Loading summary
Transcript25 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:06]
B
Welcome back into the CBMW podcast. Your weekly inoculation against progressive self expressionism, helping to keep your biblical immune system ready to rage war against every ideological virus. I'm Jonathan Swan, executive editor of icahn, the journal for Biblical anthropology, and I am joined by the full slate today. Collins Ruthers, our executive director at cbmw, and Denny Burke, the president of cbmw. Welcome back to the show, guys.
- [00:34]
C
Glad to be here.
- [00:36]
A
Absolutely. So good to see you, man.
- [00:38]
B
Same. Now you guys are big sports fans. Mega sports fans. And so today on our show, I want to transition our topic.
- [00:50]
A
Oh, transition. I see what you did there.
- [00:52]
B
You pointed it out. Okay, Danny, for the record, we're going to move from theology worldview and anthropology and talk about sports. Okay, so we're going to talk about a story out of the NBA regarding transgender athletes. And it all begins on July 21st. ESPN releases a profile of a former Mizzou player. By the way, Go M I Z O U. Sophia Cunningham. She's a forward for the Indiana Fever. And in the profile she makes a comment about protecting women's sports. And she's quoted as saying, I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go against biological men. Well, that caught enough attention where the next day she's questioned by reporters and she reaffirms her position. And she says this in a clip that's been going around the Internet. She says, I said what I said. I think it's common sense. I think I'll always believe in that. I think it's really important to protect children and that's little girls who are also involved in that category. I stand on what I said and I'll always believe that. So since this moment we have seen demonstrations at games. Some of these are organized, representing both sides of the argument. Coaches have spoken out, some of them representing the trans community, calling for inclusion, setting human rights. In fact, one of the head coaches for the Minnesota Lynx, Cheryl Reeve, wore a shirt that says trans kids belong on the court. And this is crazy, but there was a minority owner of the Seattle Storm. She publicly confronted two young girls. They could have been like 16 years old and they were wearing these shirts, this brand xxy and they had a sign that said, thank you, Sophie, for speaking up for girls. Well, this owner confronts them, curses at them. And she is subsequently from attending her team's home games, four or five games. So a lot going on there in the NBA. Denny. What? How are you reading all this? What is your take on what's going on here.
- [02:59]
A
Well, I'm really curious why you said we're moving away from theology and Bible to talk about sports, because I do think that there are major worldview things going on here that implicate our theology and implicate what we think is scripture and nature teach. I mean, it's pretty obvious that there's a worldview in play that's making so many of these people who are participating in the WNBA Pro trans. And what Sheryl Reeves said, the coach, the Minnesota Links coach, she said this. She says, I come from a space of inclusion. The narrative that I think is problematic is to suggest that transgender athletes are the biggest problem in women's sports. This is what's bothersome. There's a faction of people in our country that are making this a massive issue. And I want to say, yeah, it's the transgender activists who are making this a massive issue, because, you know, from all of history and the history of the humankind, everybody has always assumed that a man is a person whose body is organized for reproducing as a father, and a woman is a human being whose body is organized for reproducing as a mother. That's the basic biological distinction between male and female. And we've ordered our lives, we've ordered our societies around that assumption. You didn't have to speak it previously, because we all just sort of assumed it. Well, now you have a faction that is now saying, no, that does not determine male or female or man or woman, how your body's organized for reproducing. It's just what you think about yourself. And so that's why you have all these examples in sports now in a variety of different areas of men, biological men, competing against women. And so here you've got a head coach of the WNBA saying, I come from a space of inclusion. And she ends up saying something like, the answer could never be exclusion. And I just want to say, what are you talking about? The WNBA is premised upon. This is a sport for females. That's what the whole point of the league is. If it's not a league for females, then why would he have two leagues
- [05:21]
B
and the best of the females? Right?
- [05:23]
A
Yeah, it's supposed to be the best of the females. And so, you know, to me, it's completely outer limits to say what she's saying. But it just goes to show that for a lot of people in our country still, this transgender ideology is still running pretty deep. There's still a lot of people are still operating on the assumption that thinking makes it so. And if you think yourself to be something other than what your body says, then you are that. And so even if you have a male body, if you identify as female psychologically, then you are one, and everybody has to treat you that way, even if you want to play in the NBA. Now, most people would recognize that just goes against common sense. I want to say, as a Christian, it goes against nature. It goes against God's revelation. It's a very serious anthropological error, as they say, and we shouldn't give in to it.
