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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
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.
Speaker 1:And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello. Welcome to week two of Brie nearly dying. Is it week two?
Speaker 1:I think so. Weren't you sick for the last episode? No.
Speaker 2:Was just tired.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're wondering why our sound quality seems to have changed,
Speaker 2:it has. Two new microphones fresh off the press.
Speaker 1:Fresh off Amazon. Fresh off Amazon. And really not that fresh off Amazon because I think I bought these, like, a month ago. Yeah. We just haven't had time to pull them out and play with them and figure out how they function.
Speaker 2:And today, here, on this bright, shiny Sunday, not for you. But For you,
Speaker 1:it's Thursday. Actually, for us, it is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day. Except it's not for you. So she's taking that back.
Speaker 1:Happy belated Mother's Day to all of you. I don't really know where to go in an intro from here. What should we talk about?
Speaker 2:Well, I've been ill. So I've been starting my slow transition into a leaky faucet for the
Speaker 1:past week. She says a slow transition. It hasn't been a slow transition. It has been a very speedy transition.
Speaker 2:A speedy transition into, like, a faucet that's not just a slow dribble, but, like, a consistent dribble. It's pretty gross, actually. Yeah. So if you're like, oh, why does Brianna sound disgusting? That's why.
Speaker 2:Actually, someone called at work the other day, and they were looking for a Brian. Because I think I called them, and I had just started getting sick. And when I get sick, my voice drops quite a bit. And I think he thought I was a man. Hi.
Speaker 2:I'm Brian.
Speaker 1:I mean, I call you Brian on a regular basis anyway.
Speaker 2:I call myself Brian all
Speaker 1:the It's just he was just acknowledging your true self.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I went on a date with a guy named Brian just because I thought it'd be hilarious if we ended up working out.
Speaker 1:It would have been hilarious.
Speaker 2:I would have enjoyed that. Brian and Brianna? That's amazing.
Speaker 1:But it's not even Brian and Brianna. It's Brian and Brian. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I
Speaker 1:call you Brian all the time. That's true.
Speaker 2:If you
Speaker 1:ever wanna just, you know, play a fun trick on the universe, marry someone with a funny name for no other reason at all.
Speaker 2:No. You don't have to like them. No. They don't have to be
Speaker 1:a good person. It's just a good joke. Just for the bit.
Speaker 2:Do anything for the bit.
Speaker 1:Anything for the bit. Life advice with Alyssa and Brie.
Speaker 2:We should write a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that would be helpful to the masses.
Speaker 2:Yeah. How to get through life because life sucks. And then you die. A long title. Matters.
Speaker 2:Good. That could be the the prologue. Nothing matters.
Speaker 1:I'll just pop that in there. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I saw a TikTok the other day that was like, did you
Speaker 1:know that you can just lie?
Speaker 2:And she was doing, like you know, when you go somewhere, they're like, let's do some get to know you questions. Tell us a fun fact about yourself. And there she goes.
Speaker 1:I've been married to my husband for thirty years,
Speaker 2:and they're like, you're 25. Or, yeah, I was on the Titanic when it sunk, but it was fine.
Speaker 1:It actually always cracks me up that people don't realize in totally, like, noncritical situations. I'm not saying lie all the time. But, like, in just funny situations that you could just straight up straight up lie. I could say anything. It doesn't occur to people, and I find it hysterical.
Speaker 1:Because if you can lie in those situations with a totally straight face, nine times out of 10, people will just believe you. Yeah. And then you get to have a fun joke.
Speaker 2:You just have to say pretty much anything confidently. I was thinking that today when we were talking about saying the alphabet backwards Yeah. During the sobriety test. And I feel like if you got the first couple right and then ended with A, but you said it really confidently, it'd be fine. Anybody would believe you.
Speaker 2:Like, CYXW. See, I can't do it confidently. I couldn't think of any letters. I told you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's unfortunate. Is that really a thing? Do people really get asked to say the alphabet backwards?
Speaker 2:I think it is. Because if it is,
Speaker 1:I just I I need to never get pulled over for that reason because I will fail.
Speaker 2:Also, the heel toe heel toe thing
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Going down the line, I'd fall over. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It wouldn't be good for me.
Speaker 1:No. So we'd both get DUIs and not be drunk? Completely sober. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just don't know my letters, and I am unstable physically and mentally.
Speaker 1:That could go in our book. Chapter two. But speaking of lying,
Speaker 2:I don't think that's a
Speaker 1:good transition. I think it's great. We're great at transitions. That's really our main strength.
Speaker 2:I think we should go back to our transition noises.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So today, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 1:We had said a couple of weeks ago that we wanted to talk about a book that I got, I think, because of our best friend, Beth. I think she was the one that referenced this book. She's a
Speaker 2:great lady. Our good friend, Beth. Best friend. Our best friend. Excuse me.
Speaker 2:Who am I? Blasphemy. Our best friend, Beth.
Speaker 1:And it's called Women and the Gender of God by Amy Peeler. And I bought it I I think it's because of Beth's latest book. She referenced this. And it's because I have always found it the whole argument that, like, God is distinctly male. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Such a weird one. And so I got it hoping that it would be, you know, something really interesting on that topic. Turns out it's the most intense textbook anyone's ever opened.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you this for free. My mind was blown. I was just listening to the audio version of it, and it's very scholarly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's really academic. That's the word I was looking for.
