0:07

I have a heart full of questions quieting

0:09

all my suggestions.

0:11

What is the meaning of Christian in this American life?

0:17

I'm feeling awfully foolish

0:19

spending my life on a message.

0:22

I look around and I wonder ever if I heard

0:26

it right.

0:28

Welcome to the (A)Millennial podcast, where

0:30

we have theological conversations for today's

0:32

world. I'm your host, Amy

0:34

Mantravadi, coming to you live from

0:36

Dayton, Ohio, hometown of

0:38

Ramon Antonio Gerard

0:41

Estevez, better known as

0:43

Martin Sheen. Today's

0:45

episode has John Wayne in the title,

0:47

and Martin Sheen is something of an anti-John

0:50

Wayne. He is best known for starring

0:52

as a disillusioned U.S. soldier and

0:54

a Democratic president. Nevertheless,

0:56

we're happy to claim him. He is an honorary

0:59

trustee of the Dayton International

1:01

Peace Museum and received an honorary

1:03

doctorate from the University of Dayton in

1:05

2015, despite the fact

1:07

that he deliberately failed his entrance exam

1:09

for that same university so he

1:11

could pursue an acting career instead. Kids,

1:14

this just proves that you shouldn't waste your time

1:16

on school. I want to say a

1:18

brief word before we move on to today's

1:20

interview. I will be speaking

1:22

with Kristin Kobes du Mez, author

1:25

of the recent book Jesus and John Wayne.

1:27

In it, she argues that widespread evangelical

1:30

support for Donald Trump is part of a pattern

1:32

rather than an aberration. Many

1:34

evangelical Christians voted for Trump, she suggests,

1:37

not in spite of his words and behavior, but

1:39

because of it. Most of them were not

1:42

holding their nose when they marked their ballots, but

1:44

doing so in the belief that it was a morally

1:46

good choice for a man favored by God, even

1:49

if he did have a few flaws. To

1:51

make her case, she performs an overview

1:53

of American evangelicalism from the mid-20th

1:56

century to the present and shows how

1:58

evangelicals have been repeatedly attracted

2:00

to a certain kind of manhood that is strong,

2:03

combative and overwhelmingly white.

2:05

Perhaps most controversially, she argues

2:08

that evangelicals are bound together not so

2:10

much by any theological beliefs, but

2:13

rather a common culture that can be found

2:15

in magazines, music, blogs,

2:17

and home decor. It is promoted

2:19

by massive parachurch ministries that

2:21

in many cases have surpassed the influence

2:23

and authority of the local church and

2:25

has sidelined other theological debates in

2:27

the common goal of preserving patriarchal

2:30

rule in the home, the Church and society.

2:33

Among the Christian leaders she discusses

2:35

are earlier figures like Billy

2:37

Graham, Bill Gothard, Phyllis Schlafly,

2:39

and James Dobson, in addition

2:41

to those more active today, such as Douglas

2:44

Wilson, John Piper, Wayne Grudem,

2:46

Mark Driscoll, and Eric Metaxas.

2:50

Her characterizations of these leaders

2:52

and conclusions about the evangelical movement

2:54

are sure to upset many who hold these things

2:56

dear, but I must say that

2:58

much of what she has to say matches my own

3:00

experience writing for and conversing with

3:02

those in the evangelical and Reformed world. I

3:05

was therefore grieved by the book, not because

3:07

I believed it to be an unfair attack, but

3:09

because I found it to be both correct and prophetic. This

3:12

history of a certain strand of Christianity

3:15

calls us to consider where we have erred and

3:17

return to the pure message of the gospel.

3:20

During the financial crisis of 2008

3:23

to 2009, a popular phrase

3:25

was coined. Certain financial institutions

3:28

were said to be "too big to fail,"

3:30

meaning that if they could no longer meet their obligations,

3:33

the damage to the global economy would be so

3:35

catastrophic that it would be better to bail

3:37

the failing company out, despite the tremendous

3:40

cost to the average taxpayer. I

3:42

think sometimes we treat certain beloved

3:44

evangelical institutions and leaders in

3:46

a similar manner. We either believe

3:48

they are too holy to err, or we

3:50

think them too important to the spread of the gospel

3:52

to be destroyed. And so we keep

3:54

silent about the problems in the church, and

3:56

as was the case in the 2008 to 2009

3:59

financial crisis, the average person

4:01

is forced to bear the cost while those at the top

4:04

face few negative consequences for their actions.

4:07

This is where we must remember two things. First, it

4:10

is Jesus Christ who upholds his Church

4:12

and the Spirit of God who draws our hearts to

4:14

the gospel and salvation. Second,

4:17

no person or institution is too

4:19

big to fail at keeping God's commands. We've

4:22

seen it happen so many times that there

4:24

is no excuse for persisting in the belief

4:26

that they cannot fail. Therefore,

4:29

let us hold everything up to the light of God

4:31

to expose the darkness within our own hearts.

4:34

If we treasure sacred cows, the

4:36

Lord will one day cause us to taste the

4:38

bitterness of our idolatry. As

4:40

John Calvin wrote, the heart is a factory of

4:43

idols, and it is time to shut the factory

4:45

down. There are so many

4:47

biblical passages relevant to today's

4:49

discussion, but I want to focus on

4:51

one from Peter's first epistle. In

4:53

it, he writes the following to a group

4:55

of Christians who were undergoing a period

4:58

of trial and calls for them to purify

5:00

themselves and engage in a righteous manner.

5:04

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the

5:06

fiery ordeal among you, which comes

5:08

upon you for your testing, as though something

5:10

strange were happening to you. But

5:12

to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ,

5:14

keep on rejoicing, so that at the revelation

5:17

of his glory, you may also rejoice

5:19

and be overjoyed. If you were insulted

5:22

for the name of Christ, you are blessed

5:24

because the spirit of glory and of God

5:26

rests upon you. Make sure that

5:28

none of you suffers as a murderer or thief

5:30

or evildoer or a troublesome meddler, but

5:33

if anyone suffers as a Christian, he

5:35

is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify

5:38

God in this name. For it is

5:40

time for judgment to begin with the household of

5:42

God, and if it begins with us first,

5:44

what will be the outcome for those who do not obey

5:47

the gospel of God? And if

5:49

it is with difficulty that the righteous is

5:51

saved, what will become of the godless

5:53

man and the sinner? Therefore, those

5:56

also who suffer according to the will of God

5:58

are to entrust their souls to a faithful creator

6:00

in doing what is right." That

6:03

was First Peter chapter four, verses 12

6:05

through 19. Thanks be to God for

6:07

his Word to us. Let's head to the interview.

6:11

[MUSIC PLAYS]

6:21

And I'm here with Dr. Kristin

6:23

Kobes du Mez. She received

6:26

her bachelor's degree from Dordt College

6:28

and her PhD from the University

6:30

of Notre Dame. She's written for the Washington

6:32

Post, NBC News, Religion

6:34

News Service, Christianity Today, and

6:36

Christian Century. She's currently the professor

6:39

of history and gender studies at Calvin

6:41

University, and her published

6:43

works include "A New Gospel for Women:

6:45

Catherine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism"

6:48

and "Jesus and John Wayne: How White

6:50

Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured

6:52

a Nation, which is the book we're going to talk about today.

6:55

And you can find her on Twitter and Facebook

6:57

@kkdumez that's K-K-D-U-M-E-Z.

7:02

Well, Kristin, thank you so much for joining

7:04

me today.

7:05

Thanks for having me.

7:07

Now, I wanted to start out with something

7:09

a little lighthearted, so I

7:11

wanted to play a game of "How Dutch

7:13

Are You?" Knowing

7:16

that you're there at

7:19

Calvin University in West Michigan

7:21

- I grew up in West Michigan.

