Theology in the Raw - 707: #707 - Revisiting The Nashville Statement

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

On episode #707 of Theology in the Raw Preston shares a talk that he gave about the Nashville Statement at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Support Preston Support Theology in the Raw for as little as $5/month and gain access to Patreon-only podcasts at https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

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50% off. All right. So what you're going to hear is a talk that I gave at the recent Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting. And the talk was part of a three-hour conversation, three-hour seminar that was on the national statement. The way it was set up is there were two people presenting a case for the national statement. And those two people were Denny Burke and Andrew Walker, who were two of the main architects, architects, designers, initiators, formulators of the national statement. And then there were two responses to two sort of responses that were more against the national statement. So two were pro, two were against. Denny and Andrew were for it. And myself and my good friend Joel Willits presented cases against the national statement.

We only had 25. No, you know, I think we had actually 30 minutes to present. But my paper came way under that, which is really odd. I thought it was going to be way over. And I think I maybe read it a little too fast. I thought it was going to be way over. And I think I maybe read it a little too fast, but I ended with like seven minutes of spare. So could have said a lot more, um, kind of bummed about that. Had, I did have a lot more to say. Anyway, I recorded it through this little lapel mic plugged into my phone on a hit voice recorder on my phone.

The audio turned out okay. Um, it wasn't too bad. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. It's a little echoey, but it turned out okay. So that's what you're going to listen to. My 20 or so minute talk on why I was not supportive of the Nashville statement. Now, before you, well, you're going to listen to this and then I'm going to come back and I want to kind of give some further commentary after you hear my my talk um i just but you need to know ahead of time that all four of us are friends um joel who was against the national statement and denny who was one of the main you know architects of the national statement there they go way back they've been friends for like i think like 20 plus years or something all the way back. They've been friends for, I think, like 20-plus years or something, all the way back to seminary. So good friends. And I hadn't met Andrew Walker until last week at ETS.

And just, I mean, a dear brother in Christ. Just got along with him just so well and just really love his heart. And same with Danny. Danny and I, we've known each other for several years, primarily through conferences and interchanges. And, again, I really love the heart of Denny. I love the heart of Andrew. While I disagree, and significantly so on several things with this conversation about the natural statement, we were disagreeing fairly intensely, even during the panel discussion, which unfortunately you're

not going to be able to hear. We were disagreeing intensely, but it's all within the context of friendship and unity in Christ. So it was a great conversation. And here is my talk on why I am not supportive of the national statement. Thank you, Rob, and thank you, Denny, and Andrew and Joel for being part of this. Thank you to the audience for participating in this conversation. And a special thank you to any gay or lesbian brothers and sisters who are out there Thank you for being here and possibly enduring this. I want to start off by acknowledging a significant amount of agreement between myself and the architects of the Nashville Statement, which include Denny and Andrew. I passionately believe

that God designed marriage to be a one-flesh union between two sexually different persons, and that all sexual relationships belong within that covenant bond properly defined. And I don't tolerate this Christian teaching. I don't give a half-hearted nod to it. I passionately, passionately believe it, teach it, and defend it against people who disagree. Marriage is not simply a consensual union between two humans, but is precisely a one-flesh union between two sexually different persons. The so-called traditional view of marriage, or as I call it, the historically Christian

view of marriage, is God's intended relationship for sexual intimacy, and I believe that same-sex sexual relationships, along with any sexual relationship outside that covenant bond of marriage, is sin. And I don't believe that this is some secondary theological issue. The fact that God designed marriage to be a union between two sexually different persons is woven into the fabric of God's creation narrative in Genesis, and it runs its way all through the biblical story. As N.T. Wright says, the coming together of male plus female is itself a signpost pointing to that great complementarity of God's whole creation,

of heaven and earth belonging together. The debate about same-sex marriage versus the historically Christian view of marriage is not a debate about a few clobber verses in Leviticus. We are dealing with a fundamental thread in the story of creation and redemption. I don't see this as simply an optional doctrine on the fringes of Christianity. And of course, Denny and Andrew are going to very much agree with me on this point. And so it's crucial that our conversation this afternoon isn't viewed as a conversation between those who on the one hand support the National Statement, who are really committed to the Bible, who strongly believe in the traditional view of marriage,

