Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 64: What If Church Felt Safe?

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Ep. 64: What If Church Felt Safe? · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Good day. It's a little different from our usual hello.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: A different greeting. Ah, yes. Not a good morning. Not a good evening. A general good day.
• 0:44
  Not a good night. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. What's that from? Forrest Gump.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Right? No, that's not right. No. Hang It's
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: coming. It's coming. With with Jim Carrey. What? It's with Jim Carrey and he doesn't realize that they're making a show about his life.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. What is that called?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: What is that called? There are people
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: out there shouting this at us right now. Know It's a classic.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: What is it called? Hold on. You want me to look it up?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Because looking things up went so well for me last time.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Hold on. Luxin Borg. Shut up. I keep wanting to say TED talk.
• 1:31
  That's not it. What would
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: you say?
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: The show. The the the There's something show. The Truman Show. The Truman Show.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: See? The neurons in our brains and something about linking. What? And something receptors and brains. Wow.
• 1:51
  And helixes and frontal lobes. Mhmm. Okay.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Some of our listeners laughed along with you. Other ones had a small heart attack.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: I thought I might have caught the dementia.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You know what that makes me
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: think of though when you say good afternoon, good evening and good night? The It makes
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: me well, no, actually. I was thinking of, you know that Christmas movie, with Ryan Reynolds that came out a couple years ago where he sings good afternoon?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: like he's cussing at everybody?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Good afternoon. That is a great movie.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It's called Spirited. It's not
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It's Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. Yeah. Wouldn't call it a 100% child appropriate. It depends on your rules for your children.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But like, I probably wouldn't let my kids watch it at this age.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: But it is It's hilarious. So funny. It's like a retelling of Scrooge. Mhmm. But it's also a musical.
• 2:49
  It's very deeply funny.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's so good. There are not a lot of Christmas movies that I'm like, yeah. I wanna watch that again. But that's one that we watch, I feel like, every year now. Yeah.
• 3:00
  Multiple times.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And you know what I don't wanna watch again? Christmas with the cranks.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I feel like I've seen that so many times. So many times. It's like a green bean in a can kind of movie. You know what I'm saying? It's just I've had enough.
• 3:18
  You've had enough of green beans in a can? And I know only you get that reference. I do get it. They might get it. You don't know.
• 3:29
  They could
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: have grown up with green beans in a can.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Growing up, there were just certain meals that we had often and that bored me to shreds. Sorry, mom. And it's just that kind of movie.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It is that kind of movie. Because we've seen it at least twice a year, every Christmas.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: It's
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: a rough time.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I do I do like when Tim Allen gets botox and tries to eat the peaches. That is pretty funny.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Quick life update from us. We went to Buc ee's. I know we told you guys we're gonna do this last time.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And it was everything I could have ever dreamed of.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I need to just set the scene for you all. Brie had last week off. Mhmm. Again, I did not have last week off. Nathan did not have last week off.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: But Brie did. We So had to
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: go on some adventures. Yeah. And so on Thursday morning, right?
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: We packed up us and two kids. And we said, see you bye, Michigan. And drove six full hours down to Kentucky to go to Buc ee's. And we stayed overnight in a hotel and then came back on Friday. It was great.
• 4:43
  And then immediately went to our uncle's house for fourth of July. Mhmm.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: It was great. It was a wild time. And I Was exhausted. Oh, I'm still exhausted.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I felt hungover. I just so tired.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: That's the thing with getting old. Like, you don't even need alcohol to just absolutely ruin you. Mhmm. You can just like miss an hour of sleep.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I can sleep entire night and then lay wrong on my shoulder.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Yeah. I hate life and aging.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Inspirational sayings would be.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Like, what would it be like if my knees worked? Or I could wake up and, you know, God would bless me with vision.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: You can go throughout the day with vision because your contacts are a wreck.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I should probably take better care
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of my eyes. That's the problem. That would help. So beyond the silliness,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: this week are more. This week on we are more. In the wild. In the wild? What will they get up to today?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, there's no way to know.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: They're on the savannah. They need hydration. Where is a a a spring? I don't know. I don't watch a lot of.
• 6:14
  I don't know where to go. Today I watched a little bit about sharks. Why? I don't know. It's not a shark week.
• 6:27
  Anyway, so
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: last week at the end of the episodes, we said we were gonna talk about women feeling safe in church. Mhmm. And we actually put a post on our TikTok, and I was really excited about the amount of responses that we got. Some TikToks. Some TikToks.
