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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.
Welcome to the We Are More podcast. My name is Alyssa.
Speaker 2:And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about
Speaker 1:all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word, and apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
Speaker 2:Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary.
Speaker 2:Happy anniversary. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. Do you remember that? No. Oh, it's from the Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a throwback. Did anyone watch that? I did. And I could quote several other things from it. Frankly, I don't think we should
Speaker 1:have been allowed to watch that. They drug people to hell in that. There was the Haunted Mansion. And it was back
Speaker 2:in the day. Back in the day, kids were tougher. We didn't care if they were being drugged to hell.
Speaker 1:That haunted me, actually.
Speaker 2:We weren't allowed to watch that part. Yeah. But we
Speaker 1:did, though. Yeah. We did. Sorry, mom. We haven't said sorry, mom, in a minute.
Speaker 2:I haven't been feeling very sorry, mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We were supposed to I remember being told, like, close your eyes for this part. And, of course, you either don't, or you, you know, like, put your hand over your eyes and then you peek a little bit between your fingers.
Speaker 2:Except that really scarred me for that one episode of Little House on the Prairie where Mary's daughter burns to death. I was scarred forever. I'm still scarred. Wow.
Speaker 1:This took a much darker turn somehow.
Speaker 2:We're talking about dragging people to hell and burning up. Wow.
Speaker 1:Back to happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Hey.
Speaker 2:Question for you. Mhmm. Did you leave your keys in a mausoleum? Sound in Dixie.
Speaker 1:Anyone who hasn't seen that movie, which
Speaker 2:has gotta be most of our listener base, has no idea what you're talking about. Listen. I'm gonna publish a book called Alyssa and Brianna isms or Brian and Alastair isms, and you guys can purchase it, or I'll give it out for free. And then you can it's like an encyclopedia, and you can look things up.
Speaker 1:That would be helpful as they relisten to all of as they binge backward. I highly encourage that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That sounds great for you.
Speaker 1:For our anniversary, they'll re binge all of our episodes.
Speaker 2:To celebrate our anniversary, you all should go back and listen to 50 something episodes of us ranting and raving about who knows what.
Speaker 1:We're actually not quite 50 episodes. I wanna say this is episode, like, 47. So close. But just so you in case you missed our social media post, last week was our one year anniversary of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Hooray huzzah. Yay for us.
Speaker 1:So we have been at this for an entire year.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That
Speaker 1:was quite some time.
Speaker 2:We've been putting in the work, and sometimes not.
Speaker 1:We're putting in a lot of the laughs. Yeah. We're gonna have a great time. Mhmm. I feel like there's a part of me that wants to go back and listen to some of the episodes, and so we can, like, do some sort of reflection episode and be, like, I don't know, nostalgic about, oh, and remember when we talked about that?
Speaker 1:Like a montage. Yeah. Except that I have listened to some of our past episodes. Like, I went back and tried to listen to our first episode, and it's a bad time.
Speaker 2:We were awkward, and the audio quality is weird, and but now I just don't care. Me and this microphone, we're best friends now, even though it's broken.
Speaker 1:It is broken. We get some new mics. We were supposed to get each other new mics for Christmas.
Speaker 2:We turned out just getting each other nothing. We did a good job. Yeah. I mean, we do a lot of things together, though, and mostly, they involve cheese.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I feel like we are constantly giving each other gifts. Just my very presents. Yes. A gift.
Speaker 1:The gift of Brie. You're welcome. Both cheese and egg Her presents. And myself. Actually, next week, we are sort of sort of gifting each other things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Next week, we're going to see we're going to see our best friend, Beth.
Speaker 2:Beth. Beth. Beth. Beth. You're so amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, now they're gonna now they're not they're not gonna let us in.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna actually, I'm thinking about making shirts. Can you imagine? Just, like, a bunch of different pictures of Beth that I found off of, like, Google images. Images of, like, us and Beth. We can, like, Photoshop them together.
Speaker 2:And yeah. Oh, they're really not gonna let us in?
Speaker 1:We're gonna get there. They're only gonna have pictures of us. They're gonna say no.
Speaker 2:No. Do not let these two enter. Go back. Turn around. You are not welcome here.
Speaker 2:No. You cannot pass go. You cannot collect $200.
Speaker 1:But if they do let us in, we're very excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we're gonna go see our best friend, Beth. Did we talk about it on the last episode?
Speaker 1:We talked about her new book. So we have been able to be on a launch team for Beth's new book,
Speaker 2:Becoming the Pastor's Wife.
Speaker 1:Yes. And she is currently doing kind of like the press tour for it. Mhmm. So she is coming not to our city, but to a city close enough that we thought A city near you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That we thought it was worth the travel time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we are headed that way to
Speaker 1:go see her and hear her talk about it. We're so excited. And, yeah, just getting to interact with this book has been really exciting. Yeah. And I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's just I'm so excited for it. Obviously, her first book is just our favorite thing on
Speaker 2:the planet. And this one's another banger.
Speaker 1:Which is often said about Christian feminist content.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. I'm gonna tell it to her. I'm gonna say, Beth, listen, baby. Your book, another banger.
Speaker 1:And then once again, security is gonna escort us out. We made it through the door, but then they're gonna say, no. Thank you. Yeah. Well, we did our best.
Speaker 2:We did our best, and that's all you can do.
Speaker 1:That's all you can do.
