In this episode, Brandi is joined by Benita Ki of Civic Roasters, to talk about submission and how a theology of resistance might align us more with the way of Jesus and put us in solidarity with our neighbors and our greater collective well-being.
You can support Benita and her work on the ground by joining their crowdfunding campaign or by buying their coffee https://www.civicroasters.com/crowdfunding. You can find them online at @civicroasters.
If you like what you hear, you can follow, rate, review, or just keep listening and telling folks about the show. You can also join us on patreon at patreon.com/reclaimingmytheology.
Reclaiming My Theology is recorded, produced, and edited by Brandi Miller. Our music is by Sanchez Fair.
Taking our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress.
@reclaimingmytheology
In this episode, Brandi is joined by Benita Ki of Civic Roasters, to talk about submission and how a theology of resistance might align us more with the way of Jesus and put us in solidarity with our neighbors and our greater collective well-being.
You can support Benita and her work on the ground by joining their crowdfunding campaign or by buying their coffee https://www.civicroasters.com/crowdfunding. You can find them online at @civicroasters.
If you like what you hear, you can follow, rate, review, or just keep listening and telling folks about the show. You can also join us on patreon at patreon.com/reclaimingmytheology.
Reclaiming My Theology is recorded, produced, and edited by Brandi Miller. Our music is by Sanchez Fair.
Taking our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress.
@reclaimingmytheology
Hello and welcome to Reclaiming my theology, a podcast seeking to take our theology back from ideas and systems that oppress. I am your host, Brandi Miller. And this week I am joined by my friend Bonita key to talk about submission as we wrap our series on patriarchy. I want to name that we recorded this before the report on the Southern Baptist Convention came out documenting rampant sexual abuse and a series of cover ups. And we recorded before the mass shooting that happened in Texas. I want to acknowledge that because these are heavy times that we're living in, or the theology that many of us are given, might or is insufficient to hold us at best and is deeply violent and inhumane and problematic at its worst. So please know that though this conversation isn't directly about those things, that this conversation hits on a lot of the pieces that make the culture of violence that we live in possible. So please hold yourself and others with grace and kindness as you are able, as always, thank you for supporting the podcast by listening, sharing. And by joining us on Patreon. It means the world. And I hope that it soon will mean that we can shift the theological into practical action for the good of a world that so desperately needs people to fight for justice, joy in a kinder and more inclusive faith. So with all of that, here's my conversation with Benita key, or we definitely cost a fair amount, like the F bomb kind of cussing. And we're gonna do this. For Anita, thank you so much for your time today. This is going to be a doozy of a conversation and one that I'm surprised I didn't have earlier but I'm grateful to be having this conversation with you today.
Benita Ki:Thanks so much for having me. I look forward to this conversation
Brandi Miller:will be for folks who don't know you I always ask folks the same question. So you know, it's coming. But I would love for you to describe for folks, what does it mean to be you and if you could share your pronouns in your introduction? That would be great as well.
Benita Ki:Yeah, so my name is Benita Ki, I use she her pronouns. What it means to be me is I am a proud dog mom, to chaco and I am perpetually late and irritated at myself for being late all the time. I love food. I love being outside. And I think more than any other personality tests out there, Hogwarts house sorting hat quizzes, Buzzfeed articles about which friend are you more than any other assessment out there about my personality I identify most highly with out of the nine alignments being chaotic Good.
Brandi Miller:Can you say more? I don't know what that means. Because I'm a Dungeons and Dragons person. So I have a frame for what that means for the world. But what does that mean for you?
Benita Ki:Yeah, so what's funny is I actually know nothing about Dungeons and Dragons beyond the nine alignments, but so maybe you can help me fill this out. But to my understanding, it's like a way of categorizing different types of people's orientation to the world. And so the two spectrums there are good versus evil, and not what it sounds, it's actually a reference to one's relationship to the world and the world's needs. So good being somebody who's oriented towards the external to themselves worlds to other people, the universe, nature, etc. and evil, being self focused and thinking about self preservation and self needs, and neutral kind of being the center of that spectrum. And then chaotic versus lawful being the other spectrum, chaotic being - So this is in relationship to rules- chaotic being f the rules, and lawful being abiding by the rules, and neutral kind of being in that center point of that spectrum. So with chaotic, neutral, and lawful and good, neutral and evil, there's nine different possible arrangements that can divide people. And so I identify very strongly as chaotic good, which means I'm, I'm very much fuck the rules. But to the end of all people, for the sake of the better good of the world, people around me people out, I don't know who around me, I'm breaking the rules, or the rules being irrelevant, are to a greater purpose, and it's for the good of all.
Brandi Miller:That's amazing. And that is, I think, a very accurate description, an apt description of the nine alignments and fits with my Dungeons and Dragons background. So I appreciate you bringing the nerd self straight into my professional self. But tell us a little bit too about the work that you do in the world that definitely, to be cliche here aligns with satellite.
Benita Ki:Yeah. Um, so I've had, you know, a varying history career in of my career, I should say, in the nonprofit world. And so most recently, I was running a free clinic for people without insurance, and did that for several years. Before that. I had a stint doing college ministry and now, I co own a small business called Civic roasters and we're a small coffee roasting business. And our vision is to provide training and employment for people coming out of incarceration who identify as women. So I'm, yeah, the sort of chaotic good nature of this is, you know, my friends and I started this business, but we started it in a place of being anti capitalist, but taking what we can in the society and the system that we live in, to be able to support people in the margins who have been statistically, barred from employment and opportunities to economic development. So yeah.
Brandi Miller:Well, if you're a Patreon supporter, at various levels, you've probably received civic roasters coffee in the mail from me at various points. So this is, um, Benita is just the face and no voice behind the coffee that is that they're roasting. I have said we, as I'm doing a lot with it, but that's just like not exactly the case. Yeah, you can, yeah, we're working on it. So today, we are going to talk about submission. And there's a reason that I think you were really great for this. And I think sorry, some of his chaotic good is a part of that, and especially your engagement toward justice and injustice. But before we start actually want to hear a little bit about your history with the word submission. Has it been a stationary definition for you? Or is it something that has changed over time? Yeah, tell me a little bit about your history with this word, as a person who I know grew up in the church.
