Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1102: A Raw Conversation with Katie McCoy, John Hammett, and Dr. Marc Cortez

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Dr. John Hammett is the John L. Dagg Senior Professor of Systematic Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1995. Dr. Katie McCoy serves as director of Women’s Ministry at Texas Baptists (Baptist General Convention of Texas). She holds a Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where she previously served on faculty. Katie and John are co-authors of the book Humanity (releases Sept. 1, 2023) with B&H Academic.  Dr. Marc Cortez is a professor of Theology at Wheaton college and an expert on the topic of theological anthropology, which is the topic that we discuss in this conversation. We begin by talking about what theological anthropology is, why it’s important, and then we interact with why theological anthropology is important for understanding philosophical and theological issues related to transgender identities and questions related to AI.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I have three guests on the show today. Dr. John Hammett, who is the John Dagg Senior Professor of Systematic Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Katie McCoy, who serves as Director of Women's Ministry at Texas Baptist General Convention of Texas. She holds a PhD from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where she previously served on faculty. Katie and John are co-authors of a really important work on theological anthropology called Humanity, which releases September 1st from B&H Academic. Also joining us is Dr. Mark Cortez, who is a professor of theology at Wheaton College. All three of my guests are experts in what is called theological anthropology. And this show is all about theological anthropology,

why it's important, and some of the contemporary ethical questions that theological anthropology, having a robust theological anthropology, would help serve us to address. So please welcome to the show the ones and the ones and only Dr. John Hammett, Dr. Katie McCoy, Dr. Mark Cortez. Katie, John, and Mark, it's so good to have all of you on the show. Mark, you've been on at least once, I think once. And Katie and John, it's good to meet you for the first time. So thank you all for coming on Theology in a Row. Thanks for having us.

Let's just go around. And again, I'm not sure how to manage the best way to organize this, but who are you and how did you get into, I guess, theology in particular and theological anthropologies more specifically? We'll start with you, Katie, I guess. Sure. So I did my doctorate in systematic theology and my dissertation focused on Old Testament laws about how women's bodies were treated in Old Testament culture, and then comparing that to other ancient Near Eastern legal codes and intersection of feminist studies, women's studies, theological issues. That's kind of been my niche. And then from there, not only was teaching at the seminary, at Southwestern Seminary, but then now I've moved, I've been for the last two years, of women's ministry for a state convention called Texas Baptist. So I'm getting

to take all of this stuff that I was teaching at the academic level and then being able to bring it to the women in the pew. And that's really exciting. They are hungry for just as much depth as at seminary. You know, what's funny is I've talked to several women who have gone to like women's Bible studies and it's always like this real niche, like how to be a better wife or how to be a godly woman rather than just a godly person or whatever. And it's like, can we, can we study theology? Can we look at wrestle with like, you know, the stuff, all the guys next door wrestling with. So, uh, that's, that's awesome. Yeah. I think that'll, that'll definitely scratch an itch. Uh, real quick. Can you give us a snapshot of your dissertation? Cause that sounds really fascinating. I didn't know that was your, your topic, um, the role of women's bodies,

how they're treated in the old Testament. So, uh, covered the, uh, period laws, pregnancy laws, sexual assault laws, the, um the so-called trial by ordeal in numbers, and then slandered bride in Deuteronomy, and essentially looked at how within this patriarchal or patricentrist culture, it showed that biblical law demonstrated these hedges of protection for already vulnerable women. And in some cases, situations where something should not have happened, like sexual assault, to protect them from being even further exploited. And it was so fascinating. There are things in biblical law that modern Western law has only recently caught up with when you're looking at how this worked out

in society. It's just magnificent. So much so, by the way, that there was a German higher critical theologian in the 20th century who studied the law of the captive word bride in Deuteronomy, I think it's 21. And she converted to Christ. She went from theology as an academic study to loving the Lord Jesus. She said, this God cared for this type of woman that everyone else would have forgotten and exploited. That's the God that I want to know. It was amazing. That's that – sorry.

We could take – we could spend a whole podcast on this. So that's the passage with the woman is if you go in and you conquer your enemy and you see a woman that is delightful in your eyes you can take her home she mourns for 30 days which is usually taken as the pinnacle of misogyny uh you're saying in the ancient context it's the exact opposite so much of why we end up coming to the old testament with that lens is because we are western hyper-individualists reading a collectivist culture, ancient Near Eastern text, and we have to sort of take our glasses off, put on different glasses, so to speak, and understand the lens through which we are supposed to read an ancient Near Eastern legal code. And when we do that, essentially when we culturally translate it, we find that it is completely different than everything we would think in our Western individualist minds. And really what I'll tell you is that the law reveals the lawgiver.

And so we are seeing the heart, the ethical values of God himself and his law is perfect. So how do we approach it from that angle? What are we not understanding? And it ends up being just a big moment for a lot of women. That's fascinating. I've appreciated Sandy Richter's work on, I mean, a lot of those passages too. Okay, but we weren't supposed to talk about that,

but that's fascinating. I would encourage people to check out your work. John, tell us a bit about who you are and how you got into theology and theological anthropology. Well, sure. In terms of background, my first interest of error was ecclesiology. And I did it through working with college students. College students were involved in peer church groups. I said, what's the influence of the church for college students? So I got involved in ecclesiology and did my dissertation on pure church groups and ecclesiology, how they relate to those two topics.

Then about 15 years ago, my colleagues here at Southeastern said I ought to work in the area of theological anthropology for counselors. Because counselors counsel people, they have good theology of people. So he encouraged me to work in that area. So I began working in the area of theological anthropology, our topic we talked about. And that's what the Bible says about humans. So I just began working through the chapter of Genesis and those that were created. We're in the image of God, created male and female, created the Word, created a complex constitution, created four communities, all those different categories. And so I began working

through that until I got into the book that Katie and I wrote together. Awesome. That's great. Fantastic. Mark, my audience might be familiar with your recent podcast, but give us another update on who is Mark Cortez. You've done a lot of youth work in the past as well. Yeah, I actually think it's interesting. There's a bit of a common theme here with respect to kind of our gateway into theology, whether it's women or college students, or for me, it was youth ministry. Kind of early on, I caught a vision that discipling

middle school and high school students required encouraging them to think deeply and well theologically. It was kind of dissatisfying a lot of the approaches to youth ministry. So even while I was preparing to be a youth pastor, that was my first career. My undergraduate degree was actually in systematic theology with a minor in Greek. And I very much valued that theological training for doing youth ministry. That's then also my gateway into theological anthropology. Once I realized that there actually is an entire doctrine that thinks about what it means to be human. And then kind of the subcategories of that, who am I? Why am I here? What am I for? What's up with this body that God gave me? How should I understand myself as a sexual being?

