February 18, 2025 • 63 mins
Does romance solve every relationship problem...or does it invite something else? Do you consider your romantic partner above all others...perhaps even God? In honor of Arospec Awareness Week 2025, Join Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino and Ministers Nik Lewis and Charlie Reep for a discussion on the idolatry present in romantic relationships...and what to do about this issue. (Intro and Conclusion Track "Ready to Rock" by Yvgeniy Sorokin, https://pixabay.com/users/eugenemyers-40510887/. Empire Transport Track "The Beauty of Green Legends" by DTXN1,https://pixabay.com/users/dtxn1-42017842/.)
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge.
(00:54):
As we celebrate the Kingdom of God within you, I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino,
apostle, author, podcaster, professor and theologian, and founder of Spitfire Apostolic
Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
(01:16):
Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
To learn more, visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relative topics, teaching and preaching proclaim everywhere from my
(01:39):
North Carolina studio to Sanctuary and beyond.
And powerful insights here for now as we turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
(02:01):
Happy whatever time of day is wherever you are and to our listeners in somebody name a
country.
What about Poland?
Okay, and to our listeners in Poland, we say, "Dobry Den, we hope that whatever thank
you, we hope that whatever time of day is when you are
listening that you were having a good one."
And I welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now Podcast which is off to a rip roaring start.
(02:24):
And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity, where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
And if you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel free
to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
Well, as of the listening of this podcast, it is Aerospec Awareness Week, where we all internally
(02:48):
cheer and are excited to discuss the awareness and visibility of aromatic individuals worldwide.
And we are going to talk a little bit more about that.
But today, topic is the idolatry of romance.
Most of us think that romance is this far away floaty thing.
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And if you were anything like me that was totally unobtainable.
But what really is romance and in the insight of it, what does it do to our relationships
overall?
We'll be talking about that today.
And today I have returning guests, drumroll, please, with ministers Nik Lewis and Charlie
(03:29):
Reep from Sanctuary in Charlotte.
And even though they've been on a bunch of times before, we're going to have you all introduce
yourselves for those who maybe didn't hear anything.
So Nik and Chuck, take it away.
Am I going first or?
Yes, yes, you're going first.
Okay, cool.
I am minister Nik Lewis.
(03:51):
They/them.
I am minister of music and worship leader for Sanctuary International.
Oh, God, my brain just blanked.
I have--
A blog?
Yeah, I have one of those.
(04:11):
I have a blog that is nikfitts.com.
That's n-i-k-f-i-t-s.com.
You can find me on there.
My social media should be linked through there.
And if not, then I'll update that.
I will just throw out my Twitter for now.
That's nikfits2.
That's nikfits with the number two after it.
I think nikfits at Bluesky, I believe, if I can check that really quick.
(04:33):
That one's new.
Yes, it is just nikfits.bsky.social.
So n-i-k-f-i-t-s.
And yeah, happy to be back.
Cool.
I'm minister Charlie.
They/them pronoun user.
Minister of education at Sanctuary, which basically means I get to do all the, the
(04:55):
nerdy teaching stuff that I do.
So, freak out about
the Roman Empire and all that.
I also have a website
it is beloved-not-broken.com
So that is b-e-l-o-v-e-d dash n-o-t dash b-r-o-k-e-n dot com
I am also on social media, but it's, they're
all on my website at the very bottom
So, if you want to follow me there
I have, I'm most active on Tumblr, I do have a Bluesky,
I do have TikTok,
but Tumblr's where
I'm most active
Okay
Well,
it's great
to have
(05:16):
y'all back
again
And actually,
I was
remembering
We did an
Arospec
Awareness
Week
podcast
A couple
of
years ago
Called
A
Very
Aromantic
Episode
(05:37):
Oh yeah
Which is still
in my
top ten
all-time favorites
I thought that
we had
a really, really
great conversation
And we're going to have another one today.
So before we get into this whole idolization of romance.
I think we should each take a few minutes and kind of talk about our experience with aromanticism.
(06:02):
So for those who don't know.
Basically, aromanticism is the understanding that somebody either experiences little or conditional or no romantic feelings at all.
And it's important to distinguish that.
That's different from being asexual, although actually in our cases, all of us in different ways that does go hand in hand.
(06:26):
But that is not always the case.
It doesn't mean people don't want to have relationships.
It doesn't mean people can't form them.
It doesn't mean people don't want partners.
It doesn't mean people can't form other types of relationships such as friends or queer platonic partners.
It just means that when it comes to the experience of romance that they don't experience it like other people do.
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And whether or not romance is even actually an orientation or a construct is very much in debate.
Because as I talk about my book ministering to LGBTQ plus and those who love them a primer for queer theology.
Romance didn't even really exist as an idea until the 1700s.
Now that's not to say that there weren't people who may be.
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There were a lot of narrative things that way, but as far as an idea goes romanticism is actually a philosophy and it's based in certain things that have very much shaped the way that we see relationships particularly intimate relationships such as marriage.
Down through the ages today whether or not it should.
And before that period of time nobody really looked at their relationships particularly marriage in that vein.
(07:44):
But we're going to talk now a little bit having that very basic definition and there is more that can go along with it.
And I want to leave a little bit of an open door because each one of us who's on this podcast.
Experiences a romanticism in a different way really showing it as a spectrum that there are different flavors of it if you will different types.
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Different experiences and ways that we perceive it within ourselves.
And I'm going to open it up to the two of you and you can each talk a little about your own romantic discoveries and then I'll come back and share mine and we'll get back into the topic.
I'm going to go first again.
(08:26):
I was going to vote you go first because I went first last time.
Okay fine I'll go first.
So we just got this Chuck is going first. Okay.
I did my testimony with you possibly and like last season I think was it the was it the final.
(08:48):
It's in this season it was in the first half of the season.
Oh okay yeah so go listen to that.
I talk about more about my experience in depth but basically it was a long arduous.
I was going out process where I had to slowly realize that asexual and aromantic are not the same thing.
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The asexual part was able was easy to figure out because I was like oh I don't sex ever I don't feel sexual feelings towards people romance was a little bit different because I experienced really intense feelings for people that can be mistaken for romance and that I have definitely mistaken for romance in the past.
I kind of examined those feelings and I had to do that a few years ago when I was coming to terms with it.
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I was like yeah no this seems more platonic feelings than anything.
And so I basically just described me as being in the Mariana trench because I I'm friend someone so hard but it you know when it comes to showing any romance I'm like no I don't I don't it doesn't compute.
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Nik.
Okay guess I'm going to know so I guess if I had to put more of like a concrete label to it I would probably go with Demi or gray romantic there are definitely like flirting cues that I miss and have missed I've joked about how if someone is interested in me you need like five neon.
(10:25):
Like five neon signs ten mega phones and like a cowbell and screaming your direct intention at me and maybe then I'll get it.
Because yeah certain gestures just go right over my head because I can't tell if you're just being nice or if it's like a friendly thing or if you're actually interested in me and it probably doesn't help that I wasn't the.
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I guess quote unquote popular choice growing up when it comes to dating and stuff so I never really had that experience either.
But then I guess I also didn't fully get the craze of all that's.
But at the same time I have always wanted a partner I am currently partnered.
And I'm not wired to be single like Charlie is so I discovered that back in oh God what was that 2021 2020.
(11:25):
Somewhere around there.
And yeah it's been a process but like for me and my partner has been an issue we.
We actually talked about this a while ago and their definition of romance is my definition of aromantic's so it's funny how it works out but basically the really raw kind of intimate moments is what does it for us it's not.
(11:54):
You know big grand gestures or whatever so.
Yeah.
Well I guess I'm somewhere between the two of you.
Maybe more on closer to Chuck's end than Nik's end
Yeah that tracks so much we would say that that tracks and actually as you were talking Nik it really kind of hit me in a lot of ways and I was thinking about my testimony that is also in the book I mentioned earlier about some of my struggles with this stuff.
(12:28):
And then I really came really to discover that I was aromantic in what the past two or three years.
Yeah like the same time I did about the same time a little bit yeah around the same time we were kind of going through it at the same time so that would be right.
And I had discovered more or less than I was demi.
(12:50):
Well actually Nik told me I was demi.
And 2016 and when we first talked about it I was married to my first husband and I really had no reason to explore it.
You know it really wasn't that big of a deal I looked up the definition and it kind of hit.
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And I kind of related with it but there really wasn't that much to talk about those who follow the podcast know that he died in 2019 so we're going on almost the.
sixth anniversary in a couple of days and what happened was after he died and I kind of processed that for a while because the marriage was not good and I had a lot to figure out in my head I didn't start dating again for a while in fact I really wasn't sure if I was meant to be partnered I wasn't sure if I was meant to be married and what's kind of ironic about that is
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I went through that whole struggle before I got married the first time so I figured all right my husband died I'm kind of processing all this stuff I'm going to have a clearer idea of what I'm looking for what I want and that's not what happened at all and when I started getting out there as they would say in the dating world and on different dating sites and the demisexuality came the hell out.
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I was really really obvious I was demi because I was not speaking the same languages anybody else and I don't remember exactly why the term aromantic came up but at the time it did a couple years ago I was technically involved with someone and I looked at that relationship with my ex boyfriend and I was very decidedly aromantic in that relationship.
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The relationship was aro as hell I mean you know there was no other way to kind of define it and then I thought about the relationship I had before that as brief as that one once in that one was also aromantic and I started doing this unraveling of every single relationship I'd ever been in.
