The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Feminism Destroyed

00:00:00.480 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:11.800 Hi, welcome. This is Pastor Joel with Right Response Ministries and our show slash podcast called Theology Applied.

00:00:18.860 This evening, I have the privilege of having a guest, Becca Merkel, on our show.

00:00:23.860 And we're going to be talking about biblical womanhood. We're going to be talking about feminism.

00:00:27.500 We're going to be talking about the rise of feminism and some of the dangers at the local church levels and also just in regards to the culture.

00:00:35.020 But I want to go ahead and give her a moment to introduce herself and specifically to tell us a little bit about a book that she wrote called Eve in Exile.

00:00:44.320 So, Becca, thanks for coming on the show.

00:00:45.740 Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

00:00:47.720 Right. Thank you so much.

00:00:49.220 It's great to be on your show.

00:00:50.720 um so becca merkel i have five kids um who are all teenagers and just out of teen years now

00:01:02.260 so high school college and um i wrote even exile a few years ago because i had grown up in

00:01:11.580 conservative christianity and so it's never like i never bought into feminism as a principal but

00:01:19.180 honestly, some of the things I saw on the conservative side made me understand why you

00:01:24.980 might want to. Um, like some of the, some of the, um, ultra conservative anti-feminist stuff

00:01:33.240 does an excellent job of making the feminist point, I think. And so, um, that's not at all

00:01:40.560 how I was raised, but I was, you know, like around conservative. So I did see it and I saw, um,

00:01:48.220 a really like appalling view of women sort of on the conservative side of things which I thought 0.99

00:01:55.340 was atrocious and I could see why people would react out of that into feminism I think feminism 0.98

00:02:04.260 is I mean that would just be out of the frying pan into the fire sort of situation I think it 0.72

00:02:09.740 is a terrible answer to that problem um and I saw people on that side as well but they were not

00:02:18.360 my people if that makes sense like I felt like I I had friends who had dads who you know I thought 0.95

00:02:27.420 had a really unbelievably low and unbiblical view of women and then I could see why there's that

00:02:34.960 sort of you know that kind of exodus out of those kinds of movements i i understand it i think it's

00:02:41.680 horribly misguided and i think it's a terrible idea and i think it's wrong-headed in many ways

00:02:46.080 but i do understand what they were reacting against i guess and so i wrote even exile because

00:02:53.620 i felt like um in a weird way i think those conservatives um actually agree with the

00:03:00.900 feminists and then they react differently emotionally i guess like there's this low

00:03:08.460 view of the woman's calling biblical calling of um you know being a wife and mother uh keeping 0.61

00:03:15.020 home and the conservatives um sort of say yes we know that it's a low calling and that's what we

00:03:22.960 like and then the liberals say that's a low calling we're going to go out and get jobs out

00:03:28.140 in the world, but it's like they're agreed on the fundamental thing, which is that they've bought

00:03:33.000 the lie that being a wife and mother is a brainless menial task that requires nothing. And,

00:03:39.720 you know, why would you give your life to something like that? So, um, I wrote even exile,

00:03:45.880 I guess, just to kind of try to answer both of those things a little bit, and then try to

00:03:51.600 articulate what is it supposed to be? Because I do think that some of the ultra conservative stuff

00:03:59.980 is not at all biblical. It's not what we should be aiming for. And so I just felt like somebody

00:04:06.240 needs to articulate a vision that isn't that, but that also isn't feminist. And so that was really

00:04:11.660 kind of, I think, my motivation for writing the book. Got you. As you were speaking, I just,

00:04:18.960 I couldn't help but think of a certain question, so it's kind of a little bit of a curveball,

00:04:22.500 but I'm going to throw it at you.

00:04:23.640 Yeah, sure.

00:04:23.980 As a woman who loves the Lord and who loves women and esteems women, but has a biblical

00:04:30.960 view, what do you think about a word like patriarchy?

00:04:35.080 Does that make you cringe, or would you say, no, it's just been misdefined?

00:04:39.300 How would you define patriarchy?

00:04:40.600 Is it a good thing?

00:04:41.200 Is it a bad thing?

00:04:41.980 What do you think?

00:04:42.460 That's just such a funny one, because, I mean, patriarchy, if we're just going to go by the

00:04:48.140 dictionary definition of what what does patriarchy sort of mean and of course yes i mean i feel like

00:04:55.100 yeah that's just sort of what the bible teaches doesn't it on the other hand many of the people

00:05:00.600 who would self-identify as patriarchal i wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot pole so you know i

00:05:08.120 think i think that that gets a little bit muddled but i i think the father and you know husband is

00:05:13.960 the head of the wife and is the head of the household and you know so what do we call that

00:05:19.260 other than patriarchy like that's exactly what that means but I do think that they some people

00:05:25.080 have co-opted that title that I would never want to be identified with so fair answer yeah fair

00:05:33.840 answer yeah I always just think in terms of like I don't often use the word to describe myself

00:05:40.420 There's a couple of other guys that I like have a podcast called It's Good to Be a Man.

00:05:44.360 And they use the phrase gendered piety.

00:05:48.940 And I like that because if nothing else, not even because it's the best descriptive phrase,

00:05:53.680 but because it's obscure enough that nobody can get offended too quickly before I have time to explain.

00:05:59.300 Whereas like patriarchy, it's like conversation over.

00:06:01.320 You don't get a chance to say, you know.

00:06:02.960 But patriarchy at its root level, I just think, all right, first, like we live in a world.

00:06:08.360 It belongs to someone.

00:06:09.780 The Bible says it belongs to a father.

00:06:12.600 You know, it's the father's world.

00:06:13.880 We live in his world and the father of all fathers, he works through fathers and he works

00:06:19.120 through mothers also, but he works through fathers as the head of their families and

00:06:24.020 the blessings flow from the father of light to earthly fathers and those fathers as they

00:06:29.360 seek to be obedient to him and lead with courage and grace, that blessing falls to their wives,

00:06:35.440 to their children.

00:06:35.980 societies are built by uh families you know and and by you know men who have families to feed i

00:06:42.640 think doug wilson said that recently on man rampant and i think that's i think that's good

00:06:47.500 and it's it's a i think it's a shame that it has so much of a negative connotation today

00:06:52.800 and weirdly i would probably say the same thing about feminism because it's not like i'm opposed

00:06:59.980 to femininity and it's not like i'm opposed to the feminine in fact i think we should embrace

00:07:05.180 the feminine it's just that like that word has been now kind of pretty well spoiled for us

00:07:09.720 by the people who grabbed it and and used it as their that's a great point because true feminism 1.00

00:07:16.700 you you would love the problem is that feminism is actually often masculinity in women it's not 1.00

00:07:24.420 it's not feminine and if it was actual femininity and in the way that god describes the beauty of 0.91

00:07:30.380 femininity, we'd be all for it. So, okay. Well, let's go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was going to

00:07:36.500 just agree that at the sort of metaphysical level, that is what the universe is, is a patriarchy. So

00:07:42.400 of course, that's, it's hard to, it's hard to escape, you know, even 2021, you know, you read

00:07:51.080 the Bible and you, unless we're going to do some exegetical gymnastics, it's pretty, pretty clear

00:07:56.120 that you know so anyways um so that being said could you give you know because everybody talks

00:08:00.680 about feminism and you hear a lot of pastors and in the conservative you know kind of reformed

00:08:06.240 christian camp you know talking well feminism is bad and i might even be one of those pastors and

00:08:10.960 so maybe you could even educate me just what what what's the history not just the definition but

00:08:16.160 what's the history of feminism because it seems as though it's come in different waves and each

00:08:20.560 one is distinct from from another and i know that you've gone into length with this and so could you

00:08:25.160 help us just understand maybe the history of feminism and where they were right? I'm sure

00:08:29.980 that they were right maybe on a few things and then where it got off the rails. Could you take

00:08:33.660 a moment and do that for us? Yeah, sure. Without my notes, so I might be hopscotching around here

00:08:41.520 a little bit, but really the first kind of proto-feminist, I mean, we're talking about

