Theology in the Raw - 680: #680 - Books I am Currently Reading

Episode Date: July 16, 2018

On episode #680 of Theology in the Raw Preston talks about some books he is currently reading. Below you will find a list of the books talked about on the podcast. Why Gender Matters (2nd Edition) by Leonard Sax Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality by Nancy Pearcey The Bible and the Transgender Experience: How Scripture Supports Gender Variance by Linda Herzer I Promised Not to Tell: Raising a Transgender Child by Cheryl B Evans Beyond a Binary God: A Theology for Trans* Allies by Tara Soughers Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by Austen Hartke Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hanne Blank Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy by Mark Regnerus Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker From Shame to Sin by Kyle Harper Listening to Sexual Minorities: A Study of Faith and Sexual Identity on Christian College Campuses by Mark Yarhouse UnClobber: Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality by Colby Martin The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage: An Evangelical's Change of Heart by Mark Achtemeier Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith by Mihee Kim-Kort

Books, books, and more books. I love to read books, and I hope you do too, because in this episode I'm going to review some of the most recent books I've been reading and talk about some of the books I am currently reading. I'm Preston Sprinkle, you're listening to Theology in the Raw. In this episode, I'm going to talk about various books I have recently read and am about to read or am currently reading. I love to read, and I know many of you do too, so I hope you enjoy this episode. First, let me tell you about a few upcoming speaking events

that I'll be at, that I'll be speaking at. First of all, July 26th through 28th, the Revoice Conference, that's just around the corner. That's in St. Louis, Missouri at Memorial Presbyterian Church. That's July 26th through the 28th. I think I'll be speaking on the 27th of that conference, doing a workshop in the morning about how you can be a straight ally for LGBTQ Christians. Next, I'll be at John Brown University in Arkansas on September

13th, speaking in chapel and doing various other things throughout the day. September 25th, I'll be in Los Angeles at Rocky Peak Church in the valley, like I'll be totally in the valley, again, where I used to live. And that's September 25th, doing a one-day leaders forum. Registration is open for that event right now. September 27th, I'll be in San Diego for a one-day leaders forum. And I do believe registration is open for that one as well. October 9th through the 10th, I'll be in Dyer, Indiana at the Gospel Alliance Conference with the Reformed Church of America. October 11th, I'll be, well, I'll still be in Dyer for a one-day leaders forum at Faith Reformed Church. October 17th in Kent, Washington, doing a half-day leaders forum in Kent, Washington.

That's just, I believe that's just south of SeaTac. So, but if you're in the Seattle area, you know, probably exactly where Kent, Washington is. November 6th, I'll be in Houston, Texas for One Day Leaders Forum. I also have, well, there was an event in Dallas a couple of days later. That is a bit up in the air right now. We're trying to find some people or churches to host that event. So you can check back for more details on that. November 12th, I'll be in Denver, Colorado for One Day Leaders Forum. Then I'll also be speaking at the annual Evangelical Theological Society Conference in Denver, Colorado, doing a joint session on, well, not a session on joints. I know it's Colorado,

so maybe some of that will be going on, but I'll be doing a co-hosted session on the Nashville Statement. So me and Joel Willits will be presenting a case against the Nashville Statement, and Denny Burke and I believe, who did he find? Andrew Walker, I think, presenting a case for the Nashville Statement. January 25th to 27th, I'll be at the Break Forth One Conference in Canada, 25th to 27th, I'll be at the Breakforth One conference in Canada, Edmonton, Canada, January 29th, Las Cruces, New Mexico. I didn't know where Las Cruces was. I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly until some awesome people down there

contacted me and wanted me to come out and do a one-day leaders forum. That's January 29th in New Mexico, February 5th back in Portland, Oregon. And several of the events are brewing. I know one that I recently agreed to is a dialogue with Justin Lee in March. I believe it's March 9th or 10th, somewhere around there. The details will be up on my website soon. That will be a dialogue with Justin Lee in the South San Francisco area. So if you want to attend one of these events or learn more, you can go to my website,

