July 3, 2026
Women in Ministry: History, Stakes, and What Comes Next with Beth Allison Barr
The Southern Baptist Convention just passed a constitutional amendment restricting women in ministry — and the implications reach far beyond the SBC. In this episode of Thinking Christian, Dr. James Spencer and co-host Ashish Varma sit down with Dr. Beth Allison Barr, historian, Baylor professor, and author of The Making of Biblical Womanhoodand Becoming the Pastor's Wife, to break down what happened, why it matters, and where evangelical Christianity may be heading.
Beth traces the amendment's path from 2022 to its overwhelming passage in 2025, explains why Al Mohler's role was decisive, and unpacks the striking inconsistency at the heart of the SBC's position: the same ecclesiology used to avoid accountability for sexual abuse was set aside the moment women's roles came to a vote.
We also go deeper into the historical forces behind this moment, from the fundamentalist-modernist controversy to decades of seminary curriculum that have shaped an entire generation of Christians who have never encountered a different reading of scripture. If you've wondered how complementarianism moves toward biblical patriarchy, Beth explains exactly how that progression works and why it isn't accidental.
The conversation also takes up the coordination problem: the SBC has Desiring God, the Gospel Coalition, and institutional momentum built over decades. Those committed to keeping these conversations open and honest largely do not. That gap matters, and we name it directly.
Topics covered: SBC constitutional amendment, women in ministry, complementarianism vs. egalitarianism, Al Mohler, biblical womanhood, evangelical polarization, church history, Beth Allison Barr
Check out Beth's Substack at bethallisonbarr.substack.com, and her books: The Making of Biblical Womanhood and Becoming the Pastor's Wife.
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To read James's article on this topic, check out his author page on Christianity.com.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm joined today by my co host Ashishivarma and also Beth Alison Barr, who has been on the show before and has authored a number of different books, is pretty involved in the conversations about womanhood and the SBC and various things, and so we're going to be talking a little bit about that today.
00:00:51
Speaker 2: But welcome back to the show. Beth. It's great to have you.
00:00:54
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: So maybe you know, as I've just we're just sort of on the tails finicking out a series on biblical manhood, but I'm kind of interested. You know, we're in this moment where the SBC has done some interesting things, and you've been talking a lot about that, So I'd just be interested in getting your take as someone who sort of follows that in more of an ancillary fashion.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: I'm not in the SBC, so I have to.
00:01:21
Speaker 1: You know, read the reports, but could you maybe give us just a little bit of a rundown of what happened there.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this has been a conversation that's been building since twenty twenty two, and I think it's important to note that this is across the same timeframe that the SBC has been involved in the sex abust scandal, and so this parallels what's going on with their vote against women exactly parallels the increase of emphasis on the you know, this this sex abuse scandal that has just erupted and is you know, so huge. It's more, it's bigger than what the SBC wants to meant to. So these conversations go next, go side by side, and beginning in twenty twenty two, there they started introducing the idea of a new constitutional amendment for the SBC. And so the SBC has two governing documents. It has the Baptist Faith and Message, which they changed in nineteen ninety eight and the year two thousand to say that only men can be pastors. But they didn't differentiate what sort of pastor that would be. And they also made it you know, because local autonomy of churches is in Baptist DNA. So the idea that you know, bat churches, this is what they sort of recommend. And now what they are wanting is a constitutional amendment that says that any church that is in friendly cooperation with the SBC, which means you can't be a you can't vote in the SBC unless you're in friendly cooperation. You also can't participate in all of like their missionary organization, and you can't get the benefits of being a part of a very large, very wealthy denomination for lack of a better word, although they don't like to be called denomination, but that technically is what they are. So this and so what they wanted was language that would say that women can't be called pastors for their ministry in church in any level, so not even children's pastors, not even you know, even ones that are safely complementary in churches that agree to mail headship, and that God ultimately has put men in charge of women even if you agree to that and you only have male senior pastors, but you have female pastors working under them. The SBC is now saying that's not good enough and that those churches need to not be or it should not be considered. In friendly cooperation with the SBC, and they have since twenty twenty two they were building momentum to try to institute this constitutional amendment. It ultimately failed in twenty twenty four, they did not get enough votes to pass it a second time. And then in twenty twenty five they started talking about it again, and then this time Al Mohler, who is not president of the Southern Baptist Convention, he has never gained that although he's always desired it, but he is president of the Flagships Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and he himself introduced what he called the Truth and Unity Amendment, where he said that Southern Baptists have always agreed that women should not be pastors and that it is time to get unity on this once and for all. And in fact, he ended his introduction of this amendment with you know, let's get this done. And this time the amendment passed. Its skipped a bunch of rules that most that would have said it would have had to be reviewed this year and not be voted on until next year, and they just voted directly on it and it passed with an overwhelming majority. It's not in the constitution yet. It still has to be voted on one more time next year, so there's still a chance it may not pass, but it passed with an overwhelming majority this time. So that's it. You can ask questions if you want clarification.
00:05:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, what do you like, what was the change from when it didn't pass last time to when it passed this time with that overwhelming majority?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: Like any idea?
00:05:38
Speaker 4: What the well?
00:05:40
Speaker 3: They have lost churches that support women in ministry. That's one of the changes is that after they started introducing this, churches they kicked out Rick Warren. You know, that's that was part of this is Rick Warren's church, which is one of the largest and wealthiest Southern Baptist churches that supports women in ministry. They kicked out his church over this, and so they have lost churches that would support women in ministry. I also think that the there has been a conservative revival again within the Southern Baptist Convention. And so the moderate voices that we're saying, hey, look we may not support we're all complementarians here, but we understand local autonomy of churches and so churches have the right to choose their own pastors, and so we're not going to you know, kick them out over This is essentially not a not a doctrinal issue for the SBC. And those voices have been grow have been less easy to hear, let's just put it that way. And these more conservative voices, and and really I think al Molar. Al Molar is such a powerful entity in the SBC that when he stood up and said this is what we have to do, this is what SBC believes. Also, Clint Presley there president over at this time. He's different than Bart Barber who was the president over those earlier years. And Bart Barber was complementarian, but he did not think this amendment was a good idea. And now we have Clint Presley who thinks this amendment is a good idea. So the leadership has changed in the SBC. That's more conservative.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, yeah, and that helps, it does.
00:07:36
Speaker 1: And I guess my sort of last question is you know, I've seen some of the social media fodder on this, which I don't know that I can trust.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: But that's a good impulse not to trust social media.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: I see these you know, I see these things going on, and you see people arguing, you know, women can teach, women can't teach. You see, you know Almo are saying that women shouldn't even have pod casts and shouldn't be intervening scripture on podcasts. Yes, it feels like this could go on a really a much darker direction than it's already gone, and I'm wondering just sort of what your perspective is on that.
00:08:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think that's exactly where this could go. I mean, in some ways, what al Mohler is doing is he's carrying complementary and theology to its logical conclusion, and that if you argue that God created men in a way that made them to have authority over women, and that that authority is non negotiable, and that there's nothing women can do to sort of overcome any of what they consider to be these innate spiritual weaknesses, although they wouldn't. They don't like it when I put it that way, but that's essentially you know, they're arguing that hierarchy is built into our bodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so when you carry complementarianism to its logical conclusion, it is that men should have complete authority over women and that you know, I mean, if you're going to take First Timothy too at face value and not put it in its historical context and say that it means women should not teach or have authority over men whatsoever. Or First Corinthia, you know, women be silent. If you take those things, then yeah, you're like women shouldn't be on podcasts. And so I mean, in some ways, at least he is having a consistent hermeneutic and it but it does lead to a very dark place. And you know, this is what I've been arguing for several years now.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: It's been strange to me, like to watch sort of you know, when I see people quote the First Timothy passage, it always stops before and they will be saved through childbearing because nobody knows what this is, what the same that and then even you know, appealing to the First Corinthians passage on Corinthians eleven, like, I think the consistency needs to suggest that hey, head covering, you know, it needs to go more plumouth brethren than you know, where the head covering. Paul's argument there from the creation story is very strange. It is if you're going to take it as Paul simply reading the creation story and not doing anything else.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: I have trouble with the way they reconcile these passages together just from a biblically an interpretive sort of standpoint, aside from the unfortunate downstream effects that I think it has.
00:10:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that Amy Heeler, who's written a great book on gender and God, and she argues that the First Corinthians eleven passage is perhaps the most unclear passage in scripture, you know, across the board. You know, I would say first the child bearing passage, she will be saved through child bearing is probably a close second on this, but nonetheless, you know, she argued, and so what you have done is you've taken a passage that is the most unclear in scripture simply because you know, there's only so much you can do for understanding historical context and understanding you know, what was exactly going on, and so we just don't know exactly what Paul is responding to there, although he seems to be responding to things that are going on in the Roman world in which he is offering a counter and and so you know, this is also what Amy Keeler argues in What Is Is It? Gender? And the Something in God? I can't I'm not remembering titles today, but anyway, it's a very good book. So that this when you take those those types of versus just very superficially face value and pull them out and then read all of the rest of Scripture through them, then you can come up with this very hard blind position that the Southern Baptist Convention has taken. And I stand as a church historian here that what the Southern the lines the Southern Baptist Convention is drawing about women leadership in the church and even leadership in the home, et cetera, is some of the harshest lines in church history. You know, this isn't like, this isn't normative. This is extremist. And you if you look across the expanse of church history, which has not always treated women well, and what the SBC doing is one of the most extreme forms of instituting male headship and female subjugation.
