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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
Speaker 2:is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
Speaker 1:that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Good evening. This releases at 10:00 in
Speaker 2:the morning. Doesn't mean you listen to it in the morning. Good day. Good afternoon. Good evening.
Speaker 1:And good night. Alright. Goodbye.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
Speaker 1:Where we don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:And actually, we do today. Oh, man. Time change, you guys.
Speaker 1:It yeah. The time changed last night. If you're not, like, in is this a non US thing?
Speaker 2:But parts of The US don't do it, like Arizona.
Speaker 1:That's true. So maybe this is just an Us thing.
Speaker 2:I don't know. If you're located in the Midwest, sorry. Life is hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We just had what are they what's it called? Why? It's left my brain.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not daylight savings. It's like fallback. Time change. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I don't know. The time changes. So basically in the middle of the night, the time either moves forward an hour in the fall or moves backward an hour in the spring. And if you don't do this in your region, this sounds insane.
Speaker 2:I think you switched them. No.
Speaker 1:I thought it was oh, fall back, spring forward.
Speaker 2:This is very complicated. I don't know. But the time has changed. And really, if you have like, your time is just on your phone or whatever, it automatically adjusts. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So you're just like, I'm extra tired today, and I'm not sure why. But then, like, if you're me, your car doesn't automatically change. And then you get a little, wow.
Speaker 1:In the oven. And that's really a big problem. Yeah. But also, you shouldn't be extra tired because we got an extra hour of sleep in theory.
Speaker 2:I'm always tired. Endlessly tired.
Speaker 1:No. That's unfortunate. Life is a drag. Life is a drag. Especially just, like, this time of year, it just feels like it.
Speaker 2:I would say, especially after I turned 30, I just feel like everything started to shut down on me. My knees, my back, my ankles, my soul. And caffeine doesn't even help. No. It really I need something stronger.
Speaker 2:I need electricity.
Speaker 1:By chance, do you need Christmas? Yes. That is
Speaker 2:a source of joy.
Speaker 1:So yesterday not yesterday, Friday for us. So this it's Sunday for us. So two days ago was Halloween.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And my husband has already like, he woke up this morning, maybe twenty four hours after Halloween has ended. And he took down all the Halloween lights. Mind you, like, we decorate a good bit for Halloween. He took down all the lights and put up all the Christmas lights. He's got the Christmas tree downstairs.
Speaker 1:So we are ready and set to go for Christmas.
Speaker 2:I I just like celebrating. And I like to celebrate October 1 through January 1. I just like to find little things to do to spark joy throughout that entire time because it's the holiday season. True. True.
Speaker 2:I don't particularly like Christmas day Mhmm. Because I find it stressful. But all of the other activities, like the Christmas shopping, and the peppermint mocha lattes, and the Christmas movies, and the Christmas lights, and the turkey, and second Thanksgiving and third Thanksgiving and fourth Thanksgiving. We do this thing I feel
Speaker 1:like we talked about this probably last year, but in our house, because we don't have Thanksgiving at our house. Normally, we go to our aunt and uncle's house. This year, we're going to our mom's house. So the food lives somewhere else, you know? They have all the turkey.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And so we don't have, like, days later where we get the leftovers. Mhmm. Now we do still all hang out on Friday and eat the leftovers then. But beyond that.
Speaker 1:And so Brie will go out and she'll buy all of the things to make a full additional Thanksgiving dinner at some point, either, like, a couple days before Thanksgiving or a little while after.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I do this multiple times.
Speaker 1:It's wild. She makes a green bean casserole, and we make mashed potatoes and cranberries and Stuffing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The only thing is I'm not gonna make a whole turkey. No. Good. That's intimidating.
Speaker 2:And it would probably push me into being a full vegetarian. But they're like, Jennie O has a turkey breast that comes in a bag, and it's so flavorful and so delicious. And you don't have to do anything to it. You just take it out of its packaging and shove it in the oven for
Speaker 1:a few hours. That's great. And it is a lot of effort, but I'm in for it.
Speaker 2:And it's my greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 1:I recommend this to you and yours this holiday season.
Speaker 2:Yes. Second Thanksgiving. But, like, less stress. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because nobody's coming over to your house. Well, also, I feel like
Speaker 2:all the different elements wow. I'm going on for a long time about this. But all of the different elements that I do are not too complicated. I'm gonna do stovetop stuffing
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And mashed potatoes, I guess. Meh. You're just making mashed I don't I just don't feel
Speaker 1:like it's that difficult. Note that she's not the one that makes the mashed potatoes. I make the mashed potatoes. Not always? Pretty solidly
Speaker 2:always. Because you would judge me.
Speaker 1:I love to make mashed potatoes. I'm not complaining.
Speaker 2:I love potatoes. Anyway And you know who else loves potatoes that I heard? Amy Grant. Did you hear that? I heard through the the rumor weeds.
Speaker 2:Ah, sure.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that was a good transition.
Speaker 1:A great transition. So today, we are talking we're starting off a series, actually, on women who fell from grace.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And essentially, these are women in the first couple are gonna be women in the Christian sphere who were very influential for a time to evangelical Christians and then did something that maybe wasn't looked on well. You know? Did something out of the norm, did something that the church didn't agree with, whatever. And the church turned on them. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Which happens very often to women, especially in that public facing Christian world. Mhmm. You really can't make a mistake. Mhmm. You make a mistake, you're done.
