Podcast: Play in new window | Download
This one honestly wasn’t that easy to think through or record.
Here’s what I cover:
- how I hold my opinions about women in the church and I think we all should
- how women showed up in the Bible
- I think Christian men should be on the forefront of the movement to end sexual abuse against women (Jesus would have been)
- women in ministry leadership
- the things I’m still processing around this
- your sexual abuse story should be believed, heard, processed, given space
- and the same goes for church abuse (of any kind)
- the body of Christ needs women in leadership because they are lacking without us
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Hi there, and welcome. I am grateful that you are joining me today on the delight your marriage podcast. I don’t know if you’ve been here before, but we talk about all sorts of things that matters, your marriage, whether it is physical intimacy, I get really specific on things as much as I can be on a public podcast like this emotional intimacy, spiritual intimacy, and how those combining and how God uses marriage for His glory. And today, I want to talk about abuse. Some more, we are on our third part of this series. And this is one that I want you to know very clearly from the get go, I am still processing. I was made aware yesterday actually, that I hadn’t I there was still a big deficit in my ability to articulate this topic. Which I think is a good thing. And that’s why I kind of wanted to talk about it with you today. Because
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I think sometimes we we think think we’ve got things figured out and then
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experiences happen. And we’re like, Oh, I did not have that all tied up in a nice package and bow. And so it’s good. I mean, God challenges us. And he tweaks our understandings of things. And I also think that sometimes God uses people are at different times in history. And he also uses certain understandings at different times in history, that propelled the ability of the next time in history is so for example, I would say a lot of the early Christians. I know, I don’t know enough about biblical history to give you names or whatever. But, you know, a lot of them thought about sex in a certain way that I don’t think is the right way to think about it. But that doesn’t, Nolan void all the ways that they did, do God’s work and think, you know, things that were so helpful to the kingdom of God. And it also doesn’t Nolan void, maybe, if they hadn’t thought about sex in this way, there wouldn’t have been a response to them think about sex in another way that then ultimately, what I believe God has given me the capacity and capability to think about sex in this way. And maybe the next generation are you the person that’s listening to it on the on the podcast, is then able to think about sex, and in this way, a different way, a little bit in your own marriage. So I in no way think that my opinions and my voice and my stories, and the way I even share all of these thoughts is the last word on it. I am not God, and I don’t have all the background and all the accolades and all this stuff to tell you that I know everything. Because I don’t, God has certainly taught me quite a lot. And I think my doubt on my own opinions is helpful for me to have better opinions than I’ve had in the past. But I don’t think that we are supposed to hold our opinions with a big, firm grip, I think it should be more with an open hand that God’s gonna mold us and shape us and change us and teach us is this a side note, but I think that’s what’s so scary about things like social media is, when we put stuff out there, we have this we have this pool to be consistent. We have like, a tug on our, on our personhood to be consistent with what we said yesterday or two years ago, whatever. So it’s really hard to change because that’s in text somewhere in the internet. It’s going to be there forever, and it feels very vulnerable to change. But if we’re not vulnerable, we we can’t change if we’re not willing to go there and be vulnerable. And so that’s why, you know, I am strong and confident on what I say because I think God has given me some help. That will help some people on the other end, but I will say that at At the same time, these are things that, you know, God’s got to discern, you’ve got to discern with God about what applies to you. And I want you to know that this is something I’m still processing. But I think it’s really important to talk about. Alright, so that’s my little introduction as we dive in. What happened yesterday is my church, I live in New York City. And I have an incredible, incredible church, they have walked with me through the hardest times, with my husband and I, and they’ve taken care of my kids they’ve treated, they’ve treated me so kindly. When I was in the hospital, multiple times, and they’ve treated my family so kindly, and they’ve been just unbelievable. It’s been incredible. They’re also not our perfect church, like every church is not a perfect church. And we’re all just trying to follow Jesus, the way that that he calls us to. But so my church was broadcasting a conference in California, in my pastor’s living room. And what happened was,