00:12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, she shopping.
00:12:58
Speaker 4: If you got anything, then, yeah, I have kind of a macro question. Sure, there's a lot, there's a lot of threads that I'm trying to make sense of and maybe you can help us here. It's real least helped me, hopefully help others as well. It'd be it'd be really easy to say, well, you've got these churches, and I think there's certainly a big element to this that's true, right, that you've got these churches that have left or been kicked out of the SBC, and that has skewed skewed the overall temperature in the room right for the SBC. Yeah, but I also see people outside of the SBC the same sort of skewing is going on where there's not the same convention boundaries. Even to the degree that I've watched a lot of issues being clumped together my own, my own work in race and coloniality, you can probably imagine the temperature rise, the personal head temperature rise that that's caused for people. Yes, but I've watched people throw that out with blanket statements and then just sort of move as if it's part of one agenda to Oh, by the way, we also have a women preaching women pastor problem, women teaching problem that we've got to deal with. Yep, and we've also got and then it seems like it's tied together. So as of today, this is a failed attempt, but at least the attempt to be very specific in limiting citizenship on the national level.
00:14:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yes.
00:14:39
Speaker 4: An added element for me and this is that some of these people who I know who are part of that skewed temperature rising in certain sectors didn't used to be like this.
00:14:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker 4: That's so I don't know if there is one simple answer, but what are your thoughts on that?
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll throw another book for you. Author Ryan ryan berg Is has done been doing work. You know, you may have talked to him already on tracing the polarization within churches and the inability to have to have a a middle where people who disagree still can talk to each other. And what we have been seeing is that churches have been apart, have been complicit in this rhetoric in demonizing people who disagree with them. And you know, you can think about this that like even even thinking about women, like you know, I don't know how many times that people have attempted to disparage me as a mother, disparage me as a Christian, dispair you know, saying that essentially, you know, I'm I'm outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy and I'm like, I'm a Baptist Sunday school teacher, you know, I mean, you know, it's just it's just really fun. You know, this idea that if you disagree, not only are you disagreeing, but that person is evil. And we just saw this at the recent tp USA event where they you know, compared feminism to They said the reason witches were burned was because essentially they were feminists who were killing babies, and that the Church was on the right side, which is you know, I saw one historian who was like, anytime you find yourself agreeing with the witch, with the people who are killing witches, you know, it's like maybe you should stop, step back and be like what am I doing? You know what am I doing here? And I think it is this, this, this inability to have discourse across the table, and where the SBC plays in this, and this is something that I've been trying to get across. Is the pivotal piece you know, the SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in North America. At its high point, it had more than sixteen million members, four hundred and fifty thousand congregations spreading throughout the world. And they also had their own you know, their own material, their Sunday school material, their publishing industry, which really set the tone for other publishing industries in Christian publishing in the US. So even though like Crossways not technically as not SBC, there's a lot of overlap that you see, and the tone set by the SBC is one that you see carried over into these other go Christian publishing houses. And then you also think about, like, you know, the evangelical the National Evangelical Association in the US has also been struggling with this more concern element that is very hardline that is influenced a lot of the players with the SBC. They overlap. They also overlap with the religious right. You know, you can think Jerry Folwell at the center of this, and James Dobson and also Bill Gothard, you know, who's been in the news again because of his poor health, and all of these figures overlap and they have had there the way that they have been training Christians to respond to people who disagree with them is by viewing them through this. If you are not for me, you are against me, and you are my enemy. And I think we are seeing the natural progression of that, you know, and oppression. Oppression leads to oppression, so oppression of people who are of a different color or who are of a different you know, once you think that some people were created better than other people, then it's real easy just to keep applying that outward. And that's what has led us to white supremacy. That was a macro answer that I.
00:19:14
Speaker 4: Can Yeah, that's that's what I wanted to hear, so at least for me, it was a good answer. I'm trying to still grab a hold of some of these factors that get us to this moment of the seems like an extreme right because we can certainly point to the rise I'll leave it nameless, but the rise of certain key influential figures. But how does that That seems like that's already part of the water. If the rise of key influential figures can cause this kind of extremism, do you have any thoughts on that?
00:19:50
Speaker 1: Maybe I can give a follow up to this because this is like I've always sort of my wife and I love like cult documentaries on Netflix, sort of a guilty pleasure, And sometimes I'll watch these cult documentaries and I'm like, who is following this guy?
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Like, I don't understand it.
00:20:09
Speaker 1: If I saw this guy on the street, he's not a guy I would go, hey, he really seems like he's.
00:20:14
Speaker 2: Got all the answers.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it feels like, you know, just sort of his answer or dosh, you's just question you Like, I understand who the figures are, I don't understand how they gain purchase.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. So I mean I think what people need to know is that this is not something that came out of the blue. This is something that has been building in twentieth century North American Christianity for a really long time. I mean, some ways you can trace it all the way back to the early part of the twentieth century with the fundamentalist modernist controversy. But then you can also you know, and that's where you start seeing this. You know, you have to think, you know, these battles over the Bible. There was a lot of fear in the nineteenth century when science began producing things like you know, finding like realizing that there are times of the earth that it seemed to pre exist humanity. And when people first started recognizing that and even finding hominid skeleton, you know, and things, and it it caused a lot of fear. And anyway that we could go away into that, but it caused a lot of fear. And so some of the response to that fear was this like interpreting the Bible in a hyper literal way, you know, that led you to rejecting science and saying this is not Christian if you believe this or anything like this, it is not Christian at all. This very and that was an extreme view, you know. I always tell people, you know, C. S. Lewis believed in evolution, and that often rocks people's worlds. They're like, well, and I was like, you never saw any sort of disconnect between as Christian faith and science, never saw any disconnect, and so people and so this is you know, that was an extreme view, but it began to build. And again I think a lot of this, you know, is an education issue. This is what churches. It began to be taught in seminaries, and it began to be taught in churches, and you get decades of this teaching, and then what you end up with are entire as a new generation that has never been introduced to anything differently, you know. So like women who are a little younger than me, who are in their forties and thirties, there are many of them who have never actually seen a woman preach from a pulpit in their local congregations, whereas women my age and older saw women preaching in the pulpit in conservative evangelical churches, because that is more of a normative. Then, But then when you get women now, like all of these young women going to TPUSA events, who have only been trained on this very literal reading of the Bible being told that anything else is anti Christian and is dangerous and they have never seen anything different, And it's like, you know, and so I have a lot of sympathy, you know, I think we a lot of compassion because I don't think this is people who are intentionally being cruel, which was that a lot of this has, you know, has ended up in really cruel actions that don't match with what Christianity is. But that's all they've been trained on, and so how do we help them realize that Christianity is a lot bigger and deeper and different than what they've been exposed to without them without their very fragile faith shattering. And that's a hard you know, we think about the expangelical movement, that's faith shattering because suddenly those tenants that they were taught were the you know, when you're taught that evolution, when you're taught that gender roles, that those are the things that hold up your faith instead of actually Jesus and those things fall you're faithfuls. And so we're seeing that's a response, I think. So this is a problem that's been building for a long time in the Southern Baptist world. Since the nineteen seventies is when you started seeing that attempt to take over. And it has taken this long for al Muhler to be able to stand up. And he knows he's not telling the truth, but I mean because he lived through this, but he says that Southern Baptists have always believed this about women, and his congregations and the people are in the SBC now, so many of them have never lived in a world where that was different.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he can say that nobody's really going to be It's almost like there's no eyewitnesses to call him on it, right, he can he can just say that and everybody goes, well, of course they.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: Have because absolutely and there.
00:25:11
Speaker 2: We've never known anything different.
00:25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're controlling the seminary curriculum, they're controlling the narratives that are and then what these pastors are being taught. And I mean, it's just it's just a snowball, is what has been happening.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: So do you see, like I mean, part of what I see when we when we looked at the masculinity issue, which I think the masculinity issue in very odd ways sort of mirrors what's going on in the female side of this, absolutely right, because as you get one wrong, you're inevitably going to get the other wrong. It's like hardly we both we get one right and not the other one right. Yeah, And so part of what we what I saw, at least when we were looking at the masculinity conversation is this sort of strongmand we're going to We're going to turn out a generation of weak, limp wristed men who you know, have high voices and can't grow beards and you know, couldn't fight in the military. It's like you have these sort of pictures of these people and they're they're framed in this way that is so.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Disingenuous and demeaning.
00:26:18
Speaker 1: Yes, that if you're not careful, you should sit back and go, well, of course, I don't want to be like that guy. And on the other side, you sort of play on this. I mean, it's Jesus and John Wayne right, absolutely right. You look back to Rambo or Schwarzenegger or whoever, and you're like, that's the guy I want to be. But I think on reflection, like the reality is, no one's that guy. And so, you know, the the reaction is in some ways, you know, if you feel like you're losing your manhood, the reaction is in some ways intelligible, right, that you would have some sort of a reaction and make a response to that. I think the problem is that the response is something the lie manisphere and not discipleship.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where I sort of lose it.
00:27:06
Speaker 5: I'm like, why are we not recalibrating to discipleship, Why are we recalibrating to any sort of gender cultural understanding of what you know, machismo is.
