Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 165 ｜ Nancy Pearcey

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope that you guys are having a wonderful week. Today we are

00:00:06.140 going to talk to Nancy Piercy. She is the author of a book called Love Thy Body. We are going to

00:00:12.640 contend with some of the hottest topics of today about sexuality and transgenderism

00:00:16.860 from a biblical perspective. She is really an expert in that arena and has a lot of insight

00:00:21.600 to offer. I know I told you guys on Wednesday that we would be talking about vaccines today,

00:00:26.340 that we would be doing vaccines part two, talking to someone on the other side of the debate from

00:00:31.960 Dr. Sears, but that is going to be pushed to next week. But don't worry, I'm going to make good on

00:00:36.580 that promise. And so you'll just have to wait a little bit longer, but you don't want to miss

00:00:40.260 this conversation today. Okay. Without further ado, here is Nancy Piercy. Professor Piercy,

00:00:46.040 thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Allie.

00:00:50.440 Well, for those who don't know, there are a lot of people I know that listen to this podcast that

00:00:54.500 have read your book, Love Thy Body. But for those who don't know, will you tell everyone a little

00:01:00.260 bit about who you are and what you do? Right. So I'm a professor at Houston Duffin University,

00:01:07.340 and I wrote the book Love Thy Body, which covers issues that are headline issues of our day, like

00:01:14.680 abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, transgenderism, in order to help people communicate better on these

00:01:23.180 issues. Today, people are not asking so much, is Christianity true? They're asking, why are

00:01:30.320 Christians such bigots? Right. And so what I do is I give people the language to get beyond those 1.00

00:01:36.900 negative stereotypes, and to present Christian ethics in a way that secular people can grasp it,

00:01:43.700 they can understand it, and Christians can get beyond just saying, the Bible says so. Or Christians 0.99

00:01:49.420 can get beyond just, it's wrong, it's a sin, don't do it, and there's something wrong with you.

00:01:55.680 Because that's the typical stereotype. So I'm giving people the language and the concepts that

00:01:59.960 they can use to get beyond the negative, and present these issues in a positive way.

00:02:06.100 We often look at the issues that you just listed, homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism,

00:02:11.940 hookup culture, that's something that you talked about in Love Thy Body, is kind of these

00:02:15.220 separate issues. And we might do, for example, if you're a podcast host like me, we'll do, you know,

00:02:20.520 one episode on hookup culture, one episode on abortion. We don't very often tie them together

00:02:25.200 and say, okay, this is actually indicative of one particular worldview. But that's what you do in

00:02:30.460 Love Thy Body, is you tie a common thread between all of those things. Can you tell us what that common

00:02:35.700 thread is? Right. The secular ethic is based on a negative view of the body, which is a bit surprising

00:02:42.880 for most people, because they used to think Christians have a low view of the body and of

00:02:47.520 this world, and we're just spiritually minded. But in fact, it's actually the secular view that says

00:02:53.220 the body is worthless, meaningless, insignificant. Let me just jump in, because it's easier to explain

00:03:00.280 with an example. So let's take abortion as an example. What professional bioethicists are saying

00:03:07.700 is that as long as the fetus is merely human, let me say, most secular bioethicists agree that the

00:03:17.200 fetus is human. That itself is a surprise to most people. But the evidence from DNA and genetics and

00:03:25.900 science is just too strong to deny it. So today, among professional bioethicists, at least, and they're,

00:03:33.880 of course, what they say is what filters down eventually to the ordinary people. What professional

00:03:38.860 bioethicists say is, yes, the fetus is human, but as long as it's human, it has no particular value,

00:03:45.980 meaning, or significance. You can kill it for any reason or no reason. You can experiment on it, 0.54

00:03:52.880 experiment, you can use it for experiments, and you can tinker with it genetically, and you can

00:03:58.880 pull out body parts and sell them as Planned Parenthood does. And then you can discard it

00:04:06.840 with the other medical waste. That is the technical term that they often use. This is just medical

00:04:12.420 waste. So what they're really saying is, being human is not enough for human rights. They will

00:04:20.520 acknowledge the fetus is human, and at the same time say, it's essentially just a piece of matter.

00:04:25.960 It has to earn the right to personhood by developing certain mental abilities, a certain level of

00:04:33.560 cognitive functioning, self-awareness, and so on. So what they're really implying is that there's a

00:04:39.940 division in the human being between being a body and being a person. And that is the underlying worldview

00:04:48.980 that you'll find in all of these issues is body versus person. And in abortion, it's very clear,

00:04:56.120 but because they're saying as long as it's just a body, as long as it's just human, then it has no

00:05:02.600 rights, it has no moral standing, it has no right to legal protection until it becomes a person. Now,

00:05:09.600 of course, the problem with that is, as soon as you separate being human from being a person,

00:05:18.220 then everyone's definition of personhood differs. None of the bioethicists who write on this actually

00:05:23.860 agree on what personhood is. It's completely subjective and arbitrary. And what that means

00:05:30.720 is our legal protections then end up depending on something that is completely arbitrary and subjective.

00:05:37.040 But that would be the underlying worldview that I trace through all of these issues,

00:05:41.340 abortion, euthanasia, hookup culture, homosexuality, transgenderism. They all rely 1.00

00:05:47.520 on a real worldview that separates the body from the person.

00:05:52.940 Can you explain that as it relates to transgenderism and homosexuality? I know those are obviously two 1.00

00:05:59.040 different things, but it completely makes sense what you're saying when it comes to abortion,

00:06:04.260 separating personhood, someone's inherent value from their humanity, from their biological humanity.

00:06:11.740 That makes sense. I'm wanting to hear you explain what that means for transgenderism.

00:06:19.820 Yes. Well, you asked about homosexuality and transgenderism. Let me start with homosexuality, 1.00

00:06:24.460 because that was first, in terms of legal, political movement. Even my homosexual friends will agree 0.56

00:06:35.660 that on the level of biology, physiology, chromosomes, anatomy, males and females are counterparts to one

00:06:44.240 another. That's how the human sexual and reproductive system is designed. To embrace a same-sex identity then 1.00

00:06:54.960 is to deny that design. It's to implicitly say, well, why should my body have any say in my identity?

