Theology Kills | Creativity as Pregnancy:  Sarah, Hannah, and Creating Love Instead of Violence

What if the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a perfection to achieve but a gift to receive? January Jaxon and Andrew McRae unpack the Bible’s quietly subversive use of pregnancy as a metaphor for creativity — the vulnerable, sometimes-painful labor of bringing aliveness into the world. Contrasting Sarah’s violence with Hannah’s trust, the hosts follow Saint Paul in imagining a Kingdom born from cooperation instead of control.

You’ll hear:

Why it’s a form of violence when we try to achieve God’s promises instead of receiving them
Why Genesis 3:16 might not be about divine punishment, gender hierarchy, or marital submission
How Paul’s Christian conversion transformed his understanding of power from militant retribution into motherhood, birth pangs, and nursing
The important distinction between healthy receiving and harmful passivity

PLUS a “mini-manifesto” exercise to help your creativity work toward your values — not against them.

“This podcast helped me realize that it’s okay — it’s more than okay — to bring the ideas that most move us and interest us into conversation with our Christianity. I love the idea that we can play/be creative even in the area of our own theology.”
—Teresa Stone

Ideal for listeners interested in Girardian mimetic theory, Internal Family Systems as a spiritual practice, and the theology of creativity.

Chapters:

(00:00) - Creativity as Pregnancy:  Sarah, Hannah, and Creating Love Instead of Violence
(01:38) - Presentation: The Biblical Metaphor of Pregnancy
(21:12) - What does Andrew find relatable about pregnancy?
(23:43) - From grief to promise in 1 Samuel 1
(30:01) - Pregnancy as an interpretive frame
(37:57) - 100% receptive, 0% passive
(42:17) - What we mean when we talk about the Kingdom of God
(49:47) - Exegesis of 1 Timothy 2:8-15
(55:51) - The mis-use of Saint Paul to subjugate women
(58:20) - "Lifting up holy hands without anger and dispute"
(01:00:31) - "A woman must learn in quietness and full submission"
(01:02:33) - "But she will be saved through the childbearing"
(01:05:31) - God's Gospel can undo misogyny from inside a misogynistic text
(01:09:20) - Would Paul have understood pregnancy as creativity?
(01:12:23) - Historical nuances to understanding "authority"
(01:16:44) - Historical context for "learning quietly"
(01:22:46) - "What is your life pregnant with?"
(01:32:43) - We don't have to know what we're pregnant with
(01:37:10) - The practice of making a Mini Manifesto
(01:51:48) - End Credits

Theology Kills is exclusively listener-funded. Subscribe to us on Patreon for bonus audio, downloadable worksheets, and a friendly community to carry on the conversation.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Note: This podcast is a personal exploration of theology, creativity, and human experience. January Jaxon and Andrew McRae are not medical or mental health professionals, and nothing in this podcast should be understood as medical or psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Our discussions are general and are not a substitute for personalized care. If you need medical or mental health support, we encourage you to seek care from a qualified professional.

Creators and Guests

Host

Andrew McRae

Co-host

Host

January Jaxon

Co-host

What is Theology Kills?

Toxic theologies have been weaponized to wound, but the gospel was always meant to be medicine. January Jaxon and Andrew McRae blend Internal Family Systems theory with the mimetic anthropology of René Girard to uncover a Christ-centered theology of integrity that heals shame, fosters embodiment, and creates contagious peace in the midst of a world at war. Balancing scriptural insight with personal reflections and simple everyday practices, each episode explores the ways that violence warps our creativity, our relationships, and our sense of self — and how divine love sets us free.

[00:00:00] January: Alright Andrew, I know it’s complicated to ask a dude where an episode about pregnancy aligns with his experience, but there’s gotta be something in there.

[00:00:09] Andrew: I was imagining, okay, well let’s follow January’s lead even if it can’t possibly happen to me. Right? What if the good ol’ Angel Gabriel showed up and was like, “Andrew, you are gonna give birth to a —”

I’d be, “Um. Excuse me? How can that be!” And so I kind of meditated on just how shocking that would be. And again, there would be some embarrassment! That’d be a weird thing for me if everybody who knew me knew that...!

And I was like, “Wow, maybe as man in American culture today I’m closer to Mary — just the impending weight of stigma that’s just about to drop on your head of like, “What happened, what’s going on?”

And I would be like, “I don’t know! I don’t know any more than you know! It doesn’t make—” like it was

[00:00:52] January: Uh-huh!

[00:00:54] Andrew: So I, I was trying to think through it and I was like, “Wow, there are more parallels here than I’ve ever bothered to stop and think about!”

So thank you again. Thank you for that.

[00:01:09] January: If you’ve ever wondered why a religion that proclaims unconditional love can feel so full of hatred, shame, and violence, you’re not alone, and you’re not wrong to want something more from Christian faith.

I’m January Jaxon,

[00:01:23] Andrew: and I’m Andrew McRae,

[00:01:25] January: and this is Theology Kills, a podcast about letting our shame and violence die so that life and love can thrive.

[00:01:38] January: It’s never a good sign when the ultrasound technician’s jaw drops while she’s looking at the screen. These people are professionally trained to be impassive. If they see something on that screen that drags an involuntary reaction out of them, something has gone very wrong.

I was a junior in high school when my doctors discovered that I had a 14-inch ovarian cyst mucking up my internal organs, which is another way of saying that I was 17 when I found out I would never be having children. So I appreciate that it’s a little complicated that I’m about to spend the next half an hour talking about pregnancy as a metaphor for creativity. I have never and will never go through that physical process. I can only imagine what it’s like to bring a living, breathing child into the world.

But precisely because I cannot have children, I had to find another way to relate to biblical texts about pregnancy. I took it as granted that they weren’t just talking about a biological process, because if that was the case, those passages had nothing to say to me as a woman who would never go through that process. And I was willing to trust that they did have something to say to me. So I kept returning to them.

We talked in our last episode about Eve and Mary as the iconic archetypes of human creativity. Each woman embodies a particular way of existing in the world. Eve is an achiever, and Mary is a receiver.

Both women bring children into the world who have major consequences for the human race. Eve gives birth to Cain, who becomes the world’s first murderer, and Mary gives birth to Jesus, who becomes the world’s Savior.

Before we go any further, I’d like to note here that there is no version of this story in which pure evil is brought into the world by human creativity. There’s a version in which both love and violence are born into the world, Cain and Abel, and there’s a version in which pure love is born into the world, Jesus Christ. There is no version in which only violence is born into the world. God is a participant in the creative process regardless of whether we’re “doing it right” or not. There will always be a seed of healing in the process of making.

So take this stuff seriously, but don’t take it seriously, if you know what I mean. The whole point is that the pressure here is not on us to make this happen.

Creativity is something to receive, not something to achieve.

Pregnancy, like creativity, is a way of bringing something to life in the world. It sounds kind of twisted at first, but John’s gospel uses the metaphor of pregnancy to describe the Crucifixion itself.

“Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come. But when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you. Now is your time of grief. But I will see you again, and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” John 16, verses 20 to 22.

What it’s saying is that a new world is being born. The Kingdom of Heaven is coming to Earth, but we are in labor with it, and that labor can sometimes be painful.

This, in turn, is a direct reference back to Genesis 3, where Eve and Adam have just been discovered by God to have eaten from the one thing in the Garden that God said would cause them harm.

This is Genesis chapter 3, verse 16, “To the woman, God said, I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth. In pain, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your man, yet he will rule over you.”

If you started to get a little freaked out as I read that, if you’re noticing a bit of alarm coming up in your body, take a breath. Notice you’re okay. Hopefully you’re not in any actual physical danger while you’re listening to this.

We’re going to spend some more time with this particular verse of scripture in our next episode when we dig into Eve’s arc of the Journey, because I think it’s a really important verse for us to understand, but I don’t think it has anything to do with God punishing us, or with gender, or “the submissive role of the wife in a straight marriage.”

[Did I get enough sarcasm in my voice there?]

No. I think what this verse is saying is that shame makes the creative process painful. The consequence of constant self-judgment is that trying to do new things becomes painful, right?

You’ve probably all experienced that directly yourselves. Think about it. Little kids are creative little geezers; they’re exploring and testing things with abandon. They’re inventing things just constantly!

But at some point they learn that the people around them see mistakes as something shameful. Nobody’s telling them this with language, hopefully. Nobody’s trying to communicate this message. But the tiniest quirks of facial expression and body language will convey social boundaries that a child is wired to pick up on. The reaction of the people around them when they do something quote-unquote wrong is going to form a notion in that child’s mind that mistakes are something they’re not supposed to make.

And the thing about creativity is that it’s mostly mistakes. You get to the right answer by getting it wrong, a metric ton of times.

If getting it wrong is shameful, learning is impossible. Creating something that’s never existed before always risks getting it wrong. If you’re existentially terrified of being wrong, creating looks like an existential threat. Our basic, hardwired human impulse toward creativity gets repressed and it literally makes us sick, physically, mentally, or spiritually.

Brené Brown is a social science researcher who studies shame and vulnerability. There’s a gut-wrenching line in her now classic book, The Gifts of Imperfection: “Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, [and] shame.”

I think this is exactly what the story of the Fall in Genesis is telling us. The serpent lies to Eve and implies that she’s insufficiently wise. The consequence of this lie is that Eve tries to fix her lack of wisdom by eating the fruit. The consequence of eating the fruit is that she judges herself to be bad. The consequence of that judgment is that shame enters the human experience. And the consequence of shame entering the human experience is that creativity now feels existentially painful.

This verse, this line about in pain you will give birth to children is not a punishment visited eternally on women because a control freak of a god dislikes how we’ve behaved. This is God simply telling humanity what the outcome of our own self-criticism is going to be. The very next thing God does in this story is give us clothing to protect our vulnerability, so we can stop feeling so raw and exposed!

Genesis 3, verse 21: “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.”

Yes, the events of this chapter do take us out of the Garden of Eden, out of a peaceful existence and onto a path of perpetual trials, but not because God’s ego needed appeasing. Because that’s the inevitable consequence of the way we’re choosing to live.

Eve and Mary show us two distinct ways of bringing life into the world: one through striving, the other through receiving. But they aren’t the only ones in the Bible by a long shot. Think about Sarah, the wife of the legendary Abraham. In Genesis chapter 15, Sarah is promised a son, even though she and Abraham are elderly. And Abraham trusts that God will deliver on this promise. But Sarah, yeah, she doesn’t really trust. It keeps not happening and it keeps not happening. So instead of being patient, she takes matters into her own hands. She tries to achieve what God has promised, instead of receiving it. She tries to make it happen. And she does this with violence.

She forces one of her slaves to bear a child for Abraham. Understandably, this other woman, Hagar, despises Sarah. How could she not, after she’s been impregnated against her will? And Sarah’s response is to treat Hagar so cruelly that she flees the household into the desert. Although she does eventually have a child of her own, because God’s promises are trustworthy, Sarah persists in seeing Hagar as a rival, even though Sarah is the one who put Hagar in the position to be a rival. Just like Eve, Sarah’s striving brings violence into the world.

Thankfully, not every story about new life is marked by violent rivalry. Hannah takes a different path. Her story is told at the beginning of 1 Samuel, where we learned that Hannah was one of two wives of Elkanah, but unlike his other wife, Penninah, Hannah was unable to have children.

That’s hard enough for a woman in an ancient culture, but on top of that, Penninah taunts her about it just constantly. Even though Elkanah loves Hannah anyway and is devoted to comforting her, Hannah is pretty wrecked. So eventually Hannah goes to the tabernacle and pours out her grief to God in a silent, desperate prayer. The priest Eli sees her praying and initially mistakes her passion for drunkenness, and he scolds her and tries to throw her out.

But when she explains what’s going on, he blesses her instead and prays that God will grant her request. And God does.

