065: Reframing Our Theology of Intimacy with Erin Moniz
Jul 29, 2025
Can we have a conversation about intimacy in the church and have it not be...weird?
In this week's episode, I speak with college chaplain Rev. Erin Moniz about her book, Knowing and Being Known. She proves that, yes, we can talk about intimacy in a way that feels approachable, inclusive, and inviting to all without making it awkward. You will love Erin's framework that defines healthy intimacy through the lens of the gospel, differentiating it from economic—what's-in-it-for-me—relationships that ultimately leave people feeling more isolated. This is a hope-filled conversation that elevates the experience of intimacy beyond sex, and will speak to single adults and married couples alike.
Guest Spotlight ✨
Rev. Erin F. Moniz is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and Associate Chaplain and Director for Chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults and journeys with them toward healthy, gospel-centered relationships. She is a trained conciliator, mediator, and conflict coach. She enjoys content creation, playing music, being outdoors, and narrating the inner monologue of her two cats. She lives in Waco, Texas, with her husband, Michael.
Links & Resources 🔗
- Alone Together by Sherry Turkel | Amazon | Bookshop
- Households of Faith by Emily McGowan | Amazon | Bookshop
Other Episodes:
- 018: Recovering from Purity Culture with Dr. Camden Morgante
- 038: Moving from Sexual Shame toward Sacred Play with Sam Jolman
- 042: Safeguarding the Church against Sexism and Abuse with Dr. Andrew Bauman
Episode Transcript 📄
Erin Moniz
I eventually found that intimacy has to have goals that go beyond just a really meaningful coexistence with another person. That has to be part of it because you want to have a healthy coexistence with another person. But the definition I give in the book is that the highest aim of intimacy is a generative closeness that refreshes and affirms one's identity and value while simultaneously doing the same for the other person. It's a dynamic process where you're moving towards each other, but closeness is not the total aim. Closeness is a product, and the health of it, the joy of it, the depth of it is in this ability to keep affirming one's identity and value while also being affirmed. It's this cyclical process, and that for me, is a beautiful picture.
Brian Lee
Hey, friends, welcome back to the Broken to Beloved Podcast. If you're looking for compassionate conversations and practical resources for recovery from and safeguarding against spiritual abuse, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Brian Lee. As an ordained pastor and spiritual abuse survivor, I know what it feels like navigating life after spiritual abuse. I also know what it's like to want to prevent anything from happening to the people you know and love. It's why Broken to Beloved exists.
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Today, we're talking with chaplain and author Erin Moniz about reframing our ideas of intimacy. Erin is a deacon in the Anglican Church in North America and associate Chaplain and Director for Chapel at Baylor University, where she disciples emerging adults, and journeys with them toward healthy gospel-centered relationships. She's a trained conciliator, mediator, and conflict coach. She enjoys content creation, playing music, being outdoors, and narrating the inner monolog of her cats. She lives in Waco, Texas, with her husband, Michael. Now, here's my conversation with our new friend, Erin. Erin, welcome to the podcast.
Erin Moniz
It's so good to be here with you, Brian.
Brian Lee
We had such a fun time catching up earlier on our very first call together, and I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Knowing and Being Known, Hope For All Our Intimate Relationships. How are you feeling now that it's out?
Erin Moniz
Relieved. Honestly, I don't know if anybody listening to this has ever written a book or has ever ventured into publishing, but I'll give you a little insider's view. These days, it's like running a small business, and you are running that small business on Instagram, and it's just I'm a middle-aged white woman who, let's face it, I don't speak the vibes of the generation online. I'm always a little behind the eight ball with some of this stuff. But now that the book is out there and I can just give it to people and say, just read it and tell me what you think. That's so much easier than three months of building momentum for pre-orders. The content is really what it's about, and I'm just so glad people can finally get their teeth into it.
Brian Lee
Yes. I hear this over and over from authors, just like how exhausting the marketing part of it is. Just to get it out there and to get the pre-orders and do all the things. I'm so glad you wrote it. I'm so glad I found you and that we had a chance to connect.
Intimacy is a big deal, obviously. And one of our guiding principles is this idea of curiosity over certainty. And so I love that in the beginning of the book, you just say, Instead of attempting to find better answers, perhaps we can start with better questions. And you say that asking a better question can make all the difference. Tell us about where that comes from for you.
Erin Moniz
Yes. Honestly, it came from... I'm a college minister. I've been working in some form of student ministry for over 25 years. I've been in higher ed working with college students for the past decade, and you see over time these patterns.
For me, my students were having the same questions and the same issues. And as I was having the same conversations, generation through the next generation, it caused me to think, what has got us in this rut? And that is oftentimes what leads to what I believe is probably one of the biggest ministry tools that I have, which is the ability to ask a different question and discover something new. And some of that has been the framework which has shaped what I do now, because what's in this book is really a testimonium of how my entire ministry shifted and how I care for students when talking about their intimate relationships.
And I now try to make sure that I am trying to ask different questions because you discover things and you discover biases in yourself. Because my nature is to just want to help them make a choices, because let's face it, we all want them to make a choices. But if I start there, I may not see the change that I actually am hoping for them. So I have to ask a question that maybe gets underneath what's going on.
