Theology in the Raw - 824: Understanding the LGBTQ+ Community: Bill Henson

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Bill Henson is the founder and president of Lead Them Home, creator of Posture Shift, and author of Guiding Families of LGBT+ Loved Ones. Bill trains national, regional and local ministry teams across America to extend Christ to LGBT+ persons within a biblical framework. Bill guest lectures at Gordon College and has presented Posture Shift at Denver Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theo­lo­gi­cal Sem­i­na­ry. Bill has been a friend and mentor to me for several years and is my #1 go to person when I have questions about how to love LGBTQ+ people. He's trained over 50,000 Christian leaders and has worked with more than 4,000 families with LGBTQ+ loved ones. Let's just say, he knows a thing or two about how Christianity intersects with sexuality and how to communicate to people who have a minor sexuality or gender experience. To learn more about Bill's ministry, go here: https://www.leadthemhome.org/about#.XzsHNy2z0lI To learn about and purchase Guiding Families, go here: http://www.guidingfamilies.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. In case you didn't listen to my previous episode with Leslie Hudson Reynolds, I wanted to say again that my book Embodied is available for pre-order on Amazon. That's Embodied. The subtitle is Transgender Identities, the Church, and What engagement with the whole overarching transgender conversation. Very much like my book, People to be Loved, which many of you I know have read. It's kind of a people to be loved for the transgender conversation. It gets pretty deep academically. I try to keep the language very conversational, but it has, I think, over 18,000 words in the end notes. In fact, the publisher, I had to, you know, I think my publisher almost lost her mind when they saw the manuscript. And they're like, you have 18,000 words just in the end notes. And I'm like, well, this conversation is too delicate, too sensitive.

I cannot say a single word without backing it up with research, with evidence. So it's it does it felt like an academic book when I was researching and in some ways writing it. And yet I tried to, as I always do, write in a very conversational way. There's lots of stories, lots of scientific research. We consider the transgender conversation from all angles. Um, and so go check it out embodied over at Amazon, or I guess I should say wherever books are sold, which we all know that that's just means Amazon, right? Okay. My guest on today's show is Bill Henson, Bill Henson. Actually I met Bill through Leslie. Um, that's right. Bill and Leslie were friends before I met Leslie.

Leslie reached out to me through social media many years ago. And Leslie said, well, you got to meet my friend Bill. And so Bill and I have become good friends over the years. Bill has been almost like a father figure mentor to me in the LGBTQ conversation. Bill has trained over 5,000 church leaders in the LGBTQ conversation. Bill has trained over 5,000 church leaders in the LGBTQ conversation. He has worked with, I mean, thousands. No, I'm sorry. No, I got that wrong. He's trained over 50,000 Christian leaders. I said five, no, 50,000 Christian leaders. And then he's guided over 4,000 families who have LGBT loved ones. He's the author of one, I mean, I would say my favorite resource when it comes to understanding

and loving LGBT people. It's called Guiding Families of LGBT Plus Loved Ones for Every Pastor and Parent and All Who Care. You can find it at guidingfamilies.com. And Bill Henson is the founder and leader of Posture Shift. You can go to postureshift.com. Check out more about his work that he's been doing for many years. All right, please welcome to the show, the one and only Bill Henson. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm here with my good friend, Bill Henson. Bill, thanks so much for being on the show. Thanks, Preston.

Honored to be with you. So for those of you who don't know, Bill, I mean, just in my life, has been a friend and mentor from a distance for a long time in this conversation. We met early on. early on. And I mean, you just, I still remember some of our early conversations and you just had paradigm shifting thoughts and advice in how I approached the conversation about LGBTQ related questions and people. And just over the years, I've just learned so much from Bill. So if anybody out there is like, oh, I've learned a lot from you, Preston, just know that you too have been mentored by Bill because there's few things that I say that haven't either been just jacked from, uh, something you said, Bill, or at least significantly shaped by it. So, um, I want to

hold up a resource here that, um, is absolutely incredible. And this is, I know Bill that you put a lot of time and energy into this. It's called Guiding Families of LGBT Plus Loved Ones. I mean, I would say, well, let me just do this. I'm not just saying this. I actually have a quote on the back saying this is my number one go-to resource. If you are LGBT, but especially if you're not LGBT+, but have a loved one in your life, whether you're a pastor with a congregant, a father with a son, son with a father, whatever. If you have some loved one in your life that's LGBT+, and you're not, then this is a resource you have to get. Bill, it's only available on your website, right?

Do you want to direct them to where they can get this resource? Sure. You can get guiding families at guidingfamilies.com. Oh, easy. Okay. Um, let's, uh, let's go back and talk about your ministry. Um, lead them home. Now I talked to Leslie the other day and you're doing a bit of a rebrand, right?

Or trying to focus more on posture shifts. So I don't want to, um, is it still lead them home technically or? Yeah, technically the nonprofits established as lead them home over the years. Uh, the way that we've ended up equipping leaders has been through posture shift. The way that we've ended up helping families has been through guiding families. So posture shift.com guiding families.com. We're really going with that identity. Okay. Just primarily because, uh, a pastor will usually refer to us based on posture shift. A family will refer to us based on guiding families. Okay. Take us back to the very beginning. How did you get into this work? I mean, you were a successful,

um, yeah, you had a successful life in the so-called secular world or whatever, and you decided to give that up and do this work, which I know hasn't been easy. Give us the overview of how you got into that. Yeah, it was 2003. And by that point, I was very much into missions. I had taken Dr. Ralph Winters' Perspectives on World Missions course, and I'd been on probably about 22 mission trips in, I think, about six countries around the world, and that's all on vacation time with a full-time secular job. So vacation time was pretty much spent going on mission trips. And it became very clear that the way that we approached missions in an international context was that we could allow for all kinds of complexity, and that complexity wouldn't necessarily be considered controversial.