Like Mary, Hannah is a woman heaped with social scorn for circumstances beyond her control. Like Mary, Hannah receives her help from God rather than taking action to fix the situation herself. She brings her raw vulnerability, her longing, before God and she asks God to clothe her rather than trying to cover up her own shame.

And in a truly astonishing display of trust, when Hannah does receive the answer to her prayers and bears a son, she turns around and gives him right back to God. She dedicates Samuel to the Lord’s service as a priest instead of clinging to him in fear that he’s the only child she’ll ever have.

How many of us would do that? Would we pray day in and day out for years, and when our prayers were finally answered, would we then turn around and release that answered prayer back into the world to serve others instead of keeping it for ourselves? Even in her anguish, Hannah trusts God and consents to receive what God wants to give her. And what she brings into the world as a result of that trust is a great prophet and peacemaker.

So pregnancy is the really obvious metaphor for talking about creativity as the process by which God’s Kingdom is made manifest in the material world, but pregnancy is not exactly a gender-neutral metaphor, right? So how does the Bible apply this to men?

St. Paul uses the metaphors of pregnancy, motherhood, and nursing left and right to describe himself in his work as an apostle.

Galatians 4 verse 19: “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you—”

Paul compares his work to that of a woman in labor, struggling and suffering to bring Christ’s freedom into the lives of others.

Romans 8 verses 22 and 23: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as heirs, for the redemption of our bodies.”

Paul uses the image of labor pains to describe the suffering of the world as it awaits the Kingdom of Heaven. Creation itself is pregnant with what God is bringing forth.

1 Corinthians 3 verses 1 and 2: “My siblings, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.”

Paul is careful of the early stages of spiritual formation in his communities. He’s respecting the developmental stage they’re at and is giving them gentle nourishment, not rigidly demanding that they toughen up.

1 Thessalonians 2 verse 7: “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children.”

I wanna pause here and emphasize how wildly shocking this language would’ve been given Paul’s profoundly patriarchal social context. There are almost no other examples in history of a man using that kind of feminine language in literature to refer to himself in a positive light. There are mocking references, where a man will refer to himself as someone’s nursemaid because he is being contemptuous of that person’s vulnerability. But Paul is one of the only men in the historical record to use those motherhood metaphors in a positive way, honoring his community’s vulnerability.

That’s the difference Christ makes.

And it’s Christ who shows us what this shift ultimately looks like in action. This is Mark chapter 6, verses 7 to 9, when Jesus sends his disciples out to preach and cast out demons. “Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over harmful spirits. These were his instructions: ‘Take nothing for the journey except a staff. No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals, but not an extra shirt.’”

Jesus does not care about his disciples’ wardrobe. What he’s doing here is insisting that his disciples take nothing they think they need to be okay in the world. No safety net, in other words. From young men who are accustomed to exerting, to achieving, to controlling their environment, Jesus demanded a surrender of their capacity to exert. He’s opening them — deliberately, intentionally, and comparatively gently — to receiving from their environment, and by extension from God. Jesus asks them to cultivate embodied experiences of noticing that God will in fact exert to provide for them if they stop exerting.

He was teaching them to practice receiving.

Like Mary, like Hannah, the disciples needed to trust that God would provide, because the Kingdom of Heaven isn’t something we build by our own strength. It’s a reality we allow to be born in and through us.

Just like in chapter 16 of Exodus, when the Israelites were given just enough food day by day to nourish them through 40 years in the desert, Jesus is recreating this practice of trusting God with his disciples by asking them to forego the worldly things they rely on for security.

Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” That is a searing and counter-cultural indictment of self-sufficiency. If you’re walking through the world striving to meet all your own needs, refusing to allow yourself to vulnerably receive what you need from another, you’ve become Eve, seeing your need as a lack, as a problem to be fixed.

Mary didn’t see her need for God as something to be fixed. She saw it as something to be celebrated and joyfully received. Jesus is saying the Kingdom of Heaven is something to receive, not something to achieve. And sure enough, the seed of the Kingdom grows in his disciples, taking years to come to flower, but ultimately resulting in the birth of the Church.

But it began with putting down their safety net and choosing vulnerability. Choosing to need. Choosing to receive instead of strive.

This feels terrifying to most of us. It is a profound release of control and that is risky. It is! I’d be doing you a massive disservice — I’d be lying to you — if I went all “Law of Attraction” on you and said that just because we choose to receive instead of control, that’s a way of guaranteeing that everything will be okay. That would actually be a way of turning receiving into something to achieve! That’s not what we’re after!

I can’t promise that everything will turn out sunny. God doesn’t promise that. God did not rescue Mary from the social shame of being an unwed mother. God just gave her the strength and courage to stand up under it. God did not rescue Hannah from the taunts of Penninah. God gave her the endurance to stay faithful through it.

God does not promise to rescue us from the hard and painful events of our lives. God promises to be with us in those hard things, experiencing the grief and the shame alongside us, witnessing that our experience is real and offering the relational support we need to move through it.

God empowers our creativity to find new ways through, but discipleship is not a get out of suffering free card. When we open up to receiving good things, we’re going to receive some really fucking hard things too. We can’t control that.

I do not like to let go of my illusions of control. But it’s gotta happen if the kingdom of Heaven is going to be born into the world through me. Creativity isn’t about your effort any more than pregnancy is. You do not have to know how to knit a child together in its mother’s womb. You nourish the person who’s carrying it and let it unfold.

Friends, what is your life pregnant with? What wants to come into the world through you? Where do you find the greatest aliveness in your days? What do you want to be creating with your time here on Earth, and what are you doing right now that’s getting in the way of that? Are you making room in your life for that thing to come into being, or are you crushing it with perpetual busyness and achievements?

Or on the flip side, are you allowing your mental doing to paralyze you? Are you stuck? Are you stagnating, so busy trying to find the right way to do it that you never take action at all?

What needs to die for you to come fully alive?

Alright Andrew, I know it’s complicated to ask a dude where an episode about pregnancy aligns with his experience, but there’s gotta be something in there.

[00:21:21] Andrew: I was grateful for what I consider to be theological work, where you frame that question, I am not going to have pregnancy. That’s not a part of my forecast, at all. And yet, these verses, I’m not gonna be satisfied with just saying, well, they don’t mean nothing to me.

There’s plenty of humans on this planet who are not going to be undergoing pregnancy ever in their lives, and they know that from a very early age, and they don’t make the choice that you did.

I fit in that number too, so I’m very grateful. People that don’t wanna search for a meaning in those passages because, “Well, what’s that gotta do with me?” Yeah, hopefully it’s not out-and-out misogyny, but it’s definitely patriarchy that leads people to think that way.

And so, yeah, thank you for offering a model of not just how to read this text, but just more generally the persistence that comes with reading scripture well. That was probably the first reaction.

There are other moments in there that I thought were brilliant. I love the insight with regards to Paul and using this imagery in a positive way. Paul was using the image of motherhood and breastfeeding and things that in his patriarchal context that, like, how do we explain that? And so, your line in there, “This is the difference that Christ makes,” I totally believe that.

I’m inclined to read the Bible as a misogynistic text, a misogynistic collection of texts, that comes from misogynistic cultures. And how could it be otherwise, given the people that were writing and reading these things? But we Christians believe in an Incarnation, where the divine self steps into the messiest, most godawful things that we can do — which is like a lynch mob, basically — and yet that’s where the gospel springs from. So th-the idea that truth can shine through even misogyny is reassuring. That the truth can do that, that’s cool.

And so yeah, I appreciated the comment of recognizing Paul’s rhetoric there as being informed by his conversion, to a new way of thinking.

Also, that there was a point in there where you were talking about how not to turn around and turn receiving into a way of Doing. That made me laugh, because that’s how sticky this perpetual Doing can be, right? That even if you’re aware of needing to stop it, then it turns into more of the same, even when you’re trying to do the opposite.

[00:23:40] January: Yeah.

[00:23:42] Andrew: Okay. Yeah.

[00:23:43] Andrew: Well, I want to give you my rant on 1 Samuel 1.

According to Robert Alter, and he’s a translator of Hebrew scriptures, and here I’m basically just quoting him, he says that the reference to two wives, one childbearing and the other childless, immediately alerts the audience to the unfolding of the familiar annunciation type scene.

And he said that it would be recognizable from the get-go. Folks know how this is gonna play out. There are three stages: stage one, report of barrenness. And in this case, it’s amplified by a motif that is always available, the fertile but less loved co-wife. Okay? So that really drives home the stage one barrenness.

Stage two, the promise. Through an oracle, or a divine messenger, or a man of God, or something. A promise of the birth of, well yeah, it’s always a son. It’s always a boy. But yeah, the promise of a birth.

Stage three, cohabitation resulting in the conception and birth.

I mean, that’s it, right? it’s pretty straightforward. But the fun part of any story is in the variation on the theme. So if we all know 1, 2, 3, yeah, we know that. But Samuel begins with a story that goes one, uh, hold up is, is that a two...? The line has a squiggle, but I’m not sure that— oh, okay. Here’s three.

Where it breaks from the pattern, the aberration is Eli. He just sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s not, I mean, how do you put it? He’s just not all that... fantastic. I mean, an annunciator should be... Eli, think about where, where does he start? Right? He is just going through the tabernacle, “This is the house of God! I mean, can we at least keep the drunks out?! Like, what’s going on?”

That’s where he starts. And where does he end up? He’s kinda like, “Oh, you’re not like a sad drunk who just wandered in here. No, not, not at all. You’re like, legit aggrieved and writhing in psychic torment! Cool. Yeah. Hang out as long as you want. Uh, hope you get what you want.”

Right. That’s it for Eli. I mean, yes, he’s in other stories, in later chapters, but in Hannah’s story, and this is Hannah’s story, that’s it for Eli. The character arc is microscopic.

Not at all extraordinary, but at least it’s something, and by at least it’s something. I mean that as tiny as it may be, it is still more for Hannah than she’d get from Penninah or Elkanah. Those two weren’t about to change what they brought into Hannah’s presence, whereas Eli gave her a second look.

And that piddly portion of recognition far outweighs all of Elkanah’s doting and Penninah’s cruelty. I mean, stage two of an annunciation story is supposed to be grandiose, a proclamation of blessing. Eli doesn’t even know she’s praying for a child, let alone make any promise that a baby boy is on its way. As far as we know, he doesn’t find out about any of that until three years later. That ain’t much of an announcement.

But it was enough.

What did it take to be ushered from a place of grief into a place of promise? And let’s be clear, I’m not talking to anybody right now who is grieving. Because what would I know about that? But I am speaking to absolutely everyone else. I wanna say, it doesn’t take much to give a second look and possibly see that the person who’s really putting you out right now is actually grieving and quite sincere in that grief.

What stands out to you in that story and the comments I’m making on it about Eli being a little outta the ordinary?

[00:28:17] January: The connection that is coming up in my imagination is back to what you talked about last episode with Robert Falconer’s comment about our stories being prisons or becoming prisons if we stay in them too long. And this is an example of Eli being willing to step out of the story that he was in.

He had a story about her and most of us like to stay in those stories. He was in charge of the tabernacle. He could have chucked her out and not thought twice about it and just patted himself on the back for cleaning things up and doing the right thing. And instead he let go of the story and allowed himself to notice a bigger truth and the connection and relationship that was possible and the blessing that was possible because he allowed himself to do that.

And he was the person with the power in that scenario, right? It wasn’t Hannah. It is her story, but Eli’s the one with the social prestige. He’s the man, he’s the head of the tabernacle, he’s got the clout. And so as a model for the rest of us who, as you said, are not grieving, to slow down, make some space, step out of our first story, or at least reality check our first story. Just go, is that true? This is what I’m telling myself. Is that really true?

[00:29:35] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:29:36] January: I think there’s a lot of opportunity there. I think you’re really onto something with the blessing and the new life that that can create for both of us. Because then Samuel comes back to Eli and changes his life later.

