Autumn: Welcome to the Vision for Life podcast, an ongoing conversation between the pastors of Fellowship Denver and the Church at Large. Each week we talk about life, faith, the Bible, and how to follow Jesus as we go about our daily lives. I'm Autumn, the host of the podcast, and today I'm joined by Hunter and a special guest, Jen Oshman. Jen, thanks for being here with us.

Jen: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Autumn: We're delighted to have you and we're going to talk about one of your books called Cultural Counterfeits on the podcast today. But before we start talking about the book, we have a couple of acknowledgements to make. One is that someone brought us treats.

Hunter: Our first podcast treats. Kelly Ledbetter, you win the first Vision for Life podcast listener to bring treats award. You will go down in podcast history, and these got dropped off on my front porch without my knowledge. So, I just opened the door and there are some cupcakes. And then later I got a note. I saw the note from Kelly, and she was saying how much she loved Jesse and Autumn and wanted them to have treats. So, thank you guys.

Autumn: How much she loved us, but apparently she knew where your house was. So, she dropped it at your house. Well, Kelly, thank you. We're grateful for the treats, which are Whole Foods cupcakes. So, you know, she did it right. And the very kind note that Kelly texted to Hunter about the podcast. Glad to know that it's an encouragement to you. And so, yeah, you know, this is the first, but doesn't have to be the last. Anyone out there?

Hunter: It does not have to be the last.

Autumn: Treats welcome.

Hunter: Just yesterday as I was getting ready to go for a bike ride, there was a guy who was trying to deliver a box of wine to someone on my block, and he can't find the house. And so, he stops me and he's like, where's this address? And I'm like, I don't know. It should be down there. And he's like, man, I can't find it. And I was like, well, if you can't find it, you can leave the wine on my porch. So, two hours later, I come back from the bike ride, and I have a box of wine.

Autumn: Oh wow, he left it. Last week, I accidentally accepted a lunch delivery to our church offices, which happens on occasion. On occasion, someone offers or orders food for a lunch. And so, I saw someone at the door. I hadn't ordered it, but just assumed someone else had. I came in, dropped it all off. I asked if he knew the name on it, and he said no. And there was a language barrier. So, he just shook his head “no” and left. And then I started looking at the order and it was definitely not ours.

Hunter: Yeah. Well, this is a long way of saying we don't need friends to send us treats. God providentially provides.

Autumn: But from this time forward, we're just going to say that we would love- we're grateful for the treats. We appreciate the thoughtfulness and the gesture. Alright. And then second is a question that I'm going to throw out to both of you. A new rhythm on the Vision for Life podcast is we're going to ask this question at the top of every episode. At the end of the year, Hunter and I talk about our best reads of the year. And throughout the year, we discussed different articles, books that we're reading, but that doesn't really capture the kind of ongoing reading. And since it's something that we love to do and want to encourage in others, we're going to just ask. And it's fun to have a guest on to ask as well. So, the question is, what's on your nightstand? What are you reading? Jen, we'll start with you.

Jen: Yeah, I just started a book. So, I have it on Kindle. So, I know that I'm only 6% in, but the author's name is Leif Enger. And the title is Virgil Wander. So, it's pretty, I mean, so far it's interesting. I think I told you guys it's giving Wendell Berry so far. So, we'll see.

Hunter: Autumn just ordered it as you were talking.

Jen: Yeah, good.

Autumn: I love Wendell Berry.

Jen Yes. Leif wrote Peace Like a River, which I think has been well read. And I haven't read that myself. So, I'm just I'm starting with this one. So, far, so good.

Autumn: Why did you select this?

Jen: Because I saw his name come across on social media as an author, as a good novelist by people that I respect, and so, I went into my app and my library app and picked one that was readily available. So, I started there. I'm always looking for a good, just sort of soul-satisfying, encouraging novel. I love to read fiction. I don't do it very often. But I do I think it's can be hard to find encouraging, nourishing fiction.

Autumn: Hunter, how about you? What are you reading right now?

Hunter: This has been a big biography year for me, like long, thick biographies. And I didn't intend it to be, but that's just kind of what's happened. So, on my nightstand, literally, I just finished last week, a biography of Martin Luther King that came out last year. And I think it won the Pulitzer Prize. It's just called King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig, E-I-G, and a fantastic biography of MLK, very even-handed. So, it's kind of a warts-and-all biography. Very educational too.

And just in terms of the whole cultural time period that was the 1960s, you know, in America, the 50s and 60s. So, that was great. And then after that, I started volume two of The Last Lion, which is the three volume trilogy biography of Winston Churchill. And I'm reading now in the section of his life or his career, when he is trying to warn England of the impending threat of Nazi Germany. And no one is believing him. They think he's crazy. So, there's a there's 800-page biography just about that period of time. And I'm 100 pages into it.

Autumn: Well, you made it to volume three, though.

Hunter: No, this is volume two.

Autumn: Oh, this is the second volume. Okay. All right. Volume two of the three volumes. Right now I'm, well, so our podcast listeners, this is the first treat delivery we've received, but some of you have sent book suggestions. And so, this year, I have listed some of those on my to read list and I'm working my way through some of the books that our listeners have suggested. So, right now, I am just finishing How to Know a Person, by David Brooks. And the subtitle is, The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. Shelly, one of our listeners that sent an article based on that book, and suggested I read the article and perhaps the book too, if I had a chance. And so, I just made it through that book. And it was very enjoyable. David Brooks has made a long study of the human condition and sociological aspects of our humanity, how we impact others, how we work together well or don't work together well, what our proclivities are in the Western world. And this arose out of him noticing that some people are really good at paying attention to others and seeing them deeply. And he began to ask, what is that quality? Why do some people have it? Can it be developed? And so, that's what the book is about. And it was very enjoyable. It was good and encouraging in some respects, challenging some respects. So, thanks for the suggestions. All right, now we are going to shift into- yes, you have another?—you’re emoting

Hunter: I was just going to say, the book we want people to read is the one we're fixing to talk about.

