[00:00:00] This is a Dauntless Media Collective Podcast. Visit dauntless.fm for more content.
[00:00:07] Oh, another time of Easter. Oh well yeah, so it was an interesting time right? He is risen.
[00:00:28] risen to what? Oh my goodness. Well join us on Profane Faith this week as we talk about Easter 2023 and Beckham and Neil. Oh, a new book? What? Come on!
[00:00:43] Come on!
[00:00:55] We have enemies within our country. I think it's a combination of demonology and psi-up.
[00:01:02] The citizens are going to rise up and become deputized. I have always heard President Trump. I like the way he talked.
[00:01:09] He reminds me of my men. Joe Biden last night in the debate. He's not even a human being. Donald Trump and the migrant Republicans represented extremism.
[00:01:18] Can you imagine repatriating all the black Americans that had to spoke about to Africa? Now, this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith?
[00:01:27] Risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children on some idealism which you assure me just to America which I have never seen.
[00:01:37] This is Profane Faith, a podcast that engages faith on the margins. Faith that has been labeled profane, non-conformist or even out there.
[00:01:47] We'll be exploring the intersections of the sacred, secular and profane define God. And look, we won't be trying to answer difficult questions.
[00:01:56] Rather, we'll be engaging them in asking better ones regarding faith, race, gender and religion. I'll be your host, Daniel Whitehodge.
[00:02:07] Welcome back. Welcome back in the place to be. Here we are another week, another time, another moment. Welcome to your friendly Profane Faith environment.
[00:02:24] My goodness, well, this is your first time as always. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for being with.
[00:02:31] I'm your host, Daniel Whitehodge. And yeah, just reflecting a little bit here on Easter. It's Easter. If you listen to this in real time, it's Easter.
[00:02:41] 2023. You know, it's always an interesting time. If you've been brought up, particularly in the Christian faith, this is, you know, this is
[00:02:51] a big holiday for Christians. This Inc. of course, Christmas is always a big time.
[00:03:01] But it's interesting to reflect on just what the meaning and significance like, you know, I was talking with my partner, Emily,
[00:03:09] and I was like, you know, if we, if it's just about traditions and if it's just about liturgy and lore, if it's just about those things, absolutely.
[00:03:21] But right as Christians, we want to profess something bigger. Right? And so I don't know, having heard all these stories, I guess I'm trying to ask myself what, what do us, we take away from it.
[00:03:35] You know, I mean, so my friend and colleague, the amazing mind of Dr Monica Coleman, I've had around the show before I got to get it back on posted some stuff on Instagram that I thought was really good.
[00:03:51] She started with a does resurrection really matter, a meditation on why I think it does. The death looms near is sometimes a product of our social and economic and geographical and age related realities.
[00:04:04] We see loved ones and strangers around us, transisting transitioning both peacefully or with great resistance to the space beyond life.
[00:04:14] Oftentimes the threat of death is an unfortunate, though known consequence of the decisions that we make as we take stances for justice, love, inclusion, humanity, and earth.
[00:04:27] And there are the instances when the threat of death comes from within, when death can seem a welcome respect from the wearingness of trying to subsist in the midst of desperation.
[00:04:42] For those of us who have known metaphorical and literal death not once, not twice, but more times than we can count resurrection matters.
[00:04:52] To be able to find life when one cannot see even an arm's link in front of oneself and to be able to feel or know love and breath after life has been vitiated is nothing short of a miracle.
[00:05:09] To see value in the past after seasons of hopeless desperation and to stay in community when all season or all reasons, gives me says to walk away is how I know mercy.
[00:05:24] To break bread with people who have intentionally hurt you and to retail stories that have lost meaning in the face of the apathy and hopelessness invoked by looking around is how I think of grace.
[00:05:37] That's a powerful in there.
[00:05:39] The mystery of grace, mercy, and the miraculous is not that some people do not experience this.
[00:05:46] The mystery is that any of us manage to resurrection reminds us that finding life after death and even perseverance in the face of death is divine activity.
[00:06:01] I read that. I thought that was really good. I mean, I always love what she has to say in general.
[00:06:09] And I thought that was a good fitting right that kind of captures where I'm at.
[00:06:15] I'm probably still more on the apathetic hopeless side of things.
[00:06:21] But I love that she includes that in that because I think often so times, so many times at least as I've been a part of so many Easter services.
[00:06:31] It's just it's this time of kind of like oh resurrection and hope and I continue to say right like what are what are the things that we're hoping for.
[00:06:40] Like I get some of the narratives that we've told ourselves right some of the myth around that of you know righteousness and fulfillment and and you know living a full life like I get all those things.
[00:06:53] You know, I think there's nothing wrong with with with the hope in that right but to say that that's going to come to say that that's going to be a part of I think that's where I struggle in particular when we say God will protect us.
[00:07:07] What does that what does that look like in the face of the immediate danger that some of us face if you're trans, if you're black and trans right.
[00:07:17] If you just a black body in general if you're a brown body if you indigenous body, you know standing up to corporate folk who are trying to take your land and put some oil pipeline on there.
[00:07:28] What is God to do and you know some people will say oh well that's just God's will whatever happens is God's will.
[00:07:38] And I don't know but I like this saying I like this little capturing here if you don't follow Dr Monica Coleman I highly recommended she has amazing stuff and get on her her mailer I like that she's pragmatic in her approach to this and part of it is she's a process theologian.
[00:07:56] And I've said it before I said it again you know I was like the more I learn about process theology the more I am you know emboldened to kind of stand even more in this reconstruction of what we would you know define as faith.
[00:08:11] And I think part of so much of the Easter is it's representative of something that was right there's the community there's the food right there's the dressing up there's the bright colors all of those things right there is something about Easter.
[00:08:31] That holds meaning in just our own kind of metaphysical processing of life death right family community love faith all those things and I and and it's against it just gets more difficult.
[00:08:49] As years go by as we think about you know just where we find ourselves and when you think about you know new laws that are being passed I think it was the Georgia or Tennessee one of those southern states I don't know if it was Georgia it might have been Tennessee.
[00:09:05] I'm forgetting the state that passed the law or maybe it was Oklahoma.
[00:09:10] That passed the law that said now it's okay to to forcibly look at kids genitalia to make
[00:09:17] sure that they're either a boy or a girl, right?
[00:09:21] Texas is what their Supreme Court is looking at.
[00:09:25] Hey, how can we put the 10 commandments in all schools, right?
[00:09:30] Yeah, you know, when in the face of that, you think, woo!
[00:09:34] So, but I do still think through all that, I still think that faith is important.
[00:09:41] So I think that Easter is representative even in a theology of hopelessness.
[00:09:48] I do think there is some space for that.
[00:09:53] I think about all the countries that are at war.
[00:09:57] You know, and that's something that we hear in the United States just don't know of.
[00:10:01] You know, just to live in that, to live in that threat, to live in that ongoing daily life
[00:10:08] and death struggle.
[00:10:09] If somebody's going to come up, there's going to be a bomb, there's going to be someone
[00:10:13] shoot at us, big mage or massive shootout.
[00:10:17] Yeah, I think those are some things that kind of just, again, I hang on to that I'm just
[00:10:24] saying, huh?
[00:10:26] And I get that we're all in this process and in this journey, right?
[00:10:29] That's we're not going to get answers, I think, on this side of the grave.
[00:10:33] And hopefully there is something more beyond the grave.
[00:10:37] You know, and I think that is right there.
[00:10:41] It kind of is hope that we put in something of the resurrection.
[00:10:45] Again, going back to what Dr. Monica Coleman was talking about.
[00:10:48] Again, that's, I think that's part of that process.
[00:10:52] That's part of that is being able to sit in that space.
[00:10:57] And for me, that's a good thing.
[00:10:59] I mean, I think so much hope and so much vigor, so much capital is placed into religion.
[00:11:08] There's the, you know, it's like religion has to be this, religion has to be that religion.
[00:11:13] Is this?
[00:11:14] It is that especially in ethnic minority spaces, right?
[00:11:17] Because religion represents something that goes beyond, right?
[00:11:22] The natural.
[00:11:23] Is that supernatural?
[00:11:26] That's on your side.
[00:11:27] That's something that's beyond, that has way more power than the systems and networks
[00:11:32] that are in front of us.
[00:11:35] And there's hope in that, right?
[00:11:36] I mean, that's what, you know, it's like, what else is going to keep you going, right?
[00:11:42] And I think there's something to that.
[00:11:45] There was another quote that I was reading as another account that I follow this American
[00:11:51] left.
[00:11:52] And they said, nobody in the world, nobody in history has ever gotten their freedom by
[00:12:01] appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
[00:12:05] And I really resonate with that because that's the truth.
[00:12:10] That is the truth.
[00:12:13] I think about, you know, folks who are, you know, trying to logically reason with some of
[00:12:19] these lawmakers and strainer trying to, you know, appeal to the moral sensibilities.
[00:12:24] I know prior to 2016, as somebody who worked it, you know, real closely with intercultural
[00:12:29] calm and DEI and still trying to work through, you know, with white churches, there was a
[00:12:35] sense right of less appeal to their moral sensibilities, especially if they claim to be
[00:12:41] right Christians, faith believers.
