Theology in the Raw - 755: #755 - Same-sex attracted but married to a man? Laurie Krieg

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

Preston sits down with his good friend, mentor, and board member Laurie Krieg to talk about sexuality, the gospel, mixed orientation marriages, the gospel, masculinity and femininity, the gospel, homosexuality, the gospel, marriage, the gospel, sex, the gospel, progressivism and conservatism in the LGBTQ+ conversation, and other topics related to the gospel. www.himhministries.com Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com 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.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I will be in Richmond, Virginia and New York City in the next week or so. Check out centerforfaith.com and go to the events link for details on those events. I'll also be in Colorado Springs in early October and Minneapolis, Minnesota in early November. You can check out again centerforfaith.com. Go to the events page for details on those events. You do have to register for those events if you want to attend.

I am also running a promotion on my personal website, pressonsprinkle.com, where I'm going to give away six free copies of a recently released audio version of People to Be Loved. Up until now, People to Be Loved has been an ebook. It's been a print book, but it hasn't been an audio book. But Zondervan just recently hired a professional reader. There is such a thing as professional readers who get paid to read books into a microphone. And they just did that. And so now they gave me six free copies of the audio

version of people to be loved. And so I said, Hey, I don't need an audio version of my own book. So I'm going to give them away. So if you go to press the sprinkle.com and you register for my newsletter, then you will be entered to win one of six, one of six, not all six, but one of six free versions of the audio book, people to be loved. Now you have to sign up during the month of September. So on October 1, I'm going to tally up all the people that registered for my newsletter at press and sprinkle.com during the month of September and you will be put into a hat. I hate Yeah, I won't lie, it probably will be a literal hat of literal pieces of paper with your

literal name scribbled on it. Maybe I'll have one of my kids that I don't know, it's gonna be totally mom and pop. But anyway, we're gonna figure out we're gonna identify six people who signed up for the newsletter in the month of September, and you will be entered to win or we're gonna pick names out of a hat of the people that signed up in September for my newsletter. And you will win a free copy of the audio book people to be loved. Okay. My guest on the show today is Lori Krieg. Lori is the executive director of Hole in My Heart Ministries, a compassionate teaching, writing, and podcast ministry committed to equipping

Jesus followers with gospel centered approach to sexuality. Lori, she speaks nationally at various venues such as Wheaton College, the Q Conference, and also serves on the board of directors for the Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender, i.e. the ministry that I co-founded and currently run. Lori is a good friend. She is a mentor. She is a board member. She's a partner in ministry. She, so Lori is the person that when I give my spiel on kind of the 30,000 foot big picture level of grace and truth in the sexuality and gender conversation, Lori's

the one who sort of takes the baton from my hand and goes and actually walks with people in the trenches of sexuality, faith, and gender. She is the real deal. She is gospel-centered. She is articulate. She is bright. She is funny.

She is passionate and energetic. She is attracted to women. She is married to a man, and they have three kids together. And yes, that raises lots of questions. And those questions, some of which, not all of them, but some of those questions will be addressed on this show. So please welcome to Theology in the Raw.

I am here with my good friend, mentor, and board member, Laurie Krieg, and fellow, how do I say it? Leader speaker in the LGBTQ plus conversation. Is that too bold to say we are leaders or at least contributors? How about that? Contributors to the public conversation about LGBTQ questions. Yeah. Yeah. We are humble servants and sometimes can get dragged into it. And we got to be obedient.

I was telling a friend a bumper sticker on my car. Just got to be obedient, man. So how did you – let's just start with your story. How did you get dragged into this conversation? You know, in high school, I read a verse that just felt radioactive to me, and it was to Jeremiah. So bear my stripping verses out of context. But he says, if you return to me, I will restore you. If you speak worthy words instead of worthless ones, you will be my spokesman.

But you are to influence them. Do not let them influence you. Last part, they will fight against you like an attacking army, but I will make you as secure as a fortified wall of bronze. And so for some reason that just like stood out to me, I'm like, oh my word, I feel like I'm supposed to be a speaker. But then I was like, return to me. What are you getting? I'm, I'm like this amazing Christian girl. I'm not going to do anything wrong. But a couple of years later, I found myself in a same-sex relationship while attending my Christian university and leading worship and leading all these sorts of things that were good and Christian. My dad was the executive pastor of a church I attended. pastor of a church I attended. And I remember looking down at myself and thinking,

can I cut the gay part out? Which part is the gay part? And how do I become more Christian? Because the only stories I knew were that people were unsaved, and then they had these homosexual experiences, and then they came to Christ, and then boom, it was all gone. But I had loved Jesus for my whole life. But I didn't realize that these same-sex attractions that I had experienced throughout my life, but just had suppressed and detached. And so in high school, when I heard that verse, I just was like, what? I'm not going to, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm fine. I'm good. And my type of sin then was acceptable in the church, which was pride, thinking I knew it all and people pleasing performance. But then this other issue, I'll say, even though I know it's people to be loved, Preston, not just issues,

came up and smacked me in the face. and I didn't know how to process this one but I didn't really realize that it was a heart-driven thing just like my issues with people pleasing and idolatry of people and performance I didn't realize that there was a good need inside that was driving me. Perhaps even I was born that way, but was driving me toward this same-sex relationship. So I longed to be seen. I longed to be nurtured. And when another girl felt the same way about me as I did about her, it just seemed to feel right.

And so whether it had been a guy or a girl, it didn't really matter. What it was was not God's design. And so, you know, I would read Leviticus. I would read 1 Corinthians. I would read Romans. And it didn't change my heart. I'd get convicted, but it didn't really.

