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The Makings of a "Safe Church"-- with Dr. Andrew Bauman (Pt. 1)
76 Plays23 days ago
It's an emotionally charged and yet super-important topic: to what extent have women in Christian churches in America experienced sexism, sexual harassment, and even forms of sexual abuse? Does the church have any "moral high ground" compared to the now-well-documented patterns of abuse of power by male leaders in Hollywood, the financial services industry, and the legal profession (just to name a few)?
Dr. Andrew Bauman, a former pastor-turned mental health counselor, heard so many stories in his counseling room of mistreatment of Christian women at the hands (and by the words) of male church leaders that he had to investigate further. For his Ph. D. dissertation, he conducted an extensive survey of women who had been in various roles in church leadership regarding their experiences with sexism, sexual harassment, and straight-up abuse.
The results were staggering... But we will let him tell you about that.
Moved by what he learned, and convicted regarding his own complicity in having contributed to church environments where women routinely felt similarly unsafe, Andrew decided to do something about it. Having written several powerful books aimed at helping Christian men live lives of greater sexual integrity and wholeness, he decided to use his platform as an author to amplify women's voices, and to shine a light on this heartbreaking failure in far too many of our houses of worship.
The result is his newly released book, Safe Church: How to Guard against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities. It's a thought-provoking and somewhat distressing read-- but there is hope. For Andrew writes not to excoriate or invalidate the church, but to rehabilitate it.
This book, which he joins Wendy and Chris to discuss in another two-part podcast, can help churches become more aware of these women's stories, and better equipped to guard against doing further harm.
Where to find Andrew's books and counseling practice:
- Personal Author Site: https://andrewjbauman.com/
- Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health & Trauma-https://christiancc.org/
- Safe Church Book: https://www.amazon.com/Safe-Church-against-Christian-Communities/dp/1540903974
(Andrew would also want to make sure you know that he also the husband of a previous guest, Dr. Christy Bauman, his partner in healing work with marriages that have experienced betrayal, infidelity, unhealthy relational patterns, and abuse.)
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Transcript
Maintaining Hope during Challenges
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons. Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
00:00:23
Speaker
That Sunday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel.
Introduction of Hosts and Podcast Aim
00:00:40
Speaker
I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
00:00:51
Speaker
Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hey there, folks, and welcome to another episode of the Surviving Saturday podcast.
Guest Introduction: Dr. Andrew Bauman
00:01:15
Speaker
I am Chris, one of the hosts here with Wendy, and we are super excited ah to have as our guest today, ah Dr. Andrew Bauman.
00:01:23
Speaker
um And I've had some opportunities to hear Dr. Bauman speak and and conduct a workshop and been reading some of his stuff. And he he has has been just putting some some interesting thoughts and some really helpful ah challenges out there, I think, to to the church on various topics. And so we are super excited to have him here with us. Andrew, welcome.
00:01:47
Speaker
ah to the podcast. How are you on this day? Everybody's sort of braced. We're all in North Carolina. We're braced for sort of the next millmageddon. Yes, my kids are out of school and we're just sitting here looking out the window waiting.
00:02:01
Speaker
So well we'll see what happens. I may be interrupted by kids screaming and running around with joy. Do yours do the things where ours used to, when they heard it was going to snow, they would do little old wives' tales or whatever. That's probably a parable thing to call it. But you know myths that supposedly would make it snow, like something about flushing something down the toilet. So pajamas on an inside out, spoons over the pillowcase, flush ice down the toilet. Yeah, I hadn't heard those, but yeah maybe.
00:02:30
Speaker
We don't know where they heard those either. It was a little distressing. It was like, huh, I wonder where you picked that up. And I think it only worked twice in the course of their childhood here in Charlotte. yeah you know Yes, but it's good time for weathermen at least. um Well, as you're sitting there, so you are tell folks a little bit about where you are and and kind of what you do now in terms of your the hats that you wear. And then kind of we'd love to hear a little bit about your journey of of getting to that place because you sort of had multiple different hats in your career.
