Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep970: What ACTUALLY is Revoice? Dr. Nate Collins

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Nate Collins (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the President and Founder of Revoice. He is the author of All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Zondervan, 2017), as well as a forthcoming volume about gender and sexuality in the Biblical Theology for Lifeseries from Zondervan Academic. Nate and his wife, Sara, live in St. Louis, MO with their three children. https://revoice.us/events/revoice19/revoice19-speakers/nate-collins/ https://revoice.us –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– 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. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is my good friend, Dr. Nate Collins. Nate holds a PhD from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He's the president and founder of Revoice. He's the author of a book called All But Invisible, Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality. And he also has a forthcoming book on gender and sexuality in the biblical theology for life series from Zondervan academic. He's married to his wife, Sarah. They have three kids together and they live in St. Louis, Missouri. Um, I brought not, uh, I wanted to bring Nate on the podcast to talk about revoice this organization that he founded a few years ago that has been at the center of some level of

controversy within the evangelical church. And because I've been swept up into that to some extent, because I speak at Revoice, I'm on the advisory board or something like that. And Nate's been a good friend. I promote Revoice, love Revoice. And so, yeah, I've had to kind of wrestle with some of the critiques about it, some of which are accurate. We'll talk about that. But I wanted to bring Nate on the podcast to talk about what is Revoice? What's the heart behind Revoice? What are some of the criticisms? Are they legitimate? Are they misrepresenting? So that's what this podcast is all about. So please welcome back to the show for the third time. They want only Dr. Nate Collins. All right. Hey, friends, I'm here with my good friend, Dr. The Dr. Nate Collins. It's so fun calling my friends doctor. It's like,

Nate Collins. It's so fun calling my friend's doctor. It's like, but you do have a PhD in theology from the Southern Baptist Seminary. I wanted to have you on the podcast because you founded this amazing organization called Revoice

several years ago. I've spoken at it twice, I think, and I'm on the advisory committee. Is that what I'm on the – what am I? The advisory committee? Is that what I'm called? The advisory council. Advisory council.

A lot of people think I'm like a leader at Revoice, but I'm like – advisory council is not – I'm not formally part of any kind of decision, but I'm a huge, huge, huge advocate of what you're doing, Nate. And first of all, thanks for coming on the podcast again. This is your third time. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure. So I did want to talk about some of the assumptions about revoice that are out there. And I know we spoke offline. I know this can be tiring and weary, constantly explaining yourself.

And nobody listens. And you explain yourself again. Nobody listens.. You explain yourself again, nobody listens. And you explain it again, nobody listens. You spend hours and hours and hours constructing a beautiful, and I don't like to term conservative, but let me say theologically sound sexuality statement. And then people still say stuff. They believe this, they believe this. And

you're like, I literally wrote a huge statement that says not that. Yeah. What for people maybe listening and don't really know, maybe let's start with what is the mission and heart behind Revoice? And then I would love to work through what are some of the criticisms you've gotten that, you know, are they legitimate? Are they accurately representing you? And let's start there. What is the mission and heart behind Revoice? Well, yeah, so I'm just reading from our website. The mission of Revoice is to support and encourage gay, lesbian, bisexual,

and other same-sex Christians, as well as those who love them, so that all in the church might be empowered to live in gospel unity while observing the historic Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality. Okay. So there you have it. Yeah. Our primary audience is actual sexual minorities. So however they identify, whether they identify as gay, bisexual, lesbian, or if they prefer same-sex attraction language, it doesn't matter to us.

They're our audience. They're the people that we want to encourage, to support, to see them thrive. And so they are the primary people that attend our conference. Last year, for example, 75 percent, so two thirds, three fourths of our attendees were actual sexual minorities. sexual minorities and, um, and the rest of the people who, um, just want to see what's happening. Yeah. I want to see how they can learn and grow. So a lot of pastors, a lot of people in ministry, a lot of parents, so parents of, of gay kids or family member, other family members of gay kids, there's no real community for them that they've been able to find. And so they, they come to our conference and, um and are just welcomed in because it's,

I mean, it's been described as the biggest, the best family reunion you never knew you needed. I can, as a non-sexual minority, it's, I can, I felt that. I feel that absolutely when I go. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. I mean, and even from a It's great. I mean, and even from a pastor's perspective, you know,

I've had pastors tell me that attended that, that, you know, they had never experienced it before. And, and they said after being there, they don't see how they could ever miss a revoice event, how they were so impacted by the kind of community,

the gospel, the kind of gospel community that's there that they know they need to bring back to the church and have their church be transformed into that kind of culture. But that kind of culture is hot. You can't just teach it. You've got to be there. You've got to let it soak in and let it, yeah, just change you.

So anyway, that's a short answer. Two things, even in your statement, historical Orthodox Christian view of marriage and sexuality. So you, Revoice is grounded in a traditional view of marriage and sexual expression. I'm sure my audience knows exactly what that means and doesn't mean. So can you just maybe explain your heart behind that? Is that, and I'm going to throw you a softball here, are you given a nod to that? Is that something you guys kind of have to say, but don't really passionately hold to, you know? No.

Is this a gateway drug to being fully affirming? Because I've heard people say that, maybe those exact words. Can you just, I would love for you to talk about how you understand the Bible and marriage and sexuality. Sure. Yeah. So built in the DNA of Revoice is this traditional understanding of marriage as between a man and a woman. And that any sexual expression outside of that is not God's best for people, is not within his design for how people can flourish, really. And so we do not, yeah, one of our core values actually was that traditional sexual ethic.