Speaker 2:I kind of compare it to I don't know if anybody's seen Leah Remney's it's like a series, docuseries on Scientology. And they will do that to people who they see as an enemy to Scientology or someone who was in the Scientology world and left or broke from the church. They will hunt them down. They will destroy their character, everything that they can to make that person seem crazy.
Speaker 1:Right. Tell other members that they can't communicate with them.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Even if it's your family. Right. Now we can look at that and say, wow. That's kinda wild.
Speaker 2:But then compare that to the conservative Christian world, we're really kinda doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:So in this case today, we're gonna be talking about Amy Grant,
Speaker 2:who apparently loves potatoes. Loves potatoes. Amy? Amy, you there?
Speaker 1:You wanna chime in on this one? So just a little overview of who Amy Grant was. If you're not familiar with her, she was more our era. So I feel like the Gen Z and younger may not be as familiar with her. I'm not sure if, like, non North Americans are gonna be as familiar with her.
Speaker 1:To be fair, she started in, like, the eighties. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:She was born in 1960. She got her career started in the eighties. But I wouldn't necessarily call her our era only because it was our mother's era. That's true. I think We just listened to it.
Speaker 1:Millennial Christians grew up on her because we're the younger millennials. So millennial Christians kinda grew up with her and definitely our mom's age.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But she was, yeah, big in the late eighties, early nineties in the Christian singing sphere. She was a Christian singer, and she was the poster child for good Christian women. Mhmm. She was a wife. She was a mom.
Speaker 1:She was up there, and she was singing for the Lord. She was a great witness, you know, kind of things like that. And we listened to her CDs over and over and over.
Speaker 2:Actually, my first I wasn't involved in it, but my mom used to listen to Amy Grant, and her music was a little bit too rocky, I guess. And our grandma did not like that. So my mom would listen to the music so, so low that my grandma, when she came in the room, wouldn't be able to hear it. She had this one album called Age to Age, and I will still, every once in a while, pull that album up.
Speaker 1:And it's just it hits. You say every once in a
Speaker 2:while, it's, like, regularly. I would say once a month. Oh, it's more than once a month.
Speaker 1:It's just so classic. She's good. She has a great voice. The songs from back then, they're definitely that nineties cheesy kind of vibe. They're very early Christian music.
Speaker 1:You know? Like, they're as Christian music is transitioning from very traditional to a little more rocky. Mhmm. And it's just it's funny to listen to some of them. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, she was super, super popular. She was that poster child. And then things started to go downhill for her pretty quickly, actually. So the first issue that she had, and we'll get into her whole story, but the thing that started the decline was that she started singing secular music. Now, Brie and I compared this to Lauren Daigle, who is a Christian singer now.
Speaker 1:She's very, very popular. Sings lots of Christian music Mhmm. But started also to sing secular music.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Well, I also feel like
Speaker 2:the transition for Lauren Daigle was her music wasn't so Christian
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That it couldn't be played on the regular radio. Right. So the Christian songs were played on the regular radio. Mhmm. And then she also did secular music.
Speaker 1:Right. Now with Amy Grant, her songs were very, very Christian. Mhmm. And then she moved to secular music. But it wasn't like, there was no swearing.
Speaker 1:It was still very clean. It wasn't, you know, something that Sabrina Carpenter is gonna sing. Like, it was a very I wouldn't say all of the Christians didn't like it, but a vocal group of evangelical Christians were very upset that she wasn't singing Christian music. One of the things that was said was that she was compromising compromising her her witness. Witness.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So she's essentially doing things that are gonna make non Christians look at her and think like, oh, well, she's she's not representing Jesus. I don't think the non Christians were saying that. It was just the church people.
Speaker 2:And I also kind of feel like just the idea of a woman furthering her career. Mhmm. Anytime a woman has a good amount of success, someone's gonna wanna call her out on it.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. They don't wanna say, good job. Right. Even though the Christians were the ones that gave her that success in the first place.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Or, like, forward thinking, she still is a witness. Mhmm. So when she branches out into quote unquote secular music, don't you think that she could expand her audience? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And share the good news about Jesus Christ to a broader community? Right. But no. We just wanna keep her in our bubble.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, and keep her as the wife and mom in this little Christian, like, Christian home, Christian church, whatever. Whereas when she expands outside of that, now maybe it's that she's a career woman. Mhmm. And that's a little bit threatening to the image that that they've created surrounding her.
Speaker 1:Now the next issue that came up was her divorce. So Amy Grant was married to Christian musician Gary Chapman, who I had never really heard. Had you really heard him? You know what?
Speaker 2:I know a lot of music, but I don't always know the artist.
Speaker 1:I feel like he's someone that probably has a couple songs we listened to as kids. Yeah. But they were married for sixteen years. So it was a long marriage. They pretty much always had trouble.
Speaker 1:Like, it was a a difficult marriage. But they stayed together because they thought that's what they were supposed to do as Christians. They had kids. You know? Well, divorce is so taboo.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Especially back then. Right. In the early Christian not early Christian, but very conservative Christian world of the eighties and nineties. Eighties
Speaker 1:and nineties. Right. So in 1998 was when they officially announced that they were separating. And then in 1999 was when they got divorced. So that, again, just another step.