00:07:06.180 Why should my biological sex as male or female have any say in my moral choices? So we have to help

00:07:16.060 people see that that's a profoundly disrespectful view of the body. And of course, by accepting that

00:07:22.980 your mind can contradict your biology, it's essentially saying that you can have inner fragmentation,

00:07:33.380 inner self-alienation. And so essentially what I'm arguing is, notice that the homosexual ideology 0.99

00:07:41.740 depends on denigrating your body, denigrating your biological sex, saying that has nothing to do

00:07:49.620 with who you really are, that your sexual orientation can contradict your biology.

00:07:55.260 And now I see, in you explaining that, I can see where it goes with transgenderism as well. It's very

00:08:01.760 similar, correct? Exactly. It's the same logic. It's just carried to the next step. It's basically

00:08:08.580 saying your gender identity has nothing to do with your biology, which is what transgender activists 0.50

00:08:15.440 actually argue. They say your biology has nothing to do with your biological sex. What transgender 1.00

00:08:24.640 activists argue is that your biology is not part of your authentic identity. There's a website for people who are

00:08:35.840 raising their children as gender neutral. And it's called Raising Babies. Babies instead of babies. And what they, the 0.98

00:08:46.400 website literally says, there is no such thing as biological sex. Yes, of course, we have chromosomes and genitals and anatomy and so on. But to call that sex is a social construction. So essentially, what children down to kindergarten now are being taught is that it's to be estranged from their own biology. Kids are coming home at age five and six today,

00:09:16.220 saying, I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl, because the curricula in public schools is teaching them that just because you have boy parts or girl parts does not mean you're a boy or a girl. You need to decide on your inner sense of identity. So you see, again, they're essentially saying your biological sex is meaningless. It has nothing to do with who you really are. Kids are being estranged from their own biological sex at a very young, at a very young age.

00:09:45.920 In kindergarten, in kindergarten, in preschool. So again, the secular liberal ethic is based on a denigration of the body. And that's why I titled my book, Love Thy Body, because I wanted to show that the Christian ethic actually affirms the value and dignity and beauty of the human body.

00:10:05.620 I'm thinking of a couple things. One, I think that you're absolutely correct that people are surprised to hear you say that Christianity, a biblical worldview, actually elevates the idea of the body or elevates how we think of the body, because God was purposeful in making our bodies. It has something to do. It corresponds with what's on the inside as well. There is a purpose behind that.

00:10:29.540 I think people forget that. I think people forget that about Christianity, that we're all about, well, we are about self-denial, but they kind of see that as a negative, that we are constantly denying or changing our biology to meet God's law.

00:10:44.640 And they see that as a negative thing rather than as a purposeful and as a good thing that has actually helped the world survive over the past millennia.

00:10:53.940 I think another thing that I was considering is a way that I've seen this in modern culture today, and that is through presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

00:11:04.080 He said something that regarding abortion that reminded me of what you said when he said, everyone kind of has to draw the line for themselves when they feel like abortion is OK.

00:11:16.720 That's something that apparently he believes is a completely subjective decision.

00:11:20.920 And that reminds me, he calls himself a Christian.

00:11:25.040 But when you think about the fact that he actually has a very secular worldview, it completely makes sense.

00:11:31.160 If you have a secular worldview, you separate personhood from humanity, not just in abortion, but also in sexuality, which is also something that he has done as well.

00:11:39.600 So this is rampant, not just in secular culture, but also in culture that calls themselves Christian. 0.98

00:11:45.400 Yeah, that's a good point.

00:11:46.620 Now, one of the things, one of the problems is that Christians have lost touch with their own heritage. 0.99

00:11:54.420 You're right.

00:11:55.340 People, even Christians have a sacred secular split where they tend to think that the sacred realm, things like church and Bible studies and prayer, that these are, this is the secular realm.

00:12:09.780 And that's what's important on the sacred, the secular realm is where we deal with politics and practical issues.

00:12:17.500 But that sacred secular split is not biblical.

00:12:20.520 And in Love Thy Body, I show how essentially, even the early Christian church had to deal with the same issue that we're dealing with.

00:12:32.800 Because the early Christian church was up against isms, Gnosticism, Platonism, Manichaeism, all of these isms that also denied the value and worth of the physical realm, just as modern secularism does.

00:12:51.660 Though for very different reasons.

00:12:53.520 What they argued was, let's take Gnosticism.

00:12:55.940 They argued that the physical world was the realm of evil decay and destruction.

00:13:02.780 And Gnosticism even taught that the physical world was the creation of an evil god.

00:13:07.480 They had several levels of deities.

00:13:10.180 And it was because matter was evil, it must have been evil god who invented, who created matter.

00:13:17.200 And they actually used the phrase, the body is the prison house of the soul.

00:13:22.800 And the goal of salvation is to escape the physical realm.

00:13:25.940 In this historical context, Christianity was nothing short of revolutionary.

00:13:32.220 It said, no, it's the supreme deity who created the material world.

00:13:38.380 And he's a good god.

00:13:40.100 So the material realm is intrinsically good.

00:13:43.020 And of course, historically, the greatest scandal was the incarnation, because it says that the supreme deity had entered into the physical realm and taken on a physical body.

00:13:55.920 And when Jesus was executed on a Roman cross, well, we might say that he did escape the prison house of the body, as Gnosticism taught we should aspire to do.

00:14:10.200 But what did he do then?

00:14:12.220 He came back in a physical body.

00:14:15.000 That, you know, to the ancient Greeks, this was not spiritual progress.

00:14:19.960 This was regress.

00:14:21.320 And so, as Paul says, the idea of the physical resurrection is foolishness to the Greeks in 1 Corinthians.

00:14:34.060 And what will happen at the end of time?