00:08:49.340 the 18th century i mean she was uh mary woolenston craft um although i might have put an extra n in

00:08:58.160 there woolston craft um she was an english woman who was really around the same time as jane austen

00:09:07.040 and she's called a proto-feminist because she um they weren't using the word yet right so she's 1.00

00:09:14.840 kind of like a little before her time but she wrote a little tract called um vindication of

00:09:19.460 the rights of women so she's being kind of resurrected like there's been a lot of talk

00:09:25.280 about her lately um i saw a lot of stuff going around about her and whenever the women's day was

00:09:33.260 i don't know lately wasn't there national women's day was i thought i thought they got a whole month

00:09:38.500 a whole you know black history month and now i think i think there's a women's history but i

00:09:43.180 think there's a day also i really keep up with this i thought every day was women's day you know 0.72

00:09:48.100 so yeah so she was a um i mean she's referred to as a proto-feminist but now she's kind of

00:09:55.360 you know the hero and she she went over to france to help with the french revolution

00:10:01.420 so like that's what we're talking about there so she was very much a revolutionary um and

00:10:08.300 And that's really what feminism has been from the very beginning as she was, she was over helping in France right through the reign of terror and everything because, um, a number of the kind of romantic poets in England went over to help, but then they got kind of like scared and disillusioned and came back once it hit the reign of terror.

00:10:25.280 And she stayed. She stayed for the whole thing. And anyway, so she wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women. And then, you know, fast forward to the mid-19th century, really pre-Civil War, I believe, was Seneca Falls.

00:10:41.700 It was right in the middle of the 19th century. And that's when there was the first kind of like that was the birth of the feminist movement, as we think of it. And of course, initially, at that very early stage, the two twin causes were votes for women, and prohibition of alcohol.

00:11:00.940 so it actually was a very funny um strange bedfellows really i mean because you had the

00:11:07.520 temperance movement and the women's right to vote and in fact that's kind of why they wanted the

00:11:12.140 right to vote was so that they could um enact prohibition which they did do so the the prohibition

00:11:20.040 moment in america was really brought to us courtesy of those you know first wave feminists 0.98

00:11:27.780 And so it's interesting to me that, um, that actually seems kind of much more uptight and straight laced than you tend to think of feminists as being. So as far as like votes for women, you've got Susan B. Anthony and, you know, like that whole movement and many Christians, I think now look back on them.

00:11:50.800 and even the Christians look back on them as heroes when I think we ought to know better

00:11:55.740 because it's like we can see where that brought us the not necessarily the issue of the voting 0.99

00:12:01.920 but the feminist agenda um Margaret Sanger is uh really kind of a first wave feminist 1.00

00:12:09.700 and she of course we know her famously for Planned Parenthood but her fight really was 0.99

00:12:15.920 birth control so it was like you had you had temperance you had or prohibition you had votes

00:12:22.780 for women and birth control so margaret sanger's particular fight was um basically on that issue

00:12:30.020 and we always talk about her as a abortion advocate because she did found planned parenthood

00:12:35.300 and although that was always implicit and that was always kind of understood it was very much

00:12:40.840 kept in the back of you know like we didn't that was not explicit at all um but birth control was 1.00

00:12:47.300 her big fight so that was kind of the first wave of you know feminism and it did span a long time 0.82

00:12:55.140 and it sort of covered you know those kinds of issues and then um the sort of world war two

00:13:03.120 really caused the whole movement to come to a screeching halt everybody had other things to

00:13:09.020 worry about and then we kind of came out of world war ii and and we got the 50s you know like that

00:13:15.040 very um little wife at home very leave it to be you're very um you know everything is picture

00:13:24.060 perfect and i think there's just a lot of stuff that was going on in america right then the rise

00:13:28.480 of suburbia i think you have all these vets coming back and just wanting things to be normal

00:13:32.700 and nice and not you know crazy and so you had this kind of weird moment where it was kind of

00:13:41.280 like the feminist felt like they'd lost everything so it was like they had they'd made some kind of

00:13:45.780 progress and then now we're sort of back to square one with this little stereotypical um you know 1.00

00:13:52.960 wife at home thing and then um Betty Friedan wrote the book The Feminine Mystique and that's the book

00:14:01.960 that launched second wave feminism really and so there was kind of this weird pause

00:14:08.740 and then second wave feminism launched and it was a very different kind of movement in one sense but

00:14:15.680 it was deeply connected to what had gone before in another way so she wrote the feminine mystique

00:14:21.540 and it was all just about like this kind of horrible sadness that all the housewives felt

00:14:28.220 and this like aching emptiness and they're all taking antidepressants and it was all just

00:14:35.720 meaningless and there was nothing fulfilling about being at home and you just you know and

00:14:39.820 she just sort of articulates this terrible boredom with being a wife at home and it just

00:14:47.120 exploded and all the women were like yes that that's how I feel and then we were off and so 1.00

00:14:53.180 um second wave feminism was all about women going out to work you know being in the workforce that 1.00

00:14:59.820 was how you're supposed to find yourself and fulfill yourself was by leaving your kids at 1.00

00:15:04.520 home and you go out and get a job because that's where you're going to feel fulfilled and you're

00:15:08.660 not going to have this terrible sense of loss of self basically um so that's when you have

00:15:16.440 women entering the workforce as a way of self-fulfillment as opposed to the kind of earlier 0.96

00:15:21.680 war effort you know because like in the war effort you have women who were doing the jobs 1.00

00:15:26.400 because somebody has to do the jobs but then in the second wave feminism um it was all about go

00:15:32.680 find yourself and find find your true meaning out there somewhere else because home is like a 0.68

00:15:39.800 black hole you know like there's nothing to do there so then second wave feminism and then of

00:15:46.540 course abortion and that's when roe v wade and everything else this so sort of second wave

00:15:51.580 feminist heroes would be um gloria steinem is very second wave um and it's interesting because 1.00

00:15:58.140 third wave feminists i don't think even they know what they're for so they're it's like third wave 0.97

00:16:04.480 is kind of where we are right now and they've they've won every single battle basically like

00:16:08.300 the feminists have seriously taken every hill they've tried to take and there's not really 1.00

00:16:13.980 anything left, but they're still miserable and unhappy. So they have to continue fussing about 1.00

00:16:17.720 something. So now it's kind of LGBTQ rights or something. Like, I don't even think the third

00:16:25.040 wave feminists know what they're trying to fight for, but they're still very upset. 1.00

00:16:29.460 So real quick, just for our listeners' sake, you referenced, you know, in first wave, 1.00

00:16:37.800 Margaret Sanger kind of being on the end of that. So at first it was prohibition and it was

00:16:43.960 women's suffrage vote. And then Margaret Sanger, it sounds like you placed her on the end of that

00:16:51.660 first wave. We know her from abortion, but being a big advocate of birth control. And then with

00:16:58.340 that second wave, then you really nailed down abortion. So both in terms of birth control with

00:17:05.000 Margaret Sanger and then also with abortion later on in the second wave, could you explain to our

00:17:10.760 listeners, what does that have to do with women being empowered? I know what it has to do, but

00:17:15.580 some people don't, they don't connect the dots. So what is a woman being able to stop her body 0.99

00:17:22.640 from procreation or being able to abort a child inside of her body if the birth control fails 0.69

00:17:28.880 as a 100% fail safe of birth control? Because that's all abortion really is in my understanding

00:17:36.580 is like we have birth control and then we have birth control really effective birth control yeah

00:17:42.200 yeah so what does that have to do with women being empowered i think that it's clearly been

00:17:48.480 um a target from very early on um because even in the first wave of um you know even like you

00:17:59.180 know pre-20th century i think it was quite clear that there's nothing that will drop an anchor on

00:18:07.240 your dreams and aspirations more thoroughly than having a child right because um a man can father

00:18:16.000 many children and never even know you know like he's not in any way bound or tied down by it if

00:18:23.640 there's no marriage covenant he can just go merrily on his way and never know how many kids he has

00:18:28.840 not true for women right i mean you can't have hundreds of children and not know you can't have

