Latest / Future Christian / Pop, Purity, and Power: Joelle Kidd on Unpacking Evangelical Influence

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Pop, Purity, and Power: Joelle Kidd on Unpacking Evangelical Influence · Future Christian

0:07
>> Paul: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
0:13
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
0:16
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
0:19
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
0:21
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
0:24
walk boldly into the future. Whether
0:27
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
0:30
of your faith community, this podcast is
0:33
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
0:36
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
0:39
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today, Martha
0:47
Tetranick welcomes Joelle Kidd to the show.
0:50
Joelle is a writer, award winning journalist and
0:53
editor who lives in a book filled basement apartment
0:56
in Toronto, Tu.
0:58
Her work has appeared in outlets such as the Walrus,
1:01
this Magazine, Lit Hub, the Rumpus,
1:04
and Extra Magazine. She holds an MFA
1:07
in Creative writing from the University of Gulf of
1:10
Jesusland is her first book.
1:14
A reminder. Before we start today's conversation, please take a
1:16
moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review and
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share Future Christian with a friend. You can connect with
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with questions, comments or ideas for future
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episodes. We appreciate your voice and
1:34
how we faithfully discern the future of the church.
1:46
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. I'm your host
1:49
for today's episode, Martha Tatarnic,
1:52
and I'm happy today to be joined by
1:54
Joelle Kidd. Welcome, Joelle.
1:57
>> Joelle Kidd: Hi. Thanks for having me.
1:59
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, so normally, like, we kind of have
2:02
our standard opening and closing
2:05
questions that we ask all of our guests. But as
2:08
I was uh, reflecting on our
2:11
conversation today, Joelle, I was
2:13
realizing that a lot of what you talk about
2:16
in your book would be things that we would
2:19
normally cover in those opening questions. So I don't
2:22
want to, you know, let the cat out of the bag too early
2:25
and then be, um,
2:27
repetitive when we get, uh, to your book.
2:30
So instead I think it would just help
2:33
to frame our conversation if we gave our
2:36
listeners a bit of a sense of who you are
2:39
and what you do. Our paths, um,
2:42
intersected through writing in the Anglican Church.
2:45
Uh, you were on staff for our national Anglican
2:48
newspaper for a time. But, uh, can you just
2:51
share with our audience where you are
2:54
now and uh, what
2:58
your work is as a writer, um,
3:01
what you're up to? Yeah, for sure.
3:03
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, yeah, so I'm, ah,
3:07
a writer. I've been working in, um,
3:09
newspapers and magazines for most of my
3:12
career, um, including at that
3:15
Anglican newspaper You mentioned, um,
3:18
ah, but I always have written and I've always
3:21
wanted to write fiction. Um, so
3:24
most recently, um, I just completed a master's
3:26
program in creative writing, um, in fiction,
3:30
and have been working on a novel. But
3:32
in between all that, um, I wrote this book
3:35
that we're going to talk about today, uh,
3:38
which is essays, creative nonfiction.
3:41
So it's kind of a blend of those two things. The
3:44
more journalistic work I've done and,
3:47
um, my. My love of
3:50
creative writing. Um. But yeah, I'm
3:53
living. Living here in Toronto. I grew up in
3:55
Winnipeg and grew up, uh, going
3:58
to sort of evangelical
4:01
conservative, um, Christian school. And so that's
4:04
what really shaped my experience that I wrote about in the
4:07
book.
4:08
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. So we're definitely going to dive into that
4:11
quite a bit.
4:12
Um, I find,
4:15
um. I find that interesting. Like, I
4:18
actually didn't know the pieces around creative
4:21
writing. And I have to say, like, as a
4:24
writer myself, although
4:27
everything that I have published has been in the
4:29
realm of, um, nonfiction.
4:33
Like, I really have to actually force
4:35
myself to read nonfiction. Like my.
4:39
My heart is totally in the.
4:42
In the realm of fiction. And I always thought I
4:44
would write novels, not uh,
4:48
you know, nonfiction, memoirs, church.
4:52
Churchy sort of things. But
4:55
it's funny the way that life. I still
4:58
can. I. Well, I have a few like, um,
5:00
unpublished novels that are
5:03
sitting on USB sticks here and there.
5:05
>> Joelle Kidd: Nice.
5:07
>> Martha Tatarnic: Whether the world actually needs to read those or not,
5:10
I don't know. You have
5:13
some, uh, um, unpublished novels as well?
5:15
>> Joelle Kidd: Oh, yeah. I love it.
5:18
One day.
5:20
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Well, that's really exciting. Like, you're done your
5:23
master's in creative writing now?
5:26
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, yeah, I just finished that up last October.
5:28
I guess.
5:29
>> Martha Tatarnic: So.
5:30
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
5:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Congratulations. That uh. That must have been
5:34
pretty exciting.
5:36
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
5:38
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay, so let's get into our
5:41
main topic of conversation because I'm,
5:44
uh, really eager to. To you about your new book,
5:47
which is called Jesus Land. Catchy
5:50
title. And I'm, uh, just
5:53
gonna sketch out a little bit, um,
5:56
for our readers, uh, what it
5:59
is about and how it's shaped, uh, encouraging
6:02
everybody to get a copy and read it.
6:04
It is part memoir of your time growing
6:07
up in a fundamentalist Christian environment.
6:11
Um, it's really part cultural
6:14
commentary and, uh, looking
6:16
at like, Christian pop culture of the early
6:19
aughts and how that was
6:22
intersecting with pop culture as a
6:25
whole. How it was its own distinct
6:28
thing where these two parallel tracks
6:31
had influence on one another.
6:33
Um, and I was particularly
6:36
interested in some of the ways that we're
6:39
experiencing the influence of those ideas that
6:42
you grew up with, um, on our political
6:45
landscape today. So there's. It's a really
6:49
like, rich and timely book.
6:52
Um, can you start by
6:55
sharing with our listeners a bit about
6:58
the church that you grew up in, but particularly
7:01
that private Christian school that is
7:04
such a feature of uh,
7:07
Jesus Land. Um, what were the
7:10
distinguishing characteristics? What were the
7:12
beliefs and the environment there?
