Theology In Pieces
Join Slim Thompson, Malcolm Foley and many more to discuss and 'Apply the Gospel' into little bite sized pieces every week. email hello@theologyinpieces.com to ask questions or reach out.
Theology In Pieces
66 - DON’T FOCUS ON THE FAMILY : Emily McGowin on Building Households of Faith
Today we sit down with Rev. Dr. Emily McGowin to ask why so many of us feel trapped between “family first” slogans and the weight of church, work, and politics pressing on our homes. Emily’s vision is both bracing and kind: stop chasing a biblical blueprint that doesn’t exist, and start practicing love in households that actually look like ours—single, married, multigenerational, adoptive, blended, roommates, and everyone in between.
We dig into how Jesus relativizes cultural gender norms and invites women as disciples, how early Christian communities disrupted hierarchy, and why mutuality—rather than rigid roles—better reflects the kingdom.
We'll discuss the loss of SNAP benefits and that misuse of Scripture while ignoring real families who are working, caregiving, or simply hungry.
Households of Faith: Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God
You don't eat, you don't work.
"Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor." - James Forbes
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We're back, baby! Oh hey! The Theology Pieces! Headquarters Podcast!
SPEAKER_03:We are professionals here. We are uh Welcome to Theology Pieces Consummate Professionals. Consummate. Welcome to Theology Pieces when we do we build your theology that the church, the world, or somebody has chatter pieces.
SPEAKER_02:And we are your host, Slip Ham. Malcolm.
SPEAKER_03:And we're a little wild today. Uh, because today. You know what our focus is, Malcolm?
SPEAKER_08:What is it?
SPEAKER_03:Don't focus on the family.
SPEAKER_08:Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_03:With Emily McGowan.
SPEAKER_08:Uh-oh. Yeah. The family.
SPEAKER_03:Don't controversy. Um on the family with Emily McGowan.
SPEAKER_08:Controversy talking about family.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Man, you you like your family, right?
SPEAKER_08:I mean, I guess. I'm so lucky that's a listen to this. So much. Love my family so much.
SPEAKER_03:Well. As always, uh, if you've been listening for a while, if you some of y'all think you're subscribed, but you're not.
SPEAKER_08:Um get on that.
SPEAKER_03:So actually hit the subscribe button. It doesn't cost you anything. It helps everyone um in the world. Um, it feeds children. No, we won't say that.
SPEAKER_08:Um we're approaching 20,000 20,000 uh total downloads for the podcast through its entire life. And do you know how much we get paid for each podcast episode, Malcolm? Uh how much? Zero.
SPEAKER_03:Um Okay, great.
SPEAKER_08:Because I was about to say I don't see any of this money. So if you want it to reveal that you're laundering that you're laundering massive massive amounts of cash, then it's all I have to do.
SPEAKER_03:It doesn't cost you anything. Just to hit subscribe. Um thank you all for for listening. Um, and we we love it. Thank you for uh leaving a review. If you have yet to do that, please do that. That does help us a bunch. Um Malcolm, we are uh recording this just a few days after um one of the most important holidays in America's history of Halloween. Oh and I'm I'm curious. How did you celebrate Halloween?
SPEAKER_08:Uh I mean the girls went trigger treating, so I walked downtown with. Oh, I thought you were Christian. Uh I I thought I was. Uh, and then and then candy presented itself as an option, and I was like, Jesus or candy. Uh definitely, definitely candy. Um, no, but uh yeah, so that's that's that's it. It was and it it was it was quick, and then I uh handed out handed out candy. Uh it's an opportunity, like I said, it's just an opportunity to be generous with your neighbors. How many, how many options, how many other times of the year do you have just people in your neighborhood walking around your neighborhood and you can talk to them or even give them something, even if it's candy.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Um, so it's a it's a good opportunity. Um I've met some neighbors who I should have met before, but this was the this was this is an opportunity to meet to meet some folks. So it was good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um I I had not grown up in the tradition that had um the uh weariness around the holiday.
SPEAKER_08:No wear no weariness. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um I and I fully understand that I could be um swimming in waters and I'm the you know the frog being boiled without knowing it.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. Um as you take a slippery slope into pagan religion.
SPEAKER_03:And so like I don't want to um dismiss the the nervousness around it. Um but yeah, I I've every Halloween I've ever participated in, it's been more f community-oriented. You've you saw people in your community, you walked with family, you know, with friends and things like that. Um now I was younger, I may have participated in a few of the uh um the tricks of trick or street more than the the treats, and I may have done a few of the you know the the pranks.
SPEAKER_08:Oh, you were one of them.
SPEAKER_03:But I don't know if the holiday had anything to do with me.
SPEAKER_02:It was just like cool.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, you just being a troublemaker. That's fair.
SPEAKER_03:Um but there's the same thing I would say, it's kind of you know, when people are sending me uh memes about you know Taylor Swift being demonic, and I'm going, you know, I don't know if she's because she's a billionaire, right? As much demonic as as watching, you know, listening to her is is just as demonic as watching college football, which um I I still listen to and watch too much college football in the sense that like it it's just a distraction from the more important things in life, and and it's led by billionaires. There you go.
SPEAKER_08:I mean, I didn't you you took this, you that's where you took this conversation. I'm just I'm just hanging out, man.
SPEAKER_03:Like, I can't say anything good or bad about athletic departments.
SPEAKER_08:Can't get anyone in trouble here. Stop just look, man. I'm I'm just here to hang out and have a podcast. That's all.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, so we uh we so you you you did trick-or-treating what you did. You dressed up?
SPEAKER_08:You said No, I didn't dress up.
SPEAKER_03:No, that that's I don't know. What was the last thing you dressed up as?
SPEAKER_08:Uh I mean, like, even as a kid, like there I only had two like there were only two costumes that I can remember when I was a kid. I had a Simba costume when I was like five, and then and which was when Lion King came out, I'm pretty sure. I gotta say that. And I gotta I gotta ask my parents for that one. And then my mom, then my mom made me a King David, a King David costume. It was like a purple, it's like uh yeah, it's just good.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, should I bring this up on the podcast?
SPEAKER_07:That's already gonna happen. I know it's gonna happen because you gotta tell me.
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh. I don't know, maybe okay.
SPEAKER_07:Don't do it. We'll cut it. Don't do it, don't do it. It's fine. No, never mind. Okay, I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_03:I've had some great ideas as as uh for for Halloween. This last the last one, the just the you know, a couple days ago, I uh I was uh uh an inflatable alien was holding me like a like like a baby. You know, yeah, that's funny. It was it was cute. Um so that was that. Um I've had some great ones. I was uh the um Wittenberg door, I had uh the 95 thesis nailed to me.
