
The CHRISTIANing Podcast
The CHRISTIANing Podcast
Ep.60 - When the Vice President Announces her Pronouns
Vice President Kamala Harris set the internet on fire when a clip of her leading an official meeting at the White House went viral. In the brief clip, VP Harris is heard introducing her pronouns as well as identifying herself as a "woman wearing a blue suit". Without much context to the clip, the American public was left to interpret for themselves what this unprecedented introduction from one of the highest ranking government officials means for society at large. And as always Christians and non-Christians alike were ready to share their takes. In this episode, we will discuss how Jesus chose to address issues like gender, marriage, divorce, and sexuality and learn how we can engage in a very confusing culture in a more compassionate way. Enjoy!
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SPEAKER_00:right, everyone, and welcome back after a hiatus, a break of sorts to the Christianing podcast. Thank you for caring enough to tune back in, saw some people catching up on Back episodes while we are away for pretty much the month of July. I hope you guys had an amazing month of July. I don't know about you, I'm a summer guy. I want flip-flops and board shorts on all the time. And so I got to do a lot of that this month. And so I just kind of shut the brain off quite a bit. Wasn't doing a lot of thinking. Wasn't doing a lot of studying. Just really... Recharging is awesome. So I hope you guys find your time to do that as well. But I missed you. It's not like there was nothing going on in this world, right? Because that's one thing that this world will never fail to produce is a very crazy news cycle. It seems like there's always something fun to talk about. And so kind of return... Back home, getting my household organized, getting my older two boys off to college. My oldest boy is there and still working on my second boy who's heading off this month in August. And then, yeah, something pops up on my Twitter feed and I thought it was a great segue to talk about some important stuff and really help show you guys kind of how I... how I approach these kind of deeply controversial, delicate, uh, you know, conversations and topics around human sexuality and things of that nature. But if you didn't see it, um, if it didn't make its way to your social media feeds, um, our vice president, I don't know why this was, you know, huge, such huge news. Cause she's done this thing before. So, um, So the vice president announced her pronouns before an official meeting that she was having with leaders from the disabled community. And I remember when I first said it, I was taken back, not so much by the pronoun thing, because I was like, okay, that's... Unfortunately, that's more just normal now for me. I don't get... alarmed when I see it. I get emails now from different people that have their pronouns in their signature, their email signature, things of that nature. So I'm kind of getting like desensitized to that, but it was the second part. So she's at this meeting and she starts the meeting. So the social media clip is devoid of context, which in this case made Kamala look I think, worse than what it should have because context was very important in this particular thing. So if you missed it, what she did, she introduced the meeting like now you would kind of expect her to do based on her worldview, based on the things that she thinks are important. She said, you know, my name is Kamala Harris. I go by the pronouns she and hers. And I am a woman sitting at the table with a blue suit. It was that second part that I was like, when I watched it, devoid of context, I was like, oh, no. Is this a new thing? Is this another thing? Like, I just got kind of my mind wrapped around people wanting pronoun announcements. And now there's another thing that we have to do to where, you know, in order to, you know, kind of check the... you know, the inclusivity boxes where we're supposed to announce what not only our pronouns, but we're supposed to announce our sex and announce our description, our basic description. And so that second part, I think, is what caught a lot of people off guard because there was no context understanding why. And of course, it just leads our minds to think the absolute worst. Later, I was listening to a podcast. I found out that, well, She was at a meeting with members of the disabled community. There were people at the table that were visually impaired. And so she was doing what she felt was right and appropriate to give those that are visually impaired a mental picture for her voice when they heard it. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, well, I mean, that makes sense. I've never heard someone do that before, but I wouldn't if... If I was at a meeting with visually impaired people and that kind of became protocol or whatever as a way to kind of help engage someone with a disability to a greater level in a conversation, to me, that's not beyond the pale. That's not a bridge too far. That's recognizing that someone doesn't have an ability that I have and saying, because of that, I'm willing to extend that. a hand to help this person engage in a similar way that I would be able to engage since I do have full eyesight or whatever. But of course, social media, this is one reason why we have to be careful both on the left and the right. We live on meme culture now and kind of TikTok 15 second video culture and so we'll hear things or we'll see things and it's left to our minds to kind of fill in the blanks because there's, there's a whole greater context that that's, that's missed, you know? And so I think, uh, you know, Kamala in this situation, if there was context brought to this, this clip from the get go, it would just probably