7:15
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah.
7:18
Part of the impetus for the book I think was
7:21
because I came into it,
7:23
um, I grew
7:26
up in it after a certain point and so I kind of came to
7:29
it late. Uh, my family lived in uh, Eastern
7:32
Europe when I was younger and when we moved back to
7:35
Canada, started going to this Christian school.
7:38
And um, my family, I come from like a
7:40
Mennonite tradition. Um, and
7:43
the churches I went to growing up were small
7:46
community churches. Um, and so when I
7:49
started going to this Christian school,
7:52
um, this idea of Christian pop culture was really
7:54
foreign to me. Um, and I felt
7:57
very behind on it. All my peers
8:00
like knew all these Christian bands and Christian
8:03
movies, et cetera, et cetera.
8:05
Um, but the school
8:08
I went to, um, so it was a non denominational
8:11
school, um, those kind of
8:14
affiliated with some Baptist and Pentecostal
8:17
communities. And I think it fell
8:19
into this very common, ah,
8:22
North American thing where non denominational kind of just
8:25
means conservative. Uh, evangelical.
8:28
>> Martha Tatarnic: Right. Yeah.
8:30
>> Joelle Kidd: Which I don't think is actually very helpful because
8:33
the message I absorbed, um, was that this is
8:36
just sort of like this is what Christian means,
8:39
um, with a capital C. And I
8:42
didn't really know about other denominat donations and
8:45
practices. Um, I don't think I like even
8:48
knew what the Anglican Church was as a kid.
8:51
Yeah, we had one, one Catholic student in our
8:53
grade who was. Everyone was trying to convert him because he was
8:57
like a real Christian or something.
8:58
>> Martha Tatarnic: Not a real Christian. Yeah, yeah.
9:01
Anglicans I'm sure would not be real Christians
9:04
either.
9:04
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, exactly.
9:07
Um, yeah. So some of the distinguishing
9:10
beliefs that I thought were really
9:13
emphasized, um, were this
9:15
evangelical framework, like this Great Commission,
9:18
the emphasis on needing to evangelize
9:21
others, um, the need to accept
9:24
Jesus as your personal savior to go to heaven.
9:27
Uh, there was a big emphasis on purity,
9:30
um, sexual abstinence and
9:33
also just like purity of thought.
9:36
I think the Christian pop culture connected there too,
9:39
where it was, um, you were meant
9:42
to only absorb Christian media as a way to keep
9:44
yourself pure from any outside
9:47
influences. Um, we were
9:50
taught, ah, creationism and
9:53
ah, very like literal interpretation of the Bible.
9:57
Um, that idea that everything,
10:00
every word in the Bible is true and
10:03
um, sort of Equalized.
10:06
Everything is worth the same amount.
10:10
Yeah.
10:12
>> Martha Tatarnic: I was, like, really struck,
10:14
um, by the
10:16
comprehensiveness of, like, the pop
10:19
culture that. That you were. The
10:21
Christian pop culture that you were,
10:25
um, fed. Like, it wasn't just the
10:27
music, it wasn't just the movies. It was magazines,
10:30
it was YA novels. It was, like, everything that
10:33
you were reading and consuming was,
10:36
like, through this particular Christian lens.
10:40
And so,
10:43
like, that sense of having
10:46
to, like, be protected from
10:49
the outside world or, like,
10:52
to have sort of, uh,
10:54
an exclusive,
10:58
like, culture that
11:01
provides everything for you. Like, that's so different
11:04
from what I was raised with. Like, when
11:07
I started as a teenager to think that I
11:10
was called to ministry. Like, my dad's
11:13
immediate reaction was like, okay, well, make sure
11:16
that you're reading really widely and that you're,
11:19
like, taking courses that,
11:21
um, challenge your
11:24
beliefs.
11:27
Don't get yourself cut off from the world. Make sure
11:30
that you're staying connected to that.
11:33
You don't become part of a Christian bubble. But
11:36
it really was a Christian bubble, right?
11:39
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, absolutely. That's really. That's great
11:42
that your dad said that to you. I think that's really
11:44
important. Yeah. Like, my, like, kind
11:47
of quippy thing is, I feel like. I don't know if
11:50
you heard this a lot, uh, in your corner
11:53
of the church, but growing up, I feel
11:56
like I often heard this phrase that you're supposed to be in the world,
11:59
but not of it.
12:00
Um, and to me, the
12:03
Christian pop culture bubble is really that
12:07
you're of the world somehow, but you're not in it. You're so
12:10
separated from the real world, but they're taking
12:12
on all the trappings of, like,
12:15
secular pop culture and a lot of the sort of
12:18
toxic messages that you're taught
12:21
outside of that, uh, bubble, too.
12:22
>> Martha Tatarnic: So, yeah, Yeah, I definitely want to
12:25
dig into that a little bit more because I was quite
12:28
fascinated by some of those dynamics
12:31
and again, comparing them to what I grew up with.
12:33
But, gosh, there was even, like, a part
12:37
toward the end where you talk about, like, Christian
12:39
comedians and this worry that, like,
12:42
maybe, like, you couldn't be funny as.
12:46
As a Christian. Like, that Christians
12:49
actually couldn't have a good sense of humor. Like,
12:53
I had no idea that there were. That that
12:55
was a thing.
12:57
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah. Even wanting to write novels and write
13:00
fiction as a kid, I was so worried that, like,
13:03
could I do that? Because all the Christian
13:05
novels I read were so.
13:11
Or I didn't really want to write about, you know,
13:13
Christianity in fiction.
13:16
>> Martha Tatarnic: Like, were you getting exposed to some other things
13:20
through your family as well, or
13:23
were those years where you were just pretty much
13:26
like locked in?
13:28
>> Joelle Kidd: I definitely was. My family wasn't very
13:31
um, tapped into that. Even
13:34
uh, even reading the book. I gave the book to my
13:37
parents to read before, um, before it went
13:39
into copy editing and they were kind
13:42
of shocked that they didn't even know half this stuff existed.
13:45
They weren't really paying the pop
13:48
culture stuff. Um, but so most of it came
13:51
through my school and my friends at school.
