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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
Speaker 2:name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
Speaker 1:that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. I think this episode should be a whisper episode.
Speaker 2:Why do you constantly wanna whisper at these people? I just really like the way that my whisper sound sounds in my microphone into my headphones.
Speaker 1:I don't think they do. Stop that.
Speaker 2:I enjoy
Speaker 1:it. Plus also when I edit this thing Stop and you're whispering, I can barely hear you and I'm like, oh crap, should I cut that out? But then it makes no sense. I like to whisper. I could whisper loud.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm done.
Speaker 2:On that note, I'm over it now. Oh, good. Thank goodness.
Speaker 1:So it is Tuesday for us. It's Thursday for you. Quite frankly,
Speaker 2:I thought it was Thursday all day,
Speaker 1:and I'm disappointed. I'm also disappointed. It's somehow already a long week. You know why I'm disappointed?
Speaker 2:Because Thursday we're gonna go sit at Alice in Bar. So when you're listening to this, keep in mind, we will be listening to her.
Speaker 1:And forgetting about all of you being No kidding. Probably not exactly then, because in the morning, we'll both be That's true. Depends on when you're listening.
Speaker 2:Boo. Let's quit our jobs.
Speaker 1:Let's just quit our jobs and follow around our best friend Beth. What do you
Speaker 2:do for work while I'm Beth Scroopy? And then they say, Who? And then again, they don't let us into these events. Stop us at the door. Just want everybody to know that today I went through reviewing her new book, Becoming the Pastor's Wife, on every platform I could think of.
Speaker 1:It released it officially released today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So And the title for all of my reviews is Another Banger by Beth.
Speaker 1:I feel like So, the group that was part of, like, the launch group for this, it's all kind of it's all these upstanding, wonderful women that are writing these really deep, amazing but they're all very serious, right? Oh, and then there's us.
Speaker 2:There's us. Beth, we love you.
Speaker 1:I feel that we don't fit the demographic. I'm not sure how we got here.
Speaker 2:At least we have each other. I hope that we're bringing like the youthful vibe I've told everybody that I work with I'm like I'm going to see my best friend beth we're so excited on thursday and they're like who and I'm like this author that I don't know but she's our bestest best friend. She's our bestest best friend, and I'm not a stalker.
Speaker 1:No. It's fine. We can't be stalkers. We've never met her before. It's fine.
Speaker 1:Yes. This is normal behavior. Totally normal. We're so excited. Not even the people listening to us think this is normal behavior.
Speaker 1:They're also concerned. Cringing. Yeah. They've listened to us for, like, 48 episodes now, and even they think this is weird for us.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about making a shirt with her face on it. Please don't. That would be so funny. What if we went and we had big poster boards that said, Another banger, my bad.
Speaker 1:If anyone's making a list of all the ways that we are unlikely to get into this event, if you're playing a drinking game, here it is.
Speaker 2:With communion wine. Yeah. Because that's the
Speaker 1:only acceptable sorts of wine. Yes. Yeah. We don't drink other kinds of wine. Why would we do that?
Speaker 2:Not the winking owl brand from Aldi?
Speaker 1:At all. I actually bought a book not too long ago. I may have mentioned it on the podcast I think you did. About how wine is utilized in the bible. And I have not read it yet.
Speaker 2:We've said this before. Buying books and breeding books are two different hobbies.
Speaker 1:Very different hobbies. I actually just finished today, I finished Your Jesus is Too American, which we will talk about in just a second. And that was my twenty fifth book of the year. And yet, I still I have yet to make time for the wine. I think it's called Your Cup Is Overflowing or something like that.
Speaker 1:Sounds great. That I pulled that out of my butt. So heaven only knows. What a strange place to play from.
Speaker 2:Why are you keeping books in your butt?
Speaker 1:That's a great storage space. No. It's not.
Speaker 2:You don't have a big enough butt.
Speaker 1:Anyway. Today, this is part two of what we're hoping will be a three part series.
Speaker 2:I think three parts is good. Three's enough. Yeah. Four's too much.
Speaker 1:Now, we may do this in kind of a funky way because we are gonna go see our best friend Beth on Thursday. What we might do is have next week be an episode where we talk about the talk that Beth has on Thursday and go over that, talk about her new book a little bit, and then the following week jump back into Your Jesus Is Too American and finish that out. So, well, it might be a little bit of a broken up series.
Speaker 2:But listen, it's our podcast, not yours.
Speaker 1:So we do what we want. Yeah. And here we are. And here we are. But here's part two.
Speaker 1:We're gonna try and get through we did we we did not get through a lot last week, but we did our very bestest. And so this week, we're gonna attempt to get through chapters two through five. It's a 10 chapter book. It's not a super long book. But I wanted to start off because our best friend Beth did a dedication for this book, and I wanted to read it because, actually, Steve Besner, Brie just told me, did a dedication for Beth's new book as well.
Speaker 1:So we'll read his when we do our review of her book.
Speaker 2:I heard they're bestest best friends.
Speaker 1:No, she's our best friend. She can't have other best friends. Obviously. What are you thinking? Alright, so this is her dedication.
Speaker 1:It says, This is an altar call for the American church. With his wise, skillful, and learned pastoral voice, Steve Bezner calls us to come to Jesus just as we are, leaving behind the trappings of our power and privilege. He reminds us, drawing from his experience as a Texas pastor, that the kingdom Jesus calls us to is diverse, loving, and more focused on people than on material wealth and power. This is a book I will give to my friends, family, and fellow ministry leaders. It is a book to which I fervently pray we will listen.
