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Ep. 126: The Synapses Are Synapping · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 0:26
  And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hi, friends. Hi. I'm thinking about getting into zodiac signs.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: It's a really big time to ponder.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I'm just letting everybody know if I get a little bit more hippie than I am now.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Could you get more hippie than you are now? For heaven's sake.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I definitely could. I had a friend who this
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is off topic, so we can come back to the zodiacs if you wish.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: No. That's really all I had to say on the matter.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I had a friend who she was definitely a little bit more on the hippie side and whatever. And she told me one time that she wanted to go plastic free in her kitchen. And more power to you.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I think that's amazing if that's something
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you wanna But holy crap, imagine the amount of effort that would take. I know the effort that takes because I used to
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: work at a health food store when I was in college, and it had a lot of bulk items. And it
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: was one of the, like, only stores in the area that you could truly do your own bulk items.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: So you could bring your own container or vessel in.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And people would bring in tons of, like, mason jars, and you would have to weigh them before they went and filled them up with things so that you could take that weight off of the final whatever. It was so annoying. It was a great time for us, though, because Brie lived with us while she was working there. And whenever people would, like, fill up a bag with bulk items but then not buy it, I guess, she would bring it home.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Because you can't sell it then. It was a great You just have to throw it away.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. I loved it. Because we would get, like, giant bags of chocolate covered raisins. Or Albany's gummy bears Yeah. Are the best gummy bears.
• 2:12
  And specifically, they had chocolate covered Albany's. Gonna remember that. They were really yummy. Did they have the butterflies? The butterflies are my favorite.
• 2:20
  I don't think they did. They had the sour gummy bears. They had gummy worms, and they had chocolate covered gummy bears. What a thrilling conversation we're having. Talking about all the
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: bulk foods you can get at fresh time.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: You know what? Candy sounds really good right now. I think I might be hungry. Yeah. Today, we are doing I think just the second half.
• 2:41
  We were considering making this a three parter, but I think we've decided to to squish it into two. I think we're gonna squish it into two. We're gonna pick the best devotionals that are left over from the what's forty minuteus 12?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Shh. That amount of chapters that we have left of this book. Now, I am gonna say that we both have read this. So we're continuing on with God Didn't Make Us to Hate Us by Reverend Lizzie McManus Dale. And did you guys did you do your homework?
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Did you? I need to know. It's a pretty quick read. If you haven't picked it up yet, I won't shame you. But what's really lovely about it is that it's written as individual devotionals.
• 3:28
  So, like, obviously there's the intro, but then there's 40 little devotionals. And they're relatively short.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I would say like a couple of pages.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The most you're gonna do is maybe four pages for the longest one. And so it's it's easy to get through. You don't feel like, okay, I have to take on this big chunk of theological craziness. You can just take little bites.
• 3:51
  It's very
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: digestible. Mhmm. It's what I was planning on saying.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna probably cut that last part out, so I'm gonna tell you all that Brie's stomach just made the weirdest sound. And what's so fun when you record a podcast is
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: all those little sounds are captured by your microphone and then sent directly through your headphones. And then she said the word digestible. But it is big theological content in bite sized pieces that you can digest. Unless your Bree's stomach, which is having some trouble. Yeah.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: I guess. So we're gonna start off talking a little bit about Reverend Lizzie herself and the Episcopal Church and just sort of the theology behind some of this. Because I think that's important context too. It didn't just come out of nowhere. Mhmm.
• 4:47
  You know? And she's done a lot of interviews about this. She's on social media all the time. She's super amazing there. So let's talk about her.
• 4:55
  We talked a little bit about her last time. Let's talk about her. Was that your own song you've made up now?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's her theme song now.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, god. We'll let her know. Okay. So reverend Lizzie McManusdale is an Episcopal priest. We talked about that last week.
• 5:11
  She is also the founding vicar of Jubilee Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, which I wish we lived near. I wish we I mean, I don't wanna live in Texas. Don't get me
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: wrong. Has some weird things going on. But also,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: what a big name. It is quite a name.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: She grew up Roman Catholic. And I found this really interesting. Her mother was a Methodist minister. So it's like a The family business. God is the family business.
• 5:39
  God is the family business. That should be the title. No.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I like the title. But we need a oh, the title for our episode.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Of the podcast, you idiot. I understand now. So she grew up in a space where seeing a woman on stage preaching was not weird. It wasn't strange. Even from a younger age, this was just normal.
• 6:08
  And so she went into ministry. She I believe it said she yeah. So she was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 2020. So relatively recently, she's pretty young.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Do you guys remember that song that came out
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: in 2020 that was like
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: low key bleep 2020?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Nothing about 2020 was low key. Everything was high key.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Listen. That was a good song.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: It was not a good year, though. No. So the concepts, though, in this book are yes, Lizzie is an Episcopalian priest. That being said, Brie and I grew up in the Baptist tradition, and the Baptists believe what the Baptists believe. There is one set of beliefs, and you either fall in line or you get kicked out the door.