[00:12:44] But I truly believe that now.
[00:12:45] I'm like, no, you can't not appeal to those, those, those sensibilities because they're
[00:12:51] not there.
[00:12:52] It's a completely different world view.
[00:12:56] And you know, where does that leave us?
[00:12:58] I don't know.
[00:12:59] I don't know.
[00:13:00] I really don't.
[00:13:01] I really don't.
[00:13:03] You know, I think there are a whole bunch of different ideologies around what we can do
[00:13:07] right?
[00:13:08] You think about conflict transformation and peacemaking theory and all that and things.
[00:13:15] But it's hard to be peaceful with someone who hates you.
[00:13:17] Okay?
[00:13:18] It's, it's hard to resolve conflict with somebody who wants to see you dead, who somebody
[00:13:24] who wants to see you obliterate it.
[00:13:28] So yeah, in those situations, I'm not trying to have peace.
[00:13:31] I'm not trying to have some kind of resolution that we can all walk away from.
[00:13:37] I'm just trying to live my life and let you live yours, right?
[00:13:41] Without having too many policies and laws that put me at a disadvantage.
[00:13:48] So those are just again, some of the things that I'm thinking about, I think Easter is always
[00:13:52] kind of a reflective time in general.
[00:13:54] Same thing with Christmas.
[00:13:57] You know, and you know, there's, you know, it's got pagan roots as well, right?
[00:13:59] You think about the Easter bunny and just even the name of Easter and you know, worshipping
[00:14:03] of the God of fertility.
[00:14:06] Of course we know, you know, December 25th, Jesus was born on that day.
[00:14:10] You know, all those things, right?
[00:14:12] Still are representative of something.
[00:14:15] Even though there's yes bigger historical context to it, right?
[00:14:19] There are still significant meanings.
[00:14:22] And so, you know, hopefully profane faith podcasts can be a place for those who just
[00:14:27] kind of processing that and it's still kind of wondering where do I fit?
[00:14:31] Right?
[00:14:32] If you've gone through some kind of, you know, form of deconstruction and, you know,
[00:14:37] some kind of form of just saying what in the hell are we doing?
[00:14:40] And theologically, hopefully this can be a space where we can just hold some of those
[00:14:45] things in tension.
[00:14:46] At least this is the place I'm trying to cultivate for that to be because I do think
[00:14:51] that there are some, some things that we're just not going to get answers to.
[00:14:55] And I think that's the problem with mainstream evangelicalism is that it seeks to answer
[00:15:00] everything.
[00:15:01] It seeks to have an answer for everything and just everything can't be answered.
[00:15:06] And then it's okay to live in ambiguity.
[00:15:08] It's okay to live in some of that doubt or a lot of that doubt, you know, for that matter.
[00:15:15] So yeah, fascinating things there, right?
[00:15:20] But all that to say I still hope you had a good Easter weekend.
[00:15:25] It was nice here.
[00:15:26] Was able to get out.
[00:15:27] Had a great brunch with a family friend who went and sat out on the deck took some sun
[00:15:32] in, right?
[00:15:33] If anything else, it was a great day to just kind of hang out chill, get some good food.
[00:15:38] Fam, this week I got a, whoo, great guest.
[00:15:43] Becca McNeil, she's a reporter, wife, mom, she's the author of the new book, Bringing
[00:15:50] Up Kids When Church Let's You Down.
[00:15:53] This just, this came out in October of last year with Erdman's and so I wanted to get
[00:15:59] her on and this, we recorded this a while back and I do apologize to Becca.
[00:16:05] This is coming out too late.
[00:16:08] But nevertheless, I think it's perfect timing for where we find ourselves.
[00:16:13] And when I thought about just interviews and Easter and all that was like, oh my gosh,
[00:16:17] I got to have, I got to put this one up this week.
[00:16:21] So Becca Stolls die.
[00:16:24] Oh man, it McNeil this of some, let me see.
[00:16:28] It's Han Skie Stolls, Han Skie.
[00:16:31] There we go.
[00:16:32] McNeil is native of San Antonio where she has been a reporter for nine years.
[00:16:36] Her work has appeared in print with Christianity today.
[00:16:40] The San Antonio current and the public justice review as well as online with the Christian
[00:16:44] science monitor, solejourners, the Texas Tribune, the Heckenbach reporter, the 70 and the 74
[00:16:50] million and the numerous local and numerous local outlets.
[00:16:53] Excuse me.
[00:16:54] I want for her ability to communicate the highest stakes of education and immigration
[00:16:58] policy and bring clarity to complex systems.
[00:17:01] Becca keeps the human beings most affected at the front of her coverage at a chance to
[00:17:08] sit down, wanted to talk about her new book and the impact of that particularly.
[00:17:13] And I think anytime something's dealing with kids in use, I always want to talk to those
[00:17:17] authors.
[00:17:18] So the book is bringing up kids when church lets you down.
[00:17:21] It's available now.
[00:17:22] I will put the links as always in the show notes.
[00:17:26] Go to the show notes, quite hot podcast dot com.
[00:17:29] Check it out.
[00:17:30] Profane faith.
[00:17:31] And if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe like, rate us that's always good podcast
[00:17:36] mojo.
[00:17:39] So sit back, relax and enjoy this conversation I had with Becca McNeil.
[00:17:52] Alright, well, welcome back to Profane Faith.
[00:17:59] Folks, I have a great author on the line today.
[00:18:04] This is this is going to be a great conversation.
[00:18:07] Becca McNeil, Dr. Becca McNeil and I'm excited to talk about her new book.
[00:18:12] And but before we get into that, I always ask the same question to everyone.
[00:18:16] What has been happening from birth to now?
[00:18:19] And particularly as an author, how did you how did you come to this area of writing?
[00:18:28] Sure.
[00:18:29] Well, I was born and lived the story first.
[00:18:35] There's a strong autobiographical component to the book.
[00:18:39] And so it kind of ties together your whole question in that I was born into a really, I
[00:18:49] would say rigid faith tradition really based on certainty we knew thing, you know, culture
[00:18:55] wars all of that stuff went through all of the institution, you know, in the church
[00:19:01] went to Christian camp, 20 Christian schools went to Christian college worked for the church.
[00:19:08] And then when it all started to fall apart in my mid 20s, mid to late 20s, I had to kind
[00:19:18] of go back and reassess not just where I'd spent the last five years working, but the church
[00:19:26] I'd been baptized into and things that my parents had told me in little cliches that
[00:19:32] I'd always taken as truth from growing up.
[00:19:36] And I had to kind of pick some things apart and it happened in phases.
[00:19:42] It you know, there was a point where I just needed to kind of get to what my therapist
[00:19:46] would call social safety, you know, out of the toxic environment and into somewhere
[00:19:51] where I could breathe a little bit.
[00:19:52] I was have my husband is fantastic.
[00:19:55] Thank goodness I somehow married.
[00:19:58] I got married while I was in all of these systems, but I married someone who was very much
[00:20:04] kind of pointing the way out.
[00:20:05] Okay.
[00:20:06] Yeah.
[00:20:07] He was standing by the door when I was ready to bolt.
[00:20:09] He was like, it's over here.
[00:20:10] I love it.
[00:20:11] I love it.
[00:20:12] Yeah.
[00:20:13] He was a good partner for that.
[00:20:14] And we, so we, you know, just kind of spent some time resting and thinking and going to
[00:20:21] therapy and all of that.
[00:20:22] And then we had kids and realized like, well now it's a building time in our life.
[00:20:27] When you have kids, you're building a family tradition.
[00:20:29] You're building a family faith and whatnot.
[00:20:34] And I needed to do some more work in figuring out what I wanted to carry on and pass on
[00:20:49] to the next generation versus what I wanted to very much shield the next generation from,
[00:20:54] like the bad cycles I wanted to break.
[00:20:58] And how to take what had kind of become this very tangly wild thing and put it in development
[00:21:05] and appropriate language for my kids.
[00:21:07] And what should I prioritize and what were the main goals, you know, for us to give them.
[00:21:13] And so that's what led to this book.
[00:21:15] The time I was working as a journalist, I am working as a journalist.
[00:21:19] And I have all these conversations with people about education schools.
[00:21:27] I worked for Christianity today.
[00:21:29] So I was talking to a lot of Christians about things like immigration and over and over
[00:21:34] and over, we'd get to the end of the interview.
[00:21:36] I'd push stop on the recorder.
[00:21:38] And then we would start this conversation about, yeah, man, I'm just, I'm really perplexed
[00:21:43] by this thing that the church is doing or I'm really not feel, you know, people start
[00:21:47] talking about their own questions.
[00:21:50] And when they'd find out I had kids, we would start talking about kids.
[00:21:53] And like what are you telling your kids?
[00:21:55] And then we, I was talking to friends about it.
[00:21:57] And eventually I started just asking people like, could we make this a formal interview?
[00:22:02] Could we like, I'm curious.
[00:22:04] And once I had talked to enough people and taken enough notes, I decided like, this is
[00:22:09] more than a story.
[00:22:10] This is a book.
