Theology in the Raw - 726: #726 - Should Christians Support Gay Adoption? What Does the Bible Say About Government?

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

On episode #726 of Theology in the Raw Preston answers questions submitted by Pateron supporters. Questions covered in this podcast: 1) Should Christians Support Gay Adoption? 2) What Does the Bible Say About Government? 3) What is the Future of our Radically Polarized Culture? 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.

Should Christians support gay adoption? What does the Bible say about government? And what's the future of our radically polarized culture? My name is Preston Sprinkl, and you're listening to another episode of PLGNORAL. I'm going to do something today that I haven't done in a while. I'm going to answer a bunch of your questions, just in case you don't know. This podcast began as kind of a question and answer podcast. So for most of the life of Theology in the Raw, I would receive a bunch of questions from my listeners and I would do my best to respond to those questions.

Now, over the past, I would say six months or so, I've been focusing a lot more on interviewing various thinkers and leaders and people around the country that I would love to get to know more. And so I've been doing a lot more interviews lately, but I still, I don't want to just leave behind the whole Q&A or Q&R aspect of the show. Q&R meaning question and response, because I can't guarantee that I'm going to answer every question with a perfectly neat, nice answer. I don't actually like the phrase question and answer. Just, yeah, can't guarantee I'm going to actually answer your question, but I will respond to as many as I can. So I don't want to leave that behind. I want to keep answering your questions. But right now, I'm really backed up, really backed up. And it has nothing to do with my internal organs. It has everything to do with my inbox and all the questions that have been passed on to me.

So I've got a fistful, a fistful of not dollars, but questions in front of me. And I'm going to do my best to respond to at least some of these on the show today. So if you want to support the show, if you're a new listener, old listener, or a first-time listener, and you find this show to be helpful and you want to support the show, then you can go to patreon.com forward slash TheAlginRaw and support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And you might notice, if you've been listening to the show,

that there is a bunch of, I guess, what I'm supposed to call premium content, premium content that's behind a paywall that you get access to when you support the show. So for as little as five bucks a month, you can unlock all kinds of secret episodes that I've recorded over the last couple of years. And yeah, we discuss all kinds of really interesting questions on those Patreon-only shows. So again, patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. You can support the show, which is awesome. And you can support the work that theology in the raw is doing.

I guess that's a way of saying the work that I'm doing. But you also get stuff in return. So please consider that if you enjoy the show, if you've been helped by it, patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. All right, let's jump into some of these questions. I recently read Living in a Gray World and appreciated your application of biblical truth and grace. I work with teens and youth and was recently asked the question, should a gay couple be allowed to adopt? We had a good discussion, but I would appreciate some biblical guidance in answering this question. Can you please provide some information on this topic? Oh, my goodness. You talk about a volatile issue, one that is volatile inside the church, one that is debated outside the church.

So I got a bunch of thoughts on this, and I've actually thought pretty extensively about this, especially with – I've got friends who work for adoption agencies, Christian adoption agencies. And I've worked with Christian adoption agencies to help them think through this question. So I have thought through it. And even though I've thought through it on various levels, I don't – man, this is a really tough question. So I don't think I'm going to pull some magic rabbit-ish answer out of my hat. But I will help you work through this question. First of all, we need to know. I need to know from you, really. I mean, are you asking the question, should the church support adoption by a same-sex couple in the church? Is this something the church should support for its own members? Well, then I would need to know what's the church's belief about same-sex relationships as a whole.

So if the church doesn't support same-sex marriage in the church, then of course the church wouldn't support same-sex adoption within its own kind of community. So if you had a same-sex couple attending a church and you didn't believe in same-sex marriage as a church, then I think it would be hard for you to support adoption into a kind of relationship that you don't even agree with in the first place. Okay. But I think you're asking more in society, in society, but these are kind of two, two kind of different things.

Like for me to think through the morality of our society. Now we're, now we're kind of blending church and state. It's kind of like, do I think, um, do I think America should build a wall on the southern border? Do I want to go here?

Do I want to go there? Yes, I'm going to go there. Well, if you ask me, I'm like, well, I don't know. Do you want me to put on my kind of political citizen hat or do you want to just put on my Christian hat? Because my Christian hat says let's just let as many people flood this country as possible so they can share Jesus with them. You know, like, I will destroy the economy. No, it'll help the economy. I don't really care.