• 6:55
  Whereas the Episcopalian church is a little bit different from the research that I did, where even as a priest in this church, she can believe something a little bit different than what maybe the bigger church believes. And they're okay with that. It's a little more free flowing.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, this is her take on on this. Mhmm. This is her take on this part of the Bible, and that's chill because they're assuming that she's done her research and studying. Right.
• 7:28
  And that's justified. Her beliefs are justified just as much as someone else's are justified. Right. And that's that's something I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was talking to my daughter this morning about. I can have done all the research in the world. I can have studied it, and I can still be wrong. Or I could be right for me and wrong for you. And that's okay.
• 7:47
  And that's something I think that the church traditions that we come from don't have any room for.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: It's a lot more fluid.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It's a lot more gentle. Yeah. I think and that explains a lot of this book, is what we'll talk about later, just like the founding belief of your faith. Mhmm. I feel like the Baptist founding belief is you're a sinner and you're lucky God likes you.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: And the founding belief of what Lizzie is saying from the Episcopalian beliefs are God loves you.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Regardless of of anything, really.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: That's the very start of it. Mhmm.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: God loves you. And that's actually how she kind of says she started writing this book is that, you know, like, from the Baptist standpoint, you start off with this concept of you were born wicked. You were born sinful. You were born crying, and that's horrible. And God can't tolerate that.
• 8:48
  He can't even look at you. He hates your guts.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: My guts are hated.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And because God his his wrath has to be justified, Jesus steps in and just, like, soothes things enough that God can bother with you. Creates a bridge.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He makes it so God sees you as Jesus does
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Rather than just by yourself.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Right. And I think I've heard a lot of arguments that like, oh, the Baptist church doesn't teach that God hates you. The Baptist church doesn't teach that. But literally, this book is called God Didn't Make Us to Hate Us. Many of us who grew up in those more strict traditions heard that message, even if it wasn't said exactly like that.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: That's the thing is, are people are Baptist pastors getting up on the stage and saying, God hates you? Mhmm. Probably not. Probably not. I'm not gonna say a 100%.
• 9:46
  But probably not. But when you read between the lines Right. And you get more context through, like, that's the underlying message.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You're horrible. You're disgusting. Mhmm. And you're so fortunate that God would even bother with you.
• 9:59
  But, like, God created us. And he didn't create something that he didn't want to love. Mhmm. He created us in love. One of the things that I think because I think probably Reverend Lizzie would call herself a progressive Christian.
• 10:15
  And generally, the Episcopalian church often is more progressive. Like car insurance. Not quite. And progressive Christians often get criticized for a lot of things. But by people saying, oh, well, you just don't even think sin exists.
• 10:34
  You just you ignore sin entirely. You pretend like it doesn't exist. Blah blah blah. And so I think people would look at, especially the title of this book, and be like and give that argument. But Reverend Lizzie actually really explicitly says, sin is real.
• 10:49
  I believe that sin is real. I believe that you require forgiveness from God and that Jesus stepped into that gap. The difference here is not that, oh, she doesn't believe sin is real. It's that you're not disgusting to God. You are loved by God to begin with.
• 11:08
  And yes, we sin. And yes, we create problems for ourselves and whatever. But God loved us through all of that in a deep, meaningful way. And will continue to love us through all of it in a deep, meaningful way. And it's hard to wrap your head around Mhmm.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: When most of your life in the Baptist faith, you're told that. Mhmm. You're told right from the beginning you were born a sinner. It's a hard adjustment to switch your brain Mhmm. To like, okay, God loves me.
• 11:46
  God loves me. God loves me. God wants to have a relationship
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: with me.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Rather than just, I guess, praying to God for forgiveness and then praying to God for things you want. I feel like it's very transactional.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think too, when we pray, it always, when I was younger, felt like me reaching out to God. It was never God reaching out to me. It wasn't God, you know, leaving the 99 to find me. It was me taking on 100% of the responsibility to okay.
• 12:21
  God doesn't really want this, but I'm gonna try and force a relationship here. Yeah. Because that's what I've gotta do. And that's not the case. God is leaving the ninety nine to find you.
• 12:34
  God will do anything to get to you. There's some really great I'm not big on listening to Christian music for I
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: was just gonna say.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, but there's a great Christian song. It's like a Christian pop song about that, about God so desperately wanting to be with you, to have a relationship with you. And it totally changes the way you see God.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And it's really beautiful. It also changes the way
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: that you see others, though. Mhmm. And I think that's a big thing that Lizzie talks about in her book is Christians are meant to be in community. Mhmm. And yes, God cares so much about you as an individual, but we are the hands and feet of Christ on this earth.
• 13:19
  And as Christians, we're supposed to act like that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: As a body. God loves us altogether as well. And we're supposed to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and we're supposed to show Jesus' love on this earth. Mhmm. And are we doing that right now?
