Ep. 45 - How Should Christians Approach Transgender Issues? - Psych and Theo Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and
Theo podcast.
We are excited to release aspecial episode for you guys
today.
Tim and myself we're kind of ina busy season, so we've been
recording, or we did a lot ofpre-recordings, and are able to
release these special episodesthat we did with a couple of
friends, and the one that you'regoing to tune into today is one

(00:23):
that Tim did with our friend,cassian Bellino.
She has a podcast called theBiblically Speaking Podcast, so
tune into that and sheinterviews biblical scholars and
talks about all things relatedto scripture and understanding
passages of scripture,understanding the Bible in
general.
So she has Tim on and Timdiscusses the very important

(00:44):
topic and very controversialtopic of transgenderism and its
effects on society and howshould Christians respond.
So I'm really looking forwardto having you guys tune into
that, because it's a veryimportant topic and it's a very
controversial topic.
On our Instagram page, it wasprobably the most watched video

(01:05):
and also the one that brought upa lot of somewhat nasty
comments.
But you know, we just rolledwith it.
It is what it is and we knewthat that was going to happen,
but I think we handled it withgrace and yeah.
So if you don't follow us onInstagram, you can do so by
going to psych underscore andunderscore Theo, and you'll be
able to find us there with ourpage.

(01:27):
So, as always, thank you fortuning in, thank you for
providing comments, thank youfor sending questions, and I
hope you enjoy today's episode.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Hello, hello, welcome back to Biblically Speaking.
My name is Cassie Ablino andI'm your host.
I'm more than excited to haveDr Tim Yance back on my podcast.
Welcome back, I am so excitedto have you on here and I don't
think I gave you a proper biointroduction.
So for those that didn't tuneinto our last episode talking
about homosexuality, dr TimYance, you grew up in Cincinnati

(01:58):
, so that's where I grew up, andyou have a Master of Divinity
from Liberty University, a PhDin the theological studies at
Southeastern Baptist TheologicalSeminary, and you also are an
adjunct professor at LibertyUniversity, so that's where
you're teaching now.
You're teaching theology,worldview, apologetics and
ethics, and you also co-host apodcast called Psych and Theo,
which I love this podcast.

(02:19):
You guys are bold andcourageous on that.
You guys cover some interestingtopics but, just like the
biblical perspective on same-sexattraction, I'm excited today
to talk to you about transgenderissues and the biblical
perspective on that as aChristian.
So welcome back, Tim.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
I'm glad to be back and looking forward to having
this discussion.
We're going to dive deep.
This one's a bit morecomplicated, I, than than uh,
same-sex attraction, but it'srelated, so let's get into it
yeah, I, I mean, again, I'mcoming from this very egocentric
place.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I'm a christian.
Uh, transgenderism is a hugetopic.
So, as a christian, how do werespond?
You know how do we respond ifI'm having thoughts, you know.
I think that this is where thatrelative concern comes into play
.
But it also just feels likeeverything we see online always
aggressive.
It's always from a place ofwho's going to win, who's right,
somebody's better than theother person.

(03:13):
And that's not really what Iwant to do on this conversation,
you know, I just really want tounderstand, as a Christian,
what does the Bible say about it, because my standard for living
aligns with what the word ofGod says and so I'm just going
to default to that.
And again, that's kind of wherewe start splitting from what is
of this world and what is setapart.
But this is meant to beeducational and I guess I'm

(03:34):
starting, you know, with thatsensitivity and trigger warning
at the at the start of thispodcast, that I assume that
we're not going to be talkingabout child friendly topics and
we're definitely going to betalking about some more sexual
surrounding topics, and youmight be a little triggered if
this is something that issensitive to you and your ears
or those around you, so for thepurposes of education.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Thank you, tim, for leading the discussion all right
, yeah, I'm, I'm ready to getinto it.
Yeah, there, there are someissues in the transgender
subject, especially when we getinto history, that might there
might be some graphicdescriptions, like we'll curb
that language, but you know,there's some things we got to
talk about that the scriptureseither allude to or were aware

(04:16):
of.
The authors of scripture wereaware of in their day that was
going on and how that relates totoday.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
So, yeah, Well, just starting off with you, what is
your experience with this topic?
Have you taught on it, have youjust studied it, or what's your
experience with just?
You know all the depths thatwe're going to go into.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, you know, I'm an ethicist by training.
So, as I said in the previousepisode, we ethicists we kind of
have to be generalists in a lotof different fields and then
try to integrate them alltogether.
So our job, at least as aChristian ethicist, is to help
Christians think ethically ormorally about different issues,
all kinds of different issues.

(04:52):
So with this topic it's related, like all the LGBT issues.
They're all related together.
So my experience with it hasbeen teaching at the undergrad
level, introducing students towhat it is, so that they know
the terms, they know the linesof debate and what a biblical
approach would be, and then alsonot just training them on what

(05:15):
the Bible says but also trainingthem on natural law type
arguments, not unbiblicalarguments, but non-biblical
things, where you don'tnecessarily need the Bible to
make an argument like this.
And sometimes if you're talkingto someone who doesn't, they
don't believe the Bible.
Just pointing stuff out in theBible is going to be of no
effect on them, but you coulduse arguments that are what I

(05:37):
call non-atheological ornon-religious to persuade them.
So I train students in that too.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So that makes sense.
I feel like this topic ispretty secular as a whole and it
really kind of comes down toyou know how I feel about my
identity and what I want todecide with my own bodily
autonomy.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
So how does?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
God fit into this.
You know how is this?
Even like moral issues fit intothis.
It seems like a veryindividualistic perspective.
But again, we're here to learnabout the Bible.
So what does that Bible, whatdoes that old book, say about?

Speaker 3 (06:08):
it.
Yeah, it actually says a lotsurprisingly.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Interesting.
I don't think I've ever heardin all my years of church going
and Bible study, I've neverheard of a verse that references
transgender.
So is it fair to say that?
You know, just like from anorigin standpoint of transgender
issues, was it non-existentduring, you know, ancient Near
East culture?
Was it well known?
I know we talked a lot aboutlike Greco-Roman culture and how

(06:34):
open that was when, like Paul,was writing.
But can we just like kind ofstart at the origin, like when
did this pop up?
Where did it pop up?

Speaker 3 (06:41):
and where did the?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
influence start.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Okay, so the modern movement of transgenderism is
different than historically howwe've kind of understood the
gender bending, crossing kind ofbehavior.
I say that becausetransgenderism as a movement

(07:03):
really springs out of modernfeminist movements and I would
encourage people to go back andlisten to on the Psych and
Theology podcast.
Our very first episode iscalled there Are Only Two
Genders.
Here's why and we give a briefoverview of the history of the
feminist movement and reallytransgenderism is like the
fourth wave of the feministmovement and it's really kind of
the culmination of a feministmovement and it's really kind of

(07:24):
the culmination of a feministmovement and it's become quite
anti-feminist in a sense.
Because now third wavefeminists are at odds with the
transgender movement becausethey see it's undoing.
Like JK Rowling many people knowwho she is the author of Harry
Potter, she's what one mightconsider to be a TERF and that's
called a trans-exclusionary,radical feminist.

(07:46):
So you could put her in thecamp of a third wave feminist.
But she is very much opposed tonot people having the ability
to modify themselves, but she'sopposed to the transgender
movement being a part of thefeminist movement and and
disrupting women's sports andother things like that.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
So so a transgender, exclusionary, radical feminist
is essentially like oh, itsounds like to me and again like
I'm just first time hearingabout this is someone who just
like boldly defends the feministI'm the feminine, rather than
like, makes it open forinterpretation, like she's
saying strongly in her lane isthat it's not able to be a

(08:25):
debate that's what it soundslike.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, so the?