I started it back to the very first one that I had and I could really see that they were aro and that you know people want to talk about whether it's you know wiring or whatever I was not wired to look for romance and I was in this world that wanted romance that wanted one night stands and perfect sexual encounters and long walks on the beach and I just I used to describe it that I didn't want to be swept off my feet I wanted to be
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loved while I was on the ground.
Now and that was the most aromantic as hell statement as I could have ever made in my entire life but I came to figure out that I was aro and things happened and life happened and moved on from that relationship to my current one and this one is also aromantic as hell.
(16:07):
And they are going and that's kind of where I find myself today and the more I go along I kind of see the reality that not only am I aromantic in relationships it's very much a worldview.
It's very much a way that we view a lot of things including faith and the way that we approach our relationship with God and with other people and given a new events that also happened in here.
(16:34):
Or actually we dealt with somebody who was romantic and found a romantic relationship and basically threw everybody else over how differently we do perceive the world and that we do perceive our relationships.
But without getting into that too much because that's going to definitely be a topic that we're going to talk about.
(16:55):
Let's talk about the idolatry of romance given that we are all aro two of us have relationships one of us has a cat.
And we're not the same name it's not the same thing but I'm also going it's not the same thing at all and we're not saying it's the same that's just something that we put in in there.
(17:17):
But that you also have really good relationships with our people so the people that the individual Nik and the individual that Nik is involved with and the individual that I'm involved with if you're like their besties.
Yes.
I will be on the phone with Brad that's the joke and he'll be saying to me you know I really need to call Chuck he's talking to me and he's talking about calling you and we have made a joke out of it and we made a joke and to be honest I love it.
(17:52):
I love the idea of that y'all are friends that we're not having to worry about everybody in conflict that we're not having to worry about isolation that next partner came and was as comfortable with us as with anybody else was so comfortable with Chuck that you and I are leaving the room to go to the restaurant.
(18:16):
While they're talking about spicy elements.
Good times good times good times and so this is not one of those things where our relationships are isolated where everybody's not talking everybody else where everybody feels awkward it's very much community and so talking about that let's talk about where romantic relationships become idols and what happens when people idolize them.
(18:47):
People get hurt is the most immediate answer I can give for oh God I know the question you asked would it just left my head.
What happens when we idolize romance that thing.
It's been a week I thought today was Saturday waking up it's bear with me.
(19:08):
It's no if you value and Charlie this is something I really learned from you and talking about relationships and things like that if you view relationships as a hierarchy with like your spouse boyfriend girlfriend partner significant other whatever you want to call them at the top and then like family second and then friends third you're going to treat people accordingly and no one in your life really deserves to be treated second fiddle.
(19:37):
If you have relationships with people then you have relationships with them you should spend as much time and effort on any of them as you would like with your your special person versus like your friend your parents you're siblings whoever.
And that's also just a lot of responsibility to put on one person especially if you're the amount of love songs is just like oh you're my everything and I'm just I'm just thinking I'm very glad my partner has ever said that to me because I don't want that responsibility.
(20:12):
And because no one person can be everything to everyone.
That's true. And that's really where idolatry comes in.
That's exactly where it comes in.
Yeah and viewing one person that way a human individual who is prone to fail is just setting them up for failure too and setting you up from getting forgetting your hopes let down.
(20:42):
That was a mouthful. Yeah not bad for lack of sleep to my brain but you know just fall on in the word I guess.
I'm not pick up where Nik dropped that off but the whole like oh you're my everything and stuff and I'm I'm just hearing that and I'm thinking that's kind of what we put in our worship songs at church like I can't think of specific examples right now but it's like we put that language in our worship.
(21:11):
And why are we putting them in our romance songs like I get that we're supposed to have this is probably just a romantic brain like Lee Ann said it's a whole different worldview.
But you know if we're singing if we're singing the same language about God that we are with other people.
(21:32):
And Nik says there's literally a Fred Hammond song called everything to me or something like that so there we go that's one example but all these worship songs are basically love songs to God and they shouldn't be.
They shouldn't I will say that worship songs should be love songs to God because that's why we go to church in the first place to worship him.
(21:55):
But the love songs that we sing to our partners for those who have them shouldn't be the same kind of awestruck worship it's that's what that's what verges on to idolatry it's when we're treating God and treating our partners the same exact way.
First of all there's lots of examples in the Bible where it's pretty much all the prophetic books that we've looked at where the prophets essentially are saying hey God views your your relationship with other gods as cheating on a spouse and you know that's I guess the language that still resonates the most around here with us it's that I say us as in like modern Christians mostly in the west mostly in the US.
(22:42):
Now we can't be treating God and our partners the exact same way human beings like Nik said are very fallible we're prone to making mistakes we have our own issues with agency we have our own issues with sin and temptation God is really the only one who can be our everything but when we make our partners that we are not only putting them on a pedestal and putting them somewhere where they can't stay there forever.
(23:11):
We are also doing ourselves and our other friends of disservice we are isolating ourselves from other people because if you have one person is your everything you don't need anybody else yeah and then if you're only relying on one person well.
I you know I hate to break I hate to bring up the statistic I don't even know if it's completely true but like the half of all marriages in divorce thing like if you do end up getting to a place where that relationship does fail.
(23:41):
Who are you going to turn to if that one person was your everything and you didn't cultivate relationships with anybody else right.
So stepping off my soap box for that for a minute and I think I'm done.
(24:02):
This is actually something interesting that I have heard and the 50% statistic is conflated it's about 30.
And it's been about a third for about 30 years and as far as I'm concerned that's still enough like you're saying whether it's 30 or it's 50 I don't really think that that makes that much of a difference there's still that many people out there who need that support.
(24:31):
And while you were talking there were two songs that ran through my head and one is called everything literally it's called Everything and it's on an album that came out of Lakewood in the early 2000s and the initial lyrics are everything everything Lord you are everything to me.
(24:53):
And there's another one I think it's called more than anything and I don't remember the for the life of me who sings it and I'm hoping that Nik can help me with that because you probably do know the song I love you Jesus I worship and adore you.
Just wanna tell you, Lord I love you more than anything and I can't remember for the life of me who sings it but you know the song.
(25:16):
Oh my God who sings that I remember we can look it up later but the point that I'm thinking of and then I think about let's fast forward to love songs and about the parallels that we do see in them I mean I remember there was the song Michael Bolton did in the 90s you know how am I supposed to live without you how am I supposed to carry on well I mean I guess the answer is you're going to take a deep breath and you're going to keep doing it I mean you know I don't understand.
(25:45):
I don't understand I guess the if we listen to some of the nature of some of these songs there's a lot of very toxic messages in them and if we think about where society is at right now and I'm not one of these preachers that does well the world today in society today I mean I think it's obnoxious when people do that because society well because society is always had its issues.
(26:11):
And there have always been problems and an idolatry is obviously is we're pointing out not a new thing but I really think people are missing something in their lives I think about stuff that we've talked about like with sometimes people you might encounter in your work chats or some of the people that we meet in our daily lives a lot of people really don't have a lot of friends
(26:37):
and they really don't have a lot of connections and they really they want that one person because that one person is going to make it all right and it doesn't work like that you get married and when the expectations are that high you become one of that 30% that fails because nobody can be God in your life but God.
(27:04):
Mic dropped oh wow okay I was waiting for you to say something Chuck.
Well I have something in my head but I don't know if you want to drug it up but basically there is a huh.
Okay sure so there is an incident I well we all technically collectively don't what that but we had a friend who.
(27:34):
Lee Ann like you kind of alluded to earlier in the episode who got into a romantic relationship and all of a sudden we no longer existed so I did a couple blog posts about it I.
What was the first one I did I think the first one was basically like the quote unquote breakup letter or whatever just explaining what happened and yeah I think so yeah how hard I was over and things like that and I get an inbox from my blog from a relative of the ex best friend significant other that was a mouthful but anonymity we.
(28:17):
Right we do that here which was basically saying like oh don't you know that's when two people are going to get together they have to cleave to each other why don't you just support the relationship and you know open your heart to change or something along those lines it was bullshit.
It was and God that was a way to start my work day remember waiting for the bus reading that but yeah but that just well first of all the tone was condescending which I really didn't appreciate like talking to me like I'm what I don't know 16.
(28:58):
Like you have no idea right and like I hadn't been in a relationship before granted that one wasn't great but still it was there.
And also I had 10 years on this other one so like seniority first off and then just it made no sense why I had to be okay being put second place for this new thing like that just really rubbing the wrong way but I remember if I can flex a petty moment that I the next blog post which I had already intended to do.
(29:35):
I was intended to do after this other one came out and before this person inbox me was basically a thank you letter to this individual for everything that I learned from them and the experiences that we had because regardless of how the relationship ended there were still things that I needed to give them credit for.
And I didn't get an inbox after that but that was kind of my I guess my little aromantic moment like yes I could have forgotten all the good times that happened in that relationship but I didn't I acknowledge both the good and the bad and let things where they were.
(30:19):
So Nik that gets me on another if I can get back on another soap box because you you pointed out something really poignant with what what I've definitely experienced what probably a lot of other aromatic people have experienced is getting left behind so yeah.
I want to say like I had an entirely different experience with that friend A because I didn't know them very well like definitely not as long as you two did but when all of that started happening I was kind of like oh this again okay yeah I wasn't as distraught over it because unfortunately that has happened in my in my experience too many times account at this point whenever a friend of mine would get into a relationship it was like oh okay bye.
(31:08):
So I was like oh okay bye you in never I guess it's so there's this idea that will probably get into later it's called amatonormativity it's from the Latin word amotto meaning love and the normativity if you've heard of the term heteronormativity basically means like something being the norm.