[00:22:12] And now it's a book.
[00:22:14] It's actually going to be out in the world.
[00:22:17] I love it.
[00:22:18] No, I love it.
[00:22:19] I mean, and I think you're absolutely right.
[00:22:20] It's great to have a partner right of spells that's, it's in the same location, right?
[00:22:25] Because, you know, we all know those stories, right?
[00:22:27] Of folks.
[00:22:28] One person's like, no, we got to stay.
[00:22:29] We got to do all these things.
[00:22:30] And then the person's like, man, I'm about to jump out this thing, man.
[00:22:35] So what's happening with that?
[00:22:38] So what are some of your findings in regards to, I mean, because there's, I think about
[00:22:43] it, I mean, I come out of the youth ministry world and so having worked with kids, right?
[00:22:47] I feel like easily over the last 30 years, we've seen this kind of rush of like, oh, we've
[00:22:53] got to reach the next generation.
[00:22:54] We've gone from Gen X, right?
[00:22:56] I remember youth pastors having pictures of the breakfast club in there, in their, you
[00:23:01] know, in there, not the radio station, the actual movie breakfast club because it was
[00:23:06] like, they're like, oh, this is like a profile on the Gen X generation.
[00:23:10] And then we went to the millennials.
[00:23:12] Right.
[00:23:13] You know what I'm saying?
[00:23:14] Oh, yeah.
[00:23:15] So what, I mean, what are some of those findings?
[00:23:17] And particularly, I saw something this morning that was talking about how, you know, you
[00:23:23] know, some churches are really struggling with, you know, keeping young people in the church.
[00:23:27] And like numbers in general, how do you begin to make some of that sense out?
[00:23:32] I know that's a long-winded question, but I love it.
[00:23:34] I love it.
[00:23:35] I love it.
[00:23:36] I love it.
[00:23:37] Yeah.
[00:23:38] Well, one thing that I am seeing is that while if you were raised with something that
[00:23:46] you want to get away from your, what they're calling, you know, deconstructing or your
[00:23:50] unbuilding, you're getting free.
[00:23:52] But when you look at a kid, they don't, they're not inherently born with something to like
[00:23:58] push back from.
[00:23:59] Yeah.
[00:24:00] And so they're building for the first time.
[00:24:04] And so in some ways, we have the benefit, we who are deconstructing had the benefit of
[00:24:11] a lot of different kind of certain things to look at and push off of.
[00:24:18] Yeah.
[00:24:19] But if you're a kid, and you don't have any of that, a lot of parents were struggling with
[00:24:26] like in some ways it's easier to subtract than to add.
[00:24:31] Okay.
[00:24:32] And so you want to give them something healthy, recognizing that a lot of the reason
[00:24:40] that your head's still above water is because you had a lot of stuff to pick from.
[00:24:46] That's, that seems kind of like I don't want to believe or I'm having trouble reconciling
[00:24:55] the thought of God sending people babies to hell.
[00:24:58] Let's just say you open that tradition where it was like, nope, sorry, everybody's going
[00:25:02] to hell unless they profess Jesus, you're going to struggle with good people going to
[00:25:07] hell.
[00:25:09] But I had something to argue against when my kid comes home and ask what happened when
[00:25:14] we die.
[00:25:17] That's a different question.
[00:25:19] That's not somebody saying you're telling me this, but I don't believe it.
[00:25:23] You're having to give them an affirmative.
[00:25:26] And kids are coming at it without the cynicism, without that protective shell of cynicism.
[00:25:32] In some ways, we use cynicism to keep ourselves from getting hurt.
[00:25:36] So kids are coming to it with a lot more hope and a lot more wanting it to be good.
[00:25:43] And you have to change the tenor of the conversation, and that's really hard for parents.
[00:25:48] And then in the church, I mean, oh boy, I think for youth ministers today, I mean when
[00:25:58] people are talking about, oh, this generation is not interested in church and all that,
[00:26:04] I have yet to see churches that are really doing a lot of the soul searching about why
[00:26:10] that is.
[00:26:11] Yeah.
[00:26:12] I think you have to really back away from these little sinners or just rejecting the
[00:26:19] good gospel that I'm giving them and start really respecting the fact that maybe the
[00:26:26] spirit of God is showing, you know, pointing out that there's some dissonance, there's
[00:26:34] some incongruity.
[00:26:37] And they see it and they aren't as socially pressured to be in it.
[00:26:41] You don't have to be a part of a church now to be a CEO.
[00:26:44] You're not trying to network.
[00:26:46] Right.
[00:26:47] No, you're not.
[00:26:48] That's not the respectability code anymore.
[00:26:51] You can, you know, succeed perfectly well.
[00:26:55] The reason for going to church are not as ubiquitous as they once were and so the church
[00:27:04] has to make itself felt for people.
[00:27:09] Like it has to be a source of life and hope and truth for people.
[00:27:14] And I don't think that a lot of churches have actually had to do that in a context where
[00:27:23] they don't get to say, well, we're you're ticket.
[00:27:28] You know, you're going to go to hell without us for a long time.
[00:27:31] Like what else did you need?
[00:27:32] But when you have to actually show a value to people, I think a lot of churches struggle
[00:27:39] and I think there's some resentment that's making the, you know, not want to do that
[00:27:46] part.
[00:27:47] It's making them want to just say, well, this generation is selfish and they're so
[00:27:52] narcissistic and they're so, yeah, it's their fault.
[00:27:56] Exactly.
[00:27:57] Yes.
[00:27:58] So I think that the impetus is on both the church and the family and everyone to ask if
[00:28:08] God really is true and beautiful and lovely.
[00:28:13] Is that what's being experienced by the people in my care?
[00:28:18] Yeah.
[00:28:19] Yeah.
[00:28:20] Well, I, that's funny.
[00:28:22] It reminds me I posted something here the other day on social media.
[00:28:26] I mainly just post memes.
[00:28:27] I have a love hate relationship with social media.
[00:28:30] So it and and these are a social service.
[00:28:32] There you go.
[00:28:33] That's right.
[00:28:34] And it said there's no hate like Christian love.
[00:28:38] And I think about right, just the amount of mess, right?
[00:28:45] And I think about this generation to think about my daughter.
[00:28:47] She was born in 2006.
[00:28:48] So there's a sense of it's not the same kind of lip service that the church and really
[00:28:54] other agencies of of officianados, right?
[00:28:58] Let's like, you know, you think about the academy, the higher education.
[00:29:02] You think about not just again church, but the police.
[00:29:05] I mean, people are asking the serious question like what are these services actually providing?
[00:29:11] And and and what is the ultimate benefit of this?
[00:29:17] And so I don't know.
[00:29:19] I mean that's it you said something really good about just are they really seeing right
[00:29:24] the we talk about oh God is love.
[00:29:28] But but is God really like us?
[00:29:30] All I really you know, it's like we hate these people.
[00:29:33] We don't like these people and like where are the metrics that when you shun somebody
[00:29:37] and that you turn them away?
[00:29:39] That they they get converted and they are 100% converted to your way of life or your
[00:29:45] way of thinking.
[00:29:46] And so anyways all that to say, I think exactly what you're saying.
[00:29:49] I think you're right.
[00:29:50] I haven't seen a church yet about in terms of really looking that introspective like what's
[00:29:56] going on with us and what's happening here.
[00:30:00] Well, let me ask this and you know, particularly with with the book and and this is such a always
[00:30:04] a topic right.
[00:30:05] You know, hold the next generation and I finally stop coming to and going to Christian conferences
[00:30:12] just because I'm like they're talking about the same thing we was talking about in 1995
[00:30:16] like you know, and you know, we got a fire for youth.
[00:30:20] We got to fire them up with the Holy Spirit.
[00:30:22] What do you see as some of the priorities as we think about if there's somebody who works
[00:30:28] in a church sitting like right now like what what's somebody graduating from seminary
[00:30:32] right now need to know in regards to working with the young people, the youth of today.
[00:30:39] Yeah.
[00:30:40] I think I mean, so you're talking when you talk about the youth of today, you're talking
[00:30:44] about Gen Z and what they're calling Gen Alpha.
[00:30:47] Like my kids are little and then you've got the teenagers and college kids kind of yeah
[00:30:52] and teenagers and college kids always present more of a and stir up more anxiety among the
[00:31:01] adults because they're pushing back.
[00:31:03] They're going through this developmentally appropriate separation from their parents
[00:31:08] and that feels uncomfortable for everyone.
[00:31:11] And I think that a you see, I've observed this and I'm not I'm not a social scientist
[00:31:21] so I don't I can't tell you like based on generations of trends, but just based on observations
[00:31:28] and the story like when I interview students versus when I interview adults.
[00:31:35] The there's a lot of adults kind of go one or two ways they're either like this generation
[00:31:40] is terrible and awful and they don't you know, they're the grumpy old people or there's
[00:31:46] like an idolizing it and being like, yeah, we got to like harness that energy and like
[00:31:52] the kids are going to lead us to it and all of that.
[00:31:56] And I there's definitely times where I'm talking to kids and I'm like these kids get it.
[00:32:03] They want a better world for everybody.