00:18:35.400 one child and not know and then there you are left with the child and this is like a lifetime

00:18:41.520 commitment right so so i think that that is has always been seen by the feminists as deeply unfair 0.97

00:18:48.040 you know that it's why should i have to sacrifice my whole life when he gets to go over there and 1.00

00:18:54.940 continue um chasing his dreams you know um and somebody has to take care of the kid and of course

00:19:01.620 that's going to be the woman and so there's always been this sense of this is so unfair and that's 0.94

00:19:07.740 been a real dominant theme of the feminist from the very beginning is this kind of I don't know

00:19:14.200 it's like the whiny kid on the playground who's always you know complaining that nothing is fair

00:19:20.340 and that everybody else is i don't know it's just a very it's not a winning attitude but

00:19:25.320 that does feel like it's the it has been the refrain of the feminist from the very beginning

00:19:30.560 but it is absolutely true that um children most definitely tie you down and even if you decide

00:19:38.940 to get rid of them um it's the woman who's left with the guilt it's the woman who's left with

00:19:45.000 you know whatever the repercussions are of what she decided to do and so um obviously God's

00:19:52.160 solution to this is marriage so uh I mean the inequality is no longer there but if you're

00:19:58.620 going to have a kind of like a lifestyle of immorality it is very true that the men get 0.86

00:20:04.040 away with a lot and the women don't and so um I feel like God solved that by well and I saw

00:20:12.040 lately it was hilarious wasn't um feminists were getting all wound up about something and I saw 0.75

00:20:17.560 somebody I can't remember who it was tweeting um it was some actress and it was like if women have

00:20:24.580 to stay home and take care of the kids then the father should have to too and somebody was like

00:20:30.200 congratulations you've just invented marriage I mean because it was like the biblical model is

00:20:36.900 It's like, yeah, the man also assumes responsibility for his children and everything. 0.92

00:20:41.320 But if you take that out and if you want immorality, it is true the consequences fall on the women. 0.97

00:20:46.600 And I think they were wanting to have it both ways. 0.98

00:20:48.920 They didn't want to have to submit to marriage, but they also didn't want to have to submit to just the way the world works.

00:20:55.380 And so birth control and abortion are basically the way out of that.

00:21:00.660 Got you. That makes sense.

00:21:01.800 Yeah. In order for a woman to actually be equal in that sense, there's one big distinction between men and women. Women have babies and men do not. So you have to find some kind of method, some kind of way of women to ensure that women don't have babies in order for them to be just like men. 0.95

00:21:19.260 Do you think with, you know, this third wave of, well, I guess it would be second wave, but the second wave of feminism that, you know, the house, the desperate housewives, right? 0.78

00:21:30.140 I'm sitting at home drinking Chardonnay at 10 a.m., you know, and just bored out of my mind and, you know, maybe should have had more babies. 0.56

00:21:38.200 But, you know, that's just my thought.

00:21:40.120 But anyways, but you're bored, whatever. 0.59

00:21:41.540 It's a black hole.

00:21:42.360 You said earlier that home is like a black hole.

00:21:44.080 It's not fulfilling. And work, even though work is, you know, men and women are both called to work.

00:21:49.260 It's just where men are typically going to be working out of the home.

00:21:52.280 Women are working very hard in the home. But but if you don't see that work is fulfilling, you don't feel like there's any significance that comes from that.

00:22:00.980 You know, and then there's this push like, well, I got to be able to pursue a career outside of the home in order to be equal to men and to find fulfillment.

00:22:07.960 Do you think in that I talked to one of our other guests, we had Aaron Wren on the show and I talked to him a little bit about this.

00:22:13.720 and I'd like to get your take as well. With women exiting the home and just families in general

00:22:19.980 having less children or no children, men and women both working, don't you feel like employers

00:22:27.220 have kind of like just loved that? Like they can get away with paying less? Like the idea that as

00:22:32.440 an employer, I've got to pay an employee enough to support a family because they're a one-income

00:22:37.240 family now. Like that kind of the assumption is, you know, if a man says, well, this isn't enough

00:22:42.840 to i'm working really hard but it's not enough to provide for my family and the employer's response

00:22:46.640 would be it never was supposed to be enough to why isn't your wife working i did have you do you

00:22:53.120 have any thoughts on that well i mean i have no idea about the data but that would i mean that

00:22:58.420 makes sense um because it has become so pervasive that of course that's going to leave a mark on

00:23:04.880 the economy that's really interesting and i just i haven't it just seems like that used to become

00:23:10.020 the mark, like, obviously, some jobs are just they were never meant to feed a family, right? So if

00:23:14.240 you work fast food, and you're demanding, you know, $50 an hour, it's like, well, like, you're

00:23:18.940 not supposed, we're not against you making $50 an hour, you just don't get to make $50 an hour here

00:23:23.840 for flipping burgers, you know, have some ambition and work, you know, and maybe maybe you can do it

00:23:29.040 here as you know, a manager and owning a store one day and franchising whatever. But, but, um,

00:23:34.820 you know, like, there's, there's this push for, you know, well, we've got to make more money and

00:23:38.420 all that kind of stuff but back in the day you know there were still jobs like the burger flipper

00:23:42.540 or you know the person bagging groceries but it seems like there was in the 1950s it seems like

00:23:46.940 there were still jobs that weren't uh this is a job to to feed a family this is kind of a a high

00:23:52.760 school job or something but then it seems like like like for career type jobs it seems like

00:23:58.100 financially the benchmark in determining wages was the cost of living for a family whereas now

00:24:04.160 I just don't feel like that's even on the radar for most businesses of like, what does it cost to, you know, a modest home with a mortgage, you know, and feeding children.

00:24:12.840 And I just don't think it doesn't seem like companies or employers think that way anymore.

00:24:17.500 Like it's not like because we've handed over, we've said, well, we don't want marriage and we don't want children and we don't want families and we don't want our wives to stay at home.

00:24:25.180 So then employers have said, great.

00:24:28.400 Yeah.

00:24:29.000 You don't want it.

00:24:30.140 You know.

00:24:31.000 Yeah.

00:24:31.580 I'm sure that's true.

00:24:32.800 I mean, I think in many ways, I mean, you almost feel like feminism is such a win for the men that it had to have been a male plot the whole time.

00:24:46.280 Then we just get to abdicate responsibility.

00:24:50.100 It's kind of like, I don't know, you can sleep around as much as you want.

00:24:54.220 Nobody's ever going to make you marry the girl.

00:24:56.080 You know, like there's no consequences for that.

00:24:58.260 You don't have to step up and take care of anybody.

00:25:01.840 you don't have to take care of her or the kids or if you do get married and she demands the right

00:25:06.620 to go out and have a job so that now you can afford to buy a boat so like I I don't know I 1.00

00:25:12.480 just feel like the whole thing is is so hilariously not in the women's best interest 1.00

00:25:18.580 that it kills me that they appear to be dumb enough to have gone for this you know idea but 0.98

00:25:26.200 sadly it was the women who drummed up this great plan so right well when yeah you're right when 0.98

00:25:33.640 you I mean when you compare it like that it's like all right now you're gonna have to work so

00:25:38.000 that I can have these extra things and I don't have to take care of children and I don't even

00:25:41.360 have to have commitment to you and it definitely sounds like a win for the men so it makes me 0.70

00:25:45.340 think the only way that women found it as a win for women was in comparison to be being having to

00:25:51.700 be married to that man. So men must have, in order, you know, if men did kind of were the

00:25:57.240 architects of feminism for their own, you know, getting to, you know, get rid of responsibility 0.98

00:26:02.640 and have a, you know, a free day and all that kind of stuff. I feel like the only way they

00:26:06.560 could have talked women into it would, would have been just, uh, lying around the house and just 1.00

00:26:10.520 being such a, such a pain to live with that women were like, you know what, maybe marriage isn't 0.94

00:26:16.420 that crazy. I do think that like the whole prohibition thing, um, was the women, I think 1.00

00:26:23.000 they were really motivated by a lot of drunk husbands. I mean, like, I really think that was 0.88