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there’s a woman, a black woman, who was preaching about women in church, and how there’s not representation in leadership for women. And, and I was really, I felt very encouraged by a lot of the things that she talked about. Because she was really focused on that women are equal to men. You know, there’s not, it’s not a true biblical notion in the context of the Bible that women are not equal. And yet, sadly, men have mis interpreted scripture to mean that they are equal, or they are unequal. And men are the higher beings. And I don’t believe that’s scriptural. And it was really powerful to hear this woman speak. Now, after the discussion, or sorry, after her teaching, she, there was an opportunity to discuss. And so once again, we’re all in my pastor’s home. And both of we actually have two pastors of our church, a husband and a wife. And they, you know, opened up the conversation, what does it mean to you know, what does this mean to you? The actual the question from the, the seminar from the conference in California, the question was, how does your opinion differ from? Or how does your perspective differ from what you just heard? And so it’s actually a very vulnerable question, because here, you just heard someone who’s got a sociology degree, who has authored books, who’s authored Bible studies about this particular topic, who knows very intimately the material, and you’re just kind of coming in cold and you’re asked to say, Well, I have a different perspective. But you know, me, I, I like to forge into card territory. So I went ahead and unit discussed, what I felt was kind of, you know, what, what, where I differed, and some of the things she said, but what I will say, and what I wish the first question was, is what, in what ways were you aligned with her perspective, because I had a two full pages of, well, I had a small journal, but two pages of Journal notes that aligned with what she said. So I kind of wish I was able to discuss that first. But then I went with the vulnerable way of saying something that I felt like I didn’t articulate well, in fact, I don’t think that if I had heard the recording of myself, playback that I would have agreed with what I said, because I guess maybe because I was uncomfortable on answering the question, How did my perspective differ? And I hadn’t thought it through and this woman clearly has a ton of experience that I don’t so who am I to differ so so yeah, so I I stumbled through trying to say something and and I Unfortunately, another woman cut me off to explain explain what the speaker had been meaning. And during the explanation of the of our, our church friend who, who cut me off, I, I felt a lot of emotion and I needed to go process that. And so I, when she finished her explanation, I got up and I went into the other room with my journal, and I started to write out what was going on. And then I started cry a bit, because there was a lot of emotion for me, because this topic is near and dear to my heart, not only because of the trauma I’ve experienced in my abusive marriage, not only that, but also my being abused by church leaders. Though, it wasn’t, it wasn’t sexual abuse, just to be clear, I have not experienced that though many have.
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But it was abuse. For sure. And, but then also, the fact that I speak to you on this podcast, there’s a lot of weight to what my I’m very invested in, in my opinions on this, because if I don’t have the right opinions on it, then here I am proliferating things that are actually hurting people and, and making them you know, feel more in bondage rather than and helping them to feel free in the ways God wants them to be. And then I think the other piece of it is, was a good amount of pride of like, here, I’ve done a lot of work on this, I’ve taken sociology classes myself, and my degree was in philosophy, I’ve taken feminist classes, I’ve was just watching a feminist documentary The other day, and, you know, I’m very, you know, I feel I’m adequately able to say these things. And I feel like I articulated myself very poorly. And I guess on top of that, the fact that she interrupted me, and I wasn’t able to even explain myself. So Oh, and I guess probably the final thing was the condescending tone of her voice and explaining to me some things that are incredibly rudimentary, that I felt invalidated all of my experience. Alright, so that’s kind of how I process things. And the reason I was able to process those things, the way that I just did with you is actually, my pastor came in, and she asked me if I was okay. And and I was able to process those things with her. And she was able to help me think through like, maybe being curious why it matters to me, what people think of my opinion, and, and how does it matter to me if people disagree with me, and I think a lot of it is wrapped up in this podcast that, you know, I speak to you, and so you can’t speak back and say, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, or, you know, so there’s that and maybe the pride of just people listen to this podcast, and I, you know, get to a spot of like, well, I must be right about all these things. And, you know, but then also the concern that if I’m wrong, like, what is that doing to the woman on the other side of this, this call? Or what is it doing to the pastor’s that listen, of being validated and the way they treat their women in the churches? You know? So. So yeah, I feel like, keeping my opinions with an open hand is really vital. And I want to encourage you on the other end of this conversation, that you keep your opinions with an open hand and you ask God to help you discern and process this the right way. I told you that my wife, I mean, sorry, I don’t have a wife. My pastor is a woman. I have a woman pastor and a man pastor, and she preaches on Sunday, and he preaches on Sunday, there’s actually four people that preach on Sundays. They rotate. And so we get we get to hear from women. And, you know, we just did a series actually, on women in the Bible that they call it Hidden Figures, I think, and there are many stories. I had never heard of women in the Bible. And you might think, well, haven’t you read the whole Bible before Bella? And I don’t think I have and I will say that I have certainly read a lot of the Bible but um, you know, I definitely have more to read and learn but these are My pastor was my pastors, actually all of them, the three men and the woman. Sorry, the teaching team is four. There’s two pastors, which is the man and the woman. But the teaching team, the three men and the woman, all taught on women in the Bible, and how important they were, they were prophetesses. And there was a woman who was a mystic. In the Old Testament, there was
