Ep. 167: Why Does Social Justice Matter?

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt podcast, where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture, connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s word. For more info on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Ryan McCurdy:
Hey, this is Ryan McCurdy, your indoubt host, and today I had the great privilege of talking with Danielle Strickland, who is an influencer and preacher all over the globe, and she has an amazing story to tell, but she’s also got a lot of passion and so we had this great conversation about women and young girls being empowered to share their voice and so there’s a few things that we got into, one of them being Brave Global, which is an organization that prevents young women from getting into sex trafficking and sex trade in North America. It’s an amazing thing that she’s working with. She also has another organization that we talk about it a little bit called the Woman’s Speakers Collective, which is all about empowering women’s voice to be heard and shared.
And so we had this great conversation about recognizing the distinction and the need for equality of perspective that all men and women are made in the image of God. Like we see in Genesis 1:27, “God made man and women in His image and intrinsically very good.” And so from this point that informs how we understand each other and it informs how we understand being involved in the church. I really like what Danielle had to say when she said that men and women are better together. We need each other. I hope and pray that this episode will be something that’ll be great for challenging some of maybe the preconceived notions that we have and assumptions we have and spur all of us on to using all of our gifts for the glory of God.

Ryan McCurdy:
So, with me today, we have very special guest, a renowned speaker and communicator who has traveled all over the world sharing the good news of Jesus. Her name is Danielle Strickland. Danielle, so good to have you with us.

Danielle Strickland:
Hey, thanks for having me.

Ryan McCurdy:
Danielle, we wanna talk to you a little bit about kind of the things that you’re involved in and the things that God is at work doing in your life and in the ministries that you’re a part of. But for those of us who are listening and maybe those who’d aren’t familiar with the work that you’ve been doing, would you be able to give us just a little brief overview of kind of your life, your story, what God’s been doing in your life for the last number of years?

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah, sure. Although I’m a speaker, so brief isn’t in my specialty box, but no. Basically I spent 22 years working with the Salvation Army. I was radically jolted to life by an encounter I had with Jesus in jail when I was a juvenile delinquent. I thought Christianity was boring, safe, and small and then I met Jesus and realized it’s actually the exact opposite of that. The invitation Jesus gives us is to an adventurous, unsafe, risky, full on life. So, I started following him and then I joined the Salvation Army. I really wanted my life to be about others and the fastest way I knew to do that was to join the Salvation Army. So, for 22 years I served in the Salvation Army as an officer, which is like an ordained clergy doing all kinds of projects, a lot of stuff around social justice, like ending human trafficking, incarnational communities among the poor.
I lived in the downtown east side of Vancouver for five years at Powell and Main Street, just trying to build local community there. Lots of things around getting people out of addictions and cycles and violence and crime and then some other inner cities in Collingwood in Melbourne, Australia. And then I lived in LA for a while. But really just working, helping establish social justice department for the Salvation Army and also church-planting, kind of at the same thing. So, like my love is Jesus and all the other things I do are around this person of Jesus and what salvation really is as it comes to the world. It’s this kind of redemption plan salvaging, challenging statistics and despair with hope and possibilities and giving people future. So, that’s really… So, these days, my main role really is I felt like God had called me last year out of just one denomination to every denomination. And really just with this message of mobilization, it’s a now time, I think for the church and it’s time, kind of, to do some things to get to some things that we really need… The world’s desperate for us to get to, so.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s wonderful. And I think even the phrase that comes up even for me as you’re sharing is this word social justice, right? And so how the Church and the mission of God is deeply concerned, yes with theology, yes with our belief of God and our belief of how we view the world, but also how we love our neighbour and how we are involved in the community to make it a better place. And so I’d be curious like that line of thinking of what is social justice and why do social issues matter to the church? What would you respond with?

