Ep 218 ｜ Stop Calling Me Beautiful ｜ Guest： Phylicia Masonheimer
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Summary
Felicia Mason-Heimer is an author and theologian. She is a reformed Calvinist and an Arminian. In this episode, we discuss gender roles within the church and how they affect our understanding of God. Felicia shares her story of growing up in a Christian home and how she became a believer. She also shares her struggles with addiction and sin as a teen.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week. We are
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talking to Felicia Mason Heimer today. She is an author and a theologian. Felicia and I land
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in different places on particular issues when it comes to complementarianism a little bit,
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so gender roles within the church. She is an Arminian. I am a Calvinist. We are going to talk
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about some of that stuff today and some of the differences that we have. I encourage you to go
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back and listen to a few episodes that I've done in the past that will give you some insight into
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what I think. So Predestination, I did a podcast called Tulip, Five Solas that kind of talks about
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my reformed camp of theology and what I believe on that. I also did an interview with Josh Bice
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a few months ago that lands in a different place than Felicia does, and he is awesome and has a
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lot of great insight as well. But I just want to make sure that you kind of get both sides of
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some of the issues that we're going to be talking about today. And we're also going to talk about,
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though mostly, Felicia and I, the things that we agree on. So this crazy world of trendy narcissism
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that women are so inundated in and why it is so important, why it is vital for us as women to
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be in the word. And Felicia is a wonderful encourager of women, and I'm so excited for
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you to hear this conversation. Without further ado, here is Felicia. Felicia, thank you so much for
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joining me. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. For those who don't follow you, can you tell everyone
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who you are and what you do? So I'm Felicia Misenheimer. I'm a blogger, an author, and a podcast host,
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and I mainly teach theology. So a lot of what I do is kind of in the role of a public theologian. So we
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engage about theology in the public sphere, not so much in an academic sense, teaching how our theology
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applies to daily life, our understanding of scripture, our understanding of who God is,
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how that applies to the daily walk of your work, your motherhood, your relationships, all of it.
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So I do that both on my podcast, on my blog, and in my books, and a lot of times on social media. So
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Instagram and Facebook are very popular where we engage about different cultural issues and Bible
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topics. Right. Okay. You just released a new book, and I want to get into that. But before we do,
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I want to back up. And can you tell us a little bit just about your testimony,
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how you became a Christian, and then how you became what you are now, this public theologian?
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Yeah. So I grew up in the church. I grew up in northern Michigan, so not in the Bible Belt,
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a little bit different than a lot of Bible teachers. So in our area, you're either a Christian or you're
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not. You're not going to go to church on Sunday unless it's worth skipping your snowmobile trip.
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Right. So it's not as much a part of, like, the culture where it is. Like, I grew up in Texas,
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and a lot of people went to church, whether or not they really believed it. It just made good,
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you know, even business sense just to be a part of church. So not like that, where you're from.
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Right. Right. Very different culture here. If you're going to make time to go to church,
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then you're most likely a dedicated Christian. Not a lot of churches if you're not Catholic. So my
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parents were very intentional about discipling us and teaching us. I was homeschooled, and that really
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gave me an advantage and a foundation. However, in my teens, I really struggled with sexual addiction
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and sin. And during that time, struggling in secret, I began to ask very deep theological questions,
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but I didn't realize that's what they were. I was asking, you know, can I lose my salvation?
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How many times do I sin before God doesn't forgive me anymore? What is repentance? What is sin?
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And asking these questions forced me to dig down to what I really believed about God,
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what the Bible says about these issues, and laid the foundation for eventually when I went on to get
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a religion degree and started writing about these things. It gave me the desire to help other people
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I don't want to reveal anything that you might, you know, want to leave for your book or you want
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your readers to find out through your book. But because I know there might be a lot of people
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listening who have the same struggles that you did when you were a teenager, can you give us a little
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bit of color of what that kind of addiction and struggle looked like when you were a teen and
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Yes. And it's actually very common for women to struggle this way. I think we tend to,
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even today, even with all of the awareness that has, has been, um, brought to light about sexual sin
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and addiction and porn, we still treat it mainly as a man's problem. But 40% of women have said that
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they are either addicted to porn or regularly using porn. My addiction wasn't with porn. It was with
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erotica, which is simply the written form of porn. And a lot of, even Christian women are totally okay
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with consuming secular fiction that has extremely, um, sexual plot lines that really is soft pornography.