We broadened it to just the value of discipleship in general, because we recognize that sexual ethics are a matter of discipleship. And so we want to disciple people into a way of embracing all kinds of ethics, including the ethic of sexual ethics. And so, but yeah, I mean, we absolutely don't think of our position on sexual ethics as some sort of slippery slope. In fact, we've had side A people, so affirming people, attend our conferences and tell us that, wow, I've experienced the spirit here in a way

that I'd never experienced the spirit in side A spaces. And they're actually considering, reconsidering their convictions on sexual ethics because they've seen. Really? Yeah. And so it's one of the amazing things. I mean, long term, one of the things that I originally thought about when we started Revoice was this kind of idea of what does it look like to reach out to the Side A Christian community, the affirming community. And originally I thought, you know what, let's just do what we do. Let's just reach the people that are wanting to find space. The Side B people, the traditionalists who are sexual minorities and don't feel like they belong in their church, haven't felt like they've been able to thrive. Let's provide a space for these folks.

A lot of side eight people, affirming people also come and encounter the gospel and actually see with their eyes the fact that people can thrive and not just scrape by with the traditional sexual ethic. And that's what they see. That's what we've seen. We've seen just joyful obedience, thriving in their faith, and that's just been beautiful. So, I mean, anybody can attend. You don't have to agree with the doctrinal statement to attend, obviously. Oh, sure. Anybody can attend.

What about speaking? What parameters do you draw – I mean I would imagine you do. What are the boundaries for who is allowed to speak at Revoice? Because you have a range of speakers that come. And are they required to hold to the traditional sexual ethic or would you have an affirming person on stage? You know, that's interesting. So we have a contract for speakers. The speakers have to be in broad agreement with our statement on sexual ethics and Christian obedience, which it's literally titled that statement on sexual ethics and Christian obedience. It's on our website.

Ethics and Christian Obedience. It's on our website. And that statement makes it clear that sexual obedience and the sexual ethic and obedience to the sexual ethic is central in many ways. It's an essential feature of sanctification. And so, I don't know if we would ever have a, a firming speaker. If it, if we did, it might be on like some sort of a panel to present a broad range of people. And we would make clear that this person is maybe not, is not representative of the mission of revoice, but their voice is important in some ways. Um, so there's that, uh, there's another perspective that is kind of widespread, maybe not so much anymore, but the beginning, um, the idea of a third of third way. Yeah.

Remember that conversation that happened a couple of years ago? Yeah. It's like it's still happening without the term, right? Exactly. And I think that's unfortunate because it's a real thing. Yeah, so Revoice is not a third-way organization. Can you explain that for the people who don't know what that means? Yeah, so third-way is the idea that churches can have – well, well, I mean, there's, it's not been defined. So my attempt to define it would be, uh, churches that, uh, have staff that might be affirming, but also staff that might be traditionalist. And as a church, they don't take a position on sexual ethics.

And it's a, it's an agree to disagree issue. It's a secondary issue, like the timing of the rapture. This is not – Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so – So you're not that. I don't think –

You're not that because I think some people would assume you are. Yeah. No, we started out intentionally not being third way. Some of our founding documents that we used to share with people what we are and what we believe. It was very much intentionally we were not third way and so we i i would not have a third way speaker someone that i considered to be third way um be a speaker uh in in a sense uh again outside of the idea the very specialized role of like maybe a panelist or something like that yeah i mean because at the

very end of the day we we don't apologize for our belief that about marriage and sexuality we think that that is good news that's part of what it means to thrive as as sexual beings is living within boundaries that that our creator made for us and and we're finding that that yes it's hard for many of us but in the day it's good and when things And, and we're finding that, that yes, it's hard for many of us, but in the day it's good. And when things are good and we're living according to the good, then we thrive. It's just, the problem is that so much of the good has not been accessible to get Christians. And that's because of the way we do family,

the ways we do church, the kinds of people we put in leadership, all kinds of things. And so at Revoice, we're trying to build a world where these things can be livable and not just livable, but people can thrive and be joyful in them. Right, right. I have two questions, but two sides of the same coin. I'll just throw them both out. What are some critiques that you've received that are inaccurate? Just they're critiquing something that you're not saying or doing. And then I would love to also know what are some critiques that have been accurate and how you would respond to that. They actually are representing what you're saying and they still are critiquing it, if that makes sense.

Sure. So within sort of the broad – so I'll throw it in a term, slide B. We talked about slide – I mentioned slide A and that's people who are affirming, people who know this conversation, know the terms. Folks that come to our conference are a broad variety of people. So if you tried to define the phrase side B, good luck. Yeah. It's just there's such a broad scope of people in there. Greg Webb says it's people who – gay people are just trying not to have gay sex.