00:26:27.960 the sort of impetus for it is they were like, we need somebody to stop the madness with the

00:26:33.660 drunkenness that they were having. Someone's got to protect us. And they didn't feel like the men

00:26:37.860 were doing that. That makes sense. I was going to ask you that earlier. I'm glad you brought that

00:26:41.020 back up okay so moving forward now so we got a little bit of the history of feminism and different

00:26:46.660 waves and what it's progressed into and now it's kind of like we don't even know what women are

00:26:50.540 necessarily fighting for because it seems like they've already won everything anymore so it's 0.97

00:26:55.800 very hard to know what we're fighting you're right that's it yeah that's a really good point

00:26:59.980 so all that being said catching up to you know modern day and then you know kind of taking a

00:27:05.940 more of a focus on the church and not just the culture at large. Um, what are, what are some of

00:27:11.300 the ripple effects or maybe they're not ripples? What are, what are the tsunami effects of feminism

00:27:17.520 on the church today? Could you give us a practical example of, of, of how there's a negative impact

00:27:23.420 in our evangelical churches? Oh man, I think it's so pervasive that I don't think, I think many

00:27:30.980 people have incredibly feminist assumptions and have no idea that they do because it's so in the 1.00

00:27:39.540 air we breathe and it's so pushed in your face everywhere in every possible venue i mean the 0.50

00:27:46.560 propaganda is relentless on this subject and i think honestly i feel like there was a pretty

00:27:53.280 rigorous campaign of cool shaming the christians you know or the people who wanted to hold to a

00:28:00.560 more traditional view. And I think we bought it. Like, I think, I think Christians got embarrassed

00:28:04.860 about trying to articulate a biblical position. And so we just kind of tried to keep that quiet

00:28:12.480 and to ourselves so that it wasn't quite so embarrassing to say out loud. And I think it's

00:28:18.200 a very short time. I mean, you do that, you just kind of turn the dial down a little bit and maybe

00:28:22.980 don't say it quite so loud and not maybe into the microphone. And it just takes that before

00:28:28.380 everybody forgot what you were trying to say you know like it's just it's gone I feel like the next 0.99

00:28:33.700 generation you know just has bought it completely I think um Christians with their kids in government 0.83

00:28:41.240 schools is a major part of this um because of course that's what they're going to be taught

00:28:47.580 you know all day long every day for 13 years growing up so of course that's going to be

00:28:53.980 their assumption, and I think that there, I don't know, I just think there's been a sort of a slow

00:29:01.720 creep, or maybe not so slow of a creep, of just buying into the feminist argument, and then

00:29:10.320 thinking that, you know, well, I call myself a complementarian, and so that must mean that I'm

00:29:15.260 fine, where you don't actually realize how many things you've taken on board that are just these

00:29:20.780 really poisonous assumptions I think it's really truly everywhere like it feels like it's really

00:29:27.200 pervasive and like I said at the beginning I think that those same poisonous assumptions

00:29:32.920 infect the ultra-conservative crowd as well like I think that they have taken it on board they've

00:29:39.020 believed the feminist lie and then they've just embraced it for some reason where it's like you

00:29:43.800 have this lie about women that the feminists have told and then a bunch of patriarchalists 1.00

00:29:51.980 believed it and then said yeah that's what we're about women don't need a brain and women don't 1.00

00:29:59.220 need an education and yeah all the woman is for is having babies and making sandwiches 0.99

00:30:03.180 yay that's what we're about and and that actually is the feminist stereotype and the thing is is it 1.00

00:30:09.600 was always a lie but it's like some of the conservatives didn't quite notice and then they

00:30:15.000 just decided to own it you know so that's what i mean about them sharing the same assumption so i

00:30:21.240 think the the feminist lie is actually really in it got into everything so and i think it really

00:30:28.720 weirdly is even in the patriarchalist camp so so i got yeah so the ultra you're saying the

00:30:34.660 ultra-conservative patriarchal person and the I am woman hear me roar feminist from you know are

00:30:41.180 they're both they both actually bought into the lie just to for clarity's sake the lie being that

00:30:45.900 being a woman is unfulfilling insignificant boring dull right is that the lie that you're getting at

00:30:52.760 yeah or I would say not not being a woman but um embracing sort of a biblical

00:30:58.320 you know perspective function role of women role of women um that's so so being a wife

00:31:07.020 and being a being a mother and those kinds of things yeah and they don't see it as a high

00:31:12.800 calling at all they see it as like i mean i've met guys who i mean i just couldn't believe that

00:31:18.580 they would say these things out loud but they would say well my daughters don't need an education

00:31:23.020 because they're never going to have to get a job because they're just going to get married and have

00:31:25.740 kids and as if like being a mother is this brainless occupation that doesn't require anything

00:31:32.880 you know like like it just feels like the most minimum wage job we could find and so why should

00:31:40.980 i give my daughter anything really in particular she doesn't like i remember one guy saying his

00:31:46.140 daughters never needed to learn math because he was like because you know i was so mad but i was

00:31:51.680 Well, because if they do know math and their daughters – well, if a daughter – we all know if a daughter does learn math, then they're a witch. 0.91

00:31:59.880 Any woman who – I'm just kidding. 0.99

00:32:02.340 Exactly. 1.00

00:32:02.900 Witch. 0.90

00:32:04.240 But it was very funny. 0.97

00:32:05.120 So I get – so you're saying the ultra-conservative and the feminist, they both bonded to this lie about the womanly role, feminine role, and the ultra-conservatives just said, yeah, we'll take that.

00:32:19.000 We'll put our – we'll slap our name right on that.

00:32:20.700 where you know like yeah it's it's uh you don't have to have a brain it's a menial task and uh 1.00

00:32:25.860 we're for it and the feminists the only difference is they're saying yeah you don't have to have a 1.00

00:32:29.660 brain it's a menial task and we despise it and that's really the only but they're both they're

00:32:34.320 both buying into right so that's why i feel like it's a really weird uh it's a really weird

00:32:40.820 assumption that they both share it's just it's purely an emotional response to it like the the

00:32:46.520 ultra patriarchalist type says yes that's what i like and the other one says get me out of here but

00:32:52.820 that's an emotional response but they actually share the same assumptions about reality about

00:32:58.600 the calling of a woman um in in that specific role in a family got you that's what you were

00:33:05.480 saying all the way back at the beginning i understand now you're saying they both agree

00:33:08.200 on the content the tenets of yeah of you know the argument but but one the difference is emotional

00:33:14.200 One is like, yeah, we like that.

00:33:15.440 That sounds really great. 0.99

00:33:16.420 And the other one is, you pig, how could you? 0.91

00:33:18.740 And so one thing that I've noticed, and I want to see what you think about this, if you can affirm this, and if you have any thoughts on it. 0.93

00:33:26.580 But one kind of very practical effect that I've noticed in the evangelical church today from what I would say is an effect of feminism and an effect of, I'm sure, plenty of other things also, but is that we still love femininity in the church.

00:33:44.200 whenever we see it in men and we love masculinity whenever we see it in women. So, so whenever,

00:33:50.700 you know, you see a young girl and it, and the practical effect is, um, is, is the way that we

00:33:56.240 disciple kids. Um, it's, it's the, uh, and, and not just the way you you're discipling young boys

00:34:01.700 and discipling young girls. Uh, but then also, you know, uh, the way that adults, you know,

00:34:07.240 brothers and sisters in Christ are treating each other. And, you know, like if there's,

00:34:11.520 if there's a man who's assertive, now he could be a jerk, he can go too far, but let's just say 0.99

00:34:17.600 he's just, you know, he's just a strong masculine man. Very often he's going to be, you know, 0.98

00:34:25.300 he's going to be pulled aside and talk to you about how he really needs to be gentle.

