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From Lesbian Feminist to Christian Homeschool Mom · Passing On The Faith

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: So as I was reading, y you know, of course uh I was doing a lot of arguing with the Bible.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Probably the first time that I read it through I was arguing with it because I was a literary critic, so critic is right there in my title.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the second time through it struck me that um I was interrogating the Bible.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it struck me that perhaps Christians would read it from a very different perspective.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps Christians would believe that the Bible has the right to interrogate me.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's going to be a good idea.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: You are now a pastor's wife, a high school mom of four.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but it didn't start that way, did it?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, it did not.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, it did not.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: The story probably should begin before the foundations of the world, right?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have that much time.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we we won't we won't do that.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: But uh when I when uh in uh 1996, I was working on a book on the religious right from a lesbian feminist perspective.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a committed lesbian relationship and I was a professor at Syracuse University, and I was committed to issues of morality and justice and equality and um compassion, kindness.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so so uh and you know, my my partner and I were were good neighbors and um and good colleagues, and uh it was, you know, on the on the you know, good people doing good things front, i it it uh, you know, I looked I looked fine and I felt fine.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's so it so it's a standard of ethics.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I guess almost everybody has a certain standard of ethics that they try to hold to themselves.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's not as if they've they've uh uh jettisoned all of that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the promise keepers came to to town and they you know parked the what I believe to be a unhelpful circus right uh on the campus.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote a uh what I thought was just a small editorial in the local newspaper.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I gave it no very little thought.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I tried to write it carefully and well, and it represented accurately my my um my worldview and my values.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um it turned out to be a much bigger deal.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It it generated a lot of responses, including a letter from Pastor Ken Smith, who uh was the pastor of the of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Syracuse.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And his letter was uh uh hermeneutically perplexing to me.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was neither hate mail nor fan mail, and so I didn't know what to do with it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: Really?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: What did he say?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, it's funny because I still have the letter, of course.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and and I wonder, I I have wondered why did this letter do this to me?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because but uh, you know, it it was it I I I will tell you that that part of part of why it piqued my interest.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was gentle, it was kind, it was very much like Ken.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ken is the elder statesman of um of Christian uh and gospel love.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: But he also uh, you know, I I was a researcher, I was working on a book on the religious right.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to read the Bible, I knew it was going to be a complex, hermeneutically complex book, and and you know, quite frankly, I I thought, well, here's somebody who might help me along that task.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: Let me ask you this did he break through some stereotypes just for a moment there?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, he did when I met him.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: He did when I met him.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the letter was was a very it was a professional and kind letter and and and informed and I appreciated it.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the real breaking of the stereotypes for me was when I went to his house for dinner.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was a um that was that was just the you know, truly the beginning of a new of a new life.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: What was it that that really shook you up?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well it it was very helpful to me that he that Ken and his wife Floyd did not treat me as though I were simply a blank slate.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: They listened to me.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: They they invited me in and they asked me genuine questions, not um uh you know, not sort of staging questions.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, they they we had such a a good conversation that I really noticed that I was letting my guard down.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, especially a first meeting with someone or a meeting where I'm hoping to get some research help, you know, a professional context.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm rehearsing a lot of my well-worn values.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: But Ken asked me some questions that really made me stop and think about whether what I was saying about myself was true.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make any sense?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: He took me, he was so uh humble and gentle and uh and interesting that he really took me off guard.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: He's pressing for honesty.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Self-honest.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And he was demonstrating that also.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so he's he's a real guy.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: He's not putting on a crack, there's no hypocrisy.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, absolutely.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's really the best way that we we we need to approach people.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I think under the cross of Christ, we we should be able to do that.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: We should be able to be honest with ourselves and with others about ourselves.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that for me, if there was and is one uh doctrine that uh organizes my journey, it would be the doctrine of repentance.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and and in and in some ways Ken modeled that for me that very first night in his home.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what that did for me is it made me start to realize.