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Episode number 85,

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or episode number 5 in season 11,

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a serial season called Farewell Evangelicalism.

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Welcome, friends.

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This is the Faith in a Fresh Vibe podcast.

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My name is Rohadi and I'm recording on Treaty 7 territory in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

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Thank you for listening.

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Don't forget to rate, review, and share this podcast with all of your podcast friends.

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It goes a long way to help an indie production such as this.

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In this episode, we will interrogate Patriarchy.

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Because of the subject matter of this episode, there is a content warning.

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The final third will have a little bit of swearing because DL Mayfield and I, we're back.

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Since it's patriarchy,

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we will be discussing aspects of spiritual abuse and also abuse found in family dynamics.

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I encourage listeners, take a pause whenever your body is reacting.

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We can't control the ways that our bodies react to abuse or to trauma from the past.

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So if you need to pause, please do so.

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And if you can't get through the whole episode, just fast forward to the next one.

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The reason why we are interrogating patriarchy is because it's one of the tools

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used to control bodies in the church,

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and that is any body that is not at the very top,

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a male body.

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Women and children are considered less than.

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Churches build theologies and belief systems around patriarchy, and we need to be alert to them.

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Now,

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it's true,

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it's tough to notice when patriarchy is both overt and operating behind the scenes

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in your church community.

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If you've been in it for a long time, you may have intentionally ignored what's been going on,

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ignored what's happening in your body, what your body is trying to alert you to.

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Thankfully,

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I've invited some guests that will provide some tools to help develop attunement to

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all of the weird that goes on in churches that root themselves in patriarchy.

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It's time for us to open the door to collective and holistic liberation and freedom for all.

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That means smashing the patriarchy.

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And we're not alone.

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A recent New York Times article confirmed the trends that sociologists are noticing,

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and that is women are leaving conservative churches because they know within

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conservative or evangelical communities they will be subordinated.

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Patriarchy rears its ugly head,

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whether it's been operating quietly in the background or it's at the forefront.

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Patriarchy seeks to make women and children less than in favour of authoritarian leadership.

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The authoritarian part is important,

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authoritarian being the enforcement and strict obedience to authority,

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in this case men.

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What's happening in governments in North America and around the world is the

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embracement of authoritarian rule,

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in particular churches.

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Many Christian communities are more comfortable with authoritarian rule because it

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looks like how they organize their own churches.

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It's my hope that listeners will be able to pull away what you need to find your

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ultimate freedom from malformed communities.

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This episode's guests include Cait West.

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She has written a debut memoir entitled Rift,

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a memoir of breaking away from Christian patriarchy.

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We then move to the second guest, to Liz Jenkins, and finally, D.L.

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Mayfield comes back.

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We will close our conversation naming systems of oppression,

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including patriarchy,

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tools of propaganda,

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but also eugenics and white supremacy.

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Episode 5, On Deck.

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We need revival, we need a chance.

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Let's prep now for Cait West.

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We'll jump straight into this conversation as Cait introduces herself.

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Well, I was born into a conservative Christian family where, you know, church was a given.

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We would go to church every week and faith was required.

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But the older I got,

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we became more involved in the Christian patriarchy movement where this ideology of

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patriarchy was very clear and taught by leaders in this movement.

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And

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it's very similar to any other kind of patriarchy where men are in charge and women

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are to submit but in this case it's um

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It's driven by this belief that this is what God wants for the world and that God

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is the ultimate patriarch.

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And that's why men were created to be patriarchs on earth and women were created to be helpers.

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So for me, growing up in this environment, having a very Calvinist belief system is,

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I believed that I needed to be chosen by God and sorry for my sins and submitting

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to men for my entire life to be within God's favor.

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And so from very early on,

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my faith was structured on this patriarchy,

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this whole framework of I am the

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weaker vessel i'm less than the men in this system i don't have any choices um i

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can't make decisions about my future once i turned 18 i wasn't allowed to move out

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i had to stay with my parents and wait to get married and so this whole belief

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system really ruled my life up until i was 25 and that's when things shifted for me

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and i left

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the movement and try to figure out who I was outside of it.

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But within the movement, it was very restrictive.

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And I realized now that I was dissociating much of the time because it was an

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abusive environment to be a woman in because you can't be a full person.

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You're dehumanized.

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You're told that you don't have any agency or bodily autonomy.

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Mm-hmm.

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And so I was cut off from my body just to survive.

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And I didn't realize until much,

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you know,

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years after leaving how much that had affected me because once I got free,

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there was all this PTSD and then anxiety and also chronic illness and just trying

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to heal from all of these things,

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which I think are all connected to the way I was brought up.

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If you don't recognize the term Christian patriarchy movement, you're not alone.

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I asked Cait to unpack that for us.

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The way I experienced Christian patriarchy,

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first off,

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I think that patriarchy exists in much of the American evangelical church.

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But the specific brand of patriarchy that I'm talking about,

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sometimes people call it biblical patriarchy.

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It's this ideology that I mentioned.

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And I call it a movement because it was across many different denominations and

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many different kinds of leaders and it was spread by things like newsletters and

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magazines and audio tapes and homeschooling conventions and it it really felt like

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a movement to me this we're spreading this belief system and so the people i was

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interacting with might have been in different kinds of churches for instance

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there's a lot of baptist churches i was presbyterian

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But this belief in patriarchy is what united us during,

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you know,

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homeschool conferences or family camps.

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But I do think it's very cult-like.

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It just doesn't have that one unified leader.

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that a cult might have.

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On the other hand,

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the patriarch of the family is told basically to be like a cult leader of his family.

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So in that sense, you could say each family is a miniature cult.

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Which is scary in itself.

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But it's also curious.

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I want to say fascinating, but that's the wrong word.

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That it's such a decentralized movement.

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without a single figurehead.

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It is,

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in movement language,

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almost masterful in the manner that is decentralized into the household adherence.

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But in the same token, something inside of me goes, whoa,

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follow the money,

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whether or not the production of the materials,

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the books,

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the consumptive elements,

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whether or not that is part of fueling.

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Basically, I'm asking, so who's getting rich off of this movement?

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I would say there's several different factors at play.

