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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
Speaker 2: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. Comfy.
Speaker 2:Hello. Hello, world. And happy birthday to our brother. Happy birthday.
Speaker 1:And it's actually no longer his birthday. Today, when we are recording this, is his birthday. Yeah. He's an April fool's baby. He is.
Speaker 1:And he's 47.
Speaker 2:Can you believe it? Shocking. The two of us were so young and sprightly. We are. And he is old and decrepit.
Speaker 2:Wrinkled, some might say. Yes. Like an old, old wizard. And I've always said that. Happy birthday, Brandon.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday. We love you. Love you.
Speaker 1:Shout out. You're welcome. I'm sure he'll love this episode. We could call it Brandon's episode. Oh, we should.
Speaker 1:That wouldn't confuse anyone.
Speaker 2:No. It's kind of like, well, what's that? Arthur's theme. That It's called Arthur's theme. No one does anyone know what you're talking Yeah.
Speaker 1:They do. Do they? They do. I was over here thinking like Taylor's version or something.
Speaker 2:No. Brandon's theme. Cool. Love it. You're weird.
Speaker 2:I'm moving on. Okay. Today, we're talking about
Speaker 1:Mr. Steve. We are. We're back to talking about Steve. We're gonna get right down to business, apparently.
Speaker 1:Brie is ready
Speaker 2:to go. Yeah, you're welcome. I have a coffee.
Speaker 1:To be fair, we have a good bit to get through today because we are gonna finish out this book. Now if you missed
Speaker 2:two weeks ago with Guys, this series has been a time ago. It's been an adventure. We've been hop, skipping, and jumping around. What we and it's our podcast. And shut up.
Speaker 1:So we a couple weeks ago, we're working through a book called Your Jesus' Tomb American by Steve Bezner. Mhmm. And we took a little break last week because we went to see our very bestest best friend. Yeah. And so if you missed last week, you should listen to last week.
Speaker 1:But also, you should listen to the couple of weeks before that because that will preview into this That
Speaker 2:really cleared it up for Did it? Was it very clear?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Good. Yeah. I think it was the two weeks prior to last week. Let's move
Speaker 2:on. Okay. Steve Besner's book, Your Jesus is Too American. We're on the second half Yes.
Speaker 1:Of that book. So we're gonna start today in chapter six. And if you listened to the first couple of episodes, we talked about the fact that well, there's a couple of things I want to touch on before we really get into the chapters. First of all, when we first got into this book, we were thinking that this was going to be kind of a chat about how bad things have gotten with Christian nationalism in The United States.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you're talking about. Things are going great. Oh, yeah. Super great. Look out your windows.
Speaker 2:Nothing's burning. Maybe. Yet.
Speaker 1:And I think that's kind of how the book is marketed. Mhmm. Is a chat about Christian nationalism.
Speaker 2:It's kinda like on you know back in YouTube videos, and they would make their thumbnails something crazy like, I killed my mom.
Speaker 1:Wow. But
Speaker 2:really it was like they named a vacuum cleaner mom or something like that.
Speaker 1:And then like smashed it against a wall What's it called? Earth.
Speaker 2:Clickbait. It's clickbait. Yeah. It is a
Speaker 1:little clickbaity except that it's a book and I bought it. But it does talk a little bit about Christian nationalism. There is a chapter that we'll get to today that talks about Jesus on politics. But more than that, it's kind of about how the church can Be better. Be better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Which is also a really important topic. So while I do feel like it was a little bit clickbaity, I also think it's an important topic and I'm glad we're talking about it.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think he he definitely has some good things to say. There's some things, obviously, we don't agree completely with him. Mhmm. Us and Steve.
Speaker 2:It's rare that I completely agree with a man in general. But he has some good things to say. Perhaps never. It's like, you know, what's in the candy bowl? Oh.
Speaker 2:What is in the candy bowl? There's some good stuff you like. And then there's the dots. Nobody likes dots. Wow.
Speaker 2:That was a metaphor that I did not follow. It's been a long day. I'll be honest with you. I woke up this morning and I was like really stressed about work and I just kept thinking about work things and I was in that like half asleep, half awake business and I was up at like 04:45 or something. Good.
Speaker 2:Couldn't go back to sleep.
Speaker 1:Sounds terrible. It was awful. I was up at seven, but that's just Honestly,
Speaker 2:why do we ever get out of bed?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Frankly, I work from home. I rarely get out of bed.
Speaker 2:Frankly, my dear. I'll stop there.
Speaker 1:Who quoted did you quote that to me the other day? I think I did. Someone quoted that to me the other day. So speaking of not agreeing with Steve on everything, the first chapter we're gonna get into is called, With Pleasure, Jesus on Sexuality. Ew.
Speaker 1:Huzzah. To make everyone uncomfortable. Brother, father, just stop listening now. Just give up. Mother, go away.
Speaker 1:Any of the other family that might be listening? Now's your moment. But other people who are tuned in, keep listening. So this chapter in particular, Brie and I struggled with. Personally, this to me did not feel like a chapter that belonged in this book.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And we'll get into why in a second, but it honestly felt a little bit like now Steve is a Baptist pastor, and it felt a little bit like, Well, this is a Baptist book, so we've got to put a chapter on sexuality in there. Mhmm. And I don't know if that came from his publisher, and the publisher was like, well, we got to do this, or if it was like, Steve threw a chapter in there, and the publisher maybe was like, well, we got to tone this down because it's a very watered down chapter also. It's very wishy washy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. He says a lot with, like, taking the scenic route.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's like he tries he tries to say something but kind of, like, gets around the point without making a point. Yeah. I don't know. Which isn't really his style either.
