Ep 859 ｜ Why You Can't Be a Gay Christian ｜ Guest： Dr. Christopher Yuan
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 13 minutes
Words per Minute
166.88293
Summary
Dr. Christopher Yuan is a speaker and author of several books, including Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God s Grand Story. He is also a Bible professor and has created a new curriculum called The Holy Sexuality Project, which offers clarity and answers about who we are in Christ, our identity, our desires, and our gender. Dr. Yuan is an amazing testimony of being a drug dealer who went to prison, who was deeply involved in the gay community as a homosexual man, and then came to Christ through an incredibly powerful turn of events.
Transcript
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Dr. Christopher Yuan is a speaker and author of several books, including Holy Sexuality
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and the Gospel, Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story.
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He has created a new curriculum called the Holy Sexuality Project that offers so much
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clarity, so many answers about what God's Word actually says about who we are in Christ,
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our identity, our sexuality, our desires, our gender.
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He is an amazing testimony of being a drug dealer who went to prison, who was deeply involved
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in the gay community as a homosexual man, and then came to Christ through an incredibly
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And he's going to share a lot of his story here today.
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And then we're going to talk about, like, what is the truth about all of these things?
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What does it look like to be made a new creation that actually includes our sexual desires and
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You're going to be so encouraged by his testimony and by this discussion.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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You were one of my first interviews ever on Relatable 2018-2019.
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Well, a lot has happened over the past few years.
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We were just talking before the camera started rolling how busy you are.
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Before we get into the curriculum that you have helped develop, tell us a little bit,
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for those who may not know who you are, what your story is, why you are authoring this curriculum.
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Well, it's not something that I just studied or that I've read about and done research on.
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I didn't come out publicly with it until my early 20s, which, of course, today is much
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later than the average age which kids are dealing with it.
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I mean, unfortunately, I think it doesn't need to be pushed so hard with kids.
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I'm originally from Chicago, and I was living in Louisville, Kentucky at that time, going
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I came out, and through that crisis, my mother came to faith, and then my father did as well.
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Unfortunately, I started doing drugs, started selling drugs while in dental school.
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I was expelled from dental school just three months before I received my doctorate.
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I moved from Louisville to Atlanta, and there I kept doing what I knew how to do best, which
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is if you don't have Christ, you're just going to live in the world and have fun, be happy.
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And I was not only selling drugs and partying, but I also was supplying drugs.
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And this whole time, my parents didn't know that I was doing drugs, but they knew that I
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needed to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
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They came to visit me one time in Atlanta, kicked them out.
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Christian parents cannot, are unable to love their gay children.
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They have to throw the Bible away or believe in so-called progressive Christianity to love
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It wasn't until they became followers of Jesus Christ, they knew they could do nothing other
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than to love me as God loved them while they were sinners, while they were enemies, while
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But they committed not to focus upon hopelessness, but upon the promises of God.
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And my mom got like over a hundred prayer warriors to intercede on my behalf from church for Bible
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She prayed a bold prayer, which is for a mother, a bold prayer.
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She fasted every Monday for seven years, even fasted 39 days.
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I found myself in jail and it was in jail that God began to reveal himself to me.
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I found a Bible in the trash can of all things.
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I mean, I had put my identity solely in my sexuality and God was telling me your identity
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is not in anything else other than Jesus Christ.
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So it was through this transformation in prison, I needed to be away from the world, away from
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the gay community and just to use me, God, the Holy Spirit and the word of God.
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And but it was kind of through these things of putting me just a rock bottom that I knew
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And so through that, I came to Christ in prison.
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So I had to go back to it since I didn't get my doctorate and I actually never got my bachelor's
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So I went back to Bible college, went to seminary and then wrote a book with my mother called
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And through that, I introduced this concept of holy sexuality.
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It was named 2020 Book of the Year for Social Issues by Outreach Magazine.
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And that is what then turned into this video series.
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And gosh, I encourage people to read your books.
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You can go back and listen to that 2018, 2019 interview for some more details on your story,
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But I am curious because I know that there are so many parents who are listening to this.
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There are so many moms listening to this who they have a prodigal child.
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They have a child maybe who struggles with different sexuality identity issues or they've just rejected
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the faith and they want to know more about that story, what your parents did.
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So when your parents found out that you were gay or you told them that you were, were they
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That was kind of initially when they had found out.
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And, you know, and I didn't even say this, but I was 16 years old and there was an older
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And of course, I, I did seek this out with an older man.
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My mother found out, uh, and we just need to call it what it, what it is.
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Um, even if I was willing, it's still statutory rape.
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Um, and this man was in his thirties, but, uh, so that was my mom, uh, you know, even though
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she wasn't a Christian then, uh, I, I think God just revealed it to her and she found out.
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Um, and, uh, it was not, that, that's not, did not fit into her plan as, uh, you know,
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Chinese were very family oriented, um, more traditional in values, moral values.
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And in the eighties, early eighties, that was, you know, in the early eighties, that
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was when biblical sexuality was actually accepted.
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Now today, which is so unfortunate, our children are being raised in a time where they never
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knew a time where biblical sexuality was actually accepted, but rather it's stigmatized.
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And so there's a flip of, of, of narratives now, but yeah, my parents were not Christian
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And from an early age, because you said that you were struggling with your sexuality from
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So that means that you had attraction to males from, I guess, the kind of time that you can
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remember as an early teen, preteen, but there was something in you that told you this is,
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This is not something I want to be public about.
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So tell us a little bit about wrestling with that when you were young.
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You know, I, I think certainly we have, you know, I mentioned where it was the, the culture,
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but I don't want to fall into the trap that somehow morality or the, the misunderstanding
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Romans one tells us that we all have God put in us, um, conviction and, uh, a conscience to
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And it was, and I would say that is more of the issue that we all know that the, the
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unfortunate thing that Paul talks about in Romans one is we suppress it.
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And so even though from a young age, I, I knew that something was not right.