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So Bill Gothard and IBLP is part of this, in my opinion.

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It's more of the early beginnings of the biblical patriarchy movement.

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When I was growing up being homeschooled,

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Vision Forum was the organization that was making the money.

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And so they had a catalog.

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They had all these resources for education.

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patriarchal families to buy they had conferences they had a film festival they made

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movies um there's a lot of money involved until um an abuse scandal broke the

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organization apart um and nowadays uh there are still patriarchal leaders but i

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think they're they're getting that money through the churches so for instance doug

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wilson

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in moscow idaho is a big leader of this movement um and he's his church has been

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growing and his denomination that he started has been growing as well

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Yeah,

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as you were sharing part of your story,

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there is this aspect of worldview and a faith that's built,

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and you stated this,

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and I almost shuddered in that this Christian patriarchy movement designs a picture

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of who God is,

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and that is the ultimate patriarch.

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Was that a foundational element in your theological formation?

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Yeah, exactly.

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Because God was this masculine figure.

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And then the men, like in my case, my father was God's representative in my life.

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So I was taught that my father was responsible for me before God.

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So if I was sinning, my dad was responsible for me.

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So my whole idea of how...

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um divinity worked or who god was was based around this idea of masculinity or at

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least this very strict um restrictive kind of masculinity that i was taught now

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it's easy for me on a podcast to ask questions about patriarchy we're on the

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outside looking in some of you were on the inside and are on the outside now and we

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can name the malformed aspects

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But when you're in it, it's not as evident.

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Those tools and tips of being alert to your body,

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trying to note and observe the weird,

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all of the malformed aspects that ain't right,

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that takes time to develop.

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It takes time to trust your intuition,

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especially within communities that seek to take away that intuition and agency.

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Building trust in your own body,

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when you're caught within the clutches of patriarchy,

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is something that you have to learn.

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I asked Cait to share some tips, some ideas, her experience around making sense of the weird.

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Yeah,

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I think I've always had secret dreams and things I wanted to do,

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but I always had to repress them.

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So things like going to college, for instance, I always wanted to learn more.

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But in terms of my body,

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I remember,

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and I write about this in my book,

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one of my earliest memories is being shamed for wearing a two-piece bathing suit

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when I was five years old.

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And I was just wearing what I'd been given that I had worn the previous year.

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And then all of a sudden, my father thought it was now immodest.

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And I just felt all this shame about my body because I felt like I was in trouble.

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I didn't understand why, just that something was wrong with my physical existence.

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And ever since then, I felt really ashamed of my body and tried to, you know,

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avoid thinking about it.

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And that's why I dissociated so much.

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And it wasn't until much,

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much later that I started to wake up and realize how much harm was happening in my family.

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And to me,

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when I went through a courtship,

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which is the process of getting married within this movement,

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my father ended the relationship and

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And I wasn't allowed to court this person anymore.

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And I was heartbroken.

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And my father told me to repent for my emotions, for feeling love.

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And that's one of the biggest moments for me where I felt like something's wrong.

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I just knew somehow deep inside of myself that can't be sinful to love somebody.

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And I'd been taught that my whole life, but somehow my body knew that that was wrong.

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And I resisted.

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I didn't obey, basically.

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I said I couldn't do that.

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And it took me years after that moment to really leave.

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But that was one of the moments where...

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I started building up my internal resources to say I can get out of this system.

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And that's my intuition was finally waking up.

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If there are folks who are engaged in their own,

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developing their own alertness,

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becoming,

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trusting their intuition more,

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Are there pathways that you can name that might invite somebody who's just starting

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or in the middle of that type of process to start exploring?

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Yeah,

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I always say to people who are newly trying to figure out who they are,

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if they're coming out of a situation like this,

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and it doesn't have to be a cult-like movement.

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It could be a restrictive home.

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It could be an abusive relationship.

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But if you're trying to get out of something like this,

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I always say go to a safe place or create a safe place for yourself where you can

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sit alone and be with your thoughts and your body.

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And that might be a closet, might be going to the park and getting out of the house you're in.

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It might mean stop going to a church that makes you feel anxious.

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And sit with your body and try to reconnect.

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I think that that takes practice when you've been told to feel ashamed.

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And it's really frustrating when you don't have it right away,

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when you can't,

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when you have voices saying all these things about feeling like you need to feel ashamed.

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It's frustrating to try to get out of that.

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And sometimes sitting with yourself and practicing how to be by yourself is what's

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going to lead you to be curious into who you are and what you can be in the world.

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And for me,

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even after I left my family,

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I still felt like I had my father's voice in my head all the time telling me what

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to do.

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And it took me years to get rid of that and to go through therapy and work on

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minimizing the nightmares and all of these PTSD symptoms.

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But you have to be patient with yourself because it wasn't your fault.

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But it takes time to reverse that thinking because the way abuse works,

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the abuser tries to make you think like it is your fault that you're sick or you

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feel unwell or that you're hurting.

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Becoming more alert and attuned to your body takes work.

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It takes a lot of therapy, especially if you don't have those tools.

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How do you know,

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as you start engaging in the work of healing,

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and that's work that's always ongoing,

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how do you know when you have started to peel back layers of freedom and liberation?

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Are there particular signals, signs, thoughts?

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Ask Cait to share once again,

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and she's been very generous with her story,

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for markers that might be indicative of freedom and liberation.

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Yeah,

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I think that,

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you know,

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there is no finish line to healing,

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even though we want it to happen.

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We want to be at a place where we're perfect and we're perfectly happy.

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But I just don't think that's how humanity works.

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And when you've gone through trauma, it's...

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You know, you want to just get rid of everything.

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And there is a lot of resources now to minimize those symptoms and to heal from it.

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One of those for me is trauma therapy.

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And so it's not the same as talk therapy.

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It's doing something somatic or something like EMDR where you're reprocessing

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traumatic memories.

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And it's making you be in your body and...

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and literally heal those memories so they don't feel so painful all the time and

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that worked for me but really i think if it's a spectrum of of many things that can

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help you instead of growing up in a strict fundamentalist home where you only have

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one way to live and one one path now the world is open up to you and you have many

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options and i think

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Giving yourself a wider support network and a support system is what's going to

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help you heal in many ways.

