#65 | Finding Hope, Shedding Shame, Pt. 2 | Audrey Frank

It's watering time, everybody.

It is time for Apollo's Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming and I am your host. And today we're having another one of our deep conversations.

Actually, it's the second part of my deep conversation with Audrey Frank. We talk about honor and shame. And I know that for many of us, we're like, what does that have to do with the modern world? Well, how about this?

Does the ancient concept of shame have anything to do with our modern cancel culture? Ha. Well, you will find out today. And if you don't get it already, it does. It is so related.

The Bible talks about all of these different things and Audrey and I talk about this ancient concept of shame and how it relates to our modern cancel culture.

But before we get into this second part of our conversation, I want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you in part by Derek Eastman Insurance Agency of Sugar Grove, Illinois. If you're in that area, he can meet all of your insurance needs. Just simple.

Simply Google his name, Derek Eastman Insurance Agency, and he will hook you up. Now, before we get to Audrey, I have a couple of really awesome announcements.

I know it has been some time since we last released an episode, but that is because we've had some absolutely crazy stuff going on that we want to share with you. First up, Apollos Watered has grown out of being a podcast into a non profit organization. We are more than just a podcast, everybody.

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There's a lot of activity, but not a lot of progress. And we want to help change that.

We want to show what biblical discipleship is that is culturally aware, or as we like to say, we want to water your faith so you can go water your world. We will be giving you updates on how things progress, but are pretty excited about what God is doing.

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So pay attention that first week of September.

But without first further ado, let's get to this second part of my conversation with Audrey Frank as we discuss what it means to be a Christ follower in the midst of a crazy world and how Christ deals with our shame. Happy listening.

And it's hearing you talk about that, I mean it's not only phenomenal and I still feel like a lot of Westerners aren't grasping this idea of the honor shame aspect and they think oh, it's just in a Muslim culture. But it's not, as you said before, it's in 2/3 estimated of the world's cultures.

And so it's not just in Islam, it's in Hinduism, it's in different parts of the world, even within some Christian circles.

This idea of honor, but the way that you even placed it or you talked about it with lbgtq, with Black Lives Matter, people are crying to be heard because really it's an esteem, a desire to be understood, to have dignity, to be valued for who you are and what it is that's there.

But the problem that we often have, not just in several different movements but in our own culture, is that we misplace the object or the pursuit that we're going after to find honor in and Christ replaces that. How have you seen Christ replace that honor?

Because you tell some stories in the book actually of a brand new married couple, I remember correctly, when she's doing the dishes Just tell that story for a moment, because that really does, I think, illustrate how that was played out and how that changed for them and how they lived out what honor meant, and they transitioned from one to the other. So talk about that for a moment.

So one problem that followers of Jesus in the Muslim world face is there aren't a lot of them. So finding a spouse can be difficult. A spouse who shares your faith. And that was the case in our small community.

But this young couple had found each other, and they were married. And it was. It was delightful. They were. They were married in our home, and we had a wonderful experience with them.

And sometime later, the newlyweds arrived. We had. We. We met secretly for church, and people would come at different times, and eventually everyone would be there together. Begin.

But this particular day, they came quite early, and they were just beaming. And the woman couldn't stop. She just couldn't stop smiling. And she just began talking so fast. I remember it so much faster for her.

And her husband just stood there smiling because she had a story to tell. But she said, guess what. Guess what. Guess what happened. Guess what happened. What happened?

She had been washing the dishes the day before, and her husband was away at work, and she dropped a glass and it broke. And in her particular culture and country, the belief was that when you broke a glass, it would invite demons into the house.

And so typically, for breaking anything like that, there would be corporal punishment from the husband or the father, whoever the male, the responsible male was for that female. That's what she had seen her father do many times to her mother. And so she carefully gathered all the shards of glass and a towel, and she.

When it was about time for her husband to come home for lunch, she sat down and put the towel and the glass bits on the table. And she just waited for her punishment. And she did not greet him at the door like she had been doing. And when he came in, he was troubled.

He saw her sitting there with her eyes downcast, and he said, what's the matter? And she just pushed the towel close to him and said, I broke the glass. You can beat me now.

And he looked at her and he lifted her chin and he said, we follow the way of Jesus now. We follow the way of love. I will not beat you. I am to love you as I love myself. I am to love you as I love myself.

And they threw the glass bits away and came joyfully and told us the story. We follow a new way now. We follow a new way. It was so glorious.

You described some Pretty vivid stories in the book. I remember that one standing out, just how you create pictures. And I find myself just really drawn in as if I'm watching a movie before my eyes.