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And I knew that even though I wasn't raised in the church, this was what, what we would
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call in theology, general revelation giving, given to us, this is common grace.
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And the reality is we all have a conscience that God put in us, in our minds, in our hearts
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And I did that, uh, you know, in my early teen years, when I was kind of dealing with
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myself, I didn't tell anyone there was this stigma and it was in my conscious saying, this
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But as I got older and as I began acting on my sin, I thought, man, this feels good,
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I mean, sin feels good, unfortunately, or else it wouldn't be a struggle.
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Well, what's, you know, I'm not hurting anyone.
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That is probably the number one weapon used by the enemy.
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And if we could use that, you're not hurting anyone.
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I'm not really hurting anyone in, you know, I'm making my, this is my own body.
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These are all lies from the enemy that then justify that suppresses the truth that this
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is not, this is not only, you know, against, um, my conscience and against what society is
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saying at that time, but this is against God's moral, holy, good law ground in not just natural
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law, but in God's natural law, which is from the beginning in creation.
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And then as you, you said that you started acting on it, obviously you had that situation
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where your mom found out that you had been with an older man.
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And so that didn't stop you though, obviously from kind of pursuing male relationships, it
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just made it even more, I'm guessing secretive and maybe kind of covered with shame.
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But then when you moved out of the house, is that when you were like, okay, this is going
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This is going to be really what I pursue openly.
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You know, initially, um, so this was 88, 89 that, you know, that was eight.
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I graduated from high school in 88, 86 was when I was 16 years old, but even so after I
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was 16, I thought, okay, we're going to, and, and we went even through some crazy counseling,
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um, that, you know, this is, um, my mom, my mom was so desperate and it was not reparative
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It was something even, uh, it was really crazy Scientology of all things.
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So she was just looking for something to quote unquote fix you desperately just grabbing.
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And, and, and the reason to give a little backstory on why Scientology, Scientology was actually
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moving into kind of their evangelism to use business and, and they were trying to get
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My dad was a dentist and they were thinking, you know, very secular, we're going to grow
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And that was one thing that were, was anyway, they were, Scientology had like a business
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And so my mom thought, Oh, maybe they could help with this.
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And so we actually went to San Francisco there or whatever headquarters office and went through
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Um, but again, it just showed that for you to just, I can't imagine how hard that was
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Well, I mean, in essence, I also, because it was my conscience that saying, this is not
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So maybe I'd be able to, this is going to help me to kind of, you know, solve this or
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I mean, we, we sat in a sauna for hours and sweating it.
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It was just all this crazy stuff, you know, that the Scientologists do, um, and sucking
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But, but it comes to the point that, that my mom was desperate and she wanted to fix the
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You know, I don't know, Al, if you ever heard of the term tiger mom.
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Asian moms have, have their, they're very, it's kind of like, uh, mama bears in a sense.
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Uh, but it's, it's a Chinese version, I guess, of mama bears.
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These are tigers, uh, that are going to protect their children and fix things.
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So actually from when I was 16 to 18 in high school, after that, I was like, okay, we fixed
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Well, the problem is this is not just merely a developmental psychological problem.
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This is a sin nature issue, which we can't on human effort solve that, that we always
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So even though I thought I had, you know, taken care of it, there was still these temptations
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And I didn't, I didn't want these, um, just as all of us, we all have unchosen sinful temptations
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that God calls us to resist by the power of the Holy spirit.
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Um, and, but we're not called to be in bondage to this.
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So, because I had no way to understand temptations and our sin nature, I, they kind of just festered
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And then it was then that I started acting out, uh, when I was in college a little bit,
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I went to the Marine Corps and, but just keeping this underneath and that's never a good way
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to deal with things just to suppress it, you know, whether, you know, you, you know, you're
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suppressing these desires and these temptations.
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And so it wasn't until my early twenties, when I was 22, that then when I moved to Louisville
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Did that have to do with the sexual life that you had chosen to?
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And, you know, a lot of times people, when they hear my story, they think, you know, I'm
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saying all gay men do drugs, you know, obviously not.
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Um, there are, you know, lots, lots of people in general who do drugs.
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However, I do see that there's a correlation in that when you begin suppressing God's truth,
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And that's exactly kind of the line of thinking.
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It's not a causation, but there's definitely a correlation that I thought, well, you know,
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And I thought, well, what's so, this is just a pill.
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I mean, you know, Ali, you take aspirin, you take Tylenol.
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I mean, not now, but you know, it's, we're, we, it's so easy to begin justifying sin.
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I'm not shooting anything in my arms with needles.
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And it's just a very, and I'm just doing it once a week.
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And, um, so as much as people, activists, gay activists like to say there's no correlation
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or there's no, uh, causation, we all know, you know, people in the drug world, if you want
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to find good drugs, you go to the gay community.
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Um, good ecstasy, good, you know, they're just, the list goes down.
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Um, and people, why do people who do the club drugs go to the gay clubs?
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Cause that's where you find the good high quality drugs.
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There's no, I wouldn't say a causation, but it's, uh, the line of thinking where you degrade
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Romans one, then anything goes, this is where we get you do you, you know, you do you is not
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Unfortunately, you do you is from the playbook from first century Rome.
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And I mean, it kind of goes all the way back to the garden too.
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And you said your parents didn't know that this was happening, but you got kicked out of
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dental school because of your drug addiction and selling drugs, right?
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Yeah, they, they didn't know the extent they, they, you know, I had said that I was doing
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drugs, but they didn't know that I was selling drugs, but they knew they're like, okay, our
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son, he's not working, but he's traveling all over the place.
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So he knew something nefarious was definitely going on.
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They just didn't, didn't know what, and, and Ali, you mentioned, you know, you have most
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likely people watching right now, mothers of prodigals and what I always want to remind
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mothers of prodigals is whatever situation your child is going through, whether it's
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drugs like me or whether it's, you know, uh, identifying the wrong identity with their
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sexuality or their so-called gender or what anything it is, as glaring of a problem as that
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is, that actually is not their biggest problem.
