Dangerous Affirmation with M.D. Perkins: Part II

I think where they want to hide is in this appreciation for beauty.

Yeah. I almost get that sense and when they're talking about attraction or orientation that there's an appreciation they have for the male form or something if they're male.

Right. And that doesn't have to lead into anything sexual. But the problem with that in my mind is that they make the jump in like a thousand different ways in their movement from it's like you gave the example of the heart skipping a beat or whatever.

I mean but they there's whole talks on queer culture and and being married to someone who's in a heterosexual relationship being married in that but still identifying friendships.

Right. And it's to me I'm like you're not Leonardo da Vinci appreciating the male form at that point you're you're saying something a little more than that.

You're signaling that it's not just an appreciation but a you want to be with them.

And that's where that's where something I think can be right in heterosexual sense and wrong when it's something you say coveting is something

God forbid. So I think of it that way where it it can be right if you're pursuing someone for the purpose of marriage to have to appreciate them but also have this sort of inclination towards you know one day if things go well that you're going to there's going to be a fulfillment of that relationship.

And I mean this is you can't really have a romantic relationship without that there has to be some kind of I mean what are you doing if you're dating and you're not you don't want to pursue that somewhere down the line.

You're just you're wasting time. So I think there is this sort of foreshadowing or this this anticipation of something that is to come that God intended for good purposes in a rightly ordained relationship.

And they want to take that whatever that is. And I don't know if I can fully quantify that because love is and I mean even

Paul talks about that there's a mystery Christ in the church and the marriage relationship.

And there's there's so much of the mystery there it's we can put some words to it but I find it difficult to get into the fully the weeds on that.

But yeah I think but that's where they want that's that that's the box they want to bring out to say I have the same thing it's just towards inclined towards men and that's

OK. And it's like well you know that's not OK right. And what you're getting at I think is worth noting is the way that they see homosexual desire and heterosexual desire is basically equivalent in the fact that they're both sinful right.

You know that they're you know if you like Johnson says that yeah yeah. But you know

Paul in Romans 1 you know for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchange natural relations to those that are contrary to nature.

Now is homosexuality breaking God's law. It absolutely is. But the reference that Paul makes in Romans 1 is to it being against nature that it's unnatural.

And so there is kind of a further degradation of of even how God made us.

And that's why homosexuality is even used in Romans 1 as a recognition of just how far mankind can slide in its rejection of God to where even the women and the men exchange these natural relations.

You know you look all through the through the world you know and the common theme is men and women together and then they they have children and then they they procreate and make the human race and procreate society.

But even in the animal kingdom you know there's not you know homosexuality when people have.

I mean that's a whole separate discussion but people have tried to claim that you know there's these homosexual tendencies within certain certain animals in the animal kingdom which is always the creatures are always under duress and it's never kind of this natural thing that is happening and in normal you know situations.

But I don't know when we start taking our cues from the animal kingdom maybe we should eat zebras it's weird.

But you know when you refuse to acknowledge the unnatural character of homosexuality and you just treat it as kind of it's just another sin like we all struggle with sin and so it's just this other thing and then you treat it as something that that isn't a natural and that isn't in itself sinful even by its desire you know because you can always relate it to the covetousness idea you know in a in a male female relationship when a when a man is pursuing a woman and he has desires for and even sexual desires begin to emerge you know is that always sinful in itself.

I mean you know you'd have to you'd have to examine the heart in that situation and only the Lord knows but well they're seeing that relationship is not a natural though.

But there seems to be okay so like this might be a good example of it like when a daughter even is dressed in a certain way and she asked her mom like is this okay for me to go out like this and sometimes mothers will go ask her father you know and you know oftentimes mothers know enough that they can give advice there but I've heard this before where they'll say go ask your dad and then that she's got to pass the test with dad why is that it's not because the dad is sexually attracted to his own daughter right that's that's nonsense it's because the dad is wired in a certain way to detect where he can he notices the female form in a different way than a female notices the female form right and that's that's something that just seems to be in nature that got infused that ability or that that detection mechanism in men the same as in women women notice things men don't notice that tend they tend to I'm saying these are broad tendencies right and that is very

I think there's something mysterious about that to some extent but it's there is something beautiful about it

I think there's a way that even if you look at like older literature like if you look at Victorian era novels or even

I'm thinking of like even American novels from like the 1800s I've noticed sometimes there is kind of like these social mores that exist whereby men can compliment women and treat them in a very different way than they would treat men and it's not it's not viewed as sexual it's viewed as respectful as honorable but there's something there even in dancing and sometimes even married men you know older married men can compliment younger women in certain ways and it wasn't viewed as creepy whereas today it probably would be because everything's sexualized right and in that I it seems like that's constantly where where I see revoiced type advocates going where they want to just say that they have that same mechanism in them only it's for men and if they're male or female it's for women we have this mechanism that notices beauty and and knows kind of if I were to allow my heart to go farther

I there could be a potential temptation that might arise so it's so humble it's so like pre lust in their mind but it's clearly not because if it was that innocuous they wouldn't be having conferences about it it wouldn't be they wouldn't be making the analogies like the you just referenced and so there's a bait -and -switch it seems to me where they they want to claim something that's so I don't know just it's it's not regressive it's so just non -threatening but actually that when you get into the weeds and what they're actually saying it is lust it is something that's threatening it is and even you know best case scenario let's say they don't do that bait -and -switch they just say at the front end we just kind of notice the male form or something like that it's not in a scientific way and there there is something there that there is something

