Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep938: Evangelicalism, Eroticism, Trinity, Sexuality, Suffering, and Hope: David Bennett

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

David is from Sydney, Australia where he studied journalism and then international relations. He moved to Oxford to pursue his studies in theology and train as an apologist from a skeptical, atheist background as an anti-Christian gay activist. David now holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in theology from Oxford, a master’s degree in theology from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and is now completing his doctorate (DPhil) in theology at Oxford. He specialises in the relationship between queer theory, asceticism and contemporary Anglican theology, especially ethics, and the role of desire in knowing God. He’s in the process of discerning a call to ordination. David has recently published his first book, A War of Loves (Zondervan, 2018). It describes his own story from atheistic gay activism to becoming a follower of Jesus, in which he advocates for a positive moral vision of biblical sexuality and discipleship. His other interests include French, Latin, church history and patristics, writing, travel, cooking, reading books, and living in Christian community. https://www.dacbennett.com Theology in the Raw Conference - Exiles in Babylon At the Theology in the Raw conference, we will be challenged to think like exiles about race, sexuality, gender, critical race theory, hell, transgender identities, climate change, creation care, American politics, and what it means to love your democratic or republican neighbor as yourself. Different views will be presented. No question is off limits. No political party will be praised. Everyone will be challenged to think. And Jesus will be upheld as supreme. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. Got a few conferences coming up. February 8th through the 9th in Sacramento, a conference on sexuality and gender. You can attend live if you're in the Sacramento area or attend virtually if you have an internet connection. We also have, of course, our Theology in the Raw Exiles in Babylon conference in March, March 31st through April 2nd. All the information for that conference, the Theology and Raw Conference, is on my website, Prestonspergo.com. And the info for the sexuality conference and other events like webinars and so on are at centerforfaith.com forward slash, wait for it, wait for it, forward slash events. That's right. Just go to centerforfaith.com

forward slash events. My guest today is David Bennett. David is smarter than all of you and myself combined. He has a couple degrees from Oxford University, a master's degree from St. Andrews, where he studied under Tom Wright, N.T. Wright, and he's pursuing his doctorate back at Oxford University. He's from Sydney, Australia. He was an atheist gay activist who met Jesus in a pub, wrote a book about it called The War of Loves. I would highly encourage you to check out that book if you've not read it yet. It's an amazing book. And he's an amazing guy. He's a friend. He's a scholar. And he is a wildly charismatic, Anglican-ish, Catholic-ish Christian who defies all the boxes and stereotypes. Please welcome back to the show, the one and only David Bennett. Hey, David, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me back.

It's been, what, a year now? At least a year. A year and a half. I think it was shortly after you released your book, wasn't it? Like maybe six months after or something? That's been a couple of years. Yeah, maybe. I don't know if we were locked down or if it was way before that but you know in these times our memories are a bit what day is it what

year is it well i i uh you know i don't like to have on guests too many times like i like to diversify and everything but every month i'm like i i would be very happy with you being like a monthly reoccurring guest that kind of violates the norms of podcasting but i just i so i don't know i just love talking to you i love your voice i love your nuance i love your you're not you can't put david bennett in a box. You just challenge and encourage people across the spectrum. And I love that about you. So anyway, thanks for making time. My pleasure.

Thanks for having me. And thanks for what you do as well. I think the center that you've started and everything is something I recommend to so many people because it just hits that target for me. So it's wonderful to be part of it. Yeah, thank you you you look well you look happy are you happy right now i mean because there's a lot of stuff to not be happy about in this world we're living in but i think um yeah i finally got able after two years of

being locked down in the uk and not being able to get back to my family it was quite tough the Australian government locked the country down and you couldn't even come back as a citizen which I think being in the UK it had a psychological effect on me it was pretty rough to like go through the last two years with all of its yeah downsides and then be be kind of you know isolated from your family from your support structure trying to do a doctorate it was not easy so I've definitely had some some difficult moments but I'm kind of on the other side of it able to be with the family have a good Christmas you know refill the tanks which has been really brilliant and I'm just here looking out at Sydney Harbour it's a hard life you know so I'm grateful to have that respite

and yeah I think in this time we're all auditing our lives and saying what really matters what are the foundational things we need to value and invest in and I think one of the really interesting things for me has been how important family is, as well as a celibate gay Christian. Like, I've really needed to just be with my family. And friendship helps, and it's good, but there's that kind of kinship need when the world is in crisis. So it's taught me a lot about my own voice

and my own message with the lord and i think there'll be some different yeah some different content coming eventually as i reflect on the last two years um yeah i was joking with a buddy of mine who's about my i'm 46 we both looked at each other i think it might have been um maybe not a buddy i think it was maybe russell moore somebody on the podcast recently and we linked each other said can you imagine if we had twitter when we were teenagers this stuff i would have to go back and scrub like i would have been canceled like 10 times old like oh my word i mean 10 years ago i mean i'm glad i got on twitter like 10 years ago and not like before that but wow yeah and you know I think the other thing that's been really tough in this season is the conversion therapy laws um one that was passed in Victoria

uh and obviously I'm against conversion therapy that's why you're a slightly Christian because you think conversion therapy is a false option that shouldn't be the way um that there is damage done in that context of but then when conversion therapy is turned back on you as a celibate gay christian you're told teaching celibacy is a suppression practice by your state or your government which is probably going to come all around the kind of Western world. Is it they're casting the umbrella, like any kind of side B view of things is going to be labeled conversion therapy. Like are they using that label so broadly?