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So for me, that includes continuing to go to therapy, taking medication for my anxiety.

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It includes practicing yoga or taking walks, taking days off and just going to sit by the lake.

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I live near a lake, so it's nice to go out in nature.

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Having friends and building those relationships,

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which takes time if you're like me and you didn't have any friends when you left.

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And finding a community with something you love to do.

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So for me, writing is what I love to do.

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And I feel most creative and most myself.

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And I've been able to connect with other writers.

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And that has been one of the most beautiful parts of my journey is writing.

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Finding this other community,

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even though I lost what I grew up with,

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I found these people who accept me for who I am and we can connect on something

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that we're all interested in.

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And so there's lots of ways to connect with people.

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It doesn't have to be through a religion or a church.

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And for me, that was the only way I was allowed to connect with people before.

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And so discovering that there's many ways to heal and to thrive and to find

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yourself in the world.

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I really appreciate you sharing those different aspects and normalizing some of the

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different pathways that you have taken in your journey into healing.

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If this is too personal of a question, then we'll skip it.

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But how has your journey of healing changed the way you relate?

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So I also love that you have not only talked about the things that you have done individually,

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but you are also looping in the necessity of community.

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Yeah.

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and yet coming out of a cult can distort our picture of how to hold relationships

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in a healthy way.

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In your venture of healing or places where you're at,

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is that something that you have had to figure out in a new way?

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Very much so.

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I didn't grow up with a lot of friends, and I was homeschooled, so I didn't have a lot of

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interactions with people my age.

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And, um, I definitely feel like I struggle with knowing how to interact in every situation.

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Um, but again, I think like many things, it takes practice and, um,

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I feel like I'm getting better at doing that by following what I'm interested in

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and being able to connect with other people and learn what they're interested in.

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And there's just many ways to do that.

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For instance,

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I left and I jumped right into getting married,

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which I wouldn't advise someone to do because it's not the easiest thing to do.

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And I realized that I had a lot of codependence in this relationship in the early

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years because I didn't know how to be independent.

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I didn't know how to rely on myself.

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And so I depended on my husband for a lot of emotional support.

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He's not at all patriarchal, so he's never told me what to do, but I've...

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relied on him for feeling stable.

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And so working on my own personal therapy,

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and then also going to couples counseling with a licensed therapist,

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not a biblical counselor.

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Yeah.

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has helped us you know break those cycles of codependency and learn how to be

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interdependent and be individuals in our relationship and just being open to that

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because i was told marriage is a very specific thing women have a very specific

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role men have a very specific role and if you break away from that you are going to

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create chaos in the world right so

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Just doing anything different was a big leap of trust that we could figure this out.

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And it has worked out because we've gone to people who are,

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you know,

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experts in relationships and worked on the things that we needed to work on and

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remain committed to each other.

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And then also finding outside support so that we're not just completely dependent on each other.

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Another thing about relationships is in the world I grew up in,

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we are told we're given the absolute truth and that the whole world is broken and

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needs our gospel,

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our very specific form of the gospel.

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And so I always saw myself as opposed to other people as the one with the truth and

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they were the ones in need of saving.

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And so that creates a really unhealthy dynamic of how you think about other people

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in the world where you're better off than they are just because I was born into a

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specific family.

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And so now I've deconstructed a lot of those beliefs and I don't believe that I

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need to go save people for this religion that I was in.

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But at the same time,

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I still have these instincts of wanting to fix problems and feeling like I need to

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sacrifice myself for a bigger cause.

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And I'm finding the need to temper that a little bit because I

(00:25:49):
I am just one person and I know that I don't have everything correct.

(00:25:55):
And so instead of flipping to another,

(00:25:57):
like a secular version of that,

(00:25:59):
I want to be more balanced in how I interact with people in the outside world or

(00:26:04):
not the outside world anymore,

(00:26:05):
but the world around me.

(00:26:08):
and work together for social causes.

(00:26:13):
And for me personally,

(00:26:14):
that's a lot to do with women's rights in the US,

(00:26:18):
but without relying on the same fundamentalist tactics that I grew up with,

(00:26:23):
like the fear tactics of making people afraid and pitting people against each other.

(00:26:27):
I feel like it's a dynamic where I'm trying to still deconstruct that idea that I

(00:26:34):
have the saving truth,

(00:26:38):
And that I still have a lot of room to grow and that I haven't arrived at something

(00:26:44):
that is absolute truth,

(00:26:47):
but that I can still be an activist and I can still speak up for causes I believe

(00:26:54):
in without resorting to the same,

(00:26:57):
what I think of as dangerous fundamentalist tactics.

(00:27:03):
Yeah.

(00:27:03):
Yeah.

(00:27:05):
What does faith look like for you today?

(00:27:09):
It would be easy to give it all up.

(00:27:13):
It's probably very normal,

(00:27:16):
I would guess,

(00:27:18):
that some aspects just give you the shivers that remind you of old ways of thinking

(00:27:26):
or old theologies.

(00:27:28):
And

(00:27:29):
if there is reclamation,

(00:27:30):
but in terms of keeping pieces of,

(00:27:35):
maybe it's not even keeping pieces of faith,

(00:27:39):
how has that shifted for you?

(00:27:45):
It's continually shifting.

(00:27:46):
I think when I left,

(00:27:48):
I needed to deconstruct this idea of a patriarchal God,

(00:27:51):
that God was the,

(00:27:55):
you know,

(00:27:55):
a man basically,

(00:27:56):
or masculine being who was full of wrath and hated people unless they were saved.

(00:28:06):
And so I deconstructed that.

(00:28:07):
And then

(00:28:10):
I've been to many churches,

(00:28:12):
different kinds of beliefs,

(00:28:14):
and I appreciated the time to do that and realize the church I grew up in wasn't

(00:28:19):
the only kind of church.

(00:28:22):
But at the same time,

(00:28:25):
A lot of those beliefs stopped making sense for me in particular.

(00:28:29):
And so I don't go to church anymore.

(00:28:33):
And I think if I have to pick a label,

(00:28:35):
I usually say agnostic because I don't feel quite like an atheist.

