Theology in the Raw - Can You Welcome LGBTQ People While Holding a Traditional Sexual Ethic? Tony Scarcello

Episode Date: April 2, 2026

There's still time to sign up for Exiles Minneapolis! Apr 30-May 2, 2026! Tony Scarcello has served in pastoral ministry since 2011, and is currently the pastor of discipleship at Red Hills Church just outside Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Regenerate: Following Jesus After Deconstruction and his most recent book Love All Our Neighbors: How Churches That Hold a Traditional Sexual Ethic Can Care for LGBTQ People, which is forwarded by Preston Sprinkle. It’s a fantastic book, and Tony is a fantastic friend and person. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ is like a huge sign that this isn't going away anytime soon. And what I've seen, especially over the last 10 years, is people completely forgetting that we're called to be peacemakers. We're called to bear witness. We're called to be reconcilers between heaven and earth. And this has been such a politicized culture-waring issue that what's getting lost in all of that is that there are like thousands of spiritually curious LGBTQ people who are like terrified to go to church because they're afraid that they're going to be. turned into a punching bag. Hey friends, the Exiles of Babylon Conference is upon us, April 30th to May 2nd. Cannot wait for the conference.

We'll love to see you there. All the information is at Theologyinthera.com. If you haven't registered yet, I would do so yesterday if you live in the area or if you're near the area or if you are able to fly out to attend live. The live experience is just really something special. But if you can't make it live, there is a virtual option. Again, all the information is at Theologyinthera.com. Okay, my guest today is Tony Scarcelo, who has served in pastoral ministry since 2011,

and is currently the pastor of discipleship at Red Hills Church just outside of Portland, Oregon. He's the author of a couple books, Regenerate, Following Jesus After Deconstruction. And his most recent book is Love All Our Neighbors, How Churches That Hold a Traditional Sexual Ethic can Care for LGBTQ people, which is forwarded by Preston Spinkle. it's a truly fantastic book and Tony is a fantastic friend and person. This interview is recorded in person in Portland, Oregon. So if you're listening to the podcast, you might want to pop over to the YouTube version so you can see us hanging out in person.

Okay, please welcome back to the show. Once again, I don't know how many times this is. This is like a third or fourth time of the show. Please welcome back. The one or only, Tony Scarcello. Tony Scarcello, how are you doing, man? Thanks for having me out to your city to interview you. Dude, I'm stoked.

This is our first in-person interview. I love it. This is, man. Yeah. It's been fun hanging out in Portland. This is a, yeah. But you're not, you moved up here recently, right? Moved up here a year ago, not a proper Portlander.

I live in Hillsborough right outside of Portland. And then I work in Newburgh right outside the other side of Portland. Those are suburbs, right? Yeah. So there's like two Portland's, right? There's the suburbs. It's Portland proper. And then there's a city.

And these are very different kind of cultures. Yeah. Especially where I work in Newburgh. The Portland Empire is stretching. It's starting to touch Newburgh, but it's mostly a farmland, and they do not want to be considered Portlanders at all. Probably feels more like Idaho. It does, yes. I had to learn because I went from pastoring in Eugene, a very progressive city, to Newburgh, and had to learn to, like, kind of adjust the language and figure out what dog whistles I'm accidentally thrown out there.

And it's been fun. Step it on some toes and lots of coffees. Wow. Do you like, I mean, so, yeah, the Eugene context, yeah. And where you're right now is different, which one, like, do you like both? Or do you feel like you resonate more with a certain kind of, like, church context, church culture? Yeah.

Honestly, like, it's so interesting because when we were in Eugene, it was a lot of people who had a lot of church hurt and the church that we had planted was very much kind of, we called it like a backdoor church. Like, you're coming in the back door, you're doing it before you. You kind of call it quits on church for good. And so the way you teach, the way you talk to people, the way you present theology in the gospel, like everything has to be so intentional. Whereas in Newburgh, like, it's, it's a very conservative, mostly Christian area. And the church that I'm working at specifically is, my pastor

did a poll during the last election. And I think he saw that it was like 80% of the church consider themselves either slightly right or hard right. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So it's been, what's amazing, though, is, I mean, you and I've known each other for a while. I don't, uh, it super well with right wing stuff. A little diplomatic. Yeah, yeah. I stepped in. I'll, I stepped in it.

You don't fit in any kind of like box, though. I just don't know, man a man without a country. But what I love about this church is, I'll tell you this one story. So I, um, my third time preaching, we were teaching on the Ten Commandments and we were talking about not taking the Lord's name in vain. And I was talking about the context of that is more than just saying, don't say, oh my God. it's like using God's name to support a cause that is ungodly. And I, unaware at this point of how mostly conservative our church was at this point,

I thought it would be a good idea to use pictures of the January 6th capital rights. Even you know better than like. Even I wouldn't do that. I know. I would not recommend it and I shouldn't have done it. Like really, I don't say this with any pride. It was total like obliviousness. But talking about like people holding the Jesus saves signs while they're storming.

a capital and be like, this is using the name of the Lord for an ungodly thing. Got a lot of understandable pushback for it. But what's so amazing is almost every single person who was like, dude, I have a huge issue with the way you said it, what you said, the point that you were trying to make, the way you showed your cards politically, almost every person I sat down with and had coffee with, like they have since become some of my closest people in this church. Wow. To the point where one couple, when his wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer, they were the most frustrated by what I said, at least vocally to me.

And I was the pastor that they wanted to call and talk with and pray with when that happened. So my pastor, his name's Lane, and he has such a peacemaking instinct, and this church is, like, so embracing it. So there's, like, a lot of, like, rough edges and figuring out each other's languages, but, like, there's such a resilient commitment to love Jesus, love each other, and make peace with each other. It's beautiful. So I love that. I wouldn't trade that for anything. Yeah. Do, when you got hired,

you've been to how long, a couple years? I've been there for a year. A year, yeah. With your sexuality story, I mean, did that present any problem at all? So, you've had, I mean, for people that know your story a little bit, and maybe we can get into it.

I mean, that has caused several problems in your church experience, some pretty brutal ones. Yeah, yeah. Has this been different? I think, yes, yes. Nobody has been unkind towards me at all. I think what was helpful is I started in March and in February, beginning of February,

so almost a full two months before I started. I came and I shared my story. And so there was time like for kind of the church to kind of get caught up, ask Lane lots of questions, let give, have Lane, give them the opportunity to talk to me, all that kind of stuff. And so it really hasn't been much of an issue. It's actually been really funny. Kelsey and I had dinner at one couple's house recently.