Speaker 1:So I think that's quite a review from her.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Heck yeah.
Speaker 1:From someone who has done some of the best biblical research I've ever read. That's a review I would want on my book. Mhmm. For sure. So jumping straight in, we're gonna do these chapters.
Speaker 1:The book divides itself really nicely, directly down the middle. But I think the first few chapters really talk a lot about how the church should be generous. Mhmm. And then the last few chapters kind of dive into some specific topics that we'll go through next time. Now as I was reading through this, I started to realize that this book wasn't exactly what I thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 2:Because you've finished the book and I haven't.
Speaker 1:I have finished the book. Yes. And I actually ended up looking it up on Goodreads, which is usually the first place that I
Speaker 2:go when I pick up a book. Everybody should go follow us on Goodreads. We only follow each other. We we really no one else follows me.
Speaker 1:I don't really, like, do a lot of reviews on Goodreads. I just rate things when I finish them.
Speaker 2:I like to have chat GPT write hilarious reviews.
Speaker 1:I should review things, I just don't take the time to do it. But I looked up the reviews for it, and when I picked up this book, I feel like it's a logical jump when you pick up a book called Your Jesus is Too American, and you see that the foreword is by Beth Moore, and then you read the introduction that talks about American politics. To assume that this is gonna be a book that talks about Christian nationalism.
Speaker 2:Define that for the crowd.
Speaker 1:Okay. Actually, so Steve, in his book right here in front of me hold on.
Speaker 2:What should we call Steve? Because we already have a best friend and a good friend.
Speaker 1:Steve can be our our great acquaintance.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say our second cousin.
Speaker 1:Our second cousin, Steve. Alright. This is actually in chapter seven, which we will get into on the next one. But he defines Christian nationalism a little bit for us. And I'm gonna read that because it's just gonna inform what I'm gonna say next.
Speaker 1:So he says, to be clear, Christian nationalism is not the participation of Christians within the public square, nor is it Christians advocating for particular policies from their perspective. Christian nationalism, as I understand it, usually works to institute Christianity as an official state religion and legislate toward those ends. This may initially sound good in theory, but experience reveals something different altogether. The values of Christian nationalism are more frequently self serving than they are about the public good. Now, he goes on to later talk about how Christian nationalism often does not take into account that you can't shove Christianity down people's throats.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. That legislation cannot change people's hearts.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And if anything, you're pushing people away from God. Right.
Speaker 1:He talks about, in this book, being generous with people who do not share the same religion as you. He makes the point several times that when you assume that your Christian values are the only ones that matter Mhmm. In politics, you forget all of the other religious and cultural traditions that exist.
Speaker 2:And would you want someone to do that to you? Right. I don't think you would. And that's why we have religious freedom here. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's why it's so important. God gave us free will.
Speaker 1:And you can even think about that within Christian tradition. Let's say that Christian nationalism does take over, which is a horrifying potential. But let's say it did. And let's say that it was specifically the Baptist tradition that took over. Even within Christianity, you're losing the cultural tradition of now the Assemblies of God Church.
Speaker 2:The Lutherans. The Methodists. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Countless other Uninformed. Exactly. Countless other smaller traditions just within Christianity. Forgetting all of the other countless religions.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and so you have to assume that doesn't really work. Mhmm. Forcing things down people's throats doesn't really work.
Speaker 2:We left for America in pursuit of religious freedom.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So I picked up this book thinking it was about Christian nationalism. Anyway, circling back. Circling back to the point. And if you look up the Goodreads ratings, which is normally the first thing that I do when I buy a book, but was not the first thing that I did when I bought this book, It's not.
Speaker 1:It's not actually about Christian nationalism. Now it does talk about that. He does have a book on Jesus and poly or I'm sorry, a chapter on Jesus and politics. But it's not focused on an indictment of Christian nationalism, which is what I thought I was reading. And I got a little frustrated about that.
Speaker 1:I got to about chapter four, and I texted Brie, and I raged for a minute. I was like, What am I reading? We've gone off the rails! But I think that's okay. It wasn't what I expected, but that's okay.
Speaker 2:And maybe it's what we needed. Yeah. A lot of
Speaker 1:times on this podcast, we get really angry about the church. For good reason. Righteous anger. We talked about that last
Speaker 2:time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We get righteously angry about the church. Because the church is doing some stupid stuff. I'm sorry. Yeah. The church is making some bad choices.
Speaker 1:The church as a whole.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not your church.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe
Speaker 2:your church.
Speaker 1:But it's okay to be angry about those things. And it's okay to point them out. It's okay to bring them to the light, and you should. But Steve makes this point in the book. To bring those things to the light and then not provide a solution doesn't actually really help anyone.
Speaker 1:It's like pointing out everybody's flaws
Speaker 2:or one specific person's flaws with no yeah, with nothing better to say about them. With no solution.
Speaker 1:Right. And so that's kind of what this book provides, in a way, is a solution for the church, a way of moving forward for the church. Where do we go from here? When we've dug ourselves a really deep hole, what do we do now? We're in a hole, ladies and germs.
Speaker 1:Well, now I'm uncomfy.
Speaker 2:I would say America is one big hole right now.
Speaker 1:You're gonna be some sort of sound bite somewhere. I was gonna say a meme, but we're a podcast. They can't
Speaker 2:see you. Everybody else feels that way. Look around the world right now. They're all like, America, you're one big hole. Alright.
Speaker 2:When you wind up on a on a sound bite,
Speaker 1:just know this is why.
