May 16, 2025 • 56 mins
In today's episode, we're exploring intimacy - a concept that's far more complex than most of us realize. My guest, Erin Moniz, has been studying how we connect, disconnect, and misunderstand relationships in our current cultural moment. We'll dig into some critical questions: What does intimacy actually mean beyond romantic relationships? How have cultural messages - both inside and outside the church - distorted our understanding of connection? And what might a more holistic approach to knowing and being known look like? Erin brings a unique perspective as a college chaplain who's counseled countless emerging adults navigating relationships. We'll discuss how technology impacts our connections, why friendships matter as much as romantic partnerships, and how the gospel offers a different framework for understanding human relationships. This isn't a prescriptive how-to conversation, but an exploration of our fundamental human need for genuine connection. We'll challenge some assumptions about singleness, marriage, and community, and hopefully provide a more nuanced view of intimacy. So join us.
Rev. Erin F. Moniz (DMin, Trinity School for Ministry) is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and associate chaplain and director for chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships. She is a trained conciliator, mediator, and conflict coach. She enjoys content creation, playing music, being outdoors, and narrating the inner monologue of her two cats. She lives in Waco, Texas, with her husband, Michael.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Moniz (00:00):
It's going to take more than just me and my
(00:01):
personal disciplines to pushback against the false selves
and to push back against thosethings. I'm going to need
people. I'm going to need to besurrounded I'm going to need to
be intentionally connecting withpeople and telling them who they
are and then telling me who Iam, so that it begins to really
stick and really push throughthe lies, and that's the gift I
(00:23):
believe, of the Gospel for ustoday. Hello
Joshua Johnson (00:39):
and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in
which we have conversationsabout the culture we create and
the impact we can make. We longto see the body of Christ look
like Jesus. I'm your host.
Joshua Johnson, Today we'reexploring intimacy, a concept
that's far more complex thanmost of us realize. My guest,
Erin Moniz, has been studyinghow we connect, disconnect and
misunderstand relationships inour current cultural moment,
(01:02):
we'll dig into some criticalissues. What does intimacy
actually mean beyond romanticrelationships? How have cultural
messages, both inside andoutside the church, distorted
our understanding of connection?
And what might a more holisticapproach to knowing and being
known look like Aaron brings aunique perspective as a college
(01:23):
Chaplain who's counseledcountless emerging adults
navigating relationships, we'lldiscuss how technology impacts
our connections, why friendshipsmatter as much as romantic
partnerships, and how the gospeloffers a different framework for
understanding humanrelationships. This isn't a
prescriptive how toconversation, but an exploration
of our fundamental human needfor genuine connection. We'll
(01:46):
challenge some assumptions aboutsingleness, marriage and
community, and hopefully providea more nuanced view of intimacy.
So join us as we dig deep andfigure out what does it really
look like to have intimacy inour lives. Here is my
conversation with Aaron Moniz.
Aaron, welcome to shiftingculture. Excited to have you on.
(02:07):
Thanks for joining me. So gladto be here. Thank you for the
invitation. Yeah, I'm excited todive deep right away, because
we're talking about intimacytoday, and because we're talking
about intimacy, we just have togo, go deep, right? We have to
get intimate. I appreciate,
Erin Moniz (02:22):
I appreciate the jokes. Yeah, that's great.
Joshua Johnson (02:26):
Well, my, my question is, you start your your
book out, which is great withthe the problem of intimacy. Is
there a intimacy problem today?
What have you seen? What haveyou found? What's the problem
with intimacy?
Erin Moniz (02:42):
Oh yes, yes, the answer is yes. There's a big
one, and it's not just incertain spaces. It's across the
board. In terms of I work withcollege students, so I get a
real front row seat to reallyjust how heartbreaking and
difficult and chaotic it can be,just for, I mean, emerging
adults specifically, but I thinkfor everyone navigating intimate
(03:03):
relationships, whether that'sromance and dating and marriage
or roommates, singleness,friendships, family, it's it's
all in the mix, but But theproblems really stem from just
messages that we absorb fromboth the culture. And then what
I try to demonstrate is thatthese messages have not been met
with a really distinct countercultural message from
(03:26):
Christendom so much as we'vetaken some of these cultural
messages and sort of baptizedthem and been maybe a little,
maybe fallen asleep, a littlebit on some of the ways that
that's affected ourdiscipleship. And so we've got a
situation where Christians arenot necessarily leading the
charge in terms of healthy,sustainable intimate
relationships any more thananybody else. So
Joshua Johnson (03:47):
what are these cultural things that we have co
opted within Christendom that wehave put on to the church? Yeah,
Erin Moniz (03:55):
at the top there's a lot, but at the top of the list
is romance, idolatry, and that'sa phrase I love, but I stole it
from Peter Volk, who reallythoughtfully kind of identified
this, this sort of pull that wehave to towards romantic
relationships, not necessarilyfor benign reasons, but because
somewhere deep down we haveattached our relationship status
(04:16):
to our identity and value. So ifI'm on the dating apps and
somebody ghosts me. I'm notgoing to try to Google, like how
to be good on the dating apps orbest life hacks for how to get a
date. I'm going to I'm not goingto jump to sort of practical
solutions. I'm going to say,what's wrong with me. I'm going
to ask a different question.
It's going to go straight into,am I valued? Does anybody want
(04:37):
me? Why doesn't anybody want me?
And so at the core, there'sthese, these question about our
identity and value and romance.
Idolatry exists in sort of thelarger North American western
culture, but sadly, it alsoexists in the church, and this
is why we can only talk aboutsingleness as a season. We
don't, we don't have a. Picturefor a flourishing life that
(05:00):
doesn't have sex, and forChristianity, we would say sex
in the confines of marriage atthe center. But we're making
judgments about people'sidentity and worth, whether we
realize it or not, oftentimessubtly, without necessarily
knowing that's what we're doing.
But in an effort, a well meaningeffort, I think, to see people
(05:20):
in healthy marriages, we've beenanemic about a theology of
intimacy that's actually muchmore biblical and inclusive of
everyone, regardless of theircircumstances, because not
everyone gets married, noteveryone stays married. We have
widowed and divorced people inour churches. We have single
folk. It's a larger landscape.
So our rhetoric is, is reallyshowing up as as not not healthy
(05:41):
enough for everyone. The
Joshua Johnson (05:45):
first couple lines in your book is a quote
from somebody that, as you weresitting in a conference, hearing
the speaker as she was going tolive a celibate life, she says,
I can live without sex, but Ican't live without intimacy if
we have romance idolatry. It isthat romantic relationship, that
sexual relationship where wethink that's where intimacy
comes, that's where our identityand value comes. What does it
(06:09):
look like then to dig down towhat intimacy is. So give us a
definition of what intimacy is,if it's not just a a naked
sexual relationship, like fullylike known and being seen in all
of who we are in a sexualrelationship?
Erin Moniz (06:24):
Yeah, no, I really try to get at this in the book,
and I present a very sort ofbasic definition for intimacy
that speaks of it as sort of agenerative reciprocal
relationship where we are. Infact, I'm going to butcher my
own quote here, but
Unknown (06:41):
to do but basically, it's about us
Erin Moniz (06:45):
drawing each other to Christ and to our true
identities and value and who weare, and we're doing that for
each other. So intimacy actuallyserves a function in, I believe,
our sanctification, but reallywhat it means to be human, what
it means to understand ourselvesand understand what we're doing
in the world, and that's a veryChristian lens. But I think
there's something echoed inthat, in the way people pursue
(07:06):
healthy intimacy inrelationships like marriages and
friendships and family, thatthey're looking for a stability
of self that comes through theseexternal ways that we know and
are known with each other. Andso intimacy is a lot broader
than just sex and married. Mystudents were the ones that
taught me that they were cominginto my office, and bless them,
(07:27):
it's been 80% of my time as acollege Chaplain talking about
their dating woes. But thatwasn't everything. They also
came in with a lot of questionsabout friendship and roommates
and boy, a lot about family. Imean, 20 somethings trying to
move from being a dependent toindependent, how to navigate
that adult relationship withtheir parents? Some, you know,
(07:50):
just in a in just sort of anormal sense, where it's just
sort of the average, rockytransition, some with trauma and
toxicity that's mixed in. And Icouldn't find a, find a single
resource that would reallyinform me on all three of these,
these planes of romance andfriendship and family. That's
when I began to realize, oh, Ineed to open my definitions a
(08:14):
bit more. And so intimacy sortof became the term I landed on,
even though most of us use itsynonymously with sex, but
there's just more to us, and sowe had to go, go broader.
Joshua Johnson (08:23):
Really helpful for me to think about intimacy
in a broader sense of it iswith, you know, my family. It's
with my friends. It's with mychurch family. Could be it's,
you know, with my wife. There'sall sorts of places where I need
intimacy. If I am not known, orif I cannot know other people,
(08:47):
we're missing something. I thinkthere's, there's this one you
say a great breakup line in incollege is like, I just need
time to be with the Lord. I needto be single to be with the
Lord. I think you it's a goodlike, hey, it's my time. Now,
it's a classic. It's a classicline. I think I might have heard
that when I was in college,absolutely,
Erin Moniz (09:09):
if someone hasn't been broken up with by Jesus,
like, exactly, you know, I just,yeah, I don't know how long
you've been a Christian, but,like, that's, that's a, that's a
classic.
Joshua Johnson (09:18):
So the question then, is, we need each other,
not just Jesus. Jesus isimportant, like we need Jesus,
but we also need one another. Soeven in those moments of being
single, how do we move towardsintimacy with people and not
just say, I'm gonna relegatemyself, you know, to a hermitage
(09:41):
in the woods with Jesus. Yes,
Erin Moniz (09:44):
and this, this is often a misconception, something
that we're all navigating. I trynot to make too light of it in
the book, because I feel thatsame tug myself, the the sort of
binary that like to to reallywork on myself and be with
Jesus, means that I need tojust. Push out all of these
other relationships, and what Ibelieve a theology of intimacy
restores, is this idea of like,well, let's think about the
(10:06):
location of Jesus, right? Let'sthink about where is the
presence of God? Well, obviouslyGod is everywhere. And I do this
in my book, where I kind of talkabout how that's true, not
necessarily helpful. But ifwe're really getting down to
brass tacks of where scripturelocates the Lord. He's the
resurrected Christ is sitting atthe right hand of the throne.
But the Paraclete, the Helper,the Holy Spirit, is in all of
(10:27):
us, and that Holy Spiritpresence in each other means
that my relationship with God isindelibly tethered to my
communion with other people, andin a way that isn't just
tangential, but really gets intoit's that knowing and being
known, that exchange of intimacyand vulnerabilities that can be
difficult. So for for for singlefolks, for folks who are not in
(10:51):
some of the sort ofrelationships we might take for
granted and say, Oh, these aremy people. I've got my husband
and or I've got my familynearby, some of some of those
things for folks who are moredetached, uh, for folks who are
more isolated, really, we, weneed to rethink, I think, a
theology of friendship,friendship has been really
(11:12):
relegated to not even reallybeing an intimate relationship.
Like, that's, that's sort of aweird category. When you really
start talking about, like, isfriendship and intimate
relationship, and what do wemean by that? And some of the
romance idolatry has hypersexualized everything, so it can
be really difficult to drawclose to someone platonically
(11:32):
and even have, like, a physicalconnection that is not sexual,
but to be able to to have deepconnections with others. There's
a book called The othersignificant others, not a
Christian book, but it's onethat that I think speaks to
this. And it's interesting thatChristians aren't writing about
this, but someone else is. Butit shines a light on these
platonic, intimate relationshipsthat have no sexual component,
(11:56):
but are deeply a part of thisperson's life, in a way that
that a spouse or a close familymember would be and, boy, I just
don't hear sermons about that,and I just don't see that in
Christendom. And I just, withall the dating books and all the
things coming out, I would loveto see more about how we do this
in a healthy way in the church.
Well,
Joshua Johnson (12:15):
isn't that what Jesus did? He modeled that. He
modeled it like that's what hedid.
Erin Moniz (12:22):
It's, it's stunning.
It's really right there. I gotto be honest with you, Joshua,
there were, there were momentsin my research where I was like,
I'm an idiot. I've been aChristian for forever. I'm a
professional Christian as anordained minister. And I just, I
just looked right through someof these things, and boy, yeah,
it was, it was a wake up.