I just want people to not just meet Jesus, but be able to experience the love of Christ by Christians. And if people are in need, then let's help those people in need. If people are our enemies, then let's love our enemies. So from a Christian perspective, it's kind of like I shrug my shoulders and say, build the wall, don't build the wall. I don't know. If you build the wall, I'm going to jump over the wall and try to share Jesus with those people on the other side of the wall. So no wall makes it easier on us. Let them come to us rather than us having to buy plane tickets and bring our bottled water and hand sanitizer and go and embody the love of Christ to them.

But as a political citizen, I could see logic in having a wall, having borders around a country and being concerned about the economy and the well-being of this nation. And we can go back and forth about whether a wall will help that or hinder that or whatever. Again, this isn't a wall question. But you see, sometimes we have to think, respond to questions like this from the perspective of just a citizen. Like what's good for society? And in other ways, we respond like, well, wait a minute, what does this mean for the church in particular? So, let me give you four facts. And these are facts. These aren't arguments. These are just, this is just what the data reveals. Okay, let me give you four facts that are relevant to this question. Number one, kids fare best when raised by their biological mother and father. That is one of the most indisputed facts among sociologists all across the political or religious spectrum. Kids are raised best. They fare well. They have less depression, less anxiety, higher

levels of happiness and achievement in school and so on and so forth when they are raised by their biological mother and father. Now, that does not mean, please hear me, we're talking about generalities here. That does not mean every single biological mother and father are great. Some of them are horrible. Some of them are physically or sexually abusive to their kids. So just having a – I'm not saying like in the particulars. I'm saying generally speaking, if you just lay it all out, if you lay out the generalities, kids fare best when raised by their biological mother and father. Number two, second fact, adoption is a concession to an imperfect situation.

Adoption isn't ideal. It's a concession to an imperfect situation. The best situation is raised by a biological mother and father. So when we say, okay, what about kids that don't have one or that are in foster care? Now we're dealing with a situation that is less than perfect. So now we have to meet that less than perfect situation, not with perfect scenarios, but with the best of what we have to work with. Okay. Adoption is a concession to an imperfect situation. Number three, kids do better in a home rather than in the system. Okay. So again, generally

speaking, not that every single home that every single adopted kid has gone to is better than the system there are some exceptions to this rule but by far kids generally do better in a home rather than the system when kids age out of the system statistically they much higher rates of depression, addiction, criminal activity, and many other things, suicide, ideation, and so on. So a home is better than no home is what the stats show. Number four, there are more kids in the system than there are families. Well, let me just say heterosexual families that are willing to adopt. There are more kids in the system than there are heterosexual families who are willing to adopt. So that's what we have to work with. And so

maybe that helps you to answer this question, should Christians support or how should we think about same-sex couples adopting kids? I think that those four facts, in a sense, kind of add more complexity to this already complex moral question. So the, I mean, so to kind of summarize or, you know, take these four facts a step further, we can conclude, or I guess the question is, is it better for kids to stay in this system rather than being adopted by a gay couple? And before you answer that, you need to ask, what do you mean by better? Okay, because sometimes these surveys and, you know, you can look at sociological surveys that say, oh, absolutely, it's better to be adopted by a gay couple. But these surveys, these sociological studies don't really consider like religious values. So as a Christian, one of your values might be that

marriage is between a man and a woman, or or might be certain religious values that you would hope that, you know, like a kid who is adopted would be exposed to. And maybe, well, certainly with the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman, that value probably would not be adhered to or promoted in the household of a gay couple. However, don't think that just because it's a gay couple that they're not going to be exposed to religious values or just that you've got to get out of your mind this idea that all heterosexual couples are going to be wonderful and filled with Advent calendars and Easter Sunday services. But if they go to a gay couple, then they're going to be in an anti-religious home. That's just not simply true. What if they, would you rather have the child go to a atheistic, harsh, really kind of unloving heterosexual couple versus if your options were that versus

a religious kind loving gay couple like which one would you want them to go to if those were the two options now you may push back and say well that's not the two options well maybe maybe not but again um we have more kids that need to be adopted rather than or versus heterosexual couples. If you let, so would you let the child age out of the system, which is statistically going to be, you know, generally speaking, really not good for the kid. Rather than, would you let, would you say, I would still rather have that happen rather than letting them be adopted by a gay couple, even if you don't believe in same-sex marriage? What if the Christian adoption agency refuses to allow gay couples to adopt and is