It's the fact that I even have to make that distinction. Like it's the fact that I even have to say as a gay man, if I choose to be celibate and follow the traditional teaching of scripture in the church, that I am suppressing myself. And then if I try to teach anyone about that individually and help them in prayer, like, I mean, I don't really pray over people anyway. It's because I pray with someone that wants to pray about that and who needs support.

It could just be like a gay mate that I meet, you know, that I friend that I just, you know, is journeying. Just to know that that could be turned back on me as a suppression practice, it's just traumatizing. Like, it's like deeply scary, you you know and i think for a lot of straight people in the church like oh well i'm never going to do that i'll just get on with i might believe what the bible teaches but i don't need any pastoral ministry i'm not a gay person so it's fine and like that can just be like really tough that kind of indifference you sense in people like well

yeah conversion therapy is wrong so it should be outlawed it's like well conversion therapy should be discouraged and called out for what it is but you don't just remove something by banning it you remove it by producing a better alternative that works and that is humane, that is loving, that is biblical, you know. So, yeah, that stress has been tough for me. And then on top of that, watching many of the churches attached to the UK, like Church of England, going with gay marriage and just like watching dominoes fall

and then seeing the scandals in the evangelical world. It's a lot, I think, for especially the gay celibate community that's trying to trust the church, you know, that is orthodox and yet constantly going through that trust being broken seeing our own weakness as human beings as well and then having secular states totally disregard us and not consult us in laws that actually directly affect us is it's it's like it's really hard to articulate how hard that is that That's wild. Yeah, I don't know what you think, Preston,

like whether I'm being overly dramatic or whether I'm interpreting that in the wrong way. I just, I think, I just don't know how to respond. I feel like overwhelmed. Yeah. I mean, no, I think you have every right to be. That's, yeah, no, I don't have any. My only thing with the, here's what I wrestle with, with the scandals and evangelicalism. Kind of like if you thought about American evangelicalism and just let your mind wander, like what picture would come up in your head?

And how much of that is shaped by a really – well, it's – I don't know. It really, well, it's, I don't know. Like the scandals are, you know, these big leaders who are publicized and everything, but there are, this is just anecdotal. So like, I like you, I go and speak at a lot of different churches. Some of them are big churches, 5,000, 10,000 people, stars and lights and fog machines and all this stuff. And I'm just, in my anecdotal experience, I come across godly, humble, non-misogynistic, gracious, forgiving, confessing leaders of megachurches all the time. They're not known. They don't write books, whatever. But I go from church to church,

and I see all this great stuff. And then when people think American evangelicalism or even megachurch and the platform and all this stuff, it's just nothing but negativity. And I don't want to downplay the reasons why they have that view. I mean, I have the same stuff. I'm like, gosh, yet another leader fell. I wonder how much of that is shaped by the fact that we always hear about the scandals. Those are front and center. We don't hear about the pastor who grew a church out of a living room and now he's got 5,000 people coming in. He walks around and talks to people he knows, hundreds of people by name, even though he's at a megachurch. I'm thinking one in particular that I spoke at recently. He might write a book someday, but he's not that well-known outside of his circles and stuff. And there's just a lot of that. So I battle with you.

I battle a certain level of pessimism. Like, my gosh, yet another one fell. Or you just hear stuff. And you look at social media. Or I was driving today. You'll appreciate this. I've got to pull this up. another one fell or just like, or you just hear stuff and you look at social media and, or, you know, I was driving today. You'll appreciate this.

I got to pull this up. I was going to tweet this, but I'm like, do I want to feed the machine? Let's see if you can see this. What does it say? God guns Trump. Yeah.

I can't even. Yeah. I just, I can't, I just, you know, it's this whole populism that, that hijacked the German Protestant church. It's like, how has the American Protestant church not learned the lessons of Germany?

Like, as a theologian in the 21st century, any Christian thinker of any kind that has any knowledge of history, you know, beyond year 12 or whatever. How? I'm stumped. Yeah. I'm absolutely, I don't have words. I think when Biden got elected, I just broke down. And part of that was the relief that Trump wasn't there anymore on some level, but could not leverage his voice. The other was just deep despair about the whole thing. Yeah. What the United States has become. Yeah. pseudo-Christian machine that is not reflective of the Lord Jesus Christ of the first century.

Jewish carpenter has become a moralistic, weird, populist, like, Trump equals Christianity. Like, how? Yeah. Like, it blows my mind. I just, I understand that, like, it's complex and that the American story is complex. It is. understand that like it's complex and that the american story is complex but also racism and just everything like from an australian perspective and a british perspective it's just really tough yeah to watch i don't know how much americans understand the effect they're having on the

rest of the world yeah that shares some of the similar values and i'm not wanting to like you know just i mean i i love the united states i've tons of american friends i've received so much from people you know that are u.s based but i just find myself perplexed again i don't other than don't commit idolatry like political idolatry is basically what's happening and how does the church resist that? I would say, yeah, for me, it doesn't seem new because I was raised in, let's see, born in 76. So like the whole Reagan era.

