Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / Women in Ministry: History, Stakes, and What Comes Next (Beth Allison Barr)

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Women in Ministry: History, Stakes, and What Comes Next (Beth Allison Barr) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
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Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
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Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
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Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to
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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm
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Speaker 1: joined today by my co host Ashishivarma and also Beth
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Speaker 1: Alison Barr, who has been on the show before and
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Speaker 1: has authored a number of different books, is pretty involved
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Speaker 1: in the conversations about womanhood and the SBC and various things,
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Speaker 1: and so we're going to be talking a little bit
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Speaker 1: about that today.
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Speaker 2: But welcome back to the show. Beth. It's great to
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Speaker 2: have you.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So maybe you know, as I've just we're just sort
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Speaker 1: of on the tails finicking out a series on biblical manhood,
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Speaker 1: but I'm kind of interested. You know, we're in this
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Speaker 1: moment where the SBC has done some interesting things, and
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Speaker 1: you've been talking a lot about that, So I'd just
1:14
Speaker 1: be interested in getting your take as someone who sort
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Speaker 1: of follows that in more of an ancillary fashion.
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Speaker 2: I'm not in the SBC, so I have to.
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Speaker 1: You know, read the reports, but could you maybe give
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Speaker 1: us just a little bit of a rundown of what
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Speaker 1: happened there.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So this has been a conversation that's been building
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Speaker 3: since twenty twenty two, and I think it's important to
1:32
Speaker 3: note that this is across the same timeframe that the
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Speaker 3: SBC has been involved in the sex abust scandal, and
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Speaker 3: so this parallels what's going on with their vote against
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Speaker 3: women exactly parallels the increase of emphasis on the you know,
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Speaker 3: this this sex abuse scandal that has just erupted and
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Speaker 3: is you know, so huge. It's more, it's bigger than
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Speaker 3: what the SBC wants to meant to. So these conversations
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Speaker 3: go next, go side by side, and beginning in twenty
2:05
Speaker 3: twenty two, there they started introducing the idea of a
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Speaker 3: new constitutional amendment for the SBC. And so the SBC
2:14
Speaker 3: has two governing documents. It has the Baptist Faith and Message,
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Speaker 3: which they changed in nineteen ninety eight and the year
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Speaker 3: two thousand to say that only men can be pastors.
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Speaker 3: But they didn't differentiate what sort of pastor that would be.
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Speaker 3: And they also made it you know, because local autonomy
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Speaker 3: of churches is in Baptist DNA. So the idea that
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Speaker 3: you know, bat churches, this is what they sort of recommend.
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Speaker 3: And now what they are wanting is a constitutional amendment
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Speaker 3: that says that any church that is in friendly cooperation
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Speaker 3: with the SBC, which means you can't be a you
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Speaker 3: can't vote in the SBC unless you're in friendly cooperation.
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Speaker 3: You also can't participate in all of like their missionary organization,
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Speaker 3: and you can't get the benefits of being a part
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Speaker 3: of a very large, very wealthy denomination for lack of
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Speaker 3: a better word, although they don't like to be called denomination,
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Speaker 3: but that technically is what they are. So this and
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Speaker 3: so what they wanted was language that would say that
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Speaker 3: women can't be called pastors for their ministry in church
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Speaker 3: in any level, so not even children's pastors, not even
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Speaker 3: you know, even ones that are safely complementary in churches
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Speaker 3: that agree to mail headship, and that God ultimately has
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Speaker 3: put men in charge of women even if you agree
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Speaker 3: to that and you only have male senior pastors, but
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Speaker 3: you have female pastors working under them. The SBC is
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Speaker 3: now saying that's not good enough and that those churches
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Speaker 3: need to not be or it should not be considered.
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Speaker 3: In friendly cooperation with the SBC, and they have since
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Speaker 3: twenty twenty two they were building momentum to try to
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Speaker 3: institute this constitutional amendment. It ultimately failed in twenty twenty four,
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Speaker 3: they did not get enough votes to pass it a
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Speaker 3: second time. And then in twenty twenty five they started
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Speaker 3: talking about it again, and then this time Al Mohler,
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Speaker 3: who is not president of the Southern Baptist Convention, he
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Speaker 3: has never gained that although he's always desired it, but
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Speaker 3: he is president of the Flagships Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky,
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Speaker 3: and he himself introduced what he called the Truth and
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Speaker 3: Unity Amendment, where he said that Southern Baptists have always
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Speaker 3: agreed that women should not be pastors and that it
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Speaker 3: is time to get unity on this once and for all.
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Speaker 3: And in fact, he ended his introduction of this amendment
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Speaker 3: with you know, let's get this done. And this time
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Speaker 3: the amendment passed. Its skipped a bunch of rules that
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Speaker 3: most that would have said it would have had to
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Speaker 3: be reviewed this year and not be voted on until
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Speaker 3: next year, and they just voted directly on it and
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Speaker 3: it passed with an overwhelming majority. It's not in the
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Speaker 3: constitution yet. It still has to be voted on one
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Speaker 3: more time next year, so there's still a chance it
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Speaker 3: may not pass, but it passed with an overwhelming majority
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Speaker 3: this time. So that's it. You can ask questions if
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Speaker 3: you want clarification.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, what do you like, what was the
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Speaker 1: change from when it didn't pass last time to when
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Speaker 1: it passed this time with that overwhelming majority?
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Speaker 2: Like any idea?
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Speaker 4: What the well?
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Speaker 3: They have lost churches that support women in ministry. That's
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Speaker 3: one of the changes is that after they started introducing this,
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Speaker 3: churches they kicked out Rick Warren. You know, that's that
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Speaker 3: was part of this is Rick Warren's church, which is
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Speaker 3: one of the largest and wealthiest Southern Baptist churches that
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Speaker 3: supports women in ministry. They kicked out his church over this,
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Speaker 3: and so they have lost churches that would support women
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Speaker 3: in ministry. I also think that the there has been
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Speaker 3: a conservative revival again within the Southern Baptist Convention. And
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Speaker 3: so the moderate voices that we're saying, hey, look we
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Speaker 3: may not support we're all complementarians here, but we understand
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Speaker 3: local autonomy of churches and so churches have the right
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Speaker 3: to choose their own pastors, and so we're not going
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Speaker 3: to you know, kick them out over This is essentially
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Speaker 3: not a not a doctrinal issue for the SBC. And
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Speaker 3: those voices have been grow have been less easy to hear,
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Speaker 3: let's just put it that way. And these more conservative voices,
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Speaker 3: and and really I think al Molar. Al Molar is
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Speaker 3: such a powerful entity in the SBC that when he
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Speaker 3: stood up and said this is what we have to do,
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Speaker 3: this is what SBC believes. Also, Clint Presley there president
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Speaker 3: over at this time. He's different than Bart Barber who
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Speaker 3: was the president over those earlier years. And Bart Barber
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Speaker 3: was complementarian, but he did not think this amendment was
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Speaker 3: a good idea. And now we have Clint Presley who
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Speaker 3: thinks this amendment is a good idea. So the leadership
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Speaker 3: has changed in the SBC. That's more conservative.
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Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, yeah, and that helps, it does.
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Speaker 1: And I guess my sort of last question is you know,
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Speaker 1: I've seen some of the social media fodder on this,
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Speaker 1: which I don't know that I can trust.