PrestonSmirgel.com and look at my schedule. And all the details should be there and being updated as more details come in. So check it out. We'll see you then. Hey, let's jump into some books. I want to just kind of talk through some of these books that I've been reading. Obviously, given the nature of what I do, I read a ton of stuff on sex, sexuality, and gender. So let's start there. There's a recent book that was updated. Well, it's an older book that was

updated by Leonard Sachs. Leonard Sachs called Why Gender Matters. I think he wrote this book about 15 years ago, and he just came out with a second edition recently. And this is an outstanding book. If you have questions about gender or specifically questions about children and gender, this is an outstanding book. The subtitle is What Parents and Teachers Need to know about the emerging science of sex differences. Leonard Sachs is one of the more brilliant humans on earth, really. He graduated from MIT at the age of 19. Okay, that's like insane. Like I'm 42 with a PhD and they probably wouldn't let me in MIT. I literally probably could not actually get into MIT. It's just one of the top schools in the world. He graduated from MIT at the age of 19, went on to do both a PhD and an MD.

He's written a lot on gender. He's a gender and parenting and boys and girls. He wrote a couple good books a while back called Girls on Edge and Boys Adrift on parenting girls and boys. Yeah, he's super solid. I don't think he's a Christian. It's not like a Christian book. So don't expect like, you know, a lot of Bible verses here. There's not going to be probably, I don't think he quotes from the Bible at all. But just a really good level-headed look at the differences between boys and girls. What does the science say? What does the science not say? He's got several chapters at the end that are, if you're into the LGBTQ conversation, these are going to be incredibly helpful. Chapter nine called Gender

Non-Conforming. Chapter 10, just titled Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual. Chapter 11, Intersex and Transgender, and Chapter 12, The Male-Female Mistake. Those, one, two, three, four chapters alone are worth the price of the book. They are so good, so balanced, and so informative. So that's why Gender Matters, the second edition, get the second edition. It's been updated quite a bit by Leonard Sachs. Another book I recently read is called Love Thy Body by Nancy Percy. Nancy Percy is the author of one of my favorite books ever written called Total Truth. Nancy Percy is kind of like, she's kind of like a worldview expert. She loves dealing with different ideologies and religions and streams of thought on a worldview level. She is a disciple of Francis Schaeffer. She's kind of like the new Francis Schaeffer, if you're not familiar with Nancy Percy.

Very good writer, very clear, a very good researcher. In this book, Love Thy Body, she talks, it's basically a book about a Christian ethic of the body. So it talks about different topics like abortion. It talks about euthanasia, talks about transgender related questions and homosexuality and the hookup culture and a few other topics that she handles very well. She's very, very widely read. And again, she deals with things not on the surface level. She gets to the bottom of different ideologies and examines them on the worldview level. I do have, I mean, a few, I guess, minor critiques. Again, I would highly recommend reading the book, but like any book, I mean, I do have maybe some disagreements. I would

say I ultimately agree with her conclusions. I think sometimes when she summarizes an opposing view that she is going to take down or address, I think sometimes she will quote the opposing view as if it's sort of self-evidently refuting. And she does offer counter evidence against the different views. And again, I'm making a really broad statement here, but there was sometimes just kind of flipping through the, um, uh, flipping through some of the notes I have in the margins here. And there are some times when it's like, I was kind of waiting for something like a, like a more robust critique with evidence and argumentation and refutation. Um, and sometimes it wasn't as thorough as I was, I hoped it would be, but a very readable

book by somebody who is a very, very thoughtful person, definitely worth a read. I've been reading several other books that are what I would call trans-affirming biblical studies books or theology books, books that argue from theology, from the Bible, that defend transgender or non-binary identities. And I don't know if you're aware of this, but as it typically goes, I mean, most, you know, from the 80s to the 90s, most books written on what the Bible says about homosexuality or same-sex relationships and the Bible. Most of the books written that combine those two topics, the Bible and homosexuality, were written to affirm the sanctity of same-sex relationships. And it's usually the so-called conservatives or traditionalists that end up