• 6:45
  If you want to be part of future episodes, follow us on TikTok. It is we. R. More4. And we do ask questions on there sometimes to just see what your guys' response is to the topics that we're gonna be talking about.
• 7:02
  So we posted this on Friday, maybe? It's Friday. Recently. And we just said women who've left the church because you feel unsafe. What would make you feel safe in that space again?
• 7:15
  Mhmm. And I was super intentional with the wording on that because I didn't want to say what would make you go to church again.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Because I think that's the message oftentimes for women is like, we want to force you back into church. So how can we do that? And Brie and I are not here to force you back into church. No. If you have left the church for any reason, we're right there with you.
• 7:38
  To be fully honest, neither of us are regularly in church right now. Yep. Because we haven't found a safe space.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. And I think it's interesting to hear both of our perspectives too, coming from you a married woman, me a single woman, just trying to find our place Mhmm. Within the system of Christian churches. It's difficult. It's really difficult.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I follow an account on Facebook and it's Herchurch, but church is spelled c h e r c h, like church. Like And she's very clearly a very faith based person. She does all kinds of like cartoons and stuff. Mhmm. Oh, so
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: that makes her faith based. Yeah. Her faith. She's a cartoonist. So she's faith based.
• 8:29
  That's about her faith.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And she is also not in church. And she posted about it. She says, I won't belong to a patriarchal church again. I've been on a hiatus from church for about five years, and I have learned more about theology, biblical literacy, church history, etcetera in those five years than all of my life of attending church. Giving myself permission to ask the questions I always wondered about and digging into research has actually given me more hope, more peace, and more interest in my faith.
• 8:59
  I hope someday I can attend church again, but for now it's too triggering.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I actually really relate to that. Mhmm. And I agree because so often we give churches a pass just because it's church. Mhmm. Right?
• 9:11
  So we're like, well, you're never gonna find a perfect church. Right. So what are you willing to compromise on?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: And there are some things that I just simply am not willing to compromise on anymore. And one of them is equality. Mhmm.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I think a feeling of safety is a huge thing for me. Because we were in a church or at least Brie wasn't going as regularly, but I was in a church with my family And at the end of the day, it wasn't like a big blow up moment. There have been churches we've left because of big blow up moments. Moments.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: This was not that. It was just a consistent little trickle of inequality Mhmm. Of mentions of things that made me feel like I didn't have a safe space there as a woman. Casual sexism. Yeah.
• 10:03
  I would say. Yeah. From the pulpit where it's just like jokes that you're not supposed to take that too seriously. Or, oh, well, the pastor's just a little old school, you know, or whatever. Like things that just get dismissed very often that made me feel unsafe.
• 10:18
  And so because of that repeated feeling of inequality, feeling of lack of safety, that eventually eventually there were enough straws to break the camel's back, I guess.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's specifically frustrating because church is supposed to be a safe space. Mhmm. Right? When you think of like, where do I go in times of trouble? Turn to God.
• 10:44
  Mhmm. Turn to your church. But I would argue that almost all women have experienced sexism and abuse in a church in one way or another. Well, one of
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the things that I hear a lot, and this is just sort of an introduction as we talk about we're gonna talk today about the issues that we have had in church, the issues that some of our listeners are having in church, and what the church could do to make us feel more safe in those spaces. Not to get us back Mhmm. But just to make women feel safe.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But one of the things that I have heard a lot because I've been in and out of church throughout my adult life, we both grew up very steadily in church.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: But as an adult, it's been it's been hard. Yeah. And so one of the things that I've consistently heard from people wanting me back in church is, well, the church is full of broken people. So you can't expect anything other than brokenness.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that's such a weird excuse for the church because then that excuses all the bad behavior.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I was watching a oh. Yeah. I was watching a podcast because
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it was also a video
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: with the author of the book that we're talking about, Safe Church, Doctor. Andrew Braumman. And he says so often that churches focus on protecting the systems Mhmm. Rather than protecting the people in them. Which is so strange because the people are the image bearers of God.
• 12:13
  Right. Not the systems. Right. But we're so busy protecting church. Mhmm.
• 12:18
  And not the people in it.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Well, you see people kind of close ranks. When, for instance, us. When we criticize church
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: We've seen people around us close ranks around the church.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: The system of the church. And well, you can't say anything bad about the church because then no one's gonna wanna come to church. You can't criticize the church because then that makes God look bad. That makes Jesus look bad. Mhmm.
