April 5, 2021 Show with Dr. Carl Trueman on “The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self” PLUS Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you the listener with your own questions and now here's your host

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Monday on this fifth day of April 2021 and I'm so thrilled to have back on the program

Dr. Carl R. Truman esteemed church historian who previously served as the

William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University, author or editor of more than a dozen books including

The Credo Imperative, Luther on the Christian Life, and Histories and Fallacies, and currently

Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

Today we are going to be addressing his brand new book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the

Road to Sexual Revolution. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Carl Truman. It's great to be here Chris, thanks for having me on. It's great to have you on and I'm also thrilled to have joining me as a co -host for the first half hour while Dr.

Truman is with us and also transferring over to my guest for the remaining 90 minutes of the program we have today

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington who is pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

He's an author, a conference speaker, vice president of the board of directors for the Reform Forum, and article editors for the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to the program, Dr.

Jeffrey C. Waddington. It's always a privilege to join you, it's nice to be here.

Amen, it's great to have you on all the time brother, and I want to give our email address immediately because Dr.

Truman can only be on with us for the first 30 minutes of the program during previous scheduled appointments that he had.

So if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And before I even ask a question, I just want to read a really powerful endorsement for this book by my friend

Rosaria Butterfield, who has been a guest on Iron Troupe and Zion Radio a number of times and has written a glowing endorsement for this radio program as well.

But Rosaria Butterfield, who by the way, if anybody listening is unfamiliar with her, she is a former lesbian and also a former leftist professor at Syracuse University.

And she doesn't mind that description. She is very open about her left -wing fanaticism at one time before coming to Christ.

But she says, this is a characteristically brilliant book by Carl Truman, helping the church understand why people believe that sexual difference is a matter of psychological choice.

What was the most compelling factor that you saw happening around us today, not only the things and the issues that challenge the body of Christ, but even things that are corrupting our world in general that led you to the point that said,

I've got to sit down and begin writing an answer to the rise and triumph of the modern self?

What were the catalysts involved in that? There are a number of things, some of them personal, but some of them more general relative to the church and the culture in which we find ourselves.

I think above all, it was the speed of what I call in the book, the sexual revolution, the transformation of sexual practices, sexual mores, sexual identity that's taken place over the last 10 or 15 years.

What I noticed was, on the one hand, disturbing a lot of Christians, that they were finding that the speed of change to be incomprehensible, but also reshaping the thinking of a lot of Christians.

A lot of Christians are being left confused as to what is the right and wrong position on these things.

So that was the broader driving factor, and it really came to a head with, I think when

Bruce Jenner, slash Caitlyn Jenner, came out as transgender in about 2015, and it became obvious that gay marriage, the battle that had been engaged in the culture for the previous decade really, that gay marriage was not going to be the end of the revolution at this point, but in some senses was almost a sideshow, that the bigger issue was going to be transgender questions.

So what motivated the book was an attempt to try to set these dramatic changes of the last decade, or the last 15 years, in some kind of broader historical context, in order to allow conservative

Christians, but conservative religious people in general, one might say, I've had some positive responses from some

Jewish friends on the book, helping conservative minded people understand what's been going on in the culture for a long time, to bring us to this current rather bizarre and chaotic situation.

Yeah, one thing that fascinated me when I was broadcasting live out of New York years ago, from 2005 to 2010 actually, when

I had addressed the issue, or should I say most of the time when I had addressed the issue of homosexuality with a guest who had written on the subject, or perhaps

I was interviewing a former homosexual or whatever the case may be, there was a listener on Long Island who would frequently call in when we actually had call -ins rather than email questions from the audience, but a guest would call in who was a licensed professional psychiatrist who was openly identifying himself as a liberal in most things political, and yet he knew that there was something tragically wrong with homosexuality, and something that was tragically dangerous about it to the human psyche and to humans in general, and he saw that there was a lot of dishonesty going on in the world in regard to this, including it being entirely removed from the psychiatric journals as a mental disorder, but so there are people even outside of our conservative

Christian circles that are viewing this issue in quite a startled and disturbed way, aren't they?

Oh yes, yes, and I think that particularly applies to the transgender question, which is tearing the left apart in many ways.

I think in some ways transgenderism is proving to be more of a problem on the left than on the right.

The right has its position. The right is not engaging in civil war over this. The left is tearing itself to pieces.

One of the chapters of the book I look at the transgender question relative to trends in modern feminism, you have the figure of Germaine Greer, who's taken in many ways a very courageous stand against the transgenderism that's been creeping into the radical feminism that she herself pioneered.

Since the book came out, of course, we've had the infamous J .K. Rowling issue, and J .K.

Rowling, bless her, has taken a pretty courageous stand. She has the money, of course, to be able to sustain the flack that she's received for it.

But what is fascinating about the current situation is that it's creating a civil war on the left, and who knows how that's going to play out?

I don't think that particularly transgenderism is guaranteed a victory in this fight.

It's going to be very interesting to watch. Yeah, it's quite fascinating how sometimes things arise where the most conservative of evangelical

Christians and even fundamentalists find themselves side by side with feminists on issues.

In fact, it was pretty much for decades we were in agreement on many things involving pornography, being mutually opposed to it, and now the transgendered issues where women are being stripped of their rights, ironically, and even you have people who identify themselves as homosexuals being opposed to much of the transgender movement's activism, aren't they?

Oh, yes. I mean, I joke to friends, you know you're getting old when Germaine Greer is suddenly a goodie, not a baddie.

You're absolutely correct. Andrew Sullivan has a very thoughtful but openly gay journalist has made the point that just because he is not sexually attracted towards women who identify as men doesn't make him transphobic.