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Speaker 3: But that's a good impulse not to trust social media.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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Speaker 1: I see these you know, I see these things going on,
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Speaker 1: and you see people arguing, you know, women can teach,
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Speaker 1: women can't teach. You see, you know Almo are saying
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Speaker 1: that women shouldn't even have pod casts and shouldn't be
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Speaker 1: intervening scripture on podcasts. Yes, it feels like this could
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Speaker 1: go on a really a much darker direction than it's
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Speaker 1: already gone, and I'm wondering just sort of what your
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Speaker 1: perspective is on that.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think that's exactly where this could go.
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Speaker 3: I mean, in some ways, what al Mohler is doing
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Speaker 3: is he's carrying complementary and theology to its logical conclusion,
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Speaker 3: and that if you argue that God created men in
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Speaker 3: a way that made them to have authority over women,
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Speaker 3: and that that authority is non negotiable, and that there's
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Speaker 3: nothing women can do to sort of overcome any of
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Speaker 3: what they consider to be these innate spiritual weaknesses, although
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Speaker 3: they wouldn't. They don't like it when I put it
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Speaker 3: that way, but that's essentially you know, they're arguing that
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Speaker 3: hierarchy is built into our bodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
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Speaker 3: so when you carry complementarianism to its logical conclusion, it
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Speaker 3: is that men should have complete authority over women and
9:10
Speaker 3: that you know, I mean, if you're going to take
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Speaker 3: First Timothy too at face value and not put it
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Speaker 3: in its historical context and say that it means women
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Speaker 3: should not teach or have authority over men whatsoever. Or
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Speaker 3: First Corinthia, you know, women be silent. If you take
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Speaker 3: those things, then yeah, you're like women shouldn't be on podcasts.
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Speaker 3: And so I mean, in some ways, at least he
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Speaker 3: is having a consistent hermeneutic and it but it does
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Speaker 3: lead to a very dark place. And you know, this
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Speaker 3: is what I've been arguing for several years now.
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Speaker 1: It's been strange to me, like to watch sort of
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Speaker 1: you know, when I see people quote the First Timothy passage,
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Speaker 1: it always stops before and they will be saved through
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Speaker 1: childbearing because nobody knows what this is, what the same
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Speaker 1: that and then even you know, appealing to the First
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Speaker 1: Corinthians passage on Corinthians eleven, like, I think the consistency
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Speaker 1: needs to suggest that hey, head covering, you know, it
10:11
Speaker 1: needs to go more plumouth brethren than you know, where
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Speaker 1: the head covering. Paul's argument there from the creation story
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Speaker 1: is very strange. It is if you're going to take
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Speaker 1: it as Paul simply reading the creation story and not
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Speaker 1: doing anything else.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so.
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Speaker 1: I have trouble with the way they reconcile these passages
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Speaker 1: together just from a biblically an interpretive sort of standpoint,
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Speaker 1: aside from the unfortunate downstream effects that I think it has.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that Amy Heeler, who's written
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Speaker 3: a great book on gender and God, and she argues
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Speaker 3: that the First Corinthians eleven passage is perhaps the most
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Speaker 3: unclear passage in scripture, you know, across the board. You know,
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Speaker 3: I would say first the child bearing passage, she will
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Speaker 3: be saved through child bearing is probably a close second
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Speaker 3: on this, but nonetheless, you know, she argued, and so
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Speaker 3: what you have done is you've taken a passage that
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Speaker 3: is the most unclear in scripture simply because you know,
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Speaker 3: there's only so much you can do for understanding historical
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Speaker 3: context and understanding you know, what was exactly going on,
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Speaker 3: and so we just don't know exactly what Paul is
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Speaker 3: responding to there, although he seems to be responding to
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Speaker 3: things that are going on in the Roman world in
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Speaker 3: which he is offering a counter and and so you know,
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Speaker 3: this is also what Amy Keeler argues in What Is
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Speaker 3: Is It? Gender? And the Something in God? I can't
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Speaker 3: I'm not remembering titles today, but anyway, it's a very
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Speaker 3: good book. So that this when you take those those
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Speaker 3: types of versus just very superficially face value and pull
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Speaker 3: them out and then read all of the rest of
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Speaker 3: Scripture through them, then you can come up with this
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Speaker 3: very hard blind position that the Southern Baptist Convention has taken.
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Speaker 3: And I stand as a church historian here that what
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Speaker 3: the Southern the lines the Southern Baptist Convention is drawing
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Speaker 3: about women leadership in the church and even leadership in
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Speaker 3: the home, et cetera, is some of the harshest lines
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Speaker 3: in church history. You know, this isn't like, this isn't normative.
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Speaker 3: This is extremist. And you if you look across the
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Speaker 3: expanse of church history, which has not always treated women well,
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Speaker 3: and what the SBC doing is one of the most
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Speaker 3: extreme forms of instituting male headship and female subjugation.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, she shopping.
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Speaker 4: If you got anything, then, yeah, I have kind of
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Speaker 4: a macro question. Sure, there's a lot, there's a lot
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Speaker 4: of threads that I'm trying to make sense of and
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Speaker 4: maybe you can help us here. It's real least helped me,
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Speaker 4: hopefully help others as well. It'd be it'd be really
13:16
Speaker 4: easy to say, well, you've got these churches, and I
13:19
Speaker 4: think there's certainly a big element to this that's true, right,
13:22
Speaker 4: that you've got these churches that have left or been
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Speaker 4: kicked out of the SBC, and that has skewed skewed
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Speaker 4: the overall temperature in the room right for the SBC. Yeah,
13:35
Speaker 4: but I also see people outside of the SBC the
13:40
Speaker 4: same sort of skewing is going on where there's not
13:42
Speaker 4: the same convention boundaries. Even to the degree that I've
13:47
Speaker 4: watched a lot of issues being clumped together my own,
13:53
Speaker 4: my own work in race and coloniality, you can probably
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Speaker 4: imagine the temperature rise, the personal head temperature rise that
14:00
Speaker 4: that's caused for people. Yes, but I've watched people throw
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Speaker 4: that out with blanket statements and then just sort of
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Speaker 4: move as if it's part of one agenda to Oh,
14:14
Speaker 4: by the way, we also have a women preaching women
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Speaker 4: pastor problem, women teaching problem that we've got to deal with. Yep,
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Speaker 4: and we've also got and then it seems like it's
14:25
Speaker 4: tied together. So as of today, this is a failed attempt,
14:30
Speaker 4: but at least the attempt to be very specific in
14:33
Speaker 4: limiting citizenship on the national level.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yes.
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Speaker 4: An added element for me and this is that some
14:42
Speaker 4: of these people who I know who are part of
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Speaker 4: that skewed temperature rising in certain sectors didn't used to
14:50
Speaker 4: be like this.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
14:53
Speaker 4: That's so I don't know if there is one simple answer,
14:57
Speaker 4: but what are your thoughts on that?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll throw another book for you. Author Ryan
15:03
Speaker 3: ryan berg Is has done been doing work. You know,
15:07
Speaker 3: you may have talked to him already on tracing the
15:10
Speaker 3: polarization within churches and the inability to have to have
15:18
Speaker 3: a a middle where people who disagree still can talk
15:23
Speaker 3: to each other. And what we have been seeing is
15:26
Speaker 3: that churches have been apart, have been complicit in this
15:31
Speaker 3: rhetoric in demonizing people who disagree with them. And you know,
15:36
Speaker 3: you can think about this that like even even thinking
15:38
Speaker 3: about women, like you know, I don't know how many
15:42
Speaker 3: times that people have attempted to disparage me as a mother,
15:47
Speaker 3: disparage me as a Christian, dispair you know, saying that essentially,
15:52
Speaker 3: you know, I'm I'm outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy
15:55
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I'm a Baptist Sunday school teacher, you know,
15:57
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's just it's just really fun.