I was like, okay, but it's not really speaking to my heart. But what did was a mentor coming alongside me and teaching me not that gay sex is bad and shaming that and really just teaching me another form of Phariseeism. Just don't do that and be good, jump on that idle train of performance and people pleasing again. It was, idle train of performance and people pleasing again. It was, Lori, you're running to things to meet a heart need that are not God. But I was like, I'm already a Christian. How do I run more toward God? But it wasn't jumping on a faster treadmill that was going to help me. It was stopping the treadmill completely and experiencing God in those deepest places of need that didn't change me from gay to straight. But it actually brought me on a love encounter with a living God.

And that, to this day, love encounter with a living God empowers me every day to say no to my idols, which for me, the version is women, also performance, also people pleasing. So every day, if I know I am absolutely crazy loved by God, that he nurtures me like no one else, that he sees me like no one else, me like no one else, that he sees me like no one else. I am able to say no daily to what I want to really get these needs met. So you would say you're, for you at least, and I'm going to guess probably for a lot of people, it's impossible to untangle the same sex stuff with performance, idolatry, shame. I mean,

just all these different, maybe unhealthy, unhealthy aversion, or what am I trying to say? Unhealthy distortions to God's creative intention. Because I mean, you've taught me about that a lot of times our unhealthy behaviors are a byproduct of a genuine, actual good longing. We're longing for something good and pure and beautiful,

and then we end up trying to fill that with something that's misguided. But the longing itself, the root longing is healthy and good. Can you unpack that a little more? Because that truly, I mean, on a discipleship level, let's just leave aside the same sex stuff and just say the Christian walk. Understanding that paradigm is just revolutionary. Can you unpack that a bit? You look at, you know, there's a few great books that have come out, I think, about Un about unwanted by Jay Stringer that talks about how we need to look at our lust. And he's specifically talking about even pornography addiction. So unwanted sexual behavior.

He said, instead of just bounce your eyes, we need to look at our lust and see what it says about us. Lust for performance, lust for people's eyeballs on us, lust for sexual stuff. We need to examine it and see what it says about us. So now Christopher West, who unpacked, you know, Pope John Paul's theology of the body, he talks about three different types of people. The stoic feels their longing, their good need, and they just suppress it. The addict feels their longing, and this is what the world is saying. So they feel the world says to LGBT people or to people without God, LGBT or not, they say, you feel that longing,

go after it, be who you want to be. Love is love. You are going to satiate that longing by being, I'm saying addict, and I know that could be triggery, but just by going deeply into it. But the Christian mystic looks at their desires and then looks inward. So I long for, let's look at same-sex relationship with a woman. Now, the Stoic, or we'll say Christian conservatives, will say, bad, bad, bad. Just shun. Get away from it. Bounce your eyes.

Look away, Lori. The addict will say, go crazy, kid, be who you are. The Christian mystic will look at it and say, okay, what is it about that woman, Lori, that is drawing you toward her? What do you think it's going to meet inside? Well, fine, I'll tell you. And you think maybe sexual words are going to come out of my mouth, but it's not. You know, I actually just want to be held and I want to have someone look me in the eyes and see me. And I want someone to just like nurture me. Those are good needs. And it's not even that I'm looking too far by looking at a woman, I'm not looking far enough because you know what? Guess when that nurture need is actually going to be met and where is it actually met? Would it be in a sexual relationship with a man? No. My longing for nurture and oneness and completion and to be

seen all the time, that's my longing for heaven. That's my, I'm not, so if I'm looking at a sexual relation with a woman, I'm not looking too far and I need to bounce my eyes. I need to look through that to eternity because one day I will be one. One day I will have the full completion that I long for. And so God does have me in a relationship with a man. So it's not even a matter of, okay, bounce your eyes from her to him. That's another form of idolatry. In this metaphor, my husband, his name is Matt. Matt and I are living out.

It's not that I just stare at that and be like, well, let me just try and get all I can out of marriage. And then my heart will be filled. No, I even in this metaphor we're living out, I need to look through that to eternity. Is that in this metaphor, we are get the privilege of showing the world how much God longs to be one with them. Is this making sense?

It's so good. Yeah, I mean, it's, I was thinking about, you know, Jesus says there's going to be no, people will not be given to marriage in the resurrection. It's one of the most misquoted verses. People often say no marriage in heaven. Jesus never said the word heaven. He said resurrection. It just shows that we still have, I think,

despite N.T. Wright's valiant efforts in reshaping our understanding of a biblical view of the new creation, we still are so addicted to this idea of heaven as our ultimate destiny. Anyway, but sometimes that verse freaks us out because we don't see human marriage as a shadow or the lesser thing than our, for lack of better terms, marriage to God. And you tell people who are kind of freaking out, wait a minute, there's no marriage in heaven. I'm like, yes, but you will be so one with God that those longings will be fulfilled on an exponentially greater level.

And they're like, hmm, yeah, I still think I'm getting the shaft, you know, short end of the stick. I shouldn't say shaft. But I think that whole idea that people are like, that doesn't sound exciting, shows that it's hard for us to wrap our minds and especially our hearts around this idea that our ultimate longings are truly satisfied in God. We can say it. We can quote Augustine, but I don't think we actually believe it. Well, Lewis talks about that.

Can I quote Lewis? Yeah. Lewis talks about that. Can I quote Lewis? Yeah. So he compares our lack of understanding to this heavenly oneness euphoria to explaining to a prepubescent, there's a word, child about sex for the first time. And so he's never heard of it. You're trying to explain it to him. And so this is Lewis. He says the greatest great he knows is chocolate. So he asks, is there chocolate with sex? And when he hears no, he's disappointed. This is direct Lewis. The boy knows chocolate. He does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position.