[00:32:06] They understand they think in systems, they think in solidarity, they think in terms of
[00:32:13] know me without you, there's so much better at the idea of community really.
[00:32:22] But it's in this very so that's good and that gives you a lot of hope and I think it's
[00:32:27] something that leaders need to recognize is that these kids think in systems.
[00:32:32] They are not going to be as moved by a you and your personal relationship with Jesus.
[00:32:42] I mean, they don't they don't they love relationships and whatnot but they are also very
[00:32:48] aware of how does the church function as an institution like they care about that.
[00:32:54] They're looking at who's in the pulpit?
[00:32:56] Who's why do we do that?
[00:32:57] They're socially aware they're going to ask more questions about will hold on what's the
[00:33:03] implication of that for people of color, indigenous people, women, LGBTQ people.
[00:33:11] Right, yeah.
[00:33:12] They're going to want to know what your institution and your way of thinking in your systems mean
[00:33:19] for others.
[00:33:21] That's how they've been trained to think.
[00:33:22] That's how the world that they're growing up in thinks.
[00:33:25] I went to graduate school in 2006 and learned words like post colonial postcoloniality because
[00:33:33] I went in the UK and that's how they would say it.
[00:33:35] Postcolonial theory in all the isms and the ission, you know, and globalization, homogenization,
[00:33:46] disnification, all I mean we were just immersed in it but when I came back, nobody was talking
[00:33:52] like that and when I would talk like that, it sounded nerdy and people were like, oh yeah,
[00:33:57] that's boring.
[00:34:00] Every college kid in the world wants to talk about decolonization now.
[00:34:07] We need to de-center whiteness.
[00:34:09] When I discovered the whiteness studies in the library at the London School of Economics
[00:34:13] I was like, what is this?
[00:34:16] Oh my gosh!
[00:34:17] This is answering so many questions that I've had.
[00:34:19] Right.
[00:34:21] What college kid, what high school kid isn't talking like that now?
[00:34:24] It's been mainstreamed and so they are talking like that and I think that the church is foolish
[00:34:32] to think that those words are owned by an anti-god.
[00:34:38] Ooh!
[00:34:39] Okay.
[00:34:40] Move it.
[00:34:41] Yes.
[00:34:42] Yes.
[00:34:43] We can stop there if you want.
[00:34:45] No, no, I guess this is good because I think you're hitting on even part of the culture wars
[00:34:50] that we're seeing.
[00:34:51] It's now beyond just old boo on Madonna for coming out an MTV and wearing some lingerie
[00:34:57] like that's mild.
[00:34:59] Now we can put that in the Bible study now, right?
[00:35:03] But now it's turned to these kids have been brainwashed.
[00:35:07] I think about an interview the other day and somebody was talking about how Shapiro and
[00:35:11] Alex Jones, they're naming people that have been this center of hate and really putting
[00:35:17] out this propaganda and somebody from the right was just like, well, but the same thing
[00:35:22] is happening on the left as well.
[00:35:24] And the person was like, okay, well before you go any further tell me who those people
[00:35:28] are on the left that have the equivalency of that platform and that put that stuff like
[00:35:33] tell me on it.
[00:35:34] That person couldn't name anybody.
[00:35:35] All they kept talking about these grand things.
[00:35:37] Well, but kids are being indoctrinated by these colleges professors and everything.
[00:35:41] But who are they?
[00:35:42] Who are right?
[00:35:43] And people couldn't come down to it.
[00:35:44] So my point being is that you're touching on something.
[00:35:47] Can you go a little bit expand a little bit on that because I feel like because this generation
[00:35:51] is talking about white supremacy, white privilege.
[00:35:54] Now it's like all they've been brainwashed and now we got to go against critical race theory
[00:35:57] who people don't even have a freaking clue about just even stand on but they're going to
[00:36:04] be like, oh, say no to CRT.
[00:36:05] Does that mean you know what I'm saying?
[00:36:07] Oh yeah.
[00:36:08] And then everything that gets swept up and I just hosted a panel yesterday about social
[00:36:12] and emotional learning which people on the left and right have been all for decades about
[00:36:19] we call it civics.
[00:36:20] We call it character training.
[00:36:23] You know, we call it all these things now that you call it social emotional learning.
[00:36:26] The second that someone says a child of color is going to learn better in a classroom
[00:36:32] where the teacher is culturally competent and has had some degree of training.
[00:36:37] Right.
[00:36:38] Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:36:40] No, we're not going there.
[00:36:43] And it's like no, we're taking these things to their to a logical next step and you can
[00:36:49] say that it's all about self-regulation and being kind to others and blah, blah, blah
[00:36:57] blah when you're thinking as a white person thinking about what white kids need in the classroom
[00:37:04] but if you're not thinking about black kids who are dealing with the effects of racism every
[00:37:10] single day because our country is built on it, you haven't gone far enough and you haven't
[00:37:16] you haven't completed the sentence of this classroom needs to be conducive to learning
[00:37:25] for who.
[00:37:26] So that's all to say that like things like social and emotional learning get sucked in critical
[00:37:30] race theory as has been pointed out by many is not actually what most of these bills
[00:37:34] are talking about.
[00:37:36] These bills are calling it critical race theory and different legislatures and talking
[00:37:40] points.
[00:37:41] It's not critical race theory.
[00:37:42] What it is is teaching that racism is anything more than a personal feeling of hatred toward
[00:37:50] people whose skin is different colors.
[00:37:53] If any teaching of racism beyond that suddenly gets labeled critical race theory, right?
[00:37:59] As you're talking about, oh, it's built into our banks and our schools and our government
[00:38:04] and our electoral system.
[00:38:06] If you want to start talking about that, they want to shut it down.
[00:38:10] And on the brainwashing thing, one of the things that I think about is thinking, so what
[00:38:20] are the effects?
[00:38:22] Like teaching kids is brainwashing them.
[00:38:26] If you want to get that far like brainwashing, I'm brainwashing my children to chew with
[00:38:30] their mouth shut.
[00:38:31] They don't do that naturally but I am going to brainwash them into doing that without thinking.
[00:38:39] I'm going to brainwash my children into thinking that they need to use the restroom in a toilet.
[00:38:45] They don't do that naturally.
[00:38:46] They used to go in diapers.
[00:38:47] So your teaching is brainwashing.
[00:38:52] I think the effect is what you have to look at.
[00:38:55] The effect of generations and generations and generations of teaching that competition
[00:39:01] was the way that society moves forward, and that there are always going to be winners
[00:39:05] and losers and that the winners deserve to win and the losers deserve to lose.
[00:39:10] And looking back at history and kind of saying, okay, well, we're not going to acknowledge
[00:39:16] that that has any effect today because we fixed it.
[00:39:21] The effects of that are an increase in suffering for more people.
[00:39:29] The effects of our kids saying things like, well, that's a white supremacist system
[00:39:39] and I want to decenter whiteness and whatnot is that we feel uncomfortable.
[00:39:45] And we have to check what we're saying more often and we have to think twice before
[00:39:49] we spout off an opinion, like, is this, do I think this because I'm white?
[00:39:54] Great example.
[00:39:55] Queen Elizabeth just died.
[00:39:56] Yeah.
[00:39:57] She's a monarch of a huge global empire.
[00:40:01] And there's all this frustration about people from colonized nations not feeling sad that
[00:40:11] she died.
[00:40:12] Right.
[00:40:13] And then there's people who are like, don't politicize this.
[00:40:16] A person died.
[00:40:17] A person, Bob, Bob, Bloss.
[00:40:19] She was a good queen.
[00:40:21] And there's what we're used to is there being a right and wrong.
[00:40:28] Right?
[00:40:29] Yes.
[00:40:30] Right to either say ding dong, though it's dead or it's right to say she was an amazing
[00:40:36] monarch.
[00:40:37] One is right, one is wrong.
[00:40:39] The reality is that there are other perspectives.
[00:40:42] From the perspective of the colonized, the colonizer is not a hero.
[00:40:49] Right.
[00:40:50] Done.
[00:40:51] Right.
[00:40:52] And what white people globally are mad about and Christians have joined in because they
[00:40:58] have been buddy-buddy for so long and they've been part of these call, you know, the missionaries
[00:41:04] went with the gold diggers and all of that.
[00:41:10] What they're mad about is that they can't say what they want to say and have it recognized
[00:41:17] as the universal right.
[00:41:18] There's somebody who can speak back to that and say, hold on what about my perspective?
[00:41:24] And they're saying, well, so you just want to cancel the queen?
[00:41:27] No.
[00:41:28] We're saying there's another, she's complicated.
[00:41:33] The reaction to our youth and people around the world and people of different colors
[00:41:42] and cultures speaking back to this dominant thought is to say, oh, well, you're trying to
[00:41:49] get rid of me.
[00:41:50] And I think for Christians especially, I think that's the biggest tell that's like, oh,
[00:41:55] now, you really believe that if you're not completely dominant and perfectly right,
[00:42:04] then you don't exist at all.
[00:42:07] Like you've baked in certainty and dominance into what you are so that if it's not 100%
[00:42:17] certain, and if it's not 100% agreed upon, and if you're not dominant in every sphere,
[00:42:24] it's the same as not existing.