I'm like, oh, this is just what I do as a youth pastor, like all the time. I would say theological anthropology is a doctrine for youth pastors. Oh, okay. I want to come back to that. That's fascinating. Okay. I want to dive into theological anthropology. But does anybody notice something really terrible about our screens and our backgrounds?

My complementarian audience is going to love this. The three men have these massive libraries, and then Katie, you're in the kitchen. Like, why did you do that? I'm sorry. I just think it's hilarious. I'm obviously not my little apartment this is the best place i've got my desk here is facing the living room and so what you're seeing behind me is yeah it's hilarious okay so uh complementarianism aside um whoever wants to jump in, can we just give a, what is theological anthropology?

I think most people know what anthropology is, the study of mankind. They know what theology is. They can probably, you know, figure it out what it means, but what is theological anthropology? And then, you know, we can add like, why is it important for Christians today? Mark, you made a really provocative statement that this is a doctrine for youth leaders in particular. So yeah, what is theological anthropology? Why do we need to study it? Kind of pick up from there. I mean, I obviously would expand it, but beyond, it's not just for youth pastors, although I think it is, there is a particular connection there that I find really intriguing.

So maybe I'll let John talk about kind of what it is. I'll do this a little bit backwards. What I do want to say is kind of who it's for. I think anybody who is seeking to work with other people, really in any context, but particularly if you're seeking to work with people in a situation where you're trying to form those people in a particular way. So parenting, counseling, coaching, teaching, discipleship, pastoring, kind of any of those settings where you're seeking to intentionally form another human person in a particular way, you are doing so whether you're aware of it or not. You're doing

so according to an anthropology. There's some vision of what it means to be human and how we flourish as humans that's at work behind the kind of thing that you're doing as you're seeking to form this person or these people that you're working with. So anybody who's doing that sort of thing in any context, I think is somebody who should be interested in theological anthropology. Interesting. That's good. Yeah.

John. For me, the entree for me was counselors who said, we need a book about what it means to be human. And so for me, theological anthropology is drawing what the Bible says about what it means to be human. And it's just fascinating to me that the first two chapters of Genesis

gives, I think, the major categories. They were creatures, made in God's image, made male and female, created to be workers for community, with a complex constitution, but then were fallen, so we're not today as we were. So all those categories are the categories for theological anthropology. Okay, good, good. Katie, anything to add? Yeah, I would just say there's no disconnected doctrine.

So whatever we are forming in our theological anthropology, there's some connections to our Christology, our doctrine of Christ, and even the things that John was talking about, community, well, that affects how we understand our ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church, and even our doctrine of, well, we don't have a doctrine of political. Well, yeah,

political theology. That would be another one. What is our responsibility to other people? And so the theological anthropology you've got, it's going to have these offshoots of how it affects other ways that we understand doctrine, even why God created us. What is it? Not only what does it mean to be human, but then as we're talking about our own sanctification, but how does that connect with our humanity? We're not just talking about our spiritual formation, our whole life formation, including the formation of the body, the value of the body, we're going to be resurrected bodies. How does that all connect?

And also, how does it connect to our other doctrines that sometimes we might take for granted that we understand, but not understand necessarily how they inform our doctrine of humanity? And it seems like, I mean, today, so many questions that people are asking or not asking, but should be asking are somehow living at the intersection of human identity, right? And if our starting point is we have a creator God who, he tells us who we are, and that's our starting point. I mean, that has massive ramifications for, I mean, you know, whenever we hear the word identity, we automatically go to sexual or gender identities, but even like our, yeah, our political identity, like, no, God tells us where our allegiance lies

or even what we do with our bodies and say, I mean, it's just, there's so many ripple effects to when you start thinking about human identity and our creator God being the ultimate foundation and source behind all those questions. That really is a shift, a challenge to what I think many people are thinking today. Disabilities. People with disabilities. Disability, yeah.

It's also dignity, yeah. Yeah. So your book, Humanity, by the way, I do like the title. I know some of you were a little nervous about just humanity. Boom, done. That's the title of the book. But you interact with scholarship. It's heavily footnoted. Obviously, you're both scholars, so you're interacting with stuff on a high level. But it's extremely readable and very practical. That's one thing that I was... That's such a hard combination, really. It's something I try to do and it's just, it's a lot more difficult than people realize. Who's this book written for? Is it, I mean, was that obviously that was intentional to make it readable for all

kinds of people, but also doing careful scholarship? Who is your target kind of audience for this book? Well, Mark said that anybody that's just seeking to form persons. And so, yeah, first of all, primary audience would be, again, our students that we teach on a daily basis. But then beyond that, congregations, the women that Katie works with, youth pastors like Mark was, counselors, those that seek to help other people. I hope it is readable, accessible for a wide audience. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. Let's just dive in to some of these practical questions.

What are some of the modern practical, ethical questions that you address in the book and you feel like are important questions that people are asking today that should require a robust

theological anthropology to address? I mean, you address a lot of them, but what are some ones that really stand out to you? Well, probably the hottest right now is transgender. So I'll let Katie address that more. She's done more work in that area, but that's probably the hottest single issue that relates to theological anthropology today. Okay. Yeah. So start off with a big one. All right, Katie. Yeah, Katie, I know you've done particular work on this area. Maybe even begin with like, what are some questions we should even be asking when we're asking about what does it mean to be or what does it mean to identify as transgender? I mean, that just raises a lot of philosophical, theological questions. And I do want to let me just acknowledge up front, I know all of us will agree on this.

