Now What? Spiritual Division
This year, our summer series centers around our new book, Now What?: How to Move Forward When We're Divided (About Basically Everything). We brought together groups of listeners who were on our book launch team to discuss how they’ve seen political conflict play out in their own lives. Over these episodes, we’ll share these conversations with you, along with some thoughts and strategies for how to navigate division in many different types of relationship.
Today, we’re focusing political division within faith communities. These spaces are often meant to be a refuge, but can become the opposite when conflict takes a stronghold.
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EPISODE RESOURCES
We can’t know everyone’s situation. But we do know that these organizations and many like them are waiting to serve you.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)
National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD (422-4453)
Family Violence Prevention Center: 1-800-313-1310
Families Anonymous: 1-800-736-9805
Gay and Lesbian National Hotline: 1-888-843-4564
Youth Crisis Hotline: 1-800-448-4663
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
The Trevor Project Hotline: 1-866-488-7386
These resources are all based in the United States. If you are outside of the United States, suicide.org will allow you to connect with hotlines in your country. Domesticshelters.org lists international resources to support domestic violence survivors.
TRANSCRIPT
Listener [00:00:00] And I think for me that's been the problem. Is that churches have lost sight of their purpose and we've chosen different purposes. We've chosen, oh, we're just about friendship or we're just about this or that. When like what you guys said in here, you said church is how we come together as a group to practice our faith.
Sarah [00:00:33] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:35] And this is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:36] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics. Hello and welcome to the third installment of our Summer Series based around our book, Now What? How to Move Forward When We're Divided (About basically everything). If you've been listening along, we have so far talked about political conflict inside families, inside partnerships and inside friendships. Restructuring the series much like our book, where we move through these circles of connection from the most intimate to the most expansive in an effort to provide context to the conflict and help us understand it better. Today, we are going to talk about church. As a reminder, what we did is send out a survey to our book launch team and said, who has political conflict inside these relationships that they would like to talk about? This was the most responses we got.
Beth [00:01:48] By a lot.
Sarah [00:01:48] By a lot. Was it about conflict inside church. And, listen, I can understand that it is tempting to turn off this conversation if you don't attend church and you are not religious. Now, if you find these topics painful, then of course skip this one, pick up the series at the next episode. However, if you're just concerned it's irrelevant to you, then let us take a moment to try to persuade you otherwise. Church is a collection of human beings and is often an intense manifestation of all the types of conflicts inside collections of human beings. You're going to hear a lot from these conversations, and interestingly enough, not very many of them involve God or religious beliefs and not a lot of theology involved here. There's a lot of heartbreak and communication and miscommunication, and that's relevant whether you go to church or not.
Beth [00:02:51] I am really fascinated by what place church has in our society right now, because on the one hand, there's a lot of writing about the completely outsized impact certain religious groups have on our politics. And on the other hand, there's a ton of writing about how incredibly damaging it is that churches are on the decline in our society. And I think both things are true at the same time. I think the conversations you're about to hear have elements of both of those. Where there is heartbreak because of the attempt for church to become a political instrument. And there is heartbreak because churches aren't doing the sort of community service that people are looking for. I'm sick and someone brings me a casserole. A person died and the church is there to kind of scoop me up and carry me through the grieving process. Our community has needs that are going unmet. So it is a really interesting dichotomy to recognize that both the ascension of the church politically and the decline of the church as this important part of communities are kind of ripping at people's sense of who they are and how they might belong or not in the context of these organizations.
Sarah [00:04:09] Now, just a reminder, the participants in these conversations were incredibly generous and incredibly vulnerable. But they don't represent the entirety of the church experience, the entirety of the human experience. This is not a conversation that is meant to advocate for a position on church or anything else, and neither were any of the other conversations that we've hosted throughout this series. All we're trying to do here is to help people feel heard and seen and to try to illustrate and observe some of the conflict that is running rampant throughout our country.
Beth [00:04:47] And just as in our previous conversations, we did not set this up to be a discussion about Covid, but Covid was an earthquake for churches, and that is where the conversation began.
Sarah [00:05:08] As we mentioned in the opener, we got more responses about church than anything else. And you would think, well, if it's a large number of responses, perhaps there are a large number of experiences and there were, but they definitely fell, as we mentioned, in one main category, which was conflict related to Covid.