(00:28:40):
And I feel like there's more to the world than I can understand.

(00:28:45):
But I don't believe that I need to follow a specific belief system to be saved.

(00:28:53):
And to me, that's liberating.

(00:28:56):
I know that's really, I mean, I would have been really scared of that before.

(00:28:59):
But for me,

(00:29:00):
for now,

(00:29:01):
that feels what's true and what's keeping me open-minded to keep shifting as I need

(00:29:10):
to in the world.

(00:29:11):
And as I learn more about who we are,

(00:29:15):
And I'm not afraid of that anymore because before there was this false sense of

(00:29:23):
certainty in my belief system that this was the only way.

(00:29:27):
And I never felt secure in that.

(00:29:30):
I always felt like it could be just an instant and God would just cast me out.

(00:29:36):
And now I feel like

(00:29:39):
I don't feel certain.

(00:29:40):
I have more uncertainty in my life,

(00:29:42):
but I feel secure in that because I'm not relying on a hierarchy or other people to

(00:29:52):
tell me what to believe.

(00:29:53):
I feel like I'm being open-minded and able to keep learning.

(00:29:59):
That's just where I'm at today.

(00:30:01):
And that's been 11 years since I've left.

(00:30:05):
This might be an appropriate place to pause and stop if you need to absorb some of

(00:30:10):
the teachings,

(00:30:11):
ideas,

(00:30:11):
and stories that Cait shared with us.

(00:30:15):
My next guest is Liz Jenkins.

(00:30:18):
I included Liz in her story because it falls in line with that soft patriarchy movement.

(00:30:26):
Maybe it's not called a movement.

(00:30:28):
There's a lot of evangelicalism that looks very cool.

(00:30:31):
And maybe your church,

(00:30:33):
it looks cool and you don't call it evangelical because you can't really notice the

(00:30:37):
traits from within.

(00:30:39):
Many parachurch organizations,

(00:30:41):
especially campus ministries run by evangelical organizations,

(00:30:45):
have

(00:30:46):
have patriarchy in the background which means you have to stick around for a little

(00:30:51):
bit especially if you're a woman before the tentacles of patriarchy rear its ugly

(00:30:57):
head that's partly liz's story let's jump into this interview

(00:31:03):
Yeah,

(00:31:04):
I am located on traditional Coast Salish and more specifically Duwamish lands just

(00:31:10):
south of the city of Seattle.

(00:31:12):
I did not grow up in a super evangelical space.

(00:31:16):
I grew up in a mainline church and kind of a moderate to liberalish family.

(00:31:22):
So I kind of wandered into a more conservative evangelical world in college,

(00:31:27):
both through a campus ministry organization and through a local church.

(00:31:33):
And it took about, you know, 10 years or so, but I eventually wandered right back out.

(00:31:39):
And by wandered, I mean, very intentionally, if slowly kind of left that type of space.

(00:31:46):
And a lot of my time since then has been

(00:31:49):
deconstructing, just rethinking all the things, trying to sort through what do we keep?

(00:31:53):
What do we change?

(00:31:54):
What do we trash completely?

(00:31:56):
What could church look like if not that?

(00:31:58):
And all those kinds of questions.

(00:32:00):
I asked Liz to share a little bit about the campus and parachurch and church

(00:32:05):
ministries that kind of meshed into one,

(00:32:08):
because it's an example where patriarchy operates in the background,

(00:32:13):
and it's not really noticeable unless you point it out or it comes out to rear its

(00:32:17):
ugly head.

(00:32:19):
Here's Liz again.

(00:32:21):
I get into this a lot in the first half of a book.

(00:32:23):
I would say it was this very slow process of realization that,

(00:32:29):
A,

(00:32:30):
things were very much not equal in this church where in a lot of ways I felt at

(00:32:34):
home and I felt really supported and loved.

(00:32:38):
It took me a while to realize all the different ways in which things were very

(00:32:42):
different for me as a young woman than they would have been if I were a young man

(00:32:45):
in that space.

(00:32:47):
And then B, to realize how important that is.

(00:32:51):
Like, it matters.

(00:32:54):
Yeah,

(00:32:54):
I think it took me a minute to really come to prioritize that sense of gender

(00:32:59):
equality as something that I really needed in a faith community.

(00:33:03):
And maybe those things seem obvious, or maybe they should have been obvious.

(00:33:07):
But I think that's where the niceness comes in, right?

(00:33:11):
Like,

(00:33:11):
I think with the title,

(00:33:12):
I was going for something a little bit tongue in cheek,

(00:33:14):
but also a little bit like the communities that I was a part of were really full of genuine,

(00:33:20):
nice,

(00:33:20):
kind people.

(00:33:22):
who for the most part really wanted to do what was good for the community and to do

(00:33:27):
what was good for people of all genders.

(00:33:30):
I mean,

(00:33:31):
I say all genders,

(00:33:31):
they probably would have just acknowledged two genders,

(00:33:34):
but they wanted to do what was good for people.

(00:33:37):
And they,

(00:33:38):
for the most part,

(00:33:39):
genuinely thought that some form of self complementarianism was what was good for people.

(00:33:44):
So it's this very kind of complex process of sorting out,

(00:33:47):
like,

(00:33:48):
even though people might have really good intentions,

(00:33:51):
that doesn't mean that they're not causing harm.

(00:33:52):
And even though the churches that I was a part of were a lot more supportive of

(00:33:58):
women than some of their more conservative counterparts,

(00:34:00):
that doesn't mean that things were okay.

(00:34:03):
An important component of your story in which you named,

(00:34:07):
you didn't grow up in a space where this was normative,

(00:34:11):
where patriarchy was normative and you couldn't have thought or imagined a

(00:34:15):
different way.

(00:34:15):
In fact,

(00:34:16):
would it be accurate to say that you kind of walked into this space with a level of

(00:34:21):
naivety where you're like,

(00:34:25):
I just thought things should have been like,

(00:34:27):
you assume that there was equality and

(00:34:32):
Yeah,

(00:34:32):
I mean,

(00:34:32):
I walked in as a college freshman very much not thinking that I needed to ask

(00:34:37):
questions like,

(00:34:38):
are women in leadership and what kinds of roles?