• 13:35
  I know now.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: That actually reminds me a lot of what they talk about when so they the Episcopalians baptize babies, which is not something that the Baptists do. But when a baby is baptized, the covenant says that you will seek and serve Christ in all persons, which I think is really important to look at the phrasing there. I will seek and serve Christ in people. I will look for God, and I will serve God in his people. Not just like, hold on, I'm gonna pray.
• 14:14
  Hold on, I'm gonna make sure everybody sees me reading my bible. I'm gonna post about Jesus on Facebook. Not that. But I'm gonna look at humanity, and I'm gonna look for God in that.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I think from a non Christian perspective too, if you're sitting there as a non Christian, you're not gonna see God in the way that you and I do. Mhmm. So when we look to the heavens, and when we look to nature and all that God created, they're not seeing God in that. Mhmm. They are seeing God in their interactions with the people that claim God.
• 14:48
  Right. And how are they seeing God? Mhmm. Are they seeing it as judgment and shame? Or are they seeing it as this person who shared a meal with me, this person who listened to me when I was hurting?
• 15:02
  Those people claim God. Right. Well, one of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the things Reverend Lizzie talks about in some of her interviews is that she was tired in writing this book. She did it partly because she was tired of seeing kind of a small subset of Christianity that was full of Christian nationalism, that was particularly judgmental and exclusionary. She was tired of seeing that represent God to the world. And so she wanted to take her beliefs of of the loving God, her knowledge of a God who loves his people and put it into a book so that maybe maybe people can see that there's more than just the Christians on the news.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And love loves his people without limitations. Loves all people.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Yep. Well, the Episcopalian church is very open and affirming towards the LGBTQ community and towards women. Obviously, Reverend Lizzie is a woman and has been ordained in the Episcopal Church. But this is not new for them. And that was something that I didn't know until we were researching.
• 16:14
  So the Episcopal Church formally declared that gay people were children of God with a full and equal claim to the church's love, acceptance, and pastoral care in 1976. That's a that's a long time ago.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: It's quite a long time ago.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: That is fifty years ago. That was pre woke. It was pre me. That's a big deal. Because you've got people now saying, oh, these these young Christians, they just want, you know, no sin, and they think it's all love and blah blah blah.
• 16:52
  There's no fear of God. But this isn't new. The Episcopalian church started on a path in 1976. And I'm not saying that they are perfect, or that they've done everything right.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And also in the grand scheme of things, is this forever ago? No. This is within our lifetime. It's not as In But my lifetime. It's not as recent as people think it is.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Right. This isn't like a a gen z kind of thing.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: This is now very established.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Right. Now so that was 1976. They actually have been, this month specifically, kind of commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of this. So that's pretty cool. I we don't attend a church in this faith, so that's not something we would be seeing.
• 17:40
  But I think it's really cool that not only did they affirm it, but they're affirming it loudly. Mhmm. They're telling the world, we don't just accept you. We accept you wholeheartedly, and we're gonna celebrate you. We don't just tolerate
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: you. Mhmm. Exactly. We embrace you. Yes.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Now for women as well, this has been going on for a long time where they were ordaining women. It kind of started in 1974. It wasn't official at that point, but that's when it it sort of began. And then in 1989 was when the first female bishop in the Episcopal Church was ordained.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So that was, like, major leadership. And Taylor Swift
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So true. Was born. Was born. A great point, Brie. So people will call Reverend Lizzie father Lizzie sometimes, kind of, like, as a funny.
• 18:33
  But it's also it means something because this is a traditionally male space. Mhmm. And yet here she is. And she's part of a history. She's not the first.
• 18:45
  She's part of a long line of women stepping up into what they believe God has called them to. A cloud of female witnesses, some might say. Some might. She also talks about and we'll get into the book in just a second because we have a surprising amount of the book to get through. But she talks about Jubilee, which is her church.
• 19:08
  And she says that only about 10 to 20% grew up Episcopalian. That's tiny. That's like nobody. And oh, grew up or had been Episcopalian for a long time. So a lot of these people are very new to this faith tradition and I think are coming to it because so many of us were in these high control religions, and we didn't wanna leave God.
• 19:36
  We deconstructed, but we didn't wanna leave God.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big misunderstanding when people hear, oh, they're deconstructing. They're deconstructing. They're leaving their faith. There's panic. People don't like that word.
• 19:49
  At least people in high control religions don't like that word. But what really is happening is those people are taking their religion very seriously, so seriously, that they're diving deeper into the things that they've been taught all their lives, including Minnalosa. Mhmm. Things that we've been taught, but why? Right.
• 20:11
  And questioning God. And somehow, at the end of it, hoping to still have their faith. Mhmm.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I still have my faith.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm still I wouldn't say I'm fully deconstructed. We're still demoing.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: There's not one wall that just you can't get down. No. I think she talks about her church is a church of Reconstruction. And I think that's so important because it is for people like us. She has made a space intentionally for people who didn't have anywhere else to go.
