Matt Mikalatos is one of my favorite people that I’ve never met in person. His online presence exudes love and he’s always kind, but that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover or lacks conviction. While most social media spaces can be toxic, Mikalatos has created a great space for dialogue and Loving Disagreement. Listen in as Josh and Matt talk about how to disagree and how to move ahead united despite disagreements. The Conversation | Matt Mikalatos and Josh Olds This transcript excerpt has been lightly edited for content and clarity. Josh: So how exactly did this project come about? Matt: So my one of my publishers, which is NavPress—who I had done two books with previously—reached out to me and said, “We are looking to do a book about kind of how Christians can get along when we disagree. And we’ve watched the way you interact on social media…” Which, particularly on Facebook, I have a diverse friend group. So Christians, non Christians, people on various political sides, US are international. And we talk about pretty thorny things sometimes. And people generally have been trained to be kind to each other as we disagree. And they said, “What if you cowrote it with someone?” And I said, “Well, that would be interesting. Like, we could actually model some of these things maybe.” And they said, “Well, it’d be great if it was someone like this woman, Kathy Khang”—who is a Korean American naturalized citizen in the US, obviously has a very different experience than me. I happen to know Kathy, she’s a dear friend of mine. I reached out to Kathy and asked if she would be up for writing the book with me. And she said yes. Which I was delighted to discover, because I thought she would say no. And that’s how we got started. We basically pitch to the publisher, what if we did a book about the fruit of the Spirit—that when we’re in disagreement, we’re supposed to be showing things like love, joy, kindness, peace, gentleness, those things, which is a much more difficult thing than just civility. The Book | Loving Disagreement by Matt Mikalatos and Kathy Khang What does it look like to love someone you disagree with? Fighting, disagreements, hatred, dissension, and silence. These things seem common in the wider Christian community today. Politics, theology, and even personal preference create seemingly insurmountable rifts. It’s hard not to see ourselves as “at war” with each other. We’re not doomed to be stuck here, though. There is a twofold path out of this destructive war, out of seeing our brothers and sisters as enemies―and into a spacious place of loving each other even as we disagree. In Loving Disagreement, Kathy Khang and Matt Mikalatos bring unique insight into how the fruit of the Spirit informs our ability to engage in profound difference and conflict with love. As followers of Jesus are planted in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit grows and bears good things in our lives―and relationships and communities are changed. Read our full review. The Author | Matt Mikalatos Matt Mikalatos is an author, screenwriter, and speaker. He’s the author of Journey to Love and the YA fantasy series The Sunlit Lands, writes for the show Going Home, and cohosts the Fascinating Podcast. He has written for Today.com, Time Magazine, Relevant, Nature, Writer’s Digest, and Daily Science Fiction, among others. He also has a long-running series on the fiction of C.S. Lewis at Tor.com. Matt’s work is often focused on his belief that all human beings are worthy of love.