7:23

I am one quarter Dutch myself, so I

7:26

know that everybody who lives in West

7:28

Michigan either is Dutch or

7:31

has to hear from annoying Dutch people all

7:33

the time. Ok, are you ready

7:35

to play the game?

7:37

I am. I am clearly going to win this one.

7:39

All right. So first

7:41

question, if you aren't Dutch, what

7:43

are you?

7:45

Not much.

7:46

Okay. Ding, ding, ding! That's correct.

7:49

Have you ever grown tulips?

7:52

Of course. I grew my own tulips for

7:55

my wedding even, so yeah.

7:57

Wow. That's gotta be like two correct

7:59

answers there . Have

8:02

you ever visited Dutch village

8:05

recently?

8:06

Yes, recently.

8:08

Okay. Well that's good. So then

8:10

this is likely to be correct as well. Have

8:12

you ever tried on a pair of wooden shoes?

8:14

I own a pair of wooden shoes.

8:16

Oh my goodness! Wow. You are really Dutch.

8:20

Finish this phrase: "If you can't

8:22

go to Calvin..."

8:25

See, this is the problem. I don't know

8:27

this one because I'm not West

8:29

Michigan Dutch originally, so I'm

8:31

going to lose this one. Well,

8:34

and you know, maybe it was just my part

8:36

of West Michigan, but I think

8:37

- my dad's a Calvin

8:39

grad and I think he's told me the phrase

8:41

is, "If you can't go to Calvin,

8:43

there's still Hope." Oh,

8:46

okay. Yeah, and I'm not part of that

8:49

rivalry . I'm an Iowan.

8:51

Hope College, yes. Have

8:53

you ever consumed Voortman cookies?

8:55

Yeah.

8:56

All right . There we go. Do you know the

8:58

difference between a Dutch person and a canoe?

9:02

No.

9:04

Well, the answer is that the canoe tips

9:06

and the Dutch person does not. That was

9:11

another one I heard growing up. I take no credit for creating it. Do

9:15

you have a pair of kissing Dutch

9:18

children or a windmill as part of your landscaping?

9:22

Not as part of my landscaping,

9:24

but I'm an outlier in my family, I think, and

9:26

my extended families . Yes. I'm falling

9:30

short.

9:31

All right . Have you ever eaten

9:33

at Russ' Restaurant? Alternatively, I will accept Windmill Restaurant.

9:40

Of course. Yes. The strawberry tarts

9:42

are the specialty as far as my family

9:44

is concerned.

9:46

Very good, very good. And last

9:47

question, have you ever played Dutch

9:49

Blitz?

9:51

I have not. Again, I'm

9:54

from a little different quarter, I'm

9:56

afraid.

9:58

Well, I've got to be honest. I grew up in West Michigan, and I haven't

10:00

played Dutch Blitz either. So

10:05

I think that was pretty good. I think I'll give

10:07

you at least a "Mostly Dutch" rating

10:10

.

10:11

Yeah , mostly. I've definitely Dutch. My mom actually

10:13

immigrated from the Netherlands, so I think

10:16

I come by it a little too honestly, but

10:18

I moved to West Michigan 16 years

10:20

ago, but if you know West Michigan,

10:23

as you do, you're always an outsider. So

10:25

I never really feel like a

10:27

West Michigan Dutch person.

10:30

I'm an Iowa transplant, and

10:32

I think I always will be.

10:34

Well , very much understood.

10:36

It was my great-grandparents that

10:39

came over from the Netherlands, and if

10:42

you know Calvary Church there in Grand Rapids, they

10:44

were founding members of Calvary Church. So

10:47

my parents both grew up in Grand Rapids, but

10:49

I actually grew up in Muskegon, so I

10:51

almost was a little bit of an outsider as well.

10:52

Yeah, that's outside.

10:58

All right. Well, turning from that very

11:01

lighthearted game to the much more serious content

11:03

of your book, I wanted to just begin

11:05

the interview by reviewing a little bit of recent

11:07

history that probably everyone's going to be aware

11:10

of, but it still bears some

11:12

repeating. On January

11:14

6th of this year, supporters of Donald

11:17

Trump held a rally in Washington, DC titled

11:19

"Save America." The speakers

11:21

that day, including the president himself, repeated

11:24

false claims that President Trump had won

11:26

the 2020 election. There were calls

11:28

to march on Congress and have trial by

11:30

combat to save the country. Thousands

11:32

of people then marched the U.S. Capitol

11:34

and engaged in numerous acts of violence,

11:36

in many cases forcing their way

11:38

into the building and possibly also being

11:40

let in by officers sympathetic to their cause.

11:42

Once in the building, they were successful in

11:44

entering the Senate chamber, where they held

11:47

an impromptu prayer meeting, and

11:49

the offices of Democratic lawmakers.

11:52

They destroyed government property, attacked

11:54

police officers, and hurled racist

11:56

slurs at black members of the Capitol Hill police

11:58

force. Five people died as

12:00

a result of the violence, but what was perhaps

12:02

most disturbing about the whole thing was the

12:04

symbols on display. Protestors

12:07

proudly displayed their white supremacist beliefs.

12:09

A gallows and noose was erected

12:11

outside the Capitol, one man paraded a

12:14

Confederate flag through the Capitol while another

12:16

wore a t-shirt labeled "Camp Auschwitz",

12:18

and amid all these were signs that read

12:20

"Jesus Saves" and other Christian

12:22

slogans. Some protestors

12:25

kneeled to pray before storming the Capitol and many believed

12:27

they were carrying out the will of God. President

12:29

Trump was immediately faulted by many

12:32

for inciting insurrection, and a week later

12:34

he was impeached by the House of Representatives.

12:36

He currently awaits trial in the U.S. Senate.

12:38

Even many Republican lawmakers have

12:40

faulted President Trump for providing

12:42

fuel to a movement that was known to be extreme

12:45

and had the potential for violence. But it was very

12:47

interesting to see how some of the president's

12:49

most prominent evangelical supporters responded.

12:52

Eric Metaxas tweeted the day of the riot, "There

12:55

is no doubt the election was fraudulent. That

12:57

is the same today as yesterday. There is no

12:59

doubt Antifa have infiltrated the protesters

13:02

today and planned this. This is political theater

13:04

and anyone who buys it is a sucker. Fight

13:06

for justice and pray for justice. God bless

13:08

America." On Facebook,

13:11

Franklin Graham compared the ten Republican

13:13

House members who voted in favor of impeachment

13:15

to Judas Iscariot. Al

13:17

Mohler in an interview with The Houston Chronicle

13:19

condemned the violence and faulted President Trump

13:21

for inciting it, but said he did not regret

13:23

his support for Trump and seemed to suggest

13:25

that he couldn't have predicted the turn of events.

13:28

He said, "But what we have seen

13:30

is the true character of Donald Trump come out

13:32

in a way that I do not find that - I don't

13:36

accept was merely inevitable." That's

13:39

a lot of background before getting to a question,

13:41

but I mentioned it all because it demonstrates

13:44

what I feel is the strongest evidence

13:46

to date of your assessment

13:48

of Christian nationalist tendencies within

13:51

American evangelicalism is absolutely

13:53

correct. How did you personally

13:55

feel witnessing these events

13:57

in the past month and what did they reveal about

13:59

the state of evangelicalism in America?

14:03

Yeah, so I've been researching the topic

14:05

of white evangelical masculinity

14:07

and militarism, and violence

14:10

is a subtext of that rhetorical

14:12

violence, actual violence in terms of foreign

14:14

policy , kind of culture wars

14:16

militancy for years now,

14:18

and so I've always really had the potential

14:20

for this kind of violence on my radar.

