Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (with Leah Payne)

• Leah Payne's God Gave Rock and Roll to You
• Leah Payne's Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
California looks straight up like Narnia when it rains.

(00:02):
It's kind of beautiful.
Mountains get so green and then you got like snow caps.
Yes, it gets mad pretty when she gets a little rain.
Welcome to TikTok Theology, a podcast that tackles the major trending topics on social media that concern the Christian faith.
I'm Meagan.
And I'm Steven.
We know you can't form a theology in three minutes or less, but those videos can identify current issues.

(00:26):
TikTok will give us the prompt and then we'll do a deep dive.
Thanks for joining us in this exploration.
Hi friends, welcome back.
Today we are laying the landscape and chatting about biblical manhood and womanhood.
Yeah, manhood.
Oh, man.
Right.
So I think that this is something I'm sure we've all been seeing a lot of,

(00:49):
especially in the two cases that I used to kind of highlight the extremes of these,
like the Tradwife trend that's been happening recently,
especially with like Nara Smith and everybody on that side of the coin.
And then like Alpha male podcasting.
Can you explain both of these?
Cause like I basically know, but I mostly am sort of knowledgeable, but okay.
It's a super weird for those of us not well versed in the Tradwife Alpha male podcast trend.

(01:12):
Okay.
So a Tradwife rate is short for a traditional wife, a traditional housewife.
And this kind of showed up really popularly because of a TikToker named Nara Smith,
who's married, who's Mormon married to this like well-known Mormon male model named Lucky Blue Smith.
Right. She started this like Lucky Blue.
His name is Lucky Blue Smith.
Yeah. I don't want to get into it.
Okay.
That doesn't matter to the story.
Ignore that part.

(01:33):
Their kids names are even crazier - moving on.
And so she started her TikToker and started like making things from scratch.
Like, but like the most obscure things like cinnamon, toast crunch or like cheez-its or like,
you know, like stuff that takes a really long time, whatever,
nothing wrong with making your own food, obviously.
Right.
But she would like get all dolled up, put on like a really nice dress and then get in front of the camera

(01:57):
and start making these very obscure little treats and be like, I, and she talks like this, right?
Today my husband was craving cheez-its and so I decided to sit down and make cheez-its from scratch.
And that's like how she talks.
And so it's like this whole thing.
And you have half of the comment section being like, what is going on?
This woman is a mother of two.

(02:18):
Like there's no way that she has the time to be doing eight hours worth of work in the kitchen to make a cheez-it.
And filming it as she does it, right?
And then there's like men in the comments who are like, this is the kind of woman I want.
Yada, yada, yada, who, who, who bears my children and keeps my home and makes me food from scratch.
And so that kind of, that kind of homesteading thing where it's like, I make bread and I get up and I clean my whole house in my gown

(02:41):
and like all these things and I keep my husband happy and I don't go to work and I raise all of his kids and all that, right?
So that's the tradwife, right?
And then obviously an alpha male who's like, who typically will have like a podcast of some sort.
Yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory.
It's pretty self-explanatory.
Like don't have any feelings.
I'm jacked.
You need to go to the gym.
Like I'm going to buzz my hair.

(03:03):
Having long hair is gay.
Like all of this kind of stuff, you know, and it's like, don't be a beta and stand up for what you believe in, right?
All that kind of stuff.
Okay.
Which to me are the extremes of manhood and womanhood.
Like generalizing super hard.
Yeah, like super polarizing extreme views of both, right?
And so most of it does not fall on those sides, right?
Like masculine and feminity is in somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

(03:27):
But obviously extremes get views, extremes get clicks, extremes pull an audience.
And so those have been very, very common topics on social media.
And they rub me all kinds of the wrong way, both of them, I think.
I think they're terrible.
I think they're awful for everybody involved.
And so it led me as a believer, right?
To question, okay, well, if this is how certain people are viewing a display of what's a good woman or a good man or a strong man or a submissive woman, whatever.

(03:56):
And probably conflating the Bible into it.
Yes.
And in some way tying in scripture in one way or another, right?
It led me to asking the question and many others to have discourse about online,
which is why it's here in front of us today to be talking about is, well, what is a biblical view of manhood and womanhood?
Like, is it this tradwife, alpha male nonsense, or is it somewhere in the middle?

(04:17):
Or is there a lot more relationship between masculinity and femininity and working in tandem than we like to necessarily acknowledge because it either feels a week or whatever.
And so as someone who, even as a woman who tends to have these quote unquote, like masculine traits, people have been like, yeah, you have a masculine energy, whatever, whatever.

(04:38):
Like, is that a negative?
Is that a positive?
What does that mean?
What does that mean?
Do these things work together?
Does a woman have to be completely like traditional housewife, all these things in order to be a good woman, a biblical woman?
Is there room for a flow between good attributes of masculinity and good attributes of femininity and they work together?
And that's how we find a healthy middle ground.
And there's a lot of even Christian writing on biblical manhood and biblical womanhood.

(05:02):
And I would say some of it is good.
Is good.
And some of it goes into veering off into the stereotypes that you just described.
Makes it a little bit difficult to decipher, right?
It does.
It does in fact.
And I think this is probably like closer to you and even what you wrote your master's thesis on, but something important for all of us.
We do have a guest that we're going to introduce here.
I'll give her bio in a minute and then we'll introduce her.

(05:25):
Before that, I was thinking I just had lunch with my friend.
He is a English professor at a different university.
Brilliant dude.
Just today we were talking about this episode and stuff and we were like, where did that biblically come from?
You know, like where, what is like the genesis of it?
And lo and behold, I think it's Genesis.
Genesis is in Genesis.
And so I think this is where we get the general broad swaths of thinking about what being a man and being a woman is.

