With The Perrys - Pronoun Hospitality, Understanding the Trans Community, and Other Hard Stuff

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

Should I call my friend by their preferred pronoun? How should I walk with people within the  trans community? Is polyamory wrong? These are common questions that we sat down with  Preston Sprinkle to chat about. Preston is the author of “Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say” and President of “The Center for Faith, Sexuality &  Gender.”   To purchase a copy of “Embodied”: https://amzn.to/3zumodo    Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ready? Hey Saints and our beloved Ains. What up with y'all? How are y'all doing? That was real happy, wasn't it? Yeah, you sounded real happy. Cheerful. Right.

I think it's because, you know, usually on this podcast, I just have the privilege of talking to you. Yeah. It just be me and you the whole time. Is it a privilege? Yeah. Okay. You know, because I have a husband that I actually care about what he has to say. Oh.

But at the same. time sometimes sometimes i do want to involve other people other people named preston sure like preston sprinkle so if if you're new to the name preston sprinkle preston is like one of my faves when it comes to the subject of all things new testament but also sexuality he has a book called embodied he has some other books sorry i don't remember him preston but you know i love you uh he has podcast called Theology and the Raw, where he talks to complementarians and egalantarians and trans folk and just everybody about everything. He talks to woke people and non-woke people. It's like, it's like a conversation. But the thing that I appreciate about Preston is that he engages

in conversations that are polarizing, that are complicated, that are nuanced. But he has a gentleness and an integrity about it that I think the church really needs. needs to me. Yeah, that's what I'll say about you. Of course, I was introduced to your podcast by Jackie. I mean, I was riding in the car with it one day, and a person kept calling you Preston. I'm like, who is this guy named Preston that she's listening to? And so as I begin to listen to your podcast, more of always respected how you had just a plethora of different, like, people on your podcast and different ideas, but you've never really seen bias towards one view. you always seem very fair, but also represented truth.

And so I've always appreciated that about you from afar. So it's great to have you on. Who are you, Preston, Sprenkel? Tell us a little bit about yourself. Who am I? I'm a resident of Boise, Idaho. 46 years old, married to my wife coming up on 21 years. We have four kids together, four teenagers, actually, 13 to 19.

Three girls and a boy. I've been, my, ministry career started as I just love theology and academics. So I went and did a bunch of theological degrees and what would have kept going. But my wife said I needed to get a job. So I got a job teaching the Bible at a Christian college. Did that for a number of years, few different Christian colleges. And then for the last several years, I've been running a nonprofit called the Center for Faith, sexuality, and gender where we help primarily, well, church, but just Christian leaders as a whole to engage questions of faith, sexuality, and gender, where theological, faithful,

and courageous love. So that's been my day job and my night job for the last about four or five years. So the interesting thing is that you are what, you know, someone would call a cisgendered man, right? You're straight. You're white. You're married to a woman. As far as we know, you've never been gay. Wait, wait.

What is it called? Cisgendered. Wow. I didn't know that. I didn't know it was a term for that. That's just regular to me. That's a term that's been placed upon me, not one that I would choose for myself. I don't mind what would you say.

What would you call yourself? I'm just a man. Human. I'm a male second. I'm in Christ, obviously. So, yeah. So the thing is, though, I think a lot of times, like, whether it's me or Christopher you on or whoever, like, we get into the sexuality conversation because it's a life we've

lived and when it comes to like homosexuality and lesbianism and all the things. Why is this a topic that intrigues you? Yeah, it started kind of going back to what I said earlier about my journey. It started just as an academic curiosity, really. I like to, since I've been a Christian, I've wanted to know what does the Bible actually say. I know what I've heard it's supposed to mean, what I'm supposed to believe, but I want to know it for myself. So over the years, I've taken all they kind of, not all, but many of the big topics and said, okay, I know what I've been told to believe, but I want to know what does the Bible actually say. So several years ago, the question of homosexuality came up in my life, just as students were asking me about it. I kind of saw the buzz around