Autumn: That's true. We want to encourage you to read Jen's book, Cultural Counterfeits. And we're going to spend some time talking about it today. But before we start talking about the book specifically, Jen, would you share a little bit with us about your life and help our listeners just get a little snapshot of your life so they get to know you a bit?

Jen: Yeah. So I am a Denver native born and raised here in Denver. My husband and I got married about 25 years ago and finished seminary and headed for the mission field right away. So, we served overseas. We took a newborn baby with us, had two more, and adopted a fourth while we were serving in Okinawa, Japan. And then we transitioned from Japan to the Czech Republic. And we moved back to Denver almost eight years ago. And in God's providence, a surprise and a joy to us, we planted a church seven years ago. It's called Redemption Parker in a suburb of Denver. And so, at this point, we only have one kid left at home. She's a senior in high school, everybody else is gone in college and beyond. And since our time back in Denver, not only have we had the sweet gift of planting the church, but I've been able to do some writing and some speaking and just not only enjoying my local church, but also being able to participate in the broader Church here in the United States. So, it's been a gift.

Autumn: How many books have you written in total now?

Jen: Four so far, yeah. So the first two, Enough About Me and Cultural Counterfeits, are really kind of cultural commentary. Then I wrote a book called Welcome, which is for the Church on how to be a Church that warmly welcomes the outsider in. And then one book that we might actually touch on, It’s Good to Be a Girl, a good a book for children.

Hunter: And this is not your most recent book.

Jen: No.

Hunter: Cultural Counterfeits is sort of going to talk about 2022. So, I'm curious why Autumn selected this one to talk about.

Autumn: In the course of our author interviews, we have a couple of women who we invited on. So, Joanna Meyer and then Jen, and then our other three authors who we'll have on in this series are Dr. Blomberg, our friend Brandon Washington, who's a local pastor, and Dr. Rick Langer. And in selecting books that addressed different topics and authors who are in our locale, who we know have a relationship with in some respect. This book, the Cultural Counterfeits book, was wonderful to hear from a woman's perspective, speaking especially to women and girls and addressing a topic that none of the other books that we're going to feature touched on.

Hunter: Yeah, this was good for me to read too as a pastor, because it's a lot of the same subjects we've talked about when we read Carl Truman's books, like what was that one called Strange New World. And yet to hear how it is particularly affected women and girls is a different perspective than what you'll get from Carl Truman. And that's really helpful to me as a pastor, just given that at least half the church is women and girls. So, thanks, Jen, for that.

Jen: Yeah, thank you

Autumn: There are a couple of themes that run throughout your books. Even I think the first thing that I'm going to mention is even somewhat present in the book that's written to the local church, Welcome. And that is that expressive individualism is just sort of the ethos of our day or the air that we breathe. So, many of the cultural assumptions that we hold are born out of the kind of this air, the expressive individualistic assumptions that are woven through the way that we interact with each other, the way that we perceive the world. And then the effect of that is that often we find ourselves self-absorbed or seeking a kind of self-fulfillment or self-gratification and actually being told that that is this really high good, that that's a value that we should seek. And then you contend in many of your books that the church has to reject this cultural assumption and live in a really radically different way. And so, that's one theme that is that is kind of connected into all of your writing. And then another is that these assumptions, these kind of cultural assumptions have a specific and detrimental effect on women and girls. So, what is it about those two themes that you find kind of continually compelling?

Jen: Yeah, I think that you're exactly right. I am really fascinated by and clearly burdened by the reality that in our Western context, we do see just autonomy as probably our highest good, our most prized value is to be free to be who we create ourselves to be and conjure up ourselves to be. So, we are completely untethered then from any creator and any community. If you think that you should look within to determine who you are, and then do all that you can to make sure you become that person, then you immediately cut yourself off from any foundation or any rootedness in a God who made you. And not only that, but also the people that, you know, Genesis begins with a genealogy of, you know, these are the generations of us and each other. We belong to God and we belong to each other. We don't come from a void. And so, we were made by God and for God, but also for each other. And so, what I look at the cultural landscape, I see just the tremendous harm that we do to ourselves when we grab hold of that cultural counterfeit. And it is harmful. You know, I have four daughters, I've been in women's ministry for over two decades. So, I'm being a woman raised by divorced parents. So, with a single mom, I think I have that perspective of, how is this really impacting women? How does it shape a little girl's mind to be told, you know, just create who you think you should be and then conform yourself to these various cultural values that are probably not in your best interest?

Autumn: Yeah, it's interesting that there's a self-conflicting message even bundled into what you just explained, create yourself and but do it in a way that conforms to these cultural standards.

Jen: Exactly, yeah, it's a heavy burden.

Hunter: You use the term “counterfeits,” which I find really evocative because what a counterfeit tries to do is pass itself off as the real thing and to do what the real thing can do. So, in this kind of way of thinking, what's the counterfeit? I want to hear you talk more about that.

Jen: Yeah, well, I think that I based it on just my time spending growing up as a girl and then spending time with other women, especially in women's ministry and hearing their burdens and being in that space of counseling and discipleship and then wanting to raise my daughters to know what is true. What I saw is that our culture has been very persuasive, very loud in terms of peddling certain messages that are shiny and pretty and look good outside and say to women and girls, you've got to do this in order to realize your true self, to be really happy, to be really free, to be all that you can be, you really need to sort of conform to these things and you're absolutely right, Autumn, there is a paradox there. You determine who you are, but we're also going to tell you at the same time that the best version of yourself is the one who is X, Y and Z. And so, to answer your question, Hunter, just like a counterfeit, just like counterfeit money, it's meant to look like the real thing. It's meant to look like it is solid that there's substance behind it. But what we find is when we dip our toe in the water, when we go all in on these particular lifestyles or these particular counterfeits, women find them lacking. They overpromise and they underdeliver.

Autumn: How has being a mom to four daughters impacted you as you've written these books that are directed towards women and girls?