Speaker 2:This is where Brianna took off and she got famous.
Speaker 1:This was the moment. Alright. So we have quite a few chapters to get through. So we're gonna kind of hit the high points of this book. I would highly recommend like, I've I've now finished it.
Speaker 1:And like I said, I don't agree with everything actually, said this on the last episode. I don't agree with every single thing he says. There are actually a couple of chapters, one chapter in particular, that I really don't necessarily agree with him on, and we'll get into that next week. But there's a lot of good here. There is a lot of advice for the church in how to move forward.
Speaker 1:And whether you agree with every single thing or not, you can still hold out the pieces that work for you. Yeah. Absolutely. So let's hit the high points, shall we? Let's get high.
Speaker 1:Well, no. Let's not. Unless it's on caffeine because I have a venti shaken espresso sitting behind me, and it is seven forty eight.
Speaker 2:Do you know how many shots of espresso were in a shaken espresso? Four.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is frightening for us all. Yeah. Okay. So chapter two is called imagination and kingdom practice.
Speaker 1:The first few chapters are kind of I I would, like, group them into how the church can be generous in its community. This first chapter is kind of being creatively generous.
Speaker 2:I like that within the chapters two through five, he kind of dives into being like creative solutions. Think outside the box. Don't always be in a box.
Speaker 1:Well, think as Christians, we so often think and he does have a chapter on on money. But we think of tithing. And if you're not familiar with that term, tithing is essentially like giving 10% of your income to the church. Mhmm. And that is something that is talked about in the Bible, but that's kind of where we stop.
Speaker 1:And I think at least the Christian communities that I see, that is where their generosity of spirit so often just stops. There is a wall at 10%, and it just gives up right there. And that is not what Steve is talking about here.
Speaker 2:He's talking about opening up your eyes to living a whole life generously. Look around you. Look at the
Speaker 1:people in need. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's what Jesus did. And I think this book really simply just says live like Jesus. Right. But in a lot more words.
Speaker 1:Yeah. A lot more words. Well, Brie said earlier, this book could really be boiled down to very simply Be a good person. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Be a good person. It's not that hard. But you know what? The world isn't getting it
Speaker 1:right So now we need to say a lot more words.
Speaker 2:And I think specifically, he's the reason that it's called Your Jesus is Too American is because the church has become obsessed with power. Right. Right now. America has become obsessed with power. Right.
Speaker 2:And that's not how Jesus was. Right. And that's not how we should be. Mhmm. We should be generous.
Speaker 2:We should be kind.
Speaker 1:But one of the things he does talk about is that the early church was not only generous with the people within their church. Yes. And I think that's one relating back to what you said about the church being obsessed with power right now.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we see that in the American political sphere for sure, that the church is obsessed with gaining power, with sitting next to those in the most power.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I mean, look at it. We want all of our presidents, all of our people in power to say it doesn't matter if they're actually Christians. It doesn't matter if they're actually living out a Christian lifestyle. They just have to say that they're Christians. They have to say traditional values.
Speaker 1:Right? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That's it. The second that you think a billionaire is gonna help you out and care about your specific individual needs, you're delusional. I'm sorry. You've lost. They are only out for themselves.
Speaker 2:Right. They are not living generously. They are not living like Jesus. Mhmm. Because they could very simply cure all of world hunger.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Literally. All of world hunger. They could they could solve and still be super rich. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We might have to cut this out. I'm getting too aggressive. But don't you think Jesus might have done that? Mhmm. And because they're a Christian, they should be living out the WWJD?
Speaker 2:And maybe they're not.
Speaker 1:Maybe they're not. And maybe we should stop following them. Mhmm. And making excuses.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm of a little ragey there for a second. That's okay.
Speaker 1:I think this is the moment for Reijie. I think this is the book for Reijie. I think these are the episodes for Reijie. I'm okay with Reijie. We have lost generosity of spirit.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. We have forgotten generosity of spirit. We have decided that we will be generous maybe if you go to church with us. We will maybe be generous if you show up every single Sunday, and you volunteer, and you also give 10% of your money, and also you do all of these extra little things that we ask of you, then maybe, maybe, maybe Mhmm. We'll be generous with you.
Speaker 1:But only if you do all of those things. And if you don't, you mean nothing to us. We'll forget that you exist or we'll judge you Right.
Speaker 2:Every time you step through those doors. Yep. And we'll make you feel like a burden. And I think something that's really important is making people not feel like they're a burden. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Be generous without any expectations of anything in return.
Speaker 1:Yep. I, as many of you know, I used to work at a church, and we had a generosity fund that could be used for anyone in the community that, you know, maybe maybe their power was getting shut off, maybe they couldn't pay their rent, whatever. Whatever need happened to arise. And technically, it was for anyone in the community. There was no specific like, you have to attend our church, you have to whatever.
Speaker 1:But there was a form you had to fill out online, and quite a few of the questions asked things like, do you attend our church? How long have you attended our church? Blah blah blah blah blah. And those questions, while they were not required, weeded people out. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because a lot of people, the moment that they got to those questions, thought, I'm not worthy. Yeah, or This isn't for me. Right. And you cannot tell me that the church authorities weren't fully aware of that situation.
Speaker 2:Oh
Speaker 1:yeah. Because there was no reason for them to have asked Because those people were then brought in and spoke to a pastor who could have asked those questions in real life. Mhmm. And asked those questions in love and then said, oh, but it doesn't matter. I'm just asking to ask.