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a woman that killed a king. And there was a woman that that prophesied the demise of a kingdom, and that the king specifically went to for help. And there was, you know, the prophets in the Bible that even Paul, I think it was, I think it was Paul that talked about these women that were prophets. And, and, you know, there’s, there’s just so much I mean, Jesus was the one that even made sure that Martha and Mary were taught, just like men, you know, he was supporting feminism, like it never could have been seen in that context in that culture ever. So women are important to God’s work in this world. And if they are not given leadership in churches, if they are not permitted to be leadership in churches, I think we need to keep our opinions with an open hand, I think we need to be thinking about contexts, I think we need to be thinking about a lot. You know, because there’s a lot that women have that men don’t. And there’s a lot that men have that women don’t. But we both lack, when either of us are absent. I think in the context of a church. So what I was trying to articulate in this setting, yesterday, was something along the lines of the uniquenesses, in natures of men and women, and how, yes, they are equal, but they are not the same. Husbands and wives are equal, but they are not the same. I talk about Strengths Finder test a lot. I don’t know if you’ve heard me talk about it before. But there’s this test that I kind of adore. And it’s called Strengths Finder. And you take this test, and it’s like $20, at the most, I think online, and then it tells you basically your top five strengths out of 34 strengths. And this is like a business test. So they’ve got Gallup poll, I think is the the company that puts it on. So it’s all based on like tons and tons of research and data from businesses. But I think it is incredibly powerful in your own life, because it it helps you to navigate like, oh, okay, these are my strengths. So stop work is I need to stop worrying about my weaknesses and focus on my strengths. So I’ll tell you, my strengths are activator, positivity, communicator, and strategy. And I think there might be one more did I just say fi activator? positivity? Oh, and communicator. I see that. Okay, well, I think I got them all in there. Oh, futuristic. That was the one I didn’t say, futuristic. So when I talked to you, those are kind of the bigger strategies, the bigger strengths that I’m speaking out of, like, activators, kind of helping you to change getting you to move getting you to do an act and change. And the positivity is like this can happen. I am optimistic. I believe I have faith, you know, that’s kind of a natural proclivity to for me. The other one is communication, which obviously, I’m constantly doing when we you and I talk. The other one is Futuristic, which I believe helps me to talk to you about the future of what your marriage could look like and give you hope for it and think about, you know, being wiser now, so that in the future, it’s going to matter and then strategy. Lastly, is how to get there. How can we navigate these waters that are currently happening to get to where we want to go? So that’s kind of my view of my stream. As far as I understand that God’s given me so, and I continue to cultivate, and I continue to refine, and be careful with. So, yeah, so I encourage you to go ahead and take that test. Because it would give you a lot of insight, I believe, to your strengths. But as men and women, there are also strengths and weaknesses and kind of our nature that are different.
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And the reason I think it’s really important to realize the difference in natures, is because if you do not, you are probably like that, that’s essentially what I was kind of trying to articulate is that, you know, if we’re just the same as you know, men, then what, what does it matter whether or not women are in leadership, they’re just the same. You know, it just turns out that that that person’s a woman, that one’s a man, like, it doesn’t really matter. But the thing is, does because women are different than men, men are different than when we have uniquenesses, which is important. But I also don’t want to say that it is, you know, generalizing. So, part of what this podcast has to be about is generalizations because I’m talking to a broad audience, I’m not talking one on one with you, like I would be in coaching, but because it is generalizing, I will say that God has given women specific natures that are incredibly amazing receptivity and interesting and kindness and character and genuineness. I mean, there’s are lots of generalizations but you know, God uses women in different ways than then he uses men. And, you know, whether or not you want to agree with that, in terms of what’s, you know, kind of the nature of all women, it’s totally fine. Just, let’s just take it as you know, how did Jesus care about women? Well, you know, it’s interesting, because I let my husband listen to the first half of this podcast. And, and he just gave me like, a million examples of how Jesus was very specific to bring women into the conversation over and over and over again. So what about the parables that he had of that included women? Like, what about the woman who gave the money at the temple who she gave her last? two pennies when, you