Speaker 2 (08:27):
they would say that the, the feminist movement, is
exclusively for women, forbiological women, to challenge
gender roles and to rewritegender roles in society and
things like that yeah got it, sothey see transgenderism as
undoing a lot of their progressI see, because now it's like
open up to interpretation ratherthan, you know, kind of

(08:47):
highlighting the role of thefeminine and giving her equity
and equality and yeah, I see,but the modern.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
So the modern, the modern uh movement of
transgenderism has sprung fromuh, 20th century sex studies.
Um, I can't remember thegentleman's name right now, but
there was a few psychologistsand researchers who had kind of

(09:13):
picked up on this idea that somepeople have this experience of
being a different gender thanwhat their biological sex is,
and now we call that genderdysphoria.
So this is early 20th century.
They were studyingtransvestites.
They were studying people whowere born with hermaphrodism and

(09:37):
some other, what we call man Iam blanking on the term, it's
deep in my notes here and Ican't pull it up.
It's called DSD, so it's a sexdisorder, when people like
hermaphrodism would be one ofthose.
So they're studying these typesof people, but they are picking
up on this idea that maybegender, which is the outward

(09:59):
expression, a social expressionof something, is different than
sex.
So they would start to makethis distinction between sex and
gender.
And that's really at the rootof what we refer to today as
transgender ideology is that sexand gender are distinct and are
not that they're unrelated, butthat one that is sex biological

(10:21):
sex should not be determinativeof the other that is sex
biological sex should not bedeterminative of the other.
That's the key premise oftransgenderism.
So if someone's getting intothis topic, there's a few terms
then that they need to be awareof.
One is sex.
What that means Sex would belike the biology, like you're
either born with XX chromosomesor XY chromosomes.

(10:41):
That's a chromosomal makeup ofsomeone and that determines your
sex.
You're either biological maleor female.
Then there's anatomicalfeatures, the things that you're
born with, that would show whatbiological sex you are.
But then gender they woulddefine as the inner subjectivity
, that psychologicalunderstanding of masculine,

(11:03):
feminine or something in between, or something totally different
.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
So it's interesting.
I feel like the sex or the XYchromosome and like your
genitals.
Wouldn't those be like the same?
Or I don't understand how thosecould even be distinct from one
another.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Well, so they wouldn't distinguish between
your genetics and your anatomy,but they would say that.
So your genetic markers, reallyin the in the productive, in
the development process, willultimately determine the sex
distinctions of your anatomy,your genitals and things like
that.
Okay, so it's all yourchromosomes are will drive your

(11:36):
body toward that way, if thebody naturally develops without
um, uh, malformities orabnormalities or anything like
that.
So, by and and large, mostpeople, xx chromosome is going
to develop into a healthy girl,xy, healthy boy.
Okay, what they distinguishbetween is gender, is what they

(11:58):
would call the social construct,or the social norms and rules
and customs of how boys shouldact and how girls should act and
how they should dress andbehave and the roles they take
in society.
So someone who's experiencinggender dysphoria, which is a
real phenomenon, is they areexperiencing this disconnection

(12:18):
between their psychologicalunderstanding of masculine or
feminine and the body that theyare born with.
So if they're born anatomically, biologically, male, but they
quote unquote feel like a woman,then they might be experiencing
gender dysphoria and there's,and that's a real state.
You know it's not.
It's not everyone who claimsthat is faking it or lying or

(12:39):
anything like that.
There's people who reallystruggle with this, but that's a
, that's that phenomenon and thetransgender movement comes sort
of out of that.
What the transgender ideologysays is that someone who is
experiencing gender dysphoria,the proper treatment for them is
to transition into the othergender.
I think a Christian approach, abiblical approach, is to try to

(13:04):
treat the gender dysphoria, theexperience of that, not to
permanently alter the body insuch a way that they would
basically encourage them totransition.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
There's a difference in the solution.
Right.
Well, I guess I don'tunderstand because I'm not them,
but I having some sort ofdisorder or even like body
dysmorphia, would that kind ofbe like relative, not like same
same, but different as far aslike?
thinking you're huge when you'reanorexic of like, just not
being able to comprehend or seethe rational difference here

(13:38):
that like you would treat bodydysmorphia, you know you would
treat anorexia.
You wouldn't let them be like,be like, okay, you are now
skinny and I'm you're just gonnabe, you know, 10 pounds or
whatever.
But it's one of those topicsthat I have no insight into, so
I'm trying to understand it, butwell, you're hitting on
something.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
We might be jumping ahead of ourselves, but you're
hitting on something that Ithink most people intuitively
pick up on, and that's thelogical implications of
transgender ideology, and thatis, if my identity is ultimately
rooted in a subjective statethat is like something in my
mind, if my identity is rootedin that and it's separated from
my biology, then who's to saythat I can't redefine myself in

(14:23):
all kinds of ways, includingthat body dysmorphic movement
which now is called transableist?

Speaker 2 (14:30):
And I'm sure that if there is a trans person
listening to this, they'reprobably extremely offended that
it's not something subjective.
This is who they are.
This is their identity.
How is this different, like,how does it now become an
identity when it's somethingwhere I you're right from a
logical perspective, if I don'tconnect to the genitals I was
born with?
That seems like something youcould treat similar to anarksis

(14:51):
same same, but different again.
But the identity aspect is whatmakes it different.
It makes it more threatening towant to change does that make
sense?

Speaker 3 (14:59):
um, well, if someone has been convinced to believe
that their root identity, theirfundamental essence of who they
are, is the experience, thegender experience that they have
in their mind, then yeah, it'sgoing to be really, really hard
for them to let that go.
We didn't get into this in theprevious episode on

(15:20):
homosexuality in the Bible, onthe problem of identity, but
many people and this goes foranything if we root our identity
in our sexuality, like eitherour sexual orientation or sexual
expression or something likethat, like in the Christian
worldview, we would say that'snot where your identity is
ultimately rooted anyways.
So right away there's a problemwhere, if someone is rooting

(15:46):
their identity, they'refundamental of who they are as a
person.
In that we're already gettingoff to a rough start.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Because your identity is in Christ.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, well, in the Christian world, yeah, but what
that means is that we arecreated beings, we're loved by
God, and God is the one whoactually gets to define what we
are and who we are and how welive.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Oh, so it's almost like idolatry of the self.
By saying no, I'll decide.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Well, in a sense I wouldn't say that everyone who
experiences gender dysmorphia is, like you know, in idolatry.
You know I don't want to gothat far, but the transgender
movement or the LGBT movement, Ihave no problem saying that it
is a form of idolatry, just likelots of other things would be
forms of idolatry in our culture.
Politics, political parties,can be idolatry, or certain

(16:34):
movements in our culture, asports team, you can make that
into your idolatry.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Taylor Swift.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, swifties, I'm going to get in trouble now.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
I know they're hearing us.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, so anything like that, when it is elevated
to the point that it drives andconfers meaning and purpose to
your life and it's not God, thenit has taken the place of God
and therefore it's idolatry.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Okay, but not with transgender.
You don't see the same thinghappening there?

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Well, not with people who are experiencing gender
dysphoria.
I don't think the experience ofthat is idolatry.
I do think the movement isidolatrous.
Okay, it's a movement of sexualliberation, of throwing off the
patriarchy, of throwing off allnorms and customs in society

(17:27):
and dismantling systems of power, like all that kind of stuff is
wrapped up in an idolatrybecause it's giving new meaning
and purpose to someone's life.
That's not God Interesting.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Okay, so we keep.
You keep referencing kind ofgender dysmorphia as different
than transgender.
Is it two separate things?

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Dysphoria.
Sorry, so I could talk aboutthat.
Yeah, gender dysphoria is ajust it's, it's the.
It's a psychological statewhere someone feels distress, uh
, if they feel this incongruencebetween their biological sex
and their um, psychologicalexperience of gender.
So that's gender dysphoria.
Transgenderism is the.
Is our transgender, let's say atransgender is someone whose

(18:08):
gender identity does not conformto their biological sex.
So it's someone who might beexperiencing gender dysphoria.
And then they decide I'm goingto have a, I'm going to be have
a sex transition and gendertransition surgery, transition
and gender transition surgery,something like that.
Or I'm going, at the very leastI'm going to present myself as
the other gender.

(18:28):
I may not go through with thetransition surgeries, but I may
put on the outward attire andstart acting like the other
gender.
Or I might just deny altogetherthat there's what's called a
gender binary, that is, thebelief that there's only two
genders men and women.
So some people say there's agender binary.
That is the belief that, uh,there's only two genders, male
and or men and women.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
So some people say there's no gender.
It's just the next step of thedysphoria, yeah, yeah okay, you
were so just to go back inhistory, because I love a
history lesson, but was there soreally early?

