The Problem with Revoice Theology

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the

00:14

Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris, and with me is a special guest,

00:19

MD Perkins, who is a film producer, a research fellow of church and culture with the

00:27

American Family Association. And some of the movies he's produced, you can find there. One of them, though,

00:32

In His Image, which is really related to our discussion today, you can find it in his image .movie.

00:39

It's about, well, it's related to homosexuality and Christianity and how those two things relate to one another.

00:46

MD is a PCA elder, and you can find the document we're going to be talking about today that MD has prepared, which is just great, at afa .net

00:54

forward slash a little 11. So welcome to the first time you've been on the

01:00

Conversations That Matter program, MD. Yeah, thank you, John. Glad to be with you. So let's jump into it.

01:07

I want to ask you, why tackle this issue of revoiced theology, Christianity and homosexuality?

01:15

Because you're not just talking about in this document that we're going to be talking about more today. You're not just referring to homosexuality as we understand it in the world and the action associated with that.

01:26

You drive down deeper into motivations and temptation and all these kinds of things.

01:33

And you take on people, right? We're talking about PCA, your PCA elder, you're taking on people in a sense who are in the

01:42

PCA, as well as I'm sure other conservative denominations who would affirm the same kind of faith statement.

01:48

So why take them on? Why do this? So the story behind a little 11 really relates to being a producer on the documentary in his image.

02:00

So I was a producer on that, working with the director, lots of research. It was a big project.

02:06

We were trying to deal with people's testimonies. We were trying to deal with some of the cultural elements. We were trying to deal with the theological elements, how this has come into the culture, how this has come into the church.

02:16

And so that question of how did this come into the church was one that was really needed some more research behind it.

02:23

Because this whole concept and this language of revoice was something that kept coming up.

02:28

People kept mentioning it. And to be honest, I mean, this was like, so we started the production on this documentary in 2018, kind of as revoice stuff is happening.

02:39

The first revoice conference was in July of 2018. And so the question of what is this?

02:47

What is revoice? What is it saying? What is it arguing for? And so in January of 2019,

02:54

I really started to dig down into study and try and understand what is all this about? I mean, is there any legitimacy to what they're claiming?

03:02

Because I didn't come into it initially just to dismiss it or critique it. I came in initially just to try and understand what the arguments were.

03:10

Because for people who don't know, revoice was a conference that was held at a

03:15

PCA church in St. Louis, Missouri, Memorial Presbyterian Church. It's a historic church there in St.

03:23

Louis. And St. Louis is also the city where Covenant Theological Seminary is, which is the only seminary that the

03:31

PCA has direct control or ownership of. So that's a major symbolic kind of gesture for a

03:40

PCA church in St. Louis to host an event. So all of those things are significant. So then to begin to look into it and try and understand what was actually being argued.

03:52

Well, the things that were being said were slightly different from the gay affirming stuff that we've heard from the mainline churches.

04:00

The gay affirming stuff is that it's okay to be gay, that God made you this way, that you can embrace a gay marriage, you can do all this stuff.

04:10

It doesn't matter because God blesses all of it. And then they take certain scriptures if they want to kind of lean in, like a guy named

04:19

Matthew Vines does, God and the Gay Christian, a book from, I think, 2015, makes a lot of these kind of very popular arguments that, you know, that Sodom and Gomorrah is not really a story against homosexuality.

04:32

It's really against hospitality because of Ezekiel 16 and, you know, things like Paul didn't understand homosexuality the way that we know it now, and he didn't know about these committed relationships.

04:44

That's the whole affirming argument. That's different than what this Revoice group was saying. They were saying that the

04:51

Bible is correct in what it says about homosexuality and that the traditional historic orthodox position is accurate.

04:59

And they were saying that you should not seek out gay relationships and that gay people should not marry as part of being in the church.

05:10

But what they were also saying were some things that were very confusing about this whole concept of orientation and same -sex attraction.

05:22

And these words started to come out, and I was trying to understand and decipher between was there a difference between orientation and same -sex attraction?

05:32

Are those distinct ideas or are they synonyms? And so, because basically the whole

05:41

Revoice argument, just to give it to you in a nutshell, is basically that the church, the conservative church, has treated gay people poorly.

05:49

They have not been as kind as they should have been. They are full of homophobia and bigotry, and they are pushing things like, you know, orientation change and conversion therapy.

06:04

And really, we know now that those things don't work, that a person is just born gay somehow.

06:11

It might be a reflection of original sin, but there's nothing really inherently sinful with the attractions.

06:17

It's just acting on them in the behavior as in sexual intercourse between men or between women.

06:24

And so, that's where the real sin is, and then maybe lustful fantasizing, directly fantasizing about that behavior is also wrong, but just the natural attraction is not wrong.

06:37

And so, that's what their argument was, and that's what they were starting to promote in these other contexts.

06:43

And so, that's why I felt like there was a real need to really dig in and try and understand what was going on.

06:49

I want to go into that, you know, is that wrong? Is that right? I want to ask a question first, because in discussions about this, often,

06:58

I perceive at least, and I would assume that often, there's a lot of confusion about what these

07:06

Side B or, you know, Revoice Theology kind of Christians, what they actually advocate.

07:12

So, one person might say, no, they're completely biblically orthodox, and there's no problem here.

07:19

They're mortifying the flesh and all of that. They just, they happen to have these attractions. Why is that a big deal, right?

07:25

And then, someone else might even go overboard and just be like, well, no, this is

07:31

Christian homosexuality, full -fledged, you're advocating homosexuality. And I can see why someone would do that, and maybe you can comment on this, because I've read, like Greg Coles, I think, has spoken at Revoice, right?