[00:29:48] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:29:48] January: It’s a cycle. It’s not one and done. The blessing is never one way. Did that get at what you were trying to point to, or?

[00:29:58] Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Listening to your presentation, I could follow four big components. Number one, we’ve got Sarah’s annunciation scene. Number two, Hannah’s annunciation scene. Number three is Paul and his novel rhetoric. And then four, Jesus prepares disciples to receive rather than achieve.

And as I’m listening to the presentation, I’m like, okay, pregnancy as metaphor for creativity is our overarching theme. I’ve got it. Number one is totally about pregnancy. Ditto number two. Likewise number three, and—number four? Well, there’s no explicit reference to pregnancy in the part four passages where Jesus is preparing to send out his disciples in a way that they’ll have to receive and they won’t be able to achieve things on their own.

Now, I can make number four fit with the predecessors. And maybe doing that work is what you want us as listeners to do. But can we go ahead and make the connection more explicit? Can we do that work ourselves or, is it too risky? Why risky?

Making pregnancy passages meaningful to myself without any birth giving experience of my own seems fair because the Bible is my scripture, right? You can’t fault me for trying to make it mean something personal. It seems like I can do that much. However, using pregnancy as an interpretive frame for passages that don’t even mention pregnancy or use any language that way, that kind of feels like I could get faulted for even trying, like maybe I should just interpret from my own experience, period.

I literally do have a recollection of a Sunday school class where my aunt Jenny, and she’s not rude in any way, shape, or form, but I think it was the Romans passage about groaning or maybe it was a passage in Matthew that had to do with the eschatological and I’m making some point about like, if it’s birth, if it’s not moving forward, there’s no reverse. It’s either going forward and healthy, or it’s not. And this is an image for the Kingdom of God coming.

And we’re talking and my uncle’s chiming in and then I forget who else. And I just, I remember my aunt was like, “All these men talkin’ ‘bout pregnancy!” And I was like, ohhhh, she’s right. She’s right. Like, yeah, she’s, um, that, that is what’s going on here. And so, so like that’s very much like, yeah, like

[00:32:35] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:36] Andrew: Feels like I could be faulted here by trying to take pregnancy as an interpretive frame and putting it onto passages that don’t use that language already. Am I entitled to do that?

But let’s just suppose that I felt at ease enough to go ahead and try that anyway. And I wasn’t worried about falling ignobly right on my face. This is what it would look like. A healthy pregnancy is, from start to finish, 100% receptive and 0% passive. So if you can’t hold receptivity and passivity as distinct categories, you’ll never have a full mental grasp of birthing, be it children or the Kingdom of God on Earth. If you’ve given birth, you’ve lived this distinction, whether you’ve thought it through or not. Ditto to any folks who live in God’s Kingdom.

Now, do I have the right to say any of that? Why did I make it all or nothing like that?

100% receptive, 0% passive! Am I just trying to make this a mistake or I don’t know. But it’s what it felt like saying and I felt like this was a safe enough place to say it. What do you think? What’s your response, January?

[00:33:55] January: Well, I’m very glad you feel like it’s a safe enough place to say it ‘cause definitely bring all the maybes.

I have two responses that are coming up for me and I’m gonna address the all-or-nothing in just a minute. But first I wanna talk about the first half of your question of like, why are we doing this? Why are we applying pregnancy language to something that doesn’t use it at all?

And yeah, it would be reasonable for a listener to assume that I’m taking language from one passage, applying it to my personal experience, and then applying my personal experience back to the text. But I don’t think that that’s what I’m doing. So what I’m doing is I’m going and I’m looking at the pregnancy metaphor language in Paul, where he uses this to talk about his work as a disciple and his work leading these communities, and then I’m assuming that that metaphor also applies to the other men who are disciples of Jesus who are doing the same kind of work.

[00:34:45] Andrew: Okay. Yeah.

[00:34:46] January: I’m not taking it out of the text and then back in, I’m kind of applying it sideways, straight in the text. And anybody gets to use whatever metaphor language they want to describe what’s going on. So there’s all kinds of metaphors that can be used that aren’t pregnancy. But I do think it’s interesting to note that Paul is using that language of pregnancy post-Resurrection, whereas Jesus is teaching the disciples before all of that has changed their perspective.

[00:35:11] Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:35:13] January: And so maybe that metaphor was a little more accessible to Paul. Maybe he was able to upend his own thinking structures a little bit better than the disciples were obviously able to do, which was not very. And Lord, don’t we know how that goes?

So yeah, there’s that dynamic happening where I don’t think that we are pulling that metaphor out of the text and then sticking it back in. I think we’re just sliding it sideways in a way that maybe wasn’t super accessible to the disciples, but is nevertheless true to specifically Paul’s language

[00:35:48] Andrew: Gotcha.

[00:35:48] January: and the way that he uses those metaphors.

So then to come back to your question about the 100% receptive, 0% passive. It’s a really good question, and the two questions that come to mind for me on that one is, first of all, why does it feel important to have a mental understanding of pregnancy?

[00:36:08] Andrew: Oh, I don’t know that it is, I didn’t mean it as a slight when I said if you’ve given birth, you’ve lived this distinction, whether you thought it through or not. I, I don’t mean that as a slight at all. Like it’s a blessing to have lived through it. That’s the lion’s portion of the blessing. So whether you understand it or not, I just, I felt like that what we’re doing here is trying to understand things.

[00:36:28] January: Mm. Okay.

[00:36:29] Andrew: And ditto for the people who live in the Kingdom of God, whether they have a mental understanding of what they’re doing.

In fact, I’m, I’m of an opinion that most of the people when they’re living in God’s Kingdom and under the divine reign, have zero understanding of what they’re doing in the moment. And usually the blessing is in some form of retrospection of like, “Oh wow, that I suspect is divinely wrought too.” I don’t think it comes from us thinking it through knowing how the kingdom works and then implementing it. No, no.

[00:36:57] January: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:36:58] Andrew: It’s like language use for me. I always go back to that analogy, but when you use a language, it stems directly from familiarity. You’ve had a meaningful context, and it pops out and then it’s there and you’re like, ah, I’m talking right now.

When you’re learning a second language, I feel like the Kingdom of God probably is very much like that.

[00:37:15] January: Yeah.

[00:37:15] Andrew: And you can sit down and think through and diagram the sentence or whatever and pull out your dictionary. But like that ain’t talking, you ain’t actually speaking when you do that.

I spent too much time with an Arabic English dictionary, sitting on my lap thinking I was learning a language, and, uh, I wasn’t.

[00:37:32] January: Mm.

[00:37:33] Andrew: I wasn’t.

So anyway, I don’t think it’s important for us to have a mental understanding of childbirth, or the Kingdom of God, honestly. I think it comes from an experience that familiarity breeds a change in who we are and in our thinking. But it’s not one that comes from conscious analysis.

[00:37:50] January: Mm, mm-hmm. Yeah. We cannot think our way into this. Yeah. Okay. I follow.

[00:37:57] Andrew: I mean we’re centering in on the 100% receptive, 0% passive.

[00:38:01] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:01] Andrew: And you first asked, why is it important to be able to think through what’s going on?

[00:38:06] January: Mm-hmm.

And then second is there a reason why you felt like you needed to make it an all-or-nothing statement?

Because I’m on board with a hundred percent receptive. It’s definitely that.

[00:38:17] Andrew: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:18] January: Or at least that’s the place where it starts. I’m a little hesitant to say that anything is 0% passive.

[00:38:24] Andrew: Gotcha.

[00:38:25] January: I do think that there are things about pregnancy that are, like, we just don’t have to worry about it. And it’s, so there’s fuzziness to the language here, I guess is what I’m saying.

[00:38:34] Andrew: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:35] January: We could make the statement that it’s 0% passive because the body’s always doing something, always. There’s no part of that process that is not a very active process on some level,

[00:38:46] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:38:47] January: but we can say that there’s passivity involved in the sense that we don’t have to be consciously managing that process. Most of the time.

We have to be taking care of it. We have to be stewarding it responsibly—hopefully. Guess I shouldn’t say we have to be, ‘cause obviously people don’t. But ideally we are stewarding that becoming process by, you know, eating nourishing food, getting enough rest, getting enough, like all of those things facilitate a healthy pregnancy and we wanna be doing those things.

And those are active things. But in terms of the actual pregnancy happening, I do think that there are pieces of that that are passive in the sense of just not requiring our conscious attention. Does that make sense?

[00:39:30] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I’m with you. I probably, in my mind, was a bit wrapped up in a particular way that passivity could go horribly wrong.

[00:39:39] January: Mm. Tell me more about that.

[00:39:41] Andrew: Namely if certain authorities in your culture tell you that there’s something growing inside you and it’s a person and you just need to step back and forget yourself right now and let the righteous life of God come through you.

[00:39:56] January: Yeah.

[00:39:57] Andrew: And this life that’s coming, don’t you worry about it. It’s not you anymore, it’s what God is doing to you. You just sit there.

[00:40:04] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:05] Andrew: And let that happen. Now, obviously that’s a form of passivity that is not healthy.

[00:40:09] January: Right.

[00:40:10] Andrew: So I think that was forefront in my mind and I wanted to say that 0% of that is healthy.

[00:40:17] January: Yeah.

[00:40:17] Andrew: But I take your point that there might be occasions where, yeah, maybe it could help us define our terms. Because this is new to me, distinguishing receptivity and passivity.

[00:40:27] January: Mmm!

[00:40:28] Andrew: I think I’ve let those be pretty muddled in my brain for a long time. And so this is fun to realize, it makes perfect sense once I hear it. Like, wait, no, these aren’t the same. So maybe that’s one reason why I jump to extremes is like, help me draw this line here so I know what I’m talking about when I use these words.

[00:40:43] January: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I love that and I’m so glad that it’s shifting things for you. That’s really fun. And that’s what I hope all of this is gonna do for people is just provide, you know. I don’t know about so much provide on-ramps, although maybe, but I hope that it’s removing stumbling blocks for people.

That’s, that’s my goal ultimately.

[00:41:04] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:41:04] January: I want people to go read scripture for themselves and figure out what it means to them and do all of that interesting work.

But in terms of receptivity and passivity, I super appreciate you calling out that there are extremely dangerous forms of passivity out there and that is not what we are talking about, in terms of that cultural, “You don’t matter, it’s just what’s coming into the world through you that matters. That is the only important—” Yeah, no, that is 0% what we’re talking about when we’re talking about God’s Kingdom.

[00:41:30] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:41:31] January: 0%.

[00:41:32] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:41:32] January: Absolutely. I’m with you on that one.

[00:41:34] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:41:35] January: Dead stop. Yeah, for sure.

I do think that the line between the two is fuzzy to discern. Those two things can get really muddy, and obviously have gotten really muddy, in the way that we use that language. And so I think that you’re right to go looking for a distinction between the two to help unpick the layers of which one is which, but that might be a more case by case situational discernment process, that also might need the perspective of other people to help you unpick it sometimes too. Because I don’t think that we can make that 100% 0% split as an overarching distinction.

[00:42:16] Andrew: Should we talk about how we’re using and what we mean by the word “kingdom”? ‘Cause there’s a lot of violence and colonizing baggage tied up in that word.

[00:42:29] January: I know a lot of people have a lot of objections to it, and I suspect that you might be on that list.

[00:42:35] Andrew: Yeah. And so my response, and I wrote it down: YES! Exclamation point. But I don’t know what to say.

[00:42:45] January: Mm.

[00:42:46] Andrew: This is still a hangup for me that I haven’t been able to work through. We were at the pre-festival workshop for Theology & Peace at Wild Goose. There was a speaker that joined us named Jennifer Garcia Bashaw.

[00:42:59] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:00] Andrew: And somebody asked her that question. She mentioned someone, I forget the name, would use the phrase Kin-dom.

