriage and encourage the formation of strong families, he advocates for more abortion in his church and perverts scripture to argue that Jesus was “pro-choice."

Bryant is not an anomaly. Senator Raphael Warnock – who leads the same church (Ebenezer Baptist Church) previously led by Martin Luther King Jr. – is similarly devoted to fewer black children being born in America. He goes even farther than Bryant by also affirming views on sex and marriage that are completely unbiblical.

When some of the most popular preachers in the black community fail to offer an affirmative vision of relationships that is built on the creation order and biblical duties based on sex, secular relationship gurus will fill the void.

Men like Samuels and Jaxn periodically uncover nuggets of truth, but pastors who actually believe the Bible would be in an even stronger position to teach men and women about what it means to be husbands and wives. Unfortunately, it’s hard for a pastor to promote biblical sexual ethics when he is having sex outside marriage or pressuring women to get abortions.

If black men and women are to restore proper relationships with each other – a prerequisite for healthy and whole families – everyone involved is going to have to digest some hard truths that are most effectively digested when they are grounded in distinctively Christian teaching.

Men and women are different. Testosterone is not a social construct. And while every type of sin is available to every person, our temptations, generally speaking, are different. For men, the major battles are with loyalty and fidelity. Jaxn posted a picture of himself in a shirt that said “Black Men Don’t Cheat,” but his low-values behavior quickly turned him into a hypocrite. The relationship challenge for many women – especially the “strong” ones who claim they don’t need a man – is submission. Their instinct is to dominate men, which leaves them frustrated for one of two reasons: constantly battling over control in the relationship or frustration with a weak, passive man.

When addressing these issues is divorced from the scriptures, relationship advice can quickly devolve into tips on how to manipulate the opposite sex into getting what you want.

Kevin Samuels told women that they should accept being cheated on as long as a man does so within certain parameters, including no babies or diseases. That is completely unbiblical. So is the notion that “self-love” is the highest form of human affection and a feeling so important that a woman should destroy her marriage and family to pursue it.

Pastors are uniquely situated to address these issues in biblical terms. They can express how God created men and women equal in dignity and worth but different in form and function. They can point to passages in Proverbs that warn men about the dangers of adultery. They can also point to the text in Ephesians that compares a wife’s submission to her husband to the church’s submission to Christ. Many women claim to hate the “S-word," but a good pastor could explain why a woman will yield to the will of her boss at work but fight against the leadership of her husband at home.

This is why Christian women also have an important role to play in this ecosystem. Titus 2 gives clear instructions on how women in different generations should relate to one another.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

This advice is the complete opposite of what you get in a culture that encourages women to be as unrestrained as stallions and bullies men into watching passively like geldings. Even some Christian women would rather be known publicly as part saint, part City Girl than as modest and self-controlled.

The black church should be a life factory that affirms God’s design for marriage and family, not a den of death that hosts more funerals than weddings and puts unmarried pregnant women on a conveyor belt to Planned Parenthood.

Chris Rock famously said that a man is only as faithful as his options. The truth is character can sustain a man even when options are plentiful. We shouldn’t be surprised that Derrick Jaxn cheated on his wife after spending years deifying women.

What should be cause for concern is the fact that prominent preachers like Jamal Bryant and Raphael Warnock are either unable or unwilling to offer a more biblical approach to relationships than the average YouTube personality.

Black pastors like them should be the most vocal proponents in their communities for the importance of biblical sexual ethics. It’s unfortunate that their personal and political views make them advocate with more passion for destroying our children than build strong families.