07:45

So, read his book. At the end of his book, A Single Great Christian, he says the whole time, he kind of advocates the position you just described, and then he's like, well, you know, there's

07:54

Christians who get married in gay weddings and participate in gay sexual activity, and who am

08:03

I to say that they are not Christians? I mean, that's something that Christians have disagreed on far deeper things, like Calvinism and Arminianism, so therefore, this isn't as big of a deal.

08:14

So, it's sort of like downplaying biblical ethics on sexuality. Karen Swallow -Pryor is another one who,

08:20

I read her book, or part of it, Engaging Culture, and she has a section where Matthew Vines writes a chapter, and Matthew Vines advocates for actual sexual activity between homosexuals.

08:34

But Karen Swallow -Pryor says in the introduction of the book, all the Christians in this book, including Matthew Vines, are orthodox.

08:40

And so, I can sort of understand why people think that they can't make the distinction between revoice and then just, could you speak to that first, and just, is there a slippery slope there?

08:52

Like, do the revoice conferences end up slipping right into homosexuality? Like, is this an untenable, unstable position that they're taking, in your opinion, where it'll just end up going right into that?

09:03

Yeah, I mean, that's the whole appeal of the Side B revoice ideology, is that it sounds like it's this middle ground between this kind of strident orthodoxy in the past that wasn't as loving as it should have been, and then this full -on gay affirming things.

09:21

This is right there in the middle, and it says, oh, we have the orthodoxy, but we also have a posture of love and acceptance and, you know, within the right bounds, affirmation, and we want people to feel loved and accepted within our church, but we're not condoning everything, but we're just—this is the missional posture that we need.

09:42

That kind of language gets used frequently. You know, in terms of whether it's a slippery slope,

09:49

I think it absolutely is a slippery slope. I've already seen it in the research of some of the people who were connected with not the leaders of the revoice movement, necessarily.

10:01

They haven't come out as becoming gay affirming or Side A, but several of the people,

10:07

I mean, some of the people who used to hashtag being at the first or second revoice conference have now gone full -on

10:14

Side A, and they're in homosexual relationships, and they're to justify, you know, because here's the thing.

10:21

There's a certain point where, when you say that you're born this way and that you can't change, I mean, that's the whole argument that they're making, and that's a cultural argument, too, you know, that homosexuality is innate and immutable.

10:33

That's what the American Psychological Association is saying about it, and so when you accept that idea, at some point, the straightjacket of, well, just don't act on the behavior part of it starts to ring hollow when that's all you want to do, and so when all you want to do is just live out this felt reality that is a part of you, then this, you know, the straightjacket of, well, just, you know, don't live out that way, you know, just seek out some of these spiritual friendships.

11:08

You can have good friendships with men, and, you know, they can even be somewhat romantic because who knows if romance is really, you know, sexual or not, but just don't go all the way into sexualized experience.

11:22

Well, you know, that's going to ring hollow after a while for somebody who isn't truly submitting themselves to the

11:29

Lord and isn't really trying to mortify the deeds of the flesh and, you know, with its lusts and its passions.

11:35

I mean, that's the whole language of Scripture. One of the things that I think it was a grant.

11:40

Oh, man. Grant Hartley. Grant Hartley. Thank you. I think did this whole lecture at a revoice about gay culture, right?

11:48

Yeah. Redeeming queer culture was the name of his lecture. So, you know, it's interesting to me that, you know, culture, as the word implies, cultivating something would be families being created.

12:01

You're cultivating children, you're growing, and that's impossible in homosexuality, but yet they still kind of have this illusion that there's a gay culture.

12:09

And so I see revoice promoting that idea that you can have a culture without without family, without actually creating children and raising up the next generation.

12:20

And so it just seemed, did you get the sense? It's just a grand deception that people are trying to kind of make a halfway measure that makes them feel confirmed in who they are.

12:31

But at the same time, you know, like they're still Christians. They're not sinning. That's the sense

12:36

I get. It's just a deception, the whole thing. Yeah, I think that's right. And part of it, too, you know, to pull on the

12:43

Grant Hartley idea, the whole cultural mindset comes out of guys like Tim Keller and their whole view of what culture is.

12:52

And this idea that there's, I mean, and this is Grant's argument, is that there's good parts of culture, there's bad parts of culture, and there's neutral parts of culture.

13:02

And so as a Christian, you can just go in and you can pull out the good parts and you can take those and you can take the neutral parts, you know, could go either way, but we can redeem them if we're

13:12

Christians. So just us as Christians participating in it is fine as long as it's neutral or good.

13:18

And then the bad parts are the things that we would we would reject or we would diminish or we would not be participating in.

13:25

And so I mean, that that idea comes out of of Tim Keller and probably

13:30

Leslie Newbegin and some of these missy ologists who have tried to find ways of so called contextualization.

13:38

And, you know, I don't even know all the ins and outs of that. But I do see those names and those ideas repeated and repeated and repeated and all of this kind of stuff.

13:46

That is fascinating to me. And you just mentioned the name you're not supposed to Tim Keller. Oh, yeah, that'll get you in trouble.

13:53

I mean, it's true, though. I mean, a lot of them do. They take that idea is you're absolutely right. I see that all the time that, you know, we can take from these horrible sometimes cultures that are characterized by so much evil.

14:05

And, you know, there's there's just something Christians can learn from them as Gospel Coalition does this all the time. We can learn. Oh, yes.

14:10

Horrible, R -rated movie with profanity and sex. So I wanted to ask you something about just the heart of this whole thing, because this is you know,

14:20

I had this discussion with a friend of mine and I felt like we were going to ring around the Rosie. Maybe you can help me get off the hamster wheel here and have and progress the conversation.

