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Foreign.
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This is the Strskpodcast and we're so glad that you found us and you're listening today. And Greg, we're going to start today with a question from Christy.
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All right.
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Would you make a biblical case for God's good design in creating two genders and the rightness of submitting to God's design for our own bodies? My trans Episcopal brother is asking why gender affirming care is wrong and harmful as a Christian if it's not discussed in the Bible.
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Okay, gosh, this is one of the questions or an issue that 20 years ago, maybe 25, no one would even have thought to ask. And the reason is everybody had a very straightforward, clear understanding of, at least in this area, the nature of reality, such that when there was a deviation from it, everybody saw it as a deviation and didn't feel like they needed to make a defense, in a sense for the nature of reality. And now there's been so much confusion. And the big change happened in 2015 when Obergefell, SCOTUS, the Supreme Court decided that same sex marriage was a constitutional right. And this just exploded all the categories. In other words, marriage now has no normative definition. It's not anything in particular. It's whatever, as one person put it, it's just two names on a page. That's all it is because it has been evacuated of anything that is normative. And now that's the way people think about it in a way that nobody in history would have thought about it for thousands and thousands of years. Until just about 20 years ago. Well, right after that, 2015, I thought, okay, now it's gonna calm down. That's when the whole gender thing exploded because now it's a new issue and a lot of people don't realize that. And so this is all background information. I'm gonna answer the question. But a lot of people don't realize that queer theory, which is a subset of critical theory, queer theory, and it's their word for it, Queer theory isn't just affirming homosexuals. Queer theory is to remove, is intended to remove any normative moral distinctions of any kind regarding any sex with any person at any age, completely obliterate the entire moral system that applies to sex. And so that's why it caught me by surprise in 2015. I figured, okay, we're done with this now, let's just, can't we all just get along kind of thing. And all of a sudden now there's all this craziness about gender and it's calmed down A little bit. I think recently in part. I think a significant part is because of change administrations in the government. So you have a policy shift there and that changes the kind of the big emphasis. But nevertheless, the way people think about this has changed radically too. So let me zero down a little bit more on this issue because I think the whole thing about gender, which it strikes me as being. I mean, as like what's obvious, the whole thing about gender now is up in the air in people's minds. It's almost like there's a pushback against any normative standard at all that men are men and women are women and gender is. And sex is binary regardless of what science says, because that's science. They're either egg or sperm. There's no third option. And this is the testimony of sc. And Alan Schlieman has made this point clear in pieces he's written for us. You can find it on the website. But there are only two sexes. But now there's tremendous confusion about this because of the cultural drift and the language and the pressure and all that other stuff. So now we get people who say they're Christians and they self identify, let's just put it that way, self identify as Christian. I'm talking about the Episcopal young man or gentleman. But they want. Now, since the Bible doesn't speak about gender dysphoria, then therefore it's an open. It doesn't address the issue at all. And the default position is to accept the culture's position instead of. And I'm just going to put it this way, accepting the testimony of a person's own eyes and common sense. So years ago I used to, in addressing this issue, when it started to come up years ago, I made. Offered a parallel of sorts and it was meant to be a parody. And my question was this. And it's not meant to be disparaging in any way. It's meant to get people to think I'm chuckling now because. Well, you'll see in a moment. I said, what if this had to be 15 or 20 years ago because there's been discussion about this, but not a social movement about it. Even 20 years ago there was discussion about it. And so I'd talk about it on the air and I'd say, what if I said I was a rabbit? Would you feel obliged to kind of build a hutch for me and feed me carrots and encourage me to get operation to change my bone structure so I could hop around and all that other stuff so I could be physically what I Believe myself to be. No, you wouldn't think that. You would think, gee, this guy needs help. That's what