Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 165 | Nancy Pearcey

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Nancy Pearcey, author of "Love Thy Body," joins me to discuss transgenderism, abortion, hookup culture, and so much more.  Nancy Pearcey is the author of "Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality." Her earlier books include "The Soul of Science," "Saving Leonardo," "Finding Truth," and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners: "How Now Shall We Live" (co-authored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) and "Total Truth." Her books have been translated into eight languages. She is a professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University. A former agnostic, Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth. She was highlighted as one of the top five women apologists by Christianity Today and hailed in the Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual."  http://www.nancypearcey.com/ Bolster Sleep: Receive 12% off your entire order using discount code: ALLIE 

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. I hope that you guys are having a wonderful week. Today, we are going to talk to Nancy Piercy. She is the author of a book called Love Thy Body. We are going to contend with some of the hottest topics of today about sexuality and transgenderism from a biblical perspective. she is really an expert in that arena and has a lot of insight to offer. I know I told you guys on Wednesday that we would be talking about vaccines today, that we would be doing vaccines part two, talking to someone on the other side of the debate from Dr. Sears, but that is going to be pushed to next week.

But don't worry, I'm going to make good on that promise. And so you'll just have to wait a little bit longer, but you don't want to miss this conversation today. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't

offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay. Without further ado, here is Nancy Piercy. Professor Piercy, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Allie. Well, for those who don't know, there are a lot of people, I know that listen to this podcast that have read your book, Love Thy Body. But for those who don't know, will you tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do? Right. So I'm a professor at Houston Baptist University, and I wrote the book, Love They Body, which covers issues that are headline issues of our day, like abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, transgenderism, in order to help people communicate better on these issues. Today, people are not asking so much, is Christianity true?

They're asking, why are Christians such bigots? Right. And so what I do is I give people the language to get beyond those negative stereotypes. And to present Christian ethics in a way that secular people can grasp it, they can understand it, and Christians can get beyond just saying the Bible says so, or Christians can get beyond just, it's wrong, it's a sin, don't do it, and there's something wrong with you. Because that's the typical stereotype.

So I'm giving people the language and the concepts that they can use to get beyond the negative. and present these issues in a positive way. We often look at the issues that you just listed, homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism, hookup culture, that's something that you talk about in Love Thy Body is kind of these separate issues. And we might do, for example, if you're a podcast host like me, we'll do, you know, one episode on hookup culture, one episode on abortion. We don't very often tie them together and say, okay, this is actually indicative of one particular worldview. But that's what you do in Love Thy Body is you tie a common.

thread between all of those things, can you tell us what that common thread is? Right. The secular ethic is based on a negative view of the body, which is a bit surprising for most people because they used to think Christians have a low view of the body and of this world and we're just spiritually minded. But in fact, it's actually the secular view that says the body is worthless, meaningless, insignificant. Let me just jump in because it's easier to explain with an example. So let's take abortion as an example. What professional bioethicists are saying is that as long as the fetus is merely human, let me say, most secular bioethicists agree that the fetus is human. That itself is a surprise to most people, but the evidence from

DNA and genetics and science is just too strong to deny it. So today, among professional bioethicists, at least, and they're, of course, what they say is what filters down eventually to the ordinary people. What professional bioethicists say is, yes, the fetus is human, but as long as it's human, it has no particular value, meaning, more significance. You can kill it for any reason or no reason. You can experiment on it, experiment, you can use it for experiments, and you can tinker with it genetically. And you can, um, pull out body parts and sell them as Planned Parenthood does. And then you can discard it with the other medical waste.

That is the technical term that they often use. This is just medical waste. So what they're really saying is being human is not enough for human rights. They will acknowledge the fetus is human and at the same time say it's essentially just a piece of matter. it has to earn the right to personhood by developing certain mental abilities, a certain level of cognitive functioning, self-awareness, and so on. So what they're really implying is that there's a division in the human being between being a body and being a person.

And that is the underlying worldview that you'll find in all of these issues, is body versus person. And in abortion, it's very clear, but because they're saying as long as it's just a body, as long as it's just human, then it has no rights, it has no moral standing, it has no right to legal protection until it becomes a person. Now, because the problem with that is as soon as you separate being human from being a person, then everyone's definition of personhood differs. None of the bioethicists who write on this actually agree on what personhood is.