00:14:36.280 You know, many Christians do think of heaven as a place where we're going to float around in purely spiritual beings without a body.

00:14:42.840 But that's not what the scripture says.

00:14:45.100 Scripture says that God is going to recreate a new heavens and a new earth.

00:14:50.440 And you and I are going to live on that new earth with renewed, resurrected physical bodies.

00:14:56.480 So from the beginning, the Apostles' Creed has affirmed the resurrection of the body.

00:15:02.920 Yes.

00:15:03.560 This is an incredibly positive view of the physical realm.

00:15:08.200 I have studied a lot of religions and philosophies, and I have to tell you, there's nothing like this in any other religion or philosophy.

00:15:18.180 And so Christians should be incredibly excited and happy to be able to communicate to people.

00:15:25.360 We have a very high view of the significance and value and meaning of the physical realm because it's a product of God's own creation.

00:15:35.020 So when you were speaking, my wheels were turning so much, you said exactly what was going on in my head.

00:15:39.920 Yes, the resurrection of the bodies, which I didn't even, I haven't even really thought about from that perspective,

00:15:44.660 that that shows just how precious and purposeful the human body has always been to God from creation.

00:15:51.120 But I also started thinking, again, like you were saying, that Jesus is God made flesh, that he suffered in the flesh, that he had real physical pain.

00:15:59.900 And he had real physical thirst and hunger and temptation.

00:16:02.960 And we hear that we have a high priest that empathizes or that sympathizes with our weaknesses,

00:16:08.140 not just in this metaphorical sense, not just from on high, but actually on earth.

00:16:13.740 And I've never thought about that from the perspective that you were just talking about,

00:16:17.100 that that shows what God thinks of the body, that Jesus suffered in the flesh, that he died in the flesh, and that he was raised in a body.

00:16:24.760 I've never even thought about how different it would be if God was, if Jesus was just raised in spirit, but he was raised physically.

00:16:32.400 We too are going to be resurrected, resurrected physically.

00:16:36.100 That was something that Paul's, the recipients of some of Paul's letters didn't really understand that,

00:16:43.000 or they contested whether or not we would really be physically raised.

00:16:46.180 And he said, look, if you can't be physically raised, not even Jesus could have been physically raised.

00:16:50.480 And you're absolutely right.

00:16:51.920 That's something that I think is a little bit difficult to explain to someone with a strictly secular point of view.

00:16:57.820 But that has really kind of made my wheels turn in even a different way of just how God views, how God views the physical realm.

00:17:07.820 Not as something that is constantly at war with the spiritual realm, but something that is in his purposes,

00:17:14.080 supposed to go hand in hand and actually work together.

00:17:17.520 Exactly.

00:17:18.260 Here's how one of my students put it.

00:17:20.200 She said, growing up in the church, I was always taught spirit good, body bad.

00:17:25.560 Yes.

00:17:26.260 And when I talk, yes, when I talk to audiences, I often get the response that, yes, that's a great summary nutshell of how I was raised.

00:17:36.100 And what we have to realize is our response to the secular world has to be to reclaim the high view of the body that the Bible teaches.

00:17:47.680 Let me give you an example.

00:17:49.660 I recently read an interview with a 14-year-old girl who had lived as a trans boy for three years.

00:17:58.360 She identified as a boy from age 11 until age 14.

00:18:02.420 And then she reclaimed her identity as a girl.

00:18:05.380 And the way she put it was this.

00:18:07.080 She said, the turning point came when I realized it's not conversion therapy to learn to love your body.

00:18:16.260 In other words, she realized that she had been rejecting her body as female and that the solution was to learn to accept her body.

00:18:26.260 And the fascinating thing was that this was on a very secular, liberal website.

00:18:32.920 So even secular people are beginning to say the transgender agenda depends on body hatred.

00:18:41.500 You'll see that term used now, body hatred.

00:18:45.060 And so, again, the Christian view is love thy body.

00:18:49.340 The answer to the transgender ideology is to say, why accept such a demeaning view of the body? 1.00

00:18:59.140 So our response as Christians should be, why accept such a demeaning view of the body?

00:19:07.760 As Christians, we have the basis for saying the body has purpose and dignity and value.

00:19:13.340 And we should be taking our identity from our body.

00:19:16.780 The body gives us a moral message.

00:19:19.860 It does tell us who we are.

00:19:21.720 It does contribute to our identity.

00:19:24.740 And so Christians, ironically, in this age where people think Christians are otherworldly and don't have a high view of the body,

00:19:32.940 over against the secular ethic today, the answer that Christians have is to have a higher view of your body than, say, the homosexual movement, 0.54

00:19:43.520 the abortion movement, the transgender movement, they all rest on a devaluation of the body. 1.00

00:19:52.540 How do we explain to someone the difference between hating your body and denying urges that you might have?

00:20:02.140 For example, we know, I mean, you might have a drive to have sex before you get married, obviously.

00:20:10.860 But the Christian ethic says unless you are in a marriage between a man and a woman, you are not to engage in sexual intercourse.

00:20:19.340 So how do you explain that?

00:20:21.040 Yes, you love your body, but that doesn't mean that you give into every bodily or biological urge that you have.

00:20:29.000 Right. We are called to deny sin.

00:20:33.440 We're not called to deny our bodies.

00:20:36.040 Right.

00:20:36.460 Our bodies are part of creation.

00:20:38.860 God made them have dignity and value.

00:20:41.860 But we are to deny sin.

00:20:44.520 Let me give you an example.

00:20:45.480 So when I was writing Love Thy Body, in my research, I came across a website by a transsexual who called herself,

00:20:54.180 she was a male to female transsexual, called herself Jessica Savano.

00:20:59.000 And she had a Kickstarter page to raise money for a documentary that was going to be titled, I am not my body.

00:21:08.400 Well, that sort of says it all.

00:21:10.100 I am not my body.

00:21:12.260 In other words, the whole transsexual, transgenderism movement depends on denying the value and dignity of the body. 1.00

00:21:24.080 And actually, let me give you a counterexample then.

