Episode 340 - Dr. Andrew Bauman, "Safe Church: Addressing Misogyny and Abuse in Christian Communities"

Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. On today's episode, host Michael is rejoined by Dr. Andrew Bauman, a passionate advocate for creating healthier church communities and an illuminating voice on overcoming personal and systemic abuse. In this engaging conversation, they delve into Andrew's powerful journey, exploring the roots and revelations that led him to pen his latest book, "Safe Church: How to Guard Against Sexism and Abuse in Christian Communities."

Discover how Andrew, once caught in a cycle of addiction and objectifying views, transformed his past struggles into a mission of advocacy and healing. They discuss confronting sexism within the church, the intricate dynamics of power, and the essential work of deconstructing damaging beliefs to build a more inclusive and supportive faith community.

Transcript

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Restoring the Soul podcast. It's Michael. And I'm thrilled today to be talking to a frequent flyer on the Restoring the Soul podcast. You get that status when you return the second time, but. All right. It is Dr. Andrew Bauman. Hi, Andrew, welcome. Hey, thank you for having me. Glad to be with you again. I'm going to be holding up your book here. It's called Safe Church. I always have to turn and look at the subtitle, but it's important. Safe how to guard against sexism and abuse in Christian communities. And this has been. Not for you, just a book that you wrote, just to write a book. But it's been a labor of love. You said that it took you at least three years of researching and interviewing and really going deep into the subject. Tell me about how it got started. Yeah, and so the starting point, there's a lot of different entries. One of the entries is 2018. I was reading a study on sexism in the Valley, in the Silicon Valley, in the tech industry. And I was fascinated by the results and their heartbreaking results because it's a male dominated space. And that got me thinking, well, what about another male dominated space that I know of quite well, the church. And so that was kind of that jumping point of really wanting to dive into that research. So I ended up gathering information from over 2,800 women. And these aren't just random women off the street. These are women who worked in the church. 16% of them worked 25 years or more. Another 25% of them worked 16 years or longer. And so we've gathered all sorts of data. So that's one entry point. But then I would be remiss not to add before that. My entry point was my father was a pastor, and he also had a hidden life. Addicted to pornography, cheating on my mom, lying. My mom went numb, which left me orphaned, and the church became my father, the church became my mother. I was there seven days a week, morning and night. And so the church, I love the church. The church parented me in really insecure places. And that's what made me want to have a healthier version of it. So that's another layer. And then years later, I become a pastor and also addicted to pornography for 13 years. And realized my view, objectifying, pornified view of women began to mix with a degrading theology, a theology of oppression that interpreted certain texts that made women less than. Though none of us would say it out loud. That's kind of how it began to bleed into our Pornographic style of relating and our way of being and our way of doing church. And so that. That's another entry point of why this meant so much to me. So that was kind of the beginning of the why behind the why. And one of the things I really appreciated about the book, or do appreciate about the book, is as you just kind of gave us the overview, the book is really wrapped up in your own personal story. And as somebody who's written a couple of books with a lot of vulnerability in my own story, it's not easy to do. You know, people are like, oh, okay, you must have shared that story before somewhere on a platform. Platform or on a podcast. But thank you. Especially the story about your dad. And, you know, even as you just say that now and say that you were left orphaned and then the church became your mother and father, and as you unpack, in many ways, the church then abandoned you, and you were. You were reorphaned, which. Which led to the man that you are today in so many respects, no doubt. You also shared in the book about how when you were at a church, I think you were on staff at a church, and you were applying for another job or you were applying for a position and, like, you were the guy. It was down to you. And then you asked the question, or they brought up the issue about women in ministry, this issue of complementarianism versus egalitarianism, which probably back then, we didn't throw those terms around like we do. Right. And you basically found out that they supported women teaching and in ministry, and you walked away from the job. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a. I'm a youth pastor at a Southern Baptist church, and that's kind of all. All I knew and loved, Love to Teach, and was down to the final two people in this national search. In Seattle, I was moving out to start graduate school to become a therapist, and I needed a job. And I was like, hey, this is going to be easy. It was going to be great. I can do this in my sleep. And, you know, I am smoosh into them, and they're. They're loving me. And I am. I feel like this is. This is. I'm in. Right? And then all of a sudden, they say, do you know that we have a female pastor? And I. I mean, you might as well told me there was a pink elephant. Like, I had. I was shocked and I was stunned because I never heard of such a thing. Like, wow, that means you love Satan. Okay, well, I, like. And I just froze and I tried to act cool. With it, you know, because I'm in the middle of interview with the, you know, with the board or whatever and the deacon board and, and then the next day I was just like, I withdrew because I just couldn't get my head around it. And that ties into what I had been hearing my whole life. And the scripture verses that I thought were so clear that really are anything but. Right. And so it was always taught to me, if you want to be a good Christian, a Bible believing Christian, then this is what you women have this certain role. Right. And it's subordinate, it is less than. And I mean we can go, you know, I don't know how deep we want to dive into it, but that, you know, comes from Genesis 2. And you know, the, the idea of helpmate, which is the word ezer, which does not mean hamburger helper, it does not mean what we think it means. It's actually a better translation would be savior would be savior, which is wild because that word is used, I think. Let me pull up my notes here. I think it's 20 something times in the Bible and yet the way it's translated only three times it refers to, to women and yet eight times it's referred to God, actual God. So a better translation is Savior. And yet we have reduced it to this weird. It does not mean subordinate. You know, if anything it means equal or means ahead of God goes before us. And so we have translated these words and we have made women lessen, which I think fits a patriarchal system and misogyny, hatred of women that we have embedded into the text. And it's all mixed with, you know, sexual unhealth in our view of women. And it's, it's messy and we think it's God ordained and it's not. So that, that begs the question. And there's, you know, probably at least four years of, of, of graduate and postgraduate school and supervision toward licensure and everything of how you went from being that guy. Yes. That anybody who has that position on women, love Satan to where you are today. Right. And so unpack that a little bit. Yeah. So I am, you know, studying grad school. Dr. Dan Allender. This is, you know, 15, 20 years ago, I don't know how long ago, a long time ago. And just kind of beginning to deconstruct parts of my faith and my upbringing, my family. And then realizing like I'm so thankful God is not insecure like you and I are and God can handle my doubt and God can handle my questions. And so I began to Kind of take apart and then realizing, wow, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm not. You know, I'm not. I remember. I mean, one of the big stories is I'm in group, and it's our turn to share our story. And so I'm like, oh, man, I got this. So I share my story, which I got a big story, right? Sex, drugs, Jesus saves me. And I was like, oh, I slayed it. And I looked around thinking I just crushed it. And the professor's kind of mouth is open, and he's like, where are you? And realizing that I had performed and I had been a pastor, and I shared my testimony, and I had crafted it in such a way that there was no vulnerability. I was honest, but there was zero vulnerability, because I didn't need you. I wanted to craft a certain narrative, and my testimony was better than yours. And I could bring it in such a way that it affirmed my insecurities, security, that it affirmed that I was a scared little boy. And so all these things began to be confronted in me, you know, in ministry, my time with mystery, and then realizing, what does it mean for me to be fully authentic to me, to actually have integrity, because I truly believe God is truth. And so the more we live in truth, the more we experience God. And so I had to begin to get really honest with myself, face my deepest shame. And part of that was being an abuser of women, using women to objectify them, and beginning to realize that is not congruent with the man I want to be. I love that. Rather than a pressure or some kind of shame hanging over your head, it was more the aspiration and that getting in touch with the yearning for who you actually are. I love that. Awakening something deeper in you. Exactly. Exactly. And realizing. I can't tell you the exact day I stopped looking at porn. But I'm realizing, okay, it's about 14, 15 years ago. I outgrew that adolescent behavior. I outgrew it because it no longer fit with the