The American Churchman: Transgenderism Vs. Creation

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Welcome to the first ever in the history of podcasts, American Churchmen podcast.

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I am your host, John Harris, and I have with me my co -host, Matthew Pearson.

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Matthew, everyone listening has been hearing my truth script Tuesdays. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself and who you are, and then we'll tackle some of the subjects that we're going to talk about today.

00:52

Yeah, certainly, but as John said, my name is Matthew Pearson. Some of you, if you keep up with John on Twitter, may have seen me around on there.

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We're in very similar circles and all that, but yeah, I'm just a good butt of John.

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Met him in person once, so I guess we're like that now. No, but I'm a seminary student at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando, and I love

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God. I love studying the things of God. I aspire to pastoral ministry, but I'm also very interested in the cultural issues that are at hand and especially think that has significant impact for the church.

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So when John reached out about this idea, I was, yeah, I was excited about it. So that's me.

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I'm happy to be here, and yeah, I'm just very excited. Awesome. Awesome. And I wanted to have

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Matthew along for not just this episode, but Matthew and I are going to be doing most of the American Churchmen podcasts moving forward because Matthew is very bright and he does bring a different perspective.

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This is kind of humbling for me, but I'm a millennial, which I guess is no longer the up and coming cool generation.

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I am now becoming an older guy. And anyway, Matthew brings a fresh perspective on some of the things that the

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Zoomer generation is dealing with, which actually is going to be particularly important today as we talk about transgenderism.

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And so anyway, Matthew, just thank you for being willing to do this, to co -host.

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For everyone else who's listening, this show is obviously new, but most of you are familiar with the

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TruthScript Tuesday podcast that I've done, which was basically just going through articles at the

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TruthScript website. This podcast is also sponsored by TruthScript, but it's going to be a little different. We're not going to go through as many articles.

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We're probably going to take a closer look at maybe one, maybe two. Sometimes we won't even do an article.

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We'll just be interviewing people, authors, people who have written for TruthScript mostly. And we're going to talk about theological topics, cultural topics, political topics, all of the above with a special focus on really what it means to be a man, a

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Christian man specifically in the 21st century. And how can we as Christians encourage other

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Christians to meet the obligations that society really is reinforcing against?

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They don't want us to meet those obligations. They don't want us to be men. And so today we have an article we're going to look at.

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We have a broader subject of transgenderism that we're going to be talking about. But one of the key features of these podcasts moving forward is going to be talking about an attribute of God.

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And I'm really excited to do that. And so I've been obviously explaining what the podcast is about moving forward.

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But in general, we're just going to start with an attribute of God. I do need to just remind everyone real quick before I do that, that TruthScript, which sponsors this podcast, is a 501c3 organization.

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And if you want to donate to TruthScript, just go to truthscript .com, scroll down to the bottom. There's this little tab that says

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Donate. You can donate there. It helps us out greatly. We have a lot of stuff coming up. We actually have a conference that's coming up.

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I don't even know if Matthew knows about this, called Christianity and the American Founding.

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And that's coming up at the end of April. We'll have a website for that. And we've got some great speakers already lined up. We have

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Zach Garris, who's going to be there. Sean McGowan is going to be there. Will Tanner.

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Not Will Tanner. Jacob Tanner is going to be there. We have Stephen Wolfe. We have

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Sam Smith, who is the head of the history department at Liberty University, is going to be there. And some others who have yet to confirm.

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So this is a pretty big deal. And hopefully you'll get to be there as well, Matthew. We'll have to figure that out.

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We haven't talked about it yet. My interest has peaked. I had no idea about this, actually. But I'm glad to learn about it live on the air.

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Yes. Yes. You're learning about it in real time, as everyone else is. It's going to be focusing on different denominations and traditions.

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So we have Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, and really just Protestant denominations that had an impact in America.

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So let's start with this attribute of God. Matthew, I know you're in seminary. Are you doing systematic theology this year?

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No, not yet. I just got started. So no systematic classes. I mean, I guess the closest thing

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I have is with Dr. Michael Allen. I have intro to pastoral and theological studies.

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So that's somewhat similar. But I'll get there soon, I'm sure. I'll get there soon. Well, I mean, I know you probably are pretty well versed on the

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Trinity. What would be a definition, if someone asked you, what the Trinity is from a different religious background?

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What would you tell them? Oh, boy. That's quite the question, is it not?

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You know, I hesitate to even just come up with something off the dome. I could always just say, you know, three persons, one

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God, just very, very simple. But you know what? Just to be safe, John, I kind of expected something like this from you.

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So what I'm just going to do is I'm just going to read. No, no, no. You're good. I'm just playing around. What I'm just going to do is read to you chapter 2 .3

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of the Westminster Confession of Faith, because I feel like they could say it much better than I can.

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So, yeah. So it says in Westminster chapter 2 .3,

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In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity,

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God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding.

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The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the

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Son. So that's like a basic definition of it. If you want something a bit more thorough, something

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I'd recommend going to is not just like the Nicene Creed, but that's great, but also the Athanasian Creed that goes into great, great.

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I actually read it right before this cast, and it goes into great detail on helping to define the

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Trinity. And part of when we're talking about the Trinity is you have to have this idea that there is one

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God, but there are three persons or hypostases, if I'm saying that right.

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And the way in which we distinguish them is by their modes of relation. So we distinguish the Father from the

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Son because the Father begets the Son. We distinguish the Son from the Father because the Son is begotten of the

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Father. And we distinguish the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.

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And if you're a Western Christian and the Son, if you're an Eastern Christian, then you'd just say from the Father. But that's a lot of meat and potatoes, and I don't know if we'll get into those differences today.

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But yeah, that's the Trinity, and every Christian should know a little bit about it, because it's a very important foundation.

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What is the difference between the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed? Yeah, so the

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Nicene Creed was the creed which was produced at the Council of Nicaea, not in its complete form.

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The part about the Holy Spirit was added at a later council. I don't remember which one exactly it was, but it was 40 -ish years later if I remember rightly.