The idea that traditional homosexuality, if you like, is predicated on a bodily distinction between the sexes.

So it's also proving to be something of an issue in the gay world.

A year or two ago I had the privilege of interviewing on my own podcast a couple of women, one of whom was a very conservative

Roman Catholic and the other one was a radical feminist who'd lost her job at a feminist magazine for saying that men who identify as women are not real women.

And it was a strange, counterintuitive experience to be talking to somebody with whom

I would disagree, I think, about just about everything except for this one particular issue.

So it's a fascinating cultural moment when the old distinctions of left and right,

I won't say they're completely breaking down, but there are some very significant realignments taking place politically as identity politics is moving to the center of the public square of the political drama.

So you would actually describe what's going on as a revolution, I know. Can you tell us something about the architecture of the revolution?

Yeah, by revolution I think what we need to understand, what Christians need to understand is that the sexual revolution of the 60s onwards is not simply a question of an expansion of what is and is not acceptable sexual behavior.

And in the book I use the example of modesty. We're all familiar with debates about modesty, even within the church, and typically if you're debating modesty in the church, you're debating the limit of a concept you already agree on.

And it comes down to, I hate to sound sort of sexist when I say this, but in my experience debates about modesty tended to come down to how women should be dressed.

What's the acceptable length of a skirt, for example? Are bikinis acceptable, or should we wear one -piece bathing costumes?

Debates about the limits of a concept. It's interesting when you think today about modesty.

Modesty is, as an idea, is now inherently ridiculous. Nobody debates modesty anymore.

The idea of debating modesty would identify you as being a kind of fuddy -duddy reactionary in some way.

That, in microcosm, is the nature of the sexual revolution. And the sexual revolution is not about saying, well, okay, once upon a time, the limits of sexual behavior were this, but now we're going to expand them to include that as well.

In actual fact, the sexual revolution is about saying that any kind of sexual morality, any kind of view of sex, gives an intrinsic moral significance of sexual activity, is ridiculous.

That the morality of sexual activity is now determined entirely by whether it's between consenting parties or not.

So the sexual revolution really is about the overthrow,

I would say, of the old sexual morality, of the old sexual regime.

And it's been a long time in coming. Its roots lie deep in history.

Its roots lie very much in the prioritizing and the authorizing of our inner feelings as being fundamental to who we are.

We see that really gaining pace in the 18th century with the French philosopher

Jean -Jacques Rousseau and the cultural movements, Romanticism, that flowed from him.

In the 19th century, we see major assaults on the idea that human nature has an intrinsic moral shape.

The assault comes in different forms. Karl Marx attacks it from a kind of Hegelian position where human nature changes over time.

Nietzsche just gets rid of the whole metaphysics of human nature in its entirety. Darwin shatters any notion that human beings are made in the image of God by reducing us to an exalted ape.

And then in the late 19th, our desires are what define our person.

And those inner desires are fundamentally sexual. And with Freud, we have sex being transformed from something that's primarily an activity into something that is an identity.

Once you make something fundamental to our identity, it's only a matter of time before it becomes political.

Because laws about sexual activity are effectively laws about who you are allowed to be by society.

So it's a long story, but it culminates in the revolution of the 1960s and beyond, the effects of which we are still working out at the moment.

And I know that Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington loved your book, and I know he's chomping at the bit to ask a question.

So especially since Dr. Truman can only be on with us for 30 minutes, why don't you ask what's on your mind before we run out of time?

Yeah, Carl, excellent book. Very, I would say, synthetic, drawing various threads together into a tapestry that really makes sense of our current world that we live in.

You already made reference, of course, to many of the thinkers who influenced our world.

Even if people haven't read them, the ideas have percolated down into our culture.

One of those things, changes, would be the almost,

I guess, someone might refer to it as a Gnostic development, Gnostic -like development, where emotivism or emotions become, or our psychological state becomes key to this whole drama.

Can you give us some broad strokes of that issue? Yeah, and I think you're putting your finger on the key issue there,

Jeff, and that is that authorization of that inner space, that psychological dimension of identity.

And of course, it's very problematic to make that move. And in some ways, it's captured in a nutshell by Rousseau's statement in The Social Contract that man is born free and everywhere he is in chain.

And as soon as you have the idea that human beings are, we are fundamentally autonomous, then really you are prioritizing our independent psychology at that point, and you're making everybody else, first and foremost, a potential threat to our happiness.

When you think about that statement, though, it's self -evidently Gnostic. Man is not born free.

I don't know your parents, I mean, I know you, Jeff, but I don't know your parents, but I'm pretty sure that when you were born, they didn't abandon you in the woods somewhere on the grounds that you were born free.

I'm pretty sure that was not the case, Jeff. I'm pretty sure, too. Your parents cared for you.

They might have wished that they had done that, but that's another story. You know, I don't doubt that either, Jeff, but it's the kind of godliness that they persisted with.

Well, I have seen Jeff kill and eat a squirrel with his bare hands, so I'm just hoping for I can believe it.

But the very fact that you are dependent upon your parents, I think that tells us two things.

One, it tells us that you're more than just your feelings. Who you are is, to some extent, who you're connected to.

You're the son of your parents. But secondly, it also tells us you're a body. Human beings are born with bodies.

Our bodies are not things that we inhabit, like we inhabit a house or a suit of clothes.

Our bodies are actually who we are in a deep, profound way. And being that we're bodies also means, to go back to the first point

I made, it means that who we are is, we are those who are dependent upon others for our existence.

And our whole lives are spent in varying degrees of dependency. We start off highly dependent, we become more independent as we grow, and then, if we live long enough, we become highly dependent on others again.

