Theology in the Raw - Surrendered Sexuality: Dr. Juli Slattery

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

Dr. Juli Slattery is the president and co-founder of Authentic Intimacy. She is a clinical psychologist and hosts the weekly Java with Juli podcast. Juli has authored or co-authored 14 books, including her latest book: Surrendered Sexuality: How Knowing Jesus Changes…Everything. Join the Theology in the Raw community to get access to our "extra innings" conversation, where Juli counsels me on how to respond to slander and lies spread about me from Christian influencers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theologia. My guest today is Dr. Julie Slattery, who is the president and co-founder of authentic intimacy. She is a clinical psychologist and host of the weekly Java with Julie podcast. She has authored or her authored 14 books, including her latest book, Surrendered Sexuality, Knowing Jesus Changes Everything. I think this is her third appearance of Theology, Julie's become a friend over the years. And I absolutely, as always, loved this conversation. So please welcome back to the show. one and only Dr. Julie Slahery. Hello, Julie. Welcome back again to Theology and Dara. It's good to have you back in the show. I don't know what number this is, three or four or something like that, but always good to have you on. How are you doing this morning?

I'm doing well. It's always good to talk to you. I am a listener as well, so this is really fun. I continually learned from you, Preston, so thanks for the work that you're doing. Yeah. Thank you. And vice versa. So you have a, is this book out yet? I forget that the It is. Surrender sexuality. Okay. When did you start engaging in conversations around sexuality? Is this that like the very, very beginning of your ministry, professional career or is just something you fell into later on? Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely not the beginning. And I started kind of dabbling my toes in the topic when I was doing more ministry on marriage, particularly for wives.

Like when you talk about marriage to women, you've got to talk about sexuality. So my first couple books and really conferences around this were all about as a Christian wife, what does it look like to pursue sex and marriage? And then in 2012, I started authentic intimacy, which really got me into the larger conversation about just Christianity and sexuality and all the pain points and confusion. So I've been like full time in the space now for 13 years. I'm curious in your previous focus, which I'm sure is still a focus on Christian women in marriage. What are some of the main questions, problems, complaints?

Like what are the main issues you felt like you have always kind of dealt with when it comes of Christians in marriage? Sure. Yeah. Some of it has changed over time. I think when I initially started engaging in this topic, particularly. particularly in more conservative church spaces, like Christian women had no idea of what it was to pursue sex and marriage. And there was a lot of the conversation around duty, sex, and

obligation, and just I don't enjoy this. Certainly struggles with pornography. Like, I caught my husband looking at porn. I don't know what to do. Sexual trauma, like how does my trauma for my past impact my sex life today? all those things are still there, but I think in addition to that, we're seeing a lot more of women who desire sex and want sex, but their husbands aren't willing to engage for one reason or another. Really? Yeah.

It's definitely on the rise, particularly in younger generations and older now, too. So there's a lot of that conversation. Women are coming in with their own battles with pornography, erotic literature. and they're much more engaging in that than they were, say, 15, 20 years ago. And, you know, I think some of just the ongoing conversation of what is healthy sex actually supposed to look like in marriage? You know, is it all about climax and pleasure and how do I experience that? But is it more about intimacy and communication?

So a lot of work really trying to reframe that whole conversation for married couples and married women in particular. What's the reason for the, can I say it's a broad shift in men wanting sex and marriage, women less so, and then now you're seeing that, not completely flip, but that's changed a bit? What's causing that? I mean, I just want to say, if you asked me a question about anything, and, you know, I'm just going to say, well, porn is the problem, right? I mean, is that, does it come down to some, is that part of it? I think there's a couple factors.

I think one of them, maybe on the positive side, is the sex positivity messages that women are getting today where they weren't getting those, you know, 15 or 20 years ago, particularly within conservative church spaces. So conversations about sex, conversation about the fact that you're sexual too. This is supposed to be something that you're engaging in and enjoying. It's not just about meeting his need. as well as women and girls at young ages being exposed to pornography and erotica sort of waking up those desires, where we didn't see that as often in women in the past. And then as you're kind of, as you noted, I think the impact of pornography on men where their brains are so wired to respond to pornography that even good Christian men, when they enter into the space of marriage, they find this. is not even something I can respond to. I can't enjoy it physically. I can't respond. And so there are a lot of men who either then will divert just back to pornography or the way they deal with the temptation is just to shut down sexually altogether. They don't know how to engage in healthy ways. And then I think this is another controversial topic we don't necessarily have to get into. But I think just the demasculization of men in our culture, just even with, within marriage where so much of our language towards men is demeaning and tearing them down,

I do believe there's a correlation between a man feeling valued and respected and loved by his wife and feeling like he can engage sexually. So I think that's sort of an underlying trend that we don't often talk about. Can we go? Let's keep going there. No, this is the Because I resonate with what you're saying. And it's hard because that, what you just said, has been kind of politicized. And then you have the extreme, you have some extreme swings, the Andrew Tates and these others is kind of truly toxic masculinity, making a resurgence in reaction against the kind of demasculization of men, men feeling a shame for doing anything that would be characterized as masculine when it's like, well, that's not masculinity. is not bad. Femininity is not bad.