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So the Nicene Creed is just – that's like the basic creed that a lot of – if you go to like a church website of a somewhat confessional church and they list what we believe, they may list their confession of faith, but then they'll usually have the apostles and then the

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Nicene Creed. The Athanasian Creed came about – so it's called the Athanasian Creed, but we don't know if Athanasius actually wrote it, but he probably did not.

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But that came about – I don't remember what exact year it came about, but that came about much later, and it was used widely in Western churches because it does have the idea that the

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Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son there. But they're pretty distinct in that the Athanasian is just much more specific on the

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Trinity, whereas the Nicene Creed, it mentions and codifies the Trinity, but it has much more – like it's the basic outline of the

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Apostles' Creed with expanded Nicene and Trinitarian theology basically. That's excellent. Yeah, I don't think we actually have a date for the

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Athanasian Creed because I don't think it was the product of a council, which we have firm dates on. It more developed, and that's my understanding at least.

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Maybe there is a date that I'm not aware of, but I think you were thinking of the first council of Constantinople.

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I just looked it up, so I didn't know that off the top of my head. No, that's what it – yeah, that's it. That expanded the

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Nicene Creed. But real briefly, or really briefly, let's just talk about a few of the objections to this because this is a unique belief that Christians hold that other religions and religious cults obviously disagree with.

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And it would seem, I think at a first glance, for good reason because it seems like a complicated and hard -to -understand belief.

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What do you mean that there is one Godhead, three persons that are distinct, yet they share the same divine essence, co -equal, co -eternal, and fully

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God? That is so different than any other religion that I can think of. So Arianism was one of the primary challenges to the

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Trinity, and that was solved more or less at the Council of Nicaea.

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It's emerged through the Jehovah's Witnesses again, though, so thank you for them. Yeah, the

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Jehovah's Witnesses. I think there's another cult, right, that's Arian, but they're the most prominent one.

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Probably, yeah, yeah. And Arians deny the full divinity of Christ.

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They claim that Jesus is a created being not of co -eternal with God the Father, right? And then you have modalists or Sabellianists who assert that God is not three distinct persons but rather one person who manifests in three different modes or forms.

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And so God takes on like it's like shave shifter, I guess, I don't know.

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It's almost like when you say that God's three persons for them, they could be like, oh yeah, he's three different personas.

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He has this one here and then this one here, and he kind of shifts. And you see that a lot today among oneness

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Pentecostals. There were actually a few of those people at my private Christian school growing up, and I used to always argue with them.

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That was a lot of fun. Did you always, because what I always hear brought up with them is, what do you do when

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God the Father at Christ's baptism says, this is my beloved son whom I will please, and the

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Holy Spirit descends like a dove? You have all three represented there. I guess, like how is he in all three modes simultaneously?

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I've never actually heard an answer from their tradition. Maybe what they would say is something like, well, the, you know, the massive power of God, he's able to manifest his different personas at the same time because God's not bound by our limits.

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They could probably just say that. I don't know. And then subordinationism holds that the son and the

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Holy Spirit are subordinate to the father in essence and authority. That's another.

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That sounds familiar. Yeah. It sounds like eternal functional subordination, doesn't it?

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Yeah, which is different, of course. It's more orthodox, but that doesn't mean that it actually is orthodox.

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And that's another reason why the Athanasian Creed is very helpful, because it helps to clarify that according to divinity, the son and the spirit are not in submission to the father.

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You can still have this idea of, you still have this idea of the monarchy of the father, because it is from the father that the son is eternally begotten and from whom the spirit eternally proceeds.

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But no, there's no divine submission because submission requires exercise of will and will goes with nature or essence.

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So if there's multiple wills within the Godhead, that necessitates multiple essences. And if there's multiple essences, there are multiple gods.

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And then you have tritheism and then you're just polytheist. Right. Yeah. And I think that's the problem with eternal functional subordination as well.

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It's a little bit like talking, I think, about certain forms of Arminian. I shouldn't even say certain forms.

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I'm trying to couch my language. I mean, I'll just say I'm reformed, so I believe Arminianism. It's not a heresy in and of itself.

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It's one breath away from it, though. It's a step away from it. And thank God that Arminians who do believe that man is autonomous in a certain sense are not consistent with that.

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And I would say the same thing about people who believe in eternal functional subordination. They're not consistent, but they do believe in some kind of a hierarchy.

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And so they'll take verses about Jesus in his humanity and then apply that to the second person of the

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Trinity and say that he's not equal to God in the sense of the authority that God has is above or beyond.

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So there is an ordering in the Trinity, but it is not a hierarchical ordering. And then we have

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Unitarianism, of course, which rejects the doctrine of the Trinity entirely. And then Tritheism, which you mentioned, suggests that the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate gods or rather that one God or three separate gods rather than one

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God and three persons, which is the Trinity. So this is a doctrine that is more complicated than perhaps some of the other attributes of God we're going to be talking about.

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I saved the first, the most complicated one for the first opportunity,

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I guess. I don't know why this is, but in most of the lists, traditional lists of attributes of God, that is the first one listed.

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It's the Trinity? It's the Trinity, yeah. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You know, when I was on my drive back here,

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I was wondering, I'm like, is Trinity an attribute? And then I realized, oh, yeah, the idea that God is three subsistences, a part of one substance.

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Yeah, that would be, I guess we could say an attribute. So yeah, that makes sense. So bridging the conversation we're having now to the next one, we're going to be talking about transgenderism and specifically this

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Nashville shooter manifesto and making some broad conclusions from it.

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But I thought it was appropriate that we talk about the Trinity and then talk about this in a way, just because we're talking about being and we're talking about identity.

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And when it comes to personal identity, like God has designed us in a specific way.

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It says in his image, he has made man. And I want to talk about,

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I want to get there eventually. But whether or not transgenderism is a direct attack on the image of God and maybe the most like potent attack, like blatant attack, a complete rejection of the way

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God has actually made someone. And obviously, some of these heresies regarding the

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Trinity are complete attacks on the identity of God himself. And so attacking man, attacking

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God, attacking our natures, attacking who we are is always going to have detrimental effects. So we already have comments coming in.