16:00
Speaker 3: You know, this idea that if you disagree, not only
16:04
Speaker 3: are you disagreeing, but that person is evil. And we
16:09
Speaker 3: just saw this at the recent tp USA event where
16:12
Speaker 3: they you know, compared feminism to They said the reason
16:17
Speaker 3: witches were burned was because essentially they were feminists who
16:22
Speaker 3: were killing babies, and that the Church was on the
16:25
Speaker 3: right side, which is you know, I saw one historian
16:29
Speaker 3: who was like, anytime you find yourself agreeing with the witch,
16:33
Speaker 3: with the people who are killing witches, you know, it's
16:36
Speaker 3: like maybe you should stop, step back and be like
16:38
Speaker 3: what am I doing? You know what am I doing here?
16:42
Speaker 3: And I think it is this, this, this inability to
16:48
Speaker 3: have discourse across the table, and where the SBC plays
16:54
Speaker 3: in this, and this is something that I've been trying
16:57
Speaker 3: to get across. Is the pivotal piece you know, the
17:03
Speaker 3: SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in North America. At
17:09
Speaker 3: its high point, it had more than sixteen million members,
17:12
Speaker 3: four hundred and fifty thousand congregations spreading throughout the world.
17:17
Speaker 3: And they also had their own you know, their own material,
17:22
Speaker 3: their Sunday school material, their publishing industry, which really set
17:28
Speaker 3: the tone for other publishing industries in Christian publishing in
17:32
Speaker 3: the US. So even though like Crossways not technically as
17:36
Speaker 3: not SBC, there's a lot of overlap that you see,
17:40
Speaker 3: and the tone set by the SBC is one that
17:44
Speaker 3: you see carried over into these other go Christian publishing houses.
17:50
Speaker 3: And then you also think about, like, you know, the
17:53
Speaker 3: evangelical the National Evangelical Association in the US has also
17:57
Speaker 3: been struggling with this more concern element that is very
18:02
Speaker 3: hardline that is influenced a lot of the players with
18:05
Speaker 3: the SBC. They overlap. They also overlap with the religious right.
18:09
Speaker 3: You know, you can think Jerry Folwell at the center
18:13
Speaker 3: of this, and James Dobson and also Bill Gothard, you know,
18:18
Speaker 3: who's been in the news again because of his poor health,
18:21
Speaker 3: and all of these figures overlap and they have had
18:28
Speaker 3: there the way that they have been training Christians to
18:32
Speaker 3: respond to people who disagree with them is by viewing
18:37
Speaker 3: them through this. If you are not for me, you
18:40
Speaker 3: are against me, and you are my enemy. And I
18:43
Speaker 3: think we are seeing the natural progression of that, you know,
18:47
Speaker 3: and oppression. Oppression leads to oppression, so oppression of people
18:56
Speaker 3: who are of a different color or who are of
18:58
Speaker 3: a different you know, once you think that some people
19:01
Speaker 3: were created better than other people, then it's real easy
19:05
Speaker 3: just to keep applying that outward. And that's what has
19:08
Speaker 3: led us to white supremacy. That was a macro answer
19:14
Speaker 3: that I.
19:14
Speaker 4: Can Yeah, that's that's what I wanted to hear, so
19:17
Speaker 4: at least for me, it was a good answer. I'm
19:21
Speaker 4: trying to still grab a hold of some of these
19:25
Speaker 4: factors that get us to this moment of the seems
19:29
Speaker 4: like an extreme right because we can certainly point to
19:33
Speaker 4: the rise I'll leave it nameless, but the rise of
19:36
Speaker 4: certain key influential figures. But how does that That seems
19:42
Speaker 4: like that's already part of the water. If the rise
19:45
Speaker 4: of key influential figures can cause this kind of extremism,
19:49
Speaker 4: do you have any thoughts on that?
19:50
Speaker 1: Maybe I can give a follow up to this because
19:52
Speaker 1: this is like I've always sort of my wife and
19:56
Speaker 1: I love like cult documentaries on Netflix, sort of a
19:59
Speaker 1: guilty pleasure, And sometimes I'll watch these cult documentaries and
20:03
Speaker 1: I'm like, who is following this guy?
20:07
Speaker 2: Like, I don't understand it.
20:09
Speaker 1: If I saw this guy on the street, he's not
20:11
Speaker 1: a guy I would go, hey, he really seems like he's.
20:14
Speaker 2: Got all the answers.
20:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it feels like, you know, just sort of
20:18
Speaker 1: his answer or dosh, you's just question you Like, I
20:22
Speaker 1: understand who the figures are, I don't understand how they
20:26
Speaker 1: gain purchase.
20:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. So I mean I think what people
20:32
Speaker 3: need to know is that this is not something that
20:34
Speaker 3: came out of the blue. This is something that has
20:36
Speaker 3: been building in twentieth century North American Christianity for a
20:41
Speaker 3: really long time. I mean, some ways you can trace
20:43
Speaker 3: it all the way back to the early part of
20:45
Speaker 3: the twentieth century with the fundamentalist modernist controversy. But then
20:51
Speaker 3: you can also you know, and that's where you start
20:54
Speaker 3: seeing this. You know, you have to think, you know,
20:56
Speaker 3: these battles over the Bible. There was a lot of
20:58
Speaker 3: fear in the nineteenth century when science began producing things
21:03
Speaker 3: like you know, finding like realizing that there are times
21:09
Speaker 3: of the earth that it seemed to pre exist humanity.
21:14
Speaker 3: And when people first started recognizing that and even finding
21:17
Speaker 3: hominid skeleton, you know, and things, and it it caused
21:21
Speaker 3: a lot of fear. And anyway that we could go
21:29
Speaker 3: away into that, but it caused a lot of fear.
21:32
Speaker 3: And so some of the response to that fear was
21:36
Speaker 3: this like interpreting the Bible in a hyper literal way,
21:41
Speaker 3: you know, that led you to rejecting science and saying
21:44
Speaker 3: this is not Christian if you believe this or anything
21:48
Speaker 3: like this, it is not Christian at all. This very
21:50
Speaker 3: and that was an extreme view, you know. I always
21:52
Speaker 3: tell people, you know, C. S. Lewis believed in evolution,
21:55
Speaker 3: and that often rocks people's worlds. They're like, well, and
21:58
Speaker 3: I was like, you never saw any sort of disconnect
22:02
Speaker 3: between as Christian faith and science, never saw any disconnect,
22:07
Speaker 3: and so people and so this is you know, that
22:11
Speaker 3: was an extreme view, but it began to build. And
22:15
Speaker 3: again I think a lot of this, you know, is
22:17
Speaker 3: an education issue. This is what churches. It began to
22:22
Speaker 3: be taught in seminaries, and it began to be taught
22:25
Speaker 3: in churches, and you get decades of this teaching, and
22:30
Speaker 3: then what you end up with are entire as a
22:33
Speaker 3: new generation that has never been introduced to anything differently,
22:38
Speaker 3: you know. So like women who are a little younger
22:42
Speaker 3: than me, who are in their forties and thirties, there
22:45
Speaker 3: are many of them who have never actually seen a
22:47
Speaker 3: woman preach from a pulpit in their local congregations, whereas
22:51
Speaker 3: women my age and older saw women preaching in the
22:56
Speaker 3: pulpit in conservative evangelical churches, because that is more of
23:01
Speaker 3: a normative. Then, But then when you get women now,
23:05
Speaker 3: like all of these young women going to TPUSA events,
23:07
Speaker 3: who have only been trained on this very literal reading
23:11
Speaker 3: of the Bible being told that anything else is anti
23:15
Speaker 3: Christian and is dangerous and they have never seen anything different,
23:21
Speaker 3: And it's like, you know, and so I have a
23:24
Speaker 3: lot of sympathy, you know, I think we a lot
23:28
Speaker 3: of compassion because I don't think this is people who
23:33
Speaker 3: are intentionally being cruel, which was that a lot of
23:36
Speaker 3: this has, you know, has ended up in really cruel
23:39
Speaker 3: actions that don't match with what Christianity is. But that's
23:45
Speaker 3: all they've been trained on, and so how do we
23:49
Speaker 3: help them realize that Christianity is a lot bigger and
23:53
Speaker 3: deeper and different than what they've been exposed to without
23:59
Speaker 3: them without their very fragile faith shattering. And that's a
24:04
Speaker 3: hard you know, we think about the expangelical movement, that's
24:08
Speaker 3: faith shattering because suddenly those tenants that they were taught
24:13
Speaker 3: were the you know, when you're taught that evolution, when
24:17
Speaker 3: you're taught that gender roles, that those are the things
24:20
Speaker 3: that hold up your faith instead of actually Jesus and
24:24
Speaker 3: those things fall you're faithfuls. And so we're seeing that's
24:30
Speaker 3: a response, I think. So this is a problem that's
24:33
Speaker 3: been building for a long time in the Southern Baptist world.