[00:42:26] And that's why they see it as an existential threat.
[00:42:29] And I think if you go way, way, way back to the early church, they were under no illusions
[00:42:36] that they all agreed.
[00:42:38] They were under no illusions that they were culturally dominant.
[00:42:41] They were under no illusions that they were the moral authority.
[00:42:49] And so I think we've gotten that the more powerful we've gotten, and I see the church operating
[00:42:55] the same way as certain establishment, certain institutions.
[00:43:02] As with this belief that anything that chips away at my rightness or my dominance is an
[00:43:15] existential threat to me.
[00:43:19] Woo.
[00:43:20] Okay, that's that's that a preach right there as they say, you know, in my tradition.
[00:43:26] Okay, there's so much to unpack there and there's so many things about your book which
[00:43:31] let me just tell folks it's the title in case I haven't said it.
[00:43:35] Bringing up kids when church lets you down because you get into raising kids right to
[00:43:44] live with both security of faith and the freedom of open mindedness.
[00:43:49] What is that?
[00:43:50] What does that look like?
[00:43:51] Then you talk about the sex talk, finding a different path in this where I love then true
[00:43:57] love waits purity culture because this comes up a lot right in regards to I'm going to
[00:44:02] wait.
[00:44:04] And then we see kids that are just messed up in their 20s and still trying to unpack and decolonize
[00:44:09] their own selves in their 30s and so I don't know.
[00:44:12] I mean, I yeah, pretty culture is definitely a rough thing, but I don't know if you want
[00:44:17] to speak to any of those right?
[00:44:19] Sure.
[00:44:20] Well, actually, so everything that I just talked about is this is going to make either people
[00:44:28] run out and buy it or be like cancel my order.
[00:44:32] A lot of that stuff about certainty and dominance and perfectionism.
[00:44:39] So it's I tried to make it a little more user friendly and entertaining in the way, but
[00:44:49] the book points out that a lot of the things that have hurt us in the church hurt us because
[00:44:58] they were based in a mindset that was made to dominate.
[00:45:02] That was about certainty.
[00:45:03] That was about not allowing any impurity or any argument that was about conquering.
[00:45:10] That was all of that when you when you have a faith that's really committed to that mindset,
[00:45:17] a lot of the things that they do are going to affect people in negative ways.
[00:45:24] And so purity culture to me is an example of we have to keep the kids from having sex
[00:45:31] at all costs.
[00:45:35] Even if we are all costs, exactly.
[00:45:38] If we are going to completely ruin their mental health, we are going to completely prevent
[00:45:43] them from enjoying sex as married people because there's so much shame attached to it.
[00:45:48] But we have to keep them from having sex.
[00:45:51] Why?
[00:45:53] Because one of the ways that we have controlled people is through morality said that you
[00:46:02] have to be moral or you're not in that has become and I'm still like, I didn't I'm
[00:46:07] not a historian enough to get into like what does the church gain from teenagers not having
[00:46:14] sex?
[00:46:15] I don't really know.
[00:46:17] Right.
[00:46:18] Yeah.
[00:46:20] There was a lot of money put into it.
[00:46:23] The government was subsidizing a lot of that true love's weight stuff.
[00:46:27] There was all of these government grants you could get Linda Kay Klein goes into this
[00:46:31] and her great book, Pure.
[00:46:35] There was incentive to create a system around it.
[00:46:40] And I think that because it was preached at young people, young people are very black
[00:46:44] and white.
[00:46:45] And so they took it and like up to the ante.
[00:46:48] So then you have Josh Harris, I kiss dating advice now we're going to check dating now.
[00:46:52] We're going to check.
[00:46:53] And it played into parents fears like parents are not super rational when they're thinking
[00:46:58] about their kid having sex.
[00:47:00] You know, like even when your kids get married, you're not real keen to think about it.
[00:47:04] You're just kind of like, yeah, okay, that's my baby.
[00:47:08] So I think it was this perfect storm of anxiety, of black and white thinking, of control
[00:47:16] and of this very, so in the book, I say like purity, purity is certainty in your body.
[00:47:23] I'm not letting anything bat in because I don't want there to be any gray.
[00:47:28] I want to keep it white.
[00:47:30] And so that's to me, it's like purity culture is kind of an embodiment of this very
[00:47:38] certainty based rigid thinking that we grew up with.
[00:47:46] You've said so much.
[00:47:47] I mean, just the rigidity of I think faith and theology who's in, who's out, right?
[00:47:53] This kind of binary thinking, I'm in and if I'm in, I'm doing the right things.
[00:47:58] I'm thinking the same way.
[00:48:00] And what's funny is is, you know, once you start to really get into it, you see that people
[00:48:04] have all these wild ideas and other thoughts and right because we're complex people, we're
[00:48:09] complex human beings.
[00:48:10] I mean, there's not no one lives a true binary just on and off in this complexity.
[00:48:15] But the surface is that I have to keep thinking this way of this is what the theology says
[00:48:22] I have to keep acting this way.
[00:48:26] So all right, so this is good.
[00:48:28] And where do I go?
[00:48:33] Because I think there are some big things that you're getting at that I feel like we're
[00:48:42] warring with right now, right?
[00:48:44] Even with the politicians with some of the lies being spread especially from the far right,
[00:48:50] you know, talking about how, you know, the United States is getting taken over by socialists
[00:48:55] and they're going to bring about this secular pagan rituals.
[00:49:00] I mean, so yeah, and then you get into like shedding toxic perfectionism.
[00:49:07] And then you know why our parents spanked us talk about him James Dobson.
[00:49:12] Yeah, if you want to get into some of that stuff as well and in particular, some of the
[00:49:20] ordered really in all honesty, it comes from patriarchy.
[00:49:25] Right?
[00:49:26] You know the sense that Christian mothers have to have it together and your kids should
[00:49:30] be coming up a certain way, especially white Christian mothers in kind of like that
[00:49:35] mega chair.
[00:49:36] So I don't know if that makes sense or rest.
[00:49:38] But you want to talk to some of that as well.
[00:49:41] Sure, sure.
[00:49:42] Yeah, these are great questions.
[00:49:48] I mean, you can see where it all ties into when it comes down to parenting.
[00:49:54] So we're talking about like a kid who grew up in purity culture and hearing like just
[00:49:58] think about the trajectory of this person's life.
[00:50:01] You grew up being told that obedience was absolute.
[00:50:07] Like I said it, you do it.
[00:50:10] We don't argue.
[00:50:11] We don't fuss.
[00:50:12] Whatever.
[00:50:13] We don't have to get up, no sex.
[00:50:15] And then without fail it starts to bleed into like well now you should dress a certain
[00:50:22] way because you don't want to tempt someone.
[00:50:24] You shouldn't pray together because that's too intimate and it's too tempting.
[00:50:27] You got to flee temptation so don't ever be alone together.
[00:50:31] You know, I mean, it just gets to be this massively burdensome system.
[00:50:36] And then that kid who grew up that way has kids and has to translate all of that to these
[00:50:48] kids.
[00:50:49] Meanwhile, a lot of what was expressed to us as the goal of all of this, the goal of being
[00:50:57] obedient, the goal of being pure, the goal of all of this was so that we could have a
[00:51:06] happy marriage, a good family so that we would be good people who raised good people.
[00:51:11] There was a very like and then one day you will join the kingdom project of building
[00:51:18] God's families.
[00:51:20] Right.
[00:51:21] And you there's a I don't this is not necessarily theoretical but the reality that most
[00:51:28] of us grew up with was sitting in listening to other families be judged for you know
[00:51:33] like sitting around the kitchen table and well, I you know when somebody's kid gets pregnant
[00:51:39] or whatever as a teenager.
[00:51:40] Well, I guess they just didn't blah blah blah.
[00:51:42] Yep.
[00:51:43] You know what?
[00:51:44] Yep.
[00:51:45] Well, they just need to tell them no.
[00:51:47] They just need to put some boundaries on those kids.
[00:51:50] Right.
[00:51:51] And so you listen to that and then you'd hear, you know, the judgment of working moms like
[00:51:56] well if you didn't want to raise the kids why have them.
[00:52:00] You know, so you grew up hearing all of that in the context in the same context that
[00:52:06] you were being spanked in the same context that you were being.
[00:52:10] You know your skirt length was being policed and it's all wrapped up.
[00:52:14] And then I've talked to a lot of parents about that even as I'm going, oh, that was really
[00:52:19] toxic the way that was done.
[00:52:21] I don't want to do this.
[00:52:22] I don't want to spank my kids.
[00:52:24] I read a lot of research that says that that's not good.
[00:52:27] You know, I think that the way I learned sex really kind of screwed me up.
[00:52:32] You know, a lot of parents are having that.
[00:52:35] But then they've also been told that the reason that they that their parents were doing all
[00:52:39] this was so that they would be a good person.
[00:52:42] And they look at their kids and go, I want you to be a good person.
[00:52:46] How do I, is it possible to do that without all of the like the reason my parent when they
[00:52:53] would spank me, they would say this is for your own good we're doing this because
[00:52:57] we love you, you know, blah, blah, blah.