Speaker 2:Scholarly words too. Okay. She was using words I had never heard before.
Speaker 1:I I honestly, I looked several words up. Mhmm. And that's not normal. We're both readers, guys. So we know that.
Speaker 1:We know words.
Speaker 2:Okay. I'm not gonna tell you about the book I'm reading right now.
Speaker 1:No. I I think you
Speaker 2:should never I'm gonna keep it to myself.
Speaker 1:I think that
Speaker 2:it find out what it is right now, go on Goodreads. But it's not a good time.
Speaker 1:But this one so I Brie and I both made it through the intro and chapter one, which might not sound like a lot, but there's only six chapters in this book. And it's like a good, what, 250, three hundred page book. It's a solid book. Yeah. So chapter one is a significant portion of this book.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So we're gonna talk about it today and try and I wanna say, like, simplify it a little bit. I'm not I don't know that I'm smart enough to fully simplify it
Speaker 2:for you. I was an art
Speaker 1:major. But we're gonna do our best to talk about the arguments that she's presented so far. And then we'll talk about probably the rest of it. I don't I don't think we're gonna make this into a super long series, but probably talk about kind of the rest of it next week.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It's a good book. I think, overall, once I listen to it, maybe seven times straight in a row.
Speaker 1:Straight
Speaker 2:in Maybe I'll then I'll start to fully understand it. But it's such a big topic. It it it takes a lot to wrap your whole brain
Speaker 1:around it. Mhmm. Well, I think the difference between something like this and something like both of Beth's books, so Becoming the Pastor's Wife and The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Those, I think, are written more for mass consumption. Mhmm. So they are academic.
Speaker 1:It's not like they definitely are. It's not a quick read. But they're written with a lot
Speaker 2:of humor. They're written Yeah. It's just easier on the brain. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Whereas this one almost feels like it was written as a PhD thesis Mhmm. That then they turned around and, like, sort of changed up a little bit and published. Still amazing, super academic, really good research. Mhmm. But when I say half of the page, I mean, of every page is references.
Speaker 1:It's not for just casual listening.
Speaker 2:No. If you're thinking, oh, I'm just gonna pop on this audiobook while I drive to get a slushie. What? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I was like, what do you do
Speaker 2:to casually drive around? You're not it's not a casual pop on the radio. Don't know what words are coming out of my
Speaker 1:mouth. Can I just ask the real question that everyone's thinking? How often are you just casually driving to get a slushie?
Speaker 2:Almost never. Almost never. I'm trying
Speaker 1:to think where we would even go to get a slushie.
Speaker 2:I don't know. And it's nowhere. I'll tell you one thing. I'm not gonna get out of my car for it.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's drive I'm
Speaker 2:not gonna get out of my car.
Speaker 1:I can see McDonald's does have a drive through frozen Coke.
Speaker 2:Because if I'm getting a slushie, I don't have any makeup on. I'm in my pajamas. Like, I'm almost ready for bed. That's that's the moment? You're like, slushie time?
Speaker 1:And I don't know why I'm
Speaker 2:saying this because I've never done that before.
Speaker 1:I've literally never done that.
Speaker 2:This is such a weird scenario that you've created. Can I just say something? I would love if you did. Today, the first things I put in my body were Aventi iced coffee and nasal spray. And it's just really thrown me off all day.
Speaker 1:So as opposed to last week where you got no energy, Brie, this week, it's not even high energy. I'm just confused. You got potentially high, Brie. Yeah. Anyway So I'm just gonna go through because honestly, I had to accept as I was reading this book.
Speaker 1:And this is hard for me. Like, because I You're such a weirdo. I'm an a school person. Like, I like school. Right?
Speaker 1:And it was hard for me to acknowledge as I read this that there was stuff I was not gonna understand. That was easy for me to take. Well, you were listening to the audiobook too. I feel like audiobooks are easier to kind of, like, just float on by.
Speaker 2:And I've just accepted that through life, there's gonna be a lot that I don't understand. And I've just accepted it.
Speaker 1:Which is probably a positive because it was a struggle. Like, a lot
Speaker 2:of people ask why, and I don't.
Speaker 1:I think the entirety of this podcast would question that. So the first thing that I wrote down was her dedication. And her dedication was in Greek. So if that just tells you the tone of the whole thing, it was in Greek. And I took a picture of it, and I said, Google translate.
Speaker 1:Tell me what the crap this is. Good for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I skipped over it.
Speaker 1:I did
Speaker 2:not. Well, your audiobook. I was on an audiobook. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:I didn't intentionally skip over it. So the the dedication is my soul magnifies the Lord. So in case you pick this up and you don't know, now you do. And you don't have to have Google translate it for you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to go through the intro in the first chapter and just kind of like my highlights. Bree's got some notes she wants to talk about. Because it's almost like you you gotta hit the high points unless you really wanna study this like you're in school. Like, you're ready to take a test on this, you go right for it. But I'm not here to present that to you.
Speaker 1:You are welcome to highlighters
Speaker 2:and your index cards out.