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Someone says, Paul Kern says, there was a cult where the female goddess was both male and female as she wished. Sounds like the transgender cult.

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I've heard about this. I've heard that this runs through a lot of different pagan religions. In fact, I don't know how, how do you pronounce it?

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Baphomet? Baphomet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because it has a breast on the statue.

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But while despite having more masculine appearances. Yeah, yeah. And that's the Satanist statue.

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Often we see that representation. And I think part of what's helpful for this conversation is remembering, like, as the author

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Solomon of Ecclesiastes says, there's nothing new under the sun. It's not like, oh, all of a sudden, you know, in Germany, these random people just came up with transgenderism.

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And it's like, well, sure. And it's modern articulation. Yes. But the idea of men cross dressing.

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I mean, there's a reason that's prohibited in the Mosaic polity, because that was a thing where for like weird ritual, like sex things that they would conduct in religious settings.

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They sometimes would dress like the women or they would even play the part of the woman. And as a matter of fact, there is like this,

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I don't remember what the studies is. It's like African studies from this African -American female scholar. And she wrote this book on different gender identities among like various African tribes or whatever.

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And she's like, see, this is proof that our Western conception of gender is not the same as around the world.

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And as a as a Christian, I say, well, I mean, that doesn't shock me that pagan cultures would have things that Satan so obviously loves and supports, you know.

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So I think that just makes sense to see that kind of come about even cross culturally, even in primitive times, because we know that Satan hates the the order of God because Satan rebelled against the order of God.

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So I think that's something that we have to consider as well. When we're looking at this is that in its particular iteration, yes, it's somewhat new, but it's been around a bit.

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There's nothing new under the sun. So it's funny you mentioned and I can't remember the name of that person, but I'm pretty sure

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I know who you're talking about. Oh, you do? Well, I think it was Jamar Tisby a few years ago, maybe two years ago, had

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I wish I could remember her name. But he had that lady you're talking about on his podcast to talk about like post colonialism or something.

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And Jamar Tisby went to RTS. He's I don't know if he's still

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Presbyterian or where he landed. But yeah, I don't know. Deconstructing himself quite a bit.

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Well, in my in one of my religious studies classes at my secular undergraduate university, it was the class was

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New Religions in America. We actually read his book. So, oh, well, there you go. Yeah. So.

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But anyway, he had this lady on and Votie Bockham wrote me a note afterward and sent it to me and said, hey,

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I don't know if you're aware, but that person that Jamar Tisby was platforming and having on to talk about racism and post colonialism and that kind of thing, that that person actually argues that African tribal religions, animistic religions, have this prominent place for female deities and matriarchy and ultimately blurring the lines between gender.

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And I was like, I have no had no clue about any of that. So, wow. What a shock. What a shock that cultures would have that.

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Yeah. Yeah. Well, obviously. Oh, and, you know, Michael just posted this. I was going to read this, but it's in King James.

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So we'll just read it in the I think it's in the King James. Very nice. You have a

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King James. And the context of that, by the way, is various laws.

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It's not like the verse before and after doesn't actually connect to it in a direct way.

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So, like, this is it. Like, this is cut and dry. God says that when a man puts on a woman's garment, that is an abomination.

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And I was wondering about this. I didn't do deep research on it. I don't know if, you know, Matthew, but I was wondering what the garments looked like back in the

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Old Testament, because my mind is still on flannel graphs I saw as a kid. So what would the woman's garment versus the man's garment look like?

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Obviously, there were some differences. Differences enough that it would designate like it wasn't just a bland robe or something like there was something about them that people saw as uniquely feminine or masculine.

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I don't know if you know anything about that. I don't, but I do have access to Google images. So Michael says that it's partially regarding men avoiding war and women becoming a

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Mulan type. So I did read that in a commentary and I did read that that had implications for war.

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But I've never yeah, I've never dug too deeply into the topic. I just know that.

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I mean, obviously, clothing is very culturally contingent. There's a reason why, like someone who's

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Scottish celebrating their traditions can wear the kilt. Whereas in another context, if you wear something like that, it would be cross dressing.

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There's a reason why. I don't know if you have any IFB listeners, John, but this may upset them.

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But there's a reason why women can wear jeans and it's not seen as cross dressing. Whereas 70 years earlier, that would be cross dressing because, you know, these clothing, clothing is culturally contingent and its expression and things like that.

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But the principle behind it is. So here's the thing is we read the mosaic, like the law of Moses and things like that.

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Oftentimes you bring up things like prohibition against homosexuality or prohibitions against cross dressing.

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People will usually retort. Oh, yeah. But do you eat shellfish? Do you cross your linen or whatever?

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And the thing is, is we have to distinguish between like this is basic stuff that people can't get, though.

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There is ceremonial, there's civil and then there's moral law. And out of those three categories of law, moral law is the only law which is immutable.

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It doesn't change. It's a part of the very character of God. One could even say it's an attribute of God, his law.

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So the thing is, is that's clearly when you look at the context, that's a part of the moral law of God is not cross dressing.

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It's not like a cultural thing with the Israelites because yada, yada, yada. Now, there could have been their neighbors that did cross dress, and that's why they made it specific.

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But even if God didn't say that in the book, it still is true regardless, because God says other things which by good necessary consequence would entail that.

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But lucky for us, God says it right straight. He directly talks about this, though, in First Corinthians chapter,

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I think, 10, where it talks about the temple prostitutes who shave their heads. And then the male prostitutes, as I understand, they actually grew their hair long in Corinth.

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And so they were doing like a flip, like the men were looking like women, women were looking like men.

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Not that I don't know about this, I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but I saw on X, it was trending for some reason that there were some female, were they,

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I guess, I don't know if you saw this, Matthew, pornographic actresses or something that were pretending to be transgender to try to get attention.

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Did you see that? Yeah, sadly, I did have to see that. It came across my newsfeed.