Joshua Johnson (12:39):
Yeah, that's crazy. Like, we don't have it as
you've been working with collegestudents and you've been seeing
people, I mean, you look atsomeone like Jonathan Haidt,
anxious generation, he's like,Hey, we're on our screens too
much. We just need to playtogether as kids, and we're
going to actually stop beinglonely and anxious, and we're
(12:59):
gonna be okay. We know thatthere, there is a lot of
loneliness and detachment. Thereis like we're missing each other
somehow. What have you seenthrough you know your work with
college students are what ishappening? Why are we more
lonely? Why don't we get thisintimacy thing, right?
Erin Moniz (13:18):
Yes, and there's so many factors that play into
this. I mean, the pandemicrewired a lot of us. Rewired our
social development. Of mycollege students, depending on
what in what stage of theirdevelopment interrupted, they're
struggling to come intoadulthood with with, I think,
fewer tools in their tool bagfor how to connect and
communicate. And I see, I seethat, and each new generation
(13:40):
that comes through, each newclass that comes through, it's
always, it's always a new thingto watch and to try to work
through. But in many ways, wehave these cultural values that
really stemmed from sort ofthese North American patriotic
values of like personal freedomsand an independence which, you
know, I'm I'm very much for butthose are not static. They're
(14:03):
dynamic, and they've morphedover time to become values of
autonomy and entitlement. It'sreally hard to be intimate with
someone and be sort ofunencumbered and like detached,
but, but technology swoops inand says, oh, we'll, we'll fix
that. We'll facilitate that foryou. Let's provide a way for you
to have this kind of intimacy.
And Sherry Turkle writes aboutthis beautifully and alone
(14:25):
together, but, but this, we'refacilitating this intimacy. You
can know people, you can connectwith people. And I don't want
to, I don't want to demonizetechnology here, because I use
it to connect with people inways that are really fruitful
for me. But in some ways wewere, we were sort of seduced
into thinking, Oh, I can haverelationships. I can. I can send
nude pictures, I can. There's,there's salaciousness that can
(14:49):
be mediated by technology, and Ican still remain very much
detached. And that just isn'ttrue. That just that isn't the
case. And so we plunge. Intomore and more loneliness. It's a
bit like salt water. Really.
What's happening withtechnology? We're drinking it
and drinking it and drinking it.
Keep getting thirsty, and we'relike, it's wet, it's water. Why
isn't this helping? So we justhave a lot of those things that
(15:12):
are just a little bit easier toto use, a little bit more user
friendly, and are marketedspecifically to us, instead of
putting in the work, becausevulnerability is hard. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (15:24):
it is hard, and it's messy and it's difficult,
and it can be very it couldhurt. I've had conversations
with lots of people it's like, Itried to be vulnerable. I got
hurt. I'm never going to do thatagain, like they just put that
shield up. And how do we thenbuild intimacy. How does this
work? How do we say I want tomove towards other people. I'm
(15:46):
done being alone. I'm done beingalone together with others. How
do I how do I build this? How doI move towards people? Yeah,
yeah.
Erin Moniz (15:54):
I give talks on this all the time. And I like to
start with a very interesting,just little, little chart where
it's got the x and y axis, youknow, and it's a, it's, it's
sort of intimacy and trustbuilding. And I talk about, if
we're, if we're really goinginto intimacy and like, our
vulnerability is just shootingoff the charts, but we haven't
done trust building. That's areal dangerous place. So for a
(16:16):
lot of my students thatovershare or rush in or
participate in hookup culture,things like that. They're
projecting a lot ofvulnerability and intimacy into
a space that might backfire, andoften does backfire because
there hasn't been trust buildingin another sense, and this has
been part of my story. You canbe building trust with someone
but still keeping them at arm'slength, and so you're just not
allowing the you're notmeasuring that risk of
(16:39):
vulnerability as trust is beingbuilt, the ideal, of course, is
to have that on a really greattrajectory of your your risking.
Little bit. Of course, socialscience has taught us this. This
is a very, sort of reduced idea,but this, these are the basic
fundamentals where we where wesort of measure trust building
and vulnerability. And so I havethis little chart. My students
all nod, and they're, you know,taking notes, and then I'm like,
(17:02):
so this works, but also, whydoesn't this work? Because if it
was just knowing these things,well, we know this. This isn't,
this isn't rocket science, likewe Why don't we do this? What's
getting in the way? And so Ishould take whatever sort of
marker I have and just write inbig smearing letters across the
chart shame, and this is why Ibelieve that While anyone can
(17:25):
have healthy relationships, Ibelieve there are plenty of
people who are would notconsider themselves Christians
or following Jesus, who havewonderful, healthy
relationships, but at the end ofthe day, the stuff that really
gets in our own way, the thingsthat really work on us and make
it difficult to get past acertain sort of boundary level
where we have to keep ourselvessort of safe, because there's
(17:46):
really no way to keep keepbuilding trust without dealing
with the mess of our sin andbrokenness. There's a layer of
intimacy that I think only thegospel provides access for
because only the gospel providesthe tools to deal with my shame
and my brokenness and the crapthat I bring to my
relationships. And so in manyways, there's this, there's this
picture given to us by socialscientists, but at the end of
(18:10):
the day, it's the gospel that'sgonna make it possible.
Joshua Johnson (18:14):
So if we're dealing with our shame and our
sin and our messiness, sometimesthis is what, what I think is
that I'm going to say, wheneverI get healthy, I could move
towards other people, but we'renever going to be perfect, and
so there's always going to bebrokenness in us. So what is the
then, the role of doing the workthat we need to do to find our
(18:36):
true identity, so that we couldbe rooted, we'd be stable, that
our identities are not in allthis, these other things, and
that we're dealing with ourshame and our sin, but then
still trying to move towardsothers and being in a community
that brings about some of thisvulnerability while we're
dealing with our mess. Yeah,
Erin Moniz (18:57):
there, the temptation again is to go back
and say, I'm just going to goover here and work on myself,
and don't hear me say what I'mnot saying in the sense that I
believe there is a certainmeasure of personal
responsibility, where I'm goingto go to therapy and work
through the stuff that is mine.
And I'm going to, you know, getinput in ways that are
important. I'm going to practicespiritual disciplines that
connect me back to to God in thestory of God. But what I found
(19:18):
to be incredibly powerful is thefact that as broken people
coming to these relationshipswith mess and we have to think
about boundaries, and it'simportant that we don't just put
a label on all possiblerelationships this way. But I
believe at the end of the day,there's this weird mechanism
given to us by the Holy Spirit.
(19:41):
That That means that I am, I ambrought towards sanctification
and righteousness and goodnessand being a grace giver and a
grace receiver when I'm inrelationships with other people,
especially intimate ones, wherewe are moving towards this
together as an intentional partof why we're together, our
marriages, our friends. Chips. Ithink when someone who really,
(20:02):
who really knows you, who reallyknows what a jerk you are, a
piece of crap you can really be,and they look at you and they
say, this is, this is not whoyou are, friend, come back. I
know you. I know you. You don'tyou don't need this. This is not
who Christ like you are free,you are full, you are adopted,
(20:23):
you're beloved in it. And ofcourse, yeah, I'm sort of using
churchy language there, butthere's something really just
solid and concrete in thatorganic moment. And I'll now
that I've been researching thisfor my own life. I've been
trying to shift myrelationships. I'm like, Am I
that person for others? Am Isaying that in my relationships?
Am I doing that daily in mymarriage and my friendship? So
(20:43):
it's still, it's still a, youknow, a discipline, but the
reframe has has completelychanged that
Joshua Johnson (20:49):
take me into the gospel of intimacy. And what is
that? What has God shown us ofhow to be intimate and how He,
God himself, has been intimatewith us and wants to know us.
Erin Moniz (21:05):
It's important for all of us to take a moment to
remember that things likemarriage and friendship and
family are not just products ofthe social evolution of
humanity, that these things camefrom somewhere, that they were,
that they came out of theimagination of God. And so in my
research, I looked for theologyof intimacy in Scripture. Um,
you know, we sort of fall to thesame sort of texts about certain
types of behaviors. There's agreat, I mean, like, it's like,
(21:27):
oh, that tells me what to do.
Excellent. Let's just stopthere. But while behaviors are
important, I was looking forsomething a little bit more
underlying. And boy, this wasanother I'm an idiot moment when
I was just like, wow, it'severywhere. It's literally
everywhere. It's all throughoutScripture. It is woven into the
story of God communicating God'sself to God's people. And it
starts in Exodus. The very firsttime we see a shift in language
(21:50):
from from Yahweh, referring toto God Self as like I am, or the
father, or I am the God of yourfathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
and suddenly, for the firsttime, as we're wrangling with
Pharaoh and Moses is beingtaught what to say, he names
himself as a parent to Israel.
These are my children. Somethingancient gods didn't do,
(22:13):
something very out of character,something intimate. That is a
bit of a shock, and then thatjust begins to build throughout
the rest of Scripture. And so wesee God using the motif of Mary
and usually jilted spouse.
That's a lot in the mindprophets, right? It's like we're
cheating on God and He's madabout it, right? There's all of
this imagery, and these motifsare being used as God's trying
to explain to the people, like,this is our relationship. And
(22:36):
then, of course, the familiallanguage we have everything from
that moment when God sort ofdesignates himself as holy
parent, all the way to Jesus,saying, This is how you pray
Father who art in heaven. Andthen he just does a mic drop in
John 15 when he's like, you'renot my servants, you're my
friends. And so there's thislanguage baked in for a real
important purpose of of God'speople and ourselves constantly
(23:01):
being drawn back through theseideas of relationships, and not
simply as metaphors, but butreally as invitations for us to
to know God and and, but thatthere's sort of that vertical
plane, but then you realize itplays into this horizontal plane
as well, because it's not justme saying, oh, God's a father. I
have a father. That makes sense,that's nice. I can kind of see
how God would be a father,because I have an earthly
(23:23):
father. That's part of it. Butit's not just mere symbolism.
It's not just mere metaphor, somuch as there is something about
what God is communicatingthrough these intimate
relationships that says, andthis is going to give you what
you need to do this with eachother, I'm going to be the
perfection, but my gift of theHoly Spirit means that
everything that you're doingwith your friendships and your
(23:46):
marriage and your family areshadows that point back to me,
but also are tools that allowyou to be my people in these
relationships, even broken asyou are. So there's a symbiotic
relationship between how weunderstand intimacy with God and
how we understand intimacy witheach other, that was so much
more fundamental than I everthought it would be. We usually
(24:07):
talk about these sort of thingsas sort of a serving suggestion,
like, like over here, like,here's, let's talk about the
gospel and study scripture overhere. And then, like this, this
week we're gonna have someonecome talk about relationships
and, you know, our bodies andthese things, and it's, it's,
it's been unmoored, at least formy college students, for sure,
it's, we've, we've just detachedthese topics from the
(24:28):
fundamentals, and I think that'sreally key to the problem.
Joshua Johnson (24:33):
Then what does it look like to integrate them?
Erin Moniz (24:35):
Yes, buy my book.
No, I'm not. I'm not trying toproject anything new in this and
trying to be really, reallyintentional about the language,
because this isn't anything wedon't already know as
Christians, the the gospel, thecentrality of the gospel in our
faith is already something thatmany of us would be able to give
a yes to. Would be able tounderstand, would be able to say
(24:57):
yes. This is a big. Part of mylife. This is important to me,
and yet there needs to be areframe, sort of a re capturing,
a recentering of the gospel andhow we think about our intimate
relationships. And what thatwill do is it will begin to
expose some of the myths andnarratives that have seeped in,
that that have, I think,distorted what we do so. So in
(25:21):
the short answer is, we have toget back to the gospel, but in
doing so, I hope this book is acatalyst for more content other
books. I don't have to writethem. I don't care who writes
them, but I would love to seemore, more ideas centered in
this sort of gospel idea oflike, how do we do this? Well,
with friendships. What do we dowith singleness? How do we how
(25:41):
do we manage lonelinesstogether? Let's have healthy
Christian marriages. Let'sfigure out what to do with our
families. Let's have healthychurch. So I this is a bit of a
primer, but ultimately we comeback to the gospel, and then we
learn what is what does thatthen lead us to in these
relationships? And I think theanswers will be really apparent
as we begin that journey.