SPEAKER_04:You nerfed.
SPEAKER_03:It was great. It was great. Um but I went when I went check-or-treating uh my mom was uh uh resharing ideas or things that I did when I was a kid that she did for me. So this is a this was not my choice.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I well, I always wanted to be a uh you know, like a vampire with blood coming down my mouth. Sure. Whatever.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um she reminded me one of the most infamous uh Halloween costumes I ever did that people loved and have talked about for a while was when I went as Mr. T.
SPEAKER_05:Oh no.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no. And I remember going like, yeah, that was so great. I had the necklaces. And then I'm going like, did I? Did I do blackface? My mom did blackface on the confession.
SPEAKER_08:That's that's that's that's confession, bro. How old are you?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, this was three or four.
SPEAKER_08:Oh, okay. So this is like literally no agency. None true. I mean, this is rough, man. Okay, so I hate to do this on the podcast, but I don't think we can be co-pasters. I think that's that's grounds for dismissal, bro. Hey, look, look, look, look, look. Anybody can be redeemed. Forgiveness. The Lord is we serve a forgiving God. Uh our don't worry, our friendship is not, our friendship is not damaged by this. Even my friendship with your parents is not damaged by this. We'll be okay.
SPEAKER_03:Confession's good, man. It is good. It's good to get that off the chest. It's good to confess.
SPEAKER_08:In case you're wondering, one of the primary Christian practices is the is the confession of your sins vocally. It's really, it's a good thing to do. Yeah. It's freeing.
SPEAKER_03:Um, well, besides handing out candy, um, other things that uh I think is important. Did you know um that snap benefits uh went away for a day or two, and then the federal government decided to bring half of the benefits back for the month?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, well, and then I thought it's gonna take months. Trump put something on Truth Social about is like, actually, they're not gonna get any. He's he's defying the order, and he's like, uh we're not gonna give him any until the Democrats.
SPEAKER_03:I thought he was the most eager, as long as it was legally possible, because we have the most law-abiding president ever.
SPEAKER_08:Nope. He's yeah, this is this is something like as of like earlier today, he says that the US won't won't won't pay any snap benefits during the shutdown, defying the the court filing.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, wow. That that's shocking. Not shocking, that's just so rough.
SPEAKER_08:That's just what he tweeted out or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:Like I said, I it's just a So it's it's not just annoyance. Like it feels like it's all theater. It feels like I just saw Greg Abbott was like, if you come to Texas from New York, you're gonna get a hundred percent terror phrase. It's just it feels like it's all theater. But while some of it is theater, like real people are like we we uh as a church uh did a a donation uh for food donation for uh Shepherd's Heart Food Pantry. And as we went to deliver some of the food, they said, Yeah, like it's all gonna be off the shelves by tomorrow. Um it they it's the the need, the demand is so high right now. It's made me think of um, you know, I saw uh Rich uh Velotas shared this uh quote from James Forbes that said, Nobody gets to heaven without a le letter of reference from the poor.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And just like this is this is the the most important thing we can do right now as Christians.
SPEAKER_08:And so this go also goes out to anybody uh listening to the podcast, find ways to organize your church to feed people. Yeah. Uh it's that's a it's a basic way to be obedient to the way that Christ has called us to live. Think about the words of James where he says, if your brother or sister is without daily food and clothing and you just pray for them and say, Go be warm and well fed, you haven't done anything for them. Um so uh I I encourage us to to be the people of God and to do what is a very basic Christian thing to do, which is to feed the hungry as we have the opportunity to.
SPEAKER_03:Um and then last thing on this, I because we're actually gonna have a sermon preached uh with the lectionary on this passage of 1 Thessalonians 3 um in in a few weeks, and it's the famous one that people are quoting right now uh around this uh the idea of snap because people are going, well, if people aren't working, then they shouldn't eat, um, because in 2 Thessalonians 3 uh it says, if you don't work, then you don't eat. Um and there's this um quote or this uh Twitter uh thread from a guy named Audit the Rhetoric. I think it's pretty good, um, who says uh as some Christians cheer at the thought of people losing food assistance, it's wild how often they quote the this verse above to justify it, usually without understanding what Paul was actually talking about. Context first, Paul wasn't condemning the poor, he was addressing believers who chose to stop working because they thought Jesus was returning any minute. It wasn't about punishing hardship, it was about correcting idleness rooted in entitlement, two totally different things. Now let's bring it to modern times. People love quoting that verse when talking about food assistance as if everyone on Snap just refuses to work. But that's not reality. Roughly 28% of Snap households have earned income, meaning someone in the home is working. And when you include individuals, not just households, that number jumps to around 41%. Among working age adults with children, more than 80% work within a year before after receiving aid. So most poor Americans do work, they're just underpaid or between jobs. What about the rest? That other 70%, if not it's not lazy people sitting around, it includes seniors on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, full-time caregivers, and folks temporally unemployed. They're not unwilling, they're unable, or in transition. SNAP exists for the exact reason it keeps people fed when work when when work isn't possible or income isn't enough. And here's the m something most people don't know. The average person on SNAP stays on for about a year. Half of new participants participants leave the program within 12 months. It's not a permanent handout, it's a temporary stabilizer that helps families get back on their feet. The ones who stay longer are usually seniors, the disabled, or single parents facing ongoing financial barriers. And here's the kicker. If those who don't work shouldn't eat, then what about the rich who don't work? The ones living off investments, passive income, dividends, or the labor of everyone else. Funny how that first never gets applied to them. The point isn't to excuse laziness, it's to stop twisting scripture into a weapon against people already struggling. Paul wasn't lecturing the poor, he was calling out complacency among the comfortable. It's a big difference. Capitalism teaches us to see the poor as failures of effort, but God sees them as people caught in the fallout of greed, injustice, and inequality. Capitalism sees bad choices, scripture sees burdens worth lifting. We don't measure worth the way markets do. God doesn't ask what you produce, he asks how you love. Pretty good. That's pretty good. And uh from the experience, you know, this is just someone's, you know, Twitter, right? Um from going to the Shepherd's Food uh heart, they they uh affirm what he said that most of their their food assistance is going to the elderly and it's going to kids. Yep who without this will not eat.
SPEAKER_02:And so, like, I mean, I just beautiful.
SPEAKER_03:And and anger. I'm so encouraged that the church is is rallying to this. So beautiful. What were you gonna say?