We know the sexual life. We do not know, except in glimimpses the other thing which in heaven will leave no room for it hence where fullness awaits us we anticipate fasting wow we don't that's good there's a metaphor lewis used about uh i'm sure you're familiar with this though we're like little children making mud pies in the slum because we can't imagine what it is to have a holiday at the sea. Are you familiar with that? I know John Piper kind of made that. But it's the same idea that I think, I wonder if it's because we're so satiated on, I don't know how to word it, worldly fulfillments or non-godly ways of satisfying our desires that we're so used to that that we don't even, we're not convinced that God is actually better than all those things. Well, I mean, that's how we train our kids.

So I've got a four-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-monther. kids. So I've got a four-year-old, a three-year-old and a two-monther. And the language we use just because we're exhausted is, you know, mommy, when am I going to get married? Or mom, what is this? And it's just like, well, someday you'll get married. Like we have this, we have in our head that they're going to get married to someone of the opposite sex and then all their problems will be great. And I honestly, I honestly wonder though, if we as parents are just freaking tired and we're trying, like we, we anticipate a day when we don't have to care for them as much. So kind of in our heads, the answer to when we can stop parenting is when they get married. And so we start from a young age. Well, when you get married. And so we've tried to, with our little

kids from a young age, I said, when you get married, I say, if God wants you to get married, and we're already trying to unpack some of this, what is the metaphor of it? It's not, well, that's when the Disney movie turns off. You get married. If God calls you to that, it's a high calling because you get the privilege of metaphoring divinity's desire to be one with humanity. So hard to articulate that in a way to a kid because they're like, okay, can I still wear the white dress? I want to talk more about marriage.

So for those who don't know you, I know some of my audience knows you very well, some a little bit, some not at all. For those who are listening, who are familiar with some of the materials we put out at the center, Lori has been in, I don't know, almost every video or conversation we've put out. So you don't identify as gay or lesbian. You don't prefer those labels, but still experience same-sex attraction. And yet you are married to Matt, who is a guy, and you have three kids. So how does that work for those of our listeners who maybe are like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't have a category for this. Can you help unpack maybe, yeah, what marriage is for somebody

in your situation? Yeah. Well, it is funny though, that how does that work is the auto question. And I always want to look at people and I know you're not asking this question, but I always am. What are you asking? Are you asking how my sex life works? What's the question beneath the question? Why? But I think the inference is, well, the inference is attraction is what brings people together. Physical attraction is what brings people together. And sex is like essentially the glue that holds a marriage together. And sex comes when you're physically attracted to each other. Now, is attraction playing no part in it?

No, it's not nothing, but it's also not everything. So you joke about this bumper sticker of you got to be obedient. And it's not that I went to the altar and chains or anything like that. But after falling in love, are we still okay? Sound wise? Yeah. Yeah. It's a little glitchy, but it's okay. Yeah. Sorry. Um, after really, um, realizing that I could get off of the treadmill and sink in deep to God's love and seek him ongoingly until the new heavens and the new earth to meet these needs in my heart. That started to fill me with joy. And I started asking God essentially this question, what is the mode you want me to do the mission to make disciples?

Marriage, singleness. Those are the modes we do the mission to make disciples, which is the goal of our life. Make disciples. So I'm like, all right, Lord, what is that? And I was super content. I was ready to go move to one of the coasts and get my doctorate. And I sensed God's hand on my shoulder saying, I have someone for you. And I said, nope. But I had been walking with him enough to know, maybe this whole God's design for life thing actually does give me the joy and meet the needs that I think will be met in these places. Maybe he actually does know the best plan for my life.

So both generally, biblically, but also for Lori, married or single. So God brings back into my life. I had known this guy, Matt, and he brought him back into my life through a series of beautiful God-oriented events. And an advantage we had to getting married, I didn't know everything. I didn't know all the pain that we'd go through that I really unpack in our book we're writing. But I did, there's some advantages

in that we didn't just see it as all about attraction and putting a ring on it makes sex Christian legal. We understood as best as our little young 20-something minds and hearts could is that there was something to this disciple-making side-by-side thing. And so Matt had to die to his default not oneness promoters, which he's attracted to women, not me as well. He has to die to those every day. And I had to die to my own not oneness promoters,

which is also toward women and other things, in order to move into this oneness thing, which that's the image of Christ in the church. Jesus died to himself to be one with us. We have to die to our defaults to be one with him. So Matt and I, you know, there's some pain, you know, physically you can imagine in our marriage, like that can be harder maybe, but I don't know if it's harder. Talk to anyone. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, and I don't want to at all genuinely downplay the unique

struggles specifically with intimacy that a mixed orientation marriage might have. And I say might because I don't want to put everybody in the bus. Sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's incredibly difficult. So I don't want to downplay that. But it would be a wrong assumption to think that if you're in a heterosexual marriage or both are attracted to the opposite sex that that's just a cakewalk you know i mean um the highest consumer of porn are straight married men um which tells us at the

very least they're not fully satisfied i read somewhere that um 30 percent of straight females don't even enjoy having sex with their married partner, even if they might be happily otherwise married, whether it's physical pain or whatever. I've even heard stories of women, this is, you know, I don't know how to say this, but like almost deliberately putting on weight so that the husbands are not attracted to them, which is so complex for various reasons, as you can imagine. But all I have to say, I think we come to these questions with such a simplistic, really secular view of marriage, that you're attracted to this person, then you get to have sex with them. As a Christian, we need to wait until marriage, and then once you get married, then you'll

