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

And apparently, that's controversial. Comfy. Hello. Good morning. It could not be morning for them.

You don't know. Good day. Good afternoon, good evening, good night.

And we know what that's from now. We do. Do you? They don't. Traumatic pause.

I can't hear you.

Sometimes I really like, I ask questions and I expect a response. And then I think, this is a podcast.

Like on Dora the Explorer,

when they just stare into the abyss. That's actually super eerie.

I can't do that. I know. Do know where the map is? The map.

I don't like that.

I'm the map.

I'm the map. No. Now everyone's turned it off. They all left. I took a poll.

That's my favorite thing to do.

Didn't you totally throw a coworker off the other day with that?

Yeah. She was like, you should go look in the mirror because your eyeliner has gone all out of whack. Because I was crying from a joke that she made. And I said, no. I just took a poll.

Everybody here said it looked good. She got really confused.

That's one of Brie's go to phrases. Mhmm. If she's trying to make you feel inept. I just took a poll, and everyone here says you're stupid. So next time you're in an uncomfortable situation or you wanna win an argument There you go.

That's what you gotta do.

There's just certain key phrases. And you know how Gilmore Girls, you would buy the box set, would come with, like, this little pamphlet of Gilmoreisms?

You are aging yourself in a big way.

They know what I'm talking about. There's this little pamphlet, and it said Gilmoreisms. And it was like just a key for all of the references and nonsense that they say. And I want one for myself.

I mean, would write one for you, but it would take me a year and a half. Yeah. There are so many references. And most of them come from the Grinch.

Yeah. A lot come from the Grinch. Some of them are just flat out nonsense made up garbage. Some of

them are from really obscure stuff too. Like, there's there's something we say, oh, this is our podcast, not yours. And didn't that come from, like, a drag queen podcast or something?

Yeah.

Like, no one else is ever gonna get that. You're gonna think, oh, those girls are brilliant. They made that up themselves. Mhmm. But no.

Almost everything I say, I stole.

Don't you love to hear that? Those of you out there listening.

Well, mean like, ChatGPT. Everybody thinks it's unique and different when they ask ChatGPT to write them a strongly worded response to a coworker. But really, it's just pulling all kinds of information from different corners of the internet.

And that's what you're doing?

You're the chat GPT of people? I'm pulling all my references from different corners of my brain and turning them into mush.

I was actually just talking to our mom about this today because she was talking about chat GPT and how she had a great conversation with it or something like that. And I was like, did you know that ChatGPT creates a personality? It's got a bunch of different personality options, like, in its background. And based on the way that you talk to it, the kind of phrasing that you use, the kinds of questions that you're asking, it creates a personality type. That's bizarre.

It's specific to you.

I feel like I'm not on there that often other than like, write me this. Mhmm. Write me a one star review for a certain church, you know, that I'm thinking of.

That we're about to chat about.

But but then I get polite at the end. I'm like, okay. Thank you.

I use ChatGPT literally constantly, because I use it for work all the time. Mhmm. But I also as I'm editing the podcast, and I'm like, okay. I need a list of title options, things like that. And we riff off of those.

Mhmm.

Riff off.

ChattypuT knows our entire podcast personality.

I know.

It knows all about us.

Which is kinda scary because between the two of us

We're full of nonsense.

Full of nonsense. But like, full of opinions too.

Many an opinion. But ChattyPT knows them.

I wish you could name it. Because I feel like it could be us two. So Liz, Brie, and our ChattyPT. Our AI assistant? Yeah.

And I his bet you name could be Bart. Bart?

That makes sense.

Bri, listen, Bart.

Should that be the title of this? No. People would be deeply confused this month. They'd be like, they're talking about Doug Wilson. Here's Bart.

Actually, you know what? Before we launch into the stupidity one that it is Doug of our lowest performing episodes is called Padidian's Hear Me Out. And I'm absolutely convinced it's because no one has any idea what we're talking about.

Because in that episode because made it

up. Yeah. We were like, what do podcast listeners get called? And I'm convinced just because we're stupid. Nobody knows what we're talking about.

I forgot about that. That was many an episode ago.

Go back and listen to it. Make it your number one.

Hey, you know what? That'd be great.

As it is, as we've said before, our number one is when we hate on Dine Dobson.

So let's do some more hating, shall we?

Hate, hate, hate, double hate loads entirely.

That was a week or two ago. Was that was our title for our episode.

You're welcome. Go back and listen to that one

too. So this week, I think we mentioned it at the end of last episode, which yay for us, an organization.

Ugh. We're thinking ahead. We're amazing, amazing women. We are, truly.

But we are gonna be talking this week about Doug Wilson, who unfortunately calls himself a pastor and is a far, far right wing Christian nationalist and has ties to our government right now. So buckle up. It's not gonna be a happy episode. Click.

I was buckling up. Thank you.

But hopefully, we will help keep you a little bit more informed because I think that's the crucial part of this for all of us today is to stay super informed on what's going on and speak out against this.

Well, I think throughout history, you can see the extremists. Right? Mhmm. On both sides of the political parties. And you don't often pay them too much mind because they are extremists.