00:27:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I mean I you know, I have a son. I have a he turned twenty three this year, and I I'm grateful that he has a He has a really good head and also has grown up with me and my husband, which is I think, you know, has helped him maybe with some of this stuff out there. But you know, it's this, these gender constructs are damaging to our young men. And you know, I think about when they are told. You think about Mark Triscoll, I mean we started. We think about the things that he used to yell at these men, you know where he said, if you aren't making enough money where your wife doesn't have to work, you aren't a man. And I'm like, what is that? You know, we have never this concept that one partner in the home doesn't have to work for the economy of the home. That is, that is a nineteenth century invention. It never existed, and it mostly doesn't exist throughout the rest of the world. And yet we are burdening these young men with this idea that they have to walk into jobs that carry you know, actually more than six figure salaries now that can provide you know, their wives to not have to work, yet provide all the you know, all of the medical for you know, they're supposed to have tons of kids and they have to provide for all of that and take and it's like, no wonder, they're all so stressed out. And not only that, but then they also have to look a certain way, and you know the pressure on them to take steroids, to take things that to build up you know, the the image, the physical image for men is just as dangerous as the one for women. And Christians are doing this to our kids. Yeah, yeah, it's so sad.
00:29:11
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I mean my wife and I so she was a pharmacist by training. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, she was always going to outpace my salary like there was no no shot. But I remember in seminary one of my professors saying in class trying to be pastorals sort of saying, you know, your wives should.
00:29:29
Speaker 2: Never make more money than you do.
00:29:30
Speaker 1: It creates a power differential in the home and for It's just so it struck me so funny even then. I was like, hey, you're telling me I'm going to make nothing, and so my wife could work part time a part time and still outpace my salary, right, you know, so you're telling me that on one and then then you're citing power differentials, which we're kind of supposed to be against, right, Like, like, why is this the one place power differentials can be activated in a in a positive space?
00:29:59
Speaker 2: Very strange.
00:30:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it you know it also, it's like if we are you know, the idea when you get married is that you are you become one together, which means you are this equal partnership. That's what we see in the garden in the beginning. Then the money you earn is for your family, whoever earns it it go. I mean, I don't know. This is just such a weird thing, and I mean some of it comes from we think about Bill Gothard. I mean, this is what he taught. He taught that if women are able to make their own money, they will use it on things that aren't good for the household, like they'll use it on pretty clothes for themselves. I mean he actually said that. I mean, it's this terrible demeaning thing. But when we look statistically, when women women actually tend to spend their money on the good of the household and the good of the family, and the good of childcare and you know, and education, and it's just yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: So it's it's been I would say, my wife and I have gone through the I don't think we've like suffered or you know, it's not been anything big, but we definitely had friction as we've gone through. Because there was a time when I stayed home with my son when he was first born and my wife went to work, and people just thought that was crazy and the nicest words we heard for it were crazy. Yeah, you know, you know, And so we've had that sort of our whole marriage. And I think it does create this sort of setup expectations where it oddly reinforces a paradigm that isn't true but that you're seeing play out now and some of these complementarian sort of conversations and certainly what the SBC is doing, it's become a norm. Yes, and now where it used to be that you could be a deviant and sort of break the norm without severe repercussions, what it seems like is happening is there's going to be now disciplinary measures that you're breaking the norm, you're going to have harsher consequences for doing so.
00:31:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely know. One of the funny I mean, it's not funny, but it sort of is funny is seeing people like, for example, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, who claims to be this really moderate complementarian space where they believe in the equality of men and women, but we just have different roles, and they have been trying to push they have been trying to separate themselves from what they call biblical patriarchy, which is Doug Wilson and you know, sort of that more extreme version. And it's been interest because you know, they're saying, no, no, that's not what we believe. We believe that women and men are fundamentally equal. Of course women should have the right to vote. You know, we would never argue for that, and it's a little you know, I look at that and I'm like, but this is where your theology leads, you know, this is the whole thing is that if you argue this, you are arguing that women aren't equal to men. And this is where it goes, is to biblical patriarchy and Doug will sin. So at least it is somewhat encouraging to me maybe that we see some of these what I would have considered to be more hardline complementarians now seeing themselves as more moderate and being like, well, well we don't want to go that far. I'm like, well that's positive, you know.
00:33:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing a parallel in some ways. So you know, when we talk about racial conversations, Yes, what starts to emerge is sort of this false fabric of self sufficiency. Yes, and I call it false because the negative image is always required, right, the idea of maturity always requires that image of what's not mature, so you can always point out to it absolutely, even as there's this carrot dangle to be like this and all of your dreams will come true. Well that, you know, that bleeds into another conversation on ecology, where that sort of notion of dangling the care and uh and a self sufficiency actualized for all doesn't actually work. It's destructive to the earth. But the parallel to me is that as I'm listening, that seems to be very much what's that in play here?
00:34:11
Speaker 3: Right?
00:34:11
Speaker 4: On one side, we want to have our cake and eat it too, right, We want to be able to say in this conversation, well, of course women are equal to men, you know, God made them equal. But when in every moment, for every single mention of this dialectic, the male is on top and the female is below, and for every moment the idea for masculine self actualizing is self sufficiency. Yes, so that the dirty secret in the room is well that self sufficiently. Self sufficiency, by the way, doesn't work when we want another generation, right, so we got to keep women around. It seems like the same dialectic as in play, where this self sufficiency is masquerading over that negative image that has to be kept there in some kind of subjugation. And no matter how many times one can say, well, no ontologically equal, if if functionally every single instance is is dis equilibriumized to write our fecond coin a word, then what we're talking about there is an ontological disequilibrium.
00:35:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, no, that's one hundred percent. And you know, and that's also the thing with I think with racism in the US, and we are really seeing the ugly head of white supremacy from people who claim, who have been claiming for years in the church that of course I'm not a racist. And you know, I have people friends who are not the same color as me. That makes me not a racist. You know, we invite them into our church as long as they agree with us and do it our way, and then we that means we're not racist, you know, But when you actually come down to it, what you find, you know, it's like, it's why it's okay for women as missionaries to teach people who are not who are not white, but when they come home, they can't teach white people. And it's like, that is an ontological frame. You are saying that people whose skin is different from you, that there is something less about them, which is why lesser gender can teach them and these and then what happened, what we're seeing happening in the in the US, in our churches right now, is that this this this inequity that has been behind the scenes is now coming out on full display. And unfortunately, people who have been in the water learning this inequity for so long can't see it now that it's coming to the surface because it's the what they've been living in and they don't see the discrepancy.
00:36:58
Speaker 4: So it seems to some to three the diminished middle could be seen as a culprit here, But I yeah, I'm not sure if I'm not sure what to think about that. I'm thinking about a piece that you wrote in your sub stack, I won't mention a book or author names unless you want to mention them. But there was a piece you wrote earlier this year which, okay, well, someone seemed to want to take that middle ground and say, you know, I'm just looking at the basic biblical facts, and the basic biblical facts don't lend overwhelmingly towards the complementary and sort of positions, despite what complementarians want to say, right, And your reaction to that was that I get the substance of what you're saying, and I can appreciate on a certain level as someone who can draw people back towards a conversation. But your problem was that this person needs to actually take another step and call out injustices. And I'm with you, by the way, in that voice, but I wonder, I wonder in that if that kind of posture that I share with you means that it prevents there from being sort of a middle ground. So now when you end up with a tug of war or a polarity battle.
00:38:15
Speaker 3: So you know that was what that actually. I think the fact that people interpret calling out a problem as being antagonistic is the loss of that middle ground. Middle ground is actually the ability to disagree with people and still be in conversation with each other. And so you know, where we can it's almost, you know, sort of like the way academia is supposed to be, where we're all scholars here, but you can peer review my thing and say this is you know, these are all the mistakes that are with it, and I argue back and be like, no, I think I'm you're right here, but I don't see you know, and that, and then you're you're all you're sitting and eating lunch at the next conference together, because this is just what we do. And that's a ground is being able to sit next to people and be like, hey, I think you're wrong, but I'm still going to sit next to you and we can talk about it and see. And so what I actually was attempting to do was well, first of all, so what I was attempting to do, and this is something that I've actually seen evidence behind the scenes, because I've gotten emails from women who were so put off by his attitude where he said, you know, this isn't going to affect me at all because I'm still going to have all the friends I have and I mean, he explained that, but the way it comes off is really like, this is just an intellectual issue. It doesn't really hurt anyone. And when women were like, oh my gosh, and you know, and so I've had women. In fact, one just wrote me a couple of days ago and was like, I picked up his book because of what you said, and you know, was you know, and so I'm really glad and I think this will be a helpful book to give to, you know, especially the men and my family to make help. But it's this idea of like, how do we bring people together and say we can disagree on this and still and that you know, disagreement is the tension that we can live with and so that you know, and but we we don't see it that way anymore. In fact, when I posted that review, the first thing that happened was somebody sent me a I'm not i haven't been on Twitter for years, but somebody has sent me a tweet from Colin Smothers, who I think is still the president of the CBMW, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and he was like, not good enough, Beth Allison Barr, you know, let the fight begin and I was like, you didn't even read it. You know, I'm actually not trying to fight. I'm like, this is good, let's keep this conversation going. But it's this idea that if you are against me in any way, you are my enemy and we can't you know, we can't cooperate together.
00:41:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the lack of capacity to disagree. I really, Yeah, I think you're right, and I think that hits it right on the head, that, yeah, there is legitimate debate right on some of the passages, even that you and James brought up. Yeah, we're not sure what's going on here, but let's not pretend that whatever is going on in these passages is therefore the entirety of the conversation. And maybe even more importantly, let's not for change or exclude against the possibility of disagreement and real conversation.