Those things have bad components and extremes that are bad. But you shouldn't feel ashamed for exhibiting just godly, normal, masculine traits, right? Anyway, I don't want to answer for you, but yeah, can you expand on that? Yeah. And not only that, Preston, like, even if we just talk about how we talk about men today, it's very demeaning. For example, it's sort of a joke for women to say, You know, how many kids you have?

Oh, I have three, not including my husband, which is, you know, like, everybody's like, but we would never say that. Like if a man said that about his wife, we would be horrified. And I think our cultural narrative is always kind of taking shots at men, making them feel less than. And I think even within Christian marriages, I know I fall into this. I think I've seen a lot of friends fall into this. we just don't speak life into our husbands. We're telling them what they're not doing right, how they need to improve. We can be sarcastic. We don't want to see their strength. We want to make

decisions for them. That is a trend in our culture. You know, the New York Times has very popular articles on things like mankeeping and complaining about men. And maybe it's better just to be with another woman because they're easier to deal with. And this is a trend of not just, you know, like saying toxic masculinity is bad, but really being demeaning towards men. And, you know, women have their strengths and weaknesses, but I think one of the weaknesses we can have because we can see what's wrong relationally is we're always calling out what's wrong instead of calling forth what's good.

And so when a man is at home constantly, feeling like even if his wife loves him, she's being critical of him all the time and trying to fix him, that does not invite healthy sexuality. So, you know, it's saying you're not enough. And there is a link between that kind of dynamic in marriage emotionally and a man feeling like he can show up sexually. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm also curious, is this related? I've just been learning recently that men on the whole, I don't know if it's in the West in America or if it's globally,

but like fairly significant lower levels of testosterone. Whereas like 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, their levels were at, I don't know what it is like, you know. Yeah. I heard someone say like 1,200 to 1,200, is that right? For like a teenage or a, you know, late teen, early 20-something male. But now they say, well, now the standard is a lot lower. and even for older men.

It's like now we've lowered the standard. Is that true? And why is that? Yeah. I don't know the exact science on that, but yes, that is a trend. And there's lots of different things that can be correlated with that from environmental and all the estrogens that are in our meat and our milk and things like that. Some people talk about microplastics and the role of that.

But I think also just, you know, testosterone is produced when you do. do things like working out, when you do things like a challenge that really requires you to step into something difficult. And so we have a lot of passivity in our society, particularly, I think, for males, where, you know, everything's gaming or it's online or, you know, things like that, where it's not inviting men into the kinds of challenges that, that produced more testosterone, but also that help men feel like this is what healthy masculinity looks like. So it's multi-causal, and we can't say it's just one thing that is kind of leading to men with lower sex drives. But I think we have to look at all the different dynamics, particularly the ones that

we have within our control to change. So how do men respond healthily? What is the godly response to this? You don't want ungodly passivity. You want kindness and gentleness. You also don't want the toxic stuff, obviously. That's kind of like, apart from some small circles, everybody's kind of like, yeah, that's not good. So what is the healthy response? Yeah. I mean, I think you have as many thoughts on this as I do. I think a big part of it is men being willing to move into the hard spaces of life. You know, like being willing to step into culture and speak and act and fight for righteousness and fight for the oppressed and take the bullet, you know, like metaphorically and more importantly, spiritually and relationally, like stepping into

to taking care, protecting, providing, you know, not exclusively, it doesn't mean that women aren't doing some of those things, but men are called to be that. And they've been called to be that historically. If you think about our stories and the movies that attract men, the storyline is always similar. It's always going to have a character who has a call on his life. There's something wrong in culture that he's called to step into, but he has insecurity. And he has to make the choice. Do I listen to the voice of insecurity?

Or do I take the risk? Do I put my reputation on the line? Do I put my life on the line? Because men, even after the image of God, are created to step into that place and be the one that lays themselves down for the sake of the other. And so whatever that looks like, you know, I think that's what's lacking. And video games create a fake way of doing that instead of calling men to the real thing of doing it, of risking relationship and risking well-being for the sake of helping society and helping society and, helping others. Yeah, the whole game is.

