Welcome to another installment of Weekly Wrapped.
If you are new here, this is basically like virtually grabbing a cup of coffee with me and I share with you about everything I am reading, watching and thinking about. Rather than avoiding anything stained by the world, here at Jenna’s Column, we seek to find glimpses of the good in all things.
I post every Monday and alternate between these recommendation posts and longer form pieces about Gen Z and faith. Subscribe to stay tuned!
Oh, how time flies.
This week last year, I got my college graduation photos taken.
It is so strange how much has changed in a year. I have started a full-time job (albeit at my alma mater, so I did not leave for long).
That also means it has been almost a year of posting on Substack, which is so unreal. Thank you all so much for reading and supporting me continually.
I have lots of gems to share with you this week, including my latest work that was published in Christianity Today (!!!!).
Let’s get into it.
Writing
I’m a Gen Z Woman. I’m Staying in Church.
For the first time in recorded history, young women are less religiously engaged than young men. This is significant. My piece with Christianity Today explores the reasons why I think women are leaving, and imploring them to stay and embrace imperfect Christian community.
I spoke with Ryan Burge about this phenomenon, you can read his Substack here.
There are so many disclaimers I could give here, specifically speaking about church abuse, but generally, we are far too critical of the Bride of Christ. We worship at the altar of community but we are unable to practice the cycle of messing up/forgiveness/repentance.
I have many beloved friends in my life who have been deeply hurt by the church and feel like giving up on it altogether. I hope the piece ministers to those folks, especially.
Christianity Today is my favorite publication, which makes appearing on their website so meaningful. I am so grateful, specifically for Kara Bettis Carvalho, who is a gem of an editor. She made this piece much better and I am very grateful for her guidance!
“The People Who Don’t Have Any Questions” by Jemar Tisby
Jemar Tisby is a Christian and he has his PhD in history, a killer combination.
For those who are not familiar with his work, I highly recommend learning more about him. According to his website, he is focused on writing and creating content that can help move us forward in the journey toward racial justice.
Tisby entered into the White evangelical space in college but throughout his early adulthood, he grew increasingly disenchanted with the ways that tradition handled issues of race and justice. He went on to get his PhD in history and has written a lot of incredible books about the Church and race.
How can a group of people be so certain about topics that are so complicated? How can they say with so much certainty, "The Bible says..." when so often their interpretations have led to injustice and oppression?
The way I understood the phrase “the people who don’t have any questions” is not that white evangelicals never ask any questions or have any doubts. Rather they, or their leaders, have an indisputable conclusion to every query.
Tisby has articulated so well, the greatest frustration I have when it comes to evangelicals today — certainty. Oftentimes, in hopes of giving a compelling answer to our faith, we leave no room for flexibility, nuance, or even demonstrate a willingness to learn.
I know very few Christians who can hear about certain topics and actually have a conversation about it that is not dripping with certainty and contempt for anybody who thinks otherwise. It makes me think about the Pharisees, and how they were so easily aggravated by Jesus, and the ways that he flipped their understanding of reality.
I talked about certainty in my post last week and how it is not the opposite of faith. A future post definitely needs to explore what we miss when we are certain about everything. We are unable to take in new information openly and have to immediately shove it into a box of understanding that we have created, which is likely smaller than the truth.
I have really been wanting to write a piece about the cultural issue of evangelicals’ inability to hold complex thoughts, and reading Tisby’s piece definitely has lit a fire under me.
Reading
Currently Reading
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Have you ever had a friend in the same field, but they are way more beautiful and successful than you? That is the life of June Hayward, a Yale alumnus who has a love/hate relationship with her successful writer friend, Athena Liu.
Athena has everything June wants, mainly a flourishing writing career. That is, until Athena suddenly dies and June decides to steal her manuscript and publish it as her own.
I have heard about this satirical novel for years, but for some reason waited until now to pick it up. This fiction book really does not quit, and you are immediately drawn in by the insecure, relatable main character. If you have ever been that jealous girl, you need to read this.
Read
I have decided to DNF (Did not finish) Golden Son and I do not want to talk about it.
How peaceful I feel after putting that sci-fi away
Appreciating
HAIM
New HAIM album (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
We were in line at Disneyland when we got the tickets. My husband got a notification on his phone that one of our favorite bands, HAIM, would be coming to LA that week for two nights.
We had no idea why, but we knew we needed to go. We secured tickets and went on to have such a memorable evening.
HAIM is a band of three sisters, and their music has been the soundtrack of our lives for the past few years. All throughout college, we would stream ‘Found it in Silence’ or ‘Gasoline’ or ‘My Song 5’ and come back to the comforting lyrics and beat again and again.
If you like Alanis Morissette, Lake Street Dive, and your indie rock, then I encourage you to listen. I made a playlist of all of my favorite HAIM songs for you to enjoy.
I think making a playlist for this section each week could be a fun little outlet for me — let me know if that is something you would all be interested in.
Pondering
This section has felt less organized in the past, so I am going to repurpose this space to put two ideas that I have been chewing on. These ideas will likely come in the form of a longer-form post in the coming months. Please leave your thoughts below, and I will include them in my writing/research process.
Disguising fear of man as people pleasing
I run into this a lot in my Christian communities and it is one of my biggest pet peeves. Under the guise of caring about others, we harm them and put our own comfort first. Christians will cry ‘people pleaser’, when really they are more concerned with pleasing themselves.
This is closely connected to Christian niceness, which I find deeply annoying and inauthentic. I wrote about the pressure that women feel in particular to be nice a few months ago. I believe down to my bones that the Lord wants to work on us to make us deeply kind people, but I do not think this happens through people pleasing.
How achievement leaves us feeling unsatisfied, but failure feels so debilitating.
It’s very annoying to hear the most privileged and wealthy in society wax on about how money, fame or achievement does not fulfill you, or make you happy. When I was younger, I assumed they were lying. As I have gotten older, and gotten small tastes of success or achievement (quite small in comparison of the likes to the Kardashians of the world) I have noticed how unsatisfying it feels.
As mentioned earlier, a piece I wrote got published in Christianity Today last week, which was really exciting. However, seeing my article on their Instagram page and on the front page felt different from what I expected. I guess I have been pondering how it is less about achievement fulfilling us, and more about failure or not even attempting to succeed that makes us unhappy, which leads us to think achievement will. Griffin Gooch wrote a great piece about this last week on this topic, I highly suggest you read what he said.
Let me know if there are any specific topics you have been pondering that you want to hear my musings on.
Until next week!
Thank you for reading this week’s piece. I publish every Monday.
I recently added an option to upgrade your subscription. For as low as $5 a month, you can add this page to your long list of subscriptions you already have.
As a young writer, these subscriptions help give me more time and flexibility to create better content for you all. It also helps me keep a paywall off my words so you can share them with your friends. Thank you to those who financially support Jenna’s Column!
Thank you to my free subscribers as well. You show me that you think my writing matters and is worth investing in, too.
Your friend,
Finally, someone who is as excited about I QUIT as I am! I’m obsessed with “Down to Be Wrong.”
🤘 (my wife and I love HAIM too. Licorice Pizza is a great movie btw if y’all haven’t seen it, it’s super weird but stars all three Haim sisters which makes it v cool)