Danielle Strickland:
Well, I think you just answered it yourself in setting up the question. I think that Jesus said the whole entire prophets, the Old Testament could be summed up by loving God and loving others and social justice, I mean properly defined is just right relationships between people. So, the whole Gospel, I mean, Paul calls us ministers of reconciliation in the New Testament, which is really literally to say that our ministry is right relationship with God and right relationship with others, which is hinged on this… The greatest commandments that Jesus gave to his followers. Dr. Cornel West once said that the best definition of social justice is love in public, which I really love and keep coming back to, because that is… It really is about that. It’s about if you really love people, you’re gonna want them to encounter right relationship, with God but also with one another. So, there’s equality, there is distribution conversations, there’s legislative conversations, but ultimately what it comes down to is right relationship.

Ryan McCurdy:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. And we have listeners all over the world and that idea of love being mobilized and love being mobilized in public is a beautiful, beautiful picture. And with the work that you’re doing and the activity that you’re involved in, ’cause you are all over the world and you are being… Doing a lot of different visits and teaching and preaching and stuff like that. From your perspective, what are some of the biggest pieces of social justice that are needed now and needing the church to wake up to and be mobilized towards?

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. I mean I think there are as many as neighbourhoods, ’cause I think ultimately what a church should be about is what is in front of them, in their own local communities. Wherever they see an injustice or… And this is why being friends with people from the margins is really helpful to this regard, because the church will have no… Won’t see anything at all until you’re friends with somebody that’s being oppressed and then you’ll be like, wait a minute. So, a few of the things that I’m passionate about right now that I’m helping churches get behind is… Well, there’s two campaigns that I’m kind of running. One is called Brave Global, and it’s mobilizing churches to reach vulnerable girls before they’re trafficked. So, this is recognizing 70 to 80 percent of domestic sex trafficking victims.
So, victims of sex trafficking from the country, from the host country, particularly these stats from America, but Canada’s not far behind, but 70 to 80 percent of sex trafficking victims born in America are from foster care. So, at first when we heard that stat, we were like, what? Like, that’s horrible, which it is. And we understand that foster care needs some reforming and we need to change the system and yes, yes to all that, but in the meantime, all of a sudden we realized, wait a minute, we know these girls’ names, which means that if we could be strategic about it, we could get the to them before they’re trafficked. So, we said if traffickers can target vulnerable girls for exploitation, the Church could target vulnerable girls for redemption. And so we mobilize churches to get there first and to reach vulnerable girls in their community with some empowerment, some Good News, a possibility, hope and messages from survivors that have some really great tips to how not to be trafficked and how to get out quick.
So, that’s kind of a preventative campaign that I’m involved in and I just absolutely… I spent 22 years really just taking dead bodies out of a downward stream of trafficking. Just street survival, brothels, safe houses, the whole nine yards and I’m all for it, but I really think this is like going up-stream and finding out where these bodies are coming from and stopping the flow, which I’m pretty excited about. And I think that the Church is really well positioned for this. Like, when the Church goes to social services and says, look, we wanna help empower girls. We wanna help prevent trafficking and we have this method, they’re surprised to find that social services, like, yes, please. It’s a too-hard box, man. Nobody has any answers for girls in foster care or in criminal justice system who are being trafficked. That’s part of the problem. It’s too hard. So, Brave Global exists. So, if you’re in a church and you wanna prevent human trafficking and kind of wanna get on this end of the fight, go to BraveGlobal.org and sign up.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Danielle Strickland:
We’ll help you.

Ryan McCurdy:
That’s amazing.

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah.