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now I won't, you know, it was not as though we got into really deep and heavy things the first night.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: The first night was very much a a um uh you know, a sort of icebreaker.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: But but over time, over the course of time, I came to learn that all repentance truly does is prove that a holy God is right.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_05: And that's the only possibility.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's no shame in that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's actually and so I was really struck um just at at his initial, you know, just Ken's initial prayer at the dinner table.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was um very different than the prayers I had heard um at the edges of gay pride marches.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Very different.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: And what what kind of impression did you have of Christians?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you I'm sure you saw them at a distance.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: What were you thinking?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I did, I did.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I had um my only real contact with Christians that I know of, that you know, that I know of, I'm were either people who held up placards at gay pride marches or uh students who felt that knowing Jesus meant never needing to know anything else.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or uh you know, so my my impression is that Christians were um narrow-minded and um anti-intellectual.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um there was a particular way that that uh that students would use the Bible that that just you know drove me sort of crazy that and I'll tell you this, it's still it's the you know, this still really bothers me when I see this today.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I have been a I'm redeemed, but some things have not changed.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the use of the Bible, although it's a punctuation mark, to end a conversation rather than to deepen it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I we read the Bible to launch so that we know what to do next, not to just shut people down and shut people up.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, those are some of the things um i as I my my worldviews prior to my Christian conversion were very deeply steeped in Freud and Marx and Darwin and Hegel and and Marx uses the term vulgar, you know, to in some ways capture what I had been noticing about the way Christians use the Bible.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a vulgar way just to to shut people up, not to really enrich a conversation.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: Does it help if those that are those Christians engaging in the conversation know something about the people who they're engaging with and the ideas that they're holding to?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, if they're rather informed concerning all the other worldviews and they somewhat convertant concerning those worldviews, does that help in the conversation?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, that that certainly couldn't hurt.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and Ken Smith and I were just talking about this last week that we were um, you know, we were interviewed last week by someone together, and the the la the time prior to that that we were interviewed together, we were on opposite sides of the fence.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, obviously it helps to have a gracious person sharing things, but ultimately I don't think that that is how you share the gospel.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's a public venue.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that the the truly the the ground zero of Chris Christian witness is hospitality.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I I would agree.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I don't care how gracious or how cleaned up you are, and and you know, I I'm sure there are listeners who are thinking, oh come on, Rosaria, you know, there you know that there are people who will hear a Bible verse and God will just use that and change them.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but right now, let's take our current cultural moment.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, you know, we are just at the precipice of national um gay marriage, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: We the the the the players are in position.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it's going to go that direction for if the momentum's there, it's gonna go for the next 20 years.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think we can pretty much rely on that for now.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, but we're not what what what we need to do, we should be more concerned.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is what I think, we should be more concerned with the souls that are trapped in lives of addictive sexuality more so than we're concerned about you know what that does for our own particular political agenda.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're really concerned about that, we're gonna get away from the placard and go right to the heart of things and get to know our neighbors and and get to know them in a way that allows the Bible to be fluent in our lives, in our life and in their life.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you have a changed life, you have a way, at least you have now you've now you can start the conversation.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now that happened to you.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: So let's get back to the story.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: God changed your life.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: How how did it happen?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Did it happen all overnight, or did was it kind of this gradual thing?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, no, no, no.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's very gradual.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a I'm a plotting intellectual sort, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't have, you know, you know, I I read the the ingredients before I pour the breakfast cereal, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a I don't jump in with both feet.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: I So we uh no, Ken and I met um frequently, in fact, and one of the things Ken said to me uh early on in our in our conversations, and we were neighbors, and Ken made it very clear that neighbors take care of each other, whether they share the same worldview or not.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so very quickly Ken and Floyd became my friends.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we we had book exchanges, and uh they had dinner at my house and met my friends, and I had you know frequent dinners in their house, and and the whole time I was reading the Bible because I thought I was doing a research project on the religious right.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And at times I would talk with Ken about what I was reading, and and he was always very interested, and he would say, Yes, Rosaria, that's true, but but who is Jesus?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so he would always bring me back to the gospel.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: And at one point, Ken said to me, You know, I I want to I want to talk to your English majors.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've been reading the Bible long enough now to know that it's got every literary genre in it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, can can I get on campus?