And I did the guy who was so, like, so well-meaning. And but, like, grew up in a farming town, his whole life. And so, like, he was just like, you're the first, like, queer I've had in my house before. And I'm like, that you know of. Like, I was just like, but it wasn't meant to be insulting. It was just like I'm, he's opening himself up. Kelsey and I are opening ourselves up. And ended up having, like, a lovely five-hour long dinner with him.

And they asked hard questions in clumsy ways. But like in the most well-meaning earnest way. And I could do that. Like if I sense that your well-meaning that you genuinely like you're curious, you want to know, you can fumble over your language all you want. You can sound as hard as rude as you want. If the heart is good. It's when it's people are cynical and suspicious and you can tell they're kind of not sure about you.

That I just don't have a lot of patience for. It's so refreshing, man. Given how many terrible experiences you've had. Yeah. Yeah, it's been, I've never really seen anything like it. It's a special church for sure. And my pastor's done an extraordinary job. So I'm lucky to be a part of it. Can you talk about that one experience you had early on when you first kind of came out? And like that very, very, very beginning. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I shared this on the show before. I was a youth pastor. I had been hired at this church right out of high school as an intern and then hired on as a youth pastor after the year. Had been in a closet, hadn't talked to anybody about my story, like, knew from very young age that, like, I experienced same-sex attraction and had been, and I've shared this on a show before, a history of, like, mental illness and suicide attempts and self-harm, and the Lord just radically met me and saved me when I was 16 years old.

And he became, like, my refuge and my safe place to sort through this stuff, but I hadn't talked to anybody about it, which I don't, if you have safe people to talk about that kind of stuff, I do recommend talking about them. I got married without telling my wife, which I also don't recommend. And shortly after getting married, five months into it, the pressure of being married and trying to cultivate in life of intimacy with your wife while keeping this huge secret and trying to hide from the person who's living with you, it became overwhelming. And I started developing a lot of a lot more anxiety, a lot more depression again. and my best friend, he confronted me in May 2015, and he was just like, dude, something's up. I haven't seen you like this since you were in high school.

Like, what's going on? And I just, like, word vomited all over him. I told him everything that was going on. This best friend, like, he handled it incredibly. Like, gave me a hug. It was just like, I love you. I'll never forget. He's like, you're still you to me.

Like, I don't view you any differently, which is, like, perfect if you have someone come out to you, like, it's a really good thing to say. But he was a volunteer in a youth group that I was used pastoring. And our church had a counseling service that they provided where they would like for members of the church, they would pay for half of their counseling fees if they saw the counselor who attended our church. A couple weeks, about a week later, I got a text from my pastor. It was on my day off. And he was just like, hey, I need you to come to the office right away. We got to talk.

And I knew, I knew exactly what was going on. I get there. I'm going to his office. this. I see my pastor's there and I see the counselor is there. And so they explained to me that my friend who was seeing this counselor confided in her and said, hey, like, I need to help figure out help Tony. And she was alarmed for me. She was alarmed for him. She was alarmed for the whole situation. And she broke confidence and told my pastor, which at the time, I'm just like, that's so shady. That's so not cool. But yeah, man.

So I was let go ungraciously. And even though you weren't. Wasn't acting on anything. Like what was it interesting? Fully agreeing with the church's statement or whatever. Well, so that this is 2015, right? This is before people to be loved came out. So this is like the church's statement was that like being gay is sin.

And like and experiencing this at all. Okay. The belief system. And you know, it's a beautiful. Hold on. Let me finish this. The belief system at that point was that just like, conceding to that temptation.

You're on some level making an agreement with the enemy that you want this. The belief is that people chose to be gay, even if like on a Freudian subconscious level. And so, yeah, it was invited with a lot of suspicion. And we did a year of, I was asked to do a year of what was essentially reparative or conversion therapy with that counselor. Did it work? Straight, man. Yeah, straight as an arrow.

I don't even like Barbara Streisand any more. more like no I didn't work didn't take no man I stop color coordinating didn't have cool socks anymore

Skittles gross like I just yeah so I'm curious what is it like to go through conversion therapy like what do they what do yeah

our our friend Greg Coles you know he I got this terminology from him is that they like to try and tell you You had an overbearing mother and a distant father. Okay.

So they dig into your past and try to find why you're gay. You're repelled by women because mom was so-and-so. You long for male affection because dad was unavailable. They wanted us, so we walked through like, what was my first time remembering having sexual feelings for someone of the same sex? What was the situation around that? What choice did I made to indulge that feeling or rebuke that feeling? And what's hard about it is, like, as I understand sexual development now, is like, so much of it is not, like, prefrontal cortex. You're making a decision to do certain things.

It's a much more primal thing. So you end up just kind of trying to make stuff up, like, to kind of come up with something to work with. Because you can't sit there in a session for an hour and say, I don't know. Like, I don't know. It just did. Like, it doesn't work. It's not good therapy. So there was that.

There was a lot of, like, one time we. We sat and she wanted, we were charismatic church, capital P, Pentecostal. So we turned on worship music and had me sit for an hour, and she wanted me to replay one of my first moments of experiencing, like, romantic attraction for a young man, and then invite Jesus into that moment to kind of like unhook some of that stuff. It was a lot of what I now understand is well-meaning attempts to try and help me, because we just didn't understand. We didn't know what this was at that point.

And even that counselor now, like, I'm certain. I think so much of this would not be done the way that it was done. Yeah, yeah. And in fact, we've talked a little bit just about, like, my journey with sexuality. And she's asked for some resources. I sent her some of your stuff. And so, like, there's, like, there's good stuff. And, man, I don't even know if I told you this, but you and I did a faith in sexuality seminar in Salem.

Yeah. I think it was, like, 2018. It was years ago. Yeah. And several elders and staff members from that church were at that seminar. Yeah. And so, like, I'd like to think that whatever way things were happening in 2015, at least I haven't been a part of that church since then, so I don't know.

But there's been a lot of growth, a lot of change, and how we would talk about this stuff and how we would treat people who come out. But it was incredibly painful. And it led to a year for Kelsey and I of just like, we don't even know if we want to do church. We don't know if we like God. All the conversion therapy produced in me was a lot of self-hatred, a lot of animosity towards God. Like, I'm doing everything I know to do for you to take this away, and you're still not.

And I'm being told by my spiritual authorities, the people I look to to guide me in truth, that I have to do this in order to receive liberation, and it's not coming. So a lot of anger towards God and a lot of doubt. Like, just like, okay, well, maybe there is no God. If this is, if A plus B, equal C, and I'm not getting C, then maybe the formula is just messed up. My dog, Tank is my best friend. He's a hunting dog that's afraid of guns.