man I was becoming. And, you know, back to the. The word ezer and the fact that it means savior, which I'm sure is going to ruffle some feathers. And that's perfectly okay, because I can imagine some men in particular going, oh, that. That can't be. You know, and they want to go check the Greek. But please, that idea of savior, you know, I've said many times of my wife and I've been married 34 years, that she's helped me more than anyone else to Grow up. Exactly. And to. To go from. And, you know, people like Eldridge and others have written well about how we are unfinished men and how only men can invite us into that journey. But a big part of that is. Is how if we live with a woman of integrity who herself is committed to becoming whole. Yes. That they invite us to wholeness and to become men. It's so true. My marriage has exposed me more than any other relationship in my life. Right. It's the closest thing to heaven and the closest thing to hell I've ever experienced. And yet it makes me such. Christy, my wife, makes me a much better man, and sometimes I don't like her for it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the irony, too, of your position with that Southern Baptist Church is that you're married to a very strong, ambitious, brilliant woman who has published many books and has a doctorate herself. And that wouldn't have flown very long if that situation hadn't happened at the church. Right. Somehow I remember. Yeah. No, I remember. I introduced her. We're dating. And I introduced her to my pastor buddy. You know, he's a friend of mine. We're all. We're all white men. We all grew up with a similar. We're all buddies, and we had a blast. I loved my job there. And I introduced Christy, and I remember him pulling me aside and saying, andrew, don't you want more of a helpmate? And I sat there and I thought about it, and I was like, no, actually, I knew my darkness enough that I could steamroll. I have a strong enneagram 8 strong personality. I needed a woman to take me on. I didn't want just a woman to just be like, you know, Andrew, you're awesome. I'm going to help you boost your ministry, your career. Like, I wanted a teammate that could run just as fast as me. I had a lot of goals. I had a lot of aspirations. I want somebody that is in the ditch with me, you know, that is fighting with me, alongside of me, a partner. And this is the mutuality. This is a healthier marriage. You know, this is rather than, oh, I have a penis, so I have to do this. It's like, no, no. It doesn't mean we share responsibility, because we're a team. Sometimes I'm better at certain things, sometimes she's better at certain things. And we'll assign a team captain and we'll follow each other. And to me, that is. That type of mutuality is what actually God is calling us to. Because I truly believe there's no hierarchy In Christ, right, Acts 2, 18, Spirit, both men and women will prophesy. Or Galatians 3, 28. Right. We are all one in Christ. No Jew or Greek, male or female. And that, to me, is a healthier relationship. You know, there's a line from Bono on the album, no Line on the Horizon song of the same name, and it's this little insertion that he does as the song fades out. And the line is, women of the future hold a big revelation. And that song was written before the MeToo movement. And I've seen this. What started out as a trickle and then a flood, and now something that, you know, it kind of pulled back and seemed to go on pause, and there's politics and all kinds of reaction to it, but that there is an awakening in the church where the oppression of women is being addressed, and there's more and more freedom happening. And as. As Nicholas Kristoff from the New York Times says, the other half of the sky, that women are half the sky. And it's really beautiful to see. And I want to thank you. And this is part of my story as well, is taking your own brokenness in what you've just very honestly called, you know, you being an abuser of women and taking that and turning it around and becoming an advocate. So it's fun to know that you're an enneagram 8, because the healthier you get with each of our numbers, you become an advocate, a champion. And I loved. Let's just. I want to dig a little bit deeper into the content, but I'll start with your last chapter. Your last chapter was called Creating Safe Church, and it was about a page and a half long. And you said, here's what I set out to do, and here's what I didn't set out to do. And I thought that was a really interesting way to close the book. Like, okay, you could almost have started with that chapter, but it was more fitting at the end. Talk about what you set out to do and what you didn't set out to do. Yeah, What I didn't want this to be and do is some, like, theological mansplain of, like, you know, here's. Here's what women. You know, here's. Let me tell you. Let me. Right. Let me. Rather than. No, I was an investigative journalist, and I studied what, like, women are leading this. And so I didn't want to come across as this, you know, pompous authority that