Speaker 1:Just I was just wondering. You know,
Speaker 2:like Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Could have brought that up in love, but instead we're asking on an Internet form, which we know is gonna weed people out. Mhmm. We're only generous with the people that look like us. Mhmm. With the people that sound like us.
Speaker 1:With the people that have the same value system we have.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Or think about this too, like, yes, you're volunteering, but you're only volunteering in the church. Right. What else is happening in your community that you can I'm not saying don't volunteer at church. I think, yeah, the church needs volunteers to function.
Speaker 2:Sure. But also, what's happening in your community? What's going on with your neighbors?
Speaker 1:Right. What's going on with your family members? Are you aware? One of the things from chapter two that Steve says, he says, we need to think about bringing life not only to our churches, but also to the communities and neighborhoods where our churches are found. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then he says, pastors ask, how's my church? We should be asking, how's my city? Mhmm. We need to have a broader mindset.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We have to stop looking internally to see, like, how's everybody in here doing? Now it's important to take care of your people. I'm not saying don't. But it's also important to look externally.
Speaker 2:He talks about lower income areas. And I didn't even necessarily think about this, but they're less likely to have more robust because churches survive on donations from people. And if they're in those poorer areas, they don't have anything extra to give. So you can't have a more robust church which can then give back to the community. So think about those areas that you're near.
Speaker 2:How can you impact them? How can you help them?
Speaker 1:And think about them in creative ways. You know, again, we hit that 10% at church and then we give up. But one of the things that he mentions, I think later in the book, actually, is that him and his wife at some point came across a refrigerator. Mhmm. And this refrigerator was just sponsored by a local family, and they open it up, and it's full of food and then there's a box next to it that's full of dry goods and people can just like come and take what they need.
Speaker 1:And I think there was
Speaker 2:a note there that said take what you need, donate if you know someone who needs something like take it and give it to someone who needs it. There's no expectations there.
Speaker 1:So what can you do in a unique sort of way? And sometimes that's a financial contribution, sometimes it's little things like, hey, I have a book that might be encouraging
Speaker 2:to
Speaker 1:you or of use to Or hey, I have I don't know. I have something in my home that instead of selling it on Marketplace, I'm going to give it away. Or I have extra time. Maybe I'll go and I'll help somebody out. I'll help out a neighbor.
Speaker 1:I'll mow their lawn. I'll whatever.
Speaker 2:It could be as simple as maybe you don't have anything to give. Maybe you just pray for someone. Did God place someone on your heart? Let him know that you're thinking of them when you're praying for them. Be a support system for someone.
Speaker 1:Something that Brie mentioned earlier too that I think is really important and doesn't get brought up ever is the flip side of this, and that if you are in a season of receiving that that's also okay. Mhmm. We so often forget that, especially in The United States. I actually worked with someone from a different culture at one point, and I remember him telling me what a culture shock it was for him that people in The US didn't allow people to help them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He said, Where I'm from, it's a blessing to the person who gets to help. Because they get to help you. So the person who's being helped is also blessing the helper, you know?
Speaker 2:Do you forget how good it feels at Christmas when you get the perfect gift for someone and it just makes you feel so good? That's a blessing too. Right. That's a gift in and of itself, is to give a gift.
Speaker 1:So if you're in a season of receiving where you just, you have nothing to give. Sometimes emotionally you have nothing to give, physically you have nothing to give, financially you have nothing to give. That's okay. We have all been there. He talks about in this book, in
Speaker 2:the Bible, when they would leave a portion of their fields that they would farm, of the grain, they wouldn't harvest it to leave that area for the poor. And the same for the grapes. They would not pick all of the grapes off the vine to leave some for the poor people so that the people in their community did not go hungry. There was no reason for the people in the community to not be taken care of. And that's how we should think, too.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:there were no expectations of who was going to take that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I think that's politically, if we look at where the Christian church is right now, there are so many caveats on our generosity. If you're an immigrant, we are not going to be generous with you. If you don't look like us, we're not going to be generous with you. If you're not of our faith, we're not going to be generous with you. If you are the wrong gender, we're not going to be generous with you.
Speaker 1:If you are LGBTQ, we're not going be generous with you. If you are like, there's just there's all these caveats, right? That was not the case in that exact story that you just told. Were not caveats to the generosity. Whoever came and was hungry got to pick the grapes.
Speaker 2:Whoever Jesus died on the cross for deserves to be loved and cared for. And Jesus died on the cross for everybody. Yes. It doesn't matter what they look like, who they are, what their name is. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Even the people we hate the most.
Speaker 1:Even our enemies. He says that we need to become catalysts of community transformation so that our communities are reminded of what heaven is supposed to be.
Speaker 2:I love that. I think he says something about, like, we can live in the kingdom now. Right. If we chose to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We forget that Jesus brought heaven here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:He brought it with him. And we kinda like tossed it off to the side. We're like, meh. Meh. We'll get there when we get there, Jesus.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But like, we could live there now. If we were all living like Jesus,
Speaker 2:putting our bracelets on, WWJD, what a wonderful world it would be.
Speaker 1:I know. He's gonna sing again. So yeah, so that's chapter two. It's kind of like being creative with your generosity. What can you do?
Speaker 1:What can you do in your community? What can you do in your space? And then the next chapter talks about it's called power hungry. Jesus on humility and service. As Brie cringes over the One of the quotes he starts every chapter with two different quotes.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, one is a verse and one is a quote. But one of them is from Doctor. Martin Luther King, Jr. And it says, Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?