24:37
Speaker 3: Since the nineteen seventies is when you started seeing that
24:41
Speaker 3: attempt to take over. And it has taken this long
24:45
Speaker 3: for al Muhler to be able to stand up. And
24:47
Speaker 3: he knows he's not telling the truth, but I mean
24:50
Speaker 3: because he lived through this, but he says that Southern
24:52
Speaker 3: Baptists have always believed this about women, and his congregations
24:55
Speaker 3: and the people are in the SBC now, so many
24:58
Speaker 3: of them have never lived in a world where that
25:00
Speaker 3: was different.
25:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he can say that nobody's really going to
25:04
Speaker 1: be It's almost like there's no eyewitnesses to call him
25:06
Speaker 1: on it, right, he can he can just say that
25:08
Speaker 1: and everybody goes, well, of course they.
25:10
Speaker 3: Have because absolutely and there.
25:11
Speaker 2: We've never known anything different.
25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're controlling the seminary curriculum, they're controlling the narratives
25:17
Speaker 3: that are and then what these pastors are being taught.
25:20
Speaker 3: And I mean, it's just it's just a snowball, is
25:23
Speaker 3: what has been happening.
25:25
Speaker 1: So do you see, like I mean, part of what
25:27
Speaker 1: I see when we when we looked at the masculinity issue,
25:31
Speaker 1: which I think the masculinity issue in very odd ways
25:35
Speaker 1: sort of mirrors what's going on in the female side
25:39
Speaker 1: of this, absolutely right, because as you get one wrong,
25:42
Speaker 1: you're inevitably going to get the other wrong. It's like
25:45
Speaker 1: hardly we both we get one right and not the
25:47
Speaker 1: other one right. Yeah, And so part of what we
25:51
Speaker 1: what I saw, at least when we were looking at
25:52
Speaker 1: the masculinity conversation is this sort of strongmand we're going
25:57
Speaker 1: to We're going to turn out a generation of weak,
26:00
Speaker 1: limp wristed men who you know, have high voices and
26:04
Speaker 1: can't grow beards and you know, couldn't fight in the military.
26:08
Speaker 1: It's like you have these sort of pictures of these
26:10
Speaker 1: people and they're they're framed in this way that is so.
26:15
Speaker 2: Disingenuous and demeaning.
26:18
Speaker 1: Yes, that if you're not careful, you should sit back
26:21
Speaker 1: and go, well, of course, I don't want to be
26:22
Speaker 1: like that guy. And on the other side, you sort
26:25
Speaker 1: of play on this. I mean, it's Jesus and John
26:27
Speaker 1: Wayne right, absolutely right. You look back to Rambo or
26:31
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger or whoever, and you're like, that's the guy I
26:34
Speaker 1: want to be. But I think on reflection, like the
26:37
Speaker 1: reality is, no one's that guy. And so, you know,
26:43
Speaker 1: the the reaction is in some ways, you know, if
26:46
Speaker 1: you feel like you're losing your manhood, the reaction is
26:50
Speaker 1: in some ways intelligible, right, that you would have some
26:53
Speaker 1: sort of a reaction and make a response to that.
26:56
Speaker 1: I think the problem is that the response is something
26:59
Speaker 1: the lie manisphere and not discipleship.
27:03
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where I sort of lose it.
27:06
Speaker 5: I'm like, why are we not recalibrating to discipleship, Why
27:09
Speaker 5: are we recalibrating to any sort of gender cultural understanding
27:16
Speaker 5: of what you know, machismo is.
27:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I mean I you know, I
27:21
Speaker 3: have a son. I have a he turned twenty three
27:23
Speaker 3: this year, and I I'm grateful that he has a
27:28
Speaker 3: He has a really good head and also has grown
27:33
Speaker 3: up with me and my husband, which is I think,
27:35
Speaker 3: you know, has helped him maybe with some of this
27:37
Speaker 3: stuff out there. But you know, it's this, these gender
27:42
Speaker 3: constructs are damaging to our young men. And you know,
27:46
Speaker 3: I think about when they are told. You think about
27:48
Speaker 3: Mark Triscoll, I mean we started. We think about the
27:50
Speaker 3: things that he used to yell at these men, you
27:53
Speaker 3: know where he said, if you aren't making enough money
27:56
Speaker 3: where your wife doesn't have to work, you aren't a man.
28:00
Speaker 3: And I'm like, what is that? You know, we have
28:02
Speaker 3: never this concept that one partner in the home doesn't
28:08
Speaker 3: have to work for the economy of the home. That is,
28:11
Speaker 3: that is a nineteenth century invention. It never existed, and
28:14
Speaker 3: it mostly doesn't exist throughout the rest of the world.
28:17
Speaker 3: And yet we are burdening these young men with this
28:21
Speaker 3: idea that they have to walk into jobs that carry
28:25
Speaker 3: you know, actually more than six figure salaries now that
28:29
Speaker 3: can provide you know, their wives to not have to work,
28:34
Speaker 3: yet provide all the you know, all of the medical
28:38
Speaker 3: for you know, they're supposed to have tons of kids
28:40
Speaker 3: and they have to provide for all of that and
28:42
Speaker 3: take and it's like, no wonder, they're all so stressed out.
28:45
Speaker 3: And not only that, but then they also have to
28:47
Speaker 3: look a certain way, and you know the pressure on
28:50
Speaker 3: them to take steroids, to take things that to build
28:54
Speaker 3: up you know, the the image, the physical image for
29:00
Speaker 3: men is just as dangerous as the one for women.
29:04
Speaker 3: And Christians are doing this to our kids. Yeah, yeah,
29:09
Speaker 3: it's so sad.
29:11
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I mean my wife and I so
29:13
Speaker 1: she was a pharmacist by training. Yeah, I remember, Yeah,
29:17
Speaker 1: she was always going to outpace my salary like there
29:20
Speaker 1: was no no shot. But I remember in seminary one
29:24
Speaker 1: of my professors saying in class trying to be pastorals
29:27
Speaker 1: sort of saying, you know, your wives should.
29:29
Speaker 2: Never make more money than you do.
