To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.

And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

Good evening, ladies, germs, friends of the pope. We're here.

Friends of the pope? Mhmm. Are you a friend of the pope? Mhmm. When'd you last see him?

I don't wish to discuss our personal relationship with the public. Oh, yes. Yes. Are you under an NDA? Yes.

Got it. In Pope Francis. Am I gonna get sued for this? Frankly, there's always that possibility. I meant broader friends, you know?

Like, friends

of the church, friends of the family, friends with benefits. Oh, dear.

I think I've scandalized the pope. I'm sorry. I take everything back. I have a bigger question, though. Are we friends of the church?

I feel like maybe we're not. Here's the deal. Friendships sometimes are not that easy. And friendships, you it's tough love. Right?

You have to tell that friend, fix your face. And sometimes love is tough, and

it means hearing the hard things.

The church is the people. Right? We were discussing this earlier. We are friends of the people, but we are possibly guiding them in a direction that they had no idea that they were going in. Your voice did some really exciting stuff just there.

Yeah. Brie is lightly ill. We are all lightly ill. Yeah. My husband fully lost his voice last night.

Was really exciting. And Brie's on her way there. Yeah. It's a good time. It's a good time of year.

Also, we woke up this morning to snow. Yeah. What happened there? Ew. I don't know if this is, like, a nationwide thing, but I think a lot of Michigan got hit with snow Mhmm.

Overnight. I think it did. And, I

mean, it's normal. It's November in Michigan, but I'm never ever prepared. I don't know where my coat is. Who knows? I'm lucky I found a pair

of socks. Right? Our tree still has leaves. Yeah. And that's throwing me off.

Yeah. There's, like, snow covered leaves outside, and we had to wipe the car off from the snow this morning. And by wipe the car off, we

meant turn on the wiper blades.

It's an extra step.

Yeah. Inconvenient. Quite. And I got

a hot coffee instead of an iced. I didn't. I am a full, always iced coffee person. I just like hot coffee. But you like other hot beverages.

Yeah. But then I don't get the caffeine kick, And we need to be kicked. We do. Today of all days. Yeah.

We went to the wedding of our cousin last night. Mhmm. Which was a weird way to say that. We went to our cousin's wedding last night. The wedding of our cousin.

We wedded our cousin. We did not. And we were not out that late. I think we got home at, like, 10:30.

Like, a normal time.

Yeah. A reasonable time. The issue is that we're old. We're very old. And we were, like, dancing.

And Brie was literally on the dance floor all night. I was having the time of my life. But we're too old. We're too old for this. My right knee, I think, has given out on me.

I think the arthritis has plagued me. I'm done. It's time for a knee replacement. It's time. You know what?

Think you should do it while you're young. 97 feels like the right age for that. Yes. A young 97. But we had a good time.

We are exhausted today, but we're excited to talk about a topic that is fun for us, at least. You sounded really excited at the beginning too. We're excited to talk about I told you all of our voices are going. And I'm getting steadily deeper. Brian is coming to the surface.

You have such a good deep voice. I don't know that I could do that. It's years of practice. Brie gets on the phone with random strangers and she's just like, hold up. Hello.

My name is Brian. These people are gonna think we actually have a new person. A new friend here on the podcast. The girls and this guy named Brian. Brie's alter ego.

Yes. Oh, I almost broke into song there. Today I don't know how to transition from here. Today today, on this day year of our lord 2025. Yep.

Yeah. Yep. We're talking about a different Beth than what we normally talk about, that being our good friend, Beth Moore. We already have a good friend. We need a different title.

Is that our lady in waiting? Nope. That can't be it. Our bosom buddy? Sure.

Although I feel like we may have one of those. We may have one of those. Our grandmother. I think she'd probably find that insulting. We're in our thirties.

Did you know okay. Beth Moore is kind of like a Christian lady boss.

Yes. She does a lot of ministry work, started out in like the nineties. But did you know that her name is not Beth Moore?

Okay. So Brie told me this before, and I'm waiting with bated breath because she wouldn't actually tell me the name until we were recording. Yeah. Her name she was born Wanda Elizabeth Green.

Wow.

Where did Beth Moore come from? I I didn't ask it further details. I was

just I was like, okay.

I've accepted this. This is probably completely untrue. Chat, GPT said it was true. So wow. Wanda.

Alright, Wanda. Let's talk about you today. I wonder when we switched from Wanda to Beth. I bet that I could ask it. But do we care?

No. Probably not. I've accepted that she wants to be identified as Beth. Alright, Beth. We're using your chosen name.

Mhmm. So Beth Moore was a major figure in women's ministry. She actually started in the eighties by teaching, like, bible classes at her church.