Speaker 2:Speaking of our anniversary, I just want I do I don't wanna go back and listen to myself at all, but there is one quote that stands out. Oh, dear. And I think we should maybe consider putting it on a shirt.
Speaker 1:We say this all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're all part of the body of Christ. Just that some people are
Speaker 1:the butt.
Speaker 2:Is that the quote?
Speaker 1:I think that's his quote. I like how you said it so profoundly, and then you have no idea what what you've actually said. But, hey, guys. If you have favorite quotes from us and you wanna share them
Speaker 2:with us, send them to us on Instagram, post them to our TikTok. Yes.
Speaker 1:We would love to see them because, frankly, we forget how funny we are.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say, I probably forgot that I said it. So
Speaker 1:and I don't wanna go back and listen to 47 episodes because I spend all day with myself every day, and I don't need to spend additional time with myself or Bree because I spend a lot of time with her team.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And like we said, we've morphed into one person. Yeah. And for heaven's sakes, that's too much.
Speaker 1:It's too much.
Speaker 2:And I
Speaker 1:think everybody in our lives would agree. Yeah. Actually, one of our aunts told our mom one time. She was like, you know, all of our daughters are close, but your daughters are, like, one person. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I don't think anything has ever defined us more. Yeah. It's true. It's true.
Speaker 2:They also always say, like, you know, Brianna, when you were a little girl, I thought, wow. That is just the craziest little girl, but she's gonna grow out of it soon. And I didn't. You didn't.
Speaker 1:And then you influenced me, and I don't know what happened
Speaker 2:to you. I disagree. I think you have always been dormant crazy, and you instigated me all the time.
Speaker 1:That is not it. And now
Speaker 2:finally, look at your hair. You've let it out. I have yet
Speaker 1:to post the hair on the Internet, so they don't know. For all they know, I lied last week, and it's still blonde.
Speaker 2:She's a known liar, actually. That is true.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, onto our main topic for the week. We promised you guys a very controversial episode. Hey, yo. But we did wanna talk about our anniversary for a while because we're frankly very proud of it.
Speaker 2:And it's our podcast, not yours.
Speaker 1:Another quote. Although we did steal that one, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah. From two drag queens.
Speaker 1:But this week, we're talking a little bit about we're gonna kinda introduce the topic more because as we read through this book, it is, I don't know, just it's just something that's gonna take us longer than one week to get through.
Speaker 2:More than the devotional for boys. Definitely more than that. That episode, dumpster garbage.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We did our very best. There's just only so much you can do in a devotional for preteen boys.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's all we have to say on that topic. And moving on.
Speaker 1:So this book, if you missed last week or need a recap, it's called Your Jesus is Too American, and it's by Steve Besner, and the forward is by Beth Moore.
Speaker 2:A different Beth. Yes. A different Beth.
Speaker 1:But another good friend nonetheless. Beth Moore is not someone that I would really have, like,
Speaker 2:claimed before. No. I mean, I think if you're in the Christian circle, you are well aware of Beth Moore because she's always like, oh, the ladies bible study is doing a study with Beth Moore. Forever. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Always. A a ladies' brunch with Beth Moore. Like, Beth Moore is all up in the ladies' business No. Of the church. Is she?
Speaker 2:And she's always said that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. She's she is the women's ministry queen.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And she does all all of the, like, women's conferences and whatever. So she is Southern Baptist, or she was Southern Baptist. She's no longer. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which, Same as Beth Allison Barr. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And, actually, Beth Allison Barr, interestingly, did a little blurb in the front of this book, which I didn't realize until I was reading through it, but she is also one of, like, the recommended or the she wrote a little recommendation at the front of the book. But Beth Moore wrote the foreword. So we're gonna talk through that, and we're gonna talk through the first couple of chapters today. And then we'll dig in deeper next week and maybe even the next week depending on how motivated we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. How motivated we are. And and isn't that a relatable statement, ladies and germs? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Before we talk about what Beth says in this book, I feel like it's important now, again, she is not the main author. She just writes the foreword. Mhmm. But I think it's important to talk a little bit about her background if you're not familiar with her. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because of what this book is about, because of what we talk about all the time Mhmm. And because of I don't know. I like, I I was not a Beth Moore fan No. For the longest time because she's, like, she's the ladies ministry queen. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now it's not that she was not super smart. Mhmm. Like, I
Speaker 2:don't know. Any of
Speaker 1:her bible studies, clearly an incredibly intelligent woman
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Did her research, knew her stuff, but everything was geared towards women. She was very vocal about not wanting women to preach, which is the stance of the Southern Baptist organization. Right. Yes. And she was firmly behind the Southern Baptist church.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's why that she was kind of like a, I don't wanna say a controversial figure to them, but she kinda was.
Speaker 2:She told the line there because what would you define as preaching and teaching? Right. You know? She was kind of like a, think Joyce Meyer, Sadie Robertson. You know, she didn't have her own church.
Speaker 2:She wasn't a pastor, but she's pastoring to people. Right. Large, huge crowds of people, not just in the I was gonna say the stadium, but kind of, But also through her books and all of the other stuff that she she had a ministry. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And in a way, that is teaching and preaching, but at the same time, on the back end of things, she's preaching that women shouldn't be preaching. Yeah. So there's, like, this the Southern Baptist Church is, like, kind of okay with her, but kind of not okay. Like, it's, you know, it's back and forth.