It'd just be considered the reality of the world. We have to reach people where they are as they are. But then when we moved into a domestic context, there are people groups, even family members, co-workers, friends, that if they're, you know, LGBT, suddenly we don't look at it through a missiological framework. We look at it through a moralistic framework. And so the complexity read as controversial to even love someone at that time who's LGBT, it's like people could ask, did you let go of biblical theology? All because you're just, you know, loving someone well. So it became very clear to me that the church really didn't have a missional reach to LGBT folks. And there were a number of things that played out that continued to lead to the calling to go into this work. But it really started with a strong missional foundation.

That was really the driving factor in God calling us to this work. Yeah. I love that. That, that was one of the paradigm shifting things in my own mind because I, my wife's an MK, we have a strong missions heart. We've been overseas many times. And, like even in the as you know in the missions kind of conversation the different approaches to doing um missionary work and uh i very much sided with you go you learn the history the language the nuances you absorb yourself in the culture and and you understand the different nuances you don't just come in start

preaching the gospel in english to a french-speaking person while saying i can't drink your wine because i'm a baptist that just doesn't unfortunately that's a real story that's not i've got a friend who i'm just back in the 70s hopefully they'll do this anymore but um they had an admission organization had a no drinking policy and they were sending people to france do you know the slap in the face it is when you are invited over someone's house and they bring out the best wine from their region, the wine grower, they probably is a family member and they bring out this bottle of wine and you say,

no, like the kick in the face that, but that's exactly what you're getting at. Right. I mean, that's, that's a missiological blunder that hinders the gospel going forward. And we've done that many ways in this conversation, haven't we?

Yeah. And there's a couple of very famous examples. Hudson Taylor ends up doing, probably learning by making mistakes to do all the right things to reach Chinese people for Christ in a faraway land. And there are missionaries that look at his contextualization of the gospel to people where they are as they are, and him getting close to them culturally and the way he dressed and all that. And there are accusations coming at him. He's a heretic, you know, and, and all of us. And so that's a, that's an example of what we deal with a lot today is, you know, try to love people really generously. And some people will quickly question your theological orthodoxy. Another example, orthodoxy. Another example, just getting more close to the realm of morality or immorality,

missionaries in Africa learned a long time ago, you don't go in and moralistically just go and unwind polygamous marriages. The only end result of that kind of forceful work, if you will, was the gospel did not advance. And where it did through that kind of repentance, if you will, forced or manipulated, there were two groups of people that were left in destitute poverty, and that's women and children. So missionaries have learned over the years not to change moral truth, not to compromise Scripture, but to say, no, no, we really do have to be very careful about how we take Jesus in us to people where they are as they are. We have to take Jesus. We can't take our own discomfort and our urgent demands that people get from point A to point J instantly or else the gospel is not working. We've got to lay down our lives for people till our final breath. We've got to have a long-term view rather than kind of these short-term impulses and anxieties that we carry.

So good. All right. Give us a crash course. and anxieties that we carry. So good. All right. Give us a crash course. This is a, um,

a missions perspective on the LGBTQ plus conversation. What are some in the same way that if I was going to be a missionary to France and I would say, all right, here's some real big picture stuff you need to understand about the French culture that you're not going to be very effective until you understand these things. What are some things as Chris, you have a heart to reach LGBTQ people,

what are some big picture things that they need to understand through a mission, sort of a missions lens? Sure. Just like any best practice missiology, you have to understand that people are part of a people group. And people with a minority experience often will experience different versions of oppression, persecution, discrimination, mistreatment, victimization. So now let's look at what missionaries would do if they're trying to reach any people or group in the world, history, culture, language. By culture, what is it like to be LGBT? When we go to history, we find horrific abuses in the Holocaust, incarceration, LGBT folks, mainly gay men, placed in concentration camps, going to their death in concentration camps. We have discrimination and violence against LGBT people that has continued even up to the present day. We have the murders of young people like Matthew Shepard. We have clusters of LGBT youth suicides that have happened because of bullying and rejection.

We have high rates of homelessness due to family rejection. We have the pole shooting. We have so many examples in history where we can look at that just objectively and say, at that just objectively and say, whoa, I've only looked at gay people through a framework of morality or immorality. Oh my gosh, this is a vulnerable people. And as an example of how history repeats itself, 2020 is shaping up to be one of the most violent and dangerous years for trans people, mainly trans women. There are something like 28 murders that have taken place of trans women. All of them are trans women in 2020. And it's almost at a point where there's a new example every week. One example, two trans women burned alive in a vehicle to their deaths in Puerto Rico. And a lot of these deaths more being in the 50 states. So those 28 murders, we're talking about in the U.S., the continental U.S.

So that's an example of history. Okay, that humbles me. That makes me realize, whoa, I actually do have to care about people. By the way, I want to care about people, but I'm just saying this can change the posture of someone that is only looking at how outside of God's will someone is, it can suddenly say, whoa, whoa, no, I have a responsibility before God, a holy God, to make sure I'm taking his love and his care and his protection to highly vulnerable people. When we stack on top of that history, growing up gay, there's a common experience, feeling different at an early age, being treated differently, being mistreated for years and years of a young life before a kid even knows that they're LGBT.