00:41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker 4: So I appreciate the way.
00:41:35
Speaker 2: That you put that.
00:41:36
Speaker 4: That's that's the true middle, not some desire to please both sides.
00:41:40
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so I don't I mean, that was a that may be my most read sub stack this year or and it's been. Really the responses have been very interesting. But I'm I think I started a good conversation. I think maybe the author is not happy with me.
00:42:00
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure, you know, but it's hard.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: I've been there where you have a best selling book and everybody's coming at you. You know. I'm like, you know, it's hard. It's a hard space.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: So it's okay, let me ask a question because I think it's interesting. You know, when we've talked about this whole conversation, we have talked about, to a large degree, institutions and they're spokespeople.
00:42:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker 2: Right.
00:42:27
Speaker 1: We've talked about the SBC and now Moller. We've talked about, you know, the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and their leadership. We've talked about you know, more popular evangelical voices who had big platforms back in the day. James Dobson had the radio program like he was the face of something he felt like an institution. Yes, part of my concern and this is just sort of my systems thinking background, I think coming out, it's like, I'm concerned that the middle ground doesn't have sufficient coordination, yes, right, to like come together and go no, we're not going to do this whole polarization thing. We're actually going to emphasize conversation. We're actually going to we don't have to agree on everything, but we are not going to tolerate closure of these conversations, right, you know, inappropriate closure of these conversations, immature closure of these we're not going to tolerate it. And there isn't an institution it feels like that does that anymore. I know universities, some better ones do do that, right, but they're also fairly cloistered as they do it. They're not out there sort of promoting this kind of thing. Do you also see that as an issue here? And if so, if you thought through any ways, we could potentially solve it.
00:43:46
Speaker 2: Just to sort of close out my thought.
00:43:48
Speaker 1: Like you know, I mentioned before you we started recording, I'm like, you've been on a lot of podcasts, Like we do podcasts twice a week. There's all these other people who do podcasts similar to this all over the place, but they're very like laser focused, targeted.
00:44:03
Speaker 2: There's not like a network.
00:44:04
Speaker 1: Of people who are sort of bound together and we're all sort of doing our thing dependently, and so that's not a bad thing, but it's also not the same thing as what the SBC.
00:44:16
Speaker 2: Can pull off.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing as what these other like coordinated entities can actually pull off.
00:44:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. You know, if you think about, like where how did the SBC connect with some of these other more conservative voices. I mean, honestly, let's let's think about desiring God. Let's think about John Piper's website and all of the different voices that contribute to us. Think about the Gospel Coalition, you know, which which controls who gets to contribute. And I mean I remember, you know, they're one of their book editors got fired over putting out a positive review of The Making a Biblical Woman, And I mean I felt terrible of that. It was I didn't know it until after the fact, and you know, I was just like, why in the world can you not have dialogue over this? You all have to anyway, And so I think you are absolutely right. There is I think part of it is is that the middle we don't have the funding resources behind us, like you know, if you think about and so trying to pull these together in a coordinated way. I think also there is a problem the I hate to use the words left or I think we just but there are people on the other end of the spectrum who are in some ways perpetuate some of the things that the more conservative and do, like if you even like, I had some people on the far progressive side who when I even when I even talked with that book we were just talking about and I mean it's Preston Sprinkle, which I recommend he does a lot of great things. He does anyway, I don't always agree with him, but anyway, so because I even talked about his book, there were people on the progressive side who were like not even willing, who were so angry at me, And I'm like, we've got to be able to talk to each other, and we've got to be able to engage with ideas. But there is not a coordinated there's not coordinated funding. There's not a coordinator. I don't. I don't know how, I don't. There's not a network, there is not a desiring God, there is not a gospel coalition.
00:46:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, for that middle it feels like, I mean, evangelical theological society is such a huge mix and tends to skew a little more conservative. You know, even some of those scholarly sort of places you go, they just don't really have the oomph behind them. And so the big, the big influential organizations you can think of, are going to re emphasize these same kind of points that we've been talking about this entire time. They're going to say, you know, more complementarian. They're going to skew more toward you know, no women in leadership. They're going to skew more toward, you know, to Ashisha's point, they're going to they're going to screw more toward a North American white context.
00:47:27
Speaker 2: Than anything else.
00:47:29
Speaker 1: And so you sit back and you're like the air that we're breathing the point about these are the things that we've been taught over time. It feels like there's such an inertia behind them that you know, we've got to really dig in right to change the direction.
00:47:49
Speaker 3: Where I've seen encouragement is actually globally. So like I've been involved in the UK, there is a Theos which is a network for for theologians and sort of broad sweet religion, kind of broad and and they're doing a lot of sort of think work and trying to pull coalitions together. I did a big I did a big online event they have a conference for women in ministry throughout the world that they're hosting in Cairo called Women Rising and and so there. You know, also with the Baptist World Alliance the b w A, you know, people always, you know, I always tell them that if I'm the those are the Baptists that I like the b w A. I'm very much. I love the b w A Baptists, and that's a anyway, So I see this, some of this work being done globally. I haven't. There are spaces in North America where we see different organizations trying to do it, but it's just really hard. In the space and the polarized context that we have right now, it is just really hard to create a middle ground.
00:49:07
Speaker 4: Interesting, Yeah, do you think maybe that's just the nature of a middle ground that those who are trying to to create space are just always going to be on the side of having to struggle And maybe that's okay, But the goal, maybe maybe the lesson is don't give up the struggle.
00:49:30
Speaker 3: I think that's always the Christian lesson, don't give up the struggle, you know, because I mean and that it's going to be suffering. I just finished a study on revelation in my Sunday school class, and you know, and Jesus wins by losing, and Christians are called we're that's carrying our cross, is following a savior who died and gave it all up for the people who are who considered worth it. And so I mean, so I don't think it is easy. I don't think we're called for it to be easy. I think when it becomes easy and when we become successful, that's we end up on those polarized you know, that's it's much more easy. It's much easier to end up in those polarized sides. I think it's harder to stay in the middle.
00:50:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about because even if you're on the polarized side and you win, just historically, it doesn't.
00:50:31
Speaker 3: Go answer empire. Yeah yeah, And I mean so, I mean, really, where you the tension is what you want to keep and that dialogue. And the more I'm learning about modern US history, there are moments in US history where we've gotten close to that. And that's actually, you know, it's like, okay, I mean, you know, I don't believe utopia is ever going to exist because because because of sin, But I do think that doesn't mean we don't keep striving for it.
00:51:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well we're about out of time for the episode, so I want to give you kind of a shot at a last comment, and I'm interested in just hearing a little bit about again, I made the mistake a getting on social media, which I'm not a big social media guy, but just trying to find, you know, some information on the SPC stuff of going on, and so I hopped on and I'm looking at these you know, as somebody who's trained in biblical interpretation, you sit back and you look at some of the reels that go buy on Instagram, and you go, well, sort of and you sort of sit back and like people who aren't trained in this, who really don't have the ability to sort of sit back and think, well, the Greek there isn't exactly what this is saying, or this is you know, this isn't connected with that. How How would you just someone really start thinking through this issue?
00:52:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, without going out and.
00:52:06
Speaker 1: You know, going to the SBC website and reading their side and going you know, because I don't know that that helps, but yeah, just thought process on how you'd help someone who's just I really like to understand the contours of this issue.
00:52:19
Speaker 2: How should I approach it?
00:52:21
Speaker 3: So I think Jesus gave us a real you know, not when we think about the fruit that we bear and aw is this bearing the fruit of the spirit, love, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control? Is it following the commandment? What did Jesus say was the first and greatest commandment? You know? Is to love the Lord's your God with all your hearts soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Is what's going on here. Loving our neighbor is what's going on here. Showing the fruits of the spirit.
00:52:55
Speaker 5: You know.
00:52:55
Speaker 3: Paul says that we're just clinging symbols if we're not showing the fruits of the spirit. And so I think that's a real you know, just sit back and be like, are these policies that the people who my church is putting forward, are they actually bearing the fruits of the spirit? Are they loving our neighbor? You know, I saw one just the other day where it was sort of you know, satirn and Jesus saying people who were before he healed someone saying do you have health care? And like you know, should you, And it's like, no, do I mean, you know, Jesus cared for his neighbor, he healed them and asked the questions. It didn't actually ever ask the questions, but you know, what is it? So I think that might be one like is this a Christian? Is this a Christian? Response? Yeah? Are they bearing the fruits of the spirit and that can help us?
00:53:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good you any last questions.
00:53:55
Speaker 4: More of a an amen to that. I appreciate ending with the fruit of the spirit. But yeah, you know, whatever we want to call them, whether we call them the ethics or the virtues or whatever that they they really are there to show you the nature of the tree, right, and so that's a good place to direct us.
00:54:17
Speaker 2: I think.
00:54:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, very good, Beth. It's always a pleasure to have you on having me. Really enjoyed our last conversation on your latest book, and it was I'm blanking on the title.
00:54:32
Speaker 2: You forgot the titles. Now I'm forgetting titles.
00:54:34
Speaker 3: Oh, they're making a biblical womanhood or becoming.
00:54:36
Speaker 2: The pastor's becoming the pastors.