Speaker 2:Women shouldn't preach. Wink wink.
Speaker 1:But she's making them a bunch of money also.
Speaker 2:So they're okay with that. Right. It's kind of like Taylor Swift and the the the the football the NFL. The NFL, they don't necessarily wanna claim her, but she's bringing in a ton of money Right.
Speaker 1:For them. So Right. So we read an article about Beth Moore. And if you're not familiar with the story of her, she kind of recently fell out of favor with the Southern Baptist Church, but the Christian church as a whole. She fell from grace?
Speaker 1:Yeah. She got canceled. Like, if if you're gonna use the modern day term, she got canceled definitely by the Southern Baptist Church, and I would say by the conservative Christian church as a whole.
Speaker 2:Because they said she was too woke.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I hate that term.
Speaker 2:Did you send me something about it? I may have. It was like people don't like the term woke because, really, what it just means is, like, being empathetic Yeah. Towards other people other than yourself. How dare you?
Speaker 2:How dare you.
Speaker 1:So Beth Moore has been a very staunch advocate for abuse victims. Mhmm. And that's in amongst all of her other teaching, her authorship, all of it. That's been an undercurrent.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It wasn't new. It's always been there.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:when Trump ran in his first
Speaker 2:presidential election When Trump ran the first time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:When he ran the first time. She started speaking out against him through the election and, I believe, his presidency the first time. She didn't appreciate how he treated women. She was very vocal about abuse claims against him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And she didn't back down. She was told to back down. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Because for some reason, the Christian community has claimed a certain person, I would say, maybe even over god. Yeah. Yeah. In in in a lot of ways, they associate that one specific person, any Republican leader Mhmm. They think,
Speaker 1:I
Speaker 2:don't know the best way to say this, but, like, on equal level with God. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And can do no wrong.
Speaker 2:And you can't question it because that's the stance of the church. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker 1:But she did. Mhmm. She had the courage and the backbone to stand up against the people that were her community Mhmm. That she was going to dinner with in the evenings, you know, that, like, were her
Speaker 2:people. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You guys know what I'm talking about. Like, you're think the people that you surround yourself with, the people that are your community. She was standing against them.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I know what the pain of that feels like, to stand against the people that you care about, not to this extent. No. But I know some of what that pain feels like. I'm sure a lot of you do too. And she publicly did that.
Speaker 1:And when she did, they turned on her. Mhmm. They turned on her in a huge way, and they canceled her. That's what happened. That's her story.
Speaker 1:And Bree has Bree said that I've been using the word tragic a lot. Because you have.
Speaker 2:Just tragic. Even the way you say it, it's it's tragic.
Speaker 1:But that's to me, that defines
Speaker 2:the story as it's tragic. It's
Speaker 1:it is a tragedy what happened to her. And someone told me recently that you shouldn't look at this story as tragic because she she overcame it. She moved past it. She was strong, and she has. She has now is her platform as big as it once was?
Speaker 1:No. Because she no longer has the backing of the Southern Baptist Church. She has left the Southern Baptist Church. But she has absolutely overcome it. She has done her best to move forward.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean the tragedy doesn't remain. Mhmm. The story is still a tragedy, and you can hold both of those things in your hands at the same time. And anyone who's lived through tragedy, particularly women living through right now
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Particularly any marginalized people living through right now, you can hold two things in your hand. You can hold tragedy, and you can hold strength, and they can both be your story.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Melissa and I were talking about this in the car today. I said that I had seen a TikTok that said, they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but what doesn't kill you also traumatized you. Mhmm. And it's okay to say I was traumatized by this, and that is not okay.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:However, I have grown. I've I've grown through it. But it's important to understand that what happened to you is not okay. Mhmm. And we need to, as a people, speak out against that Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And not just sweep it under the rug Right. And pretend that things didn't happen because we are uncomfortable with the topic. Because the more that we sweep those things under the rug, the more those things keep happening. Right.
Speaker 1:And I think it's important to say part of my story, part of her story is trauma, is tragedy. It's okay to say that. It's okay to hold that thing into the light and say for the rest of time, my story has trauma and tragedy.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:My story has strength, but it has trauma and tragedy.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I think it's a really great way to not great way, but it's an important way to relate to people too because then they don't feel so alone. Yes. When you speak up about the things that you've gone through and you realize that I'm not the only person in the room who has this question or has gone through this, it makes you feel less alone. And community is so important.
Speaker 2:It builds you up. It makes you feel not alone. You know? You need it. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Which I think is a beautiful part of why her writing this forward Mhmm.
Speaker 2:She was
Speaker 1:a perfect person.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. Of all
Speaker 1:of the options to have someone write the forward for a book called your Jesus is too American, Beth Moore was just chef's kiss. Like, she was the person she was the person you wanted to write it. So I'm gonna read some of the quotes I highlighted most
Speaker 2:of the book. I highlighted many a thing. Alyssa and I were listening to this on audiobook and then have the physical copy. Mhmm. Alyssa had the physical copy in front of her.
Speaker 2:I think she ran through, like, seven highlighters. Like, the whole thing is highlighted.
Speaker 1:I did. I highlighted many a thing. But particularly in Beth's section and it's only, like, two and a half pages, something like that. But I just think she she made some good points. And part of what stood out to me was her tragedy.
