Jen Wilkin Continues Her Girlboss Assault on the Church - Part 3

Jen Wilkin, Platonic Friendship, and Egalitarian Assumptions

All right, welcome back to the channel. We are gonna dive back into this Jen Wilkin thing. People have been reaching out at a higher rate than normally, just enjoying the series. You know, Jen has a lot of influence on a lot of different people, and so they're appreciating, people are appreciating just sort of the straightforward talk about what she's up to in the church.

And so we're just gonna jump right into it. If you find it helpful, then I find it fun. That's how our relationship works. So let's just jump right into it. Before I do though, I actually rewinded just a little bit because a lot of people pointed this particular section out and there was something I could have said about this section that I chose not to, but I'm gonna revisit it because a lot of people pointed this out as just a strange quirk almost, and I wanted to just review it.

So you might remember this. This is where she starts to talk about how we really need to, in the church, be an example of platonic friends because that's what desperate, that's what the world is desperately needing.

You know, we need to have male-female platonic friendships. The world is really missing that, and the church needs to be an example for that. Let me save my commentary until you hear it.

Neighbor as you love yourself. But what we have done is said, who then is my neighbor? And men in the church in particular have said, well, my neighbor is my male fellow believer. It's not my female fellow believer because, and this is all linked to the fact that we exist in a hyper-sexualized culture.

I think everybody would acknowledge that. And the problem with that is that the culture around us is telling us that you can't have friendship, you can't have brother-sisterhood, that any relationship, and I would say this doesn't mean just male-female, any relationship, someone you feel a strong emotion for who is not your spouse, it has to be sexual or romantic.

There's no such thing as just a pure friendship or a deep, true, and abiding friendship between men and men, women and women, men and women. Watch any movie that's coming out of the theaters, and there's almost no friendship that endures for the full length of the movie.

At some point, any deep relationship turns romantic or sexual. And so that means that for the church in a post-Christian culture, where else should we expect the culture to turn to know what true friendship and brother-sisterhood is going to look like, if not us?

And yet to This is, this is, I'm gonna stop there. A lot of people commented on this, that this kind of seems out of place with what she was talking about. And they found it interesting that she's on this, you know, why can't we be friends thing, just like the feminist Amy Bird was doing as well, the egalitarian Amy Bird.

And it's just like, well, why is this so important to them? And I agree, it's very interesting that we're doing this. But just think about what she said for a second about the movies, right? She said in any movie, any deep emotional relationship, there's no friendships anymore.

Now everything has to be hyper-sexualized, you know? And so we need to be an example. We need to have male-female brother-sister relationships, deep emotional relationships to show the world what could be the way it should be.

And I gotta be honest with you, there is every single word of that is not true. It's like that Luke Skywalker thing when he's talking to Kylo Ren, it's unbelievable. Every single word you said is wrong.

I just, the last two like entertainment things that I watched, because I don't really watch a whole lot of entertainment. I watch, you know, I watch some sports and then, you know, I do other things, but I don't watch a lot of TV or movies or things like that.

But the last two things popped into my mind immediately. One of them is Mandalorian, right? And I watched the Mandalorian, which the quality of that show just took a nosedive, but whatever, I like Star Wars.

You think of Mandalorian and the friendships in Mandalorian, were any of them sexual? Any of them? No, none of them were sexual. But what there was a whole lot of in Mandalorian is egalitarian assumptions, you know, Bo-Katan Krees.

Look, I think that the Krees family has got a cool story and all that kind of stuff. I used to watch the Clone Wars, the animated series and stuff like that. So I knew about Bo-Katan before and all that, but it was just so, it was so awkward how much in your face they needed to emphasize that Bo-Katan was just as good, if not better than Din Djarin.

He, you know, the Mandalorian is awesome, but Bo-Katan is even better. It's all about presenting their equals, the inner ring of the Mandalorians, you know, they have to have equal females and males.

The whole point, it's not about sexual, it's about equality. It's about everyone has the same skill set. Everyone is just as strong. Everyone's just as capable as fighting. Everyone's just as violent.

Everyone's just as smart and all this kind of stuff. That's the point of Mandalorian. And that's not the only kind of example I could use. There's tons of pop culture movie examples where there isn't this hyper sexualization of all these emotional, you know, friendships and things like that.