SPEAKER_08:No, no, I just think it's kind of as a basic thing. I just think that everybody should be able to eat. I and I and like I think that's a broadly uncontroversial thing to say.
SPEAKER_03:Um before universal healthcare, universal food.
SPEAKER_08:I think I said this in my book. If I think it's a need, if I narrate it as a need for me, then it's a need for everybody. And I need food as as human beings, we need food.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Uh like I don't there's there's nothing in me that says that somebody can get to a position where they don't quote unquote deserve food. I just I don't I don't I'm just not I'm not there.
SPEAKER_03:It's good. It's good. All right. Well, we've we've talked a little bit uh too long. We want to hear uh from one Dr. Emily McGowan uh on why we shouldn't focus on the family. Uh oh.
SPEAKER_07:Uh oh.
SPEAKER_03:That's gonna be crazy.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, spicy.
SPEAKER_08:Dear brothers and sisters, we have we have a wonderful opportunity today to have a conversation with the Reverend Dr. Emily Hunter McGowan about our wonderful book, Households of Faith, Practicing Family in the Kingdom of God. A little bit of a little bit of a bio. Uh Emily Hunter McGowan, PhD from University of Dayton, is is a is associate professor of theology at Wheaton College. She is the author of Quivering Families and a book on Christmas, and co-editor of God and Wonder. Her articles have appeared in Christianity Today and The Week. She is a priest and former canon theologian uh in the in the Anglican diocese of the of the churches for the sake of others. She and her husband Ron, also a priest, live in Chicagoland with their three children. Uh I love this book, Households of Faith. I also blurbed it. I think I'll I'll read the I'll read the blurb on the inside just so we will, just we all know.
SPEAKER_06:We didn't drop what they're what they're in what's what's in store. Okay, here we go. This this comes from uh some Malcolm Foley guy.
SPEAKER_08:Uh he says the Christian family needs to be further radicalized. That is, returned to its life-giving roots and stripped of parasitic accretions. Does that work, reminding the Christian of what family really is, and in doing so, offering a great gift to the people of God. By linking the Christian family tightly to the church, the church to the kingdom of God, and the kingdom to its king, Jesus, McGowan narrates a beautiful golden chain that provides the Christian with both vision and practice that leads to Christ-likeness. I can think of no better gift to the Christian family than a voice that relentlessly points to the kingdom. Emily McGowan has offered such a voice.
SPEAKER_07:Amen.
SPEAKER_08:I think every word of that is true of this book. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for it. It's good to be with you, Emily.
SPEAKER_03:Emily, when you get blurbs like that, do you ever be like, hey, so like the secretions part? Do you think you could reword that?
SPEAKER_07:It's not secretions. I was like, No, no, it's my blurbs.
SPEAKER_01:I'm over the spent thing about them.
SPEAKER_00:Um secretions.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I misheard that. That's the second time you read it to me. I heard secretions. I was like, really? Um, Emily, let's let you talk about you talk. Uh uh share with us kind of like the impetus behind writing this uh fantastic book. Uh kind of like your own personal experiences, theological questions, um, or um were there um other books that you grew up reading that you were attempting to answer with this book?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so there's a number of uh of influences onto for why I wrote this book. Um the the scholarly answer is that I had written a book, uh, my first book was very critical of the way evangelicals in the US tend to conceive of and practice family. And um, and I knew that eventually I wanted to write a more constructive response. So if I'm critical of what is being offered, do I have something constructive to say in response? So I knew eventually that would come. But then there's there's personal things as well. I had um I have my own family history that was quite painful and difficult as a child. And then I got the experience of making or attempting to create a new kind of family with my husband, Ronnie, and our kids. Um, and then I think the experience that many of us have gone through as ministers over the past 10 years or more under um just kind of the new cultural environment we're experiencing under under Trump has has made me think more holistically about how the family is impacted by more than just what their individual members are doing and saying, but there are actually these broader social cultural factors that family books don't tend to talk about. And so I wanted to bring that broader perspective as well. Um that was a long answer to your question, but no, that's good, that's good.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I I I had read this, and I think um Malcolm had handed it to me uh a little while back, um, that someone else had recommended it. Um and the uh I think we have a church that is just so um in line with some of the questions you're you're asking around kind of like like you know it feels like like the the the the title of this podcast, Theology in pieces. It feels like many people feel like they're like their worldview has just been shattered to pieces and they're they're starting to question everything. Um and so a book on kind of um at least as it was portrayed to me on family, um, I was like, Well, is that something our people are wrestling with on like what what the real look of the family? But I I I as I was reading through it, I just saw saw how intrical it was all connected. Um and just like the uh one of the opening lines you had in there um was just like I was like, oh, this isn't the book I was expecting to read. Uh what's uh you had something like we love our home country, the United States, but we cannot deny its wicked foundation and white supremacy, settler colonialism, genocide, race-based child slavery. We have sought to tell the truth to our children from the earliest days to help them be more loving and just neighbors and more faithful heralds of Jesus' good news. But they've had their hearts broken and ours too, over the past several years, watching so many self-professed Christians in the United States sell their souls to Trumpism, COVID denial, election denial, white nationalism, abuse cover-ups, and more.
SPEAKER_08:Get them. I was like, oh, get 'em.
SPEAKER_03:I can't wait to read more from this video.
SPEAKER_08:Well, there's there's some good there's some good stuff about capitalism in here too. We'll get there. We'll get there later, obviously.
SPEAKER_03:Why do you think that was important to help frame the book in this way so early on?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I mean, I I wanted to to be forthright about the my motivations. I think that these these things that I describe, both things in the past and things that we're currently experiencing, um, have had a massive influence on how Christians in the US understand the gospel and then live it out um for good and for ill and a lot for ill. And um so I wanted to to say from the beginning that I think that we have much bigger problems that are feeding into the way we then perceive and understand and practice family. And so in order to to talk about the health and wholeness of family in the kingdom of God, we have to address these broader um evils. I mean, that's what what I think they are is evils. And that's not to say that the on-the-ground realities aren't complicated and that it isn't hard to work out in real life how we begin to disengage and reform and and re-resist, right? I I I get that. I don't want to pretend like the solutions are simple, but if we don't get a big picture of what's really wrong, then our solutions aren't even gonna come close uh to the mark. And so I just thought it was important to say from the start, this is uh this is what I thought where I'm coming from and not pull punches about that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think you you you you balance the uh the there's like this uh ever-present, you know, like life-threatening things happening around us that are shaping and foremost, kind of systemically uh uh imp impacting us, along with like the the normal day-to-day um things that we could get bothered with, like like your son calling you bruh. Um I related to that so much, I was like, yep.