Like that's his definition. In my understanding, Side B is not like Side X or ex-gay therapy. Like there would be a lot of tension between that community and Side B. And also Side B tends to not police people's language. So you want to say you're gay, you want to say you're same-sex attracted, you want to not even use a term. All of that would be welcome within a side B. But the only thing that would not be, and not that would be welcome, but wouldn't be considered side B is if somebody was a real strong proponent of ex-gay therapy, would that be accurate? Yeah. That's accurate, yeah. So one of the things that you find in this IB world is some form of

a desire for a committed relationship with someone else of the same sex who probably is also gay or a sexual minority. And that kind of committed relationship gets termed lots of different ways, whether celibate partnership, committed friendships, spiritual friendship. And so I've, I've seen a lot of criticism, basically trying to write off that kind of a relationship as widespread within the revoice community or widespread within the revoice world. the revoice community or what spread within the revoice world. And as though, you know, by arguing against that kind of a relationship that they've somehow also discredited a revoice

and our mission and everything that we do. And that's frustrating because, I mean, I don't believe any, everybody is called to that kind of a friendship. And I don't think that kind of a relationship would be good for every single person. We're all different and all of us are called to that kind of a friendship. And I don't think that kind of a relationship would be good for every single person. We're all different. And all of us are called to different forms of obedience, different patterns of relationships that characterize our daily lives. And for some people, that kind of a relationship could be a good thing, but for other people, it could be a bad thing. And certainly there are, there are forms of those kinds of relationships that are, maybe people think are good, but there might be unhealthy elements in them. And they're not being honest with themselves or with people who are in spiritual authority over them.

So all I have to say, people who criticize Revoice because Revoice is the celibate partnership community, that's just not accurate. And I can say that without throwing people who might be quote in a quote solid partnership, um, under the bus, I fully support the idea of that. And I think that it can be done in beautiful, beautiful ways.

Yeah. But, but revoice is not like, Oh, you have to be in a solid partnership for, to be able to thrive or you should be like, that's never been, that's absurd.

My, my, my naive guess would be maybe 5% isish of the people at Revoice would be in that kind of relationship. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. It's not like you've done a survey or something.

And I appreciate that you even, I mean, even that conversation has so much diversity in it. I mean, on the one end of the spectrum, somebody could be in a covenanted partnership, living together, almost giving the – they wouldn't call it – hopefully, they shouldn't call it a marriage. No, absolutely not. It can function almost like a sexless marriage. I mean, that's the one key ingredient that defines them

is there's no sexual relationship. So they're not outside the bounds of orthodoxy. But sometimes the language, you know, partnership or even the function could feel more marriage-like. On the other end, you have people that are like, no, we think all healthy friendships should be committed for life like David and Jonathan. And then this is lost on the Western society as a whole.

And we're trying to like rejuvenate that. I don't know anybody who, well, I don't know. See, I just, I always say an extreme statement that I back, I walk it back a little bit. But I mean, I think it's healthy for a human to be, to have a better view of friendship. How's that? Like a more committed view of friendship. to have a better view of friendship. How's that? Like a more committed view of friendship. And so some celibate partnerships, celibate relationships, committed relationships could be simply illustrating something that we all should be doing on some level. Is that inaccurate? I'm

still getting my arms around this. I've been thinking about it for a while. Yeah. And it's a conversation that is still developing. And it's hard because I think it's an important conversation because it outlines avenues for community and for family for many of us that don't exist. And until they exist, then it's going to be hard for some people, gay people particularly, to find belonging. Because I mean, I think gay people can covenant with families, not just a single gay person. Gay people can covenant with families to belong to them and to belong to each other. And what's that look like?

What kind of daily rhythms that are encouraging for the parties involved what kind of daily rhythms can be developed to to make life livable for everybody else so i mean to get back to your original question that's that's one one criticism okay um another criticism that we hear is you're making your your gayness your orientation you know central to who you are right just by saying you're gay um and i don't even understand where that comes from like i don't think of myself primarily as you know gay i'm a number of things uh and not like a variety of labels describe who i am and the fact that gay is one of them doesn't mean that I make being gay central to who, who I am. Yeah.

Um, some people do think the phrase gay Christian is insinuating that, that you're saying that gay is central to your core, who you are at your core being. And, and that's, that's absurd. Um, that's not what any of us mean. Uh, it just happens to be meaningful because people used to think you couldn't be Christian and gay. Yeah. That has led to despair and death by suicide in many ways, like the idea that you can't be Christian and gay. And so I don't use the phrase gay Christian very often.

But when I do, it's intentional because it's to combat the idea that the two are incompatible. Well, and also – Keep going. Sorry to cut you off. No, it's fine. It combats the idea that the two are incompatible. And that idea is prevalent in many places. It's not as prevalent, thankfully, as the conversation has gotten better. But I still run into people who discover hope for the first time because they find out that oh you can be gay and christian and for us that means living according to the

traditional sexual ethic and abstaining from sex outside of marriage and if you're not you're not called to a mixed orientation marriage and being sexually abstinent for the rest of your life like but that means the underlying orientation is still there. It's real. You can name it and name it alongside your spiritual identity of being united with Christ. Yeah, no, that's great. And I, I had such a complex, I mean, on the one hand, it's not complex. On the other hand, there's many layers to it.