That sets into their brain chemistry a trauma, a long-term trauma, the continual anticipation that my every hour of every day or my everyday life might bring upon me another event or an experience of someone attacking me or criticizing me or pushing me against the lockers or shoving me against the bus or downstairs. You know, so LGBT youth, even in 2020, are still reporting that the mistreatment in their early developmental years before they even know that they're gay, that's a very common experience. And so kids like that, we'll see they have a higher rate of depression, isolation, suicidality because of mistreatment. And then if you stack on top of that, churchy people like us not caring for them well, maybe even excluding them,

seeing them as a risk or a threat to the church, and in the process teaching parents in a sense to kind of cut off your kid or reject your kid, possibly even disown your kid. So homelessness is a problem. LGBT youth probably account for, let's just say roughly, the rate will go down into adulthood, but in their early teens, say 10 to 12% of their age group population, yet they account for 20 to 40% of homeless youth in America. And then I'll take a pause just to see if we want to talk about any of that. But the third piece would be language. And we can talk about just a couple of language, language in a moment.

I definitely want to get into that. My quick thought, you kind of went there, but as you were going, I wanted to ask how is all this is, or is this magnified if they're raised in a Christian context? And you kind of hit on that. Is that is there everything you're describing? Does that happen? Well, I just kind of a softball question, but I'll just ask it as if I don't know the answer. But I mean, is it better or worse when raised in a Christian context, typically. It can go either way. When we meet a lot of the kids

that have had the most extensive bullying, when we're asking them for a self-report of where that bullying occurs or the risk of it occurs, 98% of the time, kids are saying, all age groups are saying it was walking to the time, kids are saying, all age groups are saying, it was walking to the bus, at the bus stop, on the bus, getting off the bus, at school, during recess, during lunch, in the hall breaks, between class, making my way home from school. making my way home from school. So thankfully, I don't know a single church leader that would ever want that to occur within the youth group or the church. And I don't know any church leader. I know that there are some that exist, but I don't know any church leaders that we train that would tolerate it for even a second. It would not be

allowed. So one kid, I asked him this question. I said, why do you think that, you know, like the church is known for being so hateful, the school is known for being so progressive accepting, The school is known for being so progressive accepting, but the bullying is occurring at school. Why isn't it occurring at church? And this kid, 15 years old, he said, well, I mean, ultimately, you know, we believe in Jesus and Jesus is about God's amazing grace. that even if there's kids that don't like me or like that I'm gay in youth group, that possibly they're just giving me grace, if you will. I thought that was, let me be clear, I thought that was very mature on his part to put it that way. Now, reality, that doesn't mean bullying doesn't occur at church, and it doesn't mean condemnation, rejection, acts of exclusion don't occur. They do. But when we hear of the most, you know, graphic forms of bullying and exclusion and rejection, a lot of silence and just not addressing anything at all. Well, guess what?

In the LGBT heart, that silence will be interpreted as a continual risk of that same condemnation, threat, or harm that is occurring in their life at school. So kids may not be bullied at school, at church, but they can actually carry the trauma of living with fear every time they go to church all throughout their growing up years. And let me just say this, based on everything you're saying, or in light of everything you're saying, that you've worked with four or 5,000 different families and 10, I mean, no, 50,000 church leaders, 60,000. I mean, so just so everybody knows, Bill's not just basing this on an example or two like this is about as comprehensive of a background as i've ever seen in terms of doing this kind of

work um i do wonder though and all i have is anecdotal kind of yeah buts you know um but like you know i live in conservative boise idaho it's 70 trump voting right uh well i sorry idaho is boise's a little more progressive i mean relative to the rest of the state but like at my daughter's junior high there was a trans person there and i asked my daughter you know oh did do they get mocked or made fun of she's like are you kidding me they're like the most popular like like whatever person I said, does anybody ever say anything negative? So, well, if it is, it's like, they don't say it out loud because that would be the worst to ever say anything

critical of this person. They've got the most friends, the most popularity or whatever. And when I talked to other friends in more, maybe more progressive cities, like one of my friends in downtown Portland, he says they literally have quotes of Karll marx like all over the school um if you're a white straight male you you're basically like immoral just by your existence you know and like another friend of mine's a teacher in california she literally said i think about i want to say about 20 of the kids are like transitioning on hormones and

she, they're calling me saying, what is this? I don't know what's going on. And so I could hear somebody saying, and you just, all these are just anecdotal. So, I mean, I don't know if that's the exceptions to the rule, but it seems like everything's swung so quickly toward affirmation in the broader society. How would you, what would you say to that? Would you say that that hasn't necessarily trickled down into every kind of high school setting there's a lot more homophobia there than you would think or is this certain areas i mean kansas so we're not to pick

on kansas but i mean like are they or bible bell areas and and not sure downtown boston or whatever the way i would describe it is it only takes one bully. Okay. And it potentially only takes like average age that boys start being called some name that represents something within the realm of sexuality. Second grade. Oh, okay. The number one word that they are called in second grade fag. Yeah. OK. Now in kids in just the generation right before this, it could be have been a lot worse than that. Right. Stack fag and then being pushed around and all that stuff.

Even in this generation, kids can still be experiencing bullying because there's one or there's three or there's five people or probably guys that are pushing on a kid during lunch or saying something or whispering under their breath or saying something really ugly and suspicious when they're using the bathroom at the same time, something like that. Here's a real life example. In the aftermath of Pulse, how many pastors do you know that said something like this? We just wish that club would have been bigger so that more homosexuals would have been in that club so that God could have done away with more of that abomination. Okay, Preston, I imagine in your leader forums, you probably don't know a single pastor that would ever say such a thing. Yeah. Right? And I don't know a single pastor that would ever say such a thing.