(05:52):
So like this episode, for instance, we're not talking about transgenderism.
We're talking about the two generally normative stances of male and female, like man and woman and all those variances within those two concepts, specifically for this episode.
You can listen back onto is transgenderism Gnostic?
We dealt with more of those issues, but this is more on man and woman.
So I was thinking is after the fall that man and woman were both cursed?

(06:17):
This is interesting.
The gender norms are brought forth from a curse.
From a curse, right?
For the man, his curse was to toil the fields to always be working.
And for the woman, her curse, she would have pain in childbirth.
And so we have these two norms that come out of that.
I think biblical manhood all wraps up to being a provider.

(06:39):
Biblical womanhood all wraps up to being a nurture.
That's the father who's a provider and the mother who's a nurture.
Would you say that that's like the most fundamental signifiers right there?
Yeah, I would agree.
Came across in my research and stuff even in like the sexuality piece in my master's dissertation.
That kind of curse language came up a lot, especially with Stanley Grenza's writing

(07:02):
of what we are exposed to expect of men and women based on this curse given at the fall.
So with the fall happening, these roles were given us to, I guess, fulfill a society to keep going, right?
But what is the intended thing? And then I think we're going to end up falling on this concluding here.

(07:23):
I think we're going to end up concluding.
We'll talk about this at the end. Biblical manhood and biblical womanhood both are known fully in the way they emulate Christ.
And so I think we'll get there.
But to bring that point when we talk about biblical manhood, it's not as if people don't have a point.
There is these norms made in the Bible.
But I think one of the biggest problems is what stereotypes have you made that are specific to your culture and your day and age that you think is that?

(07:49):
Like, for example, being bald and muscular and making fun of people on a podcast.
How does that make you a better provider?
Right? Like talking wispily and wearing a dress and having full face of makeup.
How does that make you a better nurturer?
It's not that we're saying gender roles don't biblically exist.
Because they seem to actually, yes, they do biblically exist.

(08:10):
And fundamentally it goes around these things.
And you know, I also would not say it's right for some, for like a woman who is more nurturing than another to be more of a woman than another.
Correct.
Or for a man to be more providery than another to be more of a man than the other.
It starts getting viewed as you're being sinful or not right if you are not living into your gender stereotype.

(08:31):
So if you're not that masculine as a man or if you're not that feminine as a woman that there's a sin or something involves, which that seems a little problematic.
Oh, it's absolutely problematic.
I would agree with that.
Yeah. I think that's an interesting conversation.
It's good. We'll get to reflect on aspects of that with Leah that I'm super excited about.
So let me talk about our guests.
Our guest is a great American historian.

(08:52):
My friend, Leah Payne, and you get to meet her, but she's been my friend for a while.
She has a PhD from Vanderbilt and she's an associate professor of American religious history at Portland Seminary.
She just does a lot of stuff.
She's a public fellow at Public Religion Research Institute, and she also is the director of the Summer Institute of Charismatic Pentecostal Studies at Candler.

(09:16):
She works with AAR and helps to organize all the Pentecostal Charismatic Dialogue stuff.
She's just really, really an awesome historian.
She's a great podcaster too.
She has two podcasts that I really like.
One is Rock That Doesn't Roll.
She co-hosts that, and then a really fun one called Weird Religion that she co-hosts too.
So she's great at podcasts and great at talking about these niche topics and tracing historically where things come from.

(09:40):
So I think what we're going to do here, rather than taking a biblical or theological stance,
we're going to ask her historically where some of these concepts even come from.
Which I think helps so much, especially because the Bible doesn't necessarily explicitly state a man is this, a woman is this.
So where do Christians get these ideas?
So where do we get these ideas?
And she gets to tell us, not only do these ideas come from your culture,
but they change in the same culture in which we all operate.

(10:02):
Right. I think it's going to be really good.
I hope the listeners really appreciate that.
She is awesome. She's a rock star.
So here we go. Leah.
Leah, we're so excited to have you today.
Thank you so much.
Oh, of course.
So we're going to hippie hop right into this, right?
So we've already done like a transgender episode, which we framed in the beginning of this.
So this isn't necessarily the concept of gender as it's fluid and how we're talking about it in like the LGBTQIA plus community.

(10:26):
We're now talking about like the girlies and the guys and all the things.
So when we're asking this question, that's kind of how we want to frame it is.
So how, how would you reflect on how have Christians thought about gender over time?
Oh, gosh, that's, you know, there have been so many books about that.

(10:47):
I think, you know, I think for maybe the purpose of what you are wrestling with now, I think about how American Christians have thought about gender in the last 100 years or so.
There's a really good book by a historian named Margaret Bendroth about, and I'm going to get the title wrong.

(11:10):
It's either fundamentalism and gender or gender and fundamentalism.
It's basically about conversation about gender in conservative Christian circles.
It tells us a lot about everything about the movement that's having that conversation.
So Christians have talked a lot of different ways about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.

(11:36):
And I'm always listening to that conversation because I think it has a lot to tell us about what it means to be made in the image of God, what it means to be called by God to do a specific task.
And so for Pentecostals and Charismatics, that's the group that I specialize in.
And I suspect your listenership will have some familiarity with those movements.

(12:00):
Yes.
Charismatics and Pentecostals, this is a really critical issue.
Because it's actually an issue that's tied directly to theology about God.
Because in American Christian circles, a lot of times the attributes of God that Charismatics and Pentecostals would associate with the work of the Holy Spirit are associated with femininity and women in our culture.

(12:30):
And things like submission, like the act of submitting to the work of the Holy Spirit.
The idea of being taken over or taken up in the spirit is culturally, at least historically speaking, in the United States has been associated with like the role of the feminine.
Whereas things that in our culture are associated with masculinity, with maleness, things like being in charge or something like those are things that Christians.