The idea of amatonormativity is the idea that and the assumption that oh everyone wants a romantic relationship everyone feels romance everyone wants this for the for the lives and as you heard me talk I was like nope I don't want that for my life so like that already you know puts a crack into that idea because I'm not you know I'm not part of the everyone but basically like when we have this assumption it is seen as okay for.
(31:56):
For people who get into a new relationship to basically focus all their time energy attention onto the new relationship and people don't usually raise a stink about it I can remember all the way back in middle school where you know a friend of mine would get into a relationship and I'm like oh okay well so much for hanging out with them I had a good group of friends so I was able to hang out with other people but as I got older and it became harder to make more friends.
(32:24):
When people would get into a relationship it was like oh okay so this is this is how it is it it was basically being like second fiddle like Nik was saying but also that I would never because I never wanted to be in a relationship with anybody I mean I tried to force myself into a relationship with kind of disastrous results but that's the story for another day.
(32:48):
I basically had to get comfortable with the idea that I was never going to be anyone's first choice and so it's a that was a process to sort of work through for a while I eventually sort of came to terms with it but you two really got me out of that mindset when as you as you prove I'm best friends with both of your partners to the point where we can have yeah to the point where we can have like
(33:16):
you know our long conversations that are completely independent of y'all's relationship it's like I'm friends with you Nik I'm friends with with your partner as individual people like y'all.
I wouldn't necessarily say that you're not a unit because you're together but in a lot of the romantic terminology it's like somebody would get into a relationship and they're a unit you would never see them without their person.
(33:45):
And you could never engage them in conversation without that person it was always all of your conversations had to include that person and it's like you would lose agency in a relationship and so that was my experience with all of this so I think I had a and again it was still rough but again I had an easier time getting through the incident with the mutual friend that we were all talking about because I'd been used to that kind of behavior.
(34:14):
And if y'all can remember when you said something about like I think valuing my relate my presence or you've you've brought it up a couple of times and I've definitely cried on the spot I'm trying not to cry now because it's such a rare it's such a rare experience to be treated as an equal for somebody who doesn't who doesn't have a partner who doesn't want a partner.
(34:42):
I think that you know in in keeping with it I experienced what you're talking about but it wasn't as intense one of the things I've been doing a lot of thinking of and it has to do with probably a next project I'm going to be working on and it will likely be something that we show up in season seven of our podcast I don't think it's going to make it for the remainder of this season but it'll most likely be in the next one.
(35:08):
Was that the truth they told I didn't really at least as an adult have that many friends I had ministry acquaintances and in ministry when you have acquaintances marriages already the idle so they're spouse coming first is always a thing and it was so much a reality that I didn't even know.
(35:37):
I didn't even think about it so when we had different people come to us and I did have several people who over the years they got really independent and they decided they were going to leave their husbands and then they wanted to be in ministry and you know everything was all girl power and then the next thing you know they're going back to their husbands.
(36:00):
And then they get real conservative and want to be all about marriage and they want to be really in the right ministry circles for that if that makes any sense.
Sounds like the Tango Maureen but church is it's funny that you said that because that's exactly what it was I mean so for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about Tango Maureen is a song in Rent.
(36:26):
And it's basically about somebody named Maureen who changes partners like she changes socks and she's there and she's with you and when she's with you she loves you and when she's with you she's all 100% in but the second her eyes starts wandering or something else comes up she throws you over.
And that's very much what it was like a ministry member you know being there for people and helping them out when they moved out and you know doing all this stuff and then the next thing you know they're going back home and they're totally different people.
(37:02):
And that was a feeling very much so and well often many times happen towards the end of that was a lot of bitterness both on my part and theirs because first of all I don't know what the hell just happened.
You know i'm trying to help you to do ministry the way that you say you want to do it and now your whole view and idea for ministry is completely and totally different.
And I don't know where I fit into that picture anymore especially if i'm your leader you know I don't know where I kind of fit there anymore but as far as like it when I didn't really have that many friends and
(37:37):
one or two that I did they were also people I work with ministry one of them did get married and I actually did their wedding and I didn't really have any problem with who they married because there has been her husband really liked me and we got along really really well kind of like it wasn't quite the same as chuck and Brad but you know we were I wouldn't just called up and talk to him but you know we might have talked on the phone before his wife came on the phone or something like that we didn't talk like that but.
(38:06):
The other part of that is I do know that feeling of getting left behind and it often felt that way when people were trading things in especially if they were trying to move up the ministry ladder and I talked about that a lot and marriage is a part of that one of the reasons why i've said I did better in certain ministry circles when i was younger but I never really fit 100% a part of that was because my late husband was not part of the picture.
(38:35):
He wasn't interested and people if they knew he was there they were kind of not up to have me around and then when if they didn't know he was there they assumed I was single and that's a whole other thing like chuck is talking about it's pretty much like they're afraid you're going to snag their husbands are you're going to be after you know you're going to be after all the men like you know anybody wanted all of them and I guess that's my aromantic I'm coming out and you know
(39:04):
you know we people were very distrustful and I think that that's also part of the idolatry because it's like suddenly you can't be friends with anybody like you say everybody you become this unit and everybody's got to supervise all your time you know you can't it's like everybody's got a guard this relationship because.
(39:27):
If romance is that emotional and that being swept away and that being carried by emotions in other words they're not giving anybody any credit for having any self control.
Wow and I don't know where that came from.
No but that's exactly that's exactly it because when you said something about supervision it's like you know I've never really thought about when people become a unit it's like oh y'all it almost seems like they're very insecure with the status and I mean not everybody is like this but to the the degree that it's normalized that you become possessive of your significant other and you're like you go to the same places all the time.
(40:14):
And it's not necessarily for what to be in each other's presence it's kind of out of an insecurity that someone better is going to come along and I mean that just again is going back to the idolatry bit.
I know how we don't do that with friendships already other type of relationship.
(40:35):
Right.
And if I can't trust whoever I'm with to have a phone call with someone.
What does that say?
That's saying a lot without saying anything.
Because I remember Chuck you said that you were like well you don't have any problem with it you being along with him or whatever and I'm like I don't need to be.
(41:06):
Yeah I don't need to have a problem with it there's no reason to if I trust him that little and I trust you that little and I also know way better than that with you you know if that's the case then there's a problem and it's a lot bigger problem than having friends.
And like Chuck I think I've jumped about with you like if my partner was like ever in town or we go up to their state because unfortunately long distance but like if there's something y'all see I want to do I would just be like go shoot go have fun.
(41:41):
Like a giant ear of corn.
I don't know how to tell you this Nik none of us are going to do that but it's made of concrete.
Oh my God anyway I said ain't, ain't none of us going to that.
But like y'all are into fandoms mutually that like I'm not into and you'll have interests together that I don't share with either either of you or to the same degree that either of you have.
(42:11):
And that's fine and I recognize that again I can't fulfill every need or want my partner has so that's where the friendships come in.
It's the agency once again it's that a lot of unfortunately the toxic idea about romance because you know I don't think romance itself is the problem it's kind of like how money itself isn't the problem.
(42:37):
What we what we do with it how much we idolize it that is when it becomes an issue and when we put romance and our romantic partners on this pedestal we are really insecure about it like this there's I can't remember where this phrase comes from but it's like the tighter you hold on to something the easier it is just about kind of like catching smoke it's like.
(43:04):
No I remember the Bible verse now it's whoever loves their life will lose it and whoever.
Gives up their life for the sake of the gospel will find it like yeah yeah it's somewhere in the gospels you know.
And I'm gonna leave that at that anyway yeah yeah I know it's in in the Bible but.
(43:26):
We just need to put it out there you hit a certain point in ministry you either know exactly where a verse is because you grew up in like King James like me and Lee Ann or you just kind of get to a point where it's like oh it's in the Paul letter.
It's in Paul.
You know what Bible gateway exists it's it's Bible Google you know somebody.
(43:50):
But right but anyway back on a more serious note it's the the tighter we hold on to something the the more issues it causes us the more we get possessive over this thing and we're and we're basically saying to God and to everybody else do not take this away from me because if you do I will lose it.
(44:13):
You know you would lose that relationship but it's it's a very difficult thing to get out of especially if you're used to that mindset and I'm sure we can talk about this later like how we overcome that but it's the having agency and recognizing people's agency including yourself including another person.
(44:39):
You know if you make friends you should trust these people around your partner like that should kind of go without saying and if you can't trust them around your partner you probably need to get different friends.
Fair yeah and if your partner can't trust you around your own friends when they've been there longer than that's also sending a very telling message.
(45:04):
Oh yeah oh hell yeah.
So I think that actually what you posed about overcoming the mindset is actually a really good question so.
Basically understand that if somebody is romantically oriented that's how they're oriented and I think that what you said Chuck is perfectly valid that just like there's nothing wrong with being a romantic there's really nothing wrong with being romantic.
(45:35):
And I think that with both things we do have to kind of keep stuff in perspective though and I think that if I'm going to just go out on the ledge here this is just an opinion I think it's a lot easier to keep aromanticism and check the romanticism because one of the founding ideas of romantic ideas is feelings.
And we can get really really easily swept away by those if we're not careful if we're really looking for something to feel a certain way and we're not looking to anything else.
(46:10):
We need to have some good judgment in here and so there's really nothing wrong with it but much like anything in life you have to temper it.
And I guess my question would be like you're saying how do we overcome the negative aspects of it if that's what somebody is.
I mean I guess my advice would be to listen to aromatic people when they talk about their struggles like you're already I mean if you're listening to the podcast you're already pretty much doing the first step in this but understanding that people have different perspectives about romance.
