Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 1: Our Stories

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Ep. 1: Our Stories · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

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Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
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My name is Alyssa.
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And my name is Bri.
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We are two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
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We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
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word.
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And apparently that's controversial.
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Get comfy.
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Welcome to episode one of We Are More Sisters Talk Faith and Feminism.
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I am Brianna.
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And I'm Alyssa.
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We are, in fact, sisters.
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Yes.
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We're going to talk about faith and feminism.
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From the same womb.
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Yes.
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Today we wanted to talk a little bit about ourselves, which sounds a little self-centered,
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but you don't know us yet.
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That's true.
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But you don't know us yet.
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So we're going to tell our stories and why this is something we've become passionate
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about.
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And yeah, then you can kind of get to know where this is headed a little bit.
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Yeah.
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So go ahead.
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All right.
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Yeah.
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I'm going to start because Bri's being a wimp.
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So my name is Alyssa.
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And whenever I think about doing this introduction, because I rehearsed it in the shower and stuff,
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I always think about I'm going to introduce myself as Alyssa and I'm a mom and I'm a wife
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and blah, blah, blah.
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But Bri and I have been working through a book called The Making of Biblical Womanhood
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by Beth Allison Barr.
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And she actually talks about that, about how women, particularly in the ministry space,
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but kind of anywhere, define themselves by their relation to their husband and their
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children.
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So I'm not going to do that because I think I hold value on my own too.
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So I'm sure you'll hear about my family as time goes on.
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But I guess just sort of my, I'll start with my faith journey a little bit.
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Bri and I grew up in very conservative Baptist churches in a pretty conservative Baptist
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family.
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And when I say family, I mean like our whole family, like not just mom and dad.
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Like my big fat Greek wedding, like large family.
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Big family.
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And so we just, we grew up in that space and that impacted both of us.
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And I know Bri will talk about that as well.
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But the way that that really impacted me as a kid was just like not often in conservative
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spaces talked about as like this loving, wonderful being.
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He's more talked about as like authoritative.
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Yeah, authoritative.
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Like if you mess up, God's going to be mad.
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So from a very young age, I learned about God as like angry God.
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Like anything you do, anytime you step out of line, you're going to piss God right off.
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And good luck with that.
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Grandma listens.
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She's going to cry.
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She's going to cry anyway.
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Have you heard the topic?
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We put feminism in the title.
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But anyway, it was just, it was very much don't break the rules.
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That was kind of where my faith landed for a really long time in my life.
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And as we got older, you know, we went to maybe slightly less conservative churches.
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Still like non-denominational.
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Still very conservative.
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Yeah, but pushed the boundaries a little bit more.
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Bri and I went to public schools through high school, but then I ended up at a pretty small
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Christian school.
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So what some people would consider one of the more conservative Christian schools, not
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the most, but one of the more conservative Christian schools.
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I could wear pants.
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There were, boys were allowed in the girls dorms for like one hour a week with monitoring
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doors had to be open.
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But it was kind of there that I started to see God as more than just angry God.
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Like, Oh, Hey, we can talk about God as like being loving, like as wanting to have a relationship
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with me, whether I sin today or not.
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And that the goal for me isn't like be perfect or God will hate you.
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Just love God and love others and God will be right there with you.
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And so I kind of started to develop that.
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I had to take, I had to take a lot of Bible classes in college.
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And so like I learned a little bit more of the history of my faith and what, I don't
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know what I was not taught, I guess, when I was younger about God.
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So fast forwarding a little bit, I got married in between my junior and senior years of college,
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which yes is very, very young.
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You were a baby.
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I was a baby.
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But if you haven't been to a Christian college, they push marriage like you just would not
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believe.
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I feel like it's abnormal if you don't get married either in college or right out of
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college.
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It is almost.
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And so I like I remember the president of my college getting up in chapel one time we
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were required to go to chapel and saying like, look at all these beautiful Christian women
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out here, boys, what's wrong with you?
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How are all of you not married and blah, blah, blah?
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Did you look around and say where?
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I was beautiful.
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Thank you.
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But I mean, like he's saying this to like 18 year old kids.
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But I did get married.
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You did.
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I did do that.
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I listened to him.
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I did.
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I was 21, which yeah, very young.