00:21:26.620 What about people who do overcome transsexualism, transgenderism, homosexuality? 0.97

00:21:33.200 In my book, I have lots of stories.

00:21:36.100 Don't think of it as just moral arguments.

00:21:38.580 There's lots and lots of stories.

00:21:39.720 And one of them is by a young man named Sean.

00:21:43.640 He's my opening story for the chapter on homosexuality. 0.95

00:21:46.980 And Sean identified as homosexual, as gay. 0.57

00:21:51.200 And he was exclusively attracted to other males.

00:21:54.300 And the interesting thing about Sean's story is he attended a gay-affirming church and was raised in a gay-affirming family.

00:22:03.500 So he was not driven by any sort of guilt or shame.

00:22:09.580 So why did he change?

00:22:10.880 Today, he's married to a woman.

00:22:14.020 You have to say that these days.

00:22:15.460 He's married to a woman and has three children.

00:22:19.700 You say, well, why did he change?

00:22:20.740 Oh, I should say he's also a Christian ethics professor in London.

00:22:26.380 Why did he change?

00:22:27.560 He specifically says, I stopped identifying myself by my sexual feelings, and I started to take my identity from my body.

00:22:40.940 He says, I realized it was hard.

00:22:42.700 You can't really change your feelings.

00:22:45.900 People who have tried find that that's pretty much impossible.

00:22:48.420 But he said, what I did is I took my identity from what I already had, which was my male body, as a good gift from God.

00:22:59.920 That's his exact words, as a good gift from God.

00:23:02.420 And he said, eventually, my feelings started to follow suit.

00:23:06.360 So essentially, what's at the core of this argument is, are we products of blind, material, mindless, purposeless forces?

00:23:18.420 Right.

00:23:18.780 In which case, your body has no intrinsic purpose, and you can do with it whatever you want.

00:23:22.300 You can do whatever you want.

00:23:24.580 Or is our body the product of a loving creator, and therefore it has intrinsic purpose, and we will be happier and healthier when we live in accord with that purpose, with that plan, with that design?

00:23:41.060 And that's what his story shows.

00:23:42.840 And I have several other stories, too, of people who said, I wanted to honor my body.

00:23:49.000 This is the story of a young woman named Jean, who lived as a lesbian for several years, and today is married and has two children.

00:23:55.260 And she said, the turning point came when I decided I wanted to recognize that God had created me female for a reason.

00:24:05.720 And here's her exact words.

00:24:06.980 She said, I wanted to honor my body by living in accord with the creator's design.

00:24:13.040 So that's really the issue here.

00:24:15.500 Do we honor our body?

00:24:17.200 Do we live in accord with the creator's design?

00:24:20.580 Do we live in harmony with the way God created us?

00:24:24.040 Do we accept the plan, the purpose, the design that God created us with?

00:24:29.400 And if we do, for many people, that has become the turning point out of homosexuality or transgenderism. 0.92

00:24:37.560 Not a negative message, but a positive message of honoring the body.

00:24:43.000 It shows you the contradiction, just the inherent contradiction of the secular worldview.

00:24:47.740 It just can't make sense with itself because you'll hear people talking from what they believe is a Christian perspective about transgenderism, for example, saying, well, God didn't make, he doesn't make mistakes.

00:24:59.660 And they use that, strangely, as a justification for switching genders or identifying as a different gender that doesn't correspond with their sex, to which I think a Christian with a biblical worldview would say, you're right, God doesn't make mistakes.

00:25:14.600 And there is a reason why gender is supposed to correspond with sex, why we have particular counterparts.

00:25:20.320 But when you have that separation, when in your mind there is a separation from the body and the inner person, the body and the spirit, then it does make sense to you to fragment that and say, well, God doesn't make mistakes and who I am on the inside and what I feel on the inside is really me.

00:25:40.780 So it doesn't matter what I do with this outer shell.

00:25:43.820 It doesn't matter what I do externally, because the real me, the true me is only what I feel is only what is on the inside.

00:25:52.420 And I think that is probably one of the reasons why some people in the church are having a hard time dealing with this, because they, too, without knowing it, have made the separation between the body and the spirit.

00:26:03.640 And they feel like if they tell someone, hey, you know, God made sex this way, God made marriage this way, God made relationships and reproduction to work like this.

00:26:14.560 They feel like if they are contradicting how someone feels or how someone identifies, then that's unloving.

00:26:21.120 And that's unkind because they, too, have started to separate the two worlds and they don't want to offend who someone feels like they really are.

00:26:30.560 That's a very good point.

00:26:33.780 And that's why it's so important that Christians get out of the sacred, secular split and realize that God created all of reality.

00:26:43.160 God created the entire universe.

00:26:45.060 And therefore, God's truth applies to every area. 0.94

00:26:49.900 Now, you mentioned the people who say, well, God created some people gay.

00:26:56.440 And I talked to a former homosexual who I thought had a very good response to that. 0.91

00:27:03.140 He said, if God makes some people gay, then God has played a cruel joke on them. 0.95

00:27:09.560 This was a great quote.

00:27:10.760 He said he has engineered their mind and emotions for attraction to the same sex, but he's created the physiology to be in opposition to that attraction.

00:27:21.720 So the question we need to deal with is, would God, in fact, create people to be torn into two conflicting directions?

00:27:29.400 You know, in the Christian worldview, that sort of conflict, self-division, self-alienation are not the product of creation.

00:27:39.480 They're the product of the fall.

00:27:42.200 And so it's something that we should not accept.

00:27:45.140 It's not true that God creates some people with this kind of contradiction.

00:27:49.980 Of course, today, the prevailing view is, if people have that kind of internal contradiction between body and mind, it's the mind that wins your feelings and desires.

00:28:03.740 And the Christian answer should be, again, why accept such a demeaning view of the body? 0.97

00:28:12.360 The Christian ethic is holistic.

