Rhythms of Grace

S10E15 - Before We Dive In...

This week, the Rhythms of Grace team begins looking at what the Bible has to say about sexuality. Before they do, however, they need to back up and look at some of our cultural realities and cultural assumptions. What baggage are you taking with you into your reading of Scripture?

Duration:: 54m
Broadcast on:: 06 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Well, hello and welcome to Rhythms of Grace. I'm Christine and I'm here with me. Good morning or good afternoon, depending. And some. Good evening. Good night. Perfect. We've got our bases covered. Thank goodness. What a team. Yeah. Oh, man. So, if you've been journeying with us for the past few weeks, we've been learning about Hermannudix and how to- which is fancy. Hermannudix is a fancy word for how you read the Bible. Hermann is one guy. Nudix is the other guy. I see. Hermann and Nudix. They're Hermann and Nudix. Wow. What a mood this morning. Yes. So, it's yes. How to read the Bible and we've been just, yeah, kind of laying down some frameworks and then tackling some big issues. So where are we jumping in this week? Well, as some of you have probably anticipated, we've covered a lot of different topics ranging from slavery to women to sex and now probably the most heated and anticipated topic that we'll be diving into. And this, I'll just say this will go several, at least several episodes just because there's so many layers, right? And people want to make this so simple, simplistic and reductionistic and it's not. But it's around homosexuality and we're going to, broadly speaking, we're going to start off talking about kind of like the analysis of just contemporary Western culture, right? What's the reality that we find ourselves in today? Just kind of talk about that and also, and then we're going to dive into kind of the next episode like the hermeneutical framework of how do you interpret scripture and what bearing does scripture have on these texts, especially as we've talked about, let's say women and slavery and all these other things. Before we dive and then after that, we'll actually go into some of the texts in the Old Testament and New Testament and kind of break those down like we have with a lot of the other passages surrounding slavery, women, et cetera. And then the last, we'll kind of conclude this whole mini series on this on just how do you live that out as a follower of Jesus and collectively as the church? Because there are two grave errors on both sides that churches believe that those are the only options and both options, I think, are hurtful and is there a radical middle or where it's not necessarily comfortable or always clear, which is kind of giving our hand away, but so follow with us through the whole thing and I will say this. I guarantee at different points, you will feel uncomfortable, you will disagree, you will throw your phone across room because of this podcast, you will stop listening, you will talk to one of us on any given weekend and just, you know, whatever, please, please be patient, walk with us and just let you have all the other maybe episodes and I will say I know this is a kind of a different issue because slavery, it's not like, well, my uncle owns slaves, right? We all reject kind of the transatlantic American slavery movement, which again was different from biblical slavery and et cetera, and God's redemptive plan. And woman is a little bit more personal, especially if you're a woman and you've been locked out of let's say leadership, but this is, I would say even more personal for people who aren't homosexuals because you have family and the three of us do and you probably do to friends, colleagues, co-workers, family members, extended or nuclear family members who are, you know, any buy, gay, lesbian, all that trans and so this, I understand how personal this issue is. So let's just acknowledge that and we'll always come back to that because this isn't just an issue, right? This is when we talk about this, you see somebody's face. So, um, crickets, crickets, no, it's good. I'm just gearing myself up. The other thing I will say is this because our culture has encouraged a culture of outrage on both sides. I mean, let me use the Olympics as an example, right? Well, this happened a week or so ago, but the whole outrage of the opening ceremony airs Friday and Saturday. Oh my goodness, my social media feed was filled with Christians and Christian leaders and even like nationally known pastors who were offended on this, what they thought was a parody on the Lord's Supper. They had drag queens, you know, dancing and doing all this sitting at a table and so like so many Christians were offended at this. And I remember thinking like, oh my goodness, right? And then by Saturday night, you see some people on social media like, hey, no, that's not the Lord's Supper. That's not a parody of that. It's not demeaning Christianity. And they're like, it's actually, you know, Dionysia is the God of wine and revelry. And you know, here's evidence of why, who is one of the original Olympians, they say? Yeah, yeah. And so, and the thing is those people were offended at the people because they were offended. And then, and then Sunday, it's like, well, no, maybe it was a nod to the Lord's Supper. And so then people are mad and offended for telling them why they shouldn't be mad and offended. And they're, you know, so on and so on. And I will say, sadly, and this is, I want to demarcate between culture and the church here, the church, Christians, do this with each other in regards to this issue. We outrage against each other. And there's no real conversation happening. There's no dialogue. There's no listening. There's no, it is just