She started teaching when she was 18.

Mhmm. She's a young'un. She is sincerely one of the smartest biblical scholars out there. She published her first bible study, which was called A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place in 1995. And that was when she partnered with what is now called LifeWay Christian Resources, but then was known as Baptist Sunday School Board, which is quite the name.

Quite a mouthful. It's a lot of words. Yeah. And I said them sort of clearly, so be proud. From there between, like, the 2000 and the February was when she really became a thing.

If you are a evangelical person in The United States, I think everybody's heard of her.

Specifically, she would do ladies kind of bible studies published in a lot of books, a lot of workbooks to go along with

those books. She would do big conventions, you were saying. But anytime you would see kind of, like, on the projected screens in your front church of, like, a a flower graphic

and ladies bible study time,

it was probably Beth Moore. I I'm not a big bible study kinda girl. But I even have several of her bible studies because she's so intelligent. Mhmm. I think up until her, the concept of a ladies bible study was relegated to kind of fluff bible pieces.

You know, like, let's go surface level. Let's talk about submission. Let's talk about Mary and Martha and how you're supposed to keep your home and whatever.

I think a big part of it was that there are these big topics that they were trying to honestly kind of brainwash women into believing like, this is what God wants

for you. All of a sudden, Beth Moore enters the scene and you have these really deep studies geared specifically towards women. And that's not to say that men can't do them too. I think it's really kinda silly that they were marketed specifically towards women because they were just really great bible studies. Mhmm.

But because she's a woman and because she is part of the Southern Baptist Convention or was at this time, which is a hyper conservative sect of Christianity, they believe that women can't teach men. That women are biblically mandated not to teach men. So Beth Moore, being a woman, even though she's an incredible scholar, she knows so much, she dives really deep into these topics, they marketed them only towards women, which is a loss for both men and women in this situation.

And even though she's preaching all the time Mhmm. She's not considered a preacher Right.

Or a pastor. She's a teacher. Right. She would get up. She would fill stadiums.

So, you know, you think of like a televangelist, right, that's getting up there on TV and they are preaching to thousands and thousands of people or whatever. So I'm thinking like Joel Osteen, who fills up his thousands of people church every Sunday. And he's up there preaching. Now, I don't like Joel Osteen in any sort of way.

He does have very pearly whites.

He has very intense teeth. But my point is that he gets up there in front of all those people and he's preaching. But Beth Moore would get up in front of a stadium full of people, and it wasn't considered preaching because she wasn't doing it on the stage of a church. Mhmm. Which was kind of this, like, weird little loophole that I guess I guess they allowed for in the SBC.

But that didn't last for super long for her. I mean, it did for a while, obviously. But the funny thing about her, before we talk about kind of her downfall, is that she was this weird middle ground between hyper conservative beliefs. She was preaching very conservative faith, even saying the role of women being from a very conservative perspective. And yet she's standing all the on all these stages really preaching even though we're not gonna call it preaching.

Well, we will. They wouldn't. But she's standing on these stages preaching. She's also running this, like, multimillion dollar business in which she's publishing all of these bible studies and guides and things like that. So she is likely the primary breadwinner in her family.

And it reminds me of a lot of the trad mom influencers right now. Mhmm. I'm thinking of one in particular that I won't name. But they will preach these, like, really traditional they're not traditional, but, you know, like the nineteen fifties style family guidelines. And yet they're on social media making millions of dollars making they're the primary breadwinners in their home.

Mhmm. Which more power to them to make all that money, but then don't tell other women, you can't do what I'm doing.

Yep. This is the standard.

Right. So that's kind of what I think of with Beth Moore in this era is that she is super smart, building an empire, and yet telling women that they can't do the same.

I think there's something so magical about a big group of women coming together. Women find strength in other women oftentimes. And I also think they crave seeing that strong presence of a female in front of them, because they're not used to seeing that in church. Mhmm. They're not used to hearing she, her, hearing about women from the Bible, women from history.

Mhmm. So we crave that. Yeah. And that's why she was so popular. Mhmm.

I think, personally. Because women were craving that. Mhmm. They were needing other women's support. They were needing to see women in leadership.

The issue then became so Beth Moore is already riding the line. Right? Because she is preaching. She isn't really the traditional wife, even though we're putting forth that idea that she is. So the SBC was kind of tolerating her in some ways because she's making them a ton of money.

LifeWay Publishing is making them a ton of money. She's probably tithing a ton of money.

That's what it is at the end of the day. It's power and money. Mhmm. And as much as we don't wanna admit it, the church and religion has become a business.

And we're using women to get there. Mhmm. We are using women like Beth Moore. Like Yeah. Amy To get there.