I mean, Reagan was, if you're a Christian, you vote for Ronald Reagan. And that was just in the culture, you know, it's definitely magnified with the Trump era. And in the last, I mean, since 2016, the polarization has gotten way more intense. And so you do have the extremes where people are completely syncretistically wedding their, their political allegiances with their allegiance to Christ or try, obviously that's not possible, but that's what's happening.

So I think it has gotten worse, but for me, I don't, it has always been there on some level. But I will say again, I mean, so like, not just you, but like anybody listening listening, when people think of that perception, are they thinking of names and faces in their local church?

Maybe. Some of them are. But I do think a lot of this is living and exacerbated on social media. I mean, what, 7% of the U.S. population is active on Twitter. And you go on Twitter and you think that represents the whole. And I talked to conservatives, moderates, liberals, and the average person that maybe voted this direction,

that direction doesn't, doesn't, I don't know. Like I've never met, I've met tons of Trump voting Christians. I've never met a single one who was like, yay, January 6th, that was awesome. Or even like anything but,

that was absolutely hideous and horrible. But then you go online and it's like, no, Republicans are like for January 6th takeover or something. It's like, I don't, in the real world on the ground, I just think that, I don't know, this might be my,

I don't know, I'm just told the opinion, just anybody can dismiss it. It seems like the average person in the pew is not as bad and again i'm here the one who voted for biden one who voted for trump um not every trump voter is a flaming racist not every biden voter wants to kill babies in the womb in mass you know um i don't know like I just wonder if there is a more nuanced, quiet, hopefully majority. Maybe this is my optimism. Having said all that, David, it's still bad. There is a discipleship crisis in America right now. So I want to come full circle and say, no, you're tapping onto something

that's indisputable. I do think there is, you've mentioned it, a little more complexity when it comes to real names and faces, you know, in the church, but maybe, I don't know. I hope I'm right, but maybe I'm not. You know, the thing that I just turned back to is we have an amazing gospel and let us not compromise it with this, these idolatries. And look, idolatries are idolatries for a reason. it with this these idolatries and look idolatries are idolatries for a reason they're attractive they have a bait to them um they they promise you things that they can't deliver like trump can't deliver right right biden can't deliver jesus christ delivers us the full deal and and and it's not just like oh the third way it's not just like oh we synthesize to get to the hegelian third you know i'm not there are radical elements to jesus's kingdom

you know but they never see the world never seems to be able to produce that and i think one of the things i find really bizarre about about America is they really think the president can be like Jesus, like as if there's no sense of like anti-idealism of like, of course, these leaders, it's like, no, they must be like, Trump must be the anointed Cyrus. I'm like, where is this coming? Like, like you know and then like seeing apologies from bethel and being charismatic myself it's just been absolutely crushing yeah to see the misuse of the spiritual gifts and you know already in the uk it's tenuous about how we receive you know american-based materials from different churches like bethel like bethel's had

a big influence in the uk and then when they shifted to being super trump or like at least some of their leaders kind of using their platform towards that i yeah it was like again another huge crushing blow and them not understanding the global church you know and being so domestically ingrained in the American context and I understand like there's also a lot of stuff from the extreme left of being very anti-christian biblical ethics on some key issues but I think one of the things I'm really grateful for is the grace to have had the education I have because it's helped me see through a lot of that and to see that abortion is really complex. You know,

the ethics of abortion is really complex. Um, that these issues we simplify in the public sphere that become like lightning rods, that's not actually helping us become an ethical society. That's actually depriving us from the nuance we need to coexist peacefully within a democracy where you have very different opinions on how things should be treated. And I think it's pushed me more into the fact that classical liberalism you know is meant to prize this system where you can have radical difference and coexist yeah and you can renegotiate that every election um without a sense of vengeance. You know, Rhode Island, there's a great book,

Mere Civility, by Theresa Bajan at Oxford about the history of democracy and how actually evangelicalism originally was the kind of harbinger of democracy in the sense of this civility, this capacity to live with difference and all try to find a democratic consensus and to move forward.

So, you know, you can have people who are anti-abortion and who decide, I want to adopt my child out, and that's seen as a legitimate option that isn't threatening other people like, I want to have an abortion. You know, let these ideas compete yeah within that democratic system and as christians we put our foot behind adoption and we put our foot behind you know caring like for women to have as much autonomy as possible with the reproductive reality of their bodies without you know you know having necessarily to just go down

the abort lifestyle abortion route like there's all these things it's like why is this not front and center why are we not able to have this nuance um with different very like thorny ethical issues that's the thing that i just keep coming back to. I want to see political leadership that can facilitate our new civility. Have you read Jonathan Haidt's work? The Righteous Mind, yeah. Once I read that, I was like, oh, it all makes sense. We're not rational creatures. We're tribalistic.

Our intuitions are driving our belief. We rationalize stuff after the fact. We believe what we desire to believe. And there's this looping effect of like, we want to believe this so that we find reasons to do it. And then it just like reconfirms. And then we have tribal allegiances that reward us when we applaud the tribe. It's so complex, the nature of belief.