He's always down for a walk, and he agrees with pretty much every one of my theological positions, even ones I don't share on this podcast. Tank is getting older like me, so I'm getting a lot more intentional with Tank's health. What I've learned recently is that, just like humans, gut health is super important, whether your dog has allergies, ear infections, poor digestion, these issues might get worse if they're out of balance internally. That's what led me to Better Wild allergy relief soft chews. They're designed to support your pets allergy defenses by strengthening digestion

and helping restore balance from the inside. Right now, BetterWild is offering our listeners up to 40% off your order at betterwild.com forward slash TITR. That's betterwild.com slash TITR for up to 40% off your order. Betterwild.com slash t-I-T-R. It's finally here, folks, after three and a half years of research and writing, my new book from Genesis to Junia is available. Oh, my word.

As a subtitle suggests, this book represents my honest search for what the Bible really says about women in leadership. I comb through all the major passages that deal with the question of women in leadership. I evaluate the strongest arguments on all sides of the debate, and I do my best to let the text to determine what we should believe about this important topic. From Genesis to Junie is now available wherever books are sold. You went through a period where you were pretty like, I don't know, trying to think of the word to say, but like much more progressive in your thinking or at least leaning that way or

on that trajectory. Yeah. You know, I don't know, you read a lot of Richard Roar, maybe Rob Bell like that, kind of like, Yeah. What was that? Tell me about that journey and why did you not kind of fully go down that path? I think when we first met is that when you were kind of starting to turn back her a little bit. You were like, yeah, you were more on that side.

I was still like, no, I'm still, you know, Orthodoxy's beautiful and stuff. But you were on a journey, though. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I had so much, especially when we first met, so much affection for some of the big proponents of progressive of Christianity at that point. Rob Bell, Richard Roar, the late Rachel Held Evans,

and the liturgist podcast, which, hey, you're a liturgist guy. You were on an episode of the Litergist podcast. I saw the Litigious Podcast. That was in the first public conversations I think I've ever had on sexuality. Really? Yeah.

Oh, it was. I remember that they, sorry, tangent, but I remember when you were on that podcast. They were like, do you remember that? Yeah, he's like, he's against violence, so he's kind of progressive. I'm like, he also wrote that book on hell

was Francis Jan. He's not progressive. But anyways, like, what they did was, like, gave me a paradigm for faith in Jesus and, like, some semblance of the faith that I, that saved me when I was a kid without a lot of the stuff that tore it apart. Like, a lot of the stuff that felt so threatening and uncharitable about it. And I don't know how much I ever fully felt convinced or compelled by progressive theology. I just knew that I can explore Jesus and find ways to relate to him in this avenue with no risk of what happened at my church happening again. There was a safety that was there. And then after a while, like, you just realize like, oh, man, there's a lot of, you sort of feel like you're like Dorothy and the 10 man and Scarecrow and the Lion and the Wizard of Oz.

And you start realizing there's a lot of don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain here. Like you ask a lot of critical questions about scripture and there's just not a lot of. good response from a progressive stance. And so similarly as like when I was leaving fundamentalism, I felt like, man, I don't want to check out intellectual credibility. So I got to explore progressivism. You swim in progressivism very long and you have to, you have to kind of check out intellectual credibility. You have to kind of just buy what they're feeding you. So when we met, I didn't know that there was this middle ground, if you want to call it that, between orthodoxy, or between fundamentalism and progressivism called orthodoxy. They didn't know that existed.

The waters are like you And so fundamentalism was orthodoxiness You didn't realize there were other brands So much suspicion Dude I remember when When skeletons in God's closet came out We were just like Josh Butler Was just trying to explain away scripture

But he's just trying We just need to accept that it's harsh And just like and learn to submit to its harshness Or like when AJ Swaboda wrote messy grace We're like God's not messy Like they were like a lot of suspicion in my camp When those books came out so Because AJ's part of your denomination right?

No, not at that time. It was a part of my denomination now. Oh, right. Grew up in a different denomination. Yeah. So, like, that's kind of where I was at. And then I realized, like, oh, man, there is, like, this, I don't even like calling it a middle space, like, just, like, deeper water to swim in that you don't have to check your brain out.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's, yeah, that's funny, man. You've been on quite a journey. Tell me about your new book coming out. Yeah. Well, I mean. You know a little bit about it.

I know a little bit about it. read it, wrote the forward to it. Thank you for invited me to do that. That was a very easy yes to say that. Because your first book was more on deconstruction. You dealt with sexuality some, but this book, Love All Your Neighbors, is kind of you trying to help the church

holistically engage sexuality conversation well. What led you to want to write it? Then I want to hear, like, you can talk about the content. Yeah, yeah. My first book was my story, and so a lot of the sexuality pieces there. I knew what I believed, like, that I had landed in a more historic traditional perspective on that stuff when the book came out. But I did not yet feel comfortable explaining why and articulating that. I was still very much, like, digging those wells and learning and, yeah, just finding ways that were compelling to me and answering more questions for me.

And so with this book, man, I love the work that you've done with the center. and with embodied and 21 arguments and people to be loved. And I think like what David Bennett and Greg Coles and Jackie Hill Perry have done is so helpful. But I really wanted to write a book that was just like, what are as a pastor? Like not as a theologian and not as a memoirist,

but like as a pastor, like what are the things, the nitty gritty things in church that are just prohibiting us from doing effective ministry with our LGBTQ neighbors? It's, man, 30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ is like a huge sign that this is. isn't going away anytime soon. And what I've seen, especially over the last 10 years, is people completely forgetting,

when it comes to LGBT-K neighbors, that we're called to be peacemakers, we're called to bear witness, we're called to be reconcilers between heaven and earth. And we're really kind of good at keeping that mindset when we're talking about people in general. But when we start talking about people specifically or people groups specifically, like our hairs go up and like we're ready to fight. And this has been such a politicized culture-waring issue. that what's getting lost in all of that

is that there are like thousands of spiritually curious LGBTQ people who are like terrified to go to church because they're afraid that they're going to be turned into a punching bag. And so my book was just like, how do we cultivate churches and leaders and households that are able to be peacemakers, bear witness, be reconcilers? Yeah, so that's kind of the heartbeat behind the book. Yeah, it's really, really good, man.

What do you hope to accomplish with the book? Yeah. What would you love to see? Oh, do you? Yeah. I would love to see anyone who reads it feel like they have a thorough understanding of why things are so anxious and contentious. I spend a little bit of time just talking about like this cultural moment and why the water's boiling so much. But also feel like they've been handed theological principles and practical skills to help them like in their context be like, okay, we need to calm down a little bit when it comes to like a trans person coming to our church.

