The Sean McDowell Show - 8 BIG Lies about Sex (w/ John Stonestreet)

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

What do Christian high school students consider the biggest cultural lies about sex? In this video, I talk with John Stonestreet (president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview) about these lies and more. He’s an author and speaker on areas of faith and culture, theology, worldview, education and apologetics. John is the daily voice of Breakpoint, the nationally syndicated commentary on the culture, founded by the late Chuck Colson. READ: Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage, by John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell (https://amzn.to/3UyykU2) WATCH: The Identity Project (https://identityproject.tv/) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What are the biggest cultural lies about sex, love, and marriage? I recently asked my class of high school students what they consider the most compelling lies that their generation is tempted to believe about sexuality. We came up with eight, then we ranked them from least pressing to most prominent. We're going to take them from eight all the way down to the number one lie that they said themselves and their peers are tempted to believe. Here to discuss them with me is my friend, co-author, and the president of the Colson Center, John Stonestreet. For the first time on the YouTube channel, man, this is long overdue. Thanks for coming on.

My feelings have been so hurt that for all these years I've known you and you're a big platform here on YouTube that you haven't actually invited me on. But no, it's always great to be with you, my friend. Well, this will be fun. And when I was writing these down, I honestly thought, well, we've got an interesting show people will want to know. And you're the first person that came to my mind because I love everything you do at the Colson Center, which we'll get to at the end and unpack and invite folks to follow. But let's take these. So starting at number eight, so they said this is a big lie facing this generation.

But then when I had them rank them, they said this was the least prominent. In fact, this number eight reminds me of the kind of things you and I would hear in the 90s and probably earlier, and it's this. If it feels good, do it. What's your response? Well, I mean, it's interesting because that was the 90s, right? I mean, think about all the shows that our parents didn't want us to watch. That was the message of

all of those shows, right? Just follow your feelings. You remember Dave Matthews, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. I mean, there's about six versions of that lie, if it feels good to do it. You know, what's so interesting to me is that now 20 years later or so, wait, what's the math? 30 years later, I guess. I think there's really been a reckoning is that the hashtag me too movement is that the stuff with harvey weinstein is that like you know the uh intimacy coordinators in hollywood that used to tell you if it feels good do it now they're like well we're not going to portray that without you know someone to kind of guide and protect people so it makes me think that 30 years later maybe there's at least a little bit of a realization, at least out of Hollywood, of the consequences of that bad idea, right? That this stuff actually matters and it can lead to

harm for other people. In other words, if it feels good for me, it might be harmful for somebody else. And maybe there's more of a realization of that now than there used to be. That's an interesting cultural analysis. I took this with my students. I said, okay, so the basis of right and wrong here is feelings. Should we decide what we do based on our feelings? I said, can you think of any examples of feelings that we have that we shouldn't act on? Well, if you just come up with one example, then you realize we should gauge our feelings against another standard. Feelings are good and they're beautiful and they're wonderful that God has given to us. But I actually tell my students, I'm like, if I act everything based on I feel in terms of what I feel like eating, I'm actually going to wreck my life and wreck others, not make it better.

And then I pressed him a little bit. You know, if it feels good to it, what's interesting about this is like, I actually remember my dad talking about this probably in the 80s. He would say, okay, if it feels good, that makes it right. What if it feels good for the guy, but not for the girl? Does that mean it's right for the guy, but wrong for the girl. And of course that's absurd, right? You can do the right thing, cannot feel good. And the wrong thing can feel good. Yeah. So, well, go ahead. Yeah. I think that's literally what happened with the hashtag me too movement. I mean, right. This is a bunch of, you know, predatory Hollywood guys that not only it felt good for them, but it of, you know, predatory Hollywood guys that not only it felt good for them, but it felt, you know, basically they were, you know, creating content to make people feel

good, but there were people victimized by this. I think you have some really interesting people right now, like Louise Perry, who's written about the sexual revolution and said, you know what, it's actually been especially bad for women. And so I actually think that the realization may be that we've had more and more. The other thing that I think is really key about feelings is that feelings are immediate and feelings are so fickle and they so quickly change. And there's so much that you can tell about the health of a person, even the health of a family or a nation, if they can delay gratification. In other words, if they can choose something that's bigger and better and more important and more significant than the feeling of a moment. So the difference

between somebody who has to live for the moment, Usually that's going to be reflected in the amount of debt that they're in, you know, the consequences of bad decisions. But man, so much of our life, we know this in sports, we know this in business, that you've actually got to live for not just the moment, but you've got to live actually to build for the future. And if it feels good, do it. It's just the exact opposite of that. That's a good way to think about it. I often tell students when the claim is, if it feels good, do it. Sometimes Christians want to respond almost like, no, it doesn't feel good. Sex is bad. And I'm like, okay, that is completely not helpful at all. No one would be tempted to do it if it didn't feel good. God designed our bodies.

And there's a whole lot of talk, whether it's Proverbs 5 or the Song of Solomon, how sex is meant to feel good. God designed it to be pleasurable. So the last thing we want to say to students is, no, it doesn't feel good. I would affirm and say, it does. This is part of God's good design. In fact, I think it's a blessing, but he's given us boundaries to not just follow our feelings to set us free. Of course, that's a whole nother conversation. Well, look, I think it's a kindness of God. When you and I were working on our book together, which had to do with the topic of same-sex marriage, I actually had this experience. I don't know if I've ever actually told you this or not, but I hit writer's block and I go back and I

turn on the TV and I'm flipping through and I came across a movie I hadn't seen in years from the golden age of cinema, you know, the eighties, the movie Gremlins. You remember that movie Gremlins? Of course. Well, you had, you know, this little mogwai and the guy, there was three rules. And one of the rules was don't get it wet. And it occurred to me because I had just kind of spent some time in Genesis one and two, like, oh, you know, if God could have decided that we reproduce like gremlins, you know, I mean, think about it. In other words, in other words, there wouldn't be another person involved. It would just be this kind of mechanical, God clearly wanted more people.