But what there is a lot of is the egalitarian assumptions. She doesn't, she's completely wrong. She doesn't know what time it is. And I don't know if it's that she doesn't know what time it is. I think that she's lying about what time it is.

You know what I mean? The second thing that came to my mind was a kids movie, Mario Brothers. I took my kids to the theater to watch Mario Brothers. And if there's any movie that would have some romance in it, you would think it'd be Mario Brothers.

And for a lot of kids, that's like the first, you know, experience they had with sort of a love story. You know, Mario's there and he's there to save the princess because he loves the princess. You know, you go through the Goombas and the Koopas and all this stuff, you save the princess, right?

But that, even in a movie like that where you'd expect it to be there, it's not there. The point of Mario Brothers isn't that Mario and princess are in love. The point of Mario Brothers is that princess is just as capable, if not more capable than Mario.

Now, I'm not criticizing Mario Brothers that much because they really could have gone whole hog on that message of, you know, feminism and egalitarianism. And they did not, which I was very happy to see, but there's definitely some of it in there.

Princess is very athletic. She's very powerful, all this stuff. She ends up saving Mario, things like that. So it's like, instead of Mario saving the princess, the princess is saving Mario. We get it, we get it.

But like, there's two movies, just the last two that I've seen don't have this like hyper-sexualization where everyone's trying to sleep with each other. She's lying about that, that's not correct. Why is she lying about that?

Because for some freaking weird reason, it is uber important to these feminists that we have intersex friendships. And I gotta be honest with you, that's freaking weird. I don't have any female friends.

My wife is my friend and that's it. Simple as that. Do I talk to other females? Yeah, if their husband's there. You know, I happen to like my friend's wives. They're fun, they're fine, they're all that.

But we don't hang out, you know what I mean? She's not calling me up to get my opinion on something. That's not how it is. I don't have female friends, you know what I mean? If I happen to see someone, like I'll give you an example.

The other day we were in the Dominican Republic and I was there for a wedding and someone that I had talked to quite a bit on the phone for work was there and she said, hey, you know, Adam, introduce myself.

You know, the first thing I did is let me go get my wife. Let me go get my wife. I grabbed my wife and I brought her to introduce them to each other. I don't know, what is this need for these feminists to have, this is a terrible idea and people are noticing this.

It's like, this is an absolutely horrendous idea and I gotta be honest with you, you know, coming from Matt Chandler's church where there was just some kind of a weird incident with Matt and some woman, which we don't really know the whole details.

We don't need to know, but it was enough for him to take a step down for a little while. This is horrible. This is a stupid idea. This is not what the world needs right now. The world does not need an example of how women and men should be friends.

They're not married, but they should definitely be emotionally deep, emotional friends. Like that is what, that is so weird that you think that's what time it is. That's not what time it is. The time is that we need to be pushing back against these egalitarian assumptions.

These egalitarian assumptions that Jen Wilkin is promoting here are destroying our culture. Destroying our culture. It's as simple as that. It's just like, this is so wrong. It's so upside down that I just have to assume that a smart person like Jen Wilkin, because I think she's smart, is lying about this.

It's not that she's confused. It's not that she doesn't understand. It's not that she's ignorant. It's that she is lying to push something. I'm not really sure what that thing is. I mean, obviously it's egalitarian.

It's feminism, but it's weird. It's more than that. People are noticing that. It's like, why is feminism associated with this weird thing where men and women that are married have to have friends of the opposite sex to truly be showing the gospel?

What is that about? Very strange. Anyway, we are going to continue this. We've got this guy. He is very, very happy with the feminism he heard, and he's gonna tell us something. This is gonna be good.

I think this is gonna be really good.

The Church, Women’s Ministry, and the “Pink Ghetto”

We're gonna find out. Thank you. Thank you, Jen, for outlining that for us. I wanna take a different, take a look at this.

Seriously, though, I really want, does he not look like a Ninja Turtle? If he painted his skin green and he put on a little thing, he would look like a Ninja Turtle. Maybe I would, too. I don't know. Maybe I would look like a Ninja Turtle.

I don't think so, though. I don't think so. I think there's something about the way he's shaped that makes him look like a Ninja Turtle. That's not an insult. The Ninja Turtles were jacked.

This is from a different direction. What if there is a church leader out there listening who does not feel like he has women in his church who have the gift and calling to teach? Why does this conversation matter to him?