[00:43:06] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:07] Andrew: Instead of Kingdom, and that was the first I’d heard of that.

[00:43:10] January: That’s a very popular one in progressive churches.

[00:43:13] Andrew: Is it?

Part of me feels okay with folks that have this need to swap out the word, but I’m not sure I fully understand the why. I don’t understand my own discomfort, honestly.

I’m uncomfortable with the use of the word kingdom, but I think I’m uncomfortable with the people that are uncomfortable with the use of the word kingdom too.

[00:43:35] January: Mm.

[00:43:36] Andrew: ‘Cause like, kinship is beautiful, but it’s sort of this flattening, like it doesn’t matter if you’re a grandfather or a cousin or a child or whatever, it’s this flattening of hierarchy, which I think is the point. And I’m not sure that we don’t lose something

[00:43:55] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:56] Andrew: if we flatten out the hierarchy.

I do not think recognizing Christ as Lord means that you can start with an understanding of how kingdoms work and then make sense of who Jesus is, using that.

[00:44:10] January: Right.

[00:44:11] Andrew: No, no.

[00:44:11] January: Exactly.

[00:44:11] Andrew: That is not, that’s a problem.

[00:44:13] January: Yeah.

[00:44:14] Andrew: So I’m on board with the people that are like, ain’t using this word no more, folks, ‘cause it’s causing problems. I’m board with that, but there’s a connectedness that I read in the gospel accounts of Jesus and those around him. There certainly seems on his part, from the divine heart, the desire for connection. I’m not sure that connection is one of mutuality.

[00:44:35] January: Hmm.

[00:44:37] Andrew: And so that’s where my hangup is to just jump into a complete flattening of all hierarchy. But I don’t know how to make sense of it really. “It” being my feelings

[00:44:50] January: mm-hmm.

[00:44:50] Andrew: about this word and my feelings about other people’s feelings about this word.

[00:44:57] January: Yeah. I think I spend a lot of time thinking about it because, well, partly ‘cause that’s what I do, but there’s something about the traditional language that has really spoken to me from day one. I don’t know why that is. I did grow up in quite a progressive United Methodist Pacific Northwest tradition that loves changing out the words whenever they make people uncomfortable, and that has always made me uncomfortable.

I think on some level, I feel strongly that the words are what they are because they’re meant to challenge us to imagine something new. They’re meant to challenge us into creativity, and if we flatten the discomfort out of them, we’re not getting that friction that grows us, and asks us to stretch and figure out a more comfortable position.

At the same time, we have to have a certain amount of emotional and psychological safety to even be able to imagine beyond our current reality. Creativity is risky and we have to feel safe enough to try it. So yeah, I mean, if someone has to start from Kin-dom, okay! Start there! But maybe don’t stay there forever just because it’s more comfortable. I think there’s a bigger world we’re being invited into by this language and by the tension between this language and our reality as we currently experience it.

When it comes to kingdom specifically, I mean, you’re absolutely right, if we start with a human picture of what a kingdom is and then try to apply that to God, we’re in big trouble. That is some colonizing nonsense right there. No, thank you. No. That’s not what we’re talking about.

[00:46:38] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:46:39] January: I think I’m insistent on using that word in some way, for myself even, because I want to challenge my notions of what a kingdom is.

I want to imagine that it could be something different. What would the world look like, if Jesus was really our Lord, really in charge of our lives, but in a way that’s not control, right? That’s empowerment. That is service under, not control over.

[00:47:07] Andrew: I love that ‘cause it put in my head this image of what would it take? Not the picture of what would happen if Jesus were actually the one in charge of it all, but what would it take for us, humanity, to be people that would have a person like Jesus be our leader?

[00:47:24] January: Mm-hmm.

[00:47:25] Andrew: What would we have to become?

[00:47:26] January: Yeah.

[00:47:27] Andrew: That would be the coming Kingdom of God, I’m pretty sure,

[00:47:31] January: Yep.

[00:47:31] Andrew: if that happened on Earth,

[00:47:33] January: Yeah.

[00:47:33] Andrew: then… and it’s like the kingship is, I don’t know the right word, not derivative, but a subsidiary. It’s something that follows on.

What would it take, how would humanity be different? How would I, as a human, be different if I lived in a place where me and my neighbors saw Jesus and understood yeah, that’s our leader. That’s where direction comes from. That’s our authority.

[00:47:56] January: That’s our number one mimetic model.

[00:47:58] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:47:58] January: First place. All the time. And that’s the hierarchy, right?

Taking it away from being “somebody in control and everybody else in servitude” and having that number one position means this is our model. This is the person that we’re imitating first and foremost. This is the person that we’re learning from.

[00:48:15] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:48:15] January: This is the person that we’re growing up into. I mean, that language is all over the New Testament, right? Growing up into Christ, who is the head. And if we understood kingship and the Kingdom in that way, of what would the world look like if everybody was behaving in imitation of Jesus? Whether or not they were calling themselves Christians!

[00:48:34] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:48:35] January: I think mimesis for me was one of the things where I was finally like, oh yeah, this is how the kingdom comes to earth. We don’t need everybody on the planet to convert to the religion of Christianity. That’s not necessary.

We have a certain number of people who’ve been called to the work of that. They’ve been elected, and elected does not mean “chosen to get all the goodies”, right? it’s elected to an office. It’s a job, it’s a responsibility. And we have the responsibility of being disciples of Christ and allowing him to change us and allowing him to form us in his likeness. And our own! Not his likeness at the expense of our own.

[00:49:11] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:49:12] January: And then we take that and we go back out into the world, and we are in the world, but not of the world. We are the ones imitating Christ, and then everybody else can learn from imitating us, if they want to. And that’s how this is all gonna work itself through the entirety of the human species eventually, and we will eventually arrive at the Kingdom without any control or war or crusades necessary, right.

[00:49:38] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:39] January: Just relationship and letting relationship do what it does in us.

[00:49:45] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:49:47] January: I did wanna talk about 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 8 to 15, because especially that verse 15. Some of the stuff in Paul has really been used against women, and it is not okay. And so we need to talk a little bit about that because this particular line in verse 15 it says, “women will be saved through childbearing,” which... there’s just no way to make that a comfortable statement.

So do you wanna read the passage for us?

[00:50:23] Andrew: Yeah, I can read it. I’ve got the NRSV pulled up here.

[00:50:26] January: Okay.

[00:50:27] Andrew: I desire then that in every place men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.

Also that the women should dress themselves in moderate clothing with reverence and self-control, not with their hair braided or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

[00:51:26] January: it felt like an important passage to unpack, not just because of women and childbearing and the fact that we’re talking about pregnancy and creativity, but also for the mimetic dynamics. Because going back and reading 1 Timothy, it is entirely about how to show up as a good Christian model for the people around you. Paul is instructing this student of his, essentially, Timothy, he calls him his true child in the faith, who Paul has apparently left behind to one of the churches to continue ministering while Paul can’t be there.

And Timothy clearly has some anxieties about how he’s showing up for the community. It sounds like he’s pretty young and people maybe don’t take his authority super seriously. And so Paul’s giving him a lot of these instructions on how the community should be run and how Timothy should behave and to not let people talk down to him because of his youth, but as long as his behavior is upright, to recognize that he has a place in this community and a role as a positive model of Christian conversion.

And so I think it’s a mistake to ignore or dismiss the mimetic dynamics that are happening here when we’re talking about the submission of women. Not that I think it’s a good idea to talk about the submission of women! We can stand in contemporary society, and we can acknowledge that there is absolutely no reason why women need to be in submission to men.

Okay. This whole bit about Adam came first and then Eve.

[00:53:00] Andrew: I’m trying to think of noises to convey what my face is doing right now, but...

[00:53:09] January: Right. And maybe I’ll just go ahead and open the little can of worms that I avoided in the first episode and talk about, like, if we’re talking about this in terms of receiving versus achieving, Adam is the feminine character in the Garden of Eden scene. He’s the one who’s receiving.

[00:53:26] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:53:26] January: Eve is the one who’s achieving. She’s the masculine character, and so I think it’s a really big mistake for any of this to be taken in terms of gender at all across the board. Because that’s just not really what we’re talking about.

And it makes sense that Paul did that. He was very steeped in tradition. He knew all of the Old Testament scriptures. He was a Pharisee, he was highly trained

[00:53:49] Andrew: Yeah, I think so.

[00:53:50] January: in the tradition.

So Paul is a person who has every reason to trust in the establishment. Right? Unlike Jesus. Jesus is subverting the systems of authority and Paul is trying to work within them all the time. And so it makes sense to me that he’s talking like this, but it doesn’t make me hate him.

[00:54:08] January: For my mother’s generation, there are a lot of women who had Paul used against them, shall we say.

[00:54:15] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:54:16] January: And so the letters of Paul have been a massive stumbling block to their faith, ‘cause they just can’t with the way that those texts were interpreted for them growing up. And that makes complete sense to me, and I understand it and I grieve it, but I get it.

And so I’m a woman coming from this complete opposite end of the spectrum where I, I find Paul so relatable! So relatable. And I don’t know if that’s because I had a very similar Road to Damascus conversion experience myself, where it was this dramatic shift from realizing that I had been a persecutor and realizing that nothing in my life was working and then being completely transformed by my experience of Christ and really becoming a new person as far as everybody else was concerned, but what it felt like to me was like finally becoming myself.

[00:55:13] Andrew: Oh, wow.

[00:55:14] January: Like the person who had always been there, and I, I just didn’t know that it was allowed before.

[00:55:19] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:55:20] January: It was a transformative experience, and it changed my entire life.

I’m kind of glad that you didn’t know me before that, because I was a hot mess, but I kind of wish that you had known me before just so you could see the difference that it’s made in my life.

[00:55:33] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:55:34] January: And there’s just so much earnestness when Paul writes about all of this stuff, like it clearly just makes so much sense to him and he’s trying so hard to communicate it to people.

You know, he gets into these lists of neither height nor depth, nor angels nor devils, nor anything at all in all creation could possibly get between you and the love of God. I’m like, preach brother! Like I feel you. I feel you so hard.

So, yeah, so I find Paul extremely relatable, and even when he says things that I just patently disagree with, I’m like, oh, honey, okay. It’s okay,

[00:56:09] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:56:09] January: we’re just going to, we’re just gonna put that on a shelf and not do that. And I don’t have any problem doing that. There are a lot of people who have a real problem doing that and separating the things that are good from the things that are highly toxic.

[00:56:23] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:56:23] January: And that makes sense to me. But it’s one of the reasons why I think it’s so important to talk about the really problematic passages in Paul, if I’m someone who’s willing to even go there, and especially as a woman.

[00:56:37] January: So yeah, this verse 8, “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger and dispute.” So he’s starting off, I mean, this is the second half of a chapter, but he’s starting this, what is the word I want here? Exhortation.

He’s starting this exhortation by addressing the men, not the women. And he’s telling the men that their behavior has to be in line first. And he’s very specifically calling out that you need to be not angry, not disputatious. You need to be living in nonviolent imitation of Christ, first and foremost. That’s where we start with this passage.

And then he starts talking to the women and he is asking them to consider their clothing, which again, has been used to tell women that we’re not supposed to have personality a lot of the time, I think. But I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about here at all. He’s addressing specifically, braided hair, gold, pearls, expensive clothing. He’s talking about demonstrating wealth to your community. He’s talking about stuff that are social symbols of prestige.

And so I think what he’s asking the women with this is not so much don’t enjoy the clothes you wear, don’t have fun with your attire. It’s dress in a way that demonstrates that you desire in imitation of God and not in imitation of humans.

You are going to be models for your community, right? That’s the message with this whole letter. And so if we’re starting from the assumption that other people are gonna be imitating you, and you have a responsibility to their spiritual welfare to show up with maturity, it’s demonstrate a life that values good deeds, that values kindness. Don’t be showing up and demonstrating a life that values wealth.