Speaker 1:The rest of the book is not like that. Mhmm. This chapter in particular just just doesn't want to make a point. Now, there are a couple of things in here that I think he makes some good points. There's a
Speaker 2:few tokens.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But overall, I'm not loving it. Primarily, he's talking about purity culture in this chapter, which if you're not familiar with
Speaker 2:If you didn't grow up in the conservative churches and you didn't go to a purity retreat Congratulations.
Speaker 1:Purity culture is like a buzzword, I feel like, for evangelical Christianity now. And it was primarily aimed girls. Mhmm. And it was all about preserving your virginity.
Speaker 2:Because your virginity is the greatest gift that you could ever offer anybody, and you have to keep that so sacred. Mhmm. And if you lose that, you're less of a person.
Speaker 1:You're not valuable to God. You're not valuable to your future husband.
Speaker 2:Should you choose to take one.
Speaker 1:But you have to choose to take one in purity culture. True. Because you have no worth as a woman unless you have a husband.
Speaker 2:And,
Speaker 1:you know, if you're not familiar with it, there's plenty of resources out there to check it out. Sheila Ray Gregoire does a lot of work on this topic. And I think we referenced this book last time, but She Deserves More is one of her books that discusses this really well. But that's primarily what Steve is talking about in this chapter. He does talk about a few other things.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But I
Speaker 1:would say that's what he harps on the most. Mhmm. He opens the chapter. It's actually not his opening sentence, but one of his opening sentences says Christianity and sex is the opposite of a perfect pairing.
Speaker 2:And I just is that is that really what? It's an unnecessary statement.
Speaker 1:Steve! What are we doing? Come on, bud. Now he's trying to make the point that, like, Christians have made it weird, you know? Which I don't completely disagree with.
Speaker 1:No. We we made it weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We made it super weird.
Speaker 1:Super weird.
Speaker 2:I think we really associate your sexuality with your how strong of a Christian you are, how strong your faith is. Yeah. And I think that's become a big problem.
Speaker 1:Well, he talks about how we've idolized sex. And here's a good quote. He says, on a theological note, some of us must grapple with the fact that for years we gathered students for bible studies and lifted sexual morality to a place that seemed equal with belief in god. In caring so much about sex, we unintentionally devalued the divine. We accidentally made sexual morality the goal of the Christian life, not the outcome of an encounter with Jesus.
Speaker 2:Especially when you're pushing this on teens and young adults, it becomes this obsession. This obsession with, Oh, it's a little bit dangerous. Oh, it's a little bit something that I shouldn't be doing. But also, something I don't have a lot of information on. Because if you're in the conservative Christian world, especially for women, we're not taught hardly anything.
Speaker 2:Oh, nothing. Yeah. And if even when you're married, honestly, I don't know that people talk about what's normal, what's acceptable, how to create boundaries, what's an acceptable boundary? So many things are just lost, and it becomes an obsession, and it becomes an idol.
Speaker 1:Well, think you look at so much of the Christian church, and I think about, like, the educational system, Christians are often known for, in conservative states, they're known for advocating for abstinence only education in public schools, which is a whole other issue. That means that children are only educated knowing not to have sex. And that's happening in the churches, too. And now we're trying to have it happen in the schools. And what that does is it doesn't teach kids, teens, young adults about their own bodies.
Speaker 1:And in the end and this is a little bit of a tangent, maybe, but in the end it gives control of that person's body to whoever they're with. And that's really frightening.
Speaker 2:I think something also that it creates is like a really bad self image. Mhmm. Because you grow up thinking sex is bad bad bad bad bad. Mhmm. When it's not.
Speaker 2:It's something that God created. Mhmm. It's supposed to be good. It's not supposed to be the only good thing. And it's not supposed to be the best thing,
Speaker 1:but we've created it to be. Well, when you act like like he says, we've as the church, we elevated sex to like this, Oh, it's only for marriage and it's gonna be amazing once you get married. It's the best thing ever.
Speaker 2:In fact, I'm gonna rush right into marriage after not knowing the person.
Speaker 1:Right. So that I can have sex. Like, when you do that, you do elevate it to this, like, godlike level that it is the best thing that could ever happen to you. And why have we done that? And what does that do to your relationship with that person?
Speaker 1:Where does that put the value in your relationship? It puts it only on the physical. What does it do to your, like you said, your body image? What does it do to women? Like, there's so many questions here.
Speaker 1:Now, so far, Steve is doing okay, right? Like, so far, the quotes are okay. But Steve gets a little wishy washy. There are things that are are kind of confusing, as he talks about intimacy, and he talks about single people in the church. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:He starts to talk about he starts to talk about leaving space for single people in the church to be to stay single, essentially, and to not have sex. And he essentially says that the church does not give space for those people, that the church forces marriage on everyone, which, I mean, it But that the church should allow people to live sexless lives. And that they should be able to find intimacy in non sexual relationships. But the way that he says it is
Speaker 2:just very uncomfortable. Like, it's just it's just odd. And I think something that you mentioned before we started recording was this chapter really boils down to how can we tell people what to do with their bodies Yes. Again and again and again. Rather than how can we teach people to respect their own bodies and respect other people's bodies.
Speaker 2:And ultimately, at the end of the day, what you choose to do with that body is your decision. Right. I'm gonna back out of it. Mhmm. You know what?
Speaker 2:Maybe I retract that statement.