Like what often happens, I have a friend, I don't think she'll mind me sharing this, but she, you know, she works at a church and they had a trans person running the camera for their church. And I just think that's so cool, right? Like, like, the staff and her and were able to advocate for her to run camera. But a lot of people in her church, they saw a biological man presenting as a woman running camera. And they immediately were just like, this church has gone woke. Like, this church is just like they're throwing, they're going liberal. Like they don't care about what. scripture and theology teaches.

And I just hope that when people read my book, they're able to see that, like, hospitality and kindness and non-affirming inclusion, like, are all just as much a part of what scripture mandates of us as an Orthodox perspective on faith and sexuality. That's good. And you, so yesterday at the conference, we did a sexuality conference here in Portland. Tony spoke at it. And your talk was, well, I gave you the talk. I asked Tony to speak on living on both sides of the pulpit.

I mean, you do have a unique, very unique story in the sense that you have, you know, been same-sex attracted as a, you know, teen, as a congregant, you know, but also now as a pastor. So now you're having to try to model and pastor in a way that, in a sense, you wish would have been done to you when you were, younger. And you, it's funny because, like, you, I can ask you, like, as somebody who has this experience, you know, then I'll ask you questions about, you know, how to go about things. But then I also say, okay, as a pastor, how would you approach a situation when a gay couple

comes? And, like, you're having to face the same questions as a pastor who holds to a theologically orthodox position. Yeah. What have you, what ways have you as a pastor, modeled healthy inclusion within a traditional sexual ethic. And then I would love to know, like, have you done things where you feel like, gosh, I really messed up there? Like, I wish I wouldn't have done that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

So there's a few things that I feel like I've done pretty well. I think I've done a good job at, with the church, I'm working at now, we're going to be taking our church through a whole, our leadership team, through a whole series on faith and sexuality. and the church that I planted. I think I did a good job at like really hitting home. We're not choosing between what scripture teaches about gender and sexuality and marriage. We're not picking between that and grace and kindness and hospitality.

Those are not at odds. And so what that meant for us was that like we called our church open table church, which meant that like we had a lot of people coming with the assumption that we might be affirming. And I think I, Because of the word open? Yeah. Open table. Yeah.

Yeah. And I also, there's stuff with the name. Anyways. I thought it was a cool day. But like, they would come and, and I think I did a good job at saying, like, oh, man, like,

we're not affirming in a sense that we're going to be able to, like, theologically support and endorse your guys' relationship. Like, I'll never be able to officiate your wedding. If you, if you have aspirations of doing ministry and being a pastor, like, while you're in this relationship,

and view that as deologically coherent with scripture, like it's just not going to be an option to do that here in this church. So you're really clear. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I also felt like I did a good enough job at being like, but having said that, like, if you're curious about Jesus and, like, and you just need a safe spot to come and worship and learn about scripture and experience

the Lord, like, we want this to be that place for you. You don't have to agree with me on this to like to come here and participate. And so, like, we would have. had a trans person who would run sound for us. We would have trans people who would like do a lot of different stuff in the church. And the beauty of the church is like there's so much opportunities to empower people and say, oh my gosh, you have such a hospitable personality. Like how would you feel about like when people come, like just greeting them and making them feel at home? Like there's a lot of leeway to do stuff like that without compromising what scripture teaches on this stuff. And I think

I did a pretty good job at that. Where I didn't do so good a job is, Sometimes, like, we would have people who, especially, like, high schoolers and teenagers, come out as trans in our church. And, like, I was never good at sitting down with them face to face. And getting to the point where I was like, we got to talk about, like, what scripture teaches about your body. Like, I was good at the lunches and learning about them and just asking lots of questions. but I never really found a way to on-ramp that conversation where I was able to say, like, can I just share this? And I wish I had been more intentional.

Really? I wish you would have been more forthright with what you think is. Yeah, I mean, I look back. Were you invited? Did they invite you? I think there was a couple relationships where the relational equity was there. Okay. But in the moment, it didn't seem like it at the time.

But I look back and I'm like, I could have totally talk to them. Yeah. Or even at least ask, like, do you mind if I just raise a couple questions and concerns that I'm seeing. And I doubt they would have said no. Like, and so I just, and I don't know if it was a courage thing, if it was like, these people specifically, it comes from such traumatic church backgrounds that I was just like, there was a part of me was like, man, if I push back at all, they're just going to

crumble. It can be triggering. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I never, I just don't think I ever did a very good job at figure out how to have that conversation with them. You've been a, yeah, youth leader.

And so you've been around youth culture in progressive cities like, you know, Eugene and stuff. So probably a lot of LGBT. Yeah. Well, especially with my story, we had a, probably like 30% of our church was like LGBTQ. Yeah. How did you handle, um, yeah, people that maybe would challenge your theology or that were confused.

They're like, hey, if you're same-sick attracted, you know, how can you still hold to a traditional view or, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, man, I, there was a couple dynamics I had to work out in myself to be able to do that well. So, like, one is there's a temptation when you're a pastor, when people, would you put yourself in a position for people to leave or reject you, to feel like it's very, very personal? And then it's easy to project onto those people, the people who left or rejected you when you were a kid and you really needed them not to do that. And so I had to do this, like, for me, I had to have enough internal fortitude to be like, when I say this and there's a good chance that so-and-so is going to be like, like, wow, I'm out. Like, you're so messed up or whatever.

Like, be offended by my position. I had to be able to be like, they are on their journey. Like, they, they, and it is not a reflection of my, like, belovedness or like a calling as a pastor or minister. So the temptation for me would be to like, okay, like, I don't, I don't want to put myself out there to be rejected or wounded or have people leave. So I had to like resolve myself to be able to say to them, look, this, what we believe. if here's what's true. When they would ask me questions, like the confusion piece about it,

like it is easy enough to have conversations with people and say, look, like, we all have things that we would like to do that we know we shouldn't do. And, like, for me, in my paradigm of the world

and what leads to the best life and how our creator designed this world to function, like the desire to, like, have same-sex sexual relationships with somebody or even the desire to re-orient our bodies to match how we feel. on the inside, like, those could be categorized as things that we're just not supposed to do. Maybe there's wisdom that we're not seeing in that way.