13:55
Um, but yeah, I think
13:59
I valued my parents um,
14:01
influence more because I think uh,
14:04
the books and the music and movies
14:07
that they ah, showed me or
14:10
that I watched with them, um, were
14:13
the ones that I actually related to a lot more than these
14:16
Christian media that I
14:19
consumed with my friends.
14:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, well, okay, so that kind of like
14:25
that gets into what I found to be
14:28
such a page turner about the book. Like I
14:31
found it extremely absorbing because it was
14:33
this mix of like
14:36
dynamics that I found very relatable
14:39
but like pop
14:42
culture that I wasn't familiar
14:45
with at all. And I think that you
14:47
do such a good job
14:51
like really um,
14:53
compelling description
14:56
of what it, like what
14:59
growing up feels like and what growing up feels like when you're
15:02
trying to fit in and like when you feel like you're a bit
15:05
out of step with the people around you and
15:08
you're trying to make sense of um,
15:10
what messages you're getting and how
15:13
you fit into that. Like all of that is
15:16
extremely relatable. Like I, you
15:19
know, I, I know about that stuff,
15:22
um, like friendship
15:25
and, and in crowds
15:28
and out crowds and you know, all that stuff
15:31
insecurity, like just
15:34
navigating how you figure out who you are
15:38
and then experiencing within
15:41
all of that these places of real
15:44
conflict and tension as you
15:47
tried to fit yourself into
15:50
a narrative and beliefs
15:53
that actually
15:56
didn't feel like they fit for you.
15:59
Um. What would you like describe as some of the
16:02
positives of your faith
16:04
upbringing?
16:07
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, um, there were certainly a lot of
16:09
positives I think. I mean I mentioned my
16:12
family, um, being sort of on the outside of
16:15
this Christian um, bubble in a
16:18
way. Uh, I come from a very close
16:20
knit family, um, coming
16:23
from the Mennonite church. And
16:27
uh, I had a lot of I think really good
16:30
experiences in Mennonite communities.
16:32
Um, whether that's my grandparents
16:35
little house church that they ran,
16:37
um, or the small community church we attended when I
16:40
was growing up. Um, I always
16:43
related pretty strongly to
16:46
the values that were being taught there about like
16:48
justice and peace, um, and community
16:52
and that sense of closeness
16:55
that um, comes with Like a small group like
16:58
that where you're having church potlucks every week.
17:02
Um, and I think there were good things
17:05
to be found in the school I attended also. It was, it was
17:08
also a pretty small school. And so
17:11
there were definitely, um. There was like
17:14
a comfort in that. And um,
17:16
even though in retrospect I don't really
17:20
agree or appreciate with a lot of the
17:23
teachings I was given there, um, it's
17:26
an institution. So, uh, it's full of
17:29
people. And on a person to person level, there
17:32
were certainly a lot of really kind and caring,
17:35
um, teachers and friends
17:38
that I made there. So, um,
17:40
yeah, there was a kind of, I guess, comfort and
17:44
um, sense of
17:46
belonging in some ways that
17:49
faith, uh, gave me when I
17:52
was growing up.
17:54
>> Martha Tatarnic: Do you have, like, have some of those
17:56
friendships endured kind of past
18:00
the leaving of that
18:02
tradition?
18:05
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, I have one
18:07
really close friend still that I grew up going to
18:10
school with and one more like,
18:14
see, uh, each other every so often kind of friend.
18:16
Um, so I'm down to two,
18:19
but it was a very small school, so percentage wise
18:22
it's pretty good.
18:22
>> Martha Tatarnic: But yeah, yeah, I think that's better
18:25
than I'm doing from high school.
18:29
>> Joelle Kidd: That's good.
18:31
>> Martha Tatarnic: Um, like, has that friend read the book,
18:34
the Close Friend? Do they?
18:36
>> Joelle Kidd: Not yet. Uh, yeah, I'll need to mail it to
18:39
her.
18:41
>> Martha Tatarnic: It'll be interesting to like, see what her
18:43
reaction is and um,
18:46
what she recognizes there.
18:49
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, I think that's something interesting about those
18:51
lifelong friendships because, yeah, she
18:54
and I have also. And maybe this is another
18:57
positive of growing up, like in a religious environment.
19:00
I think, um, the kind of friendships
19:03
I have with people that I met. After I
19:06
graduated high school, I spent a little bit of
19:09
time working for a Christian missions organization.
19:12
And, um, again, an environment
19:15
where I felt a little at odds politically
19:18
and philosophically with a lot of people. But
19:21
the friendships I made there also
19:24
feel really strong because
19:27
you're talking about such deep,
19:29
uh, important things and you're
19:32
really sharing like, something that you don't necessarily
19:35
share in your life with other friends, other
19:38
friendships that you just sort of, um,
19:41
meet, you know, in the wild. So.
19:44
Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic.
19:47
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I think that's insightful.
19:49
Um, I mean, you certainly
19:52
don't, uh, shy away from delving into, uh,
19:55
the stuff that was quite damaging in
19:58
your faith upbringing. Do you want to just share
20:01
some of those notes?
20:03
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, I mean, for me, I think the
20:06
most damaging parts were
20:09
really focused around like, shame.
20:12
And um,
20:15
there's been more and more research and writing
20:18
in Recent years about um, the
20:21
what they call a purity culture of the 90s and
20:24
2000s, um, which I think
20:26
continues even now. But that felt like a very
20:29
concentrated moment for it, uh, where
20:32
evangelical pop culture and a lot of
20:35
um, conservative messaging really focused
20:37
heavily on sexual purity,
20:40
um, but also like I mentioned before, like
20:43
purity of your thoughts and this need
20:46
to like sort of reach a kind of perfection to be
20:49
acceptable, um, as a Christian.
20:52
Uh, and so yeah, those kinds of teachings really
20:55
gave me a lot of shame about my body, my identity.
20:58
Um, and yeah, as I write in the
21:01
book, I identify as queer, but I really
21:04
suppressed that part of myself for a long time because
21:07
of those teachings.
21:11
And I think even the sort of like the
21:13
threats of hell or
21:15
um, the sort of punitive
21:19
uh, way of talking about Christianity really plays into
21:22
that shame based thing also.