(46:47):
And I think that's the whole point of arospec awareness week is to say hey not all of us are wired this way and it's okay for not all of us to be wired this way.
I think from a Christian standpoint that God made us the way we are to reflect his image in some way I have a blog post called diversity was always God's design.
(47:11):
Basically like the idea of people are made differently we have all of these unique things for a reason and they reflect something of God's original design and you know I think educating yourself about
like aromatic identities definitely good start looking up the term a motto normativity that's a m a t o in or m a t normate I I VY yeah.
(47:47):
But basically the first part of is a motto a m a t o and just kind of poke like essentially just taking a step back from society and kind of examining why society the way it is it is very difficult to kind of re examine something you've taken for granted it definitely takes effort.
(48:10):
There are communities out there there's a lot of there are a lot of aromantic people on tumblr of all places I'm sure that there's a reddit sub reddit somewhere devoted to aromantics there are communities online which is really nice that there are online communities for us to be able to share our experiences.
(48:32):
I need to be doing a lot more on aromanticism on my blog but I do have a blog post about amatonormativity so if you go to beloved dash not dash broken calm I have a search bar on there you can search up aromantic or amatonormativity or even just love and you find it.
But yeah just educating yourself is the first bit and you know doing your best I guess to try and not pass judgment I know it's easier said than done for a lot of this stuff but even hearing people out is a really good step in the right direction.
(49:08):
Nick what would you say to it.
I mean I guess just to kind of follow up and rehash like be open to it because you can research all day long but if you aren't open to at least considering that there's a possibility that this alternate orientation lifestyle whatever you want to call it is legit then you're not going to get very far.
(49:38):
I like the suggestion that you guys made about learning because I think that when we do talk about things like this whenever something doesn't fall within the guidelines of what people see is being comfortable they often don't see it is safe.
They automatically reject it like I remember when I first came out as arrow and I did a blog on it where I said something about an aromantic looks at intimate relationships or something of that nature and it is on my patheos column it's I think February of 2024 I want to say is when I put that up somebody on my page who's followed my page for a long time found it.
(50:25):
And he was in my inbox about it and he was very critical of it and he was very, very judgmental about it and you know I basically said to him that you know first of all I don't know what it is to you since you and I aren't a thing.
That's first thing and the second thing is you know I think that you're really misunderstanding it he was says well I want to understand I want to understand I want to stand and I do think that he wanted to understand but.
(50:52):
His problem was that he could not get passed in not being a romantic concept because he was under the impression that that's what all women want and even said that many many times and so for me to say it's not that was automatically threatening to him because he created a narrative I think we need to be careful with our narratives and.
(51:16):
When it comes to romance it's a very dominant narrative in our culture there's entire channels devoted to romantic movies and if we look at romantic movies they're very scripted.
In fact we've all heard the joke you know what has 15 actors one plot.
(51:38):
And 632 extras in the answer was every hallmark movie ever made people really gravitate toward that they love the idea of it without really looking at maybe the impracticality of the movies or the the untruth of it because it's always somebody giving something up and going to a simpler way of life and.
(52:03):
Now they're going to give up you know all this for romance and it's going to be worth it and we don't think about the end of the movie notice they never have sequels we don't do we don't do the woman is sick and bored of being on the ranch and starts a shoe company and moves back to the big city or.
(52:25):
Couple gets disgusted with each other because man won't pick up his socks and clean up the house with her and they get a divorce I mean we like I say notice there are never any sequels to these movies because life is the sequel and at some point in time every relationship has an aromantic quality.
(52:48):
And if we don't push through it whether we are romantic or if we're a romantic we're not pushing through it but every relationship has a point where it's not about the emotion and the feelings that you feel it's about the fact that you wake up and your partner has cancer which I've been through more than once.
(53:09):
And you have to put one foot in front of the other and figure out not just how to be there for them but how to get through it for yourself it's about being long distance like you and your partner are Nik.
And navigating the every day life like the holidays when you all can't be together and that maybe he's alone and you're not and how to balance that out.
(53:36):
How do we consider this relationship as part of our bigger community.
And if we don't do those things our relationships don't have a pair to begin with.
Oh, there it is.
We are about out of time and as you guys know from being on this podcast previously I typically turn this over to my guest to see if there's a final thought something that you'd like to leave our listeners with and i'm going to let you figure out who's going to go first to do that.
(54:13):
Nose goes.
Really.
You're not in the same room.
Okay, so Chuck nose goes.
Wouldn't it be nose went?
Okay, yeah, that would be proper grammar with anyway it's too late.
(54:40):
And there's the chaos.
And you thought about it.
All right, so it's Charlie nostril departed.
I am going to get back on my epic the musical bullshit for a second and this is all i'm going to mention there is a song during the second saga cycle of saga.
(55:07):
Yeah, that one called remember them.
And then I would basically just say that's my main takeaway here remember your other relationships the other people in your life before you got into your romantic relationship.
Remember how much you valued them, how much you all have done for each other have been through with each other obviously assuming that these are healthy relationships and they're unhealthy then you know there's that whole situation.
(55:37):
Yeah, if they are healthy relationships where you're both encouraging each other supporting each other being there for each other in the good times and the bad.
Then keep fostering those those don't and shouldn't go away just because you add another relationship on to your life.
(55:58):
Remember that romantic relationships are in addition not a replacement.
I love that.
All right, I'm still in that idea going to discuss it further as my takeaway that.
You know, if you have good friends and you have and friends don't even have to be your entire source of community you can have acquaintances through ministry you can have acquaintances through church or.
(56:28):
Or work or you know fandoms or anything like that basically having people in your life should be an addition not a replacement as we like to say at sanctuary we were made for community.
So we take a different interpretation of.
(56:50):
When GOd made humanity in Genesis I think to so Adam was alone and God said oh that's not good we have to we have to find you a person.
Yes, it can be interpreted as marriages for some people but obviously for those of us who are aromantic and not interested in marriage.
(57:11):
We need other people in our lives for community for support we're not meant to be alone.
Well, I was waiting for you to say something else.
I mean, I think that's that's pretty much it.
No, that's it. No, that isn't and it's true whether we're married or we're not we still need other people.
(57:34):
And then that that's basic premise. Well, I think you both for being on here and how can everybody get in contact with you.
Okay, I guess I'll go again since apparently Chuck is still nostrils departed.
If you want to get in contact with me there is my blog which probably have the greatest chance of reaching me that is Nikfits.com that is N I K F I T S dot com my social media is God should be linked on there.
(58:09):
I'm not terribly active on insta anymore but Bluesky is pretty much the one I'm screaming to the void over so.
If you want to see what I'm screaming about or scream with me, there you go.
Yeah, my website also is probably the best place to contact me. I have a.
(58:30):
Actually a contact page where you can put your name and usually I use it for questions, but you can just ask.
I can just literally say hi it sends it to my email and I get to read the responses.
And I mean if you send me your email back we can always message that way but.
Yeah, I mean I do have my social medias there at the there linked at the bottom of my website again that's beloved-not-broken.com.
(59:00):
It's got to have the dashes in it the one without dashes were already taken sadly but.
I'm the most active on so if you have a tumblr account then I'll see you on the hell site.
What that's what I'll really yeah well.
I thank you both for being on here and I thank all of you for listening today and if you would like a resource for what we're talking about everybody always thinks LGBTQ means gay or straight but it's actually an entire host of spectrums and a different things that are.
(59:34):
Outside of the bounds of heteronormativity and amatonormativity did I say right.
You did yes I did alright I encourage you to check out my book ministering to LGBTQ plus and those who love them a primer for queer theology and it's a company workbook that has the same title except workbook and it's so ministering to LGBTQ plus workbook both a primer for queer theology.
(01:00:01):
And actually both ministers Nik and Chuck who are on here today wrote the foreword for that book and so.
And there's pictures of them if you want to see them so definitely go and check that out today look me up Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino wherever books are sold Amazon Barnes and noble and beyond.
So look up my titles for Dr. Lee Ann B marino and all my titles including that current one will come up so check that out today also connect with me across social media @kingdompowernow that's @kingdompowernow I am on bluesky I'm on Twitter I'm on Facebook I'm on Instagram I'm on tiktok I'm on threads I'm on all of them.
(01:00:38):
And hit me up @kingdompowernow let's have a conversation let's have that discussion let's learn about what you would like to hear about and go from there so reach out today also check out my patheos column leadership on fire at patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire that's patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire.
(01:01:02):
And that blog is devoted to all things of interest in leadership and so whether you're in leadership interested in leadership or want to learn more about it that column is for you so also check that out today also if you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity feel free to visit my website at kingdompowernow.org that's kingdompowernow.org
(01:01:23):
And if you're interested in seminary that is modern affordable and can be done from home we are entirely donation based and you can be done at a distance check out apostolic covenant theological seminary acts for short acts176.org that's acts176.org
And if you are looking for community and you are looking for an understanding of scripture that narrates community through the essential lens of God reaching out to his people both directly and through others check out our work of sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle we are in the Charlotte North Carolina area visit us at welcomeinthisplace.org that's welcomeinthisplace.org.
(01:02:05):
And if you have a question feel free to reach out and we would love to get back to you as soon as possible and this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you in closing that romantic relationships are not everything partner relationships are not everything but community when it comes down to it is an essential aspect that gets us through whatever we have to go through until next time be blessed.
(01:02:33):
Thank you for joining us on the kingdom now podcast today I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life to learn more about this work ask a question submit feedback advertised with us be a guest or donate to support this work as our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you visit my website which contains essential information projects and works for other points of contact
(01:03:02):
around the web at kingdompowernow.org also you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle visit welcomeinthisplace.org until next time this is a possible doctor again marine reminding you that the kingdom of God is within you and that means the kingdom is now.
