Ep 240 ｜ Bad Theology
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of Relatable, we re talking about Jen Hatmaker s controversial views on marriage and why it matters what someone like her thinks about it. Jen is a well-known and well-loved author, blogger, and speaker who has been a vocal advocate of gay marriage and believes that it s just as holy as any other kind of relationship.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today, as you can tell by the title, we are talking about
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bad theology. I discussed last week wanting to do a segment from now on titled Bad Theology,
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where we would just talk about something that I saw that is theologically erroneous. Today,
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we are going to dedicate an entire podcast episode to that, and it is going to be represented by
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someone by the name of Jen Hatmaker, as seen in a recent Instagram post that a bunch of you guys
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sent me and asked me to respond to. So that's what we are going to be breaking down today.
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This is one of you guys' favorite things that I do, and this topic is a topic that you guys love
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to hear about, but we're going to come at it from a different perspective. I always like to give you
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something new. This is the second Instagram caption of Jen Hatmaker that we have discussed
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specifically on this podcast. There is actually an episode titled Jen Hatmaker's Instagram post from
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maybe a couple years back at this point. So in case you don't know who she is, although she is very well
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known in the female Christian world, but just in case you're not familiar with her, I will give you
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a little bit of background on who she is and why we're talking about this. This is not about calling
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a specific person out. This is an example of a kind of theology, and I put that in scare quotes,
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that is rampant, especially in the female Christian world, and that's why it's so important for us to
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talk about it. So Jen Hatmaker, she's an author that really blew up a few years ago, although she's been
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on the public scene for a really long time. Her family actually starred in an HGTV series,
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a while back as well. She successfully became known as kind of like the go-to voice for stressed out
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Christian women and specifically moms. She is amazing. She truly is. She's amazing at relating
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to this group. Her writing is very unique, very in her voice. So it's readable, it's relatable,
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it's very down to earth. And she has this way of explaining things genuinely that makes you go,
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I've never thought about that before, and kind of makes you look away from the page and think about
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things. And so she's very effective and very successful in her communication. She is extremely
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charming, like I said, extremely relatable. And so it's really easy to see why so many women are
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attracted to her and see themselves reflected in her. It's truly a gift. And at one point,
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she was regarded as very mainstream and really for a lot of people, a solid theological voice.
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I'll be honest, I was never like a follower or a reader of Jen Hatmaker because when she,
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when her star was rising, I was younger, I would say than her target demographic. But I knew who she
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was in college. And I certainly don't remember having any, having any qualms with her or anything
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like that. But she shifted around 2016, when she started being a public advocate of gay marriage,
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there was an interview in 2016, when she said that LGBT relationships and marriage are holy,
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just as holy as any heterosexual relationship. She has openly supported gay marriage regards gay
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relationships, like I said, is just as biblical, just as holy as any other kind of relationship.
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Now, if you are new to this podcast, maybe you don't understand why that's a big deal,
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or maybe you're just in a different place than I am. You don't agree with me ideologically
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and theologically. And so to you, you're like, that's not a big deal at all. Why does it matter
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what she thinks about marriage? Her Instagram caption wasn't even about that, but I'll explain to you
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why I'm going to address her perspective on marriage a little bit more in depth because it is
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pertinent to what we're talking about today. So you can go back and listen to episodes
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126 of this podcast titled Biblical Marriage. The reason the biblical definition of marriage
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as between a man and a woman is so important is not because of a couple of verses in the Old
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Testament or even in the New Testament, although we shouldn't discount those verses just because
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culture says they should be discounted. But I explained the reason why it's so important
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very thoroughly in that episode, episode 126, but we're going to rehash it a little bit today.
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I have an alliteration for the reason the definition of marriage matters so much to the
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Christian worldview and to biblically accurate and sound theology. And it's important that we know
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that Jen Hatmaker doesn't hold to the biblically sound theology on marriage. And I'll explain why
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that matters to what her Instagram caption said and why it matters to how we should approach
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what someone like her says about God in the Bible. So the reason why the definition of marriage
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matters and it matters what Jen Hatmaker thinks about marriage as a professing Christian is because
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the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is rooted in creation. It is reiterated in
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both the Old and the New Testaments. It reflects a relationship between Christ and the church and
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therefore reflects the gospel, which means consequently, if you get it wrong, the rest of your theology
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is very likely going to be off. So first one, biblical marriage is rooted in creation. Genesis 2,
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18, 14 through 18. Actually, I think that I got the reference wrong when I wrote it down. So I'll go back
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and correct myself on that. But it says, then the Lord God said, oh, it's 18 through 24. Then the Lord
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God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out
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of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought
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them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature,
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that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of
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the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep
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sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with
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flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the
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man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
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woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold
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fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were
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not ashamed. So that is Genesis 2, 18 through 25. Does that sound, this is a rhetorical question,
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but I guess it's kind of not depending on what your perspective is. Does that sound arbitrary to you?