They don't really generally represent what's going on in our government. Mhmm. But right now, it is. Right. Representing what's going on in our government.

And if you don't know who Doug Wilson is, like you said, he's a pastor of a church in Moscow, Idaho. And it's a CREC church, which is communion of reformed evangelical churches.

I think it's a network, it said, of over a 100 churches, or at least that's what his CNN interview And they're trying

to take over, like, whole towns.

Right. So they believe in a Christian nation, a Christian world. Like, think Christian nationalism, but on a global scale.

Mhmm.

And we'll get into what that would mean for the world in a minute. But I wanna first talk about how he is talking about repealing the nineteenth amendment, which if you're not aware, the nineteenth amendment in The United States is what gives women the right to vote. Unfortunately, when our original constitution was written, women were not considered. Just period end of sentence, not considered. And so it took 19 entire amendments to get to the point where women won the right to vote.

Mhmm. Now that amendment was ratified in 1920, and it allowed over 26,000,000 American women to vote. It gave them that right. It was over a seventy year struggle just to get there. Just to get the value of human, you know, for women.

Mhmm. And not even fully human. Right. Because in 1920, there was still so much crap that

they had to deal with.

But at least they could vote.

Right. Now at the time, opponents were saying that giving women the right to vote would destabilize families and corrupt the political system, Which is comments being echoed today. Mhmm.

So Doug Wilson and several members of his church did a CNN interview with, I think her name was Pamela Brown, I believe is what her name was. But I give it to her. She was very calm, cool, and collected.

And I don't know how she managed it.

I don't know how because he's come back and been like, no, she like, the interview was great because they actually showed everything. Like, the full answer to all of the questions. They didn't try to spin it one way or the other. The issue is that his answers were so ridiculous Mhmm.

That that's what You don't have to spin it. No. When you're insane, it doesn't really take a lot of spinning to make you look insane.

No. But she did we watched a little bit of

it today and rewatched the whole thing. But she did a fantastic job. I don't know how she kept her cool. She was a very professional journalist. Mhmm.

But Doug, in this interview and in other places, like, all over the place Mhmm. Has said publicly that the nineteenth amendment was a bad idea, that elections should be structured around what he calls household voting

Mhmm.

Which is what he says his church does. And obviously, if it works in his church, then it must work globally. Mhmm. And so what household voting would do essentially is give like it says, the household, so the family unit, would get a singular vote. Mhmm.

Now he said what he does in his church is it's in their like big church meetings whenever they have to make decisions. It is a household vote, and it's whoever is the head of the household casts that vote. And he said traditionally, it is the man. The man is the head of the household, because the women should submit to their husbands. However, single woman could be considered the head of her household, I.

E, widows. Yeah.

He would consider single women. What? Yeah. Because that's

in their world, it's not acceptable for women to be single and content. They should be seeking out husbands.

Right. And if you haven't found one, they'll arrange one for you. Sure. Don't worry. Now in the CNN interview, several of the pastors from this church were interviewed.

And they're clearly trying to make this household voting sound as politically correct as possible. Now it's real hard to make this politically correct. Mhmm. But they're saying, well, it's household voting. So that means you have to have a discussion as a household.

I guess just husband and wife because I don't think the children are gonna be a big part of the conversation depending on their age. But you would have a conversation, you know, between the two of you. And the interviewer said, well, but you believe you're the head of the household. Right? So if she disagrees with you, do you still make the final decision?

And he said, well, that would be an opportunity for conversation. Mhmm. But the reality at the end of the day, for any of us who have been in these patriarchal churches and I know that most of you out there have, if if this is the kind of podcast you're chilling for, you know that at the end of the day, the head of the household or the husband in that type of marriage, in that type of situation, is going to make the decision. And more than likely, he's not even going to have had a conversation with his wife because she should just fall in line and agree with him.

Well, even in those, like, conservative church spaces, when I've had conversations with women about some myths of marriages Mhmm. That's just it. Is if you and your husband disagree, your opinion at the end of the day does not matter. Mhmm. Because you have to submit to his will.

Because in your world, in your Christian marriage, your husband is like the closest thing to God. Mhmm. And you're supposed to just be blindly following him. And some people even go as far as to say like, even if you know that what he is choosing is against God's will. Mhmm.

Or you still have to follow him because he is your leader. And Doug Wilson in his, I think it was like the expanded version of his interview, he was like, well how I think of it is men and women are equal in that we're both humans. Mhmm. Right? And we both have, you know, equal rights, but we have different roles.

So when you go into work, you and your boss, you're equally people, right? You're both people, you have human rights. However, when you go into work, your boss, you submit to what your boss wants you to do. And he's comparing that to marriage. Mhmm.

So husband being the boss. Mhmm.

I hear this all the time. I've heard this from countless people in my own life when I talk about my marriage because I'm very open about the fact that we don't have a man as the head of the household type marriage. This is not a submissive sort of marriage. It's not how it works. And I have had so many people give me that comparison.