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Their biggest problem is their need to know and follow Jesus.
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How can we go and sin no more if we don't know Jesus Christ?
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The bondage of sin, God has provided the, the solution for the bondage of sin.
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That doesn't mean that you're going to be struggle free, but that means we'll no longer be in
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Jesus was tempted, but you're no longer where you like, you have no other option than to give
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And parents need to remember that because why does that matter?
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Because now we know that we're going to be praying for the right thing.
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If your child stops doing drug right now, if your child gets out of prison right now and
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they don't know Christ, they're still in prison and bondage.
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And I'm so glad that my mom and dad knew that that was the most important thing.
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Yes, they didn't know that I was doing drugs or even selling drugs.
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I mean, I was supplying drugs to dealers in over a dozen states.
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I had tons of experience in the business world working in my dad's dental office.
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God had given me a mind where I'd gone to school and college and graduate school.
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And, and the enemy was using that not for good, but using that for evil.
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And I was, you know, immediately I was excelling before all the other drug dealers because I
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I was treating this like a business, an illegal business.
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And so I had grown and grown and that was not my biggest problem.
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My biggest problem was I needed to know and surrender my whole life to Jesus Christ.
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My parents enlisted others to pray for that as well.
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And what was your feeling when you found out that your parents had become Christians and
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not just nominal Christians, but they were the praying, the fasting, the Bible studying kinds
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And you had been raised in a secular home where, you know, your parents just tried to
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You had no idea really of a Christian worldview.
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You know, I just thought, you know, but, but I will have to say, um, they were on the brink
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You know, my mom and dad came to the United States.
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My father came in 1963 and my mother came a year after that.
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Well, they were actually, fortunately, some of the fortunate ones that fled Taiwan, which
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I mean, we're, you know, as much as people are trying to glorify communism.
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My parents, my grandparents fled for their lives from communism.
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There's no other country where, where you can go one generation from zero money to my parents
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work their tails off pursuing the American dream and they achieved it.
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They achieved it and thought they would be happy.
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And, you know, they had the Mercedes, you know, two Mercedes.
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They had a really nice house in a nice western suburb of Chicago.
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And again, I mean, we went from zero, zero money, $50 in my father's, and they worked
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My mom, and this is so important for why so I appreciate what you do, Allie.
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My mom, she went to the number one high school in Taiwan.
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All, every single one of her friends, as she continues to say, every single one of her
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friends has a doctorate or at least a master's.
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My mom came to the United States for her doctorate and she rebelled.
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All she wanted to do in life was not to get a PhD, but to be a good mom and a good wife.
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And that was rebellion in my, and why was it rebellion?
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Because my grandparents, they're like, you know, we're sending you off to another country
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You got to get your doctorate and, and do all that.
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All my mom wanted to do was to do the, what I believe is one of the most important jobs
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And it's not that mothers, you're doing nothing.
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My mom, she would not give me and my brother to babysitters.
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She worked night shift while my dad, and she put my dad through two doctorates and she
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never had a babysitter because she took care of us.
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Then my dad would come home from school and then she would go to work and she got paid
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minimum wage and worked her, you know, the eight hour shift and then came home, slept.
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And my mom says that through my dad and mom said through those years, four years, almost
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straight, they basically communicated through a notebook because they would be passing.
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But that's how important my mom knew the job of being a mother.
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And when we do, why are we surprised that our kids, you know, are acting like the way they
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Um, there is no more important job and, than being a mother.
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And why are we surprised that the enemy is attacking the very, so important job and role of motherhood?
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It is viewed to be, and then when we're complaining about the loss of our, this younger generation,
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it stems to not just fatherlessness, but also motherlessness.
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Um, and so I just praise the Lord that my mom, um, even though she's extremely capable, like
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my father, even though he has two doctorates, we know the brains are with my mom.
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She has huge business sense, people, personnel at, um, you know, communication skills and working
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So when my, my brother and I were in junior high and high school, uh, during that time,
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actually my dad went back to, you know, get his second doctorate, uh, went to dental because
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being a PhD in physical chemistry teaching that, you know, that's hard to, to support your
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And, and, and so all that, but he became a dentist and he was 39.
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So he was older, but, um, my mom, she, uh, took care of the dental office and made the
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So she, it wasn't that she became a mom because she was incapable or didn't have ability.
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She had the ability and use that all her abilities to pour into, again, how are we going to shape
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this younger generation if we're not shaping it into the lives of our children?
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So you had, even though they weren't Christians, you had examples of parents who, at least when
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you were, um, at least when you were growing up, that they were unified in their goal to
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take care of you and your brother and to work really hard.
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And so you had a pretty traditional and good example of what a cohesive family looked like.
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Um, as you were, you know, coming out and saying, this is what my sexuality is.
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Did you ever think about, wow, I'm not ever going to be able to have what my parents had.
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Like, I'm never going to have that kind of structure that I benefited from growing up.
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Or was that not even a thought because you were so kind of deep into the community and
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selling drugs and things like that, that you weren't really thinking about, you know, living
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Well, you know, this is in my early twenties and when, as we all know, you know, when you're
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in your later teenage years, early twenties, what we have going on so much are hormones and
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I think, um, I probably went through puberty later in life.
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Um, you know, and, and I hated looking when I was 18, I looked like I was 12 and I was 20.
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And now I'm, I'm claiming that I'm 52 years old and I'm glad that I maybe don't look like
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So I'm claiming that looking younger, but you know, when you're 20, you don't want to
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And, um, so I, I, I do think that I, I matured a little later in life.
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So during that time, I mean, it was all about these desires and what other way to be happy.
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If there's no God, our happiness is fulfilling our desires.
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You have a desire that's, that's Oprah ism, you know, that's kind of the, the,
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the, one of the religions of the land and just you do you, you have a desire that that's
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your truth, not just you need to do it, but that's your truth.
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And that was even prevalent in the, in the eighties and early nineties.
