A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar

Complementarian Cemeteries and Smashing the Patriarchy: An Interview with Beth Allison Barr

April 21, 2021 Randy Knie, Kyle Whitaker Season 1 Episode 22
A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
Complementarian Cemeteries and Smashing the Patriarchy: An Interview with Beth Allison Barr
Show Notes Transcript

Does the idea, or the very phrase, "Biblical Womanhood" make you shudder a bit? Us too.

In this episode, we interviewed Beth Allison Barr about her book The Making of Biblical Womanhood. Beth is a Historian at Baylor University, and her book makes a brilliant case that the idea of "Biblical Womanhood" is more of a product of the patriarchal world that the Bible was written in than it is a product of the Bible itself, much less God. Dr. Barr shares from her perspective as a historian, and as a woman who's been marginalized by the church herself in painful ways.

This is an important book that needs to be featured in the Church as we journey towards equality and the empowerment of women.

The scotch we sample in this episode is Oban Distillers Edition. It's a delightful treat.

As usual, if you share us on social media and/or leave a review, we'll love you forever.

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Cheers!

00:00

welcome to a pastor and philosopher walk

00:02

into a bar

00:03

we're excited to share this time with

00:05

you friends and we're excited about our

00:06

interview tonight

00:07

beth allison barr is the associate

00:10

professor of history and associate

00:11

dean of the graduate school at baylor

00:13

university in waco texas and beth

00:16

wrote this pretty remarkable little book

00:18

called the making of biblical womanhood

00:20

and the subtitle is how the subjugation

00:23

of woman became gospel truth and i think

00:25

that subtitle just says it all right

00:27

there

00:28

it's a pretty astute book that mixes

00:31

biblical scholarship in looking into

00:34

what were the writers of the bible

00:35

thinking when they talked about women in

00:37

the bible and then it goes into her area

00:38

of expertise which is

00:39

church history particularly medieval

00:41

church history and then it mixes in just

00:44

our biases and culture and patriarchy is

00:46

everywhere

00:47

and the idea of the book is abolishing

00:50

patriarchy yeah in the church can i get

00:52

an

00:52

amen yeah yeah and this is a really

00:54

great book to get the historical

00:56

perspective on this issue

00:58

i've read a lot about gender

00:59

complementarianism i'm sure you have to

01:01

a lot of biblical scholarship

01:03

a lot of theology about

01:06

complementarianism and that whole debate

01:09

but i hadn't read much history and and

01:11

that's it's a really

01:13

interesting take to contextualize this

01:15

movement and realize

01:17

gender complementarianism is fairly

01:19

young in the history of the church

01:21

and in some ways kind of parochial and

01:24

so seeing

01:25

seeing it in the context of all of

01:27

church history is really really valuable

01:28

and that's what she does here

01:30

yeah yeah it's fun i mean history is

01:32

like peeling back an onion

01:33

and you get to see what really happened

01:35

and we've lo and behold women have been

01:37

serving and leading in the church for a

01:38

long time

01:39

and uh we kind of have a revisionist

01:41

history that we have but we'll let beth

01:43

get into that because that's her

01:44

area of expertise kyle speaking of area

01:47

of expertise

01:48

we have a scotch before us yeah yeah so

01:51

we're trying for only the second time so

01:54

far

01:54

in the history of our podcast a scotch

01:57

whiskey this time

01:58

so i have for you guys one of my

02:01

favorites

02:02

i brought this back from scotland so

02:06

this is i mean instantly how can we not

02:07

like it i know right so this is an oben

02:10

distillers edition oban

02:14

is a little town on the western coast of

02:17

scotland just north of

02:20

most of the big whiskey producing

02:22

islands

02:23

uh and there's that there's a town

02:24

called open and it kind of grew up

02:26

around the distillery it's actually one

02:27

of the smaller distilleries in the

02:28

country they have only got a couple of

02:30

stills

02:31

but they make some some damn good stuff

02:33

uh and this is their distillers edition

02:35

so it's a little extra special it's

02:37

i got a second maturation in sherry

02:39

casks after

02:40

i was about a 14 year maturation and

02:43

ex-bourbon casks

02:44

so that's about a 15-year-old scotch

02:47

the nose is already overwhelming yeah

02:49

just like

02:50

so smokey and complex yes but way more

02:54

nose than amusing so i picked this one

02:56

specifically because i knew you guys

02:57

weren't super on board with the

02:58

smokiness

03:00

and being centrally located in the

03:01

country this is a pretty good midway

03:04

point between the island dry smoky stuff

03:06

and the totally unpeated highland

03:08

sweeter stuff

03:10

this has a very very low peat level so

03:12

you might get a little bit of smokiness

03:14

but but shouldn't be much

03:16

see this is the trouble with doing

03:18

scotch i want i could go for about 15

03:20

minutes i want to hear like what it

03:21

looks like

03:22

could you see the the coast oh yes see

03:24

this so literally

03:26

walk out the door down the street maybe

03:28

a block or two and you're on the bay

03:30

and on the bay uh you can get fresh

03:33

caught

03:33

um langoustines which is like a little

03:36

lobster basically and fresh caught

03:39

scallops that they cook right in front

03:41

of you

03:42

it's the freshest seafood some of it

03:43

i've ever had it was amazing

03:45

wow okay so this is the the

03:48

weirdness here is that the the nose is

03:50

very sweet you get those sherry casks

03:53

it tastes like that dark cherry you get

03:55

some of the brininess of the

03:57

like it almost smells like the ocean a

03:58

little bit and then you taste it

04:00

and you lose the sherry for me yeah it's

04:03

maybe on the after

04:04

after taste but it's it's still you get

04:07

the peat

04:08

you get the leather you get the smoke

04:10

you get the brine

04:12

it tastes like there's this word called

04:14

terroir which i think really matters

04:15

with scotch

04:16

and wine a lot and it tastes like i'm it

04:19

tastes like i imagine it looking

04:21

you know what i mean yeah yeah it's very

04:24

imaginative uh

04:25

setting in a very imaginative feel

04:27

profile

04:29

for me again it's a little bit of berry

04:30

on the end yeah it's really fruity

04:32

to me like pear was another one that

04:34

came to mind

04:36

a little bit uh like licorice mint like

04:39

some of those

04:40

that that's the way my tongue feels

04:43

yeah i mean scotch for me has that this

04:46

sounds terrible but antiseptic

04:48

uh flavor even it's not a negative it's

04:50

just the way i'm trying to describe it

04:52

but you're right it is a good mix of

04:54

lowland and highland i think

04:56

yeah i really enjoy this this is like a

04:57

gateway scotch i think

04:59

i chose scotch for the when when it was

05:01

like scotch or bourbon because

05:03

i'm so much less experienced with scotch

05:07

yeah yeah this is a real treat coming

05:09

from bourbon it's just it's a different

05:10

realm yeah it really is

05:11

it's fun i mean i think scotch is just

05:13

much more sophisticated than bourbon

05:16

and i say that as somebody who prefers

05:18

bourbon in general but yeah

05:19

there's just so much work to do with it

05:21

because they can age it so much longer

05:22

and as randy said the terroir is so

05:24

different like

05:25

there's kentucky and pretty much

05:26

everywhere in kentucky has the same

05:27

basic climate

05:28

but in scotland the climate ranges

05:30

wildly depending on which region you're

05:32

in so

05:32

you can just do so many different things

05:34

do you ever mix with your scotch

05:36

well with like blended stuff yeah but i

05:38

don't mix single malts

05:41

yeah nor should you the peeting process

05:45

tell us briefly about the peeting

05:46

process uh so basically they take the

05:49

barley

05:50

and they take pete which is like

05:53

sod that grows naturally in scotland and

05:56

they burn it

05:57

under the barley and it the smoke rises

06:00

up

06:01

and they burn it okay so do they have

06:04

the barley in like cheesecloth or

06:05

something like how do they contain

06:06

they have floors um that they lay it on

06:08

that are like perforated floors and so

06:10

they burn so it's within the building it

06:12

just rises up through

06:13

when you tour the distilleries they'll

06:14

take you into these

06:16

uh heating floors and you can actually

06:18

see how it works and it just smolders

06:20

right i mean it's not on fire it's just

06:21

smoking

06:22

well yeah the pizza on fire but not the

06:24

not the barley there's actual

06:25

fire like flame it's full on it's like

06:28

bonfires

06:29

yeah there's like stoves that they burn

06:30

the peat in wow okay

06:32

wow so they peat the barley and then

06:36

they distill it

06:37

and they malt it and distill it yeah

06:39

yeah yeah so great and it's just like

06:41

they do it because they have the stuff

06:43

to do it like it's just

06:44

where they are in the world just

06:46

naturally occurring like

06:48

yards thick like square miles

06:51

of just naturally growing peat you gotta

06:54

do something with it yes

06:55

i mean i bet they like tried cooking

06:57

numerous things and then

06:58

we're like this would be good on some

07:00

whiskey and what would happen if we

07:03

yeah right can you get this in the

07:05

states you can

07:06

i just googled before we got on here to

07:09

see if it was

07:09

available locally and apparently total

07:11

wine has it

07:12

it's a little pricier than i remembered

07:14

it being this is a while ago when i

07:15

bought it but

07:16