It's completely subjective and arbitrary. And what that means is our legal protections then end up depending on something that is completely arbitrary and subjective. But that would be the underlying worldview that I trace through all of these issues, abortion, euthanasia, hookup culture, homosexuality, transgenderism. They all rely on a real worldview that separates the body. from the person. Can you explain that as it relates to transgenderism and homosexuality? I know those are obviously two different things, but it completely makes sense what you're saying when it comes to abortion, separating personhood, someone's inherent value from their humanity,

from their biological humanity. That makes sense. I'm wanting to hear you explain what that means for transgenderism. Yes, well, you asked about homosexuality and transgender. Let me start with homosexuality, because that was first, in terms of legal, political movement. Even my homosexual friends will agree that on the level of biology, physiology, chromosomes, anatomy, males and females are counterparts to one another. That's how the human sexual and reproductive system is designed. To embrace a same-sex identity then is to deny that design.

It's to implicitly say, whoa, why should my body have any say in my identity? Why should my biological sex as male or female have any say, have any say in my moral choices? So we have to help people see it about the profoundly disrespectful view of the body. And of course, by accepting that your mind can contradict your biology, it's essentially saying that you can have inner fragmentation, inner self-alienation. And so essentially what I'm arguing is notice that the homosexual ideology depends on denigrating your body. denigrating your biological sex, saying that has nothing to do with who you really are, that your sexual orientation can contradict your biology. And now I see, and you explaining that, I can see where it goes with transgenderism as well.

It's very similar, correct? Exactly. It's the same logic. It's just carried to the next step. It's basically saying your gender identity has nothing to do with your biology, which is what transgender activists actually argue. They say your biology has nothing to do with your biological sex. What transgender activists argue is that your biology is not part of your authentic identity. There's a website for people who are raising their children as gender neutral.

And it's called Raising Babies. babies instead of babies. And the website literally says there is no such thing as biological sex. Yes, of course, we have chromosomes and genitals and anatomy and so on. But to call that sex is a social construction. So essentially what children down to kindergarten now are being taught is that is to be estranged from their own biology. Kids are coming home at age 5 and 6 today saying,

I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl, because the curricula in public schools is teaching them that just because you have boy parts or girl parts does not mean you're a boy or a girl, you need to decide on your inner sense of identity. So you see, again, they're essentially saying your biological sex is meaningless, it has nothing to do with who you really are.

Kids are being estranged from their own biological sex. at a very young age, in kindergarten, in preschool. So again, the secular liberal ethic is based on a denigration of the body. And that's why I titled my book, Love Thy Body, because I wanted to show that the Christian ethic actually affirms the value and dignity and beauty of the human body. I'm thinking of a couple things. One, I think that you're absolutely correct, that people are surprised to hear you say that Christianity, a biblical worldview, actually elevates the idea of the body or elevates

how we think of the body because God was purposeful in making our bodies. It has something to do. It corresponds with what's on the inside as well. There is a purpose behind that. I think people forget that about Christianity, that we're all about, well, we are about self-denial, but they kind of see that as a negative, that we are constantly denying or changing our biology to meet to meet God's law. They see that as a negative thing rather than as a purposeful and as a good thing that has actually helped the world survive over the past millennia. I think another thing that I was considering is a way that I've seen this in modern

culture today. And that is through presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. He said something that regarding abortion that reminded me of what you said when he said, everyone kind of has to. draw the line for themselves when they feel like abortion is okay. That's something that apparently he believes is a completely subjective decision. And that reminds me, he calls himself a Christian, but when you think about the fact that he actually has a very secular worldview, it completely makes sense.

If you have a secular worldview, you separate personhood from humanity, not just in abortion, but also in sexuality, which is also something that he has done as well. So this is rampant, not just in sex. culture, but also a culture that calls themselves Christian. Yeah, that's a good point. One of the things, one of the problems is that Christians have lost touch with their own heritage. You're right. People, even Christians have a sacred, secular split where they tend to think that the sacred realm, things like church and Bible studies and prayer, that these are, this is the secular realm, and that's what's important.