That could have been it. And then you think about how pleasurable it is, how awkward, and it kind of exposes individuals. It makes two become one. And you think, man, God was super creative in how he filled this problem that humans needed. There needed to be more humans. He could have done it all kinds of ways. And so the very fact that it's procreation happens through this process in which, you know, there's so much meaning and purpose in it. Interestingly enough, Brad Wilcox has been doing a lot of research on happiness and the happiness of married couples and also the sexual satisfaction of married couples right now outrank in significant ways

the happiness and the sexual satisfaction of singles. And you just think, well, this is how God designed it. And it's, it points to his own kindness that he would do it in this way, as opposed to, you know, the, the gremlin way. I know it's a terrible illustration, but, but it actually happened. I was wondering how soon you bring up an eighties reference and it was about six minutes. So six minutes. There we go.

Not bad. Well, I love that. I've actually got Wilcox's book right here because I'm interviewing him soon. And I think his case is fantastic and vitally important. One of the most important books I've read in a while. Let's shift to number seven. So number eight was, if it feels good, do it. Number seven was you are missing out.

Now this in one sense, I'll say, is we hear a FOMO fear of missing out there. Of course, in the nineties was a sense. And in the eighties and probably every generation people felt they might be missing out. But what would your response be? Do you think that's uniquely pressing today or just brought home more because of technology? I think technology absolutely brings it home more because there's a jealousy. I mean, I don't think this is just about students, right? I mean, think about the number of like young moms who have a FOMO around Christmas time because all their friends are posting these perfect holiday pictures as if the turkey never burns and, you

know, the tree never falls over and all that sort of stuff. And that's just, that kind of comparison with one another is one of the things that I think is social media's kind of worst curse on humanity. There's just so much that creates kind of this isolation and loneliness and self nasal gazing focus that's just not a healthy way to live. And to me, this is a line that reflects that. The other thing specifically in the area of sexuality is like, I would want to say, well, you're missing out on what? Because that's like saying that anything

that you're not trying, you're now depleted because you're, or you're, you're, you have some sort of deficit because you're not able to experiment on it. But that goes back to the last thing, which is, you know, some sexual acts, particularly today are harmful. So what does that mean? You're still going to have to have boundaries, right? Even if you are missing out, you're still going to have to have boundaries of what? There still has to be a line. There still has to be some sort of moral guidance around it. Otherwise, it's just a free-for-all. I remember a former teammate of mine, basketball, who was not a, I don't think he was a Christian at the time, and was one of the best

basketball players I played with. He invited a friend over to open gym one time and kind of introduced his friend to me. And he's like, yeah, this is my friend, Sean. And he's not sleeping with his girlfriend. And I was like, okay, what an awkward way, like, okay. And his buddy's like, tell me about that. And as we had this conversation, there's almost this sense of like, okay, that's interesting and that's weird, but I'm intrigued. Like, is that better? Now, I'm not saying that's a predominant feeling from the other side, but it's the first time I thought, okay, wait a minute. As a teenager, I remember feeling like, oh, I'm missing out. Sex is everywhere. I've got to wait all these years. That's a natural feeling to have, but that was one of the first times I thought, oh, wait a minute. There might be other people who are missing out on something better because of their actions.

So I ask students sometimes, I'll say, okay, I understand you feel this way right now. Say in 10 years you're married. Do you think you'll look back and be like, man, I really missed out not having more sex? Or do you actually think you'll be better off not having more partners? What about 20 years? What about 30 years? What about 50 years? If God enables you to be married for that long, do you think you'll feel like you're missing out? And I think the vast majority of students, when I talk to them, won't be like, yep, got to sow my wild oats before I get married. I think they'll get a sense of like, actually, the less partners that I have, the more special this is with my wife for a lifetime. So in the immediate moment, I get it because sex is everywhere in our culture. I mean, it's everywhere.

It's in our music, in our movies, and it's on TikTok. I mean, it's almost inconceivable that some student wouldn't feel like they're missing out to some degree. I just want to frame it for them differently and say, okay, look in the scope of your life. Where do you think you'll have the most regret and feel you're missing out? And that frames it differently for him. Well, and it goes back to something I mentioned in the first myth, which is this idea of delayed gratification. And you've just, I think, reversed it brilliantly.

And it goes also back to something else that Brad Wilcox has been doing research on. But he's actually just the latest to do this research. In other words, it's not just a theory what you just said, where it's like, well, hey, maybe those who sow their wild oats and then try to have kind of a relationship that is secure and happy and pleasurable in the long term that's not disrupted by these kind of past memories and so on, maybe they're the ones that are missing out. Sean, that's not just kind of a weird thing that Christians believe, although it is. The data supports that. It's amazing to me if you look at three groups of people, singles, cohabiting, and married, and you measure sexual satisfaction among those three groups, right? And sexual satisfaction usually is measured around two kind of categories.

One is how often you have sex and two, how much you enjoy it. So to your point, every movie, every TV show for the last 40 years, if all we had to go on was that, who has the most sex, single, cohabiting, or married? Single, right? And who enjoys it the most singles because they're the most free who has the least sex if that's all we had to go on married right i mean that's the joke it's that's the quickest way to be celibate is to get married and it gets dull and monotonous but you know the data shows the exact opposite the data shows that those who have the most sex by a significant amount are married and those who enjoy it the most by a huge amount are married. Now, again,

this isn't a guarantee. It's not a money back guarantee or anything like that. I think that's very important not to kind of do a princess promise for celibacy or anything like that. I think that's very important not to kind of do a princess promise for celibacy or anything like that. But it is important to know the numbers. And one of the uniquenesses or most interesting things in my mind is the difference between cohabiting and married. That's right. Because in the first few years, cohabiting couples have more sex. After the first few years, that's not the case, but cohabiting couples enjoy it less. And I tell students that I think that's because it's kind of like, you know, and I asked them how many of you guys would love to just always go on job interviews, but never get a job.

And, you know, it's funny, most of them still say no, because job interviews are so much pressure. It's like, what if they tell me I'm not good enough? What if they tell me I'm not qualified? What if they tell me, right? And I'm like, that's cohabitation. You know, the difference between cohabiting sex and married sex is cohabiting sex is a perpetual job interview. Married sex, you got the job, man. You know, you've got that sort of security. And that's what the data shows. And the difference is there's a commitment that says, I love you and I'm with you for life and I'll never leave you. And that doesn't restrict people, kind of the playboy philosophy that says variety is the spice of life. that actually sets people free to love and be loved back in the way God designed sex to be experienced. Now, here's what I know you're not saying. I want to clarify for people that are watching. You and Wilcox are not saying, wait a minute, if you follow God's design for sex, you have better sex. That's the reason why you should follow God's design for sex.