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And of course I said no.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: I said, No, Ken, absolutely not, but but I'd be very curious to know what this lecture is you have.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: How about a student of one?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so he gave me this uh amazing overview.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And Ken is a very smart man and a very learned scholar, and you know, so he's he's he's the he does everything, but he gave me this astounding lecture.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: It took about 50 minutes.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I still have the notes that I took that night, and um I uh it gave me a powerful overview of the Bible, and then I started reading the Bible in the context of that.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reading, I should say that I was on a research leave at that point, so I was reading the Bible sometimes up to five hours a day, which is not a lot of reading for an English professor on a research leave, but might be a lot of reading.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, I I mean, I don't know.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot, that's a lot of Bible reading, right?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: What were you getting?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: What were you getting from the Bible?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is kind of a fresh read for you, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: And this is we're kind of starting out with this.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, absolutely it is.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um in fact I had to do a lot of study before I jumped in, but but I I wanted very much to understand it from a Christian perspective because I wanted to know I I wanted to write the book from a lesbian feminist perspective, but I was trying to read the Bible, trying to figure out why Christians were so jazzed about this book.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I really like what you know, what's and so I had to study and learn about canonicity and inspiration and inerrancy and authority, and um you know, the I'm a was a postmodernist, but even as a postmodernist, I ran a classroom, I ran a research program.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know what authority means.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: It means that if you don't turn your paper into me on time, I give you an F.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I uh you know, so even a postmodernist has standards of authority, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um so as I was reading, uh you know, of course, uh I was doing a lot of arguing with the Bible.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Probably the first time that I read it through, I was arguing with it because I was a literary critic, so critic is right there in my title.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the second time through it struck me that um I was interrogating the Bible.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it struck me that perhaps Christians would read it from a very different perspective.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Perhaps Christians would believe that the Bible has the right to interrogate me.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you see what I'm saying?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so these were little It was a matter of authority at that point.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, who's got the authority?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: Do I have the authority or does God in his word speak?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it really did strike me, and again, this was all just a very provocative question, but it did strike me that if, you know, if there is a holy God, then there is no one who has authority over a holy God.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so once I started working in that venue, the Bible got to be a terrifying book.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I was um hosting a dinner party with my partner, and I went into the kitchen to, I don't know, get another bottle of wine or something, and my um my transgendered friend Jay followed me in the kitchen and sat me down.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And a transgendered person is someone who is biologically male but has taken so many female hormones that is uh that he goes by the pronoun she and she is chemically castrated.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so Jay came and followed me to the kitchen and said, Look, you know, Rosaria, this Bible reading is changing you.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And before you go back in that dining room, you need to tell me what's happening to you, girl.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm worried about you.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I sat down and I said, Jay, it is changing me.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what if it's true?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what if it's true?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: We are all in trouble.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: What if Jesus really is a real risen Lord?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're in big trouble.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and Jay sat down and said, Rosaria, I I was a Presbyterian minister for fifteen years and I prayed that God would heal me, and he didn't.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if you'd like, I I will pray for you.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as you can imagine, that was a that was a powerful conversation on a number of fronts.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: One front was just theologically.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I had read through the Bible at that time more than once, and so I I I knew that Jesus healed.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's no question that there are healings in the Bible, but but ultimately sin the the the the um the resting place for sin in the Bible is repentance, not healing.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that struck me as an intriguing thing to think about.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing that happened is without knowing it, Jay gave me permission.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I felt this amazing permission to go ahead and try to really think this one through.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost like somebody from my tribe had said, Rosaria, it's okay to go there.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've I was there, I tried to stay there, but it's okay.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: And so that that was he wasn't he wasn't opposed.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: Is that does that seem odd to you?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: That he wasn't opposed to the Bible at this point?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he he's drawn away from it himself, I assume.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I I would say that that that Jay continued and some ways continued to to to read and and and um and even sh um even came to church with me on one occasion.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and as you know, we sing the Psalms, um, a cappella in the RPC, and um you know, Jay had an amazing bass voice.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm I'm sure this rocked a lot of worlds.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's possible God was working in his heart at that point.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: But but no, I I I have not experienced then or now, if you're really having an honest, vulnerable conversation, the hostility that I know I know I see out there.