14:23

So on January 6, especially

14:26

the way the rhetoric was really amping up since

14:29

the election, I was not

14:32

all that surprised to be honest. That

14:34

said, I mean, you listed many examples

14:37

of the Christian symbolism on

14:39

display. In addition, we had the Proud

14:41

Boys kneeling in prayer, and if you hear

14:43

that video of the prayer, it's a very

14:46

quintessentially evangelical prayer that they're

14:48

offering. So I

14:51

think the real question is, you know, what are we looking

14:53

at? Are we looking at extremist fringe?

14:56

Are we looking at something much closer to

14:58

the mainstream? And how we answer that question

15:00

is probably going to have a pretty big effect

15:03

on what we're going to see , or

15:05

how that question answers itself and what we're going to see

15:07

in the next four years or even the next

15:09

four months. But that

15:12

was actually a central project or problem

15:14

of my book: When am I looking at something that is

15:16

really fringe? And when is, when am I looking

15:18

at something that really is mainstream?

15:21

And extremist rhetoric didn't necessarily

15:24

mean as I found through my research that it

15:26

needed to be located at the fringe, so I

15:28

kept trying to tease out what

15:30

elements of the undeniable

15:33

kind of mainstream white evangelicalism

15:36

are in accord with the

15:38

more extremist rhetoric, with even

15:41

the more extremist actions. And

15:43

when I looked at what was happening on January

15:46

6th, and then I looked very closely , following on

15:49

Facebook , listening to people,

15:51

asking people I knew, "What were you hearing

15:53

in different evangelical circles?" It honestly

15:56

wasn't very encouraging. Many people

15:58

might very briefly say, you know,

16:00

"I denounce violence, but..." And

16:03

then there was a lot that came after that. And

16:05

not everybody even denounced it. There was

16:07

a lot of, "Well, what do you expect?

16:08

Push people so far..."

16:11

There was a lot of, as you suggest , blaming Antifa

16:13

, denying culpability, and

16:16

there was a lot of continuing rhetoric

16:18

of pray for strength, for courage - language

16:21

of kind of revolution and needing to stand

16:24

up for what was right. So, I

16:26

mean, it still is an open question to me,

16:28

but what I do know is that the

16:30

history that I've researched demonstrates

16:32

that for generations now,

16:34

conservative evangelicals have

16:37

been embracing militant

16:39

rhetoric and militarism.

16:41

They have been condoning violence

16:44

for the sake of bringing order if that

16:46

violence is wielded by somebody that they deem

16:48

is righteous or appointed by God.

16:51

And they have really fostered

16:54

an us versus them mentality - cultivated that

16:57

and promoted that. And when you put those pieces

16:59

together, it makes it - we saw on January

17:02

6, certainly not beyond the pale.

17:04

And it makes me worry about

17:07

the ability for evangelicals

17:10

to strongly denounce

17:13

and - not just denounce it , but strongly

17:15

resist this drift towards

17:18

domestic violence, drift towards even

17:20

authoritarianism - that they

17:22

may not be equipped to really do what needs

17:24

to be done on that front. That

17:26

said, then part of me goes back to, you know, there's

17:28

a big difference between using this

17:31

rhetoric - or there can be, and not always, but

17:33

there can be a big difference between embracing this sort

17:35

of militant, militaristic rhetoric,

17:38

holding up this ideal of violence for the

17:40

sake of good, and then actually

17:42

carrying through with it. So to me that

17:44

remains an open question, yet

17:46

what we saw on January 6 was not terribly

17:48

surprising, and I really can't tell

17:51

the future. I can't tell where things are going to go,

17:53

but I think there are deep divisions right now within

17:55

white evangelicalism around precisely

17:58

these questions.

18:00

And, you know, it's interesting you talking

18:02

about how do we know whether [it] represents

18:05

the extreme or the mainstream

18:07

and the diverse

18:10

analyses we've seen of this

18:12

event certainly indicate

18:15

that people are not in any way united

18:17

on the answer to that question, and

18:19

how they feel about that tends

18:22

to be determined a lot by where they stand.

18:24

If they stand in a certain

18:27

political spot, they're more

18:29

likely to see what happened on January 6 as

18:32

a few extreme people taking advantage of

18:34

a movement. If they are in another

18:36

place, they're likely to paint

18:39

everyone who voted for Trump with the same

18:41

brush. So I

18:43

agree that for you as a historian,

18:46

that's a really thorny problem to try to sort

18:48

out. And I appreciate you attempting to

18:50

do that in your book, but such

18:53

a big question. It's almost more

18:55

about starting a discussion than being able

18:57

to finish it. And a single book

18:59

- we'll probably be discussing it for

19:01

many decades to come. I'd like to

19:03

address your assertion that the evangelical

19:05

community in its current form has been

19:08

created by glossing over certain

19:10

theological points in pursuit of a

19:12

few matters of supreme importance,

19:14

kind of dumbing down a Christianity

19:16

that turns it into more of a lifestyle

19:19

marketed by booksellers or on

19:21

coffee cups than a robust system

19:23

of doctrine and practice. The turning

19:26

of Christianity into a consumer

19:28

enterprise where people church hop based

19:30

on personal preference and listen to

19:32

recorded sermons by celebrities rather

19:35

than the words of their own pastors created

19:37

an interesting situation in 2016. You

19:39

write that, "During the Trump

19:41

campaign, many pastors were surprised

19:44

to find that they wielded little influence

19:46

over people in the pews. What they didn't realize

19:48

was that they were up against a more powerful system

19:51

of authority and evangelical popular

19:53

culture that reflected and reinforced

19:55

a compelling ideology and

19:57

a coherent worldview." You

20:00

add that many Christian leaders didn't

20:02

believe the poll numbers they were seeing about

20:04

evangelical support for Trump and attributed

20:07

it to a misdefinition of the word

20:09

evangelical, which is certainly something I've

20:11

heard a lot over the years. Who would you say

20:14

holds the greatest power and influence in evangelicalism today?

20:18

Are parachurch ministries coming alongside

20:20

churches to help them or effectively

20:22

just supplanting them?

20:26

Oh, where is the authority within evangelicalism?

20:28

That is a huge question

20:30

because it's so diffused, and I

20:33

think that certain

20:36

denominations hold quite a bit

20:38

of authority - not unlimited. So the

20:40

SBC would be I think top among - even though

20:42

they would say they're not a denomination, I'll consider

20:45

them one for our purposes. The SBC

20:47

holds a lot of power. Christian

20:49

publishing has held an enormous

20:52

amount of power: something like Lifeway Christian Books,

20:55

previously Family Christian Bookstores. That's

20:57

a kind of hidden power that we don't

20:58

- that we're blind to. But

21:01

thinking about what defines what is

21:03

acceptable, what is good? What

21:05

is "Christian" is

21:08

and has been for many people what appears in their

21:10

Christian bookstores , what appears on

21:12

Christian radio. So I think these

21:14

kinds of media networks

21:16

and distribution networks are very important.

