S2B01: Ash Valentine's Day - Too Much Love Will Kill You (or Those You Love)

[00:00:00] This is a Dauntless Media Collective podcast.

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[00:00:07] Hi, I'm Gail.

[00:00:09] I'm Nate.

[00:00:10] And this is Full Mutualality.

[00:00:16] Happy Valentine's Day.

[00:00:18] Yes!

[00:00:19] On this episode, on today's episode, our guest will be my very favorite human for Valentine's

[00:00:26] Day.

[00:00:27] So, you're so ticky.

[00:00:28] You! little in a little segment here that we're gonna call announcements. Announcements? We'll make an announcement before we get into today's Ash Valentine's Day topic but it's sort of along along some similar lines but on the edgy part of Valentine's Day which is not gonna be ours is gonna be a little less but if you

[00:01:40] want to go edgy we have an announcement we mentioned about his edgy episode, will be there as well. Speaking with Janice, I believe, together, Janice from God is not given. There'll be a lot of great podcasters that will be out there. And the topic will be all around topics of sex.

[00:03:00] So like I said, edgier than what we're doing today.

[00:03:03] Yeah.

[00:03:04] He listened to Scott sort of more on that line.

[00:03:07] But I think it's not edgy, but you know,

[00:04:21] I might on my heart has been this idea of evangelicalism, were you taught a fear of loving anyone too much, aka loving them more than God? And so that was sort of what I was throwing out there with the idea that, you know, basically

[00:05:44] I thought my devotion to the rules was you know if you're loving God more than other people? Like do you time your devotionals, your prayer time, start a stopwatch? Okay, how many minutes did I spend with each?

[00:07:01] And then there's this constant guilt that we just didn't love God enough too. And the word hate is so strong. And I remember growing up in church and thinking like, well, how we're being taught to love one another, how could you hate your family, your husband, your wife, your father, your mother,

[00:08:20] your brother, sister, how do you hate those people?

[00:08:24] And I remember the way that we were taught

[00:09:25] a 15-year-old, and definitely, but I still remember being startled by the word hate when I came across it in that passage and being like, wait, didn't the Bible say to love, like wasn't that the radicalness

[00:09:29] is to love others and to love them so much and Jesus loving us, that is so much He died for us,

[00:09:35] like what, what, and like just being so surprised by that and having to like go to, go to the youth

[00:09:40] pastor, what does that mean? Why does it say hate and others in the Bible hating your family, what is used to believe this. This is how much you've grown, but also like it's sort of a purge to just be like, I no longer cling onto these toxic thoughts. Goodbye. Or a strong bad would say deleted. But CS Lewis, so this was the quote that I thought was profound. When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

[00:11:03] Insofar as I learned to love my earthly dearest comments because I thought they were interesting. Somebody actually, I'll go to this one first

[00:12:22] because we were talking about loving your family

[00:12:25] and that Bible verse actually that you brought up from Luke.

[00:12:27] Somebody brought up A.W. Tozer. Yeah, just the ministry first concept and how their family was treated and how they never felt really cared about by that person who was so about God. And it's interesting because Christianity claims to be about loving other people well, loving your neighbor, loving... Like love is supposed to be the central component, is love others.

[00:13:40] And yet that's a common thread and it comes from a lot of this overall, you know, the

[00:13:46] verse that you brought up, the C.S.

[00:13:47] Lewis quote that I gave. he was about to like give up his kid that he had prayed about and God told him would be his blessing and bless the whole world through this kid and this is the promise. And he's old, it's like it's not even just he had this kid or this one child. It was like, no, like he was, this was a miracle child of his. And then God is like, give up this kid.

[00:15:00] Yeah, show me that you love me.

[00:15:02] I mean, I'm obviously paraphrasing.

[00:15:04] We are.

[00:15:05] Show me that you love me, they would say, but I love God more than you. Like they could never say, I love you without a disclaimer. Or even I love your mom, but I love God more than your mom. I love God more than you. And it's like, what's the point in doing that? Like, why can't your love just be what it is? Why can't a child rest in your love? Like there's a point you're trying to bring up if you can't even express your love without that

[00:16:23] disclaimer, right? And it's sort of what you a religion based around God sacrificing his only kid, his only child for us. And that's supposed to be the ultimate act of love. And oh, wow, look, here's a bunch of other examples that kind of parallel this or that flow in line with this. So yeah. I think, you know, it's, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but I think it is worth pointing out that

[00:17:42] there's a lot of incongruity in the Bible

[00:17:43] regarding child sacrifice.

[00:18:44] And there's probably much better, healthier ways to look at these different things, even the stories themselves.