And one of the things that I would like to ask people is, especially when they would come out and come out to me, is I would ask them, like, what are you consulting for moral guidance in this? What are you looking at that is shaping your worldview? Because we don't develop morality in a vacuum. Like, we don't just come up with it on our own sociopaths do that. Like, we learn it from what feels good, what doesn't feel good, from our time. tribe from the people around us. And so asking them, what are you consulting from moral wisdom and what is the fruit of the people that you're consulting? Like, are they living lives that

seem selfless, happy, joyful, like, full of kindness, joyness, consideration for other people? And oftentimes, like, well, you follow that rabbit trail enough. And oftentimes what you see is, like, there's a lot of people who in this community, like, are just as depressed and anxious and dissatisfied as they were before they transitioned or entered into same-sex relationships. And they might say, like, this piece feels resolved, but I'm still full of anxiety, dread, and torment. And I would say, like, I wonder if, like, the thing that we need is to come into union with the creator of all of this.

Maybe he actually knows, like, the best way to live. So those are, like, not quick conversations to have. Like, they require, like, consistent coffees and stuff like that. Yeah. At the church you got now, more suburban, more conservative, do you get asked a lot of questions about just sexuality in general? All the time. Are you really? Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a topic that people are very interested in. Yeah. And not in a way that's annoying. Like, I welcome it. And I, you know, I think there was a concern early on, like especially when I first signed on to do this book that people didn't want me to, like my wife and friends didn't want me to, to, to. be like, I don't know if pigeon held is the right word, but just like kind of autokinized.

Yeah, this is what you get to speak into. And I don't feel that way at my church at all. But I also consider it like a joy and a privilege to be invited into those spaces. To sit down with a mom whose kid. And this is, I don't know if you're seeing this, but a lot of people when they graduate high school, they come out to their parents. And then they just cut off all relationship with them. They don't talk to them anymore. I've had like, in the last year, I've had like six meetings with parents. where their kids just like completely cut off communication. And to be able to sit there with them and ask them questions

and kind of help them understand, like what might be going on in their kid's life and that you want to play the long game and that like this moment is not the final moment. Like that's such a privilege. And I don't feel. What do you tell the parent that? I just, I mean, I would say, especially among younger people,

it's not everybody, but it's a high enough number that's really disheartening, you know, where if the parent doesn't fully agree with everything, then the kid, I think they're, you know, they're being told, quite honestly, from social media, other friends, like, if your parents don't totally accept you, you know, they're toxic, you need to cut off toxic relationships, it's a harmful relationship, and, you know, and then I've had multiple stories where the kid almost starts to make, I mean, making stuff up, or just, like, recalling past, you know, parts of their, I'm, I'm bringing, and they just are not true.

Yeah, or spinning them in the least charitable way. Yeah, and the parents become these monsters in their eyes, and their parents are just like in a flood of tears. Yeah. This is not true, you know, you weren't. You know, like. Yeah. And in some cases, maybe the parents were oblivious

or they were doing things that were harmful, so I want to leave room for that, but I know several stories where it's just not. The kid was just almost brainwashed and believed in their parents of these monsters, and they just aren't. I just, and the parents, you know, what do I do?

I don't know the answer. Yeah, and I don't know the answer either. But, I mean, I think a couple things that are helpful is one, you know, I said earlier, you play the long game. And I think this is true whether you still have a relationship with your kid when they come out or you don't. Like, you got to trust that whatever is happening right now, like, that even like on a biological level, like, those kids are designed to want to their parent. And so whatever, like, heated, intense thing is going on, if you're keeping the door open

relationally, like, there's a really good chance. So, like, this is not going to be how your guys' story ends. And I also, like, we talked about this yesterday, but I do think we downplay, this is going to sound such so cliche, but I think we downplay the role of prayer in all of this. Like, and, you know, this, we actually believe in a God who leaves the 99 to get the one, the God whose goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our. lives like do we believe that's true about god and and i do and most the parents i talk to do and so like we pray together and and and then i just tell them like look when when you have those first moments

of contact with your kid like when when they reach out you invite them to christmas you call them and they they pick up like my thing is just like you are your role in that moment is to just be a listener and a learner, your role in that moment is not to be somebody who tells them how to live their life, because that's part of what the leaving is. This is like, this is a firm boundary. And so we have one situation with a couple in our church who daughter came out. She's engaged to another woman. She moved out of state. She never talks to her parents anymore. And they have, like, on Mother's Day or birthdays, like they'll get like some, like a text or a card in the mail, but very, very little contact.

And I would ask the mom, like, when you do talk, like what's some of the stuff that comes up? And she goes, well, I just want her to know I'm praying for her. So I always tell her I'm praying for. And she tells me she doesn't want me to say that. But I want her to know. And I'm like, is it possible that you're telling her that you're praying for more for you than for her?

Like, because you want her to know that, like, you're still working in this paradigm. And I say keep praying for her. But if she doesn't want to know about it, like God can still hear your prayers if she doesn't know about it. So I also like it's very rare I I said there was like six conversations over the last year and I half of them already like have had some form of contact with their kid again. So I've yet. So it's rare that the kid maintains like lifelong like I'm never.

Precisely. Oftentimes what will happen is a kid will come back to the list of boundaries like and here's here's where I'm at and here's conversations I don't want to have and I do want to have. And you get to be in that position. you get to say, like, is this fair or not? Like, is this a two-way street, or is this kid completely dominating the culture of our relationship? Right. And you get to have that conversation. You're totally empowered to.

But what I always, like, want to push people towards is I fundamentally believe that a life out of loving union with Christ is a life that is like just drinking dirty water that makes us sick. And eventually at some point, we're not going to have the resources we need when things at the fan to, like, have a meaningful life and to cling. to hope and truth and goodness. And us as hope bringers, as followers of Jesus, like we want to position ourselves to be safe, credible people for when the big questions of life happen, we're reliable people to go to when they have those questions. And that does happen.

Like that's not abnormal. Yeah. And I guess the parent does have to, when they get those list of demands, whatever, I've heard of these kind of situations, they have to kind of, yeah, determine what is a gray area, what is something I could I should not some you know something that's like well I don't really love this but I'm going to concede to it other things that are like I just I I I I yeah I can't concede

this this this this demand you know and and one story was like she's like I'm not I don't want to pray at Christmas dinner I don't want to be there for that and the dad and I think he was right to say this was like you don't need to be there for that but we're going to pray at Christmas dinner like you know the bathroom and excuse yourself and you don't have to make it weird at all like that's something we're going to do and she she she she She came to Christmas dinner. So, like, yeah. Yeah, I do think parents,

maybe it's a reaction, you know, a overreaction against kind of our overly strict, our overly strict, you know, parents, whatever. And then now we swing too far the other side to where we just kind of coddle our kids or just like we think if we show any kind of like tough love, you know, that we're going to push them away. And it's like, I think kids, yeah. I mean, if you are a loving person, and you are, you care deeply about your kid,

you're also a parent, and you can do things and say things. Like, no, this is not what we're going to do. Yeah. You know, like, if it's reasonable, I don't think that's what's pushing them away, you know? Yeah, man. And your internal posture as a parent says a lot.