Speaker 3 (19:00):
20th century yeah early 20th century did this I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
It feels a little ignorant to say that's when it
started.
I'm sure that there areoccurrences of transgender or
gender dysphoria before you know.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, I'm sure there were.
In fact, you know, we can findexamples all throughout history
of someone who might be like sexdisorders, like developmental
sex disorders that's the word Iwas looking for earlier DSDs,
developmental sex disorders aresomething that occurs naturally

(19:34):
and that it's something thatgoes wrong in the developmental
process, and so someone could beborn intersex or
hermaphroditical or havesomething like Kleinfelter's
syndrome or something like allthese other kind of disorders
that we've identified.
It's perfectly reasonable tothink that people throughout

(19:55):
history have been born withthose, but they're exceedingly
rare.
I guess he talks about all thoselike their disorders, but they
were never identities thediscussion about how, what to do
with people who are born withthese disorders is.
The real question is how do webring them into conformity with

(20:28):
their um chromosomal, like theirgenetic makeup?
So someone who is born intersexhere's a good example uh, the
olympics, just to see the boxer,the female female who won gold.
Or she, the person who won goldin the female boxing she is a
biological male, she has XYchromosomes.
So there's this whole debateand there's a lot of confusion

(20:51):
around this topic because herdefenders will say, well, no,
she is a woman, she's been awoman her whole life, I think,
and I think that's because she'sborn biological male.
But she's born intersex, whichis like the genitals don't quite
form clearly, like they're sortof mixed up, and the doctor

(21:14):
then has to make a decision.
The parents have to make adecision.
In what way are we going tostructure this person and raise
them?
How are you going to raise them?
A boy or a girl?
and it's a tough decision tomake.
Um, so that's why the thechallenge, the controversy with
this boxer is that, having xychromosomes, she has all the

(21:36):
genetic markers of a man,including like elevated
testosterone and other thingsthat give her an advantage like
an advantage as a man wouldwalking into female boxing and
I'm probably going to getcanceled for saying these things
, but that was what thecontroversy was swirling about
and that's why she wasdisqualified from the.

(21:57):
I think some boxing federationbefore the Olympics said you
can't box in women's sportsbecause of these things in the
Olympicslympics letter and I'msaying her just kind of loosely,
because it helps.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
But I would say she's a biological man I think
anybody can understand that amale and a female in a boxing
ring, it's very clear that themale is gonna win.
So if a woman, who is, you know, identifying as a woman and has
lived her whole life as a womanbecause of that intersex
decision at her child's birth, Ithink the way that she lives
her life makes sense.
But I also think, yes, you havesignificantly more of, like,

(22:30):
certain hormones and musclebuilds than I'll ever have bone
density, everything yeah I meanboth are true.
I mean, yeah, she was raised asa woman her whole life because
of a decision at birth, but youdid have access to different
things than me, than my human,my female body ever would yeah,
yeah, it would.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
I mean it would be like it'd be akin to um, um, you
know, someone taking, taking,uh, like thc their whole life,
not thc, that's marijuana uhyeah it's like where are we
going?
I'm definitely going to getcanceled now.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
We're way too tired for this podcast right now.
One of the things that I feellike comes up a lot, especially
now today, is how do youreconcile with God made me this
way?
I genuinely feel in my heartthat he misgendered me.
So where am I supposed to landin my relationship with God, who
is supposed to know me,supposed to love me, supposed to

(23:26):
care for me?
But I genuinely feel like hemisgendered me.
Like where does that go?

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah.
So there's a lot of scientificresearch and debate about what
causes gender dysphoria.
To date, there's no study thathas proven oh, it's this genetic
marker or it's this hormonalimbalance or something that is
actually.
Oh, it's this genetic marker orit's this hormonal imbalance or
something that is actuallycausing this and it's a natural
thing for this person andtherefore this is a good thing

(23:52):
to transition them, because alot of these studies there's
correlations, but there'snothing that shows a causative
or causation between somethingthat happened biologically and
that's what's driving thisidentity in me now.
So that's one piece.
It's similar to the argument ofare people born gay?
The question are people borngay?

(24:15):
Why could I not live this way?
I'm born this way.
So the question is aretransgender people simply born
transgender or with genderdysphoria?
And that's all we can say aboutit.
But the answer is no.
It's not as simple as that.
But let's recognize somethingthat the fall does affect us in
lots of different ways and welive in a fallen, broken world

(24:36):
and sometimes, just like, we cansee these disorders in sexual
development developmental sexualdisorders, as they're called.
Sometimes those happen.
They're rare, but they dohappen and it's tragic when they
do happen.
We can recognize that sometimesit's psychological, like the
body may be intact but somethinghappened in the brain.

(24:57):
And the point there is not toroot the identity, a person's
identity, in what has happenedin the head, but to look at the
given natural reality of theperson.
They're born chromosomal male,they're anatomically male, so
the body is actually telling ussomething about what ought to be
.

(25:17):
And so one of the arguments thatthe Ryan T Anderson's book goes
into that, um, what's happenedin the transgender movement is
that it's actually reversing ourunderstanding of medicine and
what, how we ought to treatsomeone.
Because if we say well, the,the, we started out, you know,
for traditionally we've said thebody is what should direct our

(25:39):
treatment, but now they'vereversed and said no, the mind
of the subjective state thatcan't be observed by anyone is
the thing that directs treatment.
So when you get into theHippocratic oath of, my first
responsibility as a doctor is todo no harm.
But if I'm permanently alteringthe body, which is intact by
itself, like it's functioningproperly and it's an organism

(26:01):
that is, all the parts areworking properly, and I'm taking
this person's subjective stateor feeling and using that as the
basis for my treatment, thatseems like a slippery slope that
can cause all kinds of problems.
Anyway, I'm going down a road.
That's a little bit differentof an answer.
But why would God let me beborn this way?
I think the problem we need torecognize is that the fall

(26:23):
affects us all, and affects usall in lots of different ways.
But God calls us to live as menand women.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Despite the fall.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Yeah, the fall pushes on our natures as human beings
and God calls us to holiness.
I mean I'm born with aproclivity to seek revenge on
people if they do me wrong.
Does that mean it's right?
It's a good point?
Yeah, so I can be born with apredisposition to alcoholism.

(26:52):
Does that mean God doesn't loveme because of that?
No, god recognizes thosestruggles, but he still calls us
to holiness and he calls usback to him.
Okay, but you asked about theBible and I think you want to go
deeper into history, am I right?
Yeah, I want to talk about theBible if you haven't caught on,
so let's, let's transport way,way back into ancient history,

(27:12):
shall we?
Yes, so I admit I'm not anauthority when it comes to
things like Native Americantwo-spirit stuff, because
oftentimes the transgendergroups will point to like, well,
look there's, there's twospirit people in animistic
religions and Native Americanreligion.
We can see that it's usually ashaman or something like that
that lived as both genders andsort of channeled both quote

(27:37):
unquote spirits in the spiritworld which you know.
That's a whole.
Nother topic we could get intosometime is religions like that,
but I'm not an authority onthat, so I'll just kind of punt
to someone who probably isbetter at that.
I actually have some books Ican recommend at the end of the
episode for people if they wantto check stuff out.
But let's go all the way back.

(27:57):
I said the Bible has a lot tosay about this issue.
I said the Bible has a lot tosay about this issue, even
though the word transgenderdoesn't show up, or gender
dysphoria or any of the medicalmodern terms that we use.
Okay.
Similarly, the word abortiondoesn't occur in the Bible, but
the Bible has a lot to say aboutlife, especially unborn life.
So there's a lot of things thatthe Bible doesn't address

(28:20):
directly like a modern issue,but there's principles that we
can see in scripture thatdefinitely apply.
And then there's some thingsthat are tucked away that we
should be aware of.
That may help us, like you know, cultural things.
Okay, so let's get into this.
The point I made in thehomosexuality episode I'll make
here again.
We need to first get a bigpicture of what the Bible says

(28:42):
about gender, just like we needto get a big picture of what the
Bible says about sex and howit's placed in the heterosexual
marriage union.
Well, we need to look at thebroad picture of what the Bible
says about gender, the bigpicture, and then so that's our
positive case, and then we canaddress some of the what I call
a negative case, like theprohibitions and things that say

(29:03):
this is wrong.
But what the Bible says is good.
It overwhelmingly, universallydescribes the genders as man and
woman, and it does that frombeginning to end.
So right off the bat you knowGenesis 1 and Genesis 2, you see
the creation narratives.
God creates man and woman, maleand female, and he doesn't just

(29:26):
create them that way.
They have roles to play thatare based on their genders.
So God creates a woman and hesays like hey, adam, I've made a
helper for you, someone who issuitable for you when they fall,
well, let me back up.
So then he tells them befruitful and multiply and fill

(29:47):
the earth.
So there's definitely a role toplay for both men and women in
filling the earth and beingfruitful and multiplying.
You need the complementarygender roles to do that.
You can't do as the old quip,the old joke says.
You know, in the evangelicalworld God made Adam and Eve, not
Adam and Steve, okay.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
So I don't know if you've ever heard that or not,
but I've heard it, but I dothink that a lot of people I
mean I want you to keep going,so I'm not going to sidetrack
too much.
I'm already hearing kind of theconversations that I were
brought up with of like well,that's kind of dated, like we've
got enough people, don't youthink like we, I don't think we
need to abide by that oldcommandment because like that
was when the earth was empty, sowhat's the point?