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Don't you love X? Well, and the explanation was that this is a trend right now, that transgenderism is a trend in,

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I guess, the pornographic industry. And so these women are, they're women, but they're pretending to be men who are pretending to be women.

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Yeah, just don't think about it too hard. My favorite part of that was seeing all the really upset transgender sex workers that were like, this is our identity.

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You can't steal that. And it's just like, oh, the irony behind this. That was funny.

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I do have to admit that. Yeah, they're like, you can't just pretend to be us. It's like, well, isn't like you kind of missed the whole identity is anyways.

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But in First Corinthians chapter 10, it's the same thing where there's a role reversal switch.

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And this is the context in which we find commands about head coverings and the reasons given for women to wear head coverings in church.

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And it does say I don't want to get into the head coverings conversation because we could go down a big rabbit hole here.

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But whether you think it's an actual hat or the covering is the woman's hair, longer hair or whatever.

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There is a demarcation that says this. This is a woman. And the two reasons given for it are creation.

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Has it not been this way since creation? And then the angels, the angels are watching. Both of those transcend culture.

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So this isn't a cultural context thing where you say, well, at that time in ancient

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Israel, it was like this. But that was then. This is now. No, this is something that from the beginning,

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God expected that men would be different than women. They would dress differently. They would behave differently.

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He didn't even have to spell it out in so many details. He could just say things like act like men, play the man.

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And we are supposed to kind of know what that means. We don't have to have that thoroughly explained. And what that also does is that plays into like a principle of, you know, grace doesn't destroy nature.

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It perfects it because I can easily like see the retort. I've actually heard this from like, you know, transgenders that claim to be

25:38

Christians where they'll take the Galatians 328. And you hear that so often in like race conversations or things like that.

25:45

Like I remember seeing the verse all the time during the George Floyd summer of love where people would say that to be like, oh, see, we're all one, yada, yada.

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But it says neither male nor female. So it's like, oh, in Christ, we're all androgynous. Well, no, because, you know,

26:00

Paul very clearly lays out that. Like you just mentioned in First Corinthians 11 where he speaks of like the angels are watching.

26:07

So grace doesn't destroy nature, but it perfects it. So grace doesn't make you no longer a man.

26:12

It makes you a Christian man. Grace doesn't make you no longer a woman. It makes you a Christian woman. Grace doesn't make you no longer a

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Greek makes you a Christian Greek. And so a lot of these things are important to keep in mind. And that's why it's just scripture.

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Interpret. Scripture is just such an important principle that scripture is not schizophrenic. It's all balanced together.

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And that's why we do systematic theology. That's why we do biblical theology, because we see scripture as it has multiple authors and things like that, multiple divine spokesmen.

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But God weaves one divine narrative and it all coheres. It all fits. And, yeah, it's just it's so important.

26:48

It's so important. Thanks for correcting me, too. It is First Corinthians 11. And Michael just posted that as well.

26:53

The passage there. Not First Corinthians 10. I was I think that's communion, right? First Corinthians 10. Communions in both chapters.

27:00

Yeah. But you're close enough. Close enough. Yeah. You know, I did seminary. So I. All right.

27:07

So let's let's talk about this article. This is the best article, in my opinion, on the subject of the

27:15

Audrey Hale manifesto. And I did read a bunch of them. I already covered it on my other podcast that I host conversations that matter.

27:23

But it wasn't written at that point. And my brother actually wrote this. He spent two days poring over every page, all 90 pages of the manifesto, read everything.

27:33

And these aren't pages that are easy to read. They're like it's scribble.

27:40

And you have to make out what Audrey, I guess, was saying. What I don't remember what Audrey Hales.

27:46

That's the name. I guess that is her name. Right. So it was it's a she who's wanting to pretend to be a male.

27:56

Yeah. So. So that's the proper designation, I guess. So. Well, her preferred name was

28:02

Aiden. So even though she was a wicked person, John, you shouldn't be hateful and you need to respect his. You need to say

28:08

Aiden. I'm actually glad the Audrey thing stuck. I think I get confused by that.

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And because I'm used to everyone using the preferred name. And in this case, for some reason, it didn't actually stick.

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It was her actual name, which I'm really glad. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what to make of that.

28:27

But so here's the article. It it says it starts out.

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It's kind of chilling. It says, forgive me, God. This act will be inglorious. So reads the second to last journal entry that Audrey Hale wrote just hours before she blasted through the doors of the

28:43

Covenant School in 2003. And of course, she killed the school custodian.

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My kill. She walked up to the second level where she shot three nine year old children and a substitute teacher, pausing briefly to put more bullets in.

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And then she was gunned down. And within 14 minutes, that was 14 minutes of,

29:04

I guess, the beginning of her entering the school and committing these horrible, horrible actions. And one of the reactions that David talks about is that there was kind of like a weird.

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I remember this. I guess it wasn't ancient history, but it feels like yesterday in a way. Yeah, there was an odd backlash.

29:26

And there were people that were advocating for trans rights that very week from the federal level down to the state level in Tennessee and getting on people's cases for misgendering hail.

29:38

I remember that. I remember that there was a several legislators, state legislators who were doing these

29:47

MLK styled speeches at the state capitol about saving our children. And it was all pro transgender.

29:54

It was the weirdest thing. I you can't make it up. Like, how would this happen in Tennessee? Nonetheless, like this isn't in California.

30:02

Right. So I'm remembering back to that. David covers some of that. Yeah. And there was a story in a leftist media source.

30:11

What source is this vice? OK, the right is using the Nashville shooter to declare war on trans people.

30:17

So this is how they were using. She shot first. I don't know what to say to that. They flipped the whole victim and culprit to make

30:26

Audrey Hale out to be the victim somehow. And then, of course, the manifesto was leaked

30:31

November 6th. Stephen Crowder leaked it. You had Brent Leatherwood from the Southern Baptist Convention upset about that and saying how horrible this was.

30:40

He said, you are a viper to Stephen Crowder in a news conference. You have now allowed this woman who terrorized our family with bullets to be able to now terrorize us with words from the grave.

