0:00:03 - (Megan Owen): This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this, what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior.
0:00:43 - (Megan Owen): I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do, and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself.
0:01:12 - (Megan Owen): Thank you so much for coming to Pretty Psych and listening to us today. I'm so excited to have with me Peter Bell. Peter Bell is the host, producer, writer, and editor of the infamous podcast, Sons of Patriarchy. The podcast examines gender roles in the evangelical church and how they are based on the idea of the father as authority and the son as submission. Peter Bell is the host of Sons of Patriarchy. However, he would say this story is not about him.
0:01:45 - (Megan Owen): This story is about the rampant abuse he has uncovered and his attempts to bring some light to the cycle of tyranny and spiritual devastation wrought on others like bricks on their shoulders, with no help from them. Through the dogma within Christchurch in Moscow, Idaho, and the Wilson clan, leaving devastation in their. So, Peter Bell of Sons of Patriarchy. Welcome.
0:02:10 - (Peter Bell): Thanks. Pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
0:02:13 - (Megan Owen): Of course. I'm so glad to have you here. And this, of course, is not the first time we've done a podcast together.
0:02:18 - (Peter Bell): This is not. Nope.
0:02:19 - (Megan Owen): But last time I was a guest on your podcast. So really happy to have you here. And as a lot of my people, our listeners know my. The podcast I did for Peter just came out last week, I think.
0:02:32 - (Peter Bell): Yep. Yeah. Yeah, last Thursday.
0:02:34 - (Megan Owen): Last Thursday. It was so very healing for me to be able to hear my story in that way. I can't even describe how surreal that was to have it sort of coming back into my ears with my voice and kind of succinctly. And the reason I say that is because for a long time I wasn't able to put it to a timeline because it just felt so broken and fragmented. So it was different for me. So thank you for that.
0:03:01 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, of course.
0:03:02 - (Megan Owen): So, Peter, tell us a little bit about your background, whatever you're comfortable with, and how you were led to start uncovering the abuse that is so rampant. And I'm just gonna, again, really quickly, we're talking about Doug Wilson. Doug. Doug Wilson's father was Jim Wilson. Jim Wilson was my marriage counselor with my children's biological father. And Doug Wilson is his son. He runs a cult in Moscow, Idaho called Christchurch. Okay, so tell us more about how you got here.
0:03:34 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, I came from a fitness and ministry background more recently so I'm a graduate of Westminster Seminary, California. Graduated there a few years ago. Before that I took six or seven years in the fitness industry, was general manager or was a fitness manager. Did a lot of marketing and sales and stuff. That was before, before ministry. Got married in 2016 to my wife and moved down to San Diego. Three years of seminary there from 2019 to 2022. It was there that I had, I had heard of Doug Wilson. Before that I had listened to podcasts that he was either on or he was sort of the like the grandfather of those that I was listening to.
0:04:19 - (Peter Bell): If people may have heard of James White or Jeff Durbin or people in those circles kind of the Reformed Baptist or like violently anti abortion but those circles and they were very influenced by him. So I heard his name thrown around. But it wasn't until seminary that I heard more specifically about Doug himself and more so his theology. Not just how bad his theology was, but we got peeks until into this is what bad theology does which is really, which is really helpful.
0:04:50 - (Peter Bell): I love I, I know some people have had horror stories in seminary. I loved my time in seminary. Anybody who ever wants to go to seminary, my first recommendation was where I went to. Plus it's in San Diego. How do you beat San Diego and theology in San Diego. So there was heard about that and then also too had a little bit of. I mean it was two or three classes on pastoral counseling. But the counseling classes I had again I tell people as well you should know your limits as a pastor. You are not an all competent counselor nor are you really trained in anything counseling beyond helping them out a little bit. But they've made a big deal if you need to have counseling friends or therapist recommendations and working with them. And if you get into something that is potentially violent, like you in no way shape or form do this on your own nor act like you are competent to cancel some of these things.
0:05:41 - (Peter Bell): Uh, and so all that stuff was really, really helpful. And they'd say hey, if you find anything about abuse, if you find anything that like sniffs of of criminal activity, it's like you like your first calls to the police. So those were in my head before. So I had a, an internship in the summer of 2021 in eastern Washington. This is the tri city area of eastern Washington. So 2 ish hours away from the border of Washington and Idaho and because of how close it was to Spokane, to Moscow. And then I think the city I was in, the city I was in was ke.
0:06:12 - (Peter Bell): I think there is a CREC church, which is the denomination that Doug Wilson founded. And it was there that it was not just the theology of Doug that I heard about, but I had families, as they got comfortable with me during the internship, had families ask me what else I had heard about Doug and I was like, I don't know, you're going to have to tell me. And so they started talking about and they were, they were very hesitant to talk about some of the stuff that had happened or happened to them or they had seen.
0:06:39 - (Peter Bell): But I heard stories firsthand. Stories from people who it happened to abuse or abuse, cover up or elders who knew things about married couples, much the same as in your case, horrific things that I had heard and how the elders handled it, quote unquote or didn't handle it. And I had heard about families having, or women having to flee to different states to get divorces. And so the more I heard these stories and I heard a few of them and I heard a few of the school, Lagos school in Moscow, heard also some there. I'm not a valiant human being. I'm not Mr. White Knight. Bam. It was out of pure curiosity I typed in abuse Christchurch.
