Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1121: How the Old Testament Humanizes Women: Dr. Katie McCoy

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Dr. Katie McCoy serves as Director of Women’s Ministry at The Southern Baptist Convention, Texas. She holds a PhD in systematic theology and her research focuses on Old Testament laws about women and justice for the vulnerable. Her most recent book is To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond. In this conversation, we look at the startling statement about female captives in war from Deuteronomy 21:10-14 and the seemingly strange laws regarding women who have recently given birth from Leviticus 12:1-4.  If you would like to support Theology in the Raw, please visit patreon.com/theologyintheraw for more information!

Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Dr. Katie McCoy, who serves as Director of Women's Ministry at the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She also has a PhD in systematic theology, and her research focuses on Old Testament laws about women and justice for the vulnerable, which is the topic of our conversation today. We dive into some of those tough Old Testament laws that seem very misogynistic, but on closer examination, especially in light of the ancient Near East context, not the modern Western context, there is more that meets the eye. Katie also recently released her book, To Be a Woman, The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond, which came out last June. And we do talk about that toward the end of the podcast, but we do spend the bulk of our time talking about her PhD research with Old Testament laws and how they treat women. So please welcome back to the show for the second time, the one and only Dr. Katie McCoy. Katie was on the podcast just a couple months ago with two

other guests talking about theological anthropology and offline. Right before we went into that episode, Katie, do you remember you told me just a snapshot of your kind of PhD research? I'm like, oh my word, I'm very interested in that topic. So then right when we got done, I shot you an email and said, can you come back on and talk about that? So that's where we're at right now. So thanks, Katie, for coming on Theology in Raw yet again. Yeah, thanks for having me. So I really want to talk about, for some reason, I'm very interested in understanding the present, how do I even word it, the presentation of women in the Old Testament. Obviously, well, we might even dissect this term, but, you know, the Old Testament was written in a world that has been described as patriarchal.

Old Testament basically just reflects that, all the assumptions that come with that regarding men, women, the subordination of women, the elevation of man. But I just, I don't know. As I read ancient Near East literature, then I read the Old Testament, I don't see a one-to-one correspondence. And yeah, I do see certain passages, which I'm sure we'll get to some. I'm like, oh, that feels very misogynistic. But then I stepped back and I asked the question, well, is that, would it have been read that way in the ancient context? Anyway, so that's kind of the on-ramp to where we're going. I would love, can we begin with the, kind of what I just said, that the Old Testament world is patriarchal. I have questions about whether or how patriarchal the actual Old Testament, maybe theology, the presentation is. Let's begin with the word patriarchy.

Is that an even helpful term to describe either of those worlds? Do you have thoughts on that word? I know it's kind of debated. Yeah, it's a good question because some people are doing some research saying it's patriarchy is not the best representation. It's more patricentrism. And I heard this from a friend, her research that I was following, and she was an Old Testament scholar. And she said, no, patricentrism is probably the best explanation of it because in the absence of federal government or specific government structure,

federal government or, you know, specific government structure, families organized themselves in this way. It was clans and families and tribes. And so with that, you had the patricentrism of lineage being traced through the father, hereditary laws being male to the male descendant. And so it was more like a structural thing. And then along with that, though, Preston, we can't miss that anytime we're talking about how to understand the Old Testament, we are coming at it from an individualistic Western lens. And if you're an American, you're a super individualist. And if you're an American in the 21st century, you're like this hyper super individualist with being affected with expressive individualism and, you know, live your truth, follow your heart, you do you type of thinking. honor-shame culture that had just a completely different view of what it meant to be a person connected to a family, a person connected to community, what it meant to pursue what is honorable, completely different moral frameworks. Even one's individual sexual morality

had communal implications in a way that we don't have or appreciate today. So then add to it the layer that in our last 30 to 40 years of conversation, we are trying to read from the Bible and extrapolate from it a gender paradigm of how we relate today. And it ends up being very selective because we have some aspects of the Old Testament law that we would agree with and say, pull this out. This is the gender framework. But then we have other aspects of the Old Testament law that we completely disagree with. So anytime you have people saying there's this uprising of we need Christian patriarchy, there's a few things wrong with that. First of all, if you're going to say we should really

be living by the Old Testament law, then we'd be executing rapists. I don't see people really calling for that. So I don't see the parody of justice when we're talking about wanting to go back to some type of Old Testament rule, whether that's theonomic or Christian patriarchy or whatever. influenced by a Greek understanding of gender and gender hierarchy in a way that is different from a Hebrew understanding of relational differentiation. So in a Hebrew understanding of male and female, it is, yes, there is difference. Yes, this difference expresses itself in relationships and responsibilities. I think we can see that in Genesis, especially Genesis 3 and how the Lord is correcting Adam, even though he was the one who sinned first. We can draw and build on that to create our paradigm. of our gender conversations in evangelicalism is pose a Greek understanding of hierarchy, of superiority, of worth. And we end up reading that back into a culture that we're taking categories and imposing them on the scriptures. And we're really missing the relational dynamic, the interplay between male and female of difference within equality. And I

think it ends up, well, it really does end up, you can hear it in how people talk about this. It takes for granted ontological equality. And that has all kinds of implications. We're talking about women in the church, women in society, and anything that we're taking for granted is in danger of being lost. My friend Trevin Wax talked about that in his book, Thrill of Orthodoxy. It was a brilliant point that whatever you are assuming theologically, that is a danger. That is some of the greatest danger of sacrificing or compromising. And so I think a lot of this conversation ends up devolving into imposing structures on both sides of that debate into the Old Testament culture and then Old Testament law.

I see where you're going with that. That's really fascinating, the Greek versus Hebrew understanding. Can you give us maybe a concrete example that would help maybe appreciate the differences between the two? Yeah, so one that comes to mind is the Proverbs 31 woman. So in both sides of the gender debate, people like to bring out different aspects of the Proverbs 31 woman. And in both a man and a woman, both the mother and the father, the family in Hebrew culture was the epicenter of your happiness. Your family was what you revolved around. Your family was why you did what you did. And the legacy, and we hear this even among Jews today, the legacy of your life

is the family, the children that you leave behind you. And so your whole purpose is to propel them forward. So motherhood was not something that women were strapped with. It was part of what it meant to move forward the mission of Israel. And we can see that not only in how we talk about parenthood today, but then even in the Great Commission, right? We're making disciples. We are propelling forward the mission of expanding God's family. But when Proverbs 31 woman, we see this especially in the way that Hebrews and Greeks would interpret it. So among Hebrews, you look at this woman, she has independence. She has economic agency. You don't see her asking her husband to start a business. You don't see her asking her husband and checking with him on what she should do. And I've heard with good intentions, but I've heard people talk about, you know, even a woman pursuing theological education. And, you know, it's because my husband told me that I should do this. And so I think you compare that to the Proverbs 31 woman, who is of course the ideal woman.