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So for me it was, yeah, I mean, I think I, I, I would have liked to, to get married, have
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children, um, live in the suburbs, but it was no longer, you know, with, with, uh, with
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a woman, but now with a man, I could, I could do that too.
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Well, you know, I can, I could do this artificially.
00:30:02.800
I could adopt or, or all these things, which as we know, kids need a mother and a father and
00:30:09.940
it's distorting what is historic, not just historically, but biblically and God's morality
00:30:15.980
of, of what families and motherhood and fatherhood look like.
00:30:19.580
But with the world kind of giving these artificial ways, I thought I could still fulfill that.
00:30:29.600
Putting myself and taking God off the throne and putting me on the throne.
00:30:34.740
I often would say in my testimony, in my world, I had become God.
00:30:43.940
In essence, we want to put ourselves on God's throne, unfortunately, even as Christians.
00:30:55.340
And you were in prison, which I guess you met the dead end that comes from self-worship.
00:31:15.820
It always leads where Satan, you know, tells you it never will.
00:31:23.600
And did God really say, look, you can do this and be like God.
00:31:26.800
You exchanged the God of scripture for the God of self.
00:31:29.280
You think it's going to lead to ultimate fulfillment.
00:31:32.140
You'll finally get to the pinnacle of satisfaction, whether it's, you know, financial success or
00:31:39.580
Like you said, it always ends in some kind of destruction.
00:31:45.780
I think I remember the part of your testimony where you said you were laying on the cotton.
00:31:50.320
You looked up and you saw a verse, Jeremiah 29, 11, for I know the plans I have for you,
00:32:01.680
And I mean, we could and we could go through all of that time and we don't have time to
00:32:06.880
But I'd like at what point, OK, you realize, wow, OK, this could be real.
00:32:11.660
Your mom had been praying for you and you realized this issue that you were a sinner and
00:32:23.060
You said it was that the two were lost, that you were a sinner.
00:32:25.820
But how long after that did you understand, OK, I cannot follow Christ and all of these
00:32:34.900
desires that I have over here, all of these lusts, this identity that I've told myself
00:32:42.260
How long did it take within your Christian walk to realize, wow, these two things don't
00:32:56.060
My mother, when she came to faith, she was going to end her life.
00:32:59.540
I mean, my parents were about to get a divorce.
00:33:03.740
I came out and I was like her last ray of hope.
00:33:08.720
And so on May 15th, 1993, she remembers that she was taking a train back from Chicago to
00:33:13.720
Louisville to end her life and say goodbye to me and then end her life.
00:33:16.820
And she got this little tract from a minister that we knew and they shared with her the gospel,
00:33:27.520
She knew from she stepped on that train dead in her sins and she came off that train alive
00:33:38.880
Like I think it's just because I'm so hard headed and it was in prison that it was this
00:33:45.160
time I needed, maybe it was, I necessarily needed it because it was, I had so many hardened
00:33:53.040
layers to peel away that it was this time in prison of this, maybe the first year of God
00:34:02.160
So when I saw that verse, Jeremiah 29, 11, um, I had always known there was a God coming back to
00:34:13.240
Not only did God put in us a conscience, but he put in us the knowledge that there is a God.
00:34:22.860
So I knew ever since I was a little kid that there was a God, but you know, God made us in
00:34:27.000
his own image and then we returned the favor and we created God in our own image.
00:34:30.860
So I had a concept of God, but I made him into my own likeness.
00:34:35.720
I made him into this, a you do you type of God.
00:34:43.380
So when I saw that verse, I was like, Oh yeah, then this is, you know, there is a God.
00:34:48.100
I knew that, but I still was thinking this, you do you.
00:34:51.800
And it took this where God had to correct me and to, and to rework kind of do damage control
00:35:02.260
into all I had kind of put these lies into my mind of who I thought God was.
00:35:07.380
And it took a year of that first year where it was me releasing all these things of my
00:35:15.800
false beliefs of who God was and who I was, because I still, I had so many idols, you know,
00:35:24.220
That was the most obvious, but it took that time of that first year where God began to
00:35:33.760
You need to let go of another idol is, was just the party sing.
00:35:41.140
This is so funny when I think about it, you know, justification.
00:35:44.020
I was like, okay, I won't do the drugs, but I love music, you know?
00:35:47.540
And that was kind of the, the crazy kind of the trance music, which I don't know.
00:35:51.700
I mean, I think there has to be research out there that that trance dance music needs
00:36:03.000
We'll just, I think we'll just make you dumber.
00:36:05.800
And, um, and so I really, really thought that I could not do drugs, but, you know, still
00:36:29.620
I asked myself, what is it that I feel like I can't live without that's an idol.
00:36:37.900
And it was so many things that I felt like I couldn't live without.
00:36:41.400
And that last one that God really needed to deal with me was my sexuality and my sexual
00:36:48.160
So I would say, and, and so interesting, I shared this with a chaplain.
00:36:53.120
I was not open about my sexuality because I saw others who had been open and they were
00:37:04.640
Most of my friends are, were, when you go to the checkout counter and you see all those
00:37:11.680
men's fitness magazines, those buff men, they're all gay.
00:37:17.360
I sold drugs to them, which is so funny when I see these men who don't struggle with same
00:37:21.800
sex attractions, looking and flipping through this.
00:37:23.960
And I'm thinking, you're just looking at a magazine of gay men.
00:37:32.960
Uh, but you know, there's, when I was, you know, being, being convicted of this and, and
00:37:41.120
during this time, I knew I, I needed to let go of, of this idol and this idol of this identity.
00:37:53.800
He said this, you know, the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality and everything inside
00:38:02.560
The chaplain told you the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality.
00:38:09.120
I just look back on, on what my, my story and I, I counted, there's so many miracles and
00:38:17.240
I count that as one miracle there, according to just logic, everything pointed inside of
00:38:29.760
I should have just embraced that and ran with it.
