What if challenging the Church’s treatment of women isn’t walking away from Jesus—but an attempt to follow him more faithfully?
For the landmark 100th episode of What the Hell Do I Know with JB, Jason sits down with Meghan Tschanz—author of Women Rising: Learning to Listen, Reclaiming Our Voice and host of the Faith and Feminism podcast.
Raised in conservative evangelical Christianity, Meghan was taught that women should not preach, teach or lead and that their primary role was to submit to and serve their husbands.
She tried to accept those teachings because she loved God.
Then her ministry experiences forced her to ask whether those ideas actually reflected Jesus.
While traveling through 11 countries in 11 months, Meghan encountered women and girls facing female genital mutilation, sex trafficking, educational inequality, sexual violence and systems that treated them as less valuable than men.
In Kenya, girls quietly asked whether female circumcision also happened in America. Meghan eventually learned that each of them had experienced it.
In the Philippines, she confronted an American man purchasing access to trafficked women and girls. He told her women were created to serve men and that Western women no longer knew their proper place.
The language sounded disturbingly familiar.
It echoed teachings Meghan had heard in church.
That encounter triggered a crisis of faith and began a deeper examination of patriarchy, biblical womanhood, sexual violence, church power and the life of Jesus.
Jason and Meghan discuss:
• Growing up in conservative evangelical Christianity
• Being taught that women should not preach, teach or lead
• The connection between male dominance and abuse
• Female genital mutilation and sex trafficking
• Why sexual violence is often rooted in dominance and control
• Whether biblical womanhood is actually biblical
• Women in Scripture who resisted patriarchal expectations
• How Jesus empowered women and defended marginalized people
• Why feminism does not mean hating men
• What men can do to become better allies
• Why women often remain silent when they feel unsafe
• Purity culture and the burden it places on girls
• Why men need to confront other men
• The Church’s responsibility to protect survivors
• Sex trafficking, wealth, power and exploitation
• Why charity cannot replace systemic change
• Why transparency is essential for churches
• How patriarchy also harms boys and men
• Masculinity, emotional repression and mental health
• Jesus as a model of non-dominating masculinity
• Deconstruction as an act of faithfulness rather than rebellion
Meghan argues that the women of Scripture do not resemble the passive, silent version of biblical womanhood many Christians have been taught. Women such as Tamar, Esther, Deborah, Shiphrah and Puah resisted unjust systems, acted courageously and were honored for it.
She also challenges men to begin by listening.
Ask the women in your life whether they have ever felt unsafe, harassed, objectified or dismissed. Do not minimize their experiences. Learn to recognize situations you may never have noticed because you have not lived inside a woman’s body.
When men witness harassment or degradation, Meghan encourages them to intervene. Men who refuse to respect a woman’s boundaries may listen when another man speaks.
This is not simply a conversation about politics or labels.
It is a conversation about power.
It is about whether Christian communities will protect institutions or protect people. It is about whether worship, church attendance and religious language mean anything when justice, mercy and care for the marginalized are absent.
Most importantly, it is about Jesus.
Meghan did not begin questioning patriarchy because she stopped loving Christ. She began questioning it because the systems she witnessed did not resemble him.
Learn more about Meghan, her work and the Faith and Feminism podcast:
https://meghantschanz.com
Learn more about the Equal Rights Amendment and why Meghan believes it still matters:
https://meghantschanz.com/equal-rights-amendment-now/
Follow Meghan:
Instagram: @meghantschanz
Book:
Women Rising: Learning to Listen, Reclaiming Our Voice
Follow Jason Becker:
Instagram: @_jason_becker
Learn more:
[www.vintagewisdom.org](http://www.vintagewisdom.org)
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Subscribe, leave a comment and share Episode 100 with someone willing to reconsider what they have always been taught.
What teaching about women, power or faith have you had to examine more closely?
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