(00:34:41):
Or what kinds of roles are they prohibited from?

(00:34:43):
I just didn't know that like, in 2006, I needed to ask that.

(00:34:47):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:34:48):
To you, it was like, wide open.

(00:34:51):
Like, why would, of course, like anyone can?

(00:34:55):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:34:55):
I grew up seeing women preach.

(00:34:57):
I grew up at a church where women served as elders.

(00:34:59):
I didn't really hear anyone debating about whether or not that was a good thing.

(00:35:02):
Yeah, sure.

(00:35:04):
Yeah.

(00:35:04):
So I wandered into a more conservative church,

(00:35:06):
not really knowing what kinds of questions I might ask.

(00:35:09):
And I could see that all of the people preaching were men,

(00:35:12):
but I just assumed that that was how it happened to be at the time.

(00:35:15):
And I didn't see that as a problem.

(00:35:16):
Yeah.

(00:35:17):
And I didn't think to ask who was the elder board who really runs the church and

(00:35:22):
makes all the important decisions for the church community and are women allowed there.

(00:35:26):
The answer was no, but I think it took me a year or two to realize that.

(00:35:30):
Sure.

(00:35:32):
And I think I was also a little bit more conservative at the time.

(00:35:35):
I think at first I was kind of like,

(00:35:37):
I don't really buy into this,

(00:35:39):
but I see where people are coming from.

(00:35:40):
Like I see the scriptures they're using.

(00:35:42):
I appreciate that they're taking the Bible seriously, which now I see that's complicated.

(00:35:47):
But at the time, I appreciate they're taking the Bible seriously and trying to follow it.

(00:35:51):
And maybe this is something we can kind of agree to disagree on.

(00:35:55):
And I think at the time I had no particular sense of calling or ambition to serve

(00:36:00):
as a pastor or to preach or to be on the elder board or anything like that.

(00:36:03):
And so I think there was kind of a totally selfish feeling of like,

(00:36:08):
this isn't particularly urgent,

(00:36:10):
or maybe it doesn't really affect me that much.

(00:36:14):
And I think it took several more years for me to realize that it did affect me,

(00:36:17):
even if I didn't want any of that,

(00:36:20):
but especially if I did.

(00:36:21):
Yeah.

(00:36:23):
One of the tricky parts of patriarchy is how it's deeply embedded in even the

(00:36:27):
coolest churches,

(00:36:28):
and oftentimes women are participants in upholding that malformed system.

(00:36:34):
Here's Liz to help unpack some components of that weird.

(00:36:38):
Yeah.

(00:36:38):
Yeah.

(00:36:39):
I think there's a lot going on there.

(00:36:40):
I think it's different in different communities.

(00:36:42):
I think there are a lot of churches,

(00:36:44):
as you said,

(00:36:44):
that are very young and cool and very full of young people,

(00:36:48):
often diverse young people.

(00:36:49):
And so you just kind of assume that in the 21st century,

(00:36:54):
you know,

(00:36:55):
a church that's full of young people has some more progressive or at least kind of

(00:36:59):
equal beliefs.

(00:37:00):
Yeah.

(00:37:02):
Yeah, and I think there's a lot else that goes into it, too.

(00:37:05):
I mean,

(00:37:05):
I think as women,

(00:37:07):
even in this day and age,

(00:37:09):
we often are still socialized to not prioritize our own needs or prioritize our own equality.

(00:37:16):
So I think it's not totally uncommon that women like me,

(00:37:21):
especially when we're younger,

(00:37:23):
step into these spaces and realize,

(00:37:25):
oh,

(00:37:25):
this isn't quite what I thought it was,

(00:37:26):
but maybe it's not that big a deal.

(00:37:29):
As long as people's spiritual needs are getting met,

(00:37:31):
or if I have community,

(00:37:32):
or these things that I'm looking for,

(00:37:34):
spiritual guidance,

(00:37:35):
if I like the leaders,

(00:37:36):
that kind of thing,

(00:37:37):
maybe I don't need them to see me as fully human,

(00:37:41):
right?

(00:37:41):
You wouldn't put it that strongly, but yeah.

(00:37:45):
What about, do you find that

(00:37:48):
That's almost like a spiritual gaslighting.

(00:37:50):
We call it spiritual bypassing to adopt or not trust your gut that something's off.

(00:38:00):
Yeah, I think so.

(00:38:01):
I think there's encouragement to not trust your gut.

(00:38:04):
There's often encouragement not to talk to other women who have issues with these

(00:38:09):
unequal power structures.

(00:38:11):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:38:12):
I think there's often kind of the gaslighting of being given the impression that

(00:38:15):
you're the only one who sees this as a problem.

(00:38:18):
Yeah.

(00:38:22):
When did the proverbial wheels fall off?

(00:38:25):
Maybe it was over time.

(00:38:28):
And was there a moment where

(00:38:32):
You found,

(00:38:33):
this may be the wrong phrasing,

(00:38:36):
but you found the permission to say that's not right.

(00:38:44):
Yeah, I think it was really...

(00:38:47):
a million small things over many years.

(00:38:50):
I think, yeah.

(00:38:54):
And there were times when I think I tried to raise questions.

(00:38:58):
I mean,

(00:38:58):
I did raise questions and I wasn't quite sure what to make of the answers that I

(00:39:03):
got at the time.

(00:39:04):
I think now I would look back and say,

(00:39:07):
Right.

(00:39:09):
Like I would be able to put some different words to it,

(00:39:11):
but at the time it was kind of a head scratcher.

(00:39:14):
Um,

(00:39:14):
so like one of the stories I tell in the book is,

(00:39:17):
um,

(00:39:18):
how I've been working for my church and college ministry for a couple of years.

(00:39:22):
And,

(00:39:23):
um,

(00:39:23):
the church hired a younger male colleague to work with me and then almost

(00:39:29):
immediately invited him to preach at a church service that was not just for college students,

(00:39:33):
like preach to everybody.

(00:39:34):
Um,

(00:39:36):
Um, and I think at first I was kind of like, oh, that's great.

(00:39:39):
You know, that's a great opportunity for him.