have lots of great sex, and that's the glue that holds it together. And we have all these kind of false assumptions and really an idolatry of both marriage and sex that are just a recipe for disaster when you put that much weight on marriage and sex to bring you all the fulfillment that you grew up believing that it would. And when it doesn't, then I mean, yeah, it just, the whole thing kind of unravels. Yep. And sex, you know, just as we're writing this book, I'm like, it's a metaphor in the metaphor of marriage, husband and wife of the capital T and M metaphor between Christ and the church. Because the sex metaphor, because this is what I've had to unpack, because Matt

came into our marriage, overemphasizing sex, he says a line in our book, this was not the marriage I was promised in junior high. Just wait, and then it's gonna be perfect and i under viewed it like i could diminish it all day long i could go right next to you i have on stages and be like yeah it's not ultimate it's not but what is it what is the purpose of sex in marriage and so to see it as in like this triple metaphor of like the metaphor christ in the church marriage we model divinity's desire to be one with humanity but in this covenant of set of sex and this is borrowing from Keller etc but it's taught it's really it's modeling what Christ bodily did for us on the cross and he said I am holistically giving in commenting myself to you on the cross.

And so we say that in sex, but we also say to our partners there, this is how God wants to be one with you. He is the completer of you. He is the one who pursues you and desires you. And so we've overemphasized sex by, and yet completely diminished it by not holding it up as this theological dance. Yeah. You mentioned your book a couple of times. Give us the name, the gist of the book, and when is it going to be out? Thanks.

It's called, right now, working title is An Impossible Marriage. Because people, like you rightly asked, will be like, be like how does that work like i don't understand it um and so our impossible marriage where my default attractions are not toward the gender of my spouse or our impossible marriage mimics the impossible marriage between christ and the church. So it's pretty Lord willing. I hope people read it and just really, they don't get enthralled with how does sex work in your weirdo marriage, but they get to a place where they, I don't know, I'm hoping they're in awe of this metaphor that those of us who are called to marriage get the privilege of living out. So it's more a book about marriage, not just mixed orientation marriages, right? But are you

using that as kind of like a springboard or a lens or an entry point into a broader conversation about marriage? Yeah, the whole thing is a story. And then we keep, Matt's a therapist. And so we bring in that we talk about shame a lot we talk about you know just what we walked through but the story opens with um me getting to a place where i was either going to leave i was going to leave matt and um because it had gotten so hard and i was ready to go. And that's where it begins. And it talks about how God got a hold of me as he does using the book of Jude and a few other things. And that is really the start. It wasn't that I got convicted and then I just turned into a good little Pharisee wife where I did the right things.

It just takes you on a transformation, another transformation of my heart where I can speak with you right now, Preston, and talk about marriage is not just an obedience thing, but it's this gorgeous metaphor. And that sex is not just this, well, you just got to do it. And that sex is not just this, well, you just got to do it. Because I'm pretty feisty and I'm not just going to do what my heart is not engaged in. So we talked through that journey theologically, psychologically, and story, wrapping it up of my heart and Matt's heart and how that really confronted his own idolatry of sex while I did my diminishment of sex. That's interesting. Wow.

Okay. So there was a mixed orientation on both your own attractions, but also almost like a mixed orientation on how you viewed marriage and what you were expecting to get out of it or not get out of it or whatever. That's interesting. I want to shift gears a little bit. Get out of it or not get out of it or whatever. That's interesting. I want to shift gears a little bit. You, more than most people I know, have experienced the difficulties of this conversation, LGBTQ plus, whatever, in both more liberal environments, the difficulties of being a, I don't love the term, but a conservative in the midst of more progressives, but also a, you know, somebody who's in a conservative environment and hearing all the kind of difficulties that comes with that. Let's start first with being a more conservative.

I would, I mean, a moderate conservative evangelical, whatever, in a, in a, in spaces that are much more progressive. Can you tell us about that and how you've navigated that and what are some kind of maybe hostility you've received there? Yeah. So, you know, you were there. We've been protested. So we hosted an event in our city and got a big group of protesters, even some from our own church. People from your own church protested an event you did.

Yeah, that was an awkward Saturday night that led to an awkward Sunday morning. I'm going on Sunday mornings to see people who are adamantly against what you believe. And it feels like hatred of yourself when I know, you know, people would be like, they don't hate you, they hate your message. But it's wearing to go to the grocery store and people just glare at you and just, they're just shooting nails at you. But they're not actual nails. I'm not being killed. So I have to keep reminding myself I'm not an actual prison. How do I process that? Well, real quick, what's the accusation?

I mean, the title of the conference was Caring Well. I would say, would you have like probably 400, 500 people-ish? Largely conservative Christians who are being pushed and challenged in many ways outside their comfort zone to embrace and love and be with LGBT people. I mean, it was about love and compassion and care, and yet you were being accused of not loving, not being – I mean, it was almost like are you – it's almost like you weren't – the protesters, not in particular, but just generally weren't even either really aware or didn't care to be aware of what you were actually doing or what yeah i'm wondering what what is the accusation you receive from from that side it's basically you hold to this historical christian view god's design is

one man one woman you are killing teenagers teenage lgbt, because simply your beliefs, equal sign, you are shaming them, and then they're going to hate themselves, and you are exhorting, you're bringing all these church leaders and pastors, they're going to go back and take your message to other people. Now, in retrospect, should we have named it caring? Well, maybe not, because it did in the name, it might have sounded a little patronizing even though like every bit of our language every minute of the whole thing was about how can we actually walk alongside so that's why we've even adjusted some of our language to journey well how can we walk alongside people as opposed to even care okay um so some of that i think maybe was just

in the title they didn't care to actually attend and listen and hear what we were saying, which the whole day was love as you want to be loved. But so that might have been it. But then, too, it's just a hold of this perspective equals sign you're murdering suicidal LGBT teenagers. So it's the I call it the harm argument that the traditional Christian view is intrinsically harmful and damaging towards how would you respond to that I'm curious how you'd respond I'm sure you have responded to that um I reached out to the protesters because they were already you know publicly slandering me and it's harder when it's not just in global internet like it's hard global internet but it's hard when it's also your hometown. Like you run into these people at the grocery store. So, um, uh,

