Episode 364 - Rob Dixon

[00:00:05] 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. Practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Well, Rob, it's always one of my joys to welcome a guest back to the podcast. I always feel a little bit like, okay, like, they didn't hate it. This is great. This is. This was a great conversation last time. I just pulled it up and noticed, I think when I talked with you and Amy at the time, it was the first time that I had interviewed a husband and wife guests for the pod, which was totally fun. But now you're back on your own today to talk about your newest book. So welcome. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Sadly, listeners don't get Amy today. That is a tragedy. But I'll do my best to interact. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah, well, she was so fun to have on. And I will put that episode in the show notes because it was also one of the few times that I have interviewed guests about a children's book. So that one was Penny Preaches. Just to throw that out. It was a great book. And along the same lines and in the same vein of the topic, we're gonna talk about today with your new book, which is on women in ministry and how men can support them. So I'm gonna say the name of that book before we get started, and that is Allies in Ministry, How Men Can Support Women in God's Mission by my guest, Rob Dixon. So, man, I finished this today, Rob, and this was a tough one for me because I am a woman in ministry and I have faced a lot of the same kinds of obstacles that you talk about in the book, which was, I want to bring up just at the beginning, primarily. At least this is what I got as a reader. This book is written primarily for men. So can you talk about that? Like, what prompted you as a man to write this book for an audience of men primarily? And then I'll have a follow up after that. But this isn't your first book. Also, we should say on the topic, but why this one? Aiming at men for the audience? [00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think big picture, I'm interested in helping the church become what the church has always been meant to become, which is a place where women and men flourish in Full and equal partnership. I mean, that's the Genesis one. Creation intent. God's creation intent in Genesis one. And I think we've been trying to live up to, obviously, with our hands tied behind our back by human sin, but we've been trying to live up to that. That's the goal to shoot for, right? So I'm really interested in anything that gets us there, big picture. So together ministry is my effort to say, well, women and men, as we work together, we can do that more effectively. Let's think about that. And then allies in ministry is another, in my view, step to that greater end, if that makes sense. So, yeah, I'm interested in that. And so I'm doing anything I can do to, like, help the church become who the church was meant to become as women and men working together on equal partnership. So, yeah, this one came out of an experience I had. I tell the story in the book, but I was doing a training on my prior book at one point, and I'm watching this one male leader over the course of the day, and at the beginning of the day, at this training day, beginning of the day, he's doing everything you would want to see as a facilitator in a training seminar. He's, like, taking notes. He's asking good questions. He's laughing at the right times, right? He's engaged with his. His groupmates, all of that. Over the course of the day, he starts to slowly but surely fade away. It always sounds like I'm like he was dying or something. I'm not me. I don't mean that. But he started to disengage, and he, you know, he'd find things to do on his phone. He's looking out the window. He stopped asking questions. And I think at the end of the day, I put myself in his group, his process group, to understand kind of what was his experience. And he said something that really catalyzed my thinking and why I started thinking about could we think about how men could become allies to women? He said, in this world, this changing world, a changing church, where women and men serve together on equal footing, he goes, if that's where we're going, I don't know where my place is as a guy. And that. That struck me. His statement struck me in a couple of ways. I mean, on one hand I thought, well, he feels dissonance, and maybe that's okay. Our sisters have been feeling dissonance in the church for 2,000 years, right? So maybe at some level that's a good thing. The second Thing I thought was, what's the generative word for him? What's a vision I could give a guy like that who maybe wants to do, wants to be helpful but doesn't know what to do, is afraid of making mistakes. And so that was the birth of this idea. What does it look like to become more effective for more men to become more effective allies to women in ministry? And so that triggered my research and my writing and ultimately the book that you have in your hands. [00:05:40] Speaker A: So this isn't the follow up I have in mind, but this is the follow up I'm going to bring up right now, which is in the book, which we'll get to this pathway that you outline in the book. But it makes me curious about your own starting position, which is, which is kind of where, where you are first. And you, you kind of give some different options, like a range for where men might be when this conversation is introduced to them. And so it makes me really curious, like what was your starting position when, when, when you entered into this larger conversation? [00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. When I think about starting positions on this male allyship pathway, it's like a rain. It's like a continuum from, you know, adversarial to in the middle would be more like just neutral. And then the, the predisposed positive would be the other end, the continuum. And I would fit on that further end, the predisposed positive end. So I grew up in a church where, you know, I always say women could lead. We weren't perfect about it, but at least in terms of like what's on paper, women were permitted, allowed to lead, to preach, to be pastors. And our church growing up had had a woman on the pastoral staff and she would preach from time, time. And I think so much of this topic of women and men thinking all about all those dynamics, it's what's normal for you. And so what was normal for me at least growing up. And again, they weren't perfect about it, but was having a woman in that position and preaching the word, I don't know how many times a year, but a decent amount of time so that we would see that and experience that. The other piece of it for me in terms of my starting position was my family. And I always, whenever I talk about this, I don't mean to disparage the men in my family, they're not spiritual weaklings, but definitely the women in my family were carrying a lot of the spiritual load or energy in my family. And I mean, I can trace both sides. My maternal and paternal grandmothers were just amazing Christians, followers of Jesus and made a mark on me. I connect a lot with Timothy's story from second Timothy, the first chapter, chapter where Paul talks about his faith. He reminds him of his faith lineage, which flowed through. I think it's Lois and Eunice, his grandmother and his mother. And I resonate a lot with that. So, yeah, predisposed positive, for sure. I will say, though, that even though I was predisposed positive to this idea of allyship and women in ministry, I think I held that at a really. What's the right way to put this? Like a loose kind of value level. It wasn't at a place of conviction and there's a. There's a transformation or a journey that I had to take to move from. Yeah, I think women can lead to. Oh, women can lead. You know what I mean? The difference between those things was I think it's a pivot that, that male allies need to make. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for that. I appreciate you sharing, sharing that part. And I think it's. It's important for me, but also maybe for listeners to kind of understand that a little bit in where. In where you're coming from. I would say my, my story is the opposite of that. So even though I'm not a man reading this book, you know, towards this same developmental pathway toward allyship. I grew up as a, as a woman, but I grew up in a church, a congregation that was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. And this, you know, as. As we're recording this over the summer, there's. There's a lot of talk for folks who are, you know, kind of even loosely following it more and more. It seems like it comes up every, you know, every year at these meetings of what women can and can't do, what women can and can't be called, you know, titles, leadership positions, you know, all of these kinds of things. The example that I give from my church growing up was that there was a woman who was like a, Like a. She was just. She was. She was great. She was a school teacher and a. And a musician. She was in the choir. I'm not sure. She may have even taught Sunday school or something like that. She was also athletic. She was tennis player. And there was a sign up for people to volunteer and help mow the church lawn because, you know, it needed to be done and they, you know, weren't going to put it in the budget. It was kind of like, this can be an area for you to serve. Not everybody teaches Sunday school or is an usher or you know, cooks for fellowships. But this is another opportunity where you can serve. You could sign up to mow the lawn. They have the equipment. You just come in and do it. And she signed up to mow the lawn and was told that that was not the kind of work that she could do as a woman. [00:10:43] Speaker B: Sure. [00:10:44] Speaker A: And so it was even that, like, there was definitely no way a woman was going to be in the pulpit in that congregation, but even she could not mow the lawn. Now, I will say just kind of as a footnote, before we continue with this conversation, for some people who grew up in environments like that, I will name, especially the sbc. Very, very interestingly enough, one of the memories that I have growing up was giving my change to the Lottie Moon offering every Christmas time. I think it was around Christmas time every year. Lottie Moon was a foreign missionary. You know, she had traveled internationally to be a missionary. What I, you know, so it was like, not that women couldn't do anything, but I think as I processed that in seminary, and I'll just, like, tell on myself here, but as I was. As I was learning more about, of course, history of missions and women and ministry in general and gender things and all of this, my little footnote that we don't have to stay on, but I'll just say it is, oh, okay. So one way to make sense of this is that Lottie Moon and people like her, women like her could preach kind of, you know, evangelize to two men as long as they were not white men in Western contexts. So she could go to a different context with brown men or black men or, you know, whatever the case may be, and not just Lottie, but different, you know, women. And they could kind of. Because they used authority a lot. Right. They could kind of have authority. They couldn't do it in the States or in your congregation because they don't have that authority. But, oh, did that authority transfer then overseas, and they could do it with men. That may have been, you know, anyway, so it was just one of those things where I would have put. And how some women internalize that. I could have put myself closer to the opposite end a few years ago when I would say it wasn't my natural bent. It wasn't how I used to say I was youth grouped this way. But that wasn't how my home operated. But I became convinced that this was the way that God wanted it because I was discipled into that. And that was really detrimental because for me. But I know for other women as well, we end up internalizing that and feel like any move we might make toward a ministerial calling that we might feel would, in fact, not be beneficial to the church or to people that we would want to share God's love with, but it would actually be sinful. Yeah. Because this isn't what God designed. In God's hierarchical natural order, which we'll get to in just a moment with some of these things that you talk about. So I just want to throw that out there. Say, that's not where I live now, but I grew up in a space that was very different from the one that you just described. And there's a lot of places in between, and a lot of places, I would say, even on further edges of our spectrum that we just. That we just named. [00:14:07] Speaker B: Let me just say real quick, if it's okay, Alexis. [00:14:09] Speaker A: Of course. [00:14:10] Speaker B: I think it's a great example what you just shared of, like, you know, none of that is in the Scriptures. Right, Right. There's no passage that says, well, you can. Women can preach in, you know, Myanmar, but they can't preach in, you know, Philadelphia or something like. That's a total. Like, we've created that construct. There's no verse that says, I do not permit a woman to mow or trim the lawn. She must sit on the side, or something. Like, there's no. That's not in the Scriptures. Right. We've just sort of like, you know, created an infrastructure that. That allows for that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's a. I appreciate you sharing that. It's a maddening example, I think, of how we've sort of twisted some of the texts to like, confirm our, you know, our. I don't know what you'd call it, maybe our misogyny. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:55] Speaker B: The patriarchy. Right. We've sort of codified that, but it's not in the text itself yet. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Thanks for that, Rob. The place I want to go next is you utilize kind of a couple of. I might. I mean, mental model probably isn't the right term for it, but a couple of concepts, the complementarian kind of camp and the egalitarian camp. As you. As you go throughout the book, I also want to use this opportunity. I want you to talk about that and kind of define both of those for us. For people who may not really be familiar, maybe they've heard the term, but not familiar, I would say I didn't hear that term where I was growing up, although I would categorize it in the complementarian space, but it wasn't used that term wasn't used. And then after that to say there were. You and I talked pre record. There were a few places where I had just a little gentle pushback that I want to hear, I want to talk, have more conversation about. And this was one of them. So I'll bring that up afterwards. But if you could give us some working definitions of complementarian and egalitarian and then kind of how, you know, because how you utilize that in the, in the book, I think it's just. It's good that we have some common language. And I. That's the feel that I got is like, okay, if we're going to be talking about these, these are some usable terms that we can have in the book to kind of, you know, ground us and give us some kind of places to go. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The language is ever evolving around this. I've just was reading an article recently or a book rediscovering, what's it called, Lucy Pepiat's book. People Google it if they want, but she's proposing different terms. So complementarian and egalitarian maybe have run their course. And so she's promoting hierarchical and mutuality. Mutualist. [00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:52] Speaker B: So the language is evolving and changing on this. Simply put, I think where complementarians. So as you approach the question, larger question of what is the role of women in ministry? What's God's intent for that? There's two primary theological camps and they're defined by those terms, complementarian and egalitarian. Where both of the camps have in common is this belief that women are created in the image of God, that there's inherent dignity and worth and there's no, you know, it's not like man has more of the image of God than women. So that's what they have in common. And it's important to say that I think the distinction is that in a complementarian worldview that God has created a hierarchy, an order is the word that gets used a lot where men are called to lead, shepherd, steward in the home and the family in the world, and women are called to support, support, functions. And so that plays itself out, you know, in terms of like male leadership or headship in the home. And then certainly in the church, you're going to. Not in a complementarian church. In a pure complementarian church, you're going to find, you know, men in all the leadership roles and positions in the church, including, I suppose, cutting the grass. Right. So that's, that's how that goes. Egalitarians, you know, build on that foundation of Both women and men bear the image of God. And they say there's no restrictions on the ministry of women in ministry, on the ministry of women in the church and in the home, that women and men are jointly called to steward God's creation and to advance God's mission, and that it's more about gifting and calling than it is about sort of gendered roles. And so in a compliment of pure egalitarian church, you're going to find women operating wherever God's called them to and using the gifts that God's given them without restrictions. Does that help? [00:18:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:18:47] Speaker B: Okay. [00:18:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, for sure. [00:18:48] Speaker B: I can go on. But also, those are the. That's the basic difference, for sure. [00:18:52] Speaker A: Here comes my little bit of pushback. Great. And I mean this to say, like, let's, like, let's maybe just have this conversation a bit more for folks. We'll get into the developmental pathway. Pushback is on there a couple of times. And so I felt real comfortable saying, okay, Rob, let's, let's. Let's chat about this. So I think I have, I have a couple of notes, probably, and that is more notes toward the egalitarian side, because I think in conversations, not just in your book, but just kind of broadly, egalitarianism is. Is just kind of has this like. Just kind of like this general good name of like, you know, kind of how, how you described. And I think the pushback I would have is that. I think that that's generally true, but it doesn't always look like that in practice. So. So not to call any one, you know, group out or something. One example I thought of was just that in, in some US Denominations who, you know, I've had conversations with, with pastors or other leaders, and they would say, like, man is not just as long as I can remember, but as long as I've been alive, I've only had these examples in my denomination, in my tradition of women being able to do exactly as you described, which is true. And we look back and with, with many of these, women only gained the ability to be ordained, let's say, to ministry, like in the 1970s. [00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:20:32] Speaker A: So it might be as long as you or I have been alive, but this is a very short time frame in the grand scheme of the church, in the grand scheme of most of these, you know, denominations. So let's say, you know, there's a denomination that was founded in 1830. I'm making this up right now, but it wasn't until 1965 that women were able to be ordained. Well, then you have over a century where even if they, even if the claim was now, the term wasn't utilized back then, but even if the claim was to the modern term of egalitarianism, that's really not what the practice looked like for the, you know, the vast majority of, you know, of that denomination or, you know, there are stats that I, I didn't look up right now, but I have heard over the last few years, last several years, of just how many lead pastors of churches are men versus our women or specifically also, you know, statistics on, on any given Sunday, what percentage in the US of women pulpits have women in them? And that one is super low. You know, like on, you know, on this coming Sunday, for example, if you take 100 churches in the US and this is complementarian and egalitarian in general, you know, there might be nine women in the pulpit, which is like, so wild. And yes, that proportion is going to be higher in egalitarian spaces, but, you know, is it going to be 50%? I don't know. Is that we're short for. I'm not sure. You know, you know, not, not to go on, you know, complete, you know, Ruth. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But, you know, like, how, how many women on the court is too many? I don't know, nine. You know, is that, you know, is that enough? Because for all of these years it's been, you know, nine men. So not to get real prickly, but just to kind of a little bit of pushback on the egalitarian side. To say egalitarian doesn't equal equal treatment of women. [00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:43] Speaker A: Or mutuality. I think it's a good starting place. But a lot of times there are places who really claim or teach egalitarianism, but women still struggle to be able to live out their callings in those spaces. [00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:04] Speaker A: So no true question. Just a little bit of, like, what are your thoughts on that? [00:23:09] Speaker B: Well, if you're. I don't receive any of that as pushback on me. I think that's pushback on the egalitarian community and a call for the egalitarian community to really live up to its ideal. Right. I mean, I think you described as a starting point, I would say actually the egalitarian vision is more the end point, and we're just laboring to get there. So I, I mean, I share the critique. I, you know, for me, the, the term I use sometimes for this, Alexis, is egalitarian gap. So there's a gap between what we say we value and what we practice. And the question for me as a consultant, like, so I do a lot of consulting with churches or dominations or Christian colleges or whoever will have me. And my question is always, how big is the gap and why is the gap there? And let's. Let's get into it, right, and try to. My goal is always to brainstorm bridges to get from where the praxis is and where the value is. And I think there's