Speaker 1:Part of it was she says right here, she's talking about she came upon Steve Besner, who is the author of this book. He is a pastor. He's a Baptist pastor. And we'll go into his story. Well, we'll go into a little bit about him in a second.
Speaker 1:But she wasn't familiar with him, and she's like, I don't know how I'd I never was familiar with him because, obviously, she's in the Baptist world. Mhmm. But she said so she's talking about that time in her life. And she says right about then, and for the first time in my life, I was suffering from an excruciatingly low estimation of evangelical preachers. The thing about typecasting is that it's not only sinful, it's also lazy.
Speaker 1:It's easier to dismiss a whole group and say they're all a bunch of whatevers than develop actual discernment. So she's talking about this time in her life. Mhmm. And she was beaten to the ground by evangelical preachers
Speaker 2:because of something very reasonable that she believed Right. And stood up for. Right.
Speaker 1:And now she's looking back and saying, here's someone that I should have looked at differently. Mhmm. But it just show it just goes to show what abuse does to you. Mhmm. It does make you look at things in this blanket approach of, like, well, everyone hurt me, so I'm gonna I'm gonna hurt back.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And it just that just kind of showed me how how hurt her story was, you know, how painful her story was. And I think it's important to hear someone's words about their own story. Mhmm. This is a great pub too.
Speaker 1:If you're able to get it before next week, you can kinda read along with us. That would be fun. So here at the kind of towards the end of her intro, she's talking about the topic of the book, which is that the American church has settled itself very comfortably in the Republican political sphere. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you guys uncomfortable yet?
Speaker 1:And she's talking about how and she's, again, just introducing the book. Okay? Like, this the book is gonna go we're gonna delve deep in a minute. But she's just introducing, and here's some of the quotes that she gives. She says, but in our most rational moments, don't we know somewhere down deep that where we sit determines what we see?
Speaker 1:That's why this book is worth our while. It camps us at the feet of Jesus where he's all we can see until our vision improves enough to view others as God's image bearers rather than trees walking, is what she says, which just comes from Mark eight twenty eight. And then she says, Christ loves the church. He's doing us good. He has illuminated our disillusionment in recent years.
Speaker 1:So that in his light, we see light. He is allowing our idols to come crashing down one after another and our corrupt systems to fail us Mhmm. So that we'll finally get too weary to rebuild them. By all means, let us throw up our hands in frustrated, freeing surrender, for only Jesus saves.
Speaker 2:Hallelujah.
Speaker 1:I think that final quote is, I mean, there's several several here. Let's start with the first one actually because Brie shouted yes the first time she read it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:It says, but in our most rational moments, don't we know that somewhere down deep that where we sit determines what we see.
Speaker 2:I think we've talked about this a couple of times. It's very easy to surround yourself with the familiar. Mhmm. To surround yourself if you're, you know, in the Christian circle with other Christians.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You go to your church. You go to your school that's your church. Maybe you work at the church. You're surrounded by like minded thinkers all the time. But is that what Jesus did?
Speaker 2:Right. Jesus surrounded himself with tax collectors and prostitutes and all the people that traditionally are Christian people would look at and be like, what the heck? Mhmm. Jesus went against the grain. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:He went against the norm of the church of the time. Mhmm. Shouldn't we do the same?
Speaker 1:Well, you you constantly hear Christians saying things like, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, things like that, where you'll say, don't surround yourself with people who will drag you down. So they're constantly saying the opposite of what Jesus did. Mhmm. They're constantly saying, don't go around people Mhmm. Who may think differently, who may be different, who may do something you don't like.
Speaker 2:I think that was in the book from that that woman that we hated. What was her name? Who'd we hate? Jen Jen Jen that let's talk. Denee.
Speaker 2:Denee Dobson. In that book, girlfriends talk about God's guys and garbage. She said that, like, don't surround yourself Yes. With people who are not Christian.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It's out there all the time, and you may you may not think that people are saying that, but they are. And they're teaching it to young kids. They're saying, don't surround yourself with unchristian people.
Speaker 1:And even if they're not saying it directly, which clearly they're saying it directly Yeah. They're implying it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They're implying it. Don't surround yourself with anything else. Look at our government. Mhmm. Don't surround yourself with anything less than Christianity.
Speaker 1:Everyone has to be Christians. Right? The whole government has to be full of Christians. Right? It doesn't matter if they actually are, they just have
Speaker 2:to say it. Now, again, like, you can say things all you want, and I do not believe that your faith is based on actions, but actions speak very loudly. Mhmm. And I think Beth was calling some people out when she said actions speak very loudly.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. I think the point she's making right here, where we sit determines what we see. Where I sit as a woman changes what I see as opposed to where a man sits. Mhmm. Because the life I'm living, the experiences that I have, the opportunities that I have are different.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Now you can pretend that they're not. There are certainly people that are gonna tell you that my opportunities are exactly the same as a man, but they're not.
Speaker 2:They're not. And I'm also being a white woman. Mhmm. Our experiences are very different.
Speaker 1:Very different.
Speaker 2:Women of color.
Speaker 1:Yes. There are vastly different experiences depending on where you sit, depending on your age, depending on your race, depending on a million different things. And we have to recognize that. We have to recognize our own blind spots.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I have to be able to sit here and look at my neighbor and say, I don't know what you know, and use empathy. Yeah. Just as a me person. And if I have to do that, because what I don't know impacts my kids, impacts my community, impacts whatever. So I have to use empathy.