• 12:43
  My thought is in criticizing very clear systems of oppression within the Western Christian church, we're not making God look bad. We're saying God wouldn't accept this. And so we're gonna call it out. And until it gets better,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: we're gonna keep calling it out.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And we're gonna do faith our own way. Mhmm. I think we have so strongly, like, held on to this concept of church. Mhmm.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: It's like a ritual. Mhmm. Right? You wake up on Sunday. You put on your Sunday best.
• 13:19
  Mhmm. You go to church. You have dinner with your family afterwards. And then throughout the week, you you wake up and you do your devotions. But it's all very, like, ritualistic Mhmm.
• 13:29
  And not necessarily deep relationship based in my experience. Mhmm.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's and maybe it's worldwide. I don't know. But like United States Christian churches, that does seem to be the standard Yeah. Of just, yeah, we're gonna this is what we do on Sundays.
• 13:47
  Mhmm. This isn't really part of our actual lives, but this is what we do on Sundays. So on our TikTok, I asked that question. But, yeah, you started to pull that up. Yeah.
• 13:59
  We got a good amount of responses. And I think it's important to talk through a lot of them because now were all of them, like, the most helpful? Maybe not. But they're all people's reactions. Now I can't confirm to you.
• 14:13
  Like, some of these are from men for sure. So they're not gonna be the experiences of women. And I can't confirm to you that all these women ever were in church and left because of a lack of safety. But these are people's real life thoughts and responses. So I wanna read some of them.
• 14:30
  We can talk through them a little bit. So again, the question was women who have left the church because you feel unsafe. What would make you feel safe in that space again? And she said, I can't think of anything. I've been love bombed and forgotten too many times.
• 14:43
  Done.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: I totally agree with that statement. That has been my experience too. They the people in the church try to create these really deep, deep relationships by pulling out all your trauma and making you share that as fast as you humanly can. But the second that you don't show up on Sunday or you start to disagree with parts of the church, they drop you like a hot potato and you never hear from them again. And that has happened so many times.
• 15:23
  These people who you think, you genuinely think, wow, they really care about me.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Well, the church that Brie and I were both super involved in for a while, they had a program called Rooted, which I think is a a program that a lot of churches use. It's kind of like an introduction to small groups. And I went through it, I think, three times. Like, went through it so many times. She needed all the rest.
• 15:47
  Well, I did it twice with a group, and then I we, like, led a group through it once. And that was part of it was really, like, making people, forcing people to share their innermost secrets. Mhmm. Like making people feel like you were the most supportive person in the world. You love them so much.
• 16:06
  Blah blah blah. And as someone who led one of those groups, I didn't know these people. Yeah. Like, that's the reality. I didn't know these people.
• 16:15
  And so, like, they're sharing these really intense secrets with me and I'm supposed to be, I don't know, loving them so deeply to make them feel comfortable doing that. And the reality is like, I didn't know them.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, I was in that position too where I I did not keep following up with them after this group necessarily because that's not how you're taught in church. You're kinda taught to like, okay, make them feel so loved, make them feel so involved so that they start giving to the church, so that they stay in the church, so that they whatever. But then
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: move on to the next people. It's like the roots of, I don't know a lot about plants. But aren't there some roots that don't go that deep? They just spread out real wide. It's like that.
• 17:00
  And I feel like that's not how you build relationships with people. It's in the little things. You start out with the little things. And then you build up to those bigger, deeper things.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Right. But that's not a quick way for the church to keep people there. And I especially in megachurches, I think you can see the financial motivation in
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: a big way.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: It's a lot
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: of emotional manipulation Mhmm. For sure. Yeah.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So then the next person and again, I'm gonna read through all of these. Some of them, like I said, are not, like, the most constructive, but that's okay. Mhmm. She said nothing will get me back there. And that's, I think, how so many women feel.
• 17:37
  Statistically, women are leaving the church just at an unprecedented rate. Women have never left the church at this level.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you have to start asking the question of why. And we today are asking the question, what would ever make you feel safe there again? And here's a woman telling
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: us absolutely nothing would make me feel safe. Because that is the reputation of the church right
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: now.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Is lack of safety. It is not uncommon to hear stories of people in the church, specifically men in positions of power, abusing that And
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: for me, would never look at a woman who had extensive trauma in the church because I've had it too, you've had it too. I would never look at that woman and say, well, if you don't go back to church, then your faith is ruined. But that is the message oftentimes. If you don't go back to church, there's no hope for you.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: You will never have faith. You will never have a
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: good relationship with God. Your relationship is dependent on community with these strangers.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. And I just this is not necessarily the purpose of this episode, but I just wanna make the point that that is not true. Mhmm.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: That you
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: can have a very full and fulfilling relationship with God, relationship with your creator outside of the bounds of church. And I think that's really the main point. And church should never be your main connector with God anyway. Like, main connector with God is supposed to be prayer, is supposed to be reading the Bible, is supposed to be communicating with other people of the faith for sure. Mhmm.