Speaker 1:Like, forget all the things that are about to come after. But that on its own, the fact that she was in the spotlight, then she started singing secular music. Now she's divorced. Let's forget about the fact that the marriage was not great.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now the Christians are really starting to turn on her. They're like, oh, what were we listening to? The horror. So then, of course, because we can't just have a divorce, like, there has to be a reason. Right?
Speaker 1:It's somebody's fault. Mhmm. And it's never gonna be the man's fault. So it's it's gotta be her fault. So Amy Grant started dating Vince Gill and then married him in 2000.
Speaker 1:Now that's a year after her divorce. So to a lot of people from the outside, that might look quick. But remember that they had been separated since 1998 Mhmm. And had had a pretty difficult marriage prior to that. So they may have been separated before that, but they announced their separation in 1998.
Speaker 1:Now because this relationship with Vince Gill started relatively soon after her divorce, things like that, the rumors hit that she was cheating. And that just went everywhere. Because I remember hearing that. I remember that being a thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do too.
Speaker 1:And I was very young at this point. I was only eight in 2000.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So for someone my age to have heard it and for it to be like that pervasive.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It's kinda wild. And that story lingered on. Like, anytime you think about Amy Grant, if you know about Amy Grant at all, that is what you think of. Her fall from grace.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Up until I started researching this, that was my assumption as well. That was that she had cheated because it was so it was everywhere. Like, I didn't even think it was a questioned Mhmm. Thing.
Speaker 1:I assumed that's what had happened. However, both Amy Grant and Vince Gill have still maintained to this day that they never were together prior to her marriage ending.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now I can't say prior to the separation or divorce. I don't know. But both of them have said, didn't cheat. Even Gary Chapman has said that Vince Gill was not the problem in their marriage. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Which is huge. Yeah. He had every opportunity to be like, no. Yeah. She was terrible.
Speaker 2:And let me push forward my career this way. Right. But he didn't. Right. That says a lot.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And yet the Christian church had to have a villain. Mhmm. There had to be a villain here. Now the villain could have absolutely been Gary Chapman. Because as we'll talk about, like, Gary Chapman was not a great guy.
Speaker 1:Throughout their marriage, they had a lot of trouble. She has said that they went to counseling, that they tried for years, that they put a lot of effort into working on their marriage, but it just didn't work out. Mhmm. Gary Chapman has later said he had substance abuse problems, specifically with cocaine, which is a big deal.
Speaker 2:That's a huge deal.
Speaker 1:That he had major anger issues that were unresolved, that he had a violent temper, you know, things like that. So we could have, you know, dug a little deeper as a Christian community and said, gee, what's going on here? Because you should always be asking why. Brie and I just had a conversation about this this week. When you see a fact put in front of you, don't just accept it.
Speaker 1:Say, but why? Mhmm. But why is this that way? If you're really bothered by this person's divorce, which let people live their lives. But if you're really bothered, say, but why?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But why did she get divorced? And there's always two sides to every story too. Mhmm. So I and I don't think Amy Grant comes out scot free in this or perfectly, you know, innocent.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, like, she had reasons of what was going on.
Speaker 2:And nobody does. Nobody's perfect. Mhmm. We all have stories. We all have pasts.
Speaker 2:She's a person
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day. However, that doesn't mean that we get to make up stories about her.
Speaker 1:I think we turn people into caricatures
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Of what what's easiest. Like, okay. She's the villain. Okay. She's a cheater.
Speaker 1:Okay. She's a a whore. You know? Whatever. Because it's easier.
Speaker 1:It's easier than asking bigger questions.
Speaker 2:We also do this to women in the Bible. I don't know if we've talked about this before too, but Mary Magdalene.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. She was so close to Jesus.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. She walked right along with the disciples. She spread good news about the gospel. And rather than that being her story, we wanna discredit women.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So we say, oh, no. No. No. She was she was a demon possessed prostitute Mhmm. Actually.
Speaker 2:And that's her story. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Which is not
Speaker 2:her story. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But yeah. So Amy Grant then got divorced, got remarried. Actually, her and Vince Gill are still together to this day, which is lovely. And Gary Chapman is also married. He's married to a minister.
Speaker 1:And him and his wife have been married for, I think, since 2008, I believe, and seem to be doing pretty good. He seems he's done a lot of interviews, talked about his issues. So everybody in this situation has walked away and kinda pulled their lives together.
Speaker 2:Everybody has walked away and it for the better. Mhmm. Divorce is never great.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Right? Nobody loves divorce. But at the end of the day, Amy and her husband came together and said, this isn't working out.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This isn't good for my mental health. This isn't good for your mental health. We are not good together. Mhmm. So rather than live in a miserable, awful marriage that God would never intend for you, They separated, and now both are doing much better.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so after the whole situation, one of the quotes from Gary Chapman, he did say something along the lines of, oh, you know, we should we should never have gotten divorced. Divorce is wrong. But at least God can make something good out of it. And I think that's often the Christian sentiment is like Mhmm. Well, this thing is wrong, but God can make something good out of it.
Speaker 1:And for all the Christians out there that are like, never get divorced no matter what, no matter whether there's abuse, no matter whether there's there's emotional abuse, physical abuse Financial abuse. Exactly. For all of you out there that would then turn around and say, if you did get divorced, that would then turn around and say, well, but God can make something good of it. Let's assume for a moment that it is a sin. I'm not saying that it is.