0:07:17 - (Peter Bell): And it was then I was like, holy goodness gracious, is there more stuff that I had ever expected? And what struck me was I hadn't heard those stories and the stories that I was hearing in front of me weren't the stories that I was looking at. And so I figured there's something here and how have these stories and not like the more horrific stories from make the News, nor is it necessarily, this should be like abuse porn in a sense.
0:07:42 - (Peter Bell): But I was shocked that because of the severity these hadn't made national news. And I'm not at liberty to say who it was or I haven't had their blessing to let their stories be known. But it just, it got me down a route of trying to figure out what's going on in these church or in these churches and especially the stuff I was learning in school for my graduate training and the things that we were told at the school that I was at. I mean the baseline is that the church should be the safest place on the planet for people, not the place where you're hurt. The Most and things are covered up.
0:08:11 - (Peter Bell): It was that where I was like, if people are scared of their elders in the church, and if people are scared of being married in the church, if people are scared of abuse in the church, what's the church doing wrong? And I think what they have been told, or those who've been abused in the church have been told, is you're doing something wrong. You got to conform to the church. And I was seeing the very opposite. It's the church is wrong, and they've got to conform to who God is as a compassionate, as a shepherd, as a father.
0:08:37 - (Peter Bell): So that's where my interest in this stuff really came from. And then I got connected. We've never really been able to pinpoint it just because they know a lot of people. It's a Facebook page examining Doug Wilson of Moscow. Also Twitter. And there are. I don't know how many people are behind. I think there's a few dozen who are behind the count. But they reached out to me because I started looking into church abuse. I started talking to experts. I had run a podcast before this, and I talked about abuse in the church, abuse in the reformed church, abuse in the crec. Caught a little bit of flack on it. But mostly it was just people who were like, oh, my gosh, a reformed person is actually talking about abuse in the church. Which I thought was like, why wouldn't you talk about this stuff? But I guess it was unique.
0:09:15 - (Peter Bell): So, yeah, sometime end of 2022, I think I got connected with them and they floated the idea. A year and a half ago, it was like August or September of 2023 that they floated the idea of a podcast. And honestly, I told them. I was like, can somebody else do this? I'm not ready for this. I'm not prepared for this. Like, I'm not the guy you're looking for because I'm not an abuse expert. I'm not super knowledgeable on this stuff. I just happen to care. And I was like that. I guess there's just very few people who care. And so that was a qualification.
0:09:45 - (Peter Bell): And also I like all of it. Like, I didn't want the pushback. I was not looking forward to the pushback. I was not looking forward to the vitriol. I was not looking forward to the hate comments. And so a lot of it was like, I didn't want to be in it because I didn't want to receive that. And just being honest, I knew those who'd gone after these people before had been shouted down, had been Hurt had been mocked, had lost jobs, and I didn't want that to happen to me.
0:10:09 - (Peter Bell): I said maybe, and really hoped somebody else who was better than me would kind of come in and say, hey, I'll take it. But here we are, me running the series. We have a volunteer group of a dozen and a half. There's probably 15, 18 people behind this. I just so happen to be the face of it, because I know how to hit record on a podcast video software and then publish it. I like to say I'm the idiot in front. And we have a lot of really smart people behind it, so I just so happen to be the person who's associated with it. But there's a lot of people behind this, too.
0:10:41 - (Megan Owen): Yes, there have to be, because this is a tremendously huge operation. And there are. I don't know. How many podcasts have you recorded so far? It feels like over a hundred. Maybe.
0:10:53 - (Peter Bell): I've recorded. I'm in a ballpark, like 120, 130 interviews. And then what we've published is about 40.
0:11:02 - (Megan Owen): So, you know what you sound like, Peter, is all of the people who are called to do hard things and don't want to do the hard things. Kind of like that prophet type of person who's saying, this is wrong. And I'm going to call this out. But not only that, I'm going to have this sort of prophetic imagination that can say, this is what it could be. It could be that we recognize that Jesus is a shepherd and that we are loved and that we all deserve dignity and that these ways are wrong.
0:11:31 - (Peter Bell): Yeah.
0:11:32 - (Megan Owen): So, you know, you've got that Jonah vibe. You're like, I didn't want to do it. I didn't.
0:11:36 - (Peter Bell): Yeah.
0:11:36 - (Megan Owen): I don't want Nineveh coming up against me, you know?
0:11:39 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. I'm not nearly as confident or as prophetic as they are. Nor am I some biblical character. It was really. Nobody else would do it. So I was the last person who's like, fine, I'll do it. I don't want to sound like I took this on. I was like, yes, I'm going to take on all of Moscow now. I guess I'm closer to that, but that's just because I happen to be the person who was thrust into this. But it was you.
0:12:04 - (Megan Owen): You cared. You believed all of us, and you listened, so you were faithful to do that. And there's space for prophetic imagination in that. And there's also space for a lot of humility, and that's what I'M sensing. So, Peter, do you want to differentiate for our listeners about, I don't know, 12 or 14 years ago, we started using like a little air quote for the C in church, for the little one. And that's sort of the church that is abusive and I guess, false. And then we use the great big C for the universal kingdom of hearts that's out there.
