65. Responding to TPUSA Women’s Conference

Summary

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Flipping Tables – Responding to TPUSA Women’s Conference

Host: Monte Mader
Guest: Dr. Beth Allison Barr
Date: June 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the core messages, history, and consequences of the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) Women’s Leadership Conference, where conservative Christian influencers promoted traditional gender roles, anti-feminism, and women’s subjugation under the pretext of biblical truth. Monte, a former evangelical fundamentalist, is joined by Dr. Beth Allison Barr, medieval historian and author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood, for a deep, critical examination of how the rhetoric from this conference reflects larger movements in evangelical and political spaces—and what history and scripture actually say about women, power, and Christianity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Surge of Conservative Rhetoric on Women’s Roles

• Increased Intensity: Dr. Barr notes a marked intensification of conservative rhetoric targeting women's roles, both in online spaces and in events like the TPUSA conference.
  • “The rhetoric has gotten stronger... There is increased anxiety about women’s role in the wider world as well as in the church and increased concern to make women try to support conservative measures that silence their voices.” – Dr. Barr [02:42]
• Strategic Motivation: The movement needs women to succeed politically. There’s uncertainty, so mobilizing women is paramount.
  • Social media allows exposure to alternative ideas, so conservative leaders brand dissent as “satanic” or “demonic.”
  • “In order for this conservative movement to succeed, they need women... they’re ramping up that attempt to get women on board with it.” – Dr. Barr [03:36]

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2. Demonization and Dehumanization as Tools for Control

• Language of “Satanic” and “Demonic”:

  • Monte mentions the increase in labeling dissent as demonic, tying it to childhood memories in strict churches.
  • “Instead of someone having a different political ideology... now they’re enemies of God.” – Monte [05:03]

• Historical Context:

  • Dr. Barr elaborates on the long-standing tradition in church history of blaming women—citing figures like Tertullian (“You are the devil’s gateway.”) [06:29], Jerome, and Augustine.

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3. History of Witch Trials, Abortion, and “Feminism as Satanic”

• Myths from the Malleus Maleficarum & Demonization of Feminism:

  • Monte plays a TPUSA speaker clip equating feminism and abortion to witchcraft and spiritual warfare [13:49].
  • Dr. Barr debunks this, tying misconceptions to a misused medieval text (Malleus Maleficarum, 1486), not actual Christian doctrine or history.
    • “The Malleus Maleficarum... is very concerned about sexuality, about male impotence, women who steal life... it was condemned by the Catholic Church.” – Dr. Barr [15:15]
  • Monte notes the original biblical terms for “Satan” simply meant “adversary”—not a demonized figure as later interpreted [21:56].

• Abortion through History:

  • Abortion had different moral and theological meanings historically; quickening marked “ensoulment”—not conception.
  • Medicalization and property/power struggles displaced women from medicine, fueling witch hunts and abortion bans [26:04].
  • “Throughout most of human history... there wasn’t seen as a soul attached... until quickening.” – Dr. Barr [27:36]

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4. Rhetoric of Forced Motherhood & “Replacement Theory”

• Have “More Kids Than You Can Afford”:

  • Influencers like Isabel Brown promote having children regardless of readiness or resources [31:13].
  • Dr. Barr links this to white supremacist “Replacement Theory”—a fear that white Christians are being “replaced” demographically; this rhetoric is not applied to Black or Brown women [31:45].
  • Privilege is at play: most influencers come from comfortable backgrounds and lack lived experience with poverty [33:56].

• Contradictions:

  • Although these influencers urge women to stay home and have kids, they themselves are career women profiting off these messages [12:10], [53:27].

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5. The Weaponization of Women’s Work, Historical Labor, and Feminism

• Women’s Work & Feminism:

  • Poor women and women of color have always worked—the fight was to receive fair pay and recognition, not “to work” itself [42:41].
  • The suffrage and feminist movements were born from recognizing poverty, lack of birth control, and brutal labor [36:40].
  • “Feminism... was born in the working-class lives of these women... They had no choices.” – Dr. Barr [43:01]

• Erasure of Black Women’s History:

  • The conservative Christian narrative omits Black women’s struggles for equality and leadership (e.g., Sojourner Truth) [39:24].

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6. Voting, Suffrage, and Racialized Exclusion

• Women Against the Vote?:

  • Influencers (e.g., Savannah Stone) express willingness to forfeit their right to vote for a more “conservative” nation [47:28].
  • Dr. Barr emphasizes such views have racist undertones, aiming to exclude Black and Brown women from political participation [48:11].

• US Suffrage History:

  • Voting rights were hard-won—women risked lives, faced violence and imprisonment, and were often erased from legal personhood [44:21], [46:16].

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7. The Trad Wife and "Quiverfull" Movements

• Trad Wife Irony:

  • “Trad wife” influencers espouse staying home, submitting, and domestic “fulfillment”—while making content for profit, showing a business side to the movement [69:23].
  • This recalls 19th-century and post-WWII propaganda which tried to confine women to the home after periods of autonomy [71:48], [72:43].
  • “You don’t see trad wife influencers in their forties, fifties and sixties... the women are burnout or gone or traded in for a newer model.” – Monte [69:08]

• Quiverfull Language:

  • Having many children is framed as spiritual warfare (“breed them out”), dehumanizing both children and mothers—turning them into soldiers or pawns for a cause [83:00], [80:26].

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8. Purity Culture, Consent, and Sexual Abuse

• Purity Culture as a Vehicle for Abuse:
  • Teachings about obedience, female submission, and sexual purity directly correlate with systems that enable sexual abuse and child exploitation (e.g., Bill Gothard, patterns in SBC) [63:11], [64:21].
  • Women and children are deprived of autonomy, privacy, and the education to recognize and report abuse [65:26].
  • “Purity culture inherently does not believe in consent. It is inherently pedophilic... a hyperfixation on ‘untouched’ is about children.” – Monte [63:15]

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9. Christian Nationalism vs. Christianity

Monte provides a checklist to distinguish Christian Nationalism from Christianity:

• Nationalism sanctifies country over God; Christianity does not [88:03].
• Racial & cultural gatekeeping vs. universal inclusion.
• Goal of political power vs. personal and community transformation.
• Reading the Bible as a political weapon vs. guide for spiritual formation.
• Demonization of dissent as “evil”; biblical teaching stresses love for enemies [93:21].
• Signaling wealth and power as signs of God’s favor vs. Christ’s teachings on poverty and humility.
• Victimhood narrative to mobilize power (“persecution” claims).
• Compliance enforced over true conversion by choice.

“They don’t actually believe in free will. They’re going to create a system politically and legally where you have to adhere to their belief system because they don’t actually believe in free will.” – Monte [86:33]

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10. Role of Education and Dialogue

• Education as Liberation:
  • Both host and guest stress that history, context, and critical thinking free women from cycles of subjugation [90:43].
  • Book clubs, honest conversations, cross-political friendships, and exposure to diverse narratives are key [101:17].
  • “I think a good way to do this at an ordinary level is to do things like book groups... Let’s look and see what feminism actually is.” – Dr. Barr [101:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If something is dirty after you touch it, the problem is your hands.” – Sophia Isella (quoted by Monte) [63:59]

• “We have created a Christian world that doesn’t allow us to use our brains... We are being told not to use that. And it’s just sad and terrifying because we are seeing the consequences.” – Dr. Barr [89:15]

• “Their goal is to polarize... if we’re infighting and we’re paying attention to everybody else, we’re not paying attention to the boot on our neck.” – Monte [102:36]

• “Feminism protects the home.” – Dr. Barr [62:34]

• “Introducing Taco Bell’s new Jalapeno Citrus Salsa...” [Ad break, skipped]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and TPUSA Overview: [00:46]
• Dr. Barr’s Take on Rising Rhetoric: [02:42]
• Demonization of Dissent: [05:03]
• History of Witch Trials & Abortion: [13:49], [15:15], [21:56]
• Trad Wife/Quiverfull & Weaponization of Motherhood: [67:55], [80:26], [83:00]
• Voting & Exclusion: [47:28], [48:11]
• Purity Culture and Abuse: [63:11], [65:26]
• Christian Nationalism vs. Christianity: [88:03], [93:21]
• Education, Dialogue, and Moving Forward: [101:17], [102:36]

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Closing Thoughts & Calls to Action

• Resist polarization and infighting. Recognize who benefits from female division.
• Value cross-ideological friendships and honest questions.
• Leverage education and relationships to break cycles of misinformation and subjugation.
• Vote as if future generations’ rights depend on it.

“Are we going to create a more just society that looks like the kingdom of God, that vision that Jesus gave before us, or are we going to let Empire just keep winning?” – Dr. Barr [104:31]

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Resources & Further Learning

• Dr. Beth Allison Barr on Instagram & Substack ("Marginalia")
• Books:
  • The Making of Biblical Womanhood
  • Becoming the Pastor’s Wife
  • The Five (Hayley Rubenhold, recommended)
  • Revelation for the Rest of Us (Scott McKnight)
  • Excavating Women (Karina Prestes)
• Podcast: “All the Buried Women” (with Savannah Locke)

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For listeners, this episode is both a comprehensive guide and a rallying call: to know the difference between faith and ideology, to become historically literate, and to act for a more just society where women have true autonomy and dignity—rooted not in fear, but in love and equity.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

this year, Turning Point USA had a women's Leadership conference really focused on getting women back in the home. Married, young, submitting to their husbands, having as many kids as possible, all preached from career women who were educating women on how not to do those things and get that same financial security for themselves. This is going to be a little bit different of an episode today for Flipping Tables. I have with me Dr. Beth Allison Barr, who's an American historian, currently a James Vardaman Endowed professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. And her specialties include European women, medieval and early modern England, and church history. You've heard me talk about her book repeatedly, the Making of Biblical Womanhood, how the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, and most recently Becoming the Pastor's Wife, the role of the pastor's wife and the leadership of specific chosen women in order to encourage the subjugation of other women. She is going to be here today. We are going to talk all about Turning Point USA's conference, the move right now in conservative Christians to push women back into the kitchen, back into the home, lots of babies and it's it's wider influence on history and our future moving forward. This is Flipping Tables Foreign. Thank you for hello.

[B]

Hello. Thanks for having me back.

[A]

If you guys have been listening to Flipping Tables For a while, Dr. Barr came on last year and we talked specifically about your book. We talked a little bit more about this. I think since we last talked there has been such a bigger push of this conservative Christian rhetoric around the subjugation of women. Be silent, submit to your husband. Your only role is wife and mother and be quiet and happy while you do it. How have you been how, what have you kind of noticed for you, what has changed since when we talked last year to this year?

[B]

Oh, absolutely. The rhetoric has gotten stronger and has gotten much more, you know, if you think about the online influencers, if you think about the material that's coming out of these conferences, if you think about the level of visibility in people like Doug Wilson and Pete Heth, who are also part of this movement. And then, of course, if you've been following, and I know we're going to talk about at the Southern Baptist Convention, which also has come out with the most restrictive limits on women's roles in the church and really church history, we see there there is increased anxiety about women's role in the wider world as well as in the church and increased concern to make women try to support conservative measures that silence their voices.