Speaker 1:Boys and girls, if you don't have a highlighter when you are reading this book, you will be so lost. Like me. Yes. In the introduction, she talks about God valuing women and how Christians or new Christians or even people outside the faith might wonder why a faith that affirms that all people are divinely created and created in the image of God has failed women in such a big way. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I highlighted that because I was like, absolutely. Like, we've failed women in the biggest ways over and over and over again. And I see it in our community, but I also see it, like, in the the broader community when you see people with church hurt. Mhmm. Which, man, the two of us in the church hurt.
Speaker 2:I bought a book on that, actually. Brazos posted a a new book that came out called Holy Hurt that I'd like
Speaker 1:to go over sometime. And then she goes on to say that the claim that God values women literally sounds like surprising Mhmm. To Christians. Because we are so devalued in churches.
Speaker 2:I think so often, they say, God values women. We value women. See, we had a Mother's Day service. Right. And a a woman preached today.
Speaker 2:Like but you can say it until you're blue in the face, but until you actually act it out, I don't believe you. Right.
Speaker 1:And, I mean, you can see it all over the place, especially today for us, but last Sunday for you guys, in kind of the manipulation of the way that Mother's Day services are done. Mhmm. They're focused on certain aspects of women. You'll hear mostly about Mary today or on Mother's Day. You'll hear about how women can birth things and what a wonderful divine gift that is.
Speaker 1:And you'll hear a lot about motherhood and blah blah blah. And not that those aren't good things for certain women, but if this is all you're ever hearing about women, and this is really the only time you're hearing about women from the stage of your church, it's a little manipulative.
Speaker 2:I remember going to one Mother's Day service where they spent the entire hour talking about fathers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That was wasn't that last year?
Speaker 2:I think it was. And just how, like, the role that fathers play and things that they can do to support the mothers. But I'm like, this is Mother's Day. What the
Speaker 1:heck are we doing? Well, we were in a truly terrible church at that point also. So that didn't help. Not that we've found a good one, boys and girls. But she goes on to talk about how Christianity was cultivated in a patriarchal world.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And we've talked about that many times, but I think that a lot of Christianity forgets that. That a lot of what the Bible was talking about was the culture that they were surrounded by.
Speaker 2:And I think Beth talks about that a lot in her book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood, how we have to understand how to read the Bible, not just the words on the page, but, like, historically, right here, this verse, they're quoting Roman law. Right. Exactly. And then the verse right after that, they're saying, here, do the opposite of this.
Speaker 1:But if you don't know that, it gets very confusing. Well, that's why I've had this argument with many people. You have to understand historical context to read the Bible because it's a historical text. Like, it's not it's not written in our times. You have to understand the historical context.
Speaker 1:And I've had so many people say, well, you're just making the Bible complicated. Or you need to read the Bible more simply. The Bible is complicated. The Bible is really complicated. And also, you can't read it as a simple modern text.
Speaker 1:You just can't. There's more to it than that.
Speaker 2:It's not a novel about serial killers that I got at Target. No. It is not. This is something that was written way, way back in the day,
Speaker 1:and things were different. Right. Well, it's like if someone wrote a book even like, let's say someone wrote a book over set in World War two, and it was set in France. I don't understand the political tensions of the time. I don't understand the societal tensions of the time.
Speaker 1:So I need some background knowledge to inform this book. And if the author doesn't give that to me, then I have to go outside of the book and look at lots of other things. Look at other writers. Look at other historical texts to understand the first book.
Speaker 2:Fantasy novels are so freaking giant. Because they have so much world building to do. Very true.
Speaker 1:And despite the bible being giant, it didn't do a lot of world well, the beginning did a
Speaker 2:lot of world building. In the beginning.
Speaker 1:This was the original world building.
Speaker 2:The OG. Yeah. But really, I mean,
Speaker 1:it's only one book. It's true. Really, only the first Chapter. Couple of chapters. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not much. So so there.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we're on page two of this book, guys. So she says, theology has consequences. It is easier to devalue and then mistreat those humans who are believed to be less like God. Because she talks about and I don't think it's exactly right here, but she talks about how if God, the supernatural being who is not sexualized, who is not procreating in the same way that we are, if that God is fully male, then there is no logical way that you can say men and women are valued equally in God's kingdom. Because God would have given more of himself, more of his character traits, more of his physicality to one gender than the other.
Speaker 1:So you can't possibly like, I I realize that people will tell you that they think that, that women and men are equal, but God is still male. But it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:How often would you actually hear someone admit to that? Like, the men saying, no, I'm more like God. Right. Even though they act like that.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Well, yeah. People never take things the whole way. Like, a thought process. If you're gonna say, okay, God is male.
Speaker 1:And she talks about how this shouldn't be an explosive topic, but I think it's hilarious because in the world that we grew up in, this is an explosive topic. To say God is not male would be like, people are gonna turn this podcast off just from that line. And I would like to ask, if you are angry about this topic, why are you angry? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:You've never met God Mhmm. Face to face. We don't know. Right. And what about Him possibly being less male or less masculine?
Speaker 2:Why does that make you
Speaker 1:mad? Mhmm. It's about power. Well, exactly. So she that's why she says it's easier to devalue and then mistreat people if they're less like God.
Speaker 1:And you can see that even in the earlier Christian church, like in The United States, when they would say things like people of different races Mhmm. Or less worthy or couldn't step into the same churches as white people, things like that. Like Mhmm. The moment that you start to say someone is less like God, then they don't have as much value. You don't have to worry about them as much.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what we've clearly done to women and are clearly still doing to women. So she goes through the introduction, and I love this line. So she says, conservative theologians retain a tight grip on the male like masculinity of God. In their view, this grip is released at the very cost of the faith. So that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:She goes on to talk about how most biblical scholars, like people who have really studied the bible, are in agreement that god the father is not fully male. Like, that it doesn't make logical sense. And we'll go into why. But at least the first chapter of it and why. But conservative theologians, like the people that are at the heads of your very conservative churches, at the heads of, like, the SBC, the Southern Baptist Convention, things like that.
Speaker 1:They're gripping onto this so tight. I remember the song isn't it Ariana Grande who has a song, like, God is a Mhmm. And the argument that she's making and the argument that we're making is not God is a woman.
Speaker 2:No. And also, Ariana Grande's song
Speaker 1:is not about No. But I remember hearing that and thinking how inflammatory that was.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I've said on this podcast, actually, I said she in reference to God one time just to see what people would do. Mhmm. And I think it just kind of got passed over. I don't think anybody noticed. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But it's amazing how inflammatory it is. I said it I think I said it to our mom one time. I said, what if God was a woman? And she, like, gasped. And I was like, but why is that so shocking?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And one part of it, and she talks about this, is that, like, we use male pronouns throughout the Bible Mhmm. In reference to God. And I think that's such a silly one. And she does go into a little bit of why. But I think it's so silly because the Bible is written for humans.
Speaker 1:Humans who don't understand an all knowing infinite being. We have no way of understanding that. I mean, think of even the concept of the Trinity. Yeah. We don't understand that.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like, it doesn't make There are
Speaker 2:three separate beings, but one at the same time. Right. And how can a father send his son to die on a cross if it his father is himself very confused? Right. So
Speaker 1:for us, it would be especially the people at the time. You know, I think in our modern day, we're a little bit more comfortable with using different pronouns for people. So like, they and their, things like that. At the time, the Bible was written, though, to my knowledge, was not a concept that they had, or at least one that wasn't widely used. So to use that for God wouldn't have made sense for them.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So, you know, kind of pick a pronoun. And the writers of the Bible are primarily male.
Speaker 2:And you also have to think, again, at the time, Roman law, patriarchal society, it would make sense for them to use male pronouns because they have more power. Right. So why would your all powerful god be a sheher Mhmm. If women back then had no power at all. Right.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:Right. The whole first chapter I think a lot of this book actually focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mhmm. Gotta specify with the Mary. So there's many a Mary.
Speaker 1:But she talks about how, at least in the first chapter, how the story of the incarnation of Jesus so when God well, actually, the angel comes down to Mary and he's like, you're gonna have a baby. It's gonna be the son of God, etcetera. How because essentially God fulfills the male role in that scenario, that that's why we think of him as masculine or one of the reasons, the first chapter reason why we consider him masculine. But I thought it was really interesting because she said the persons at work in this event, referring to when Jesus was, like, put in her stomach, she calls it the incarnation. I don't know what else like, what simpler word to use there.
Speaker 1:No. That's good. It's an uncomfy one. Yeah. But it says the persons at work in this event, father, son, holy spirit, and Mary of Nazareth.
Speaker 1:I loved that. That she is an integral part of what's going on here. She's not just like a person and what happens to her happens to her and whatever. But she is the main one of the main characters in this story. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She is one of the main parts of it.
Speaker 2:And I like that she goes in to say, like, when Gabriel is talking to her, he's saying, This is going to happen. Mhmm. But he isn't saying this is happening right now. Or has happened. Or has happened.
Speaker 2:So she still has her free will. Mhmm. She can still say no.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I actually that's in chapter one somewhere. I, like, starred and made all kinds of notes next to it because I was like, that's never presented that way. This is a little bit of an offshoot from her point that she's making, but I've never heard it said that Mary could have said no.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But she can. If you read through the story, Gabriel kind of presents it as like, this is what God wants from you.
Speaker 2:If you agree.
Speaker 1:Right? And there's no consequences Mhmm. If she says no. Like, yes, she wouldn't be the mother of Jesus, and you could, I suppose, call that a consequence in and of itself. But he doesn't say, if you don't, you're gonna die.
Speaker 1:If you don't, you're
Speaker 2:gonna be smote. Like, that's not it. I'm gonna send all these pictures to your friends.
Speaker 1:Right. He doesn't say that. And so she could have said no. And I I think that's really fascinating because we talked, actually I don't remember in what episode. I think one on when we did Beth's book about how Mary has been called the total rape victim.
Speaker 2:This book is by Amy Peeler, by the way. I don't
Speaker 1:know if we said that. I think we did.
Speaker 2:But Amy references that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that kind of changes the story a little bit to recognize that, like, no, she could have stepped back and said no. Mhmm. It does change things a little bit. And there's more reasons as to why.
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:It's very complicated. Mhmm. It's like like we said, the trying to wrap your brain around, like, the Trinity, the three in You also kinda have to wrap your brain around God the Father being both male and female. Mhmm. But referred to as father.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She talks about if we're moving on then to chapter one, she talks about how part of it is the Trinity. So part of what doesn't make sense about God being male is the Trinity. So we've got God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Mhmm. Three in one.
Speaker 1:If you're not super familiar with that concept, it's really complicated, and I wanna explain it. But That's pretty much it.
Speaker 2:Really, that's like, it's
Speaker 1:three beings, but one being. Like, it doesn't make it doesn't make a lot of sense to my mortal brain.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But she talks about how the Holy Spirit is, she says, imaged in both male and female. Mhmm. So it's presented with both male and female references, things like that. And she's going into Genesis one twenty six here is what she's talking about. And so if those three beings are one being, and one of those beings at least is referenced in both male and female ways, does it then make sense that the whole being is entirely male?
Speaker 1:Like, doesn't Mhmm. It just doesn't. It doesn't track. So then she goes on to talk about how she shouldn't even have to say this, that God the father is not fully male. Like, she was like, most biblical scholars agree with me.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't have to make this argument. But here we are. And so I will. Because again, I really think this is like her PhD thesis or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1:And if it's not, girl, go get your PhD. Just they'll just hand it to you. Hand them the book. They'll hand you the degree. You don't even have to
Speaker 2:take any classes. It'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And then she says, if they are correct in referencing those who say that God is fully male and God is male, my desire to affirm the full value of women made in God's image is damned from the start. Woah. Watch your mouth. I'm so sorry. Because, again, as we said before, if God is fully male, then we as women are missing a part.
Speaker 1:And I I don't mean that part. I mean, pieces of her soul.
Speaker 2:I think we have that part. It's just inside out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for that. Poor dad. Poor dad probably has to listen to this one. Our dad retired this week, and he's probably sitting there with mom listening to the podcast. And then he's gonna jump into the ocean.
Speaker 2:He's gonna walk into the sea. So
Speaker 1:then she talks about how in Israel's scriptures, so what they would have had at the time, like, the early church, paternal language is there. So because she talks about how God is referenced as the father. Mhmm. And she says, paternal language is there, but it's not there as much as we've got it there now. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So it comes in later. It comes in in references more after the birth of Jesus than prior to. Mhmm. Which is super interesting because, again, humans wrote the Bible. Right?
Speaker 1:Like, you can say inspired by God for sure, but humans wrote the Bible. So after God fulfilled a fatherly role in this particular case, a singular case, now it makes more sense for them to call him father.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Whereas prior to that, like,
Speaker 1:it really was not nearly as common. Mhmm. She says that from in one of her little reference points, she says the term father is applied to God only 19 times in the scriptures of Israel. So a lot less, like significantly less than what we say. She then goes on to talk a lot about the Greek mythology surrounding, like, pregnancy from the gods.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is a real tricky one in this particular case. As I was reading through this, I was like, I don't know how to present this in not a super, super weird way.
Speaker 2:I know. You guys just gotta read the book. Yeah. Or listen to it
Speaker 1:and be scared. But she talks about how in Greek mythology and Roman mythology, there's a lot of, like, the gods, their gods impregnating women.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Think like Zeus.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Many other she's getting everybody pregnant. She references a lot of them. And so at the time, because this was the time period when this was, like, when the Bible was being written, when Jesus was born. All of this is going on around him.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So other religions had similar storylines. Like, okay, a god impregnated a woman. Was she a virgin? Maybe not.
Speaker 1:But still, the story is there. Mhmm. And so that's why people become very uncomfortable with the story of Mary. Because if you compare it to the stories of the Greek gods where they are often forcibly impregnating women Mhmm. Or doing so through deception, like pretending to be someone they're not or pretending to be an animal sometimes, which is Yeah.
Speaker 1:I know. So she talks about how the writers of Luke in particular, the writers of the gospels, really steered clear of using a lot of the similar imagery. Like, that they really, really tried to make the point of this is not the same. Yeah. This is very different.
Speaker 1:So one of the arguments then, if God fulfills, like, the fatherly role here, then he must be male. Mhmm. But she talks about it kind of in context of, like, God didn't do what a man would do to make you pregnant. Right? Exactly.
Speaker 2:He just miracled it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So God provided the Y chromosome, but could have just as easily provided the X chromosome. Like, know, there's no particular need to provide one over the other.
Speaker 2:Because he's God. And look what he did. He made the earth and everything around it. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so kind of if that's your argument, are you saying that he couldn't have provided the x chromosome? Mhmm. He can only provide the y chromosome. That's kind of a silly one. Like, kinda doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1:And that's why she's making this point of it's really hard to believe this. It's really hard to believe Mhmm. God is fully male once you start to pull it apart. Right. Because we've all I I think anyone growing up, at least in the American Christian church, the concept that God is male isn't even questioned.
Speaker 1:And if you do, like, exactly like she said, you're questioning the entire faith.
Speaker 2:We're unsettling people. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:This book, when I ordered it, I was like, this is gonna make so many people uncomfortable. But
Speaker 2:I think we talked about this the other day in the car, on one of our car talks. It we're humans.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Our brain is constantly trying to make sense of the world around us. Mhmm. But we can't make sense of God Mhmm. And the divine, and heaven, and hell, and all of this supernatural stuff. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But we're trying our very darnedest. And sometimes you just have to accept, I am not God. Mhmm. I do not understand this right now. Because I know that God is seeing all things all at once, not in my tiny little time zone.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Well, Amy talks about that. She says, no one can speak comprehensively of God's being, but text and tradition encourage the act of speaking to and about God. So what she's trying to say throughout this section is that essentially, like, we've been given certain words about God. He's omnipotent. He is a trinity.