therefore shut down as a result? And now you have more secular adoption agencies stepping in and handling the adoption of kids? Would you rather have a, let's just say a Christian adoption agency concede to this point saying, hey, we're living in, we're living in Babylon, we're living in a secular society, so we're going to lend, let, you know, gay couples adopt kids. If we don't, then we will be shut down, which is happening. don't, then we will be shut down, which is happening. And therefore, we will lose all influence. Do we want to concede some of our values so that we can maintain an influence in society? Or do we just say, no, we hold our ground and get shut down as a result? So I don't know about you, but I don't think there's an easy response to any of these questions. Especially when you consider that aging out of the system is always

worse or is on a general level worse than going to a home. So I do think again that, well, I do know factually that kids fare better when raised by the biological mother and father. I do think there's evidence that they do better when raised by even a non-biological mother and father. I do think kids were designed by your creator to be raised by two people of different sexes. And there's been studies that have gone back and forth on that. Some say, no, it doesn't matter. Some say, yes, it matters a lot. And usually both studies are driven by a certain agenda. So I kind of I think we have to kind of punt to just our theological beliefs here.

we believe that God created the family unit as a male and female raising a child, if that is the primary design that a biological mother and father would raise their child, then in an adoption situation, I think we could, we are on good theological grounds. And I would say sociological grounds, but again, there's studies on both sides of this. We're on good grounds to say that in the case of adoption, sex difference still should be the priority. And I would say that, you know, I'm not intrinsically against a single mom or single dad raising a child, but I would say it would be better to have a mother and father in the house categorically. So where does that put a same-sex couple? historically so where does that put a same-sex couple again dealing with not a church situation but just as christians think through this broader societal dilemma i don't think it's ideal i think

it's less than ideal than obviously a biological mother and father but also even a non-biological mother and father i do think that this child might be raised in a wonderful, healthy, loving family. We need, again, if you're a Christian, especially if you're a more conservative Christian and you have kind of a lot of reservations about a gay couple adopting a kid, you need to get out of your presuppositions that just because it's a same-sex couple, therefore it's not going to be loving, it's going to be anti-religious and everything is going to be horrible for the child. There actually is a lot of sociological evidence that kids have fared well having been raised by a same-sex couple. It's a little bit tough with the

sociological studies because we don't have a lot of longitudinal evidence because same-sex marriage has been you know legal in all the states in just the last few years um so i think it's a question that we need to kind of revisit in the next 5 10 15 years to see how kids have done you know being raised in a same-sex household and then you know uh have now now gone on in the world and now they have a job, career, whatever, like is there, I think we need to look at longitudinal evidence. But when it comes to things like, you know, depression rates or suicidality or success in school or general happiness, like it doesn't seem that being raised in the same sex household necessarily or intrinsically hinders that kind of well-being.

Now, again, that's not talking about religious values or even values of what marriage is and all these things. I mean, obviously, most children raised in a same-sex household are going to have probably a different view of what marriage is than the average kid raised in a heterosexual household, although even that's not across the board. I mean, there's testimonies of kids who were raised by a same-sex couple who love their parents, their mom and mom and dad or dad and dad, but still say, there's testimony online that they kind of get criticized pretty aggressively. But there are people saying, I was raised

in this household and I love my parents, my mom and my mom, my dad and my dad, but there are people saying, I was raised in this household and I love my parents, my mom and my mom, my dad and my dad, but I still wish I had a mom and a dad. I don't actually support same-sex marriage, even though I love my parents. Those stories do exist and vice versa. Obviously, there's adopted kids who are raised in a heterosexual household who grow up endorsing gay marriage as a thing. Probably the large majority of them would. So all that to say, no easy answer. And I think we do have what could be a lesser of two evils situation here. And maybe evils is too strong of a word, but lesser of two ideals.

Where aging out of the system is really bad. but lesser of two ideals, where aging out of the system is really bad. And morally speaking, I don't think a same-sex couple, God has designed same-sex couples to raise children. But again, all adoptions are a concession to a less than ideal situation. Hope that helps. I'm assuming it might have even muddled your thinking on the question even more, but sometimes we need to think deeply and broadly and thoroughly and in an ongoing way through these difficult questions. So I hope that helps. Next question. I have a question about Preston's

last pod, one of Preston's last podcasts on tithing. And then he turns the question to me. You address mostly New Testament scripture on giving and its intentions, but I am curious to see your take on the Old Testament practice of tithing so that Levites can maintain the temple. If you go to a local church today,

you are generally having some sort of vocational pastor staff like the Levites in keeping the church in order and focused. So how are they supposed to receive compensation? If everybody took your advice, being able to choose where their tithe or giving went, you know, just give the homeless people or give to other countries, then how would any pastors or staff get paid? It seems a little haphazard to allow the average Christian, the average Christ follower to decide where their tithes are designated. And then you cite Acts 4 when it says that they laid the, they sold their possessions and laid the prophets at the apostles' feet and the apostles redistributed the money to people in need.

