Episode 291 - Caryn Reeder (re-release!)

[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. Hey everybody. I am so thrilled to be sitting here today with Karen Reader, who has written an incredible, incredible book called the Samaritan Woman's story reconsidering John 4 after church too. And Karen, I am, I am sitting here in one sense, kind of speechless, kind of. I have no words after reading this book. I told you, I have a blank note sheet, which doesn't happen often. And on the other hand, I feel like just push the start button and get me going because, because we could go lots of places. I have lots of words with this. So first I'll just say thank you. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you are certainly welcome. I. Yeah, this book was a real labor of love for me in many ways and I have been so delighted that it has been out in the world and speaking to people and helping people see our own texts and traditions in a different way. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I, I shared with you earlier that I heard before we set this up, I heard your interview on another podcast that I'll. I'll actually put in the show notes because that was a great conversation. So we won't rehash that one here. But I heard you on, on, on script and part of what really caught my attention, so I kind of want to start there. Is that you is where this book came from for you? Because I just kept telling my husband I'm reading it and I just can't stop. It's one of those books like, I need you to be reading this at the same time so we can have this book club style conversation about it. But I just kept saying over and over, If I said one phrase 100 times, it was, she's a biblical scholar, babe, she's a biblical scholar. This is what she does. And so, and so then the question is, okay, you're a biblical scholar. And then your subtitle hashtag, hashtag church too. So Karen put that together. Yeah. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So I. It's a good question to start with because this book is completely different from any work that I have done before in the sense that it was written. It was really sparked by what's happening in the church today. And I wrote it deliberately to speak to the church today, not to the guild of biblical scholars out there in the world, although I hope that they also will enjoy it and find something helpful in it. So when the MeToo movement broke back in the fall of 2017, I was following that in the news and then started seeing the spillover into Christian communities and women and some men sharing their stories of assault and abuse in the church. And that's where the hashtag church too comes from. Of course, that's sort of a play on MeToo. And I was just getting angrier and angrier and angrier through 2017, 2018, 2019, hearing more and more of these stories come out and seeing churches respond, respond in what I would argue are really problematic ways of prioritizing the reputation of the church over the individual, not firing pastors or other leaders who have been credibly faced credible allegations of assault, silencing the victims and survivors, which just re traumatizes them that yeah, that anger is just driving me to want to speak into it myself. But as you say, I'm a biblical scholar. What do I have to give? But as I thought more and more about the crisis in the church, it brought me back to the biblical text and how we read and interpret stories of women in scripture and how often the women in scripture are sexualized. And what does that teach us about women in our churches? Yeah. So this book is my attempt to explore how the Samaritan woman has been sexualized in Christian interpretation, how that plays into particular narratives about women in churches that has allowed for a crisis like the church to movement to persist. And then what can we do about it? [00:05:17] Speaker A: Right? [00:05:17] Speaker B: How can we read better so that we don't continue sexualizing women, minimizing women and turning them into potential victims? [00:05:27] Speaker A: Gosh, that was so good. Karen, I am very much a student. I'm a third year M. Div. Student and part of how this book read for me and I don't have enough knowledge to know whether or not this is true, but how this book read for me was one New Testament case study. And I'll say what I mean by that. I joked pre recording with you that I've read some primary texts enough to know that I was already mad at Tertullian. Like I yes, I was already irritated before I started this, before I started yearbook. But when I say a case study and one New Testament case study on that, I feel like this is an incredible and an excellent example of the way that historically we have interpreted women's stories in Scripture. And of course, that's affected us culturally. But I'm like, but could we. Could we go back and say, well, how have we historically interpreted Rahab? How have we interpreted Hagar, how we interpreted Sarah? Or how have we interpreted Mary and Martha? Right. Or, you know, how have we interpreted some of these women throughout the Scriptures? You know, this is a. Is a perfect example. And I felt like, oh, this. But this isn't only true of this nameless Samaritan woman in John 4. Right. This is a good example of how we've kind of historically done this all over the Scriptures. And it really has affected. And then it kind of keeps. It's a. It's a cumulative effect. Right. Because then it just keeps going and going. And it's like, well, if we interpret this one this way, then this gives us more fuel for the fire, if you will, to kind of do this with other stories in other parts of Scripture. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's one thing that I have discovered and since publishing this book is that people will come up to me every once in a while and say, oh, have you written about this other biblical story, this other biblical woman? My mother actually continues to encourage me to write more books in the similar vein of restoring some of the other women in scripture and listening to their stories again. And that's actually where I end the book, is with the encouragement to do that, to question the way that the stories about Mary and Martha or Mary Magdalene or the woman who anoints Jesus or all of those Old Testament women interrogate, how we have been told to read them and go back and reread them and see does that actually match up with what seems to be happening in these texts? And I think it usually doesn't. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're. No, you're so right. I was. I was nearing the end of this, and I owe one of my girlfriends a text because I just. I got almost teary because she and I have done some work on John 4, and I. And I just wanted to say to her, she's being redeemed. This woman and her story are being redeemed. And it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful to think about it. And the way that you put it in the book is that we can reimagine her story. Right. We're careful to say exactly what might be, but we can reimagine it with the interpretive tools that we do have and interrogating and questioning those classical interpretations, interpretations of her and of her story and what. And what that has meant for how we view women. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Biblically. And our neighbors and. And I would say. And our. And ourselves. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's so easy to internalize this message when we hear it over and over and over again. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's. So let's start with the. I think you. You. The kind of language I think you use is like the. The classical inter. Like what. What has been said about this Samaritan woman in John 4 historically. And I use that word on purpose because I, you know, joked about Tertullian before, but people may not know his name unless they've read some of these third century, back in the day. [00:09:47] Speaker B: We all do. Right. [00:09:49] Speaker A: For fun. Right. The beach reading, if you will, when we go back to these. To these texts. But. But this is a long. This is a long habit. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Of this kind of interpretation. [00:10:00] Speaker B: Our earliest recorded interpretations of John 4 are already accusing the Samaritan woman of adultery and prostitution. So we can trace that from Tertullian, our earliest interpret, earliest recorded interpreter, all the way through to the church today. And for this book, I actually explored like 50 different modern sermons and Bible studies and sort of works that are written for the church. And the majority of them continue to say the woman was a sexual sinner. So if you think about the way the story is told, the Samaritan woman only goes to the well at noon because she is a social outcast and no one would want to go to the well with her. Or she goes to the well in the middle of the day because she is a social outcast and she wants to avoid the rumors and gossip of her fellow villagers. When she meets Jesus, she's really rude to him. She is almost to a cruel degree in rejecting his attempt at conversation. She is often portrayed as unintelligent, too stupid to understand what Jesus is. I mean, he's so clearly using water as a metaphor. So why does she continue to ask for real water? That message gets repeated in interpretations. When Jesus asks her about her husband, she lies to him to deflect attention. And then she raises this other question when he says, oh, yes, you are living in sin. Clearly, she deflects with this issue of worship. And then the end of the story where it pretty clearly says she goes and preaches to all of her fellow neighbors back in the village. That also gets overwritten as she was just gossiping. She was just saying, hey, there's someone at the well you may want to meet. So she's just. I think John Calvin is my favorite. [00:12:13] Speaker A: My. [00:12:14] Speaker B: My favorite in a Very ironic tone there when he says she's just like a trumpet or a bell, not a pre. So don't worry, no one was listening to her words and, you know, coming to Faith because of them. Yeah. And that interpretation, of course, there are a lot of variations on it, but it basically persists from the third century to our own day. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I couldn't help myself. No one can see my face but you. And so I'll say I, I, I told Karen, I'm not going to say this in the podcast. I am going to say I was, I annotate when I read. And they're usually like really, you know, profound nodes, like little stars or wow or, you know, something like that. And I decided I'm gonna have to write eye roll so many times that I'm just gonna end up putting er next to it. Like every place where I feel my eyes rolling, I'm gonna do this. So these were not Karen's writings. These were the quotes that I, you know, every, like, like that one, she was just like a trumpet. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I am rolling my eyes right now at this. You forbid that she actually. What that anyone came to Faith because she was as exactly this would the, I can't even imagine the heresy. Right. Announcing the good news. Just literally God forbid this happened, Right? Exactly. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, you nailed it. I, I though had a really, one of the things that you did for me that, that was frustrating. As, as, as, as a person whose butt has been in the pews for decades is I'm like, But we have, I'll say we. I think we, that's the point of this book, have just accepted that interpretation that you've given. Now I'll give an example. I read a book a couple years ago, I was, I have an almost 11 year old and I was telling him something about it and I haven't looked this up. So please, you know, somebody tell me if this is not true. But it was kind of like when we're looking at the story of the, kind of, the nativity story, right? So a couple months ago at Christmas, I was saying this and there was some, some author had said. Did you. We always have this nativity scene of a donkey, of Mary on a donkey. But yeah, never says anything about a donkey, right? And my, and my son goes nuts, right? And he's like, what, Are you kidding me? Are you. [00:14:44] Speaker B: There's always a donkey. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Every time I heard the story, every time I've seen the scene, there's a donkey and There was even a movie about the, like, the name of movie, you know, And I'm like, baby, I don't know what to tell you. Go look it up. I don't, I don't know. Is there a donkey and thing? You know, But I feel, I felt kind of like that, right? Like we've always just accepted this interpretation that you just gave. And so one of the things that was frustrating for me is I'm kind of like, yeah, why do we associate sexual sin, Right. Specifically with this woman? And that was one of the places where when we get to your, His. Your. Your help in us understanding the history of what's going on at this time frame and, and helping, I think, kind of do a close reading of that text as well, kind of say that this doesn't add up. And that was one of the places where I really felt like, oh, my goodness, my, my girl, she's getting like redeemed. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:39] Speaker A: Right now. So help me attach that. Because I kind of felt like my son with the donkey. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean there's no sexual. [00:15:47] Speaker B: Thing in this story, right? [00:15:48] Speaker A: This is always preached as if there's some sort of like grievous sexual sin here. Help me connect these dots. Like, why is there this. Why is there this Christmas donkey in this scene? [00:16:00] Speaker B: Right? [00:16:00] Speaker A: It's always been there and we just accept, you know. [00:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think it is. I mean, from. From the perspective of the classic interpretation, Jesus would only bring up her marital history if he was accusing her of sin. And I mean, we've got a woman, she's a Samaritan, she has an unusual story, she must be a sinner. And Jesus is accusing her of sin and calling her to convert. The funny thing is, if you look at John 4, the word sin is never mentioned. [00:16:38] Speaker A: That seems kind of unimportant. Karen, I don't know why you would. [00:16:41] Speaker B: Point out that tiny detail. It's quite unusual actually in John's gospel because Jesus accuses people of sin all over the place. So the fact that it doesn't happen in this story should maybe make us pay a little more attention to what's going on there. And I think that the assumption that her marital history must equate to sin is because we don't understand the complexities of women's lives in the ancient world. We also have very often imported for us today as readers, we import our modern understandings of marriage into the biblical text. And marriage in the biblical text in the first century world, it was not like what we would understand marriage to be today. And so with those two issues together, we just naturally read sin into her story when maybe she was widowed several times, maybe she was divorced so that her family could make an a marital alliance with another household to gain advantages for the family that happened to women in the ancient world. Maybe she is in a situation where legal marriage was not possible for her sixth relationship. And so they have something that was considered completely moral in the first century, but they could not legally marry because their legal right to marriage was so restricted in the ancient world. And there are a lot of ways that we can understand her story as representing a very hard life, a really difficult life, but not a sinful life. And I think that seeing her as a survivor through a really difficult marital history, through a difficult time to be alive as a woman in the world. Yeah. It's just a much for me, looking at the evidence of women's lives in antiquity, seeing her as a survivor is more accurate than seeing her as a sinner. [00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah. One of the things that you did for me when you explored those different, gosh, what marriage looked like potentially in antiquity was a. You helped me frame it a bit better. Right. Because you said, these are just not the same. And even us, I think that's part of it is the, Even when you just, when you just recounted that part of the story, it's like, and the man you're living with now is not your husband. Got her? Right. That's a Z. That's a Z right there. Right. You're fornicator. Right. You know, but even some of those things of like, yeah, like you said, this is like perfectly moral and legal and, you know, all of this. And, and even, like, the ambiguity of like, when marriage would start, I think that, you know, that was part of it for me. But then there was, there's a sentence that you said, something like, like her marital history may have been unusual, but unusual does not mean sinful. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:19:47] Speaker A: And, and how we get from. Yeah, perhaps it was unusual and as you pointed out, hard. Right. But. But we've made this leap from unusual or hard or this woman was a survivor to sin and not just sin. The, the, the way that this has been interpreted from the earliest recorded interpretations to now is I kind of want to let you be the bad guy in explaining some of those things because they're really hard. Right. It's. I, when I was reading this, and again, it had me re examine how I've listened to this story be preached over the last, you know, 20, 30 years of my life. This is not. I feel like the. Most of the time I have heard it, not even a sin met with compassion, but a sin met with. With kind of ugly judgment. Yes. [00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And some of the sermons that you can find if you just Google sermons on John 4. Holy cow. The language is so strong in referring to this woman. Excuse me, I would never use this language in my daily life. But referring to her as a hardened old. And saying that Jesus is using her. I mean, calling her to account for her sin, judging her, and then using her as an example to us that we need to repent of our most awful, terrible sins. Where is that coming from in this text? It's not there. And to use that language of this woman just continues. I mean, honestly, I think having reviewed the historical interpretation and contemporary interpretation of the story, there's just such a clear connection to me in the attempt to sexualize the woman, accuse her of sin, and therefore silence her. Because in John 4, we see instead a story of a woman who has a theologically intense conversation with Jesus, the longest conversation with Jesus that anyone has in John's Gospel. And at the end of her story, she goes and preaches to her community, and they all listen to her. So this idea even that she could have been a social outcast, and yet her neighbors listened to her, that doesn't add up. Clearly, she was a respectable woman in her community, someone whose words were taken with seriousness and importance. Again, the attempt to silence her, to remove this woman's agency and therefore limit women's agencies in our own churches. I just see that happening over and over with the really, really horrific descriptions that are used of her in sermons and Bible studies and commentaries. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And even just now when you were talking, I just thought not. You know, the question arises in me as. As a believer, not only what is this saying to us about women, but what is this saying to us about Jesus? [00:23:14] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:23:15] Speaker A: I think we have to ask that question. If we are. If we're interrogating the interpretations of this text. And I'll. And I'll say I think that really has. That's been one of the things that's kind of done a doozy on my faith. Just, you know, in hearing this story is, yes, as a woman internalizing this kind of thing. But then I have. I have been. I've been living with this woman in John 4 for at least five years. It could be longer where she comes up often. For me, even recently, I'm in a class on evangelism. We were supposed to give an Example of a text that really speaks to us on the. On the subject of evangelism. And this is the one I chose. Right. Like, you know, I've just been living with her for so long. But I think part of it is because, yes, I've internalized this as a woman, but also then I have to deal with kind of the incongruence of what I know about Jesus, but what has been preached to me about Jesus in this text. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Yeah. And how it's been used as a model for how we should do evangelism, because that is made explicit in different interpretations that we, too, like Jesus, need to accuse people of their sin so that they can come to Jesus, come to faith, convert. Yes. [00:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:51] Speaker A: And. And I'll just be honest. We don't have to go here, but this book has. Has. I'm rearranging some mental furniture after reading your book. So forgive me. I'm still. I'm still processing. I finished it yesterday, but I'm still processing. I probably will be. I hope I will be for a. But partially because of this interpretation that I've accepted for so long, I'll say that. So that can be the preface for me because of this interpretation that I've accepted on this woman for so long when she says, come see a man who's told me everything I've ever done because I've internalized and because I've accepted the. This sinful. Right. It did have me start asking the question of Jesus. This must be some sort of magnificent kind of love. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Right? [00:25:40] Speaker A: Right. Like, what kind of love is this that Jesus showed to her, that her response was, come, come see a man who told me everything I have ever done, because even for me, who. I don't have the marital history that she has, but I have other junk in my life. Right. I'm thinking. I don't think I would lead with that. [00:26:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:26:03] Speaker A: If I were evangelizing, I don't see myself leading with come see a man who's told me anything I've ever done. Right. And so that one line that she speaks has kind of been redemptive for me because I feel like Jesus, however he engaged with her, it really couldn't have lined up with some of these classical interpretations, if I'm honest, had to be in the most beautiful kind of love I could imagine. Yeah. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:32] Speaker A: If she responded to him in that way, no matter what her history looks like. Because we all have John. Yes. Right. [00:26:40] Speaker B: Yes. And certainly, even if we say her marital history does not equate to Sin. It's not like we're saying she's a perfect person who never sinned in her life. She is human like we all are, and has her own. Yeah. Her own experiences to bring. And. And I do think that's the one sort of edge of the classic interpretation of this story that is really powerful for people, that if Jesus can have this conversation with this woman, extend his life giving water to her, then there's hope for us all. I still disagree with that interpretation, but I do think that that is the one. The one part of it that really speaks to people. [00:27:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And like I said, rearranging this furniture. Because as you said, like, I think this is what we see in many of the stories, you know. Yeah. In John, because people respond to Jesus differently, but he extends this love to all of the people that we see in John, and they respond differently. And I, too, disagree with the classic interpretation. I'm. I'm doing the work, though, to reframe it in my mind, and I think that that's part of the point of this, of this book. Part of what I got from that is, like, this stuff leaves us in its wake. Right. This. This has consequences. This classic interpretation has consequences. And even when we say no, I absolutely disagree with that. We still have to deal with what it has left over. [00:28:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:28:27] Speaker A: And those consequences have been powerful in our culture. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's. This is reminding me of some of the conversations I've had with people about the book. When I've presented on this at different church communities, I so often get pushed back because people identify with the woman so deeply, and they have to keep that idea that she's a sinner because that is so important for sort of this classic Christian message about redemption. And. And of course, that message of redemption is true. Just want to say we don't have to see her as the worst sinner in the world in order for it to be true. [00:29:12] Speaker A: That's right. No, that's. No, that's absolutely right. So. So let's talk about what that, what that classic interpretation, some of the consequences of it. Maybe the. Maybe the thread. So I feel like we could kind of. The points that you brought out that. That stood out to me the most were the earliest interpretations kind of as. As evangelicals in America, we, like, we have to make a pause at the Reformation, and there's interpretations that are coming out in that time frame. But then, man, if we. If we don't make a stop in this century as well, I mean, to see the power of this interpretation that it is still here, that we're still living it. That honestly, the people with the mics are the ones who are saying this kind, these kinds of things. There are people who would not ascribe to this classical interpretation. It's just that they happen to be the ones who don't have the loudest megaphones. This is problematic. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah. And I think having sort of a grassroots movement of challenging that classical interpretation. So my mother, again, has actually been doing this. So she. She told me one day the pastor preached on John 4 today, and I was just so mad. And I went up and told him afterwards that he needs to read your book and listen to these podcasts. Okay. All right. Yes. And raising the questions and saying, have you ever looked at the story really carefully, actually, to see what's going on in it without those lenses of sin that direct us to see particular messages here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:31:14] Speaker A: So take us to Tertullian and the Reformation and then. And then pick your favorite. [00:31:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:21] Speaker A: 21St century pastor with a. With a big mike. Because. Because honestly, if I. If I have to pick, my husband may have to edit me. So I'm going to let. I'm going to let you pick because I'm not allowed to pick. I. I'll get a little too loud about it. So. Yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker B: Okay. Tertullian. So he was really convinced, first of all, that sex, even within a marriage, is