(12:59):
Have associated with masculinity or maleness.
And so for Pentecostals and Charismatic Christians, there's been sort of like a, what do we do about this?
And because they have associated like specific acts, like their own experiences with the Holy Spirit, with things that have traditionally or at least historically been associated with women and womenliness.

(13:28):
It's like this weird sort of crisis for Pentecostals and Charismatics.
So a lot of the stuff that I've worked on is exploring like what does it mean to be a man and what does it mean to be a woman who's having these experiences with God.
And so there's a million different ways that people have defined what it is to be a woman or to be a man.

(13:53):
When I teach classes and we're talking about conversation about gender, I talk about how fashion in like the 18th century, for example,
if you would have looked at something that would have made a really manly man in the 18th century and compared to what we think of as traditionally masculine wear now, you would be surprised.

(14:19):
You know, like it gives me a lot of ruffles and high heels and things that we might not associate in our cultural context.
But if you're in the 18th century, that guy's looking great, you know.
So the thing is, is like a standard like change very drastically and radically over time.
I think it's a mistake to think that there's like one like definition of like what is feminine or what is masculine.

(14:49):
It depends on your context.
I mean, what? Okay, I don't want to go too far into this, but I know that Dr. Steven Felix Gager is a scholar that has done a lot of work in film.
And if you look at like American films, like this is what it means to be like a manly man or a womanly woman.
And then if you look at French films or Korean films or films from all over, like very different.

(15:13):
So in terms of like how Christians have defined it, it really depends on where you are and how you were raised.
And of course, like the Bible does not have a lot of specifics about this, especially if it comes to like the cultural components.
And, and, you know, we're a little far away from that. So there's not a lot that we know about, you know, how those how those communities were embodying what it meant to be a man or a woman.

(15:40):
And that was way too long of an answer. I don't even know if it was helpful.
It's so good. I love it.
I don't know.
Yeah, I think there's there's certainly a distinction between cultural dynamics and what it means to be a man and a woman and then like sex when you're born and certain attributes and
and I think that's the fine line that people have a whole lot of difficulty defining or understanding.

(16:04):
And that's kind of where we're always at.
So like we just watched the Olympics take place over summer and it was in France and they had a lot of images and stuff that Americans had a lot of issues with them, you know, like,
yes, various fluidities and stuff like that.
And so, yeah, I think it's a it's a real issue and I think the cultural point that you're making is really, really important because I think sometimes Christians zero in on what our cultural norms are as Americans.

(16:33):
Yes, and just kind of assume that they're everybody's, you know.
Yeah, you know, I remember those conversations and I wish people I I get so tired of the outrage machine.
This is our world and our culture and I, I really wish that that the general, you know, Christian Christian communities on social media, I wish, especially those in the United States would be would practice a little bit more self control and

(17:08):
yeah, through the spirit.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and to be quicker to listen and slower to speak, which is of course, you know, one thing that I always ask students of any kind is like, think really hard about who wins in these moments.
Like, who's winning here, and also related to that who's making money here, like, who does make money for and so I think outrage generates attention and we live in an attention economy.

(17:34):
And so this is me being like old and grouchy but when I see like whatever the whatever social media outrage thing is going on, I'm so cynical now nowadays in a lot of ways because I just think like, you know, the the wrong conversation is winning right now.
Yeah, that's not what we should be, you know, um, yeah, maybe that's just not a satisfying response but that those are the first responses I have.

(18:00):
Hey, it's real.
It's real.
No, because and also Americans were very ferocious people like we don't really and and maybe that's what comes from being in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world.
You don't really get the need that you need to like think about, huh, what what what does look like from somebody else's perspective, you know, but I always am like, oh no, you know, when people when people decide they're going to get very upset about things, I just think this isn't going to be a good look for us y'all.

(18:28):
I think the Olympics is a great example because we even have like, I loan a mayor in women's rugby and like Simone Biles and gymnastics and that whole controversy over that Algerian boxer that everyone called transgender but is absolutely not transgender.
And like what people think that femininity should look like, they're like, oh, you're too big or like, oh, you too, like you're, you're built like a square or whatever or what, like, or you're too strong to be a biological woman, right.

(18:55):
And so there were so many conversations, especially that popped up while the Olympics were happening that kind of led to this discourse that we have obviously when social media dictates your topics of like, oh my gosh, like, especially in the states, like every aspect of femininity and masculinity has to fit in a box and then someone is going to use some biblical

(19:17):
source to defend that view of the box that they've put everybody in. And so why I think this is an important conversation to have with you, Leah is like, okay, are we using the Bible incorrectly to smush people into a little box that fits the American ideas of what a male and a female should traditionally be.
Oh, yeah, you know, I'm not a biblical scholar. So I feel like you'd need to you really wanted someone to weigh in like, are we getting it right or are we getting it wrong? I think I, you know, I have limitation. But what I can say, and my own historical work, I look at conversations about what is a man, like what is a

(19:55):
womanly woman or a manly man, as a way of observing like how Christian communities are wrestling with with human identity and their standing before God. So for example, and really like what God expects of humans.

(20:17):
I have written a lot about a woman that I would guess both of you know, I know that Steven knows a woman named Amy Sumpel McPherson who founded the four square church. Yes. And in in her early days of her career, she really wrestled with her calling to preach and she wrote pretty

(20:39):
extensively about this. And she wrote about, I can only describe the word as agony, trying to figure out how to live up to cultural norms around womanliness and womanhood, and her own like internal drive to be a Christian evangelist.

(21:00):
And it was a, I think, you know, our conversation around psychology is different now that it was then so I think she probably have different language for it now but I can only I would describe it as a critical mental health event in her early years because she she felt trapped by like the traditional ideas about

(21:24):
womanliness and then this ecstatic moment of calling that she had had with between her and God. Yeah. And because for what for a lot of different reasons, her own experience with with the call of God overrode her fears around norms about women in ministry.