outrage. And boy, being political politics season, right? All the more is this accentuated. Yeah. So can we just say like, man, take a deep breath and kind of dial down the anxiety and the outrage? And can we have a discussion about this? I think one of the, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, but I think one of the most important things that we can keep in mind as we navigate difficult issues is one of humility. It can feel pretty much in every era. Science, Christianity, culture has sort of felt that they had received the culmination, sort of the ultimate revelation of whatever their specific discipline was. And history has proven again and again that like, that is never the case. It's perhaps a minor summit in a mountain range that continues to ascend. And I feel that way about this issue as well. You know, we talked about, you know, how in a hundred years someone might listen to this podcast and just feel like we are the most backward, you know, people they could imagine because of our, you know, ancient perspective on some of these issues. And I think that it's just important to keep that in mind, to say, look, even even as the Bible says, like we were, it's like we're looking in like a dim mirror, like an obscured mirror, that is the best that we have in terms of revelation of what truth is. And, and so even in this, regardless of how confident you are in your position or how sure you feel, just embrace it with humility and understand that in a decade, in two years, things could look very, very different. And but what will be remembered is the way that we engage with these conversations, not our position. Yeah, that's good. That's good. And so let's begin with just a kind of a look at our current Western culture, because, you know, culture is kind of the air we breathe. It's like fish and water. And so we don't even think about how our culture really shapes our view on a lot of things. I'm going outside of sexuality itself, too. And the more that we are unaware of it, the more we are at the mercy of our cultural spirit of the times. And so I think it's important to kind of look at that first and foremost. So I will say no generation in the history of the world so far has been through more change than we have. In the last two generations, more change has happened technologically sexually consumer economically than like periods of hundreds or even thousands of years in the history of the world. And so let's just acknowledge that. And this is especially true in the area of sexuality. And I would say especially in Western culture, more so than, let's say, in developing countries or even in Eastern culture, where, I mean, there have been a lot of, again, advancements and things. But when it comes to the area of sexuality, it's surprising when you talk to, let's say, Christians in developing countries, how this is not so much an issue, that it's actually in a culture of urban luxury. I'll call it that economic luxury, that this is such a primal issue. If you talk to an African Christian or even a Latino Christian, I mean, not here in the States, but in Asia, Africa, or in the global South. So let's just contrast even today how unique Western culture is. I mean, this has shaped our view of money, sexuality, entertainment, like everything. Any thoughts or comments? No, I think it's like, it's true. It's easy to see, but it's also like hard to know, like, how is this impacting me? Again, I was born in the late 90s. This is all I've known is like chain, you know, a millennia of change every 10 years. I think that the question, and I don't, this may be like a hard left turn in terms of this conversation, but I think part of where I always get not stuck, but where I chew on this particular issue, is sort of like, how as people of faith, how much are we called to try to change the reality of the culture that we live in, versus how much are we to, I wouldn't say that for me that the spectrum is, should we change it? Should we go with it? It's more like, should we push it back? Or should we sort of like swim along and like look for redemptive opportunities? I don't know if that makes sense. That's like sort of where I often sit with it, because I think that, yeah, I think that I have people very close to me that feel opposite on that front. I have family members that are pushing really hard to sort of like return to something that was. And then I have, you know, people that are very close to me, they're sort of like, look, like that isn't, we're never going back to that. Let's talk about what does redemption look like as we get forward. So I chew on that. I don't feel like I'm personally unsettled. I guess maybe I always wondered, because I'm one of seven and all of my siblings are so different, and so I've just experienced how like, oh, there can be five right paths for five different people, not on like everything, but on certain things. So like, yeah, I guess I wonder, some people are like called to swim against the current and be that one fish swimming the wrong way, according to the ways of this world, and like be a light in that way. And maybe others are called to like swim alongside the other fish and try to like, you know, shepherd them, push them a little bit. And you know, like this is the image in my head, but I guess I wonder if as the church, there's kind of a breadth of calling and there's space for multiple paths with that. When you were posting that, Nate, my thought was, yes, you know, and that's where wisdom comes in, because I think, and this is just my own personal take, and I've lived in kind of the one subculture, Christian subculture of pushback, evil and darkness, right? But I think an analogy that I often use is like, you know, yeah, we're