00:38:33.040
I spent time reading it and praise the Lord that as I read that book, I had that book in
00:38:39.780
one hand and the word of God in the other and everything inside of me wanted to affirm that
00:38:46.740
But I know now I look back now, it was the Holy spirit convicting me that it was just
00:38:53.620
distorting so clearly as if I had just read that book without the Bible open with it.
00:38:58.700
I don't, I think I would have just gone with it.
00:39:02.280
But as I, as this author mentioned Romans one of first, I would go back and I would read
00:39:09.280
And it was just, I was like that, that's not what this author is claiming.
00:39:18.780
I couldn't get through that book and I gave it back to the chaplain.
00:39:21.900
So I turned to the Bible alone, what going through every verse, the, you know, the chaplain
00:39:29.360
So I was like, well, let me see where the Bible would actually bless it.
00:39:36.480
I went through every verse, every chapter, every page looking for justification and I
00:39:43.320
I wanted everything inside of me and I couldn't find it.
00:39:46.860
You know, I think that's one of the hardest things today, not just for people who are struggling
00:39:52.420
with their sexuality, but for everyone else who is told, well, the Bible really doesn't
00:39:58.120
Jesus never talked about homosexuality and you hear story after story.
00:40:02.260
I mean, I see this all the time and it's usually appeals to women in my demographic and it's
00:40:08.300
these testimonies so-called of people who suppressed their sexuality their whole lives.
00:40:13.880
They were typically, they were raised in the evangelical church.
00:40:16.880
And so their testimony is one of realizing that they can reconcile being a Christian with
00:40:22.740
being gay or being transgender or being non-binary.
00:40:25.880
And they finally had this revelation that God just wants them to be who they are.
00:40:33.620
And then they cast everyone else who disagrees with that as these like kind of antiquated
00:40:40.940
There's a clip that goes around every so often from decades ago where a young woman in the
00:40:46.260
audience is saying to Oprah, you know, this is against God's design.
00:40:51.220
You say that you're a Christian and how can you affirm this?
00:40:53.840
And Oprah basically says, look, I believe that, you know, God is love and God is big enough
00:41:13.180
No one wants to be seen as legalistic or a Pharisee or overly religious.
00:41:17.860
And Jesus's cast is on the side of the oppressed and the marginalized and the misunderstood that
00:41:24.440
You don't want to be on the other side of that.
00:41:31.340
I call it like empathy extortion that I think a lot of Christians undergo and deal with.
00:41:40.840
It is tough to stand against that and to be told constantly you are hateful if you don't
00:41:47.320
So tell us about that for like, is it possible?
00:41:51.980
You and I know, but is it possible to be a practicing gay person?
00:41:59.480
A practicing transgender, whatever person and follow Christ?
00:42:06.460
Well, you know, just like you said, the I need to be myself.
00:42:13.760
I'm finally able to be myself, embrace who I am and be happy.
00:42:19.680
And, you know, since the time I've come to know Christ, which is over 20 years, which I still feel
00:42:25.020
like I'm a brand new Christian, I have searched the pages of scripture looking for where God calls us to be
00:42:36.320
Rather, Jesus is calling every Christian, not just people like myself who've come from that past.
00:42:45.480
Christ, deny himself, deny herself, pick up your cross and follow me.
00:42:54.720
And here's where I think Christians and people who hold to a biblical view of sexuality, what I think, where we
00:43:03.380
understand this is sinful behavior, what we sometimes don't fully grasp when we're trying to understand
00:43:11.100
where the world is, when we're trying to understand where our loved ones are coming from, who have
00:43:15.700
rejected Christianity, historic, biblical Christianity, and now embracing themselves and embracing their
00:43:26.900
The world has conflated sexuality with personhood, that we treat our desires to be who we are.
00:43:38.540
The term gay, straight, bi, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual don't define people.
00:43:49.000
The term gay, straight, bi, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual don't define people.
00:44:03.100
No logic can ever say that a desire is a person.
00:44:22.440
A relationship is not equivalent to a person, nor is an action equivalent to ourself or our
00:44:29.960
And this is where, this is why people said, oh, you're so hateful or they see this as offensive.
00:44:37.680
Even Oprah, like you say, oh, I view a God who accepts all people.
00:44:48.020
And when, see, as a Christian now, I can hate my sin without hating myself.
00:44:57.680
I could not hate my sin without hating myself because I equated my sexual desires and my sexual
00:45:10.760
And these were unchosen temptations and enduring and strong struggles.
00:45:17.000
But regardless of whether how strong or unchosen an attraction is, it never should be who we
00:45:26.460
So should a person, can a person be gay and Christian?
00:45:40.840
I'm not talking about that they struggle with it.
00:45:43.180
I'm not talking about, for example, even like King David.
00:45:52.220
But when time came and he was confronted with his sin, he repented.
00:45:58.660
What we're talking about is continuous unrepentant sin.
00:46:03.720
So can a person be in continuous unrepentant sin as a fornicator or as a gossiper, as a liar?
00:46:12.300
And maybe if so, it shouldn't be for long because the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin, as
00:46:22.020
And if we see a person in continuous unrepentant sin, that's evidence that the Holy Spirit isn't
00:46:27.960
abiding in this person and this person actually isn't truly saved.
00:46:38.260
We have Christians today who are trying to justify and say, well, no, I'm just gay.
00:46:50.740
This is quibbling over does the blood of Jesus cover just our actions, as some so-called gay
00:46:59.580
Or does the blood of Jesus actually transform the whole person so that the old is gone, the
00:47:09.220
People who continue to use this terminology of their old dead man aren't living in their
00:47:36.660
It really is so liberating to separate your desires from your identity.
00:47:41.880
And for some reason, I think when it's sexual desires, it's more difficult to do.
00:47:46.280
So people understand that when you maybe have a desire to binge drink or have a desire to
00:47:51.380
do drugs, most people don't put that as their identity.
00:47:55.540
They don't say, well, I am an alcoholic and I can't change.
00:48:05.160
But when it comes to sexuality, it's different and it's more difficult because it's not just
00:48:12.020
It can also turn into an emotional desire and even like a spiritual mingling.