[A]

And why, why do you think the big push is happening now?

[B]

Yeah, I think it's twofold. I think one of the reasons is because you can't, this won't succeed without women. And we're at a moment where there it is uncertain if it's going to succeed because of the political climate, because of the, you know, the people are beginning to become aware of what is going on with the Trump regime and all of the, not just misconduct, but just the outright fraud, if I can use their own words, and the chaos that it's causing. And so in order for this conservative movement to succeed, they need women. I mean, this is actually the crux of it. And so they're uncertain right now if it's going to succeed. And so they're really ramping up that attempt to get women on board with it. So I think that's one of the reasons. And then I think another reason is that with the advent of social media, this is something that we've been watching, you know, for 10, 15 years now, is there's much more accessibility for women to actually hear a different side of the story. And there are more and more women who are hearing a different side of the story. So I think they're becoming more vehement about trying to say, you know, in fact, even saying that if you listen to something different than this conservative ideology, then it's satanic, it's demonic, and so trying to keep people from listening to a different interpretation of the Bible.

[A]

Well, and I also think, you know, I, I've noticed a huge uptick in the rhetoric around these people are demonic. This is Satan. And I remember that from when I was young. Like anything that my church didn't agree with anything my dad didn't agree with. All of it was satanic and demonic. Because now instead of someone having a different political ideology than you, now they're enemies of God. And, and the Southern Baptist Convention there was. I can't remember the pastor's name. I tried to find it really quickly, but he essentially tweeted in. In. I'm paraphrasing here, but he was like, I love the women of our church. I respect them. They do most of the work. Yeah, but they can't lead. Like he full out admitted, we need their free labor. They hold the church up on their backs, but we will not acknowledge their leadership. We will use their time, their money, their bodies, their reproduction, but we cannot tolerate their voice. And I felt like that was such a demonstration of what this is. But to your point, and the reason that I have a platform is, is there's more accessibility to knowledge and education now people are hearing different takes on scripture and even challenges to scripture of like, hey, we have this list of books that Paul didn't write. And they've been weaponized because men in the church like Tertullian and Jerome and Augustine, who really did not like women being in leadership. We're going to get into some of this history too. Really didn't like it. Tertullian had some. Wow. Things to say.

[B]

You are the devil's gateway. Yeah, the devil's gateway.

[A]

And we're going to get into that. But I just thought that this was such a relevant moment. I've also been getting a lot of questions on Instagram around purity culture and what is women's role? What does the Bible actually say? Because a large percentage of my followers are actual Christians who really want to get it right. They really, they really hold their faith sacred. But they also, you know, are. Are in this place of. I don't believe that a good, loving, just God would create half the race to be subjugated. And I'm like, you would be correct.

[B]

Yeah, you would be correct.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

You know, I think that's important for, for people to realize is that a lot of the people who are following the, you know, TPUSA and following the Southern Baptist Convention, they are doing it because they honestly believe that this is biblical and they, they want to be faithful Christians. And so I think it's really important that, that we help those people who really just want to be faithful understand that they can be faithful and not be a part of this conservative political push.

[A]

Yep. And, and also that, that especially as a woman, that you can be faithful and have autonomy and a voice and be protected.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You know, and I, I've been reflecting a lot and I think we'll get into some of this too in the episode. I've been reflecting a lot on who I was in my late teens and my early 20s. And I was, I was exactly like these young women. Exactly the same. I was parroting the same beliefs. I had all the talking points. I had no idea. I was defending and protecting abusive men. I was, I didn't know. Me too. And I didn't know that I was also throwing every other woman under the bus. I had no idea what I was pushing for. And so I've been feeling a lot of. I've been trying to have a lot of self awareness and a lot of compassion. Especially because these women overall are so young. They are so young.

[B]

I was watching one of the videos and you know, I have a 16 year old and, um, they were interviewing two 16 year old girls and I was just thinking, I was just seeing my daughter there and I was like, yes, I. I want them to know there is a different path.

[A]

Yep. Because I truly, you know, and I don't get into the weeds too much with my own faith on my platform because I don't want to participate in religious indoctrination because I want people to ask their own questions and look at data and come to a conclusion. I'll teach, I'll give, and then it's your job to, to wrestle with it and figure that out. But for me, I just, I just do not believe in a God who would justify slavery, subjugation, racism, cruelty, animosity. You cannot stamp God on any of those things. And I believe you.

[B]

Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. You know, and I think one of my favorite theologians right now is actually a medieval woman named Hildegard of Binga. And you would love her. You would love her. And one of the things that she, you know, she wrote about 50 years before Thomas Aquinas. And one of my. I strongly believe that if Hildegard's theology had become dominant instead of Thomas Aquinas, we would live in a different world. Because she argued that it wasn't a hierarchy. She. One of her most famous beautiful sayings is that woman ends where man begins and man begins where woman ends. And this idea of that, it is this, this beautiful circle that God has created in which we have to function together. But neither we are, we are, we are all part of this. And the. So I just. We have gotten to a place now where so many people believe that the God God of Christianity and the God of Judaism and the God of Islam, they believe that God created one set of human beings to be in superiority and to lord it over others.

[A]

Yeah. And Hildegard's teaching, that reminds me of like the traditional belief in the Hebrew scripture and the Talmud of Adama, the being, because that's not a gendered name. It most closely resembles earthling. Like, that's the closest translation, the earth human, the earth person was split in two by God in Genesis 1, creating man and female. And. And even the. The translation in Genesis 2 of. Of side. It doesn't mean rib salah means like side of a mountain, side of the house. And it's. It's this idea which is more accurate with ancient traditions of the. The two genders were equal parts and both representations of the spectrum of God.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And part of this whole. And I think that we've lost so much beauty of that because I. I listen to the words. And it's so ironic, too, so many of these young girls that we're going to respond to and that spoke. Even some of the women that spoke at the tpusa, they have themselves listed as pastors, even though that's against the belief system.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're all career women. They're all making a lot of. Of money doing what they're doing, saying what they're saying online. They are getting paid a lot of money. I would be interested to know how much money like Savannah Stone and Isabelle Brown get for these talking points.

[B]

I would, too. I would.

[A]

Now that I've had some insight into influencer money, especially on the conservative side, I would be very interested to know how much they're getting paid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They clearly don't believe it. Right. They're protecting themselves if the worst happens or their husband passes away or he's disabled or he leaves. They're good, they're safe. But all of the young girls that they're teaching will not be. Yeah. So I'm very glad. All that to say, very happy to have you here. Happy to have this conversation. I'm gonna start with. With kind of like this. This particular clip is your wheelhouse. This is. I'm just. Oh, I accidentally hit the wrong button. Forgive me a little bit with this. I'm trying out. Rooted in Satanism, in Luciferianism, an adoration of the biblical figure Satan, which they say is the good guy and God is the tyrant. And so this, when I understood this, it makes sense to me why the sacrament of feminism is abortion. Why the sacrament of feminism Is child sacrifice witchcraft, spilling the blood of an innocent in order for you to have better life? This was done all throughout history. So you think it's just the African tribes, the African voodoo tribes in the middle of nowhere that practice animal sacrifice and child sacrifice? No, it is happening in the Christian West. While pastors don't want to get involved because abortion is political. Let's not have that conversation. Wait a second. Wait a second. You're telling me ripping apart babies in the womb of their mother is a political problem, not a spiritual one? You're telling me that tearing apart babies in the womb, tearing the family structure, dividing man from woman, actually putting the word of God on trial? You're telling me that's political, Pastor? No, that is spiritual. She would go on to say, that's Nolene Cedra. She's 30. She has. She describes herself as tearing down the altars of feminism and abortion. She would later go on to say that the women in the witch trials were murdered because they were giving abortions. And I would love your response to that.

[B]

Oh, my. So I don't know where she got her information from about this. I have a couple of suspicions. I wonder if somehow she read or was introduced to or somebody told her about 1486 document called the Malleus Maleficarum, which is the hammer of witches. I'm sure you have heard of it. It was written by a Dominic inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer, who actually. Who was. His writings in this book were actually condemned by the Catholic Church because they were seen as being not orthodox and also as being cruel and not having validity to him. He also wrote the Malleus Maleficarum when he was attempting to try women for witchcraft. And a bishop came in and was like, this is stupid. This is nonsense, and released all of the women. And he got angry and wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, published it anyway, even though

[A]

the Church had condemned it.

[B]

Right. And he published it with a papal bull at the beginning of it that said witchcraft is heresy, which was just kind of a blanket thing. It was by Innocent vii. And he made it look like the Catholic Church approved the Malleus Maleficarum. It was published about 30 years after the printing press. And so, you know, this is just unlicensed printing. People are just. And if you've read the Malleus Maleficarum, I won't use the language that it's often used to describe it, but it is very concerned about sexuality. It's very concerned about male impotence. It's very concerned about women who steal life is the way that, I mean, it's obviously written by somebody who's really angry at women, maybe has some repressed sexuality himself.

[A]

And he cites, in that document, he, he cites that the, the reason that women are so evil and prone to witchcraft is because of carnal lust. Like, that's what he identifies as a problem is that he claims that women have this insatiable desire for sex and sexuality, which is hilarious because now it's so flipped. Right. Men can't control themselves. They just have these big sex drives. Well, they used to believe that about women in, in the medieval times, but that's, that was the, you know, and, and obviously the foundation of, of Tertullian and, and Jerome and Augustine and all the things that they said leading up to this idea that, that women were insatiable. It also comes from the doctrine of Eve. Right. This idea that women brought sin into the world, even though later in the Bible it specifically says that sin is passed down through the man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, but it, the, the doctrine of Eve creates this fear around female power and autonomy. Oh, you can't be trusted to make decisions because Eve messed up. We all can't be trusted to make decisions because let's, let's pretend that Eve is a literal story, but like, because one woman made a decision, the rest of humanity for the rest of all time can't be trusted to make decisions. So it creates this fear and fervor around female autonomy and decision of, you're dangerous. You can't be trusted to make choices.

[B]

Well, and I think what we're seeing, it's great. I'm glad that you jumped this to Eve because I think what we're seeing in that clip is not just, you know, it's kind of pulling on really badly on a medieval document that didn't reflect what people actually believed about witches. It's sort of, it's one of those things. It was created and a lot of people started reading it and it got into the water and then people started like using it. I mean, the witch craze really is 1560-1660, 1670. And that is the high point of it. And so, and the Malleus is written almost a century before that, so it's not reflecting what's actually happening, but it then is used to project on, if that makes sense. And then it comes over to the US and it's used in to, to talk about, you know, to inform the salem witch trials, etc. But I think that sort of bad history has been taken and applied With a bad translation of the Bible, which is the English standard version of the Bible, which between 2016 and, sorry, maybe it was finished in 2016 anyway, for about a decade, 2016 to 2025. I think that's when they revoked it. We can look that up. But they translated, Janet, the, the, the Eve story. They translated it as, instead of your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you as a curse. From the, as the part of the curse. They translated as your, your desire will be contrary to your husband and he will rule over you. And so essentially what they made is that female autonomy and resisting male leadership is the curse. You know, they made feminism is actually the curse. And that is what we're seeing reflected in this language at TP USA is this idea. That's why it can be seen as demonic, because the curse is that instead of following male leadership, you are resisting male leadership. And that is, that is resisting God, which is what Eve did. They claim, you know, from the very beginning, resisting giving into Satan. And so that's how they get to this, that this is all satanic and demonic was by a wrong interpretation, a wrong translation that the ESV has since revoked because all the biblical scholars quietly. But all of those translations are still out there. You know, the ESV is.

[A]

It's the same thing that they did with homosexuality in 1946. They later revoked it and acknowledged it was a bad translation. And they knew at the time, but they did it quietly. The damage is already done. And I just double checked the dates. It is Genesis 3:16. The change happened in 2016, and then it was revoked in 2020. Thank you.

[B]

I suddenly I had this brain. I was like, the right date, but

[A]

it's I, I also. So we have this, this line. We have the, the Malleus mellificarum, right. Gets married to this doctrine of Eve and this fear of female autonomy and this idea that a woman desiring independence is in direct defiance of God. And I was taught this as a young girl that like, well, if you want to be independent, you're just rejecting God's call for your life. Absolutely. But I also, there's this element of, it's not lost on me that when we look at the, at the Genesis myth, and I'm going to call it that, because that's the genre of literature that it is, and it's largely based on the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish. It's meant to be this beautiful, poetic, mythical kind of story of how not just humanity, but how Especially the nation of Israel arrives. It's their origin story. Yeah, but it's not lost on me that Eve's first sin is eating and gaining knowledge. Not lost on me. But also it's not just relying on a bad translation of the Bible, but a misunderstanding of what sin Satan means. In the Old Testament, Satan does not become personified until the New Testament. Satan. In the Old Testament, a Satan is a member of the Council of the Gods. It's a position, It's a. It's an adversary, it's a prosecutor. Satan also appears with God at the Council of the Gods in the beginning of the Book of Job. It's not Satan the person, it's Satan the position. Because also in the Old Testament, a. A human can be a Satan. Like if. If you're trying to walk down the road and I block you and I won't let you pass, I have become a Satan to you.

[B]

An adversary.

[A]

Yeah. So it's also a misunderstanding of what those words actually mean in context. And it gets wrapped up in this bow to say feminism is demonic, absolutely satanic, and they're rebelling against God. And of course, they loop in abortion. And I think the abortion bit comes from the fact that many of the women who were murdered and men got scooped up in this too. But women, a lot of women were plant medicine practitioners, which was the only form of medicine they had. A lot of the women were midwives because the church and the local politic were trying to take over medicine. They didn't want women to have any roles of trust, any roles of leadership. Predominantly it was to take money away from widowed women who refused to remarry, or women who had inherited money from their family, or women who had. Who had special needs, or women who just didn't want to. Who in some way didn't align with what they thought a woman should do. You know, the midwives weren't performing abortions. They were trying to help.

[B]

That's exactly right. And I. So I have a couple of different thoughts here. One of them is about, you know, if we look at actually who was accused of witchcraft during the European witch trials, which roughly are 1450 to 1670, but the high point is the 16th to the 17th century. We think there are somewhere between 90,000 and 110,000 trials is what most scholars agree on now. And half of those ended up in executions.

[A]

And that's a lot of people.

[B]

It's a lot of people. It's terrible. At least half of them comfortably were women, probably no 3/4 of them. Comfortably were women. Some places, like Iceland, 92% of the people killed for witchcraft were men. And so it's not just gender. You know, I think people just don't really understand what the witch trials were about, but they primarily were about power and in money and increase power and money. And a lot of the people who were accused, we know, like, especially some of the more famous witch trials actually had to do with property accusations. Like some of the. Like, for example, the. The earliest witchcraft trial that we know of actually took place in Ireland in the 14th century. I was just there. I went to the town of Kilken where it took place. And it was a power struggle between this wealthy widow and a new bishop who was trying to, you know, to gain. To make himself popular and to get essentially be able to move on to a more powerful position. And he went after this wealthy widow who'd had several husbands die before, and she kept inheriting their money. And. And so the accusation was, is that she was killing her husbands. And it's interesting that one of her stepsons actually defended her and said it wasn't that, but it was a property struggle is what it came down to.

[A]

Because when these women would get killed, would they. When they would be executed, the church would assimilate their wealth?

[B]

Yeah, they would, yes, they would get a lot. When somebody was accused of a. Of heresy, then the church did get their money. This is like what happened with, you know, the Knights Templar, which everybody loves to talk about the Knights Templar. And that's why we have the superstition about Friday the 13th. Well, yeah, and the Friday the 13th superstition. And that was because they were so wealthy and when they were. And they were accused of a lot of the things that we see witches accused of, of like, you know, keeping demons as pets and making pacts with Satan and that's how they got their wealth. I mean, these are trope accusations to make somebody a heretic so that then they can be condemned and their property legitimately confiscated, as well as be either burned at the stake or hanged.

[A]

And they actually believe that witches flew around. Like, they actually truly believe that witches were out, like flying around at night and, and cohorting with Satan later. Yeah, and like, and it's just very, very different times, very different belief system. But this. That's really what it was. It was really as. As most things are, we look at the Inquisitions too. It ultimately comes back to property and wealth and control.

[B]

Yeah, a lot of it does. And, and trying, you know, and women, most of the women who are prosecuted for witchcraft are not actually wealthy widows. They're actually poor people in the community who are accused of causing harm to try to like, you know, mostly it's fear based on. So it's property, wealth and fear base is what is going on all out

[A]

of line, we're going to come for you kind of a thing. And I don't think that people realize that, that in the 1800s, abortion was legal in the United States and it was considered a private but sometimes necessary decision. It was considered a woman's choice. And we get the rise of the newly founded American Medical association, which is all men. They want to take over obstetrics and gynecology. And, and who are the women that are running like women are midwives, women are doulas. Mo like the best of them are the black women who because of enslavement were forced to perform as midwives and doulas for white women, wealthy white women. So in order to disenfranchise that, they want to kick women out of the industry so they can control it. It was those men from the American Medical association that started petitioning the states individually to ban abortion, claiming it was barbaric, claiming it wasn't. You know, that they were the only ones who knew better. You know, imagine men claiming they know what's best. But all of this has always been motivated by either by power, money or fear. Because you talk about this in the book, in your books that without the labor of women, like the churches don't run women volunteering their time.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You have to have women on your side to support this. And you know, I'll throw in one thing about abortion. Abortion isn't one medical procedure. We have reduced it to one medical procedure. It has to do. It encompasses miscarriages, it encompasses all of that health that, you know, during the pre, pre birth sort of, you know, it's involved in that. And throughout most of human history in the Christian church, there wasn't seen as a soul attached to. To a child in the womb, a fetus until quickening, which is when you could actually feel it. And so they're like. So a lot of highly religious people like Hildegard of Bingen has recipes. She was a medical practitioner too, and she has recipes for that we would consider to be abortifacients in her that help bring back your period when you're having struggle, when you're. You're having difficulty, when there's things or so wrong, something goes wrong, or even if you, you are in an unexpected Pregnancy, you're worried about it. Our understanding of what abortion is has been greatly expanded because of expanding knowledge about how the body works and also because of changing ideas in medical practitioner, as you said. And we clearly see a push of women out of medicine and men moving into that position. And this, the clearest way we see this is at the birth scene, where up throughout most of human history, the birth scenes were dominated by women. They were the ones involved, and men were on the outside. And then you move to the late 19th, early 20th century, where suddenly we start laying women on their backs to give birth, whereas mostly women were sitting up. They were, they had stools. It's a much more natural way to give birth, is actually not in a sitting, not in a laying position. But that, that was a very new model that was enforced, brought in by this changing ideas about meta, about how medicine worked. Now, I will throw in a caveat that I do believe that we have much safer births today because of medicine. I would have died in labor with my first child if I hadn't had medical expertise. But that doesn't mean we've gotten everything right. And we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, I think, and by that, thrown out midwives and women's medical knowledge with the sanitization and the. With hospitals.

[A]

Yeah. And so let's, let's go on to the next clip. And so this is Isabel Brown. She's 29. She also spoke at the Turning Point conference, and she has a ton of followers all over. I see many of the conservative WhatsApp talking points show up on her page, but this was actually a talk that she gave at cpac. And then she reiterated many of these points at the Turning Point conference. See?

[B]

Oops.

[A]

I'm still, I'm still learning this thing. You're going to hear me go oops. And people podcast. What are you doing the dinner table

[B]

about these issues every day? It is high time to start.

[A]

If you're not encouraging your children to

[B]

grow up and have the courage to get married and have kids, more kids than they can afford before they think they're ready, it is high time to start. It is these choices like deleting our dating apps and quitting birth.

[A]

So she pushes this very big talking point of have, as you know, have more kids than you're ready for. You know, don't wait until you're ready more than you can afford. Why? What is. So we have this logic of don't bring a kid into the world unless you're sure you can feed it Right. Understand that life happens if you are not in a position to be able to afford a child. Maybe don't. Why push this rhetoric? What is, what is, what purpose does this rhetoric serve this movement?

[B]

So some people aren't going to like this, but a lot of this is rooted in what we call replacement theory. And this is a theory that has grown up in white conservative circles, especially prominent in white Christian nationalism. And it is that black and brown people are replacing white people. And you know, not understanding that race really is a construction, but nonetheless. And so the way to fight back against that is for white people to have more babies that we've got to have, you know, start encouraging more women, white women to have babies. You know, this rhetoric isn't being pushed on black and brown women in the same way. It's white women. I think the other thing we have to understand is that this comes from a position of privilege. White upper class women are primarily the ones who can afford. You know, I'm saying this carefully because luckily there are, there has been a lot more social mobility, but nonetheless, this idea, it's upper class people who have more wealth who can afford to have more kids. And so as she's speaking, I don't, you know, I wonder if she has ever been in a position where she's actually been with families that are living below the poverty line that can't afford birth control or haven't been able to have access to birth control or perhaps are living with a partner who won't allow them to use birth control. And they have, they do not have the ability to feed their children. I mean, you know, I remember a story of a woman who was working with very poor women. And I won't say what country it was in, but anyway. And there was one mom who kept up carrying her one child with her everywhere who looked really sickly. And she suggested, she said, was your child sick? Do you want me to help you with it? And the mom was like, no, this is the one I can't afford to feed. So I just carry her everywhere I go because I, I can't afford to feed her. And I mean, I don't know these white women at TP usa. I don't. They've never been faced with those choices.

[A]

Yeah. And I don't know based on what I know about their backgrounds and just did like, and this is with light searching, you know, I don't. Most of these girls, these young women all come from middle class and up families and they themselves have never had to struggle and know what that's like. And as someone who I grew up privileged, like I would say solidly middle class. My family had property, my family was ranchers. We didn't have a lot of like cash money, but we had, there was assets and I never wanted for anything. Yeah, I had to wear hand me downs, but I never. But being homeless in my adulthood and having to go to the store and you know, you can buy two items and they have to be on sale and it has to stretch a certain amount of days. It's one thing to have to do that for yourself, it's another thing to do that when a child.

[B]

Yes. And I just, you know, I, I mean I, I came from a very conservative background too and I did used to work at, I would volunteer at crisis pregnancy centers. And I remembered this was an eye opening experience for me when, I mean I was this young 19 year old kid, just like a lot of these women, you know, and this older black woman came in and she just wanted a pregnancy test. And you know, and here I am thinking that I can like start telling her about what to do with her life. And she just looked at me and she said, honey, she said, I have six kids. And she said, and I can't feed them. And their father is not helpful. I mean she didn't go into circumstances, but she said I can't feed them. And she says in order to feed those kids, I can't have this kid. And I just remember nobody had ever presented it to me that way before and it can't. It, yeah, it changed it, it. That was actually a beginning of a journey for me where I began rethinking, you know, how do we create a world where women don't have to make those choices, where women can actually afford to feed their children or not be forced not to be able to have access to birth control, where they don't have to make those choices. You know, I mean, I think a lot of these TPUSA people, I've been listening to a lot of their rhetoric and they talk about feminism, they talk about how feminism, anti woman, anti mother, all of this stuff. And what they don't realize is that feminism in the 19th century was born with upper middle class women going and serving in social work, like going and working with lower class women and seeing what was happening and how they didn't have birth control and how they were having children that they couldn't afford and they were plummeting into poverty. And you know, and they were like, we've got to help these women that's actually where feminism was born. Yeah.

[A]

The goal is to protect mothers. Like, that's one of the interesting things. I grew up with this rhetoric. Feminism is the devil and it's going to poison you and they're going to tell you to sleep around and they're going to do. When I first encountered feminists what I was. I didn't realize I had encountered them because they didn't tell me what to think or do. They asked me, what is it that you want to do? How do you feel about this? And I remember being shocked by that because adults had never asked me what my thought was or what I wanted to do romantically or sexually or with my body. And I couldn't, I couldn't actually answer their questions. But with my argument with, with this rhetoric, especially around, you know, forcing women to have children they can't afford, is if you were actually pro life. Right. And abortion's your sticking point, you know, because people have that moral belief and it is a moral belief and a philosophical belief. Right. We don't know when insoulment happens. We don't, we have, we don't in the Bible. The Bible conditions. Life is beginning at first breath. We have, you know, and then Augustine really solidified that. It starts at the quickening. We don't know. But that is a moral choice. But if abortion is really your sticking point, then you should be doing all that you can. Enacting policies to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, which means birth control and comprehensive sex education.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And also you should be voting for policies that help people take care of those children that show up. You should be voting for SNAP and Medicaid and resources and paid parental leave. But this movement opposes all of those things.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

They don't want to feed kids in school. So like, I can't, I can't actually buy that you, that you're pro life, that you believe in this. I, I believe a few things. I believe that you want more white babies no matter what the cost, is that you want to penalize poor mothers and women of color mothers, specifically single mothers, and that you are, want to create, you are not bothered at the very least by creating a system where women are impoverished, without resources, without access to.

[B]

Right, Absolutely. And you know, this is one of the things too, is that these, these conservative movements have created this artificial divide between, they say, like, like elite, like leftist women. So that would probably be me. Leftist women who are career oriented. You either can do that or you can be a good Christian mom and get you know, they say, I want to be a wife and a mother, and I just want to look at them and say, throughout all of history, women have always been wives and mothers and a whole lot of other things too. You it is a privileged position to say I have a choice to be only a wife and a mother. So that's a very, very modern thing.

[A]

And women have always worked.

[B]

Yes. And that is exactly, you know, the

[A]

thing to cure these.

[B]

I don't know if it would cure them, but actually these women who, who hate feminism and they, if they went and read black women and read like Sojourner Truth, who was a. She was a preacher. She tried to vote the same time that Susan B. Anthony tried to vote at the 1872 election. She was turned away because she was where Susan B. Anthony was able to. But she was a dedicated Christian. And she said, we need the, you know, that we need the boat to crew to allow people of color, to allow people like me to experience the full equality that God has, you know, that God wants for us all. And I that the story of black women is completely left out of these narratives that we see at TP usa that we see in this white conservative narrative space. And I think there is intention behind that. First of all, I think it shows the racist bent that we see here. But I also think that when you include women beyond your small white perspective, it will challenge what you have been taught to believe about what feminism is.

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[A]

Yeah, and also, like, you know, again, women didn't fight to work. Poor women have always worked. They fought to get paid.

[B]

That's exactly.

[A]

Treated fairly. They fought to have a vote.

[B]

Can I give you a book recommendation? Yes.

[A]

Oh, I'm ready.

[B]

I think the people will love this. I don't know. Have you read the Five by Hayley Rubenhold?

[A]

I have not.

[B]

You will love it. Okay, so she's a social historian in the uk. This is a really fantastic book. I teach it all the time. It is about the victims of Jack the Ripper. Okay. But she reframes it. She reframes it and she really shows. I teach it in my classes on the votes for women to show my students what life was like for women in the 19th century. And she completely reframes the narrative of what happened to these murdered women and how they got to that position. And it will change. It will help people really understand where feminism and the suffrage movement was born. It was born in the working class lives of these women and the choices that they had no choices. They had no choices.

[A]

They had no protection. They had no safety.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And you look at, like, the UK and like, the baby farms that originated out of the sexist laws that they had, like, shaming women who got pregnant, but never punishing the men. You know, the married man impregnated them. And it. And it really is. And. And also it's, you know, people treat like this whole rhetoric of, well, men gave women the right to vote. I'm like, sir, women got arrested, trampled, beaten to death, force fed. They. They committed crimes to, like, Be able.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

You. You didn't give it to us. We earned it tooth and nail for it. Yeah. No, that's a nail for it.

[B]

And it. You know, in the u. S. It came down to Nashville. It came down to a vote in Nashville. It was one man. It was actually two votes, but it was really. It was one man who changed it. And it was because his mom wrote him a letter and said, yeah, I love that story.

[A]

Yeah, it's one of my favorite historical stories. Like, she basically wrote him saying, think of me.

[B]

Yeah, think of me.

[A]

Don't you think that I should have a say?

[B]

And it's. And he. And he voted. He changed his vote at the last moment. But, you know, I think what people get wrong about suffrage is that the reason suffrage is the word for vote, for the right to vote. So if people don't know that, but for women suffrage is that the reason it doesn't come up in history until the 18th and the 19th century is because most people throughout history did not have the right to vote because we were not led. We did not live in democratic societies. And so it's not until we see the. This. It's not the first time we have democracy in world history, but we see this birth of democracy in the 18th and the 19th century. And this is when it becomes an issue, because they start defining who's a citizen and who is human, and that's what. And then they wrote. And from the very beginning, you know, this isn't a new issue. I mean, you know, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, remember the ladies? Remember the ladies. Yeah. That always astonishes my students. They're like, is that for real? You can go look up the document and see it. She says, do not write women out of the constitution. And they did. They did. But this. This has been. From the very beginning, women have recognized the problems of. When you exclude women from legal definition of what it means to be a citizen, it means that they are not fully human.

[A]

Yeah. And that's really. That's really what it comes down to. And also, so many of these beliefs get sanctified with religion, and we're seeing that happen in real time, but those beliefs will quickly change and that religion will fall away when it comes down to economic matters or. Or anything else. So I'm from Wyoming, which was the first state to ratify a woman's right to vote in the 1800s. And the reason that they did it was because they had all these men out there in the mines, the gold rushes, and they needed wives and so that that religious belief, that justification fell away real quick when you need to absolutely appeal to women to come out to vote. But we're talking about the vote. So I'm going to bring up this next clip. This is Savannah Stone. I'm sure that my followers have seen her. She is a. Has thousands and tens of thousands of followers across platforms. Very anti feminism. Very, very. Submit to your husband. Get dressed up for him. You'll get, get. You know, you'll get dressed up for your girls, but you won't get dressed up for your husband. She met her husband at 17, got married at 18. She is now 20. But this is a recent interview that she gave 20. I know. That's all of these I keep should vote anyways.

[B]

Why shouldn't women vote?

[A]

Women are swaying our elections. I would gladly give up my right to vote to have a more conservative country.

[B]

Like, it's not that important for me for women to have the right to vote over a conservative country. But I know for a fact that

[A]

if women couldn't vote, abortion wouldn't be

[B]

legal in the first place.

[A]

But I'm really glad I couldn't vote

[B]

then because I would have voted for

[A]

Harris in high school because I didn't know any better.

[B]

Yikes. Oh, so, gosh. I mean, I. The first thing that strikes me about that clip is that she is admitting the reason to not let women have the right to vote is to keep women who vote differently from her out of the ballot box. Which means black and brown women.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So, I mean, right up there, the. The racist ideology is dominant. Yeah.

[A]

And it's very. And it's just. I mean, I, I'm conflicted when I watch these clips because first of all, this is why I say I support women, but I do not support these women because you'll see this online, too. We're conservative women. Like, oh, so it support everyone till it's. No, actually, if you were listening to me, I support and cheer you on if what you want in your life is to be a wife and a mother. That's why I vote for policies that make it easier for you to have and raise a family safely. But also, I do not support you because you will throw all of us under the bus for your racist and religious ideologies to please your fascist husband. So, no, I don't support you in that way. I don't. Because you will literally hang the rest of us out to dry for this ideological standpoint. And she even says, you know, I'm so glad I couldn't vote in high school because I wouldn't have known any better. She couldn't even vote with Trump and Harris. She's claiming she's like, you know, I couldn't vote back in high school. You know, like, she's so young. She's so young. And I'm like, sweetheart, sweetheart.

[B]

I so, I mean, I've said this. I tell this to my. This isn't. It's not a entirely accurate, but I think a lot of where we are today is an education problem, is that women do not understand what the vote is. They do not understand not only what it costs women, and not just white women, but the, the fight for the right to vote among black women, among brown women, among Native American women, who were some of the last ones to actually get the right to vote in

[A]

the U.S. raising it is.

[B]

It's when you look at how long it took and that there are actually still women in the world who don't have the right to vote. I don't, I don't think people realize and, you know, if, like, the natural progression of places that don't allow women the right to vote is kind of what we see going on in places like the Taliban, like in Afghanistan. And also, I just saw a clip about, in Iran, that pop star woman is getting whipped because 74 lashes because she's saying without covering her head. And I mean, this, this is what happens in places. This is the natural progression of places that do not see women as human and that do not allow women a voice, a voice in politics. And, you know, one of the very famous feminist phrases is that the political is personal. And that is, that is so true because it's not just about what happens in the ballot box affects what goes on in our homes. And if you want to live in a world that allows you to have the choice to be able to stay home with your children, because honestly, we live in a world where it is really hard for women to work and have kids at home. This isn't a real. This isn't a religious thing. This is because we live in a economic and political system that makes it more difficult for women to be able to work outside the home. I mean, really, we should live in a world where women don't have to make those choices, where a woman who is working, who, A woman who feels called to work and who loves to work and that she should be able to do that while still being able to have kids. It's not. We have created an artificial choice here, and then we have rooted that artificial choice, said, okay, now this is the Christian way to do it. And it has nothing to do with the Bible. Has nothing to do. I mean, I just finished a really great book by a biblical scholar named Karina Prestis, an archaeologist. And it's called Excavating Women. And one of the things that she says, it's really clear when we look at biblical women and we look at the first century world in which the New Testament women lived, they weren't, there were no stay at home moms.

[A]

Couldn't. There couldn't.

[B]

There were no stay at home moms. They all, you know, this, this is an artificial distinction that has been born in the post 19th century, in the 19th century and post 19th century world. Yeah.

[A]

And also because even this ideology around, again, poor women have always worked across the board, but especially women of color. But also this, even this idea of like a single family home where the woman is entirely responsible for everything on, in the house, everything on the property, all the children. Now she also has to work outside the home is also a modern invention because multi generational families live together really until very, very recently, because you didn't go out and build a new house every time somebody got married. The family lived together. So there was a team of people running the home, running the land, running the children, and then there were men who would go work in the factories or go work elsewhere like that. This, this invention is a facade. And again, all of these women that are preaching this even in, in these clips that we're watching are all career women. Savannah Stone was then asked, yes, she debates this woman who says, well, why don't you have kids yet? And she's like, well, we're just not having kids yet. I'm working on my career. And you just sit there and you're like, do you not see what you just said?

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Choice. And yes, yes, please work on your career, get solid, get taken care of. Because I truly, truly hope for her that her marriage is lovely and wonderful and her husband is loving and that all of her pregnancy safe and kind and he respects her. I truly, truly, truly hope all of those things for her. But if not, I hope she can get out.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

That's my hope.

[B]

That was Betty Friedan's argument too, which there's a lot of problems with Betty Friedan, but.

[A]

Oh yeah, she had some things about.

[B]

She had, that's. Well, she also had some. Well, anyway, yeah, there's a lot of things. I mean, none of these women are, they're all human. They're all human. And so there's pros and cons on all of them. We can't put any of. Any of them up on sort of pedestals.

[A]

And that's any leader like you look deeply their lives, they're going to have something.

[B]

Yeah. It's amazing to me. This is not the off, but it's amazing to me how there's excuses in these conservative religious circles for why white male slave owners. But then they take women who may have some things that they don't like about in their past and like, nope, nope. Those. They're told they're total and evil. And I'm like, do you not see that you're not applying the same standard to men and women? But that's not.

[A]

Well, I mean, I, we do that now, you know, like, I mean, I've been watching. I don't know if you've seen the series by Ian Lightfoot, but he's been doing a series and it's with pop culture, but he is basically, he'll like lead the, the video with. Well, yeah, Miley Cyrus got demonized because she was talking about sex and she went wild there for a second. But anyways, here's men who actually have serious abuse, you know, allegations or convictions that never lost. And then he goes the double standard. Like the horrible, horrible things these men have done. Like, we're talking assault, rape, racism, like all of these things never cancelled.

[B]

Never excuse. Absolutely.

[A]

We excuse it over and over. And I think this, this is something that's really been burning for me. Like we, you know, there was another clip that we're not going to watch today, but there was a clip when Erica Kirk got up to speak. This woman starts to yell and she says, erica Kirk protects pedophiles. Erica Kirk protects pedophiles. And in the video recording, you hear whoever is near that camera say, so.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

You hear one of these women and, and literally there's one woman in the room who's actually advocating for children, who's advocating for all of the women in that room who've been assaulted. And they shout her down. Down. They shout her down. But this system that they're implementing where don't question the men, we never hold men accountable. That's not our job. Our job is to listen to them. That's what enables all this rampant sexual abuse in the church. I think it's also why the Southern Baptist Convention is trying so hard to keep women out of leadership. Because women out of leadership would prevent them from abusing young women and children.

[B]

Absolutely. Would. Would it?

[A]

Absolutely. And. And to the. To that heckler's credit. Erica Kirk is absolutely doing that. Not just her connections to Trump, not just her connections to the group in Romania that was later convicted of human trafficking children. But they are creating this system. I think the Epstein files got conservative men real scared, real nervous. It almost got them. Right. It didn't get them, but it almost got them. It almost all came out. It almost all came out. They had to have a meeting in the Situation Room with Trump to figure out how they were going to protect him from the, these horrific instances he was a part of.

[B]

And that's the SBC too.

[A]

Yeah. SBC saved sex abuse crisis.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're, they're connected with the Trump administration and it's a big loop. They mobilize voters for him. He gives them.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Court justices. They want. Like this is, this is an ongoing relationship. But I think so much of this rhetoric and the money. Understand, ladies listening. They are putting hundreds and millions of dollars into social media to push these ideas on you.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Because not just does it hold up their hierarchy and they get free labor. There's a quote that the, the standard of marriage we've built is the only way every poor man can have a maid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That. Not only that, but also it protects the system of child sex abuse that has been going on for centuries.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because if women have no power, they have no political say. If they are taught from a young age and indoctrinated to be silent, don't question your husband, don't question your father, don't question the pastor. That is how abuse thrives. So I, I think that there is some incentive financially for them. They got so close to getting caught, so close to getting caught, and now they are dumping money into never getting caught again and making sure the women fall in line and get quiet. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial form month or longer dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking empglis achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. Hempclus Lebricizumab LBKZ, a 250mg 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis, that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or touch topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglis. Before starting ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about ebglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. If we knew more about ourselves sleep, what would we do differently? Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep With Sleep Score, Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions and sleep duration. Then every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score from 1 to 100 so you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from okay to very high. Know your sleep score With Apple Watch iPhone 11 or later required this episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check Responses Setup required. Compatibility, compatibility and availability varies. 18. You thought this was your run club era? Turns out it was more of a thinking about Run club era. The good news? Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Depop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

Absolutely. No, you're exactly right. That's what you know. There is no coincidence between the push to completely push women out of leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention sex abuse crisis. There is no, I mean all of these men who were involved in the conservative resurgence. You know, if you haven't read it, there's a a really great article in the Texas Monthly about Paul Pressler. Who was that judge who was in. Who was really the instigator? He. He joined forces with the Pattersons Paige Patterson and his wife, Dorothy Patterson. But he was really the instigator of the conservative resurgence, and he was. He abused boys throughout his entire life, the allegations against him. And so, you know, I. I think a real important piece here that people dismiss, especially people who are not in religious circles, is the power of, like, the Southern Baptist Convention and influencing. And so this decision that they have just made to try to push women completely out of power, there's one more year before it becomes part of their constitution. They have to vote on it again. But that is. Is helping to drive the literature behind the literature. And the influencers who are involved in things like tpusa, I mean, they're all connected. And a lot of the talking points that these TP USA influencers currently have came from the Southern Baptist Convention. I mean, Dorothy Patterson, who was the wife of Paige Patterson, she was the architect. I mean, I was just in Harvard in her documents, and I followed this trail in becoming the pastor's wife, where she starts these. This language about feminism is what she starts saying in the 1970s. And she starts teaching classes that say that feminism is against the home and feminism is against people who want to be.

[A]

Feminism protects the home.

[B]

Yep. And she starts teaching these classes, and she starts teaching them to pastor's wives. Who are the leaders? The female leaders. Okay. You know, the female leaders who are okay to be leaders because they're under their husband's authority in churches. And these women then start teaching it. And this is how it has gotten in the water, is from these. You know, really, the Southern Baptist Convention is a primary player in this whole spread of. Of Christian nationalism and this ideology that subjugates women. And.

[A]

And purity culture in and of itself is directly correlated to pedophilia.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

When you, first of all, purity culture and it objectifies women. Right. That your only use is your body and your reproduction, and your body and your reproduction are owned and for the use and pleasure of men, not your pleasure, not your choice. Purity culture inherently does not believe in consent. It inherently does not believe in autonomy. And it is inherently pedophilic, because when you have this hyper fixation on new, fresh, untouched, unsullied. That's children.

[B]

Yeah, that's children.

[A]

And if sex ruins a woman's worth, like, if a man touching a woman ruins her worth, then the problem is the man, not her. Sophia Isella has a great lyric in one of her songs. She says, if something is dirty after you touch it, the problem is your hands.

[B]

That is. I love that.

[A]

That.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

It's so very, but it's, but it's, it's pedophilic in nature. And we saw this with Bill Gothard with the umbrellas of authority where he was basically like, if you challenge the pastor or you challenge your husband, you're sinning directly against God. And then Bill Gothard had to step away from his own organization for sexually harassing and assaulting teen girls.

[B]

Yes. And the stories about God to sanctify it, he preferred, he had a certain look of the women that he wanted to come and work with. For him, these young girls, 13 and 14 year old bodies. No, it's just sickening. It is sickening.

[A]

And just sanctifying it with God language to justify what they want to do and to say that they have absolute authority to do it. They're literally just building a cocoon to protect, you know, from their crimes.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And it, you know, this, it's also so dangerous for, for young boys too because in purity culture it teaches them that it's okay for them to treat women like this. And so, and luckily a lot of those young boys don't act on that message and actually turn out to be okay people. But some of them don't. Some of them messaging is there, the messaging is there and they have the inclination towards it. And this, this is where the problem, you know, this is where that theology leads, needs.

[A]

And also it, it really, you know, it creates this ideology in men that men are this uncontrollable sexual animal. Like you're just this unbridled, you can't control yourself. But then also there's so much child sex abuse of young boys in these institutions and there is nowhere for them to go or to be able to articulate what's happening to them because the language doesn't exist.

[B]

That's exactly right. And they, and also if they admit it, what they have been taught about being a man and their masculinity, it automatically will put them in a place of shame. And so it creates a system that doesn't allow young children to speak out against it. Yeah, no, it's a, it's a horrific system.

[A]

And when you adamantly oppose, when you only teach abstinence, only education, you actually set kids up, up for long term abuse. Because if and when something happens to them, you have taught them always listening to your elders, make sure you obey to the adults in the room, blah, blah, blah. So when someone comes and says, don't tell your mom, right? This is, this is how, this is how men love children. This is how whatever. Your child has absolutely no language to articulate what's happening to them. Right. They don't know where their private parts are. They don't know what's inappropriate or what's, you know, because there is age appropriate education that kids can get throughout their lives to just protect them so that they, so when something happens, they can be like, Mommy told me that adults aren't allowed to do that. I'm gonna go tell mommy. And that's, that's the education that we need. You know, there's this, this rhetoric of. They're teaching fourth graders about sex. No, they're not. They're teaching fourth graders about their bodies and how to be safe and what's appropriate for an adult to do or not do. But it is.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And it's this cycle of entrapment. I'm actually going to bring up the next clip. Clip because I think it plays into what we're talking about. This clip has gone viral recently. It's a 19 year old trad wife influencer. Which trad wife influencing is in and of itself unbearably ironic. Again, because these women make money, they're filing taxes through their LLC. Yeah, but. And her husband is almost 30 years old. I know everyone I bring up. I'm like, oh, married, no degree, no 9 to 5. And I'm exactly where I want to be. Let me answer all your questions. Yes, I got engaged at 18, married at 19.

[B]

I didn't go to college.

[A]

I don't plan to. I don't have a degree, I don't have a job and I'm not getting one. I love to cook for my husband. I love to host, I love to run our home. These are things I'm very passionate about.

[B]

I get asked about this a lot,

[A]

but me and my husband dated for

[B]

six weeks before getting engaged.

[A]

And I didn't have a wedding.

[B]

We opted out of the whole wedding, big wedding thing.

[A]

I got married at my husband's house with 20 people. Now I got married in a dress that I picked up from Bloomingdale's the

[B]

day before for 200.

[A]

I got married to build a life with my husband, the man that I love. Not for the party. We made the decision to go on a two month honeymoon instead and make lifelong memories that I will savor forever. Also, yes, me and my husband do have an age gap.

[B]

He is 10 years old.

[A]

Of course you do. Of course. So she. Yes, 19 years old. They dated for six weeks before getting engaged when she was freshly legal. And again, he's almost 30 and this is another one of these things where I see this, right? And there's this I, I, because of working in social media, you see like her hair is done or makes it, she looks rested, she's got this cute dress on. It looks like she's maybe going out to brunch with the girls.

[B]

It's this very.

[A]

And that's just not the reality that most stay at home wives and mothers experience, especially when there's young children. And, and I bring this up a lot, but you don't see trad wife influencers in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Like the women are burnout or gone or traded in for a newer model.

[B]

They don't, they don't look, they don't look nice any, you know, or at least the way that they want them, want them to be. So trad wives only work for a certain type of women, for a certain age of women. And it is completely a business. I mean, the whole thing is made up on, you know, Instagram, etc. But it is also a theme in women's history. Like since women have, since there's been a question of women being able to get the right to vote and being able to work and have the same sort of rights as men, like in the workplace, there have been these, these continuous pushes to try to convince women to go back to the home, to stay in the. Actually not to go back to the home, but to go to the home. As I said, this going back to the home is a new thing. But to go to the home and to, you know, to have all of your fulfillment in making your house look pretty and making yourself look pretty. And so you can think about magazines in the post World War II era that were attempting to do the same thing. You can also think about in the late 19th century. I always tell people with Queen Victoria, you know, they really start domesticizing the house as a space that women decorate. You know, one of the hidden, one of my hidden favorite things in my last book, Becoming the Pastor's Wife, is talking about how this decorating the home shifted and that it used to be was household head who decorated the home, which could be a woman, but was often a man. And they were the ones who would buy all of the things for the house and decorate it. And, and it shifts in the 19th century and it's connected to the rise to capitalism and to this and to creating a space for women that are in the home and a space for them to decorate. And so this is a very modern thing. And you see it with Like Queen Victoria, if you've ever seen the famous picture of her with the Christmas tree, you know, that's when the Christmas tree starts to become popularized and stuff. And it's this. Creating this domestic. Domestic space where women are supposed to be. And Queen Victoria was also like a. There's a similarity with her with the trad wives in that she is the most powerful woman in her country. And yet the image that she is putting out there is one of a wife and mother who decorates her house.

[A]

Yeah. And also, it's. All of this is very akin to me to 1950s propaganda to get women back in the home. Because women started working in World War II when the men were gone and they liked it, and they were like, oh, my God, we have autonomy, we have money. Yeah, I. I can get out of the house. This is great. And in order to push women back in, there was this huge effort and push from the United States government and from churches who were also being paid by corporate lobbyists to push women back into the home and to create all this propaganda. And we know that women at that time weren't happy. They were so hopped up on drugs, barbiturates, depressants, amphetamines, speed. So much so that they were literally called Mommy's little helpers. Because women were so depressed, just so out of their minds, they had to be drugged to live like this. Because some women. And one of my really close friends here in Nashville is a stay at home mom and she loves it. And like, this is like what she has wanted for her life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But even then. And her husband, again, thankfully, is an amazing human being. Also a really good friend of mine, he is always like, okay, babe, you've been in the house too much this week. Call your friends. I got the kids. We're gonna get. Like, he makes sure that. Because even she can't do it. You know, I'll get texts where she's like, like, I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my mind. I can't be in these four walls.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

And so many. And the. The idea that all women are designed to be stay at home wives and mothers only holds water if you believe that women aren't unique individuals.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because you put me in a house in perpetuity, I'm going to be climbing on the ceiling before you know it. Like, I. That would be one of my worst nightmares, is that that was all I could ever do. If that was all I could do, I would be out of my mind. Would be out of my mind. That's just not who I am. But if you believe that women aren't actually people, then you can prescribe them one purpose. And there's also this infantilizing that goes on with women. Are you familiar with Alex Cooper, the girl who runs the Call Her Daddy podcast?

[B]

I know the name name, but I can't tell you much more beyond that.

[A]

I don't know like, too much about her life. She has a podcast called Call Me Daddy. And it was really like. It kind of started as these two girls just being, like, autonomous and having fun and being in their 20s and, you know, doing. Doing the thing. She recently, she. She met her person. She's in her 30s now. She met her person. She got married, she's pregnant, she's about to have a kid. And conservatives are losing their. Over it.

[B]

It.

[A]

Because she has shown. And she. She talks about an interview. She was like, in my 20s, she's like, I. Like, I slept with who I wanted to slept with. I made these decisions. I had fun, I partied. She's like, I got my heart broken. I learned a lot. I found out who I was so that when I met the man of my life, I knew who he was. I knew what I wanted. I knew exactly who I was. And now we're bringing this life into the world. And. And it's this. But she disrupts all of this rhetoric, right? Purity culture of. Of, you know, of. Oh, well, you know, no good man's ever going to want you if you've. If you're not a virgin. Not true. And also, well, you'll never be happy. You'll be. You'll be so unhappy. These feminists are going to die alone with their cats. Tempt me with a good time. But she. She disrupts this rhetoric because the reality actually is. And. And I can support autonomy with. I don't like hookup culture either. I think there is an unsafety about it. Like both. Yes, both ladies especially, you know, you have to be careful because men typically don't get tested as often as they should. You know, so there's the safety element. There's the safety of being alone in private with someone you don't know well. But there's also. I truly believe in that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with. So whoever it is, friendship or romantic, you should be extremely cautious about who you allow to have intimacy, physically or otherwise, with you. You. Because that affects your dreams, it affects your drive, it affects your health, it affects your energy. And that's why I don't agree with, like, you know, because people will take this and say, oh, she's, you know, you know, obsessed with hookup culture.

[B]

I don't.

[A]

I don't agree with it. I do believe in people's right to choose. But what I noticed in the comments in Alex's video, I was watching this interview. Even from the women, you'll see this thing of. But see, did you really, like, have to have sex or, like, get your heart broken, broken to find the person of your dreams? We're just trying to prevent women from making mistakes. But there is this infantilization of women of. Of treating them as childlike. I have to protect you from mistakes. It causes men and society at large to. To take on this parental role with women because you just. You just don't know any better. And there was a question that was asked at Turning Point that was very much in this vein. Like, this woman came up and she asked. She was like, I do want to get married. I do want to have partnership. And she was like, like, but I also want to contribute to the home. I want to make sure I can take care of myself if something happens. Like, a very good question. And the basic answer from these women, and she points out to them, well, you're all career women. You're all making money, you all contribute financially.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And they basically all said, well, you know, since we're career women and we now have kids, maybe we know best. What's best.

[B]

Interesting was what they told her.

[A]

And I was like, what?

[B]

You know, I don't. This idea that women who work outside the home are against women who work in the home is a true. It's not true. It is. It is a myth. You know, it's kind of like also another myth that I. Is this idea that. That female pastors are against pastors wives. You know, this is another myth that's similar that creates. And what it does is, is it creates women fighting women instead of women supporting women.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And what feminism should be, it's about. If it's about equality, then what it really is about is about women supporting women and women making it possible so that you can do the choices and you can have, you know, do the things that you want and that all women can have access to those same choices. And so, you know, the. These career women in TP usa, they didn't have the choice to have their own bank accounts, to set up their own LLCs until the 1970s with the equal Credit act that was passed, by which we had to get through the courts because the era. The Equal Rights Amendment ultimately failed and was heading. You know it. We almost got it again, it's another thing. But the reason you have to have these rights enshrined in law is because women don't have the same protections in the Constitution that men have. And so the. Yeah. So you couldn't have your own bank account. You know, I always. My students love it when we talk about Barbie because we're like, Barbie got her dream house before women could own, take out mortgages on their own homes.

[A]

Yep. And the irony of all of this, this, that especially the demonization of feminism is that none of these women could be on that stage.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

On these platforms if feminism didn't exist. You know, and the one. One we talked about, Nolene, earlier, she. She compared. She called first wave feminism the witch trials. And I'm like, first wave feminine feminism is the suffragettes. Like, they came. They came a lot later like that. That comes way later.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and also. And I. I missed a note of mine. I'm looking back at my notes because we were talking about how this inherently protects sexual abusers, how it inherently creates pedophilic systems. But I was. I was looking through the. The other list, and we still have one more speaker to get to. Oh. I was looking through the list of speakers who taught. Her talk was Christ centered classical education. That was her thing. Her name's Heather Lloyd. Did a little digging because I remembered that name. Her husband did two years in prison for child pornography.

[B]

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

[A]

And like, she's still married to him. Supporting.

[B]

She part of Doug Wilson? Is she part of the.

[A]

I don't know. I don't know if she's connected to Doug Wilson. But I do know she came to teach this talk at the Turning Point USA Women's Conference, and her husband's a child predator. Okay. And they didn't see any conflict there. All right, last

[B]

this is.

[A]

Is Pastor Millie. She's Australian. She's yelling a lot. She has over 805,000 followers on her page. She is currently pregnant. And this was part of her message. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I sent this one to you last night.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Part of her message at Turning Point, which is another little adventure for us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Baby boy.

[B]

In just eight weeks, which is kind of terrifying. And, you know, at the beginning of the pregnancy, I was scared. I was terrified.

[A]

Man, this is going to be horrific. You hear all these crazy birth stories. I was scared. But then I had an epiphany a

[B]

couple of months ago. I was like, wait a Second, I should not be the one that's afraid

[A]

of the labor room.

[B]

You know who's afraid of that labor room?

[A]

Hell is afraid of that labor room because I am bringing forth a threat to his kingdom. I am about to bring forth an arrow that is going to take down the plans of the enemy. So I'm not scared anymore of that labor room because I understand now it is spiritual warfare. I feel like I'm about to go to war against the kingdom of hell. And hell is trembling because this baby

[B]

boy is about to come and stop

[A]

some of the plans of the enemy. Children are arrows in the hands of a warrior. See, hell trembles when Christian women have babies and raise them up in the

[B]

ways of the Lord.

[A]

And this is why we reject the

[B]

notion of I'm just a mother. Mother.

[A]

You're just a mother. No, no.

[B]

According to the scripture, if I raise up children in the ways of the Lord, I'm not just a mother.

[A]

I am a warrior here to advance

[B]

the kingdom of heaven and to fight

[A]

against the kingdom of hell.

[B]

Yeah, it's almost.

[A]

For all the. The screaming about, leave the kids out of it. Stop indoctrinating our kids. Kids. There is nobody who indoctrinates children better than Christian conservatives.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Because talk about dehumanizing your child and weaponizing your child, determining your child's destiny before that child's even here. Like, absolutely. There's. There's this d. Like your child isn't a human anymore. You've turned your child into a weapon.

[B]

Yep. And.

[A]

And you as a mother are doing that. Dehumanization.

[B]

Yeah. And it's, you know, I mean, this is directly. This is quiverful language. And quiverful is sort of an extreme vers of purity culture. It's also part of the stay at home daughters idea. And this idea that women's only goal, women's only job, really spiritual job, is to have children. And that is. That is their spiritual identity. And so the more kids you have, the more spiritual you are. I mean, this is a workspace. Faith clearly works based. The more children you have, the more spiritual. Spiritual, the more blessed you are. And it's also part of this replacement idea, this replacement theory that the, you know, we. We will breed them out. Yeah, sort of.

[A]

Well, and I am so glad you use that word, because when I was growing up, and I remember I was 8 or 9 when this was first said to me that it was my job as a Christian woman to have as many children as possible to breed out the left, to breed out our opposition to Save the nation. And it was put in that language of, you're literally saving the nation by how many children you have. Breed them out. And it's what. It's the dehumanization of children, which also leads to their abuse and neglect. Because if your child is just a pawn in some spiritual game, well, then when they get something wrong, you're justified in beating them. Plus, they also believe the Bible supports, you know, extreme corporal punishment most of the time. And then now you also have this system where women. Your only purpose is to give birth. And. And it's a war, right? It's a war. You're soldiers for Christ. It's this very. Like, anyone who's not with us is against us. Anyone who doesn't support our specific beliefs is an enemy of God. And it's creating this language. But as far as, like, indoctrinating children, I only know of one group who's trying to hang up their posters on the walls of classrooms.

[B]

Yes, that. That's exactly right. And this. The material. I mean, one of the reasons we are where we are is because the Christian right has been so good at controlling the literature and controlling the books and creating, you know, this is the primary that women are getting. You know, it's through this women network. And then. Then they're teaching this to their children. And then they're told that they can only use certain Bible translations. They're told that they can only, you know, you. You can only read books that are from our bookstores. And this is what is helping. So they're only getting this very narrow understanding. And it is creating. It goes into. They're creating these armies that they see connected to their political ideology of taking over. And it's a political ideology that disenfranchises women and opens up the doors to the harm of both women and children. Yeah.

[A]

And this. This language of turning children into soldiers really bothers me because soldiers are always expendable.

[B]

Yes, yes. And that what matters is winning. Yep. And not. And so the cost. So it's part of, you know, this sacrifice. It's the same message that was given, like, to women in World War I and World War II, you know, to support the men, to support this noble sacrifice thing that it's. That that makes it sound better, like, to allow your children to be killed and to be used in this type of way instead of allowing them to become the people who, you know, if you are. I believe we are all created in the image of God. And that means that we all have the spark of, you Know that God has given us the ability to think and to choose and the creativity and allowing us to become who we were, who we are capable of becoming is taken away from them.

[A]

Yeah, and it's so, too. It's so true too, because the, the conservative movement, they circle back a lot on free will. Free will, free will. That's how they justify, like, the questions of. If you ask, okay, well, if God is all good and all powerful, then why is there so much harm in the world? And they'll talk about free will, but they do everything in opposition to free will.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Because it's really about compliance over conversion. They don't care if you believe it or not.

[B]

Not.

[A]

They're going to create a system politically and legally where you have to adhere to their belief system because they don't actually believe in free will. They also don't actually believe in small government. They believe in low regulation because the people funding these ideologies are corporations. But they believe in very big government because they want the government in your bedroom. How you show up, what your marriage looks like, what you can wear, what surgeries you can get, what medical help you can get, what your doctor can do, what, whatever, even if your doctor deems it necessary. And so it's actually the very antithesis of the claims. And for people listening who are Christ followers, and you're wondering, like, how do I, how do I articulate? Like, how do I evaluate if my beliefs are Christian or Christian nationalist? How do I tell the difference between the two? And what I want to do is I'm going to read a little list I wrote up because these are important and there are huge distinctions. So if you want to be able to tell the difference and have clarity on that, I'm going to read you kind of what I consider the big differences. So with Christian nationalism, national identity is sacred, country comes before God or is, at minimum, inextricably linked to God. Christian nationalism treats America itself as a divinely chosen nation with a covenant with God, enmeshing patriotism and faith. Christianity has no such doctrine. It is not a religion of empire. It was never supposed to be.

[B]

Yeah, I'm teaching Sunday school. I teach Sunday school. I love teaching Sunday school. And I'm teaching the Book of Revelation right now. And I'm using Scott McKnight's book. I don't know if you've read it. It's called Revelation. For the rest of us, it's Scott McKnight. And it's essentially that the Book of Revelation, which has fueled the way it's been taught, has fueled a lot of this Christian nationalism, but that the book of Revelation, what it really is, is it's teaching Christians to resist empire. And. And that it's the exact opposite of what Christian, national, Christian nationalism is the empire. You have become the empire. And that has never been what Christianity is about. You know, it's always revelation.

[A]

It was always coded language to. Because they couldn't openly defy Rome, they couldn't openly defy, you know, the emperor. So they had to code things. And at the time, there was a very popular myth called Nero Redevelopment VIIs, where they believed that Nero was going to come back from the dead and he was going to come kill all the Christians. So the 666 or the 616, depending on which manuscript you're looking at, is Gematria coding his name because they couldn't write his name out because this was essentially contraband literature, and so they have to hide it.

[B]

This is, you know, such a case, too, of context matters, historical context matters. And. And we have. We have created. We have created a Christian world that doesn't allow us to use our brains and doesn't allow us to use, you know, the. The ability that we have been given, that we have, that we all have the understanding that we can have. We are being told not to use that. And it's just, it's. It's sad and it's terrifying because we are seeing the consequences of this. I mean, we're seeing the people who are believing, you know, Trump right now with the whole reflecting pool debacle saying that it is. It was, you know, vandalists who did this to make him look bad. And I'm like, do people believe? I mean, how do you believe? And some people do. And, you know, and they listen to, like, these clips that you've been showing us of these women who say that feminism is demonic and feminism is out to destroy you and the family. And the reason they believe that is because they have no framework and no tools to be able to hear that and be like, actually, feminism has, you know, those. Those things cannot be connected historically. They just don't have the framework or the tools to do that.

[A]

And they also. That's why the conservative movement is so at odds with education. You know.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Universities are, you know, bastions of liberal doctrine. No, they're not. They're bastions of critical thought.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I guess those opinions and those arguments start to crumble when someone is well educated, especially women. Women pick up on. Women are really good at pattern recognition. So when you give woman, a woman a little bit of education and she gets out of the indoctrination umbrella a little bit, she starts to ask questions and it's, you know, I, I know like what I believed, you know, in my teens and twenties, twenties and I'm, I look back and I'm shocked by it. And then I'm like, well, wait, like, they controlled everything I could read, they controlled everything I could watch. They didn't give me any other sources. It's the reason for the book bands. It's the reason that the conservative movement has targeted school boards so much, because they can impact curriculum. The Department of Education does not determine curriculum. They are a civil rights organization. Functionally, it is the states that do. And that's why the conservative movement moved so hard for the school boards and the bands. And I just want to read these other quick little things again. If you're wondering, like, what's the difference between Christian nationalism and Christianity or is a belief that I hold one or the other. The second thing is there's ethnic and cultural gatekeeping is a difference between Christian nationalism and Christianity. Christian nationalism defines real Americans as white, Protestant and European descended. Of course, Christianity's own scriptures are diametrically opposed to that. And Jesus himself, not a white person. Person number three, political power is the goal. The movement exists to control legislation, courts and government. Jesus declined earthly kingship. So if you are looking at something that people are telling you or that they are saying and you're like, what's the goal of this? What's the end goal? If it's to win a race, if it's to gain more power, it's not a Christian. It is a Christian nationalist doctrine, not a Christian one. Number four, the Bible becomes a political document. Christian nationalists read scripture to justify policy positions. Immigration restriction, gender hierarchy and racial order. Order. Mainstream Christian theology reads it as a guide for personal and communal spiritual formation. Number five, enemies are spiritual enemies. So if you are someone who's ever been called a witch, a Jezebel or a demon because you disagreed, political opponents aren't just wrong, they're agents of evil, which makes compromise impossible and violence justifiable. Again, diametrically opposed to Christianity's teaching of love your enemies. Enemies love your neighbor. Doesn't say to defeat them, doesn't say to attack them, doesn't say violence against them says to love them. Number six, might signals righteousness, wealth, dominance and political victory are read as sign of God's favor. Jesus said the opposite.

[B]

Yes, because.

[A]

And interesting that that flips too, because if it's someone that conservatives like, they're like, see, God has blessed them. They must be doing the right thing. But if it's someone else, see, they serve Satan in this world, and that's why they're getting blessings in this world. World. It's very, very versatile.

[B]

Use it both ways.

[A]

Split number seven. Grievance is the engine Christian nationalism runs on a persecution narrative, a claim that Christians are under attack and we must fight back, either from people or from Satan. And in the US There is no group in this country that has consistently had more advantage and privilege than white Christians.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Persecution. Not real. And then the last one I wrote was compliance over conversion. The goal is a nation governed by their rules, regardless. Regardless of whether the individual believes them or not.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Christianity's. Christianity's entire project in his voluntary faith and transformed hearts, not coercion.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[A]

And so those are just some. Some goal posts I, I wrote up because those are great. It is such a. And it's sad because the message of Christ is so truly, so beautiful. And to watch it get hijacked is. Is rough.

[B]

It is. And it, you know, and this is why people then walk away when they. When they leave these spaces and their eyes get open and they're like, I hate Christianity. It's terrible. Everything that was done. And it's just. It's really sad to me because I'm like, what you are reacting against is actually not Christianity and not what it's. And you know, the thing. There's a lot of problems with Christian history because Christian history has been intricately linked with empire since. Since the fourth century. And this has created significant problems throughout. And so this is a continuing pattern of Christianity being linked with empire and being used to put forward the things of empire instead of the things that actually Jesus fought for. That I believe Jesus fought for. For.

[A]

Yeah. And it's. And it's a radically different. It's a radical deviation from even how the early Christians lived. Like, they were very egalitarian societies with female pastors, church planners, apostles. People sold their wealth. They gave to people as they had need. They gave to the hungry without demanding they work another. A certain number of hours every month. It's. It's just. It's not the same. And I think an understanding of that and understanding that what we're seeing right now on this political staging is. Is using God to sanctify what your sword is already doing.

[B]

That's a good way of saying it. Yeah.

[A]

And it's also, I say a lot that the Christian nationalism. Is the Taliban under a different logo?

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Because it's theocracy to justify hierarchy.

[B]

The parallels, the parallels are really terrifying. And especially when you think about things like women's suffrage and women's right to vote. And, you know, people are horrified that in the Taliban now. Now has required everybody. Women to completely cover up and like, if even their hands are showing or something, people are like, oh, my gosh, that's terrible. And I'm like, well, where does your theology lead?

[A]

Yeah, where does. You know, where's the logical conclusion? Right?

[B]

And. And this is a logical conclusion when you say that women belong underneath, that women are divinely created and underneath male authority and control, and that their primary purpose is related to their.

[A]

Their.

[B]

To their physical function, being able to birth children and their sexuality. And that's where it goes. A thing that I always like to point out to my students is that if you go through the. Especially in the New Testament, if you go through the New Testament, you write out all the names of the women that we know, and then I'm like, okay, go through and tell me who their husbands and children are. And most of them you cannot. And most of them you cannot. I mean, you know, I had a chapter in my last book called where is Peter's Wife? And I just love that chapter. I love that because it's like, that's not what's important. When. When those stories were told to us, what was not important was who you were married to and who your children were. What was important was what you were doing, how you were loving your neighbor, how you were loving God and how you were sharing that good news of Jesus. And, you know, I. One of my friends is Joash Thomas, who has a great book on the justice of Jesus. And, you know, and he says one of his things, he says, let's make the good news, you know, actually good news for the poor again and good news for the oppressed again, and good news, because that's what it was.

[A]

That's what it's supposed to be.

[B]

Yeah, that's what it's supposed to be. Be.

[A]

I want to show you one more thing. We're just going to do a little palette cleanser before I wrap up with our final question.

[B]

Yay.

[A]

So also at Turning Point, they had this. This board for girls to come up and put. What's your favorite baby name? Because of course, we're really, really focused on white babies here. But what is hilarious to me is when you zoom in, I'm going to pull this back up here. One of the names is Melatonin. Wow. That's a choice of all the choices of names. That's one of them. That is one of the choices.

[B]

That is fascinating.

[A]

That is just. I, like, I zoomed in. I was like, does that say Melatonin? It does, in fact say Melatonin. So as we look at this and so, you know, we've had these responses kind of debunking all of this. It does say Melatonin. We've, you know, we've seen all these talking points, and you and I grew up both very, very conservative movements. We've heard this before. This is repackaging an old pill.

[B]

Yeah. Yes.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

How do.

[A]

How do women respond to this in a meaningful way that pushes back on this movement?

[B]

Yeah. So I think one of, I think one of the things is, one of the reasons why I love what you do is giving out, out clear information that just shows, like, why some of the things they're being taught is. Is incorrect. And just putting it out there in a really clear way. That's not judging, just saying, hey, look, this is how they're defining feminism. Let's look and see what feminism actually is. And, and I think that is. That is helpful. One of the wonderful things about social media is that. And the. One of the wonderful things about all of these women who are in these conservative networks, networks is that they are all using social media and they are all on social media. So this is an accessible way to actually reach them. I think is. Is really great. I think another thing is simply to. To make friends with women who believe differently from you. And this is something that, you know, I try to stay in networks with women who, but who say things like, I was at a dinner party not too long ago, and one woman was like, well, I wouldn't say I was a feminist. And so I'm sort of like, you know, how can I actually help her break that down? To be like, well, why wouldn't you say you're not? Why do you have. Against feminism? And the only way you can do that is have those conversations is to be in those relationships where people might actually listen to you and, you know, and to look and to present a different way. Of course, the main way that I actually do this is I'm a teacher. I. I think this is both my, my training, but I also, it's got, you know, I've been gifted in teaching. I love teaching. I love the classroom. And it is a very powerful way to help people, you know, to give them the Information and to help them see. And I love every semester with my. With students just watching their eyes get opened to what they have been taught and now. Now what they know. And so, you know, I think a good way to do this in an ordinary level is to do things like book groups.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, that's actually a really powerful tool within the Christian world and within. With women. You know, this is something that's very popular right now. Go have a coffee book group. I'm like, yes, go, go. Let me give you some. You know, go read the Five. Go read the Five. You know, this great book called the Five. You know, and read it with your friends. Go read yesteryear. You know, there's a lot of problems

[A]

with Yesterday started yesteryear. But I'm excited to read it.

[B]

Yeah, I actually, I, I bought it because I picked it up in a bookstore and I laughed through the first two chapters and I was like, okay, I'm gonna buy it. So. So I haven't gotten, I haven't gotten very far yet. But it's, but go read things. Go read things that you might not agree with, but sit down and have a conversation. And this is what opens it up to have open conversation and, and to model being friends with people who aren't like you and who you might disagree with. You know, we've got to break down these barriers that women like me are out to get stay at home moms. You know, some of my best friends, my mom was a stay at home mom and I love her. And a lot of my best friends are also stay at home moms. And so.

[A]

And space for all of us.

[B]

There's space for all of us. And I think if we can model that, that, I mean, that. That helps move the needle.

[A]

Yeah. And ultimately, like, I want to remind everybody listening that the polarization is the goal. Like their goal is to polarize men versus women, women on the left versus women on the right, you know, and because the goal of it is, is that if we're infighting and we're paying attention to everybody else, we're not paying attention to the boot on our neck. Because ultimately the core of the issue we are facing in the United States is a power disparity. This is a, this is a. Those who have versus those who have not is the core issue. But if they can use race or gender or sexuality or belief systems to polarize us, then we're so distracted with each other. The stay at home wife, even these conservative talking head women, some of whom are too young to really Understand the, that they're not my intention. Enemy. You are not my enemy. And I want the happiest and the best and the richest life for you that's full of your own choices and your own autonomy and, and your book that you want to write. You're not my enemy. The policies that are creating a situation where my great niece may not have rights when she gets older is my enemy. That's my enemy. And, and the people that have enough money to buy out our elections and all of these things that we see going on, that's, that's, that's my enemy.

[B]

My, my mom has a shirt that I love that says vote like your granddaughter's rights depend on it. And you know, and that's, I mean that's what she, that's what she is doing. She's voting for her, for her granddaughters and her grandsons. And you know, I just, I think if one of the things about this con, I think we have to be forward thinking. We have to think, you know, this isn't just about me. This is about the world we are creating. And are we going to create a more just society that looks like the kingdom of God, that vision that Jesus gave before us, Are we going to create a world that looks more like that? Or are we going to let Empire just keep winning?

[A]

Yep. And because ultimately, again, this isn't about freedom of belief. This is about enforcing a very narrow belief. And, and I would just encourage people keep asking questions. And when you're engaging in those conversations, I get a lot of messages from people where they're like, how do I get my dad to see this or my friend? Or a lot of times you can't. That's a, that's a. The crack. I call it the crack. Deconstruction happens at a, at a crack, something breaks open and you see.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Either the hypocrisy or the dissonance and you can't reconcile it anymore. They have to hit their own crack. But the best thing, the two best things I think you can do in those conversations is ask questions, force them to articulate their belief because many times they can't and many times they don't hit the crack because they've never sat down long enough to think it through.

[B]

Through.

[A]

Ask them questions. And the other thing is, is if you're someone who grew up with, with the Bible and scriptural knowledge, take them back to Scripture. If this is like a Christian argument, take them back, make them argue with Jesus, not you. That's my favorite.

[B]

Exactly right.

[A]

Try Jesus.

[B]

Yeah, that is exactly right. Yeah. You know, I. I still find Romans 16:1 of the best tools to use for people who don't believe in women's authority in the church. I'm like, just go write out all the names of those women and what they're doing, and then let's talk about. About it.

[A]

Amen. Amen. Is there. So before we wrap up, Dr. Bar, first of all, thank you for being here and taking the time. I appreciate it. We were on a Saturday morning. I messaged her at the last minute, said, can you come on? I want to talk to you about this. Especially when I saw the witchcraft clip, I was like, I know someone whose expertise is in the medieval era.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

What else? First, let everybody know where to find you, and then if there's anything that you're working on.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Actually, I'll tell you what I'm working on first. I'm working on my medieval book. And that's one of the reasons I can talk so much about Hildegard of Bingen, because I just wrote. I wrote a chapter called Baptizing Eve, and it is focused on the story of Eve and Hildegard of Bingin's theology. And in fact, my editor said that it might be the best writing she's seen for me, which made me. I was like, she's not. She's actually. I think it's the first praise I've ever gotten from her. So, you know, I, like, showed my daughter, and my daughter was like, oh, yay. So, anyway, but so I. You can find me on Instagram and substack. Those are the two places that I mostly hang out. And my substack you can follow. I'm actually doing a series on feminism. I just started it, and so. And my substack is marginalia. And. Or you can just look at Beth Ellison Barr. And then I'm most well known for my 2021 book, the Making of Biblical Womanhood. How the Subjugation of Women Became. Became Gospel Truth. And my most recent one, which is sort of a case study of taking the Making of Biblical Womanhood and also bringing in the significance of how women have influenced these networks and how women. The influence of women for both Good and Bad. And it's called Becoming the Pastor's Wife. How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman's Path to Ministry. And then I'm working on my. My medieval book, which I'm really excited about. About.

[A]

And also I will recommend for anybody who's interested in more of these stories, your podcast with I can't remember your.

[B]

Oh yes, Savannah lock all the buried women.

[A]

Oh, I can't believe.

[B]

Yeah, and it's, it's just five, so it won't take a lot of your time. But it's a five part miniseries on the Southern Baptist Convention and it tells some of the stories from becoming the pastor's wife, but goes into more detectives tell and it's, it's. That was an amazing experience. So.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Very worth the listen. So I hope this encourages all of you. I hope you see a way forward. I hope that if maybe you've never been able to articulate why certain beliefs and teachings didn't feel right, it's because they're not. I hope that helped. Dr. Bar, thank you again so much for being here. I can't wait for this episode to come out. I think it's going to help a lot of people and everyone. I will see you next week on Flipping Tables.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

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