SPEAKER_01:But you know, I'm just embrace it. My my one of my my youngest now calls everyone girl. So I've got I've got bruh, and then we've got another kid who calls everyone girl, including her brother and her father. You know, cool. I'm just not talking to him.
unknown:So we'll talk.
SPEAKER_08:So so before before we get into what will be Slim's counseling session where he asks parenting questions, um I it's coming. I've got a lot of questions. It's on it's on the way. Uh so what what are the what do you think are the most harmful narratives about family that you want to kind of uh that you that you want to dismantle in this book? And then um perhaps a few of the more uh constructive ones that you offer here.
SPEAKER_01:So I think the the first and maybe maybe the biggest uh in in again US evangelical circles is that there is a blueprint in the Bible for how we do family, and that if you follow it correctly, that is, if you embody it, your particular roles uh in your life, you will have a successful, happy family. And that is wrong on at least two counts. One, the Bible doesn't actually give us a blueprint, and two, we're not guaranteed success, whatever we mean by success uh anyway. And so, uh but going further, the other thing that we have to to see, the other layer on top of that, uh, is this idea that the family exists again because of our US context to produce basically independent consumers that our primary purpose is to produce people who can work and work for pay in our economy and then uh consume in order to keep the economy going, um, and you know, accomplish the purposes of whatever the businesses are that they're working for. And I'm not saying anyone is like explicitly saying that's what we think the family is for. But I find that a lot of a lot of folks when you just talk, you know, brass tacks about what they think they're doing in their homes, it's basically trying to produce self-sufficient um units, economic units. And while I'm not against producing um adults that are capable of caring for themselves given that they have the ability to do so and all that kind of stuff, and I think people do need to work in a s in some respect as part of a flourishing human life, I don't think that's the point of family. And so what I'm what I'm offering instead is uh is more complex, I realize, than a blueprint. But I'm trying to say that families have their origin in the love of God, and they have the love of God as their purpose, their goal. And so theologically, we are meant in the family, just as in all human relationships, to learn how to love. Uh to learn how to love well, and that is ultimately what what is teaching us communion with God, with each other, with the world. Um, and that's uh it's not a it's not a blueprint, but it is, I think, it is the right goal. And we only get there, I think, by understanding the family in light of the church and the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, the the blue pr when you kept using blueprint, I kept going back to my um I I didn't actually grow up reading it, but I feel like I was I was hearing the generation before me go, hey, this may not have turned out so helpful. Um, was uh Growing Kids God's Way. Is this uh something you had read growing up?
SPEAKER_01:I actually did not read that, but I know people who had it on their bookshelf.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um it's uh it's uh one of many of these kinds of books that says, here's the here's God's way, here's the Bible's way to do family, to do parenting. And if you follow these rules, you'll get this result. Um and it turns out that's not true.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And I think that was the most on the head one that I think people started to realize like, maybe this isn't working out, um, because it was just like God's way, the the exact way. And uh but there are many, many parenting books or many, many parenting seminars, or even men's retreats, women's retreats, family, you know, vacations or retreats. Um I do think lean into that blueprint. Like, why do you think we long for the blueprint?
SPEAKER_01:Because it's so much simpler.
SPEAKER_03:Because I long for it. I'm like, Tell me.
SPEAKER_01:I know, tell me exactly what to do. Give me the formula. Give me the formula, I will I can work a formula. Um it's just so much simpler. But that's not what the scriptures are. It's just not. I think I think a lot of it is maybe modernity, like we've been crafted with this like modern way of thinking about things, and we just assume there must be some formula we can crack that if we do it just the right way, somehow mechanistically, it will just produce these results. And that's it's not what the Bible is, and that's not how human beings work either. So yeah, I think it's comfortable if we had it, but we don't. And so we can either try to keep creating new models, new blueprints, or we can actually acknowledge what's really going on, which is that the Holy Spirit is requiring us to improvise uh given what we have revealed in the scriptures, given what we have in church tradition, um, and and try to do that more faithfully.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That's good. Um now you you you intentionally chose the term, I'm guessing intentionally, uh household of faith versus uh you know kind of a being about family. Is that what why that word?
SPEAKER_01:So I know from experience with a lot of different kinds of people, like uh single friends, um, those who are divorced and and so single parent households. Uh I know, you know, folks who are maybe singles and living intentionally in community with each other, that they often, if they're not part of this kind of paradigm of the nuclear family, you know, the husband, wife, and two and a half kids, that they've been left out of uh the thinking and teaching about what family is. And I wanted to stress that every household, wherever you might find yourself, whatever the composition of that household, is a household of faith. That that God is not working with idealized families or idealized households, but actual families, actual households. And so a household I felt was more comprehensive and inclusive of all different types. Um and so that was that was the aim.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we could say we want to have a a biblical family. Um and you know, the the very first family of Adam and Eve and their kids, uh, one murdered the other. So like not necessarily I'm hoping to at least excel above that. There's still time.
SPEAKER_01:Made out of his side too. Like he actually saw her come into being, which is a very different way of relating to your spouse, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. So share share that part. Um I I don't I don't know if we've navigated that or talked through that. Um your your your your uh commentary on on rib versus side um in in Genesis. What what share share what's what's the difference there? Um why does that matter?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think I mean the translation is longstanding in English that you know it's out of Adam's rib. And the the Hebrew I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but the Hebrew scholars that I know and that I've worked with have told me that that's just not a good translation. It's uh it's better translated side. And and I think that actually makes more theological sense as well. That that Eve is taken from the side of Adam. And when you see it that way, it's it's not just a matter of like a piece of his body. She is a half of a whole. Um, not to say that either of them aren't whole persons, they absolutely are, but they're made of the same stuff. And she is intentionally being framed as one who is made out of the same stuff as him, but different, complementary to him, so that they can work side by side in the garden to tend and keep the presence of God. Um yeah, I just think that's there's so much more going on there theologically, if we translate the word right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Which I think gets into the um leans into the next conversation on gender roles that you you you go into that I'm dun, dun, dungeon. I just feel like that is that's a whole other uh book. Uh, but that's that's that that's a huge topic. Um in regards to like, okay, so what is it to be a man? Um, to or what is it to be a um a woman? Um, and then also if you know if married, what does that mean to be a husband or be a wife? And is there biblical uh roles? The Bible seems to give some idea, but how clear is that? Um what are your thoughts there?