always a lag there. So, I mean, I don't know that I've met an egalitarian faith community that I would say has it nailed, you know, that's. It's doing it well, perfectly. I wouldn't say that. I think there's always a gap. And the question is more how do you assess the gap or are they willing to see it? That's the first question, probably. And then once you see it, well, then you can do something about it and understand why it's there and how to resolve it. I remember I was doing some consulting with a church. This is years ago now, but I was working with a woman who brought me in. She was an insider on the elder team or staff team maybe, and. And she brought me in to do some work with them. And she. I remember her words. She says, like, we have a great paper that expresses our egalitarian convictions, but if you sat on a couch in the office space that we have, this communal office space, you would never know that that paper exists. And she was right about that. Right. And so, yeah, I always think about that gap. Maybe the other thing I'll say in response to your. I think your insightful diagnosis there is. I do think the church. I've been thinking more about this recently. The church is in the grip of patriarchy. And I think that in some ways you could say egalitarian churches are probably just in recovery from that. I actually have been thinking a lot about patriarchy as not just a system we've all inherited, but as actually a spiritual power and principality to use the language from the Scriptures. Right. And what does it look like for us to overcome the grip of that? You know, I think maybe we should be praying more about that. Right? We should be confronting that at a spiritual level, not just at a pragmatic level, which is what I hope my books do. But it's more like this is the deep root of the church. The church fathers, so to speak, were stone cold misogynists, all of them. And, you know, I think we're. We need to be. We need to reckon with that kind of part of our heritage as a church and attack the root of it, I think. And that's a spiritual work, so I'll stop there. But yes, amen to everything. You. I think it's a great observation. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Another footnote that I didn't even have in my notes, but when you just said church followers, it sparked my memory. I was so thrilled to see you're talking about Tertullian in the book because he was one of those, When I was in seminary, I was like, oh, this is one of those roots right here, this guy. And, and, and, you know, and, and it's, it's one of those wild things. I love the, the language of like, of like golden and shadows. I, I, I read someone who talks that way about David as an example about King David, but I'm like, oh, I'm not saying Tertullian didn't have any, anything you need to even say. He had some things to say that were helpful in edifying. But, but man, his work on women is, you know, it's just like, this is garbage. [00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah. He called the women the devil's gateway, I think. Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, this is the guy that gave us the Trinity, which is, like, wonderful, but, like, he's also given us more than that. And I think we have to reckon with that. [00:27:16] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. Before we get into the pathway itself, which is just so helpful to look at that, I want to ask you to elaborate a bit on the term ally. It's in the title of the book. It's the language that you use throughout. And I will also say you also use a phrase, and I didn't write it down exactly, but something to the effects of the world. It points or it tilts, tilts right in the favor of men. And before you get onto the ally, I thought I had this, this picture in my head. I had this one of the houses we previously lived at, one of the burners tilted, but you couldn't really see [00:28:03] Speaker B: it on the stove. [00:28:04] Speaker A: On the stove. Right. One of the burners on the stove is get a little gas stove. And you couldn't really see it until you got your skillet on top. And then you would see your oil would kind of pool, you know, on that part. And you had to continually kind of work that skillet to bring it back. And if you forgot about it or if you left it there for a minute, you, you knew that whatever was on the dry side of that skillet was going to get burned. And so he would kind of work to do that. And so that was a little like, additional kind of word picture that's in my head when we talk about the tilt, you know, that may not always be obvious, but we need to recognize it. Right. So, yeah, so if you could elaborate on that, on that term, but also on ally, and even maybe a little insight onto to why you chose that term. Because there may be some folks who are like, sure, you know, kind of like, what. This has other contexts. [00:28:56] Speaker B: Yeah, Yep, yep. Yeah. Again, all language, like, with the egalitarian and complementarian example, all language needs to be carefully, I think, vetted or at least defined when you're talking about it. So, yes, amen to that. When I think about the tilted. Just the story that comes to my mind is always, I used to coach my daughters in soccer, and we would play in these fields sometimes that were not level that you. I mean, you literally, you could walk out there and look, and you're like, the goal is a little higher at the far end. Right. And I always remember thinking about, like, okay, I want to be running downhill in the second half when the girls are tired. So there's always this strategic thing. But that's what I think of. Right. Like, it's just going to be easier in the second half than it is in the first half because you're running subtly. Not like, it's not like we're not talking about, like a steep hill here, but like just a subtle incline. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:47] Speaker B: And I think, yeah, that's a good. So that illustrates for me the concept of privilege. So privilege comes out a lot in literature. If you read. There's a lot of literature about allyship in the secular space, not so much in the Christian space, which is where I hope my book makes a contribution, but in the secular arena, there's this conversation about the dynamics of allyship. And people talk a lot about empathy. They talk a lot about privilege and sort of admitting understanding that you have privilege for whatever reason, and then working to leverage that privilege to benefit others. There's a lot of talk in the allyship literature about. And I make this distinction in my book. It is about caring for an individual and trying to advocate for an individual, but it's also sort of an engagement at systemic levels. And that's a distinction that gets made there. I mean, for me, the reason I chose the word ally is because I like it as an umbrella term. So for me, allyship functions as this big umbrella, and then underneath that, there are. And I write about these in my book, there are seven different. I mean, you know this. There's seven different roles that allies play and they range. I'll just go through the list real quick for listeners, right on one end, it's like the quieter allyship roles, maybe the roles that feel a little less publicly risky. So scholar would be one. When you invest time in learning about a marginalized community, that, that's the work of an ally. Next would be confidant, where I'm sitting with a woman that I'm working with and saying, how