So they tolerated her for a while until suddenly they didn't. Mhmm. So there were two kind of major issues that she ran into in her fall

from grace. Mhmm.

The first one is during the twenty sixteen election cycle in The United States. So that was the first time that Donald Trump ran for president. And a video came out from Access Hollywood, and it was a tape of him talking about how he treats women. And wasn't he like, he was mic'd or something?

Didn't realize his mic was on?

Yeah. It was something he wasn't talking directly to the camera. He was talking to someone. And He was being his true self. Yeah.

Exactly. So it it just was clearly who he was as a person. And this was from several years prior. So these aren't even the current allegations that are going on. Mhmm.

There are much worse allegations. But this on its own, because she was coming from a place of wanting to defend women. She saw this and she said, absolutely not. And she started making statements about how terrible he was and how he would not be a good leader for our country. Mhmm.

She tweeted at one point, wake up sleepers to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement and power. She also then went on to criticize a lot of the evangelical leaders who were looking at that tape and who called it things like locker room talk. Mhmm. Because that was the was the excuse. Was like, oh, this is just how men talk to each other.

Sweeping it under the rug like we so often do with men in power. And I'm thinking about Beth Allison Barr's book, Becoming a Pastor's Wife. She talks about that a lot within the church. Mhmm. Asking women to hide their stories, not come forward with their stories, to maintain the church's reputation

Mhmm.

By way of allowing men

to just do whatever they want. Mhmm. Yeah. We've heard this. And I'm sure we've said this on the podcast before, but we've heard this our whole lives of, like, don't criticize the church.

Because if you criticize the church, people won't want to come into the church.

Yeah. You don't wanna tarnish the reputation of the church. Mhmm. But you're forgetting that the church is the people, and the people are hurting.

Mhmm. If you tell people from the outside that, yeah, we've accepted abuse. Because the abuse is gonna come to light. Mhmm. Just like always does.

In this situation. Beth Moore just saw an Access Hollywood thing where he talked poorly about women, and now we have all of these very clear allegations going on. She Believe them the first time. Exactly. She was right here.

And when those allegations come out and the church has supported that person, whether it's the president, whether it's your pastor, whether it's a deacon, whoever, that doesn't look good. Mhmm. It looks real bad. Mhmm. And so that's what Beth Moore was really fighting against here.

She was saying, I don't want us to look like crap. Mhmm. So in order for us to not look like crap, I'm gonna fight against this person who clearly is hurting anyone, hurting everyone. What would Jesus do? Right.

Jesus would not stand for that.

And Beth Moore wouldn't stand for that. But the pastors around her did wanna stand for it. And as we all know, where the evangelical church fell in that election and subsequent elections. Mhmm. So she was now fighting against her own denomination.

And that didn't go over super well.

It seems like a familiar story.

I think women are allowed to exist in in leadership positions within the church in a tiny box. Beth Moore was allowed to be a they wouldn't have ever called her a leader, but she was allowed to do some leadership things as long as she stayed in the box that they created for her. As long as she kept making them money Right. And kept giving them more power, more of what they want. And preached submission and preached what she was told to preach.

And once she didn't, they came for her. Mhmm. She fell from grace. Like, she struggled because she took a stand for something that she truly believed in. Now Brie and I talked about this before.

Beth Moore has talked a lot about how she was a victim of abuse. Mhmm. I believe of sexual abuse and physical abuse when she was younger. And yes, I think that plays into her being very sensitive about this topic. Mhmm.

But I also don't wanna make it that small that like, oh, only victims can speak out against Right. Abusers. No. She was speaking out, yes, because of her own personal experience, but also because she was someone that had integrity.

Yeah. She was saying, this is wrong. I'm gonna speak out against it. Meanwhile, all these other people in the church said, that's probably wrong, but I don't care. Mhmm.

Or but it's too hard to speak out against it. I might lose friends. I might Mhmm. Lose influence, whatever. And she had a lot to lose.

It's just like Amy Grant that we talked about last week. These women have a lot to lose. And the men in positions of power know fully well that they can take a lot of it from them. Mhmm. So for these women to stand up against it takes a lot of courage.

It takes a lot of faith. And so she did and started to lose lose some steam, lose some influence in the church. She then, in 2019, was when kind of the next big thing hit for her. So in 2019, she tweeted that she was gonna be giving a message on Mother's Day in, I believe, in SBC Church, so Southern Baptist Church. And up until this point, she wasn't, like, necessarily up on stage during a church service.

I'm sure she was up on stage in some churches, like, doing Special speaking. Right. Or a ladies bible study or whatever. But this time, it took it far enough, and she was already on the outs enough with the SBC elders to start to get massive pushback. Mhmm.