but it's available all right well tell

07:19

us what it is again kyle

07:20

so this is the oben distillers edition

07:23

check it out cheers

07:32

well welcome beth allison barr thanks

07:34

for being on the podcast we're happy to

07:35

have you yeah thanks for having me

07:37

so i really love this book uh and this

07:40

is a book that comes out in april is

07:41

that right

07:42

that's right april 20th right so if you

07:45

listen to this around that time

07:47

definitely go out and find it the making

07:49

of biblical womanhood

07:51

really excellent i don't know anything

07:52

about history i'm a philosopher

07:54

i read i read history just for the sake

07:55

of finding out what the arguments were

07:58

so it's it's always nice for me to

08:00

immerse myself in some history that i

08:01

don't know anything about

08:03

and contextualize things from my own

08:05

experience which is definitely what this

08:06

book did

08:07

so thanks for writing it it's super

08:09

important you're welcome thank you

08:11

thanks for reading it

08:13

beth this book uh draws from your

08:15

perspective and expertise in a number of

08:17

areas

08:17

your expertise is a church historian

08:19

which comes out loud and clear

08:21

your biblical study and theological

08:23

reflections

08:24

and then your personal experiences so

08:26

much of the book each chapter you

08:28

highlight

08:29

some stories and what you really bring

08:31

us into what it was

08:32

what it felt like to be ostracized from

08:35

the church that you loved and

08:36

you know worked in and sacrificed for so

08:39

could you

08:40

just bring our listeners into

08:43

where this book came out of on a

08:45

personal level in particular let's start

08:46

there

08:47

yes this book came out of the fall

08:50

of 2016 which was a calamitous moment

08:54

for many many women throughout the u.s

08:57

um

08:57

in fact one of the first people that i

09:00

talked with

09:01

the morning of the election was kristen

09:04

we were emailing each other uh but it

09:06

was but it wasn't just that that fall

09:08

that fall was also when my husband and i

09:11

had come to a moment in our ministry we

09:15

had

09:15

been in complementarian churches all of

09:18

our life my husband's an ordained

09:19

southern baptist

09:20

pastor and he had gone to a

09:23

complementarian cemetery

09:25

i mean cemetery a seminary

09:28

yes maybe that was there uh he had gone

09:31

to a complementarian seminary

09:34

um and we had grown up

09:37

in this understanding that women are

09:40

divinely ordained to be under male

09:42

leadership

09:43

and it was sort of a slow evolution for

09:46

us and i

09:47

talk about some of that evolution in the

09:49

book but we had come to a moment

09:51

in our ministry where we realized we

09:53

could no longer

09:54

support completely support

09:56

complementarianism and in fact

09:58

um we realized that for all of the all

10:01

of the women and men that we the young

10:02

women and men that we worked with

10:04

that we needed to show a different way

10:08

and so we had begun to

10:11

see if we could move the needle in our

10:14

very complementarian church

10:16

my husband and i were pretty reasonable

10:19

people

10:20

and logical and so we you know we're

10:22

like well if we just show them the

10:24

evidence

10:25

you know the evidence is just

10:27

overwhelming let's just show them the

10:28

evidence and so

10:29

that was that didn't work out well um

10:32

but we had asked to have a woman teach

10:36

high school sunday school and we

10:39

received a hard no

10:40

on that and we decided that

10:44

we couldn't live with that and we

10:46

decided at that point we were going to

10:48

challenge it our goal was to try to get

10:52

the church to have a

10:53

constructive conversation about male

10:56

female roles

10:57

and ever and actually people in the

10:59

church understand where the church stood

11:01

on this issue because

11:02

it was very hidden where they stood on

11:04

this um lots of people had no idea

11:07

so that was our goal uh didn't work out

11:09

so well three weeks after that my

11:10

husband was fired

11:12

and it was a pretty traumatic event for

11:14

us uh

11:15

partially because we were silenced um

11:18

they held our severance

11:20

f uh our severance pay sort of doled it

11:22

out

11:23

over the month so that with and it was

11:25

told to us that it was

11:26

based upon our good behavior which meant

11:30

we had we couldn't tell anyone what was

11:32

going on

11:33

and in fact any event before we left any

11:36

event that we had

11:37

we would always have you know the the

11:39

guards would come

11:40

to watch us and make sure i mean it was

11:43

it was very

11:44

horrific the way that we were treated by

11:46

the by the leadership

11:48

and it is and we were both in trauma

11:50

because

11:51

we really didn't quite expect it to be

11:54

as bad as it was going to be as it

11:55

turned

11:56

out to be and then in the midst of this

11:59

donald trump gets elected by my friends

12:01

that i go to church with

12:04

and it was really those those events

12:07

that came together and i'm

12:08

i'm not um i would still consider myself

12:10

in the evangelical

12:12

camp people keep trying to push me one

12:14

you know push me out in other ways but

12:16

i this is where i grew up this is this

12:18

is what i'm comfortable with

12:19

my tradition and so i it seems to me

12:23

that for the election to hit somebody

12:25

like me the way that it did

12:27

that it just really shows the trauma

12:29

that this caused and in fact

12:30

beth moore is a really good example of

12:32

the trauma of this

12:34

um but so i

12:37

i had this moment and in fact i start

12:39

the book off

12:40

with the moment where i broke and it's

12:43

the moment that i

12:44

suddenly realized that what was

12:46

happening to us

12:47

was not only wrong but it was damaging

12:50

to the gospel of jesus

12:52

and it contributed to the abuse and harm

12:56

of both women and men

12:57

and something had to be done and i

13:00

didn't really know what i was going to

13:01

do at that point

13:03

but i began writing in fact i posted not

13:06

too long ago

13:07

on the anxious bench where i still write

13:08

i posted uh over christmas i said the

13:11

christmas beginning of the making of

13:12

biblical womanhood and it's the post i

13:14

wrote that day

13:15

when i broke and it was sort of my

13:18

manifesto

13:19

that i stood for jesus

13:22

and i was going to fight for jesus and i

13:25

was not going to

13:27

fight for this church anymore for these

13:29

complementarian roles

13:30

and so i began writing several posts on

13:33

the anxious bench that began

13:35

combating from a historical perspective

13:38

complementarian ideology and that was

13:40

when i got contacted by

13:42

an acquisition editor who asked if i had

13:44

considered writing a book

13:46

and so that was really how how the

13:48

making of biblical womanhood began

13:50

wow let me just pause there for a second

13:52

for our listeners beth said something

13:53

really profound right there she said

13:55

i had to stand for jesus i couldn't

13:57

stand for this church anymore and

13:59

um i want to say listeners many of us

14:02

if not most of us are probably going to

14:03

come if you're a person of faith

14:05

particularly in the evangelical church

14:07

particularly in a more

14:09

i want to say conservative background

14:11

you're probably going to come if you

14:12

haven't

14:12

come already you're going to come to one

14:14

of those points where you have to choose

14:15

between following

14:16

christ and the gospel or following the

14:18

tradition that you've been a part of

14:19

and man we bless you to make that right

14:21

decision because there's only one right

14:23

decision there

14:24

there is no two decisions there is no

14:26

two options there there's

14:28

one decision to make and that's jesus

14:30

and beth let me just as a quick

14:32

follow-up

14:33

one of the most appalling stories to me

14:34

in your book you've got all these

14:35

personal stories which are

14:37

so profound and powerful the one that

14:39

just blew my doors off was when you

14:41

talked about your husband who's the

14:42

youth pastor

14:43

being often some conference and then the

14:46

backup

14:47

to to your husband or something being

14:48

away or sick or something

14:50

and so you were just like hey i can fill

14:51

in you're you're phd

14:53

either student or you could uh

15:04

and you had to convince the pastor to

15:06

let you teach and that couldn't happen

15:08

can you just tell us quickly about that

15:09

story it blew my doors

15:10

yeah so i mean it was pretty standard um

15:14

this was something i'd had to do more

15:16

than once uh it's just this moment

15:18

was at the point in my life where i was

15:20

really beginning to realize how wrong

15:22

complementarian theology was

15:25

and my husband was he was away uh he was

15:27

at it was

15:28

our youth mission trip and usually we

15:30

had we had a teacher who

15:33

taught the youth sunday school there

15:34

weren't very many youth left most of

15:36

them had gone off on the mission trip

15:38

but there were a few and so he was

15:40

supposed to teach

15:41

and he called in sick his whole family

15:43

was sick he called in it was like

15:45

15 minutes before i was on my way to

15:48

church i was driving

15:50

and i was just like i you know there's

15:53

i have to do it there's no one else to

15:54

do it we can't pull anyone else in

15:56

and i'm pretty good at i knew i could

15:59

teach something

16:00

pretty quickly it wasn't a big deal you

16:02

know i could i could handle a classroom

16:04

of students

16:04

uh for 35 minutes uh so i wasn't worried

16:08

about it but i had to call the pastor

16:10

and officially get permission

16:12

to do this because um we had been told

16:16