Right. And I don't know a single pastor that would ever say such a thing. Yet one voice traveled so far and so many LGBT people that have either been propelled outside the church or that they heard in the aftermath of Pulse. Now, we extrapolate that across a kid's experience. It only takes one or two or three guys or people that represent a bullying attitude. And in our world today, we know – doesn't it seem like it would be impossible that they're actually racist? I mean it seems like, oh, surely we work're actually racist? You know, I mean, it seems like, oh, surely we work through that. Oh, but guess what? Some of those folks that have racist ideas are maybe closer to us than we ever imagined. And so, you know, it doesn't take much for that experience to be a real one. The way I say it is, minority peoples will tend to experience the worst case scenario of the most extreme people who have horrible ideas about them.

So if I, as a majority person, white, cisgender, male, I might go through my daily life for years and only passively engage that, but be able to walk away from it. For a young person of color, that could be their daily fear that they live with. And so I think LGBT folks can carry that daily fear with them in a way that leaves a trauma scar. I could see the, in elementary, I could definitely see, even if some of those elementary school kids will, you know, get a little more progressive or kind of realize that that's like, like not every fifth grade bully is going to call a third grade or a fag because he's effeminate is going to be that way in junior high or let's just say high

school. Would that be accurate that the bull that that kind of bullying, which can be super severe is more likely to happen. I mentioned a lot of them might grow out of it, but like you're saying, even if like 0.1% of the kids are bullies, that's all it takes. Right.

Is that, is that kind of where you, I mean, yeah, but also, uh, the one, or a couple of reasons why bullying stops in high school. Number one, kids could have gone through their sexual development and they're not as paranoid about their own experience and what that means. They'll be more sure of themselves. Number two, it is cool to be LGBT in our world

today. At least it seems that way in secular culture. Gay kids are not always reporting that on the front line. But nonetheless, there is a factor there that it's cool. The third element is that, you know, you get to a certain age and you push a kid down and, and his head bust open, you can be charged with a crime. So there's some corrective factors that kind of do away with the vast amount of the bullying, uh, in the high school years. But this is the key in the middle school years, it'll get worse. For the kids that do experience bullying, teasing, it'll usually get worse before it gets better in the middle school years. Okay. So the elementary years, it's not just one and done. It's oftentimes it starts and it's actually ongoing or it's

actually escalating through middle school years. And then it will stop. Okay. Now this is the key. middle school years. And then it will stop. Okay, now this is the key. If it started with even a potential threat in second grade that caused that kid to internalize, I have to go to school every single day living with when I walk around this corner will so and so be waiting on me, you know, okay, we're talking about kids that are, you know, 7, 8, 9, that are carrying repeated acts of victimization, of trauma, or bullying, or the fear of it, age 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. In other words, it's shaping into their brain chemistry this anticipation of concrete harm. To me, whether the bullying occurred once or ten times, excuse me, I would prefer that it did not occur at all, but if it was going to occur, I'd want it to occur only once rather than ten times. But the fact is, even if it occurred a few times, that could produce in that kid

such an anticipation or fear that's going to continue that literally they live their daily life as if the bullying is ongoing so this is trauma mapped into brain chemistry it can impact learning it can impact safety it could impact personal identity development what i mean by that is just like that idea that hey i've got good ideas. Hey, I can contribute. Wow, people see me as intelligent. People see me as smart. People see me as a contributor. My ideas are valuable or my integrity is seen as a person of value.

Those kind of things can be stripped away from a young person at the very point where it's supposed to all be coming alive in them. I've even talked to friends of mine who are raised in pretty healthy Christian homes, loving parents, you know, that when they did end up coming out, it actually went really well. Even then some of them wait two, three, four, five years with, with loads of anxiety and I mean depression suicidality all this stuff just with the fear of what could happen when they come out and the parents like why didn't you tell me this before and the kid even looking back is like my parents are awesome like i but and that's like best case scenario so there's still like you're, years of anxiety that a 13-year-old kid is bearing

alone. The human body isn't... I mean, kids are resilient. We're just not designed to carry that level of intensity and anxiety alone at that young of an age, right? Do you see the same thing? Yes, we see the same thing. And what gets undervalued in this when parents are surprised discussed in the family when a relative came out. Or there is a relative that got disowned by the family in the 60s or the 70s or the 80s. And that is a known fact. A show comes on or a news report comes on and suddenly that child is hearing their parents talk about something very politically but that thing they're talking about they're talking about as if it's out there over there and maybe a little bit of condescension or disrespect or even ugly much more ugly language

so that child has internalized a fear, maybe from outward harm that's been done or the fear of it. But also, you know, like maybe that child just had one youth leader who didn't handle the teaching of traditional biblical sexual ethic so thoughtfully. of a traditional biblical sexual ethic so thoughtfully. And now that child is afraid of the youth pastor, the senior pastor, the executive pastor, the elder board, going on a mission trip. I mean, that unwinds not just personal identity, it could unwind faith identity. And if my faith identity is I'm being unwound by all my fears, then I could actually be attributing that even to, or the possibility of it, even to my parents. Now in 2016, uh, there's a denomination, it's public information, but I still just like to be respectful. It's a denomination of very,

very highly respected denomination, very, very orthodox in its beliefs, very deeply. The way they live out the gospel is very beautiful. But there was a study that came out of one of their universities that showed 9% of their families were disowning their LGBT kids. So all of a sudden, we're like, wow, I need all these pastors that are so loving and caring. I need all these parents that are loving and caring. In the evangelical world, I cannot promise a kid, hey, just come out to your parents. It'll be okay. It's like a 9% chance that of any one parent could potentially have a very rejecting response, possibly even disowning their child. Golly. Let's go to the third one, because there's a long delay here. Not delay, but lingering in,

I think, a really important point. But yeah, the third point is understanding the language. And honestly, Bill, I have become so particular about language over the years. So particular. so particular about language over the years so particular um you know i when people say transgendered instead of transgender i'm like no get the d off there you know like there's every little thing i just i'm and i got that from you man he was you instilled in me just a hypersensitivity and it's fascinating that even now i'll catch myself saying stuff or doing things or learning more like oh my gosh like yeah i gosh, like, yeah, I just blew that, you know. Anyway, let's talk about language because I know this is a common passion of ours. Yeah, I mean, you often say it, I often say every word counts.