00:48:17.900
There is something different about the sexual act than drinking too much liquor or taking
00:48:29.420
Even with hookups, there's something happening in your heart and your soul and your mind.
00:48:34.500
And I think that's why it's difficult to separate identity and desire when it comes to your
00:48:44.180
He designed our bodies to not be these like separate things like this is just your body.
00:48:51.440
This is your mind and this is your heart and this is what it does.
00:48:56.300
And so I can see why it's difficult for someone to detach their sexual desires from their identity
00:49:04.320
Yeah, there's only one thing that God uses this metaphor or, you know, talking about one
00:49:13.220
flesh and one flesh is more than a metaphor because it is reality.
00:49:20.820
There is a physical and non-physical union of two people together that the sex act is also
00:49:30.820
It involves our soul as well that this is why when we have these serial relationships going
00:49:37.680
from one to another, like you were saying, the hookups, why is that so detrimental to us
00:49:46.680
There is this non-physical that is even more than just emotional and psychological, but, you know,
00:49:55.100
Why are all the pagan religions that we know of that sex is involved in that?
00:50:01.280
Because there's something much, much more than what we see, this physical union of two
00:50:06.200
people coming together that it does point to, as actually Paul communicates in Ephesians
00:50:12.060
5, that the union of husband and wife is actually pointing to a spiritual reality and what Paul
00:50:21.480
talks about the mystery in Greek, it's the mysterion and that mystery is the beautiful union on
00:50:30.920
So actually all marriages are supposed to point to that reality.
00:50:36.000
And that's a good reminder for couples, husbands and wives, especially Christian ones who know
00:50:43.620
God's word, that our marriages should point to a spiritual reality.
00:50:50.400
And that is the beauty of Christ in the church.
00:50:52.820
And I talk about these, you know, these things in my video series, you know, especially Lesson
00:50:57.680
7, that's kind of the pinnacle actually of the series where I'm talking about the beauty
00:51:01.680
of marriage and also how it talks points to the on the last day, that reality of all marriages
00:51:11.480
on earth are going to actually be fulfilled in the reality of that on the last day, all
00:51:19.060
these marriages are just a shadow of the eternal reality of Christ in the church.
00:51:25.720
My father went home to be with the Lord about a year ago.
00:51:29.100
Um, my mom is now single, a widow, not by choice.
00:51:35.980
Their marriage has been fulfilled in on the last day.
00:51:40.280
Jesus says, Matthew chapter 22, that there's not going to be any marriage in heaven.
00:51:44.900
And I know that might sound dreary or I don't know, might sound bad, but there's nothing
00:51:50.520
The beauty is that all of us that are the elect, all of us that are called to Christ are
00:51:58.300
going to be corporately wed to the lamb of God.
00:52:03.040
So there's definitely this spiritual reality of the beauty of marriages on earth pointed
00:52:09.960
And sex is definitely not just a physical union of, it was merely a physical union of two people
00:52:17.220
But there is, as it meant to be, of one flesh of husband and wife, one man, one woman for
00:52:25.700
life coming together physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
00:52:34.140
And so when we distort it, it's a distortion of so many things.
00:52:41.100
And also when, this is what's so beautiful and fascinating and a mystery that Jesus, when
00:52:48.260
he was questioned about divorce in Matthew 19 and Mark chapter 10, which by the way, I
00:52:54.280
believe is the strongest apologetic for why marriage is between a man and a woman.
00:53:02.200
And again, in my video series, I talk, I dispel four myths.
00:53:07.480
But Jesus, when he talks about marriage, because he was questioned by the Pharisees about whether
00:53:14.180
divorce is okay, this is Matthew 19 and Mark chapter 10, he gives an answer.
00:53:19.260
And Jesus, who's never constrained by the questioner, in other words, just because they ask about
00:53:23.720
divorce, Jesus is going to answer not only that question, but the broader question.
00:53:28.380
And he answers it by going back, not to the law, but goes even before the law, which is
00:53:34.940
And he goes to Genesis one and Genesis two, where he says, the creator made the male and
00:53:39.560
female and the father, you know, then the two shall become one flesh.
00:53:44.200
What God has put together, let man not separate.
00:53:46.860
So he was not only refuting their, their distortion of divorce, that divorce is wrong because what
00:53:57.560
But he also adds that God made them male and female and the two shall become one flesh.
00:54:06.360
He wanted to make sure that they knew that it was one man, one woman.
00:54:11.480
And God, Jesus being God knew that we would be struggling with that, with that definition
00:54:17.240
of marriage and put that right there in the first century and answered it and told us he
00:54:22.920
was not only schooling the Pharisees on divorce, he was also schooling them on the definition
00:54:29.360
So if we have an issue with what is marriage, whether it could be with all, you know, all
00:54:35.600
people or whether it's between a man and woman, this is having an issue with Jesus.
00:54:44.560
And we usually use an alliteration to talk about this because, and you brought up such
00:54:51.820
It's an amazing, I mean, testament to the Holy Spirit, because this is only wisdom that
00:54:57.120
can be given from God that when you are looking at that book that the chaplain gave you that
00:55:03.140
affirmed homosexuality in Christianity, and then the Bible that you are not just looking for
00:55:08.720
the specific places where the Bible said this is wrong, but you are also looking for God
00:55:15.240
And that is an argument that I hear a lot from so-called affirming Christians saying, well,
00:55:20.820
you know, Jesus didn't specifically ever say, do not be gay or do not be transgender or whatever.
00:55:28.060
There are so many logical problems, I think, with that argument.
00:55:31.420
But we don't, as Christians, we don't look to the Bible and say, well, not only what does
00:55:37.820
God tell me not to do, although the Bible does explicitly condemn homosexuality multiple
00:55:42.020
times, but also what does God say glorifies him?
00:55:49.400
So we often say that the definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, is rooted in
00:55:56.140
It's repeated by Jesus himself, as you said in Matthew 19.