Speaker 1:He is like, there's all these words that were being given, but we don't understand them. Mhmm. And so in kinda trying to expand upon them, we mess them up. Mhmm. Because Brie and I were even talking about the concept of God is good.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You hear that all time. God is good. God is good. Like, I mean, I'm sure it's on
Speaker 2:a poster somewhere. When is God good? All the time. All the time. God is good.
Speaker 1:Yes. Oh, I forgot about
Speaker 2:that one. But
Speaker 1:we use that word. But do we know what that means?
Speaker 2:What our version of good is doesn't always add up to what God's version of good Exactly. Is. Like, look at the world around us.
Speaker 1:Right. So we use these words, and we don't understand them. Mhmm. And then we expand upon the words, and we mess them up. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She talks about the Trinity in particular. And she says the primary meaning of Trinitarian personhood is incommunicability. Person is a placeholder indicating something we must say but do not understand. So we should say Trinity. We should say personhood.
Speaker 1:But we don't understand what they mean. And she goes on to talk about how that makes sense for God in and of who he is. We have placeholders like pronouns, but we don't understand what they mean. And she goes on later in the book to talk about, like, how God is referenced as a mother and things like that as well. But she says language for the divine must always recognize its temptation toward hubris, toward imagining that it can describe God fully.
Speaker 1:And then she says this size of the Eshaton, which I don't really know what that means.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Over my head.
Speaker 1:But essentially saying, we have a temptation to try and fully describe who God is. Fully understand who God is. And your pastor. Right. Your pastors will try and tell you like, well, we don't understand God, but let me tell you all about God.
Speaker 1:We don't understand God. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to understand aspects of who he is.
Speaker 2:In our trying to understand God, we limit God. Right. Even saying he Mhmm. Is limiting God.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. Because does it make sense that God can only be one Yeah. That doesn't make any logical sense to me. Because it doesn't he doesn't need to be.
Speaker 1:He existed before we did. Mhmm. He wasn't part of, like, human procreation. So why would he put himself in a singular male body?
Speaker 2:Right. And yes, man was made in God's image, but so was woman. Mhmm. We are both made in God's image. How can we both be made in his image?
Speaker 1:I think we also overinflate that phrase in and of itself. We were made in his image. That's another phrase that we don't understand. What does made in his does it mean that physically we look like God? I think that's easy to or is it our spirit?
Speaker 1:Exactly. I think it's easy to think we look like God because Jesus came to us as a human. Mhmm. And so we think like, well, if Jesus looked like
Speaker 2:that But if Jesus came down as an alien, I don't think things would have gone as well.
Speaker 1:I just think that whole image of God thing, like, is such a weird concept. Because we don't know what that image is. Mhmm. If I say, I've drawn something to sort of look like this. Like, if I take inspiration from someone else's painting, and I paint something myself.
Speaker 1:But if I do that, and I've simply taken inspiration from one thing to the other, I might take this aspect and this aspect and this aspect. But then if you do the same thing, your version of it's gonna be totally different. So even though we both used the same image in the first place, and both of our pictures were in the image of that thing
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They're gonna look totally different. Right. So are we in the image of God in our looks, in our characters, in our souls, in our spirits? Like, what is eyeballs? In our eyeballs.
Speaker 1:That that must be it. I think that's it.
Speaker 2:They're the window to the soul.
Speaker 1:But that's just such a weird one to me. Even if you argue because there are people out there that argue women were not made in the image of God. Mhmm. Even if you wanna make that argument, what is the image of God? Right.
Speaker 2:Can you explain to me?
Speaker 1:Define that part first Mhmm. Before you start making elaborations on it. She says, you know, the hubris of it. Before you start doing that, define some I
Speaker 2:just think it's very interesting that people are so they want to be so Black and white. Mhmm. They want to have a right and a wrong. They want to have answers. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, I have never talked to anybody that's been to heaven or hell or has seen like, I can say that I am a Christian and I've experienced God, but I haven't seen him face to face. Mhmm. So we just are trying to explain the unexplainable
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Right now. And I think without a concept of the gray area of things being a little more fluid, it's the same thing you said before. We limit who God can be. If God has to be just one thing, then he's just one thing.
Speaker 1:He's not everything to everyone that we're telling people he's supposed to be. Mhmm. If God is fully male, then I don't get to be his image in the same way that my husband does, that my father does, that my brother does. Like, I don't get that opportunity. And that is absolutely being taken away from women.
Speaker 1:Why are we doing that? If and if she's right and most biblical scholars don't believe God is fully male, then the rest of it falls apart too. The rest of the patriarchal society falls apart. She talks about how the triune identity, so father, son, and holy spirit, is voiced alongside the actions of creator, sustainer, and redeemer. And then she later says, like, God is described as father or mother or rock.
Speaker 1:So you can see that there's, like, different references to God. The writers reference God as both father and mother throughout the text. Mhmm. They also reference him as rock, which, like Mhmm. Is a funky one, but you've gotta think, like, ungendered.