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And so that was my struggle. And through struggling with that, um, began to question, like I said earlier,
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question my salvation, question what it meant to be a Christian and, and what did it mean to overcome sin?
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Um, because that wasn't really being taught aside from what my parents were trying to teach me and
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they weren't aware of my struggle. I was too ashamed to tell them. So, um, all that to say,
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I think that when someone's caught in this, there's a lot of condemnation, there's a lot of shame.
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And the way out is to come to the Lord with that and to godly community, but that's a process and it,
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Right. And how did you, um, you said that you went to major in religion, you got a degree in
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religion. How did you come to a place of repentance from that and walking into the light
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after being kind of hidden in shame for so long?
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Something I often say, and that we see in scripture is that victory is a lifestyle, not a
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destination. So if you think it's a destination, you think you're going to get to a point where
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you're never tempted again, or you never fail again. And that's just not realistic. Any other
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sin aside from sexual sin, we understand that we'll probably be tempted to gossip again. We'll
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probably be tempted to anger again. And we have a choice in that moment to follow the Holy Spirit's
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leading into sanctification or to reject that and choose sin. And so the idea of victory that's
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throughout all of scripture is not that you're never tempted again, or that you never are prone
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to that weakness, but that you're more likely to repent. If you fail, you're more likely to choose
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Christ instead of the sin. And so as I was growing in my faith and going deeper with the Lord,
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I was more likely to choose him over the sin, more likely to repent faster, more likely to, um,
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get back into the word instead of spending days away from him and dwelling in the shame.
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A lot of people know the verse taking our thoughts captive and surrendering them to Christ. But a lot
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of people just don't know what that looks like practically. Can you shed some light on that for
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people who are like, I really want to do that. You know, I want to walk in victory. I want to
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surrender my thoughts to Christ, read my Bible, pray. But these thoughts just, it just kind of feels
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like a battle for a lot of people. Do you have any encouragement or insight for, for them?
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Yeah. And the first thing I have to say is kind of the hard word. Then we'll get to the
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more enjoyable part. The hard word is what are you putting in your mind? What have you settled for
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as far as entertainment and media? If you're okay with consuming what the world and even other
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Christians say is normal, when it clearly is a stumbling block for you, then you will continue to
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struggle with your thoughts and you will most likely fail. For seven years, I didn't go to the
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movie theater. I didn't really watch any TV shows or movies. I couldn't, I couldn't risk it. There
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was stuff in there that I could not watch. I didn't read fiction for 10 years because the risk of running
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across a sex scene was too much for me. That's a sacrifice I had to make. I had to set very firm
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boundaries in my dating relationships because of my susceptibility. So whatever the area of sin is,
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you have to be willing to set up the boundary that may make you abnormal to other people in order to
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pursue holiness. But the good news is that as you're, you're not, you're not doing that to earn
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God's grace or favor, his grace makes up the difference. And he comes through that as you're
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obeying and setting those standards, he supports that step of faith and sanctifies you through that
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and supports you and strengthens you in the process. Right. I think a lot of people don't
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want to, one of the reasons why they don't want to give up Netflix or whatever it is, or watching
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The Bachelorette is not just because it's difficult. Of course it's difficult because all of our friends
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are doing it, but also in giving up those things, it's admitting that we have that problem. And that I
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think is really difficult for us. If we can just kind of pretend, Oh no, no, no, we're fine reading
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this stuff, watching this stuff. It's not a big deal. Then we can kind of convince ourselves and
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convince other people. Well, that we don't really have this struggle because I think the big thing
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is that we don't want to admit it's embarrassing. We don't want to admit that this is like a sin that
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we really have. Don't you think? Oh yeah. It's very shameful, particularly sexual sin. I think
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there, there is clearly based on what we see in the culture and all through history, there's a very
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specific attack on sexuality because it's so intimate because it represents covenant. And
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when you're struggling with sexual sin, I think there's a lot more shame with that than with other
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sins. Not that it's a greater sin than others, but it, it brings with it a greater weight of shame
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because it has a great weight in the eyes of God. Um, but the beautiful thing is first John one,
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nine, if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you of
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all unrighteousness. And I often look at, um, the verse where Peter asks Jesus, how often do we have
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to forgive? You know, the guy who's offended me and Jesus says 70 times seven. So if we have to forgive
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70 times seven, how many times do you think God genuinely forgives when we repent? And that's our hope.