playing catch-up and then having to write books usually a decade or two after the affirming books have been written. And I'm seeing that trend now. I mean, if you just do a quick survey of all the books written on what the Bible says about transgender identities, most of them are going to be affirming. There are a few books that have come out that argue for a so-called traditional view of, you know, transgender identities. Andrew Walker wrote one. There's another really short one. I'm looking on my shelf right now and I can't find it. Anyway, it's a really short book just called Transgender. And there's maybe one or two others that I've

come across. But for the most part, most of the books written on what the Bible says about transgender identities are affirming. So it's, oh, here's a book on the short book I was referring to. It's by Vaughn Roberts. That's right. Vaughn Roberts is a UK pastor and he wrote a really short book called Transgender. I mean, it's only, you know, 70 pages or so. It's a good introduction, but I mean, there's just a lot, lot more work that needs to be done on this topic. And right now, most of the people doing the work are affirming. So I have read, I think, all or at least most of the books that have been written from an affirming perspective on

transgender identities. The first one I read, this was published a few years ago, called The Bible and the Transgender Experience, How Scripture Supports Gender Variance by Linda, I'm going to, hopefully I pronounce this right, Tatro or Tetro Herzer, Herzer, Herzer, H-E-R-Z-E-R. This is a readable book. It's kind of, it's fairly lay level, but she does get into some nitty gritty textual, you know, questions. She deals with Genesis 127. She deals with the eunuch. She deals with the cross-dressing command. She deals with, um, uh, Leviticus and, um, yeah, she has a few sections on gender variant people in the Bible. And, um, what's my overall thought on this book? Well, I mean, to be honest, as a biblical scholar, I was, how do I say it? I was not impressed with her exegetical arguments at all. I felt like they made massive leaps. They ignored any sort of kind of critical interaction with, you know, opposing views or different issues or scholars that would challenge pretty much everything she's saying about the scripture.

She would just cite, you know, certain authors, kind of obscure authors that would support her interpretation, but didn't interact really with mainstream biblical scholarship. but didn't interact really with mainstream biblical scholarship, because, I mean, mainstream biblical scholarship would not agree with, I mean, pretty much everything she's saying about what the Bible says. As always, I absolutely appreciate her heart in wanting to support marginalized people and her concern, as anybody who's affirming their concern, to address the suicide rate among transgender people, the bullying and the homelessness and all these things that I'm very much also concerned about. But I don't think we need to,

well, I think we still need robust exegetical work and letting the text go where it may. So a good book to be aware of how somebody affirms transgender identities, meaning that a biological male could actually be a female and vice versa. And that you could, I don't like this phrase and it's kind of sloppy, but you know, that somebody could be like born in the wrong body. It's not technically what people are arguing for, but I mean, that's kind of the colloquial phrase people use. But anyway, yeah, I think there needs to be a much more robust defense of that view. And so far I've yet to see it, but this is a good book to read if you want to be aware of how do people justify, you know, getting sex reassignment surgery or hormone

replacement therapy or, you know, transitioning. How can a Christian actually justify this from scripture? Well, if you want to know, then read this book, The Bible and the Transgender Experience. A few more books that are written along the same lines. There's one by Cheryl Evans, whose child is transgender. And she wrote a book from the perspective of a very thoughtful mother who, um, did a lot of research. Obviously when your child is wrestling with gender dysphoria and then ends up transitioning, I mean, you're gonna, you're gonna be forced to do a lot of research saying, all right, what do I think about this? And in her research, she came to affirm transgender identities. Now this book,

so the book by Herzl, the previous one I mentioned, she has a degree. She's got a theology degree. She's smart. She seems like she's pretty well-read. This one by Cheryl Evans is, it's touching. I mean, it's a great story to see a mother wrestling with these complex issues, especially when they hit home. So I appreciate her heart. The exegesis in it is really torturous. And even the scientific claims, she's reading one side of the science, and even the scientific claims, he's reading one side of the science, which is really not, has been refuted many times over that, you know, for instance, that the so-called brain sex