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I see it on the covers of the newspaper, and I certainly saw it at gay pride marches.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you you get one-on-one with people.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: We are made to be image bearers of a holy God.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you are one-on-one with people in a vulnerable way, it it a powerful thing happens.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: We're all sinners, we have the same problem, we're hanging over the flames of hell, we need Jesus.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the the next day I came home from work and Jay had given me um what I believed to be her entire theological library.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And as I was coming in and, you know, picking up the mail and letting the dogs out, I was flipping to the first book that was on the the top of a large milk crate, and it was Calvin's Institutes, and I flipped to Romans 1, and again, I had read enough in the Bible to know Romans 1's a pretty dangerous place to go.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're if you're if you're in sexual sin.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and um there in the margins uh in Jay's handwriting a little message that said, you know, be careful, this is where you will fall.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And again, uh that was that was very powerful to me.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and um and so and so I couldn't I I had to put this all before Ken Smith, who had become my friend, and at a certain point it it was clear to me that he had become my teacher.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and I will tell you that my life still looked the same.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't as though, you know.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: What period of time are we talking about here?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: Is this six months, year, two year, five year?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: How how how long of a period of time is all this taking place?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's something about trauma that makes it really hard to to make it a a a clear chronicle, and I think that's part of that's part of why I had to write some of the these things down, but but um we're it it took two years between my first meeting with Ken in his uh dining room table and walking through the doors of the church.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: And when I walked through the doors of the church for the first time I was still in a committed lesbian relationship.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: But and did the church receive you?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: This church had been praying for me for years.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Ken Ken had been and and and in my um my encounters, my dinners at at Ken's house, there were always people from the church there.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew many, many people already from the church.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, okay and and your and your view of them was what?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: Did you accept them?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: Were you were they your friends at this point?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um they well, the first time I walked through the door of the church, they were I would not have considered them my close friends, but I knew many by name.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I knew many graduate students from the university.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was a public intellectual.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: These were you know, these are public issues.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Worldview is a public issue.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't you know, I did not I went to church and I never I never went back.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: And Okay, you you so you walked into that church and you were there to stay.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I was there to stay.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I did not get uh you know, I got out of bed that morning, said uh you know, goodbye to my girlfriend that I was heading off to church and she said, Oh boy, you know, and uh have fun or something and um I I didn't intend to never come back, but very much that my um my experience there was a rich one and I felt God calling me to repent of my sin.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now I will tell you that I I didn't do that right away.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, there there are no altar calls in a Reformed Presbyterian church.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you know what I mean?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: There there's no so I I I just looked like everybody well, I didn't look like everybody else.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just I pretty much didn't look like everybody else, but you know.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: But you had the same problem that everybody else has, and that is you've sinned against a holy and a just God.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: And and you're there to join what we like to call repentance community church.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody comes in to repent of something.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: That is exactly right.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And when and and as I sat in that church, and I did uh every week after that, uh, you know, Ken, there are a couple of sermons that and and Bible passages that really hit me between the eyes.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: One was John 7, 17, that if you um seek to um obey the Lord, you will know concerning the doctrine.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And that really struck me between the eyes because it said that you obey first, then you understand.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, yes.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you know, other passages, um take uh you know, uh die to yourself and take up the cross.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and when I heard things like that, I went around and asked people in the church, okay, this is you all know what I have to give up.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: What did you have to give up?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: I like that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, talk to us.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody, nobody dismissed me and told me they had to change their math curriculum for homeschool.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people actually told me about their real struggles, and I learned about some things that astounded me, and I came away from that realizing that there was not one person in that church truly converted who died to himself or herself and and takes up the cross daily who gave up anything more than I did.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: But they were very honest with me, and I you can imagine that some of my questions were not within the paradigm of polite church talks.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_05: Sure.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I walked away from that conversation realizing that church was not just a place where a bunch of pious prigs gathered together to share the same narrow worldview.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: This was the real deal.