I met with the protesters before a couple of the leader ones. And, um, I just listened. I bought them coffee. I just said, why are you protesting me? And it was so interesting, Preston. I always say this, you are the 20th injurer. You don't know you're number 20. You don't know the 19 who came before you. And one of the people there just said that she had engaged in trying to have a conversation when she was still wrestling with her sexuality. And she had tried to engage with a pastor who was having a conference at her,

where she was. And he said, hey, I want to hear your story. So that sounds like a really nice thing to do. Preston, that's what you did. I just want to hear your story. So he goes up to her, and she said she could tell the second he, after this, whatever this event was, a non-affirming historical Christian LGBT event. He goes in and finds her. So that's good to follow up. Hey, I want to hear your story. She said she could tell the second he checked out. His eyes stopped listening.

And then he just waited for it to be done. We've all experienced this. People who are listening just say their sentence. She said the second I stopped, he just dove into his theology and she could tell she wasn't heard. And she said she made a promise on that moment. I will never have someone come into my space and do this version of historical Christian worldview ever again. So then here comes Lori.

I don't look, I'm not that guy. But I have essence of that guy because of the historical Christian view I hold. And he was probably kind of jerky. And was she overly sensitive? Who cares? Doesn't matter. He probably didn't actually. So just because we had the same theology, I'm lumped in with that brother. That's so, I mean, just psychologically, that's just, that is human nature, right or wrong. Like you said, that could be overly sensitive or whatever, but that's just we all do that on some we all do it. We all do it on some level.

that reside in our humanity and our experience and how we view other people and these stories build, build, build to where when we encounter somebody else that represents something in the past, we may not even be aware of it consciously. But of course that's going to trigger. The word trigger, I know people mock and make fun of it, but there's a real sense in which certain present circumstances and people do conjure up past traumatic events that maybe we haven't dealt with. So that, I mean, I, this is just a good reminder. I mean, I often say,

you know, I encourage Christians, straight, non, you know, non same-sex attracted gay Christians to listen well. But over the last couple of years, I felt the need to really drill down into that. What does that mean to listen well? Like to listen, not so that you can kind of refute or not listening to find the holes. You know, even this posture, I know people can't see me, it's on a podcast,

but that listening, you know, that look where you're like, it's like a skeptical listening rather than an eager listening. What we need to do is listen with the sole goal of just to understand the person. And then who knows where God's going to lead. Maybe it'll still be a, thanks for listening. I'm out of here. Or it may be like, wow, this person cares enough about my humanity to actually listen to my story. So that's, I, that's,

that's, ah, I, that person's not listening. I'm almost positive. 99, 99% sure. But I would love to publicly apologize to that person.

Just say, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that experience. You know, um, that's what I ended up doing. And I, I, it seemed like it,

but I saw like tears in her eyes. They ended up talking to another friend of mine the next day. And he said, you know, I don't know about that Lori person. She's just intense. Probably true. Or full of the Holy Spirit. I hope it's true. But they, they had an encounter with me that being different and actually listening and loving people and not letting fear drive our conversations with those who are different from us.

And what I mean by that is that guy might have been afraid. If I don't say my theology, then I'm going to be responsible for her burning up in hell. Calm the heck down. Is God Alpha and Omega or are you? Just listen. Shut your mouth and just be so sorry for your pain. And wait until you earn the relational currency to speak truth. And to his defense, I would say that approach, that posture,

it's a byproduct of the culture, the Christian culture that he was nurtured in. You know, I don't even fault him, like he was doing something intentionally harmful or whatever, like, and this is where the grace needs to go both ways. But yeah, that's, so let's, let's switch it around now. So you have been, Yeah, so let's switch it around now. So you have been in more progressive or against that, you know, it's like, can you talk about how that affected you personally? Like oftentimes when Christians attack that thing out there, that ideology, whatever, maybe it needs to be addressed. Maybe that ideology is bad but when we leap over actual people and address that thing out there we often unintentionally hurt people actual people sitting in front of us can you unpack your experience with that

you know we sure like to say what we're for and against maybe not as much now because you get trounced on but we like to say it loud and proud and so you know someone was in port of same-sex marriage boycott someone was in for uh for you know planned parenthood boycott and um i think we get extra loud as we say in our family we cover our sad with mad. Anger is a mask emotion. And so we get all fiery to cover up what's underneath it, fear or sadness. So had people seen what was happening out there and even still boycotted it, but with words of, I'm really heartbroken over this

because babies are not being born or'm really heartbroken over this because, you know, babies are not being born or I'm heartbroken over this because, you know, I believe God's good design for marriage is between a man and a woman because he wants us to replicate divinity and humanity. Had I heard sad or even, maybe not pure, but stayed with their sad instead of covering it up with mad, that wouldn't have affected me. Instead, I heard mad, and they're like, we got to barricade the doors, and Lori, you're with us, right? Link arms with us.

