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- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
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B
From the sexual revolution and safe space from our cultures, gender, and just general insanity. I'm back. I'm Jonathan Swan, executive editor of Icon, and I'm joined by Denny Burke, the president of cbmw, and Colin Smothers, the executive director of cbmw. Those who are listening audio only are not able to see Denny's new polo. It says icon on it. I love it, Denny. I love it.
- [00:37]
C
Yes. This is the title of our journal of which you are an editor. And ICON means image. And our. It's a journal about theological anthropology, especially as it relates to gender and sexuality.
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B
And, Colin, you can confirm this with a generous donation to CBMW to support our ministry. We'll send you a polo. All right? We'll send you. Is that right, Colin?
- [01:01]
A
True. You know, you are just breaking that news on this podcast, even to me, John, I didn't know this, but we will. We will make it happen. If you send us a generous enough donation, you yourself can get one of these polos to your mailbox maybe by the end of next week.
- [01:19]
B
All right? I love it. So you heard it. The executive director has confirmed my breaking reporting. This. That is the line here. Okay, guys, so I want to jump in. A video was making the rounds on social media last week, or the week before of a male homosexual couple. They were trying to get their surrogate son to say the names Dada or pop. I guess that's what they go by. But the little boy kept babbling. The word sounded like mama, only to be corrected by repeatedly by these men who playfully told their son that there is no mama. The men continued to tell her little boy, you have only two choices. Dad, dad or pop. The baby is seen in the video getting frustrated, crying a little bit as the two men laugh. To them, it was a funny moment that they needed to share. I think it was on Instagram. The video has gone viral, but many were outraged online. Colin, why did so many people respond with such strong feelings of, like, sadness, grief, even anger?
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A
Yeah, when I saw this video circulating, I mean, one of my first responses was just revulsion. And you already mentioned it, just absolute anger at these two men. Anger at the society that would allow this situation to happen, that would create the circumstances that this could happen and then even celebrate in a lot of quarters that this is happening. So the fact of the deprivation of this little baby's mother, number one, the fact of these two men's callousness towards the baby, the fact that they can't even understand and recognize the trauma that they are inducing on this little baby. They're laughing, they're laughing at the baby. The fact that the baby is crying out for its mama and there is no mama, at least in that situation. And they just flat out tell the baby, they say there is no mama, which actually is an outright lie. There is a mama. The problem is you've taken the baby away from their mama, his mama, because of this surrogacy situation, because of their gay marriage that intentionally excludes a mother from a marital union. So there are so many problems with this situation. And I think as Christians, but even a lot of secularists look at this and they see that there's something not right because it is not according to design, it's not according to nature, and we'll get into this. But you know, fundamentally the, the problem here is again, it's a chafing against the way that the world is ordered. Again, Christians would recognize according to God's design, God made us male and female in his image. God created the institution of marriage as a procreative institution, such that when a child is, is born, they are born biologically to a mother and a father, such that to take that child away intentionally from either the mother or the father, or to intentionally create situations where the child does not have access to a mother or access to a father is an intentional deprivation and it's really high handed sin and rebellion. One other thing I'd want to say though, because, you know, some commenters online were talking about the, you know, this baby's response about, you know, mama, and they're trying to get him to say either papa or dada or pop, and they're saying, well, he doesn't know the difference, you know, that he's just, you know, babbling, etc. I would actually challenge that assertion. There's a reason why across the world that that phoneme, that that sound mama actually adheres to almost every name naming of the female counterpart to the, to the parents mama. And actually, if you look into the science behind it, there's a natural connection for babies to their mothers and to nourishment and to nursing and to care. And so it really breaks your heart when you realize this baby is crying out for nourishment and female care. And the only kind that have.
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C
Are you saying the formation of the word itself?
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A
The formation of the word itself when nursing. Exactly. And that's scientifically confirmed and also linguistically confirmed across the world. And so this baby is crying out for that kind of again, nourishment and care and the Father. These men, I'm not even going to call them their fathers. They're laughing at the child, and they do not understand what they have done to this kid. And the world can see it, and we should just. Our hearts should break, and we should be motivated to do everything we can in our power to prevent these kinds of circumstances going forward.
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C
You know, it's really fascinating to think about the 2010s and before when we were debating gay marriage in our culture. And, you know, people were trying to come up with arguments to show. Christians especially, were trying to show, hey, look, if you bring, you know, make gay marriage legal, it's going to have a lot of implications. Now, one of the implications is going to be you're saying as a society that children don't need a mother and a father, that that's not the ideal, that there are all these other familial arrangements which are just as acceptable. And it was often trotted out at the time. If you say, well, no, no, a child needs a mother and a father, people would say, are you saying that all these orphans in the world is. If they didn't have. If they couldn't move and live with a loving gay couple, that wouldn't be better than being in an orphanage? They would say things like that. And, you know, it was off. It was presented like a showstopper. But what everybody was. Was missing was that you're redefining the norm. Okay? In other words, we're not talking about what has to do in a pinch. We're talking about what we think is right and good. What is the. The norm? Like, what would be the best thing? The best thing is for a child to be raised by his mother and father. Those arguments were not penetrating at the time, at least not into the popular consciousness. I think it's compelling to a lot of Christians, a lot of conservatives, but a lot of people weren't buying it. You said those as a natural law kind of an argument, but a lot of people were just like this veil over their face to hear it. But what was fascinating about this video is, is it makes people look at. Makes them, oh, this is what this looks like. We've just said this child is saying mama. But this is what it's like when there's not one. And that child can reach as far as he wants, but he's never going to reach out and find that mama. And it's because we've created an entire surrogacy industrial complex now where there's a market to remove children from their Mothers. In other words, it's no longer, you know, when there's a tragedy and the parents are taken away, the mother's taken away. No, we've incentivized taking away these children from their mothers. Because the idea is, is that, hey, gay relationships are just like any other relationship, therefore they should have access to children just like anybody else should. None of it was ever true, but I think the video sort of brings it home in a way, makes it more concrete that maybe a lot of people didn't see previously.