Speaker 2:If you can't readily have something, boom, right on the tip of your tongue ready to say, maybe it's time for a change. As Christians,
Speaker 1:our purpose is to be doing for others. To be Jesus on earth. I went
Speaker 2:to church this Sunday. Are you proud? My grandma is. Something that the pastor said that really struck me that I haven't heard it this way before was that we have to be the substitute for Jesus on earth. Jesus died on the cross and went to heaven, and he told all of us, we have to literally be Jesus on this earth.
Speaker 1:I think that hits different. Because sometimes you've heard the platitudes so many times, be the hands and feet of Jesus. It loses its meaning. You've just heard it so many times. It's cutesy, but like, okay, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:But when someone says to you, alright, you have to literally be the replacement for Jesus.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Ow! How can I do that? What
Speaker 1:do we go from here? There's only so much you can do. I mean, clearly we cannot be Jesus. But what do you have to do to live into that?
Speaker 2:First you have to figure out how he lived, which means you have to crack a bible. Sorry. And figure out how he was living his life and how he was treating people. And
Speaker 1:then you have to do that. It's easier said than done. So I saw this quote one time, and it's by Stephen Colbert, which is rough. It says, If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:And that's so true right now. And Steve what's his name? Besner. Besner? I wanna say Bravos, but I think that's That's wrong.
Speaker 2:That's wrong. He talks about how easy it is for us to just assume that people who don't have as much opportunity as us, we villainize them. We say there's something wrong with them that they can't meet their own needs. When really, there's something wrong with us that we can't help and support the people in our community so that they can meet their basic needs. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, talks about it in context of the American dream. Because the American dream here is so pervasive of like, if you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you can achieve anything. And it's this cute little lie that we live. It's impossible. The reality is some of us can because some of us were given certain opportunities.
Speaker 1:And I will be the first to admit both of us grew up very middle class with a lot of opportunity. We grew up with everything that we needed and a lot of what we wanted. Now, we didn't have everything we could ever want, but a lot of what we wanted. We went to college.
Speaker 2:We went to Disney. We went to Disney. We haven't mentioned Disney That's really more important.
Speaker 1:We had opportunities. We had education. We had food on the table. We had a family unit that was together and loving. We had a lot.
Speaker 1:And that gave us a leg up. There are people that don't have that. There are people that don't have that to lean back on, and yet people in our situation will look at people who started life in a whole different world. Who started life without food on the table. Without an education.
Speaker 1:Without a family unit. In massive poverty. In communities I can't even begin to imagine. And will judge them for not being able to start a business and have a thriving bank account and whatever because of the American dream. It's a pretty lie, but it's still a lie.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And he also goes on to talk about when he visited other countries and how their traditions and customs are so different from ours to the foreigner. So they celebrate the foreigner. When he came in, he went to someone's house, this woman's house, who clearly did not have anything. But she gave them tea and she gave them cookies and she did not have any tea or cookies because probably she didn't have enough for herself.
Speaker 2:And she wanted to honor them as her guests in her home. And what are we doing to the foreigner
Speaker 1:here in America? We're sending them away. We're saying, You're not welcome here. In shame. Sending them away shame.
Speaker 2:We're sending them away in shame in the name of God. Right. We're saying, Yeah, we're Christians. We're Christians and we celebrate traditional values. Get out of my town.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And we only protect ourselves. Mhmm. So chapter three talks about power. So the subtitle is Jesus on humility and service.
Speaker 1:And he starts off by talking about how power and faith this is his quote, power and faith have an uneasy relationship, particularly in Christianity. He then goes on to talk about how power tends to corrupt. To all of us. And we forget that. And I I feel like I've quoted this before, but it's it says power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's a quote we all know. Mhmm. He says most of those who argue for a closer relationship between the church and the corridors of power, in my opinion, fail to honestly account for the corrosive effects of power on those who hold it for any amount of time, particularly when it comes to abuse of power for personal gain. So we, as a church, we're right now in The United States, very obsessed with cozying up to those in power, right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We want to get all comfy with the White House.
Speaker 2:So can I rub shoulders with? Yep. Or kneecaps or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1:People rubbing kneecaps? Yeah. That sounds uncomfy. I'm picturing that. I just
Speaker 2:I don't wanna. What if they had a knee replacement too?
Speaker 1:But power corrupts. And let's assume that initially the power is only corrupting the person in power and not necessarily the church person cozying up. Do you think it's really only going to stay with the person in power? Do you really think it's not going to, like, sneak on over to the person at the church who's like It's
Speaker 2:a bad cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It is. Which is why we see a lot of corruption in our churches.
Speaker 2:Which is why we titled the last episode Your Idol is Showing. Yeah. Right? Yep. Because there is only one king.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. There is only one God, in our opinion. Mhmm. And we've put these men that are in power right now into a position of a king and a god. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And pretty much, I'm thinking God doesn't like that. I'm thinking He really doesn't. I'm thinking that we're about to find out how much he doesn't. I don't think the church quite recognizes how poorly they're doing. But I can't imagine that when we all get to heaven, we're not gonna get an ear ful about this one.
Speaker 1:And I gotta tell you, I wanna be on the correct side of this when I get to heaven. Yeah. I don't wanna hear God telling me, What in the absolute crap were you doing?
Speaker 2:He might even use some different words.
Speaker 1:He might. Because frankly, it warrants it. And a good slap on the head. Like, I want to hear, thank goodness, Alyssa. Thank you for saying what you said because someone had to.
Speaker 1:Someone had to stand up for it.