supposed to be the light of the world, but oftentimes in the way we push back, it's almost like shining high beams in the eyes of the culture. So instead of illuminating, you actually blind people to the truth. It is possible to push back darkness in such an intense way that it actually does more damage and actually helps. At the same time, that doesn't negate the fact that we are to push against darkness. At the same time, you can't just do that. There are some things in culture, you can't just hold as a whole, condemn all of culture, because then, well, yeah, you're going to make your own clothes because that's too cultural. Like, there are so many things that are part of culture that, and God created culture, and there are elements of culture. Nothing is like all bad or all good. There are elements of culture that have been tainted by our current worldview and yet have redemptive elements to it. And I think there is a side of like, yeah, you go along with culture in the sense of you live in culture. At the same time, transformation happens from the inside out, where Jesus talks about yeast and bread. It starts small, and I would say an alternative lifestyle. I mean, in this case, the Christian lifestyle or an alternative community can be a prophetic voice to a culture that is just swimming down its own path of self pleasure. Yeah. Yeah. Richard Rohr, who's a Catholic theologian and monk priest. He, as one who has been marginalized by both the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in various spaces, continues to hold his position because he simply says the way to affect the greatest changes from the inside. And so he could go and be like an external voice to in a lot of different ways, but he's like, no, I'm going to fight to stay because I actually believe that my greatest ability to impact changes from the inside. Yeah. Yeah. So let me just maybe take a 45 degree turn here and just talk about, I think, especially in the area of sexuality or even sex. We talked about sex the last episode. Let me just talk about some of the shifts that have happened even in the last two generations. Again, this isn't even talking about homosexuality, specifically, as much as just the cultural analysis and critique of sex in the last two generations, which I think is, and we could talk more about whether that goes along with or is against kind of the biblical narrative, if you will. So first, sex, if you think about it from like 1969 to the late '60s, right, the whole woodstock, love is love, you know, kind of free love to now. And in fact, we won't go into this today, but that worldview didn't just happen in the last 40, 50 years. That was actually born, I wouldn't even say hundreds of years before that. And that's not this episode, but maybe if we get into more philosophical discussion, it's so fascinating to see how one philosophical thought or idea has repercussions hundreds of years later. And that's true of our worldview today. We hotly debate certain things, but that is going to have repercussions not only in the next generation, but like a couple hundred years from now. So just to say, ideas have consequences. I mean, the, is it song of, or is it Proverbs? There's nothing new under the sun? Yeah, or something. Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes, thank you. Thank you, M. Div. You know, and again, for me, I'm often aware of that when I hear people talk about like, oh, I wish we could return to like the good old days. I'm like, the good old days were not there. Not that good. They didn't exist. Anything that you point your finger at and say, I can't believe this is happening now. It happened then. It happened in perhaps it was under wraps. It happened, you know, in the dark or out of the out of the public eye, but all of those things have been happening like someone like you were saying for hundreds of years. The fact that they are out of the open now, you can argue that's good or bad, but it's not because they're new. Right. I mean, just case some point, I'll hear church people, church leaders, pastors say, oh man, you know, if we could go back to the first century church, and I'm kind of like, well, where you are persecuted, where that dude was sleeping with his mom? Yeah. And can I say like, as it relates to sexuality, man, our current culture doesn't hold a candle to the overt kind of sexuality, promise, promiscuity, pederacy, which is kind of power kind of sex and things. And homosexuality, I mean, throughout, not only politicians, but military, I mean, it was literally everywhere. And so if you think like, yeah, like our culture holds nothing to kind of ancient Roman culture, if we want to compare things, right? So just to say that. So when it comes to sex, I think a few shifts that have happened when it comes to just sexual intimacy. One over the last couple generations, it's been disconnected from childbearing because of birth control. It's been separated. It's been disconnected from marriage, especially out of the birth, out of born out of the birth control. And it's also been disconnected from male female relationships. And it's disconnected from any kind of love, affection, emotion, or even commitment. That's that's a quick kind of survey of kind of like how sex, the way it was intended, has been disconnected in our culture. I mean, I would also argue that considering that prostitution has been around, again, for thousands and thousands of years, like that's when we say our culture, we can actually sort of compare the human experience across time and space versus how God intended it because it's not like those things are happening for the first time today. They have been happening for thousands and thousands of years. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And none of those shifts are new, like you were saying, right? People have been sleeping together outside of marriage since the beginning of time. Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in the world. Homosexual relationships are all over Greek mythology, gender fluidity, I mean, has a long history in indigenous cultures. And so again, so what people think is moral progress or intellectual enlightenment or sexual liberation, all this stuff. I mean, this has been happening for thousands of years. Yeah. Even if you think of Alice Huxley's Brave New World, the thing that's interesting, and that's a picture of kind of like a prophetic piece of literature of society, today, it's where we are socially conditioned to see sex as a commodity, to be consumed, to be experienced. And in the novel, he has pictures, like even little children running around naked, playing erotic games, right? And, you know, maybe a couple generations ago, we would have been like, oh my goodness, right? But that's reality today. And I would even say too, with not only artificial intelligence and virtual reality, sex now, you don't even need another person. You know, there's even questions of like, if in virtual reality, if you quote unquote rape somebody. Oh, geez. No, seriously, like, now that they are discussing, like, to what extent is that like criminal, right? Criminal, right? And so again, like, the discussions we're going to have around sexuality. A way more complicated than the ones that we're having right now. When it's disconnected and like, because maybe there's a hologram of somebody who is in your exact likeness, and somebody sexually abuses you for their own pleasure, right? What does that mean legally? What does that mean spiritually? Sure. I mean, and I know that, I know that celebrities are even are now even having that argument sort of saying like, since, since AI can recreate my likeness, how much do I own my face? How much do I own? And so there's like this sense of even, as you talked about sex being disconnected, even like our images or how we, our bodies are like even being like disconnected from who we are. Yeah. It's just getting more and more and more murky. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it would be a tendency for us in our culture today to say, well, I mean, it's just sex. I mean, it's not like I'm hurting anybody. It's consensual. And so what's the big deal? I mean, slavery. I mean, you're hurting somebody. But sex, it's just like we're not, we're not hurting anybody. So what's a big deal. Thoughts on that? Well, again, I think it's an, that, that mindset can only come out of an incomplete understanding of like, not only how sex works emotionally, but even how sex works biologically, in terms of like the hormones that are released, like, there's just, there's, there, sex is meant to be even biologically, it's meant to be a connective act. Like what happens chemically in our brains in the midst and post sex are literally like, it is designed to increase connection between people. Yeah. And so to separate it from that and sort of say, it's fine. It's like, well, you're, you're even misunderstanding that the core biology of how sex works at some level. So I think that there is, I think there's harm that can be occurring that you're unaware of. And again, I'm not, like, I know everybody's sleeping with each other. I get it. I'm not that old. But I'm just saying like the, the biology is actually pretty clear. Yeah. And I think there are a lot of things that we can do that we can consent to that are still harmful to ourselves or to others, right? Like, I can choose not to wear my seatbelt. But when I get into a car crash, like I'm still responsible if I kill someone else in that car by not wearing my seatbelt. You know, and there are those things where it's like, I can, I can do something and not know the repercussions for my own body or for others. And there may be repercussions that may not come into effect right now. Yeah. But years down the road, you will feel. Exactly. Right. So it's almost like we're saying like, while consent is a critical part of human interaction, it is not necessarily the only thing required to eliminate harm from an interaction. Yeah. Christine. And you know, a master's degree in divinity. You're the master's of all things divine. That's really, that's really good. I mean, I'm making light of it, but I'm going to chew on that for a while. That's really good. So, and that's the other thing too. Like when you talk about it, like, we treat sexuality very flippantly, almost to our own peril, because growing up in the 80s, there isn't a family or person that hasn't been affected by sex in the sense of, you know, mom or dad left the family and, you know, it led to a divorce. And you may say, oh, kids are resilient, but don't tell me that that doesn't hurt the family, the child, the couple. When it comes to sex, you know, it's such a powerful force. Why does infidelity feel so deep, right? Or sexual addiction issues or even body image issues, right? These go so deep in us, right? And so just to say, ah, yeah, you know, not a big deal, I think that's something for us to consider. And I would even say because it's so powerful, if you're struggling with God and sexuality, whether it's orientation, gender identity, pornography, or any number of issues, welcome, you're not alone, right? And even before we get into homosexual and all that kind of stuff, like, man, like, let's not, let's not just focus on that one thing, right? Let's just also talk about like, um, whether, uh, and the odds are that especially if you're part of the LGBT community and you've grown up with this and you felt like, man, at some