And you don't see her relating to her husband in a way that is a servant. Now she's serving him, but it's, she's not a servant. He trusts her all her days. He praises her. But then we get to how Hellenistic Jews interpret it. And you see this shift. You see a reading back into Hebrew texts because in Hebrew life, the primary relationship is between the husband and wife. In Greek life, the primary relationship is between father and son or father and children. And so we see this shift.

And so I think the Proverbs 31 woman is a perfect example. If you're looking at it from Hebrew culture perspective, this is a woman, economic agency, personhood, even not independence in the sense that she's off doing something that would not be blessed by her family. It's that these are her priorities. But what we don't see is kind of more of a Greek understanding of, yes, these are her priorities, because unlike men who are public and are capable of having wisdom, women are private creatures and they receive the sphere and domain of that which they can order from their husbands because they are not capable of contributing to the world through intellectual contribution or wisdom. This was Aristotle's whole idea that men are capable of wisdom and contribute the spiritual aspect in progeny. Women are

essentially the raw materials of the physical. Well, you know, Greek mind-body dualism, the physical is much less. Women might be able to observe something accurate, but they are incapable of contributing to wisdom or contributing to the life of this city. And of course, to the Greek mind, this city was far more important than the home. And so I think we've had that really trickle down in our view of gender today. This is so helpful, actually. So if I can maybe rearticulate it back, see if I'm understanding it correctly. So you could have maybe a household structure in a Hebrew world, Hebrew worldview world, and then a Greek world. It might look very similar. Say, say that the man is out public,

he's doing political stuff. He's in meetings. He's out there though. The wife may be, um, spending most of her time at home, at least in the Greek world, the wife wasn't even allowed, you know, classical Greek. They weren't even, they didn't go public at all. Like they wouldn't see another soul. But the ontological assumptions you're saying are very vastly different, where the ontological assumptions in the Greek world are that the woman does all these things because she's less wise, because she's inferior, because she's somewhere between a free man and a slave or whatever, however her subtle puts it. Whereas in the Hebrew mindset, you may still have the wife and mother, being a wife and mother, maybe having more of a domestic sphere of focus. But it's not a byproduct of the ontological assumption that, well, she just stays at home because she obviously doesn't have the intellect to be able to hang with the guys at the city gate or whatever. Like that's not what's driving the Hebrew way of life. Is that an accurate?

Exactly. And in part because they had a different view of the home life and of the family life too. I saw this kind of in action when my family was invited to a Shabbat of a rabbi and his wife. And it was just one of the most beautiful moments that here, total strangers. And they welcomed us in. And it was like, we went from strangers to feeling like we were among longtime friends. It was just one of those beautiful things. But what I saw was the interplay between this rabbi and his wife. And she would kind of push back at him. She would say something, even kind of a little sass.

And he would just kind of laugh. And it wasn't a laugh of dismissing as though she's lower. It was a laugh of he wasn't threatened. He wasn't threatened by her pushback. He wasn't threatened by her pushback. He wasn't threatened by her expressing her opinions. And, you know, when you, when you framed it like that, it reminded me how people can come to a conclusion, a complimentary conclusion of first Timothy two, and they can get there completely different ways from completely different frameworks to, to the results of exactly what you were talking about. You've got two churches perhaps that are practicing the same results, but from completely different

frameworks. I can say, I would believe that according to my understanding of scripture, biblically qualified men have the responsibility of being a pastor or elder. Someone else can say, I believe men should be pastors because women are more easily deceived and they are intellectually inferior and incapable of rightly handling the word of God. You've got two completely foundations, completely different foundations, two completely different ontological arguments and ground for that conclusion. But on the surface of it, the conclusion looks the same. That's interesting. So we see the same kind of Greek Hebrew differences being played out in

situations that might visibly look very, very similar. When Paul is writing first Timothy, he is still Greek citizen, but Hebrew of the Hebrews. And so if we're not even interpreting the new Testament with that Hebrew lens that the apostles had, we're missing something big. Man. Okay. So I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't prepared to go into this, but I might just, let's just open this door and peek in a little bit. Because if we can get a little, get into the New test. So, yeah, the commentary on egalitarian debates. I'm in the middle of a big I hear, so one of the things that I, that I maybe, maybe I'm just don't appreciate, or I'm just not impressed with, or I think it might be a blind spot if I can be so bold, among how some egalitarians frame it is they lead with

this idea of ontological equality. And if there's any differences in roles, then that is de facto ontological inequality. You know what I mean? I mean, you know, probably where I'm going with that, right? I mean, if women can't, they might frame it, can't be, you know, pastors or elders or leaders or whatever, then that is, then that means that's ontologically unequal. And all you have to do is go to Genesis one and say, Genesis one says they're equal. And therefore, according to the logic, everybody should be pastors and teachers. I just, I do, again, even if I ended up egalitarian, I just don't, I just don't, that theological assumption, it sounds more Greek, right? It sounds very much like if we have any kind of division of labor, even in the church or any kind of role distinction, then that is necessarily reflection of ontological inferiority.

Whereas it doesn't have to be that, right? again, regardless of what the conclusion is on women and leaders, you know, it doesn't happen like that. There could be role distinctions in the home, in the communal life that doesn't necessarily reflect ontological inferiority. Is that right? Right. In fact, role is one of those terms that ends up, it's kind of made its way into our consciousness. I feel like it's not helpful because a role is,

I think of like, I'm, I'm fulfilling a role. It's like, I'm, I'm playing a part. I'm wearing a certain hat. I actually think it's even more comprehensive than that. Um, and I, I see it more through the lens of relationships and responsibility. And when we think in terms of responsibility, well, with responsibility, there's also culpability, there's accountability. And so, for instance, a husband who is failing to nurture and nourish his wife is accountable to God for that. The same way a pastor who would be failing to nurture and spiritually nourish half his congregation, if not more than half.