• 20:58
  Because I can tell you from Brie and I have walked in and out of many a church. Many a church. And not really ever felt like this is a space where I can be safe, where I can be myself, where I can learn to love God and not feel like I have to apologize for being a woman. And you do crave community.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. You do wanna be surrounded by people that share the same faith as you, and you wanna grow in that together. But when you don't feel safe, heard, accepted into those places that you should
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: It feels very isolated. Right. It feels very lonely. So creating a space where you can seek God surrounded by people other people that wanna seek God too, and know that, yes, we're not perfect. We're not gonna get this right a 100% of the time.
• 21:50
  But we're here together. What a great community.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I know. I so desperately wish that there was something like that near us. Like, I think we do get that a lot from from the podcast, from you guys listening, from our social media followers. And that's where I'm getting most of my faith community right now. But I do also wish that there was an in person space where I felt good walking into.
• 22:16
  Where I didn't walk in and feel like, Welp, here we are again. What horrifying thing is the pastor about to say from the stage? You know?
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And I think about our grandma. Mhmm. She goes to a church, she's been at that church forever.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Longer than I've been alive.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: And she has a group of people, and they have Sunday school together. And you can see her just light up Mhmm. When she walks into that space. She's like, these are my people. Mhmm.
• 22:43
  And it's because she's known them forever, yes, but they also share faith together. Right. And she can't walk very well,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: but when she walks through those doors,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: she sprints. It's amazing.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: She goes running.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It's a miracle from God.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: That woman is 93 years old. Yeah.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: And I would like that space too. Mhmm.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: But I just haven't found it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, for those of us before we get into the actual book, for those of us that are feeling that, because we get a ton of pressure from our family, just absolutely constantly, to go to church. And what I've always tried to communicate is I would be more than happy to go in a space where I felt the love of God.
• 23:31
  I haven't felt that yet. I've sincerely not felt that in any church space I've been in. And I refuse to accept a faith space that doesn't represent Jesus.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Right. There have been certain sermons and certain days Sure. Where I have felt surrounded and loved by God. Mhmm. But not consistently.
• 23:54
  Yeah. And that's the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: hard thing. So if you are in that space, we are not here to convince you like, oh, go be Episcopalian. Go do this. Go do that. You are on whatever journey you're on, and we're on it too.
• 24:07
  And God will meet you. Yeah.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: God is searching for you. Mhmm. And that's what I find so refreshing about this book. Mhmm.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: So let's let's look into this book, shall we? See?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: What a great transition.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: So we left off last week at the end of chapter 11. And I don't think we're gonna take you chapter by chapter, as we said, because we might be here for the rest of our lives.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Because it turns out we have a lot to say on each chapter.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Turns out we talk, like, a lot. Alright. So we'll start with chapter 13, and I wanna read her first line real quick. She says, when my fellow Christians say that they take the Bible literally, I remain ever hopeful that they do, in fact, mean they take Leviticus literally. I don't think anyone has ever read the whole of Leviticus and fully understood it.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So she goes on to talk about Jubilee, which I find very interesting because her church is named Jubilee. Mhmm. She says, The most scandalous, the most radical, and
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the most liberating commandments God gives in the law is found in Leviticus 25.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: The commandments to observe Jubilee year. Mhmm. Which in this, the year of our Lord 2026.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I'd love to see it. Right? She talks about the year of Jubilee being a kind of super Sabbath year.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And I wanna say every seven years. So on the seventh year, it's supposed to be like, no work is done
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: for a year. For a year.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Like, the land is resting. Mhmm. Which is important.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Right. You see the wisdom of God there.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: We don't end up with a dust bowl. And people are caring for each other in a different way than they have before making sure everybody is surviving that jubilee year of Sabbath. And also comes into play this forgiveness, forgiving of debts. Mhmm. People that are owed money are not owed that money anymore, but they are also their debts are also forgiven.
• 26:10
  Right. And I think about that in relation to today, specifically the conversations of like, oh, should we pay for everybody's health care? Are people just taking advantage of the system? Right. I've had a lot of conversations about that lately, actually.
• 26:26
  And I think, yes. I think as a Christian person,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I should be looking at everybody, all of humanity, and thinking, I wish the love
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: of God was upon you.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: It's not gonna affect me
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that greatly to care about you, because I know when I need to
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: be cared for, then I will be cared for.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Right. As a Christian person
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Persian? As a Christian person, I think there should be more freedom. Mhmm.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I think we should stop trying to see our differences. Mhmm. Because it's always, well, but that person isn't a citizen. Well, but that person doesn't look like me, doesn't have the same faith
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: as me. They're not contributing as much as I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: think Or that they they're not working as hard as I want them to be. We're always trying to find how we're better than that other person and then give ourselves that as an excuse to say, well, I don't wanna have to provide for them. But God very clearly asks us to provide for everyone that we can, because we should seek Christ in all people. Without stipulations.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Just an open hand. Because what did Jesus do for us?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: So as a Christian person, how many times can I say that? I think the conversation should always be, yes, health care. Mhmm. Yes, feed the people. Yes, forgive the debts.