But one of those that came that you described was quite eye opening. And you tell the story about a young girl who was really loved by her father.

He would buy her sweets and jewelry, and then he took her on the Hajj, which, for those that don't know, that's the pilgrimage that every Muslim is to make in their lifetime. One of the five pillars of Islam. But describe what happened in this situation and really why you included it in the book.

Because I think most Westerners are already like, this is so crazy. This is so different. I mean, a glass, Come on.

And they were looking it through a very individualistic lens, but they're not understanding the cultural context. When everyone around you holds that similar view, it can be overwhelming, and it can conform them very, very quickly.

But just describe that situation and what happened and then why you really wanted that to be included in the book.

Well, the way that she told the story when I heard it is she was walking along with her father in a very, very, very tight crowd and sudden square.

In Mecca.

In Mecca.

In Mecca. And she's how old?

I'm not exactly sure, but I think that she was in her early teens.

Okay.

I want to say she was around 12 or 13 years old. And she was. So they're coming. They're in this tight crowd in Mecca and they come up to a ruckus.

There's just a lot of noise being made, and there's an opening in the square. And they are.

Some men are about to behead a young woman and her father instead of putting her behind him, like we would probably want to do here in the west, to keep our children from seeing something like that. He took her hand and he pushed her forward and said, I want you to watch and learn so this will not be you one day. And he made her watch.

And the woman's infraction, the woman who was beheaded, her infraction was spending time with a man. And it was no crime what she had done, but she was killed for it.

And the reason I included this story was because my friend was sharing it out of love for her father. And you may think I'm crazy when I say this, but bear with me a moment. Her father was a generous, kind, devout, godly man. He.

He was taking his daughter on the Hajj. That in itself illustrates his commitment, seeking righteousness through the means that he understood he, he, he could try that through Islam.

And so he was doing what he could and, but he was showing her that. So almost as a cautionary tale, my daughter, this is what happens to girls who shame their families.

This is what, who do not bear their burden of honor well for themselves, their family, their community, their nation, their religion. Do not be like her. Do not be like her.

And when she shared the story, she shared it in the context of her father's love and his sincere, misguided idea of what it meant for her to be righteous, to follow all these rules. Her as a girl, her as a young woman, as a future wife who would be carrying the honor burden for her culture, for her group.

I mean, even reading that, you're drawn in and that, yet you included that detail that she tells this story out of a love for her father.

And if I remember correctly, the girl who was beheaded, her crime was, I think you described, described it as she walked home with a boy, something along that line, which is so, so different culturally speaking.

And again, some people feel like this is so far away from their lived experience, but the reality is that when you really put a different lens on it, just a slight or tweak it a bit, we're seeing a lot more of that here, but not necessarily in such stark terms or even under that label of honor shame, but cancel culture. If a person does something like that, I mean, in many ways the cancel culture is that it's this.

You are doing something that we deem to be dishonorable. Therefore we are going to cancel you from our cultural experience.

But why do you think it is so important for us to see the gospel through the lens of honor shame?

Because there are many that would say we don't need to see this, but yet I think because we've seen it with such an innocent guilt eyes for so long, we've become in many ways deaf to seeing the implications and different aspects of it that are so alive and well that others are already seeing in the scripture. It's not that we're adding anything. We're not.

We're just simply highlighting something that our cultural blind spots have really, you know, kept us from seeing. But why is it important to recover a bit of that to get a better understanding of the, the gospel of God?

I really appreciate you saying that. We're not adding something. No, we are not promoting a new strategy. This is not a new gospel. This has been here all along.

But the reason it is so important is this. The greatest commandment is to love God. With all our heart, mind, and soul, and to love others.

We can't love others if we do not see that they were created with equal value before God. He created every person with equal value. That is a starting point to loving them. And he loved us first before we loved Him.

He loved us first and bestowed on us that deep intrinsic value. And it's part of our redemption. We can't skip it.

I have a very good friend who she recently, we were discussing how to communicate this message to our friends who are in the LGBTQ community, and she said, well, Christians have been cancel culture long before cancel culture was a thing.

Yeah, I agree with that. Totally agree with that.

I'm sorry, we can't listen to that music because didn't you hear he's trans or oh, gosh, we can't do that because of this.

That we can't go to certain places because they had this. I mean, I remember Disney boycott and. Or different programs, different shops, different stores have all been.

They've had these boycotts, which are just another way of saying a cancel culture.