00:28:15.020 Our minds and emotions are called to be in tune with our body.

00:28:19.380 We're called to respect our biological identity.

00:28:23.040 So it's an ethic that overcomes self-alienation and self-conflict and leads to self-integration.

00:28:30.840 So it leads to an internal sense of unity and wholeness.

00:28:34.620 And so this is what we need to communicate to people.

00:28:37.640 I tell lots of stories in my book, Love Thy Body.

00:28:41.240 And here's another one.

00:28:42.460 I tell the story of Rebecca, who got involved in lesbian relationships in college.

00:28:51.420 And she continued having girl crushes, even after she married a man.

00:28:57.880 And she discussed it with her husband.

00:29:00.380 They were both Christian.

00:29:02.360 She had become a Christian in the meantime, by the way, as a young adult.

00:29:05.980 And so she and her husband were both Christian.

00:29:08.580 And she discussed it with him.

00:29:09.620 And what he said was, because God made you female, no matter what your emotions are right now,

00:29:18.340 you can be confident that you will ultimately be more fulfilled with a man, because that's how God created you.

00:29:25.980 And, of course, he said, it's the same with me.

00:29:27.900 Because I'm a man, and that's how God created me, I will ultimately be more fulfilled with a woman, no matter what my feelings might be.

00:29:39.140 And that was a turning point for Rebecca.

00:29:42.740 It took a couple more years, but eventually she was free from her unwanted same-sex attraction. 0.79

00:29:50.060 And what was the turning point?

00:29:51.480 It was, this is how God made me, and I will be more fulfilled and happier if I live in accord with God's design for me.

00:30:03.440 Now, it's possible, because not everyone who becomes a Christian and says, maybe who is living in a gay lifestyle or who is transgender,

00:30:13.400 becomes a Christian, realizes this biblical ethic, realizes the elevated view that God has of the body in comparison to the secular worldview.

00:30:21.480 So, not everyone necessarily, and this is a question, would get married to the opposite sex or start feeling attracted to the opposite sex.

00:30:32.080 Correct? Or would you say that that is always the trajectory consistently?

00:30:37.620 Oh, you're absolutely right.

00:30:39.260 God never promises total sanctification in this life, right?

00:30:43.780 All of us have prevailing sins and prevailing temptations that we will not be completely free from in this life.

00:30:52.840 God never promises that.

00:30:55.540 I became a Christian at Labrie, which is the ministry of Francis Schaeffer, which is in Switzerland.

00:31:03.060 I was living in Europe at the time, and Francis Schaeffer used to use the term substantial healing, not completely healing, substantial healing.

00:31:15.420 And he said, if you look for all or nothing, you're liable to end up with nothing.

00:31:19.640 So, it is important that you recognize that some people will never be completely free of same-sex attraction.

00:31:26.960 In fact, the story I just told about Rebecca, Rebecca told me,

00:31:30.720 I still can't watch the lesbian scenes in the TV series Orange is the New Black. 1.00

00:31:37.460 You know, she still has some temptations in that direction towards lesbianism. 1.00

00:31:42.960 So, it's important to recognize the nature of sin and temptation, but temptation is not sin.

00:31:51.120 People continue to be tempted without necessarily having to accuse themselves of sin.

00:31:58.020 And that's an important distinction.

00:32:01.040 I quote a young woman in Love Thy Body who was a lesbian for many years,

00:32:07.280 and she said, it took me a long time to realize that temptation is not sin.

00:32:11.620 And I was beating up on myself because I was still being tempted by lesbianism after I became a Christian.

00:32:18.500 And I came to realize temptation is not sin.

00:32:22.900 Even Jesus was tempted in all ways, just as we are, as Hebrew says, but without sin.

00:32:29.820 But let me give you an anecdote on this.

00:32:31.780 So, I recently read an article about a woman who was transsexual.

00:32:37.320 And she successfully passed as a man for 10 years and then converted to Christianity.

00:32:46.760 And just to let you know, sanctification doesn't always happen overnight.

00:32:51.140 So, she thought she could live as a man, even as a Christian.

00:32:55.460 And she said, I aspired to be a true man of God.

00:33:01.340 And so, it was several years into her Christian life.

00:33:06.020 When she was praying one day, she seemed to hear God say to her,

00:33:12.120 you cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation.

00:33:17.100 In other words, her body as female was part of his creation. 0.98

00:33:23.320 And she needed to learn to accept her body as female and accept her identity as female. 0.97

00:33:31.540 So, now she does. 0.78

00:33:32.520 She has, you know, changed her, grown her hair out, dresses as a female. 1.00

00:33:38.080 And I love the way she encapsulated it.

00:33:41.420 She said, you cannot reject, you cannot claim to love me and yet reject my creation.

00:33:47.820 So, that's really the heart of the message that Christians have for both the church and the world.

00:33:54.700 We need to love God's creation.

00:33:57.740 Amen.

00:33:58.440 Tell me, final question, amidst a world who consistently tells us the opposite.

00:34:05.960 And even, unfortunately, people in the church are denying the view that you have so well articulated

00:34:13.760 and have started to accept a completely secular sexual ethic

00:34:17.500 and tried unsuccessfully to pair it to a biblical worldview.

00:34:22.080 It's totally perpendicular.

00:34:24.080 It's completely contradictory.

00:34:25.580 What do we as Bible-believing Christians who know God's view of the body,

00:34:29.720 how do we respond?

00:34:32.040 What do we do in the midst of this?

00:34:33.740 Because this could really be a watershed issue, a very key issue that a lot of our morality

00:34:44.360 in general is centered on.

00:34:46.680 Right.

00:34:47.420 Notice the language that I've been using.

00:34:50.600 You know, I've been talking about honor your body, respect your biological identity,

00:34:56.820 live in tune with your body, live in harmony with the creator's design.

00:35:01.940 See, by using positive language like that, we can overcome the negative image that Christians

00:35:09.460 often have and show that God's moral rules for our lives are actually intended to help us

00:35:17.380 live with greater fulfillment and greater reality in our lives.