21:26
Um, yeah, and there, there were also some
21:29
harmful messages I absorbed about women, about
21:32
queer people, um,
21:35
some really like politically
21:37
conservative readings of the Bible that I was taught,
21:41
um, that I think feed into like
21:43
a colonial, like white supremacist
21:46
history of Christianity. Ah,
21:49
that I think now I see a lot of. Even when I
21:52
was working for the um, for the Anglican
21:55
Church, I saw a lot of people doing a lot of work to unlearn and
21:58
um, decolonize those aspects of
22:01
Christianity. But in my experience when I was growing
22:04
up, that was very much still
22:06
entrenched in what we were taught. Mhm.
22:10
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, for sure.
22:12
Um, it's, I guess
22:14
not just that there's
22:17
perfectionism, but there's such a
22:20
narrow understanding of what
22:22
perfect looks like and yes,
22:26
um, yeah, how you like need to fit into
22:29
that. I was really struck.
22:31
And again this goes to the
22:34
relatable versus foreign parts of
22:37
what you were describing in the book. I was
22:40
just really struck by
22:42
um,
22:46
the shame that you talk about.
22:50
And like regular listeners of this
22:52
podcast will know that I grew up like thoroughly
22:55
mainline Christian,
22:57
um,
23:00
but I also grew
23:03
up with lots of um,
23:05
messages of shame around my
23:08
body. Um, like secular
23:11
mainstream culture tells
23:14
us lots of unhelpful things about
23:17
sex and body image and
23:20
um, the role of men and women and
23:23
blame about sex and how we're supposed to think about our
23:26
bodies. Like you don't need to be part
23:29
of a, ah, fundamentalist evangelical
23:31
church to absorb
23:34
really bad messages about like
23:37
you know, how, how we're
23:40
supposed to look and how we're supposed to act and
23:43
how we're supposed to feel
23:45
inadequate. You know, like I, I
23:48
think that we can all grow up uh,
23:51
feeling like there are impossible standards
23:54
that we can never actually attain.
23:57
Um,
24:00
interestingly, like I grew up in a
24:02
very small town in rural Ontario.
24:06
And um, in the
24:09
town that I grew up in, like there were was not one
24:12
out person in my whole high school. Like
24:15
it was in many ways a very
24:17
conservative town.
24:21
Um, and yet
24:23
it was actually in my church that I
24:27
uh, that I really considered
24:30
um, LGBTQ rights.
24:33
And um,
24:36
like it was from my Christian
24:38
perspective that like I argued in my law class
24:42
that ah, that um,
24:44
same sex couples should be able to adopt for
24:47
example. Like that was
24:50
like an opinion that stood really at odds
24:52
with the secular culture that I grew
24:55
up in. Um, and
24:59
in many ways, like, I think that's what
25:02
uh, excited me about being a Christian was
25:05
the sense that our Christian tradition could have
25:09
ways of clapping back to the toxic messages
25:12
that we absorb and saying something different
25:15
and like challenging the status quo.
25:18
Um, and yet
25:21
like as you said in the Anglican Church as well,
25:24
and certainly like in Christianity
25:27
in general, um,
25:29
Christianity can just totally get
25:32
co opted into saying the same toxic
25:35
things, maybe with different packaging.
25:37
Um, like
25:42
what would be sort of
25:45
your imaginings about
25:49
Christianity as an
25:52
alternative versus just one
25:54
more um, place where you
25:57
get the same old messages of guilt and
26:00
inadequacy.
26:03
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, I mean I love that
26:06
that was the catalyst for you because I think there is
26:09
a real um,
26:12
possibility there.
26:16
It really still appeals to me, um, thinking about
26:20
the stories um, that I read
26:23
of the gospels, stories of Jesus that are
26:25
these sort of radical um,
26:28
reimaginings, um, they are
26:31
sort of upending the system, uh,
26:34
or like those teachings that really dig
26:37
uh, further beneath the surface. And I think
26:41
um, that's where I see a lot of possibility
26:44
for Christianity is to
26:47
sort of undermine these systems that are in power
26:50
in the wider world.
26:52
Um, I
26:55
think, I guess one of
26:58
the main theses that I
27:01
came away with after writing the book is that
27:04
I just don't think there should be Christian pop
27:07
culture. Like this sort of marriage of uh,
27:10
religion and capitalism I think is
27:12
where those messages start to get
27:15
co opted and things start to really
27:18
um, solidify in an
27:21
unhelpful way. Um, because I
27:24
think a lot of what gets commoditized is
27:27
uh,
27:31
um, not there to help
27:34
everyone. It's there to keep one group
27:37
in power at the top.
27:38
>> Martha Tatarnic: Um, interesting.
27:39
>> Joelle Kidd: So yeah, when you bring that
27:42
kind of hierarchy into religion, I think
27:45
uh, it's not what was taught
27:48
in the Bible, I think.
27:52
Yeah.
27:52
>> Martha Tatarnic: Can you just like describe some of
27:55
that like
27:57
capitalistic infiltration of
28:01
the culture you grew up in? Because it really was of
28:04
A moment, wasn't it, where like there were big bucks
28:08
available in like Christian
28:10
media of a whole variety of things.
28:13
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, it's such an interesting time to me.
28:16
Um, one thing that really
28:19
interested me about that period was this
28:22
sort of mainstream crossover at the time,
28:25
um, that happened in the
28:27
2000s. Uh, you had like
28:30
pop stars wearing purity rings.
28:32
Um, and
28:35
the rise of like
28:37
um, some laws
28:40
that changed in the states around the late 90s, early
28:42
2000s meant that Christian groups could lobby
28:45
quite uh, with no
28:48
holds barred lobbying, um, in the
28:51
political sphere. And so you had the rise of this like
28:54
issues voter that got George Bush into
28:57
office. That was really like this
28:59
fundamentalist Christian worldview.
29:03
I um, was shocked at how much money was poured into abstinence only
29:06
education, for instance in that time
29:09
period. Um, so yeah, there was a weird
29:11
marriage of like the, the
29:14
secular and the Christian at the time.
29:17
Um, and also it was just
29:20
a high point for like,
29:22
for pop culture to make money.