point, I knew I was gay or something. And you felt like you were alone, um, uh, like that you are not alone in the sense of, um, maybe experiencing shame, guilt, regret. And even feeling like, man, if anybody knew, uh, can I just say, man, you're not alone because sexual brokenness cuts not just through homosexuals or bisexuals or trans. It cuts through heterosexuals, it cuts through all of us. So I think that's one important thing just to say. And so just to say this is not an easy conversation, but it touches a very, very deep place in every one of us. Well, I think, um, what I was reminded of as you were, as you were saying that is that there's a verse in 1 Corinthians where Paul says, believe from sexual immorality, all of their sins, a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body. Like even he was making a distinction, um, not necessarily, and this is important, not necessarily for severity, but simply saying like, sex occupies a very unique place in the landscape of our lives and of our souls. And so the, you know, when you see that this issue around sex or especially around LGBTQ issues is so divisive, like there's a reason for that because sex is in some ways different. Um, and again, I'm not, I'm not arguing for its worse, better, less more. I'm simply saying even Paul said, look, this is a unique issue. And so the fact that we give it extra attention seems, that makes sense. You know, it makes sense. Yeah. So as we get into kind of the larger even cultural debate among Christians, um, which I'll call conservatives and progressives long before it's an issue of sexuality. Okay, because that's where we often start. Long before it's an issue of sexuality, uh, and morality, um, it's about what it means to be a human being. And it's long before it's, uh, about what it means to be a human being underneath that is, uh, what does it mean to be a per, a human being in the largest story of God? So I want that framework to be in front of us because we just want to go to the issue. Yeah. Uh, so the conservatives are like, it's all about morality, right, wrong, black, white, that's conservatives, progressives are like, it's not about morality. It's about anthropology. It's about, you know, uh, liberation, justice, uh, uh, uh, kindness and love and compassion and, and, and lib, uh, you know, allowing people to have a full human experience. And I would say neither of those, and what that, what happens is they both cherry pick versus and then make their arguments. And I would say there, there's a story, there's a story underneath that under sexuality, there's a, a deeper story, which is the human experience. And underneath that is a even deeper story of our place in God's story. Does that make sense? Not yet, but maybe it will. As we go through this conversation, okay, I'm here because, uh, I'm like, oh, what, what does it mean to be human song? Uh, what is our place in God's story? That's a good question. Well, I think part of what I, I hear you saying songs that, well, like we need to, like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of things to wrestle through before you land at sort of like the issue. There's a lot of, there's a lot of assumptions behind someone's position on the issue and whether or not you're aware of those assumptions, whether or not you sort of have proactively landed on that set of beliefs about those deeper things, who you are and who you are in God's story, that is strongly influencing where you land on issues of sexuality. So if you don't take the time to answer those other ones, you, you sort of, you're halfway down a path before you have even sort of decided to make an argument. Um, so that makes sense to me. Yeah. So maybe I'll give some slivers of, well, let's just think of the biblical narrative. And when it comes to our humanity and sexuality, um, maybe let's start there. And then we'll kind of dive a little bit deeper into kind of some of the questions that are asked around this issue from a cultural perspective. And when I, when I say questions, I mean, within the church, and those are two separate conversations. There's the church versus the world, but then there's the conversation within the church. Um, so I mean, we could say right in the beginning, what does it mean to be human? I mean, uh, right in the beginning, humans are made in the image of God. That is like, we go, yeah, yeah, I've heard that. Like that is so big, right? Because, um, it is only in the biblical narrative, the story of God where you can actually, um, feel anger towards human trafficking. If you take a completely humanistic view, you cannot, because the strong eat the weak. So let's get rid of the, uh, elderly, the de, uh, the people with disabilities. There is no basis from your own worldview. If you took it to its logical conclusion, to even defend your defending a moral that is actually higher than what your worldview, uh, justifies. And so the fact that Christianity says we are made in the image of God has huge implications when it comes to loving your neighbor. Right? For example. Does that make sense? Yeah. Um, yeah. I would say the other thing too is part of the biblical narrative is God designed the human body. Uh, you know, we are not the result of chance plus time, uh, evolving from microbes. Uh, God made us, uh, in his image and, um, and we feel the pain of it, both physically or physiologically or mentally when, uh, something is out of sorts, if you will, whether it's mental disability or, uh, you know, let's say sexual distortion, you know, you, you have this, uh, tendency towards child pornography. We would say, uh, that, that is misaligned with how God designed us. Um, yeah, I feel like, uh, that is a helpful kind of, uh, piece of the puzzle because I think with a lot of, I don't know, uh, if, if chance designed the body, uh, presumably we would be able to discover all its secrets. Um, and I think, I mean, you know, hopefully we're able to continue to through science, like discover more and more. Um, but I remember in high school being in a book club with, uh, it was like a multi religion book club where we're reading all these religious texts and discussing them and there were a lot of different representatives from, yeah, these different, uh, areas. And I remember one time being asked like, well, why does God say, do not do this? Uh, and at that point I was like, I don't know, but God made me, so presumably he knows how I'm supposed to use my body. Um, and I, I think maybe that can be helpful. Um, as like, oh yeah, if God created our, our body is not random chance then, uh, we can trust his guide book a little bit better. Yeah. Any other thoughts on human nature or the body or sexuality in terms of the bill and, uh, biblical narrative. And I guess I'm thinking of creation account more, more genesis. I don't, I mean, I have a lot of, there's, my brain is spinning. He's not in a bad way. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I know that we're like the first of several episodes in. So I'm sort of like, do I say it? Is that, but why are we going to get to that? Yeah. Probably. Where does that fit? Yeah. Exactly. So around, specifically around what we've talked about it, I think I'm still chewing. Yeah. Uh, uh, here's another one, right? Human nature is good, but it's bent. It's been, it's been, uh, marred, right? And we've talked about this in previous episodes, right? Original goodness came before a glory, original glory came before original sin, right? So human nature is good. God made man, a woman said, this is very good, but it's bent. Um, I would also say that, uh, you know, gender is not imaginary, but part of our humanity. Um, that has implications, which we'll talk about. Um, and then just sex in general, right? Um, sex away God created it is more than just play for adults. Like you were saying, it's, it's more than just two bodies. It's, it's union. It's at all levels, emotionally, spiritually, not only biologically, but you know, uh, so many levels. Um, so I think that's just maybe just a, a quick survey of like, yeah, when we talk about the large story of God and who we are as human beings, that's the framework we want to kind of start off with. And so, um, uh, I guess some thoughts on questions that I hear from people, both inside the church and outside the church, especially in the light of, uh, the cultural reality of some, what I would call conservative churches and, uh, is given all the oppression and discrimination against homosexuals. Like, what do churches have against homosexuals? Right. Do you ever hear that? Yeah. Why is the church so like, you know, against it? Yeah. And then questions I get from people within the church, well, is homosexuality sin? Are they going to hell? That's a pretty frequent question. And, uh, and they want, they want a yes or no. Um, so on one hand, I would say, uh, truth is always dual. Uh, it's, it's more robust and dual and paradoxical than it is like flat one-sided. Yeah. So on one side, uh, again, uh, it would seem that the Bible says, uh, when it comes to homosexuality, there's, there's reservations and there are concerns that is not God's original design. On the other hand, uh, there is the call to love your neighbor, which means that everyone is your neighbor. And that means not only straight, but gay, bi, uh, trans, everyone is your neighbor. Um, and I think the tension is there are churches that ignore, uh, some passages or, uh, they take a revisionist, um, interpretation of scripture in order to love the neighbors and others who may take certain passages more seriously, but they, uh, they do it in a very self-righteous way. All right. So if we're, if this is where we're at, I have a lot to say now. Okay. Uh, so the brief amount of history, the, the church that I helped start and served at for, um, uh, probably 10 years, uh, a little more than 10 years, maybe, uh, in metro Detroit was in Ferndale. Um, Ferndale, uh, I think I'm right about this. Yeah. I had the first openly gay mayor in the state of Michigan. Um, it was really sort of like the birthplace of the Detroit pride festival come June, like building, like, and I haven't been there in a couple of years, but they would literally like paint, repaint the outside of Ferndale in rainbows for, for the month, for pride festival. Um, and so the issue of, of LGBTQ issues were front and center at our church, for years and years and years. It was, and I'm not exaggerating. It was a daily conversation because it was so prevalent. And I think where we landed, well, let me say this, the, the pastor of that church, his name is Jim, Jim Poole. Look him up. He's amazing. You know, he, he landed at a place that I have the utmost respect for, which was this. He held a, and I think still does a traditional position around sexuality. Um, and would, would say from the pulpit that homosexuality is a sin. Uh, but I have never seen someone who has worked so hard to love people as he did. You know, I, I think that the, the, the argument that I still hear and just like, just drives me nuts when people say, like, love the center, hate the sin. Yeah. That's legitimately an excuse for hate. That like, because you know, because you know what Jim Poole did, he literally said, love the center full stop. Yeah. I'm, I'm telling you, like we were a part of, we, we had a booth at every single pride festival where we would give out candy. That's all we did. We just gave out candy. Um, we would participate in every AIDS