Speaker 1:But let's assume for a moment that it is. Wouldn't you rather be in the boat where you've done the thing And then you can look back on it and said, but God made something beautiful out of that sin. Mhmm. As opposed to living in the misery forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 2:Or think about it this way. If you do believe that it's a sin, again, we do
Speaker 1:not. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Let's just sin the one time. Mhmm. Let's sin the one time, get divorced so that the rest of our lives, we can prosper and be better.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And be a good witness Mhmm. To the rest of the world. Because if the rest of the world is seeing a miserable marriage, is seeing a bunch of Christian marriages that are miserable, do you think that they want that? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And I feel like then that just promotes sin after sin after sin. Anger and abuse and abuse. Mhmm. And I just feel like that would rip you apart. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that would hurt your like, not every not even just your witness to other people, but your own relationship with God. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And if God can take and this was, in theory, a Christian marriage. Now, I'm not familiar with either of their faiths personally. But in theory, this between Amy and Gary was a Christian marriage. Right? And those two Christians made a choice to split.
Speaker 1:And God gave them something good because of that decision. Both of them walked away from it into something good. Gary had a lot of issues. And sometimes when you're with somebody that you've always had those issues around, it it's difficult to get out of that. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I'm certainly not giving him an excuse for those behaviors. But in stepping away, he had the opportunity to work on himself.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:In stepping away, she had the opportunity to work on herself and figure out what what whatever was going on in their lives. So afterwards, the question then kinda becomes, why was the backlash so big for her? Because it's not always big. So why for her and not for other people?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It wasn't just that she got divorced. There were a lot of factors here. The first one was that she got her fame through Christian music. And then people said she abandoned it. Essentially, because they're like and all of it comes back to this she's a whore kind of vibe.
Speaker 1:Right? A whore for fame here.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:All she wants is fame. She used us, used us and abused us as the Christian community, and now she's just launching off that into fame, into secular fame. Is that the case?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:But when you think the only important community is the Christian community Mhmm. Then maybe it
Speaker 2:is. Mhmm. Our little Christian bubble.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. The next one is that she chose to walk away from her husband. It may have also been a mutual decision, but it wasn't like he abandoned her. Mhmm. She very publicly walked away.
Speaker 1:She announced that she was walking away. Mhmm. Women are not allowed to make these kinds of decisions in the Christian community.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And quite frankly, at this point, it's not even just in the Christian community. It's in the world. Mhmm. The world is scared generally of strong women.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. We're smart. We're capable. We can take on a lot. And the world will do anything they can to stomp out her light
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Or make her seem less credible or make her seem less worthy of where she's at right now. Which is why let's create a rumor that she cheated. Right. Let's create a rumor that she lost her faith, and she's a terrible person.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Anything they can do to knock her down a peg.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And give her less influence amongst other Christian women too. Mhmm. Because you can't let these kinds of thoughts spread. Right?
Speaker 2:Well, we don't want other Christian women who are being abused thinking that they can leave their husbands.
Speaker 1:Right. Because what happens then? Not all the Christian women leave. Not all of them, but really a lot Mhmm. Would start to ask big questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If this person who I've been looking to for Christian guidance, for worship, whatever, for this long said that it's okay to get a divorce, maybe, like, maybe that's okay for me too. Mhmm. How dare she think for herself?
Speaker 1:What is she thinking? God doesn't want that. The next point is that she remarried someone outside of the Christian music world. So, again, I don't know. I really don't know the faith of Vince Gill.
Speaker 1:I didn't look into that a ton.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:He may profess Christian faith. He may not. I'm not sure. But she married outside of this Christian music bubble. Vince Gill is a country singer.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that wasn't acceptable because, again, this secular world. Mhmm. Now she has moved even further away from the tiny Christian bubble because there is a bubble that you're allowed to live in as a Christian, particularly as a Christian woman. Mhmm. And if you don't, we kick you out.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You're done for. And then the last thing is that she didn't hide. Mhmm. She didn't go on her little, oh, I'm so sorry. There was no YouTube apology video, you know, like the ukulele.
Speaker 1:Yeah. None of that was going on. She got divorced. She got remarried, and she continued to live her life loudly.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And they didn't like that, the evangelical Christians. And so things happened to her. Like, they stopped selling her CDs at Christian bookstores.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Christian radio stations stopped playing her music despite the fact that she was the Christian artist at this time. Mhmm. So you gotta think, what were they playing after that? VeggieTales?
Speaker 2:Yes. It must have
Speaker 1:been VeggieTales. The rumor weed song. Only that one over and over and over. And everybody just like ditched her. They said, you know what?
Speaker 1:We don't need you anymore.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We'll find someone else. Someone better.
Speaker 2:And I love that Amy Grant was like, fine.
Speaker 1:But think of the stakes for women. Mhmm. Particularly women in this position because there are plenty of women in this position now. The stakes are very high when you fall off that pedestal that they've created for you. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:This holy, pure, whatever pedestal. Not only is she going through a really tough situation where, like, her kids are probably struggling because she's getting a divorce. She's emotionally struggling and trying to pull herself back together. Now she also lost a massive chunk of her career. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Some women lose their careers completely.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Even in spaces where they're more accepting of women as ministers, as pastors, as elders, whatever, those women still often are held to a much different moral standpoint
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The moment they do one thing wrong. And yet men are not given the same level of criticism. Men are
Speaker 2:easily forgiven. Mhmm. They're told, well, you couldn't help yourself. Mhmm. You're just a man.