Benita Ki:Yeah, I think that submission as somebody who grew up, yeah, in the church, it also, I'm second generation Asian American, my parents are from Hong Kong. So that makes me Cantonese American I'm submission is sort of, in every pocket of my cultural upbringing, both Christian culture as well as Chinese American and what it means to be a part of my family. But not necessarily, I think in a way that is necessarily, like, housed in patriarchy, or purity culture, but just the idea of yielding to an elder or yielding to an authority. And so again, not to be like super anti authority, but I'm not really somebody who sits around thinking about submission to anyone or anything, which is probably why I got in trouble a lot as a kid. Because I would talk back to my parents just kind of operate in the world, for better or for worse, as if the rules don't always really apply. Like it was conditional based on not necessarily if the rules existed, but whether or not that rules sort of fit with my understanding of an internal sense of right or wrong. So, yeah, I think my sort of grappling with the idea of submission as that experience, in my lived experience, has been met with rhetoric around what submission is and submission to whom that has changed a lot of my life. Yeah, to the point now that as an an elder millennial, if you will, I can confidently say that I don't I don't know that submission is high on my list of of ways of orienting in the world. So
Brandi Miller:what and I'm grateful even for that depiction, because I think it does complicate some of what is this like post second wave feminism relationship to myth submission that says like, it's all patriarchy, it's all because I think submission has in the US, in particular, and in the West more broadly, become like a"f anyone who has authority" and I'm like, okay, but yeah, there's so many cultures, like, particularly matriarchal cultures and Eastern cultures that use submission in a different kind of way. That isn't the same as what the evangelical church does. And I think it forces us to ask the question of authority, like who has authority and why do people have authority that leads to one, either calling people to submit to them or that empowers people through their actions? Words are power, staging, that one should submit in some way. I think for me, my history around it was very much a Christian rhetoric. It was like, cuz I didn't grow up Christian. And so I came into the church and was indoctrinated into some kind of submission ideologies, through really like, and we'll talk more about the Scripture later, but Genesis two and three, like, you know, man was created first and woman was created second, so she's from his side. So she submits to him. And then after the fall, her desires for her husband, and therefore she submits. And that's like, a worldview that all of these other scriptures and Titus and Ephesians and Romans and all these kinds of epistles, really most of these Pauline texts get kind of pushed into and so I think I recall a lot of that. I think I also feel like the word like biblical principles are biblical Order was thrown around a lot where it was like, men getting up and being like, the problem isn't patriarchy and it isn't male authority, the problem is sin. So taking like this big abstracted view of submission that was like you only hate submission because you hate Jesus. And so I think for me, some of the rhetoric in my upbringing around submission was really like men trying desperately to, for lack of better terms reclaim submission by being like, it's not about men guys, it's like, it's about the world and the worldliness of everything that's causing us to need to have this submission, or to cause people to have such a violent response to the idea of submitting that God so clearly had created in the order of all things.
Benita Ki:Yeah, that's interesting. I liked that you bring that up, because that there's a distinction there to around like, individual individualistic versus collective submission. Right, and, there's this minor detail, like, you know, newsflash, for those of you who don't know, our world is on fire, our planet is literally burning, right? Like, it's warming, and there's ice caps melting, and we're living in a climate crisis. And so on the one hand, like, we're all submitting right to the world as it burns, and the climate affects the way that we grow food, and that's going to change who gets food and who can afford food. And sooner or later, we're all gonna submit to what will be either water wars or Food Wars. And so yeah, submission isn't necessarily just like, what you're saying about an individual. And one must admit to, you know, Jesus or me or person, a head of head of one of the head of household or whatever. There is a kind of collective nature to what these people were saying that you're you're talking about from your upbringing, that actually it's not untrue, there is a collective aspects to submission, maybe those same people wouldn't agree with the things we're talking about. But it's not as it's not as simple as just an individual relationship with submission.
Brandi Miller:Yeah, it's that difference between kind of the abstracted and the existential, like right now we're living in an existential crisis. But because Christians have a really hard time understanding existential beyond like, skipping over to heaven. The abstraction is what is used to kind of buffer where we don't see that in religious spaces. And so I think that gets really complicated. And so before I get deeper into abstraction, and existentialism, because that is very much who I am. And I'll end up in nihilism really quickly in this regard. I would love for you to define submission. However, however, that fits for you what, what is submission? What does it look like? Give us a sense of that as we enter this conversation more deeply together? Well, based on my reading dictionary definitions on the internet, mixed with my personal understanding of the word submission, I understand submission to me and yielding to a power or authority. Yeah. And what do you do with that?
Benita Ki:Well, again, I think as somebody who isn't naturally inclined towards submission as the general posture of my everyday life, I, when I hear submission, a part of the reason why I'm a little suss right out the gate, is because that power or that authority, that begs that submission, is people. And those people are protecting their positional power. And so whether it's, for example, in the military, if you want to talk about, let's say, the war in Ukraine, and I've been watching these videos of Russian soldiers who get caught and are prisoners of war, and then they realize the war that they've entered. And have you seen these videos on the interwebs? No, not yet. There's some folks out there who say I thought it was a simulation when I left, or I thought it was a drill, I had no idea there was a real war going on. And so they're, they're going to the press and Ukraine, and that's to the media everywhere, but in Russia, saying, We had no idea we have to go back and tell these other soldiers, because we're just following orders. We're just submitting to our authorities. Right? And so, in that scenario, right there carrying out the works of, there I um, what do you call the people above them? their authorities, and they're answering to somebody who has ultimate power. And that person, in this case, ultimately, Putin is trying to protect his own power, right. And so, I think when it comes to rules when it comes to this notion of, of yielding, it's ultimately to benefit that power or authority. And, you know, I don't trust the people in power because as we've seen in literally all of history, and people in power are trying to protect their position of power. So
Brandi Miller:Yes, which we have, which we fully see in church faces, like I always say, you can always tell when Christians are panicking about losing control by the amount that they try to exert power to get people to submit to old ways of being or two ways that they believe are going to make the world better somehow. And the way that people wield power and authority in a way that it's super not like Jesus usually reveals to me where people's like true priorities or centers, why totally and, and yet talk to me a little bit about resistance that because you and I both talked a little bit about this beforehand, were really like to define some mission actually, is to define it by its opposite. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think for me that sits at the center of some of this conversation and might be really helpful for folks who are trying to reclaim their theology from patriarchal submission, and then kind of a submission theologies we've been given in general that shape all of them.