I don't know. What do you think? Well, yeah, I mean, I can just speak anecdotally. And I mean, I have, you know, a broad sense of culture. And I do see these pitfalls on both sides that I identified, you know, this kind of like growing passivity or just, yeah, like men can be shamed and demean and it's acceptable in many circles. And if you do anything that is just kind of like just typical masking that's kind of mocked or whatever. Not in every circles, but because you still have the extremes being baptized and embraced and celebrated. So it's just weird. It just really depends on kind of your social ecclesiological context, which one of those extremes is being accepted and celebrated.

I know just anecdotally, when I am more passive, not taking leadership, not and even that can be triggering, taking leadership, not that my wife doesn't take leadership as well. Like we have a very organic relationship where she's strong and capable, more capable than I am in many areas in our marriage and life and family. And then I'm capable and strong in other areas. We've taken us 20 plus years of marriage to figure out, okay, when do I lean on her to help me in this situation and follow her guidance? And when does she lean on me? And it's, you know, it's not easy. But what I do know is that when I am wrongfully passive and not taking care of things that need to be taken care of, what I'm not initiating conversations about this or dealing with this issue or whatever, it's not good for a marriage.

And vice versa, if I'm too strong or if I'm, you know, yeah, taking, quote, leadership in a way that's just not healthy. That's not good either. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so just anecdotal, I noticed that that sweet spot of being gentle and kind and courageous and truth-telling and take an initiative, like, gosh, it really does, our marriage flourishes when both of us are, because she'll have their same, you know, fall into these extremes. And gosh, it's just, when it's clicking, when we're in that sweet spot, it's just like, it's night and day difference in our marriage for sure. Yeah. Boy, and I would say that of you, like even within the.

the body of Christ. Like, what you do with Theology of the Raw is you take the risk and you go to the spaces, you invite the conversation that's difficult to have. Like, that's healthy. Like, that's sort of that healthy call of masculinity. And again, not that women can't do it. But I think when a man doesn't have that in some sphere of his life is where he's not thriving. Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, you know my wife. I mean, she is, extremely capable person. Yeah. You know, I mean, I mean, probably more capable than most humans I've ever met.

I mean, she, she runs two ministries full time. She's the most amazing parent I've ever met. She is incredibly hospitable. She's getting a degree in French. She's getting a culinary degree. She's learning another link. Like, she's just like the most, I mean, I'm like, how does one person do all this and do it well? It's crazy, you know?

Yeah. And yet, like, she likes it when she knows that I am also, again, when I say take leadership, not to not, it's not a black and white. It's a dance. It's not a top down. But when I'm in that passive, whatever, just because it'd be easy for me to hit cruise control and say, dude, you just, you run with this. You do, you know, but she does not, she just not, she actually does not like that. You know, so yeah, it's just, yeah, it's fascinating. I read this one quote that I think says it in the sentence.

The only thing worse than being married to a man that you can't control is being married to a man that you can control. Yes, yes. And that's the tension. It's like women don't thrive when they have a husband who's controlling. Like even the fact that you're talking about how your wife, Chris, is flourishing, means that, you are encouraging that flourishing. Your leadership encourages her to be all of who she is. You're not threatened by her.

You're not dampening her down. No. But when you get in a place where she is flourishing, but you're not, and you're not striving with her and fully being the man that God created you to be, that's not a happy place either. Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

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book, surrendered sexuality. You have written a lot of amazing work on sexuality, broadly speaking. Tell us about this

book and how does this relate to and build off of your previous work? Yeah. Thanks for asking. A lot of my work over the last maybe six or seven years has been around this concept of sexual discipleship and that we have been sexually disciplined by the culture. And at best, the church has been educating, like doing a little talk here or there or maybe kind of problem solving. Like how do we stand about pornography? How do we stop people from sinning? And really, if we want to, if we want to, if we want to, when the conversation with Christians around sexuality, we have to switch to a discipleship framework. It can't be just a sermon or it can't be just a youth group getaway where you say this is what the Bible says on these issues. We have to disciple. And discipleship is all of life.