Brian Lee
Yeah. So there are different ways of asking questions. And I think we've all been approached by a question, a person who asks It's questions that feels invitational, that I feel drawn in and that I want to answer. Then there are times that we've been questioned by people who we just feel like we're being cross-examined or pumped for information. I love that you write about this posture of humility when it comes to curiosity and questions. How do you foster that for yourself? What are you thinking about when you're formulating those questions for the person who's in front of you?
Erin Moniz
Oh, Brian, that is such a good question, and one that doesn't I have a quick formulaic answer. Intimacy being a number one topic that occupies the office hours of my life being a college minister. But also just seeing students in crisis states and in very vulnerable states. The bedrock of anything happening in there is trust. I found that I'm basically in the business of trust building on the fly, on the regular, whether it's a student that is swooping in because I'm the person who's available in that moment when they have this crisis and we don't even know each other, or if it's someone I've been seeing for a while and we're finally starting to pull back the curtain.
Either way, if I want to journey with someone into vulnerable spaces, I have to take trust building really seriously. It means I have to slow my jets and not push for behavior modification and not push for these results or outcomes. I'm very much a fix it person. This is very much against my nature. I love just writing on my little prescription pad, my spiritual prescription pad, and be like, "Here you go. Just stop dating those boys that you're dating that type. That's not you, hon. Just change that. You're going to be good."
I just wish I could do that sometimes. But that's not it, because the reason she's dating those guys has nothing to do with the fact that she's making poor behavior choices. It has to do with something else that is informing what she believes about who she is and what she deserves and what her value is.
If I want to get to that, that's not going to come readily, and I can't force it, and I can't hammer it. And I also have to be ready to create an environment and a culture and be really consistent in making sure they know that they are safe and that what they share is going to be handled carefully. And sometimes I just say that. I just tell them that I'm never going to weaponize anything you say against you. I will always be honest with you, and I really genuinely enjoy being with you and want to know you. And sometimes it's just having to say that stuff out loud. But yeah, it's a number of trust-building exercises that you just have to keep up with.
Brian Lee
I love that so much. I can feel it in my body when you say those things of like, Oh, okay, I do want to talk to you. I do want to share something deeper with you than if I'm put it back on my heels and defensive because I feel like I'm being cross-examined or pumped for information. Just your posture, it pulls me in to say, Yes, let's do this together.
Erin Moniz
Well, that's so kind. As a minister, that's like two thumbs up.
Brian Lee
Well, and so one of the other reasons we connected is that I sought you out is I was actively, still am, actively working on this idea of a hierarchy of belovedness. I'm still trying to figure it out. It came out of one of our cohorts, and someone asking. It's like, Yeah, I get it intellectually. I'm beloved. Great. I don't feel it in my body at all. How do I get there? I thought, What an amazing question.
One of the responses was this developmental psychologist who says that "all humans are always asking two questions: Am I safe and am I loved? If I can't answer the first question, yes, then the second one doesn't even matter."
Even the idea that you just talked about having safety and building that trust. Intimacy was a part—and so safety is at the very bottom of this hierarchy for me, and intimacy is almost at the top, just under belovedness. I kept wrestling with this idea of, I don't know, should it be in there? Or is vulnerability, if I can be vulnerable with someone, then I can build that intimacy with them, which can move me towards feeling beloved. But maybe I take it out, maybe I don't.
Then I saw your book show up, and I was like, Okay, this is going to be really good. For someone who's struggling with the idea of defining intimacy, understanding how it fits into our lives, this book comes at the perfect time. Help us understand what the heck is intimacy.
Erin Moniz
Yeah. It's so many things that I try to break down our misconceptions in the book, one being that intimacy is only about sex. I think that that's a misnomer. We often equate that. I talk a lot about hypersexualization and sex essentialism and things that we absorb from parts of our Western culture, but it compounds in the way that we cosign in spiritual environments on this. But I would say also that in some ways, there are some practical mechanisms to intimacy that have been studied by social scientists for years.
And of course, that's not what's in our books. It's not what we're learning about in our dating seminar, in our singles ministry. There's these things that have been studied by experts for a long time, and we haven't gone to them. But to be fair, unless you're taking a college class. It's not the thing that you're not just going to pick up a book from the Gottman Institute and say, Oh, there's an entire realm of practice that develops strong relationships and strong intimacy. But I think in some ways for me, that's the starting place. But I eventually I found that intimacy has to have goals that go beyond just a really meaningful coexistence with another person.
That has to be part of it because you want to have a healthy coexistence with another person. But the definition I give in the book is that the highest aim of intimacy is a generative closeness that refreshes and affirms one's identity and value while simultaneously doing the same for the other person. So you can start anywhere. You can start like, Okay, I don't know you all that well, but I'd like to get to know you. Or that can be way, way, way, way in where you're already super close.
But that's where the generative comes in. It's not a static, it's a dynamic process where you're moving towards each other, but Closeness is not the total aim. Closeness is a product, and the health of it, the joy of it, the depth of it is in this ability to keep affirming one's identity and value while also being affirmed. It's the cycle process. And that, for me, is a beautiful picture. It's a nerdy way of saying it, I guess. But it's this picture of two people discovering more and more about who they are and loving that while in the process of helping that other person on that same journey.