And I'm like, I'm actually struggling with what you're bouldering up the, battering down the hatches or whatever sort of phrase you want to use. I'm actually wrestling with that. But am I ever going to come to you with what's secretly going on in me? No, because I think the vitriol you're funneling towards them, it's all going to come on me. But if you had done sad toward them, my hand even changed from here to here. I may have wanted to approach you and be like, no, I'm actually wrestling with that. Then I would have felt the same hand of openness toward me.

That's so good. Oh, gosh. I mean, and that should be a kind of just relationship one-on-one thing, you know? I mean, if, yeah. I mean, we can't, I mean, I don't want to bring all these back to marriage relationship, but, you know, that's what evangelicals do, you know. But, I mean, we don't relate to our spouses that way. And it's so, that's interesting that anger is, what do you call it, a cover emotion?

A mask emotion. A mask emotion. That's fascinating. So that when somebody is angry about something, there's usually something else going on. Not like, why are you so mad at me or something? It's like there's something deeper going on that needs to be addressed. So we almost need to almost absorb that anger. I don't know. Jesus kind of did that, right? To get to the real heart of the issue. To get to the real heart of the issue. But here's the reality, though, is you are a human being. I'll try and keep this quick. But this is what you alluded to. How do you deal, Lori, with the haters, essentially?

Lament is the biggest practice of my life that has saved me. Lament. Which is basically, so they get mad at me, and I want to get mad back. I'm not just this like zen goddess who can just whatever be fine all the time no i'm a human guess who else was a human david man after god's own heart a quarter of those psalms are like crazy he's like smash the baby's heads on the rocks my nobody loves me god you're away. So we got to take that anger instead of bringing it to Twitter, bring it to the Lord. There's only one who can do something about our pain.

So you bring all the emotions to him. You grieve it. You forgive the people. You confess how you have sinned as a result. Okay, but maybe they're doing 99%. Yeah, Lori. So they protest you. They're lying about you. They're slandering you. What do sinned as a result. Okay, but maybe they're doing 99%. Yeah, Lori. So they protest you. They're lying about you.

They're slandering you. What'd you do as a response? I hated them. That's a sin. So put their sin on the cross. Imagine it and put your sin on the cross and actually forgive them. And then after that process, realizing God, you forgive them. God, take them off of your

judgment hook and put them on God's judgment hook because he's the only perfect judge. Then you can say, God, how do you want me to respond? And he may put in your hands, I actually do want you to write a book. I actually do want you to write on Twitter. Well, your heart is not going to be motivated by hatred. It's going to be motivated by the Holy Spirit because you're not going to have that bitterness block. You already forgave them. And so anything God put back in your hand to do, that's actual activism, in my opinion, is Holy Spirit driven, not hatred or hostility driven. hatred or hostility driven. So are you saying that like lament is a healthy way,

a healthy outlet for the anger? And I don't know if you said this exactly, but would it be almost be unhealthy to obviously just lash out with the anger, but it would also be unhealthy to just kind of like push the anger down and pretend like it doesn't exist. Like it actually needs to get out, would you say? Absolutely, Preston. So you're going to feel it and you need to channel it. Lament is venting to someone who can actually do something about it. So take it all to God and maybe in community, but not so they can fix it. They're

next to you taking it to God. Lamenting is venting to somebody who can actually do something about it. Did you just coin? Is that like a... That's a worry. Yeah. And I capitalized yes, because the someone is God. That's, that's, wow. That's so good good is that why all the kind of spiritual discipline gurus are trying to bring a little mint back into spiritual practices yeah it's what saved me man because that's what the woman who discipled me she taught me that was the biggest thing is she didn't the spiritual disciplines don't discipline aren't disciplinary they they teach you how to bring connect your heart to the fathers so that was a huge one for me let me uh shift gears just slightly um you are uh a speaker and leader and and um a counselor and thought leader in in the whole kind of lgbtq

conversation across the nation you're you're a different con, you speak in different contexts, churches, venues, so on. You do one-on-one training and one-on-12 kind of pastoral training. You speak to big, I mean, you're out there. What are you, could you, and this may, maybe you need to kind of think for a second, but like, what are some big one, two, three, maybe needs in the church in 2019 that you would like to speak into?

If you had all of those kind of people and all the people you've spoken into, all the different contexts, if you had them in one room and they say, all right, Laura, you got five minutes, challenge us with a few big points here. challenge us with a few big points here. What would you say? What are some needs that church leaders need to, or just Christians need to think through when it comes to this conversation? I think a big one is suffering is good. Suffering, I think we encounter suffering. You know, I'll have parents, their kid comes out to them. And the next day they change their theology of marriage because they actually have a bad theology of suffering. They don't see suffering as good and a driver to God. We see it as something that needs to be avoided. So do we need to come alongside?

We don't just say, oh, well, just suffer by yourself. We need to come alongside them. We need to teach our children and we need to teach ourselves how to suffer well. So I think we are a bunch, we are very spiritually and emotionally emaciated people. And you see the fruit of that when someone says something bad and I'm going to go tell mom on Twitter. We just react to each other. If we see that suffering is good, we're going to be able to coach these LGBT people who are coming out and genuinely suffering

to see how can God come alongside you in your suffering, just like he comes alongside me. So I think we need a better theology of suffering. I think we need a better theology of marriage. You know, just that whole, just wait till marriage and it solves your problems. I think we need to see and really grasp the why male and female, not I love your points you go through Preston, but I think the biggest one for me is divinity. It wants to be one with humanity. And that difference is highlighted in male and female. Like I used to overhear on Christian radio, is it God's big cosmic joke that men and women fall in love? And I think probably like, so why don't you just marry someone of the same sex that

will solve the cosmic joke problem because men and women don't get along, but it's this big thing. So I think that marriage purpose, and this is where I was pushing you before we hit record, what the heck does it mean to be biblically masculine and biblically feminine? I appreciate the deconstruction. I appreciate the fingers. That's toxic masculinity. That's toxic femininity. I haven't really heard that yet.

