Rebecca
Hello.

Sheila
And we’re gonna talk evidence.

Rebecca
Yes, we have. You guys always love when we do this. We found two new research articles and by new, I mean, they’ve been out in the last five years. Yeah. They’re not all gonna be two months old guys. New research is new research, okay?

Sheila
But stuff we haven’t talked about yet. Exactly.
Which goes along with what we do here at Bear Marriage. So we got one on porn, we got one on rape culture myths and purity culture.

Rebecca
We’re gonna tie it all together at the end.

Sheila
We are. And then I have an interview with Joash Thomas with his new book, Justice of Jesus, coming up later too. So super fun Podcast, this is episode number 298. Do you know what that means, Rebecca?

Rebecca
Oh, wow. We’re only two episodes away from number 300.

Sheila
We are. And so I’ve had some requests from our patron group. Yes. For episode 300 that we’re gonna do some Best of Becca.

Rebecca
Yes.

Sheila
Because you’ve had some pretty funny moments. So we are compiling those behind the scenes, so get ready for that.

Rebecca
And remember, patrons, when you’re listening, if there is a clip from me that you want to have included, even if it was from a live event that’s still in the Facebook group, make sure that you go and put that information in the pinned post on the patron Facebook group. And if you want to get in on the fun, you can join our patron group.

Sheila
Yes, you can. Just patreon.com/BareMarriage. The link is in the podcast notes. And for as little as $5 a month, you can help what we do, help support what we do, make sure that our research continues.

Rebecca
And join the tons of people in the Facebook group who go and just like to lovingly make fun of me. Yes.

Sheila
They do. They really do. We’re still on Becca CollectED Rocks.

Rebecca
They’re gonna be mad I said that, but that’s fine. I like it.

Sheila
Yeah. And also our patron group helped me with one of my recent Fixed It For You.

Rebecca
Yes.

Sheila
When Emerson Eggrich claimed that women don’t need physical release, don’t need to orgasm. So that was fun. So we do a lot of great stuff in our patron group. So join us there or other ways to support us. Remember to mark this podcast five stars and give it a review. It helps other people see it.

Rebecca
Absolutely.

Sheila
Okay, Becca. Would you like to talk about our new studies?

Rebecca
Sure.

Sheila
The new studies we found, not our new studies.
Rebecca
Absolutely. We’ll do the one on purity culture and rape myths first. Yeah. So the study came out that measured whether or not increased belief in purity culture tropes matched an increased rate of accepting rape myths.

Sheila
Right.

Rebecca
So as they wanted to see, do purity culture tropes erode our ability to correctly identify rape and do they prime us to believe rape myths?

Sheila
I’m gonna go with yes, but let’s see what’s a study found.

Rebecca
There we go. Okay. I’m gonna read two sections of it that are a little bit long, but I just thought they said it so well. And I don’t want to fumble over a just rehashing of what they wrote quite well. So here we go.

Sheila
Because we know how hard it is to write these things.

Rebecca
We do. I’m gonna give props to where it’s due. Way to go. Okay. Okay. So this is from the paper, The Relationship Between Purity Culture And Rape Myth Acceptance that was written by Bretland Owens, M Elizabeth Hall, and Tamara Anderson from Biola University.

Sheila Yeah. And I think it’s in the Journal of Psychology and Theology. Yeah. We’ll put the link in the podcast notes.

Rebecca
We will. Obviously the links will be in the podcast notes. Yeah. But here’s the two quotes I really want to share with you. First of all, a significant positive relationship between purity culture and rape myth acceptance was demonstrated as well as significant positive relationships between the three purity culture sub scales and rape myth acceptance. So this indicates that individuals who endorse purity culture beliefs are likely to have higher acceptance of rape myths. A significant negative relationship was found between purity culture beliefs and correct labeling of the marital rape and the acquaintance rape of vignettes. This finding indicates that individuals who endorse purity culture beliefs are likely to incorrectly label marital rape and acquaintance rape as consensual sexual encounters.

Sheila
Yeah. Which is scary.
Rebecca
It is. And it’s also exactly what we have found as well.

Sheila
Yeah. And we found a lot of this in our survey for She Deserves Better Too. Yeah.

Rebecca And Great Sex Rescue. Every single survey we have ever done. Yes.

Sheila
Because we did find that the more that you grew up in churches that taught you all the purity culture stuff, the less likely you were to understand date rape, to understand what consent was, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Rebecca
Absolutely. What I wanted to say is I know that we have a lot of people who listen to the podcast who they love what we do, but they are skeptical of like the peer reviewed world. Because they say, well, they just have some liberal agenda. They hate religion. They hate Christians.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
So I actually wanted to read you what was published as the recommendations in this secular liberal journal article as the conclusion for the study. Are you ready?

Sheila
Yes.

Rebecca
And this is a little long, but it just was really well done. Okay. The findings of this study indicate that the teachings of purity culture may predispose Christian youth to more readily blame survivors of sexual assault for their attacks as well as increase their tendency to discredit the validity of an assault. As such, pastors and churches should eliminate purity culture teachings and promote instead biblical sexual ethics that are free from victim blaming attitudes. Based on the current findings, Christian leaders should aim to promote internal religious motivation and encourage their youth to view religion as a framework for their entire lives as this has been shown to lessen the victim blaming attitudes born out of purity culture teachings. In addition, the church’s conversation on sexuality should explicitly deny any teachings that promote sexist attitudes or harmful sex roles that endanger female sexual safety. For example, commands to refrain from sexual immorality are prescribed to both males and females throughout the Bible. Furthermore, husband and wife are taught to become one flesh and engage in mutual submission and marriage. As such, it does not appear that the Bible teaches that females are more responsible for sexual boundaries than males. All of God’s people are instructed to avoid sexual immorality. By refocusing the church’s discussion on sexual ethics to what is explicitly taught in scripture, with care to avoid interpretations that are influenced more by cultural standards than by exegesis, many of the associations of sexism, victim blaming, and intolerance can be eliminated from this discourse.

Sheila
Wow.

Rebecca
So the peer reviewed journal is like they just need to be more biblical. And I just thought that was really important to point out because I know that there’s a lot of people who come from very evangelical backgrounds who maybe like, I’m so sorry to say this, but if you went to like a Christian university, there’s a lot of hesitancy among a lot of these smaller private Bible colleges that are tied to denominations about the world and you have to be in your own Christian research centers because the world doesn’t want to hear this. This is the world. This is them. And they’re saying, you just need to get back to the Bible. Just get back to what the Bible says. Christians should just teach what the Bible says and then they wouldn’t be victim blaming and they would be fine. And so I just, that’s something I really wanted to point out.

Sheila
Yeah. And kudos to Biola University, which is a Christian university for, yeah, these people who wrote this.

Rebecca
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There’s just, we don’t need to be afraid of as Christians to do good research. And I love seeing Christians doing good research and I love seeing how it is accepted.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
And yeah, it just cool.