So it's discouraging because as a fellow academic, it's like, no, I want to rationalize people out of this ridiculous way of thinking, whatever that might be. And it's like, it just more complex than that, you know? It is. And,

but I do find it interesting that, that, yeah, the visibility, the thesis in that book, looking at how, what we prize as our values in the kind of West does seem to come from evangelicalism, and yet we are blaming evangelicalism as the problem.

And it's really interesting, every 200 years you get this cycle where something, you know, like a cultural movement like evangelicalism reaches its height and then it collapses and becomes an enemy and you see that happening over and over again so it's interesting what will come what will come out as the next 200 years like what will be the new christian movement you know that defines the age and informs political life and that's my question because i think we're at a point where something new has got to emerge and it's going to take 20 or 30 years at least of kind of the collapse and the, you know. But like this has happened before.

We're not in some like new moment. with the Reformation in the 16th century, you know, and now we're seeing the, you know, the kind of collapse of Protestant evangelicalism at the end of the Reformation, like, kind of cycle. We're seeing that it doesn't work as well as we thought as Protestants. So one of the things I've been searching for is resources that are within the Christian tradition that can help me be the Christian I need to be in this moment to try to find that the new thing that was really just the old thing. What have you found? I think for me,

it's been, um, it's been rediscovering what it means to be Catholic as a Christian. And I don't mean that as a capital, I don't mean that as a capital, I don't mean that as capital C, but a small C Catholic rather than just reformed. I would say I'm still reformed. I like don't believe in the Catholic doctrine exactly of justification and

works. Like I would be more monogistic and say participation happens after salvation, not as salvation, that like it's a monogistic thing from participation happens after salvation not as salvation that like it's a monogistic thing from god that's direct but that there is then a life of participation the sacraments have become incredibly important to me in suffering and lament and disappointment and the crushing like weight of everything, the layers, the intersectional layers of being gay, the layers of the cultural crisis we're in and theological crisis, just all of the things really. The Eucharist has become incredibly important to me as a,

a place I can just know Christ and know him bodily. Like, you know, and I've had a few really amazing mystical experiences taking Eucharist in Oxford in an Anglo-Catholic church. I wouldn't say that I'm Anglo-Catholic, but there's something about that tradition that has resources that evangelicalism has thrown the baby out of the bathwater with, and that's been really helpful. And just the way that Anglo-Catholic people are just so real

about their humanity and how terribly they fail all the time and even to a fault where you're like, come on, you're meant to be victorious in Christ and declare the word. And they're like, yeah, well, today, I'm all over the place. I'm just holding on for Eucharist, you know, and it's kind of like, there's something wrong with that, but there's something really right with it. And this like, just total transhuman messiness. And that's actually part of the incarnation. It's part of the way the word is ordering our human mess, and we have to

be real about it with Him and finding those spaces where we can do that safely. I think that's, yeah, there's something growing there for me of really, what does it mean to be Catholic? It means to embrace the full story. As evangelicals, we only have the beginning. We're trying to just always go to the beginning, like Bible, Bible, Bible. It's like, yeah, but how has the Bible been received into time in the various challenges of 2,000 years of history for the Christian gospel?

And then how does that help us now? And so I think that's where I've gone back to richard hooker the reformer who who tried to find a way through religious wars in in england that were tearing the country apart and his theology was a kind of attempt to move into a middle way via media where there was still some respect for the Catholic tradition, but there was also a correction, and there was a resistance from the Puritans, and there was a resistance from just people who wanted to follow the Pope. And he had that kind of triad of scripture, reason, tradition. A lot of people criticize that, especially Barthians,

because they're like, there is no natural theology, there just christ and like so you can just say whatever christ is then there's no way of testing you know the moral nature of who christ is like christ is also the creator and he created a world that has a meaning and the created order matters and like in my doctoral work created orders become really that there's some divine rationality in the world and obviously it's through christ that we access that divine rationality you know that helps us discern what to do morally not just beyond like an injunction in the bible like thou shall not kill or you know yeah but actually when it gets we're in the rough and ready like trenches of life right right there is this deeper texture to deal with these situations i'm hearing some some scraping or something when you're when

you're oh sorry what it is if it's your microphone or yeah that maybe okay how's that okay cool sometimes i move my hands and it yeah yeah you're fine yeah um can you unpack and this might take us into your dissertation, which you just are on the latter end of finishing, which I'm super stoked about, the created order and natural law. And yeah, can you expound on what you've learned over the last few years on that? It's something that I've been more curious about recently.

I wouldn't say, I feel like the more more i know the less i know about this and i like think it's a really charged area of theology but i felt i came back from st andrews where i was obviously exposed to a really intense barcian like approach to to knowing truth um and that it was all like top down through Jesus, like Christocentrism bordering on Christomonism, like kind of like God is Christ and that's it. Like, yeah, the Holy Spirit just reveals Christ. The Father is just, you know, Christ just reveals himself through Christ. Like and then the world had no meaning outside of Christ.