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And so my husband and I, Nathan and I moved off campus and kind of like that's when things
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really shifted for me because I went from, you know, when you're a kid and your parents
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go to church, you got to go to church.
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What else are you going to do?
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You don't get left home alone.
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Pretend to be sick.
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You could pretend to be sick.
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We did that sometimes.
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But like for the most part, like you're stuck.
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You go in there whether you like it or not.
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And then when I went to college, like we literally were required to go to chapel and to church
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and they checked.
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Like if you didn't have so many chapel credits, you didn't graduate.
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You didn't get credits.
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Like it was...
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You nearly didn't.
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Yeah, I nearly didn't the last year.
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And then all of a sudden like we moved off campus and there's nobody monitoring this.
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Like nobody's making sure we go to church.
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So my faith definitely took a dip there.
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But Nathan is just, he's someone that he's the complete opposite of me.
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As you'll find out, I'm very like introverted.
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I very much like my own space and my own company.
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My husband is the most extroverted human alive.
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That's really rude of him.
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He will become friends with anyone he comes across.
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And so he wanted that like church community.
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So we wound up in a much bigger church than I had ever been to.
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And he got super involved really, really quickly.
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He was in the worship band and he was, I think, he was a small group leader in the youth group.
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Which was things that he had done growing up too.
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So this was right up his alley.
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But I started to like notice people really wanted to know him, but didn't care that I
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was there at all.
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Like people would come up and say hi to him and he'd introduce me and they'd be like,
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oh hey, and then turn immediately to Nathan and only talk to Nathan.
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Moving on.
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Yeah.
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Like I just was not important in that space at all.
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And so I, I, it wasn't a church I liked.
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And we struggled there after a while.
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I don't know how to say that without getting into like a lot of details.
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But after some time, Nathan had gotten close with someone that he was in the worship band
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with and they kind of bait and switched him.
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We were in a really bad financial position and essentially they offered him a job.
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And after he had worked towards that job for a while, was really counting on it.
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We had a baby on the way.
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It was right before Christmas.
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This person was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to give you this job.
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And I have never seen someone so broken ever in my life as when he came home and had to
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tell me that.
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And that was like, that could have been the end of my faith right there.
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I mean, I was done.
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I was out.
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I was never stepping foot in a church again.
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Cause I think it's something different.
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It hits different when people in a church who you're supposed to think like, oh, I can
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trust them and they are followers of Christ and then they hurt you.
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It hits different.
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It does.
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And this was someone too that was like a leader in the church.
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And so I'm sitting there going, okay, God, like you're letting this person lead the church.
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This person is probably still leading at that church.
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Smite them.
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Smite them.
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Really?
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Like that's what you want.
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You're like, I want some revenge.
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But that didn't happen.
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And so we spent a couple of years completely out of church.
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I was just done.
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Eventually we moved back over kind of near my family, near Bree, cause she had left me
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at that point.
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She was living with us for a while and then left me.
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So sorry for your loss.
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It must have been devastating.
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It was.
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I have a picture of us holding hands.
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Very depressing.
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And so we moved back over here.
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We had a little girl at that point.
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She was three or four when we moved.
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And I got it in my head that like, God, I believed God existed, but I did not believe
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God was good.
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Like I sincerely believed that God played favorites and that the Bible was essentially
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like propaganda.
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Yeah.
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Like are you on the nice list or the naughty list?
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Exactly.
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And that I was not, I was not on God's favorites list.
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I thought that.
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But I thought at least my daughter could be on God's favorites list if nothing else.
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What do I have to do to get her there?
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So we started going to this really big, well-known church in our area.
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Just because it was honestly somewhere to get lost.
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It was the easiest place to go.
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I didn't have to talk to anybody.
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I didn't have to get to know anybody.
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Small churches are hard.
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You go in and people ask you questions.
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They want to know you.
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They want to know you.
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They want to know people.
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Big churches, you can sit in the back row and no one's going to talk to you.
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And that's what I do think like big churches for all the crap they get.
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I think they have their place.
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For me, it's just a little harder to grow there.
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But anyway, so we went there.
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We got so involved.
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Like, you know, you drank the kool-aid.
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We did.
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And it was really good for a while.
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Like we had a really good community for a minute.
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And I mean, we volunteered.