Because they considered this preaching.

And how hairy dare her.

Now she was saying the same things Mhmm. That she had been saying at their ladies bible studies, and they had no problems with her on stage then. Yep. But now it was on a Sunday morning, and now it was a problem. Mhmm.

So now you start to get that pushback from some of the pastors.

They're terrified of women. Mhmm. And we've heard this from pastors before, but they think that women, if you give them an inch will take a mile. And women will bulldoze situations, take over situations, and they're terrified of losing that little sense of power, rather than saying, this person might have some good things to say.

She has studied the word

of God more than I have. Maybe I should listen to her.

I had a pastor sit down across from me one time and say, you know, I've I don't know why God doesn't want women in leadership. But I've gotta think it's because, you know, women are so strong and they will handle situations by themselves, and then there'd be no place for men. And I didn't know what to do with that. Like, I don't know how to respond to that level of stupid. It's almost like you're it's just stupid, but give me a verse.

Right. I'm sorry. You're making stuff up. Mhmm. Then saying it's biblical.

Yep. And because of your position, people will believe you. Mhmm. Because you're a pastor, people will say, oh, this is the word of God. Mhmm.

And it's not. It's a lie. And why would God give

all of these leadership qualities to women?

Mhmm.

Women do often get things done. Why would he give us a brain? Yeah. Why not just make us a dog? Subservient, submissive, whatever, with no goals of our own.

If that's really our purpose in life, don't give us those things. But God gave us those things because he wanted us in leadership at the same level of men. And you can see that throughout the New Testament. Mhmm. You can see women leading right alongside the men.

And historically, we know that women were leading those churches, that it was a radical choice for women to be leading in the early church. Mhmm. But it wasn't just allowed. It was encouraged. Mhmm.

So anyway, back to Beth Moore. Some of the statements that I found about her at this time, so around 2019. One was from John MacArthur at the twenty nineteen truth matters conference. John MacArthur is a was a big pastor. When speaking about Beth Moore, he first said, go home.

Mhmm. I think that has a lot of implications. One of which being that he believes, of course, that the woman's place is in the home. But he was fine with her not being in the home until she broke one of the rules. I think that shows that he's scared.

That maybe all the things that he's been preaching about and believing his entire life might not be true. And so rather than taking a step in faith and saying, oh, I might be wrong. Mhmm. He lashed out and threw a temper to injury.

Yeah. Well, later says, there's no case that can be made biblically for a woman preacher. Period. Paragraph. End of sentence.

I'm sorry. End of discussion.

And we know that's just simply not true. We could give you lists and lists of women throughout the bible throughout history.

Additionally preaching and leading. The word pastor Mhmm. Doesn't really like, it's mentioned two times in the bible and never in reference to any specific person. Mhmm. So saying this can only be a man doesn't make any biblical sense.

Yep. And we've

talked about this. Beth Moore talks about this. Beth Allison Barr talks about this.

All the Beths. All the Beths are talking about this.

We have

a club called the Beths?

Except we wouldn't be able to

be in it. I would identify as Beth, number three.

Beth number three. Mhmm. Also, Josh Buse, who maybe I'm pronouncing that correctly. Unsure. He is the pastor of Georgia Baptist or was at the time, urged the SBC and LifeWay to cancel more.

Like, to cancel her contracts, to get rid of her completely. Mhmm. He labeled her as a liberal threat to the denomination. Now note that she first of all, I think it's wild that you're like, let's bring politics into

Right. When really they should be separate.

Like, you should have no politics Mhmm.

In church because the church is supposed to be above politics.

And Beth Moore was addressing a political situation because the person, not the politics, but the person was garbage. Mhmm. That's I think that's fine. If you're saying, like, this person is a bad person. We shouldn't support them.

Yeah. Opposed to saying, yeah. But, yeah, maybe we don't. And yet here we are. And then Albert Moeller, who was the president of the SBC seminary and a major major SBC figure for a long time, he said, there's just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice.

I also would like to argue, okay, God created Adam first. Every man after Adam has come from a woman.

Mhmm.

So what's your percentage?

Pretty bad. Yeah. Real bad. I hate the way that he words this because, again, it's it's just an abuse of power to say, there's just something about the order of creation. What?

What about the order of creation? Mhmm. There's just something. Well, I've just There's something. There's just something in the air.

A feeling that I have. Like, the order of creation, it's such a arbitrary statement. Okay. God created Adam first. PLC created the animals before us.

Right. What a silly thing to say. Because if the order of creation is really your concern, you're gonna have to start listening to the sun really quickly.

Yeah. What? Maybe we do that.