Well, you may not be able to understand or comprehend that a daughter who walked home with a boy, was kicked out of her family or maybe even killed, but we can comprehend because there are thousands of these stories. When a young person comes home and says, I'm struggling. I'm not sure about my gender. I think I'm non binary.

And the father says, you are no longer my child. This is a true. These are true stories. Many, many of them.

To bring it into our cultural context, we must, we must, we must give each other the message. We must give the message to every person that Jesus has rescued us from shame. He has restored honor for every person.

And I don't have to sort out a person's gender issues for them. I bring them to Jesus. Because Jesus is the one who has the credentials. He is the one who paid the price.

He is the one who bore the shame on the cross. He is the one who is qualified and knows exactly how to handle those hearts. The Word says that a bruised reed he does not break.

There are many bruised reeds walking around because they haven't heard the gospel message application to their shame. They've only heard, you sinner. They haven't heard, well, what do I do when I'm alone at night and there's no one else around but me?

And I feel that there is something so wrong with me that it can never be fixed? And I don't know where to go with that. I don't know where Help is. It grieves my heart. And I feel that this message is so pertinent to.

We have to begin to see, not see, how to fix a problem. We see enough problems. We're very good at diagnosing. We need to bring people to Jesus. He knows how to heal every heart. We're not the healers, Travis.

No, we're not. And I mean. And that's the beautiful thing I used to often tell people at church, I said, you know, we're all trying to get to the great physician.

The problem that we often have is that we keep colliding with the other patients in the hospital because we all need the same doctor, and he's the one that has the solutions that we need. But we often try to act like the great physician for other people rather than helping them get to Jesus.

But I want to go back for a moment because you mentioned something, and I agree with you with the brokenness. I agree with you with those living in shame and trying to help them feel that.

But I encountered a book, and I hope to actually read it somewhat soon, by Taylee Lau. And Taylee Lau is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and he wrote a book basically called Recovering Shame.

In many ways, it's a biblical sense of what good shame is. Now, because when we're talking about shame, we have an often tendency to be very, as you mentioned before, good, bad. So it's shame bad.

But there is a sense, biblically speaking, when there is a good shame. How do we differentiate between those two and not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater?

I am assuming from the name of that author. It is an Asian name, isn't it?

Yes.

I would say that our Asian cultures have the most to teach us about this because they preserve the concept of saving face.

Mm.

And we see that beautifully in the story of Esau and Jacob, where Jacob is running back. He didn't want. He was afraid for his face to be shown. You'd have to go and read the story. We don't have time for that conversation at length here.

But read the stages of how concerned Jacob is at that, just on the threshold of that restoration, that meeting again with his brother, how concerned he is with the shame that he. He rightfully bore because of what he had done by stealing the birthright. And he's about to go see him. And he. He.

Even in his exclamation to him, when he does see him, as you know, he's. He's seeing his face. He's beholding his face. Again, you see a restoration of honor there. Shame has a. Has a role to convict us of sin. It also has a.

It also plays a role in. Because some shame. Shame is the result of sin. It can be my sin, or it can be someone else's sin against me.

And in that way, shame is a very good impetus to repentance, to examining our hearts, to opening ourselves to accountability to others, to examine us and to help us be restored. It is the most. I guess, the most common.

I think it's true the most common phrase used to discipline children in the area of the Muslim world where I lived for so long was shame on you. And it stopped them in their tracks.

Well, if I say shame on you today, though, in our culture here, if we say shame on you, it might even sound like a joke, like we're chiding them a little bit with a laugh or a smirk or something. But.

But it always stopped children in their tracks so much that when we returned to the US and my son was around 10 years old, he was in an American public school room, a classroom, and this girl was bothering him. She was throwing a pencil at him and kicking him under the table. And finally he'd had enough. And he said to her in Arabic, shuma alik.

Just at the moment he said it, the principal was walking by the open classroom door, and the girl sees the principal and shouts. It was just like a terrible sequence of events. The girl says, he said the F word to me.

Because as we, as most of us know, if you don't speak Arabic, it sounds to you like a back. Whatever you say, you know? And so.

So the principal pulls him out into the hallway, and he looks at her, and he just had heard the F word for the first time out of this girl's lips. And he says, I didn't say. She called me later and she said, Mrs. Frank, I need you to come.

She said, I want you to know why I had your son walk laps during recess. It wasn't because of the words. He said. My daughter and grandchildren live in China, and I understand the cultural transition.

It was because he wouldn't let me speak. He was so busy defending himself. But I think you need to make a list of all the curse words you can think of.