And for the sake of intimacy in marriage and friendship and family, and all of these places where we seek and need closeness, intimacy can't just be sexual, but also So it can't just be a division of the chores either. There's something here that forces us to have to deal with the presence of vulnerability and safety because you just can't get close. You can't have that cycle of affirming each other's identity and value without having to deal with the messiness of why we try to hide the things that we try to hide from each other because there's fear and there's shame.
And sometimes we come by that really honestly because of something that's happened to us or an experience with someone else. It's this lovely picture, but when you start getting into the mechanics of it, you realize, Oh, there is a need to talk about grace, to talk about boundaries, to talk about all of these things that allow us to navigate the mess that both that person and ourselves brings to the question.
Brian Lee
Yeah, that's incredibly helpful. I love the idea of simultaneously doing the same for the other person. That is a give and take a relationship. You do so much good work outlining the differences between intimate versus economic relationships. I loved that whole section, which really just echoes throughout this idea of relationships as commodities or as transactions. We talk about hookup culture, about romance, idolatry. You already mentioned hypersexualization of Christianity, marriage and virginity becoming the new currency of our churches, which I was like, Well, yeah, that totally makes sense. Give us an example for people to help to understand what does an economic relationship look like versus what does a true intimate relationship look like?
Erin Moniz
Yeah. So the way I outlined this is that there are relationships that can have closeness, but it wouldn't be considered intimacy. So I have this place where I... So every Saturday morning, I go to this cafe in town that I love. And when I go in, they know me. They already have my coffee out on the counter. My order goes in because it's the same every time they talk to me about what I'm reading because they know I'm always going to bring one. I know everybody's name. They know mine. We have wonderful conversations. I love this little diner that I go to. It's called the World Cup Cafe, by the way. If you're in Waco, Texas, you need to go there.
But even though it's this lovely picture, that isn't actually intimacy. It has the building blocks towards intimacy. But I'm not going to drop off the keys to my house with one of my favorite waitresses and say, It's cool. Come over whenever, because we're not there. That makes a lot of sense to people. You wouldn't do that with your Uber driver. You wouldn't do that because what we have, while it might be really friendly, like with my people at the cafe, my Uber driver and I can have a great conversation, and they get me to my destination, and they don't murder me.
And this is great. We've had this lovely transaction of expectations that are really well set up, but it's not intimacy. And so I feel like the best way to think about that difference is to look at three categories that are outlined for us, both by social scientists, but also in scripture, which is friendship, family, and marriage, romance. These are the three intimacy motifs that are used by God to communicate about intimacy to us. It's also the three areas in our lives where the relationships move beyond something that is purely transactional, or at least should move beyond something purely transactional.
And so what has been devastating to these intimate relationships has been the fact that we do seek We have self-protection, and we have shame and fear and things that cause us to jockey for, how can I get what I need from somebody without actually being vulnerable? And so relationships get reduced to economics. And then you got technology that says, Oh, you want help with that? We got you. We will make it so you can get this sense of being close to someone without actually having to be close to them. Everything from something as maybe innocent as a parasocial relationship where it's like, Oh, I have access to all these celebrities now, and I can see what they eat for breakfast, so they're my friend, to something as a sinister as pornography, where it's all being facilitated through technology.
We don't have to be known. We don't have to be vulnerable. We can get the hits. Sherry Turkel has this great book that I quote quite a bit in mine. But right in the intro, she says, Technology is defining intimacy. It's this, I don't know. For me, that was a moment where I was thinking, This is the difference. This is the difference between trying to think about intimacy and economic relationships, because what we do when we sink into what that offers, and don't hear me demonizing technology. We're using it right now. Yay. That's great. Wonderful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, technology. But when you get to a place where you start using it to find a shortcut, so to speak, to intimacy, which isn't actually real intimacy, inevitably, you commoditize You commodify others and you commodify yourself. That's what's happened to so many areas of our lives this day and age. There has to be a way to talk about that.
Brian Lee
I think you talk about, is it paradoxical relationships? That artificial or perceived intimacy, like you're saying, with—
Erin Moniz
Parasocial?
Brian Lee
Parasocial, okay.
Erin Moniz
Yeah, parasocial.
Brian Lee
That's what it is, whether it's the online celebrities, connections through social media. I've made so many online friends who I do feel close with, and there is that perceived deep sense of intimacy, but it's not actual intimacy. I can have real internet friends who were created, especially after the pandemic and everything else. Or like you're saying, we consume social media or shows or documentaries where people are extremely transparent with their lives. I don't want to say they're vulnerable with their lives because we're not going to do anything with that information that can hurt them. They're sharing what they want to share, but because of it, we feel close to them, even though there is no actual closeness. I think it is really helpful and important for us to understand relationship as commodity, relationship as economy, versus relationship as intimacy.
Erin Moniz
Yes.
Brian Lee
I love it. I love all of it. I think it's at the beginning, you also say, and this is so simply said, but it captures the conversation that intimacy is not sex, but it's not not sex. You have the quote, I think whoever asked it, I can live without sex, but I can't live without intimacy. Is that the quote that got you?
Erin Moniz
Yeah, and it was at a conference years ago.
Brian Lee
Tell us about it.