Sheila
So, I just want to talk about the study. So what they did was they gave people, well, first of all, they measured their purity culture beliefs, right? And gave them a bunch of questions. Do you believe this, et cetera, et cetera. And then they gave them a bunch of different vignettes. And then they said, okay, was this consensual or not? Was this rape or not? Yeah. And the point that they’re making is the more that you believe in purity culture, the less likely you are to recognize marital rape.

Rebecca
Yeah, and acquaintance rape.

Sheila
And acquaintence rape, date rape. Yeah.

Rebecca
You know, acquaintance rape. Any form where you knew the person already.

Sheila
Right.

Rebecca
And I think what’s happened is in purity culture, and we’ve talked about this before, this is not news to people, right? Sex is defined entirely as sin. And so that’s why like all of these books

Sheila
That sex outside of marriage, yeah, is defined entirely as sin.

Rebecca
Honestly, honestly, it’s just that the sin is allowed now. Yeah. I think that’s more accurate. No, but like all this stuff that we read as teenagers, the books that are given, they do a really good job of talking about how no one should force you to do something you don’t want to do. And you know, if someone does something to you and it wasn’t under your control, like that’s, that’s, that’s totally not okay. But what they mean is like the stranger grabbing you off the street.

Sheila
Right.

Rebecca
And that’s really what the only area where they were really able to teach people what rape looks like because they’d say these things, but then they give examples of girls being coerced and having power imbalances. And it’s not this girl was taken advantage of by the 47 year old volleyball coaches. How disgusting is she that she’s 15 years old and going out with a 47 year old volleyball coach.
She needs Jesus. Or like, that’s not the same thing. But when you talk about everything in terms of whether or not it’s allowed or it’s sin, and you don’t talk about it in terms of whether it’s healthy, you know, and, and the reason it’s given that it’s healthy or not healthy is just because it’s sin.

Sheila
Yeah. Well, I remember what happened. So the title nine, which is in the United States, and in order to get, in order for universities to get funding, they have to go by headline guidelines, I think a lot of them have been thrown out recently. But one of them was you had to educate about consent. And so Cedarville University, which is a Christian university got in a bunch of trouble because they were trying to abide by title nine and, you know, educate about consent. And so they had a picture in the women’s washroom, which asked girls, have you enabled your boyfriend to go past your boundaries?

Rebecca
Oh, gosh.

Sheila
And so this hit the national news because honey, that ain’t consent. Exactly. Right. Like, um, and so it’s like, that’s part of the problem is that when, um, when you reduce sex before marriage entirely into sin or, or, well, just you call it sin, right, then there is no way to talk about what does consent look like because we shouldn’t even be talking about having sex in the first place. And that was some of the discussion that came out of this whole Cedarville University thing is that a lot of youth groups and a lot of Christian universities have trouble talking about consent because the only message being given is don’t do it.

Rebecca
Yes.

Sheila
And so the only, and, and so if we talk about how, hey, you know, this is what consent looks like and this is, this is not consent, then you’re kind of acknowledging that people might do it.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Sheila
And we can’t acknowledge people might do it. And so we can’t even talk about it.

Rebecca
Well, it’s because we’re not willing to talk. And this is, this is a really controversial take. Like, I’m sorry, this offense, we were not willing to talk about layers and levels of sin. Right? Like, because there’s a level where if you believe that all sex for marriage is sin, surely you believe that raping someone is worse.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
But they can’t talk about that because they would know because we’ve all sinned and everything’s the same. And then are you saying that some people need Jesus less? No. But what I am saying is if we can’t have a conversation with our 14 15 year olds about how you getting carried away and you and your boyfriend going further than you wanted, that you both wanted it in the moment and it was consensual is a completely different experience and a completely different issue than someone who is actively going past boundaries that they know you do not want to cross and is just pushing past your freeze response.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Those are two fully different things. And we’re not willing to have that conversation because it makes it sound like we’re saying, but then they’ll be okay with doing the less bad sin and I’m like, but we can’t be honest. We can’t be honest. It is better. So much more comfortable. Like if I were in a room with two men and one of them had consensual sex with 150 women and one of them raped one woman, which man do you want to be in the room with?

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Right? I know which one I want to be in the room with. I know which one I would want to be more likely to be the soccer coach. Like I’m sorry. Just these are different things.

Sheila
They are. And when we don’t distinguish them, we run into a lot of trouble. And the other reason that we can run into trouble is not just that we don’t explain consent, but that we blame women for inflaming men’s desires. So you know, and all the modesty messages do that, right? Like a boy, like one of the things that we measured in our She Deserves Better study was a boy can’t help but lust if you’re dressed like she’s trying to incite it. So you know, so like if he’s lusting after you, it’s your fault. Books like Every Young Woman’s Battle said that, you know, like you teach him how to treat you by what you wear. And so it’s like, well, if he’s going to act towards me based on what I’m wearing, then if he hurts me, it’s because of what I was wearing.

Rebecca
And we heard that over and over again in our focus groups. Right.

Sheila
And rape victims. And another belief that we measured was boys can get to a point where they can’t like a point of no return where they can’t help it.

Rebecca
That’s been a really widely measured rape myth. Yeah. And it’s all over the literature for teenagers.

Sheila
And that’s what we’re taught is that girls have to be the sexual gatekeepers because boys can’t help it after a certain point. And so if the boy got carried away, it’s because you let him.
Which is kind of what Cedarville University was saying.

Rebecca
And it also explains why we’re finding this inability to identify marital rape as well. Yeah. And that’s the big thing that ends up happening is, okay, so say that you quote unquote did everything right. Right. Nothing ever quote unquote. Nothing ever happens. Yeah. Right. Like in high school, like because I’m not saying that the kids who did everything I’m talking about in purity culture lingo, right? You are the perfect purity culture kid, right? You were protected and you never made any mistakes. And then you get married and you married someone who is very forceful and who is selfish and coercive. And you don’t understand how to, how to put to words what is happening.
Because you’ve never been given the word.

Sheila
And you’ve also been told your body belongs to him. Yep. That he owns your body.

Rebecca
Yep. You’re also one of the women who has never had a sexual experience when aroused. And so you don’t have the understanding of what is sex supposed to feel like. And it’s always felt clinical and be like you’re being used. We hear that from a lot of women as well. And this stuff sets women up for disaster in multiple areas of life. And it’s just sad. This is why we need to be talking about sex in a nuanced way. And we need to not be afraid of talking about sex in a nuanced way. There was so much emphasis when I was growing up on just making your teenagers didn’t do it. And there wasn’t a lot of emphasis on making sure that they are the kinds of people who are respectful. Respectful was only defined as not having sex. It was not possible to be someone who had sex as a 21 year old and was a respectful person. And it is. You can. Does that mean that you should be having a lot of sex with random people? I personally don’t think so.

Sheila
No.

Rebecca
I personally.

Sheila
Very strong. No.

Rebecca
But it does not mean that you’re inherently a disrespectful person who doesn’t care about those people. It just is more nuanced.

Sheila
Do you remember the Brio magazine article that we quoted in She Deserves Better? That guy?

Rebecca
Yes. Who.

