Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 16 | Christian Egalitarianism with the Sheologians

Episode Date: June 27, 2018

Egalitarianism is on the move in the church. What does it mean, how did we get h​​ere, and where will it take us? I address some of the recent controversy with Paige Patterson and the Southern Baptist Convention and how the #MeToo movement is shaping our conversations around gender roles in Christianity. Joy Temby & Summer White of the Sheologians are here to help me break it all down! Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

Hey guys, welcome to CRTV's Relatable with me, your beloved host, Ali Stucky, where we break down relevant political and cultural topics from a conservative Christian perspective. Yes, I go ahead and tell you my bias outright, but I always try to do the best job that I possibly can to tell you multiple sides of the story and to tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And you always have the freedom of emailing me, alley at the conservative millennial blog.com. If you feel like I'm not doing an adequate job of that, or you can send me a nice email, that would be great too.

So I have been taking a lot of interviews on this podcast lately, which is actually not usual. I typically take 30 minutes or an hour somewhere in there, breaking down one subject for multiple perspectives on my own. But there have been a few particularly deep and nuanced topics on which I've wanted to give the insight of other people. And I also just happen to know some awesome people that I've wanted to introduce you to. And today, it is both. I want to talk about a somewhat complex topic with two people that I consider experts. And I just want you to meet them because I think they're great.

Summer White and Joy Tim B of the Sheelogians podcast are here to talk about this trend of egalitarianism happening in Christianity and the danger that it entails. A lot of you guys probably already know the Shalogians. You might even follow me because you heard me on the Shalogians podcast, but I really just love them. If you're looking for a good Christian podcast from women who are serious about good, correct theology, not that overtly emotional stuff that we get from a lot of female Bible study leaders, then I definitely recommend their podcast. Okay. At the end, I'm going to answer one quick Bible question. I'm going to tell you one thing I don't get one special something to leave you with.

I'm not going to talk about what's going on in the news. This particular podcast, I usually do, but I just don't have time because I want to cover this subject. There's a lot going on in the news. I'm going to have an article coming out about what I think about everything that's going on with civility. That's kind of the topic of conversation this week with people that are being harassed in the Trump administration.

people like Maxine Waters calling for them to be harassed. Is civility dead? All of that stuff. I'm not going to talk about that today because I have an article coming out on conservative review. So make sure that you look out for that. Today, we're talking about egalitarianism. And before I get into the conversation with summer and joy, I'm going to give you some context. First, what the heck do I mean by egalitarianism? Egalitarianism in the secular sense is this idea that not only are men and women of equal worth, which of course they are. But egalitarianism also holds that they are able and should be able to perform the exact same roles pretty much. I don't disagree with that idea entirely and certainly from that secular perspective. I do think that women can and should be elected and promoted and hired for positions of leadership and should be held to no different standards than men are. But egalitarianism doesn't properly account for the very real ways, even from a secular sense that men and women are different. They don't believe in any leadership or differing roles in marriage, especially, for example.

It kind of blurs the lines of gender and pretends that essentially men and women are the same, which is exactly why egalitarianism in the context of the church and the context of biblical Christianity does not work. Christian egalitarianism is primarily a liberal movement to eliminate traditional gender roles in the church. so they believe women should be able to be pastors and priests, for example. And by the way, I do feel like I'm kind of getting a cold. So if I sound like hoarse or weird, that is why. Just FYI.

Any way. Christian egalitarians also take issue with male headship with a marriage. They generally believe that the call for the wife to submit to her husband is kind of archaic and can be a precursor for abuse, domination, things like that. it's basically a push by Christian feminist to put men and women on what they consider the same level. And I take a lot of issues with that phrase the same level because I don't think it's a very good description, but I'll get to that in a little bit. There are several other problems with this. Number one, first and foremost, and really the only reason that matters of why this

is wrong is that they are biblically incorrect. There is a difference between male and female. You can read Genesis 1 through 3 to see that. I mean, you can read the entire Bible, but if you want to go back to the very beginning, you could start at the beginning of Genesis. God made them male and female both in his image, but differently. God could have made two people from the dust simultaneously if he had wanted to. He could have made them in pretty much every way. The exact same, but he chose not to. He made Adam first, and Eve came from Adam out of his side. Eve is described as Adam's helper, the Hebrew word, I say is there, but when I looked it up, it says Azer. So I'm going to say Azer. This does not mean helper as an servant, since it's a

word also frequently used to describe God himself in the Old Testament, but as a form of power and necessary strength. That's how Eve is described. Eve was created. Eve was created. because it wasn't good for Adam to be alone. This means that Adam was insufficient by himself. He actually needed Eve. So when people, and particularly Christian feminists, talk about the creation story being sexist or laying the groundwork for the patriarchy,

I say, no, not really. Eve was created from Adam for Adam to provide the help and strength that he desperately needed. Um, egalitarians would like to believe that Eve was made as a self-sufficient person and would take issue with the idea of being made for Adam. But I mean, there's some nuance to that. She wasn't made to live her life and to do her own thing, but neither was Adam. Both were made first and foremost and really entirely to bring glory to God. And then secondly, they were made to compliment one another.

It was never good for man to be alone. God never meant for men and women to be completely self-sufficient. Also, Adam and Eve were cursed differently. While some curses after the fall, they share like death and suffering, they also had separate curses. A man's specific curse relates to fruitlessly working in a woman's specific curse is pain and childbearing and also very important that our desire will be for our husband and he will rule over you.