Speaker 1:So, therefore, my government needs to use empathy. Mhmm. Because what they don't know impacts a much broader audience. Oh, yeah. Their blind spots are much bigger blind spots.
Speaker 1:And yet, what are we seeing when we look at our government? Because what I'm seeing is a very monochromatic, singular sex organization. We're getting real controversial here, guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Woo hoo. Getting
Speaker 2:spicy. But not like Not like the books. Not like the books.
Speaker 1:Not like the books. It's a different kind of spicy. I just I don't know how we're not seeing it.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I don't know how we're defending it at this point. I really truly don't. As Christian people, how are we defending these actions and these choices?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:When our greatest calling is to love one another, and all I'm seeing around me is hate, supporting hate.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:If I was not already a Christian, I don't think that I would be necessarily drawn to Christianity at this point in my life.
Speaker 1:What I see and we've talked about as we deconstruct our faith and and what's at the core of it. What's at the core of it is Jesus' love. Right? It's woven all throughout the new testament. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now I can't say that about the old testament. The old testament confuses me and many and many. But Jesus's love is woven throughout. It's everywhere. Tallmarks are everywhere.
Speaker 1:His handprints are on everything. Right? Mhmm. But they're not on the modern day Christian church.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:His handprints aren't there very often. And you're right. If I was if I wasn't born into Christianity, if I wasn't someone who had been raised in all of this and someone who had that background of knowing who Jesus is, who he is at his core, who he's supposed to be, who the Bible says he is, and all I saw was the church who has very few hallmarks of him.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I
Speaker 1:wouldn't want that.
Speaker 2:No. The issue is that the people who are talking the loudest don't resemble god's love.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It's not that it's not out there. There are groups of people absolutely demonstrating God's outrageous otherworldly love, which is not that loud yet. Right. We need to get a little bit louder. Like in the last episode, how we talked about your bodies being a temple, but not necessarily the way that we have made it out to be.
Speaker 2:We need to be God's love represented through everything that we do. Right. And we need to scream it. And right now, we're not screaming it. I don't think we're angry enough with the righteous anger.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why and I feel like I've said this before, but people have told me before, well, you can have the opinions you wanna have, but you don't have to make everybody else have the same opinion you have. Can't you be a little quieter about it? But the thing is, if I walk away from all of this garbage quietly, then I am complicit in it. Mhmm. I am letting everyone else live in the squalor, live in the abuse.
Speaker 1:I am letting them spread this garbage. Mhmm. So I'm gonna walk away screaming at the top of my lungs Mhmm. That this is injustice, that this is crap, that this is not what Jesus would have wanted Mhmm. That Jesus is up there screaming at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And I think what Beth is saying in this quote, like, really look at Jesus. Mhmm. Focus your eyes on Jesus.
Speaker 2:Look back through the new testament. See how he was living his life, how he was treating people, and just mimic that. Mhmm. Mimic what he's doing. We're not doing that right now.
Speaker 1:In
Speaker 2:the book that I just recently read, which has nothing to do with faith or feminism, it was the second book of the Olivia At Water Regency fairy tale series. Mhmm. But she talks a lot about anger, and she always thought she was post that the main character was supposed to suppress her anger because anger is wrong. Mhmm. But the she was told, like, no.
Speaker 2:No. No. Anger like, you were born with that emotion. Yeah. Anger is okay.
Speaker 2:It's righteous anger,
Speaker 1:you
Speaker 2:know, for justice and truth, and you should have that anger in you, and that's okay. Yeah. You know, rage wanting to, like, murder and kill people, maybe not so good. I get pretty ragey. But get some righteous anger.
Speaker 2:You know, I think
Speaker 1:I actually relate to that a lot. I feel like as particularly Christian women now I don't know about Christian men because I'm not a man. I'm not a man. But particularly for Christian women, I feel like we are raised to be kind of docile, like Mhmm. Quite and common, you know, cooking.
Speaker 1:And anger is kind of, like, treated as a sinful emotion for us in particular.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You don't need to get angry. There's no reason for you to ever be angry.
Speaker 2:Because men are supposed to be the angry ones. Right. That's the one emotion that they're allowed.
Speaker 1:It's a masculine emotion. It's not a feminine emotion, Bria. What are you thinking? But Jesus got angry all the time. And if we're following the example of Jesus Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Jesus was angry.
Speaker 2:He had righteous anger. He flipped some tables. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Girl, preach. And frankly, let's look at the women of the bible. Mhmm. Let's look at our examples of women in the bible. Let's look at Jael.
Speaker 2:She be tent pagan. She did some damage. Now remember how I said murder was wrong? Now, again,
Speaker 1:I have concerns about jail. Okay.
Speaker 2:I think she needed therapy.
Speaker 1:I have serious concerns. Maybe some padded walls. Yeah. But she's in she's in the bible. Okay?
Speaker 2:For a reason. I want
Speaker 1:to have a chat with her when I get to heaven, but she's in there, and no one can argue with me that that wasn't an angry emotion. Okay? And then you look at Deborah. You can't tell me she walked into battle without an angry emotion in her body. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I don't think you can walk into battle and be, like, calm.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You know, complacent. Mhmm. Zen. No. You gotta have a little bit of anger in you.
Speaker 1:You look at Esther and her story. There's anger there. Look. There's a million stories
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Where there's anger in women.