The secular realm is why we deal with politics and practical issues. But that sacred secular split is not biblical. And in love their body, I show how essentially this, even the early Christian church had to deal with the same issue that we're dealing with, because the early Christian church was up against isms, Gnosticism, Platonism, Manichyism, all of these isms that also denied

the value and worth of the physical realm just as modern secularism does. Though for very different reasons, what they argued was, let's take Gnosticism, they argued that the physical world was the realm of evil decay and destruction. And Gnosticism even taught that the physical world was the creation of an evil god.

several levels of deities. And it was because matter was evil, it must have been evil God who invented, who created matter. And they actually used the phrase, the body is the prison house of the soul. And the goal of salvation is to escape the physical realm. In this historical context,

Christianity was nothing short of revolutionary. It said, no, it's a, it's the supreme deity who created the material. world and he's a good God. So the material realm is intrinsically good. And of course, historically, the greatest scandal was the incarnation because it says that that supreme deity had to enter into the physical realm and taken on a physical body. And when Jesus was executed on a Roman cross, well, we might say that he did escape the prison

house of the body as Gnosticism taught we should aspire to do. But what did he do then? He came back in a physical body. To the ancient Greeks, this was not spiritual progress. This was regress. And so, as Paul says, the idea of the physical resurrection, the physical resurrection is foolishness to the Greeks in First Corinthians. And what will happen at the end of time? You know, many Christians do think of heaven as a place where we're going to float around in purely spiritual beings without a body. But that's not what the scripture says. Scripture says that God is going to recreate a new heavens and a new earth. And you and I are going to live on that new earth with renewed, resurrected physical bodies.

So from the beginning, the Apostles' Creed has affirmed the resurrection of the body. Yes. This is an incredibly positive view of the physical realm. I have studied a lot of religions and philosophies, and I have to tell you, there was nothing like this in any other religion or philosophy. And so Christians should be incredibly excited and happy to be able to communicate to people. We have a very high view of the significance and value and meaning of the physical realm because of the product of God's own creation. So when you were speaking, my wheels were turning so much, you said exactly what was going on

in my head. Yes, the resurrection of the bodies, which I didn't even, I haven't even really thought about from that perspective that that shows just how precious and purposeful the human body has always been to God from creation. But I also started thinking, again, like you were saying, that Jesus is God made flesh, that he suffered in the flesh, that he had real physical pain. He had real physical thirst and hunger and temptation. And we hear that we have a high priest that empathizes or that sympathizes with our weaknesses,

not just in this metaphorical sense, not just from on high, but actually on earth. And I've never thought about that from the perspective that you were just talking about, that that shows what God thinks of the body, that Jesus suffered in the flesh, that he died in the flesh, and that he was raised in a body. I've never even thought about how different it would be if God was, if Jesus was just raised in spirit. but he was raised physically. We too are going to be resurrected, resurrected physically. That was something that Paul's, that Paul's, the recipients of some of Paul's letters didn't really understand that, or they contested whether or not we would really be physically

raised. And he said, look, if you can't be physically raised, not even Jesus could have been physically raised. And you're absolutely right. That's something that I think is a little bit difficult to explain to someone with a strictly secular point of view. But that has really kind of made my wheels turn in even a different way of just how God views, how God views the physical realm. Not as something that is constantly at war with the spiritual realm, but something that is in his purpose is supposed to go hand in hand and actually work together. Exactly. Here's how one of my students put it. She said, growing up in the church, I was always taught, spirit, good, body, bad. Yes. And when I talk, yes, when I talk to audiences,

I often get the response that, yes, that's a great summary nutshell of how I was raised. And what we have to realize is our response to the secular world has to be to reclaim the high view of the body that the Bible teaches. Let me give you an example. I recently read an interview with a 14-year-old girl who had lived as a trans boy for three years. She identified as a boy from age 11 until age 14, and then she reclaimed her identity as a girl. And the way she put it was this. She said, the turning point came when I realized, it's not conversion therapy to learn to love your body. In other words, she realized that she had been rejecting her body as female,

and that the solution was to learn to accept her body. And the fascinating thing was that this was on a very secular liberal website. So even secular people are beginning to say the transgender agenda depends on body hatred. You'll see that term we use now. Body hatred. And so, again, the Christian view is love thy body. The answer to the transgender ideology is to say, why accept such a demeanor. meaning view of the body. So our response as Christians should be, why accept such a demeaning

view of the body? As Christians, we have the basis for saying the body has purpose and dignity and value and we should be taking our identity from our body. The body gives us a moral message. It does tell us who we are. It does contribute to our identity. And so Christians, ironically, in this age where people think Christians are otherworldly and don't have a high view of the body, over against the secular ethic today, the answer that Christians have is to have a higher view of your body than, say, the homosexual movement, the abortion movement, the transgender movement.