29:30
Speaker 1: It creates a power differential in the home and for
29:33
Speaker 1: It's just so it struck me so funny even then.
29:35
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you're telling me I'm going to
29:37
Speaker 1: make nothing, and so my wife could work part time
29:40
Speaker 1: a part time and still outpace my salary, right, you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: so you're telling me that on one and then then
29:46
Speaker 1: you're citing power differentials, which we're kind of supposed to
29:50
Speaker 1: be against, right, Like, like, why is this the one
29:54
Speaker 1: place power differentials can be activated in a in a
29:57
Speaker 1: positive space?
29:59
Speaker 2: Very strange.
30:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it you know it also, it's like if
30:04
Speaker 3: we are you know, the idea when you get married
30:08
Speaker 3: is that you are you become one together, which means
30:12
Speaker 3: you are this equal partnership. That's what we see in
30:15
Speaker 3: the garden in the beginning. Then the money you earn
30:19
Speaker 3: is for your family, whoever earns it it go. I mean,
30:22
Speaker 3: I don't know. This is just such a weird thing,
30:25
Speaker 3: and I mean some of it comes from we think
30:27
Speaker 3: about Bill Gothard. I mean, this is what he taught.
30:29
Speaker 3: He taught that if women are able to make their
30:32
Speaker 3: own money, they will use it on things that aren't
30:34
Speaker 3: good for the household, like they'll use it on pretty
30:37
Speaker 3: clothes for themselves. I mean he actually said that. I mean,
30:40
Speaker 3: it's this terrible demeaning thing. But when we look statistically,
30:45
Speaker 3: when women women actually tend to spend their money on
30:49
Speaker 3: the good of the household and the good of the family,
30:51
Speaker 3: and the good of childcare and you know, and education,
30:55
Speaker 3: and it's just yeah.
30:57
Speaker 1: So it's it's been I would say, my wife and
31:01
Speaker 1: I have gone through the I don't think we've like
31:04
Speaker 1: suffered or you know, it's not been anything big, but
31:06
Speaker 1: we definitely had friction as we've gone through. Because there
31:08
Speaker 1: was a time when I stayed home with my son
31:10
Speaker 1: when he was first born and my wife went to work,
31:12
Speaker 1: and people just thought that was crazy and the nicest
31:15
Speaker 1: words we heard for it were crazy. Yeah, you know,
31:18
Speaker 1: you know, And so we've had that sort of our
31:21
Speaker 1: whole marriage. And I think it does create this sort
31:24
Speaker 1: of setup expectations where it oddly reinforces a paradigm that
31:30
Speaker 1: isn't true but that you're seeing play out now and
31:34
Speaker 1: some of these complementarian sort of conversations and certainly what
31:37
Speaker 1: the SBC is doing, it's become a norm. Yes, and
31:41
Speaker 1: now where it used to be that you could be
31:44
Speaker 1: a deviant and sort of break the norm without severe repercussions,
31:49
Speaker 1: what it seems like is happening is there's going to
31:51
Speaker 1: be now disciplinary measures that you're breaking the norm, you're
31:54
Speaker 1: going to have harsher consequences for doing so.
31:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely know. One of the funny I mean,
32:01
Speaker 3: it's not funny, but it sort of is funny is
32:05
Speaker 3: seeing people like, for example, the Council for Biblical Manhood
32:09
Speaker 3: and Womanhood, who claims to be this really moderate complementarian
32:13
Speaker 3: space where they believe in the equality of men and women,
32:16
Speaker 3: but we just have different roles, and they have been
32:20
Speaker 3: trying to push they have been trying to separate themselves
32:23
Speaker 3: from what they call biblical patriarchy, which is Doug Wilson
32:27
Speaker 3: and you know, sort of that more extreme version. And
32:30
Speaker 3: it's been interest because you know, they're saying, no, no,
32:33
Speaker 3: that's not what we believe. We believe that women and
32:35
Speaker 3: men are fundamentally equal. Of course women should have the
32:39
Speaker 3: right to vote. You know, we would never argue for that,
32:41
Speaker 3: and it's a little you know, I look at that
32:44
Speaker 3: and I'm like, but this is where your theology leads,
32:49
Speaker 3: you know, this is the whole thing is that if
32:51
Speaker 3: you argue this, you are arguing that women aren't equal
32:55
Speaker 3: to men. And this is where it goes, is to
32:57
Speaker 3: biblical patriarchy and Doug will sin. So at least it
33:03
Speaker 3: is somewhat encouraging to me maybe that we see some
33:06
Speaker 3: of these what I would have considered to be more
33:08
Speaker 3: hardline complementarians now seeing themselves as more moderate and being like, well,
33:13
Speaker 3: well we don't want to go that far. I'm like,
33:15
Speaker 3: well that's positive, you know.
33:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing a parallel in some ways.
33:22
Speaker 4: So you know, when we talk about racial conversations, Yes,
33:27
Speaker 4: what starts to emerge is sort of this false fabric
33:30
Speaker 4: of self sufficiency. Yes, and I call it false because
33:35
Speaker 4: the negative image is always required, right, the idea of
33:38
Speaker 4: maturity always requires that image of what's not mature, so
33:40
Speaker 4: you can always point out to it absolutely, even as
33:43
Speaker 4: there's this carrot dangle to be like this and all
33:46
Speaker 4: of your dreams will come true. Well that, you know,
33:48
Speaker 4: that bleeds into another conversation on ecology, where that sort
33:54
Speaker 4: of notion of dangling the care and uh and a
33:57
Speaker 4: self sufficiency actualized for all doesn't actually work. It's destructive
34:02
Speaker 4: to the earth. But the parallel to me is that
34:06
Speaker 4: as I'm listening, that seems to be very much what's
34:10
Speaker 4: that in play here?
34:11
Speaker 3: Right?
34:11
Speaker 4: On one side, we want to have our cake and
34:14
Speaker 4: eat it too, right, We want to be able to
34:15
Speaker 4: say in this conversation, well, of course women are equal
34:19
Speaker 4: to men, you know, God made them equal. But when
34:23
Speaker 4: in every moment, for every single mention of this dialectic,
34:29
Speaker 4: the male is on top and the female is below,
34:32
Speaker 4: and for every moment the idea for masculine self actualizing
34:38
Speaker 4: is self sufficiency. Yes, so that the dirty secret in
34:42
Speaker 4: the room is well that self sufficiently. Self sufficiency, by
34:45
Speaker 4: the way, doesn't work when we want another generation, right,
34:48
Speaker 4: so we got to keep women around. It seems like
34:53
Speaker 4: the same dialectic as in play, where this self sufficiency
34:57
Speaker 4: is masquerading over that negative image that has to be
35:02
Speaker 4: kept there in some kind of subjugation. And no matter
35:05
Speaker 4: how many times one can say, well, no ontologically equal,
35:09
Speaker 4: if if functionally every single instance is is dis equilibriumized
35:16
Speaker 4: to write our fecond coin a word, then what we're
35:19
Speaker 4: talking about there is an ontological disequilibrium.
35:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, no, that's one hundred percent. And you know,
35:26
Speaker 3: and that's also the thing with I think with racism
35:29
Speaker 3: in the US, and we are really seeing the ugly
35:32
Speaker 3: head of white supremacy from people who claim, who have
35:37
Speaker 3: been claiming for years in the church that of course
35:40
Speaker 3: I'm not a racist. And you know, I have people
35:43
Speaker 3: friends who are not the same color as me. That
35:45
Speaker 3: makes me not a racist. You know, we invite them
35:47
Speaker 3: into our church as long as they agree with us
35:50
Speaker 3: and do it our way, and then we that means
35:53
Speaker 3: we're not racist, you know, But when you actually come
35:59
Speaker 3: down to it, what you find, you know, it's like,
36:03
Speaker 3: it's why it's okay for women as missionaries to teach
36:06
Speaker 3: people who are not who are not white, but when
36:09
Speaker 3: they come home, they can't teach white people. And it's like,
36:14
Speaker 3: that is an ontological frame. You are saying that people
36:17
Speaker 3: whose skin is different from you, that there is something
36:20
Speaker 3: less about them, which is why lesser gender can teach
36:25
Speaker 3: them and these and then what happened, what we're seeing
36:29
Speaker 3: happening in the in the US, in our churches right now,
36:32
Speaker 3: is that this this this inequity that has been behind
36:37
Speaker 3: the scenes is now coming out on full display. And unfortunately,
36:43
Speaker 3: people who have been in the water learning this inequity
36:47
Speaker 3: for so long can't see it now that it's coming
36:52
Speaker 3: to the surface because it's the what they've been living
36:54
Speaker 3: in and they don't see the discrepancy.
36:58
Speaker 4: So it seems to some to three the diminished middle
37:04
Speaker 4: could be seen as a culprit here, But I yeah,
37:08
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if I'm not sure what to think
37:10
Speaker 4: about that. I'm thinking about a piece that you wrote
37:12
Speaker 4: in your sub stack, I won't mention a book or
37:15
Speaker 4: author names unless you want to mention them. But there
37:18
Speaker 4: was a piece you wrote earlier this year which, okay, well,
37:23
Speaker 4: someone seemed to want to take that middle ground and say,
37:27
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just looking at the basic biblical facts,
37:30
Speaker 4: and the basic biblical facts don't lend overwhelmingly towards the
37:34
Speaker 4: complementary and sort of positions, despite what complementarians want to say, right,
37:39
Speaker 4: And your reaction to that was that I get the
37:43
Speaker 4: substance of what you're saying, and I can appreciate on
37:45
Speaker 4: a certain level as someone who can draw people back
37:48
Speaker 4: towards a conversation. But your problem was that this person
37:54
Speaker 4: needs to actually take another step and call out injustices.
37:57
Speaker 4: And I'm with you, by the way, in that voice,
38:00
Speaker 4: but I wonder, I wonder in that if that kind
38:05
Speaker 4: of posture that I share with you means that it
38:08
Speaker 4: prevents there from being sort of a middle ground. So
38:11
Speaker 4: now when you end up with a tug of war
38:14
Speaker 4: or a polarity battle.
38:15
Speaker 3: So you know that was what that actually. I think
38:18
Speaker 3: the fact that people interpret calling out a problem as
38:25
Speaker 3: being antagonistic is the loss of that middle ground. Middle
38:30
Speaker 3: ground is actually the ability to disagree with people and
38:35
Speaker 3: still be in conversation with each other. And so you know,
38:38
Speaker 3: where we can it's almost, you know, sort of like
38:39
Speaker 3: the way academia is supposed to be, where we're all
38:42
Speaker 3: scholars here, but you can peer review my thing and
38:45
Speaker 3: say this is you know, these are all the mistakes
38:47
Speaker 3: that are with it, and I argue back and be like, no,
38:49
Speaker 3: I think I'm you're right here, but I don't see
38:53
Speaker 3: you know, and that, and then you're you're all you're
38:55
Speaker 3: sitting and eating lunch at the next conference together, because
38:58
Speaker 3: this is just what we do. And that's a ground
39:01
Speaker 3: is being able to sit next to people and be like, hey,
39:05
Speaker 3: I think you're wrong, but I'm still going to sit
39:08
Speaker 3: next to you and we can talk about it and see.
39:13
Speaker 3: And so what I actually was attempting to do was well,
39:16
Speaker 3: first of all, so what I was attempting to do,
39:20
Speaker 3: and this is something that I've actually seen evidence behind
39:23
Speaker 3: the scenes, because I've gotten emails from women who were
39:26
Speaker 3: so put off by his attitude where he said, you know,
39:30
Speaker 3: this isn't going to affect me at all because I'm
39:32
Speaker 3: still going to have all the friends I have and
39:34
Speaker 3: I mean, he explained that, but the way it comes
39:36
Speaker 3: off is really like, this is just an intellectual issue.
39:39
Speaker 3: It doesn't really hurt anyone. And when women were like,
39:43
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, and you know, and so I've had women.
39:46
Speaker 3: In fact, one just wrote me a couple of days
39:48
Speaker 3: ago and was like, I picked up his book because
39:50
Speaker 3: of what you said, and you know, was you know,
39:53
Speaker 3: and so I'm really glad and I think this will
39:55
Speaker 3: be a helpful book to give to, you know, especially
39:58
Speaker 3: the men and my family to make help. But it's
40:02
Speaker 3: this idea of like, how do we bring people together
40:06
Speaker 3: and say we can disagree on this and still and
40:13
Speaker 3: that you know, disagreement is the tension that we can
40:17
Speaker 3: live with and so that you know, and but we
40:21
Speaker 3: we don't see it that way anymore. In fact, when
40:23
Speaker 3: I posted that review, the first thing that happened was
40:26
Speaker 3: somebody sent me a I'm not i haven't been on
40:28
Speaker 3: Twitter for years, but somebody has sent me a tweet
40:31
Speaker 3: from Colin Smothers, who I think is still the president
40:33
Speaker 3: of the CBMW, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,
40:37
Speaker 3: and he was like, not good enough, Beth Allison Barr,
40:41
Speaker 3: you know, let the fight begin and I was like,
40:45
Speaker 3: you didn't even read it. You know, I'm actually not
40:48
Speaker 3: trying to fight. I'm like, this is good, let's keep
40:51
Speaker 3: this conversation going. But it's this idea that if you
40:55
Speaker 3: are against me in any way, you are my enemy
40:59
Speaker 3: and we can't you know, we can't cooperate together.
41:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the lack of capacity to disagree. I really, Yeah,
41:07
Speaker 4: I think you're right, and I think that hits it
41:09
Speaker 4: right on the head, that, yeah, there is legitimate debate
41:13
Speaker 4: right on some of the passages, even that you and
41:15
Speaker 4: James brought up. Yeah, we're not sure what's going on here,
41:19
Speaker 4: but let's not pretend that whatever is going on in
41:22
Speaker 4: these passages is therefore the entirety of the conversation. And
41:25
Speaker 4: maybe even more importantly, let's not for change or exclude
41:30
Speaker 4: against the possibility of disagreement and real conversation.
41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
41:34
Speaker 4: So I appreciate the way.
41:35
Speaker 2: That you put that.
41:36
Speaker 4: That's that's the true middle, not some desire to please
41:39
Speaker 4: both sides.
41:40
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so I don't
41:43
Speaker 3: I mean, that was a that may be my most
41:45
Speaker 3: read sub stack this year or and it's been. Really
41:50
Speaker 3: the responses have been very interesting. But I'm I think
41:55
Speaker 3: I started a good conversation. I think maybe the author
41:57
Speaker 3: is not happy with me.
42:00
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure, you know, but it's hard.
42:04
Speaker 3: I've been there where you have a best selling book
42:07
Speaker 3: and everybody's coming at you. You know. I'm like, you know,
42:11
Speaker 3: it's hard. It's a hard space.