Which I don’t think there’s any wealth system on the face of planet Earth that doesn’t happen at the expense of somebody.

[00:58:36] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:58:37] January: Humans just haven’t succeeded at inventing that yet. So this is an exhortation to value what God values, rather than valuing what humans think is important.

[00:58:48] Andrew: Hmm.

[00:58:48] January: And so then we get into the really problematic flat out misogynist passage, which yeah, verses 11 and 12, a woman must learn in quietness and full submission. I do not allow a woman to teach or to take authority over a man, but to be in quietness.

We have 2000 years of demonstrable evidence at this point that Christ can come to women just as well as Christ can come to men. And that men can learn from women, and women can learn from men, and non-binary folks can learn from and teach both women and men. And we’re all learning from each other all the time. And there does not need to be any particular order to this.

There is nothing that differentiates men and women in that spiritual or intellectual realm. Physical characteristics, yes, sometimes, in an extremely broad sense, if you squint. But you know, there can be more similarities between women and men than there often is within a single gender.

[00:59:45] Andrew: Yeah.

[00:59:45] January: ‘Cause there’s such a range of ways that that gets expressed. So, yeah, he’s just flat out wrong about not allowing a woman to teach and that may also be, I don’t know this for sure, I’m just talking off the top of my head here, that may have been a cultural context thing where they were trying to reach a group of people, and in order to do that, they had to be as minimally scandalous as possible. They’re going to be scandalous, because everything about Christ is scandalizing to the world. And Paul recognizes that and is willing to take that on when the consequence is his own imprisonment. He’s willing to go to prison for the gospel.

But he’s not trying to send his community to prison for the gospel. That’s their choice to make if they want to make it. He’s not trying to put them in danger. He’s very careful of their vulnerability at all times. And so this may have been one of those things where it was the cultural norm to not allow women to be in charge of anything and Paul’s just trying not to rock the boat in that particular way because he trusts that if the gospel takes root, things are gonna change. Transformation is inevitable when the gospel is getting into us.

[01:00:50] January: And then we get into this bit about Adam and Eve, and it says, “For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but it was the woman who was deceived and came into transgression, but she will be saved through the childbearing.” And every source that I could find agreed across the board that it’s obvious that we’re not talking about being spiritually saved by the physical labor of childbirth. Because if that was the case, then how the heck did Paul get saved? I have questions.

That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s not the mechanism by which Jesus works. But nobody had a particularly satisfying answer to this as far as I was concerned.

Some of them talked about how a woman’s legacy will be saved through her childbearing, or her life will have meaning through her childbearing and all of these things that I’m just kind of like, yeah. I’m still not willing to get on board with that. Nn nnn. I’m not feeling it. My gut says no.

But since Paul is talking about Adam and Eve in the immediately previous sentences, I don’t think that that ‘she’ is meant to refer to women in general, or even women specifically in this congregation that Paul is addressing through Timothy. I think that that ‘she’ is meant to refer specifically and only to Eve, and I think that what it’s meant to say is something like your legacy will be saved through childbearing, but it’s that creativity mechanism.

It doesn’t mean the physical pregnancy. Women are not going to be saved by subjugation to men and enslavement to motherhood. Can we all agree on that?

[01:02:31] Andrew: I hope so.

[01:02:32] January: I really hope so.

[01:02:34] Andrew: I hope so. Yeah.

[01:02:34] January: That is not what salvation looks like, so that we’re clear. Hopefully that’s not a confrontational statement. But Eve is the transgressor in the garden. That’s a fact. That’s what we have in scripture. And Eve’s legacy will be redeemed through her children, which is to say, all of us. All of humanity. Not specifically through Cain and Abel, but where Paul says if the rest of us continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control, like yeah, yeah.

That transgression is eventually going to be redeemed. It’s gonna be worked out when the second coming of Christ brings the Kingdom of Heaven to earth fully. That mistake is gonna have played a role in the whole thing. And that is gonna happen through that mechanism of childbearing in the sense of pregnancy as creativity, where we’re constantly learning and we’re constantly repenting, and we’re constantly coming home to God.

Eventually, this will be different, not because of our own efforts, but because God’s making it happen in us through this particular mechanism. Does that make sense?

[01:03:41] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[01:03:42] January: Is there anything there that you feel like I missed or that you have further questions about?

[01:03:48] Andrew: You certainly haven’t missed the blatant misogyny, and I appreciate the fact that we don’t have to salute it, but we can recognize it when it’s in the room. And I’m adding this was something I had to come to, but once I was there, it just made too much sense that Christ hanging on a cross was a big hangup for Paul, and probably not just him.

[01:04:08] January: Hmm.

[01:04:08] Andrew: That didn’t make sense. “Anything that hangs on a tree is accursed” or something. I don’t know. They had

[01:04:14] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:14] Andrew: plenty of reasons to see that as outrageous, and awful, and the opposite of what the presence of God would appear to be on earth.

And yet, the glory of God shone through all the shame of the cross and it’s become a place of glory. And I can go on a rant, but I won’t now. I think there’s rhetorical appeals that people can make today that they couldn’t make in the ancient world because we

[01:04:41] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:42] Andrew: we recognize there’s a certain privilege that people give to victims and people will take a step back if they’re accused of being a persecutor. And that’s the work of Jesus in the world, whether you’re professing belief or not. Your rhetoric has changed if you’ve come in contact with Western culture.

And so, that said, God appearing in the most shameful place imaginable and making it the origin of the message of redemption. If I can wrap my head. Well, I, it wasn’t so hard for me to wrap my head around it because Paul and, and all those folks, they did the work for me. They wrapped their heads around it and I inherited their tradition.

Well, if they can do that, is it not a similar step to recognize that the revelation of God could appear even inside a misogynistic text, right?

[01:05:29] January: Yeah.

[01:05:30] Andrew: That’s not too much for the word of God.

[01:05:32] January: Right.

[01:05:32] Andrew: It can still be revelatory even though it’s embedded in something that is thoroughly misogynistic. And it’s okay to say that! It was shameful for Jesus to hang on a cross. And some of these passages just don’t pass the sniff test when it comes to misogyny.

And that’s okay. That speaks to the power of God, at least that I affirm as a Christian. And so yeah, once I was able to put those two things together, it was a relaxing thing, as far as when I run across these texts. ‘Cause yeah, I was raised to think, “Oh, you can’t question scripture, it’s The Truth.

[01:06:05] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:06] Andrew: And if you disagree with something—” and it’s like… yeah, the word of God is Jesus.

[01:06:15] January: Yeah.

[01:06:15] Andrew: It’s not the Bible.

[01:06:16] January: Yep.

[01:06:17] Andrew: Pretty sure that’s in the Bible. Pretty sure that’s in the Bible, that the Word of God is Jesus, right?

[01:06:23] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:23] Andrew: And so I don’t need to pretend like the Bible is the Word of God.

Now, I’m fine with people saying it’s the word of God ‘cause I know what they mean. They’re saying it’s the revelation of who Jesus is, but when it comes to stuff like this. I can remind myself. So, anyway, I’m grateful that we can clearheaded just say, yeah, this is misogynistic and this is not something we wanna base practice on today. ‘Cause it makes no sense.

But I am aware of people that are trying to make it somewhat less unpalatable and, and I don’t know if it works. I guess there’s two points that I’ve heard. There’s some people that will say, “Oh, this is Deutero-Pauline, we can just toss it out. This is his disciples.” And that’s a conversation that I’m not qualified to wade into.

But two others that I can throw up here, and I’ll ask you are they compatible? And either one, how does that help us?

Since starting the work on this podcast, I’m thinking about childbearing in a way I’ve never thought about, never had to really think about it. It’s not been that close to my personal experience. So, but the idea of being. Creative like that has been part of my personal experience and I

[01:07:29] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:30] Andrew: have never felt comfortable adopting this as a frame for understanding that. And so this has been very eye-opening for me, I think.

[01:07:37] Andrew: And so, yeah, is it possible to take the metaphorical understanding here and apply it to a reading of this text? I don’t know. Because, I mean for some folks, and I’m not sure how you feel about this January, some people are like, their first question is, “Well, would Paul have had that in mind when he wrote this down or was reading it aloud to his emanuensis? ‘Cause if he didn’t have it in mind, then—” and I don’t know where you come down on that, but um, at the very least we can entertain that.

And let me throw out two things that I ran across in commentaries and tell me what you think, if it helps make a more fruitful reading or not. What do you think?

[01:08:13] January: Let’s do it. And I, I do also have thoughts about whether Paul would’ve used that in a metaphorical sense.

[01:08:19] Andrew: Then let’s start there! Let’s start there. What do you think?

[01:08:22] January: I think that it’s at least a possibility. I mean, I think that that is where his constant use of the metaphors of pregnancy and motherhood in his letters—that comes from the Old Testament. The prophets do that too. There’s a bunch of places in Isaiah where it happens. It happens in Micah. It happens in Jeremiah. They use the metaphors of pregnancy and motherhood to describe what God is doing in the world.

[01:08:46] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:08:46] January: And so I really think it’s at least possible. I don’t know the texts in the original languages. I do not speak Greek. I don’t know what the subtleties are here in the original text of this scripture, but I absolutely do think that based on how well Paul knew his own tradition, that this is a use of metaphor that he could have arrived at very, very easily.

I don’t think it would’ve been totally out of character for him to employ it here based on his use of it elsewhere in his letters.

[01:09:17] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. That’s a very good point. And yeah, we’re taking all of Paul to come to that conclusion. You mentioned that there’s a whole book on that.

[01:09:25] January: Oh, yeah. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “Our Mother Saint Paul”.

[01:09:29] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:09:29] January: Which, yeah, is, if I’m being honest, probably the most difficult book I’ve ever personally read.

[01:09:36] Andrew: Okay. Alright.

[01:09:37] January: Just in like, it is very academic theology. It is not popular theology for a general audience, so

[01:09:44] Andrew: Okay.

[01:09:44] January: you have to be pretty interested in reading it to, to get through it. With that said, I was riveted the whole way through. I found it absolutely worth all of the effort. So your mileage may vary, but I highly recommend it.

[01:09:58] Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so that’s great that there’s positive evidence for that this childbearing would be intended as metaphorical, and we compare that with just how batshit it would be if it’s literal.

[01:10:11] January: Yeah.

[01:10:12] Andrew: If this is literally how salvation happens for people with wombs like

[01:10:17] January: Yeah.

[01:10:19] Andrew: that’s kind of a big deal. We haven’t heard that before anywhere else. Like that’s, that’s wild. And so, taking those two things in tandem, I think at least for us today, we’re gonna lean toward a metaphorical meaning of childbearing. So I wanna draw attention to the context of where someone may have been asked to learn in silence.

That’s one.

[01:10:40] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:10:40] Andrew: And then this word for authority. “To teach or have authority over a man I do not permit.”

I have heard that the word here for “to have authority” does take on sort of a neutral connotation, a few centuries later. People will use this word, and it can just mean like an acceptable hierarchy.

But that those attestations of that usage, of an acceptable hierarchy in which one party has authority over the other, those come a matter of centuries later than what 1 Timothy may have been written. I mean, again, there’s the folks that wanna say it wasn’t written by Paul or anybody close to him, and maybe they would make it later. But we’re not going down that road.

It shows up just a handful of times in the first century, not just in the Bible, but the first-century Koiné Greek, you don’t see it much. And there are words to refer to authority within an acceptable hierarchy that Paul doesn’t use, but he’s using this word that not many people are using.

[01:11:40] January: Hmm.

[01:11:41] Andrew: And I heard an argument that it could

[01:11:42] January: Interesting.

[01:11:43] Andrew: that it could very well mean something closer to domineering. I don’t allow a woman to teach or to domineer over a man.