There's philosophical and theological questions that are extremely important. There's also loads of relational questions or sensitivities that we should have when we go about it. So I think, you know, by beginning, by thinking through this on a philosophical theological level, we're not doing so to the exclusion of hardcore, thorough, gracious relationships. I do think, I think any Christian should agree, like our theological understanding should be foundational to how we respond relationally to any kind of sensitive issue. So yeah, Katie, tell us, how did you approach this question in the book? I think the biggest approach that we can begin with is what is the significance of the body? And from the beginning, from Genesis 1 and 2,

we see that not only are humanity embodied, but embodied in a different yet corresponding way. And so I see so much of the gender conversation being almost like taking for granted that, yes, I have a body, but that's not really very important about me. What is the defining aspect of who I am is this not only inner sense or self-perception, but then how I want to relate. And that's something that we see all throughout gender studies is that gender is relationally confirmed. If you're going to present yourself as someone of a different gender, there's a, I forget the scholar who talked presenting myself, I'm looking for someone else to validate that and interact or confirm how I am understanding myself. So I think one of the fallacies that we have at work today in our culture is that it is exclusively individual,

because if that were the case, then why would it be so troubling for someone to not be affirmed or to not be able to present according to their preferred or internally felt gender? But then a lot of that also, we cannot talk about this without talking about gender stereotypes. And this is where I think the church has such an opportunity to separate what is biblical and what is cultural. Because when you take away cultural stereotypes, whether we're talking about how someone behaves, has their hair, the colors that they like to wear. When you take that away and you ask, well, then what is the substance of gender? If you don't take away feelings and stereotypes, we have to have a conversation about the body. And one of the things that I loved diving into, it was just like,

it was like going into a labyrinth was the myriad of ways that male and female are different that have nothing to do with reproduction. Essentially, maleness, femaleness, and then manhood, womanhood, they are irreducibly complex. And these biological complexities inform behavioral actions as well. We can't separate that. We can't separate the brain and the body from gender actions or gendered behaviors. And what I find the most helpful is Genesis 1 and 2, we've got, and we all, don't we all just spend like half of everything when we're talking about that, just the creation narrative. But in Genesis 1, we've got two Hebrew words describing male and female. And it's essentially describing how they relate to the rest of God's creation. They are sexual beings,

they are biologically formed, and there's a male one and a female one, just like there are other animals, male and a female one. Genesis 2, that relational retelling of the creation story, we've got a different name for the Lord. We've got a different name from God. He's not Elohim, he's Yahweh. And then we have different names for human beings. It's no longer the words used for male and female. It's the words used for man and woman. And I think what we see with that is not only how they relate to creation in Genesis 1, how they relate to each other in Genesis 2. So if we were going to put it in common parlance, I think Genesis 1 gives us sex, Genesis 2 gives us gender. And we see the connection between biological sex and gender identity, the intent being that they

are distinct aspects of who we are, but not necessarily, we can't say that they are divisible aspects of who they are. God created these aspects to be fully integrated holes and our sex, our gender one informs or the sex informs the gender, the gender expresses the sexual differentiation. And so from the creation narrative, I think we have essentially everything we need to build that foundation. Now, of course, in our culture today, that's very complicated because of some underlying presuppositions when we come to that conversation.

But if we're just looking at this from a theological lens, I think it's the genius of the Holy Spirit that he's given us everything we need, even for this cultural moment, to understand how to make sense of the confusion that we're seeing. And I would say that false dichotomy of sex and gender. 117 questions for you. I'll try to get to you. So can you clarify for our audience, I know what you're saying about sex and gender. Can you clarify what those two terms mean? Because some people use them interchangeably. If you're male, that's your sex, that's your gender, but you made a distinction between

sex and gender in, in the broader conversation. The distinction is, well, I would say people who talk about sex being different than gender aren't usually consistent. Sometimes they'll use the term gender in distinction to sex. Other times they conflate the two and it gets utterly confusing. In fact, it's a habit of mine when I read books on this topic to kind of take their definition of gender and then lift it and then whatever they use the term gender to just insert their definition. And it's hilarious because half the time it doesn't make any sense. So wait, tell us, what do you mean when you were making a distinction between sex and gender? And that's fascinating that, um, I have another question about the different Hebrew words there. Yeah. So, um, it, in some sense I'm using

common vernacular and how our, our culture tends to divide them. They shouldn't be divided. If you are a male in Genesis 1, you're a man in Genesis 2. If you're a female in Genesis 1, you're a woman in Genesis 2. So what I'm trying to say is they are not divisible, but distinct. And so sex refers to your biological maleness or femaleness, specifically, if we're going to put it in terms of like Abigail Favale or Jay Buderzewski, it's the role that you play in reproduction. I think Paul McHugh was the psychologist who he was talking about this as well. It's just whatever your role in the reproductive process would be, whether you are donating or gestating genetic material, that's reflecting your biological sex. Our gender is something that if we were to lift ourselves and

go to another country or another era, we would find that perhaps it's expressed differently, but there's still only two. Debra So in her book, I think it's The End of Gender, she talks about this, that there might be different cultural gender expressions, but there's still only two. And your biology drives you to identify with the one that corresponds with your biological sex. Gender is essentially not only how we understand and perceive ourselves, but it's how we relate. It's how we relate in our marriages, in our other, really all relationships. And it was John Paul II, I think, who described it this way, that essentially masculinity is confirmed in femininity. It is the facing of the other that brings the understanding of the self, not only what is corresponding, but then what is different as well. And we need the contrast of another gender, not only to understand who we are, but then who we are not.

Okay. Wow. Yeah. So I think the tightest definition I've read that I typically use is the psychological, social, and cultural aspects of being male and female. That's kind of vague, opens up lots of questions, but I mean, I think it brings out the point. So you're saying that the Hebrew terms male and female in Genesis 1 are referring to biological sex, the structures of human nature as they pertain to systems of reproduction, which makes sense because the very next command is be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth and 128, right? So in the Genesis two, you have man and woman,

which captures more kind of the, not an either or, but how these two biologically sexed creatures interact with, are interacting with each other on on a more social level that's interesting the man being the ish the woman being the ishah so comes from the ish is related to the ish is in every way connected to the ish but is still not the ish and so we we see that that relational connectedness and then that that brings us to other questions that have been more, uh, common in evangelical circles about how those two relate.