SPEAKER_01:Gosh, that's a big question. Where do I even start? Um so let me just take the language of roles first. So the language of roles is actually foreign to the Bible. It's not there, it's a sociological term that we started using in the early 20th century and have since I think imported into the scriptures to try to figure out what's what's going on there. And again, I understand why. I think the impulse is in the face of lots of cultural change, lots, lots of social economic change, we're trying to figure out something stable. And so if we have stable roles that are based on a stable sense of gender and sex, well then that will provide some of that stability. But the roles language just isn't in the Bible. What we have instead are we have a common uh story of human origins, a description of the fact that we are created male and female, and that that's good. That's good in God's world, it has a good purpose. But there is by no means any sort of delineated description that here's what it means to be a man, here's what it means to be a woman. Instead, we see God uh calling into being relationships with like real life historical people who are already living in the world in their sexed gendered bodies. And they're living within the world in their sex-gendered bodies, in cultures and societies where certain expectations were already at work. So, what I mean by that is when he calls, when God calls Abraham, Abraham is already living in the ancient Near East. There are certain assumptions about what men and women do and how a society is structured that uh that is not called into question within that covenant, right? God makes a covenant with him, he's already in that society, and that tends to be the pattern throughout the scriptures. And we don't, I don't think, see that substantively shifting until we get to Jesus. And then and then something really unique is happening. So here you have Jesus, uh, a man who is a man like other men and yet also not like any other men, because his uh humanity comes from his mom and not from his dad. So he's a man whose flesh comes from a woman. And then in his life and his teachings, he uh he permits women to be his disciples. He he does not refuse them, he permits them to be his disciples and then prioritizes them in the proclamation of his good news. And then as you see that gospel working itself out in the early church, do I do I see, you know, modern feminism? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But you see an undermining of the established gender norms of his day, not a reaffirming, but an undermining. And I think if you follow that trajectory out, it leads to, I should say, a relativization of our cultural understandings of gender and sex. I don't think we can ever escape having cultural understandings of gender and sex, but I think the gospel relativizes them with a vision of mutuality in the kingdom of God. And so everywhere the gospel goes, I think it actually tends to undermine any sort of hierarchical arrangement. And it, I think, when done right, will will begin to relativize these ideas about like what does it mean to be a man or a woman? Um I should probably pause there. That was a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Keep going, keep going. I I feel like this is a a tension we see a lot, and I think a lot of people are feeling um, because there is the socialized blueprint of these gender roles, um, and they look at their own, you know, reality and they're going, this isn't matching up. Um, maybe the the wife is the breadwinner. Um, and then they feel really guilty, like we are failing God, not just um maybe their own decisions, like, well, maybe one day I'll be the breadwinner, whatever it may be. Like, even just in that one uh uh example of those gender roles being played out, it feels like it's this transgressions of the law of God, and so they're constantly feeling guilty about that versus it going, Whoa, does that matter? Um, does the Bible say anything about that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, right. Like, where that's why I'm asking the question like, where in the scriptures does it say the man is the breadwinner? The whole concept of breadwinner is a very modern concept.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because the work being done in the scriptures by the families of scripture is being done not for wages the way that we work today. It was a different economic system.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so, yeah, were these patriarchal families? Absolutely. They were also patrilocal, where like everybody lived with the patriarch of the family. So all of the sons and their wives and their children, and they were all part of this, you know, unit.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But we don't live like that anymore. Why not? Because we're in a different socioeconomic system. And so, does it mean that we need to chuck that system and go back to the ancient Near Eastern model to obey God? No. So why do we think we have to do the same thing with gender? Yeah. I just I just find it a very odd um argument to make.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. So let's so let's talk about let's talk about the real the real enemy in the room, uh, which is neoliberal capitalism. Um I mean, you mentioned, you mentioned our uh our political economy. It's something that radically shapes the way that we, I mean, the way that we view family, but also all of these, all of these things. Tell me a little bit more about what's what's going on, what's going on there? How how how is this malforming us? How does this how does this this restrict our imagination and also our obedience to Jesus?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so let me just start by defending you bringing this up. Oh, here we go. No, I do it all the time.
SPEAKER_08:It's everywhere. Anyway, anyway, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01:Let me just let me just affirm my students in my class that I teach at Wheaton called um Marriage, Sex and Family in the Christian Tradition, they are shocked by just how much the history of families, the history of marriage is actually the history of economics. It's actually the history of politics and economics. Yep. Because they have assumed over the past, you know, because they're they're one of us in the West over the past 200 years that assumes marriage and family is about love primarily, right? Affectionate ties. And it is primarily about that now. But for most of human history in most human societies, marriage and family is based on economics and politics. And it's about how we uh govern ourselves and how we protect and use our resources. So it is completely legitimate to talk about um how we in our society decide to distribute resources. Um so yeah, so Christian families in the US, I would say, have largely just accepted what our neoliberal capitalist environment has told us about what a family is for and what the members of the family are meant to do, you know, within those families. So do I think it limits our imagination? 100%. But I but I want to be clear, I don't say that to like blame any of us. This is not like a, you know, we should feel ashamed and and blame ourselves for this. It's the water we've been swimming in for so long, we don't even know that it's poisoning us. We don't even know what it's doing. And for many of us, we don't have a lot of control over changing it either, right? So just to get really practical for a moment, like the working hours for most people, the hours they have to spend away from the home is not something they have any control over. They are told when to show up and when they're allowed to go home, when they can take breaks, uh, how much vacation days they get, et cetera, et cetera, if they get them at all, based on what is the most profitable for the company they work for. And that then determines the amount of time they get to spend with their loved ones, with their kids, what kind of education they can offer, um, whether they get to worship or pray together, can they attend church together, right? All of that is largely dictated by the corporations that employ our people. Yeah, right. And so it it is absolutely an economic political issue in addition to a theological and biblical one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That was more than you asked for, though, Malcolm. I think he probably thoughts too about.
SPEAKER_08:I no, I just I I I want I want more and more resources to create a socialist revolution in the church.
SPEAKER_01:So kidding, kidding.
SPEAKER_08:I mean, only a little bit. I'm only getting a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Part of what's going on though in my book is really just to get people thinking about it, right? Like there's a whole other book dying to be written about like actual tactics, right? Strategies and tactics we can use, IRL in our neighborhoods and with our families. But I just wanted to get people even acknowledging that economics and politics impact them because I think a lot of us are just blind to it. We just don't see that it's happening. Yeah. And I want us to see it and name it.