Well, you have to have a boss. You have to have one CEO in a company. You have to have one coach in a football team, whatever. Well, my marriage is not a company, and it's not a football team. And frankly, those people are not people that generally like each other.

Mhmm.

I remember I think it was Sarah Bessie's book. I think it was Jesus Feminist that talked about how they she compared marriage to, like, a dance. And she said, we are always dancing together. And if it comes to a point because this is another argument that I've gotten a lot is, what about when you come to a point where you can't possibly agree? You are on opposite sides and you cannot you cannot agree.

Then you have to have somebody to break the tie. Right?

I've heard that too. Yeah.

She said, and I thought this was beautiful, when we get to a point where we can't possibly agree, because we respect each other, we stop. We just stop. We don't make that decision. We stop. And we consider each other and who the other one is as a person.

And we say, in love, I'm going to think about you and you're going to think about me. And together, because we love each other Mhmm. Because we're humans and adults with maturity, we're gonna work this out together.

Yeah. And maybe that means finding a third party that's not tied to any of that decision to seek guidance there. And

there are moments where you are gonna hit a really hard decision, but you know that that's more important to your partner. So maybe that your partner's opinion is more important there. There are gonna be moments where it's more important to you. And your partner needs to look at you and say, I know that this is more important to you, I'm gonna let you make this decision here. Or you know more than me.

Right. So I'm gonna let you make this decision.

Mhmm.

And just be mature enough to say that sometimes I make the decisions and sometimes my husband makes the decisions. And sometimes we compromise. Like Mhmm. Why can't why do we have to be a company? Mhmm.

It's like how we compare women to objects all the time. Why are we comparing our marriages to something as small and insignificant as a company or a football team? Right.

And for single women out there, what does this look like for you in a world where the nineteenth amendment is taken away or household voting is established? Am I my own household? Do I still get the right to vote? Do I have to submit to the will of my father even though I'm 30 years old?

I would anticipate if something like this did go through and single women were the exception to the rule?

I would never get married.

I think you'd see a ton of divorces. I think you'd see you know, the pendulum swings both ways. So you have the far right taking control. Okay. Well, then there's going to be a way out.

And if that way out is single women, I anticipate a ton of divorces where it's not that we hate each other. It's just that I want my own right to vote. Mhmm. So maybe we stay together,

but we're not married. Well, even now with the whole Roe v. Wade being overturned, for the first time in, like, however long history, the birth rate has dipped.

Mhmm.

And I actually think that's fantastic. And so many women right now are celebrating that because they're like, you know what? You're gonna try to control my body. Mhmm. I'm not going to have kids.

Yep. I'm not going to be with a man right now. I'm going to actively pursue singleness Mhmm. Over giving someone else control over my body. And there's chaos right now.

They're trying to pay women to have babies. Mhmm.

I think we talked about this before. There was a proposal, and I don't believe it's gone through. But there was a proposal at one point that they wanted to give and this was, like, high up in the government that they were talking about And they wanted to give women awards for having babies. Mhmm. Like, you get a silver medal if you have three or more kids.

You put get a gold medal if you have this many kids.

Yes. That's what motivates me to have children. Awards.

And I think the proposal said something about getting, like, $5,000 a kid or something like that. Mhmm. Which you can talk about That

you get to pay back later.

Paying people to have children. And it costs a lot more than $5,000 to not only have a child in The United States Yeah. Because of our ridiculous health care system Mhmm. But to raise a child in The United States. So and I mean, there's a whole there's a whole bunch of issues with that.

It's just it's just how can we control the situation? We've messed it up. People are fighting against it. So we're gonna try and control it in whatever way possible, even though these ways are insane. And the only time that's ever been enacted, something like that where they're giving awards, was in Nazi Germany.

Mhmm.

Well, there's so many comparisons right now.

Mhmm. So I think it's also important to talk about some of the quotes from him and people around him and how he speaks about women. Because it's not just you know, they the idea is we totally respect women. We totally respect women. We just don't think they have the same role as men.

That's that's the party line.

Mhmm.

Separate, but equal. Not, but that's what we're gonna pretend. So let's talk about some of the quotes. One of the executive pastors in the CREC group, I don't know, group of churches said, I'd support repealing women's right to vote. The atomization that comes with our current system is not good for humans.

No support to that, but not good for humans. Wilson has regularly used degrading terms for women, and these include harpies Mhmm. And Crohn's. He has called feminists small breasted bitties.

Yes. Because the size of your breast determines

your worth. Yep. He said in, I believe, his CNN interview that women are people that people come out of. Mhmm. He has also said it doesn't take any talent to simply reproduce biologically.

I think that is hilarious. Because I would love to see him try. If all the women around him were just like, you know what? It doesn't take any talent. Go ahead.

Mhmm. Try. Grow a watermelon in your butthole and push it out. It doesn't take any talent. No.

So you you can do it, I think.

It's

that's insane. And it's important to think about who the people in your leadership are and how they speak about anyone. So men out there, even though this doesn't impact you necessarily directly Mhmm. Look at this person and how he speaks about people who don't agree with him.