14:29

So it goes like this. The Bible says Hebrews, he says this right to that.

14:35

Even the desires that we have, the epithemia, right? We should mortify that. That's their sinful desires.

14:42

And so I harp on that. They're sinful desires, lusting after another man.

14:47

If you're a man, that's a sinful desire. God states it as so. And so we should mortify that. That's a sinful thing.

14:53

So my friend says to me, right. But, you know, I'm talking about an orientation.

15:00

I'm talking about a not not a temptation, not something that, you know, they're not mulling it over in their mind.

15:08

They're not fantasizing about it. Just it's it's a desire on a level that's so intrinsic to who they are at a base level that it's like they can't get rid of it.

15:19

It's just it's just there. And so what you're asking them to do is to deny who they are.

15:26

You're asking something that's impossible. And so we go around the Rosie here with me saying, no, like, you know,

15:32

I'm I'm a broken record saying the same thing again. How do we progress that? And what's what's the root disagreement here between my friend and I, let's say, and I'm sure a lot of people have similar circumstances like this.

15:45

Yeah, the the root problem is that he has taken a secular worldly definition and created the there's been a category that's been created culturally.

15:57

You know, this whole idea of sexual orientation, where did that come from? Is that a scriptural idea that we have this innate bent towards certain sin patterns that is within us that is kind of beyond the work of the spirit?

16:12

You know, I mean, we we all as Christians, as Orthodox believers, we say that there is a stain of original sin.

16:19

And yeah, there may be patterns of sin and besetting sins that exist within us. But those besetting sins are more the result of our recurring patterns kind of creating these ruts in the road, so to speak, that kind of the tires always seem to just fall into the ruts, you know, kind of things because of the repeated thinking and the repeated actions and the repeated words that kind of continue to ingrain that thing.

16:44

But how can we think about it biblically? You know, what language, what biblical language could we use?

16:51

What what language would even be in the same line? You know, I mean, epithumia is a question of desire.

16:58

There's also, you know, questions of passions, you know, pathos, you know, which is just I mean, the

17:05

Greek word is like a feeling that the mind suffers is the definition that's given, you know, that in my mind, like that description that doesn't describe something that necessarily you were even choosing to have something that may even befall you.

17:20

But we're still told to mortify the passions of the flesh, you know, and so Romans one, you know, unnatural passions is the actual language that's used by the

17:32

Apostle Paul there. And so there's something of the unnaturalness of homosexuality that Christians need to need to be reminded of and don't need to jettison that because if you've noticed a lot of this language that people are using, and Revoice uses this all the time,

17:50

TGC uses this, is the idea that if you're not breaking the law, you know, as in the reveal ball of God, then you are not sinning.

17:59

But Paul's argument in Romans one is that it's actually against nature, right? Like that's kind of like underneath the law before the law has formally been given, there's still this concept that God created you a certain way that he created men with a certain way, and he created women a certain way, and he created them to desire one another.

18:20

And so that for you to reject that is one of the illustrations that Paul uses of the utter depravity and debauchery of mankind.

18:30

And underneath that is the idolatry. And so that's another thing that you shouldn't forget in this argument is that this isn't just a question of the seventh commandment.

18:39

You know, this is a question of the ninth commandment. This is a question of covetousness, you know, because there is a way you can lust after a woman, right?

18:48

But you can also, but what is the commandment about covetousness say, you know, do you desire your neighbor's wife, you know, like there's a different level of desire, you're coveting your neighbor's wife, you know, so there's a different way that you could look at her and desire, you know, this woman that isn't necessarily sexual, but you're desiring something that doesn't belong to you.

19:09

God has not granted that to you, you don't have access to that. And so to desire that is actually sinful.

19:16

And so that all of those things together, you know, the idea of covetousness, which

19:22

Paul, you know, in Colossians says, which is idolatry, is also tied into part of this.

19:30

So it's not just a question of lust and whether it's just sexual fantasizing, it's also a question of covetousness and desiring something that God has forbidden from you, has cut off, you're not allowed to go there.

19:44

So I don't know if all of those thoughts together are helpful, but maybe there's something in there. You're giving me straight

19:49

Bible, which is great. That's, I mean, that's the language I want to speak and I respond to that. I think, you know, all sheep hear

19:56

Christ's voice and they respond to that. But there is, this is what I wanted to ask you. Someone who comes to you and says,

20:02

MD, I experience same -sex attraction. I've never, and I've heard this before,

20:08

I've never had desires for someone of the opposite gender, just people of my own.

20:16

And it was that way since I went through puberty. Now, in every case I've heard that, you start asking questions, you find out they were abused, something happened in their childhood that seemed to like introduce desires that should never have been there.

20:30

But hypothetically, they deny that, you know, just this is who I am. That's the argument.

20:36

That's not coming from scripture. It's coming from somewhere else, but it's powerful in today's postmodern society and Christians buy into that.

20:43

So how would you approach someone who came to you and said that? So, well,

20:49

I mean, there's multiple layers to that because of course you're dealing with an individual in this hypothetical situation.

20:56

So you want to be sensitive and understanding, you know, where is this person in relationship to these desires?

21:02

Are they trying to resist them? Are they trying to stir up an argument? You know, what is their posture and all this?

21:08

But ultimately, you know, when it comes down to the questions of orientation, there is no biblical grounds for orientation.

21:20

And so we can argue even from some secular and cultural factors and kind of show that orientation as a concept is, like, what do you mean by orientation?