my husband had been i don't he had been

16:19

reprimanded for allowing i i don't know

16:22

if reprimands the right word he had been

16:24

warned about how often i

16:27

taught and was in the classroom and that

16:30

you know this reminder that this

16:32

wasn't you know we had been given clear

16:34

reminders that this wasn't where this

16:36

church stood

16:37

so i had to call the pastor

16:40

and ask and it was this moment because

16:43

i'm a

16:44

pretty easy going person lose my temper

16:47

all that often i can count on my fingers

16:49

the times that i've really lost my

16:51

temper with people

16:52

and i just had this ball inside of me

16:55

where i was like i can't believe

16:57

i have to do this i can't believe i have

16:59

to call and ask the pastor

17:01

for permission to teach

17:04

to talk about the bible with high school

17:07

students

17:08

because they believe that because i'm

17:11

a woman that i am under the authority of

17:14

13 year old boys

17:16

come on i mean that's essentially it it

17:19

argues i mean if you

17:20

if you think about this is what it says

17:21

it says there is something about the

17:23

body of a 13 year old boy

17:25

that can teach the bible but the body of

17:28

a woman

17:29

can't and i mean this is this is insane

17:32

and if we

17:32

if we think about abuse in the church

17:34

and we think about what young boys are

17:36

being i mean i have a 16 year old son

17:38

so i'm totally i mean if you if my

17:42

16 year old son had grown up in a church

17:44

believing there was something about him

17:47

that enabled him to teach a lesson

17:50

that a his mom couldn't teach

17:53

or that an adult i mean that

17:55

psychological

17:57

impact is just i mean no wonder we've

17:59

had so many abuse scandals in the church

18:01

i mean it just really is it teaches

18:03

boys that women are not as human as they

18:05

are

18:06

yeah and so that moment i think it just

18:09

really i suddenly

18:10

realized that and it was you know i have

18:13

all these moments that i talk about in

18:14

the church where

18:15

it the complementarian world began to

18:18

break for me

18:19

and this was one of those that's just

18:21

really stands out yeah

18:22

and we're not talking about an average

18:25

mom

18:26

even though an average mom would be more

18:28

qualified than to teach

18:29

than a 13 year old boy let's be honest

18:31

but we're talking about a mom

18:32

with a phd in church history who they're

18:35

saying

18:36

a 13 year old boy is more qualified to

18:38

teach i mean and i want to say

18:39

friends for some of you who might be

18:41

listening think this is just an

18:42

aberration this is just this is just a

18:44

little

18:44

minority it's not this is this is

18:47

normal in the baptist denomination in

18:50

many baptist denominations in the

18:52

evangelical church

18:53

in the complementarian world this is not

18:56

an aberration this is way more normal

18:58

than we think and

18:58

this needs to come to the surface it's

19:01

presbyterian

19:02

it's you know opc presidentarian it's

19:05

southern baptist

19:06

it's independent baptist ibf it is bible

19:09

churches bible churches

19:11

really often trend complementarian and

19:14

what's scary about bible churches is

19:15

they have

19:16

absolutely no structures over them

19:19

that help you know that help keep the

19:21

pastors in line

19:22

so bible church is it's really dangerous

19:25

because there's no sort of structure at

19:26

all

19:27

and then uh i what is john macarthur

19:29

whatever john macarthur is i actually

19:31

don't

19:32

some form of baptist that i'm not is he

19:34

baptist anyway so

19:35

pentecostal um it's in pentecostal it's

19:38

also in conservative catholicism

19:40

there's been this sort of odd which to

19:42

me as a catholic historian is

19:43

is really interesting but there's been

19:45

this sort of conservative resurgence

19:47

and um concern conservative catholicism

19:49

too

19:51

yeah so a major strength of your book is

19:54

that it reveals the historical

19:56

contingency of complementarianism

19:58

uh so for example women leaders and you

20:01

point this out with example after

20:02

example in the book women leaders were

20:04

common in early christianity they were

20:06

much more common than i realized in

20:07

medieval christianity

20:09

but this contingency is often hidden

20:11

from the people inside the

20:12

complementarian traditions that you just

20:14

named having grown up in one i had

20:15

no idea that it wasn't just the essence

20:18

of christianity you know

20:19

it's just in the soil so how did this

20:22

history get lost

20:23

to complementarian traditions can you

20:26

say a little bit about the historical

20:27

roots of say a piper grudem style

20:30

of complementarianism or patriarchy

20:33

and maybe another way to put the

20:34

question is what was the most recent

20:36

version of christianity that didn't have

20:38

that

20:40

okay so on the one hand there is not a

20:42

version of christianity that doesn't

20:44

have some sort of patriarchy that has

20:46

infiltrated it because almost from the

20:48

very beginning

20:48

because we live we because patriarchy

20:53

in many ways and part of what i my

20:55

argument is is that it

20:56

it came out of the fall itself this idea

20:59

of building

21:00

hierarchies and one per one simply

21:03

because the way we are born somebody's

21:04

better than somebody else

21:06

which is why complementarians argue that

21:09

their understanding of gender roles

21:11

is written into the stars i'm thinking

21:13

of elizabeth elliott i think she's the

21:14

one who had that metaphor you know it's

21:16

divinely created it's divinely ordained

21:18

but the problem with that is that

21:20

complex even though patriarchy is

21:22

consistent

21:23

in that big thread the way patriarchy is

21:26

implemented is not consistent

21:28

i i'm sorry i have to teach with my arms

21:29

i know people listening can't see it but

21:31

um the way patriarchy is implemented is

21:34

not consistent it depends upon the

21:36

historical factors around it so

21:38

in the in the ancient church the reason

21:40

we start seeing women being pushed out

21:41

of leadership if we look in romans 16

21:44

it's full of women leaders i mean

21:46

there's just when

21:47

once you see it you totally see how

21:49

prevalent women were

21:50

in the early church as leaders teachers

21:53

deacons

21:53

apostles etc the early church also

21:58

lived in this greco-roman world that

22:00

argued that women's bodies are

22:03

not equal to men's bodies and this

22:05

infiltrated the church pretty early on

22:07

and we begin to see some of the early

22:08

councils in the fifth and the sixth

22:10

century start saying that the reason

22:11

women

22:12

can't be priests and officiate at the

22:14

altar anymore is because their bodies

22:16

are inferior to men that there's

22:18

something corrupt about their bodies

22:19

but the loophole with this and this is

22:21

what develops in the medieval tradition

22:23

is that the medieval world um sort of

22:26

different

22:26

understanding of gender and women's

22:29

bodies were seen to be

22:30

corrupt male bodies which aristotle says

22:34

it's a good thing they're corrupt

22:35

because that's how we have procreation

22:36

but nonetheless they're corrupt male

22:38

bodies

22:39

and that women can overcome the

22:42

corruptness of their bodies

22:44

and move closer to god and so women who

22:48

forsake their female bodies forsake

22:52

being a wife and a mother for say child

22:55

bearing

22:55

that they can actually overcome the

22:58

limitations of their bodies

23:00

and speak with the authority of men and

23:03

so this is why we have female preachers

23:05

in the medieval world

23:07

in fact some medieval theologians argued

23:10

that

23:10

that paul's directives when they talked

23:13

about paul they said

23:14

paul's directives don't apply to women

23:16

who aren't wives

23:18

because it's only about sort of that

23:19

legal covering that it has nothing to do

23:22

you know that women outside of that can

23:24

overcome their sex and

23:25

preach and teach like men so

23:28

so this was very prevalent and in fact

23:31

up until the

23:32

the cusp of the reformation the 15th

23:34

century is actually a time period where

23:36

we see a whole lot of women

23:38

living serving leading preaching

23:41

teaching

23:42

playing pretty prominent roles in the

23:44

church even in the ordinary parish we

23:46

see a lot of women who are very

23:47

active and this comes to a relatively

23:51

abrupt

23:52

halt after the reformation and

23:55

part of what you know and what i argue

23:57

is that the

23:58

historical conditions change and

24:01

we have the beginning of a teaching

24:04

emphasizes the authority of the

24:06

household

24:08

and the subordination of women within

24:10

that household

24:11

and even though that as i try to argue

24:15

in the book

24:15

there's a lot of nuance in here it is

24:17

not solely because of reformation

24:19

theology reformation theology really

24:21

should have allowed women to be

24:22

preachers and teachers

24:24

but it was tied to these changes these

24:26

social and economic changes

24:28

that were emphasizing this household

24:31

order and

24:32

which mimicked the order of the state

24:34

and so

24:35

women patriarchy kind of defeats

24:38

theology

24:39

and for modern like piper and grudem

24:42

today

24:43

i don't think they would in fact i know

24:45

this i've read a lot of uh church

24:47

history curriculum

24:48

but most protestants of this nature

24:51

would

24:51

don't really consider catholicism to be

24:54

part of i mean in some ways part of the

24:55

christian tradition or they're a very

24:57

corrupt form of the christian tradition

24:59

so we don't teach about catholicism i

25:01

mean if you look at a lot of sunday

25:03