probably sinful. [00:31:56] Speaker A: No, not probably. [00:31:57] Speaker B: It is sinful. It is a loss of control and an explosion that takes you out of your sanctification. And so that's dangerous. First of all, you should only have sex if you want to have a baby. And maybe that's, you know, once or twice in your life. That's it. So the fact that this woman had been married so many times is just, oh, my goodness, she must be a sinner. He also thought that whoever you married first is your spouse forever into eternity. And so again, that she got married repeatedly, no matter how those marriages ended was not an issue for Tertullian. He just cared that she got remarried and therefore she is committing adultery by remarrying. And he thought, one marriage, that's it. No matter how it ends, how early it ends, how long you have to be single, you only get one shot at this. And you should really minimize sexual intercourse because that is just a road to sin. And women in general, for Tertullian, are road to sin. Right. He saw women are just little copies of their mother Eve, and they tempt men into sin. And so he. If you Think about some of the conversations we have today about dress codes, church. Hollyman. [00:33:21] Speaker A: This is what made me mad at him from the beginning. [00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:24] Speaker A: I'm really mad. I'm like, you have no business telling me what I can wear. [00:33:27] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yes. [00:33:28] Speaker A: But he thought he did. [00:33:29] Speaker B: He thought he did because he needed to protect men who can be led astray by the sight of a woman. [00:33:36] Speaker A: I mean, let's say that again, because he needed to protect men. Karen. [00:33:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:41] Speaker A: This does not, as far as I can tell, and I have read some primary texts from the dude. This doesn't have anything to do with a love and compassion and respect for. For women at all. [00:33:53] Speaker B: No. [00:33:55] Speaker A: This is about, as you say, protecting men from sin. [00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:02] Speaker A: And. And duh. I can go to any Christian website, bookstore, and I. In one, probably in one search, I can find a dozen books and fill up my cart that say the exact same thing. [00:34:14] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Yes. Yeah. That women need to cover their bodies because men are easily led into temptation. And it's women's jobs to protect them. [00:34:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:29] Speaker B: And that. That message which comes out in church two stories as well, that women who have been assaulted have been told it's because of what you were wearing or because of your behavior that you were talking or smiling or walking. Right. [00:34:50] Speaker A: You say a few times. Because they have a body like, thank you. [00:34:54] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Right. And that body is just too tempting for men. How dare you have a body that could tempt a man. But it all starts with Tertullian. And he is therefore turning to the story of the Samaritan woman and painting her as this adulterous prostitute because he does not want the fact that she has this conversation with Jesus and preaches to her neighbors to become a model for women in his churches. Right. You got to stop that. Cut it off right at the beginning. Because you don't want women to think they can get married multiple times and still be part of the Christian community. You don't want women to think they can talk in public and still be part of the Christian community. Right. You've got to. Yeah. Limit and minimize her. Yeah. So that's Tertullian. [00:35:51] Speaker A: And then you. [00:35:52] Speaker B: And he's, you know, very early church. Some of his ideas were controversial even in his own day. So you think, okay, whatever, Tertullian. But then you go to John Calvin and he's saying the same things. Right? Yeah. That women have a responsibility to protect the men around them from sexual temptation. That's because women are naturally prone to being temptresses. Women are also Prone to gossip. And that's clearly what the Samaritan woman was doing. She was just gossiping to her neighbors. And again, with Calvin, you can see this connection between minimizing the woman's role in John 4 and minimizing the role of women in his churches to keep them in their properly submissive place. [00:36:47] Speaker A: And before we get to the 21st century, where I'm just gonna have to mute myself. So it will happen before we get there, though, even with these. Even with these two guys. And, you know, again, this is. This. Much of this book is like, yes, you're picking out these things. You listen to 50 modern sermons that we've got Calvin, you've got Tertullian. But these are all. This is not like, oh, you're picking out, like, the one exception. This is just. This is exemplifying what the. The interpretation has been for all of these centuries. And so before we get into the 21st century, because it's. I will say this. It's bothered me as a. As a woman growing up in this culture because I'm like, it doesn't make any sense. Does no one else realize that it doesn't make any sense? And you explicitly talk about this circular logic a few times. And so, because you say it better than I do, all of this stuff that you just said, there's. There's people going, now, wait a minute. When you put it that way, how can women be A and B at the same time? So what? Walk us through this, like, weird circular logic that's. That's going on here. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So. So on the one hand, it is just so clear as we look at the world around us that women tempt men to sin. Just look at the media, look at advertisements, look at the woman next to you in worship on Sunday. They are tempting men by their makeup, by their fancy hairdos, by the sexy clothing they choose to wear, which is clearly intended to tempt men into sin. At the same time, women are told repeatedly that the Bible tells us to be submissive, to accept male authority, to recognize that men have authority over us. And men are perceived to be figures of control, people who shouldn't be in control over themselves and over others, because that is men's role in the church and in the world. When you put those two things together, though, you've got a real problem, because women have been told both that they are temptresses and that they should be submissive to male authority. Men are told that they are the authority figures. They're the ones in control. And that they cannot control themselves when they see these women around them. And then that leads, of course, to the problem that consent for women can become really tricky here because you're supposed to submit to the male authority over you, but when the male authority over you is viewing you as a source of temptation, then there's just. That gets really murky and problematic and difficult to navigate. Yeah, yeah. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Okay, so I want to, I do want to take one more stop before we get to 21st century and then I'll mute myself. Okay, so let's go to Victorian era. Okay. Because, because I will say this is where, this is where I have lived and had some of my, some of my questions and I, and I'll just like give a, give a tiny bit of context. What's kind of funny, I, growing up, thought, you know, if you asked me on any given day what I was going to be when I grew up, my answer might have been the first female president of the United States. It could have been that, like, I had like a little bit. [00:40:40] Speaker B: There's still space for that. [00:40:42] Speaker A: There is. I mean, right? I mean, not really there shouldn't be. Here we go. But I mean, I was kind of a girl power kind of kind of chick growing up, but it really wasn't until I, you know, so I'll say my house didn't look like this. My church and Christian culture did, though. And so, so there's, so there's a lot of that there. And I think when I started. So I'm just going to kind of lay my cards out on the table here. I think when you look at, let's say, kind of focus on the family, ish kinds of things, right? This, these are women's roles. This is what we should be doing. So when I'm reading this kind of Victoria era stuff, I'm like, oh, snap, this is where kind of all of this is coming from. And again, some of the circular logic came to enter my mind, which is like, and I'm just going to be blunt to make a point here, but these are the questions I'm asking. Okay, so I'm too stupid to be your equal, right? As a, you know, talking to any men here, I'm too stupid to be your equal. I am not smart enough to be my own boss, so I have to have a boss, and that's you. Yet you're going to leave me at home with the most valuable lives in your life, namely your children, so that I can be the one to raise them up spiritually, intellectually, physically, even Though I'm too stupid to actually do that for myself. You have a problem, Anonymous man. Right, like, sounds to me like you're the one who's stupid, right? Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would you, like, logically you're gonna leave someone to do all of these like super important, valuable, meaningful things in your life and you're gon leave that to someone who actually is not that bright and like, is ontologically inferior in all of these ways. Like, I don't get it. Right? And we kind of see that in other social, you know, areas in life, but in terms of gender. And so when I was reading the Victorian thing, I'm like, oh, so there was like a genesis to this in our society. So can we stop there for a second? Give us, give us a little bit of context there. [00:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So do you think sort of pre industrial revolution productivity work was all centered on the household? And in that, that sort of economy in society, men and women contribute equally to the household, but everybody's working at home. So you don't have sort of one person going out to the factory to work and then bringing money back so that the wife stays home and takes care of the house. Everybody is contributing, working together, farming or making soap or whatever they're doing. But post industrial revolution, that shifts so that in a poor household, everybody is going out to work separately, the women, the children, the men. But in a wealthy household, the woman is staying home with the children and being the homemaker while the man goes out and engages with the world. And that dynamic for Victorian sort of middle class, upper middle class families, that dynamic, excuse me, that dynamic shifted the way that women were perceived. And women became known as the angels of the household in this period. And they were given because men were doing all of this, you know, financial wheeling and dealing and engaging with society as a whole and taking on sometimes a morally ambiguous role, getting their hands dirty. Women took on this moral authority over the household and became the one who the husband could come home to this spiritual retreat where the wife has maintained a Christian faithfulness and is raising the children to be faithful and morally upright. So we definitely see in this time period these ideas of purity, getting attached to the good woman, staying at home, raising her children. Of course, that pure good woman had to be wealthy enough to do this. And other women who had to go to work because their families could not afford to eat, if they didn't, they weren't given the same, the same value. And we see happening in the Victorian period that the Women who are wealthy and become these moral exemplars, they start becoming more involved in churches. They start taking on a lot of the work of the church because men are out busy doing things now. They also take on a lot of responsibility for teaching other women. Right. So that's an interesting dynamic as well, that women are getting some authority in certain ways as long as it's seen as women's work. But. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:04] Speaker B: And then there's a pushback against that in the early 20th century with an attempt to remasculinize Christianity to see Jesus is super manly and the church as the realm of men. And that's where we get a lot of attempts to push women out of church work and remove some of that. That angel of the household power that they got. [00:46:30] Speaker A: And, and I'll just say that you, in this. Thank you for that context and in that narrative that you just told, one of the things that you add in the book and, and we won't have time to delve into it too deeply, but I want to mention it because it's important, is that the woman was wealthy enough and she was white. She was white, yes. For that. And so all of those racial dynamics are at play in these things, too. So there's gender dynamics, which is like the primary thing we're talking about and not to be forgotten. And there's also these racial dynamics right on top of this, and these make things more complex in these, in these areas. Yeah. And then you talk about the masculinity. And this is a, this is a good place to, to, to make the stop. Next, you quote. I think you quote Kristin Dumas in, In the book. And so that was the first thing I went when I read Jesus and John Wayne. Right. It's like kind of like. [00:47:26] Speaker B: Yes, the. [00:47:27] Speaker A: I don't know, the, the book in the last few years, that kind of helps us understand that shift, too, I think, into