And if you can't think of many, just let me help you. We'll make one together. She underestimated me, so. And she said, just sit down and say, these are curse words in English.

So I went through the list and I said, this one. And he was like, oh, oh, yeah. I've heard that one. This one, huh? This one, huh? This one. Oh, no, I never heard that one.

But I know it now.

Shame on you. Because in the culture, he'd spent 10 years in saying, shame on you. Stop people in their tracks.

Oh, you know, you mentioned that, though, just. Just about the kids. I. I was having coffee with Phil Vischer the other day, and I said first, because it was the first time we ever met.

And I said to Phil, I said, I just want to thank you for developing my daughter's theology. And I said, because now she can't read Joshua without reading about the guys throwing slushies from the wall.

And I said, not only that, but you introduced the boogeyman. I said, we never had that ever conversation. And you have this song that God is bigger than the boogeyman.

Of course my daughter is going, who's the boogeyman? And then suddenly she's scared of the boogeyman. I went, thanks a lot, Phil. Thanks a lot for that. He goes, I can't help it, because.

I know, I know, but yeah, so your son would say that, and then that would stop people in their tracks. This the shame on you. And is he. Did he start to really understand more?

Yes, he did. But you have to understand also, he was a lefty.

He writes and eats with his left hand, which you cannot use your left hand to eat or do anything publicly in the Muslim world because it's your dirty hand. And so he would sit on his left hand during our meals so that he wouldn't accidentally use it to eat with.

So he was very accustomed to having Shuma Alik said to him. He was used to that. He knew that. And so it worked. And so he tried to use it, but no, he quickly adapted. He also quickly adapted.

I shouldn't say, but he also did eventually adapt to some of those words too. He's not using them so much anymore.

That's good. I understand.

But going back for a moment, I want to go back to the beginning of our conversation because you mentioned that Muslim women are most oftentimes the burden bearers of shame. Describe what you mean by that.

Well, in a grossly generalized way, because you can't put any people, group or person in a box because then you will meet someone who breaks the box. We're all unique individuals. Okay?

Saying that, though in a very general sense, in in honor shame cultures, women are the honor burden bearers and men are the honor guards.

And for the first 10, 12 years of life, women are highly responsible to teach children what the rules are what the honor rules are and how to maintain that. But then once they become adolescents, the boys and young men become those honor guards.

Again, back to our terrible example of an older brother who might commit an honor killing of his younger sister. He's doing his duty and in that way we see both the men and the women on level ground, in a sense, in need of salvation.

Because no worldview, no set of man made rules can redeem another soul. They're all fallible.

They'Re all broken and they are. And you mentioned another thing when you mentioned that the women are the burden bearers and the men are the honor guards.

As soon as you said that I had a trigger in my mind.

I remember it's not in a Muslim culture, but an Indian one where there was a young woman who was on a bus coming home from a movie at night with a man who was kind of acting as her guardian, who was a friend of hers. And there were other men on the bus and they ended up basically assaulting him, beating him up.

And then they, they habitually raped her until she was basically killed. I mean, she was killed, she was thrown off the bus. They were tried. It was horrific. I mean, horrific, horrific.

But I remember hearing one of the men basically testify that the man couldn't protect her, it was their fault and she should have never been out that in that night anyway. Almost like she got what she deserved. What kind of mindset?

I mean, that's in many ways still within the honor shame culture, but it's so, not only abhorrent but so far away from our understanding of it.

But what can create that mindset where a man can say that that's okay, I mean, that someone deserved it because the guardian didn't protect her the way that he should have? Can you just elaborate or help us try to understand?

I know it's outside of your cult cultural context specifically, but I do think, and correct me if I'm wrong, some of those same rules and mindsets are found in that same idea. And I'm sure you've probably seen something like that in your own, the cultural context in which you've served. But elaborate on that if you would.

Yes, and you are right. A lot of the rules of honor shame worldview cultures are similar.

And well, there, there are some complex things happening in that story, in that true story, true, terrible story. And it's not only her being with a male guardian. We don't know what his relationship was to her.

If he was not a brother or a father, then she shouldn't have. He wouldn't have qualified often as. As the ultimate honor.

Maybe those local people knew that he was just a male friend who was older and felt that that didn't have enough clout. We don't know. I'm speculating. Another aspect to this is the time of day. This was at night.

And generally speaking, women, reputable, honorable quote unquote, women do not go out at night unless they are going to a family event. Like in some cultures, the weddings are all night. So it opens them. The mindset is that this opens them for more harassment.