It's all of who you are. It's not just a behavior change. And so I've written quite a bit on that and spoken quite a bit on that. And as I've engaged with people and church leaders and those in discipleship ministries, they're like, okay, well, how do we disciple? Like, what does that process actually look like? Or for an individual who's like, yeah, my sexuality is such a mess. I don't even know how to bring this to God. What is the pathway of what discipleship looks like in this area of sexuality? So this book was my attempt to kind of spell out, this is what it looks like to be disciples in our sexuality in relationship with God. And it sort of covers the gamut of the different aspects of who we are as humans and who we

are as sexual people and what it looks like to bring that to our relationship with Jesus Christ. Can you walk us through the content? What's the expanded summary of it? Yeah. So it really starts with this idea. And I'm sure that you've seen this to be true. sexuality is not going to be a neutral issue in a person's relationship with God. And in many, many cases, sexuality is actually a barrier in their relationship with God. It's the one thing that they don't feel like they can trust God with, or it's the one question they don't feel like has been adequately answered for them, or it's the shame that makes them feel like I can't be used by God. I can't know him intimately. And so it's really like challenging

that framework that we don't want that wall between them and God to exist in the form of a sexual question. And then each chapter is kind of like another piece of us that we need to learn to surrender to God in relationship. So the subtitle, precedent of the book, is how knowing Jesus changes everything. And I think that's so key. Not knowing the Bible changes every. thing. But realizing that Christianity is not a list of rules that we follow. It is a life-changing encounter with the living God in Jesus. And so I walk through, what does it look like to surrender our identity to Jesus? What does it look like to surrender our understanding of the purpose of sexuality to Jesus? How about our sin struggles? You know, how about the daily

decisions we make about what to do with our body sexually? How do we surrender our brokenness? You know, those memories of trauma and betrayal because they stay with us. Jesus wants to be our healer. How do we surrender discernment and wisdom? And then how do we surrender how we love people? And so really looking at those different aspects of, you know, if we are Christ followers, it means that we are to give our whole selves to him, not just fix our behavior. So that's kind of the framework that I used for the book.

You've dealt a lot with people who have experienced sexual trauma, whether it's unwanted sexual contact at a young age or sexual assault as a teenager or full on rape at any age. How does somebody truly heal from that? It just seems like I can't imagine how anybody would ever fully heal. Maybe this side of resurrection, it's not complete healing. Maybe it's a journey, but what are, what would you say to somebody who's experienced at the very minimum unwanted sexual contact all the way to sexual assault? Yeah. You know, first I would say that there's really no pain like sexual pain of this kind. And I think sometimes we just need to sit in that.

Very often, and when we talk about people who have been sexually traumatized, we're not talking about. a minority of people. Like the CDC says that over 50% of women have experienced sexual violence and about 30% of men. So this is not a small percentage of our population. And I think we need to realize that the majority of people that we're interacting with have some sexual pain and trauma. And for many of them, it is rape.

It is being sexually molested as children, being sexually objectified by people. that we were supposed to be trusting. And so I want people to know you're not alone. There are a lot of people that are on this journey and who are experiencing freedom and healing, but it doesn't come quickly for most people. I also think it's important to distinguish between, I think Deborah Hirsch does this in her book, but between redemption and healing. healing as if it never happened. And I do know some people that have experienced such profound

healing that it's like it never happened. It doesn't impact them anymore in their marriage or in their thinking. But most people who have been through sexual trauma experience redemption. And that means that even what Joseph said is true. Like what Satan has meant for harm, God has now turned to use for good. That our deeds. deepest wounds when we encounter Jesus in such a way that he begins to reverse what's happened to us can actually become the place where we experience Jesus' love and who he is the most profoundly. And I've seen that to be true. Like men and women who have experienced the deepest trauma sometimes are the ones that have the deepest intimate knowledge of God.

They learn to trust him because the wounds are so deep. But the process is not an easy one. And I really think it requires both the psychological expertise of understanding how we work through trauma in our brains and our bodies, as well as the spiritual work of unearthing the lies. Any time you experience trauma, Satan plants lies. And he plants really, really deep lies in a person's soul. when it's sexual trauma. And so learning to identify those lies and really begin to renew your mind with what's true. A couple of questions. How do you define sexual violence? I mean, 50% of women, that is insane. What would be categorized? What would be like the lowest level

of the, I don't know if that's the right turn of it. You know, but I think sexual violence, my mind just goes to full on like rape, but not everything that sexual violence would be categorized is rape, right? Right, that's correct. Yeah, what would be the minimum kind of criteria for sexual violence? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question. This particular stat from the Center for Disease Control qualifies that it includes some kind of touch.

And so that might be inappropriate sexual touch that was unwanted and that falls short of intercourse or something like that. But I think it's important to define sexual trauma and vice. violence more broadly than we usually do. Okay. And, you know, let's say that there's a woman who grew up with her father every time she takes a shower, watching her take a shower and commenting on her body. Like, even though it doesn't involve touch, that is sexual trauma.

That's molestation. You know, now we're beginning to understand even really early exposure to pornography. Like, even though it doesn't involve touch, that's a form of sexual violence in some way, particularly if it's being introduced by somebody older than you. Sexual trauma and abuse will involve usually some element of either coercion or somebody that has authority over you or a higher status. So when we talk, for example, of church leaders that abuse people in their church, they abuse their position of authority and power.