Speaker 2:Or, well, you made a mistake, and you asked for forgiveness. We were talking about the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. His name is Josh Harris. He was like the golden boy for purity culture. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yes. And the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye was essentially telling young people not to go around dating. Mhmm. If I'm correct, it was more about courting Right. Dating with the intention of marriage.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Don't kiss until your wedding day. Don't hold hands. Mhmm. I had this book.
Speaker 1:I don't think I ever actually read all the way through it. But it was very think if you boiled purity culture down until its most pure form Mhmm. That was it. In a book. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But Josh Harris started publicly rethinking his faith
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And deconstructing his own faith, and deconstructing that own his own book Mhmm. That he wrote. But he did not get canceled. He also got divorced, if I'm correct.
Speaker 1:Yes. He was divorced. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But he didn't get canceled from the Christian community. They still maybe they didn't agree with his thought process, but they still used that book. They still bought the book.
Speaker 1:They still put it in programs. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that's different for Amy. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Right?
Speaker 2:They canceled her, and they also canceled all of her music.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:They were like, nope. No. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yep. Kinda like what happened to the Dixie Chicks.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Again, I think, like, early two thousands. So similar era where the Dixie Chicks said something in a concert against the president at the time. Mhmm. And all of the fandom got so mad. Country music is kind
Speaker 2:of wild to me too. Like It's very culty. Taylor Swift. Yeah. When she made the transition from country music to pop music.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Woah.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. The scandal. Yeah. But with the Dixie Chicks, like, it just you couldn't listen to them anymore. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And again, we look at this as like women.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because they were women and they went and they said something that, well, we don't like that. We can't just say, oh, well, we disagree.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or in Amy's case, just say, well, but I don't know your situation. Live your own life.
Speaker 2:Yep. We couldn't say that. Well, there's no understanding. No. There's no grace.
Speaker 2:There's no not a little bit of gentle. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And yet you have these very public pastors coming out with horrifying scandals. And yet you still have the Christian community, men and women, rallying around them. We also have people in very high positions of power.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Claiming to be Christian. Meanwhile, they're felons. Mhmm. They're On the list.
Speaker 2:On the list. They've done horrible, horrible things, but we are so willing to excuse that behavior and say, well, he's different now. He's a changed man now.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Where you would never give a woman the same grace.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And even in this case, like, there's no evidence of this scandal for Amy Grant. Yes. You look at these these men in places of power, and there's all kinds of evidence of the scandal. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Some of them aren't even denying it. Like, they're like they get up and do an apology sermon in front of their church. And the church is like, oh, it's okay. Mhmm. We still love you.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Meanwhile, the victim is trotted out to say, oh, I forgive him too. Or I'm so sorry that I caused this situation Mhmm. Depending on what's going on. And yet with Amy, like, there's no there's no evidence of a scandal.
Speaker 1:We just made this up. We decided that's what happened. And it create it became her lore. Right. That's the narrative that's around her.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I think, potentially, there's an argument to be made that if she had fallen on her knees and apologized Mhmm. That they might have taken her back. And it might have been like a, oh, look. She's pious. Oh, look
Speaker 2:at her apologizing. Make an example out of that. Because that is what they demand
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:From Christian women is to be mild and meek. Apologetic. Mhmm. And the second that you're not that, you don't fit that mold Mhmm. You must not be Christian.
Speaker 2:Right. I'm gonna question your entire faith Yep. And everything you are because you don't fit into this little box, which we've spent 80 something episodes saying, this is not what Christian women are. Maybe there are some
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Who are quietly strong. Mhmm. But that is not what we have to be Right. To be Christian women. And all you have to do is take a look through your bible Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And realize we've been tent pagan people for centuries. Long time.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I love that she said that Amy Grant said after her marriage ended, and I don't know how long after, but she said that she believed God cares about integrity and honesty, which meant that staying in a broken marriage wasn't automatically holy. Yes. Because if god cares about integrity and honesty and you're walking out onto she won a Grammy. Let's say she took her first husband to the Grammys with her and like, oh, look at us, this perfect Christian couple. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Is that honest? Mhmm. Does that show integrity? And condoning his behavior, which she did not. Right.
Speaker 1:If you're in a marriage where public facing, you're like, oh, look at these beautiful pictures of us on vacation. Look at how nice we are. We're such a good Christian couple. We go to church together. Whatever.
Speaker 1:And yet internally, it's a a crap show. It's rotting. Yeah. That's not honest. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That in itself is a sin.
Speaker 2:And that tells other people that this is fine.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:This is what you should expect. This is what you deserve.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And this is what God wants for you too. Is even if you're in a miserable, horrible situation,
Speaker 1:put up a facade Mhmm. Make your life seem beautiful, and move on. I really didn't know a lot about her prior to this. Like, I I obviously, like, I knew of the scandal because that was our era. But I didn't know a ton about her.
Speaker 1:And after having researched this, I have so much respect for her.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:For going through this, for walking through it with grace and strength.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And she also started her career very young.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:She got signed with, like, a worship label when she was a teenager. Mhmm. Like, 14 or 15. So that says a lot too because I feel like child stars, they get the short end
Speaker 1:of the stick Yeah.