Yeah, this is actually a funny comment that I'll get, well-meaning, and actually a kind comment that people will say to me, pastors will say, well, but I don't have a Jen Wilkin at my church. And I always wanna say, well, how do you know?

Like, how do you know? I know how hard it was for me to sort of get on the radar of leadership in the church. And often that's because since women are most commonly only teaching in what I affectionately call the pink ghetto, they're in women's ministry settings.

I'm gonna say this gently, but often women's ministry suffers from a benign neglect from pastoral staff. It is beneath the regard sometimes of those who are in charge of adult discipleship. And it is not seen as part of the scope and sequence of adult discipleship.

It's its own little thing. And so one of the reasons that pastors often don't know if a woman has a teaching gift or not is because they never set foot in the pink ghetto. They just let that happen. And as long as the women are happy, then that's great.

And the issue with that, and I could tell you, I know so many female leaders who have had this happen, is that if you're never in the pink ghetto, then the second you start to hear that something's happening there that you're not crazy about, then you drop the hammer, right?

And you're like, no, we're not doing that. We're gonna shut that down or we're gonna remove that leader because she's been operating out there on her own. She has a siloed ministry. And I promise you, the woman who is in charge of that ministry was dying to have access to those in leadership and to say, please, if you don't believe what I'm doing is valid, let's make it something valid that is in alignment with the greater goals and vision of the church.

So I call it a benign neglect. Unfortunately, intent and impact are not the same thing. And so if you don't have any sense that there are women in your church who can teach, I would ask first, have you gone to the places where women are teaching in your church?

Because I think you will find that they're there and they're doing humble and quiet work and they could probably use some help and advocacy. So you

This is so interesting. It's like, you know, like, you know, once you've walked away from what the scripture says, it naturally creates all kinds of problems. Like, so she's like talking about solving a problem that shouldn't even exist in the first place.

It's like, you know, every time I, you know, walk through, you know, the bad part of town, now I gotta wonder, you know, how to avoid, you know, the drug dealers that are shooting, you know, each other and stuff like that.

It's like, well, have you tried maybe walking around that part of town, maybe not going right through it? I mean, then you wouldn't even have to worry about dodging the bullets. You know, how to do it, how to dodge the bullets.

You may, you know, puts you out of your way maybe a little bit, but have you tried that? It's like, you know, this shouldn't This is the thing, like she's, you know, she's trying to make it seem like, like, well, we've already moved on from the, you know, I don't allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.

We've moved beyond that. We haven't addressed it. We just said, yeah, that's what we do at our church. We allow a woman to teach and exercise authority over a man. And so now we've moved past that and now we're moving to, you know, like, I don't know.

It's just, I think, here's what really needs to be challenged. Like the legitimacy of like women's ministries at all. I think that needs to be examined and challenged and thought through. It's not, the argument that really needs to happen, like the debates or the podcasts that really need to happen is something on that level, like on a very basic level, not this stuff.

This stuff is like, you've already caved. You've already collapsed. Like we need to think through that. And I'm not making any, you know, determinations or decisions, you know, on this podcast. It's not my place, right?

It's not my area of expertise, but that's what needs to be examined, you know, at a very fundamental basic level, not whether or not like we can, you know, we could figure out a way around Paul's clearly saying, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man.

Yeah, let's make some different categories of authority. You know, like, like an elder authority and then, you know, delegated authority and things like that. Like that's, when you've already caved, that's the kind of thing you discuss.

We need to turn back the clock and turn back the discussions and really have a basic fundamental conversation, especially in the SBC. You guys need to do this. This needs to be done because, because you guys have a big problem on your hands.

As I said in my last episode, this kind of stuff will destroy the denomination. It's as simple as that. It will destroy the denomination if you let it. And so anyway, let's continue.

A Pastoral Framing for Women Flourishing in the Church

You said that this came out for you out of more of a deeply pastoral moment than a deeply theological moment. And you weren't minimizing the theological side in any way. I've heard you say to me that really this whole conversation is more of a pastoral exercise than it is a theological exercise.

So pulling on that original thread, applying that.

I mean, do you see this? Like the whole thing is framed to give her a pastoral platform. They, Jen speaks of herself as an elder, even though she says, I am not an elder, but everything she's doing and talking about is as if she was an elder.