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We were in a small group.
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And this was, like I said, I'm an introvert.
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So this was like weird, weird for me.
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Nathan was once again in the worship band.
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We were helping out in kids church.
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Like, I mean, we were, I think we were there more than we were home.
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We were there all the time.
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And we live like half an hour away.
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So it was a commitment.
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But I did, I saw God a lot at that time of my life.
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I felt like I was growing a lot and just, I don't know, trying to trust again and in
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a different way and recognizing that God can fix situations and work through things that
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we had dealt with up until that point.
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But I have a lot of church hurt in my life.
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And that kept right on.
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You may find as we go on that it is a miracle that I'm still in church.
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Because of what, maybe two years after we started going there, it all happened again.
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And I'm sure we'll get into more details on that story eventually.
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It's not something I'm quite ready to share about.
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But I started actually working for that church, like as an employee.
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And a situation happened that made it very difficult for us to attend anymore.
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Something with someone that, again, we trusted.
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And I went to the proper people to talk about it and nobody wanted to hear me and nobody
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wanted to fix it.
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They wanted to put it on you.
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Exactly.
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So I felt very unsafe in that situation.
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So despite being employed by the church, I was no longer actually attending the church.
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You're so sneaky.
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Which was, interestingly, part of my contract.
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So the end of the year came around and you know, it's a big church so nobody noticed.
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That was kind of the bummer.
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It was nobody as involved as we were.
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We stopped attending right after I had my son.
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And it was like a good eight months before anybody noticed we didn't come back.
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And that was pretty heartbreaking.
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Yeah, because people who you have like almost become family to you and then all of a sudden
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they don't see you and they don't notice.
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I think big churches, that's just the attitude.
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Like people come and go and...
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No one's going to check in on you.
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So once someone finally did notice that we weren't attending...
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Really rude.
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Yeah, it was rude.
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I got a sit down chat with my boss who honestly is a lovely person.
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But he had to sit me down and say like, hey, this is in your contract.
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You have to be here.
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And I was like, I just, I explained it to him.
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But at that point there was just nothing the church was willing to do.
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And additionally, the church was going through a lot of financial issues.
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So we were headed into like three rounds of layoffs.
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And I was an easy target because here they had all these problems with me now.
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So I got laid off and I lost my church.
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I lost my family.
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I lost my job.
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I lost everything.
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All in one swoop.
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Yeah, from something that wasn't my fault at all.
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And it took me a while to feel like it wasn't my fault because if God's going to let that
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happen it's got to be my fault.
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So we, this was a shorter time away from church.
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We spent a few months just out of church entirely.
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But I really started to realize that like that wasn't working for me.
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Like, all right, every time you get mad at somebody, you can't just like say, forget
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you God, I'm done.
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So we tried a couple more churches.
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And that's kind of where we're at now.
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I don't know that we're really settled anywhere specific.
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We've we've found a place we've been attending for a while.
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We're semi happy with it.
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We have some doctrinal differences specifically related to feminism that we'll talk about
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in a little while.
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But that's kind of like my faith journey and where I am.
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I'm just getting to know God in a different way now and a God that loves me and a God
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that is still gonna hang on and chase me even when I run away 5000 times.
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And you're a runner.
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I am quite a runner.
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Not like literally, but no, if I tried to really run, I would probably die.
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All right, your turn.
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Um, I think jumping off of what you said from the beginning, like people always like a lot
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of women introduce themselves based on their kids and their husbands.
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And it's different when you don't have that.
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And you almost feel like you don't have value right from the jump.
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When you introduce yourself like, oh, my name is Brianna.
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I'm single and alone.
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I'm childless.
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And then people ask like, what do you do with your time?
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Well, I work.
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You don't take care of my kids.
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But yeah, we grew up in very conservative spaces where the goal was always marriage for
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women and that's where I feel like most of the value is placed on women in my life and
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surrounding me.
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And to not have that is harder, I would say to build up your own confidence and make yourself
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seem valuable just for who you are.
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And so I went through a lot of times, like I didn't get married in college.
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I didn't really date that much in college.
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When I also went to a small Christian school.
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Yours was a lot bigger than mine.
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But just I've been on this journey of like finding my faith for myself because you're
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right.
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And we just, it was something that we always did.