the masculine church. So I'll put that in the show notes if people want to. If people haven't read that already, if they want to. [00:47:39] Speaker B: Fantastic. Of how we got to where we are today. [00:47:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I just, I told my husband, I think he read it first. And then I was like, why did you not tell me that this was going to be so hard for me to read? But what I told him in one sentence is I just feel like she just pulled the curtain back and just kind of let us see what was happening behind the scenes. Right. And that sometimes you don't want. That's why they have a curtain. Right? [00:48:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:03] Speaker A: So you don't want to see that. So I'll. So I'll put that there. So take us to. So we've got Tertullian, we've got Reformation, We've got a little bit of the Victorian. And then take us. Take us to the now. [00:48:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:14] Speaker A: People are still interpreting John for this pastor that you're. That your mom saw is still interpreting John for this classic way. And this is still affecting us. And these people have big. These men, mostly. You do. You do name some women, though. [00:48:25] Speaker B: I do, yes. [00:48:27] Speaker A: But these men mostly have some big mics when they're talking about this. [00:48:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think in my chapter on the contemporary church scene, most of my space goes to John Piper because he's just said so much, and that makes him a really helpful conversation partner here to see how particular biblical interpretations, for instance, of John 4 play out and connect with these larger understandings of women's roles in society and in the church, of how women can and cannot act or speak in the household and in the church and with how men are taught, therefore, to view women. Wow. Yeah. So I will say this chapter was probably the hardest one for me to write because it is engaging in. In my world and in people who. Engaging with people who have been really important voices in our church today and in the way that we think about spirituality today. But it's at the same time, it was so horrifying to trace out the ways that interpretations of John 4 and, for instance, John Piper connect with some really problematic things that he has said about women. About sex, about. Yeah. Violence against women as well. Yeah. So for Piper, he definitely identifies the woman as the town prostitute, as a sexual sinner. He says in one of his sermon. He's got several sermons on John 4, but in one of the sermons that he preached on this story, he says that Jesus asks her about her husband because he wants her to have a husband to take care of her because she needs a man to stand up for her, to. That she can be proud of. Right. And he goes on about this for a while, and I think. But actually, the only reason she needs this husband to stand up for her is because you have already minimized her and told her that she has to be in subjection to a man and that she can't have this role on her own. That really troubles me that there's sort of this double act of telling the women that they are too prone to sin, that they are sexual temptresses. Again, we see that in a lot of Piper's very extensive writings. And sermons and his sort of Ask Pastor John podcast that he does. Women are very clearly sexual problems, and therefore they need the man to protect them from themselves. I guess. [00:51:47] Speaker A: This is where I need to mute. I just have to mute my whole self right here. Because I was looking for a. Oh, here it is. I was looking for this particular. Because I did have a lot of notes on this chapter. But I do want to say, as. [00:52:05] Speaker B: A reader. [00:52:08] Speaker A: Like I said, I'm in seminary right now, so I know just it. Just the smallest taste of what it looks like to be engrossed in a. Worst. Yes, it is. But in a research project, right. Where you're. You're just, you know, you're just living, eating, and breathing the thing. And I haven't written any books. Right. Mine are just, like, long papers. And. And, you know, and I just thought about. My heart went out to you on this chapter, to be completely honest, because I thought, I know. I can guess how many things are on her cutting room floor. Right. How many books on that dining room table that did not make this copy that you still subjected yourself to, really for our sake. And so I'm grateful for that. I had a flash in the pan moment where there was one particular sermon series that you were talking about, and my curiosity almost got the best of me, and I almost went and searched it out, and then I just kind of felt more nauseous the more I read. And I was like, I'm not going to do that to myself. Karen's already done this work, and I'm just going to. I'm going to leave it there because there's really no reason for me to do it. And so that was some of what I was thinking, but I think this is important, so I'm going to. I want to just read this. This really small paragraph because of the implications, the. The. The social implications, the cultural implications that we're talking about. So this is on Piper. And. And you write, Piper reminded his congregation that men and women are spiritually equal, but they have different, quote, roles. The sin of Adam and eve in Genesis 3 distorted gender by pushing men and women toward the extremes. Men toward either unmanly passivity or uber manly severity, and women toward either unwomanly aggression or uber womanly helplessness. And then this sentence that Jesus restored the original plan for gender, allowing men to protect women and women to submit to men without fear. And my. My longest note in your book was, this was the original plan. Right, question mark, exclamation point, question mark. Right? And then you start the Next paragraph with this claim. Right. This claim of Piper's. Right. This is not your claim. This is Piper's claim. But that sentence. I mean, all of that paragraph. But as if we're preaching this. This text, as if the original plan for gender was that men will protect women and women will submit to men without fear. This is problematic, Karen. It is. [00:54:52] Speaker B: It is indeed. I completely agree. Yeah. And the way that that message, therefore, becomes fundamental to every biblical text and every message that you give to men and women in churches. [00:55:12] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [00:55:17] Speaker B: No, it is so deeply problematic and so deeply unbiblical. I want to argue that if we even go back to Genesis 1:3, we see partnership. We don't see that men are created to be in power over women, but rather that they are created out of the same flesh because they are equals, because they