Listener 1 [00:05:31] As of right now, we are not attending church. We were regular attenders and I worked in the children's ministry for years before the pandemic hit. And then when it did hit, all of the churches closed down temporarily. And then when they started reopening, we just were not comfortable with their response to safety precautions and mask mandates and their lack of enforcement around those within the church building. So we decided to take a longer hiatus and we were watching online sermons. And then after January 6th, the sermon that was preached did not address the events at all, which I understood because the pastor of that church was very focused on keeping politics out of church, which makes sense. But to not even address the people who are injured, prayers for those who were injured or affected really rubbed me the wrong way. And then there was a sermon that seemed like it was equating the United States of America to a modern day state of Israel and basically calling us the promised land. And so we very quickly backed out of that particular church and have been kind of experiencing online church with other ones nearby. And we have signed the kids up for a VBS this summer at a different location so we can try to kind of step back into it because it is something that I want the kids to experience and have that be a part of their life growing up. But it was just very traumatic to have those things one after the other over the course of a couple of years. So I'm kind of hesitant to step back into that space.
Listener 2 [00:07:38] For us, both my husband and I grew up in church. We actually met like through church youth group stuff when we were in high school. We went to a Christian college. So we have always been church attenders. And initially in our marriage, we attended a church, a very small church in the San Francisco Bay area. And so I realized, on reflection, that maybe my church perception as an adult had been slightly skewed by where I was attending church. And then we moved back home to upstate New York, and we kind of just fell into like the first church that we went to, because when you have kids, touring churches is exhausting. And we had friends that went to this church and it seemed great. We liked the sermon, so we stayed there and I think it first started to get uncomfortable right around the 2016 election just in conversations, things that people were saying were not things I agreed with. And we tried to have some conversations with people about like, oh, why do you feel that way? And we feel differently. So being in New York, we had very strict restrictions on church in masks and mask mandates and all of that. And then when people started going back to church, we didn't initially. We have a daughter with a disability and we just weren't comfortable. I work in the hospital and I had pretty strong opinions. And initially we found church to be very supportive. I was getting cards and gift cards as a health care worker mailed to our house. It was great. And then they took off the masks pretty early. Earlier than I was comfortable with. It was in New York State where there was like the Supreme Court lawsuit about churches and masks and stuff. And so people had very strong opinions about that. That were not my opinions. And then all the things that had kind of not fit before had kind of rubbed a little bit the wrong way. I used to joke that I work too much, my kids go to public school and I don't have the same beliefs about women in church. And so I just didn't fit with the women in my church. And it just kind of became apparent about how distanced we were from everybody. And as my son has gotten older, I really realized that I didn't want to be unteaching so many things. He's in sixth grade and so he was just about to start going to youth group. And I just really was like, there's so many things that they're going to tell you that don't fit with what our family believes. And for a long time we stayed because we felt like we can live with diversity. We can all have different opinions and we can talk about them. And it just got to be the point where I was like, I don't want them teaching my kid this as he becomes a man. I don't want him learning that women have no role in leadership, that being gay is not okay. That God doesn't love you if you're gay and all of these things. And Covid was like the straw that just broke all of that for us because we just didn't feel safe bringing our kid with a disability to church.
Listener 3 [00:11:14] We have been attending a church that I will describe as like a soft place to land. And that within the last, well, this year certainly or maybe we went right before the holidays, but the church we were at before, we never went back to after Covid. So there was kind of a three pronged thing that really did us in with that one. And the first being there was that beginning time where they were like, well, we're still going to try to have services. Back when we were, like, we're going to wipe everything down and we won't hug at the door and those sorts of things. And then they did stop having in-person services for, I don't know, maybe only six weeks or something. I mean, it was a very short amount of time and then they were back and we were obviously not comfortable going back. I remember when they first put out the guidelines, they didn't mention masks at all. And so I was like, hey, could we see masks welcome or something if you don't want to make people-- or turn people away? And they were like, oh, great idea. It was like this little bitty lie. So we never felt comfortable going back. And then a lot of churches jumped into doing online services, but it's a relatively small church and I understand that if you're putting all your energy back into in-person services, that trying to also do streaming for the10 people who aren't there is a lot of work. So they stopped streaming. They stopped offering their services online. The other two things that pushed us from really trying to go back once we felt more comfortable, like, once we were vaccinated were just the lack of response to like the George Floyd murder and BlackLivesMatter in general. And then the third thing was we were listening online one week and they had a sermon on about anxiety. And I have diagnosed anxiety and take medication. And it was that whole, like, you're just not having enough faith and that sort of nonsense. I started bawling in the middle of-- I'm like, why am I doing this to myself? It's on my TV. I can just turn it off. But then my husband had to sit there and have a conversation with my kids about how what the pastor was saying about their mother's diagnosed condition was false. So it was one thing after another where it's just you go, look, this is not a good place. And, honestly, the whole church population has pretty much turned over since Covid, which is kind of interesting. A lot of people left and which is sad too, right? But it's obviously not particularly healthy.