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We had to go to church and I remember counting the tiles on the ceiling and I remember making
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up stories in my head.
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I never made my faith my own until probably I went to college and I had to.
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And you go through those areas of depression and you're wondering if God really exists.
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And at my school, actually, we weren't required to go to chapel.
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So that was an easy out for me.
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How many times did you go to chapel?
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We would go to church sometimes on Sundays, but not regularly.
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You know, you're out hitting the bars on Saturday and going to church on Sunday.
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That was the life.
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Or sleeping in on Sunday.
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Yeah.
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Hungover on Sunday.
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The trick was at my school, because my school required that you go to church, you turn off
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all the lights, you turn off anything that makes sound and you hide under your blanket
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so if they look, it doesn't look like anybody's in your room.
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Geez.
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I know.
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So that's what I did for smoke alarms.
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Safety.
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Safety.
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Don't come for me college.
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But yeah, right now I've been on this journey of, especially with the book that we're reading,
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I feel like I didn't realize that I wasn't feeling the love of God until I experienced
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the love of God, if that makes sense.
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Because I felt like so much value is placed on having kids and being married and all of
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these rules that are placed on women that I was not following and I did not embody.
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And it's been like this slow burn of learning about feminism and learning about God and
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who he really is and what he really wants for me and that he loves me just because I'm
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me.
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So yeah, that's been my journey so far.
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I know that mine's a lot shorter than yours.
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I don't have a lot of milestones.
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I feel like mine was too long.
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I went to a Baptist church and I went to a non-denominational church and then I went
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to school.
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So let's talk about our feminist journeys now.
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Yeah?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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I'm a woman.
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Good.
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Thank you for that information.
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Alyssa and I have been learning about feminism for a while and it's kind of a topic that
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Alyssa brought up to me because honestly, I didn't really ever think about it.
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I was just like, yeah, I guess if I get married along the road, the man is the head of the
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household and that's probably why I am not married currently.
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It feels like it's going to be this natural thing that just happens that even though you're
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independent and strong, you're going to get married and you're just, it's fine.
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You don't need to be independent or strong anymore.
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You'll be fine.
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It's a lie.
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As Miley Cyrus says, I can't be tamed.
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That's true.
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Neither can my hair today.
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Yeah.
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But slowly learning about this and realizing maybe all these things that we were learning
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about when we were kids about women and what God thinks about women, maybe we're reading
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it wrong.
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And I was thinking about subliminal messaging for Christians.
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The other day I had this epiphany.
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She wrote it down.
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I did.
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Back in the day when I was in high school, it was really popular to watch these videos
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and all of a sudden a bottle of Coke would flash on the screen and all of a sudden you'd
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be like, oh, I really want some Coke and I don't know why.
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I think in some ways the church does that to women.
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You don't see a lot of female pastors or women of the Bible being talked about except for
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maybe on Mother's Day.
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Almost mother.
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Yeah.
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Value is placed on women as mothers and wives.
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And so you don't think about how important women are.
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It's like their background characters.
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Yeah.
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And it's like you don't even think about it because they're just not showing you that
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aspect.
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I think it's major indoctrination too.
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For me, I remember in junior church, and if you're not a churchy person, junior church
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was back in the day, I don't think they do it anymore.
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It was when the adults would go to main service, the younger kids had their main service.
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You went to Sunday school and then you went to junior church and it was your main service.
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I remember them talking about, well, your dad is the head of your household and he's
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the leader and he's the spiritual leader.
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And when you get married, your husband will be the spiritual leader and he will guide
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you and show you God's love.
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And they make it sound like a nice thing.
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Why?
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I mean, yeah, but I was like six.
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And I think about that, these little girls at six.
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That they're not very important.
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Well, I think it comes down to, and I saw this in many aspects of my life, but I think
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it comes down to like, if you tamp these girls down early, if you squish them so much that
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they think, yeah, I really don't have any value outside of my husband or outside of
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how clean my house is or how good of a cook I am or whatever, they're less likely to rebel.
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Or that's the theory.
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And if you let them get to sixth grade or something like that, thinking, well, I'm an
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independent woman and I can do whatever I want.
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And then you try and squish it.
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That's a lot more difficult.
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So let's get them when they're young.