And you say, I appreciate this next statement, by the way. I personally would much rather help an entire African village than pay for the toilet paper at our church, but I feel like giving is more of a discipline to provide space in trusting God and how he sees fit to distribute the funds. So I really appreciate this question. In fact, I need to maybe reword or even rethink some things I said before. So in a previous podcast, and I've gotten this question before, like people ask, do I have to tithe, give all my tithing, give all my extra giving or whatever to

the church? Or can I give simply to other ministries, other needs? Can I give the missions? Can I just give to the poor? And I said, no, you absolutely can give to the poor, give the people in need. In fact, the dominant pattern of the New Testament is It's not exclusive, but it is a general pattern that even though the overwhelming emphasis is given to people in need and specifically other believers in need, we do see a pattern of believers giving their money to other leaders, the apostles or to the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 16 and for 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 and Acts 4, like you said, we do see this pattern of believers giving their tithing, if you will, or they're, you know, giving extra funds to apostles or leaders. And it's those leaders that redistribute the funds to those in need. So I agree with what you're saying here, that you do see that pattern, but it still is the pattern, the overwhelming pattern. This isn't even really an argument. It's just an observation. The overwhelming pattern in the New Testament

is that when believers give money to quote-unquote the church, that that is redistributed to the physical needs of other believers. We also do see some evidence in Luke 8, 1-3, Paul in Philippians 4, I want to say, where believers are giving to release people for ministry. 1 Corinthians 9 and the first nine verses there. And then also 1 Timothy 5, I believe 17. I don't have a Bible open here. So yeah, we do see clear evidence that those who are working hard at preaching and teaching, and also those who would be doing something that we would call like missionary activity,

can and should receive money to be released to do the work of ministry. So I do want to agree with you here. And I'm trying to think back to what I said in that previous episode. I absolutely think that those doing the work of ministry, especially teaching and preaching and leading congregations or communities of God's people, should be released to do that. In fact, I'm even a fan of paying pastors and missionaries generously. There's enough stress in being a pastor and a missionary. You shouldn't have to stress about money. In fact, I, I think frequent sabbaticals should be a thing and vacations. Like sometimes pastors, you just

need to go sit on a beach for a few weeks and just read and pray and study. And that actually feeds back into the ministry of discipleship and teaching just read and pray and study. And that actually feeds back into the ministry of discipleship and teaching and preaching and praying and loving on people and so on. So I'm a huge fan of releasing pastors for the work of ministry and doing it and paying them well and not overworking them. I mean, pastoral burnout is one of the greatest problems in the church today. It is a problem in the church today. So yeah, now I'm kind of getting myself in mental knots because if the advice I gave before of, no, you don't have to tithe to the church. You can just give to the poor or whatever.

I was saying that to an individual person who was asking the question, and I guess I didn't think about the ramifications of what if everybody sort of took my advice. So, yes, I don't – if an individual believer had poor people around them, they had people, you know, God has impressed upon their hearts to give to this mission agency or give to this poor person over here or, you know or help fund this ministry overseas or whatever. I can't say it. No, that's wrong. But I would say that if an entire community of people at a local church did that and only that, then yes, that would probably not be helpful. You would not have pastors being able to be released from ministry. Now, you do have certain ministry contexts and philosophies like Francis Chan's thing in San Francisco

where there are no paid pastors. And so all their funds go and fund other things. And they are, if I can say, kind of flourishing. I mean, people are being discipled. Leaders are being trained up. People are coming to Christ right and left. Churches are being replanted. All the things that Christ right and left, churches are being replanted. Like all the things that we would say are, wow, that's success.

Like it's gone from one house church to about, I think, over 20 now. They've seen just multitudes of people getting converted. The poor are being cared for. Again, leaders are being trained up. So they've been able to do that without actually paying any pastor or leader. Like 100% of the money goes towards people in need or releasing. I think they do send missionaries. They do fund missionaries, but they don't fund local pastors. And look, I'm not saying that is the way to do it, the only way to do it.