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Does that sound from that passage of creation? Does it sound like God unintentionally or arbitrarily put
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male and female together? Does it sound like male and female are interchangeable in this passage? Does
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it sound like the marriage relationship or the gender binary for that matter is up for debate? Is
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subject to cultural change or human whims? No, of course it doesn't. God made woman in marriage
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specifically for man and vice versa. He created the relationship as between male and female
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specifically, purposefully, intentionally, and beautifully. A biblical marriage is reiterated
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throughout the Bible, not just in the Old Testament, in the laws for Israel, but in the New Testament as
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well. Jesus reiterated the creation of marriage in Matthew 19, 4 through 6. Haven't you read, he replied,
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that at the beginning, the creator made them male and female and said, for this reason, a man will
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leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. So they are
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no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate. So for those
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out there, the, what I call the hipster Jesus Christians who say that Jesus never had anything to say
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about today's controversial social issues, I would venture to guess that they are not reading very
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closely. Again, the question we should ask those who say Christians should embrace gay marriage,
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so they're not only saying that creation itself was arbitrary and basically meaningless, but also that
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Jesus's words about marriage are arbitrary and meaningless. And we should just ask if that's the view
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that they really hold, that Jesus's words don't really mean what they clearly mean when you read
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the text. But Ephesians 5 makes clear why the creation of marriage was not arbitrary, because
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bringing us to our third reason, biblical marriage reflects Christ and the church. So Ephesians 5, 22
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through 24. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife,
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even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now, as the church
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submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love
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your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. And then Ephesians 5, 31 through
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33. This gives deeper meaning to the creation of marriage by saying this, therefore, a man shall
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leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery
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is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you
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love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So the marriage
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relationship, according to this passage, according to the Bible, between one man and one woman is
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rooted in creation, is reiterated in both the Old and the New Testaments, and by Jesus himself
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is reflective of the relationship between Christ and the church, and in that way is representative
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of the gospel. The gospel is Christ laying himself down, sacrificing himself for the church, for the
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body of believers. Ephesians 5 says that that is how husbands are to love their wives radically,
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sacrificially, and wives are to honor their husbands, submit to their husbands in the same way that they
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submit to the Lord. So marriage between a man and a woman is reflective of the gospel. And finally,
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ultimately, ultimately, gloriously, we see that all of this ends. All of this ends with Jesus coming
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back for his church, which is depicted in Revelation 19 as a marriage, a wedding feast between what the
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Bible says is the bride, the church, and the bridegroom, Jesus. So the definition of marriage by God
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as between a man and a woman isn't arbitrary. It's not according to God, the one who made marriage
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up for grabs or up for debate. It is depicted throughout the entirety of the biblical narrative
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as a purposeful, intentional, symbolic pairing. Male and female are not interchangeable. Therefore,
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the definition of marriage is not malleable, which is why when a professing Christian gets this wrong,
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it is catastrophic for the rest of their theology. Marriage is not a small part of the biblical
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narrative. It's not this throwaway aspect of God's eternal story of redemption. It is hugely meaningful.
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And when we try to manipulate God's intentional design of gender and marriage, we are saying that
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we don't believe God and that we don't trust God and we think that we know better. So for a professing
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Christian to say that it's mean or it's bigoted or wrong to define marriage how God defines marriage
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is for that professing Christian to say that God is a bigot and they are more compassionate than God.