Jen: Yeah. Well, I think part of it, what has been helpful to me, which of course I didn't know at the time, was living overseas. We lived in Asia and then we lived in Europe and then we lived in the US. So, I had the opportunity to disciple my daughters in three different cultural contexts. And that enables you, and I'm not saying I did this perfectly and I have plenty of room to grow, but that enables you to sort of strip away what is cultural and what is biblical.

What we assume in certain contexts to be perhaps God's values and God's design, but then actually realizing, no, this is culturally imposed. And so, I think that these books were born out of just my desire for my daughters to know what is objectively true. Who are they and whose are they? Who made them? What is their point? What is their purpose? What is their substance? I didn't want to give my kids a flimsy design that is culturally constructed. I wanted them to know what is eternally true.

Hunter: Do you see this cultural narrative about autonomy and looking within yourself to determine who you want to be? Do you see that stronger in American culture than you did, for example, in Japan?.

Jen: Absolutely, yeah. And now, which is not to say that there aren't some really oppressive ideals in that context as well. But in a context like Japan, where you lead with your last name, there is a cultural identity from the, you know, you don't lead as an individual in that context. You lead from your lineage, your family, who you belong to, who your people are. But the flip side of that, the counterfeit side of that, then maybe is shame. Suicide is really high in that country. There's this need to conform to those expectations. So, every culture has its highs and lows. It's good and bad. But for sure, I think that there is a Western drive to be autonomous that is unique, and it’s pretty strong in our context, stronger than other places for sure.

Hunter: This is why I love talking to missionaries. Missionaries can always see culture and essential Christianity and how they work in tandem, but how they also need to be differentiated. They can see that usually more clearly than people who have just lived all their life in one culture. And so, that's a fascinating insight that you have into American culture, just in the fact that you haven't spent all of your adult life in America.

Jen: I am super thankful for it. And I'm so thankful that we were able to impart that to our children. The downside to it though, is that you kind of walk around with this extra baggage that makes it hard to have, you know, some conversation. You're maybe not starting at the same place in conversations and cultural engagement. So, I do think it is a blessing, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. The flip side of it though, is it can be heavy.

Autumn: Yeah, I believe that. Attitudes, kind of just publicly held attitudes about sexuality and gender and marriage and the role of men and women and what it is to be a woman, have really rapidly secularized in the last decade. You can point specifically to points in time before that as well. But it seems pretty clear that the Overton window has shifted in the past decade and our assumptions about all of these things that I just named tied to sexuality and gender have changed, have shifted at a society-wide level. And because of that, a lot of books have been as happens when we experience one of these massive cultural shifts in perspective. Books are written on the topic, both by secular authors and Christian authors. And so, Cultural Counterfeits touches on some of that from a unique perspective. But what do you hope that this book adds to the overall conversation?

Jen: Yeah, I think one thing that I really want to communicate in all of my writing is a gospel hope. It is really easy to write about these particular issues from a perspective that is angry and fearful. And I think I see a lot of that in the Church and outside the Church. But the truth is, for us who are rooted in Christ, we have an eternal story, and we belong to a God who sits now on His throne. And so, I want my books always to share sociological data. I want to be able to point the reader to like, here's what's really true about the things we believe. Here's how it's actually impacting us. Here's the data to back it up. But also here's what the Scriptures say. I want to sort of apply theology to anthropology. But I also want to do that in a way, in a tone that is not hopeless and not fearful and not angry. Our God reigns, and we can rest well at night knowing that nothing will come to pass that is outside His providence. And we know how the story ends. So, we can live in such a way in this moment as to point people to God's goodness and God's providence. We don't have to do it from a place of anger or fear.

Hunter: You bring that out at several points in the book. And there really is a battle between maybe the Christian narrative, the biblical narrative, and the cultural narrative. There's a battle over which offers more hope. It's almost a contest to say which of these is the true hope. And the cultural narrative will say that the biblical narrative is oppressive and the Christianity is oppressive. There's no hope to be found there, we are where hope is found. And you point out several times that women can tend to think Christianity is probably oppressive, or they can, even women who might say, I believe the biblical narrative at times, have to step back and go, but is it good? Is Christianity really good? I'd love to hear you just comment on how you see that play out.

Jen: That is such a theme. I mean, that is a theme that probably comes up in my everyday life as women. Well, first of all, let me be really honest and say it comes up in my own heart and soul. I can easily get to a place of believing that perhaps God is not for me, perhaps His word is not for me, perhaps the Church is not for me. The cultural narrative is loud, and not only that, but my own flesh is strong. And so, it's easy for me to veer into unbelief. So, I have lots of books on my bookshelves that are just dog-eared and tattered because there are authors who help me remember how to interpret the biblical narrative and what it actually says, because the Bible is hard. Let's be honest, understanding the Word of God is difficult. And so, I do have one book that comes to mind that I just want to recommend to any listener is by Wendy Alsop. And the title is, Is the Bible Good for Women? That's a book that I have that is completely fallen apart because I refer to it so often. So yeah, I just acknowledge that that is an easy lie to believe that somehow God is against us, His Word is against us, the Church is against us, because of course, our lived experience is that we are sinners and we are in community with sinners. And there are many times in many ways that the Church has gotten things wrong and culture has certainly gotten things wrong. And so, our lived experience can be very painful and one that we need to evaluate carefully against what is objectively true.

So, I do believe deeply, and it has been a drive of mine, not having been raised in the Church, I was not raised in a Christian home. So, I have wanted to know from, you know, my teen years, who is God and is He for me? Because the culture says that He's not. So, I have been driven by that question for a long time now. And I'm grateful to say that, for one, the tension holding that tension is okay. It's okay to keep asking that question. It's okay to keep returning to that question. But let's not just stop with a question. Let's actually do the hard work of getting to the bottom of it. And I'm so thankful to say that what I have found is a creator who wants what's best for me and that the Bible is a book of freedom. You know, He's the God who made me and He's the God who died to save me. And I find that returning to the cross over and over and what the Lord has done for me is just a reminder. It's an anchor. It's a compass to return to what's true is he stopped at nothing to make me his own. I can trust him even in the midst of this hard scenario.