• 27:55
  Yes. Yes.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Lower the cost of gas, man. I think it's such a beautiful thing. And I I have read a lot because there's the Christian church does not know what to do with the concept of Jubilee because it is biblical. It is in there, and yet it is so anti cultural. It is so anti Christian nationalist.
• 28:24
  It's anti what the broader church is today. And so because we don't know what to do with it, I hear a lot of arguments like, oh, well, but there was no evidence that it was actually practiced. There was no evidence they actually did it. Well, there's not a lot of evidence of a lot of the things in the Bible. But, yep, it is in the Bible.
• 28:45
  It's there. So And even if we were to say, okay, the Jewish people didn't actually do this. Maybe they didn't. I don't know why it wasn't there. But God asked it of them.
• 28:57
  And that's the point. God asks of you to take a break, to take a pause, to care for others, to see what they might need, and to step in that gap because you're supposed to see Christ and his people. And if you don't, well, then you're failing.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Maybe we're not as Christian as we say we
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: are. If people don't see you and see the love of Christ, then something's gone very wrong. And people don't see Christians and see the love of Christ. No. Like, it's it's sincerely difficult for me to tell people I'm a Christian.
• 29:41
  I I have a whole Christian podcast, folks. I talk about my faith all the time. And yet, to strangers, it is hard for me to say, yes, I'm a Christian. Because I have to caveat it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Yes. I'm a Christian, but not that kind of Christian. Mhmm. And then you say, well, I'm a Christ follower.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And then they're like, what does that mean? Right. You're like, well, I'm a Christian.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But not that Christian. What denomination are you? I don't know. None of them.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I don't identify with these people. It's like when I walked into the Comic Con.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. These people are not my people. No no shade to any of you that like the Comic Con. I'm just not one of you. It is.
• 30:32
  It's hard because you want to be proud of your faith, and yet the people representing your faith have made it an embarrassment. Yeah. And so you you have to work harder in order to be proud of what you believe. And I have been told by non Christian people, hey.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: How do you continue to call yourself a Christian when the people representing your faith act so far apart from the way that you do? Right. How do you connect those two?
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And it's really difficult. It is. I and I'm sure we've talked about this before, but I often, if someone tells me they're a Christian, am on guard immediately. On guard. I am suspicious.
• 31:17
  I am uncomfortable. I have a different way of approaching them.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I say, what kind of Christian?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And Brie does that in dating spaces too. Whereas, like, you you automatically are like,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: oh, mm-mm.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Because I know from the inside what many Christians behave like. Not all Christians, but what many of them behave like. And so I'm automatically more uncomfortable around Christians than around someone who's not a Christian because it feels a little like a snake in the grass. That sounds so bad. But I'd rather be around someone who's gonna tell me, yeah, don't believe in God.
• 32:01
  And I can say, okay, I do, and we can just move on. Whatever. And you can see the love of God in me if you want to. Mhmm. But someone that tells me, yeah, I'm a Christian.
• 32:13
  I'm representing the love of God. And then they're hateful. That feels like a bait and switch that I just can't deal with. Betrayal. Yeah.
• 32:21
  It feels like betrayal. Yes. Exactly. Because I know who God is, and you're not showing me him. And that sounds awful.
• 32:31
  But it it is how I feel so often. It is. Yeah.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And if we're feeling that way, I know that we're not the only people feeling So that feel at home with us. Mhmm.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: And this is coming from two women that that did grow up in church, that that know the ins and outs of the church space and the church people, and yet we still feel like that. So what does that tell you?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: And coming from, like Alyssa said, and I've said this on the podcast a billion times, I have dated both Christian men and non Christian men. And the people that have treated me the best are the non Christian men. So step up your game. Bros.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Bros. Yeah. Bros. That didn't make you sound really old. Oh my gosh.
• 33:14
  I am really old. Yeah. But you weren't around in 1976. You got that going for you.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Sorry, mom. Sorry, dad.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Alright. Okay. So I love the title. Her titles, she is on point. Okay?
• 33:31
  So this is chapter 20, and it is called Jesus Loves a Sloppy Disco. Can you just just absolutely love it. Can we just again, a shout out to her writing also. Just you can It's fun. It's relatable.
• 33:50
  It's super sarcastic and sassy.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: You can hear her personality through every sentence. Oh, what am I talking? You can hear her personality through every sentence, and it's just a joy. Mhmm.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Now, this chapter is about the wedding at Cana, which is Jesus' first public miracle. It's the beginning of his public ministry. The wine. Yes. And so she talks about this in the context of Christianity is super suspicious of fun and joy.