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I wonder sometimes if there are too many churches out there with lots and lots of layers of hypocrisy and there's just there's just very little true gospel working in people's lives.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because I, you know, in in in street ministry, when I when I'm doing street evangelism, when we're interacting with people down at 16th Street Mall, it seems to me that a lot of people have been burned by hypocrisy within the church.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there are a couple of issues at at play there.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, if you have a faithful uh pastor who's really preaching the gospel, yeah, um, and you have a sort of squeamishness among church members.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and and maybe not just squeamishness, I think appropriately so, as as Christians, we are concerned with issues of modesty and discernment.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that does affect the way we talk about things.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very different than the way the world talks about things.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Very different.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we have to we have to, you know, we have to uh assess and balance some of that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that there's also a pride issue, at least I know there was for me.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: There my pride took many, many uh, you know, pride is like a bacteria that just keeps morphing the no matter what antibiotic you give it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good analogy.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so my pride took many, many forms.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it is at least I'll tell you, when I when I was declaring the church to be filled with hypocrites, I will tell you that in my case, and and I don't necessarily think my life is completely diagnostic and representative of everyone's, but in my case, there's a lot of pride in that.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um because even if the church has let you down, let's say the church has really let you down.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus hasn't.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to get there.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's still proving the point of the message in that is we're all a bunch of dirty, rotten sinners.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: And we sure need the grace of God every single day, and that blood of Jesus Christ wash us clean.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the other pride issue that comes into play sometimes sometimes and it's sort of it it it's an offshoot of that, you know, the accusation of hypocrisy.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: If the church is filled with hypocrites, then we can do something about it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: We can go to church and and we can just tell the truth.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, sure.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: We can go to prayer meeting and and and and not pray for Aunt Tilly's big toe, but pray for our pornography addiction.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: We really could do that.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we could do that without asking the session permission.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, to say to say a word.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know the thing.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: You can stand up and you can say, I'm a sinner and I have this issue, and it's a porn issue, and I really need Jesus.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: And please ask for the Holy Spirit to come over and cleanse me on this one.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, because works righteousness has not been helping me.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've been trying.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you and by the way, somebody starts doing that, I tell you what, there are gonna be all kinds of facades falling.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you know, all over the place.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: It is a beautiful thing to see.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is a beautiful thing to see.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I think the other the other side of that hypocrisy issue is uh is a funny one, and and it's and it's the one that says, Oh, I can see how Jesus could forgive your sin, you know.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: But my sin, it's just way too big.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that is that is an insult.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_05: It's blasphemy.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: But when people when we are um indulging a f uh emotionally driven um gospel experience-based faith conversation, you're gonna hear that.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to really cut that off very quickly because that is blasphemy.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, as you look back, um can can you see how the spirit worked in your life?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I realize that it the spirit blows like the wind, we can see its effects.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: But can you talk about it?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I feel that it it is to me uh such a therapeutic experience to look at your life through the eyes of faith.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it is still painful, right?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's it still may be as bad as it as it looks, but to know that you have a holy God who is walking through it with you and is orchestrating various events for your good and for his glory, and that there are no exceptions to that is a is a powerful thing.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um absolutely.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: As as you look back uh at your studies, uh your experiences, etc.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: What have you learned about Jesus Christ?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you know that Jesus Christ has ministered to a truly dysfunctional situation, a hurting family or or a sinful man or woman?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: You know, how how do you know that Jesus has been here?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of people ask me that, you know, Rosaria, how do you know this is about Jesus?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, why isn't this just about curry tofu or something?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got some kind of indigestion, some kind of cultural indigestion here.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, we're seriously, right?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is uh, you know, my friends would put it to me just like that.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, I think that we are created in the image of God.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we run across those passages in the Bible that remind us that God made us and that God loves us and that God will care for us, that's a that that that brings us to tears because at some point we all have felt unloved and uncherished and um dismissed and demeaned.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when we read that that that Jesus can identify with all of our struggles, and especially if we have a pastor or a and a Christian accountable friend who says, Rosaria, that means all struggles including homoerotic desire, right?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: He did not sin, but he he un he identifies.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Those are powerful things because there is nothing more frightening than being alone with ourselves.