I'm just saying it is a way and it has seen in some context to be a really successful way. But I'm actually, as much as I appreciate that model and can't really argue against it, I don't think that's the only way. And in fact, I would probably lean towards, I think it's probably better to make sure you're releasing pastors for ministry and paying them well. So all that to say, I do think local churches should, that a good percentage of the money coming in should be releasing pastors and missionaries for money. The overwhelming percentage of the church budget gets sucked up on operational expenses that aren't directly contributing to discipleship or evangelism or missions or whatever. When I see, and I'm just making this up, but when I see 15% of the budget going towards pastoral salaries and 2% going to benevolence, helping out people in need and 5% giving the missions or whatever. I'm like, oh, I just want to turn all that on its head and say, no,

let's primarily help out the poor. Let's also release pastors and missions and people for missions. Let's pay them so they can do the work of God. And yeah, it's not wrong to, you know, have a building. It's not wrong to even have a carpet in the building. But as you get down into the operational expenses, these become just less and less exciting for me or less and less necessary for discipleship. So, yeah, again, not anti-building, not anti-toilet paper, anti-carpet. So yeah, again, not anti-building, not anti-toilet paper, not anti-carpet, but goodness, I just don't see any new tests and evidence that all of our quote-unquote giving, our generosity

should be sucked up by the operational expenses that we think we need to pull off a church service every Sunday. So that was my main concern with that previous question. Okay, what is the role of the government? I'm kind of summarizing the question here. Why did God implement governments and what should be the scope of their jurisdiction? And what does that mean for us and our involvement in the government? Okay, quick answer. In the Old Testament, you have a combination of what we would call it church and state. Now I say church loosely. I mean, it's, you know, the Israelite nation.

But the people of God and the state were kind of one. Like the Old Testament gives direction both for, you know, the priesthood and temple service, but it also gives direction for how to run a society. So it has, you know, laws on taking care of the poor and laws that have to do with redistributing land, which in an agrarian culture is a very political or societal thing to say. So in the Old Testament, you have kind of the government was the people of God, and the people of God were the government.

In the New Testament, it switches. Now in the New Testament, you see a stark contrast between the church and the state. In fact, the church is often viewed as something, you know, over here. And then you have the state over there, like a stark contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Rome. You do have people in the kingdom of Rome getting saved out of that kingdom and joining the kingdom of God. And there is some fuzziness about what their continual vocation will look like. But overall, the values of the state clash with the values of the church.

So the government is always, in the New Testament, it's viewed as a different kingdom, a different society, a different way of ruling the world. And the values of the church are described as being very different from the government. However, we are to pay taxes. We are to revolt and overthrow the government. We are to obey the laws of the government in as much as they don't call us to violate the law of God.

God can and does work through the government to reward the good and punish the punished evildoers. This is the classic text is Romans 13, 1 to 7. But this doesn't mean that God celebrates or even like creates or is the author of the government. He simply uses and works through the governments that have already set themselves up. Now, in a general sovereign way, of course, God raises up kingdoms and crushes kingdoms or whatever. But I think that's just in a really general way of just saying that God is sovereign over all. Yeah, so you see a lot of clash between God and secular governments, even in the Old Testament. The prophets were constantly, you know, relaying God's word of rebuke and castigation toward Assyria and Babylon and Persia and other rulers who are trying to rule the world under their own power rather than submitting their rulership to God.

rather than submitting their rulership to God. So at the end of the day, I think we should respect the government, honor the government, pray for the government, whatever. But I do think it's healthier for Christians to maintain a strong separation between church and state. I don't think it's wrong for a Christian to work for the government. Plenty of Christians do, and they don't violate their convictions by doing so. Um, but I, I do think that, um, in, in certain vocations that are, you know, for the government, I think it might be tough for Christians to live out a holistic Christian way of living

while working for the government. But that's true in a lot of other vocations too. I mean, it was, it's tough to be a Christian working for, working in, you know, working in Babylon. Like that's just, there's going to be, you're going to be faced with situations where you're going to have to choose between righteousness, which may get you fired versus, you know, keeping your job, which may force you to violate your convictions as a Christian. So I think it'd be tough to be a Christian in certain government vocations, but doesn't mean it's impossible. All right, next question. This person was at an event that I did in Canton, Michigan. My question is, why would a gay man or woman continue to identify themselves as gay when we wouldn't expect anyone with a besetting sin

to identify themselves by that sin, regardless of how long it has not beset them? I'm asking this out of 1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 11. I think that we have a new identity in Christ once we're saved, regardless from what we are saved from. Did I miss something? This person says. So thank you for your question.