So everything's just Christ to the point where like the whole theological system collapses. And when I went back to Oxford and I started reading Augustine, it like healed me. Really? And I was walking around the park and I was like, this world is beautiful. This world was created by God to mean something to us about Him. And Christ came

to redeem that connection between us, the world, and God. And we are the image bearers. We are the Salem in the temple, in the image of Christ. And of course, it's Christocentric. I'm not wanting to undermine that. But this sense of just like our body, sexual difference, the sacral importance of the body, the world, like incarnation, the texture of the goodness of my physicality being located in a world that matters to God, and he loves, and he died for, and not just individual souls that were forensically zapped and will one day be raptured away from this horrible place,

but like this God who groans in us for the fullness of what this world could be and that has been revealed in his son. Like that is so much more beautiful to me than this kind of hyper-Protestant collapse. And so I've tried to regain the world in my theology and say, well, why has God created us the way he has and created the world the way he has? And what is Christ doing to restore the breach of the fall? That means we live in an alienated way and i think this has

environmental impacts and i think this also links deeply to sexual ethics this is the irony of the political world is that it's split between environmentalism and sexual ethics i'm like these two things are directly related if we see the world as having an importance you know and tom right obviously has impacted me to some degree because he sees the world as vitally important and that the new creation is a recreation like a renewing of this creation and i think he maybe leans too far towards um the continuity between now and then i think there's a lot more to say about the discontinuity as well. Like it's, what is coming is so much greater as well. But just rediscovering that, I think gave me a very different basis for, for why I have made the choices ethically that I have with my sexuality, but also why the political world just is not something I feel is in any way in the right about how we steward

the creation and how we understand our bodies and our minds and the relationship between the creation and us. So I think natural theology obviously has a problem. I'm not saying that therefore means we can just read the creation and know ethically and morally what to do, which was something we see more in kind of the Thomistic system that I'm a little bit nervous about. I'm not, I'm like,

no, no, no, no, no. We are epistemically fallen and we struggle to read that world, but somehow by Christ through Christ and in the Holy spirit, we're reilluminated to living in the world

according to the way God originally intended it. And that is vitally important for gospel ethics. So there is no bifurcation between kingdom and creation ethics. They are one, you know, together, rather than these two separate things. In Barth, does Bar Bart downplay the creation? Like everything you're saying, I read about 100 pages of Bart,

have some Bartian friends. I consider myself more of a Bartian New Testament scholar who didn't read a lot of Bart 15 years ago. I mean, yeah. So does he down? And I know him in, was it Bruner, had that natural law big debate. So does he down, is he, and I know him in, was it Bruner had that natural law, big debate. So does he downplay the role?

How would he describe creation from what you know? Well, I kind of don't agree with Bruner either because Bruner thinks you can see ordinances in creation, like marriage is an ordinance of creation. It's just obvious, like all cultures recognize that. I'm like, well, I don't know. I think that's not radically, like I'm still with the Bartians and the level of like, I think the point of contact has been broken between human beings and God. I don't think we can know God through the world. But my interest is more, once we know Christ, that should put us back into the world. It should mean that point of contact is restored

and that we can start to participate in the grace of God in creation and that our created nature matters. So I was in a seminar with Douglas Campbell, and he said, well, I don't care about this body. Who cares? It's about the resurrection body in the future. So gay marriage is fine. And I'm like, what? like radical discontinuity the other way which was like very bartian and i'm looking at

like tom right going you're a little bit too continuous and i'm looking at doug campbell going you're too discontinuous like why are we not somewhere in the middle where like there's something more coming but this world matters and our sexual difference matters and you know we need to grapple with that there's like this weird bifurcation in protest like protestant theology about the world and its nature and our bodies and so i'm wanting to push against that and some of that is regaining some of the roman catholic things looking at eros and agape and that bifurcation of eros and agape in how we understand the metaphysics of love, that really there is no such thing as, like,

agape that's spiritual and eros that is bodily. There's just love. And then there's some Greek words for love that might have, like, various colours or tints to them. Like, eros clearly relates a bit more to like marriage and sex but eros isn't exclusively in the greek tradition about marriage sex it was about god knowing god and like being inflamed with divine love you know it has like a passionate it has like a passion element to it depending on the context could be sexual could be divine could be

mystical right i mean yeah and you've seen the charismatic movement and attempt to regain that and then in the reformed world are like anti-eros kind of ethic and and and the charismatics of just like don't have the ascetical maturity to know how to deal with that eros and to test it and purge it and direct it in a healthy ordered way and the reformed people like doesn't even exist and there's like this hyper this hyper skepticism towards the idea of a celibate gay christian that could do that you know and and that produce or anybody really men have to be married because they're these horrible perverse sexual creatures that might just like break at any moment i'm like what on earth and then like you know yeah there's a lot wrong in my opinion with this whole system and i'm like so what do we do how do

we re-approach theologically um use so but back to your question, Barth does have at the beginning a bit of a created order theology, but then he turns against it radically at the end, and it's like, no, and goes the hyper-apocalyptic route with Christology. And yeah, I just think that's too extreme. Like I read various commentators and people say that bart thought that jesus was the sacramentum fide which means the only sacrament there isn't like taking the bread and wine isn't a sacrament ultimately like baptism isn't a sacrament it's all just jesus is the sacrament and these things kind of like represent him to us i'm like no i think when i'm taking communion there's a real presence there's a substantiation going on of some kind.