• 19:22
  But it doesn't necessarily need to be in a church setting.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like it's just strange because we think of it so much in just like our cultural setting. Right? Our culture is you get up, you go to church on Sunday, and that is your church experience. Maybe you have a small group or Bible study that you're part of. But you think back to Bible times when the church started, it looked very different.
• 19:46
  Right. These people were living together. They were going out into the communities. They were caring for people that didn't share their faith, that didn't look like them, that maybe did not like them. That was church.
• 20:00
  Mhmm.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And so now, like, when we look at our church and we compare it, it's a pretty poor representation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: It's like a little bubble.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So then the next one is not from a woman. But again, I think these are very valid responses as well. So it says, as a boy, was damaged in a church and was demonized because I spoke out. Witnessed unrestrained hate and misogyny.
• 20:26
  Nothing would make me feel safe. They irreparably harmed me and others, and nobody cared. They just arrested the one who hurt me and left the congregation to tear me apart emotionally and mentally. I can't imagine what a woman would have gone through. That's a big one.
• 20:41
  Mhmm. And you guys have heard my story as well. But as someone who was behind the scenes in a church, in a big church, this was so painfully common. You were seeing abuse just left and right. And you can sit there and tell me like, well, not my church.
• 20:59
  Not my church. But I can't tell you how many small churches have come forward. And it's like, oh, no. This abuse has been going on for twenty years and nobody knew because we're not calling it out. Somebody knew.
• 21:13
  But nobody wanted to stand up and be the one to say, this is not okay. And then once the abuser is revealed, nobody wants to support the person that was hurt, especially if it's a woman. And in this case, obviously it wasn't, but especially if it's a woman, so often she's the one that's demonized. Andrew
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Baumann talks about weaponized forgiveness. And I think that is so often pushed at women in this situation who do start to speak out. And I think that happened to you as well, where it was like, well, you don't want to hurt his faith. Or you don't want to call it out because now that's his career. You don't want to hurt career.
• 21:52
  That's his entire life. And they kind of put it on the victim where, well, maybe you should be the bigger person. Sit down and have a conversation with him or them rather than, and Doctor. Baumann talks about this too, like actually sitting with that abused person. Mhmm.
• 22:15
  And just recognizing you've been traumatized. Mhmm. And let's just sit with that for
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a minute. Rather than jumping right to like, forgive, forgive, forgive. Yeah. This is your I heard so many times. This is your brother in Christ.
• 22:29
  This is your brother in Christ. I'm gonna be fully honest with you. I'm not claiming any of these people as my brothers in Christ. No. And regardless, like, it's not up to me to decide their faith for sure.
• 22:38
  Mhmm. But it's also not my job as the victim in this situation or anyone's job as the victim in this situation to repair the issue. Mhmm. And yet that's what's expected so often of of women, of men, of anyone abused in the church to to fix it. Mhmm.
• 22:55
  To make it to smooth it over, to make everybody comfortable and pretend like nothing happened. And keep attending. Don't leave either because then you're the bad guy. Keep attending and pretend everything's fine.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So the next one I really liked, it says separate your religion from alignment with politics and hatred. It says that Jesus I know is nothing like politics.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And we've talked plenty about politics. I don't think any of you would be super surprised by our opinions on this. But I think that's a huge issue with the Western trade right now. And I don't know about like, we have a lot of international listeners. I guess I shouldn't call you international.
• 23:35
  You're international to us. People in nations that are not our own. And so maybe this is not an issue that you have in your space, but it's certainly an issue in the American church right now. Mhmm. And, yeah, I think an absolute demand from the church.
• 23:54
  Like and we'll get into, like, what could fix these things later, but an absolute demand of your churches to completely separate themselves from politics.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I don't need you getting up there on the stage and telling me how to vote. I don't need you getting up on the stage and protecting people that don't represent Jesus.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Because of their political alignment. Because you decided that one political party was more Christian than the other. Right. Which is a lie. Right.
• 24:24
  And I think that's, to me, that's one of the biggest ones for the current situation that we find ourselves in. The next one is from a man. And I think that this one is very interesting. Obviously, he's criticizing what we're saying, and that's okay. But he says people who left Nazi Germany because they felt unsafe.