Yeah, sure. Pre all of that, uh, which is, which is to be where it's, where it's focused. Uh,

D uh, John, Mark, anything to add right now? I'm sure you guys have lots of thoughts right now. I've, I've got other questions. I was going to jump in,

but didn't want to dominate what you said earlier on that, that this should also be fleshed out and how we relate to these people and so one thing i really appreciate you preston is in your books you mentioned these are my friends i write these books thinking about how i relate to my friends and so i really appreciate that about you and want to to focus on that uh that the trans community has the highest rate of suicide of any group in the world. And so just recognizing the pain they feel, the answers that we give must be just clothed with sympathy and compassion and mercy. And so all that Katie has said there, I would affirm. But saying those things, understanding that the pain they feel of gender dysphoria is not an illusion.

It's not something they desire. It's something that the pain they feel of gender dysphoria is not an illusion. It's not something they desire. It's something that they feel very deeply. And so I want to recognize the brokenness of the life around us and just respond in light of that. Yeah, that's helpful. That's helpful. I want to – let me try to – because, I mean, I think a lot of us, we're around similar, if not same pages on a lot of this stuff. So I want to try to represent maybe alternative viewpoints that I'm sure we've had to wrestle with. So I can see a case. In fact, I have friends that are saying, yes, yes, I agree with everything you're saying. But they would also say, we also have Genesis 3, where some ofational designs get, get skewed. And in most cases, one's biological sex

and their, you know, sex does lead to kind of gendered behavior. I want to come back to that too, because that, that raises some questions. Um, but through the fall, sometimes things get crossed over, crossed up. Sometimes things don't work out right. And is it, is it philosophically, philosophically possible for somebody to have their body to be biologically, for instance, male, but their brain to be more wired female? And the body-brain question still does interest me on many levels. I use the illustration, and I don't think this is scientifically possible yet, but if I, since Katie, you're the one female here, and I don't think this is scientifically possible yet, but like if I, since Katie, you're the one female here, like if I took my brain out of my head and put it into your head

and you took your brain and put it in my head, like which one are you? Like, did I go with my brain into your body? So now I am Preston in a female body or do I stay this body without my Preston brain? But now I have Katie's brain and which one is me, which one is you, you know? And people could, people could say, well, that's, that's impossible. I'm like, well, that's not really the point. The point is to kind of maybe at least, at least reveal the complexity of body brain relationships as it pertains to personhood. Do you have any thoughts on this? I mean,

I have my own kind of counter rebuttal to what I just said. Preston, I want to say that I did toy with that thought, because the reality of fallenness, we usually say our bodies as being fallen, but our brains could be fallen too. The problem could be that way. So I thought about that, and what kind of

kept me from going completely in that direction is a couple of biblical commands about glorifying God with your body. And so I don't see how I have no option to reject my body. I have no option to say, I don't think this body should be my body. I should try to completely change it

and those types of things. And so that kind of offer your body as a living sacrifice, those types of things. And so I think there's a connection between me and my body. I don't think we can say, well, my body's wrong. So I toyed with the idea there that maybe what's performed is not my body but my mind, but I can't see any way of rejecting my body.

Yeah, good. Katie, Mark? So fascinating question because, because yeah it is that it's uh well i don't think we'll get to brain transplants but we are hearing about uh womb transplants uterine transplants and things that you know at what point does someone have the makeup of femaleness so i've got several things but first let me say so when we're talking about neurology and obviously none of us are neurologists, but, but for one thing that we can say that the neurologists have told us, there's not a male brain and a female brain in terms of

there's a male brain part and female brain part. We speak about it in terms of comparative language. So female brains tend to, male brains are more or have stronger, whatever, gray matter, white matter, all of that. So the other factor, and this is where I think it shows the complexity of the human being that God created it to be, is that even if we were to take our brains and switch them, we still have two factors that we wouldn't be able to account for. One is the impact of hormones and the endocrinology of the human system ends up driving behavior, even in the womb, like beginning in the eighth week in the womb. So hormones end up influencing gendered behavior. And of course, we know that there can be all sorts of hormonal irregularities or in people with intersex conditions or

development disorders and all that. So there's, there's that aspect of as well, where the body truly can be broken, but at the same time, how do we know it's broken? Well, we're talking about it in terms of what, what the ideal is. So in other words, there is an ideal. And that's how we know when something has left that or is an aberration to that, whether we're talking medically or psychologically. And then the second thing, not only hormones, is neuroplasticity. And this is where we can't separate brain behavior, sex, gender, is that neuroplasticity plays such a significant role. Some of these studies done among trans-identifying young people, it's giving you a snapshot, it's giving you a moment what that MRI might show in their brain patterns, but it doesn't necessarily account for neuroplasticity.

That one of the greatest ways that you can change the mapping and wiring of your brain is what you believe in what you do. And again, this speaks to just the complexity and the fearful and wonderful way that God has made us. We can identify, again, we can distinguish distinguish but it's nearly impossible to divide how do we divide the neurological self from the physical self we can't and and it's part of it's part of the magnificence of being a human being yeah that's a great response one more thing okay i had one more thing in a press in terms of dealing with people

recognizing that we're not asking them to conform to a cultural stereotype of maleness and femaleness. Yeah. Yeah. Again, scripture does not say male thou shalt be aggressive, female thou shalt be submissive, male you should be dominant. Those things aren't in scripture. So we're not asking them to conform to cultural stereotypes of maleness and femaleness. Yeah. The stereotype thing, that is, I want to be careful here. I think that is a very significant part of understanding certain ideologies surrounding the trans conversation. And I always use the plural ideologies because i mean i'm just

off the top of my head i could think of maybe like eight trans friends of mine's that every single one has a different way of thinking through this you know there's no one you know and so you we just can't take like you know the what is a woman documentary and think that every trans person is thinks they're a wolf or something you know whatever they you know um so um the so that what i mean the the stereotypes like if if if you were gonna say just again we're talking on a philosophical level here i am male but i i identify as female or something if you were gonna tease out what does that mean what does that look like how do you know you know it's almost impossible to articulate that without falling into stereotypes. And this is something I have, you know, a chapter in my book

