← White Horse Inn
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
In hard soil, how does the church take root and continue to grow? Now I know it's tempting to become cultural warriors, spending our energy trying to reclaim what the church has lost. But there is a better way. The Culture of God's Word by Harold Sankpel and Lucas Woodford calls us back to faithful mission in a post Christian world. Not to win a culture war, but to plant the seeds of God's Word and to trust him for for the harvest. Request your copy today with the gift of any amount@solamedia.org offers.
- [00:37]
Mary Van Weilden
There are godly ways to live that are not kind of this narrow checklist of what honestly many Christians lives look like. I think it is very common for Christians to get married and have families. But it's and it's good and it's beautiful, but it's not the only God ordained state season that his saints are called to. And if you start believing that it is, the first thing you're doing is you're putting this legalistic burden on yourself that you have to live a certain way. And when you're a two month postpartum mom for the first time and and your home is a disaster and your sourdough starter is dead and you know, you don't feel like you're a good wife, you don't know when you'll ever feel like a good wife, you don't feel like a good mom, you don't know when you last slept. That checklist suddenly becomes an incredible burden. And what moms need instead of the checklist is the gospel that when we fail as parents, Christ has already finished the good work.
- [01:46]
Podcast Host
Applying the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. This is Whitehorse Sin, a weekly roundtable discussion theology and culture.
- [02:02]
Bob Hiller
We are surrounded by all kinds of voices trying to grab our attention, trying to distract us from the things that really matter, and at the same time trying to inform us about things that do matter. But with so much noise in the world right now, it's hard to discern who we should be listening to. Anybody is trying to sell you something. Everybody's trying to catechize you right now. So here at Whitehorse, we're in the middle of a series where we're talking about the different voices that are catechizing us in our culture right now. And today we're going to talk about the online movements, influencers, ideas, people who are catechizing women. And to do this, we are very excited to have with us today Mary Van Weilden. She is a dual master's degree in biblical and theological Studies from Westminster Seminary in SoCal. She is married to a pastor with one child and one on the way. She is the content manager for Sola Media and is applying for a job to go on Taylor Swift's next tour. So we are very excited to have Mary with us here today. I hope that works out with t swizzle there. Mary, that'll be very sweet.
- [03:10]
Justin Holcomb
Why not?
- [03:12]
Bob Hiller
She's looking for theological advice. It's pretty clear. We're also here with our usual cast of characters, Justin Holcomb, Walter Strickland, Mike Horton, and I'm Bob Hiller. Mary, we are very excited for you to be here with us today. Let's start here. Where are women going to be catechized right now? Where are the areas where the biggest voice is speaking into sort of women's lives in the culture right now?
- [03:35]
Mary Van Weilden
That's a great question. I think that even certainly for women outside of a church where they are being regularly fed and discipled, hopefully I would say women who are also attending church, everyone is influenced by social media, women especially younger women. There's a huge presence on social media, TikTok and Instagram especially. And a lot of the content that they are seeing then is shaping their worldview. And what we see on social media is everything. These are non discriminative platforms. They don't curate based on what's true or what's helpful, but based on what you already watch. So for example, my feed has a lot of parenting videos, Best restaurants in Denver. And because I'm married to a cheese head, I get a lot of packers highlight reels too. If you watch videos about theology or if that's something that you're interested in, if you're religious at all and you start seeing things about biblical studies or applicational theology and you watch those videos, then you'll be fed more of that content. We're seeing women being influenced by the people who are creating content who might not necessarily have formal training or certifications. And they give out parenting advice, health advice, relationship advice and theological instruction. And because anyone can make this content, there's not really a good filter. This matters because now women are being the onus is on women to be able to decide what is and is not helpful, good or true theological instruction, where that responsibility used to be or should be in the hands of under shepherds, pastors, elders, ministries of the church that are under the oversight of trained and qualified teachers. Does that answer your question?