know, the, the Pharisees gave a lot of money to rich people, but she gave far more because she gave everything that she had. And he said that she was the most righteous. And, and then what about, you know, the woman that was supposed to be stoned to death because of the adultery? You know, he was the one that stood up for her and said, you know, anyone who is clean among you, you know, cast the first stone who someone who has no sin cast the first stone, you know, or I mean, he just constantly protected women constantly, constantly, constantly. And, you know, the, the me to movement? Well, okay, sorry. So think about the, the, the woman who, who poured out the expensive perfume, and wiped her hair on Jesus’s feet, and washed his feet with her tears, you know, the, the, the disciples looked at her with disgust, and knowing that she was a prostitute, and you know, saying, Jesus, why are you letting such a woman do this? And Jesus said, that she would be remembered for everyone that hears the gospel, they would remember her and her, her lavishness of love on him like that was what is appropriate, that lavishness of love, you know, and Why was Jesus born of a woman? Like why was that? Why did that matter that Mary was the one that birthed Jesus and why did it matter that that Elizabeth was her cousin? And she birthed John the Baptist. Why why is why are mothers so important to God and to Jesus’s story. So women are vital. Somehow, somewhere, it’s not the same. We are not the same as men. But we are equal. And Jesus once again, protected women over and over and over again, even when he was on the cross, He made sure that
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that someone was going to be taking care of his mother, that those women that were standing there that were honoring him, were going to be taken care of. And in that day and age, they needed that his mother needed someone to be taking care of her, how often does it talk about the taking care of the the widows and the poor and the orphans? You know, women are really important to Jesus really important to God. And I just think about, you know, so this me to movement, I don’t, I don’t know all the details of it. But a lot of what I do know, I’m very, very grateful for, because so many women have suffered for so long, and they fight to suffer in silence. There is so much sexual abuse in this world, and men of God should be on the forefront of protecting women. That is what Jesus was about protecting women. Because God has got a unique and important assignment for women. You know, once again, Jesus first came to women, the angel first came to women to say, Here I am, that God is that Jesus was raised from the dead. Women were the first ones evangelizing I guess, if that’s the term bringing the good news the to the disciples to say they were the ones that trusted first, you know, there, there are reasons, women that God has for women that are unique, but equal, not to say they’re better, not to demonize men. But men should be all about to the movement to help women to feel empowered, to not feel ashamed if they’ve been sexually abused or molested, or, or treated poorly or sexually harassed. It is so common for so many women, to feel that way to feel marginalized, to feel abused, to have been raped to have been date raped to have been assumed that, oh, she must have wanted it because she was acting that way or being treated that way or she was wearing that thing. Probably she was completely oblivious to the whole concept, which might be you know, for a lot of men, they can’t believe that could be true, but more than likely, she’s oblivious. Because that’s just the way that’s just kind of, there was a lot of underneath reasons for that. But that’ll take a long time to go into so I won’t but anyway, I just want to kind of stress once again, that we are unique, but we are equal to men, and I think we should be represented in such a way in all facets of society and all facets of the church. And I think that any place that a woman is not is lacking, if they want to be the full body of Christ because we are all image bearers of God it says that he made them man and woman in His image. He could have just said he made it He made man but for some reason he said I made man and woman in my image so so anyway to circle back to the story with my friend from church after processing with my pastor for a while and crying a bit more and journaling and praying and again remit remembering that this is such an important topic for me and I believe for you on the other end of this phone. And
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I I I went to church the next day. So the the broadcast was on Saturday, I recorded half of this Sunday morning and then went to church. And then I actually walked into church a bit late because I was recording that morning. And I ran into the the woman that I had had the kind of negative response with the day before. And she hugged me. And she said, Oh, Bella, if you know if I offended you, you know, because my big mouth, I just want to apologize. I didn’t mean to hurt you. And, you know, and I was like, you know, thank you. I was like, Can I tell you how I feel how I felt. And honestly, that was even vulnerable to say, because that’s hard to talk about your feelings, especially, like trying to be honest, trying to do real life together. And she’s like, Yeah, absolutely. And so we sat down, and, and honestly, she just got she was a little too close. For me, I wasn’t comfortable enough to be quite that physically close, because I was still kind of emotional about it all. So do you, do you think you could give me a little bit of space, which, again, is vulnerable, and is hard to like, just be honest with yourself, like, I’m not going to be able to share what’s really going on in me if I can’t have, you