0:12:40 - (Megan Owen): And so when we say the church is wrong, we're talking about that little circumstance church like the Moscow Christ Church, like, you know, the, with the dogmas. But the church, the big sea church, is invisible.
0:12:53 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, it's. I mean, there's a technical term and there's a more lay term. The slightly more technical is like the, the visible and invisible church. The visible church being the one that we see, the one that we walk into, the one we interact with. And the invisible church is the one whom all God's people are in across time. So history past and then future forward, and also in our time now and across all of the world as well.
0:13:18 - (Peter Bell): And it's the invisible church, the one that we're all part of. That one never fails. And that's, you can say, the one the visible one has to reach for, has to mimic, has to mirror in some way. And they so often don't, because the visible one is culturally contexted, has fallible human beings who are running it, who have their own mistakes and foibles and sins and everything else. And they run it so often like a flawed human institution based off their own ideas, based off whatever it is that they want to run it by.
0:13:47 - (Peter Bell): And they have either proclivities that are not good or selfishness that's not good, or they have ones that are really good. So there are, there's a range of churches. There are some that are incredibly healthy, and then there are some, like Christchurch, Moscow, that are incredibly unhealthy. And that's the fact that healthy churches exist. And this is something that I had heard a few weeks ago from a woman named Linda Sutherland that just stuck with me.
0:14:09 - (Peter Bell): She had said when churches work, it puts all the pressure on the churches that don't work. She said it's not the other way around. When churches are healthy, when they're vibrant, and that's not just the kind of institutional church, it's when Christians are healthy, when Christians are vibrant, it puts all the more pressure on the Christians that are not healthy and not vibrant and saying it's possible because they exist.
0:14:31 - (Peter Bell): So visible churches, visible institutions, the ones that are unhealthy, like you've talked about. We only know that they're unhealthy because you know what healthy looks like, you know what healthy churches look like, you know what healthy leadership looks like, you know what healthy relationships look like. You know what, not submission or obedience, that's outright and is ironclad. But the ones that you want to be obedient to, the ones that don't tell you to be obedient, but the ones who are like, I want to follow you because you're doing this right, because you're a servant or somebody who's saying, hey, come alongside with me. You're not obeying me, but you're doing this with me.
0:15:05 - (Peter Bell): Those are all the things that, like, that's why we do this, and that's why I'm doing this. Is. I want, I love the church. I know not everybody loves the church and I know the institutional church has hurt a lot of people, a lot and a lot and a lot of people. And I love the church. Not in spite of that, but it's. I think the church can do better. I think humans can do better. And that's not just a self help cry to just say like kind of gather it within yourself. It's. We're just capable of it. We can, we can be better. We can be servants. We can be, we can meet those who lead each other into the love of God rather than say, hey, God's got it out for you.
0:15:38 - (Megan Owen): Love that. Yeah. So I can hear sort of some of the women I work with asking in my head, yeah, how do you know what a good church is and how do you know what a corrupt church is? And I think you actually said this, you were talking about the outcome of this bad theology, which I think you're saying, look at the fruits of theology right out of good theology, which I would argue is always fluid. We've never arrived.
0:16:06 - (Megan Owen): Then we can see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. We don't feel oppression. Right. Is that kind of what you're saying?
0:16:12 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, there's, there's a fruit aspect of it. And this is something we have thought through for the podcast itself because we didn't really focus on healthy church practices and what a healthy church looks like for a first season. And maybe a little tip, that's sort of what we're looking at for kind of the next iteration of this series is helping people figure out what a healthy church looks like, a healthy mark of a church. And one of them. It's going to sound not ethereal, but kind of hard to pinpoint which it is, is a church that asks questions.
0:16:44 - (Peter Bell): A church that doesn't just have statements and saying, this is what you got to follow, this is what you got to believe, and there's room for that. But a church that's comfortable with questions, not just comfortable, it invites questions, invites response. Isn't quick to respond, is a lot quicker to listen, which bears fruit in various ways. But it's less apparent. It's less like, oh, this church is super joyful, this church is super loving. It's more like this church listens to me and this church listens to what's happened.
0:17:12 - (Peter Bell): A leader who's quick to provide answers for you tends to be a leader who is really unstable and a little bit not self conscious, but is too quick to provide answers because that's what they're looking for too. A church that asks questions tends to be healthier than the one that the church that provides answers.
0:17:31 - (Megan Owen): That's what Father Richard Rohr talks a lot about. That sort of needing to get to the point where being right just crumbles in front of you. That just shouldn't be a thing for healthy leadership or any pastor, Any shepherd. Shepherdess, Right.
0:17:45 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. But when the church loves doctrine more than it loves people, and it's not like those two things should be at odds with each other, which often that they are at odds with each other, it was when the church loves the theology rather than loves people, and not the theology that comes from people, not the theology over people. It's a church that loves the people more than the things that it teaches the people. And then the things that come out from that is the stuff that we can discuss, the stuff that we can talk about, the stuff that we can ask questions about.
0:18:17 - (Peter Bell): That was an incredibly helpful way of putting it that I had heard on what a healthy church looks like.
0:18:22 - (Megan Owen): Yeah, it's relational, which that's what God is all about, is relationships. It's not about the write this or write that because the letter of the law kills. The spirit is involved in our souls and connecting us together. I hear what you're saying. That's good. And I've got to be honest, the women who listen to this podcast, they're not going back to church. It's just, it's too triggering.