Joshua Johnson (26:03):
Why do you think that Christians have not been
good at this, if it is sofoundational to the gospel and
who God is at its core? Why havewe been bad and why have non
Christians been actually prettygood at it, not like secular
like marriage books are reallygood at building, like, intimacy
(26:26):
through knowing each other. Likethey're good at it. Christian
marriage books haven't quitebeen that good at it. So why do
you think we've been bad at it?
Oh,
Erin Moniz (26:36):
gosh. And I, you know, it's, this is this is
where my I hear, like my, mymentors voice in my head, like,
careful, Aaron, careful, don'tjust start. Because I've read so
many of these books. Joshua,I've read so many. Anytime my
students are like, I'm readingthis. I'm watching this, you
know, YouTube. I'm like, Okay,let's, let's hear it. Let's read
it. So I've consumed a lot ofwhat they have consumed in this
(26:58):
and I write in my introduction.
I'm like, I'm not naming namesin this book because it's just
too much. This is too broad atopic, but I but I do. I do kind
of, kind of put my finger in it,because there's a couple of
things that have been happeningthat I think have been key to
derailing this in our in ourcontent, in our sort of large
cannon of content aboutChristian relationships, one
(27:20):
would be the fact that we arealways in a caught in a loop of
historic reaction. So I touch onthis very briefly in the book.
But my friends who arehistorians could really tease
this out, the idea that so muchof these narratives are created
in reaction to something. Soright now, our purity culture.
2.0 is in reaction to hook upculture. And hook up culture,
(27:43):
very much is in reaction topurity culture. And purity
culture really evolved out ofreactions to the sexual
revolution. Sexual Revolutionwas pushed back against the rise
of Christian fundamentalism,which was a pushback against the
Enlightenment age, which is, youknow, which was critiquing the
Victorian sexual ethics, and sowe've been caught, right? We've
been caught in this, in thisloop, and not for nothing. We're
(28:04):
trying to make relevantresponses to very timely and
culturally relevant moments. So,but what that does is it shapes
and forms our content, becausethe questions are are sort of
projected upon us. So purityculture, right? Was not a bad
idea. Don't, don't, don't. Turnoff your podcast. Christians, it
(28:27):
was not a bad idea to beginwith. We wanted people to follow
what we saw as God's ethic forour lives and not get entrenched
in licentiousness and thingsthat we thought would be
damaging to us, but the way wewent about it was really shaped
and formed by trying to react toa very specific way that the
culture was projecting the sortof sexual freedom. And so what
(28:50):
we did was we locked downbehaviors, and we did that any
way possible, which meant ourmethods were really flawed and
did a lot of damage. And thenpurity culture, just Yeah, has
been kind of spiraling out eversince. But we get caught in
these loops. And I thinksometimes there's some really
well meaning people who've beenwell meaning in writing their
(29:12):
books and creating theircontent, because they really
want people to build theirrelationships, but we just don't
have a robust theology ofintimacy, and so we're stuck.
We're stuck with that the otherproblem, and Christians, we
just, I think we already knowthis, but let's just say it out
loud, the non Christian booksyou're talking about, like the
marriage books, they're comingout of social science, the
Gottman Institute. People whohave studied this, people who
(29:32):
have the receipts for like, weknow what actually makes
relationships work. Not onlyhave we not used the tools
available to us and Chris anddumb, but we have really doubled
down on three main topics,purity, modesty and gender
roles. And boy, we can't sayenough about purity, modesty and
gender roles. We got. We are weare there, and this will fix it.
(29:55):
This will take care ofeverything. Everyone just needs
to know their plan. So we needto project purity. We need to,
you know, you know, Projectmodesty. Not that there isn't a
merit to things like modesty,but it is. It is not making
healthy relationships. It isjust this old, tired thing, and
we just don't know what else, Ithink, to put our hooks on. And
so we've just been caught in aloop.
Joshua Johnson (30:17):
So let's solve the crisis of culture right now,
right now. Let's do it rightnow. So if, if everything we've
been doing is a is a historicalreaction to what's happening in
the culture, and we're havingpendulum swings one way and
another. Now, if we're like,hey, there is gender fluidity
like crazy right now, like,yeah, there's all sorts and that
(30:41):
brings about all sorts ofthings. So we're going to be
talking about purity, where wemodesty, gender roles. We're
just going to combat it by goinghard the other way and going
back into fundamentalism. Iswhat it looks like to me. Yeah,
and that's a big pendulum swing.
And they're like, We got to gothe opposite to combat it. What
does it look like to to have anuanced view that does produce
(31:04):
intimacy, knowing, being known,being loved by God, and like
moving towards something that'snot just about behavior
modification, but it is morerobust and than that, I don't
know if behavior modificationhas worked right. So, yeah, what
(31:24):
is, what's? What do we need todo that's different than
behavior modification? Because Ithink that's what we're trying
to get back to right now. Yes,
Erin Moniz (31:35):
no, absolutely. 100% agree with you, and it's so so
many things that we need to dohere. I'll land on two that I'm
seeing and facing even withinmyself, as I, as I work through
this and prepare material totalk with people about. The
first is that behaviors areimportant. We want to behave
(31:57):
well in our relationships.
That's that's a good thing. Butif we start with behaviors, then
all we have is we're buildingoff of ways to try to get people
to do the right thing. And boy,we've really been tanking on
that, because there isn't a lotof substance there. Because
again, when something happens tomy relationships, I'm not going
to some practical okay, how do Ifix this? How do I get better?
(32:18):
What's you know, what can I workon? We go deep into our identity
and our shame and our self worthand those messages. And I think
we got to start there. I thinkwe got to start a few layers
down and say, what is drivingour behaviors, what is what is
about? Why do I want to date?
What do I think aboutloneliness? Like, what what am I
(32:41):
seeking? Why do I sometimes, inan effort to get close to
someone, sabotage myself andpush them away? These are all
questions that lie with messagesthat we've that we've absorbed,
and distortions of our identityin Christ and our ideas about
God that need attention and goodnews the church like, that's
what we do, like that's that wehave the gospel, that is a place
(33:02):
where we can start, and if wecan connect dots for people
between thinking about who Godis, thinking about who we are
because of Christ, and tyingthat to how we understand our
and have healthy relationships,I think it's a game changer. So
that's one we need to get backto just doing what we do, I
think very well and could coulddo better, which is really
helping people understand thegospel and the kingdom and
(33:26):
learning the story of God, sothat we can learn who God is, so
we can learn who we are and liveout of that identity. The other
is we've got to wrangle ourfear. As a clergy person, I'm
preparing it as as we're aswe're recording this. I'm
preparing a talk to give to theall the clergy in my diocese
specifically about issues ofsexuality in our churches, and
boy, a lot of well meaning,talented, smart folks who are
(33:49):
right now just paralyzed in fearabout how to do this well. And
that's because these arecultural lightning rots right
that we are we are ramping up.
The culture is turningeverything up to 11 on this and
it feels so loud and chaotic.
And I think for those of ustrying to lead, there's there's
a real fear mechanism that we wehave to reckon with, with
(34:12):
ourselves, to struggle to todetach from, to pastor Well, to
do this well. And so for theaverage person just trying to do
this. I think naming andrecognizing our own fears
related to this. These subjectsmany, many of them having to do
with human sexuality and gender,but also just about each other
and ourselves. There's, there'sa there's an extra amount of
(34:33):
fear. I think that's guiding theway we approach these things.
And for myself and for others,that's a daily that's a daily
discipline. We just we have todeal with. Otherwise. I'll just
project that onto the person infront of me. If
Joshua Johnson (34:46):
I look at at Jesus, and what he did is he, he
dispelled a lot of fear. Thewoman of the wild, she had a lot
of fear, and then Jesus wentinto a deep knowing of who. She
was what she did, and her goodnews was to her village, right,
(35:06):
come see the person who knowseverything about me, like knows
everything about me, and likefor somebody that's had, you
know, a multitude of husbandsthat was living with someone
that's not her husband at themoment, like to be that be. The
good news is, it's crazy. It'slike, I don't want ever somebody
(35:27):
to know everything about me inthat moment, or the woman caught
into adultery. Where are youraccusers? Oh, I don't then
condemn you, but then go and sinno more. It felt like the actual
grace and love that Jesusportrayed, move people into a
different life. Yeah, and Ithink the church right now is
(35:48):
trying to move people into adifferent life, without grace
and love, to actually like,shift people's orientation
towards Jesus. So then, whatdoes it look like to engage the
culture, the people around usthrough grace and love. And I'll
give you one more. I think thatsome people stick with grace and
(36:10):
acceptance and don't movetowards now, hey, there's a new
life in the Spirit. Like, let'smove into a new life in the
Spirit. So what does that looklike for us to move towards
those two tensions, but live inthe middle of the tension? Oh,
yes,
Erin Moniz (36:28):
Joshua, this is, this is what makes me a very
popular person amongst, like, myother clergy when I'm writing
this book, or because the Yeah,we push, we push towards both
extremes, right? Like, I've gotthis faction over here who's
like, we have to take sin moreseriously. We have to call
people to prison. We have totell them that if they're
addicted to porn and that'saffecting their marriage, that
(36:48):
there's like, we we have to saysomething. We have to guide we
have to we have to actually putflags down and say, This is the
flourishing life that God callsus to. And then over here,
people like, Yeah, but you'reusing that like a blunt
instrument. And people, there'sno, there's no room, especially,
especially for people in ourchurches who might be seeking a
celibate life. It's like you geteverything right and don't get
(37:11):
anything wrong, because themoment you do, you're going to
trigger all sort of alarm bellsfor us about about you. Jesus
did it somehow. He He did. And Ithink we just have to, we have
to get in and study thatZacchaeus. It's wild. It's wild.
Zacchaeus, you know, he, he hasa half a second with Jesus who
(37:31):
sees him, who calls Him, whosays, you and me, we're gonna
eat lunch. You know, I'mbringing my friends. Let's go.
And something about that moment,and he was like, I'm going to
write every injustice I've everperpetrated against anyone. It's
like, who, like, what does thatHagar, who is, who is running
for her life towards certaindeath, like, we can only imagine
(37:51):
how bad it was for her based onthe fact that she's like, I
might as well die in thewilderness, because without the
community, she's it's as good asdead. And she meets a God that
that does not even really herGod, but it's the she says, it's
the God who sees me, andsomething about that encounter
sends her back. She goes backwillingly into whatever we knew
(38:14):
had not changed that drove herto the wilderness. There is
something in Scripture thatwarrants our attention when it
comes to asking Christ, how do Ido this? How do I do this? Well,
and for me, Joshua, I say, Youknow what I see in terms of
taking the sin seriously? I tryto go to the sermon on the mount
where Jesus is to take sinseriously. We start with us. You
(38:36):
start with the log in your owneye. But then, because I want to
see clearly to remove the specfrom my brother's eye. That
part's not gone. That spec isstill there. It still needs
removal. It still needs my myplace in that but I'll have to
start with me first, and that'slike reckoning with the fear,
reckoning with my ownprejudices, everything that is
going to get in the way of mypastoral approach to another
(39:00):
person, and so, yeah, there's nosimple answers to that, so much
as, like, emulate Jesus, youknow, just do it, but, but there
is a there's a study, and wecan't forget that we have the
Holy Spirit, transcending all ofour brokenness, doing amazing
things, changing lives in waysthat are just, we just get to
participate in but it's not,it's not ours.
Joshua Johnson (39:22):
All right, we got the spirit living with us.
It's perfect. We're good, good.
All right, yeah, that's that'sawesome. You've mentioned many
times here in our conversationabout identity, especially with
college students, or, you know,emerging adults, people high
school, college, you areconsistently trying to figure
(39:42):
out who you are, right? You haveshifting identities all the
time. Like, I remember that timeand I like, I could put on if
somebody said something aboutme, I was like, oh yes, that's
who I'm gonna put on this cloakfor a little while and try. It
on and say, Is this me or is itnot me, right? So as you're
dealing with people in thisplace of shifting identities all
(40:05):
the time, how do we help peoplefigure out what is their
identity and how they could berooted and stand strong? Because
I think once I figured out who Iam, I was able to move towards
others in trust andvulnerability and openness in
ways that I didn't before. And Ithink it's it is a huge, huge
(40:27):
key. I in shifting identities.