00:35:22.740 Let me give you just one more example.

00:35:24.540 So in the chapter on transgenderism, I start with an extended anecdote of a young boy who clearly did have gender dysphoria from a young age.

00:35:35.920 And in fact, the psychological studies show that the most common correlate of non-heterosexual behavior in adulthood

00:35:48.040 has nothing to do with genes, genetics, biology, the most common correlate is simply gender non-conforming behavior in childhood.

00:35:59.120 And so, which is, you know, counter to the cultural norms.

00:36:05.740 In fact, let me just add parenthetically that research has shown that 80% of those who come out as homosexual

00:36:16.640 change the sexual identity label at least once.

00:36:22.500 80% change the sexual identity label at least once, which means many of them, it's more than once.

00:36:39.980 And this is the research from Lisa Diamond, who's a senior editor with the American Psychological Association

00:36:47.900 and who herself is lesbian. 1.00

00:36:50.960 So she's the source of the idea that sexuality is fluid. 1.00

00:36:54.920 She's the one who popularized that notion based on her research.

00:36:58.000 So this does not sound like a trait that is biologically determined.

00:37:04.600 And 80% change their sexual identity label at least once.

00:37:09.120 It turns out that the most reliable correlation is just gender non-conforming behavior in childhood.

00:37:16.340 So in Love Thy Body, I tell the story of a young boy who I named Brandon, which is not his real name,

00:37:24.080 who clearly had gender dysphoria from a young age.

00:37:28.120 Before he was even walking, his babysitter said to his mother,

00:37:34.300 he's too good to be a boy.

00:37:36.620 By which she meant he's quiet and sweet-natured and compliant,

00:37:42.860 the stereotypes we normally associate with girls.

00:37:45.460 When he was in preschool and his mother picked him up in the afternoon,

00:37:51.820 invariably he was playing with the little girls and not the little boys.

00:37:55.780 By elementary school, he was coming to his parents repeatedly saying,

00:38:02.120 I think the way girls do, I'm interested in the things girls are. 0.86

00:38:07.740 God should have made me a girl. 0.99

00:38:09.580 So this was a very difficult thing for his parents.

00:38:14.120 He was weeping.

00:38:15.260 He was distressed.

00:38:16.360 By the age of 14, he was scouring the internet for information on sex change therapy.

00:38:23.420 So what did his parents do?

00:38:25.960 First of all, they made sure he knew that they loved him just the way he is.

00:38:30.580 In other words, I had a homosexual friend when I was in college who said,

00:38:38.620 my dad was baffled because I liked music and poetry,

00:38:42.340 and he kept trying to push me into more traditionally masculine activities like sports.

00:38:49.520 Brandon's parents did not do that.

00:38:51.480 They said, it is perfectly possible to be a quiet, emotionally sensitive boy.

00:39:05.040 It is possible that God has gifted you for one of the helping professions like counselor, psychologist, or healthcare worker.

00:39:13.940 And, of course, by the same token, it's perfectly possible for a girl to be gender nonconforming and to be more outdoorsy and sporty and assertive.

00:39:24.640 They also took him through personality tests to show that boys can be at this end,

00:39:31.660 the end of this spectrum, which is gentle and personal oriented, relational,

00:39:38.780 or it's possible to be at the other end of take charge and assertive.

00:39:45.220 So his parents can actually their favorite line was,

00:39:49.220 it's not you that's wrong.

00:39:50.700 It's the stereotypes that are wrong.

00:39:54.040 And so in terms of Christians, we must realize that the gifts of the spirit are not divided by gender.

00:40:02.040 Prophecy and teaching are not masculine, as you and I might expect,

00:40:09.180 and mercy and service are not feminine, as we might expect.

00:40:14.620 Scripture says God gives them to individuals as he sees fit.

00:40:19.560 And, of course, the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, said,

00:40:23.820 I am gentle and humble in spirit.

00:40:26.220 So what Brandon's parents did was they kept affirming him as male,

00:40:34.960 but also accepting the fact that his personality does not fit the stereotypes.

00:40:41.760 And I think, you know what Brandon told me?

00:40:43.580 He said the church is the worst place for gender stereotypes.

00:40:47.700 And that really made me think,

00:40:50.000 because the church needs to take the lead then in questioning the stereotypes

00:40:54.100 and saying, God can equip people all across the spectrum.

00:40:58.540 Sex is a binary.

00:40:59.940 Okay, that's a current issue in the secular world,

00:41:02.680 because they often say sex is not a binary.

00:41:04.880 No, sex is a binary.

00:41:06.600 There's male and female.

00:41:08.360 There's sperm and egg. 0.72

00:41:09.680 And there's no spectrum in between them.

00:41:13.060 But personality.

00:41:14.260 But personality is a spectrum.

00:41:15.920 And we don't have to expect people to fit the stereotypes.

00:41:21.900 And we should affirm that God can create people all across the spectrum

00:41:26.080 and give them the support.

00:41:27.980 We need to take the lead because in the public schools today,

00:41:33.520 young people are under incredible pressure to identify as gay or trans.

00:41:40.100 I talked to an 11-year-old girl who said every day the kids are asking each other,

00:41:46.780 are you gay? 0.91

00:41:47.480 Are you trans? 0.97

00:41:48.800 It's such a big thing in the public schools today.

00:41:52.220 So that's why the church needs and Christian parents need to really take the lead

00:41:56.700 in fighting for our children.

00:41:59.700 Brandon's parents had to fight for him over many years.

00:42:03.020 And we need to fight for our children to help them to accept their biological, 0.99

00:42:08.760 God-given identity in a world that says that gender is up for grabs, 0.99

00:42:13.400 that even their body doesn't tell them who they are,

00:42:17.160 that yes, in fact, God made them wonderfully, perfectly in his image,

00:42:23.160 and they can take pride in the way God created them.

00:42:27.440 Yes, that's something that I've actually talked about that before.