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that is why we're afraid of the dark, because there we are, and we're so sick of the limits of our own ability to interpret our way through it.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not just the overcoming of sin, but it's the appearance of faith and love in the life of a believer that that really shouts Jesus has been here.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I would say that comes first.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I would say that that that the knowledge of who God is comes before the capacity to repent of a sin.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise you're not really repenting of a sin, you're apologizing for it, or you're you're acknowledging that, oh, you know, boy, that you know, if I drink too much, I have a headache or something.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are there are you know just natural physical consequences to sin as well.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's it's knowing who our holy and loving God is, and knowing that the that that faith is your daily renewed grace that allows you to to surface in this world that is beating you down.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing that the Bible is your your lifeline.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that we don't separate uh the Holy when we talk when the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit, that's not some kind of a separate subjective emotional experience.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: That Holy Spirit is speaking to you through the pages of Scripture.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it is the table of contents of your life, that God has no um prejudice and no sense of uh he's not bounded by history.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: That before your day even starts, he knows how it will end and promises to walk through it with you.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: And and it will change you.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: That wind that blows over you will change you.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: So Rosaria, who was the Rosaria fifteen years ago is not the Rosaria that she is today.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: No, there is a night and day comparison at this point.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean you've come a long way, too.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're a homeschooling mom, you're a pastor's wife.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean how did all that happen?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, good question.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of crazy, isn't it?
• 37:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it happens.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I like I like to say if I had met myself 15 years ago, I wouldn't have liked myself.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, that's uh but but it it's it's an amazing thing though that uh you know we God calls us to not just obey but to abandon ourselves to him.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes, sometimes we you know, we want to be all cleaned up, right?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Especially in the reformed faith.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't we don't want to get emotional now.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we we want it we we want to we so much want to be all cleaned up, but God doesn't just ask for obedience, he asks for total abandonment.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when what's scary about that when you've had a life of sexual sin is if you abandon yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, what he gives back to you is completely up to him.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's no works righteousness, you're not bargaining, you're not at the farmer's market trading your basil for somebody else's eggs.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: You are done.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: You have died to yourself, and there is nothing left.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is true metanol.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: This is a change of mind and heart.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: This is a new direction.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right, absolutely.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't get to bargain with him with what that with what that is.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: You are to read it with thanksgiving.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: Is this is this a a sports car turning on a dime, or is this an aircraft carrier turning?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: You follow me?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: I sometimes wonder if it's a little of both sometimes, but which which analogy is in a metaphor, um not given to driving fast cars or anything.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: It did not feel very sudden.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had been reading and rereading the Bible and working with Ken, and it did not feel very sudden.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if it looked like it was very sudden.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it certainly was very messy.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you mean by that?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: I I've heard you say that.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean by that?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I was a public uh person, right?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was about you know, this was not a this I could not have a private conversion because I was a public person.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was scheduled at the time of um, you know, and I say this at the at the at the time of my conversion, and I I am a reformed Christian, so I believe that I was converted before the foundations of the world.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I I you know woke up and noticed that at a particular time in history.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: But but so at that particular time in history, I was uh scheduled to give the keynote address to all incoming graduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences, and it was going to be on it was supposed to be on clear theory.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I had six months to rewrite a lecture that I would that I did give, and it was on Christian hermeneutics.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh y you can imagine some of the feelings that a a new believer might have.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I realized that the the Bible tells us to share with joy the hope that lies within us, but I quite frankly just wanted to, you know, bury my head in the sand, or you know and um This is a huge test.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is a test.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Big time.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it was.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very big test.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I'm grateful that when it became clear that the Lord was going to put that as a first of many big tests in my life, that I had Christians in my life who said, Rosaria, if you obey with a big faith, the Lord meets you in a big way.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: If you want big faith, if you want to feel the power of God working in your life in a big way, you obey in a big way.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you want a little drop of faith, you want a little drop of grace today, you know, then hold back.