(21:46):
But the thing is, is it it was a very difficult life that you know she wrote about it kind of triumphalistically like yes, you know, like it happened because that was just kind of her personality and if you know anything about her writing she wrote about everything like it was the best thing ever.
But the thing is, if you read about if you read news coverage about her life, you'll see that she was criticized constantly for not upholding the kind of agreed upon consensus about this is what a what a woman should be.

(22:16):
Were those things attributes that came from the Bible? No, like it was stuff like you shouldn't cut your hair, you know, like they she had there was a church split when she was a pastor, because she cut her hair in a bob.
So the idea was that somehow she was not a godly Christian woman because she had cut her hair she wore cosmetics. Now people were looking at particular Bible verses, you know, maybe to critique her.

(22:45):
But I think you would agree that like most of the stuff reflected conversation about angst in the 1920s about women and their role in society, or then it reflected any kind of serious conversation about the Bible, what the Bible says.
Yeah, agreed.
So yeah, from my perspective, when we look back like 50 years from now about like conversations about the Olympics opening ceremonies, which I haven't seen but why would I even bother to watch it I can watch outrage on the Internet.

(23:12):
So I haven't even seen it, but I would guess 50 years from now if we were to have this conversation we'd be like, is this really conversation about the Bible is probably more conversation about the angst that people were feeling in the
in the 2020s about like, who are we as people and what does God say about us so that's why I'm always like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's put the brakes on feeling like really like anxious about it and give ourselves some time.

(23:44):
But that's what I'm a historian.
So I want to I want to shout out where you're probably drawing some of this from for people want to read it. This is your book right here award-winning gender and Pentecostal revivalism making a female ministry in the early 20th century.
I really like this book. I published one in the same series so that was cool. We're series mates in that.

(24:05):
Yeah, go team, go team.
It was really, really, really a good book and Amy means a lot to us. I know you grew up four square and Megan and I are currently ordained ministers in the four square church.
Wonderful.
She's definitely a hero in all her conflicted glory. You know, we embrace that.
All of the conflicted glory.
God uses she was a remarkable woman gifted talented love people like crazy and with flaws and I think that's actually something Gen Z and millennials are embracing and love just the fact that a flawed person is still a great person and God is still using using her and so very proud that she's she's our founder.

(24:44):
Yeah, you know, when I first started working on research with sister as we call her.
I, you know, it was really hard to get access to four square archives back in the day that and that was in part because there was sort of like an idea in four square circles, people of a certain age that they wanted to protect her legacy.

(25:05):
Yeah, yeah, essentially making her a saint.
And yes, I can understand, especially with her son, Ralph McPherson, Dr. McPherson, who loves his mother very much.
And when I think about it from his perspective, he was a teen when she was undergoing like just an incredible amount of social political legal pressure.

(25:27):
And he and she was kind of one of the first of her kind, you know select celebrity preacher, who was experiencing a ton of bad press and stuff.
So I actually understand if I if I were a teenager, how I would feel about my mother who I loved very much. But I think that there's a little bit of wisdom later on to see that actually those things that those points of tension in her life are a

(25:52):
first of super interesting.
I would like to know more about them.
But B, they're actually kind of encouraging to people.
She was a real like the stuff that she was managing in the 1920s, there's still a lot for people who are trying to find their way in the 2020s to really learn from, especially like, you know, how she was trying to figure out how to be at the presence in media.

(26:15):
I mean, I think all of us are trying to figure that out right now.
Yeah, you know, I love her and I feel like I learned from her pretty much daily.
Same. All right, I also want to take this time to promote slightly your new book.
Oh, thank you.
Which I really liked a lot.
God made rock and roll for you.
So that you're speaking my language here, Leah.

(26:37):
What I think was fascinating about this book is you didn't just trace CCM and how it came like just kind of, you know, like a, as if it was like an encyclopedia or something.
You didn't, you didn't just trace it, but you actually showed how a bunch of our social norms developed and were perpetuated by music, by worship and like how that became, you know, sometimes intentionally a propaganda machine and other times maybe unintentionally, but like how you showed how that, how that happened and how that was going on.

(27:09):
And you do this a lot, but I wanted to point out something specifically that I thought was super interesting.
And that was about the new Calvinists.
You talked about Mark Durisco.
Yeah.
Who was kind of a disgrace Calvinist pastor that's back and doing it again and preaching a church and whatnot.
And he's controversial for creating difficult environments for people to abusive environments for people to work on there and various other things.

(27:33):
And you wrote that he made male dominion and female submission a core component of his preaching.
So I'm curious about that.
And then also how this is tied musically, I think that's always super interesting. And this is what you wrote about.
I'll just quote it.
He ruled out much of worship music from vineyard and other charismatic worship leaders who reveled in Jesus as the bridegroom and the worshiper as the bride said they were singing prom songs to Jesus.

(28:03):
So I think this talks a little bit about the tension of Pentecost.
I just try to find what they are because we have a lot of, you know, when we talk about the spirit, there's the quote unquote traditionally feminine characteristics that we attribute.
And it's all up in our music all the time.
So how do we how do we want negotiate that?
Can you speak a little bit about that?

(28:24):
And then the follow up to that would be, have you noticed any gender norms being pushed today in worship?
And like, have you noticed any of that?
That's such a great question.
I think so when I started writing God gave rock and roll to you, I just had this like intuition that contemporary Christian music and then it's sort of cousin, later cousin, the worship music industry, that they were not peripheral forms of Christian

(28:55):
formation, but core forms of Christian formation that people so in my American religious history, a lot of times people can have the idea that like a legislative agenda or a doctrine or an particular institution is the core of what it of Christian formation.
But I think because I grew up charismatic, I was like, Oh, actually, it's this other thing, it's this this ritualized moment where we're all together, and we are experiencing music in a particular kind of way for a lot of people that is like maybe the most important

(29:31):
part of their Christian formation over time. People like Billy Graham actually understood that that's why he used a lot of music. He didn't understand it in the same way I think that charismatic do.
And so God gave rock and roll to really traces in some ways if it looks at if you look at the CCM contemporary Christian music as the soundscape of American Christianity, what do you see?