00:42:31.020 I've thought about this before that you hear from typically people on the cultural left,

00:42:35.960 people who have a secular worldview, that's not only people on the left,

00:42:39.760 but just on this particular subject, say there are harmful gender stereotypes,

00:42:44.820 to which I would say you're right.

00:42:47.640 There are some harmful gender stereotypes that society, whoever you want to blame,

00:42:52.800 has put on people to say it is girly to be sensitive.

00:42:57.120 Like you said, it is girly to help people.

00:42:59.760 It is manly to like sports.

00:43:02.020 It is manly to be assertive.

00:43:04.380 When that's, that actually does confuse people.

00:43:08.420 That, it's funny because people who are transgender seem to be more sensitive 1.00

00:43:13.340 to those stereotypes than Christians are. 0.64

00:43:17.260 And that, okay, well, like you said, if I am sensitive, that means I'm supposed to be a woman.

00:43:21.800 But again, the Bible has an elevated view of that.

00:43:25.280 When we look at someone like David, who was strong, who was brave, who was a mighty man of God,

00:43:29.940 he played instruments, he cried out to the Lord.

00:43:32.220 He was what you might call emotional.

00:43:34.700 He is sensitive.

00:43:36.720 He cares about friendships.

00:43:37.920 He cares about people who don't like him.

00:43:39.920 Maybe things that you might ascribe sometimes to females,

00:43:43.780 someone who was a man after God's own heart had some of those characteristics.

00:43:48.000 So again, what we see is that the Bible has a better, has an elevated, has a more honorable

00:43:54.700 view of the so-called spectrum of what a man is and what a woman is.

00:43:59.860 That doesn't mean the biological roles are mixed up.

00:44:02.640 That doesn't mean that biologically we can just interchange them.

00:44:06.660 But as far as personalities go, there, there are differences in that can even be biblical.

00:44:12.440 And again, people say that it's Christians who want to fit people inside a box.

00:44:16.360 And maybe it's true that churches do that, but God's word doesn't do that.

00:44:20.880 And by the way, add to the, add to your portrait of David, he wrote poetry.

00:44:26.500 Yes.

00:44:26.960 Most of the poems of poetry.

00:44:29.240 Yes.

00:44:29.440 And again, we think of, these days, we tend to think of poetry as somewhat effeminate.

00:44:34.640 David was a great warrior, and yet he wrote poetry.

00:44:38.360 I would also say that we should reach out to secularists who do recognize the problem.

00:44:46.500 For example, there's a group called Hands Across the Aisle, which I'm a member of, and

00:44:52.000 it's mostly conservative, Christian women, and secular, liberal, feminist, socialist women. 0.98

00:45:02.680 And we're reaching across the aisle on these issues of transgenderism.

00:45:06.660 Why?

00:45:07.380 Because even feminists realize that if anyone can call themselves a woman, including a man 1.00

00:45:14.040 who still has all of his equipment intact, he's biologically, has his dentals intact still,

00:45:21.740 and he can call himself a woman, and he can claim entry into women's spaces like rape shelters 0.91

00:45:28.340 and locker rooms and showers, if anyone can call themselves a woman, then there's no longer 1.00

00:45:36.300 a basis for women's rights. 1.00

00:45:38.740 Right.

00:45:39.380 So to protect women's rights, we have to be able to say what a woman is. 1.00

00:45:44.940 If it's a social construct, as postmodernists tell us now, then it becomes impossible to

00:45:50.780 argue for women's rights based on the sheer fact of being female. 1.00

00:45:55.520 You cannot protect a category of people if you cannot define that category.

00:46:03.400 Yep.

00:46:03.900 So one of the strategies for Christians today is to reach out even to secular people who

00:46:11.160 are recognizing the same problems that we are.

00:46:14.980 So there needs to be changes within the church.

00:46:18.720 We also can reach out for allies in the secular culture.

00:46:23.360 Yep.

00:46:23.620 And it goes back to, to me, what C.S. Lewis argues in Mere Christianity about a moral law

00:46:31.180 giver.

00:46:31.520 If you don't have a moral law giver, you don't have a moral law, then what you're left with

00:46:35.760 is basically postmodernism.

00:46:37.740 It's basically, while there is no purpose or meaning for anything, it's all just totally

00:46:41.960 subjective.

00:46:42.480 And you find always these contradictions like feminism trying to go hand in hand with transgenderism.

00:46:49.900 Well, it doesn't work because the feminist argument then is torn down by the fact that 1.00

00:46:53.900 there's no such thing as a woman. 1.00

00:46:55.120 So that's one beautiful part about Christianity is the purposed order that God has created for 0.96

00:47:03.540 us that, like you've said so many times, and it's so true, is meant for human beings' fulfillment

00:47:08.960 for our good in God's glory.

00:47:11.220 And I think that you have a very unique message that I really don't hear a lot of Christians

00:47:17.920 talking about.

00:47:19.180 Can you tell people where they can hear more about this message, where they can find you

00:47:24.000 and all of the information that you've shared today?

00:47:26.320 Well, Love Thy Body, the book, can be found anywhere on Amazon, christianbook.com, you know,

00:47:35.480 any Christian bookstore probably has it these days.

00:47:39.220 And I have a website called natsypiercy.com, or you can connect with me on Facebook, of course,

00:47:44.660 or Twitter.

00:47:48.940 That's probably the best way to do it.

00:47:50.660 And I did want to follow up on your comment just there about living in God's purpose.

00:47:58.300 You have to realize, people sometimes ask me, well, why does a secular ethic have such

00:48:04.600 a low view of the body, which is the main theme of my book, Love Thy Body?

00:48:10.560 And here's the deeper question that everyone needs to get to.

00:48:15.120 Your view of ethics depends on your view of nature, because the body is part of nature.

00:48:19.360 And the secular ethic depends on the view of nature as a product of blind material forces.

00:48:26.940 In fact, there's an outspoken lesbian named Camille Paglia. 1.00

00:48:32.760 Yes.