30:50

And he's been doing everything he can and even using Southern Baptist funds, apparently to try to keep that manifesto from going public.

31:00

Of course, that didn't happen. And as I understand it, there's still more material that has yet to be released.

31:05

But 90 pages were released recently, and then they were almost entirely ignored because Tucker Carlson had on Martyr Me and everyone started talking about that, that interview.

31:17

And it was like buried in about a day. But this really should have been the story last week. Oh, yeah.

31:24

So here's just a few things from the journal. David picks out. I was born wrong.

31:30

She said. This is a near constant theme throughout all of Hale's writings. She comes back to this idea on nearly every page, which 90 pages.

31:40

I mean, that stuck out to me, too. Like, yeah, I was born wrong. Like, that's the drumbeat throughout the whole thing, that she's thinking that there's something fundamentally in error about her and like there's a mistake that was made.

31:55

And this creates really a lashing out at God. She says religion won't save. And there's a frequent appeal to God, but they're generally dismissive of her particular

32:05

Christian tradition, her religious upbringing. So like she believes in God. She thinks she's going to heaven in some big sense.

32:12

But then she has these things where she'll drop saying like religion won't save. And then there's references to autism, apparently that she may have been a high functioning autistic person, although she was not diagnosed.

32:25

She has a fascination with black people, I guess, and she says brown love is the most beautiful kind.

32:33

There's some pornographic sound like I don't know how to like erotic.

32:39

I guess the literature you could call it involved in this. That's very explicit.

32:47

She has hatred for her father, which I'm sure ties into this. And then two dominant themes of Hale's writings are her desire to die because she's been born into the wrong body and her infatuation with an unspecified brown girl.

33:00

Hale specifies or sorry, references God numerous times, usually positively. God is love. So are you. She also, though, frequently references heaven and seems to have an idea, like I said, that she's going to go there.

33:11

She alludes to having planned an attack at Covenant School since 2021. She chickened out.

33:17

Then she did it. And the most disturbing part is her last written words. I hope I have a high death count ready to die.

33:24

Ha ha. So there's some implications to draw here, but we'll stop there for a moment and just talk about some of this.

33:32

I think it's fascinating that like there's a rejection of God here. There's a rejection of like the created order.

33:39

She doesn't like how she was made. She rejects her own father. And oftentimes people who have a problem with God do have a problem with their own father.

33:46

I've noticed that tendency, at least. But she also thinks that somehow like she's made up her own religion and she's going to go to heaven.

33:54

And I guess God is love in this vague sense. And that means that she's

33:59

OK in a way as well. And you can't reconcile this stuff. It's all confusion.

34:05

What do you think the roots when you look at some of this? I don't know how much of it you read or if this is your first exposure.

34:11

But like what I don't know if you know other transgender people like what do you see at the base of this kind of a condition?

34:21

Yeah, so. There is this idea, well, something that I was thinking of while you're going through this,

34:28

John, is the fact that like the whole all the references to God is love. Religion won't save all those kinds of things.

34:35

Part of helping us contextualize this and even transgenderism itself, I'd say, is the fact that.

34:43

The post -Christian West, it's not like it totally abandons Christianity.

34:49

As a matter of fact, what I'd probably say is that it mainly it kind of assumes Christianity and then discards like everything good, true and beautiful about it.

34:58

So and you see this a lot with how the left framed issues, say, surrounding immigration or even how like Joe Biden speaks about God is what they do is they they don't like post -Christian thought doesn't totally discard

35:10

Christianity. It's not like a type of hyper Nietzscheanism. But what it does is because you see some like post -Christian guys on the right who basically do that, they don't assume

35:21

Christianity at all. But it seems like what the left does is they wear Christianity as Christianity as a skin suit, then discard everything.

35:27

So you see these vague general notions of a sort of Christian thought and a sense of identity, because notice that Christianity, there's a lot of talk about identity and how your core identity is in Christ.

35:41

Like Paul in Galatians 2 .20, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

35:47

And instead of having Christ, it's this vague notion of the self. And it's a weird, almost

35:52

Gnosticism and transgenderism where you are your person itself. Your soul is so disconnected from your body because the way that we gender people, the way that is by looking at their sex.

36:04

And that's part of it. You can say hormones or X, Y chromosomes and all that. But part of it as well is like, well, do you have a penis or do you have a vagina?

36:14

Like that's just it's basic anatomy. And so when they look down, they see what they have. But then they're like, this doesn't match me.

36:21

There's like something weird that they assume about themselves. So there's the assumption of a Christian, a post -Christian framework combined with this idea that your soul is entirely separated from your body.

36:32

So this weird sort of Gnosticism. And then, yeah, like you brought up with the father, feelings of resentment for her father.

36:41

We can't disconnect that from spirituality at all, because what is the chief analogy used in Scripture?

36:47

Like we're just talking about the Trinity, father, son, Holy Spirit, father and son are analogous terms when we speak about the father begetting the son.

36:55

Now, the process of begetting. In normal life involves a man and a woman coming together, and then nine months later, the woman has a child.

37:04

Did that happen in the Godhead? No. I mean, maybe if you're Mormon, you could say that. But if you're not, we would say, no, it's this is analogous terms.

37:13

And God is our father as well. So when you resent your own father, oftentimes what can happen, this isn't always the case, of course, but a general pattern we can see is resentment of God as well.

37:24

And part of resenting God is a rejection of his created order. That's something we've been talking on as part of what the podcast this episode is speaking on as well as transgenderism as going against a created order.

37:38

And a good friend of mine last night at our young adult ministry at church, he went through Titus and the qualifications for elders.

37:44

And one of the things that Paul entrusts Titus with, let me just look at my Bible. He says this in verse five.

37:51

For this cause, I left thee in Crete that thou should have set in order the things that are wanting set in order.

37:58

God wants order in the church because God is a God of order. And so if you rebel against that created order, if you assume this post -Christian suit and you shut off everything that ties it in order, you're going to get disorder.