Autumn: That question that you asked, is God actually for me? I think there are a handful of those that distill so clearly our need to return to that source of truth. That's such a good way to put it to ask that question. And it reminds me of the question that really is in the opening drama of Scripture. And that is in the very small drama of our everyday lives that's like, did God actually say? And if He did, then, Hunter has pointed out before that, yes, if God did say that or that is God's design, then it is good. And to remind ourselves in answer to that question, is God for me? And are these things that he has said good and good for me and to be able to say yes and return to that source of objectivity to ground ourselves is so important?

Jen: I think another helpful tool for me, Hunter, to get back to your question as well is just returning to history. You know, another- Rodney Stark is such a great historian.

Hunter: You do that in this book. You bring out Rodney Stark.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, he's just such a helpful voice. I mean, he traces- well, and Tom Holland, Dominion, you know, there's-

Hunter: Tell our listeners who these guys are.

Jen: These are authors who have looked at the impact of Christianity in our day. Andrew Wilson would be another one or Glen Scrivener would be another one. These are all guys that have recently written—or not so recent; Rodney Stark's a bit in the past—but the others are pretty present voices where they're just looking at, how did—I think Glenn Scrivener calls it the Jesus revolution—how did Jesus revolutionize the world? And what we see is that the impact of the early church on women was absolutely revolutionary. The early Church made space to care for and receive the widow and the orphan and the woman outcast and abused in her Roman context. And so, the Church grew rapidly amongst women in the first centuries. And that is the expression of who Christ is and what His church is really meant to be. It is the safe haven, the home for those who are vulnerable and marginalized. That is the gospel. And so, that's when the Church is following the Lord, when it's Spirit-led, living according to the Word, we should see it be a place where broken people, wounded people, those who are on the outskirts of society can come home.

Hunter: You make the point in this book that one of the ways historically, I think Rodney Stark, the sociologist really brings this out that Christianity elevated women was by elevating marriage, family, and procreation, which that's a different narrative than elevating women by what the feminist movement has become. So, how does elevating marriage and elevating procreation and elevating family, how does that also at the same time elevate women? Because to go with our metaphor, the cultural counterfeit narrative is women need to be freed from the obligation of bearing children. They need to be given the freedom to choose exactly when and how that's going to happen. And they need to be maybe, and sometimes maybe even freed from the need for a man, so freed from marriage. And you're saying, no, historically Christianity elevated them by making those things more important. How does that happen?

Jen: Wow. I think we could have this podcast go on all day and not actually get-

Hunter: That's my goal.

Jen: -to the bottom of that question because we could answer that from so many different perspectives. But, you know, in the first century, women were clearly devalued, considered second-class citizens, you know, not believable, not trustworthy sources, could be discarded. Female babies were unwanted. Infanticide was not uncommon in the first century, and they were truly left on the trash heap in Roman culture so that this family wouldn't have to raise a baby girl. And so, when women in the first century confronted the church, they found a place where they were valued, where their lives were treated as full of dignity and worth and as valuable as their brothers, as valuable as the men in the church. And so, from the very first days of Christianity, we see a community that prized and protected all image bearers equally, including women. So, fast forward a couple thousand or 2000 years. And here we are today. And I agree with you, Hunter, the cultural narrative is that I don't need a man. In fact, to be really transparent, I remember hanging in my freshman dorm room in college, a Gloria Steinem quote that said, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Hunter: I know that quote because it made it into a U2 song.

Jen: That's probably why I know it, because U2 is my favorite.

Jen: Yeah, so I think that you're absolutely right.

Hunter: But Gloria Steinem, she is the originator of that-

Jen: A massive feminist voice, yeah. And so, I definitely, you know, have that in my roots of like, I don't need a man. I'm not going to get married. I don't want to have kids, you know. The Lord was like, watch me. I'm actually sovereign, not you. So, yeah, the cultural narrative, again, to go back to Autumn's original point, is that we need to be autonomous. We need to be independent. And along the way in the 1960s and the 1970s, and of course, this is all rooted, like we can go back to the, we can go back to creation, we can go back to the enlightenment, like I don't want to just say, oh, this answer is simple, but something that we can extract from the 1960s and 1970s is that over time, we began to believe as an American people, as a Western people, that equality for women actually meant sameness as men, that to be equal, we had to be the same. And I think buying that lie in the 1960s was the beginning of a massive transition and a dark age for women. I think it's in Cultural Counterfeits where I imagine, I wonder, you know, what if instead of imagining that women needed to be the same as men, what if instead we valued and prized what women's bodies can do? What if instead we said, look, she can become pregnant, she makes babies, she creates the next generation, let's make that the thing that we protect and that the thing that we safeguard rather than autonomy and making a way for her to sort of engage in sex and do away with the consequences of it.

The truth is, the way the Lord made us is He made us for Himself and He made us for community for these deep relationships, the deepest being those as in our marriage and as parents. And so, when we cast that off, when we say, no, that's bad, no, I want to do away with that, I don't want to live in that kind of community, I don't want to lay down my life for other people. I think in the beginning, it's a counterfeit that, yeah, that feels good, feels good to do what I want to do. Feels good to live according to my own, you know, immediate gratification. But for our long haul, for the goodness of who we are and who God made us to be, that is going to destroy us. And that's what women have found. They have been exploited at the hands of the sexual revolution. They have been used and tossed aside. And we've given into various means and methods that have truly biologically hurt our bodies and have hurt our souls in the pursuit of sameness. And I think it's really dark and wrong.

Hunter: That was one of the biggest points I picked up when I read this, and I just turned to it. It was on page 44. I know you've written so many books, you don't even know it, but it's in this book. Okay, and you make the point that fallen male sexuality has become the norm. So, fallen, it's fallen because it's sinful. Men, sinfully, men can just go and have sex with whoever they can convince to. And not have to bear the biological consequences of that. That's fallen, that's not the way it should be. And you make the point that the sexual revolution just basically said, well, if men can do that, then women should be able to do that too. And so, fallen male norms were made the norm. And that's not good for women.