who are courageously defending this publicly, versus those who, on the other hand, are kind of, you know, clinging to the traditional view, but are a little more soft on sin, whose empathy has pacified their courage to sign the natural statement. That is not what we're talking about this afternoon. Nothing could be further from the truth. I share the same passion and tenacity for the historically Christian view of marriage as the architects of the natural statement, and it's precisely because of our shared passion about marriage, sexuality, and theological truth that I

disagree with several aspects of the statement itself. My critiques? I have several. For the sake of time, I want to highlight three general critiques. First of all, I do have general quibbles. That's a kind of an English way of saying disagreements, but quibbles with the language in the articles. These quibbles don't represent the main problems I have with the statement. I don't want to spend a lot of time here, but there are several things about the language and words and phrases that are used in the national statement I found to be unhelpful and in some places counterproductive. For one, I see some general ambiguity in the multiple use of the phrase that Danny was just talking about. The phrase self-conception. Transgender self-conception. Transgender self-conception.

Homosexual self-conception. We deny, Article 7 says, that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God's holy purpose in creation and redemption. Now this could mean many different things depending on how you interpret the phrase. Is it wrong to conceive of oneself

as attracted to the same sex? how you interpret the phrase. Is it wrong to conceive of oneself as attracted to the same sex? Which is precisely what homosexual means. Are same-sex attracted Christians supposed to deny that they are actually same-sex attracted and pretend that they are straight? As so many of my gay and lesbian friends have done in the church, try to deny this, deny it, deny it,

until you're 28 and realize, no, I actually am gay? I know Jenny and Andrew wouldn't say this. I know they personally don't mean this, and I'm going to assume this isn't what they mean by the phrase, but the phrase itself, without Jenny and Andrew as our interpretive guides,

you know, anybody with an internet connection who didn't make it to ETS could read into the statement something that they're not intending because it is unhelpfully ambiguous. It could have been more precise. What does transgender self-conception mean? As anybody who's been keeping up with the cultural conversation knows, the word transgender can mean many different things.

It can refer to somebody who believes that they are a gender different from their biological sex. It could describe somebody who simply wrestles with gender dysphoria, or it's sometimes used by people who don't fit the cultural stereotypes of what it means to be male or female. Now, again, I could probably guess what Denny and Andrew mean by the term, but they never define it, which could lead to some serious roadblocks in one's pursuit of Christ. I have a friend named Kat. Kat is a biological female, identifies as a male for most of her life. She was about to transition last year, met Jesus, now decided to live as the biological sex that God designed her to be, still wrestles with severe gender dysphoria, and she is just in this early discipleship stage of trying to figure this out. She is so on fire for

Jesus, one of the most tenacious believers I have ever met. And yet she still uses the term transgender as a description of her experience of gender dysphoria, not as a description of her ontological existence. It's a term she uses as a synonym for the fact that she very much wrestles with severe gender dysphoria. If she read Article 7, she would conclude that it's a sin for her to simply have or experience gender dysphoria. Or she might read Article 10, which says, well, Denny already quoted this, but we affirm that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism, and that such approval constitutes an essential departure of Christian faithfulness and witness. Now, Kat would understand the term transgenderism here as a description of her struggle.

And since it's placed on par with homosexual immorality, she would conclude that her battle with gender dysphoria as a sold-out believer in Jesus Christ, who hasn't had sex since she met Jesus, would render her unfaithful as a Christian witness. And so I'm thankful to God that my dear friend Kat has never heard of nor read the National Statement. There's other words that are ambiguous and I would say somewhat impersonal, depending on how you understand the term. I'm not terribly excited about the term transgenderism. If you were in a conversation with your transgender neighbor and asked your neighbor about their view on transgenderism, you might get a strange look.

Isms are faceless concepts that don't pay close attention to the diversity of people included in those concepts. Isms depersonalize conversations. The 14-year-old kid in your youth group who has a gun between his teeth because he feels and thinks and acts like a girl, he's not an ism. He's a person who not only needs Jesus, but needs Jesus' people to swarm him in love, compassion, truth, and community. It's easy to sign statements about isms. It's much harder, much more difficult, yet much more Christian to embody the aggressive love of Jesus towards those whose life might feel like death.

Same with the term homosexual in Articles 7 and 10, and I believe in a few other articles. I stopped using this term several years ago. Homosexual. It's very clinical. It's very clinical. It's very impersonal. And it's picked up a lot of negative baggage over the years in how it's been used.