be another kind of woke bomb or whatever that people are even on the right, people are just kind of used to it, be just kind of filed away as, oh yeah, Kamala Harris, she's, she's part of that worldview. And so she announced her pronouns. It's like, it's becoming old hat at this point, but I think it was that addition of I'm a woman wearing a blue suit that I think kind of freaked everybody out, especially on the conservative side, like, oh, great. There's a whole nother thing that I'm going to be evaluated by socially, you know? And so, Anyways, it caused a huge stir, and again, without the context, I understood the stir, but once I got the context, I was like, okay, it kind of makes sense. I get it. Maybe this was also, I don't know, maybe this was the first time she officially announced her pronouns in an official vice president capacity. I heard her do it, I think, at a vice presidential debate, which she wasn't vice president yet. So maybe there was some historical context there to make this kind of a big deal. But it was a huge, kind of huge viral moment. Because if it came across my Twitter feed, I don't follow tons of people. So if it came across my Twitter feed, then it was definitely... definitely viral so anyway i thought that would be an just an amazing opportunity to jump into yet another contentious um sensitive topic about human sexuality yay but seriously um i don't shy away from these things because i really feel like when understood appropriately The Bible gives us Christians a very unique, meaningful, compassionate voice into these issues. Now, that's not the way we're viewed by the secular public, and I understand that, and we don't have control over a lot of that, but we do have some control, and I do feel like we don't do the best job of representing Christians our worldview very compassionately in a winsome way. And I'm not saying, I think basically, so this episode, I'm going to lay out kind of the nuts and bolts of how I would kind of approach the pronoun discussion, how I would how I would advocate for myself and my beliefs, my convictions when it comes to this. And, you know, if you're kind of a diehard atheistic, you know, blue, hates organized religion person, you're probably going to, you know, still reject, even though I'm attempting to come across compassionately, I'm attempting, but just the very nature of the fact that I hold an opposing worldview. For most people, it's probably going to be enough to completely demonize and discredit me. I understand that. I get that. I think we as Christians, we need to be more comfortable in that space. I think we can be kind of, lack a better term, bipolar when it comes to this. We can be overly accommodating. because we want to be relevant in the secular community. We don't want people to see Jesus as unloving and uncompassionate. So we take that burden on ourselves to like overly accommodate for relatively very new and very radical beliefs that we didn't create, that it didn't come from kind of our worldview, but were kind of know overly compensating so so we make too much accommodation you know or we go the other or we go the other route to where we're so just dogmatically jerks about the subject that there's there's zero intent to build trust in relationship so you're just shut off because you're instantly viewed as someone who just doesn't care And that's probably true. It's probably an accurate reflection because I do come across a lot of Christians that really have zero care about building trust within, you know, say like homosexual, transgender community. And so my beef with that is, well, if the Christian community isn't Desiring to build a relationship within communities that are notoriously anti-Christ, anti-Jesus. Well, how could the gospel ever get in? Nobody else is going to bring the gospel into these situations. So that's kind of my heart. I'm not trying to make Jesus relevant to radical craziness. But I do know Jesus is very much at home and comfortable in radical craziness and transforming it with his love and his grace and his mercy. And I know the only way from a human to human side to bring Jesus in there is through relationship. So I'm always an advocate for building as many bridges as you can until... The other side determines that all bridges must be burnt, which happens. It happens all the time. So a lot of the stuff that I'm going to share with you guys, this is not like the foolproof way to get transgender people to like you. No, the fact that you're even advocating a competing worldview, I'd say seven times out of ten is enough to get you discredited. And that's... That's in the Lord's hands. That's not in our hands. I don't carry that burden. I want to advocate for what I believe the Bible advocates for in as gracious, humble, and compassionate as a way possible. And so that's what we're going to kind of get into. The vice president put pronouns virally right in the middle of our culture. And so again, it's how... How do we Christian well in that conversation, in that discussion? So we're going to dive into kind of how I've found my way there and how I approach it. We've got a word of the day. So we've got a word of the day. We have kind of one big takeaway from the word of the day and then several implications. Three today, but there's probably dozens more implications. So word of the day. One big takeaway that I think just kind of sets the foundation, sets the stage, and then from that foundation, you can draw some really healthy points of application and implication that keep you in line with mainstream biblical understanding, but at the same time, maybe give you some opportunities to advocate in a more compassionate lens. as opposed to just being kind of viewed as the conservative person who's against all these good modern ideas and concepts that are