(00:39:41):
And then I was like, wait a minute, they've never asked if I might do that.

(00:39:45):
Um, I've been through the church's preaching classes.

(00:39:48):
I've gotten really positive feedback on the sermons that I've done there,

(00:39:52):
but that invitation has not,

(00:39:54):
uh,

(00:39:55):
materialized.

(00:39:56):
And so I asked my supervisor about that and,

(00:39:59):
um,

(00:40:00):
he was kind of like,

(00:40:01):
oh,

(00:40:01):
I've never heard you express interest in preaching.

(00:40:03):
Whereas this

(00:40:04):
person, your younger male colleague did express interest.

(00:40:07):
Yeah.

(00:40:07):
I was like, yeah, okay.

(00:40:09):
I mean, you're right.

(00:40:11):
But looking back,

(00:40:12):
it's like,

(00:40:12):
there's so many different things that go into what sorts of interests or ambitions

(00:40:16):
we express.

(00:40:17):
So we're encouraged to express and how people react to that expression of ambition

(00:40:22):
differently along gender lines.

(00:40:25):
And how comfortable I would have felt as a woman in this college ministry role

(00:40:29):
being like,

(00:40:29):
oh,

(00:40:29):
I'd actually love to preach to the church like that didn't really occur to me.

(00:40:33):
Right.

(00:40:33):
So they're kind of all these things wrapped up in that kind of conversation.

(00:40:37):
Thank you, Cait, and thank you, Liz, for sharing your stories.

(00:40:41):
There's so much power behind storytelling,

(00:40:43):
where you can hear how others have found their liberation and freedom from

(00:40:48):
malformed intersections of power.

(00:40:51):
Patriarchy is one of the most pervasive elements of malformed power in the Christian church.

(00:40:58):
And it's my hope that we'll find more communities build themselves around fully

(00:41:03):
equitable leadership structures where all can come and participate,

(00:41:08):
bringing their whole selves.

(00:41:10):
It's out there.

(00:41:11):
Maybe it's kind of rare, which is unfortunate.

(00:41:14):
Knowing the intersections of how patriarchy works so well was the subject of

(00:41:19):
episode 4 on propaganda.

(00:41:21):
But there are other intersections that prop up patriarchy.

(00:41:24):
It's important for us to understand how the whole mechanism works because A it'll

(00:41:30):
help us spot when weird malformed systems and community rear its ugly head and B

(00:41:36):
it'll help us make sense of where things went off the rails.

(00:41:40):
in hopes of finding our own liberation out of malformed and toxic communities.

(00:41:47):
Here's D.L.

(00:41:47):
Mayfield back again from our conversation in episode four to chat more about the

(00:41:53):
intersections around focus on the family and the inputs that are required to

(00:41:57):
produce the kind of patriarchal thinking that we encounter in many contemporary

(00:42:02):
conservative and sometimes left of center churches today.

(00:42:08):
We want to get a final sense of these malformed intersections, but...

(00:42:12):
Even though we will end farewell evangelicalism with a couple of episodes around

(00:42:17):
hope and liberation and ways forward,

(00:42:20):
we'll tease pieces of it in this episode for your listening pleasure.

(00:42:26):
Here's D.L.

(00:42:26):
Mayfield and I to wrap things up in episode five.

(00:42:31):
It's like this sense of your liberation is found in

(00:42:38):
when you start to dig into the weird things that you don't want to dig into.

(00:42:43):
Because that's where your wholeness is, is walking in the opposite direction of your formation.

(00:42:52):
And who, I don't know who you send the therapy bills to, but dang.

(00:42:59):
That's a process.

(00:43:00):
That takes a long time.

(00:43:01):
Yeah.

(00:43:01):
Let's do it.

(00:43:03):
I'm still waiting.

(00:43:04):
Let's litigate.

(00:43:06):
Since none of us can afford all the therapy we need,

(00:43:10):
here's how I'm sort of conceptualizing,

(00:43:12):
like,

(00:43:13):
some of the path forward.

(00:43:15):
It's interesting, like...

(00:43:16):
When,

(00:43:17):
you know,

(00:43:18):
you have your guests asked about,

(00:43:19):
like,

(00:43:20):
what are the indigenous tribes,

(00:43:22):
right,

(00:43:22):
that are original to your land?

(00:43:23):
And I think that's such a good question as a white person.

(00:43:27):
Like, I do not get asked that enough.

(00:43:30):
I guess I should say as a white American, right, I don't get asked that enough.

(00:43:34):
And to me,

(00:43:35):
it's similar to looking into the background and history of someone like James

(00:43:40):
Thompson is sort of doing some ancestral work.

(00:43:43):
Like, what are the factors that led to this?

(00:43:46):
Like,

(00:43:47):
what was I born into,

(00:43:50):
right,

(00:43:50):
that I didn't really have any control over,

(00:43:53):
yet it became a part of my story and my DNA?

(00:43:57):
And I think that a lot of these men and evangelical Christians in particular,

(00:44:00):
they love to be ahistorical.

(00:44:03):
But, you know, everybody's coming out of something.

(00:44:06):
And the thing that people really don't want to unpack about this whole thing is

(00:44:11):
that America has this horrific history of white supremacist patriarchal norms and aims,

(00:44:20):
including in the realm of things like eugenics.

(00:44:22):
And so Dr. Dobson got his start being the protege of this really famous guy named Paul Popeneau,

(00:44:30):
who is a avowed eugenicist.

(00:44:32):
He wrote all these articles praising the Third Reich as they were forcibly

(00:44:36):
sterilizing 400,000 people a year.

(00:44:39):
He was like, that's amazing.

(00:44:40):
Like he was writing that in scientific journals, right?

(00:44:43):
This is, this is who he is.

(00:44:45):
He ends up pivoting after World War II because you can't be a loud and proud Nazi

(00:44:50):
supporter anymore.

(00:44:51):
Yeah.

(00:44:52):
Yeah.

(00:44:53):
That didn't work.

(00:44:54):
He eventually pivots to being like, I'm going to do something called positive eugenics.

(00:44:58):
Right.

(00:44:59):
I can't keep the undesirables from reproducing, I guess, in America.