00:54:38
Speaker 3: That's my most recently becoming the past Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker 1: Such an eye opening idea that, like how that came about through you know, these different political changes within the church and all that kind of fun stuff in medieval times. And so it's always fascinating to talk to people who know history, I think because you just have a different perspective on on things than most of us do an daily So it's a lot of fun. And give give you a substack. It's Marginalia dot subspact dot com. Am I getting that right?
00:55:07
Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely, it's the medieval, it's in medieval manuscripts. It's the writing and the margins, the marginal name Marginellion.
00:55:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll have both of those linked in the show notes. Encourage you go check out Beth's work here. It's really fantastic and I think you'll find a great conversation partner and all of it. So Beth, thanks again for being here, Thanks for the work you do, and we'll see everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and I'm joined today by my co host Ashishivarma and also Beth Alison Barr, who has been on the show before and has authored a number of different books, is pretty involved in the conversations about womanhood and the SBC and various things, and so we're going to be talking a little bit about that today.
00:00:51
Speaker 2: But welcome back to the show. Beth. It's great to have you.
00:00:54
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:00:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: So maybe you know, as I've just we're just sort of on the tails finicking out a series on biblical manhood, but I'm kind of interested. You know, we're in this moment where the SBC has done some interesting things, and you've been talking a lot about that, So I'd just be interested in getting your take as someone who sort of follows that in more of an ancillary fashion.
00:01:19
Speaker 2: I'm not in the SBC, so I have to.
00:01:21
Speaker 1: You know, read the reports, but could you maybe give us just a little bit of a rundown of what happened there.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this has been a conversation that's been building since twenty twenty two, and I think it's important to note that this is across the same timeframe that the SBC has been involved in the sex abust scandal, and so this parallels what's going on with their vote against women exactly parallels the increase of emphasis on the you know, this this sex abuse scandal that has just erupted and is you know, so huge. It's more, it's bigger than what the SBC wants to meant to. So these conversations go next, go side by side, and beginning in twenty twenty two, there they started introducing the idea of a new constitutional amendment for the SBC. And so the SBC has two governing documents. It has the Baptist Faith and Message, which they changed in nineteen ninety eight and the year two thousand to say that only men can be pastors. But they didn't differentiate what sort of pastor that would be. And they also made it you know, because local autonomy of churches is in Baptist DNA. So the idea that you know, bat churches, this is what they sort of recommend. And now what they are wanting is a constitutional amendment that says that any church that is in friendly cooperation with the SBC, which means you can't be a you can't vote in the SBC unless you're in friendly cooperation. You also can't participate in all of like their missionary organization, and you can't get the benefits of being a part of a very large, very wealthy denomination for lack of a better word, although they don't like to be called denomination, but that technically is what they are. So this and so what they wanted was language that would say that women can't be called pastors for their ministry in church in any level, so not even children's pastors, not even you know, even ones that are safely complementary in churches that agree to mail headship, and that God ultimately has put men in charge of women even if you agree to that and you only have male senior pastors, but you have female pastors working under them. The SBC is now saying that's not good enough and that those churches need to not be or it should not be considered. In friendly cooperation with the SBC, and they have since twenty twenty two they were building momentum to try to institute this constitutional amendment. It ultimately failed in twenty twenty four, they did not get enough votes to pass it a second time. And then in twenty twenty five they started talking about it again, and then this time Al Mohler, who is not president of the Southern Baptist Convention, he has never gained that although he's always desired it, but he is president of the Flagships Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and he himself introduced what he called the Truth and Unity Amendment, where he said that Southern Baptists have always agreed that women should not be pastors and that it is time to get unity on this once and for all. And in fact, he ended his introduction of this amendment with you know, let's get this done. And this time the amendment passed. Its skipped a bunch of rules that most that would have said it would have had to be reviewed this year and not be voted on until next year, and they just voted directly on it and it passed with an overwhelming majority. It's not in the constitution yet. It still has to be voted on one more time next year, so there's still a chance it may not pass, but it passed with an overwhelming majority this time. So that's it. You can ask questions if you want clarification.
00:05:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, what do you like, what was the change from when it didn't pass last time to when it passed this time with that overwhelming majority?
00:05:37
Speaker 2: Like any idea?
00:05:38
Speaker 4: What the well?
00:05:40
Speaker 3: They have lost churches that support women in ministry. That's one of the changes is that after they started introducing this, churches they kicked out Rick Warren. You know, that's that was part of this is Rick Warren's church, which is one of the largest and wealthiest Southern Baptist churches that supports women in ministry. They kicked out his church over this, and so they have lost churches that would support women in ministry. I also think that the there has been a conservative revival again within the Southern Baptist Convention. And so the moderate voices that we're saying, hey, look we may not support we're all complementarians here, but we understand local autonomy of churches and so churches have the right to choose their own pastors, and so we're not going to you know, kick them out over This is essentially not a not a doctrinal issue for the SBC. And those voices have been grow have been less easy to hear, let's just put it that way. And these more conservative voices, and and really I think al Molar. Al Molar is such a powerful entity in the SBC that when he stood up and said this is what we have to do, this is what SBC believes. Also, Clint Presley there president over at this time. He's different than Bart Barber who was the president over those earlier years. And Bart Barber was complementarian, but he did not think this amendment was a good idea. And now we have Clint Presley who thinks this amendment is a good idea. So the leadership has changed in the SBC. That's more conservative.
00:07:31
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, yeah, and that helps, it does.
00:07:36
Speaker 1: And I guess my sort of last question is you know, I've seen some of the social media fodder on this, which I don't know that I can trust.
00:07:45
Speaker 3: But that's a good impulse not to trust social media.
00:07:48
Speaker 2: That's right.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: I see these you know, I see these things going on, and you see people arguing, you know, women can teach, women can't teach. You see, you know Almo are saying that women shouldn't even have pod casts and shouldn't be intervening scripture on podcasts. Yes, it feels like this could go on a really a much darker direction than it's already gone, and I'm wondering just sort of what your perspective is on that.
00:08:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think that's exactly where this could go. I mean, in some ways, what al Mohler is doing is he's carrying complementary and theology to its logical conclusion, and that if you argue that God created men in a way that made them to have authority over women, and that that authority is non negotiable, and that there's nothing women can do to sort of overcome any of what they consider to be these innate spiritual weaknesses, although they wouldn't. They don't like it when I put it that way, but that's essentially you know, they're arguing that hierarchy is built into our bodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so when you carry complementarianism to its logical conclusion, it is that men should have complete authority over women and that you know, I mean, if you're going to take First Timothy too at face value and not put it in its historical context and say that it means women should not teach or have authority over men whatsoever. Or First Corinthia, you know, women be silent. If you take those things, then yeah, you're like women shouldn't be on podcasts. And so I mean, in some ways, at least he is having a consistent hermeneutic and it but it does lead to a very dark place. And you know, this is what I've been arguing for several years now.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: It's been strange to me, like to watch sort of you know, when I see people quote the First Timothy passage, it always stops before and they will be saved through childbearing because nobody knows what this is, what the same that and then even you know, appealing to the First Corinthians passage on Corinthians eleven, like, I think the consistency needs to suggest that hey, head covering, you know, it needs to go more plumouth brethren than you know, where the head covering. Paul's argument there from the creation story is very strange. It is if you're going to take it as Paul simply reading the creation story and not doing anything else.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and so.
00:10:30
Speaker 1: I have trouble with the way they reconcile these passages together just from a biblically an interpretive sort of standpoint, aside from the unfortunate downstream effects that I think it has.
00:10:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with that Amy Heeler, who's written a great book on gender and God, and she argues that the First Corinthians eleven passage is perhaps the most unclear passage in scripture, you know, across the board. You know, I would say first the child bearing passage, she will be saved through child bearing is probably a close second on this, but nonetheless, you know, she argued, and so what you have done is you've taken a passage that is the most unclear in scripture simply because you know, there's only so much you can do for understanding historical context and understanding you know, what was exactly going on, and so we just don't know exactly what Paul is responding to there, although he seems to be responding to things that are going on in the Roman world in which he is offering a counter and and so you know, this is also what Amy Keeler argues in What Is Is It? Gender? And the Something in God? I can't I'm not remembering titles today, but anyway, it's a very good book. So that this when you take those those types of versus just very superficially face value and pull them out and then read all of the rest of Scripture through them, then you can come up with this very hard blind position that the Southern Baptist Convention has taken. And I stand as a church historian here that what the Southern the lines the Southern Baptist Convention is drawing about women leadership in the church and even leadership in the home, et cetera, is some of the harshest lines in church history. You know, this isn't like, this isn't normative. This is extremist. And you if you look across the expanse of church history, which has not always treated women well, and what the SBC doing is one of the most extreme forms of instituting male headship and female subjugation.
00:12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, she shopping.
00:12:58
Speaker 4: If you got anything, then, yeah, I have kind of a macro question. Sure, there's a lot, there's a lot of threads that I'm trying to make sense of and maybe you can help us here. It's real least helped me, hopefully help others as well. It'd be it'd be really easy to say, well, you've got these churches, and I think there's certainly a big element to this that's true, right, that you've got these churches that have left or been kicked out of the SBC, and that has skewed skewed the overall temperature in the room right for the SBC. Yeah, but I also see people outside of the SBC the same sort of skewing is going on where there's not the same convention boundaries. Even to the degree that I've watched a lot of issues being clumped together my own, my own work in race and coloniality, you can probably imagine the temperature rise, the personal head temperature rise that that's caused for people. Yes, but I've watched people throw that out with blanket statements and then just sort of move as if it's part of one agenda to Oh, by the way, we also have a women preaching women pastor problem, women teaching problem that we've got to deal with. Yep, and we've also got and then it seems like it's tied together. So as of today, this is a failed attempt, but at least the attempt to be very specific in limiting citizenship on the national level.