Benita Ki:Yeah, well, like we said, right, like, if Rules are made by people in power to protect their power, then all rules aren't necessarily throwing somebody under the bus. And because we live in a world, and by world, I mean, the the Earth, we live in a world that is steeped in the throes of capitalism, and that puts marginalized people, people who are not able to advocate for themselves people who are forgotten. And I'm often not even invited into the conversation or included in the conversation. Those people are completely written out of this conversation. And so as long as all of humanity studying anthropology or sociology, there's experiments out there, right of like communities and people groups that don't live this way. But given colonization, given conquest and wars, we live in a world where capitalism is king. And, you know, we can talk for a second about how Christian culture is very much in bed with, with capitalism. Um, but as long as that's the case, I fully believe that the moral arc of the universe is, in fact, bending towards injustice, and not justice, that at every turn humanity, bucks over the earth, and all of creation, right nature, as we just talked about, is not doing so hot, because, uh, our obsession with oil, among other things, when we look at people groups, and the ways that colonization and our really ugly history with genocide of indigenous peoples, our continual cycles of enslaving people, the moral arc of the universe is bent towards injustice, and it will take everyone to pull it back towards justice to actually make that true. And so, personally, I believe that that's a misnomer to say that, like all of the, you know, all of the threads will eventually go towards good. I don't actually think that's, that's true when we look at the free will of people in it and how fucked up we are? So the invitation I think is is one of resistance is to understand, as we think about as we interact with rules or policies, or the lines that are drawn inside and outside the church, in politics and in government and in trade, in housing, education, I could go forever health care, and what are those lines? What are those policies? And what are those things for? Who are they for? And who are they necessarily not for? Right? And so that I think that intrinsic thing in me says, unless it's really for liberation for all people, unless it's truly advocating for folks who are not being heard, right, like right now with a mask mandates being dropped, you know, who they're not asking, is people with chronic conditions and people with disabilities and people with children with immunocompromised systems who can't go to school. And so again, like, but ultimately resistance I think has is for me, an orienting towards asking the question, Are these rules? Are these lines being drawn for everyone and for the liberation of all people? Or is it continuing the narrative of protecting those who are already in power?
Brandi Miller:Yeah, that's so helpful. And I think even that, that like kind of frame of we're trying to move toward liberation and freedom. And submission almost never leads to those things. Or if it does, it is only for a select group of people. And so I think that that gets really complicated for people who grew up in the church or in a lot of kind of facets of the church. Because I think ideologically, most of us were taught to fear resistance, because at least in my church community, one of the major things I heard growing up was like, there is all of this resistance to the gospel, and there's all this resistance to Jesus and your job is to overcome the resistance. It's in you and that's outside of you like your sexual urges, and your greed, and most pretty much just those two things, and it was always to the end of tithing and celibacy. But it was like you resist, resist what's inside of you, because you can't be trusted, and you resist everything that's outside of the walls of the church because it cannot be trusted. And so I think for many of us, when we start to look at protests or resistance, it seems I think it can, kind of physiologically trigger fear. And so when we start to talk about resistance, really as a, I think you're describing resistance as a moral imperative, and therefore submission as a existential crisis, it makes me think of all of the things that I was taught were resistant, and I think it will help us to kind of transition to talking about patriarchy a little more specifically, but the things that I was taught, like were resisting the gospel all the time, where I think there's like five things, mostly it was sin, secularism, idols, demons, and Satan, whatever that meant, and then society or what we call the world. And so we were trying to fight against all of those things. And when you fight against literally, it's that encompasses most of the world that we know, the only thing that you're really left with is the Bible. And so Bible literalism then becomes like this tool that's used to create submission narratives out of household codes in the Scriptures. And so, can we talk a little bit about what all of this has to do with patriarchy? Because I think for me, submission was one of the main things that was used to uphold and really romance its people toward a patriarchal worldview, lifestyle and Christian trip systems. So can you talk to me a little bit about how your how you experience patriarchy this conversation about submission?
Benita Ki:Yeah, well, you know, all of those things that you're saying, you are taught to resist are things that generally like cis white men were fearful of, because in resisting any of the spaces, it would give up parts of their power, right. And knowing at least in this nation, the history of American evangelicalism, the history of American Christianity, is such that white men needed a way to justify taking this land and slaving people and being able to further their Christian families, right, and reproduction. And so I think when I think of submission in terms of patriarchy, it's to continue that, that manifest destiny, um, myth that they came to this land for, to be able to literally step on the necks of other people to build their own empire, right. And using literally other people, for that people who are not, you know, white Western Europeans, using women to do that, to birth their children to be able to continue that. And, like you were saying, in opposition to the rest of the world to, like, culture, right, like the culture wars out there, I think you can look at at least from what I understand the starting point to be the the opposite of what they were, which would be indigenous culture, indigenous people, the way that they lived and, and farmed and ate. But, you know, joke's on them. Turns out, they didn't know how to work the land, and they needed the data folks to be able to survive anyway. But back to your point, that's I think, when I think about patriarchy in this in this conversation, it's because at the end of the day, I should say, at the beginning of the day, it was like cis, white Christian men who wrote this whole, like, game plan in the beginning.