(00:45:03):
But I can help white women marry white men and have as many kids as possible and

(00:45:09):
replicate these,

(00:45:10):
you know,

(00:45:11):
patriarchal values.

(00:45:12):
That's what I'm going to do.

(00:45:13):
So he starts the first marriage and family like counseling center in America is in Los Angeles.

(00:45:20):
And it's coming out of this positive eugenics.

(00:45:23):
like ideology he goes he goes on if i don't know if you've ever heard of this

(00:45:27):
column it's called can this marriage be saved but it was like in the ladies home

(00:45:31):
journal and in these like women's magazines when i was growing up yeah that skipped

(00:45:35):
me okay well can this marriage be saved is like this very popular column and he's

(00:45:41):
the one who started it and he's the one who counsel and you know he almost always

(00:45:46):
tells the white lady to stay uh with the white man right because that's how

(00:45:50):
patriarchy works

(00:45:52):
So that was his whole thing.

(00:45:54):
Dobson becomes his protege.

(00:45:56):
Right.

(00:45:57):
And so when Dobson wrote his first book,

(00:45:58):
Dare to Discipline,

(00:46:00):
Popeno actually wrote the foreword to it.

(00:46:02):
So this white supremacist eugenicist wrote the foreword to Dare to Discipline and

(00:46:07):
was like,

(00:46:07):
this is it,

(00:46:08):
man.

(00:46:10):
Well, interesting thing is Popono was an atheist.

(00:46:13):
And so here we see that people will form coalitions when it comes to the patriarchy,

(00:46:22):
the white supremacist patriarchy across religious lines.

(00:46:27):
But then Dobson was like,

(00:46:29):
I think Popono's message and positive eugenics and this whole thing,

(00:46:33):
I think this will really take off in Christian spaces.

(00:46:35):
And he was right.

(00:46:37):
And so he wrote these books and

(00:46:40):
focus on the family, I think you could actually classify it as a positive eugenics movement.

(00:46:46):
And I think those of us who were born into it maybe can start to see that.

(00:46:51):
Like,

(00:46:52):
a lot of us had parents who had a lot of kids at very young ages,

(00:46:56):
you know,

(00:46:57):
because there was all this cultural pressure,

(00:46:59):
like,

(00:47:00):
Christians love children.

(00:47:02):
You should have as many as possible.

(00:47:04):
You should homeschool them.

(00:47:06):
You should only limit their access to worldview things that,

(00:47:11):
you know,

(00:47:11):
align with Christian fascism.

(00:47:13):
So like my history textbooks,

(00:47:15):
my media consumption,

(00:47:16):
like all of it was filtered through this lens and that understanding the history of

(00:47:23):
who Dobson studied under and sort of naming it as the

(00:47:28):
a positive eugenics movement aimed at upholding the white supremacist patriarchy.

(00:47:32):
It's like a devastating realization, but it's so necessary if we're going to move forward.

(00:47:39):
We are at this point in history where the white supremacist patriarchy is

(00:47:44):
absolutely wilding out.

(00:47:46):
Absolutely wilding out.

(00:47:50):
And it's honestly really triggering if you were raised...

(00:47:54):
Under the white supremacist patriarchy.

(00:47:56):
And you got out.

(00:47:57):
Personally.

(00:47:58):
Internally.

(00:48:00):
It's very triggering to be like.

(00:48:02):
Oh my god.

(00:48:03):
I can't escape this.

(00:48:06):
I can't escape this.

(00:48:08):
But that's the reality.

(00:48:10):
None of us can escape this right now.

(00:48:12):
And I think it's really sad.

(00:48:14):
How so much of the world is tied up.

(00:48:16):
Into America's economy.

(00:48:18):
And all this bullshit.

(00:48:19):
And it's like.

(00:48:21):
The chickens are coming home to roost,

(00:48:23):
you know,

(00:48:24):
and it's just like so unfortunate and also like possibly necessary to to to have this,

(00:48:34):
you know,

(00:48:35):
this antichrist,

(00:48:36):
if we want to use that term.

(00:48:38):
Right.

(00:48:38):
Just kind of force all of us to face like how bad this really is.

(00:48:45):
You know, we only just started.

(00:48:46):
Yeah.

(00:48:47):
There's no getting out of this.

(00:48:49):
So that maybe comes back to the estrangement piece again, right?

(00:48:52):
There's... I think estrangement is going to continue to grow as shit continues to hit the fan.

(00:48:59):
And there's no going back to normal.

(00:49:02):
And that is what people who are like a part of the oppressive...

(00:49:08):
they're going to really want things to go back to normal as quickly as possible.

(00:49:11):
And I think for a lot of us, we're like, no, it's, there are consequences to your actions.

(00:49:16):
There's consequences to your political beliefs.

(00:49:19):
And somebody in our subset community and our strong will community just the other

(00:49:24):
day said a lot of our parents who were all in on this movement,

(00:49:28):
um,

(00:49:29):
They were like prepared to die at any time, right?

(00:49:33):
There's this weird martyrdom persecution complex.

(00:49:36):
We've heard that before.

(00:49:37):
White evangelicals,

(00:49:38):
which we can't even get all into,

(00:49:39):
but like they were prepared to die at any time for their faith,

(00:49:44):
for their values.

(00:49:45):
For money, maybe.

(00:49:46):
And they were never prepared.

(00:49:48):
They were never prepared to live with the consequences of their actions.

(00:49:53):
And I was like, damn.

(00:49:55):
You can't.

(00:49:56):
They couldn't have foreseen.

(00:49:57):
Damn.

(00:50:00):
gross we're gonna force them to that's the that's the that's the power we have now

(00:50:04):
is we can force people to actually experience the consequences of their actions and

(00:50:12):
so you know that means hey i don't actually love hanging out with transphobic

(00:50:18):
people who are obsessed with conspiracy theories and are deeply unhappy you know

(00:50:24):
i'm like yeah

(00:50:26):
I don't actually enjoy doing that.

(00:50:28):
And you're going to have to kind of live with that.

(00:50:30):
So everybody's sort of on a spectrum when it comes to estrangement.

(00:50:33):
It's not like a hard line.