Or from a Christian perspective, being able to create another human is a miracle.

Mhmm.

The way that God put everything together is a miracle. Mhmm. And it does take talent. Mhmm. It takes an incredible amount of talent to be able to put your body through that and want to put your body through that to bring another person into the world and raise them into another good human.

Let's talk about it like that. Mhmm. Rather than, it doesn't take any talent

to push out a baby. I mean, imagine saying that about Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Mhmm.

The mother of Jesus. Could God have just magicked Jesus onto the earth? Bypassing women entirely?

Mhmm.

Absolutely, he could have. And yet he chose to give this role to a woman. Would you look at Mary and say, you're just a person that people come out of?

Mhmm.

Would you look at her and say, well, that took no talent? No. Of course, you wouldn't. Because frankly, that would be blasphemy.

Yeah.

And yet, that's exactly what he's saying. Exactly. That's a 100% what he's saying. He's looking at all the women of the bible. Because he does

not look at women. He doesn't see them as people. Mhmm. He doesn't see them as equal. He does not respect God's creation.

Mhmm.

And that's the bottom line.

Mhmm.

He said something super upsetting about, I guess he was a submariner back in his day. And he doesn't believe that, shocking, he doesn't believe that women should be in the military either. He doesn't think they should be in combat.

What? That's astounding for

this I know, type of so astounding. But his reasoning for that was, he's like, I was on a submarine, there was 172 men and three women. Do you think that was a good idea? And the interviewer was like, tell me more. Why don't you think these women were capable of doing what you were doing?

And he's like, well, you have three women and 172 horny men underneath the water for three months or however long And it the issue was not he didn't put it on the men saying like, no, you should control yourselves. Mhmm. You should be able to control yourself around another human person Mhmm. And not feel like you get to take advantage of that person. He said, now women can't be in combat Mhmm.

Because men can't control themselves.

Well, let's talk about how this kind of attitude relates to violence against women.

Mhmm.

Now, Doug Wilson is on the record as blaming feminists for rape culture. Mhmm. We looked up how he links the two together, and I am so thoroughly confused. But essentially, he says that women should be depending on men to keep them safe from other men. Like strong Christian men to keep them safe from the bad men.

Yeah. He said women need godly masculine protection against ungodly masculine harassment. And women who reject this protection are technically agreeing on the propriety of rape.

This reminded me, I was telling Brie earlier, of like, have you ever seen a mafia movie? Where and maybe this really happens real life. I I don't know. I don't have a lot of experience with the mafia personally. But in like the movies, the mafia members will go around to small businesses and they'll say, you have to pay me this much a month for me to keep you safe, to protect you.

Mhmm.

And if you don't, then then I won't protect you. Then you won't be safe. Whatever. But it turns out that the people you need to be safe from are the mafia in the first place. So they're just they're threatening you with not protecting you from themselves.

Because if you fall behind in your payments, then you better watch out. We're you're gonna lose a hand. Right. Or wake up and there's a horse head next to you. Exactly.

I assume.

And this reminds me of that in that women have to, in this world, submit to men. Women have to follow all the rules. They have to not fight for their own rights, not talk back, not say anything really against the men in their lives, not just their husbands, all the men in their world. And if they don't, they don't have protection from the bad men, I guess. Mhmm.

But let's also talk about the fact that how many pastors have we heard of recently? Pastors who are supposed to be these good godly men. Right?

Oh, yeah.

That have assaulted women in their churches. Mhmm.

Or children in their churches.

Exactly. It's everywhere. So who exactly are you protecting me from?

Exactly. There was something he was on record. He, you know, is against so many things. Like gay marriage, women in general. I mean,

the existence of gay people. Yes. The existence of women.

He was very against drag queens. He's we don't need drag queens in our schools reading to kids. And I saw something on TikTok the other day that was like, I if I was presented with two different alleys and one had a drag queen and one had a man

Mhmm. I would go down the alley with the drag queen. Without question.

I would never go down the alley with the single white man. Mhmm. And that's the reality of womanhood today. Wait. Statistically, who am

I more likely to be attacked by? Exactly. Who's more likely to be a predator to children? Exactly. By far and away, the white man.

I mean Mhmm. And I don't say that to be racist in this case. But just to say, if you look at the numbers here Mhmm. You are more of a threat than the people that you're supposedly scared of.

Mhmm. And it tends to be the people who are against this stuff the loudest Mhmm. Who are the biggest problem.

Right. Right. Just from, like, a social media standpoint, how these connect, we looked up some different stats. And posts calling to repeal the nineteenth amendment spiked 663% on x Twitter, if you're not familiar with that, immediately after this year's election.

I pulled up something the other day. I was googling something, and I was like, x?

What the crap is x? This is stupid. Just call it Twitter, boys and girls. So then these calls were also talked about alongside phrases like get back in the kitchen, things like that. Like, clearly degrading towards women.

So you

you really can't even argue this separation of no, we respect women. We're repealing the nineteenth amendment to protect women somehow. Because alongside of it are these things like get back in the kitchen. Mhmm. There's also the phrase, and we've talked about this before, but it used to be a or it still is really, a feminist slogan to say, my body, my choice.