What's it mean? So I think those are three big areas. Those are, I mean, yeah, I just want to affirm all three of those as absolutely significant pieces. And that the suffering one, as you said, we need to model it. Like when we just stuff our lives, when we give evidence that we are addicted to our own comfort, that we can't deal with any kind of suffering, then that's passed on to our kids, people around us and so on and so forth. What does it mean to be masculine and feminine? So I don't know if you know, I just got off the Zoom chat with Kat. Kat's podcast is going to be out probably a week before yours will be,

maybe in a few weeks. I don't know. So super stoked about the kind of tandem, you know, conversations here. But that's something that she hit on. We've talked about that throughout the podcast is this, the masculinity and femininity thing. And honestly, I don't, one of the biggest questions, I don't have much of a question of whether a biological male or biological female should identify as that male or female. My biggest question is, what in the world does that mean? What does it look like? Practically speaking, what constitutes a violation of identifying as a male or female, or what constitutes a celebration

of identifying as a male or female? Or is a celebration of identifying as a male or female. Do you have any, or is it just a big question mark in your mind or do you have any words of wisdom for me? I'm sure she quoted like some of those pieces, like she looked like the Larry Crabb fully alive book and just women open to receive and nourish. So some of that I appreciate. I am still trying to unpack it and I'm wondering how much it has to do with the metaphor of so if there's feminine and masculine roles in marriage like okay can we look back up at god is there aspects of god that are more feminine

that women are supposed to emulate or their aspects of god that are more masculine that men are supposed to emulate so i am actually looking into going back to school and I'd love to research this further because I don't know. I just feel like a lot of what we read is either breaking apart gender stereotypes or taping them together. So I don't know. I mean, I think the first step in something that I think we've addressed thought through and we're kind of moving on, but the first step is to identify that most of our kind of assumptions about masculinity and femininity are from culture, not the Bible. In the Bible, you see women, you know, making babies and cooking and cleaning. I don't know if we do, you know, but they're also out winning wars and buying fields and business

women like Lydia and even the Proverbs 31 woman is not really, doesn't really, can't be stuffed into our typical stereotype. Same thing with masculinity. I mean, David was a harp playing poet who cried a lot while his brothers were off at war. I mean, he would have been labeled trans or non-binary if he came to my high school, dragging his little heart behind him, you know, and crying about his friend, friend, Jonathan, whose love was better than the love of women. I mean, say that in a high school locker room.

So, I mean, but then we also deal in the scriptures, we have the whole problem of the is and the ought. also deal in in scriptures we have the whole problem of the is and the ought and this is something i've been working through just because deborah did go out and win a war and almost shame barrack in the process that does that's the is that's what happened that doesn't necessarily mean that women should be you know military leaders and i say necessarily maybe it does maybe it doesn't it's just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean it's part of the sort of God's desire for how humans should act. Lots of stuff happens in the Bible where it's like, yeah, that's not what we should be doing. So, I don't know. I cannot identify very many gender-specific commands or prohibitions that are absolute and all cultural. We talked

earlier, you know, maybe wives submit to your husbands, but that's still, let's just take a very conservative approach to that question, a complementarian approach that still is a marriage that doesn't seem to be necessarily applied to all women how they're supposed to relate to all men although i don't know i mean i and i'm you know i told you my intrinsic feminist in me is like you know i just i think every woman does that but I think because it's been so abused, both literally and just generally, I don't have the answer to that. So that's why I challenge most pastors and you yourself to critically help us. Yeah, I just wish there was more. I think better when I'm wrestling with various thoughtful approaches. And the hard thing is, maybe there's something out there. I keep reading stuff. I'm like, yeah, they're not asking the kind of debate, or it's husbands and wives in marriage kind of thing.

But to have a holistic, categorical look at a biblical theology of what is masculinity and femininity, what does it mean to fully identify and live in your biological sex? I don't, do you, I don't. And really, honestly, I can only get as far as god in that he made us male and female right and then so is there something to our femaleness like did god was like these are the characteristics of me that equal sign feminine these are the characteristics of me that equals masculine i i don't know like so if he intentionally created us different biologically did he also intentionally create us different what's the weave in the word you say

what's femininity what is that and it's hard because i mean some of these well as we said earlier i think off off camera whatever, a lot of the things that we associate with femininity are true, generally speaking of women. So like, let's just say, you know, if someone said men are more aggressive than women, women are more nurturing than men, I would say that that's true 70, 80% of the time. So is the other 20, 30% of people who don't fit those generalities, are they in sin by not doing it? Is a woman who is just naturally not very nurturing, is that morally wrong for her? Or is that just part of the diversity of what it means to be a woman and a man?