[01:11:51] January: Mm.

[01:11:51] Andrew: And the commentator — I’m blanking on his name right now — he addressed like the knee-jerk reaction of, like, what are you talking about? This is a time of patriarchy! How would a woman ever be domineering over a man? And he felt like would seem probable that this, I don’t allow a woman to have authority over a man would be, I don’t allow a woman to be domineering over a man is because it’s pretty clear that Paul does allow women to have authority when it comes to scripture.

[01:12:16] January: Yeah.

[01:12:16] Andrew: That happens… a lot.

[01:12:17] January: Exactly.

[01:12:17] Andrew: Like, yeah. His most precious theological thing he ever wrote, he’s like, “Here, Phoebe. I want you to take this, all right?

[01:12:24] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:12:24] Andrew: And if anybody’s got questions about what I said—” That’s why she’s carrying the letter!

[01:12:28] January: “I want you to be the one to read this to the congregation.” Yep.

[01:12:32] Andrew: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s not, it just doesn’t fit with what we know about Paul elsewhere.

[01:12:38] January: Yeah.

[01:12:38] Andrew: And so the paucity of attestations of this word in that time period, coupled with what we already know about how he handles the involvement of women in the church. He thinks is reason enough to think that maybe this has more to do with in some way shape or form, there were women domineering in a way. I’m not sure.

[01:12:58] January: Well, yeah, and I mean, if you’re a woman in a culture that doesn’t allow you any social power, there’s gonna be an impulse to acquire any power that you can have. And that might come in the family life you know, there’s a reason we have that term henpecked, right?

It’s a gross term, but it exists in our culture. It describes a real phenomenon, and you know that may have been what Paul was particularly describing. And the point of that is not that women shouldn’t have power, the point is that that’s a cruel thing to do to somebody.

[01:13:27] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:13:28] January: That’s a poor way to treat another human being. And he is not gonna settle for it from women any anymore than he is gonna settle for it from men. That’s the important thing. Even if we do take it as the hierarchy that Paul is describing here, that, you know, men are ahead of women, well, but he’s talking about men being ahead of women only if the men are in submission to Christ.

So both men and women are being asked in this passage to be in submission to someone whose greatest desire is for your freedom and subjectivity.

[01:13:59] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:14:00] January: That’s how the men are supposed to behave because that is how Christ behaves for them. And then they’re supposed to turn around and behave that way for the women in their lives. So even if there is a submission hierarchy going on here, it’s supposed to be for the freedom of all.

[01:14:17] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:19] January: And it’s a funny thing to have to tell people that having quote-unquote “grown up in” a BDSM club made scripture make more sense to me than, than less because I had a context for understanding the use of a power dynamic as an act of service, right?

When you have a dominant submissive relationship, the dominant is in charge, but that power is never supposed to be used purely for their own gratification. It’s supposed to be used for the building up of the person who has handed over the power. Does it always work that way? No. ‘Cause we’re humans and we fuck shit up, but that’s how that’s meant to be used. It’s not meant to be purely for one’s own power trip. It’s a dynamic relationship of mutual loving service.

[01:15:01] Andrew: So I can’t remember if I read it in a commentary with reference to 1 Timothy, or the 1 Corinthians passage. In First Corinthians there’s the idea of learning quietly,

[01:15:13] January: Mmm.

[01:15:13] Andrew: that kind of parallels this. And so Corinth and Ephesus are different cities and so this is probably relevant, and this is the sort of thing an historian would need to, to chime in on. It’s not, like, just something that I as a modern reader can imagine up and then just pretend that it helps.

But I have lived in places where there’s multiple languages that are being used. And there’s local dialects that you’re gonna speak at home but then when you’re in the market, you’re gonna use a different language and

[01:15:44] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:15:45] Andrew: or in a formal setting, maybe there’s a third language, that’s not as unusual as it sounds to like. I mean, it’s not the American experience in many locations in America. I think clearly, there’s, a few places where there’s at least a couple languages going on and that makes sense.

And that you can code switch, you’re going from one to another. That the code switching is actual language switching.

So, if you’re in a setting where teaching is going on. First off, let’s point to the fact that the women are there to learn, right? They…

[01:16:17] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:17] Andrew: It’s important that they learn. That’s our baseline. It’s not like this is too important for them, or they can’t get it. No. They’re there to learn.

[01:16:24] January: They’re already in the room.

[01:16:26] Andrew: Yeah. And it’s implied that they should be in the room, right? And so while they’re learning, they need to be silent.

Why would that be the case? Perhaps it would be the case if there’s a language dynamic going on where— and here’s where, I don’t know, are there local dialects?

I’m assuming Paul’s letter, we got it in Greek. I think everybody knows he is writing in Greek. The language of the study, the class, is gonna be Greek. And so if there are women who, I’m sure they would have familiarity with Greek, but if it was a local dialect of whatever language they spoke in Anatolia before the Greeks came in and took over. Are there remnants of that still playing out?

But if women have a native tongue that is not Greek, and they’re listening there with their husband beside them, and the teaching’s going on and she’s not catching it, not ‘cause she’s slow or not ‘cause she’s easily deceived, but just ‘cause it’s not her native language.

And she’s turning to her husband being like, “Hey, can you tell me like, what, what was that, what did he say there? What’s that part?” And like it turn, he is, “Oh, he said this.” And so all of a sudden you’ve got, in the audience — there’s no PA systems that I’m aware of at that time and age. So if you’ve got three or four wives asking for explanations in their native tongue. Then you’ve got a hubbub going on that’s going to interfere with the actual teaching.

And, I’m trying to remember. I need to go back to the 1 Corinthians passage. I think this was a commentary on that passage. I think there was something else that sort of lent itself to that as a possibility. ‘Cause I think it said something about she can learn at home. Or something.

[01:17:57] January: Yeah.

[01:17:57] Andrew: So like basically, if you have a question about a word means, yes, you should ask. You do wanna know what that word means, but don’t get in the way of the teacher.

[01:18:04] January: Yeah.

[01:18:05] Andrew: Presumably these letters, there weren’t dozens and dozens of copies of these texts laying in every pew and getting kicked under some pews and forgotten. These were precious things when they came to town.

[01:18:16] January: Yeah.

[01:18:16] Andrew: If this letter’s going somewhere else, when are you gonna get a chance to hear it again, right? This is…

[01:18:20] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:18:21] Andrew: and so maybe there are strictures in place here.

I guess what I was thinking is if that’s the scenario of, there’s a teaching and a word that should be heard, but there’s this conversation going on that is a clarification of the teaching, but it’s getting in the way.

[01:18:41] January: It’s distracting. Yeah.

[01:18:42] Andrew: Are we not getting close to some isomorphs of Genesis 3?

[01:18:49] January: I dunno what isomorphs means. So tell me more.

[01:18:51] Andrew: It has the same shape, the same contour, that’s what I meant. Like If Eve was getting talkative with the serpent

[01:18:57] January: Mmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:18:58] Andrew: which isn’t bad in and of itself, but we’ve unpacked where it’s going wrong. She’s immediately lost her trust what if she’d turned to God and said, “God,

[01:19:09] January: Yeah.

[01:19:09] Andrew: wait a second! This, the, this, this snake here is saying this, and it doesn’t sound right. Is that, is that what you’re doing? Are you keeping good gifts from me right now?!”

And maybe she would be upset, but she’d at least be talking to God.

[01:19:21] January: Yeah.

[01:19:21] Andrew: She doesn’t. She accepts the premise of the snake’s conversation, and it becomes a distraction to what is true, regarding God and what God wants for her.

And so that conversation with the snake clarifying this thing to nobody’s benefit, gets in the way of a conversation she could have had with God. And so that’s what I mean. Is there not a contour that matches

[01:19:46] January: Gotcha.

[01:19:47] Andrew: a wife asking “So wait, what does this word mean? When he said that word, what was he talking about?”

And so there’s this side conversation going on in a different language that blocks out the teaching. That’s what I’m saying. Is there a connection to be made?

[01:20:02] January: Interesting. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. That was helpful.

[01:20:06] Andrew: I don’t know that there is, but I thought it was worth asking.

[01:20:09] January: Yeah. I don’t know whether there is or whether there isn’t, but it’s an interesting idea and now I’m gonna go sit with it ‘cause this is the kind of stuff that we should be chewing on when we’re unpacking scripture, right?

[01:20:18] Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

[01:20:19] January: What I love about scripture is that that which is required for revelation, that which is required to really get this into us, doesn’t require any of this education, right? I came into it as a complete lay person with no experience whatsoever, and I got it. Instantly.

[01:20:37] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:20:37] January: The big picture made sense to me, start to finish, and I was hooked from minute one. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t all kinds of subtleties that we can dig into and unpack through scholarship and through understanding the languages better. And I hope that I spend the rest of my life doing that. ‘Cause that’s gonna be so much fun.

‘Cause I’m that nerd.

[01:21:00] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:21:03] Andrew: It’s these questions at the end that I feel like, I mean, those are what’s being put to me, the listener.

[01:21:09] January: Mm.

[01:21:10] Andrew: What is your life pregnant with? What wants to come into the world through you?

I wanted to have an answer to that question,

[01:21:19] January: Mmm.

[01:21:19] Andrew: but I’m not sure that I do. I can give you my response. I was imagining, okay, well let’s follow January’s lead even if it can’t possibly happen to me. Right? What if the good ol’ Angel Gabriel showed up and was like, “Andrew, you are gonna give birth to a —”

I’d be, “Um. Excuse me? How can that be!” Oh, wait a second. That’s what Mary said... Yeah. “How can that be? See—” “Andrew!”

So I kind of meditated on just how shocking that would be. And again, there would be some embarrassment! I mean, I think single mothers today, they have plenty of hardship, but the stigma isn’t the same today even as it was 20 years ago. Certainly not for her.

But that’d be a weird thing for me if everybody who knew me knew that...! And I was like, “Wow, maybe as a man I’m closer to Mary — uh, a man in American culture today — just the impending weight of stigma that’s just about to drop on your head of like, “What happened, what’s going on?” And like all the

[01:22:16] January: “What the actual fuck?”

[01:22:18] Andrew: and I would be like, “I don’t know! I don’t know any more than you know! It doesn’t make—” like it was

[01:22:22] January: Uh-huh!

[01:22:23] Andrew: So I, I was trying to think through it, and I was like, wow, there are more parallels here than I’ve ever bothered to stop and think about.

So thank you again. Thank you for that.

[01:22:32] January: You’re welcome.

[01:22:33] Andrew: But then it occurred to me that the real question that you’re asking, though, it’s Angel Gabriel shows up and says, “Hey Andrew, the Kingdom of God is coming. And part of it’s coming through you.”

[01:22:47] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:22:48] Andrew: And should that not be just as shocking and surprising and like, I mean, I feel like I was raised in a tradition where it was just like, “All right, I’m game. Let’s go. Let’s do it. Let’s get it done.”

But to match the experience described in Luke, It doesn’t seem like, if you’ve really heard that message or that announcement, that you’re just gonna be like, “All right, let’s go.” There’s gonna be a shock that comes.

[01:23:09] January: “I’m sorry. You want me to WHAT?!”

[01:23:16] Andrew: Exactly. Yeah. Heaven’s coming to earth. The reign of God. People will see it. It’s gonna be here. People will touch it, and it’s coming through you.

I mean, what is it? Right now? I appreciate your guiding us toward an answer. I don’t have it, but I appreciate that you’re guiding us by asking us to think through where the greatest aliveness is in our days. Because stands to reason, right? If what’s coming is life,

[01:23:43] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:23:43] Andrew: okay. Look for signs. Look for premonitions, right? Wouldn’t life be preceded by little glimmers of aliveness? Little kicks in the belly? I think John is kicking in his mama’s belly when Mary shows up to visit,

[01:23:57] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:23:58] Andrew: so, yeah. Can we carry this metaphor to our lives? Where do you see kicks and movement? Maybe this is indicative of life that’s coming.

