How Cultural Confusion About Our Bodies Has Led to Moral Chaos

foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] welcome to the Elisa Childers podcast where we equip Christians to identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity discern its counterfeits and proclaim the gospel with Clarity kindness and Truth today's episode is brought to you by impact 360 Institute who create life-changing experiences for young people throughout the summer and through their Gap year program go to impact360.org to learn more about them and today we have planned to do a live stream with Nancy Piercy about her book love thy body now I have emailed I hope everything's okay with Nancy she hasn't checked in yet so we're gonna wing it a little bit today and if Nancy signs in we're going to bring her in and she's going to take your questions live but if not you're stuck with me you've got me today and I will take your questions live so anything you want to ask is uh fine and I will do my best to answer your questions as you bring them but I love the book love thy body because how important it is for Christians to make sure that our world view lines up with reality and the way that we view the human body is more important than a lot of Christians realize it is incredibly important that we view what our bodies are and what God created them to be in a Biblical way because if we get that wrong it can lead to all sorts of cultural chaos and so much of the chaos that we see in our society today so my book club on Facebook the Elisa Childers book club has just read through the book love thy body if you are unfamiliar with the Elisa children's book club it's a little bit of like the best kept secret so it's not something we really advertise very often it's a book club we do on Facebook where we go through uh just really good books that will equip you to walk your Christian faith out in this culture and so we have just read through love thy body what we typically love to do is after we read through the book we do a live stream with the author and we also bring that out to the YouTube platform and then to the audio platform so if you're listening on audio we're so glad that you're getting to hear this please rate and review the podcast wherever you listen on those audio platforms if you're interested in joining us for our next book study we would love to have you we have over 6 000 people in the Elisa children's book club on Facebook and we have opened it back up for new members so if you want to go to www.facebook.com slash groups slash Elisa Childers book club you can apply to come on into the book club and join us for our next study and in a moment I'm going to tell you the next book that we're going to be going through and we're going to start the next study in June so you've got some time to get into the book club get the next book but again that's facebook.com groups slash Elisa children's book club okay so I'm very excited to let you know about our next book study and it is going to be many of you may have already read this but I think that the book we're going to read next is one of the most foundational and important books for Christians to read to really be able to understand their Bibles and that is called how to read the Bible for all it's worth okay now some of you I hope are very excited to hear that how to read the Bible for all it's worth is the book we're going to go through next we're going to start that in June so again if you want to be a part of that go to facebook.com groups Elisa Childers book club now this is a like-minded book club so we want committed Christians who really want to discern through issues from a Biblical worldview so you will have to sign a statement of faith and agree to the group rules but if you want to if you're on board with that we would love to have you also I I want to talk to my Southern California people I am so excited to be coming back to Southern California my old stomping grounds where I grew up we're going to be at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills on May 6 for the unshaken conference this is a conference that my friend Natasha Crane and I have brought to you we've already done one in Dayton it was amazing our friend Frank Turek is joining us this year as we how help equip you to walk out your Christian faith in an increasingly chaotic culture so if you are in anywhere in the Southern California area we would love to have you come out to Chino Hills on May 6 you can go to unshakenconference.com to register for that and if you're anywhere in the Tucson area or if you're in the Nashville area we're coming to you as well so September 23rd will be Tucson and November 4th will be Nashville and tickets for that go on sale this month so if you want to register for Tucson if you want to register for Nashville you can go to unshakenconference.com to register for those this month okay so I also want to make sure you know about the new podcast that I'm doing with Natasha crane so if you love this podcast if you love The in-depth hour-ish podcast episodes that's great this is the podcast for you but sometimes people are looking for something a little bit shorter a little more bite-sized a little more cultural so the Elisa children's podcast we tend to go into more Evergreen issues we tend to go into deep dives into church history and biblical reliability and apologetics and things like that the unshaken faith podcast our weekly 15-minute episodes where we talk about topics that affect you more culturally a couple of recent episodes that we've received a lot of great feedback on was the one about how to discern a Church website that can be incredibly confusing I get asked this question all the time in Q and A's is how can I find a church that's biblically faithful sometimes what's on the website doesn't really line up with what's being taught in the actual church so we walked you through that got lots of good feedback on that one we talked about the American Girl book and the transgender ideology that is sweeping up so many of our young people in particular how that's affecting young girls we received a lot of great feedback on that and then probably our biggest episode was the one we did on the he gets us campaign and some thoughts that we had about that so with that said I want to just open this up to questions guys we're just gonna we're gonna wing it we are going to do a a kind of a free-for-all q a today so if you have any questions if you're watching in the Facebook group or if you're watching on YouTube please write the word question in all caps before you write your question and I'll try to get to as many of these as I can and you know anything you anything you might want to ask about love thy body uh anything you might want to ask about topics we've talked about on this podcast I'm at your disposal today so go ahead and ask away so I have the first question here from Kimberly on YouTube and she is wanting to know what books or devotional to go through with a tween girl what about a boy so Kimberly my honest question answer to this question is that the best devotional that you can do especially for a young girl or young boy is to read through the Bible now I know that that's not going to be the most exciting thing for your young person to do but I think that it is probably the most valuable way to help equip them to have a lifelong Faith because if they read devotionals there's ways devotionals can maybe avoid certain topics and I think as young people even going into the elementary school age it's really important that we open up our physical Bibles and read through those things with our kids and don't skip the hard stuff I think it's incredibly important to read it apologetically so if a difficult passage comes up if it's a passage that you might feel like you are wrestling through a little bit if you feel like it's something that you're not even really equipped to comment on and you don't know how to answer that's a great opportunity for you to equip yourself and to get some good resources I have a resource page on my website if you go to elisachilders.com you'll find some great resources there of just how to answer certain questions if it's a question of reliability or historicity of a particular account or if it's a particular passage that some people would say hey there's a contradiction here what a great opportunity to inoculate your young person to be able to read through those things and not be afraid so I really recommend the Apologetics Study Bible for students I've heard from young people in my own life that that's been a way that's sort of opened up the Bible to them in a new way they've never even really been that interested in reading the Bible but because the apologetic Study Bible for students will address some of those difficult topics as you go through them they find it really really helpful so as far as a particular book or devotional I'm just of the mindset that I mean I'm not against something that's written for a tween girl or a tween boy but typically most of the stuff that's written for them is kind of shallow it's a little bit fluffy and I think we underestimate kids when we do that I think that they can handle the difficult stuff and we can teach them how to wrestle through scripture for themselves and so having those times as a family this is something we do in our home where we gather around The Breakfast Table in the morning and that's when we do our Bible reading and I find that sometimes the kids are kind of bored but then other times there'll be a question and then we stop and we address that question and that'll be something that will spark more theological conversation and really really provide an atmosphere where the bigger questions can be addressed and where kids know hey Mom and Dad aren't going to freak out if I ask this and then there's just this environment where we can discuss these things really openly so I would recommend just skipping the devotionals and go straight to reading the scripture for yourself and with your kids all right Emma question how far is the current culture confusion over the body based on the old lie of gnosticism I'm so glad you asked this question because this was a huge theme throughout the book love thy body that we just read through in the book club so I'm going to read that question again how far is the current culture confusion over the body based on the old lie of gnosticism physical bad spiritual good so if you are unfamiliar with the heresy of gnosticism I did address this very briefly in my book another gospel but gnosticism was one of the earliest heresies to face the Christian church in fact many scholars believe that first John was addressing a type of proto-nosticism an early version of gnosticism that was beginning to come into the church and so the gnostics were people who generally thought they were Christians they were in the church they were saying look this is what Christianity is but they were misrepresented many things from the nature of Yahweh to the nature of the physical created world and to to the way that the Divine emanations were there were just all sorts of uh different sects in gnosticism so not all gnostics believe the same thing it was very um fluid there was a lot of different um kinds of beliefs that fell under gnosticism but generally speaking there were some points of agreement among gnostics and so one of those things was that it was knowledge that would save you so some kind of secret knowledge that could be attained that would really be something that would save you so that was kind of one characteristic another characteristic of gnosticism was that all created matter was evil and part of that had to do with one of the sects of gnosticism taught that there were emanations of different gods and the the god that actually created the universe so Yahweh was actually evil and and so anything he created was also evil and so this informed an early another early heresy I believe it was called docitism but I'm going off the top of my head right now so somebody can correct me if I got that wrong where they didn't believe that Jesus was fully human because if he was fully human that meant he had a human physical body which would make him by Nature evil and so they had to get rid of the idea that Jesus had a physical body and so that that was a heresy that was sort of informed by some of this gnosticism now the question is how far has current culture confusion over the body how much is that based on the LIE of gnosticism so I mean I can't speak to exactly how informed by that specific heresy it is but I can say this there are a lot of similarities both in the idea that it's this secret knowledge that will save you and that the physical is bad and let me elaborate on that so I do think when we think about movements like Progressive Christianity for example many Progressive Christians when you read their literature will say things like hey the church has misunderstood things for a long time and we're evolving in our knowledge of God and we know things today that Paul didn't know we know things today that the ancient Israelites communing with God in their time and place didn't have access to in other words the people who wrote the Bible weren't as spiritually evolved as we are now so we have this special knowledge by which we can look back and judge what they said and even disagree with what they said now I that's that's the progressive view in a lot of cases and I do think that it's very similar to some of the gnosticism that we saw popping up in the early church because it's like for 2000 years the church didn't have everything it needs but all of a sudden today we do and I think that that is a bit similar to gnosticism whether it's influenced by it or not I'm not sure although I will tell you this and I wrote about this in my book another gospel and that's that often when um you're in Progressive circles they will appeal to some of the Gnostic Gospels like Gospel of Thomas or some of those uh later uh written gospels that addressed certain you know places in Jesus life that were missing from scripture so um that's largely why they were written because there were things about Jesus life that the Bible doesn't really speak to like we don't really know a whole lot about Jesus life from the time he was born until he was 12 years old uh and so some of these Gnostic Gospels came in and filled in some of those blanks um and of course making things up but this like this this secret knowledge that was that was necessary and even the Gospel of Thomas is kind of like that where it's these sayings quote unquote sayings of Jesus that were supposed to be uh this knowledge that would uh save you now now about the physical part see this is where I think Nancy's book was so important to love thy body that we're just kind of planned on talking about today and if you're just joining us um we're we're still hoping Nancy will sign in I'm not sure I hope everything's all right but we're just going to go ahead with a q a even though we don't have Nancy with us today but the Gnostic idea that the physical was bad is something that I don't know again if it's an influence but there's definitely a similarity today and I think even a lot of Christians buy into this have you ever heard a Christian say you are a soul you have a body this is something that's very popular very common that is said in my opinion I think that's a incorrect view of the human body because as humans we have a human nature there is something about us that makes us human there's this humanness right what makes somebody a human what puts you in that category well what puts you in that category is the fact that you are a Unity of body and spirit so there's an immaterial part of you and there's a material part of you and together the unity of those two things makes you human now of course there are times when those two things can be separated from one another when you die of course your body gets buried or cremated or whatever it might be and you're you're the immaterial part of you does not die that lives on but if you think about how the Bible talks about what humans will be like in eternity we will be embodied in eternity we will have glorified bodies in heaven so uh we're not going to be like these floating spirits around where this you know we have finally shed the physical matter we will be embodied for eternity and so it's incredibly important that we have a healthy view of the body and a positive view of the body because it's God's good creation but also Jesus was God in flesh and if we think that the physical matter is evil or somehow bad well then we might fall into that ancient heresy that taught that Jesus was not fully human and so it's important just from the get-go for our foundational theology that we have a healthy and biblical view of the human body and as Nancy points out in the book love thy body when we don't have when we devalue the the body when we sort of think the body isn't really as important as the immaterial part of us that can lead to abuse of the body which is where we see so much disconnection and that's where you know in the thumbnail for today's podcast you might have seen how it said how transgenderism hook up culture abortion and um and I can't remember the other one off the top of my head but all of these come from the same world view because they all denigrate the human body take for example abortion in years past the debate was over is this a human life now scientifically we know that an unborn baby is alive and it is human it's not a dog or a cat it's a human being and it is a living entity so it is a human life so scientifically that's just a fact so where the debate has moved to is not so much people asking well is this a human life but or when does a a human being become alive we know that that happens at conception scientifically but the now the question and this is something Nancy points out in her book uh love thy body it's called personhood Theory which asks the question not so much when does it become alive but when does it become a person and that's sort of the key question when we're talking about um the you know the physical bad spiritual good idea that started in gnosticism in those early uh years of of the Christian church and so um I'll just I'll say with I'll say this so when we talk about the fact that Christians we believe that human beings are a Unity of body and soul or Spirit you know the the immaterial part of you and the material part of you together in unity make you human what uh Nancy talks about based on philosopher Descartes called Cartesian dualism what that would teach is that human beings are material and immaterial but the the material part is not as important it's this is the part that makes you you and so um I think as Christians it's important that we realize it's the unity of those two things so we don't want to denigrate the body we don't want to lessen the importance of the body and so as Nancy explained in her book uh even think about transgenderism where um you know we have so much compassion for people who experience genuine gender dysphoria but I think everybody has that compassion and but in with the view of the the body being denigrated in today's culture a transgender person or somebody who might experienced gender dysphoria would be told well hey you need to bring your body in line with your mind because the body is it's just not highly valued enough where if we have a proper view we would say hey let's bring our mind into uh you know into Unity with what our body is by nature biologically because that's good and beautiful and God made us that way so um it's very important I do think it's very influential and that was a really long answer to your question but I do think that that's it's important to understand a little bit about that early gnosticism because um uh it is informing I think at least or it's they're similar things that are informing so much of what we see today that denigrates the body even think about sexual behavior how um biblically speaking sex was created to be between a man and a woman within the Covenant of marriage and that brings about more people right that's procreation and so it's a really beautiful thing and guys Nancy's joining all right I'm very very happy about that so let me bring Nancy in here hi Nancy how are you good how are you thanks for joining us today thanks for inviting me yes well we are we are live and we have lots and lots of questions for you and I'm so glad that you've chosen to join us today um I was so thrilled when you said yes to come on the the show today I would love if you could just start by talking about I was just talking about this a little bit and you're going to do so much a better job than I did but talk about how important it is that we have a Biblical and healthy view of the body because when we denigrate the body when we don't feel that the body is has value it can lead to all sorts of chaos so talk a little bit about that that Mind Body split that your book talks about when it starts right um so one of my students put it this way she said growing up in the church I was always taught body good spirit bad oh I just said it backwards I'm sorry Spirit good body bad yes get that straight um and when I used that in my lectures I always got lots of nods you know a lot of people say oh yeah that that's basically a perspective I grew up in that my body didn't really matter this physical world didn't matter all that really matters is a spiritual Realm and um the trouble is that today it if we want to counter secular World Views it turns out that the secular view uh underlying all the issues in my book from abortion to euthanasia to homosexuality to transgenderism and so on the secular worldview denigrates the body and if we want to be effective in speaking to our culture we have to realize that in fact Christianity Christianity has a much higher view of the value and dignity of the human body if we don't have that if we don't thoroughly absorb that we won't have an answer to the secular World in our day so I think a lot of people have a hard time getting their minds around this because um as many of my students will say well wait a minute if you are not a Christian if you think the material world is all that exists Don't You by definition think the material world is really important and the answer is no you can think the material world is all that exists but if it's a project of blind mindless purposeless forces then it has known to the purpose or value and so you can be a materialist and still actually have a very low view of the value dignity and significance of the physical world including the human body so uh I'm you know my main goal is as an apologist right so you know I came to Christianity as a young adult and through apologetics you know I did have a lot of intellectual questions and so for me you know I'm really motivated by well how do we answer the secular of you I actually had somebody recently say well haven't you almost over emphasize the body then in your book and my answer is no no I do in fact in my book I do qualify it by saying the the physical world is not the most important part of reality but as Martin Luther once said if you're not uh fighting at the point where the enemies actually attacking you know if you're fighting over here and you're fighting over there but you're not fighting where the enemies actually attacking then you're not really in the battle and right now it is the physical body that is under attack by the secular world and that's why I focus on that yeah that's so good because I remember when I first when your book first came out and I saw the title and it even hit me a little bit because I think I came a little bit from a background that would have said I we mentioned this on the on the live stream already where you know that phrase you are a soul you have a body which which is really popular in some Christian circles and they I don't think they're really thinking all the way through what they're saying but when I saw the title Love Thy body I thought you know I hope that's not gonna just be like a self-help book and I mean which of course it is not it is very very good and Nancy I got to tell you this is my second time through reading this book we've just walked uh our book club through we've got over 6 000 people in our Facebook book club and I I think that I don't know if I've seen the group more engaged with a book than with this one and it's just been so valuable and so helpful and so you know they're very excited that you're here today to talk about some of this stuff and I do think it's incredibly important that Christians uh I love that in the book how you even addressed some of the um the tendency toward uh denying the body and and and living fasted and living where you're you know even Christians who used to go stand out in the cold and not eat at all and and try to deny the body and deny the body not realizing that that was kind of denigrating the body in a little bit could you speak to that a little bit it's like obviously as Christians the Bible recommends we fast and stuff but it's not at the expense of the body is it well it's not because we have contempt for the body it's not because we devalue the body um you know it's the motivation that is important here the motivation for what you're describing is aceticism aceticism the idea that Holiness comes by denying the physical body denying a physical needs wants denying physical pleasure you know a lot of people do have the assumption that Holiness means saying no to some part of creation well all of God's creation is good you know so we should start with you know we have to start with the document of creation you know everything that comes from God's hand is intrinsically good and yes there may be times of fasting but not because the body is evil or contemptible but because uh because we're Sinners and sometimes we need to counter our sinful urges and fasting can be a good discipline for doing that so denying yourself is not denying the way God intrinsically made us it's denying us sin I actually had a student once who said um oh he was really good with I.T um technology and uh he said I'm going to be a lawyer I said why that's not that's not what you're good at he said well my Christian teaching he was at Christian College my Christian teachers told me I should deny myself I said denying yourself doesn't mean deny you intrinsic gifts that God has given you I think that's another thing that people often confuse you know denying yourself means denying you sinful impulses not the good intrinsic um self uh thing the intrinsic personality and gifts and skills that God has given you that's not what self-denial means in Scripture yes in fact uh I'm thinking of the verse from Romans it's um Romans 13 14 that says put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires and I've heard Christians interpret this verse to mean something like make no provision for the flesh so I'm not supposed to plan what I'm going to eat and I shouldn't wear nice you know I shouldn't get clothes that are warm enough or something like this but really that's when the Bible talks about flesh it's not talking about necessarily the physical matter but it's our sinful nature it's make no provision to gratify the desire that you have toward sin and um that's I think such a helpful way to to understand that it's it can be confusing because like any language the Greek in which the New Testament was written the Greek sometimes has words that can be interpreted different ways like uh you don't don't love the world but God so loved the world the world could have two different meanings and flesh has two different meanings in scripture too sometimes it does just mean your physical body which is God's creation and which isn't physically good and sometimes flesh does mean your sinful self so uh one of the reasons so that's important to recognize you know Bible like any language has words that have that can be interpreted differently and we have to be very careful that we know which one is intended by the text also we have to realize that historically Christianity was influenced by Greek philosophy in other words the early church came into a culture that was um influenced by uh people like Plato and Aristotle who did well even more gnosticism um who did deny the value of the physical world who said this world is well the realm of death Decay and destruction and so sin was defined in terms of you know immersing yourself in this physical world and salvation was defined in terms of escape from the physical world from the material world and unfortunately uh as Christians sort of reached around for the language to describe their own theological views they often picked up the language of their culture which we all do yeah um but the language of their culture was this Greek philosophy because you don't see in the Old Testament you do not see a denigration of the material world in the Old Testament you don't see a denigration of sex and marriage you don't see a denigration of the Physical Realm so like where did it come from it actually came from the Greek world and the New Testament you know the the early church fathers the midi and even more so in the Middle Ages many Christian thinkers were influenced by the Greek View uh which did that had very sharp sacred secular split and did say this world is you know this world is evil or at least the source of evil and the way to True Holiness just to separate yourself from the world and so that's why in the Middle Ages we get say the monasteries where to be truly holy like you said you you deny yourself good food you wear a hair shirt you know if you are of course clothing you do not you deny yourself marriage and sex you deny yourself private property and you live in a monastery you deny yourself Community you know living in the Ordinary World instead you go off and live in a monastery so this kind of self-denial that was very very very big in the Middle Ages and so that's kind of what was still having to free ourselves from is that strong sacred secular split I had a um there's a there's a friend of mine who used to actually teach at library I met him for the first time when I was at labri and um he likes to illustrate when he teaches he has a fake butt he has a fake Bible and he where one part of it can be extracted and he extracts that one part and throws the rest of the Bible across the across the room to dramatically say look we've taken one part of the Bible and we've gotten rid of the rest we take out your sinner you need to get saved you know we take out the message of Salvation and we throw away the rest so we don't start with creation we don't start with you know this world is intrinsically good it's God's handiwork you know the sin and the fall is real but the fall is a bit like you know if a child takes a magic marker and scribbles on a great artistic Masterpiece you know it it defaces the Masterpiece but the beauty of the original still shines through and that's how we should think of sin in the fall the beauty of creation still shines through and we should honor God by by honoring his creation oh that's such good stuff we're going to take a quick break but when we come back we're going to take more questions with Nancy Piercy please write the word question in all caps if you want your question to be read on air but I want to take a moment and tell you about our first sponsor today that's impact 360 Institute I've talked about impact 360 on the podcast before you all know that I go to impact 360 three or four times a year I speak at all the events the Propel one week experience for students I speak at immersion which is a two-week experience for students and I also go spend a couple of days every year with The Gap year students it's a a nine-month gap year program that is absolutely so wonderful and here's what I love about impact 360. they don't just turn your kids into apologetics robots they integrate so much great discipleship apologetics theology on-site training so if you do the Gap year program you're going to go on a mission trip during that nine-month training time if you go on the two-week immersion experience you're going to go out and share your faith in places like a Buddhist monasteries or at a mosque or even a secular college campus where you're going to interact with atheists and people who do not hold the Christian worldview but impact 360 is going to disciple our students through those experiences to help inoculate them for what they're going to face when they go out into the real world so if you want to learn more about impact 360 go to impact360.org you can apply right now for the Propel experience I think that's the only one that still has some spots left immersion is full for this year but if you have a student who has maybe an idea to take a gap year program before College check out impact 360. I highly recommend it again check out impact360.org okay Nancy here's a question from one of our book club members do you see any way out of this transgenderism or is it one of those things we just have to accept will be part of this Fallen World never in a million years did I think that we'd be at the point where gender would be considered something one can feel instead of a biological reality oh yeah great question and I I do get that question a lot because people say it is transgender ideology is so extreme isn't it going to sort of collapse on itself at some point I'm not as optimistic and here's why um the test genderism of course does rely very heavily on the idea of a mind-body dualism that your mind is separate from your body that your body is not part of your authentic self that your mind can even cut to Dick your body in fact uh just today I I saw an article that quoted me um I I didn't know this article was out there and I just ran into it by accident today it's in the public discourse and the author argues that if we just focus on Sports and bathrooms you know practical um uh policy issues we're going to come across as uh you know hateful and bigoted and so on because that doesn't give us an opportunity to show a positive message whereas if you and then then he quotes me saying if you focus on the mind-body dualism it gives you a positive message because what you can say is Christianity has a high view of the body you know this is what we want to really communicate to people is that we value and give significance moral significance to your body that's a much better way to win people over especially people who themselves may be struggling with gender dysphoria is to say you know Christianity actually gives greater dignity and value to who you are including your physical self you know that we that we we want to see you integrated not disintegrated not separated you know that fragment itself you know that your body your body is separate from your mind it leads to its sort of inner fragmentation even self-alienation in fact um one of the books I read I think it I think it may have come out after lovely body and so it may not be in there but it was the first academic level defense of transgenderism so of course I had to read it because what the academics say is what filters down eventually to Ordinary People and this was at Princeton University professor and she was defending transgender transgenderism but to my great surprise she admitted it involves self alienating self-alienation self-division self-conflict I thought this is an offense well but then she said but that's okay because and and this is a direct quote what the physical body tells us is nothing it has no meaning at all wow so that's really the message that's percolating down all the way to preschool and you know and toddlers you know like that you probably saw the um Blue's Clues with its gay pride gay pride parade so it's filtering all the way down to toddlers that your body your body has no meaning at all um and so the answer to the question is this dualism has been there for a long time as I said it started with ancient Greeks and the gnostics the Mana Keys remember Augustine was a mannequin um and in the modern world it starts with Descartes you know Descartes gives it a philosophical expression it's it's in Kant ivanio Kant um it's it's so deeply rooted in the western mind that um it's going to take a lot to overcome it and my guess is it will continue for a while in fact when I give my talk on I'm now asked often to give a talk just on transgenderism posted the whole book lovely body um and so I I always end on transhumanism because we understand a movement better when we understand what its end game is and the end game for many transgender idiots idiologs is transhumanism and I have several quotes from transhumanists actually saying transgenderism is just a stepping stone to transhumanism you know that people who think they can separate their body from their mind are really just leading us to The Next Step which is we're going to transcend the body right uh what's his name Kurzweil who is the Google director of engineering in other words these are not French characters these are very prominent figures Ray Ray courtswell is his name um says you know why why care about the human species species is a biological concept what we're doing this is a direct quote what we're doing is transcending biology well transcending biology is exactly what transgenderism says they're doing and so it's not surprising that the next step for many of these of the more ideologically motivated people is to trans translated transcend biology altogether um the other one is Martin rothblatt who is enormously wealthy the founder of Sirius XM radio so extremely wealthy was a man named Martin transition to female identity and now calls himself Martine by the way there was a there was a headline not long ago in the news it said the the wealthiest female CEO is a man it's Martinville perfect that's perfect and he has he actually has a book called from transgender to transhumanism so I think that this trajectory is going to continue a while and it's up to but it's up to Christians of course to see if we can break in and help people to see that it is a very fragmenting worldview it is like at Princeton University professors and it's it's self-alienating it's self it's self-division we have to help people to see that that that's really a very dehumanizing worldview and that Christianity offers something much better well your book does a beautiful job of giving that positive apologetic for the value of the body and how much more beautiful it is to see ourselves that way you mentioned Augustine I've recommended this on the podcast before but one of my favorite books is confessions where he talks about leaving the Mana keys and repenting for you know so specifically he's repenting for so many different things and it always stood out to me even before I really understood that that mindset of the physical being bad and the spirit being good is that he had a concubine for I think 11 or 15 years because for him he could just separate that off because that's just the body but you know he would work on his spiritual self and then of course he was repenting for that in confessions I always recommend that for people but in your book you really saw a lot of I think where we're at today even though your books only what is it about five years old I think maybe 2019 I think 2019. yeah but but we the whole transgender diet you know conversation has progressed rapidly even since 2019 I'd love for you to comment on that because now we're seeing rapid onset uh onset gender dysphoria among particularly among young girls what updates would you give now just these few years later to where the conversation has gone today yeah so when I give my talk just on transgenderism I actually start with some graphs showing uh from four countries U.S Australia Sweden and Britain um showing I don't know if you guys can see my hand hand motion um backwards um you know the the rise of transgenderism it was basically a you know flat line and then suddenly it's a cliff it just Rises dramatically um and so that's what what we're up against the rapid increase in the number of young girls who are claiming a transgender identity uh in Britain where they have uh State medicines so they have better records um in I think it was 2018 there was a four thousand percent increase in young girls who were claiming a transgender identity um and so in my book I do I do I have lots more examples of course now and um what I already said it's gone younger and younger I mean I put the Washington Post you know mainstream newspaper it's like the Washington Post featured a curriculum where first grade teachers were told to tell students you may feel like a boy even if you have what some people call girl parts what some people call you know or you may be a girl even if you have what some people call a boy parts so that's third that's first graders being told you know your body it does not tell you anything about who you are and young people are coming I mean little children are coming home from school saying what am I that there was one case it was in in the news because the parents were bringing a lawsuit against the school the little girl first grade first grade the little girl was coming home and saying mommy my teacher said what just what that curriculum says yeah my teacher said you know just because you have boy posts doesn't mean you avoid just because you have girl products doesn't mean you're a girl so mommy what am I and this little girl actually said to her mom please take me to a doctor so I can find out what I am wow um and so they were assuming this the school for um emotional distress so where I would of course where I would update it is it's gone lower and lower I you know you can't say oh let's talk to our teenagers no you have to talk all the way down to your first graders and your toddlers today um because that message is being imparted at a very young age so that's that's one update I would definitely make um and uh another one is um the difference between traditional uh gender dysphoria and the rapid onset gender dysphoria which is which is totally new um traditionally when it was called transsexualism it was almost always male almost exclusively a male phenomenon and it started when children were cut young and so you may remember that in my chapter on transgenderism I do start with the story of a very young child who was a boy and I mean before he was even walking it was clear that this kid was not a normal boy um as his babysitter said to his mom he's too good to be a Boy by which she meant he was sweet gentle compliant and the things that we normally associate with girls when he was in preschool every day when his mom picked him up he was playing with the little girls not the little boys and in elementary school he was coming to his parents weeping frequently saying you know I don't fit in anywhere um well his actual words were uh I think the way girls do I'm interested in this in the things girls are God should have made me a girl you know what does it do what does it do to a parent's heart you know when a child comes home by his early teens he was scouring the internet for information on the sex reassignment surgery so you say what what did his parents do um and by the way I did just write an article on this for the Federalist um giving more detail than I was able to do in the book so if you want to follow up it was it was in January um so but what did his parents do you know first of all of course they urged him to take his identity from his body like that our feelings can change and often do but our body is a an empirical fact that does not change and so it just makes sense to take our identity it's just it's just rational it's more reasonable to take your identity from your body they also told him that he did not have to be bound by sexual stereotypes um they said um it's okay it's perfectly okay to be a gentle sensitive emotional relational boy it does not mean you are really a girl it may be that God has equipped you for one of the caring professions like counseling psychologist healthcare worker they even took him his parents even took him through the Maya's Biggs personality test I don't know if you have used that but you know men and women can be at both ends of the spectrum you know boys can be gentle and sensitive and girls can be more take charge rational athletic you know whatever the stereotypes are and here's what his parents said to him it was this was their favorite phrase it's not you that's wrong it's the stereotypes that are wrong and he had a particularly severe case in other words you probably have heard that um a lot of kids with gender dysphoria outgrow it so to speak in puberty because there's that Rush of hormones that often makes them feel more you know at home with their sexual identity this Branson Brandon didn't he he continued into his early 20s um I thought he he was about 21 and I thought he'd pretty much overcome it and I was talking to him and he and he's he um at the end of the conversation he tapped his chest like this and said but I'm still a girl on the inside and I thought this gender dysphoria is really intractable it is a long difficult haul now he never here's the difference um he never did decide it was his identity so he would say I have gender dysphoria but I'm not transgender hmm so that was the difference yeah um and and he did what there's a there's a very famous um Ted Talk by a cardiologist and the the most famous line from it is every cell has a sex and as a cardiologist her concern was that uh in the symptoms of an impended impending heart attack are different for men and women and so her point was well women are going to the doctors and the doctors don't recognize the symptoms because they've been trained to see only the symptoms that men have um and they said the women home and they have heart attacks but if you if you look at watch it online sometime it's called um his his her health care his her health care um by Paulie Johnson at any rate I of course I read the comments underneath to see what people are saying and people were saying oh she's so transphobic and you're like what she's a cardiologist she said nothing about transgenderism but the very fact that she acknowledged the male female binary in healthcare and finally somebody wrote look guys she's not transphobic she's just saying that when you get sick and the doctors put you on the operating table they need to know your original biological sex to give you the best in medical care yeah so this is what Brandon that was his that's the name I gave him in the book this is what Brandon finally realized you know I cannot I medically speaking I can't actually change my socks here's how he put it he said a human being is not a computer disc that you can erase and start over again so that's when he finally like in his mid-20s finally really uh reconciled himself to his original sex as a male well I think this is something that as Christian parents we can start to feel really overwhelmed about in today's culture our kids growing up in this culture that is especially you mentioned it's being pumped all the way into media that's that's given to even preschoolers and Elementary School in fact my husband and I noticed I've probably mentioned this on the podcast before but we signed up for a particular um streaming platform but we thought we were protecting the kids by signing up for the kids version so we signed up for the kids version and noticed immediately that all of the videos that were put in the queue to just start playing after the one they had watched were all radical gender Theory informed they were all trying to pump in this radical gender Theory so we actually got rid of the kids version and just parental put parental controls on the adult version which was not doing that and that was so telling to me because it's like the indoctrination that they want to get a hold of kids at such a young age but to encourage any Christian parents that might be watching this I think that the gender question is probably easier to start younger than the sexuality question and here's what I mean by that it's like you know if a four-year-old child you can't really explain probably the mechanics of sexual intercourse for them to even understand some of the other stuff that's attached to that topic but what you can do is teach them the difference between a man and a woman a boy and a girl I remember with my daughter having pictures like this is a man this is a woman just of you know the face so they can see and um and explaining to them their Anatomy like you that you have and use the real words you have one of these and that makes you a boy you have one of these this makes you a girl and it's not just that but other things like you said it's in every cell and what our bodies are designed to do and also I think we can bust the stereotypes as Christian parents we you if you have a girl who's more into sports or what might be more stereotypically male encourage her by saying like you mentioned and so beautifully in your book with the story of I believe it was Brandon you know you can be an athletic like female you can be a female who is really into I don't know chess or whatever the stereo you can be into fixing cars and that doesn't make you a boy that's a stereotype In some cultures it's the women who hunt and the men who cook so you know some of these things are culturally constructed and I think it's important for us to to point that out to kids just as you did so beautifully in your book that we we don't need to buy into all the stereotypes that our culture gives us on these things yeah one thing that surprised me speaking of Brandon he said the hardest place is that is Christian circles Christian circles are almost um go overboard sometimes trying to stand against the culture and therefore they almost over emphasize some of the stereotypes um Brandon Brandon um in his high school there was a group of Christians who wanted to start a Christian Christian manhood group well what did they emphasize the founder the the student who founded it uh was from a military family but they emphasized you know very much military virtues than you know sort of toughness and strength and you know the willingness to fight um and Brandon didn't join the she didn't join it um uh he said he well I just just to say he said he told me multiple times Christian groups are actually the worst so I think your your point is well taken Christians should really rethink the stereotypes there's a um a book excuse me a movie uh documentary by BBC that is called transgender kids who's who's right um and it did feature a young girl who by age two was telling her parents I'm a boy I'm a boy and when they refused to treat as a boy she would have screaming fall down temper tantrums it was very very difficult his father said raising her name was Alex raising Alex was like a war zone um it was very difficult but they did find a gender clinic by the way this is when this was before dinner clinics were all closed before the laws outlawed any sort of uh therapy of course now now you pretty much cannot give therapy to kids who have gems for you because unless you do anything but straight you know immediately affirm you'll lose your license so this was before that it happened um and the general clinic encouraged Alex to think to be less rigid in her gender stereotypes they said you know you could be there's lots of different kinds of ways to be a girl you can be a girl who plays with Barbie dolls or you can be a girl who plays hockey this was in Canada one of the largest gender clinics was in Toronto Canada well at age eight her parents finally took her to a softball team and she said oh this other girl's like me you know right she literally she literally said I found girls who were maybe even more tomboy than I was and who were kind of sporty and athletic she said I'd never seen that before well to me like I would have taken her when she was four you know yeah hey eight years old they finally discovered this but um and it took by the way it took four more years it took until she was 12 before she really made the turn unaccepted herself as a girl but this was another great example of where the stereotypes are what you know made her think she she must be a boy because she did not fit the the typical you know sort of feminine frilly stereotypes um she was she was much more of a tomboy at any rate I think it's what you the point you made is well taken churches really need to rethink this we can affirm femininity and masculinity as you know part of God's creation without buying into the cultural stereotypes and that's important yeah and that can be tough to untangle sometimes but that's something we all need to start thinking a lot more about and I uh I hear somebody's got a book coming out coming up soon about the toxic war on masculinity that I'm looking forward to reading that's your next book right we'll have to have you back to talk about that one we're gonna go to a quick break and in a moment we're going to come back with a question about IVF so I'm looking forward to your answer on that one but I want to tell you about our next sponsor for today of course good ranchers you guys I just have to make some confessions to you today so I already subscribed to good ranchers for monthly but my husband and I have been talking about this for a while we we bought the prepper pack today and we if you go on goodranchors.com you can look at the prepper pack um we just got a freezer in our laundry in our little laundry room area and so we are going to fill it up with good ranchers meet and there's three reasons that I really 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goodranchers.com use my code elisagoodranchors.com American Meat delivered all right Nancy we're back and we've got a big question for you about IVF this is from Jackie on Facebook so being childless creates heartache for many Christian couples IVF can make it possible for a couple to have children however this comes at an ethical emotional and spiritual cost there are costs to Frozen embryos kept in storage for future use for Frozen embryos kept in limbo and then destroyed or used for other scientific purposes I really feel for people in this situation so this question comes not from a place of judgment but how do we support and witness to childless couples and those contemplating IVF programs to have babies how do we support those who have had babies through IVF and now feel guilt over the process oh do they uh I was not aware that they do feel guilt after the fact I don't know yeah I hadn't heard that part um I my students with Peter Singer this last semester Peter Singer is one of the um well the most influential secular bio office so she teaches at Princeton and in many ways um the people who first beget I I first got this body person dualism idea from from Catholic thinkers they had applied it to abortion and euthanasia they had not yet applied it to homosexuality transgenderism so that's why my book goes a step further um but they had applied Catholic things had applied it to abortion and euthanasia and the reason they did is because they were analyzing what Peter Sayer was saying and Peter Singer was defending abortion with this body person dualism in other words he was saying uh so I take my students through his his chapter on abortion and at first they're really stunned because he he debunks all the typical liberal arguments you know the typical the liberal arguments like it's not really human oh it's part of the woman's body or whatever he's debunking them all and my students are like this guy's great you know he sounds like he's on our side and then suddenly they get to the part where he pivots and he says well of course the fetus is human but that has no moral significance that doesn't that doesn't mean the the fetus has any moral standing that doesn't mean that it warrants legal protection being a member of the human race or the human species doesn't have any moral implications at all you have to become a person defined in terms of a certain level of cognitive functioning uh mental abilities self-awareness and so on and he has really set the stage for most secular bioethicists today most of them today do argue that way they do not deny that the fetus is human uh the the fetus is human from conception you know some of us still think that's the debate at least amongst professional bio offices that's not the debate they know that the fetus is human fun conception and they will say so and they all borrow from Peter Singer they all say but it's not a person so that's where the body person dualism first arose is we we began to see secular people making that distinction and that's how we realized we needed to start addressing that um that fragmented divided notion of the human being um and he interestingly enough he says moral conservatives which includes most Christians are actually inconsistent on it on end vitro fertilization because they're not acknowledging that to get to the point where we are now you had to kill a lot of you had to you had to have a lot of failures you had to have a lot of failures in the lab where you put the sperm and egg together and it didn't work in other words you had to kill a lot of embryos if you're opposed to killing embryos you have a problem with in vitro fertilization because we only got to the point where we're not successful well and by the way we're not that successful for people who have tried um is it's very expensive and you have a lot of failures still the the failure rate is quite High um but his point was you you moral conservatives have only thought this through because you're saying a fetus that the fetus is human from conception and yeah you're accepting a technology that has allowed us to kill a lot of embryos so I do think Christians need to think through this carefully um in in love body I was thinking of a quote um I pulled up I pulled up my book while you were promoting the good ranchers um uh but there was a quote from Gilbert mylander he is a Lutheran bioethicist and he talks he has a section here uh if you if you um want to go back and look at it in the book it's on page 253 254. and he does warn that we have become that um we're developing a commercial mindset toward babies you know the individual fertilization and surrogate motherhood and so on are creating a notion that the baby is a commercial product and that when you pry uh reproduction loose you know from natural Parenthood you do allow for mentality to develop the children of products and he notes the um he knows the dangers of that and of course as he says um children become merchandise to be evaluated according to standards of quality control and if the paying parents do not believe they are getting their money's worth they may reject the product which of course has happened many times you know if the baby turned out to have a Down syndrome or something that parents you know return the product um um and here's how he puts it though here's the Keith quote he said um the technological mindset is apt to see everything even children as raw material subject to human control and remaking and my land at warrants quote we are tempted to see ourselves as only a free spirit detached from a body there you go there's that body person dualism to see ourselves only as a free spirit detached from the body what we risk here is a separation of person and body that demeans the body and makes of it a thing you know a product the commercial