SPEAKER_08:Good. It's what Jesus is saying when he says you can't serve both God and mammon. What he's also saying is that like it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_03:Everywhere. Uh today is uh uh election day here. Uh we're recording this on election day uh here in I guess the nation, but in Texas, and all 20 propositions, I'm reading it, and it's all about like how to basically like save money for the rich. It feels like I'm like, I'm like I I didn't do a lot of research going into this, but goodness, this feels all green, all man related. But yeah, someone could come back and tell me I I voted wrong. I don't know. But um, that was my interpretation. Um possibly being influenced here. Um you you you say uh what kind of rabbi teaches his followers to love their enemies but hate their mother, father, spouse, and children? Um, which I I love. This is a great line. Um in the idea of having the the whole household of faith, of of opening up our uh our idea of our family uh to be not just the biological family, um, but to the the full church family. And so if our biological family isn't the ultimate fulfillment, um but it's the the whole family is the church of God, how does how do you navigate kind of that that balance of like, well, I am called to parent my kids, but also I should I parent their kids too?
SPEAKER_00:Uh it's really freaking hard.
SPEAKER_01:It's really freaking hard. And I'm not sure I have the answer for you. Um what I mean by that is I don't know that I've gotten this right, so to speak, because I feel like there's there's like two ditches that many of us fall into. So the one that probably got the most focus in my book is the ditch that says my family first, everybody else second or even lower, right? So my family comes first, what's good for me, myself, and mine. That's that's one approach. And so church is like an add-on to that. If we can make it to church, cool, yeah, it's like a social club you participate in occasionally.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But the other ditch is that you give your family up on the altar of building a church or some other kind of ministry, right? And you sacrifice those important familial relationships, uh, and this is especially harmful, it seems to me, in the relationship with your kids, on the altar of this, you know, this greater good. And you're doing it for Jesus. So it'll also be okay, you know. And that I think is the other ditch. That's the other side. And you know, Ronnie and I are church planners. I'm a I'm a theology professor, and so that stuff is important to me. That work I do think is important, and I think God has called us to. But we have teenagers who require a lot of time and attention to parent them well. And so yeah, I feel like we're constantly navigating and negotiating. Okay, how many, how many nights a week can we give to welcoming someone from outside our home? And then how to what uh to what extent does our kids' social calendar limit our social calendar? Um do when do we say no to a church need, someone in the church who has a need because our kid has a need? Yeah, it's priority, right? And gosh, that's really hard. I don't, I don't know what the answer is. Yeah, but I want us to be aware of um what the options are that we want to avoid so that we can at least start to do a little better uh in the in somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_03:I I don't even know if I agree with you, um, but I've not fully wrestled with it yet, but the the uh the the ditches there are where I'm like, um I think you just labeling that is helpful because I I do think I came out of uh um seminary going like, no, I and I've seen I've seen um pastors give their whole lives to their ministry, or we read the stories of missionaries. You I think you mentioned um uh what was her name? Perpetua? Um uh martyrs who gave their life uh perpetua and left left their families or David Brainerd, all these different missionaries who like kind of neglected their family for the mission field. And I remember reading it being like, that's terrible.
SPEAKER_07:St. Anthony.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm just like, I'm like, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. So it's like I remember coming into the ministry and I remember asking all these pastors, like, hey, how do you how do you not have your kids become PKs and pastors' kids to where they like resent you, resent the ministry forever? And everyone's like, give them time, give them time. And so I I I took out of my bio because it became very popular to uh for to make fun of pastors who had like um husband, father, uh pastor as their bio. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not me. And yet in practice, I have like those are my priorities. Um, and I'm like, is that bad?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think that's bad though. That's okay.
SPEAKER_03:That's where I'm like, do I disagree with you? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:No, because I I think of myself the same way. This is this is where like the Catholic Church has handed down and their social teaching a conception of like there are there are orders to our loves, right? In terms of like the practice of our lives. So I I my first priority in terms of like my resources and time are gonna be the people that are closest to me. However, however, big however, we're told in the New Testament to consider the needs of others equal to the needs of ourselves. Okay, well now what? Okay, so that means there's gonna be times when I am going to sacrifice my needs, what I what I need for the sake of someone else's need. I don't know that I it's my place to sacrifice my child's need for the sake of someone else, right? Now there may be times I ask her to. So maybe when they're she's old enough to be able to reason through that with me, we could talk through it and she could voluntarily say, Well, I'll give this up for the sake of someone else. But I don't think I just I don't think I volunteer my family to give up their needs. I think I volunteer myself in obedience to Christ to do that. And so yeah, I think it's a good distinction. I have to prioritize my my husband, my kids, uh in terms of my daily life and work, but that is always understood within this broader eternal vision of the church and the kingdom of God that may call me to give more. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. Yeah. I it it's it's also I mean, to to think in terms of to also to think in terms of parenting, I I I like that distinction that you just made. Um I also think about the ways in I also think about the ways in which parents uh can confuse uh their child's needs with what they think their child's needs are. I mean I I like I mean I I mean I think about I think about the situations where uh where people, for example, uh choose, and this this may be this may be another point of controversy, um, but sometimes people choose not to have children because they're like children are too expensive. And and and and part of it is it's like, well, but sometimes it's not the children that are expensive. Sometimes it's like you like to spend money. Money. That doesn't, that doesn't that doesn't that doesn't deny the the the the necessity of wisdom as we uh as we have these kinds of conversations. Um but as uh as Basel, as Basel says talks about, we talks about the way that we think about even the even the category of need, it's very easy for us to justify to ourselves, well, the more that I have, the more I can narrate all of this in the language of need. Um so it but but it I think but to go back to go back to what you're saying, I think it I think it's really I think it's really helpful to be reminded of the fact that like I I am called to see others to see others' needs above my own, but that that's about me, like that's about me and my needs. I'm not like I don't sacrifice I don't sacrifice my kids my kids for that. I let them make that decision to the extent that they have the the uh the freedom to make make that decision. I have a question. I I do have a question. Um good positive. I I want to know about uh positive and negative feedback that you've gotten about the book so far. Uh your favorite piece of positive feedback and your favorite piece of negative and and and and a ne and a piece of negative feedback that's like that's kind of stuck in your craw, maybe a little bit.
SPEAKER_05:Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So um, so positive feedback. I was actually just a couple weeks ago, I visited Northwest University, which is a small Assemblies of God University in in the Pacific Northwest. And I it was lovely. Their whole they have a new center for faith and families, and all of their people had read the book and they had used my ideas to like be to frame like their mission and were like inspired by a number of things over the course of our time together while I was there. Um, that's gonna direct some of their project, you know, as as they're working on certain certain things. And so that was just wonderful. You rarely, I think, as an author, get to see any practical impact. Like you'll hear like individual testimonies, which is lovely, but never like organizational impact.