That's the mistake I think that purity culture made. And Christine Gardner wrote a book called Making Chastity Sexy, I think it was. It was kind of an academic look at purity culture. And she said, you know, in our culture, sex can sell everything. It sells shampoo, it sells cars, it sells everything. And now sex also sells abstinence. And I thought, oh my goodness, she's right. The reason we should be sexually pure before marriage and after marriage is because God is holy. That's the primary motivation. But the lies in our culture about marriage, the lies in our culture about sex need to be responded to. And Wilcox has clearly demonstrated with the data that it's married couples who have less

sexual partners beforehand and who commit to life are having the most and the best sex. And that makes perfect sense to me. And I'm not surprised by it at all, because there is a God who designed sex to be experienced a certain way. And when we follow his guidelines, we tend to flourish and experience the kind of joy that he experiences.

Again, that's not a promise, but it's a factual reality. Yeah, and that's such an important distinction, and you're right. I mean, we can't make that promise because you don't know kind of what may happen later on in terms of health, in terms of well-being, in terms of being widowed or something like that. This isn't a money-back guarantee. And one of my friends, former colleagues called it princess theology. You know, if you just do the right thing, then God will bring along your Prince Charming and Princess Charming and you'll be happily ever after. And of course, there's nothing about the biblical story that reflects that sort of prosperity gospel way of thinking. But if it's true that God made sex a particular way, if our thinking, if they're actually,

the truth about sex is baked into reality and isn't just something we made up as a social construct, then you would expect the data to reflect that. And I think that's what, you know, Wilcox and some others have pointed to pretty well. Well, as I suspect, you know, I could talk about each one of these probably for hours, but let's keep moving. This number six one kind of surprised me. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but a student was like, yeah, one of the biggest lies is that it's weird to save yourself for marriage.

It's just weird. Now, for me, when I hear that, this is students who, for the most part, don't want to be weird. As much as we hear about express yourself, this is still a generation that wants to express themselves the way everybody else does. And so I'm curious what you make of kind of this idea that it's a lie, that it's weird to save yourself for marriage. Well, I don't know that actually it's a lie. I think it actually is true. It is weird, and maybe that's okay. In other words, maybe being weird is not the worst thing ever,

is what I'm saying. Because when you say something like it's weird to save yourself for marriage, you're actually not saying something necessarily about the Christian, in this case. You're saying something about the norm of that cultural setting. And I guess, and part of this is being framed. I'm so fascinated right now with a particular British historian named Tom Holland, you know, who's writing about how Christianity actually was good for the world and it has been good for the world. And he had this conversation, I'm trying to remember with, I'm blanking out on the name of the guy he had a conversation with, but talking about the impact that Christians have had throughout the world. And he said,

what would you say to today's Christians? And again, Tom Holland is not a Christian as far as we can tell. But he was asked, what do you say to today's Christians in light of what you learned about, you know, Christians in history? And you know what his answer was?

Stay weird. Because if you have a culture that, you know, Proverbs is so clear about there's a way to life, there's a way to death. That's true kind of for individuals following past, but I think it's also true within cultures. Like there are cultures that are more attuned to human flourishing, and there are cultures that are more oppressive and more dehumanizing, either for all of us or a certain group. So when you talk about the world that Christianity entered into, man, that was a really tough place to be a woman or a child. You were exploited. And so if that's the sort

of culture we live in today, which again, Louise Perry and some others are saying, this has been really bad for women, for example. And, you know, men have been promised this kind of sexual freedom and given a get out of jail free card. I don't know if you noticed young men are not doing well in our culture. You know, they're not, they're not as productive as they used to be. They're not as happy as they used to be. The average life expectancy is actually going down, which is crazy given how much more medical technology we have. That's one of the most – in other words, maybe it's better to be weird than to be normal in a cultural moment like ours. I'm really glad you responded that way because I thought our goal is not to show that, oh, Christianity is normal and this is how everybody behaves.

I mean we believe that a man died and was buried and on the third day rose from the grave. That's not the norm. We believe the donkey talked in the book of numbers and that sure seems to be in a historical book. I mean, we believe angels are real and that miracles happen. Like that's weird. So in some ways, the fact that they brought this up is almost more of a reflection that we've tried to teach a generation not to be different in terms of what's really biblical and so this idea of you know saving sex for marriage is weird rather than leaning in they consider a lie of our culture and i'll go yeah actually you'll be different if you decide not to have sex and

they'll call you weird. And that's okay. That's fine. I mean, I remember hearing JP Moreland said the same thing one time. He's like, stay weird. Christianity is weird. Let's not pretend that it's not different, especially in our secular naturalistic world that makes it more so. Hey, you know what else is weird is staying married for life, right? I mean, it's getting more and more weird to get married and it's getting more and more weird to stay married for life. But I have a friend who teaches, who's been his career as a history prof at a state school. And he once told me that students would come over and just sit there and kind of look at him and his wife.

And he goes, honestly, we felt like zoo exhibits kind of. That's funny. He really got to the heart of it. Almost all of them would say, how long have you guys been married? And I think at this point, it was like 40 years. We have just never seen that. And they looked at him and his wife as if they were weird, but they also recognize there was something compelling, something better than the norm. And the work that we've done on the sexual revolution and the hookup culture,

I mean, we've read a lot of crazy stuff and, you know, a lot of crazy ideas, but I remember two articles in particular. One was describing the college campus hookup culture and how it had been taken over by, that was now, it was now being driven by women. This was an article, I think in Vanity Fair, maybe five or six years ago. And the girl said, yeah, you know, it's good because we can still get our degree. We don't have to have any commitment, but we all get drunk first. So they actually said that. And you kind of think, well, is that real freedom if you have to get wasted? And if that's the norm, is that the norm that I want? article was looking at singles. This is pre-COVID in New York City. It was talking about Tinder and the hookup culture that technology had enabled. And the article was just interviewing these girls at a bar that were swiping left or right. And I don't know which way means what, but looking through potential connections that night. And one of them was quoted as saying,

yeah, it's great. It's great. Like, you know, you can sex and it's all good and no one gets hurt. And then she said, well, at least no one gets hurt on the outside. Wow. And you look at that and you think, so she actually now thinks that normal good sex is as long as she doesn't get raped and all there is to it. And you're like, man, if that's the norm, stay weird. Wow. That's a great, that's a great example. Now this next one, I'm really curious where you're going to take this one. Number five, sex is not a big deal. Kind of the difference. And again, this is kind of like an old trope from the sexual revolution.