• 34:22
  We have this this idea that Christians are supposed to be serious and And somber. Boring and just truly awful to be around. And yet you see Jesus in this story. And if you're not familiar with this story, it's it's a great one. Find it in your bible.
• 34:43
  Read it. Basically, Mary, Jesus' mother, comes up to him at a wedding, she's like, bud, we're out of wine. And this is a problem, and I'm gonna need you to fix it. It's a cultural problem
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: because it makes the family look bad Yes. To have run out of wine at this kind of event.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: And it was early on. And, yeah, it was not a good time. And so Jesus, after basically being like, why though, mom? Takes barrels of water that he has the servants bring to him and turns them into wine. And he doesn't just turn them into, like, crappy wine.
• 35:18
  This isn't all the wine. Okay. Your mouth. He turns them into the best wine, the most flavorful wine. I'm not a wine person.
• 35:29
  I'm not a connoisseur or anything.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Because at these events too, think it was traditional, you get out your best wine first.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Right. And then you get out the cheaper wine as people get more and more drunk. Yeah. Because they can't tell.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So this made that family look fantastic
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: because they're getting out the best wine later on. Right. And he doesn't just give the bare minimum either. There's like a 180 gallons of wine is part of the story. Okay.
• 35:54
  That's gonna get a lot of people drunk. Mhmm. And you think about that in context. It's not just like, okay, Jesus is like, fine. I guess if you want one one glass of red wine with dinner, you can have that.
• 36:06
  No. People are getting
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: trashed. And Jesus is facilitating. In a chapter earlier, she talks about the importance of joy. Mhmm.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And joy begets joy.
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: And how God gave us joy. Mhmm. Because he knows the fear and the sadness and the realities of our world. Right. But he wants us to be joyful And so I love this.
• 36:32
  I love that Jesus is like, Yeah, get it.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Can you just picture Jesus is out there on the dance floor? Just rocking it? And it also doesn't say that Jesus didn't partake in this wine. Mhmm.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: That's true. It didn't say he just had one glass of wine. That was good.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: And as good little Baptist girls, we were taught that this was juice. Like, legitimately. The Bible specifically says wine. And I don't know if that's a common interpretation anymore. But when we were younger, it was like, well, no.
• 37:01
  No. No. It it was actually juice. They didn't really have alcohol back then. That was legitimately what I was taught.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I don't remember that. But I do remember I think in my little brain, it was like, well, this was okay then, but not okay for you now.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Right. Because if you're not familiar with it, a lot of very conservative spaces will say alcohol is sinful in and of itself. And you get to decide what is okay for you. But biblically, it is not simple. Clearly, because we have Jesus here turning water into wine and getting a bunch of people drunk.
• 37:39
  Yeah. So Jesus loves a sloppy disco is the main point of this chapter.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, the tenacity of a bleeding woman.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: A bleeding woman. Bleeding hearts of the world unite.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: A god you can kick in the shins.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: This is chapter 25, and I like that she comes at this from totally different stories. She's it's not one big, here, let's be all joyful sort of message. It's a lot of little stories about who God is. I think that's beautiful, learning the character of the God that you claim to know. Mhmm.
• 38:20
  Because once you understand the character of someone, then you
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: can base a lot of your decisions off of that.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Right. When we were kids, we did a wanna. And I think there's something really lovely about learning bible verses and having that in in the back of your head. However, a lot of people stop there. They memorize the bible verse and they call it good.
• 38:43
  But I believe that God gave us the Holy Spirit so that we could know him because there isn't a bible verse for every specific situation. And if you know the character of God and God in that really intimate and important way, then you can carry who God is into other situations.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Alyssa and I have spoke on this. Spoke on this. I'm gonna keep that. Alright. We've talked about this many times, but you can quote a billion verses at me and still not know God.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But if you spend your time reading the bible and saying, who is my creator? I want to know my creator better. You're gonna be better off even if you didn't memorize every passage. Mhmm.
• 39:26
  Now this chapter, as Brie said, is called a god you can kick in the shins. And it's about Mary and Martha after Lazarus dies. And I love the relationship that Jesus has with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus because it shows that he's just so real. These are his friends. They're his buddies.
• 39:46
  And Lazarus died. And even though Jesus knows, okay, Lazarus is in heaven. I'm gonna see him again. Whatever. And also knows exactly what's about to happen.
• 39:57
  He's still sad. It's still mourning. And Mary and Martha don't know what's about to happen. Kinda. They kicked Jesus in the shins.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: They're like, if you would have
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: been here, this wouldn't have happened. Right. What is wrong with you? Why did you dilly dally Jesus? Mhmm.
• 40:14
  Because he did dilly dally. Mhmm. He could have gotten there faster. And they probably know that. Because at least Peter is kind of a gossip.
