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Record Live is a conversation about life, spirituality and following Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
📍 Hello, everybody and welcome our guest for this week, Suki. Hello. We're excited to have you on today, Suki. You are actually a first time author as of quite recently, is that right?
Yes. Yes. So, two and a half years or a little, little less than two and a half years, actually.
Yeah.
Are you still living in the excitement of being a first time author? How does that feel?
Yes. Um, I think it's still new. So the first book's gone out and people are still talking about it, which is kind of gratifying. Cause usually in the publishing market today, you know, the market is so saturated that once you publish something within a year, you know, that's it.
You need to put out something new, but I found that people are still talking about the book, which is really nice because I'm still working on my second book, so it's, uh, it's kind of nice. It's been really good variance.
Good feedback, it must be. Well, your book is titled, Sisters in Arms, Courageous Women of the Reformation.
Often we hear a lot about the men of the Reformation, so it's really awesome this book, but we'd love to hear what is this book about? Um, what kind of inspired you to write it?
So the book is about eight women from the Reformation. What really inspired me to write it is that I work for a ministry, a Christian ministry called Lineage, and Lineage is basically short videos on church history, and I write and populate the website. And so the first season was on the Reformation. And as I was researching and writing all of that content, I was just fascinated by the stories. And then we did a blog a couple years ago for Women's History Month, and I was writing about all these women of the Reformation.
And I thought, what? Like, I have not heard these stories before, and if I haven't, maybe there are other people that haven't, and I really wanted to then tell those stories, because I felt like they were worth telling. You know, we hear so much about the men and I felt like we need to get these women out there.
It's really important.
Before we go too much further, Suki, we should perhaps define for some people that don't know, maybe watching, what is the Reformation? We're going to talk about the Reformation a lot today. What is it? Can you give us a sort of nutshell version?
So the Reformation was a movement of ideas that was largely, primarily launched by my man named Martin Luther, at a time when, religion was homogenous in Europe. There was just one religion. Everybody believed in the same thing. Luther discovered the Bible at a time when the Bible was not freely available and he discovered some new.
and exciting ideas about salvation, about Jesus, and then he started sharing it. And of course, the established church of the time opposed him, Luther, continued to share and to write. And then across Europe, you had a whole bunch of different scholars, start to discover, either through Luther's writings or independently of his writings, these ideas
he was embracing and you had this movement of ideas spreading across Europe. So at its heart, the Reformation was a movement of ideas. It's primarily Christian because Europe was, you know, universally Christian at that time. And so that's, that's really the Reformation in a nutshell.
Yeah, thanks for clarifying.
You shared a little bit about your journey, about how you learned about the women. Was there a story that stood out to you at first? That made you want to be like, I want to learn more about these women, or I want to write a book about this.
Yes, I remember reading the story of a young woman named Louise de Coligny.
She was a French Protestant. And they were perjuratively called Huguenots and, she, she was 16 or 17 years old when her husband and her father were basically slaughtered just because they were Huguenots in Paris. And yet, despite that significant trauma, she didn't denounce her faith and she refused to be cowed or bullied by the establishment.
And she stood for what she believed in. And I was so inspired. Because, first of all, because she was so young, but second of all, because as a woman, women during that period of time in history, historians refer to it as the early modern period. So from about the middle of the 14th century, to, around the time of the French Revolution, that kind of time.
And so, you know, early modern women had very little agency. Their power to make decisions was so limited. And yet, being so young, she was able to not only stand her ground, but then make difficult decisions for herself. And because I'm a Christian, and she's a Christian, and I saw how she stood for her faith, that inspired me.
Because I live in a world where women have greater agency than she did. And she was not afraid to stand for her faith. So it made me think, you know, as a Christian in today's world, how then can I apply that to myself?
I guess, given what you've said about the lack of agency that women had at this time, you know, history is often written by the men and the big players and so, it would have been perhaps challenging to find some of these stories. Of the women were these the only eight sort of main key characters that you could find where the others and if so, how did you choose these particular women to put into this collection?
What was it about these stories or were they the only stories you could find?
No, there were more, there are more stories out there. Interestingly, the majority of the stories about women that I've read have been written by men. Uh, but then some of the stories the women have said, the women themselves told. T hese eight I picked because they were the ones that I felt were the most compelling and, they were the ones where they, where I found the most amount of information freely available.
In order for me to write, stories on some of the other women, I would need to do a lot more digging, and find a lot more information that wasn't as readily available at the time. I mean, this whole idea of writing a book was so new to me, and so I was able to find this information readily, and it was easier to find than, some of the other sources, and the stories I found were compelling.