0:18:44 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. Trust me, I've talked to 100 plus people and I'm going to guess half of them have never been back to church. And to be honest, if I had their same experiences, there's no way on earth I would go back to church. I have my own experience And I know that's not somebody else's experience. And I am empathetic and sympathetic with somebody who does never want to go back to church. And I would tell them, if I were you, there's no way I would go back to church either.
0:19:10 - (Megan Owen): And it's okay, right? That's okay.
0:19:13 - (Peter Bell): I understand. I understand exactly why you would never go to church. And that does nothing to our relationship. You know where I'm coming from, and I know where you're coming from. I love the church. And you don't like the church, but that doesn't mean that I can't love you and you can't love me.
0:19:26 - (Megan Owen): Yeah. And it doesn't mean that you're not part of the church.
0:19:29 - (Peter Bell): Yep.
0:19:30 - (Megan Owen): So. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad we cleared that up.
0:19:33 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. It has changed. Not how I view the church necessarily, but it has changed how I interact with people. And that's especially people who either don't like the church, will never be back to the church. Who question God, who question faith, who question everything that has to do with the Bible. It's changed the way I view that a lot. I came into it more defensive of the church. I need to defend the church.
0:19:57 - (Peter Bell): I need to give the church a better name. I need to help those who've been far off from the church get back into the church. I came into it like that, which is not necessarily, like a bad motive, but it sort of came through a little bit because I didn't make this for people like me. I didn't make this for people who thought like me, who talked like me. But I also kind of had, like, a goal with this.
0:20:21 - (Peter Bell): And then I couldn't tell you how far into it that that goal changed. It just expanded a little bit. Where my goal was less to. To give the church better name. It just became like, we are now the voice. That's. That's what it became. And that that changed me a lot, where I don't need to defend this. I don't need to defend God. I don't need defend the church. I don't need to defend these things. And whether or not I still am part of a church or not, I don't need to defend it. It's not on me. And that's not the point of the series.
0:20:53 - (Peter Bell): The point of the series is to platform survivors talk about the horrific theology that's come out of it, and then eventually talk about what healthy communities look like, what healthy churches look like. If somebody were to go back to a church or just to say like, hey, the church you went to was really bad. There was no protecting or helping that church or building it back up, and you left for a very good reason and you should stay away.
0:21:16 - (Megan Owen): Okay. I have so many thoughts from this. Sometimes you do or say something and something inside of me goes, ah, I needed to hear that. I'm sure you know this because you've now interviewed so many survivors, but a lot of times we were told to be quiet because we were making the church look bad.
0:21:34 - (Peter Bell): Yeah.
0:21:34 - (Megan Owen): And our response would have been, you're doing that all on your own. It's not our job to protect your reputation because of what you're doing. That's another brick on our shoulders. Right. So to hear you say, I wanted people to know what the true church is and what the true church could be like and all of that, but then it kind of grew into this other goal, which was let them have a voice. So you don't need to defend the church. You're sort of defending the sheep. Do you see that?
0:22:04 - (Megan Owen): Okay.
0:22:04 - (Peter Bell): Yeah.
0:22:05 - (Megan Owen): And so that's beautiful, because you're not a survivor of this people, right?
0:22:11 - (Peter Bell): No, I'm not.
0:22:12 - (Megan Owen): Okay. So you went in and you said, okay, I'm going to learn all about these things. And then you allowed yourself to move into a different space. These are survivors that haven't been heard, and they need to be heard. And we're going to expose this, and then we're going to look at a better way.
0:22:28 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. And it. It opens you up to a lot of different people who don't believe the same things that I believe. I think on both sides of the equation. Those who believe very stridently and those who are a little more fluid sometimes, like, the relationship just never meshes that it's either. And it tends to be the ones who are stronger on their belief or more rigid, I should say, more rigid in their beliefs are the ones that close off relationships to those who are more fluid in their beliefs.
0:22:52 - (Peter Bell): And that's where I was like, why does that bridge exist in the first place? From one side to the other? And that was also something that I thought on, too. It's why. Why do I have the friends that I have? Why do I have the community that I have? Why do I talk to the people that I talk to? Why do I think the things that I think? Why do I believe the things that I believe instead of just assuming that these things are right? It's. Why do I hold this?
0:23:15 - (Megan Owen): Yeah. That's amazing. My true definition of humility is this isn't Working. We need another way. It's that easy. This. This isn't working for me or for the people I love. I'm ready to learn something, and that's powerful. I think that's when the transformation starts. So as you're listening to all these stories by people who have just been crushed by patriarchy, by some of the reformed dogmas, what effect does it have on you? Emotionally, spiritually, not just intellectually.
0:23:45 - (Peter Bell): It's funny, I've had this conversation more and more often the last few weeks with people who I talk to and those who've reached out, because I talked to a decent amount of therapists and counselors, not those that are my therapists or counselors, but we're talking to more recently, although I do talk to my own. But I've been asked that question more in the last month than I ever have even before that.
0:24:06 - (Peter Bell): At first, I couldn't tell you one emotion because I felt everything all the time. This wasn't my story. Like you said, I've never been through this. I've never been through sexual abuse, maybe light forms of spiritual abuse. I've never been through marital stuff like I've talked about on this series. Like I've gone through marital difficulties. I couldn't wrap my mind around how the church got this bad. I couldn't. I've grown up in the church. I was trained to be a minister in the church.