Andrew Bauman's Work and Focus
00:03:01
Speaker
Yeah, so um i my wife and I run the Christian Counseling Center for Sexual Health and Trauma. And we, 15 years in Seattle, started studying with Dr. Dan Allender, and then now focusing, basically, I focus most of my work on men and unwanted sexual behaviors, deceptive sexual behaviors, and abuse, and the intersection of abuse. And my wife works primarily with women around sexual health and trauma.
00:03:30
Speaker
And then we work it a lot with couples. But yeah, it's exciting work. We do a lot of group work, do a lot of men's work. And I love love what I get to do. I consider it and a deep honor to be with people's deepest shame and and greatest glory. oh And I just consider it such a joy to do what I get to do. I really like the way you put that, to be with people in their deepest shame and their greatest glory.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yes. So I'd love to hear how you got started. Like, is this something you always knew you wanted to do?
Andrew's Personal Struggles and Healing
00:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, so no, not at all. I was a pastor, a youth and college pastor, studied in college, Bible and religion.
00:04:14
Speaker
And I had never dealt with my story. I never dealt with my pain and slowly it was catching up to me. And so- How did that happen? Yeah, how did that happen? Yeah, I was also a porn user for about 13 years and objectified women. And that kind of started mixing in with my theology and degrading view of women. And so that slowly began to be my world, not really knowing what was healthy.
00:04:44
Speaker
Here I am leading leading kids, leading youth, and also having a secret life. And that began to come to a head as I was like, this something feels off. like Obviously i'm and I'm a fraud. I am literally living a duplicitous life. And so that was beginning to really expose itself and realizing I had never dealt with my own issues with my own father, my own yeah mother. my My dad was a pastor.
00:05:13
Speaker
and also a lawyer and he also had a hidden sexual life and um That kind of blew up my family when I was eight years old and so my mom went numb trying to raise three kids and just trying to survive and So single mom three kids and that was kind of my origin story um dealing you know as my father was a prominent evangelical leader and And my mom went numb. And then I kind of be I became an orphan. I became um just trying to survive. And so that's where, you know, porn came in roughly around 12 when the Internet became a thing. And that was my beginning to how to soothe and how to survive. Yeah. Little did I know that what helped me survive also, you know, years later nearly killed me.
00:06:03
Speaker
ended up in the psychiatric ward about 25 years ago, nearly taking my own life. And that was the beginning, kind of set the stage for blowing up my life you know in my early 20s, nearly you know flunking out of college, and then beginning to put the pieces back together. Now, were you already in
Mental Health and Career Shift
00:06:23
Speaker
relationship with Christy at that point in time? Was she along for that part of the journey, or did she come along later? Yeah, that was a little bit later. um So yeah, that was a little bit later.
00:06:33
Speaker
She had already started grad school and I was probably a couple of years out of the psych ward. So it was pretty easy. I mean, pretty soon after, but I had kind of already started to kind of, Hey, this is, I need to start dealing with my stuff here. And what was that like? I mean, even just, I'm, I'm feeling it in me, as you describe, trying to navigate you're in ministry and having major mental health issues that alone. What was that like?
00:07:03
Speaker
for you. Yeah, I mean, sadly, you know, it was fairly I had developed such I was so good at duplicity. yeah So I could in a sense put on that mask and still be a good teacher and play the part. And also just realizing like, if I live if I have integrity here, I lose my job, right? If I have integrity,
00:07:27
Speaker
Um, if I actually start and so that was part of like, hey, I cannot do ministry anymore. I have to, you know, go and become a therapist. Like I feel like I'm called, I couldn't, I couldn't be as honest as I wanted to be in ministry. It felt like, it felt like I couldn't tell the truth of my darkness. yeah again I don't blame that on ministry. I blame that for my own lack of integrity, but I also realize like,
00:07:50
Speaker
This, where I'm at in the church, is not ah an honest in a vulnerable place as I want it to be. What was it like when you experienced some kind of safety or somebody welcoming, somebody actually just trying to to get you, support you, and and they could handle whatever it was you
Mentorship and Rebuilding Life
00:08:13
Speaker
were bringing?
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah. So that was a therapist and a professor early on. I'm flunking out of college and I start meeting with one of the counselors and you know he began to father me. He began to look at me and tell me I was good. And that was the first man in my life who looked at me and kind of named me. And so he kind of brought me in. I ended up living with him and his family, taking me in and fathering me for years. And and so that was the beginning.