Jen: No, and it's crazy to me. It's not good for men either, but it's not good for women. No, absolutely not. I think that's such a strong point. Before we recorded about Louise Perry's book, what is it, the sexual revolution?

Autumn: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.

Jen: Yeah, the case against it. And she was motivated to write that book after having worked in, I think, like a crisis center for women who have been raped or sexually abused. And so, she saw in a totally secular context, which I have seen as well in my Christian context of being in counseling and discipling women, women don't actually like to be treated that way. And I think that those who claim that they do have been blinded by these cultural counterfeits. It's not actually for our good to be used and discarded and then move on to the next one. We don't really like it.

Autumn: Yeah. Interestingly, Jen, a couple of the authors like Rodney Stark and Tom Holland, who you mentioned just a moment ago, point out that this perception of autonomy, women's rights and the ability for women to decide what sort of sexuality they want to pursue in life is born out of a world that resulted from the effect of Christian values. So, Christianity valued women, made space for them in the church, made them in effect equal in value to their brothers. And it was because of that heritage and that effect in the Western world that things like feminism then grew out of those perspectives, especially like first wave feminism. And grew out of those perspectives on the equality of women, the value of women being equal to that of men, which is then of course, over time it takes shape differently in second wave feminism and beyond. You point that out in the book as well. But our ability as women to even consider to contemplate the statement, my body, my choice, exists because of the way in which our world was impacted by Christian values.

Jen: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, human rights and women's rights are not a given. We do not see the valuing of human life and women in particular across time and space. It's actually a pretty unique thing. And so, the fact that we champion women's rights and human rights is an outflow of Christianity. It's just the massive thumbprint or foundation that Christianity has laid for Western civilization. It’s what has led us to this moment of being able to say something like, my body, my choice. Now, I'm happy to carry the mantle or the label or the title of feminist, but I want to be really clear that I'm talking first wave feminist, and I'm talking women who fought for the protection of women and children in the temperance movement. That's really where first wave feminism came from is women wanted the right to be able to vote and to own property and to handle their own money, because in the Industrial Revolution, men were heavily drinking, coming home and abusing them and squandering away their property. And so, women said, we want to be able to vote, we want to have a voice, and we want to be able to protect each other and protect our children. That's first wave feminism, and I am here for it. But over time it has evolved, and I think it's been co-opted for lesser causes, for dark causes, for counterfeit causes. But the roots of it are really good and really Christian.

Autumn: Yeah, the book is constructed in three parts. The first is an introduction, looks into a bit of the history, helps us get our bearings as to where we are in this current cultural moment and what assumptions are running in our lives in the background all the time. And then the second part of the book really addresses these five empty promises of our age that you mentioned. And the third part of the book is a conclusion that I think does what you said it hopes you would do as an author in your books. It brings us back to this hopeful note and directs our attention towards Christ and the reality of his kingdom. In the opening section, so part one of the book, you mentioned these two stories and two brothers. And the whole of the book is constructed kind of around those two things. You bring the two stories and the two brothers back into the book in various points. So, explain this framework to us, help us get a sense of how you're conceiving of the setting for these five empty promises.

Jen: Yeah, so like I said, I love to do cultural analysis, but I always want to do it with a backdrop of Scripture. So, as somebody who evaluates and analyzes culture, when I look at the cultural landscape, I can see as a believer, here're some obvious idols. Here're some things that are no good, that we're all chasing after, sometimes I'm chasing after them as well. They're just easy to identify. But what can be trickier to identify, which the world does for us sometimes, are the idols inside the church.

There are some things that we uphold in here that are not necessarily God's design either. And so, there is a story in the Gospel of Luke and we know it as the parable of the prodigal son. But he is not the only brother in the story. There's also the older brother in the story. And so, as the story goes, the prodigal is the one who leaves the safety and security of his home, the embrace of his father, and he goes out to a far land and he pursues a gluttonous way of life, just the good life in the form of probably just reckless living, partying, maybe prostitution. And so, he goes out and does that, that's the prodigal. Well, there's the older brother, sort of this good son that stays at home and works hard on the father's land and with the father, and he just labors day in and day out and does the right thing. He lives according to a very strict way, doing the right thing. So, when the younger brother decides that this life is actually not good, he runs out of money, he hits bottom, he comes to himself, he decides, man, I have this father and this wealth back home, I'm gonna go back home.

So, he heads out for home. And what I love about this story, and I know others far smarter than me before me, especially Tim Keller have said, is that this is really a story about the father, because the father is standing and watching for the son. And while the son is yet a long way off, the father sees him, and he goes to the prodigal and he embraces him and he covers him with his robe and gives him his ring and his shoes. And he throws a feast because the prodigal has come home. But the older brother, who we I think maybe sometimes forget or I don't know how you perceive him, but he is upset. Like, I have been doing the right thing this whole time and here you are, you're gonna throw a feast for my brother, for this chump who's come back, but here I have been doing the right thing? Well, the father goes to him too. The father moves toward not just the prodigal, but the father moves toward the older son as well. And he says, all that I have is yours, and it always has been. And so, the father invites both brothers, the licentious brother, the one who's just throwing caution to the wind and doing whatever he wants, gratifying himself, and the legalistic brother. The father goes to both. And so, whether these counterfeits are out there in the world and exemplified by the prodigal or they're in here in the church and maybe exemplified by our legalistic living. The father loves us both and he comes to us both and he wants to welcome us both back home.