walk. We had a, a tremendous number of LGBTQ people in our church and they were not barred from serving in any way simply because like, hey, you know, who's going to cast the first stone legitimately? Who's going to cast the first stone? Um, and, and so, uh, I just, I, I've lived like, I've lived for decades in this conversation. Um, and the thing that I continue to land on is the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy around it. The thing that, that absolutely, one of the key turning points for us in that church was that we served communion every week. And the woman who served communion was obese. To, to the point, she led communion. She was a volunteer. She was obese to the point where she had, she had issues like walking upstairs, like, like she was that obese. And no one, and then we also had a trans woman on the worship team. And no one ever said to us, how can you have someone who clearly has issues with gluttony serving communion? Right. And everyone always said, how can you possibly have a trans person leading worship? The disparity between the two, again, this was a daily conversation for us. We were simply like, we cannot justify that. Right. We cannot. If we are going to allow public issues with what, what Jim was happy to define as sin, we're going to allow those in all of these other areas. There's absolutely no reason that we can then draw this imaginary line across here and, and say, like, Oh, well, this one we treat differently than everything else. And so we just, that's how we lived it. And it was difficult, man. It was, it was a, it was a daily conversation because it had to be a daily conversation because it was such a complicated issue. But that's where we landed with it. You know, culturally, as a church, we just wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and tried to find that really, really uncomfortable middle ground. Yeah. But when you start to talk about the culture of the church, and some people taking these verses more seriously than others, where we ended up was we simply said, we are most concerned with our own expressions of hypocrisy. And that is what we're going to keep asking ourselves. Are we being hypocritical in terms of how we treat this area versus this area, even if we're calling this one, and I realized this is controversial, even if we're calling these issues around LGBTQ, even if we're calling them sin, at the very least, Jim was astonishingly aware of his own tendency towards hypocrisy. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I remember, yeah, growing up, it was like, yeah, issues around homosexuality were like salvation issues, right? Like in our church, it's like, in order to be saved, you must dot dot dot. But yeah, around just one, one sin again. Yeah, we'll talk more about language there, but and not not any other. Yeah. And so, you know, for me, when as we start to like, everyone wants to talk about, like you said, some this particular issue. And again, when you ask about who we if we start asking about who we are as humanity, and who we are in God's story, those were the questions that we were asking, like, are we hypocrites? Like, are we, are we like choosing, are we picking and choosing imaginary lines for our own comfort or for our own ease at navigating this issue? And I, Christina, I think you bring up a good point. Like, I'm, we're going to talk about the, is it sin? Is it not sin? We're going to get there. I'm simply trying to say that regardless of what you believe on that, there are ways to ask deeper questions that dramatically change how you engage with this issue. Right, right. So like I said in the beginning, we're talking about culture, we're going to dive into hermeneutics and look at the text, but how that is lived out, is there's often that gap. Yeah. And so, just, just like in politics, theologically and ethically, there's this divide, right? And that, that's what I want to point out just to say, like, look, if you find yourself in one of those two places, you know, like, for example, I have, let's say, conservative friends who would, like, disagree with their Mormon neighbor, and yet they would love them, have dinner with them, invite them over, hang out with them, and then they have a lesbian couple next to them on the other side, and they would shun them, right? Kind of speaking to that whole thing. If Jesus says, love your neighbor, like the Mormon disagrees with you on specific, important doctrines of the Christian faith. The lesbian couple may disagree with you on your view of sexuality, but again, like there's discrimination there, and like we're talking about, Christians have had a very bad track record of loving people who are different than us, whether it's politically or theologically, and again, another nod to the politically, right? Like, oh my goodness, like, you know, Ann Arbor is usually pretty progressive, and it's really, I mean, I mean, myself included, it's really easy to hate Trump and, you know, do you test him as a human being and all that kind of stuff? But even that too, right? There's got to be a check like, yeah, like, I forget, as hard as it is, like, you know, he is made in God's image. Yeah, maybe there's a lot of bentness in him, but don't pretend there isn't any in me either, right? And do I stand in a posture of self-righteousness? Yeah. Yeah, it's the issue. I was just having this conversation with my in-laws where they were saying, like, we've had this conversation with our friends, where, for example, they have a niece or an nephew that is getting married and is gay, and they wrestle with, should we go to the wedding because we're afraid that that offers an implicit endorsement of their lifestyle? And again, it's just a fascinating and