I was telling women about their experience when really I was like, no, I've been in a position of power since I was a teenager because I was an articulate, you know, smart guy, and I was put in leadership positions. And that blinded me. That blinded me to marginalized, that blinded me to women. And yet when I look at Jesus and see his engagement with women, I'm like, wow, this is so opposite of the churches that I've been a part of and how we engage women. And so that was kind of that of wanting to explain. Like, this is, you know, I come as a humble investigative journalist to say, hey, I want to use my power and my privilege and, you know, my platform to help elevate women's voices rather than kind of, you know, take over and kind of mansplain what women are experiencing. Yeah. And you've really dedicated your life and career to that now, integrated with everything you're doing. Yes, That's. That's the goal. Right. That's. You know, as I've. As I've worked with men with sexual brokenness, and I guess I'll go ahead and say this. I wrote surfing for God 13 years ago, and about five years in, I just had this sense of. I'm tired of talking with people about pornography and how to stop looking at pornography. And I really realized I never really set out to help people break free from pornography. What I really set out to do was to use that or the abuse behind it or whatever, to talk about the restoration of the heart and therefore to take that ripple effect and to have that go into marriages and ultimately to. To bring equality and wholeness to the body of Christ. That's kind of the pastor's heart behind it. And I. I just have not read something by. By a man that has been as unashamed and as bold in the call that you have. The book is really written for women on behalf of women, but it's also something that every man should read. Definitely. Yeah. And who's. You know, it's. 87% of churches are male led. You know, 87% of churches are male led. And yet, what about our blind spots? What if we lay down our defensiveness? What if we begin to not be reactive and we start listening? What will happen? What will happen? And I truly believe we'll be. We'll. We'll start making a safer church for all. Yeah, right. And I wonder if, you know, and I get some heat for this, but I'm wondering if me kind of telling men to look at systems of power and laying down their own power, if they're afraid that women will then do to them what they've done to women. We're not advocating for another oppressive class to take over and abuse. Right. Advocating for mutuality because God's image is in all of us. Right. And so if you are a church leader, what does it mean to do your own healing work first? Begin to focus on, okay, what. What was my. What is my story? What was my story? What was my. What was I taught about masculinity and femininity growing up? What was, what did I. What did I bring into my leadership roles? What are some of my blind spots? What are some of the women in my life telling me about what it's like to be in relationship with me? And that's a good place to start. That's a good place to start, but that's a terrifying place to start if you've, if you've not. If you've not had an experience where being vulnerable is a good thing. Yes. And, you know, implicit in everything that you wrote on every page is this idea that you just, you summarize in a beautiful way, but that the pain that's not transformed in us will be transmitted. And we may not become a pedophile with kids in our youth group, and we may not embezzle money or be misogynistic from the pulpit, but somehow that pain is going to be transmitted. And oftentimes. And let's dive into this subject in oppressive, unhealthy spirituality and theology. Yes. So I want to spend the rest of the time talking about spiritual abuse because that can be so much more subtle. And I think every single person that I work with at restoring the soul, regardless of their presenting problem, that when you begin to peel back the layers and hear their story, that there's spiritual abuse there. Yes. Yes. First of all, define spiritual abuse as you did in the book. It's. Yeah, it's. It is very, as you say, it's insidious because it's different than other forms of abuse. But a simple definition, basically improper power over rather than power shared. But basically, it's. Spiritual abuse is seeking power and control over others, but invoking God on your side. Right. So that's. Who can argue with God? I win. Right. Like it's a shutdown and it's an attempt to take power over rather than shared power. And so that happens. Unfortunately, we see it in the church all the time, and unfortunately, so many times it's undeveloped. Right. People who have not done their own work, you can't bring people further than you've gone yourself. And so when you have unaddressed Wounds, unprocessed trauma is always reenacted in our present day life. It just is. It's reenacted again and again and again. And so you have to address what's going on inside of you, right? And so if you have poor interpretations of