[00:18:46] Again, we're talking about them as how they were interpreted to us through evangelical

[00:18:50] lenses, right?

[00:18:51] Using that evangelical idea that God's beautiful act of redemption for humanity was penal

[00:18:57] substitutionary atonement through child sacrifice.

[00:19:00] But yes, Japheth, is that Jephthah?

[00:19:03] How do we say it?

[00:19:04] Jephthah?

[00:19:05] Jephthah?

[00:19:06] Right.

[00:19:07] That's where you're going with the judge's story.

[00:19:08] Yeah. young daughter, I don't know, she's a young teenager, 11, 12, I don't know, some young age. And he sobs and he cries and instead of being like, oh, wow, that was like a dumb promise I made. No, no, that's not, like, of course I would never sacrifice my kid. It was a silly thing for me to think. He's like, okay, how we sometimes misunderstand God, or what we think our duties to Him should look like. Here's how parents really mess it up and come to really flawed understandings of what loving God looks like. That could have been a good lesson. It could have been a good way to look at that story of good, bad examples. Don't think good parenting

[00:21:42] looks like this. Don't think loving God well looks like this. tend to relate to other people, not evangelicals in particular. And then it manifests on individual levels and on a case by, person by person basis in the way that they conduct their relationships

[00:23:04] with their friends, families, and loved ones. And I'm giving to God and amplify that and pass it on properly to other people because I am inherently broken and I don't know how to properly love. Therefore, if I love God, God will take that love and give that- Make it pure, unbroken form. Purify it and give it to others.

[00:24:21] So I know I just like went all over the place.

[00:24:24] No, it was good rant.

[00:24:26] I do it and deconstruct. If you've been looking for a POC centered podcast

[00:25:40] that engages with intersectionality,

[00:25:42] religion, critical race theory, and some hip hop culture,

[00:25:46] then you need to check out Profane Faith. for a couple of days because the question resonated, but for me it was something slightly different. I have childhood trauma around the death of a family member for decades as Christians. I feared my husband dying. Okay, I still do. Sure, it's the trauma, but it's also countless testimonies of God loves me so much, he took away anything that kept me from being completely his. I heard this from a lot of widows.

[00:27:02] That's some shitty rhetoric there.

[00:27:03] Jealous God indeed.

[00:27:05] Yeah. Remember once in youth group, after a whole series on this, we had a bonfire to burn all the things we loved, more than God. My entire CD collection full of late 90s, early 2000s, emo punk and pop music went up in flames. Oh man, that brings back memories. Like, I feel like that's the difference between the fundamentalist kids and the evangelical kids. You guys weren't allowed to have it.

[00:28:21] So you weren't burning it because you had to pretend.

[00:28:23] You had like your stash.

[00:28:24] Well, for me, I had to pretend

[00:28:26] that I didn't know what those things were. their Christian stuff and listened and I committed to doing that at different points as well. So definitely something that was taught and passed along. Somebody named Pamela said, they were always looking for idols. No one was allowed to just enjoy anything, dear God. Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, Amanda said, God, yes.

[00:29:42] And it's still messing with me 20 plus years later with like sad emoji. what Kyla was saying about to this day, they have an incredibly different time making friends as an adult because they were never taught how to develop healthy friendships and relationships. They never were able to practice that in the real world

[00:31:01] because they were always taught that

[00:31:04] this is the relationship that comes first child sacrifice, but somebody had commented on a friend's, friend share, a friend of mine was sharing it and they said, uh, they were afraid that their husband loved, loved them too much and that he would go to hell for it. And then when they had their first miscarriage, they were wondering if they were being punished for being so excited about the pregnancy. Um, add this to being raised by a parent who actively destroyed your happiness

[00:32:22] cause they couldn't bear to see you happy.

[00:32:24] And it's a little a quick moment here and just acknowledging what the fuck is a born again virgin? I know that like our, so our audience, most likely I'm guessing like 90% of you

[00:33:42] probably know what that is.

[00:33:43] You probably are laughing and know what this is.

[00:33:45] But if you don't.

[00:33:46] For those of you who are joining us you've reded, instead of dedicating your life to Christ, you've rededicated your virginity to God and you are no longer going to have sex. So yeah, a little bit embarrassing now. But I think I am telling this story because this idea that God would kill your baby is horrifying. But I understand where I pulled that from. You know, somebody could say, oh,

[00:35:03] I never taught you those things. You Job, Job was a victim of circumstances. But God made that decision, right?

[00:36:21] God made that decision, but he didn't ask Job,

[00:36:23] he didn't say, hey Job, give me your child.