00:55:59.540
It is representative of the gospel, which you just laid out so beautifully, as we read in
00:56:03.360
Ephesians 5, or it is representative of Christ in the church, and that it's therefore reflective
00:56:09.780
I think people, a lot of times, they put aside this kind of LGBTQ issue, if you will, as peripheral.
00:56:18.400
You can get everything right and not really know where you stand or be tolerant of the idea
00:56:25.120
that you can be actively gay and Christian at the same time.
00:56:28.180
But really, when you look at the definition of marriage, as you just said, was defined by Jesus
00:56:32.920
so clearly in Matthew 19, and Jesus being God also created it that way.
00:56:37.360
And then Ephesians 5, we see that that marriage supper is not gender neutral.
00:56:47.340
And we're told that the earthly relationship, as the husband is the head of the wife, loving
00:56:52.780
his wife as Christ loved the church, and the wife respecting her husband, submitting to
00:56:58.280
her husband, as to the Lord, we see that there is gospel, spiritual, eternal significance
00:57:04.940
to the definition of marriage that the relationship between two men or two women simply cannot fulfill
00:57:14.360
because there isn't that bride-bridegroom dynamic.
00:57:18.440
There isn't a reflection of that so-called marriage in eternity.
00:57:36.800
And I think that's also a reason that when people start waffling or wavering when it comes
00:57:41.560
to sexuality and stuff, typically you see eventually they forsake the fundamentals.
00:57:47.280
They forsake John 14, 6, that Jesus is the only way, truth, and life, and that no one
00:57:54.060
Of course, because they are actually rejecting part of the gospel when they start rejecting
00:58:05.600
When we tried so hard to, you know, Jesus didn't say, I mean, Jesus didn't say anything about
00:58:10.920
Then let's use the same logic that he's okay with incest.
00:58:15.880
But, you know, when Jesus goes back to Genesis, the Pharisees were expecting him to then, you
00:58:26.440
He goes back to Genesis and he quotes from Genesis 2, 24, which is the two shall become one
00:58:36.900
And what Christians, the people in the first century, they knew this, that that verse that
00:58:41.280
Jesus just quoted is, even though they didn't have verses back then, but that's the
00:58:47.720
And so when we talk about this distortion of marriage and you listed all those really good
00:58:54.820
things, that's, you know, it's not only distorting Genesis, it's not only distorting this, not
00:58:58.960
only distorting Jesus's own words, but Jesus was connecting marriage with actually this image
00:59:12.080
We need to add another reason that it actually is also distorting God's image as marriage and
00:59:21.660
male and female has this correlation, clear correlation that Jesus is making himself that's
00:59:28.020
pointed to human beings created in the image of God, that it's, it's, it's, it's, there's
00:59:34.420
this inseparable link of correlation that we have there.
00:59:39.340
So when we distort it, you know, it's not only pointing to the beginning, but pointing to
00:59:44.740
the end, just like how you said, it's this mystery of Christ in the church.
00:59:48.440
We don't see that the church is married to the church.
00:59:50.620
We don't see that Christ is married to himself.
00:59:54.520
We see that Christ is married to the church, which is not only talking about what male and
01:00:03.160
female is as that's reflecting to that eternal reality, but it's even talking about our roles.
01:00:09.820
And this is where it gets really controversial.
01:00:20.620
Doesn't mean that we are, you know, invaluable doesn't mean that, that that's, but that is
01:00:28.540
And in the same way, that's the beauty of how things work.
01:00:32.620
Now, of course, when we see that reflected on earth and humanity, we love to distort that
01:00:41.240
And there are a lot of men that are not godly servant, loving men like Christ or husbands that
01:00:48.800
are loving as we are, as husbands are called to love.
01:00:53.040
As Christ loved the church, which, which is what domineering?
01:01:04.400
I got to admit to me, that's the harder calling, you know, to lay your life down for your wife.
01:01:14.840
I am open to getting married because I believe that God is bigger than, than, than my desire.
01:01:19.180
When people say I could never get married, people who have my past, who have same, such
01:01:23.580
attraction, they said, no, I could never marry.
01:01:25.640
I could never marry, get married to the opposite sex.
01:01:28.160
I feel like, do they not believe that God raised Lazarus from the dead?
01:01:32.620
I believe that, you know, if he can do that, this little thing of, of the desires that I
01:01:40.180
have that might seem so overwhelming for me, ain't a thing for the God that we believe
01:01:50.340
Uh, and, and, and we should, you know, view that, but this beauty of, of marriage is bound
01:01:56.980
And when we distort it, it's, it's pointing away from what God intended and that reality
01:02:04.220
of how God created us, not only Jesus and, and, and the bride, but also how, how we are
01:02:11.940
created to be as, as men and women that are distinct, not only biologically, physiologically,
01:02:20.020
psychologically, uh, genetically, uh, but even in the beautiful roles that God has called
01:02:29.180
And I'm, and I'm open to that, that option, whatever God has for me, my, my life is kind
01:02:34.620
of like this, an open hand, God, have your way with me right now.
01:02:43.960
And I know you're able, but if that ever happens, I know my role that I need to love my wife
01:02:54.600
That's not easy, but that's the, that's what God is communicating.
01:02:58.540
There's so many things that we see what marriage, you know, represents, not that it's just male
01:03:03.260
or female, but also the beautiful role that God has called us that has, God has put in our
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DNA, if you will, of how we are created different, beautifully different and separate.
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And how beautiful is it that we are all as Christians promised marriage one day, that we
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are all going to be like given new selves, there's going to be a resurrection of the body.
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So for people who have either in the past, um, committed sexual sin, which most people
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have in some regard, um, or who have struggled with sexuality, people who have tried to transition
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their bodies and deal with the scars that come from that.
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Like one day, none of us are going to have scars anymore.
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One day we're all going to get to enjoy the marriage feast.
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And this is just, I mean, this is just a shadow, any kind of marriage or satisfaction here
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on earth is a shadow of what we all get to enjoy together one day with Christ.
