Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 11 | "First, Satire. Then, Sexuality."

Episode Date: May 23, 2018

First, I chat with editor-in-chief of The Babylon Bee, Kyle Mann, on the effectiveness and importance of Christian satire and the current problems the church is facing. Then, in light of the pope's recent comments, I answered the question many of you have been asking: What's the Christian take on homosexuality? Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. It is Ali Stucky. This is CRTV's Relatable. Today, I am going to talk to the editor-in-chief of the Babylon B. If you don't know about the Babylon B. It is a satire site that highlights either quirks of Christianity or the outright hypocrisy of some people in our faith. And it does a really effective and I think a clever job of making Christians really think about what they believe, the teachings that they follow, and some of the habits that they might. even have. We talk about what the Babylon B is, its mission, how it actually fills a void, a very serious void in Christianity, and some of the biggest problems in the church today. I really love talking to him, and I think that you're going to find his insight really helpful

and really enjoyable. And then after that, I am going to answer one question that y'all have been asking me to address over and over and over again, and that is the question of homosexual within the church. I thought that this was a good time to address it considering the Pope's recent comments. So you will want to stick around for that at the end. But first, my conversation I recorded yesterday with Kyle Mann. Here it is. Kyle, thank you so much for joining me. I'm really glad that you're here. I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. So first, can you tell the audience who you are and what you do? Yeah, I am, my name's Kyle Mann. I'm the editor-in-chief of the Babylon B, which is a Christian news satire site. So we do satire and comedy on on everything from

Christian culture, church culture, to current events, politics, worldviews. So we kind of run the whole gamut in terms of what we talk about. But it's a Christian news satire site. And how long has Babylon B been around? It launched in March of 2016. So we're a little over two years old. And it kind of it kind of blew up right away. So, yeah, it's been getting more and more popular since we launched two years ago, and I've been with it since pretty much day one. Okay, and what was the impetus for the Babylon B to begin? How'd y'all come up with this idea? Well, my friend Adam Ford launched it, and I joined up within a couple of days of the launch. But he was kind of noticing that there wasn't really anybody doing satire from a Christian world.

worldview, which, you know, a Christian world view, that can mean all kinds of things. Right. You know, basically all the satire that was out there, especially news satire, was being put out from a very kind of secular viewpoint, a very, very liberal viewpoint. You know, not that we want to pigeonhole ourselves into being like the conservative alternative, but that we wanted to be able to do a more balanced fair satire from a, from a Christian perspective. Why do you think that is that satire and really a lot of good humor in general is pretty non-existent or it feels non-existent within mainline Christianity?

Yeah, you know, Christians, Christians a lot of times we have a hard time laughing at ourselves because, you know, a lot of things that we care about, you know, are really important. You know, so there's a lot of things within Christianity that are sacred. and our problem is that we take our respect for the sacred and we kind of extend that to everything that we do. You know, we kind of end up saying that everything that we do and all the assumptions that we have and all the opinions we have and all our funny tendencies are off limits for satire when really, yeah, there are topics that are that are off limits for satire or that we wouldn't, we wouldn't make, we wouldn't put in a silly light, you know, important, important.

things that we talk about, but at the same time, you know, we need to be able to laugh at ourselves and we need to be able to separate the silly from the sacred. But it's not only self-deprecating humor that I think the Babylon D is so good at. You guys also go after political issues. And like you said, not just conservative issues, not just liberal issues. I'm sure you kind of make both sides of the political aisle mad. When did that start? And why did you think that that was, you know, important for Christian satire site to do? Yeah, I mean, right, you know, every time we post something political, there's people on our, you know, on our comments saying, you know, you need to stay out of the politics and just stick

to religion. I love it. It's my favorite part. Yeah. But right from day one, you know, we've been, we've been in politics. And I think, right, if you go back and look at our very earliest articles, I mean, our very first picture was a picture of President Obama crying, you know, and there was something like, you know, that he was upset that we were launching a Christian satire site or something.