theory that, you know, some people could be born with, you know, male chromosomes and a female brain. That whole theory that there is such a thing called a, just a, you have a male brain and a female brain, Like that is, well, at the very least that has absolutely not been scientifically proven. And it's been, uh, critiqued many times over by actual scientists and neurologists. Um, so she kind of reads one side of that scientific evidence and then make some really, um, optimistic conclusions about somebody being born with a, you know, an opposite sex brain or a brain that's different from the biological sex. Her exegesis is really, I think, poor. It doesn't

really interact with scholarship. And again, she claims, you know, she says, I'm not a scholar, you know, but then she makes some pretty outrageous claims about what the Bible says. So I don't, I guess I don't, if somebody is going to say, look, I'm not a scholar, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not an expert, you know, but then they start making outrageous claims about what the Bible says. I just, it's like, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Like if you're not a, I guess I would want a little more caution if you admit that you're not a scholar and then you make these outrageous claims about what the Bible says. And in several cases, she makes them rather boldly. Well, which is it? You know, are you, you're claiming to overturn, you know, like basically

overwhelming majority of biblical scholarship. And then you kind of back up and say, well, but I'm not a scholar, you know, well, then maybe you shouldn't be overturning huge chunks of scholarship with these radical conclusions. So again, good book to read. And I will leave it in your hands to see if you are convinced by her arguments. Another book called Beyond a Binary God, a Theology for Trans Allies. This is written by Tara, I want to say Sowers. I'm just so terrible at pronouncing these names. S-O-U-G-H-E-R-S. Now Tara, or Tara, is an Episcopal priest. She has two sons. One is trans. And she has a doctorate in practical theology from Boston University, their school

of theology. She also has a Master of Divinity. So, I mean, she's a very sharp cookie. And this book, different from the other books, this one argues more on theological grounds for transgender identities. And I say theological grounds rather than like biblical studies grounds. She does deal with the text, but she deals more so with systematic theology and conversations going on in the theological world. And I don't know if you know, but I mean, there is actually a big difference between the disciplines of biblical studies and versus, you know, theology, like systematic theology. And so she deals more with theological arguments. Again, she deals with a lot of the main arguments about what about Genesis 127?

What does it mean to be male and female in the image of God? She does deal with, she deals a lot with like with the Trinitarian theology and how the Trinity intersects with male and female identities. It's an interesting conversation. Again, I was not convinced by it. I've got all these notes scribbled on the margins that say, that's a leap. What about this? You didn't consider that. Your conclusion here isn't supported by evidence and so on and so forth. But again, a good book to read. It's pretty easy to read. It's not very long. And so if you want to engage the theological level of this conversation, that's a good book to read. It's pretty easy to read. It's not very long. And so if you want to engage

the theological level of this conversation, that's a good one to read. The most recent book I read, which I think of all of the trans-affirming books in the Bible, I think this one's probably the best. If you're going to read one book, I'd read this one. This is by Austin Hartke, called Transforming. The subtitle is The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. Austin is a female to male transgender Christian who has a degree in Old Testament. Austin is a very sharp cookie. And you can actually find Austin on YouTube.

He's got several YouTube videos where he articulates his understanding of scripture. And this book is, I thought it was going to be a deeper book on the Bible. I thought it would go deeper into the text because Austin is a, he loves the Bible. He studies the Bible. He loves the Old Testament, especially. And I was expecting a bit more depth, a bit more interaction with the broader scholarly discussion. I would say it's about at least two-thirds in personal stories when you're talking about the text. So I don't fault him for that at all. I just, I personally was looking for, because I knew this book was coming out. I've been following Austin and I knew his love for scripture. And I just was hoping that it would be a bit more in depth.