Brandi Miller:Yes, well and to that end I think if we continue that history into kind of modernity, in whatever capacity we want to, I think about kind of the domestication movements in the 40s, and 50s. So right, all of these men are shipped off to World War Two, there's still this lingering trauma of World War One. And when all of these men are gone, women end up taking all of these roles in society, because they literally have to. And when when men come back from war, there's this movement that happens. And this isn't just Christian men, but it is particularly white men, who try to shove women back into domestic spaces. And so they've been doing all these leadership roles for a while and literally keeping society together and they're being pushed back into this space. Then we have another war that you're right, we have the Gulf War, we have the Cold War, we have Vietnam, that kind of extend for a really long time. And in the midst of those things, you have first wave and second wave feminism. And so you see women being pushed into domestic spaces, and then Christians start to panic about the kind of breakdown of what they see as the nuclear family unit. And so when I think about submission, oftentimes, and we're gonna we're pretty meta right now. We'll get into the scriptures in a minute. But I often think about how even if we're talking about submitting to God, really that rhetoric almost always seeks to uphold the nuclear family unit. It seeks to promote a narrative that God's main vessel for saving the world is a biological nucular family. That is heteronormative that is homeschool, that is Christian that is anti quote unquote, the world. And that any kind of resistance to that, and that is feminism in this case first and second wave. It is women being more educated it is in our current situation, reproductive rights, all of that seeks to break down the nucular family. So like I even think about I wasn't a lot of conservative, podcast and radio when, when I'm like doing, I'm doing these things. And I listened This whole ass sermon by a pastor who is basically like, reproductive rights for women means that we live in a matriarchal society that's highly feminized, because women get to decide who lives and who dies. And I was like, oh, okay, there's so many things that you don't understand about abortion, abortion care, first of all, but secondarily, he was basically just like, when we kill babies, which again, that's rhetoric and not reality. We are stopping families from forming. And if God's desire for the world is for people to marry, to have kids to build households and to establish families, then feminization is actually killing the world. And so submission is God's solution for the feminization. And therefore, the D family is ation of the world. And so I was like, oh, yeah, that is an extreme expression of something I think a lot of us got in a very watered down for and if we grew up in the church,
Benita Ki:yeah. And that makes total sense. If your image of God is your own image, right? Like Father, Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest in South Central LA who started Homeboy Industries says God created people in his image, but in people we create God's image. And I don't think there's a better sort of picture of that than what you just said, of like, God's plan for the for the country or for us, as people, right is to have babies and to make money and basically, to build an empire, that could not sound more like American and capitalism, right? Like, that is literally a picture of white men in power continuing to further their empire and their, their profits and their priorities and their goals, in the name of family and the name of God, when it's actually in their own image that they've cast this picture of God. So my question then is like, is submission is the idea of submission? Is this really actually more a indicator of your perception of God than actually who God is? Because if God is, in fact, as exacting, as vindictive, as you know, like, scary dad, with a Chaka waiting for you to come home with your boyfriend, as we think, then of course, all of the rules and things that we put out are the lines that we draw about who's in and who's out, how Gay Are you? How Trans Are you? How Black are you? How poor are you, right like to actually earn your way into the church? Is that more not a picture of who that pastor or who that elder or who that body thinks of God, because they've created God in their own image, versus a God who is abundant, and loving, and peace and justice and beauty. Because as a submission to a God like that, I cannot imagine having those same lines drawn, and conditions of what it looks like to marry a good person who's rich, and build your three and a half kid house with your white picket fence and your dog with our American flag up front. And make sure you give a bunch to the church that we can buy another building, right, that picture that you're describing, doesn't sound a lot like the God. I am about to ironically say not ironically, so the God of the Bible. So perhaps, you know, perhaps like what what if the way that we interact with submission as an idea is actually a reflection of our own personal perspective of God more than anything,
Brandi Miller:which I think becomes abundantly clear when we start to look into systematic theology is like biblical patriarchy. That has to work really, really hard to justify why the narrative that we have is somehow good because when you look at patriarchy on its face for anyone who isn't a cis white man, it is not good. You if you use the Jesus metric, you know, a tree by its fruit, the fruit of a patriarchal tree is garbage, which is a terrible tree. And but I think you have to do a lot of theological justification which is why I think for a lot of us it's I use this term really light or really like with, I use this term with intentionality crazy making, because we will hear some of the rhetoric like I said, I grew up with which is like, well, it's not a masculine problem. It's a society problem, it's a sin problem. Like, it's not, it's not an issue of, you know, if the world just practice submission, you would see how beautiful it was. And like, submission is, you know, and I think a lot of us and I, you know, I think this is rampant in black, conservative marriage space, which is, like, we have distinct roles, but we but the same value and like, I lead out of love, and she submits because she knows I love her, and I'm like, okay, but if you were to take that to any other space, like, Jeff Bezos is, you know, equal in value to his warehouse, you know, worker, and I'm like, there's just not there's the rhetoric doesn't make any sense. And so I think there's a lot of ways that Christians have to use a ton of rhetoric, but the biblical patriarchy movement gives the systematic theology that essentially says that God reveals God's self as masculine, and God created distinct gender roles, and that men are the head of the household, they're the the leader of the family, the provider and the protector. And so when women submit themselves, and I'm having this binary conversation, cuz that's how the theology setup, you know, it makes the world a better place in it. And it eliminates resistance to the Gospel, because everyone's in their right role, and therefore, it's an efficient machine. And like you said, it's capitalism in that regard. But then what biblical patriarchy does is it extends the assumption of that kind of head of household role and says, Well, if God is the head of the church, and the church is going to be led by men, because men lead the household and the church is the house of God, then clearly, that extends to places of leadership in society as well. And so I call it Christians drawing the line out. So you have like one concept, like, we submit to God, which I'm like, Okay, say what you will about that? Sure. I can, for the sake of argument, go, Yeah, okay, cool. But when you extend that line to we submit to God, God is a man, man is the head of the the house, the household is the head of the church, the church is the head of the state, and a godly society will prefer male leadership, therefore, you end up with this antagonistic relationship with women and non men in general. That means that submission is the end, that means of existing is submission. And so submission, like you've said earlier, is a tool that's used to theologically create a world where men get to maintain power and control at all costs.
Benita Ki:Right? And it justifies the at all costs, right? Like, it's the it's the, the retort, rhetorical device that backs up anybody who wants to resist or step out of line or say, Wait a second. And that's, you know, that's been used by by people in power for millennia. The passage to justify slavery and the passage to justify, you know, really misogynistic, problematic sexual practices. So,
Brandi Miller:yes, well, then let's talk because we're talking rhetoric, let's talk about the Bible, because it's just the great rhetorical weapon of the day. And many days, where do people go in Scripture for this? Like, how do we actually form this theology? About submission? Yeah, where do you where are the places that you've seen people go to teach this kind of problematic, capitalistic Western white and cis Expression of submission?
Benita Ki:I would say, see, Paul. (laughter from both) Take your pick.
Brandi Miller:Yeah, you're right. There's Ephesians Titus Colossians. Romans First Corinthians that's just off top of my head. So
Benita Ki:I think the Timothys
Brandi Miller:Oh, yeah, the Timothys are in there to. More of it than not, it seems.