Mhmm.

And I believe during the last election cycle, a man named Nick Fuentes said, your body, my choice. Mhmm. And that has trended in a huge way. It's according to stats, mentions of that phrase spiked 4600% on x.

I remember, like, hearing my friends who have kids in school. Boys were starting to say that in the schools. Mhmm. Because they think it's something funny Mhmm. Or something, you know, just popular in social media.

They don't understand the full context of that.

And the threat of it to women. Because what you're saying in that, it's not some, like, funny, oh, I'm just making fun of blah blah blah. And I understand that, like, teenagers don't understand long term effects. Mhmm. Their brains haven't fully developed.

But at the same time, like parents

Mhmm.

You need to be the ones stepping in with your kids and preemptively saying, hey, I've heard the kids are talking about this. Let's have a conversation. Do you know what this would mean?

Yeah. What are you looking at on social media? Right. What are your friends talking about right now? These are the consequences of it.

This is not okay. This is not something acceptable that we say because we respect people. Mhmm. And it doesn't matter what gender they are.

Mhmm.

We respect people.

Yeah. But clearly that's not being talked about because and it's not just, at this point, it's not just a Christian nationalist movement. Unfortunately, it's attracted really any men who seek out power for themselves.

I would say the weakest of the men Mhmm. Who feel that maybe they don't have any power. The ones who are intimidated by feminists Mhmm. Who believe that men and women should have equality. That's who it's attracted.

Mhmm. Yeah. Exactly. Because it gives them that sense of power that they crave so much. Mhmm.

One of the quotes that I am gonna read from Doug Wilson and I will tell you that a little bit of a trigger warning with this one. It's gross and definitely feels like a rape culture analogy, which is interesting since he blames rape culture on feminism. So just a little bit of a trigger warning on this one. And this is from I believe this is from one of his writings. And it says, a man penetrates, conquers, colonizes plants.

A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. Have you ever heard a more intense description of rape? Because Mhmm. It's all right there. I don't care if this is in the context of marriage or not.

I don't care what context this is in. If all a woman can do is receive, surrender, and accept, There is no consent there.

Mm-mm.

There is no love there. There is no godliness there. There is none of Jesus in that sentence.

And this is the danger. He wrote a book called

A Mana Canna Plan.

Girlfriends, Guys, and Grown Up is the book. No.

It's Good to be a man, I think is good.

Good to be a man. He says it's in response to the culture today saying that white men are the problem. And so he's like, no, it's good to be a man. Let's raise up our men because they need more morals? Not that.

No, not that. But he was saying like, no, it's okay because men are naturally angry. And that's what they we should say it's okay.

You know what really makes the world a safer place? When you tell people, you're just angry, and

that's okay. Well, that's the issue is that in this culture right now, we're telling men that the only emotions that they can have are anger and rage and conquering. Mhmm. And that they're not allowed to feel anything else. And that's the problem.

Is that we're also telling men that they can't be human.

Mhmm. If you tell someone that the only emotions they can have are negative emotions,

what does that do to you

as a human? It makes you feel like not a human. This isn't and I know we've harped on this before, but patriarchy doesn't just hurt women. Christian nationalism doesn't just hurt women. It hurts men too.

Because if you have to go through life thinking that all you are is anger, all you are is hot headedness, all you are is a leader, and you can never be anything less. Mhmm. That is a sad life.

It's a sad life. And then that also puts pressure on women too, because we're saying you can't have anger. Mhmm. You can't want to be a leader. That makes you less of a woman.

Mhmm. And so, these strong women who have callings to leadership and strength and power were dimming their light.

Mhmm.

I will say I went on his church's Google page and gave them a one star review.

You were not the only one either. Correct? I don't think so. I saw a TikTok from a pastor that I really like, and he was talking about Doug's education level and his ordination, things like that. Because this is not a standard Christian denomination.

Denomination. So, like, where did this come from? Where did what happened here? And he said, who ordained Doug Wilson? Doug Wilson.

Where did Doug Wilson get his education? From Doug Wilson. So I went online and I did some research to see where he got his education. Now I'm not saying that you absolutely have to have a theology education in every kind of pastoral context. However, if you are going to be the head of a whole sect of Christianity, maybe you should have some education from someone outside yourself.

Because if it's just you, then you're an echo chamber. And you're just making your own conclusions. So Doug has a BA in philosophy. And a BA in classical studies from the University of Idaho. He also has his MA in philosophy from the University of Idaho.

That is all. There's no theological training here. He did not go to seminary. He was not ordained by any governing body or any outside sources. Doug's opinions come from Doug's disgusting, festering soul.

And I think that's important. I think it's important to look at what influences the people you're listening to have. Where do their educations come from? Who are they listening to? Where did their thoughts and opinions come from?

Because you can read the bible and I can read the bible and we can have totally different opinions just reading those words. But then we can look at other resources. We can take a class. We can listen to professors. We can listen to historians and theologians Mhmm.