Speaker 2:Often. But for her to come out on the other side still successful and having a good life
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That's amazing for her.
Speaker 1:She still sings she still sings both Christian and secular music. And kind of over time, the Christian backlash faded to a degree. People kind of forgot because we we do often have short memories. But she never hit that level of fame that she was at before. Like, if she had headed on that trajectory, she would have been the name in Christian music.
Speaker 2:I mean, her album, Age to Age, became the first Christian album by a solo artist to go platinum and earned her a Grammy award. Mhmm. That's crazy. For, like, Christian music to earn you Grammy?
Speaker 1:She was one of the first Christian artists.
Speaker 2:It was making her the first contemporary Christian artist to achieve that.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Mhmm. And to think that, like, that the Christian community has such power. Mhmm. And I think we really do have to be aware of that because even though, yes, Christianity in The United States is in a major decline right now, even so, the Christian community has a lot of power in the words that they use, in the way that they impact other people, especially right now in our political sphere.
Speaker 1:And we have to be aware of utilizing that power. Mhmm. This was someone vulnerable in a difficult situation that the Christian community could have surrounded and loved. And what would that have said to the rest of the world?
Speaker 2:Isn't that what we're called to do? Right. Is to surround each other in love. Mhmm. Love God, love others.
Speaker 2:But we don't. Stereotypically, we do not. We are very quick to judge and
Speaker 1:very slow to love. Well, what's the the witness of this situation? The witness of this situation is the church hates not the sin, but the sinners.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The church hates God's people. The church hates Christians and non Christians. The church hates.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The message could have been the church loves. If I screw up, the church will surround me in love. If I don't screw up and someone else hurts me, the church will surround me in love. Mhmm. If I do something the church doesn't like, they will still surround me
Speaker 2:in love. All of these things could have been true. But the church is more worried about the image. Mhmm. Again, making that pretty picture on the outside, but not really caring about the true core.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, because if you looked at what was really going on, it appears, at least from the outside, that her second marriage is a lot healthier than her first marriage. It appears that she as a person is doing a lot better, still has a very strong faith, still is out there witnessing to the world that at least from where I'm sitting, that's what it seems like.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But we didn't wanna see that. We just wanted to see someone at fault. And it had to be her Mhmm. Because it couldn't be the man. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now Gary Chapman also didn't come out of this great. Don't get me wrong. In this particular instance, it's not like the church was just, oh, but he's wonderful. Whatever. However, he wasn't all that popular.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And that was one of the issues that was talked about a lot was that people thought he was kind of jealous of her fame.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They were both singers. His career was really on the decline, and hers was skyrocketing.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so I they think that that was also an issue. And that would be an issue for a traditional Christian marriage. Yeah. Where the man is
Speaker 2:supposed to be the head of the household,
Speaker 1:the breadwinner, the end all be all. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And if your wife who you see as your Vice president. Vice president. Someone beneath you Right. Doing better than you Mhmm. That and I wish that we could just say, well, we can just teach our our boys to be better.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But we haven't done a great job of that in the Christian world. We haven't taught them that they're not the moon and the stars.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And that sometimes people are gonna be better at things than you. Mhmm. And you can help support them. Mhmm. It's not all about you.
Speaker 1:When I had my son so my kids are there's a big age gap between my kids. I had my daughter first, and then seven years later, I had my son. And I remember really freaking out. And this is coming from me, who, like, obviously very feminist. You know, I don't think of specific gender roles really ever.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And yet when I found out I was having a boy, I kind of panicked because I was like, I know how to raise a strong girl. I know how to do that. I don't know how to raise a strong boy. How do you raise a strong boy?
Speaker 1:Like, what do you do? And it took me a large chunk of my pregnancy to step back and say, oh, it's it's the same thing. You just raise strong people. Mhmm. You raise people that respect one another.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You raise people that value not just their partners, but absolutely value their partners and value the people around them. And value themselves. Right. And that that's it.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. There you don't need to raise your boys to be, you know, strong leader, whatever. Like, if they have leadership qualities, then those will develop on their own in your boys and your girls. And you can certainly cultivate those things, but cultivate them in both genders.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I actually got a text the other day, and I didn't know who it was from. It was just a random number. And I legitimately thought that someone that knew me but got annoyed with me had put my phone number on some stupid mailing list. Have you ever heard of, like, when people get really mad, they'll sign people up for Scientology?
Speaker 2:Or to hope this witness to be
Speaker 1:yeah. I legitimately thought that's what had happened. Let me read this text to you. It says, ladies, want to see your man grow into the leader god designed him to be? Here women share how better man, which is apparently some program, changed their husbands.
Speaker 1:And then it's got some link. And I was like, me of all people. Like, who the crap sent this to me? Unfortunately, I found out. And it actually is the old church that I used to work at.
Speaker 1:They will not take you off their mailing list for anything. And it comes from like different numbers. It's very spammy. And they sent this to me to apparently manipulate my husband into going into some sort of group that's gonna make him a leader. So now I have to manipulate the situation to make him be a leader, I guess.
Speaker 2:Because the man would never do that on his own. He needs his wife to tell him what to do, but then he's gonna take credit for it, ultimate. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:It's like that phrase. I think we've said it on the podcast before. It was I heard it on My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but I think it's like a normal saying. The woman is the neck that turns the head, the man being the head. I hate it.