21:19

Individual leaders hold less

21:21

authority than most

21:23

people think, than the media I think

21:25

tends to give them. And frankly,

21:28

I think they hold less authority than they think

21:30

that they hold, because what

21:32

we're seeing here is after really decades

21:34

of cultivating this e

21:37

vangelicalism s ubculture, it's a populist movement

21:39

as much as anything. And so you've got leaders

21:41

who appear to be leading, but if

21:43

they try to lead and veer off

21:46

or correct or challenge,

21:49

they often find themselves kind

21:51

of set out on the curb, defined out

21:54

of the community even. And so

21:56

you can be a leader if you stay out in front

21:58

of this populist movement, but as soon

22:00

as you try to actually exercise leadership

22:02

and maybe change something, then

22:04

the limits of your leadership become very quickly

22:06

apparent. So right now I would

22:09

in any conception of evangelical

22:11

leadership, we have to look

22:13

at some leaders, but really at the populist dynamics here

22:18

as well. We need to look at certain

22:20

denominational structures, but also these

22:23

media empires that really

22:26

do determine who is platformed,

22:28

who i s promoted. We have to look

22:30

at these networks and conferences, all

22:33

of the above. It's a very complex

22:35

kind of network of alliances

22:37

and distribution networks that determine who

22:39

has power, and it's constantly in

22:41

flux, so it's very interesting to

22:43

look at. It's hard to describe, but

22:45

when you start spelling this out, I think it really rings

22:48

true to a lot of people who

22:50

are inside this culture who bump up against

22:52

these. This is really how it works.

22:56

Yeah. I mean, I definitely have to agree

22:58

with that from my experience within

23:00

evangelicalism. And it's

23:03

so different from the

23:05

historic Christian system

23:07

where you'd have bishops

23:10

and a whole system of

23:12

- a whole hierarchy of

23:14

authority. And I'm not

23:16

saying that one system is

23:18

better than the other, or one system's without flaws

23:21

and the other one has flaws, but every

23:23

system has both good and bad aspects.

23:26

And the aspect of evangelicalism

23:28

is that because there isn't that kind of hierarchical

23:31

structure, like you said, it can take on very

23:33

much a cart leading the horse kind

23:35

of situation. Yeah,

23:37

I think that's a really good observation. Moving

23:40

on, advocates of complementarian

23:43

and/or patriarchal views of Christianity

23:46

often present their teachings as nothing

23:48

but what the Church has taught for 2000 years.

23:51

However, the following the sexual

23:53

revolution of the 1960s,

23:55

a number of conservative theologians here

23:57

in North America promoted an ideal

24:00

o f female submission that was rooted

24:02

in Creation: in the very definition

24:04

of what a woman is rather than

24:07

something that came about as a result of

24:09

the Fall. This was affirmed by the

24:11

Danvers Statement put out by the Council

24:13

on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood i n the late

24:15

1980s and included i

24:17

n an update to the Southern Baptist Convention's

24:20

official doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith

24:22

and Message in 1998. You also

24:24

note another doctrinal trend among theologians

24:27

connected to the CBMW related

24:29

to definitions of the Trinity: God

24:32

the Son has been described as eternally

24:34

submissive to God the Father in his very

24:36

divinity, and this is then linked

24:38

to the submission of women to men.

24:41

This led to a major controversy in 2016,

24:44

when those with a good knowledge of historic

24:46

theology noted that it violated

24:48

a number of principles held by the Church, dating

24:50

back to the Council of Nicaea and

24:54

represents a kind of Subordinationism

24:57

or Semi- A rianism. Nevertheless,

25:00

personally for me, as a witness to some of

25:02

that debate, I was struck by how many

25:04

prominent evangelical leaders considered

25:07

these Trinitarian disagreements to be a

25:09

little importance within

25:11

the complementarian movement. Given the

25:13

kind of dumbing down of theology

25:16

within the evangelical sphere, have

25:18

we reached the point where we are no

25:20

longer able to effectively discern

25:23

or be alarmed by major theological

25:25

errors, or have we become lulled

25:27

into a place where as long

25:29

as s omething seems to support our view of gender,

25:31

we don't see a need to inquire into i ts biblical

25:33

a nd theological correctness? That's

25:36

sort of the feeling I've g otten. Did you find

25:38

that also when you were doing your research?

25:41

Yeah. So we're talking

25:43

about the doctrine of the Trinity

25:44

- pretty essential

25:46

doctrine of "traditional Christianity."

25:50

We could also add baptism:

25:52

infant or adult baptism historically

25:54

has been an issue that deeply divided

25:57

Christians, but people are cool with that now.

25:59

Pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, or

26:02

amillennialism: all these things too

26:04

really are just side issues

26:07

now, and what has really

26:09

been elevated are issues of patriarchy

26:11

and certain views of

26:13

gender and sexuality. And so these

26:16

kind of political and cultural

26:18

values that - have

26:20

displaced traditional theological

26:23

disputes. And what

26:25

that means then is it can be very

26:27

hard to have

26:29

theological conversations around

26:31

these issues, right? Because theology does

26:33

speak into issues of family, gender,

26:36

sexuality, and the like, but

26:38

those conversations - we aren't

26:41

having them often enough well

26:43

enough because theology has

26:45

lost its power. New definitions of

26:47

orthodoxy define out

26:49

of hand who gets to participate

26:51

in these conversations, right? Who has legitimacy.

26:54

And so if you're coming with a

26:56

view that challenges patriarchy,

26:59

you're not even part of the conversation,

27:01

or on LGBTQ issues,

27:03

already you're defined out of the fold.

27:05

And so you might have your

27:07

Bible wide open and you might have

27:09

centuries of theology that you're going to bring

27:12

into this conversation, and

27:14

it's not going to matter, and it's not

27:16

just on issues of gender and sexuality either.

27:18

I think that's what we've seen on a

27:20

wide array of political and cultural

27:23

issues. So when I talk with

27:26

immigration activists, those who

27:28

are working in faith communities and

27:30

- just despair.

27:32

"We have the Bible verses. We

27:34

have the 'welcome, the stranger,'

27:37

the hospitality, we have all

27:39

of these and we can hold our Bibles open,

27:42

sit down with evangelical Christians,

27:44

and we get absolutely nowhere."

27:46

And I think that's important to understand

27:48

that we all come with cultural lenses. We

27:50

all approach the scriptures with cultural

27:53

loyalties shaping what Bible

27:55

passages we elevate, which ones

27:57

we ignore or dismiss or explain away

27:59

. We all do that, but I think evangelicals have

28:02

a tradition of maintaining

28:05

that they don't: maintaining that they are

28:06

- this is plain reading of the scriptures, this

28:09

is traditional Christianity, this

28:12

is just truth. And so by being

28:14

blind to the way that the cultural shapes

28:17

them and the way that they approach

28:19

the Scriptures, that makes it really difficult

28:21

to have these -precisely

28:24

the theological conversations that

28:26

the Church needs to be having. And by the Church,

28:28

I mean the broader Church , across

28:31

racial differences, across denominational

28:34

differences, and across national

28:36

boundaries. Those conversations

28:38

are very difficult to have.

28:41

Many prominent American Christians,

28:44

from enthusiastic Trump supporters

28:46

like Eric Metaxas to

28:49

those like Rod Dreher who have heavily

28:52

criticized Trump, are all bound together

28:54

in the sense that traditional Christianity

28:57

in this country - that is, in the United

28:59

States - is under attack, and something must

29:01

be actively done to protect our way

29:03

of life. Do you see any

29:06

legitimate basis for this persecution

29:08

narrative so common among evangelicals,

29:11

or is it impossible to divide

29:13

it from racist and

29:16

patriarchal sentiments? That

29:18

was one of the main things I wondered reading the

29:20

book, because as long

29:22

as I can remember, I can remember people

29:24

having the sense that things were going

29:26

in the wrong direction and Christianity was going

29:28

to start to be persecuted. I

29:31

think you can make a case for

29:33

maybe some things that have contributed

29:36

to that, but how do you

29:38

think about that persecution narrative

29:40

that seems to be so common?