Sarah [00:14:15] When people come to church expecting what you were describing at the top of the show to be swept up and supported. And I think there's this aspect we write about in the book that there's an aspect of consumerism that can come in a church. But I think some of that is there is some investment. There is some sacrifice when you go to church. You're sacrificing time on the weekend. You're sacrificing energy. You're sacrificing time with your family. Some people give financially. There's this sense that, like, I'm here, I'm putting in and instead of feeling supported, instead of feeling helped, what I feel is criticized. Back to the friendship conversation, people want to hear like you made the right choice, you did the right thing, and so on. If you show up at a church in a moment of pain or anxiety, as we were just listening to you, and what you get is you're not good enough, you're not trying hard enough after you're trying hard to get there and be there. It feels like a betrayal. I think that is the word that comes to mind more than anything as I listen to the church conversation. There was this sense of real betrayal that I think is wrapped up in this dance of belonging that so often happens inside a church congregation, or is definitely the desire often from people when they attend church.
Beth [00:15:37] We emphasize in the book being a contributor. Something I've thought about a lot since we wrote the book, though, is that sense that I can't only be a contributor. I can't only show up to church and suddenly be volunteering all the time. One of our listeners, Brooks, said to me, "If I'm asked to volunteer before I've received a social invitation, that's a problem. I should be invited to dinner before I'm assigned a task." And I thought that was such a good role and something I'm going to stick in my mind for the rest of ever. You know, that you should have a social invitation before you've been asked to do something, because we can't only be contributors. And when you have that sense of betrayal around whether you're cared for on the most basic level in the space-- and that's what Covid really drew out, right? Am I cared for in this space on even the most basic level? It is really difficult to bounce back from that. And I don't envy the people in churches who were trying to navigate folks who felt betrayed on multiple dimensions and in often totally contradictory directions.
Sarah [00:16:43] The other thing that this conversation really illuminated for me is, yes, I think there is a lot of sort of consumerism. And like you said, like, we want people to be a contributor. But when it comes to church, even though there can be that transactional energy, well, also they're talking about values and ethics and especially in the Christian denomination, what happens when you die and how what we do here matters there. And so there's also this very heavy energy around being a good person. And are you are you doing the right ethical thing? And what does that mean if you don't? And so if you start to walk away from the congregation, far from being this sense of I gave it the thumbs down and I've moved on, there's this really heavy emotional energy. I mean, at one point in the conversation, I said to two of the listeners who had left their churches. "Do you feel guilty?"
Listener 2 [00:17:51] Yeah, I definitely feel a little bit of the guilt, at least especially because it's been so long where we haven't gone back. I feel like I should be doing more to work on that and try to get back in the swing of church attendance so the kids don't miss out on that experience and so that I am not feeling like I'm missing out on it. I mean, there are a lot of ways where we can continue teaching our children the Bible stories and studying the Bible for myself. And those kinds of things are great and easily done, but they're also easy to forget to do when you're not in the habit of regularly attending and being a part of that community with other people who kind of check in on you on those things and you check in on them. And especially where my oldest is 14. So he's at the age where I feel like the youth group component could be really key for entering high school in the fall and having that kind of background that I didn't have growing up because we didn't attend church when I was growing up. So I feel like that was kind of missing and left me a little bit more-- not that I was a bad kid, but it kind of left me without that sort of compass to guide me through the high school years. And I feel like I would like that for my boys.