I'm not saying that people who use the term are being uncaring and loving. I'm not saying the term itself is intrinsically uncaring or loving, but like how language works, sometimes when words are used in a negative way over and over and over, they pick up connotations

that the speaker may or may not be aware of. So the term has been viewed and understood as more calloused and unkind than maybe people intend it to be. Almost every gay person I know does not like the term homosexual. It erects an unnecessary relational wall between the person using it and the person you're trying to embody the love of Jesus toward. As one of my gay friends says, it's kind of like

the term homosexual is kind of like walking into an IT department and asking about floppy disks. They do exist, but you might get some strange looks like, where have you been the last 20 years? Why are you using a term that we don't really prefer any longer? I do have other serious problems with Article 7, but I want to move on to the other two points. Number two, my second problem with the national statement is what is missing in the national statement.

The national statement would have been much more effective in its intended goal if it had included equal attention to the church's mistreatment of LGBTQ people. Eric Borges was a same-sex attracted teen raised in a Christian home. When he came out to his parents, they told him he was disgusting, perverted, unnatural, and damned to hell, and he killed himself at the age of 19. Ben Wood was a same-sex attracted Christian. He came out to his youth pastor,

and the youth pastor shamed him in front of the whole group and said, you know what? Ben is gay, and I'm sure nobody here wants Ben in the youth group. The kids stood silent while the youth pastor kept going on. Ben is going to hell. Ben cannot come on the mission trip with us. Two months later, Ben killed himself.

My friend Leslie had been battling gender dysphoria all of her life. She came out as a teenager to a pastor, said, I'm struggling with my gender identity. I don't know what to do. And he ushered me out of the church and invited me to never come back again. I could go on and on and on and on, story after story. This isn't the experience of every gay person in the church. And most Christians I know would never treat gay people this way, but this has been the experience of a sizable number, perhaps the majority of LGBTQ people who were raised in the church.

And you might say, well, this wasn't the goal of the national statement. The purpose of the statement was to sum up theological and ethical conclusions and not to discuss or repent from our lack of love and care for LGBTQ people. Well, admitting and correcting and repenting from our mistreatment of LGBT people needs to be the goal. We cannot separate theology from practice, ethics from real pastoral concerns. Our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt. Calling others to repentance will fall on deaf ears until we eagerly repent from our sins. If Paul is correct

that it's the kindness of God that leads to repentance, then you must ask yourself, does the Nashville Statement bleed kindness? It's been said that the greatest apologetic for truth is love. And one small, simple step toward love in this conversation is to humbly admit that we have not, corporately, generally speaking, been very loving. According to the largest sociological study done on the religious background of LGBT people, 83% of LGBT people were raised in the Christian church in America. 51%, they've left the church after they turn 18. And then the study asked, well, why did

you leave? And only 3%, 3% said they left primarily because of the church's theology of marriage and that same-sex relations are sinful. It hasn't been what we believe that's driven millions of LGBT people out of our churches. It's not what we believe but how we believe it. And it's because we are Christians, it's because we care about the truth, that we need to publicly repent from our lack of care, lack of love, and in some cases very dehumanizing ways in which we, the church,

have harmed LGBTQ people. And so the national statement would not only have been much more effective, but also much more true had it said, We affirm that Christians and churches need to repent for the many ways in which we have mistreated gay people. We deny that Christian parents should kick their gay kids out of the house simply for being gay. We deny that genuine followers of Jesus can turn a blind eye to the many thousands of gay teens who wander the streets every night because their Christian parents have kicked them out of the house. We deny that telling a gay joke, laughing at a gay joke, smiling at a

gay joke is acceptable Christian behavior. We affirm that God hates divorce, and yet many conservative Christians have been much more lenient on divorce than we have been on same-sex marriage. We deny that people who identify as LGBTQ can be encountered and loved through a statement, but over a meal in our homes. We affirm that if straight Christians believe that gay people are sinners, then we should have more gay friends, not less. We should have more meals with gay people in our homes and not less, if we are to follow Jesus all the way in the pattern and rhythm of his life and ministry. Again, these kind of pastorally and theologically necessary statements

would have galvanized the veracity of the national statement. But as it stands, the national statement, I believe, is less true than it could have been and is, to my mind, less compelling than it will ever be. Number three, my third critique, is the lack of theological diversity among the architects and signers of the Nashville Statement. I think it significantly hinders its reception, the reception of its truth claims. Most, if not all, well I'll just say most, most, a significant number

of the architects of the Nashville Statement come from a rather conservative branch of evangelicalism. And this distorts the truth about the diversity of Christians who believe in and celebrate the historically Christian view of marriage. Here's what I mean. When an overwhelming majority of those who drafted and signed the National Statement are conservative, Reformed, complementarian evangelicals, it gives the impression that the historically Christian view of marriage