You know, so I think it's really important for us to be able to satirize not only our own, not only our own little idiosyncrasies, but also the wider culture, because there are so many flaws and inconsistencies in the wider secular culture and in that worldview that we need to be able to point out if we're going to, if we're going to help defend kind of what we would say is a solid biblical worldview. Yeah. And that's what I think is lost on some people when it comes to satire and sarcasm, is that you're actually making an effective point. It's not only being self-deprecating. It's not only being critical. You're actually making a legitimate point about hypocrisy.

Do you think that that has been effective? Yeah, I mean, you know, good satire always has a purpose and it always has a point. Right. You know, good satire isn't just comedy, it isn't just humor. And so that's a big misunderstanding. Like, you know, we'll post something about something really serious, you know, like abortion or gun control or something that is an important thing that we need to be talking about. You know, people will say, well, this isn't a topic for comedy.

Well, it's not comedy per se. It might use comedy, but it's satire. It's trying to make a point and it's trying to make an impact. So we do get, and we do get letters from people and messages from people saying, you know, thank you for that piece. I never thought of it that way. Exactly. This helped me to understand, you know, this viewpoint a little better. So even though satire distorts and exaggerates and it makes a funny point, it's supposed to inform people too.

Do you get a lot of hate, though? There's got to be people that don't like the Babylon Bee. Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, everybody has their own, everybody has their own sacred cow or, you know, their own topic that's off limits for them. And you'd be surprised, you know, some of the pieces that we publish that we feel are, you know, kind of lighthearted or, you know, this is something that's kind of a slam dunk that no one's going to get upset about. And there's always, you know, there's always somebody. So that's why I think satire is an important tool for us as Christians, you know, is, it's something where we can look at these areas that we've, we've, we've made all these idols in the Christian life. We made all these idols in the church. And we want to be able to point those out so that maybe people won't worship those idols. Right. So you kind of wrote a book that encompasses at least some of the stuff that Babylon B covers as well, how to be a perfect Christian. Why did you write that book? Yeah, we wrote that book because, you know, I love books. I love writing. I love reading. Me and Adam really wanted to do something that

that would help separate, you know, what, all these assumptions that we've made about church culture from what the true Christian faith is. Because a lot of times we look at Christianity like, you know, for the past 2,000 years, everybody has worshipped in the same way that the American church worships today. And that's not true. You know, so we want to separate and say there is a biblical gospel, you know, and at the heart of the Christian faith. And we want to call people to a true understanding of that. So, you know, it's a couple hundred pages. It's kind of an all-encompassing, comprehensive narrative. It goes from step one to step 10 of how you can conform to Christian culture, obviously, you know, in a satirical way. But we started out with telling you how to join the right church and, you know, how to join a small group and all these little funny things that we have kind of lifted up within the American church.

So I grew up in the church. I grew up in the Bible Belt. So I've seen a lot of these inconsistencies and hypocrisy within the church. And what I like about the Babylon B is that you guys call that out. But a lot of people are probably mad that you guys do that. Right. So people will look at our book or our site and they'll say, hey, you're mocking Christianity or you're mocking God, you're mocking the church. But really it's because we love the church that we want to call the church to a greater

understanding of what the Christian faith is because kind of that Bible Belt Christianity has so many things that, you know, maybe they're good things even. You know, maybe they're things that are good or, you know, that we agree with. But if you make that like a, if you make that like a requirement for faith, and then you look at believers on the other side of the world, you know, that are not worshipping in the way that the American churches, and you kind of look down on them for not doing that, then that's a big problem. Then we've kind of introduced legalism into our faith.

And that's really what we wanted to push back. Because at the end of the book, we want people to sit down and say, hey, you know, God is full of grace for us. And God, you know, through Christ, has offered us a way of salvation that doesn't take any effort on our part. We don't have to conform to any man-made standards or regulations. What do you think, what would you say is kind of the biggest problem, if you could sum it up, one of the biggest problems that you're seeing in modern America and Christianity right now? Yeah, the biggest problem that we see within kind of, at least within our tradition of Christianity, like if you kind of set aside all the problems that we know our problems like the prosperity gospel, like all these other things. You know, I think one of the biggest problems that we see is that people have taken their own church tradition and elevated that to a level of, to the same level as the Bible.