Speaker 1:It's the worst. But it really does show what this text is trying to show. The woman has to tell the man what to do so that he can be a leader. Mhmm. He's not actually the leader because the leader would be doing the thing in the first place.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:She has to get him to do the things so that, yeah, so that he can take credit for leading.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I mean, I could go on about this forever. But, like, if a man is really truly supposed to be the leader and the head of the household, he should be adult enough to, like, buy his own underwear. Right? Right?
Speaker 2:Right. Be an adult.
Speaker 1:Or and I always hear this as, like, men will say we're a little off topic. We're just ranting, though. Men will say that women have to dress a certain way because men can't control their lust. Mhmm. Because men are visual creatures, and they're sexual creatures, and they can't control themselves.
Speaker 1:And yet they wanna be leaders. Mhmm. They can't control themselves, but they want to lead you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:They can control you, just not them. Like, no. Raise your boys to be better is the message here. Yes. You have a responsibility if you have children of any gender.
Speaker 1:If you are an aunt or an uncle to children of any gender. If you interact with children in any way, you have a responsibility to make them good humans. Mhmm. Don't make them this. Don't let them go to the Better Man Conference.
Speaker 1:Also, so it was last year in 2024. There is a men's conference called the Stronger Men's Conference. And in 2024, it was held in Missouri, primarily promoted by Mark Driscoll, who is a truly horrific conservative pastor, who is like the most anti women's rights person I've ever heard. God is gonna have so many things to say to him Mhmm. Before he sends him right down.
Speaker 1:The elevator's going down. Yep. I realize we're not supposed to judge others' faiths, but I have no doubt. They will know you by your fruit. Okay?
Speaker 1:Anyway, so this event, it they hired a male stripper to go up on stage and be, like, the entertainment for the day. Mhmm. And it was this huge controversy last year. It was bizarre. But this is what we're giving men as, like, here's how to be a good man.
Speaker 1:It was so strange what is appropriate for men versus imagine if that had happened at a Christians Christian women's conference. Oh my gosh. Even if it had been a female stripper. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I'm actually genuine like, what what was the message there? Here's the entertainment.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. He wasn't stripping. He was, like, performing. But he is a stripper. So, like, it was it was a performance.
Speaker 1:Like, it was very strange.
Speaker 2:We can cut this part out. But, like, men these Christian men who are so scared of getting even close to anything that might make them think that they're less masculine. Mhmm. Wanna watch a man undressed? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Guys, look up this controversy. It is both hilarious and sad. It was very strange.
Speaker 2:My goodness. But anyway,
Speaker 1:so Amy Grant. Amy Grant. So some of the things and okay. Again, look at, like, Mark Driscoll in this situation.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of controversy about this. People did get kind of upset about it. And yet Mark Driscoll came out of it scot free. He's still all over the place. He still has the same amount of influence even though he was kind of the leader and there was a major controversy.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And yet Amy Grant here's some things that were said about her after the situation. One of the things and this comes from Truth in Grace, which is a website. And this was these are quotes from, obviously, like, back in the day because this happened a long time ago. But it says, Amy, did you not care about the children that were in attendance? Did you not care about the influence of your behavior and immodest dress on those who look up to you?
Speaker 1:Did you not care about the example you set for the savior that you claim to represent? Now if you've ever seen Amy Grant perform, like, nothing about her dress is immodest. She's perfectly fine. Like, I guess you get to decide your own modesty, but you really can't decide it for others.
Speaker 2:Again, they don't care about what's coming out of her mouth. Right. They care about the outside appearance. Yep. And who the crap cares about what she's wearing?
Speaker 2:Why are we always judging women for what they they look like? Because it's easy. Like when like when a a woman is abducted Mhmm. She was
Speaker 1:beautiful. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, that that's what matters. Like, if she was ugly, it wouldn't matter that much.
Speaker 1:What was she wearing?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yep. Every time. Another quote says and this is from Reverend Frank Hughes, who has written quite a lot on her. I'm not really sure why he's so deeply angry, but he's real pissed off about it. He says, since the word of God is lost on the ears of Amy Grant, they think they're praising the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible.
Speaker 1:But the truth is that they're worshiping at the feet of pagan gods. And here, he's not talking about Amy Grant specifically. When he says they, he's talking about the people singing her songs. So he's talking about you and I and anybody listening that we are all worshiping at the feet of pagan gods Because Amy Grant, he thinks, cheated on her husband. And that means pagan gods, obviously.
Speaker 1:And now her entire witness is shot. I don't know how we got here. Another thing that he said is, in the wake of Grant's divorce, many Christian media outlets avoided doing Amy Grant stories. I did not quote this in effort to start some gossip chain. This is to demonstrate that Amy Grant does not live the way she claims she believes, and she does not show any signs of repentance for her sin.
Speaker 2:I think this is just another sign of how women's value is directly tied to their relationship to men.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And even though her husband was less popular than her, she was still a married woman. Mhmm. And so now that she's breaking those ties and not being a married woman or a divorced woman, whatever it is, that ruins her credibility Mhmm. As a Christian woman.
Speaker 1:Her value is less. Her influence should be less in theory. Her witness is worse. Yeah. Because there's no space for single or divorced women Mm-mm.
Speaker 1:In Christianity. There's not. Mm-mm.