But, um, even the phrase gay, I keep hearing that more and more because I, that more and more because I use the phrase and I get a lot of flack for that. But what people – and this might be helpful for people listening. Like when I use the phrase gay Christian, it's simply out of linguistic expediency. Like if a friend of mine has been divorced, been through a horrible divorce, I could be vigilant at always saying my friend who has been through a divorce and she's a Christian. Or I can say my friend who's a divorced Christian. The fact that I simply said divorced Christian, I'm not at all trying to elevate her divorcedness as a central part of her identity. It's really out of just a linguistic expediency. I don't know if I ever, I mean, rarely do I ever hear a Christian who does use the term gay to sometimes describe their experience. Rarely do I hear the phrase gay Christian come out of their mouth, except when it's in this

context of like, do you call yourself a gay Christian? I was like, well, I don't know. It's like, it's... I could. Do you want me to? Sure. Or I could say a Christian who experiences same-sex attraction, a Christian who is gay. I mean, what linguistic phrase would suit you? But you can use five different phrases that mean the same thing. And a Christian who experiences same-sex attraction and a gay Christian can functionally mean the same thing. And for me, it does feel like I just, I feel the pain and discouragement when, in particular, a Christian is so sold out to Jesus that they're committing their life to celibacy in a society where they can be affirmed at every corner of culture and many corners of the church to have a same-sex partner, and they still, out of allegiance to Jesus, are committing to lifelong celibacy for people to say, wait, you called yourself a gay Christian. Don't you know where

your allegiance lies? Wow. I really hope that seeps into the heart of people with that accusation, how just strange that can hear when functionally look at my life and you tell me where my allegiance lies. Is that a common frustration among people that are giving up a lot? Yeah. And to hear that kind of accusation, I just, I can only imagine how that would feel. Yeah. And to hear that kind of accusation, I can only imagine how that would feel. Yeah. The language wars get really exhausting. Yeah, I bet.

Can you talk about that if you don't mind? I mean, maybe it's exhausting to even dive into that more. But it's helpful for people to hear that because I think that's something that they realize. So, I mean, so for many of us, just saying the word gay is just being honest about our't understand and it has no place in the church. Everything about gayness is something that should not be named. And so that's our tradition. As evangelical North American Christians, that is our tradition. That's what we grow up in.

That's the air we breathe. That's the energy that animates our sermons that we hear. And that's the energy that animates our sermons that we hear. And when you're gay or a sexual minority and you grow up in that culture, then and then you come to realize that you're gay, you know, when in teenage years and you come to realize, oh, wow. Or you felt different your entire life for many of us. And then you come to realize what that difference is actually called when you're a teenager and you realize, oh, it's because I'm actually gay. For me, growing up in the 80s and 90s, it was, oh, I'm a homosexual. That's what the language was. My dad tells me, I don't remember this, but my dad tells me that when I came out to him, I told him, dad, I think I'm a homosexual. Oh, you did? I told him, Dad, I think I'm a homosexual.

Oh, you did? Yeah, I don't remember. I must have blocked that out. I was 19 years old. But, I mean, just to be able to name it is something that is important because it's real to us. It's our experience, and it influences our lives, and it colors our lives. And so, yeah, just the short three-letter word gay is a culturally meaningful label that names a common experience. And we should be able to name our experiences and be true and authentic about our experiences because they inform our understanding of who we are. Notice I didn't say they determine.

Okay. form our understanding of who we are. Notice I didn't say they determine or that they play a central role or that they are the lens through which we view all of reality, but they inform our understanding of who we are and being able to be honest about that, to, to, to, to be honest about the fact that we belong to a group of people that are categorized by a common experience, however you might describe that experience, it's just meaningful. It's part of being seen. Revoice is not about celebrating sexual deviancy or anything like that. It's about celebrating being seen because Jesus sees us in all of our particularity. celebrating being seen because Jesus sees us in all of our particularity. Yeah.

And everybody deserves to be seen and understood and, and feel like they can belong. Yeah. Let me, let me try to represent, I don't want to, and this could be our maybe last part of the gay ID, the term gay or whatever in this conversation. But let me try to represent maybe a concern that I do resonate with. I'm not saying I fully agree with it, but it's like, okay, that's a little more thoughtful

and there's something there. And I'm still not sure exactly. I haven't nailed down exactly what I think about it, but there is a concern that any kind of identity label can invest more ontological weight in one's existence that may not be helpful. For instance, I could call myself an American Christian. But man, if I'm constantly naming that and naming it and I want to be seen as an American Christian and I'm an American. No, I'm an American. Don't say American Christian. No, I'm going to say American. That could build into me. While American Christian could be neutral, it's not sinful, it could cultivate, sometimes almost on a subconscious level, a view of myself as a separate ontological kind of human and in a society where these labels can be polarizing it could all of a sudden build in me almost like an

ethnocentrism that not intending but oh you're not an american creator oh you hate america oh and it could i don't know it could cultivate a tribal identity that could be unhelpful. Because I've heard people, like thoughtful people, not the ones that are just reacting and not understanding, but thoughtful people say, I don't know if I really like orientation language. It seems to kind of categorize humanity with, you know, you have straight people over here and gay people over here and trans people over here. And like there's these, rather than just we're humans as male and female, some might be intersex, who have a range of different experiences

that they might experience for a lifetime. But that doesn't mean we should be compartmentalizing different categories of humanity. Am I even representing that part of the concern well? And what are your thoughts on that? Oh, yeah, yeah oh yeah oh yeah this is i'm just thinking out loud through this i'm like no there's something because i language isn't neutral um and identity markers aren't neutral um no i don't know but there is i mean the way i've thought about it in the way that we have yeah the way i thought about it in the way that i've just conceptualized what we don't want to be um yeah so there's the concern that you know we're