on, you know, it's really sad, actually, like quotes from parents that had trans kids and they were encouraging social and then hormonal transitioning for their kids. And the way they explained how they knew their kid was trans was all stereotypes. Like, oh, my son, he runs like a girl and he likes long hair. And so obviously he's not a boy i'm like oh my gosh like and the feminists are just pulling their hair out because they're like we worked over a century to say you don't need there's no such thing as running like a girl or throwing like a girl or you know one brain scientist who was trying to be progressive talked about you know if you if your brain has the emotional state of a

woman, then you, your brain might be female, even if it's in the male body. I'm like, say that out loud, emotional state of a woman. Like, what does that mean? This episode is sponsored by Hello Fresh. With Hello Fresh, you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. So you can skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable, which is why HelloFresh is America's number one meal kit. Now, as always, I like to make sure a product is something I can personally promote before we advertise it on Theology NRL. So just the other day, my wife ordered a HelloFresh meal just to see how it works. And I'll say it was incredibly easy to order. It took her less

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Shipping. That's a great deal. Again, HelloFresh.com forward slash 50 T-I-T-R. When people say sex and gender, what's the phrase you use, Katie? Indivisible or... Distinct but not divisible. Distinct but not... Yeah. So sex should or does lead to gendered behavior. These are questions that I see people, are we talking like, if you're a male, you will have a certain pattern of gendered social expression behavior? Then my question is, what happens when they don't? Does that mean they're not a male? If a male does act more feminine, is he no longer a male? And then it's like, now we're coming full circle and undercutting the very thing we're trying to say that our bodies determine whether you're male or not.

So like i hear it typically it's like conservative political pundits that talk about this conversation and think they're smart and there's probably a few names people already know who i'm referring to but i'm like the you know sex and gender can be divided i'm like i don't know if you've really thought through that very carefully because what does that mean does that mean every feminine male is no longer male? And why are they feminine? What does it mean to be feminine? Yeah.

I don't know where I found it. I'd have to look it up. But there was some study that demonstrated that neurologically, in terms of brain behaviors, that a homosexual man who essentially would have more feminine behaviors or characteristics still has more in common with a straight man than he does a woman. Okay. Um, because the,

and again, that gets into, there's just so much wrapped up in that. You've got socialization, neuroplasticity, hormonal structure, all of that. It's,

it's just a myriad of ways that we are so complex. But this is also where, when you're talking about stereotypes, this is also where I've ruffled a few feathers with this because my definition of biblical womanhood is a biological female who follows God in all of her life and relationships. How dare you, Katie? Be a female. And as you are obeying God, he's going to work out what that is.

So for instance, a very aggressive type A, whatever you want to say, personality of a female in marriage. And again, we could talk about like just different interpretations of Ephesians five and its implications, but let's take true complementarian view that real type a aggressive. I don't care if she's a roller derby and girl, she still can choose to submit herself to her husband because she is not taking on a persona or an attitude or a disposition per se. She is willing to obey God in her relationships. And that will express itself according to her personality in her actions. The other thing to look at too, you've got,

can men and women both be kind, meek, gentle, strong, bold, courageous? Of course. But then is it possible that those characteristics can express themselves differently according to their biological makeup? And I would say that's true as well. But spelling out those differences in concrete ways is very, very difficult. I was helped by Mark Cortez, our other guest here, who had a phrase, agnostic gender essentialism. I think there's some gender differences. If you ask me to spell them out, I'll be somewhat agnostic on that. Mark, yeah, you're kind of the master Yoda in this topic.

I know you've thought through this we've talked about it and it's it's i think we've landed on it's complex you know these are we need to keep asking good questions and i feel like we need to have all the black and white answers yeah well i mean as you i mean as we're all aware one of the the tricky things whenever we kind of move from biological sexuality which at least in viewed in certain ways is a little bit more kind of discreet and objective, although there's, of course, an increasingly significant conversation about various intersex conditions that would be waiting for us if we went down that road much further. But if we kind of restrict ourselves for that most people, biologically speaking,

being male and female is relatively straightforward. Mapping that onto the more kind of gendered performative identity conversations around gender is much more complicated because of all the kind of individual, cultural, historical kind of diversities that we've been alluding to here. And so what John's talking about is I did a paper at a conference a while back where I was trying to wrestle through some of these issues. And should we talk then about gender as being entirely culturally constructed, even if there are these kind of fundamental biological differences, but maybe the ways in which people perform their maleness and femaleness in the world is entirely a social construct and is going to be completely varied. And there are no kind of direct connections

between my biological maleness and my cultural performance of that in a particular way right so kind of a purely constructivist notion or a more kind of classically essentialist view where no my biological maleness does lead to very direct differences in how i perform as a male in the world that how my wife performs as a female world um and as i was kind of sifting through that, I realized I'm kind of nervous about the constructivist, like a purely constructivist view. Partly, actually, at some point, I want to get back to where Katie started all this and needing to have robust theology of the body at work in this conversation.

And I feel like if we're not careful, down that road lies a devaluation of the significance of my body for basically everything that I do. And if I have a body, in fact, a male body, then it just has to make a difference for the way that I operate in the world in some way. But everything we've been talking about raises significant questions about some of the straightforward links that more conservative approaches make between biological sexuality and gendered performance of those things. So what I was doing is I was kind of toying with the idea of an agnostic essentialism. That yeah, I kind of I have this deeply held theological intuition

that my body matters for how I perform in the world. And therefore people with male bodies will probably perform their, their maleness differently than people with female bodies will probably perform their their maleness differently than people with female bodies but i'm just deeply agnostic about our ability to confidently identify what those things are because any difference that we that we kind of pick out let's say we were to find out that in america men tend to do a more than women men tend to do a women tend to do b um that's great but why uh right is that a result of biological differences? Is it a result of cultural differences? Is it a result of philosophical intuitions about how these things work? Is it a result of a really popular movie that's on these days? There are so many things

that go into this that I'm just deeply agnostic about our ability to specify any particular difference and then confidently articulate that that is a difference that flows in some direct way from biological differences between men and women. And what kind of deep in my agreement with Mark on that point was just recognizing how few verses there are in scripture that addresses as males and females. Most of scripture is addressed to us generically, as humans or as believers. Very few verses address to us as men. And the ones that are address to us as husbands and wives, not as men and women per se. So very few commands are given to me, I must do this because I'm a male.