• 24:45
  What would it take to make you like Nazis again? So essentially, he's comparing the church to Nazi Germany.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And again, while this is not necessarily the most constructive way of wording this, I totally hear what he's saying.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He's saying that there's a problem. Mhmm. There's a deep, deep problem with the Western Christian church right now. And I agree with him.
• 25:12
  Mhmm.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It's really hard. And I can't speak obviously for all women. Why not? Well, I could, but it would be bad. I think it's really hard for women to look at this situation and say, there's anything that would make me feel safe.
• 25:32
  To look at abusers and say, there's anything that would make me walk back into that situation. Doctor.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Baumann in his interview said because he was asked, What are the steps of making women or people feel safe in the church again? And he said the first thing is for leadership to recognize that they have a problem. And internally to start to fix that. And so often with those specifically men in positions of power, they don't think they have a problem. And why would they admit to having a problem?
• 26:14
  Because that would mean they would have to give up a little bit of their power. And they've got things going nice and easy for them right now. So it's gonna take enough people to say, I've had enough of protecting the systems. I want to protect the people for once. And also, want to talk about how often, especially like in these like small churches, well in big churches too, but they're really concerned about safety from the outside.
• 26:45
  So they talk about their security and who's on their security team, which I do think that's important too. There's been enough issues with dangerous situations in churches, but they're very much less concerned about safety from the people within their church. And how often are we hearing sermons on domestic abuse and sexual abuse?
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Right. We're not. I mean, literally, I I couldn't tell you a single one. And yet it's all over the place in churches. Mhmm.
• 27:13
  Statistically, we know that it's happening more commonly in Christian marriages. Mhmm. What does that say? What does that say about safety? Mhmm.
• 27:23
  And why would women want that? Why would they wanna be there? The next person says that in order to be to feel safe in church, she would need no men to be there. Which, again, like, is this hyper realistic? No.
• 27:35
  Obviously. Like, I and I think that's not it wouldn't be fair to say to men, like, well, you can't be here. But at the same time, I know that personally, I feel a larger sense of safety around just a group of women.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And that comes from my life experiences. That may not be your life experiences, but from my life experiences, I feel more safe around a group of women when there are no men in the room Mhmm. Because of my past, because of the things that I've experienced, not just major trauma, but, like, walking through the store Yeah. And having men stare at you or walking out of the store into the parking lot and having to put your keys between your fingers because you're scared.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Or even just casually in passing saying sexist jokes.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Right. Exactly.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: It makes you feel like less of a person.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. And so when she says this, like, yeah, is it a little unrealistic? For sure. But at the same time, I understand. I do.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Well, we talked about last week in Iraq, there was a female only transportation system. Right. Because women were feeling unsafe. Mhmm. And what
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: can we do? And that's what
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: this whole the last couple
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of episodes really have been about is what can we do to make women feel safe, to make us part of the conversation. Mhmm. Because when you just sort of glaze over like, well, it's your problem. You're the one that doesn't feel safe, so you figure it out. When we do that, we fracture part of the community that God wanted us to build.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: He didn't want us to build giant megachurches. He wanted us to build community.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And when you lop off 50% of the community
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Well, thing is we are both men and women are image bearers of God. We're both made in the image of God. Mhmm. And when you tell over 50% of the population to be silent and that you matter less Mhmm. We're cutting off the voice of God.
• 29:33
  Mhmm. And is that what we want?
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Right. And I think I just because we come from a conservative background, oftentimes, I have heard people say things like, well, it's not that we're saying women are less than. It's that we're saying the roles are different. God's given men different roles than women. Now, first of all, I don't believe that at all.
• 29:55
  I believe that we both have the same roles to protect and care for the people around us, to love our neighbors. I think those are what we are all called to.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: But let's assume for a moment that that's correct. That it's not that it's unequal. It's just that it's different. And I've said this before, but separate but equal is never equal. We know that.
• 30:20
  We know that from our history. We can't forget history. Separate but equal is not equal. And when you say to women, your role is just different. It simply doesn't include anything in leadership or anything that makes decisions.
• 30:34
  Just it's different. It's just down here. Like it's different. And it looks like a pile of crap. You just can't tell me that that's equal.
• 30:47
  You can Well, say the words, but you're lying.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Here is a giant delicious cake from a local bakery. And here is a bran muffin. They're just different. They're just different. They're totally both food, but they're different.