0:24:35 - (Peter Bell): I kind of upended everything. I wouldn't say it was deconstruction. I didn't deconstruct some of my poor beliefs, but I did. Like the world made less sense to me. I couldn't think straight. And it was also weird because, like, this didn't happen to me. I'm just hearing these things. I couldn't. It's just. It's so hard to explain. I try not to get to a mind of abuse victim in this series. I just. I ask them questions.
0:24:58 - (Peter Bell): It was just confusing. I was mad, I was horrified. I was disappointed. I stopped going to church for months when this happened. When I started researching and started talking to people, I couldn't listen to sermons. I couldn't really read the Bible. And again, this had never happened to me. It was a confusing time, a really confusing time. So again, it was maybe a week ago that I talked to. It was. It's like secondhand smoke. I was the one smoking and not saying the people who are abused are the ones smoking, but they were the ones who were receiving all of this stuff. And so I was receiving it secondhand from a Hundred people, all the things that happened to them, and also shock.
0:25:35 - (Peter Bell): It's like, me, of all people, I'm hearing these things. How is somebody trusting me enough to bear all the worst stuff that's ever happened in their life? Like, why am I the one entrusted with this? I couldn't fathom that people would trust me enough to share all of the things that had happened to them. Likely had never told anybody before or told just a few people, and now they're about to tell tens of thousands of people what had happened to them. So it was also, like, a responsibility that I didn't know how to hold. I didn't know how to carry it. Those are all, like, the things that was happening before the series launched, because I had been interviewing throughout six months before the series even went out. And so all of it was just, like, stuffed in me. And I had nobody really to talk to. I was the only one who was carrying this for a long time. And I talked to a few people about it, but it's just not the same.
0:26:21 - (Peter Bell): And then when the series started coming out, it was almost like, I finally get to share with everybody else all the things that I just heard. And those who have been on the series who had never shared before publicly, they get to share. And that was freeing for me that they had been shut up for a long time, and now they get to tell way more people than those who had hurt them told. So let's say they had a church of 100 people, and their discipline was in front of a hundred people. And they said, hey, this is what they did bad, and this is all the other stuff, and they're trying to break up marriages, and we'll say it's in front of 100 people.
0:26:53 - (Peter Bell): I had a specific pleasure in knowing that their story was going to be in front of a hundred times more people than their discipline was in front of. And that's. That's when things started changing for me. It's like this became cathartic, that they are now on a bigger stage to tell what happened to them than any abuser has had against them.
0:27:12 - (Megan Owen): That is striking to me as I think about my own story that felt so public to me that the thousands of people are hearing it. So many more than who came after me.
0:27:24 - (Peter Bell): Yep.
0:27:24 - (Megan Owen): Thank you. That's powerful. What you're describing is it's a lot like a counselor, where we enter into the river of somebody's story for a little while, and we feel that honor of being able to be trusted and to be able to create a Safe container and hold space and hold all of that with honor and dignity. And then we have to somehow step back out. And it takes a long time to figure out what works for you as far as that's concerned, you know.
0:27:57 - (Peter Bell): Yep. It was weird because I'm not trained in this stuff. I'm not, I'm not a trained counselor. I'm not a trained empath, I guess trauma informed in the sense that I've heard a hundred trauma stories. But I have no specific training in this and I'm very aware of my non specific training in this. I don't wade into waters that I'm not trained into, generally speaking. But it was, it's, it was also like, how do I work with this if I don't have the training for it? People are.
0:28:21 - (Peter Bell): I know, but nobody's assuming I'm a counselor. But it's like I don't have the tools that a counselor might or should have. And what do I do with some of these things other than the only thing I could do is just make them public?
0:28:31 - (Megan Owen): Well, I will tell you from my personal experience, I remember things like you're saying to me as I'm pouring out my heart. You said, what else would you like for people to hear? I don't know how many times you said something like that. And I might be saying that wrong, but it kept prompting me and it was like I was able to get it all out, like all of it. And then if there was more, you asked. And so there was that safety of that container and you listening and just sitting there listening and nodding. It was like that was a gift. I mean, that was all I needed to be able to, you know, and then the questions you asked and all of that, it's not as hard, I think, as a lot of people think.
0:29:14 - (Peter Bell): As far the question asking isn't hard. It's, it's not responding is a lot harder than the questions asking.
0:29:21 - (Megan Owen): Right. And so just being able to listen and hold space is huge. And you, I think it's surprising how many people can't do that, can't hear you listen to hear about that. That is the safety of the container that you're.
0:29:35 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, I hope so. Yep.
0:29:37 - (Megan Owen): One of the things that I really loved last night when you and I were kind of texting about this is you said, I'm going to share this on my page too. Send me the link when it's done. And I was like, really? Oh my gosh. And you know, usually I have to fight to like can please hear me. Hear Me. And what you said was, this is more than just a podcast. And I was like, yes, tell us more about that.