The Conversation This transcript excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity and conciseness. Josh Olds: Give me your elevator pitch for this book. What’s it about? Why should people read it? Kaitlyn Schiess: Yeah, so this book is most simply a book about how we read the Bible, specifically how we read the Bible in our political contexts. But my desire in writing was not just to say, “Okay, let’s just get in the weeds.” Like, you know, what does this passage about the Jubilee say to our economic life? Or does this passage from Psalms have anything to say about abortion policy? I have found in the last few years of working with a lot of churches, campus ministries, Christian colleges, that when you say we’re having a political conversation, people come with walls up, they come ready to fight, there’s a pretty high temperature initially in that conversation. And so I thought, what if we instead kind of pump the brakes a little bit and look at some examples in history in which scripture has been used, especially American history, I’m thinking about the American political context, some examples in American history where scripture was used in ways that we might find commendable or in ways that we might be quite critical of, and have examples that feel both connected to us. If we’re thinking about the American political context, and yet distant enough from us that maybe we can lower the temperature a little bit, maybe we can learn something about an issue or a biblical interpretation question that’s still very relevant to us, but without immediately jumping to current political questions to do it. The Book | The Bible and the Ballot How do Bible passages written thousands of years ago apply to politics today? What can we learn from America’s history of using the Bible in politics? How can we converse with people whose views differ from our own? In The Ballot and the Bible, Kaitlyn Schiess explores these questions and more. She unpacks examples of how Americans have connected the Bible to politics in the past, highlighting times it was applied well and times it was egregiously misused. Schiess combines American political history and biblical interpretation to help readers faithfully read Scripture, talk with others about it, and apply it to contemporary political issues–and to their lives. Rather than prescribing what readers should think about specific hot-button issues, Schiess outlines core biblical themes around power, allegiance, national identity, and more. Readers will be encouraged to pursue a biblical basis for their political engagement with compassion and confidence. The Author | Kaitlyn Schiess Kaitlyn Schiess (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary) is a writer, speaker, and theologian. She is the author of The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor and is a regular cohost on the Holy Post podcast with Skye Jethani and Phil Vischer. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, Christ and Pop Culture, Relevant, and Sojourners. Schiess is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

The Conversation The following is an interview excerpt that has been lightly edited for the sake of conciseness and clarity. Josh Olds: Now I want to start and I hope this doesn’t sound confrontational, because I don’t mean it that way. But there are so many books that have been written in recent years about white supremacy and racial reconciliation from both secular and Christian perspectives. So in your mind, what makes your voice and what makes this book be different enough to stand out enough that it adds to the conversation? Caroline Sumlin: I love this question. My book is specifically about how white supremacy culture causes us, as individuals and as a collective society, to feel unworthy as humans, and what we can do about it, and it’s an approach to white supremacy culture that has not I have never seen this been done before. We know about white supremacy culture, there’s been research done about it. And it’s not, it’s not talked about as much as systemic white supremacy is and there is a difference there. So yes, there’s a lot of books out there about systemic white supremacy. There’s a lot of books out there about how systemic white supremacy and systemic racism causes the disparities between the Black community and the white community and other communities of color, specifically in America, but also, globally. We can go on and on about that, but who has actually talked about how white supremacy culture has impacted the way that we see ourselves and how that impacts every single one of us, regardless of what our racial identity is, or what our gender expression is, or anything, any other identity, we may, we may carry, or we may hold? So that’s where my book comes in. And it’s actually written about a lot less. It’s a lot of my story woven in there, there’s a lot of talk about healing, and how do you heal from the way white supremacy culture has impacted you as a person and the lies that you’ve believed in the standards you believe you have to uphold yourself to. The Book | We’ll All Be Free Discover a Better Standard of Excellence You’re not good enough. How many of us internalize this belief before we even reach adulthood? How many of us feel unworthy and unable to live up to what seem like impossible-yet-completely-arbitrary standards? Where do these toxic beliefs about ourselves come from? And who told us there is a way we are “supposed” to be anyway? With passion and compassion, Caroline J. Sumlin reveals the force that keeps all of us, whether we are part of a marginalized group or not, from freely expressing who we are as image bearers of God: white supremacy culture. Sharing her own story, she helps you see the wide-ranging effects of living in a culture of white supremacy. She identifies the damaging beliefs we internalize from our very earliest days and shows us how to find clarity and freedom as we dismantle the oppressive structures that hem us in and force us to conform. If you have struggled with perfectionism, self-doubt, unworthiness, or the unrelenting pressure to pursue someone else’s version of “success,” you will find here the tools you need to silence the voices that seek to keep you down and to value yourself as never before. The Author | Caroline Sumlin Caroline J. Sumlin is a writer, speaker, and educator with a passion for helping all people to reclaim their self-worth and their humanity. A former foster child turned adoptee, Caroline brings awareness, healing, and liberation to the topics of toxic white supremacy culture, systemic injustice, mental health, faith reconstruction, and bold, purposeful living to her growing audience. She received her bachelor of arts from Howard University and resides with her husband and their two daughters in Northern Virginia.