(30:23):
Like it shouldn't apply?
Would it be a non-sequitur?
Or do you feel like that iswhat the word of god says?
So if we're gonna throw out oneverse why you know like you
gotta stay with all of them.
How would you respond to that?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
yeah, well, you know, we, our natures haven't changed
, like we're still human beings,created in the image of god.
So again, if I if I'm talkingto Christians, I would say,
genesis 1 and 2 say that we arein the image of God, do you
think that's dated?
If they say no, then I say, whynot?
Because, well, it's still oursame nature, we're still created
man and woman, and that isconsistent throughout history.

(30:56):
And so our genetic and sexdifferences actually clue us
into how we need to relate toone another and to God.
Now, that doesn't necessarilymean that if you don't go out
and get married and havechildren, that you're therefore
sinning.
I mean, there's verses in theNew Testament that talk about
being single or being married,and both can serve the Lord.

(31:18):
But the fundamental genetic sexdistinctions and how we relate
to one another, that hasn'tchanged, and I would say no
society in the history of theearth can function unless they
recognize those sex differencesand accommodate them.
Now, each society does that alittle different, but each
society has done that.

(31:38):
When a society tries not to dothat, we get chaos.
They try not to reproduce triesnot to do that, we get chaos.
They try not to reproduce?
Well no, when they begin toblur the sex distinctions or
deny them altogether andredefine them as something
totally different, as we seetoday, Okay, good answer, keep
going.
Yeah, so even the curse there'seffects on men and women.

(32:01):
Men, because of theirphysicality and their
responsibility to provide and towork and to defend, God says
you're going to go out into thefield and you're going to have
to work hard and the ground isnot going to yield the fruit
that it once did.
So the curse on man has to dowith his labor and his work,
which relates to his physicalityand his ability to provide, so
that's going to be much harderfor him.

(32:22):
A curse on women her pain andchildbearing is going to be much
worse.
And if we're related to thefeminist movement, God says and
your desire is going to be foryour husband, but he's going to
rule over you, and that thefirst desire there means the
desire to control.
So, yeah, I mean there's somedebate about that, but I think
that's a pretty strong argument,that that's what that means,

(32:45):
because in the next chapter,cain, when God rejects Cain's
sacrifice, god says Behold, cainsin crouches at the door and
its desire is for you.
It's the same word the sin iscrouching at Cain's door and it
desires to have its way with you, cain.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
So it's the same word there.
Yeah, I would have attributeddesire to like more like a
sexual, like attraction type ofthing.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Yeah, some people do, because they the same word pops
up in Song of Solomon.
But again, that's a differentcontext, that's poetry, that's
centuries and centuries later.
What you have is in theimmediate next chapter you have
this like the same, you have asimilar concept at play with the
same word, because he says look, this is I mean mean, it
doesn't sound like much of acurse, if you like.
Like hey, you guys are reallygoing to want to have sex?

(33:27):
Like that doesn't sound like acurse.
That's what my I take that frommy theology professors like
that wouldn't be a curse that'sa good point, yeah, so he says
your desire is going to be forhim, but he will rule over you.
So the contrast, that's that'swhat clues us in.
So anyway.
So, like the even in the curseon on human beings, the

(33:48):
consequences for sin relate toour genders in some way, so we
can't really escape that.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Okay, I'm calling.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, but we can go even further.
I mean, let's, we'll come backto some of the old Testament law
stuff, law stuff.
Let's jump all the way into theNew Testament.
We see gender distinctions inJesus, how he teaches on
marriage.
He goes all the way back to thebeginning.
The Jews are asking him aboutdivorce and he says, hey, from
the beginning it wasn't so, butGod created the male and female

(34:17):
and the husband will leave hisfather and his mother and the
wife and he will cleave to hiswife and they too shall become
one flesh, so the two of thembeing complementary to one
another.
Uh, that that clues us in andhow human beings, how men and
women, are to relate to oneanother.
Uh, similarly, there's thatmarriage complementarianism, uh

(34:39):
is a model for the church in thebride of Christ as the bride of
Christ.
So Paul talks about this inEphesians 5.
He says the relationshipbetween a husband and wife is
this mystery that models Christand his church.
So there again, you see thisdistinction, this gender if
you'll forgive the term, genderbinary between men and women,

(35:00):
this distinction in the rolesthat they play.
Paul says husbands, love yourwives and give yourself for them
.
Wives, submit to your husbands.
And then he goes on and gives alot of other different
responsibilities for each, andthat's just one passage.
We have 1 Peter 3, colossians 3, or a couple others.

(35:23):
1 Corinthians 7,.
Paul says that the relationshipbetween man and woman, the
sexual relationship, isimportant between them because
you don't want to fall intosexual immorality.
So man and woman, husband andwife, are responsible to like.
They can't claim ownership oftheir own bodies.
He says the wife owns thehusband, the husband owns the

(35:44):
wife, so the two of them have togive of themselves to one
another again, yeah, the, thegender, the gender distinctions
are there.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
I feel like the gender distinctions definitely
are there and I think thisreally supports like the same
sexual attraction.
Um, a lot of the verses that wediscussed before.
But what if you, you know, hadtwo people, you and that I'm a
born female but I identify as amale, and then my partner?
It's the reverse, so born malebut identify as female?
Couldn't I arguably be like Tim?
I agree with you and that's whyI'm the husband you know like.

(36:16):
How do I'm?
You know, I'm aligning myselfbiblically here because I'm well
suited within that male husbandrole and I'm abiding by that.
I'm well suited within thatmale husband role and I'm
abiding by that in God.
I feel like those verses, kindof like you always said those
roles at the beginning of whatwe were made to do biblically,
where is God pointing out youdon't get to question it, you
don't get to have that secondguess.

(36:37):
You don't get to decidesomething that I decided for you
.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Does God really put his finger on that?
In other words, is it morallypermissible for us to change our
bodies and assume the role ofthe other gender?

Speaker 2 (36:48):
The marriage is male and female as long as one of us
steps into the roles.
Technically it's biblical right.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, so do you remember?
In the homosexuality talk weaddressed the issue of just the
sexual relationship.
Like men and men, women andwomen, there's no indication
that a woman can become a man ora man become a woman.
That would be patently obviousto the first century Christian
to look at that and say, no, youcan't do that.

(37:16):
But here's why Because theywould have been aware of cults,
religious cults in their daythat were doing that too.
But even more than that, well,not not entering into uh like
transgender type relationships,but but, um, cross-dressing,
doing a transvestite type stuff,uh, castration, uh all that

(37:39):
kind of stuff was was takingplace.
They relate that back to theold testament law too.
There's, there's prescriptionsin the old testament law that
talk about uh mutilating one'sbody and why that's a big word
yeah, that actually.
Uh change.
Israelites weren't supposed todo that for various reasons.
Is there a difference?
Mutilating their genitals?

Speaker 2 (38:00):
right, but is there a difference between like that
could be, that's torture.
That was torture, that was not.
Them being like I don'tidentify with my genitals, I'm
gonna change them and we'recalling it mutilation.
Like is that possible that likeyou're referencing like torture
or something?

Speaker 3 (38:14):
no, it's, it's religious devotion.
Is what is what's happening?
Now some okay, some people.
If they're, they're forciblymade eunuchs because they were
captured by a conquering army orsomething like that.
That's one thing.
But well, let's get into it,because I think there's good
evidence to show what theprescriptions in the Old
Testament are talking about.
Are not just people who've beenphysically altered by coercion

(38:39):
and violence.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
There's something else going on there.
There's some consent there.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Yeah Okay, violence.
There's something else going onthere, yeah, okay.
So the main verses that come upin this debate are Deuteronomy
22.5 and then Deuteronomy 23.1.
Deuteronomy 23.5 says that menand women should not wear the
clothing of the other gender.
Okay, that a man should not puton the clothing of a woman and
the woman should not put on theclothing of a man.
In other words, they should notappear as, or disguise

(39:04):
themselves as, the other gender.
And I apologize for looking tothe side, I'm looking at my
notes as I talk to you.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
That's pretty out there.
I mean there it is.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, so why would they say that?
Let me read a quote to you fromAlan Branch, who wrote a book
on this subject called theAffirming God, god's image,
addressing the transgenderquestion with science and
scripture.
So that's one of the books I'llrecommend.
Oh, that's it.
Yeah, so there's a quote heresays a woman he's summarizing a
woman shall not wear a man'sclothing.