21:35

See, because people will even say things like, well, I mean, I think there was a Bustle article, you know, this online magazine that talked about all the different orientations that are out there, you know, that there's more than just gay, straight, or bisexual, you know, and so, like,

21:54

I'm sexually attracted to people that I'm in a close relationship with, you know, that becomes a sexual orientation or sexual identity to people.

22:03

And so it's, it comes back to questions of identity, usually, where people are defining themselves by how they feel, rather than other things that they know are true or should be true of them.

22:14

And so it's always going to come back to those kinds of questions. Now, I mean, we could have a whole conversation about orientation and whether it's legitimate.

22:22

I mean, and that's, that's how Revoice is arguing, you know, that even on their website, they say is, is orientation, we need to question whether orientation is a helpful category.

22:33

And in the paper, a little Levin, you know, I take him to task on that and say, well, the real question is, is orientation a legitimate category, right?

22:42

Lots of things could be helpful that aren't, it might be a helpful way of describing it to you.

22:48

But is it legitimate? I mean, that's the fundamental question. These guys never want to deal with the question of origin or causation, you know, you mentioned abuse, or early exposure to pornography, or just, you know, someone is more sensitive and artistic minded, and then they kind of look at things like, and they feel marginalized or bullied.

23:09

And then that kind of turns into them starting to once they're given the language of orientation and sexual identity, and maybe they were tempted in a certain way at one point.

23:21

And then suddenly, it's like, oh, well, that's the thing that describes me, that describes my experience.

23:27

So then they have a word or a category to kind of connect with that they feel like explains what's going on in them.

23:35

And so that's, that's the stuff that the culture has just been pumping out. The whole psychological, psychiatric institutions of this country have just been pumping out this whole identity language and identity mentality, especially when it comes to sexuality.

23:51

And so people have kind of taken hold of some of those ideas and phrases, and whatever else is going on in them, they use it to define themselves.

24:02

Yeah, that so that's, that's interesting to me. And I, this is kind of how

24:07

I've thought about it, probably since I even first heard this, this whole concept. You know, who gets to define you?

24:14

Is it God? Is it the Creator? Or is it you? Because I think what you're saying is that if it's you, you could say that I'm sexually attracted to a shoe or to a dolphin or to like, could be anything to this house, right?

24:27

I want to marry this house. Yeah. And who is anyone else to question you and the attractions that you say that you have.

24:35

And so, you know, I think in generations past, this would have been just a stupid, fruitless conversation in their minds, like, it doesn't matter what you think.

24:43

But now it does now. Like, I guess, in this postmodern age, like what you think about yourself, no one is allowed to question.

24:50

And a lot of Christians have kind of bought into that navel gazing mentality instead of looking outward to God.

24:58

You cover a lot of stuff. I mean, let's go ahead. Yeah. Listen to this definition of sexual orientation that's given by the

25:05

American Psychological Association. Sexual orientation refers to an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and or sexual attractions to men, women, or both sexes.

25:16

Sexual orientation also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions.

25:27

Do you hear how broad that definition is? I mean, it's an enduring pattern of emotional, what even is an emotional attraction or romantic attractions?

25:37

You know, I mean, it used to be defined more purely by sexual attraction and sexual behavior.

25:44

But even this definition refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions.

25:50

So it may not even be that you have those attractions fully. Because like Ron Belgal, you know, who's a side

25:57

B proponent, you know, talks about how he defines sexual orientation, you know, according to this thing, and that he's, he would call himself gay because he's mostly attracted to men.

26:09

Almost always, I think is the actual word he uses. Wait, almost always? You're almost always attracted to men?

26:15

So there is in some way or somehow, you are capable of being attracted to a woman, but you define yourself gay, because you see, you say that's a more accurate description of you.

26:27

But the term bisexual exists, but you don't embrace that terminology. You know, so there's a lot of ambiguity that's just stored up in this word that gets thrown around all the time, sexual orientation.

26:38

But what do people even mean when they say that? And there's so much of the kind of felt identity that's all wrapped up in it.

26:46

It just, it makes it almost impossible to even understand what someone would even mean by that. Yeah, yeah.

26:55

This whole, you know, this whole discussion seems to me like it's, it's just on the knife's edge of a worldview collision.

27:04

And that's why it's hard for people to talk to each other. They're just literally approaching life in different ways.

27:10

And identity is so fundamental to life and reality.

27:16

In your document, which is, by the way, it's, it's, I can't say enough good things about it. People can go to afa .net

27:23

and a little 11 is the document. You can even just Google it and it'll come up a little 11

27:29

AFA. It's 73 pages. Good. And you have different parts in this.

27:35

You have part one, sexual orientation, part two, same sex attraction, part three, sexual identity and labels, part four, victimhood in a church and part five sanctification and the power of the gospel.

27:46

Now we can't get into everything. Obviously it's, it's something that I commend to everyone listening, but the two last categories,

27:53

I do want to ask you about that because one of the other things that is used to bolster this revoice theology in my mind, and I've seen it is this beating up the church.

28:05

You know, you see this from living out. And I think Tim Keller promotes the whatever, like an audit.

28:14

Well, it's an audit that your church can do, like from living out where, you know, is it safe for homosexuals to see how biblically inclusive you are?

28:21

Right. Right. And so like this, this is going on all the time.

28:27

And I hear it from people who aren't, you know, same sex attractor or anything, but they, they really just have this idea, younger people, especially the church just really didn't treat homosexuals.

28:36

Right. For like 2000 years, the church was just wrong on this and our generation finally gets it. Right. What do you have to say about that?

28:44

If anything, we have a lot. Well, again, it comes from this whole idea of victimhood and identity, you know?

28:54

So if someone has a fundamental identity as a homosexual, then for you to even present certain ideas is going to be perceived as hateful and spiteful and unloving.

29:08

So, I mean, even for you to use the language of the Bible, you know, like unnatural passions or unnatural desires is for you to kind of take a step too far in terms of the culture's view of it.

29:22

And in many portions of the church, you know, the toning down of the biblical language on homosexuality was one of those first clues, because I started looking into Sam Alberry.

29:34

That was one of those questions that came up to me right away. I mean, Sam Alberry is, you know, a same sex attracted pastor who's celibate, but he's, he writes a lot for the

29:46

Gospel Coalition. He got platformed by John Piper. He got platformed by Tim Keller.

29:53

And so he's promoted very heavily in all of these circles. And he founded Living Out, the organization you just mentioned, which is basically just Revoice in the

30:01

UK. Although initially they were trying to kind of create some distance between them and Revoice because of the controversy in the

30:08

States. But as they've kind of gone through a rebranding and some additional leadership with Ed Shaw, now they are more fully locking arms, sharing posts and ideas between Revoice and all that.

30:23

So those things are more out in the open. But to your point about kind of beating up on the church, that was one of those things that I noticed right away.

30:32

There was always a sense of, you know, that the church was wrong, that the church was not inclusive enough, that the church had just kind of forced people to either remain in the closet was kind of the language that was used.

30:46

You know, you're forcing people to not be honest about who they really are or their real struggles. You know, so like side

30:52

A would say who they really are. Side B would say, you know, you're not allowing people to be honest about their sin struggle, you know.

30:59

And so like, how dare you do that? Because you're really kind of, you're diminishing what should be a more visible spectrum of God's work in the church, you know, where you see all types of people.

31:14

And of course, like, Christians should acknowledge that there hasn't always been a, you know, a favorable reception to homosexuality.

31:23

And not all of that was biblically based. Some of it was just this kind of adverse resistance to, or just kind of feeling sick about, like even the word homophobia.

31:35

You know, most people don't know the history of the word homophobia comes in 1972. There's a psychologist who's trying to find a word that describes people who are afraid of turning gay because of their interactions with gay people.

31:49

That's where the word homophobia came from. Activists immediately latched onto the word and used it to describe basically a racism kind of thing of, you know, people's response to homosexuality in the culture and in the world.

32:04

And so that's where homophobia becomes this weapon against the church, where people, where you are called a homophobe or a bigot because of just a biblical stance.

32:17

And that idea has so much sway, so much persuasive power, especially to the younger generations who are growing up in schools with, you know, friends and peers who are coming out as gay or coming out as transgender.

32:31

And they're like, well, they're nice people, you know, and they say that they were harmed by the church.

32:37

And, you know, I'm kind of harmed by the church and I have an axe to grind and I don't agree with my parents and all these things.

32:43

And so it just kind of plays into the cultural narrative that's already there. And, you know, so like, for example, you know, because I'm just kind of talking in generalities here, let's get a little more specific.

32:55

So at the 2018 Revoice Conference, there was a guy named Ray Lowe, who is, I guess he's a or a youth minister in a church in New York City, not

33:07

Redeemer, but somewhere else. And he got invited in to share his story of how he was abused by the church, you know, and spiritual abuse is such a big, you know, talking point of term these days too.

33:24

But he was basically saying, like, he was he had applied for these jobs, he was he was very qualified, he was saying, you know, he went to Gordon Conwell, he had the theological education, he knew his

33:36

Bible, he loved Jesus, he just wanted to serve people and be part of the local church. But then when he got honest about his sexual attractions, you know, and the fact that in even though he was celibate, then like, there were people who weren't willing to, to bring him on staff as a youth minister anymore, or people who were suddenly resistant to, you know, him being on staff at their church.

34:02

And so he held this up as this great, you know, testimony against this wicked homophobic church mentality that would keep somebody who's, who's trying to follow

34:14

Jesus and trying to be celibate and trying to be good. And he's just also trying to be honest about what's going on. And, and then there's this whole group that doesn't want that because we just want you to stay in the closet.

34:24

And we don't want you to be honest about these things, because we want to know that you've overcome or that you are overcoming.

34:32

And so how do you resist? I mean, that that whole idea is so attractive to the, to,

34:41

I mean, because everyone's kind of being trained into this victimhood mentality, where if you don't have something, everything should be available to And if it's not, it's, it's someone else's fault.

34:54

And it's a systemic problem that has to do with people's ideologies and these old ideas and all this stuff that we don't want to be a part of our society anymore.

35:03

Instead of like, I don't know who Ray Lowe is, like, did he, was he actually qualified for these positions?

35:11

Were there other questions that people had? And why can't, why can't a discerning elder board or deacon board come to a guy and he says that he's gay, but he's, he's not practicing and not see that as a question mark or something that they're like, well, you know,

35:27

I just, I don't want to get into that. I don't, I don't want somebody leading my youth if I'm not clear that they're actually grounded in, in understanding biblical sexuality, and they're going to present that picture to the youth of our church.

35:42

So, you know, there's those, those stories have a lot of power because they're very visceral.

35:49

And also because you can't go verify any of the information in it. It's his word against whoever, like, there's no story of the, the account of Ray Lowe besides his own.

35:59

So like, you don't even know the details of it or what was going on there. And so that's why these stories are always carded out as these kind of, you know, high watermarks of, of oppression.

36:10

And yet there's no way to ever verify what even happened there. Or if the narrator who's telling it to you is really even giving all of the facts or all of the context that needs to be given there because they've presented themselves immediately as a victim.

36:25

Yeah. You're not supposed to question those stories, even if, you know, the facts might not even line up, but it's, it's like, it's their story.

36:32

So again, internal authentication and, you know, it's impervious, you know, just like the orientation thing.

36:42

So I want to ask you just practically speaking, there's probably some parents listening and maybe they have children that have gone this direction.

36:51

You know, how do you approach that? You talk about this a bit at the end in the sanctification, the power of the gospel for side, well, we could say side

37:01

A and side B, but since, you know, you're focusing a lot on the side B Christians, meaning those who want to endorse a biblical sexual ethic, but still say they're same sex attracted, like what, what kind of hope is there for them?

37:15

And I realized in asking this, there's parents who want junior to get married and give them grandkids, right.

37:22

There's, which is a natural thing. That's not a wrong thing, but there, you know, that's seen as like overbearing pressure by some of today's young people.

37:33

There's, you know, the natural way things have gone. A lot of parents want that to keep going and, you know, juniors hung up on this.

37:43

You know, what hope is there for parents and then for children too, who might be caught up in this, what hope can you offer them that there's a light at the end of this tunnel?

37:53

They can get out of this. Christ can bring them out of this. You know, they can get married. They can have heterosexual relationship because some of them believe the lie that this is who they are.

38:04

They can't do it. And that's sad to me. Yeah. Well, I mean, we have to come back to the power of Christ and the realities of the work of the

38:14

Holy spirit. And do we really desire to grow in our relationship with the

38:19

Lord and our love for him and our desire to follow him? And so that's, that would be my challenge to someone who is dabbling with inside B kind of ideas is, you know, you've talked a lot about, you know, the things that you've decided that you can and can't do, but do you really love the

38:43

Lord? And do you really want to follow him? And are you really trusting him? Because God calls us to do all kinds of things that seem foreign to us naturally, and to seek his face in ways that go beyond what we feel like we could ever accomplish in our own strengths.

39:01

And so, you know, for someone who's genuinely kind of struggling with that, I would point them to, you know, the promises that are there in scripture.

39:11

And, you know, the question gets thrown up, well, you know, are you promising that someone will change their orientation?

39:20

And I just want to say, like, move beyond the orientation category and just think of yourself, like God made you a man if you were a man and a woman if you were a woman.

39:32

And is there not something inherent about what God made you and intends for you to be?

39:38

You know, so the question isn't like, go and try and work up desires for other people sexually.

39:46

I mean, it's like, as part of your sanctification, though, don't close the door on the

39:55

Lord coming into this room and dealing with you in this area, because that's so much of this whole side

40:01

B thing. It's kind of like, you know, well, God can have the whole rest of the house, but this one room has the door closed, and he can't go in there, and he can't deal with sexual identity and orientation and attraction.

40:16

And because conversion therapy fails, and it's a false hope, and all of this stuff, it's like, well,

40:23

God doesn't want you to seek out homosexual relationships.

40:31

He doesn't want that for you. He doesn't want you to just, you know, find a kind of spiritual friendship substitute where you man with another man, and you're kind of committed to each other.

40:44

But you don't share in sexual intimacy, but you have all these other intimate things.

40:49

And it's basically a marriage, but just without the sexual component to it.

40:55

You know, that's not how God intended these things to work. And then for the parents, you know, don't lose hope.

41:06

You know, continue to pray, continue to find meaningful ways to share and interact with someone who's dealing with these things.

41:13

And it's not an easy task.

41:19

And there's a lot of things that are working against this. But do pray that there's opportunities to share, and to explain, and to point people to Christ, and really bring the

41:31

Scripture to bear. Don't try and bring in all the arguments about, you know, all the cultural arguments.

41:38

But really focus in on what the Scripture would say, and follow the Spirit's leading in that. And don't lose heart in praying diligently for your friends and loved ones.

41:49

I love that. That's so beautiful, because I have heard horrible advice given about, you know, go look at straight porn, right?

41:58

Like, you know, don't you think that the girls there are cute? You know, go look at them, the guys who are.

42:05

And it just, to me, like, you're trying to substitute one kind of lust for another sometimes. And it's, like, yeah, you want to be heterosexual.

42:12

That's God's design. But it's not by lusting after, you know, or objectifying people of the opposite sex.

42:21

That's not right either. And so focusing on Christ and, you know, praying.

42:27

Yeah, and I'm not denigrating celibacy or even singleness. Sure. You know, but they've kind of elevated celibacy as if it's because they are gay and celibate, that there's this extra, there's a costly obedience.

42:42

You were just obedient, but their obedience is more costly than yours, because you're giving up what the culture is saying they should have.

42:50

And, and that's just foolish. And it builds up this whole victimhood mentality, which is a more, it's offensive to every single

42:56

Christian guy I know, too, who, you know, really wants to get married, and it never happened. And here they are at 60 something years old, they never got married.

43:04

And now all of a sudden, you know, they're, you know, what they've had to do, you know, they've remained celibate.

43:10

That's apparently not worth as much as a homosexual guy doing the same thing. It's just, you're absolutely right to observe that.

43:18

One of the things too, I've seen is it's kind of winked at and nodded at but that like, you know,

43:24

Paul, Paul was single, Jesus was single. And, and sometimes the relationship between David and Jonathan being this, you know, hey, they had a love that was greater than the love for women.

43:35

And that, right, there's this kind of place that you can occupy where you can have spiritual friendships that are just there's so much deeper than any sexual thing.

43:44

And, and that, you know, hey, those who are the most holy, like Paul and Jesus, they, that's the gift of singleness.

43:51

And an indication that you have that is that, you know, you're same sex attracted or something, which these are just these are made up things.

43:58

You don't find this in scripture anywhere. Right. But, but I see that as kind of like an icing or that are just a veneer that they try to put on this biblically.

44:10

And, and it just it entraps people, I think it really does. I had a, yeah,

44:17

I think I mentioned this in a previous podcast, but I had a, a friend when I was going to seminary, who was he was side

44:24

A, okay. So he went to a church that affirmed side A. Okay. And I met him at the gym. And I, he worked at a planet fitness.

44:31

And I said, you know, why, let's, let's go get a cup of coffee kind of thing. Like we went out to breakfast a few times,

44:37

I invited him to church, I shared the gospel with him, right. And I remember him telling me,

44:42

I can never come to your church, you don't affirm what who I am. And it was within 24 hours, he's texting me, you know, by the way, everything

44:50

I said, I didn't really mean that I know that I'm not born this way. I want a wife and kids. I just don't know how to get out of this pit.

44:56

And it really shook me. I just thought, you know, this is the narrative out there.

45:01

Like it's the set in stone thing orientation, right? Gender is fluid, but orientation is like set in stone.

45:08

And, and it just, I started thinking, is this what's going on more often than not that people who say that they struggle with these things, like secretly, they know, they know, deep down, this isn't right.

45:21

Right. And yeah. Yeah, I mean, there, we can't forget the spiritual component and the spiritual warfare component of this.

45:31

And I'm glad you brought up that story, because that, you know, the fact that he would say one thing to you, and then have to feel compelled to say something to say that the exact opposite later kind of shows that there's, there's a spiritual deception that's that is at work in all of this.

45:47

And we often lose sight of that. Because we, you know, frankly, we just forget about the spiritual component and that these battles are actually spiritual battles, not just battles of words and ideas, but like their spiritual component behind all of this and their spiritual warfare that's taking place and our adversary is described as a roaring lion seeking people to devour.

46:09

And this whole ideology, both the side A ideology and even the side B ideology, it is devouring people at a spiritual level.

46:18

And, and it is there are eternal souls at stake. This isn't just like a nice little, you know, theological argument.

46:27

And you know, there's good people on both sides. And we can kind of agree to disagree. It's like, no, there's actual souls at stake in this.

46:33

And we can't lose sight of that as Christians, we have to be diligent, we have to try and take down the arguments as clearly and as biblically as we can.

46:41

But we also have to remember, there is an eternal soul there. And I want to see that soul brought into reconciliation with God, and to and for the fruits of that to be evident in their life in, you know, growth in the fruits of the

46:55

Spirit in sanctification in overcoming the, you know, the prior desires and thoughts of the of the flesh, that, that they thought they would never be able to be set free from.

47:07

And God is able to do amazing and mighty things. And sometimes we just kind of suppress that idea, or, you know, and, and I'm a

47:14

Presbyterian, right? I'm not supposed to believe in the work of the Spirit supposedly. But, you know, but that's, that's not, that's not true.

47:22

I mean, as Christians, we should all see what Scripture says about the mighty work of the Holy Spirit in the soul.

47:28

And, you know, I'm not talking about speaking in tongues, I'm talking about the fact that God, actually, when you are born again, there is a

47:33

Holy Spirit that's residing inside of you, that is conforming you into the image and likeness of Christ, as you submit to him by the word.

47:41

So like, it's, it's all these things tied together. And that's the growth in godliness. And that is the Christian life.

47:47

And so like, do not forget the spiritual component of this, and that sometimes the conversation that feels like it went nowhere, may actually prove to have planted seeds that will have an eternal harvest.

48:01

That's excellent. That's excellent. I know people who have tasted what you're saying from, from that side

48:10

B, kind of, or side A. And they, they're not what they were.

48:15

All things have been made new. And so hold on to that hope. And MD, I just want to thank you for being willing to do this.

48:21

It's sometimes a little disheartening seeing all the evangelical organizations that are caving on everything, or they just don't take a stand.

48:29

And American Family Association has, and, and you can see it, you can, you can go check out

48:34

A Little Leaven Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement by MD Perkins on the afa .net

48:40

website, 73 pages of just working through everything we've talked about in this podcast in more detail.

48:47

Anything else you want to just let people know about? I know, I know the documentary as well. They can check that out, right?

48:53

Yeah. I mean, I do want to just commend American Family Association as a ministry. It was a, it's a pro -family ministry that was founded in the late 1970s.

49:03

You know, a lot of Christian activism and making people aware of things that are going on in the culture started out as just a response to debauchery that, that, you know, a

49:14

Methodist preacher named Donald Wildman saw on television and was bothered about it and thought the Christian should be more aware of what they watch and how they spend their money and, you know, and just kind of these practical aspects of the

49:25

Christian life, and then started to raise awareness and, and created a pro -family ministry that's lasted for a long time.

49:33

And I am grateful for the leadership, for the leadership at American Family Association that they haven't caved to this whole woke nonsense, that they're not giving in on, on issues and they're not afraid to jump in.

49:46

You know, when I, when I was putting together this research for, for the, the

49:51

Little Leaven paper, you know, I told them, I don't know, you know, this is the kind of topic that there will be some people that we might be surprised that they don't like that we're talking about this, or they don't want to partner with us, or they don't want to, you know, promote their stuff on our platform anymore, because of, of what we're saying here, you know, because we're, we're willing to put these things down on paper.

50:16

That was the thing that drove me up the wall, trying to read about this on like TGC and stuff.

50:22

It's like, you'll talk about it in very general terms, but then it's like, but then there's like this next step that they don't want to define, or they don't want to, to put down in text explicitly.