actually there to help and encourage people and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's where we're going today. So if you've got your Bible, turn it on or flip it to Matthew 19. We're going to look at... Jesus's words in verses 3 to 6, quick little just power-packed chunk, Jesus speaks a couple sentences that you could probably some of the most practically significant sentences in all of sexuality and relationships. Any relationship that involves sex a sexual context at all. This is pretty much, from a biblical standpoint, I hate to put it, but it's pretty much almost all you need to know. It's that dense, and it's got that much packed into it. So, before we read it, just kind of set the stage a little bit, there is no biblical text that I'm aware of about transgenderism. There is There's explicit texts about homosexuality. I'm not aware of any passages that would specifically address people feeling the need to announce their pronouns of how they identify in their sexuality and sexual orientation. So there are verses that are used and misused when it comes to homosexuality. So But some people will take this to mean that Jesus was silent about these issues. I've heard this said when it comes to homosexuality. And I believe it's technically true or literally true. I've heard one of the big kind of critiques as far as like letting just, you know, homosexuality exists within the church, kind of unchecked and homosexual leadership in the church, that one of the main things is that Jesus never, never condemned homosexuality specifically. He never, it was never a part of his ministry and, you know, which is okay. And as far as I've read the gospel several times, and I, I think I can agree with that technically. Okay.
UNKNOWN:Um,
SPEAKER_00:But it's not necessary. But that line of thinking you have to be very careful with because there's a million vices under the sun. A million vices under the sun. And there's probably more vices that are created each year, each generation. Think about like digital pornography, you know, Pornography was addressed in the Bible, but not in a digital context, which is a completely different beast. It's a completely different animal. So to kind of take the mindset that if Jesus doesn't address it explicitly, Christians, we shouldn't have a conviction about it. I think that's a very mis... guided way to read scripture, because here's kind of the way I read, um, specifically the red letters, Jesus's words is, is kind of the, and I've, I'm sure you've heard me say this before. It's the counterfeit approach. This is, uh, the social, um, the secret service, sorry. The secret service is the agency, the law enforcement agency that does all counterfeits, um, counterfeit prosecution and enforcement and things of that nature. And I heard this years and years ago, and it's such an important concept. So when they train Secret Service agents on how to identify counterfeit money, they don't put in front of them every single variety of counterfeit that's existed in human history. kind like that in all of history like that's not what they do what they do is they give them a hundred dollar bill the current official hundred dollar bill and they say study every detail of this and because the thinking is so sound that if you if you know a current the current official hundred dollar bill and you know every feature every detail of it you're going to be able to identify a counterfeit version of it 100% of the time. Because you'll be able to see any little tweak, any little variation in a copy. And oftentimes in our faith and religion, we go the opposite direction. You have to study every single error. to the Christian faith or every single enemy to the Christian faith in order to be prepared, in order to be ready for it. And I think the Secret Service way is basically the approach that Jesus took. And if you think about it, it makes sense. He had three years, three years of active ministry to put all necessary wisdom before creation. All that's needed is to be understood in order to have a right relationship with God, in order to have eternal hope with him. Jesus had a very short timeline in order to get all of that out in a way that his followers could dictate and keep records of such things. And so Jesus takes the Secret Service approach. He defines life in godliness As it's supposed to be. As what basically he died and resurrected to bring forth out of the fallen nature of humanity and the fallen nature of the world. So what he does is he just shines a huge light on this is the kingdom of God. This is what it is. And he doesn't take a ton of time to get into all of the variations and mutations and all the... The heretical versions. Because he's only got three years. It would take five lifetimes to get through all of that. So we get a great example of that in Matthew 19, 3-6. Where we get Jesus just, boom! Here's what it's supposed to be. Use this. This is the official... declaration of what it's supposed to be. Now I'll trust you with it. Now you can use this and you'll easily be able to identify any, any sinful variation of this. And so we'll get into this. Okay. So let's start Matthew 19 verse three. And the Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? So it's interesting. this whole context is Pharisees trying to test Jesus, trying to put back him into a corner to where it doesn't matter how he answers, he won't get it right and they'll be able to use his answer as ammunition to discredit him and get rid of his ministry. But notice, it's a question about human sexuality and relationship. It's about divorce. It's about the context of this is a husband and a wife that's have consummated their relationship. They have a sexual relationship, an exclusive, and they want to divorce. They want to end. So that's not specifically