And so it's really, really important. Like I can have healthy attitudes. I can have healthy attitudes. I can have loving actions, meaning I can actually be loving LGBT folks, but because of the trauma that they have experienced, even if I love them, and even if I have an attitude of wanting to be caring, inclusive, if I actually use words that reduce them from their identity, how they self-reveal their identity to a behavior, if you will, whoa, I have just layered into my conversation condemnation or some version of it. Homophobia, hatefulness, that's how it's going to

be internalized. When we say every word counts, we don't mean what did you mean to say in your heart no no we mean what did they hear in their heart and we've got to live with that kind of commitment to say no every word counts even if i know i love people every word counts i cannot use use language that's unintentionally offensive to LGBT folks. So resorting to cliches, love the sinner, hate the sin. OK, well, I met a gay activist in Houston that did not grow up in the church and he came to disrupt my event. Four hours later, he did not disrupt my event, but he did come up and introduce himself. And he said, I came here to just totally just shred you to pieces. I said, is it safe for us to talk? Are you okay? He said, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm not going to attack you. I said,

well, I just want to make sure you're comfortable. I said, why did you not disrupt the event? He said, well, I've never been in the church. I didn't grow up in the church. I said, why did you not disrupt the event? He said, well, I've never been in the church. I didn't grow up in the church. I came here because I have learned from the Christians that come into our community. I have seen such hateful things. And what you call the gospel, the love of Christ, the idea that Christ died for people who need God. The only thing I've ever heard about what you call the gospel is love the sinner, hate the sin. God. The only thing I've ever heard about what you call the gospel is love the sinner, hate the sin.

That's the only thing that Christians have ever said to me in the gay community when they come into our community. And so like cliches like that, I meet church kids that they have heard that all their life, all their life. God loves the sinner, but hates the sin. And so these cliches

that we resort to when we're uncomfortable with people, hey, look, if we're in conversation with anyone and we resort to a cliche, I guarantee you there's a huge risk factor that we went to a cliche because we are feeling judgmental thoughts towards someone or we're uncomfortable with someone. So it's kind of like just a broader principle. Don't fall into cliches when you're engaging anyone, really. Oh, by the way, I bet there's some of us that are married that our spouse, our spouses might say, yeah, you know, yeah, you always jump to the cliche to what defend yourself or say you didn't do what you did or what have you. So we've got to be careful about that. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. You know, that's a cliche.

Adam and Eve were not straight. OK, look, I understand the point of that statement. I mean, we didn't have concepts of sexual orientation and identity at that time. But when someone that's gay and Christian says that, what it comes across the other side of the bridge in the evangelical community is that you're against heterosexuality as God's design. And so any of these cliches on either side of the bridge, we could lose people. We could confuse people. We could try to be introducing nuance to lead to thoughtfulness. influence. And if I lose influence, there is not growth, either of the gospel reaching LGBT people or growth in terms of equipping churches to love LGBT folks better. You know, go for it. I was just going to say that because you and I do work in mainly conservative circles, we typically,

as good missionaries, try and challenge them in the areas they need to grow but that that is a good point that it does kind of happen from for lack of i hate making sides but it's just from more progressive versus more traditional minded uh people you know love is love it's like well yeah i what does that mean you know like love is love and God is holy. You know, I mean, that doesn't that doesn't help us understand sexual ethics. You know, we're like, you know, we I accept everyone, you know, that's sure God does, too. But what's the sexual ethic he's accepting them into? You know, like that. Yeah.

So I do think lazy cliches don't help good, solid interaction conversation on both sides. What are some others that you've seen on the conservative end, you know, like the gay lifestyle and some of these, are these some of the big ones that you hit on or? Anything lifestyle, gay lifestyle, his lifestyle, her lifestyle, their lifestyle, that lifestyle, anything that reduces the self-report, I am gay, that's my identity, to a lifestyle, i.e. that's the behavior that you're engaged in. All of a sudden, it's going to be extremely, extremely offensive.

And parents will need help letting go of that. They'll need their church leaders to model a teaching of letting go of that so that then they can let go of that. They'll need their church leaders to model a teaching of letting go of that so that then they can let go of it. If they're just called to let go of it, but their church leaders won't, they will actually feel like they might be disobeying their church leaders or not staying within a biblical script if they drop that kind of language. So we need top-down leadership that's modeling, hey, yeah, it's a godly thing it's a it's a missional responsibility for us to not use language that uh reduces the humanity of people that dismisses the legitimacy of the experience that they're they're that they're

sharing in a sense um uh um life choice anything choice, lifestyle choice, alternative lifestyle, sexual preference. These things are going to be offensive, but now more personal. And you may be very uncomfortable with it. Not you, Preston, but people can be uncomfortable with this. But if we don't relate to people based on how they self-identify, I'm speaking of transgender folks, if we don't relate to people based on how they self-identify, I'm speaking of transgender folks, if we don't call people by the name that they call themselves, just because we don't want to compromise something, we're not going to have much of a gospel reach to that individual. If we can't get there on their preferred pronoun and their chosen name. We have a gospel reach problem, because if we don't have relational proximity, there is no advancement of the gospel, at least

through us. God can still work. And if there is no relational trust, then there can't be that proximity. And every missionary knows the ultimate goal is build the trust and the relationship that leads to proximity. That's how the kingdom advances from one person to another. Obviously, the Holy Spirit can bring whole peoples to Christ. So I don't want to reduce that God can't do it, but I want to be working with God. I don't want the Holy Spirit to have to be going and working around me because I'm doing damage to God reaching people. I don't want to look in God's eyes one day and say, yeah, you were the reason Bill Henson and I had to, you know, go get the ones that got propelled away from the 99. I want to be with God going to the ones and, you know, and comforting

them and caring for them and inviting them, you know, back to the church, if you will, or back home, whatever that looks like. You know, this can look even more offensive, things that we resort to. I hear it all the time, even today, things like, well, I'm not going to be part of their delusion. You know, like, in other words, okay, if there's someone that's trans, they're delusional, and I'm not going to play their game. Okay, fine. You can be right, but you can have a very wrong attitude before God.