So understandably, your kid comes out to you, and it's really easy to project the next 30, like you know what the next 30 years of your life looks like. Yeah. And the truth is, you're not a fortune teller. You don't know what the next 30 years of their life looks like. You don't know what it means when they're coming out.

Even if they think they know what it means, they don't know for sure what it means. So the more that you can just remain like calm, cool, collected, the term non-anxious presence is thrown out there a lot. But the more that you can maintain, like, deep trust that the Lord is going to work this out, like the more that you can hang on to that, like the less pressure your kid feels to jump through hoops for you. And really, like, no matter how strict or non-strict you are as a parent, like, you don't want your kid doing anything just to appease you.

Like, ultimately, what we should want is for our kids to be doing what they do to serve the Lord and to love the Lord and to come closer to the Lord. And usually that wall that comes up is like, I'm done appeasing you. Do you have any cool stories of people from the LGBTQ community who you saw come to church and were very resistant maybe to the gospel or a traditional sexual ethic? that had a change of mind and heart. It was kind of like, wow, I didn't not expect that. Yeah. I mean, there's several. I mean, one of them, I'm not going to use any names,

but we had a trans person come to our church in Eugene. And biological male transism to female, so I'll use her pronouns, she her pronouns. She came with the sole intent to pick a fight with me. Really? And I knew it was coming. Like my buddy, who's her friend texted me, he's like, I made a mistake. He's like, she's coming to church and she hates God and she hates you.

Happy Sunday. Yeah, and so she came and sat in the back and just kind of scowled with her arms folded. And then I afterwards, me and this friend and her, we sat down and she, and I don't even remember when I was preaching that day, but for whatever I did, whatever I was doing during the sermon, I just saw her like posture just kind of like slowly. Oh really? Like kind of relaxed. And then we had a hour and a half long conversation of her throwing, you know,

every question in the book. Like aren't you killing LGBTQ people by not letting them be their authentic selves? Aren't you? How can you believe like that God is going to send people to hell? Every like atheist TikTok question that you could like imagine. And we just like I didn't, I spent a lot of it like not not trying to. to dodge questions, but like trying to find out why these were such a big deal to her. And I flat out asked, I was like, you don't believe what I believe. Like, why do you care what I

believe? And why is this, why are you so invested in these answers? And then we find out that there's church hurt in the background and homophobia when she came out to her parents. And and dude, like, that's the person who ended up like coming to church on a regular basis and doing sound. And we would, yeah, and we would do like once a week, dinner nights on Thursday nights and she would come and like our church just surrounded her and um you know there was no like oh i'm no longer she i'm he and i'm fixed and um but what there was was like crazy hostility towards faith and christ and and more and more openness every week and you know barna did a research i did a survey several years ago where they talked about most people started out hostile or

ambivalent towards the gospel and there's no middle ground like it's you're either like offended by it where you don't see that it has anything to offer your life. And they talked about the first step a person needs to go through to get from hostility to eventually becoming a friend of the Lord's is you need to meet a Christian you can trust. And once you meet a Christian you can trust, then you start getting curious about that Christian, and why they believe what they believe.

And then once you get curious, you become a little more open. You start asking questions about theology, and you start working that stuff out. And eventually you get to a point where they make a decision that they want to follow Jesus. but it starts meeting a trustworthy Christian. And what I loved about that example was it was like a textbook example.

I was seeing somebody go from total hostility to like trust and curiosity and openness. And it's beautiful. That's so great. We had another example. We had one one trans, non-binary person who came to our church. And that morning she was at the Eugene Pride Parade and saw people, some fundamentalist church in our city protesting the Pride Parade. the Pride parade saying awful, awful things and holding up horrific signs. And she came to church just weeping. Our church was at 1115. So it was a late service. She went from there to church

and showed me pictures of what they were, some of the signs and said. And she was like really anxious. And I just said, look, if it's not good for you to be here right now, that's okay. But you're safe here too. Like you can come and worship. And like I just that morning watching her lift her hands during worship, watching her leap during worship, watching her take communion afterwards. Like, it was just beautiful. And so, yeah, those are some cool stories that I cherish. Golly. And you, so you swim in pretty broad circles. You've got friends on very different theological perspectives on this conversation. Yes. Do you have, do you get, you have hard conversations, arguments, debates with some people much more conservative than you on this topic?

All the time. Tell me about that. Yeah. How do you have that? I think the biggest hangup that people have. And honestly, maybe you can help me with this. We'll see. They just can't get to a place where they can understand why somebody would be able to maintain, keep being same-sex attracted and wholeheartedly follow Jesus. And it doesn't matter how many times I'm like, when you got married, did God just like zap you for just this one person?

You never get attracted to it. No, I do. and like like but they still can't just like we had um before i got to this church great cole spoke in our church uh oh yeah several years ago and um and like they were talking to me about greg and they're just like it was so vague and unclear and i didn't understand yeah and i had this i'm like well i've never heard anything unclear about a great about so when i asked him what he met he was like well he referred to himself as like like it's still a gay christian and i just don't understand that and and i don't i also like i don't know that great guy i don't know that

actually said I'm a gay Christian, but I'm sure they saw this book. And we're just kind of assuming, which is on Greg for the book title or the publisher. But yeah, man, like that is such a hang up that I don't know. I don't know how to like. The term gay. The term gay. That God, there's still this belief that same-sex attraction is a category of temptation that must be healed and done away with.

Right. When, yeah, and I don't know, man. So that's one that I keep running into. I get run to, whenever I talk about the church needing to repent towards the LGBTQ community, that doesn't always go super well. That's like a whole two chapters in my book is that, you know, we're, if we are followers of Jesus, if we've heard the good news of the kingdom of God proclaimed, then we know that the only proper response to the proclamation of the kingdom and to believing the kingdom is to repent.