Sheila
Okay. So there’s this guy. I’m going to see if I remember the story. So he wrote this article for Brio talking to girls about how the way they dress is like putting wearing meat around your neck and then going in front of a lion. And there are many girls that he had, if a girl gave him an inch, he would take a mile in his dating life. But he was so proud that he made it to marriage a virgin. Yeah. And it’s like, honey, if you took a mile when she gave you an inch, you’re a sexual predator, even if you didn’t actually have intercourse.

Rebecca
Yeah, exactly. It’s like there’s a lot of different kinds of sexual assault.

Sheila
Yeah. I just, that just blew our minds. So we talk about all this lot and She Deserves Better, pick up that book. We start conversations like this between you and your kids in our Whole Story puberty and sex course. So we’ll put a link to both of those things in the podcast notes because that way you can start talking to your kids in a healthy way so that they recognize date rape teenagers, but also so that they’re equipped when they get married and they’re going to recognize thier

Rebecca
And also so that when they make their own decisions about sexual boundaries in high school and beyond, it’s a true decision. It’s not fear. It’s not panic. It’s an empowered, consensual choice, which is what you want anyway. Yes.

Sheila
Yes. Exactly. Okay. Want to move on to the next one?

Rebecca
Yeah. Let’s go to the next one. All right. Okay. Let me have a second article, second article here. That a number two is called Distress And Satisfaction In Women Who Perceive That Their Male Partners Use Pornography, The Roles Of Attitude, Religious Commitment And Conservative Religiosity by Elizabeth Ruffing, Leslie Brody and Steven Sandage or Sandage. Okay.

Sheila
And we’ll put the link to it, of course, in the podcast.

Rebecca
Yes. All right. Okay. So pretty much what they measured was they, they were saying all this research has been done on whether or not porn affects male sexual satisfaction.

Sheila
Right.

Rebecca
And whether or not pornography used by women impacts women’s sexual satisfaction, but there hasn’t been a lot of research on how male pornography use in relationships impacts their partner as though they were trying to fill that gap.

Sheila
Okay. Good for them.

Rebecca
Yes. Thinking about women. Yes. Interesting finding at least I find it very interesting because it’s it’s actually one. Here’s what they found. Contrary to our hypotheses, neither attitude nor religious commitment significantly moderated the association between perceived frequency of partners, porn use and pornography related distress. This suggests that the association between perceived frequency and pornography related distress, such as feeling excluded or less desirable exists to the same degree, regardless of attitude. It also suggests that there is something unique about conservative religiosity, not religious commitment that may exacerbate this distress, perhaps because it provides an interpretive community that anticipates and in a sense prescribes that male partners, porn use will have devastating wide ranging impacts on women.

Sheila
Okay.
So they explain that means I don’t think most people are going to get that.

Rebecca
So in essence, what they found was that no matter what, even if you have a positive attitude about porn use, which means you don’t think it’s a big deal.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
So in research, things like positive and negative aren’t good and bad. It’s just a descriptor.

Sheila
Yeah. Okay.

Rebecca
So this isn’t them saying the good women and the bad women. No, just positive attitudes and negative attitudes. Even if you have positive attitudes, even if you’re like, I don’t know, I think porn can be kind of sexy. You’re one of those people. If you see, if you perceive your partner as using porn frequently, it still has negative effects on you.

Shelia
Yeah.

Rebecca
So even among positive, um, yeah, poor is poor is bad.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
If you are using porn frequently, it damages your relationship.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
In essence, it’s the same thing that you found in your study of men. It’s a dose dependent situation where the more frequently this is using, the worse the outcomes that is regardless of attitude, regardless of, uh, religiosity.

Sheila
And especially, especially for sexual satisfaction, which they also found.

Rebecca
Yeah. And they talked about how they think that a lot of this is because, um, there again, those feelings of being excluded or being worried, like, am I not desirable? Do they not want me? Um, do they want something else? And then of course that they, they mentioned the tropes that are in sex, uh, in porn that are very sexist and misogynistic and are unrealistic about female pleasure. All those things.

Sheila
Yes.
That she’s going to like violence.

Rebecca
Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So there’s all sorts of stuff. So they said in essence, there is something just about frequent porn use that damages relationships and women’s sexual experience. Okay. But what they also found was that at every frequency point, pretty much negative attitudes towards porn. So being really against porn, right? And religious and religious conservatives and religious conservatism. So being more like

Sheila
Evangelicals tend to fit in there

Rebecca
But, but not only evangelicals but yeah. They both made the distress relating to the pornography so much higher. And the negative attitudes in particular, I believe is what had higher, um, lower rates of relationships satisfaction, right? In couples where he’s using it frequently. Yeah. Okay. So this is what they found was that no matter what with higher frequency, you have higher distress, right? But it’s so much worse for, um, conservative religious women.

Sheila
Yeah.

Rebecca
Um, it impacts them a lot more. Um, and they think that it’s likely because unlike other groups, they have all these scripts in their head that automatically, um, apply labels and prescribe what their reaction should be. There was a study that we’ve talked about before when we talk about pornography that I think is related here. Okay. They did a study after a traumatic work event. So like something happened in a workspace and people started, uh, just offering, uh, preemptive PTSD counseling because they’re like, well, this traumatic thing happened. So we should make sure the right thing for HR, like HR is like the right thing to do is to make sure everyone gets access to counseling. And what they found is if you tell people you had a super traumatic thing happen to you, to the extent that I’m going to pay hundreds of dollars for you to get trauma therapy, they are 30% more likely to, uh, exhibit PTSD symptoms. Yeah. You can induce a trauma response by priming people to what their response should be. That does not mean the thing wasn’t traumatic. It was traumatic. Yes. And we also know that people as a whole are quite resilient and the majority of people may experience a traumatic event and not have trauma symptoms. But when you go in and you tell them you have been traumatized, you have been exposed to a traumatic thing. And I am now going to treat you like someone who has been traumatized. 30% higher rates of PTSD.

Sheila
Yeah. And so the question is, are we doing that in the evangelical church to women? Are we saying if your husband uses porn, he has cheated on you. He has rewired his brain so that he’ll never understand intimacy. Your marriage is likely over. He’s very unlikely to ever quit.

Sheila
And all the stuff that’s in Every Man’s Battle, like the way that he looks at women, he can’t stop himself from looking at women. He is visual in a way and it calls him everywhere. Those images will be in his brain forever.

Rebecca
And of course the reason is you using porn is because you’re not good enough and you haven’t had enough sex. Like all of these scripts are repeated and they do prime women to have super negative reactions.

Sheila
Now I want to, I want to do some disclaimers here. We do have a zero tolerance policy towards pornography for all kinds of reasons. It’s a social justice issue. It’s just bad. It’s just bad.

Rebecca
It’s bad. There’s so much research that it’s just bad for you. Increased rape myth acceptance. The second tone of that for the day. Yeah. Everything’s just increasing rape myth.

Sheila
And it’s misogynistic. It’s just there’s nothing good about it. No, it is totally bad. And so we have a zero tolerance policy, but that doesn’t mean that our approach to every single use of porn needs to be the same.