42:13
Speaker 1: So it's okay, let me ask a question because I
42:18
Speaker 1: think it's interesting. You know, when we've talked about this
42:20
Speaker 1: whole conversation, we have talked about, to a large degree,
42:24
Speaker 1: institutions and they're spokespeople.
42:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
42:27
Speaker 2: Right.
42:27
Speaker 1: We've talked about the SBC and now Moller. We've talked about,
42:30
Speaker 1: you know, the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and
42:33
Speaker 1: their leadership. We've talked about you know, more popular evangelical
42:37
Speaker 1: voices who had big platforms back in the day. James
42:40
Speaker 1: Dobson had the radio program like he was the face
42:42
Speaker 1: of something he felt like an institution. Yes, part of
42:47
Speaker 1: my concern and this is just sort of my systems
42:50
Speaker 1: thinking background, I think coming out, it's like, I'm concerned
42:54
Speaker 1: that the middle ground doesn't have sufficient coordination, yes, right,
42:59
Speaker 1: to like come together and go no, we're not going
43:02
Speaker 1: to do this whole polarization thing. We're actually going to
43:04
Speaker 1: emphasize conversation. We're actually going to we don't have to
43:08
Speaker 1: agree on everything, but we are not going to tolerate
43:11
Speaker 1: closure of these conversations, right, you know, inappropriate closure of
43:16
Speaker 1: these conversations, immature closure of these we're not going to
43:18
Speaker 1: tolerate it. And there isn't an institution it feels like
43:24
Speaker 1: that does that anymore. I know universities, some better ones
43:29
Speaker 1: do do that, right, but they're also fairly cloistered as
43:35
Speaker 1: they do it. They're not out there sort of promoting
43:37
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. Do you also see that as
43:41
Speaker 1: an issue here? And if so, if you thought through
43:44
Speaker 1: any ways, we could potentially solve it.
43:46
Speaker 2: Just to sort of close out my thought.
43:48
Speaker 1: Like you know, I mentioned before you we started recording,
43:51
Speaker 1: I'm like, you've been on a lot of podcasts, Like
43:53
Speaker 1: we do podcasts twice a week. There's all these other
43:56
Speaker 1: people who do podcasts similar to this all over the place,
44:00
Speaker 1: but they're very like laser focused, targeted.
44:03
Speaker 2: There's not like a network.
44:04
Speaker 1: Of people who are sort of bound together and we're
44:07
Speaker 1: all sort of doing our thing dependently, and so that's
44:09
Speaker 1: not a bad thing, but it's also not the same
44:14
Speaker 1: thing as what the SBC.
44:16
Speaker 2: Can pull off.
44:17
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing as what these other like
44:19
Speaker 1: coordinated entities can actually pull off.
44:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. You know, if
44:27
Speaker 3: you think about, like where how did the SBC connect
44:31
Speaker 3: with some of these other more conservative voices. I mean, honestly,
44:35
Speaker 3: let's let's think about desiring God. Let's think about John
44:38
Speaker 3: Piper's website and all of the different voices that contribute
44:41
Speaker 3: to us. Think about the Gospel Coalition, you know, which
44:46
Speaker 3: which controls who gets to contribute. And I mean I remember,
44:50
Speaker 3: you know, they're one of their book editors got fired
44:53
Speaker 3: over putting out a positive review of The Making a
44:56
Speaker 3: Biblical Woman, And I mean I felt terrible of that.
45:00
Speaker 3: It was I didn't know it until after the fact,
45:04
Speaker 3: and you know, I was just like, why in the
45:06
Speaker 3: world can you not have dialogue over this? You all
45:13
Speaker 3: have to anyway, And so I think you are absolutely right.
45:19
Speaker 3: There is I think part of it is is that
45:21
Speaker 3: the middle we don't have the funding resources behind us,
45:26
Speaker 3: like you know, if you think about and so trying
45:31
Speaker 3: to pull these together in a coordinated way. I think
45:35
Speaker 3: also there is a problem the I hate to use
45:39
Speaker 3: the words left or I think we just but there
45:42
Speaker 3: are people on the other end of the spectrum who
45:45
Speaker 3: are in some ways perpetuate some of the things that
45:49
Speaker 3: the more conservative and do, like if you even like,
45:53
Speaker 3: I had some people on the far progressive side who
45:58
Speaker 3: when I even when I even talked with that book
46:02
Speaker 3: we were just talking about and I mean it's Preston Sprinkle,
46:05
Speaker 3: which I recommend he does a lot of great things.
46:08
Speaker 3: He does anyway, I don't always agree with him, but anyway,
46:12
Speaker 3: so because I even talked about his book, there were
46:16
Speaker 3: people on the progressive side who were like not even willing,
46:19
Speaker 3: who were so angry at me, And I'm like, we've
46:22
Speaker 3: got to be able to talk to each other, and
46:26
Speaker 3: we've got to be able to engage with ideas. But
46:29
Speaker 3: there is not a coordinated there's not coordinated funding. There's
46:34
Speaker 3: not a coordinator. I don't. I don't know how, I don't.
46:38
Speaker 3: There's not a network, there is not a desiring God,
46:41
Speaker 3: there is not a gospel coalition.
46:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, for that middle it feels like, I mean, evangelical
46:50
Speaker 1: theological society is such a huge mix and tends to
46:55
Speaker 1: skew a little more conservative. You know, even some of
46:58
Speaker 1: those scholarly sort of places you go, they just don't
47:01
Speaker 1: really have the oomph behind them. And so the big,
47:06
Speaker 1: the big influential organizations you can think of, are going
47:10
Speaker 1: to re emphasize these same kind of points that we've
47:12
Speaker 1: been talking about this entire time. They're going to say,
47:15
Speaker 1: you know, more complementarian. They're going to skew more toward
47:19
Speaker 1: you know, no women in leadership. They're going to skew
47:21
Speaker 1: more toward, you know, to Ashisha's point, they're going to
47:24
Speaker 1: they're going to screw more toward a North American white context.
47:27
Speaker 2: Than anything else.
47:29
Speaker 1: And so you sit back and you're like the air
47:31
Speaker 1: that we're breathing the point about these are the things
47:34
Speaker 1: that we've been taught over time. It feels like there's
47:37
Speaker 1: such an inertia behind them that you know, we've got
47:41
Speaker 1: to really dig in right to change the direction.
47:49
Speaker 3: Where I've seen encouragement is actually globally. So like I've
47:54
Speaker 3: been involved in the UK, there is a Theos which
48:00
Speaker 3: is a network for for theologians and sort of broad
48:04
Speaker 3: sweet religion, kind of broad and and they're doing a
48:10
Speaker 3: lot of sort of think work and trying to pull
48:14
Speaker 3: coalitions together. I did a big I did a big
48:17
Speaker 3: online event they have a conference for women in ministry
48:20
Speaker 3: throughout the world that they're hosting in Cairo called Women
48:24
Speaker 3: Rising and and so there. You know, also with the
48:28
Speaker 3: Baptist World Alliance the b w A, you know, people always,
48:33
Speaker 3: you know, I always tell them that if I'm the
48:35
Speaker 3: those are the Baptists that I like the b w A.
48:38
Speaker 3: I'm very much. I love the b w A Baptists,
48:41
Speaker 3: and that's a anyway, So I see this, some of
48:46
Speaker 3: this work being done globally. I haven't. There are spaces
48:52
Speaker 3: in North America where we see different organizations trying to
48:56
Speaker 3: do it, but it's just really hard. In the space
49:00
Speaker 3: and the polarized context that we have right now, it
49:02
Speaker 3: is just really hard to create a middle ground.
49:07
Speaker 4: Interesting, Yeah, do you think maybe that's just the nature
49:14
Speaker 4: of a middle ground that those who are trying to
49:18
Speaker 4: to create space are just always going to be on
49:21
Speaker 4: the side of having to struggle And maybe that's okay,
49:24
Speaker 4: But the goal, maybe maybe the lesson is don't give
49:28
Speaker 4: up the struggle.
49:30
Speaker 3: I think that's always the Christian lesson, don't give up
49:33
Speaker 3: the struggle, you know, because I mean and that it's
49:35
Speaker 3: going to be suffering. I just finished a study on
49:38
Speaker 3: revelation in my Sunday school class, and you know, and
49:42
Speaker 3: Jesus wins by losing, and Christians are called we're that's
49:48
Speaker 3: carrying our cross, is following a savior who died and
49:53
Speaker 3: gave it all up for the people who are who
49:57
Speaker 3: considered worth it. And so I mean, so I don't
50:01
Speaker 3: think it is easy. I don't think we're called for
50:03
Speaker 3: it to be easy. I think when it becomes easy
50:07
Speaker 3: and when we become successful, that's we end up on
50:11
Speaker 3: those polarized you know, that's it's much more easy. It's
50:15
Speaker 3: much easier to end up in those polarized sides. I
50:18
Speaker 3: think it's harder to stay in the middle.
50:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:24
Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about because even if you're on
50:26
Speaker 1: the polarized side and you win, just historically, it doesn't.
50:31
Speaker 3: Go answer empire. Yeah yeah, And I mean so, I mean, really,
50:39
Speaker 3: where you the tension is what you want to keep
50:42
Speaker 3: and that dialogue. And the more I'm learning about modern
50:46
Speaker 3: US history, there are moments in US history where we've
50:49
Speaker 3: gotten close to that. And that's actually, you know, it's like, okay,
50:54
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I don't believe utopia is ever
50:57
Speaker 3: going to exist because because because of sin, But I
51:02
Speaker 3: do think that doesn't mean we don't keep striving for it.
51:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well we're about out of time for the episode,
51:12
Speaker 1: so I want to give you kind of a shot
51:14
Speaker 1: at a last comment, and I'm interested in just hearing
51:17
Speaker 1: a little bit about again, I made the mistake a
51:21
Speaker 1: getting on social media, which I'm not a big social
51:23
Speaker 1: media guy, but just trying to find, you know, some
51:26
Speaker 1: information on the SPC stuff of going on, and so
51:29
Speaker 1: I hopped on and I'm looking at these you know,
51:32
Speaker 1: as somebody who's trained in biblical interpretation, you sit back
51:36
Speaker 1: and you look at some of the reels that go
51:37
Speaker 1: buy on Instagram, and you go, well, sort of and
51:44
Speaker 1: you sort of sit back and like people who aren't
51:46
Speaker 1: trained in this, who really don't have the ability to
51:49
Speaker 1: sort of sit back and think, well, the Greek there
51:51
Speaker 1: isn't exactly what this is saying, or this is you know,
51:54
Speaker 1: this isn't connected with that. How How would you just
52:00
Speaker 1: someone really start thinking through this issue?
52:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, without going out and.
52:06
Speaker 1: You know, going to the SBC website and reading their
52:09
Speaker 1: side and going you know, because I don't know that
52:11
Speaker 1: that helps, but yeah, just thought process on how you'd
52:15
Speaker 1: help someone who's just I really like to understand the
52:18
Speaker 1: contours of this issue.
52:19
Speaker 2: How should I approach it?
52:21
Speaker 3: So I think Jesus gave us a real you know,
52:23
Speaker 3: not when we think about the fruit that we bear
52:30
Speaker 3: and aw is this bearing the fruit of the spirit, love, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness,
52:37
Speaker 3: self control? Is it following the commandment? What did Jesus
52:41
Speaker 3: say was the first and greatest commandment? You know? Is
52:43
Speaker 3: to love the Lord's your God with all your hearts soul,
52:45
Speaker 3: and to love your neighbor as yourself. Is what's going
52:49
Speaker 3: on here. Loving our neighbor is what's going on here.
52:53
Speaker 3: Showing the fruits of the spirit.
52:55
Speaker 5: You know.
52:55
Speaker 3: Paul says that we're just clinging symbols if we're not
53:00
Speaker 3: showing the fruits of the spirit. And so I think
53:02
Speaker 3: that's a real you know, just sit back and be like,
53:04
Speaker 3: are these policies that the people who my church is
53:09
Speaker 3: putting forward, are they actually bearing the fruits of the spirit?
53:13
Speaker 3: Are they loving our neighbor? You know, I saw one
53:17
Speaker 3: just the other day where it was sort of you know,
53:19
Speaker 3: satirn and Jesus saying people who were before he healed
53:25
Speaker 3: someone saying do you have health care? And like you know,
53:28
Speaker 3: should you, And it's like, no, do I mean, you know,
53:32
Speaker 3: Jesus cared for his neighbor, he healed them and asked
53:35
Speaker 3: the questions. It didn't actually ever ask the questions, but
53:39
Speaker 3: you know, what is it? So I think that might
53:41
Speaker 3: be one like is this a Christian? Is this a Christian? Response? Yeah?
53:46
Speaker 3: Are they bearing the fruits of the spirit and that
53:48
Speaker 3: can help us?
53:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good you any last questions.
53:55
Speaker 4: More of a an amen to that. I appreciate ending
53:59
Speaker 4: with the fruit of the spirit. But yeah, you know,
54:02
Speaker 4: whatever we want to call them, whether we call them
54:06
Speaker 4: the ethics or the virtues or whatever that they they
54:10
Speaker 4: really are there to show you the nature of the tree, right,
54:14
Speaker 4: and so that's a good place to direct us.
54:17
Speaker 2: I think.
54:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, very good, Beth. It's always a pleasure to
54:23
Speaker 1: have you on having me. Really enjoyed our last conversation
54:27
Speaker 1: on your latest book, and it was I'm blanking on
54:32
Speaker 1: the title.
54:32
Speaker 2: You forgot the titles. Now I'm forgetting titles.
54:34
Speaker 3: Oh, they're making a biblical womanhood or becoming.
54:36
Speaker 2: The pastor's becoming the pastors.
54:38
Speaker 3: That's my most recently becoming the past Yeah.
54:41
Speaker 1: Such an eye opening idea that, like how that came
54:44
Speaker 1: about through you know, these different political changes within the
54:48
Speaker 1: church and all that kind of fun stuff in medieval times.
54:50
Speaker 1: And so it's always fascinating to talk to people who
54:53
Speaker 1: know history, I think because you just have a different
54:55
Speaker 1: perspective on on things than most of us do an
54:58
Speaker 1: daily So it's a lot of fun. And give give
55:03
Speaker 1: you a substack. It's Marginalia dot subspact dot com. Am
55:06
Speaker 1: I getting that right?
55:07
Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely, it's the medieval, it's in medieval manuscripts. It's
55:11
Speaker 3: the writing and the margins, the marginal name Marginellion.
55:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll have both of those linked in the
55:18
Speaker 1: show notes. Encourage you go check out Beth's work here.
55:21
Speaker 1: It's really fantastic and I think you'll find a great
55:25
Speaker 1: conversation partner and all of it. So Beth, thanks again
55:28
Speaker 1: for being here, Thanks for the work you do, and
55:30
Speaker 1: we'll see everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
55:33
Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the
55:34
Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
55:37
Speaker 1: the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,
55:40
Speaker 1: you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.
55:44
Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.