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But newsflash for every single one of us, no matter what, every single one of us, we are not more
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compassionate or more loving or more kind than God is. If our good, faithful, and all-knowing God
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says that something is one way, then far be it from us fallible, short-sighted, finite, sinful people
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to say otherwise. If you are willing to discount what God says about something as significant as
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marriage, if you're willing to discount what he says about marriage, this hugely important thing
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according to the biblical text, what else are you willing to discount? What other parts of scripture
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and the redemption story are you willing to throw out because it's uncomfortable or it's culturally
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inconvenient? The answer is, as we see time and time again with people who hold this view and profess to
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be Christians, the answer is a lot. You're willing to throw out a lot. Whenever we see someone compromise
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on the definition of marriage, we always, I will say always as I have seen anyway, see some kind of
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compromise in other areas of theology as well. Because if you are going to redefine the very institution
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that both starts and ends the Bible, why shouldn't you pick and choose other parts too according to
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what you think feels good? You will see them, the people who hold this view, who evolve in their
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views of marriage beyond what the Bible says marriage is, you will see them soon scoff at the idea of sin
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as a whole. They will downplay the importance of holiness and obedience. They will start labeling anyone
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who actually regards the biblical definition of marriage as fundamentalist, this big scary word
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that they use to try to demonize people who believe the Bible is inerrant. Their philosophy will often be
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one of moral relativism and eventually the content that they write or produce will no longer resemble
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theology, will no longer resemble the gospel, but will resemble or will be what I call me-ology. So not
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theology, but me-ology by redefining, discounting, or ignoring what the Bible says about male and
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female in marriage along with everything else. This is not the only issue. This is not even necessarily
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the most important issue along with everything else that the Bible says. If we discount anything
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that the Bible says is true or not true, good or not good, we are saying that we know better than God,
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that we are better than God and consequently placing ourselves on the throne of our lives,
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giving ourselves the power to determine what's good and what's not. That means that we are bowing
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down to the God of self, not the God of scripture. And that's not to say that genuine Christians don't
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ever get it wrong because of course we do. I've gotten many things wrong. I will continue to be wrong on
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things, but at the end of the day for you and for me, for the Christian, we bend ourselves to the
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unbendable truth of scripture, not the other way around. I am always willing to be wrong in the face
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of the truth of God's word. When we bend scripture to fit our opinion, we are effectively making
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ourselves God and we are not good gods. All of that leads me to Jen Hatmaker's recent Instagram post,
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which doesn't have anything to do with biblical marriage, but does give us a solid background of
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why her theology has gone so off rails and has led to this Instagram post that represents
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so much of the terrible neology that we see pervasively among Christian women. Jen Hatmaker's
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Instagram post. It is a quote from her book, Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire. And a lot of you guys sent it to me
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and you said, please, can you tell me? I know this is off, but can you tell me why this is off?
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So Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire is basically, I haven't read the book, but from the synopsis and
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what I can tell from the quotes that she has been posting, it sounds about the exact opposite of what
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I believe in my book, which comes out August 11th, by the way. The quote on the Instagram post is this.
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Now, there's a cuss word in it, and I won't say it, but I'm just warning you. Women are the baddest
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of bad days, she says it. Women are the baddest of bad days, and there's nothing they cannot overcome
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and accomplish. The caption is long, so I will just read you portions of her caption without
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decontextualizing anything. Of course, you can go and read the caption for yourself so you don't think
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that I am trying to pull things out and make her mean something that she doesn't actually mean.
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Um, I sincerely believe, she says, we, women, are the answer to virtually everything that ails
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society. I trust our instincts and desires and gifts. We want things that are good and true and
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lovely, no matter what this world has always said about our desires. Trust yourself this week.
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She says, trust what you care about and what you want and need. Your body is taking good care of you.
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I believe in you right now, sisters. You are so good. Fierce comes out a week from tomorrow. I wrote
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it because I love you and I love us. You deserve this investment in your own beautiful d-word life.
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And of course, she says it. All right, so this is exactly why I wrote my book, You're Not Enough,
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which I kind of wish was coming out right now since it's a response to the kind of stuff that is
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apparently in Jen Hatmaker's book, but we'll just have to wait until August. Um, this is
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me-ology. This isn't theology because it has nothing to do with God at all. And just a reminder,
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the Jen Hatmaker bills herself as a Christian podcaster, author, and influencer, and she always
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has. If she were just a secular person, I wouldn't, I mean, I'd probably be talking about this, but I
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wouldn't fault her for not promoting sound theology, but she bills herself as a Christian author. So I
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think that this is fair game to weigh her words against the word of God. Uh, so this has nothing
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actually to do with the Bible at all. It has nothing to do with the word of God, which is why
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it's not theology. It is me-ology. This isn't godly. This is not Christ-centered. This is not glorifying to
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the Lord in any way. This is me-ology. This is me. What I say is true and what I say feels good.