29:25
Um, right before the Internet came in
29:28
and undermined a whole bunch of industries.
29:32
It was possible to be making a lot of money through
29:35
book sales and through CD record
29:37
companies and um,
29:40
uh, independent movie distribution.
29:43
And so, um, yeah, I think
29:46
that's part of it. And part of what was interesting is
29:48
that um, you had these Christian bookstores
29:51
that were these hubs of all this Christian media,
29:55
um, that were actually really making a lot of money
29:57
in that time period. And about 10 years later they were all,
30:00
almost all um, bankrupt. So
30:04
it was kind of a concentrated point of all that culture
30:07
being distributed. Um,
30:10
and one thing I write about a little bit too is that ah,
30:14
ah, a lot of the production of that media was happening in
30:17
the United States. Um, and then it was being
30:20
exported and me in the
30:23
middle of Canada, I was reading stuff
30:26
coming from, focused on the family that I didn't even know
30:29
that's, you know, that was who was printing the
30:32
magazine I was reading. Um, and none of my
30:35
teachers and my parents looked at it. They
30:38
just thought it's Christian, it must be good. And
30:42
lots of messages were getting slipped in under
30:44
the, under the wire.
30:47
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, well,
30:50
um,
30:53
there were a couple of um, points
30:56
of intersection that uh, definitely
30:59
like did infiltrate
31:02
like my experience back in the early aughts
31:04
as well. Even though lots of what you describe I
31:07
didn't know about at all. But like it was such a big deal
31:10
when Mel Gibson did the Passion of the Christ.
31:13
And I remember like all of the front
31:16
pages of People and so on for a
31:19
while, um, were all kind of
31:22
talking about like is Christianity suddenly Cool. Like,
31:25
all of these big stars are, like,
31:28
suddenly vocal about their faith.
31:32
Um, so, like,
31:34
it. It did have this, like,
31:37
interesting back and forth.
31:40
I wonder, like, now, uh, you know,
31:43
as you say, like, there isn't the same kind of money to be
31:46
made in, like, book sales and,
31:49
um, like
31:52
CD sales and stuff now. But,
31:55
uh. But there's still lots of money to be made in
31:57
Christianity. Right? Like, is there any
32:00
connection between, like, what you were
32:03
growing up with and, like, the mega
32:05
churches of today and kind of the
32:07
celebrity pastors? The
32:10
influence, like Chris, there's sort of like Christian
32:13
influencers now, right?
32:15
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, Yeah. I kind of think that's
32:18
where the gold rush is now, I think.
32:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: The gold rush, yes.
32:24
>> Joelle Kidd: Social media.
32:27
Yeah, there are a lot of, um,
32:30
fundamentalist influencers out there.
32:33
Um, tangential to that.
32:36
There's been a lot of, uh, talk
32:39
about this movement of trad wives,
32:42
women who stay home and
32:45
showcase, um, this traditional vision of marriage and
32:48
motherhood. Um, and
32:52
yeah, a lot of that is, I think, very similar. It's sort of
32:55
repackaging, um, these
32:58
same ideas into a new format.
33:00
Um, and even
33:03
though it's, in a way, it feels a little more
33:06
like, uh, grassroots because
33:09
it's a person putting themselves out there, I think it
33:12
still has, uh. I think
33:15
they still get kind of locked into a
33:17
cycle of having to perform that,
33:20
um, that might also be
33:25
pretty damaging in the long run.
33:27
Um, but, yeah, I think also more
33:30
recent things like Hillsong Church or,
33:34
um. Yeah, just sort of like
33:36
megachurches that act almost
33:39
like big franchise corporations or
33:42
something, like expanding over the world and,
33:45
um, selling music or selling,
33:48
uh, or doing podcasts or
33:51
whatever. Um, yeah, it's. The
33:53
Christian pop culture machine is still going
33:56
strong.
33:57
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, it's still going strong. Like, they have figured out
34:00
how to adapt. I interviewed Mike
34:03
Cosper a couple of months ago who did
34:06
that podcast on the rise and fall of Mars Hill.
34:10
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
34:10
>> Martha Tatarnic: And he's written a couple of books about all of those
34:13
dynamics as well. And just
34:16
kind of the really dangerous dynamics of
34:19
ideological thinking that can
34:22
get locked into
34:25
a, uh, message that
34:27
seemingly seems like it should be good. And so people
34:30
are kind of willing to overlook
34:33
a lot of stuff that is clearly
34:36
at odds with that message because
34:39
they want the message to succeed.
34:42
Yeah, I. I
34:45
think I was. I just kept
34:47
feeling like as I was reading your book that
34:51
there. There are ramifications
34:54
of all of this pop culture
34:57
that, you know, seemingly.
35:00
Um. Okay, like, so what if
35:03
there are movies about, you know, people,
35:06
um, turning their lives around because of Jesus
35:09
or Like books about the rapture or
35:13
um, purity
35:16
rings or, you know, like,
35:19
Jesus is my boyfriend albums or whatever.
35:21
Like, it doesn't
35:24
maybe feel like it's that serious, but it
35:27
does feel like there are a lot of
35:30
political ramifications of
35:33
the stuff that was
35:35
circulating like 20, 25 years ago.
35:38
Like what, what felt like timely to
35:41
you about revisiting all of this
35:44
part of your life?
35:47
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, absolutely. It felt, uh, felt
35:49
too timely.
35:51
>> Martha Tatarnic: Um, too timely.
35:52
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah. I pitched the book in
35:55
2023 and spent a year writing it. And
35:58
while I was researching and writing, I just couldn't believe,
36:01
like how. I don't know if I realized how relevant
36:04
it would feel. Um,
36:07
and uh, yeah, not only
36:10
the politics and the themes that
36:13
I think are sort of like popping up again and again, but,
36:15
um, even the same people I'd be
36:18
reading. There's a great book, um, Marcy
36:21
McDonald's the Armageddon Factor about
36:24
Christian nationalism in Canada in the 2000s.
36:26
And so I'm reading that and up pops a young
36:29
Pierre Poliev. Or I'm reading
36:32
about right wing movements in the States. And
36:35
um, the laws are being made by Mike
36:37
Huckabee, who now has like a big
36:40
um, right wing talk, ah, show.