And so in seeing their gifts flourish. And so, yes, I think that could be, that's a great way to think about it. I never made that connection that the more egalitarian focus would be also quite Greek too. I see Genesis 1, and I mentioned this in my book, To Be a Woman, I see Genesis 1 as framing humanity in context of the rest of God's creation. And then Genesis 2 is describing humanity in terms of their relationship, both to God and to each other. And so we're seeing that interplay of their differentiation and what we can glean from that as to what the responsibility, I would say what the responsibility of a man is in the human family and then in the church family

as well. So yeah, the thing of saying that if there is equality, then therefore there should not be a distinction of roles. I think we get into that when we neglect separating the task from the office. And that opens up a whole other group, a whole other thing. Here in my theological tradition in the Southern Baptist Convention, there is a lot of talk right now on the degree to which the task should conform and be limited to the office. So, for instance, a woman preaching, some people will say she's not an elder, she's not a pastor. A woman could preach on a Sunday morning. Others will say that is the task of an elder, that is the ministry of the pastor.

And so we would not allow a woman to do that. And so these are very valid conversations. But kind of underneath them is what is the relationship between the ministry and the office or between the task and the office. And even though I have my own lines, so to speak on what I feel like before God, I feel like I'm free to do or not do my own line, by the way, is wherever the ordinances are rightly administered. I consider that my boundary. So not a chapel, not a conference, something like that. But if the ordinances would be rightly

administered, I just, I don't need, I don't need to do that. And yet there are godly Bible believing scholars who would, who would differ. And I say, go with God. So as we're thinking through that though, when, when we make the task primary and not the office, it leads to things like a woman cannot teach theological content content in any context, the classroom. Well, what, what qualifies as theological content? Now, now we're getting down into the weeds of if. If she says something objectively true based in God's word, is that theological content? Can she pray and say something that that's theological content? And so it becomes these artificial lines because I think we are so conflating the task with the office that it ends up devolving into an ontological reason. Once you do that,

you have moved away from saying we have ontological quality with responsibility differences. And when it's grounded in the task, not the office, it ends up becoming an ontological argument of inferiority. I don't see how you can get around that. I don't see how some of my complementarian brothers can get around that either. Interesting. Man, they're so, okay. Yeah. I'm going to withhold my 18 different questions that I have regarded because I really want to get to the Old Testament, but that's super helpful. That's actually very helpful. Yeah. I'm going to abstain. Let's go to, can we go to the Old Testament? This is an area that you spent, I mean, this is like your dissertation research, right? For your

PhD, like you spent a lot of time in these, specifically Old Testament laws that at first glance from a modern Western perspective might seem profoundly misogynistic, but when read in light of their ancient context, they might not be so much. Can you give us some, I mean, there's a lot we can go to and you've looked at all these. Is there one in particular you want to start with and just kind of tease out what we're talking about? Yeah. So one that stands out and it's a very challenging law is the law, I call it the law of the captive war bride. I'm not the first to make that up, but the captive war bride in Deuteronomy 21. And first, whenever we're talking about the law, not just God's law, but any law, any nation's law is reflecting that value system. any law, any nation's law is reflecting that value system. So here we have laws that, for instance,

this is why abortion is such a chronically contested idea is because we have a clash of value systems that we are working out in our legal sphere. So when we're encountering God's law, we're encountering God's value system. We really are encountering the law giver in the law. we're encountering God's value system. We really are encountering the law giver in the law. And so the way that I'll say it is, you know, if I were a queen for a month, which is not that hard for me to imagine, but if I were queen, I would say that every Friday, everybody has to eat sushi and chocolate cake. What you were going to glean from that. I would vote for your queenship. What you were going to glean from that. I would vote for your queenship. Right?

That's it. And so it's like, this is a value that I am imposing on my subjects. And so this is the same thing. When we see the Lord's law, these are the values that he is saying his people are to abide by and not only abide by, but contrast the pagan nations around them. And because of course, Israel is his representative. They are his mediatorial representative on earth, his arm by which he is enacting justice on the earth. And so a lot of times when we counter these laws, we're going, why in the world is this in there? And a lot of times it's because this was being practiced in the ancient world. And the Lord who said, you shall be holy as I am holy, also said, when you encounter this

situation, here's how you are going to be separate. Here's how you are going to be different. Here's how you are going to contrast the pagan nations around you. So we see this in Deuteronomy 21, and it starts in verse 10. see this in Deuteronomy 21, and it starts in verse 10. And keep in mind, this is the giving of the law before they have claimed the promised land. And the Lord tells his people, if when you battle your enemies and the Lord is going to give you victory over them, and you are going to take them away captive, and among the captive, you see this beautiful woman. You're strongly attracted to her. I'm reading from the NASB, by the way. And you want to take her as a wife to yourself. Here's

what happens. Bring her into your home, shave her head, trim her nails. That is referring to, or it's symbolizing a shedding of her old identity. She's shedding her old identity and then removing her clothes of captivity. So she gets a new set of clothes that's also projecting a new identity, a new place in the house, and then remains in her house, weeps for her mother and father a full month. Some people would say that's to make sure she's not pregnant with some other man's baby. It's possible that that's at least part of it, but it doesn't give that as the reason it gives respecting the fact that her life has just turned upside down and she needs to mourn the family that she's lost. And then, uh, it says, and after that, you may have relations with her, become her husband, she shall be your wife. So here's what we get just right away. First of all, what this tells you is that women are not

plunder. Women are not property. In all of the plunder that God is going to give his people from the pagan nations that he has sent them to conquer and thereby bring his rule on the earth, women are not among them. So unlike other nations, this completely outlaws sexual slavery. This rivals what we see happening in the world today. We hear the horrors of any type of war-torn area, like right now, Ukraine, or you would hear about just the horrific acts of sexual violence against women. But even more than that, what it also is saying is that if a man wants to have a sexual relationship with a woman, there is no place for it outside a marriage and not just any marriage and Israelite marriage, because what verse 14 says,

Israelite marriage, because what verse 14 says, if you're not pleased with her, if you want to let her go. So basically if this was just a war bride, okay, you married her. So you could have sex with her and now you don't want her anymore. This is kind of like assuming the worst of him, right? It says, let her go wherever she wishes. So she has personal agency there. She would be able to remarry if that's the case. And you shall certainly not sell her for money. You shall not treat her as merchandise since you have humiliated her. So here's what we get. Once a woman, a pagan woman who doesn't share the culture, the language, the gods, the customs, anything. Once she becomes a wife, she is forever the status of an Israelite wife. She never goes back to being a slave.