This means that there will be a fight for headship. marriage. We will want his role. He will struggle with passivity. There was no need for ruling and submission when man and woman lived in perfect, sinless, complimentary harmony. But because of sin, there is. This egalitarian movement is a direct result of the curse of Genesis 3, in my opinion. These are women and men who are struggling with male headship that God ordained, and they are pushing against that. It's just a consequence of sin. we're seeing this egalitarian movement. And not only are they pushing against it, they're doing it in the name of Christianity, which of course is blasphemy. Not only are men and women very different,

but they do have different roles in the context of the church and in the context of marriage. 1 Corinthians 1434, the woman should keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission. 1 Timothy 2.12, I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. Now look, I know. I know a lot of us strong-willed women cringe when we hear these verses. I'm not going to pretend like I read those verses. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that sounds really good. I mean, I love staying quiet. I mean, you guys know me. I don't, I don't ever like to stay quiet. So I understand if you hear that and you're like, oh, but I just want to put that in the context of the churches back then. I don't, I don't want that to be true today.

I totally understand that resistance and that feeling. But let's back up for a second because this is God's word. And because it's God's word, we have to trust that it is not only true, but it is also good. So let's start with that mentality and then go from there. First of all, both are in the context of the church and they have specific meanings. I have the ESV study Bible and I'm not saying that the study portion of it is inerrant. But I think typically that it is pretty spot on in its interpretation from the other research that I've done. I'm also a big fan of Wayne Grudom's reformed theology that helps me, oh, sorry, systematic theology that helps me make sure I'm on the right track. In 1st Corinthians 1434, Paul probably doesn't mean a complete and total prohibition

of women speaking since, or speaking in church since in Chapter 11, he does permit women to pray and to prophesy with certain conditions. The immediate context in this verse is judging of prophecy, which is probably what he is saying women should not do. 1 Timothy 212 means that women are not supposed to teach Christian doctrine to men in church, and they are not to exercise authority over men in church. Women teaching women, teaching children, having leadership roles outside the church, are all permissible as far as I can see by biblical standards.

But these particular things in this verse are not. also in the context of marriage, we can look at Ephesians 522 through 33 for one example. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Husbands are meant to love their wives. In fact, a husband is called to love his wife as he loves his own body to nourish and cherish her the way that Christ does the church. The husband should be imitating Christ, the woman embodying the church. And I know that we hear that word submit and we cringe a little bit because it's like,

It sounds like a slave to her master. But when you look down just a few verses later and you read the husband's role, that doesn't sound like a slave and a master relationship at all. That just sounds like two different roles of the husband not only leading his wife, but serving his wife completely sacrificially and completely selflessly. I mean, the role of the husband is one of absolute humility. Yes, does he have to, at the end of the day, make the ultimate spirit? and even maybe sometimes financial decisions for the family.

Yeah. But that doesn't mean that he is a ruler who says, okay, wife, this is the way that we're doing things. Not at all. This is a symbiotic relationship and a partnership that happens to have two different and complementary roles. For example, you guys know, I am a very strong-willed, outspoken person. there are very few situations in which I do not make my opinion known. My husband, who is absolutely wonderful, who I love more than anything in this entire world,

he is more quiet. He's not quite as opinionated as I am. So I am not constantly going to my husband and saying, husband, I'm submitting to you. Can you tell me what to think about this? or help me form my opinion about this. That's not how the conversations in our house go. I mean, we talk about things. We talk about politics.

We talk about decisions that we're going to make. But at the end of the day, I'm going to trust him to make decisions that either we don't come to an agreement on or I truly don't know the direction to go. For example, we are in the process of becoming members at a new church. That was a process that was led by him. him. And that doesn't mean that I didn't have a say in it. But he, he is the one that made that decision for us, that forged that road for us, that made sure, okay, we're going to this class to make sure that we are going to be members. We're going to make sure that we do all of, you know,

the things that we have to do to become members. He has taken, he has taken leadership in that. And like I said, that doesn't mean that I'm not a part of it, but I'm trusting him with the spiritual formation and the spiritual leadership of our family. So, I don't know if that makes complete in total sense, just because I know that there's a lot of people that hear that hear the whole submission thing and they kind of freak out, but I don't want you to freak out. And we should never freak out over God's word because he knows what he's talking about. Anyway, that said, I understand why feminists are pushing for egalitarianism despite these verses. They feel offensive, like I said, but that comes really from a misunderstanding of scripture.

a mistrust of God. God doesn't give man the role of teacher and leader in the church because he loves man more or because he thinks more highly of him, but because that's the responsibility that he's chosen to give him. Women as leaders and teachers elsewhere, as her husband's strong helper, if she's married, isn't less than, doesn't reflect God's glory any less. It's just different. And if we believe that God is good, that he loves us, then we should take him at his word. trust that his order and commands are also good and that they are good for us and that most importantly they give him glory. Most reformed Christians today are what we call a complementarian, which means that men and women have different roles ordained by God to compliment one another,

and in particular that husbands and wives have different roles that complement one another. This does not mean that all women are supposed to submit in all context to all men. It means that in marriage, men are the humble, godly servant leaders, and in in the church, executive authority and the authority of the elders should be male. The egalitarian push has existed for a while. There are certain denominations that have been heading this direction for many years, factions of the Episcopalian Church, factions to the Baptist Church, factions of the Presbyterian church.

But now it's being talked about in a more mainstream and even non-denominational way because I think in part of the Me Too movement and the recent fallout of the president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Paige Patterson. A lot of you guys have asked me about this, who also used to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was the largest faction of, or is the largest faction of Protestant Christianity. He also used to be the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He played a major role. He actually probably was the forerunner for this in what was called the conservative

resurgence of Southern Baptist, people called him and still call him a fundamentalist. But no matter what you thought of him, he was a really big deal. He was what a lot of people considered a savior from liberalism for Baptist, particularly from the questioning of the inerrancy of scripture and of biblical gender roles. He was big on preaching the importance of female submission. And ironically, it was a female who ultimately led to his extremely just demise. While he was the president of, I'm going to try to use abbreviations here, S-E-B-T-S, a woman brought forth a rape allegation to Patterson and the school board, and they not only did not report the rape themselves, but actually encouraged this woman to not report it.

And they put her on probation for letting the guy who raped her into her apartment. It was like a boyfriend or a guy that she was dating. They had been kissing and then he raped her. But of course, this was her fault. This was all the way back in 2003, by the way. So she was actually punished for it. Paige Patterson actually said in an email exchange about this whole thing that he was going to try to, quote, break her down.

He also lied about this to the board when he was asked about it. So yeah, that's great. Comments also surfaced this month by Patterson saying that he counseled abused women to stay with their abusing husband. He also said crude things to a teenage girl, and he was known for criticizing the looks of seminary students who were female. So yeah, not a great guy. Sounds like kind of a scumbag who thought that he was impervious to accountability. A lot of people have spoken out about this, of course, and in particular, Beth Moore, who wrote an open letter documenting the sexism. Not that she's experienced from Paige Patterson,

particularly, but that she's just experienced as a Bible teacher in the Southern Baptist Convention for decades. And, you know, I have some other thoughts about Beth Moore Theologically. I think that she has some interesting views, but this was a good letter. I also, I know that she said a lot about Trump, but we're not talking about her political meanings right now. I thought this was a good letter. We should be talking about sexism and discrimination and unfair treatment of women in the church that they are sins. There is no place for objectification and shame of women in the body of Christ. None.

It would be the same way if it was towards men. And you know, I'm actually thankful for the Me Too movement for the conversations it started. Yes, hopefully Patterson would have been fired anyway. But you just do have to wonder if Me Too has at least up the ante for these kind of things. I actually think that it's good that men are realizing that you're not going to be able to hide in the shadows as a rapist, as a harassed or abuser. I say actually because there are other very serious flaws to Me Too that I've discussed very thoroughly in past episodes and on my blog.

But one great thing about it, I think, is that is the bravery and the protection that it's offering women to speak up about their abuse and about the people who shamed them and hid their abuse. That's not only good. It is also biblical. God sees the abused. He cares for the abused. He hates those who inflict abuse. And it is right for these situations to be uncovered so victims can heal. SBC Southern Baptist Convention had a conference a couple weeks ago about the state of the convention. J.D. Greer became president, which a lot of people are happy about. and from what I've read, there was a lot of talk at the conference about misogyny and the need for female representation in the church, particularly in places of leadership. I'm not saying this was advocated for by Greer or that the SBC is implementing strategies for

female representation, but reports like in Christianity today say that women were really the talk of the SBC conference. And here's what I fear in that. Not just for the SBC, but for the SBC. but for the church in general, that we will look to egalitarianism, to feminism, and to social justice as the answer to misogyny and abuse rather than description. Patterson's misbehavior doesn't render the Bible or even his views about male headship in marriage incorrect.

The Bible does have structures and dynamics and plagues. place. Now, I think that they were misused and misinterpreted by Patterson, but the structures in the Bible are still ordained by God for our good. And wandering from those will not ultimately bring healing to the church or to any victims. Jesus will. Jesus is the answer to the abuse and the dejection and the injustice that we're seeing in the church. Jesus, is the only one that's going to be able to heal and satisfy the victims of this abuse, not egalitarianism, not disobedience to God's word. But that is where I fear we are headed, that the pendulum is going to swing too far in the other direction.

So now that you have some context of why we're talking about this, why this is a relevant topic for Christians, here is my conversation with Joy in summary of the Sheila Jones. Okay, sheelogens. Will you please tell everyone who you guys are and what you do? I'm Summer and I'm Joy. We have a podcast called Sheelogians and what do we do? Well, we have people like you on our show. Yes.

We have authors come on our show and we basically talk about the biblical worldview and what happens when it meets our current culture. Is that a good definition? Yeah. We talk a lot about feminism, feminism in the church, feminism outside of the church. Lots of stuff relating to feminism, like certainly social Marxism and intersectionality, things like that. So it does kind of, I guess feminism is kind of a foundation for a lot of what we do. Yes.

But we also laugh a lot, or is our listeners like to say giggle? Yes, you do. Y'all do Google a lot. That's like the number one. I get that all the time. It's like, people are like, you know, I just, I like their show when they stop giggling. So that's like our biggest complaint other than also we're rude. Oh, well, my favorite thing actually that we've ever, that has been that we've earned.

Oh, we earned it. I guess is that we were put on a list of like the top 150 females on the internet. Yeah, we did make the list. That's like my most proud thing. She was done. Wow. Congratulations. I think that there's a lot of crossover, probably, between our two audiences, because even though you guys don't say you are conservative, and I'm not even assuming that you're politically conservative, but because of a lot of the arguments that you guys make about feminism, about intersectionality, all of these cultural, political things on the left and y'all's critiques of them, people do appreciate your conservatism when it comes to theological, cultural, and even sometimes political.

issues. Do you guys ever get any pushback about that? Oh yeah, a lot of pushback. Are you asking for, are we getting a lot of pushback specifically in the political discussion? Yeah, sure. I don't, I don't know. I think that, I mean, we are conservative. We're definitely liberal in some areas, like I would say classically liberal in some areas. I think that, um, I think that, um, that sometimes I have actually very libertarian views. Right. Although I definitely don't go all the way with those. Yeah.

Great. But I think that for both of us, the foundation is that we are Christians. And I think conservative Christian is starting to have, I don't even know what people, when people say that sometimes now I ask what they mean by that. Yeah. Because I just think most of America is very middle of the road, very moderate.

And I don't know that either of us are very moderate in any of our views. Yeah. Yeah, I think we probably have the same mentality when it comes to political and cultural issues is that, well, my worldview is biblical. And that worldview determines what I think about culture and politics. And that doesn't mean that I'm perfect on every single thing that I articulate or it doesn't mean that I'm not trying to figure out how some issues fit into my biblical worldview. But that's what determines my politics.

So I think that's why the term conservative Christian is also a little bit misleading because it's like, what does that mean? I don't like a political term to describe my relationship with God or my faith, you know? Right. No, I totally agree. Yeah. So what specifically we're going to talk about today, since you guys do talk about feminism a lot in really just the danger of progressivism in the church is we're going to talk about this trend of egalitarianism in the church is we're going to talk about this trend of egalitarianism in the church. So would you guys just first break that down and tell us what that means? Sure. Me or you who's done this? You can do egalitarian.

Okay. Okay. Tell us what that is. Okay. So our whole thing, especially when we talk about feminism and feminism and egalitarian typically do go hand in hand. You are much more likely to find an egalitarian calling herself a feminist than a complementarian, for example, and this is all I'm talking with in the church. And so our whole thing

with feminism actually directly relates to this issue is that we don't believe that Christians need feminism because we already have the ultimate standard. So when God says in Genesis 127 that he made man in his image male and female, then we believe that women are just as much made in the image of God as men are. And the ramifications of that are huge. That means that women are distinct from men, but just as valuable. And so a lot of the conversation between an egalitarian viewpoint and a complementarian viewpoint comes down to essentially the egalitarian viewpoint says that women can function in the church the same way that men do. We believe that's not true for a lot of reasons. And I mean, we can go over the list of verses if you want to.

But the reason that it's dangerous to translate our worldview that way is it essentially you're saying that men and women, they're distinct but have the same roles. And we would not support that in any way because we have God in his own words in the first chapter of Genesis making a distinction. And then he goes on in the next. couple of chapters to make those distinctions to explain how the fall is going to impact men and women differently. And then when Paul talks about this later in the New Testament, you have him talking about a headship that is rooted in that creation order. And so we can't understand men and women as

having the same roles. So a complementarian position says that men and women are separate. They're distinct from each other. They're not the same. They don't have the same roles, but they carry the same inherent value because it's rooted in the image of God. Then an egalitarian viewpoint is going to say that the roles, they don't have to be separate and distinct. And that to deny a woman a headship role is to say that she is not as valuable as a man. Right. There's definitely, you can see some idolatry over the headship position. The idea is that intrinsically, the leader, the head is of more value than the person that is submissive or the helper.

And so that's sort of this weird view on what constitutes worth in terms of men's and women's roles. That's kind of like the gas that the egalitarian car runs on. Right. Right. I've heard you guys talk about that before, that. If you somehow perceive headship or leadership in the church as a position to be coveted as a woman and that by reaching that, that you will achieve the same status or value as a man, then that's not because the Bible actually says that. It's because of your own worldly and human perception of what it actually means to be worthy and valuable.

Because the Bible doesn't actually say that the reason that men are. put at the head of the church is because they're more valuable than women are or because God loves them more. That's just the way that God made it. And there's actually nothing in the Bible that says a women's position is less significant than a man's position or worse than a man's position or women just aren't as smart as men so they can't do that. It's just what God says. Why do you guys think that it's so hard for us to just submit to what God has said is good? in that regard. Well, I mean, certainly Eve started it. Original sin, yeah, helped. But Adam, Adam did the same thing. You know, essentially the question you're asking is a question of why do humans

want to be autonomous. And we've wanted to be autonomous since Eve's answer to the snake in the garden was, you know, he said, did God really say? And she went, huh, great question. And we've been questioning God's standards ever since, and we've wanted our freedom ever since. But it's definitely increased, it seems like. I feel like it used to kind of be a given that, okay, this is man's position in the church, this is woman's position in the church, maybe women secretly bucked against that, but it's certainly an increasing phenomenon that women are starting to say, you know what? No, that's misogyny and begatry, that's the patriarchy. I'm standing up and I'm taking this position of the church. Why do you think that is?

I was just going to say I do think there was probably quite a shift in terms of like when the feminist movement so second I'm going to go a second wave and the sexual revolution sort of met I think that was a big moment where we started seeing we started viewing traditional female roles as more sort of like the the less worthy work. We started to see a woman embracing those roles as not meeting her full potential. And so I think there was

of course just sort of this logical progression to of course, well, let's look and see where we can find women not being allowed to meet their full potential and fully realize themselves as humans.

And then instead of just embracing that those two roles are complementary and made differently for a reason. What we need to find is this equality so that women can, so that they'll no longer be subject to being half of a human because they haven't been fully realized. And I would blame, I'd be happy to put a lot of the blame on men. And what I mean by that is that, so, you know, the pattern that we see in scripture is that times when women became leaders were when the men weren't leading. And so a lot of egalitarians will point to Deborah, who led Israel for a time and she was a great leader. Why was Deborah leading?

Well, we know from the text it's because the men weren't. The men had abdicated their role. And in the vacuum that they created with their faithlessness, a strong woman stood up. And I think a lot of what we're seeing in the church is that the pastors aren't stepping up to the pulpit. They aren't preaching the word. They're, you know, they're busy making themselves popular instead of being faithful. And I think that the pulpit has been such a made such a vacuous space in America that when the men aren't leading, the women will. And so I really do see a failure of men to stand and lead and to shepherd their families. And I don't think you can divorce the sexual revolution like Joy mentioned at all from the shift that we're seeing in our culture and the culture is bleeding into the church.

You've got fatherlessness. I mean, you've got divorce rates. You've got men abdicating their roles all over the place. and when men do that, I think that women are going to see that as a failure of men and the ways in which women might be able to do it better. I'm not defending that view at all. Right. But I am saying that when a vacuum is left, I think it's natural for the women to stand up. And so I think a lot of this is a real failure of men to lead in a godly way.

And I have to wonder, too, if the. Me Too movement has had something to do with it, at least in recent months, although we know that egalitarianism and feminism in the church has been kind of festering and growing for a while, but it seems like Me Too has almost been used as an excuse by the church to say, see, and even, you know, the SBC and some of the problems recently that we've been seeing with that with Paige Patterson, I think that you see some women like Beth Moore, for example, saying, see, this is what happens when, you know, toxic masculinity runs amok. And instead of, like you guys said, the solution being, okay, we need strong male leadership,

we have people calling for female leadership. I just don't see why that needs to be the opposite. Why weak male leadership needs to necessarily lead to strong female leadership when that's not what the Bible offers as the solution. I do think that that's definitely the calling card of us humans attempting to do things in a way that makes sense to us. When you start to divorce yourself from scripture, you will see people sort of getting together and meeting and figuring out, okay, so what is the best way to tackle misogyny in the church? And instead of opening up the scripture, you are instead, I think, very obviously getting these groups of people that are getting together and they're discussing

the most practical, realistic way to tackle this. But unfortunately, when a bunch of humans get together and it's devoid of scripture and they're making massive societal decisions or accusations against society, it's pretty easy to see that what they've come up with is the best solution that a finite human can come up with. Right. Which is, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, no, that's fine. Go ahead.

Which is exactly just what I think about kind of social justice and progressivism in general, is that the heart might be in the right place. Like you said, misogyny and the church might be an issue. And it might be something that we need to tackle. These are problems that we need to overcome. And I in no way even want to, I don't want to say the entirety of the Me Too movement is a bad thing. I don't think that at all. But like y'all said, we don't need secular standards for what biblical Christians have already

been doing for thousands and thousands of years. We've always been promoting the equality of worth of women. We have always been promoting charity and justice, at least true Christ followers have. So what do you guys think that the danger is in Christians latching on to these worldly movements, rather than latching on to the truth of the gospel. Well, I mean, obviously, Me Too is devoid of the gospel, and the problem with that is that essentially, if you're following the Me Too lead,

then you are accepting the moral leadership of people who will also suggest that you can kill your child in the womb. They have no moral authority. They have created a culture wherein sex is so divorced from any kind of covenantal meaning that, I mean, why can't someone touch who they want? Because essentially, the message of our culture is that it's my body, my choice. And your body, if it's in the womb, doesn't matter. And whatever you want to do to that is fine.

They have no just standard by which to say when sex is right or wrong, except based on consent. And this is going to eat itself because we've already seen cases where basically any accusation can be made that anybody wants to make. And it doesn't have to be verified. If somebody makes an accusation, then you're guilty.

And this is a sign of a very unjust society. And they have no standard by which to say any kind of sexual interaction can happen lawfully at all. Right. And so essentially, And not just that. That's, that's its own topic. My biggest problem with Christians latching on to the Me Too movement is that it's devoid of any kind of hope. So a lot of Christians experience sexual abuse. And I don't know that just saying, hey, me too is the answer because we've been given hope in scripture that can't be killed. And so if we're going to say Me Too, then it has to come with, you know, me too, but God. Look who God's, says I am. As someone who's been abused, God has, God has washed me clean. God says I am not guilty. God says I am redeemed. And the gospel really removes the shame and the horror that comes along with

sexual abuse. And the world isn't offering any of that. They're essentially handing you a pitchfork and telling you it's going to make you feel better. But pitchforks aren't going to make you feel better. and it's only through the gospel that we can even understand why abuse is so horrible in the first place. I mean, I don't believe that anyone hates abuse more than God does. And so abandoning his standard of how to deal with abuse and view abuse and what qualifies as abuse and sexual ethics, all of these things, they have to come from God or they're utterly meaningless. Right. And I think that's kind of my problem with femininity.

in general is that intersectionality is that it stops at victimhood instead of actually talking about the solutions to your victimhood or the solutions to your oppression or any lasting solutions, it stops at victimhood. And we are not just stopping at victimhood, but you're defined by your victimhood. And your victimhood should determine every political and cultural and even spiritual choice that you make. It's your entire identity. And that's also why I have to, have a hard time reconciling anyone who says that they are also a feminist and a Christian. Because I'm like, well, where does your identity actually lie? Does it lie in your victimhood and your oppression and the fact that you feel unequal?

Or does it lie in who God says that you are? So, but I, you know, I have a lot of friends who say that they're Christian, feminist. And I don't know. It's hard for, it's really hard for me to reconcile that. Yeah, well, I mean, if you think about what feminism, when you think, you say feminism, what do you think of? I mean, none of the things that you're going to think of first and foremost are really biblical things. Now, if you're a Christian feminist and you're saying, well, I'm a feminist because, you know, I believe that women are valuable. Well, that's actually,

you believe that if you're a Christian who believes that, you believe that women are valuable because you believe in the word of God. Right. And you don't need this secular theory to come in and bolster what God has already said about you. And then when you think about just all the things that the feminist movement stands for. You know, I had someone messaged me today and say, well, you know, not all feminists are pro-choice. Well, that's true. But for the feminists that aren't pro-choice, what are they even basing that on?

I just, it all goes back to what's your foundation, what's your standard? Why are you usurping? You can't redeem feminism. There's no reason to. You don't need it. So why even try? Would you argue that, you know, that. first wave feminists were necessary, the women who were like, hey, we need a right to vote.

Okay. So I think we both have different, not necessarily different stances, but just I have a few different issues with the first wave of feminists. And so my first issue is that I think a lot of, we have whitewashed the first wave. And we've tried to say, oh, no, they were all Christians. But I mean, the first thing you got to realize is that most people at the turn of this, the last century went to church. So, okay, when you actually start reading what they were saying, some of the most prominent feminists were rabidly against marriage. Right.

And they considered, they considered getting married. Yes. They considered getting married this horrible, horrible thing. Right. But then also, you know, we could stand with them because they worked. the first way of feminists were huge in drafting legislation that ended slavery. So I mean, great. Like I would like to, I would have liked to be a part of that if I was around then. So that's a good thing. So it's the movement then I don't think I would have been a part of as a whole. I for sure they had some causes that I agreed with. But I know Joy and I both have a very unpopular opinion. And that is that we, We like how the original voting was set up and that there was one vote per household. And I know a lot of people are like, what in the world?

But yeah. And I went to property owners, like landowners. Yeah. So you guys, would you guys refuel the 19th Amendment if you could? No. No, I wouldn't. Also, I think it's like, I, it would be worth mentioning that like I'm not a landowner. Right.

And I don't have a husband. Husband. So like I would be renouncing your own right to vote. And so I mean, that's like almost this topic is like almost a show in and of itself. I think what we're saying is so I would definitely want some changes to the household vote because I would consider Joy the head of her household. She's single, but she is the head of her own household. And I think she should be able to vote. I did, I liked that originally it was a household vote

meaning that obviously the man went and voted because it was a civic duty and whatever. I don't really care about all that. But I just agree that it should have been a household vote and people have asked us about that and been like, well, what if the husband is a Democrat and the wife is a Republican? And I think that's a horrible misunderstanding

of just how monopolized the two parties are in our current system. Like it hasn't always been this black and white. Well, what if someone's a Republican in the house and what if someone's a Democrat in the house? I'm much more interested in. Are the husband and wife unified? Right. That just shows just sort of this intrinsic miscommunication about how the roles between a married male and female would even work. Right. And I do think that the first wave feminists, I think it's safe to say that they saw the behavior that led to the sexual revolution and second wave feminism, which was, I would

say that the area that the time period directly before the sexual revolution. I don't think they had a closer to a traditional view of women's roles, but I still think they got it wrong by painting them as little cute homemakers that were so excited about their microwave and right. And had a drink ready for their husband when they got home. Right. There's a lot of wrong with that. Right. Which could have very easily led to the second wave. But. I don't know, just worth mentioning. Okay, I'm very interested in this because I have not heard you guys talk about the whole voting thing. So I have a hypothetical question for you.

So if you believe that, and I don't know, I don't really know if I agree with you or not. I just haven't decided yet. I'm just wondering if you believe that it was better for the head of the household. And like you said, some are man or woman, head of the household, whoever owns the property to go and vote, the time that would have been the husband, it probably maybe most of the time would still be the husband today, then do you think that today married couples that a wife should vote in line with what her husband says? Because theoretically, that would be the same thing. If that's why you believed that back then you should go with what your husband votes, do you believe that today, even though I have

the right to vote, that I should vote with what my husband tells me to vote? Okay, so that could go into a couple different areas. My first knee-jerk reaction is to say that if a woman and a, if a man and a wife had differing opinions on who they wanted to vote for, and the woman had to go with his candidate, I feel like that could be an area of potentially lying because a vote is saying this is the person that I, you know, want to be here. And if you're being coerced into your vote, that's, that's, That's a sticky area I don't like. And I think that ideally, you're not going to have a husband who forces you to vote a certain way. Well, and that's what I mean.

Like, it does kind of, like even using words like coerce and force, that indicates that there's no, there's no, just like peaceful relationship. Yeah. And I didn't say those. I didn't say those words. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I know. But I think, I do think we, like, all of us have these little things that we still kind of.

you know, we think of things in a certain way. I mean, if he's demanding that she vote a certain way. I'm not talking about demanding. I'm talking about, say, in a peaceable relationship, a godly relationship, husband, wife, do you think that it's important for the wife to vote the same way as her husband? If you thought it was better that the head of the household

was representative of the whole house, do you think it's better now that a wife says, you know what? I don't totally agree with him, but at the end of the day, I trust him and I'm going to vote for who he says I should vote for. I think if she was unsure and like, I think that it would have to be preceded by like a discussion of some kind. And I don't think it would be appropriate to just be like, well, this is who you're voting for. Get used to it. But obviously there's some, like it would be sort of like a case by case thing.

But I do think that it makes sense in terms of a solid complementarian marriage, that they would most likely come to an agreement and have a similar outcome on who to vote for. Does that make sense? Yeah. I acknowledge that there could be situations in which a husband would just be like, well, this is who we're voting for. but that's an interesting way to put it. I hadn't necessarily thought. It's a weird, it's a weird hypothetical. This is fun.

I think that to, so if it was a situation where it was a single household vote, I would have no problem because I trust my husband. I would have no problem. If we disagreed, I would expect him to want to get me on the same page and want to be unified. And I think that because I trust my husband so much that I probably wouldn't honestly care that much. If it was the kind of thing where we both, you know, both of us can vote, I don't think that a godly husband is going to throw a fit if you guys have a difference of opinion on this. And I just, that's kind of what I'm banking on and that's why choosing who to marry

is so important. I just don't see this becoming a divisive issue. And if it is, I think there's some other sin issues that have preceded it that should be dealt with first. Agreed. I think it's possible for a man and a woman to vote in two different ways and still, you know, be aligned with the gospel. Now, it depends, of course, on certain issues, like abortion. It would be very difficult for, to understand how my husband is reading the same gospel or the same Bible that I am.

But, of course, like, for example, my husband wasn't a really big fan of Donald Trump. I mean, I was neither, but I was like, like, I'm going to vote for the guy. He wasn't very excited about voting for him. But at the end of the day, like, we're unified. So, right. And I think that's totally fine. I personally am very thankful for the 19th Amendment. I'm very thankful that I have the right to vote. So the question I'm trying to get to, I'm trying to understand like, if back then it was better, it was better that it was just the head of the household that was voting, why wouldn't you guys right now willingly say, you know what, I'm not even going, I don't even care what the candidate is.

I'm just going to vote for whoever my husband votes for. Because if it was good in theory back then, why isn't it good in theory right now? Except for I don't, I don't think that that's how it was back then. I think that still the household vote would have taken place like within the context of a conversation. Gotcha. In a very like communal way. So I would say I, I wouldn't necessarily, I, I wouldn't think it would be better for the husband to just say, and this is who we're voting for.

Right. But would. But would you vote differently than your husband today. I would. I don't have a husband. But I, I, just for practical reasons, I don't see a reason why I would marry someone that I most likely wouldn't vote the same as. But if I really had a conviction and there was some sort of. of, you know, if I wanted to vote for someone else, I would at least hope we'd be able to

talk about it? Yeah. And just to be clear, we're not saying we want to repeal the 19th Amendment. What we're saying is, I think we, I think as people living in 2018, what we're talking about is so hard to understand because. Yeah, it definitely is. The family was such a bedrock, I mean, foundation of the society that you didn't even understand your relationship to the outside world outside of your family. So the family was the foundation of all of civic duty. And so what we're saying is that that wasn't such a bad idea. It wasn't such a bad idea that we voted as mischaracterized now. Yeah. Right. That's the big reason why we commented on it, I think, is that it, the whole, the whole purpose and context of the 19th Amendment is really painted in a way

that's not exactly true now. Right. So it was kind of described as like, well, women are oppressed and this and that and they don't have they don't have the right to vote but what we're trying to point out was was that it was originally written as a household vote because that's how all of civic life was understood it was on the family right and so that was really the only reason why we ever brought it up and and i don't think it's such a horrible thing that civic life the foundation of that was the nuclear family and i think that we've lost a lot since we have seen the disintegration of our families And so like I said, I'm glad that we have the 19th Amendment. I'm glad that I can vote.

I'm glad that Joy is the head of her household. Even as a woman, like she's viewed that way. These things are great. In goodness, I don't know what I'd be doing. Right. What would you do? I guess I would just stay home. Oh, yeah.

I just wanted to, I wanted to push back on that to see if we could get to a better understanding of what that means because I do think that there's such a give and take when it comes to individualism. And that's certainly where our society. has gone into, I think, a dangerous territory of over individualization to where everyone is so isolated. My entire moral compass, my truth, is completely subjective based on what I believe. We don't believe in institutions. We don't believe in objective morality. We don't believe in the value of the family. And so I completely agree with you that I think that's part of also why

egalitarianism is on the rise because we all believe that we are all these little islands and we're not really connected to any kind of, to any kind of bigger picture. Right. Right. We don't want to be complimentary to any, we don't want to pair well with anyone. Right. We want to be our own separate thing. Yes.

Yeah, exactly. What do you guys think is the solution for women who are in the church, who are, you know, biblical, complementarian? And we don't want to see the church go into this progressive social justice, feminist direction. I mean, what do we do? What do we do to fight the rising tide of egalitarianism? Yes. Oh my. So I think the first thing that women in particular need to do is we really need to understand that the role that God gave us is transformative to culture. And so I think a lot of what's happening with the Me Too movement and the rise of egalitarianism is that we're, we've been

sold the idea that women behaving as men makes women better. And that's actually just not the case. So when we fulfill the roles that we've been designed to fill, that is the best possible thing that we can do. And so first and foremost, a woman's role, a Christian woman's role, is to be like Jesus. And that's the same as a man's role, but it is the foundation of what we're both called to. And we need to not forget that Jesus submitted to the father's, will and that also just like Jesus, God will use women to take what would be useless on its own and shape it into glory. And you don't have to see that only in your role in the home, although the role in your home

is very important. And so I think that a lot of what we're missing is that the role that God gave women was beautiful. And just because there's a submission aspect to it doesn't make it. it lesser. And essentially, if you start to believe that lie, the lie that submission might make you mean less, then essentially you are spitting on Jesus's submission to the will of the father. And what a horrible place to be in. What a horrible thing for you to have to answer to at some point. Right. And so we have to believe that what Jesus says is best and what Jesus always says is best.

And the order of creation and the order of the fall provides the reason that women are not supposed to exercise authority over men in the church. From the beginning, God is intended that men are the leaders of the home and in the church. And this is not a slight to women. And it's God's wisdom commanding what is best for his people and his world. And we need to start believing that. Right. Right. Joy, do you have anything to add? I don't want to absolutely talk over you. Oh, no, no. You're fine.

I do think that it, you know, so the moments that we are given an opportunity to be obedient, even though they're not broadcast for the world to see, they're very meaningful. The reason why we're here is to glorify God and to enjoy him and to be obedient. And so the moments where you fight your sinful nature, they're very meaningful. They may not be highly publicized. But they're very meaningful. And obedience to God, especially when we don't want to be obedient. Or when it goes against sort of our sinful nature or even like the philosophy of the day.

Those are the moments where we find real true intimacy and hope and a lot of times even healing. And I just think that's incredibly important. Right. Right. And you can't go away from God's design in one part and expect the rest of his design to fall the way that it's supposed to. Right. Which is exactly what we've seen with progressivism. And you guys pointed this out with feminism too.

It's like you give up one part of feminism, like being, not being pro-choice and being pro-life. And then they would tell you, well, all of feminism unravels then, which is exactly why it's best that we just stay with God's design and everything. Yes, absolutely. 100%. Well, you guys, y'all are the best. I love your podcast. I'm sure that a lot of people who listen to this podcast also listen to your podcast. And so maybe they'll get both of us in one day.

What should be? Lucky them. Oh, my. I know. So thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it. Okay, guys. I hope that you enjoyed that. They're great.

If you have questions for them, you can email me or you can go to their podcast and ask them, whatever you want to do. Okay. I am going to answer one Bible question. Say one thing I don't get and then closes out with something special. Those of you who watch my Instagram stories, which I'm not going to lie. I highly recommend. you guys will recognize what I'm about to do.

Okay, all kinds of fun stuff. I got this question on Instagram, which is where I get most of my questions for this podcast. Do you believe in infant baptisms? And the answer is no, I do not. And the answer is because, and the answer for why is because I don't think it's biblical. Baptism is always associated with and followed by belief and repentance in the Bible. Except for, I guess, when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, because he didn't have anything to repent of.

Matthew 3.6, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan confessing their sins. Mark 1616, whoever believes in his baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. The exhortation in Acts 238 is to repent and be baptized. Acts 241, so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. The Great Commission itself, Matthew 2819, 19 says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name with the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit. Babies don't repent.

They don't believe. Therefore, their baptism is babies means absolutely nothing. If you were baptized as a baby, but like it's fine. I don't think that you're condemned at all for that. And I'm sure I think a lot of people probably do it for dedication purposes, not for salvation purposes in the church, which, okay, it's just not in the Bible. If I've missed that, please feel free to email me and tell me why, but unless I can find a reason for it in the Bible, I just think it's silly, especially when people ascribe salvation properties to it. It doesn't have that at all.

Sorry, there's my take on that. Not sorry. I'm actually not sorry. I don't know why I said sorry. I'm not. Um, thing I just don't get. Okay. Again, please don't be offended by this.

It's fine if you do this. I don't, I truly don't just like don't understand the liking of your own tweets or, um, Instagram posts. See, I've seen people that do this and maybe this is weird on my own part. But so I think it's like usually when people get a. a certain amount of likes, they will go ahead and like it because then they think that people can't see it. But actually, when you go on Instagram, it's like, you know, it says the first few people that like it's like, oh, so and so and so and so like this. Well, if you follow a particular

person, that's typically the name that shows up that this person liked this. So if I follow you and you liked your own post, I can see that you liked your own post. And I personally just don't understand. Like, does it, do you, is it better to have like that one more like? Because what if people see that? I, I don't know. Like, one time I accidentally liked my own post and I didn't realize it until like five minutes later. And I wanted to cry thinking about people knowing that I liked my own post. And especially tweets. Like, I can definitely see if you like your own tweet. You just go to the little like button on someone's profile and you can see it. So I don't know. Just just someone in like. And someone in like, me maybe there's like a really good reason and I just don't know so feel free to let me know that's

just something I don't yet okay love y'all see y'all next week bye