Speaker 2:On Christ the solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. You're welcome, people. I know those references. True.
Speaker 1:So proud. So proud. She said to think of God as beyond gender in the sense that God encompasses aspects of both genders. Not that he's female. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I realize that That's limiting as well.
Speaker 1:Right. And I realize that I'm using male pronouns as well. Mhmm. Just because they're kind of part of how I've grown up.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But that God is parent or mother and not only father helps to work against the fallacy that God is male. So we talked a little bit about she goes into, again, some more of how, yes, God fulfills kind of the male role in Jesus' birth, but not in the same way that a human does. So it still really doesn't prove, like,
Speaker 2:God as male. Mhmm. I like this quote from I don't know where it's at in that chapter, but she said, revelations from God can be trusted to be true of God, but does not indicate that humans who use the revealed language have mastered God. For if God could be mastered, such an entity would no longer be God.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I loved that quote.
Speaker 2:And I had to listen to it really slowly so I could write it all down.
Speaker 1:You it always astounds me that you do that.
Speaker 2:You, like, pause it. Don't write. I do. Give me two words and then pause it. Two words
Speaker 1:and then pause. And she's physically she's not typing it. She's physically writing it out. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So I just think I really like that. Mhmm. Because, yes, we have the Bible, and it is inspired by God. Mhmm. But that does not mean that everything about God is in that Bible.
Speaker 1:Right. We don't have the full picture. Mhmm. And if you think that we do, then you start to go down a weird road. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You can't fully understand God. You can't fully understand God's gender. Mhmm. We don't have a way to do it. Nope.
Speaker 1:We're small.
Speaker 2:Look at me. I'm a little
Speaker 1:ant on a log. And when you start thinking of yourself with this overinflated importance, that's where I think you see a lot of the, like, televangelist type pastors. Mhmm. These bro pastors that are absolutely everywhere right now. They think they've got it.
Speaker 1:They think they totally understand God, totally understand Jesus. And that's your first mistake. There's no you can't, like, turn around and come back from until you say, like, don't understand.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of power in saying that to people and being real and sitting with someone in their hurt and their grief and their confusion about this this life is really hard.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I can tell you like we said in the car the other day, I can tell you God is good because I do believe that God is good. But our version of good Mhmm. Is not always God's version of good because He's seeing the big picture all the time, all at once. Mhmm. So I'm gonna sit here and tell you, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:Life is really hard. But I believe at the end of it, we
Speaker 1:will have a bigger picture.
Speaker 2:Instead of just constantly blindly saying,
Speaker 1:God is good. God is good. God is good.
Speaker 2:Right. Because I think you're gonna alienate people by saying that.
Speaker 1:Well, imagine if you're sitting with somebody in in those worst moments, and you're like, well, but God is still good. God is still there. Who wants to hear that? Does anyone wanna hear that in their worst moments? Because I don't.
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of like putting up a wall Mhmm. In front of someone and saying, You're allowed to grieve, but only so much. Right. Or, You're allowed to have emotions, but only so much.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Because you have to still say God is good. Mhmm. Like you said, God is good. But in that moment, what you say to people isn't God is good.
Speaker 1:What you say to people
Speaker 2:is, here's my shoulder.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and weep. And if they're asking about God, I don't understand. Mhmm. I don't understand. I know that God has a big picture, and in the big picture that God is good.
Speaker 1:But in this exact moment, I don't understand the goodness of God. Mhmm. I don't see it either.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And it's okay if you don't see it in this moment. I believe that it's bigger picture. I believe that Mhmm. Overall, God is good. But it's okay to acknowledge that right now, God doesn't feel very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That was a little tangent. No. We never go
Speaker 1:on tangents. What are you talking about? Also, she says, stated differently, any idea of the singular maleness of God is destroyed by the triunity of God. Because again, the Holy Spirit is described, like, as female several times. So it just all falls apart really quickly.
Speaker 1:The moment that you, like, sort of peel back the first layer that you get past that uncomfortableness of, like, well, what what do I call God then? Like, do I deal with that? And she talks a little bit about that. About how assuming that God is not male, now now what? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, do we use then female pronouns? That's not great either. Mhmm. Because we aren't saying that he's female either.
Speaker 1:We're not trying to take away something from men in this situation. We believe that they are just as much in God's image. Mhmm. Do we use male pronouns but constantly reminding ourselves that that's not really what it is? And she said, that doesn't really work either because then you're still acknowledging one thing over the other.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Do we use gender neutral pronouns? Well, that makes lots of Christians very uncomfortable. Yeah. Not that that should stop you from doing it in any way.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But it's it is really complicated. It is. And I think that a lot of people if you're anything like me, I grew up in we grew up in the conservative Christian church. I don't know if someone came up to me and asked me, is God male or female?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I think my automatic reaction would have been like, oh, male. Mhmm. But I've never really thought about it. Like, it's not something that you think about. It's just something that you're constantly
Speaker 1:Fed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I can't tell you, though, the level of relief that reading this brought me. Now, it also brought me a headache.
Speaker 2:Oh, massive. Because wow. Just getting through, like, the prologue and the first chapter, I
Speaker 1:was like,
Speaker 2:I need a mental break. Yeah. I just need a little palate cleanser of scrolling through TikTok. What I
Speaker 1:would love to see is maybe a shortened version of a lot of this. Because while this is amazing and I'm so glad that it exists, it is hard for the average person to just pick up and be like, alright. Quick, you know, Sunday evening read.