Sarah [00:19:28] And there's a whole nother level, right? It's not just they are emotions. It's not just about how when you're in church, you're talking about like what type of person you are. Are you a good person? But now, especially for parents, there's this added layer of am I doing the right thing for myself, but also am I doing the right thing for my kids? And that came up a lot in our conversation. Like, I wanted my children to be in church. Or I left the church because the church was not affirming of my child. Like, I think that's the complicating factor in this too. It's not like you're just talking about a job you can leave that affects you as an individual or a board you're serving on that you can quit that. This is like a family organization a lot of times that we're participating in.
Beth [00:20:14] Yeah, we also hear from people. "I left the church because I want my children to be indoctrinated. It's hard for me to get in the car and say, 'Hey, those things we just heard, we don't believe those in our family.' And how do I navigate that?" How do you think about that, Sarah? Do you primarily go to church for your kids or is that a complicating factor of your church attendance?
Sarah [00:20:35] No, I started going to church and wrote very publicly about it on the Internet, including a piece that was published on The Huffington Post that, last time I checked, had like 3000 comments about that. I went back to church for my kids. That I wanted them to have that experience. I wanted them to grow up in a church. It was important to me. I feel like it's a language you learn. And if they choose not to speak the language, I wanted them to learn it. But that's what it started as. That's not how it is today. Honestly, I had a transactional view, but I was going to go so they could go to church on Sunday and then I was out. I wasn't there to make friends. I wasn't there to volunteer. But the community and the human beings worked on me. And definitely now I would describe myself as going to church for me. Like, I go to church for me. And it's important and I love that my kids are there and that they have friends at church and an amazing youth minister and other adults that are invested in their lives. But it is definitely shifted over time and it's become more important to me. This is an excellent opportunity to say we were really blessed by this conversation, to have a listener who works in a church, who serves as a youth minister in a congregation, which obviously adds a whole other layer to this conversation. And we'll share that next. As we listen to so many stories of heartbreaking leaving congregations, I was really happy that we had someone still in a church and not only attending a church, but working in a church, battling with these issues on the front line and trying to find a path forward. I thought that was a really important perspective to share.
Listener 4 [00:22:35] So, yeah, I'm at a church. I've been there from before Covid to through now. I'm still working there. And it's been a struggle, though, and there's been days where I was, like, I don't know if this is right. But I think really we've hit kind of that good spot where we make everybody angry. Where like people who don't want to mask at all are angry at us and people who only want everybody [Inaudible] they're angry too. And we're kind of in the middle with following guidelines and that kind of stuff, which really made me and my husband comfortable. He has asthma and we just didn't want to get Covid. So all that to say, yeah, we've found some times where we feel like we're kind of the odd people out on stuff where we feel a little bit alone. And I'm not the only female pastor, which is great. And so I don't feel necessarily alone there, but I am a little more outspoken sometimes and disagree with certain decisions, but have had a safe place to do that in leadership. Even if they haven't taken what I've said and done that I've still said, hey, I think we're taking off mask too soon. And they listen and really, really, listen. And so it's been a good growing experience and one that's been better. We've kind of transitioned pastors recently, like, lead pastor. We had a lead pastor of like 22 years and had a plan in place for like a succession and then Covid hit. And so that got a little delayed, but we still ended up making the transition to our early pastor now is just really passionate about not making the church a place of politics, but still addressing things. And I've just been proud to have that freedom myself when I'm speaking to students to be able to not point them necessarily to political solutions, but just point to, like, hey, Jesus loves you. Jesus loves anybody regardless of color. Like, everybody is valued and needed. And so anyway, that's where I am at. And I guess why I've stayed is because we just had those authentic conversations.
Sarah [00:25:25] So she's found what so many people are looking for and church in not finding, which is authenticity. And I think so often because churches are obviously a mission driven organization that the conversation, the theology, the mission statement, whatever you want to call it, revolves around values. And I think that this can happen in other spaces, not just churches, where that becomes a shortcut to communication or almost a barrier to communication, where we're on the same page, we all believe the same things. And so it can really short circuit those authentic conversations that everybody's looking for.