29:43

Yeah, it's almost a both/and in

29:45

that it's not separable from

29:48

- the persecution complex,

29:50

as I think many people would describe

29:52

it today, is not separable from

29:55

a sense of entitlement,

29:58

a sense of exercising

30:00

power, not just carving

30:02

out a space to exist,

30:05

but by - You look at the way that religious

30:07

freedom is used in conservative evangelical

30:10

circles: it's a slippery term because

30:12

sometimes it means, "So I have freedom to

30:14

practice my faith and live out my faith." It

30:16

also often means also,

30:18

"Christianity is the

30:20

established faith of this land. This is a Christian

30:23

nation, and it is our job as

30:25

faithful Christians to

30:27

keep it faithful, to return it to faithfulness

30:30

and to reassert a kind of Christian

30:32

values." And so they are very

30:34

much linked, not just in the rhetoric, but also in

30:36

the practice. That said,

30:39

I think there is something to

30:41

the sense among

30:44

conservative Christians, particularly

30:46

conservative white Christians, that

30:49

whereas their ways

30:51

of doing things and seeing things

30:53

used to be more dominant,

30:56

more centered, that

30:59

with a greater diversity

31:01

and with different trends

31:04

that have gone against traditional values

31:07

as they would frame them, particularly

31:09

since the 1960s - that's a really

31:11

critical decade for many conservatives

31:13

where they see things really starting to go wrong. There

31:15

is a sense that they no longer represent the mainstream.

31:18

And I think that's been a really disorienting

31:19

experience, particularly in

31:23

light of the last decade or two , with

31:27

changes on cultural views

31:29

on sexuality, the Obergefell

31:32

ruling, and the question

31:34

of where this culture is going.

31:37

Now, that rhetoric has been around literally

31:39

for decades, and it's always a, "Urgent!

31:42

Urgent!" like craziest

31:44

situation. So I don't want to discount

31:46

that, right? Much of this is a manufactured panic,

31:49

but there is some truth to their experience, particularly

31:51

through the Obama administration, that

31:53

really rang true to what

31:55

they had been telling themselves for

31:58

decades. And so that kind

32:00

of converged in 2016,

32:03

that they felt they were losing:

32:05

not just they were losing dominance, they were

32:07

losing kind of their hold on

32:10

culture. And at the same

32:12

time, they felt that because

32:14

of LGBTQ issues in particular

32:17

and the way religious freedom was being interpreted towards

32:19

their communities, that they could no longer

32:21

live according to their values. Now,

32:23

I want to return very briefly to this side

32:26

note that for decades conservative,

32:29

Christian leaders had been stoking

32:31

this fear that, "This is

32:33

decline. We are being marginalized.

32:36

Our way of life is under threat.

32:39

And we hold these traditional values. We

32:41

need to restore America and

32:43

restore American Christianity." And

32:45

part of that was I'm sure what they actually

32:48

thought, but it's also important to acknowledge

32:50

that that rhetoric and that

32:53

fear-mongering also was absolutely critical

32:56

to building the infrastructure of the

32:58

Religious Right, to securing

33:00

incredible amounts of money

33:02

from small donors. It was critical

33:05

to building local churches and

33:07

religious empires from people like Jerry Falwell

33:10

and Mark Driscoll. I mean, this is how

33:12

it worked. And so part of it,

33:14

legitimate fear, a lot of it also

33:17

fear that was being actively stoked

33:19

by leaders who stood to gain an

33:21

awful lot by keeping their followers afraid

33:23

and promising their followers protection in power.

33:27

Yeah, I originally was educated

33:29

in political science, nd one

33:32

thing that I learned from those classes

33:34

that I took in college is the

33:36

dirty little secret that political strategists

33:39

know, which is that even though everybody says

33:41

they don't want to see negative campaign

33:43

ads, negative campaign ads,

33:45

anything that appeals to fear

33:48

is very effective at driving

33:50

people's vote. And we've - I

33:53

think the past couple presidential

33:55

election cycles, we've certainly seen both

33:57

from evangelical Christians and I

33:59

think almost in a mirror image on the other

34:01

side of people who were just terrified of

34:04

Trump and what he was going to do - I

34:06

think that we've seen people's

34:09

votes and behavior, not even just

34:11

on voting day, but in all society

34:14

being driven very much by fear. And

34:16

it speaks, I guess, to just our self

34:19

instinct for preservation. But like

34:21

you said, that fear narrative is

34:23

very convenient as well. Even if

34:26

you happen to believe it, it's also very

34:28

convenient for gaining

34:30

power and wealth and influence . Yeah, I

34:32

think that's a good analysis there. As

34:35

a female writer within the broadly

34:38

evangelical sphere, I've certainly faced

34:40

some criticism, and interestingly,

34:43

the most biting comments have come

34:45

from women rather than men. This

34:47

has led me to wonder why women

34:49

would support extreme versions of patriarchy, and

34:52

certainly there are a lot of women who do.

34:55

I think you may have hit on a possible

34:57

reason in your book. You explained

34:59

that, "For many

35:01

housewives, the new opportunities

35:04

feminism promised were not opportunities

35:06

at all. To those who had few employable

35:08

skills and no means or desire

35:10

to escape the confines of their homes, feminism seemed

35:13

to denigrate their very identity and

35:15

threatened their already precarious existence.

35:18

It was better to play the cards that they were dealt."

35:20

Even so, you

35:22

also talk about Phyllis Schafly,

35:24

a successful and ambitious woman who

35:26

presumably could have taken advantage

35:28

of many of the changes brought about by feminism,

35:31

but who nevertheless became a champion

35:33

of patriarchal ideology. So

35:36

what do you see going on here?

35:38

Did you come to any conclusion as to that

35:40

phenomenon?

35:42

Yeah, Schafly herself said she didn't need feminism

35:45

because look at her, right? Look at everything she was doing. So she was just this

35:49

gadfly and frustrated feminists

35:51

to no end. But yeah,

35:53

I think there are a lot of different reasons that

35:56

conservative women would

35:58

support a patriarchal order, one

36:01

of which is many, many

36:03

Christian women have been taught

36:05

that that is how they are faithful to God, and

36:08

I don't want to discount that

36:10

belief in - genuine

36:13

desire to be obedient - that

36:15

this is what girls are taught

36:17

from a very young age. This is

36:19

what parents teach their children, what

36:22

schools inculcate, particularly

36:24

in their daughters. And if you

36:26

are a believer , you

36:29

generally want to be

36:31

obedient: to be a good Christian.

36:35

So generations of women have been taught

36:37

that this is what it is to be a good Christian, to be a good

36:39

Christian woman, a good Christian wife and mother.

36:42

So that's part of it. There's also

36:44

power that comes to

36:46

women who are able to

36:48

accept or even flourish in these

36:50

roles. Some women are perfectly happy

36:53

staying at home, being primarily

36:55

identified as wife and mother. For

36:57

some, it suits them perfectly well. And

36:59

for those women, it does seem a challenge to

37:01

their identity that other women perhaps

37:03

are telling them there's more, there's more to

37:05

life or, "That's great and

37:08

all, but you're not living up to your potential."

37:11

And so it gets very personal very quickly.

37:13

But for women who feel comfortable in that sphere

37:15

- for women who maybe have played

37:17

by those rules, whether they were comfortable

37:19

or not , there is a certain

37:22

power that comes to

37:24

women who play these roles, right? They are promised

37:26

protection. They are

37:29

promised kind of being placed on a pedestal.

37:31

They are promised that they will have the power to

37:34

"influence" and that

37:36

they are cherished and that they are loved

37:38

for fulfilling those roles.

37:40

So again, if that works for you, and if you find

37:43

fulfillment and perhaps you have a husband who

37:45

is "patriarchal"

37:47

but very kind and loving, then what's

37:49

the big deal? What's the problem? So each

37:51

woman kind of experiences this ideology

37:54

in her own way, and each

37:56

woman is wired differently. And so I think there's

37:58

just such a range of experiences.