Hold on. Let me radio in. Now there were some people that did support her. One of the really great quotes that I found was from Wade Burleson, who was an SBC pastor. And he said, if you continue to go after people like Beth Moore and others, you will destroy the Southern Baptist convention that you say you love.

I, for one, will never again allow our SBC leaders to betray our trust by convincing us that our friends are our enemies. I love that. I love that support for her because he really addresses many of the things that we're talking about here. We talked last week about how Christians often will say, oh, that person left the faith, so we can't talk to them anymore. Yep.

They are shunned. Mhmm. Even though it's not like an official thing Mhmm. We kinda do it Mhmm. A lot, actually.

A lot. We may not necessarily do it to our family. Some families do for sure, but that might not be the case for most families. But we do it to public figures like this.

Like Mhmm.

Oh, well, she's done.

Yep. Cancel her. I'm not gonna listen to their music anymore. I'm not gonna I'm gonna burn those books that I had.

Don't burn books. Just just don't. It never works out historically.

I have, like, one book that I might consider burning.

Which one?

Girlfriends, guys, and grown ups.

Our most popular episode. Now Beth Moore, because of all of this, in March 2021, she publicly announced that she was no longer identifying as a Southern Baptist. She said, I'm still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists. Now, obviously, like, the Southern Baptist Church is not something you have to apply to be a part of. It's not like Mhmm.

I suppose I think in the Catholic faith, you know, you have to go through catechism, things like that to be considered a member of the church. That's not really the case here. Mhmm. But she's choosing to say, this no longer represents my faith.

Mhmm. I remember when I announced to a good chunk of the family, I just said in passing. I was like, well, don't consider myself Baptist. And the way that those necks turn so fast, you go like, what?

I think it's really hard. And I actually find myself this is a little bit of an offshoot. But I find myself often relating more to non Christian people and having more compassion for non Christian people. Because you're going out there and living your life not saying that you're representing God. You're doing whatever it is that you're doing on a daily basis of your own volition.

You're not representing the same God that I'm worshiping. And that's fine. The Bible specifically says not to hold non Christians to Christian standards. I'm fine with that. Live your life.

Mhmm. But when a Christian walks out and is sexist, racist, bigoted, just a horrific human being, and you're doing it in the name of the god that I worship.

Now I have a problem.

I have a much bigger problem. Mhmm.

Because that hurts your reputation

Mhmm.

To people. And that's what has happened. I know we've harped on this for a while, but the the reputation of the Christian church right now is hatred. Mhmm. People don't like us generally because they think that we're hateful too.

And that's why we're doing this podcast to show this is not my faith.

Mhmm.

My faith is something completely different from what they're preaching

Right. At the White House or wherever it is. Right. Love God, love others. Mhmm.

That's what it boils down to. And that's what Amy Grant said in one of her quotes. Mhmm. I was gonna say last week. She didn't say it last week.

We quoted it last week. So then Beth Moore also split with LifeWay, who was her publisher at the time. She also has her own ministry. It's called Living Proof Ministries.

It was founded in 1994, a good year.

Ah, Brianna's year. Mhmm. She still has that. However, it lost between 2017 and 2019. So when she was kind of in this peak of controversy, it's reported that they lost about $1,800,000 from the loss of all these contracts and things like that.

Mhmm. Now she did split with Lifeway, who was her former publisher. But Lifeway still distributes all of those books.

Of course they do. Because it's a business.

Mhmm.

It's not a ministry.

It's just so sketchy. You're gonna sit there and tell me, the president of the SBC is gonna say, no, she's full of crap. Mhmm. But we're still gonna publish her books. If she really is terrible and she has no idea about the bible and she should go home, then she shouldn't be having any authority within your church.

Because you're telling me you're telling me she's a bad person. Mhmm. You're telling me she doesn't represent the same god you represent. You're telling me she's preaching things that are heretical to you. Mhmm.

But you're gonna hand out her books to anyone who asks for them. You're gonna keep publishing them. You're gonna keep making money off of them. What does that say about you?

It says that you're interested in one

thing. Mhmm. That I when I read that, I was like, okay. I just don't know how to respond to that. If you were gonna sit there and tell me, okay, well, she did something wrong, but she still was really smart.

In the case of Amy Grant, they could have said, she did something wrong, but we still like her music. Now they didn't in her case. But that would have made more sense to me as opposed to she has bad theology. Mhmm. But we're still gonna read her books.

Right. I just I don't understand. I'm so confused. There's just such a bizarre double standard there that I I can't get over. I don't know where to go from there.

Money and power, baby. So I wanted to compare some of her quotes from her early ministry to what she's kind of preaching now.

Mhmm.