How do we find our identity?
Yes,
Erin Moniz (40:34):
yeah, that is one of my favorite things, because we
all have these sort of uniqueidentities that are part of us.
They don't just suddenly becomeblobs and absorbed into our
identity. In Christ, I love theway Paul uses the body where
he's like our unity is not thefact that we're all one big
eyeball. That's not unity.
Diversity is key. Diversity isimportant. Diversity is
essential. There's gonna be alot of parts about myself that I
(40:56):
name about myself that areunique to me, that God's, I
believe, loves and by calls andthat are just part of my story,
part of my brokenness, part ofmy identity. But at the end of
the day, even in the bodymetaphor, there's something that
says, But, but all of that worksand can be good because it's
drawn up into something moretranscendent, an identity that
(41:17):
is gifted to us through Christ'sdeath and resurrection. And
there's these moments, right? Ifany wasn't, is in Christ, bam,
new creation and and we knowthis, and we carry the mantle of
Christ. And you know that, thatour access to the Father is
because of this identity inChrist. But for a long time, I
was just like, yeah, yeah,great. My duty's in Christ.
Whoo, you know, like, all right,cool, cool. I really had to dig
(41:39):
into what that really was. Andas it turns out, Scripture is
really full of this. But myfavorite things to capitalize on
and chew on are the are in theNew Testament and epistles,
where we're talks about ourfreedom, our fullness, we lack,
nothing for life and godliness,and said about us in Galatians,
that we're adopted, that we'rebeloved, that we are no longer
(42:03):
servants but friends. We are nolonger slaves but children.
There's all of these identitymarkers that say you may not
feel this way. This may not beyour everyday when you wake up,
but this is actually who youare, and what a gift. Because if
I can remember even for half asecond that I am free and full,
I'm going to come differently tomy life, to my work, to my
relationships. And if that'swhat Scripture says is true
(42:25):
about me right now because ofChrist, then what I have to
reckon with is, well, I don'tfeel free and I don't feel full.
So what is getting in the way?
And I believe that is theChristian life. The Christian
life now is for me, going tochurch, studying the Bible,
anything I do that's in sort ofthe disciplines, personal
(42:46):
disciplines, category I now havehave sort of shifted to say,
what about this tells me thestory of God? Because when I
learn the story of God, I beginto learn who God is. And boy do
I have some bad caricatures thatneed dismantling, that need to
need to be dismembered and so soI need to know who God is.
Because when I learn who God isreally, then suddenly all of
(43:08):
that identity in Christ aboutwho I am lets me know who I am.
It actually defines for me whatit means to be free and to be
full and to be loved and torealize for a few moments means
that I live completelydifferently. I do some thought
exercises with my students aboutthis, because I feel like it's
it's something that is sort of alifelong pursuit, because we're
(43:31):
kind of swimming in a sea oflies and identities that are
being sold to us, you know, forprofit. But that's also why I
believe intimate relationshipsare the core, because it's going
to take more than just me and mypersonal disciplines to push
back against the false selvesand to push back against those
things. I'm going to needpeople. I'm going to need to be
surrounded I'm going to need tobe intentionally connecting with
(43:54):
people and telling them who theyare and then telling me who I
am, so that it begins to reallystick and really push through
the lies. And that's the gift Ibelieve, of the Gospel for us
today.
Joshua Johnson (44:06):
So if you're telling me we need other people
to, like, really help us figureout who we truly are, and say,
Oh, that's not you. This is you.
Why are our friendships, adultfriendships, so important, even
when you're married and it'sjust you and your spouse, why
are friendships important tohave individual friends?
Erin Moniz (44:30):
Oh, Joshua, that's another book, right? Somebody
needs to write that. That book.
We need, like, 50 more of those.
Yeah. This is, this is who wasthe soapbox for me. I'm gonna
try to be brief. You know,there's something very
particular about a marriage andthe vows that we make to each
other and the intimacy that weprotect with each other. There
are levels that we say this isyet you are my person. But in
sort of the sort of romanceculture that that is always
(44:53):
seeping in, we somehow sort oftake that person, put all this
on them to to be everything.
That we need. And to be fair,like my husband, for me, is,
like, my frontline brother inChrist. He has access to me, and
he can see things probablybefore anybody else, where he's
going to be like, Hey, you'reright. Like, like, how are the
like, if we're paying attention?
And like, taking that roleseriously, that's a really
(45:15):
powerful and wonderful place tobe in a marriage is to be able
to have somebody who's closeenough they're going to pick up
on things early days. But boy,we're not everything to each
other. We just, we absolutelycan't be, and we have found that
there's actually ways to stewardthis well. And again, Roman's
idolatry hyper sexualizeseverything. So we're like, Oh,
can't be friends with otherpeople, because we'll have sex
(45:37):
with them. And they're justlike, well, there's got to be
something else that maybe not,maybe we, maybe we won't, but,
but, but, yeah, okay, let's,let's pay attention to that. But
maybe, maybe we can be friendswith people. This is really
coming down also to, like menand women being friends with
each other. And that's, that's,again, another book that's that,
well, people have written thatbook, so keep writing them. But
it's, it's the fact that, well,years ago, for my husband, I we
(46:01):
lived in an area where we, fornine years, really struggled
with friendships, and didn'tthink about the toll that was
taking on our marriage. But itnearly, it nearly destroyed our
marriage, and we we were able tocatch it and go to therapy and
but we didn't see it coming. Wethought friendships were
important and they're good, andwe'd always had good friends,
and they'd always we've donelife together, and boy, isn't
(46:23):
that great, but this set ofcircumstances where we were it
snuck up on us, and suddenlyit's nine years, and we don't
see each other, and we don'tknow each other, and we're not
we're just these isolated peoplebecause no one was around us. We
didn't have a church fellowship,we didn't have people who were
able to say, Hey, have you guyshad a date night lately? Hey,
(46:45):
what's, how's Aaron doing?
How's, how's Mike doing? Therethere's really important
function. I think it's probablythe simplest way I can say it,
there's, there's an importantfunction friends play in the
health of our marriage. And ifour friendships are not making
our marriages more healthy, thenthat's a red flag. But you
really need friendships, the twoon your own, they're just you
(47:06):
can't stand outside of yourselfand see things within a
marriage. You need other peoplewho are doing that
intentionally. And for that, youhave to build closeness with
others, and it's hard and alittle scary, but essential, I
would say,
Joshua Johnson (47:21):
Aaron, if people would pick up your book, knowing
and being known, what is yourhope for your readers? What
would you love the outcome forthis book to be? I would
Erin Moniz (47:30):
love, I would love for folks to begin to start
asking questions about their ownapproach to relationships. I
would love to engender someideas of like, Have I been
asking good questions? What isimportant to me? Why do I want
to date? How do I think about myfriendships? Have I thought
about the fact that my marriageactually has a purpose that is
(47:51):
toward being the church actuallylike Paul, like we love quoting
Paul, like this is really aboutthe church. And we're like,
isn't that great? But no onereally ever sat me down was
like, no, no. Your marriage islike a microcosm, also your
friendships, also your families.
This is your city on a hill. Isthat baked in? Like, do we do
that between, like, taking ourdog to the vet and like, When?
When do we do that? Like, be acity on a hill? Oh, it's in
(48:14):
everything. It's how we ourhospitality, our money, our sex
life, everything, it has to beoriented around this. These are
the thoughts I hope to engenderin people just to get started.
It's really not a great howbook, it's more of a a what and
why. Book which, which was alittle is a little tricky,
because I know it's just like,tell me what to do, and maybe
that'll be the next book.
(48:36):
That'll be the next book.
Joshua, I'll, I'll tell everyonehow they can do this, but, um,
that's hubris. That's crazy, butI think we have to start with,
yeah, with breaking down,demythologizing things that have
slipped into our lives. Thisbook, writing this book, the
research for this book, hascompletely changed my life. In
ministry. I do it different,everything differently now I
can't unsee it all. That's why Iwrote it. I hope it changes
(48:59):
lives. I know that that feels alittle ambitious to say, but it
did for mine, and I hope itchanges lives. I believe we can
have healthy relationships, andI believe that we can be honest
about our shame, and that nomatter what your relationship
status is, that you're made forintimacy. Amen.
Joshua Johnson (49:18):
We could do it.
We actually can do it. It can bebetter. We could have healthy
relationships. We could reflectthe intimacy of God with one
another, like, because that'swhat we were made made for, like
we were created for this. Wewere made for this. We were made
for intimacy. And this is why,this is where the places of
shame creep up and the places oflike, loss of identity, and why
(49:40):
I heard so much is because itgoes against how we were made,
like, it's like the enemy islying to us, and we have lies
constantly because that's,that's the place that we were
made for, is intimacy andintimate relationship.
Relationship, so absolutely wecould get it done. Aaron, if you
(50:01):
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice
Erin Moniz (50:06):
would you give? Oh, gosh, she was an idiot. I love
her, but she was making allkinds of poor choices. 21 year
old self needed, needed torealize that being skeptical
about everything is not a badgeof honor. It's not something to
to to be proud, like, it's notlike you're not better than
anyone else because you've askedthat question, or you're a
(50:29):
little you're a littleskeptical. Good for you. Like,
people haven't been doing thatfor 1000s of years. It's yeah,
21 year old me was, God blessher, but, but you know what I
preach to her? I minister to herall of like my my students, I
try to be the mentor for herthat I didn't have. So she's,
she's very present in my life.
Uh, despite her, she she got outof there alive. And for that,
(50:53):
I'm grateful future. Aaron wasgrateful that 21 year old Aaron
kept it together long enough.
But, boy, she was fun, but shewas she was wild. So
Joshua Johnson (51:06):
that's great.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend, oh,
Erin Moniz (51:10):
gosh, yes, all of my friends have books that are that
are coming out. I think, infact, some of them are probably
behind me here. Beth, AllisonBarr's, pastor's wife, Malcolm
Foley's, the anti grade gospel,oh, Sheila gregoires, the
marriage, the marriage you wantto, like, it's, it's these. I
can't, I can't get enough ofthem. But I also believe that
many of them have been on yourpodcast recently. It's great. We
(51:33):
all like, have books coming outtogether. Emily McGowan's
household
Unknown (51:35):
of faith, yeah, she's been on too. Yeah. No, I love
it. I love it. And
Erin Moniz (51:40):
it's truly, we've just turned social media into
like we're just promoting eachother's books. That's what we
are, that's what we do now. Butthose are, those are fantastic
and fantastic people who arewriting these books. So, yeah,
I'm just trying to support,support the friends, but they
write good
Unknown (51:55):
stuff. So it's easy.
Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (51:57):
it is easy. And your book is fantastic. Is
really good. And I think that ifwe do get some of this right, if
we get to a place of knowing andbeing known, and get to a place
of intimate relationships, openup, be vulnerable, have some
trust, building, self giving,love and what it looks like to
actually be intimate with oneanother and have friendships.
(52:19):
That is not just husband andwife and sexual relationships,
but it was all of us. The worldwould be beautiful. It really
would. It would be an incredibleplace to be and to live. And so
really encourage people to goout and get it. How could people
get your book? And where elsewould you like to point people
Erin Moniz (52:38):
to? Yes, yeah, the interwebs has it all right? So
Amazon, it's up for for preorder depending on when, when
this episode drops. It comes outMay, May 6. You can also get it
straight from IV P's website oryour local bookstore. If you
have a local bookstore, let'ssupport the friends and go get a
copy of them. You might actuallyget it sooner at a local
bookstore than than you are onthe interwebs, just to throw
(53:00):
them under the bus, but, yeah,that's that you can go anywhere
books are sold, but, but yeah,let's support local business.
And, oh, other Yeah, otherbooks. I try to, in my book,
recommend people who are doingthis well and, and so I would
say I would love to point peopletowards Julia Gregoire, towards
Zachary Wagner, towards KurtThompson, Andy colber, people
(53:22):
who have their work hasministered to me and should be
evidenced in the book andcertainly in my ministry. But
yeah, yeah, that's a
Unknown (53:32):
that's a good start.