So it always has an element of something that is not wanted and you feel like you're coerced in it one way or another. What about, okay, I'm trying to think of something like a teenage girl, so she's developed or developing, and is, say, an older relative male, you know, gives her a full frontal hug. it's it's well intended but it makes her feel uncomfortable um what would that what would that would that would that be categorized as sexual violence or not not not probably not so not not any kind of feeling of uncomfortableness right would necessarily meet that that criteria but it's still something they don't think that would be that would be 100% of us if that were the definition you know I mean, there's always things that are inappropriate, but this is really for the sake of taking an advantage of somebody, you know, putting somebody at risk, that sort of thing.

Is there always intentionality from the other person that is involved or can there, there can be unintentional pure motives that are just, yeah, maybe inappropriate. Yeah, you know, I think people would define that differently. But there can be situations, like for example. example, you have child-on-child sexual violence, where you have, let's say, a 10-year-old who has been exposed to things that they shouldn't be exposed to and is then acting out with a 5-year-old sibling. Now, that's sexual violence, but it could be that that 10-year-old really doesn't know what they're doing. So there's situations like that where there might not be intent,

but it's certainly sexual abuse in some form. I just had a conversation, actually, a podcast conversation will come out in a few weeks with a friend of mine who was a victim of an ongoing sexual abuse situation when he was a young teenager from a relative. And that was like 30, 40 years ago, yeah, almost 40 years ago. And he still, like in the last 10 years, his pursued like healing and for the first time. I'm really, but the two things he, he, in his healing process, well, three things he said, one is what you said, that that healing redemptive distinction, he didn't put in those terms, but he said, yeah, you're, don't think you're doing something wrong if you haven't just fully healed ever.

Like, like, that's, I mean, somebody got in a car accident and has injuries, those injuries might last for their whole life. They might be walking with a limp for the whole life. Doesn't mean they haven't recovered to the best of the. their ability to decide the resurrection. But he said two things in the healing process really has helped. Number one, dealing with the shame of feeling guilty for what you did or excusing your abuser or just feeling like I did something wrong.

Like getting to a point where you can say, I did nothing wrong. I was a victim. And then another thing that was interesting, I haven't heard before, that forgiveness of your perpetrator, your abuser, should not be demanded early on or even like that, that can come way late. In fact, you cannot truly forgive unless you've dealt with a lot of other things before. So this kind of demand of like you are a victim, I'm so sorry that it was wrong, but you need to forgive this person. Like that, that's actually, can be counterproductive. Is that, would you, would you agree with that? Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And I would say that's not just

true when there's been sexual trauma, but I think we do this with betrayal or infidelity. We rush forgiveness. And you're really not even ready to entertain the conversation of forgiveness until you've worked through what actually needs to be forgiven. And for sexual trauma, particularly childhood sexual trauma, it takes years to get to the place of really understanding what has been taken from you. And then forgiveness doesn't really happen until we get to a place where we can actually even start to have some empathy for how awful it is to be that perpetrator and what they're facing, you know, for eternity.

But, you know, I look, I think one of the most interesting examples of an abusive relationship in Scripture is not an abuse, it's not a sexually abusive relationship, but it's Saul with David. And he just tormented him, abused him, you know, emotionally, physically all of it. And we see David running away from Saul. We don't see him going back to Saul and Saul pursuing him. And we see David refusing to take vengeance. But we never see him saying, I forgive you.

You know, like, and I know that is before the cross. And, you know, like we'd have to grapple with that. differently maybe after the cross, but I think it shows that abusive relationships are incredibly complex and forgiveness for many people is sort of that last step after they've done years of healing down that journey. I'm glad you mentioned emotional abuse. This is something I've been thinking about. Like, when we think of the word abuse, we immediately think physical, sexual.

But a lot of people were raised and what, I guess this is a question. state it like I know what I'm talking about, but I want to hear your thoughts. They may have experienced no physical or sexual abuse, but pretty ongoing significant, spiritual, emotional, psychological abuse. Can you talk to us about that? Like, is that, should we label that abuse? Is that the right term to use? And how severe is that like, well, that's kind of like not that big of a deal compared to physical or sexual? Or is it? Like, are all these, It can be, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it can be.

You know, you take, for example, somebody who is raised in a home where every day they're hearing, I wish you were never born, you know, you're disgusting, get out of my sight, or, you know, every time you make a little mistake, you know, you're called a failure and you'll never amount to anything. And, you know, people who grew up in those kinds of situations, particularly those young years where we're forming our sense of self and our trust in our self and our trust in the world, people can live their life crippled by those messages. And it's just as powerful as sexual abuse might be.