scripture, right, that are misguided or mixed in with pornographic mindset and a low view of women, then of course that's going to lead to problematic theology and teaching, right? So if you have a pastor who's really committed to teaching a lot about modesty, you know, like, okay, what, what's going on sexually? Like, I'm so curious why you feel like this is the hill you need to die on, right? Because a lot of times stuff is, other stuff is going on. So I think about this one pastor who tweeted, dear ladies, there is no reason whatsoever for you to post a picture of yourself in low cut shirts, bikinis, bras, underwear, anything similar whatsoever. Not to show your weight loss journey, not to show your newborn baby, not to document your birth story. Signed your brothers. Wow, again, that sounds so whatever. And then I love the response from the comedian Dustin Nickerson. He says, dear Donuts, there's no reason whatsoever for you to be so delicious. You look so good, you smell so good, you taste better than anything ever. Me eating eight of you and having no self control is on you for just being the way you are. My character flaws are your fault. Signed your brothers, right? And that idea of like, wait a minute, how many times have we blamed women and put it on modesty or put it on purity rather than take ownership of our unaddressed shame or our pornified view of women. How many times? Because I don't want to deal with my shame. I'd rather just feel good about myself and think I'm doing something good and leave the door open if I'm meeting with a woman and feel, feel good. It's so much of it is a projection of our unhealed wounds and our unaddressed shame. We have to deal with it rather than allowing our unhealth to become part of our theology. So I'm just going to reflect that back for our listeners and I want you to kind of go to even a deeper level with that, that so much of what we're seeing with spiritual abuse is about our unhealed wounds and our unaddressed shame. Yes. And so whether it's the oppression of women and extremely rigid, oppressive theologies, or whether it's the more explicit kinds of abuse that we hear about, you know, with pastors and scandals and things like that, that it's really about their story, that they've not done that work, that they've not stepped into their brokenness, that they've not frankly had some kind of experience of disorientation where they start to come undone. You know, we, the word deconstruction, of course, is, is charged. It's, it's almost passe now. But I like just this, this word of if you've not come undone, if you've not begun to be disoriented in what you once believe, you're not growing, you're not evolving. Yes. And it's embracing futility. Right. It's embracing crucifixion, it's stepping into places that we don't feel mastery over, that we feel fear, but we have to run towards that place so we can actually experience new life and resurrection. ANDREW Another implication of what we're talking about is the very definition of the Gospel. And I know that because I studied under dan and others 35 years ago, that the education that you had in graduate school was very centered around this good news message. And yet so many of the denominations and the churches and the leaders that talk about the gospel talk about it in very propositional terms and in very transactional terms. So the gospel is Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment and the penalty that we deserved. And once you accept that and ask Jesus into your heart, then you're a Christian. But the gospel is so much more, right. It's this, it's God saying, this is who I am, this is what I'm like in the person of Jesus. And that it's about the kingdom now. And therefore we can experience restoration, that we can become whole. And so it's almost as if the more there's a transactional emphasis on the gospel, the more theology has to be protected and doctrines have to be protected. That's right, yeah. I'm reminded of the legend Dr. Diane Lamberg and her quote in her book Redeeming Power. Great book. Understand that you cannot single handedly change an entire system. You're not called to do so. Yet we are still called to speak truth about our system. Right. This is difficult to do, sometimes quite risky. Just ask Martin Luther King Jr. Ask Martin Luther himself. Ask those in the Me Too movement. When, when systems change, it is often little by little and usually at a great cost. When you feel overwhelmed, remember this. People are sacred, created in the image of God. Systems are not. They are only worth the people in them and the people they serve. People are to be treated, whether one or many, the way Jesus Christ treated people. I just love that quote. It's just so

poignant. And I think of, you know, in Luke 4: 26:52