what we're talking about with Kamala Harris today, but the principle that he's about to articulate is important. Extremely universal in its application. Okay, so the setup is about divorce and Let's look at verse 4 he answered Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning? made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh and So there are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. So like I said, power pack. There's not a lot there in content. But when you think about all the real world applications for that, it's huge. I guess that's one of the things I want to do today is open your mind. Because I know I'm reading something that you've probably read before, you've heard before a bunch of times yourself. And so it's not, this is not necessarily anything new, but what you probably haven't done is think about this in terms of all sexual orientation variations that now exist in our culture. Okay? It started kind of with promiscuity, you know, it started with non-marital sexual relationships. That was kind of the first battle of the American church. And then it's kind of evolved into homosexuality where biological sex doesn't necessarily matter in terms of relationship. And now it's gone into transgenderism to where your gender identity can be changed based on human feeling and intuition and things of that nature. So we don't have to study those things. We don't have to study those things. All we have to do in order to walk this faithfully is we just have to really study what Jesus is saying. He's saying, have you not read? He's telling the Pharisees, you're bringing me a question that you should be able to answer yourself. Because what I'm going to tell you, it's been in the book of Genesis, the book you've been reading and studying your entire career. So when he says, have you not read? He's saying like, this is all the information is already put out there. All Jesus is doing, he's quoting, reemphasizing the created design story. Okay, so that's... what's so important. So first thing I want you to open your mind to is these core biblical truths are more wide ranging than you probably originally understood. So I want to open your mind to that. Okay. So, so we're going to take the counterfeit approach that we're just going to, we're going to take time. We're going to dive into verse four and five specifically, and just what is Jesus describing? Okay, what he's doing here is he's articulating the design. He's articulating, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning? Okay, he's affirming that there was a designer. There was a he in this verse, God the Father, who dreamed up humanity. It was his idea. And he acted on his idea and started acting and designing and implementing his design through creation. It's very simple. We have all bought all kinds of crazy gadgets and technology that were just like... This thing is useless in my hand until I know how it functions, how it operates. And you go through some process. Either you read the manual or you have a younger person than yourself teach you. Basically, what that person is doing is saying there is someone who created this device and it has a purpose. And so if you want to unlock everything that this device has to offer for you, you have to have a conversation with the designer and the designer has communicated through the owner's manual. Like, okay, this is it. You do something different than this owner's manual. That's fine. You can do it. You can use your cell phone as a hammer if you want. It's just you're not going to get really anything out of it. Okay? So whenever there's a design, you have to go back to, okay, who was the designer? What was their intention? That's all Jesus is doing here. So the big takeaway is, The created design is the bedrock for all questions about gender, sexuality, and relationship involving gender and sexuality. The created design is the bedrock for all questions about gender and sexuality. Society won't stop coming up with new questions about gender and sexuality. And we think like, if you thought like, okay, homosexuality, once we kind of get past this thing, then we'll be good. And next thing that comes up is change. It's going to keep going as fallen society keeps progressing. And when you're progressing something that's fallen, it's not going to have good outcomes, right? That's what I mean by progressing. I don't mean it necessarily in a positive term, but as fallen society keeps progressing, new and new inventions are going to be brought forth. And so Jesus is so good. He's like, here, here's the design. This is the bedrock. If you understand this, you will get the most out of your gender, your sexuality, and your relationships within life. within this context. So for me, obviously it's my wife and this is it. Okay. Now from this, now from this are almost endless amounts of implications. You can, but all you have to do is go here. Okay. So here's, here's the good news is you, the Christian, you don't have to answer Any other question. You don't have to... All these questions are going to be thrown to you. What about transgender? What about pansexuality? What about non-binary? And how many genders are there? They're 72 or whatever, 300. I don't know. Something new and new and new. And you don't have to have a specific answer for any of that. You just bring all of that. back to this place and just say, hmm, like Jesus said, well, here's my conviction. Here's my conviction. I believe there's a designer and they designed me. They designed you. And they're so good. They're so gracious. This designer is so good and so gracious that they wrote the owner's manual so that we would understand how to get the most out of what they designed, what they created. And So can I share with you what I've come to believe and agree with and be