they were, I'm thankful, again, they're in their 70s. I'm thankful that they and their friends are asking these really hard questions about, like, how do we engage with this issue? That's so important. But that particular, like, there's a fear of endorsement of homosexuality that, again, we simply don't apply to every other thing. Like, you wouldn't say, I don't know if I should go to my wealthy friend's party because I'm afraid that I'm going to be endorsing their greed. Yeah, it's never a question. It's never a question. Right. But for some reason, there's this tremendous fear around, well, it's going to look like I'm endorsing it. And I don't know where that comes from. Again, I think it does occupy a unique place in the landscape. Sexuality occupies a unique place both in our landscape and in the landscape of faith. But that's the only time that people ask that question. And again, that's part of, like, seeing the water we swim in, right, is like seeing the unique place that the, like, that the church has over the past however many years has put homosexuality in. So here's another question. I mentioned this just not that long ago, but a question I often get is, like, okay, it's homosexuality. No, well, that's one is homosexuality sin. And the other one is, are they going to hell? And so that that's always an interesting question. Because, you know, maybe another version of that is, can you be gay and Christian? That's really what is being asked. Right, right. And I want to say, can you be an alcoholic in Christian? Right. Can you be a liar in a Christian? Can you be an adulterous in a Christian? Can you be materialistic in a Christian? Yeah. And we all know the answer is yes. Right. And so there's a, again, that question is very reductionistic. And I would even say it's wrong headed in the sense that, like, you know, and some people might be like, oh, okay, maybe being homosexual might not send you to hell, but man, does committing homosexual acts send you to hell? And again, does lying send you to hell? The reverse way to think about it is, okay, am I going to heaven because I'm heterosexual then? Right. Like, no, that's not, you're missing the issue. That question is wrong headed in the sense of you think that this one specific act is what's going to send you to hell. When that is not the issue and the assumption is, oh, because you're heterosexual, you're white, straight, and whatever, then you're going to heaven. No. Well, and I think it goes back to what you were saying earlier, Nate, right, where it's like, yeah, sexual sins, they are more poignant. They are felt more deeply, but that doesn't mean they're worse. Right. Like, that doesn't mean that they occupy in God's throne room a different space of, like, punishment. It's that maybe they're felt more deeply or in a different way here on earth, but the repercussions do not hold a different space. Right. It's like the verse that says like, God, God isn't mocked. A man reaps what he says. Yeah. Soing sexual sin creates a certain type of harvest. That doesn't mean it's worse or it just means it's different. You know, in the same way that lying, sewing, you know, deceit creates a certain type of harvest that you will reap. And so, while they're different, it's, again, I know I'm using this word a ton, it's hypocritical to put it at a different level. Yeah. And so let's use materialism or greed as an example, right? I mean, greed is so deceptive in the sense of sexual sin, like, you know, if you're committing adultery, like you know it, right? It's not, yeah. Greed. Nobody thinks they're committing it, right? Nobody thinks they're greedy because you're always comparing yourself to other people. Oh, a song, it's stewardship. It's just like taking good care of your money, bro. Right. And yet, the Bible is harsher on greed than it is on adultery or not only hard, well, maybe not harsh, but it speaks about greed a lot more than adultery. And yet we would say greed is sin, lying is sin, sexual immorality is sin. And when we say sin, here's what, let's redefine that because I think what Christians think and what non-Christians hear is when you say, oh, this is a sin, they think that you're going to hell because of that. Yeah. And what the Bible talks about sin is like, oh, it's sin because it doesn't lead to human flourishing. There are certain acts like to see that you can, God in his mercy will allow you to kind of weave this whole web of deceit until life breaks, collapses. But lying is a sin, not because you're going to hell because of that, because it does not lead to the kind of human flourishing that God envisions in the new heavens and new earth. So let's even redefine sin in that way to say, oh, you have some churches or pastors, leaders who say homosexuality is sin, you're going to hell. So non-Christians here are like, oh, because I'm gay, or because I'm seeing subtracted or because I'm committing this behavior, I'm going to hell because of that. We're really, I would even say Bible believing Christians who are self-righteous are also going to hell. Yeah. Silence. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I like having it laid out that clearly. Yeah. Yeah. And well, how do you get to heaven? Well, it's saying, well, yeah, I'm not my own Savior. I can't save myself. I am self-righteous. So again, like that question is wrongheaded. It's a good question. I validate that. But just just as we go deeper, there's a lot more layers to that. Yeah. Man, I feel like I have more things to say on this topic. But I also know that we've been talking for almost now. It's true. I might have to save it for our next episode. Okay. All right. You don't want to tune in because Christine has more to say. We will see you then.