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Right. And Paul even says that sexual sin is different than other sins because you're sinning
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against your own body. And the Bible also talks about how we're bought with a price that we are,
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the Holy Spirit is, is dwelling within us. And so the, the sins that we commit with our body,
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like you said, they don't necessarily carry a different kind of eternal punishment or anything
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like that, but they do have different consequences because it's not just bodily. It's also emotional.
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It's also spiritual. If you think about how wonderful and beautiful and pleasurable sex is
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in the right context, well, it, the, the taking it out of the proper context and the wrong context
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brings it to the other extreme, which is the opposite of beautiful and wonderful and productive
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and good. And it is destructive. It is damaging. It is hollow. It is harmful. Um, and I think that's
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part of why it can be so shameful. Um, because we know, we know the impact and significance of sex
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and therefore of sexual sin. Um, okay. Do you want to talk about your book a little bit? What the,
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what the premise says, what it was like, even just writing the book and what you want people to get out
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of it? Sure. Yeah. So the book is called stop calling me beautiful, finding soul, deep strength
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in a skin deep world. Um, and, and it kind of echoes a little bit. It's like, I was telling
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somebody recently, your book is coming out and a lot of people who ordered my book are also ordering
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your book, which is so fun and exciting. It actually said I, when I scrolled down, I mean,
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obviously my book's not out yet. It's out in May, but it says like, order this, you're not enough.
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Plus stop calling me beautiful. I'm like, Oh, that's so perfect. I loved it. I was, I was so
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glad to just see people pre-ordering both. Um, and I'm so excited for your book to come out. So
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mine is kind of a big picture view of why women need to go deeper in their faith than the surface level
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theology, the surface level Christianity that doesn't lead to any kind of victory, but is what's
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taught in a lot of women's ministry events and books and materials. Yeah. Can you give us some
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examples of the kind of superficial stuff that women tend to hear? Well, one of them you've addressed
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before it's the, you're worthy message. You're worthy just the way you are. And it sounds good
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because we do see worthiness in scripture, but when you start at the ending point and you leave
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out everything that had to happen for that worthiness to be imputed, you're cheapening the
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grace of God and you're actually making disciples who don't even know where their worthiness came from.
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Right. So they don't even appreciate what Jesus did and they're not going to be as invested.
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They don't know as Bonhoeffer wrote the cost of discipleship. And so that's one of the watered
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down messages. Um, you've got questions about, um, saying you're the beautiful daughter of God,
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which is the message of the book itself. Um, when you say you're a beautiful daughter of God,
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yes, it's true. Thank you, dear. But you need to look at where that beauty comes from.
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I apologize for the interruption. No, it's okay. Um, so Hey, we're in an interview. So if you're
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only talking about the beauty of the gospel in a halfway format, you're not talking about where
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that beauty came from, how it was imputed. You're just saying you're a beautiful daughter of the
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King. You have no power behind that. It doesn't change your life. Right. And so you have to have
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the full gospel to have a victorious Christian life. Right. Um, and it's kind of like what you
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were talking about in your, in your teenage struggle and the things that you needed to hear
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and the hard truths that you needed to hear. There could have been people that came along and just
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said, Hey, Felicia, you're worthy and you're great and you're beautiful and you're enough as
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you are. And maybe that would have made you feel a little bit better in those low times of feeling
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ashamed. But ultimately that's not what led you. I'm guessing that's not what led you to repentance.
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It was the deep power of the gospel, the realization that you're a sinner, but God's love and his grace
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and his mercy and his death and his sacrifice is bigger than your shame and your sin and your,
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and your struggle. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is when you're struggling with sexual sin,
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people can tell you you're worthy all day long, but you know, the truth, you, you know,
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that you're not. And so there had to be something more than that message. I needed something deeper
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that to fix a soul deep problem. And that is the gospel. Why do you think it is that women's
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ministries in particular, it seems like anyway, are susceptible to this kind of superficial pithy
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theology that just makes us feel good about our insecurities rather than digging into the word,
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which is just as accessible and available to us as it is to anyone else?