know, a few things in in place. So anyway, I, I then shared like, you know, here’s the background, I’m coming with philosophy major, and feminist epistemology. And I just have the background and X, Y, and Z, and then the trauma and my marriage and the, you know, trauma in churches and with with male leadership, and, you know, just different negative experiences that, you know, not to mention, just male dominated society and feeling oppressed in different workplaces. And, you know, the way that I felt that I was talked to yesterday, I felt, you know, kind of condescended, and I kind of felt like, I was misunderstood, and then I wasn’t able to explain myself because I was cut off. And, you know, I felt like, my, my background was invalidated. And I wasn’t, maybe I wasn’t even smart, because I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. And, you know, it just really affected me. And I tried to get it all out there. I really did. I also tried to do it as respectfully as possible. And, and she listened. And she gave me the space. And she looked at me, and she’s like, Bella, you know? I’m so sorry. I didn’t. You know, when I, when we were talking in the, you know, yesterday, I guess I was, I was thinking about, like, everyone’s just gonna share their opinions, we’re not really trying to all line we’re just just throwing out ideas, or, you know, what we’re thinking about or whatever. And, you know, I don’t, you know, I didn’t agree 100% with the woman either. And, you know, I don’t feel like I said that things the right way, either. And, you know, she and I were just kind of both kind of in a spot of like, we both feel like we didn’t feel great about what we said or how we set it. And anyway, what I think was important is that we had the conversation. I think that that’s called messy life. That’s called Messy, honest church. I think it’s important. And I think that women having those kinds of conversations are really important in churches. Yeah, so the story is that I’m really grateful. She’s in my life. She’s taught me a lot of things just over the years and, and it was an experience I needed to have I needed to process how I felt about these things. And it was hard and my emotions got in it. And that’s messy. And, you know, it was in front of people, and that’s messy, and it’s uncomfortable, but that’s important. I mean, Jesus obviously wants us to be all in it. You know, he showed us emotions. He wasn’t on, willing to be, quote, weak. In our society standards, he cried. He was moved, you know, he honored those who felt emotion, who had faith who who trusted, you know, and who were disappointed and who were sad and, you know, he he, he didn’t think that was weak.
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He honored that. So anyway, I guess these are all things for you to ponder. You know, whether you have struggled to feel like you were equal whether you have struggled to understand if feminism is the direction that You should be going as a Christian or if, you know, as a 21st Century woman, are you? You know, what does that mean to being married? And I definitely have a lot of things to say about that are, you know, what kind of leadership positions are you, quote, allowed to have in the church or that kind of thing? I mean, certainly these are all things for you to be discerning, but from where I sit, God made us unique, but equal. And so I, you know, I do not feel called to be a pastor, but I believe there are many out there that have excluded themselves from that calling. And I don’t know if that’s what God would have wanted them to have done. But there are plenty of other ministries, that I think they have also not started all by themselves, because they were waiting for a man to pick them. And I think that is very well, so. So yeah, I think I’ll explain that last point. One more time, is that just because you’re not quote, picked in a church to be some kind of leadership? Doesn’t mean that you can’t just go out and start your own ministry? Delight, your marriage was started with? What? $20? I don’t know. My brother bought me the microphone. I happen to have a small I’m looking at my husband to see if I’m right. I happen to have a small, very tiny computer. Oh, yeah. Huh. And the mic stand, I used an oatmeal box, I cut off an oatmeal box. He used that as a mic stand. And now I can’t remember what that one was. He’s we’re playing charades. There was something else that I guess we used. Oh, and inside the oatmeal box for rocks, so that it wouldn’t fall over. And then the computer I used for editing was very old and small. And like the screen was quite small, as well to figure out how to edit the things. And I don’t even remember what the actual budget was to, to start a website. And I learned how to do all the website stuff myself and on and on and on. That’s just a small example. But your ministry doesn’t have to be started with more than $100 You can just start and see what God’s gonna do through that. So don’t exclude yourself because someone didn’t quote, pick you. Some man didn’t pick you. You can pick yourself if that’s what God is calling you to do. And when I say calling you if he’s encouraging you if you just feel passionate about it, that very well. Maybe what God is asking you to do right now. And the best thing to do is start and just see, see if it’s right. God bless you. I hope that this has been encouraging and helpful to think, you know, where have I not been permitting myself to go? Because I thought I wasn’t allowed to be there. In Jesus wanted women in all sorts of places that they weren’t, quote, allowed to be or all of that and he also protected them. Anyway, they’re unique, but equal. God bless you. We will talk again next week. Thank you so much for joining me.
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Love you. Bye