Ryan McCurdy:
My wife in years previous, she works with group homes and a group home being a place where girls, typically the group home she was with, where they didn’t fit the foster care. They just they couldn’t fit. They kept getting spit out by different families and it never really landed. And the place for them was to be cared for by paid staff from the Ministry of Child and Family Youth Worker. And so all of this work comes together and as I… I’m a pastor and so I spend a lot of time with my wife obviously, and we have these different perspectives of caring for people and pastoring people and discipling them and helping them grow in their relationship with Jesus and then the youth group I’m a part of recently, we’ve had a number of kids who are coming and a lot of young girls, grade seven, grade eight, so they’re 13, 14 and they come from rougher backgrounds.
They come from foster care. One of them is in a group home and this very piece is, it’s shaking up our very youth group and in a good way, right? Because we have good Christian kids from good Christian families and they’re all part of this good Christian Church and we’re doing our best to follow Jesus and walk in his way, and we have new people coming who are not believers, do not come from Christian families and they’ve got this different perspective and now the question is how do we care for these people who, yeah, are coming from the margins? How do we care for these young girls and young boys who are not given the same examples in family and same opportunity and seeing maybe healthy routine and all this stuff? And I think this is one of the things that I’m really curious your perspective on Danielle, because it costs the church something to say, yeah, we are gonna care about those who are marginalized. And what do you think, do you think the church is in a place where… You said the opportunity is ripe. Do you think the church is in a place where they can jump in and say, you know what, we will die to our comforts of how we do church to make room or are you finding a little bit more of no, we like, we’re comfortable, we don’t wanna change?

Danielle Strickland:
Well, I don’t… I try not to just bug people who don’t want to… I try to spend all my time with folks who do want to, ’cause I find that to be the most helpful and most actually best use of my time. But in essence that is the Gospel. Like whenever you have that opportunity that you are even just speaking of right now, even with your youth group, you have an opportunity to disciple your kids into what the Gospel is. And if you’re not… So, even though it’s disruptive, it’s actually the kingdom disrupting your youth group. So, this is their opportunity to hear Jesus again and follow Jesus again in a way that actually matters and that this is the Gos… Like, the Gospel is Jesus is like pick up your cross and follow me. Like, this is what the Gospel is lived out and we just still want the Gospel to be some kind of super spiritual truth that sets us free like a rabbit in a pocket or something like that.
And actually the Gospel has always, always been, if we follow Jesus, this way of living that is different countercultural, it’s inclusive, it’s to the margins. I mean Jesus, almost always, and when you read the trajectory of Jesus’s ministry, he goes out of his way to get in the way of the poor and the oppressed. It’s not even just on his way. I mean, sometimes the scripture will even say on his way, but if you look at a map, you get a map out and you look at where it says on his way to Jerusalem, you’ll see that Jesus is actually going in the opposite direction of physically of Jerusalem, which is… What he’s doing is he’s on his way to the cross. That’s what it means. And it says on the way to Jerusalem, it’s on the way to suffering, like on the way to death, on the way to dying to yourself.
You’re gonna go by foster, group homes and what are you gonna do? That’s gonna teach you actually how to exemplify sacrificial love. So, until the church does that, I’m not sure that it really even has fully discovered the joy and freedom of the Gospel. So, I would say that’s your best… Like, the Church’s best invitation… And this is churches that have partnered with us for Brave Global have said to us, thank you. You made us brave, right? Like we had to bring… So, we thought this was about making girls brave, but all of a sudden we just discovered, oh no, we have to be brave and then we can ask girls to be brave. So, it’s kind of this mutual invitation.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. And you mentioned these words, joy and freedom. You say it brings joy and freedom actually when you, yeah, when you die to yourself and you make room for somebody or you take part of something that may be stretching you out of your comfort zone. I think it’s so easily to say, well this is gonna be difficult. This is gonna be tough. I don’t know if I wanna do this and it might disrupt my comfort, but in that, like you said, there’s this joy and there’s this freedom that comes in being able to die to yourself and help other people. And so when you say Brave Global and the work that’s been happening, you have churches that are partnered with you, what are some of the success stories coming out of this? Like we would love to hear, like what is God up to in these young girls’ lives?