It's a mystery. I can't even forensically explain it. But I love that it's a mystery that is never exhausted by my understanding. And I can just enter that sacrament. And, you know, celibacy is a sacrament because I'm living between heaven and earth and I still experience the incapacity to be celibate because of concupiscence. And yet somehow by heavenly grace, I'm able to give myself up and give my body to Christ and experience this incredible intimacy that we're all destined for. And I live in between, you know, marriage represents that reality to the future and is a sacrament. Like what is a sacrament?

of the future and is a sacrament. Like what is a sacrament? It just is something of the in-between heaven and earth space that we do to imitate Jesus and his life with the Father through the Spirit. So for me, sacraments have become just so important to everything. I'm like, how have we gotten to this place where we just think sacraments are terrible and anti-evangelical? place where we just think sacraments are terrible and anti-evangelical it's like anyway so i suppose i'm not really giving you a very like thought through explanation of my doctorate here yeah

but these are some of my my new thoughts that i'm trying to gather after the process okay and i don't know what you think preston you have any further questions or things you want to press. So it's funny, the gap – people sometimes don't realize this. So I was a biblical studies guy and then you have theology. And the gap between those two disciplines is so much bigger than the average person realizes. Especially if you do like an American evangelical PhD, they're blended a little more. if you do like an American evangelical PhD, they're, they're blended a little more, but you go overseas and it's my friends that are studying theology under John

Webster and stuff. I mean, we, we can be in the same room for hours and not understand a word. Any of us were saying, you know, John Webster is more of a dog. I mean,

he, he would come to our new Testament seminars with his Greek new Testament open and he could hang with the biblical scholars any day of the week. Amazing. We had Francis Watson who can hang into theology. So we aberrantly blended it a little bit. But I remember being overwhelmed. I remember reading – is it Catherine Tanner?

I remember reading – is it God and Creation or something? God and Creation, yeah. Here I am towards the end of my PhD. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but i'm not an idiot either i'm like okay it's a theologian and i had such a hard time i'm like reading this and just and who's the radical orthodoxy guy um john millbank yeah trying to read john millbank was like i I feel like I'm reading Spanish or Portuguese. I mean, this is just so, anyway, all that to say, when people like you, actual theologians are talking, I'm a student.

I have nothing to contribute here. I would like for you to summarize, like, how would you summarize your dissertation? I mean, you've been deep into this topic. So what is this topic for somebody who's listening and catching glimpses and pieces, but like, okay, what have you been working on the last few years? I think my doctorate emerges from the lack of representation of gay celibate Christians within Christian ethics more generally. And then it's also got another element of like what I've already discussed in

terms of systematic theology, like, you know, Christology, natural theology, like the Trinity. There's definitely that behind it, which comes from kind of Sarah Coakley's work and, and Oliver O'Donovan's work on kind of resurrection ethics, you know, in the moral order. And then Graham Ward's work, who's the Regis Professor of Divinity at Oxford, who is a queer theologian, and he's kind of saying that modernism

has produced this counterfeit, this parody of the church in terms of intimacy and in terms of erotics. Now, when I say erotics, I don't mean sex. I mean the broader kind of definition that we've discussed. And I think in those three theologians, there are elements of the puzzle to represent gay celibate asceticism, that there is a queerness to gay celibate asceticism, which is trying to critique modernism and say,

there's counterfeits here, both progressive and conservative, and we're trying to drill down into Christ and his life in Gethsemane, where he says, not my will but yours be done, where desire is given up to God and then a different mission is received. So it's what's the mission of desire after we give it up, after we ascetically give it to God. And that's really what my doctorate's about.

The alternative queerness of Christians giving their bodies up as living sacrifices. That is a queerness that is in many ways challenging to mainstream queerness in the academy. To put it in maybe layman's terms is is it almost a critique of like an idolatry of sex that exists both in conservatism the kind of like if a guy doesn't have sex every 72 hours he's going to turn into a mad rapist and you know their wives need to you know just make sure they're giving him release two or three times you know in the purity culture stuff but then also the secular culture where it's like, no, you're not being you if you're not sexually

expressing yourself according to your innate desire. Both of those have a core putting sexual, not sexuality, but sexual expression, sexual behavior, kind of a central piece of human flourishing in as much as I'm accurate in what I'm saying there is, are you critiquing that kind of narrative? I am, but I'm trying to dismantle something that has meant the church hasn't produced the theology to actually dismantle that problematic system of

purity, purity culture. And then also of the kind of hyper-progressive just sexual expression is self-expression, you know. So I'm trying to dismantle and then look at how gay celibate asceticism actually helps the church be itself. And why does it that as a gay, celibate Christian, I constantly feel like God is trying to say something through us

and we're not being heard? And there isn't the theology to actually push back and to create a different, an alternative erotic. So yeah, that is what my doctor is trying to do. It's called Queering the Queer. How does homosexual celibate asceticism challenge and inform the role of desire in contemporary Anglican theology? And yeah, I just think Anglicanism for me makes sense because