And the healing process can be just as taxing and painful. And sometimes what makes it even more difficult question is we don't know what to call it. Yeah. So I find this to be true with all different kinds of abuse. Most people don't know they're being abused when they're in the middle of it because there's almost always an element of emotional abuse that's mixed in that tells the person this is somehow your fault. If you ever tell anybody, you know, like this will happen to you.

Usually they're wooed by manipulation and, you know, giving things that feel very life-giving that draw them to their abuser, so they feel somewhat complicit. So it's usually all mixed in. But, you know, I've met women who have been in sexually and physically abusive relationships, including marriage, and they didn't know it was abuse until years after they got out of it. And that can be true with kids that experienced sexual trauma. Most of them don't identify it as abuse. And a lot of them don't even begin to start dealing. with it until they're in their 30s. That's sort of like an awakening for both a lot of men and women to start to say, yeah,

like what happened to me? I've never really processed it, but these memories are starting to come out. And I'm starting to realize that was not okay. So whatever form of abuse it is, it can be deceptive and it can take a long time to really recognize what's happening. Let's go back to your book, Surrender Sexuality. You have a chapter here on Surrender Identity. This is lots of conversations around identity, especially as it pertains as sexuality.

Yeah, why don't you give us the, well, you even begin with what is identity? So let's start there. What is identity? How do we even understand that concept? You know, I started the book by talking about surrendered identity because I really do believe it's the center of everything. When we come to Christ, he doesn't say that he's going to change our behavior. He says, he changes who we are.

And that's throughout the scriptures. It's throughout Paul's letters. You know, he keeps emphasizing when you are in Christ, you are a new creation. And you are no longer who you were. You are now washed and justified and sanctified. And so I have found over the years that a lot of struggles with sexuality are actually rooted in identity. of how do we define who we are. And because conversations about sexuality in the church go right to behavior, like don't do this, don't be in this relationship, don't look at porn, we skip right past that God's first work in us is to change our understanding of who we are.

We skip past it. And so identity is really what gives us the power to choose different behaviors. And so in the chapter, I identify four particular identity traps that I think are very common, keeping us stuck in sexual identities and behaviors. One of them is one that you talk about quite a bit at the center is the self-discovery kind of identity trap. And this identity trap is pretty new in human history. It's really rooted in sort of postmodernism. there is no objective truth so I have to discover who I am internally and the most important thing about me is what I feel, who I'm attached to, what I desire. And so you have a lot of

Christians who are still believing that about themselves, that the most important thing about me is my attractions, my desires, who I see myself as. And then they hear a Christian sexual ethic and they're like, well, God is asking me to deny who I am. And so we don't realize, I think, in today's modern age, how new that way of thinking is. Terms like heterosexual, homosexual, those terms are like less than 150 years old. To think of yourself in terms of your sexual longings and desires is a very new concept. So that's the first identity trap. And I don't know if you want to chat about that way. Yeah, this could occupy the rest of our time because this is a...

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Head over to moshlife.com forward slash theology to save 20% off plus free shipping on the best sellers trial pack or the new plant-based trial pack. Okay, so that's 20% off plus free shipping on either the bestseller's trial pack or the plant-based trial pack at moshlife.com forward slash theology. Thank you, Mosh, for sponsoring this episode. Here's the tension that I wrestle with, and it's just an ongoing wrestle, is our sexual attractions, whether they're hetero, bi, or homosexual or same-sex attractions, these are not fundamental to our identity. yeah and yet our sexuality is a very big and important and powerful part of our human experience

I mean you can even say it's we're created as sexual beings you know yeah we are it's more than just our national identity our job our you know we have all these kind of various things that could they could pull our identity away from a healthy identity being a father is a wonderful thing it could also become, I mean, anything can become kind of an unhelpful center of who you are. So I see problems with one's sexuality becoming this kind of primary controlling identity. And yet I don't want to deny the importance of sexuality or even the power of it. And that's where I try, I'm just constantly trying to say, what is a healthy appreciation of one's sexuality, even the parts of our sexuality that experience brokenness? without it becoming a controlling identity.

So that's that, I don't know, that's where I keep wrestling with. Because I do know, as you do too, you know, same sex attracted, gay people who grew up in the church that they've experienced kind of the overwhelming shame of that, just the pounding into them, you know, that this is, it's so, it's only spoken of in negative terms, which might be theologically correct. But then it's like, this is a day-to-day thing I experience. If that day-to-day big part of my experience is nothing but bad and negative, it can build this unhelpful shame. And yet, I don't want to still build a fundamental identity around my sexual attractions.