We would hear people say things like, well, you know, it's just like drinking a glass of water that tried to take something that was sacred and holy. And it's just a physical biological act. That's all it is. It has no meaning. It's not a big deal. What's your take?

Well, you know know my initial response is just how many parts of the kind of this post-sexual revolution downstream we we live where there's so many contradictions right and this is one of them where where we will hear that the act of sex and hooking up is not a big deal and then by the same people the next minute that the most defining characteristic and aspect about who every single one of us is, is our sexual identities. What a strange contradiction, isn't it?, sex is not a big deal. And it was oftentimes, oftentimes this, um, appeal to, uh, naturalism, uh, secularism, right? Cause it's just two bodies. I think, I think there was actually a, uh, a line in a movie once that it's just kind of two bodies doing something, or you might remember that terrible song. Here's my next eight. This might be a nineties reference, but who's like group that sang you and me, baby ain't nothing but mammals. You know what I mean? Oh gosh. I remember that song. I don't know the

group, but yeah, but that it's basically saying, because it's just two bodies doing what two bodies do. But what's interesting is what we all know is that we also have hearts. We also have emotions. We also have feelings. If all we were were bodies, then that interesting study between cohabiting couples and married couples would be opposite, right? If all we were were bodies, then having more sex would equal better sex because it would be about physical pleasure. But here you have cohabiting couples in the first, what, five, 10 years of the relationship having more sex, but enjoying it less.

Married couples having less, but enjoying it more. That means there's something more than bodies involved. I think that, you know, actually points to that. Now, you know, and so I think that's kind of historically been an appeal to that. We're just bodies and it just doesn't reflect the whole truth about who we are. So naturalism in that sense, or secularism is just a worldview that's too small because it limits reality to the physical and it disregards all the metaphysical aspects about who we are, the relationships that we have with others and so on. But I think today, you know, the sex is not a big deal is probably less than an appeal to that. We're just bodies and more of an appeal to that. It's just, however you feel kind of goes back if it

feels good to do it. So it's actually an appeal to something else. And it's just as big of a lie because our bodies do matter. And I'm talking here less about the act of sex and more about kind of the sexual identifications that people go through. And then the alterations that some folks are willing to do on their own bodies in order to do that. And we've been told for 10 years that oh, hormone therapy, chromosome therapy, puberty blockers, all of this is reversible. And now we have the people in the industry themselves saying, yeah, it's actually permanent. This actually is a big deal. So it's just whether we're talking about the body or whether we're talking about the non-material aspects of who we are, just all the evidence points to the fact that it's a big deal. Like there is something about, but at the same time, you and I are more than our sexual

choices. We're more than our sexual identifications. That's, that's not a big enough category to define who we are. And, um, there's so much more to us as being made in the image of God. Um, so yeah. What, what about you? I mean, how do you respond to that? So whenever I hear something like people saying sex is not a big deal, I think people are

taking like a beach ball, pushing it underwater because of faulty worldview. And I look for ways for it to pop up. So this movie that came out in 2016 with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence called Passenger or Passengers. They're, I think, for 100 years. I didn't see it, but I read about it. For 100 years, they're on some spaceship going to like a colony and they go to some kind of like sleep. And then they wake up the same age and have an age to go on the journey. Well, they wake up in the middle of the trip.

Just the two of them. Everybody else is still sleeping, leads to some kind of sex scene in this film. Well, I was listening to Chris Pratt be interviewed about this. And he was asked, I can't remember if it was like Entertainment Weekly, something to that effect. And they said, what is it like to film a sex scene with somebody? How do you care for the other person during this i thought well that's interesting they didn't ask them hey what was it like when you walk down the hall with jennifer lawrence they asked about that scene because they know there's something unique about that scene

and they know it means something and chris pratt's response was like oh i just checked make sure she's okay minimal people on the set and then he's's like, move on, felt uncomfortable. So I did a little more research. And at the time, it turns out that that was the first scene like that, that Jennifer Lawrence had filmed. Well, she got herself drunk for one scene, at least to film in that movie and take a wild guess what it was. It was the sex scene. Turns out she also called her mom the night before.

And I don't have the quote right in front of me, but she said something effective. I feel so vulnerable doing this to her mom. Can you just tell me everything is going to be okay? I thought, holy cow. Here's a girl whose heart knows that this means something. And there's a certain context for it, but felt obligated because of a

worldview and a movie to do it. It's like her body crying out saying this is a big deal. We all know it's a big deal. It's not the biggest deal, but it's a lie to say that sex is everything. And it's a lie to say that sex is nothing. In fact, the whole Me Too movement, if sex is not a big deal, we should have just told the whole people, hey, suck it up. It's not a big deal. What are you whining about? And of course we didn't because sex abuse is serious and damaging and people feel violated in the deepest way. So that's my response to that one. I think it's great. The only thing I'd add is just from a biblical perspective, it goes back to that, you know, how God decided to fix this problem in Genesis 2 that man is alone, and therefore he can't fulfill that mandate of be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. And the consequences of sex, at least the potential consequence of sex, is another human being, another image bearer. Two image bearers come together, are met in that act by God, and another image bearer is produced. And the lengths to which we go as a society to disconnect the act of sex from procreation, to disconnect sex from children is so dramatic, right? I mean, the things that we are actually then turning around and saying, well, yeah, that's what it is.

Did you see Bill Maher just a couple of weeks ago when he was talking about abortion? And he basically said, well well it's kind of murder and he admitted it and he goes and i'm okay with that and you're like oh my gosh like first of all he said the quiet thing out loud yeah but that tells you the extent to which someone has to go in order to eliminate this big consequence of sex i mean mean, that's got to at least point to the fact that sex is a big deal. That's the only way babies get here, you know, sort of thing. Good, good word. All right. We are halfway there, Stone Street. So we might have to up our game a little bit. Number four. And again, when they said this one, I wrote it down. I'm like, this is

exactly what my dad was talking about in the white wave campaign in the 1980s. And it's the myth that God is keeping you from all the fun. So God's keeping you from the fun, your thoughts. I mean, when you said that, I was like, really, that's still a, that's still a thing, huh? That's, you know, I, yeah, I, I'm surprised that they would, uh, um, uh, that that's still a myth that kind of goes around. You know, the best answer to that is, you know, God is a father. You and I are fathers. There's moments in which my kid, you know, I have a six-year-old little boy. You remember what those days are like.