Autumn: It's such a powerful point that those are both temptations in the language of the counterfeit or the empty promise. These are both ways towards licentiousness or pursuing a version of the good life that the world holds out to us that we can pursue or fall into and legalism, pursuing goodness and moralism via law and attending only to the law. Those can both be temptations, absolutely, and idols that we can turn to instead of the father. In part two of the book, you talk about the five empty promises specifically. And some of those, a few of those promises really demonstrate how it is that we can pursue the good life via licentiousness. So, the idol of just saying, the good life is what the world says it is. Some of them actually touch on how we pursue the good life via legalistic or moralistic means. And the first couple chapters in that section address beauty standards and then our assumptions about sex and sexuality that are given to us in the culture. Into that first point and to you saying that you hope that you point us towards a hopeful perspective. I think there's something in that, the way that beauty standards kind of get distorted or contorted that is true. So, what is it that is kind of true in that that gets distorted and becomes an idol?

Jen: Sure, well, yeah, I think anybody who has a smartphone and social media would say that increasingly, especially over the last decade, we have probably prized appearance more than ever. And not just appearance though, I argue, it's also productivity. That we really value bodies that are beautiful and bodies that are able. And this really just goes back to the Imago Dei, the image of God, and everybody. And that we as a culture, when we divorce ourselves from a creator, when we say, nope, I'm self-made, then we no longer have a reason to see the beauty and the value and just the immeasurable dignity in every single life, no matter what the human looks like or no matter what that human body can produce or do.

And so, we see this play out in ways that are kind of funny. Like, this isn't funny, but it feels more superficial. Like people that are better looking are paid better. And I share the sociological data from that. There wages are- if you're better looking, according to our cultural standards, you're going to make more money. So, that's maybe slightly superficial, but where it gets to be more sinister is in issues of doing genetic testing and wanting to do away with a life that we deem somehow less valuable because of maybe a disability or some sort of genetic marker that says that baby is not going to be as valuable to me or to society. And we see that in places like in Europe where down syndrome, people born with down syndrome has plummeted because abortions are conducted prior to those babies being born. And we see it in end of life too. If you're suffering, if you have a terminal diagnosis, we're seeing nations increasingly legalize euthanasia for those who are suffering. So, there is this, we prize the beautiful and we prize the able. And so, I want to bring the reader back to what is true and that is that every human life is valuable. Every human life bears the image of God and is worth protecting.

Hunter: I just made a note to get a toupee and see if I get a raise as a result. But now preach the gospel to those of us who, you know, we're not that attractive. Preach the gospel to us.

Autumn: To the average person.

Hunter: To the average person who maybe has a little bit of fat in the wrong place and maybe doesn't have hair in the right place or isn't as tall and handsome as they are in their mind in reality. Just preach, cause this is a glory grab. We're grabbing for some glory, right? So, where does true beauty come from?

Jen: Well, and I think any parent is confronted, we're confronted with it with ourselves, but I raised little girls who would put on the princess costumes and twirl in front of the mirror and say, yeah, mommy, am I pretty? And that question is heartbreaking because I know I'm asking it of myself every day when I look in the mirror—do I measure up? Am I enough? And so, what I want to communicate to my girls and to myself is that beauty is not wrong. God is beautiful. He is the creator of beauty. I mean, look at our majestic Rocky Mountains when we walk out any door in Colorado, you see beauty. So, the pursuit of beauty and the valuing of beauty is not wrong, but our cultural idea of what is beautiful has gone grossly awry and is very much counterfeit. So, again, I want to bring the reader and myself and my daughters back to what is true. And as God is beautiful, God is the creator of beauty, let us fix our eyes on him. And he imbues His image and His worth and dignity and value on every single human life. So, let us be discipled by what is true in the word of God. In the spirit of God minister to us that the Lord is in us, He has made us. It is good to be a girl, it is good to be a man, it is good to be created in God's image. Every life is valuable. And I think I'm with you, Hunter. I can go awry so quickly. I'm aging, I'm not what I used to be. And we can get so fixated on that and so discouraged on that.

Hunter: Well, you said aging, but it's true. There's part of the curse that comes from the fall is that we die. And that means that our physical beauty, some of us have a better measure of it than others just genetically. But our physical beauty, if we look to even athletic prowess, any of that stuff is going to deteriorate, right? And yet there is a kind of beauty that lasts. Paul says the outer man is wasting away, but the inward man is being renewed. And there's a kind of beauty that's gonna last and is gonna receive a resurrected body, which I take it will be beautiful and glorious, right? So, for those of us who struggle with self-image, body image—I mean, I speak as a guy who, I was always the shortest kid in the class and never had the growth spurt that I longed for. And so, I had to wrestle with that as a kid—and to know that there's a kind of beauty that we can pursue that's eternal and it's gonna be clothed is gives dignity to us even when our bodies aren't what we want them to be.

Jen: Yeah, amen. I think that is so incredibly encouraging. There's a funny story that I share in the book that Autumn said I should share on the podcast as well.

Autumn: For those of you who are wondering how to respond when your little girl says, “Mom, am I pretty?”

Jen: Yeah, right, here’s some parenting advice.

Hunter: Tell me, I need the answer to this.

Jen: When I was young, my mom, in response to the question, mommy, am I pretty? that I asked her, I remember her saying to me, don't put too much hope and trust in your physical appearance because you could be in a car accident today and lose that pretty face of yours.

Autumn: And be terribly marred.

Hunter: That's how you parent an attractive girl.

Jen: It's really funny, but also, but it's true. We should not put our hope in that, which does not last. May we not put our hope there and that which is temporary, but let's put our hope in what is eternal.

Autumn: Hunter, you were describing your own conception of sort of self with this understanding that there is a type of beauty that is eternal. I think that impacts us. If we hold that theological perspective of the Imago Dei that you were describing, Jen, that drastically impacts how we see each other too and how we see each other as having value and being made in the image of God and ascribing beauty. Therefore, it means that we see each other as beautiful because of how God sees us and has made us. So, it's both, it impacts our ability to perceive ourselves in a specific way and our ability to see others.