Speaker 2:And what's so simple is like, again, if you're living like Jesus, you don't have to worry about it. Right. If you're loving very loudly,
Speaker 1:you don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2:But if you're more concerned with your power and your money and protecting yourself, you're gonna have a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Set yourself aside. Set your power aside, your needs aside for just a minute and look into your community and look at who's scared right now. Look at who's living in fear right now because there are a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time that Trump ran. I was working at a grocery store, and I was one of very few white people there. And I remember all these women coming up to me saying, please, please, can I just talk to you for a second? Please do not vote for him. I'm scared.
Speaker 2:Please don't. And I was young and stupid at the time, and I didn't understand a lot of things. I didn't understand a lot of politics. I'm proud to say I did not vote for him. But I am starting to understand now that fear from them and saying, It was totally justified.
Speaker 2:And I hear you and I'm sorry that this is happening.
Speaker 1:We need to acknowledge other people's stories. You don't have to agree with every single person that comes to you, but to hear them and to say what you're saying to me is valid and I want to talk to you about this and I want to understand. I want to know. There's so much power in that sitting with someone through that Understanding
Speaker 2:someone, listening to them. People love to talk. Actively listen. Don't just hear them. Actively listen.
Speaker 1:And to be able to say and that's what I really wish the Christian church could do right now is to be able to say, I might be wrong.
Speaker 2:And I'm
Speaker 1:sorry. Your experiences may prove to me that I'm wrong. And that might be okay. Mhmm. This book showed me some things that I need to take a step back on.
Speaker 1:It did. It challenged me on some things. That's good. That means growth. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's okay. And honestly, it stings a little bit. You're like, I don't wanna. But that's okay. It's okay for me to sit there and sit with myself and say, Well, I'm gonna be crabby about that for a second.
Speaker 1:But then I'm going to take a step out and say, Okay, well that stung a little bit, but now I'm going to choose to grow.
Speaker 2:Because the plants, they need to be pruned. They do. And I don't think the plants really feel that good probably when they
Speaker 1:Probably not. Get their leaves chopped Feel your feels and all. But also grow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's wonderful to stay inside a box. We were saying this a couple of days ago. It's safe in that box. It is. It's warm in that box.
Speaker 2:You might have a pillow. But you're still in a box. Right. Don't you wanna grow a little bit? Don't you wanna take the
Speaker 1:lid off? The box is boring.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's a box. It's a box. There's so
Speaker 1:much more outside of the box. There's so much growth. There's so much strength. There's so many cool people outside the box. Join us, won't you?
Speaker 1:Join us outside the box.
Speaker 2:Wasn't that a show back in the day?
Speaker 1:Out of the box.
Speaker 2:Was. It
Speaker 1:was. It was on the Disney channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All our 90s kids join right in. So we've only got so much time to try and attempt to get through several more chapters. So just to read a couple more quotes from him, he talks about Jesus and how Jesus led with humility, that Jesus is our perfect example of leadership. And if, in fact, Jesus is a perfect example of leadership, that's who we should be looking at as an example for the leaders that we want, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, I'm not saying we're about to get a Jesus level president here. Okay? Because, listen, we're humans. Yes. I'm not saying that's about to happen.
Speaker 1:Jesus was fully god. But if we're looking for a good leader, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, we shouldn't be looking at narcissists. Salads. Maybe that maybe that's not our best option.
Speaker 2:You know. Maybe we should
Speaker 1:be looking for something more like Jesus.
Speaker 2:Jesus had much better hair. I bet.
Speaker 1:This says, this is the brilliance of Jesus. He was granted relational authority by those around him, but he never attempted to control those in his circle. Those who followed him chose to do so. He had authority, but he did not abuse it. And it goes on to talk about, like, how his love was indiscriminate.
Speaker 1:There's difference between leadership and control. Jesus's love was in service. Like, it goes into all of these things and how this is how churches should pursue leadership. Mhmm. In love, In care.
Speaker 1:In consideration. So moving on. Oh, and this is, I think, a quote that we posted to our social media, but I'm just going to read it real quick, and then we're to move on to chapter four.
Speaker 2:And it says, what if we
Speaker 1:were to stop fighting for the self preservation of the church as an end in itself and instead witness to the kingdom of Jesus by embodying prayer and service among our community. So what if we were to stop fighting for the church?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think there's another quote in there that I really liked that said, like, religion dies at the cross.
Speaker 1:Religion is just religion. Religion doesn't sustain us. No. Jesus sustains us. We don't need religion.
Speaker 1:Religion tends to separate us. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I would say. Jesus brings us together. The cross is what brings us together.
Speaker 1:Our churches can be great. They can be things that bring us together. But at the end of the day, we need Jesus. We can let go of the silly little things, the silly little extra things. So if your church is the goal, if the goal is to hold your church together, your goal sucks.
Speaker 2:We were talking about this earlier. If your church is not building up leaders and sending them out into the to bring Jesus into the far corners of the world, your church is doing it wrong. It should be building up leaders and sending them out. Building up leaders and sending them out. Not let's let's all just stay here in our cozy little church and our cozy little box and we're gonna serve each other.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's wrong. Right. Now, the one thing that I wanna talk about on chapter four, because again, we're running out of time, is this chapter is called Jesus on enemy love, and he talks a lot about Jesus calling us to love our enemies, which is a tough one
Speaker 2:for me, considering that our enemies are, you know
Speaker 1:I think you know exactly who our enemies are, actually. You know? But one of the things in this chapter that I think he talks about really interestingly, and we brought it up a little bit before, is how the Christian church sees enemies as sort of anyone outside of the Christian church. Yeah. Any religion that is not Christianity.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And your specific flavor of Christianity.