38:11

So you just see entirely within, and even her little schizo journal that she has, it's entirely disordered.

38:18

It scribbles everywhere. It's like weird rambling. So I think part of what we need to see is just like how much disorder is there, how much resentment is there, how much even self -resentment as well.

38:28

The fact that she wants to die, that's due to resentment. So much of transgenderism comes down to dissatisfaction with how

38:36

God has made you with resentment, which is disordered and springs from all these things. And so when you look at it, it all connects really.

38:43

And it's sad to see. That's an excellent analysis. One of the things I was thinking is in Christianity, when we look around us and we look at ourselves, when we try to look deep in ourselves and see our thought life, for example, we see something that sometimes scares us.

38:59

And we like to think of ourselves as good. And we realize we're not actually good. That's why we need Christ.

39:04

We need his righteousness because we don't have any of our own. And any righteousness that we do have as Christians is a result of Christ sanctifying work in us.

39:13

It's not anything we could have conjured up. And so I think when a sinner, especially think about it this way, she was raised in a

39:21

Christian household. She went to a Christian school. I don't know if,

39:27

I mean, there's speculation on whether she was abused and all kinds of things, but she had some exposure to the truth at some point in her life and for a long time in her life.

39:36

And she held on to some shell of that, as you rightly said. But I think what happens is she, and I would apply this to other people who are in sexual degeneracy or transgenderism, any of that stuff who grew up in the church, they oftentimes look at themselves and they see that same thing that we see in ourselves that's wrong.

39:59

They know there's something off. There's something that needs to be fixed or changed, redeemed. And if they're not

40:07

Christians, they've just imbibed whatever Christianity they were brought up with, but they never actually surrendered to Christ and received him into their life as their savior.

40:18

Then I think what they do is they end up pursuing their sin. And in this case, it's obvious she was probably hooked on pornography.

40:27

She was going down all kinds of roads of hatred, resentment, violence, obviously in the end murder.

40:34

This was unbridled fleshiness. These were the kinds of things that exist in everyone's heart at some level.

40:42

Even if it's a very minimal level. I'm not saying everyone's transgender at all. Don't misunderstand. I'm saying if you follow your sin and you keep following your sin, it will take you to places you never thought you would go.

40:54

It will bring you down into depravity. And somehow you're enjoying things that are disgusting that you never would have enjoyed.

41:01

So as you do that and as you make peace with sin, then I think what happens is you have to then when you look at yourself in those moments of reflection and realize there's something wrong, there's something deeply wrong with the world, there's something deeply wrong with me.

41:17

You can't attribute it to your sin because that's the one thing you want to hold on to. She was living for this black girl, apparently.

41:25

It crushed her that she couldn't be with whoever this black girl was. And this was out of her grasp.

41:31

It was out of her reach. And it was sinful. The whole thing was lust -filled and sinful. It wasn't something that God ordained.

41:38

It wasn't something that was good for her. But that's what she made life about. And if she couldn't have it, her goals were blocked.

41:45

And so the redemption, if you will, comes with ending her life.

41:50

And not just ending her life, but taking out a few others with her because they're also part of the problem.

41:57

It's not just internally. It's the environment that God has placed in her. It's her body.

42:03

It's her environment. Everything is holding back what this good part of her soul, that if it could only spring wings and flourish and fly away and do its thing, but it can't because it's trapped.

42:14

And so the way to free herself is to kill herself.

42:20

That's what I see. And I don't think I'm reading too much into it. I think this isn't unique to transgenderism either, but this is the kind of thing, the level that you can get to because you have made peace with such depravity.

42:35

So it's kind of like it apes on the Christian understanding of things like there still is a redemption, but it's not really redemption.

42:42

It's a false redemption. So, by the way, for people who are in channel, please, if you have questions or comments, please leave them.

42:53

I will get to them real quick. Dottie says that there was a Facebook notification that says that we're live, but there's no link on Facebook.

43:02

I just checked. It is there on Facebook. So we are actually streaming on Facebook. We're on actually two

43:07

Facebook channels. So you can go to Truth Scripts channel. You can go to Conversations That Matter.

43:12

We're also on YouTube and X and Rumble. So all of those places right now. Get your questions in, though, and we'll keep going here.

43:21

A quick comment that I would like to make in light of what you just said. I think a good part of this and a great part of the

43:29

Christian faith that we sometimes take for granted, but our Lord Jesus's comments to his disciples that you shall know them by their fruit.

43:38

And part of the reason we can know these things are wrong is look at the fruit that it produces. And I'm not even talking about Audrey Hale and what she did because she very clearly was like a special case of like something terrible going on.

43:52

But I mean, you know, I'll plug Truth Script here. I wrote an article reviewing

43:57

Sean Mathis's book, Is the Church Pro Gay? And he has a section in his book walking through homosexual culture,

44:07

LGBTQ, AI, blah, blah, blah, culture and all that. And it's when you make your entire identity revolve around who you are engaging with sexually and then you say that there's like a culture with that, you're going to know what that culture is and it's going to all be about sex.

44:27

And it was some of the most like heinous and disgusting things that I ever read in my life.

44:33

Like I had to pause a few times when I was going through it and just like take a second to breathe and be like, good grief.

44:41

And it's like that's like the fruit of it, too. I can't even say these things live because I don't want to get you demonetized,

44:49

John. But it's pretty it's gross. And so that's part of it is you have to look at the fruit of these things and just the fruit that produced in Audrey's life, the fruit that it produces in normal life.

45:02

I mean, you have to ask these questions. Why do older homosexual men have to wear adult diapers? Why is that?

45:08

Why do they have such high ranks of these diseases? Why is that the case?

45:14

Why does God honor those who have very few sexual partners in heterosexual relationships? Why is there fruit from those kind of things?

45:22

Why is that the case? And it's like it's almost like God has an order in mind for these types of relationships and so or these types of relationships.

45:32

And so I would I just would advise keep these things in mind when you're examining this culture.