convinced by? Because I think your life gets better the closer I act to my design, the better my life becomes. And that's where the compassion for me comes in. Compassion is very misconstrued, especially on this topic right now. Compassion cannot mean blind acceptance of people's radical thoughts and ideas. It just can't be. That can't be. That's not compassion. I always put it this way. It's not compassionate for me to let my three-year-old, four-year-old pick their menu every meal. They may want me to. That may be what they strongly feel, they strongly desire. But that is not a compassionate move for a parent to do. We don't let the four-year-old pick the menu of the meal. We don't. We'll let him pick the dessert to make him feel good. But no, the meal, the substance is going to be what I know is best for you. And that's compassion because you care about that person. You care about their health. You care about their flourishing. You care about their well-being. So me, that's my definition of compassion is helping people find their flourishing. And very clearly, my conviction is the more we all conform to how we were designed to function and work, the more flourishing we'll experience. So to me, that's compassion. Now, it may confront us. your worldview and that's fine I can I can you can submit this very humbly you don't have to be forceful or jerky about this but hey this is where I'm at are you open to kind of hearing my worldview and how how I come how I come to conclusions about these things and they may be like no all right well I'm here I want to be I would love to be in relationship with you but if I can't share things that are convictions of mine, and I promise to do it in a non-threatening way, then that's a one-sided relationship, and that's not really a relationship. So, fine. It's good. Okay? So, let's say you don't have to answer every question. You don't have to be up on all the latest gender theories going on out there. So, let's jump into... the implications like I said that was the big takeaway let's get into just three quick implications to kind of help you get started on how to apply this text practically all right all right implication number one just with the kind of pronoun transgender kind of context in mind. But this, again, this can apply to any variety of situations. So, first implication from this. Any variation to the intended design has negative consequences. That's just... We don't have time to get into all the kind of psychological social science research, but... Honest studies, you know, before everything got just wokefied and, you know, we're now we're selecting scientists based on their presuppositions before they've even done any science. All, any honest scientific study has basically confirmed this and don't have time to get into all that. I'm sure you can have a good old time on Google. I've come across people that have quoted a lot of the research here. I don't have time to build that library on the podcast. I don't get into all that and all those sites and things of that nature. But basically, this has been proven through verified secular science is... If you're going to deviate from what Jesus is saying, that there's a male and a female and they both leave their father and mother and hold fast to each other and they consummate and that the act of consummation, that sexual interaction joins two people and now makes them one flesh and that And this is why he brings it in. This is what has to do with divorce. He says, what God has joined together, let no man separate. What I believe he means by that is what the design, what the features of the design actually are is that when you join somebody sexually, you have become one flesh with that person. And so you're now moving against an act of God if you attempt divorce. Because you can't separate. What God has joined together, let not man separate. Basically, I believe he's making a statement of designed fact that you're one flesh. You don't just undo that. You don't go to a lawyer and say, I want to undo that. You can think you're doing that, but you remain one flesh. And now you have a bigger problem, which as he goes on from verse 6, you've got a bigger problem because If then you think you can marry somebody else, now you're one flesh with two people. And your life precipitously gets more difficult the more time, and that's where he brings in the adultery concept. So that's kind of his answer. That's how he applies this in a divorce. He says, here's the design. Man, woman, husband, wife, two become one. Once you're one, you're stuck. basically. If you live according to that and your behavior matches that, you're going to find your best version of your flourishing self. I'm not saying you're going to be without challenges, difficulties. You're still a sinner in a sinful world. It's still going to be hard. But whatever the highest potential of flourishing for you is going to be within that. So Any variation, whether it's divorce, homosexuality, if you've been assigned a sex by God at birth and you want to change it. So anytime, any and then any future variations that get dreamed up, it's just going to have a negative consequence. It just means that your flourishing potential just starts to decline. depending on which variation you're trying to behave in accordance with. Okay. So this is important for me. This is where compassion comes in because I'm not against, I'm really not against. I don't, I, I'm not against, um, people who are homosexual, transgender, whatever. I'm, I'm not against, I'm for human flourishing. And that's really, cause that's, You can, you know, if you disagree with me, you can just say I'm full of it and not believe me. That's fine. But I know in my heart of hearts what I'm after. When I look at every single human being, my prayer, my desire for their