Speaker 2:Be angry. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Fight for yourself. Fight for your sisters that are out there being abused by this system that we're living through. Mhmm. And we know a lot of our listeners are not necessarily in The US, but I'm sure you're seeing what's going on in our world right now. And
Speaker 2:Aren't you jealous? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And, you know, maybe I don't have as much knowledge of global politics as perhaps I should, so maybe there's other things going on in the world that I'm not aware of. So maybe this you're feeling these kinds of pressures too.
Speaker 2:We should move to Iceland. Hey. Almost, you know, everybody in power there is a woman. You know, maybe it's more peaceful.
Speaker 1:But the other quote now I also wanna talk about the first chapter or two where Steve starts talking. Steve. But the last quote I do wanna talk about from Beth, she's talking about Jesus talking here. And she says, he is allowing our idols to come crashing down one after another and our corrupt systems to fail us so that we'll finally get too weary to rebuild them. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Christian people, maybe, just maybe, hear me out here. Have we put someone in a position of an idol in our lives?
Speaker 1:Have you seen that picture? Now this is I'm not saying that this is like a endorsed image or anything. But have you seen the picture where they made the president into, like, a golden statue?
Speaker 2:I think I have. Yep.
Speaker 1:So I saw a TikTok, and it's this girl, and she was raised very, very Catholic. And she's now an atheist, But she, like, went through catechism, so she's she's got all the religious background. Right? Mhmm. And she goes, so Christian people, look.
Speaker 1:I don't subscribe to your God or anything, but, she seems kinda jealous. And, honestly, like, this has happened before. Do you not remember this? Like, maybe we shouldn't.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And in the bible, what were they doing? What did they do when Moses comes down Moses comes down with the 10 commandments?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And the people have been waiting for the 10 commandments. Right? And they got restless.
Speaker 2:They wanted something to worship.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And they didn't know what
Speaker 2:to do. And God was being quiet with them. Yeah. And they're frustrated. And so they went back to their roots, what they're familiar with.
Speaker 1:So they made themselves an idol. They made themselves a golden calf. A golden calf. And did god like that one? Let me just ask that real quick question.
Speaker 1:Did god
Speaker 2:like that? I think they got smoked. I think they did.
Speaker 1:They had to drink the golden calf. In fact, they had to melt it down, and they had to drink it. Hey. Guess what? I have biblical knowledge, guys.
Speaker 1:Shut up, please.
Speaker 2:You should see her face right now.
Speaker 1:I went to bible college.
Speaker 2:I did, but I didn't do
Speaker 1:a good job. No. But, really, throughout the Bible, we see the Israelites, and, man, do Christians like to criticize the Israelites. We see them time and again forget. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Forget that God
Speaker 2:parted the Red Seas for them. Mhmm. Gave them food to fall from the sky like spaghetti and meatballs. Like, they just forget the miracles that
Speaker 1:they experienced, and you want to shake their heads and just say, are you kidding me? My brain just went to cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
Speaker 2:That's what I was referencing.
Speaker 1:And then I just everything went out. But we forget that they weren't supposed to go after political power. Now they did. They're they asked for a king. Right?
Speaker 1:We remember the story of Saul. The Israelite people demanded a king. Mhmm. And that went really well for them.
Speaker 2:What are we doing?
Speaker 1:There are times where they go after political power, but god doesn't tell them to do it. And then you look at the church after Jesus leaves, and they don't go after political power. Jesus doesn't tell them to go after political power.
Speaker 2:Because why do we need to
Speaker 1:go after political power if really what we're after is people's hearts? Right. Now I would guess that the argument is gonna be like, well, they couldn't have possibly gone after Roman power. It was too big. They would have died.
Speaker 1:They would have whatever. But Jesus had all the knowledge that could have
Speaker 2:ever existed. Right? If Fully god, fully man.
Speaker 1:Right. If Jesus wanted them to take over the Roman Empire, eventually, he would have said, hey. In a thousand years, I want you guys to go after the government, and I want you to take over, and that's how I want you to influence the world. He could have said that. And frankly, that's what some people were waiting for.
Speaker 1:They were waiting for the son of God who was gonna come back and take over the government.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They were waiting for the son of God who was going to be a military leader. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But the son of God wasn't that.
Speaker 2:He was a Birkenstock wearing bowler.
Speaker 1:The son of god was the one that came and went after people's hearts Mhmm. Who didn't seek political power. And the church that he built stands to this day. And doesn't seek political power. They don't seek to be the ruling class.
Speaker 1:They don't seek to force their ideals down other people's throats because that is not how you change people's hearts.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:No one is coming to God because you tell them they have to. Look around the world. Where is that working out for people?
Speaker 2:You know? We kinda we ditched England for that reason. Mhmm. Right? We said, see you, bye.
Speaker 2:There are many musical about it. Yes. Many. Lin Manuel Miranda.
Speaker 1:Alright. So I wanted to talk about chapter one of this book as we've as we've gone on many attempts. I don't know if you can tell, but we're a little bit passionate about this particular topic as we alienate several a person.
Speaker 2:I said in the last episode, we're losing some viewership. And quite frankly, I don't give a dang.
Speaker 1:Oh, I gotta I just gotta highlight this real quick. I didn't read this bit, but Beth Moore, bless her little soul. What the
Speaker 2:fuck? Good old BM.