So I would want to say that, you know, Jeff, you put your finger on it, this psychologizing is absolutely central to the story we tell ourselves today.

Transgenderism, in some ways, is the supreme example of that. There's a transgender person saying, My body is not me.

My feelings are me. And I want to respond and say, No, you're making a fundamental category mistake at the very beginning there, that you are separating who you are from your body.

And, you know, we're all Christians on this program, and one of the distinctives of being a

Christian is, we believe in the resurrection. Why do we believe in the resurrection? Well, we're bodies.

And salvation, our salvation is not truly complete until the day of resurrection. I know

Jeff's not a huge Aquinas fan, but Thomas Aquinas makes this point, that when you die and go to heaven, you're in the presence of God, but it isn't actually fully you until your body is resurrected, rejoined to your soul.

And I think that's a good point. But as Christians, we need to hold on to it. We are bodies.

And that's, you know, moved to kind of theological response to this psychologized person, that we need to emphasize from our pulpits and in our teaching that you are your body.

You are your body, and your body will be resurrected. And that means this myth we tell ourselves about just being a collection of feelings and emotions, it is a myth, and it's actually incapable of accounting for daily experience of reality, let alone the biblical teaching on the issue.

We have a listener who happens to be a dear friend of mine dating back to the 1980s.

Her name is Dr. Latane C. Scott. She is an author herself, and I've been pleased and blessed to have her as actually a guest on my program a number of times.

And she has written, among her many books, she has co -authored

Talking with Teens about Sexuality and Protecting Your Child from Predators.

She co -authored those with Dr. Beth Robinson. And she was so excited that you were going to be on the program today, and she has submitted two questions for you.

Dr. Latane C. Scott says, I know that Carl and Rod Dreher are colleagues.

I greatly admire the thinking of both, and I thank you, dear friend Chris, for having

Carl on your show. I would like to hear Carl's thoughts about the mechanics of forming a dissident body or bodies of believers.

That's our first question. Yeah, that's an interesting one.

I actually endorsed Rod's book, The Benedict Option. I have great sympathies for his take.

I do think Rod has been misread. The title, The Benedict Option, is a brilliant sales ploy.

I wish I'd come up with a title as snappy as that. But also, naturally inclined people to read in a kind of monastic way.

I think that is a misreading of Rod, but I'm just going to offer my own thoughts at this point that I think are consistent with his.

I do think it's very difficult for Christians, impossible for us to withdraw from the culture around us, but I was a pastor.

I had people in my congregation with mortgages, with student loans, with easy health care. We are integrated into the culture in which we find ourselves, so running up a hill and forming an isolated community is going to be impossible.

But having said that, I think the Church does need to think very self -consciously and very proactively about being a community.

If one of the basic theses of my book is correct, that identity is formed by communities and our strongest identity is formed by the strongest community to which we belong, then the

Church must be the strongest community to which we belong. That might look different in Western Pennsylvania, to New York, to Philadelphia, to Hong Kong, to London.

I'm not sure there's a one -size -fits -all here. But I think a community marked by individuals who look after each other, who engage in hospitality with each other, who have each other's back, to use the sort of slang phrase, that I think is going to be critically important as we come into the future.

I think we need to teach the whole counsel of God. Pastors need to be careful not to assume that the world is teaching anything that is consistent with the

Christian faith these days. I think when I grew up, the broad ethics of the world kind of aligned with the biblical ethic, even though the

Bible had long since died in English culture. But we can no longer make that assumption. So I think very proactive teaching, community, and self -discipline is going to be very, very important in this context.

And Dr. Scott also says that she was reading Chapter 2 of the

Gulag Archipelago and how the Russian government efficiently shut down all dissidents.

Given that surveillance has gone far beyond 100 years ago and is now an advanced art in the 21st century world, how can we expect that dissident

Christians can survive? It's fair, and that's a very interesting question because in part,

I think what's emerging over the last 2 or 3 years is that I don't think the biggest immediate threat comes from the government.

I think it comes from big tech and large corporations. And it's going to be very tricky how we address that.

I do think some level of caution with what we do online is important.

If you're not paying for the product, you are the product. We all give away an awful lot of personal information online.

But I also think that alternative means of communicating, alternative means of education, finding whatever is the equivalent of the old

Stamisdat presses in our Internet age will be important. It's going to be interesting to see how things develop in the future.

We've seen how easily, for example, how easy big tech can shut down dissident operations.

I'm not sure I have an answer, but I do think we need to be thinking very, very proactively about how to do that at this particular point in time.

We have, I believe, a first -time questioner, but I'm not 100 % sure. Johnny in Ocala, Florida.

Johnny asks, now this is a question that could get you and Jeff in a lot of trouble, but I'll have you both answer it.

Has the Orthodox Presbyterian Church been infiltrated with any of the sexual identity issues

I guess what he means by that is people affirming the LGBTQ community's definitions and so on and instructions and dictates.

I'm assuming that's what he means. I'll start with you, Dr. Truman. Care to answer that?

I'm not aware of that. Now Jeff is probably more in touch with what's going on on the ground of the

OPC than I am. I mean, to me, the revoice conference that has created such ripples in the

PCA, I'm not aware of it generating anything like that discussion within the

OPC. Now I don't do much online. I don't do Facebook, etc. I don't know what goes on in Facebook discussions.

I'm sure the OPC, we have our problems, but mercifully at this point in time, I don't think that's one of them.

Not that that should be any ground for complacency, but my heart bleeds for my friends in the

PCA who are having to address much more of this stuff. Jeff, what do you think?

Well, I was going to say the same thing. I would imagine that the pastors in the

OPC may be dealing with this issue on a pastoral level, if not with members who are claiming to be transgender.