- [05:33]
Bob Hiller
Totally answers my question. First off, you want to go to Chef Zorba's in Order the unusual. That's some good Denver restaurant advice there. Second, a lot of the conversation I hear is women don't feel like they should. They can be having theological catechesis within the church. They're going outside of their congregations to find education. Why do you think that's happening?
- [05:54]
Mary Van Weilden
That's a great question. I've seen this play out in a couple of different ways. Women spend a large part of their lives in the daily nitty gritty. Whether you're single or married, a parent or not, women tend to be caretakers of their families, their churches, friends and neighbors, and the planners and organizers of daily life. We hold the relationships. And this is true. I mean, studies have been done, you know, across cultures. Women tend to do this. And because we're very relational, I think what women are looking for theologically is where does scripture speak into my relationships and the hurts and hard places of my life. And if you absolutely no shade on this, but if you listen to men talk about theology, it is the nitty gritty. Very often for the sake of the nitty gritty. I think that women approach theology differently and I think that scripture, the truth and beauty of the gospel is full enough to address both needs and sets of interests. God made, you know, made men and women in his image. There's no better, it's just different. So I think that what is available to women is often male led theological conversation. And that's not necessarily going to meet where they're felt needs are in, you know, churches or small groups or what have you. And so they might look towards other places. So Instagram is really easy because you can scroll on that for, you know, 10, 15 minutes and find out some interesting things about the Bible that you didn't know that are maybe hitting places that you're percolating on anyway. And then you can go back to, you know, washing the dishes or folding laundry or prepping your kids curriculum or you know, your, your commute to work. I think that the availability of short form kind of soundbite theology that's presented by women, hitting issues that women are interested in tends to be more, not just accessible, but feel more like it's hitting the right spot to women who are busy with full lives, full of lots of little things.
- [08:13]
Justin Holcomb
Mary this is very helpful, Pastor Oli, for me to kind of hear what the felt needs are, that sort of day to day in the weeds sort of theological engagement. And so that's what folks might be looking for. But what are they, what are they finding both in the tip for the good. And also things that we need to be concerned about that are out there, that are major trends or themes that you're kind of seeing developing out there.
- [08:38]
Mary Van Weilden
Sure, yeah. So, unfortunately, I think a lot of what ends up on social media is not great content. There are. There are some trained, qualified women, and we could talk about why there are far less of them than there need to be. But there are some in Christian spaces, but they're not necessarily like the Instagram aesthetic. So, I mean, Nancy Guthrie, what a wonderfully sound theologian. I've been so blessed by her work. She doesn't have, like, you know, an Instagram with, like, the coffee and the. You know, it's not how she's presenting her work. The people who are presenting their work are influencers. And by and large, there are exceptions to this across the board. But what we see in the Instagram influencer world, Instagram and TikTok, they're largely younger women. So automatically, then there is going to be a difference in experience and wisdom. And a lot of them are not formally trained. And on one. And it's a spectrum of what we're getting to, on one end, you have conservative women who you could qualify as, like, the trad wife type. And if you don't know what trad wife is, it's that. It is the.
- [09:54]
Walter Strickland
Go for it.
- [09:55]
Bob Hiller
Yeah, flesh it out for us.
- [09:58]
Walter Strickland
I saw the open door. Please go walk through that one and teach is.
- [10:02]
Mary Van Weilden
It's this. It's kind of a new, like, cultural phenomenon where people are responding to the push for, you know, career women and, you know, bigger, better break the glass ceiling and saying, hey, you don't have to be a career mom. You can stay home with your kids. You can make the sourdough and the yogurt at home and buy it all organic and make your own clothes and homeschool your kids and do all the things. And. And there's a lot of good in that. There's a lot of truth in that. But what we see happening is that Christian women then take this lifestyle, and they say, this is the biblical godly lifestyle that you should be following. And they tie in, some of them tie in also the complicated verses that often get abused in really strictly complementarian communities about submission. We see a complete lack of nuance in terms of gender roles. And so what ends up being, like, good kind of common grace realm, like, yes, you can do these good things sort of turns into law, like, this is how Christians should live. And then the other end of that spectrum, like, you travel all the Way across. And you end up kind of in liberal woke progressive, dealing with the inerrancy of scripture and lots of citing apocryphal sources and twisting historical references.