Benita Ki:Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, in the same way that we talk about, like, the context, right, like the socio political context of everything. Paul, and pretty much every culture in the Bible was not devoid of a patriarchal culture. And so it gets a little sticky to point to those passages. You know, people have been doing it for a long time. But I'm Christians love pulling stuff out of context and being like, look, this is exactly what I wanted to say. Yeah.
Brandi Miller:It turns out, me and the bible agree. Exactly. All right.
Benita Ki:I highlighted it It must be- must be important.
Brandi Miller:Oh, my gosh. Well, the thing I would say that too, is that as I was kind of researching and engaging the thing, there were some themes pulled out to me as I was looking at, like all of the stuff that I remembered around submission and scripture, and there were kind of like three categories that I found. There's this idea of submission to God. So that's like, submit to God and the devil will flee from you, which I'm like, okay, sure, like live the way of Jesus and evil is gonna find its way out and I'm like, Okay, if we have an anti Empire lens of that, I think there's actually a really powerful invitation to submit to the way of Jesus when we teach He's that apart from the patriarchy and the violence and the domination and the death and all of that. So I think there's like the submission to God. But that gets weaponized because submission to God becomes submission to men. But so we have submission to God, we have submission to the governments we have like Romans 13. And there's some stuff in Hebrews 13, around that the 13th which is basically like, have confidence in your leaders, because they're appointed by God, they'll be judged for it. Therefore, like all government leaders are good. And I'm like, Okay, well say that to every country we've ever gotten to war with, like, what does that say about who what leaders you believe? Are God ordained in there almost always white men. Yeah. And then we'll always Christian, white men, specifically. Then there's this other whole category that most people are more familiar with, which are like household codes and submission. So like, men submit to Christ the church submit to Christ as to God, Wives submit to your husbands, which then gets superimpose, even though a lot of men wouldn't see this, their assumptions, their voting patterns, and their leadership structures and their churches. Say, you know, women submit to men, but its Wives submit to husbands, children submit to your parents and slaves submit to your masters. And we kind of uncritically kind of throw out there like slaves submit to your masters and like, no, that's not what that means. But we're like, but what submit to your husbands. And so I think that there's, those are, those are kind of categories we're familiar with. But what I think what ends up happening is that we do what you described as basically developing an anemic theology of resistance. And that, because for the very few places that the Bible really talks about submission, we can talk about obedience and submission as different things. I think that's a broader and more Greek and Hebrew word analysis of concepts that I actually don't think will help us in this conversation. So if you want to obey Jesus, great, please. I think I do most the time. I think that's what we're trying to do. But I think what ends up happening is we have an anemic sense of what it means to resist. And so we can't make sense of things like Moses not submitting to Pharaoh, where we're like, it's a good story about God, but I'm like, but the way that Moses had to get there is a theology of resistance that comes against empire. Or even when we look in, I think it's actually in Hebrews two, where it's talking about people who are faithful. And it's like, Sarah submitted to Abraham and called him Lord know, bade him and I'm like, but do you ever remember that Sarah was like, hey, Abraham, send Hagar away. And Abraham was like, Yeah, I don't want to do that, and then submitted to his wife. So I'm like, even the scriptures have all kinds of contradictions around what this submission and resistance looks like, and to what end and to what narrative we keep. And so I'm wondering if you have any other kind of theological concepts that you think about as you engage with submission and resistance like this?
Benita Ki:Well, as you brought those up, I think of Daniel and like, a lot of Christians are quick to use, like Daniel and the three names of his buddies. You'll enter them here as an example, to be lifted up, right of like being like they stood up for God. And so I think that inconsistency in terms of what you're talking about, really begs the question of like, when we look at Scripture, and and when we look at examples on history of these characters, these people who live these lives and resisted or didn't resist, right, like Esther, would go on and on with these different stories, Joseph? And to what end are, where are they resisting? And who are they protecting? Right? Yeah. And so I think Esther's a really great example of protecting possibly, I don't know, a lot of women beyond herself, I think it's easy to look at that picture, that story of like, one person having an individualistic story of resistance when it actually was about a people group, who was oppressed, and possibly allowing other women to stand up to, um, being sexually abused or manipulated by their, you know, partners, or masters or whatever you want to call them. Alright, so I think that the, my complicated answer to what you're asking, I think, is, as I look at these these stories in Scripture, these characters who have been in precarious situations, sometimes it's against powers, and authorities that have to do with the Empire, sometimes it's from people who are oppressed. Most of the Bible is of a people group who was impressed. But I think that complicates how we then interact with the idea of submission, and how we think of what I call integrity. I care a lot about integrity and doing to the best of my ability. I'm following the way of Jesus being one that that aligns with the needs of the most marginalized, right. And so I think I think that lens has to be more critically evaluated instead of just cherry Picking the narrative plots of these different stories and saying they submitted they didn't submit they submitted they didn't submit? Because again, the way that power plays a part in the stories and the way that the historical context of who is the oppressor, and who are the oppressed shape how we understand that idea?
Brandi Miller:Yeah, totally. And I think that, like, What's hard is that again, I don't think most of us even think sophisticatedly enough. And I don't mean that in like a pejorative way think like, we're not taught to think in a very sophisticated way about those power dynamics, because we're not taught to think about power dynamics in the Bible, apart from really interest structures and in marriage. So even as you said, I think you kind of said this, this pairing of like, husband or master, and I was like, oh, yeah, but in the church, in a lot of spaces, particularly complementarian spaces, those are the same thing. Like I was listening to some Christian girl, Christian girl dating, podcast, I do a lot for listening. And they were essentially like, submitting to your husband is what you agreed to when you get married, and you cannot undermine that. And I was like, Oh, who does that theology serve? And they had all these justifications for like, well, it keeps me protected, it keeps me safe. And I'm like, from what, into what end? Because what I've seen oftentimes is those kinds of narratives of submission in the church, leading to women staying in domestic violence situations, or not being able to speak about the dysfunction of their husbands, or their partners in real time, and then having the church that have no frame for how to engage with male oppression, and Dawn in dynamics of patriarchy, because that submission narrative gives so much space for men to be terrible. And then I also think that like men are given countless grace to be dysfunctional. And so when you have submission narratives, plus this kind of unending grace for men to be always in process, always in mature, always developing. It creates a hotbed for abuse and violence.