00:34:29.980 And Jesus was meek and mild and he needs to be gentle. And then if a woman though is gentle,

00:34:35.140 the same thing we're encouraging this man to be more like, to have more of this gentleness and,

00:34:41.080 you know, quiet spirit, you know, and, but if a woman is like that, she's probably going to be 0.70

00:34:45.940 pulled aside and be encouraged to think more for herself, to be more ambitious, to be more assertive, 0.98

00:34:50.980 to be more, more type A and to speak out. And so what I've noticed is like, if we came up with just,

00:34:56.640 if we were to sit here, you know, you and I make a list of 10 traits that we would say are feminine

00:35:03.040 and 10 traits that were masculine, I'd be willing to bet that in the average American evangelical

00:35:08.820 church, if we just got rid of the top two labels where it says femininity and masculinity, and we

00:35:16.100 just took the feminine traits and said, would you want your male pastor to embody these traits? I

00:35:22.940 think they'd say, yes. And then if we took the masculine ones and just took off a label where

00:35:27.900 it says masculine and took those traits and say, do you want the young women in your church to be

00:35:32.740 discipled um with an emphasis on these things i think they'd say where have you been let's get

00:35:39.220 you at the next conference circuit would you agree with that absolutely i mean everybody wants women

00:35:45.300 to be fierce you know all over the town you have to be fierce but nobody wants a man to be fierce

00:35:52.600 and in fact fierce in a man would be incredibly like that's insulting i can't you know that you

00:35:58.980 would call a man fierce as a insult you know you're being way too fierce or you know whatever

00:36:03.920 but yeah absolutely I think it's it's uh very noticeable how much that's the case yeah we would

00:36:11.940 want women to be competitive like in uh not necessarily with each other nobody likes that 0.91

00:36:17.640 very much in a church but you know what I mean if she's like ultra competitive and um going after 0.99

00:36:24.100 it in the corporate world or whatever everybody would be like you go girl and they'd probably 0.95

00:36:29.180 pull the man aside and say he's not spending enough time with his wife or something you know

00:36:35.200 like it's this very you're right I think we we definitely are watering the weeds and weeding out

00:36:41.600 the vegetables and yeah yeah I think you're right so with that being said you know you and I both

00:36:48.260 believe that God calls not all men but some men who are biblically qualified to be pastors and

00:36:53.540 that he does not call women to be pastors.

00:36:57.100 So pastors, I think that's part of the problem is if pastors are men,

00:37:04.500 but pastors aren't just, right, the male elders of a church,

00:37:08.120 they're not just pastors of half the congregation.

00:37:10.800 It's not like we're the pastors of the men, and then we have our women's ministry,

00:37:14.080 and that's how you get, you know, the leader of the women's ministry

00:37:16.960 becomes a pseudo-elder in the church over half of the congregation,

00:37:20.060 namely the women, and it gets divisive. And then all of a sudden, you know, like husbands and wives

00:37:25.400 start having, you know, problems and dissension in their marriage. And it's because the women's 1.00

00:37:29.380 leader and their male pastors who are abdicating that responsibility. So we believe that, you know,

00:37:33.760 God calls men to be pastors. I know we've talked about this before. And I know that you would

00:37:38.520 agree that God calls those pastors to pastor the whole flock and not just half of the flock. So I,

00:37:44.380 you know, if I'm a pastor, I'm the pastor of the women in my church, as well as the men. And so

00:37:48.700 what is something that male pastors can do to combat some of these unbiblical expressions and

00:37:58.140 effects of feminism in their local churches? Right. Well, that's kind of a funny, it's kind 0.98

00:38:04.740 of a funny question in that, because I don't think women ought to run the church. I also don't think 1.00

00:38:11.480 the women ought to be bossing the pastors around about what they ought to do. But that said, 1.00

00:38:15.580 I do see things that you know pastors are doing um where I would think the one thing is don't be

00:38:23.500 scared of the women because I think that's kind of what motivates this a lot of the time

00:38:28.820 is they're they're scared of the backlash because I do think that when women get offended

00:38:37.360 it definitely is a gift that keeps on giving you know I mean like it's just really hard

00:38:44.800 to get through that and i think there are some pastors that are gun shy about it because they

00:38:49.760 don't want to upset the women so i feel like that's kind of the first thing would be to not

00:38:56.560 be scared of them but i think kind of paired with that there's a version there's the kind of like

00:39:02.620 um i don't know the beth more kind of women's ministries thing where it sounds like that's

00:39:09.420 kind of more what you're describing where a woman who's so dynamic and she's just got all the women

00:39:14.320 eating out of her hand and then they kind of tend to go off in a direction that's not great um from

00:39:21.460 you know authority perspectives um there's that but i think there's a really funny other version

00:39:28.240 of it which is where um you have people on the other side of the fence they're not likely to go

00:39:34.480 that way but they still want to call in a woman to do the dirty work for them of telling them not 0.97

00:39:42.260 to be feminists sort of if this makes sense I say this like what like what I'm doing right now

00:39:47.320 is that is that what you're hinting at no I think I think that it is like trying to trying to outsource

00:39:56.060 the the message because if it comes from a woman then they can't accuse me of you know being a

00:40:04.420 whatever misogynist or something and so I I have seen that before where it's like it's this funny

00:40:11.960 thing of like we believe that men should be the pastors but then you get the woman to go out there

00:40:17.020 and say the inflammatory thing and then you know the pastor's like you go girl um preach it sort of

00:40:24.060 and that's this kind of like that's what i mean about not being afraid of the women and i think

00:40:29.360 that if you have godly women they actually want to have teaching you know from yes a male pastor

00:40:37.540 and they want it to be biblical and they want it to be convicting and you know they want to confess

00:40:42.420 their sins and they want to be growing in faithfulness so it's not insulting to women

00:40:47.260 you know what i mean like it actually shouldn't be insulting to women to preach on feminine sin

00:40:52.980 um not that that should be every sermon but you know what i mean like i but i do feel like like

00:40:58.740 paul is very clear about saying and women you need to do this and men you ought to remember that

00:41:04.380 and I think that many churches are very comfortable preaching against the men

00:41:09.520 really you know like hard teaching for the man hard teaching for the men but then whenever

00:41:15.080 there's anything difficult to say to the women they just don't want to go there but the thing

00:41:19.500 is it's like a godly woman wants that and she wants to hear that and so I think if you have

00:41:26.260 a congregation full of women who won't hear you then that just shows you you've got a really

00:41:31.840 deeply unhealthy congregation so um it it could be ugly but but you know what i mean about trying

00:41:39.640 to get the woman to be the hit man for you sort of like i totally i totally know what you mean

00:41:43.880 sort of pastors who would never preach on it from the pulpit so what they'll try to do is

00:41:49.060 is like see if they could get the women to organize a book study somewhere so that they

00:41:55.260 could kind of yeah you know what i mean where there's that kind of plausible deniability

00:41:58.640 or something right and then the but the problem is that the pastor by doing that he's already

00:42:03.580 defeated himself and not and not really just himself but more importantly he's defeated the

00:42:08.820 word of god he's already basically what what's communicated in that is that the ultimate authority

00:42:13.180 doesn't rest on the word the ultimate authority it's not the message it's the messenger and so

00:42:18.240 we've already you know that same kind of logic you know well i mean it's just completely uh in

00:42:23.700 contradiction to you know what paul would say for instance to timothy let no one despise you

00:42:27.560 because of your youth. Yes, there's something to be said for being qualified, able to teach.

00:42:32.520 And I think more often than not, growing in an ability to teach the Bible does often come with

00:42:39.700 things like experience and time and wisdom. So, you know, you can make an argument from prudence

00:42:45.940 and a practical argument that more often than not, nine times out of 10, an older man is going to be 0.99

00:42:52.900 probably a better Bible teacher and therefore more authoritative, but he doesn't bear more

00:42:59.540 authority, for instance, than a younger man by virtue, merely by virtue of his age. It's only

00:43:05.060 because with that age, that particular man used those years to know the Bible. The authority is

00:43:11.140 always coming from the Bible. And so whether it's old versus young or, well, that guy can't speak

00:43:15.740 to marriage because he's single, you know, like, well, what do you do with Jesus and the apostle

00:43:20.180 Paul, you know, and, and, and in this particular case, we're talking about, you know, whether

00:43:23.880 it's old versus young or married versus single, we're talking about men versus women.