[00:53:00] And so I'm looking at my kids going, well, I love you and I want the best for you.
[00:53:07] So what do I do?
[00:53:09] You know, how do I help you not throw tantrum every time you lose a game?
[00:53:15] And the, I think that's where the rubber starts to meet the road is that we go, oh, it's
[00:53:20] not enough to just like say, I don't want to do the toxic parts.
[00:53:26] We have to detach our sense of worth and belonging from our performance and our kids'
[00:53:35] performance because we were raised to perform.
[00:53:39] Your kids will perform better for a certain amount of time if you scare them.
[00:53:45] And you know, they will eventually stop when they stop being scared of you.
[00:53:49] But you have to do some detaching of my participation in good society, my having a good job, my
[00:54:06] social morality or whatever is an indicator of my worth and my value.
[00:54:11] And so instead, rethinking like what is best for my kids?
[00:54:17] You know, and look, but we need people to give us better answers.
[00:54:21] We need people to say, okay, developmentally actually what makes most, what reduces anxiety,
[00:54:28] what reduces alcoholism, what reduces all of those things that we don't want for our kids
[00:54:32] turns out it's not being shamed and scared away from alcohol.
[00:54:36] It's being this.
[00:54:38] We need other answers and I do think those answers are out there.
[00:54:42] And the book for me was a lot of going and finding those answers.
[00:54:45] It was talking to people who said, actually all of that stuff that kept us quote unquote
[00:54:52] in line as kids and made us feel like, well, I'm in line therefore I'm good.
[00:54:57] I'm in was actually setting us up to be in but feel out to feel the anxiety and all
[00:55:05] that of rejection even though we were still technically in the club.
[00:55:10] And if you were identity, if you were say, if you were gay, that deep, deep anxiety that
[00:55:18] I'm actually not in the club and when they find out I'm going to be out of the club
[00:55:22] and constantly wondering where is the boundary like?
[00:55:25] If I work as a mom does that mean I'm out right?
[00:55:28] And we're just constantly wondering where the line is, where the boundary is because
[00:55:34] we're afraid of rejection.
[00:55:35] And so you have people who are wildly successful, who are doing all the things and they're still
[00:55:40] living with the emotional reality of being rejected or fearing rejection.
[00:55:48] And what I came to, what I can't do with my kids was saying, I don't want you to be accepted.
[00:56:02] I want you to know you're accepted.
[00:56:04] You know, I don't want you to wonder where you fall.
[00:56:09] I want you to know.
[00:56:11] So you start asking different questions of not like how do I make you a good person?
[00:56:16] I sure I want my kids to be kind.
[00:56:18] I want them to have good friends.
[00:56:21] I want them to, I want them to get good grades.
[00:56:24] I want them to do it all.
[00:56:28] But my desires for them are very different from my relationship to them and my communicating
[00:56:36] that we belong and that they belong in the family of God.
[00:56:39] And our family looks like it operates like the family of God because you were always accepted
[00:56:45] here and you belong.
[00:56:47] So I think it's about just kind of changing the goals.
[00:56:50] Yeah, which I think is really difficult right?
[00:56:54] Especially and I'll be specific, right?
[00:56:56] I think because Christianity is big.
[00:56:59] But I think evangelicalism, particularly evangelicalism makes it look like Christianity
[00:57:04] is that's it.
[00:57:05] That's the zenith of Christianity.
[00:57:08] And so for me at least the arguments that I make in my own work that I, that you know,
[00:57:13] evangelicalism is like, man, we got to burn that down to the ground and like start over
[00:57:17] because I think there is so much.
[00:57:19] I don't know.
[00:57:20] I know there is so much in there that is harmful to young people, right?
[00:57:26] The purity, the perfectionism and that steps into white supremacy and it's kind of Eurocentric
[00:57:33] mind that you have to get it just right.
[00:57:35] Get it right in here.
[00:57:37] You know, I remember growing up thinking, you know, God's will is about the size of maybe
[00:57:41] a, a Tom's tablet.
[00:57:43] Right?
[00:57:44] That's.
[00:57:45] That's.
[00:57:46] Complete with an adjustment.
[00:57:47] Right.
[00:57:48] Complete with an adjustment.
[00:57:50] The diary all this, right?
[00:57:53] And it really wasn't until I got older that I started learning and exploring more of these
[00:57:57] things.
[00:57:58] And I mean, I worked through most of my 20s with young life and as an ordained pastor
[00:58:04] and instilling these things, I've had to over the last 15 years go back to a lot of those
[00:58:10] kids who are no longer kids, they're grown adults, they got kids families of their own and
[00:58:14] like apologize to them like, yo, what I said to you 20 something years ago.
[00:58:20] I'm sorry.
[00:58:21] I, that was not right.
[00:58:23] And again, she's like you said, changing the goals up which it sounds great in that spot
[00:58:29] on but whoo, man, to undo some of those social constructs.
[00:58:34] It's work and you gotta be ready for them to not behave perfectly.
[00:58:41] Oh, come on now.
[00:58:42] Come on now, Becca.
[00:58:43] Tell me about that.
[00:58:46] Well, this is mostly for me right now where my kids are six and eight years old.
[00:58:54] So where this is showing up is in discipline, you know, is in temper tantrums or fights
[00:58:59] or whatever between each other talking back, throwing clothes on the floor or whatever
[00:59:04] it is.
[00:59:05] Right.
[00:59:07] The, the shortcut to getting them to make my life easier by just going doing what I tell
[00:59:16] them the first time picking up, you know, being clean, whatever is to make it feel awful
[00:59:24] and make it feel scary to define me.
[00:59:28] Like they, I want like to attach an emotional incentive for them to fear, for them to do
[00:59:36] what I want.
[00:59:37] It is much more difficult to agree on what's best for our family and what's best for all
[00:59:46] of us as if you don't throw a temper tantrum and hit your sister every time you lose
[00:59:49] candy land, right?
[00:59:51] Right.
[00:59:52] Or it's best for our family if you don't, you know, when you spill something on the floor
[00:59:58] or you don't just leave it there.
[01:00:00] And I need you to take ownership and understand why I'm asking you to do this and also not
[01:00:13] dangle the carrot of, I'll love you more or the stick of all stop loving you if you
[01:00:20] don't.
[01:00:23] And the pro like the hardcore discipline for like, well what about running in the street?
[01:00:27] Would you just reason with them to keep them from running in the street?
[01:00:30] Like, no, because it's pretty easy to run out and grab them out of the street and say
[01:00:35] you not getting hit by a car is my number one priority here.
[01:00:39] But there is a difference between that and the kid who's still reading the book when
[01:00:44] it's time to go to school and you're going to be late like the constant we have lost.
[01:00:48] I think about that dobson-esque parenting thing where everything immediately ran to
[01:00:57] life and death.
[01:00:58] So like, well if you don't get up, put the book down, get your backpack on and get in
[01:01:04] the car when I say so, you're going to run out in the street and die.
[01:01:09] Like, that's not true.
[01:01:11] There's a difference between an emergency and a teaching moment.
[01:01:17] And I think that the training and the teaching, the saying hey, I need you to pick that up
[01:01:24] because if it stays on the floor, our house is going to get ants.
[01:01:29] And so I'm going to stand here and insist that you do it but I'm not going to say do it
[01:01:34] now or I'm going to hurt you or you know.
[01:01:39] And when my kids, I'm not going to withhold affection and praise and whatnot until they
[01:01:46] do what I want.
[01:01:47] I'm going to make sure they know that even when you act like that, like you throwing
[01:01:52] that tantrum really, really hurt our family.
[01:01:58] You said some hurtful things, you threw the piece at your sister and now she's crying,
[01:02:02] you know, et cetera, et cetera.
[01:02:04] I still love you.
[01:02:06] You're part of this family no matter what but being part of this family means talking
[01:02:12] like that.
[01:02:13] And there's a thousand different child development experts and great people, Tina Payne Bryson,
[01:02:18] Lisa Miller, Brunei Brown, they all talk about this stuff.
[01:02:27] But doing it that way, whatever way that is, whatever that conversation is, defaulting
[01:02:33] from do it or else you'll get hurt by me, right?
[01:02:38] Do it or else I will reject to you.
[01:02:39] Do it or else I'll kick you out.
[01:02:42] I will take away everything you love, you know, doing that the training way, the re you
[01:02:48] know, explaining showing why being patient when they don't making sure that they are I am
[01:02:54] taking the time to say, why did you do that?
[01:02:59] Or what is the flexibility here like my son we don't watch TV in the morning before school.
[01:03:06] This morning he came in, he said, mom, there was an episode of something I didn't get to
[01:03:10] see that I really wanted to see.
[01:03:13] Can I watch it before school?
[01:03:15] I looked at the clock, we had plenty of time and I said, okay, you know, here's the conditions.
[01:03:21] Yeah, yeah.
[01:03:22] Like this is this is counts against your screen time.
[01:03:25] We have limits on that when you know all this stuff but being flexible enough to say,
[01:03:32] you're a human being, some of your desires have legitimacy.
