Episode 286 - Heather Matthews

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes total sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Well, I am so grateful to welcome my guest to the podcast today, Heather Matthews. She has written a wonderful book called Confronting Sexism in the How We Got Here and what We Can Do About It. And, Heather, there were so many things that I really appreciated about this book. The thing that I appreciated, and at the same time, I'm going, how many of us are there? Is these similarities between what you shared about your story and what my lived experience is. I had the same feelings when I was reading the beginnings of Beth Alison Barr's book, and it just keeps going. I'm just seeing women who feel a call to ministry, who were raised up in an SBC or SBC adjacent community or environment, and then having their call, question, and, you know, all of these things. And so I'm grateful for you to share your story. And at the same time, part of it feels a bit fatiguing. [00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, there's so many women, similar stories, so many that I've talked to, I think, our age and probably older and younger, who have been frustrated in their call to ministry, trying to navigate that space when they're not always welcome. So, yeah, the story is way too common, which is mostly why I wrote the book. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Well, that's. I mean, that's a great start. Is I. I think that what you've done here in, you know, combining some of the historical experiences, historical aspects of sexism in the church, combined with what we're seeing now and your own experience, and then also, you know, ending with, like, a vision for the future of, like, what could this look like? Or what could we do? Is really. Is really helpful and I think to have all of that context together. So if I could, I would say, you know, some of it is. It's hard to explain when you have an experience to someone who has never had that experience, whether it be maybe a male in the church or a woman who grew up in an environment where she was always welcomed and celebrated and all of that. It's very difficult to explain. Maybe a situation. You say, this happened. I can't believe this happened. This is how it is when sexism enters in. And I'm sure, maybe, like you, I've certainly got the responses of, well, that's not sexism, or that's not, you know, oh, how are you sure? Or how can you say that? But when you see the context of it and we say, yes, it is, and this isn't the first time, this is kind of a pattern. We've been seeing this in many different ways and many different. In many different realms, kind of. It helps kind of make sense of what's going on. So I appreciate what you've done there. I do want to get into your experience for sure. What I might ask you to start with is what I just alluded to, and that is where you start the book, which is with a foreword by Scott McKnight, who has, as much as I have known his work, been a champion for women in ministry in the church. So I'm curious about the inclusion of Scott's Forward. And I'm wondering if, when you read it, if you had some of the same responses as I had when I read it. [00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I was so grateful that Scott wrote that Forward. And he, like you said, has been such an incredible champion for women in ministry and a champion for looking at abuse issues in the church. And I first encountered Scott in my 20s. I don't remember quite what year it was, but I was in ministry already. I'd finished seminary, and seminary had been a pretty difficult experience. And I read his book the Blue Parakeet, and it was the first time I felt like somebody actually understood what I had gone through as a woman in seminary and in these evangelical spaces. It was the first time I felt. Seen that somebody actually saw the difficulties that I was going through. And so from that point, I've stayed in touch off and on with Scott, and he's been a really great encourager of me and my work, and so super grateful for him to write that forward. And the women that he talks about in the Ford, some of his seminary students here in the ch Chicago suburbs. I've gotten to know some of them, and they also are amazing women that have similar stories like us, that they've struggled in different ways in their journey into ministry. So it's Scott's great, and he's been such a great supporter of so many women like us. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I was. I was really kind of taken aback by some of what he said, and even in his admission that, you know, oh, man, I have been guilty of mansplaining, or I have been on the opposite side of the things that the women have talked about. And I think that's. But you know, that's what it takes for all of us to be able to kind of sometimes experience that tension, kind of rub up against each other the wrong way and be like, hey, you know, and then hit and then work to repair that and learn from our mistakes and things like that. And so I think that's part of what struck me. And we'll get to that later. Also in this episode, I hope is kind of the part that men can play in confronting, as you put it in the title, in confronting sexism in the church and how this isn't just up to a woman or up to women to figure out. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a huge part. [00:06:42] Speaker A: So let's, let's go back and I say this as someone who took the minimum amount of church history classes that were required of me in my M. Div. So admittedly I am not a history buff, but I do, I do appreciate, as I mentioned, the context that you bring to the book. So I'm just going to leave this one pretty open ended and say, so let's just talk a little bit about the history of sexism in the church and again, leave it wide open. I don't know, pick your favorite or least favorite church father. You know, pick your favorite or least favorite time frame or maybe what sticks out to you as something being like really significant that still impacts us today. Maybe you can see a direct thread. [00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah, this was really interesting for me to study as well for this book. I'm not a historian either. I didn't take a lot of church history in seminary either. And certainly the history of women or sexism wasn't talked about in any seminary classes. So this was fun to me for me to learn about as well. I think the interesting part about looking at sexism and how over the years women have been restricted in what they can do in the church is it's, it's been there almost from the very beginning. I think we can see in the Bible, in the New Testament, in the early church, that women were doing, administering in many different ways and in leadership roles. But by the time the church was institutionalized in the early centuries, women began to be restricted in what they could do. And from early on, women were seen as inferior to men and sexually dangerous. And those are the threads that have continued through all of church history pretty much. And I think we still are dealing with those issues today as well. And Beth Barr talks about this in her book at how in different ways, in each stage of church history, there's been new ways that women have been kept silent or out of leadership. And it's looked differently through time. But the, the threat has been the same, that women have been limited and what they can do in the church. And so I think some of the interesting history is recent history, I think, with the way things are in the evangelical church now. We've been taught that this is the way it is. This is traditional Christian belief that has always been part of the church. And yet that's not true. The, the issues of gender roles and complementarianism, these are new issues in the church that have come about in the last 50 years and are connected to our political situation in this country. And so I think understanding our history and how this is all developed is super important so that we can understand how to move forward and how to deal with these things in church. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I have, I think as I've looked at that as well, some of the things that I'll just share for myself, some of the things that have impacted me are kind of two different, two different lines that don't jive, but they are often used together and they work toward the same goal, which is the limiting, the restriction and the oppression of women. One of them is, when I learned of Tertullian, I was like, ah, I blame him. He became. He became the patristic that I, that I blame. But it's more common than just him, which is the lie that women are ontologically inferior, that we just, by God's divine design are less than and not capable of certain things that men are allowed to do that we weren't assigned that. And that's kind of the bridge, I think, that we weren't assigned that we're ontologically less than. And then the, and then the other thing that I think that you brought up that is different, but it's used in the same way is no, no, no, no, no. Complementarianism says we are not. We're not ontologically, you know, there's not a difference in our inferior superiority. But at the same time, men were assigned the role of being leader, of being head. That's a very popular, obviously, term. And so they both work towards that hierarchicalism, but they do so in different ways because I think most complementarian, you know, folks who are like really kind of dyed in the wool in that would completely disagree with that ontological inferiority, and they would say, absolutely no way. But then you, when you ask the question, okay, well then why couldn't a woman do X, Y or Z? Well, because the divine design says, you know, then you go, okay, well then I'm confused. But anyway, yeah, so I think you know all that to say from my experience, I've seen those. But you're right, it's kind of looked different in different, you know, eras in history and kind of depending on the different traditions. It's looked different. But I think one of the things is the insistence to say, but this has always been the way it is. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think what you're just saying is important point. This argument that women are inferior has been there for a long time, but then it's at a certain point in recent history it was no longer okay to say that women are inferior. So we have this new argument that, that we're equal but have different roles, but the result is still the same, that women are limited in what they can do in the church. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, we're going to, I would say I, I won't use the language that we're going to pick on the church today, but the name of the book is Confronting Sexism in the Church. But the church is not unique, unfortunately, in sexism in the US culture, which is what you and I are both most familiar with. Sexism exists, I would argue, everywhere. Yeah, like everywhere. And you do have some sections on that. So I'm interesting, I'm interested if you would elaborate a little bit on like what you saw when you were studying kind of these aspects of sex sexism in the broader culture. And then also like, how does that compare? How does some of those areas. I know we can't cover all of them, but how do some of those areas compare what we see in the broader culture versus what we see in church or Christian ministry settings. [00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah, certainly sexism is everywhere and everywhere you look and in various different sectors. Obviously you can see it in the political realm right now with our recent presidential election with our. Many people are hoping for our first female president. We have an elected man now who has been accused of sexual assault and misogyny. So it's very clearly still part of our culture. But if you look in business or government or education, all the numbers for equal employment and equal pay and all those factors that show whether there's equality between men and women. Men are still ahead in most areas, though. Women have really gained a lot of ground in the last 50 years. And some people might even say women are doing better than men now. There's more women going to college and graduating with degrees and moving into higher paying jobs at a faster rate. But still in most Sectors, men hold the higher positions and are higher paid. And obviously there's issues like sexual assault and abuse and intimate partner violence. All these things that women have to deal with that are based on sexism being part of our culture and men trying to take authority over women. These are all still part of our culture. I think the interesting thing is, especially in business and government and places like that, that there's a real will to make change. People believe that sexism is not good and that women and men should have equality. So there's been real progress and real intentional effort in so many different ways to raise women up in the workplace and then the secular families and places like that. But there hasn't been quite the same intentional effort and will inside the church and especially inside the evangelical church, because our beliefs about this, many people's beliefs about this are theological, that men should have authority over women and men should be the head. And so it really makes the church and leaders not see why this is important and take intentional steps towards addressing it when women in the church are dramatically affected by these issues. And it's worth the church's attention. [00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I, you know, there were a couple of things that came to mind while you were sharing. One was earlier this week, I was chatting with an acquaintance and he was telling me about a little bit about his job, and he works for an international company that has expanded into the US and he was talking a little bit about how that's been pretty interesting because the way that the company expanded, that the US Was one of the more recent countries that they have offices in and things like that. And so the progressive nature of just some of the workplace policies and things like that of the company have not really been well received in the US but especially in Texas. I'm, I'm in Texas. We were, we were in Texas talking about this, and he said that the company had a goal in the next, you know, decade or so to have of this, you know, whatever leadership level it was and above, to have it be 60% women by that point. And, and I thought, wow, I've never even, you know, heard of such a goal. And it reminded me of the, of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote that you have in the book that probably many have heard, you know, when people ask her, asked her how many, you know, women would be enough on the Supreme Court or something like that. And she said nine, but that no one would. No one balked when they were nine men, you know. And so I, you know, I often say I'm not going to Ask for nine. But I do think it's a good thought experiment, you know, to say, no, no one had a problem when it was, when it was nine men. I don't think it would be a bad corrective to have nine women. I think that there are reasons why. And you, you quote the Dixons in your, in your book, and they were on the podcast earlier this year. And I think about men and, you know, they talk a lot about men and women, women together in ministry and flourishing together in ministry. And I think that is, you know, the goal. But, you know, the same, okay, 60% women in leadership or nine women on the Supreme Court. People freak out. [00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:43] Speaker A: When you say stuff like that, people totally freak out. And then, you know, when you were talking about how the church has been kind of behind, I mean, something I'm going to throw out there. We don't have to, we don't have to go there. But I would say from my own experience, I often say, but this is how I was discipled as a woman. And, and I, I won't get into my, you know, my whole story, but I would say this isn't how I was raised in my home, in, in my, you know, I sometimes talk with my, Tell my girls, like, what would, what do you think if someone would tell my mom that they're like, she wouldn't, you know, she wouldn't handle that. I'm like, yeah, exactly. So I often say I wasn't raised that way in my home, but I was youth grouped that way and I was discipled in my college ministry in that way and in my early adulthood and my church experiences. And so I just think it is interesting and I