Who give us historical context and say, well, no, this is kind of what they were talking about. And you can pull all of these things together and have a broader, more accurate view of what the bible is saying. As opposed to if I just read it in my own in in the corner of my bedroom.

In my own little corner, in my own little chair.

Exactly.

You can be whatever you wanna be.

And that's Doug took that to heart. He took that message to heart.

He watched Cinderella and he said, listen, I can be a princess too. And

one of the biggest problems with Doug, and I think we mentioned this in the last episode, is that he has the ear of the government in The United States right now, which really probably is not a great surprise to you. But one of the people who attends one of his churches is Pete Hegseth, who is The United States Secretary of Defense. Who has gone on record in interviews praising Doug Wilson and his church, Pete Hegseth, who has started prayer time in the Oval Office. Mhmm. These are people who are calling for a Christian nation.

But what Jesus didn't do when he came to the earth was create a Christian nation. What Jesus didn't do is come back as a political leader or come back as a military leader. He did not say to his disciples as he was rising up to heaven, go into the world and force them all to believe in me.

Gave us free will. Mhmm. If he didn't want that for his people, he would have not given it to us. Mhmm. He would have said, naturally, because you are born, you are going to turn your eyes to heaven and believe in me.

Mhmm.

But he didn't. He said, everybody gets to choose what they want to choose. Mhmm. And yes, I want you to choose me through love, but that's your choice.

Mhmm. And I see so many Christians praising this, like, prayer time in the Oval Office. And the speaker she's the press secretary, I believe. Yes. Is constantly wearing a cross necklace and all this stuff.

And it's all of this Christian imagery. Not really Christian concepts because we we wouldn't wanna go that far. But, like, appearance of Christianity, I guess, would be

the best way to say it. Frosting on a poop pie. There you go.

And I do not celebrate that. I do not celebrate that because it's forcing Christianity. I and I I keep using the air quotes, guys. You can't see them because this isn't real Christianity. But it's forcing the idea of Christianity, I guess, down the throats of people who have different belief systems.

To me, it's not true Christianity because Christianity is supposed to be love. Mhmm. Loving people despite their beliefs, despite their gender, despite everything. Mhmm. Right?

Unconditional love. What I'm seeing is power. Mhmm. And I'm gonna wear a cross, and I'm gonna pursue power at all costs.

Mhmm.

And that is not okay with me. Because would you feel the same in The United States Of America if it was a different religion? Exactly. Would you feel safe? No.

Yeah. If they're up there having

prayer time to a different god, how would you feel about that? Mhmm. Would that make you feel like you had a place here? No. All that's doing is attempting to force another belief system down your throat.

Mhmm. And you wanna know what people are not receptive to? Having other belief systems forced down their throats. Right. I saw a cartoon the other day.

I'm actually not sure where it came from. But it said it was two groups of people. And it said, the difference between you and me is that you use scripture to determine what love means. And I use love to determine what scripture means.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Actually, that's something that I noticed in the interview with Doug Wilson. Pamela would ask him a question. And rather than giving a direct answer

Mhmm.

So, hey, I heard that you want to repeal the nineteenth amendment. Is that true? He responded with scripture.

Mhmm.

And he's like, well, let me give you an analogy. Or, well, let me what let me tell you what happened in Acts chapter, whatever, blah, Mhmm. But would not give a direct answer. It was always like, let me give you some scripture. Let me give But you some we're not living in Bible times right now.

And even within that, how many

women have we I mean, we're on episode 70, I think, now. Oh, how's that? How many episodes have we talked to you guys about the women leading in the Bible? Mhmm. So in order to get to this place where women have no role in leadership, where you scroll through the leadership of Doug's church and it's 75 white men.

And then two at the bottom. Two women at the bottom.

That are secretary.

The one's a secretary and one's like admin.

In order to get to this place, you have to just ignore massive chunks of the bible. Mhmm. Just huge chunks of the bible. You're just like, whatever. We don't need those.

So when you look at Christians like us

Mhmm.

Progressive Christians, I don't know exactly what you would call us. I think just just regular old Christians. On the proper path. When you look at people like us, we're often told, well, you're picking and choosing the scripture that you want to fit your agenda. Well, Doug.

Let me just tell you. You've lopped out sections of scripture Mhmm. To fit your agenda. Large sections of scripture. Entire books.

You just forgot about you ignored most of what Paul says. You ignored Deborah, Esther, Ruth, Mary, Phoebe, Junior. Like, I can keep going.

Well, I mean, he even goes so far as to justify slavery. He does. Yes. He says, well, it was okay in Bible time. And yes, sometimes the master slave relationship was toxic, but sometimes it was good.

Mhmm. And he wrote something in the 1990s about the Southern slavery movement, and in his own way justified it.

Mhmm.

And is still justifying it.

In the CNN interview Yeah. She asked him specifically about that. She said, do you still hold this opinion? And he went on to justify. Not exactly say it.

Oh, yeah. But if you listen to it, he's absolutely justifying it. Well, in bible times, this was fine. Okay. Well, there were a lot of things in bible times that were societally acceptable that I'm looking at and I'm like, I don't wanna live in that world.