36:43
And um, yeah, it's the same
36:46
people, same players.
36:49
Um, when you dig a little deeper past the
36:52
surface of these pop culture things, I mean, I think
36:54
um, Left behind is like a great example
36:57
where growing up I thought of that as a kind of,
37:01
um, mildly terrifying but kind of
37:03
silly book. Uh,
37:06
that was everywhere. It was like being sold at
37:09
Costco. Everyone was reading it, but I didn't
37:12
really see it as having any political import. And when
37:15
I was researching the book, I didn't realize that the
37:18
writer of that novel,
37:21
uh, he has huge political influence. He,
37:25
um, was instrumental in a lot of
37:28
conservative political,
37:31
anti LGBT legislation.
37:33
Um, and he uh,
37:37
was on um, the
37:40
National Evangelical Council or something.
37:42
He kind of like codified this belief in the
37:45
rapture that is laid out in the book as
37:49
part of the theology, uh,
37:52
of that denomination or that segment of
37:54
Christianity, um, which is so much more
37:57
recent than I thought. So. Yeah,
38:00
and he, I mean even earlier in the 70s,
38:03
he and his wife like wrote a book about
38:06
Christian marriage that has a lot of really troubling
38:09
complementarianism and um,
38:11
misogyny and purity stuff in it.
38:15
Uh, that was really influential. So, yeah, even
38:17
just that one guy, his trail is a lot
38:20
longer than I realized.
38:22
Um, but yeah, it feels relevant in the
38:25
sense too of, uh, Trump
38:29
was selling $60 Bibles with
38:32
his name on them during the campaign. And
38:35
um, J.D. vance is making speeches
38:38
that sound a lot like Mark Driscoll sermons. And
38:42
um, yeah, everything feels like it's sort of
38:45
coming back to roost a little
38:47
bit, um, in my mind,
38:51
ah, my, like the generation
38:53
that grew up with those things is sort of my Generation's
38:56
in our 30s and 40s now,
38:59
I guess. I think J.D. vance is 40, so he probably
39:02
grew up listening to Christian music of the same time
39:05
period I did. Um, and
39:08
yeah, it feels like a little bit of that,
39:11
a little bit of backlash to some more
39:15
socially progressive years, um, all
39:17
kind of combining into this strange
39:20
soup.
39:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, strange soup indeed. And
39:24
I mean Trump has been elected for
39:28
his second term, um,
39:32
both times around. I understand that that
39:35
evangelical voting bloc was
39:37
essential in
39:40
um, in his election.
39:43
Um, I'm not sure that we have quite the same
39:46
political dynamics here. I'm sure
39:49
that there are voting blocs,
39:52
um, in Canada as
39:55
well, but uh, I'm not sure
39:58
that they have quite the same influence. He needed
40:01
to lock into that
40:04
um, voting block in order to have a chance
40:07
of being elected.
40:09
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can
40:12
really see, um, like the
40:16
candidates in the states have to cater to that
40:18
group. You can tell. I
40:21
mean, it's like Donald Trump
40:24
doesn't look like any Christian I grew up with, but
40:28
he still manages to win people
40:31
over.
40:33
>> Martha Tatarnic: Well, and I mean, again, like,
40:36
I do spend a lot of
40:38
time kind of puzzling around
40:40
um, evangelical fundamentalist
40:43
teaching and culture because there are
40:46
aspects of it that I don't understand at all.
40:49
But you know, you noted like right at ah, the outset
40:51
that there was this sense of like every word of the Bible
40:54
is to be taken like as
40:57
seriously as every other word. And I know what you mean
41:00
by that, but. But it's also
41:02
like, not true. Right, because
41:05
there's whole parts around justice
41:08
and care for the poor and
41:13
providing food for people
41:16
that is really
41:19
neglected in favor of sort
41:22
of single issue focus around
41:25
ah, um, uh, like in
41:28
the States, abortion for example. Right.
41:31
Like that, that becomes the
41:35
issue that gets raised so far above
41:38
like any of the other,
41:41
um, like words of the Bible that I
41:44
would think we should be taking pretty seriously.
41:48
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. A lot
41:51
of issues that aren't. Um, I mean
41:55
there's so many places in the Bible that just clearly
41:58
say take care of the poor. Take care of.
42:00
Yeah, the widows and the orphans. And um,
42:04
there's not the same clarity around some of these issues
42:06
like abortion or
42:09
um, yeah, same sex marriage or
42:12
what have you, but those become the hot Button
42:16
the whole politics of the religion
42:18
hinge on um,
42:21
yeah. Which again I kind of tend to see as
42:25
another way of
42:28
where capital flows and
42:30
um, ways to consolidate political
42:33
power.
42:34
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I think that is ultimately
42:37
what it is.
42:39
Um, I'm interested in
42:42
where your faith sits
42:45
now. Like, you have worked for the
42:47
Anglican Church, you've written a book
42:50
that's all about wrestling with the
42:53
good, the bad and the ugly of one particular
42:57
uh, version of Christian culture.
42:59
Like obviously the Christian faith
43:03
is alive in you in a
43:05
particular way. As in like it's
43:08
m. Something that occupies
43:11
real estate in your
43:14
brain. Um,
43:17
maybe rent free. I don't know.
43:19
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
43:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: Um, what is your relationship
43:24
with the church now or with the
43:26
Christian faith?
43:29
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, it's hard to say.
43:32
I have a pretty uneasy relationship with it. I think
43:36
when it comes to church and organized religion I've
43:39
kind of
43:42
broken up with it a little bit.
43:45
Um, I feel like I still have
43:48
some faith and some spiritual side of
43:50
myself, but I've kind of given up on
43:53
the term Christian and
43:57
I don't know, I feel really lucky to
44:00
have um, had the faith journey
44:03
that I've had or like been able to experience a lot of
44:06
different sides of Christianity.
44:08
Um, and in my adult life I've definitely
44:11
found some really beautiful communities of faith that
44:14
were aligned with my progressive
44:17
lefty politics, politics and uh, accepted
44:20
my queerness and read the Bible in
44:22
um, non literal, very deep and
44:25
thoughtful ways. Um, so I know
44:28
those communities exist and I might ah,
44:31
someday make my way back to one of them.