SPEAKER_04:That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Cool. Um, so that's the big one there. Negative feedback. You know what's funny is I actually haven't gotten a lot of negative feedback.
SPEAKER_03:Great. Well, it's gonna be about to start.
SPEAKER_01:But I think it's because I think it's because people aren't reading it. That's fair. I think I I don't know if it's a title thing, I don't know if it's a timing thing. I just don't think it's being read as much as I would like. And I I don't say that to like like feel bad about it or anything. I just don't think it's getting read very much. So the the one piece of negative feedback that still sticks in my head is there was a a reviewer, it was a very thoughtful review. So it's not a negative feedback that I disagree with, but she she basically said that she was disappointed that my book seemed to assume a pretty high level of education in the home and uh like a pretty much a middle class standard of living and access to certain like uh institutions and materials and stuff. And she's absolutely right. And and the problem is I tried to gesture toward other forms of life and other challenges that the different households might experience, but it's just beyond the bounds of my experience. And so I couldn't think practically with those families because I'm just not in that situation. So I thought that was a fair critique, and I I would love to be able to have done more, um, but there just wasn't time uh for this for this book.
SPEAKER_03:So I do think you're uh maybe uh the the olive branch you offered to the different different forms of families, um, different range of families, uh, where's two of those family illustrations that you used, um one from Encanto and the other from uh the bear, which I thought was just you know you know brilliant kind of ways to depict. I think you talked about them being, you know, that families hand down both kind of tradition and trauma. Um how do you how does how do you kind of recommend someone navigate that? Because you could see like the tradition that you people have handed down, you're like, yeah, that's good, and maybe some of it's good, some of it's bad. But then the trauma, I mean that's like, oh. I mean, you kind of like I I I I I appreciate you're like that these aren't necessarily like depicting like you know the Christian value families from these two two films, but they are navigating in it and saying how imp impactful that is.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, and and I I feel like one of the reasons I had to reach outside of Christian circles is that we don't often talk about the trauma that we experience in families. We've been so eager to promote the family and protect the family. That's the language we would use. Um that we we fail to acknowledge the ways in which we do harm within families. Like most of us, the places where we've experienced the greatest highs and lows are often in our families. Um, significant amounts of abuse and neglect happen in families. And so, but we often don't acknowledge that because it's it's painful, it's hard. Um, but I think we have to. And so when it comes to like how we face the trauma we've experienced, I think that's where we need professional help.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, so for me, I literally have a therapist for this, like literally, um, who I've trusted for the past few years. Um, because in writing this book, surprise, surprise, I found that suddenly I was facing and remembering a whole host of things that I had kept, you know, hidden uh and buried for quite a while. And I needed a professional to help me navigate through it. And she's helped me to see, going back to Malcolm, your point about needs, she's helped me to see the ways in which my traumatic experiences and my husband's traumatic experiences have caused us to parent in the ways that we do. And it's not necessarily like they're just you know they're evil and bad, but it's just we often react out of these traumatic experiences and don't even know that these deep-seated feelings are governing our decision making, they're governing our our communication. And so now being more aware of that, we're actually able to begin to change some of that and and face the way we're thinking uh and change how we're then living together. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Nice.
SPEAKER_03:Um this this may be actually a a point of critique. So you ready for us to to lay it on here? Um Malcolm talked about this earlier, and we said, Oh, we really disagree. Um actually we don't not sure we disagree yet. We're we're we're we're gonna see where this goes. You mentioned uh visiting a church. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. I just never mind. We're yeah, okay, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01:I know where you're going. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And you and your husband had uh and then the kids went away for uh like a kids' church thing, they came back and they did not take communion with y'all. And you mentioned how you were like, I don't like that, I'm gonna walk out. But then someone challenged you and said, Well, if you believe in like that, we were all part of the family. I didn't hear the conclusion to that. Did did you stay at this church? Are you are you a fan? Are you a fan of kids not taking communion with their parents? Oh stated officially.
SPEAKER_01:Let me let me just say this. I didn't say I was gonna walk out. Um, we were annoyed by it, but we stayed and we finished that service. Yeah, it was only afterwards when we were talking with a friend, a single friend, and she said to me, Well, I don't see what the problem is. If the household of God is is more important than your individual household, what's the big deal?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So, but to answer your question, we were only visiting that church. We were in between churches at the time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so it was a friend's church where she served and we were just visiting. So it was never a like, are we gonna stay here sort of situation? We ended up um planting a church after that. So do I think children what was the question about children and family? Do I think they need to take communion with their families? Or they yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically the question. No, I actually think it's just fine that we don't receive it as a family. Um, I think there's actually something in our in, I'll just share for for our church, a lot of uh kids do go up with their with their parents when we when we have communion, it's you know, we form a line and they come to the front and then we split off. And um but sometimes they run up on their own. And I think that's awesome that the kids trust us and know us well enough to know they can come right up and they aren't receiving with their families because they are a baptized member in our church, they're a baptized member of Christ's church on their own terms. And so, no, I don't think they need to receive with their families.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, all right, I'm convinced we can do it. Um they don't they don't need to press it, uh talk to the elderly. We're not making a decision. This is good, it does not reflect the official opinion of mosaic coach.
SPEAKER_03:Uh we're gonna have to close this down.
SPEAKER_00:Is that your practice at the church right now? Is it a live issue?
SPEAKER_03:Uh no, no, it's uh it's we're all together right now. We have uh kids leave for kids' church and they come back after uh the sermon uh and then we take communion together. Um there's times when kids are walking in uh kind of like while we're while we're leading it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, so I mean most of the time kids are gonna take it with their families because their their families are gonna provide the like oversight, you know, to like shepherd them in and out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um but do I think it's essential? No. I I don't think it is, especially if you if you have if these children are baptized.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Does the Anglican church have a view on um um uh Pedo Communion?
SPEAKER_01:What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_08:That that that's it's just if you're if you're baptized, you can take it with just whether it's it when he says pay-to communion, it's just like as if you're baptized, you can take the you can take the supper.
SPEAKER_03:Whether you've professed faith or not.
SPEAKER_01:As soon as the kid's eating solid food, if they come up and they're like reaching for it, I'm making it. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. We need to have a a podcast to uh navigate that. We should probably also talk with our elders too.
SPEAKER_01:I gotta tell you, like a lot of things I'm just throwing out there. Just you know, be careful because it's it's a slippery slope. We were Southern Baptists, and then we started changing our views on communion and baptism, and now all of a sudden we're Anglican, and like, you know, I already told you anybody.