00:08:45
Speaker
of you know a long relationship of him loving me into wholeness. Yeah. Andrew, I am just sitting here stunned at the the beauty of what you're describing, not to take away from the, beyond words, hardship.
00:09:08
Speaker
that it was. I'm not trying to minimize. But you mentioned you know in the book, and I have learned this from Dana as well and hold it highly, that things to be reborn rightly must be crucified. There has to be a resurrection from death. And that's what you're describing, that you you had these strategies that soothed and kept you alive, yeah later they would kill you. But instead of letting them kill you, you willingly gave up your life to become something different. And that that's a path I would think it would do ah all of us well to follow. Yes. Well said. Yes. There's no cruce there's no resurrection without crucifixion.
00:09:54
Speaker
And so many of us don't like pain. We don't want pain. We run from pain. We develop addictions you know to run from our pain, to numb ourselves. But for us to do the work of redemptive suffering is to tell the truth of our stories, is to face our deepest shame and our deepest fear. And out of that, we discover the depth of our purpose.
00:10:16
Speaker
And that's where I feel like I'm in right now and of literally living into my calling and living into why I'm meant to be here. yeah And so how did that play out then? you are you You have this fairly major shift out of vocational ministry um and and towards therapy. What was that journey like and and particularly how it kept intertwining with your own story, your own continued peeling back layers of the onion growth?
Honest Storytelling vs. Vulnerability
00:10:47
Speaker
Right.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it took it took me a while to kind of undo what I had learned, right? There was this false vulnerability, right? I knew how to tell my story, right? And have the audience in the palm of my hand, right? i Sex, drugs, you know, rock and roll, Jesus, Jesus, you know, and then the audience affirms me, right? So it was like, I brought that to my, you know, my group therapy class. And I just remember,
00:11:15
Speaker
you know, telling my story the first time. And then I looked over and their faces are just kind of dropped. And the professor goes, Where are you? And I thought I just I, you know, I just use my used all my good stuff. And I thought, i had you know, I thought I had him in the palm of my hand. And realizing, like, I was honest, because I do have a big story. But I wasn't vulnerable at all. Right. I had developed this false sense of vulnerability that I could in a sense trick my audience into affirming me and telling me that I was good, right? So there was no real vulnerability because I had all the control.
00:11:51
Speaker
That really, I can relate to so much of that. We in processing our stories and and mine has a lot of similar overlaps with yours we haven't gotten to talk about, it but a lot of really close overlaps. And for me, I learned to hide in public also. And and to be like, I will take the stage to dazzle and sort of distract you and and use my words to get you thinking, what is smart?
00:12:16
Speaker
Clever, you know wise beyond his years kind of guy, but it's not vulnerable It's keeping you know, it's it's I'm dazzling you and keeping you out there It's a way for me not to deal with my own pain and certainly not to let anybody think there isn't Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's just in a mask, you know use so many people do it with therapy as well and um And I work with a lot of you know narcissistic abusive men and they actually just become better at hiding because they become become better at language, yeah better at languaging and hiding and using
00:12:52
Speaker
therapeutic terms to actually be less vulnerable rather than more, which you know for me, and we'll probably get into it later, why bodywork and somatics have been such an important part of my practice because it got me out of my head and it literally disarmed me because I'm good at language. Because that's how I survived growing up, is I became you know good at articulation and actually I became good at hiding.
00:13:16
Speaker
So what did that group do then? When you you tell your story, you think, I've
Authentic Community and Healing
00:13:21
Speaker
crushed it. Two applause. They're looking at you like, where are you? I've had that moment as well. I'm feeling it. um you know We're not lying, dude. Where'd you go with that? What happened from there?