God wired men to just notice women more I mean isn't that why Job said that he even had to make a covenant with his eyes because he couldn't handle that not to behold the virgin not even to look and sometimes that is what

I think you have to do but it's like the goal should be to reach that that God's design to get to a place where if you're a male where you are noticing women in those not men in those ways but your attraction or your inclination would be more towards women so it's not a

Freudian like you know sexual orientation concept it's just it's because that's not rooted in creation but it's rooted in creation that there's a a certain way that you view women you interact with women and it doesn't have to be sexual

I have such a hard time articulating this which is why I'm using so many words to do it but that's what

I think you started to penetrate this a little bit in your book you you started to get to that point of recognizing that the

SSA revoice stuff is making this kind of bait -and -switch distinction and more work

I think just probably should be done on it in in other books or but but you're doing the pioneer work here which is why

I'm talking to you about it I mean so so what do you think about what I just articulated however however

I did it maybe not so of an articulate way but do you see what I'm trying to get at yeah for sure yeah yeah and part of what you're getting at is something that actually has been articulated by guys like Nate Collins and Gregory Coles where you know

Gregory Coles in his book Single Gay Christian which was sadly endorsed by D .A. Carson you know it's basically a memoir but he has this portion in it where he he pontificates you know and just kind of thinks out loud so to speak about like well what if God did make me as a eunuch you know and that that category of eunuch kind of gets immediately co -opted by anybody who has wants to be identified within the

LGBT kind of spectrum as a biblical word that you know suddenly you know they can take and run with but you know what if God did design me this way you know he's just he's not saying that God did you know so he's still got plausible deniability but he's just kind of thinking out loud and he doesn't really know how to think about it you know but maybe

God did design him you know to to be single and to desire you know things in a certain way and Nate Collins goes so far as to you know basically give a philosophical concept to this whole thing that he calls aesthetic orientation and I talk about that some in the book you know basically what you're getting at this idea that God hardwired us for beauty and to enjoy certain aesthetics and so in that way you know he's almost acknowledging that maybe

God did make him gay but just you know the fall is what took that initial you know aesthetic orientation that he had to recognize the beauty of maleness whatever that means in his mind and then the fall comes in and then takes that and kind of co -ops it to where now it has the sexual bent to it which is wrong but you know in its purest form it's just this appreciation of of the male form and maleness and male beauty and and and whatever and I honestly

I think some of that was created by wishy -washy evangelical discussion of not necessarily of sexuality but just of creation in general you know

I just actually did a Sunday school class on the image of God at my church and you know it's funny how you know there's a

Paul David Tripp book where he he makes the claim that that the image of God isn't defined by scripture it's described by scripture you know

I'm just like no I mean it's it's defined by the Bible you know but like part of what he means by that is he wants to embrace this kind of I you know anything that separates us from the animals basically so becomes an aspect of the image of God so whether it's creativity or relationships and community or you know all of these different things and so you know when when evangelicals can sometimes use really kind of just wishy -washy language that they think is is really more sentimental honestly than it is anything else you know that that we just have this this desire for glory or we just have this desire for relationship or we just have this desire for community and that's how

God made us and if that's all that you really say about it and then you hold that up as somehow the image of God then it makes arguments like the ones that Revoice is posing like a lot more plausible because now you already have an unclear and uncertain definition of what that even means and so it's real easy to take that very generic sentimental idea and feel like whatever you like in life is what makes you made in the image of God and so then you can kind of take that and use it in these in these other settings

I don't know I might have gone off track there so you like green you like blue you like yellow and and it's but the

Bible says you can't like totally live out completely your love for yellow so we have to like put a stop sign there at a certain point but you're still somehow wired to like yellow so it puts into this aesthetic realm that's interesting so there's a lot of movement in that area basically because honestly just because people like art and pop culture and you know so they tend to speak poetically about these things rather than concretely and clearly and so even with just the pithy kind of you know twitter statements and things like that that almost feel like fortune cookie morality um

Tim Keller yeah I was trying not to use his name but I'll say it yeah I mean he does that thing

I mean you you're talking about the trinity as an orgy I mean Tim Keller talks about it as a divine dance whatever that is like it's it's very strange well that's that's where some of these lines get real blurry because like you can see how you could get on the on the worst possible and I mean

Keller would totally reject the idea of trinity as orgy obviously right right but when you talk about the trinity as a dance you're kind of opening up that door a little bit and the latch has been unlocked and you're kind of just wedging it open a little bit with this poetic notion so then you know you can fill it with kind of whatever because it's not very clear you know so that's that's unfortunate that so many you know and I maybe guys have done this in a well -meaning way you know where they're just trying to and but some of it is just like filler they're just trying to like fill up you know the the twitter feed or keep new books coming and so they right throw out ideas that are really half cooked and really have no business belonging to the general public yeah

I mean to speak concretely would just to say I think be to say that God has creation norms that he's established and that people fall into these and if there's and we are sinners so if you don't fall into it and in a perfect way so that you're completely your desires are completely aligned up with his design for you then you the

Christian wants to make sure those things are aligned and so that's where spiritual disciplines come in and accountability and prayer and just all the tools that God's given us and that seems to be the common sense concept that we've had for thousands of years yeah can

I illustrate this point yeah please do please real quickly so there's there was a a tweet that a guy named

David Bennett you know he's a side b proponent in the in the UK so he's he's not

American but he's he's been involved some with living out which is Sam Mulberry's thing over in the UK and all all the side b revoiced guys kind of retweet him and like him but he had this this statement you know this was from September 14th just a few days ago he said