- [06:16]
B
Guys, how should we respond? Denny, you just. You just addressed the idea of inclusion. And that is throughout the comments. I especially saw from Reeves. The other token leftist phrase that I heard in the comments made was that this is a human rights issue. So the trans rights, transgender women in female sports is a human's rights issue. How should we respond to that claim?
- [06:44]
C
Well, basically, the claim is that you have a human right to be able to play for the wnba, which is just speaking to the point of absurdity. No, nobody has the right to play. And to be paid as a professional athlete, basketball on tv. I mean, that's absurd. And, you know, at the outset, I would just have to confess already that I've actually never sat down to watch a WNBA game ever. And I don't have plans to sit down to watch a WNBA game. But there's lots of different angles that we could take on this story. I mean, you know, the women's leagues have been for, you know, the past several decades making salary comparisons, talking about rights. You know, look at what the men earn, and here's what the women earned. So look at this disparity. And we need to level the playing field. This is very socialist, Marxist, kind of equalitarian premise behind that, that everybody deserves the same thing. We all need to have the same stuff.
- [07:45]
A
Even though the WNBA runs at a definite. They lose money every year.
- [07:49]
C
Exactly.
- [07:50]
A
And they get subsidized. I think they get subsidized by the NBA.
- [07:53]
C
And so here they are, they have to make that argument saying, look, we're just as good as the guys. You know, we're just as popular, we're just as skilled as the guys, therefore, we should be able to get paid, you know, just as much as the guys. And really, that's just the egalitarian argument transposed into the sports sphere. So what they have to do then. And I think that's part of the reason, part of the logic that's underwriting their argument for allowing men into the league because they have to say, there's no difference between the men and women competition, the men and women, you know, skill level, whatever. We deserve the same pay that deserve the same airtime, the whole thing. So therefore, men have to. Biological men have to be able to play in our league. Because if we say it's, you know, if we say they. They can't, then we're kind of giving up that line of argument that we're, you know, we're the same. And there have been so many different things. Again, I've never watched a WNBA game, but I have seen a ton of WNBA news come across. My newsfeed. I mean, there's right now talk of there's some French player. It's a biological man, just a massive dude destroying the competition. I don't know how these things work in the French league.
- [08:59]
A
And they're talking about 20 rebounds a game.
- [09:02]
C
Yeah, like scoring, you know, 30, 40 points a game. If he came over and started playing in the wnba, it wouldn't be fun for anybody anymore. Those coaches, you know, those, those women who are playing. I also saw Donald Trump. He was asked about this, this thing. And, you know, he's already. We've already talked about all the, the different ways that he's addressed, you know, biological males playing in, in girls sports, especially at the, the high school level and college level. But somebody was asking him about this thing. He goes, you know what? If I was the owner of a WNBA team, I would. He goes, I like Michael Jordan better than LeBron James. He said, I would ask LeBron, LeBron, haven't you ever wanted to be a woman? And then I would get him to come play on my team, and I would be. We would destroy the competition by 70 points or whatever. And here's the thing. Part of me actually wants to see this, like, played out in the WNBA and let that dude from France come over and play in the league and just watch the hysteria that unfolds. It's not going to last. It wouldn't last. Nature finds a way. And we're seeing that conversation play out in the wnba, even though, again, it's not on my tv.
- [10:13]
A
Well, as soon as, you know, biological women start losing their spots to men, that's when it's going to hurt. I mean, right now it's all theory because they don't have this going on in the wnba. But if you actually did start having men signing up, like, you've got this woman in. This man in France playing in the women's league. If you started to have a Guy showing up, you know, multiple men showing up on rosters, and then that means women are pushed out, pushed out of, Of a place on the team or, or on the starting lineup. You think they're going to like that?
- [10:42]
C
It would just basically be jv, NBA. You'd have the NBA, which is all the elite men play in that league. And then everybody that can't make the men's squad in the NBA, they come and play the jvnba, which would be the wnba. And it'll be absurd.
- [10:56]
A
Well, it's kind of like the whole Leah Thomas thing that happened. You know, the swimmer who, you know, was ranked in the hundredth or 200 or whatever in the men's league, but then transitions to being female, quote, unquote, and all of a sudden is winning everything, you know, destroying all the competition. That's not fun for anybody. And it spawned a whole set of activists to oppose this. And if it happens in the wnba, I doubt that the players are going to be that thrilled about that. I think at that point you'd see a lot more people like Sophie Cunningham speaking up.