just siloing people away into our own communities and that we're acting uh as though we're self sufficient within our own community we don't need the broader bride of christ broader church which i have so many thoughts on that are you doing that or is the church making you do that? But keep going. Sorry, finish your thought. Well, it's all connected. As if you guys really want to be a part of the church and the church is like, yes, we want you to be a part. And you're like, no, we're going to take our ball and go home. No, the church is actually like, we don't want you here. And so we're trying to find a place where we can belong. So when I hear that concern, I think, oh, it's absolutely valid. I mean, a particularized identity that links you with a particular group can easily pull you away from any and everything else that's good for you that you just don't want because it's a source of pain, source of trauma, misunderstanding, or you've just been outright rejected. misunderstanding, or you've just been outright rejected. So yeah, absolutely. You know, a identifying as a gay Christian, for example, or, uh, just a gay person in general, um, can

obviously, yes, lead to, um, that part of your identity being too central and playing too large of a role in how you think of yourself. Um there's a background, there's a lot of context for all the forces that would be pushing someone in that direction, some of which are not their own agency, are not their own decisions, not their own responsibility, for example, to maintain a balanced self-understanding. Like you said, churches, sadly, I mean, the bride of Christ, we're talking about the bride of Christ, this beautiful eschatological reality of a spotless bride of Christ who right now is not spotless, is not pure, is in terms of actual visible church, visible churches, things that are happening. Yeah, there's all kinds of reasons why gay people

would not feel welcome and would not feel like that they belong, that their presence in local churches is welcomed. And so because of all, we're talking about the language of trauma because of these experiences of spiritual trauma that are very common for sexual minorities who have grown up in the church. A lot of those experiences are what push people into these silos. And so for us at Revoice, we started out as we just want to be a place where sexual minorities can feel like they belong. No question asked. You come. We're going to worship Jesus. We're going to teach each other. We're going to learn how to be more faithful Christians. Part of that is adhering

toward the traditional sexual ethic, because that's part of the core of what we believe. But we're just going to be a place where you can belong. And, you know, long term, we want you to go home from our annual conference to your church and find a place where you can belong. And, you know, long-term, we want you to go home from our annual conference to your church and find a church where you can belong. And so one of the things that we're launching actually this quarter, we're launching a church partnership program because we want to see local churches be places where sexual minorities can thrive. And so we're focusing on long-term partnerships with a small number of churches starting small so that people can learn what does it look like for a church to be a safe place for sexual minorities? Because at the end of the day,

we don't want people just coming to Revoice and then not knowing where to go after that. We want to be able to, we want people to, we want to be able to, to, to actually live out our belief that the local church is the family of God, is the most basic expression of the family of God. And sexual minorities need to feel like they're welcome in those churches. Have you talked to Greg? Greg's working on a really long list of churches around the nation that – Greg Coles? a really long list of churches around the nation that... Great polls? Yeah, yeah. And we have a criteria of kind of like, you're not affirming,

you don't advocate for ex-gay or whatever. And there's a few other things like, just at least it would be an open door for somebody to feel safe, to at least explore, is this a community that would, ahead of time without having to vet, you know, the big picture stuff where it's like,

oh, I wouldn't feel safe or comfortable at this kind of church. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure where he's at with that list, but it was a pretty long list of churches. Well, Art Pereira, he's our director of community care. He's been talking with Greg about that. Got it, okay, yeah. Yeah.

Awesome, that's great. We're also doing one with counselors too, because that's a, especially some of the gender stuff, like that's really hard to have a counselor that would be, again, at least worth checking out because we can't vet,

we can't thoroughly vet everything, but to say, hey, they're checking off some major boxes here that we would feel comfortable for you at least to explore whether this would be helpful or not. Okay. So how about critiques that are accurate that you're like, yeah, this is just we, this is what we're about. And if you're not, some people might not be comfortable with this and that's okay. I mean, the one, the one, I guess, just to state the obvious, like you're okay,

somebody calling themselves a gay Christian showing up, you're okay with someone who's affirming coming to the conference. And that's just weird to me to think that people would not like that because where else would you want an affirming Christian to go than a place that is teaching a historic Christian sexual ethic? But I know some people have – I want everybody to stay in their echo chambers and not leave that. But I guess that would be one big one is you're not policing people's language. People, I mean, you have people there. I remember after I spoke, I remember I talked to some, let's say same-sex attracted Christians that were super conservative. Like they were like, oh, I would never use the term gay, you know, all the way to people who would be like, no, same-sex attraction, that phrase triggers me because of ex-gay origins and everything and and so all the people there's a spectrum of viewpoints on even

the language right at revoice i mean yeah yeah sorry well in our statement on sexual ethics and christian obedience we don't make a claim regarding language we explicitly say people may choose different language both both language terminology options have baggage and everybody's story is different and so people are naturally going to choose different terms right and that's like that's just a given yeah yeah yeah and so we're not gonna we're not gonna make make judgments about people based on the language that they choose right so i kind of cut you off i mean from the beginning that's always yeah so critiques that's fine i i mean i think one critique i heard it was early on and we we remedied it um people were like well you're doing a conference but what do you believe

like and so after the first conference that's when we actually several months working on our doctrinal statements okay and those are on our website they've been on our website since 2019 i think jane february of 2019 it seems like eternity ago at this point yeah pandemic and that that that's kind of a hard criticism yeah pre-pandemic that's kind of a hard criticism to hear still because they've been up there so long and they're there for people to look at and disagree with if they want to but i've never seen any critic of revoice um engage substantially with those statements wow really there's oh no no i've heard i mean i've heard podcasts where people will spend an hour, like they'll spend an hour, what's the word?