And they have accepted that. They are speaking to her as if she's an elder. He says, hey, you said this was a deeply pastoral thing at your church that you were intimately involved in creating the decisions and things like that.

And so because it's a pastoral, let me hear you explain that a little bit. Who would you ask to explain pastoral matters in a normal conversation? It's not a trick question. You would ask a pastor. And they brought her on the Gospel Coalition as a fill-in for a pastor to talk about pastoral issues.

This is a big problem. I think a lot of people wouldn't have an issue with this in the SPC, and they really need to. They really need to. This is a big problem you guys have on your hands.

Can you flesh that out? Can you explain what you mean by this being.

As much a And by the way, I'm saying the SPC, not to say that the Presbyterians don't have their own issues here. They most certainly do. They most certainly do. But I'm saying the SPC is because it's the largest denomination that's tackling this issue right now.

Plus, Jen and Village Church, they're in the SPC. So that's why I'm saying that. I'm not trying to pick on you Baptists.

I love you guys. Simple as that. Simple as that. More of a pastoral exercise as it is a theological one.

Yeah, I think anything that a church is serious about that is hard to talk about and potentially controversial is usually born out of a crisis moment. Otherwise, why would you do the work? And we know this in our own lives as well.

The things that we care the most about, we probably had a painful learning around. And in the case of women flourishing in the church, I think that when you are a male in leadership and you look around and you see that the men are,.

All using their gifts and serving. In Christian nationalism, I'm gonna say this. If I'm ever a magistrate in a Christian nationalist society, I will ban the use of the word flourishing. It'll just be, the word will be removed from the dictionary.

And if you use it, you will get a light beating the first time and then a heavy beating the second time. Flourishing, the word flourishing will be banned under Christian nationalism. It's as simple as that.

And you can see like,.

Oh, well, the men in our church are thriving. It's just the women. I don't know if the women are or not, but if the women in your church are not thriving, then the men in your church are not thriving because we're meant to do the work together.

The Great Commission goes forward by the contributions of both men and women, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers in the church. And I think that the reason that this is not at the top of the list for some pastors.

That she's like, well, if they're not using their gifts, then they're not thriving. They're not flourishing. What is the assumption there? The assumption there is that the gifts are the same. It's the same gifts.

It's the teaching gifts. It's the preaching gifts. It's the prophesying. It's everything. Everything's the same. So if the women aren't teaching and in leadership gifts and things like that, if they're not doing that, if they're not in leadership, if they're not being consulted, if they're not, if their permission isn't being granted, if they're not teaching, if they're not doing this and that, that's everything the men are doing, then they're not thriving.

You see what I'm saying? And the writers of Mandalorian said the same thing you know if Bo-Katan isn't kicking the Mandalorian's butt every now and then she's not thriving and look it's not the writers of Mandalorian this was happening in Star Wars back in the in the Clone Wars time as well when I was watching as a kid this is this programming has been going on for a while the egalitarian assumptions I have said this many times I grew up in those I breathe those like the air I breathe you know what I mean that's what that's how I grew up with those kinds of assumptions so it's like they're not thriving.

Well how do you know well because they're not in leadership they're not teaching yeah but what what if and I'm just spitballing here you know this doesn't really come from from anything I mean what if they're what if the gifts of women were different what if what if God in his infinite wisdom when he created Adam he created him a certain way and then when he created Eve to be a helper fit for him he created Eve in a certain way and those weren't exactly the same.

What if Adam was intended to take dominion and to conquer and to and to you know be tough and to be a provider and what if what if what if Eve was there to to to nurture the children and to to bear the children and to and to keep the house and what if what if what if they were thriving but they weren't doing the same things they were both flourishing but they weren't doing the same things what if what if.

What if garbage power is because their hearts have not broken over it.

There's another one stinky and dirty. There's some platonic friends stinky and dirty no romance there they're just friends. They're friends. They let they hang out with each other. One stinky one's dirty.

The things that I have tried to do is to break a few hearts along the way around this because I believe that it is truly heartbreaking when a local church functions in a way that we would never want a physical nuclear family to function.

So if I told you that there was a family in your church that had an authoritarian father who who dictates a lot of rules and a mother who is either never around or never says a word. And then parents who and then children who just tow the line.