So, and the personal stories are all, they're all like really helpful and touching. And I enjoyed reading every single one of them. It was probably my favorite part of the book. But they are all, the stories are all the same cloth. You know, somebody who has experienced gender dysphoria growing up in a really, usually it's always a really conservative church where nobody's listening to them. They're kind of shamed and made fun of and everything. And then they, you know, have a faith crisis and then they end up finding a liberal or affirming church. And then they realize that God accepts them as they are, you know, which, um, yeah, I mean, that's their story. Sorry, I can't critique it, but I mean, it's not like everybody who experiences gender dysphoria has that same narrative. You know, I have several friends who have

experienced, you know, mild to severe gender dysphoria, and they are not at all convinced by the affirming arguments, and they are submitting their struggle to God and the way they see fit, which is within a traditional framework of being male and female. Um, so yeah, just as, I mean, and again, whenever you share stories, it's like, of course these stories don't exhaust all the stories that are out there. Um, and I guess I can get accused of only sharing one side, one kind of story. And I do, I often share stories of LGBT people who, um, are living out their sexuality in a way that I see is faithful to Jesus. They're submitting their sexuality to Christ, or if they have gender dysphoria, they still believe God created them as the sex and gender that their biology tells them they are.

And I do like to share those stories. So, yeah, I'm not necessarily faulting Austin for that because I end up doing the same thing. I guess I will say, you know, people critique me for sharing, you know, one-sided stories. And I guess that's fair. And as long as we understand, I think everybody ends up sharing stories that support the view that they are, that they believe. So, yeah, the exegesis in the book, it's not terrible. It's more careful than the other books I referenced, but there still is just, it's, he ends up citing, you know, scholarly evidence that supports his view and doesn't critically interact with any opposing evidence. For instance, I mean, there was, he has a whole section on Galatians, well,

yeah, Galatians 3.28 is one section that he, I think he does not, I mean, there's been a lot of studies done on Galatians 3.28 where it says neither male nor female, or neither male and female, where Paul seems to be citing Genesis 127 and he seems to be saying like that Genesis 127 sexual binary is going to be no longer. It's no longer going to be around. Sex difference is going to be done away with. Now, that's not what Paul's saying. But some scholars have made that argument. Most scholars have critiqued that argument. And of course, Austin cites, you know, who was it, Malherbe or one of the scholars that, it wasn't Malherbe, it was somebody else, a scholar who makes that argument, even though that argument has been refuted by many, many people and doesn't even show any sort of awareness

that that argument has been refuted many times over by some really top-notch scholars like Judy Gundry-Wolf has written several, several articles in Galatians 328 and male-female difference. And she's not like a token evangelical either. And yet she is, through several articles, refuted that, as have many, many others. So that would be my one critique, because I think the exegesis is a little thin, and he only cites evidence that would support his view. He doesn't seem to be aware of, or if he is aware of, he doesn't interact with

scholarship that would oppose much of what he's saying. So, but if you want, again, if you want one book to read that gives you an understanding of how trans affirming, in this case, an actual transgender Christian reads the Bible to support his experience or his identity, this would be the best one to get, Austin Hartke, Transforming. or his identity, this would be the best one to get, Austin Hartke, Transforming. A few of the books I've been reading or I just recently read that has to do with sex, sexuality, and sexual identity, this one is called Straight, subtitled The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hannah Blank is how I'm going to pronounce her name. H-A-N-N-E and then Blank or blank, B-L-A-N-K. I'm just going to call her Hannah Blank. It sounds better. Yeah, Blank is a

writer and a historian, deals a lot with topics that involve sexuality, gender, history, culture, and so on. Not a Christian book, okay? She's not Christian at all. But this book deals with the, as it says, a surprisingly short history of heterosexuality. Certainly heterosexuals have existed since the beginning of time, just like gay people have existed from the beginning of time. But it's very recent that we would use categories of gay and straight as identities. That is a very new thing that we would use these, that we would identify by our so-called sexual orientation. And this is a really lively book. It's a good read.

She's very informative. She goes all the way back to the history of the very word, heterosexual and homosexual, back in the mid-19th century, and deals a lot with the whole concept of sexual orientation, sexual identity, and shows how recent and culturally driven and malleable those concepts are. So if you have any interest in kind of the history of sexuality or history of the sexual identity and also the fragility of the very social concept of sexual orientation, this is a great book, a great book to read. Another great book, if you're a pastor or a Christian and you want to be informed on just the broader trends in