45:37

You shall know them by their fruits and something else like the weird racial fetishization that Audrey had is also just something to take into account as well, because oftentimes people that it's like, you know, when when people are like, oh,

45:52

I'm only attracted to like these types of girls and all that, you know, I can't go with white girls or whatever, yada, yada, yada.

45:58

Oftentimes that's very much like a fetish or whatever. And am I saying that interracial relationships are sinful or necessarily like immoral?

46:07

No, of course not. But when people harp on that all the time about, you know, there's that's usually because of like a weird fetish at play.

46:15

And that's something you have to notice. And that ties into homosexuality in regard to the fact that it largely is a fetish.

46:23

That's usually what it comes down to. And it's just these are just important things to know, because at the end of the day, these people are our neighbors and God calls us to love them.

46:35

And you are to love them despite the wickedness and the sin that you see. And it's important to know these things if you interact with people like this, because at the end of the day, they are human beings made in the image of God.

46:48

They do have value and worth and dignity. And they are people who Christ can redeem.

46:55

He can save. And he's done it many times. When Paul's going through the list of sins and he mentions homosexuality, he says, such as were some of you.

47:03

So these things are just important to keep in mind. You know, it's important to love them.

47:09

And part of loving them is being able to know the truth about these things. And that's just so important.

47:14

And you can't you also I don't want to sound like too much of a squish here, but I'm going to do it anyways.

47:20

You guys know me anyways. But you can't lose your compassion in the midst of the vile, wicked things that they do.

47:28

You have to look at them and your heart should break. You should feel sorrow for these people and it should draw you to love them and to want to save them.

47:40

Are there times for wishing? You know, are there time for implications? Absolutely.

47:45

But your heart should first and foremost be drawn to compassion and a need to save them, to give them the gospel, to tell them about the life, the life changing power of God.

47:58

I think that's really important. And that's something we can need to take in mind because oftentimes our hearts are very hardened to pity just because of wicked things like what

48:05

Audrey did. So, yeah, just something to keep in mind. Yeah. Not all people that are struggling or not struggling.

48:12

They're just giving into this issue are going to go shoot up a school. Oh, yeah, certainly. This is a level of depravity.

48:19

This is this is where it can get you if you keep feeding the flesh unchecked. But yeah, so many things to talk about there.

48:27

But we only have a few minutes. And so I want to talk about the rest of this article. And David talks about some key points.

48:35

He says that right wing outlets, commentators and politicians basically have summed this up as like she was mentally ill.

48:41

Like this was a disturbed person. And the message that she was constantly force fed, though, as we all are, was that Christians, specifically those who hold the basic biblical truths about gender and sexuality, were the chief reason she was tormented in her mind.

48:55

One of her complaints in her journal is her inability to receive what is commonly called gender affirming care as she knew her parents would not pay for it.

49:04

So Audrey Hill actually acted with a fair amount of logical consistency. I think this is a good point. And I do see this like, you know, the left blames the guns.

49:12

The right blames mental illness. And sometimes it's neither of those things. Sometimes it's evil.

49:18

And and there's something else actually going on. And no matter how many mental health services or in this case, gender affirming care, how much of that someone has, they're still going to give in to their sin potentially.

49:32

And they're not going to people will fall through the cracks. You won't always catch these kinds. I doubt her parents knew that morning she was going to go do what she did.

49:41

So that is a fascinating angle, though, here that she was bitter about that, apparently. And and then progressivism is deadly is another takeaway.

49:52

Audrey Hill grew up in a fairly standard Christian home. But at one point she was just another youth group kid. But her environment was not enough to halt the habit caused by her own sinful heart and voices constantly affirming it.

50:04

It's clear that pornography, wokeness and LGBT propaganda absolutely warped and mangled her mind. And who knows where she got all of this?

50:11

It could have just been an Internet connection. Parents protect your kids, please. You do not want their first sexual experiences or visions to be pornographic.

50:20

Sometimes that happens and you can't always avoid it. You need to help them through it. But really try to protect them as much as you can and prepare them for a world where they're going to be seeing these kinds of things.

50:31

And then he talks about a hostile society, which we already talked about this a little bit, like how this was twisted right away and people were showing transgender solidarity, which was kind of shocking.

50:45

And then this one, I don't know how deep I want to get into this, but the trans autism connection.

50:51

So he does. I have to say, because it is in the article, he says, look, the rise in autism across the world defies imagination from one in eighty eight to one in thirty six in just ten years.

51:00

That's a lot of people, one in thirty six. And official studies have indicated three to six percent higher rate of transgenderism among autistic individuals.

51:08

So I do think it is what he says, that this whole feeling of I don't fit in could also be an opportunity when you have narratives out there saying the reason you don't fit in is because you're the wrong gender or you think you are like that.

51:23

That can be tempting for someone who already feels like they're not included or they're they're odd.

51:28

They're they're not the same as everyone else. Yeah. And then hold leaders accountable like Brett Motherwood remain vigilant.

51:37

Tennessee passed legislation allowing teachers to be armed in schools across the state pending district approval.

51:43

So be ready for this kind of thing. And then what you just said, like we got to share the gospel and we got to be in prayer.

51:49

Like this is a spiritual battle. This isn't just chemical. This isn't something that is happening just because we're finding new information out there about what humans are really made of.

52:03

This is actually something that has been going on for a long time. And it's the return of a certain kind of paganism.

52:09

It's a rejection of God, a rejection of who he made us to be. And and a

52:16

I think a willingness or a desire to destroy that creation in an attempt to remake it.

52:25

So it's saying that the way God created things, that's actually the curse. That's actually bad. That's actually the sin.

52:31

And if we remake it in our image, we can make it good. We can make it better. We can make it right.

52:37

And it's literally the same route as every other sin. You're putting yourself on the throne and saying,

52:43

I am God. So final thoughts, Matthew, before we get to questions. I don't have much to add on to that.

52:50

We can just get right to questions. All right. So conceptual clarity says disgusted by Leatherwood's cover up.

52:56

But I wonder if he feels justified by the hurts of a Christian family who raised a wicked daughter who dissed them mass murdered and is now in eternal torment.