But then, dear Preston, you're going to have to split up, break apart the nature nurture. So you just said naturally. I am not naturally as nurturing. Like when I see a baby, I don't want to cuddle the baby, but I know, okay, one of my roles is to emulate God, both Matt and myself is to emulate God's nurture of my children. I want, I want them to see through me to God, to see his nurture and his seeing of them. And so it can be, so, so I look in my background and see, okay, what, how was I nurtured? How, so you're going to, in order to answer that raw, no fall attached question of femininity and masculinity,

I don't know how we can do that. But see, I would say your, your moral command, your, your, let me just say, I just, I don't want to speak too quickly. Your, your, let me just say, I just don't want to speak too quickly. Your, God's desire for you to be more nurturing than maybe you naturally are is because you're a parent. I wouldn't say because you are necessarily female. Like, I wouldn't say that you have, you need to be more nurturing. But if Matt wasn't very nurturing, then that's, he gets a free pass. I don't think, I mean, I'm like, I'm not a hundred percent even sure what I just said. I just, I think that, I mean, take Paul, for instance,

in first Thessalonians, I think it's chapter two, where he even says, you know, I became to you like a nursing mother, you know, even he uses metaphor of, but then he's drawing on the kind of stereotype of a nursing mother is generally speaking going to be more nurturing than non-nursing mother, whatever I guess. But then he even says like, it was good. I did this towards you. I was like that nursing mother. I was a nurturing male apostle in your midst and that was a good thing. So there's such a, again, I just, even if there are these generalities that are good and beautiful and should be celebrated, nurturing mothers who are naturally that way, that's awesome. Amazing. You're not wired as

much that way. I would say, yeah, because you're a parent, you probably should push into that more. push into that more um so yeah i i know well you see jesus over jerusalem jerusalem jerusalem along to gather you together like a mother hen gathers her chicks yeah mother hen and so is jesus says god both fully masculine and fully feminine or is he only masculine like and what's that mean like i i don't i don't know how much heresy we're tip Orthodox view of Jesus. So, I mean that in both the Jewish culture where he should have been married by then, or the Greco Roman culture where whether you're married or not,

you should just be having lots of sex everywhere. He pushed back against these stereotypes of what it meant to be a 30 year old man. So anyway, we're not going to solve this right now but I don't think the answer is to scrap everything I think it's if you're going to

wrestle like we got to get to a place where we can help guide people don't you think like is it enough to just dismantle everything and because then I don't know I don't know if it's good enough to just dismantle everything and then just leave everyone in this non sex I don't know middle it's good enough to just dismantle everything and then just leave everyone in this non-sex. I don't know.

Middle. Let me give you two, two, two thoughts where I'm thinking I would be very, very confident black and white that God celebrates sex differences. I would be very confident that God sees both sexes as equal and valid and bear God's image. And I don't think the way to achieve equality is to diminish differences.

I would also affirm, and this is just a scientific fact, that generally speaking, men are different on many different levels than women, generally speaking. So I wonder if part of the problem is we're looking too individualistically. You know, we are Westerners. We see everything through the individual. But if you step back

and you were an alien that landed on planet Earth and you were to observe kind of categorically men and women, you would see beautiful behavioral, emotional, personality differences. What in the world? What in the world?

I have multiple construction workers at my house. what in the world i have multiple construction workers at my house wow i was okay so this is what happens when you do a podcast from your basement so i want to wrap up this thought because we're actually coming up on an hour so instead of going up and telling i gotta stop i'm gonna keep pressing keep pressing on. So I think we can celebrate a firm general differences between men and women categorically as species of humankind, even if certain individuals don't necessarily fit those generalities. So a woman who is less nurturing, more aggressive,

I don't think she's violating her womanhood, even if on a general level, the differences between men and women, generally speaking, do radiate God's beautiful diversity in bearing his image in the world. Does that make sense? I haven't actually articulated this verbally yet. I just something swimming in my head,

the kind of individual versus general kind of thing. But I think that that's wise because you're not going to make everyone say, yes, it's exactly my version of femininity and masculinity and that everyone is, you're, you just can't do that. masculinity. And that everyone is, you just can't do that. I'm going to get up there. It's going to be my 10 year old son with a drill.

Well, hey, why don't we just stop there? How about this? Because on your end, you're not going to be able to hear this if I mute my microphone. Can you tell us about Hole in My Heart Ministries, where people can find you, what you do through your ministry? How about that? Yeah. Yeah, you can totally find us at H-I-M-H, Hole in My Heart. It stands for ministries.com. And we're a teaching, writing, podcast podcasting ministry which it's been fun to see

the podcast getting bigger and bigger because we do unpack this conversation but the goal of the podcast is to talk about how the gospel is good news for everyone every day and so we don't only focus on lgbt but we don't not focus it. We just include it in the greater gritty gospel good news. How about that for an alliteration? We also do trainings. The Journey Well training is, if you guys are feeling more solid on the gorgeous theology that Preston unpacks, we love coming alongside and saying, how do you do that in a discipleship relationship? And so how do you walk alongside someone? And it's hard. It's got lament, et cetera. It's good.

Sorry. So Preston is telling me. So we love what we do there. And we love, I really, my favorite, we did this this last week is meeting both with larger groups. So we've met with whole universities and taught them how to do this journey while training, or we have met with smaller groups, which is really fun because you get the more interactive back and forth and you can really tailor make it to your team as far as, okay, we have this discipleship issue. How do we do this? And I think more and more, that's going to become the conversation because it's, okay, we got it.hip issue. How do we do this? And I think more and more, that's going to become the conversation because it's, okay, we got it.

We believe it, but how the heck do we live it out? So it's really fun. And Matt and I do that together. So it's fun to get his psychology brain and then whatever else I bring to the table. That's awesome. So Hold My Heart Ministries, check them out. Cannot more highly recommend Lori and her ministry and what you guys do.

Thanks so much for being on Theology N' Ryle, Lori. Thanks, Preston. See you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.