So in view of that absence of directions like that, I'm hesitant to legislate stuff. Yeah, no, that's one thing that in in my own research was fascinating how how often i read passages through a gendered lens as if this is talking to men this is talking to women and how when you step back and it's like there's only a very very small set of passages that are that but the one of the main ones titus 2 which is like paul says older women teach younger women too and he gives a list of 10 commands. At least eight are elsewhere given to men. The only two is, depending on your translation, be busy at home and submit to your husbands.

But even both of those are disputed. Even a strong commentarian reading of that passage was eight of the 10 are equally applied to men elsewhere. Or, you know, people say, what about 1 Corinthians 16, where Paul says, act like men? I'm like, did he pull the men aside when he wrote that verse? Whatever that, on drudzel my whatever means, he's addressing the whole congregation. And the word really means be courageous, but he's telling men and women to be courageous. So, yeah, it's, I loved, I mean, Katie, you're controversial by scare quotes here. You know, understanding of godly, you know, womanhood, I think, is pretty much vanilla when you look at scripture.

And Mark, to your, yeah, the essentialist, constructionist, I don't know. Constructivist. Constructivist, where, you know, is it our nature? It's a nature nurture question. Constructivist Where you know Is it our Nature It's a nature

Nurture question Are we Do men act Masculine Generally speaking Because of biology Or because of our Culture

And It is pretty Head spinning To read Thoughtful scholars On both sides Of that If you want

A good exercise Cordella Fine Is a Feminist scholar Who's much more On the constructivist side. Her book, Testosterone Wrecks, really brilliant book. It's one of those where I'm like, I need to think through this. But she argues that so much of our masculine behavior is more enculturated.

Men are rewarded for masculine behavior from a very early age. Then you go read Carol Hoeven, her book, T, Testosterone, and she's much more on the essentialist side. Or Pink. Who's Pink? The scholar, not the color. Anyway, he's much more essentialist. So, I mean, when you read two scholars, you're like, I just end up saying, I think it's got to be a Bo fan and i don't know if it's 60 40 70 30 the one thing for me i mean it clearly and this

is i'll get in trouble when i say that word but i'm going to say it again clearly clearly the the the high levels of testosterone that washes the brain in utero and post-utero and and you know through puberty that that just does have some effect, generally speaking, on behavior. And people say, no, that's still cultured. There's been studies done on primates, where it's like you give female monkeys option of dolls or trucks to play with, and they actually went towards the dolls and the male monkeys went towards the trucks. And I don't think there's a cultured monkey land that does. So I mean, to discount biology completely, I think is wrongheaded, but I also do think, yeah, I think we are cultured beings and that

has an effect more than sometimes we realize. Anyway, so that's right. Here's where I land. Our biology, aside from reproductive purposes, does have an effect on gendered type behavior on a general level. Most men will resonate with what we consider to be more masculine kinds of thinking behaviors. And I do think biology plays at least a role in that. But these are always gendered. These are always generalizations, not absolutes. were all there will be exceptions and maybe it's a hormonal off balance maybe it's just some dude has lots of testosterone but he loves ballet and cries more than the average woman or whatever and that's just some of the beautiful beautiful diversity of humanity and we can't determine who is male or female based on whether they fit into

these kind of gendered behaviors so that that's how i kind of understand it do you guys have any pushback on that or like response or you're missing this, missing that? Because I'm truly, I mean, I'm on a journey. I don't want to claim that I've nailed it or anything. I'm with you, Preston. There's a spectrum here that these differences are typical more than universal.

Yeah. They tend to be like, they tend to be more this and that. So they're typical but not universal. And for all of us, our goal is to be like crash light for both men more this and that. So they're typical, but not universal. And for all of us, our goal is to be like Christ-like for both men and women. Yeah, exactly. To come back to Katie's original point. Yeah. Mark, any thoughts? Yeah. A couple of quick ones. One, to help the, I think the listeners see where this really, I think hits the road for a lot of Christians is if we're going to say that

maleness and females at the biological level is part of divine design. And if we then say that there is some kind of direct connection between maleness and femaleness and the way that men ought to operate in the world and women ought to operate in the world, right now we're saying there's a divine design plan behind the ways in which men ought to live so that i ought to to perform my my embodied life in the world in a way that looks different than the way my wife performs her embodied life in the world and we can specify that difference like here is the gender difference between the way i ought to live in the way that my wife ought to live where that ought is a divine design ought right That's the way this gets cashed out in a lot of Christian

communities. Even if the logic isn't spelled out quite that explicitly, that's the way the logic tends to flow. The language that the person that you and John are using of these differences being typical, right, tends to lead away from the oddness of it, right. There probably there's an oddness that has to do with Christian faithfulness, broadly speaking for all embodied humans in the world. But not the oddness of I have to live out my embodied life differently than my wife does because of divine design plan that specifies the differences in which we ought to live.

That's a great, yeah. That's super helpful. Katie, any thoughts on this? I'm with you on it. I think it's both and. And it's nearly impossible to identify necessarily. It's like the chicken and the egg. It's like, is it biology or is it culture? Yeah.

And that's where going back to a definition of biblical womanhood or biblical manhood being you are a man or a female who is obeying all of god's commands in your life and relationships and essentially let him work that out we don't necessarily have to systematize it um i can't tell you how many different uh definitions of biblical womanhood that i would read and they have to do with either a personality or a temperament or an attitude. And it's like, well, someone, someone doesn't fit this and they're not supposed to, because that's not how God made them temperamentally. But, but how do we still live out our embodied femaleness in a way that honors, glorifies and reflects the God who made us. And so that's where I think almost trying not to systematize it helps solve a lot of problems.

