Episode 107: Jen Hatmaker on why pushing for change is inherently Christian

Prolific author, co-pastor and equality activist, Jen Hatmaker, bonds with George Mason over moments in their ministry when they risked their security for the sake of their integrity. 

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, Conversations that Matter about Faith and Public Life. I am your host, George Mason, and I couldn't be more pleased than to welcome today to our program, Jen Hatmaker. Jen, we're glad to have you with us.

Jen Hatmaker:
Oh my goodness, my pleasure. Thank you for asking me. Thanks for the invitation.

George Mason:
Sure, sure. So Jen is a, a writer. Really, how many books now, Jen?

Jen Hatmaker:
Oh gosh. If you can believe it, 12.

George Mason:
12 books.

Jen Hatmaker:
I don't even know what I've said. I'm not, I don't know anything else. That's got to be the end of it, because I don't know anymore. I've said everything I know.

George Mason:
Well, a really a wonderful figure in the Christian community and beyond, and especially, I think, helpful to women trying to find their place in the church and society. And Jen, we're going to be putting this conversation on podcast row, wherever you get your podcasts and YouTube and Facebook and all that sort of thing, but you've got insta-game. You're out there with the cool kids and doing your own podcast and staying connected to people. So we appreciate you joining us on this program.

Jen Hatmaker:
I am so glad to do it. I don't know that I'm with the cool kids at all, but I do, podcasting is one of those avenues right now that are still incredibly available to us. It's a way for us to connect right now. It's possible. We can still record from our homes and people can still listen wherever they're at. And so it does feel like a great way to just connect with and build our communities.

George Mason:
Especially during this coronavirus lockdown or safe at home or whatever we're calling it, which is falling apart right now, honestly.

Jen Hatmaker:
It is, isn't it?

George Mason:
Just like everything else in our society, we can't seem to agree that sociology and science matter and that it's all about personal liberties and freedoms. It's a crazy time, isn't it?

Jen Hatmaker:
Well, and you and I are both in Texas where it just seems like all of a sudden the greater good, the good of our neighbors and neighborhoods and communities, and just reason and science just, it just felt like they just went right out the window just overnight. There are parts in Austin here and, and outside of it that if you were to walk in, you would not even imagine that anything was going on at all in the world. You would not even know that there was a pandemic. And so, yeah, I'm worried about that too. I'm worried about that.

George Mason:
To me, it feels like it's not really an overnight thing. To me, it feels like it's the culmination of this sort of long brewing suspicion of science and fear of government and control all of that, that you and I have known from the church community and the subculture of evangelicalism for a long time. And it just, it seems like, okay, now it's just out in the open and it's in the corridors of power and we're just shocked by it, but we really shouldn't be.

Jen Hatmaker:
You're right. And it is disheartening to see the fault lines of some of that like political ideology, which is now we find ourselves in this bizarre world where the pandemic has become partisan, which is absurd by any measure. But those fault lines arguing precisely and predictably with kind of evangelical Christian subculture. It's just the same arc. And so, right when you would imagine that the body of Christ would be the absolute first in line to be most concerned about our neighbors, most concerned about our health-compromised friends and family and loved ones, the absolutely most willing to put aside personal liberties for the greatest good. You would think that we would lead that charge and it's discouraging that we're actually leading the dissent against that sort of precaution. It really is.

George Mason:
Yep. Well, you've written a new book and it's called, Fierce, Free and Full of Fire and there is a picture of it right there. I have read it.

Jen Hatmaker:
I tried to title it something so hard and long and impossible to say or remember, and I just feel like I really nailed it.

George Mason:
It's a very relevant book.

Jen Hatmaker:
It is. It is. We call it, The F Word book internally. So yeah, that's exactly what it is.

George Mason:
But it's subtitled, The Guide to Being Glorious You and I did read it, Jen. So, I do want you to know you have this male audience of a 63-year old male pastor who has-.

Jen Hatmaker:
Finally, I've been going for your demographic forever.