• 31:06
  Both food, but one sucks.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Anyways, so the last actually, there are a couple of questions, but TikTok filters them out. So it says love thy neighbor and don't ostracize members who take that to mean love thy Hispanic, black, immigrant, gay, lesbian, poor, alcoholic, drug addicted neighbor. Mhmm. So in other words, don't pick which neighbors you love. Unconditional love.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. There's no conditions. There's nothing that you could do that would separate you from the love of God. Mhmm. Jesus didn't come and say,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Not you. Not you. Menoned.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: He loved everybody, especially the people that all of the Christian people around him were saying, oh, no. Not them.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. And so often in our churches, I remember a scenario where when I was working at the church where we had a lesbian couple that wanted to dedicate their child.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: And we it was a whole thing. Like, in order to dedicate your kid, you had to go through this class, and then you would go up on stage and, I don't know, present your child to the church. Okay. And they would pray over you and your children and whatever. And the church decided that this couple would not be allowed to dedicate their child in front of the church.
• 32:28
  Now I wanna point out that this couple had been attending the church for a long time, had been giving to the church for a long time. This had never been called out before.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: No one ever had an issue until they were gonna go on stage, and the rest of the church was gonna have to see, oh, There's a lesbian couple. The horror in the church. You know? And they would not let them dedicate their child. They were fine with them being part of the church until it was gonna be public, and the rest of the world is gonna see it.
• 33:02
  And suddenly, there's a limitation on your love.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Suddenly there's limitation on God's love. These women left the church. And how horrible. Also to that kid. Exactly.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Who did nothing and maybe now won't grow up in a faith at all. Mhmm. Because we said our faith isn't big enough for
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you. Mhmm. We decided what we thought sin was. Mhmm. We decided that this sin was supposedly more important than any of the others.
• 33:31
  I think when as a church, you decide what sin looks like for other people
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: That's always a problem. That's always a problem. Mhmm. And when you decide what love looks like for other people, that's always a problem. Yeah.
• 33:49
  When you decide what God's love looks like for people, always a problem. Just stay out of people's business. Leave them alone. And let them dedicate their child, for heaven's sake. If you're not gonna tell them to leave your church in the first place
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: And you're happy to accept their money.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Right. Certainly, you don't get to then tell them, but you can't really be part of things.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: You can't really get up on stage. We don't wanna we don't wanna admit that you're here. That was I think that was one of the biggest things that made me walk away from that church. And this was at a time where I hadn't really deconstructed a lot of these things yet. Mhmm.
• 34:27
  My faith was unfortunately more conservative than it is now. Mhmm. Less loving than it is now. And yet, even then, I saw that and I was like, I don't wanna be part of this. This is not God's love.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: There's one more that I wanna talk about. So this one got filtered out by TikTok. TikTok filters out more stuff than you'd think. Rude. You don't even have to, like, swear a bunch or anything.
• 34:54
  Censorship. Censorship. Tariffs, man. Tariffs, man. Now I can go through and approve them or deny them, but it does filter them out.
• 35:02
  So this person says religion is a cancer. And I wanna talk about that a little bit too. Because even though that feels weird to say out loud from someone that is part of general religion like, I don't necessarily like to consider myself a religious person because I don't like the word religion. But but, I mean, if you're gonna boil it all down Mhmm. You know, we are people of faith.
• 35:31
  And a lot of the world thinks that, and they're not all the way off base. Mhmm. When you look at the major conflicts in the world throughout history Yep. How many of them are religiously based?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. How many wars were started?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. When you look at The United States right now Mhmm. And what's going on and the amount of horrific things happening to people, people of color, people who weren't born here, people who were born here
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Women, the LGBTQ plus community, like, all of these people are being abused
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: With God's name stamped on it. Yeah. And so while, yes, it hurts a little bit to read that to you and, yeah, TikTok filtered out. I think it's important to say, like, we're not doing this right. Mhmm.
• 36:30
  We're so clearly not doing this right. Throughout history, we haven't been. We've used religion as an excuse to seek out additional power for ourselves, to abuse others, to influence others. Mhmm. So I guess, like, for the last little bit, I think we should focus on what can we do better?
• 36:55
  I guess I shouldn't say we. We're not really, like, part of the greater church at the moment. But what can the church do better? We the people
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: in order to form a more perfect union.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: You only know that because of the what what school of Schoolhouse Rock. Schoolhouse Schoolhouse was We the people. Yeah.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Heck yeah. So this book, Safe Church, he interviewed 2,800 women. Mhmm. Women, not just any random women. Women who have been involved in the church for a long time.
• 37:29
  16% of them have been working in the church for twenty five plus years. So they've seen a lot.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Everything. Yeah.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And a good percentage of those women said that within the church, they'd seen sexism and abuse time and time again. And it's not an uncommon story. Mhmm. So how do we change that narrative?