00:14:36
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yes.
00:14:39
Speaker 4: An added element for me and this is that some of these people who I know who are part of that skewed temperature rising in certain sectors didn't used to be like this.
00:14:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker 4: That's so I don't know if there is one simple answer, but what are your thoughts on that?
00:14:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll throw another book for you. Author Ryan ryan berg Is has done been doing work. You know, you may have talked to him already on tracing the polarization within churches and the inability to have to have a a middle where people who disagree still can talk to each other. And what we have been seeing is that churches have been apart, have been complicit in this rhetoric in demonizing people who disagree with them. And you know, you can think about this that like even even thinking about women, like you know, I don't know how many times that people have attempted to disparage me as a mother, disparage me as a Christian, dispair you know, saying that essentially, you know, I'm I'm outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy and I'm like, I'm a Baptist Sunday school teacher, you know, I mean, you know, it's just it's just really fun. You know, this idea that if you disagree, not only are you disagreeing, but that person is evil. And we just saw this at the recent tp USA event where they you know, compared feminism to They said the reason witches were burned was because essentially they were feminists who were killing babies, and that the Church was on the right side, which is you know, I saw one historian who was like, anytime you find yourself agreeing with the witch, with the people who are killing witches, you know, it's like maybe you should stop, step back and be like what am I doing? You know what am I doing here? And I think it is this, this, this inability to have discourse across the table, and where the SBC plays in this, and this is something that I've been trying to get across. Is the pivotal piece you know, the SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in North America. At its high point, it had more than sixteen million members, four hundred and fifty thousand congregations spreading throughout the world. And they also had their own you know, their own material, their Sunday school material, their publishing industry, which really set the tone for other publishing industries in Christian publishing in the US. So even though like Crossways not technically as not SBC, there's a lot of overlap that you see, and the tone set by the SBC is one that you see carried over into these other go Christian publishing houses. And then you also think about, like, you know, the evangelical the National Evangelical Association in the US has also been struggling with this more concern element that is very hardline that is influenced a lot of the players with the SBC. They overlap. They also overlap with the religious right. You know, you can think Jerry Folwell at the center of this, and James Dobson and also Bill Gothard, you know, who's been in the news again because of his poor health, and all of these figures overlap and they have had there the way that they have been training Christians to respond to people who disagree with them is by viewing them through this. If you are not for me, you are against me, and you are my enemy. And I think we are seeing the natural progression of that, you know, and oppression. Oppression leads to oppression, so oppression of people who are of a different color or who are of a different you know, once you think that some people were created better than other people, then it's real easy just to keep applying that outward. And that's what has led us to white supremacy. That was a macro answer that I.
00:19:14
Speaker 4: Can Yeah, that's that's what I wanted to hear, so at least for me, it was a good answer. I'm trying to still grab a hold of some of these factors that get us to this moment of the seems like an extreme right because we can certainly point to the rise I'll leave it nameless, but the rise of certain key influential figures. But how does that That seems like that's already part of the water. If the rise of key influential figures can cause this kind of extremism, do you have any thoughts on that?
00:19:50
Speaker 1: Maybe I can give a follow up to this because this is like I've always sort of my wife and I love like cult documentaries on Netflix, sort of a guilty pleasure, And sometimes I'll watch these cult documentaries and I'm like, who is following this guy?
00:20:07
Speaker 2: Like, I don't understand it.
00:20:09
Speaker 1: If I saw this guy on the street, he's not a guy I would go, hey, he really seems like he's.
00:20:14
Speaker 2: Got all the answers.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it feels like, you know, just sort of his answer or dosh, you's just question you Like, I understand who the figures are, I don't understand how they gain purchase.
00:20:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. So I mean I think what people need to know is that this is not something that came out of the blue. This is something that has been building in twentieth century North American Christianity for a really long time. I mean, some ways you can trace it all the way back to the early part of the twentieth century with the fundamentalist modernist controversy. But then you can also you know, and that's where you start seeing this. You know, you have to think, you know, these battles over the Bible. There was a lot of fear in the nineteenth century when science began producing things like you know, finding like realizing that there are times of the earth that it seemed to pre exist humanity. And when people first started recognizing that and even finding hominid skeleton, you know, and things, and it it caused a lot of fear. And anyway that we could go away into that, but it caused a lot of fear. And so some of the response to that fear was this like interpreting the Bible in a hyper literal way, you know, that led you to rejecting science and saying this is not Christian if you believe this or anything like this, it is not Christian at all. This very and that was an extreme view, you know. I always tell people, you know, C. S. Lewis believed in evolution, and that often rocks people's worlds. They're like, well, and I was like, you never saw any sort of disconnect between as Christian faith and science, never saw any disconnect, and so people and so this is you know, that was an extreme view, but it began to build. And again I think a lot of this, you know, is an education issue. This is what churches. It began to be taught in seminaries, and it began to be taught in churches, and you get decades of this teaching, and then what you end up with are entire as a new generation that has never been introduced to anything differently, you know. So like women who are a little younger than me, who are in their forties and thirties, there are many of them who have never actually seen a woman preach from a pulpit in their local congregations, whereas women my age and older saw women preaching in the pulpit in conservative evangelical churches, because that is more of a normative. Then, But then when you get women now, like all of these young women going to TPUSA events, who have only been trained on this very literal reading of the Bible being told that anything else is anti Christian and is dangerous and they have never seen anything different, And it's like, you know, and so I have a lot of sympathy, you know, I think we a lot of compassion because I don't think this is people who are intentionally being cruel, which was that a lot of this has, you know, has ended up in really cruel actions that don't match with what Christianity is. But that's all they've been trained on, and so how do we help them realize that Christianity is a lot bigger and deeper and different than what they've been exposed to without them without their very fragile faith shattering. And that's a hard you know, we think about the expangelical movement, that's faith shattering because suddenly those tenants that they were taught were the you know, when you're taught that evolution, when you're taught that gender roles, that those are the things that hold up your faith instead of actually Jesus and those things fall you're faithfuls. And so we're seeing that's a response, I think. So this is a problem that's been building for a long time in the Southern Baptist world. Since the nineteen seventies is when you started seeing that attempt to take over. And it has taken this long for al Muhler to be able to stand up. And he knows he's not telling the truth, but I mean because he lived through this, but he says that Southern Baptists have always believed this about women, and his congregations and the people are in the SBC now, so many of them have never lived in a world where that was different.
00:25:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he can say that nobody's really going to be It's almost like there's no eyewitnesses to call him on it, right, he can he can just say that and everybody goes, well, of course they.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: Have because absolutely and there.
00:25:11
Speaker 2: We've never known anything different.
00:25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're controlling the seminary curriculum, they're controlling the narratives that are and then what these pastors are being taught. And I mean, it's just it's just a snowball, is what has been happening.
00:25:25
Speaker 1: So do you see, like I mean, part of what I see when we when we looked at the masculinity issue, which I think the masculinity issue in very odd ways sort of mirrors what's going on in the female side of this, absolutely right, because as you get one wrong, you're inevitably going to get the other wrong. It's like hardly we both we get one right and not the other one right. Yeah, And so part of what we what I saw, at least when we were looking at the masculinity conversation is this sort of strongmand we're going to We're going to turn out a generation of weak, limp wristed men who you know, have high voices and can't grow beards and you know, couldn't fight in the military. It's like you have these sort of pictures of these people and they're they're framed in this way that is so.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Disingenuous and demeaning.
00:26:18
Speaker 1: Yes, that if you're not careful, you should sit back and go, well, of course, I don't want to be like that guy. And on the other side, you sort of play on this. I mean, it's Jesus and John Wayne right, absolutely right. You look back to Rambo or Schwarzenegger or whoever, and you're like, that's the guy I want to be. But I think on reflection, like the reality is, no one's that guy. And so, you know, the the reaction is in some ways, you know, if you feel like you're losing your manhood, the reaction is in some ways intelligible, right, that you would have some sort of a reaction and make a response to that. I think the problem is that the response is something the lie manisphere and not discipleship.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: Yes, that's where I sort of lose it.
00:27:06
Speaker 5: I'm like, why are we not recalibrating to discipleship, Why are we recalibrating to any sort of gender cultural understanding of what you know, machismo is.
00:27:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and I mean I you know, I have a son. I have a he turned twenty three this year, and I I'm grateful that he has a He has a really good head and also has grown up with me and my husband, which is I think, you know, has helped him maybe with some of this stuff out there. But you know, it's this, these gender constructs are damaging to our young men. And you know, I think about when they are told. You think about Mark Triscoll, I mean we started. We think about the things that he used to yell at these men, you know where he said, if you aren't making enough money where your wife doesn't have to work, you aren't a man. And I'm like, what is that? You know, we have never this concept that one partner in the home doesn't have to work for the economy of the home. That is, that is a nineteenth century invention. It never existed, and it mostly doesn't exist throughout the rest of the world. And yet we are burdening these young men with this idea that they have to walk into jobs that carry you know, actually more than six figure salaries now that can provide you know, their wives to not have to work, yet provide all the you know, all of the medical for you know, they're supposed to have tons of kids and they have to provide for all of that and take and it's like, no wonder, they're all so stressed out. And not only that, but then they also have to look a certain way, and you know the pressure on them to take steroids, to take things that to build up you know, the the image, the physical image for men is just as dangerous as the one for women. And Christians are doing this to our kids. Yeah, yeah, it's so sad.