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Let's indoctrinate them from the start.
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And then maybe they won't rise up.
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I remember it was always when we were growing up so taboo that you specifically, you always
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said, I don't want kids.
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I want to be a career woman.
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And that was very unheard of.
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To this day, I get crap about that.
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I mean, I was a very outspoken, independent child.
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I did not fit the quiet.
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I've said I'm very introverted, but when I'm around my family specifically, I'm not so
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much that way.
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And so I'll be very outspoken about opinions and I'll I have all these political thoughts
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and thoughts about religion and whatever.
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And I would say these things.
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And I remember people in my life, women in my life would tell me things like, well, you
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need to not be so vocal about that stuff because your husband might not like that opinion someday.
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Now, mind you, I'm like 10.
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Nowhere near a husband, but he might not like it.
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I'm not really in the business of being a child bride.
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But even like all the way up into college and even after I get married, like that was
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just always the question is like, well, how's your future husband going to feel like that
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when I got a new piercing?
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How's your future husband going to feel like that?
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So now like my body, my body doesn't belong to me either.
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Not just my thoughts, but like my body doesn't belong to me.
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It belongs to someone I haven't met.
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So I always like I, I, the reason I said I wasn't going to get married or have kids was
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because I saw God asking submission of married women and that's what I believed.
26:02
It's what I was raised to believe and I knew I couldn't do it.
26:07
I knew I couldn't do it.
26:08
So I said, all right, well, God's not asking that of single women.
26:11
So I'll trick the system, just not get married.
26:14
But then, you know, I got married when I was 21.
26:19
And then, you know, junior year, Nathan proposed and here we are.
26:25
I remember people saying stuff like that when I was in college too.
26:28
Like you don't actually have to major in anything of importance because you aren't going to
26:33
work for much longer.
26:34
Like you're just going to get married and birth all the babies.
26:38
Well our mom, she went to the same college that I went to and she picked a major for
26:44
no particular reason because she had zero intention of finishing college.
26:48
Because that's just how, how women were raised to be, you know, like, well, your goal is
26:54
to be a stay at home mom anyway.
26:56
And there's nothing wrong with being a stay at home mom.
26:59
But the fact that like, that's just, that's what you're supposed to do.
27:04
If you do anything else, it's a little shameful.
27:06
I think the danger is saying like, and we were told this too, like, isn't that something
27:10
that you want?
27:11
You want to be taken care of?
27:12
You want to blah, blah, blah.
27:13
As a woman.
27:14
As a woman, don't you want that?
27:16
And it's like, well, maybe some women do.
27:19
And that's fine.
27:20
And that's fine.
27:21
But saying that of all women and saying that that's what God wants for you is very dangerous.
27:28
That's the big thing I think is assigning, and we'll go into this in future episodes
27:32
too, but assigning God to your own thoughts and feelings and saying, well, God says this.
27:43
And I hate to tell you guys, but there is nowhere in the Bible where God says the proper
27:47
woman is a wife and mom.
27:49
And that's it.
27:50
Because you think about the women in the Bible and they are not.
27:52
They are not.
27:53
They are so strong and incredible.
27:57
Pushing boundaries.
27:58
Yeah.
27:59
Funding Jesus's ministries despite their husbands not wanting it.
28:05
And those are stories that you don't get to hear.
28:06
And I think that's a big part of what we'll explore as we move forward and in future episodes.
28:12
Yeah.
28:13
I mean, I couldn't tell you how many sermons I've heard on Paul, but I have yet to hear
28:18
a sermon on Phoebe.
28:19
Yeah.
28:20
Not ever.
28:21
And honestly, let's forget about the women that are only talked about for a short period.
28:28
What about Esther and Ruth who have entire books named after them?
28:32
Or Mary?
28:33
Have you ever heard a whole sermon preached on Mary?
28:37
Maybe once on Mother's Day.
28:40
And how many sermons do you hear preached on Esther or Ruth?
28:43
It's every so often.
28:45
But it's like maybe we throw it in as a token once or twice a year.
28:49
And I think that's again, subliminal messaging and gaslighting women into thinking you're
28:56
not part of this story.
28:57
Right.
28:58
You're not worthy of this.
29:01
So I think this podcast is going to be really exciting because we're learning too.