You know, and this is something that's personal for me because that's something. that I did when I was younger is I would look at, you know, I was studying theology, I love theology, I love reading about the Bible and about God. And I would read these things and kind of, and then kind of judge anyone else who didn't see things the way that I did. And I feel like that's such a huge obstacle to understanding each other as Christians and being able to be more effective in the way that we relate to one another and in the way that we engage the world. But some things I think that the Babylon B sees as not just liturgical differences, but but, you know, gospel differences.

I mean, you guys aren't afraid to call out the Andy Stanley's and obviously the Joel Osteen's and the Stephen Ferdick's. But I think even doing those secondary and tertiary pastors that, you know, some people aren't really sure if Stephen Ferdick is a true gospel pastor or Andy Stanley is a true gospel pastor, but you guys just go right for that. And you call them out. I mean, that's got to be, I mean, that's got to be kind of hard sometimes to try to make those decisions knowing that you're going to make a lot of people mad.

Yeah, you know, and I wouldn't really call Andy Stanley a false teacher or anything, but, you know, and he's done a lot of good for the church, but, you know, we have these concerns. And so what satire does is it takes this concern and it blows it up to a bigger level where we say, you know, I think our last article was, you know, Andy Stanley checks himself into theological rehab. Right. You know, so we have him checking into the theological rehab center to help, you know, help and work through these problems.

And so we feel like that's a fair. criticism where we say, you know, okay, there's some deficiencies in the way that he said this thing, you know, where maybe that needs to be addressed and maybe he needs to, he needs to think about that a little more. And maybe we can, you know, obviously, we're probably not going to change Andy Stanley's mind, you know, through satire. But probably, hopefully people who, you know, haven't heard of that or have heard of that and have some concerns can be illuminated and can learn about, you know, I have some friends that are like, you know, I only get my news through the Babylon B. Because I read, I read what you say. And I'm like,

that this really happened, and then I go, I go search for it, and sure enough, there's a story about it. So hopefully, you know, there's ways that we can call out people that we would see as false teachers and also people that I wouldn't say are false teachers, but maybe, you know, have had some kind of an issue where it needs to be addressed, it needs to be talked about. Yeah. Well, you'll obviously keep a finger on the polls of what, you know, people in the reformed theology camp are talking about on a day-to-day basis because I might not get my news from the Babylon B, but I'm in a lot of those conversations.

And so the conversations I'm seeing on Facebook are, for example, about Andy Stanley or about Planned Parenthood. And then I know that I can go over to the Babylon B the next day and see that reflected. So how do you all do that? How do you all kind of keep in the know on what's going on in those conversations? Yeah, you know, there's a few sources we'll go to. Adam just launched a site called the Christian Daily Reporter. So I personally use that a lot, Christiandaily Reporter.com,

and he kind of, you'll aggregate a bunch of things that are going on, both in the wider secular culture and then more within, you know, in-house stuff within Christianity. I use that a lot. You know, we'll use Twitter. We use all this stuff. We have a few different voices, a few different writers that, you know, obviously come from different backgrounds and have different experiences.

And their fingers are on the pulses of different areas within Christianity. So maybe someone will bring something up. a writer will post something in our little internal our little internal online group and they'll post something like hey what about let's do an article about this and maybe it's something I've never heard of but then I'll go look online and sure enough people are talking about this or that so you know it's definitely a balancing act of trying to

try to figure out what people are talking about and posting it at the right time where conversation is starting and then sometimes we want to do something that nobody's talking about and we want to call attention to it and hopefully get people talking about it also. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the team. You mentioned a little bit about what y'all do to keep in the know, but tell me about the team as a whole and just what y'all are like and how y'all work together. Yeah. I mean, for a long time, it was mostly me and Adam doing most of the content, you know, so people kind of look at the ridiculous number of articles we write and, you know,

kind of assume we've got a couple dozen writers. But for most of the time, it's been me and Adam, We have an online group that has some writers, a dozen plus writers that contribute ideas. And so we'll draw on them. There's a lot of collaboration where someone will post an idea and we'll think about it, we'll edit it, we'll mess with it until it's something that really fits what the Babylon B is all about. So, yeah, there's a lot of collaboration. It's all online. You know, most of us haven't met each other in person. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's the great thing about 2018 is that you can run a successful business from anywhere. When did you guys know that it was going to be big? You know, when Adam launched it, I mean, he obviously had the good business sense and had his finger on the pulse of kind of Christianity, you know, online Christianity or whatever to, to, to, you know,