- [11:37]
B
I think there's multiple groups of people at play. I don't know how much of these statements by coaches or other people sounding off in the league are genuine as opposed to just an easy virtue signal. As you said, a lot of this is theoretical right now. It's not happening. And they really don't expect it to happen in Mass because it would destroy their league. There are some people who would back off once I think they saw the proof of everything. But there still is a group of folks who, no matter what, because this is their religion, would take these things to their logical conclusion, no matter what, no matter how much money it costs the wnba. Those people are out there. So, final question for you guys to reflect on. When I first started the show here In January 2025, Donald Trump had just been inaugurated, and some of his very first executive orders related to transgenderism and women in female sports. And I remember conservatives were elated. There was that great feeling of the quote, unquote, vibe shift, which I've mentioned numerous times on the podcast. We're a year and a half out from that moment. What does something like this say to our current cultural moment? Because we, you know, I understand transgenderism and the LGBT movement is certainly waning, but I like to think of it, it reached its peak, its apex. It's come down slightly, but it's still endemic, if you will. What are your thoughts?
- [13:13]
A
Yeah, I mean, I was celebrating those orders that President Trump handed down, I think they're great. But even at those high points early on in the administration, and we were just like, giddy over these orders that he issued, I never believed that he was going to be the savior of this country from wokeism and from godless leftist ideologies. I mean, the president has a role to play. Any president has a role to play in shaping and speaking into the culture. But our rot goes really, really deep. And a lot of what he did in those executive orders could be totally rolled back by another president. And the real thing that we need to be focusing on is changing hearts and minds, is persuading people to see the truth of natural reality in such a way that in their own consciences, they're persuaded. But when somebody gets behind a microphone wearing a shirt like Cheryl Reeves did, saying that, yeah, we ought to welcome the men into playing with the women in the women's leagues, everybody just goes, what are you talking about? So we've just lost common sense. And so I just think one of the reasons this organization exists is to call people to a Christian vision, vision of what it means to be male and female, which is the actual vision of what it means to be male and female. And we have our work cut out for us because we live in a culture that doesn't hold to the truth. I do think that there's a lot to work with in the culture in terms of common understandings of male and female, even amongst people who aren't Christians. But, man, there's a lot of people who are still dead set against common sense. And we just have to keep proclaiming the truth in the face of that. Yeah.
- [14:58]
C
One of the things that came across my feed recently was it was a chart that compared the Olympic world records in track and field between the men's and the women's groups, men's and women's competition. And the statistics are just kind of mind boggling, and they're stark. It was something to the range of 10 to 25%, either faster or longer or higher across the board in track and field. And what, what those events are actually measuring is agility, you know, ability to, you know, quickness, running fast, jumping high, et cetera, all the skills that show up in any sport, including basketball. And, you know, Denny, you mentioned common sense. Common sense is on display when you put on a men's game and a women's game, and you just watch the speed of the game, you watch the frequency of the scoring, you watch all of those things. And again, a common sense person can look at that and see, of course, there's a difference between the men and the women. And of course, it would be unfair competition for one of these men to come over and dominate the competition with the women. So common sense, in other words, I think we're seeing in this controversy, is still common. Nevertheless, we are still finding ways to, as the Bible says, suppress the truth in unrighteousness. I think that's exactly what we see on display here. We see wisdom crying out in the streets and people still inventing new ways to not choose the path of wisdom, but to choose the path of folly and to embrace further and further afield ways of rebelling against God's design. So common sense is still common, is still according to God's design and nature and what's revealed in Scripture. But we still need to call people to embrace that design, call people to repentance and. And really to live the life that God has designed for us to live.
- [16:52]
B
Well. Thank you, Colin. Thank you, Denny. And to our listeners for a new resource on these and related topics. I have a book recommendation for you. Mere Complementariat is of Denny's new book, Male and Female in the Image of God. I promise he didn't ask me to do that. I have read the book and I could endorse it based on my own reading. It will benefit you greatly. So buy one. Buy one for your friends, your family, your pastor, and read it and benefit from it. And for thousands of resources for almost 40 years in the making here at CBMW, visit cbmw.org.