And what's fascinating about this is, and it's not even contingent on her having a baby. And it's not even contingent on her having a baby. It's not that she doesn't go back to being a slave because she bore him a child, which is actually what some ancient Arabian law institute around the time of Muhammad said. Arabian law said if she's pregnant, then you can't treat her like a slave anymore. That makes the ground of her value in her pregnancy and her ability to produce offspring. No, the ground of her value in Israelite law is that she is a person in that you cannot sexually use a woman without taking responsibility for her. That is what God's law being didactic as all of God's laws are, is telling his people that you are going to be different. If you want to take this woman, if you want to have a sexual relationship with

this woman that was among the captured tribes that you have just overcome, you have to marry her. And before you marry her, you also have to serve her. You also have to allow her into your home, respect her space, relate to her as a person for a full month, and then marry her. And if you don't like her after that, she will never go back to being a slave. You can never use a woman sexually for the purpose completely of selfish gain or selfish gratification. It is staggering to me. So much so, there was this woman named Etta Lineman. Etta Lineman was the star student of Rudolf Bultmann.

And so if you're familiar with all of that, this is the school of thought, German higher criticism of essentially how can we take all the miracles out of the Bible, demythologizing the Bible, they called it, because no self-respecting person would believe things like the resurrection and virgin birth and all of that. Well, Etta Lineman was this brilliant theology student. And when she came to this law and she saw the heart of God for the most marginalized and potentially forgotten and exploited among them. One that should, a person who in any other nation, ancient or modern, would be treated not only as a slave, but potentially as just an animal used for sex and thrown away. And that the Lord in this ancient law forbade that of his people. Etta Lineman was so struck by that. She converted to Christ. He got saved reading God's law and seeing the justice and the heart of God's law through specifically this provision for the most marginalized and exploited among Israel. It is truly amazing to me what God not only sets up in His law, but what He's revealing about Himself in it, too.

That's a fascinating way of looking at it. I'm trying to think. So the main backdrop to the law is what would commonly happen. A woman would be either just raped and left for dead, right? I mean, her husband's been killed. Her army's been wiped out. So if she remains in her homeland, would that have been a lot worse off than – Let's just imagine a scenario, and is again probably imposing kind of a more western

assumptions into it but like what if he's like hey i conquered your army you know come with me and be my wife and she's like i don't want to go with you i'm gonna stay here and what if she was accredited that kind of agency with with that fictitious scenario you know not not that she you know in most ancient context the guy would probably just say, well, no, you're going to do what I say. And, you know, but let's just say she remained there. Would that almost have been worse off if she remained? Or sexual slavery in a way? Yeah.

See, I don't know. It's a good question. And it's sort of like paradigmatic in the sense of when you hit this situation, here's the moral pattern of justice to enact. And then also it's providing for a situation that is common at the time and then how God's people are going to respond. So, for instance, it could be that a law like this is similar to other laws that relate to multiple wives. God's intent was not multiple wives, but they did it. They married multiple wives. He was kind of regulating a pattern that was already embedded in the society.

Okay, okay. It is constraining or mitigating the sinfulness of humanity through a law like that. And so when you mentioned... Sorry, I want to kind of maybe reframe my question too, because you're drawing out what I don't think I was super clear at the beginning. So what if we... Because I think if we read this passage, we're like, why didn't God just say, if you conquer this enemy and

desire, you see a beautiful woman and desire her, stop it. She's not yours. You got a woman back at home, like let her be like, you know, and that's a dumb, that's such a, again, a modern, like if I was, you know, God, I would write the Bible. This is, so, I mean, I, but that's, I think that's, what's going on in people's minds are like, why even like entertain this? Sure. This is probably the best case scenario of a man desiring a woman and taking her back, you know, but like, why not just nip it at the bud? Why not just, you know, Hey, if you have a bunch of wives, make sure the wife you don't love very much, you know, that you don't treat their, her son, you know, that she bore to you worse than the son or the wife that

you really like. And, and we kind of, I think again, our modern sensitivities were like, why not just say, stop having two wives, you know? But again, we're not that that's, that's probably imposing this. I hear you saying, and I would definitely agree with this, that like, you just, we're not reading, we're just imposing all these modern assumptions onto a culture that just doesn't doesn't exist back then we have to look at the values that were drawn out in and and worked out in the ancient context that they were actually living in yes yes and so so a couple things that come to mind first of all the the freight is things in galatians the law was given because transgression increased something like that.

Like I should know this. This is my dissertation. No, I know. I should too. I know. Essentially as sin continued, the, there was more, there were more laws that had to be made. And so, so that kind of comes to mind. The law was increased because of transgression, I think is what it is. It's Galatians 3 or possibly Romans 6.

Yeah, it's definitely Galatians. Yeah. We'll leave it to your listeners to look it up. But the other thing to keep in mind too is that marriage was a woman's only means of survival. It was her only means of economic provision and status, unless she was going to be a slave. And so the difference here too is,

and we don't know the status of the man. Did he have no wife, multiple wives at this time? It doesn't really get into that. But all we know is he sees her, he wants her, and he can't just have her. He can't just take her as a sexual object. And so what it's essentially imposing on the people of Israel is, even though this woman in any other context would be a legal non-person, you do not have the right to treat her as a legal non-person. If you want to have a sexual relationship with her, you have to marry her and forever regard her as an Israelite wife

with all of the rights and privileges of an Israelite wife. And so the other element of there too, is that in this patricentrism or patriarchal culture, that a woman who did not have a husband was just bereft, just was at total loss. You know, just think about, you know, the whole scenario of the book of Ruth. And then when you mentioned a woman in a wartime context who would be raped or dead, that immediately reminded me of the end of Judges. Right. And that's exactly what happens. And the whole point of it is to display this is the degree to which the people of God have fallen because they have mirrored Sodom and Gomorrah. And when you look at the Hebrew, the language between the two narratives is parallel.

And not only that, but it was one i can't remember i want to say it was jacqueline less leslie lastly jacqueline somebody um she talked about how the the index or an index of a nation's spiritual health is how that nation treats its women interesting And so this is, this is something even to read on our own culture, the index of our spiritual health is in part how we treat women. And I mean, just think of that related to some of the, uh, the headlines that we're seeing today on, you know, women in locker rooms and bathrooms and showers and public spaces and all the transgender stuff and the vulnerability that it creates. And is that a reading back on our spiritual state as a nation? And it is because the degree to which a woman is exploited or vulnerable and unprotected, it is an indictment on the spiritual health of that nation.

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check out and subscribe to the Pour Over podcast in your favorite podcast app. This is one of, I'm guessing, several laws that reflect just the point you're making that they are concerned with protecting women who are much more vulnerable in this, whatever word we want to use, patriarchal, patrocentric culture. It's actually protecting the vulnerability of the women faced in that culture. Is there, is there another passage that teases this out? And that's a super helpful treatment. One of the more difficult, I mean,

honestly, this passage is, you just give a grabber the first time reading it in Bible college. I'm like, wow. And I wasn't even that concerned with like, you know, making sure women have equal value men.