Mm-mm. My gosh. Haven't we come beyond that?

Well, even in the bible, they're saying be set apart.

Mhmm.

This is your culture at the time. But be set apart from it in love. Mhmm.

So what does love look like? Mhmm. What does love look like? That's what it comes down to at the end of the day. What does love and respect for the people around you look like?

It does not look like control. Mm-mm. It does not look like forcing them into anything, whether that's forcing women to vote the way that their husbands wanna vote or their fathers or whoever the head of their household happens to look like. It doesn't look like forcing people to be part of your religion. And I think that's one of the things that I really wanna drive home.

One of points I really wanna drive home is that Christians shouldn't be celebrating this concept of a Christian nation or a Christian world. Unless that world comes to God on its own, and then that's great. Awesome. I'm so glad that that we're all here together, I guess. But unless that happens, I'm not celebrating forcing my religion down someone else's throat.

Because that's not ever going to help anyone.

Well, think about would you want that done to you?

Mhmm. You wouldn't. There are people of other religions that believe just as passionately Yeah.

That they are correct. So I have to, from human to human, I have to respect that you get to choose what you wanna do Right. And what you wanna believe. And I can tell you, this is what I believe. Mhmm.

And I would hope that, like, one day we see each other in the same space. Mhmm. But you get to make that choice by yourself. Because you are a whole human by yourself.

And note that that's the same choice God made.

Mhmm.

When you choose to force your religion on someone else because you've decided we are a Christian nation built on Christian principles, which that's a whole other issue, which we were not built on Christian principles. But if you decide that, you are going against God.

Mhmm. And doesn't the Bible say like, they'll know you by your love? Mhmm. This is not love. Forcing your religion on someone, specifically your religion Mhmm.

Is not love. No. And you're just not making any progress. I think back to like the doom and gloom pastors of old. Not that those pastors don't exist, but think of, I don't know, early US pastors that were getting up on the podium and screaming

about hell. Scare tactics. Yeah. Yeah.

You may have gotten people to, like, say the sinner's prayer and and go to church on Sundays. But did those people really believe in God, or were they scared of hell?

Did you capture their hearts? Mhmm. Or did you capture their fear? Mhmm.

In this instance, it's the same issue. Are you capturing people's hearts? Are you really showing them the love of God to where they want that for themselves? Mhmm. Where they can make that decision for themselves?

Or are you just forcing your agenda because at the end of the day, you get something out of

it? Mhmm.

Because let's make it very clear. Christian nationalism benefits Christian men. Mhmm. Now, obviously, we just talked about how it it's a negative for everybody. Mhmm.

But on the surface, it massively benefits Christian men.

And they get to pursue whatever agendas they want. Mhmm. Because they're getting rid of like, The US population is 50.8 or something percent female.

Mhmm.

So if you lop off that

Mhmm.

Oh, they don't get to vote anymore. Mhmm. They don't get a say in anything anymore. Now there's a lot smaller pool

Mhmm.

Of men that we have to convince that we wanna stay in power. We don't wanna give up that power.

And for those of you out there that this doesn't directly impact, whether it's men, whether it's people from other countries, wherever you happen to be that this maybe doesn't directly impact you as a person

Mhmm.

It's still important to speak out against it. Because I've had people look at me and say, well, this isn't gonna hap they're not really gonna repeal the nineteenth amendment. Because that's too radical. That could never happen. That could never happen.

But I want you to sit and think, if someone said loudly and with a broad audience Mhmm. I'm gonna take away your right to

vote. Mhmm.

Directly you and all the people that look like you. Would you be up in arms?

Mhmm.

Would you be a little scared?

Even if it was just one guy Mhmm.

Or one girl. But in this case, it isn't one guy.

Doug Wilson said in his interview, he's like, there was a time where my viewpoints were seen as very radical. And he's like, I have not changed my viewpoints, and I've done very little. But now we have power in the White House.

Mhmm.

And now we have people moving to Idaho to come to my church because they see my beliefs. And they want this. And they see that there's a section of America that still holds these strong traditional family values. And that's terrifying. Mhmm.

That like, at one point this was seen as completely radical. Insane. Insane. And now you're seeing that in the White House. Mhmm.

And so yes, as women, we can see the slippery slope. Mhmm.

A lot of very big things that I never thought could go through. I remember when project twenty twenty five was published. And if you're not familiar with that, it's basically a manifesto from the far right talking about all the things that they wanted to do if Trump became president.

Think Handmaid's Tale. I mean, literally.

And I remember watching a video about it probably towards the end of last year after the election, but prior to him actually being in the White House. And talking about it with people, and they were like, okay. Clearly, none of that's ever gonna happen. That's just fear mongering. Mhmm.

That was the excuse. Even for people that disagreed with it Mhmm. That's just fear mongering. You don't need to worry about that. Don't worry your pretty little head.

Mhmm. And yet here we are with so many of these things already in the works. Mhmm. So many of these things already happening.