the Christian culture. So I said, all right, I want to figure this out for myself. So that took me on a academic journey, reading a bunch of books, working through passages. But then also getting in the lives of LGBT people. And I was pretty stunned to find out that most LGBT identified people that I was meeting were raised in the church and almost all of them had a really bad experience in the church. And largely for relational reasons that theologically conservative Christians could change. Like it wasn't, I mean, some of them were like, yeah, I just, you know, it was a wonderful, loving environment. I just couldn't take the theology of marriage or whatever. I don't know if I heard anybody say those words like that usually it was like I was just with the relational environment was

just toxic or dehumanizing so that's taking me on a journey to want to maintain theological faithfulness and I'm primarily a theologian I love to wrestle with those arguments and that's a part of what I do but another part is trying to help the Christian church develop a culture around this topic that's that reflects more the holistic vision of who Jesus is so yeah it's been It's been interesting. So Preston's latest book, Embodied, Subtitle is Transgender Identities and the Church and what the Bible has to say. So you wrote a book about the T in LBGTQ.

What is what does it mean? What is what is trans? Yes, 10 different people and you'll get 11 answers. So trans. Okay, well, trans is an umbrella term. used to describe on the most basic level somebody who experiences some level of incongruence, disconnect, dissatisfaction with their biological sex. I would say maybe 10 years ago.

Well, it's just what do I start? It used to kind of mean like trans was an identity that people who suffered from mild to moderate to severe gender dysphoria would use. this term to describe this disconnect. Gender dysphoria would be the distress that some people feel. I mean, it's hard to even explain, but the distress they might feel over their biological sex. That used to be, so trans was used to almost be like an identity that was almost correlated with gender dysphoria. But now it's, it's become so flexible and nebulous that it could mean a number of things. In fact, there's a whole movement. movement and not a formal movement, but there's some outspoken, typically younger people

who refuse to say you need gender dysphoria to be trans. It's kind of a self-ID perspective. Like if I tell you I'm trans and I'm trans, I don't need some white doctor in a medical coat telling me, diagnosing me and telling me who I am, I will tell you who I am. So there's kind of a resistance to the medicalization of the identity. And then there's other people that trans, at the end of the day, might even mean, like, I don't resonate with masculine or cis feminine stereotypes, you know? For other trans people, it might be like, I was born in the wrong body.

Even though I'm biologically male, I am a woman. That's like a really strong sense of trans. And I can keep going on and on. And there's just a range of different meanings to it. But the most basic meaning is some kind of lack of resonance or disconnect with your biological sex. even then there might be some That kind of sparked a question in my head from what you just said

I want to be more familiar with the LGBTQ plus community but I'm not asking I see you Yeah you know I study before this podcast I don't sleep on me I see you

I don't want to speak out of ignorance and I'm glad you're here so I can ask you Why does it seem like things in this particular community changes a lot. Is it that they're trying to work out some things or is things haven't changed?

They just, you know, we're just starting to be more educated on them. Because every time I look up, it seems like there's a new term or like, like, why is that? That's an interesting question. Yeah. Man, I mean, I think a lot of things in culture are rapidly changing and moving. And maybe some of this started with the just social, rise of social social media and smartphones and just the constant flood of information, I think that might play one part. I don't think that the proliferation of all the different identities in terms would have

happened without the internet. I don't think. It wouldn't have spread that fat. It wouldn't seem like, like you said, it just seems like every time I wake up, there's a new kind of maybe identity or term. I'm pretty confident that would not have happened without the internet. also like when you get when you move from like LGBT to the T you know T now we're dealing with one's sense of self and just that concept opens up all kinds of possible categories that surround me you know what we would have called maybe 10 20 years ago just like your personality like whether you're emo or a hick or a jock or whatever and you're you kind of have these interests in life that you just have interest in life.