I don't know. All the rightness in the world doesn't make the gospel right. to handle our theological doctrinal beliefs with a posture that also is thoughtful in light of our own need for God's grace. In other words, if we really take an inventory of our need for how much we need Christ, if we really take an inventory of the depth of our own depravity, we will have a much more humble posture in extending God's love to people and relate to them where they are. Yeah, I want to come back to the pronouns. I can't let you get away just with this.

And you and I are on the same page. There's nothing here, but I would love to dive in deeper. But even that, I've heard people say that, playing into their delusion. Just that word alone. I've heard people say that playing into their delusion, just that, that word alone. I mean, you can, you can believe that gender dysphoria is a, let's just use the phrase psychological condition or something a little more neutral delusion creates this image. That's just not true. I mean, it's just not, that's just not true i mean it's just not that's not the right it that's such a

unnecessary dehumanizing word um and it's just it's just such a lazy easy way to keep actual people at arm's distance isn't it i mean to say yeah i don't know like that i understand that i understand okay so i understand the the some some of the intellectual reasoning that would lead to that pushback, but obviously they haven't hung out with trans people, if they would say that. I mean, that's just my— Yeah, that's exactly right. Paul, he writes this in 1 Corinthians 19-23. He says—well, I'm going to give the short version of it. He says, I become all things to all people so that by all

possible means some might be saved he'll do a lot so that even some might come to Christ and you know people ask me today well what do you do with 40 genders and I think well what would Paul do and I

think oh I can see that you have many genders. And in other words, Paul went to peoples who had many gods, and he started with, I can see that you have many gods. In other words, relating to people where they are as they are, and then trusting the Holy Spirit to advance the kingdom. So we've got great examples in Scripture from Jonah even doing it unwillingly to the gospel mandate issued in the very beginning of Genesis and with Abraham all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament, all the way to Revelation. We've got amazing examples of God saying, I want my people to go reach the peoples of the world for Christ.

How do you, with the pronoun thing, how do you respond to people who say, well, that's just not telling the truth. And so avoiding the, let's just, I already gave my spiel on why the word delusion isn't helpful at all. But people who say you're just reinforcing a, let's just say a wrong and incorrect view of somebody else's self. How is that loving to just reinforce, you know, this dysphoria? Well, they wouldn't say that. Sure.

Yeah. you know, this dysphoria and it's, well, they wouldn't say that, but in you and I both know this is an, this is an extreme example, uh, meaning this, it doesn't happen in many people's lives, but there are people anatomically born male who at a DNA and an endocrine level system basically have a female endocrinology female genes sometimes people can be immune to that and it has no impact on them other times it dictates everything about their gender so now everything is on a spectrum of experience across nature and nurture. But just saying there is a provable known fact that on that spectrum, there are some people that literally are, quote unquote, born that way. Again, it would be a very small number of

individuals statistically. But nonetheless, on the spectrum, that exists. So just saying that that's not a delusion. An intersex person can be born with ambiguous genitalia or even, I basically just described a kind of intersex condition in the inside biology that may not affect the anatomy. But just saying that that individual, they can be engaged with not anyone knowing their intersex. If they actually had surgery that then led to, let's say, presenting as something different than how people have known them for much of their life, they're going to get accused of things. They're going to be condemned. They're going to be,

people are going to deal with them very suspiciously. So just saying, there are some people that are born that way. And for all trans people that I've ever met, it is absolutely, that I've ever met, it is absolutely, I could even say it is rational. It is rational to experience what they are experiencing in light of what, either how they were born or the things that may have happened in their life. Okay. And also, yeah, yeah. I've had to wrestle with this a lot in the book that I that i just wrote i spent almost a whole chapter on the pronoun thing and really and i tried to give a i mean i a few years ago i i

came on this landed on the side of use someone's pronouns um and but i wanted to give it another shake like true like i'll change my view if if there's better arguments otherwise uh interestingly john piper you know who's no progressive i mean he said he wouldn't use pronouns but he would use somebody's name whatever they prefer he would see a difference there because the name is it's funny because he said like a name is just that's just a cultural thing that's not i'm like well pronouns kind of are too and names actually i mean if a male wants to be called like you know stephanie or something like that's a clear crossover and you know so i it was interesting that he made that distinction but um yeah i thought that was yeah interesting that but then

others would say no i'm gonna i'm gonna speak truth i'm gonna use somebody's the pronoun that matches their biological sex because that's what they are um what about okay what about this i've actually talked to secular like medical professionals who aren't christians who don't have any problem with at least an adult transitioning but they would be more nervous with this kind of what they would consider like a medicalization of some of the youth with kind of the explosion of teens and some of them are just being fast-tracked into transitioning um and they would say in that when it comes to like a young teenager that's are they are they acting like they are because they're trans or are they just being 13 you know and they're you know wake up one day and demand

that you know even though they're a biological female, they're demanding to be called he. I've heard medical professionals say, more like psychologists and counselors saying, there are some places where a parent just needs to kind of step in and say, stop it. It was kind of there. Yeah. And I've actually heard, I've talked to, and this is so anecdotal, so I almost hesitate saying it, that some young 20 something d transitioners saying the same thing like how come nobody like questioned me on and they would even say almost delusion like i was being 13 i was how come no i would have just affirmed everything i was doing and now i don't have breasts anymore you know and why didn't you just tell me do you see a distinction in some

trends and young teenagers versus everything we're saying with the general kind of how we'd approach, say, an adult? Oh, yeah. I mean, in fact, there's intersex people that are very upset that doctors or even parents made surgical decisions on their behalf, either at birth or before puberty, and they desperately wish that that decision would have been left to them in adulthood once they understand more about their experience. And I'd say for any kid that's experiencing gender dysphoria, look, oh, the

compassion I have that when I really look at what that experience is like, it breaks my heart. I wish there was some way I could just hug a kid with dysphoria and then just go away and everything would be fine. It's not that simple. But my point is my heart is so aligned toward wanting to make them feel comfortable, wanting to lower their anxiety, things like this. wanting to lower their anxiety, things like this. But that kind of passion to care for them never equates to encouraging them to transition or to go on hormones. I would love it if kids could be so loved by their pastors, so loved in their families, that they can have that kind of intimate connection of mom and dad tucking them in bed at night, being in safe spaces where dad could say, hey, son, how's your dysphoria today?

And a dad or a mom could be a best friend that's the most trusted place to come. And on the big painful days, that could be an opportunity where connection and conversation and family closeness, it helps you know that's what my hope is so that it could allow a kid to navigate um that dysphoria and hold out on some of these more invasive sometimes permanent decisions when i say permanent meaning the anything can be reversed but that doesn't mean that that there's no damage in the process the damage can be permanent for the rest of your life. So just saying we would do anything to get the posture enhanced to where a kid could feel so safe, so secure, so loved, that even in the midst of them carrying that load, that they could make it into adulthood. If they can make it into adulthood, this is not a promise or a guarantee.

It's just to say, I've cared for dozens of kids that the dysphoria was crippling at 13, 14, 15, and they are now cisgender in their early 20s. And some of them have gotten married and like a male getting married to a female and feeling content as a male. So in light of that, in light of the possibilities, I would not want youth making those highly invasive, sometimes with permanent consequences, those kinds of decisions. I would not want that happening. I would not want that happening. Secular science says be cautious. I think as Christians, our idea about making adjustments to our gender, we don't necessarily have clobber verses.

But I think the humility before God, based on how we're born, would just say, oh, let me be cautious about this. Let me take a pause before I just jump into this. And, of course, in youth culture, the opposite message is very common. Now, one last thing. There are a lot of kids that are actually identifying based upon the cool factor of a young youth ideology that just says, Hey, we don't have to be bound by male or female anymore. Most of those kids that have that kind of belief, literally in their twenties, they'll be living in their gender in alignment with their birth gender. It's just going to happen. So at that very high rate, like some people say 16 to 20% of kids may be identifying as either non-binary or queer or genderqueer or trans. A lot of that will go away. It's youth ideology. And just being humble,

there's been every generation that has a certain youth ideology that leads to a certain segment of that youth generation identifying in a certain way that upsets a lot of people. And then over time, it can go away. So this just happens to be a very invasive thing that if kids literally are not trans and they actually do take hormones or do surgeries. This is really scary. Well, this is starting. I have a blog coming out. I mean, it's like a 4,000-word blog we've been working on for months, tracing the history of the Tavistock gender clinic in the UK, which has been kind of a microcosm of this very conversation

because there's so much controversy. I won't get into the details. You can read the blog. But especially in 2019 and 2020, there's lawsuits happening. And, I mean, all kinds of stuff coming out. I think over 35, 36 clinicians have resigned over the last four years over what they would see as overly medicalizing and fast-tracking kids. And it's a mess it's well let

me first of all say it's it's sad for various reasons um even what would lead a kid to come in i want to know what do you what are you going through like you don't just wake up one day out in a vacuum and start questioning your gender even if you end up re-identifying it a few years that's sad whatever you're you know and then and then to be told in some cases well your two options are suicide or transition knowing the suicide rate is horrifically high um i mean there's so many it's it's sad on so many levels and yet there is an urgency here so anyway my question is, because I get this question a lot, Bill. So this is on the air, but I almost want to ask this off the air, but we'll just do it for the recording here. I get asked by parents quite often more recently. I have a teenager.

They're 14. They are so adamant that hormones is the only thing to do. I live in the new, I just literally, one woman said, I live in California, that if I say no, child services will come and take my kid away because I'll be accused of reparative therapy or conversion therapy because I'm not affirming their gender identity, meaning I'm not going and buying them the hormones that they are demanding. What do I do? And I, I, I've, I've sat there saying, I don't, I don't know, like, I don't know what you can say to, to a 14. I'm a, like, I've got three teenage daughters. Okay. And they're, they're amazing. They're're not i'm blessed that they're you know

they're they're not going through that at least um but i understand that tension of like how do you get through to the mind of a 14 15 16 17 year old person who's so dead set on something it sounds like you have had some success in helping parents with that kind of profile. I'm not talking about the kid who's been from three years old, severe dysphoria. I'm talking about that kind of, it seems like there's some social thing going on here. It's kind of out of nowhere. We know there's a growing spike in these cases. Have you had some success in helping parents navigate where their kids aren't going and taking these evasive surgeries?

And yes, and it's both. And, you know, like there are kids that will be determined to do what they're determined to do. There are cities where kids could, without their parents knowledge, get on a subway and go to a clinic and obtain hormones. So, I mean, there could be things that kids are doing outside of even the knowledge of their parents. And on the one hand, higher level, that's what kids do. They end up doing things their parents are not aware of, but this is a really scary example of that. are not aware of, but this is a really scary example of that. So the breakthrough that we've had is not that we can make kids stop feeling like they're trans or stop identifying a certain way or stop feeling gender dysphoria per se. But what we can do is we can build intimacy to where a lot of that anxiety

is being talked about in safe conversation with mom and dad in a realm of acceptance and love and care, rather than in the early stage of this journey, parents can be in stages of grief, early stage of this journey, parents can be in stages of grief, dismissing it, denial, caught off guard in shock, anger, you know. And so like we've got to help parents transition well through those stages of grief. The way I often say it to mom and dad when I'm talking to them privately, hey, you bring your grief to God, you bring your grief to trusted others, and you can bring that grief to me. Come talk to me about your grief anytime, because you need to process your grief away from your child so that you're not inflicting it on your child. That is not going to help your child make better decisions if you're coming at this through only an authority framework, if you will. So ultimately, we're looking to maintain authority for parents, but authority with credibility rather than forced authority that actually propels a kid further away from mom and dad relationally in their heart or even physically.

So understand there are trans kids that are homeless homeless not primarily because their parents said get out. They left because the dysphoria was so painful they couldn't get what they had asked their parents for and they took the risk of living life couch surfing in order to obtain hormones or whatever it is they're looking at. So boy, if we could create safety, connection, conversation, then literally in the example that you gave, I'd say let the state, I mean, excuse me, I'm not inviting this, but you know, let the state come into my home and really measure the quality of the love in this family. In other words, I'd like to so love my trans kid that even they in their heart, in the midst of gender dysphoria, that they would know in their heart of hearts, no, my parents are loving rather than rejecting. They are accepting rather than, you know, rejecting. They're not yelling at me. They're not hitting me. They're not doing ugly things that are abusing me. You know, in other words, I know I have a loving mom and dad, but a kid developmentally, a teenager is going to have a hard time feeling that. Then if you're really wrestling with,

if you're dealing with constant gender dysphoria, it cripples you. It cripples your emotional security, your mental health. So your ability to even internalize a loving mom and dad, you know, so in other words, it's going to take, in other words, there's no guarantee that it can happen. But it means parents are going to have to deeply, deeply love and care and connect and relate in order for that child to have that experience. My mom and dad are with me rather than against me. And we've seen kids that their parents do this. It becomes a conversation. They're talking about it. And there are kids that do

outgrow the dysphoria and it's gone four years from now. And it's not that parents necessarily healed that per se. It's whatever reason, you know, developmentally it was here and now it's gone. And that's not a promise. It doesn't happen in every scenario. Just saying it happens at a high enough rate to have hope to do good things rather than rejecting things. Would you still advise a parent to say, no, I'm not going to buy you hormones, but or let's delay this for a year or let's meet you halfway? We talk with parents in front of their children about, uh, uh, and separately without their children being there about this curve of moving from parental authority to influence. And, uh, and so for kids that are 13, I'll be honest, I'm not going to be talking to my 13 year old about a negotiation for letting them make a decision on hormones.

Right. I mean, in any time in the near future. But if you have a kid that's just turned 16 and the next two year trajectory is them about to approach legal adulthood, suddenly we have to change the conversation. It doesn't mean our no's become yeses, but it could become maybe become something like, Hey, look, mom and dad, we're, we're saying no to this, but now that you're 16, uh, or whatever, uh, uh, some parents might do it at 14 or whatever. We, we will definitely call you by your preferred name or your chosen name and your preferred pronouns. So let's look at it incrementally and just say, okay, mom and dad, whether we like it or not, we all have to let go of our kids. In other words, our kids are only going to have to make their own decisions about how to live before God rather than as a reaction to us. So in the early teenage years, parents should be very protective with a lot more authority. But at 16, 17, we better be kind of like painting a

picture that we're letting go of our kids, that we're setting them into young adulthood to make their own decisions. So the thing I want my child to know is I want, you know, Hey, you know, son, mom and dad don't want you to do this right now, but when you're 18, you can make that decision. Some parents might say 17 or 16, whatever age you choose at this age, you can make that decision for yourself. And I want you to know when you make that decision, no matter what it is, our love for you and your welcome home doesn't change at all. You are ours. God gave you to us. It's been the greatest privilege and joy to be your dad. And dad is always here for you, no matter what.

So if I can paint a picture that when you are able to make your decisions, that that doesn't change my love, then my authority can actually have a deeper level of integrity to it. And I can have more influence, i.e. my child can maybe internalize more of my care for them. That's so good, Bill. Well, it's been an hour. I'm taking you a few minutes over your time. This was long overdue, man. I can't believe it. Well, in the real world, without a pandemic, we might run into each other in some city or something. But right now, it's been too many months since we've had an opportunity to talk.

So, Preston, thank you so much. So, no, my pleasure. Again, it's guidingfamilies.com. If you have a loved one who is LGBT plus, you got to go get this book. If you are living in a cave and you don't know any LGBT people. Oh, that was snarky. I shouldn't have said that, but I don't edit my videos. So it is what it is. But yeah, just basically, if you're a Christian, you got to read this resource. It's so good. It's not, I mean, it's a hundred pages plus tons of colored.

I mean, the, the, just the aesthetics of this book is just incredible. Um, and then the other website, postureshift.com. Is that okay? And you can learn more about, um, Bill's ministry. I mean, just, uh, if you're a Christian leader and you have not contacted or had Bill in or know of Bill, you now do. So there's no excuses. So postureshift.com, he just has such incredible insight.

Bill, thanks so much for being on Theology and Rob. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you, Preston. Appreciate you too. Love you all very much. Thank you. You too, man.