00:29:11
Speaker 1: It was interesting. I mean my wife and I so she was a pharmacist by training. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, she was always going to outpace my salary like there was no no shot. But I remember in seminary one of my professors saying in class trying to be pastorals sort of saying, you know, your wives should.
00:29:29
Speaker 2: Never make more money than you do.
00:29:30
Speaker 1: It creates a power differential in the home and for It's just so it struck me so funny even then. I was like, hey, you're telling me I'm going to make nothing, and so my wife could work part time a part time and still outpace my salary, right, you know, so you're telling me that on one and then then you're citing power differentials, which we're kind of supposed to be against, right, Like, like, why is this the one place power differentials can be activated in a in a positive space?
00:29:59
Speaker 2: Very strange.
00:30:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it you know it also, it's like if we are you know, the idea when you get married is that you are you become one together, which means you are this equal partnership. That's what we see in the garden in the beginning. Then the money you earn is for your family, whoever earns it it go. I mean, I don't know. This is just such a weird thing, and I mean some of it comes from we think about Bill Gothard. I mean, this is what he taught. He taught that if women are able to make their own money, they will use it on things that aren't good for the household, like they'll use it on pretty clothes for themselves. I mean he actually said that. I mean, it's this terrible demeaning thing. But when we look statistically, when women women actually tend to spend their money on the good of the household and the good of the family, and the good of childcare and you know, and education, and it's just yeah.
00:30:57
Speaker 1: So it's it's been I would say, my wife and I have gone through the I don't think we've like suffered or you know, it's not been anything big, but we definitely had friction as we've gone through. Because there was a time when I stayed home with my son when he was first born and my wife went to work, and people just thought that was crazy and the nicest words we heard for it were crazy. Yeah, you know, you know, And so we've had that sort of our whole marriage. And I think it does create this sort of setup expectations where it oddly reinforces a paradigm that isn't true but that you're seeing play out now and some of these complementarian sort of conversations and certainly what the SBC is doing, it's become a norm. Yes, and now where it used to be that you could be a deviant and sort of break the norm without severe repercussions, what it seems like is happening is there's going to be now disciplinary measures that you're breaking the norm, you're going to have harsher consequences for doing so.
00:31:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely know. One of the funny I mean, it's not funny, but it sort of is funny is seeing people like, for example, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, who claims to be this really moderate complementarian space where they believe in the equality of men and women, but we just have different roles, and they have been trying to push they have been trying to separate themselves from what they call biblical patriarchy, which is Doug Wilson and you know, sort of that more extreme version. And it's been interest because you know, they're saying, no, no, that's not what we believe. We believe that women and men are fundamentally equal. Of course women should have the right to vote. You know, we would never argue for that, and it's a little you know, I look at that and I'm like, but this is where your theology leads, you know, this is the whole thing is that if you argue this, you are arguing that women aren't equal to men. And this is where it goes, is to biblical patriarchy and Doug will sin. So at least it is somewhat encouraging to me maybe that we see some of these what I would have considered to be more hardline complementarians now seeing themselves as more moderate and being like, well, well we don't want to go that far. I'm like, well that's positive, you know.
00:33:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing a parallel in some ways. So you know, when we talk about racial conversations, Yes, what starts to emerge is sort of this false fabric of self sufficiency. Yes, and I call it false because the negative image is always required, right, the idea of maturity always requires that image of what's not mature, so you can always point out to it absolutely, even as there's this carrot dangle to be like this and all of your dreams will come true. Well that, you know, that bleeds into another conversation on ecology, where that sort of notion of dangling the care and uh and a self sufficiency actualized for all doesn't actually work. It's destructive to the earth. But the parallel to me is that as I'm listening, that seems to be very much what's that in play here?
00:34:11
Speaker 3: Right?
00:34:11
Speaker 4: On one side, we want to have our cake and eat it too, right, We want to be able to say in this conversation, well, of course women are equal to men, you know, God made them equal. But when in every moment, for every single mention of this dialectic, the male is on top and the female is below, and for every moment the idea for masculine self actualizing is self sufficiency. Yes, so that the dirty secret in the room is well that self sufficiently. Self sufficiency, by the way, doesn't work when we want another generation, right, so we got to keep women around. It seems like the same dialectic as in play, where this self sufficiency is masquerading over that negative image that has to be kept there in some kind of subjugation. And no matter how many times one can say, well, no ontologically equal, if if functionally every single instance is is dis equilibriumized to write our fecond coin a word, then what we're talking about there is an ontological disequilibrium.
00:35:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, no, that's one hundred percent. And you know, and that's also the thing with I think with racism in the US, and we are really seeing the ugly head of white supremacy from people who claim, who have been claiming for years in the church that of course I'm not a racist. And you know, I have people friends who are not the same color as me. That makes me not a racist. You know, we invite them into our church as long as they agree with us and do it our way, and then we that means we're not racist, you know, But when you actually come down to it, what you find, you know, it's like, it's why it's okay for women as missionaries to teach people who are not who are not white, but when they come home, they can't teach white people. And it's like, that is an ontological frame. You are saying that people whose skin is different from you, that there is something less about them, which is why lesser gender can teach them and these and then what happened, what we're seeing happening in the in the US, in our churches right now, is that this this this inequity that has been behind the scenes is now coming out on full display. And unfortunately, people who have been in the water learning this inequity for so long can't see it now that it's coming to the surface because it's the what they've been living in and they don't see the discrepancy.
00:36:58
Speaker 4: So it seems to some to three the diminished middle could be seen as a culprit here, But I yeah, I'm not sure if I'm not sure what to think about that. I'm thinking about a piece that you wrote in your sub stack, I won't mention a book or author names unless you want to mention them. But there was a piece you wrote earlier this year which, okay, well, someone seemed to want to take that middle ground and say, you know, I'm just looking at the basic biblical facts, and the basic biblical facts don't lend overwhelmingly towards the complementary and sort of positions, despite what complementarians want to say, right, And your reaction to that was that I get the substance of what you're saying, and I can appreciate on a certain level as someone who can draw people back towards a conversation. But your problem was that this person needs to actually take another step and call out injustices. And I'm with you, by the way, in that voice, but I wonder, I wonder in that if that kind of posture that I share with you means that it prevents there from being sort of a middle ground. So now when you end up with a tug of war or a polarity battle.
00:38:15
Speaker 3: So you know that was what that actually. I think the fact that people interpret calling out a problem as being antagonistic is the loss of that middle ground. Middle ground is actually the ability to disagree with people and still be in conversation with each other. And so you know, where we can it's almost, you know, sort of like the way academia is supposed to be, where we're all scholars here, but you can peer review my thing and say this is you know, these are all the mistakes that are with it, and I argue back and be like, no, I think I'm you're right here, but I don't see you know, and that, and then you're you're all you're sitting and eating lunch at the next conference together, because this is just what we do. And that's a ground is being able to sit next to people and be like, hey, I think you're wrong, but I'm still going to sit next to you and we can talk about it and see. And so what I actually was attempting to do was well, first of all, so what I was attempting to do, and this is something that I've actually seen evidence behind the scenes, because I've gotten emails from women who were so put off by his attitude where he said, you know, this isn't going to affect me at all because I'm still going to have all the friends I have and I mean, he explained that, but the way it comes off is really like, this is just an intellectual issue. It doesn't really hurt anyone. And when women were like, oh my gosh, and you know, and so I've had women. In fact, one just wrote me a couple of days ago and was like, I picked up his book because of what you said, and you know, was you know, and so I'm really glad and I think this will be a helpful book to give to, you know, especially the men and my family to make help. But it's this idea of like, how do we bring people together and say we can disagree on this and still and that you know, disagreement is the tension that we can live with and so that you know, and but we we don't see it that way anymore. In fact, when I posted that review, the first thing that happened was somebody sent me a I'm not i haven't been on Twitter for years, but somebody has sent me a tweet from Colin Smothers, who I think is still the president of the CBMW, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and he was like, not good enough, Beth Allison Barr, you know, let the fight begin and I was like, you didn't even read it. You know, I'm actually not trying to fight. I'm like, this is good, let's keep this conversation going. But it's this idea that if you are against me in any way, you are my enemy and we can't you know, we can't cooperate together.
00:41:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the lack of capacity to disagree. I really, Yeah, I think you're right, and I think that hits it right on the head, that, yeah, there is legitimate debate right on some of the passages, even that you and James brought up. Yeah, we're not sure what's going on here, but let's not pretend that whatever is going on in these passages is therefore the entirety of the conversation. And maybe even more importantly, let's not for change or exclude against the possibility of disagreement and real conversation.
00:41:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:41:34
Speaker 4: So I appreciate the way.
00:41:35
Speaker 2: That you put that.
00:41:36
Speaker 4: That's that's the true middle, not some desire to please both sides.
00:41:40
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so I don't I mean, that was a that may be my most read sub stack this year or and it's been. Really the responses have been very interesting. But I'm I think I started a good conversation. I think maybe the author is not happy with me.
00:42:00
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sure, you know, but it's hard.
00:42:04
Speaker 3: I've been there where you have a best selling book and everybody's coming at you. You know. I'm like, you know, it's hard. It's a hard space.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: So it's okay, let me ask a question because I think it's interesting. You know, when we've talked about this whole conversation, we have talked about, to a large degree, institutions and they're spokespeople.