they all rest on a devaluation of the body. How do we explain to someone the difference between hating your body and denying urges that you might have? For example, we know, I mean, you might have a drive to have sex before you get married, obviously. But the Christian ethic says, unless you are in a marriage between a man and a woman, and you are not to engage in sexual intercourse. So how do you explain that, yes, you love your body,

but that doesn't mean that you give into every bodily or biological urge that you have? Right. We are called to deny sin. We're not called to deny our bodies. Right. A body is a part of creation. God made them that have dignity and value. But we are to deny sin.

Let me give you an example. So when I was writing Love thy Body in my research, I came across a website by a transsexual, who called herself, she was male to female, transsexual, called herself Jessica Savano. And she had a Kickstarter page to raise money for a documentary that was going to be titled, I am not my body. Well, that sort of says at all. I am not my body. In other words, the whole transsexual transgenderism movement depends on denying the value and dignity of the body.

And actually, let me give you a counter example then. What about people who do overcome transsexualism, transgenderism, homosexuality? In my book, I have lots of stories. I don't think of it as just moral arguments. There's lots and lots of stories. and one of them is by a young man named Sean. He's my opening story for the chapter on homosexuality. And Sean identified as homosexual, as gay,

and he was exclusively attracted to other males. And the interesting about Sean's story is he attended a gay affirming church and was based in a gay affirming family. So he was not driven by any sort of guilt or shame. So why did he change? Today he's married with, he's married to a woman, you have to say that these days, he's married to a woman and has three children. He said, well, why did he, oh, I should say he's also a Christian ethics professor in London. Why did he change?

He specifically says, I stopped identifying myself by my sexual feelings. and I started to take my identity from my body. He says, I realized it was hard to, you can't really change your feelings. People have tried, find that that's pretty much impossible. But he said, what I did is I took my identity from what I already had, which was my male body, as a good gift from God. That's this exactly way, as a good gift from God. And he said, eventually my feelings started to follow suit.

So essentially, what's at the core of this argument is, are we products of blind, material, mindless, purposeless forces? Right. In which case, your body has no intrinsic purpose and you can do with it whatever you want. Or is our body the product of a loving creator and therefore it has intrinsic purpose and we will be happier and healthier when we live. in accord with that purpose, with that plan, with that design. And that's what his story shows.

And I have several other stories, too, of people who said, I wanted to honor my body. This is the story of a young woman named Jean, who lived as a lesbian for several years, and today is married and has two children. And she said, the turning point came when I decided I wanted to recognize that God had created me for female for a reason. And here's their exact words. She said, I wanted to honor my body by living in accord with the creator's design. So that's really the issue here.

Do we honor our body? Do we live in accord with the creator's design? Do we live in harmony with the way God created us? Do we accept the plan, that purpose, the design that God created us with? And if we do, for many people, that has become the turning point out of homosexual. or transgenderism, not a negative message, but a positive message of honoring the body. It shows you the contradiction, just the inherent contradiction of the secular worldview. It just can't make sense with itself because you'll hear people talking from what they believe

is a Christian perspective about transgenderism, for example, saying, well, God didn't make, he doesn't make mistakes. And they use that, strangely, as a justification for switching genders or identifying as a different gender that doesn't correspond with their sex, to which I think a Christian with the biblical worldview would say, you're right. God doesn't make mistakes. And there is a reason why gender is supposed to correspond with sex, why we have particular counterparts. But when you have that separation, when in your mind there is a separation from the body and the inner person, the body and the spirit, then it does make sense, make sense to you to fragment that and say, well, God doesn't make

mistakes and who I am on the inside and what I feel on the inside is really me. So it doesn't matter what I do with this outer shell. It doesn't matter what I do externally because the real me, the true me is only what I feel, is only what is on the inside. And I think that is probably one of the reasons why some people in the church are having a hard time dealing with this because they too, without knowing it, have made this separation between the body and the spirit. and they feel like if they tell someone, hey, you know, God made sex this way, God made marriage

this way, God made relationships and reproduction to work like this, they feel like if they are contradicting how someone feels or how someone identifies, then that's unloving and that's unkind. Because they too have started to separate the two worlds and they don't want to offend who someone feels like they really are. That's a very good point. And that's why it's so important that Christians get out of the sacred, secular split and realize that God created all of reality. God created the entire universe. And therefore, God's truth applies to every area.