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: How do we make everybody feel safe? Mhmm.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I think the number one thing for me personally would be to see accountability. Mhmm. If I'm looking at a church and I see there was an abuser here, but you called them out. Mhmm. You said, we will have nothing to do with this.
• 38:15
  Publicly said, this person doesn't have a space here anymore. Now that person can go live their own lives and do their own thing. You can't control what they do from here. But they don't have a space in this church because we are going to protect the victim in this situation. We are going to make sure that they feel safe.
• 38:32
  If I saw that kind of accountability in a church, that would be something that would be a green flag to me. Mhmm.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Or just openness to change and less power hungry leaders. Mhmm. Also more representation. Mhmm. Female representation.
• 38:55
  There is a serious, serious lack of that. I think 87% of the Christian churches in The US have male leadership. Male Yeah. That's a huge percentage. And Yeah, just openness to change.
• 39:12
  Like Doctor. Baumann said, he grew up, his father was somehow involved in leadership in the Southern Baptist Church. And he was a sex addict
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: And had several different issues. Was cheating on his wife. And someone blackmailed him Mhmm. And said, hey, I know who you are. I know what you're doing.
• 39:35
  If you don't pay me x amount of money, I'm gonna call you out.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: So he stole money from the church and all kinds of bad things happened. So then he grew up, Doctor. Baumann, became a pastor. And became addicted to porn and said, I didn't, you know, didn't think it was a problem. I'm getting up there preaching all these, like, you should not do this.
• 40:01
  But in the background, I'm doing it. And it took a come to Jesus moment for him to realize, hey, I'm up here preaching all this and I'm not living it out. Mhmm. So someone, other people in the church open to saying, I'm,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I'm, maybe I'm the problem.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. To be able to self reflect and look at your own life Mhmm. And say, can I do better? Mhmm. Because we're not seeing that in leadership in the church more often than not.
• 40:32
  Mhmm. We're seeing very closed off. Like, I've I remember, I think I can't remember. We invited someone to church. And the pastor had given a message where he talked about his own struggles.
• 40:44
  Mhmm. And that person was like, oh my gosh. That was so open. I can't believe he talked about issues that he has and blah blah blah. And I was like, shouldn't that be the standard?
• 40:54
  Because if I think if I'm sitting here and I think, well, my my leadership in my church is perfect, then I've I've got them on a pedestal. And that's not whatever what God ever wanted. I mean, throughout the Bible, can see the issues that the apostles had too. That's what makes them human. They are not Jesus.
• 41:14
  That's why we need Jesus. Right. And when someone gets up there and says something that I can relate to, like, hey, I struggle with x y z.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Okay. Now I feel like I I can connect with you. I can relate to you. You're a real human. Like, yeah.
• 41:29
  To see someone that say that says, I'm the problem and I'm gonna change. Mhmm. Or I'm part of the problem and I'm gonna change.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Pretty much he said that men fear feminism. And the reason that they fear feminism is because they don't want to be treated the same way that they're treating women.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Which says a lot about how you're treating women. If you don't want to be treated that way, why are you treating someone else that way? But that's not what women want. That's not what feminists want. I don't want
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: to turn around most. Most. We just want equality. Right. We want everybody to be treated the same.
• 42:12
  Right. And treated well. Treated well. I think also another thing that I would love to see personally is women preaching from the stage, not getting up and telling their stories or whatever, but, like, actually giving the sermon. That's huge to me if I see that in a church.
• 42:30
  That's another green flag. That's something that makes me feel safe. Partially because it's a voice that I can relate to. But partially because I'm seeing a new perspective on things. Mhmm.
• 42:41
  Like, no matter no matter what you wanna say, the female experience is often different than the male experience. And so to see a woman's interpretation of biblical figures, of biblical moments, of her own life, like to see those things preached from the stage, to hear the word her and she from the stage more often gives me a safe space. Yeah. Makes me feel included.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: And then another one that I was thinking about is just kind of general acceptance of people. Mhmm. One of the big issues that I had at the church we were just recently at was, like, when I looked just like a standard person, like, my hair was blonde and, you know, I walked in and I wore the normal clothes and whatever. Everyone smiled and gave me hugs and whatever and no problems. But I recently dyed my hair green, And I got a tattoo and things a very visible one.
• 43:38
  And I was treated differently Mhmm. When I walked into church. I was the same person. I brought the same kids in. I had the same husband coming with me.