29:06
This is like a never ending journey, just like the songs.
29:09
We'll sing the song that never ends at the end.
29:13
But it's exciting because...
29:15
I think as we grow together and learn together, you know, Bri and I, our lives have changed
29:24
because of diving into this topic.
29:27
And we might not change everybody's mind.
29:30
We might not reach everybody.
29:31
We know the backgrounds that a lot of conservative people are coming from.
29:36
We came from there too.
29:38
But if we can affect one family, if one couple can come out of this and say, hey, that was
29:47
a really good point, and maybe we should reevaluate.
29:49
Or one person just cannot feel so alone.
29:53
Yeah.
29:54
And I mean, for me, that's how this all started.
29:59
When Nathan and I got married, and Nathan is not stereotypical, like man is the leader
30:04
of the household kind of guy.
30:06
He's not who he is.
30:08
But I felt like I had to fall into this mold.
30:12
Like if I wasn't the submissive wife and he wasn't the leader, we were a bad Christian
30:16
couple and God was gonna hate us.
30:17
He was gonna smite you.
30:18
Yeah.
30:19
And I really tried.
30:20
I really tried to fit myself into that mold.
30:24
And it just didn't work.
30:27
And we were miserable.
30:30
Until finally, like I said, I don't want to do this anymore.
30:35
And I felt so alone.
30:36
I felt like I was the only woman in the entire world that had ever dealt with this.
30:39
Like Christian women don't deal with this.
30:41
Or even I think, too, like in instances where you may have had to step up and be the leader.
30:47
In so many situations, I feel like a lot of women say, well, you don't want to offend
30:52
his manhood.
30:54
Even though like, you have to step up and that's okay.
30:57
Well, and there were plenty of times where emotionally, when we first got married, he
31:03
was going through a lot of stuff.
31:04
He couldn't have stepped up.
31:06
For me to ask him to step up and be the leader would have been cruel because he just didn't
31:13
have anything more to give.
31:15
And so I did.
31:16
I stepped up and I was the leader because he needed that.
31:20
My partner or my husband needed that from me.
31:24
And yet I was told that I was wrong.
31:29
And I think where this started for me, too, I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble.
31:36
I don't know why.
31:37
I don't know why I had this gift card.
31:39
God gave you the gift card?
31:44
Someone's going to remember that they gave that to me.
31:47
They're like, that's me.
31:48
But I had it.
31:49
And I was like, there's got to be somebody else out there feeling like this, right?
31:54
Like I can't be alone in thinking that my husband and I are equal partners.
32:00
Like, it can't just be me.
32:03
So I did a little bit of digging and I found what is a lot of people's first book when
32:07
they start down this sort of Christian feminist path.
32:11
And that was Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey.
32:15
And I bought it.
32:17
And then pretty quickly, I went on a trip with my grandma and my aunts and my cousins.
32:22
And I brought it specifically to like annoy people.
32:26
You're such a brat.
32:29
Because feminist was a dirty word in our family.
32:34
The word feminist is like very taboo.
32:37
Well, I think Christian media did a really, really great job of making the feminists look
32:45
like crazy people.
32:47
Burning our bras.
32:48
Right.
32:49
Sometimes.
32:50
I would like to.
32:52
Those things are expensive.
32:55
You know, they essentially took the really extreme people that are like, I think all
33:01
men should disappear.
33:03
Things like that.
33:05
And applied that to everybody.
33:06
Just like people do with Christians.
33:08
You take the really extreme conservative crazy people.
33:12
And put them on blast.
33:14
Yeah.
33:15
And like, this is what Christianity is.
33:17
And that's what Christians did to feminists too.
33:18
But yeah, I read Jesus Feminist and then I tried to get Brie to read it and she still
33:22
hasn't.
33:23
I read half of it.
33:24
I'm illiterate.
33:25
You have the audiobook.
33:26
No, I don't.
33:27
I have the audiobook.
33:28
But it just like ignited something because it was just like, oh my gosh, there's other
33:37
people.
33:38
There are other women saying the same things I've always been saying.
33:42
Finding biblical backing.
33:43
Yeah.
33:44
And I think that's off topic.
33:46
This is what I love so much about the making of biblical womanhood is, it's not only diving
33:50
into the history of the Bible, but she's telling you how it should be read.