They may have family members or friends who are. You know that the percentage of young people, teenagers, who claim to be transgender, of course, has risen,

I would say, I guess, dramatically, and I was expecting that to happen simply because it becomes the chic thing, the popular thing to be transgender.

We haven't brought up the issue yet, but one of the things that Carl deals with in the book is the victim, the rise of victims in our culture, and how minorities in this victim sense that lesbians and gays and then, of course, now transgender,

LGBTQ +, is the shorthand, that movement does build off of the idea of victimhood that they've been oppressed.

Now again, remember that oppression, as Carl has finally lined out in the book, doesn't have to take physical form, deprivation of property or being locked up in prison, per se.

It can be the oppression of a person's psyche, their emotions, and that's, of course, also what we see on college and university campuses around the world, especially here in the

United States. So I don't think in the

OPC we'll be free of these things. I'm just not aware of anything, and I couldn't point to a particular case and say, you know, we're dealing with it.

But I would imagine, given that it's such a force in the culture and within sister denominations like the

PCA, that these issues, we will be facing them squarely. Now Johnny has a question for Dr.

Truman, a second question that I think is an inside joke, perhaps. But he says, Dr. Truman, have you ever had a student that was as culturally hip,

HIP, as Charles Williams? No, Charles was an outstanding hipster.

Jeff knows him, so yeah, Charles was an outstanding hipster.

Maybe the coolest man I've ever met, after Jeff, that is. Well, Johnny in Ocala, Florida, give me your full mailing address, because you have also won a free copy of The Rise and Triumph of Modern Self, Compliments of Crossway, and CVBBS .com,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Make sure we have your full mailing address in Ocala, Florida. And if you are a first -time questioner, you'll also get a free

New American Standard Bible as well. So make sure that you give us your mailing address.

Jeff, I know that Dr. Truman has to leave shortly, so I'll give you the honors of asking him a final question.

Oh, okay. Oh, I know what I was thinking at the end of the book. Carl, are you anticipating doing a follow -up volume, or is this what, you know, you've said your piece on this?

Oh, there's two sort of follow -ups, actually. One, I'm just in the next month putting the final touches to a much shorter book that covers similar territory that I'm hoping will prove more useful to pastors, youth workers, people who don't have time to read 400 pages.

I felt I needed to do the footnoted version first, but there's going to be a more user -friendly, digestible version coming out hopefully next

February. The other projects I've taken on, actually, this is for Broadman and Holman, they want a book on the origins of critical theory, which might not quite be as equal to this, but I want to expand the critical theory section, not specifically to get at critical race theory, for example, but I want to set the broad context, historical context for the rising post -colonial and critical race theory issues that are also challenging the

Church at this point. So, there's going to be, not exactly a sequel, but a kind of parallel volume.

Thank you, Dr. Truman, for an excellent contribution to our program today.

Do you have, in a minute or so, before you leave, any summary of what you want most etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today?

I think a couple of things. One, I'd want people to realize what's happening, what's being played out in front of our eyes, is the result of long -standing historical changes.

And I think it's important to grasp that, and to realize there's no quick fix here. It's not a question of getting the right man elected to Congress, or the right person on the

Supreme Court. All of those things might be good things, but the deeper changes are going to take a lot longer, in terms of time, than around.

Secondly, that's not a cause for despair, and I think there are two real grounds for hope at this point.

One is that marginal communities tend to become strong communities, and tend to make a comeback.

And in a sense, the story of the LGBTQ movement is the story of a marginal community that became a strong community, and is now in a very powerful position within the culture.

So I think the Church should see its coming marginality as a real opportunity for being the

Church, and for being what it should be. And then the second ground for hope, of course, is the obvious one. We have the promises.

The gates of Hell are not going to prevail. We know how history ends. The Church is going to win. There is going to be the marriage feast of the

Lamb, and the Lamb's Bride. That may not mean that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church makes it to the end of time.

It may not mean that the United States as a nation makes it to the end of time. God doesn't need any of these things.

The promises to the Church in general, and that promise is still good. It doesn't matter how many transgender people get elected to Congress, for example.

The promise of God is still good. So I would say this is a time for lamentation, but it's not a time for despair.

It's a time for regrouping and for refocusing on the great promises. Amen. Well, Dr.

Truman, I hope that you can come back as a guest soon and often on the program, and hopefully next time for a longer portion of the two -hour show.

It's been a pleasure to be on, Chris and Jeff. Thanks very much for your time. Amen. God bless you, brother.

And we are going to be continuing this subject with our co -host,

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington. And if anybody else wants to join Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington with a question on this subject that we are continuing for the remaining 90 minutes, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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This is Phil Johnson reminding you that Christ is supreme over all. Hello, my name is

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website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpens Iron radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show at any time, day or night.

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnson has on the show.

Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

Iron Sharpens Iron radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Quorum, New York.

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, we were privileged with the presence of Dr.

Carl Truman on our program for the first half hour to discuss his new book,

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the

Road to Sexual Revolution. And we are continuing that subject with a mutual friend of Dr.

Truman's and mine, Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, who has been a guest on this program many times.

He is going to continue the same theme, having read the book, being thoroughly acquainted with it, and approving of Dr.

Truman's message in the book very highly. If you have a question of your own that you'd like to join us on the air with, give us an email or send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Give his first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Dr. Waddington, this issue, unfortunately, as was hinted at by a listener question, although he was incorrect about any apprehension, as far as your knowledge or Dr.

Truman's knowledge, about the LBGTQ agenda having been infiltrated as of this point into the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and I'm sure what he was referring to was actually in the leadership amongst those who are preachers and teachers and those that have a realm of authority there.