tell that this was something that this was a void, that nobody else was doing this kind of up to the minute cutting satire. You know, there's people doing comedy, but usually not this kind of satire, or at least not exclusively satire. So he thought it would be decent, but he, I mean,

he assumed it was going to be a side project for him. And, you know, I think I told him in the beginning, I'd write him an article a week or something. And that's kind of what we thought is we'd be posted a few articles a week and it would be a side project thing. But, I mean, it just blew up.

So we didn't know it was going to go. We didn't know it was going to go nuts like it did. And it was just all viral, organic, just word of mouth that spread it, you know, for the past couple of years. What I love about it, too, is that I see a lot of non-Christians on my timeline, like Ben Shapiro, other people kind of in his Jewish circle and other non-Christians that really like it, which is almost surprising to me because I'm like, you don't even get this. Do you even know who this person is that they're making fun of?

but have you guys seen that? Have you seen more and more kind of non-churched and, you know, non-Christian people liking and sharing the Babylon B? Yeah, you know, obviously there's going to be, there's going to be times where our take on a particular issue is really going to line up with certain, you know, areas within, on the American political spectrum. And, you know, we've seen it from both sides.

You know, we did an article kind of going against, Donald Trump and his, the thing that he was having, you know, Stormy Daniels or whatever. And that thing just blew up within the liberal side of things. You know, we'll share something against Planned Parenthood. And you see, you know, you see the Ben Shapiro's and those kind of guys sharing. And so we like that we can kind of, you know, remain true to who we are and say, hey, this is our take. And we're going to publish his take whether or not, you know, these people from without, you know, outside

the Christian circle. whether or not they like it, but, you know, when they do share, we do like that. We appreciate it, of course. Yeah. What would you say the goal is for the Babylon B? Five-year plan, if you have one. You know, we're going to retire to a tropical island, you know, eventually. Perfect. Perfect. Start a church, right? An online megachurch. That it's completely sarcastic and satirical sermons every single Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to launch the Babylon. the church and a line of fast food restaurants. A lot of them.

No, we're, we're, we've always said that we want the Babylon B to make people laugh and then make people think. So that's, and then that's kind of just our mission statement is that we want, we want to communicate truth through satire in a way that nobody else is doing right now. And so we're just going to keep doing that. Obviously, we're looking at expanding in various ways, trying to do different types of content it and get our content seen by people who maybe haven't heard of it. You know, we're always surprised.

You know, we think that the bee has gone so, so huge in the past couple of years, but you're always surprised with the people who haven't heard of it. Yeah. It's like, well, where have you been for the past couple years? But so there's obviously, there's a ton of people out there that we can still reach with our stuff. Do you think that it could start some kind of movement within the Christian faith to where, one, Christians aren't taking everything so seriously,

and two, that other Christians feel free to employ humor to make a point. because people like John Christ, I don't know if you've heard of John Christ, for example. He's one of the only, I think, funny Christians. He's a stand-up comedian. He makes the funny videos. He does a really good job of this self-deprecating humor too. Do you think that's something that we could see more of? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don't want to, I don't want to like, you know, over-exaggerate what, you know, what we're capable of and say, you know, we're going to start a new reformation or anything.

Yeah. But, you know, I do hope that kind of suddenly we can, we can bring, you know, a little more levity and a little more thoughtfulness to how we engage each other as Christians. You know, and there have been a lot of great Christian comedians out there. So I don't want to pretend like we're the first ones to do it. You know, Tim Hawkins is hilarious. True, true. John Chris, you know, has his videos up. And there's been, you know, there's been Christian comedians for decades, you know, so they're out there.