Joshua Johnson (53:33):
Excellent. Well, Aaron, thank you for this
conversation. It was a joy and aprivilege, pleasure to talk to
you so fun. I really enjoyedtalking to you like, honestly,
truly. I love talking to yousame.
Unknown (53:46):
God, just save this is so fun. I love that we got to
know each other. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (53:50):
yes. So thank you so much. It was great and go
be intimate with one another.
And that doesn't mean have sexwith one another, it just means
know one another well anddeeply, move towards each other
in those ways. So thank you.
Aaron, it was great. You
It's going to take more than just me and my
(00:01):
personal disciplines to pushback against the false selves
and to push back against thosethings. I'm going to need
people. I'm going to need to besurrounded I'm going to need to
be intentionally connecting withpeople and telling them who they
are and then telling me who Iam, so that it begins to really
stick and really push throughthe lies, and that's the gift I
(00:23):
believe, of the Gospel for ustoday. Hello
Joshua Johnson (00:39):
and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in
which we have conversationsabout the culture we create and
the impact we can make. We longto see the body of Christ look
like Jesus. I'm your host.
Joshua Johnson, Today we'reexploring intimacy, a concept
that's far more complex thanmost of us realize. My guest,
Erin Moniz, has been studyinghow we connect, disconnect and
misunderstand relationships inour current cultural moment,
(01:02):
we'll dig into some criticalissues. What does intimacy
actually mean beyond romanticrelationships? How have cultural
messages, both inside andoutside the church, distorted
our understanding of connection?
And what might a more holisticapproach to knowing and being
known look like Aaron brings aunique perspective as a college
(01:23):
Chaplain who's counseledcountless emerging adults
navigating relationships, we'lldiscuss how technology impacts
our connections, why friendshipsmatter as much as romantic
partnerships, and how the gospeloffers a different framework for
understanding humanrelationships. This isn't a
prescriptive how toconversation, but an exploration
of our fundamental human needfor genuine connection. We'll
(01:46):
challenge some assumptions aboutsingleness, marriage and
community, and hopefully providea more nuanced view of intimacy.
So join us as we dig deep andfigure out what does it really
look like to have intimacy inour lives. Here is my
conversation with Aaron Moniz.
Aaron, welcome to shiftingculture. Excited to have you on.
(02:07):
Thanks for joining me. So gladto be here. Thank you for the
invitation. Yeah, I'm excited todive deep right away, because
we're talking about intimacytoday, and because we're talking
about intimacy, we just have togo, go deep, right? We have to
get intimate. I appreciate,
Erin Moniz (02:22):
I appreciate the jokes. Yeah, that's great.
Joshua Johnson (02:26):
Well, my, my question is, you start your your
book out, which is great withthe the problem of intimacy. Is
there a intimacy problem today?
What have you seen? What haveyou found? What's the problem
with intimacy?
Erin Moniz (02:42):
Oh yes, yes, the answer is yes. There's a big
one, and it's not just incertain spaces. It's across the
board. In terms of I work withcollege students, so I get a
real front row seat to reallyjust how heartbreaking and
difficult and chaotic it can be,just for, I mean, emerging
adults specifically, but I thinkfor everyone navigating intimate
(03:03):
relationships, whether that'sromance and dating and marriage
or roommates, singleness,friendships, family, it's it's
all in the mix, but But theproblems really stem from just
messages that we absorb fromboth the culture. And then what
I try to demonstrate is thatthese messages have not been met
with a really distinct countercultural message from
(03:26):
Christendom so much as we'vetaken some of these cultural
messages and sort of baptizedthem and been maybe a little,
maybe fallen asleep, a littlebit on some of the ways that
that's affected ourdiscipleship. And so we've got a
situation where Christians arenot necessarily leading the
charge in terms of healthy,sustainable intimate
relationships any more thananybody else. So
Joshua Johnson (03:47):
what are these cultural things that we have co
opted within Christendom that wehave put on to the church? Yeah,
Erin Moniz (03:55):
at the top there's a lot, but at the top of the list
is romance, idolatry, and that'sa phrase I love, but I stole it
from Peter Volk, who reallythoughtfully kind of identified
this, this sort of pull that wehave to towards romantic
relationships, not necessarilyfor benign reasons, but because
somewhere deep down we haveattached our relationship status
(04:16):
to our identity and value. So ifI'm on the dating apps and
somebody ghosts me. I'm notgoing to try to Google, like how
to be good on the dating apps orbest life hacks for how to get a
date. I'm going to I'm not goingto jump to sort of practical
solutions. I'm going to say,what's wrong with me. I'm going
to ask a different question.
It's going to go straight into,am I valued? Does anybody want
(04:37):
me? Why doesn't anybody want me?
And so at the core, there'sthese, these question about our
identity and value and romance.
Idolatry exists in sort of thelarger North American western
culture, but sadly, it alsoexists in the church, and this
is why we can only talk aboutsingleness as a season. We
don't, we don't have a. Picturefor a flourishing life that
(05:00):
doesn't have sex, and forChristianity, we would say sex
in the confines of marriage atthe center. But we're making
judgments about people'sidentity and worth, whether we
realize it or not, oftentimessubtly, without necessarily
knowing that's what we're doing.
But in an effort, a well meaningeffort, I think, to see people
(05:20):
in healthy marriages, we've beenanemic about a theology of
intimacy that's actually muchmore biblical and inclusive of
everyone, regardless of theircircumstances, because not
everyone gets married, noteveryone stays married. We have
widowed and divorced people inour churches. We have single
folk. It's a larger landscape.
So our rhetoric is, is reallyshowing up as as not not healthy
(05:41):
enough for everyone. The
Joshua Johnson (05:45):
first couple lines in your book is a quote
from somebody that, as you weresitting in a conference, hearing
the speaker as she was going tolive a celibate life, she says,
I can live without sex, but Ican't live without intimacy if
we have romance idolatry. It isthat romantic relationship, that
sexual relationship where wethink that's where intimacy
comes, that's where our identityand value comes. What does it
(06:09):
look like then to dig down towhat intimacy is. So give us a
definition of what intimacy is,if it's not just a a naked
sexual relationship, like fullylike known and being seen in all
of who we are in a sexualrelationship?
Erin Moniz (06:24):
Yeah, no, I really try to get at this in the book,
and I present a very sort ofbasic definition for intimacy
that speaks of it as sort of agenerative reciprocal
relationship where we are. Infact, I'm going to butcher my
own quote here, but
Unknown (06:41):
to do but basically, it's about us
Erin Moniz (06:45):
drawing each other to Christ and to our true
identities and value and who weare, and we're doing that for
each other. So intimacy actuallyserves a function in, I believe,
our sanctification, but reallywhat it means to be human, what
it means to understand ourselvesand understand what we're doing
in the world, and that's a veryChristian lens. But I think
there's something echoed inthat, in the way people pursue
(07:06):
healthy intimacy inrelationships like marriages and
friendships and family, thatthey're looking for a stability
of self that comes through theseexternal ways that we know and
are known with each other. Andso intimacy is a lot broader
than just sex and married. Mystudents were the ones that
taught me that they were cominginto my office, and bless them,
(07:27):
it's been 80% of my time as acollege Chaplain talking about
their dating woes. But thatwasn't everything. They also
came in with a lot of questionsabout friendship and roommates
and boy, a lot about family. Imean, 20 somethings trying to
move from being a dependent toindependent, how to navigate
that adult relationship withtheir parents? Some, you know,
(07:50):
just in a in just sort of anormal sense, where it's just
sort of the average, rockytransition, some with trauma and
toxicity that's mixed in. And Icouldn't find a, find a single
resource that would reallyinform me on all three of these,
these planes of romance andfriendship and family. That's
when I began to realize, oh, Ineed to open my definitions a
(08:14):
bit more. And so intimacy sortof became the term I landed on,
even though most of us use itsynonymously with sex, but
there's just more to us, and sowe had to go, go broader.
Joshua Johnson (08:23):
Really helpful for me to think about intimacy
in a broader sense of it iswith, you know, my family. It's
with my friends. It's with mychurch family. Could be it's,
you know, with my wife. There'sall sorts of places where I need
intimacy. If I am not known, orif I cannot know other people,
(08:47):
we're missing something. I thinkthere's, there's this one you
say a great breakup line in incollege is like, I just need
time to be with the Lord. I needto be single to be with the
Lord. I think you it's a goodlike, hey, it's my time. Now,
it's a classic. It's a classicline. I think I might have heard
that when I was in college,absolutely,
Erin Moniz (09:09):
if someone hasn't been broken up with by Jesus,
like, exactly, you know, I just,yeah, I don't know how long
you've been a Christian, but,like, that's, that's a, that's a
classic.
Joshua Johnson (09:18):
So the question then, is, we need each other,
not just Jesus. Jesus isimportant, like we need Jesus,
but we also need one another. Soeven in those moments of being
single, how do we move towardsintimacy with people and not
just say, I'm gonna relegatemyself, you know, to a hermitage
(09:41):
in the woods with Jesus. Yes,
Erin Moniz (09:44):
and this, this is often a misconception, something
that we're all navigating. I trynot to make too light of it in
the book, because I feel thatsame tug myself, the the sort of
binary that like to to reallywork on myself and be with
Jesus, means that I need tojust. Push out all of these
other relationships, and what Ibelieve a theology of intimacy
restores, is this idea of like,well, let's think about the
(10:06):
location of Jesus, right? Let'sthink about where is the
presence of God? Well, obviouslyGod is everywhere. And I do this
in my book, where I kind of talkabout how that's true, not
necessarily helpful. But ifwe're really getting down to
brass tacks of where scripturelocates the Lord. He's the
resurrected Christ is sitting atthe right hand of the throne.
But the Paraclete, the Helper,the Holy Spirit, is in all of
(10:27):
us, and that Holy Spiritpresence in each other means
that my relationship with God isindelibly tethered to my
communion with other people, andin a way that isn't just
tangential, but really gets intoit's that knowing and being
known, that exchange of intimacyand vulnerabilities that can be
difficult. So for for for singlefolks, for folks who are not in
(10:51):
some of the sort ofrelationships we might take for
granted and say, Oh, these aremy people. I've got my husband
and or I've got my familynearby, some of some of those
things for folks who are moredetached, uh, for folks who are
more isolated, really, we, weneed to rethink, I think, a
theology of friendship,friendship has been really
(11:12):
relegated to not even reallybeing an intimate relationship.
Like, that's, that's sort of aweird category. When you really
start talking about, like, isfriendship and intimate
relationship, and what do wemean by that? And some of the
romance idolatry has hypersexualized everything, so it can
be really difficult to drawclose to someone platonically
(11:32):
and even have, like, a physicalconnection that is not sexual,
but to be able to to have deepconnections with others. There's
a book called The othersignificant others, not a
Christian book, but it's onethat that I think speaks to
this. And it's interesting thatChristians aren't writing about
this, but someone else is. Butit shines a light on these
platonic, intimate relationshipsthat have no sexual component,
(11:56):
but are deeply a part of thisperson's life, in a way that
that a spouse or a close familymember would be and, boy, I just
don't hear sermons about that,and I just don't see that in
Christendom. And I just, withall the dating books and all the
things coming out, I would loveto see more about how we do this
in a healthy way in the church.
Well,
Joshua Johnson (12:15):
isn't that what Jesus did? He modeled that. He
modeled it like that's what hedid.
Erin Moniz (12:22):
It's, it's stunning.
It's really right there. I gotto be honest with you, Joshua,
there were, there were momentsin my research where I was like,
I'm an idiot. I've been aChristian for forever. I'm a
professional Christian as anordained minister. And I just, I
just looked right through someof these things, and boy, yeah,
it was, it was a wake up.
Joshua Johnson (12:39):
Yeah, that's crazy. Like, we don't have it as
you've been working with collegestudents and you've been seeing
people, I mean, you look atsomeone like Jonathan Haidt,
anxious generation, he's like,Hey, we're on our screens too
much. We just need to playtogether as kids, and we're
going to actually stop beinglonely and anxious, and we're
(12:59):
gonna be okay. We know thatthere, there is a lot of
loneliness and detachment. Thereis like we're missing each other
somehow. What have you seenthrough you know your work with
college students are what ishappening? Why are we more
lonely? Why don't we get thisintimacy thing, right?