I'm Protestant on some level, but I'm not extreme. And there's so much more deep theology in Anglicanism to deal with this question. Anglican Church has spent a lot of time questioning this, and I really want it to pay off for the whole body of christ both roman catholic orthodox and evangelical um outside of the church of england and anglican communion so trying to do that work and it's a lot to try to do in a hundred thousand words and and augustine obviously plays a huge role because what Augustine does is find a path through his own time where there were similar debates around desire, virginity, celibacy, and the status of the Holy Virgin. So I'm trying to also draw an analogy between gay celibate christians and holy virgins in the fourth century and a lot of historical scholars have said that holy virgins are queer they had a queer purpose they disrupted norms they threw off oppressive understandings of

women where women were basically just you know vessels for imperial progeny that could populate the empire's armies like there was a kind of queer a breaking open of that norm that was christian and i don't think in a secular consciousness there's an idea that christianity was ever something that actually challenged oppressive um systems and i'm wanting to reclaim that and say gay celibate asceticism is actually trying to do a similar thing to, to the holy virginity of, of that time. So yeah, that's,

that's my attempt at offering up something that might help the church. It's tough to translate it all to a popular level ethic, but I'm going to work on that afterwards. I was going to say that this is pretty high up there academically. I would love to see a popular level version of it. Because it's so important, dude. I mean, it's so neat on so many levels. And you mentioned it.

Did I catch it in passing that in the last couple of years, maybe since we've talked, like things have gotten harder for side B, celibate, gay Christians in finding place in the evangelical church? Would that be, I know it's a broad statement, but are you seeing that to be true across the board? I think it definitely has I think that we've we've been pretty battered and we've held up a bit but I don't know I think the ACNA the PCA the like more progressive liberal churches just being um just being a kind of trophy or like the thing that is kind of abused in both both camps is pretty tough um and it's like everyone just wants you to be an apologetic for their cause rather than be challenged back you know, and there are really good elements of the church that are embracing gay celibate Christians or side B Christians. Um,

but it's not as big as I'd hope it to be. And I think we need more generosity from progressive Christians to say like, to find a way to be, to have solidarity together without betraying our convictions. And I think that's a big piece that I want to be committed to, but it's really tough when it comes down to like, what does the church actually teach at the end of the day? And the pain that I go through when the church changes its doctrine on

marriage is like so intense. Really? Are you seeing a lot of that in the uk and australia or more in the uk in the uk yeah and i think also when churches decide to be identifying as gay is somehow wrong is also another blow to to healthy discipleship yeah so i don't know. I think there's so much to say about it. I think I'm in a season where I'm just honestly taking a pause and trying to,

you know, um, prioritize my relationship with Jesus and not be crushed by those things, you know? Yeah. I'm seeing a mixture of, I don't, I don't,

I mean, it's in one sense, like the, the, the demands, you know, the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender is an acquired taste. We, um, you know, obviously if you're super progressive or if you're far right, you're not going to be calling us, but our, um, demands for our ministry have gone through the roof. Like just, I was like, wow, that's awesome. And when I go speak, I feel like that's getting more and more intense. There's more and more people, more and more demands. So that's all encouraging.

People are wanting to engage this conversation in a healthy, nuanced way. And I'm really clear and forthright with my understanding of even gay identity, the term gay and everything. And I get, you know, so I think I'm making some inroads there. People understanding at least the complexity of language and identity and not – that's really my goal. Just don't have a simplified, oh, if you say you're gay, you're saying that's your ultimate identity. I don't call myself an adulterous Christian or whatever.

And it's like, no, let's understand this a little more. So that's encouraging. Now, there is a discouraging thread is I've been doing this six, seven years. And I would love to see churches actually start to take more, more churches take steps to implement and embody actual, might be challenging practices to create a family for all people, single people, married people, whatever, including gay, celibate people. It's one thing for people to come and listen to a talk and to come back next

year and listen again and come back next year and listen again. It's another thing to take steps to implement. And that's where it's, it's a smaller percentage of churches that I'm getting emails saying, Hey, all right, we've done this. We've done this. We've hired this celibate gay pastor, and we've done this. We've lost some people. We've gained some people, but we're doing this. I'm like, man, that's amazing. But those are, it is a smaller number um the gay i did so i i've had more flack simply okay so i don't know how many tiers of separation this is simply speaking at revoice which i've done twice i've gotten more speaking engagements canceled because they found out that I happen to speak at Revoice

with no conversation I could have been speaking at Revoice critiquing me you showed up at Revoice Revoice I heard is liberal or whatever like the most conservative sexual ethic statement

and then I'm done no funk nothing just like an email where you're canceled or whatever i'm like wow no conversation like can i get some clarity on this or what do you mean when you say gay christian or whatever and so i feel like that's almost increasing and that's that's discouraging um yeah I think it's the bunk, the bunkering down instinct when people feel threatened by difference, they bunker down into ignorance. And instead of hearing the faithfulness of that, of revoice people like myself,

yourself, you know, yeah. Fortunately, I think it's the flesh. I think it's the flesh i think it's the pharisee i think it's the thing that comes against the kingdom of jesus it's always been there jesus had to deal with it they wanted to kill him you know they're gonna want to kill us and fortunately that's humanity and it's deeply deeply like disturbing um it is a form of um erasure yeah it is a form of, um, erasure. Yeah. It's a form of violence. It's, um,

really, really horrible. But I think Jesus always had somehow he rebuked, but he also had his mercy for those who were like that. And I, I just want to have that mercy. I think it's just really hard to see though, when I see the impact of it on faithful gay Christians. I find that really tough. That's when I just lose my mercy and I crack and I say, Jesus, I can't be you. I'm so angry. I'm so exhausted. I'm so disappointed.