Speaker 2:We have to be tied to a man somehow to have any sort of voice or power. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I love that she said though, and this is a quote directly from her. She says, honestly, from a faith perspective, I do always say, Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things. Love God and love each other. I mean, hey, that's pretty simple. We say that all the time.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Love God, love others.
Speaker 2:That's it. I've seen so many TikToks that have been like, what radicalized you Mhmm. As a Christian person? And when it was it's just like reading the Bible. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Or the things that we grew up learning about in Sunday school. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves the little children of the world. Love love your neighbor. All of those things, you're living it out now.
Speaker 2:And now you're telling me it's wrong. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Or that I'm radicalized. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:When I'm just living the way Jesus did.
Speaker 1:Jesus asked us. No. No. Jesus demanded of us. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That we care for others, that we care for the foreigner, that we care for the orphan, that we care for the impoverished. There was a whole section for the Israelites where they were supposed to leave parts of their fields. The landowners had to leave parts of their fields untouched. So they would grow the grain or whatever it was that they were growing. And then they left the edges where they were not allowed to harvest those so that the poor could come and harvest them, could come and take something that was theirs.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Because they were so called to live in and care for their communities.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:We are called to live in and care for our communities and not just the people that live within our borders. Because we were absolutely specifically called to care for the foreigner. We were specifically called to care for the orphan, to care for the impoverished, to care for the people who have less than we do. Mhmm. To care for the women who are being abused, to step in in those situations and show the love of God.
Speaker 2:And Alyssa and I, we were talking about this earlier, but this doesn't just mean tithing 10% of your income and having that money go to who knows where. Mhmm. I think it's very important as a Christian person to ask your church where your tithing money is going to. Mhmm. Is it just going to the salary of your church staff?
Speaker 2:Or is it going out into the community too? But also not just tithing that 10%, but also giving your time or being okay with being taxed so that kids can eat. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. In The United States right now, I'm I'm sure many of you across the globe have heard about this, but our government is shut down and they're threatening to remove SNAP benefits, which is like food stamps federally funded feeding of people. And also Medicare and Medicaid, which is health care for the impoverished and the elderly. I have been on Medicaid in my life because life is hard.
Speaker 2:Life is hard. Even if you in The United States, even if you have a full time job Mhmm. It's just really difficult to make ends meet. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:You literally you can work as hard as you want. You can have two jobs. You working constantly, and you may still not be able to afford to live without these benefits.
Speaker 2:I mean, the reality is the American dream is just that, a dream Mhmm. For people. It's hard to achieve.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, especially when you don't have a support system.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I was very fortunate in my life. I have been on Medicaid. I have been on WIC, which is a form of food stamps. And I had the good luck that I also had a college degree to fall back on. My husband had a college degree to fall back on.
Speaker 1:We had an amazing family to fall back on to help us when finances were hard. And that allowed us to kind of pull ourselves through that. Not everybody has that.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And so as Christian people, we are called to care for that. And sometimes that means supporting legislation, whether in your country or in others, that supports those people. That supports the people God asked us to support. Because Jesus said, whatever you do for the least of these, you've done for me. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We're called to be the hands and feet of Jesus Mhmm. On this planet since he's not here right now.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So what does that mean for us? That means
Speaker 2:we have to make moves Mhmm. To help and love his creation, his people. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And in the case of Amy Grant, support women. Mhmm. As Christian people, support the women that are walking out of these situations because a lot of them are in your church.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are in your community. Don't say, oh, I'm praying for your marriage to get better. Say, what do you need? Mhmm. Do you need to get away?
Speaker 1:You can stay at my house. Yeah. Do you need me to call the police? Do you need money for a lawyer? What do you need?
Speaker 1:Are you safe? Yeah. That's how you deal with that. Because, yes, praying for them is great. But pray and take a step.
Speaker 1:Ask more questions. Yeah. Let me get the whole story. Let me
Speaker 2:not just believe whatever Bob down the road said or the rumor weed said, if you've seen the VeggieTales.
Speaker 1:On that note. So next week, we are gonna be continuing this series. We're gonna be talking about Beth Moore, who also had quite an extreme fall from grace. If you're unfamiliar with Beth Moore, basically wrote all of the bible studies. Like, she wrote just so many.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna have to look up how many because it's insane.
Speaker 2:If you want, like, a lady's tea and a lady's bible study, she probably wrote it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But she is so incredibly intelligent. Like Mhmm. This woman knows everything about the bible. She is a scholar.
Speaker 1:She's amazing. She was part of the Southern Baptist Church, and she spoke out against our current president because he has been convicted of a lot of things. Man is a felon. And she spoke out against him when he ran the first time because she is an abuse survivor, and they kinda kicked her out.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So we're gonna be talking about her, about that story. And I'm just liking learning cool things about these women that I didn't know.
Speaker 2:I think it's so interesting to learn that Immigrant didn't have an affair. Mhmm. Because that was always what I heard about her. There was always like, oh, Amy Grant scandal.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:There's no scandal there. No. She's just a normal woman who got a divorce like a
Speaker 1:normal person. Who came out of it stronger.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So be nice, be kind, be strong. Huzzah. We're gonna go now and I'm gonna need a coffee because mine wore off at some point in the middle of this.
Speaker 2:We love you. We'll see you next week. I mean, we'll you'll hear us next week. Oh, you did it this time. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Alright. Love you. Bye. Bye.