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Well, I have a couple of theories. One of them is, I think, because women understand that generally
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speaking in the complementarian world, you're not going to become a pastor. So if you're not going
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to become a pastor or you're not going into any kind of ministry, why do I need to study theology?
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And this comes from the misconstrued idea that theology isn't practical, that it doesn't matter
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to daily life, that it's just for people who are nerds or really heady or people who just like to
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read a lot. But we know that studying who God is and how he operates is foundational to every decision
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you make. It's, it's your worldview. And so once someone can understand that, I think it helps them
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go, oh, so I do have a theology already. It's just a shallow one. And when we look at these books that
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are being written, I think as well-intentioned as the authors are, many times they see a problem.
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They see this woman struggling with insecurity, this woman struggling with her identity. I'll write a book
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about identity and I'll proof text stuff to talk about that, but they don't go back to the root issue
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and they don't talk about what the real problem is, which is, you know, that nasty word we don't
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like to talk about, sin. Once we deal with that, we can deal with the symptoms. But many women's
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ministries, you know, would rather make cupcakes and talk about, you know, wearing a crown than doing
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Yeah. It's almost like people think that, that our insecurities as women come from the fact that
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we're too focused on our sin when very often that is not the case. It's because like, for example,
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people often ask me when I criticize the whole self-love movement, they say, well, do you just
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want us to hate ourselves? Do you just want us to be self-deprecating? Do you just want us to loathe
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ourselves? No. Self-loathing, self-deprecation is actually just the other side of the self-obsessed
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coin, the self-focused coin, the self-centered coin. The reason that we are so deep into our
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insecurity, so deep into all of the different things that might be right or wrong about us is
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not because we hate ourselves. It's because still we're focusing on ourselves too much and not enough
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on the God who made us, not enough on the gospel. And so the answer, the anecdote or the antidote to
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self-loathing and self-hatred is not just self-love. It's not just hearing that you're
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enough. It's not just hearing that you're beautiful. It's the gospel, just like the answer
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to all things. So I absolutely agree with you. Yeah. And that's why I'm so glad that your book
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is coming out because I think that they go so well together because once you get a foundational
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understanding of who you are and who God is, then you can talk about and understand this self-love
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conversation through more open eyes and an open mind. But if you are still thinking that, you know,
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this beautiful daughter of God thing, this copy of the world's self-love message is the one women
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need, you're not going to even be open to the idea that selflessness is the way that we're called to
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walk. Yeah. Tell me about some other problems that you see in female Christianity and women's
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ministry. I don't know if you and I necessarily land on, you know, in the same place on everything
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complementarianism, but there are a lot of conversations right now about women being
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teachers, women being preachers. I'm a Southern Baptist, so the SBC has been having a conversation
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about this for a long time. A lot of it centered around Beth Moore. Tell me kind of your thoughts on,
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all of that in how you see the Bible giving us insight into that kind of issue.
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Well, I have many thoughts on that, especially after the MacArthur Moore debacle a couple months
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ago. I think when we look at what scripture has to say about being a woman, we have to remember that
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all the commands to Christians as a whole are the foundation for then what's discussed about men and
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women specifically. So all the fruit of the spirit are expected of both. Now, clearly there are roles
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and differences in the sexes. Um, and I did a lot of study of complementarianism and egalitarianism for
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several years to try to understand both sides and where, you know, my husband and I, where we ended up
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landing. Um, but as a woman who is leading and teaching, I think one of the big things I see
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is among women leaders, you are in the Christian world. There's a tendency to not be willing
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to maybe check your worldview at the door and say, Hey, I'm willing to make sure that I'm on the right
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track biblically here. I do tend to see a trend towards women who are like, I have a gift. Um,
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I love scripture. And so I'm going to find out, find a way that the Bible supports this, you know?