18, when Jesus talks about his mission and his purpose to set the captives and the prisoners free. Yeah, yeah. I love that. That people are sacred and systems are not. I would go so far as to say that people are sacred and doctrines are not. Yes, exactly. Yes. So I'm going to read you a quote because this is one of my favorites. I'm sure you're familiar with Toni Morrison, the, I think, Nobel Prize in Literature. She said, our world feasts at the table of God, the judge, and is left starved and malnourished. This table has been set up in exclusive buildings and agreed upon creeds and membership. But ours is a time to feast at the table of God as redeemer, God as healer, God as mother, and the church as a hospital. Beautiful. The picture of the church, you called it. In the last sentence of your book, you said something about how your hope for the bride and how the church is the bride. And talk a little bit about this may be unplanned, but. So all through scripture, we call God father. And Jesus taught, you know, when you pray, pray this way. Our Father who art in heaven and yet God is not a man. Yes, God. And, you know, people get out their, you know, feathers all ruffled or that it's some, you know, liberal, you know, progressive takeover of God. And it's just God transcends gender. That's we. If God were just a man, then God would not say men and women bear my image like God transcends gender. That's all we're saying here. Right. And so what would it mean to deepen your spiritual walk to understand God is mother, God as one who holds us a mother hen. I think it's in Isaiah, right? Like describing God like, it's okay. The scripture was written by men in patriarchal societies and cultures. And we've lost a lot of the feminine aspects of God. And it's okay to reclaim those without offending God. Or it's just like. No, actually it's. Deepen my faith. Understanding more fully in my wife's work in understanding this, understanding God as mother and understanding the feminine aspects of God, it's deep in my face. But what I find is a lot of men that are threatened by that are actually just really insecure men. Yeah. Nothing to do with God. Two years ago, I went and spent some time with a mutual friend. I won't Say his name so that he's not implicated without his permission. But I was going through a journey in my late 50s where I had to do some mom work. My mom passed away 25 years ago and had a. A very ambivalent relationship with her. And I've. I've not felt a lot since she passed. There's just been this kind of numbness and this detachment there. And so I sat down with this man who is a New York Times bestselling author and who I, I deeply respect his faith. And I, I said, so, you know, you know my story and, you know, what would you do? And he paused for a long time, you know, one of these kind of hand on the chin moments, and he said, I, I want to invite you to ask Jesus to have his mother Mary mother you. Beautiful. And this man was not Catholic, and that's my tradition. And I was like, what? You're, you're, you're saying what? And I just teared up and I thought, oh, that would be, that would be so wonderful. Beautiful. And for a time, I would go to the local Catholic church and I would just sit in the, in the chapel and I would gaze upon the statue of Mary that's there on the, on the, the left side of the altar. And there was something beautiful and healing about it. The tenderness, the radiance, the softness, the mercy that was there just in looking at a statue. And it wasn't worship of a, of a, of a idol, it was the icon where Mary became the representation of God that I needed at that particular moment. Exactly. And that's, that's going to help heal the wounded little boy that's still in you. Yes. That, that needs that care that many times, especially men, we can have self contempt towards that. Those young, tender places within us when really they need our loving care and our tenderness and us to hold them. And so in that moment, it feels like that was God's invitation for you. Yes. Yeah. And in my late 50s, frankly, I was pissed off that I still needed to deal with that little boy. Of course, you know, and so I went to this friend with kind of this idea of give me a prayer to pray or, you know, a verse to meditate on. And it wasn't that easy. It was Jesus saying, nope, there's more work to do. Yes. So with, with spiritual abuse, because you're a therapist and you and your wife, Dr. Christy Bauman, run the center for Sexual Health. That's the name of your organization, the. Christian Counseling center for Sexual Health and Trauma. Christian Counseling center for sexual health and trauma. That's got to be an interesting acronym. Ccc. That's what we just, we call it ccc. Okay. In your work there, you are addressing sexual brokenness. But that sexual brokenness obviously includes things like spiritual abuse and the simple idea that, and I'm saying this from having had conversations with women and my wife and growing up with three sisters and working with thousands of women hearing those stories, what you do includes helping women come out from under the oppression and the abuse of just being women in a male dominated world. Exactly. It's in the water. Right? So you can't just address again, porn use or you can't just. We have to address what we've been living, what we've been