Speaker 1:I think that's what we have so intensely forgotten in purity culture is, like, because sex became this be all end all. Like, If you have sex before marriage, you are going to spontaneously combust and die. It was the worst thing that you could do. And so if that's the case, if that is the case and there is no coming back from it and you will be the worst person ever and you can never get married, you can like, that's what we were taught, really.
Speaker 2:I remember being at a purity retreat and one of the stories or one of the analogies that they gave was like, okay, here's this glass vase and it's full of marbles. Okay, everybody take out a marble. Every time you have sex, you're giving away a little piece of yourself until ultimately you're left with just an empty vessel. And what we teach, especially women, is that their entire being and value is wrapped up in sex. And if you have sex with more than just your future spouse, that you're nothing.
Speaker 2:You have no value. You are an empty vessel. That is not all you have to offer. No. You have a heart, you have a brain, you have toes, you have fingers.
Speaker 2:Fingers. And you are worth so much more than your sex life. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And if that was the case, don't you think God would have
Speaker 2:mentioned it? Yeah. He'd be like, Quit giving away your marbles.
Speaker 1:I just feel like we We elevated it so intensely. We made it the only valuable thing. Particularly for girls. We forgot that it's not just girls.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And so often it's just, well, boys will be boys. Right. And boys have, like, a more active sex drive. Right.
Speaker 2:Or we just make a lot more excuses for boys than girls because there's a lot less consequences for I
Speaker 1:think about the idea that, like I said earlier, when you don't educate anyone, boys or girls, but because I'm a woman, I think about girls and women. When you don't educate women about their own bodies, it gives so much control over to their partner. And just the idea of not knowing what's going on with your body is really scary. Yeah. It's really scary to me It's really scary to me to think about that future for my daughter.
Speaker 1:And even though it may be awkward for moms or for caregivers or for whoever to have these really, like, intimate conversations with your child, have them because you are giving her control of her body. Mhmm. And that is a critical thing. It's not I'm not going say it's a gift because a critical responsibility that you have to your child.
Speaker 2:I think you can make a lot more educated and informed decisions too, once you know all the information. Yes. You put yourself in a lot less stupid situations where you're with someone, you're like, Oh, crap. Yeah. Or, you know, Oh, crap!
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because you have a better head on your shoulders. You know what you're working with.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You have agency over your body. Yeah. And we've taken that away in our awkwardness about sex, in our decision that Christianity and sex don't mix, in our decision that the boy will educate the girl. It's not okay.
Speaker 1:It's not. First of all, don't put that responsibility on him because you don't know who he's gonna be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Teach them about figuring out what boundaries are okay with them. Not what boundary is okay with their significant other. Right.
Speaker 1:I could harp on that all day. Been that's something that, like, as my daughter gets older, that that's really becoming significant to me. Because I think girls deserve so much more than the Christian church has I mean, obviously, this whole podcast is about how girls deserve so much more than the Christian church has provided them, and this in particular. If you just treat them like children,
Speaker 2:you're going to end up in a mess. Now,
Speaker 1:Steve does talk about the fact that marriage, in the Bible in particular, and how Jesus came and Paul came and talked to men in a society where men were abusing women and tossing them aside in marriages and told them, like, Hey, do better. You can't just divorce women because you feel like it. Like, you need to protect women. You need to take care of them. Because women didn't have agency at this time.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So he does talk a little
Speaker 2:bit about that. I think he talks about also not, like, overpowering and demanding
Speaker 1:He does.
Speaker 2:Yes. Submission from women as well.
Speaker 1:One line that I don't like and Brie and I talked about this a little bit, and we'll move on to the next chapter here pretty soon. But one line that I don't like from him is he says, you don't have to have sex to live a fulfilled life. You can simply serve the king. Now it's not that I don't agree with that statement. It's that it rings a little hollow from someone who is married and presumably probably having sex.
Speaker 1:Now I don't know his life, but I know he's married. And that's a little weird. I think if I it's a little bit hard for me to hear from someone who has chosen not a life of celibacy. Yeah. To hear put on other people, you should live a life of celibacy.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Actually, I went to a singles group one time thinking that it was gonna be about like, Hey, I'm single. Not necessarily that I want to be, but like, let's get together, let's talk about God, let's talk about how it's okay to be single, whatever. And it was all about, like, I'm choosing to be celibated. I'm choosing to be celibated.
Speaker 2:It was the weirdest Bible study ever, especially because it was like me and a couple of widowed people and a couple of divorced There was no one my age. It was insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a weird group. You came home and told me about that. That was very strange.
Speaker 2:And then COVID hit, and we had to do, like, Zoom meetings with each other. So now I'm on this Zoom meeting with this old man that doesn't know how to work his computer and a couple of other people who are questionable. It was wild. It was wild.
Speaker 1:So the last quote I wanted to read that I do like from this chapter was, it says, We have made sex out to be the pinnacle of human existence, and by extension, have unintentionally communicated that a life without sex is a life that is not fulfilling. We do not do this with other human experiences. And I do actually like that quote.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because as Christians, and really as broader society too, we have made sex into this like, Woah, this is the best thing that's ever existed. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the mascara and the dessert. Better than sex. Oh hey yeah. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's pretty good mascara. It's not Disney World guys. I don't know what to tell you. Have
Speaker 2:you tried cheese?
Speaker 1:Have you met Mickey Mouse? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You Good question. Slept in past noon.
Speaker 1:I just think it's very it is a really strange, like, obsessive thing that we have with sex. And especially the church is, like, weirdly obsessed. For people that are supposed to be, like,
Speaker 2:prim and proper and whatever. Angelic and pure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We're weirdly obsessed with sex. And you can see that in the amount of people that get busted in the church for putting cameras places, for being sexually inappropriate with people. Exactly.