sex and not just sexuality, but sexual trends, the hookup culture, pornography, sex outside of marriage or polyamory or other, you know, kind of topics that are kind of hot right now. Mark Regnerus is how I'm going to pronounce him. I've talked to Mark before. I should ask him how to pronounce his name. Regnerus? Regenerus? No, not Regenerus. I'm going to say Regnerus. Mark Regnerus is a, I believe he's Catholic. I think he's Catholic. Mark Regnerus is a, I believe he's Catholic. I think he's Catholic. But he's a sociologist at University of Austin, Texas, I believe. And he's not like a Christian sociologist. He's a sociologist who I think might happen to be religious, but it doesn't come out in his writings. It's not like he's promoting certain religious view of the topic. He does have his more conservative commitments, but he

is just a top-notch sociologist doing great sociological research. He's written a lot on the sexual practices of Americans, especially teenagers. So his most recent book is called Cheap Sex, The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy. This is a very dismal look at the state of sexual practices among Americans today. It's based on several in-depth and thorough sociological studies mixed with a lot of personal interviews and anecdotes. It is a fantastic book. It's a very depressing book. I mean, it just shows how, long story short, the sexual freedom offered and promoted in and through the wake of the sexual revolution has not led to sexual happiness. End of story. Like that's the basic gist. I don't even know if he frames it in such terms, but he looks at the sexual practices and habits and preferences of,

not Christians. I mean, this is a sociological study on just society as a whole, but it is really, really depressing, but it's also incredibly informative so that we can be aware of the sexual climate that we're living in. Outstanding book. I read it cover to cover. Usually, I can't finish a book. Usually, I read most of the book. And after a while, I kind of get burnt out.

And this book just kept my attention the whole way. It is a sociological study. It's not like a popular level page turner, but he is such a clear writer and just the topic itself is really engaging. So it's a very in-depth book. It's an academic book, but it's also a very, very easy to read book. And he's got lots of graphs and charts and backs up everything he says about evidence. And it's very balanced, too. Very balanced. Again, I know that he is a social conservative, and I think he's Catholic. But you don't see that come out in the book.

He's just looking at the evidence. So Cheap Sex by Mark Regnerus. And then the most recent book I read, I think I read 80% of it, is Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now, The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. This is an absolutely outstanding book by one of the brightest people in the world. If you're not familiar with Steven Pinker, you need to be. So at the very top of the book, Bill Gates says, my new favorite book of all time. to be. So at the very top of the book, Bill Gates says, my new favorite book of all time. Pinker has taught at MIT, he's taught at Stanford, and now he's at Harvard. He's the psychology professor at Harvard University, has written all of his books, I think are really long. This one's almost 500 pages. And they're all just like groundbreakers. He is just top-notch scholar.

Politically, I would say he's left of center. Religiously, he's an atheist. And he does take a few pot shots at religion in the book that are absolutely, absolutely insane. I'm like, have you ever been into a church or met a Christian before? Besides maybe a few fundamentalists you see on the TV or whatever. So if you just ignore the, you know, a couple pages here and there where he tries to talk about religion, that's actually torturous, almost comical to read. But the rest of this is just mind-blowing. And the whole premise

of the book is this. Now, this is, you just, you gotta read the book, okay? Because you're not gonna, basically, you're not gonna believe anything I'm about to say.'re going to say, nope, don't agree with that. Nope, don't agree with that. But Pinker, again, left of center, he's not pushing some conservative agenda, but he shows, and he's got just piles of evidence, piles and piles of evidence, that we have made progress in virtually every single area that you can think of in society. And the whole book is kind of reacting against, you know, doomsday preachers, both on the left and the right. It's not a left-right book. It's just an evidence-based book. And he looks at many, many different categories like life, health, sustenance, wealth, inequality, the environment, peace, safety, terrorism, democracy, equal rights, knowledge, quality of life, and so on and so forth. humans ever to walk the face of the earth? Did you know that we are wealthier than any

group of humans in the history of the world? And you say, oh yeah, but what about, yeah, all the wealth is held by 1% and 99% are just living in poverty. Actually, for the first time in history, especially in the last several generations, even the poorer countries have all progressed in terms of wealth. There's only a small handful, small handful, maybe a few countries that are still living in the same grinding poverty they're living in 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Almost every single country has experienced amazing strides in wealth. The prospect of ending, actually ending world poverty is actually in view. And we've made massive steps toward reducing poverty. Inequality, the gap between the haves and have-nots has closed in. Inequality. So he challenged, okay.