(39:34):
That's the.
That's what the verse says, thethe word clothing.
There is kelly, k-e-l-e ork-e-l-i, excuse me, that hebrew
word kelly did not just refer toa man's outer garment, but also
to vestments, utensils, tools,furnishings, etc.
And what he's, what he's sayinghere is that and it's not just
clothing, but anything thatwould make a woman appear as a

(39:56):
man, uh, that's, she should notdo that.
She's not basically fool anyoneinto thinking she is a man.
And similarly, uh, nor shall aman put on a woman's clothing.
And the word there is simla,and that refers just
specifically to the outergarment or mantle that a woman
would wear.
And this points to the factthat neither sex should attempt

(40:17):
to confuse people by appearingas the opposite sex.
So cross-dressing in thatpassage, in that verse, it's
called an abomination, so it'sput in the same level as other
sexual sins that are listed inthat section in Leviticus.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Does it say why?
Because that seems like, oh, Ican't wear menswear or else I'm
sinning.
Or is it referring to somethingway bigger?

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, because cross-dressing was associated
with all the other types ofsexual immorality.
Homosexuality, not necessarilylike cross-dressing would be
like these, but all of these arelisted together as forms of
sexual immorality.
Because you're changing thegender roles and you're doing
this for sexual, quasi-sexual,religious practices.

(41:05):
Yeah, so in the very nextchapter, deuteronomy 23.1, it
says that men with mutilatedgenitals were not permitted in
places of worship.
Now, the grammar of that versewe don't have time to parse it
but it speaks of men in twodifferent ways Men who have it

(41:29):
says basically they've beencrushed, like their genitals
have been crushed, and then menwho have basically cut off their
own.
So it may be referred to somemen who this has been done to,
or that they've done itthemselves, or that they've done
it themselves.
But the context seems to berelated to occult prostitution
in some way, because a fewverses later it talks about

(41:52):
temple prostitution, how men andwomen should not give their
sons and daughters over totemple prostitution.
So there seems to be in thecontext.
Again, context is what needs toguide our discussion here and
the context seems to be alludingto ritualistic practices going
on.
Now what possibly could begoing on?

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, what is cultic prostitution or temple
prostitution?

Speaker 3 (42:16):
So this is important to remember that the Israelites
they're going into the land ofCanaan and they are told to live
differently than the people ofCanaan.
Well, the people of Canaan haveall kinds of religious
practices and there's a veryprominent deity that comes from
Babylon.
Her name is Ishtar and she'slater brought into Canaanite

(42:38):
religion.
Her functions kind of change alittle bit, but she's later
identified with Asherah orAshtaroth in the scripture.
So if you come across the wordAsherah or Ashtaroth or Asherah
pole, that is likely an allusionto Ishtar, now Asherah starting
out, which is a Babylonian god.

(42:58):
Yeah, some of the Hebrewscholars are going to like say,
well, wait, wait, wait.
You know, like Asherah startedout as something different, as
the wife of a different God, butlater on Asherah and Ishtar are
kind of conflated together in alot of Canaanite religions.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
Wasn't Jezebel like a leader in that cult?
I thought I remember that.
Yeah, she erects.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Asherah poles at the high places around Israel, which
is a common thing Wheneveridolatry would return to.
Israel, they would erect thehigh places around Israel, which
is a common thing.
Whenever idolatry would returnto Israel, they would erect the
high places in the Asherah poles.
So it's likely at that pointthey've probably mixed the
worship of Asherah with theworship of Ishtar.
Now why is Ishtar important?
She is a Babylonian goddess,but she's known for her ability

(43:40):
to change her genders, andchange the gender of men and
women back and forth, and hermale devotees, which were called
the Kogaru.
They were known to castratethemselves and to make
themselves quote unquote female,so they would sometimes
castrate themselves and thenassume the female role in sexual
relations.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Willingly with consent.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Yeah, they were devotees of the cult.
Yeah, they were devotees of thecult, yeah, yeah.
So we have lots of evidence forthis, both in Canaanite
literature, babylonianliterature, that this was going
on.
So when scripture isreferencing it, it's well aware
of this happening.
Yeah, that seems to be thecontext of why God is telling
the Israelites do not do this,because when you are blurring

(44:24):
the gender distinctions, you areacting like these idolaters.
That is not how.
Basically, it's not how Icreated you.
I created you made a woman, soyou're not to blur the gender
distinctions.
So that's the key text thatcome to us from the Old
Testament.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Let me scroll down here for my notes.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Yeah, so that seems to be the link in the Old
Testament.
When we get to the NewTestament, there's also, what
about the New Testament?
Yeah, well, I didn't evenmention some of the other gender
role passages, but one that'simportant is 1 Corinthians 11.
And there's a lot of debateabout all the different gender
roles that Paul gets into inthat passage.

(45:05):
But essentially, if you want toboil it down to like a brass
tacks, paul is pointing to menact a certain way and women act
a certain way in the church, andhe doesn't just say because
it's in the church, he relatesit back to their natures.
Again, we don't have time tokind of exposit the whole
chapter, but he's addressingthis problem of women not

(45:29):
covering their head in churchand why that's inappropriate.
So there's a lot of culturalthings going on here, but he is
pointing to that there's naturalthings for men to do and
natural things for women to doand it's related to their
natures.
God creates man and then hecreates woman, and that order is
important because it reveals alittle bit about our functions

(45:51):
and how we relate to one another.
Yes, I know it's vague.
Again, I don't want to getbogged down into the weeds of
that chapter because there'slike umpteen million different
debates just on that chapteralone.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
I was about to say, like what do I?

Speaker 3 (46:10):
oh my gosh, I'm not ready to change my ways now yeah
, no, no, no, I don't think it'ssaying that women need to cover
their head in church.
I don't think that's that's anappropriate that's.
I think that was a culturalthing that was going on.
But the principles that derivefrom that are that, uh,
essentially one, well, oneprinciple that I think is from
that chapter that's appropriateis that, uh, well, for instance,

(46:33):
with women, they should not umpresent themselves in a way
that's uh, that would accentuatetheir sexuality.
I think that's one of theprinciples that comes from that
passage.
Again, uh, again, I don't wantto get into it because it's like
we'd have to get into, likelooking at each verse, but I
think that's one of theprinciples that would come from
that.
Another one would be like Paulsays, even nature teaches that

(46:54):
it's a shame for a man to havelong hair.
Now, he doesn't say that menhaving long hair is a sin, but
he's pointing to there'ssomething in nature that says
men should not look like women.
It was an honorable thing forwomen to grow their hair out and
there was sexual connotationswith that.
So for a man to do that to growhis hair out and basically look

(47:17):
like a woman, he's like.
Nature teaches you not to dothat Interesting.
Okay, now I will defer to myNew Testament scholars.
If you ever want to just dive adeep dive in 1 Corinthians 11,
just buckle up.
There's a lot there.
But the first century, when Isaid that Christians, in the

(47:37):
first century, it would havebeen obvious to them that of
course you can't change, youought not to mutilate yourself,
you ought not to change, youought not to mutilate yourself
what we might call.
It's a bit of an anachronism tosay sex transition, because
someone who is in a cult likethis, devoting themselves,
they're not really transitioningto the other gender, but they
are embodying the other gender,let's say so.

(48:00):
There's a couple of prominentcults, greco-roman cults in the
first century that we know awhole lot more about than we do
the cult of Ishtar, which weknow a lot about, the cult of
Ishtar.
These cults were the cult ofDemeter and then the cult of and
if you look at it in English itlooks like Sybil, but in Greek
it's Kubile, which I think is alot cooler of a name.
It's spelled C-Y-B-E-L-E.

(48:22):
I'll just say Sybil, becauseeven though I like saying kubole
, it sounds kind of pretentiousto always keep saying it, you
know when you say cults, I guessI'm imagining like the modern
day cults we watch documentarieson.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Is there much difference there, or were they
just religions that hadsacrifices?