Speaker 2:For accidentally getting people pregnant.
Speaker 1:For the behind the scenes things where women are spoken to inappropriately, touched inappropriately. Like, the amount of times, guys. I mean, this is happening constantly. And I guarantee you, it is happening in your churches, even if you don't think it is. So, for people that aren't obsessed with sex, we're really obsessed with sex, and we need to back off of it.
Speaker 1:We need to tell ourselves that, like, Okay, yes, sex is important. God created it. It is a beautiful thing. I'm not saying it's not. It's also not the most important thing that's ever existed.
Speaker 1:Let's take five steps back. Let's question some life choices. Yeah. Alright. Moving on.
Speaker 2:On that note.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, chapter seven, then, is called God and Country. And this is actually the political chapter. Huzzah, Steve. Huzzah.
Speaker 1:So he always starts each chapter with, like, two quotes. Sometimes it's a quote and a verse. And this one, the verse he starts with is John eighteen thirty six, and it's, my kingdom is not of this world, said Jesus.
Speaker 2:Amen. Just different. And one
Speaker 1:of the quotes early on in this chapter is, I have learned that when you mix the church politics, you usually get politics.
Speaker 2:Oh, boy. Are you prepared? I'm not prepared. Everybody had their five point buckle up, and I read this chapter.
Speaker 1:And I prepared for this, and I am not prepared. So one of the things that he talks about in this chapter that Brie and I both thought was kind of funky is that in early on in his ministry, he invited multiple politicians, like local politicians, to come speak at his church. Which is a choice.
Speaker 2:Some could say a bad choice.
Speaker 1:I think many would say it's a bad choice. Now, he does specifically say that he told the politicians, like, that they could not speak about their policies, about their whatever because
Speaker 2:But, like, why invite them then? I think
Speaker 1:it was due to the fact that they were, like, Christians and they were gonna come share their faith and whatever. But clearly this was not a good choice.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now, he says in here, he says, This was not a good choice. Yeah. Like, with the benefit of time, this was bad decisions were made. Because the politicians that he invited were politicians. And they got up there, and they used the platform.
Speaker 1:They used his church.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And he did say that because of some of their politics, people left his church. Some people left prior to them standing up there and sharing their politics simply because of who they were as people, and some of them left after. Steve clearly says that that was a bad idea. But what churches today are doing they may not be inviting our president to speak at their church
Speaker 2:But they're inviting his spirit.
Speaker 1:But they are certainly inviting him to be part of their church. Mhmm. They're speaking about him from the pulpit. They are endorsing politicians
Speaker 2:from the pulpit. Elevating politicians to the status of king in their Do you think that's what Jesus did? Do you think that's what Jesus would want?
Speaker 1:No. We're only supposed to serve And when you mix the church with politics,
Speaker 2:you're not gonna get anywhere good. Oh, it just gives you an opportunity to alienate people. And we were talking about this before we recorded, but Alyssa and I both were at a church service years ago.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And the pastor got up and said, take a look around you. Now, this was a big church. But he said, take a look around you. You're gonna see Democrats. You're gonna see Republicans.
Speaker 2:You're gonna see people who are undecided, you're gonna see every, you know, color of the spectrum in here. Does that make sense? Sure. Okay. Yet, we're all under the same roof.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And we're all claiming, for the most part, to be Jesus followers.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Just because you're a Republican does not mean you're a Christian. Mhmm. Just because you're a Democrat doesn't mean you're a Christian. Your politics don't equal your faith. Right.
Speaker 1:And that was super significant to both of us because in all of the spaces that we had been, whether it was church, whether it was when we were in Christian school, whether it was around the Christians in our life, that would never have been said. Because there absolutely was a right Christian political party in our world. And I don't think that's an uncommon sentiment. No. I think that's something that many Christians in The United States have grown up feeling and hearing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I would love to see that separated. Not because I think that there is a Christian party. Not because I think that the way I vote is the Christian way, but because there shouldn't be a Christian way to Because Jesus wouldn't have picked a political party. Would have
Speaker 2:picked He's his own political party.
Speaker 1:He would have picked the side of generosity and love, and that's it. And sometimes that might lean left, and sometimes that might lean right, depending on the moment. Yep. And frankly, I think he would have gotten less involved than most of us. So Steve goes into talking about the Jewish church.
Speaker 1:The early Jewish leadership and church. So, like, back when David was king they had kind of a a not a dual leadership necessarily but like there were two people in charge in a way. There was the king and there was the prophet. The Jewish people were always supposed to have once they had their king, they were always supposed to have their king and their prophet because one person is easily corrupted. Right?
Speaker 1:So then one could advise the other. It says the prophet must maintain a holy distance so that truth can be spoken without being compromised by power. And then it says one person can never serve as prophet and king. One office is designed to hold the other in check. And I thought that was really interesting because as a church structure, we don't do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No. We have one pastor. We have a singular pastor. And we, like, pretend that someone's holding the pastor in check.
Speaker 1:Like, Oh, we have an elder board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or we have a vice
Speaker 1:president. Yeah. A vice president who does nothing.
Speaker 2:Or like, Oh, we have Deacons.
Speaker 1:The deacons or whatever. But the reality is, you have your lead pastor makes the decisions. And very rarely is someone separated enough from your lead pastor to stand as essentially the separate, what one would consider prophet or king in this situation. You know, like, if we were to compare that. I just thought that was an interesting thought.
Speaker 1:And it says, the relationship between the prophets and the kings of Israel reminds us that truth can speak to power only when it is separate, when it is on the outside, when it has a healthy distance. The church right now in The United States is not keeping a healthy distance.