can I come alongside you? Where do you need support? Next would be amplifier. So I'm, I'm choosing to amplify the voices of women in my networks. And then from there there's two more in the middle. It's sponsor and champion, which are more public. So I'm on the mic in a room, I'm telling a story about a woman or a pastor. I'm preaching and I'm choosing to preach about Junia that day. Right? There's, that's an example. And then at the other end, at the more, really the more risky public end of the spectrum, there's upstander, which says, I'm going to step in and intervene when I see injustice, when women are being treated poorly, I'm going to act and then advocate is the, is the far end, which is to say that I have access to, to areas that women in my life won't ever get access to, but I'm going to push the door down and bring them inside, usher them inside. So I think, I think what I love about the term ally is that it has room for all of those different expressions. And I think that's important because not all men are created equal. There are men who are way more wired for the quieter end of the spectrum and they're going to be really effective in that sense space. And then there are men who are more wired for like, let's make a, let's cause a ruckus right now, right. And, and, and are going to be wired for the more louder end of the spectrum, right. And so it gives room, I think, for men to be who they are and operate out. Now, I think my personal conviction would be that a habitual ally, which is the end of the pathway, you should be fluent at all of those seven different types of allyship. But that's not where you start from. I think you start at what you're good at and where your inclination is, and then you sort of work your way towards that. So, so for that, in that Reason or for that sense. I think the allyship term is, is really useful. It creates room for all of that nuance. [00:33:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I will, I will just, I want to pause for a minute and just say that I'm really grateful for your work and for this being, you know, geared toward men specifically. I will say I've had conversations with many women in ministry, with women who are pastors, and I've had even some conversations with female pastors and authors even on this podcast too, in the, either in the pre or post recording, you know, we, we chat about that a little bit. And I've heard from more than one of them, more than one of them have expressed this sentiment, which is, I did not become a pastor so that I could continually defend why I should be able to pastor. Yeah. And so in those realms, some of them don't talk about it publicly. You know, just kind of the, the debate, you know, one or two have said, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna, maybe I'm gonna write an article, I'm gonna give one talk or I'm going to do one podcast. If people want to have it, they can reference it because it's not my jam. I'm not going to continually do it. But whatever the case, I find, and, and, and for some women, this is their jam and this is, you know, this is part of what they consider to be their, their ministry, which is great. But what I would say to that is I'm grateful for men who commit to be allies in this space because for many of us, it really does kind of take away from the work that we feel called to do, to continually have to defend why we should be able to do it. And so to have men in our corner who are saying that's not really okay, that's not even fair. You know, I can, I can be a pastor and not have to defend why, you know, my gender doesn't disqualify me from, from this or that. So it really has helped helpful to have men in this space who, who can do that, who are fluent, as you say in that. And this book provides some, some really helpful. I don't. Guidelines is a word that's coming to my mind, but I would say some, some help provides a helpful outline even. You give some examples of like, this guy thought he was doing it and he thought he was doing it well, or he thought he was doing it right and he realized after the fact, you know, or maybe the woman came in him and said, said oh, that wasn't exactly what I would have preferred in that, in that space, but it kind of provides some of that up front. Now, for those of us who are allies in any space, we say it's a learning process, we are going to mess up, we are going to make mistakes, we are going to offend the people that we were hoping to aid. It's going to happen. It sucks when it does. But to have tools like these to, to help and in, in, in this space to say, and something written by a man so that the woman isn't kind of bearing that burden, you know, or it's like not, you know, come to me. How can I help you? Well, man, this is helpful to have, to have that. So I just wanted to pause there for a minute and say that I'm grateful for this work in this space and how you're encouraging men to, to come alongside of you as an ally, but also to come alongside of us. [00:36:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I think just to say on that, I think the move. I use the word identity a lot. Lexus, that's an important word for me. I think ultimately that's where you want to get to the place where men identify as an ally. Because that's more than like, I'm just going to do this once and be done. Or like, I mean, I think when you identify as an ally, you're comfortable not being centered, you know, you're comfortable operating more from the margins, which I think is where allies often do need to sort of operate and not center themselves. I think what you described earlier, I mean, some of those stories I tell in the book are about me, where I stepped in to be an ally. And I shouldn't have. I should have just like I usurped the agency of my sisters, right. And that's not a good thing. And so I think it's that journey of learning to identify as an ally. And I think, I hope anyway, that as that happens more and more that we'll experience, like I said earlier, sort of this idea that we're getting to the place where women and men are fully just use the language of our interview, where the full egalitarian experience is possible because men are free to not have to feel like they always need to be in the center. I like. One more comment. Karen Catlin, who wrote one of the, I think one of the best books about allyship, it's called Better Allies, and it's where I get my seven different allyship roles from. Karen Catlin, she talks about in her book about the Contrast between an ally and a knight in shining armor. And I love that contrast. It's like the knight in shining armor swoops in, saves the day, and where does the glory go? Goes to the knight. Right. And, you know, but then the knight gallops off and does whatever the thing the knight does next. Right. The ally is in it for the long haul, and the ally is not the one that gets the glory. The ally is, Is. Is positioned in a way that the marginalized community gets. Gets, you know, raised up. And. And I think that's the kind of ally we want to be. So. [00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you for that. That's so good. Let's talk about the pathway. Yeah. Because I, I thought this was. This was great. And, you know, I was thinking about it in terms of other contexts. You know, how can I learn from this and in other spaces where I seek to be an ally? But as a, As a woman, I, I appreciated this pathway. I will say this isn't necessarily pushback, but this is one of those places where I think even. And I would say it was. Say for me, it was kind of a. I experienced where I have had kind of a double standard. And I'll say what I mean by that. At the beginning of the book, you have an opening story about a woman who is going to preach at her church. And at some point in the narrative, you kind of use the phrase, slowly but surely this church is kind of moving in this direction. And I just thought, I am so frustrated by that. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Yep. [00:39:24] Speaker A: I am so frustrated by slowly but surely. Yes. You know, because as a woman, I just want to say, can we not just be there yet? And then, But. And then, you know, and I think, like, I'm a. I'm a mixed Hispanic woman. I'm a brown bipoc woman, I think. Yeah. And. And then I, you know, I look and see the things that are going around me and I'm like, really? These are the same things that are being said about me and my community that they were when I was in youth group, you know, all of those years ago. Wow. [00:39:53] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Slowly but surely, you know, I think of other areas where I am seeking to become an ally and where I have gone through these. You know, what I would say now, like, oh, I can use this language of your pathway where I'm going through evolution in my thought, going through evolution in my actions and my scholarship and think, wow, how frustrating for the people who. [00:40:13] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Who I'm. I'm trying to come alongside. Because now, you know, I'm. I'm wanting to be in the allyship position, but it's taken me, you know, time, evolution, you know, all of that to get there. There's. That's why I say, like, a bit of a double standards, like, well, can't you get there, Rob? You know, you can't your men get there? You know, and then it's like at the same time, there are places where people would say that of me. Right, Alexis, really? Why. What's taking you so long and why can you not get there? So, so just, you know, kind of throw that out there to the front to say I'm appreciative of the pathway and frustrated that it's necessary and recognize it's also necessary for me in different areas at the same time. So. So with, with that. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Well, just to say I share the frustration. I mean, trust me, I want to change this thing tomorrow. You know, the overused metaphor of like the super tanker on the ocean making a turn that takes forever. That's the church. I would much rather we were a speedboat. You know, it can make a quick turn kind of thing. I'm not a boat person, but that's. That's the metaphor. Right. So I share that completely. I don't. Yeah, I don't receive that as pushback either. I think it's. So, I mean, hopefully the pathway. I don't think the pathway needs to take 20 years, by the way. Like, I think the pathway could be done quickly. And actually, you know, I work with college students vocationally and I. So I have them for four years. Right. And my goal is to get them to six or seven. Six. Seven. No, to get them, you know, through the end of the pathway as quickly as I can because I don't have them over the long haul. Right. So hopefully, Lord willing, it doesn't take. It doesn't take as long as we hope, we fear it might. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, go ahead and tell us what the, what the steps are in the pathway. I'm going to try not to interrupt you as you, as you run through those, but there may be some places where. Where I do. So go ahead, but take us through the steps on the pathway. [00:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah, jump in anytime. So, yeah, starting position is where it starts. Well, first of all, let me back up and say that after I had that experience with that guy in the seminar where I watched him sort of disengage and had that question, I did what I do, which is I did some research. So I gathered some people that I think intuitively are Allies. And my goal was to understand, can we break down this sort of process of allyship development into steps? Because I think if you can do that, then you can train on it. You can, you know, you can sort of like guide people through a pathway. Right. So. So I sat with a bunch of folks, I did interviews, I did focus groups, and I did a survey as well. And so the. What. What's in the book is. Is crowdsourced. It's comes. Comes from a group of people that I really respect as allies. And so it's a pattern that was common in a lot of those stories. So the first one is starting position. So where you start matters. I don't think where you start is a. Is an automatic. So even predisposed people who. Men who are open to allyship, they may not end up as allies. Right? And same thing is true with people that are adversarial, men that are adversarial to this whole idea of male privilege or allyship. Some of those folks have become the allies I respect the most. Right. So starting position is important, but it's not like, determinative, I think. So starting position, the second step, is a disruptive encounter. So I think this is where we. And sometimes they just happen, but I actually think the church. And this is maybe where women come into the picture in terms of this process of allyship development. We can create disruptive encounters. We can shake men to cause them to go, well, wait a second, maybe the world does tilt in my favor, or maybe women can mow the lawn or, you know, whatever. It is, like we create a dissonant experience, and people think of dissonance as bad, but I think of dissonance as a fertile ground to grow, you know, and so hopefully that's what happens in step two. There's something, or maybe there's multiple experiences where men have their view of the world really kind of shaken. Step three is the response to that disruption. So how you respond to it obviously, obviously matters. And I think for some men, it's like, that was weird. I heard the woman preach, she seemed good, but I didn't like it. And they opt off of the pathway. In step three, hopefully men have help. Someone that comes alongside them and says, what you experienced right there, let's do more of that. Like, let's step into that more deeply. Right? And that's. That's the crucial transaction there in step three is. Is helping to interpret that, the disruptive encounter and galvanizing the men to continue on in the pathway. So step four is the Seven different allyship roles I mentioned earlier. So it's the initial attempt. So having had this experience, having their world kind of reconsidered, men try things out. And oftentimes, like I said earlier, it's like men kind of go, well, do I need to advocate right now? But no, you can start with, let's try being a confidant, or let's try amplifying, you know, the voice of a woman on social media or something. Or let's work on being a scholar first. Right. Some men are going to step out of the step three pathway, three, and be ready to, you know, upstand. But I think for most men, it's going to start further back, sort of in the quieter expressions of allyship. Step five is push back. And I've been thinking a lot about this. I think if you are not getting pushback because of your allyship efforts, you're maybe not doing enough to express allyship. So I'm toying with that. I think that's true, but there's maybe a little bit in my mind of thinking like, maybe you're just doing such an effective job that people can't push back. But