So in her early ministry, think the 2000s era, some of her quotes are, more than any other faith challenge I face, believing that I am who God says I am necessitates choosing what God says over what I feel. Another one is live by faith, live out loud, and never stop believing God day by day. I feel like it's live, laugh, love kind of quotes.

Yeah. Cute little snippets. Yeah.

Whereas today, in the 2020s, she's saying, women are being abused by the system itself, or within it by people that are in places of power, don't even have a female to turn to. If complementarianism were a woman, I'd tell you that that woman is being abused, and somebody needs to call the police.

That is so powerful. What a statement. If complementarianism was a woman, she'd be being abused. And I mean, that's what we've been saying forever. But that is a really intense way to say it.

A really bold and smart way to say it.

Because complementarianism is just submission dressed up in a different outfit.

Mhmm. Patriarchy relabeled.

Mhmm.

I think what I'm what you hear in that is someone going through that deconstruction process and maturing in their faith along the way. Because, yeah, we all start off with those, like, easy to digest. Like, I could quote this at anybody, and it would make them smile. You can put a sunshine in the background.

Well, it's really easy to say, God is love Mhmm. And turn a blind eye. It's a

lot easier to do that Mhmm.

Than really dig into, God is love. Why aren't the people who are representing God showing love? Mhmm.

And I've seen that in our own faith journeys. As we've deconstructed, people are so afraid of deconstruction.

Mhmm.

When you hashtag deconstruction online, it's a whole different audience that you're getting. Because Christian people don't like that phrase. I'm gonna rip everything to shreds and see what's left. They don't

want you to question it. Right. Because questions are scary to them.

But God encourages it. Mhmm. And you see that in Beth Moore's faith. You see her go from not as mature of a faith, an easy faith, a less tested faith.

Not to say that she was uneducated or anything.

Not in any was

a smart lady. Yeah. But that was kind of her MO. And what we were preaching to women before is like, you know, quiet, calm, submissive. Right.

That's what we want.

And yet you see her after this deconstruction still having faith, but having a more mature, stronger faith. And that more mature, stronger faith allows her to challenge these systems of oppression, allows her to challenge the people in power because this woman has the knowledge behind her to do it. Mhmm. She can quote I I mean, I don't know. But I would assume this woman can quote most of the Bible at you.

Mhmm.

I would not want to get in a debate with her. One of our favorite quotes from her that I we've said 70,000,000,000 is where you sit determines what you see.

Mhmm.

When you sit in the comfort of your church and you never look out the window, all you're gonna see is this perfect facade of all the Christian families.

We're in your Christian bubble. Mhmm. When we go to Disney, and we're in a Disney bubble.

I do like the Disney bubble, though. But when you look out of the window and you walk out the doors and you start talking to other people and seeing their experiences and saying things like, that's not my experience. But just because it's not doesn't negate yours. Just because I don't see it this way doesn't mean that it's not true. Validating their experiences and letting them know that you hear them.

Mhmm. When you can do that, that's a mature faith. That's living out what God asked you to live out. Love God. Love others.

And sometimes in the bible, it just says love others. It doesn't even say the love God part.

Mhmm.

I feel like since I left the church and and I say that not as some, like, big statement of, like, oh, I'm never going to church again. But Brie and I have both talked about how until we find a place where we feel safe and we feel that Jesus is being represented, the church may just not be the space for us. Mhmm. And since I've made that choice and really consciously stepped away and consciously said, I'm not just gonna go somewhere to go somewhere. Mhmm.

That's when I found god. Because the God that lives in the church often is a very boxed in God. There's not a lot of love there. It's not a very loving God. It's not a very caring God.

The God that I see that lives out in the people who have deconstructed their faith, in the people who are ministering to impoverished communities, to communities that don't look like my own, that's where I'm seeing the love of God. Mhmm. And in being able to experience those things, I feel like my faith is significantly stronger than it was in the four walls of the church. Mhmm. And I think you see that in people like Beth Moore.

You see that in people like Amy Grant. And I'm not saying that they don't attend churches. I have no idea about that for them. But you see once they step out of the bubble and they look outside that they're stronger for it. And they're strong, incredible women that can walk away from that and still influence the world.

Mhmm. Still be a strong voice for God and a better voice for God. I think it's

so powerful having stepped away from the church and now looking to people like Beth Allison Barr and Beth Moore and our good friend Mark. Mark.

And Amy Grant. And Amy Grant. Like, all

of these women who have done countless hours of research, spent time educating themselves on the historic bible. What was really happening back then and beyond then. And the theology of it all. Like, learning from them as well, and absorbing all of that information makes my faith so much richer. And I understand so much more of what Paul was saying, or what Jesus meant when he said this.

I think that's really built up my faith more than sitting and listening to a man yell at his wife from the pulpit to submit more. And that has that has been my experience.

Mhmm. I truly believe that it is more important as a person of faith to walk out into your community and live that faith. And that can take so many forms. It can take the form of volunteering, or it can take the form of donating, or it can take the form of walking up to somebody and saying, hey, you look beautiful today. In in proper context.

Don't be creepy. Yeah.

In a not creepy way.

Yeah. But like, women love to compliment other women. And I I just love to see it because you see people's faces light up. Just being the light Mhmm. In the world, in a really dark world, just being a little bit of a light.

I believe that is faith. And in the church, they believe faith is making sure you read your bible fifteen minutes every day. And I truly believe that it is more important. And I'm not saying that reading your bible is bad. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be doing it.

But I believe it is more important to walk out and live your faith than to sit in your bedroom and read your bible and have that be your faith. I think that's what we're called to do.

Mhmm. I loved the statement that we heard.

I don't know if

it was from a pastor or what, but like, because Jesus is not on this earth anymore, we are called to be the hands and the feet of Jesus. We are called to represent Jesus here on Earth. And how did he live his life? He was giving. He was performing miracles.

He was validating people's experiences, men and women. He was listening and hearing them and loving them. That's what we have to do. Mhmm.

I spent so much of my life being afraid of doing the wrong thing. Being afraid of not being the good Christian. Not living up to the faith that I was supposed to have. And my faith isn't strong and why isn't my faith strong? And what can I be doing to make my faith stronger?

And I'm not in church every Sunday so I gotta be in church every Sunday and I gotta volunteer and whatever. And when you when you step back, whatever stepping back looks like for you, you know. I'm not saying everybody needs to leave the church necessarily. But like, when you can step back and say, what if faith doesn't look like that? What if faith is a relationship with God that ebbs and flows

Mhmm.

That changes and that I am supposed to go and live out? I feel a peace in my faith that I never felt before. Mhmm.

Now, some people may look at that and then think it's like a slippery slope. Mhmm. You know? You're taking the easy way out. It's easy to not go to church every Sunday.

I think it's easier to go to church every Sunday. Yep. And keep those blinders on

Mhmm.

To the world. And the people judging you. Mhmm. I think it's a little bit harder to actually, like you said, step out and live out that faith and be kind and be generous with what you have and what you're given. And having those hard conversations with people.

Mhmm.

Alyssa and I, we're not completely unaware that we have definitely changed the relationships that we've made with people in our lives. Mhmm. Just by doing this podcast.

Mhmm.

Just by speaking up about what we feel is right and biblical. People think we're crazy.

I think people look at us because we you guys know this. We come from a very, very conservative background where everybody falls in line. Everybody falls in line. Mhmm. And there is a box that women are supposed to be in, and there is a box that men are supposed to be in, and there was a box that Christians are supposed to be in.

And we really don't fit in any of the boxes.

Listen. I'm too curvy for a box.

And I think people look at us oftentimes and think they must have a terrible faith. Mhmm. They don't know god at all. Yeah. Oh, I definitely feel that all the time.

Yeah. And yet, while I think that there are plenty of people in our world that could probably quote more of the Bible at you than I could, I truly believe that I have an incredibly strong faith. And I have the strongest faith I've ever had in my life.

And I feel like there's little bits and pieces of my life where, and yours too, that we get validated by God. Mhmm. He sends us little moments that say like, you're on the right path. Thank you.

Mhmm.

And it's when people come up to us

that maybe don't share my faith.

Mhmm. And say, hey, I see a lot of stuff about Christians on the news. But thank you for showing me that that's not all Christians. Mhmm. Or I haven't been in church in a long time.

And because of your guys' podcast, I feel like I am able to have my feminist beliefs and my faith.

Mhmm.

I can have both.

That has to be the best thing we've done. Mhmm. If I die tomorrow, which hopefully the fact that so many of you show up every week and listen to us. And I hope feel encouraged by us. I hope feel like you're part of the sisterhood.

Mhmm.

Of the traveling pants.

No. You can't have my pants. The fact that we can do that, the fact that we can sit here with you, however many of you out there there are. There might be one or there might be a 100. I don't I don't care.

I feel like there's at least 10.

At least 10 of you guys. We'll make shirts that say sisterhood of your own pants. Yeah. We'll make those for 10 of you. Yeah.

That'll be a fun giveaway on TikTok. Yeah. I'll I'll handcraft them with puffy paint. Oh my gosh. This was a serious moment and you've puffy painted it.

Sorry. I don't even know what you're saying. That this is the best thing we've done. Oh. Yes.

It is. I just really I am so proud of what we do. Mhmm. Because it's so easy to sit back and do nothing. And I'm not saying all you out there need to start a podcast.

Do it if you want to. It's a lot of work, but have a great time. Send it to us. We'll listen. But whatever it is that you do, do it well and represent the love of God.

And you can sit back at the end of the day and say, my faith is strong. Mhmm. Because I think if you're living out your faith, the relationship with God will come along with that. Mhmm. It follows you doing what God has asked you to do.

And what God has asked you to is love. Because if I'm sitting with a friend and we're both kinda, like, on the same path, we're living the same life, you know, whatever, like, that relationship grows strong. Whereas if we're like, we need to have a strong relationship. Let's talk. Let's talk really intensely.

Let's stare into each other's eyes.

Which I could get off on like a whole sidetrack. I feel like that's what happens

in church. And I know we've talked about that before, but

my experiences in church, small groups Mhmm. Right from the jump, they wanna know all your trauma. They do. Because they think that's how you build a quick, fast, strong relationship Mhmm. By pulling at your emotions.

Mhmm.

Rather than being like, I want to live day by day. I wanna get to know you first

before I get to know your trauma. I think God's character is all through the Bible. And so much of the church wants to pretend that it's not. Yeah. So much of the church wants to pretend it's this is a religion of rules.

And as long as you follow the rules that we've decided on, not through biblical context, but that we've decided other rules.

Your knees make me uncomfortable. So biblically, no more knees. Modesty. Modesty. And that means no knees.

I just don't I think if it's a religion of rules, it's a crappy religion. It's not what I wanna do.

If it's a religion of rules, is it a religion? Or is it just rules?

At some point at some point, we're in a dictatorship. Both religiously and politically. And

that's not where I wanna live. I'm moving to the moon.

You know what? That might be better. Mhmm. I hear it's made of cheese. And we do love cheese.

Once your religion becomes about relationship, relationship with god, relationship with those around you who don't look like you, who don't sound like you, that's a full good religion. Mhmm. That's the one that we're supposed to strive for.

And I thank you, Wanda. Yeah. Thanks, Wanda,

for opening up this conversation for us. Mhmm. I hope that you guys will continue to read things from Beth Moore, but maybe not from LifeWay. Like, maybe find whatever she's self published Yeah. And go get that or listen to her talks.

She is really an incredibly smart woman. And we will continue to support her because she's great. And I love learning about these women.

Mhmm.

Because there are strong women in our faith, and we don't talk about them enough.

Yep. And so we're here to shout their

names. Mhmm.

Now next week Listen.

Listen.

We're going a little bit off the rails, but here's why. We're taking some time to celebrate. Yes. For good. And one of the most well known women that fell from grace is obviously the Wicked Witch of the West.

Obviously. And because because because because because because the second part of Wicked is coming out, and we are both taking the day off work to go see. We we felt we should have a whole episode on it. We felt called. We felt we felt called.

But I think there's so many ties from the story of the Wicked Witch of the West into the way that she falls from grace in fighting for the underprivileged and fighting for those

who couldn't fight for themselves. A lot of echoes in today's

And echoes in our faith. And I I do think it's gonna be a really cool episode to, like, dive into that pop culture. But the way that pop culture comes from Mhmm. What's going on around us.

Yeah. And I think too, it's it could be interesting and relatable for people who didn't grow up listening listening to Amy Grant

and learning about Beth Moore, etcetera. Right. Some of these are very specific to, like, kids who grew up evangelical. Yeah. But if you didn't, next week will be really fun.

We're super excited to do it. Oh my gosh, you guys. And then after that, we actually so the week after that, we're gonna release the episode one day early because we are scheduled to have an episode out on Thanksgiving Day, and we assume that you're busy. We're busy.

So we're gonna be turkey doing things, running around, maybe, a trot? Ugh. Yuck. So we're gonna

re release it on the twenty sixth. So not next episode, but episode after that.

We're gonna talk about feeding the people. Yes. Which I feel like is very appropriate today, specifically in today's culture in The United States, but

talking about times in the

Bible where Jesus fed the people.

Mhmm. And then after that, we're gonna talk a little bit about family and family dynamics over the holidays. Fun. And launch into our nice little holiday series. So keep on listening.

We have some fun stuff coming up. We're so organized. Look at us go. We've had a plan for so long. So many episodes.

Who knew that there was so much to talk about?

Hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of things to talk about. Like eighty one, eighty two hours at this point. Pretty soon, we're gonna get into like Noah's Ark territory. Forty days and forty nights of us. Just us.

It's flooding your ears. Okay. So get excited to hear about Elphaba next week, and we will talk

to you then. Bye. Love you. Bye.