Rebecca
Just like we just talked about in the last article, I have a zero tolerance policy for 15 year olds having sex. That is something I think is bad. I don’t think it’s good. I think society would be better if 15 year olds didn’t have sex anymore. Yes. At the same time, there is a difference between a 15 year old getting hot and heavy with their boyfriend or girlfriend and going farther and being like, oh no, but it’s normal teenage stuff versus a 15 year old acting out promiscuously because they were sexually abused versus a 15 year old who pressures and rapes someone.

Sheila
Yeah, versus a 15 year old with a 26 year old youth pastor.

Rebecca
Exactly. Yes. These things are all different and we can have the same approach to porn.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is a hard conversation, especially for women whose husbands have used porn and it’s seriously affected the marriage and it’s affected by how you parents and everything. But the fact is like according to our study for the Good Guys Guide to Great Sex, a lot of guys quit and they’re fine and their marriage is fine. Like it doesn’t always have to define you. Now some guys, it seriously does because it’s not just the porn news. It’s changed how they see women. It’s changed how they interact. It’s made them angry all the time. And so we have to have a different view of like, okay, is this something which is calamitous in our marriage and it’s a serious red flag or is this a mess up where he’s actually treats me really well usually and he is putting things in place so that it doesn’t happen again.

Rebecca
Well, I think that what I have seen and what they talk about later in this article is the way that specifically a lot of porn recovery groups for evangelicals talk about this and a lot of support for betrayed wives talk about this. They talk about the way that betrayal is talked about in porn in evangelical circles, which it is a betrayal. No one’s saying it’s not. But here’s what I’ve personally seen. I’ve seen especially with a lot of people who get angry with us. When we talk about how porn is not always the same, like about how our study shows that a lot of people quit. What a lot of people then talk about with us to say they talk about how their husband was a porn user and that’s what broke up the marriage. Then we dig and then it turns out and they were soliciting prostitutes and they had had multiple affairs and they would scream when he got angry and he would punch holes in the wall. So he wasn’t a porn user.
He was an abusive piece of work who also used porn.

Sheila
And maybe the porn increased the abuse and exacerbated the abuse and made him get that way.

Rebecca
Absolutely. My ask is that we are able to have a nuanced conversation where that is a completely different conversation than someone who was first exposed to porn at 11 years old who then used it compulsively throughout high school. And now when his mom gets a cancer diagnosis and he’s really stressed, he relapses. Can we have those two people be in different conversations? That’s what I’m concerned about. And that’s in essence what this article was talking about is there is a homogeneity in how porn is discussed in evangelical circles. They talk about this in the discussion about how it’s always expected that your response and the impact will be the same if you’re someone whose partner relapses once versus someone whose porn user has escalated to prostitutes and sexual abuse of you. Those are treated as the same. And we need to be able to have a better conversation about that. And that does not diminish what the women who have gone through literal hell have gone through. That does not diminish it. I actually think it diminishes it to put in the same category because then you get Brenda Lee being like, well, I’ve been there and I know you haven’t Brenda.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca
You know, like not saying Brenda hasn’t struggled, but, Brenda Lee who’s trying to convince the woman whose husband’s using prostitutes that her husband’s going to get through it. She doesn’t care about that woman. She’s married to a guy and she’s just likes. Like, I have a, I have a bone to pick with the Brenda Lee’s out there. I’m so sorry if your name is Brenda Lee. We heard about so many of these stories in our focus groups where women who are married to truly abusive men were in these like celebrate recovery groups or something like that with women leading them for the, for the betrayed wives, whose husband like used it twice and they just feel and they just talked down to these women so much about how well you just need to forgive him. It’s like, well, it’s easy to do if he’s a good guy who didn’t want to do it. Yeah. You should not be forgiving and moving back in with this guy actually. Yeah. It’s a different category.

Sheila
Yeah. And we need to understand that. And I think the other thing that we need to understand in Christianity and evangelism is that there’s a difference between repentance and healing and wholeness. Yes. I think because we talk about it as like, well, as long as he says he’s sorry and he doesn’t want to do it anymore, then it’s fine. I need to forgive. I need to move on as opposed to saying, okay, but is he healthy? Yeah. You know, is he healthy? Is he whole? And I think we were talking about the situation that we often get where people write in letters and say, okay, I am dating this guy. His last marriage broke up because he used porn. And since then he’s done a ton of work. He’s in all the groups. He’s got all the accountability stuff. He still does relapse, you know, every other month or something, but he tells me that he’s really trying not to. So can we move ahead with marriage? And it’s like, okay, this doesn’t mean that he’s a bad guy, but he may not be ready for relationship right now. Like he’s on the right course. Okay, good. He’s getting the help. He’s addressing what he needs, but he’s not there yet.

Rebecca
Yeah. And it’s just one of those things where if someone is decades into a active porn addiction where they’ve never gone in more than a couple of weeks without watching porn and it’s consuming their every day and they have multiple text threads, making sure he’s not watching stuff. Like, is he recovered?

Sheila
Yeah. But it’s long, but we’re like, oh, but he says he’s sorry. So he’s repented. It’s like, no, it’s not. That’s not the question though. Yeah.

Rebecca
And I think that that’s what’s missing when we talk about this in such un-nuanced terms in the church is we actually doom women twofold threefold. I can think of three ways. Okay. So far we’re at three ways this can hurt women. Okay. So we’re in a Brenda Lee situation. Okay. Because we see this all in the same boat, people who are not educated in the differences and they’re only speaking from personal experience diminish the experience of the women who are married to extraordinary cases. Yeah. And doing so, they teach those women to silence their gut, to silence their intuition and to stay for longer. Right. So that is bad. That is a way it hurts women by seeing this in un-nuanced terms. Okay. So the way is we teach women to once again ignore their intuition and make excuses for him by talking about are you in recovery or are you not? And that’s another dichotomy. That’s another un-nuanced take. Are you in recovery or are you not? And as long as he’s in recovery, well then he must be a great Christian man. Like he can be a great Christian man who’s in recovery and not ready for a relationship. So that’s another way we teach women to silence their intuition and actually make excuses for pornography use by seeing pornography in un-nuanced black terms. Right. The other way. And this is what we do see is similar to how purity culture taught us to see premarital sex as something that changes your brain. You have a soul tie. You are tied to that person forever. Every sexual experience since then will never be as good. And the women who are married, in particular the women who are married to men who have had a past because of how it’s talked about two women more than two men. We get so many emails women saying like, I just don’t know if I can ever get past this. They’ve met these amazing guys who are fantastic husbands. And it’s the purity culture teaching that’s causing her to once again not trust her intuition that things are good. We’re ignoring red flags. We’re ignoring green flags. We’re just barreling ahead. And it’s not healthy to not be able to take evidence into consideration. And similar with porn use, we get messages from women saying he used to watch porn. He says he doesn’t anymore. I have no evidence to believe that he does. He’s incredibly gentle. He’s kind. He’s an amazing husband, amazing father. Like just everyone who knows him likes him but not in a creepy way. Like in a sweet way. But I can’t get over the fact that whenever we have really good sex, I can’t help him thinking did he learn that from porn. I’m like, I feel like we are robbing women of both being able to identify bad relationships and sometimes identify good relationships because of how we talk about porn and how do we have that conversation without silencing either side?