Speaker 3 (48:37):
they weren't cults like we would think of today.
Oh, these were uh mystery cults.
I'll often tell well uh some ofthem are mystery cults each,
each god in the pan god orgoddess in the roman pantheon
had their it was called theirown cult it wasn't like.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
This is like we would .
It wasn't mythology type.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yeah, it wasn't like we would think of the day of
like, oh, like that group overthere.
They got their own prophet,their cult.
This was more like a normalword to use, like oh, it's the
cult of sybil.
It use Like oh, it's the cultof Sibyl, it's the cult of
Demeter, it's the cult of Apollo.
Like it's their group and thedevotees and how they worship
that god or god.
There was the cult of theemperor.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Got it but you wouldn't call, like the Hebrews,
like the cult of Jesus.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
No, no, they didn't really.
Yeah, the Jews would say thatthey weren't true Jews, they
were called the Christians.
They're not true Jews and theywould actually use the Roman
Empire.
They would tell the Romans likeyou can't trust these
Christians, you need to killthem.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
That's what the first century Jews would often do.
So it's very separate just theway that those organizations
functioned Like.
One functions like a cult, theother functions like a group,
what would you call the Hebrews?

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Yeah, well, the Jews.
The Romans made a lot ofaccommodations to the Jews when
they took over Palestine.
The Jews were like we'remonotheists, we're not
worshiping any of your gods, andagain I'm a little fuzzy on why
this happened.
But the Romans basically made alot of accommodations for the
Jews.

(50:04):
They were allowed to keep theirtemple worship, monotheism to
Yahweh, and all that.
When Christianity comes on thescene and says Jesus is the one
true Lord, he's the one true God, this starts worrying the Jews.
This is partly why Jesus iscrucified is because the Jews
cook up.
They go to Pilate and they'relike look, these Christians are
saying that only Jesus is Godand they're not part of us.

(50:26):
And if you don't take care ofthis guy, then we're going to
say that you're not a friend ofCaesar.
And that was a really bad thingfor Pilate because he didn't
want to get, you know, choppedup by Caesar.
Yeah, so the Jews separatedthemselves from the Christians
and they said that theChristians were some wackos out
there.
So the Christians oftentimeswere probably seen more as like
an offshoot mystery cult.
So the mystery cults were alittle bit different.

(50:50):
We don't have time to get intothose, but they were more
secretive.
It all revolved around secretknowledge that you had in this
group that gave you certainaccess to the divine and all
that stuff.
But the christians were kind ofslandered as like a really
wacko group that engaged incannibalism and incest and all
kinds of other things.
That's a slip, that's like youcould.
We see this in Brecker Romanliterature how they talked about

(51:11):
Christians in the first threecenturies.
Yeah, okay, anyway.
So we're we're getting a littlebit off base.
The cult.
So when I say cult I don't meanlike the H of certain religions
within the Roman pantheon.
So the cult of Demeter and thecult of Sybil, along with Attis

(51:33):
Attis is another god that's kindof associated with Sybil these
cults were known for what wemight call like transgender-like
behavior.
Let me just read to you this soSybil, or Kubele as she's
called, she's brought in to theRoman pantheon and she's called

(51:54):
the Great Mother, the MagnaMartyr as they call her, and her
devotees are known forgender-bending-type behavior
because of her myth and thestories surrounding her.
But the male devotees werecalled the galley g-a-l-l-i it's
where it's a root of the wordgaelic, like the goals and
gaelic.

(52:15):
Yeah, so she was really big upthere too, um, but they lived in
communities together and theyunderwent self-castration.
So they would go through thisritual, oftentimes public, so
the first time they do this.
Like the romans are like allhappy that they've brought in
this new god or goddess becauseshe's given them victory in
battle.
And the devotees are likewalking down the street and then

(52:35):
just at sunset, they allcastrate themselves.
And the Romans are like whoa,oh, like this is fine.
You know that meme.
The meme with the dog on fire,like this is fine.
Or the kid on the bus, like I'min danger.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
But the galley would I think, in memes sometimes
that's just what I do, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
So the galley would.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
they would castrate themselves, and then they would
dress as women and they woulddon even they would don heavy
makeup at times.
And this was for worship purpose.
Yeah, well, it was.
Yeah, to show that they'redevoting themselves.
They're so devoted to Sybilthat they would change their
gender and present themselves asa woman.
Got it?
Yes, they would do that.

(53:20):
Now we know that the firstcentury Jewish writers talk
about this.
Philo and Josephus are two ofthe most well-known Jewish
writers at the time, and theyboth describe this behavior and
they both talk about how it'sinconsistent.
Like Jews, do not do this.
Like good Jews do not do this,because it violates those laws

(53:41):
that we just talked about inLeviticus.
So I'm not even talking aboutChristian authors.
Even the Jewish authors arepointing to this behavior,
describing it as confusing thecreated order, that they're
disrupting and destroying thecreated order that God has set
up, and that Jews themselvesshould not do this.
Now, christians considerthemselves an offshoot of the

(54:03):
Jews.
Many of them are Jewish, and sothey would also be aware of
this type of behavior.
It would be all around them,and they would know that men and
women ought not to confusetheir gender roles in that way.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Just looking back from a 2024 perspective, it's
historically known that thishappens.
This isn't just like atransgender movement of 2024 and
the 21st century.
This has been, you know, goingon in the past and even in the
past it was not seen as analignment with god.
So it's not like we suddenlyhave this resurgence of a
different type of identity andnow that people have are having

(54:39):
their own valid personalexperiences, we need to embrace
it as if it was at the samelevel of just male and female.
Even in ancient near Near Eastculture, when this was occurring
, this was not seen as analignment with God.
So today, in 2024, we shouldnot see it as an alignment with
God.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
Yeah, I would stop short of and I don't think
you're saying this, but I wouldstop short of anyone who would
say that what's going on in the21st century is just like what
was happening in the firstcentury, even though I think
there are a lot of parallels anda lot of similarities, and
there is in some circles of theLGBT movement there is some,

(55:18):
let's say, calling back toancient paganism and these
practices, that some of them areactually religious and or quasi
religious in that sense, butnot everyone that's involved in
the movement today would be likethat.
But, to the point, christianswould have known about the
appall, certainly would haveknown about this.

(55:38):
I mean, he was a jew, trainedjust like josephus and philo.
He would have known about this.
He would have known about thelaw and all these cults so when
he's talking about gender rolesand not to confuse them.
He may not have had these cultsspecifically in mind, but the
Christians would have knownabout them.
It would have been surroundedby them.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Okay, so, since we don't have the cults today and
the cultic practices today andit is very different you know's
the relationship between theaction in the past for these
cultic purposes and then what'shappening today at like pride,
festivals and transition, andyou know, non-binary, what's the

(56:16):
?

Speaker 3 (56:16):
well, I think what we said before about idolatry, uh,
that idolatry doesn't look thesame, but there are are similar
aspects to it.
So no one is ushering out likea big statue of Sybil, let's say
, or Ishtar, and saying, hey,this is who represents us now,

(56:38):
but the idolatry of elevatinglet's elevating my sexual
expression as the end-all,be-all in life, that would be a
form of idolatry, instead ofsaying trying to reckon with how
God has created men and womenand their roles in society,
trying to throw all of that offand redefine ourselves through

(57:00):
moral relativism and naturalism,atheism, whatever all the other
things that come along with it,or even, at times, paganism all
of these things would be verysimilar.
Uh, forms of idolatry and that'sit, so that's what I would.
That's the link that I would.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
I see I would make I see that, gosh, I'm really
struggling with this, tim, justfrom a from a standpoint of like
knowing all of this, knowingit's coming from a place of like
lack of choosing god, or lackof better, how, how do I now
love my friends who aretransgender?

Speaker 1 (57:30):
How do I love?

Speaker 2 (57:31):
them through this?
How do I make them not feellike I'm forcing something on
them Because, again, it's theirchoice?
I have no place to judge thisLiterally, don't have that power
whatsoever.
It's all on God.
But, like my job here is tolove them, how do I love them
through this?
It's something I can't relateto, I don't understand, but I,
so clearly I'm like I just wantyou in good graces with God.
So what would be the bestadvice here?