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B
Guys, the author of the video, one of the, one of the fathers, if you will, defends the video saying it was posted sort of as a self deprecating comedic act. You know, they're making fun of themselves because the babies clearly not wanting to say pop or dada, saying mama. Why is it that so many people actually aren't bothered by the video? So there's a, there's obviously a large group of people were alarmed by it, indignant about it, but you have another set of people for whom this is actually just a totally normal and fine thing. What has changed? What's the worldview that's informing that response?
- [09:43]
C
That it's, it's not funny. I mean that, that's the problem. In other words, the world view is so warped that you can't even see that these, that these guys can't even see. They're, they're laughing out of making an intentional orphan of this child. That's not funny. Like the kid wants his mother, he's never going to have his mother. And they think that that's, you know, sort of funny. You can only think that if you think that their arrangement is a reasonable substitute for man woman marriage. And it's just not. But it's a moral revolution with consequences. And you can see the consequences right there.
- [10:18]
A
Yeah, I think we live in a world where so many more people are making decisions to remain intentionally childless, to delay marriage. So even our natural familial context is being reduced because of the conscious decisions people are making not to enter marriage, not to create families. And so therefore they've made this sort of expressive individualist choice choice to do X, Y or Z. And so they're going to look over there and they're going to say, well, who am I to judge, you know, if that they're making some other decision. It's, it's the height of, of relativism. It's the height of, you know, ignoring and denying capital T, truth and purpose and design, again by the fact that we were Created by. By God and. And for a purpose and for him. You know, one of the things that. That, you know, I saw some commentators point out, is what's the difference between this and human trafficking? And there's not a lot of daylight between this. I mean, we're talking about purchasing infants. And so often this is happening from gay couples, specifically gay men, and they're purchasing little boys. And there are horrific reports out of some of these situations where these men are purchasing these little boys and then going on to abuse them because there is no kind of nurturing relationship there, but instead just a perversion through and through. And again, say that.
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C
Colin, you're not allowed.
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I just did.
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C
You're not allowed to say that because nobody wants to say that homosexuality itself is a perversion.
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A
Oh, I know, I know, I know. And so we've created the conditions here in the west that is sort of a wild west, as it were, for these surrogacies, for these adoptive relationships, for these purchasing of children. And we're ignoring the abuses. We're laughing at the abuses along with these two men, at this baby who is forming in some ways his very first word, this mama, which is a very natural inclination, and instead is received by laughter. That just is revolting to me. It makes me sick in my stomach, and it makes me want to do something about it.
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B
Guys, how should pastors be teaching about these things? How should the church respond?
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C
Well, we have to have a very clear biblical foundation. But understanding that when you open the Bible, this is not an alternative to teaching about the natural order. The Bible is bearing witness to the natural order, and its whole reasoning is premised upon a natural order that is clear for everybody to see. We've talked about this before, but when you look at Romans 1 and you see what Paul says about homosexuality, he says, you know, the women left the natural. Women were. How does it say? They left the natural function of the man and exchanged natural relations. Nature. Right. They went contrary to nature and they exchanged. Yeah, they exchanged the natural relations for that which is contrary to nature. And the men burning in their desires towards one another. Men with men committing indecent acts. But you'll notice there that it says that they're going against nature. Para fusing. Fusing means nature. That's just the apostle Paul saying, there's a natural order and there are certain things that defy that order. And you can identify what's right and what's wrong by what goes with the grain of nature, by what goes against the grain of nature. And so you know, pastors have to be able to say, look, if you're reading your Bible, and this is not an either or. Notice what the Bible says through exegesis versus nature. They both go together and it's just woven throughout the whole.
- [14:07]
A
That's right. And I would also say, you know, right now, John, I'm teaching through our eight week curriculum at my church. Male and female. He created them. It's an eight week study where we are just going, we're marching through the text.
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B
Not a shameless call for the.
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A
That's right, beginning. You asked the question, man. You asked the question. Beginning in Genesis 1 and 2 and really looking at God's original design, he created us, male and female, in his image and with a purpose. He instituted marriage, he officiated the first marriage, and then he desires children from those marriages. And you know, marching through the text is important and we need to be those who teach the whole counsel of God's Word. And that includes beginning in Genesis 1 and 2 all the way through revelation. So, you know, God's word is good. It doesn't lead us astray and it confirms what we see as far as nature and design goes. So, yeah, the world is desperately lost and wicked, as we've seen in this video. And it's God's Word and the Incarnate Word that is going to put things to rights. So let's double down on that.
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B
Amen. Well, thank you all for listening and and for more resources. We have the curriculum, as Colin mentioned, but thousands of other articles, podcasts and resources@cbmw.org.