Again, whatever those may be. So, yeah, help me navigate that tension. No, we can dialogue about this. This is a good question. I think part of it is we've got to understand the core of our sexuality is actually a drive for intimacy. Yes. It's a drive to be known and seen and to be in union, like to be connected. So the core of our sexuality is not who we're attracted to.

It's a longing to be known. And that's true whether you identify as hetero or homosexual or bi, whatever. The core of it is you are made to be known. We live in a culture that sabotages being known, that sabotages intimacy, authenticity, vulnerability, and instead overly emphasizes sexual chemistry and attraction. Okay, so the more I study scripture and even the more I study healthy relationships, we should not get married primarily because of sexual attraction. but I think even in the church we've adopted sort of this romantic narrative that you get married

because you're hot for somebody and you're attracted to them and we Christianize it instead of saying no that's actually not the primary reason why we join in union with someone and so this plays out in that even in heterosexual marriages maybe there's sexual chemistry in the beginning of the relationship, but then your spouse gains 50 pounds or you have a lot of conflict and you're no longer attracted to them. And so you don't work on your sex life. And now you become attracted to somebody else. And you're like, oh, that's the person I'm meant to be with. And Preston, I think what we haven't done is challenge the narrative of what's the purpose of love and sex and marriage in the church. We've just Christianized it. And when we just

Christianize it, that means it works for somebody. It works for some people who, you know, find their true love in high school and they date and they get married and it's a heterosexual relationship and they nurture that relationship and they continue together. But for the vast majority of people, that narrative breaks down if marriage is primarily about feeling attracted to somebody, being drawn to somebody, feeling loved by someone. And it's not the narrative that we see in scripture. And so I think when we understand how our understanding of sexuality has been shaped by culture, and then we begin to reset of what scripture actually says is the purpose of

our sexuality, it doesn't make people feel alienated. Like we actually all have the same struggle, whether our desires are same sex or opposite sex, if that makes sense. Absolutely, yeah. And, man, I could not agree more theologically and even just practically that our main drive, that that hole in our heart that God put there, as my friend Lori Krieg has said, I know you know, Lori, is a desire for intimacy, which will ultimately be fulfilled in God, which is why we shouldn't freak out that there's no marriage in the resurrection. And I think when we freak out, like when I tell people, like, no, we don't need marriage because we will be so at one with God. Yes. But that feels like a letdown.

I get that. But I'm like, well, that this exposes our theological priority of physical, sexual, human, or let's just say sexual romantic intimacy over the true. the ultimate intimacy with God. I know that sounds so cliche, but it's either true or it's not, right? I mean, yeah, well, I also think, and this is biblical, that we're supposed to be experiencing, like, incredible intimacy within community and the family of God. Like, I have a friend who's wrestled with same-sex attraction most of her adult life, and for a while she lived overseas as a missionary. And then she came back to the States and she said it was so much easier to navigate this

challenge overseas because they have everything as family and community. Like you belong and it's not so marriage-centric and romance-centric. And when she came back to the States, like it was hard for her to find a church that really lived out what it is to be the family of God and to be included and involved, you know, like, and I know the work that you do with churches as well as what we're doing in authentic intimacy is to help churches change that framework so that it's not so nuclear family-centric, but we really develop communities where every Christian can experience intimacy within that body of Christ. That's so good. I've seen over the years, and this is something

I talk a lot about, and I just seen it so true in so many circles, that if a church promotes and advocates for and defends a traditional sexual ethic, which I passionately believe in, but if that is not coupled with a healthy theology of marriage and singleness and robust, true, intimate community, that's, that's, that, that might be, that might be, you might be, you might be preaching the truth about sexuality, but that is going to be very unlivable or difficult to truly follow for a lot of us. I mean, this isn't, obviously this applies like same, same sex attractive people who are

maybe committed to celibacy or whatever. Obviously it's true for them. But even, I, I'm learning over the years, even like, uh, heterosexual marriage. like you're saying, like if people invest all of their desire for intimacy in a healthy, romantic, high chemistry, try to keep those same emotions going that you had when you're 19 years old towards your partner. And it's like 30 years in the marriage. And it's like, these aren't just naturally, you know, springing out of my heart. But that, that too can hinder a, both a healthy marriage and just a healthy life of intimacy if you don't have a more

theologically holistic view of these things. And if the church isn't working to foster that, you know. No, you're right. You know, one of the ways that I've thought about over the years is I'm not married to my husband because I love him. I work on loving him because I'm married to him. Ooh, that's provocative. I want to, yeah. And I, you know, I've fallen in and out of love with my husband many times over 31 years, you know, but we work at sex and we work at chemistry and we work love because we're in covenant. And so we really need to work in the church of exposing the false narratives that we believe about marriage and sexuality and not just put on rules.