Speaker 2:If you are interested in power, it will always end up corrupt. If that's your goal, you're gonna end up in the toilet. Well, the
Speaker 1:church is super in bed with politics right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, sexy. Well,
Speaker 1:were just We were
Speaker 2:in the last chapter.
Speaker 1:Was still in
Speaker 2:my head.
Speaker 1:Makes sense.
Speaker 2:You know. They're not interested in purity culture.
Speaker 1:And you can't have perspective if all you can think about is what's directly in front of your face.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:There's just no way to do it. If you're obsessed with the individual in power, you cannot have healthy perspective. You can't take distance and say, maybe these decisions are not the decisions that Jesus would make. Maybe I should be advocating for something else.
Speaker 2:Advocating for people who have less than me. Right. Because I'm not the most important person in the world. And I think people really struggle with that right now.
Speaker 1:Not being so self absorbed. Because, as Beth Moore said in the foreword, where you sit determines what you see. And where you may sit, or where I may sit in, say, middle class America changes the way that I or you or your friends or your neighbors may see policies that are being made. They affect me differently than they will affect my neighbor, and therefore I need to understand what is affecting my neighbor so that I can advocate for them because that's what Jesus would have done. Not simply sit in my seat and only see what I see and advocate for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, if the choices that you make on a daily basis are only to get you ahead, you may get ahead. But that doesn't mean that it's a good thing. Because you're gonna look around you and see people struggling. And that's not, as Christians, what we should be aiming for. We should aiming for all of us to get ahead.
Speaker 2:Everybody to be taken care of. So if you're at a restaurant and you're debating between tipping 50¢ or $5 how much is it gonna affect you? Hopefully not that much. But it's gonna affect that other person significantly. Think about someone else.
Speaker 1:One of the things that he talks about is what does the church do in a situation where the government is doing something that's clearly not scriptural? Because he's saying the church needs to keep some distance. Right? So then what if what if the government is doing things that are clearly not what Jesus would do? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:How do you maintain that distance but also advocate for a better world? For some change. Right. He's not saying morality wise, let's stick all of our choices onto the rest of the world, you know? But what he says is, is the government, local or otherwise, leading an agenda or promoting a policy that is in clear opposition to scripture?
Speaker 1:Now, there's some things that I don't think the government needs to promote, even if you think it's scriptural because we are not in a theocracy. Mhmm. But let's say things like hurting the poor. Ugh. If so, it is good to resist with teaching and theology and preaching and practice.
Speaker 1:Yes, we need to use the right tone. Outsiders. Yes, we should employ grace and love as best we can. And, yes, we are to submit to our rulers, as Romans 13 commands us to do. But truth must be spoken.
Speaker 1:The witness must be lived. The church must model an alternative. So we speak up about actions and policies that are contrary to God's cooperative and collaborative vision of human flourishing. So, essentially, the church models a different way to live. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So when the government fails us, we step in. Now, I'm not saying that the government has no responsibility here because I have heard a lot of people argue that, like, well, the government can get rid of all these government programs like Medicaid and welfare and things like that, like WIC and very critical government programs, because the church should step in and handle it. That's crap. That's utter crap. Because the church won't step in and handle it.
Speaker 1:That being said, what he's saying here is that the church should when the government doesn't. The government shouldn't depend on that. The government should do those things also. Exactly.
Speaker 2:But also, also Because the church is saying, The government should also do this, therefore I will model what I feel the government should do.
Speaker 1:Not the opposite. Right. We should advocate for the government to do these things. We should tell the government that is what we want them to do. That being said, the church should also step in.
Speaker 1:Hold the Yeah.
Speaker 2:Give homes to the homeless. Care.
Speaker 1:When people are hurting, fill the gap, for heaven's sake. Don't say, Well, you were lazy, you had this coming. Because that's what we're doing. Extend a hand.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Show some love. I just It just makes me so frustrated that this is even a conversation.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Let's end the podcast here. We're done. We're out. See you, bye.
Speaker 1:We're so frustrated. He talks about Christian nationalism. And he says, to be clear, Christian nationalism is not the participation of Christians within the public square, nor is it Christians advocating for particular policies from their perspective. So he's not saying, like, don't vote. Don't talk about anything.
Speaker 1:Like, he's not saying that as a Christian. He says, Christian nationalism, as I understand it, usually works to institute Christianity as an official state religion and legislate toward those ends. The values of Christian nationalism are more frequently self serving than they are about the public good, And it often becomes corrupted. So that's the issue. When we look back in history and we look at, like, theocracies and, like, anywhere that is governed by a church, I've had many a person tell me, like, no, I think it would be good if the church took over.
Speaker 1:Like, look at our history. Look at the history of the world. Because, I mean, we talked last week about how we are sort of an ahistorical community. The history of the world says something very different. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It says when the church, any church, gets involved in politics, including the Christian church, we're not exempt here, it ends really poorly.
Speaker 2:Because if you're after power, it will be corrupted. Even if you're a church, do you think that we're immune to that? No.
Speaker 1:People will use the church to manipulate. We see that happening right now. People will use the church, they will use your faith to manipulate you and the people around you. So we don't want to live in a theocracy. We don't want to live in that situation.
Speaker 1:So instead, let's utilize our church communities, our faith communities
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:In our communities to show the love of God. Mhmm. Not the judgment of God, not the hatred in your heart or whatever, but the love of God that Jesus was showing when he was on Earth.
Speaker 2:And give people the freedom to worship the way that they want to worship, not force the way that you would do it down their throat.