0:30:00 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, this is one thing for us is because of the people we're connected with in Moscow, the nonprofit were. We're connected with Outreach, Idaho. Yes, there are kind of bread and butter is platforming people on the series and telling their stories. But maybe this is not the greatest thing for my personal life, nor my time management, but each person, I gave them my number and said, hey, even after our recording, if you want to call me, if you want to text me, we've got a lot of connections. Or if you're just like. And sometimes they just get random calls like, bro, I just need an event. I just need to scream whatever it is. And that happens a lot. And it's not great for my work. But that's a different.
0:30:38 - (Peter Bell): That's all my own time management stuff. But I don't want people just to think you record Onsen's Patriarchy and you're done. The goal is to actually do something. It's not just to be a well known or somebody's favorite podcast. And that's great and fine, but it's for people to, if you connect with us, if you talk with us, my goal is not just to get you recorded and on the series. My goal is to hopefully get you better, hopefully get you connected with a larger group of people who've been through the same thing that you've been through.
0:31:06 - (Peter Bell): And hopefully if we have the resources to connect you with a lawyer if you need one, to connect you with a counselor if you need one. Those are things where we're hoping this to be just a little bit different than a lot of the podcasts that talk about abuse. I've made contact with a few of them. It takes a lot of my time, but I was trained to be a pastor, and this is one of the things that pastors should do but aren't doing.
0:31:29 - (Peter Bell): You preach on Sunday. Yeah, that's great. But are you preaching to people? Not just preaching to like your buddies or the people who might agree with you. So that's, that's where it's, it's more than a podcast. It's. We want this. And I'm, I'm not trying to be like the leader of a movement. That's not my goal. We want to be something of a movement. We want it like, hey, this is, this has not happened in reform circles before, as far as I know. We want to be that for reformed circles and say, hey, if you've been hurt. We're with you.
0:31:56 - (Megan Owen): Okay. And it's so beautiful to hear you say to me and to others, yeah, we're just going to put this everywhere and we all need to be in this together. And this is. It takes a village. I think you said it takes a village. And it does. It does. And there's been a lot of village in the past 10, 15 years. I haven't really seen a whole lot with Reformed. I've seen some which. I'd like to talk about this before we end. And is Reformed theology?
0:32:22 - (Megan Owen): Because I'm not sure that. I guess a lot of the women I work with are from Mennonite backgrounds, some from Reformed, a lot from like Southern Baptist and even like lds. Some of that Reformed theology is its own little thing. Right. And the piece I think you're talking about has to do well. I mean now I'm thinking about Tulip and like all of that.
0:32:47 - (Peter Bell): That's part of it.
0:32:48 - (Megan Owen): Yeah, that's part of it. Right. That we're totally depraved and you know, a lot of beat down theology. But I think a part of what you're talking about is this idea that there's subservience within the Trinity and that's somehow applies to humans. Right?
0:33:05 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. Yeah. Let me, I can break that down because it's the easiest way of, of introducing a lot of this stuff. So I, I would still call myself Reformed and I know that's triggering for a lot of women, for a lot of people. And I recognize that on the front end that it's extraordinarily triggering. Which is half the reason why I started some of the patriarchy is. I, I know this stuff is, is triggering for a lot of people and I'm going to do my best to, to, to extract the things that I don't think fit and aren't healthy and are fruitless and are poisonous.
0:33:35 - (Peter Bell): But that's the authority and submission. So they would say. And this is specifically Doug and a lot of people in his camp and people have seen patriarchy and complementarianism. What's their sort of the same image on the same coin. Just flip sides.
0:33:50 - (Megan Owen): Is this a John Piper thing also?
0:33:52 - (Peter Bell): Yep. John Piper is also big in these circles. Yep. And whether people who are listening to this know about this or not, if you've heard that the man is a leader and the woman's a follower, it's more or less the same stuff.
0:34:04 - (Megan Owen): Oh yeah. That is. Everybody that I work with has heard that and it crushed them and just, I just want to Say, I am not reformed and Peter and I are still very good friends. So here we go.
0:34:14 - (Peter Bell): Yep, exactly. And most of the people behind Sons of Patriarchy are not reformed. I'm one of. I might be the only one who's.
0:34:23 - (Megan Owen): Okay.
0:34:23 - (Peter Bell): Not reformed. There's 12, 15 of us. Half are atheist, half are Christians of various sorts and stripes, spiritual, religious, whatever it is. So to call people down, it's. We're not, we're not reformed, and we've got a lot of flack because we're not. Because we've platformed atheists, we platform believers, we platform Buddhists, we've platformed across the spectrum. You name it, we've platformed them. Which is a big point from my end. So that's, that's on the side of the background, more or less like, let's just work together to stop abuse in the church. If you can work with us, then fantastic. I don't care what you believe.
0:34:59 - (Peter Bell): If you can work with us to stop abuse in the church, that's the thing I'm most concerned about. But, yeah, authority. The people in these circles would say the Father, if you think of the Trinity, the Father, Son and Spirit, the Father, the first person, is the authority figure, and then the Son, the second person is the submissive, is the one who follows all the Father's orders. And they would quote a couple scriptures to kind of pound their point home. But the nefarious part of this is they would say the Father as authority and the Son as the one who obeys. That authority is parallel to the husband's authority and the wife's submission. And you think about that, and at first it kind of like it sounds Christian in the sense, like you're using Christian terms, using things that you maybe see in the Bible a little bit. It's, it's innocuous enough on the front end, surface level for people who are new, who are like, sure, I guess it makes sense. But the deeper you dig down into this, and if people have heard this, I know you've heard this and you've lived this yourself too. You think about it, if God the Father is authority, and we think of all the things, we think about God the Father in these circles, he's all powerful, he's omniscient, he knows all things, he runs the universe, he created the universe, who's going to say no to that? And you parallel that to the husband, and they do in these circles, you can start seeing where that comes through, or the husband is all knowing, the husband's all powerful. The husband's the one who creates the husband, the one who rules and demands.