Then it was, it's incredibly shocking. Because, and because we're reading it through our own contexts um there's a couple different directions we could go preston we could talk about um the childbirth laws for instance which brings up a lot of questions about you know double time of purification and all that oh yeah yeah so let's try that that's actually, I actually have one more question. I forget that. So, so when he, in the, in the, in the one we're just looking at, when he sends her away, you know, if he is not satisfied with her,

let her go. Is that, is that a divorce? And is that, I mean, there are, cause he's that's after he's already married her, right? Yeah. Sexual relations, husband and wife, and then verse 14. I guess my, yeah, what's my question? My question is, is that just divorce? But then I'm already thinking a few chapters later, we have divorce laws were more lenient in the Old Testament. So it's not like we can't impose.

Yeah. Anyway, so this is a divorce. Yeah. And then because of the hardness of your heart jesus said that to provide the certificate of divorce i think i think it would be reasonable to conclude let her go would mean um the marriage is dissolved so she can be married yeah yes because she's still an israelite wife right so she would be free to know, it's not, obviously this is not the ideal for anybody, but she would be free to marry. Maybe she'd be the third or fourth wife of somebody else, but that would provide for her financially and give her security and give her a home.

Yeah. But essentially she never goes back to being a slave. Okay. There is no price that anyone can pay that will be worthy of an exchange of her status as an Israelite wife. And that would have been the countercultural piece that would have stood out like a sore thumb if people were reading this in the ancient. Exactly. Exactly. That and having her come into his home and he can't touch her for a month also on on the on the dude being possibly married uh in the

chapter earlier with all the laws regarding warfare one of the allowances is you know are you have you been betrothed to a wife then you can stay home kind of thing so like if i it's and we don't know if they all did that but that is maybe interesting that yeah people were happily married and and whatever they were exempt from warfare so there might have been the assumption that most if not all soldiers would have been not betrothed to a wife, which would have meant they were probably quite a bit young. Well, younger, right? Yeah. Anyway, I just, I didn't think about it until now, but, um, cause it doesn't say take her as a second.

There's no, there's nothing in the actual text that assumes he's married. Right. Possibly given the exemption from the chapter earlier, we can assume he most likely was not, I don't know. Exactly. And again, this is where the, the paradigmatic aspect of God's law comes into place is that this is, and we especially see this like in the sexual assault laws in Deuteronomy 22, is that this is a pattern given to us to determine what is right, what is wrong.

And there might be scenarios that don't exactly match it. There might be details that don't exactly match it. There might be details that don't exactly match it, but it is describing the categories of guilt and innocence, right and wrong. All right. Yeah. Let's go to some of the, you picked which one you want to go to next. Yeah. Okay. Why don't we do, let's do childbirth laws just for kids because this is a fun one. Now, for the sake of time, we won't go through Leviticus 15, which the law presumes. So this law in Leviticus 12 is talking about the laws of motherhood. And if you'll go read Leviticus 15 verses 19 through 24, it talks about the ceremonial impurity that comes with menstruation. So any reproductive issue, normal or abnormal,

has its own provision for both male or female. And for a man, you are ceremonially, ritually unclean for the day or the duration of that sexual emission. And then for a woman, you are ceremonially, ritually unclean for the duration of that reproductive admission, reproductive admission as well would be blood. So wherever you have the presence of blood in Hebrew law, you have take this seriously. This is not something to treat trivially. This is not something to be glib about. And also wherever you have any type of reproductive issue or emission or reproductive act, as in sex between a husband and wife, that is also a very hard line of demarcation between the people and the holy things of God's temple or tabernacle. Because, again, the law didactic, God is teaching his people that unlike the pagan nations around them, they are never to conflate sexual acts with ritualistic worship.

sexual acts with ritualistic worship. And this is, this is in one of the things that we see in the prophets is that they're saying God's people have engaged in the very type of temple prostitution that the pagan nations around them did. In other words, using human sexuality as a way of ritual worship. So that's all the background. And we could get into like the period laws if we had more time, but just kind of assume that as we read Leviticus 12, and I won't read all of it, but essentially it says she has a male baby. She's unclean for seven days. Now that word unclean doesn't mean she's done anything wrong. There's moral unclean, and then there's ritual unclean. Moral unclean is you have knowingly transgressed a boundary of the Lord. Ritually unclean is there's no guilt. There's nothing to feel bad about. It's just, you are not permitted to come into the presence of the holy things

and your uncleanness can pass to somebody else. So she is ritually unclean for seven days as she is in the days of her menstruation, which means that she is for, she's not able to go to the temple or the tabernacle. Anything she lies on or sits on is ritually unclean. Some Hebrew, um, interpreters apply this to even anything she touches. So for instance, household items, which would mean that she wouldn't be cooking or cleaning or doing food preparation. And then also sexual abstinence. That's the big one, sexual abstinence in marriage on the eighth day, that baby is that male baby is circumcised. And then it says she shall remain at home or stay at home in the condition of her

purification for another 33 days. And so you've got a total of 40 days. So here's for a, for a woman who just had a male baby, here's how this works out for seven days. You are resting at home. You, uh, have your own space. You're caring for your baby on the eighth day, that time of impurification, that time of purification is lifted. It's like it's suspended. Why? Because now this mother can accompany the family to the temple for the circumcision of her infant son. So at this time, not only when the baby is going to need mama, and not only when the entire family, I mean, can you imagine going through something so traumatic without the mother there? And not only is the mother going to be missing something very significant in the life of her son as an Israelite boy, but be worrying about her son. He's in pain.

He doesn't have me with him. So all of those things, you couple rest and then worrying about her son. He's in pain. He doesn't have me with him. So all of those things, you couple rest and then worrying about the baby. Well, right away, you've got a recipe for postpartum depression. The baby comes home. She's with the baby the whole time. She doesn't have to make any kind of sacrifice to enter the temple for the circumcision, but then she comes home and has another 33 days of purification, meaning she doesn't have to go anywhere. She can stay at home and rest. She's not isolated at her house, but she has the option to just stay home and sexual abstinence, modern obstetrics and gynecology finds that a woman's system, her whole reproductive system, the delicate ecosystem that it is, her uterus returning back to where it's supposed to be. Also, her body flushing out blood and bacteria from giving birth.

It takes six weeks, 42 days. And here we have in Hebrew law, 40 days. Wow. Let that blow your mind. It's almost like God created women's bodies and knows how they work. Imagine that. Right? But now we get into a really tricky thing because now when she has a girl, you don't see the same thing in effect.