33:55
You think about like poetry.
33:57
The poetry has different rules of how it, like inflections that you put on certain words
34:02
and how you should read it.
34:03
So does the Bible.
34:06
And if you just read the words alone without knowing the history, without knowing how you
34:11
should put inflections on certain words and whatever, I think it can be very dangerous.
34:17
Well, and she talks a lot about translation bias too, and that's so important.
34:24
And I know we'll talk plenty about that.
34:27
And just how, you know, we all want to say that the Bible has been preserved, but the
34:32
reality is it was not written in English.
34:36
Translators had to choose, like there isn't a one-to-one translation for every single
34:40
word and so it gets changed a little bit and it gets changed a little bit.
34:44
And it's important to know those things and to be aware of them as you're studying because
34:50
you don't want to change what God said.
34:56
And I think one of the biggest critiques that most people that talk in this space get is,
35:02
well, you're just reading into the Bible.
35:05
You're making the Bible say what you want it to say.
35:07
So are you.
35:08
Well, that's the thing is I think Jesus left us with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit
35:13
is supposed to guide us and move us towards wherever it is we're supposed to be.
35:19
And that does mean that as you read the Bible, as every single person reads the Bible, they're
35:25
going to read a little bit of their own story into it.
35:28
You can give the same verse to 10 different people and they can get 10 different things
35:32
out of it.
35:33
Right.
35:34
So I just always think it's funny when that's the criticism.
35:37
Like, well, you're making the Bible say what you want it to say.
35:40
Well, so are you.
35:42
So is the next person.
35:43
So is the translator.
35:44
Right.
35:45
So sometimes we'll do a segment, not always, because I'm not going to commit to that.
35:49
I don't read the news.
35:50
I do, but I'm still not committed to that.
35:55
About just like something that's current, that's happening in the world that we want
36:01
to talk about.
36:02
And it's our podcast, so we can do that.
36:07
That could be our thing.
36:10
It's mine, not yours.
36:13
So one of the things that I've been watching in just news stories this week, you know,
36:20
Taylor Swift is everywhere.
36:22
Literally everywhere.
36:23
Absolutely everywhere.
36:25
And she wore, I'm sure a lot of you have heard about this, but she wore this really incredible
36:31
chief's jacket to one of the games.
36:34
Beautiful.
36:35
And the designer who made it was a woman.
36:38
Her husband, apparently under every time that this was posted, like that Taylor Swift was
36:44
wearing this jacket, he would comment underneath it and just like hype his wife, right?
36:47
Like, oh my gosh, my wife made that.
36:50
She's amazing.
36:51
Look at her.
36:52
I'm so proud of her.
36:53
You know, whatever.
36:54
That's great.
36:55
I think that's wonderful.
36:57
Love that.
36:58
However, every single news story that I have seen about it, the only reason that I know
37:04
that this jacket existed is because every story is about, look at this wonderful man.
37:11
He loves his wife so much.
37:13
He's so great.
37:15
He's hyping her and that's so cute and blah, blah, blah.
37:18
And look, I'm not saying that he's done anything wrong in doing that.
37:22
I think it's great.
37:23
I think that's what he should be doing.
37:26
However, once again, despite the accomplishments of two really cool women, who are we talking
37:34
about?
37:35
A man!
37:36
Talking about her husband.
37:38
Because despite the fact that she has cultivated years of skill and marketing and who knows
37:45
what else, to be able to create this thing and get it to Taylor Swift, for goodness sakes.
37:52
Like how do you, how does that even happen?
37:55
A lot of prayer, I think.
37:57
This is a Christian podcast after all.
38:02
Despite all of that, like all of the labor and the time and the love that she's put into
38:08
this, he made some comments on Instagram and so now we're talking about him.
38:13
And I think we need to be talking about her and her skill and how cool this is.
38:18
And how common that is though, that we just minimize her.
38:25
Well have you seen, there's a lot of, this happens a lot in the media, where if a woman
38:30
is married to say a major sports person, major athlete, I forgot the word athlete briefly.
38:40
Sports person!
38:41
We love sports over here.
38:44
We are number one fans of sports.
38:48
Yeah.
38:49
They, like it doesn't matter what her accomplishments were.