• 40:23
  So they're probably fully aware that Jesus could have been there. Their friend disappointed them in the biggest way that he possibly could have. And not just their friend, their friend and their lord disappointed them in a tangible and physical way. And so they yell at him. They call him right out.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: They tell him that he failed them. And this is where Jesus wept. The shortest verse in the Bible. I that one is stuck in my head forever. Jesus wept because he hurt his friends.
• 41:02
  Because his friend was gone. Because people were grieving. Because he was fully God and fully human. And so he wept. And yet Mary and Martha are not condemned for this behavior.
• 41:16
  A lot of other faith traditions, if you think of the Greek and Roman faiths of this time period, you can't talk to their gods like this. Their gods are vindictive. Their gods are very they're gonna respond in kind. Holier than thou. Right.
• 41:32
  Whereas Jesus is sitting here, and he's being like, no, yeah. I hear you. You're right. You're right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. This sucks. And it almost feels uncomfortable. It almost feels disrespectful Mhmm. In a way.
• 41:45
  But in the same way that you and I were talking last week about we worship a God that we can laugh with Mhmm. Because we have a relationship with our God. You can also have these moments with God, too, where this is disappointing to me. And how many other situations do we have in our day to day life where we are disappointed by how things end up. Mhmm.
• 42:09
  Not that it's necessarily God's fault, but we're saying, I am disappointed in God.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because you could have changed it. Mhmm. Now, I may not know God's will, but it still hurts me when something bad happens and I know God could have. And I think if we hold all that in and we say, you don't get to respond to God like this, you don't get to get upset with God like this, that's not a real relationship.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Or to minimize it and be like, well, this is God's will. Mhmm. And we aren't privy to everything that God knows. It just seems patronizing Mhmm. And not real.
• 42:46
  And you can see how real God is in this moment, how Jesus wept. Mhmm.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: And the kind of relationship that Mary and Martha developed with him. And they did have the benefit of having Jesus as a physical human right there. Must be nice. But that they had a relationship with Jesus where they knew we can yell at you, and we're still gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay.
• 43:10
  But I can still have this emotion with you, and it's safe. It's a safe space to do that. Okay. So I think we have time for maybe two more chapters. So we'll jump over to chapter 28, and it's called Breastfeeding the Body of Christ.
• 43:22
  I'd heard titles. I just love it because it makes you a little squeamish. You're like, what what do you mean? I don't like that. But what she's doing here is she's taking language of the Eucharist, and that's communion.
• 43:38
  So Christ giving his body and his blood and if you didn't grow up in the in the faith. Yeah. It sounds super weird.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: This it does sound weird, but that's exactly how she opens up this chapter. She's like, Yep, this sounds super uncomfortable. And sometimes we try to protect our kids from the realities of this and try to soften the blow, but we forget that kids think whatever's normal is whatever you tell them. Mhmm. So she's like, Yeah.
• 44:11
  I Do I think it's super strange that I get up on stage in front of everybody and say, Here's the body of Christ who died for us. Let's eat him. She's like, yeah. That's strange. But it's so normal when you think about that.
• 44:32
  And she relates it to giving birth and growing a baby and how that baby feasts on you for nine months. And that's how it's grown and it's sustained by your body, by the female body.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: And then once it pops out, you're able to feed it. And before formula, she talks about the miracle of formula. But before that, the baby is fed from, like, your blood that turns into milk so that it can eat. Mhmm.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: And how wild that is.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And again, I kinda relate it back to the beginning chapters when she's talking about any of the female experience we've deemed as icky, yucky, and sinful. Yeah. Yep. But it's actually beautiful.
• 45:17
  Mhmm. And that's the reality of life. Mhmm. Is that that is how life happens.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: So then we'll close on her second to last chapter. There is one more after this. But this is chapter 39, and it's called Sent forth from Revelation to Revolution. So it's a less fun title.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Not as thrilling. Nothing about disco or boobs. No.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: So the basic thesis of this chapter is that Christianity isn't supposed to be certain. It's not supposed to be absolute or sure. It gives us enough to be sure of God's love. And then it kind of leaves us. It sets us free and says, figure it out.
• 46:05
  Best wishes, warm regards. Because I've left you with my spirit to guide you and figure this out on your own. This isn't an instruction manual. That's uncomfortable. The gray area.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. We want things to be certain. We want things to be clean. We want lists of do this and you're saved. Do this, and you won't be saved.
• 46:27
  This is where you go when you die. This is where the bad people go when they die.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: It's very orderly. But
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: just like she talks about at the beginning of the book, we serve a chaotic god Mhmm.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Who has a different order than what we would how we would order And
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: that's why God is God, and
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: we are we. I think in searching for certainty, we are searching for what Adam and Eve were searching for, and that's to be more like God.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. We are looping so many things together. The synapses in my brain are synaping.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Wow. She performed that for me, I
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: love this part of this chapter. If you're reading along with me, this is on page two zero two. The very last paragraph.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Open your books to page.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: She said, God loves you and God loves me. But the body of Christ means God loves us. The big us of humanity. Because to be in the body of Christ is yes, to love Jesus with all our individual body and soul, for these things are connected. But more than that, to become the body of Christ is to become what we eat.