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And I think that's what we are seeing in this polarizing conversation around women leading
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and complementarian, egalitarian. The real question I have for either side is, are you building your
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argument off of scripture first and being open to the idea that your worldview and your ideas might
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have to change? Or do you really, really, really just believe that God's gifted you this way and
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you're trying to find stuff in scripture to support it? When you're talking about supporting it, are you
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talking about supporting women, you know, being in the pulpit preaching to men? Um, yeah, I would say
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that's where I see it the most. Um, I'm just gonna be transparent. My own view is, I guess you'd call me a
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soft complementarian. I believe that headships clearly in scripture. I don't believe a woman
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should be a senior pastor. I do think that women may speak and teach in certain contexts when they're
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under the authority of the pastor. Um, and I, what about like at conferences and stuff? Cause that's
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also been a point of contention that honestly, I hadn't really considered until someone brought it up
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to me, but someone like Beth Moore, maybe not even Beth Moore because she's, you know, has her
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own controversies. At least people see her as being controversial, but any woman who you would say,
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you know, is a faithful Christian and is under male headship at her church and her marriage and all of
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that, but she speaks somewhere like, you know, an intermixed passion or something like that. Do you see
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something wrong with that biblically? No, I think a good example of this is Jen Wilkin. You have someone
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who honors her, her husband honors the pastor of her church is in ministry who clearly loves the
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word, who lives a life of integrity. Um, but who speaks at TGC and there are men and there are women
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there. I think there's a lot of freedom that scripture gives on this issue when the woman is
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in appropriate submission. And of course we all hate that word today, but it is deferring to covering,
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deferring to authority. And so in my own life and teaching, I am under the covering, if you will,
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of my husband and of my pastor, who's aware of what I teach and what I do, even though I'm not
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directly ministering all the time in the church. And so again, there's a lot of views on this. This is
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my own view after study. Um, but I do think that when you're striving for a position, when a woman is
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looking for opportunities to use her voice instead of saying, Lord, are you leading this? Cause I know
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you're not going to lead contrary to the word. That's when you have a problem, you know, assuming
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that God is leading everything instead of being willing to check what you desire against what the
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word's saying. Here's a question for that is, is it possible for a woman to, and I've gone back and
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forth, you know, about, about this myself. Someone posed this question to me, is it possible for a woman
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to teach scripture without authority? Since by nature, scripture is authoritative. So for someone
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who is at Passion or at another conference woman preaching to, you know, 22 year old men, you're
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not necessarily under authority of a pastor there, of your husband there, you're teaching in essence
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with authority because scripture is authoritative. So how do we, how do we see something like that
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or am I just kind of confusing the thing? No, I think it's a very valid question. My answer to
00:24:57.800
this, um, and is going to maybe be different than where you'd land because I, um, I'm a continuationist
00:25:05.500
and I can't remember where, um, you stand on that, but as a continuationist, I believe that spiritual
00:25:11.620
gifts still exist today. And one of them is prophecy. Prophecy, you know, has foretelling and
00:25:17.120
forth telling most of the time prophecy would be forth telling. And it is essentially preaching,
00:25:22.420
which we see women doing in scripture repeatedly. So in that sense, I do believe that a woman can
00:25:31.100
teach and preach because of the model that we see in acts that we see women acting in that role.
00:25:38.500
But I do think that it still is under that endorsement of whoever is running the conference. If
00:25:44.860
they invited her, um, if there's a covering of a denomination, her pastor's aware of it. I think
00:25:51.300
that authority structure should be sought out by a woman who is in a position of prophesying,
00:25:58.140
preaching, teaching, um, if it's not there. So asking for that accountability, I don't know that
00:26:04.280
a lot of women do that. Um, I think that it would be highly valuable and biblical for them to do so
00:26:10.560
though. Yeah. I think that there certainly are, obviously, I believe that there are contexts in
00:26:16.240
which women can talk about the Bible. I mean, I talk about the Bible on this podcast and I can't
00:26:21.280
control who listens to it. I always assume that the people listening to it are women and I, uh, you
00:26:26.400
know, address people as women, as moms, as, you know, friends, sisters, whatever. Uh, and so certainly
00:26:33.700
I believe that there are contexts in which women can, uh, talk about the Bible, especially talking about
00:26:39.460
culture and politics from a biblical perspective. It's a little bit different than preaching. I do
00:26:44.260
worry about this kind of Christian brand. And this is almost a different issue. It's not necessarily
00:26:49.700
the one we're talking about, about complementarianism, but I do worry about this like Christian brand of
00:26:55.640
female empowerment that is particularly snarky and sassy towards people who are not soft complementarians,
00:27:04.300
but hard complementarians who don't believe that someone should be preaching at passion, who don't
00:27:08.960
believe that people, that there are really contexts within, you know, the Sunday gathering for a
00:27:13.460
woman to stand up and preach behind the pulpit. And it just looks to me and sounds to me so much
00:27:20.180
like secular feminism of kind of rolling their eyes and laughing at who they think is the patriarchy
00:27:25.860
within the church. And I'm not saying that there aren't faults on the other side of it from people
00:27:30.200
who are making the accusations towards these, like what seems like Christian feminists. But to me,
00:27:35.060
it just so mirrors the world, like that there is almost like a scoffing at the woman who was like,
00:27:41.320
you know what, I am gentle and quiet and I don't speak up a whole lot. And I am okay with submitting
00:27:48.020
to my husband and submitting to my pastor. There just seems to be a shaking of the fist of some
00:27:53.060
Christian woman, of some Christian women on the egalitarian side that makes me very uncomfortable.