Presumably criticizing Revoice, but really they're criticizing a straw man because they're saying things that we don't believe they're not interacting with actual content from talks. They're definitely not interacting with our, our statements, our doctrinal statements that are up on our website. And so that's frustrating when people will outright reject, quote, you know, side B theology. I mean, there is no real side B theology, or even worse, there's a pejorative people use side B Christianity, as though that there's this form of Christianity that, you know, is unique to people who are gay and following a traditional sexual ethic.

And that's who we are. I've never heard a PsyD Christian use the phrase PsyD Christianity to describe their faith. It's just crazy. I remember the first – Anyway, but yeah. For people who are listening, I think there's a little internet lag time here. So that's – I know that can be hard. It's why Joe Rogan flies everybody out to interview them live, which that live conversation, there's no lag time.

So maybe when Theology in a Raw gets a $100 million contract from Spotify, I can fly you out. Until then, we're left with crappy internet and Skype. So the first year I do remember, and I pay so little attention to social media stuff, but I did remember coming across something. People were kind of really taken back by some of the titles of the talks. Is that accurate? Am I remembering that correctly? And there were some that were, as somebody who likes to kind of spice things up and throw out a provocative title, it didn't even land on me.

Because I'm like, I do that every, that's just like Thursday morning for me to say something provocative to get people into a conversation. But I remember kind of looking back like, oh yeah, that would be challenging for somebody to look at the titles of the talks and be like, wow, where is this going to go?

Was that an issue? And do you have any regrets about certain talks or people or whatever that you've hosted? I don't want to throw people under the bus or whatever. I think the most controversial talk from the first year was grant hartley's talk about queer treasure and that was the phrase from the title of the talk oh maybe that's yeah it might have been the one yeah okay yeah uh it was an amazing talk i mean it was so good um i i mean there were uh let's put it this way a 80 80-year-old PCA teaching elder here in St. Louis

listened to that talk and said, you need to put that on YouTube so people can hear what he actually said. Wow, yeah. And so it was an amazing talk. And as far as titles go, I think it was edgy. I think it did enough to describe the content.

And I don't think it crossed any lines. In fact, in 2020, well, so in 2019, the next year, we had Grant come back to give an updated version of the same talk. And it was even better. And then in 2020, we had, this was the virtual conference, we had a PCA pastor speak. And I didn't know that this is what he was going to talk about, but he ended up giving a passionate appeal for the same content that was in that talk, but giving it an explicit biblical basis, talking about the, the, the kingdoms of Tyre and Sidon bringing their treasures to,

uh, the king, the king or to the lamb or whatever. And it was me talking from the prophets and talking about, um, these, uh, these non-Jewish countries offering their treasures in the kingdom.

And it was just a beautiful, amazing, passionate appeal for people to see, yes, there is common grace everywhere if you will only look and see it. And so it was a really beautiful way to sort of see this thing that was, you know, the source of so much heat, so much controversy, to sort of see this thing that was, you know, the source of so much heat, so much controversy be given its rightful, I think, rightful honor and recognition. So yeah, I wouldn't regret that at all. I think it was, I mean, people, it was a standing room only talk. It was, I mean, it led people to tears because you could finally see, wow, there are parts of my experience of my sexuality that can be redeemed and be seen as beautiful and treasure even. It's just so theologically robust. fragile and volatile that any other area of theology, most other areas of theology,

you would have freedom to explore this under the rubric of, yeah, just a general revelation or whatever, whatever historic category you want to use. And we enjoy that. Like, oh, let's,

let's expand our theological horizons. But the second you throw queer into it, it's like everybody shuts down. Well, not everybody, but the heart and the heart of thing heart thing is these are actual people i mean you've your book people to be loved like like there are actual people who who experience the controversy as rejection yeah and who who feel pushed out and like they don't belong and it's it's just really it's i mean when you got when you have people who are just fighting to believe and they're being told by their church by their

spiritual leaders that um that or they're they're learning they're they're discerning that they don't belong because of the way people talk about their experience it's like where do they go um that you you just yeah it, it's, it's, here's what's hard for me is I, you know, I've been living in that space for a while now. To me, that's just, that's, that's normal for me to, to know that that's how gender and sexual minorities have felt for years. So I've lived in that kind of, um, trajectory of that journey. And so for me, it just seems like a no, it just seems so obvious, but I do have to give grace to people who are raised in a culture war context.

It's just a lot of fear driven stuff. And they've been soaked in a narrative and that to know, you know, it's like, I mean, we all have a responsibility to believe truth and pursued grace. Okay. So I don't want to let people totally off the hook, but I also understand the power of that narrative. And people haven't sat down and talked to people who are absolutely crazy about Jesus and are making major sacrifice to the kingdom, who read the Bible every day, who are pursuing Jesus, who have felt nothing

but rejection by family, friends, the church, and what that does, and yet they're still clinging to Jesus. Like that, it's hard. It would be hard to really spend, you know, an hour in the presence of somebody like that and not be changed. But some people haven't had that opportunity. Maybe it's their fault. Maybe it's somebody else's.