George Mason:
I know I can tell. Exactly. I do have a wife who follows you and two daughters, adult daughters, and lots of women colleagues who are really grateful for what you've done. So it's good for me to be along on the journey too,

Jen Hatmaker:
I love that.

George Mason:
Anyway. As I read your book and as I've followed you, I have this image of Kim and I, my wife, we walk the neighborhoods a lot more lately. And occasionally when we're really playing by the rules we're on the sidewalk. And every once in a while, you'll come upon this part in the sidewalk where it looks like it's just sort of going up like a drawbridge, because there's a tree root that just, it has grown to such an extent that it is it's disrupted the concrete and the sidewalk is all out of kilter and it just can't contain it any longer.

George Mason:
And it feels to me like, reading you, that this is sort of your story, that there was, at one time, there was a paving right over who you were, in a sense, but it did not account for the aliveness, for the growth, for the change. And there came a point at which the patriarchy, the controls of society and the church in particular, and a theology that would keep you from growing, couldn't contain it any longer. And I think that's the story for so many women, in fact, that you're appealing to in the way that you write and the story that you tell and the permission that you give for women to be themselves.

Jen Hatmaker:
I love that metaphor. I love that, because sometimes that sort of disruption is cast as so negative or a falling away. Somebody wrote something about me and called it, this was my deconversion. And when the truth was, it was just growth. It was new life. It was something springing up to bear fruit. And so that is a really lovely way to think about what's going on in my life. And I think in the lives of a lot of people right now, and you know too, you lead men and women who are doing the hard work of clearing some room for new life and for growth and for evolution. And that is not easy inside subcultures that are predicated on staying the same and on unanimity and on these sort of standard norms and group rules that we're expected to follow. And so it can be a real courageous act to choose, to let the root come up underneath the pavement, really. I really, I'm not going to forget that. I really love that metaphor.

George Mason:
You talk in your book about Sarah Bessie's line, about how, if we come to the end of our life and all of our beliefs and opinions are the same, we've been doing it wrong.

Jen Hatmaker:
Totally.

George Mason:
And there is something dynamic about the gospel itself, it seems, that is always crossing barriers, always taking us new places. And I think there's, I guess, I suppose I get the idea that there has to be continuity across time about the faith once delivered, but at the same time, it does seem to me, if we are Easter people and Pentecost people, we do have a sense that Christ has loosened the world somehow. And that he's taking us in all sorts of new places and the spirit blows where she wills.

Jen Hatmaker:
That's exactly. And that, to me, is a wonderful relief and the discovery of adulthood for me to be able to embrace and receive that. The teeny little, two line bit of the gospels that have always served me that have really, really taught me this, I actually included in Fierce in the chapter on spiritual curiosity, but it is that just old, the minute that Jesus talked about those wineskins and how that's a container and the container holds as long as it can, it stretches as far as it can go. But at some point the container has just outlived its usefulness. It's brittle, it's stretched to capacity, and it has no more room for expansion for any new wine. And so the wine constantly needs new wineskins. And so, as you talk about continuity, the wine is just good and it lasts generation to generation, culture to culture.

Jen Hatmaker:
What's good and true about God and Jesus is always, but the containers bear examination. Every generation has to do their own work on reevaluating the capacity of the container they're keeping it in. And I think that's what this work is. But you know, the story's even a little violent. Like if you keep shoving it in an old container beyond its capacity, the whole thing will burst. It'll ruin the wine, it'll ruin the wine skin. And so it is kind of a violent experience to be able to say, this has outlived its time. It served us while it did. And now we're going to kind of reconsider the form. And I think that's where tons of Christians are right now. It's a really wonderful community of spiritually curious people.

George Mason:
Well, you mentioned that. So I think it's interesting that you represent a beautiful example of someone who has been moving in her faith, someone who has been angling more toward openness, toward big heartedness, toward a kind of a commitment to solidarity with the marginalized and the vulnerable and that sort of thing to being willing, to affirm who you are, not just conform to what others want you to be.