And that kind of stuff was being done. it's just that we didn't see anybody really commenting on a lot of, you know, the full wide range of subjects that we can talk about from the serious all the way to the silly little things that we do in church. So that's kind of what we wanted to focus on. Yeah. Well, I can tell you that I really appreciated. I know a lot of my friends who, you know, they speak fluent sarcasm and maybe they're not thinking about these issues in a way that, in a way that really corresponds with how the mainstream would usually talk about them, but they really like the Babylon B and just how you're able to employ humor in order to make a serious point. And I can tell you from my perspective that I think

you're making a difference. So thank you so much for everything you guys do. Yeah, thanks a lot. Okay. I hope that you guys enjoyed that. I really did. If you can't tell, I love the Babylon B. Honestly, I was like kind of nervous having that conversation because I'm kind of like fan-girling over the Babylon B. I'm just a big believer in the effectiveness of satire. I also think that you have to be really smart, not just to understand it, but especially to actually use it. It's just this idea of taking something to its most extreme to make a legitimate point. Just so good. I'm also going to do a giveaway of Kyle's book, How to Be a Perfect Christian. I've read some of it. It's really funny. I will be announcing that on social media soon, so you should stay tuned.

Now, for a pressing question that I've been getting for a while now, but I have, I don't want to say I've avoided it, but I've put it off for a while because it just takes a lot to address. And it's something that you want to address carefully. But at the same time, even though I've been pushing it off, I still want to honor what you guys want, your guys is your request and give you the answers that you are curious about. I have gotten many, many questions on sexuality, homosexuality, transsexuality, trans. sexuality in the church. Another question, probably the second most, second and third most questions I've been asked is about Catholicism and Mormonism. And I also want to address those and I will, but it's going to take a little more time than what I have right now. By the way, just let me say a note, Catholicism and Mormonism to me are not at all in the same bucket or in the same even really realm of conversation. Just FYI. But I will address those in more depth. from my Protestant Reformed Theological perspective one day. Today we are going to address this topic of homosexuality in the church because the Pope

this week was quoted saying to a gay man who had endured sexual abuse that God made him that way and loves him as he is and also told him not to worry about what other people think about him. This was a pretty big deal. The catechism of the Roman Catholic Church says this particular thing about homosexuality starting in paragraph 2357. It says tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law.

They close the sexual acts to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine, effective, and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives, and if they are Christians to unite the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross, the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. Homosexual persons are called to chastity. So that is what the Catholic Catechism says.

So some people are saying that the Pope, though he didn't directly say that he approved of homosexuality, so maybe he didn't go against the catechism. But a lot of people, including me, I mean, I listen to that. And it kind of sounds like he probably approved of it. I mean, he certainly didn't tell the guy that he was called to be chased. He didn't call him to repentance. Now, one, I wasn't there during the conversation. And two, more importantly, I'm not Catholic. So I don't really care what the Pope thinks about anything, really.

But especially not about biblical sexuality. But it's still, even so, it's interesting to see the reaction from Christian Catholics to what the Pope said. Some defend him. Some defend traditional Catholic and biblical teaching. I actually think even though I don't agree with Catholicism on everything, I think the catechism in this case actually encompasses really nicely the biblical view on sexuality that has been echoed for centuries and is still held by biblical Christians today. And that is this.

Number one, people who are gay are made in God's image and are worthy of respect and love. And number two, homosexuality is a sin. So let me tell you what the Bible says about homosexuality because ultimately it doesn't matter what I say, what the Pope says or what the catechism says about homosexuality, what does God's word say? That's the only thing that matters. So here we go. First, if you are gay, God loves you. Of course he does. The Pope was right about that. Of course God loves you. And side note, so do I. You should be treated with the same respect as I am and have the same rights as I do. You are innately valuable. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

Genesis 1.27 says, all mankind is made in God's image. And therefore, no matter what your sexual orientation is, you have the spark of divinity that makes you more worthy as a human being than any other non-human creature in all the earth. Also, if you are gay, people who aren't gay are not any better than you. Romans 323 says, we all have sin and fallen short of the glory of God. So without Christ, we are all dead and hopeless. no matter our sexuality, which leads us to point number two. Yes, homosexuality is a sin. The Bible is clear on that. People like to say that the Bible only talks about homosexual prostitution or homosexual rape, but that's not actually true. First Corinthians 6.9 says, do not be deceived, neither of the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ

and by the spirit of our God. The Greek for homosexuality in that verse does not refer to prostitution. It doesn't refer to rape, as some people have tried to say. It actually refers to both the active and passive participants in homosexual acts. 1 Timothy 110 lists homosexuality in a similar list of sins. So any attempt to justify homosexuality biblically is really just an attempt to fit it in with a world, which Christians are not called to do. The truth is the only sexual relationship that is condoned and blessed in the Bible is that

between one husband and one wife. From beginning to end, the only romantic relationships God calls good are marriages between a man and a woman. There is no deviation from that dichotomy biblically. And say, so say, though, you took out the verses that prohibit homosexuality explicitly. Let's just look at the idea of marriage in the Bible in general, which is extremely sacred, not just for its physical implications, but also for its spiritual implications. The Bible begins with the marriage between Adam and Eve and ends with a marriage between Christ

and his bride, the church. The first is meant to reflect the latter. Ephesians 522 through 33 explains this really well. Verse 23 says, The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ,

so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. So we see that marriage is not just a physical relationship with any two people, but a spiritual one, specifically between a husband and a wife. Why does it have to be between a husband and a wife? Because only the complementary relationship between a husband and a wife reflects the spiritual relationship between Christ and the church in which a wife submits to her husband just as the church submits to Christ and a husband loving and serving his wife as Christ loves

and serves the church. So in homosexual marriage, not only are you losing the physically complementarian aspect that we see God intended when he created man and woman. and genesis, but also the spiritually complimentary and aspect that God meant for marriage. There is no husband and wife in a homosexual marriage. Therefore, there is no clearly defined headship and submission rules. Therefore, there is no parallel to the spiritual reality God says is meant to reflect marriage. The creation of marriage in the Bible between one man and one woman isn't arbitrary. It's not just a suggestion. It wasn't cultural. It's not archaic. It is

purposeful. So what does this mean? For the Christian who is homosexual or the homosexual person who is contemplating Christianity or the Christian who is struggling with homosexuality. Well, the Bible makes it pretty simple, not easy by any means, but simple. And the simple answer is repentance. No, that doesn't mean praying the gayway. That doesn't mean hating yourself, but it does mean denying yourself what all Christians are called to do.

If homosexuality is a sin, then like all other sins, it has to be turned away from. That might mean living a life of chastity. Yes, just as the person who is straight but never marries must also be chased his or her whole life. It's not about depriving gay people from happiness. It's about keeping marriage which God defines is between a man and a woman sacred. This means denying what you want for the sake of what God wants. And that is not exclusive to people who are homosexual. That is what we are all committed to do as Christians, gay or straight.

Jesus says in Matthew 1624, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. That means denying our fleshly sinful desires, all of them, including homosexuality. No one is saying that that is easy. No one is saying that that is popular. But when have Christians ever been called to a life of ease or popularity? Never. We've always been weird. We're supposed to be weird.

And this particular subject is going to continue to make us weird forever. We are going to be called bigots. We are going to be called Pharisees, self-righteous, judgmental. We will lose jobs over it. We will lose relationships over it. Some people's lives will be ruined over this. I guarantee you that this podcast will be dug up one day soon or a long time from now. people will say, see, Allie Stucky, see, she's just hateful and she doesn't deserve to have any

platform. It will probably happen simply for saying what the Bible says about sexuality. And then you do have to ask the question, though, why? Why is this subject so much touchier than any other subject? Well, I think the Bible actually talks about this. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 618, flee from sexual immorality every other a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. See, there's this other dimension to sexual sin that's different than, say, stealing or lying because you're sinned against your own self. Sexuality is so tied up with our identity, with who we are. There is a spiritual component to it that makes it so much more than a physical

act. There's a reason why breakups hurt, why divorces hurt, why. one night stands hurt because we're never just engaging in a physical act with someone. There is a spiritual, emotional component to every sexual act we commit. That is why when we speak against homosexuality, the gay community, in general at least, feels that Christians are against them as people. They are not able to separate their sexuality from who they are. And rightly so, in some ways, sexuality and your spirituality and your identity are intertwined. God made us that way. But even though they're intertwined, they are not inseparable and they're not the same. Your sexuality does not define you.