Maybe it's just, it is what it is you know so i um yeah i don't know i'm going with that but man i why don't we for uh can we talk about revoice 2022 um what's on store and and how can people uh find out more yeah so i mean, yeah, our next conference is this October. You can go to revoice.us and learn more about the dates, sign up to get notified when registration opens. I mean, this is the first time that we've actually had a conference at the same place two years in a row. So we're excited about actually knowing where we're going

and having been there before. It feels like every single year it's been a learning curve. The people on my team, myself and our team, we've not been trained in planning conferences. Most of us have seminary degrees, and so we can talk theology. But when it comes to actually logistics types of things, we rely on other people. And anyway, all I have to say that, yeah, we're just excited to go back to the same place. Chase Oaks Church in Plano, Texas has just been an incredibly hospitable partner to work with and generous with their venue and their space. Yeah. And we learned some things from last year's experience in terms of just logistics of what it takes to have a conference at a church venue. And so we're going to include meals and registration prices this year,

instead of having people buy from food trucks that might have long lines. Yeah. You guys need more food trucks. We needed more food trucks. I just put on a conference the thrill general conference and it was because i remember going to yours and saying you had about four or five hundred people you have to get two food trucks i'm like i think right when i came home i told chris my wife who's organizing i'm like do we need to have a lot more food trucks than

even then even then it was an issue i think we had eight or nine food trucks the problem was my buddy jay was smoking Nashville-style barbecue, and there was one of him, and everybody was flocking to that. And so we actually had a decent amount of food trucks, but you can't smell that smoke and not just like the Manchurian candidate just like gravitate towards that line. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I don't think we're going to, it's not final. We haven't publicized anything yet, but I think we're, we're, we're going to cater and we'll just provide options for people to pick up their food and, and roll it into the registration price. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, logistically things are going to be, um, smoother. The, the sessions are going to be a little shorter. I think a lot of people felt like they were drinking from fire hydrants last year.

Yeah. And so we're going to have more time for community building. We're going to have a lot of intentional meetups for folks. So geographical meetups on Friday for lunch and then affinity group meetups on Saturday. group meetups on Saturday. Yeah, just want people to really come together and just experience belonging together. We have a theme. I don't think we've announced the theme yet, so I'm not going to say anything about it, but we're really excited about our theme this year, the Bible verse that it comes from, and making that central to the way the sessions are laid out and the speakers, the topics that they're addressing. Can you announce any speakers yet or no?

That's probably not public yet, or you're probably still finding speakers. No, we got everybody. We haven't made that announcement yet, but it'll be soon, potentially within a few weeks. And by the time this goes live, they might have already been announced. I'm going to connect you with my barbecue guy. I don't know if you're against him coming out and setting up a smoker. That was so much fun at our conference.

But he's not too far away. And he works for the number one barbecue-rated – the number one barbecue joint in Nashville, Texas. It's been rated number one for the last two years. And barbecue is a religion for him. It's Jay Newman. I don't know if you know him. No. He's been on the podcast before. Great guy. Great thinker.

Maybe we'll cater him. Yeah. He just started his own business and the Theology on Rock Conference was kind of his first. He dragged a smoker across from Nashville to Boise and was just overwhelmed. He was so overwhelmed. He was like, I didn't want to buy too much meat Nashville to Boise and was just overwhelmed. He was so overwhelmed. He was like, I didn't want to buy too much meat or whatever,

but he was just swamped, man. It was so good. It made it so fun too because it just – I don't know. It was a fun vibe. But he could probably – It's ironic that theology in the raw. It was a very raw – Just barbecue plan.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Barbecue. Anyway, we'll get to talk offline. How are you? I went to ask this earlier. And I don't know how personal you want to get, but, you know, you've had a journey. I mean, with your own sexuality and then, you know, going through, you know, very conservative environment and getting a PhD. you know, very conservative environment and getting a PhD and you're married with children and then starting to revoice, which was amazing, but also a lot of the backlash. And then,

you know, just a constant buzz of criticism, I'm sure that is just the air you breathe. How are you doing, man? I mean, you're just one of the most gracious people I know. I mean, look at you, just, you just seem so calm and collective. I like almost like you're a, just some heterosexual tax accountant in Boise, Idaho or something, you know, it's like, that sounds like a nightmare. I don't even, I don't know why I even said that, but just, you just like, you've had a tough road and how are you doing? You're still a Christian. You're still theologically, you know, committed to the text.

And how are you, man? Yeah. How can we pray for you? Yeah. It has been a journey. I'm 41. uh i'm 41 i remember i came out i think when i was 26 or so sarah and i had been married for a couple years at that point she she knew i came out to her when we were dating um and uh i feel like i've gone through every phase someone can go through as a gay Christian except the

affirming route. Like I said, my dad tells me that I told him I might be a homosexual. And then eventually I heard the language same-sex attraction and that felt good to me. Eventually I realized, no, gay is just simpler and more accurate and less Christianese. And then I learned about the baggage that same-sex attraction had with the world. And I was even more glad that, that I was able to, to part ways with that. But then, yeah, the more I used the gay label, um, especially in my PhD years at Southern Seminary, You did use it then? Mm-hmm. Publicly? Or just kind of... Yeah, publicly.