Benita Ki:Yeah, and I think it's why I don't know how political you get on this podcast. But it's why people like Madison Cawthorn can get away with being an absolute dickhead, with no experience and like, Oh, look at him, like he built, built his life from the ground up didn't finish college. Right. Like, it stems from that, that same idea. And obviously, he's like, repping, you know, conservative family. I use air quotes for values. And yeah, I think it it creates the hotbed that we see in our increasingly Christian nationalistic culture of really toxic, really violent men who are unhinged and get a justification for their immaturity, because they're literally being told that the other people should submit to them.
Brandi Miller:Yes, and then they call people to submit to them. And there's actually I was reading, um, through job. And basically, the book of Job, you have job, who's this guy who like all this, like, really shitty stuff happens to him. And then you have these three friends who kind of come and give him horrible interpretations of why the bad things are happening to him. One friend who like comes alongside him, and it's fine. And then God being like, yeah, I've got my own reasons. But one of his shitty friends essentially says something in probably like midway through the book, where he's where he says to Joe, like, submit to God and be at peace with God, and prosperity will come your way. And this guy in the text is framed as a bad narrator and giving wrong advice. And so even this kind of submission narrative in Scripture feel so similar to what I see in particularly the American religious right, that says, if you just submit, if we just create a context where we force people submit to what we think God wants around abortion, or immigration, or Americanism, all of those things, then we will prosper and be good. And so I think there's a way that submission also at every level plays on the vulnerability of people who feel disenfranchised. And so as I look at, particularly white, right wing Christians who feel disenfranchised, of course, submitting and forcing others to submit would feel like a viable response to that kind of existential external threat that is rooted in language like sin and the collapse of society and like those people want to take blank from you like all of that makes a lot of sense to me in this conversation.
Benita Ki:Yeah, that makes sense.
Brandi Miller:Can we talk practically for a minute about how we see the show up in the church, we talked a little bit about some of the theology but like, we're in structures and systems do you see this play out?
Benita Ki:I think one of the most prominent pieces of culture at least for people our age, in youth group culture and the evangelical world is purity culture and the many, many lines drawn for, you know how you have to, well both the double standard set for people who are women versus not women, but also Ya know, the idea of are you doing a whole series on? Or like whole season on purity culture?
Brandi Miller:Oh, yeah, we're coming up on it, but you can talk about it for sure. Well,
Benita Ki:I feel like that's just a giant, a giant example of both a subculture that has been commodified. And you know, they sell books, I'm talking T shirts and signs and Instagram posts, you can like, buy Instagram posts, and you're gonna have like, scriptures painted over the sunset. But yeah, an entire subculture around how what kind of woman to be like, what kind of future wife what kind of a proverbs 31 wife? What does that look like practically? Um, I think it's a really submission, in general in religious institutions, is a really dangerous and pervasive tool used to keep sort of the power structures at play. So I'm kind of a the the systems that continue to prop up these mega church pastors that get called out for sexual abuse, or sexual assault allegations. And somehow, the many, many elders and deacons and committees and boards around them protect those people in power and continue to be pastoring. Right. Um, and maybe it's not as clean cut as like, you're just submitting to this person. But the way that we do mental gymnastics to keep really problematic people in power has something, I think to say about our subconscious. I'm operating out of this idea of submission, and we believe that this person was ordained by God to lead this church, and therefore they must be okay.
Brandi Miller:Yep, that's it. When I told Donald Trump get off on that, for his entire presidency, where it was like, Well, God chooses leaders, and therefore everything that he's doing is for a divine purpose. And I think that like at a, at a macro level, that's like, really terrible. But at a micro level, it's really terrible. Where I see like, I was told growing up, like, find a man whose mission you can come alongside. And I was like, most of these men have no dreams or vision for their lives. And I'm much more capable and competent than most of the
Benita Ki:Have you spent any time on hinge, men I meet.
Brandi Miller:Merciful Jesus, I have. It's a bleak. It's a bleak landscape out here, in these streets. But I think what it ends up doing is it forces people who do not identify as men to squash their own sense of self or dreams to be really small, to come alongside men who because of that kind of ordained by God to lead the church sit in a space of if they're not really intentional, and really doing the hard work, I think particularly in their 20s just in a place of like Christian, mediocre male Arrested Development. And so then those folks that get praised by people who see themselves in them, they get developed as leaders, they plant churches and create dysfunction in communities, they have horrible collapses. And we're like, Well, God must be doing it for a reason. I'm like, you really are blaming Jesus for a lot of dysfunctional stuff that could have been preventable if we just engage with the patriarchy, and narratives that we put in place and uphold through our systematic theology.
Benita Ki:Yeah, and I think too, like the lack of imagination of what God must be like and what God ordains and what God breathed life into, is really a sort of tragic reflection of our continual repeating history to put the same mediocre dumbasses in power to do this, the same things over and over again, assuming that the best ideas the best businesses, churches, fucking love talking about, like business owners, right? I say this tongue in cheek, obviously, because I unfortunately own a small business. But these ideas and and, you know, what an inspirational figure he did this or that is exclusive to people who have been already in power, and perpetuated these systems for people who look like them for, like, all of eternity, right. And so especially, I think, in the American United States of America context, it's really easy to see how the patriarchy and the myth of American exceptionalism and how those things kind of bleed together to create an entire culture and attire, like people grew up, if you will, that believes this and allows people who are not men, people who are not white men to go along with it, because they must in fact, be the ones that have the dreams and the inspiration and the vision and the calling have had$1 for over 10 I heard the word calling, right. That is exclusive exclusive to men and you know sometimes you'll hear like, you know Um, me and my husband like home this thing, we're like, we started this thing together. But as soon as she has babies, then that usually stops. But ultimately, it continues to further the, the thing that the Founding Fathers which we know were all sorts of problematic, I mean, started in the first place. And so it continues and continues to do that over over time.