They're bringing it on themselves. I was sitting. I remember the first time I overheard a genuine conversation blaming a woman for sexual assault.

I was in the afternoon at tea time with some friends of mine in their home.

We'd all thrown off our hijabs and we were wearing our pajamas, sitting around, hanging out, drinking tea, eating cake, eating olives, having a great time. And they began to tell the story that a few days earlier, a young woman had been on the bus. And they used their.

Their hands to indicate she was wearing a sleeveless shirt, her neckline was lower, and she was. She was sexually assaulted. And then they continued, and this is all women to explain how. Well, it was totally her fault.

She shouldn't have been wearing those clothes. And I jumped in because they were close friends of mine and I had. I was close enough to them that I could be myself and be honest and direct.

And I said. I said, how can you say that? It was a responsibility of those men. They made the choice to do that, to harm her.

And they said, well, you just don't understand because you're a conservative, you're an honorable woman. Because I always covered. I wore all of the clothing covered in all of the places I needed to be covered when I was always in public.

And so they said, you don't understand because you're an honorable woman. You would never open yourself up to this. And I tell the story to bring us back to the idea of legalistic rules. There are rules, rules you follow.

Every society has them. They're different in different places. But the rules are, you cover from here to here, the wrists, the neck. You cover all the parts.

If you don't, you break the rules. You put yourself in a vulnerable position and anything might happen. You could have made a different choice and it wouldn't have happened to you.

It communicates so much more than just an individual's taste in what they decided to wear that day.

So. And I'm still trying to understand this. Wrap my head around it.

So these women are saying that she got what she deserved because she put herself in a situation of tempting someone. Is that it? Or bringing dishonor to the family, therefore she had to be brought back in. Is that how the mindset is?

Yes. And they may not. I mean, we can't speak for what their ultimate thoughts were that they thought she needed. She needed to be brought back in.

But that is mainly the idea there is. If you don't follow the rules, then you are putting yourself in a vulnerable position.

But it's not only society rules, it's also religious rules, religious teaching that you as a woman are the temptress. You are the one responsible to protect men from their own passions, bless their hearts, protect them from their passions, cover yourself up.

And I found that I was pretty furious when I returned to the United States and saw some of these same attitudes or even in our churches. I believe in modesty. I am a modest person myself. I am raising my daughter to be modest. But I.

But there is a fine line sometimes between who is responsible. I am responsible for my own body and myself and the way I carry myself and my respect and behavior.

But men are responsible for themselves as well and their behavior.

So it's a both and not an either or.

It is. It's a both and absolutely.

But in the. In an Islamic culture specifically, or let's say honor, shame, the. The burden is entirely upon the women. Yes, completely upon the women.

And therefore there's this feeling of shame that really resonates. How does one get out of.

I mean, ultimately, we know that's Christ, but how does a Muslim woman need to understand how Christ took the shame and gives honor? I mean, is that how we apply it, how we teach it?

I mean, do you find that message resonates with a lot of different women, or do you find that it's being ultimately rejected because they.

They just can't relate to Jesus because even if they do come to Jesus and they follow him, they are bringing shame upon their family if they were to leave. So there's this tricky way of we want to. Christ gives you honor, but at the same time, you're bringing dishonor on your family.

How do you juxtapose those with one another or reconcile?

Well, I'm smiling because they are the ones who taught me that I didn't teach them. They are the ones, yes. So telling stories. Know your Bible stories. You don't have to know the whole Bible to share with a Muslim.

Know some of your favorites. The Story of the Samaritan woman, the story of the woman caught in adultery, the story of the woman with the issue of blood.

Know what the promises are. The CV of Jesus in Isaiah 60:1, the one who gives honor instead of shame, who gives a double portion.

A double portion instead of their shame, you will receive a double portion.

Know these passages and share them in narrative story form and your friends will teach you the honor narrative in them because that is what resonates with them and that is what they see in it. We say as writers that every writer writes, writes herself into the book and every reader reads herself out of it.

And it's so similar with our sharing of the gospel. Just because we've shared it through our own worldview does not handicap it somehow.

We have the Holy Spirit and those who are listening read themselves into that gospel. So know your Bible back to what we said earlier. Read the Bible through the lenses of honor and shame.

I challenged some of my readers to go out and buy a new paper, old fashioned Bible that has book covers and start in the beginning, get some highlighters and underline and highlight everything that is remotely related to honor language in it or shame language and read it through a new lens and relate that to your friends verbally, orally repeat the stories to them and. And they are drawn in every, every single. And I love it when I have something I can say every. You know, there aren't many things that are every.