0:36:29 - (Peter Bell): And if the Son is submissive, and you think of all the things you think of with Jesus Christ, and he's the one who went to the cross, he's the one who was crucified, he was the one who was killed by his Father. All these things that they will say, and they warp partial truths in these things to make it sound like this is very noble and Christian, and this is the way to be a wife, and this is the way to be a husband.
0:36:54 - (Peter Bell): And so if the Son of God obeyed his Father, then you wives, why aren't you being your husbands to the extent that the Son did? And the Son never talked back, the Son never disobeyed, the Son went to the cross, the Son suffered. And so you wives, if you want to image Jesus in your relationships, you have to suffer, you have to obey, you have to submit. And it's got to be unquestioning because his Son was unquestioning. And don't you want to be a good wife? If you want to be a good wife, this is what you got to do.
0:37:22 - (Megan Owen): Yeah. Yeah. So try not to vomit over here.
0:37:26 - (Peter Bell): I know when I say that it's incredibly triggering for people because they probably heard something similar to this.
0:37:31 - (Megan Owen): Oh, we all have. So let's just touch. Bring in the both end of this. Let's talk about quality and partnership and the trinitarian flow. I mean, if you're going to model relationships after the Trinity, let's talk about how. How beautiful that relationship is that is eternal and doesn't start anywhere and doesn't end anywhere. And can you kind of share, like, where you are now?
0:37:58 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. So let me begin with. I am not a marriage expert. I am nothing of this. All this just comes from. From conversations in my own study. So please don't take my word as. As gospel or as the last thing on this stuff.
0:38:11 - (Megan Owen): We're not going to do that. I can promise you right now. I just want us to bring ladies, like, into a place of, like. Okay, and now we're going to talk about how that's wrong and, like, how shalom comes in, how beautiful relationships can be. And. Yeah, just to bring us kind of up out of the we all just fell into. Yeah, go ahead.
0:38:33 - (Peter Bell): It's the. The Father who created all things, who is all sufficient, who's all knowing, is the very one who loves his creation, is the very one who created every nook and cranny of the universe and called it good. That's where I have hot issue with a lot of reformed people. It's. We start. We start our bibles in Genesis 3 and we say, man is wicked, and that's all man and woman is, is wicked. And we forget that when God created, God created all things good, all things perfect, all things beautiful, all things loving.
0:39:05 - (Peter Bell): And we're the ones who started messing around with that stuff and saying, let's play around with this creation and do what we want to do with it. But that's not how God created this. You can say God created, not out of obligation. God created out of love. God created a fountain that spurts, and then the edges just can't hold it. They can't hold his creativity, they can't hold his love. And so if there's anything we get of marriage from the Trinity, it's that stuff. It's the love that comes from a husband. And we're not great at this all the time. I am. Example, example number one of this. We're not great at loving love.
0:39:39 - (Megan Owen): You mean you're human like the rest of us, Peter?
0:39:42 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, I'm no better at this. I'm not creating the serious. I have figured this out. I created this series. I need help myself. But that fountain that comes from the Father, that overflows into creation, that's much of the same things that we see, we should see in marriage. It's not leadership, it's serving. You can't help but love your wife, and the wife can't help but love you.
0:40:06 - (Megan Owen): I'm honored to hear that. And to hear you talk about this fountain of love that can't be contained. I mean, isn't that what Jesus was giving to the woman at the well? Like, you're not going to be thirsty. This comes from inside of you. The kingdom of God is in you, and there's so much love to be released.
0:40:25 - (Peter Bell): Yeah. Yeah. That's not like the. The man is any better than the woman, nor the woman any better than the man. They were both created in God's image. They were both created good and beautiful and loving. He didn't say, hey, man, go rule over your wife or to wife, hey, go submit to your husband. He said that he, he told both of them at the same time, this is your creation. I want you to fill it. And not just with kids, but I want you to fill it with, with your creativity, with your love. I don't want this to just say, like, for, for those who are single, that he forgets about you. This is men's love for Women, even outside the bounds of marriage, for friends, for relationships, parents. I'm sure there's single women who are listening to this and single men who might be listening to this, too, but it doesn't leave you out. This is the same love.
0:41:11 - (Peter Bell): There's an intimate love. There's a. There's a loyal love. There's a. There's a friendly love. CS Lewis has talked about this a little bit, too. There's. There's. So there's more love than just marriage that pours out into all people as well.
0:41:23 - (Megan Owen): And I mean, I remember Jesus didn't get married. A lot of people didn't get married. The first convert was an Ethiopian eunuch.
0:41:32 - (Peter Bell): Like, there is very few marriages in the New Testament.
0:41:35 - (Megan Owen): Why we major on roles of men and women when it's like barely touched on.
0:41:41 - (Peter Bell): And, you know, even the marriages in the Old Testament don't tend to go very well when.