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of the beginning of my exposure, right? And exposure sucks. um And it's vital to our healing. And so I needed to be stripped. I needed to be be stripped of all that stuff that I had learned and groomed in 10 years of working in ministry, like I needed to unlearn before I relearned something new. And so that was you know the last 20 something years of life of relearning a new way of relating, a new style of relating um that was built in much more vulnerability and intimacy. So as you're talking, I'm struck again by how important the group is in redemption um because you know you knew how to
00:14:17
Speaker
put on a show that you thought maybe on some level was authentic. It was honest. You were telling the true story. right But you weren't allowing your heart to be exposed. I've been there too and got really good at language and the language of repentance and confession. And it'll definitely get you a seat at the table in many cases. yeah But it doesn't change the needle of our own heart. And so what would you say groups have offered you um as far as the the gift of that exposure? yes
00:14:53
Speaker
Well, we can't see our own face, right? We can't see our own face. What is, you know, ah Dr. Allender used to say, 60% of our face we don't control or something wild, like all the little nerve endings. And so we can't read our own face. So we need each other to read our face. I desperately don't want you to read my face. And I desperately want you to read my face. yes I want to be known and I damn it, do not know me. right Do not come close to me. Do not expose me. And yet I long for connection. And so these are simultaneously true. So I will push you away and I will long for you to come close to me. I remember being in a group at the Allender Center probably seven years ago and I shared a really painful story and everyone was silent and I was feeling panicked and desperate inside because I had always known
00:15:47
Speaker
don't share pain because there will be no one there to catch you when you fall. So I risked it wanting something. They were quiet. I i made a comment about how abandoned I felt. yeah And the leader said, I think you don't want us to come close. And I was like, what? Are you crazy? yeah I'm dying inside. And she said, will you check out everyone else's face to see how they are receiving you?
00:16:15
Speaker
yeah And they said, we all think you have your hand out. And i I could not see that. I thought that I was going, please, please, please. And so I needed their feedback because they wouldn't come in. They weren't going to override my hand.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Yes. Well said. Yes. And we we we don't even know what we're doing. yeah right We don't know. We don't see ourselves. And so that is the act of humility. You can't do that if you're defensive and you're reactive. but You can't do that also if you're not in community with safe people because you don't want their feedback because they don't see their own shadow. right They don't see their own selves. Okay. Talk a little bit about that because that's one thing I always say. It's not just community. It's safe community. People who are willing to do their own work. Exactly. So have you bled with these people, right? Not just told the truth, not just been honest, but have you bled? Have they faced their own shame? um That's the work and that's hard to do and it's hard to find. And so many times you just have to do it yourself. Hey guys, here's what I want to do. I'm i'm going to leave this book study or this you know group, eight week group, whatever. And we're just going to talk about our lives.
00:17:27
Speaker
and And you're going to lead not as because you have all the answers, but because you are a sojourner who needs this yourself. And you literally just gather a group of people and you start telling your stories.
00:17:38
Speaker
right? And you start diving in and you produce what you need because it's not natural. It's not just going to happen. Well, you said the, the, we'll call it the S word. I mean, shame is, is, is a prison and it's dangerous because you, you can't even sometimes, like I realized I developed lightning-quick mechanisms to not go near shame, to not act like it's a true thing. Inside, I have this sense of, oh my gosh, there's terrible shame, there's terrible guilt. um and And I relate to the stuff that you shared about you know yeah going to pornography for soothing as a young child, that becoming a coping mechanism. And not really even pornography, I would do you know stuff that you wouldn't really call that, but it was serving the same purpose. It was fulfilling the same need, operating the same way.
00:18:27
Speaker
um And it's been very difficult to just be able to you know even overcome the shame of having to name that. I feel it as I say it on a podcast. yeah um But it is it' there's there's an authenticity. There's an integration that happens. It's true. And where I've seen the most where I've experienced the most powerful healing and seen the most powerful healing has been those group contacts. yeah where And these I've done it with some with mixed scripts with men where you can say,
00:18:55
Speaker
This is the real. This is where I've been. This is where I go in my in my fear and my darkness when I am i'm the most triggered. And you have men rise up around and go, we got you. We get it. You understand why your young self would do that. It actually makes sense. Encourage. I mean, that type of courage and vulnerability is contagious.
00:19:18
Speaker
yeah you know is and And there's, and we've recently opened up our co-ed groups as well, where we do this with men and women, you know, and that vulnerability and facing women. yeah And we have men who've been abusive and women who've been abused.