marinating in is. Right. The objectification of women. I mean, I remember some of the ads in the early 90s, you know, super bowl ads. Or it's just like we have been commodifying women and then add in porn, add in like, add in what we've been inundated with and it's like that is a form of sexual abuse, not only impacts men, but. But a patriarchal stress disorder. Like it impacts women living. I think my wife refers to this research in New Zealand that showed women who live in objectified cultures die eight years earlier. It's like this is wrecking our bodies, wrecking the bodies of women. And so our approach to sexual health can't just be up, here's 10 steps to stop looking at porn. It's got to be understanding the systems at play that including theological systems that have propped up our entitlement and have propped up men to continue to enable abuse. So what are the steps for a woman who has not been to therapy or she's not begun to say, wow, I've been negatively impacted by men. Or even maybe a really good woman who loves God who says, I don't know what you're talking about. I've lived in the world and I had a good dad and good brothers and that kind of thing. And again, that's great. I'm glad you had a great dad. That's awesome. And yet we have to begin to listen to stories of women that have not had that experience. And that has not been the normative experience of most. So reading, obviously my book Safe Church reading stuff by Dr. Not Sheila Gregoire, some of her, you know, research the Great Sex Rescue and realizing, oh, these, some of these messages that have been propped up by evangelical Christians are incredibly damaging. Some of these books are incredibly damaging and harming thousands of people. And yet we have taken it as gospel truth. When I actually think it's just projection of unhealed wounds within the authority, that is profound. I mean, it's just profound to take what we call gospel truth, whether it's the belief that you had as a Southern Baptist or me growing up as a young Christian, 1980, listening to Focus on the Family every day. And again, Dr. Jim Dobson is a brother in Christ, but massive assumptions about gender and about how to experience change. Just get more of the Word in. Just listen to more sermons. And therefore, this personal work of going below the surface and looking at how we've been formed and how our brokenness shapes us, that. That's not necessary. Yes, yes. And the messaging, I mean, again, I know you're not being on social media, but this week I kind of ran into a bit of a buzz saw with Focus on the Family kind of confronting them on some messages that they. And I did it in a kind, respectful way. But the messaging simply was, you know, women, love. Love your husbands into healing, Love your husbands into transformation. You, being a faithful spouse, will call them, you know, and it was just like, I get the attempt of what you're saying to do, but if we continue this message of putting the responsibility of transformation on women to just love your husbands more, I mean, that's what I heard from thousands of women in my research. Their husband would be caught in infidelity or porn use. They'd go to their pastor and say, what do I do? And the response would, have you forgiven him yet? Right. You've been the Christian longer. Don't you think you need to represent Christ? And it's this gaslighting, this weaponizing of forgiveness, this cheap grace that holds women to a higher standard and continues to put men. Like we're cavemen or something. Men are so capable of emotional depth, intimacy, but we have called them to so little. And I'm so tired of those messaging that men take and then weaponize and women take and internalize and we're back in the system. We're back in this toxic system that nobody's getting better. You can't be spiritually healthy if you're not emotionally healthy. They're connected. Speak. You know what is that? Segaro's work on the emotional healthy church? It's like we've got to realize these are deeply intertwined. Right? Right. Yeah. There's no spiritual depth without emotional depth. There's no spiritual wholeness and maturity without emotional maturity. Andrew, how can people find out about your other books and your work as well as the work that you and Christy do at your center. Yeah. So you know, main platform I'm active on have a large platform on Facebook. So follow me there. And then also you can check I got an active blog@andrewjbauman.com and then our business is www.christiancc.org and we have workshops all over the country running regularly and love to have you come out and dive in deep with us. Well, brother, I hope someday we get to meet face to face and sure we will. Thank you for the work that you do. There's a lot of people that I've crossed paths with that have worked with your intensive programs and your weekends and I highly commend the work that you're doing. So thank you for your time today and thank you for safe church. Yes, I want to spread the word about this book and all that you put into it. Bless you. Thank you, Michael.