Yeah, so 1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 11 talks about people who were engaging in illicit, immoral sexual activity, and then they got saved out of that. And now they have, in a sense, a new identity in Christ. But notice the identity of the people who were formerly walking in sin in 1 Corinthians 6. That identity was not simply being gay or simply being same-sex attracted versus opposite-sex attracted. Rather, they were engaging in ongoing, unrepentant lives of sexual immorality, whether they're gay or straight. In fact, most people that are being condemned in 1 Corinthians 6, most of them would be what we would consider

straight people. Most people having gay sex in the first century were probably straight. And that's a whole other conversation. But the categories of gay and straight are just – those categories didn't really exist in the first century even though gay people and straight people did exist. Does that make sense? They just didn't – we didn't start labeling ourselves or identifying ourselves by our sexual orientation until the mid-19th century. or identifying ourselves by our sexual orientation until the mid-19th century. So it's hard to project the modern-day category of gay, meaning just simply same-sex attracted, onto certain verses in the Bible that are explicitly talking about sexual activity,

sexual behavior. Plenty of gay people aren't having gay sex. So regardless, should a gay man or woman continue to identify as gay? This is a big debate, and I've written on this quite a bit. I would point you to the work of Wesley Hill. If you Google Wesley Hill and, I don't know, just also put in, like, identify as gay or something like that, then you'll probably, you'll come across probably several articles and Wes has some great,

great thoughts on this whole thing. It all depends on what you mean by identify. Like should somebody identify as gay as their primary identity above all others? This is the throne upon which I sit. Well, no, well, I don't think I would say the same thing for straight people or even people. Like, I don't think your marriage is your primary identity,

even though marriage is a great thing. And maybe you have a wonderful marriage, but if you said, hi, my name is John and I'm married. Well, gosh, I think you're maybe are idolizing something that may be good, but shouldn't be your primary identity. So I don't think anything should be our primary identity apart from we are in Christ and we are also human and we are male or female. Like these are primary identities that we see in Scripture, Genesis 1 and so on. But we do have many other sub identities that aren't so much identifying the core of our existence, but simply describing aspects of how we are. Not necessarily who we are, but how we are. The fact that I am attracted to the opposite sex is a thing. And it's kind of a big part of my life.

It causes all kinds of temptation almost every day that I have to battle. And it shapes how I even feel when I walk into a room full of men and women. Like it's hard to separate my straightness from my existence. And so it's a big part of my life. And same thing for somebody who is gay. So for them to say, yes, I am gay, doesn't mean that they are, first of all, doesn't mean that they're having tons of gay sex. The word gay doesn't mean that. It also doesn't mean that they're using that term gay as a primary identity, even though they use the sentence, I am gay. So I am okay with people saying I am a gay Christian, as long as they don't mean it to mean, you know, this is my primary identity above all others. But again, I don't think I've mean this is my primary identity above all others.

But again, I don't think I've met a gay Christian who would say that. The word gay is simply a description, a synonym of their attraction. They're attracted to the same sex and not the opposite sex. So the biggest question again, biggest thing to consider

when you raise this question is what do you mean by gay? What do other people mean by gay? What does, what do other people mean by gay when they use the term gay? All right. Next question. I recently read your article entitled Scripture Ethics and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships. You seem to have a very high view of sexuality in marriage, and I sincerely appreciate that. I've never heard that homosexuality is wrong, not in and of itself, but because it falls short of God's design for marriage. I was wondering if there are some words you could share with me about how pornography rails in the same boat. I've never

heard that analogy, rails in the same boat, but I get what you're saying. Yes, it's wrong but there's a deep uh a deep truth of gods that we're missing out on because of it if you don't that's fine but i'd love to hear your thoughts okay so uh some um i'm a little unclear on what the question is but i think i get it i think i get it um just to be clear i i don't uh while i would say that same-sex sexual relationships are wrong because they are non, they can't be defined as a marriage, I would, I don't think that's the only reason why I would say same-sex relationships are wrong, because there's various reasons in Scripture why they would be wrong. But just to clarify, yeah, your summary of what I said, I think, yeah, I just want to clarify or fill that out a little more.