is not actually the historically Christian view of marriage, but is the American's conservative, reformed, complementarian view of marriage. There is a massive array of theological diversity among Christians who still believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. When it comes to the basic definition of marriage and whether same-sex relations are allowed by God or not,

the global, historic, multi-denominational Christian church has remarkably spoken with one voice. And yet this theologically diverse, yet unified testimony was left out of the national statement, and I believe its absence greatly weakens the social and ecclesiological strength of the truth claims in the national statement. One of the most powerful evidences of the truth such a theologically wide array of global historic Christians. Protestants, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Christians, all agree in the

basic definition of marriage and sexual expression. Christians in Africa, Latin America, Asia, Antarctica, if there are any. Wherever Christianity has existed around the globe, one of the few things we've agreed upon is the historically Christian view of marriage. You can look at different expressions of the church. High church, low church, Reformed, Wesleyan, Frozen, Chosen, Presbyterian,

Snake Handling, Charismatics, KJV-only, Fundamentalists are those who think the message is a translation. Beach preachers in Santa Cruz, Inuit pastors in Alaska, incense-swinging priests in St. Petersburg. We can't even agree on what books belong in the Bible. But Christendom for 2,000 years, globally, multi-ethnically, denominationally diverse, have agreed on few theological points. This has been one of them.

And yet, that diversity was unfortunately ignored or uninvited by the architects of the Nashville Statement. Okay, you may say, well, we wanted this to be largely an American Protestant evangelical

statement. Maybe you didn't want to be so ecumenical. Again, I think you're shooting yourselves in the want to be so ecumenical. Again, I think you're shooting yourselves in the foot by not being ecumenical in this conversation. But if you wanted to keep it American and Protestant, where are the egalitarians? Where are the Mennonites, the Democrats, the open theists, the radical charismatics, the many United Methodist pastors and leaders who are still

on the traditional side of this question? Where is the theological and denominationally diverse witness to this significant doctrine of the Christian faith? Now, again, maybe some would say if we opened up the doors this wide, we

would probably have to invite their feedback, their edits, their concerns with this statement. Otherwise, they wouldn't have signed it. To which I would say, exactly. Many people, many non-religious or progressively religious people are trying to brand the traditional view of marriage as some dusty relic of conservative Christianity

that is still using 20-year-old terms that are considered outdated and unrelational. And I'm afraid that the Nashville Statement has added support to this inaccurate notion that if you believe that marriage is still between a man and a woman, oh, so you're part of that really kind of conservative brand of Christianity. I think this is a very inaccurate notion. And if I can speak to something Denny raised,

the theological drift, especially among younger people, Denny and I share a passion for that. We both have a passion for the millennials and Gen Z generation, and so again, the goal, the

passion, the concern of theological drift, we share that same passion. I guess I would just suggest, strongly suggest, that the way to prevent that kind of drift is not to draft and sign statements like the Nashville Statement. Younger Christians, the younger generation we're trying to disciple, almost all of them that drift are not because of the intellectual compellingness of the affirming argument.

They're drifting because when it comes between either loving their gay friends or national statement type approaches, they're going to choose loving their gay friends. And we have given them a very binary option of either national statement type responses or affirming gay marriage. And they're going to choose gay marriage every time. But that's more out of a posture decision, not out of a sort of logical theological decision. If you're passionate about the theological integrity of the church, especially the younger generation, then you must radically love and care for and celebrate and value

and listen to and have meals with LGBTQ people, because our truth will not be heard until our grace is felt. It's because of our passion for theological integrity that we need to elevate, not affirming theological statements, but elevating our radical compassion and love in the LGBTQ community. Again, 83% of which are in our pews now, today, silently. My full-time job in ministry has been helping the church uphold, cherish, and celebrate God's design for marriage and sexual expression. Denny and I share this common goal, and yet I believe

that the manner in which the national statement goes about accomplishing or defending that goal has been, for the most part, counterproductive. It's because I care so deeply about the theological integrity of the church that I'm so deeply concerned about the content tone and the missing pieces of the national statement. Thank you. pieces of the national statement. Thank you. Okay. So that was my talk. Uh, mine was number two in the order of the four talks. Denny went first. I went second. Uh, Andrew went third and Joel went fourth. Joel gave an absolutely incredible talk. Um, I, it is recorded, um, but it's like recorded by ETS and I don't, they do something with them than they do.