Storytelling is much more than writing. In fact, for most of human history, storytelling has come through the spoken word. How can we get back those oral storytelling roots in modern communication? In The Art of the Tale, storyteller Steven James and speechwriter Tom Morrisey combine their expertise to craft a book all about storytelling in public speaking. Whether you’re a teacher, preacher, business executive, motivational speaker, or just someone who wants to become better at social conversation, there’s something in The Art of the Tale for you. Listen in as Steven James and I talk about the book. The Conversation | Steven James This transcript excerpt has been edited for clarity and content. Listen to the full interview at the audio player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh Olds: What am I going to learn when I read this book? Steven James: I think that one of the things this book approaches a little bit differently and uniquely is the idea of what a story is. A story is not just a list of things that happen. We really unpack the six aspects of all great stories. Basically, the first few are obvious. I’ll say them and you’ll be like, well, of course that seems super obvious, like character. Yeah, a story needs a character. Of course, that seems super obvious. But then also a setting and time and place. Setting is not just the location, but it’s when and where…The next thing a story needs is a struggle. You can have a list of things that happen, but without a struggle, you don’t have a story. You just have an account, a report maybe. You need to struggle to have a story. The fourth is a pursuit where the character wants something, tries to get it, things get in the way, that’s where the struggle comes from. You can actually have a story that just has those four—character, setting, struggle, pursuit—but it won’t necessarily be a great story. It can be predictable. For a story really be elevated, it needs what I call a pivot. Pivot is where there’s a moment where things you expect them to go in one direction, but they don’t. They change, they alter, into a new direction. But when it happens, you’re like, that totally makes sense…And finally, payoff. Payoff is where if it’s a funny story, we laugh; it’s a heartwarming story, it really impacts us. So it’s not just the same as a theme, but it’s more like the overall impact of the story. The Book | The Art of the Tale Unleash the power of storytelling to transform your talks, speeches, and presentations—whether your audience is a boardroom of executives, a classroom of students, or an auditorium full of eager listeners. Everyone, regardless of their background and training, can improve their storytelling abilities. But what is a story? How can you tell it in a way that delights and informs your listeners? Take a journey into the keys to great storytelling with two of the country’s top experts on story presentation and speech writing. In The Art of the Tale, expert storytellers Steven James and Tom Morrisey team up and tap into their lifetimes of experience to show you how to prepare stellar presentations, tell stories in your own unique way, adapt your material to different groups of listeners, and gain confidence in your ability as a speaker. In this book, you’ll learn why: * practice doesn’t make perfect. * you should never tell the same story twice. * there is no right way to tell a story. * it’s best to avoid memorizing your stories. You’ll also find helpful hints on: * gaining confidence in your ability as a storyteller. * connecting with your audience. * matching your expectations with those of your listeners. * understanding what makes a good story. * drawing truth out of stories you wish to tell. * crafting and remembering stories.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, it accelerated something that I had been seeing in churches. People were leaving and they weren’t coming back. When COVID forced people out of the normal routine, they were able to step back from church and found that…well…they found that it started them on a walk away from God. Or the church. Deconstruction, some call it. These people still loved Jesus but found their churches promoting policies and politics that didn’t seem very Christlike. So what now? In The Road Away From God, Jonathan Martin uses the Emmaus story in the Gospels to talk about how God remains with us even as we walk away. Join Josh Olds and Jonathan Martin as they talk about this journey. The Conversation | Jonathan Martin This excerpt has been edited for clarity and content. Listen to the full interview in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh Olds: So let’s get back to the book, The Road Away from God. Give the listener some idea of what this book is about? Who were you writing it to? Jonathan Martin: This book feels like a love letter to my friends. I feel like almost everybody that I care about has had some sort of really significant shift in their religious and their spiritual experience last few years. And for most people that feels violent, and scary, and