Equality. So he challenged, okay. He shows through lots of evidence that racism is at an all-time low. Racially driven hate crimes is at an all-time low. Violence is at an all-time low. Would you, do you believe that? I mean, he shows, I mean, he looks at all the data very thoroughly and says all these things that people think that we're living in the most violent times and everybody's just getting gunned down the streets and everybody, you know, poverty is just, you know, a widespread problem and, you know, inequality is all over the place between, you know, ethnic minorities and women and all this stuff. He just shows all of that is not true based on thorough evidence. Now, for me, I'm not planting my stake in the ground. I'm not saying he's 100% right. I'm saying he has provided a wealth of evidence and I would need to see counter evidence for me to, I guess,

not believe what he's saying. Safety, terrorism is way, way, way down. Democracy is rising in many different countries. Equal rights, knowledge, quality of life, even the environment. And he's a huge advocate for things like, you know, addressing climate change and all these things. And he says, look, we still have a problem. This is probably the biggest problem in the 21st century is what are we going to do with climate change, the environment? But he says, given the trajectory that we're on, we're looking pretty good. Like we're actually making great strides to deal with things like climate change. And if we keep going this direction by the end of the 21st century, if we keep exploring and pushing in and analyzing and coming up with solutions to the

problems, we will be on the planet for many, many more years and we will avoid major catastrophes. So it is a fascinating book. It will blow apart so much media hype about, you know, just the apocalypse that we're living in, in the wake of Trump. And he is probably the biggest opponent of Trump I've ever read. And he's got tons of pages even, you know, just showing how horrible Trump is. But he would turn, he'll turn right around and say, look, even the Trump era, but he'll turn right around and say, look, even the Trump era, it's not like the whole world is just crashing down. Things are still progressing incredibly, incredibly well. So Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now, I got to read it. Okay. A few books that I'm currently reading. I just started From Shame to Sin by Kyle Harper, The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late

Antiquity. I've been meaning to read this book for quite some time now. It's highly acclaimed. He is a classicist, and he looks at how the uniqueness of the Christian sexual ethic ended up revolutionizing the Roman world. Now, I'm only on page 11, okay? So I don't want to say much more than that. It's not an easy read. I don't want to say much more than that. It's not an easy read. I don't think he's a very clear writer at all. I mean, well, it's an academic book. He's a scholar. Well, yeah, so is N.T. Wright, but I can understand him. I mean, it's not the clearest read. I'm reading it very slowly. I think he has pretty much every sentence has a lot of abstract nouns and passive voice constructions, which is just a big no-no in

my book. But anyway, it's a highly acclaimed book. And what I'm looking for in this book, and what I know about it, is just that I want to see and trace and really understand the distinctiveness of the Christian sexual ethic in the face of its broader culture and how the Christian sexual ethic can have a transforming and attractive power. It did it. I know the conclusion of the book. I know his conclusion is correct, pretty much. I think he just analyzes the details along the way that the Christian sexual ethic was so countercultural and yet so compelling that it was one means by which Christianity sort of overturned the values of the Roman Empire over the first 300 years of Christianity. So very excited to read this book.

It's going to be a slow read, but I'm going to try to slug my way through it. I also started reading, I'm on page 37 of Mark Yarhouse's new book, Listening to Sexual Minorities, a Study of Faith and Sexual Identity on Christian College Campuses. This is kind of the byproduct of many years of study of how gay, lesbian, bisexual Christians operate and get by and live and process life during their college years. It's based on lots of different studies, longitudinal studies that, you know, they've been tracing people for many years. And so far, very informative, very good book. If you're interested in the LGBT conversation,