It's been a while for you. We had a surprise little boy here at the end. He has all kinds of things that he thinks would be fun. And many of them would lead to permanent injury for either him or me. And so it's just like a, you can't see, he can't understand the consequences of his actions. And so a loving father steps in and goes not now or more accurately not here not at church you know not in public and all kinds of other things because he he thinks it'll be fun uh and it but he doesn't understand, that fun is not all there is. And, and, and B there's a bigger context, you know, you kind of think about, you know,

Gandalf telling, uh, Frodo, uh, when Frodo wants to kill, um, Gollum early on in the first book there. And he says, you know, even the wisest can't see all ends and a wise father sees more ends than a son. And the goal is to help the son understand that too. And God as a wise father and as the creator has a better idea of all this than we do. So this survey I did for these top eight was from 15 students aged 16 to 18 years old in Southern Orange County at a Christian school. So I don't want to overstate

how significant this objection may be. I'd have to do a larger study to know, but that's what they came up with. The only thing that I would say to this is, first off, God did design sex to be enjoyable again. He designed it to be pleasurable. I want to make sure I affirm that and say, this is a part of God's good gift to us. Now, with that said, it's interesting. Satan's temptation is not that God doesn't exist to Adam and Eve. As much as I'm an apologist, I'd love to say, you know, God's not real. And, you know, they start dropping the cosmological argument and, you know, evidence from consciousness. They don't question the existence of God. Satan questions the character and the

goodness of god that's why the bible affirms in psalms 105 i believe it is that god is good that's why moses writes in deuteronomy chapter 10 what does the lord god require of you to israel before they go in the promised land love lord god your heart your soul your mind strength and follow his commandments which are given for your good. So your son presumably is more inclined to listen to you because he knows I can trust my dad and my dad is good. It's the same with God. I really think when it comes to sexuality, the root of the question is does this generation and all of us believe that God is good and are his commandments for my good? Because when we believe that and we go, it doesn't make sense, I don't get it,

but maybe God knows something I don't know. I'm going to listen to him. That's really the difference. We saw it in the garden and it's the same question today. You know, as you were talking to it made me think of something CS Lewis said, and this goes back to some other, the things we've already talked about, some of the other myths, but in some place, Lewis says something along the lines of, you know, there are some things you can't get by aiming at them. Like I think he's talking about comfort, like comfort has to be a by-product of a higher pursuit. If you live for and he goes, if you live for comfort, you won't get that.

If you live for happiness, you won't get that. If you live for something higher and more meaningful, then you get happiness in a real sense thrown in. And it's a conversation that he has about means and ends. And the question about fun, the question about if it feels good, that's taking some of these means and turning them into an end. And that's the lie of, I think, hedonism, that if you just live for pleasure, that you will have pleasure. You know, the evidence shows if you live for pleasure, then you get temporary pleasure, but long-term pain.

And, you know, whether fun is what we're aiming at or whether fun is something that is deeper, is more meaningful and comes out of doing the right thing, or as you put it there, because of who God is, the good thing, you know, that's really a worldview difference. You have to decide whether we live in a world infused with meaning or whether we live in a world where there's no rules no regulations no boundaries whatsoever that's again what wilcox pointed out in his book get married is when it comes to marriage if you have this soulmate myth that i just got to find this person who's going to make me perpetually happy and i won't even have to work on this marriage because it'll like magnetically bring us together like in the notebook because you actually are less likely to have a meaningful marriage.

But if you enter a marriage, say, I want to sacrifice, I want to give, then you find fulfillment and are far more likely to rate not only your sexuality, but your marriage as a whole more positively. So, all right, let's shift to number three. These ones got multiple votes, which is probably two or three or four from my students. But this one is really interesting because it kind of gets to the heart of some of a common secular ethic about autonomy. And they said specifically, do what you want.

You are the boss of your life. Yeah. When I read that one, I was like, oh, that's the lie about everything in our world right now. This has led Carl Truman to write at least two books about it, including one, which is what, 600 pages in a massive sort of massive sort of a tome, but, but that's exactly right. And I think it flows from, uh, one of the fundamental lies of the sexual revolution, uh, is that, uh, the source of our dignity is our autonomy and that therefore sexual autonomy is the highest good. You know, one of the, the, the problems with that is that, um problems with that is that the idea of human dignity, the idea that there's something valuable about us that should be honored and respected and should be recognized both kind of in the way we treat each other, the way we see ourselves and

way we do kind of society together through laws and so on. This is a somewhat new idea in human history. I mean, it's older now, but most cultures through the history of the world did not think that dignity was something inherent. In other words, core to who we are. Dignity was something that was assigned by law or by a particular king for his own people. Dignity, the idea that all humans have inherent dignity, and of course you see that in the Declaration of Independence, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal.

But if you were ever in a crowded room and you look around, that's not self-evident that we're all equal. I mean, what's evident is that we're all different. But what they were pointing to is that there was something inherent, intrinsic to us that gave us that source of dignity. Well, look, the only thing that's ever provided that in human history, at least according to Friedrich Nietzsche, the great atheist, and Luke Ferry, a modern atheist, is the idea of the image of God, that we actually have been endowed. And isn't that the next line in the declaration? We have been endowed by our creator. And that identity then is inherent to us. But now look, there's pretty much no disagreement that a world with human dignity is better than a world

without human dignity. But dignity only came with God. And God comes with rules. So if we don't want God's rules, we got to get rid of God. So we want to get rid of God's rules and get rid of God, but not get rid of human dignity, which means we got to take dignity and tether it to something else. And that has to be this sort of autonomy. You be you. You do you. Don't let anyone tell you you're the boss of you.