(29:55):
You see a lot of things but in part you see the ascent of charismatic and Pentecostals through music because I'll just say it no one does music better than been charismatic and Pentecostals.
I will die on that hill.
Oh, no way.
You ain't wrong. You ain't wrong.
We gave the world rock and roll, then we took it away, then we brought it back.
But yeah, I mean, anyhow, so you see the ascent of these charismatic and then you see people who are trying to use the music and the style that works so well in charismatic circles for their own particular spin on American Protestantism.

(30:32):
And that's where somebody like Driscoll comes up.
Now Driscoll is an interesting figure because he ascended in the new reformed tradition, the neo reformed movement, probably one of the most famous preachers from that would be John Piper.
But yeah, there's like a big moment in the early aughts when everyone was saying yes, the reform tradition is where it's at.
And Americans are very trendy people and they don't have long attention fans.

(30:55):
So that's kind of decreased.
But at the time it was a huge deal.
Driscoll is also a charismatic.
So that makes him an interesting kind of bridge figure in those circles.
But he really took up the traditional gender norms.
And I think some of that has to do with location, you know, like Seattle has always had a space for a fundy preacher, like in the early 20th century, there were funding preachers.

(31:18):
And so Driscoll, you know, became this firebrand in an otherwise liberal city.
And he really, really had a disgust for the kinds of music that Pentecostals and Charismatics specialize in.
So the kind of mystical union with Christ and the idea that Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is the bride.

(31:43):
I write about this.
You know, you know, the biblical idea, you know, the biblical idea that one.
Yeah, he really shaped against that.
And so tried to impose another form of Christian devotion onto this charismatic music.
And John Piper did the same.
And he really saw, he's a really interesting figure because he had relationship with vineyard people like John Wimber, who is a very critical co creator of what we think of as contemporary Christian music and and the vineyard church in particular.

(32:20):
And Piper saw through vineyard worship and vineyard specialized in what I call Jesus is my boyfriend music without any negative connotation whatsoever.
I love it.
I shouldn't Jesus be my boyfriend.
Like, have you read the medieval mystics?
Yes.
But anyway, so like he specialized in that kind of music.
Piper observed the power of the music and in many ways tried to harness that toward neo reform ends.

(32:48):
So from that, you get like the passion worship music that really emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the greatness of God, the smallness of humanity and not the intimacy with God.
That charismatic and Pentecostals, especially those West Coast hippie types really, really loved.
So I think that the song that to me epitomizes this is this song called pour out my heart, which is a song from the perspective of the believer to God.

(33:16):
And it's just like, I'm going to give you every part of me, every emotion, every spiritual ask, you know, my whole self.
It's a very intimate song.
And that's not the only one.
There's tons of versions of that.
And reform folks tend to dislike that because they tend to emphasize more, you know, the, the total depravity of the human being, which is not necessarily a charismatic, you know, it's not like the first flavor you're going to get from charismatic traditions.

(33:49):
You'll get Jesus as a brother, Jesus as a friend, you know.
And by the way, the scriptures have like many different different God and the believers relationship to God.
And so we're talking about, you know, a whole spectrum of things.
But that like Driscoll, I think his, his legacy today is actually super interesting because he's really leaned on the charismatic.

(34:13):
Like he's, he's sort of not as much a part of that reform tradition, but he's been working with Sean Foyt, very well known charismatic, worshiped, protestor, activist.
That guy.
Yeah. And I think like it's very interesting that those two versions of himself, the one that he's kind of, I mean, in some ways you can say that he can understand that there was a winning tradition.

(34:34):
They're like the charismatic, you know, forms, many forms takes on many political visions, but like charismatic have ascended, you know.
So I think there's, there's no doubt that, you know, Driscoll, he's, he's like many celebrity preachers who've come before him.
He has a high endurance level for scandal. Look at somebody like Jimmy Swagger, you know, in the 80s who had like pretty dramatic downfalls and he still has a church, you know, so like those, there's like a certain type of celebrity preacher that sort of survives.

(35:04):
Teflon. Yeah. Teflon. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have not heard the last from him.
And he also has like a nose for scandal.
So I guarantee like some other thing will come up at some point. Did you see that he got in trouble for he was calling out a Jezebel spirit? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
At that thing where he was like, this is like inappropriate. All men in a complete, all men's meeting. Yeah.

(35:31):
But he calls out a Jezebel spirit. So he still demonizes women at an all men conference.
Yeah. I mean, he's relentless. Like there's been so we haven't heard the last of him. But I think, you know, in terms of your question about the gender expressions and norms, I think in my mind, the thing about music is that it's like a direct line to human emotion and spirituality.

(35:58):
And so as long as communities are getting together and performing music together, they will be like expressing tensions that we experience in our society. Yeah.
So yeah, I mean, there, there, of course, there's going to be conversation about that. I'm on social media, sadly. And I will see, you know, every now and then some sort of thing about music is feminized, the Christian experience, which I always crack up at because I think it's just like,

(36:27):
I think it's just a lack of historical knowledge. Because if you, if you read, you know, many traditional Christian forms that were created and performed by men have expressed things that these, these commentators feel is just like super womanly or
or feminized. So I think some of it's just like a lack of understanding and knowledge about the breadth of the Christian.