And I think that's what's happened. And then as you're mentioning, it forces the church to say, okay, well, if we really believe this, the scripture says that marriage is holy but not essential. The world says the marriage is essential but not holy. If we really believe this, then that means that we can't just build all of our programming around marriage and getting people married and what their kids are doing. That's important, but that's not the fullness of the gospel. And so it challenges us to rethink everything.

You do a lot of working churches like I do. Have you seen, in my circles, there does seem to be a heightened awareness of everything we're saying. I see a lot of people talking a lot about, you know, singleness as a completely valid vocation. You can live a life of flourishing being single. There's lots of books being written about this. Have you seen the culture of churches start to shift in this regard toward that more healthy theology of singleness in marriage? Or is it still, do we still have a long way to go? Yeah, I feel like the churches that you and I.

find ourselves in are changing because they're inviting this conversation. And even the demographics force it. So, you know, the demographics are saying that over 40% of adult females in church are single. And that includes those who are divorced or widowed. You know, this is, this is a very large part of the body of Christ. It's not just the 25-year-old who's wrestling with marriage. So yes, again, I think the churches that I engage with are the churches who are feeling the tension of these things and don't want to be reactionary, really want to go deeper into what does the scripture say and how do we disciple our people well. When I first started Authentic Embassy in 2012, churches didn't want to have this conversation. And you probably found that same thing. they'd be like, oh, like, our people don't struggle with these things.

And now no church leader could say that with a straight face. Like, our people struggle with everything, including the pastors struggle with everything. So let's just get all this conversation out in the open and follow Christ together and not pretend like we have easy answers for these difficult situations. So good. This is very anecdotal. but I see a lot more conversations happening around this. It might take a while before the culture of the church truly makes some healthy changes.

Wherever I go, the people that I hear from that feel the most out of place in, maybe the most, but they feel out of place in church are, like you said, single, say, heterosexual women, of marital age. Single women in their 30s, late 30s, early 40s. Oh, my word. When I talk about singleness and marriage, I get hoops and hollers and I get people talking to me saying, thank you for saying that. Like, I feel like a second class citizen, unintentionally, unintentionally. It's not like explicit, no idea it says you're a second class citizen. You're a, you know, single woman who's 38? What are you doing? But it's like, they just said it's just this unspoken air that I breathe and I just, it could feel so suffocating.

Right. Even when church is even when I'll talk to the leaders and they kind of maybe agree with everything I'm saying. So I don't know. Maybe I'll just take time for the intellectual assent to kind of shape the culture of church. Are you explaining to this as well? Yeah. Yeah, the word you used is really key culture. Like how long does it take for culture to change?

You know, it's not hard to offer a new study or to have a sermon series on something. but culture change means challenging paradigms, you know, looking at traditions that we've just adopted over the years and assumed that they were biblical instead of going back to what the scripture actually says, you know, who do you have in your leadership team? Do you have singles? Do you have single men and single women who represent what it is to follow Christ and not be married. Do you have people that have been widowed and divorced? And I think the more we have people who represent different walks of life and what it is to live a surrendered life, the more it's naturally going to trickle down into the culture of what illustrations you use and what you choose

to offer as a church buddy and what you emphasize. We're coming up on the hour, but you have time for few more minutes. I have a more personal question I want to ask you. Yeah, sure. And this will be part of our extra innings part of the conversation, which will be part of the Theology and Ra community. So if you want to get access to this extra innings portion of our conversation, go to Patreon.com forward slash Theologian to Raw. Here is my question. You know my ministry. You pay attention to my place in the kind of Christian conversation. Over the last 10 years, I feel like my, I guess, criticized from progressives

and also I would say the very more right wing kind of conservative portion of the church it seems to come in waves I feel like for two years I'm getting hit hard

from the left or a couple of you know whatever yeah there has been a resurgence of a more conservative

I don't like that term like but I don't know another term to use but like criticized from people that man, I feel like we're on the same or similar teams, but getting more than I've ever experienced in my 10 years, false accusations lies a passionate desire to want to convince everybody they can that I am not just wrong in this or that area, but I am a heretic.

I don't feel like naming names. We can. I think you know kind of probably what I'm talking about. I want to know from you how. help pastor me here. If you would like to check out our extra innings conversation, then head over to patreon.com forward slash theology to raw to get access to all of our extra innings episodes along with other premium content. Are you looking for news with a faith-based perspective? Then tune in to the pour-over today, the podcast that delivers the world's biggest news stories through a lens of faith every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

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