You would say man that's a really unhealthy family. We're worried about them. We want to see what's going on. Is that woman okay. But too often in theologically conservative churches we function as single-parent authoritarian families with a father and children and an absentee mother.

And the reason that this is terrible. There are a number of reasons this is terrible. But one is because because when women don't see church mothers in their local church they don't stop looking for mothers.

So like I think about that P .D. Eastman book Are You My Mother it was a children's book that I loved when I was growing up. And the little bird is going around looking for his mother the whole time. And that's the way that many women in the church are.

And so when they don't see these women in their church they don't defer to their pastor. They have a father. They can see him they're looking for a mother. And so they look to women outside of the church.

And in my experience often the senior pastor if I were to give him a list of the top 10 most influential women in on Instagram in the Christian circles they would not recognize those names. They would not know whether those women were teaching sound doctrine or not.

And they only know about them when something big blows up and then they're all about it you know. But it's like well this woman's already had 10 years of mothering the women in your church because there was a vacuum in in your family structure.

Could be.

Could be so so what she's done here is she's created she's she's she's created. Well what if there's like this evil church. Right. You know dictator father. You know. And uh and uh and a submissive mother which is interesting that she uses that as that's that's an evil church as a church that's that's not functioning as a submissive mother.

Interesting. And then kids who tow the line. So that's her it's an evil church. You know what. If there was an evil church that would be a bad thing. So therefore like we gotta we gotta create a a a a a non-evil church.

Right. We gotta create a non-evil church because what's gonna happen in those evil churches is that they're going to you know look for someone else to be their mother. Interesting. Interestingly enough the women in her story become children.

Very interesting very interesting. Because earlier she was saying that that was not how it really was. But here's she's saying it is okay. That's fine. That's fine. So it could be that that they're seeking their mother which in her i'm using her words here i don't know if i agree with any of this but this is her story not mine.

It could be that they're seeking their mother because their father's a big meanie and he's evil and all that kind of thing. And their mother is absentee because she because she's submissive she's absentee.

This is her story. So it could be that they're out there on instagram seeking a mother because they've got an evil father. Right. That's that's the story she's setting up here an evil family. Or it could be that they're out there seeking a mother because they don't like what their mother actually has to say because their mother says you know i agree with paul that a woman should not teach or exercise authority over a man.

They don't like that because they've been programmed since birth just like all of us. I'm 40 years old so if you're roughly my age or a little bit younger you've been programmed since birth to think that that is uh oppressive.

You've been programmed since birth to sit to think that you need to be as equally you know competent in every way equal provider equal money all that stuff equal pay for equal work all that you need to have a career.

You've been programmed since birth that that's the way and you hear at church that oh but you see the problem is with my story that would require the possibility for women to possibly maybe potentially sin have sinful ideals.

It's just it's just the same old song and dance of every woke thing that's ever happened. It's just you assume the worst always you assume the worst. And uh of course the minority the the the oppressed can't even possibly sin.

And uh and that's how it goes. I think that um i think that that um her little story. Sure there are probably authoritarian churches out there. Fine. Is that the issue of the day right now. No that is not the issue of the day right now the issue of the day is egalitarianism needs to be defeated needs to be challenged needs to be confronted need that that idol needs to be chopped to the ground because it is destroying us.

It is destroying our country. It is destroying our churches. It is destroying everything. Um very interesting how how how her her narrative uh worked there it's just amazing. Uh we'll see what this guy has to say and then i think we'll be done for the day.

The SBC, Pastoral Authority, and the Women Flourishing Debate

Well i i i've got multiple follow-ups but i better behave myself.

Uh could could you could you lend some insight. Can you imagine this guy not behaving himself. Yeah i'm gonna behave myself but yeah i got multiple follow-up multiplicity of follow-ups but i'm not gonna talk about that because it's better to cut once and measure 10 times.

But is that how it goes. If you want to rock the boat you gotta stay afloat.

I jan into just circling back again to this document i i have not had the privilege of reading through it but i am curious could you tell us more what the process looked like. Right. So you'd mention uh a lot of times we don't identify who these influential christian mothers are.

There's a crisis all right. Um but you all have worked through a document and and have discussed some things that could potentially help us avert that same type of.

Behavior. What did that look like. All right. I guess we're going to see the uh the pastoral process that uh that she was a part of to write her paper. This is listed. This should be interesting but it'll have to wait for now.

I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.