That's good. I just remember the essentialist scholar Stephen Pinker was who I was thinking of. His book, The Blank Slate. His chapter on children in that book was almost robotic. Basically, children have a certain built-in personality that you're just not going to, that's just going to, it's just going to be what it is. And there's almost nothing you can do to affect it. That's my summary paraphrase at five years after reading the book. Anyway, um, can we move into a different topic? Cause there's two more that I really want

to talk about singleness and AI and we're coming coming up on 45, almost 50 minutes right now. So how, that's like a whiplash turn, but how does theological anthropology help us to think through questions related to AI? This is an area that I know almost nothing about, and I'm deeply interested in. Well, I think the most important thing is simply how we define human uniqueness. If we focus on our ability to reason as being the defining human distinctive, then AI can be a threat. But I think it's wrong to focus on human reason as being the human distinctive.

I think that's not the proper understanding of image you've got now. Image you've got is a vast topic that we don't have time to get all the way through, but in terms of seeing that as not being focused on reason, I think there's many reasons for not focusing on that point. First being in terms of people that lose the ability to reason. Are those with Alzheimer's no longer image of God? Do they no longer have the human distinctive? Well, I think we need to find our human distinctive as something other than the ability to reason. So if

we see that, I think that gives us a guard against seeing AI as a threat. So I just talked to a guy, Joshua Smith, on the podcast. He just kind of kept emphasizing that behind AI is a human. At some point, there is a human doing this.

And he was kind of like against the idea that AI can become this kind of independent thing and end up like Terminator 2 and end up killing humanity. He doesn't see that as a realistic threat. But does that, I guess, one, do you agree with that? Number two, does that mean AI is perfectly compatible with understanding humanity's uniqueness if there's a human behind it like there is with every other kind of invention?

I don't know if that's a good question to ask. That could be a stupid question. Well, I'm just not that familiar with AI. I've got some people that are expressing uneasiness about it. But I do think that maybe Josh has a point there in terms of human being behind it. But even more important, that looking at distinctiveness in something other than your reason, I think is the key thing for me. Preston, I wonder if some of the question has to do with, it seems to me that AI could be viewed as a threat in a couple of different ways in this conversation, right? One of it that we haven't

touched on quite yet is just how AI relates to human flourishing, right? All technologies raise questions, right? About how technology shapes us and the extent to which it does or does not contribute to us being the kinds of creatures that God made us to be. And my sense is that's where a lot of like with the chat GPT conversation, that's where a lot of that conversation is going. It's not too much a threat. The other way it could be a threat would be human identity, right?

Kind of fundamentally, who are we and how are we unique in the world? That's the question John's raising. But I think there's another very legitimate conversation to be had about other ways in which we might talk about how AI relates to theological anthropology more in the flourishing kinds of categories. But I think John's right. My sense is anytime we try to focus on what is it that makes us unique in terms of here's something distinctive about us as creatures. Like here's some kind of intrinsic thing about humans that's different from all other creatures. And that's the thing that makes us unique. I think we're going to run into problems with AI, intelligent primates, aliens, all kinds of things, if that's the way we come at this. Because in that sense,

we're no more unique than any other creature is unique. There's something about a hamster that's unique to a hamster that's not true of any other creature. When we talk about human uniqueness, theologically, we're not usually talking about that unique, we're the only human, just like hamsters are the only hamsters. We're usually wanting to make an affirmation that somehow humans are uniquely unique. There's something about us that's unique in a way that no other creature can claim to uniqueness. And I just don't think you're ever going to find that in some distinctive capacity or feature of human nature. I'll push back on that. Let me push back. How about the capacity for relationship with God? Might that be something that's unique to humans?

Yeah, this one might be. I don't think what you're talking about is actually a capacity. I think we have a variety of capacities that we then use in the context of our relationship with God. So I do think what makes us unique is the fact that God chose to enter into a relationship with us. And that is the thing that makes us different. But notice the way that I phrase that doesn't locate the uniqueness in anything that's a

particular feature of mine. It's a particular feature of the fact that God chose to enter into a unique kind of relationship with us. And so in that sense, AI wouldn't pose any threat to human identity. I think it raises legitimate questions on the flourishing side of things, but there's no challenge on the identity side of things because God didn't choose to enter into a unique kind of covenantal relationship with AI things. He entered into a unique covenantal relationship with humans. It is the human flourishing side where my mind goes. I feel like we've already seen, we've already tried and failed at the whole social media experiment. Increase, I mean, increase rates and anxiety, loneliness, depression, suicidality,

especially for teenagers. You know, we're handing them the internet at 11 and stuff. Like, even though we've all seen the social dilemma, even though we've all seen the studies, even though anecdotally we know it makes us less happy, the more we scroll, we just can't stop. So, we failed that experiment. And to me, it's like AI is like all that on steroids. So, it's like we're already like down. Oh, and two,

like, are we going to be able to get on base? I, I, so that's where I'm like, I think. Cause, cause like where,

where Josh and I, our conversation was like, well, if, if you know, like any technology, we can use it for good. We just need to be aware of kind of the dangers.

I'm like, Oh, I totally agree. I'm really pessimistic about us being, being not aware of the dangers but actually taking that seriously so like i i worry about ai stunting human creativity um uh stunting our ability to read and research and and actually think critically um to actually prepare sermons but then i was like i don't know like if i punch in you know give me a sermon on

romans 3 and i get like within 30 seconds the most amazing rhetorically powerful biblically accurate sermon and i go and read that it changes lives and it's biblical i do need a counter argument why that's a bad thing um my best counter argument is i think there is some spiritual formation in the very process of preparation you know but, but I don't know, these are all, I'm just kind of freaking out about the whole thing, quite honestly. On that last point, Preston, I want to say two things. I mean, one, I think you're right. Like there's something formative about the process of even you at this stage in your own kind of professional development, still going through the work of doing things. My bigger worry is actually less somebody who has already developed a certain sort

of skills and has already arrived at a certain level of formation using something like ChatGPT as a tool to help them do the thing they're already able to do. My worry is about people using that tool much earlier in the process and truncating their own formation and development. And the analogy that I've heard a couple people use is using calculators to learn math. Sure. Yeah. We all use calculators all the time. I don't remember the last time I did something complex math-wise without using a calculator. But I did that after having already developed some pretty fundamental and foundational skills with respect to math.