Sheila
Yeah.
And that’s a hard one. It is. It is a hard one. And the fact is, and I really want people to hear this, you know, there’s been so much research that men can quit porn more easily if they’re not evangelical Christians. Yes. Okay. So evangelical Christian men have a harder time quitting porn than other guys were like, yeah, you know what? This isn’t doing anything for me. I’m just going to leave it behind. And a lot of that is because of the shame and the identity that we put on porn use. So porn use has rewired your brain. You are now a porn user. You are a sinner. As opposed to, yeah, you know what? I am doing this thing that isn’t good for me and isn’t good for others. And I’m just going to choose to quit because we talk about it as now your choice has been robbed because you are an addict and it’s going to be virtually impossible. And so, you know, the research actually shows when someone wants to quit, they can quit.

Rebecca
But if they’re evangelical, it’s harder because of how we talk about it.

Sheila
Yeah. And so let’s just, let’s just find that new once again and be able to recognize, okay, this is seriously bad. This guy is an abuser. This guy is doing all of this terrible stuff, largely big, probably because of the porn that he’s watched, but it’s bad. I think it’s likely also a combination of both.

Rebecca
I think that we also have to realize and you have to allow people to recognize is these things beget each other. Yeah. Like there is, there are things within people. There’s been other studies that have, since found that there are personality traits that are more likely to want to engage in very degrading terrible pornography.

Sheila
Like there’s a level where it’s a given take. And so there’s these two different people. There’s these people who are doing that. Yeah. Okay. And then there’s the people who, they got sucked in when they were in 11 or 12. It wasn’t even a real choice. No. You know, they got sucked in. It became a habit. It became a coping mechanism. And now they’re kind of stuck, but you know, they can get unstuck. Yeah. And so let’s see it in those terms as opposed to just, he’s an irredewable sinner, which is how we often see it.

Rebecca
Yeah. And I do want to say, because this is an important point to make about porn that I think will explain some of the nuance that like we have about this in Canada, exposing a child to pornography counts as child sexual abuse. Yeah. Like that is part of the criminal code. Like you, the exposure to sexually explicit materials like that as a child is sexual abuse. And I think that if we were to truly understand that, a lot of the compulsivity around pornography, especially in the teenage years, makes a lot more sense when we see it as a trauma response to sexual abuse. And it’s easier to have both compassion and also be like, again, like it says in the Bible, be as innocent as doves, but shrewd as snakes, right? Like it allows us to both have empathy and to understand, but also say, and this is a thing that’s destructive. And so are we destructive, are we being destructive for the, for other areas of our life now? And is this something that’s being dealt with? Or is this a trauma response you’re not willing to deal with?

Sheila
Now, and I have some awesome book recommendations for people who are trying to get over porn in a healthy way. I’ve got a list of them in the podcast notes. So you can click on that and you can find some great books on how to recover from porn and move forward and just get on with your life.

Rebecca
Yeah. But I think what I just want people to come and say for these two studies, okay, is two things. First of all, black and white thinking about sex rarely works. It really doesn’t. Things are nuanced. There are categories and that’s uncomfortable. It’s allowed to be uncomfortable. Sit in the discomfort, get used to it. Yeah. Second thing is we need to let people trust their intuition because intuitively we all understood that not all sex was rape and that rape was worse than non-rape sex. Yes. But in purity culture, they taught us to ignore that intuition and same thing with porn. We know that porn users who escalate to sexual abuse and prostitutes are different than kids who are struggling in their bedroom at 15. We know that’s different, but we’ve been taught to see them as the same. We need to trust our common sense intuition and allow ourselves to look at evidence that is before us.
Sheila
Amen. And now let’s bring on Joash.

Rebecca
Yeah. What an entrance.

Sheila
Well, I am so pleased that one of my online friends, Joash, Thomas can join us for a quick interview. Hello, Joash.

Joash
Hey, Sheila. So great to do this.

Sheila
I know it’s so funny. It’s like this is kind of the first time we’ve ever talked, although we’ve talked online a ton.

Joash
Yes. Yes. Yes. And we’re not too far from each other. We’re in the same province of Canada.

Sheila
I know. Yes. You’re just on the other side of Toronto. Yes. Yes. So you’re on like the West side and I’m on the East side. But yeah. And we get to meet on October 4th in two days, which is so fun. And Toronto will be giving you more information about that for all of you, Toronto people or GTA people who want to come and meet us at the lunch for your new book, Justice for Jesus. And so Joash, you’ve had a really strange, strange journey. Yeah. So you worked as a political consultant for a long time and then you realized that that really didn’t mesh with your religious views. You went back to school. You’ve been working on all kinds of justice movements. And now you’re looking to be ordained in the Anglican Church. Is that right?

Joash
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a fascinating journey. I’m a two time immigrant, you know, first of the States and then to Canada four years ago. And yeah, currently ordained as a deacon in an Anglican Episcopal diocese. And yeah, a discernment for the priesthood. So still on that journey. As are we all.

Sheila
Yeah. That’s amazing. I got a hold of your new book, Justice for Jesus. When does it release?

Joash
Yeah. So it comes out September 30th. Okay.

Sheila
So just released. It just released like two days ago then. Awesome. And you can get a hold of it. And I just, the reason I wanted to talk to you about it is because I think that this is something that is missing when we talk about the women’s question in the church, you know, because that’s more what we do at bare marriage is we’re looking at how is it that the church has so missed the humanity of women. And we’ve preached that women are less than men. And I think it’s because we have a very, very anemic view of justice. And so I wanted to bring you on to talk about that in your book. And one thing you said quite near the beginning is that Christians get a little fuzzy talking about justice and you’ve never been asked to define justice by anybody other than a Western Christian. So if you talk about justice, it’s Western Christians who are likely to say, well, what do you mean by that? Right.

Joash
That’s weird. Yeah. You know, and I’m grateful for the perspective of being shaped by the global church and not being asked that question anywhere else in the global church, or even outside the church, right? Like my Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist friends, when you say justice, they get it. Anyone who needs justice, you know, justice. But with Western Christians, there’s this odd propensity to be like, wait, who are we talking about again? And I think the question we’re really asking is the question that Jesus was asked, which is who’s my neighbor, which kind of triggers Jesus into going into the good Samaritan parable, right? But I think we’re still asking that question, who is my neighbor? And is justice and Jesus really for them? Shocker, it is.

Sheila
Yes. Yes. And I love how you define justice. Do you want to give us your definition?