00:27:58.140
And to me, delegitimizes, delegitimizes their position because to me, they just look so much
00:28:05.740
and sound so much like secular feminists. Yeah. Well, and here's another thing. You can't build an
00:28:12.340
accurate theology that's reactive. Reactive theology is not sound theology. So if you're reacting against
00:28:19.820
a hyper-complementarian and angry about it, and they're just as angry and snarky at you,
00:28:27.960
you've just created division over a non-salvation issue and you're in sin because of your attitude.
00:28:35.660
So it truly is an issue I see on both sides. I totally agree with you with the snark of the
00:28:41.460
progressive side, you know, these ignorant people. A good example is the halftime show. Sarah Bessie,
00:28:47.540
progressive leader, talked, you know, posted on her Twitter about how anybody who didn't like
00:28:53.560
the halftime show or disapproved of it was clutching their pearls and was essentially a prude.
00:28:59.760
Yeah. When, you know, making a comment like that is clearly intolerant and biased and not even giving
00:29:07.660
a chance to people who might have been sitting there going, you know what, I believe in the sanctity
00:29:11.500
of life and sanctity of life means sanctity of sex. I can't approve this. Right. And I'm not going
00:29:16.380
to let my kids watch it. Instead, she assumes that we're all prudes and, you know, we all have horrible
00:29:20.600
sex lives. Like that's, that's an example of this kind of arrogance that, that does not get anybody
00:29:26.780
anywhere. And, and I think we have to be careful if we are not on that side of the fence to remember
00:29:35.200
that our tone should set the example where their tone has failed, that our tone should not be snarky.
00:29:42.780
We should tell the truth as genuinely as possible, but not come back with the same level of arrogance
00:29:49.340
that they have, because then we're just committing the same sins, quite frankly.
00:29:55.560
Right. Both sides, I would say, and I've only kind of come to realize this, are a little bit
00:30:00.600
reactive. You have, it seems like on the extremes, on the extreme side of, I won't even call it
00:30:06.760
complementarianism. On the extreme side of the other end of feminism, you have people who view like
00:30:14.260
any female complaint or any complaint about how women are treated within the church, any complaint
00:30:20.180
of abuse as, um, as like, oh, that person's just trying to push feminism or that person's trying to
00:30:27.720
push social justice. And then on the other side, you, on the other extreme, you have women
00:30:34.200
who view anyone who believes in any kind of gender role or any kind of submission, whether it's in
00:30:39.880
the church or in marriage as not caring about women, of wanting women to get abused and wanting
00:30:46.360
to cover up abuse. And both of them, there is a lot of snark back and forth and there's a lot of
00:30:51.020
combativeness. And I'm looking at both sides. On the one hand, I feel like there's a lot of
00:30:55.720
condescension towards women in reaction to the whole female empowerment movement on the left side.
00:31:01.060
And then there is a reaction to the condescension on the left side, uh, towards who they view are
00:31:06.940
the patriarchy. And I'm looking at both and I just, it makes me very uncomfortable. And I, you know
00:31:13.500
what? I think that this is a reason we were talking about why women don't get into theology. I think
00:31:17.600
this is why there's a lot of women who are like, I don't, you know what? Theology is for the birds.