Hunter: That's right. And that's not to denigrate caring for your body. Exercise is great. Working out is great. But for me, it's not great from a vanity standpoint. There's probably only so far I'm gonna get from a vanity standpoint. In fact, I could just look at my dad and then look at me and go, you know, I kind of look like my dad. So, that's probably the upper end of my potential in terms of how good my body's gonna look. But working out makes me feel fantastic, and it actually serves my ability to serve the Lord because it gives energy to my body and I need that energy to go do the things the Lord has given me to do. And it's just a good gift to enjoy His creation while my body's capable of doing that in certain ways. So, I don't want to discourage our listeners from eating well and exercising and all that, but it's important to keep in mind why we do those things.

Autumn: Our motives really matter. In the next few chapters that you address these empty promises. So, in five, six, and seven, you say, cheap sex, abortion and the LGBTQ+ movement hold out specific promises to women. What do they promise to women? Why might women in particular be impacted by these empty promises?

Jen: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing that really our sexuality has, it's up there with our autonomy. We want sexual autonomy really. I think you could probably argue all day long about, do we value autonomy more or sexual experience more? They're kind of maybe fighting first and second place because we have said in this culture, to be free is to be very sexual and to experience the whole spectrum of how every sexual experience, the more sexual experiences the better. So, whether you're pursuing multiple sexual encounters or taking advantage of legal abortion after the fact or pursuing sexual experience as a different gender or different sexual experiences with various people on the spectrum, those all hold out for us just this promise that you will be more fulfilled, your life will be richer, you will be happier if you take advantage of all of these opportunities. And what we find is, and there's lots of data in each of the chapters is it's just not true. Women with multiple sexual partners and multiple abortions and who are experimenting with gender and transgender lifestyles, depression is high, suicide is high. These are not lifestyles that are delivering the freedom and the lightheartedness and the joy and the happiness that women are looking for.

Autumn: The last empty promise that you address really does speak to, I think, a common idol in the Church. So, I want to make sure that we talk about that for a moment too. So, the last cultural counterfeit that you discuss in that section in part two of the book is marriage and motherhood. And I can imagine my single women friends at Fellowship who I love dearly saying to this section, yes, hear! hear! someone sees us, because they feel that sometimes more intensely than others of us do. They pick up on when there's a value tied to your being if you are a mom or if you are or are not married, whether that is something that is stated or is just implicit in a given culture. And so, what did you see? Like what, why did you identify this as one of the idols and what would your advice to those of us in the church on this topic be?

Jen: Sure, yeah. It's funny, whenever I have to give the quick elevator pitch about this book when somebody's like, oh, what's it about? And I list out the idols quickly, it's outward beauty and ability, it's sex, it's abortion, it's LGBTQA, and it's marriage and motherhood. When I say the fifth one, especially in a Christian context, people are like, what? And I've taken a lot of online heat for that chapter as well. It's one that has been picked apart by those who disagree with me. But the reality is all five of those idols, they relate to our bodies, they relate to our sexuality, they relate to our gender. And just like in the parable of the prodigal son and his older brother, there is a way to live in a way to pursue life that is going to be licentious or it's going to be legalistic. And I think the truth is, is we all fall into both ditches every day. Yeah, I can be given to both ways of thinking and living and any number of things all day long, every day. And so, I didn't want to write a book that sort of let the Church off the hook totally because I can sit inside the Church and go, yeah, abortion's bad; yeah, I was born female, so I should behave as a female. We can do that all day long and it can be tiring. But what if we took a minute to examine ourselves and the things that we uphold, the things that we say, this is going to really- you're gonna finally arrive when you have this. So, if culture's saying, well, you'll have arrived when you've had multiple sexual partners, then it's possible that in some context, the Church is saying, you'll have finally arrived when you become married and you become a mother. And I think what's true is if we pause and just listen, back to your David Brooks book, he would probably encourage us to listen deeply, to listen well to the stories of those who are single in the Church and say, what's it like for you? What are the messages that are proclaimed explicitly and implicitly to you? And what we find is that I think, so the Church has sought to protect marriage and motherhood because they are precious and they are good gifts of the Lord, right? The Lord gave us marriage and he gave us parenthood and they are good and worth protecting. So, when the sexual revolution came in and said, let's decimate the family, the Church said, no, let's huddle and protect it. But I think that in an effort to protect it and uphold what is good, we went too far as we often do. Idols are almost always good things that we've taken too far. And the Church has said, whether consciously or subconsciously, actually you're not fully mature until you become married. You're not fully mature until you become a parent. And it said, I think you guys could probably pour some examples into this even more than I could, but it said in discreet ways, like, are you dating anybody? Oh, I'm gonna fix you up with somebody. Oh, well, you can't lead a small group because you're single. Oh, well, just you wait, you think you're selfless now, wait till you become a parent. That's when you'll really be sanctified because then- so, it's the air we're breathing.

Hunter: Yeah, you said early in the book that Christianity, the early Christian movement, elevated women by elevating marriage and motherhood and family. And that's true. It made marriage better by calling the man up and by telling him your wife is a co-heir with you, Christ. And it elevated the value of motherhood. So, protected marriage and family and motherhood and that way to elevated women. Now you say at the end of the book, but we can take that too far as if that is the total theology of ideal femininity; redeemed femininity is to be a mom or to be married. And we could look back and say, the Jesus movement also elevates women by giving them work to do in the kingdom of God. And they have significant work to do in the work of the church and in the work of the kingdom of God. And so, I appreciate that you're kind of coming back and saying that at the end of the book because otherwise I think it'd be easy for people to take the valid point you made at the beginning and take it to say something that you didn't even intend to say.

So, it's really well balanced, I think, in the way you work that out. And I speak to single people quite a bit, and I have this little talk—and I actually counted it up last night; I think I've done it 17 times in 17 different churches—on a theology of singleness. And kind of the point I'd say is that even if you don't want to be single and you hope it ends, the point of singleness, this is a season of life where you can devote yourself to working in the Kingdom of God. And that's how you elevate your singleness. And I hear you kind of in some ways saying the same thing to maybe those who want to be mothers but can't be. In fact, inevitably when I do this singleness talk, there will be married adults there who can't have children, they're battling infertility, and almost after every one of them, someone talks to me who's struggling with infertility and says, that was so helpful to me because I explicitly make the point that childbearing is not the ultimate thing that fulfills us, but disciple-making. And I hear you saying that to women, and I know that's a really needed message and reminder today. Now, I do think we have to invest in the Kingdom, not just invest in the secular autonomous story of self-fulfillment. So, I'd be curious to how you would talk to maybe a single woman who wants to be married but is not married and that's a struggle. How you would talk to her, and she's not really invested in the Kingdom. Maybe she's just now instead of- she's just gonna try to live the secular story of like, well, I'm just gonna throw myself into career and multiple sexual partners and maybe travel and have fun. Just gonna do that. How would you invite her into something better?