00:43:28.320 And so I think when a pastor does that, I, I, I think that's one of the problems that

00:43:32.180 I see is that he is, he is subtly and, and without words, he is subconsciously discipling

00:43:39.960 his congregation, both the men and the women, um, that, that ultimate authority in the church

00:43:45.000 of God comes from something else besides God's work. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a huge,

00:43:51.600 a huge problem. And what you were saying about the, you know, the backlash from the women and 1.00

00:43:56.040 those kinds of things, I completely agree with you. And I think part of the problem is, you know, 0.99

00:44:00.200 the pastor, you know, we know that the antidote to the fear of men or the pastor who's struggling

00:44:06.080 with the fear of women, you know, but the fear of man, the antidote to the fear of man is the fear

00:44:10.900 of God. And so sadly, I think part of what we see is we see many men in our pulpits today who don't

00:44:15.640 fear God. And so we need pastors to grow in the fear of God. But I think that's part of the

00:44:21.980 solution is pastors don't be afraid of the women in your church and preach courageously. But then

00:44:28.360 also part of the solution is those women's husbands. It's not all just the pastor. Part of

00:44:33.280 the reason why I think pastors are afraid is because they know that there may be some women

00:44:38.520 in the church who, you know, are going to react and be frustrated and disgruntled, and they suspect

00:44:48.380 that their husbands will not deal with it. Absolutely. Well, I think that's what I mean by

00:44:55.840 if you have that legitimate fear that I can't, I can't preach on that because the women will all 1.00

00:45:02.940 whatever that's what I mean about you have a wildly unhealthy congregation because you can't 0.97

00:45:09.920 have that situation without it meaning that you have a really kind of diseased bunch of family 0.91

00:45:16.320 units all together because you can't have all the women react to something like that and have 1.00

00:45:22.600 everything be good at home you know so I think that's absolutely true that it has to be the

00:45:28.520 husbands as well and I think too like having a high view of women because um I think that the 1.00

00:45:36.600 whole feminist thing is so patronizing of you know so patronizing to women and so like have 1.00

00:45:43.020 the expectation that the women in your church can handle stuff like that you know what I mean like 1.00

00:45:48.260 because to act like you have to treat them with kid gloves and you have to tiptoe around them and 0.76

00:45:52.480 you have to walk on eggshells and never say something that might ruffle their feathers like 0.85

00:45:58.120 that's actually a really insulting view of women that like they can't handle it if somebody says

00:46:04.760 you know it's sadly true but we should be better than that and I feel like um expect more you know

00:46:12.860 of the women and the ones who really are hungry for truth and they want to pursue righteousness

00:46:18.120 they will rise to that they really will but um we live in such a victim happy culture that you know

00:46:25.700 You could just have people convicted of emotional abuse just for reading what Paul wrote, you know, like, it's just, yeah.

00:46:35.340 And so I think having a high enough view of the women in your congregation that you can do it without talking down to them, you know, which is what I really think this is.

00:46:48.820 Like when you act like we're such a tender, vulnerable group over here that we want, we can't bear to hear a man speak to us.

00:46:57.560 It has to be a very emotive woman who's going to come alongside of us and hold our hand.

00:47:02.580 Like that's so embarrassing. And it's just, it's just such a low view of, of women and what women are capable of. 0.94

00:47:10.640 And I think the women's ministry, the whole women's ministry thing can perpetuate this, this view that we're like this perpetually needy group of people who never managed to get out of that state.

00:47:28.780 Like we're always needy and we always have to be ministered to.

00:47:32.500 And it used to be that women's ministries were the women ministering, you know, it's like the women who were feeding people.

00:47:40.080 the women who were clothing people, the women who were, they were producing and they were giving,

00:47:45.340 and they were a part of the church body in that way. But now women's ministries means 0.93

00:47:49.220 all the women in the church are apparently this basket case that needs ministering too. 0.90

00:47:54.840 So we all have to cluster around and, and, you know, monitor them 24 seven. 1.00

00:48:00.220 And I just feel like that's, it's just a sad view of women. 0.99

00:48:04.660 Yep. I agree. I remember your sister saying the very same thing, saying that women's ministry 1.00

00:48:08.940 used to be women ministering shoulder to shoulder work, right? And then women's ministry became

00:48:15.180 all about women ministering to each other face to face. And just kind of like, we're just,

00:48:22.060 you know, we're just telling each other what we want to hear and oh, you poor thing. And,

00:48:26.820 but you're right. I think it is patronizing. I think it is demeaning that it almost is kind of

00:48:31.300 like, um, just a barely a step up, if even that from like children's church. And I, and I know

00:48:37.300 your your conviction you know with family integrated worship and that that would be my

00:48:40.860 conviction as well um but i think i i like there was an article that john piper wrote advocating

00:48:45.840 for children being um in church right because i mean that's if i if i said the conviction as

00:48:51.080 simple as possible you know people like well explain to me why are you against children's

00:48:54.620 ministry and i said my conviction is very simple i think that children should go to church that's

00:48:58.560 it because when we ship them off to another room that's you know it's it's a christian child care

00:49:04.000 you know and there might be a christian lesson and it's run hopefully by christians you know but

00:49:08.280 it's not church because because the bible is very clear about what church is the church is

00:49:12.460 uh the ordinary means of grace are being administered on the lord's day there's the

00:49:16.640 lord's supper we're preaching the word publicly preaching the word publicly praying the word

00:49:20.820 publicly singing the word and public publicly seeing s-e-e-i-n-g the word in the sacraments

00:49:26.340 of the lord's supper and baptism and if our children aren't a part of that then you know

00:49:30.660 we wonder why they fall away from the faith. Um, and part of it is maybe because every Sunday

00:49:35.100 morning we sent them somewhere else other than church. And now that they're 18 years old,

00:49:39.080 they're actually going to church for the first time in their lives and they never got to go

00:49:42.740 with mom and dad. So anyways, Piper wrote an article on that. And I think he has like nursery,

00:49:46.700 kind of like a hybrid kind of thing, which I would be fine with, but about four years old,

00:49:51.280 I think at Bethlehem, you know, um, that's when the, okay, you know, it's time, it's time to go

00:49:55.860 church. And so with, with that, he wrote an article because it's, you know, it's a foreign 0.86

00:50:00.600 concept for American Christians in our evangelical world today. It's like, well, our kids can't sit

00:50:07.180 through a sermon. Our kids can't do this. They can't do that. And Piper, you know, it was really

00:50:11.600 good. He said like, there are some, some things that, that we have child, like a child version

00:50:17.200 of, you know, where it's like, all right, that child's not ready for this. So we give them that,

00:50:22.680 you know like like food right like you know six months we're going to give them avocado and we're

00:50:26.940 not going to give them you know a a medium rare steak you know and so like there are some things

00:50:31.860 where it's like we give but then there are other things in god's world that he created that there

00:50:36.240 is no child version of there's and i love this it was he said there's no such thing as children's

00:50:40.660 thunder right there's not like here's adult thunder yeah and for kids here's children no

00:50:47.160 there's just thunder and and if you're four years old the beauty is like all right you're you're

00:50:51.880 going to get the same thunder that mom and dad are going to get, but you can get it while

00:50:54.880 you're, while sitting in mom and dad's lap, you know, and, and, and, and, uh, but, but

00:50:59.680 it's, it's, it's, uh, there's just these things that are, they, they strike awe in our hearts

00:51:04.820 and that's what the Lord's day is.

00:51:06.600 And, and, and if, if thunder, you know, is one of those things, and certainly, um, the

00:51:11.080 word preached and the word, you know, should be one of those things that the, you know,

00:51:14.680 the weekly Lord's day thunder from Mount Sinai, the mountain shakes and the kids of Israel

00:51:20.240 there and they witness it and mom and dad hold them tight you know and but it's good for them 0.87

00:51:25.100 to be there so all that back to women my point is the women's ministry like now praise god i'm not

00:51:31.280 aware of any church that like does it as a substitute for sunday morning where like the

00:51:35.300 women go into another room but but it's it it it can be kind of like hey um here's here's big boy

00:51:42.740 church and, and here's this, you know, this, this dumbed down, you know, uh, softer, sweeter thing

00:51:52.140 for you. And, and I, so I'm saying all that to say, I agree with you. If I, if I was a woman,

00:51:56.900 I would probably be offended by that. I think I would find that offensive.