00:19:33
Speaker
and basically having that of eye to eye, you're six inches from each other's face, telling of how you've abused women and this woman who's been abused. like That's we like that the most powerful group we do, but it's like, this is what we need to do. Men and women need to face each other. Obviously men need to do it with men and women need to do it with women, sure. But then that next level of healing, we we have to heal in relationship and our gendered wounds are so deep in the church
00:20:05
Speaker
So many times, men, you go deal with it over here. um And, you know, I mean, I remember we had like, gun night and like, we have car car shows and we got to bring the men in. You know, this was 27 years ago when we were, you know, I was a pastor, but it was like, we have to focus on getting the men here and the men are are the leaders. and And it's just like, this is just, and it's just a bunch of dudes, you know,
00:20:29
Speaker
drinking beer. and you know what it's just It's so dumb. um Rather than actually like, no, men are so capable of deep intimacy, yeah is we've just dumbed it down so much and think so less of men that we don't call them to more.
Critique of Men's Group Activities
00:20:44
Speaker
And the hope is that, yeah, you may if you use things to draw men in, you know just don't leave it there, okay, we did this, we had the sports event, we did this or whatever, but are we calling men to conversation? But there still can be that sexual segregation, there still can be that. So you men are gonna be over here and you might in your prayer triad or small men's group talk about pornography and and and how we're doing women and stuff. But the cross pollination of are we having that conversation with our wives? Is there a any co-ed space where where that is a safe topic
00:21:20
Speaker
And you're talking a third rail. No way. people People don't do it, right? People don't do it. And they don't know how to have the conversation in a healthy way. But it needs to happen because this is where we've been most wounded.
00:21:31
Speaker
Yeah. And so on that, I want to transition to the book, um which I loved. And I want to set the stage for why it's meaningful. And then I've got some some questions and thoughts I want to ask you about. but So I'm a product of the South. I'm a product of a highly mis misogynistic culture.
00:21:54
Speaker
Then I went to a women's college. And so, you know, I've got all kinds of belief systems around masculinity and femininity that are now at war with one another in those two contexts. Then I'm Mary Chris, who I had known since I was 13. We land in a male-led denomination. And we landed there because we liked the way the families operated. We began volunteering with the youth group as graduate students. and we loved. we' We're like, this is unlike anything we ever had. We're drawn to these people. We want to go to this church. We hadn't seen healthy families at all. It was like this. What is the new interesting world?
00:22:34
Speaker
Yeah. So moving even, you know, to a new city, we, we followed that denomination and in my heart, so I was a woman and desperate to believe that God actually loved me personally, that this wasn't just a technicality that because I was part of the world, he saved, but there was something specific for me, but I have all these belief systems around how men and women carry themselves in the world.
00:23:02
Speaker
on polar opposite levels from women's college to misogynistic Southern culture. And then I land in a male led denomination and my heart was desperate to believe that there were good men who would shepherd me into God's presence. And I still hold that hope, but people are people. I am a sinner as are the men who will lead, did lead, have led me.
00:23:31
Speaker
And so the book, I think, put words to me um to, you said somewhere early in there, my my point in this book is not to make people hate the church, but to fall more in love with Jesus. I'm paraphrasing your words. but That is where I long to be and where I would love for you to flesh out a little bit because I think that's the desire ah of a lot of my listeners. like We want Jesus personally and some of these dynamics within our churches and outside in a way.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yes, yes, well said. And yeah, you are right in the middle of it. I mean, this this book is written for people like you who have experienced so much of this. And when you see Jesus's mission, right, in Luke 18, 19,
00:24:24
Speaker
right to set the captives and the prisoners free. right And you look at the society, ah this Roman you know society, and you see what Jesus stepped into in the patriarchal system.
00:24:40
Speaker
the of the Jewish system. And it's wild. Like Jesus shows us how to engage women. He shows us how to step in and this picture of her Roman culture that doesn't honor women as equals. And everything he does is about honoring women as equals. yeah you just see It's so beautiful, right? Jesus and the woman at the well, right? The alabaster jar in Luke 7, you know, the Canaanite woman.
00:25:10
Speaker
mar yeah collected those stories yeah The fact those stories exist and were recorded and passed on and canonized is nothing sort of remarkable given and the times. I mean literally Jesus entrusting the gospel's most important truth of the resurrection right to a woman to share with the masses like this is So I'm seeing Jesus and the gospels have this super high view of women. And then I see the church is how they engage women and how I was a part of that problem. And I was a part of that system that said women are, yeah, they're, you know, they're, they're got made in God's image, but they're still, you know, they're second class. They're, um, I am the leader. I am the one.
