No Baby. No Bathwater.

Why cute idioms can't stop the deconstruction movement.

As a kid growing up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) church, I heard plenty of thought-stopping phrases. These are lazy ways to end a conversation without thinking critically.

One of the favorites was: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Today, this phrase is mostly aimed at people deconstructing and reconstructing their faith. And the message is always the same:

"Sure, some pastors make mistakes!" (cough cough, abuse) "But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater!"

The irony isn’t lost on me that most pastors who say this clearly haven’t given a baby a bath. It’s not exactly low effort. If it’s a newborn, you’re cradling their little bobblehead and making sure they don’t slip. If they’re older, they squirm and splash. Rubber ducks and toy boats and bubbles are everywhere—lots going on! It’s hard to miss that there’s a baby in there. There is no scenario where it’s like, “Welp, time to dump the dirty water—whoops, there goes Kyle!”

No one’s just casually yeeting infants out the window.

Not only is the phrase silly and illogical, but it has nothing to do with religion, and certainly nothing to do with abuse. It comes from a 16th-century German proverb: "Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten." In 1512, Thomas Murner published a satire featuring an illustration of a woman dumping her bathwater with the baby still inside. It was meant to warn people not to throw out something good just because it’s mixed in with something bad.

And then, because history is messy, the phrase got popularized in English thanks to the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle—a racist who used it in his 1849 essay titled: “Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question.” (Cute title, huh?)

Carlyle used the German proverb, but he wasn’t talking about church scandals or deconstruction. He was ranting about social reform. He thought people pushing for democracy during the German Revolution were being too progressive. In fact, he insisted that authoritarian leadership was the best way to go.

Fast forward about 70 years, and Carlyle’s defense of rigid, authoritarian leadership found echoes in far darker places. Somewhere between Auschwitz and Bavaria’s Alpine Fortress, I can imagine someone questioning the Nazi regime, only to have a well-meaning friend reply, "Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater." Because that’s how power protects itself: by convincing people that questioning the system means losing everything good, when in reality, the system itself is the problem.

The phrase has been twisted and manipulated for centuries, but modern high-control churches have taken it to a new level. Many refer to abuse in churches as the bathwater.

That’s the understatement of the century! And it’s incredibly insulting to religious abuse survivors everywhere.

In Mormon churches, the bathwater is a history of blatant racism, polygamy, and abuse cover-ups.

In charismatic circles like Word of Faith, the bathwater might be phrases used to protect abusers, like:

• Sow a seed (give more money to make your prayers heard)

• Kingdom mindset (align with leaders agenda or else)

• Touch not the Lord’s anointed (don’t question or accuse leaders ever)

In the IFB, let’s stop calling it the bathwater and call it what it is: Thousands of children and teens assaulted by trusted youth pastors, teachers, and leaders.

Here’s the thing. Church abuse cover-ups and manipulation aren’t just dirty water that need filtering out. In controlling systems, there is no bathwater. It’s swamp water. Murky, slimy, and full of predators. Yet people have the audacity to claim that somewhere, deep down, there’s a baby in there you need to look hard to find and save.

The baby part of the idiom is supposed to represent something valuable, right? Something obvious and hard to miss. Babies are loud and demand attention. They smile and giggle and bring joy. If there were a baby in the tub, we would know.

And in these systems, you have to look really, really hard to find the baby. You’ve gotta wade into weird swamp bacteria and decaying vegetation. Before you know it, you’re neck-deep in mud, with mosquitoes biting your face, and you don’t know what’s lurking underneath the surface. At any moment, a poisonous snake, snapping turtle, or alligator could attack. And the church leaders are like, “No, silly, you’re fine! This isn’t a swamp. It’s a bathtub! Don’t you see the cute baby? Keep looking for it!”

So what is this invisible mystery-baby they’re worried about losing?

It’s power. Control. Book sales. Followers. Tithes and offerings. Marketing. Votes.

Let’s be clear. Religious leaders that protect abusers in any capacity have nothing of value to offer you. There is no baby and there is no bathwater. They threw the baby in the swamp and let the gators attack.

Any religious dogma that can be easily, repeatedly used to prop up abusers is antithetical to Jesus.

This cute, quippy idiom is a distraction from the real problem. You don’t need to worry if you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You need to get out of the swamp. And then go find the real baby, because the one they’re trying to protect isn’t Baby Jesus.

Jesus didn’t cling to systems. He flipped tables, hung out with outsiders, camped and fished with his buddies, and had zero tolerance for religious leaders who used God’s name to build their own mini empires.

Jesus never got mixed in with the bathwater. And he’d never minimize abuse by calling it bathwater to begin with.

So if you’re deconstructing from high-control religion—if you’re out there wading through a swamp, and leaders are gaslighting you saying you should just be looking harder to save the metaphorical “baby” that they fed to the gators—stop it! You don’t have to do that.

Jesus doesn’t ask you to salvage a system built to keep you stuck. He invites you to step into something better. Healthy faith isn’t something you have to dig for in the swamp sludge. Jesus’ love is clear. It’s out in the open—free, whole, and bright.

If you want to comment, here’s the question: What are some thought-stopping phrases you’ve heard get misused by religious leaders? How would you like to picture your faith instead?