As far as pornography, I mean, my goodness. Yeah, I – where do I start? So I did a podcast a few weeks ago with Noah Filippiak on pornography. So I would point my questioner here back to that podcast and we talked the whole uh the whole uh podcast was on pornography so yes i think it's absolutely uh dangerous on so many levels it's sin it's destructive it's it's it will ruin your life especially not just porn use but porn addiction will crush you um and it will create all kinds of destructive things in society, especially as pornography, from what I'm told, keeps getting more and more aggressive and violent. And once you I think this is the way addictions work, right?

Once you become used to whatever thing you're addicted to, you want more and more and more. It just it keeps getting deeper want more and more and more. It just, it keeps getting deeper and darker and darker and deeper. And so, um, I, yeah, pornography is not going to do anything good for society and nothing good for your life. And it's going to absolutely destroy you if you don't get out of the addiction. So, uh, yeah, I don't know what else to say. I mean, I don't, uh, yeah. Uh, it's, it's, I think pornography is an absolute, it is an epidemic in the church today, in society today. And yeah, I mean, there's so much more I could say, but I would point you to that previous podcast that we talked about pornography. Last question. What is the way forward for a believer in 2018 in the highly subjective? Oh, he says highly subjective tirade alert. Okay, so this is him. He's going to go off on something

here. What's the way forward for a believer in 2018? I guess I could say 2019. This question came in a while ago. It seems to me that the church seems more and more divided than ever for a millennial in 2018. You are either a liturgist-loving progressive quickly deconstructing your faith, or a John Piper-toting conservative just clinging to the old ways. So you all know who John Piper is, and if you don't know who the liturgists are, you need to. They're one of the most popular Christian podcasts.

It's run by, hosted by Mike McHarg, or aka Science Mike. And oh gosh, I'm blanking on his name. The Christian musician. Shoot. Anyway, just look it up, Liturgist, and you'll see who the other guy is. And yeah, it's a very, for lack of better terms, very progressive, very liberal Christian-ish podcast. I mean, I don't even know if they would want to say it's a Christian podcast. They are both confessing Christians. But yeah, it would be the exact opposite of like a, you know, moderate or even evangelical brand of Christianity. And then yeah, on the other side,

you have John Piper. As already alluded to in my earlier comment, I'm surrounded my life by the former, by the literatists, loving progressives. And I don't love it. I can't put my finger on one specific thing, but the whole new progressivism just doesn't sit well with my soul. I don't want to align myself one way or another, and I see abuses on both sides, but I'm just not really sure what the way forward is for people like me. I've tried to surround myself with more third way speakers like yourself, like me, John Mark Comer, N.T. Wright, Dallas Willard, Tim Keller, Mark Sayers, etc., who I think embrace a healthy balance of challenge, not because the culture demands it, but because of remaining faithful to Jesus. But it just feels

a little lonely out here when everyone around you is just jumping on the deconstruction train, losing their faith, or just sitting comfortable with no challenge at all. Is there a third way forward? How can a moderate like myself thrive in the coming years? Okay. Oh, my goodness. So much to say about this. Let me begin by saying you listed a lot of great names here, John Mark Homer, N.T. Wright, Dallas Willard, Tim Keller, so on and so forth. There's so many more. There are so many helpful, moderate voices in Christianity who are holding true to Scripture, who uphold the authority of the Bible, who love Jesus, believe in the radical call of the gospel, and yet aren't

politically tribal, aren't unwilling to listen to others who are humble and gracious in how they approach their faith and are willing to be wrong and maybe even be more socially progressive or at least socially moderate who don't believe that Jesus was a Republican, who might be pro-immigration and anti-militarism, and yet very pro-Bible, pro-Jesus. There's so many people out there who would be in this camp. I mean, just a few, just as I was reading this question, you know, several names came to mind, like, like Scott Sauls, who's been on this podcast a couple of times, John Tyson, pastor in New York City, BJ Thompson's been on a couple of times, Derwin Gray, who's been on,