00:42:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:42:27
Speaker 2: Right.
00:42:27
Speaker 1: We've talked about the SBC and now Moller. We've talked about, you know, the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and their leadership. We've talked about you know, more popular evangelical voices who had big platforms back in the day. James Dobson had the radio program like he was the face of something he felt like an institution. Yes, part of my concern and this is just sort of my systems thinking background, I think coming out, it's like, I'm concerned that the middle ground doesn't have sufficient coordination, yes, right, to like come together and go no, we're not going to do this whole polarization thing. We're actually going to emphasize conversation. We're actually going to we don't have to agree on everything, but we are not going to tolerate closure of these conversations, right, you know, inappropriate closure of these conversations, immature closure of these we're not going to tolerate it. And there isn't an institution it feels like that does that anymore. I know universities, some better ones do do that, right, but they're also fairly cloistered as they do it. They're not out there sort of promoting this kind of thing. Do you also see that as an issue here? And if so, if you thought through any ways, we could potentially solve it.
00:43:46
Speaker 2: Just to sort of close out my thought.
00:43:48
Speaker 1: Like you know, I mentioned before you we started recording, I'm like, you've been on a lot of podcasts, Like we do podcasts twice a week. There's all these other people who do podcasts similar to this all over the place, but they're very like laser focused, targeted.
00:44:03
Speaker 2: There's not like a network.
00:44:04
Speaker 1: Of people who are sort of bound together and we're all sort of doing our thing dependently, and so that's not a bad thing, but it's also not the same thing as what the SBC.
00:44:16
Speaker 2: Can pull off.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: It's not the same thing as what these other like coordinated entities can actually pull off.
00:44:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. You know, if you think about, like where how did the SBC connect with some of these other more conservative voices. I mean, honestly, let's let's think about desiring God. Let's think about John Piper's website and all of the different voices that contribute to us. Think about the Gospel Coalition, you know, which which controls who gets to contribute. And I mean I remember, you know, they're one of their book editors got fired over putting out a positive review of The Making a Biblical Woman, And I mean I felt terrible of that. It was I didn't know it until after the fact, and you know, I was just like, why in the world can you not have dialogue over this? You all have to anyway, And so I think you are absolutely right. There is I think part of it is is that the middle we don't have the funding resources behind us, like you know, if you think about and so trying to pull these together in a coordinated way. I think also there is a problem the I hate to use the words left or I think we just but there are people on the other end of the spectrum who are in some ways perpetuate some of the things that the more conservative and do, like if you even like, I had some people on the far progressive side who when I even when I even talked with that book we were just talking about and I mean it's Preston Sprinkle, which I recommend he does a lot of great things. He does anyway, I don't always agree with him, but anyway, so because I even talked about his book, there were people on the progressive side who were like not even willing, who were so angry at me, And I'm like, we've got to be able to talk to each other, and we've got to be able to engage with ideas. But there is not a coordinated there's not coordinated funding. There's not a coordinator. I don't. I don't know how, I don't. There's not a network, there is not a desiring God, there is not a gospel coalition.
00:46:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, for that middle it feels like, I mean, evangelical theological society is such a huge mix and tends to skew a little more conservative. You know, even some of those scholarly sort of places you go, they just don't really have the oomph behind them. And so the big, the big influential organizations you can think of, are going to re emphasize these same kind of points that we've been talking about this entire time. They're going to say, you know, more complementarian. They're going to skew more toward you know, no women in leadership. They're going to skew more toward, you know, to Ashisha's point, they're going to they're going to screw more toward a North American white context.
00:47:27
Speaker 2: Than anything else.
00:47:29
Speaker 1: And so you sit back and you're like the air that we're breathing the point about these are the things that we've been taught over time. It feels like there's such an inertia behind them that you know, we've got to really dig in right to change the direction.
00:47:49
Speaker 3: Where I've seen encouragement is actually globally. So like I've been involved in the UK, there is a Theos which is a network for for theologians and sort of broad sweet religion, kind of broad and and they're doing a lot of sort of think work and trying to pull coalitions together. I did a big I did a big online event they have a conference for women in ministry throughout the world that they're hosting in Cairo called Women Rising and and so there. You know, also with the Baptist World Alliance the b w A, you know, people always, you know, I always tell them that if I'm the those are the Baptists that I like the b w A. I'm very much. I love the b w A Baptists, and that's a anyway, So I see this, some of this work being done globally. I haven't. There are spaces in North America where we see different organizations trying to do it, but it's just really hard. In the space and the polarized context that we have right now, it is just really hard to create a middle ground.
00:49:07
Speaker 4: Interesting, Yeah, do you think maybe that's just the nature of a middle ground that those who are trying to to create space are just always going to be on the side of having to struggle And maybe that's okay, But the goal, maybe maybe the lesson is don't give up the struggle.
00:49:30
Speaker 3: I think that's always the Christian lesson, don't give up the struggle, you know, because I mean and that it's going to be suffering. I just finished a study on revelation in my Sunday school class, and you know, and Jesus wins by losing, and Christians are called we're that's carrying our cross, is following a savior who died and gave it all up for the people who are who considered worth it. And so I mean, so I don't think it is easy. I don't think we're called for it to be easy. I think when it becomes easy and when we become successful, that's we end up on those polarized you know, that's it's much more easy. It's much easier to end up in those polarized sides. I think it's harder to stay in the middle.
00:50:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker 1: It's interesting to think about because even if you're on the polarized side and you win, just historically, it doesn't.
00:50:31
Speaker 3: Go answer empire. Yeah yeah, And I mean so, I mean, really, where you the tension is what you want to keep and that dialogue. And the more I'm learning about modern US history, there are moments in US history where we've gotten close to that. And that's actually, you know, it's like, okay, I mean, you know, I don't believe utopia is ever going to exist because because because of sin, But I do think that doesn't mean we don't keep striving for it.
00:51:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well we're about out of time for the episode, so I want to give you kind of a shot at a last comment, and I'm interested in just hearing a little bit about again, I made the mistake a getting on social media, which I'm not a big social media guy, but just trying to find, you know, some information on the SPC stuff of going on, and so I hopped on and I'm looking at these you know, as somebody who's trained in biblical interpretation, you sit back and you look at some of the reels that go buy on Instagram, and you go, well, sort of and you sort of sit back and like people who aren't trained in this, who really don't have the ability to sort of sit back and think, well, the Greek there isn't exactly what this is saying, or this is you know, this isn't connected with that. How How would you just someone really start thinking through this issue?
00:52:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, without going out and.
00:52:06
Speaker 1: You know, going to the SBC website and reading their side and going you know, because I don't know that that helps, but yeah, just thought process on how you'd help someone who's just I really like to understand the contours of this issue.
00:52:19
Speaker 2: How should I approach it?
00:52:21
Speaker 3: So I think Jesus gave us a real you know, not when we think about the fruit that we bear and aw is this bearing the fruit of the spirit, love, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control? Is it following the commandment? What did Jesus say was the first and greatest commandment? You know? Is to love the Lord's your God with all your hearts soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Is what's going on here. Loving our neighbor is what's going on here. Showing the fruits of the spirit.
00:52:55
Speaker 5: You know.
00:52:55
Speaker 3: Paul says that we're just clinging symbols if we're not showing the fruits of the spirit. And so I think that's a real you know, just sit back and be like, are these policies that the people who my church is putting forward, are they actually bearing the fruits of the spirit? Are they loving our neighbor? You know, I saw one just the other day where it was sort of you know, satirn and Jesus saying people who were before he healed someone saying do you have health care? And like you know, should you, And it's like, no, do I mean, you know, Jesus cared for his neighbor, he healed them and asked the questions. It didn't actually ever ask the questions, but you know, what is it? So I think that might be one like is this a Christian? Is this a Christian? Response? Yeah? Are they bearing the fruits of the spirit and that can help us?
00:53:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good you any last questions.
00:53:55
Speaker 4: More of a an amen to that. I appreciate ending with the fruit of the spirit. But yeah, you know, whatever we want to call them, whether we call them the ethics or the virtues or whatever that they they really are there to show you the nature of the tree, right, and so that's a good place to direct us.
00:54:17
Speaker 2: I think.
00:54:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, very good, Beth. It's always a pleasure to have you on having me. Really enjoyed our last conversation on your latest book, and it was I'm blanking on the title.
00:54:32
Speaker 2: You forgot the titles. Now I'm forgetting titles.
00:54:34
Speaker 3: Oh, they're making a biblical womanhood or becoming.
00:54:36
Speaker 2: The pastor's becoming the pastors.
00:54:38
Speaker 3: That's my most recently becoming the past Yeah.
00:54:41
Speaker 1: Such an eye opening idea that, like how that came about through you know, these different political changes within the church and all that kind of fun stuff in medieval times. And so it's always fascinating to talk to people who know history, I think because you just have a different perspective on on things than most of us do an daily So it's a lot of fun. And give give you a substack. It's Marginalia dot subspact dot com. Am I getting that right?
00:55:07
Speaker 3: Yep, absolutely, it's the medieval, it's in medieval manuscripts. It's the writing and the margins, the marginal name Marginellion.
00:55:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we'll have both of those linked in the show notes. Encourage you go check out Beth's work here. It's really fantastic and I think you'll find a great conversation partner and all of it. So Beth, thanks again for being here, Thanks for the work you do, and we'll see everybody on the next episode of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.