38:00

I've talked to so many women, and for some,

38:02

it's all great. For some it's like, "Yeah, lip

38:05

service to this, but here's what it really looks like

38:07

in my marriage, but, you know, fine." And then there

38:09

are others who have been utterly crushed, utterly

38:11

crushed by these teachings: who have left the

38:13

faith, who have - are still

38:16

dealing with a religious trauma, emotional

38:18

trauma, and really broken lives.

38:20

And so there's just such a range of experiences,

38:22

but for white

38:25

Christian women too , there is a

38:27

broader social power that they

38:30

participate in, and so

38:32

by fulfilling their roles within this

38:34

culture, they are then elevated

38:37

to positions of social

38:39

power as well, and I think that's important

38:41

to recognize too.

38:44

Yeah, that's a good point. About a decade

38:46

and a half ago, a movement

38:48

famously titled by Colin Hansen

38:50

"Young, Restless, and Reformed" became

38:53

prominent within American evangelicalism.

38:55

You note that it was characterized by a

38:57

resurgence of Calvinist theology,

39:00

but one that was linked very closely

39:02

with a certain view of gender. The most prominent

39:04

leader in that movement was probably

39:06

John Piper, and it was largely through

39:08

him and his followers that two individuals

39:11

who I must describe as highly problematic,

39:13

got introduced to a much wider evangelical

39:16

audience: Mark Driscoll and Douglas

39:18

Wilson. I don't have time to go into all

39:20

the things that made those two men problematic, but you do

39:22

a good job of highlighting many of them in your book. Both men

39:25

have been characterized by their patriarchal

39:27

views and highly combative tendencies,

39:30

as well as the presence of profanity

39:32

and sexual content in their writings. During

39:35

that time period, they were promoted in various

39:37

ways by Desiring God, The Gospel

39:39

Coalition and Christianity Today.

39:41

I've personally seen how the writings of

39:44

these two men have made their way into the churches

39:46

I've attended and are still being

39:48

shared on social media by my friends, even

39:50

though many evangelical leaders have backed

39:52

away from them. It troubles me that

39:54

they could be promoted by so many Christian

39:57

leaders and that so many red flags

39:59

were ignored. Could you speak a bit to that

40:01

complicated legacy of the Young, Restless,

40:03

and Reformed movement, and does the way

40:06

Driscoll and Wilson's flaws were excused

40:08

provide a kind of example in miniature

40:11

of how many evangelicals would treat Donald

40:13

Trump?

40:13

Yeah, exactly. So a

40:15

little autobiographical

40:18

background: I'm a Calvinist.

40:21

I'm very Reformed. I'm Dutch Reformed.

40:23

I grew up in...

40:23

I never would have guessed that with Calvin

40:25

University that you were a Calvinist!

40:27

Well, you know, it's so funny because I am

40:31

on Twitter a lot and my

40:33

research is at the intersection of religion and politics.

40:35

So there's lots of potential for controversy,

40:37

but seriously, the most controversial thing that

40:39

I've said on Twitter is probably coming

40:42

out as a Calvinist cause so many people there

40:44

don't - I don't have Calvin University

40:47

on my bio , mostly to cut

40:49

back on the number of letters that my president

40:52

gets. So I grew up deeply

40:54

Reformed. I took an entire course on the -

40:56

Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

40:59

I can talk Calvinism with

41:01

the best of them . And then I went off to grad school

41:03

and this was in the late nineties, and it

41:05

was at that point that I kind of was introduced

41:07

to a broader evangelicalism

41:10

and realized that I was coming from a very

41:12

niche location within American

41:14

Christianity. But right around then

41:16

that's when Desiring God was

41:18

all the rage and evangelicals

41:20

were discovering Reformed theology.

41:22

And I was like, "Yes, this

41:24

is our moment in the sun! I

41:27

am Calvinist, and this is us,

41:29

and look at - we have all this offer." This is exactly

41:31

what I had always been told, right? We had the best

41:33

Christianity. We had the best theology

41:35

and here we are, and now you guys are discovering it.

41:37

Welcome! But then I discovered

41:39

soon that I wasn't really included

41:43

in this Young, Restless, and Reformed

41:45

movement. I might've initially identified

41:47

with them. I don't think they would have identified

41:50

with me as a

41:52

young, single graduate

41:54

student intellectual, right?

41:56

There was not really a place for me in that community.

42:00

And so I had to kind of

42:02

tease that out, right? Who are they? Because I'm

42:04

Calvinist, but there's - are there differences

42:06

here? Right? And their covenantal

42:08

theology didn't look like

42:10

what I thought it was, and my interpretation

42:13

of Calvin, which had been given to me through

42:15

Dutch Canadian professors - so

42:18

no Christian nationalism in the

42:20

mix, at least American Christian nationalism, not

42:22

at all, just very different. And so

42:25

then I started paying attention to what - who

42:27

was welcomed into those circles , who

42:30

was a "brother in

42:32

Christ." And that's where things get really

42:34

disturbing. So you have somebody like

42:36

Mark Driscoll and in

42:38

the book, I detail just what - he was

42:41

so deeply misogynistic,

42:43

militaristic, crass

42:45

, abusive in terms of how he wielded

42:48

his power in his church. And

42:50

he was - and

42:52

this was all known. None of this was secret.

42:54

He was very open about who he was,

42:56

what he said. And some

42:59

evangelical leaders were a little

43:01

bit uncomfortable, but kind of also a

43:04

little envious. He was successful.

43:07

Many evangelical pastors

43:09

were patterning their own ministries after

43:12

his, and

43:14

somebody like John Piper can kind

43:17

of chuckle a little bit and, "Well,

43:19

you know I wouldn't go along with everything he

43:21

says and, you know , take issue with his interpretation

43:24

of Song of Songs, but, you know, he's really

43:26

putting the gospel out there." Somebody

43:28

like Douglas Wilson, perhaps

43:30

even more extreme. I don't know. It's hard

43:32

to judge. But definitely

43:34

he just revels in being

43:37

provocative and being shocking

43:39

and identifying himself over

43:41

against this mainstream evangelicalism

43:46

that doesn't have the spine that he has, and

43:49

his offensiveness is his badge of honor.

43:51

He too said

43:53

extremely troubling things about race

43:56

in particular. Well, not in particular, he said a lot

43:58

of troubling things about sex and sexual

44:00

abuse and gender and also

44:02

race. And then to have somebody like

44:05

Piper again, give them cover. And

44:08

you know, "He's a brother in Christ,"

44:09

and the

44:12

way that the word gospel was

44:14

used: you have The Gospel Coalition,

44:16

this is gospel truth, and he's advancing

44:18

the gospel. It really made me start to wonder,

44:21

what gospel are they talking about? But

44:23

it is such powerful language

44:25

when you use language like "brother in Christ."

44:27

It's very exclusive, but it can cover

44:30

so much. Use language like, "This

44:32

is the gospel witness." Um

44:34

, what is your gospel? And

44:36

I really tried to make this process

44:39

visible, and hopefully some of these questions

44:42

more prominent when we look back over that

44:44

history.

44:47

Complementarian leaders, such as

44:49

Al Mohler or John Piper, have

44:51

tended to dismiss the idea that

44:54

their ideology

44:56

of gender contributes to the abuse

44:58

of women. They have even suggested that

45:01

egalitarianism makes women more

45:03

vulnerable by removing the concept

45:05

of male protection. Given

45:07

your study of the history of the complementarian

45:10

movement, which you've described as "soft

45:12

patriarchy," do you believe

45:15

that these teachings are naturally

45:17

leading to the abuse of women in various

45:19

ways, or is

45:21

it the hijacking and twisting of complementarianism that

45:24

has led to these abuses? In other

45:26

words, do you personally believe

45:28

that complementarianism is redeemable

45:31

or is it inevitably part of the problem?