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah, I mean, there are dozens of churches, so… And ranging from kind of small ones, so there’s like a church that partners with the University of Seattle in Seattle, Washington that does this incredible brave event there. So, they’ve had some agencies come together with churches. They’ve done a mentoring program. So, always with preventative stuff, it’s hard to get the big sexy story, because you prevented something from happening, you know? So, I have better stories of dragging people off of streets that people like better. But… So, you might not ever know, but I remember I was in LA at a church called Mariners Church, it was a very large mega church in America and they are a brave church. And so there’s a thousand girls there, and I mean there are girls there from girl guides, are doing a brave badge now they have and so they’re coming to the brave event as part of their brave badge.
So, we have from all different diverse backgrounds as well as the girls from Mariners Church. So, it’s like this also very beautifully inclusive place, group homes in the neighbourhood, they partner with foster care. So, a lot of foster care kids are there, which is our target audience and we had an MMA fighter that comes, ’cause a part of the event is a self defense section where we just really try to empower girls to stand up for themselves. And we have this MMA fighter come and share her story about how she was sexually abused when she was nine and it took her 10 years to even talk about it and when she was doing her martial arts training, her self defense stuff, she realized that her first training, the first training you receive in self defense is not physical, it’s verbal.
It’s to actually use your voice. So, if you go to a self defense class, they’ll say, scream, make some noise, shout, use your voice. Before any physical thing, you’re gonna use your voice and she realized how strategic it was for women and girls to find their voice and to use it, which is really important on so many levels. But part of the reason why it’s important, it’s your first form of self defense. So, we can kind… Like even now in a MeToo Movement, we realize that even just women finding their voices to speak aloud what they have kept silent their whole life is this first form of rising up. So, anyway… So, she taught these thousand girls phrases to say when they’re at a party and they’re uncomfortable. Like, here’s what you can say. Like, get away from me. You’re making me feel uncomfortable, you know?

Ryan McCurdy:
Right.

Danielle Strickland:
And then she had them all repeat it. And then here’s some phrases you could say for friends that you’re observing in a situation where you think this might not be okay. Here’s some things and these thousand girls are repeating it back and it was so profound. I just remember sitting there going like a thousand girls have just been equipped, even if this is all we did, which we did way more than this, but even if all we did was teach a thousand girls how to use their voice to prevent sexual abuse from happening. I mean, we just did… We just killed it, you know? I mean we just killed it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, absolutely.

Danielle Strickland:
I mean, and so there are about 200 women volunteers. They were all just tears streaming down their faces afterwards as they said to me, if I had of had this event when I was 11 it would’ve changed the trajectory of my whole life. And that’s sort of where we’re at. We’re like, let’s just change the story. We want a better one. We want a better story for a whole generation of girls. So, let’s make a better story. We could do this. We’re not stuck with… This idea of like fatalistic inevitable cycles of oppression that are never changing, like that’s a world story. And that’s a story that’s like tired and old and I want a better story. This is the Gospel story, it’s a better one. This is where the people from the margins don’t just break the cycles of marginalization. They become the leaders of the future. So, that’s kind of… We see you as a solution, not the problem. You’re sacred and good and what’s in you is actually meant to thrive and we need you to lead the future. It’s beautiful.

Ryan McCurdy:
You’re giving me goosebumps here.

Danielle Strickland:
It’s beautiful. It’s such a privilege to be part of. We just launched in Canada by the way.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yep.

Danielle Strickland:
So the first Canadian event is in Toronto in May.

Ryan McCurdy:
Right.

Danielle Strickland:
And who knows? Let’s have one in Vancouver.

Ryan McCurdy:
Oh, come on.

Danielle Strickland:
Like, let’s get to it, everywhere.

Ryan McCurdy:
If you want help setting one up in Vancouver, just call us.

Danielle Strickland:
We wanna help. Let’s do it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Call me. Let me know.

Danielle Strickland:
Okay.

Ryan McCurdy:
‘Cause I think that is incredible. I’m… I get so excited about that, because there’s an element there that’s, yeah, like you’re saying that the cultural world narrative of oppression and being marginalized is like, well we’ve got this chip on our shoulder so now we’ve gotta get back at them. And I love how you said you’re not the problem, you’re the solution. Finding healing and wholeness. What does Jesus do? He says love your enemies, forgive those who persecute you. Take that step and make right what was wrong towards you. And it’s that breaking of the cycle that brings healing not just for the individual but for communities.