I think release them to the public. So if you ever do come across that, his talk was, especially the last like 10, 15 minutes where it was absolutely incredible. One of the points that Joel brought up was, well, I mean, he, he's a, he's a victim of sexual abuse himself. He's not same sex attracted or gay, but he understands sexual brokenness in really significant and, I mean, authentic ways. And he's very, yeah, very authentic and open with his history of abuse. And one of the points that he raised that I thought was really

helpful pastorally is just how statements like this cultivate a deep sense of shame. I would cultivate that they harness the shame that's already in a lot of people who have been either victims of sexual abuse or are sexual minorities. And he just said, you don't understand how these statements just further their shame and keep us in secret. They don't draw us out into the light so that we can wrestle with this. They just, they are shame producing statements. And so I thought that was really helpful, you know, coming from somebody who can speak firsthand.

So the panel discussion, after we all gave our papers, then we had a panel discussion. We didn't have time to get to the audience Q&A. It was just like a 45-minute, hour-long panel discussion. And just so you know, nobody budged. We all, neither Joel or I, kind of gave in from our side. And Andrew and Denny didn't budge on their side at all. One of the points that they raised, or just kind of reiterated, was, I mean, it was something that I think I anticipated and I think I addressed in my paper, even though I didn't know this, I didn't know for

a fact they were going to say this, but it ended up being exactly what they said, that the whole purpose of the national statement was not to, it wasn't a one-stop shop on how to think through the LGBT conversation. It was simply intended to be a helpful starting point for churches who are confused about marriage and sexuality and need some simple guidance, some clarity about what do we believe. So it was trying to just address and provide theological and ethical clarity as just a simple statement regarding the ethical and theological questions in this conversation. So I guess, again, if you, if you remember what I said in the paper, if it, if that was your goal, if your goal wasn't to shape this in grace,

or if your goal wasn't to repent from the many wrongs the church has done toward LGBT people, if that wasn't your goal, then I'm sorry, but it needs to be the goal. Like you don't, in 2018, given the history of the church with this conversation, you simply don't say, oh, all we're going to do is just make a few theological conclusions for people to agree upon. Like that's, that's just in this conversation, you cannot do that given the history. And it is that the phrase tone deaf came up. Um, I think Joel said, this statement is just tone deaf. It's feels like it's unaware of,

of kind of the broader conversation in this topic. And I, I would, I would agree with that. Um, and again, I, I understand, I guess where Denny and Andrew are coming from and with maybe with other issues, like you can do something like this. Like they brought up, you know, several years ago, we did this statement on inerrancy, the Chicago statement on inerrancy. I'm like, well, OK, I get that. I don't think the topic of inerrancy demands the same kind of pastoral response as a topic like sexuality and gender, again, especially given the history, tumultuous, sometimes horrific history that the church has built for itself regarding how we've gone about the conversation about faith, sexuality, and gender.

So my pushback that statements that are simply ethical, simply theological, and simply giving just conclusions regarding where we stand on the issue of sexuality and gender identity. That's just, it's not, we just cannot do that. A public statement without the whole other side of this conversation that we have not treated LGBT people well or cared for them in our churches. One other point that we discussed had to do with the, you know, whether younger people are leaving the church because they don't have theological clarity, or sorry, maybe not leaving the church, but why younger people are kind of changing their view. And Danny pointed out in his paper that there's a massive

problem that a lot of younger people are shifting to an affirming view. And that was one of the motivations of giving the national statement, because that would help in their minds, help theological drift. And I guess I just could not more disagree with that on a practical relational pastoral level, that the way to prevent theological drift in conversations about sexuality and gender in 2018 with younger people, that the way to, you know, turn back the tide of theological drift is to draft a national statement and have people sign it. I don't, I don't think at all that that is going to prevent many, if any, let me just say many younger people who are drifting towards an affirming view. Then it's not like they're going to read the national statement and say, oh gosh,

okay. Yeah. I shouldn't, I shouldn't drift. If anything, in my anecdotal experience, it has probably pushed more people to an affirming view because these kinds of statements, younger people especially, have not found palatable. And again, it's not, I think there was some misunderstanding when I raised that point. It almost felt like when I was raising that point that what they were hearing me say is that we just need to kind of be, you know, water down the truth so that younger people can stomach it. And since they can't really stomach the hard truth of the Bible, then we need to kind of water it down and just be loving and relational. That really wasn't my point. I believe in in-depth, robust, courageous discipleship in faith, sexuality, and gender. So I do what I do. I do this. This is my full-time job is discipling people in it. I just don't think that statements like the national statement are productive means of discipleship in this conversation.