Speaker 1:Yes. And frankly, your specific church in Christianity. Yeah. Like, we are all enemies of one another. We are not one great, big, giant church.
Speaker 1:We are tiny, little, individual, separated churches.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:we can't get a lot done like that. Nope. And so he talks a little bit about how he became friends with the leaders of a mosque. And him and his his church became really close with this mosque and the leaders of the mosque, and their churches started doing events together. Their church was invited to things at the mosque.
Speaker 1:The members of the mosque were invited to things To Easter. Yeah, to Easter. They started asking each other great questions. There's a hilarious question here when people came for Easter. It said, we didn't hear anything about the Easter bunny today.
Speaker 1:How does that fit in? Which is hilarious, but also, like, so interesting to think about the things we don't know about each other's religions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And what they don't understand and And what we wouldn't understand.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And how we can come together on those things and understand one another and what community that can build.
Speaker 2:He talks about how their church, the basement flooded. And the members of the mosque came over and helped them. They were the first people to come and help them clean up the situation. Right. Without any expectations.
Speaker 2:It's like, I'm not trying to force my religion down your throat, but I am trying to love you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Just because we've created a community here. And he says there were people in his church that didn't like that and left his church over it. And I would imagine that didn't didn't surprise me in the least. I would imagine that if my church did that, that if any church did that that I can think of, that plenty of people would leave.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That that would be a very controversial choice.
Speaker 2:Because they see people as enemies.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. We shouldn't be enemies with anyone. And yet we have created enemies out of each other. Mhmm. Even of people within our own basic faith.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Like, I can't even imagine, frankly, a church praying for a church down the road in public Not
Speaker 2:often. Not one that they're not acquiring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Yes. You're never hearing a church publicly praise another church. That's not even happening. So imagine something cross religion like that.
Speaker 1:And yet he talks here about what does it look like to have community even with someone that you would consider your enemy, which is so silly. It's so silly to call that your enemy.
Speaker 2:Talks about out to breakfast with the leaders of this mosque and how they were a little bit weirded out at first. He was like, well, can I bring a friend with me so I'm not alone with you? And Steve was like, yeah, I'll bring a friend too. And the leader of the mosque asked, the first question he asked, he's like, do you think I'm going to hell? And Steve sat there and thought for a second, he's like, well according to my tradition, yes.
Speaker 2:And the guy laughed. He was like, that's hilarious. This is the first time someone's been truth ful with me. Like, according to my tradition, you're going to hell too. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I'm glad that we can agree on that. Yeah. Fantastic. Let's move on and have some breakfast. Right.
Speaker 1:Which is, like, such a dark story. I know. But can't we just see people as people? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I think we've said this a million times before, but we forget that the person that you hate the most, Jesus died on the cross for. And I am struggling with
Speaker 1:that right
Speaker 2:now, because I'm thinking of the people that I hate the most. Unfortunately, Jesus died for them.
Speaker 1:Alright. So then the last chapter that we're gonna just, like, speed speed through is on money. Money, money, money, money. So this chapter is called money talks. It's Jesus on possessions and the poor.
Speaker 1:And one of the quotes to start it off, thought was great. It's by Toni Morrison, and it's the function of freedom is to free someone else. Oh. I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought that was really good. One of the quotes early on in the chapter is, in the West, poverty is moralized, or rather, the impoverished are regularly looked down on as immoral. Ouch. Yeah. And it's true.
Speaker 1:And we talked about this a little while ago, about how we assume that you can pull yourself up and fulfill the American dream. And therefore, if you haven't, that you're lazy and you suck. And so we do look often. And I can tell you this even from my own perspective, that I have fallen victim to this, where you look at people who live in poverty, even though I have lived in poverty. You look at those people and you say, You must just be lazy.
Speaker 1:You must just not care. Because if I could do it, then clearly you ought to be able to do it.
Speaker 2:You probably see that person on the corner of the street their sign and your eyes just glaze over and you move on past and you expect the worst of Right.
Speaker 1:But Steve calls this a myth. He calls the American dream a myth. Because again, it depends on where you started. Now there is the occasional person that can get past that, but it's few and far between.
Speaker 2:He said statistically, look at the average income of the zip code that you were born into. That's probably more than likely where you're gonna Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep. So I'm gonna read this big section because or as part of this big section because I think it's I think it's important. He says all of these issues are intertwined, and almost all of them are because of poverty. If people don't have enough money, they can't donate enough to sustain a church. If people don't have enough money, they can't shop at a large supermarket.
Speaker 1:Likewise, they can't afford fresh produce, so must live on processed foods. Over time, a diet made up of primarily processed foods leads to health issues. Most doctor's offices are in a nicer part of town where they might have more earning power and where crime will be less of a concern. Because the adults don't make much money, they can't raise more money for their neighborhood school, can't donate extra school supplies, and often aren't at home to help with homework. Instead, they're working a second job to try to make ends meet.
Speaker 1:Without robust parent involvement, discipline issues at school skyrocket, absences mount, and homework goes undone. As a result, the schools struggle or fail. So that goes on to just talk about how poverty perpetuates. How we, as we sit here in our middle class situation, want to think that it's people's faults Mhmm. That they're in the situations that they are in.