Jen: Yeah, I think I would want to say to her whether she was in the Church or outside the Church, and whether she was married or not married, you were made for God and you were made for others. Because I think that is a narrative that we have really lost even inside the Church at times. We have maybe so protected and prioritized the nuclear family that even inside the Church we've forgotten how to live as a family of faith. And so, we have said, our family has to have our family dinner around our table, and we sort of shut the door and do our family routine day-in and day-out. And I think that in so doing, we have protected the family but then we have put those who are single on the margins or those who are suffering in their families on the margins rather than opening wide our doors of our churches and of our homes and saying everybody around this table all the time. That was one benefit of being on the mission field overseas is I had to look to other men and women in the Church to be my kids’ aunts and uncles and cousins. I didn't have my family with me, so we had to look to other believers to be in that role for them. And that experience was so incredibly rich. Jesus said, whoever leaves family and home for me will receive a hundredfold, and I experienced that. I experienced the richness of the family of God being on mission together and serving each other sacrificially in a way that I don't think that we see often in the American church. We're so consumed with soccer games and school schedules and whatever that we leave those who are not in our nuclear family on the outside. And so, women and men who are single and sort of ostracized from that setting, it's no wonder they're like, well, I'm out of here because I'm not seen, I'm not embraced, I'm not welcomed, I'm not encouraged. But it's to the detriment of the families also that they aren't having the single brothers and sisters speak into their life.

And so, my exhortation to those who are pursuing a secular life or pursuing a Christian life is we were made by God and we belong to Him and we belong to each other. And there's just no getting around that. There just isn't. This is the fundamental truth about who you and I are, and you will fail if you pursue happiness and satisfaction and peace and joy outside of that design. And the truth is that might look like you're married or you're not married or you're a parent or you're not parent. That's actually not really the point. The point is that you're on mission and that you love the Lord, and you love others and that you are discipling others in that way. And so, the good life, I think what I really want to remind myself, what I want to tell my girls, what I want to tell the women I'm in ministry with, what I want the reader to hear is, the good life is found in Jesus. And we're just not going to find it in these cultural counterfeits, as glossy and pretty as they are.

Autumn: What I love about that statement, Jen that you just made, that we were made for God and for others extends kind of an equal challenge to single people in the church who are in, whether a current or extended season of singleness and to families, nuclear family units in the church to actually see each other and for those family units to open their homes in. Remembering that we were made for each other that actually challenges both parties really beautifully. And points us back to our purpose and our appropriate role within the family of God. And so, I love that, I love that reminder and that question. At the end of the book, you have these two statements. So, one is, it's good to be a girl. And earlier in the podcast, you mentioned that you wrote a children's book.

Hunter: Turns out she was just setting you up for the next book.

Autumn: That's right. You wrote a children's book with one of your daughters. And so, the two of you authored this book, It's Good to Be a Girl. And but there's a chapter in your book that's titled that as well. And then the very last chapter is called, “Let's Go Home, Friends.” So, what do you want your brothers and sisters to walk away with from this book?

Jen: Yeah, I want men and women, but I guess especially my heart is for girls, to know that it's good to be a girl, that our God is good, and He created us good, that it's good news that you are a boy or that you are a girl. And so, in that chapter, I outlined just from Eve, in Genesis, all the way to Revelation, I just kind of traced the story of women in Scripture and the ways that it was good that the Lord made them and used them, the way that they proclaimed His glory in their various settings. And women in history as well, and women right now as well. And that's kind of what the little girl's book is about, just the goodness of God and who you are as a girl and how you serve the world around you as a girl. I think that's something that can be lost outside the Church and inside the Church. We have a lot of conversations in the Church right now about what it means to be a woman and where your role is and how you can serve or not serve. And I think in those debates, what we lose is just the goodness that it is to be a sister and a mother and a grandmother, spiritually speaking, to others.

And so, I do, I just long for people to know that it's good to be created, exactly who God made you to be. And then “Let's Go Home.” You know, I weave that story throughout of the prodigal son and he returns home. And the father goes out to him, but the father also goes out to the older brother, and he invites the older brother back into the feast. And the story ends with us not knowing if the older brother goes back in. Does he go back home to his brother and to his father? Does he receive the feast that the father has prepared for him? We don't know. And so, I want to say to every reader that our God is good, and He created us for relationship with Him and for each other. And it can be found, there is a feast that awaits us at the table, a feast of friendship and fellowship and goodness and joy, even in the midst of hard, dark, divisive days where we can feel hopeless and helpless. There is even now a feast. The essence waiting, awaiting us in heaven, but it is here now as well in community, in the church with the people of God and the spirit of God living in us. There is a feast that awaits us even now. So, will we go home to the Father and enjoy it even today?

Autumn: Well, I think that is a wonderful place to land this conversation. Jen, thank you for your work, for sharing some time with us today. For those of you listening, check out Jen's books. I would highly recommend Cultural Counterfeits. I've read Jen's other books too. So, take a look, pick one of those. I would love for you to read them and share your thoughts with me. We always want to welcome your feedback, so send us your questions, suggestions about what you'd like to hear us discuss on the podcast in the future, and you can email all of that anytime to podcast@fellowshipdenver.org.

Thanks for joining us on the Vision for Life podcast. Special thanks to Adam Anglin for our theme music, to Jesse Cowan, our producer, and to Judd Connell, who provides transcription for these episodes.