you'd think. Now the irony of it, and the reason I was chuckling is that it's hard to parody these things because parody becomes truth. Now you've got, I mean, you have furries and I mean there's a whole bunch of people who at least, well, they're actually kind of pretending they're animals, but they know they're not. But you've also got Therians and you got Therians that really think they are animals inside. They self identify as an animal even though they got a physical human body. Now, I don't know, actually all this, this isn't talked about so much like gender dysphoria. But my suspicion is whatever, that's the culture's attitude. You do you. And well, if you think you're an animal, you are one because what's in your head is reality, not what's outside of your head. Okay? And so this brings us to this particular question and what you may be sensing is my frustration in dealing with it because what you have is you have people that are denying reality that's right before their eyes. And they're asking, well, give me, in this case, kind of give me scriptural proof regarding the issue of gender and gender dysphoria. Because the Bible doesn't speak of it. But what the Bible does speak about, it speaks about the nature of reality, the way God made it. And the text says that the way God made things is good. So when you have in this case a person who self identifies as a Christian, I don't know what additional argument I can offer him. Look at what Jesus did when he was asked about marriage and divorce. This is Matthew 19 and Jesus. It's very interesting Jesus response. Jesus is speaking to the Jewish leaders that ask the question who have scripture. This is a question from someone who self identifies as a Christian. And I'm talking about the Orthodox. No, it is the Episcopal fellow. The Episcopal fellow and identifies as a Christian and asks a question about gender. And so what Jesus said to the disciples, to rather the Jewish leaders is here's the first thing he says. Have you not read? Have you not read? In other words, I've already spoken about this. God's already spoken about this. It's in the record. So let's go back and see what it says. And so Jesus first takes them Back to Genesis 1. In the beginning he says God made them male and female. Now this is kind of a not Only does the text say this, but this is a. Okay, guys, you got it. This is a no duh moment, all right? It's just we're together on this, right? And he says it. Good. So now we've got, of course, the sexuality, gender issue, like we're dealing with it culturally today. Wasn't an issue there. What is Jesus doing? He's taking it back to the text that reflects a reality that's so obvious, there's no discussion about it. And he's laying a foundation now. He says, and then he jumps to chapter two. He says, now the mother and father have kids, right? And the son will leave the mother and father and be united with his wife. Okay, so notice that you have the implicit gender
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complementarity.
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Yeah, I was going to say the binary sexuality. They're repeated with mother and father. And then you have the son being united with a woman. So now you have binary gender there, implicit. And the nature of marriage is a man and a woman. And the nature of sex is. It happens there in that marriage relationship. The two will become. Become one flesh. And then he says, and now this is to answer their question, what God has joined together, let no man separate. So notice the way Jesus develops his argument. He goes back to the text that they all share. He says, see this obvious thing in the text, which is a no duh thing, because it reflects the way the world is, and we all see that. And since God has put this together in this particular way, then it ought not be sundered in our relationships with each other, which is a direct answer to their question about marriage and divorce. But notice all that's in place there based on God's word and also based on obvious observation about the structure of reality. The problem nowadays is nobody cares about what reality is. They care, not external reality, what the world is like. They care about what they feel. And we are instructed to care with them about what they feel. Which means on this view, there can be no pathology that is a psychological pathology. There can't be anything wrong with the way anybody thinks about anything. And the goal largely of psychologists nowadays is not to help people to get healthy, but to help people feel good about the way they see themselves, with some minor exceptions where maybe somebody else is good, circumstances in question, or maybe safety or whatever is in question. And so in this particular case, there's a request for, well, what's the. Could you read the question again? Would you make a biblical case? Go ahead and read it.
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Make a biblical case for God's good design in creating two Genders and the rightness of submitting to God's design for our own bodies.
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Okay, I just made the case. I mean, in a certain sense, this is all I could do. If I'm making a case for God's good design, what I need to do is go back to the text and say, God designed it like this. And then he said, it's good and any deviation is not good. And to use the more modern term, though, it's going to bother people. It's pathological, it's unhealthy. And when people have a pathology of any sort, the goal is to help them get better. If it's physical pathology, let's get a cure. If it's emotional psychological pathology, what can we do to help this person be the way they're supposed to be? Emotionally, spiritually, whatever. Psychologically, how can we do that? I remember having a conversation many years ago now on the airplane with the fella. As I'm talking with him, I asked him what he did for a living. He says, well, I'm a psychologist. And I said, oh, psychology is a good argument for the existence of God. And he said, really? How so I said, well, psychology has a sense of what health, emotional, psychological health looks like. In other words, it's teleological. And what your job is, is to help a person approach what ought to be the case in terms of their emotional development, et cetera. But if there is no God, there is no ought to be the case. There's no teleology. There's no purpose for humankind or human emotions. There's no healthy condition. The concept of health itself implies something that ought to be. That's not the case in many ways. And this is psychology. And he thought, you know, I never thought about that. That's a very interesting point. He didn't push back. Now, I mentioned that this was many years ago because that isn't the view anymore. As I mentioned earlier, the view isn't help people get healthy because that implies, well, some ways of thinking about yourself are not healthy, they're pathological. And you need to get fixed. And nobody wants to get fixed because nobody wants to say that anything about anybody is wrong. So this is how you make a case. How do I make a. Well, when you make a biblical case by reading the Bible, just like Jesus did, we go back to the structure that God set up at the beginning. Male and female. He created them. Be fruitful and multiply. Now, notice the be fruitful, multiply is connected to the male and female. You can't do the second unless the first is true. Again, not to be disparaging, but I'm thinking, no doubt. This is just so obvious. It's not obvious anymore. And the reason is people have been so indoctrinated by a corrupt way of thinking about the world, and it's everywhere, that it has disabled them in their ability to see what's obvious. The kind of thing that Jesus did in Matthew 19 regarding the question that he was faced cannot be done anymore. It can be. I mean, I just did it. But it's not going to be persuasive because people are going to say, well, that's good. It's not good for me. What's good for me is to be the way I want to be. So how is that good? Notice how the definitions have been twisted from an objective reference point to a completely subjective reference point. You do, you. It's all about me. And this shows up not only here, but in virtually everything else. Virtually everything else. So, Christy, it's a wonderful question, and I'm glad you asked it. And the RX here for your friend is what I just offered and what you're able to offer. The question is make a biblical case. Genesis 1, Genesis 2, do just the thing that Jesus did. I have a strong suspicion, though this will not help in the sense that your friend will not be persuaded in the slightest bit. Your friend knows this already and he's looking for something else, or he says he's looking for some kind of other argument. This is adequate. This is the way God structured reality so that it's good. And after the fall, the good thing got broken and shows. The brokenness shows up in all kinds of ways. And this gender dysphoria is obviously an example of the brokenness, what I've been calling kind of a psychological or emotional pathology.
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One question you might want to start with is just ask your brother. If I make a biblical case, a solid biblical case, and you're actually convinced the Bible says that you should not attempt to change your sex, would you follow Jesus in this, or would you continue down this road? And I think actually starting with this question is a good idea because you might be wasting your time making the case from the Bible if he's actually not interested in what the Bible has to say. The other good thing about this question is that helps him to see whether or not he's truly following Jesus. If I can show you that Jesus would not have you go down this direction, would you follow him and deny yourself this, or would you continue down your path? And if you continue down your path, you need to rethink your relationship to Jesus and whether or not you're truly following him. So let's talk about Jesus and the gospel before we even get to all of this. Because if you're not willing to submit to him, then there's no point in me making a case. So I would get that out on the table right away because I think the most important thing for him to know right now is whether or not he wants to follow Jesus.
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Yeah, that's a really, really good point. Let me make a suggest a little alteration in the words that you used or suggest you use. I would not ask will you follow Jesus or the biblical whatever in not attempting to change your sex. And because I think if we put it that way, he's going to say, where does the Bible say I should change my sex? It doesn't say I shouldn't change my sex. Okay. Now obviously the teaching of the Scripture leads to that. It entails that. But my suspicion a person with this attitude might be offer that it doesn't say I can't change my sex. And so I would maybe word it differently. I would say, are you willing to conform to God's design the way he made it, the way he said it was good? And of course that's Genesis 1 and implicitly Genesis 2 of binary sexuality.
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Yeah, I like that way of putting it. But also remember that this is a hypothetical, so you don't have to prove yet. You just have to say, if I show this. But I like the way you put it better regardless. And I would also, I mean, so that's like my main thing I would want to bring up. But in terms of God creating things, he's a God of order and distinction. So he separates the light from the darkness and the land from the water and the male from the female. And he does have these distinctions and keeps them separate throughout the law. And there is even a law where men are not supposed to wear women's clothing. They're not supposed to act as the other sex. So that is actually in there. Now, does the Bible talk about gender affirming care? No, because nobody was doing that. Nobody. I mean, they addressed the dressing, but obviously they didn't have the capabilities we had today. But the fact that it doesn't talk about that doesn't mean that it approves of it. I mean, that just seems obvious.
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It doesn't mean there aren't principles apply that are very, very clear that don't clearly directly apply to this question.
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In fact, you could say in response to that, well, it doesn't say it's okay either, so maybe you shouldn't be doing it. But the case you made, Greg, I think rules it out, including this law from the Mosaic Law. So I'm trying to think if there was anything else. I think that's it for now. I think we'll continue along this same topic in the next episode.
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By the way, there's a parallel here, and I should have made this point earlier when I was talking about Therians and phoresens, stuff like that, and how I attempt to make this point. No, I can't use the rabbit illustration anymore. But if somebody were to say, I think in like way as this particular challenge is offered, make a biblical case that I can't be an animal, and okay, well, what I'd want to do is go back to the beginning and say, well, did you notice that God made all the animals and then he made man and woman, I mean, human beings. And then first Adam had to name all the animals and they weren't like him, they were different than he was. And so God made a suitable helpmate for him, another one like him. So humans are humans and animals are animals. They're two big distinctions. Now, that's a good case. From the created order. It's the same kind of thing that I've done here, but it just seems to me kind of silly to have to go, wait a minute, didn't you get this? It's so obvious, I guess, is what I'm saying. And that's why I see these somewhat parallel. You have to repeat what's obvious in the text. And if they don't see it just reading it themselves, I don't know how you reading it for them is going to make a difference. Does that make sense?
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Yes. And this is where we come to the root of this whole issue, which is. And you touched on it already, Greg, the root of all of this is this. Did God create us or do we create ourselves?
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Yeah. Good.
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Do we create everything about ourselves? If so, then of course it doesn't matter. But if God created us a certain way, and that's the case you've been making, then we ought to submit to Him. And that doesn't just come from one verse here or there. That's the entire Bible. And I think you have to get a bigger sense of who he is and who we are as creatures submitting to Him. When you find out that when we submit to him, not only is that the right thing to do, but it's also the good thing to do, even if it involves denying ourselves some things that we want to do, because God's good order is good. And the best thing we can do is to deny our own desires that go against that order and to work within that order that God created for us to flourish in. So this whole idea starts from our culture's idea that we can make of ourselves whatever we want. But of course, that is rooted in materialism and the idea that God did not create us, because if he didn't create us, then anything goes, as you mentioned. But if he did create us, then there is an order and there is a teleology to how we're created. And he has a purpose for us, and he's explained all of this. So we're talking about two entirely different worldviews here. And he might not be realizing that this goes way beyond a verse. This is the entire foundation of a worldview.
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That's right.
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Okay, thank you so much, Christy. And we're going to continue on with LGBT questions in the next episode. Well, thank you so much for listening. This is Amy hall and Greg Koukl for a stand to reason.