• 43:48
  All of the other things stayed the same. And yet the looks that I got were different. And yet people interacted with me differently. Because of simply outer appearances. And I saw that happen with other people too.
• 44:06
  I saw it happen with the women that came in with rainbow flag pins on. Mhmm. The way that people like suddenly like, whoop, let's turn the other way.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't really wanna interact with that person. And so to just sort of generally accept people as they are. And you know when you walk into that kind of space. Mhmm. When you walk into that kind of space that feels like unconditional love.
• 44:29
  Mhmm. I'm gonna accept you as you are. However you walk into this space, whatever it is, that feels safe.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Hey, yo.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I think personally, I think I can only think of maybe one church in the many, many, many churches that I've walked I can only really think of one church that felt that way. And that was significant. Like, was a significant memory for me because suddenly there wasn't all this judgment. Suddenly there was a place for me however I came there.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: I think that's another thing that the church has a reputation for is judgment. Which is so terrible. But my experience with church is people are really into those outward appearances. What kind of car are you driving? What kind of clothes are you wearing?
• 45:29
  Where does your kid go to school? It's all about those outward appearances and a lot less about what's going on on the inside. And you're right, there is a different feeling when you just feel totally accepted. Regardless of what you look like or where you come from or what you're driving, complete love and acceptance and
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: joy that you're there. I think if we can boil it all down, if we boil down everything that we're saying here, accountability Mhmm. And unconditional love. Mhmm. It's pretty simple.
• 46:07
  Stop. Let's add equality. Accountability, equality, and unconditional love. Yeah.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: It's not it's
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: not big stuff. Now it might feel big because your church might be so far from that that it feels like a big undertaking. Change doesn't happen overnight. Right. It takes enough people standing up and saying,
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: okay, this isn't okay. And let's little by little start to make changes. Start to speak out. And if enough people do that, you will see change. So
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: what does that mean for you then? And I think that's that's the big question. Move on from here. If you're someone that's not in church, we're not sitting here trying to convince you to go back to church.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Mm-mm. I have to convince myself.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: My goal would be to sit here and convince you to work on your relationship with God in general. And you might have a great relationship with God, so just keep doing the thing.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Or figure out your own faith. Like, what do you believe and why? And what beliefs do you have that have no reason? Mhmm. Just because they were ingrained into you since you were a kid.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Right. Deconstruct them. Deconstruct them. I I love that concept. Like, rip it all apart Mhmm.
• 47:21
  And see what's left. Take all the crap away and see what really it boils down to at the end
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: of the day.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And if you're someone that's in church right now, what does all of this mean for you? Mhmm. Because even if you're not the pastor, even if you're not an elder or a deacon or in leadership in any way, you still have a role to play here. Mhmm. You still have a voice.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: And you like, that's your church. Mhmm. You have stake in it.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Right. Make it better. Make it safe. Because that's the only way the church moves forward. If we continue as we are and I do see like, there I'm not I don't wanna say that, like, oh, all churches are like this because I'm absolutely seeing some great things.
• 48:06
  Like Oh, yeah. As I scroll through TikTok and see some of these younger pastors and things like that that are really, like, embracing equality, really embracing this change. I think there's really cool things on the horizon if we move in that direction. Mhmm. But if we stay stuck where we are, I don't know how the church moves past this.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: It's attracting a lot of young men. Mhmm. Young power hungry men. Mhmm. But I don't know how those young men are gonna be birthing any babies by themselves.
• 48:37
  It's gonna be hard for the church to continue. To Take an act of God. Yeah.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: And I don't think they're gonna like that act of God.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: We should put all of them on the period simulator. That would be
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: a good time. So we're gonna have an interview coming up in the next few weeks with an author. Her name is Heather Fraser, and she currently has a book ready for preorder. It's called mom got Jesus wrong. Hallelujah.
• 49:05
  Love that title. And so we're gonna be talking to her about that, about her experiences. She also has another book called How I Fixed My Teen, which I think is really interesting. So we'll be chatting with her. We have some other really cool stuff on the horizon, some other collaborations we're working on right now.
• 49:24
  So keep tuning in. We love hearing from you. And again, if you want to be part of future episodes, follow us on TikTok and Instagram as well, we usually ask our questions over on TikTok. So look for us there.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Feel free to message us too if there's anything you have questions about, you want us to talk about, if you want to say hi, but don't
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: be creepy about it, feel free. All right. So we will see you guys next week. No, we won't see you. I'm gonna be done with this bit.
• 49:53
  You'll hear
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: us next week.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous. Okay. Love you. Bye. Bye.