Speaker 1:He says, This is where, in my estimation, Christian nationalism fails most egregiously. It believes its imagined leaders to be impervious to the temptations of power.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're not Jesus. No. We're trying to be more like Jesus. But the devil is the devil.
Speaker 1:I can tell you, with no question in my heart, that if you stuck me in a position of absolute power You'd be terrible. Oh, I'd be awful.
Speaker 2:I'm, like, looking at you now. Like, that'd be horrible. Like, I feel like
Speaker 1:I have a relatively generous spirit. I'm a pretty giving person. But if you stuck me me in a position of absolute power, I guarantee you, I would be a terrible human being. Mhmm. And so I'm not going to stick myself into that position.
Speaker 1:And the people that are required to be in those positions, because obviously someone has to
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:-Should put advisors around themselves to stop that from -So
Speaker 2:it's not one person
Speaker 1:with absolute power. You have lots of different people. They perhaps shouldn't stick advisors around themselves that, you know, look exactly and sound exactly like themselves.
Speaker 2:You know what? That's a good idea. Maybe we should put that into practice. Radical.
Speaker 1:Radical. Alright. So the next chapter, Brie and I talked about this one a little bit, is specifically on race. It's called Black and White, Jesus on Race. And we are gonna talk a little bit about it.
Speaker 1:We're not gonna go as in-depth on it for a very particular reason. And that reason goes back into what Beth Moore said, Where you sit determines what you see. Brie and I
Speaker 2:Look at
Speaker 1:us. We are both white women. White women. And Steve is also white.
Speaker 2:-Mm
Speaker 1:-And so our perspective is not what I would love for it to be to address this topic. And I don't have someone sitting here with me to help me address this topic. So while I do think he brings up some good points, I do not have the perspective to handle this in an educated way. I am going to mention a couple of the things that he talks about because I think it's really important. I definitely don't want to glaze over it.
Speaker 1:If you have great perspectives about this, I would love to hear about them. We would love to hear about them. So send them to us on our TikTok, on our Instagram. If you have stories, if you have anything about this that you just want to share Mhmm. Because I would love
Speaker 2:to talk more about this.
Speaker 1:I just know that it's not my story to share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's super fair to say. And also, like, I don't live in a super diverse community either. I think that's okay to know, too. So I don't have a great perspective on it. Right.
Speaker 2:I want to educate me, please.
Speaker 1:Yes. So, in this chapter, one of the things that Steve does talk about is that he did not realize that he was racist when he was a child.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:I believe he grew up in the South, and his kid asked him, when he was an adult, if he was racist at any point in his life. And he had to, like, kinda sit back and think about it. He was like, Yeah, actually, I was. Because he essentially says that, like, nobody was overtly mean. But behind the scenes, decisions were made based on race, even though no one would say it.
Speaker 1:Things were like, jokes were made about race behind the scenes. Even though, like, it was fine because we were just being funny. You know, like, things like that. He called it polite racism. Which, of course, is not polite, and he knows that.
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I look back on things that I said as a young, stupid girl. Mhmm. And I'm like, oh my gosh. Now that I'm older and I know a little bit more than I did back then, how horrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because you're just not educated on
Speaker 2:it And
Speaker 1:with the perspective of time and new friends and just general perspective. So Steve talks about what he did over time because he is in Houston, I believe, which has one of the largest immigrant populations in The United States. So, it's a very diverse community, and he wanted to welcome a lot of people into his church. It was a primarily white church when he went in. And he wanted to welcome a lot of different people into his church.
Speaker 1:So, he talks to people of different races to talk about, like, how do I make this space welcoming to not just white people? Yeah. And so they did things like have a Juneteenth celebration. And they had Spanish speaking services. Things that made white people uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:I remember in college, you were required to take a different language. And so we would have to, for credits, go to different churches, like different languages. So I remember going to a couple of Spanish speaking churches with some of my friends, and I am so ignorant that I didn't even know that was an option. That's how sheltered, I guess, I was for so long.
Speaker 1:Well, we grew up in a very rural community. And, yeah, I did, too. We went to a church for a while where they it was, I think, half of the worship was in Spanish. And it was very strange, and I didn't really know how to interact with it. Because that was just It was nowhere in my comfort zone.
Speaker 1:But it was in someone's comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And the idea that, like, people left this church angrily. Now, look, if it's if you don't speak Spanish and that makes you, like Like you're not getting the most out of church Right,
Speaker 2:then that's fine. But, like, don't leave angrily. No, because it's opening the door for someone else Mhmm. To feel loved and welcome. Right.
Speaker 2:Anytime that you are closing the door on someone, that's a bad decision. Like,
Speaker 1:swing the doors wide open for all the people to come to church.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Swing them wide.
Speaker 1:One of the things that Steve said is that Jesus is not working for a monochromatic kingdom. And I think we really, really need to let that sink in.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because I think it's so easy to just picture heaven as people that look like us.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I think so many religions do. You can look at I know the Mormon religion has a lot of issues with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And many religions the Christian the whole history of the Christian religion I talked to my grandma about some of the Christian pastors from when she was younger and how they didn't allow Black people into their churches. Things that, like, I was not familiar with. Yeah. And just how wild that is when you look
Speaker 2:at who Jesus was. Exactly. Exactly. Look at who Jesus was. Jesus wasn't a white man.
Speaker 2:No. I hate to burst your bubble. No. But he wasn't. And Jesus died on the cross for everybody.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter what you look like because our souls all look the same. Yep. One of
Speaker 1:the quotes he has in here from Martin Luther King Jr, it says, 11:00 on a Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, of Christian America.