44:34
I'm not sure. Um,
44:37
but yeah, personally I think I just have felt a sense
44:40
of being kind of burned one too many times
44:42
by the church at large.
44:45
And I think a lot of people
44:49
share a similar feeling of
44:52
in the last few years even thinking
44:55
about since Donald Trump's first rise to
44:58
power, like the way that
45:01
Christianity, um, is sort of in the popular
45:04
imagination become this really,
45:08
really sort of hate filled, like
45:10
nationalistic,
45:12
um, right wing
45:16
version of itself, um, feels really hard
45:18
to deal with because to
45:21
consider yourself a part of that community and
45:24
even um, you know,
45:27
siblings in Christ with people who,
45:30
you know, have actual
45:34
hatred for people of your identity,
45:38
um, it's difficult. I don't think it's
45:41
feels good. And so it stopped feeling
45:44
like a word I could use for myself.
45:47
Um, but yeah, I don't know.
45:50
I'm in a real unknowing space
45:53
right now. I think after
45:56
I went to a spiritual advisor a few years ago and
45:59
I think what I learned from talking with him was that after
46:03
so Many years growing up in this very black and
46:06
white, um, rigid
46:09
kind of environment around faith. It felt
46:12
really good to be able to say that
46:14
I don't need to know right now and I can,
46:17
um, live in a little bit of uncertainty.
46:21
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of
46:24
sense. And that was the sense
46:27
I got from your book as well,
46:30
is that, uh, like there's not a
46:33
closed door because obviously
46:36
these are things that, like I said, are
46:39
still working away in you and
46:42
your processing and so on.
46:44
Um, but there's definitely a need for
46:47
distance.
46:50
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah. Yeah.
46:52
>> Martha Tatarnic: Um, like my kids are both
46:55
teenagers and it's
46:57
interesting when they reflect with me
47:00
about all of the,
47:03
like, unpacking that they sort of have to do
47:06
with their friends when they say that they go to church or that
47:09
they're a Christian. Like, like my daughter
47:12
especially is sort of like, uh,
47:14
yeah, I'm going to church. Like, these are all the things that
47:17
doesn't mean. And like,
47:21
and like, it's
47:24
ah, even my son
47:27
who goes to a Roman Catholic high school,
47:30
he, you know, tells me that most
47:33
of his friends have
47:36
a particular sense of what
47:38
Christianity means that is very much about
47:41
like, um, anti
47:44
lgbtq, anti woman,
47:47
anti, uh,
47:49
climate, um, you
47:52
know, like pro
47:55
patriarchy. And
47:57
um, just like
48:00
that they have an extremely negative
48:04
view of Christianity. And yeah, we're not,
48:06
ah, Christians are not helped by some of
48:09
the loudest representations
48:12
of what Christianity
48:14
supposedly means right now.
48:17
Would you have like, any
48:19
takeaways that you would like?
48:22
We primarily,
48:24
um, offer this podcast for
48:27
people who are leaders in the church
48:29
and trying to figure out how we
48:32
navigate like, the
48:35
leadership in the church in a world that's
48:38
so, uh,
48:41
so chaotic
48:43
and um, where we are like, dealing with
48:47
such tremendous, um,
48:50
trends around like, decline in the church
48:52
and um, culture wars in the church and
48:55
all of those. Like, would you have things that you would
48:58
want Christian leaders to hear, think about,
49:02
like, in how they minister and how
49:05
they minister with young people, but maybe just in how they
49:08
like, respond to the world in general. Like, what would you want to
49:11
hear from Christian leaders?
49:16
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, I think
49:19
what came. What comes to mind is,
49:24
I mean, I talked a little bit about that idea of shame being
49:27
um, what I found most damaging
49:30
in the church. And I think
49:33
the way that kind of was taught to me was
49:35
through this, um,
49:40
conception of
49:42
self that
49:44
um, really kind of,
49:50
uh, took away my autonomy as a person.
49:53
Um, I think
49:56
culturally we're much better at this now
49:59
with kids than we used to be. But I think it's important
50:02
to teach young people um, especially
50:05
that they're valued and they have meaning and control over
50:07
their own self and they can have boundaries,
50:10
um, and connect with their own
50:13
emotions and their bodies. Um,
50:16
but growing up in the church, I got the message that
50:19
nothing I had was my own. It was, uh,
50:22
my body and my mind. Everything was a tool for God to
50:25
use or a house for God.
50:27
Um, and that I think
50:30
that idea is like wrapped up in that shame idea
50:33
and also something that really persisted in a negative
50:36
way into my adulthood.
50:39
Um, so that's kind of my woo woo
50:42
answer. But I think that like,
50:44
teaching people, um,
50:48
like self love and to value
50:51
themselves rather than,
50:52
um, to be
50:56
some kind of like,
50:58
ah, robot for God to pilot,
51:02
um, I think it would be
51:05
a much more helpful, ah, tact,
51:08
especially for young people.
51:12
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, um, friend of mine
51:15
who I've had on this podcast, he talks
51:18
about, um, some of the
51:21
really young women who were leaders in the
51:24
early church and they get,
51:27
they get labeled the virgin martyrs.
51:29
But he like, reframes them as women
51:32
of self possession, which I just love.
51:35
Like, women of self possession that, like,
51:38
that there was like this robust
51:41
alternative for women in the early
51:44
church, especially to
51:47
defy like, gender conventions, to
51:50
not be a piece of property passed
51:53
from man to man, but like to have
51:56
a voice and to stand up and to
51:59
like, um, bear witness and
52:02
like defy convention
52:05
like that. Uh, self
52:08
possession, I think is
52:11
a teaching that we can see across
52:14
scripture and across the tradition.
52:17
Um, but maybe we could
52:20
boost that up a little bit in our
52:22
teachings.
52:24
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, yeah, I love that phrase. Self possession.