[01:03:37] And so all of that basically bringing the humanity of the kid into the house, not being
[01:03:45] them as a foot soldier in my mission of creating a perfect house but instead seeing them as
[01:03:50] a fully autonomous creation of God with a mind and heart and a soul of their own.
[01:04:01] And training them takes time.
[01:04:03] A soccer player does not run out on the field for the very first time and immediately know
[01:04:08] how to do all the moves, you know he can't run up and down the field as fast as he will
[01:04:12] be able to in six months.
[01:04:14] He will his shots will not be as accurate as they will be in six months but he trains.
[01:04:20] And I think going to the training model, you know, in the discipline, putting discipline
[01:04:26] more in the frame of training and practicing.
[01:04:30] Yeah, you're going to have a lot more days of frustration them not getting it right.
[01:04:37] There's going to be more tantrums.
[01:04:38] It's going to be harder for a while but what you're not going to have is an adult who
[01:04:44] is completely insecure in what makes them lovable or doesn't know how to make decisions for
[01:04:54] themselves.
[01:04:55] That's the other thing is that when you're raised with this, just do what I say when
[01:04:57] I say it because I said so.
[01:04:59] Like, I got to age 24 and did not know how to make decisions.
[01:05:05] Someone had always made them for me.
[01:05:07] And so like part of my adulthood has been learning how to tell between right and wrong
[01:05:13] when it's not clear and there's no authority telling me this is the choice you need to
[01:05:17] make.
[01:05:18] And so I think those are gifts we give our kids but in the training time, it's messy
[01:05:25] and it's slow and it's frustrating.
[01:05:27] And it means that we have to be more emotionally regulated.
[01:05:32] It means that we have to be more in control of our stuff.
[01:05:36] We have to be more secure in our identity because my kids' behavior is not going to reflect
[01:05:42] well on me all the time.
[01:05:44] And I struggle with that.
[01:05:46] So what?
[01:05:47] Yeah, come on.
[01:05:49] And if the only gift I give my kids is that they don't have to struggle with that, that
[01:05:55] I'll consider a success even if they do jail time in between.
[01:05:59] Right.
[01:06:00] But I do think about that.
[01:06:02] I think about I grew up in the black church tradition and so kids were supposed to be
[01:06:11] very reverent, especially in the sanctuary, right?
[01:06:15] Especially if there was a guest, especially if they're any of that stuff.
[01:06:20] And so I think about not only did the perfectionism there but also how kids then reflect on your
[01:06:29] parenting skills.
[01:06:30] And I think, whoo, that was yeah, that's power.
[01:06:33] It's taken a long time for me to just be okay.
[01:06:35] I mean, my partner and I we don't go to church and you know, we just off going with my
[01:06:40] daughters, a proclaimed atheist and whatnot.
[01:06:42] So I can only imagine what, you know, my elders think of me now.
[01:06:47] But it's been over two decades.
[01:06:50] So I think they'll get over it.
[01:06:53] At the end of the day, there's a few questions I also wanted to ask and I'm going to be cautious
[01:06:58] of our time because this, I mean, what you have here, when I first saw this book, I was
[01:07:03] just like, I think this is what it is.
[01:07:05] And then as I started writing it as like, it is what it thought it was, which is this
[01:07:10] way of really deconstructing and I'm paraphrasing here, but I'll just put it out there for my
[01:07:16] listeners in particular.
[01:07:18] It's at least for my kid and a lot of her friends and really the folks that she hangs out with
[01:07:25] church has let them down and like, it's almost become a joke in that sense.
[01:07:30] And not that, theologically speaking right, God is a joke or that, you know, like death
[01:07:37] is a joke, right?
[01:07:38] But I think there's some sense that wow, there are some crazy ass things that we do traditionally
[01:07:45] like in church that this generation is just saying, I'm good.
[01:07:50] It's yeah, I'm good.
[01:07:52] So let me ask you this, the couple of different ones and this was just even out of the press
[01:07:57] packet.
[01:07:58] But I was like, man, these questions is good as good AF, man.
[01:08:02] Since the number of Americans who identify as Christian has fallen from 25% in 2009 to
[01:08:07] 23% in 2019.
[01:08:08] I actually think those numbers are actually bigger at least some of the research that I've
[01:08:12] done and particularly in regards to POC and BIPOC kids is like, you know, those numbers
[01:08:16] are falling even further, but nevertheless we'll go with that.
[01:08:20] And a few is in half of Americans, you know, millennials now identify as Christians if
[01:08:24] any sort.
[01:08:25] I'm curious like, what how do we arrive to this?
[01:08:27] And I think that ties into the, even the second question is that many of those leaving Christianity
[01:08:31] are parents and our questioning of Christianity they grow up with is really something they
[01:08:35] want their, they want to give their children.
[01:08:38] This is and this is I say I asked that because I talked with one of the, you know, one of
[01:08:42] those former kids now an adult she has her own son and she told me specifically that
[01:08:49] that's like, I don't want to raise my son in this in that environment because I took
[01:08:54] me this long to get over the stuff.
[01:08:55] I don't want him to have to deal with that.
[01:08:59] So I don't know, that's some big heavy stuff.
[01:09:02] Well, yeah, I think, I think the numbers we're seeing.
[01:09:07] I think you're right that those numbers are probably, I mean it's pulling on people's
[01:09:12] religious preferences.
[01:09:13] Right.
[01:09:14] It's kind of a crap shoot.
[01:09:15] It is absolutely.
[01:09:17] But I respect and then thankful for the work that they do because otherwise I would
[01:09:21] have no data to point to even that data in itself.
[01:09:27] I do think that we have to ask ourselves how much is, and I don't have anything other
[01:09:34] than qualitative evidence people I've talked to you.
[01:09:37] You know, but we do need to ask ourselves how much of that attrition is, how much of
[01:09:44] that falling away whatever is just people no, people looking at the church and saying this
[01:09:53] institution is no different than a bunch of other institutions.
[01:10:02] You know, people seeing the same people at the business leaders prayer breakfast at
[01:10:08] the business leader at the Chamber of Commerce at the GOP convention at the, you know what
[01:10:16] I mean when you start looking around and you're just seeing like okay these are the
[01:10:19] same people.
[01:10:21] I do think there's a question of like what, what additional is this doing?
[01:10:26] And if the church is not being very, very serious about being radically loving and being
[01:10:33] at place where you go and you're like oh whoa, this is where God's people are.
[01:10:39] Like this place is embodying God.
[01:10:40] I am talking with people and feeling and knowing God more.
[01:10:43] I am hearing God's word and it's making me, I'm having like an actual change in my,
[01:10:51] like my spirit is touching it.
[01:10:54] Like if that's not actually happening in churches, I seriously doubt a generation with all
[01:11:02] these different options of how to spend their time is going to put the time of day into
[01:11:06] going.
[01:11:07] Like if you're not getting anything out and churches reacted so poorly against that state
[01:11:11] kind of statement, you know for so I'm like well that's a seeker mentality and that's
[01:11:15] just going to church to get something and it's like correct.
[01:11:19] Right.
[01:11:20] Right.
[01:11:21] It's and it's not saying I want to go and make me feel good.
[01:11:26] I'm not saying make me feel good.
[01:11:27] I'm saying make me experience God.
[01:11:31] Like if this is what you're saying, this is it needs to be experienced differently than
[01:11:38] going to the country club for lunch afterward.
[01:11:41] And so I think there's that there's also the there's a lot of people who used to feel
[01:11:47] like they needed to identify a certain way and now they don't feel that need anymore
[01:11:51] and so they can be honest, it's more socially acceptable to say you're an atheist, it's
[01:11:54] more socially acceptable to say you don't go to church.
[01:11:57] So I think there's I think there's a lot of people who were going to church just to
[01:12:00] say face for a long time.
[01:12:03] Yes.
[01:12:04] So I think some of those are just like people are living a little more authentically now.
[01:12:09] And so I do think that that mishmash of the like, oh people are living more authentically
[01:12:14] which means they're really evaluating like what is the point of this?
[01:12:20] And so those two things I don't think that there's necessarily any fewer people who have
[01:12:33] the spirit of God in the world today.
[01:12:37] And there were 50 years ago, I think that the identifying as a Christian and going to
[01:12:47] church are no longer the ways that you necessarily indicate that for every single person.
[01:12:58] And enough of a significant number that you start to see it in these pull these rough
[01:13:03] poles.
[01:13:04] So I also think a lot of the reason for that is self-inflicted wounds.
[01:13:12] The church has decided we're going to cozy up with the Republican Party, we're going
[01:13:16] to cozy up with the Chamber of Commerce.
[01:13:19] These are our people.
[01:13:21] You know, we're going to back all the wrong plays from a social justice perspective.
[01:13:27] And so you have a generation that suddenly cares about those things or you have, you know,
[01:13:33] a generation of BIPOC kids who say I don't need to like, respectability politics is not
[01:13:40] the game I'm going to play anymore.
[01:13:42] Like I don't need to make myself safe for white people.
[01:13:46] So going to Protestant churches is not necessarily as valuable to me as it once was.