Help me to step forward. And I think everyone in Revoicevoice we're just trying to step forward we're trying to let god well my prayer is that god would do it like that god somehow would shift the tide that we need to pray more we need to worship we need to also create a culture where we're supporting each other as side b christians and not gossiping about each other i think that's been a really big issue people in who else i'd be taking out their own pain on others um who had maybe got slightly different views within that camp and i think that's really problematic and we just have to stop that and be generous to each other

but it's understandable when you've gone through the pain and the trauma and everything. And yeah, something's got to change, but it's got to, it's going to come from the Lord, I think. And not from us. We're not able to do it. It's got to be him. And that's my constant prayer is like, but I totally know what you mean. Like I have wanted to speak at Revoice every year. I've been on the speakers list twice, you know, when it's advertised and then COVID comes and stops me,

you know, both times. And I've just been desperate to be at Revoice to be refreshed and just drink from that well, while it's, you know, I love, I,

it's, it's one of the most spiritually vibrant. I'm not as charismatic as you. I'll just throw that out there. When I go there, though, I can say. I'll just preach the Bible and then you will be. I am. Theologically, I am.

You feel the spiritual genuineness and rawness and joy and suffering and lament and authenticity, all this, this, this beautifully complex ball of spirituality. You just, it's just radiating in the room and the conversations, the people you talk to. Yeah.

It's just, I mean, you have, I mean, to me, it's just, and this is something in my talk that I said, like you in 2021 2021 when the conference was

last year you have a you have a christian who's gay who has swat whole swaths of culture wanting them to celebrate and act you know whatever like engage in a same-sex relationship you have a growing number of churches that are evangelical-ish and teaching the Bible and singing Chris Tomlin songs and they're affirming. You have churches. You have everything that's pushing you to embrace and affirming theology. And because of your sometimes very, very counter several cultures, reading of Scripture. You're like, no, Jesus, because counter several cultures, reading of scripture.

You're like, no, Jesus, because you're Lord, I'm going to give up something that's a pretty significant part of my humanity. I'm going to lay at the foot of the cross because Jesus laid down, you know, I don't want you to keep going, but like to come into a space where they are raising their hands and I know,

and I'll talk to them and say, yeah, this is the first time I've been in a space where I can worship freely, where people know my story and I feel nothing but like just love and embrace and understanding and camaraderie. Like to go like that, I just don't, that just,

and they're still committed to the traditional view. Like it just blows my mind. And this is what's discouraging for me when people start policing language. And I don't want to – I had a friend that encouraged me that even as I express concern over people policing the language, that there are good people on that side that I don't want to mock them. are good people on that side that I don't want to mock them. Um, you know, so I, I, um, it just, it can be frustrating when I, like you, I see people who are basically going to Fermi because they're just tired of it. They're just like, what, fine. What else do I need to do now? All right, I'm done. I'm just going to forget it. You think I'm liberal? I'm going to go liberal. Um, like that's just, that is discouraging to see already a person already on a really narrow road

to be told they're not walking a narrow of enough road that's hard it's really hard to hear yeah it's really hard i and i think feel like it always whenever i do podcasts on these questions it there's never enough time to describe those layers. But I'm just grateful, Preston, that you're willing to kind of stand with us. And, yeah, I just wish there were a lot more. I wish there was more of a coalition that was public of, you know, the more straight pastor leader that was like, yeah, no, we're going to foot revoice.

We're going to be generous to progressives as well, because we understand there's been a pastoral crisis. People are just trying to get through their lives. Life is hard. You know, let's be generous. Let's not play culture war tactics, but here's our ethic here are people living it here's how we can maybe alleviate some of those layers as a church let's listen what are the layers you know rather than asking constantly like what are the three points that we can do to

make our church better place for lgbtq people like that's important we need to answer that question but it has to be deeper than that it's got to be like a real listening and i think the better place for LGBTQ people? That's important, and we need to answer that question, but it has to be deeper than that. It's got to be a real listening. And I think the Church of England is actually a good model. They've tried to listen, and I think that there's a lot to learn from that process too for the rest of the church that's not necessarily Anglican. Yeah, so Preston,

it's been a wild two years. I know. Just holding on to Jesus and trying in my own human weakness to continue with the gospel that we've received. David, I appreciate you and thanks so much for giving your

time again. Let's not wait two years to do this again but uh great many blessings on you the finish you know the the final round here of your dissertation and i'm excited to see what god does with you the next five to ten years really yeah can't wait thank you for your friendship yeah i appreciate it god bless Have a good day. Bye-bye. ... ... ... ......