52:27
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah. Okay, well,
52:30
um, why don't we take a break and we'll
52:33
come back for some closing
52:35
questions. Um, and
52:39
yeah, um,
52:42
thank you for helping us walk through
52:45
some of the points of your book. There's so much more to
52:48
get into. And so I really hope that our
52:51
listeners will pick up a copy because,
52:53
um, there's many parts of it
52:56
that we haven't been able to touch on. But I'm glad that we
52:59
got to talk through some of the points. So
53:02
we'll come back in a few minutes.
53:03
>> Joelle Kidd: Thank you.
53:07
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome back to the Future Christian Podcast. I'm with
53:09
Joelle Kidd today and we are
53:12
going to wrap up with our closing
53:15
questions. Rapid fire, that we ask all of our
53:18
guests. And we do always tell our
53:20
guests that you don't have to take these questions
53:23
super seriously. It can, uh, be
53:26
as light or as serious as you
53:29
want. It's up to you. So Joelle,
53:32
if you were pope for the day, what
53:35
would, uh, that 24 hours look like. What would
53:38
be the top priorities?
53:42
>> Joelle Kidd: I don't really know how to answer this one.
53:45
I mean, am I allowed to say, let women be
53:48
priests? Is that in the Catholic Church? Is that
53:50
allowed? But, um, you are totally.
53:53
>> Martha Tatarnic: I mean, you're Pope, so you can say whatever you want.
53:56
You're in charge. That's kind of the takeaway.
54:01
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah, I think I would, uh, institute some,
54:04
uh, uh,
54:06
DEI reforms into Christianity.
54:09
Uh, it's funny because I asked my partner this because I was like,
54:12
what would you say to this? And they
54:15
went, I would declare myself Pope
54:17
tomorrow too. So I was like, you can't do that.
54:21
I would wish for more wishes.
54:23
>> Martha Tatarnic: I know. I was just going to say that's totally the genie in the
54:26
bottle.
54:28
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
54:28
>> Martha Tatarnic: I want more wishes.
54:31
>> Joelle Kidd: I don't know.
54:32
>> Martha Tatarnic: I mean, you can say that too. Like, I would use my day
54:35
to make myself Pope for the rest of time.
54:41
>> Joelle Kidd: I don't know if I would want that power.
54:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, it might get old.
54:46
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
54:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. Well, I think that, um, the
54:51
ordination of women or some
54:53
DEI policies would be a good use of
54:56
that day.
55:00
Is there a theologian, a historical Christian
55:03
figure who you would want to meet,
55:06
bring back to life, have supper with?
55:10
>> Joelle Kidd: I have been a little bit,
55:12
um, obsessed recently with,
55:15
um, Simone Weill, the
55:18
French philosopher and Christian
55:20
mystic. And I've been,
55:23
I have, ah, her book Gravity and Grace on my night
55:26
table right now. I've been slowly reading. Um,
55:29
and she's such a strange,
55:33
complicated person, but her writing really speaks to me,
55:35
so that's who I would definitely bring back. And
55:38
also, just as her as a
55:42
fervent socialist, I would love to hear her
55:44
thoughts on our current political
55:47
landscape.
55:49
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, that would definitely be
55:52
a, ah, dinner conversation worth having.
55:55
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah.
55:58
>> Martha Tatarnic: What do you think history will remember from our
56:01
current time and place?
56:03
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, it feels like we're in a very
56:06
historical moment.
56:08
Um, so I feel like a lot will be
56:11
remembered. Um,
56:13
I think we're moving
56:16
really fast technologically and we're also
56:19
destroying the planet at a very quick
56:22
rate. Uh, it just feels like everything is shifting a
56:25
lot. And I think in
56:28
future times,
56:31
um, that, like, hackneyed,
56:33
like 2020 pandemic phrase of living
56:36
in unprecedented times that just sort of felt like it
56:39
never ended. And I feel like this era is going
56:42
to be remembered for
56:45
being uncertain and unprecedented.
56:48
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we can
56:51
guarantee that if there is a future,
56:55
historians will be talking about this
56:58
time, this current time
57:01
and what was going on. Uh,
57:04
do you have a hope for the future of Christianity?
57:09
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, I hope
57:12
Christianity. I hope it
57:15
becomes, um, softer is the word
57:18
that comes to mind. I hope that
57:21
the Christianity of the future is, like, less
57:24
militant and, um, less
57:27
hierarchical and more
57:29
grassroots and honest. And,
57:32
um, I hope, like I've been saying,
57:35
that it can kind of divorce itself from
57:38
capitalism and that
57:42
there are a lot of beautiful streams of
57:45
thought in Christianity in,
57:47
um, uh, liberation theology
57:50
and decolonial Christianity that I hope
57:53
just keep gathering force and becoming more
57:56
and more prominent in the faith.
57:59
>> Martha Tatarnic: Yeah, it's interesting that you use the
58:02
word softer to,
58:05
um, talk about that
58:08
picture of what Christianity could be, because there's
58:10
also, like, a lot of defiance that
58:13
would be needed to be able to
58:16
embrace that that way.
58:19
Um, like, we're gonna need spines
58:22
of steel, for sure.
58:24
>> Joelle Kidd: Yeah. Yeah, I
58:27
guess in the way that, like, water is soft where
58:30
it can erode a rock. But.
58:35
>> Martha Tatarnic: That'S good.
58:36
>> Joelle Kidd: That's really good.
58:38
>> Martha Tatarnic: Where can people find out more about you, Joelle?
58:41
>> Joelle Kidd: Um, well, I am. I'm
58:44
online. Uh, my website is Joel Kidd dot
58:47
com. I have a pretty rare name, so I got.
58:50
Got the URL
58:53
and, uh, my book Jesus Land is
58:56
out, um, August 12th, where you can
58:59
find out too much about me, probably.
59:02
Um, and I'm not very good at social media, but
59:05
I'm on bluesky and Instagram under my name as
59:08
well.
59:09
>> Martha Tatarnic: Okay. Well, we always end
59:12
with a word of peace, so may God's peace be
59:15
with you, Jo.
59:17
>> Joelle Kidd: Thank you.
59:25
>> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
59:28
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
59:31
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with
59:34
questions, comments, and ideas for future
59:36
episodes. Visit our website at, uh,
59:39
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59:42
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