Joash
Yeah. Yeah. So I use an ancient definition in the church that’s always been around. This is a Gustin’s definition for justice. He defines justice as giving to each person they do or giving to each person the good things that God desires for them. So, you know, for people in violence, that is their rescue, their restoration, and for the perpetrators, for the oppressors, that is their own restoration that God also desires for them. And that is justice too. But I also mentioned throughout the book that God has a preferential option for people in poverty and oppression. So if you’re oppressed, God is on your side first. He wants your rescue and restoration first. And then ultimately, once there’s safety and protection for you, he also wants the restoration of those who have oppressed you.

Sheila
Yeah. I love that. And I think what I find is often missing is like, when I think, well, I want justice for, like, if I think I want justice for the victims of Epstein, right? I want the Epstein files released. When we say that, what we’re normally thinking is, I want the perpetrators to go to jail, right? Like, that tends to be the way that we view it. So justice means people get punished for doing bad things, right? But that first part of your definition, like what I don’t even know what that would look like for something like the Epstein victims, you know, that it’s giving to each person the good things that God intended for them. And for the survivor of violence, that’s healing and restoration. Like that’s beautiful. That’s what we do want. Like justice isn’t just about punishing people for the bad things they did. It’s not even about punishment. It’s about, you know, holding them accountable to the view of restoration, which does not mean, you’re not saying restoration to the pulpit if you’ve sexually abused someone.

Joash
No, absolutely not. No, no, you’re absolutely right, Sheila. And I think it’s important to reframe why is it that we’re seeking accountability for the bad guys, right? We’re seeking accountability for the bad guys, first and foremost, because it’s good for the people they’re abusing. It puts distance between them and the people they oppress, the women and children they oppress. And then in addition to that, once that distance is in place, once that accountability mechanism is in place, and this is where I’ve been inspired by survivors of sex trafficking, who’ve gone after their perpetrators have been convicted in court in the Philippines, they then go up to their perpetrators and say, now that you’ve received your accountability, I want to let you know that I forgive you. And it’s because I’ve met this person named Jesus and he’s given me the courage to forgive you. And what you did to me is horrible, but I’ve come to realize that you are a child of God too, with your own trauma that is causing you to hurt people around you. And this is not the life that God desires for you. And that’s where I draw my courage and inspiration from the survivors who taught me.

Sheila
Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. So why do you think, and in your book, you really are talking about the Western Church, because it is so different from the global church. The priorities are different the way that we express our worship is different. But why has the Western Church shied away from justice so much?

Joash
Yeah, yeah. You know, I say throughout the book that it’s because of this historical event called colonization. Now I know colonization, decolonization, the words get thrown around today in very politically academically charged ways. But I remind people throughout the book that to people like me, to Christians like me from the global self, colonization isn’t just an academic concept, although it is also an academic concept. It’s our lived experience. It’s my family’s story. I grew up in a country that was shaped by colonization. And you grow up hearing stories of how India was at one time one of the richest countries in the world, 20% of the world’s GDP. And then the Brits leave and it’s like 1% of the world’s GDP, right? And so there’s an extraction of wealth and resources that led to famines and starvation and poverty and injustice in countries around the world. And what’s really sad about all this is that the church, the Western Church, participated in colonization all across the world. So a court thesis for this book is that colonization wasn’t just bad for the global self. It was also bad for the Western Church because it shaped us to resist justice for our marginalized neighbors, even here in the West. And so it’s this core idea, this core Christian idea of how injustice isn’t just bad for the oppressed. It’s also bad for the oppressor and those on their side. And I think this is also what we see with colonization. I think this is also why the Western Church needs to not just deconstruct the unhealthy toxic elements of our faith, but also decolonize and ask questions. Where is this coming from? And reckon with the reality that Jesus cares both about our bodies and our souls.

Sheila
Yeah, exactly. And I know that a lot of people are getting kind of like, you’re getting your back up right now because it sounds like we’re not preaching the gospel. So let’s just jump into that question right now is, oh, but people who preach the social gospel are missing the gospel. And that’s, I, that’s what I believed. Honestly, Joash, like, I think when I was in university, um, that’s what, that’s what Keith and I really felt like, oh, these social gospel people, these mainline churches, these whatever, they’re missing the entire point of the gospel because we saw the gospel as believing that Jesus died for you. So you can get into heaven and escape hell, right? That that was the gospel. And we needed to make sure that as many people believe that is possible, even if it didn’t change their lives, as long as they said the prayer, right? Then, you know, they’d get into heaven and it’s like, yeah, but Jesus preached the gospel before he died. So the gospel can’t just be that the cross has to be the ultimate outpouring of the good news, which was there before, which is what Jesus was preaching, right? Um, and I’ve talked about this before in the podcast, like when, and look for when Jesus announces his, um, his mission, like, what does he say?

Joash
Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, and this is Jesus’s own definition of the gospel by the way, uh, Luke chapter four verse 18, where Jesus says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, to set the captive free, to, you know, uh, to liberate, uh, people from oppression, right? He says these things. And then what does he do for the rest of the book of Luke? He goes and he does these things. He sets people free physically and spiritually. Right. So he’s healing sick people. He’s feeding hungry people. He’s, uh, casting out demons from people who are oppressed physically by demons, right? And, and so, uh, the gospel is both physical and spiritual. I think in the West, we tend to focus more on the spiritual aspect of it and we neglect this, the physical. And so we tell people in abusive marriages, uh, don’t worry about the suffering of your bodies right now. Just just, you know, the spiritual is more important, right? When that looks nothing like Jesus because, uh, Jesus cares both about the body and the soul and he shows this throughout the gospels. Um, in fact, it’s from the colonizers that we get this narrow spiritual definition of the gospel and the subversion to justice because the colonizers benefited from telling my ancestors, uh, or telling people in colonization and slavery, hate, don’t worry about your current suffering. Uh, you know, Jesus will come take that away in the afterlife. When the reality is that Jesus cares both about the not yet and the already and you
think about the Lord’s prayer, like what is it that we pray your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Like that is what Jesus taught us to pray that God’s will will be done on earth. The kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, right? Um, and so again, Jesus cares for this. So I want to talk about the four tenants that you said keep us from understanding justice. And the first one is that Jesus came primarily to save souls. Yeah. And you had this little anecdote here, um, where you said, after I share stories of children being sexually exploited 20 to 30 times a day, North American church leaders will sometimes ask what’s the point of rescuing children from sex trafficking if they don’t hear the gospel and then they go to hell.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, every time I hear that as someone who’s met survivors and learned from them, um, I have to take a shower because it’s, it’s so icky. And in fact, that was the question that got me looking into colonization and decolonization because I was like, where is this coming from? You know, I didn’t, this wasn’t the gospel. I was presented in the global self church. So where are my Western siblings in Christ getting this idea from? And I looked into it historically and realized that, wow, we’ve been shaped by colonization, even if we don’t acknowledge it. And so, uh, yeah, unfortunately, um, I think that’s a very Gnostic gospel. Gnosticism was a heresy in the early church where people would say the same thing. They would elevate the spiritual and the soul over the body. Uh, when in reality again, we see in the life of Jesus in the early church that they cared both about the body and the soul.