Erin Moniz
This was a starting point for me that eventually led to the doctoral work that became the research that eventually became the book. But to be fair, there are so many people who have used that same phrase. Apparently, it's actually very common amongst if anyone is familiar with the Side B movement within Christianity with LGBTQ folks. I've heard this now so, so many times. So even though I pinpoint this moment for myself in the book, I want to give credit to the fact that it's now much more widely used than I would be able to acknowledge in the book. But I love that. I love that it's becoming this predominant cultural mantra because it's pushing us to say, what on Earth do we mean? So first of all, it's pretty controversial to say, I can live without sex. That is a very unpopular idea, and I really on that in the book. It's very unpopular. But then even if we just set that aside for a minute and just look at the second half of the phrase, But I can't live without intimacy, that is going to beg a number of questions, and we're going to have to say, What on Earth does that mean?
And if it's not a sexual relationship implicitly. And this is where we get into, I end the book with this question, essentially, do we believe that friendships are intimate relationships? Because there's nothing wrong with... I mean, marriages should be intimate relationships. We have these inherent intimate relationships, platonic relationships with our family members. But in many cases, we deny access to people unless they can qualify a sexual or romantic relationship in their life. And if they can't, we consider that person subpar. We implicitly or explicitly say, Gosh, well, if you don't have sexual intimacy, then you don't have intimacy, and now we all pity you. And it's this really difficult place to exist in for adult singles or for people who are widowed, or for people who are divorced, or for whatever reason, or for our friends who have been through sexual trauma and abuse. A statement that implies that they have to be in an active sexual or romantic relationship to have value is just gutting. I love the phrase, I can live without sex, but I can't live without an intimacy, because it doesn't diminish our sexual relationships, and those should be healthy and good, but it also takes the pressure off of them to be everything.
It also means for anyone who's not having a sexual relationship, that you can have intimacy, and intimacy in a way that is fulfilling and not just a, I don't know, placeholder or just a,
Brian Lee
Second-rate intimacy.
Erin Moniz
A second-rate. Yeah, exactly. I think we relegate any non-sexual intimacy as if the only way to be fulfilled as a human is through sex. I don't want to deny that we are sexual beings, that there's something important there to acknowledge we're not just sexless, androgynous zombies walking around. But it's idea that I think God actually creates more space at the table for folks for whom the circumstances have not always fallen in these predictable places. I think that is a beautiful and important message the church has to relay over and over again, and we're not doing that well.
Brian Lee
I'm thinking of three conversations that I've had with Camden Morgante, Sam Jolman, and Andrew Bauman, all of whom we've talked about is like, sex is not a biological need.
Erin Moniz
Yeah, it's not. You can live without it.
Brian Lee
You can totally live without it.
Erin Moniz
You can't exist without it. You can't exist without it, but you can live without it.
Brian Lee
Yes, you can't exist without it, but you can live without it.
Erin Moniz
You can live without it, yeah.
Brian Lee
I love that you put on equal footing those three different realms of intimacy within romantic relationships or marriage, within family, and within friendships. I loved the whole section on friendships. Briefly, within family, because I think you also say early on, it's like, we can't simply all intimacy with sexual desire because intimacy between a parent and child has to be in a different arena of desire. I think that very easily helps us to have a frame of mind around that. It's like, Oh, yes. No one would deny that as an intimate relationship, but it absolutely should not be a sexual one.
Erin Moniz
That's right. Yeah. We already have the categories. Yeah. We already have the framework for it. But yeah, I think family... Well, family is just a tricky topic altogether. Family intimacy is a tricky topic altogether. So I want to be mindful of all the listeners and all the different types of family intimacy that they might be representing as they're listening to this. But I sit with college students who are trying to figure out what is a very natural and normal developmental journey from being a child to an adult, from being a dependent to independent, and they're in the crux of that.
And what kills me, Brian, is that there's a book out every six months from a celebrity pastor about how to date, and my students are eating them up. But also, I don't see anybody talking about that, that very also life stage moment. But my students are in it. And those are conversations I have, I think, so much more than people would realize because it is just such an important thing happening to you in your 18 to 29 years where you're making these shifts with family. And how those shifts happen, and how healthy that can be, or how toxic that can be, or whatever that involves is inevitably going to affect your development as an adult.
Anybody that you're intimate with, anybody that comes into your life, whether that's roommates or spouses or marriage partners or whomever, that family stuff is so important. I'm just like, why has Christendom missed this? And to be fair, more and more people are... I'm starting to see this more. Emily McGowan's work is speaking to this. There are others who... I'm starting to see more books come into the popular sphere that are touching on some of this, but it just doesn't It just pales in comparison to our obsession with romantic and sexual relationships. But boy, I think my students' marriages and dating and even roommate life would be a lot better off if there's ways we can help them sort this transition with their family. Yeah.
Brian Lee
Well, and I'm thinking back to when I was in college, and I did college twice. I have two bachelors, and I was in very different life stages both times and woefully unprepared both times. I look back at myself and realized how I feel so developmentally behind, emotionally, relationally, all of the things because of the family that I grew up in that did not know how to express emotions or give value or affirmation or any of those things. I went looking for it in all the weirdest ways. I love that you say that there is no stage of life where we do not have particularities of intimacy to navigate.
You address so many of those things, and you've already said some of them, the 18 to 29 college or emerging adult population, widows, people who... All of these different things that we don't like, single adults in the church who have their own category for some reason that is just so upsetting to me. I was not single for a very long time, but I felt long enough, especially on staff at a church as a single man, to feel all the things and to hear all the things from all the church ladies who are trying to match, make, or pair you off.