Karen Swallow Pryor at Liberty University. You know, here are people who are just committed to scripture, who would be very evangelical in their faith. Um, and yet, you know, are not on the far left or far right, or super progressive or super conservative. Like they are just good, solid thinkers. They're like charismatic leaders. I'm thinking of like Bannon Leipziger or Lisa Bevere or Andrew Wilson, who don't, you know, aren't, you know, just, they're not like health and wealth preachers, but they're, you know, very charismatic, but they're also like health and wealth preachers, but they're very charismatic, but they're also very biblical and very anti-abuses in the charismatic church. And politically, they would probably say, let's focus on Jesus and not politics, and

let's not get off the rails of progressivism or just get stuck into banal conservatism. Even other secular figures. This is what actually gives me a lot of encouragement, challenge, and hope. I mean, you have a lot of secular voices that are growing tremendously in their platform audience influence. People like Joe Rogan. Well, you know, he runs the most, or usually it's top five, if not sometimes it's top one podcasts in the country who i mean

joe rogan is a total he's not a religious at all um i love his podcast but just uh you know word of warning it is very explicit very explicit um he has a lot of liberal values but he also um would not be at all okay with some of the radical ideology of progressivism or people that are sort of against free speech, you know, the whole, you know, free speech is hate speech kind of mantra. People like Dave Rubin, an atheist married gay man who is a very moderate voice, has liberal values, but again, gets along great with conservatives because he loves to listen and learn.

And other psychologists like Steven Pinker, Jonathan Haidt, even Jordan Peterson, who is a confessing Christian, not a particularly orthodox one, but I mean, he's attracted a huge following because people are tired of the polarizing voices on both sides. And yeah, all these thinkers on one way or another are kind of cutting through the polarizing options of this kind of radical left or progressive ideology or radical right, conservatism. ideology or radical right, conservatism, others in the field of gender and sexuality, that's my field, secular thinkers like Deborah So, Ken Zucker, Ray Blanchard, and many others are very liberal, very non-Christian, and yet are, I would say, sane, thoughtful,

moderate voices that seem to upset people on both extremes. So yes, of course, the polarizing voices will always have an audience. Trump will always have a following. Hillary or the next Hillary will always have a following. We do live in polarizing times. But there is a hungry, a starving, massive, moderate group of Christians who are just as tired and fed up of the polarizing voices, the radical progressivism and the staunch conservatism. Look, I mean, should I say this? I think the radical left will cannibalize itself. It's just it's so inconsistent and morally bankrupt. And the virtue signaling, the Phariseeism, the new kind of – it's like the radical left is like a new fundamentalism where you have all these inconsistencies and problems and sins that they just ignore.

And then they point their bony finger at all the other people out there who are doing all these bad things. And it's like, come on. Like, that's just you can't. And the second, if you're part of the radical left and you step your little toe outside of that tribe, then boom, you're no longer with us. You know, you're either fully on board or you're not on board at all. And the radical right is not much better. I think the radical left will cannibalize itself. I think the radical right will die off in 10 years.

Of course, there will always be polarizing voices. I say that tongue in cheek a little bit. I mean, they will always be there. But I think there is actually, given the post-Trump polarizing culture we live in, I think some really fruitful, promising spaces are being created for the hungry, moderate voices, or for the moderate voices to move forward and start speaking to and drawing out the hungry, silent majority that is looking for a more moderate approach. When I say moderate, I don't mean like vanilla or banal, but moderate in the sense that we're not tribal. We are not either left or right. We are Jesus followers who critique both the left and the right. We are not Republican or Democrat. We are

kingdom Jesus followers who are focused more on the kingdom of God than the kingdom of man, who are not getting stuck in the politics of the day, the polarizing politics, who call out racism against people of color and call out racism against white people, who believe that there are societal structures of evil and also believe that people sometimes don't make it in society because they made bad decisions and they need to stop making bad decisions. Okay, so like people on the far right will say, if you don't make it in society,

then it's all because of you and your choices and anybody can make it if they really just work hard. Yeah, I agree with that, kind of. and then people on the left turn say no it's all you know we have structural evil and if you're in a position of power it's because you stepped on somebody who isn't in a position of power and if you're a you know white straight male then you have you know um you know you know you start off life on the five yard line ready to score a touchdown, where if you're not a white straight male, you start off, you know, on the other side of the field and everything's stacked against you. And it's all societal evil and moral choices have nothing to do with it. And it's like, well, there's some truth there, too, but there's also a lot of problems with that.

Could it not be both? That there are structural evils and oppressions and inequalities. And then also, again, people sometimes, oftentimes don't make it in life because they made bad choices. So individual behavior and also structural evil, both are true. And we need to listen to both aspects of society and so on and so forth. So I'm getting lost in the weeds here. I think you get the point. There is a hungry middle and an overwhelming number of really helpful, thoughtful, gracious, humble voices that are non-tribal that are going to lead the way in 2019 and beyond.

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