And I don't really get the point of being like, oh, don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. Because, oh, well the president said he had nothing to do with that. He said he said he had nothing to do with it. Since when do you believe politicians?

Well, also all of his advisors wrote it. So there's that.

His name is in it, like a billion times. It's scary. And if you're a person who this doesn't directly affect, I. E. Men.

Mhmm. I don't even wanna say, think about your sisters, your daughters, your mothers, your wives. Mhmm. Think about 50% of the population. Think about God's creation.

Mhmm. There you go. Do you think this is fair? And even if it doesn't directly affect you, speak out I about

really think that we are at a point in history where you can't be middle ground anymore. And that's sad to say. I don't like saying that because I think being middle ground is normally pretty great because you can see both sides. But we are at a point where you can't not pick a side anymore because there is so much violence against women. Mhmm.

There is so much violence against the LGBTQ community. There is so much racism. There is so much horrible stuff coming out of our government right now that and honestly, I've heard a lot from globally that this is impacting because Mhmm. The US, unfortunately, has a very broad influence. So this is affecting the globe and other things that are going on in the world right now.

History will remember you as complicit Mhmm. If you don't stand up and say something. If you don't stand up and do something, you don't have the luxury to sit in the middle quietly anymore.

Mm-mm. It's easy to look back too on like World War II and say, why weren't these people saying something?

Mhmm.

This is so horrific and so terrible, what was done to the gay people or anybody who wasn't blonde hair, blue eyed. But we're living through that time again. And are you going to say something now

when you have the opportunity to? Do you wanna be the person that stood by? Mhmm. This is a quote from Jane Goodall. And, you know, this is from some time ago, so there you go.

She said, it actually doesn't take much to be considered a difficult woman. That's why there are so many of us.

I may have posted that on our Instagram.

Oh, yeah? Mhmm. It takes nothing for a woman to be considered out of line in this Christian nationalist world. Mhmm. Nothing.

All I have to do is breathe wrong. I was thinking about that not too long ago about how even if I changed everything about myself, became I could dye my hair blonde. I could remove the tattoos.

That would take a while.

It would take some time, but I could attempt it. I could wear the heels and the pearls and be submissive to my husband and whatever. Even if I did all of those things, I still would not have value to these people. Mhmm. To the Doug Wilsons and the Pete Hegseths and the Donald Trumps of the world.

Because you're just a person that people come out of. Right. You're a

vessel. Women, because there are certainly plenty of women supporting this far right agenda. Women, if you think that there is value for you on this side, there's not. They will never value you or respect you. You will always be less than.

You will always be just half a person.

God wouldn't have given women a brain and a mouth if he didn't see them as equal to men.

God repeatedly throughout the Bible shows how much he values women. In Genesis, male and female, he created them. In God's image, in his own image, he

created them. Don't worry. Doug Wilson quoted that too.

Oh, good. Destroyed it for me, did he? Yeah. Throughout the bible, God repeatedly shows. He calls women warriors.

He says that they are like him. He gives women leadership roles. Jesus gave women leadership roles.

Well, like you said before, he chose Mary to bring him into the world. He submitted himself to Mary to be able to enter into the world. He didn't have to do that. No.

It would have been probably easier, simpler, just to magic Jesus onto the planet. Mhmm. But throughout the Bible, God shows how much he respects women. So accept nothing less. Accept nothing less than who you are in god's eyes.

And that's all. That's all I have to say about this. Fight for your right to party and vote. Yeehaw. Next week, I would like to talk a little bit about what sin is.

Oh, yeah. I would like to do an episode directly after that. What love is. Baby, don't hurt me.

Hey. Yeah. Let's do that. So we'll do a little miniseries. We'll do what sin is and then what love is.

We are headed to Disney pretty soon. Huzzah. We need a little bit of happy. We need a little bit of Mickey Mouse in our lives. So we are gonna prerecord for you guys.

We won't be gone, but we will be prerecording a little bit ahead of time. So we'll do that little miniseries, and you can hear that over the next couple weeks. And I wanted to talk about that because I think a lot of times fundamentalist Christians think that basically everything they do is sin.

I'm From the moment you enter the world and open your eyes

Yep.

That's a sin.

Constantly sinning. They think babies crying is a sin. Okay? Everything

is Yeah. That's true.

And I wanna talk about what sin really looks like. And then, yeah, like, what love really looks like. How can we go into our faith in a healthy way Mhmm. And not in a fearful way, And hopefully in a way that fights all of all of these people.

Gosh. If I can just end on one note. There's a lot of people out there that we despise and we dislike. And we hate on. There's quite a few.

Yeah. I want it to be very clear. We're hating on Doug Wilson.

Was that not clear? And all of his

followers. Followers. We do not like him, Sam I am.

Because the last hour didn't make that clear. Alright. Tune in next week where we talk about what sin is, and then what love is. And go out and fight the patriarchy, boys and girls.

It's time to put on your shin guards

and your steel toed boots because we're kicking some people. Let's go. I think we talked about last week how we didn't want war metaphors. Oh. Well.

Alright. We'll talk to you next week.

Put on your shank guards. Love you. Bye.