Sheila
Well, I think even the fact that Jesus was bodily resurrected is so, I mean, that, that means something. Yes. Right. That, that, that are, but we have bodies, you know, are eternally, right? Like redeemed bodies, transformed bodies, but, but we do exist in the physical.

Joash
Totally, totally. And, and you know, like this is why, uh, what I say throughout the book is that the gospel is made known to us. The spiritual truths about the gospel are made known to us through the physical, right? So the incarnation of Christ on earth was a physical event. The death and resurrection of Christ are physical events through which spiritual truths are made known. And, and I think, I think we need to hold both together intention.

Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s beautiful. Okay. Tenant two is a justice is a worthy pursuit, but evangelism and discipleship are more important. Um, and I think the point that we’re making here is, isn’t justice discipleship? Like, how can you separate them? Because Jesus didn’t let me think about Zacchaeus, right?

Joash
Yes. Yes. I mean, yeah, I mean, both go hand in hand together, right? And with Zacchaeus, he has this transform transformative moment with Jesus. And, um, and Jesus doesn’t tell him, Hey, repay all the people you’ve harmed, but he does it anyway, because his life has been so transformed. That’s part of his discipleship. Um, and he chooses to do that of his own volition. So, so yes, uh, you know, justice is just as important as evangelism discipleship because you can separate the two. They’re part of the same, but I want it to nuance in this, uh, in, in this book and say that, you know, it’s not that you’ve, it’s not that evangelical Christians in the West don’t care about justice. We do care about justice. We just don’t think it’s as important as evangelism or discipleship when Jesus thinks they’re all in one package.

Sheila
Right. Because you can’t actually, and this is, this is what I have. And I think this is where Keith’s and my faith really changed. Cause like I said, I, I, we would have totally believed 10 at one, right? The Jesus primarily came to save souls at the gospel is about, you know, having eternal life in heaven. It’s not about the earth. We would have completely and utterly agreed with that. Um, but our lived experience in the church, as we saw the church, you know, not caring about the pain of women and abusive relationships, covering up sexual abuse scandals, covering up for youth pastors, doing terrible things, even in our, in even in our own hometown, like this hit close to home, right? Like you realize that this all has the same root, which is that we have so talked about the importance of belief of just belief that Jesus died for you, that we have gotten rid of, of actually acting things out. So we, you know, we talk about orthodoxy, not orthopractic, right? Like, like not the practice of Christianity. And what does it mean to actually be sanctified and have the fruits of the spirit? And that’s all missing. You know, because we’ve, we’ve, we’ve elevated this idea of all Jesus cares about as your soul.

Joash
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s almost like, you know, instead of discipling people in the ways of Jesus, we’re discipling people, um, in the fear of hell. And, and hey, you know, like, uh, worry about the spiritual realities in the afterlife. Um, but, but we’re not discipling them. And okay, how do you live your life like Jesus? Uh, how did Jesus in the early church live their lives? And if you look into that, you’ll see that it was on the margins. It was in solidarity with people who were poor and oppressed by empire. And, uh, and this is what I try, try to draw attention to.

Sheila
Yep. So I appreciate that. Okay. Tenet number three. Social hierarchies are natural and part of God’s design. Yes. Okay. This is the one that really intersects with what we do. Cause I find this all the time that when people, like I am amazed at how much complimentarianism has become part of the gospel to so many churches now. Like when you look at their core beliefs, it’s actually mentioned there.

Joash
Right.

Sheila
You know, that you have to believe that men are over women.

Joash
Right. Right. And, and again, you know, where are they getting this from? They’re getting this from the colonizers and the slaveholders who taught us what the gospel is a few generations ago in the West. And there are social hierarchies. You, you didn’t just have men and women and children. You also had slaves at the very bottom. Right. We, we’ve eliminated that today, but we still have the other hierarchies in place. But that is not the way of Jesus because, uh, as you see the Apostle Paul say in Galatians chapter three, verse 28, he says, there’s no longer Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And I think this is the way of Jesus that we need to disciple people into.

Sheila
You know, some of my favorite verses, people are going to be surprised by this are the modesty verses in first Timothy two. Okay. And I know from like, I’m a bit of it. She don’t like modesty verses, but I do because when you look at them, what is Paul saying? You know, he’s saying, look, women, don’t wear gold jewelry, you know, expensive clothing, braided hair, cause it costs a lot to get your hair all braided. Right. We don’t want the marginalized to feel excluded. Yes. Like we don’t want church to be a place where, oh, we need to be really nice to these people because they’re rich. We want church to be a place where Galatians three, twenty eight has lived out and there isn’t, you know, slavery free. There isn’t rich or poor. There’s just, we are all one in Christ Jesus. And that’s what modesty meant to Paul.

Joash
Yes. It’s fascinating how we’ve taken all these passages on poverty and wealth, um, and turned it into sexuality. Right. I think abuse scripture in that way to harm marginalized people and women. Yeah.

Sheila
Yeah. Now, in your experience, cause I’m kind of curious about this one. So you’ve moved, you moved to Canada four years ago. Yeah. Right. Okay. And you moved to the US.
How old were you when you moved to the US? 18 when I moved to the States.

Joesj
Okay. So I know that the US church is really especially struggling with this. And probably, I mean, let’s face it, right? The largest denomination, Protestant denomination in the US started in order to preserve slavery. Yes. So obviously these social hierarchies are going to be a part of evangelicalism and, and the Southern Baptist convention, they ran one of the biggest, like they ran life way books, which kind of, which was so big that it determined what got published because publishers wouldn’t publish something that life way wouldn’t carry. So it ended up just having such a huge influence on evangelical media and shaping it, right? Have you seen a difference in Canada? Like, I’m honestly curious because I have my own thoughts, but what, what’s your experience as you’ve moved here?

Joash
Yeah. I think one of the reasons why I found so much refuge and healing in the Canadian church is because we’re on the margins of Canadian society. Yeah. Right. There’s no allure of proximity to power, access to power. In many ways, the Canadian church reminds me of the global South church, the Indian church that I grew up in, where you don’t have these temptations of power and political power. So, so you’re freed up to just be faithful to the gospel. You’re freed up to just love your neighbor as yourself. And, and, you know, I find that beautiful about the Canadian church that I don’t see as much in the American church because you’ve got people think, you know, to be a Christian is to keep the right politicians and power it.

Sheila
Yeah. And, and I think the 10 and four is that unity demands uniformity. And you told this story and I don’t, I don’t think a lot of people know this. Can you tell about St. Thomas in India?

Joash
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, my ancestors have been worshiping Jesus for 2000 years now going back to the Apostle Thomas who brought the gospel to us from Jesus. And we were questioned for about 1500 years before the first wave of colonizers showed up the Portuguese Catholics. And they were shocked to find this and, and then we see this with the British colonizers who showed up through the Anglican church later too. But they try to convert us. They try to convert my ancestors to their ways by saying your way of worshiping Jesus that’s existed for 1500 years is not the right way of worshiping Jesus. Our theology is better. And so much of this was because of we’re white and you’re not. And that was explicitly said to my ancestors. So, yeah, there’s some beautiful history of St. Thomas Indian Christians. You’ve got, even today you’ve got St. Thomas Indian Christians all over the world coming from that one part of India and where everything from Catholic to Orthodox to Anglican to Pentecostal and have all of those denominations in my family tree.