But as to at this point in my life, every one of my friends who used to be Muslims now are followers of Jesus. Every female has told me that it was when she encountered Jesus through the Word that she. She saw that he was the Lord.

That is when her understanding was opened. It was through the reading of the Word, encountering Jesus in the Word.

And yes, the reality is that Muslims, men or women, if they choose to become followers of Jesus, they may do so at cost of their lives. Recently Jenny Allen interviewed Pastor X. I don't know if you saw that it is available on YouTube right now.

And he shares a very sobering picture, but also a very inspiring picture of this, this cost, but their willingness because of Jesus and because of the community they are coming into the community of Christ. And I don't mean all these patients who are colliding with each other trying to get to the great physician.

I mean the family of God, the eternal promise that they are secure, Heaven is secure for them. Heaven is not promised in Islam, even if you do all the things, it's not a guarantee, especially for women. You can do all the things.

But you might get there face to face with God, and he, well, he might decide, okay, I'll let you in. He might not.

So it's just arbitrary, Completely arbitrary.

Yes, Jesus is our guarantee.

But I find it's not as complicated as I thought it was back when I was in seminary studying Islamic theology and studying intercultural studies and all of these things, thinking I needed strategies and I needed to figure it out, how to be effective. Those things are very important. However, knowing the word, sharing the stories, and trusting the Holy Spirit to work in the heart of the listener.

The writer has written himself into his book. He has written himself into it, and they see him and hear him in it. It's so beautiful.

You know, I think of the Book of Esther, where of course the name of God doesn't appear in the Christian canon. I mean, just in the book in general, but yet someone said it's like saying Shakespeare doesn't appear in his plays. He's in every part of it.

I love that.

And I think that's so true.

What do you think that the Western church, because I hear this and I hear these women falling in love with Jesus, and I've read other books about women receiving visions in the Muslim world and Jesus appearing to them, and yet the experience seems so far away from the experience of the women in the West. And you've bridged those cultures. I mean, you've gone back and forth, of course, you're an American and you've served in East Africa.

You mentioned North Africa. But yet coming back and seeing some of the women, what they're dealing with, what have you learned in interacting with people from the different.

The women from the different cultures that they taught you and that you feel like women in the west need to hear?

I have learned that we are worth it to Jesus no matter what our culture or worldview. He is willing. Not only is he willing, but he is actively doing so.

He is coming after us, and he is leaving the 99 to come to the 1 to lift her up on his shoulders.

I was astonished when I sat across from Muslim women and heard them share how Jesus had come to them and he had rescued them and he had revealed to them without any Christian Westerner telling them that he is the way, the truth and the life. For example, him speaking those words to them when.

When they were illiterate and had never read them in a Bible and didn't know that is in the Bible and that is how Jesus describes himself.

He had said that to them personally sitting across from Them hearing those stories and realizing the way he had come to me as a little girl, how he had given me hope and a promise in very personal ways. When it happens, when you.

When you encounter Jesus in private, when in prayer and in reading the Bible and spending time with him, it feels so unique to yourself. It is so sacred.

But then to meet other women in other cultures and learn that he is pursuing them as well, you realize they too know what the pit looks like. They too had the rescuer come to them and give his promises and inspire and encourage them and tell them there is hope.

And you realize you're part of something so much bigger than the pain you're experiencing today. The hopelessness you feel right now, the darkness that just seems to suffocate you, the shame that has silenced your voice. You are not alone.

And Jesus will not depend. He does not entrust himself to humans and depend on humans to get the job done. He will come himself if they fail. He will. And he is.

He is doing that in the Muslim world, men and women. But he's not just doing it there. He did it for me. My great grandmother gave me a Bible when I was seven for Christmas. I was living.

Living in extreme unspeakable trauma and abuse. And I. I didn't have someone sit down and explain the Scriptures to me. It was. It was an niv.

It wasn't the ICB or any of the children's versions, it was the niv. But it had these gorgeous pictures in it. So naturally I went to each of the pictures and it had this. The citation of where the scripture story was.

And I found them and read them. And I would sit in my bedroom and make a tent with my covers and my flashlight, and I would read and read and read.

And when I came across the scripture that said, can a mother forget the child who nurses at her breast, though she may forget, I will not forget you. And I said, oh, that's for me. No one said, that's not for you. That was the Old Testament.

Then I went on and I read, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I thought, that's for me. And I went on to the next promise. And I went on to the next promise.