• 47:42
  To be the individual body souls made into one whole body, transcending time and space. I like that she talks about how important community is. Mhmm. And that's how people see Christ Yeah. Is through us.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: It circles right back to what she what we said about the Episcopalian church. Look for Jesus in Jesus' people. Not just Christians, in the people God created.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: And to be made in the image of God doesn't just mean we physically look like God.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. We're supposed to represent the character Yeah. Of God. And that's part of what she says is that revelation should produce something. If you have a spiritual revelation, which is what becoming a Christian is supposed to be, when you have this sort of revelation of God loves me Reborn.
• 48:39
  Yeah. Jesus died for my sins, etcetera. It should produce something. It's not just an internal thing. And this is actually a great story from our lives.
• 48:50
  Our grandpa became a Christian later in life. Our grandma took her kids to church by herself. Four kids lugged them all to church every Sunday. And our grandpa did not go. And at some point along the way, he became a Christian, but he kept it to himself.
• 49:10
  He kept it a secret until the year that I was born, and he got cancer and believed that that was God telling him, you can't keep this inside anymore. And what a beautiful metaphor that holding something inside and I'm not saying this is why everyone has cancer. But, like, I think the metaphor of it is lovely of, like, when you keep things inside, it becomes toxic. It's not good. It's only good if it produces something.
• 49:41
  It's good if it produces mercy and love and care. It's good if people see it and know God.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: In the same way that we talked about a couple weeks ago, different people's views on Christianity. Mhmm. How you can look at the light of God, and if you know the love of God, you won't get burned up by But if you don't really know the love
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: of God, the light from God is gonna burn you up. Right. Right. So all of that to say, this is an incredible book. Like, it's beautiful, first of all.
• 50:13
  Whoever did the cover did a spectacular job.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: It's so happy and joyful.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: It's it's just wonderful. Brie has one sitting next usually, like, we share a book. She has her own. She also has the audiobook. I have my own.
• 50:25
  Our mom just bought her own. So we're funding Reverend Lizzie's life is what I'm saying here. You're welcome. But I just can't recommend enough picking it up. It's not gonna take over your life to read it.
• 50:40
  You can do it in small chunks.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: I actually kind of recommend that. Mhmm. I recommend taking either one devotional at a time or maybe a couple and just rereading them and meditating on them a little bit because they're so powerful. Mhmm. And it's really easy to read.
• 50:58
  It's not like some of the other books that we read are very academic. This one does have big topics, but it's easy to understand. Yeah. And I would liken it to drinking a glass of cold water with condensation on the outside. Like, really refreshing.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Wow. The metaphors today
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: are metaphoring.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: We are going hard. Yeah. So pick it up or listen to it. She reads the audiobook herself, so that's always a good time. And, yeah, that's what we have to say about this book.
• 51:33
  Also, follow her on social media. She is rev dot lizzie, lizzie with an I e, on TikTok and Instagram. And also follow us. You can find us at the hashtag we are more. So next week, I wanna talk about a subject that I asked some questions about on social media, and I wanna pull in some of the answers that we got there.
• 51:53
  And that's when you deconstructed, what still held true?
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: And when you wish upon a star.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: So often we talk about, okay, I let go of this. I let go of this. This no longer is true in my faith. But what still held true? What are the the songs from VBS that you're like, okay.
• 52:16
  Yeah. That still is important in my life. Because it's interesting to me to see that there's not a lot of overlap from the people that I'm talking to. Like, people will like, oh, the 10 commandments. And that's it.
• 52:32
  That's all. But what do we still hold on to that maybe we did learn about as children? So maybe the positives of growing up in faith. Deep and wide. Deep and wide.
• 52:46
  There's a fountain flowing deep and wide. Do you even know what that means, though? God's love is deep and wide.
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Deep and wide. There's a fountain flowing deep
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: and wide. Why is the fountain, though, flowing deep and wide? I'm confused by that song. Deep and wide. Deep and wide.
• 53:06
  Alright. So if you didn't understand that song, I'm so sorry. We'll explain it next
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: I was really digging back to Which with my childhood. Yeah. I I caught it. I was there.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Was there for
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: your childhood. Or Or It was
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: 12 men went to spy on Canaan. 10 were bad, and two were good.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Or waves of mercy. That was later, though. That was, like
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Yes. On into our teens. Yeah. When we went to the slightly less Baptist churches, where you could listen to modern music.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: So true. Or do you remember the play that we did where I was
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: a dancing tree? And I was a singing tree. Sometimes I wish I could
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: not starve. That's not even the song that I danced to.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Guys, I'm so sorry for
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: the ending of this episode. Is anybody having war flashbacks?
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Alright. Before Brie starts singing just a whole hymnal.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna trust you. My y'all.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: It's not in the hymnal. Okay.