So, that's really why I picked them, but there are, there are so many other stories. Yeah. Mm.
You mentioned, That these women inspired you to speak up about your own faith. And as I was reading through these stories, I you know, I find myself, as I'm sure most people who have read your book feeling really inspired, but also thinking I could never do that.
Like, I'm not like these women, but what I love that you highlight in your book is that these women, just like us, they have fears, they have doubts, they have temptations, but what, what do you think is, the common denominator between those, with how they actually stepped out, and had that courage that maybe sometimes we don't feel we have?
Yeah, you know, what I found with, People during this time, whether it was the male reformers, the female reformers, but especially the women, I feel, is that, you know, it was one of those things where they never planned to be revolutionaries. They didn't wake up one morning and think, I want to change the world.
They didn't live in a world where you could do that. Do you understand what I mean? So there was an accepted hierarchy. You did not step out the outside of the bounds of that hierarchy. Boundaries were clear. Everybody knew their place. You knew your place and you stayed in it. And so they became revolutionaries because they discovered Jesus in the Bible. They lived at a time where their faith was restricted to outward ritual. And then, when they read the Bible, they realized that faith is something that is far richer and deeper than outward ritual. It is a living relationship with Jesus. And though I hadn't read anything that kind of overtly suggested this, actually I'm reading a book at the moment by a professor called Alec Ryrie called Being Protestant in England, and it's really interesting because he delves into it, and he also highlights this idea that The Reformation wasn't just some stiff intellectual thing.
It was ideas. And it was ideas that deeply stirred people's heart. And so it's one of those things where you take one step, and another step, and another step, and then you're faced with a cliff. And going back is not an option. Because what you've experienced is so rich, is so powerful that you would rather step off the cliff than walk back to what you had before.
And so I think that's what it was. It was just that they continued to experience Jesus to the point that when they were facing these trials, the options were not, oh, do I want to die for this or do I want to give up X, Y, and Z. It was really, do I want to give up Jesus and what I have with Him for this?
And at every point the answer for them was no, and that inspires me because I felt like what would it have been like to have such a rich experience with Jesus that , they were willing to make these sacrifices. You know, they didn't even think of it. It wasn't something that they had to pause very long to ponder on.
And I think that comes through in the way you've told some of the stories. What made you choose the historical? Now, this is not fiction. So this is a book, a work about true historic characters. You've researched these women and you've told their stories accurately. But it's kind of in a novelized style.
It's historical fiction. What made you choose that genre? Because often, obviously we're in the Adventist faith community. Often Adventists will do things on a factual basis, a more documentary style of recording. Great controversy has a lot of this history. One of our main books that we, all know in our denomination has a lot of this history in it, but it's told from a very, uh, recounting of history sort of style. What made you choose to use almost a novelized form of telling the stories?
Two reasons. One is, my background is in theater and from as long as I remember, stories fascinate me. W hen I read things, I'm always thinking, where's the story in this?
I remember at a young age, reading the great controversy. And the first thing that I thought about was how can I turn this into a script? And then, you know, put it on a stage. Like, how do you do that? And I was just drawn to that. So one of the earliest books that I ever wrote was, was based on probably chapter two of the Great Controversy, which was about, you know, persecution of Christians in the early centuries.
I just felt like I want to bring this to life as a story. So that's one thing. It's just It's the way my brain works. The second reason is, I find that we are living in a world that is increasingly enamored with storytelling. People might not pick up a didactic or even documentary style book, but they will pick up a story because people like stories.
And when I thought about that, and I thought about how important this information is. You know, I'm wading through reams of like books written by a cademics. Not everybody's going to do that. And I'm not, even I'm not reading it for its academic value. I'm reading it for its story value. I'm like, where's the story here?
And so I feel like I wanted to make these stories compelling. I wanted people to be able to pick it up and step into this world and experience this world so that it reached their heart. On one level, it was understanding the audience that I'm dealing with in the 21st century, but it's also me and how I just, I just, I'm just drawn to storytelling.
Yeah,
maybe we can expect a theatrical production or a musical on women of the reformation...That would be awesome, on that idea of stories and their influence and their impact, how have these stories impacted your own life and your own walk with God?
When I looked at the stands they made, and their conviction, I always want to ask why, you know, why would you do this?
Yeah. The thing is, sometimes we forget, when we think about history, we, we kind of, I don't know, like, remove the emotion from historical characters. We kind of sanitize them, we turn them into these single dimensional characters. But they weren't. They were multidimensional like us, they had emotions, they had feelings.