It's like, Sure, would it be nice? Yes. But do I want to be forced into hanging out with your granddaughter or your niece or whatever it is? It's like, Not really. It's just like, there's so much weirdness that happens in our churches or in our cultures because we've misunderstood how intimacy works.
Erin Moniz
Yeah, we've cosigned on a lot that we didn't mean to. I can just see all those sweet grandmothers so well meaning. I can also see you sitting awkwardly in what was probably like a parlor. I I just get this vision of you just like, Oh, no. Also, I'm intrigued. What were your two bachelor's degrees?
Brian Lee
Oh, boy. The first one is a BFA in Animation because I wanted to be a Disney animator. And the second one is a Bachelor of... Is it science? In Church Music.
Erin Moniz
Okay, I have a thousand more questions. We'll save those for another podcast, but I love that so much. Thank you for... I know, I just turned the tables on you, but I can't help it. I absolutely love this stuff.
Brian Lee
I love it. I also love that you talk about these offshoots. Because you talk about this idea of how we've cosigned on all of this commodity type of relationship about individualization and freedom and responsibility and how these offshoots turn into autonomy, entitlement, and productivity. And those all sound like really good things. We hear them talked about constantly and how we need to develop these things in us. And yet they each turn into something that fights against intimacy.
Erin Moniz
Yes.
Brian Lee
Tell us how and why.
Erin Moniz
Oh, gosh. Brian, that could be a whole other book. It could be. It could be a whole other book. I know this is some of the place where my book starts feeling maybe a little dense to some folks where it's like, Where is she going with this? Why is she doing this? But I feel like in some ways, we love to, especially in Christendom, we love to point to things and say, That's where all the problems are. It was the feminists or the sexual revolution or the fundamentalists or whoever. We love it.
We love pointing fingers across aisles. I think at the end of the day, it's worth noting that it's a lot worse than that. It's really the water we swim in, and specifically as a Western culture. This is not going to be fully applicable across all spaces. But I grew up in a home that was... I mean, it's very patriotic. My dad served in the military. My parents were educators. We are your typical caricatured white pig offense American family growing up in the '80s and '90s. I was raised to be proud of these certain values. And to be honest, I am.
There's a lot I appreciate about where I live and so much of that. But these are not the values that we can just pull out and claim anymore as being present because they're not, again, also not static. They're dynamic. And as the generations have grown, and we've continued down the road of what we believe are our rights to certain kinds of freedoms, what was civic responsibility becomes productivity. And productivity has a a whole other dark side to it, where if you are not working like a dog, if you are not contributing to society, if you're not contributing to the gross national product, and this is evidenced in the neighborhood you live in and the lifestyle that you live. There's just so many ways this has gone awry. We don't care about civic responsibility as a fundamental thing anymore so much as we really care about, can I be productive in a way that shows that I have succeeded as an adult? And I'll pick on this just because I'm in higher ed. I'm constantly looking to students to say, you're working hard, you're getting that internship, you're working so hard at that GPA, we're so proud of you.
Does that number tell you who you are? And so there's a lot of ways that this has been working on us, and it's so embedded in our culture. It's tricky because it's also deeply connected to these values that founded where we are that are not... Again, this gets really hairy sometimes. It's really It's hard to just demonize or affirm so much as it is just to say, Can we be honest about the fact that we all feel a little entitled, and we feel entitled to our autonomy? And I teach this colloquium class with honor students at the college, and it's all about intimacy and freedom in the gospel. And I do this experiment with them where they have to go to the yes side of the room, the no side of the room, or the maybe side of the room, and I say, Okay, you ditch your friends, even though you said you'd go out with them because you got a better offer. They have to go to the yes, no, no. It's this great conversation where people are like, No, I would never do that if I committed to my friends. Then you got students who are like, They get it.
They're happy for me if I get a better... I don't want to be too tied down. If I get a better offer, I want my free agency, and it really doesn't matter who might feel left out or hurt. And so these are very normal things that are existing that we aren't talking about. But if we zoom in on intimacy, it's not just our jobs and our GPA that is speaking into, are you a successful, valuable person? On a much more primal level, it's our intimate relationships. And that's why we turn people into commodities in ourselves. We don't mean to. We're not trying. Most people aren't malicious with this thing. It is just there's so much fear and uprootedness with Do I matter to somebody? Does anybody care? Am I someone that people want? Is anyone curious about my life? And those are really hard questions to answer a lot of times. And sometimes questions we don't want to answer Because we're already so anxious about what we believe the answer is to be. And society and culture may not have a good... We may not have a dating app for that. We may not have a technological solution that's going to fix that, but the gospel does.
Yeah. And that's everything. The gospel is exactly working in who you are and your value and all of these things. That is what the gospel is doing all day long. And if we want out of this cage of fear and anxiety that plagues us about who we are and whether or not we matter, the only thing I've ever found that's going to do that is going to be the gospel, period.