(01:03:31):
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Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge.
(00:54):
As we celebrate the Kingdom of God within you, I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino,
apostle, author, podcaster, professor and theologian, and founder of Spitfire Apostolic
Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
(01:16):
Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
To learn more, visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relative topics, teaching and preaching proclaim everywhere from my
(01:39):
North Carolina studio to Sanctuary and beyond.
And powerful insights here for now as we turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening.
(02:01):
Happy whatever time of day is wherever you are and to our listeners in somebody name a
country.
What about Poland?
Okay, and to our listeners in Poland, we say, "Dobry Den, we hope that whatever thank
you, we hope that whatever time of day is when you are
listening that you were having a good one."
And I welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now Podcast which is off to a rip roaring start.
(02:24):
And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of
counterculture Christianity, where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
And if you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel free
to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
Well, as of the listening of this podcast, it is Aerospec Awareness Week, where we all internally
(02:48):
cheer and are excited to discuss the awareness and visibility of aromatic individuals worldwide.
And we are going to talk a little bit more about that.
But today, topic is the idolatry of romance.
Most of us think that romance is this far away floaty thing.
(03:08):
And if you were anything like me that was totally unobtainable.
But what really is romance and in the insight of it, what does it do to our relationships
overall?
We'll be talking about that today.
And today I have returning guests, drumroll, please, with ministers Nik Lewis and Charlie
(03:29):
Reep from Sanctuary in Charlotte.
And even though they've been on a bunch of times before, we're going to have you all introduce
yourselves for those who maybe didn't hear anything.
So Nik and Chuck, take it away.
Am I going first or?
Yes, yes, you're going first.
Okay, cool.
I am minister Nik Lewis.
(03:51):
They/them.
I am minister of music and worship leader for Sanctuary International.
Oh, God, my brain just blanked.
I have--
A blog?
Yeah, I have one of those.
(04:11):
I have a blog that is nikfitts.com.
That's n-i-k-f-i-t-s.com.
You can find me on there.
My social media should be linked through there.
And if not, then I'll update that.
I will just throw out my Twitter for now.
That's nikfits2.
That's nikfits with the number two after it.
I think nikfits at Bluesky, I believe, if I can check that really quick.
(04:33):
That one's new.
Yes, it is just nikfits.bsky.social.
So n-i-k-f-i-t-s.
And yeah, happy to be back.
Cool.
I'm minister Charlie.
They/them pronoun user.
Minister of education at Sanctuary, which basically means I get to do all the, the
(04:55):
nerdy teaching stuff that I do.
So, freak out about
the Roman Empire and all that.
I also have a website
it is beloved-not-broken.com
So that is b-e-l-o-v-e-d dash n-o-t dash b-r-o-k-e-n dot com
I am also on social media, but it's, they're
all on my website at the very bottom
So, if you want to follow me there
I have, I'm most active on Tumblr, I do have a Bluesky,
I do have TikTok,
but Tumblr's where
I'm most active
Okay
Well,
it's great
to have
(05:16):
y'all back
again
And actually,
I was
remembering
We did an
Arospec
Awareness
Week
podcast
A couple
of
years ago
Called
A
Very
Aromantic
Episode
(05:37):
Oh yeah
Which is still
in my
top ten
all-time favorites
I thought that
we had
a really, really
great conversation
And we're going to have another one today.
So before we get into this whole idolization of romance.
I think we should each take a few minutes and kind of talk about our experience with aromanticism.
(06:02):
So for those who don't know.
Basically, aromanticism is the understanding that somebody either experiences little or conditional or no romantic feelings at all.
And it's important to distinguish that.
That's different from being asexual, although actually in our cases, all of us in different ways that does go hand in hand.
(06:26):
But that is not always the case.
It doesn't mean people don't want to have relationships.
It doesn't mean people can't form them.
It doesn't mean people don't want partners.
It doesn't mean people can't form other types of relationships such as friends or queer platonic partners.
It just means that when it comes to the experience of romance that they don't experience it like other people do.
(06:50):
And whether or not romance is even actually an orientation or a construct is very much in debate.
Because as I talk about my book ministering to LGBTQ plus and those who love them a primer for queer theology.
Romance didn't even really exist as an idea until the 1700s.
Now that's not to say that there weren't people who may be.
(07:11):
There were a lot of narrative things that way, but as far as an idea goes romanticism is actually a philosophy and it's based in certain things that have very much shaped the way that we see relationships particularly intimate relationships such as marriage.
Down through the ages today whether or not it should.
And before that period of time nobody really looked at their relationships particularly marriage in that vein.
(07:44):
But we're going to talk now a little bit having that very basic definition and there is more that can go along with it.
And I want to leave a little bit of an open door because each one of us who's on this podcast.
Experiences a romanticism in a different way really showing it as a spectrum that there are different flavors of it if you will different types.
(08:05):
Different experiences and ways that we perceive it within ourselves.
And I'm going to open it up to the two of you and you can each talk a little about your own romantic discoveries and then I'll come back and share mine and we'll get back into the topic.
I'm going to go first again.
(08:26):
I was going to vote you go first because I went first last time.
Okay fine I'll go first.
So we just got this Chuck is going first. Okay.
I did my testimony with you possibly and like last season I think was it the was it the final.
(08:48):
It's in this season it was in the first half of the season.
Oh okay yeah so go listen to that.
I talk about more about my experience in depth but basically it was a long arduous.
I was going out process where I had to slowly realize that asexual and aromantic are not the same thing.
(09:09):
The asexual part was able was easy to figure out because I was like oh I don't sex ever I don't feel sexual feelings towards people romance was a little bit different because I experienced really intense feelings for people that can be mistaken for romance and that I have definitely mistaken for romance in the past.
I kind of examined those feelings and I had to do that a few years ago when I was coming to terms with it.
(09:34):
I was like yeah no this seems more platonic feelings than anything.
And so I basically just described me as being in the Mariana trench because I I'm friend someone so hard but it you know when it comes to showing any romance I'm like no I don't I don't it doesn't compute.
(09:56):
Nik.
Okay guess I'm going to know so I guess if I had to put more of like a concrete label to it I would probably go with Demi or gray romantic there are definitely like flirting cues that I miss and have missed I've joked about how if someone is interested in me you need like five neon.
(10:25):
Like five neon signs ten mega phones and like a cowbell and screaming your direct intention at me and maybe then I'll get it.
Because yeah certain gestures just go right over my head because I can't tell if you're just being nice or if it's like a friendly thing or if you're actually interested in me and it probably doesn't help that I wasn't the.
(10:53):
I guess quote unquote popular choice growing up when it comes to dating and stuff so I never really had that experience either.
But then I guess I also didn't fully get the craze of all that's.
But at the same time I have always wanted a partner I am currently partnered.
And I'm not wired to be single like Charlie is so I discovered that back in oh God what was that 2021 2020.
(11:25):
Somewhere around there.
And yeah it's been a process but like for me and my partner has been an issue we.
We actually talked about this a while ago and their definition of romance is my definition of aromantic's so it's funny how it works out but basically the really raw kind of intimate moments is what does it for us it's not.
(11:54):
You know big grand gestures or whatever so.
Yeah.
Well I guess I'm somewhere between the two of you.
Maybe more on closer to Chuck's end than Nik's end
Yeah that tracks so much we would say that that tracks and actually as you were talking Nik it really kind of hit me in a lot of ways and I was thinking about my testimony that is also in the book I mentioned earlier about some of my struggles with this stuff.
(12:28):
And then I really came really to discover that I was aromantic in what the past two or three years.
Yeah like the same time I did about the same time a little bit yeah around the same time we were kind of going through it at the same time so that would be right.
And I had discovered more or less than I was demi.
(12:50):
Well actually Nik told me I was demi.
And 2016 and when we first talked about it I was married to my first husband and I really had no reason to explore it.
You know it really wasn't that big of a deal I looked up the definition and it kind of hit.
(13:12):
And I kind of related with it but there really wasn't that much to talk about those who follow the podcast know that he died in 2019 so we're going on almost the.
sixth anniversary in a couple of days and what happened was after he died and I kind of processed that for a while because the marriage was not good and I had a lot to figure out in my head I didn't start dating again for a while in fact I really wasn't sure if I was meant to be partnered I wasn't sure if I was meant to be married and what's kind of ironic about that is
(13:52):
I went through that whole struggle before I got married the first time so I figured all right my husband died I'm kind of processing all this stuff I'm going to have a clearer idea of what I'm looking for what I want and that's not what happened at all and when I started getting out there as they would say in the dating world and on different dating sites and the demisexuality came the hell out.
(14:20):
I was really really obvious I was demi because I was not speaking the same languages anybody else and I don't remember exactly why the term aromantic came up but at the time it did a couple years ago I was technically involved with someone and I looked at that relationship with my ex boyfriend and I was very decidedly aromantic in that relationship.
(14:49):
The relationship was aro as hell I mean you know there was no other way to kind of define it and then I thought about the relationship I had before that as brief as that one once in that one was also aromantic and I started doing this unraveling of every single relationship I'd ever been in.
I started it back to the very first one that I had and I could really see that they were aro and that you know people want to talk about whether it's you know wiring or whatever I was not wired to look for romance and I was in this world that wanted romance that wanted one night stands and perfect sexual encounters and long walks on the beach and I just I used to describe it that I didn't want to be swept off my feet I wanted to be
(15:38):
loved while I was on the ground.
Now and that was the most aromantic as hell statement as I could have ever made in my entire life but I came to figure out that I was aro and things happened and life happened and moved on from that relationship to my current one and this one is also aromantic as hell.
(16:07):
And they are going and that's kind of where I find myself today and the more I go along I kind of see the reality that not only am I aromantic in relationships it's very much a worldview.
It's very much a way that we view a lot of things including faith and the way that we approach our relationship with God and with other people and given a new events that also happened in here.
(16:34):
Or actually we dealt with somebody who was romantic and found a romantic relationship and basically threw everybody else over how differently we do perceive the world and that we do perceive our relationships.
But without getting into that too much because that's going to definitely be a topic that we're going to talk about.
(16:55):
Let's talk about the idolatry of romance given that we are all aro two of us have relationships one of us has a cat.
And we're not the same name it's not the same thing but I'm also going it's not the same thing at all and we're not saying it's the same that's just something that we put in in there.
(17:17):
But that you also have really good relationships with our people so the people that the individual Nik and the individual that Nik is involved with and the individual that I'm involved with if you're like their besties.
Yes.
I will be on the phone with Brad that's the joke and he'll be saying to me you know I really need to call Chuck he's talking to me and he's talking about calling you and we have made a joke out of it and we made a joke and to be honest I love it.
(17:52):
I love the idea of that y'all are friends that we're not having to worry about everybody in conflict that we're not having to worry about isolation that next partner came and was as comfortable with us as with anybody else was so comfortable with Chuck that you and I are leaving the room to go to the restaurant.
(18:16):
While they're talking about spicy elements.
Good times good times good times and so this is not one of those things where our relationships are isolated where everybody's not talking everybody else where everybody feels awkward it's very much community and so talking about that let's talk about where romantic relationships become idols and what happens when people idolize them.
(18:47):
People get hurt is the most immediate answer I can give for oh God I know the question you asked would it just left my head.
What happens when we idolize romance that thing.
It's been a week I thought today was Saturday waking up it's bear with me.
(19:08):
It's no if you value and Charlie this is something I really learned from you and talking about relationships and things like that if you view relationships as a hierarchy with like your spouse boyfriend girlfriend partner significant other whatever you want to call them at the top and then like family second and then friends third you're going to treat people accordingly and no one in your life really deserves to be treated second fiddle.
(19:37):
If you have relationships with people then you have relationships with them you should spend as much time and effort on any of them as you would like with your your special person versus like your friend your parents you're siblings whoever.
And that's also just a lot of responsibility to put on one person especially if you're the amount of love songs is just like oh you're my everything and I'm just I'm just thinking I'm very glad my partner has ever said that to me because I don't want that responsibility.
(20:12):
And because no one person can be everything to everyone.
That's true. And that's really where idolatry comes in.
That's exactly where it comes in.
Yeah and viewing one person that way a human individual who is prone to fail is just setting them up for failure too and setting you up from getting forgetting your hopes let down.
(20:42):
That was a mouthful. Yeah not bad for lack of sleep to my brain but you know just fall on in the word I guess.
I'm not pick up where Nik dropped that off but the whole like oh you're my everything and stuff and I'm I'm just hearing that and I'm thinking that's kind of what we put in our worship songs at church like I can't think of specific examples right now but it's like we put that language in our worship.
(21:11):
And why are we putting them in our romance songs like I get that we're supposed to have this is probably just a romantic brain like Lee Ann said it's a whole different worldview.
But you know if we're singing if we're singing the same language about God that we are with other people.
(21:32):
And Nik says there's literally a Fred Hammond song called everything to me or something like that so there we go that's one example but all these worship songs are basically love songs to God and they shouldn't be.
They shouldn't I will say that worship songs should be love songs to God because that's why we go to church in the first place to worship him.
(21:55):
But the love songs that we sing to our partners for those who have them shouldn't be the same kind of awestruck worship it's that's what that's what verges on to idolatry it's when we're treating God and treating our partners the same exact way.
First of all there's lots of examples in the Bible where it's pretty much all the prophetic books that we've looked at where the prophets essentially are saying hey God views your your relationship with other gods as cheating on a spouse and you know that's I guess the language that still resonates the most around here with us it's that I say us as in like modern Christians mostly in the west mostly in the US.
(22:42):
Now we can't be treating God and our partners the exact same way human beings like Nik said are very fallible we're prone to making mistakes we have our own issues with agency we have our own issues with sin and temptation God is really the only one who can be our everything but when we make our partners that we are not only putting them on a pedestal and putting them somewhere where they can't stay there forever.
(23:11):
We are also doing ourselves and our other friends of disservice we are isolating ourselves from other people because if you have one person is your everything you don't need anybody else yeah and then if you're only relying on one person well.
I you know I hate to break I hate to bring up the statistic I don't even know if it's completely true but like the half of all marriages in divorce thing like if you do end up getting to a place where that relationship does fail.
(23:41):
Who are you going to turn to if that one person was your everything and you didn't cultivate relationships with anybody else right.
So stepping off my soap box for that for a minute and I think I'm done.
(24:02):
This is actually something interesting that I have heard and the 50% statistic is conflated it's about 30.
And it's been about a third for about 30 years and as far as I'm concerned that's still enough like you're saying whether it's 30 or it's 50 I don't really think that that makes that much of a difference there's still that many people out there who need that support.
(24:31):
And while you were talking there were two songs that ran through my head and one is called everything literally it's called Everything and it's on an album that came out of Lakewood in the early 2000s and the initial lyrics are everything everything Lord you are everything to me.
(24:53):
And there's another one I think it's called more than anything and I don't remember the for the life of me who sings it and I'm hoping that Nik can help me with that because you probably do know the song I love you Jesus I worship and adore you.
Just wanna tell you, Lord I love you more than anything and I can't remember for the life of me who sings it but you know the song.
(25:16):
Oh my God who sings that I remember we can look it up later but the point that I'm thinking of and then I think about let's fast forward to love songs and about the parallels that we do see in them I mean I remember there was the song Michael Bolton did in the 90s you know how am I supposed to live without you how am I supposed to carry on well I mean I guess the answer is you're going to take a deep breath and you're going to keep doing it I mean you know I don't understand.
(25:45):
I don't understand I guess the if we listen to some of the nature of some of these songs there's a lot of very toxic messages in them and if we think about where society is at right now and I'm not one of these preachers that does well the world today in society today I mean I think it's obnoxious when people do that because society well because society is always had its issues.
(26:11):
And there have always been problems and an idolatry is obviously is we're pointing out not a new thing but I really think people are missing something in their lives I think about stuff that we've talked about like with sometimes people you might encounter in your work chats or some of the people that we meet in our daily lives a lot of people really don't have a lot of friends
(26:37):
and they really don't have a lot of connections and they really they want that one person because that one person is going to make it all right and it doesn't work like that you get married and when the expectations are that high you become one of that 30% that fails because nobody can be God in your life but God.
(27:04):
Mic dropped oh wow okay I was waiting for you to say something Chuck.
Well I have something in my head but I don't know if you want to drug it up but basically there is a huh.
Okay sure so there is an incident I well we all technically collectively don't what that but we had a friend who.
(27:34):
Lee Ann like you kind of alluded to earlier in the episode who got into a romantic relationship and all of a sudden we no longer existed so I did a couple blog posts about it I.
What was the first one I did I think the first one was basically like the quote unquote breakup letter or whatever just explaining what happened and yeah I think so yeah how hard I was over and things like that and I get an inbox from my blog from a relative of the ex best friend significant other that was a mouthful but anonymity we.
(28:17):
Right we do that here which was basically saying like oh don't you know that's when two people are going to get together they have to cleave to each other why don't you just support the relationship and you know open your heart to change or something along those lines it was bullshit.
It was and God that was a way to start my work day remember waiting for the bus reading that but yeah but that just well first of all the tone was condescending which I really didn't appreciate like talking to me like I'm what I don't know 16.
(28:58):
Like you have no idea right and like I hadn't been in a relationship before granted that one wasn't great but still it was there.
And also I had 10 years on this other one so like seniority first off and then just it made no sense why I had to be okay being put second place for this new thing like that just really rubbing the wrong way but I remember if I can flex a petty moment that I the next blog post which I had already intended to do.
(29:35):
I was intended to do after this other one came out and before this person inbox me was basically a thank you letter to this individual for everything that I learned from them and the experiences that we had because regardless of how the relationship ended there were still things that I needed to give them credit for.
And I didn't get an inbox after that but that was kind of my I guess my little aromantic moment like yes I could have forgotten all the good times that happened in that relationship but I didn't I acknowledge both the good and the bad and let things where they were.
(30:19):
So Nik that gets me on another if I can get back on another soap box because you you pointed out something really poignant with what what I've definitely experienced what probably a lot of other aromatic people have experienced is getting left behind so yeah.
I want to say like I had an entirely different experience with that friend A because I didn't know them very well like definitely not as long as you two did but when all of that started happening I was kind of like oh this again okay yeah I wasn't as distraught over it because unfortunately that has happened in my in my experience too many times account at this point whenever a friend of mine would get into a relationship it was like oh okay bye.
(31:08):
So I was like oh okay bye you in never I guess it's so there's this idea that will probably get into later it's called amatonormativity it's from the Latin word amotto meaning love and the normativity if you've heard of the term heteronormativity basically means like something being the norm.
The idea of amatonormativity is the idea that and the assumption that oh everyone wants a romantic relationship everyone feels romance everyone wants this for the for the lives and as you heard me talk I was like nope I don't want that for my life so like that already you know puts a crack into that idea because I'm not you know I'm not part of the everyone but basically like when we have this assumption it is seen as okay for.