alienating. Especially since they’ve had some kind of a shift in terms of their faith community and our community is so often are connected to our identity. Our communities tell us who we are, we know who we are, because of how we exist in relation to them. So I think when we shift in terms of our identity within a community, it makes sense that then all of a sudden, it can feel like everything shifted. Has my relationship with God shifted? How we relate to human communities or authority can be how we relate to God. So really, I hoped it would be a book that would bring some comfort and perspective for people who are very much in the in the thick of that. And again, my sense is a lot of people are in the thick of it in some way or another. Josh Olds: What do you feel like has been the impetus for the change? You know, what made churches and certain church denominations and faith strains sort of make that slide toward maybe being more overt about the types of people that they didn’t want to include? Or the opposite of that is what made people begin to say, “I can’t do this anymore. I have to step away?” Jonathan Martin: This is such a great question. I’m loving this conversation so much already, because I can’t even think of when someone’s asked me a version of that. So I think the thing is that certain kinds of figures in America in political power, and then a lot of church leaders actually held in common, was not so much a shared ideology, but more a shared pragmaticism. That it’s kind of like whatever it takes to win, whatever rises to the top. So I think like a certain kind of politics started working. And the folks who engineered those kinds of politics, were saying to people of faith, “Hey, we’ve got room for you here.” “We’d love to have you pray at our prayer breakfast.” “We’d love to have your church participate in this thing” or whatever. And so suddenly, they have more proximity to power than they had before. They’re at the place of power. And so I think a lot of it wasn’t even so much, like directly ideological. It is more like, “Oh, hey, well, now we have this opportunity.” Now we have someone who, at least in terms of lip service, says that that we matter, and that we can have more of a kind of a formal seat at these at these tables of power. And I feel like that’s the thing that became kind of intoxicating, is that, well, if going more in this direction, gives us more access, gives us more influence in this way, then maybe that’s the maybe that’s what God is doing.

Gender identity has recently become part of the “culture war” battles that play out in the media, in our culture, and in our churches. How should Christians respond? How should we talk about the concept of gender identity? How do we have substantive and helpful dialogue and not fall victim to the culture war? How are Christian clinicians supposed to handle issues of gender identity? Gender Identity and Faith offers a blueprint for people to navigate gender-identity questions. In this podcast interview, Dr. Julia Sadusky talks about the book and about how to understand those with diverse gender identities. The Conversation | Julia Sadusky This excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity and content. Listen to the full interview at the link above. Josh Olds: So the book is Gender Identity and Faith. Tell me a little bit about what the book is about, who it is written for, and what you hope to accomplish through it? Julia Sadusky: Yes, so Gender Identity and Faith is really a book for clinicians. So, if you’re listening and you know therapists, or you yourself are a therapist, this is your book for how we effectively meet the needs of clients coming in for, whom faith is a very important facet of their life, or has been a part of their life for some time, and they’re trying to figure out what it looks like to integrate my experience of gender in keeping with my beliefs and values? And how do I do that in a balanced kind of gradual way, as opposed to believing that there’s only one way to resolve my experience of gender identity. And so that’s more of the framework of the book. What we’re hoping to accomplish is give clinicians who are well-meaning, who are working with conventionally religious people and their families, concrete tools to develop more of a posture and a confident approach to how they’re engaging with gender minorities in therapy. What we were seeing and continue to see a lot—Mark Yarhouse and I, when we do trainings—is just a real trepidation and fear among clinicians of how do we do right by people in this space, and especially people who may have questions about some of the socio-cultural shifts that we’ve seen in the last 20 years. And so really, equipping clinicians is the goal, and doing so in a balanced psychologically-minded way that is ethical, which doesn’t always happen when clinicians have their own anxieties about how to how to do right by people. Josh Olds: It’s difficult because the way in which we talk about gender identity or sexual minorities as a society—it comes in the context of what we call the culture wars, and that never foments good discussion. It’s an issue we’ve seen politicized, a gets so much so—bathroom bills, sports participation, and pronouns is like the trifecta. And just if you mentioned the word pronouns, you’re going to get a whole section of Twitter angry at you for that. And you’re like, we’re not having any discussion of meaning or substance, and the humanity of people, regardless of their gender experience, is being lost in the middle of this. What can we do to get rid or push away those less helpful conversations and begin to cultivate more helpful conversations? Julia Sadusky: Well, I think the first step is what you’re doing right there, Josh, which is recognizing how easily we can get swept up in that. And I think on the front end, it will be catching ourselves when we start to feel ourselves get angry about some debate. So, somebody talks about their own gender identity, or that of a friend, maybe your child comes home from school and says, “Oh, Mom, my friend today said they’re non-binary.” And you start to feel that activation happening, the anger, the frustration, the fear response, what does this mean about the culture and where we’re moving? And we need to really slow that down and think “Oh, my gosh,

It’s not normal for books that I read to be the subject of conversation before I read them. When I shared on social media that I was reading Jonny Rashid’s Jesus Takes a Side, reaction was swift. “Isn’t it amazing that Jesus is always on your side?” (Umm…not really, because if I truly thought Jesus was on the other side, I’d be changing camps to side with Jesus…something I’ve actually done a few different times in my faith journey.) In an increasingly polarized world, many Christians are calling for an end to politicization and for there to be a third way that unites both sides. Rashid takes exception to that, writing clearly about how Jesus never sacrificed care for the marginalized for the sake of unity. I recently caught up with Jonny to talk about Jesus Takes a Side. The Conversation | Jonny Rashid This excerpt may be edited for content or clarity. Listen to the full interview at the video or audio links above or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh Olds: What do you mean when you say Jesus takes a side? Jonny Rashid: I mean, Jesus takes the side of the oppressed and when it comes to making political commitments, we should align with uplifting and liberating the oppressed, and giving them as much a life and dignity as we can in our collective battle against death, which is what Jesus opposes. So where death exists, oppression exists; and where life flourishes, liberation exists, Jesus wants everybody to be liberated. And so we look at the least liberated and imagine Jesus working with them, relating to them, loving them. Josh Olds: When I first got this book, it was the title that sold me on it, because it is so different than what we hear in a lot of Christian conversation. If you come out and you just say “Jesus takes a side,” then everyone sort of reacts against that. Do you feel like that there are people who are just like, “Hey, we shouldn’t take sides. We got to stay in the middle.” Or especially now, do you feel like people would read this and say, “You know, Jesus takes sides and that’s the conservative evangelical Republican side”? Jonny Rashid: What we see in what was called the Moral Majority, what’s become the far right, we do see a lot of political commitments among those groups, but, they don’t really say they take a side, what they say is that they’re right. What they say is that God is on their side. What they say is, “We are in the right position,” as opposed to Jesus taking the side really meaning Jesus sides with the oppressed. So I don’t hear from the religious right, from the far right, that Jesus makes political commitments. Instead, what I hear is a sort of Christian supremacy, that this is the right way to do things. Not doing that is going to ruin our families, it’s going to destroy our kids, this is why we have to do it, they engage in a culture war in a different way than I am. Because what I’m talking about is actual explicit political commitments, as opposed to self-righteous ones, you know, ones that that protect me, my personal and religious interests, but rather ones that uplift the most vulnerable. So I do see a difference there. But I understand that a lot of people resist political commitments because they see the Republican Party being co-opted, or the Republican Party co-opting evangelicals…And so the instinct is to say, No, we’re not political, because being political is bad. In my viewpoint, it isn’t being political that’s wrong. It’s being allied with forces of deaths such as racism, such as homophobia, sexism, patriarchy, greed, environmental degradation. These are the things that are wrong, not politics. The Book | Jesus Takes a Side Jesus sides with the oppressed. Will you? In a world divided by left and right, red and blue, many Christians have upheld a “third way” approach in pursuit of moderation, harmony, and unity.

If God is calling women to lead, what’s holding them back? Susan Harris Howell has spent her academic life investigating this question and the answer that she’s come to is gendered socialization. That is, society has preconceived ideas about what toys, jobs, behaviors, and clothes fit which gender. The result has been that, societally, men are more likely to lead because society has socialized them to be leaders. To get a better idea of this, I had a conversation with Dr. Howell. The Conversation This transcript may be lightly edited for clarity and content. Josh Olds: The big term to make sure that everybody understands is “gendered socialization.” Half the book is dedicated to explaining what that means, what that looks like in childhood, adolescence, adulthood—there’s a chapter for each of them. So to make sure everyone is clear, what does that term mean? Susan Harris Howell: Gendered socialization can mean a lot of things. It can mean anything that is as overt as our parents, or teachers or the media telling us, “You’re a boy, you’re a man, you need to be doing these things, or you shouldn’t be doing those things.” Or because you’re a woman or girl, you should or shouldn’t be doing a variety of things. But it also can be things that are very subtle, and this is really what my book focuses on. Because we’re typically aware of those overt ways. But I look at very subtle gendered socialization. Like, for instance, the way our language very often will use the word he or him when referring to people whose gender is not known. That would be a very subtle way that we might be communicating to girls and women that they’re second class, that they’re not the main attraction, that this is a man’s world, and that we’re just here on the sidelines. So my book looks at gendered socialization as anything that happens, that tends to channel us in a certain way, simply because we’re a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. Josh Olds: What sort of inequalities do we find coming out of gendered socialization? Susan Harris Howell: Well, for one thing, the mindset that it creates in men and women and boys and girls, and then later men and women. For instance, one of the lines of research that I talked about in the book is some research that shows parents and teachers are more likely to believe that if a boy does really well, say on a math or a science test—something that is very often stereotypically seen as a boy thing—whenever he does really well, they’re more likely to tell him, “Wow, you’re really smart.” And then if their daughter does well, on one of those math or science tests—something that is stereotypically thought of as a guy thing—they’re more likely to tell her, “Wow, you really worked hard.” And while both of those are compliments, and both are probably true, most of the time, usually, if we do well, on any kind of a test, it’s partly because we’re smart, and partly because we’ve worked hard, but the fact that they give different messages to boys and girls is very telling. Because if you tell someone that they did well because they’re smart, what that communicate is that they’re doing well is part of who there is part of their essence, part of who they are. And then it’s very likely to be repeated. Because if you’re smart today, you’re likely going to be smart, tomorrow, next week, and next month, and so on. But when we tell a little girl that she did well, because she tried hard, it communicates to her, that it’s not so much who she is. But what she did in this one situation. And so it communicates to her that the next time. For instance, if she doesn’t have as much time to study, or if the subject is just a lot harder, that her inborn intelligence, the essence of who she is, might not be enough to get her through. So for instance,

On January 6, 2021, Senate Chaplain Dr. Barry Black spent several hours in an undisclosed location with many United States Senators as they took shelter from insurrectionists who had overrun the Capitol building. In the wee hours of January 7, the legislature reconvened to finish its work and Dr. Black closed with a prayer for the country: “Use us to bring healing and unity to our hurting and divided nation and world. Thank you for what you have blessed our lawmakers to accomplish in spite of threats to liberty.” From that prayer came the book A Prayer for Our Country, an illustrated prayer published by Zonderkidz. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Rev. Dr. Black about the book, his nearly two-decade tenure as Senate Chaplain, and how he walks the line between serving God and empire. It’s a fascinating conversation you do not want to miss. The Conversation This excerpt may be lightly edited for clarity and conciseness. Josh Olds: Prayer is something that is central to your ministry. I think it’s appropriate that your latest book is a children’s book is about prayer. How did the idea for this book—A Prayer for Our Country—come about? Barry Black: I was in the Capitol on January 6, I watched the entire day unfold. I arrived at the Capitol at 7am on January 6 and I left the Capitol at 5am on January 7. During that time, I had an opportunity to spend nearly four hours with senators—90% of our senators—at an undisclosed location. I had an opportunity to pray with them, and to minister to them. And at the end of the day, Vice President Pence asked me to close the entire Senate session with a prayer. And in that prayer, I talked about what we had experienced that day, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life, the quagmire of dysfunction, the threats to a democratic process. An editor from Zondervan—and no doubt an insomniac—was listening and watching and said to herself, “We need to help our children learn to pray for their country as this Chaplain is praying for our country.” I’ve always had a passion for children, my mother taught me how to pray. So I got a call from Zonderkidz asking me if I would be interested in doing something like that, and I was enthusiastically interested. And that’s how I ended up writing A Prayer for Our Country. One of the primary motivations was something Billy Graham once said, he said, “We are one generation away from agnosticism.” In other words, if we don’t teach our children, a way to connect with the transcendent, with God, we are one generation away from no memory of God’s mighty acts in our history. No George Washington in the snow of Valley Forge, no Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention, saying, “Scripture says, Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Psalm 127.” Oh, Franklin, at that same convention, quoting from the Sermon on the Mound, I believe he said, “I’m an old man. But I believe that if a sparrow cannot fall without God, knowing it, that a republic cannot rise without his aid. And so I believe we should pray about this.” And they invited in clergy after as you could expect it, interminable debate, they invited in a clergy person to begin to pray on a regular basis. So the idea of the conception came after that horrific experience on January 6, and then an opportunity offered me by one of the editors from Zondervan kids. Josh Olds: You’re writing it for a children’s book context, but as I was reading it, you know, you can you can read it, and see what children will take from it. But you can also read it and see what adults can take from it as well. It’s not a children’s book. It is a book that is my children’s publisher, with this is, you know, it’s not a childish prayer. But it is a prayer.