George Mason:
And that's a big part of the message of the book, but it's also something we're seeing more and more among others who have maybe grown up in this more tightly controlled evangelical world, where there's not just about the nature of your theology, but the nature of your cultural conformity at the same time. And we're seeing figures more publicly being willing to articulate that. Why do you think that's beginning to happen more and more and the more it does, it seems the more it does and that's to me a pretty exciting development, but it does feel like there's something going on in the spirit out there.

Jen Hatmaker:
It does. And I think that's at its core. My understanding of the spirit is that the Holy Spirit has just led us deeper and deeper into freedom with every passing year. That's the work of God unleashed in the world. And we see that, we kind of see the arc throughout history. And so I think this is deeply the work of the spirit. And then kind of what I see is something we've seen before. There's precedence for it, which is any sort of forward progress. A lot of people call this the progressive Christian community, which has a feeling to it. And now it's probably been robbed of its meaning at this point, but just this sort of progressive forward nature and understanding God more and loving him deeper and carrying out the kingdom to a greater degree in our generation.

Jen Hatmaker:
It seems like every single generation of Christians has a handful of lead blockers, who kind of, for lack of a better term, they just go first, they go first and they clear some path. They take a lot of hits and they're both loved and hated for their strength in that position as being kind of the lead blocker, but they do make way for people to come behind them with less injury, if you will. And so I think that's what we're seeing too. I think we've had some really importantly lead blockers in our time and they have created possibility.

George Mason:
Rest in peace. Rachel Held Evans.

Jen Hatmaker:
That's right.

George Mason:
Being an example of that as well.

Jen Hatmaker:
I was thinking of her.

George Mason:
And I think you're right, when a few years ago, you and Brandon made the decision, as I did about the same time, that we would be LGBTQ affirming and help our churches get to that point. And it was exhilarating and it was deeply painful too, wasn't it?

Jen Hatmaker:
Yes. You couldn't be more right on both counts.

George Mason:
Yeah.

Jen Hatmaker:
We learned a lot from you. We were watching you, by the way, and felt very kindred with you and your faith community virtually the same time and your leadership and it lent us a lot of strength and courage and language. You've been a mentor to us and so we're deeply grateful for your witness and your courage to what we, of course, believe is just doing the right thing.

George Mason:
Yeah, right. Exactly right. And you know, if it's not, as some of my friends who left our church and there were plenty of them, they asked me, "Do you think you could be wrong about this?" And I said, "Well, you know, maybe so, but if I'm wrong, I'm willing to take the risk that I stand before God and say, I actually took that grace thing really seriously that, and I'm sorry if mercy overcame my commitment to the law." And you know, I only halfway am joking about that, but I was serious with them when we had those conversations, because they were earnest about their position too.

George Mason:
Look, we can't always know that we're right, but we're supposed to make a commitment to following the path that's before us as best we know. And I remember when I started to do to do this, I'm sort of at the tail end of the logical arc of my ministry. And I thought, okay, I was 27 years pastor of this church when people were saying to me, "Oh, but your legacy. Oh, but your legacy." And I'm sort of like, "Oh, but my kids. Oh, but my friends, who are gay." And how am I going to look myself in the mirror someday if I say, Oh, I was protecting my image and you just can't do it.

Jen Hatmaker:
No, you really can't. And I hit the exact same impasse. I had a public ministry in a similar space in sort of evangelical women subculture. And I was very rewarded for my work there. And it worked for me. That's my first language, it's my native tongue. I understand all the rules, both explicit and implied. I know how to hit my marks. I can do it with charisma even, which is doubly rewarded. But my internal tension had grown to such a boiling point. And obviously this particular issue forefront, what the LGBTQ community and my refusal to stand with them and by them in favor of self preservation, but it was more than that too. It was women in authority. It was the protection of abusers. It was this lingering, weird aversion to doing the work of dismantling white supremacy.