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah. Well, and hey, check this out. How would it change for the church to be known in the community as the place that empowers girls? I mean, think about like just as in terms of like Canada asking itself, what’s the church for? You know what I mean? Like what would it mean in your community if your church was known as the place that empowers girls? I mean that’s gonna change some things about even church and the Gospel and what it means in the world, yeah.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting, one of the things that I think of when we talk about culture and the views and the different people who are on different margins and all this stuff and this idea of women speakers, this idea of young girls growing up being empowered in their voice I think is so important. On this past Sunday at my church, we had… Our lead pastor was teaching on this passage where the alabaster jar is broken on Jesus’s feet and he just took a moment to pause and say, the Church needs to recognize that the women in our communities bring a beautiful perspective that has, yeah, unfortunately been maybe neglected or pushed aside a little bit, but let’s create space for this conversation and this dialogue and this input to be heard because it is a very valuable perspective. And so I’m curious for you like even with what you’re working in, like are you seeing a lot of more openness to this idea of empowering young women and having room in churches… Are there still some churches that are like, you know what? No. We kind of gonna do our own thing and we’re not as encouraging of that or what’s your feeling with that?

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah. I mean, again, there’s tons of churches who have been disempowering to women contrary to the teachings of Jesus, which is I think unbelievably shame-filled, I feel like. At least like measure up to Christ, right? Like at least if we’re gonna have an example, let’s at least exemplify Jesus, who, like you said, that’s just one illustration. But from evangelists to apostles, go tell the disciples to… Leadership to… I mean, stewardship to everything Jesus is, literally the first radical feminist that we’ve ever met in time. So, I am like all for the example of Christ. What I would say is that there is a gap. So, because of the patriarchy being normalized. So, churches, whether they meant to or not, where a patriarchal or a male focused society lands is kind of in this disempowerment of women.
It doesn’t mean to maybe even… And maybe even it’s nice when it does it, but it still kind of disempowers women. So, you’ll find church conferences or main churches, you’ll find women are not fairly represented in terms of voice, even if you were just gonna represent the church. So, the church is over 50% female and so if you were just gonna have equal representation, you’d have 50% of the conference speakers be female. If you were just going for equal, forget about giving them more. So, we’re far, far… Every church, even churches that are intentional are not at 50% representation. I was at a conference this year or like December, Urbana, which is a university-based conference InterVarsity press puts on in Chicago, about 10,000 students that get together in a stadium and they… This was the first year they’d ever had equal representation and the feedback they received was that there were too many women, which is just because everyone’s so used to it not being equal that it looked like it was more than 50% which is interesting.
But I would say that, 50% there’s a gap. So, usually women don’t know they can speak, don’t know how to foster, aren’t prepared, don’t have any practice places cause they’re not equal opportunities, so they don’t have platforms locally where they can practice. So, I think there’s churches that maybe theologically they’re like, yes we should have women speak, but we don’t know who they are, because there’s this gap of women who can fill that space, because they haven’t been prepared or given opportunities. So, we’re trying… I’m trying the best I can. I find myself a lot of times at conferences where I’m the only woman speaker and usually even at places where I’m not even really supposed to speak, and yet here I am speaking. So, it’s usually a bit of a… We’re all a bit bewildered about how this happened, which is just a Holy Spirit thing for sure.
We’re all a little bit bewildered, but I started realizing that I don’t wanna be the exception to the rule. I wanna change the rule. So, one of the things I’d asked myself is how can I use what I’ve learned from a lifetime of speaking at mixed events, at mainstream started conferences in churches around the world and how can I use this as a way of helping other women discover opportunity and potential and use everything I have in an empowering way. So, I started this thing called the Women’s Speaker Collective for that reason, to just… To be more specific with my own gift and ability empowering other women and giving a platform to them.

Ryan McCurdy:
Sounds amazing. And I mean I think one of the questions that I have is why do you think that there is that discrepancy?