(36:49):
I just don't even like the idea that calling something feminized is a negative thing. And so that like, you know what I mean? Like it seems a sophomore is like middle school, you know.
Yeah, there's a whole thing to unpack there about like, who care to me, what's interesting about it? It's like, Oh, what does that tell me? That tells me right now. The Christians who are expressing that and it's a certain subset are experiencing a lot of anxiety about living in 21st century America.

(37:15):
Yeah. Yeah. And they're expressing that. And what does that mean? I mean, I think a lot of it is like deeper questions about who has authority in Christian circles. Is it a particular congregation? Is it a preacher? Is it the Bible? Which version of the Bible?
Which passages of the Bible? Is it a denomination, a quote unquote church network? Is it like the social media channel that you follow? I mean, that's maybe interesting question.

(37:42):
And also like who mediates this? Like who gets to say who won the argument? That's up for debate. I mean, is it Twitter likes or like, is it, you know, TikTok likes or whatever? I don't even know how it's TikTok.
Maybe what ends up with staying? You know, like what we will look at five, 10 years from now.
Right. And we know, you know, that's for other generations to govern, I think.

(38:08):
I think as we kind of talk about, as we come to the end of this conversation, what I think is really helpful, Lea's, you're a historian is to see the way that we've defined masculinity and femininity having changed over the course of a very long time.
Right. Like guys used to wear those really tall wigs.
Right. It was like the more hair the manlier, but now it's like, now you need to buzz your hair and lift weights and whatever. So like things change as we have acknowledged.

(38:33):
And so I think like what we've arrived to right now that I've seen a lot on social media, which is obviously the point of this podcast, is this concept of like, Trad wife and like alpha male has become a huge conversation, not even just with Christians.
It can have take its, you know, beat from Christians or sex, sex of like belief systems like that. Like there's a lot of Mormons who are Trad wives who kind of promote this, whatever.

(39:02):
Right. Right. And then, and then the alpha male, I would even say that Mark Driscoll, I've seen him on social media and he is gives very like alpha male podcast guy.
So, so from a historical perspective, where do you think like these trends came from? And do you think that they have should they be now the biblical standard? Like this is this how we should now act as men and women?

(39:25):
I'm so glad you brought up Trad wife stuff. Oh, I love that conversation. That's fascinating. Okay. Couple thoughts come to mind.
One is that in the early 20th century, anytime there's a big tech innovation, people have a lot of anxiety about how that's going to shape the Christian tradition.

(39:46):
So for example, fundamentalist modernist controversy, which is a very famous controversy in American historical circles, which was about the Bible like this. Should we subject the Bible to scientific inquiry?
And if we do, and it comes back like lacking, what will we do then? And the tons of our theological conversations that we're having today, 100 years later, stem from that big conversation.

(40:09):
But it was really about a question of technology, like how is technology changing our capacity to understand the Bible? And I see the Trad wife, gender angst as really a conversation about like, we couldn't even have these conversations, maybe 100 years ago.

(40:30):
Because we didn't have the technological capacity to like have the conversation, have it worldwide, have it simultaneously, right?
And so in the early 20th century, there were a lot of the same kind of anxieties about new versions of thought, like this thing called feminism, like what do we do about that? What's the world of women? There were these schools called mother crafting schools that were essentially like professionalizing motherhood and trying to teach a very particular

(41:02):
version of motherhood that was very much embedded within like certain kind of Protestant middle class, white American ideals. And a lot of that was like, I'm going to get really picky tacky about that.
But a lot of that was in response to like waves of immigration into the United States from non walkie areas. So it's like you get all these Catholic moms from from Italy and like we need to make sure they're doing motherhood the correct way.

(41:30):
And that a lot of times got framed as a quote unquote Christian way or the biblical way. Looking back, we can see that that was more reflective of anxieties around immigration and how Protestant and Catholics are going to interact with each other in the United States.
Most of other things. Yeah, more than it was about like, what does Bible say about women, you know, or what does really what is the Christian tradition also say about women. So I look at tradwife content as as analogous to that.

(42:02):
And like, the conversations about tradwives are like conversations about mass media and representation and like really like, who are we and really I think a lot of Christians. I see in a lot of tradwife content because it's a lot from Christian women.
Yes. Usually they come from like a kind of conservative evangelical or Latter Day Saint background and yes, I look at that as sort of a conversation about Christian witness, because it's really like an apology for a specific like ethic, right.

(42:36):
Like, so the I think of it as a kind of prosperity theology. So it's like, if you do your your Christian life right in that way, it's like you observe these certain hierarchies in the home.
And you display those hierarchies, never mind that like a full time job. It's like, he's like crazy amount of work. But if you do this, your family will prosper and your faithful prosper.

(43:02):
Interesting. And and and so we see it like you see these very like, have you ever seen an unattractive tradwife? I haven't, you know, like they are very they conform to really traditional beauty standards, usually European beauty standards.
And they're usually like they've had eight kids, but they're very thin and they're like, these are like not frumpy women is what I'm saying. And why is that important? I think it's important because it's a it's a prosperity theology.

(43:34):
They're saying like you're going to look as good as I look and you're going to have kids who are as obedient as I have, which is I'd like to see what happens when the cameras are off by the way.
That part. And yeah. And so I, you know, like our tradwives, the first people to do prosperity theology, certainly not. But I think they're like a version of that. And there's, you know, they usually have a trad husband that they bring on the screen every now and then looking all handsome

(44:02):
and, you know, like hearty and, you know, it's like you see that this is like this is what these women and their audiences agree upon is like this is the good life. This is the and living this way will bring you manifest blessings.
But, you know, I don't see that as all that out of line with like when I was growing up in the 80s, there was like most evangelical ish parents were really familiar with the teachings of one Dr. James Dobson who also preached a kind of theology of prosperity.