[01:24:04] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:24:06] Andrew: What do you want to be creating with your time on Earth? Of course, I got a huge hangup with answering that question. So I didn’t know how to do it. But so I was like, “Ah, I’m not getting answers to these questions, and I wanna have a good response!” And I tried to think, well, maybe I can twist the verb tense of these questions.

Christ came into the world once, but as members of the divine Body, here on earth, in the Church, who’s to say we’re gonna create one thing for Jesus and then it’s over and done, right? So, what life have you brought into the world?

[01:24:40] January: Mm mm-hmm.

[01:24:43] Andrew: Where have you seen aliveness and how did you participate in its birth? Were you there for the first breath? I thought, oh, these questions should be simpler, right? I don’t have to be predictive. I don’t have to get inside myself and sort out my desires and wants. I just need to think back. Recollect.

I wanna have an answer to those questions. I’m not sure that I do, though.

[01:25:08] January: I love that you’re honest about that because I think that so many people don’t have any idea. You are so not alone in that. This is why I’m employed as a coach because people need help figuring out what that even looks like.

[01:25:23] Andrew: Mmm.

[01:25:23] January: When we’ve been handed a certain picture by culture, we don’t know how to imagine beyond it, and we don’t even know how to listen to those signals from our own system. So, yeah. I’m grateful that you’re sharing that that’s your experience. And I wanna know more about what does that experience of not knowing feel like for you?

[01:25:44] Andrew: Yeah, what does it feel like to not know that — I mean, I do believe that this is what God’s doing. I genuinely believe God’s at work in the world, and I do not think God is picking the best and the brightest or whatever. I think he’s, he’s chosen everyone.

[01:26:00] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:26:01] Andrew: And I am part of that number.

[01:26:05] January: What do you notice in your chest when you say that out loud? I don’t know.

[01:26:11] Andrew: Yeah. Uh, constriction a bit around the, uh, right where the rib cages come together.

I think the feeling in my chest isn’t a response to, “I don’t know what’s coming to the world through me.” I think my brain’s jumped to, “This is a podcast. People that I know are gonna listen to it.” They’re gonna hear me say that. They’re gonna completely disagree, and “Oh, but Andrew—!” and then they’ll have all these things to say, and I will be in a position of accepting what they’re saying and nodding and smiling and saying thank you and not agreeing with them.

[01:26:47] January: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[01:26:50] Andrew: And I think that’s what’s causing the tightness in my chest. Not that I don’t think they’re genuinely fond of me,

[01:26:57] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:26:59] Andrew: but that somehow I’ve construed that genuine fondness as a liability when it comes to truth telling.

I don’t think I’m mistrusting the people that are most fond of me because of their fondness, but I know I’m saying that intellectually, like I’m parsing the grammar and I know what I need to say. Right.

[01:27:14] January: Interesting.

[01:27:15] Andrew: I’m certain that I can process that, that quick. But is that what I would actually say naturally? I don’t know. But the way I, rationalize what I know I have to say, whether it’s true or not, would be that I know a handful, one or two maybe people no doubt, that are fond of me who, if I were to tell them, “I don’t know, I don’t really know what God’s bringing into the world through me,” and they would be like, “Okay! Good for you, man! Because that religion thing’s been weighing you down for way too long, and it seems like you might be standing up under your own strength. This is great!” You know?

And I would feel the clarity of their position. I would disagree with them, right?

[01:27:56] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:27:56] Andrew: Like maybe when I knew them I would be more ready to take that anti-Christian stance. It’s not that it’s threatening now, and it’s not that it was tempting then, but it was just, it was comfortable and there was a moment in my life where that just seemed inevitable.

[01:28:08] January: Mm.

[01:28:09] Andrew: And I wasn’t too worried about it. Obviously not where I am now. I’m making a podcast that’s the most exciting thing I’m doing, and it features Christian theology. So like, clearly that’s not where I am now. But anyway, what I’m saying is those people are very fond of me and I wouldn’t mistrust them ‘because of their fondness, but I wouldn’t take what they’re saying as reliable, just because theologically we’re in two completely different places.

[01:28:32] January: Mm. Mm-hmm.

[01:28:32] Andrew: And yeah. Now switch to the folks that are, I don’t know what the right word is here. The people in my life that I’m close to, that I know that are fond of me, that have a shared theological background, like... we have a shared theological background. We don’t have a shared theology.

[01:28:55] January: Yeah.

[01:28:55] Andrew: Like, I don’t think.

[01:28:56] January: Yeah.

[01:28:57] Andrew: And so it’s not that I don’t trust them because of their fondness. I don’t trust their theology. So when they say, “Oh yeah, you’re bringing God’s Kingdom into the world, like you did this and you did this—”

[01:29:08] January: Yeah, their kingdom is not your kingdom.

[01:29:12] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:29:14] January: Hmm.

Are there people in your life that you feel would reflect that accurately to you? If you asked them to have a conversation about it?

[01:29:22] Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can imagine easily, some people, if I said, “Yeah, I don’t know what God’s bringing into the world through me,” and they would be like, “Huh. Y-you don’t know?”

And they’d just let it sit like that.

[01:29:36] January: Mm.

[01:29:37] Andrew: They’re not saying like, oh, there’s nothing, but they’re not saying, oh, it’s this, that, and the other.

They would be thoughtful enough to know when a question’s more appropriate. That’d be a form of truth telling. In a sense, they’re telling me, well, you need to keep asking that question. Don’t stop asking. Yeah. I, yes, there are definitely people in my life that could give me, if not that exact response, something, something along those lines.

We started with the tightness in the chest as what came with the assertion, the statement, I don’t know, and I connected it to something down the road. But maybe we’re back to not down the road.

Maybe the feeling is just connected to the, I don’t know, and not some presumed difficult conversation that might happen later.

[01:30:19] January: Does it feel important to you to know?

[01:30:22] Andrew: I can, can say that I don’t think that it should be important.

[01:30:25] January: Mmmm.

[01:30:27] Andrew: But that’s me thinking about the way things should be, and you’re asking about my feelings.

[01:30:33] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:30:34] Andrew: So does it feel like an important thing to know?

[01:30:37] January: Does it matter to you?

[01:30:39] Andrew: I think so. Yeah. I want to know. That would be fun if I knew that.

[01:30:45] January: Mm.

[01:30:46] Andrew: Yeah. In that sense, it’s important.

[01:30:49] January: I really like that your answer is that would be fun. I think there’s a lot of people who feel a lot of obligation to know, like it’s their job.

[01:31:00] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:31:00] January: If they can’t figure it out, then they can’t participate. I think it’s really important to remember that we don’t have to know what any of this is to do it. This is work that God is doing in us.

[01:31:12] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:31:13] January: Just by dint of creating us as who we are. It’s not up to us to have to figure it all out so that we can then turn around and give it to the world. We’re going to give it to the world whether we ever figure out what it is or not.

The honest answer is I don’t know what that is in my life either. Mary was lucky that she got told what it was gonna be. I don’t think most of us get that.

[01:31:38] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:31:38] January: There are people who do, there are people who just have a sense their whole lives of this is the thing that I’m about. And more power to ‘em. I have not had that experience at all. I have spent most of my last five years going, “Who the fuck expected that plot twist?” I was a DJ for a BDSM club and now I’m a preacher? What just happened?

I’m sorry, what?!

[01:32:08] Andrew: Yeah, maybe it was better you weren’t told ahead of time.

[01:32:10] January: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I would not have taken that shit seriously, tell you what.

And if you had told me beforehand that the video of that sermon was gonna get 600 views on YouTube, I would’ve been like, what? No, that’s ridiculous. No. Who’s watching sermons on YouTube? I mean, besides me, obviously, ‘cause I’m a weirdo.

I still have no idea who shared it or how that happened, but that was the moment where I was like, oh, okay. God is doing a thing here and my job is just to participate and do the best that I can to say what I’ve been given to say, whatever that is, and that requires me to go on the adventure of constantly trying to figure out what the heck is it that I’ve been given to say. What do I think about this? What feels important to communicate about these things?

That’s a lot of inner navigating and a lot of inner work, and I don’t ever know what, if anything, is gonna come out of it afterward.

I think that developing a journaling practice has been crucial in that for me. I aspired to keep a journal for most of my life, and it just did not work. I was very much trying to perform for an imaginary audience of people who might read it someday. And that is not the way to do that. It, well, at least it wasn’t the way to do it for me. That, that did not work, ‘cause it was just constant anxiety about, was I saying it right?

And then after my life fell apart, one of my coping tools became just dumping everything that was in my brain out on the page just so I could get a little bit of perspective from it and see what the heck is actually going on in my head? And when I finally learned how to do that, how to not try to censor it or compose something for an audience, but just to blah onto the paper.

[01:34:12] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:34:12] January: That was the beginning of learning how to figure out what the heck is it I actually do believe? ‘Cause like, I can say I believe this thing. Are my actions reflecting that? Hmm. Maybe not so much.

[01:34:26] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:34:27] January: And then by reading what I would dump down on the paper, I’d be like, oh, so I think what I actually believe is this thing over here. No wonder I’m acting like this. Okay.

[01:34:38] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:34:38] January: But yeah, still have no idea how to know what I want. At least for me, I think that’s a thing that I will only ever see in retrospect.

I will only ever see it after I’ve done it and there’s something in the world that I can observe and be like, oh, was that the thing I was going after the whole time? Huh, how ‘bout that?

Which doesn’t mean I don’t make goals for myself, I’m in a bit of a learning curve right now of how do I learn how to set goals if I don’t know what I want?

[01:35:07] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:35:08] January: And a lot of it for me, and I think this is one of the reasons you and I get along so well, is that it’s just following my curiosity. What’s the next thing that sounds like, ooh, I’d like to learn that. Huh, I wish I could do that. I bet I could figure it out. And then just seeing where it goes.

[01:35:28] Andrew: All right. That sounds like a good place to wrap up. Let’s turn to a practice. What practice do we have to recommend to our listeners?

[01:35:36] January: Awesome. So this practice is what I call a Mini Manifesto, and the purpose of a manifesto on an individual level is to give our subconscious a little bit of positive direction. Because one of the tricky things about our brain is that it is constantly inventing things. It’s just always making stuff. Sometimes that stuff is really helpful and good, and sometimes that stuff is just making a whole bunch of trouble that you really don’t want in your life.

And so manifesto can be a way of giving your subconscious a little bit of structure and a little bit of direction of like, “Hey, this is the direction I would like to be making stuff in. Do you wanna, do you wanna help me out with that?”

You don’t have to read it every single day. It’s not some big, involved practice. The idea is just to let your subconscious work with it. And once you’ve gotten to a place where like, this articulates my values, you just let your subconscious go to town.

And so this Mini Manifesto project is just 10 statements of “this, not that.” I kind of synthesized a practice out of some things that Michael Bungay Stanier uses. He’s a wonderful coach from Australia whose passion is getting people started on projects when they have trouble getting moving on something. There’s something they wanna do, but they can’t figure out where to start. It’s just too big. So his big passion is helping people get moving on that.

And one of the tools that he has for that is these little “this, not that” statements.

This isn’t something to grade yourself against. It’s just to help you recognize when you are living in accordance with your values and when you’re not. And when you’re not, okay. Just notice that and notice what would be a little more aligned and shift in that direction. It’s meant to be a very, very gentle, support structure that’s very custom to you and who you are and what matters to you and what you want to be doing in the world.

It’s not meant to be a cage. It’s meant to be a trellis.

So we’re starting out with listing out 10 values that are important to you, that you want to be living in your life, and if you want a worksheet for this practice, you can come find that on our Patreon, along with show notes and transcripts. And so you can find a list of values there, if you’re having a little trouble getting started. There’s a PDF you can download to get you going, but you can always just brainstorm off the top of your head things that are important to you.