put myself in that category of when we say the church has been slow to embrace some of these changes that we see, maybe, you know, the, the broader culture being willing to do it also, I think just stands to, to, to name that women in, many women in the church just have been discipled into this theology that, that would also resist some of those changes. And, and women, including myself, for a long time would have said, would have resisted that. No, I'm not sure, you know, because, and I think I'll speak for myself completely on this. Some of the things that I was, that I was discipled into, some of the beliefs were this is what is pleasing to God, you know, that a woman would stay in these particular roles and the fact that those roles include a hierarchy where she is less than was expected to be accepted by men and women in the church. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's my story too. These were just the common beliefs that I grew up with in my church and my college ministry in seminary by the people that were in my circles of friends and mentors. And so it was normal and I thought the way that you were Christian and I think that's what a lot of people and evangelical churches believe now too, that this is just the way that we are Christian and part of our core beliefs. But it wasn't until like we talked about already, it wasn't until my early adulthood in my 20s that I started to question this and realize, wait, there's actually other viewpoints on this. And these views actually are really damaging to women in many ways. And I started to see that for myself and for other people. [00:21:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm, I'm totally glad you brought that up because the place I was going to ask you to go next is, you know, and I say this is important because this is like, I don't think. And I, and you would probably agree for yourself. I would guess that like I don't think any of my mentors or my, the people around me like wished me harm. You know, I think that they were really believing that they were teaching what they really believe the Bible said about women. And in evangelicalism that's really important is what does the Bible have to say about xyz, you know, whatever it is. And so that's one of the places that you tackle in the book is like the biblical pattern for this. You don't say much about these, about the passages that are often quoted that basically talk about women being silent or things like that. I'll just say, I'll just say for kicks, I've already mentioned that I'm in Texas. When I graduated with my M. Div, I, I did a quick search and I still do occasionally, you know, for part time pastoral work. Okay, what, what might that look like or whatever. And I am telling you here, we know churches are not equal opportunity employers and that is fine and I'm glad that that's protected and all of those things at the same time. You know, a lot of those job descriptions, as you can imagine, like will quote Timothy passage of you know what they want in a pastor. He, you know, we're not, we're not afraid to say the pronoun there. He will be a husband of but one wife and he will be, you know, all of these things. And you know, it's not like other job descriptions you might read for I don't know any other job in the world that might say the qualified candidate will, you know, quantum qualified candidate will have a Master of Divinity degree, you know, or something like this. And it's like, no. And there's, you know, and there's frustration there for me. And my husband gets sick of hearing it. I'm sure, as I'm like, I'm like, this doesn't say anything. It may not say anything about education, may not say anything about how many, you know, years of, you know, professional experience you've had. It may not say any of those things, but it is definitely going to be a man who fills this spot. Even if there might be a woman who is more professional, professionally qualified to be in that position where in any other sector now it happens for sure, you know, but in any other sector, maybe you'd say, well, at least it's, I don't know, it's kind of hidden. They might want a man and not say it. But in these descriptions, they say this is a, you know, we want a man. So anyways, that's a little sidebar. That's it. That's, that's all, that's all the stuff. I'll step off my soapbox now. But, you know, you don't, you don't talk as much about those problematic patterns, but I am. And people, there's a lot written as you name, there's a lot written on those. But you do talk about some of the biblical patterns. So I'm curious, you know, maybe generally about that, but also, like, what felt impactful for you, if you don't mind sharing, like in some of those ways when you felt your own evolution happening. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right. I didn't talk about those problem passages because there's so many great books out there written by theologians and scholars that tackle those passages. And they've been really helpful to me as I've been reading and trying to understand those passages. So I didn't think I needed to rewrite the work that other people are doing. But I think for me, when I first started studying this, it was seeing and understanding the whole arc of scripture that you can see as you read the whole Bible and you can see in the beginning that Adam and Eve were created as equals and partners, and both created in the image of God with the same roles after they were created and they were in relation, equal relationship with one another and with God. And it wasn't until the fall when patriarchy and sexism came into the picture when as part of the curse, man started ruling over woman and woman started relinquishing her power to. To man. So, and then that's where everything goes bad. And you can see the results of that in Scripture. But then you still see throughout Scripture that God is redeeming that. That there are strong women in a variety of different roles and positions in leadership throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, in the New Testament, in the early church, you see the pattern of Jesus and Paul working with women and in relationship with women. And Paul's the one that wrote the controversial passages, and yet the rest of his ministry doesn't hold up those passages because he's serving and working alongside women and commends women, and there's female church leaders who have authority over men. And the whole pattern of Scripture points to something different than these problem passages. And so not to mention that women are called and gifted and redeemed in the same way that men are. None of the passages about spiritual gifts ever talk about gender. And so to me, there's just so much throughout Scripture that points to the fact that men and women are both called and have equal position in the church, and all positions should be open to them. And these problem passages that we often turn to need to be interpreted in light of the bigger narrative that we see in Scripture. [00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's well said. I will say, just a side note, when you mentioned the situation with the Fall, I had a Reformed professor in my M. Div. Who obviously the Fall is a very big part of his theology. And that was one of the first places that I encountered. I will say my M. Div. Experience was very different than how you describe your M. Div. Experience. And I'm grateful for the support that I felt with students, my classmates, professors, leadership, administration, all of that for women in ministry. But this particular reform professor brought that exact same point. I just thought it was just a very interesting viewpoint how this same passage can be looked at with, you know, one group of people as saying, see, this is proof that this is the way it was supposed to be. This is the way that God created it. And then another group of Christians and theologians look at it and say, see, this is actually proof that this is not, you know, like God created this in a different way. And then something evil happened and. And this made it into the patterns that we see today. And so, you know, I. That actually felt, you know, some of my perspectives have shifted and gained and lost and nuanced and, you know, all these kinds of things since then, as I think we do, and we start to process really profound things like these. But that was super helpful for me when I was first. When I was first encountering this is. Oh, maybe this Genesis passage. The fact that it's so early in Genesis does not necessarily allude to the fact that this was how God made it, but maybe it. Maybe it points to something very different. So, anyway, I just wanted to. Just wanted to mention that this one is a really. Okay, this next question I want to ask. It feels tough, but I think that we need to talk about it. I am assuming this phrase is from. I should look at the footnotes. It's Tiffany Bloom, who has been on the podcast talking about her devotional the Women. We're waiting for something like this. I'll put it in the notes. But the phrase is probably from pray tell, I'm guessing, which is this faux egalitarianism. So we've said complementarianism and what that is. People may have heard the term egalitarianism, but. And again, this feels hard for me to call out, but I think we need to because we see it so often in the church. So what is it? What's the frustration with faux egalitarianism, especially in church leadership and white American evangelicalism? [00:30:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that term, faux egalitarianism. And Tiffany Blue, my. Her book is great. Yeah. I actually looked at this a lot in the research that I did for my doctoral ministry and the research that went into this book. There's so many places, so many churches that I was a part of where women were theoretically empowered and able to be in leadership. The churches that I. I was in, women could be pastors. And yet there was still a ceiling on what women could do. Women couldn't be senior pastors. Sometimes women can't be elders. Women still don't get to preach often. They still experience all the same kinds of implicit unconscious gender bias and sexism that is part of this male androcentric system that we're all part of. And so a lot of men in these systems feel like they are good people, they're empowering women, and many of them are good people. They're doing their best, and yet they are unaware that their egalitarianism is very surface level and it's not going all the way. They're still keeping men in power in the church and over women. And so it's very, very limited. And I think it goes along with this whole idea of soft complementarianism where men still see themselves as the leaders in the family, the caretakers of women and children, and women also look to men to be their providers and protectors. And this all seems really good on the surface. And yet it still keeps women in their place and from fully being all that God made them to be. So I think that talk about just don't even notice how this is happening in churches. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Yeah, that's true. I think from my perspective, feels. I mentioned frustrating. It feels frustrating for me because what I would say that when I've seen it, I just. I just kind of get a little feisty. I feel like, okay, that feels like lip service. You know, like, I hear you saying this and at the same time, you know, like, I hear you saying this. And when we look at the staff page, you know, everyone with pastor title is a man, and, you know, all of the directors are women or, you know, when we see this, or. Yeah, women. Are you sure that they're called to be equal? Because as you mentioned, they can't be elders and they can't be, you know, you know, senior pastors or lead pastors or, you know, and I. I don't know. I would say this is probably a. Maybe a. A sidebar conversation, but I think part of my frustration is I have seen men who hold to. And this, I would say, particularly in the SBC setting, Southern Baptist Convention, where you and I both grew up in different. In different places, but same convention where, you know, the Southern Baptist Convention is unapologetically complementarian. Like, absolutely, women are not allowed to be pastors. They big thing with that. People can Google it, look up Saddleback, you know, all that. And so I think that's where part of where that's kind of like the epitome of the frustration for me is that case study kind of that example of like, oh, my goodness, women are so amazing. They're, you know, and there's like all of this hype. And then like, at the same time, like, at the exact same time as you're saying that, you are also affirming that women are hierarchically, divinely intended to be below men in basically every sphere in, you know, including the church. And that's super frustrating for me when I see that. [00:34:18] Speaker B: I think that's a. That's a really good point. I think that happens in complementarian circles all the time where they glamorize and gush about how amazing women are and how women are spiritual leaders, and yet they don't have real authority and leadership. This is super frustrating to me. I. I share a story about this in the book as well, because it's just another one of those things that sounds good on the surface. It makes men look good and feel Good. And yet that always just leaves me perplexed because it's. It's still pushing women into this inferior position. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, agreed. We've talked a little bit about it, but I think this. This last little part that I want to ask. I want to kind of ask together, because it's kind of like. It's kind of like a few questions wrapped into one, because it's like you can't. Can't really name one without the other. So I think in naming that about the sbc, but also what we've seen in broader. In broader culture, I. I feel like. I think. I think some would argue that it's not. I feel like the evidence is, though, that the sexism that we're experiencing is systemic. It's definitely systemic. We can name denominations, you know, that in the. In the church, but I think in the broader evangelical culture, for sure. And then one of my. I always. I always blame Mark Charles on this quote. I think it is him where he says, if you want to know why at the. At the time it was something like white women are making 70 cents on the dollar to men is because the Constitution is working. Because the Constitution was written for and by white landowning men. And so when you have a question about inequality, then you can just say the Constitution is working. And so I think the systemic nature of sexism that we see in the broader secular, secular culture is also just baked in to the American experiment, if you will. So if we. If we buy into that, it's systemic, which I do. I think that you do, too, then I would say, then, then what do we do to help? But also, even given that, you know, Mark Charles quote or the SBC stuff that we've talked about and kind of wrapping it back around to Scott, you know, that we started with what, what can men do? Or, like, how important is their role in resisting this systemic sexism? You know, maybe. Maybe what you've seen in your context or what you've seen in context that you've studied for this book or for your demon, that that was impactful, that felt meaningful, that, you know, that actually made a difference. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That's a big question. Yeah, I agree. It is systemic. It's not just about people changing their hearts or having better relationship between men and women. All those. Although those are important, certainly I talk about that in the book, that a good place to start is in relationships between men and women and learning how to get along and work together. And that's certainly a big part of it. But, yeah, this is a systemic issue. It's like you said, it's baked into the cake. It's baked into our faith and structures, and it has been since almost. Since the beginning of the church. So it's not going to be. It's not a problem that's going to be easily solved or fixed. And. And when something is systemic, you have to look at everything. You have to look at our theology, you have to look at our structures, our leadership development, our seminaries are the way we interpret scripture, our church policies. You know, everything. Everything has to be looked at to address this issue from a. Because of the system, systemic nature of it. Yeah, I think men are a huge part of this. I think one of the interesting things about where we are right now, and my own interviews that I did with women is