So that I even had teachers saying things like, I know you're going to go on to do this with a calculator, like moving on, but you need to know how to do this. And that was really annoying when I was going through the process. But looking back on it, there's a lot of truth to be said there. So a seasoned pastor using something like ChatG GPT to help them strengthen a sermon, they already know how to make that raises a different set of questions that I'm actually, I'm less worried about, even though they're valid questions. That's the beginning pastor using chat GPT and ending up with an anemic ability to develop sermons and an understanding of how sermons work.

Um, that's what really worried me. That's good. Katie, I could see your wheels turning with all this. What are your thoughts on all this? I think that similar to social media, we're going to end up using it without thinking through those philosophical questions and we're only talking about the pragmatic

or the practical ones. And those are very important. I think the one that I hear it in terms of is, oh, you watch the news and it's just doomsday. It's, you know, national security job is going to just replace all of us. And so but it's a pretty incredible conversation. It's an opportunity to have a conversation among Christians about, you know, this leads to questions of what does it mean to be human? At what point could this, you have some of these, you know, tech gurus saying, no, really, IA could become sentient very soon. And, you know, we need congressional hearings on this. It's worth bringing that up

to say, at what point, what is it that makes us human? And I love what Mark was saying, that God is, it's essentially, God determines our humanity, and God is the one who decided to enter into relationship with us in a way that he does not relate to any other creation, or any other creation that his creations could have created. And so I think it's one of those things that generationally come around, that it's this opportunity. We'll end up seeing a lot more books and articles and conversations and ETS themes over it and all of that. It just seems like the technology is far outpacing our reflection

on the pros and cons of it. That's my biggest. And some of the people who are high up in this field are raising that alarm. This is progressing way too quickly. We need to step back, think about what does regulation look like? What are the healthy ways of developing this?

What are the bad, you know, already? I mean, aren't teachers like you guys are all teachers. I mean, are students turning in AI-generated research papers and And how do you combat that? Do they do it in written paper? Our school is having to draw policies for how much they can use these things as well. So, yeah, it's something that schools have to respond to.

Yeah. For the reason that Mark said, they're beginning to use their skills now. And rather than short-circuit the development of those skills by using these things, we want them to actually know how to research, critically think those types of things. And so the schools need to respond in terms of policies. What are you guys doing over at Wheaton, Mark? We're kind of similarly, we have a committee that's going to be working

on this in the fall to come up with a set of guidelines. It's a little tricky because we anticipate that each discipline will end up having a different set of needs with respect to this. So I don't know, an engineering student might use ChatsGPT in just a fundamentally different way than a theology student.

So we're anticipating that there are going to need to be a bit more abstract principles rather than specific kinds of how-tos when it comes to implementing something like this. And then we also need to go back to the pace of change. I mean, technology specifically in general, yes. These kinds of conversations, like my understanding is what chat GPT-3 came out, I think in November or so, four just came out and is still kind of behind a paywall. So I haven't used it yet. The difference between the two is not incremental from what I'm being told by people who have used it yeah there

is a dramatic increase in capacity between just three and four over a period of about six months um and uh i am as an kind of going back to all the policy things i'm a little bit skeptical about our ability to come up with policies that uh if there are kind of detailed policies that are going to keep up with that pace of change i don't't know how you would, yeah. Cause I mean, how do you, somebody turns in a paper that's like, ah, this feels a little bit too good to be true. How do you know whether they really worked hard and stayed up late or maybe use it for a footnote or something that's kind of like, well, I guess that's okay. But, um, or they just punched it in and spat out the paper, you know? Um? I mean, there's a really good article.

And I think the Chronicle of Higher Education a while back, and I forget the title of it, it was basically an undergraduate saying, hey, yes, we're using chat GPT. We're just not using it the way you think we are. Okay. And the whole point of the article is that we're largely not telling chat GPT to write our papers for us. Because like, that's too easy to catch. Although actually it is.

And it's kind of hard to find that. And she kind of walked us through her process where she's using chat GPT to give her like six or seven possible thesis statements in response to the prompt. And then she'll kind of look through those and decide which one sounds interesting. And just be like, okay, for number three,

give me an outline of how one might argue for that particular thesis statement. And then she'll have ChatGPT develop the outline for us. And then she'll use that as the backbone for writing her paper. So the writing is all hers, making it virtually undetectable by anything that we currently have. Even though she used ChatGPT to do all of the things that i think are the most fundamentally important parts of this right thinking critically coming up with a point that you want to make figuring out how you're going to develop and defend that point um so she's using it for all of the things i don't want her to use it for but doing it in a way that is so behind the scenes it'll be very difficult

to detect a supervisor i think the counter argument or the argument in favor of all that is like, well, yeah, Plato freaked out, you know, or the printing press, you know, people are not going to be able to memorize stuff like they used to. They're just going to rely on the written word. And, you know, like every technological or television and internet, like every technological shift or advancement has this kind of generation of freak outness or people having to adjust. But in the long run, this just becomes part of how society operates and people look back and almost don't even think about what the world was like before, for good or for ill, I guess. I mean, the teaching, back when I was teaching, we had students who would turn in stuff that whole paragraphs just cut and pasted from the internet and all i had to do is like copy paste put it in google or one time they left the hyper

link and i'm like come on if you're gonna cheat at least don't leave the hyperlink and it took me to some mormon website or something that they're you know like this is just bad cheating you know at least be a good cheater but um but then i just don't did this to catch you can't do that with if some of the paper sounds really good it's their word against yours, it seems like. I don't know. I've never actually used ChatGPT. One, two, three, four, five, whatever. I don't know.

Well, I've taken you guys really far. And I know we've opened up lots of cans. We didn't even get to. We're going to talk about singleness and marriage and how theological anthropology relates to that. But I will just point people to your book. The book is called Humanity. That's it. Great title. I would encourage everybody to check it out. And like you said, it's no matter what, whether you're a parent, a youth leader, senior pastor, or just person,

I think everybody would really benefit from this book. It's very well researched. It's thorough, but not 800 pages. And it's just very easy to follow and very practical. So I encourage people to check it out. Thank you all for coming on Theology Now. I really appreciate the four-way conversation. Thank you. Good to see you, Preston. Good to see you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.