Speaker 1:One of the quotes that she says. She uses the phrase heck bent on saving you from yourself,
Speaker 2:and I just you know? What a sweet little southern lady. Heck bent. Heck bent. Oh, h e double heck.
Speaker 1:Moving on. So this is chapter one, and this is actually Steve talking. Now I wanna preface the rest of this book by saying Steve is
Speaker 2:a Baptist
Speaker 1:pastor, and I would say that he is probably more conservative than Brie and I are.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously. We suck at being conservative.
Speaker 1:We're not trying. We're not trying. We're not trying.
Speaker 2:If Jesus wasn't a Republican or a Democrat, neither shall I be. There we go. I have a
Speaker 1:lot of respect for what he is saying in this book. I think what he is saying is incredibly important. I don't think we're gonna agree with every single thing he says in this book. Probably not.
Speaker 2:I don't agree a % with any man. And that's that. Well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:But I just wanted to preface that by saying it. If you pick up this book, you may not agree with everything he says, and I think that's okay. I think it's important to be able to critically read a book and say, I will hold this to be true, and I will not hold that to be true, and that's okay. Yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Get out my Birkenstocks. Alright.
Speaker 1:So the first line so he quotes a couple of things, but then the first actual line of the book, it says, this is a book about obedience to the way of Jesus. It is also a book about how the way of Jesus often stands in stark contrast with the American way.
Speaker 2:Read that one more time for the people in the back. Okay.
Speaker 1:This is a book about obedience to the way of Jesus. It is also a book about how the way of Jesus often stands in stark contrast with the American way. I'm not reading it again.
Speaker 2:Let that sizzle in your brain holes.
Speaker 1:Now he goes directly into talking about nineteen thirties Germany, which is
Speaker 2:We're not starting out lightly. No. We are diving in. He
Speaker 1:he does. He dives directly in, which I think I laughed at. When I first read, I was like, woah. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We went right there. But it's actually he's making really important points here. Now is it harsh? Yes.
Speaker 1:It is. But I think we need to make harsh points. Hey. I've always said that. What he talks about is that in nineteen thirties Germany, the Christian church, the Christian church Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Was directly tied to the government. It was directly tied to nationalism. It was directly tied to strength and power. It says the German church was caught up in the hysteria. The church was an official extension of the government.
Speaker 1:Now what does that sound like? The church was caught up in nationalism. Mhmm. Where are we today? Because I can't tell you how many churches in The United States are caught up in the concept of nationalism.
Speaker 2:I know that this is a new phrase. Not everybody's heard of this, but history tends to repeat itself. Does it not? It does.
Speaker 1:Here we are with so many churches saying America is the greatest country in the world, and I don't see that repeated in the Bible. I don't see that anywhere in the Bible. I don't I don't remember Jesus saying that.
Speaker 2:Maybe in the Book of Mormon. I don't know. I haven't read that thing. I think Jesus sailed in a canoe to America.
Speaker 1:I think he did. And it it talks about how closely linked the church was to really scary ideas. Yeah. Because the church got caught up in this concept of we're better than everyone else.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's a really simplistic way of putting it, obviously, but I really don't want this podcast to get flagged. It might anyway. It might. But it says the the leader of Germany at the time was seen as a savior, as God's vessel chosen to bring honor back to Germany, To make Germany great again, some might say.
Speaker 2:Ow. That hurt my soul. And maybe, just maybe, we've replaced those red flags with red hats. Sorry. I'm gonna lose a few more viewers here, and I didn't make that up.
Speaker 2:I saw that on TikTok.
Speaker 1:I know we're laughing a lot about this, and it
Speaker 2:it's really not funny. But if you don't laugh, you cry. Yeah. That's where we're at.
Speaker 1:The church has tied itself so closely, and I I don't mean to imply every church because there certainly are spaces out there that have distanced themselves from this nationalism. I'm not saying every space. But there are unfortunately so many evangelical churches across The United States today that are just holding on tight to nationalism, that are holding on tight to everything that the Republican party is throwing at them. And I'm not sitting here trying to say that any political party is holy or godlike or right. Correct?
Speaker 2:Good. Any of church and state. Yeah. It it's there for a reason.
Speaker 1:Your church should never tell you how to vote. Nope. Your church should not be getting involved. The fact that our current government has been able to use the church to manipulate voters is horrifying. The fact that the voters have allowed themselves to be able to be manipulated by their churches, also horrifying.
Speaker 2:But I just wanna make it clear. You can be a Christian and a Republican. In the same way that you can be a Christian and a Democrat, you can be a Christian and a Independent. Third party,
Speaker 1:sub party.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You can be a Christian and no party. Yep. But your church shouldn't tell you what you have to be Yes. To be a Christian.
Speaker 1:Yes. They're not one and the same. No. I think that's the big thing. And we grew up being taught that they were, that there was only one party that a Christian could be part of.
Speaker 2:I don't think we're the only ones that grew up thinking that.
Speaker 1:No. I think that's a very common sentiment, and that's a problem. Mhmm. And that's exactly what this book is saying. He goes on to say, American Christians often gravitate toward power or seek to align with a political party.
Speaker 1:We base our behavior more on popular culture than the prophetic words Jesus spoke. As a result, we are angrier and more divided within both our nation and our church than we have been in a very long time. Now I think we, as Christians, we wanna say that we're countercultural. Right? We're against the grain.