00:25:57
Speaker
And they need to follow me, right? And I, in a sense, made myself Jesus. And it's just like, there's such a ah a break in how we engage women and how Jesus engaged women. Well, I i think too, as you're saying that, Andrew, like, you know, I learned quickly that one of my gifts was wisdom and I could soak up all kinds of spiritual truth and theology and then spread it out and get applause and get a seat at a table I very much wanted to be at. And I was soaking up good voices, but they were all white male voices. right And I remember Dan saying,
00:26:47
Speaker
years ago. um I was out in Seattle for a class and he said, who are the theologians you are reading? Who are not like you? Who do not come from your context? And that really compelled me to say You know, God has to be speaking to more than one demographic in a very profound way. And so that began to open the door. And what I found happened is it opened the door to God speaking to me.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yes. Not in a way that I think at first I put myself on the stake for saying, Oh, well now I just think I'm a seminarian. And I, you know, it's not that it's more that I believed Jesus might personally invade my own space. yeah And so just this idea of, yeah, there's a lot of God that I miss when I narrow down who he speaks to.
00:27:44
Speaker
well so who I therefore learned from. It's interesting how you tie that back to that corny that you had that you wanted to know oh that Jesus was for you individually. Yeah and that I learned to be complicit with this system by soaking up what other men said and they were good things the men were saying. But then I passed them on And I was still not saying what is God saying to our women. I was just a conduit and it was a good thing I was doing. And I was also a part of the system. Exactly. And that's where we have to look at power dynamics, right? We have to look, okay, if 87% of churches are led by men,
00:28:28
Speaker
right It's like, okay, where we all have our own stories that we we speak out of the own window of our own experiences. yeah right And then we look at, okay, if some of the stats are true, you know that 50% of pastors had so have had some type of relationship with pornography, it's like, oh, oh I wonder if they have a pornographic mindset right or coming out of a pornographic style of relating.
00:28:54
Speaker
oh i'm wondering Oh, if their theology is then informed by that pornographic mindset, like they're so it it gets deep. We have to begin to see, like oh, we have literally cut off half of the image of God.
00:29:10
Speaker
Can you say a little bit more about what you mean?
Impact of Pornographic Mindset
00:29:13
Speaker
Because I know you've you've got other books you've written on, but you do bring it up in this book, too. The pornographic style of relating, how would you capitalize that for somebody you may not be familiar with? Yeah, basically, if you're raised on pornography or whatever, you develop a pornographic mindset. It teaches you certain things about sexuality, about femininity, about masculinity, and then you end up living out of that. So you you relate to the world pornographic. So um in a sense, men are on top.
00:29:39
Speaker
the controller of, you know, clicking, you you get to kind of control the whole scene. You get to control pleasure. It's selfish. It's all about me. It's not a shared pleasure. So it's just these fundamental things that teaches you about sexuality in the world that then ends up bleeding out into the way you do life. And so, yeah, keep going. And so that, yeah, that's, that's the essence of what a pornographic style of relating means.
00:30:06
Speaker
And I think it's important to to reckon with it. I remember when I first read it, I'm like, oh, no. I mean, just because I watched it some, that doesn't mean that that infected my style of related. I did not want to hear that. But as I dug into it and read about what you're talking about, it it it was more convicting. It's not, I am looking at every woman and imagining her in a pornographic scene right now. That's not it.
00:30:30
Speaker
it's because I have consume even what we would call, whether you call it soft core or, you know, and it's it's just a sport for me. The sports illustrated bathing suit issue that came out every year, taught me this is what women are for.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yes, they are objects to be consumed and devoured. yeah So then what what happens in the church context, right? Is then you have that unconsciously most of the time in these yeah people who feel a lot of shame, right? who feel And then so what do they do with their shame? Instead of dealing with the shame, many times that's projected onto women. Many times it'll be about sermons, about modesty, right? It'll be about, you know, you know well, I keep all the doors open because I want to be above board and not be alone with a woman. and That woman's not gonna jump on you like that actually you are afraid of your own sexual arousal in your own sexual desire yeah you're gonna jump on her you're going to sexualize her and yet we place it the blame on women. um Rather than actually taking ownership of our own shadow and our own darkness and dealing with that because that's much harder work.