(44:37):
Like if you raise your children in this way with these aids, and in this kind of sheltered life, you will get healthy, well adjusted, not confused children who are conforming to, you know, the dobson was a Nazarene, so conforming to what Nazarene kind of dreamed their children will be.

(44:59):
And, you know, now people, you know, there's a, we have some decades now to look back on that. And the reality is that it didn't always end up happening that way.
You know, like, there are lots of people who are raised in those households who came to reject those teachings.
And incidentally, there are a lot of people who weren't raised in those households who ended up living like totally fine, prosperous, happy life.

(45:26):
And it's like, you know, it's like, you know, you're not going to be like, right about lives to you know, so I just see tradwives as like, it's another version of that.
It's another way of saying like, and, you know, it's fairly new phenomena. So I guarantee you in 10 years, we're going to have like, yes, I was a tradwife.
I think there's already that conversation going on, but there's going to be like best selling things about leaving the tradwife, you know, life and all that kind of stuff.

(45:54):
And that is just like, that's how Americans are. We love stories like that. We love, we love to like put people up and then we like to tear them down and we like to watch them get back up again.
You know, so some of that is like our own media taste.
Super interesting.
Super interesting.
Do you have any comments on the alpha male side as well?
Oh yeah. The alpha male side like,
Or like the podcast, the typical like guy who like eats raw meat and works out six times a day and like, why you're, you should never be a beta or whatever.

(46:22):
Those guys who are bald and jacked and all that.
Oh yeah, yeah, both guys, you know, I think a lot of that is, you know, they say women dress for other women. It's sort of like a cliche and like, yeah, I think a lot of that has got to be a community of men who share particular
aesthetics and values and where Stephen, your work on aesthetics, maybe we'll come in here. They're sort of performing for each other in many ways. I think there's like, if I had to explain it sociologically, I think I would say that it's a form of like community and belonging, like the most celebratory versions of it.

(47:01):
They seem to really be getting a kick out of each other.
I think, I think, you know, somebody like Driscoll, who's, who's definitely in that lane. I think, you know, one of the difficult parts for people who don't conform to those fairly narrow standards of masculinity is that there's a lot of punishment around the boundaries of that.

(47:24):
So Driscoll was famous for making fun of worship leaders who he thought did not like appropriately display their gender according to his very specific ideas about gender. And he was mean, like relentlessly mean toward these folks who I mean, I hope that there's somewhere, you know,
I always think like he was mean kind of generally about a certain type of guy, but also like he was mean specifically about the people who he was working with in his church. And I was just talking about this with them. And I really hope that somewhere those guys have realized along the way that that was a very mean spirited and kind of silly way of promoting, you know, your own ideas.

(48:06):
I think the Bible just has lots of different kinds of people. The scriptures give very little direction about how you should dress and how your affect should be. And I think those guys, the over the top guys, I personally find them to be kind of, it's not my listening choice.

(48:27):
I'll say it's obnoxious, you know, as a man in his group, I'll say it's pretty obnoxious.
The Alpha Man podcast is not on your rotation.
No, no, my gosh. No, no, Leo, you're saying something that's somewhat of a theme for us this season, like the very first episode of this season was called Christians are mean. And we're talking about different ways that, you know, like on social media, they're just really showing a very poor witness.

(48:52):
It's not like women were called to be kind and men were called to be truth tellers in the right. We're all called to be kind. Jesus is kind. Like I don't understand why. Like if you're calling yourself a Christian of all things, be kind.
And yeah, I just, man, it's a it's a it's a pet peeve of mine. It's like, I don't care what they get into. Like they can even like what you like. I don't care.

(49:14):
Surely. Yeah. Like the weird energy drinks or your thing. Whatever. But but but we don't that as a Christian, you have a directive to be loving Jesus would not have enough of male podcast.
Yeah, you know, I mean, I think about when my my firstborn was a small child, baby, I was praying over him. He's a boy. I was praying the fruits of the spirit over my son.

(49:40):
Yeah. And I remember having like the conscious thought it made me very sad to think that someone would hear me praying that prayer and criticize me for or, you know, quote unquote feminizing my child.
Of course, I you know, I'm a gender historian. So those are the weird thoughts that pop into your head when you're trying to have a moment, you know, like standing over a crib.

(50:02):
But that still does make me sad because everything that you just said, kindness, gentleness, you know, faith and self control. Those are things that are, I think, you know, on a positive side, it's been in a positive way.
I think that that's a contribution that kind of spirit churches can make to the quote unquote Christian discourse right now. Like by celebrating those things, I was on the vineyard podcast a little while back.

(50:34):
Love love my my sisters and brothers in the vineyard church. And which is by the way kind of like a family reunion if you're raised for square because it's like so culturally super close.
Yeah, but they were asking me like, you know, what should worship leaders be singing about and of course, I don't know, you know, I'm a historian not an ethicist, but they try.
And I was like, you know, I think that there's a contribution to make in singing and maybe talking and thinking about the gentleness of God about the kindness and the the intimacy that Christians experience with the Holy Spirit.

(51:11):
It's maybe not fashionable now, like we've got a lot of songs.
Yeah, I got a lot of songs about war. And, you know, I grew up in a castle, so I'm not opposed to singing about, you know, like the the Lordship of Jesus or whatever.
But but the idea that spirit traditions have a contribution to make to like the quality of our overall conversation. Yeah, we should be kind. We should be gentle. We should be very slow to get angry about things.

(51:43):
Yeah, it's a fruit of the spirit. Yeah, you sounded like a theologian over there, Leah.
Oh, this will put me.
Don't hold me to that. I don't need to get invited anywhere else. Yeah, I think it's just, you know, to finish this conversation with this.
I'm just going to read it. We all know it by heart, essentially, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

(52:09):
Against such things, there is no law. This is not a directive of being a woman, of being a man. This is a directive of being led by the spirit of God.
Yeah, I really, really appreciate your conversation and I appreciate how you're talking about a lot of these issues aren't at all biblical, but really just coming out of the anxieties of the day and and just helping us wrestle with this.