(00:50:35):
I mean, some people go full no contact and that's fine.

(00:50:37):
But what I'm seeing is a lot of people more on the spectrum of setting relational

(00:50:42):
and emotional boundaries,

(00:50:44):
right?

(00:50:44):
With people that

(00:50:46):
have shown us they're not great at taking accountability or self-reflecting and

(00:50:51):
also told us over and over again what they believe because that's the funny thing

(00:50:56):
about evangelicals they they love to tell everybody everything they believe yeah

(00:51:01):
well because they're so right and it's loving it's actually loving to do that right

(00:51:06):
that's it

(00:51:07):
I love you so much.

(00:51:08):
I'm going to beat your ass and I'm going to just say this prayer with me, if you will.

(00:51:14):
Lord Jesus.

(00:51:16):
Yeah.

(00:51:17):
There's a lot of parents who are kind of panicking right now.

(00:51:20):
Um,

(00:51:22):
And so they're like, I just want to talk about politics.

(00:51:26):
Like, let's have dinner.

(00:51:28):
Let's do these things.

(00:51:28):
I just want to talk about it.

(00:51:30):
And how that doesn't work out well when I've I've heard you talk about it for four

(00:51:34):
decades straight.

(00:51:35):
So you just keeping your mouth shut for a dinner.

(00:51:40):
I know and you know, nothing's changed.

(00:51:42):
And I'm the one being hurt in this relationship when I have to keep pretending like

(00:51:48):
the things my parents believe don't make me feel incredibly ashamed.

(00:51:52):
I'm ashamed for my parents.

(00:51:55):
Can I just say that?

(00:51:57):
I've never said that publicly, but this is a feeling that I've been having for a few weeks now.

(00:52:03):
I'm so ashamed of them and what they believe.

(00:52:07):
I'm ashamed.

(00:52:08):
And that's just, I love my parents still.

(00:52:10):
I mean,

(00:52:10):
I have to be really honest and say that I have like a ton of different emotions

(00:52:16):
around my parents,

(00:52:18):
but this is the one that's been coming up for me recently.

(00:52:21):
And,

(00:52:22):
and I don't know if,

(00:52:24):
if they ever will feel shame for,

(00:52:26):
for the administrations they voted in and for how their ideology has changed.

(00:52:33):
kind of put them at odds with the vast majority of humanity.

(00:52:37):
The vast majority of humanity wants to see this planet continue on.

(00:52:41):
They want to be connected to the earth.

(00:52:44):
They want to nurture children.

(00:52:46):
And my parents are not there.

(00:52:51):
It's kind of devastating.

(00:52:52):
I have no elders to look up to.

(00:52:55):
I'm an orphan.

(00:52:56):
When it comes to...

(00:52:59):
How do I learn from my people?

(00:53:01):
My people are white evangelicals.

(00:53:02):
And so I'm so grateful that elders from so many different backgrounds are out here.

(00:53:09):
given their wisdom you know and I'm like so grateful for it but it doesn't replace

(00:53:18):
the fact that I'm grieving the loss of elders who can teach me how to how to resist

(00:53:24):
in this moment how to have hope in this moment how to move forward in this moment

(00:53:27):
it's like oh my parents are the last people to ask about that you know it's sad I'm

(00:53:35):
so sorry and it's and it's also sad that

(00:53:41):
You're not the only one.

(00:53:42):
And as you share your story, all these other folks are just like nodding, like, oh, deep exhale.

(00:53:50):
Because you didn't deserve that.

(00:53:54):
Yeah.

(00:53:55):
And I just I have a so much love for folks who were raised in this kind of worldview.

(00:54:02):
There's so much to process.

(00:54:05):
There's so much like you've we've had to undergo this like absolute worldview shift,

(00:54:12):
you know,

(00:54:12):
which is not easy to do.

(00:54:13):
Yeah.

(00:54:15):
But we were indoctrinated day in and day out with not just like Christian supremacy,

(00:54:20):
but white supremacy and patriarchal supremacy.

(00:54:24):
And those are three huge like mind shifts.

(00:54:29):
And the ableism.

(00:54:33):
I mean, yeah, that's a part of the white supremacist patriarchy, right?

(00:54:37):
It's just this...

(00:54:39):
who's valuable and who's not.

(00:54:40):
And I just think there's something here at the core of how we treat children is

(00:54:47):
like the future we're investing in.

(00:54:50):
Thank you very much to Cait West.

(00:54:52):
Find her book, Rift, wherever books are sold.

(00:54:55):
As well, thanks, Liz Jenkins.

(00:54:58):
Nice Churchy Patriarchy is her book.

(00:55:01):
And DL Mayfield, you can find their podcast, Strong Willed Child.

(00:55:08):
This is a production of Roberry Publications.

(00:55:10):
Faith in a Fresh Vibe.

(00:55:12):
Daniel Wheat was all the bumper music today.

(00:55:15):
What's next?

(00:55:17):
Well, how do you, in the year our Lord 2025, still uphold patriarchy?

(00:55:22):
Yeah,

(00:55:22):
we know it's this malformed power structure that's giving men undue power and

(00:55:27):
influence in churches.

(00:55:29):
It's the tool used to control bodies such as women and children predominantly.

(00:55:34):
So how do you justify it?

(00:55:36):
You need a sacred book in order to convince the masses to stay quiet in the pews.

(00:55:43):
It's the Bible.

(00:55:44):
Something that can be used, twisted, and turned to suit any device or guise.

(00:55:51):
And that includes destructive and unjust systems.

(00:55:56):
Patriarchy is one.

(00:55:57):
White supremacy is another.

(00:55:59):
Ableism is another.

(00:56:01):
The list goes on.

(00:56:02):
And the Bible is used to justify them all.

(00:56:05):
We're going to jump into the interrogation of the Bible in episode number six, coming up next.

(00:56:16):
We need revival.

(00:56:17):
We need a chance to come alive.

(00:56:18):
A new way of living.

(00:56:19):
A place to thrive and not just survive.

(00:56:43):
Revival, we need a chance to come alive.

(00:56:50):
A new way of living, a place to thrive.

(00:56:56):
And I just survived.

(00:57:17):
Thank you.