You know, maybe you're more tomboyish. Maybe you're not. Maybe you're, but now there are identity markers kind of used to to capture and categorize what we used to call in some ways, just almost like personality and interests. That might play a role too. And we can question whether that's good or bad or neutral, you know, I think, yeah. Yeah, because I mean, if you really, I mean, let's just, so let's just throw out some of these identity markers, non-binary, gender fluid, gender queer, trans. If you were to really ask somebody, like, hey, okay, I want you to explain what you mean by this, you're going to get an explanation that might be very similar to how somebody would have explained themselves 20 years ago without the term.

that's very interesting now where do that come from I mean yeah I don't know if I could even trace that back there's stuff going on in academic circles and what gender theory and queer theory there's some academic disciplines that most people who never even heard of they've kind of for whatever reason kind of trickled down

into more a popular level conversation so sometimes I'll hear young people using terms that I'm like well I know that I know what the academic means by that I don't even know if you know what that term means are the kind of the roots of that term. Of course, I don't talk to somebody like that, but I'm... Yeah. Yeah, because I wonder, I wonder if it ever changes.

What do you mean? In the world of social media. Because I think if we, for honest, we're such complicated and complex people, right? And so I think there's always going to be a people group that's going to rise up and feel like they're not represented based on how they feel. at the moment. And so, like, it's, it's, I don't know, it's not even, it's not, this is not even a critique to the community, but I think this is just how, you know, we're created, you know, we're just complex and, you know, you know, nuanced people.

And so, like, it's always going to, I feel like it's always going to be some type of new term, you know, when we look up because, you know, it's always going to be a people group or a person who feels like, man, the way you're phrasing the way I feel like I'm wired or made is not fully represented. Does it make sense? There is kind of on that, like, like, especially with younger people, more than ever. I mean, young people always go through this, but I think more than ever this, this search for uniqueness for who am I?

How can I be unique or seen or I want to belong? Like there's this desire to be long. So sometimes, sometimes identity markers can be a way of finding belonging, a finding community, of finding uniqueness, whereas maybe in the past there wasn't as. Asma. I mean, again, teenagers are always on that path, but I mean, now more than ever. I mean, we know about the rates of isolation and anxiety and depression and suicidality. And the pandemic didn't help with that. So I don't know. I wonder if that might be part of this. Yeah, I was just going to say, I think one thing this has forced out of Christians.

And by what I mean by one thing, this is this entire conversation about what it means to be trans or what is trans. And a lot of it is just what does it mean to be male or female or not, right? And I feel like even to ask the question of what is a woman and what is a man, it is actually, we don't really have good answers, good enough answers. Some people shockingly can't define what woman or man is. Right. But I think for a long time, maleness and femalness has been defined by. oh, girls wear pink, boys wear blue.

Girls are soft. Boys are hard. And so then we have these people breaking out of the gender stereotypes, and that is becoming trans when oftentimes you're just breaking out of a stereotype. You get what I'm saying? And so I think how do you think that these kinds of like, I don't know, super unbiblical ways of defining femaleness. and maleness has influenced the identity crisis in our culture.

Yeah. That's a huge. That absolutely makes sense. And I think that is getting to the heart of some of the confusion with this conversation. Yeah. So somebody said, you know, I'm whatever. So let's just say I'm non-binary or something. And he said, oh, what does that mean?

And if they said, well, I don't identify as exclusively male or female. Now, we might hear male and female and think biological sex. Like, well, what do you mean you don't identify? Is that the chosen identity? It's just kind of whether you are or not. But if you ask them, well, what do you mean by male or female? They'll probably describe what we might say, masculinity or femininity or maleness, femaleness, like, well, I don't resonate with.

And they might describe male typical, stereotypical behaviors or female typical behaviors. And so when you get to the heart of them, I'm, okay. Okay, I can see how you can find those categories oppressive. The beautiful thing about the Bible is the Bible does not morally mandate stereotypical femininity or masculinity. You see characters like Jesus, shattering some of these culturally driven gender stereotypes. You know, I point out to people, this isn't an argument.

It's just an observation. It's just true. Like in the first century, you know, in Jewish culture, to be a real manly man was to be married, children, to, you know, probably be kind of misogynistic. Like you wouldn't value women. And the Roman culture would be to be promiscuous to don't turn the other cheek. Don't love your enemy. Don't wash somebody's feet who's of a lower social status. Like Jesus broke all of those.