Speaker 1:We're in culture, but
Speaker 2:we're not of culture. We're in the world, but not of the world, and yada yada yada.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Be for a million different, like, weird little reasons because because we want women to stay in the home, because we're for traditional values, because we don't want boys to perm their hair. Yeah. Like, for those silliest reasons, that's what makes us different from the rest of the world. But what Steve here is saying is that we're exactly like the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Because here's why. We're seeking power. Because just like the rest of society, Christianity has decided that power is the most important thing. That instead of the love of Jesus, power is more important.
Speaker 1:Political power is more important, and so we're angry. We're not actually righteously angry because society is falling apart. We're righteously angry because we lost our power
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Which was never ours to begin with. Right. Now
Speaker 1:Christians will tell you or let me say, the party in power is using the slogan, traditional values are being torn apart. The war on traditional values to make you angry. But the reality is they don't care about traditional values. The reality is there's a power struggle. The reality is you've lost your power and try and get it back.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But also traditional to who? Traditional to when? Traditional just means, like, nineteen fifties America. Correct?
Speaker 2:It's not traditional for everybody.
Speaker 1:No. And remember again, where you sit determines what you see. When you sit in a position of traditional power, when the doors open easily to you because of your skin color or your gender, yeah, things seem pretty great.
Speaker 2:I saw a TikTok the other day that this is old. This was an old TikTok, and they were at a rally. This person was interviewing people at a rally. They said, hey. If Jesus came back and he walked into America, Would you let him in?
Speaker 2:And they boldly said, if they had the proper documentation, they went through if he went through all of the appropriate ways, we would more than hap happily accept him into America. Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ. You would be like, well, you have to follow our silly little rules.
Speaker 1:Well and let's point out that the rules are next to impossible, particularly at this point. Mhmm. So we're getting to the end of our our time together.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure we've sufficiently filled you with rage, either good
Speaker 1:or bad. Not sure. Well, that's fun. I'm gonna leave you with just a couple of quotes from this first section of the first chapter because, guys, we didn't even get through the first chapter. There's a lot of rage to be had here in this the first episode of what may turned out to be our longest series ever.
Speaker 1:But here, he's talking about another book that he researched from called The Rise of Christianity, and they're talking about the early church. And it says, it was through demonstrations of love for women, the sick, the elderly, the abandoned, and the foreigner, the people understood the wide love of God and were drawn to the message of Jesus as Messiah. That's how the early church brought people
Speaker 2:to Jesus. Not by judgment or condemnation or power. You know? Do you think about the story of the woman who was caught in, like, adultery?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? And they pulled her out into the street, and they said, Jesus, Jesus, look what she did. We're gonna stone her. And he said, let whoever has not sinned cast the first stone. And eventually, they all walked away.
Speaker 2:Radical love
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And understanding and forgiveness from Jesus was shown. And I bet he had a lifetime follower after that. Mhmm. Why aren't we showing that
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Nowadays? Now I know that you and I right now don't seem very loving. We do seem full of rage, but we are very loving.
Speaker 1:I think it's also important. Like, again, you can hold two things in your hand. Mhmm. You can hold love and forgiveness in one hand while also saying it is critically important to call this crap out. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I think that is loving. Mhmm. To say, this is not okay to treat people this way.
Speaker 1:Treat them better. Right. Because one without the other and Jesus again, Jesus held both without a little bit of the rage, a lot of that righteous anger towards injustice. If you were just like, oh, well, it's okay. It's fine.
Speaker 1:We'll just sweep it under the rug. That's how you get the festering, the garbage, the abuse. Mhmm. So you call it out. And then when that person says, you know what?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That that was terrible. Then comes the love and the forgiveness and the yeah. Like, let's let's deal with that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But then the last thing,
Speaker 1:just I just think this is a powerful quote. It's really short, and so you guys have to listen to it if you've made it this far. And it says, but and this is critical. America is not the church.
Speaker 2:What? Astounding. Oh, she closed the book. I closed the book. Maybe we should just end there.
Speaker 1:Bye. Have a good week. So next week, we will get back into that. That was really only that was the forward in the first half of chapter one. Buckle your seatbelts, ladies and germs.
Speaker 1:For bears.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be a long ride. I know a lot
Speaker 1:of our listeners are not in The States. So if you're not, I hope that you'll just sort of join us on what I think is a really interesting dive into where the church is at in The US.
Speaker 2:In The US right now. Here's a little glimpse into our life.
Speaker 1:And a really interesting book that I think is making some great points so far. We haven't finished it yet, but as we work through it, I would encourage you to order it as well. We got it from Baker Books, but I'm sure you can get probably get it on Amazon as well. Although, you know, maybe avoid Amazon.
Speaker 2:You know? Maybe.
Speaker 1:So we'll see you next week for part two of 5,000, apparently.
Speaker 2:525,000.
Speaker 1:That's the fifth time you've sang that song.
Speaker 2:Well, that might be how long it takes us to get through this book series.
Speaker 1:It might be. Alright. Well, happy anniversary to us
Speaker 2:to us. And, when
Speaker 1:possibly to you maybe. That would be a really weird coincidence.
Speaker 2:You're welcome for a year of us. Yeah. And we are a gift that keeps giving until we die, and then we stop giving. Okay. Well, love you.
Speaker 2:Bye. Bye. Love you.