almost every woman I talked to said that it was a man who made the difference, who opened a door for them, who sponsored them in leadership, who encouraged them into ministry. And that's really just because the reality of the fact that men are in most leadership positions in the evangelical church. And so if women are going to have opportunities, if sexism is going to be addressed from the top levels, it's going to have to be men who. Who lead the way. And obviously, women have been trained to address these issues for forever. And we're not going to stop trying to do that. We're not going to stop being outspoken. But often there's a limit to what we can do on our own. And the role of male leaders and pastors is so important. And yet I think a lot of times, as we've already talked about, men don't understand how important this issue is in the church, the centrality of it, the impact that it has on women's lives. And so, you know, a lot of times I talk to other women about this issue, and I've done a few classes here at Wheaton where I work with groups of women. And usually they. They'll say, well, why are you talking to us about this? Why aren't you talking to men? Because women are on board with the changes that need to happen and understand the issues, but often it's men that don't understand the issue and don't understand what needs to be changed. And so the role of male allies who are willing to jump in, into the mess of trying to figure out a way forward are just vital parts of what needs to happen. And it's not easy. It's not an easy issue or path to move on, but I think essential if we're going to see broader changes in the church. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm. I often think about. There was a podcast that Tish Warren did years ago, I think she and her husband actually, and it was on the topic of women's ordination. And I, I had her on the podcast and kind of, you know, in a pre record moment, I was like, hey, like, is. What do you recommend? Is there something out there? And she, and she pointed me towards this episode, and I think it was in that episode that she said something to the effect of I didn't become a pastor so that I could defend why women should become pastors, you know, should be able to become pastors. I became a pastor to pastor. And, and she pointed to as. As you're mentioning. You know, this is why the work of men in this space. Space is important. You know, in part, it's like women pastors, we have work to do, you know, as. As pastors. So let's partner with our, with our male allies to, to help, you know, spread the message that, that of. Of equality, of resisting the sexism, you know, of all those kind of things. And just pragmatically, as you point out, they're the ones who hold the keys in so many of these spaces. [00:41:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:41:29] Speaker A: It's huge. It's. It's really big. Heather, I'm so grateful that you came on. As we, as we're wrapping up, I just want to ask you if you would, you know, however you want to end our time together. I'm thinking if you want to, you know, share a personal story about, you know, something that felt really meaningful to you, as in your journey as a woman in ministry and some of the, Some of the evolution that. That your experiences have granted you, or if it's maybe a word of encouragement to. To some of those women who are like, we get it, we're in the room. You know, this is why we're here. You know, I would, I would raise my hand like, you know, being among those, or maybe even, you know, maybe even to the men of, like, this is why, you know, your voice matters in this space. But you know, kind of a choose your own adventure, you know, last. Um, but what would you leave us with that. That you think would be really encouraging to our, our listeners who are hearing this? And maybe I would say maybe there. Some of them, particularly women, maybe are. Are out there and they're in a similar place that you and I were several years ago where we say, or decades ago where we say, oh, man, I'm not really sure what this will look like, you know, for me, yeah. [00:42:48] Speaker B: I guess for women, I would say just keep persevering and keep listening to the Holy Spirit and do what God is asking you to do. And I am encouraged and hopeful for the church. I personally have been part of a church and in a ministry space where, like you were talking about, there are many female leaders and pastors, and there are places where women are encouraged and flourishing. And I'm grateful for the people around me that I've gotten to work with recently and who have encouraged my own ministry. And so I guess that's just my encouragement that there are a lot of people out there that want to see women flourishing in the church. And I think there's more people that are paying attention to this issue, more men that are caring about this issue. And so I feel hopeful about the future. There's still obviously a lot of work to do, but I do feel hopeful that the church will continue to be more welcoming to women in the future. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much, Heather. Again, the name of the book is Confronting Sexism in the Church, How We Got Here and what We Can Do about it by Heather Matthews. Thank you so much, Heather, for coming on today. [00:44:11] Speaker B: Thank you. It's been great. I really enjoyed talking with you. [00:44:15] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show notes, music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit us at ThatMakeStoreSENSE dot.