00:31:23.220
Theology is for people like this who just want to argue. Theology is for people who want to be
00:31:27.140
divided. I don't like this kind of stuff. I'm uncomfortable. A lot of women are peacemakers.
00:31:31.880
We want, we are relational. And I think, so I think that's another reason we're like,
00:31:35.600
if that's what theology is, I don't want to get into those debates.
00:31:39.800
Right. Yeah. And I mean, I think a lot of people who are, who do talk about theology want to debate,
00:31:47.900
Which I'm fine with. I like theological debates and discussions. I really do.
00:31:51.620
But when it's like a back where people are talking past each other, which I'm totally guilty of,
00:31:56.060
people are talking past each other and over each other and not purposely misunderstanding each other
00:32:00.540
for the sake of retweets or whatever, then that gets very uncomfortable. And I think people are like,
00:32:06.340
whatever, I'm just going to go with what I feel.
00:32:09.960
Right. Right. Well, the interesting thing is though, the way to true peace is going to be
00:32:16.000
by understanding what you believe and why you believe it. Right. Because then you can articulate
00:32:22.260
it in a calm and gentle way and actually have a conversation. But if you continue to run from
00:32:30.060
theology because of how other people are abusing it, it's, it's, that's not God's intention. Like
00:32:36.100
if theology is the study of God, understanding him and his intent and how to live your life,
00:32:42.060
you really can't live without that. And so you don't have to do it the way they're doing it.
00:32:46.980
You don't have to be nasty. You don't have to argue, but you do have to know why you believe
00:32:50.740
what you believe. And so that's always my encouragement to people who feel overwhelmed.
00:32:54.980
Start there, start with the Bible itself and start learning why you believe these things,
00:33:01.600
because there has never been a time, in my opinion, when that was more necessary in the world.
00:33:07.660
Yes, absolutely. And I think, uh, another great thing that people can read and do,
00:33:12.060
uh, is buy your book, read your book. And I think also follow you because you give a lot of great
00:33:18.620
resources to women about how to read the Bible and how to take theology seriously. I think in the
00:33:25.020
reformed camp, I'm reformed. I don't know if you consider yourself reformed, probably not if you're
00:33:28.780
a continuationist, but there are a lot of reformed people who believe that the only people who take
00:33:33.440
the Bible seriously, the only people who really read the Bible are five point Calvinists. And even
00:33:38.200
though I am a Calvinist, I, uh, obviously I don't believe that. And I look to a lot of your stuff
00:33:43.760
for, for insights and for wisdom. And I just appreciate what you do. And I highly encourage
00:33:48.820
everyone to go check out your Instagram, your resources. And if there's anything else you want
00:33:53.860
to point people to, please do. Yeah, for sure. So I actually am Wesleyan. So I am, we're kind of on
00:34:00.620
two different sides of this, but I think there's a, in the past, it's, it's true that most of the
00:34:08.080
theological teaching is coming from the reformed camp to your credit. And I read and follow mostly
00:34:14.880
reformed teachers because they're the ones producing this. And there's been a gap in the
00:34:20.260
Wesleyan Armenian world in this area. And so that's kind of where I come from and where I fill that gap
00:34:26.420
in our, um, our tradition, but so grateful for how we're able to hear each other's ideas and listen
00:34:35.640
across the aisle so we can work towards unity in the body. I think that's so exciting and encouraging
00:34:42.200
for Christians to walk side by side, um, in going deeper in theology. So thank you so much, Allie.
00:34:49.120
Yes. Uh, well, we'll have to have you back so we can talk about, someone actually asked me
00:34:54.000
if we could talk about Calvinism versus Arminianism. I am a Calvinist. You are in Arminianism. A lot of
00:35:00.980
people want to know the differences. People can go back and listen to episodes that I did on
00:35:04.440
predestination on tulip on the five solas and, and all of that five solas obviously doesn't have to do
00:35:10.360
with predestination, but, um, people can go back and listen to that. Felicia and I don't land on the
00:35:15.860
same page on everything, but like I said, Felicia, I'm so thankful for what you do. And thank you so
00:35:20.720
much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Yep.