(52:34):
And I think if we just kind of come back to that right there, like call yourself what you want, but like you can be a man and be and display the fruit of the spirit and be a woman and display the fruit of the spirit and both be Christ like and that's what's most important.
So good. Yeah, thank you.
Thanks, you two to both of you. It's just wonderful to have this conversation. Thank you.
That was so good. Yeah.

(52:55):
Oh, I could listen to Leah talk all day. She's the bomb. You said that we were going to be friends. Y'all are going to be besties. I'm the best buddies.
I knew it. I knew it. I think that what's so important to talk about in this space is one that I would say that manhood and womanhood both need to take their root biblically in the fruits of the spirit.
Right? Like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, which we touched on with Leah like that needs to be the fundamental bit of who we are because when we start playing the gender stereotypes of the gender norms up, what do they relate most to?

(53:28):
They relate most to how one operates in a family, right? Like as a wife or a husband. Yeah.
Yeah. Like in Genesis, when you're talking about being a provider and a nurturer, the assumption is that you have a whole family, right?
Yes.
Like that you're taking care of your progeny of your whole family and you're moving forward to keep your lineage and stuff like that.
So I guess like, so that fall description of manhood and womanhood doesn't really help to distinguish singleness very well.

(53:53):
Correct.
Jesus was single.
Jesus was single.
Right. And so, so what would be a better marker of biblical manhood and womanhood rather than using the language of the fall as provider and nurture?
I mean, I think that you can still be a nurturer or you can still be a provider, whatever outside of being married or having a family, whatever.
But I think for me, like when we're so focused, I guess on how to be these distinct.

(54:20):
Yeah.
Like beings, like how to be a biblical man and how to be a biblical woman. I think that there's value in being a biblical person.
Right.
Like I think there's a value in being like, well, I need to be more about Jesus.
Right.
Like we don't look at Jesus and say, oh, well women shouldn't live like Christ because Jesus was a man.
Right.
Right.
No.
Like I think that we need to be so focused on ourselves in our relationship with the Lord and being intentional about letting him grow the aspects of these fruits of the spirit in us.

(54:50):
So that if, if we ever come to this point where we do get married or we do have kids or whatever, that those are the aspects that are helping us partner with our partner or being a parent to our kids.
Right.
Yeah.
But if not, that doesn't mean that you're not less of a woman because you don't get married or you don't have children or you're less of a man because you don't get married and you don't have children.

(55:11):
So what you're saying, this is good.
What is foundational before biblical manhood and biblical womanhood is Christ likeness Christ likeness.
And so like, if you are like Christ, then you could be single, married, doesn't matter.
You could be man, woman, doesn't matter because in all those things, you're going to display the fruit of the spirit.
Right.
Yeah.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Yeah.

(55:32):
You're going to display that.
And so then when you are married and leading a family, if that is in the cards for you, which it is for most people, right?
Yeah.
But some people may not be called to that.
And we have to recognize that and acknowledge that.
Yeah.
And also like, be cool with that.
Some people are trying, like in politics, this is a thing that's like weirdly up to debate right now.

(55:53):
Jesus was not married and we have to acknowledge that.
Like Paul wasn't married.
You know, like there are some people that were not married, that were some of the most important people in the history of humanity.
Yeah.
Right.
And not to mention God incarnate, right?
Right.
That.
So yeah, just acknowledging that and recognizing that these, this specific calling could very well be from God.

(56:14):
And we have to respect that, understand that.
And that they can be billowically a man and a woman regardless.
Yes.
That's important.
It's very important.
But if you emulate Christ first, those other things are going to fall into place.
Well, emulating then Christ.
Yeah.
When you come into this marriage relationship or if you come into something along those lines, right?
When you do get to those verses that the Bible interprets, right?
And it's like the husband is the head, Christ is the head right for however, that's up to, I mean, I'm not making an assumption of like how you theologically interpret that, right?

(56:41):
But if you're a man who is emulating the gifts of the, or the fruits of the spirit, then you're going to be a biblical man.
Perfectly.
You're going to be a biblical man perfectly because that's who you are.
Yeah.
I, it's not, oh, I'm going to be married and then I'm going to learn how to be.
And same thing for a biblical woman.
Right.
If you, if you emulate the gifts of the spirit perfectly, you're going to be a biblical woman.

(57:02):
You're going to be a wife.
These kinds of divides and these stereotypes and these roles that we've placed on being a man and a woman have created the divide that actually plays in the Bible.
The divide that actually plays into the curse at the fall, because I think if we're at the end of the day trying to pursue who we were when we were in Eden, we would pursue partnership.
We would pursue Christ likeness.
We would pursue relationship with the Lord.

(57:23):
And I think that there's a lot more influx and, and relationship between masculinity and femininity.
If you view it in this manner.
And I think that if we're then pursuing a life that is like Jesus and is how we've been called to live like Christ, then we're not going to be so
overwhelmed.
Things are going to fall into place.
Yeah.
Things will play together and will work together as they should instead of us trying to figure out somewhere where the line is to divide of how manly a man should be and how womanly a woman should be.

(57:50):
This is where being a Christian is very simple.
And you like Christ and things are going to fall into place.
This is when sometimes the answer is Jesus.
Yeah.
All right.
That's good.
All right.
Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this conversation.
It's a good one.
It's important one that one that we need to have and one that will inevitably be had as gender stereotypes,
and that's change and shift over time also.
And we'll probably end up having a version of it again on here at some point.

(58:13):
Probably as we do.
Probably.
But until that day, this episode is brought to you by the School of Theology and Ministry of Life Pacific University.
All right.
See you guys next time.
Thank you.