00:52:01.740 It really is. It really is. And the thing is, is that Paul is also clear that older women are

00:52:06.860 supposed to teach the younger women, some things like, I don't think the pastor needs to get in

00:52:12.420 the weeds to talk about meal planning you know like he doesn't have to he doesn't have to patronize

00:52:18.080 in that way either right i mean he teaches from the pulpit on the you know the things that pertain

00:52:23.860 to the flock but he does say you know like older women teach the younger woman this calling that

00:52:29.680 you have like you know like this is something that you can learn from other women and stuff

00:52:33.940 so there's it's not like women aren't supposed to go off you know and perfect their craft it's just

00:52:40.400 that that's a it's a very specific thing it's a very practical thing that he's telling the women

00:52:44.760 to teach the younger women which is interesting too to me because it kind of presupposes that

00:52:50.240 this is not just a no-brainer and everybody knows how and oh my gosh you know what could you ever

00:52:54.880 find to do it's like this is actually something that you can learn you can get better better at 0.97

00:52:59.560 and so forth and of course go to the older women for that kind of advice don't go to your pastor

00:53:05.820 for that. I'm glad you said that because Titus 2, a lot of times we use that in the American 0.84

00:53:13.540 evangelical church to say, well, there's a precedence for women teaching women. So, okay,

00:53:17.300 so a woman can't teach men, but women can't teach women. But what I think we miss, and you just said 0.93

00:53:22.820 it, is Titus 2 talks about women teaching women, but it talks about women teaching women particular

00:53:28.520 things. And so we take that to just say like, all right, like we're going to have this separate

00:53:33.720 women's event where a woman teacher is going to come in and teach theology proper, you know,

00:53:39.680 or teach on the Trinity or teach on, and not saying that a woman couldn't do that. Um, but, 0.96

00:53:43.860 but my thought is just what, why, why, why can't the pastors of a church, when I think of theology

00:53:49.360 proper, I think, I think that the proper context for teaching about, you know, the, the, the nature

00:53:55.060 of God and the, you know, that, um, would, would be the pastors of the church and, and that they

00:54:00.620 would be teaching that to both the men and the women so when i think of like so what is a separate

00:54:05.680 context you know where women need to be be specifically taught something that that it

00:54:11.400 doesn't make sense to have the men there it's it's it's the specifics it's not theology proper

00:54:17.160 it's not the gospel now now a woman could say and this is how the gospel works into this you know

00:54:22.180 but but it is some of the things that like like what you're it's it's how to love your husband

00:54:26.720 how to love your kids meal prep things things like that and it feels like talking shop is what

00:54:32.300 that seems like you know and and i do think that some some of the titus 2 stuff can start to get

00:54:39.180 um it can start to get very meta because you have you have like women who get together with

00:54:46.720 the lexicons and they're going to unpack the greek and we're going to talk about the cultural context

00:54:52.500 we're just talking about the nuances of this and what are the implications but like that's super

00:54:58.300 weird because what the verse is actually saying is hey i'm going to teach you how to make strudel

00:55:02.860 you know or whatever like come over and i'll teach you how to make homemade pasta or something and so

00:55:08.720 it's kind of like you know we studied everything about the verse except for what the verse actually

00:55:14.320 meant you know what i mean like it can just start to get you get this whole thing where it's like

00:55:19.720 swirling around the actual issue but at no point in there are the older women actually teaching the

00:55:24.840 younger women the actual specifics of what paul said to teach you know and it's for the very

00:55:30.500 for the very reason that you mentioned at the very beginning of our episode

00:55:33.960 um it's because we we think that those things don't have value like that that's that's why

00:55:40.240 like because i'm just thinking you know put trying to put myself in the shoes of of you know one of

00:55:44.780 our listeners as you're saying like you know meal plan or strudel and i'm just thinking like the

00:55:49.420 the average person in the church, including men,

00:55:51.820 because I find myself even doing it like kind of cringes like, Oh,

00:55:54.780 don't say that Becca. Don't, you know, like that's, that's,

00:55:58.660 that's demeaning to women when it's like, no, I'm demeaning women. I, 0.94

00:56:03.160 you know, by saying, by saying that the,

00:56:05.180 the time and the effort that's spent in creating a home and,

00:56:09.320 and nourishing children and making meals. And that like, that I,

00:56:15.080 you know, even in my heart, I still, there's, there's a,

00:56:17.800 there's a part of me that said, well, don't say that because, because, um, people find that

00:56:21.740 offended, offensive. Well, they shouldn't find it offensive. It's incredibly valuable work.

00:56:25.620 I know. And it's, it's very funny to me because everybody kind of recognizes the importance of,

00:56:35.160 um, you know, like a food culture, you know, like, like everybody thinks it's so amazing.

00:56:42.100 If you go to Tuscany and you experience the regional cuisine of whatever, and,

00:56:47.180 you know like it feels very cool everybody wants to have an Italian grandma who makes this

00:56:52.180 incredible whatever and we all you know everybody like knows that but at the same time like we've

00:56:59.040 lost it completely in our own culture and we have to travel somewhere else to get it or I mean just

00:57:05.500 as a random thing I think it's really weird that now like regional cuisine would be dictated by

00:57:13.140 restaurants and not by moms at home you know like if you think about places like italy or whatever

00:57:20.540 where they have centuries of tradition here um and yeah you know what i mean like this has been

00:57:28.180 going on long enough that i know about this right now because i'm throwing a a dinner party on

00:57:33.880 friday which is the different courses or different regions of italy so i have been looking into this

00:57:38.760 there's there's a pasta sauce that is like specific to this one village near rome and it's

00:57:44.640 been this for a thousand years and there's huge controversies over whether you can put an onion

00:57:49.860 in it okay it's like this is a whole thing and and that is something that is uh was developed

00:57:58.860 in the home this is women who were making these things or you know like the specific noodle shapes

00:58:03.540 that are specific to that region or the other one or you know whatever but this is something that 0.94

00:58:08.000 the women made and the women created and they made something very powerful that everybody would 0.98

00:58:13.700 want to go and experience right but like here um if if you travel anywhere in the states and they

00:58:19.580 say oh hey you need to you definitely need to taste what we do here it's going to be chick-fil-a

00:58:25.480 or something it's going to be like you know what i mean like right like it is it is it's become

00:58:31.300 industrialized and it's something that like where in america would you have a regional cuisine that

00:58:37.380 is something that was came from the home in a home i mean it's just not that's a really interesting

00:58:43.340 point i i didn't even think about that yeah and it's sad thinking like if we don't if we don't

00:58:50.360 redeem that thinking like about my children or grandchildren like you said you know everybody

00:58:55.800 knows about that italian grandma but our children won't you know like if if we don't get that back

00:59:03.880 All right. Well, great episode. I really appreciate your time. Let's go ahead and wrap up. Could you just tell our listeners how they can follow you, how they can keep up with your ministry, what you're doing, and maybe even recommend, I just thought of this as you were talking, what's a good practical book, a good cookbook or something like that that you could recommend if we have some women listening and they're like, man, I want to get into some of those things.

00:59:30.340 So could you tell our listeners how to follow you and how they could get on that track?

00:59:36.040 Okay, so, well, I, gosh, I'm on Facebook and Instagram, but I rarely post.

00:59:42.900 But, you know, I'm there, just Rebecca Merkel.

00:59:45.280 But I have a podcast with my sister called What Have You.

00:59:49.020 That's probably where most of the stuff, you know, comes out.

00:59:53.160 And I apologize in advance to anyone who listens to it.

00:59:56.960 It's a little bit reckless.