Beth [00:26:00] It's tricky to have this conversation because I have no experience outside of Christian churches. I've never been in a synagogue or a mosque. I have no exposure to practitioners of Wicca or like, all the ways that your spirituality can be expressed. So we're talking about kind of a narrow band of experiences. And even within Christian denominations, there's such a range. I had a fascinating conversation at my church recently where we were talking about what the Bible means and how to interpret the Bible and what role the Bible has in our relationship with God. And it was one of the most open conversations I've ever been a part of about that, to the point where I felt comfortable pushing back when someone said this is kind of all we have to go on. I said, I don't think it is at all. I think the whole world and other people are a text that we were given. And to be able to kind of wrestle with those things in a church is what I think we're looking for. But it can feel scary even in a very supportive environment. You have to work so hard to establish that kind of trust, and I think that Covid has made all of that even harder because it is that brokenness of trust that people experienced around the reaction to Covid that I think has been an impediment to like getting to the next level at all. We're sort of stuck in, oh, wait, we're not even on the same page about masks or in-person attendance or what we do with our kids under five before a vaccine comes out. All of those things just kept us stuck. So when I hear Suzy, I think, oh, my goodness. Like, I'm so grateful for people trying to get through this. And also, even after we're out of the most acute phases of it, you can see that this inflicted such long lasting damage.
Sarah [00:27:50] I think Covid was a flashpoint at church for the same reason that was a flashpoint in so many areas of our lives. Because it was that-- the door slamming, the door opening, the clap, the thunder, like, whatever metaphor you want to use, where everybody woke up and went like, wait, what are we doing here? The stakes have gotten higher. The stakes have gotten harder. So what are we doing? And I don't think church was any different. And you definitely hear that reflected in the conversation.
Beth [00:28:18] I spent a lot of time-- when we were not attending church during Covid, and I'll confess that I was terrible at watching online services. I really tried. It was it was not for me. But during that time when we weren't attending church regularly, I spent a lot of time thinking about why we go and why I would go in a new season of life where we had experienced Covid and. I went around the bend a lot about that. And so I'm curious, especially for those of you who left a church and now are looking for or have found a new one, because that's a really hard process, I'm just curious what you describe for yourselves as the need that church meets. So I think that defining that need might help us better dig in to this distinction between acting like a consumer and a contributor that we try to explore in this part of the book. So I would love to hear what you define for yourself as the need being met by church.
Listener 3 [00:29:20] I do miss the community. It's such a big part and we have other areas of our life where we can get community. But in really healthy church environments I've been in, it's just been such a source of loving care, without strings, without it being awkward. You know, people at work care about me, but it's different. So I hope we can find that again. And even my husband is-- I love to use the word community, but we were talking about it recently and he was saying he missed that. We need to find that. And I agree. And I'm just like, but it's so much. It's so hard to try to find it.
Sarah [00:30:08] I'm interested because you didn't list a place where you felt like your values were affirmed.
Listener 4 [00:30:16] No, that's a good point too. Yeah. It wasn't first to mind, but I guess to me that's sort of I want to find a community [Inaudible] that.
Sarah [00:30:29] No, that's like income.
Listener 4 [00:30:29] That's like a baseline.
Sarah [00:30:30] Well, that's because I think that's what's so interesting here is, like, I think I would have told you that it's primarily like people in our audience that felt and purposely disconnected from congregations where they felt like their values around Covid and racial justice were being mirrored. But man, you read articles in The Atlantic and it's happening all the way on the other end of the political spectrum, too, where people are mad their pastors aren't speaking out for Trump and aren't speaking out about the problems. And I'm like, what? This can't be it. Because I think for so many decades people did not expect any politics in their church, did not expect any sort of confirmation about what was happening in the world. It was the opposite. Like, they wanted it out, completely out. And so I'm, like, there's got to be something under the surface here, and I'm just trying to figure out what it is.
Listener 5 [00:31:23] Yeah, I really resonated with the chapter you guys wrote about churches and community in general and just talking about how it is a common purpose. And I think for me that's been the problem. Is that churches have lost sight of their purpose. And we've chosen different purposes. We've chosen, oh, we're just about friendship or we're just about this or that. When like what you guys said in here, you said church is how we come together as a group to practice our faith. If that's what the purpose of church is to practice our faith, which includes the fun stuff, right? Like, it includes we're going to do like messy games, we are going to have a colored powder war for youth group. Like, we're going to have fun stuff too. We're going to have those shared meals and all that stuff. But it's all out of that purpose.