Speaker 1:But how poverty is malignant. How it attacks the people that live within it, and it doesn't let them go. You don't think about that. You don't think about, like, they don't have
Speaker 2:the opportunity to have churches with youth programs and all of the the good that goes around with having a church in your area. Because it literally, financially cannot be supported in that area. But also you have schools. Like we think about our school that we went to had a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 1:A lot of extracurricular programs and AP classes. Yeah, schools in more impoverished areas don't have that. And have teachers that are underpaid and overworked that are struggling. And so then their students are struggling. And their students don't have parents that are able to support them because they are working multiple jobs.
Speaker 1:And it's a hard system. It's not a system that no one can get out of, but it's a system that's a lot harder to get out of.
Speaker 2:And it sucks. Mhmm. I heard That's not the American dream.
Speaker 1:No. Sorry. I heard an example one time of a teacher that had all of their students from, like, the front row to the back row. Think of, like, students sitting at their desks. And the teacher had a garbage can up in the front, and they had all the students ball up pieces of paper and try and throw them into the garbage can.
Speaker 1:And obviously, the kids in the front row really easily, almost all of them got it in there. Not every single one,
Speaker 2:but almost all of them got it in there.
Speaker 1:The kids in the second row, most of them got it in there. Not all of them. Whatever. The kids in the back row, some of them got it in, but most of them didn't. And the kids in the back row are complaining.
Speaker 1:They're like, Well, clearly that wasn't fair. And the teacher said, This is privilege.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:The kids in the front have all the opportunity. They won't all succeed, but most of them will. The kids in the back aren't guaranteed to fail, but they have a lot harder of a time succeeding. That's privilege.
Speaker 2:We said this last time, where you sit determines what you see. Yes. If you're not going into those, putting yourself into those situations where you see what's going on, where you see that you have a lot of privilege, you're blind to it. You need to open up your eyes and help your community because you have the ability to.
Speaker 1:Steve says, after all, the kingdom vision is one of flourishing of life. Those in the kingdom do not have the luxury of not caring about those in need, for they are too busy answering the question, and who is my neighbor? We so often ask that and the people in the Bible asked Jesus that. Who is my neighbor? Because Jesus said, you're supposed to care for your neighbor, right?
Speaker 1:Right. Well, who's my neighbor, Jesus? Who's my neighbor? And we're so obsessed with still, still we're asking that. Well, who's my neighbor?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Our vice president made a statement saying that there was a biblical concept of taking care of your community first and your country. And then if there was anything left over, you could care for the people outside of your country. And I don't know where precisely he got that, but I don't think it was in there. I'm pretty sure it's not in the bible.
Speaker 1:I'm quite positive, in fact. But again, we're obsessed with asking who our neighbor is. Mhmm. Who is our neighbor, Jesus?
Speaker 2:When Jesus very clearly was like, everyone. Everyone you come into contact with and even the people that you don't are your neighbor. Because if you're me, I avoid the neighbors.
Speaker 1:Stop asking who your neighbor is. Mhmm. Stop asking. God's gonna hit you with a stick
Speaker 2:until you figure it out.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter. Semantics don't matter. You can't trick Jesus. Well, Jesus, he doesn't live around the corner from me. He lives two countries over, therefore he's not my neighbor.
Speaker 1:No! No! Whoever Jesus puts in your path is your neighbor, and you should fight for them. You should fight for their rights to be equal to yours. Or better.
Speaker 1:Or better. Politically, socially, economically. These are your neighbors.
Speaker 2:Because that's bringing heaven to earth. Yes. And that's the goal. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Alright, so I think we've sufficiently hit you over the head this week. With a stick. Yes. That was a pretty overviewy thing of the first five chapters. Again, I would recommend getting it.
Speaker 1:Next week, we're gonna go into a couple of chapters that I think are actually a little bit more controversial. I I mean, we were pretty controversial today. But our more controversial, I would
Speaker 2:say to me personally, I don't think it's controversial to say, be a better person.
Speaker 1:You know, you you would think. You would think. Next week, we will likely be talking a little bit about getting to see our very best friend Yeah. In real life.
Speaker 2:Excited. So
Speaker 1:prepare yourselves for just a lot of gushing, and we may weep. You never know.
Speaker 2:I most likely will.
Speaker 1:I'm a weeper. She really is. So prepare yourself for that. And then in two weeks, we will finish out this book, and you can look forward to that. If you would like to follow along with us, you can get this book, I think, on Amazon.
Speaker 1:Well, definitely on Amazon. You can also get it on If you
Speaker 2:don't wanna support Amazon. If you don't
Speaker 1:wanna support Amazon. Yep. You can get it at Baker Book House. That's where I got it. And, yeah, follow along, read with us, and maybe review it on Goodreads because, apparently that's that's the place to do it.
Speaker 2:Who knew? Who knew? Alright. This is
Speaker 1:a very long episode. Thank you for following us along this journey.
Speaker 2:Be better. Be a good person.
Speaker 1:And what is how does mister Rogers end things?
Speaker 2:Well, you be my neighbor.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Well, yeah. But but but he closes out in a good way. Don't be dumb or I'll hit you with a stick.
Speaker 2:That can't be it. Where's my sweater? Why are there puppets around me?
Speaker 1:There's not puppets. It's mister Rogers.
Speaker 2:I'm mister Rogers. That's probably how we ended that show. Mister Rogers.
Speaker 1:Girl, I didn't even know. He sang a song. Alright. Well, I'm glad we I don't know. Alright.
Speaker 2:This is
Speaker 1:the longest episode we've ever recorded.
Speaker 2:Goodbye. Hate you. Love
Speaker 1:you. Bye.