Now, you mentioned people who say, well, God created some people gay. And I talked to a former homosexual. who I thought had a very good response to that. He said, if God makes some people gay, then God has played a cruel joke on them. This was a very quote. He said, he has engineered their mind and emotions for attraction to the same sex, but he's created the physiology to be in opposition to that attraction. So the question we need to deal with was, would God, in fact,

create people to be torn into two conflicting directions? Right. You know, in the Christian worldview, that sort of conflict, self-division, self-alienations are not the product of creation. They're the product of the fall. And so it's something that we should not accept. It's not true that God creates some people with this kind of contradiction. Of course, today, the prevailing view is if people have that kind of internal contradiction between body and mind, It's the mind that wins your feelings and desires.

And the Christian answer should be, again, why accept such a demeaning view of the body? The Christian ethic is holistic. Our minds and emotions are called to be in tune with our body. We're called to respect our biological identity. So it's an ethic that overcomes self-alienation and self-conflict and leads to self-integration. So it leads to an internal sense of unity and wholeness. And so this is what we need to communicate to people.

I tell lots of stories in my book, Love Thy Body. And here's another one. I tell the story of Rebecca, who got involved in lesbian relationships in college. And she continued having girl crushes, even after she married a man. And she discussed it with her husband. They were both Christian.

She had become a Christian in the meantime, by the way, as a young adult. And so she and her husband were both Christian, and she discussed it with them. And what he said was, because God made you female, no matter what your emotions are right now, you can be confident that you will ultimately be more fulfilled with a man because of how God created you. And of course, he said it's the same with me. because I'm a man, and that's how God created me, I will ultimately be filled, be more fulfilled with a woman, no matter what my feelings might be. And that was a turning point for Rebecca. It took a couple more years, but eventually she was free from her unwanted same-sex attraction.

And what was the turning point? It was, this is how God made me, and I will be more fulfilled and happier if I live in accord with God's design for me. Now, it's possible because not everyone who becomes a Christian and says, maybe who is living in a gay lifestyle or who is transgender, becomes a Christian, realizes this biblical ethic, realizes the elevated view that God has of the body in comparison to the secular worldview. Not everyone necessarily, and this is a question, would get, married to the opposite sex or start feeling attracted to the opposite sex. Correct or would you say

that that is always the trajectory consistently? Oh, you're absolutely right. God never promises total sanctification in this life, right? All of us have prevailing sins and prevailing temptations that we will not be completely free from in this life. God never promises that. I became a Christian. at LaBrie, which is the ministry of Francis Schaefer, which is in Switzerland. I was living in Europe at the time. And Francis Schaefer used to use the term substantial healing, not completely healing, substantial healing. And he said, if you look for all or nothing, you're liable to end up with nothing.

So it is important that you recognize that some people will never be completely free of same-sex attraction. the story I just told about Rebecca. Rebecca told me, I still can't watch the lesbian scenes in the TV series, Orange is the New Black. You know, she still has some temptations in that direction towards lesbianism. So it's important to recognize the nature of sin and temptation. But temptation is not sin. People continue to be tempted without necessarily having, you know, having to accuse themselves of sin. And that's an important distinction. I quote a young woman in Love thy Body who was a lesbian for many years. And she said it took me a long time to realize that temptation is not sin. I was beating up by myself because I was still being tempted by lesbianism after I became a Christian. And I came to

realize temptation is not sin. Even Jesus was tempted in all ways, just as we are, as Hebrew said. but without sin. But let me give you an anecdote on this. So I recently read an article by, as about a woman who was transsexual. And she successfully passed as a man for 10 years. And then converted to Christianity. And just to let you know, sanctification doesn't always happen overnight.