You have a single man of marital age who turned the other cheek who got, you know, beat up. you know, so to speak. He deliberately violated these culturally driven stereotypes. Why? Because they're culturally driven. They're not morally mandated. Now, I don't want to deny biology. Males and females will generally, typically have different, broadly speaking,

maybe typical behaviors, interests, or whatever. But they're not absolute, first of all. And second of all, they're never morally mandated in the Bible. So, yeah, I think Christianity as a whole, wide open door to embody to celebrate sex difference. We don't want to collapse those together. But it also gives us a lot of freedom of what it means to be a godly man, godly woman. This is why that just blessed me. You want to know why Presidents Sprinkle and Preston Perry. Because we talked about this on a podcast during, I think, season two, about how the way,

you know, the way I exist in the world was not. called feminine enough. You know what I'm saying? Like I didn't like purses and I didn't like dresses and I didn't do all the things, right? And so it was always you're a tomboy. And so that's a part of why I think embracing like, you know, that hyper masculine thing when I was calling myself a stud was because, one, it felt natural to behave like that. But it also felt like that's what y'all said I was.

y'all been calling me a boy this whole time and so now when I act like one now it's strange all of a sudden yeah and so I think if someone would have said like the the kind of woman you are still a woman yeah yeah and and the culture that I grew up in was the super hyper masculineity culture where like we were always taught to never to cry never to show emotion um don't let people think you a punk and this was this is what shows your manhood uh to take advantage of as a as many women as you can, you know, be a womanizer. And so when I came to Christ and I was like, oh, I saw Jesus was tender, was a nurturer. He knew how to feel.

He had empathy. And he didn't look at his culture to define his manhood, but his manhood was defined who he was and who God, you know, who God was. And so I think, yeah, that was just important for me to understand even growing up when I came to Christ. So, yeah. I think because this is such a common discussion and, yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I was thinking about how theology in Raw you had that panel. And I don't remember her name. I think it started with a K.

And she shared her story about how she transitioned into a male or whatever. Yeah. And not a male, into a man. and how she got connected to a church and they kind of disciples her and she lived in somebody's basement or something like that. She was taking care of.

It wasn't like she was like a suffering. It was a whole story. Yeah. But anyway, one of the most profound things she said was about how when she was meeting with a couple that was walking with her, how they didn't impose like another thing for her to do. They didn't say, okay, now that you come to Jesus,

start wearing some dresses. Right. They just kind of walked with her. to the point where the Holy Spirit kind of like took her along where it's like embracing certain stuff. I don't know. So my question is when it comes to discipleship

because this is a discipleship issue, not just evangelistic, but a discipleship issue where you will have people in your church that are dealing with gender dysphoria. This is a broad question, but how do we walk with them in a way that is well, I mean, wise and winsome, but also direct.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Good. Yeah, that hurt. Kyla. Kyla is. There we go.

Who are you talking about? And you have just a beautiful, powerful story of she transitioned seven, eight years ago, then met Jesus a few years ago and then met a Christian couple who were walking with her in such grace and commitment. They never said, all right, now you need a detransition. They said, hey, we want to love you. We're going to learn from you. We're going to listen. Whatever you need, let us know.

And it was a Holy Spirit working in her heart that said, I created you female and I want you to embrace that identity. It wasn't forced upon her from a couple. The couple was just embody and love to Jesus. But they said, all right, if that's where God's leading you, then we want to do whatever we can to help you follow Jesus in that. Yeah, you know, it's walking with people with gender dysphoria. For people that haven't experienced gender dysphoria,

and gender dysphoria, to be clinically diagnosed of gender dysphoria, it's pretty, it is a pretty rare psychological condition. Some people don't like to term condition, but I mean, it's, it's in the DSM. And the DSM even lists, you know, 0.014% were kind of diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2013. It might be a little more now, but it's still, it's still pretty low. But if you, I've got several friends who have had, you know, lifelong, sometimes really, debilitating gender dysphoria. It's it's so hard to even

describe. I have a question. Yeah. Do the LGBTQ plus community like that term? Do they do gender dysphoria? Is it is it a firm term that they? It's

it depends that there is no, when it comes to this conversation there simply is no uniform or even consensus on terminology. gender dysphoria is pretty accepted it is the term that's in the um dsm and here's the catch 22 we're getting off a tangent but it's it's an interesting one um to get a search let's get a surgery