Be your authentic and true self. And that has taken increasingly, what's the word? I don't want to say absurd in a bad way, but it's taken an increasingly expanded way. So it used to be like, you can do whatever you want. No one can tell you what to do. And somehow about five years ago, it became, you can be whoever you want and no one can tell you who you are. And that's not just kind of how you feel about yourself inside, but like, you know, biologists can't tell you who you are. You know, doctors can't tell you who you are. When the pediatrician or the doctor at birth says it's a girl or it's a boy, they're imposing a definition on you. I mean, this is the

expanded way this has been seen as if there's no reality outside of what I see. I mean, it doesn't seem to take a whole lot of thought to see where that might become a problem as you try to live life and make decisions. In some way, this idea of autonomy has deep American roots. I mean, America is rooted in liberty and freedom. And yet, if you look at the framers and the founders and the classic philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, and of course, Christian thinkers, to be free meant to be rightly in relationship with others, with society. And there was an order to things and I'm to align myself with that order, then I'm free. Now it's, I really only have duty to myself.

And then everybody else is to affirm how I feel and see myself. And if they don't, then I can't be free. So I think, sadly, and I think you're the first person who I heard say this, this idea of absolute autonomy, live your truth, you be you. We've heard this preached over the past few years at the same time that depression and loneliness and anxiety has been on a rise. And that's not an accidental correlation between them. We are not autonomous beings. We have relationships with one another. We have duties to one another. And it's only when we are in right relationship with others that we're set free. So many ways that's at the root of the sexual revolution and the clash across cultures.

Is there an objective truth outside of us that we discover? And do we conform ourselves to that standard to be free? Or do we look within at our feelings for freedom? I really think that's the root of it. Yeah, I think what you just said needs to be said over and over and over and over again. Because people are, you know, it's kind of like those people who said, Oh, yeah, throughout history, like humans have taken technologies of war and misused them, but we won't. We'll be the ones that get it right.

And, you know, it's kind of like that same thing here. It's like, well, look, all the ways that we've slowly and thoroughly isolated ourselves over and over and over from any sort of, you know, external standard, but also even trying to isolate ourselves from any sort of consequences from our behavior to be completely autonomous and to be isolated. Don't let anybody else tell us what to do. Like there is a direct correlation between that and the spike of mental illness and relational breakdown and unhappiness. You know, we have more distractions in any generation that's ever lived and we're the unhappiest according to data.

There's never been a world where you can stay more connected than this one. I mean, you and I are a thousand miles apart or something like that. And yet, we're having this live conversation that then will go to people all over the world. And it's like, we can stay connected more than any generation that's ever lived. And we're the loneliness. When are we going to put together these kind of correlating factors of autonomy and unhappiness? And I think we just need to say it because it's almost like, and I was just reading an article about this this morning. I haven't related. I won't point to it.

But where somebody is like, yeah, those people that are saying the sexual revolution didn't deliver on its promises, they're just wrong. It's like, we'll do autonomy better than they did. It's just self-deception. It's like, you have to understand this idea that you are free to do whatever you want as if there are no consequences and rules and boundaries assumes that you weren't designed for a purpose. But if there's a designer and there is a purpose, then there are boundaries to life, moral boundaries, physical boundaries, actions and their consequences. It's just built

into reality. It's like you're banging your head against the wall and going, you know, why do I have a headache? There's a correlation here, folks. Good stuff. Now these last two in some sense are also not really new. There's kind of like timeless objections, at least as far as I can remember, going back to maybe the 80s. And yet these two got multiple votes. And so here's a group of high school students saying of all the lies they're tempted to believe about sexuality, this is number two, that sex will cure a broken relationship. Your thoughts? I mean, like I read that and I'm like, that sounds like some girl wrote that because some guy told her that, you know, and I'm like,

please don't let that be the case. Like that's such a pickup line. That's such a, you know, a bogus sort of thing. But it has to do with means and ends, right? What's a means and what's an end? Is sex the end or is sex a means? The other thing I thought of, and this is going to sound weird, but the other thing I thought of is that, you know what? That's not a completely untrue statement in the context of the right relationship. And in other words, there is an interesting part of this, to your point that sex is good, God created it to be pleasurable. I think the inherent connection to procreation as its primary purpose, and that puts marriage on a different trajectory or marriage puts sex on a different trajectory, is that there is a role that sex plays within a relationship and even within the healing of a marriage where trust has been broken or something like that. And that's because

we're both physical and spiritual beings. Now, I know that's not what the high schoolers that you interviewed were talking about. Of course, of course. Yeah, very different. Very, very different. But, you know, there's probably, look, all the things that we've heard about autonomy for singles, I don't know if you've noticed this, but like the HuffPost and some of these kind of popular magazines, how many times are you hearing that same sort of language about marriage? You know, like my marriage was oppressive. My marriage was a ball and chain. I know we've talked about Wilcox a couple of times now in this book, you know, about marriage, but we, you know, that those same lies of autonomy also, I think have corrupted our views of marriage. And, and, and I just think we need to redefine that. So, sorry, that's a, that's a little bit of a rabbit trail. It's important. But yeah, I mean, in terms of what your kids were thinking about, you know, that obviously three daughters, I just want to go, it's a lie.

It's a lie. Don't believe it. It's just some guy. I want to be the protective father when I hear a lie like that. You're right. There's far more guys that are going to say that than girls. There's no question about that. I think my only question as you hit on is what's the caboose and what's the engine?

What's upstream and what's downstream? And again, I remember like in the 80s, my dad saying to me about this, he said, son, if there's problems sexually in say a marriage, for example, or even not in a marriage, there's probably something else at the core that the lack of that sexual intimacy is expressing, whatever that is.

So it's almost like the bad sex that's not working is a symptom of something deeper that's broken. And so if there's a trust that's broken, if communication has broken down, if there's just something not working in the relationship and you think sex is going to fix it, you're actually putting a bandaid on something rather than dealing with the root cause and in some ways is going to make it worse. Yeah, that's right. Go ahead.

Sorry. No, no, you're up. Well, I was just saying, yeah, I mean, I think the bandaid on a gaping wound is probably a great example. You know, you're asking sex to do something it was never designed to do. And I also think that it's important to say that sex itself has to be rightly ordered, or it can be a healing force, even in the context of marriage. You know, we talked earlier about purity culture and trying to help kids stay pure until they're

married. And a lot of times, you'd hear lines like, you have to stay chaste until you're married. And I'm like, wait a minute, chastity is a virtue. It's one of the classic virtues. And chastity is not just for single people. Chastity is for all people. To be chaste is to be properly sexual with other people. In the context of marriage, when you and I travel, which we do, away from our wives, we need to be chaste. When we're with our wives in our hearts and in our minds, when we're watching television or online, we need to be chaste.