(31:56):
For people who get into a new relationship to basically focus all their time energy attention onto the new relationship and people don't usually raise a stink about it I can remember all the way back in middle school where you know a friend of mine would get into a relationship and I'm like oh okay well so much for hanging out with them I had a good group of friends so I was able to hang out with other people but as I got older and it became harder to make more friends.
(32:24):
When people would get into a relationship it was like oh okay so this is this is how it is it it was basically being like second fiddle like Nik was saying but also that I would never because I never wanted to be in a relationship with anybody I mean I tried to force myself into a relationship with kind of disastrous results but that's the story for another day.
(32:48):
I basically had to get comfortable with the idea that I was never going to be anyone's first choice and so it's a that was a process to sort of work through for a while I eventually sort of came to terms with it but you two really got me out of that mindset when as you as you prove I'm best friends with both of your partners to the point where we can have yeah to the point where we can have like
(33:16):
you know our long conversations that are completely independent of y'all's relationship it's like I'm friends with you Nik I'm friends with with your partner as individual people like y'all.
I wouldn't necessarily say that you're not a unit because you're together but in a lot of the romantic terminology it's like somebody would get into a relationship and they're a unit you would never see them without their person.
(33:45):
And you could never engage them in conversation without that person it was always all of your conversations had to include that person and it's like you would lose agency in a relationship and so that was my experience with all of this so I think I had a and again it was still rough but again I had an easier time getting through the incident with the mutual friend that we were all talking about because I'd been used to that kind of behavior.
(34:14):
And if y'all can remember when you said something about like I think valuing my relate my presence or you've you've brought it up a couple of times and I've definitely cried on the spot I'm trying not to cry now because it's such a rare it's such a rare experience to be treated as an equal for somebody who doesn't who doesn't have a partner who doesn't want a partner.
(34:42):
I think that you know in in keeping with it I experienced what you're talking about but it wasn't as intense one of the things I've been doing a lot of thinking of and it has to do with probably a next project I'm going to be working on and it will likely be something that we show up in season seven of our podcast I don't think it's going to make it for the remainder of this season but it'll most likely be in the next one.
(35:08):
Was that the truth they told I didn't really at least as an adult have that many friends I had ministry acquaintances and in ministry when you have acquaintances marriages already the idle so they're spouse coming first is always a thing and it was so much a reality that I didn't even know.
(35:37):
I didn't even think about it so when we had different people come to us and I did have several people who over the years they got really independent and they decided they were going to leave their husbands and then they wanted to be in ministry and you know everything was all girl power and then the next thing you know they're going back to their husbands.
(36:00):
And then they get real conservative and want to be all about marriage and they want to be really in the right ministry circles for that if that makes any sense.
Sounds like the Tango Maureen but church is it's funny that you said that because that's exactly what it was I mean so for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about Tango Maureen is a song in Rent.
(36:26):
And it's basically about somebody named Maureen who changes partners like she changes socks and she's there and she's with you and when she's with you she loves you and when she's with you she's all 100% in but the second her eyes starts wandering or something else comes up she throws you over.
And that's very much what it was like a ministry member you know being there for people and helping them out when they moved out and you know doing all this stuff and then the next thing you know they're going back home and they're totally different people.
(37:02):
And that was a feeling very much so and well often many times happen towards the end of that was a lot of bitterness both on my part and theirs because first of all I don't know what the hell just happened.
You know i'm trying to help you to do ministry the way that you say you want to do it and now your whole view and idea for ministry is completely and totally different.
And I don't know where I fit into that picture anymore especially if i'm your leader you know I don't know where I kind of fit there anymore but as far as like it when I didn't really have that many friends and
(37:37):
one or two that I did they were also people I work with ministry one of them did get married and I actually did their wedding and I didn't really have any problem with who they married because there has been her husband really liked me and we got along really really well kind of like it wasn't quite the same as chuck and Brad but you know we were I wouldn't just called up and talk to him but you know we might have talked on the phone before his wife came on the phone or something like that we didn't talk like that but.
(38:06):
The other part of that is I do know that feeling of getting left behind and it often felt that way when people were trading things in especially if they were trying to move up the ministry ladder and I talked about that a lot and marriage is a part of that one of the reasons why i've said I did better in certain ministry circles when i was younger but I never really fit 100% a part of that was because my late husband was not part of the picture.
(38:35):
He wasn't interested and people if they knew he was there they were kind of not up to have me around and then when if they didn't know he was there they assumed I was single and that's a whole other thing like chuck is talking about it's pretty much like they're afraid you're going to snag their husbands are you're going to be after you know you're going to be after all the men like you know anybody wanted all of them and I guess that's my aromantic I'm coming out and you know
(39:04):
you know we people were very distrustful and I think that that's also part of the idolatry because it's like suddenly you can't be friends with anybody like you say everybody you become this unit and everybody's got to supervise all your time you know you can't it's like everybody's got a guard this relationship because.
(39:27):
If romance is that emotional and that being swept away and that being carried by emotions in other words they're not giving anybody any credit for having any self control.
Wow and I don't know where that came from.
No but that's exactly that's exactly it because when you said something about supervision it's like you know I've never really thought about when people become a unit it's like oh y'all it almost seems like they're very insecure with the status and I mean not everybody is like this but to the the degree that it's normalized that you become possessive of your significant other and you're like you go to the same places all the time.
(40:14):
And it's not necessarily for what to be in each other's presence it's kind of out of an insecurity that someone better is going to come along and I mean that just again is going back to the idolatry bit.
I know how we don't do that with friendships already other type of relationship.
(40:35):
Right.
And if I can't trust whoever I'm with to have a phone call with someone.
What does that say?
That's saying a lot without saying anything.
Because I remember Chuck you said that you were like well you don't have any problem with it you being along with him or whatever and I'm like I don't need to be.
(41:06):
Yeah I don't need to have a problem with it there's no reason to if I trust him that little and I trust you that little and I also know way better than that with you you know if that's the case then there's a problem and it's a lot bigger problem than having friends.
And like Chuck I think I've jumped about with you like if my partner was like ever in town or we go up to their state because unfortunately long distance but like if there's something y'all see I want to do I would just be like go shoot go have fun.
(41:41):
Like a giant ear of corn.
I don't know how to tell you this Nik none of us are going to do that but it's made of concrete.
Oh my God anyway I said ain't, ain't none of us going to that.
But like y'all are into fandoms mutually that like I'm not into and you'll have interests together that I don't share with either either of you or to the same degree that either of you have.
(42:11):
And that's fine and I recognize that again I can't fulfill every need or want my partner has so that's where the friendships come in.
It's the agency once again it's that a lot of unfortunately the toxic idea about romance because you know I don't think romance itself is the problem it's kind of like how money itself isn't the problem.
(42:37):
What we what we do with it how much we idolize it that is when it becomes an issue and when we put romance and our romantic partners on this pedestal we are really insecure about it like this there's I can't remember where this phrase comes from but it's like the tighter you hold on to something the easier it is just about kind of like catching smoke it's like.
(43:04):
No I remember the Bible verse now it's whoever loves their life will lose it and whoever.
Gives up their life for the sake of the gospel will find it like yeah yeah it's somewhere in the gospels you know.
And I'm gonna leave that at that anyway yeah yeah I know it's in in the Bible but.
(43:26):
We just need to put it out there you hit a certain point in ministry you either know exactly where a verse is because you grew up in like King James like me and Lee Ann or you just kind of get to a point where it's like oh it's in the Paul letter.
It's in Paul.
You know what Bible gateway exists it's it's Bible Google you know somebody.
(43:50):
But right but anyway back on a more serious note it's the the tighter we hold on to something the the more issues it causes us the more we get possessive over this thing and we're and we're basically saying to God and to everybody else do not take this away from me because if you do I will lose it.
(44:13):
You know you would lose that relationship but it's it's a very difficult thing to get out of especially if you're used to that mindset and I'm sure we can talk about this later like how we overcome that but it's the having agency and recognizing people's agency including yourself including another person.
(44:39):
You know if you make friends you should trust these people around your partner like that should kind of go without saying and if you can't trust them around your partner you probably need to get different friends.
Fair yeah and if your partner can't trust you around your own friends when they've been there longer than that's also sending a very telling message.
(45:04):
Oh yeah oh hell yeah.
So I think that actually what you posed about overcoming the mindset is actually a really good question so.
Basically understand that if somebody is romantically oriented that's how they're oriented and I think that what you said Chuck is perfectly valid that just like there's nothing wrong with being a romantic there's really nothing wrong with being romantic.
(45:35):
And I think that with both things we do have to kind of keep stuff in perspective though and I think that if I'm going to just go out on the ledge here this is just an opinion I think it's a lot easier to keep aromanticism and check the romanticism because one of the founding ideas of romantic ideas is feelings.
And we can get really really easily swept away by those if we're not careful if we're really looking for something to feel a certain way and we're not looking to anything else.
(46:10):
We need to have some good judgment in here and so there's really nothing wrong with it but much like anything in life you have to temper it.
And I guess my question would be like you're saying how do we overcome the negative aspects of it if that's what somebody is.
I mean I guess my advice would be to listen to aromatic people when they talk about their struggles like you're already I mean if you're listening to the podcast you're already pretty much doing the first step in this but understanding that people have different perspectives about romance.
(46:47):
And I think that's the whole point of arospec awareness week is to say hey not all of us are wired this way and it's okay for not all of us to be wired this way.
I think from a Christian standpoint that God made us the way we are to reflect his image in some way I have a blog post called diversity was always God's design.