[01:13:53] You know, I hear a lot more of that from like young, Gen Z BIPOC kids is that like I'm
[01:14:00] not trying.
[01:14:02] We hopefully are creating a world where you don't have to like say show how that you're
[01:14:12] a good black person, you know, in order to get a job.
[01:14:16] Hopefully we're moving away from that.
[01:14:17] I were probably not nearly where we need to be, but I do think there's more of a will
[01:14:22] to get there.
[01:14:23] And so I've heard a lot of younger black folks my age and younger say, I could feel the
[01:14:28] white supremacy in my black church, you know, it isn't quite a resistance.
[01:14:32] It has been, but there's also, it's also the place where certain battles are being
[01:14:37] fought about how do we relate to white people?
[01:14:42] Right.
[01:14:43] And so I think all of those conversations are taking a toll on numbers.
[01:14:47] What I don't think they're doing is like taking a toll on God.
[01:14:53] I don't think God is any less God now, right?
[01:14:58] I don't think love is any less of a potent force in the world than it was then.
[01:15:04] You know, I think that the institution has put itself in crisis.
[01:15:09] Yes.
[01:15:10] Woo!
[01:15:11] I couldn't agree more back at that is that summarizes so much.
[01:15:14] I think of where I find myself and trying to help people off the ledge, especially folks
[01:15:21] who like consider themselves evangelists or people who are thinking, oh my gosh, the
[01:15:27] world is going to end.
[01:15:28] Jesus is on the way.
[01:15:29] And look, I grew up seventh day happiness.
[01:15:31] The world was always ending right?
[01:15:34] Always going to end right?
[01:15:35] We didn't even think we were going to make it in 1995 and look at look here we are right
[01:15:38] in 2022.
[01:15:41] This is powerful.
[01:15:42] Let me in the remaining time that we got because I could talk with you series of y'all
[01:15:46] day.
[01:15:47] I might just clear my schedule.
[01:15:51] Seriously fam, if you're listening to the book is bringing up kids when church lets you
[01:15:54] down out October 11, 2022, Erdman's publisher.
[01:16:00] I have a lot of respect for them.
[01:16:01] I've worked with them in the past and they put out some amazing books.
[01:16:06] Some of Cornell West, I believe his early works prior to the popular stuff like his
[01:16:11] actual research is published through Erdman's and who that stuff's blow your mind out the
[01:16:17] water man.
[01:16:18] This is like 1985, this is like prophetic fragments, all the things.
[01:16:21] So all that to say if I'm a youth pastor right now, a youth worker, what do I need to take
[01:16:29] with me right now from your work, from your analysis, from your insight?
[01:16:35] What do I need to know?
[01:16:41] I think you need to know that you need to do your own work on this and ask, and I think
[01:16:49] that really the call to people working with young people is you have to be brave and
[01:16:57] do this work internally because there isn't a playbook.
[01:17:05] There's not a, oh what's the progressive-ish, Gen Z.
[01:17:12] Is there a playbook that aligns and speaks to their priorities and what not?
[01:17:16] We saw a lot of that for Gen X, how to speak to this isolated, angry generation in the
[01:17:21] Torah, the Breakfast Club poster.
[01:17:23] Yeah, you go, come on.
[01:17:27] People are going to try to do that for Gen Z.
[01:17:31] They are so suspicious of anything polished, slick, institutional, etc.
[01:17:36] It's going to fail.
[01:17:39] But I think that what's critical to people who want to give spiritual vibrance and spiritual
[01:17:46] – you know, enhance the spiritual life of young people is you have to do your own work.
[01:17:53] You have to answer these questions in your life.
[01:17:56] You have to deconstruct some of your own systems because that's the path that they're on and
[01:18:02] that's the journey that they're going through.
[01:18:03] If you haven't walked it, you're not going to be able to understand them.
[01:18:08] I think just asterisks.
[01:18:12] A lot of people are very afraid of that.
[01:18:15] They're afraid like, if I have this conversation, I'm going to say something and get canceled
[01:18:20] and be called out.
[01:18:22] I am a middle-aged white woman who spends all kinds of time with young activists of color
[01:18:30] who are marching and doing things, and they are always gracious.
[01:18:36] They will correct me.
[01:18:39] They will say, actually, man, that's not what we're trying to do here that's still kind
[01:18:45] of centering your perspective.
[01:18:49] Never is it the hostile, overly judgy, overly critical, overly whatever?
[01:19:00] There's – they are aware that they need older people to bounce stuff out.
[01:19:08] There is so much more potential love and potential inner-generational benefit that gets crowded
[01:19:17] out by people being scared that they're going to get corrected.
[01:19:21] I think if we can reject perfectionism and be willing to say, oh, where do I need to
[01:19:26] correct my thinking?
[01:19:28] Oh, that makes so much more sense when I consider it from your perspective.
[01:19:32] Thanks for sharing it with me.
[01:19:34] If you go in humble and you go in having been on your own journey so that you're not quite
[01:19:39] so needing to be the expert, needing to have everything in line, you're just going to have
[01:19:43] a better time with it.
[01:19:45] There's tons of love.
[01:19:48] The Gen Z relationships that I have, they're fine with me being kind of a stuffy, nerdy,
[01:19:56] middle-aged white woman.
[01:19:58] No one's asking me to be a non-binary person of color age 18 who spends all of my time
[01:20:07] protesting, but they are asking that I respect that person.
[01:20:13] Yes.
[01:20:14] Yeah.
[01:20:15] Well, listen to them and account that their lived experience is just as important as mine.
[01:20:22] And I don't think a lot of adults have realized how much that's actually not true.
[01:20:26] We say it is.
[01:20:27] We say that, but we see them as people who need to be reached rather than people who
[01:20:34] are in touch with God and have the Holy Spirit, have a spirit, have the image of God.
[01:20:40] Yes.
[01:20:41] Yes.
[01:20:42] Woo!
[01:20:43] This is powerful stuff.
[01:20:45] Folks, you got to go out and get this and read this book.
[01:20:49] Becca, work and folks find you.
[01:20:50] Work and we come and learn more about this, hear more about there.
[01:20:54] You know, bring out.
[01:20:55] We give that fat, ordinary and all that good stuff, right?
[01:20:59] I am so willing to travel.
[01:21:03] I love meeting people all over the place.
[01:21:07] You can find me online.
[01:21:08] I'm on Twitter.
[01:21:09] It's at Becca McNeil, the B and the M are capitalized but nothing else.
[01:21:15] I have a website, BeccaMcNeil.com where you can sign up for newsletters, read blog posts,
[01:21:20] all that stuff.
[01:21:24] That's probably the best way to get in touch with me if you're trying to get to Erdrens.
[01:21:28] I can intro email you to them or everybody.
[01:21:35] That's the website's probably the quickest way to get into this whole world.
[01:21:43] And then yeah, you can pre-order the book wherever you get your books.
[01:21:47] There you go.
[01:21:48] There you go.
[01:21:49] Well, I have appreciated this conversation and for those listening, I will as always put
[01:21:54] these in the show notes all those links, including other little extras at whitehouchpodcast.com
[01:21:59] forward slash profan faith or just go click on there and look at what else is on the website
[01:22:03] but those all those links will be there in the show notes.
[01:22:06] Thank you so much Becca for taking the time and sharing with us just some of your knowledge
[01:22:11] and expertise in this area.
[01:22:12] I think it's a very valuable conversation here at the tail end of the year of our Lord 2022.
[01:22:20] Yes, Daniel, thank you.
[01:22:21] This was such a great way to start my day.
[01:22:24] Here that is.
[01:22:25] Well, I'm going to get you back on.
[01:22:27] I'm going to hit you back up now that we've connected.
[01:22:29] I'm going to get you back on.
[01:22:31] Yeah, I feel like we opened about 20 cans of worms and didn't take any worms out.
[01:22:36] Oh yeah.
[01:22:37] No, no, we just looked at them and we're like, let's move these around.
[01:22:41] I heard that.
[01:22:45] Then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season and she endures perhaps being smack one night
[01:22:53] and then she seeks help from the church.
[01:22:55] There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus and by God's grace it'll be a mountain
[01:23:01] by the time we're done.
[01:23:02] You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus.
[01:23:04] Those are the options.
[01:23:05] There's nothing holy about writing discrimination into the law and I am tired of communities
[01:23:13] of faith being weaponized because the only time religious freedom is invoked is in
[01:23:18] the name of bigotry and discrimination.
[01:23:20] I'm tired of it.
[01:23:22] Hi, I'm Nate, producer and co-host on the full mutuality podcast.
[01:23:28] Let's talk about inequality.
[01:23:30] It's everywhere whether it's rooted in race, gender, ability or sexuality there's bound
[01:23:34] to be an imbalance in power, influence, representation and access.
[01:23:39] On our show we want to explore areas of religion, culture and society where justice is needed
[01:23:44] in order to bring about true mutuality.
[01:23:47] I hope you'll join us for some enlightening, fun and at times uncomfortable conversations
[01:23:52] as we envision a world where everyone can live free from systems and structures that keep
[01:23:57] us from being truly equal.
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[01:24:08] on the full mutuality podcast.