school material and history

25:04

you know books that are written for the

25:05

church we go through

25:07

like the nicene and the calcidonian era

25:10

and then we kind of have this weird

25:12

there's some monks

25:14

and nuns who maybe knew jesus but nobody

25:16

else really did

25:18

and then we have the reformation and

25:19

then everything else is reformation

25:22

and so that's really a big problem of

25:24

why is because we start our history

25:26

with the male leaders of the reformation

25:29

and the people who wrote that history

25:31

for us were mostly 19th century scholars

25:34

um the history we tell in books today

25:36

the history we tell

25:37

in our seminary textbooks follows almost

25:40

exactly the layout of 19th century

25:43

historians

25:43

i mean 19th century scholars and so i

25:47

mean

25:47

this this is why we because the

25:50

histories we tell now are histories

25:51

written by men

25:53

told about men emphasizing male

25:55

leadership

25:56

and and then we repeat that over and

25:59

over and over again

26:01

so is that help you yeah and and that's

26:05

that's seminary textbooks imagine the

26:07

dumbed down version of that that you're

26:09

getting in a church sunday school class

26:12

yeah i've read some of it and i it's

26:15

it's very hard for me to get through it

26:17

yeah yeah

26:18

can you say a little bit more because

26:20

this part really intrigued me it's it's

26:21

kind of a tangent but i think it's an

26:22

interesting tangent so in chapter three

26:25

you describe some stuff that's happening

26:27

in the medieval church

26:28

and you make the claim that the celibacy

26:30

of the priesthood which was mandated

26:33

at a certain point in the catholic

26:35

church was in a lot of ways

26:37

influenced by or maybe even motivated by

26:41

what we would now call misogyny at least

26:42

like a fear of women's bodies as being

26:44

sexually threatening or something like

26:46

that can you

26:47

explain in a little more detail that

26:48

history yes so that's an interesting um

26:51

convergence

26:52

and it's i tried i can't tell you how

26:55

many times i rewrote that section

26:56

because it's so complicated actually and

26:58

so trying to

26:59

try to explain it in a very concise way

27:03

but essentially what we see happening is

27:05

by the time we get to the 10th and the

27:06

11th

27:07

centuries christianity has taken over

27:10

europe

27:11

and it has become quite a stronghold it

27:13

has allied itself with the political

27:16

powers

27:17

you know and this isn't necessarily a

27:18

bad thing at this time it's it's

27:20

bolstering christianity itself it's

27:23

helping to certainly make it very secure

27:25

and and so it we see the church starting

27:28

to reorganize itself and more tightly

27:30

organize itself

27:31

and anytime we see the church

27:32

reorganizing itself we often

27:35

can predict that women are going to

27:36

start being pushed out and so anytime we

27:38

see leadership

27:39

being clearly defined and so this is

27:42

also the time that we start seeing

27:43

ordination

27:44

being you know ordination wasn't really

27:46

a big deal until now

27:48

where we start defining who gets to be a

27:50

priest

27:51

and part of this is motivated part of it

27:54

is a concern about the female body

27:56

that there's something wrong with the

27:58

female body that we that women's bodies

28:00

are impure

28:01

it's kind of interesting because on the

28:03

one hand it was a woman's body

28:04

that brought jesus into the world but

28:07

yet here we have this

28:08

a woman's body is too impure to handle

28:12

the the eucharist you know the body of

28:14

christ at the altar and so

28:16

it's kind of it's very much we see how

28:18

much this aristotelian idea has snuck

28:20

back into the christian world

28:22

definitely as misogyny but this misogyny

28:24

was

28:25

amplified by a really big problem the

28:28

church was having and

28:30

that was who gets to say

28:33

who's in charge of the church who gets

28:34

to appoint the leaders of the church who

28:36

gets to appoint the bishops and the

28:37

priests

28:38

and up until this time oftentimes the

28:40

bishops and the priests and the leaders

28:42

were appointed by the political

28:44

leaders and this and the church is

28:46

trying to break away from that

28:49

and at the same time the church is also

28:50

having a problem because of many of the

28:52

leaders who are getting appointed

28:54

are actually the children of priests and

28:56

so instead of people being called into

28:58

ministry

28:59

it's you know it's nepotism it's the

29:01

children of

29:03

and and part of this problem is too is

29:05

that the church is wanting to maintain

29:06

control over its property

29:08

and when you have a clerical leader who

29:11

is

29:12

over a parish and has a child who then

29:15

becomes the next leader

29:16

in there that property begins to stay

29:19

with the family

29:20

it does not stay with so you see all of

29:21

these pieces that are tied up in this

29:24

and a really great solution for all this

29:26

was to enforce clerical celibacy

29:28

because what that did is that would make

29:30

it where priests couldn't marry

29:32

their heirs were not legitimate which

29:34

means that they couldn't have control

29:36

over that property it also meant that

29:38

their children

29:40

were less likely to enter the priesthood

29:43

which meant that the church would be

29:44

able to choose the successors

29:47

and then this also enabled the church in

29:49

keeping control over the property

29:51

and establishing that being chosen as a

29:54

priest or a bishop or

29:56

whatever that this is actually something

29:58

ordained by god

30:00

and it is part of the spiritual power

30:02

not the temporal power which is earthly

30:04

power

30:04

that political leaders shouldn't do it

30:06

either so it was a way that the church

30:08

was kind of resting control

30:10

away and getting to appoint its own

30:11

leaders and part of this story

30:14

women got pulled into this story to help

30:17

enforce clerical celibacy and

30:20

it it worked really well

30:24

and clerical celebrities can take a long

30:26

time for it to

30:28

really take root and it doesn't always

30:30

take root in many places

30:32

but women associated with these priests

30:35

and women who have the children

30:37

of these priests are not treated well

30:39

and

30:40

are often always considered you know to

30:42

to be

30:43

i mean i mean they're often referred to

30:45

as as concubines and even as prostitutes

30:48

the status of these women was

30:49

significantly lowered

30:52

do you think that because the the same

30:55

kind of celibacy thing didn't happen in

30:56

the east or

30:57

or in protestantism yeah how is the

31:00

situation of women in those traditions

31:02

comparatively yeah

31:04

so you know it's interesting that you

31:06

bring up and i'm not as much

31:08

when i think about medieval christianity

31:10

i very much am focused on the west but

31:12

what we do know

31:13

in the eastern church we know that

31:15

women's leadership in the church

31:16

actually lasts

31:17

longer and we see a lot more women very

31:20

active in the church we also know that a

31:23

lot you know we can think about people

31:25

like john chrysostom

31:26

who was very much a champ of

31:29

women as leaders i mean he he talks

31:32

about women deacons

31:34

and doesn't i mean he doesn't really

31:35

have a problem with any of these women

31:37

in these types of roles and so we

31:39

certainly see that

31:41

what is happening in the east is not

31:43

being as

31:44

influenced by these greco-roman

31:48

ideals and that is allowing there to be

31:51

more room for women to be in

31:54

leadership positions and to have

31:56

influential positions in the church

31:59

this also is going to begin to disappear

32:02

in in the eastern orthodox church as

32:04

well in byzantium

32:06

so there's a lot of reasons for that but

32:08

it is

32:09

there is more we have a lot of the very

32:11

powerful stories of early female saints

32:14

are from the east and in fact i have a

32:16

student who

32:18

she followed a tradition called the

32:20

golden legend which is a book of saints

32:22

that became very very popular in the

32:24

west and it

32:25

a sort of a version of it it went to

32:28

ethiopia

32:29

and what she began to notice is that

32:32

those ethiopian women

32:34

carried a lot more authority and their

32:36

authority wasn't based upon their

32:37

virginity their authority was based upon

32:39

their motherhood

32:41

and that we have these really powerful

32:43

female

32:44

mothers who become religious leaders

32:48

in africa and so it's a very different

32:51

story

32:52

isn't that some of the same traditions

32:54

that maintained a

32:56

femininity of the holy spirit tradition

32:58

for longer than the others oh yeah

32:59

well and i mean medieval catholicism did

33:02

too in fact that's one of the things

33:03

that we see

33:03

this resurgence this greater emphasis on

33:06

the

33:07

the suffering body of christ and the

33:09

suffering and the suffering body of his

33:11

mother

33:12

and the body of of women and this

33:14

feminine characteristics i mean we see

33:16

this with many of the monastic

33:17

traditions

33:18

that actually would align themselves

33:21

with the feminine side of jesus and even

33:24

the feminine side of paul

33:26

and would associate themselves as the

33:29

brides of christ

33:30

which so yes so there is this strong

33:33

emphasis on the female body

33:35

and there's even these images in the

33:37

late medieval world that i've worked a

33:39

little bit on and they're amazing images

33:41

and they're essentially these statues of

33:43

the virgin

33:45

and they're split down the middle and

33:47

when you open them up the entire trinity

33:49

is in her room

33:51