Speaker 2:I need this book but for dummies. Or like, SparkNotes. SparkNotes. Do you remember SparkNotes? Yes.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:I think I SparkNoted for half of my high school papers. But the relief that I felt in reading this because I have always had this level of discomfort with God being a man. Like, picturing this big man in robes and the long flowing hair. You know, the one I'm you all know what I'm talking about. It makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:And I guess I never really sat with that discomfort and understood it Mhmm. Until the last couple of years. And it's exactly what she said. If God is a man, then how do I, as a woman, relate to him? Well, you want God to be your friend.
Speaker 2:Right? You want to have a relationship with God where you can sit and talk about your life. You know, not that he doesn't know already about your life, but that's what you picture in your relationship. You want it to be buddy buddy. But I think of my buddy buddies, and most of them are women.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, people that really relate to you 100%. Right. How can God relate to me 100%
Speaker 1:if he's all masculine? And doesn't understand. And that hurts to think that I'm not the same part of like, I'm not the same amount of God as Mhmm. All the men in my life. That's really difficult.
Speaker 1:Like, why was I made this way Yeah.
Speaker 2:If there was no purpose for me?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because think about that. Okay. You know, you wanna make the argument of procreation. Well, God needed women simply for procreation or whatever.
Speaker 1:God can do whatever he wants. Could have made men get pregnant by themselves. Yes. Oh, that would be wonderful. Have you
Speaker 2:seen the videos of men doing the period simulators?
Speaker 1:Yes. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And the girls are just like, what level is this? A hundred? You know, it it feels like a tickle. Mhmm. And the men are like,
Speaker 1:what level is this? 50. I'm gonna die. I watched some guys trying to do the dishes while having one of, like, the cramped ones Yeah. And they were literally falling over.
Speaker 1:It was very funny. But really, if God was gonna create someone not in his entire image Mhmm. What was the point? Like, he didn't he could have changed the way procreation functioned. He could have changed anything.
Speaker 2:He's God. Make me a lizard.
Speaker 1:So why bother making something less than?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's the argument for, I mean, all of what we talk about on this podcast. Why make something less than? Because if God is willing to make half of the people that he created and supposedly loved less than the other half, whether it's less than in rights, less than in his kingdom, less like himself, less in any way, then he's not a good god.
Speaker 2:And I feel like he wouldn't be giving
Speaker 1:those creatures that he created to be a little bit less callings Mhmm. And brains Mhmm. And voices. Because that would be terrible. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:To be given a calling or a voice and said you can't use it and you can't utilize it. That's horrible. Well, you have to take things all the way to their limit. If God created people and created half of them to just serve the other half
Speaker 2:To just pop out babies and nothing What
Speaker 1:about the women who aren't able to have babies? Or don't want babies? If that's the case, God is not a good God. And that's just not something that we believe. Right.
Speaker 1:So then flip it around. If God is good, then he loves all of his people the same. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And if he loves all of his people the same, he wouldn't give half of them hierarchy over the other half. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to put men in between women and God. Mm-mm.
Speaker 2:And I think that was really clear when Jesus died on the cross. And he said, Nope.
Speaker 1:I'm here for all of you. Terrible. You don't be
Speaker 2:a go between anymore. Right.
Speaker 1:I'm your go between. Mhmm. This was a deep one, guys.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 1:So next week, I'm thinking we'll probably do the rest of the book and just sort
Speaker 2:of overview it. Because if we go chapter by chapter, we're all gonna die. You guys are gonna explode. We're gonna explode. And we're gonna be here for hours.
Speaker 1:Hours and hours and hours. Just it'll be twenty five hours of us. And I know that at this point, you're, like, fifty six hours in with us, but you don't want twenty five of just one topic. No.
Speaker 2:You're gonna slowly if you put it on fast mode, like 1.3 speed, you're gonna slowly see us descend into madness.
Speaker 1:Except speedily because it's on 1.3.
Speaker 2:No. Because it's already gonna be sixteen hours.
Speaker 1:So it will still be slow. Alright. Well, next week, look forward to our descent into madness. And perhaps you can join us. Maybe you already are there.
Speaker 1:You know, I I might already be there. I think I Maybe that's not maybe we don't need to descend. Maybe we just exist.
Speaker 2:It's the nasal spray. It went to my brain.
Speaker 1:Well, you did spray it in that direction.
Speaker 2:Towards the brain? Yeah. I did.
Speaker 1:Didn't the Egyptians used to take a little spoon up the nose after people died and scramble the brain?
Speaker 2:I've seen the mummy. Yes.
Speaker 1:So there you go. You scrambled your brain, but with nasal spray. Nasal spray.
Speaker 2:And so maybe it's not snot that's been dripping out of my nose. Maybe Brain. My brain. It's really unfortunate.
Speaker 1:I think that can happen, though. Alright. I'm I'm gonna stop this before we get really disgusting. I hope you all have a wonderful, beautiful week. I hope we didn't confuse you too much.
Speaker 1:We confused ourselves a little.
Speaker 2:I hope I love you. Goodbye. Love
Speaker 1:you. Bye.