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, our um our middle daughter spent one year at a Christian school here. We just thought that it was a year our family needed some buoying after walking through a couple of seasons of deaths of people very close to the family. And we thought we just need to be in the harbor for a while.
00:31:54
Speaker
And so this was her freshman year. She was very much ah just trying to find her way. Like we were seeing all the solidity she had had as a child fall away and she's trying to figure out who am I as a high schooler. And um near the end of the year, she wore some jeans to school that had a rip in the knee. And I got a phone call at work asking if I would bring her new pants.
00:32:21
Speaker
And I remember saying like 15 reales, if you really, really, really need me to leave my job so that a boy does not see her knee, I will do that. But I said, honestly, I'm more concerned that the health teacher told the girls this year to get a calorie counter so that their bodies did not get out of, their bodies didn't get to it.
00:32:47
Speaker
And so it's again, the pornographic style of relating this time perpetuated by women. But I wasn't sure what a guy was going to do with our daughter's midsection of her knee, but I was concerned about how she was being told to keep her body in check.
Societal Expectations on Women
00:33:07
Speaker
Um, or being told, you know, she had a classmate have to stand up and read the ingredients on her Oreos.
00:33:14
Speaker
And then the teacher asked the class, would Jesus eat this? And I was like, I hope he would. You know, I got land flowing with milk and honey and Oreos and all of it. But so we women, I think, do perpetuate this mindset.
00:33:30
Speaker
Well, they believe it, right? Because they're in a system. They're in a system. And just what you talked about earlier, being taught, right? So who's in power? Who's doing the teaching? Who's setting the framework? yeah And then you're learning that and saying, oh, this is the truth. And you actually disconnect from your own intuition and your own body. And then you end up being spoon fed actually something that is fundamentally pornographic. Yeah, yeah. It has nothing to do with scripture, by the way. Nothing to do with actual scripture.
Invitation to Samson Society
00:34:00
Speaker
Hey folks, we're going to pause the conversation right there and divide this conversation into two different episodes. So be on the lookout for part two of this episode of the Surviving Saturday podcast. I want to take a minute though here in this interstitial space to extend an invitation, particularly to any men out there who might be listening or ladies, maybe you can pass this invitation on. to your guy if you think it might be worthwhile. I am part of a nationwide organization, really an international organization called the Sampson Society. And the Sampson Society is a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authentic relationship and authentic community.
00:34:40
Speaker
humility and recovery, particularly from various forms of addiction, brokenness in relationships, anything kind of, any kind of hidden struggles or difficulties that men may have had. If you want to find out more about what Samsung Society is about, you can check out the website SamsungSociety.com and also they have a fantastic podcast that is called the Pirate Monk Podcast. Pirate and then monk-like Monk in a Monastery. The name comes from a book that was written by a pastor named Nate Larkin back in early 2000s called Samson and the Pirate Monks calling him into authentic brotherhood and that's another way you could learn about the organization as well. This man, A,
00:35:22
Speaker
real great blessing to me in finding some honest, real, down-to-earth brothers to walk with, to share honestly about what's going on in our lives. It's really some of my favorite people that I've encountered
00:35:50
Speaker
lonely and frustrated and all things like that and it's a great just fellowship and a positive just an alternative to to what you might find out there sometimes if you know a community in your church or in your normal circles of friends is not really coming out like you'd like it.
00:36:09
Speaker
Why I'm mentioning it now is because I am actually one of the co-chairs of the Charlotte Chapter, which now meets on Wednesday nights in Matthews. And so if you have any interest at all in just coming and checking out and meeting sometime and seeing what we're all about and meeting some of the other really great guys who are involved, Please shoot me an email atris at.net and I'd be glad to give you some more information and let you find out when and where we meet and see if you want to come by and visit, pop in. You don't have to say anything, you don't have to do anything. And I can show you other ways to get involved in the organization as well. So again, just shoot me an email if you're interested and we'd love to have you come and visit sometime. Take care and we'll see you on the next episode of the Surviving Saturday Podcast.