45:34

Yeah, such a hard question.

45:36

I'm going to answer it many different ways

45:39

because on the one hand,

45:41

I know complementarian men who

45:43

would never abuse a woman. So on an individual

45:45

basis, complementarian beliefs

45:49

and even practices do not lead to

45:51

physical sexual abuse of

45:53

women. They need not, right? So on

45:55

an individual basis, that's very important to

45:58

acknowledge. More broadly, I

46:01

don't know that

46:03

complementarian or patriarchal

46:06

religious beliefs would

46:09

lead somebody to

46:11

abuse who otherwise wouldn't.

46:13

I don't know. My discipline

46:15

- history - does not equip me to accurately

46:18

address that question, so it's an open

46:20

question for me. There are some

46:22

studies in the social sciences

46:24

that are positing some links , but

46:27

that's really not where my focus has

46:29

been. What I have

46:31

seen is how these

46:34

teachings inhibit

46:38

victims from

46:40

responding to situations

46:43

of abuse in effective ways,

46:45

how women who have embraced

46:48

the "God given " teachings

46:51

that they must submit to their husbands, that

46:53

they must sexually submit to their husbands,

46:55

that their husbands have power over

46:57

them and power over their bodies, this really

47:00

kind of authoritarian structure,

47:03

and where children must submit to

47:05

their parents and parents have absolute

47:08

authority over their children. These

47:10

teachings individually, I think,

47:13

inhibit the ways that people can respond

47:15

when they find themselves in terrifying and abusive

47:17

situations, and it also

47:21

constrains the response on the part of the wider

47:23

community. And that pattern, I think,

47:25

is undeniable: that when abuse

47:27

surfaces within

47:29

conservative religious

47:31

organizations, there

47:34

is a real struggle for members

47:36

of those communities - for bystanders

47:38

to call out that abuse,

47:41

to hold perpetrators accountable, particularly

47:43

when those perpetrators hold positions of authority.

47:46

So fathers in their own families

47:48

and pastors in their own churches, leaders

47:51

in their own organizations - that

47:53

the teachings of submission and

47:56

of authority along with protecting

47:58

the brand - and there's nothing unique to conservative

48:01

evangelicalism in a desire to protect the brand.

48:03

But protect the "witness of

48:05

the church," just kind of strengthens that. That's

48:08

where I see the effects of complementarian

48:11

or patriarchal teachings, or authority

48:15

structures really shaping

48:18

it, really entrapping victims

48:21

and producing this

48:23

kind of second tragedy. So the abuse being

48:25

the first tragedy, and then the second tragedy,

48:27

when I hear from survivors often,

48:30

what is even more difficult

48:32

to process is

48:34

the way in which their family members,

48:37

their church communities dismissed

48:40

what was happening, did not help

48:42

them, many times ended up blaming

48:45

women for their abuse, even young

48:47

children for their abuse. And it's

48:49

that kind of second betrayal

48:52

that is often the hardest for

48:54

survivors to come to terms with.

48:56

And so I would suggest that we

48:58

need to look at teachings

49:01

and practices within patriarchal

49:03

systems to understand that. I'll

49:06

also take things a little bit further and

49:08

say that my first book

49:10

actually made me rethink this question

49:12

entirely. And it's A New Gospel for Women, and

49:14

it's a history of Christian feminism looking

49:17

particularly at Catherine Bushnell, who was an anti-trafficking

49:19

activist. So in modern terminology,

49:22

she worked with prostitutes and worked to

49:24

restore and worked to change legislation

49:27

and to really advocate for women.

49:29

And she did so as a Christian in the late

49:31

19th and early 20th century, and

49:33

after repeated encounters

49:35

of quote "respectable Christian

49:38

men" who are perpetrating abuse

49:40

against women - and she saw the same patterns

49:42

of condoning this abuse, of blaming the victims

49:45

in the late 19th, early 20th century - she finally

49:47

concluded in her words, "The crime

49:50

must be the fruit of the theology."

49:52

And she in fact, did go back to the

49:54

teachings of the submission of women

49:56

and claimed that she

49:59

did not find it rooted in Creation at

50:01

all. She found it rooted in the Fall and

50:03

therefore Jesus brought redemption

50:06

and Jesus brought the liberation of women.

50:08

And she claimed that any person

50:11

who was told to submit to another person

50:13

- that that is

50:15

in itself abuse, that is

50:17

in itself injustice. And so,

50:19

you know, there's a theological argument that

50:22

we can have, and we're going to have different opinions,

50:24

but I think I wouldn't want to displace that. I think

50:26

we can have that know. Is this actually

50:28

in accord with the word of God, or

50:30

is it a distortion of the word of God? And

50:32

if it is a distortion than it is at

50:34

its heart, I think, potentially abusive,

50:37

even not by action, but

50:40

just in its existence. And so yes,

50:42

many complicated ways to approach

50:44

that question. It's not a simplistic

50:46

question, but it's

50:48

definitely one that we need to wrestle with actively

50:50

and we need to do so with nuance and

50:53

in community.

50:55

Yeah. And for me, the biggest

50:57

issue is that

51:00

these are questions that you really

51:02

can't ask very loudly within

51:06

the evangelical and Reformed world, the conservative

51:08

end of it. And that is

51:10

my biggest concern. Like ffter all it

51:13

was revealed how many sexual abuse cases

51:15

there were in the Southern Baptist Convention

51:17

over the past few decades - Was

51:19

it two years ago that all came on in The Houston

51:21

Chronicle? - And it seemed like

51:25

as soon as they asked

51:27

the question I just asked you, it was immediately shut

51:29

down. "Well, of course not. Of course it's not a problem

51:31

with the theology." And

51:34

whether or not we ultimately determine

51:37

that there's any problem with the theology, I

51:39

think that such

51:41

enormous moral failures

51:44

require us to sit

51:46

in that discomfort for a little while

51:49

and be willing to really

51:51

consider the question and

51:53

give it - Asking that

51:56

question is almost an act of lamenting

51:59

and we need to be willing to lament over

52:01

what has happened and consider if, like you said,

52:03

when you're seeing so much terrible

52:05

fruit everywhere, is there something rotten

52:08

at the core? And it could be,

52:10

like I said - and I'm not trying

52:12

to come to any conclusion either over

52:15

what this means for whether

52:17

only men should be pastors or whatever. You know, my

52:19

personal opinion is always

52:21

that I'm okay with the traditional

52:23

Christian position of only men

52:25

being elders. But I think

52:29

sometimes because we're so afraid

52:31

of what change can mean, we're not

52:33

even willing to ask the questions, even when terrible

52:35

things are happening. And I think we need

52:37

to, like I said, sit for a little while

52:40

in that very uncomfortable position

52:42

of considering that we might possibly be wrong

52:44

about something. So yeah,

52:47

go ahead. I'm sorry .

52:48

Quick pushback too , against the blaming egalitarianism, because

52:52

that's exactly what we heard for

52:54

abuse, because it takes away men's

52:57

role as protectors. And there as a Calvinist,

53:00

I'll push back and say, you know, that's really assuming

53:03

that men who are given this authority,

53:05

who are told to wield this authority are somehow

53:08

untainted, right? That we can trust that

53:10

men are going to be wielding this authority appropriately, and

53:13

that this authority is not in any way corrupted,

53:14

and I think that

53:17

history does not bear that out. And

53:19

so some more humility with who

53:21

we give power to and what checks are placed

53:23

on that power is very much needed, and

53:26

that kind of argument against egalitarianism really

53:29

neglects the potential for corruption

53:32

of that patriarchal power, I think.