paid for right your insurance how you have to have a medical condition so they almost it's you kind of you don't want to be medicalized i don't have a problem i am who i am but then but i need a surgery, wait a minute. Why do you need the surgery? Well, I have this condition. So it's kind of a catch-22. Some people may not love the term, but they kind of need some kind of diagnosis if they're going to pursue transitioning. So, yeah, gender dysphoria is pretty fine. I don't know a lot of people that would, if you call it a psychological condition that sometimes people might not like that. They might say, I feel distress because society doesn't accept me. It has not, nothing's wrong with me. It's all you who are causing this, you know.

Got it, got it. What was your original question? I'm sorry. It sounds good. Discipleship. Yep. Yeah. Well, I just think, honestly, just having a lot of humility with the ignorance that we all

have with something that's incredibly complex. So I think discipleship needs to be patient, cautious, humble, slow, loving, listening, really walking to somebody. And a lot of, I mean, Kyla said this on stage. another friend, Kat, same thing, where they said, when I first came to Jesus, I was working through so much. If someone said, all right, don't, you know, here's the pronouns you need to use. You need to do this. You need to do that. They would have ran so far away. It's the people that met a Christian or Christians or community that were humble and listening and said, you know,

I don't have all the answers, but I'm willing to be with you while we figure this out together. That kind of posture is absolutely huge. That's a game changer. And I also, going back to the stereotypes, I think, creating a church context where we're not exacerbating or embodying these culturally driven, sometimes oppressive stereotypes. Most trans people I know, as they're following, you know, ones that are like coming to Christ, following Jesus. Like, sometimes they find these stereotypes so exacerbated and baptized almost in the church. and it's just sometimes it's hard. It's like, I can't even go to church because I just feel like men's and women's retreats and this, that.

And, you know, there's just so many things that are just assumed about what it means to be a man and a woman in the church. And it's hard for me to be there. So I think being aware of how we are, are we overly sanctifying some of these gender stereotypes or are we giving people, you know, freedom to live out their identity, their male or female identity, you know, in the way that the Bible allows. And I think some context for our. listeners or even Preston because you probably like so how does that exacerbate it like what does that look like I think one might be if you know there's a men's meeting at the church and it's about like it's like oh we're going to play football right and so the assumption is is that all the men must come together and the the way we come together and bond is through sports as if all men

like sports or if you have a women's retreat and it's like okay girls we all gonna get together and you know I don't know knit something and and and talk about brunch and and we're pink you know with flowers and things you got a large group of women that don't feel like that's a space they actually belong to they might actually want to go to the men's retreat and play sports you know what I'm saying so I think having a diversity of even like personality types represented and when you do separate genders in your church yeah yeah In the topic of discipleship, I think in the past, I mean, even when I co-ledded church in Chicago, you had those guys who hated sports, you know, but they didn't have, they didn't struggle

with their sexuality, per se, but they just didn't like sports, you know. And so for me, I think my question would be in the topic of discipleship is how can me, as a heterosexual male, is it possible for me to disciple? someone who is same-sex attracted, a male. And if so, like, what does that look like? I mean, because a little bit two years ago, I gave the gospel to a guy who was in the human right campaign. He was out there on the streets, you know, saying, wow, you know, the LGBTQ plus community

deserve, like, equal rights and all this. And we talked, and one of the things I talked about, I talked mainly about, you know, him being a Buddhist and, you know, why I feel like Jesus is better than the religion that he, that he serves. but when we begin the text, I have to be just to be honest. Me, I was just like, I was uncomfortable in some ways. And I think my uncomfortability was me not wanting to offend him, me not wanting to say something that will be damaging.

And so I think for a man, like in this small group, how do we walk carefully with other men, especially in a super hyper-masculine culture that says be a man and you know and we even come to crisis with a lot of these these toxic thinking so how can men you know walk in love with yeah man i don't think there's a one-size-fits-all response to that each one's different has unique stories and needs and everything um i think it would be hard if they're if their context is kind of that hyper-masculine that's gonna be hard for anybody same-sex attracted or who doesn't resonate with that.