38:56
So like there was an Olympian athlete, female Olympian athlete.
39:01
She won a bronze medal.
39:04
And the title of the article was like, wife of this athlete wins bronze medal.
39:10
They didn't even bother to say her name.
39:12
I mean I'm sure in the article somewhere they did, but in the title, she's not even there.
39:17
She's defined by who she's married to.
39:20
So I think we need to, we need to call that out as a society.
39:23
That's not even really necessarily a Christian society thing, but as a general society, like
39:27
we need to stop just looking at women from the point of view as like, who's your, who
39:32
you're married to?
39:33
Who are your kids?
39:35
What accomplishments have they made?
39:38
My accomplishments are important.
39:40
Drop the mic.
39:42
For a conclusion too, I want to talk about like, so I'm in a lot of therapy.
39:47
Um, and when I was talking this podcast through with my therapist, we talked through like,
39:56
what if nobody listens?
39:58
Like what if absolutely nobody listens to this?
40:01
We'll get two listens and just, that's what it is.
40:04
And a few judging comments.
40:06
And a few judging comments.
40:07
But that's fine.
40:08
But one of the things that she said that was really impactful, if no one listens, if no
40:13
one hears you, at least your daughter will hear you.
40:18
And so that's a big part of why I'm sitting here doing this.
40:23
Because if no one else hears, when my daughter grows up, I don't want her internal voice
40:30
to be all of these pastors that have told her she's worthless and told her that all
40:36
she can do is get married and push out 20 babies and clean her house.
40:41
Oh my gosh.
40:42
Are we just going to wait?
40:43
20 babies?
40:44
I don't know.
40:45
Ew.
40:46
You've seen the TV shows.
40:49
Ow.
40:51
But I would rather her internal voice be this, telling her that she does have value, that
40:59
she's defined by who she decides to be as a person and how she follows God and how she
41:06
cultivates that relationship.
41:08
And that's it.
41:09
That's the end of the list.
41:10
Go preach.
41:12
Hallelujah.
41:13
I think that could be the transition.
41:19
Because girls can preach.
41:24
I think that leads into maybe us talking about our whys.
41:31
Mine is because I truly believe that men and women are created equally in the image of
41:36
God.
41:37
And so far no one has convinced me otherwise.
41:40
They'll try though.
41:42
They'll try.
41:43
But I have earplugs.
41:45
Maybe cut that out.
41:49
And like in the book that we're reading together, she says that Jesus did more for the liberation
41:55
of women than anyone ever.
41:56
And I truly agree with that.
41:58
Absolutely.
41:59
You think nothing else?
42:00
Yeah.
42:01
Because Jesus trusted and respected and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
42:07
And you can see that throughout the Bible.
42:10
Because I believe that Jesus sets women free.
42:12
All right.
42:13
So parts of my why, I don't know if this is all of it, because I agree with Breeze too.
42:19
But another part of it is honestly because I'm tired of seeing women taken advantage
42:26
of in the name of my God.
42:28
I'm tired of watching.
42:29
I just almost broke out in a song.
42:34
I'm sick of watching people say, well, God wants this from you.
42:39
God wants this from you.
42:40
As they abuse women, as they tell them they're worthless, as they say, well, you have so
42:47
much value.
42:48
It's just less value.
42:49
Yeah.
42:50
God loves, God has a special place in his heart for women.
42:55
Just not a good place.
42:57
But a special one, we're all part of the body of Christ, but you're more of the butt.
43:04
The butt can be important.
43:07
Cut that part out.
43:10
No, we're just, we're a stream of consciousness.
43:12
I'm sorry.
43:13
I don't know how to edit this crap.
43:16
Only because we don't know how to edit.
43:20
Okay.
43:21
And the second one is because we, because we talked about this, so both of us believe
43:26
men and women are created equally in the image of God with no discernible differences in
43:30
purpose, power, or ability.
43:33
So that's pretty much what you said, but I added adjectives.
43:35
You added a really good adjective.
43:37
Thank you.
43:38
I thought they were beautiful.
43:39
Wow.
43:40
It's like you opened up a dictionary.
43:44
All right.
43:47
And in conclusion, that's us.
43:52
I think conclusion, yes.
43:55
And therefore, and such as.
43:58
The end.
43:59
Now we need some background music.