Jen Hatmaker:
It was a lot and all of that just built and built and built. And I knew that those questions, those conversations and those types of allyship would be punished. I knew it, of course, I'd seen it. You've seen it. We knew what was happening, but-

George Mason:
You had betrayed us. Yes.

Jen Hatmaker:
We knew, but it was either I was going to get to hang onto my career as I knew it, as I built it, or I was going to get my integrity, but I didn't get both. They were contrary. And so I picked integrity. I picked my neighbor and I feel like it's the best decision we ever made. And the only regret, the only regret that I have is we did not step into that space sooner. I regret the years before.

George Mason:
I totally agree with that. In fact, I have apologized and repented-

Jen Hatmaker:
Me too.

George Mason:
For how long it took me, because I think that my heart was there before my head was, and I wouldn't let my head get there because I knew the consequences. And I finally couldn't live with myself until I did. But the beautiful thing, Jen, and I know you are experiencing this as well is we thought at the beginning of all of this, that the choice was really to keep your career and these relationships, or keep your integrity. And what we found is that we got this whole new group of friends, we've got a whole new community. We've got people that often felt exiled from God and the church. And now those friendships and the joy that we get to share with people, it is, wow, it was unexpected.

Jen Hatmaker:
Unbelievable, isn't it? Brandon and I marvel at how expansive our life feels now. And sometimes when you dismantle something down to the studs, you don't have a vision at all for what will be rebuilt. You don't know, and you can't know, you can't possibly know what will come in that space. And we didn't either, but to see the rebuilding with these friends and this faith community, and even this wider world of the spiritually curious, which of course you and I have also now discovered, where hard questions and challenging discussions are not deal breakers. They're not gay menders, they're just simply a part of the fabric of being alive in the world as an image bearer of God. So that surprise discovery has been the greatest joy, I just can't believe it. And I just want to go back.

Jen Hatmaker:
I just want to turn to the people who are where we were when it was that very terrifying, probably private secret inquiry. Too scared yet to say it out loud, to yet to even give themselves permission, to ask new questions of doctrines that we were handed. I want to just go back and say, "Oh, it's all worth it." Like there will be a cost built in a hundred percent. We're not going to deny that. But the beauty, the freedom, the community on the other side, I felt like it gave me my faith back, to be honest with you. I didn't want the faith I had. I certainly didn't want that God. That mean, punitive, arbitrary, terrifying God of vengeance. I'm just like, I just would rather just live free. And so I feel like what has returned to me is this vibrant Jesus that I always suspected meant what he said, but now I know he is good and good alone. He is love and love alone. And that is such a relief to be able to love him without cognitive dissonance anymore.

George Mason:
You know, I think that the LGBTQ question actually revealed some things beyond the question itself. And that is, how we understand the nature of scripture, how we make decisions as the people of God, how we discern in our own spirit, what is right. Because you say in the book, that really nice part about how often Christians have thought about scripture as the place you go to answer the questions and where Jews go to the scripture. And it sort of just begins the conversation there. It's an ongoing conversation with the saints of old and with the church across time. And it's a lover's quarrel and it's all those sorts of things. And the fact is that to be faithful to the faith is not necessarily to make all the decisions that the early church made, it's to learn how to make them the way the early church made them.

Jen Hatmaker:
It's the path of wisdom. It is. I learned that from Pete Ens, who I consider one of those important lead blockers. And I learned that from Rachel, she did a lot of that heavy lifting inside of her work too. Do know when you read something and everything, and you just, it's resonant, like, "Yes, that makes sense." It makes sense that this is a conversation starter, not ender. It makes sense that faith moves with every generation in time and across cultures and spaces. And, Oh, it's such a relief to give it permission, to be wild and free, to give God permission to do what he does without us just having to shrink him down into a formula. Oh, I've never been so relieved in my life to read some of their work on how to understand the Bible.