And like you, Preston, you know, I remember growing up and, like I, actually, I love animals and I hate to see animals die. But for some reason, I don't know where this came from. Like, that was very unmanly. No, you should enjoy killing, arbitrarily just killing an animal. And so I would like sit in my backyard. I remember when I was sick with my BB gun and, and, literally shoot birds to desensitize myself to and I hated it.

Is dead bird just sitting there for no reason? Like I even now thinking about it, I'm like hated it. But I like, no, to be a real man, you know, is to do that. To not cry. I tell people, I'm 46, I probably cried maybe four times in the last 25 years. You know how unhealthy that is? But even now, I'll be, I'll watch a movie. And I'll be like, I could feel being moved to tears.

And it's almost like there's just something in me. it just shuts it down and stops me from crying because it's been so embedded in me that men don't cry. So you preacher, brother. Yeah, those, those are. That's just, there's so, there's so much unhealthiness there that, yeah, anyway, just a, it's a long response to say, I would want to try to not be and get out of those environments where, where that hyper, again, culturally driven masculinity is just seen as like the right way to be. And I'm not against, like in many other ways, I would resonate with stereotypical masculinity.

I, you know, I love to eat meat every meal. I'm not, you know, I'm not a big talker. I'm not super emotional in other ways and whatever. Whatever stereotype you want. Like, I love sports. I, you know. And if somebody's naturally wired, that way, great, whatever. But just don't make it the moral standard for everybody else and create environments that do honor and celebrate the beautiful.

human diversity that God's created us to be. And that's when we create an environment that only caters to kind of one kind of person that that can be hard. You know, this is, this is a complex area. How can straight Christians walk with the same sex attracted person of the same sex? Part of me is almost like just do it like you would any other person. Like sometimes making too much of sexuality is just not helpful. Sometimes just treating somebody as just like a regular person like you would anybody else and not over thinking. in the sexuality piece, unless they're really wanting to work through those questions. I found that to be, I found that to be helpful.

Yeah. That's good. Good answer. Now, Preston Sprinkle. Here's another one. Polyamory. Okay. Polyamory.

Polymary. Oh, boy. What? I'm not into it. I'm not into it. Hard enough being a husband of one wife. I'm really proud of you. okay for those who have never heard the term how would you describe it two what does the

bible say about it three yeah yeah we'll take it from now yep um poly amory um poly mini uh is it amora or something love so plural love many love so basically a consensual um romantic and or sexual relationship with more than among more than two people three typically it's three um sometimes it could be more a lot more common than people realize some people think oh gosh some fringe thing so i've done i've let several surveys that upward to five percent maybe even 10 of americans at least have been in what they call a consensual non monogamous or polyamorous relationship and that's only really yeah yeah i was tripping I brought it up because I was listening to a podcast conversation you had maybe three years ago

on the subject where a pastor, I might be mixing up stuff. But I listened to a podcast and I saw a tweet where somebody was using the Trinity as reason for polyamory to be morally acceptable. And they were saying that because God is one God that exists in three persons. Therefore, there's like a diversity of love among the members of the Trinity. You're making this up. That means that we could be in love with more than one person sexually and intimately, and that's all right. And so I think as Christians, I think we need to be on, we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that this is like going to be things.

You just can't say something like that and not pause. Like it's normal. They said that for real. Yeah. That's kind of blasphemous. Yeah. That's crazy. Wow.

You know. Well, and here's the thing. Here's the thing. This shocks people. do we have any examples of a same-sex relationship, same-sex sex relationship in the Bible where we can say, wow, but here's something where it kind of existed. The answer is no. There's not.

The David and Jonathan, that doesn't work. And there's some people that have in the past tried to find some, but it's just not there. Is there example of plural marriages in the Bible? The answer is yes. We do have, and the polygamy is different. But it's still under the broader umbrella of more than one person. I mean, it's obviously very patriarchal. It's, there's political and economic reasons for it.

But so, so we do have at least, we have, I think, more biblical. It's going to sound like I'm arguing for it. I'm not. But I'm saying there's more, we do it. There's more biblical evidence for something akin to polyamory than there is for same same sex relationships. Now, yeah, I mean, there's some clear past. that would rule it out.