Look, we have gotten so good as an evangelical church of grasping onto conclusions and signing short statements about what we believe. We are not very good at knowing why we believe it. I think Christians, some Christians, they do like the shortcut. They want the conclusions. Where do you stand? Where's your stance on homosexuality? I used to get that a lot when I was in my early days of blogging about this conversation, when I was doing a lot of in-depth study, I was blogging about different passages I was working through. And I remember, I distinctively remember coming, you know, when I was blogging my way through Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18 and 19. And I'm thinking, you know, okay, here's a story about

the whole city trying to gang rape two angels. And then I'm, you know, I'm talking to my gay friends and asking them, Hey man, do you, so do you, do you like struggle with wanting to gang rape angels? And like, Nope, never, never really struggled with that. And I'd go to my other gay friends, my lesbian friends, you know, I'd talk to my lesbian friends. I, Hey, do you, do you have any like passion to want to gang rape angels? You know, like, no, never, never really struggled with that. And so I was wondering, you know, maybe, maybe the story of Sodding Memorial isn't the most relevant passage for what we're talking about today in the church. And I was, I was, I was blogging out loud about that. And, and I remember getting responses, people getting really nervous, like, well, wait a minute. Like if you don't think this is about,

you know, consensual adult, same sex relationships that are, you know, like modern day applicable, then where are you going with this? Where do you stand? Where do you stand on the issue of homosexuality? I was like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm working through my, I'm working through my theology. I'm working through the text. Cause I learned in my seminary days at John MacArthur seminary, that you study the Bible first Genesis through revelation, and then you form your theological opinion. You don't begin with your theological opinion and then go back to the text and, and, and make sure the text supports your theological opinion. That is eisegesis, not exegesis. That is not how we do conservative biblical interpretation. We begin with the Bible as fairly as we can. Let the Bible speak for itself. And so that's what I was doing. And I was making people nervous.

Where do you stand on the issue of homosexuality? We're so addicted to theological conclusions. And I do believe that as a culture, generally speaking, the evangelical church is becoming lazy, not in agreeing on theological conclusions. We're very good at that, but we are becoming lazy at constructive theological formation. We're very good at signing statements that agree with what we believe, we're becoming lazy at understanding why we believe it. And so even from a discipleship point of view, even from a strictly theological ethical point of view, I just fear that things like the Nashville Statement do not confront, but rather allow and enable and sometimes even celebrate the sort of theological laziness of a wide range,

a wide array of evangelical Christians who are just, they are. I think a lot of us are just looking for the quick, easy soundbite theological conclusions. And if we start asking hard questions about the text, then we kind of say, ah, just tell me what I'm supposed to believe. I don't want to further that. So even if we're just doing theology and ethics, I don't think statements are the most helpful thing. I think we need to challenge people to not just know what they believe, but why they believe it. So at the end of the day, um, uh, our, the aftermath kind of conversations were good. They were cordial.

We hugged and laughed. I think we maintained a good balance of rigorous disagreement. I mean, sometimes it was very rigorous. I thought Joel was going to come out of a shirt on a couple of occasions. But I think that's good, man. I don't want to, just because we're brothers and brothers in Christ and unified or whatever, and friends, like I just, I don't like it when, because we're friends, because we want to be peaceful and unified that we don't actually speak from the heart. And so what I loved about this conversation was all of us were speaking passionately from

the heart and raising real concerns and looking at each other eye to eye, face to face, right next to each other and say, hey, I have serious problems with this point. And on both ends, we were both pushing back with each other. I thought that was really good. And yet we were still friends. I still admire so much about what Andrew and Denny are standing for. And I like a lot of what they say in this conversation. We all went to lunch before and had a great time. We didn't talk about the national statement, talking about all kinds of other things. And, and, um, uh, me and Denny had, um, uh, a sinful size hamburger. I mean, this thing was absolutely massive and, um, I feel like I'm still digesting it, but anyway, um, that's the gist of the conversation. Thanks

for listening. Uh, and again, again, and again, visit store.centerforfaith.com if you want to check out that November only 50% off discount for the small group leaders kit. And also if you enjoy and appreciate the show, you want to support it, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Support the show for as little as five bucks a month.

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