Thankfully, you both were unaware of that, but it is, as Dr. Truman just mentioned before he left, it has seeped into quite a significant degree in the

Presbyterian Church in America, the PCA, and of course, we have to be quick to remind our listeners that there are many, many fine, outstanding pastors and Christians in the

PCA, so we cannot indict the entire denomination for this.

But what would you say are some of the most dangerous aspects of this whole mindset that are being endorsed by otherwise conservative

Bible -believing Christians, even Reformed Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy and agree with us on many things, but on this issue, they're putting their own spin on it.

What would you say some of those issues and approaches to those issues are? Well, while it doesn't play a central role in Carl's book, he did indicate that he's working on one to come out in the future on critical theory, and it's interesting how all these things seem to be converging upon us all at one time, right?

So the LGBTQ plus community and its political clout, the critical theory and race relations, and critical theory is not just critical race theory, it's critical theory, critical law theory, etc.,

and it's all coming through the lens of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, the

Italian communist who was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini in Italy back in the 30s, 20s, and 30s.

These are all, as I said, what might appear to be arcane ideas are filtering down.

So, you know, sooner or later, a pastor or a Christian is going to have to face these issues.

You know, like the cake -baking issue, the taking photographs at weddings, these kinds of things,

I think, are becoming more common, not will become, but are becoming a more common issue.

Karl did make reference to his friend Rod Dreher's book, The Benedict Option, and, of course, that gives rise to discussions about how does the

Church and how do individual Christians respond to the culture in which we live, and that's a real challenge.

But I would say, what I mentioned earlier when I asked Dr. Truman the question about, you know, the psychologizing of the self, which it sounds almost redundant to say that, so that the

LGBTQ plus community, people involved in that, for them, their identity their identity is tied to their sexual orientation.

So that kind of, the Church is going to have to address some of the key issues that Dr.

Truman has raised in his book. Now, the book is not an apologetics book, and he does state his own views, and he does make comments throughout the text, and the footnotes, as to where he thinks things are awry.

However, it is a, what I would call a source book. It is a history and a description of the various tributaries that have fed into the into the river, if you want to call it that, of the ocean of the

LGBTQ community. And behind that, of course, is the modern, the rise and the triumph of the modern self.

So that the self is no longer constrained, either by social circumstances, who we're dependent upon, who we interact with, but the self is my emotions, what

I like and what I dislike, things like that. So there's, you've heard the expression, snowflake, is a description for the young people on university and college campuses who react to having conservative speakers, in particular, come to their university campus, and they have riots, and two things, in the

American context. In fact, can you bring up those two things when we come back from our midway break?

I can't believe the time just flew by so fast, but we have to go to our midway break. Please be patient with us.

It's a longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio and 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show, because they are required by the

FCC to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida, with their own public service announcements and other local announcements and things that they air during the midway break, while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

Please be patient with us. Use this time to write down the information that our advertisers provide, so that you can respond to those advertisers, and also write down questions for Jeff Waddington, who, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, after these messages from our sponsors.

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. My friend, Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia, once again for the

G3 Conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th, through Saturday, October 2nd, on the theme,

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Solid -Ground -Books .com. Before I return to my discussion with Dr.

Jeffrey C. Waddington, I just have a couple of announcements to make. First of all, you've been hearing the ads for the

G3 conference coming up in Atlanta, Georgia, September 30th through October 2nd.

And I am so excited about going there again. This will be my fourth year in a row attending the

G3 conference, where I'll be manning another Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitors booth, which has always proved to be a phenomenal experience for me personally and for my program.

But I do want you to pray specifically for one of the speakers on the roster, who you hear being announced every day.

That's Dr. Voti Baucom. Voti Baucom, as many of you have heard, especially if you love and admire him and gain much from his ministry,

Voti has had serious heart problems, as well as other health problems, but he is going to now require bypass surgery.

He is here in the United States. For that, he left his new home in Zambia, Africa, to return to the

United States to have his health needs attended to. So please pray for this dear brother and the surgeons that are going to be operating on him, and also just for all of those health care workers who will be caring for him at this time.

He will be with his family as well. I know that my guest, Dr. Jeff Waddington, greatly admires

Voti Baucom as well, don't you, brother? I do. Yes, I do. In fact, I had the privilege of seeing him at Lancaster Bible College a few months back.

He's one of those voices in the church who is speaking to some of these issues that we're talking about in this episode.

He definitely needs your prayers, because we want to see him continue to do his work, both in Africa and here in the

United States as well. Amen. Please pray for Voti Baucom and his family.

Also, folks, if you love this show, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves.

Please, I'm urging you, now more than ever before, to go to ironsharpensirenradio .com,

click support, then click click to donate now. You can donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion, and you can also, if you prefer snail mail, if you prefer the old -fashioned way of postal service, which has been of late a nightmare, by the way, taking much, much, much, much, much, much longer to get things into my mailbox than they normally would have because of this coronavirus pandemic hysteria.

But if you prefer that, a physical address will appear on your screen where you can mail a check made out to ironsharpensirenradio when you click support at ironsharpensirenradio .com.

Also, if you want to advertise with us, please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line as long as whatever it is you desire to promote is compatible with what

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I believe, and send me that email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line.

Last but not least, folks, I hope that none of you are siphoning money away from your regular giving to your own local church where you are a member in order to give to Ironsharpensirenradio.

Please don't, in other words, punish your own church financially by blessing us financially. As much as we need your money, we don't want you doing that, and we don't want you also putting yourself in further financial peril if you're really struggling to survive and make ends meet.

Those two things are commands of Scripture, providing for your church and providing for your family.