And I went on to the next promise, and I went on to Jesus. Words abide in me, and I just believed them. There are women and men, and I don't want to forget the men.

My mentor, Roland Mueller, tells me, please don't forget the men. The Muslim men, they also need a savior. They also are trapped in A in a system that tells them they must be the ones who guard the honor.

Well, only Jesus can do that and has done that. Their burden, some might argue, is equally as great. So they're equally in need of our Savior, but Jesus is revealing himself to them.

And here in the United States, if you have a Muslim in your neighborhood, which you most likely do, then you can give them a Bible. It's not illegal here.

I know we had ESL classes at our church with World Relief and I got Bibles from every language that we had represented.

And I had Injil, the New Testament and I had this resource table and the teachers knew about it and the class was taking off for Good Friday and he was inquiring as to why, what is this, what's going on? So he started asking religious questions to these teachers and they said, we have a resource to give you. And they gave him this, you know, the injil.

And he was astonished, first of all, that they would give him this book. And he was even more astonished.

Well, he was actually astonished first of all that they would let him in the church, that we would let him in the church because he was a Muslim. And then he was astonished that we would give an injeel. And he was even more astonished that we would allow him to take it home and just read it.

And yet they are willing.

And it's not like those in the west where they kind of just pacify and say, okay, okay, okay, and it's not that big a deal, but a lot of times they will read the scripture because they've not had it oftentimes. And what are speaking of those in the west, what are some resources that people can, can look at?

I mean, we have the scripture which already has those things in there, and knowing your Bible and taking just even the courage to enter into conversation and develop a friendship.

But what other resources do you recommend that people, if they wanted to go and do more that they could get a hold of or websites they could go to to enable them so that they could more effectively build bridges to those in Islam so that they might hear the truth of Jesus Christ?

Well, I always recommend Jason George's book the 3D Gospel. It's a nice user friendly beginning to understanding.

Also I'm a fellow with an organization called the Truth Collective and you can find them@the truthcollective.org and it is our goal to engage Christian women in the truth of scripture so that they can engage Muslim women in that same truth. We believe that if we're not Engaged ourselves and doing our own work, so to speak.

It's much harder and disingenuous to then try to share that with our neighbors. I always recommend Crescent Project. They have a terrific six week study called Bridges that any small group and churches can do.

And they have another ministry called Embassy where you can, you can speak on the phone or online with people around the Muslim world who are seeking to learn English. And that's, that's a great resource as well. Of course I'm going to recommend Cover Glory, but I want to also offer this one.

This is a, this is a compendium of the Honor Shame Conference. We've only done one. We would have done another last year, but Covid stopped us. The Honor Shame Network.

You can go to honorshame.com and learn more about it. But this is a collection of many of the presenters, including myself on different topics.

This is produced by William Carey Publishing and it's, it's called Honor Shame in the Gospel Reframing Our Message and Ministry. It's a, it's a good read and you can kind of read it one chapter here and there because of the various topics. Very insightful.

So those are just a few.

And there's more and more that's coming out because it's become such a topic that I think needs to be addressed.

And I don't think it's so far removed from our cultural context because I think many of the different principles that you learn when you learn the language, when you understand what that language means, I mean, honor, it's glory in status. We use these terms in some ways as synonyms, but it depends upon the cultural expression of it.

You start seeing really these things are actually in our culture now in the west, and we just may not call them by those names, but the same principles are at work. The expression of the gospel is still at work within that. And I think it really broadens our horizon.

And honestly, I think our vision of God grows and our vision of the Gospel expands as well as the kingdom of God. And to see that God is reaching people all over the world, including here in the West.

So how can people, I mean, yes, we can have people read Covered Glory, which I've got my copy right here. And what other projects are you working on right now?

I have about 14. My big project I have, someone asked me recently, what book are you working on? I said, Well, I have 14.

One is in Proposal at the moment and one is fiction and the others are in the line behind it. But my big project right now is Our family is moving to Europe and we will be continuing our work among Muslims and throughout Africa.

So we're excited about that. So most days I'm packing boxes at the moment. And you can Visit me on audreyfrank.org though.

And if you'd like to have Sunday morning devotions with me, one will come to your inbox every Sunday morning. And I don't always write about honor and shame, but my the filter through which I write everything is Isaiah 45:3, that he will.

He will give you treasures out of darkness, riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I, the Lord, call you by name. And so that is more of the common theme of everything I do is telling those stories, bringing the riches out of the dark places in life.

And that turns out to largely be honor instead of shame.