And we also know that like when we're looking at New Testament letters, like, whenever Paul's writing to Colossians or Corinthians, he's writing to a community, not to an individual person. So any call to repentance in those books is not a call to like one person to repent. It is like, unless he's other way specifies. It is a call for the community to repent. So I'll often say like, we have dropped the ball hard when it comes to the LGBTQ community. You might even say there's actual blood on our hands for how the church has treated LGBTQ people. And we are, we are culpable with that. And so the only proper response to that is to repent. but there's this hyper individualistic, well, I didn't say F-A-G to that person,

and I didn't kick the kid out of the home. And so why should I have to repent? And this feels like virtue signaling. So I get that pushback almost every time I talk about the will of repentance in a church, which is strange because repentance is all over the Bible. And like if you're reading the Bible, it shouldn't be weird to be expected to repent. But people get defensive. I think people interpret that as like a concession to being wrong or something like,

or it's like, yeah, dimming down our theological correctness, you know. Yeah. If, you know, people just assume like, yeah, that we're kind of apologizing for our theology or something rather than saying, you know, there are ways in which the church is active. They have been wrong. And you do not do that. It doesn't mean everything the church believes and does is wrong. Yeah, and we're not repenting for a theological stance.

Right. Like we're repenting for our behavior. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think about, I think about during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. And you had a lot of Catholics showing up to care for HIV infected people. You had a lot of mainline Christians showing up. You had a lot of, like, not just progressive ones.

Like, you just had a lot of, like, non-evangelical Christians showing up to provide care. And what was evangelical's posture towards people with HIV in the 80s was like, good. This is what God gives you. This is your plague for being sinful. And I hear that. And I'm just like, man, like, you got somebody who's dying a painful death. And, like, that's their opportunity to repent and come to know Jesus. And what they're hearing from people on TV and the news stations is, like, you're getting what you deserve.

Like, to me, I'm like, I wasn't alive in the 80s. I wasn't there for that. But if I have a queer person who comes to my church and they're terrified because that's their perception of me, I have a moral responsibility to say, I'm so sorry that that's how my family treated you. Like, you don't deserve that. That's something the church doesn't often understand is the deep history that the church has had with the LGBTQ community. And this conversation as a whole, it's not that long ago. We think the 80s are like so long, you know, but like there's people that went through that.

They lost loved ones or, you know, people through that whole thing and saw. They were there and heard and saw. the rhetoric from evangelical leaders saying, you know, good for you, you know, this is God's judgment, so whatever, you know, or like. Those people who latched onto that, like, they're still in our churches, a lot of them. Like, they're a lot older now. And they might not ever want to, like, never say that now. Like that was right, right, yeah.

But that. Those memories are still fresh. Yeah. And, man, like, I'm a part of a denomination that was like one of the first mega churches in the United States. And it's like, there is this. matter how hard we try in four square to like say like bigger is not always better like the big production does not mean the holy spirit's moving like there's nobody will ever up front say in fact

like a lot of our leaders up front would say like that's a secular metric of growth we're not cleaning to that like but there is still this thing in four square pastors that i think is unique to our movement where we're just like we want that big production we want the big lights we want the big buildings we want the thousands of people in our church because our founders drove a motorcycle down the aisle of the sanctuary up into the pulpit. And she was the first radio ministry preacher. Yeah. And I share that to say, like, the foundation of a thing determines a lot of the fruit

of the thing. There is, like, a lot of years and decades of not just, like, unintentional, like, misgivings towards the LGBTQ community, but active animosity and hatred and cruelty that doesn't just go away because we stopped saying. saying it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Like, that's not, it's not just zapped God. Yeah, yeah. It takes intentional work, and repentance is part of that work.

What do you think about the recent cultural shifts in the last two to three years? There's two that are interesting. One is, you know, I showed last night that teenagers identifying as something other than male and female. You know, it was kind of on the rise, on the rise, and their eyes really started to skyrocketing. get through COVID, and then 2023 reached a peak, and then now it's on a decline. And there's other stats that I didn't share last night, but that just LGBT, younger people identify as LGBTQ is down like 30% over the last like two, three years. And then you have a rise, it seems like, of very conservative, like a resurgence of what I would consider an unhealthy brand of

conservatism, fundamentalism, you know, that I, I thought was just waning out and is just going to die out. Now it seems to be making a resurgent. It's got the defibrillator for sure. Yeah. Oh, you've seen that too? Yeah. It's hard to measure percentage when you're looking at social media.

Because I don't know if it's like I'm just seeing certain videos that the algorithm sending my way. It isn't really representative. But you have some people in pretty high places. Washington, D.C. doing weird, saying weird stuff. I want to answer your question. But to your point. it's so funny. Chris told me not to talk about Charlie Kirk on the pod,

but I'm bringing up... When Charlie Kirk passed, I went to Texas two weeks after this memorial. And I've been to Texas, like, once. It is like, no disrespect to people from Texas. I know you got fired. But like, it is like, at least where I was at, like, very conservative.

And like, they found out that Kelsey and I lived in the Portland area. And it was just like, you. Why? Like, why are you doing that? Like, but they would talk about the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service, and they kept using this word, revival is breaking out. Like, did you see how many people watched Charlie Kirk's Memorial Service? Did you see how many people cared that he died? Like, revival is breaking out.

Like, the Lord is saving a generation of young people. To me, that is so telling. Because, like, Charlie Kirk, when he was alive, was not primarily an evangelist. Didn't consider himself primarily an evangelist. Like, you could have any appearance. any one about Charlie Kirk, but his main goal was not the advancement of the kingdom of God. Like it was, it was,

he himself was a Christian who had a politicized agenda, and I think people are getting confused, and they're seeing what Charlie Kirk was doing as, like, as completely equal to the advancement of the kingdom of God. And when young people are angry and hurt and grieving, that somebody who spoke

their language was horrifically murdered, like, that is being interpreted as a sign that because you have a belief in conservatism, you now a belief in the kingdom of God. So to go back to your question, like, what do you do with these stats of, you know, there's a big dip in people identifying as trans or some sort of trans expression? There's, like, two ways to think about it.

Like, there's one way where I'm like, and this is where I'm, the more hopeful way, this is where I'm like a lot of, a lot of, like, what we were asked to accept and believe about, like, postmodern gender theory. Yeah. There's just a lot of it required you to turn off your brain. I mean, I texted you just the other day. but like Kelsey and I were adopting and and we were having to do a training on LGBT, the importance of LGBTQ affirming households.