And so all of this points to the fact that sex itself has to be whole to fulfill. It has to be, sex itself has to be properly ordered. I still like that line from Augustine. It has to be properly ordered in order to kind of fulfill its purpose. And when you think that sex can carry more water, so to speak, than it can, then you're just going to be, you're going to be disappointed. Sex is just not designed to carry that much weight and that much water when it comes to interpersonal relationships. You said sex has to be properly ordered to be what?

To be effective in its purpose. To be effective in its purpose. You said Augustine said that. I could have sworn that was in Gremlins, but maybe it's just me. Just kidding. Had to bring it back full circle. Sorry. I know we got to bring it back in.

But look, sex can be healing and sex can be harming, right? Amen. Both ways. Yeah. That's right. Well said. Now, this last one, again, the moment they said it, and this got the top votes by far, I'm thinking we had these conversations in youth group in the 80s and in the 90s.

This is nothing new, but it was a big deal to this group of students. And it's this, as long as you don't go all the way, other physical activity is permissible. So just don't go all the way and you're fine. Man, there is nothing new under the sun. I would suspect that, you know, if, if, uh, you know, St. Patrick in Ireland had a youth group, he was talking to them about this, you know, back into, you know, in his, in his Irish accent. I mean, look, I think there's a couple of things to say up front. The most important thing to say up front is, I think, go to what Jesus said. Jesus took acts that were clearly identified as sin in Old Testament law and back them up into the heart. He added the requirements, particularly when it comes to sex. Remember the

whole line, if you hate your neighbor, if you hate someone else and you wish them dead, you've just committed murder. If you look at someone as if you want to commit adultery with them, you've committed adultery. And I think it's because this is in one of the ways that we're God-like. And what I mean by that is not in the kind of like, you know, new agey sense. I mean, we're made in the image of God. God takes a world that doesn't exist and out of his imagination and his goodness and his perfection, you know, in his language, then it actually is created. Humans have that ability in a way that animals don't. We can imagine how we can improve someone's day or ruin someone's day. We can imagine a field turned into a city and then we work

together and make it that way. I mean, humans have this ability to imagine what's not. And that imagination in a fallen state can go either direction. It can bring about good and it can bring about evil. And so you have to guard your imagination. This is, I think, what Proverbs 4 means when it says guard your heart. Like if you don't do anything else. And isn't that interesting? I was speaking to a group of students a couple of ago uh sean and um and i said you know the most important thing

that the world will tell you that you have to do is follow your heart follow your heart follow your heart like that's the number one thing the author of proverbs goes dude if you don't do anything else guard your heart guard your heart guard your heart it's such a contrast isn't it and uh that's the thing about is if you don't go all the way, that means you're headed in a direction towards sin. Your imagination's way ahead of you. First of all, if you think you can pull the brakes, you're a fool. That won't happen for very long.

Secondly, the state of your heart is, is really, you know, where Christ locates sin. So if your heart's already there, even if you haven't actually gone quote unquote all the way, um, you know, Jesus was pretty clear about this one. He wasn't up in the air on this at all. That's a great response to move it from the action to the heart. Here's what I did with my students. Since this got the most votes, I wrote on the board and I said, okay, let's go through every conceivable physical action from a look to holding hands to a

hug, different kinds of hugs, different kinds of kisses, and see at what point we think we're maybe crossing a boundary. And I said, now, how should we gauge this? In fact, the first question I asked him, I said, so what is sex? One of the things we didn't do in purity culture for years was even define what sex is. We're like, don't have sex, but you might think, well, it's obvious. But finally, my students came up with an example. They said, well, there's a difference between sexual activity and sex itself. And that's right.

I said, for example, coaches used to do this, hit kids on the butt. You know, I even remember male coaches at times would do that with females, like totally shouldn't do that. But it wasn't sexual. It was like, get out there and play was kind of the idea behind it. Now, of course, we shouldn't do that. But that's so much of it is the intention and the means by which you engage in a certain activity. Like certain kind of hugs and certain touchings can be sexual. It cannot be sexual. So we went back and I said, okay, looking at a woman.

Is it okay to look at a woman or a man sexually? And right away they're like, no. I said, okay. So in some sense, before you even have physical activity there's already certain things we shouldn't do and so okay holding hands is that i bounced like no we're like hugging they're like no i said well what if you're hugging where you're lying on top of somebody in the dark like i am walking them through particulars to say well well, what does that communicate? And what's interesting is with these students, I said, okay, what does a French kiss mean? And they're like, well, it's desire and

commitment. I said, is it necessarily sexual? They said, no, it could be romantic, not necessarily sexual. I said, okay, can you think of any further physical activity that's not sexual? And they looked around and finally one girl said, well, maybe kissing on the neck. I said, okay, let's talk about that. Now you're moving down the body, kissing other parts of the body. Is that more sexual or less? And they kind of thought they're like, I guess it's more sexual. I said, well, it seems to me, and I didn't tell

them anything. I said, it seems to me you're making a distinction between sex and sexual, and we shouldn't be sexual outside of the kind of relationship in which sexual activity is permissible, hence marriage. You say any behavior beyond a French kiss is sexual. Seems to me you've come up with a potentially reasonable boundary about how far is too far. Now, I don't tell students, therefore, go out and French kiss. That is not my point. I'm trying to teach and help them reflect upon what they know in their hearts and realize, and you and I have had this conversation, how physical activities mean certain things. Yeah. A kiss means something.

A hug means something. And so when they started to make that distinction between sex and sexual activity, they started to realize, oh my goodness, there are certain clear behaviors that are sexual. And if I'm committed to what the scripture says and loving this person, I realize that's too far. So I would just encourage parents and those who have these conversations with students, ask questions more than preach because no high school student wants you or me to tell them, here's what you should do, here's what you shouldn't do. But ask them questions and listen and draw it out in conversation. And the last thing I'll say is when you ask a question, I remember a guy in high school, he said, if you ask a question, how far is too far?

You're basically asking, what can I get away with without consequences or sinning? What if my question was, how do I love this person? That might frame it differently. I think it absolutely does. And I, I commend you for going on that super awkward journey with all those students that I'm glad that you're calling and not mind. And any parents that want to, you know, yell at Sean for saying it's okay to, for their kids to French kiss, you can send all your emails to Sean. Now I know that's not what you were saying. That last point though, I think is, is so important. I mean, the best line I've ever heard about this is that, you know, is this idea that, you know, purity is a line, not a direction.