And so when I think about me and my feelings and how, uh, difficult or, challenging it would be to make certain decisions, I think, why would they want to make these decisions, you know? And then it got me thinking about 1 John 1, verse 1, where John says, that which we have seen, that which we have heard, that which we have handled of the word of life.
And then verse 3, he says, declare we unto you so that you might have the same fellowship, you know, 1 John 1, And so when I read these stories, it really brought me back to 1st John 1. And it made me think, what kind of fellowship do I have with Jesus? Because ultimately, my courage to stand for Jesus, is proportionate to my personal experience with Jesus.
And if I don't have an experience with Jesus that's vibrant and alive and personal, then I won't have this kind of courage because as human beings, we can't create this kind of courage. You know, this kind of courage is, is driven by love. And so it made me re evaluate my own experience with Jesus and ask myself, yeah, those questions.
Right. So like I've heard it likened to, you know, running into a burning building to save your children sort of thing. There's a love connection. You can't just decide to do something crazy, put your life on the line. And I think that comes through. You've tried to put that in your characters in terms of, I haven't finished the book, but I've read.
A number of the chapters and they're like, why am I doing this? Well, I can't, I can't let go of Jesus. I can't move back from where I've been taken to this point. I can't deny him in front of everyone. Um, I know you don't ask a parent who their favorite child is. And I know a book is kind of like.
Do you have a favorite chapter, a favorite character?
Yeah, I think my favorite is Louise. Louise de Coligny, that story is what got me on the road to writing a book. I was just so drawn by the Huguenots in general, you know, French Protestantism in general. And then her story, I was just so drawn to it.
The thing is, as I read that story, I could see it playing out in my mind. And so I was like, Oh, I just, I was just drawn to it.
Do you have a story or an anecdote just following on from that, that's your favorite that you weren't able to include in the book, you know, a sneak exclusive for us, like something, something that you came across and you're like, this doesn't really fit in the stories or in the women, it might even be from one of the characters you, you focus on, but another part of her life that you couldn't fit in, is there something you can share with us that's just on your mind that sticks with you after this process of writing this book?
Okay. So
actually, it's the character that I was really drawn to as I was writing this book that I couldn't elaborate on at that time. A young woman named Anne Eskew. She was an English Protestant martyr. And, I was writing the story about Catherine Parr. She was the sixth of Henry VIII's Wives, and I was writing her story, and Anna Skew plays a kind of cameo role in there, and I was like, wow, I would really like to tell her story, but at that time when I was writing it, I didn't have a lot of information about her, I didn't know where to look, but now I'm working on my second book on her, where I found information about her, and I just feel like her story needs to be told.
It's just so rich and layered and nuanced and powerful. So, yeah,
it's exciting. I was going to ask you, can we have a sneak insight into what your next book is about, but there we have it. You were talking a bit before about how we don't, force ourselves, or we don't just decide to be in a reformation, we don't just decide to do these massive things, and that it's also our experience with God that gives us the strength and the courage.
And one thing I hear a lot, is that, people, You know, they really want to have a relationship with God. They really want to like, have that connection with Him. Um, but sometimes they read the Bible, and they pray, and they still struggle to, to feel that, or experience that.
Did you come across anything in your book, or have you experienced anything personally, as to how that has become real for you? How that has kind of switched things for you?
One of the stories where I felt like this would have really happened is the story of Katerina von Bora. It's the first story. Interestingly, her story, so she was given to the convent at the age of five, and she grew up in this bubble, you know, it was just this insular bubble, regimented, familiar, extremely disciplined.
And then, Luther's writings are smuggled into the convent, she reads them, she's inspired by them, and then she has to make this really tough decision. And the decision is, in order to follow Jesus, I need to get out of the boat, you know, like, you know, think about Peter walking on the water. Like she had to get out of the boat, her boat was where she was, the boat was where she was saved.
And there was this storm raging and Jesus was like, get out of the boat and walk on the water. And, history doesn't record this, but when I think about, when I look at the facts and I think about interpreting it, she would have had to face this. And it would have taken a tremendous amount of courage not to get in the fish barrel.
Because they were smuggled out in fish barrels, but to face a life outside of the convent, the reality that she lived in a world where women were either three things, a daughter, a wife, Or a widow, mother too, but, you know, wife and mother were within the same.
So she wasn't a daughter as in her father had given her to the convent. She wasn't a wife and she wasn't a widow. And she had to either, she had to become a wife. Like there was no way she could have lived in society without getting married. And yet she'd been a nun for her whole life. And so to make those decisions, that's where I believe she experienced God.