0:41:46 - (Megan Owen): Right, yeah.
0:41:48 - (Peter Bell): So if you're having. That's the difficult part, too. It's. We think kind of our Western American culture is like, this is how marriage has always been done. That's not at all the case of how it's always been done.
0:42:00 - (Megan Owen): Not at all. You know, for our listeners are mostly single, if not all of them are single women. And you single women are my heroes who are survivors. And you are whole in and of yourself, because that's how God has made you.
0:42:15 - (Peter Bell): He never told a single woman in the New Testament to go find a man.
0:42:19 - (Megan Owen): Nice. Thank you. That's right. That's right. Well done. Well, Peter, I'm going to ask you the same thing that you asked me toward the end of your podcast that felt so freeing for all of the women who are listening to this podcast. Can you share what you would like for them to know about sons of patriarchy or about who they are, some encouragement for them or about love, whatever it is that you would like for them to hear.
0:42:47 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, I'll say in the front end. Don't. And I know it's going to be hard not to look at sins of patriarchy and think, this is. This is a show for men. Our statistics show the exact opposite. We're probably 70% women, 30% men. It's somewhere around that we are double the amount of listeners in female than we are male. And that's by design. That's what we want this to be. We want this to be driven by women. We want this to be driven by women who come on and tell their stories, because it's generally not how the church has done these Things before, it's not been driven by women. And so when you single moms, when females listen to this, I want them to know that this is theirs.
0:43:26 - (Peter Bell): This is. This is their story.
0:43:28 - (Megan Owen): It's true.
0:43:28 - (Peter Bell): These are their people. I'm hoping to capture something of what women feel like in these circles and hopefully to know even though it's me, a male who's running this, the goal is to have this driven by female voices.
0:43:41 - (Megan Owen): And it is. It is. I can validate that it is. I'm part of the groups. I'm watching it. It is. He is a facade facilitator of these sacred stories.
0:43:50 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, that'd be a thing I want people to get from. This is your voice really does matter. And I hope people trust me. What I'm saying, like, we are listening, we are watching, we are looking. And when you speak, we want you to know that you got a voice. And if people want to reach out to us or listen to us or potentially tell their story, the door is always open. And we have a team that wants to listen and is going to trust you and is going to believe you and maybe to end off.
0:44:21 - (Peter Bell): And I know it sounds trite and it sounds like a proverb that everybody says, but you're. You really are not alone. Even if you feel alone, even if you are the only one, even if you are single, you're not alone. There's. There's a big group out there who wants to say the same things, who believes the same things, and who've been told that they're alone. There's a lot of alone people who've been told that they're alone, but you're not alone. Yes, we kind of want to be the podcast for loners. We want to be the podcast for people who feel alone and say, if you're a woman and you're alone, I think we're the one for you.
0:44:52 - (Megan Owen): Okay, that was beautiful. And again, I just validate everything Peter just said. When my story was posted on my private Facebook page, I had so many women comment and encourage me. I felt seen, I felt heard. I didn't even know I still needed some of that after all these years and emails that I received and just texts. Just so much love. So I really want to encourage our listeners to go and. And start listening to the Sons of Patriarchy podcast. We're going to put all the links in there.
0:45:24 - (Megan Owen): There's a Facebook page for support, and we're going to lead you down all the rabbit trails to get you to where you need to be to Listen, you may find yourself in there. You're definitely going to find me in there. And you will find other people that you know that we all love and admire. Krista Brown, right? Tia Lovings just, you know, heroes. She rows of ours. And then I'm also going to go ahead and bring in that our sacred circle groups are going to be starting in April.
0:45:54 - (Megan Owen): That is for women who can't go to church. Basically, I'm leading it myself. It's very, very minimal nominal cost per month and it's just to keep us moving forward. So go to the website and you get a free resource if you sign up for the waiting list there. So what else? I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
0:46:14 - (Peter Bell): Peter, we're taking sort of a little bit of a break, so people are not going to hear kind of a regular episodes. All we're doing for the next three months, I have 40 stories of abuse that we have not yet published. And we're just going to be dropping all of those over the next few months. And the goal is to as many people have different stories as we want them to know. We try to get a range of stories. We don't say a story is too little and too much.
0:46:37 - (Peter Bell): All the stories belong on the series. But if you do anything, donate to the nonprofit we're part of. We have subscription stuff that's great, but it's I just want people to know you're not alone. That's really all we care about is you're not alone. And if you want a voice, you have one. With Sons of Patriarchy, there's no application process to come on. It's you got a story, we want it.
0:47:00 - (Megan Owen): You do. And there's a great cloud of witnesses with all of you who feel alone, including all of us who are listening. So. All right, so head on over there to Sons of Patriarchy. Peter, thank you for what you're doing. I honor what you're doing, pray for what you're doing and all of your staff and yeah, I'm just grateful. Thank you.
0:47:18 - (Peter Bell): Yeah, thank you.
0:47:25 - (Megan Owen): I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one on one time with me unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest. Contact me on Mountain city Christian Catholic counseling.com to help this podcast reach more people. Do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest.
0:48:01 - (Megan Owen): My name is Megan Owen and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych.
0:48:07 - (Megan Owen): Catch you next episode.
0:48:09 - (Megan Owen): And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.