Erin Moniz (13:18):
Yes, and there's so many factors that play into
this. I mean, the pandemicrewired a lot of us. Rewired our
social development. Of mycollege students, depending on
what in what stage of theirdevelopment interrupted, they're
struggling to come intoadulthood with with, I think,
fewer tools in their tool bagfor how to connect and
communicate. And I see, I seethat, and each new generation
(13:40):
that comes through, each newclass that comes through, it's
always, it's always a new thingto watch and to try to work
through. But in many ways, wehave these cultural values that
really stemmed from sort ofthese North American patriotic
values of like personal freedomsand an independence which, you
know, I'm I'm very much for butthose are not static. They're
(14:03):
dynamic, and they've morphedover time to become values of
autonomy and entitlement. It'sreally hard to be intimate with
someone and be sort ofunencumbered and like detached,
but, but technology swoops inand says, oh, we'll, we'll fix
that. We'll facilitate that foryou. Let's provide a way for you
to have this kind of intimacy.
And Sherry Turkle writes aboutthis beautifully and alone
(14:25):
together, but, but this, we'refacilitating this intimacy. You
can know people, you can connectwith people. And I don't want
to, I don't want to demonizetechnology here, because I use
it to connect with people inways that are really fruitful
for me. But in some ways wewere, we were sort of seduced
into thinking, Oh, I can haverelationships. I can. I can send
nude pictures, I can. There's,there's salaciousness that can
(14:49):
be mediated by technology, and Ican still remain very much
detached. And that just isn'ttrue. That just that isn't the
case. And so we plunge. Intomore and more loneliness. It's a
bit like salt water. Really.
What's happening withtechnology? We're drinking it
and drinking it and drinking it.
Keep getting thirsty, and we'relike, it's wet, it's water. Why
isn't this helping? So we justhave a lot of those things that
(15:12):
are just a little bit easier toto use, a little bit more user
friendly, and are marketedspecifically to us, instead of
putting in the work, becausevulnerability is hard. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (15:24):
it is hard, and it's messy and it's difficult,
and it can be very it couldhurt. I've had conversations
with lots of people it's like, Itried to be vulnerable. I got
hurt. I'm never going to do thatagain, like they just put that
shield up. And how do we thenbuild intimacy. How does this
work? How do we say I want tomove towards other people. I'm
(15:46):
done being alone. I'm done beingalone together with others. How
do I how do I build this? How doI move towards people? Yeah,
yeah.
Erin Moniz (15:54):
I give talks on this all the time. And I like to
start with a very interesting,just little, little chart where
it's got the x and y axis, youknow, and it's a, it's, it's
sort of intimacy and trustbuilding. And I talk about, if
we're, if we're really goinginto intimacy and like, our
vulnerability is just shootingoff the charts, but we haven't
done trust building. That's areal dangerous place. So for a
(16:16):
lot of my students thatovershare or rush in or
participate in hookup culture,things like that. They're
projecting a lot ofvulnerability and intimacy into
a space that might backfire, andoften does backfire because
there hasn't been trust buildingin another sense, and this has
been part of my story. You canbe building trust with someone
but still keeping them at arm'slength, and so you're just not
allowing the you're notmeasuring that risk of
(16:39):
vulnerability as trust is beingbuilt, the ideal, of course, is
to have that on a really greattrajectory of your your risking.
Little bit. Of course, socialscience has taught us this. This
is a very, sort of reduced idea,but this, these are the basic
fundamentals where we where wesort of measure trust building
and vulnerability. And so I havethis little chart. My students
all nod, and they're, you know,taking notes, and then I'm like,
(17:02):
so this works, but also, whydoesn't this work? Because if it
was just knowing these things,well, we know this. This isn't,
this isn't rocket science, likewe Why don't we do this? What's
getting in the way? And so Ishould take whatever sort of
marker I have and just write inbig smearing letters across the
chart shame, and this is why Ibelieve that While anyone can
(17:25):
have healthy relationships, Ibelieve there are plenty of
people who are would notconsider themselves Christians
or following Jesus, who havewonderful, healthy
relationships, but at the end ofthe day, the stuff that really
gets in our own way, the thingsthat really work on us and make
it difficult to get past acertain sort of boundary level
where we have to keep ourselvessort of safe, because there's
(17:46):
really no way to keep keepbuilding trust without dealing
with the mess of our sin andbrokenness. There's a layer of
intimacy that I think only thegospel provides access for
because only the gospel providesthe tools to deal with my shame
and my brokenness and the crapthat I bring to my
relationships. And so in manyways, there's this, there's this
picture given to us by socialscientists, but at the end of
(18:10):
the day, it's the gospel that'sgonna make it possible.
Joshua Johnson (18:14):
So if we're dealing with our shame and our
sin and our messiness, sometimesthis is what, what I think is
that I'm going to say, wheneverI get healthy, I could move
towards other people, but we'renever going to be perfect, and
so there's always going to bebrokenness in us. So what is the
then, the role of doing the workthat we need to do to find our
(18:36):
true identity, so that we couldbe rooted, we'd be stable, that
our identities are not in allthis, these other things, and
that we're dealing with ourshame and our sin, but then
still trying to move towardsothers and being in a community
that brings about some of thisvulnerability while we're
dealing with our mess. Yeah,
Erin Moniz (18:57):
there, the temptation again is to go back
and say, I'm just going to goover here and work on myself,
and don't hear me say what I'mnot saying in the sense that I
believe there is a certainmeasure of personal
responsibility, where I'm goingto go to therapy and work
through the stuff that is mine.
And I'm going to, you know, getinput in ways that are
important. I'm going to practicespiritual disciplines that
connect me back to to God in thestory of God. But what I found
(19:18):
to be incredibly powerful is thefact that as broken people
coming to these relationshipswith mess and we have to think
about boundaries, and it'simportant that we don't just put
a label on all possiblerelationships this way. But I
believe at the end of the day,there's this weird mechanism
given to us by the Holy Spirit.
(19:41):
That That means that I am, I ambrought towards sanctification
and righteousness and goodnessand being a grace giver and a
grace receiver when I'm inrelationships with other people,
especially intimate ones, wherewe are moving towards this
together as an intentional partof why we're together, our
marriages, our friends. Chips. Ithink when someone who really,
(20:02):
who really knows you, who reallyknows what a jerk you are, a
piece of crap you can really be,and they look at you and they
say, this is, this is not whoyou are, friend, come back. I
know you. I know you. You don'tyou don't need this. This is not
who Christ like you are free,you are full, you are adopted,
(20:23):
you're beloved in it. And ofcourse, yeah, I'm sort of using
churchy language there, butthere's something really just
solid and concrete in thatorganic moment. And I'll now
that I've been researching thisfor my own life. I've been
trying to shift myrelationships. I'm like, Am I
that person for others? Am Isaying that in my relationships?
Am I doing that daily in mymarriage and my friendship? So
(20:43):
it's still, it's still a, youknow, a discipline, but the
reframe has has completelychanged that
Joshua Johnson (20:49):
take me into the gospel of intimacy. And what is
that? What has God shown us ofhow to be intimate and how He,
God himself, has been intimatewith us and wants to know us.
Erin Moniz (21:05):
It's important for all of us to take a moment to
remember that things likemarriage and friendship and
family are not just products ofthe social evolution of
humanity, that these things camefrom somewhere, that they were,
that they came out of theimagination of God. And so in my
research, I looked for theologyof intimacy in Scripture. Um,
you know, we sort of fall to thesame sort of texts about certain
types of behaviors. There's agreat, I mean, like, it's like,
(21:27):
oh, that tells me what to do.
Excellent. Let's just stopthere. But while behaviors are
important, I was looking forsomething a little bit more
underlying. And boy, this wasanother I'm an idiot moment when
I was just like, wow, it'severywhere. It's literally
everywhere. It's all throughoutScripture. It is woven into the
story of God communicating God'sself to God's people. And it
starts in Exodus. The very firsttime we see a shift in language
(21:50):
from from Yahweh, referring toto God Self as like I am, or the
father, or I am the God of yourfathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
and suddenly, for the firsttime, as we're wrangling with
Pharaoh and Moses is beingtaught what to say, he names
himself as a parent to Israel.
These are my children. Somethingancient gods didn't do,
(22:13):
something very out of character,something intimate. That is a
bit of a shock, and then thatjust begins to build throughout
the rest of Scripture. And so wesee God using the motif of Mary
and usually jilted spouse.
That's a lot in the mindprophets, right? It's like we're
cheating on God and He's madabout it, right? There's all of
this imagery, and these motifsare being used as God's trying
to explain to the people, like,this is our relationship. And
(22:36):
then, of course, the familiallanguage we have everything from
that moment when God sort ofdesignates himself as holy
parent, all the way to Jesus,saying, This is how you pray
Father who art in heaven. Andthen he just does a mic drop in
John 15 when he's like, you'renot my servants, you're my
friends. And so there's thislanguage baked in for a real
important purpose of of God'speople and ourselves constantly
(23:01):
being drawn back through theseideas of relationships, and not
simply as metaphors, but butreally as invitations for us to
to know God and and, but thatthere's sort of that vertical
plane, but then you realize itplays into this horizontal plane
as well, because it's not justme saying, oh, God's a father. I
have a father. That makes sense,that's nice. I can kind of see
how God would be a father,because I have an earthly
(23:23):
father. That's part of it. Butit's not just mere symbolism.
It's not just mere metaphor, somuch as there is something about
what God is communicatingthrough these intimate
relationships that says, andthis is going to give you what
you need to do this with eachother, I'm going to be the
perfection, but my gift of theHoly Spirit means that
everything that you're doingwith your friendships and your
(23:46):
marriage and your family areshadows that point back to me,
but also are tools that allowyou to be my people in these
relationships, even broken asyou are. So there's a symbiotic
relationship between how weunderstand intimacy with God and
how we understand intimacy witheach other, that was so much
more fundamental than I everthought it would be. We usually
(24:07):
talk about these sort of thingsas sort of a serving suggestion,
like, like over here, like,here's, let's talk about the
gospel and study scripture overhere. And then, like this, this
week we're gonna have someonecome talk about relationships
and, you know, our bodies andthese things, and it's, it's,
it's been unmoored, at least formy college students, for sure,
it's, we've, we've just detachedthese topics from the
(24:28):
fundamentals, and I think that'sreally key to the problem.
Joshua Johnson (24:33):
Then what does it look like to integrate them?
Erin Moniz (24:35):
Yes, buy my book.
No, I'm not. I'm not trying toproject anything new in this and
trying to be really, reallyintentional about the language,
because this isn't anything wedon't already know as
Christians, the the gospel, thecentrality of the gospel in our
faith is already something thatmany of us would be able to give
a yes to. Would be able tounderstand, would be able to say
(24:57):
yes. This is a big. Part of mylife. This is important to me,
and yet there needs to be areframe, sort of a re capturing,
a recentering of the gospel andhow we think about our intimate
relationships. And what thatwill do is it will begin to
expose some of the myths andnarratives that have seeped in,
that that have, I think,distorted what we do so. So in
(25:21):
the short answer is, we have toget back to the gospel, but in
doing so, I hope this book is acatalyst for more content other
books. I don't have to writethem. I don't care who writes
them, but I would love to seemore, more ideas centered in
this sort of gospel idea oflike, how do we do this? Well,
with friendships. What do we dowith singleness? How do we how
(25:41):
do we manage lonelinesstogether? Let's have healthy
Christian marriages. Let'sfigure out what to do with our
families. Let's have healthychurch. So I this is a bit of a
primer, but ultimately we comeback to the gospel, and then we
learn what is what does thatthen lead us to in these
relationships? And I think theanswers will be really apparent
as we begin that journey.
Joshua Johnson (26:03):
Why do you think that Christians have not been
good at this, if it is sofoundational to the gospel and
who God is at its core? Why havewe been bad and why have non
Christians been actually prettygood at it, not like secular
like marriage books are reallygood at building, like, intimacy
(26:26):
through knowing each other. Likethey're good at it. Christian
marriage books haven't quitebeen that good at it. So why do
you think we've been bad at it?