and i mean they're really they're

33:53

amazing

33:54

because it's sort of it's like the body

33:56

of the body of a woman

33:58

carries the the trinity embodies

34:02

god i mean it's they eventually were

34:05

declared heretical

34:06

because you could see something because

34:07

i was thinking that sounds so much more

34:09

orthodox to me than southern baptists

34:12

well you know it is very but i think

34:14

part of this i mean you can think back

34:16

you can think of um

34:17

one of the things that really got me

34:18

started on this journey and i can't

34:20

remember when it was like 2010 or 2011

34:23

or something but

34:24

john piper was at this men's conference

34:27

i think it was a pastoral leadership

34:28

conference or something and he gave this

34:30

infamous talk where he said christianity

34:33

has a masculine feel

34:35

and that as a medieval historian i was

34:38

like

34:39

if you read medieval texts christianity

34:42

has a

34:43

feminine feel this emphasis on

34:46

mary this emphasis on body of this

34:49

emphasis in fact one of the things that

34:50

i

34:51

see in medieval sermons is that women

34:54

are more receptive

34:55

to the gospel women are more receptive

34:57

to jesus

34:58

this is actually something you also see

35:00

in the gospel accounts and medieval

35:01

people

35:02

picked up on it and so it's just it

35:04

tells us that this emphasis on

35:06

masculinity versus femininity

35:08

is not driven by the bible itself but

35:10

it's a cultural

35:11

it's a cultural thing the shift to the

35:13

masculine idea of jesus

35:20

friends before we continue we want to

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storyhillbkc.com

35:56

just in case we got any listeners who

35:57

are glazing over because we're talking

36:00

history here sorry

36:01

no no no because i know there's a lot of

36:02

listeners who are like yes we're talking

36:04

about history

36:05

but then there are some who are probably

36:06

like wow we're talking about history and

36:07

i'm playing over

36:08

this stuff matters what dr barr is

36:12

talking about is pulling off the lid

36:14

of our very modern church history and

36:16

saying let's look a little bit deeper

36:17

in finding here's the here's a crazy

36:19

thing she's she's speaking to

36:21

the medieval church which was shrouded

36:24

in patriarchy intense patriarchy

36:26

was probably more empowering to women in

36:29

the medieval church

36:30

than many of the churches are in 2021

36:32

today

36:34

that we need to sit with and then she

36:36

just said john chrysostom who is

36:38

probably

36:38

the greatest preacher in the early

36:40

church in the 4th century

36:42

was affirming that women are deacons

36:44

women are when we're in our apostles

36:46

women are leaders in the church

36:47

this is just a thing that he was

36:48

affirming these things matter they do

36:51

and mary magdalene in the medieval

36:53

church was actually called the apostle

36:55

to the apostles

36:56

yeah and was considered you know and

36:58

this doesn't go away

37:00

until like the 17th century where we see

37:02

this where she stops being referenced

37:04

as the apostle to the apostles so you

37:08

know

37:08

i think what happened sort of the shift

37:10

from the medieval world to the early

37:12

modern world even

37:13

in the modern world even though

37:14

patriarchy is a constant there was this

37:17

loophole

37:17

in the medieval world that went away

37:20

after the reformation

37:21

where women were now our highest calling

37:24

instead of

37:25

serving god as our highest calling our

37:27

highest calling was being wives and

37:29

mothers under the authority of men

37:32

and that is really what has given birth

37:34

to modern biblical womanhood yeah

37:36

probably burst out of these

37:37

complementaries and cemeteries right

37:40

oh i totally didn't mean to say that i'm

37:42

not going to leave that down i'm not

37:43

going to live that one down

37:45

as like a sound bite and release it on

37:47

its own

37:48

i'm going to get in trouble for that one

37:50

uh um so randy i'm i've been hogging the

37:53

conversation here but i have one more

37:54

question and then i swear yeah

37:56

so let's think about the bible for a

37:58

little bit i know randy has some things

38:00

to ask about the bible

38:01

i love categorizing things i'm a

38:02

philosopher that's what we do so

38:04

i want to categorize you if i can and

38:06

then you can regulate oh

38:07

yeah wiggle out of it you're gonna have

38:08

a hard time that's fine i'm gonna do my

38:10

best

38:10

um so when i when i look at people

38:13

commenting on issues like gender and the

38:15

bible or race and the bible or lgbtq

38:17

issues in the bible

38:19

seems like to me people generally fall

38:21

into one of four categories right

38:22

so category one would be those who think

38:25

the bible supports let's just call it

38:26

traditional views

38:28

of those topics patriarchy supremacy etc

38:31

and also the bible is authoritative and

38:33

therefore we ought to do what the bible

38:34

says and we should be patriarchal and

38:36

supremacist and whatnot so that's

38:37

category one

38:39

category two would be those who think

38:40

the bible supports progressive views

38:42

on those issues and they agree that the

38:44

bible is authoritative

38:46

so we should do what the bible says and

38:47

we should be progressive category three

38:49

would be those who think the bible

38:50

supports traditional views so they

38:52

agree with category one but they reject

38:54

the authority

38:55

of the bible so we don't need to follow

38:57

it because it's an ancient book

38:58

and then category four would be those

39:00

who think it's both progressive and also

39:02

not authoritative so it's just an

39:03

interesting historical example it's nice

39:05

that it agrees with us but we don't have

39:06

to put any weight in it

39:07

so where would you fall in that schema

39:10

and what do you think of the other ones

39:11

i'll let you categorize me a little bit

39:13

i can tell you what i'm not

39:14

all right i am not four and i'm not

39:16

three okay

39:18

so if that maybe helps you a little bit

39:20

yeah i would have guessed you were

39:21

two based on the book well

39:24

you know i'm i don't know if i'm going

39:26

to let you put me in a box

39:28

and part of this is my personality

39:30

people keep trying to make me do the

39:31

enneagram

39:32

and i just won't do it hold on

39:36

i i am i'm told people are like what's

39:38

your number and i'm like i have no idea

39:39

it doesn't matter

39:40

um i i don't really like and i think

39:43

this is part

39:44

of this where what do i believe i

39:47

believe the bible is completely

39:48

trustworthy

39:49

i believe that the bible is inspired by

39:52

god by r but written by people

39:54

and what's miraculous about the bible is

39:56

that the message of jesus comes through

39:59

despite the fact that human flawed

40:01

people

40:02

wrote the words of god and and i believe

40:06

that you know i think what i think is

40:09

important is this

40:10

what i would consider to be the the

40:12

primary issue that all christians

40:14

can agree upon is what we believe about

40:16

jesus which is also why complementarians

40:19

i think are starting to go outside that

40:20

camp because of their emphasis

40:22

on eternal subordination of the sun

40:24

which makes them not actually orthodox

40:26

christians

40:27

so but beside that so i but at the same

40:30

time

40:32

i'm very comfortable i suppose in what

40:34

you would consider to be the

40:35

you know uh christian i love the way

40:37

kristin dumay does this is the imagined

40:40

evangelical

40:41

i like imagined evangelicalism

40:44

because i like this emphasis on the the

40:47

the crucifixion of jesus the crucifixion

40:50

and resurrection of jesus this

40:51

christocentrism which is also very

40:53

medieval

40:54

which is another reason i like it you

40:55

know this chrysocentrism

40:57

it's a medieval ideal i love it in

40:59

evangelicalism

41:00

i love the emphasis on the bible too i

41:02

think the bible is a

41:04

wonderful miraculous book i don't think

41:07

that

41:07

it is i think human translators over

41:10

time

41:11

have messed some with the text and that

41:13

might get me into trouble but it's but

41:15

it's historically it's very clear that

41:18

that has happened but i think jesus

41:20

still comes through regardless it

41:21

doesn't matter that much

41:23

so i like the biblicism i like the

41:25

christocentrism i like the

41:27

um the the conversionism impulse you

41:30

know even

41:30

like as a medievalist reading a lot of

41:33

augustine i mean here's this fantastic

41:34

conversion moment you know take up and

41:36

read

41:37

and where he says oh my god you know and

41:39

then he converts i love that a lot of

41:41

medieval saints have those same types of

41:42

conversion stories

41:44

so i really like that and then i also

41:46

like telling people you know i

41:48

i'm not ashamed i i like telling i i've

41:51

been a christian all my life

41:53

and so i like the imagined

41:55

evangelicalism

41:56

what i don't like is how encumbered it

41:58

has become

42:00

by cultural issues that keep us from

42:02

doing the work of the gospel

42:04

and the work of the gospel it has seemed

42:06

the same from the old testament to the

42:07

new testament it's caring for those

42:10

who we don't usually care for those

42:12

people who are on the outside of society

42:14

the people that jesus always shows love

42:16

to

42:17

and and so if that social gospel then

42:20

yes

42:20

i do i do bring that into my theology

42:23

but that's because jesus does

42:25

and i don't think we can go away from so

42:26

is that helpful a little bit

42:28

where are you gonna put me oh you

42:30

wriggled out of it

42:31

no you're you're enneagram eight just so

42:34

you know

42:34

[Music]