Speaker 3 (57:52):
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Again, I want to be clear.
When I'm talking about idolatryand I'm sort of hard hitting on
this stuff I'm talking aboutthe movement like transgender
ideology, because ideologies setthemselves up as worldviews to
explain and give meaning to ourlives.
But when we're talking aboutindividuals who experience

(58:13):
gender dysphoria or perhapsthey've gone through gender
reassignment surgery and thenthey wake up, you know, and
they're like I made a mistake or, if not, maybe they're not
there yet and they'reexperiencing gender dysphoria
and they find their communityamong people who say you know
what we want to affirm you inthis and we want to help you

(58:33):
transition, and they're gettingall this advice and what might
be akin to love bombing from acommunity like this.
It can be very, very alluringto them.
It can be very, very powerfulalluring to them.
It can be very, very powerful.
So I think, as Christians, weneed to understand that and not
just stereotype everyone who isin that space and think that, oh

(58:54):
, they're all radical politicalactivists and they're all out to
get me and all that stuff.
Certainly, there's politicalfights going on.
I'm not going to deny that.
But when you're dealing withindividuals, we need to be very
diplomatic, careful, and I thinkour attitude needs to be

(59:16):
seasoned with mercy and grace.
I think if you were to look at aperson, you know Jesus.
Often, when he's, jesussurrounds himself with social
misfits and he doesn't actually.
He doesn't act, he doesn'tcondone sin.
Okay, when, when the womancaught in adultery, uh, is left
by the pharisees and she's justthere with jesus, he looks

(59:38):
around and says who condemns you?
And she's?
I don't know no one.
He says neither do I, but goand sin no more.
So you know he's willing toassociate with social outcasts,
but also leading them to a placeof holiness and repentance.
And I think we need to do thattoo.
We need to look at people withmercy.

(59:59):
You know, when Jesus,oftentimes he looks at crowds or
he encounters a demoniac, ademon possessed person, and he
says he looks at him and he hascompassion on that person
because he's God, he understandsthat person, he understands how
they got there, and I thinkwhen we're dealing with
individuals, we need to look atthem and maybe just consider how

(01:00:19):
did this person get there?
Not that we condone everythingthat they did, and not that
we're saying that we need to nowaccept their lifestyle and call
it good and all that stuff.
But you're talking to anindividual and you're going to
drive them further away from thegospel if the first posture you
take with them is hostility.
I was listening to an interviewrecently of the daughter of

(01:00:41):
Anton LaVey.
Her name is Zina.
What is Zina LaVey?
I don't know.
I can't remember her name nowafter she got married, but she
was the high priestess of theChurch of Satan in California
and she was being interviewed byJordan Peterson.
This is years later.
This interview is fairly recent, and she's a Buddhist now.

(01:01:02):
She's no longer a Satanist.
She left the Satanist church,she became a Buddhist.
And I was listening to theinterview and I was like that's
interesting.
I wonder if she's going to sayanything about why she became a
Buddhist, or maybe why shedidn't become a Christian and
she dropped this hint.
As she's talking, she remembershow, when she was the high
priestess, she was meant to goout there and basically be

(01:01:22):
public relations for the churchof Satan and she remembers very
vividly um, christian,protestant, evangelical giving
her death threats, uh, trying tophysically assault her and
other things like that.
And she, she makes this, shemade this vow in her heart that
I'm never going to be.
That.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
It's really sad yeah, as a sadist that's.
Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Yeah, yeah.
So I would say, you know, withthe transgender community, if
some of them are consideringmaybe they're not necessarily
considering Christ just yet, butmaybe the scales are starting
to fall from their eyes andthey're like you know what,
Maybe this isn't what it waspromised to be the transgender
ideology and the life oftransitioning.

(01:02:05):
I'm starting to have regret.
Are you the kind of person, asa Christian, who could actually
sit down with them and persuadethem to come to Christ?
I think that's a goodreflective question.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
No, definitely not.
I do not think.
I, absolutely not, but I thinkthe best I could.
I don't want to say accepting,but like hold space for them,
love them.
Yeah, not make them feel likethey're less than me, because
who am I to judge?
You know like I'm sure that Ido things that they don't agree
with.
I'm a human.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Well, I think you know, I think there's an advice
that I would give to people isthat think about ways that you
can give hope to someoneno-transcript who have gone

(01:03:09):
through surgeries andpermanently altered themselves.
Those things are irreversibleand for someone like that, if
they come out of that movement,they're going to have this
realization that I can't reallygo back to the way it was
beforehand.
I can't have my body is foreverchanged and that can have.
My body is forever changed andthat can have real effects on

(01:03:29):
someone.
Absolutely yeah, yeah.
And so I think for theChristian, we need to be able to
give hope to that person, onethat life isn't the end, all be
all of life is not our sexualexpression, so like if I think
of this in terms of like asingle person or a widow or

(01:03:50):
someone who's been justpermanently marred in some way
and they're not able to have sexor be in a loving relationship
and have that fulfillment,that's not the end, all be all
of life, and God can give usmeaning and purpose and
happiness in other ways.
So that'd be one step in thatdirection.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
What if they have transitioned and they don't
recall?
Do you think it's the samething?
Give them hope that Jesus stillloves them.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Well, I think if someone really comes to Christ,
or at least they really come toterms with what God is saying
about gender men and women Ithink the light bulbs are going
to come on in their head.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
So again, like this is a conversation for those
earnestly seeking.
This isn't a conversation tosay we're right and everyone
else is wrong because we believein God.
This is really a closed circleof.
If you're trying to seek Godand know him truly, these are
principles that willfundamentally change you.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Yeah, I think, if you're talking about those who
and there are people who gothrough the transition, they
don't regret it, they have theinner feeling of happiness and
they're surrounded by theircommunity, that's certainly
possible.
I wouldn't say that's evidenceof truth, but that's what we
have to do apologetic and wehave to provide reasons Maybe

(01:05:08):
not that would convince them,but convince people that are
listening to both of us.
And we need to providepersuasive arguments for why the
Christian worldview aboutgender is actually the one that
makes the most sense and has themost explanatory power about
human nature.
But those who are earnestlyseeking, you know, I would say
this you know there's a lot of alot of us theologians and

(01:05:30):
ethicists are doing a lot ofthinking about what the Bible
says about eunuchs and how Godloves eunuchs and how you know,
in the Old Testament, eunuchswere not allowed to go inside
the temple because they werephysically marred in that way.
But in the New Testament, goduses a eunuch who knows he can't
go to the temple.
This is the Ethiopian eunuch inActs.

(01:05:50):
When Philip encounters him,this eunuch, he's called a
God-fearer.
He's not a Jew, but he knowsabout the God of Israel and he's
a worshiper of the God ofIsrael.
But he knows I'm a eunuch, Iknow the law, I can't go into
the temple ever.
But when he meets Philip and hegets baptized, he's sent down
to Ethiopia and he is the onethat carries the gospel to

(01:06:14):
Africa.
So God entrusts the spreadingof the gospel to Africa to a
eunuch.
As I said in the other episodewith you on homosexuality,
there's good evidence thatDaniel was likely a eunuch in
Babylon his whole life and heserved in the rural courts.
And there's a really greatverse when Daniel, there's an

(01:06:34):
angel that comes to Daniel anddelivers him a message.
This is in Daniel 10.
But when he shows up and Danielgets scared you know like you
think of all people, like Danielwould not get scared of these
things.
But even Daniel gets scared.
But the angel says to himDaniel, you are greatly loved by
God.
This is a guy who doesn't havea family, he's never married,

(01:06:58):
doesn't have kids that we knowof, he lives away from his
homeland the whole time he's inexile.
And God says to him you aregreatly loved.
Jesus says some have been madeeunuchs for the kingdom and
others have made themselveseunuchs for the kingdom, and
those who are able to receive itwill receive.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Yeah, I think you make a really good point, tim,
on.
Just the sexual identity isn'tthe end all be all, because, yes
, I mean you could say that hewas greatly loved because he was
a eunuch, but he was also afundamental person in the
movement and representation ofJesus in a society that did not
worship God.
You know he was an advisorysource to people on a council
that he set himself apart thatdid not adhere to.