(47:11):
Basically like the idea of people are made differently we have all of these unique things for a reason and they reflect something of God's original design and you know I think educating yourself about
like aromatic identities definitely good start looking up the term a motto normativity that's a m a t o in or m a t normate I I VY yeah.
(47:47):
But basically the first part of is a motto a m a t o and just kind of poke like essentially just taking a step back from society and kind of examining why society the way it is it is very difficult to kind of re examine something you've taken for granted it definitely takes effort.
(48:10):
There are communities out there there's a lot of there are a lot of aromantic people on tumblr of all places I'm sure that there's a reddit sub reddit somewhere devoted to aromantics there are communities online which is really nice that there are online communities for us to be able to share our experiences.
(48:32):
I need to be doing a lot more on aromanticism on my blog but I do have a blog post about amatonormativity so if you go to beloved dash not dash broken calm I have a search bar on there you can search up aromantic or amatonormativity or even just love and you find it.
But yeah just educating yourself is the first bit and you know doing your best I guess to try and not pass judgment I know it's easier said than done for a lot of this stuff but even hearing people out is a really good step in the right direction.
(49:08):
Nick what would you say to it.
I mean I guess just to kind of follow up and rehash like be open to it because you can research all day long but if you aren't open to at least considering that there's a possibility that this alternate orientation lifestyle whatever you want to call it is legit then you're not going to get very far.
(49:38):
I like the suggestion that you guys made about learning because I think that when we do talk about things like this whenever something doesn't fall within the guidelines of what people see is being comfortable they often don't see it is safe.
They automatically reject it like I remember when I first came out as arrow and I did a blog on it where I said something about an aromantic looks at intimate relationships or something of that nature and it is on my patheos column it's I think February of 2024 I want to say is when I put that up somebody on my page who's followed my page for a long time found it.
(50:25):
And he was in my inbox about it and he was very critical of it and he was very, very judgmental about it and you know I basically said to him that you know first of all I don't know what it is to you since you and I aren't a thing.
That's first thing and the second thing is you know I think that you're really misunderstanding it he was says well I want to understand I want to understand I want to stand and I do think that he wanted to understand but.
(50:52):
His problem was that he could not get passed in not being a romantic concept because he was under the impression that that's what all women want and even said that many many times and so for me to say it's not that was automatically threatening to him because he created a narrative I think we need to be careful with our narratives and.
(51:16):
When it comes to romance it's a very dominant narrative in our culture there's entire channels devoted to romantic movies and if we look at romantic movies they're very scripted.
In fact we've all heard the joke you know what has 15 actors one plot.
(51:38):
And 632 extras in the answer was every hallmark movie ever made people really gravitate toward that they love the idea of it without really looking at maybe the impracticality of the movies or the the untruth of it because it's always somebody giving something up and going to a simpler way of life and.
(52:03):
Now they're going to give up you know all this for romance and it's going to be worth it and we don't think about the end of the movie notice they never have sequels we don't do we don't do the woman is sick and bored of being on the ranch and starts a shoe company and moves back to the big city or.
(52:25):
Couple gets disgusted with each other because man won't pick up his socks and clean up the house with her and they get a divorce I mean we like I say notice there are never any sequels to these movies because life is the sequel and at some point in time every relationship has an aromantic quality.
(52:48):
And if we don't push through it whether we are romantic or if we're a romantic we're not pushing through it but every relationship has a point where it's not about the emotion and the feelings that you feel it's about the fact that you wake up and your partner has cancer which I've been through more than once.
(53:09):
And you have to put one foot in front of the other and figure out not just how to be there for them but how to get through it for yourself it's about being long distance like you and your partner are Nik.
And navigating the every day life like the holidays when you all can't be together and that maybe he's alone and you're not and how to balance that out.
(53:36):
How do we consider this relationship as part of our bigger community.
And if we don't do those things our relationships don't have a pair to begin with.
Oh, there it is.
We are about out of time and as you guys know from being on this podcast previously I typically turn this over to my guest to see if there's a final thought something that you'd like to leave our listeners with and i'm going to let you figure out who's going to go first to do that.
(54:13):
Nose goes.
Really.
You're not in the same room.
Okay, so Chuck nose goes.
Wouldn't it be nose went?
Okay, yeah, that would be proper grammar with anyway it's too late.
(54:40):
And there's the chaos.
And you thought about it.
All right, so it's Charlie nostril departed.
I am going to get back on my epic the musical bullshit for a second and this is all i'm going to mention there is a song during the second saga cycle of saga.
(55:07):
Yeah, that one called remember them.
And then I would basically just say that's my main takeaway here remember your other relationships the other people in your life before you got into your romantic relationship.
Remember how much you valued them, how much you all have done for each other have been through with each other obviously assuming that these are healthy relationships and they're unhealthy then you know there's that whole situation.
(55:37):
Yeah, if they are healthy relationships where you're both encouraging each other supporting each other being there for each other in the good times and the bad.
Then keep fostering those those don't and shouldn't go away just because you add another relationship on to your life.
(55:58):
Remember that romantic relationships are in addition not a replacement.
I love that.
All right, I'm still in that idea going to discuss it further as my takeaway that.
You know, if you have good friends and you have and friends don't even have to be your entire source of community you can have acquaintances through ministry you can have acquaintances through church or.
(56:28):
Or work or you know fandoms or anything like that basically having people in your life should be an addition not a replacement as we like to say at sanctuary we were made for community.
So we take a different interpretation of.
(56:50):
When GOd made humanity in Genesis I think to so Adam was alone and God said oh that's not good we have to we have to find you a person.
Yes, it can be interpreted as marriages for some people but obviously for those of us who are aromantic and not interested in marriage.
(57:11):
We need other people in our lives for community for support we're not meant to be alone.
Well, I was waiting for you to say something else.
I mean, I think that's that's pretty much it.
No, that's it. No, that isn't and it's true whether we're married or we're not we still need other people.
(57:34):
And then that that's basic premise. Well, I think you both for being on here and how can everybody get in contact with you.
Okay, I guess I'll go again since apparently Chuck is still nostrils departed.
If you want to get in contact with me there is my blog which probably have the greatest chance of reaching me that is Nikfits.com that is N I K F I T S dot com my social media is God should be linked on there.
(58:09):
I'm not terribly active on insta anymore but Bluesky is pretty much the one I'm screaming to the void over so.
If you want to see what I'm screaming about or scream with me, there you go.
Yeah, my website also is probably the best place to contact me. I have a.
(58:30):
Actually a contact page where you can put your name and usually I use it for questions, but you can just ask.
I can just literally say hi it sends it to my email and I get to read the responses.
And I mean if you send me your email back we can always message that way but.
Yeah, I mean I do have my social medias there at the there linked at the bottom of my website again that's beloved-not-broken.com.
(59:00):
It's got to have the dashes in it the one without dashes were already taken sadly but.
I'm the most active on so if you have a tumblr account then I'll see you on the hell site.
What that's what I'll really yeah well.
I thank you both for being on here and I thank all of you for listening today and if you would like a resource for what we're talking about everybody always thinks LGBTQ means gay or straight but it's actually an entire host of spectrums and a different things that are.
(59:34):
Outside of the bounds of heteronormativity and amatonormativity did I say right.
You did yes I did alright I encourage you to check out my book ministering to LGBTQ plus and those who love them a primer for queer theology and it's a company workbook that has the same title except workbook and it's so ministering to LGBTQ plus workbook both a primer for queer theology.
(01:00:01):
And actually both ministers Nik and Chuck who are on here today wrote the foreword for that book and so.
And there's pictures of them if you want to see them so definitely go and check that out today look me up Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino wherever books are sold Amazon Barnes and noble and beyond.
So look up my titles for Dr. Lee Ann B marino and all my titles including that current one will come up so check that out today also connect with me across social media @kingdompowernow that's @kingdompowernow I am on bluesky I'm on Twitter I'm on Facebook I'm on Instagram I'm on tiktok I'm on threads I'm on all of them.
(01:00:38):
And hit me up @kingdompowernow let's have a conversation let's have that discussion let's learn about what you would like to hear about and go from there so reach out today also check out my patheos column leadership on fire at patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire that's patheos.com/blogs/leadershiponfire.
(01:01:02):
And that blog is devoted to all things of interest in leadership and so whether you're in leadership interested in leadership or want to learn more about it that column is for you so also check that out today also if you'd like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity feel free to visit my website at kingdompowernow.org that's kingdompowernow.org
(01:01:23):
And if you're interested in seminary that is modern affordable and can be done from home we are entirely donation based and you can be done at a distance check out apostolic covenant theological seminary acts for short acts176.org that's acts176.org
And if you are looking for community and you are looking for an understanding of scripture that narrates community through the essential lens of God reaching out to his people both directly and through others check out our work of sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle we are in the Charlotte North Carolina area visit us at welcomeinthisplace.org that's welcomeinthisplace.org.
(01:02:05):
And if you have a question feel free to reach out and we would love to get back to you as soon as possible and this is Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino reminding you in closing that romantic relationships are not everything partner relationships are not everything but community when it comes down to it is an essential aspect that gets us through whatever we have to go through until next time be blessed.
(01:02:33):
Thank you for joining us on the kingdom now podcast today I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life to learn more about this work ask a question submit feedback advertised with us be a guest or donate to support this work as our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you visit my website which contains essential information projects and works for other points of contact
(01:03:02):
around the web at kingdompowernow.org also you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international fellowship tabernacle visit welcomeinthisplace.org until next time this is a possible doctor again marine reminding you that the kingdom of God is within you and that means the kingdom is now.
(01:03:31):
[Music playing]
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