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This is the ology that she is putting out. This is an ode to the God of self. And quite frankly,
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it's not even remotely compelling. I would say a lot of her writing is compelling and interesting
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and charming. This not so much. However, because a lot of you guys send it to me, I want to address
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it. Women are the baddest of baddies, she says, and there is nothing we can't accomplish. So we'll
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start with that. Look, first of all, I agree that women are awesome. I love being a woman. I've
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always had really awesome and admirable, uh, girl friends and people that I look up to. God thinks
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women are awesome in all of their uniqueness and beauty and ability to nurture and nourish and
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beautify and teach and have and raise children. God thinks that we are awesome. He made us fearfully
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and wonderfully. We just read in the creation account, how specially and specifically God made
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us. So of course, God thinks that women are beautiful made in his image. He made us with
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special gifts and capacities and abilities that men don't have and vice versa. He made men with
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capacities and abilities that we don't have. We are created to compliment one another. I do think
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that women are capable of incredible things. God uses women throughout the Bible in wonderful
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in special ways. And that's an amazing, that's an amazing thing. We should be thankful for all of
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that. However, are there things that we can't accomplish on our own? Yes. Are there things that
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we cannot overcome on our own? Yes. Because we are fallible human beings. Jin's message is a message of
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self-empowerment. This is a different way to say the refrain that we have heard and have debunked on
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this podcast a million times. You are enough. In this quote, Jin is saying, women, you are enough. That
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you have all the power inside yourself to do whatever you put your mind to. But it's not true. You're not
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enough. You can't accomplish anything on your own. I don't know if you're the baddest of bad A. I have no
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idea. The fact is, if you were enough, if you were amazing and perfect just how you are, and you could
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accomplish everything on your own, you wouldn't need Jesus. You wouldn't need his salvation, his
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sanctification, his strength. But the Bible says that we've all fallen short of the glory of God, that we
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all need Christ. The gospel is not that you are a bad A who can accomplish anything. The gospel is that
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you and I are bad, period. And we need Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. As Psalm 16 2 says,
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I have no good apart from you. Therefore, it is not comforting or helpful at all to hear that we can
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accomplish anything. No, we can't actually. Ultimately and eternally, there's nothing that we can achieve on
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our own. We are completely helpless. Ephesians 2 says that without Christ, we are dead in our sin. But
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good news, because of Christ, we are made alive. We are saved by grace through faith and are empowered
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by the Holy Spirit to do good works. Ephesians 2 10. She says, I sincerely believe we women are the
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answer to virtually everything that ails society. What an amazing statement. She says, I trust our
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instincts and desires and gifts. We want things that are good and true and lovely, no matter what this
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world has always said about our desires. Really? Women are the answer to what ails society? Jen,
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girl, have you read? Have you read about the Garden of Eden? Like, can I introduce you to Eve? Do you
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remember that? Like, women are not the answer to what ails society. Men aren't the answer to what ails
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society? Women and men are what ails society. Like, who else is causing the problems? Besides men and
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women, sinful men and women, we are causing the problems. We are what ails society. Christ is the
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answer. Christ is the answer to literally all that ails society. That's what the Bible is about,
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that Christ is the antidote to our ailments. Not women, not any human being. Now, if Jen, like I
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said, were not a professing Christian, I wouldn't expect her to know all of this. I wouldn't be
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spending my time on this at all, but she is. And she is sharing with her 472,000 Instagram followers
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and however many readers she has, something that is not just a little theologically off because we've
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all been there, we've all made mistakes, but something that is completely counter to the gospel
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and a message that she wrote an entire book on. A message that she has been consistently pushing
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for years now. She says, I trust our instincts and desires and gifts. We want things that are good
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and true and lovely, no matter what this world has always said about our desires. Trust yourself this
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week. She says, trust what you care about and what you want and need. Your body is taking good care of
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you. Why? Why does Jen tell all women to trust themselves? I don't trust myself unconditionally
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and you shouldn't either. I do not always desire what is good and true and lovely and you don't
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either. Sometimes I, because I'm a sinful person still being sanctified by Jesus, desire what is
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selfish, what is wrong. Sometimes I am envious. Sometimes I'm unjustifiably angry. Sometimes I'm lazy.