It is not all that you are. It is not your entire identity. So when we say that homosexuality is a sin that needs to be repented of, it's not an attack on the person. It's an attack on the sin. But we also cannot expect someone who is outside of Christ to understand that because the gospel is foolishness to the world. Rosaria Butterfield was a lesbian for over 20 years of her life.

She was in a committed relationship with a woman. She was sure that the life that she was living was right and good and really had no reason to question it until she was introduced to Christ. And he changed her life. She left the woman that she loved deeply, repented of her sin, and has changed so many people's stories and so many people's lives because of her testimony. In 2016, Jen Hatmaker made a statement assuring the holiness of homosexual marriage.

And Rosaria Butterfield responded to Jen Hatmaker in an article on the Gospel Coalition. Here is an excerpt from that article that is called Love Your Neighbor Enough to Speak the Truth. and I really want to read the entire thing because it's so good, but you can look it up, like I said, it's love your neighbor enough to speak the truth. But I do want to read an excerpt from it that I think just speaks to the heart of everything we're talking about. Rosaria says, if this were 1999, the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved, instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker's words about the holiness of

LGBT relationships would have flooded into my own. my world like a balm of Gilead. Yes, I can have my Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline, which was queer theory and English literature and culture, and in my church. Maybe I wouldn't need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn't ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin and I suffered the consequences. Maybe it would go differently for me than it did for Paul, Daniel, David and Jeremiah, maybe Jesus could save me without afflicting me. Maybe the Lord would give me respectable crosses, manageable thorns. Today I hear Jin's words, words meant to encourage, not

discouraged, to build up, not tear down, to defend the marginalized, not broker unearned power, and a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jin's words would have put a millstone around my neck. I learned through conversion that when something feels right and good and real and necessary, but stands against God's word, this reveals the particular way Adam's sin marks my life. Our sin nature is deceive us. Sin's deception isn't just out there. It's also deep in the caverns of our hearts.

How I feel does not tell me who I am. Only God can tell me who I am because he made me and takes care of me. He tells me that we are all born as male and female image bears with souls that will last forever and gendered bodies that will either suffer eternally in hell or be glorified in the new Jerusalem. Genesis 127 tells me that there are ethical consequences and boundaries to being born male and female. When I say this previous sentence on college campuses, even ones that claim to be Christian, the student protesters come out in dozens. I'm told that declaring the ethical responsibility to being born.

male and female is now hate speech. Calling God's sexual ethic hate speech does Satan's bidding. This is Orwellian nonsense or worse. I only know who I really am when the Bible becomes my lens for self-reflection and when the blood of Christ so powerfully pumps my heart whole that I can deny myself, take up the cross, and follow him. There is no good will between the cross. and the unconverted person. The cross is ruthless. To take up your cross means that you are going to

die. As A. W. Tozer has said, to carry a cross means you are walking away and you are never coming back. The cross symbolizes what it means to die to self. We die so that we can be born again in and through Jesus by repenting of our sin, even the unchosen ones, and putting our faith in Jesus, the author and finisher of our salvation. The supernatural power that comes, with being born again means that where I once had a single desire, one that says if it feels good, it must be who I really am. I now have twin desires that were within me. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Galatians 517. And this war

doesn't end until glory. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Her story is so incredibly powerful. I'm trying to get her to come on my podcast, but I haven't been able to do that quite yet. I'm going to keep trying. There's another amazing person, Christopher Yuan, think that's how you say his last name, with a similar story to Rosarius that I would also love to talk to. So I'll keep you posted on that. I'll definitely be doing another podcast on this. But that's it for today. That's not just my take on it, by the way. That's not just Rosaria's take on it. That's not the church's take on it. That's the biblical take. We can get into this game of saying, well, did the Bible really mean this? Or isn't that just

archaic or isn't that just, you know, old fashioned outdated? But once you start picking apart the Bible and choosing which parts you want to believe in which ones you don't based on your own preferences, that reveals something not about God's word, but about your own heart. It reveals that you don't really believe in the Bible or the God who wrote it. You believe in you. You believe in what you feel. And that's not Christianity. That's at best agnosticism, if not atheism. So I hope that this answered some of the questions that you guys have. If you have feedback, like always, please email me, Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. And you can also follow me on social media, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Love you guys. And see you next week.