Danielle Strickland:
So, the latest book I’m just gonna release next year, I just finished the manuscript is called Better Together: How women and men can stop fighting and start thriving. I’ve got three boys at home and an amazing husband, so I’m all pro-team men and I’ve been working with marginalized women for 22 years, so I’m pro-women. So… And I do not see those as competitive. They’re the same… We wanna be the best we can be as a humanity and a humanity at its best as male and female working empowered together to co-steward the earth. So, let’s do that. So, I always say if you wanna model what God’s original purpose is for the world, model women and men together leading coequal empower. Like, this is God’s great… I mean, this is the Trinity at its best is this leadership team that’s not too concerned about who’s in charge, but more concerned about like giving glory to one another.
And this is Paul’s ideal for marriage, right? Like submit to one another. Ever … Whatever your gift is, use it for the benefit and you’ll be better together. And so it’s like… It’s a… It literally is a deconstruction of hierarchy as we understand it. So, if we can deconstruct hierarchy, we’re gonna start discovering what the Gospel looks like. I just was in Rwanda, they use this training for transforming leaders in reconciliation. It’s beautiful. They just use a tree and they say the fruit of the tree is what we always look at and we’re like, this is not a good tree. But actually the fruit of the tree is not the problem. The root of the tree’s always the problem and the root of the tree is what you really believe. So, if you’re reaping fruit that is disempowering to women, then the problem’s not just your practice. The problem is your belief system. And you have to get to your belief system, which will then inform your practice, which will then bear some fantastic fruit.

Ryan McCurdy:
I again, I love hearing you. You go and share and just… It’s like a switch turns and you go into preacher mode and you just… You get… You can see the passion, you can hear the passion in your voice and I love that and I love how even in that is this very honest, hey, we’re better together. It’s not about pushing one or the other down. It’s not about switching this idea of, okay, men have typically had more influence and more kind of the patriarchal piece that we’ve been talking about. It’s not about switching that to be matriarchal. It’s not about, there needs to be a dominant here. It’s that together as equals we share in this burden of, like you said, stewarding the earth and managing resources and caring for those who are marginalized. It’s a teamwork thing.

Danielle Strickland:
Yeah. The problem is that it’s gonna feel a little bit, like you said, disruptive, even when that… When those people came in from outside of the system, it feels disruptive even though that actually should be normal. That should be your normal, not a disruption. That’s what the Gospel story is, is inclusion from the margins. It’s gonna feel disruptive and that’s okay. I think the other problem is that we’ve spent a lot of years thinking anything disruptive was not God. I don’t know how we feel that way since we read our bibles and realize that every single time God does anything he has to disrupt people to do it, right? So I feel like if you feel disrupted, lean in. This is where God is doing his best work. I guarantee you where you feel disruption is where God’s on the move. So, don’t be afraid of it. And I spend a lot of my time telling church leaders and churches all over the world, don’t be afraid of disruption. This is God moving to a new normal, which I can’t wait to get to.

Ryan McCurdy:
That’s amazing. All right, Danielle, thanks so much for being with us. It was a joy to hear your passion and the work that you’re up to. So encouraged by it. Thank you again.

Danielle Strickland:
Oh, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Ryan McCurdy:
There you have it. The conversation with Danielle Strickland. You can follow up with her a little bit more on her website, DanielleStrickland.com where you can find out a lot of information about these things that she’s a part of including Women Speakers Collective, Brave Global, another one that we didn’t talk about, Amplify Peace which are all about empowering women and young women to explore it using their voice and to be empowered to do so. I loved talking to Danielle about social justice and how we can make this world a better place as the church, as followers of Jesus. And so looking forward to her book Better Together, which she said will be coming out in a little while. So, thanks for listening in today. If you ever wanna find out more information about indoubt, you can email info@indoubt.ca. You can follow us on instagram @indoubtca. Next week we have with us Autumn Miles from Texas. She’s lively, energetic and passionate and she’s gonna be telling her story of domestic abuse. So, we’ll see you next week.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening. If you wanna hear more, subscribe on iTunes and Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media, so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.