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Um, let's talk about your, let's talk about your, uh, sexuality project, the holy sexuality
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project, uh, which I'm so incredibly thankful for.
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If there's anything that the church needs today, it is clarity.
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There's so much confusion and the name of empathy and the name of social justice and the name
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Very often Christians are just scared to say what the Bible says about these controversial
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And that is part of why you created this holy sexuality project.
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Well, my book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, uh, it was named 2020 book of the year for social
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I, I wrote that because what I saw were two groups of books, uh, books that were addressing,
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you know, that same sex relationships are not God's will and looking at the biblical passages
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and then other books that were a bit more like practical theology.
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But I think there was a step that was completely missed after we look at these biblical passages,
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What does the breadth of scripture, all of scripture, not just these particular passages, but we need
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We need to look at systematic and biblical theology if we're going to get technical with these
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terms before we jump to the praxis and application, because if we try to do right without thinking
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So our orthodoxy must always precede our orthopraxy.
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It was a, essentially a theology of sexuality that I didn't really see many people doing.
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And so it was not answering just what is our God's no, because we can't build a Christian
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life just on God's no, but we need to know what is also God's yes.
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So I wrote this book, Holy Sexuality in the Gospel and Holy Sexuality is simply chastity
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In other words, when you find yourself single, how are you going to live?
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If you marry, and most people will marry, and that's biblical marriage, you need to be faithful
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Well, I wrote that book for adults and I thought we need something for teens.
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And instead of doing a book or a curriculum, which I bemoan the fact that many teens aren't
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I thought, let's use a medium that kids are consuming voraciously right now, and that's
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So I created this video series, 12 lessons, 36 videos, 270 minutes of content, along with
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And what I believe is very unique and what makes this kind of a one of a kind is that this
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The majority of resources out there are often created for youth groups or maybe Christian
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And what we wanted to change the paradigm is that biblical sexuality must be primarily
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taught, not necessarily in the classroom or the youth group room, but in the living room,
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And we need to put this back as the primary place.
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Those are secondary in the Christian classroom or in the youth group.
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I mean, there's a few out there that focus upon kind of just abstinence, which I think
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Some of the newer ones are, seem very compassionate, but it's just this you do you, you know, whatever
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Whether it's, you know, go to their gay wedding or use their pronouns or all these different
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And I wanted to be clear that it's not just love, love, but not just, we need to love people
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We're making love an end in itself where love needs to be a means to an end that points
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So I wrote this curriculum that neat, that is very intentionally Christa centric.
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She just came up with her own curriculum for LGBTQ plus parents of LGBTQ plus children.
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The name of her curriculum is called me course.
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I thought I'm so glad that actually she was honest about it.
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She's not honest about the majority of things, but she's honest about what is the focus of
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It is me centered, which should scare every Christian away.
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Now, of course we have a lot of false Christians that are, you know, promoting it and, and, and,
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If, if the center of this course is human, I want to make it very intentionally that though
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we're talking about same sex attractions and sexuality, I'm broadening it out to sexuality
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Actually, I finish every single lesson with now go and follow Jesus, follow Jesus.
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Cause you know, we, I'm sure, Ali, you know, people that are like, Oh, I follow Jesus.
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Well, let me tell you how Jesus defines what it means to follow Jesus.
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Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.
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Lesson two, we talk about true identity, image of God, and we're all fallen.
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Then I talk about attractions, desires, and temptations and how those are different.
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And then I talk about, introduce this concept of holy sexuality, chastity, and singleness,
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Then lesson eight, I answer this question that many young adults and teens are asking,
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Lesson nine then goes over dispelling these myths.
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Lesson 10 talks about sex, gender, and the image of God.
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How do we help a Christian struggling with sexual temptations?
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How do we respond to someone else that is living in unrepentant sexual sin?
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And then lastly, what about me or the person watching, the teenager, the parent that's struggling
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How do we follow Christ in the midst of trials and temptations?
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And I focus on intimacy with Christ and intimacy with the body of Christ.
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So that's those 12 lessons along with the parent guide.
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And it's also a guide for grandparents as well.
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This parent guide, we call it a parent slash grandparent guide because it's the parent and
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grandparent that should have the main responsibility.
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Just to say, I don't know where to start is not a good excuse anymore.
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I tell grandparents, all you need to know is how to press play.
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I think all of your listeners watching and watching, they know how to press play.
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Follow the instruction guide, the parent guide, and then press play and go through this.
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This actually was a $1.2 million project because there was high quality animation from animators,
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We fortunately didn't pay that much, but our donors wanted so much for every Christian
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family to have one at home that this should cost $200, $300 per license for a two-year
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Many people don't even know what a steal that is, but that's how much we know the urgency
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and the need for parents, Christian parents who want to have these healthy conversations
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They're going to talk about it at church, but also do it at home because as much as a youth
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pastor might love your child, they're not going to be with your child throughout the
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They're not going to be them after high school, through college, through the young adult years.
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And so what we hope our goal is to empower grandparents, parents, preteens, and teens
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to understand, embrace, and celebrate biblical sexuality, but also to begin to have these
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biblical conversations around biblical sexuality and gender that's going to continue on, not
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just beyond these 12 lessons, but beyond into the college years, into adult years.
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That's going to set them out, set our kids up for a life.
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And this really puts the parent and grandparent back in the driver's seat to do the job that
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I really encourage everyone go to holysexuality.com.
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We'll link it in the description of this episode too.
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But gosh, parents, as you said, pastors, individual, if you're just trying to look for clarity yourself,
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but definitely like in these group settings too, where you've got friends who are struggling
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with this, this could be a great conversation starter too, with a friend who may not be on
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the same page as you, but she's trying to understand what's going on.
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It answers so many questions, gives such a firm foundation for us understanding what love
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Truth-filled love that is different than the secular empathy that we're fed today that just
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I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and for creating this curriculum too.
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We're really grateful to be on your show again.