Oh,
Erin Moniz (26:36):
gosh. And I, you know, it's, this is this is
where my I hear, like my, mymentors voice in my head, like,
careful, Aaron, careful, don'tjust start. Because I've read so
many of these books. Joshua,I've read so many. Anytime my
students are like, I'm readingthis. I'm watching this, you
know, YouTube. I'm like, Okay,let's, let's hear it. Let's read
it. So I've consumed a lot ofwhat they have consumed in this
(26:58):
and I write in my introduction.
I'm like, I'm not naming namesin this book because it's just
too much. This is too broad atopic, but I but I do. I do kind
of, kind of put my finger in it,because there's a couple of
things that have been happeningthat I think have been key to
derailing this in our in ourcontent, in our sort of large
cannon of content aboutChristian relationships, one
(27:20):
would be the fact that we arealways in a caught in a loop of
historic reaction. So I touch onthis very briefly in the book.
But my friends who arehistorians could really tease
this out, the idea that so muchof these narratives are created
in reaction to something. Soright now, our purity culture.
2.0 is in reaction to hook upculture. And hook up culture,
(27:43):
very much is in reaction topurity culture. And purity
culture really evolved out ofreactions to the sexual
revolution. Sexual Revolutionwas pushed back against the rise
of Christian fundamentalism,which was a pushback against the
Enlightenment age, which is, youknow, which was critiquing the
Victorian sexual ethics, and sowe've been caught, right? We've
been caught in this, in thisloop, and not for nothing. We're
(28:04):
trying to make relevantresponses to very timely and
culturally relevant moments. So,but what that does is it shapes
and forms our content, becausethe questions are are sort of
projected upon us. So purityculture, right? Was not a bad
idea. Don't, don't, don't. Turnoff your podcast. Christians, it
(28:27):
was not a bad idea to beginwith. We wanted people to follow
what we saw as God's ethic forour lives and not get entrenched
in licentiousness and thingsthat we thought would be
damaging to us, but the way wewent about it was really shaped
and formed by trying to react toa very specific way that the
culture was projecting the sortof sexual freedom. And so what
(28:50):
we did was we locked downbehaviors, and we did that any
way possible, which meant ourmethods were really flawed and
did a lot of damage. And thenpurity culture, just Yeah, has
been kind of spiraling out eversince. But we get caught in
these loops. And I thinksometimes there's some really
well meaning people who've beenwell meaning in writing their
(29:12):
books and creating theircontent, because they really
want people to build theirrelationships, but we just don't
have a robust theology ofintimacy, and so we're stuck.
We're stuck with that the otherproblem, and Christians, we
just, I think we already knowthis, but let's just say it out
loud, the non Christian booksyou're talking about, like the
marriage books, they're comingout of social science, the
Gottman Institute. People whohave studied this, people who
(29:32):
have the receipts for like, weknow what actually makes
relationships work. Not onlyhave we not used the tools
available to us and Chris anddumb, but we have really doubled
down on three main topics,purity, modesty and gender
roles. And boy, we can't sayenough about purity, modesty and
gender roles. We got. We are weare there, and this will fix it.
(29:55):
This will take care ofeverything. Everyone just needs
to know their plan. So we needto project purity. We need to,
you know, you know, Projectmodesty. Not that there isn't a
merit to things like modesty,but it is. It is not making
healthy relationships. It isjust this old, tired thing, and
we just don't know what else, Ithink, to put our hooks on. And
so we've just been caught in aloop.
Joshua Johnson (30:17):
So let's solve the crisis of culture right now,
right now. Let's do it rightnow. So if, if everything we've
been doing is a is a historicalreaction to what's happening in
the culture, and we're havingpendulum swings one way and
another. Now, if we're like,hey, there is gender fluidity
like crazy right now, like,yeah, there's all sorts and that
(30:41):
brings about all sorts ofthings. So we're going to be
talking about purity, where wemodesty, gender roles. We're
just going to combat it by goinghard the other way and going
back into fundamentalism. Iswhat it looks like to me. Yeah,
and that's a big pendulum swing.
And they're like, We got to gothe opposite to combat it. What
does it look like to to have anuanced view that does produce
(31:04):
intimacy, knowing, being known,being loved by God, and like
moving towards something that'snot just about behavior
modification, but it is morerobust and than that, I don't
know if behavior modificationhas worked right. So, yeah, what
(31:24):
is, what's? What do we need todo that's different than
behavior modification? Because Ithink that's what we're trying
to get back to right now. Yes,
Erin Moniz (31:35):
no, absolutely. 100% agree with you, and it's so so
many things that we need to dohere. I'll land on two that I'm
seeing and facing even withinmyself, as I, as I work through
this and prepare material totalk with people about. The
first is that behaviors areimportant. We want to behave
(31:57):
well in our relationships.
That's that's a good thing. Butif we start with behaviors, then
all we have is we're buildingoff of ways to try to get people
to do the right thing. And boy,we've really been tanking on
that, because there isn't a lotof substance there. Because
again, when something happens tomy relationships, I'm not going
to some practical okay, how do Ifix this? How do I get better?
(32:18):
What's you know, what can I workon? We go deep into our identity
and our shame and our self worthand those messages. And I think
we got to start there. I thinkwe got to start a few layers
down and say, what is drivingour behaviors, what is what is
about? Why do I want to date?
What do I think aboutloneliness? Like, what what am I
(32:41):
seeking? Why do I sometimes, inan effort to get close to
someone, sabotage myself andpush them away? These are all
questions that lie with messagesthat we've that we've absorbed,
and distortions of our identityin Christ and our ideas about
God that need attention and goodnews the church like, that's
what we do, like that's that wehave the gospel, that is a place
(33:02):
where we can start, and if wecan connect dots for people
between thinking about who Godis, thinking about who we are
because of Christ, and tyingthat to how we understand our
and have healthy relationships,I think it's a game changer. So
that's one we need to get backto just doing what we do, I
think very well and could coulddo better, which is really
helping people understand thegospel and the kingdom and
(33:26):
learning the story of God, sothat we can learn who God is, so
we can learn who we are and liveout of that identity. The other
is we've got to wrangle ourfear. As a clergy person, I'm
preparing it as as we're aswe're recording this. I'm
preparing a talk to give to theall the clergy in my diocese
specifically about issues ofsexuality in our churches, and
boy, a lot of well meaning,talented, smart folks who are
(33:49):
right now just paralyzed in fearabout how to do this well. And
that's because these arecultural lightning rots right
that we are we are ramping up.
The culture is turningeverything up to 11 on this and
it feels so loud and chaotic.
And I think for those of ustrying to lead, there's there's
a real fear mechanism that we wehave to reckon with, with
(34:12):
ourselves, to struggle to todetach from, to pastor Well, to
do this well. And so for theaverage person just trying to do
this. I think naming andrecognizing our own fears
related to this. These subjectsmany, many of them having to do
with human sexuality and gender,but also just about each other
and ourselves. There's, there'sa there's an extra amount of
(34:33):
fear. I think that's guiding theway we approach these things.
And for myself and for others,that's a daily that's a daily
discipline. We just we have todeal with. Otherwise. I'll just
project that onto the person infront of me. If
Joshua Johnson (34:46):
I look at at Jesus, and what he did is he, he
dispelled a lot of fear. Thewoman of the wild, she had a lot
of fear, and then Jesus wentinto a deep knowing of who. She
was what she did, and her goodnews was to her village, right,
(35:06):
come see the person who knowseverything about me, like knows
everything about me, and likefor somebody that's had, you
know, a multitude of husbandsthat was living with someone
that's not her husband at themoment, like to be that be. The
good news is, it's crazy. It'slike, I don't want ever somebody
(35:27):
to know everything about me inthat moment, or the woman caught
into adultery. Where are youraccusers? Oh, I don't then
condemn you, but then go and sinno more. It felt like the actual
grace and love that Jesusportrayed, move people into a
different life. Yeah, and Ithink the church right now is
(35:48):
trying to move people into adifferent life, without grace
and love, to actually like,shift people's orientation
towards Jesus. So then, whatdoes it look like to engage the
culture, the people around usthrough grace and love. And I'll
give you one more. I think thatsome people stick with grace and
(36:10):
acceptance and don't movetowards now, hey, there's a new
life in the Spirit. Like, let'smove into a new life in the
Spirit. So what does that looklike for us to move towards
those two tensions, but live inthe middle of the tension? Oh,
yes,
Erin Moniz (36:28):
Joshua, this is, this is what makes me a very
popular person amongst, like, myother clergy when I'm writing
this book, or because the Yeah,we push, we push towards both
extremes, right? Like, I've gotthis faction over here who's
like, we have to take sin moreseriously. We have to call
people to prison. We have totell them that if they're
addicted to porn and that'saffecting their marriage, that
(36:48):
there's like, we we have to saysomething. We have to guide we
have to we have to actually putflags down and say, This is the
flourishing life that God callsus to. And then over here,
people like, Yeah, but you'reusing that like a blunt
instrument. And people, there'sno, there's no room, especially,
especially for people in ourchurches who might be seeking a
celibate life. It's like you geteverything right and don't get
(37:11):
anything wrong, because themoment you do, you're going to
trigger all sort of alarm bellsfor us about about you. Jesus
did it somehow. He He did. And Ithink we just have to, we have
to get in and study thatZacchaeus. It's wild. It's wild.
Zacchaeus, you know, he, he hasa half a second with Jesus who
(37:31):
sees him, who calls Him, whosays, you and me, we're gonna
eat lunch. You know, I'mbringing my friends. Let's go.
And something about that moment,and he was like, I'm going to
write every injustice I've everperpetrated against anyone. It's
like, who, like, what does thatHagar, who is, who is running
for her life towards certaindeath, like, we can only imagine
(37:51):
how bad it was for her based onthe fact that she's like, I
might as well die in thewilderness, because without the
community, she's it's as good asdead. And she meets a God that
that does not even really herGod, but it's the she says, it's
the God who sees me, andsomething about that encounter
sends her back. She goes backwillingly into whatever we knew
(38:14):
had not changed that drove herto the wilderness. There is
something in Scripture thatwarrants our attention when it
comes to asking Christ, how do Ido this? How do I do this? Well,
and for me, Joshua, I say, Youknow what I see in terms of
taking the sin seriously? I tryto go to the sermon on the mount
where Jesus is to take sinseriously. We start with us. You
(38:36):
start with the log in your owneye. But then, because I want to
see clearly to remove the specfrom my brother's eye. That
part's not gone. That spec isstill there. It still needs
removal. It still needs my myplace in that but I'll have to
start with me first, and that'slike reckoning with the fear,
reckoning with my ownprejudices, everything that is
going to get in the way of mypastoral approach to another
(39:00):
person, and so, yeah, there's nosimple answers to that, so much
as, like, emulate Jesus, youknow, just do it, but, but there
is a there's a study, and wecan't forget that we have the
Holy Spirit, transcending all ofour brokenness, doing amazing
things, changing lives in waysthat are just, we just get to
participate in but it's not,it's not ours.
Joshua Johnson (39:22):
All right, we got the spirit living with us.
It's perfect. We're good, good.
All right, yeah, that's that'sawesome. You've mentioned many
times here in our conversationabout identity, especially with
college students, or, you know,emerging adults, people high
school, college, you areconsistently trying to figure
(39:42):
out who you are, right? You haveshifting identities all the
time. Like, I remember that timeand I like, I could put on if
somebody said something aboutme, I was like, oh yes, that's
who I'm gonna put on this cloakfor a little while and try. It
on and say, Is this me or is itnot me, right? So as you're
dealing with people in thisplace of shifting identities all
(40:05):
the time, how do we help peoplefigure out what is their
identity and how they could berooted and stand strong? Because
I think once I figured out who Iam, I was able to move towards
others in trust andvulnerability and openness in
ways that I didn't before. And Ithink it's it is a huge, huge
(40:27):
key. I in shifting identities.
How do we find our identity?
Yes,
Erin Moniz (40:34):
yeah, that is one of my favorite things, because we
all have these sort of uniqueidentities that are part of us.
They don't just suddenly becomeblobs and absorbed into our
identity. In Christ, I love theway Paul uses the body where
he's like our unity is not thefact that we're all one big
eyeball. That's not unity.