Brian Lee
Yeah. I want to talk about the gospel next, but I want to make two comments, your quotes, but this idea that when we overvalue that autonomy, which is very important, and especially for people who have been through abuse or trauma, to regain and reclaim a sense of autonomy. But when we overvalue that autonomy, entitlement, and productivity, I love how you point out that in some cases it cancels out or diminishes the attempt at knowing and being known. When we overdo that individualism, which we've cosigned so much in the church in the way that we preach and teach the gospel, it's like it's an individual gospel, not a communal one, or personal freedoms, that we've detached ourselves so much from dependence by being independent that we are now free to be alone. You said, We are now free to be alone. I was like, Oh, my gosh, that phrase is right. That's it right there. We are free to be alone because we have made ourselves so individuated, so detached, so independent, so all these things. That captures the argument for me. I love that you talk about the gospel and say that it is... You say, Intimacy and the gospel of Christ have an indelible relationship that reframes not only our relationships and our questions, but our very identity.
And that identity thing is so key to the way that we approach intimacy. So what do you mean by the gospel, and how does that inform our identity?
Erin Moniz
Oh, gosh. Yeah.
Brian Lee
Which is another book, right? All by itself.
Erin Moniz
Yeah, So much. And really, the gospel is such a unuseful shorthand. It's a rung that I choose to cling to because you got to start somewhere. But it's this idea that really needs unpacking in the sense that I believe that in some ways, even people who might have grown up in church like I did, who was maybe this good church kid their whole life, for me, understanding what is the gospel took a lot of time. And I try to unpack some of that in the book in the sense of, I think it's this, But essentially this idea that Christ being part of this Triune Godhead that comes to Earth, puts on skin, lives a human life, dies, comes back to life, is alive at the right-hand of the Throne of God and the Holy spirit given to us, to indwell us. All has to do with something. I think at the end of the day, believing and checking all of those boxes was never my problem. I was a good church kid, so I was here for whatever the Trinity was, and I was like, co-sign, yes. I don't understand it, but believe it. Let's be honest, we're still there.
Yes, what else do you do? But believing all of that was... Checking those boxes was never the problem. But at the end of the day, I didn't really know what it was supposed to do. Save me from eternal damnation. Okay, that's Hey, good deal. Great. I'm here for that. There's something about a righteous life, but also I know I'm not going to be perfect. I never really could totally figure out what the gospel was for and what I essentially tried to do. And I'm just going to fast forward here. I think there's so much more to talk about with all of this, but something I landed on is that at the end of the day, so much of my life that leads to sin is motivated by lies. And a lot of those lies are connected to lies I believe about myself or lies that I believe about how God works in the world or who God is. And that those two are indelibly linked. The caricatures I have of God and the false narratives I have about myself are often tied together. Together. Essentially, the spoiler alert is we are doing theology in our intimate relationships.
In dealing with my family, in dealing with my husband, when my friends all go out without me, I'm not thinking about, how do I become a better daughter? It's not even about the how-tos, even though we really want all these books to be about how, how, how. At the end of the day, I'm asking questions about, do I matter? Does God care? What is God supposed to be doing in all of this? When is he supposed to show up? We are doing theology in our relationships, and it is tied so much to everything we believe about who we are and what we believe about who God is. And the gospel is this story, this narrative in scripture and in the lived reality of the Holy spirit today that is telling us a story that tells us who God is, that then tells us who we are. And then I can live of that self. And the problem is that... Not the problem, the beauty is that scripture tells me that because of Christ, I am full, and I'm free, and I'm adopted, and I'm beloved, and I'm chosen, and I'm known. But I don't wake up feeling full, and I don't wake up feeling free.
And I didn't know why. If that's what was true about me because of the cross without any qualifier, if that was the identity in Christ gifted to me through the cross, why don't I wake up feeling this way? And that's when it occurred to me that I'm swimming in this sea of lies. And most of my sins are actually behaviors attached to the product of me living out a false narrative that it's all up to me. No one's coming to help me. If I need to get something from someone, I need to get it. No one is going to affirm me. No one is going to do this. It's a functional atheism.
And so I still believe that the Trinity and Jesus, incarnation and all of these things. But in my life, I live slavery instead of freedom. I live scarcity instead of fullness, because these have been sold to me in ways that are really hard to shake off by myself. I haven't found a quiet time yet that fully just dismantles this stuff. I mean, it helps. It's good. Don't hear me say you shouldn't do a quiet time. But at the end of the day, you know what really does it? When someone who knows me looks at me and says, "This is not who you are, and I know you. And I also know the other bits of you that are not so great. But I'm here and I love you, and I'm looking at you and I'm saying, This is not who you are. You don't need this. This is a lie. Come back."
Boy, there's something so powerful about that. And why else would God make relationships and intimacy so essential if he wasn't drawing us to the life-giving source of remembering who we are by remembering who God is, by learning the story together in community and reminding each other of who God is and who we are continually in intimate relationships. It was a game changer. But also, I don't know how to talk about the gospel without I'm not talking about relationships. And now I don't know how to talk about relationships without talking about the gospel. The two are so intertwined that this was the shift for me. So helping people have healthy relationships, yes, yay. But what I'm really doing is we're figuring off the gospel together and trying to let it grow legs in our lives that are already there. We just struggle to see them.
Brian Lee
Okay, we'll just end there.
Erin Moniz
Thank you. Should we pass the plate? I mean, should we take up an offering at this point?