heart is flourishing. And so compassion to me is, if I have a God of the entire universe that has plainly communicated himself to like, well, here's the path to flourishing. just conform and submit to it. Yeah. It's going to be hard. Yeah. It's going to be difficult. Yeah. It's going to be, but this is the path. Like to me, I think it would be evil of me to withhold that revelation, withhold that concept, that idea and let, you know, basically the toddler eat ice cream three meals a day and eventually, you know, kill themselves, starve themselves of, of nutrient and, That's, again, that's a harsh analogy, and I'm sure the analogy breaks down, but just trying to communicate, this is where my compassion comes in. I'm not against anything. I am all in, 100% for human flourishing, that if there's an enemy to human flourishing, I feel compelled to address it, to call it out, in a humble, because it... What makes me humble is this isn't my idea. This isn't my concept. This is Jesus. I didn't write this. I didn't come up with this. I'm not this smart. I'm literally passing along what the creator of the entire universe has passed to anybody. Anybody. There's nothing special about me, about this revelation. I've got the same Bible anybody else can have. So, first important implication. This is where... I promised you kind of a compassionate, and this is how I present it. Because of my compassion, if I believe there's a greater level of thriving and human flourishing for you, it would be evil of me to withhold that revelation from you. Now, it's up to you. Take it or leave it. If you think I'm full of garbage or whatever, I'm not responsible for that. I'm responsible for communicating the truth, but yes, communicating it, as the Bible says, in a gentle way, seasoned with a lot of grace and a lot of understanding. I don't judge you for coming to a wrong conclusion or a wrong conviction because I've done that a million times in my life in a million different ways. You and me, we're two peas in the same pod. We both need Jesus to help. come and communicate and fix and reveal himself to us. This is kind of the heartbeat of how I approach these things. Now, I said this isn't foolproof. This isn't going to get the whole world to look at Christianity and be like, oh, yeah, everybody should do this now. No, that's not going to happen. But at least you can sleep well at night. Know that you're not... You're not disregarding truth and you're not being a jerk. That's really my goal. I don't ever want to disregard God's truth in my relationships and communications with others. And I don't want to be a jerk. So, if I can achieve those ends, I believe I've honored my Christian obligation to be a witness to the kingdom that God is bringing to earth. So, Alright, so that's the first implication. Second implication. Biological sex is the means by which God identifies you in the created design. So, this is, again, this is going to be, this is going to confront people's pride. The kind of sexual identity, the biggest problem with it is is it's a self-identity. What we're seeing in our current culture is a belief that the right thing to do is individuals assign themselves. So when you hear language like sex assigned at birth, what that means is, no, no, no, that you have the freedom, you should have the freedom and ability to assign yourself. And that's the... biggest impediment to flourishing by design here that happens is what we're after as humans is clearly understanding how the creator identifies us that's where our sense of of peace of well-being of mental health comes from is like I didn't make this decision for myself the only Being in the universe that could make this decision, that I want to make this decision, has made this decision for me. Now my role, if I have questions or I'm confused or I feel different things, the work that I have to do is just the work of conforming to that. And so if I ever want to know what my sexual identity is, I look at my biology. Because that's how the designer designed me. And so I look at my biology, and I mean this very, I don't mean this tongue in cheek, I mean this very, because I do believe that there are, I don't think as many people that are currently saying they're struggling with this, but there are a select individuals that because of the way the fall, the sin of humanity has impacted them, they authentically feel confused and out of place in their biological self. I believe that that's a thing, that that can happen. And I want Jesus to put his fingerprints all over that challenge. And I don't want to alienate that person. So the challenge for someone who's experiencing authentic gender dysphoria, which I believe in the sinful order of all of us... It can exist. That can exist authentically. People just feel out of place in their own body. So their challenge, the grace of sanctification that's going to work through them is the Holy Spirit miraculously giving them ability to conform. Say, I don't feel this way. But this is the way the designer has identified me. So I'm going to move with the design. And some people like me, I have no problem. I have zero issue. I know through my biology that God has identified me as male. And so I don't have an issue with that. That's never been a problem for me. But I've got a billion other problems. I've got a billion other... innate sinful issues that trip me up in other places when it comes to my design. So I don't sit in judgment on anybody who's struggling with gender dysphoria. I sit in compassion because, man, I'm like, yeah, I've got... I've got significant issues that the Lord is sanctifying me through. So it gives me tremendous hope. I know he can sanctify you in this. And this is going to be a challenge for you, just like it's been a challenge for me to be sanctified through all these