Diversity is key. Diversity isimportant. Diversity is
essential. There's gonna be alot of parts about myself that I
(40:56):
name about myself that areunique to me, that God's, I
believe, loves and by calls andthat are just part of my story,
part of my brokenness, part ofmy identity. But at the end of
the day, even in the bodymetaphor, there's something that
says, But, but all of that worksand can be good because it's
drawn up into something moretranscendent, an identity that
(41:17):
is gifted to us through Christ'sdeath and resurrection. And
there's these moments, right? Ifany wasn't, is in Christ, bam,
new creation and and we knowthis, and we carry the mantle of
Christ. And you know that, thatour access to the Father is
because of this identity inChrist. But for a long time, I
was just like, yeah, yeah,great. My duty's in Christ.
Whoo, you know, like, all right,cool, cool. I really had to dig
(41:39):
into what that really was. Andas it turns out, Scripture is
really full of this. But myfavorite things to capitalize on
and chew on are the are in theNew Testament and epistles,
where we're talks about ourfreedom, our fullness, we lack,
nothing for life and godliness,and said about us in Galatians,
that we're adopted, that we'rebeloved, that we are no longer
(42:03):
servants but friends. We are nolonger slaves but children.
There's all of these identitymarkers that say you may not
feel this way. This may not beyour everyday when you wake up,
but this is actually who youare, and what a gift. Because if
I can remember even for half asecond that I am free and full,
I'm going to come differently tomy life, to my work, to my
relationships. And if that'swhat Scripture says is true
(42:25):
about me right now because ofChrist, then what I have to
reckon with is, well, I don'tfeel free and I don't feel full.
So what is getting in the way?
And I believe that is theChristian life. The Christian
life now is for me, going tochurch, studying the Bible,
anything I do that's in sort ofthe disciplines, personal
(42:46):
disciplines, category I now havehave sort of shifted to say,
what about this tells me thestory of God? Because when I
learn the story of God, I beginto learn who God is. And boy do
I have some bad caricatures thatneed dismantling, that need to
need to be dismembered and so soI need to know who God is.
Because when I learn who God isreally, then suddenly all of
(43:08):
that identity in Christ aboutwho I am lets me know who I am.
It actually defines for me whatit means to be free and to be
full and to be loved and torealize for a few moments means
that I live completelydifferently. I do some thought
exercises with my students aboutthis, because I feel like it's
it's something that is sort of alifelong pursuit, because we're
(43:31):
kind of swimming in a sea oflies and identities that are
being sold to us, you know, forprofit. But that's also why I
believe intimate relationshipsare the core, because it's going
to take more than just me and mypersonal disciplines to push
back against the false selvesand to push back against those
things. I'm going to needpeople. I'm going to need to be
surrounded I'm going to need tobe intentionally connecting with
(43:54):
people and telling them who theyare and then telling me who I
am, so that it begins to reallystick and really push through
the lies. And that's the gift Ibelieve, of the Gospel for us
today.
Joshua Johnson (44:06):
So if you're telling me we need other people
to, like, really help us figureout who we truly are, and say,
Oh, that's not you. This is you.
Why are our friendships, adultfriendships, so important, even
when you're married and it'sjust you and your spouse, why
are friendships important tohave individual friends?
Erin Moniz (44:30):
Oh, Joshua, that's another book, right? Somebody
needs to write that. That book.
We need, like, 50 more of those.
Yeah. This is, this is who wasthe soapbox for me. I'm gonna
try to be brief. You know,there's something very
particular about a marriage andthe vows that we make to each
other and the intimacy that weprotect with each other. There
are levels that we say this isyet you are my person. But in
sort of the sort of romanceculture that that is always
(44:53):
seeping in, we somehow sort oftake that person, put all this
on them to to be everything.
That we need. And to be fair,like my husband, for me, is,
like, my frontline brother inChrist. He has access to me, and
he can see things probablybefore anybody else, where he's
going to be like, Hey, you'reright. Like, like, how are the
like, if we're paying attention?
And like, taking that roleseriously, that's a really
(45:15):
powerful and wonderful place tobe in a marriage is to be able
to have somebody who's closeenough they're going to pick up
on things early days. But boy,we're not everything to each
other. We just, we absolutelycan't be, and we have found that
there's actually ways to stewardthis well. And again, Roman's
idolatry hyper sexualizeseverything. So we're like, Oh,
can't be friends with otherpeople, because we'll have sex
(45:37):
with them. And they're justlike, well, there's got to be
something else that maybe not,maybe we, maybe we won't, but,
but, but, yeah, okay, let's,let's pay attention to that. But
maybe, maybe we can be friendswith people. This is really
coming down also to, like menand women being friends with
each other. And that's, that's,again, another book that's that,
well, people have written thatbook, so keep writing them. But
it's, it's the fact that, well,years ago, for my husband, I we
(46:01):
lived in an area where we, fornine years, really struggled
with friendships, and didn'tthink about the toll that was
taking on our marriage. But itnearly, it nearly destroyed our
marriage, and we we were able tocatch it and go to therapy and
but we didn't see it coming. Wethought friendships were
important and they're good, andwe'd always had good friends,
and they'd always we've donelife together, and boy, isn't
(46:23):
that great, but this set ofcircumstances where we were it
snuck up on us, and suddenlyit's nine years, and we don't
see each other, and we don'tknow each other, and we're not
we're just these isolated peoplebecause no one was around us. We
didn't have a church fellowship,we didn't have people who were
able to say, Hey, have you guyshad a date night lately? Hey,
(46:45):
what's, how's Aaron doing?
How's, how's Mike doing? Therethere's really important
function. I think it's probablythe simplest way I can say it,
there's, there's an importantfunction friends play in the
health of our marriage. And ifour friendships are not making
our marriages more healthy, thenthat's a red flag. But you
really need friendships, the twoon your own, they're just you
(47:06):
can't stand outside of yourselfand see things within a
marriage. You need other peoplewho are doing that
intentionally. And for that, youhave to build closeness with
others, and it's hard and alittle scary, but essential, I
would say,
Joshua Johnson (47:21):
Aaron, if people would pick up your book, knowing
and being known, what is yourhope for your readers? What
would you love the outcome forthis book to be? I would
Erin Moniz (47:30):
love, I would love for folks to begin to start
asking questions about their ownapproach to relationships. I
would love to engender someideas of like, Have I been
asking good questions? What isimportant to me? Why do I want
to date? How do I think about myfriendships? Have I thought
about the fact that my marriageactually has a purpose that is
(47:51):
toward being the church actuallylike Paul, like we love quoting
Paul, like this is really aboutthe church. And we're like,
isn't that great? But no onereally ever sat me down was
like, no, no. Your marriage islike a microcosm, also your
friendships, also your families.
This is your city on a hill. Isthat baked in? Like, do we do
that between, like, taking ourdog to the vet and like, When?
When do we do that? Like, be acity on a hill? Oh, it's in
(48:14):
everything. It's how we ourhospitality, our money, our sex
life, everything, it has to beoriented around this. These are
the thoughts I hope to engenderin people just to get started.
It's really not a great howbook, it's more of a a what and
why. Book which, which was alittle is a little tricky,
because I know it's just like,tell me what to do, and maybe
that'll be the next book.
(48:36):
That'll be the next book.
Joshua, I'll, I'll tell everyonehow they can do this, but, um,
that's hubris. That's crazy, butI think we have to start with,
yeah, with breaking down,demythologizing things that have
slipped into our lives. Thisbook, writing this book, the
research for this book, hascompletely changed my life. In
ministry. I do it different,everything differently now I
can't unsee it all. That's why Iwrote it. I hope it changes
(48:59):
lives. I know that that feels alittle ambitious to say, but it
did for mine, and I hope itchanges lives. I believe we can
have healthy relationships, andI believe that we can be honest
about our shame, and that nomatter what your relationship
status is, that you're made forintimacy. Amen.
Joshua Johnson (49:18):
We could do it.
We actually can do it. It can bebetter. We could have healthy
relationships. We could reflectthe intimacy of God with one
another, like, because that'swhat we were made made for, like
we were created for this. Wewere made for this. We were made
for intimacy. And this is why,this is where the places of
shame creep up and the places oflike, loss of identity, and why
(49:40):
I heard so much is because itgoes against how we were made,
like, it's like the enemy islying to us, and we have lies
constantly because that's,that's the place that we were
made for, is intimacy andintimate relationship.
Relationship, so absolutely wecould get it done. Aaron, if you
(50:01):
go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice
Erin Moniz (50:06):
would you give? Oh, gosh, she was an idiot. I love
her, but she was making allkinds of poor choices. 21 year
old self needed, needed torealize that being skeptical
about everything is not a badgeof honor. It's not something to
to to be proud, like, it's notlike you're not better than
anyone else because you've askedthat question, or you're a
(50:29):
little you're a littleskeptical. Good for you. Like,
people haven't been doing thatfor 1000s of years. It's yeah,
21 year old me was, God blessher, but, but you know what I
preach to her? I minister to herall of like my my students, I
try to be the mentor for herthat I didn't have. So she's,
she's very present in my life.
Uh, despite her, she she got outof there alive. And for that,
(50:53):
I'm grateful future. Aaron wasgrateful that 21 year old Aaron
kept it together long enough.
But, boy, she was fun, but shewas she was wild. So
Joshua Johnson (51:06):
that's great.
Anything you've been reading orwatching lately, you could
recommend, oh,
Erin Moniz (51:10):
gosh, yes, all of my friends have books that are that
are coming out. I think, infact, some of them are probably
behind me here. Beth, AllisonBarr's, pastor's wife, Malcolm
Foley's, the anti grade gospel,oh, Sheila gregoires, the
marriage, the marriage you wantto, like, it's, it's these. I
can't, I can't get enough ofthem. But I also believe that
many of them have been on yourpodcast recently. It's great. We
(51:33):
all like, have books coming outtogether. Emily McGowan's
household
Unknown (51:35):
of faith, yeah, she's been on too. Yeah. No, I love
it. I love it. And
Erin Moniz (51:40):
it's truly, we've just turned social media into
like we're just promoting eachother's books. That's what we
are, that's what we do now. Butthose are, those are fantastic
and fantastic people who arewriting these books. So, yeah,
I'm just trying to support,support the friends, but they
write good
Unknown (51:55):
stuff. So it's easy.
Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (51:57):
it is easy. And your book is fantastic. Is
really good. And I think that ifwe do get some of this right, if
we get to a place of knowing andbeing known, and get to a place
of intimate relationships, openup, be vulnerable, have some
trust, building, self giving,love and what it looks like to
actually be intimate with oneanother and have friendships.
(52:19):
That is not just husband andwife and sexual relationships,
but it was all of us. The worldwould be beautiful. It really
would. It would be an incredibleplace to be and to live. And so
really encourage people to goout and get it. How could people
get your book? And where elsewould you like to point people
Erin Moniz (52:38):
to? Yes, yeah, the interwebs has it all right? So
Amazon, it's up for for preorder depending on when, when
this episode drops. It comes outMay, May 6. You can also get it
straight from IV P's website oryour local bookstore. If you
have a local bookstore, let'ssupport the friends and go get a
copy of them. You might actuallyget it sooner at a local
bookstore than than you are onthe interwebs, just to throw
(53:00):
them under the bus, but, yeah,that's that you can go anywhere
books are sold, but, but yeah,let's support local business.
And, oh, other Yeah, otherbooks. I try to, in my book,
recommend people who are doingthis well and, and so I would
say I would love to point peopletowards Julia Gregoire, towards
Zachary Wagner, towards KurtThompson, Andy colber, people
(53:22):
who have their work hasministered to me and should be
evidenced in the book andcertainly in my ministry. But
yeah, yeah, that's a
Unknown (53:32):
that's a good start.
Joshua Johnson (53:33):
Excellent. Well, Aaron, thank you for this
conversation. It was a joy and aprivilege, pleasure to talk to
you so fun. I really enjoyedtalking to you like, honestly,
truly. I love talking to yousame.
Unknown (53:46):
God, just save this is so fun. I love that we got to
know each other. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (53:50):
yes. So thank you so much. It was great and go
be intimate with one another.
And that doesn't mean have sexwith one another, it just means
know one another well anddeeply, move towards each other
in those ways. So thank you.
Aaron, it was great. You
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