Sheila
Yeah. That’s Sony. I actually go to a St. Thomas church. So, like it’s called St. Thomas.

Joash
Anyway. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Is it an Anglican church?

Sheila
Yes, it is. Yeah. I’m going to two churches right now, but that’s one of the yes. So, anyway. So okay. Why don’t churches pursue justice? And I think the reason is that justice is expensive. And I want to play a clip for everyone. This is Rachel DenHollander and she’s speaking in Kristin Demay’s documentary for our daughters about the sexual abuse crisis in the church. And she’s talking about why is it that people tend to support the pastor who abused someone instead of supporting the victim? And here’s what Rachel said.

Rachel DenHollander
And applauding an abuser, which happens over and over. It’s very emotionally satisfying to accept quote unquote repentance to emotionally identify with the abuser because what it gives you is this very neat, tidy story of restoration allegedly. And it gives you this pretty little package with a bow on top where you can say, look how beautiful it is God redeems and it costs you nothing. It costs you something to side with the vulnerable and the weak and the oppressed. It costs you nothing to side with the one who’s in power.

Sheila
I remember watching Rachel say that the first time I saw the documentary and I was like, Oh, that’s going to preach. But that’s so true, right? Like supporting the oppressor doesn’t cost us anything.
Joash
Right. Yeah. You know, throughout the book, so specifically chapter two, I talk about cheap justice and contrast that with the cost of justice, discipleship and, you know, heavily influenced by Bonhoeffer for Bonhoeffer fans here. But, you know, cheap, so cheap justice, and I give a few definitions, I say cheap justice is participating in annual social media campaigns to stand in solidarity with survivors of human trafficking while doing nothing with your money, skills and advocacy to support local and global anti trafficking organizations. Cheap justice is posting a black square on your social media in solidarity with Black Lives Matter in 2020 and then dropping the pursuit of racial justice when once the news cycle moves on. Cheap justice is claiming to be pro life from the womb to the tomb and then looking the other way when political parties, you know, lock away migrant kids and cages or bus migrant families to other states to score cheap political points. You know, so I go on and on and what we see as examples of cheap justice. And what I say is, you know, this kind of justice is performative. It costs you nothing. And that is not the justice of Jesus, even as we see in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the cost of justice does cost you something. And that is the Jesus way following Jesus should cost us something. And if it doesn’t cost us something, and then really we’re following Jesus from our comforts and our convenience instead of actually standing in solidarity with our marginalized savior and with our neighbors and the margins.

Sheila
Well, you come back to Philippians two, right? That Jesus gave up like he had a quality with God, but he didn’t consider that something to hold on to. And so I’m going to let go of it. And to me, I think that’s what justice is, is like giving up the privileges that we do have in order to lift up others, right? And I know one area that this is really hitting home for us is finances and money. Both Rebecca and I are trying to sell our houses right now. So, you know, because we just bought another one and that’s just a whole other story. But the house that I owned before this one, I bought, my husband and I bought it in 1998 for $144,000. And that house has changed hands several times, but it recently sold for like almost 700. Wow. Right? So in like 25 years, that house has increased more than four times in value. But people’s incomes haven’t, you know? And I used to be a big believer in trickle down economics. Like I remember preaching this. I remember buying into it when I was in university, but it has been shown that it doesn’t work. Like it overwhelmingly doesn’t work because in the last 20 years, you know, wealth has been increasingly, you know, what’s the word? It’s fewer and fewer hands. Like I just read that eight people in the US have more money than 50% of the population or something like that.

Joash
Right. And it’s even worse in the global South, countries that were shaped by colonialism where, you know, I think it’s like 1% of the country owns 99% of the resources. So, you know, 99% of everyone else is fighting over that 4%. It’s horrible.

Sheila
Yeah. And I think, you know, I think of so much Christian supposed advice, you know, about being responsible with money. Oh, you just need to save up. And it’s like saying that to me in 1998 was totally different than saying it to a young couple today. Right? Keith and I were making less than the average income back in 1998 when Keith was doing his training, but we were able to scrimp and save for four years to have a down payment. And today, even with like twice as much as the average income, you cannot save for a down payment in four years. And so like so much of our evangelical advice is missing the reality of what so many people are going through, especially the younger generations. And I don’t even know what justice looks like in that case, but like there’s some major problems of young people growing up today that I don’t think has even been close to being addressed.

Joash
Absolutely. And I throw this quote from an early church father in my chapter on decolonizing our budgets where this is St. Araneus of Leo who says, instead of the tides, which the law commanded, the Lord said to divide everything we have with the poor. And I think this is the way forward for the church. I think justice for the church in economic crises is to look around our communities inside and outside the church and say, who has need here? And where do we have two shirts or two tunics that I can give one to someone who really needs it? And I think that’s justice at a very small community level.

Sheila
Yeah. And that costs something. Yes. That costs something. Yeah.

Joash
That means you have one less shirt, you know, which, and if you have two shirts and you’re giving one away, you’re really going to feel the pinch of only having one. But the reality is the vast majority of us have way more than two. Yeah.

Sheila
Absolutely. Well, Joash, your book is called the justice of Jesus. Yeah. It is available now. We’ll put the link in the podcast notes and where can people find you?

Joash
Yeah. Yeah. Buy your books wherever, buy your copy wherever you buy your books. People can find me on social media. It’s at Joash B. Thomas Instagram is where I’m most active. And then I also have a sub stack called Jesus, justice and Joash where I send out weekly reflections from scripture on justice. So yeah, thanks for having me Sheila.

Sheila
This is a joy. And I’ll put those links in the podcast notes too. So thank you. I really like the book, the justice of Jesus. For all of you, Toronto peeps. Yes. Please hear me in two days. So on October 4th, I’m going to be joining Joash for his book launch in Toronto. So I have a link to how you can get tickets for that in the podcast notes. So that’s just in two days. So if you’re listening to this podcast later, you’ll miss it. But if you’re listening to it on Thursday or Friday or even Saturday morning, come on along if you’re in the GTA and come see us because I would love to meet you.

Rebecca
We’re going to have more information sent to you in the Friday newsletter tomorrow as well. So make sure if you are not subscribed yet that you subscribe to the Friday newsletter because whenever we do live events, I always pester you about it. And then we get people who are like, well, I follow you on Facebook and I didn’t know. Join the newsletter. Yeah. Join the newsletter. Don’t you like me? I’m in charge of the newsletter. Yes. Join the newsletter.

Sheila
And speaking also to Toronto folks on October 25th, Keith and I are going to be doing a marriage conference in Oshawa. And so we have, we have that information coming too. So yes, join the newsletter and you will find out about it. So thank you everybody. Check out all the links in the podcast notes. Let’s remember to be evidence based. Don’t remember to have justice. Yes. Amen. See you next time.

Rebecca
Bye.