Brian Lee
Part of me is panicking because we've been going for 40 minutes and I've gotten to maybe 15% of my questions, and I have so many more that I want to ask. I think two of the things that I really want to cover before we run out of time is talking about being adult and single in the church because I hear from so many people, and I experienced it for a short window of time, but I felt the pain of it and I felt the awkwardness of it. I also really want to talk about loneliness. If we start with this idea of being single in church, the church does not have a place for non-married people. Everyone knows the meme, the living meme, unfortunate meme, of adult singles groups in churches, which turn into these meat markets of, let me just go meet a future partner or spouse or something, or for younger singles, like young adult groups, which functionally a lot in the same way, but I think you're right. When we assign value by production, singles become the go-to for volunteer label because how else will we assess their value? I was like, Oh, my gosh.
Is that the truth or what? We're just going to bleed these suckers dry because they have all the time in the world, and they don't have anyone attached to them, and they're not responsible for a spouse or family, so we might as well. I felt that as the young single staff member at the church I was working at. It's like, Oh, we'll let Brian do it. I've seen it happen to other friends and fellow coworkers because they're the young single person, so have them go lock up the church late at night because they don't have a family to take care of or go back to.
Erin Moniz
Yeah. Can we just expose one big myth right here, Brian? Because Yeah. There's so much. That is such an important and huge topic. And one of the things, I think it was my friend Peter Volk, who actually just did a little survey on Instagram weeks ago, where he was asking about who has the most bandwidth to volunteer and help in a church. And he listed different people's circumstances. And most people put the single unmarried person without children. And that's a lie. It's actually me. So we're celebrating 20 years of marriage with my husband. We don't have any of our own biological kids. We haven't adopted. We work in colleges. We have lots of kids, but there are other people's kids, and we really deeply believe in that version of surrogacy. But speaking of, am I changing diapers? No. I have the most bandwidth. And I use this story in the book, but my single friend who got a nail in her tire, and she had to figure out, How do I get to work? How do I get this taken care of? How do I do all of this? I remember this happening, and me talking on the phone with her, and then the next day, I got a nail on my tire.
And you know what? My husband dropped me off at work. He took the car in. He got everything fixed. It was done. It's one of those things where we do put a lot on singles as if, oh, they're unattached. They've got all this bandwidth, but there's a lot of myths there. I grew up in a church that had a singles one, singles two, and singles three. And I remember as a child listening to a church lady talk about it because the singles three is like, when you get in your 40s, now you're in the singles three Sunday school class. I remember her saying, boy, they should just start pairing them off at that point. And as a kid, you're just like, yeah, that's funny.
But I remember it, and I'm just heartbroken. Because that is true. It's still today. I have students who are like, Yeah, we're going to this church, a single ministry. I'm like, Oh, are you going to that church? They're like, No, but they're doing a mixer. Can we just say this is particularly difficult for people trying to live Sober. Anyways, that's a whole other book, Brian. But yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. But gosh, no. Churches can and should do this better.
Brian Lee
Yeah. Well, and which is why I love the whole section on the framework of intimacy through friendship and how we don't talk about it enough, we don't value it enough, we don't teach it enough. So help our single friends who are listening find a way to move toward to see somehow.
Erin Moniz
This is going to be a bigger lift because I would love to give advice to singles, but what I really need to do is I need to speak to the married people. The single people in your church need you. They need a family, but they're not orphans walking around with signs. You need to reach out to them. You need to connect with them. You need to invite them to your home. You need to start building trust with them so that they can be around your kids and your dog and be in your house and have a meal and have people to spend holidays with. And of course, the singles have to reciprocate. It's a two-way street. It's not a one-way street. But in terms of making those moves, empty nesters, anybody, myself included, we need to take a bigger level of responsibility. Too many singles events are only made for and attended by singles when it's actually that's not the demographic that needs to be limited to there because there's only so much people can do to build a chosen family without the reciprocity and imagination being put forward by people who would invite them into that family.
Brian Lee
Yeah. Thank you for that. I am on the verge of tears thinking about that same church that I was part of as a young single staff member who was invited into family homes over and over again. I can immediately think of four or five families where I spent the majority of my nights, so I wasn't home alone, being part of their family, being invited in with very young children or with pregnant couples and being there when the babies were born. It is such an important part of my life that I look back on with so much fondness because I felt so known, because I felt so included, because I felt like I belonged somewhere.
So yes, you I don't have the awkwardness of being paired off or talk constantly being asked the questions of, Well, who do you have your eye on? But also, there is the deep intimacy of feeling known and loved and like I have a home somewhere because these families invited me in. Then I remember the awkwardness because that was my first working experience in a church of landing in another church now thinking that that thing is normal. I remember awkwardly inviting myself to someone's house, like, Well, maybe I can come over and hang out sometime, and getting the very cold shoulder and palm in the face of like, Hold on, we don't do that here.
I was like, Oh, wait a minute. This is not normal. I love that I asked the question, and I love that you pivoted and said, Well, I need to talk to the married couples here. I love that you did that.
Erin Moniz
It's just key. And again, I speak to clergy, and I talk about these things because at the end of the day, there's something that has to happen with leadership that trickles down to give people permission and imagination. We do a lot of sermon series and things about marriage, healthy marriages, which is great. Don't stop doing that. But start building out these things to give people a place to go help them understand how to do this. Make it normal. Give them permission, lead, create healthy church environments. You'll never have to do another evangelism night again. People will be drawn to the church where they can be loved and cared for regardless of their relationship status. Yeah.
Brian Lee
So let's on a high note and talk about loneliness, shall we? Yes. You say, Loneliness is not a physical but a spiritual condition. The ache lives in us all because no matter how good our relationships are with other people, they are never truly everything we need. Are you telling us, Erin, that we're never going to overcome loneliness?