this is, I'm going to probably say a must read because anything Mark puts out is a must read. Not the most, if I can say, exciting book. It's not the, it's just kind of a slower read. And if you're not, if you don't have a cup of coffee, you could kind of, your mind could maybe wander, I think. It's just, it's kind of a data-driven book. Okay. So if you're interested in the data, then you're going to be intrigued. If you're looking for a novel or something to, you know, keep you awake, that this might not be the best book to read. But lots of charts, lots of graphs, and I'm really excited to see everything Mark says there

with his team of researchers that helped out. I also just started Unclobber by Colby Barton, Rethinking Our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality. I haven't, this book's been out for a couple years and I just haven't been excited to read it because, I don't know. He deals primarily with the so-called clobber passages, the passages that prohibit same-sex sexual behavior. I don't like that phrase on the clobber passages. So already I'm like, unclobber. All right. Well, yeah. Anyway, just because a verse of scripture has been misused by,

you know, jerks in the church doesn't mean that their misuse should become the description of that verse. You know what I mean? I mean, tons of verses have been used by, you know, out of context and misused to harm people. And that doesn't mean that we should accredit their understanding of the verse to that verse itself. Like, let's free the verse from their clobbering. And I think that's what he tries to do. But I just, the phrase clobber passages just really irritates me. But I don't know. I'm just not really interested in rehashing yet again the affirming view on these so-called prohibition clobber passages. I don't know. I spent a lot of time doing that, and I spent most of my time in scholarly research.

And I am not super thrilled to read yet another book on why these verses, you know, don't mean what people think they mean, why they don't apply to modern day same-sex marriages. The big question I'm going to be looking for in this book, I only read the foreword so far, is does he actually deal with the most fundamental, basic, foundational question, what is marriage? See, this is the problem with this debate, is people race to these prohibition passages, try to say that they don't apply it to marriages today or whatever, but they never actually raise the question, what is marriage, and define marriage from scripture, or at least from Christian theology. So that's going to be looking for, if he doesn't, and maybe he does, maybe he has a whole chapter, I don't know. But if he doesn't actually articulate and defend a particular definition of marriage that allows for same-sex couples to be included into that definition, then the whole book, to me, is kind of standing with two legs firmly in midair, because that's the most

foundational question that needs to be addressed before we go to the prohibition passages. So that's Unclobber. I'll let you know what I think about that when I finish it. Two more books, The Bible's Yes to Same-Sex Marriage, a new edition with Study Guide by Mark Ochtenmeier. This is a book I should have read a while back, but again, I kind of got burnt out on reading all the affirming arguments because at the end of the day, they all kept saying kind of the same thing. To my mind, James Brownson wrote the definitive defense of the affirming view from a scholarly perspective. Matthew Vines did a great job collecting kind of all the, or some of the main scholarly arguments

and putting it into an understandable form. So between those two books and several other scholarly articles and books that I've read that defend the affirming view, there's not really much out there that I think I'm going to be shocked by. But anyway, I feel like this has still been a significant book for some people's repertoire of arguments. So I am going to read it. The Bible's yes to same-sex marriage. Lastly, Mihei Kim Court, Outside the Lines, How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith. Again, another affirming book that I'm excited to read. It's another kind of testimony of somebody who, I haven't read it, so I don't want to speak beyond what I know, but I think she identifies as queer and Christian, and she tells her story of what it was like growing up in the church. I will say, I hope

it's good. It has some good reviews, some good endorsements by Nadia Bowles Weber, Mike McCarg, Jeff Chu, a forward by Rachel Held Evans. So I am looking forward to reading it. I've read, I feel like I've read so many kind of memoirs and testimonies that, um, um, yeah, I mean, after a while they start kind of sounding very similar, but, um, yeah, we'll see. We'll see how this goes. I'm excited to dig in. So those are the books I'm reading folks. Um, and I hope that you, um, yeah, have, uh, maybe if, I hope some of these titles have caught your attention and I hope that you can maybe pick up one or two or a few of all of these books. Honestly, I would probably recommend Steven Pinker's

Enlightenment Now. It's just so incredible and it's a very thorough read. What are you guys reading? Email me and let me know what you're reading. Let me know if there's a book within this topic that I've missed or one that you would like for me to consider talking about on the show. Until then, we'll see you next time on Theology in the Rock. Thank you.