That choice to step out on the water. And she walked on it, like she experienced Jesus, and she experienced God's blessings, you know, she became Luther's wife, and they hosted these people in her house, and she went through all these things, and her last words were, I will stick to Christ, or to a top coat, and it wasn't something that happened in a moment, it was the result of it one decision at a time, choosing to step out where God was leading her. That's one way to experience God. God might be leading you to step out of your comfort zone, step out of the boat. One small step. And if you take that one small, small step in that experience. You, in that, in that choice, in that decision, you will experience Him.
And then the next step, you'll experience them a little bit more. And I think it's, it's that progressive growth, that really helps you to grow. But it's, one step at a time. Hmm. I love that.
The question might be asked, Suki, Why is this so important?
Why study some of these stories that happened so long ago? How is it relevant to our everyday, you know, bringing it into our day to day lives? Because at Record Live, we like to get practical. We like to look at our life as a Christian. How do we live and, what do you see as the value of telling ourselves these stories, remembering these stories, writing them in a format that's accessible to the masses, you know, in story form that, that people can engage with.
I'm sure you've, spoken, had speaking opportunities where you can tell some of these stories or preach about some of these things and it's enriched that for you. But what's the point? Why do we revisit some of the history rather than just looking to the Bible and how do we live and how do we do things going forward?
What's the importance of engaging with the history?
Well, history repeats itself, right? And, uh, it's important to be able to learn from it. There is a quote that is attributed to Winston Churchill, but he borrowed it from somebody else. If we don't learn from history, then we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
And so I think there's value in learning from history. Is Christians particularly, when I wrote this book, I wanted to focus on three things. The first thing that I wanted to focus on that's maybe not as personally practical but I think is relevant to Christians is the idea of religious liberty.
And I think religious liberty is a hugely important topic for Christians. We live in a world where we, we talk a lot about rights, and equality and equity and religious liberty is a basic human right, and it slots in with the idea of equity and equality where everybody has the right to choose who they worship, when they worship, and how they worship, and who they worship, and that nobody can take that right away from us.
I think as Christians, we live in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile towards Christianity. And Christian values. And for us as Christians to remember that religious liberty, freedom of conscience, more than religious liberty, freedom of conscience, there's a nuance there, religious liberties, you know, that you can worship as in, as in how you want, and that's important, but freedom of conscience is that you can follow your conscience, you're free to do that .And so, religious liberty, freedom of conscience, that is a right that we as Christians need to . . . I don't want to use the word fight for that sounds combative, but we need to cherish and advocate for it — that's important. I wanted to talk about that. The second thing I wanted to look at is, faith, you know, again, courage. We live in a world where you might not be taken and burned at the stake.
But if you are a Christian and you champion Christian values, you might be crucified on social media or in the media. And we've seen that happen. We've seen that happening in Australia where, if you stand up for certain values, then you are vilified or you're quietly sidelined. And I think that it's really relevant for Christians to know how to be able to stand, um, sometimes quietly, you know, quiet, resistant, sometimes more vocally, depending on the situation, to know that we should not allow ourselves to be coerced into relinquishing our beliefs.
And we should not be ashamed to stand. But also that our courage and our faith to stand doesn't come from a set of dead ideals. It comes from a living connection with Jesus. I wanted to look at all that because I felt like it was just incredibly relevant, incredibly important.
Yeah, I think it's such a good point. It's like you've said a few times, it comes back to our, relationship with God. Um, yeah, we just want to thank you for joining us today. I've been inspired by these stories. Some of them are funny. Some of them are inspiring.
There's all sorts of themes in here and emotions in here. And so, yeah, thank you for sharing with us these women's stories. For anyone who hasn't read it, the book again is called Sisters in Arms. I'm guessing that's just available on Amazon,
bookshops. You know, interestingly, so you can get it at Amazon.
You can get it at Koorong. You can get it even at Dimmocks and Angus and Robertson and QBD, have it online, which is pretty cool. I was thinking, taking a really. Get it anywhere.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Thank you Suki for joining us. Really appreciated the conversation today.
And yeah, I'm enjoying the book as I'm reading it through as well. So everyone out there should see if you can grab a copy. You can also get it through Adventist book centers and hope books, I believe. So Google those. . Yes.
And hope books has the audio version too, so you can get the audio book. Awesome.
That's really good because some people will struggle to read, through a whole book or find the time. So, the audio book is a very helpful option.
Yeah. Fingers crossed it comes out too.
Awesome. Well, thank you, Suki. for joining us today and thank you for sharing with us.
Maybe we can interview you again for your second book.
Thank you for 📍 having me.
Awesome. All right. See you, Suki. See you soon.
Bye.