Erin Moniz
That's exactly what. No, this is tricky, right? Because I speak to this in chapters. I'm going to winnow it down really small here. Loneliness is not something that we shouldn't take seriously because the real danger is isolation. Isolation is not okay. It is antithetical to what we're built for. We need to be wary of it. It's an enemy to the dignity and humanity gifted us through Christ. That is the real enemy. Sometimes, loneliness is used across the spectrum. But at the end of the day, what we have to reckon with because we're putting way too much pressure on our relationships, is that so far as we have studied loneliness. We haven't found anything that eradicates it.
As it turns out, you can be surrounded by wonderful, healthy, intimate relationships, people who love you and know you and are there for you and still feel lonely. So we have to name the fact that loneliness, and I believe, theologically, is part of our longing for the day when justice is done, when Christ comes back, when all the wrongs are made right. There's still a brokenness we have to live in, even if we have all of this beauty, and I believe that's existential, and that's important because then it doesn't have to be such an enemy, and I don't have to put all of this pressure on my friends or my husband, or my parents to cure this for me.
And then when they don't, be like, How dare you? I'm lonely again. And so I compare it to thirst because we wouldn't drink water. And then an hour later, be like, What? I'm thirsty again. We don't do that. That would be a really abnormal reaction. But we do do that with loneliness because I don't think we quite understand it. But it gives them freedom. It gives them freedom because in some ways, good, healthy, intimate relationships are like those droughts of water.
You can have moments where you're not feeling lonely. There's these great satiating moments where if we have good healthy relationships, we can go, That's great. But if we come back later and we still feel the ache of loneliness, it's not a warning that something is wrong. In many In many cases, it's we're saying, Hey, I think I just need to go back and spend some more time with the people who love me again and make sure they are also feeling that for me. Again, intimacy is generative, right? But isolation and acute loneliness can be incredibly damaging. So We can't get away without acknowledging that. I don't want to downplay what can be really terrible about acute loneliness. But we got to give people a break, too. They can't cure it. Yeah.
Brian Lee
Well, and I love that you say that loneliness is a doorway. It's like an invitation to cross the threshold and discover that behind the initial panel of loneliness are the actual issues that we're suffering from. Recognizing loneliness as a grief, triggering the pain of the voids in our life. Loneliness, like you say, as water and thirst. Loneliness like an evergreen tree in a forest of hardwoods that's constantly, continuously cycling through seasons of abundance and bareness. So Facing loneliness, I think like we started out, with curiosity and questions rather than with shame or judgment or condemnation or acute loneliness or isolation of like, Why do I feel lonely right now when I just went and hung out with my friends, or when I just had this lovely moment with this person, and yet it's back. What is that inviting?
Erin Moniz
Exactly. Usually, loneliness is a great starting point for us to discover things. Because in many cases, we use our prescription pad again to say, Well, I am lonely, and loneliness leads to X, Y, or Z. So the answer is companionship or coupling. So all I need is a girlfriend. All I need is to fill in the X, Y, or Z blank. And so we prescribe, Well, if this is the problem, then this is the answer. And we all operate... This is a pretty common operating system that we're using. And if we can't get such and such person to be companion, then we might seek it out electronically and artificially. And again, it leads you to spiral because we think in our head, I'm looking for solutions. And so we have to talk about it and say, well, actually, none of these are solutions because you've misdiagnosed the problem. And loneliness might be indicating something else. And so let's dig there. Sometimes we're just afraid of facing who we are when we're alone. And that's an identity problem, not a companion problem.
Brian Lee
Our identity is pointing us back, like we said, toward that gospel. Boom. There it is. It says, The relationships are not where it's at, and it's not who you are, and it will never be enough to fulfill you.
Erin Moniz
There it is.
Brian Lee
Maybe we just need to schedule a second conversation I'm here for it.
Erin Moniz
You know I am, Brian. I love having this conversation with you. I love it. It doesn't even feel like we're doing a podcast. It just feels like we're just talking about great things.
Brian Lee
Maybe we'll do it. Where can people find or connect with you, Yes.
Erin Moniz
I have a website. Sorry, I get a little sick feeling in my mouth when I say something that has just this dripping amount of hubris, but I have a website, and it's eranfmonas. Com. But it is a great one-stop shop. If you're looking for the book or things about the book, other podcast, things I've written, if you want to get in touch with me. The book is just wherever books are sold. But please support your local bookstores because they're great.
Brian Lee
Yes, they are. Please do. We will have links for everything in the show notes. Erin, this has been incredible. Thank you so much.
Erin Moniz
I've loved it so much, too, Brian. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's been really great.
Brian Lee
I loved that whole conversation, and I could have kept talking to Erin for hours. If you enjoyed it as much as I did, be sure to follow Aaron and say thanks for being on the show. You can find links and all the things in the show notes. Coming up on the show, we have Zach Lambert, Megan February, Monica DiCristina, and so many more. Subscribe or follow the show to get new episodes automatically. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and review or share it with your friends.
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This episode was hosted and executive produced by me, Brian Lee. Editing by Heidi Critz and post-production by Lisa Carnegis. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to listen. I hope it's been helpful. Here's to moving toward healing and wholeness. Together. I'll see you next time.
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