00:48:32.980 I'm sure you know.

00:48:34.460 Yes.

00:48:35.640 And this is how she, and she's also a lesbian. 1.00

00:48:40.300 Here's how she defends it.

00:48:42.980 On the one hand, she disagrees with most lesbians, which is why Christians know her, by the way. 0.99

00:48:47.340 They read her stuff, because she disagrees with the idea that male and female is just

00:48:52.240 a social construction.

00:48:53.720 She says, no, no, no.

00:48:55.400 Nature made us male and female.

00:48:58.900 Humans are a sexually reproducing species.

00:49:02.160 And so you ask, well, how can she defend being a lesbian self? 0.97

00:49:07.660 And here's what she says, and these are her exact words.

00:49:11.840 She says, why not defy nature?

00:49:15.780 After all, fate, not God, has given us this flesh.

00:49:21.320 We have absolute claim to our bodies and may do with them as we see fit.

00:49:27.180 So do you see the logical connection?

00:49:28.960 What she's saying is if nature is a matter of mindless, purposeless, material causes, then

00:49:36.960 it has no intrinsic purpose that we're morally obligated to respect.

00:49:42.600 It has no moral message for us.

00:49:46.040 We may do with it as we see fit.

00:49:48.480 So that's really the question at the heart of this debate is, is nature itself the product

00:49:55.400 of mindless, purposeless forces, or is nature the product of a loving creator who had a

00:50:02.860 purpose, a reason, a design, a plan, an order when he created us.

00:50:09.720 And we will be happier and healthier when we live in accord with that purpose, that design.

00:50:17.020 So if you want to talk about the worldview differences, it comes down to Christians being

00:50:23.180 able to communicate that our ethical views are based on the idea of a loving God who created

00:50:30.100 us for a purpose.

00:50:31.500 Right.

00:50:31.740 It's the why that secularists, materialists can't answer that.

00:50:36.920 Okay, this might have been the case.

00:50:38.440 I could keep going on and on, but I remember Gloria Steinem a few years ago talking about,

00:50:43.400 okay, there might be biological differences between men and women, but why not defy biology? 0.98

00:50:47.520 That's exactly what she said.

00:50:49.100 What Paglia said, why not?

00:50:51.000 Yes, there might be specific roles that women are better at and men are better at, but so 0.99

00:50:56.240 why not defy science?

00:50:57.840 So again, you see that separation of body and inner person saying that there really is no

00:51:05.140 connection.

00:51:05.820 One can be dominated over the other, depending on what's most expedient or what feels best

00:51:10.960 for us.

00:51:11.500 That's what Paglia is saying too.

00:51:12.920 But you point out in your introduction, a C.S.

00:51:15.040 Lewis quote that says materialists, they basically live in a world that does not exist.

00:51:19.780 And I think history tells us that, that even that define our bodies, um, there's no evidence

00:51:26.840 historically that society can last that way.

00:51:29.740 There's no evidence that I, that I know of throughout all of human history that we can

00:51:35.640 actually go on like that.

00:51:36.840 Has there ever been a society that is not split between male and female? 0.57

00:51:40.180 What makes us so prideful to think that we can now?

00:51:45.080 Yes.

00:51:45.640 In fact, this, um, I'm glad you said that because what I have found surprisingly is that the main

00:51:52.500 argument that my secular friends find persuasive is an argument from environmentalism.

00:51:59.820 And you say, wait a minute, what's the, what's the connection being sweet between sexuality

00:52:05.360 and environmentalism?

00:52:06.880 What we've discovered from the environmental movement is that in order to avoid pollution

00:52:15.420 and ecological disasters, we need to respect the structure of nature.

00:52:21.080 We cannot do as we see fit to use Camille Paglia's term, when it comes to the environment, when

00:52:30.200 we intervene, we need to work with the natural order, not against it.

00:52:35.200 And really all Christians are saying is that when it comes to sexual issues, we need to work 0.64

00:52:41.660 with our own biological nature.

00:52:46.400 And that when we do that, we will live happier and healthier.

00:52:50.660 And it's amazing.

00:52:51.540 I, I first, um, the first time I used that with a secular friend, they, when they went,

00:52:56.980 Oh yeah, I get that.

00:52:59.440 So that was surprising to me.

00:53:01.380 This, they get that.

00:53:03.360 Yeah.

00:53:03.680 That what we're saying, uh, over against homosexuality and transgenderism in particular, 1.00

00:53:08.080 is that we are created a certain way and we will be better off when we respect and live

00:53:16.180 in accord with our biological nature.

00:53:19.880 Amen.

00:53:20.700 Thank you so much for this conversation.

00:53:22.660 I could probably ask you a million more questions, but I think that this is probably enough for

00:53:27.300 our listeners to kind of chew on.

00:53:29.600 And I'm excited about the questions and the comments that are going to come in.

00:53:32.940 So again, you can go to nancypiercy.com, correct?

00:53:35.300 And Love Thy Body is found everywhere.

00:53:38.600 I got it on Amazon.

00:53:40.340 Um, that's probably an easy place to get it, or you can go to your local bookstore if you

00:53:44.600 want to do that.

00:53:45.180 So thank you so much, Professor.

00:53:47.460 And, um, hopefully we will stay connected.

00:53:52.180 Thank you so much for having me, Allie.

00:53:53.980 I appreciate it.

00:53:55.140 I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation.

00:53:57.280 As always, if you've got any questions, feel free to email me,

00:54:00.340 Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com.

00:54:02.340 You can also message me on Instagram.

00:54:04.260 I try to check those as much as I can.

00:54:06.820 And I would, I would love to hear any feedback that you have about this particular episode.

00:54:10.800 I know we dove into some pretty complicated subjects,

00:54:14.400 and I always love to hear your opinions and hear your thoughts.

00:54:19.060 Thank you so much for listening.

00:54:20.280 I will see you guys back here on Monday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - September 20, 2019

Ep 165 ｜ Nancy Pearcey

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