- [11:26]
Walter Strickland
Like gnostic spirituality stuff?
- [11:28]
Mary Van Weilden
Yeah, like, I mean like everything you can find, anything you want.
- [11:31]
Walter Strickland
You were describing what sounded like Gnosticism. I don't know if that was like an intentional thing.
- [11:34]
Mary Van Weilden
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of, a lot of spiritual but not religious type of things, but like the, the female version of that. And I think that a lot of progressive woke theology does stem from a place of accommodating society and worldly pursuits and desires, even sinful pursuits and desires. But there is a subset of that that looks very similar and that's deconstructionist theology. And you see a lot of that on TikTok and Instagram.
- [12:08]
Bob Hiller
Interesting.
- [12:09]
Mary Van Weilden
And they look similar, but they're coming from different places. And the deconstructionists are coming from a deep place of church hurt. And so approaching those two requires a difference in tone and attitude, which I think is really important.
- [12:25]
Walter Strickland
Mary, can you. This is amazing. I'm really glad that you're here. Thank you for doing this. Like, like you're a tour guide for a domain that I actually, looking at the stats, I'm an Instagram person and apparently like women and teenage girls use Instagram and TikTok more.
- [12:41]
Mary Van Weilden
I'm shocked that you're on there.
- [12:43]
Walter Strickland
I am all over it. Part confession. I love me some reels and scroll and I'm like, I will waste an hour. And the way it works is like I didn't know. Like it knows what I want. It can curate for me better my feed than I know because they started giving me poker things recently and like I like seeing like the surprise poker hands and when one pops up, I'm real excited and I watch it a few times and then fishing, we start going entertained.
- [13:10]
Podcast Host
Aren't you?
- [13:11]
Walter Strickland
I am.
- [13:12]
Bob Hiller
I get it.
- [13:13]
Walter Strickland
So it is the power of it. As a 52 year old man, it knows my. It knows about my lower back pain and my very strong opinions about airline status and all. I mean it knows me. I said something that started freaking me out. Like I'm going to sound like a weirdo now. But like I said something about, yeah, I don't know, weirder. But how it figures me out is amazing. So this is one of my questions is you're talking about women in general, what they're going to find and briefly, because not all of our listeners are going to be thinking about my Question. But I have two teenage daughters, 15, 16. They love them some Swift and CS Lewis and some other things. They're fun and complex, like all people are. But can you describe the terrain of what a teenage young woman might find? They're not on Instagram and I know it tailors to them eventually. And all that kind of stuff in general, like what kind of things might my daughters bump into and what might be trying to shape their hearts and minds. What would you say to parents, pastors, those of us who are thinking about. Because we're going to, you know, teenage young women in social media in general doesn't have to be specifically Instagram or TikTok.
- [14:30]
Mary Van Weilden
Let's take this from like kind of the more what we see with what the tradwife community is putting out. Before there was sort of like the trad wife movement, there was the girl wash your face book that did so well and was a series. And there's a lot of stuff that looks or sounds or feels Christian or things that line up with Christian values, like traditional Christian values. And it's easy to think, okay, this is good or true or right because it sounds like what the other Christians in my life are advocating for, or it sounds like a lifestyle, you know, pro family, pro life. Those things sound like biblically condoned things because they're God ordained as part of, you know, common grace. So they are good, but they're not necessarily gospel. And so it's hard to know what your girls specifically will run into. Like you mentioned, you know, our algorithms are tailored specifically for us. And so I couldn't say what your girls might run into on their Instagrams. I can tell you, like, in the podcast world, what we see for young women is a lot of lifestyle, It's a lot of how to live. And how to live ends up boiling down to law. And so I would encourage any young woman to consider as they're listening to things, not necessarily to discard an entire teaching. Like, I make my own yogurt, I just made a batch yesterday and I do my own sourdough and I'm making sandwich bread for my husband because he's asked me to now. And there are a lot of like trad wifey things, but I. But I don't buy into their belief system, which is this is how you're supposed to live. I was single for 10 years before I met my now husband. And I worked multiple jobs and got multiple degrees. I did missions, I worked with my local church, I traveled a bunch, you know, invested in relationships, built into the people in my local church. There are godly ways to live that are not kind of this narrow checklist of what, what honestly many Christians lives look like. I think it is very common for Christians to get married and have families. But it's, and it's good and it's beautiful, but it's not the only God ordained season that his saints are called to. And if you start believing that it is, the first thing you're doing is you're putting this legalistic burden on yourself that you have to live a certain way. And when you're a, you know, a two month postpartum mom for the first time and, and your home is a disaster and your sourdough starter is dead and you know, you don't feel like you're a good wife, you don't know when you'll ever feel like a good wife, you don't feel like a good mom, you don't know when you last slept. That checklist suddenly becomes an incredible burden. And what moms need instead of the checklist is the gospel that when we fail as parents, Christ has already finished the good work. And what we are not able to give to our children because or our spouses because of our sin and our shortcoming, Christ fulfills and he fills in and he blesses and he redeems and he restores. That's what women need to hear in all seasons of life. Single, married moms, grandmas. And it's not what you find in a lot of what is available to women especially I would say young women with this kind of popular in popular spaces. What we see trending is here's how to live to get fulfillment and satisfaction from life and to be a good person. And that's just not what the gospel tells us.
- [18:12]
Bob Hiller
It's so interesting. Like the, you made the comment that sometimes this trad wife stuff or whatever looks really good because it has the same sort of biblical values and all that stuff, these conservative biblical values, whatever. But remarkably it ends up making the biblical stuff in response the way the Christians do it ends up looking more secular. So we, I remember it's been a long time now. My kids are far too large for their own good. But we had a book called Baby Wise. Did you ever hear this book?
- [18:42]
Justin Holcomb
I think I've heard of it, yes.
- [18:43]
Bob Hiller
Good gracious. So like I just remember my wife and I are like, okay, we don't know how to be parents. What do we do? And she's reading it and the first chapter is like, if you don't have by week four, your kids sleeping in a crib at 6pm like, you should just pretty much like bank on prison. And you're like, what the heck? This is nuts. Like, we felt horrible. And then you go to the Christian resources and it's like the same thing. So it's just the thing we have to worry about is like in the secular realm, there's some good advice, there's good wisdom, just as there's in the Christian realm. But what is it that makes it unique for women so that they find that they can rest in Christ and not find their identity back in their performance?
- [19:24]
Mike Horton
Can you give us a little bit of comparison and contrast between male tiktokers and female tiktokers, younger folks, what makes them similar? Because, I mean, everything you're saying so far about young women being sort of given these expectations, whether it's progressive or fundamentalist, given these expectations that turn the gospel into law, that young men face that too, but are maybe a little bit more attracted to it than broken by it.
- [20:01]
Mary Van Weilden
Yeah, well, that's a great point, Dr. Horton, because unfortunately, especially in this current kind of trad wife trend, it leans into this, what can often be an abusive system that supports and elevates and caters to men while diminishing and devaluing and abusing women. And I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that is true across the board. There are very healthy marriages that, you know, are biblical and godly and, you know, look like they follow this lifestyle. But I think you're right that a lot of what we hear, if you take the gospel element out of it, and certainly if you have young people who are not being discipled and are not being shepherded by wise people in their churches within the body of Christ, you do end up with this, with these twisted ideas of what the Christian life looks like. And I think for young men, what I have seen, and this is probably like the radical end of the spectrum because it'll be women then responding. They'll take a clip and they'll say, like, look at what's being said. And they'll respond. And the clips are horrendous to watch. And it is things like, it is that similar. You need to get married, you need to have. You need to get married young to a pretty girl, have lots of kids, you know, go to church, check you're done. Like that's your life fulfilled. And then it's accompanied by things like you're the leader of your home and so you should make all of the decisions. And, you know, there's a. Like, a number of videos out saying that, like, women shouldn't be allowed to vote, which means not having political opinions. How does that get worked out then? In a home when women are being taught to be quiet, be submissive, only do what your husband tells you to. And they're young people who are digesting this. I mean, the first thing it does is it takes out room for two people who've married each other, they're partners for life, to have conversation, and they don't get to have dialogue now between what she's experiencing and feeling and what he's experiencing and feeling. My husband and I align on, like, probably 99% of our major opinions about life, politics, theology. And when we run up against that 2%, it's like a. It's a. Everything stops. And we. We talk about it for, you know, days, weeks, months, work through it, and there's a. It's hard work. He respects me and sees my value as an image bearer. And I respect him and I trust him and his kindness and his goodness and his gentleness and his godliness and this mutual respect that we have for each other, we build in and we work through our differences and, you know, we figure out, should I be a Packers fan or not, or, you know, whatever it is. So. But. But you cannot have those kinds of. You can't have that growth in a marriage if you have two young people who are being taught, I get to make all the decisions I need to rule my home with an iron fist, to be a good leader and never show emotion and carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and never let anyone know because a good man keeps it inside, which is. Then I'm seeing stuff like, this is crazy. And then women who are being taught, you need to support your husband in every single decision that he makes, and you need to be quiet and submissive, and you need to have as many kids as he wants you to have, and you need to want to have that many kids and get along with the other wives. That's a different podcast. So I think it is.
- [23:38]
Walter Strickland
I'm so slow. I finally got it after you all got it.
- [23:41]
Mary Van Weilden
I think that it is. It's emotionally and spiritually stunting young people when marriage should be a sanctifying growing in the Lord thing. We put kids into these. I say kids, you know, they're like young, 20s, mid-20s, whatever. We put them into these boxes and we say, this is your box for the rest of your life. And we take out the room for wisdom decisions and growth and accountability and the need for grace as we fail each other and we sin against each other. And that's the other side of this, the beauty of the Gospel. When our little life formulas and our plans and whatever don't work out either because of, you know, providence is beyond our control or because of our own sinful decisions, the Gospel floods us with grace and we get to forgive and be forgiven and start again. And that is, I mean, essential to a Christian marriage.
- [24:46]
Podcast Host
At Sola Media, we're committed to helping Christians deepen their faith through clear, Christ centered teaching rooted in the riches of the Reformation. Every podcast, article and resource we produce is offered free of charge and it's only possible because of generous monthly supporters. When you become a partner Today, you'll receive two remarkable books as our Rediscovering the Holy Spirit by Dr. Michael Horton and Praying with Jesus by Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We believe these books can guide you into a clearer understanding of the Spirit's work and a richer prayer life. To become a partner and receive these two books, visit solarmedia.org partner.
- [25:38]
Justin Holcomb
Man, this is super helpful. And as I was on the wrong medium trying to look for Tradwise, which I was on, I was on YouTube, not TikTok or Instagram, which I don't have either because I'm a dude I guess. And so but I did, I did find one that I, who has 142,000 subscribers. And really what was going on is that she's wearing a dress, doing tasks around the house. In almost every video there's verses popping up and she's quoting verses. And a lot of times the things, the verses that she's citing has nothing to do with what she's actually doing. And so just in light of that, what sorts of verses have you seen manipulated with that trend or even amongst those who are disaffecting from and leaving religion as the feminist movement is growing in Gen Z?
- [26:32]
Mary Van Weilden
Yeah, that's such an interesting example because I hear so often from women who are proponents of this, women should be silent, women shouldn't instruct men when women shouldn't teach the Bible. And then they go and quote scripture at me and it's like, well, that is exactly what you're doing on the Internet, a public platform that reaches both men and women. So I think that there is a lot of underlying hypocrisy in some of these movements. It does tend to be verses about, you know, women being silent or submissive. Obviously the Ephesians one gets a lot of heat But I think honestly, I see a lot less use of scripture in kind of the. On the tradwife end of the spectrum than I do in the deconstructionist. Because the tradwifes are leaning into Christian lifestyle. And like, this is what a Christian life looks like. Like, the deconstructionists have been forced to live through that. And now that they're kind of breaking free of it, they're saying, okay, what does God actually say about women in our purpose? So one example of this would be a couple years ago, I was in seminary. I was in the middle of an Old Testament class. And one of my friends texts me, says, hey, do you know anything about this? And she sends me a bunch of stories from this woman who she and her. She's married to a pastor or former pastor. And they had just come out of a very patriarchal cult. And this woman is just glowing with like the. The new life of feeling seen and heard and beloved by God when, you know, previously she's been kind of shunted into this very narrow, diminishing, devalued position. And she's clearly healing from spiritual abuse. And she's very passionate about sharing and wanting to inform other people. And she talks in her kind of on her account as it's grown that she's wanted to explain why she and her husband left their community. It's Instagram, so it just exploded. And a bunch of other women who are also hurting come and see her content. I'm not sure what her training is. She doesn't list it on her site. She is married to someone who is a pastor, although given the cult they're coming from, I'm not sure what his ordination process is. But she starts digging into complicated passages of scripture. And the one that she brings up in this story is the Levitical laws on female purity. It's Leviticus 15 talking about women who are menstruating and how they are unclean for seven days. And her take on this was, well, this means that the women get to leave the camp. And so imagine all of these women getting to gather outside the camp together during this time of the month when they don't feel well and they don't have to take care of kids or, you know, take care of their tents in their homes. They get to rest and enjoy each other's fellows fellowship. See how God loves and provides for them. And it is a lovely thing to consider, and it's completely wrong. Just because you're unclean doesn't mean you have to go outside the camp and what an incredibly dangerous thing that would be for women. And also how impractical for a quarter of the women of the camp to constantly be gone from their children and their homes.
- [29:44]
Mike Horton
Plus, as you know, Mary, that's ritual purity, not moral purity issues.
- [29:49]
Mary Van Weilden
Exactly. And that's what she's done, unfortunately, is she just has she just misunderstood
- [29:56]
Walter Strickland
some
- [29:56]
Mary Van Weilden
of the finer points of the ceremonial laws. And in trying to teach women that God loves them, which is all over Scripture, I mean, the tenderness and the dignity that he affords women in the ancient near east and in the Greco Roman world, that would have been unheard of. It is a beautiful thing to study how God loves women in Scripture, but it's not in Leviticus 15. The Levitical laws are about training and instructing Israel about the purity and the holiness of God is meant to point us to Christ. And in the end, that's what women need. I mean, we can be. Yes, we do need to know that God loves his daughters. And I was thinking about this too. We so so often tend to think about this from a, like a Western church lens. And there are women suffering, you know, in this country under places of spiritual abuse, but also, you know, circumstantial poverty and financial insecurity and chronic illness. And they need to know that God loves them. They also need the gospel. And if we look at our sisters around the world, who are, you know, some of them religious persecution or in, you know, countries where they are much more abused for being women and then affected by wars and famine and poverty and a lack of church, family and fellowship depending on where in the world they are. Yes, they need to know that God loves them and that they have value and dignity as his image bearers. But they, more than that, need the eternal comfort that his Son came and died for them. And if we're not extending that to the women, then these temporal comforts of, well, you can make it through this season because God sees you, it is going to end with us turning to dust. We need that eternal comfort. Women need the eternality of the gospel as much as our brothers do.
- [31:52]
Mike Horton
Mary, do you think, you know, people can go online, they can get certain things, but they can't create community online. They have to actually be in a family, be in a neighborhood, be in a church, be around people to whom they're accountable.
- [32:13]
Mary Van Weilden
I completely agree with this. And I think that across the board for men and women, the church has not done a good job instructing believers in an appropriate ecclesiology because we do need our local churches and Some of my best, I think all of my best friends are long distance, so our relationships are online. But they're not the ones who brought me meals when I had my first child. And they're not the ones who, you know, would drop everything and come over in the evenings because I was swimming in postpartum depression. They're not the ones who have reached out to me over the last year to see how I'm doing or to invite me into the folds of fellowship. And they're not the ones that I've been able to love back in really tangible, practical ways, the one anothering that we're called to do. And they're also not the ones under whom I sit to get my instruction, the ordinary means of grace. I have a pastor, praise the Lord who's wonderful and I get to take the sacraments and that is vital to my spiritual life. And whenever I run into women who are asking about, well, what do we do? How do we, how do we get women more resources or how do we, you know, how do we fill in this gap? My first thing is we have to point women towards local churches that are not just theologically sound where they will be spiritually fed, but that are also one anothering type churches where they can come as a single mom and they can be taken care of without judgment or question, where they can be encouraged and discipled and grow in their faith and their walk in holiness. And they can also receive help with babysitting so that they can work their part time job and their practical and emotional needs met as well. And I think that the marriage of those two things sound theology for women and practical care for women is essential for our churches.
- [34:13]
Justin Holcomb
It's not like that's the kind of day to day sort of nitty gritty theology that you were talking about in the beginning, but lived out. And so thank you for describing that for us.
- [34:20]
Walter Strickland
I already told you what my feed shows me. So I don't know if there's a lot of sound biblical teaching in women's space and it's there and I'm just missing it because it's not part of my feed. With poker, fishing and buccaneer football just for your husband who's a Packers fan. It seems like I've heard there's a, a vacuum of good sound teaching for this space. What's going on with that and is that true and then why do you think that's true and what perhaps can be done?
- [34:49]
Mary Van Weilden
Yeah, that's a great question. I think that in part it is as We've talked about before, the way that men talk about and package theological conversation, teaching and writing maybe sometimes misses what women's felt needs are or what they're looking for when they. When they go to Scripture and they seek to know this God who loves them. But then, so to fill that, we need women in those spaces who are learning the theology and have the tools to read Scripture, which, and I think this should include, you know, instruction in original languages and a comprehensive instruction on biblical or theological studies so that you're. You're equipped to go to Scripture yourself and guide other women through it, but then also take that and apply it to the hurts and hard places of women. And unfortunately, women are just largely not encouraged to go to seminary or to receive formal instruction. When I started telling people that I was going to go to seminary, and this is after I'd done missions for two years abroad, and I was very involved in our local church ministry, and I wanted to go back to a mission field, it made sense for me to go to seminary. But I was also single, and they said, oh, what a great place to meet a husband like that was. I heard that from more than one person. So. Which is incredibly discouraging. And it. And it misses the point of women's greatest need, which is, again, not the lifestyle, but the gospel.
- [36:14]
Justin Holcomb
Amen.
- [36:15]
Mary Van Weilden
Kendra Dahl makes the point that pastors and leaders in the church really need to be behind this, like, at the forefront of this, identifying women who are gifted and called in areas of teaching and counseling and encouraging them to get trained the same way they do encourage the men who exhibit those gifts. And I think that that's a really important thing because women will talk to each other about their hurts and hard places, regardless of whether they're equipped to respond in counsel. Biblically, we call each other up, we talk at baby showers is a great example of this. You go to a baby shower, someone is asked to do a devotional. And most of the ones that I go to, it's, you know, as a wiser woman at church, an older woman, sometimes it's someone who's known the mother for a long time. But there are like, two theologically trained women in my church, and I'm one of them. And we're not always asked to do the devotion. And so you have women who are trying to give gospel encouragement and exhortation from Scripture who are not equipped or trained. And I'm not at all saying that the priesthood of all believers doesn't apply here and that the wisdom that God grants his saints after years of experience and themselves being faithfully discipled isn't something that they can and should share. But there is a need for women in these spaces who can provide the gospel in theologically sound ways so that we don't end up hearing, you know, oh, your baby hasn't slept in a year. My, my one and a half year old hasn't slept. So this is personal for me. Your, your baby hasn't, you know, slept in a year and a half. Well, you know, it's really important that you're still able to, to do the, like, keep up with the house and the Lord will provide and he will sustain it'. Actually what I need to hear is that when the mom rage really takes over and I feel like just ashamed of the woman that I am and the crushed that I'm not the mother I wanted to be, I need to hear that Jesus is a faithful savior to my daughter and to me. That's the gospel. And I think so often women don't receive that. And we end up being misinformed and misinstructed by well meaning women who, who want to tell us that, well, this Greek root actually means that the husband is the head, the source and not the head. And like they're missing it too. We, in trying to fix the circumstantial problems, we miss the gospel and don't realize that the gospel is the solution.
- [38:51]
Bob Hiller
It's like you got Mary and Martha sitting there and everybody, you know, we always pick on her. Poor Martha. But everyone's being Martha, right? Like, here's Mary. And Jesus said, Jesus's line is just perfect. Mary's chosen the better portion and it will not be taken from her. And the women need to hear is, I think what you're saying, Mary, like your child's not sleeping. We're not taking the gospel from you. You're struggling to like keep up and live with the, you know, look like Instagram and all of this. The Lord Jesus looks on you and sees his beautiful beloved daughter who he has called to himself and that will not be taken from you. But, but too many other voices are in there drawing you away and calling something else.
- [39:32]
Walter Strickland
Your baby's not sleeping. What does God want you to learn from that? You're in postpartum depression. He's trying to force you. This is his gift, to force you to trust in him. Have more faith. Trust earnestly enough, you can rest in heaven. I'm gonna stick it, I'm gonna stick to my stupid 52 year old land. It's way Nicer over there. Oh, man. You can rest in heaven.
- [39:54]
Bob Hiller
Yeah, yeah.
- [39:54]
Justin Holcomb
Okay.
- [39:54]
Walter Strickland
You, you, Mary, have you've made a beeline to the gospel. It's beautiful every single time. And so let's play a game, let's do a clip that we know will be passed around because we're going to say trad wife and deconstruction and lifestyle and spirituality and we're going to say all these words that for like a one minute clip and a bunch of people who are scrolling through just like me and all the other people are going to maybe bump into this. So let's hear it. What do you want to say to them of all the different things that they are hearing? You described what sounded like every single one of these. It's not gospel turns into some form of law and a tribalism, a cul de sac tribalism of expectations that no one's living up to. And it sounds miserable. And we all find our cul de sac and our little tribes where we're not measuring up.
- [40:49]
Mary Van Weilden
I mean, I do think it's interesting that you, you, that you bring that up that like every, either side of the spectrum, they. It's something that we can label that isn't the gospel. And, and I think that we do this in our doctrine of the sound confessional circles as well. It's so easy for us to miss the gospel. I was, I was prepping something on contentment in unwanted seasons and, and being content in joy. And as I was trying to figure out how to explain, like being joyful. I hate to say it, like so often being joyful ends up being law too. Like, just be joyful, rejoice, trust, praise. And it is a hard thing that we fail at. But you know what? Christ, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame. And so here again we have an example of where we fail. Our perfect Savior completed and finished the good work. And I think that's what we need to come back to tell your daughters when they. They're hearing things, when they're reading things, have them hear what is. What is the law that is being preached to me. And don't discard it because the law is good and beautiful. But then how does, how does Christ fulfill it for us? And, and where are we freed from the burden of it so that we can pursue the good and beautiful without. Without being weighed down by the shame of failing?
- [42:13]
Podcast Host
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