Have you ever read some of the stories of women in Scripture and thought that the traditional interpretation of their narratives just didn’t seem quite right? Eve bears the blame for all sin? Bathsheba complicit in David’s adultery? Mary DeMuth takes a look at the Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible, redeeming and reclaiming their stories from bad interpretations. Recently, I caught up with Mary to talk about the book. The Conversation | Mary DeMuth Josh Olds: Now, I’m very interested in the title, the title is very clear, you know what you’re getting into right from the beginning, but give me a little bit more than that—give the listeners sort of an overview of what this book is about. Mary DeMuth: So a couple of years ago, I went through a kind of a valley of misunderstanding with a friend, and it was so painful. And I realized, as I shared, you know, just with a close circle of friends that a lot of people have had that same experience throughout their lives. We’ve all been misunderstood. And then a couple of years ago, I started reading the Bible rapidly every two or three months. And I was realizing that a lot of these women in the Bible I had heard sermons about, but they were different from just a boring, plain reading of Scripture. And so I combined the two ideas of the idea of being misunderstood and then misunderstanding these women, both in their context, but also in history. I put on my fiction hat, because I’m also a novelist, and I wrote their stories as close to the biblical narrative as I could with good research. And then I unpack those stories for the readers who have been walking through misunderstanding like we all have. Josh Olds: Why do you think the value is in the fictional aspects? How does that help the reader gauge the cultural—all of the context that goes along with that—that you might miss out, if you’re just reading something that’s nonfiction? Mary MeMuth: I think part of that is just as a storyteller, the question that I ask is, “What is it like to be in the sandals of that person?” And so placing the reader in the sandals of that person through the power of a story helps them to empathize a little bit more, and to actually ask some good questions that a story would bring up, versus just me telling you this is the story… Josh Olds: Can you give us some examples of some of the figures that you’re talking about? Mary DeMuth: Yeah, so obviously, Eve is a really important one. She’s kind of the groundbreaking one. And we often think that everything rests on her shoulders. And actually, if you look at the narrative, it’s equally placed upon hers and Adam’s shoulders for the fall of humankind. So she was just like a, you know, a linchpin, you have to talk about her. But there were more, there were several sexual abuse victims, one of which was Bathsheba, and then jumping to the New Testament, Mary of Magdala. She has long been misunderstood in historical context as a prostitute. But she’s actually a woman who is demonized and delivered from demons. But there’s, it’s a…it’s a pope error. One of the earlier Popes said that she was the same woman that put her hair on Jesus and washed his feet, but there’s not a good case for that. But that has been going on for years and years and years, people still believe it. And then, you know, just some of the one of the ones I thought was interesting was Naomi, who she doesn’t get a lot of play in the book of Ruth. Ruth is like the heroine of that book, but I wanted to look and see what it’s like to be a grieving person. And to give my readers permission that grieving is okay, and you can be sad and mad and all those things. The Book | The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible Understanding Isn’t Overrated. Ask any woman—most of us know what it’s like to be misheard, mischaracterized,