SPEAKER_08:The last 10 months has just been an Eastern Orthodox post for me. So it's not the becomes Catholic now. Can't go to Rumble, man. Can't go to Roman.
SPEAKER_03:Anyway, anyway, let's get back to you.
SPEAKER_04:We're just hanging out.
SPEAKER_03:We're hanging out. Um, for someone listening who doesn't feel like they fit uh that that blueprint traditional family uh mold, uh what encouragement or practical first step advice would you give them kind of uh living into this household of faith um uh dynamic?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so if you are a baptized member of Christ Church, you are a household of faith. Even if you are an individual, you are a household of faith and you are a family of God, and you are then part of this larger family of God. And so your individual unit of life, uh, and the way you do that life um has just as much value purpose in God's kingdom as any other household, even if it's not producing the same kinds of things that other households might produce. And so part of the work of faith as a disciple is to trust that God is present and at work in your particular mundane circumstances, even if things aren't going the way you want, or you don't have the job that you wish you had, or you wish you could give more to you know, charity or do more missions, whatever. Um, God meets you where you actually are, not where you wish you were, right? That's the the kingdom of God is among you now. And so you can trust the spirit of God to be at work among you. And is everything gonna be perfect? No. Are we gonna fail in many ways? Of course. But that's why this whole project doesn't depend on you anyway. You have a responsibility to live in light of it. But this is Christ's kingdom and Christ's church, he's the one building it, uh, he's the one bringing it to pass finally. So you can you can give yourself to the daily tasks of your life and trust that God is faithfully carrying out his eternal purposes through you and and around you.
SPEAKER_03:That's good. That's good. And amen. Um any um any other uh invitation. or challenge you would offer to to to the the church after you've kind of you've had this book out there for a while, you haven't had the the critical pushback, but you've seen some uh people implemented it on like on the big scale and some kind of more personal ones. Anything you would uh encourage folks um as they try to live this out a good question.
SPEAKER_01:I I think the thing for me that I'm still trying to figure out and I'll just share this because it's it's the part that I struggled with the most and I think I struggle to embody the most. I have a chapter in there about Sabbath and the importance of Sabbath for the Christian life and being um being able and free to love yourself and love others and love God. And that's the part that I think I still am not quite sure how to do. I I don't rest well. It doesn't come naturally to me and I think a lot of us are probably in that boat for a variety of different reasons. And our life going back to the neoliberal capitalism thing our life in the US is set up in such a way that we're not really allowed to rest. Our devices don't let us rest. Like so many things disallow rest. And I would just love for people wiser and more experienced than me to like aggregate here's things we have done as households to pursue rest. Because I just don't have enough ideas, creative things to do to reorient my life or the lives of my family to rest more. I I I really want to see how we might creatively do that uh when we don't have much control over the big picture stuff.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah so I need the what that's I need the church to give me money that I can uh so I can franchise a float spa in in Waco uh for us to do because I'm an evangelist for two things Jesus and float therapy uh I mean in in thinking of just like forced silence silence and solitude and forced like there is no there are no other distractions it's just you and the Lord like it's just for me on a monthly like on a monthly basis it's this it's this regular just time of really intense meditation and prayer but it's this but it's it's this reminder of my dependence on the Lord in a in a kind of uh in an in an inescapable in an inescapable way you you can get it in a little bit if you just like put your phone in another room uh for for for designated periods of time but like rest is really really important to me Emily especially like I mean I uh I I mostly because I like I hate being stressed out just like as a thing uh so not me so I just I know we all do but I'm just like but I'm just like I can't I can't do it so so it's important when you're when you're telling me about a forced time to be alone that scares the crap out of you. No it scares a lot of evil it scares a lot of evil oh it's so great though I believe you but I I simultaneously hate stress and love it it is my Yeah see you're I know people like you yeah that's and I mean well and that's all and that's a lot and then you could you'll I I think that's I think that's a lot of us I think that's a lot of us though like it's the it's a it's a drug it's a drug to a lot it's a it's a drug to a lot of us um and and but I I also want us to see how much it actually like I mean how much it actually weakens us because it because it it keeps us from experiencing particularly the peace that Christ has, the peace that Christ has for us, which is a peace that surpasses all understanding. But the means by which we actually get to enjoy that peace is if we are actually able to offer these things up to the Lord in prayer. And and that's in thinking of the kinds of practices that can actually cultivate rest and prepare us to rest well. I like I had to it it it was only when I started integrating kind of regular morning and evening prayer practice into my into my own life that I was that that that that that rest kind of took on a different took on a different flavor. It wasn't just kind of me not wanting to work. It was like me which which you know there's some of that too but but um but but where it's actually a rejuvenative rest. One of the first questions that I asked folks is even when I'm hanging out with folks is like what like what habits of of rejuvenative rest do you have? Not just like not just time to turn your brain off but like rest that actually strengthens strengthens you and very few of us have have those kinds of have those kinds of habits. So yeah I I I encourage us to think to think creatively about about that kind of that kind of rest.
SPEAKER_03:Well Emily thank you for this book uh I I I want to end with uh kind of where you began with the um the idea of it being an an answer something positive to kind of um not just critique what we've seen but also to say here's something better and I do think you've given the church uh something better of of seeing the the household the faith and you get you've you're including so many people by even just uh the way it's written the the research the amount of um you know different sources and authors that are put in there um it is absolutely amazing please we'll link the the book in our notes please go yeah get it by the droves yeah if you're listening to this podcast buy this book the best book on family out there right now it we will definitely be pushing it um Emily you're on sabbatical now but uh where can people find you uh online or anything like that? Yeah yeah I'm on let's see oh gosh I'm on Instagram I'm on blue sky I'm on threads I'm on Facebook oh you're on all of it I am not on Twitter's Twitter I am not there no i'm I'm still holding strong we're we're we're gonna reform it we gotta get off no we're not it's terrible I'm just I'm just too lazy um thank you we'll make sure we uh link that as well as your other books um but we look forward to to having you back on for the the next book after this sabbatical probably I'm guessing you're writing I am yeah I'm working a book on the saints oh right now okay nice cool yeah well thank you thank you Emily Bye well that was fantastic we are so grateful for Emily um but if you've been uh listening to this podcast as you know we always uh want to encourage you to uh write a a rating or review that's the best way to support the work if uh you found any of this helpful um it will help others get to hear of of Emily's work uh and get to to follow what she's doing there um but you can email us at hello at theologypieces.com and uh send in your questions uh or you can hit the the ask uh button right there right in your uh podcast device um but dear listeners thanks so much for listening we will see you in two weeks