Providing for my show is not, obviously, a command of Scripture, but if you do love the show and you have been blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money that you have in savings, you have extra money that you use for recreational purposes, trivial purposes, pocket money, please help us with some of that money if, indeed, you love the show and don't want us to disappear.

We are in bad shape right now financially, worse than we have been in months.

I know that my appeals to you for financial help are always urgent. This is even more urgent.

We don't know where our money is coming from for our May rent yet.

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So we are in one of those positions again where things are looking scary, and I have to remind myself that Jesus Christ said, ìBe anxious for nothing .î

But I can tell you that these are scary times. So please help us if you love the show. Go to www .IanSherpinsIanRadio

.com, click support, then click, click to donate. Now donate as frequently as you can and as generously as you can.

I thank all of you who have been doing that, not only those of you who have been doing it for months, even years, going back to when we first launched in 2005, but also those who are new time or first time contributors.

I thank all of you from the depths of my heart. And if you have never given before but love the show, please search your heart, search your bank account, and if you can bless us financially and you want us to stick around, please do it at www .IanSherpinsIanRadio

.com, click support, then click, click to donate now. Also folks, I want you to be aware if you are without a church home,

I have lists, I have biblical, I have lists, extensive lists of biblically faithful churches all over the planet earth.

And I can help you find a church possibly, very likely, I can help you find a church near where you live, no matter where on the globe you live.

I have helped people all over the planet earth find churches, sometimes even within a minute's drive from their own home, that they didn't know existed, or they didn't know were biblically sound churches, even though they pass them every day.

So I'm asking you folks to please, if you are without a biblically sound church home, send me an email to chrisharnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line, chrisharnson at gmail .com, I need a church in the subject line.

It's also the email address where you could send in a question for my guest today for the remaining 90 minutes of the show,

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, and he is the pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Thorn Grove, Pennsylvania, author, conference speaker, vice president of the board of directors for the

Reform Forum, and articles editor for the Confessional Presbyterian Journal. We are continuing our discussion on Dr.

Carl Truman's book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the

Road to Sexual Evolution. Dr. Truman, if you just tuned us in, Dr. Truman was on with us for the first 30 minutes, but he had other previous engagements that he had to take care of.

So now we have Dr. Waddington, a friend of his and mine, who is thoroughly knowledgeable of the contents of this book, carrying on a conversation on the theme.

And right before the break, the midway break, Dr. Waddington, you were about to address two critical aspects to the snowflake generation, and those folks,

I'd be shocked if you didn't hear that term, if you watch TV and listen to the radio and around the internet at all, if you not heard that term, that is basically a pejorative term,

I think an accurate description of some of these activists who act like delicate little snowflakes and act as if their skin is so thin that they can barely tolerate the slightest offense in words spoken by those who disagree with their worldview and ideology.

And to tell you the truth, Dr. Waddington, I don't believe 99 .99999 % of these people that claim they are offended are offended at all.

That's just a way to bolster up their image of being victims. Yes, that's of course a very strong possibility.

And related to that, now Dr. Truman does actually address the use of that expression, snowflake, so it's probably a little too pejorative in the sense that there are deep issues, the emotivist, expressivist mentality of our day, and of course he points out that we, all of us to a certain extent, share that insofar as we're not yet completely sanctified.

It's the world we inhabit. But the two issues that actually relate to that phenomenon of the so -called snowflake phenomenon, the lack of ability to hear alternative viewpoints, some of what's happening is what has been the case on university and college campuses for quite some time has now, is now spilling out into the wider culture and infiltrating politics.

So two things here in the United States at least that are, that will be and are and will be suffering as a result of that, the rise of erotic freedom.

I think that's the expression that Dr. Al Mohler, president of Seventh Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he points out that the

First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion will be steamrolled by erotic freedom.

And of course, he often points back to the 2015

Supreme Court decision of Obergefell versus Hodges, where it was discovered, lo and behold, like a rabbit pulled out of a magician's top hat, that the

Constitution actually recognized the right to gay marriage. So those two,

I would say bedrock freedoms, which remember are not granted by the

Constitution. They are recognized by the Constitution as two rights that the government is to uphold and protect.

And yet we live in a world where that is, seems to be falling by the wayside rather quickly.

And we've already mentioned in passing, of course, the rapidity with which our culture is going down the drain.

How long will this last? Well, only the Lord knows. Will there be a reprieve?

Will the rise and triumph of the modern

South, will that be the undoing of the United States and other nations around, especially the

Western world? That's a good question. And I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, and I don't make a profit.

So I wouldn't want to hazard a guess. But if you were asking me, what do

I suspect? Well, the bad case would be that our culture will crash and burn.

And that may be what it would take to reverse what Dr. Truman describes so well in the book.

So those are two, and of course, these are rights granted by God, and therefore they're not limited to Americans, but they're two rights that our

Constitution does safeguard. And so we want to, and of course, you know, these do impinge upon the right of the

Church to gather. Because remember, one of the First Amendment rights is the freedom to assemble.

And so we want to be on the lookout for the right for the

Church to be the Church, to gather for worship, to proclaim the gospel in its fullness.

We want to be able to witness to that out in the world, not just inside the four walls of our

Church. So those would be two things that appear to be getting forsaken in our culture.

They're no longer held in high regard. As you can imagine, if you don't, if you embrace or embody, that's an odd word to use, if you exemplify this emotivist, expressivist self, and that means that I'm, if I'm not allowed to be what

I think I am or feel that I am, that I'm being oppressed, and the mere expression of alternative viewpoints is a form of oppression.

And remember, that's a key element in this whole thing, is that oppression is not merely the physical thing where you're thrown in jail or you're physically harmed, but if you are emotionally set upon, and anybody that expresses a viewpoint different than yours is therefore an oppressor by definition.