(01:07:37):
You know the Babylonian, youknow just their overall rules,
the sorcerers and the magicians.
You know he played a differentrole in that that represented
Jesus in Christ.
So I'm sure he was lovedgreatly by God for a lot of
reasons, not just because he wasunique, but he did not let that

(01:07:59):
overall define him or separatehim from people and still
worshiping God and had a wife.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):
Yeah, you know, early on in the first part of Daniel,
the famous verse in Daniel,chapter one, when he says Daniel
committed that he would notdefile himself with the king's
meat.
And that sets up the whole bookof the character of Daniel and
who he was.
So yeah, for him as a good Jew,it was like the end, all be all

(01:08:21):
was to be a good Jew, and thatmeant get married and have kids
and all the other things thatyou do as a good Jew.
But he's not able to do any ofthose things, being in Babylon,
living in exile.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Interesting.
I feel like I'm going to ask aquestion.
You won't have a very simpleanswer that I'm looking for, but
it's more so.
Advice for those that arewithin Christ, are within the
word, trying to raise a familythat is in alignment with the
word of God, but they have achild that's transgender, or

(01:08:53):
they have a friend or they havea brother, is.
I don't assume that there's asimple solution here, but how do
we encourage?

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
and give hope.
Well, I would say this first,remember the experience of
gender dysphoria.
If that person is reallyexperiencing that, that the
experience itself I would notsay is a sin, because it's
something that actually therecould be physiological things
that are driving that and weneed to be sensitive to that.
But maybe it's a teenager who'sbeing very influenced by their

(01:09:16):
friend group or school orsomething like that.
I would say, first of all, talkto your like, quickly, talk to
your pastor, talk to a counseloror a Christian counselor that
you know.
If not, there's the AmericanAssociation of Christian
Counselors, aacc.
They have a website you can goand get connected to a Christian

(01:09:38):
counselor in that way.
I'd say that's probably theimmediate thing that I would do
is connect with someone likethat in your immediate space.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
But if I'm not a Christian counselor and I want
to support that person, I don'twant to necessarily make them
feel ashamed.
I don't want to make them feelisolated.
So I want to make them feelloved and known by God.
Without condoning that I agreewith what they're going through.
Is it as simple as that?
It's just like loving with themand praying with them and
encouraging their walk with them.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
Well, when I mean like find a Christian counselor,
what I don't mean is like justthrow that person into
counseling.
What I mean is like just gotalk to someone who can give you
advice on how to conductyourself and how to reach your
loved one.
You know, if your loved one isexperiencing gender dysphoria,

(01:10:28):
or oh, you're saying me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
I go find a counselor , Sending my child to that
counselor.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
No, go get advice from a counselor.
Go get advice from a pastor whocan, because there's so many
variables with situations likethis.
But your pastor or counselorwill be able to give you sound
advice on what to do next andyou can kind of lay out here's
what's going on and they canadvise you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Cool, I thought you were talking about.
My hypothetical child goes tocounseling, not me, but that's
good.

Speaker 3 (01:10:58):
I do think eventually that would take place.
But first, if you are not surewhat to do with your child or a
loved one, go get godly advice.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Wow, that's awesome.
That's refreshing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
I wasn't expecting that Proverbs says, in a
multitude of counselors there isa oh, nice answer, Nice and
short.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Yeah, yeah, all right , let's see those books that
you've got for us today.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
Yeah, you see me looking at the books.
So we'll wrap it up.
There's probably people thatare listening to this saying,
hey, you didn't get into thescience, you didn't get into all
the different arguments againstit and all this stuff, because,
again, we were just talkingabout the Bible and the culture
of the New Testament, oldTestament.
So let me give you some booksthat you can do a deep dive into
the subject if you want.

(01:11:38):
And then a trick of the tradewith scholarship when you're
reading one book and you see alot of sources, go and buy those
sources at the back of the booktoo.
So, yeah, lots of reading.
So the first one I mentionedwas Affirming God's Image by
Alan Branch.
It's called Addressing theTransgender Question with
Science and Scripture.
It's a really good synopsis ofthe whole debate and it's not

(01:12:02):
that big.
You can see it right there.
So that's the first.
Second one, another Christianbook.
This guy was my third, myoutside reader of my
dissertation.
His name is Andrew Walker.
This is called God and theTransgender Debate.
What does the Bible actuallysay about gender identity?
Wow, so another like short bookand it's not very meaty, you

(01:12:23):
know.
I mean it's a good, sound bookbut it's not like heavy hitting,
Like you got to know Greek andHebrew and things like that to
understand this book.
The next book and I think thisis an amazing book, this is
written by this one's calledwhen Harry Became Sally
Responding to the TransgenderMoment.
This is by Ryan T Anderson.
He is a Catholic philosopher atthe Heritage Foundation and
this book.
This is the hard hitting book onthe movement and he provides a

(01:12:48):
really really good non-biblicalargument.
So this is a public, almostlike public policy type book.
It's a really really good bookand, to make it more intriguing,
it got banned from Amazon, soyou can't get it on Amazon.
You got to get it fromsomewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Why did it get?

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
banned Because the LGBTQ movement accused him of
misinformation and hate speechand bigoted and all this other
stuff.
It got banned in 2019, I thinkhe was on a lot of different
conservative talk show hoststalking about it.
I've sat in classes not withthis guy.

(01:13:25):
He was lecturing my class.
This is a sound book.
It's sound research and soundargumentation.
So it's really unfortunate thatAmazon gave into the mob.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Interesting Because the other books are.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
No, they're on Amazon .
This is the prohibited book, soyou got to get it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Interesting, do you?
Think it was maybe private,because it wasn't saying like
we're a christian book, it wasjust saying like this is just
you know, I that was a, I thinkthat it was.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
The debate was so ramped up at that time and
amazon has now kind of backedaway from like banning a lot of
books I think it's a thing to do.
I think if that book came outnow it probably wouldn't catch
that much attention, but it wasthe book that was just taking a
sledgehammer into the ideology.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
So go to good old bookstores, or is there, like
another website that you can?

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
get on Barnes and Noble, actually, or you could
probably get it from his websiteor find a way to order it, yeah
, and then the last book.
I referenced this in theprevious episode.
This is the bible andhomosexual practice by robert
gagdon.
Uh, this is the foremost likescholarly book on the subject.
He does address transgenderismdirectly in this book, but it's

(01:14:40):
a related topic when you'retalking about, uh, new testament
and old testament backgrounds.
So any of those books are goingto be good, cool, yeah, I'll
put them all in the show notesif people want to buy them.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
I'll try to find all of New Testament and Old
Testament backgrounds.
So any of those books are goingto be good.
Cool, yeah, I'll put them allin the show notes.

Speaker 3 (01:14:52):
if people want to buy them, I'll try to find all of
the links, all right?
Well, I hope I answered all ofyour questions sufficiently.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
No, we have so much more to talk about.
We have so much more to talkabout, but I do think that you
have painted a very historicalpicture on it and I think we
point to a lot of verses as faras how it's referenced, but I
don't think that this topic canbe, you know, discussed and
wrapped up nicely in just onehour, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
I hope not.
No, we can't.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
These are people's lives and identities and this is
also God, and you know, god isan evident pit that we can
continually fall into, andunderstanding him and how it
applies to our lives and how wecan live just won't ever be
simple.
But I think you've done areally nice job, at least laying
some biblical groundwork, anddoing so with gentleness and
respect.
So I really hope that anybodythat is tuning in understands

(01:15:38):
that the purpose of this is tounderstand the biblical
perspective, which you don'tagree of, and this is a learning
process of getting to know Godand ourselves and how we can
align ourselves and setourselves apart.
It's just, it's never going tobe simple, which is why probably
a lot of people don't talkabout it, but I think that
you've done a pretty good job, Ithink, scratching the surface.
I think there's more to be said.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
Well, thank you very much.
It's a pleasure to alwaysdiscuss these topics.
Who knows, maybe we'll talkabout another controversial
topic down the road.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Or a non-controversial.
We could do something simple.

Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
We could actually we could do something really simple
.

Speaker 2 (01:16:12):
Let's find a nice easy topic about God and love
and just stick with that.
But no.
And you know, putting yourselfon the line Because you know I
hope it doesn't happen.
And it hasn't happened withhomosexuality, which I'm so glad
I think I was anticipating thehate, which I'm so glad I think
I was anticipating the hate.
People have been receiving itand maybe keeping their comments
to themselves.
Thanks for putting yourself onthe line, that's encouraging it

(01:16:33):
is and you know it's for you tobe bold and courageous as far as
like talking about somethingthat could have potentially
opened yourself up to a lot ofhate.
So, thank you, my pleasure.
Okay.
Well, we'll find a nice topicsoon, but other than that,

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Ep. 45 - How Should Christians Approach Transgender Issues?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 45 - How Should Christians Approach Transgender Issues?