But not just in a Muslim context, because just reading through your book and you mentioned how the abuse that you've gone through and how God has really led you through, but using those same concepts to apply to your own heart and just see how God has shaped you and how he's transformed and given hope. I think there are so many people, both men and women, that can relate to that.

And it's phenomenal how God has worked in your life and using you and your family to reach others as well as those that are part of the Truth Collective and the Honor of Shame Network.

I think it's giving encouragement to thousands of Christian leaders, as well as those coming from those 2/3 of the world worldview, so that they too can grow and say and know.

Because a lot of our Western things are written in one kind of specific Western cultural mindset that I think in many ways misses the important parts of other people's cultures. Not that the gospel does. It's our writings about it often do.

But the gospel already shows those things and we just miss it in the west because of our own cultural viewpoint. I want to thank you for coming on the show. Oh, no, go ahead, go ahead. I want to hear more.

No, I just wanted to say we need each other. We need to bring our worldviews together. I had a friend who visited me in Africa who had the gift of mercy.

She just wept beautiful tears of mercy for all the hurting and the poverty. And I had been there about a year and it was tough. And we'd had to draw some boundaries with some local folks. And she thought we were being unkind.

And I was mad at her gift of mercy. I didn't like it. She didn't know the truth. These People need a boundary.

And the Lord convicted me and said, you need her gift of mercy, and she needs your gift of truth. And so we started going to each other and relying upon each other.

And so when I really needed to, to confront something, but I wanted to do it in a merciful, gracious way, I would say, how would you do this? And she would tell me.

And then when she needed to confront something, but in her mercy didn't like to do that, but needed to, she'd say, audrey, how would you do this? And so together we were so much better. I think we need each other. We're better together.

I agree with that. I think it's something that we really do. We do need one another. And I always try to tell that to even the different cultures. We need one another.

That's why we really try to advocate for a community, a church, to be representative of the community that's around it. And if that community is diverse, your church should be diverse.

Because those pieces are intricately needed, because they reveal something about God that I might miss if they're not there. I know, working with Russians, that they have an idea of reverence for God that I often miss.

I was doing a service with my friends that are Russian, Ukrainians, and I said, let's pray. And I heard all these feet hit the floor, and I look up and everyone's standing, because in their culture, you stand in the presence of majesty.

And when I go to India, you take your shoes off your feet, because they are emphasizing the holiness of God as well as purity. On Sunday, everyone's wearing white for the Sunday service.

When you see a Muslim come to faith in Jesus, what are those things that they see of God that we often miss?

They see his holiness. They see his cleanness. We miss in the word holy. We miss the word clean sometimes. So I like to emphasize it.

He's made us clean, so we're not stained any longer.

That's something that I think many people, not just there, but need to hear. And he makes us clean. He makes us new. A new creation, and something we all need to hear.

I want to thank you for coming on the show and for sharing your story with us. And I know we only got into one little small part of that. We look forward to reading your next 14 books. And.

And I would encourage people to go to your website. It's audreyfrank.org.com.org yeah.org.org and to order many copies of COVID Glory.

I know your publisher is saying yes right now, but any final words that you have for us.

I just want to invite you in. Covered glory.

There is a study section at the end of every chapter and I intended it for you to go privately with the Lord further and just decide to examine those things for yourself. It's very personal and I wanted it to be that way so that because people don't really want to talk about shame, it's hard to talk about.

But at the end of each chapter, there's an opportunity for you to get along with God and examine it a little more. This message may sound far away to you, however, all of us were created with honor. It's part of your rightful identity as a human being.

And it was given to you by God who created you. It was not taken from you by God. Some abuser may have taken it from you in his name, but they were in sin. God would never take your honor from you.

He is a restorer of honor. And that's. That's what I really want everyone to remember.

That's awesome. Thank you again and we look forward to having you back on the show sometime to talk more. Sound good?

Thanks. Blast.

All right, take care.

And that was my second conversation with Audrey Frank. I want to thank Audrey for coming into the show and sharing with us all that she has learned.

It's very enlightening and very relevant as we think through the implications of what it means to be in our modern day cancel culture. And when we look at it, we find that it's actually while the term might be new, the concepts are very, very ancient.

And the gospel talks a great deal about these things. And I would encourage you to go to her website, buy her book. You will be glad that you did.

And if this episode has helped you so that you can saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ, then would you do us a favor? First of all, hit that subscribe button. What have you been waiting for? Do it. Do it now. Then leave us a review online, and here's why.

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Stay watered everybody.