And you can see how that would not mesh well with freedom of speech and freedom of religion, because, of course, part of the preaching of the gospel is to have to share the bad news before we can share the good news about grace in Christ.

We have an anonymous listener who says,

I'm having conflict with people in my own congregation over an issue that has seemed to grown wild in the

PCA and other formerly pristine denominations and fellowships.

That is the acceptance of people who, in their thought and desires, label themselves as gay or homosexual, and they think that this is acceptable as a

Bible -believing Christian because they remain chaste and do not consummate these thoughts and desires in physical activity.

But this is really just as sinful in some cases as allowing yourself to physically participate, is it not?

After all, Jesus said, even if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery already, so why would it be any different for a homosexual?

That is correct, and that's getting into a debate, I think, that arose in the context of the

ReVoice conference that was already mentioned by Dr. Truman, and that is that there are certain fairly well -known authors who try to argue that gay or homosexual or lesbian or transgender emotions or affections or inclinations are not sinful in themselves, and I think the scriptures make it clear, as the questioner points out, that any desire that would, if followed through, end in sin is itself sinful, just as we have righteous and holy desires that result in worship and obedience to Christ's Word.

So it is not the case, and here I stand with those who will argue that, and some of this, of course, comes from my own studies of Jonathan Edwards, who would say that your affections are either good or they are wicked, and a homosexual or lesbian or transgender desire is, by definition, sin.

So it's one thing just to recognize that some Christians wrestle with same -sex attraction.

It's quite another to tell them that that attraction is okay, because it's not, any more than any other sinful attraction or affection is good.

Now, one of the things about that, and I have to be very careful how I phrase my words so I'm not misunderstood, it bothers me when many conservative

Bible -believing Christians, even those that would agree with us on most matters involving theology, it bothers me when the inappropriate sexual desire for somebody of the opposite sex is totally made equivalent to a same -sex desire or lust.

Well, they both may be sinful when you're actually desiring someone of the opposite sex that is not your spouse, or you're desiring them and intend to marry them, but you don't let your thoughts travel into lust and sexual sin.

Obviously, there's an attraction that occurs to people, with people, among people that become engaged and become married.

But the homosexual version of that is never a good thing, and it is an unnatural sign of something more deeply evil going on.

That's correct, Chris, and you're actually touching upon a point that is part of that earlier conversation about are homosexual inclinations in themselves sinful, and that is that there is no...

one argument has been made that a Christian who struggles with same -sex attractions ought to have an aesthetic sensibility that can be beneficial.

And this actually gets into one of the elements that Dr. Truman deals with. One of the things that, and we all see this, and that is our aesthetic sensibilities, things regarding beauty, what we consider to be beautiful, that also rules and reigns in our culture.

So that's tied in with the emotivist, expressivist self. In other words, what

I happen to think is beautiful, you must agree with me that that is beautiful, and you must celebrate my belief.

Right? We see that. Yeah, it is the case that homosexual desires, lesbian desires, and there's a whole discussion in Dr.

Truman's book in how lesbians don't always like to be lumped in with male homosexuals for various and sundry reasons that actually make some sense.

But the whole idea that there's an equation between sexual attraction of a heterosexual kind and sexual attraction of a homosexual kind, they're not equal.

Right, because it is not heterosexual attraction as long as it's not abused and misused.

Right. It is a gift of God, isn't it? Correct. Yes, you're dealing with something that is according to nature, to use the language of the apostle

Paul in Romans, right? And then the other is not according to nature, according to Romans chapter one in particular, where he gives homosexuality and lesbianism as examples of God's judgment.

And we talked about that in our series on Romans, that what we're seeing in this country and in other countries around the world, not just the

Western world, but around the world quite literally, we're seeing we are being engulfed in a culture that is glorifying what is in fact sinful, and that this is an indication that God's judgment may already be resting upon us.

Not only does homosexual and lesbian and transgender affections not only do these things bring about God's judgment, but they are also an indication of God's judgment, which is, you know, it sheds a slightly different light on the whole question.

But yeah, definitely these are not the heterosexual attraction isn't sinful in and of itself.

It can become sinful, because as you've said, but through lust and the like, but it isn't in itself sinful, whereas homosexual, lesbian, transgender attraction is, by definition, sinful.

And it's an abomination, is it not, that we have men and women,

I think I predominantly heard this from men, who are even theologically on the money with other matters of faith and scripture, who will actually identify themselves as gay celibate

Christians. Yes, there are a few writers out there who would fit the bill.

Now, isn't that a denial of God's power to transform and rescue?

Ultimately, yeah, because they're saying that this is not something that can ever be changed in this life.

But they're also, Satan, of course, is very sneaky and sin can weasel its way.

The roots of sin can grow long and deep in anything, almost any human thing, act, thought, or word.

And we see this with the whole idea of this aesthetic sense that the gay man or the lesbian woman may have, that heterosexuals just can't participate in, can't identify with.

And, of course, that lands you right into that whole thing of standpoint epistemology, which is connected with critical theory and the whole social justice or woke movement.

So all of that is related. You know, all of these things have separate histories, but they've suddenly, or not suddenly, over time they've converged.

One of the benefits of Dr. Truman's book is that we discover that this storm has been a three, four hundred years in the making.

If you use, well actually it goes back to the Garden of Eden, but in recent history, going back to Rousseau, the

French, or the Swiss philosopher who argued that it is culture that paints an individual human being.

Human beings are by nature good, and in the state of nature, whatever that was or is, we are good and we're corrupted by culture.

It begs the question, well where in the joined together of various individual people does this so -called cultural corruption arise?