Rather, it's all doubled. So instead of that first seven days, the Lord doubles it to 14. Obviously, there's no circumcision. But then it says she has a female child, has two weeks there as in her time of menstruation, and then she shall remain in the condition of her purification for another 66 days. So that's 80 days total. God doesn't give us why this is. And he is not obligated to, right? He doesn't have to. But there are a few theories. Some of those theories are this. She's being punished for

having a girl. And so she has a time of purification that is an additional 40 days. And this is punitive. The problem with that is you don't see anything in the Hebrew Bible where ritual uncleanness is punitive. It's not punishment. So that categorically does not fit. Also, what we see in Genesis 1 is there would not be a punishment for having a girl because girls are not ontologically less than baby boys. Now for the sake of inheritance, you needed sons for the reasons we've already talked about the structure of

the culture, by the way, go read about the daughters of the law ahead. They made an allowance. So there's, there's that caveat too. But we can't say that it's punishment. Another theory says that it's because she is serving almost a time of purification for not only herself, but her daughter, who will herself grow up to have a period and have babies and be ritually unclean. Interesting theory. But the problem is that too goes against every other pattern in Hebrew law because one, ritual impurity is always for something that is concrete and present. It's something that is here and now. It's actual. It's not for something that might happen in the future. So that would be like a symbolic, like she's resting twice as long

as sort of a symbolic bonding or representation. A baby type of thing, yes. But that doesn't fit ritual impurity anywhere else. So it's always for something that is actual and in real time. Same with like laws about lepers or touching a carcass or something like that. Second, who in Hebrew law bears the impurity of someone else before God? The priests.

That's the only place. So the idea of a representative time of ritual impurity, that would also be something completely different. And it would be an anomaly in the rest of Hebrew law. And if Hebrew law is to be didactic, like just as the priests are representing the people to prepare the people to recognize their high priest, the Lord Jesus, who would come to take away the sins of the world, why would we have this one anomaly for this one thing where the mother is taking on the impurity of her daughter? That doesn't make sense either. Now, the best argument I've found is this. There was a professor of pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University named David Mockt. This was about a hundred years ago

now. David Mocked was a very revered professor. In fact, there's some research award that is still given in his honor every year. And he was a Jewish doctor. So here's what he did. He decided to find a hundred women, 97 or a hundred women who six weeks ago had had a baby boy. And then he found another hundred women who six weeks ago had a baby girl. And he tested the postpartum discharge of these women, six weeks postpartum. And here's what he found. He found that among the women who had a baby girl six weeks ago, that their postpartum discharge had a higher level of toxicity than among the women who six weeks ago had a baby boy. In other words, at this time, when people didn't know about

germs, bacteria, we didn't have antibiotics, a woman's biological ecosystem may still have been flushing out the bacteria, the mucus, the blood that is just natural that a woman's body is expelling. And her body may have needed more time after having a baby girl to get rid of all of that bacteria than if she had had a baby boy. And what David Mocked concluded is, even though it's an argument from silence, it's one that is in harmony with the rest of scripture. And he said, it is possible that the reason for the double time of purification was the Lord instituting something for the sake of public health. That sounds, I mean, it's one of those almost sounds too good to be true, but it makes a whole lot of, but I mean, that's not an argument against it.

It's just like, golly, the ancient biblical authors, apart from inspiration, would not have been able to. Well, would they? I mean, if they, they could have just been really observing patterns of these kinds of things too. Yeah, like germs and, you know, the mikvah out there, you know, all the washings and all of that. I mean, as a Christian, it's easy to say inspiration, see God knew ahead of time. And that's probably true. I'm just, I don't always like to rely on that to explain. Sure.

You know what I mean? Maybe I shouldn't, I'm not ashamed of inspiration you know i just i also like to see does this correlate with uh um the the way biblical writers in their ancient context were also kind of thinking i guess it's not an either or there um i have biblical scholars follow what's that go ahead go ahead no i was gonna say you also have other laws related to dietary restrictions. Right. And, you know, they didn't eat catfish. Turns out catfish were bottom feeders.

They were eating all the waste from other, you know, so stuff like that, that it's like, they probably did not have the scientific advancement to understand the why behind it. But, but this was, this was the reason that, or this was the reason that they obeyed. It was simply because God said. But, you know, are there laws in the Old Testament law that the Lord gave simply out of he knew what his people didn't? And I think at least if we have a theory, it's not an explanation because we don't have an explanation, but a theory that is both in harmony with the ontological equality of male and female. It is not an anomaly that is different from the rest of scripture. And it demonstrates a few things that first, the law is good and it is also for our good. And so if we can find something like that, what if this was about the Lord protecting not only the woman but her husband from being exposed to bacteria before her body had fully healed from the trauma of labor? That's fascinating.

Are there other biblical scholars that follow his thesis? Because he's not a biblical scholar, right? Not that I found. I found this in a journal article, right? Not that I found, not that I found, I found this in a journal article and it was just like, it was just gold. I just went, who could have known? Because, cause you know, you're, you're trying to find, and, and I will, I will admit confirmation bias that I believe that all the Bible is true and

that God's law is good. We just have to, we have to find how it is. And some of it, we may not understand in this life, but when I found this, it was like, I can't believe nobody else has picked up on this. And so maybe someone will, but it takes someone in the medical field, obviously. Have you published, why don't you publish this in a peer reviewed journal? I mean, if it's a prayer for me, because I've me because I've got people asking, I don't know the best way to go about this. It's like, is that Bible study?

Is it a book? Is it a journal? Stuff like that. So because it's something that it gets down into the weeds. It's hard to explain it without saying anything like this. I'm just really teasing it out. But it's a message that I think needs to be out there. You should publish it in Jets or BBR. Yeah, that would be.

Maybe I'll do it in your recommendation. Be like, y'all, Preston Sprinkle said I should give this to you. It must be good. Yeah. If I was on the editorial team, I would request that. No, I, I, I preach. I, I, I like I appreciate, I like your approach that like, hey, sometimes God reveals to us the moral rationale behind laws. Other time it's less clear. When it's less clear, I think we can use, you know, in this case, kind of general revelation truths. You know, there's certain ways in which God has just embedded in his creation design in ways that are observable differences between men and women. And, and that, I think it's a,

I like that you said this isn't the explanation, but it's a very, it's a coherent theory that resonates with both general revelation, special revelation in the sense that we do see God being concerned with women, despite how maybe some people, you know, assume the Old Testament treats women. So no, it's fascinating. I've always wondered about, and I think people always race to whatever they see male-female difference like this, you know, female child, you got to rest longer or whatever. It's like, oh, see, this is inequality. It's like, well, before you rush to that, is there something else going on here? oh, see, this is inequality.

It's like, well, before you rush to that, is there something else going on here? Well, and keep in mind, keep in mind for a woman having an additional 40 days, that meant an additional 40 days of rest. It's not a punishment. This was state-recognized, divinely instituted maternity leave.

This is the stuff that people on the progressive wing of our political discourse are calling all companies to be able to give and hailing it when it's something that we see. But then here, God gives it for his people and all, it must be misogynistic, right? It must be patriarchy. Yeah, it's just the patriarchy. Yeah. It's just the patriarchy. Before I let you go, I want you to talk about your new book briefly, To Be a Woman,

because this intersects with, I don't know, I won't, obviously, I will say obviously as if, you know, but like, yeah, this is an area that I'm deeply interested in and have thought about and written on. And I've not read your book yet. I'm going to email your publisher and have them send me one. So I don't have an opinion on it. Can you give me your overview of it? And then I'll see if I have a question or two. Okay. Here it is. It's purple with two chromosomes on the front to be a woman. Oh, is that one of the two chromosomes? Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two chromosomes to be a woman, confusion over female identity and how Christians can respond. It is essentially as many pieces of research and footnotes that I could pack into it. The hope is that it is like a one stop shop for parents and pastors, mothers and ministers trying to get their mind around this culture of widespread gender confusion and why it is disproportionately affecting young women. widespread gender confusion and why it is disproportionately affecting young women.

Certainly men, young men represented in it, but it focuses on how it's affecting young women. Most of the research is applicable to how it's affecting both genders. But I go into explaining the prevailing standards of care and therapeutic methods, the ideas that have led us to the moment that we're in philosophically and how we are all very much products of this culture that's been developing and go into the relational and how we are all, when we are displaying our gender, it is like this relational bid. Someone that's not someone else's words described. I thought it was just perfect. It's that we are trying to relate in a way that expresses who we believe ourselves to be. And then also all the different treatments, whether it's a hormonal or surgical and how those are affecting people. If I could go back and rewrite it, I would add more because it's like every week we're

learning something new. And then the biological is beyond the obvious differences between male and female, rooting that in the neurological patterns of the differences between male and female to demonstrate that, like you said, there's not a male brain and a female brain. It's not brain sex theory or anything like that. It's just talking about these broad patterns of how we understand gender difference and how gender difference in a neurologically difference, it creates and expresses itself in what we would call gendered behavior, gender stereotypical behavior. And so that line between nature and nurture, I don't think there is one. I think it's just, it is a comprehensive whole being, which is how God created us to be. And then finally, uh, the theological is the kind of the why behind, why do we have two genders? What is the meaning of gender? And then the final chapter is like

what you can't afford not to know. Here's, here's some things that, that parents especially would need to know about, uh, school curricula, pornography, autogynephilia. I mean, we go, we go all the issues, all the issues in just six pages. So I hope it serves people well. And Preston, your influence is just riddled throughout the book. And so you were heavily footnoted. And so thank you for the work that you're doing in it. And then I even go into like pronouns, which I say with no judgment, because in part, we are in real time learning how to do this in the right way. And I tell people, we don't have old dead guys to consult on these questions. We're going to be the old dead guys unless the Lord returns. And so, you know,

just the grace that we need to give each other as we're thinking through how to be faithful disciples in this cultural moment that we're in. And so I hope that it serves readers well, especially for the mom out there who is trying to help disciple her kids through everything that they're seeing. That's a great, wow. I cannot wait to read it. Do you have an opinion on why girls are disproportionately affected by this? Because that's just data that nobody disputes in virtually every Western country, which that's a whole other maybe aspect to this. But I mean, three to one, four to one, aspect to this, but, um, I mean, three to one, four to one, especially among teenagers,

girls to guys that experienced some kind of, um, I don't want to say even call it gender dysphoria, some kind of disconnect, um, with their biological sex for whatever reason. Yeah. Do you have any theories on why, why that's so disproportionate? Yeah. I think at the core of it, it is actually the exploitation of how God made girls emotionally and relationally. So in the biological chapter, I get into this, that women, and this is from secular neuropsychiatrists, one researcher called women a machine built for connection. From 24 hours old, a female baby will be more responsive to the cries

of other babies. Girls are, baby girls are wired to spontaneously empathize and connect with other people. Even that concept of like a woman's intuition, some scientists are saying there's a neurological basis to this and it's different and complimentary to the strengths. And, uh, I don't even want to say weaknesses, but, but the comparative strengths of men. And so girls also, you look at how girls have, when girls have competition in their relationships, it is bad news. It is drama mama. Right. And so it's, you look at girls competing over who is whose best friend. And girls also, when as anyone, any girl in middle school

can remember part of how you are even connecting with friends, you are co-ruminating, you are reliving negative feelings. You are taking on the offense or the feelings of your friends, and you are identifying with them. So couple that with girls tend to hang on to negative emotions longer. Females are wired to recall more vividly negative emotions and relive those feelings. Women are also more likely to experience anxiety and depression. Some of that can be even related to estrogen levels. And so there's all this research at the neurological level that I think when we boil it down, it is the exploitation of girlhood that you have young girls who are not only vulnerable because of their ages,

uh, being told that if they don't enjoy being a girl at puberty, that maybe they're actually a young man trapped in a girl's body. Well, who, what girl enjoyed puberty? It was awful. It was the worst, right? It's, it's something that it's why we need people to guide us through this, this aspect of our development into adulthood. And so, so girls are being told that essentially the reasons that they would identify with friends and the research also shows that if a girl has a friend who comes out as trans, that within a short amount of time, she will as well. So it's the empathizing, the identification with, the absorbing and internalizing of emotions. And you put all of that together in a social media culture of suggestion,

and you have the vulnerability of girls to identify as transgender. And then, of course, there's the other things that Lisa Lippman and then J. Michael Bailey was researching as well, that, you know, you couple that with things like the coping mechanism aspects of it's not all abuse, but a lot of it can be related to abuse. There was a counselor who did a congressional testimony not too long ago who said some staggering number was in the 70s of trans identifying people also report some type of sexual abuse in their background. I mean, I'd love to know the research on that, but we can't separate it. I've lost count of how many girls. It was psychological survival. It's that the world is not safe to be a woman. And so if I were a man, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be harmed. And so it requires, and it's something that you do so well in your work, in your ministry of great compassion for the people who are in the middle of these questions. But then I also think it requires of us great courage

to confront the things that are creating this in such widespread numbers, really an entire generation. And to call that out, not in a spirit of anger, but in a spirit of wanting to, the same way we would be screaming at a bus driver who was about to run over a cliff and harm all the people in it. Right. It's just, we're trying to, we are trying to prevent disaster. And then of course there's a spiritual aspect,

right? You know, we have an enemy who hates God, hates God's image and Satan will stop at nothing to convince all of us that to defy God and harm our bodies is the key to freedom. Where do you see the state of the phenomena, I guess I would say, in the next two to five years? Do you see it getting, like as the numbers, like more and more, especially teenagers, and especially again, just statistically female teenagers wrestling with this on whatever level it could be like severe clinically diagnosed gender dysphoria all the way to some kind of social influence to something in between maybe body dysmorphia that as you know as you said you know probably the overwhelming majority of females experience

some kind of body dysmorphia post post or during puberty. And maybe that's being interpreted as gender dysphoria or whatever. There's a whole spectrum of when we say women going through this, this is what do we, you know, there's a whole range. Where do you see that in five, two to five years? Do you see the numbers keep going up? Do you see a tipping point? Do you see, I've got my own thoughts, but I think, I think there's a, there's a few elements to it. So first of all, the, the rush to hormonal and surgical transition is right now very profitable for hospitals. I mean, there's this leaked video of some hospital administrators saying these surgeries are big money and, uh, and it's evil. Like, let's just like, you have,

you have children who need therapy, like what Chloe Cole said before Congress. Like I didn't need to transition. I needed therapy and she did. And, um, I think there's a couple of things. First, I think if young women like Chloe Cole, if our judicial system goes the route that it did with Kyra Bell in the UK that led to the closing of Tavistock, then it's possible that we're going to see this, forgive my cynicism, but this sudden realization that what these children need is psychological care and not gender transition. When, when, if she were to win her suit, not only against the doctors, but the health insurance companies, and this no longer becomes profitable, I think we could see a shift there. What I do think, I do think we're seeing now is that instead of a national approach, it's going to be state by state. And that's why you have, is it Minnesota? That's the trans refuge state. And then you have here in Texas and Florida and Virginia, and then California is doing their own thing and New York. And, and so it's, it's state by state. But I also think you have enough parents who are just sounding the alarm. What I, what I'm

waiting to see, I don't have a clear sense of yet because countries more progressive than ours have reversed course on quote unquote gender affirming care among minors. We've not, and I don't know if we will because in American culture, all changes progress and all progress is good. So I don't know what we're going to see. Uh, I think it's going to take, it's going to take a while. It's going to take, um, well, another thing it'll take is certain research not being suppressed, uh, being accurately reported in the media. We don't have that. So I do think the ship will turn, but there's a few elements culturally, sociologically, um, um academically corporately we

have corporate giants just all on board pushing this too and so there's a lot i think we're going to hit a tipping point but i think it's going to be a while before we see things uh reverse yeah i i think i'm mostly in agree i think i'm maybe a little more hopeful, largely because, like you said, the country is more progressive than we are. The Scandinavian countries, even there was some recent thing in Denmark, the UK obviously has been rethinking, shifting more of a focus from surgical intervention to psychological care for youth. And to me, I just feel like as much as America likes to pride itself on being so progressive, we're still kind of more conservative than these countries are, you know? And so I wonder if it's, and I don't know enough to speak into this, but the way the

medical system is set up in America is financially very different. So that a case like Curabel, somebody told me wouldn't actually happen here because of how capitalistic our medical care system is so that the other countries don't have the financial problems wrapped up in it. I don't know enough to speak into that. That's just, I'm kind of, you know, so there may be some differences there. I just, for me, I, you know, look at, you know, you take something like same sex marriage marriage and you have, at this point, the majority of the population would be for same-sex marriage. You would even have a decent percent, you know, you had libertarians.

They're kind of like, you know, live and let live. You have, you know, some just right of center Republicans who would maybe even be for same-sex. Like it's kind of a done deal. The overwhelming majority would agree with that. Whereas with a lot of the trans stuff, especially when it comes to youth, you have obviously anybody who's left of center, center, or all of right of center who would be opposed to it. You have most older gay and lesbian people who are opposed especially lesbians um you have um a whole swath of feminism that's opposed to it you have people like the bill mars of the world who check off every socially liberal box who is opposed you know so you unlike the same-sex marriage you have a a

huge very diverse contingency in the culture that is at least behind closed doors saying yeah i'm not sure about transitioning 15 year old girls who think they're a boy you know but you do have this loud kind of very more extreme view that is trying to make itself sound more mainstream than i think it actually is and And maybe even social media can kind of get that perception. Those are my kind of optimistic, like, and like you said, money talks in America. It's, the more and more I peek behind the curtain, I'm like, this whole game is largely rigged and money is at the, money and power is at the center of so much of the food industry. And you go back, the military-industrial complex,

there's so many things that you wave a dollar in front of somebody and they'll change their values really quickly. So yeah, I'm maybe more hopeful. But sometimes the cultural trends, you may have a shift in perspective, but then it might take several years for it to really take hold in society. And that's a, that's a lot of human beings that are going to be harmed in the wake of that. And I agree with you.

Between now and then, between now and then. And then you mentioned the social media. I think some of it can also just be, I hesitate to use the word mainstream media because i feel like that those things in our vernacular but you turn on two different cable news channels and we're living in two different realities on this issue and uh the one that comes to mind is the uh the college man i don't mean that like to try to be offensive but he's a he's a man he's a male um who was part of the sorority in the state.

But you you see two different I saw. I think it was CNN and Fox News and how they were both covering that. And it was two different realities. Yeah. And so some of this is the way that our media is presenting this issue and and really the culpability that they have on both sides because we can't just make this the stuff of memes and jokes right right right these are people but these are people being influenced by ideas and policies being proliferated in all these different spheres of society yeah yeah so yeah not easy we will not be able to solve it on this podcast yeah yeah we

were not gonna yeah yeah but your book will help stir some thinking. So again, the book is, uh, what is a woman? What's the subtitle again? I don't have it in front of me. To be a woman, to be a woman. Sorry. This woman was a documentary. It's not the Matt Walsh documentary.

Don't worry. You did write an article called what is a woman? It's up in front of me. So yeah. So to be a woman, the confusion over female identity and how Christians canians can respond uh katie thanks so much for being on the podcast really appreciate you and uh have a great day thanks for having me This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.