00:59:58.940 um so and we talk about a lot of this kind of stuff um there um so what have you it's just

01:00:06.620 wherever you wherever you find podcasts I think you can find it um and then what was the other

01:00:14.000 thing you asked oh yeah like a cookbook or something something that you know what are some

01:00:19.520 good resources yeah golly I I mean so many cookbooks really I have one currently that I'm

01:00:28.400 enjoying. It's just a really beautiful cookbook, but it's called Old World Italian. And that one

01:00:34.360 just goes through lots of regional specialties. But gosh, I would just say start getting them and

01:00:39.080 reading them and actually try to get good at what you do. I mean, because you have to do it every

01:00:45.300 single day. You have to feed people every single day. So why not get good at it? Why not perfect

01:00:50.620 your craft instead of just kind of slapping out a casserole every night? You know, the world is

01:00:55.880 full of opportunities here and so I would just say just try to expand your horizons a little bit

01:01:01.700 because you're never going to get it all like you're never going to exhaust have exhausted

01:01:06.860 the possibilities and so like I've had um I don't know I read this book on cheese that was just

01:01:13.720 completely fascinating but it was just a bunch of different cheeses or um one that was a breakfast

01:01:20.820 cookbook I can't even remember what chef that was now and you might only come away with one thing

01:01:25.000 that you know was great but um but it just it's like it shows you where to look and and it's kind

01:01:31.980 of like you know you start unraveling the sweater and you just kind of keep pulling it and and it'll

01:01:37.640 that will lead you to another one and that will lead you to another one and honestly I think we

01:01:41.180 live in it's just an embarrassment of riches right now where seriously you can just start

01:01:47.920 following people on Instagram and you can learn a lot because you can either use Instagram as

01:01:53.680 basically your documentation of selfies and trying to see how many likes you can get you know like

01:02:00.780 this is all about me this is all inwardly focused I'm just trying to like get people to follow me

01:02:05.760 for I'm not sure what reason but just because you can do that or you can treat it as like it's

01:02:10.820 actually kind of a huge resource like start following artists and and try and get good at

01:02:16.080 that or start following chefs or start following decorators or start like there is so much scope

01:02:21.660 in the home that if you're bored it really is your fault like it really is because there's there's

01:02:28.180 just so much that you could be doing so yeah great i know i i know a little bit of what you're

01:02:33.600 talking about because right now we're planting a new church i've moved i grew up in texas was

01:02:36.800 in california for a while and moved back home to texas and so i i am pretty much my church planting

01:02:42.620 strategy is building a church on the bible and barbecue and so i i uh we do a big sabbath dinner

01:02:48.600 on saturday nights and we have everybody come over it's about 20 adults and so friday night

01:02:53.240 24 hours beforehand uh all night long i'm i'm cooking brisket and so that's kind of like the

01:02:59.200 quintessential barbecue thing for texas is you know brisket and brisket is not easy i've cooked

01:03:05.080 up close to 10 now and uh and i i keep going to other barbecue restaurants for research

01:03:10.500 and i eat their their brisket and i feel like depressed and discouraged because like because

01:03:18.000 we got Franklin's over here. We got Louie Mueller. We've got, we, you know, snows. We're about 45

01:03:22.960 minutes. I don't know if you saw the, there was a Netflix, um, thing on, on, on barbecue and it

01:03:28.300 was miss Tootsie. And she's like this 84 year old woman who just like shoveling coals and doing 0.92

01:03:33.900 barbecue. And she's like 45 minutes away from us. Um, and so anyway, so we're like in barbecue 1.00

01:03:39.540 Mecca and I'm trying to, you know, make barbecue. And my wife of course is doing everything else,

01:03:45.540 You know, and I just make the meat, but, but yeah, but it makes a difference.

01:03:50.060 Like our 20 people or so they come in, in the home and it smells like barbecue and there's

01:03:55.220 wine and, you know, children are running around and laughing and playing.

01:03:58.720 And we do the big extended family worship afterwards and we sing hymns and stuff like

01:04:02.480 that, you know, similar to what you guys do with your Sabbath dinner and people want to

01:04:07.060 be a part of that.

01:04:07.840 It's attractive.

01:04:08.740 It's, and, and you see like, this was a ton of work and it's, and it has immense value

01:04:14.960 and and so yeah absolutely i think it is an incredibly powerful tool and i think that it

01:04:22.120 is not i mean if i was the devil i would have wanted to get women to abandon their posts because

01:04:28.200 i think it's incredibly potent and i think it's potent for the gospel i think it's potent for the

01:04:33.100 next generation and i think that that has been done very effectively like over the last century

01:04:40.480 I think that women have walked away from something that could be incredibly formative.

01:04:46.360 And I think if women would go back to where they were supposed to be standing and do what God told them to do with a cheerful attitude and deciding to own it and deciding to throw themselves into it rather than doing the bare minimum and feeling ripped off, I think that that is a massive tool for the gospel.

01:05:06.260 Yep. Amen.

01:05:07.400 I don't think it's a distraction at all.

01:05:09.700 Amen. 1.00

01:05:10.480 Godly women, Christian women, we can compete with Red Lobster. 0.96

01:05:13.600 It's not that hard. 1.00

01:05:14.680 We can beat them.

01:05:15.480 All right.

01:05:16.220 Well, so let's go ahead and conclude this episode.

01:05:20.500 Like I told you before we started recording, we have an incentive for our club members.

01:05:24.620 And so if you're listening to the show and you're not one of our responders, that's what we call our club members, we would love for you to become one of our regular monthly supporters.

01:05:33.560 This is how we're able to continue putting out good, biblically faithful content like this.

01:05:38.420 And this particular show, Theology Applied, our goal is not just to exegete a text of scripture and keep it in the abstract, but to apply theology and to every single area of life.

01:05:49.860 We like Francis Schaeffer and his seven mountains, not just the church, not just the home, but also the civil sphere and also education and the market and vocation and all these different things.

01:05:59.900 And so we want to be really practical.

01:06:01.500 I think this episode was a great example of that.

01:06:03.980 If you've been blessed by it, you want to support the ministry, become one of our responders.

01:06:07.720 And one of the incentives that you'll receive is access to our bonus content.

01:06:11.500 And so each one of our guests on Theology Applied, they stay on with me for the bonus hours for our club members only, our responders.

01:06:18.520 And the question that I'm going to be asking Becca is this. 0.99

01:06:22.320 Titus 2 speaks to the importance of women working at home. 0.96

01:06:25.180 We've discussed that a little bit on this episode.

01:06:26.860 But could you provide some simple principles for women who are considering working outside of their homes to ensure, like in some capacity, could you provide some principles for those women who are considering working outside of the home to ensure that this decision does not cause them to be in contradiction to scripture or does not cause them to compromise their primary duty in the home?

01:06:48.160 I know that you, Becca, you work outside of the home in some capacity, teaching at school.

01:06:53.160 And so I know that there's a framework for that in your view.

01:06:58.020 But could you give us some practical wisdom for that?

01:06:59.880 So that's our question.

01:07:01.120 Become a responder if you want to hear Becca's answer.

01:07:03.880 All that being said, Becca, I'll give you the final word.

01:07:07.100 Any final thoughts that you want to close with or you feel good?

01:07:11.140 I feel good about it, yeah.

01:07:12.900 just just uh do what god told you to do and it won't turn out that you're being ripped off i 0.81

01:07:18.960 think that's the key is i think a lot of women are afraid that if they do what god said to do

01:07:23.640 that they're going to be sent basically to siberia you know it's like i guess i'm going to have to go

01:07:29.800 do the horrible dull terrible thing and that's really not what god's called us to at all so i

01:07:36.420 think trust him and obey and it won't turn out to be a bad surprise so amen great thanks for coming

01:07:43.580 on the show yeah thank you as a special thank you for your gift of any amount we'll be happy

01:07:50.320 to send you a free digital book from our store to access this offer visit right response ministries

01:07:56.040 dot com slash offer we highly recommend pastor joel's book am i truly saved if you or someone

01:08:02.420 you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.

01:08:07.280 As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.com

01:08:10.800 slash offer. And thank you for your generous support.

The NXR Podcast - May 19, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Feminism Destroyed

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