I think it's probably true that you need to experience some level of pushback. And one of the things that came out in the stories is that there were a lot of examples of people sticking their neck out to advocate for women, men sticking their neck out to advocate for women, and having one of the writers on allyship in the secular space. Their, their names are Johnson and Smith. Their book is called Good Guys, and it's terrific. They, they define the term called, they coined the term the wimp penalty, which is where men try to stick their necks out, advocate for women, and they get judged. Oh, you're a wimp. What are you talking about? Like, that's just PC or whatever it is that happens in step five. Step six just quickly is the continued investment step. Allies aren't a finished product. After they've emerged from pushback, they have to continue to refine their craft, become more effective. I think there's still this process of learning to identify as an ally, of being comfortable, not being centered. And then step seven would be, I call it the habitual allyship step, which is where really allyship becomes just something that is endemic to who you are. And it's like you don't even have to really think about it as much anymore. You're able to sort of just operate as an ally and have it be natural and normal. And it's also the step, step seven, where you start to look back down the pathway and you say, what are some guys in my network that I could bring forward through the pathway? And so there's this mentoring kind of dynamic in step seven. So there you go. What was that? Six minutes of five minutes or whatever of there's the pathway in a nutshell. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Yeah, no, this is good. I have, I have a couple of things that initially came to mind. So one, on your, the idea that you're kind of toying with of if you're not getting pushback, are you, you know, what's kind of your level of allyship there? And my, initially I just thought, well, yeah, because we're in a patriarchal systems. I mean, not just in the church, but just in general patriarchal systems. I've said this quote more often than I probably should have on this podcast, but it lives in my head rent free. So. Thanks, Mark Charles. But we were talking about gender equality and he said, and he was talking about not at all in the, in the church, but just in the United States. And he said, if you want to know why, at the time, I think it was 76. Now I think it's 80. But if you want to know why women earn, you know, however many cents on the dollar to men, his response is it's because the Constitution is working. That the Constitution was written by and for white landowning men. And so there are so many things that, you know, if it's kind of, you know, my, my kind of interpretation and paraphrase, if it's not to the benefit of white land owning men, then it's probably, and you're wondering why that is? Well, it's probably by design. Right? So if, so if women are earning 84 cents on the dollar to men, it's because the Constitution is working, you know, and we might say in some of the spaces. Well, if you're wondering why, you know, women are preaching 8 out of 52 Sundays at your church, well, it's probably because your church bylaws are working or because that, you know, because there's patriarchy built in the system. Patriarchy is working, you know, whatever, whatever it is, at whatever, whatever level it is. And so, so that was, you know, one thing that came to my mind. And if you, more kind of more specifically than that, if you are a man who is in a space where your allyship is needed, then you probably would be getting pushback because if you were in a position where your allyship wasn't needed, then you wouldn't be Having to act as an ally and there wouldn't be pushback. Right. So anyway, I don't know if I'm not trying to make like a logical circular thing there, you know, but that's one of them. The other thing, of course. [00:49:41] Speaker B: So I. My publisher puts out social media ads for. For this book. And the other day I was. I saw one come up on Facebook, you know, and it's beautiful. It's this great ad and all that. I made the mistake of looking at the comments. Right. And you know, Rob, never look at the comments. I'll spare listeners, you know, the worst of them. But, you know, you. There's a way in which you read that and you think a. It just reinforces the problem. This is the problem that women face. Right. That you're in a church where people. And if you click on some of the. And I did this, you click on some of the bios of the people that make the comments. It's like all Jesus everywhere on the Facebook page and all that. This is the problem women face, and this is the problem. Secondly, this is the problem that allies face. Right. So it makes the point. I think what you're saying is. Is exactly spot on. Like, it makes the point of why allyship is needed and why we need this larger picture, you know, come to Jesus experience around egalitarian praxis is because this is. The patriarchy is so entrenched and it's, It's. So I think it just has the church in a grip, in a vice grip. Right. So. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it's. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Never read the comments. Yeah, right. [00:50:52] Speaker A: That's rule one. But, you know, I do think. But I think it's important when you name the pushback, that pushback should be exciting, expected. But then also that pushback even existing is, you know, it just reinforces. Yeah. There's like, there's still more work to do. [00:51:05] Speaker B: That's right. [00:51:07] Speaker A: When you, when you, when you talked about the. Hang on, Go, go back through them again, starting position number two encounter. Huh. [00:51:20] Speaker B: And then third would be a response to that disruptive encounter. Fourth. Yeah. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Yep. So. So I'm here, I think, between, you know, kind of in two and three, because I remember reading some of the stories of the men who you featured in the book, and I felt sad with you with some of these. And it made me think about what role community plays in this pathway and also what role theology plays in the pathway. I will say, as a. As a woman, even, you know, as my. In my evolution, you know, I went to seminary. I got my m. Div. Thought that I would, you know, at this point, kind of at least be close to pursuing some sort of ordination path. But even in that, I would say having these conversations with people who have been a part of my community for a long time, but who live and breathe and are really happy and committed to complementarianism, both men and women, I have found those. That there are some places in those relationships that became strained by my expression of, you know, my call. And so, you know, I would say even as my theology, you know, began to shift, so it made me think about those kind of. Those two. Those two things and how they play in to this pathway because, you know, you told stories of a, you know, of a guy who had this disruptive encounter and was kind of like, oh, oh, yeah, maybe so, you know, and it sounded. I may be conflating stories here, but either way, you know, there's men who might. Who might say, oh, I can see that theologically. Yeah, yeah, maybe they're there and they say, oh, yeah, I can see how even though maybe I was adversarial and then I have this disruptive encounter. And, you know, one of the churches I was a part of when we lived in our previous city did a Bible study where one of the male pastors on staff did kind of this. A Bible study very similar to this of like, women, the biblical basis for women to be allowed to, you know, kind of serve in ministry. So I'm thinking about something like that. Maybe theologically they've made a step, but then maybe it ends up being their community who they, you know, feel drawn to or committed to or say, I can't. Maybe I can't leave that space or I want to be here, or maybe it's. Maybe it's the other way around. You know, maybe someone is making. Making, you know, having a community that they feel, you know, good about. They switch communities maybe to one that's more egalitarian, and then maybe they go back and say, yeah, but theologically, I just can't get there, you know, and, And. And find a place that's helpful. So I'm wondering what you've seen maybe in yourself or as you talk to men for, you know, the research for this book or even just, you know, anecdotally how community and. Or theology play a role with men as they. As they move forward in the pathway. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Great question. I love that. I mean, I think maybe to trace what I think is a common kind of journey, I think a lot of times Men and women have a theology on women in leadership that is shaped by their community. So whatever community, whatever church community they were a part of, you know, they've sort of breathed the air, whether it was complementarian air or, you know, half baked egalitarian air or whatever it is. Right. You sort of breathe that in. Or maybe it's a book that you read once upon a time or an article, or maybe it's your family of origin that had this viewpoint. And so I think you, I think we get our initial, you know, sort of theology from the communities we're a part of. And then. But what I've learned, what I've been experiencing over the last couple of years I've been doing consulting and training and things like that is I think a lot of people have a theology that is uninformed by their own personal exploration and the Scriptures. So they, again, they breathe the air, whatever that looks like, but they haven't actually rolled up their sleeves, gathered with community, which is always ideal when you're doing Bible study and under the leadership of the Spirit, you've just searched the Scriptures. Right. And so I think one of my prescriptions I try to make often when I'm doing my consulting work is let's create space for people to explore what the Bible says about this for themselves. Not just read again, read a book or hear a sermon. So although books and sermons are awesome, but it's more like what can we do to create space to get people in the Scriptures? And I think that's a huge transaction. If we can. I always, I mean, I think like, if we can look at the text, not just first Timothy 2, that's an important passage, but like all the way through the Scriptures starting in Genesis 1 and going through the Old Testament life of Jesus into the epistles. Like, if we can examine the whole of the Scriptures on this topic of women in ministry, then I feel pretty comfortable that God's going to speak. And I've seen it happen many, many times where even adversarial people that enter into that process from a hostile position, you know, end up at least if they're not fully egalitarian when they're done, they're at least open to that idea or it's a softer version of complementarian theology or something. So I, yeah, that would be my, like, you know, my word to your listeners is like, where are the spaces where you're rolling up your sleeves and getting into the text itself and not just sort of relying on, you know, what communities, what you, what you've there. You've breathed over the years. [00:57:03] Speaker A: So. Oh, my gosh, Rob. We. I'm like, super proud of us because we got through, like, almost all of my notes. Um, okay, but. But then I looked at the time and I was like, oh, dear. We. I need to try to land this. But I'm. In my mind, I have. I've got. I've got teenagers. And so I'm like, I. I scroll, but we don't scroll the same, you know, kinds of. Kinds of things. So they sometimes tease me about the things that I scroll. But when I scroll. Well, sometimes one of the. I don't know if it's actually a trend, but, you know, they'll have someone on who will say, okay, this is for so and so. And if this isn't you, you can keep on scrolling, keep scrolling. And so I'm thinking right now, but of course, people who don't fit that bill, they still listen because, you know, we're human. And that's part of the point. But right now I'm thinking, if you are making a video right now, but you're saying this is for Christian men who are seeking to be allies to women in their context, this is my word for you. If this isn't you, if you're a man and this isn't your, you know, your jam, or if you're a woman, you just keep scrolling. But what. Because you have worked with so many men, I'm thinking men who are at this starting position, maybe it's. They haven't really given it much thought before, and maybe this is an introduction for them of why it even matters. [00:58:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:40] Speaker A: What might you say to those men? [00:58:43] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. At the risk of being trite, I will say my. My short answer would be follow Jesus. I mean, follow Jesus into the experience of being an ally. I think there's no better example. I mean, there are other biblical examples of allyship, but Jesus is first and foremost on the list, even above, you know, Boaz or Paul or Peter, other biblical heroes I talk about in the Bible, Jesus has it figured out. And I think the place to start with that, with Jesus is Philippians 2, the Christ hymn. At the beginning of the passage there, where Jesus doesn't consider equality with God something to be grasped, he empties himself. He says, look, I'm going to lay down my privilege to use words that we've been talking about in the interview here, lay down my privilege, become incarnate, take the cross. Why? So that humans can be raised up. And I think that's a great model for what allyship looks like. I mean, it's. For me, it's. In a lot of ways that passage is a predicate for we talk about this idea of allyship. And so I think for guys, we would do just great to follow Jesus holistically, but specifically around this idea of taking on the identity of an ally. [00:59:57] Speaker A: That's really good. Thank you so much, Rob. [01:00:00] Speaker B: Of course. [01:00:01] Speaker A: I really appreciate it. I appreciate your work in general, man. All the. We have a lot of resources that we even just mentioned in this conversation that are going to be in the show Notes, but there's also a ton in the book. So if people grab a copy of the book, there's tons of resources on a lot of these different topics that people can. They can dive as deep as they want to dive with the bibliography of this. So I just want to say thank you for that as well. Again, the name of the book is Allies in Ministry, How Men Can Support Women in God's Mission by Rob Dixon. Rob, thank you so much for being with me today. [01:00:43] Speaker B: You are a great interviewer that feel like we could. I could go for another hour. That was phenomenal. Thank you for the time. [01:00:50] Speaker A: Thanks. That's so kind of you to say. 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 [email protected].