are called to work together. Yeah. That. I teach a class on gender and theology, and we just did it last semester. And in reading Genesis 1 through 3 with my students, that idea of partnership and unity just comes up so clearly. And the more I read those texts, those chapters, the more clearly I see this idea of partnership and unity and the way that the creation of humanity is described there. Yeah. And so to separate it out like this, to say that men are created to be authorities and women are created to be submissive, men are created to be protectors and women are created to be submissive. That just. Men have a lot of roles, women have one role, and it's just not there in the biblical text. And when we plant it in the biblical text and then find it everywhere in the Bible, we are. We're missing a really beautiful message of what it means to be human. [00:56:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I kind of want to linger there for just a minute. I know we're coming close to our time, but I think that. I don't know. I think that what I would say is you're a scholar and I'm a student, and people listening, maybe scholars. And they may be students and they may be neither one. Right. But we're all learners. And to. I think what I would. What I would say is that what we're doing right here and really interrogating how the texts have been interpreted is. Is really, really important. Right. Doing those close readings. Right. Drop the commentary for just a second. Right. Drop what you. What you think you've heard about this for just a second. And to kind of use the example we went to before, like, is the donkey actually even there? Right. You know, just because we've. We've always inserted him in the, in the nativity scene, you know, is he. Is he there right now? I'm going to be real embarrassed if there is one. But anyway, there's not. Okay, but you know, to. To go back and do that, because this, this Genesis 1 and 3 is 1 through 3 is 1 of those places that in, you know, I'll just kind of say in this kind of Bible Belt version of American Christianity, US Christianity, that I've been a part of for my. For my whole life. They. It's. It's. John Piper is like his words are the epitome of what is spoken usually, which is, yes, there's equality, but there's different roles. But really that's not actually the truth of what's being preached is there's not equality because. Because they're reading of Genesis 1 through 3 says that there's an ontological inferiority for women, that there was something fundamentally wrong with women. And I think this goes back to Churchill and too, you know, I mean, this is all the way back here. But there's something fundamentally wrong with women that makes them incapable of being leaders. That makes them incapable of, as you said, doing anything but submitting. And I remember almost in tears, kind of going to one of my seminary professors and saying a couple of years ago and just like, really wrestling with this and just saying, but I've been told. But we've been told, like, we're not as good, right? And he laughed, like, out loud. And it made me mad and it liberated me at the same time, right? Because I thought, but here's someone who is highly educated, loves Jesus, you know, like all of these things, and he's basically in his laughter and communicated to me, you know, more explicitly, which is basically like, why are you listening to that? [01:00:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, right. [01:00:03] Speaker A: Like, like. But I kind and really kind of like negating that with his laughter, Right. It's just as if to say, I don't know where that's coming from. Right. And I think that that's important because often we have, even if it hasn't just been one biblical interpreter or one preacher, we've heard one, as you name it, a classic interpretation of something, some sort of doctrine, some sort of theological idea that has colored how we then look at the rest of the Bible, right? So as you. To your point, anytime we see a woman now, are we dehumanizing her in our minds? Is she being sexualized in our minds? Is she automatically inferior in our minds? Where's the man should she be submitting to in our minds? Right? Like all of this because of the way that we have been trained and disciples, many of us, to look at texts like these. Yes. Right. So I don't know. So I just kind of wanted to. Kind of wanted to throw that out there because I'm. Yes. And amen. And I'm feeling like a little snarkier than I normally would feel. But. But I haven't always felt that way. I really have had to wrestle with this because of the way that I have been discipled and read this text, but the way that it's affected me as a woman. [01:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:30] Speaker A: In my own discipleship journey. So I'm going to be quiet now and I'm going to ask you. I love talking to professors and lecturers because I feel like this question might make sense. So I feel like a lot of times I could see it in my professor's faces that there's like something that they are hoping we would ask. So I'm going to ask you. What's that question, Dr. Reader, what is the thing that you wish I would have asked? It's kind of burning. So that you want to answer and you're waiting for the class to somebody to raise their hand and say it. What's that question? [01:02:10] Speaker B: What should we do with the story of the Samaritan woman? Right. We've talked a lot about what we shouldn't do with her story. So here is my last word. We should read this story as an example of what discipleship looks like. And that's discipleship for women and for men. This woman is an exemplary disciple, a model disciple in Johnson Gospel. She talks to Jesus, she listens to Jesus, she responds to Jesus, she believes Jesus, and she witnesses to Jesus to other people. That's what we're called to do. And that's the sermon that I am waiting to hear in a church one day that this woman models for us how we should be living as followers of Jesus in the world. [01:02:59] Speaker A: Amen and amen. Amen and amen. Thank you, Karen. Thank you for the book. Thank you for this time. Thank you for this conversation. I'll say the name of the book again and then note that I'll put a link to where people can grab it in the show notes. Karen has written the Samaritan Woman's story, reconsidering John 4 after church 2. I would say no matter where you are in your journey of interpretation, no matter where you are on your vision of the place of women in the church or in society, this book is going to have something for you to chew on. I encourage people to grab a copy of it. Thank you so much Karen. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Thank you. This has been a fun conversation. [01:03:50] 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.