42:36

you know people have told me that i've

42:37

also been told i'm a one i've been told

42:39

i'm a four

42:40

i've been told i'm a five which i don't

42:42

really understand you're probably

42:45

randy and i just had a recent

42:46

conversation about this then

42:48

if our listeners are interested it's

42:49

available on our patreon

42:51

i might go listen to that to see what

42:53

you'll say about the enneagram

42:55

no so beth a recurring name that comes

42:59

up in

42:59

in your book the making of biblical

43:01

womanhood

43:02

is uh wayne grudem god bless him and

43:06

uh wayne grudem you know is responsible

43:08

for

43:09

the biblical manhood and womanhood with

43:11

john piper and he's also

43:12

in large part responsible for the esv

43:15

translation of the bible which a lot of

43:18

for sure reformed but a lot of people

43:19

who you know hold a

43:21

scare quote's high view of the

43:23

scriptures think that the esv is the

43:25

holy grail

43:26

of translations and you do a lot of

43:28

really good work

43:29

of unearthing some biases within both

43:32

the esv but also numerous

43:34

modern biblical english translations of

43:37

the scriptures

43:38

and talk about how maybe wayne grudem

43:40

and people like him

43:42

translators because of their

43:44

complementary biases

43:46

have kind of just changed some words in

43:48

the scriptures that make a

43:50

big big difference for example we talk

43:53

about the book of romans and how

43:55

paul says phoebe was a deacon and she's

43:58

not only a deacon but she's the one who

43:59

took the book of rome

44:00

the letter to the church of rome takes

44:02

it to them reads it out loud to them

44:04

that's a

44:04

that's a leader in authoritarian

44:06

position then

44:08

or so phoebe then in this in these

44:10

modern translations

44:11

is looked to as a servant or that word

44:13

deacon is turned into servant the only

44:15

time in the

44:16

new testament the word deacon in greek

44:18

is turned into the word servants

44:20

maybe some agenda there then you look at

44:22

junior who it says paul says in romans

44:24

16

44:25

junior is prominent among the apostles

44:27

right so she's an

44:28

all-star among the apostles junior it's

44:31

a woman

44:32

and then all of a sudden in the last i

44:34

don't know 40 years in these modern

44:36

translations all of a sudden junior

44:37

starts becoming junius

44:39

a man out of the blue go figure

44:42

tell us a little bit about the

44:44

translation problem that we find in

44:46

these modern translations that make it

44:47

so that nobody questions

44:49

whether or not there were women leaders

44:50

in the church because obviously there

44:52

wasn't because it was junius was a man

44:54

and phoebe was a servant so i think a

44:57

part of this today is americans

45:02

in western christianity we don't learn

45:04

other people's languages

45:06

so our understanding of how translation

45:09

works

45:10

is very limited if you really think

45:12

about it i mean we might all stumble

45:14

through our high school and college

45:16

classes and get some but very few of us

45:18

actually read

45:19

and can really read so i think that's

45:21

part of it is that we just don't

45:22

understand

45:23

we also have grown up with this idea

45:27

that english

45:28

is the you know everybody should learn

45:29

english because we have english

45:31

english is the most excellent language

45:34

and so

45:35

the bible you know it's like nobody it's

45:38

thinking that maybe english wasn't a

45:40

really great

45:40

language for translating the bible is i

45:43

think is also alien to many of us

45:45

um because all we've ever known and for

45:47

us the reformation

45:48

is this time of celebration where our we

45:51

believe

45:52

this is not true but we believe that

45:54

that's the first time that it became

45:56

available to ordinary people

45:58

in in the english language and so it's

46:00

something that should be celebrated

46:01

but what we don't realize is that the

46:03

english language itself

46:04

by the time that we get you know really

46:07

time of shakespeare moving forward the

46:09

english language itself has become very

46:11

gendered and it's become very gendered

46:13

towards men

46:14

this masculine masculinization of the

46:17

of the english language and so i mean if

46:19

you think about it in the english

46:21

language we don't have

46:22

there's no word the only thing we have

46:25

for both men and women like together are

46:27

like they

46:28

you know there's not a pronoun that we

46:29

can use that's really gender neutral

46:31

except for

46:32

you know saying they and so

46:35

what happened when the when these early

46:38

english translators

46:39

16th 17th century translators when they

46:42

translated the bible they translated it

46:44

using these

46:45

masculine nouns and pronouns they also

46:48

walked to the bible with this assumption

46:50

that men were in charge

46:52

and so they translated the leaders all

46:55

from this

46:55

masculine perspective and this is not

46:58

actually something that's in

47:00

in the greek the greek actually has

47:02

words that are gender inclusive

47:04

that's you know that mean brothers and

47:06

sisters that mean

47:08

men and women and all of these words get

47:11

translated as men

47:13

and gets translated as masculine

47:15

pronouns

47:16

and so some bibles some english bible

47:19

translations it's worse

47:20

than in others they have gotten

47:22

significantly since the 20th century

47:25

there has been many of the translations

47:28

that have come out in the 20th century

47:29

have become significantly more gendered

47:33

where women are really written out of

47:35

the text

47:36

you can see this the esv is a very

47:38

strong example of this

47:40

where even places that most early

47:42

translators would have agreed are

47:44

brothers and sisters

47:45

it gets translated or men and women it

47:48

gets translated

47:49

primarily from a masculine perspective

47:51

we see it's in the 19th century that

47:53

junia

47:54

really starts begins to be translated as

47:57

junious

47:58

we see this actually does start earlier

48:00

there are some folk

48:01

reformation martin luther is very famous

48:03

for this you know it's

48:04

essentially no a woman can't be an

48:06

apostle so therefore it's a man

48:09

and so but it's not common until really

48:12

it's the 19th century where we begin to

48:14

see this

48:14

push to translate her as junius and in

48:17

fact the esv i think it still does i

48:19

haven't looked at the most recent

48:20

version

48:21

but i think it still says junious and

48:23

then it has a footnote that says maybe

48:24

junia

48:25

but who looks at the footnotes the

48:27

problem with that is that

48:29

there is no you know if we look actually

48:32

at the

48:32

at the ancient the first century world

48:34

there's not men running around with the

48:36

name junius

48:37

but there are a whole lot of documented

48:39

juniors

48:40

so there's very little evidence at all

48:42

that this could even be a masculine name

48:44

so i didn't realize the the esv was a

48:47

direct response to the tniv

48:49

yep it is i i remember this because as i

48:52

said it happened at a time when there

48:54

were lots of things going on in my life

48:56

and it sort of embedded itself and part

48:58

of it too was because

48:59

not really even knowing and of this my

49:01

husband got me a tnip i like the niv i

49:03

grew up baptist i grew up reading the

49:05

niv and so he actually got me my first

49:07

gender inclusive language bible and i

49:09

didn't realize

49:10

and i remembered the fur about it all

49:12

the people who were like

49:13

oh my gosh you have a tniv and you know

49:16

i mean it was

49:17

really fascinating to me to see this and

49:20

then of course the esv

49:21

which comes out in 2002 it was created

49:24

as a direct response to reclaim the

49:27

bible

49:27

for its traditional emphasis on male

49:31

leadership

49:31

and as i said as a medievalist this just

49:34

cracked me up

49:36

as long as your tradition only goes back

49:37

like 100 years exactly

49:39

i was like i was like well you know that

49:41

certainly says something um

49:43

maybe let's kick it back to the 15th

49:44

century and let's see what they do there

49:47

and you know gender inclusive language

49:50

yep you you say in it's the chapter

49:54

writing woman out of the english bible

49:56

which is what we're talking about you

49:57

say piper and grudem accuse the

49:58

translators of the tniv

50:00

of intentionally quote obscuring

50:02

biblical texts to make it more gender

50:03

inclusive

50:04

and i know there's the reformed person

50:06

who listens to this

50:08

who's going to write the a bad review

50:09

just because of this so go for it i'm

50:11

going to give you some ammunition right

50:12

now but

50:13

i want to say so what and i want to also

50:17

say

50:17

praise the lord that someone's trying to

50:20

take our faith back to its roots into

50:21

the gender inclusive roots that we have

50:23

like if if somebody said oh man we're

50:26

going

50:26

we're getting too gender inclusive i

50:29

don't want anything to do with that

50:30

faith

50:31

to be honest with you you know this is

50:34

actually really a crazy argument to me

50:36

and i never really

50:37

what was funny to me about it is that

50:39

the argument i'm thinking about the

50:40

world magazine articles which are just

50:42

really really enlightening i encourage

50:45

everybody to go look them up and read

50:46

them

50:47

but their response was is that this

50:50

this is what's crazy to me is that they

50:52

argue that this is a response to the

50:54

feminist

50:54

movement which is trying to eradicate

50:57

differences between men and women

50:59

yet they're arguing that the way to

51:00

combat this feminist movement that's

51:02

trying to eradicate differences between

51:04

men and women

51:05

is by instead of having men and women

51:08

specified

51:08

in the text and gender inclusive we're

51:10

going to eradicate it and make it all

51:12

masculine

51:13

and that i mean i'm just like the logic

51:15

behind that

51:16

is crazy unless your goal

51:19

is actually not to emphasize the

51:22

differences between men and women but to

51:24

emphasize the power

51:25

of the man and that i think is what

51:28

actually is behind the esv

51:31

so i'm going to ask you two questions

51:32

these are strong ones now okay

51:34

offend some people and possibly some

51:36

friends of yours you can

51:37

plead the fifth if you want but you say

51:40

this in your book and i completely agree

51:41

with you over and over again

51:43

it seems like the view of biblical

51:44

inerrancy is at the root of the problem

51:46

to me

51:47

as you read it biblical inerrancy if you

51:50

see the bible as inerrant you find

51:52

yourself having to justify treating

51:54

everyone besides

51:55

males and in our world white males in an

51:58

antiquated and

51:58

oppressive way if we can just be honest

52:01

right

52:02

it wasn't that long ago that inheritance

52:04

were were arguing for a biblically

52:06

endorsed form of slavery it wasn't that

52:08

long ago

52:08

nope not because of the bible so would

52:10

you agree that an

52:12

an inheritance view of the bible forces

52:15

christians to hold oppressive

52:16

unloving and dishonoring views towards

52:18

the human family is that going too far

52:20

so i think you know inerrancy is such a

52:24

loaded word

52:25

and i actually think it's part i mean

52:27

this is also funny to me for people who

52:29

hang our hats

52:30

on the bible the bible alone why do we

52:33

hang our hats

52:34

on an interpretation of the bible called

52:36

inerrancy

52:37

and aaron sees not in the bible it's not

52:39

it's nothing that the bible actually

52:41

claims

52:42

there is not i mean you know god says

52:43

that his word is

52:45

fully trustworthy and that it leads to

52:48

salvation

52:49

which it does but there's nothing in it

52:51

that says

52:52

inerrancy that you have to believe it

52:54

the way that i believe it

52:56

in order to be christian and that's what

52:58

inerrancy does today it's

52:59

you know barry hinkins who's he's a

53:01

friend of mine at baylor he's also a

53:03

really good 20th century scholar

53:05

and he has this great book called uneasy

53:07

in babylon that i would recommend if

53:09

anybody wants to know sort of all of

53:10

this and he talks about

53:11