Another resource I love for this is Lisa Congdon’s Live Your Values Deck.

So then once we have the list of 10 values or however many values you’ve decided to work with, you’re gonna make two lists out of that.

And the first list is, “I know I’m getting this right when ___” and the second list is, “I know I’m getting this wrong when ___”

And so for each of those values, you’re gonna go through and you’re gonna write at least one “I know I’m getting this right” sentence, and at least one “I know I’m getting this wrong” sentence. I recommend doing at least three for each, ‘cause then you have a little more creative room to play when you’re composing the final list, but that’s totally up to you. All you need is one of each.

And then you write down examples for how you personally experience that value. So if the value is hope, like how do you know, when you’re living hopefully? What does that look like for you?

For one person, it might look like being really financially generous when they see panhandlers on the street. For another person, living with hope might look like writing in a gratitude or affirmations journal every morning. It can be completely different for different people. And so that’s why this is important. You want a manifesto that’s really custom to you and it’s not just you trying to live up to somebody else’s external standard.

We’ve talked a lot about that on the podcast already and we’re gonna talk about it more.

You wanna be expressing the best of your own soul, not somebody else’s. So the goal is to list out what each of those values looks like for you. And then once you have those two lists of, this is how I know and I’m getting it right, and this is how I know I’m getting it wrong, then for each of the values, you make a “this, not that” statement.

The example that I use in the worksheet is “Patience, not productivity.” That’s one that’s in mine.

So you work your way through. For each of those values, you create a this not that statement that says, this is what it looks like when I’m getting it right. This is what it looks like when I’m getting it wrong. And that just acts as some guardrails for your attention span and your subconscious to help you recognize when you’re on track with living the things that are important to you.

[01:39:56] Andrew: Yeah.

I don’t think I recognized it when you shared your 10 “this, not that” statements I found it interesting, but the formulation of it had me thinking of it as a binary. And so once I realized that this is a matter of having a trajectory, and we’re not listing a virtue versus a vice, but this is two points that allow you to plot a line that should be going one way and not the other.

[01:40:18] January: Right.

[01:40:18] Andrew: It doesn’t actually have to be, like, one and not the other. It’s understanding the direction.

[01:40:24] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:40:25] Andrew: I felt a lot more free to like, okay, yeah, I can do this exercise. ‘Cause if I was trying to think in some absolutist terms about it, I’m gonna get bogged down into finding a right word to say or whatever. So.

[01:40:36] January: Yep.

[01:40:36] Andrew: Once I realized that was what was going on, it made it a bit easier, but it hasn’t been entirely easy.

[01:40:42] January: When I just was looking at the finished product, I was like, that’s gonna be impossible. But then once I saw the framework of how it was gonna go, I was like, oh, this is doable.

[01:40:52] Andrew: I didn’t want to glance too quick down the page, ‘cause I was like, I’m just gonna do it step by step, otherwise I’ll get hung up on what I’m doing. So I’m like, yeah, pick 10 words, I can do that.

I got down to joy and then I went back through and I was like, yeah, let’s put fun and play in there. And hope, I’m like fruit of the Spirit? Can’t leave that out! No, actually it’s not, is it? Love, joy, peace, no, it’s not one of the fruits of the Spirit. Yeah, it’s one of the three theological virtues.

[01:41:13] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:41:13] Andrew: That’s right.

[01:41:13] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:41:13] Andrew: Faith, hope and charity. Anyway, so then it was like, make two lists. And so my first one was integrity, and I was like, “Oh. Crap.” Like this isn’t, this isn’t aspirational at all. I’m supposed to have some sort of experience with this! I’m supposed to know what integrity looks like?! Aw, man! I would’ve never—! Like, it was the first one I picked! And, uh, I was like, this is, and so, uh, yeah. The brakes screeched.

And I was like, uh, no, I can do this. Well, of course. And well, anyway so I know I have integrity when I can acknowledge more than one feeling at a time.

[01:41:58] January: Hmm.

[01:41:59] Andrew: I have integrity when I can calmly follow someone else’s train of thought. I didn’t come up with a third one.

I don’t have integrity when I scoff or laugh cynically

[01:42:11] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:42:12] Andrew: and I’m trying to defend myself.

[01:42:14] January: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:42:15] Andrew: And so I felt like I didn’t even get to the third step. I really do appreciate the way you broke it down into what, what should be easily achievable tasks, I really did like how you did it, and understanding that this is about vectors more than if you think of a list of virtues or something, you’re talking about the epitome.

But yeah, the fact that the “this, not that” is more about giving you a direction than necessarily extremes or even ideals.

I don’t know. I, yeah, I really, I thought it was a great mental exercise, but yeah, I got to, trying to remember when I started. It would’ve been around lunchtime. But yeah, by the time three o’clock came around, I was like, this is not gonna get done by tonight, that’s for sure.

Better, better send January a text.

Anyway. So like, yeah. What’s your response to how I began this exercise?

[01:43:11] January: Well, I mean, it sounds like you’re doing it right.

What you described sounds great to me. And based on conversations that we have had and vibe that I’ve picked up from you, I guess, I think that calm and curious, not cynical, that would be a great one. Tell me where I’m wrong.

[01:43:28] Andrew: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:43:33] January: So, congratulations. You did it.

[01:43:35] Andrew: Yeah, I did one! Cool.

[01:43:38] January: It was right there.

[01:43:42] Andrew: Cool.

[01:43:43] January: Let’s go through the list in order.

[01:43:45] Andrew: Okay. Integrity, presence, attention, flow, care, curiosity, joy, fun, play, and hope.

[01:43:53] January: And tell me where you’re stuck.

[01:43:55] Andrew: Present. I know I’m present when I can be pleasantly surprised. I know I’m not present when any unexpected thing is an annoyance.

[01:44:05] January: Mmm. Mm-hmm.

[01:44:08] Andrew: And I know it’s supposed to be helpful if I have more than one, but I—

[01:44:11] January: You don’t, that’s okay. We’ll work on it.

[01:44:13] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:44:14] January: So how would you turn that into a this not that statement?

[01:44:17] Andrew: Do they have to be real words? Like, surprisable, not annoyable. Those aren’t actually words, are they?

[01:44:25] January: It totally does not have to be actual words if it means something to you. If you like that, then you can use that. I think what came to mind for me immediately was, “Enjoying surprises, not resenting surprises.”

[01:44:37] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. I like using English too. Yeah.

[01:44:42] January: That, that’s fair. That’s fair.

[01:44:46] Andrew: Yeah.

Flow. I know I have a flow going when self-awareness is fun, as opposed to, I know I’m not in a flow when like, this is the PG version of what I was thinking. There’s a band called the Moldy Peaches. They have a line in there where the lead singer says, I’m just an ass in the crack of humanity. And that encompasses so much of just she got to something in my soul with that ‘cause you’re like, wait ass isn’t a crack. Like, is that a donkey? And like crevice because it doesn’t make like, it’s so nonsensical.

And yet it actually, it just reeks of like this… I don’t know what, and I feel it and I’m like, Ugh. And that’s, yeah. when I’m feeling that, like I’m an ass in the crack of humanity, I’m not in a flow state. That’s for sure.

Yeah. How do we turn that into a manifesto line?

[01:45:40] January: My brain always wants to go to alliteration, so what’s popping into my head is grooving, not grouchy.

[01:45:47] Andrew: Okay. Grooving, not grouchy. Yeah. I like that. I might say grumping. Grooving, not grumping.

[01:45:52] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:45:53] Andrew: I think I grump more than I grouch, maybe.

And curious. I know I’m curious when I’m ready to drive to the library, I have nine library cards I think? Four local county libraries. And then there’s the university, and then there’s the seminary, and another seminary, and then the big state university.

So when I’m just like, alright, so maybe I have to drive for 30 minutes to get there. But it’s just like, well that doesn’t matter. Let’s do a podcast. I’ll learn something on the way. So that’s when I know I am, I’m, I’m curious, if I’m getting in the car with no real reason drive to the next county, other than some burning question that might be answered by some book I found referenced online or something. Yeah, that sounds like curiosity to me.

Now, I know I’m not curious when I start refining a very tired argument that does not need any attention.

I’m curious when I’m ready to do the mundane for just a shot at learning something novel.

[01:46:49] January: Mm-hmm.

[01:46:50] Andrew: And I’m not curious when I’m ready to repeat things I’ve thought through over and over again just to like solidify some sort of righteousness or something. Like I got this figured out and I know it and you don’t, that’s not curiosity at all.

[01:47:05] January: I know we have feelings about violence around here, so tell me if I off base with this. But what came to mind immediately was hitting the library, not beating a dead horse.

[01:47:18] Andrew: Okay. Okay. No, that’s it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s funny. No, that’s good. That’s good. Not beating a dead horse. Yeah, let’s not, let’s not do that. Let’s hit the library.

Okay, cool. Thank you.

Fun. Okay. I know I’m having fun when I have no idea how much time’s left. And I know I’m not having fun when I am acutely aware of when the activity is scheduled to be over.

[01:47:47] January: Mm-hmm. So losing time, not tracking time.

[01:47:50] Andrew: Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it. Yeah. I really like that. No, that’s definitely poetic. That’s neat. That’s neat.

I know I’m playful when I’m brainstorming the funniest way to lose.

[01:48:06] January: I love that

[01:48:07] Andrew: I’m not being playful if I’m thinking, ah, if only.

I know I’m being playful when I’m ready to be the butt of a good joke, and I’m not being playful when I’m concerned about how I’m perceived.

[01:48:20] January: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Then yeah, let’s just go for “Looking for funny ways to lose.” And then,

[01:48:27] Andrew: Yeah.

[01:48:28] January: “looking for serious ways to win” on the other side.

[01:48:32] Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that gets it. Yeah. No, I think we got it.

[01:48:37] January: Yeah, read back to me what we have so far.

[01:48:39] Andrew: Yeah! Curious, not cynical. Enjoying surprises, not resenting surprises. Grooving, not grumping. Hitting the library, not beating a dead horse. Teaching learning, not stagnating. Losing time, not tracking time. Looking for funny ways to lose, not looking for serious ways to win. Outcomes for sharing, not apathy for outcomes.

[01:49:06] January: How does it land for you when you read it all together?

[01:49:09] Andrew: Yeah, that’s, that’s good. I like it. I like that. That was fun. Yeah. Thank you. That’s nice. Thanks for helping me put that together.

And that brings us to a good concluding point for this episode. But there is another episode coming. Tell us, what can we expect to hear about next week?

[01:49:28] January: Hmm. Yeah. So next week we’re gonna get a little bit deeper into the Heroine’s Journey that we talked about in our last episode. And we’re gonna look specifically at the story of Eve. We’re gonna talk about how Eve’s trust got broken and how everything else, including the Fall of humanity, kind of escalates from there.

We’re gonna dive really in depth and explore her experience of lack that ends up turning into what I’m referring to as that internal violence of shame. It’s not the point that people usually start at, but I think that we can explore some really interesting things in the scripture there, so stay tuned for that.

[01:50:05] Andrew: You’ve been listening to Theology Kills, a podcast about letting our shame and violence die so that life and love can thrive. Your hosts are January Jaxon and Andrew McRae, and Season One was written and produced by January Jaxon.

[01:50:27] January: Our theme music is Things To Do in a Day by Simon Lepine.

[01:50:32] Andrew: Theology Kills is exclusively listener funded. If you’d like to support our work or go deeper with practices, bonus content, and community conversations, join our Patreon at patreon.com/TheologyKillsPodcast. You can find everything we’re making at www.theologykills.com.

[01:50:51] January: That’s everything we have for you today. Thanks for listening, take care of yourselves and each other,

[01:50:56] Andrew: and we’ll see you next time.