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: Reminds me a little bit of the story of Fort To Honest in uh Augustine's Confessions uh towards the end there.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he was a famous rhetoric professor in uh in Rome, and he became a Christian, and he they offered him a private baptism, but he said no in front of everybody.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: It was a real test for him, you know, because it was the big test.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: And that was a big deal becoming a Christian.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: He was like the number one rhetoric professor in Rome in 400 AD.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a huge test for an academic, somebody who's taking a 1800.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: When it comes to therapistmological metaphysical perspective.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a good life lesson because what humbles you cannot hurt you.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's fair.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: We can use all the humbling we can get.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: Here's the last question though for you.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um you're now a homeschool mother of four, I believe.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Four children, is that correct?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've adopted four children.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: We homeschooled two of them.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: We adopted two children as teenagers.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so four of them.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: Very good.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh your vision for your own children, for your own daughters.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh with everything you have learned, your experiences.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: What what what what's your vision and how are you communicating that?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know, that's a great question.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh in some ways we have to remember that conversion does require that we die to the old self.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: But but there is much in scripture that reminds us that God never asks us to give something up and then just leaves us with these gaping holes.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like so many first generation converts who come to faith.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: See, this is I'm no different.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I come to faith with a feminist world and life view.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now instead of saying instead of simply talking about that in the absence, we and now we I'm talking about women who have been first generation uh Christian converts.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: We come to faith with a past.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: As does my wife, by the way.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: My wife same similar situation, and she had tremendous testimony with the children.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I think it's a good idea.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: Do you open up to your children?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, absolutely.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an I mean, literally, I'm an open book, and and that's how it should be.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say that we may have a a a little niche here.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: We first generation Christians may have a little niche here because we need to communicate biblical godly femininity in the context of the covenant, not in the context of works righteousness.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So much of biblical womanhood is presented as a list of do's and don'ts.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if you already committed the don'ts before you heard about the list, you know, I'm sorry, the train left the station, you know.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Who wants to hear Rahab the harlot, you know, talk about this?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: But but but, you know, where God's grace has been um poured out in abundance, there's much, there's there's much to learn from, I think.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's much to to teach in our humility.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I know as we go through family devotions, you know, we have never been, you know, just in the same way that my children have always known that they were adopted.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was never a a day that we had to sit down and say, Okay, kids, we have a big story to tell you.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: The same thing is true about my past.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's in we we go through the Bible in family devotions, we talk about it, we meet, you know, we talk when we love our lesbian neighbors, and we say, Yeah, that's how mama used to live.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's normal.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then in some ways, you know, what it does is it invites it invites everyone to look at this Bible as the table of contents of our own lives.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: And not other people's stories.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: And effectively, it it really helps all of us realize that's who we are as well.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's just it's just sometimes if we've been in the church for a long, long time, we've been raised in it over the past three or four generations, we forget sometimes the hole from which we were dug.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: And it's nice to have a few people around us saying, oh, by the way, this is us, this was us, and this is us not.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: But there's again, there's no shame in repentance.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: Repentance is called uh it's a fruit of the Christian life.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's and and I think that's really that to me that's really intriguing.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: How could it be a fruit of the Christian life?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't God I mean since obviously repentance implies that sin has been committed, wouldn't wouldn't God just prefer it if we just didn't sin in the first place?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I you know, I I have I've wrapped my mind around that.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I find that to be an intriguing question.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: Ephesians 1 indicates that to the praise of the glory of his grace, there's something about showing grace to sinful people that will glorify God in an unbelievable way throughout eternity and we'll never be able to fathom that.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right, that's right.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: And repentance proves that God is right.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you so much, Ritaria.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: We appreciate sharing up.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: We went way over.com or available again, amazon.com for the open and your faith.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_03: This has been a production of the Generations Media Network.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: For more information, go to generations.orgmed.