Speaker 2:And
Speaker 1:yes, that was back in 1960, but I would bet that that still rings very, very true. Yeah. And yes, culturally, a lot of people may worship differently, and that's totally fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the idea that we are in separate churches, not because maybe we worship differently, but because we've decided that there's some sort of line between us Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Is heartbreaking. Yeah. I want to hold hands and dance around the world
Speaker 1:with people. And he also talks about how we have to dig this out of the church. We have to dig this racism out of the church because the church often sits silent on it and just sort of like pretends it's not happening or pretends it's happening elsewhere or whatever, but it's happening directly inside of the church.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's important just to believe that it's happening. Because, again, where you sit determines what you see. I live in not a super diverse community. From what I see, it's going okay, right? But when you talk to the people who it is affecting, believe them.
Speaker 2:And like he did, sit down with them. How can we make it better? Let me hear your story. Yeah. Because I believe you.
Speaker 2:I believe that, you know, my perspective is not the only perspective.
Speaker 1:He talks about how he started preaching on racism at his church and how many a person left
Speaker 2:after that. Honestly, good. If you can't handle that, good. Get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Alright. So that's, I think, all I want to say on that. Again, if you have stories that you would love to share with us, we would love to talk about this more. Please do share them.
Speaker 1:You can find us on Instagram and TikTok and technically Facebook also. You can message us there, but I never post there. So then the next two chapters we're gonna kind of breeze through. But chapter nine is one of my favorite chapters. It's just not one that, like, you have really have to dig into.
Speaker 1:But it's Jesus on suffering. And he talks suffer. He talks kind of twofold. The one part of this is that a lot of times, Christians will say, Being a Christian
Speaker 2:means suffering. How many church services have we sat through that's like, If you wanna follow Jesus, buckle up, because your life is gonna be hell.
Speaker 1:You're gonna just die all the time. It's one trial and then you're gonna start another trial. Up one mountain and then up the next. Keep pushing that boulder. Barefoot.
Speaker 1:Lose a toe. But what Steve talks about that I like is he basically says, the world is full of suffering. Succotash. It's not Christianity. It's not that Christianity is full of suffering.
Speaker 1:It's humanity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because of the fall. Because there's sin in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Humanity has suffering in it. It also has joy and wonderfulness in it. But it has suffering too. And so being a human means that you will experience pain.
Speaker 1:Suffering is inevitable. You can be a Christian or not be a Christian.
Speaker 2:You're gonna go through it. There's one way out of here, ladies and germs. Unless you're Elisha. Just that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Everybody else had to die.
Speaker 1:I think I think there might have been two. He talks a little bit about how the American church tries to ignore suffering.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Part of that is the prosperity gospel. Yeah. We really try with that one. Be a good person and
Speaker 2:good things will happen to you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, you know, we go to church, it's upbeat, we talk about, like, the amazing things that we're doing and the festivals and the whatever. The festivals. The festivals. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's things wrong with the prosperity gospel, but there's nothing wrong with an upbeat church service.
Speaker 1:But if that's all you focus on and you don't talk about the fact that like but also life life can be tough. Yeah. But also you are gonna go through pain and Jesus will still be there with you through it.
Speaker 2:You have to have some, you know, some flavor in your church. Have have the happy happy joy joy. Also be realistic. Perspective. Life is tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then you die. Good news. There's hope. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, he also talks about he has some heart problems, and he almost died at one point. And I think actually it came back. But he talks about how he had to find God through this. He had to find Jesus through this. And I don't think he really necessarily felt like he lost his faith, and a lot of people a lot of people do feel like they lose their faith
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:As they go through suffering. But in this case, he talks about finding Jesus through grief.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And how he had to grieve kind of what he knew of his life. And he has a lot of really lovely quotes through here. One of them is, we live in an age of achievement and hurry. When I imagine Jesus, I do not picture him in a hurry. I see him taking time to appreciate flowers and sunrises.
Speaker 1:I think of him stopping to talk with the people he met on the road. Jesus enters into our lives, sits down, and joins us. And I think that's just
Speaker 2:that's just lovely. I love that so much because you look around, and we live in a on a where do we live? A beautiful planet. Like the other day I looked out and the sky was absolutely like bubblegum pink for a long time. And he spent time sprinkling the stars in the sky and the ocean.
Speaker 2:We have sea turtles and what a blessing they are. Like, if he wanted us to speed through life, he wouldn't have spent so many so many? So many days on the details. Like, it's gorgeous. Slow down.
Speaker 2:Where are we going?
Speaker 1:I love to picture this is something I do sometimes, like to picture Jesus walking alongside me.
Speaker 2:Like the poem in that piece of art. Because I think it does make
Speaker 1:you slow down. It does make you stop and think things through in a very different way. Mhmm. If Jesus is just, like, walking along with you. Because what a perspective.
Speaker 1:Like, that really shifts the way that the world has to function around you.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I can't be as free with my cusses if Jesus is right there.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. I don't think he cares that much. He talks a bit about grief through this chapter, because obviously it's Jesus' son suffering. And he says that he allows us space to weep, to scream, to question, but he does not offer empty answers. He does not give us a pep talk.
Speaker 1:He sits with and in the breaking we discover him. How
Speaker 2:good is that, though? Sometimes you go to people and you're like, I just need to vent for a minute. And they're like, Here's 17 solutions. He talks about that. That's not what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:I just need someone to say, Ugh, what a bummer.