How was that? Can you talk about that? I mean, I'm trying to think of... I mean, I was just ignored. I mean, as far back as 2017... I finished my PhD in 2017, and I remember as far back as 2014 using that language publicly in talks that I would give.

I mean, gosh, I've been gone from Southern for almost four years. I consider Southern to be a very toxic place still. I have a lot of pain from just the lost the lost relationships from, I mean, I spent 14 years there. 14? 14. Yeah. MDiv, MDiv took six years. Cause my wife got her MA in counseling and got licensed and we had kids and took a year off and then PhD took seven years. Is her MA from Southern as well?

It is. Okay. It's from the pre-biblical counseling days. Oh, okay. So the program that she was in actually prepared her for licensure. So she was a marriage and family therapist. Okay, yeah. But yeah, I mean, a lot happened in the time we were there

in terms of just this conversation. I mean, you had in the aughts, the 2000s, there were the marriage debates nationwide because states were passing marriage amendments. And then you had the fall of Exodus in 2013. And then I started writing about my ideas around 2014, 2015. My book came out in 2017. So yeah, I mean, yeah, a lot's happened. And yeah, it is exhausting to think about. In terms of just personally, I feel like there's been, in the last four years at least, just a few key people who've just always been there my wife sarah has been the biggest support

and the most rock solid person to lean on sarah's a rock star man she's been through a lot because i know what wives can sometimes i should say spouses can sometimes bear bear the weight of difficult situations sometimes sometimes more than the spouse who's going to be going through it um i could speak that for me like i and i and i'm i'm a pretty resilient just personality so um but yeah my wife the tiny glimpses she's gotten of she's probably seen about two percent of the criticisms i get because she's not she doesn't have twitter she just got an instagram like six months ago i don't know she's on you know like and as you know 99 of people that holler and scream are russian bots anyway on social media it's like real people don't do that to your face i mean she yeah but then she'll hear like she'll get an email or something like this person said i'm like dude yeah don't look at my Twitter but I know

that she would wear that weighs her down a lot more than it does me I can only imagine Sarah the stuff you've gone through man oh well yeah I mean it's so most recently I mean there's been a lot of controversy in the PCA Presbyterian Church in America

yeah I mean I don't want to descend into denominational politics, but we do attend the PCA church because it's pastored by an amazing man, Greg Johnson, who's a dear friend. But because of Memorial Presbyterian church, this is the church we attend. They attended, they hosted the first revoice and that, that triggered some really, it could have been potentially fruitful discussion,

but it's turned into this really divisive controversy, sadly. And then most recently, even Tim Keller, who was an author of a report that the PCA wrote, Tim Keller just recently on a blog said that the report clearly rejects side B Christianity. Really? And that's really, yeah, yeah. You were breaking up a little bit there, Nate. So Tim Keller was part of a report,

authoring a report that says he completely rejects side B theology. Well, he, yeah. So the PCA assembled a committee to write a, they commissioned a committee to write a report on sexuality to try and bring some unity to the PCA. And the report, instead of bringing unity, really tried to be too many things to too many people. in a blog on the PCA's magazine website, By Faith, said that the report, quote, clearly rejects Side B

Christianity. And he agrees with that? Is it not clear whether he agrees with that? No, he agrees with it. He agrees with it. He was an author of the report, and the report didn't name the phrase Side B. That's a very niche phrase. Tim his tim keller in his blog article

used the phrase side b and said the report clearly rejects side b christianity and so it was it was hard because he used the phrase side b christianity which is it feels like a pejorative we don't want to did he define exactly because that's a really broad statement. So he did. He said Side B is broad and he provided three sort of key ideas that in his estimation describe Side B. Some of them are kind of vague. And so I could understand what he was trying to accomplish. what he was trying to accomplish. I only bring this up in the sense of this hurts us. It hurts me. For me, not only as a gay man, but as the president of an organization that's trying to provide a safe space for gay people, it's hard when people like Tim Keller and others make statements like that, that ultimately don't do anything but distance gay people from the church. It feels like a Galatians 2 experience where we're welcome up to a point, but then when men from James come, then we're not welcome. We're not included.

And so I say that all the, only to like, in the sense of, you know, people like Sarah, like my wife and others who have just been really solid support and people I can lean on. It gets tiring to experience real rejection from people and to experience real exclusion from spaces. So, yeah, it is hard. It's not, it's not easy, but forms of community that are safe have been really good. Okay. Nate. Well, I appreciate you, man. Think about you a lot. I know we only talk a few times a year. Yeah. Likewise. I won't be, a few times a year. Yeah, likewise. I won't be, I'm on sabbatical next fall. So I unfortunately won't see you next October,

but we will, yeah, I will be promoting it and let me know however we can support your ministry. So would love to send out a few newsletters, let our people know, push people there because yeah, I can 100% say this is such an important work that you're doing. And it's important. And lots of work is important. But when you have a decent-sized people group that have very few spaces where they can be humanized and encouraged and feel safe to be challenged by the presence of Jesus and be around other believers who have gone through an experience that most people don't understand and to be worshiping the supremacy of Jesus together. Like that's, it's, it's really, it's super important. You know that I just want to publicly say that I am a hundred percent behind you, man. So just whatever,

whatever you need, I mean, whatever I can do to help. Um, let me know. So thankful for you and for center and all that you guys do. And yeah, it's a beautiful word. Thanks for coming on theology and Rob bro. Thank you.