Brandi Miller:Totally. And I think that that's part of why men so frequently blame the state of the world on the breakdown of the family, because if you can say like, it will, if I was the leader and the head of my household, and if men were leading society, then everything would be okay. It also makes it really easy to blame anyone who's not like you for the downfall of society. Like when I think about all of the anti trans and LGBTQ i A plus rhetoric right now. It's like, well, when a man is not a man anymore, like what is a man anyway? And you're like, Well, okay, like, when a man isn't marrying a woman? What do we even do with that? Like, it's the fall of all things. And so I think if you center, the family alongside that kind of marrying of things that you just described, it makes it really easy to hate lots of people like single moms or families who are double Income No Kids like, which is like a new thing that I'm hearing that Christians are at war with. away really? Yeah, it's the shorthand for his dinks di N Ks, that double income, no. Double income, no kids. It makes sense why a lot of Christian right wing men, particularly politicians are anti academia, and anti trusting like big government, when it's just trying to like when the government's like trying to do things to help people. It's why I see every single house vote, be like all of the Republicans are like, no, let's not make it easier to get baby formula to people. Oh, no, let's not make it easier for women to get out of domestic violence situations. Or let's not make it easier for women to have access to reproductive care, like for people with uteruses have accurate access to reproductive care, like, all of those things feel so easy when the narrative that you're describing is true. And when it's being pushed forward in that way. It's icky. It's very icky. Yeah, totally. And can we describe a little bit then what impact this has on people sense of self, because I think that there's ways that, at least for me, growing up. I was always made to believe that men were like objective and right and wise and more tapped into God somehow. And then that therefore meant that women were the inverse. They were emotional and needed to be led. And so I think it was really hard for me to learn to trust myself when I was taught that my main role in life was to marry and to submit to someone else's life. It caused me to kind of let go of control of my own life and assume that my life would start when I like partnered somehow, I think it took me a really long time to unlearn not just the ideology of bet that but kind of the internalized like sense of singleness, or like what it means for my unmarried friends, or what it means to develop family that's unconventional or to tie my life to other people like all of that stuff felt really challenging. For my sense of self, as I started to unlearn some of this submission narrative to be who actually meant that I had to both resist those messages and take some different type of control of my life that I had been taught to be able to do.
Benita Ki:I mean, I think the one of the biggest effects is we don't trust we being people who are not men and people who have been sort of indoctrinated in this culture. But I think one of the effects is we don't trust our own ability to connect to the Divine and to hear from God or to experience God, in the same way that there's like, you know, bureaucratic systems and processes to get things done in the church. I think that that becomes sort of overlaid over our relationship to God as if we can't experience you know, profound calling, or relationship with God, with, with the Holy Spirit in a way that empowers and invites more freedom into our own lives, as if we're on hold for a man to come save us and to choose us right, like to decide that we're worthy of being saved and nurtured and chosen, if you will. And I think that that, for me, is kind of the umbrella over these other things like time are worth then to our one whether we're partnered or not tying our worth to how productive we are and like what our career says because I once was told that I should start babysitting to practice for my future. Right like these these ideas of what society already says that's kind of hard to detangle our identities from in terms of work and productivity and, and beauty standards and body image and and All of that, coupled with the church's narratives around ultimately, our, our place here is to submit to a man when we are we are partnered makes it makes it a challenging, I think conversation not just with myself, but for my friends who for one reason or another will also never be partnered. And I say that not because I will never be partner but I'm currently not. Who knows, maybe I'll have better luck on hinge. But for Yeah, friends of mine who are widowed or older people who live in group homes, or, you know, in different circumstances of life are not partnered. What does that say then about their humanity about their experience of God about their relationship to the divine?because for me, it's a lot easier as I said, yeah, good. So a lot easier for me to sort of like, um, do mental gymnastics for myself, perhaps in an unhealthy way that I'll continue to work on a therapy, but for other people, right. And for friends of mine, and family members of mine, and folks that I love. That's a lot of rationalizing we have to do. And I think those effects, you can see the trickle down effects. well beyond just the idea of submitting to somebody submitting to a man that is your husband, right or submitting to a man who is your pastor, there's so many implications, I think, for not being allowed to live life to the full of the life that Jesus offers, right, like, in John, until someone else has deemed that to be appropriate for us.
Brandi Miller:Yes, I think the one thing I would add to that, too, is, and I don't really don't really have time to get into this conversation. But I think just the role of like kids and all of this, I think that when we think about submission, and we think about parenting, there's a lot of ways that many of us were taught and are taught through either, you know, through either being like aunties and uncles or being parents ourselves, whatever the gender neutral of auntie and uncle, I try to find gender neutral for niece and nephew at this point, you know, we're doing all the work we can. But as I think about kids, and the ways that they're taught to submit and obey until transfer to the authority of another, typically through marriage, there's ways that I think we just oppress kids, in a lot of ways assume very little of kids ability to make their own decisions to think for themselves to be engaged parts of the world, I think we miss out on a ton of things because of that. And we do a lot of harm to people that many of us are rectifying right now in therapy. And so I think there's a broader conversation to be had around kids and this narrative of submission, but that we'll come back to in a future series, more around parenting. I also think that the one of the things that I see happening for people who identify as men, is this like internalization of a narrative where it's like, well, in submission, women have the pressure to submit, but men have like the harder pressure that has to lead. And I'm like, Have you heard that before? No, oh, it's awful. It's so awful, where it's like, Well, God gives people different burdens, the women, the woman's burden is to submit. And the man's burden is to lead and it's just so hard. And so I think that there's some ways that even as we begin to reclaim our theology from the submission narratives, part of it is just rejecting the nonsense because there is so much nonsense surrounding this conversation and so much stripping people of their sense of self and others and of God that, that we just need to learn to reject the nonsense, but as we are trying to reclaim our theology from submission, do you have any recommendations on another way? Well, how can we think differently as we engage with this, this idea of submission?
Benita Ki:Well, I think for starters, I have been sort of in my own personal journey with God to consider my picture of God, right. Like I said earlier, I think our relationship to the word submission and the idea of submission says more about what we think of God than what God is like. And so I've been on a personal journey to sort of re explore and to invite that creativity of creator to see what God is like. And in my experience, in this little experiment, you know, I'm seeing abundance and generosity. I'm seeing beauty in the mundane. I see a lot more joy than the some of the other spaces that I've been in religious and you know, churchy spaces that have been in and I think that sort of invitation to explore that create the creativity of God. So my hope is that my so as I think that I am, considering submission in and of itself, is actually a neutral thing. It doesn't have to be cloaked in power, insofar as God being ultimate authority, you know, and creator is, is a being is a divine presence that isn't, isn't evil isn't vindictive, isn't exacting and, and punitive. And so I look to friends of mine who have really earnest beautiful relationships with, with the divine, as examples of choosing really freely into submitting to creator or to, to the divine. And it's, it doesn't have to look like all of these horrible patriarchal problematic things that we see. Right? That choosing to submit, choosing to, into freedom, choosing into more joy and abundance and love. And justice is is one of freedom. And I think that that, for me, ironically, sounds a lot more like resistance, because I don't see honestly, people groups, examples in our world of of that happening, because we're just so tangled up with patriarchy and white supremacy and, and capitalism, that it makes it really, really hard. And so this is probably getting more muddled, the longer I talk, but I think that as I reimagine, and as I sort of invite God to show me what God is like, then that submission to God looks a lot more like resistance to the bullshit of the world, it looks a lot more like subverting the patriarchal structures, and the white supremacist, violent, you know, structures and things in the world.