Speaker 1:I know. Actually, my husband, he will ask me now, because I've yelled at him about this many a time. He will ask me now, like, Do you actually want me to offer advice or do you just wanna yell? And most of the time, it's, I just wanna yell. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not at him, just at the ether.
Speaker 2:Like, just at the space. That's good communication.
Speaker 1:Yeah. He talks about sitting with people through their pain in this chapter, and what a gift that can
Speaker 2:be. Mhmm. But sometimes you're bad at that. Like, I'm terrible at it. If I know someone's grieving, like, I want to be there for that person so bad, but I suck.
Speaker 2:I'm like, I'm sorry for you.
Speaker 1:I am truly the worst when someone cries.
Speaker 2:Which is bad because I cry all
Speaker 1:the time. I know. I if someone cries near me, I am the most uncomfortable human. Like, I don't know what to do in my own skin. I, like, twitch and then I run away.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's bad time. Like, I'm not a hugger. I'm not a super touchy Like, I am so supportive. I'll support you through anything and I am there for you.
Speaker 2:But I don't want to hug you. And I there's syrup in my mouth sometimes. I don't know what I'm saying. What a lovely metaphor. You've really there's a lot of metaphors today.
Speaker 1:So that's pretty much Jesus on suffering. But that is probably my favorite chapter of the book. So if you are gonna purchase this book,
Speaker 2:I only read chapter nine. I only read chapter nine.
Speaker 1:No. Chapter nine's great. But then chapter 10 is just a super, super quick one. This one is get busy dying. Jesus on finding life in death.
Speaker 1:Listen. I've said it before and I'll say it again. We're all gonna die. Thank you for that lovely and uplifting message.
Speaker 2:Hey! There's hope. Where are you going after you die? Are you gonna burn and rot?
Speaker 1:Was hoping to go into Starbucks.
Speaker 2:I bet you there's a Starbucks in heaven. I bet you there's multiple Starbucks in heaven.
Speaker 1:Probably. Well, there's one in every corner, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And a Dutch Bros. Because I've recently discovered what a treasure they are.
Speaker 1:We don't have those though, so that's not that exciting for me.
Speaker 2:No, we're gonna have to travel for them. Anyway,
Speaker 1:so chapter 10 is essentially, it's like a three page chapter, and it boils down to a pretty simple statement. It's that you have to die to yourself. And if you are unfamiliar with the Christian lingo here Yeah. It's basically the concept of, like, giving up who you used to be in order to follow Jesus with your whole heart, with your whole self.
Speaker 2:It's kinda like when you're baptized. Go down into the water and you die. You come back a new person.
Speaker 1:For anyone that's not familiar with the church, this is really dark. You don't actually die.
Speaker 2:If you've never been to church, we kill you, and then we bring you back. That's not it.
Speaker 1:That's not it, I promise. But that's the concept, is that you start fresh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You're reborn. Yeah. You start following Jesus with everything that you have. Because if you're only following Jesus halfway, then it's hard to get the whole mission done. I think we referenced this last week, but the pastor at the church we've been going to a couple of weeks ago said that God didn't, like, just create you because, like, oh, well, there's something that, you know, I might need done, so I guess we'll create some people and then it'll get done or whatever.
Speaker 1:It was no, there's a problem and I specifically created Brianna to fix it. You're welcome. There is something, there is a mission out there in the world that God created you specifically to handle. You're unique in all your unique ways on purpose. And if you are only halfway doing the job, then it's not going to get done to the fullness that it could get done.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why I have a problem with I feel like so often we're shoved into these boxes in the conservative Christian world. Like everybody has to be this way. All women have to be submissive and quiet, play the piano and be good at cooking and these stereotypical female things, feminine things. But that's not what we need in this world. We need a bunch of unique individuals to fill the gaps.
Speaker 2:Right. And I'm a unique individual. You are that.
Speaker 1:I'm the uniqueness. I think that may be the biggest crime of the church at the end of the day, is that all of those missions that the women were set out to do Mhmm. May not get completed because the women were told not to do them by the church. The church told women not to do the thing God told them to
Speaker 2:do. Mhmm. Well, like, in our last episode when we talked about Beth's book, Becoming the Pastor's Wife, are told if they feel like they're being called into ministry, that that must mean that they're going to marry a pastor rather than minister in their own right. And now their entire calling from God is tied up into another person. It's messy.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. I think this book, what really I liked about it. Now there were, again, there were things I did not like about it. Hey.
Speaker 1:It's like salad.
Speaker 2:Another Metaphor? Metaphor. Yeah. Sometimes there's gross stuff in your salad. Pick it out?
Speaker 2:Pick it out. It was a little bit give and take with
Speaker 1:this book, but I think there was a lot of good there.
Speaker 2:Aggressive. Be e aggressive. That's not it.
Speaker 1:As the church, be Jesus.
Speaker 2:The whole book boils down to like, be a good person. Mhmm. Be Jesus, love one another,
Speaker 1:and don't suck. There you go. And on that note, goodbye. Next week, I'm actually not sure. We may be jumping back into Beth's book.
Speaker 2:We haven't really decided yet. You'll find out when we find out. Hey, what do you guys want to hear? What are you interested in? What can we talk about?
Speaker 2:Is it cheese? We're willing to do that.
Speaker 1:We are willing to do that. We are willing to make research trips to the cheese lady.
Speaker 2:Many a trip. Many a pilgrimage to the cheese lady. Many. The lady of the cheese.
Speaker 1:Alright. So we'll chat with
Speaker 2:you guys next week. Be better than you were yesterday and suck less. I'm gonna cut that out.
Speaker 1:Okay. Love you. Bye.
Speaker 2:Love you. Bye.