you know that inerrancy really has a lot

53:13

of different meanings

53:14

but what it came to mean in the 20th

53:17

century

53:18

is that you have to believe that the

53:20

bible is interpreted

53:22

through the lens of these

53:24

fundamentalists

53:25

you know these people arguing this these

53:28

fundamentalists

53:29

and that this you know that it is

53:31

completely without error

53:33

which you know as i said the bible never

53:35

i mean never says this

53:37

it's it's crazy to me but completely

53:39

without error

53:40

in every sense of the word incl you know

53:42

including science

53:44

all of these things and that the way

53:45

that they interpret error

53:47

or not is by how they read the bible

53:50

so if you don't read the bible the way

53:52

they read it then you

53:53

are not an inerrantist and you're

53:55

outside of christian orthodoxy

53:57

reading it that way with that very rigid

54:00

lens

54:01

that makes it very that creates a very

54:03

fragile faith

54:05

yes is oppressive and harms people

54:08

i can speak of this of somebody who

54:10

served in the trenches and youth

54:12

ministry for 20 years

54:13

and the kids that were most likely to

54:16

lose their faith in college

54:18

were the ones whose faith was most

54:20

fragile

54:21

because they believed that if they

54:22

didn't literally believe

54:24

the first three chapters or seven

54:26

chapters of genesis that if there was

54:28

any evidence that

54:29

countered that you know that they saw

54:31

that might shake that

54:33

that that meant nothing else in the

54:34

bible was true

54:36

and that to me was always terrifying

54:38

when i watched those kids

54:40

because i knew i mean their face

54:43

faith was so fragile and it wasn't

54:46

it wasn't going to make it out of their

54:49

parents household

54:50

because you know that that's not the

54:52

gospel

54:54

that's what we have added to the gospel

54:57

yep

54:58

so i'm going to ask you a similar

54:59

question beth and this is about again

55:00

evangelicals and if you're a good

55:02

evangelical listen listening to this

55:04

i hope you don't fit into this 52

55:06

percent here i hope that's not you i

55:07

hope that you're

55:08

you're better than that but you cite the

55:10

barna research group which is a very

55:12

reputable

55:13

research group as saying that

55:15

evangelicals are the most

55:17

quote most hesitant group in america in

55:19

supporting women's work outside of the

55:21

home

55:22

that's saying a lot women evangelicals

55:25

are the most

55:26

hesitant group in america in supporting

55:28

women's work outside the home

55:29

only 52 percent of evangelicals are

55:32

comfortable with the future possibility

55:33

of more women

55:34

than men in the workforce which is a

55:36

full 20

55:37

lower than the general american

55:39

population i mean that's shocking

55:42

it is so here's my question in light of

55:43

all of this

55:45

are is evangelicalism going to have a

55:47

problem that

55:48

evangelicals might be seen as a fringe

55:50

religious group that endorses oppression

55:52

and other

55:53

like other fundamentalist religious

55:54

groups in the world that we can think of

55:57

whether it's fundamentalist islam and

55:59

that we look down upon

56:01

so so strongly could and this is your

56:04

you're identifying as the evangelical

56:06

beth

56:07

could evangelicalism be headed that way

56:09

as a fringe group that supports

56:10

oppression

56:11

yes i definitely think that i think that

56:15

that is if we look at the newspaper

56:18

accounts

56:18

over just the past you know the we think

56:20

about the houston chronicle

56:22

with the southern baptist you know more

56:24

than 700

56:25

i mean abused sexual abuse cases i mean

56:27

that's just horrific

56:29

if and i'm sure there's more you think

56:31

about ravi

56:32

zacharias i mean i mean

56:36

horrible we can't i don't even want to

56:37

read some of those stories and i'm a

56:39

historian

56:40

because they're just so demeaning to

56:42

women and women of

56:44

color so and and

56:47

clearly this is one of the things that i

56:48

love about christian kobez dumas book

56:50

is that it pulls away there is no

56:54

you cannot argue any longer that there

56:56

is not a connection

56:58

between complementarian theology and the

57:02

oppression

57:02

and abuse of women you cannot argue that

57:06

you know i mean i'm thinking about john

57:07

piper went on and had that very

57:10

vigorous sort of that you went on

57:12

youtube i mean not well it went on

57:13

twitter but

57:14

he put it on youtube and where he

57:17

defended where he said

57:18

complementarianism doesn't lead to this

57:20

it's just sin that leads to this and

57:22

he's like well

57:23

yes it is sin that leads to this but it

57:25

is sin that is enabled

57:27

by this particular theology that says

57:29

that some humans

57:30

simply because of the way they are born

57:32

are better than other humans it's

57:34

amazing how sin flourishes easier in

57:36

some contexts than others isn't it

57:38

exactly i mean it enables that and and

57:41

so we're seeing the fruit of that

57:42

and so i think this is also what we're

57:44

seeing like with the backlash like you

57:46

know as i said i'm in a

57:47

i like the imaginary version of

57:48

evangelicalism but if you actually look

57:50

at my husband and i

57:52

you know i think we clearly are not

57:55

identifying

57:56

with the svc with these independent

57:59

baptist

58:00

churches with these with the cbmw

58:03

we're not identifying with any of these

58:05

complementarians and we just watched

58:07

beth moore walk away

58:08

and i mean i think this says yes this

58:11

type of evangelicalism

58:13

is going i think may go the way of

58:16

fringe groups because

58:17

everyone's going to jump ship because

58:20

we're realizing these that this has

58:22

nothing to do with jesus and has more to

58:24

do with power

58:26

yeah yeah yeah we were both wondering at

58:29

the end of this

58:30

knowing that you still identify at least

58:31

in the book

58:33

as proudly baptist yeah

58:36

so over and over in the book you tell

58:38

heartbreaking stories

58:40

like soul-crushing stories about things

58:43

that have happened to you things that

58:44

have happened to your family harms that

58:46

were done to

58:47

the students under your care who didn't

58:49

get to hear from you didn't get you know

58:51

the benefit of your wisdom when they

58:52

should have

58:53

there are many reasons to leave

58:55

oppressive

58:56

structures we could list some right not

58:59

just the harm to yourself

59:01

and to other marginalized groups but

59:04

staying in these structures tends to

59:05

prop them up

59:06

we recently spoke with scott mcknight

59:08

about culture

59:09

and the influence of culture on personal

59:11

formation and how you tend to become

59:13

more like the culture you're a part of

59:14

so this is like threatening to your

59:16

virtue

59:17

to stay all sorts of reasons to leave

59:20

right why do you stay

59:23

yeah so i don't i didn't

59:26

completely stay because we did walk out

59:30

of um we did walk out of the

59:32

complementarian

59:34

part i mean that's one of the things and

59:36

you know part of my story i sort of

59:38

i sort of weaved this end because i i

59:40

try to

59:41

i'm talking about real people and so i'm

59:44

not trying

59:44

i'm not trying to call out real people

59:47

i'm trying to call out a system

59:49

and something that we need to change

59:51

during our whole journey we weren't

59:52

entirely in baptist churches

59:54

we kind of we went from baptist to a

59:56

non-denominational back to a baptist

59:59

and so there was sort of this movement

60:02

in

60:02

our in our ministry and what we found

60:05

what we have done now

60:06

is we have walked out we identify with

60:09

in texas it's called the baptist general

60:10

convention of texas

60:12

which supports women in ministry and

60:15

actually supports what you might

60:16

consider to be a more progressive

60:18

understanding of the bible you know

60:20

there's there's on both spectrums of the

60:22

bgct there are some who are probably

60:24

still

60:24

more conservative and there would be

60:26

some who are more reluctant about

60:27

women's

60:28

roles and then there are also some who

60:29

would be is very progressive

60:32

what we would with the cooperative

60:33

baptist fellowship and so

60:35

the thing is that baptist is a spectrum

60:37

what i love about being a baptist

60:40

is that it's not it's not creedal i mean

60:42

that's the sort of it's one of the funny

60:44

things to me about some of these

60:45

southern baptist churches that have

60:46

become really reformed

60:48

is that they start having creeds that

60:50

people sign and i'm like

60:51

you're not baptist baptists don't sign

60:54

things

60:54

uh you know people i work at a baptist

60:56

institution and people are like oh did

60:58

you have to sign a statement of faith

61:00

and i'm like

61:01

no i'm baptist it was like we don't

61:04

sign things uh so it's sort of funny so

61:07

i think within the baptist tradition

61:09

there actually is a lot

61:10

of room and i think

61:13

by walking away from the sbc

61:16

i mean that is actually saying we will

61:18

not stay in and that's what beth moore

61:19

just did and i am just

61:21

so amazed and so in awe that she

61:25

did this but i mean what she said is she

61:27

said i will not stay in a denomination

61:29

that holds on

61:30

to these oppressive pieces of our past

61:34

and that's not jesus and i would i align

61:36

with her

61:37

and so if the system that we were in now

61:40

if

61:40

it kept aligning if we were forced

61:44

to um to be aligned with some of these

61:46

more oppressive structures then i

61:48

we would we would have to reconsider

61:51

that

61:51

too but one as i said one of the

61:53

wonderful things about being baptist is

61:54

you can still stay

61:55

baptist and still be on there's a wide

61:59

spread

61:59

spectrum of room on on being baptist and

62:02

so

62:03

i think that's one of the things that

62:04

attracts that attracts me to it

62:07

and also the fact that you know it's

62:09

it's where it's where my heart is i

62:11

really

62:12

understand beth moore it's it's where i

62:14

grew up it's where i became a christian

62:16

it's where i went to church with my

62:18

grandparents

62:19

you know this is part of who i am and

62:22

jesus is there it's just we've tried to

62:25

bury him

62:26

and so i'm all about resurrection so i

62:29

think we can resurrect

62:31

so i you know i'm always half full

62:33

person

62:34

despite the things that have happened to

62:35

us and so i'm like let's just

62:37

let's resurrect this broken system

62:40

because that's what jesus does he brings

62:42

the dead back to life

62:44

yep you're an enneagram eight

62:48

i don't know all of my students will be

62:50

happy to know that because they keep

62:52

wanting to make me

62:53

something that's fantastic i don't know

62:55

what that means but i find

62:57

that very hopeful and i have very little

62:59

hope for any aspect of the evangelical

63:01

church these days

63:02

particularly the baptists here's the

63:04

bible here's the baptist cheers yeah

63:06

yeah yeah now now i've made you think a

63:09

little more differently about baptists

63:11

but you know i'm also a historian so you

63:13

know historically

63:14

i like what baptists have stood for

63:17

although i will tell you i made a bunch

63:18

of baptists mad with an article i wrote

63:20

where i argued that catholic women had

63:23

more freedom than early baptist women

63:25

and i got i got a whole lot of emails

63:26

from a lot of upset baptists

63:28

good good well you're talking to a

63:30

couple guys who our favorite kind of

63:31

baptist are anabaptists so

63:33

but we won't go into that yeah um

63:36

yeah do we want to end it here kyle or

63:37

do you want to ask i don't know

63:39

we're doing we've actually kind of sped

63:41

through our outline which is kind of

63:43

amazing would it be okay if you nerded

63:45

out with me about the trinity for a

63:46

minute

63:48

sure and then we can call it call it a

63:50

day before i do that i do want to say

63:52

we're a pastor and a philosopher walking

63:54

to a bar so alcohol is a major theme of

63:56

our podcast

63:57

and it really hurt my heart when you

63:59

talked about how medieval women were

64:01

pushed out of

64:01

the brewing really yes so okay i have a