other issues that I deal with. So one of the things that's popped up recently is kind of what's come through academia, kind of secular academia, is that biology is one of... several factors that influence your gender identity. And so what gender theorists will do is they'll put biology on equal footing with and they'll identify like these, you know, 20 other contributing influences that that influence someone's gender expression. And, you know, whatever. I'm not smart and not like I'm not going to stutter, study like gender theory. I'm just not. I don't got time. You know, so. So really what I've come to do is just, I'll meet them on those terms. Like, okay, okay. So you say if I have a boy, but I dress him from birth in pink dresses and I give him Barbies to play with, that that will have a kind of a societal influence on how that person experiences their gender, say at age 13, 14. Okay, fine. I'll... I'll buy that. I'm not smart enough in social theory to necessarily reject that. I can say, okay, I could see how that could have an impact or I could see how handing a girl a football from birth and always playing catch and doing masculine things, that girl may have an affinity when they're 13 for playing football and hunting. Okay, fine. That's fine. I can accept that there are other factors other than pure biology that could influence someone's feelings about their gender identity. Okay, that's great. But what I will say is what is clear in the Bible is biology is to be prioritized above all other factors of gender identification. That's You want to live in the world where there's 30 different factors that go into someone's gender identity? Okay, fine. I'll meet you there if you need me to. All I'm going to say, what is clear scientifically is if you prioritize biology above the rest, because again, that's the way by which God reveals where I fit in the design process, design execution. I am male. My biology is clear on that. Then if I prioritize biology above the other things, my experience towards flourishing increases dramatically. It's just the literature is too clear on that. It's just so clear on that. So I think we can even meet gender theorists halfway and Even if you think their conclusions are bogus or whatever, it's fine, but at least you can meet them halfway and just, okay, fine. There's other factors. I'm going to strongly advocate that biology is prioritized above all other factors. Let's say a girl is raised by masculine people that have kind of enforced a masculinity on her, and now she's 16, thinking that she wants to be a man. Okay. Okay. And she acts kind of tomboyish. She loves to play sports, stuff like that. Okay. That kind of stuff happens all the time. What we need to do for her so that she has the best opportunity to human flourishing is biologically God has identified you as female. So be the most tomboyish female possible. that you can be, but make sure you don't confuse to yourself or the world that you are in fact female. And when you start to engage in the process of spouse selection, make sure it's according to what Jesus clearly lays out, male, female, leave father, leave mother, join together one flesh. The next 60 years of your life are gonna go so much better, so much better if you can just overcome yourself, your own feelings in the moment and just say, you know what, I'm going to stop and I'm going to recognize that there's designer and I'm going to prioritize the way in which they've communicated to me the design, which is through my biological makeup. Okay. So second implication is biological sex is the means by which God identifies you in the creation, in the created design. We want to be identified. We don't want to do the identifying. That's clear. Okay, last one and then last implication here and then I'll let you go. Humans, parentheses, especially children, humans thrive most in rigid structure. This is another like, again, just you can do your own research on your own, but this has been found time and time and time again by scientists psychologists, social theorists that have done all kinds of studies. In this mental health crazed world that we have right now, in this mental health crazed culture, we don't understand that we're driving. Our philosophical foundation to secular life is driving people to greater anxiety. The things that they feel are going to relieve the anxiety are actually going to be the culprits on creating more anxiety. anxiety. What's very clear through basic psychology is there is less anxiety when less decisions need to be made. It's that simple. It's that simple. Think about the times where you're the most anxious, the most overwhelmed, the most stressed. Those are the times of the greatest uncertainty. Clearly, the times that you're the most calm, peaceful. I'm not saying necessarily happy, but I'm saying the times that you're the most calm, the most peaceful, are when you don't have to make any major decisions. Decisions, options, stress human beings out. They do. That's where people on the autism spectrum, they're particularly susceptible to this. It's in all humans, but it's so pronounced especially children on the autism spectrum, that they need so much structure. They need to make as few decisions as possible. And that's what centers them. That's what brings them to an ability to function within their family, within society. And so we all have that in us. It's just autism is kind of a disorder where that is just heightened to the point where people... severely autistic people cannot function at all in in a state of transition they just can't um so what behavioral therapists you know teach parents with autistic children is how to create a world where there is so much rigidity and structure around that child that they can feel safe and it's it's the same for you it's the same for me so in this world where opportunities are endless we think wow that's that would bring so much flourishing just the the world's your oyster you can do whatever you want to do actually as you've noticed as society has has again progressed i use don't use that that term in a positive uh manner but as society has progressed And more and more opportunities are brought to more and more people. We're noticing that mental health struggles are rising commiserate with that reality because it's very clear. It's very clear that we thrive most in rigid structure when decisions are made for us. And then the joy of life is finding hope. our path to joy and happiness within that kind of rigid structure that that immovable structure then we get to find out well i like doing this but i don't like doing this you know so i'm going to do i'm going to approach my rigid world with this in mind and so i'm going to make sure these types of activities are included that's and that's where like That's where peace and contentment can turn into just abundance of happiness is you find yourself within the rigid structure. Secular society believes there can be no self-understanding unless all structure is removed and everybody's a blank slate. That's... Good luck with that. That's all I have to say is good luck with that. If you believe that, you're in a world of hurt. You are in a world of hurt. So... What we're finding is in the transgender community, there's high, high levels of mental illness and suicide ideation. The secular answer to that is because the world's not accepting of their condition. There's no study or literature that's backed up that hypothesis. What we have thousands and thousands of years of experience in is... The fact that anxiety and fear comes when a child believes it's their job to determine something as significant as their gender identity. That is going to cause so much internal angst and issue. That's where I get compassionate. Oh, my goodness. My heart goes out like, oh, I... I know how stressed out I was when I graduated college and I had put a combined three minutes into the decision of, hmm, what am I going to do after college? I thought about that for a combined three minutes over a period of four years. And the day finally came to where I was sitting in my apartment. I was like, okay, there's no more school to go to. For me to pay rent means I have to figure out what I'm going to do with myself. And I instantly felt overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious because I lived in a world to where I could do any one of a million different things. And gosh, how much easier would that have been if that a million opportunities was shaved down to three for me? Like,
SPEAKER_01:oh,
SPEAKER_00:hey, pick what you think you'll enjoy most out of these three things. You know, to get structure, to get direction, to get... Oh, man, that would have been so... I did what everybody did and I picked the absolute wrong thing for myself and the way God designed me because I had too many options and I had a terrible year. It was just stressful. I had mental health issues, depression, the crazy that I had to just quit one day, load my truck up and move to the mountains of Colorado and become a ski bum for a year. That's how I dealt with it. I walked away from my fiancee by God's grace, became my wife, you know, and I almost, you know, threw my life away because of the just too many opportunities and what happens when you just are an idiot, you know, young adult, don't really know anything about the world and you pick the exact wrong thing, you know. And so... That's what we're doing with, I guess, nine-year-olds now is saying, hey, something as consequential as what gender, like your call, man, whatever you feel. Like, yep, nine-year-old's going to make that call, right? I was like 22 and I couldn't even pick the right vocation for myself. It was crazy. So anyways, this is so anti-secular culture, but hold on to it. Humans, especially children, thrive most in rigid structure. If you're a parent, and I just had to have this conversation with a friend of mine, you make that decision for your kid. Don't let them live in the anxiety of making consequential decisions. No, no, no. Just do the gracious thing and say, I got this one. I got this one for you. We're going to... We're going to make this decision for you. And it's an epidemic, especially with parents trying to empower their kids, letting them choose what schools they go to and if they're going to go to school or not. And they're like 16 and under. What are you doing? You need to relieve them of that stress and that anxiety because then every challenge that hits them after the fact, they know it's their fault because they chose it. That's just a world a 12-year-old can't exist well in. So if we're letting them choose their gender... So I hope you feel in my heart here that there is zero political angst in me when it comes to this. Zero. I'm not trying to own the libs here at all. I see individuals, and because I have the Holy Spirit in me that has transformed me, and He... He has transformed my heart to desire human flourishing for everybody I come in contact with. That's His work, not mine. Me, I didn't care before Jesus. But since I look at people through that lens and I see, I see, I'm on, I run a school, especially middle school girls are just... being devastated by this right now. And it breaks my heart. So whatever I can do to help bring people to higher levels of flourishing, I'm all in. Jesus, I think, was all in on that. So go to Matthew 19 for help. All right. Hope that helps. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope that all made sense. But if not, we'll try better next time. All right, love you guys. As always, until next time, Christian Well, everyone, have a great week.