I mean, just go all the way back to the creation narrative where you do have, um, uh, well, just because there's two biological sexes and because I do believe

sex difference is an intrinsic part of what marriage is. Um, that's part of the logic for why it should, a sexual relationship should be between two people, not three. And because I do think that procreation is, I'm going to tip my hat to my Catholic brothers and sisters here. I,

I, I think marriage and pro. creation as is one intended purpose of marriage, I think is more closely linked. And once you throw in multiple partners there, I think that that really throws a wrench into that. And one more thing, in Matthew 19, Jesus, when they were asking him about divorce, which isn't Polly Aramory, but it's kind of like, you know, a woman who's been divorced and remarried and divorced and whose husband will she be in the new creation? Well, actually, that's a different context.

But when he was being asked about divorce, he went back to the creation account and specified male and female. And that duality, not just the sex difference, male and female, but the duality of these two people, God has joined together, let no man separate. So there's an intrinsic duality that's essential for marriage too. So I don't think it's going to be, I don't think it's hard to make a biblical case for.

monogamy, but I will challenge pastors and leaders. Like, this is not some fringe thing. This is something that especially in more progressive environments, more and more youth groups are dealing with it, more and more churches are saying, I'm having polyamorous throuples, you know, showing up at church. Some that are like, they read their Bible every day. Like they have a Christian posture, I guess, or, you know, so yeah, yeah, I think we do need to have a thoughtful, winsome gracious response to where we're at on this. I have a question. Promenal hospitality.

Oh, yeah. Good one. What is it? I taught Preston, that. Yeah. Preston Perry. What is it? And how should Christians in the body of Christ deal with? All right.

Let me, I'll try to be concise, but don't interpret my concision for the fact, or for assuming this is a simple question. So the question is if a trans person or I'll just say any person wants you to refer to them by pronouns that don't match their biological sex, whatever those may be. Could be, yeah, he, she, or they, them, or even maybe there's some made up ones or new, the neo, new terms like Geiguer Graham or there's a whole bunch of different ones. but um huh uh no well i mean there's so many there's some popular ones like um oh what's the one i'm thinking of there's one that's like really popular but then there's been so many i mean endless basically just sounds that aren't real words that people can make up but um uh so i i'll start by saying i think there i think it's a complex question i think there's really good

smart Christians on both sides of this debate. I think the argument that using someone's pronouns that don't match their biological sex, some people say that's lying to them. They are, say, a man, so call them he, him. If you don't call them that, you're just kind of, and I've heard people say it, and I think this, I don't like this phrase, but you're feeding their delusion. Now, I don't like to use the term delusion in this conversation. But, you know, those are the, the arguments against using someone's pronouns. And there's more to it than that. But the other side says, you know, well, we don't need to agree with the term. We can use it as a form of hospitality, of meeting someone where they're at. I've wrestled with this a lot. And I have landed generally on the

pronoun hospitality side, meaning if I meet somebody on the streets, neighborhood, workplace, whatever, if God brings somebody in my life and they prefer certain pronouns, I'm going to use those pronouns, not because I agree that they should be using them, but that my desire for relationship supersedes whether I agree with them on this point or not. So, you know, and I tell people, you know, language is shared social space. So we're on video here. So if you have two people and say, I'm over here and I'm person A, this is person B. You know, and I believe that pronouns match biological sex.

But what if I meet person B over here and they think pronouns should match one's gender identity, one's internal sense of who they are? So they might have a gender identity that doesn't match their biological sex. And I'm over here thinking, I don't think I agree with anything you just said, maybe. And they're like, well, I don't agree with you. And I don't, you know, it's like, well, Language exists in this shared relational space. So I can't really expect everybody I encounter to use, to have the same worldview

whose language reflects that worldview and that world view must match my worldview. At some point, we have to kind of give in. There's a give and take here with language as this, you know, bridge to relationships. So that's primarily why I would land on, you know, using someone's pronouns that they want me to use to at least try. I mess up, you know, I can't. They, them is really difficult. I mean, it's, it's, it's counterintuitive for somebody who's been, who's lived, you know,

46 years of my life using that for plural, not a singular. The one cat, the one exception that I would want to, um, leave open is parents with like younger kids who want to be called by a different pronoun with, with younger kids, let's just say under 18, um, especially like under 15. There is, every term I use here is going to be possibly problematic. There can be a social trendy factor here. So, like, I have friends who when they hear the pronoun that matches their biological sex, it sends their dysphoria through the roof and they're driven to self-harm.