Brandi Miller:Totally. And I think it's shifting from a narrative that assumes that systems are going to save us and moving into a way of assuming that mutual networks of love and abundance will save us, which I think can be systems in and of themselves, but like not assuming I think we just have to assume the worst of the systems were a part of, and assume that if the systems were created by sis white men that they're trying to kill or eliminate, or strip power from anyone who is not that and so assuming that we actually need relationships of mutuality, that I think we actually see modeled in Scripture and in the relationship of God to God's self, like, my friend, Carlos Rodriguez always talks really beautifully about this idea that Jesus is submitting to the Father. And then you know, the spirit of submitting to Jesus. And that as the what the, you know, Jesus doesn't do anything that he doesn't hear from the Father and the Father is doing things out of love for the spirit. And it's all happening in this kind of what I think Richard Rohr would call the divine dance of this kind of Trinitarian space. And so I think I wonder if mutuality is actually part of the solution for us, or as part of what we can do in reclaiming our theology, which is hard, because it assumes that dependence is not a bad thing. And so much of submission assumes that dependence is only good when it goes one way rather than being mutually dependent on one another. And if you want just know something effed up about your Bibles, most people can look, if you open up your Bible, and you look at the headings, there'll be a separation that happens in Ephesians, five before the household code. So the before Wives submit to your husbands, there's a specific line that often gets cut or separated, that is submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And so I think there's actually a greater invitation into mutuality, that we see both and who God is God's self and in how we are invited to submit to one another. And I think what we see in the early church, like if you read x, it is a community that's trying to figure out how to mutually thrive together, and how to not just be a group of like charismatic people being led by one dude out in the world, even though that does happen and creates, frankly, a lot of conflict in the Scriptures. And so I think I wonder about that idea of mutuality, and how that might save us.
Benita Ki:Yeah, I totally, I totally resonate with that. And I think our social location in the world that we live in will dictate how that looks, right. And so a sis white man who has historically who've been given positions of power, may their call to mutual submission might look really different than me, a woman of color, who is, um, has had a very different experience and not often, but just given positions of power. And so I think the the sobriety with which we need to really have the the self reflection and the maturity to say what does mutual submission look like, can be really different for different people. Personally I feel like I've learned a lot. I'm from my friends from the intellectual disability community or community. And I think for folks who are either nonverbal or I am people who communicate differently. I have learned a lot I think, just in my own sort of reflection and being relationships with folks who are who are really different from me, to challenge my assumptions of what what submission looks like and to what end, and what does that what does that look like to do that really honestly. And not for like gain right, like your own personal gain because again, we I don't think it's, I don't think it's simple. I don't think it's a simple task to say like, we're going to try and live outside of this capitalistic world, everything in our world is set up for that. And so I think to be able to honestly sit and reflect along the way, and then to do better, I'm requires centering voices that have not been heard or centering the perspectives of folks that are never even invited to the table. All right, um, before we can even get to the point of of mutual submission. Like, who are we even talking about when we when we talk about that?
Brandi Miller:That's so good, B. That's so helpful. And I think really important for many of us who are trying to figure out what it means to be in the bodies that we're in and to be the people that we are in a world where we might care but not know what to do or how to be that like that actually, is always in relationship to other people. Well, with all of that Benita I love your work. And I would love for you to plug a little bit of what you're doing right now. How can people find you or get involved in the work that you're up to right now?
Benita Ki:Yeah, thanks, So I run civic roasters, we are a third wave coffee roasting company based in Tacoma. So our mission is to cultivate healthy neighborhoods by strengthening connections from farmer to roaster to you. And so we do that a few different ways we source ethically and sustainably, we donate a portion of our proceeds to local nonprofits. And we encourage people to get involved in the city, whether it's volunteering, advocacy, voting, donating to nonprofits, or just learning more stories of their neighbors. So we've been selling our coffee online and hosts or to wholesale clients and pop up events. And we are currently crowdfunding for our flagship roastery. And so we hope to open a brick and mortar location later this year. And we're inviting community members to help us build our store. And the reason is, we're not just another coffee company, we really want to change lives for women with felonies, people with records coming out of prison. And we want to be able to do that with an everyday product. And so we're hoping that you all will join us in doing good and Tacoma and beyond. And we have our crowdfunding site up at Civic roasters.com/crowdfunding. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Civic roasters. And, you know, this conversation around submission and the patriarchy. I think, as I am a business owner, and trying to do things differently, it's really reminded me that we started this business to begin with, not to make a lot of money, not to, you know, be the biggest, baddest coffee empire in the Northwest or anything like that. But to really invite community and to invite people to think about those on the margins. People who, historically statistically, are not allowed employment and economic opportunities because of their criminal record, to be given the chance to partner in an opportunity to be able to do something different. And to use business to do that. Not because we love capitalism. And we all know that I don't I'm not down with capitalism, but to reimagine a way that we as community can support people differently. And so yeah, I invite you to join us in doing that.
Brandi Miller:That's so so good. So please, folks get involved with what Benita and civic roasters are doing. And know that as you do that you're changing the lives of people, both in Tacoma and beyond. And B, thank you so much for your time. I so love getting to talk to you. I'm so grateful for everything that you brought to me and to the community today.
Benita Ki:Thanks so much for having me, Brandi. This has been a blast.
Brandi Miller:Thank you for joining for another episode. Y'all. I cannot believe that we are just over a week away from existing for two years as a podcast and as a community. I'm so humbled by all of it and to get to do this, and I hope for my sake for the sake of the world and for your sake, that it's helping us to do a little bit better together.