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Sometimes I'm prideful. Very often I want things that are not good or true or lovely, but whatever
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suits me. I don't trust your desires. You shouldn't trust your desires. You shouldn't trust all my
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desires. I don't trust Jen's desires. I don't trust anyone's desires all the time. Jeremiah 17 9 says
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this, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Romans 7 8,
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for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. You are not trustworthy. Your feelings,
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your desires, if not in submission to Christ, will lead you astray. And when I say you are not
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trustworthy, I'm talking about your heart. I'm talking about your feelings. I'm talking about all
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of your desires and motives. They cannot be unconditionally trusted. Jen says, trust yourself
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this week. Trust what you care about and what you want and need. Don't trust yourself. You aren't
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trustworthy to yourself. God is. Trust what you care about. I care in my sinful flesh. Here are the
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things I care about. I care about me, myself, and I. I care about Netflix. In my sinful nature, I mostly
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care about what I want to do. I care about food. I care about sleep. I care about scrolling through
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Instagram. I care about whatever I want to do right now. But that is not what God calls me to. That is not
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what God tells me to do. God calls me to be a wife and a mom and to do all the things that he has called
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me to. And that does include, of course, rest and leisure and doing things that make me happy. So that
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sometimes does include Netflix and eating good food and all of that. But if I were to trust myself and
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trust what I care about, I would be living a life completely consumed by narcissism and convenience.
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Trusting myself isn't enough. If I were to follow all of my feelings, I would never do anything that
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I don't want to do. But daily, continually, we are called by God to do the things we don't want to do
00:26:00.520
for his glory. Some of them we do want to do, but a lot of the things we don't want to do. That's why
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Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow him. So the good message is not
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trust yourself. You're taking care of yourself. The better message is, do what God calls you to do.
00:26:18.200
Love him. Love others. Seek to glorify him in all you do and trust that he will take care of you.
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Jesus says that he is taking care of you. Jen says that you are taking care of you.
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You've got a finite ability to calm your anxious mind and to ease your worried heart. You don't have
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what it takes to shepherd your soul, which underneath all the stress that you are feeling right now,
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it's what you really need. You don't need anything more than a shepherd of your soul who can exchange
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all of your anxiety for peace, your out-of-control emotions for steadfastness, and your desperation for
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hope, and your lack of knowledge for wisdom. Jen Hatmaker is a peddler of me-ology. It is not
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biblical. It has no salvific components to it. It is not satisfying, and it will only make you
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emptier than before. This is a new age philosophy. This idea that underneath all of society's
00:27:16.060
expectations and everything that culture tells you is something good and perfect and true, that you've
00:27:21.220
got this inner goddess, that if you just dig down deep and unleash it, you will find all of your heart's
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desires fulfilled. It's not true. What the Bible says is that when you look inside yourself, outside of
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Christ, you find rotting death, you find nothing, you find darkness, you find hopelessness, but in Christ
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you are made alive. You are given hope. You are given a new, soft, regenerated heart. Remember, as we have
00:27:50.300
said so many times, the self can't be both the problem and the solution. So if inside yourself you find, which we all
00:27:59.340
do, if you find insecurity, anxiety, fear, confusion, and chaos, the antidote to these things won't be found
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inside yourself. How could it? But outside yourself. In the God who made you, who says, cast all your anxieties
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on me because I care for you. What a better message than you take care of you. In an effort to make you feel
00:28:26.160
better about yourself, Jen and other people like her. So Glennon Doyle, Rachel Hollis, Jen is actually
00:28:32.500
weighing you down with a burden that you cannot bear. And that is the burden of being your own God.
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She says, trust yourself, take care of yourself, accomplish things for yourself, be the solution
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to all that ails society yourself. But you and I can't do these things. And if we try, we will be met
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with failure. These are burdens that you and I cannot bear and we were never meant to bear them.
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And there's good news. There's so much better news than this stupid Instagram caption. The good news is
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we don't have to be our own gods. God is our God. He alone is worthy of our trust. He alone is the
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caretaker of our hearts and souls. He alone can accomplish all things. He alone is the solution
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to all that ails society. And he says that his burdens are light and his yoke is easy. And he
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doesn't call us to self-empowerment. He calls us to self-denial, to doing not what we want to do at
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all times, but what he has called us to do, which is to love him, to obey him, and to love others.
00:29:45.320
So that is why her Instagram caption is not biblical. And it might feel good in the moment,
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but it's not good news. The gospel is good news. And it is counter to what Jen Hatmaker
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is propagating. And pay attention. I won't call out any other names right now. Pay attention to who
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she's having on her podcast, to who is saying I'm associating with her and I'm her friend. And look,
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I'm not saying that we've all been perfect in all of our associations and things like that,
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but yoking yourself with someone who is blatantly preaching a gospel that is not biblical while
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calling themselves a Christian, it's dangerous territory. It's dangerous territory. Share this
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with your friends who love her. Okay. I will be back here on Wednesday with some important news.