So she thought she could live as a man, even as a Christian. and she said, I aspired to be a true man of God. And so it was several years into her Christian life. When she was praying one day, she seemed to hear God say to her, you cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation. In other words, her body, as female, was part of his creation. and she needed to learn to accept her body as female and accept her identity as female. So now she does.

She has, you know, changed her, grown her hair out, dresses with a female. And I love the way she encapsulated it. She's, you cannot reject, you cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation. So that's really the heart of the message that Christians have for both, for both the church and the world. We need to love God's creation. Amen. Tell me, final question,

amidst a world who consistently tells us the opposite. And even, unfortunately, people in the church are denying the view that you have so well articulated and have started to accept a completely secular sexual ethic and tried unsuccessfully to peer it to a biblical worldview. it's totally perpendicular. It's completely contradictory. What do we is Bible believing Christians who know God's view of the body? How do we respond? What do we do in the midst of this? Because this could really be a watershed issue, a very key issue that's a lot of our morality in general is centered on. Right. Notice the language that I've been using. I've been talking about

honor your body, respect your biological identity, live in tune with your body, live in harmony with the creator's design. See, by using positive language like that, we can overcome the negative image that Christians often have and show that God's moral rules for our lives are actually intended to help us live with greater fulfillment and greater reality. in our lives. Let me give you just one more example. So in the chapter on transgenderism, I start with an extended anecdote of a young boy who clearly did have gender dysphoria from a young age. And in fact, the psychological studies show that the most common correlate of non-heterosexual behavior in adulthood has nothing to do with genes, genetics,

biology, the most common correlate is simply gender non-conforming behavior in childhood. And so, which is, you know, counter to the cultural norms. In fact, let me just add parenthetically that research has shown that 80% of those who come out as homosexual change the sexual identity label. at least once. In other words, from homosexual, back to heterosexual or bisexual, queer, or some other label, 80% changed their sexual identity label at least once, which means many of them, it's more than once. And this is the research from Lisa Diamond, who's a senior editor with the American Psychological Association and herself is lesbian.

So she's the source of the idea that sexuality is fluid. She's the one who popularized that notion based on her research. So this does not sound like a trait that is biologically determined. And 80% change their sexual identity label at least once. It turns out that the most reliable correlation is just gender non-conforming behavior in childhood. So in love their body, I tell the story of a young boy who, I named Brandon, which is not his real name, who clearly had gender dysphoria from a young age. Before he was even walking, his babysitter said to his mother, he's too good to be a boy.

By which he meant, he's quiet and sweet-natured and compliant the stereotypes he normally associate with girls. When he was in preschool and his mother picked him up in his mother picked him up in the afternoon, invariably he was playing with the little girls and not the little boys. By elementary school, he was coming to his parents repeatedly saying, I think the way girls do, I'm interested in the things girls are, God should have made me a girl. So this was a very difficult thing for his parents. He was weeping, he was distressed. By the age of 14, he was scouring the internet for information.

on sex change therapy. So what did his parents do? First of all, they made sure he knew that they loved him just the way he is. In other words, I had a homosexual friend when I was in college who said my dad was baffled because I liked music and poetry and he kept trying to push me into more traditionally masculine activities like sports. Brandon's parents did not do that. They said it is perfectly possible to be a quiet, emotionally sensitive boy. It is possible that God has gifted you for one of the helping professions like counselor, psychologist, or a health care worker. And of course, by the same token, it's perfectly possible for a girl to be gender non-conforming and to be more,

outdoorsy and sporty and assertive. They also took him through personality test to show that boys can be at this end, the end of this spectrum, which is gentle and personal-oriented, relational, or it's possible to be at the other end of take charge and assertive. So his parents can, actually their favorite line was, it's not you that's wrong. It's the stereotypes that are wrong. And so in terms of Christians,

we must realize that the gifts of the Spirit are not divided by gender. Prophecy and teaching are not masculine as you and I might expect, and mercy and service are not feminine, as we might expect. Scripture says, God gives them to individuals as he see fit.

And of course, the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, said, I am gentle and humble and spirit. So what Brandon's parents did was they kept affirming him as male, but also accepting the fact that his personality does not fit the stereotypes. And I think, you know what Brandon told me? He said the church is the worst place for gender stereotypes. And that really made me think because the church needs to take the lead then in questioning the stereotypes and saying, God can equip people all across the spectrum. Sex is a binary. Okay, that's a current issue in the secular world because they often say sex is not a binary.

No, sex is a binary. There's male and female. There's sperm and egg. And there's no spectrum in between them. Yeah. But personality. But personality is a spectrum. and we don't have to expect people to fit the stereotypes.

And we should affirm that God can create people all across the spectrum and give them the support. We need to take the lead because in the public schools today, young people under incredible pressure to identify as gay or trans. I talked to an 11-year-old girl who said, every day the kids are asking each other, are you gay? Are you trans? It's such a big thing in the public school today. So that's why the church needs and Christian parents need to really take the lead in fighting for our children. Brandon's parents had to fight for him over many years. And we need to

fight for our children to help them to accept their biological God-given identity in a world that says that gender is up for grabs, that even their body doesn't tell them who they are, that yes, in fact, God made them, you know, wonderfully, perfectly in his image, and they can take pride in the way God created them. Yes, that's something that I've actually talked, I've talked about that before, I've thought about this before, that you hear from typically people on the cultural left, people who have a secular worldview, that's not only people on the left, but just on this particular subject, say there are harmful gender stereotypes, to which I would say, you're right. There are some harmful gender stereotypes that society, whoever you want to

blame, has put on people to say it is girly to be sensitive. Like you said, it is girly to help people. It is manly to like sports. It is manly to be assertive. That actually does confuse people. that it's funny because people who are transgender seem to be more sensitive to those stereotypes than Christians are in that okay well like you said if I am sensitive that means I'm supposed to be a woman but again the Bible has an elevated view of that when we look at someone like David who was strong who was brave who was a mighty man of God he played instruments he cried out to the Lord he was what you might call emotional he is sensitive he cares about fringe He cares about people who don't like him.

Maybe things that you might describe sometimes to females, someone who was a man after God's own heart had some of those characteristics. So again, what we see is that the Bible has a better, has an elevated, has a more honorable view of the so-called spectrum of what a man is and what a woman is. That doesn't mean the biological roles are mixed up. That doesn't mean that biologically we can just interchange them. but as far as personalities go, there are differences, and that can even be biblical. And again, people say that it's Christians who want to fit people inside a box, and maybe

it's true that churches do that. But God's word doesn't do that. And by the way, add to your portrait of David, he wrote poetry. Yes. Most of the poems of poetry. Yes. And again, these days, we tend to think of poetry as somewhat effeminate. David was a great warrior and yet he wrote poetry. I would also say that we should reach out to secularists who do recognize the problem. For example, there's a group

called Hands Across the Isle, which I'm a member of and it's mostly conservative Christian women and secular liberal feminist socialist women and we're reaching it across the aisle on these issues of transgenderism. Why? Because even feminists realize that if anyone can call themselves a woman, including a man, who still has all of his equipment intact, he's biologically, has his dental intact still, and he can call himself a woman, and he can claim entry into women spaces like rape shelters and locker rooms and showers.

If anyone can call themselves a woman, then there is no longer a basis for women's rights. Right. So to protect women's rights, we have to be able to say what a woman is. If it's a social construct, as postmodernists tell us now, then it becomes impossible to argue for women's rights based on the sheer fact of being female. You cannot project a category of people if you cannot define. that category. Yep. So one of the things, strategies for Christians today is to reach out even to secular people

who are recognizing the same problems that we are. So there needs to be changes within the church. We also can reach out for allies in the secular culture. Yep. And it goes back to, to me, what C.S. Lewis argues in mere Christianity about a moral lawgiver. if you don't have a moral law giver, you don't have a moral law, then what you're left with is basically postmodernism. It's basically, while there is no purpose or meaning for anything, it's all just totally subjective. And you find always these contradictions like feminism trying to go hand in hand with transgenderism.

Well, it doesn't work because the feminist argument then is torn down by the fact that there's no such thing as a woman. So that's one beautiful part about Christianity is the purposed order. that God has created for us that, like you've said, so many times that it's so true, is meant for human beings fulfillment for our good in God's glory. And I think that you have a very unique message that I really don't hear a lot of Christians talking about. Can you tell people where they can hear more about this message, where they can find you and all of the information that you've shared today?

Well, Love Thy Body, the book can be found anywhere on Amazon. on Christianbook.com. Any Christian bookstore probably has it these days. And I have a website called Nancypiercy.com. Or you can connect with me on Facebook, of course, or Twitter. That's probably the best way to do it. And I did want to follow up on your comment just there

about living in God's purpose. You have to realize, people sometimes ask me, Well, why does a secular ethic have such a low view of the body, which is the main theme of my book, Love Thy Body? And here's the deeper question that everyone needs to get to. Your view of ethics depends on your view of nature, because the body is part of nature. And the secular ethic depends on the view of nature as a product of blind material forces. In fact, there's an outspoken lesbian named Camille Paglia. Yes.

I'm sure of you know. Yes. And this is how she's also a lesbian. Here's how she defends it. On one hand, she disagrees with most lesbians, which is why Christians know her, by the way. They read her stuff because she disagrees with the idea that male and female is just a social construction. She says, no, no, no.

nature made us male and female. Humans are sexually reproducing species. And so you ask, well, how can she defend lesbian being a lesbian herself? And here's what she says. And these are her exact words. She says, why not defy nature? After all, fate, not God, has given us this flesh. We have absolute claim to our bodies and may do with them

as we see fit. So do you see the logical connection? What she's saying is if nature is a matter of mindless, purposeless material causes, then it has no intrinsic purpose that we're morally obligated to respect. It has no moral method for us. We may do with it as we see fit. So that's really the question at the heart of this debate is, is nature itself the product of mindless, purposeless forces, or is nature the product of a loving

creator who had a purpose, a reason, a design, a plan, and order when he created us? And we will be happier and healthier when we live in accord with that purpose, that design. So if you want to talk about the world view differences, it comes down to Christians being able to communicate that our ethical views are based on the idea of a loving God who created us for a purpose. Right. It's the why that secularists, materialists can't answer that, okay, this might have been the case. I could keep going on and on, but I remember Gloria Steinem a few years ago talking about, okay, there might be biological differences between men and women, but why not defy biology? That's exactly what she said. What Paglia said, why not? Yes, there might be specific roles that women are better at and men are

better at, but so, why not defy science? So again, you see that separation of body and inner person saying that there really is no connection. One can be dominated over the other, depending on what's most expedient or what feels best for us. That's what Pagli is saying too. But you point out in your introduction, a C.S. Lewis quote that says materialists, they basically live in a world that does not exist. And I think history tells us that that define our bodies, there's no evidence historically that society can last that way. There's no evidence that I know of throughout all of human history that we can actually go on like that. Has there ever been a society that is not split between male and female? What makes us so prideful to think that we can now? Yes, in fact,

I'm glad you said that because what I have found, surprisingly, is that the main argument that my secular friends find persuasive is an argument from environmentalism. And you say, wait a minute, what's the connection between sexuality and environmentalism? What we've discovered from the environmental movement is that in order to avoid pollution and equalism, biological disasters, we need to respect the structure of nature. We cannot do as we see fit, to use Camille Paglius term, when it comes to the environment, when we intervene, we need to work with the natural order, not against it. And really all Christians are saying is that when it comes to sexual issues, we need to work with our own biological nature.

and that when we do that, we will live happier and healthier. And it's amazing. The first time I used that with a secular friend, they went, oh, yeah, I'd get that. So that was surprising to me. This, they get that. Yeah. That what we're saying over against homosexuality and transgenderism in particular is that

we are created a certain way and we will be better off when we respect and live in accord with our biological nature. Amen. Thank you so much for this conversation. I could probably ask you a million more questions, but I think that this is probably enough for our listeners to kind of chew on, and I'm excited about the questions and the comments that are going to come in. So again, you can go to nancyprosy.com, correct?

And love thy body is found everywhere. I got it on Amazon. That's probably an easy place to get it, or you can go to your local bookstore if you want to do that. So thank you so much, Professor, and hopefully we will stay connected. Thank you so much for having me, Allie. I appreciate it. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation.

As always, if you've got any questions, feel free to email me, Ali at the Conservative millennial blog.com. You can also message me on Instagram. I try to check those as much as I can. And I would love to hear any feedback that you have about this particular episode. I know we dove into some pretty complicated subjects. And I always love to hear your opinions and hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for listening.

I will see you guys back here on Monday. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave. even when it's unpopular.

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