George Mason:
And I think people often listen to that. And if you grow up in the Christian subculture, you sort of know that part of the argument is always about how God knows best for you. And you don't understand that the boundaries that you're given are really for you and for your wellbeing. And you can question them, but you'll only be hurt by violating them and these sorts of things. And I think what happens is, there's this sort of suspicion that if we talk like this, and if we make judgements like this toward a greater openness and freedom and a commitment to that for other people, that we're now into this spacious world of permissiveness and licentiousness, and that there's anything goes, and there's no rules anymore, there's no ... So how do you even have a sense of direction and have you deconverted and all those sorts of things, but there seems to be this failure to recognize that if you don't necessarily have all the external rules to conform to, the whole point was of scripture and the gospel is that you are being transformed internally, that there's a new compass here, and that you're being controlled spiritually by your relationship to Christ, not just by the accretions of time and what those others have said about that.

Jen Hatmaker:
Absolutely. And my experience doesn't even uphold that accusation. What I see primarily of people who have given permission, given themselves permission to transform and to grow and to evolve, to ask new questions to reexamine doctrines, my experience largely is that those are some of the most faithful people I know. That that level of spiritual work in their lives has manifested in incredibly powerful ways in their ministries, in the way that they love their communities and their families and relationships. I find those to be some of the best people I know. And so I think the slippery slope argument is lazy, and I think it's fear based. You know, I think it's a trope to keep us in line and to keep the status quo in check, which by the way, benefits the same people it's always benefited. It's not neutral. There's a power differential inside that world that has operated on disparity for a very long time. So it's not as if it's altruistic entirely. We're asking questions of systems that have kept people out and down and so we should expect some opposition to that challenge.

George Mason:
That's right. You know, I was on a panel last night about the book, The Color of Law and the film that came from, the short film called Segregated by Design. And it's all about the legacy of red lining in our communities. And of course, Austin, Texas was one of the first big places for this to happen. Just being the only white person on this panel was a great privilege, but also a great sense of responsibility because as you say, we've had perhaps over time, the privilege of being able to sort of ignore the realities of all of these power differentials and all of these disadvantages that others have and advantages we have. And the reason we can do that is because we're benefiting by these systems. And so one of the things that's happening in this transformation of how we view the Christian faith and how we understand one another in it, is that it's going to be unsettling because we had made commitments to organizing the faith in ways that preferred some over others.

Jen Hatmaker:
That's exactly right. I mean, the level of humility that this is going to take for true, I hate to use this old school word, I can't think of a better word, but like true revival in the American church is so high. The number of things we're going to have to admit and repent from, it's just, it's so monumental. I'll just be shocked if we ever do it. And it's going to have to come from people in power who have never willingly conceded their position, of course. And so, I've come to just, this is all for me, I don't know how you feel about this, it's clearer. It's almost crystal clear from the outside of the community. When I was inside of it, it was way muddier because as you so saliently just mentioned, it was serving me and except for the category of being a man, I fit every other privileged category. And so I was in all the top drawers except for that one tricky woman thing. But so privilege is a reliable enemy of discernment. And so-

George Mason:
That's right. Oh, that's a great line. Say that again, Jen, say that one more time.

Jen Hatmaker:
Yes. Privilege is a reliable enemy of discernment. So the more we have, the more we better be willing to say, I bet I have some really, really devastating blind spots, and I should be prepared to examine those at all costs and be a humble listener and a humble learner and listen to the voices that are disenfranchised and marginalized, not the ones that are centered and then believe what they say.

George Mason:
Well, that's a great stopping point for this first episode, because I want us to pursue that question a good bit more as we continue our conversation-

Jen Hatmaker:
Great.

George Mason:
Next time. So Jen Hatmaker, thank you for being on Good God. And we'll talk again.

Jen Hatmaker:
Absolutely.

George Mason:
Thank you so much.

George Mason:
Okay.

George Mason:
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Speaker 3:
Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White. Social media coordination by Cameron Vickery. Good God, Conversations with George Mason is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All the material copyright 2020 by Faith Commons.