Or sorry, sorry, let me say that. You have to edit this out. No, I'm not editing it, but you get to take two. You're not editing it, do I have to do that? You get to take two, man, go. I can do a take two right now. Okay, purity is a direction, not a line. And if you think about how far can I go without God getting mad at me, then you're not actually saying, how can I be presentable to God? The best definition I ever heard of purity, in addition to that kind of model of direction versus line was this making yourself presentable to God, you know, only the pure presentable to God. And if you use that as a standard, then suddenly, you know, you're not headed down that kind of, I think, wrong direction no matter, you know, where you're actually doing it because it's putting it in the context of the

heart. But I think that last point you made, though, is something I've challenged young men with in particular, is that, look, can you think of any behavior, if you're called by God to steward anything that he's given you, the world, the gifts that you have, the talents, the families, the relationships, the friends, is there any of these behaviors that are going to leave the other person better than you found them um and if the answer is no then that means you got to draw the line you know further and further you know and further back you know um yeah i remember in college man i got challenged on this from a friend she hooked me up with a friend of hers to go out on a date. We went out on a date.

I kissed her at the end of the night, and her friend, she told her friend, her friend just came after me. I mean, she was just so mad at me. Wow. And I honestly had never thought about this because I'd always thought about this in terms of lines, you know? And she asked me that question. She's like, why did you do it? I'm like, I don't know. We were on a date.

She was like, are you serious? That's all the thought you've given to this? And I was like, well, I didn't want to cross any lines. And man, she just went through about kind of, was I leaving this girl who had really no intention to date again? Was I leaving her better than I found her? And the answer was absolutely not. And now I'm not living the sort of life that God had created and called me to live as a person, you know? So

that was a big challenge for me. And it just changes the whole conversation from the line conversation to the direction conversation. And rightfully so, I think. I've got a ton more conversations, questions for you that we can have in part two of this conversation. But let me ask you too, I want to get to this identity project, which is such a good resource. But last night in my class at Biola, we were talking about sexuality. And one of my students asked this question. I'm curious what you think. My student said, there's a debate about what is a woman. Why is there not an equal debate about what is a man? Oh, the quick answer is, is because the sexual revolution is inherently chauvinistic. It's inherently patriarchal and in a bad way. And women pay the price for it. It's unbelievable. I mean, all the lies of the sexual

revolution have been around, oh, the kids will be fine. The kids will be fine. The kids will be fine. And a lot of them have been around. This is good for women. Good for women. Good for women. Wink, wink, wink. You know, look, women were told, oh, you guys are oppressed. So, and men can have whatever sex that they want and look at all the damage they've done. So now you, you behave more like men. I mean, it made no sense whatsoever, but that was basically the lie in the, in the middle of it. Look, fast forward to last week when the Department of Education issues new guidance around Title IX. Title IX was designed to protect women's opportunities and access in educational opportunity and educational institutions, including sports. short of mandating the athletic consequences of these new rules, but basically said, you know, what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman is if anyone, you know,

identifies as that. Title IX was given to us with biological categories of male and female. The Biden administration interpreted biology to not mean biology at all, but to mean sexual orientation and sex characteristics and certain behaviors. Biology is not even in the mix. So I think the whole sexual revolution has been a lie. It's been a farce against women in particular and especially children. And you can literally go step by step through the whole thing and see we're basically men who are quote unquote, you know, championing women or wink, winking on the side because it gives them our get out of jail free card. It's like the whole world. Do you remember, did you see this? There was a, this was a headline maybe five or six years ago

where a bunch of, you know, on college welcome day, there was a bunch of knucklehead fraternity guys that put up a banner and said, dad's drop your daughters off here with an arrow. Oh, I remember this. Right.

Yeah. That's been the whole sexual revolution. Wink, wink. We'll take care of it. It's been a get out of jail free card from the, by the men from the very beginning. That's a great answer. Last question is you gave me the privilege of being a part of this project, wonderful resource for classrooms, for churches,

for parents called the identity project. Tell us about it. Yeah, it's just the most comprehensive library of on-demand videos dealing with topics of sex, gender identity, marriage, everything from sexual morality and how to have the conversations with your kids and grandkids to, you know, all the confused confusion of the ever-growing, you know, acronym of LGBTQ. What do all these identities mean? What do they all imply? Basically, we wanted to help create a one-stop shop where people could go and find the answers they need, especially if they're teachers and pastors and parents and grandparents. So if you have a role in

mentoring the next generation, you know that these topics are super awkward. They're super hard. It seems to like be all over the place. So how do you go and find all the answers in one place? That's what the identity project is. And you can go there, get a free trial right off the bat to see the videos and then sign up for a subscription at identityproject.tv. One of the most important things we can do with kids is literally just having this conversation. We don't have to have all the answers. Don't have to give perfect answers, but just broaching the conversation is a win. I think what holds a lot of leaders back is, I don't know how I'm going to answer if they ask this, if they ask that. Well, you got experts. I saw you got Leonard Sachs on there talking about gender issues. You got Katie McCoy in there. You

got a stellar lineup. I don't know how you pulled that off, but it's a wonderful project. I'll put a link below, but it's called the Identity Project. And it's just one of the best resources I've seen in a while on sexuality. So John, a quick plug, by the way, I have a podcast called Think Biblically, separate from this. And we added a weekly cultural update because of your cultural update. I called you and asked you, do you think we should do this? You said to do it. I listen to yours every week. I think it's excellent. It's the podcast on Breakpoint plus your daily short ones. So anybody following this channel here, go to Breakpoint, make sure you follow that and all the stuff you're doing at the Colson Center. Anything else you want to let folks know about before we close it out? No, thanks so much for letting them know about

Breakpoint and the Identity Project. I think they are great resources and it's always cool to be able to work with you on anything, Sean. So thanks so much for having me. And before you click away, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other shows coming up on a former Iranian guard, Muslim who became a Christian, hellish near-death experiences, a whole bunch of topics. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we got the top-rated program fully distanced. We'd love to have you in class. I do a full class on biblical sexuality.

Information is below. We'll see you next time. Thanks again, John.