That's a question I suppose for another day. So yeah, we are being hit on every side, the churches,

Christians are, in the culture. And so that calls for, you know, extra prayer on our part to maintain our sanctification.

And you know, we have to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves, which of course is impossible in ourselves, but everything is possible with our

Lord. And so that is to say, and there's also the whole question of why would you go around identifying yourself as a gay

Christian? I mean, do those who struggle with overeating, do they call themselves obese

Christians? Do you have those who struggle with stealing? Do you say,

I'm a thief Christian? No, we don't do that because those are the things we are to put off.

Those are the things we are to put to death. Those ought not to be the things by which we describe ourselves, which is what's happening in this movement.

And of course a lot of it is complicated by the cultural moment in which we live.

And of course we could wish we lived in a different age. We might want to wish ourselves back to the days of Leavitt to Beaver, and that a father knew his best, but that isn't the time period that we are living in.

And God has his reasons for placing us in this particular place in time.

I'm going to read a question to you before we go to our final break, and I'll have you answer the question when you return.

We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, who asks,

I recall some previous interviews with you, Dr. Waddington on Iron Trump and Zion Radio, where you had mentioned that you were formerly in the

Salvation Army denomination, which ordains women? My question is, historically, have denominations that have made it an official policy to ordain women into the ministry always subsequently fallen into viewing homosexuality in a favorable or at least a tolerable manner, since the hermeneutic seems to be very identical?

We'll have you answer that, Dr. Waddington, when we come back from the break. This is our final break, and it will be a lot faster than the others.

If you intend to send in a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after these messages. Radio and I are frequently blessed to share great times of fellowship with one another at conferences all over the

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That's linbrookbaptist .org. Hello, Dr. Waddington. So, our listener in eastern

Suffolk County, Ronald, wanted to know from your experience formerly being involved in ministry in the

Salvation Army, has their hermeneutic that permitted them to ordain women into ministry at all made them subsequently make the same allowance for homosexuality?

And to your knowledge, is that atypical or is it always the result of that hermeneutic of allowing women into ministry?

Well, that's a very perceptive question I wanted to note at the start.

I haven't done a scientific study on this issue, but from my own experience,

I've not kept up with the positions taken by the

Salvation Army on this issue. But I suspect that the...

I know that the hermeneutic to allow for female ordination is basically the same hermeneutic that would allow for the ordination of practicing homosexuals.

So, that could be a serious problem. I don't know of any, personally, of any instances where that has happened in the

Salvation Army, but it would be a concern of mine. Years ago,

I was involved with a church planting Bible study for the OPC, and all of the people who were involved in that had come from mainline churches where the gay question, gay ordination, was a roiling issue.

And I mentioned that, but all of them had no problem with female ordination.

And I said, you know, it's the same logic. It's the same interpreted principle that allows for one as allows for the other.

And they weren't too happy with me when I pointed that out. As you might imagine.

Yeah, well, there are, we have to admit very quickly, that there are still conservative

Bible -believing denominations and churches that ordain women that still oppose all forms of sexual perversion and sex outside of monogamous.

I guarantee, we're just saying that if they were going to allow their critical principles to go to their logical conclusion, they would have to accept the one with the other.

Right. I know that here in Pennsylvania, a very prominent denomination is the

Church of God General Assembly, which is based in Findlay, Ohio. They are basically, for lack of a better term or lack of a better description,

Wesleyan Baptists. And they ordain women, but they are still very opposed to homosexuality and all forms of sex outside of a monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.

And there are also, obviously, Pentecostal groups that ordain women and still oppose homosexuality.

And even in our circles, the Associate Reform Presbyterian Church would be one that ordains women.

We would be opposed to that very much, but they are still opposing homosexuality as well with just as much fervency as we do.

In fact, Sinclair Ferguson was a pastor in that denomination when he was still in the United States. Right.

So, yeah, I mean, it's not a guarantee that approving of female ordination will lead them.

It's just we're pointing out that the logic, that the principles of reading

God's Word in the one case are virtually the same as in the other, because you're disregarding what is clear teaching of God's Word.

In one case, you can just as easily disregard the teaching of God's Word in another case.

We have Grady, a very loyal listener and financial supporter of this program in Asheboro, North Carolina, who says, if the current

United States administration passes the Equality Act, do you see those of us that proclaim the gospel being imprisoned?

And does Dr. Truman cover this in his book? Not directly, no.

To answer your question, I can't see how it would be otherwise if the

Equality Act is passed and made law, because there's no way we could be biblical and satisfy that law.

The law is available online, and people can go to the bill, I should say, is online, the act, and you can go look at it.

It doesn't make for exciting reading. What it's doing is taking

Title IX of the Civil Rights Act and adding gender discrimination as one of the protected classes, those who have been discriminated against, so the

LGBTQ plus movement. By the way, I have to quickly interject here that the

Associate Reform Presbyterian Church in Canada does not, thankfully, ordain women as the

United States wing of that denomination does. Interesting. Okay, so there's a difference on the two sides.

So, yeah, the Equality Act is bad news for biblical Christians all around, but as Dr.

Truman reminded us, God's promises to his church is that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And so, at the end of the day, we know how the story ends. That doesn't mean that experiencing the individual chapters will be particularly enjoyable, but if that does become law, you can bet your bottom dollar that there'll be a thinning of the ranks.

And we're out of time, brother, and I want to make sure our listeners have your website. It's FAITH, O -P -C dot net,

F -A -I -T -H, O -P -C dot net, and for those of my listeners interested in the

Reformed Forum, go to reformedforum .org, reformedforum .org.

Thank you so much, Dr. Waddington, for being such a superb guest, and shout out again to our first guest,

Dr. Carl Truman. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater