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.

Hello, world. Good news. Oh. So loud. God.

That was much better. Thank you. I'm not dead.

Hey. Good for you. Proud of you? Mhmm. You know how a couple of weeks ago, I had been sick for, like, ever?

Feel like you guys could hear it in

my voice for, like, episode after episode. Now it's brief. It's me. How

many references can we throw into this intro?

A A lot. Lot. I'm very sensitive to the the barometric pressure. I believe so. You almost said bariatric.

That's right.

I was like, But that's not

in Michigan here, it's been like it was dropped down all of a sudden to, like, 25 degrees. It felt like 14. For two or three days, we had snow. And then this weekend, it bumped back up to, like, almost 60 degrees. Like, it's very warm.

And then it's gonna go back down. In my body. I'm just a little sensitive bean, and I can't take it. I've caught the plague. Actually,

that reminds me of your car. Yes. You and your car. We're the same. Bree's car is hypersensitive to changes in weather.

Yep. The air conditioning goes in and out. The windows stop rolling down. Like, it's just she's an old lady, and she is very particular.

Yes. When it starts to get a bit too cold, she's like, I'm gonna turn on this sensor light. And I've taken it in before and been like, what's wrong with I've spent thousands of dollars to try to figure I'm like, I don't want my car to stop working. Mhmm. Turns out she's just cold.

She's cold and crabby. Yeah. What are you gonna do? I get that. And It's a it's a I it's a super boob.

It is. And I guess it's a direct reflection of me.

I need you to know, as a side note, I just saw a fly crawling on the outside of the window. How warm it is outside.

I saw one outside earlier, too. That's And the grasses, like the ornamental grasses at our office Mhmm. Were all cut down, and they've started to regrow because it's been warm.

It's November. Mhmm. It's very strange. I'm very thrown off. But the one good thing about November, the singular good thing, is that Wicked will be premiering this month.

Yeah. I feel like this is a global phenomenon. Mhmm. I have been watching interviews. I've been watching, like, the premiere events, things like that.

We are very excited.

You can't get away from it. Today, I'm gonna buy some Wicked clothes for our Wicked event. Did we talk about this last week? Alyssa and I are going on Thursday to a double feature. They're showing Wicked part one and then a small intermission and then immediately going into the new Wicked part two, which it's like a six hour event.

Oh, yeah. I took the day off work. I'm not going in. I told her I walked in. I said, listen, I don't have children.

I don't take a lot of time off work. And I I I need to ask for this to go see Wicked. And they're like, oh oh, okay. It just is what it is. Okay?

It is what it is.

But then two days later I think we did talk about this. But two days later, we are going with our entire family, like cousins, extended, aunts and uncles, all of the things.

I've also invited everybody I know. Wow. Yeah. They haven't responded. But I was like, if you wanna go with me and my entire family, we'll find a way.

We have a row.

We do. We I legitimately bought 11 tickets the other day. What's one more, you know? Any of you out there wanna go with us? Hey.

Send us a message.

I'll bring tacos in my purse. Yeah. That is a

thing we do, isn't it?

Doesn't that sound nice?

It sounds like maybe maybe too much considering that there are 11 of us. And I would have to share the tacos You would have to

share the everybody. I would have to get a party pack. And a backpack. And a beard.

So that is what we will be doing this coming weekend. We're very excited. I don't know if you can tell.

It's all wicked all weekend.

But this week, we are gonna be talking about because we're in the middle of a series. Not really in the middle. We're at the end of a series

Yeah.

Of women who fell from grace. If you've missed it, I would recommend catching up. Two weeks ago, we talked about Amy Grant, who was a Christian singer. Still is. Still is a Christian singer.

And last week, we had talked about Beth Moore, who is a Christian scholar. Mhmm. Both of whom had kind of extreme highs and lows in their careers and lives.

Within the Christian community I will say since recording our episode on Amy Grant, I have nonstop been listening to the Age to Age album, which came out in the eighties. And we grew up listening to because that was one of our mom's CDs. And just nonstop. I'm just singing along with 1980s Christian Amy Grant.

Yeah. I'm about to push her out of a window. Yeah. Any day now.

That's okay. Today,

we're gonna be talking about something a little bit different. Obviously, like, the two women we've talked about so far have been real and Christian women. Christian women. Christian But today, we're gonna be talking about Elphaba because, frankly, the algorithm likes when we do things like this.

Yes. And so do I. Because who doesn't like a little whimsy? Very true.

But I think Elphaba really, like, ties into this idea. Even though it's not a Christian story or anything, I think we can pull so many feminist and Christian women ideas from what she goes through. And Yeah. In both movies. I haven't seen the second one yet, but I have seen the play.

So And I know every word to every song that's ever come out.

Not for the two new songs.

Yeah. That's exciting. And wow, I'm really off track. I'm gonna paint my nails pink and green.

This is a fun episode. It's fine. Live Yes.

I think it's interesting in, like, the echoes of Amy Grant's story where we grew up thinking she wasn't a great person. Because now when I was little, I didn't fully understand it, but I knew there was scandal involved with her. Now you think back to Wizard of Oz, that story, all you know about the Wicked Witch of the West is she's evil. She's bad. But then someone went back and retold her story.

And it's like, oh, why are they saying she's bad? I know it's a big stretch. I know that it's a fictional character. But it's just interesting to look back and be like, no, let's pull apart her story. What happened to her Mhmm.

That made people turn on her? Mhmm. Oh, she was just speaking up for what she believed in.

Mhmm. Well, Brie and I, as we were pulling apart the story and if you haven't if you're not familiar with the story of Wicked, I guess, like, just the littlest summary for you. It's based off of the Wicked Witch of the West, which comes from The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz. So it's about her story and her kind of growing up experience and how she was mocked a lot as a child for being green.

It's not easy being green. Living life the color of the leaves.

I had green hair recently. Mhmm. I just dyed it not green. That's unfortunate. Yeah.

But so kind of going through her growing up experience as she meets the good witch Glinda and they become friends at college, and then how she gets to be known as the wicked witch, which essentially boils down to her standing up for the speaking animals. Because, of course, as we all know in Oz, the animals can speak. But a lot of them have lost their rights because shocking turn of events, the government has decided that because they're a little bit different that they shouldn't have the same rights as people. Mhmm. So Alphaba sees this.

She starts fighting for the rights of the animals. She has magic, so she's able to fight for them in sort of a different way. And they turn her into the bad guy because of that. They sort of rally around her being the bad guy.

Yeah. They thought that they can manipulate her power Mhmm. And entice her with power as well. Be like, oh, no. We'll give you honor and glory if you just come to our side.

Mhmm. But how good for her that she said, I don't want any part of that. I thought I did, but now I don't because I realized the truth behind it. And I'm not okay with this. Mhmm.

And I really like in Wicked when he says basically, The Wizard of Oz is a bad guy. Right? And he says, nothing bonds people together. Like, basically, a common enemy. Right.

So that's how he's maintaining his power.

Mhmm.

Is turning somebody else into an enemy, which at first it was the talking animals. Now it's the wicked witch of the West. Mhmm. So that he can maintain his power.

Mhmm.

Because he doesn't wanna lose that.

I think we're seeing that reflected. As I watch all the wicked stuff, it's just so reflective of what's going on in our culture today. Mhmm. In The United States, we have, not we, but the government is really trying to rally us against immigrants.

Mhmm.

Everything is because, oh, there's illegal immigrants in our country, and we don't wanna, you know, support them and whatever. And that's the government has turned that into the bad guy to rally people against. And it's wild to me because you're essentially rallying against humans.

Yeah. And you see history repeat itself, like, in World War two when Hitler said, no, it's the Jewish people. The Jewish people are our enemies. They're stealing from you. They're they're not good for you.

And They're taking what should be yours. Spewing lies Right. So that they could maintain that power. Mhmm. And I'm sure it's happened over and over.

Look in the Bible with the Israelites and yada yada yada. Mhmm.

Yeah. I see it just so reflective. And what's great here and obviously, again, this is a fictional story. But you see what happens in the end. Eventually, people's eyes start to be opened.

Like, hey, maybe maybe the kind of common enemy is not quite as bad. And obviously, like, the wicked witch of the West stays the bad guy in the end. I Mhmm. I feel like this is a lot of spoilers. If you haven't seen the play or are familiar with the story Listen.

This story's been out for a long time. Yeah. It's not

your fault, really. But she goes into hiding at the end, essentially. Mhmm. So they don't necessarily forgive her. But the animals start to get their rights back and things like that.

Mhmm. And the wizard loses all of his power. Mhmm. Because we have to hope as people that in the end, good wins out. Mhmm.

As Christians, we have to hope that

in the end, good wins out. Good wins out, but there's a cost for it. Mhmm. And unfortunately, the cost for her is she doesn't get to reenter society. She doesn't get a redeeming arc Mhmm.

Where people are like, oh, yeah. She's not so bad. Right. No. She kinda has to lay on her sword knowing Glinda kind of helped her out and helped the animals yachtie.

I I'm doing a lot of yachtos. That's alright. But she lost her freedom. Mhmm. And so she has to go into hiding.

Mhmm. But at least she knows that she did something good. Right. I think all of our decisions come with a cost. Mhmm.

Everything you do in life comes with a cost. And as Brie and I were talking about this, we also talked about our own lives and the cost of speaking up

Mhmm.

In our own lives. And the cost that will happen if you speak up too. For us, we grew up you guys know this. We grew up in a very conservative environment where everybody kind of fell in line. Mhmm.

Everybody kind of stays like, everybody's still in the Baptist churches.

You know? We don't make waves. Right. Well, we do. Well yes.

Previously, our people We don't wanna make too many waves. You're right. We fall in line. We follow the rules. Mhmm.

We stay quiet. That's that's Christianity.

Mhmm. And then Brie and I came along. And we upset things. Mhmm. Upsort.

And that's the reality. And I I often hesitate to say stuff like this because I don't want it to be like, oh, look at us. We're making waves. We're doing the things. Whatever.

But in the environment that we came from, nobody did that. Mhmm. Everybody, at least on the surface, falls into line, stays quiet, doesn't vote democrat. You

know? Like,

there's very little difference in the way that the belief structure happens. And so when Brie and I started to kind of speak out about women's rights, when we started to speak out about the politics in the world around us right now, there was a cost there. Mhmm.

Or speaking up, you know, like, hey, that joke made me uncomfortable. Mhmm. Hey, the way that you treated that person is wrong. Mhmm. This song that we're listening to is sexist.

Mhmm. All of those little things, when you do start to speak up, there's risks and there's rewards. The rewards are yes, we're we're pulling in people that thought that they didn't have a space or a voice Mhmm. In the Christian community or as a woman. And that is a huge reward.

Mhmm. Unfortunately, we've alienated ourself from some people that we used to be more close with. Mhmm.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard when you do step out of the bubble. And I'm sure you guys are aware of this. If you've ever left a church or, you know, started speaking out more significantly about your beliefs, you do get alienated. You do get shunned.

Mhmm.

And sometimes it's more extreme and sometimes it's less extreme. I think for us, in some spaces, it was extreme where, you know, when we left churches and things like that, that people just fully stopped speaking to us. Mhmm. But then there's smaller costs too where, you know, people may not fully shun you. They may not fully kick you out.

But you know that you're being kinda talked about behind the scenes, and you can feel that difference in their relationship. You can feel that people are a little less comfortable around you.

Mhmm.

They're a little more and and some of this is good that they're aware of what they're saying in front of you. Mhmm. But you know that it's from a level of discomfort, not consideration.

Mhmm.

You know? And and that's been hard. I think you see that reflected in the story of Elphaba when there are several moments where she thinks about going back.

Mhmm.

In the second movie, there will be a scene where she is with the wizard and he tries to get her back. And they're singing together, and it's like, oh, this would be great. Whatever.

Yeah. We can change your story because I have that power. I can turn things around for you. Right.

And she thinks about it because it would be easier. Mhmm. And for all of us sitting here today fighting this fight for equality

Mhmm.

In society, in the Christian church, and whatever, it would be easier. It would be easier to be quiet.

We say that all the time with feminism, with womanhood. It'd be easier to just go with the flow. To not make a wave. Say, fine. I want a rich old husband, and I'll make him toast and cereal every day.

Like, fine. But to demand respect and seek out and and not bend. Mhmm. Say, I'm not going to accept anything less from the people around me. It's hard.

Mhmm. And it's isolating and it's lonely a lot of the times. And that's why I really like doing this podcast because there is a community for you If you're looking for strong Christian ladies who believe that we are more than we're your people. This is it.

Don't stop listening. Yes. And I

think something that's really good that's come out of our story too is we are outrageously builders up of people. We are. Specifically women. If you want some good cheerleaders, Alyssa and I will for no reason, you're like, I'm gonna go to Target. Yes.

You need to go to Target. Yes. That is what you should do.

And you need that in your life.

You need cheerleaders.

And I think that's such a cool thing about when women open up into this space. Because so often in Christianity, women are isolated, but in a different way. Because we're talking about being isolated because we speak out, but Christian women in the church are isolated in that they can't be honest with each other.

Yeah. They're told to be quiet, calm, submissive, passive.

Never talk about your problems. Yeah. Never talk bad about your husband. Never struggle.

Mhmm.

Be the perfect nineteen fifties wife. And that is its own kind of isolation. Mhmm. You can't be honest with anybody. And if you can't be honest with people, then you aren't ever gonna have real friends.

Mhmm. In fact, we see that also reflected in Wicked because with Glinda, she is often very fake. Mhmm. And she's got these friends to begin with.

That She's very popular. She has lots of friends. They're obsessed with her. Mhmm.

But they're not real friends. They'll turn on her in a second. Mhmm. Whereas when she meets Elphaba and they became they become friends, they have this really honest, friendship. And you see how that impacts things.

Mhmm. How it lasts. Mhmm. When other people fade away, they're still together.

Yeah. She's not having to put on a show. Right. She's not worried about, oh, these people are only my friends because I give them something. Mhmm.

Popularity, notoriety. She's my friend because she likes me Mhmm. As a person, not what I can give her.

Right. And when women, especially, I think, step out of that need to be the nineteen fifties wife, need to be that perfect image and start having those real honest conversations, you open up that cheerleader community. You allow for that. You allow for people to just build you up with that outrageous confidence that I'm sorry. Like, your husband isn't often going to give you that, like, wild outrageous buildup.

We would hope that they do. But sometimes you need another woman who has been through the same stuff you've been through and says, I get it, and you are gonna do amazing. I get what you're feeling. I get the hormones. I get the emotions.

And you're gonna be great.

I heard a quote from Meryl Streep the other day. I think it was like a clip of some interview that she did. And I loved it so much. She's like, women have gone about their lives learning to speak the language of men. So that we can move around in society, so that we can move up a little bit or stay where we're at, we have to learn to speak men.

Because it's a patriarchal society. Men hold all the power. We have to. Men do not speak women Mhmm. Because they don't have to.

And I think that's reflected in, like, female relationships. Mhmm. We can move around speaking men, but, like, there's something so special about female relationships. And I love that that's reflected in Wicked. Mhmm.

True friendship. Really, truly understanding each other. Mhmm.

I think it's so many pieces of media, whether that's movies or books or whatever. For a really long time, you were seeing women compete with each other. And I think that's why I think that's exactly why is because it was coming from this male perspective. Mhmm. Women compete with each other because men compete with each other.

Women don't have to be in competition with each other all the time. When we spend that time and energy instead building each other up, we all rise together. There's a quote from Gilmore Girls. I know we reference Gilmore Girls a lot. Boy, with the poodles already.

But Paris is talking to Rory, and she's giving her notes for something. Like, Rory missed a class, and so Paris is giving her notes. And Paris has blacked out a bunch of different stuff. And Rory was like, what's up? Like, what's going on?

And Paris says, I'm happy to give you the stuff the professor actually said, but I'm not gonna give you my own thoughts because there's only room for so many women at the top. And I think that's how women were taught it was.

Mhmm. Cutthroat.

Yeah. Because, you know, there's only so many token women at the top.

Which is directly opposite of what happens in Wicked. Mhmm. So at in part one, Elphaba is the only one with, like, true magic.

Mhmm.

And the Madame Morgul? Morrible. Morrible. I should know this. Is the only other, like, witch in the area who can do a little bit of magic.

So she wants to take Elphaba under her wing. Meanwhile, Glinda, who's popular and has all the friends, wants to study sorcery but has no magic. Mhmm. So she gets jealous of Elphaba's relationship with Madame Morrible, them learning magic. Yeah.

Them learning magic. And then Elphaba sees a little bit of kindness that Glinda supposedly gave her sister. And she's like, No, you know what? I'm not gonna continue these magic lessons until you bring Glinda in with me. I want her to learn it, too.

I want us to learn this together, rather than saying, I still wanna be on top. Mhmm.

It's just such a powerful thing when women come together. Mhmm. I really feel like women if we you see the countries where women are primarily in charge. And I'm not saying that I want a matriarchal society either. But when you see women's voices reflected and you see the way that women come together For work, I have been on several teams that are just a 100% women.

And the difference in our work quality Mhmm. The difference in the environment Yep. Is stark. Because there's just this, like, kind, loving, I wanna build you up all the time. I'm gonna send you these inspirational things.

Like, I just love you. I'm gonna tell you how much I love you. That's the vibes. And I think if we had more women higher up in power, we would start to see that reflected amongst the men too. I think we would see that really wonderful quality that women have of building each other up start to disseminate amongst everyone.

Diversity.

Right. Having multiple different opinions and thoughts coming together, not just one idea.

Mhmm. And one of the things we wanted to talk about too I don't know if you guys have seen this video.

Oh my gosh.

So I think it was in the Singapore release?

It was in Singapore.

Yeah. Of the new Wicked. They were doing, like, a press walk, you know, whatever. And it was Ariana Grande and the woman who plays Madame Morrible and Cynthia Erivo. And they're walking, and a fan runs at Ariana Grande.

Jumps over the barrier, runs at Ariana Grande, grabs her by the shoulder. Mhmm.

Kind of almost it looked like he was trying to take a picture or something. Was very strange. He's actually wearing a shirt that says I love Jesus.

Oh, you could.

Which is not ideal. Super scary moment for anybody, being grabbed by a random person.

Grabbed by a stranger. You don't

know what's gonna happen, what he has on him. Right. Scary. Right. And Cynthia Erivo is standing, just who plays Elphaba, if you're not familiar with that, is standing, like, two people away.

And her first reaction is to take this man out. She swings around with a speed that is unmatched. Faster than any of the security guards.

Faster than anybody else there. She's like, get off my woman. And

she took him out. Yeah. Like, she got him off of her. Mhmm. And then you can see in the moments after that she, like, kind of surrounds her, make sure that Ariana Grande is okay.

And then she stands on that side.

Yep. And kind of keeps her in the center. Mhmm. And I think that's such a powerful visual

Mhmm.

For exactly what we're talking about. Yep. Women protecting women. And that's reflected kind

of all over social media right now. Like, women's a lot of times, their first reaction is to protect other women. Mhmm. If you see a girl kind of being cornered in a bar or on the street and looking uncomfortable, I don't care who you are. I'm gonna go up to you and be like, Hey, girl.

I thought you were supposed to meet me at Come up with some kind of excuse. I'm going to get you out of that situation. Or, In college, I saw that. I'm calling campus security. There's a girl the bridge.

She's been there for an hour talking to this man. She looks very uncomfortable. Which is interesting because men are notoriously supposed to be the protectors. On social media, see, like, I just saw a video of this man at a concert who absolutely knocked the crap out of a woman who accidentally spilled part of her drink on him. He knocked her out.

A bunch of women came up and pulled him off of her and got him away. Mhmm. They were taking videos so that they could find his face and send it to the authorities. That was cute. Yeah.

Well, a bunch of men stood around. Mhmm.

What? Yeah. You can't sit there and tell me, like, men are the protectors. A, because who are you protecting me against? Other men?

Other men. Like, if you're protecting against your own group, then you're not such a protector. Like, I'm that's not that helpful to me. But also yeah. How often do you see men engaging in these situations?

Mhmm.

Next to never. Sincerely, next to never.

Because they think, oh, I don't I don't wanna step on those toes. Mhmm. I don't wanna make a scene.

I don't know what's going on. Whatever. I didn't see that happen. If we believed women, we wouldn't have the level of problems that we have right now. Mhmm.

If you've been following at all along with the release of the Epstein files that's going on right now, to me, it is obviously very significant. And you're seeing so many people talking out about it. I don't know sincerely if anything will happen, even if the people we assume are named are named. Because people are so blinded to our president's garbage that I'm not sure they'll care. I mean, clearly we're seeing we're watching them not care now.

We already know the truth. We already know. Mhmm. There's photos. There's documentation from women.

Mhmm. We know. Mhmm. Even if the Epstein files get released, even if that happens, I feel like you're right. People are so blind to it.

I keep hearing the argument of like, well, they were teenagers, not children. Yeah. It's actually wild. And the point of saying that is that if we believed women in the first place, we wouldn't need these files. Mhmm.

If we just believed women. I actually saw a quote. I think it was just by a social media personality. It wasn't like a a major thing or anything. But they said, do you remember when Bill Cosby was accused of all of the things that he was accused of?

And at first, people were like, no. Horrified. Whatever. He would never. But then it became proven.

And people were like, absolutely not. Kick him out of society. And then they said, I miss those times. But, yeah, believe women. Mhmm.

Believe what they say. If in this movie, people believed both Elphaba and Glinda as to what was going on, if they could have gone to broader society instead of having to, like, okay, we're gonna have to go to the wizard, and he's gonna have to disseminate this information and whatever. Like, if they could have just done a a social media campaign. Yeah. Then the whole movie could have been avoided.

Not that

we want that. We really wanna see the movie. But we're not villainizing people that look differently

Mhmm.

Than we do. That would have changed things for her.

I wanted to also draw some comparisons to women in the Bible because sometimes that's what we do here.

A Christian podcast.

That. I feel like we've tied both sides in this time.

Yeah. I said something about the Israelites. Yeah. You did. So proud.

Thank you.

So we wanted to pull in a couple of women from the Bible and talk about how that compares to the things that Elphaba goes through in this movie. And the first one is Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was essentially the right hand of Jesus.

The apostle to the apostles.

Right. She was a significant figure, not just in broader society, but to Jesus himself. Mhmm. And anyone who's significant to Jesus should be significant to us.

I think the very fact that the first person that Jesus found when he rose from the grave Mhmm. Was Mary is significant. Mhmm.

Like, think best best best friends.

Mhmm.

Think Brie and I, but times 10.

Who's the first person I wanna see when I literally rise from the dead?

I'd actually like to not rise from the dead if it's all the same.

I just like to stay dead.

But the story that we tell of Mary Magdalene is that she was this demon possessed woman, that she was a prostitute, none of which is actually verifiable Mhmm. In the bible. We just sort of, like, stuck a bunch of stories together and assumed that it was her.

But When there's, like, 45 Marys in the Bible. Right.

And in doing that, it allows us to dismiss her. Mhmm. If she was demon possessed, if she was a prostitute, then we don't have to take her seriously. Not that should be true anyway. Mhmm.

But that's the excuse. She can't really be an apostle because she was so sinful. Mhmm. She was so wrong. She can't really be important because Jesus would never associate with such a thing.

Now Jesus absolutely did. But that's the idea. And you see that reflected in Wicked as she's dismissed because they assume a bunch of things about her. Mhmm. They assume that because her skin is green, she must have done something wrong.

Mhmm. It wouldn't just be that way. She must have done something wrong. It must be her fault. And because she is outspoken, because she starts to be in a position of prominence, in a position of power, they start to assume all of these things about her.

Because she has too much power. Mhmm. We need to take that away. Take her down a peg.

Right. And you see that as we talk about Mary Magdalene all the time, that in a way she became the villain a little bit. Not exactly, but in a way because she was so sinful. We must dismiss her. And that's really sad because her story is amazing.

It is. And I think it's evident that she scared the people in power. And they thought, well, we can't let people think that Jesus was that close to a woman. Mhmm. Why would he ever be?

Because that would mean that we would have to give women more respect Mhmm. If we wanted to reflect the teachings and life of Jesus. Right. So what can we do to discredit her?

Mhmm. Anything. Yeah. Literally any story we wanna shove together. The next one I wanna talk about was Eve.

I have so much compassion

Yes.

For Eve. And like, I feel like a connection to her story in such a way.

She didn't have a choice. What if she didn't even like Adam?

Yeah. She was stuck. But we blame everything on her. Like, quite literally, all the sins of the entire world.

I will be I will take part in that. Everything is the wool that was the fall. Yeah. The the mosquitoes outside, a result of the fall. Snow, a result

of the fall. According to Genesis, it does say that she bit the fruit first. Right?

Mhmm.

But then it says, and then she handed it to her husband who was with her. So let's rework this story because on all the flannel graphs, all we ever saw was Eve standing by a tree talking to a serpent. But the reality is Adam was standing next to her. The serpent wasn't talking to Eve. He was talking to Adam and Eve.

Adam was the one who had spoken directly to God. God said right to him, like, they're face to face having a conversation. And God said to him, don't eat from this tree. Don't do it. It's like your one thing that you shouldn't do.

Just don't. Now Eve didn't have that situation. Eve heard it from Adam. And when you're playing telephone, it's really easy to say like, well, did he say this or did he say this? And Adam could have easily shut it down and said, no, no, no, no.

This is what he said. Mhmm. This is what he said. Well, think

about telephone in your own life. Mhmm. Oh, aunt Betty told me to say this, and then it gets misconstrued, and all of

a sudden, Betty's dead. Wow. And all the sins of the world are pinned on her. Betty. Poor Betty.

But my point here is that we blame absolutely everything on Eve when the reality is that Adam was standing next to her and should have known better.

Mhmm.

He could have absolutely said, this is not right because I know for sure. You don't know for sure. You only know through the grapevine. Mhmm. But I know for sure, and I'm going to give you the benefit of that and say, no, absolutely.

We're not gonna do that. Adam didn't do that. So I'm gonna pin it on Adam, frankly. Mhmm. But I think that reflects in Wicked too because Elphaba is standing next to the wizard.

Right?

Mhmm.

And she's trying to do the right thing. The wizard knows all the background information. He knows all the stuff. He knows what happened. He knows what's going on.

He knows what he's done. He knows all the things. And yet he keeps up with the status quo. He allows her to become the bad guy Mhmm. To take the fall for him.

Now, I'm not saying that this is a rough comparison because obviously Adam didn't have control of our narrative of Eve. Mhmm. But often men allow women to take the fall. Oh, a 100%. It's easier.

And sometimes

that looks like not speaking up. Mhmm. Not speaking up when you know the truth of that person. Mhmm. Just like you said.

Yeah. He the wizard knew exactly who Elphaba was. He knew that she was fighting for I mean, you can argue that he didn't think it was the right thing because he's selfish, but she was fighting for something good.

Staying quiet is also a problem. Right.

And we see that all the time in our society. I have a sticker on my computer. It's right here in front of me. And it says, I will not be known as a woman who kept her mouth shut. And I'm very proud of the fact that everyone would read that sticker and say, yep.

Alyssa will never be known as someone who kept her mouth shut. Brianna will never be known as someone who kept her mouth shut. Not just because they're goofballs, but because we stood up for what we believed in.

And I'm a real jerk about it. Sometimes I know how to filter it in, like, business settings. Sometimes.

Never be known as someone who kept your mouth shut. At the end of your life, if you are known as someone who fought for what they believed in, who fought for what Jesus taught, for what he really taught, the love of Jesus. Did you love God? Did you love others? If you are known as someone who fought for that, that's an

incredible legacy. Being the hands and feet of Jesus, just like we talked about in the last couple episodes, how did that look when Jesus was on Earth? When they threw a woman in front of him and said, Let's stone her, because we think she was cheating on her husband, even though we probably know she didn't have a choice. Did he throw a stone? No.

He was protecting people left and right. He was feeding people. He was making miracles. Mhmm. He was showing outrageous amounts of love for the people around him.

How can we, as Christian people, sit and stay silent when you can see around the world people hurting? Mhmm. What would Jesus do?

And make a note that Jesus didn't ask all of those people before he performed the miracles. He didn't say, and what's your income level? Yeah. Do you have a steady job? Where did you come from?

Where are your ancestors from? Do you look like me? None of that was happening. Mhmm. I actually saw a thing the other

day, it was talking about what would Jesus do. You guys remember the bracelets? Side note, I made really good bracelets last year for my family that said WWBS. What would Brianna say? Just lightly blasphemous.

Lightly blasphemous, but like, really think about it. What would Brianna say? And it'd be probably weird.

Mhmm. Oh, it'd be very strange. But I saw a thing about those bracelets. And essentially, where the phrase came from was they were talking about what would Jesus do to help others. Mhmm.

Like, it came from, I believe, a sermon. And they were talking about what would Jesus do in the community? What would Jesus do for others? What would Jesus do in service of those around him? And so it was supposed to be this opening of the door.

Mhmm. This what can we do to be the hands and feet of Jesus? And then we stuck it on a bracelet. And instead, it became a restrictive personal thing.

Yeah.

It became, what would Jesus do? Jesus wouldn't go to the movies. Jesus wouldn't read this book. Jesus wouldn't say that word. Jesus wouldn't talk to that person.

Jesus wouldn't associate with this. Like It became this like restriction.

Wouldn't Jesus do? Exactly. Would Jesus

do? Exactly. Instead of opening the door, we've closed it.

Yeah.

What a weird thing to turn on its head. Mhmm. And that was such a cultural thing for us as kids. These bracelets, like, I can picture them in my can you all picture them in your heads? Yes.

I'll put it on a social media post later this week.

We should make some and do them as a giveaway. I have a lot

of bracelet making stuff. It should be like w w j a d. What would Jesus actually do? Another one that I wanted to talk about, another biblical character is Bathsheba. Now we've done a whole episode on her.

We talk about her a lot. She is an incredibly misunderstood woman of the bible. We call her Babs. Yeah. We love Babs.

But her story, I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. But if you're not, her story is that she was bathing on the roof. Different from the VeggieTales story. Quite different from the VeggieTales.

The VeggieTales story is duckies. Right? It was shoot. Junior. Was it Junior?

I think Junior. Junior was taking a bath with a rubber ducky. Yeah. And he Larry wanted the rubber ducky, not junior.

That would really change the story. Yeah. So Bathsheba is up on her roof. She's bathing, which is normal for the time. That was, like, a standard thing.

Did we decide that she was actually on her roof, or was she

in her house? So, yeah, there's debate amongst whether she was on her roof or in her house.

Like Listen to that episode. Yeah. Go back and listen to us talk about that.

I think we it was, like, a three or four part episode early on. But she was bathing, and King David saw her from the palace. Basically, it was like peeping on her, being a creep. And long story short, he wants to marry her, wants to sleep with her. And so he has her husband killed.

Mhmm.

And essentially rapes her because she would have had no ability with the power dynamic to say no. Mhmm. And yet when we tell this story more often than not, at least the way that I have absolutely always heard it, is that she was a temptress Mhmm. That she wanted power, that this was somehow her fault.

Yeah. She did this intentionally. Right. Why would she? Mhmm.

Or you'll hear people phrase it as cheating on her spouse. Mhmm. No one ever wants to say the word rape. And I'm sorry to say that if that's the trigger point for you, but it's really what happened to her.

Well, I watched a video the other day that talks about our language and how we need to start calling things what they are. Abuse. That is abuse. That is rape. Not consensual.

We need to start using those words because that's what it is. Right. And the more that we dance around things, the more we excuse things.

Mhmm. And I think with Bathsheba here, we've sort of crafted a narrative around her, again, that tells a totally different story. We turned her into the bad guy because we want king David to be the good guy. Right? At some point in the bible, it says he's a man after god's own heart.

And we do address that as well in our Bathsheba series, so go back and listen to But we want to keep him perfect.

Mhmm.

Now King David, not a great guy, to be honest. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible about how he's really just not that great. Mhmm.

I mean, this is the same David that took out Goliath, but he has quite a few stories.

Yeah. There's a lot A in lot of life.

A lot of mistakes.

And this is a bad one. Yeah. And we wanted him to be perfect and good. And so we turned Bathsheba into the villain of the story. Mhmm.

It's her fault. She caused the situation. If she just hadn't been so brazenly bathing out in the open, then he wouldn't have seen her and blah blah blah. But that's not true. It's not really the truth of the story when you look at real sources of what really happened.

And historical context. We know that it was a patriarchal society. We know that women didn't have rights. Right. And that's the truth.

Mhmm.

And so if you look at Elphaba and the wizard, she goes out and she tries I think there's a preview for the next movie where she writes in the sky, kinda like does skywriting and says the wizard lies or something like that. Mhmm. And so she tries to turn people on him. She tries to show people, like, hey, he's the bad guy, but they need him to be the good guy. Mhmm.

They've structured their society around him being perfect and wonderful. Mhmm. He's the wonderful wizard of Oz.

So what does that mean for them Mhmm. If he's not so wonderful? Right. What is gonna happen to their brain chemistry if they have to realize what they have known all their life is a lie? Mhmm.

Well, probably something similar to what Elizabeth and

I go through. And in a big way, we've structured a lot of our religion around King David Mhmm. And that he's this perfect, wonderful person. And when we deconstruct, what happens? It is scary.

It's a little bit scary to deconstruct your faith and your beliefs. And to not have clear answers too.

Like, why did we say that David was a man after God's own heart when he clearly did X, Y, Z? And you might not have a clear answer. And maybe one day when we get to heaven, we can ask Jesus and say, What did you mean by that? Let's talk. Let's talk.

Okay. Like, I have questions. Mhmm. And that is scary. That is faith, though.

Mhmm. Stepping out in faith and saying, I don't have all the answers. Right.

Yeah. I think as Christians, you'll hear that a lot in church. Oh, faith is just stepping out into the unknown. Faith is accepting that you won't know things.

Want me to sing the song?

Oh, sure. But it's a different movie.

It's still Adina Menzel. Alright. Go for it. She was Elphaba. I don't want to now.

The moment has passed. Yeah.

But you hear that all the time that, like, oh, that's what faith is. And yet, at the same time, Christians still are desperate to absolutely understand everything. I took so many bible classes in college, and it was like, there's this massive debate between this group and this group about this tiny minute thing that you couldn't possibly know or understand. And, yeah, you do have to accept when you deconstruct, you have to accept that it's not all gonna be clear.

Mhmm. And I think there's, like, a delicate line that you have to balance. Right? There are some things that we're just not gonna know. But there are some things that you need to seek the truth for.

And

listen to 80 something episodes of Alyssa and I talking about, like, Bathsheba or the woman that was supposedly cheating on her husband that was gonna be stoned. Like, look for the truth in that situation. Historical truth. Look to people like Beth Allison Barr and Beth Moore and Amy Grant. Like, all these women who know so much about Bible and worship and seek that truth as much as you can.

Mhmm. But also understand that you won't know the truth about everything. Mhmm.

Like, it's a weird balance. It's like a gray area. Yeah. And and look at the character of Jesus. I think that's the biggest thing for me Mhmm.

Is you've got all these little stories and all these little rules and things like that. And if you try and follow them all, it's gonna be really difficult.

Mhmm.

And you're gonna have a faith based on rules. But if you look at the character of Jesus and you say, that's what I want, and you model your life after who he was, who he really was, not not the story that we wanna build around him The what he really was. Story. Yeah. Exactly.

This radical, loving hippie. Yeah. I mean, really, that's what

he was. Who followed two rules, love God and love others. Mhmm. And that is something that you can stand on. Yep.

That is truth. If you are loving God and you are

truly loving others, that's all you need. Like, you're good. You will have spent your life doing what was asked of you. It's that simple. Mhmm.

We didn't need to complicate it. So go out and do that. Simple as that. Simple as that. Next week, we are gonna do we're done with this series, which we've had, I think, a lot of fun with.

I've actually really enjoyed this series. Uh-huh.

That that was a scary face. I love talking about women.

But next week, we're gonna do a special pre Thanksgiving episode Mhmm. Talking about feeding the people. In The United States right now and I'm sorry this is a lot of it is US focused today. I know a lot of you are international.

But a lot of people deal with hunger Mhmm. Throughout the world. True. True.

And right now in The US, we're dealing with them taking away SNAP benefits, which is basically food stamps federally funded feeding of the people. Mhmm. And the Christians have kind of rallied around that in a big way to say, like, yeah, we shouldn't be feeding the people. We're gonna instead talk about how Jesus fed the people.

Mhmm.

There are countless instances throughout the New Testament where Jesus fed people, where his disciples fed people, where that was an expression of love because no one should go hungry.

Mhmm.

It should be a human right to have your belly full. And what does that do to society when we care enough to feed people?

Mhmm.

So we're gonna talk about that. Maybe talk about some steps that you guys can take to help feed the people this holiday season. And then we're gonna launch into some family dynamic things, which will be really fun in the next episode.

Happy holidays. We are excited

to do it. Follow us on social media. You can find us on Instagram and TikTok. If you just search the hashtag we are more, you'll find us there. And we would love to see you over there.

We post lots of fun things pretty much every day.

Yeah. Feel free to Google us. We're there if you wanna Google us, and you you can see a little bit more

about us. Just a little bit. Just small about. Alright. We will talk to you guys next week.

Go enjoy Wicked. Buy your tickets. Join us in the fun. Send us your pictures of you and your Wicked gear. Should I paint my face green?

Is anybody into that? I would post it on social media. Wow. I love wicked. Okay.

Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.