50:34

I mean, Kevin DeYoung, as much as I like him, and I like his book, you know, what does the

50:40

Bible really teach about homosexuality? There's an appendix at the end of that book on same -sex attraction.

50:45

And it is the most confusing thing that you read after you've read all this clarity from the rest of the book.

50:51

And it's because I found out later, when I look back at the acknowledgements, you know, well, who did he acknowledge?

50:57

He acknowledged Sam Albury. He acknowledged, you know, some of these guys who are Side B. And, you know,

51:03

I don't know to what contribution they made, but I assume that it ended up in there being an appendix that addressed same -sex attraction, but basically said,

51:12

I'm not gonna, you know, kind of land anywhere on it. And so like, there was all this kind of equivocation and doublespeak and like, vagueness from guys who are usually so clear.

51:25

And that's, that's the tip off to me is when guys who are usually clear suddenly get vague on something, it's like, what are you, what are you hiding?

51:33

You know, you know, there's guys I love, you know, like Moeller and Ligon Duncan and guys like that, who, you know, were so clear on some things.

51:41

And then it comes to a question about, you know, critical race theory, or, you know, Side B sexuality, and suddenly they get real fuzzy and real vague.

51:50

Yeah. Moeller actually apologized, I think, for like, not for believing in orientation.

51:57

Yeah, he changed his stance on orientation in 2014 or 15. Yeah. Anyway, so I just,

52:03

I commend American Family Association to your viewers, as a trustworthy organization, not just because I work there, and I'm paid to give this endorsement, but because, honestly,

52:16

I came in skeptical. I came in skeptical about the culture war, and like, should

52:22

Christians even be engaged in that? You know, some of the ideas of like, boycotts and things that that sounds a little unsavory, like, maybe we shouldn't do that.

52:31

We should find nicer ways to appeal to the culture. You know, I drink a lot of the TGC Kool -Aid on that stuff.

52:39

But honestly, the first people that raised a question to me about where TGC was leaning left, were conversations

52:47

I had with people at AFA. And I was like, that can't be because, you know, because I'm a

52:54

Calvinist, and they're Calvinist. And so like, you know, Calvinism is good.

53:00

And I've been there. Yeah. You know, so like, there's personal experience tied up in that.

53:06

And so I've come to respect the ministry that I work for all the more, because I've seen their stands, and I've seen their discernment, even before I was willing to acknowledge it myself.

53:17

And, you know, I mean, like, you'll see it in The God Who Speaks. I mean, it's a documentary where we interviewed some people that I would look at now and say,

53:25

I would not interview Jarvis Williams on The Authority of Scripture now. But in 2016, like,

53:31

I was not seeing the things that I see now, and you know, things that he's done, and maybe he even did some of the things prior, but...

53:39

You weren't aware. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I'll take a comment on this real quick, too, as we're closing here, because I've had a few people push back on me for the limited affiliation

53:50

I've had by usually just interviewing or being associated in small ways with Pentecostals and Charismatics here and there on some of these issues, like homosexuality in Christianity and social justice in Christianity.

54:06

And the reason I've done that, I explain this to people, is that I'm not seeing, like, you just correctly said,

54:14

TGC, right? Reformed Calvinist. I'm not seeing Calvinists, Reformed people, people that I would say would probably be closer to me in theology in many ways, they're not tackling this stuff.

54:26

If anything, it's silence or they're capitulating. And so I've seen God use people that we would disagree on secondary things, but of course, the gospel is important, or the gospel is the thing, right?

54:39

There's primary things, the deity of Christ, there's these things that are non -negotiables, but there's Christians that are saying, well, you know what?

54:46

You know, even laymen, I don't see any of these ministries doing anything. I guess I'll do something. And so American Family Association, to me, stands out.

54:57

What you're doing stands out as you've been around a while, this organization, it hasn't changed.

55:03

Everything's changed around it, but it hasn't changed. And you're not saying this, I'm not putting this in your mouth, but I'll say it.

55:10

People who have been giving to organizations with your financial dollars, consider pulling them out.

55:18

If your organization is not, if they have a responsibility and they're saying things on culture, but they're avoiding this issue or they're capitulating, pull your money out.

55:28

Why don't you give to a better organization? American Family Association may be that organization. I'm not telling you what to do with your money,

55:34

I'm just saying, this may be something to look into. They're doing good work. MD Perkins, he wouldn't be able to do this without the platforming of American Family Association.

55:44

So that's my plea to people is to look into AFA and see the good work they're doing and contribute and obviously prayers as well.

55:54

So anyway, I appreciate it so much, MD. And I'll put the link in the info section for people who want to check out

56:01

A Little Leaven. Yeah. Well, I appreciate coming on your platform and being able to talk to you.

56:07

I mean, I've followed so much of the work that you've done over these last several years and exposing things that are going on and being willing to dig in.

56:17

I mean, part of the camaraderie I felt was that you were willing to really dig in, not just have an immediate reaction to things that were happening, but to dig in with the research and to be able to cite your sources and carefully try and understand what they were saying and what they weren't saying.

56:32

And to be able to offer your thoughts and your critique on it biblically is just such a benefit to the believers, many believers in my life and many people around me.

56:42

I mean, I'm often sharing things that you've done on your website or on your podcast.

56:48

So I really appreciate it. That is very kind of you. Thank you. Thank you for saying that, MD. I appreciate it.

56:53

So anyway, well, God bless. And maybe we'll have you on again at some point, because I'm sure this is a big topic.

56:59

I mean, there's other things that we didn't talk about that we could, but there's a lot to talk about. This is a good starter segment for people who are trying to understand what's actually being said by Revoice.