53:06

I don't know. I don't know. I can't get in his head. Yeah. Ben Wooding says, oh, did you know that Enoch Burke has

53:15

I'm glad he brought this up, has been arrested again. He stands against transgenderism. Please give him a shout out, maybe promo his book to support him.

53:22

Yeah. Enoch Burke. Do you know who he is, Matthew? Is this a gentleman from the UK? Yeah, he's in Ireland, I believe.

53:30

So he must be in Northern Ireland, I guess, if he's in the UK. Right. Is he a teacher? Was he? Yeah. OK.

53:37

I think I saw the video of the police at his house while his parents were there trying to. I don't know if, you know, he's been on this podcast before.

53:43

Oh, wow. Before all of this happened. So this was a few years ago. And the reason you're going to find this interesting,

53:50

Enoch Burke wrote a book against John Piper and Christian hedonism. And I had him on.

53:56

It actually got a lot of views to discuss his book on Christian hedonism. And actually, the church

54:03

I was attending at the time. This is kind of funny. I remember the pastor also called me up and was like, hey, can you come stop by the office?

54:10

Because apparently, I guess there are some people in the church that were listening to my podcast. And John Piper's name was somehow dropped over somewhere.

54:18

I don't know where, you know, in a positive way. And now he's like, hey, there's people now that are hearing what you're saying and what some of our guys are saying.

54:25

And I guess Enoch Burke did a very good job exposing some of John Piper's teaching on that.

54:32

So go check that out if you want. But John Piper obviously has been platformed all over the place.

54:37

So, you know, it's obvious that if you start taking whacks at his theology, you're probably going to upset or confuse some people.

54:46

But that was Enoch Burke, and that's how I knew him. I thought he was kind of like a discernment guy. And then he goes to jail.

54:54

And I find out, I see the news story. And he gets out, and he's now in jail again. He's arrested again.

55:00

So I'm not clear on all the details. I think he must have been released and given a warning, don't do this again.

55:07

And then like Peter, he said, you know, I can't do that. I'm going to keep preaching the truth. So they arrested him.

55:13

And very sad to me. But that's Enoch Burke. And his book,

55:18

I wish I could remember the name of it. If you look up Enoch Burke, Christian Hedonism, you will find it.

55:24

And maybe that will support him. So go ahead and buy that. We have a question about reprobation.

55:30

Matthew, what do you think about this? What part does reprobation play in this Audrey Hale or transgender stuff? Let's look at what

55:38

God is Lord has to say. Romans 1, 26. Through this cause,

55:44

God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.

55:51

You know, and then verse 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.

55:59

What causes reprobation play? Well, you see, we see that when people continuously reject

56:05

God, continuously rebel against him, are resistant to him, they're going,

56:13

God will at times just give them over. And then they give in to these vile lusts. Now, of course, not every reprobate necessarily goes in that direction if we want to use the term reprobate in more of like a theological, systematic way.

56:27

But it's clear that how Paul speaks in Romans, the reason why this happens is because God just lets them go after continuous rejection.

56:36

So, yeah, I mean, just as the scriptures say, that's the role I would say it plays. God gives people over to their lusts at times and that's what his word says.

56:46

So, yeah, that's all I have to add. A follow -up. Why is reprobation a theology no longer preached in most churches?

56:54

I don't know if, is it? I mean, probably most churches that would not preach on reprobation would not preach on a lot of other theologically, like the

57:03

Trinity, what we were just talking about. They're probably not preaching on that either. But I think at Reformed churches, people talk about, yeah.

57:10

I think it's preached at Reformed churches. Oh, yeah, certainly, yeah. Yeah, no, at Reformed churches, it's probably preached on.

57:17

I mean, that also depends on which Reformed church. Like at the PCA, there's a wide spectrum of some people who are more confessional, some people who are – they say they hold to the

57:26

Westminster, but they love to eat out on Sundays or they have a big picture of Jesus right when you walk in the building or things like that.

57:35

But, no, I would say that's a pretty important part of Reformed theology. But they may not preach a sermon on that topic, especially if they may be more seeker -sensitive perhaps.

57:46

But, yeah, and I would just say that the churches that don't, why don't they do that? Either they don't believe it or they just don't think that it's going to be edifying for some reason or the other.

57:58

And there's a lot of reasons behind that, but we can't get inside all their heads. Yeah. Yeah, the thing about someone like Audrey Hale is she can be transgender.

58:08

I shouldn't even say transgender person because that's actually giving them too much credit, someone who thinks they're transgender. They can be saved, right?

58:15

Like any other sinner, they can repent and turn to Christ. But here's the thing. The deeper you get into that depravity, as you just read, is evidence that you are on the path to hell.

58:25

Like that is a clear indication that God is removing his hand and giving you up to your own sins and judging you.

58:32

I mean, even actively judging you, I suppose. So let's see here. I think, oh, man,

58:39

I don't know if I want to take this. This is a big, we only have like one minute. I'm just going to take a whack at this. What is seeker -sensitive?

58:45

I would say seeker -sensitive is a, it's a strategy, a pragmatic strategy that says we can adjust our message to reconcile it with sinners, worldly people, and their desires, and in so doing, get them into the church so that they will hear the truth.

59:07

So it's an end justifies the means approach to church. That is a very brief definition.

59:13

So Matthew, are you watching the debate tonight? I want to, but what

59:18

I'll more likely be doing is watching the highlights on Twitter instead, because I have a lot of reading and work to do and studying, and I really have to study for Greek II tonight, so I probably can't.

59:32

Well, thank you for giving us your time and coming on the show. Oh, absolutely. It's my pleasure. Yeah, I appreciate it.

59:38

I'll probably, I'll try to watch it. We'll see how much my wife can stomach. She hates that stuff, but Trump is debating

59:45

Kamala Harris tonight, so I guess check it out if you have the time and the interest in it.

59:51

I'm going to be talking about it, Lord willing, on the podcast, my other podcast tomorrow, so have a good evening, guys.