64:04

funny story for you

64:05

you know i am baptist but i'm also a

64:07

medieval historian

64:09

and we don't have as many hang-ups

64:12

about you know some of those old baptist

64:14

things we don't carry those

64:16

so i my advisor at chapel hill

64:19

worked a lot on brewing women and so i

64:22

actually learned a whole lot about

64:23

medieval

64:24

brewing and even how they did it and all

64:27

sorts of things so i had when i first

64:28

started teaching i had a class

64:30

that i would talk about medieval brewing

64:32

and i would bring to

64:33

my students loved my lecture on beer it

64:35

was my beer i had two days and we talked

64:37

about beer

64:38

they loved it and i brought

64:42

recipes to them on how to make medieval

64:44

beer

64:45

and you know i didn't really think about

64:47

it about

64:49

four or five weeks after one of those

64:50

lectures i had a kid show up at my

64:52

office

64:53

with the thermos and he

64:56

and his roommates had made beer for one

64:59

of the medieval recipes in their bathtub

65:02

how was it how was it you can he

65:05

declined

65:06

you declined oh my gosh i have never

65:10

i i took the specifications out of the

65:13

recipes that i

65:14

handed out after that point so that it

65:16

would it would take more effort to

65:18

actually

65:19

do it so anyway i want some ladies who

65:21

are listening right now to our podcast

65:23

who love beer

65:24

and love jesus to start a podcast called

65:26

the alewives i just want that to happen

65:28

oh

65:28

yeah that's so good that would be

65:30

actually

65:31

really good that would be really funny

65:33

wow absolutely we need to post pandemic

65:35

have you on again

65:36

just to talk about beer and maybe we'll

65:38

get yesterday i have to pull out that

65:40

lecture i haven't taught that in a long

65:42

time but i still have it

65:43

that would be i'm not even kidding that

65:45

would be an amazing special episode

65:49

okay okay so question about the trinity

65:52

so you you make the case in the book

65:54

that complementarianism is

65:56

shockingly unorthodox and you actually

65:59

call it

66:00

aryanism yeah so

66:03

first of all i want you to explain that

66:04

but also are there any complementarians

66:06

that you're aware of who openly own the

66:08

label

66:09

arianism or openly own the fact that

66:11

their eternal subordination view is at

66:13

least heterodox

66:15

so that's part of it but also couldn't

66:18

it be easily enough avoided

66:20

for the complementarian couldn't they

66:22

say something like

66:24

look the son is begotten by the father

66:28

and the son plays his role in processing

66:30

the spirit

66:31

but the son is still co-eternal with the

66:34

father

66:35

consubstantial with the father so we

66:38

avoid the aryanism thing

66:39

but nonetheless subordinate enroll

66:41

that's what i remember elizabeth elliott

66:43

arguing for example

66:44

that seems like an easy enough way to

66:46

avoid the arianism thing

66:48

but you quote somebody in the book as

66:50

saying and this was shocking to me

66:52

a complementarian document that actually

66:54

said

66:55

that the sun is subordinate not only in

66:57

economy but in essence

66:59

yep like what is that that's not

67:02

christian

67:03

that's not christian i'm not an orthodox

67:05

person i don't care at all about

67:06

orthodoxy or trinitarianism but that is

67:09

shocking

67:10

that is not christian i mean it's it is

67:13

it's very shocking

67:14

so okay so let me see which part of your

67:16

question to answer first

67:17

contextualize it for us beth what is

67:20

arianism

67:21

and what is the that root of the

67:23

internal subordination of the sun okay

67:24

so arianism

67:26

arose in the 3rd century and i always

67:28

tell my students the story that it arose

67:30

with a priest in alexandria

67:32

who um begin to convert the sailors when

67:35

they would come to the shore essentially

67:37

by inventing one of the world's first

67:38

jingles

67:39

and there was a time when the sun was

67:41

not is what his little phrase was and

67:44

what he argued is that jesus was a

67:46

created being

67:47

and that jesus was under the authority

67:48

of god the father because jesus was

67:51

created by god the father and so

67:54

essentially what he argued was

67:56

for two gods and this is what got

67:58

everybody upset

67:59

now the thing about arianism is that it

68:01

actually

68:02

caught on because people it made more

68:06

sense than a triune god

68:07

you know people understand hierarchy

68:09

people in the ancient world weren't as

68:11

afraid of polygamy

68:12

i mean i'm yeah you know of um so

68:16

um polytheism i don't know i said

68:18

polygamy but there you go

68:20

you can put that up there with cemetery

68:22

too

68:24

um but anyway so they weren't afraid of

68:27

they weren't as afraid of multiple gods

68:28

so

68:29

it caught on and and really what it came

68:32

down to

68:33

is that if jesus only died on the cross

68:37

because jesus was told by his father who

68:40

was above him in authority and so jesus

68:42

is only obeying

68:44

then what that means is that that

68:46

salvation

68:47

is contingent upon god it's because god

68:51

came and you know gave himself

68:54

up for us that willingness is actually

68:58

what

68:58

brings about salvation opens the door

69:01

for salvation so if

69:03

jesus wasn't actually a willing

69:05

participant in this but was just simply

69:07

being obedient

69:08

completely to this father's will it

69:11

brings salvation into question and so

69:14

this is actually

69:15

what's going on and so everybody got

69:17

very upset

69:18

and they declared they enantiomized they

69:21

said anybody who believes this is

69:22

heretical

69:24

it keeps popping up a little bit

69:25

throughout church history every time it

69:26

pops up

69:27

everybody's like no that's not christian

69:30

it is heretical that's two gods not one

69:32

god

69:33

and then we see it popping up again in

69:35

the 20th century

69:37

and the reason it popped up in the 20th

69:39

century was because

69:40

i really think they were getting

69:42

desperate about gender i mean if you

69:44

look and see what's happening this is

69:45

something too that we've really

69:47

stamped down in evangelical churches

69:50

nobody knows that there were actually a

69:51

lot of women preaching

69:52

in the 60s and the 70s and that we had

69:55

women getting ordained

69:56

if you look outside the white church and

69:59

you look at the black church

70:02

you know i mean it completely changes

70:03

the landscape go read anthea butler

70:06

go re you know go read daughters of

70:07

thunder um i mean so

70:09

there are women preaching and there are

70:12

women leading

70:13

churches so i think in the 60s and 70s

70:16

with the conservative resurgence where

70:17

they're really trying to

70:19

and part of this is connected to world

70:20

war ii where women

70:22

were in men's jobs and so everybody

70:25

tries to like push women out of men's

70:26

jobs so that men

70:27

can psychologically be okay after this

70:29

really hard war

70:31

so we see this sort of concerted effort

70:35

to push women out of places

70:38

and this eternal subordination of the

70:41

sun

70:43

became a way to really push women out

70:47

you know the reason that i think one of

70:50

the things that egalitarians had been

70:51

arguing for a long time

70:53

and i mean we can see this in women's

70:55

writings uh you know in the 19th century

70:58

for for one example is they argued that

71:00

the gender hierarchy was a result of the

71:02

fall that patriarchy was a result of the

71:04

fall

71:05

that that was when when eve was cursed

71:08

with your

71:08

desire will be for your husband and he

71:10

will rule over you not because god

71:12

wanted it that way

71:13

but because of the fall this is now

71:15

what's going to happen is this

71:16

implementation of patriarchy

71:18

so that means that patriarchy is sin

71:21

it's part of the sinful world

71:22

so what the complementarians needed to

71:24

do was push it outside of that

71:27

and so by embedding complementarianism

71:30

into the trinity it makes it now not

71:34

not a result of the fall but actually a

71:37

part of the created order

71:40

so that is why they need it that is why

71:42

i think

71:43

wayne grudem was going to fight for it

71:46

for as long as he could

71:48

because it makes it makes

71:50

complementarianism gospel truth for the

71:52

title of my uh

71:54

my book so is that helpful yeah yeah

71:57

i mean it's easy to subjugate women if

72:00

the sun is subjugated and within the

72:02

exactly

72:02

yeah that's just the way it is yeah and

72:04

it's it's just a plain old heresy

72:06

ethanasius would be screaming and pop

72:09

pounding on tables if he heard what

72:11

these good old boys are saying today

72:13

there are so many

72:14

church um leaders who would be screaming

72:17

and pounding on the table if they knew

72:18

what they were saying

72:19

to be fair aries probably wouldn't love

72:21

it either

72:23

no it's actually different from you know

72:25

arianism

72:26

uh in the way and that's what some

72:27

people argue they're like it's not

72:28

arianism because it's not it you know

72:30

it's not exactly the same

72:32

it's like it's subordination of the sun

72:34

that is what the heresy is

72:36

um you know whether or not because

72:38

complementarians don't argue that

72:40

god created jesus they just argue that

72:42

jesus is supporting it

72:44

but it's simple it's essentially the

72:46

same thing

72:48

well thanks for nerding out with me

72:49

there i appreciate it yeah i hope that

72:51

was enough for you

72:52

oh i could go for hours but that's

72:54

probably enough for our listeners

72:56

yeah well so beth allison barr

72:59

the making of biblical womanhood this

73:01

book is incredible and everyone in the

73:03

church needs to read it it's one of

73:04

those i think we're at a reckoning

73:05

moment we've had

73:06

so many books within the last year

73:08

whether it's jesus and john wayne or a

73:10

church called toe over now

73:11

the making of biblical womanhood that is

73:14

i think

73:15

this breaking point where we're going to

73:17

find people saying i can't do this

73:19

anymore

73:20

i've i've i'm discovering what's under

73:22

the hood

73:23

and i don't want to align myself with it

73:24

and i think this book falls in line with

73:26

it and it's an important book

73:27

thank you for having the courage to

73:29

write it and we're excited to just see

73:30

what happens beth

73:31

thank you for having me

73:34

[Music]

73:36

as i've been reading this book the

73:38

making of biblical womanhood i've had

73:39

this

73:40

conversation with my wife sitting at the

73:42

table we were talking about

73:43

the way christians treat minority groups

73:46

let's say

73:46

and in particular we were talking about

73:48

the lgbtq community here

73:50

and my wife just said why do

73:52

non-christians get to be more loving

73:54

than christians

73:57

and that was it and it's just a question

74:00

that i've had in my head

74:02

since then for about a month and as i

74:04

read the making of biblical womanhood it

74:06

makes me ask the question

74:08

why are non-christians more loving than

74:11

christians

74:12

that's a problem so i want to go into

74:14

this a little bit more i'm going to do

74:15

that on our patreon so if you're

74:17

interested in that idea of why

74:19

do non-christians get to be more loving

74:20

than christians

74:22

subscribe to our patreon and you'll get

74:24

to hear me go on a little bit about that

74:30

thanks for spending this time with us we

74:32

really hope that you're enjoying these

74:33

conversations as much as we are

74:35

and if you are help us get the word out

74:38

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74:39

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74:41

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74:42

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74:45

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74:47

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74:49

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74:49

you can also find us over on patreon at

74:51

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74:53

a pastor and a philosopher thanks again

74:55

for listening

74:56

until next time this has been a pastor

74:58

and a philosopher

74:59

walk into a bar

75:12

[Music]