Listener 4 [00:32:25] It's hard to really define, but for a long time it was just about finding kind of more friendships and things like that. I found that regardless of what church we went to, I always managed to find a friend group there for myself and for the kids. And for a long time, that was one of the main things that we were looking for, because we lived in a community where the schools were not necessarily the best, and there were a lot of kids that weren't the best influences on our kids. And we were looking for them to make friends that would be that better influence and allowed them to be a good influence as well. And I think we also just looked for places where we were able to use our own skills to give back. For a long time, we attended a church that did a meals ministry for the homeless, and we really found that that was something that we enjoyed doing as a family together to give the kids that exposure to being able to give back. Because a lot of places do the community outreach for the adults, but they don't always include the kids in that equation. And that's one of the things that we really would like to find, again, is some place where we can do those kinds of things alongside our kids and teach them that part of it. In addition to just the typical learning, the Bible stories and the fun games and things, those are great, but also being able to do that, being the hands and feet and carrying that forward to the next generation.
Listener 3 [00:34:14] I feel like I've found a lot of community that have the same values as I do just through online-- I mean, Pantsuit Politics community where I go, okay, like we're going in the same direction, we're moving forward. What I miss is also being in a place where I can grow my faith and learn more about the Bible with people who are moving in the same direction with those sort of other values. Because sometimes if you're in a space that's way off-- and I don't want to say way off to the left, but just very like a politically heavy environment where it's a lot of advocacy, a lot of like let's march and and there's a lot of F the police. And the other thing I was thinking of was just the thoughts and prayers thing. Like, thoughts and prayers are not enough. It hurts my heart when people are just like instead of thoughts and prayers, it's policy and change. Can it be both? And so sometimes I feel like I'm in a more secular or political environment, then I feel like I have to tame back parts of myself that are of my faith. And so if I could find a faith community that's also socially where I'm at, it's a unicorn maybe, but...
Sarah [00:35:41] There's not a lot of self-reflection inside political activism. There's just no space and no path for self-reflection, self-awareness. I mean, it's a collective action. So there's not a lot of individualism at all. And there's not even an invitation to question or be curious or think deeply about things. It's literally get on board so we can create change. And I think there's a role for that. But it's a very, very, different vibe.
Listener 4 [00:36:10] At our former church, I would say in many times either things weren't addressed from the pulpit or if they were addressed, it was addressed in a way that I agreed with. That was part of how stayed for so long. But the vibe of the church was definitely that, like, our families take on a lot of social issues was not the same as a lot of the members of the church. And so eventually, like, we stayed for a long time. We were at that church for years knowing that what was said from the pulpit was generally what we agreed with, but that the beliefs of a lot of the members was generally not in line with our family. And eventually that was kind of like we just didn't feel welcome. We didn't feel like we belonged in that community. You can attend for a long time and not feel like you belong. And finally that just got to be too much for us. I think I struggle with that with the church as a whole right now with the American church. It's like at what point do you stay knowing that you don't agree with a lot, but feeling like your voice needs to be one that's heard in that community versus when do you leave and find a safe place to land because you just can't anymore. That's something I've struggled with a lot.
Beth [00:37:43] I don't know the answer to that question of how to decide when to stay or to go. And I think a lot of that does depend on what you've decided is your reason for attending in the first place. And that's what I think makes some of these political issues so hard for churches, because you hear so clearly in these conversations, I don't go to church to be told who to vote for. I don't go to church to have a set of rules laid out for me about political policy. And at the same time, church feels pointless to me if I go and it's not speaking to the issues that are present in my life. If church has nothing to say about racial reckonings, what is the point of being here? If church has nothing to say on mass shootings, why am I here today? Because that is what my spirit is wrestling with. And so deciding for yourself what the church exists to do in your own life is hard enough. Having that meet the needs of a group of people is even harder. And I think churches have tended to try to meet those group needs by sort of borrowing corporate practices. We do surveys and we do listening sessions and then you have a meeting and at some point somebody in the meeting says, "Well, you can't make everybody happy." But the trouble is church kind of is supposed to make everybody happy, not on every single thing, but the dignity of each person and that person's sense of belonging needs to be remaining intact for them to stay. That is hard to accomplish. And I will never forget the way our listeners in this group sort of summed that issue up for us.