Like, wow, well, that, I don't understand why that is. I'm not a psychologist, but man, okay, I don't want to do that to you, you know. And they would even say, I don't know why this is. there's got to be some unhealthiness here that I need to work through. But in the meantime, can you not do things that make me want to go cut myself? You know, when my daughter, my 14-year-old daughter goes to theater class, and she's the only one in a group of 20 that doesn't call themselves, they, them, or she, he, they.

I'm like, I don't think every single one is dealing with debilitating gender dysphoria when they hear the pronouns. So if my kid, younger kid, wanted to be called by a different pronoun, I think, think I do have the right and role to parent my kid. Unless it, I do see that, man, this is a, again, a severe situation. If I use their pronouns, they're going to be suicidal or something. Then I'm like, okay, maybe in the mean, while I get help, like, maybe I can put a bandit in the situation and call them whatever they want to be called by, knowing that there's got to be deeper, deeper issues going on here. So, and one more thing, you know, I know, long answer, but So pronouns are a form of social transitioning.

So you have social transitioning, hormonal transitioning, taking cross-sex hormones, and then surgical transitioning. And the data does seem to show that when younger kids are affirmed in social transitioning, especially by an authoritative figure like a parent, that can often lead to hormonal and then maybe surgical transitioning. And that's where I'm going to say, I, look, if I was a Bible hating atheist, I would still be adamantly opposed to teenagers transitioning, not just on ethical grounds, but on just practical, medical, scientific, relational grounds. And you know who agrees with me on that? Every single older trans person I talked to. So this isn't my cis,

hetero, whatever opinion coming out. This is just kind of basic medical care. But so, so yeah, I saw that to say parents of younger kids. I want to, like, if you're doing something that's going to encourage that path of social, hormonal, surgical, with a younger kid, I'm going to say, yeah, let's not do that. You know, if your kid's 25 and they make that decision, they're kind of, it's kind of out of your hands. But younger kids, I really want to help them navigate the complex society that they're living in. Sorry, does that make sense? We'll love to hear your thoughts on that.

I mean, it makes sense. and it gives me a lot of clarification. But also the they-them thing, I never really understood it. Yeah. And I know we're running out of time, so we could just do this real quick. And this could be a question for both of you guys. Is that someone who doesn't identify with male or female? So typically somebody who identifies as non-binary, so they don't identify as either male or female.

Again, what they mean by that typically is masculinity or femininity. they don't prefer either he or she pronouns because those are binary terms, one or the other. They, them is kind of a neutral. It's a non-gendered, if you will, by the pronoun. And I think there's two categories of people here. For some typically younger people, I think, again, there is a social, trendy influence here, like role here. I do have some older friends who prefer they, them. And again, one of my friends in particular says,

I know I'm biologically female, and I think it would dishonor God for me to prefer he, him. Even though that would be in my flight, like that's what I would prefer. But I don't think that's right for me in my relationship with God. When I hear she, her, which matches my biological sex, it drives me to self-harm, exacerbates my dysphoria. So they, them is a way, is a mediating position to try to honor God by not saying he, him,

but to not also be driven to self-harm. So that's a, that's different than the 12-year-old who came home from junior high and said, I'm they-them now and not really knowing, you know, all my friends are they-them. I want to belong. Well, thank you, Preston Sprinkle. This was very helpful. I want everybody to go buy your book embodied. I want everybody to subscribe to Theology and Raw.

you even got Patreon, you know, where you'd be answering people's questions about dinosaurs and hell and stuff like that. You're a pretty cool guy, right? We appreciate you, sir. Thank you. Yeah, you too. It's got to be the name. You have a good one.

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