53:35

You end your book with the sentence, "What was

53:37

once done might also be undone."

53:40

My question is, can this

53:42

be undone? Do you think that there is

53:45

likely to be any real soul searching

53:47

among evangelicals over the

53:49

issues you brought up in your book in the years to come?

53:51

Or is this such a self-perpetuating cycle

53:54

that it can't reasonably

53:56

be stopped anytime soon?

53:58

Yeah. When I finished the book, I was more

54:01

pessimistic. I was very pessimistic, so much

54:04

so that that last sentence was not

54:06

in the book originally, and towards

54:08

the end of edits, my editor came to me

54:10

and was like, "This is really depressing.

54:12

Could you give us something? You know, you

54:15

can't leave your readers in this place." And so

54:17

I thought about it and I thought,

54:19

okay, what can I give them? And then I thought - I was like, "I've got

54:21

nothing," right? I felt the same way. After tracing this history,

54:24

it's so deeply enmeshed. It is

54:26

generation upon generation packaged

54:29

and sold as biblical truth. No,

54:31

I wasn't thinking I was going to change any

54:33

minds. I really

54:35

just wanted to testify as

54:38

a historian - to trace it and to hold it up for us

54:40

to see. And then - so he , my

54:42

editor, said, "Okay, I respect that." And then two days

54:44

later he was like, "No, no, Kristin - just give us something.

54:46

We need something here." And that's when I gave him that last

54:48

sentence, and honestly, it just - I was embarrassed

54:51

to even give it to him because it felt

54:53

too feeble. But I

54:56

do believe that, and

54:58

I believe that history is absolutely

55:01

critical: that if we know this history, if

55:03

we know how this came to be, we

55:05

can start to see that, "Hey, actually,

55:08

it wasn't inevitable." That there were individual

55:10

choices made at different moments. There

55:12

were alternatives, there were paths that were not taken.

55:15

And we can see the motives of some of the people who

55:17

are making these decisions, and we can start

55:19

to ask, is this faithful

55:22

Christianity? Is this in fact where we

55:24

want to be? And I think when we have this history

55:26

in front of us, it's much easier to start

55:28

asking those questions. And we have this

55:30

common understanding of the past. And I

55:32

will say that since the book has published,

55:35

I've become in some ways more

55:37

hopeful, despite everything

55:40

that's happened in the country, because

55:43

I've seen how many people have

55:45

really latched onto that last sentence: how

55:48

many people have seen that as an

55:50

invitation, as a challenge. I

55:52

have been shocked by how many of

55:54

my readers are conservative evangelicals

55:57

themselves - are people who are coming

55:59

out of that place and that they are embracing

56:01

this story. I hear from so many people saying

56:04

some version of, "This is the story of my life."

56:06

And also saying, "What

56:08

can we do? What can we do to

56:10

undo this? Where do we start?"

56:13

And I did not anticipate that enthusiastic

56:15

reception of this book in those pockets,

56:18

not at all. Again, I really just wanted to testify.

56:21

So what can be - it's

56:24

going to take a lot of individual acts of courage

56:26

because there is a cost. There is sometimes

56:29

an enormous cost for people

56:32

to speak out, to reject some of these

56:33

teachings, these values.

56:36

Families are broken over this. Church communities

56:40

are rent asunder , relationships

56:43

are ruined, and

56:46

sometimes the cost isn't very high.

56:48

You just never really know until you take some

56:50

of these steps, but I've

56:52

heard a lot in the last few months from

56:54

organizations, from institutions,

56:57

from individuals, leaders asking

56:59

this question, and what can we do while

57:01

still acknowledging their constraints?

57:03

So a university, a

57:05

magazine, a university is going to lose students,

57:08

maybe, or donors, a

57:10

magazine losing donors, their subscribers.

57:13

What happens if a pastor speaks

57:15

out and he gets kicked out of his church? That's happened.

57:18

So I think the constraints

57:20

are still very present

57:23

and very evident, and

57:25

there's maybe more will to change

57:28

than people acting on it at this point.

57:30

And so to me, it's an open question where things

57:32

are going to go. Are we going to kind of settle back into

57:34

a status quo , where some of these

57:36

deep, deep differences, theological

57:39

political differences are papered over

57:41

by language like, "We're all brothers and sisters

57:43

in Christ, and we're all good here." Or

57:46

have the last four years and the last

57:49

three months made that

57:51

impossible - that we can't patch that

57:53

back together? I'm not sure. The

57:55

status quo tends to be very powerful,

57:58

almost like a gravitational pull, but

58:00

in my lifetime, I have never

58:02

seen this level of

58:04

soul searching among at least - I

58:07

don't know how sizable - a fair sized

58:10

group of evangelicals, including

58:12

many evangelical leaders. So I

58:15

am still going to be hopeful that something

58:17

is going to change. How deep

58:19

that change goes is not yet

58:21

clear.

58:23

Well, that's probably a good place to end

58:25

on both a hopeful note and a challenge

58:28

for all of us. I'd really encourage

58:30

everyone to read your book, and I'm

58:32

so grateful that you wrote it because

58:34

- I don't know, maybe

58:37

you're a little bit insulated from some

58:39

of the consequences of writing something like this, but

58:41

I can assure you that writing

58:43

a book like this, a lot of people would lose their

58:45

jobs and would - I mean,

58:49

I've found even just - I don't

58:51

normally criticize evangelical leaders by name, but

58:55

the few occasions I've done so, oh man! Even

58:58

if you're really careful about the way you do

59:00

it, it can be very punishing. But

59:04

it's important to speak

59:06

prophetically on occasion, so I appreciate

59:08

your willingness to do that, and thank you so much for

59:10

coming on the podcast to talk to me today.

59:12

Oh, thank you. It was a great conversation.

59:16

[MUSIC PLAYS]

59:43

I was grateful for the opportunity to speak

59:45

to Kristin today about her book. Unfortunately,

59:48

I was only able to focus on part of what she

59:50

had to say in that book. There was a mountain

59:52

of possible questions that I did not

59:54

ask. I would highly encourage

59:57

you to read this work of history for yourself and

59:59

draw your own conclusions about what she has to say. Whether

1:00:02

or not you agree with some of her conclusions, I

1:00:04

think there is no doubt that she has been very thorough

1:00:07

in her research and presented a lot of good food

1:00:09

for thought. As always,

1:00:11

today's music comes from the song "Citizens"

1:00:13

by Christian recording artist Jon Guerra. His

1:00:15

newest album, Keeper of Days, is a real

1:00:17

treat, and I invite you to check it out. Thank

1:00:20

you so much for listening to today's discussion.

1:00:23

Allow me to wrap up with an admonition from scripture.

1:00:26

"Therefore, since we also have such a great

1:00:28

cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let's

1:00:30

rid ourselves of every obstacle and the

1:00:32

sin which so easily entangles us, and

1:00:35

let's run with endurance the race that is set before

1:00:37

us, looking only at Jesus, the

1:00:39

originator and perfecter of the faith, who

1:00:42

for the joy set before him endured

1:00:44

the cross, despising the shame and

1:00:46

has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

1:00:49

Amen. Come Lord Jesus. Have a

1:00:51

great week.

1:00:53

Is there a way to live always living in enemy hallways? Don't

1:00:58

know my foes from my friends and don't know

1:01:01

my friends anymore. Power

1:01:04

has several prizes. Handcuffs

1:01:07

can come in all sizes.

1:01:09

Love has a million disguises,

1:01:11

but winning

1:01:13

is simply not one.