Yeah. Which was fun. And the lady, I remember on there like somebody, somebody throughout the question was just like, you know, for those of us who were hoping to adopt younger kids, like three or four years old, this probably won't be as much of an issue. And the lady was doing the training, she said, actually, kids as young as two or three, like they start showing interest in being another gender at that age

and it's really important that you dress them the way that two or three years old they don't even know how to use the toilet like so like there's a sense or just like this is nonsense and I don't mean to be unkind but like

it's like this is crazy so what you hope the most hopeful possibilities of people realizing that it's like I think we out of fear because we were told if you don't just accept this they're going to kill themselves

it's like out of fear of people we love dying, we're just going to accept it all and just roll with it. I think some of the anxiety is toned down. And when anxiety tones down, critical thinking comes back. And so there's that version of it. There's another way you could look at it and you can say, what else is happening right at the 2023, 2024 shift is Donald Trump gets reelected. He has an ability to empower his supporters to say the quiet part out loud. He says a really robust, blunt, unconstitutional. kind thing and then whoever's following him feels permission to go 10 times above whatever he said

and say even worse. So the scary version of this is that maybe it's that people are going back into hiding and they're afraid. I was just thinking about that. And they're just like, oh, well, dad is now like he's got Fox News on 24-7 and Trump is like just whatever, whatever Trump's doing, said something that now my dad's acting even more aggressive than Trump and it's not safe for me to come out. And so that's what you don't want. You don't want it to be like people are scared and they're hiding again. So those are like, I mean, you might know of a third way, but those are kind of the two ways. I think that's both. I mean, I definitely, you know, when you have these massive shifts and percentages of people identifying and younger people especially, I mean, there's obviously

some cultural influence there, you know, when culture changes and, you know, influence changes. But yeah, I was just thinking the other day, I mean, it does seem like that kind of like really aggressive, unkind brand of conservatism. And I'm not obviously saying conservatism is. but there's our voices that, you know, for a while, I think they felt like they didn't have a voice. And now they do have a voice. You can stay out loud. Like, yeah, I don't think women should vote, you know? And like that's like, apparently, you know, like of you now, you know, like the non-war against Iran.

I mean, it's just a nail in the coffin. It's like, 81% of America is like, and we're about to face probably an economic crisis with the oil, which affects everything. and I mean, it's, you know, they killed the spiritual, they used Christian rhetoric to kill a spiritual leader in a Muslim leader in Iran. And you think that that's like, you're starting a holy war, dude. It is, it is. I heard John Mark Comer say this once, but what you're seeing on the right is what it looks like when the right secularizes.

So it's, it is the same level of you just turn your brain off if you want to be somebody who reads the Bible and then can think that that's like a Christian thing to do, you have to just turn off critical thinking skills. Right. And you hope that as anxiety goes down, critical thinking skills can come back. But I was curious for you, in what ways do you see like political, the politicizing LGBTQ issues? How is that negatively affecting the church's ability to do ministry with LGBT people? It's huge. It's huge. Because because, because, Because political viewpoints are getting so polarized, so compartmentalized, so us versus them. And yeah, the LGBTQ conversation is one of those lightning rod issues that each side will latch on to to demonize the other side.

You know, as they said yesterday, right? Like, you know, the left will say, you know, the right is just a bunch of bigots and homophobic, transphobic people that are killing trans kids, you know. And then the left, the right will say, you know, you're transing our kids and pushing for males and female spaces. And there's truth that some, I mean, those do exist, you know. But when you, if that's all you're hearing, you're not actually talking to real people, most of whom don't fit those extremes within the LGBT community. They don't, yeah, I think you're disciple to operate out of fear and anger instead of out of love. And you are being disciple. Yeah.

I mean, anytime you open up your phone or whatever, that is a discipleship practice because it's forming and shaping your heart, whether toward or away from Jesus. And I, dude, like, I'm so aware of this. Like, I think about all the time. And I feel it. Yeah. I feel it. I'll listen to a voice, you know, just to kind of, because I like to listen to lots of

different voices just to kind of say, okay, what's going on in political world, you know? And I'm like, oh, if I actually, like, put my allegiance into this voice and, like, trusted them, dude that would be yeah I would be so angry at the people that you know this person is against you know and everything so us versus them and so yeah I don't know I talked a bunch of pastors in Minneapolis a few weeks ago we talked about this and we kind of all cumulatively said we think this is the heart of the challenge de-politicizing the conversation when you know you can preach three hour long sermons on Sunday and it still can't compete with the 15 hours of social media and news and stuff that they're in podcasts that they're absorbing throughout the week.

How do we undo the entrenched politicalization of not just, I mean, I think we were we talking about immigration. It was in Minneapolis. So I think it was kind of like, gosh, people were just reading the situation in Minneapolis through the lens of their political pundit in how they're, you know, And it really came to light when we're watching the same videos of people getting shot, you know, you know. And two people interpreting it completely differently. It was wild, it was a wild psychological experiment. Like, like, oh no, because I'm like, wait, we're looking at the same car, right? We're sitting like, no, no, this, you know, and they're interpreted it radically differently.

We're spinning it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, well, I can predict who you voted. for based, you know, on both, you know, on both sides, I guess. But so it's just, it's just, it's just the thickness of the lenses we have on in which we're trying to interpret these cultural issues, including in LGBTQ questions. It's, it's, I don't know how, we all know the base problem. I just don't know how to undo it.

See, you'll tell people like, yeah, yeah, I need to stay out of social media or whatever. Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know how to reverse it. Do you thought? I think, I think the more. the more interpersonal and relational you can get. The more you prioritize, like, telling stories, the more that it's normalized that there are people in your church

or resisting same-sex attraction or fighting and experiencing gender dysphoria. Like, the more that that's just normal and not weird and, like, novel, like, I think that that all of a sudden opens doors for, like, really humanizing conversations. Contact with real people. Yeah. Yeah.

I also think, man, like, if you're watching this and you're like, you're a progressive side or your conservative side, like, just get rid of the anxiety firestorm of politics and, like, approach, like, LGBTQ conversations just through the lens of Jesus and scripture. Like, that, like, even if, even if you, like, land theologically different than me, that fixes so much. Like, this is, this is one of those issues where, um, at least for the church, like, as far as it's our business, like, I don't know. I think there's this book called The Four Disciplines of Execution. And one of the things, have you read it?

No. It's pretty good. One of the things they talk about is like, if you want to make any big change in your organization, you have to ask the simple question, like, what's the one thing that would change everything? And when I look at the LGBTQ conversation, if we can just stop thinking about things as a left versus right conversation, that's the one thing that would change everything. Like that would fix so much. And I spend probably 100 pages in my book.

having that conversation. No, you do. That's woven throughout. That's good, yeah. Tony, yeah, I could talk to you for hours, man, but... Well, let's keep talking after this. Yeah, that's going to be out. It's good grab a beer.

Your book again is Love All Your Neighbors. What's the subtitle? Love all our neighbors. How Churches that hold a traditional sexual ethic can care for their LGBTQ neighbors. It's a really, really good book. Encourage people to check it out. Thanks, Tony, for being on The Al Genoa, yet again. I don't know what number this is, but...

I'm coming for Evan Wickham's numbers. Like, I'm going to beat him. Thanks, Tony.