[00:36:25] It was like-

[00:36:26] Well like David and Bathsheba, that ancient Hebrew word, hasatan, which simply means adversary or accuser and is used in a few other instances to describe other people in the Bible. So this character that we're calling Satan isn't necessarily even the Satan character or Lucifer that we think of when we think of Satan.

[00:37:42] This is just an adversarial character in the book of Job.

[00:38:47] raped and is willing to sacrifice his daughters in order to protect these men of God, quote, unquote, these messengers of God. And it's presented as like, look how much Lot cares for God,

[00:38:54] you know? And that's how I was told that story. Look at how wicked the city was. This is a setup

[00:39:01] for us understanding why God had to destroy Sodom and G't in school. We aren't teaching kids these stories. Right, yeah, yeah, those groomer stories that they're trying to put in the kids' library. But these stories, no, no, these are our kid appropriate stories. Bible needs to be taught in school.

[00:40:20] Oh man, the ways the Bible gets sanitized,

[00:40:23] it's something else.

[00:40:25] But I mean, this is a setup to Lot's wife ways to tell stories that can pull all kinds of different... You can analyze these kind of ancient texts with different angles and different lenses, but as evangelicals, like you said, these are the ways that we had come at these stories. These were the lessons we were being told. You know, why do we need to take away this little girl's teddy bear? Why is Jesus hiding this big bear behind his back and acting like she even wants that big bear? you know

[00:43:00] That's gonna be fine for her to give up her favorite like

[00:43:03] Yeah, and I saw this circulating from from so yeah, and I I get the sentiment what's you know what's ahead of us what God has in store for us which on the one hand in a way it kind of makes sense right you can often miss the foresticals and you realize these are your people because they understand, you guys have that in common, that understanding of this. So this is something they posted and I related to it as an ex-Vangelical. My

[00:45:44] first abusive relationship was with God. Conditioned not date students. Lawyers should not. Psychologists should not date their patients.

[00:47:01] Like whenever there's like this big difference in knowledge and understanding and someone

[00:47:05] having power over you, by the way, who are supporting us in that and means so much to us. I'll go back to reading because I love hearing from people. Aaron said, that all sounds familiar. I was also taught at some point that it was a sin to love your pets. Love was to be reserved for God and people since people have souls.

[00:48:21] Elizabeth, who comments often on her page, I really appreciate her thoughts. difficult to love a God who's not actually present more than those who are. Conjuring up feelings for an imaginary deity more deep and powerful than for anyone else is impossible. So there was always a bit of guilt involved in loving, which often resulted in holding back love from others. Being away from all that has made loving much more free, but it's a learning process.

[00:49:41] The training is not always easy to recognize and unlearn.

[00:49:44] This post was a good reminder for me for Cause I think we had it first yourself last and others in between. Uh-huh. That's how you were taught it. So us, it was Jesus first, other second,

[00:51:00] yourself last kind of the same, the same, just taught in a different way.

[00:51:04] But yeah, yourself last. So joy was in putting yourself last. teachings of total depravity or even that you know you're like filthy rags or your heart is deceitfully wicked you know all the doctrines that they've taught us that basically keep us from knowing ourselves at the end because we're afraid to yeah we're afraid that who we are is bad and I think of how you

[00:52:20] know if we wouldn't have had that trauma of all those doctrines on how bad we were

[00:52:24] how bad we are that we might have actually gotten to know ourselves above her door in the kitchen and it's in Greek. And she says, you know what that means? It means know thyself. And that that's the root of, I think, any kind of healthy existence in the world

[00:53:42] and in society is a broken person. I started looking up Ash Wednesday and you know that's where Valentine's Day falls today so it was about brokenness and about more than that and I'm not super familiar with Ash Wednesday as a part of really scary idea if you've been taught that you are underneath the most terrible thing. You know, I think of passages where Paul said, you know, wretched man that I am, you know, who could deliver me and saying he's the worst of sinners. And if Paul is saying that, then we were all supposed to imagine ourselves as terrible as well. Like

[00:56:22] this was some sort of a model of a pious recommend is the Reclamation Collective. They have support groups, nonclinical support groups that you can join to work through some of your spiritual trauma.

[00:57:40] I've done spiritual abuse with the Reclamation Collective

[00:57:43] in the support group and I didn't have insurance access.

[00:57:46] So, you know, if you're struggling with, uh, getting close to others, be patient with yourself. It's a process if same with loving yourself and getting to know yourself and, uh, whatever supports that you can, you can have. You know, even just one of the fun things about listening to podcasts is being

[00:59:00] able to hear other people's stories.

[00:59:02] And, you know, so your credit card or anything.

[01:00:21] You don't have to pay for anything to join.

[01:00:23] You can just go ahead and sign up.

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