Listener 5 [00:39:21] For us, it came down to we had been like small group leaders. I volunteered in the children's ministry, like all of the things, because I was raised in a Christian family and you're a joiner and you just do the things. It felt like we had spent so long trying to shove like a square peg in a round hole. Like, this isn't fitting anymore. I'm not fitting. Like, it honestly felt like I don't fit. And it started to really feel like I was questioning things about myself because it was so clear that I did not fit the mold that was expected of me. And it just got to be like, I can't. We can't do this anymore. So we finally just left.
Listener 4 [00:40:11] Yeah. I mean, none of this surprise like this is. Yeah, I've left. I, I haven't always been a pastor, so I had a time where I left the church because I was not happy and I left so quietly. And, yeah, I kind of felt that same discarded, like, oh, nothing I did really mattered. And I think now seeing people leave from this side of it,I mean, for me, I just do wish for those conversations. I just do wish that people would send the email and I would definitely respond. I would probably lose my job if I didn't respond to you. And I think that that's really like the heart of like now what. It's like be interested in people, be interested in the back story. And we may not agree, we might still walk out with the same outcome, but man just isn't there a genuine care and wonder and curiosity for people in their lives? I mean, that's just so basic.
Sarah [00:41:31] Because church and religion and spirituality are trying to answer some of the most difficult questions we struggle with as human beings. And we are there struggling with them together. Then the importance of all the things we've talked about at our different levels of connection: naming expectations, annotating hurt or heartbreak inside the relationship, understanding how to deal with conflict-- and as we're going to talk about it in our next episode the importance of leadership-- become clearer and clearer and clearer. This conversation was no different. And we're sure the conversations you're having in your own lives about church or about other forms of interpersonal conflict are no different either.
[00:42:32] As we sum up our third episode in this four part series, it does feel like we are having the same experience we had when writing the book. Which is as we work through the different levels, all the lessons we learned, all the patterns we saw were applicable on all the other levels as well. We named Unmet Expectations the very first chapter about families. And by the end when we're talking about national politics or community relationships, unmet expectations were still a part of the equation. And I think especially with church, like I said, because this is intersection of so many human beings trying very hard-- there's a lot of try hard at church-- that it's not surprising that all the things we've tackled in the series, like I said, are coming to play again.
Beth [00:43:31] That is both true for me. And I'm focused in my own life on really treating church differently than I treat other spaces. I ask you how you think about church as a parent. I have very deliberately set it up in my house to say that I attend church, and I would love for you to come with me if you'd like to. But it is an invitation to my kids every time. And sometimes they accept and sometimes they decline. It's interesting. As they're getting older, they are accepting much more regularly and they're finding their own roles in the church and I hope their terms, but I don't make them do anything related to church. And that is because I am trying to navigate that sense of how do I allow you to develop your own spiritual beliefs in the world instead of feeling like you're being indoctrinated with something? And how do I show you why I attend. Not just tell you, but how do I show you that it's important for me to be there and this is what I get from it, and this is why I contribute to it, and these are the ways I contribute to it and why I choose those ways. I am really trying to take a different course. I'm trying to think differently about my service at church versus my service on a board of directors for a nonprofit organization. I'm trying to think differently about the work that I do for my church versus the work I do elsewhere in my life. It feels like it needs a specialness to me in order to fulfill a purpose that makes it worth a lot of the strife that we've been discussing that is going to be present in any church, no matter how wonderful and supportive. It is a collection of people. So all of those issues are always going to be there. How does that feel worth it? Is a question that I'm exploring.
Sarah [00:45:13] And we're just so happy and grateful that the listeners who participated in this conversation are willing to battle with these questions. Again, whatever the role church plays in your life or if church plays no role in your life, we do hope that there were parts of this conversation that you recognize. What we're hoping from this entire series, that there are parts of the conversation that make you feel seen or heard or just a little bit less lonely. On the next and final episode of the series, we are going to talk about work and community. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:46:03] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [00:46:08] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [00:46:14] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producer (Read their own names) [00:46:18] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hassler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs.
The Kriebs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Vilelli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.
Beth Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Ashley Thompson. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McHugh. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer, and Tim Miller.