product I think that's the that is something we really need to come to grips with as we look at um in veto fertilization yes I've had some friends who've done it as well and actually I do promote I do encourage snowflake babies because those babies are already there yeah you know it's like adoption you know adoption those babies are already there snowflake babies are a form of adoption yeah I you know Nancy I was at a speaking event and somebody this woman brought um her baby and and you know I was like playing with the baby and she said this is a snowflake baby and I didn't know what that was I said what is the snowflake baby she said we adopted an embryo I could I had never heard of that before and what a beautiful way to honor life and to you know to to just live out that pro-life ethic just to get to meet this baby that was that was an embryo a frozen embryo until it until I think it was a she was adopted yeah yeah one of my friends has a signific baby so yeah I've walked with them through that process but the other thing about um inverter in vitro fertilization of course is that it has opened the door to surrogate motherhood so there we have another body we have the mother's body the surrogate mother's body and again um uh I I just thought something I saw an article just today you know Twitter's so great you see so many articles but they go past so quickly there was an article on how the mother's body is dehumanized the surrogate mother you know they are called tummy mommies and belly buddies you know they're developing cutesy little titles as a way of saying you know you're not really the mother you know we're just using your body and what and again this is something I do talk about in the book and I so I'll call your attention to it um it's under baby farming um but this this was a quote by a journalist named Julie Bendel I really like her stuff she's a lesbian um so I thought this was interesting that as a lesbian she would write about the dangers of circuit motherhood um you know rent rent a womb the rental room yeah rooms for rent yes um she says and and this is a quote on page 96. the accelerating boom in surrogacy for gay couples now remember she's gay for gay couples represents a disturbing slide into the brutal exploitation of women who usually come from developing countries and are often bullied or pimped into selling their wounds to satisfy the selfish whims of wealthy gay or lesbian westerners and she said what yeah then she goes on to say this is you know totally hypocrisy here we are against sex trafficking but this is a kind of reproductive trafficking so the two bodies here you know the the baby's body and we're treating it as though as my land as Gilbert mylander said you know the spirit is separate from the body and the body is reduced to a thing but this mother too who's also reduced to sort of a commercial production machine so those are the things we need to consider when we think about in vitro fertilization I had a friend who um was a surrogate mother for her one of her best friends and what a lot of people don't talk about with the surrogacy is when you're pregnant when you have a child in your body your your body releases all sorts of hormones that are bonding you to the child and my friend went through that and she even knew what to expect she's like I know that you know in three days my milk is going to come in and I'm going to feel these you know incredibly strong bonding hormones toward this child that is not mine and she it was it was very emotionally difficult for her when that all happened even more than I think she expected and that's something they don't really uh tend to talk about when they talk about this is the the impact that has on the surrogate mother and how much you have to just kind of disconnect yourself from your body and especially if it's somebody you don't even know and you're just like a womb for rent and and how that that um just the psychological impact of something like that well not only that but the baby so I was reading up on adoption recently and I didn't realize how much literature there is out there now on um even if you adopt at Birth so shortly afterwards babies adopted children are growing up and and having to work through some trauma because they've bonded to the mother as well they've bonded to the mother they've heard the mother's voice for nine months you know again even the biochemical bonding I had not realized how extensive it can how traumatic it can be for the baby as well that the baby is bonding to the mother as well um and and of course you know we don't want to say adoption is bad adoption is is something that um it's wonderful for you know being able to step into a difficult situation and redeem it but we have we need to be aware that it still is not the ideal and we may have some issues we need to work through even when a child is adopted from birth sometimes there's elements of trauma because of that you know bonding that happens even in the womb yeah right okay good stuff we're going to move on to another question here from Facebook how can I walk with friends whose 15 year old daughter has declared herself a boy she has also said she won't go to church anymore they are looking to parent with Truth and Love yeah you know that's why I spent so much time on brand the Brandon story um because you know um I mean his was in some ways even more severe because he was he identities for you if I'm a very young age by the way this so he's he's what 20 he's 26 now so when he was little transgenderism was hardly anything but a term you know we just didn't know much about it and and his parents made a point of never using the word transgender in his presence they didn't want him to even know that was an option because they sensed from an early age that he had gender dysphoria and that he was going to have a difficult time but um so so we're back to we're back to um helping a young person recognize that there is an underlying world view I think young people tend to be very focused on their feelings and they think I'm just trying to be true to my feelings you know whether it's a child who is uh experiencing attraction to the same sex or a child who's experiencing gender dysphoria um in both cases it's easy for the child to think well I'm just following my feelings I have these really intense feelings we have to help them to get a little bit of distance and say well actually when you make a choice you know you can't choose your feelings okay let's let's make that clear so people don't feel guilty for their feelings you know just like you can't choose whether you're going to feel angry or jealous or you know those feelings just Bubble Up in us so we don't want to make young people feel guilty for their feelings they they don't choose their feelings but they do choose what they do with them and what we have to help them to see is when you make a decision a choice you're not just choosing to go with your feelings you choosing a worldview you're choosing a world view uh with gender dysphoria for example you're choosing a worldview that says my body doesn't matter that my body is Expendable my body's insignificant my body's irrelevant to who I am you're buying into the transgender ideology that denigrates and demeans the body and we have to help them to realize that even if they're not attending to do it because they'll say that you know well I don't mean to do that um we have to help them to see that an action has a logic of its own so if I choose if I'm a woman and I choose to live as a man that action in itself says why should I take my identity from my body why should my biological sex as male or female have any say in the way I live and and the way I choose to identify in my moral choices so even if we don't intend to our actions have a logic of their own and we are in fact endorsing a particular worldview and we have to kind of help them think through this is one worldview this is the secular worldview that says your body has no meaning or significance like that Princeton University Professor defending transgenderism who says point blank what the physical body tells us is nothing it has no meaning at all we have to help people see that's actually what you're endorsing when you choose to adopt a transgender identity over against and then and then you show them the Christian view which says your body is a creation of a loving God it is a product of of intention and will and purpose let me give you a good quote so um there is a a well-known public intellectual named Camille Paglia do you know her I do yeah I thought you would yeah yeah a lot of Christians know her because she's um though she's a feminist she's a bit of a like of an iconoclastic feminist because she does not think gender or sex is a social construction she says no no uh Nature Made Us NATO made us male and female now she has identified for many years as a lesbian and did you know she's come out as trans now no I did not yeah now that's interesting because isn't she kind of put in that group of the trans-exclusive radical feminist isn't she kind of in that group that gets called turfs or no not so much uh no because apparently not yes you would have thought that because she was like I said she she has she hasn't been a typical feminist she has said Nate Tomatoes male and female but over a year ago I mean I went and double checked she came out as trans but either way the logic is the same her logic is this um Nature Made Us male and female you know who oh oh wait she has a quote where she literally says we are designed for sexual reproduction designed a strange word for an atheist um and now you say well if we're designed you know as male and female how do you justify being well either lesbian or trans they both reject the body and here's how here's how she explains it she says well Nature Made Us male and female but why not defy nature that's her word why not defy nature after all again do I quote fate not God has given us this flesh we have absolute claim to our bodies and may do with them as we see fit wow so the one right the logic here is if our bodies are products of mindless purposeless forces then they have no intrinsic purpose that we are moral morally obligated to respect you know they they give us no moral message they give us no clue to our identity we may do within us we see fit so that is the world view behind what both the homosexual and the transgender movements and of course our argument is well the body does have purpose we are morally obligated to respect it science itself shows us that living things are structured for a purpose you know eyes are made for seeing ears are made for hearing Wings are Made for flying fintimate for swimming in fact the development of the entire organism is driven by an inbuilt plan or blueprint the DNA code so science is on our side here when we make the case that our bodies do exhibit a plan a design a purpose and our argument is that people will be or if you're talking to your 15 year old daughter you will be happier and healthier when you live in accord with that purpose yeah so again it's a positive message is my is my point we have the help of this I'll I'll give you one more story because this is also in the book it's Rebecca and she had uh she was attracted to other women even after she got married she continued to have a problem with it and so she discussed it with her husband one day and here's how he put it it's very similar he said because you have biologically a female because this is how God Made You that no matter what your feelings are right now and that's how we have to talk to our children sometimes no matter what your feelings are right now I understand you will you could be confident that you will ultimately be more fulfilled with a man sexual relationship the man and of course he said this is Rebecca Rebecca's husband said of course you know it goes both ways I'm a man and so whatever my feelings might be I can be um convinced confident that I will be ultimately more fulfilled with a woman and and that was a turning point for Rebecca because it was logical it made sense it's a beautiful story yeah and and again it took several years and that's another thing we have to realize we tend to think someone's either 100 100 homosexual 100 heterosexual but it actually is it's more like alcoholism a lot of Alcoholics you know they go for years sometimes having you know sometimes sliding back into alcoholism often having temptation just because something still continues to have Temptation you know we we shouldn't over promise this is how um conversion so-called conversion therapy got a negative image partly because it over promised it said if you do our program you know you'll be completely free of any Temptations or attractions well that's not true it's it's fairly true most people do struggle with it for years I mean God can zap people sure once in a while once in a while we all have someone who struggle with yeah absolutely my mother-in-law was a severe alcoholic and God zapped her and she was healed overnight that's not common yeah so we should realize that with most people we shouldn't make them feel guilty because they continue to have Temptation it's it's a process often over many years so Rebecca I said I want a husband to be made that comment it was a turning point it took about four more years before yeah you know she was really free of sort of the compulsive attraction you know the girl crutches girl crushes you know as as teenagers call it um so so it helps us sometimes I think to realize it it can be gradual um and we can support people through the process that's really good and and to the person that was asking about the 15 year old that I everything Nancy just said I I agree with wholeheartedly and I would just add had two there's so much pressure on parents to go ahead and do some interventions and I would just advise any parent out there absolutely under no circumstances do not consent to any sort of um you know puberty blockers or anything that might you know they'll say oh it just presses the pause button on puberty and as Nancy as your book points out and others have pointed out in recent years you know this is not the case these These are uh people this hasn't even been studied long term as far as puberty blockers go and I would just be I would be so adamant that you will not consent to any sort of um interventions that could really come back to to haunt your child in the future yes we should really listen to D transitioners you know there's so many D transitions the transitioners that is people who transitioned to the opposite sex and underwent some level of puberty blockers crossed sex hormones surgery and so on and then said oh oh I made a huge mistake and there's growing numbers of them and it's wonderful issue deaf yes that's what parents should definitely look up the the transitions Chloe Cole Chloe c-o-l-a Cole um yeah she was recently on the Jordan Peterson podcast yes um a few weeks ago I recommend everybody go listen to that because that conversation was so eye-opening to me and just the struggles that that she continues to have she was um basically had gender dysphoria as a young girl and then was sort of moved into transition by the time I think she was maybe 16 or 17 and she was sharing some of the struggles she continues to have as a result of some of those all you know life-altering surgeries and interventions and drugs and all of the things that still continue to haunt her to this day it's a powerful episode uh that I just recommend everybody go listen to because it really opened my eyes to what life is like for somebody who had those types of irreversible Damage Done to their bodies one one of the first D transitioners I found was a young girl um not a Christian she had transitioned to mail when she was 11 and and then she had lived as a trans boy for three years and detransitioned at age 14. and she was interviewed um on a very secular website by the way this is another resource there are some good websites out there for parents who are dealing with this issue and this one's it's not Christian but it's called fourth wave now fourth right wave now um it's it's parents and professionals therapists and others who are concerned about this issue and this was an interview on that website um and there's a few others too but I would start there um and she said and this is what she said um I realized she said the Turning Point came um D transition when I realized and this is a direct quote it's not conversion therapy to learn to love your body um this came out after my book wow what a great quote Yeah that would have been titled love thy body and it's not and it's and it's not just true I just ran into a few days ago there's another woman um who transitioned to male as an even as an adult she still said uh she goes up by the name she goes by a male identity still Scott Nugent um they were on the uh Matt Walsh documentary yes yeah yes um so she was she was on Twitter the other day because she did a little video where she was saying don't don't transition your kids because she's still dealing with so many health issues from her transition and and here's what she said she said we need to help young people learn direct quote learn to love their natural bodies yeah I thought you know secular people are seeing it they're seeing that the issue here is your body um the the issue is you know do you have that transgender well body hatred that's that's a term you're starting to hear now even in circles the transgenderism represents body hatred um and I wanted to uh follow up on what you said about um therapists do not take your child to a gender therapist that's right and yeah do not know gender affirming care any of that do not well you know people think oh well they're a professional they're all affirming unless you if you write to me I know the one or two the one or two out there who are not I can't remember her name right now um but there's only a few and of course you know they they do um therapy they do counseling online on Zoom uh because how else you find them they're not local yeah um and here's here's the pause at least something positive and that is some Nations Sweden Finland the UK are starting to change their policies on this issue they're starting to pass laws against transitioning for minors wow wow that's good yeah in some states here the us too like Florida and Ohio I think Tennessee I don't I think Ohio was the most recent at any rate um but let me tell you about the UK because this was very interesting so there's a young woman who transitioned at a young age uh Kyra Bell that's her name Kyra Bell um she oh she transition I I started age 13 or something like that um and she went to the largest clinic in the UK which is called the Tavistock and they transitioned her and then she she later detransitioned and she brought a lawsuit against the Tavistock against the clinic and went all the way to the what they call the high court which is the Supreme Court and she won she won wow um unfortunately on appeal she lost but through that lawsuit the justices found out what was happening at the gender clinics and she said they were shocked they had no idea that young people were being trans transitioned at such a young age and with so little counseling you know that that was his lawsuit right that I had all kinds of trauma and and psychological issues none of them were addressed I was just fast tracked into transitioning as if that would solve it all so that was the essence of her lawsuit and so they closed down the Tavistock they closed the clinic wow the largest gender clinic in the UK was closed because of her lawsuit because that publicized the issues and you know when the public found out what was really happening at this at this clinic and by the way a lot of Clinic a lot of Clinic workers uh joined the protests they were seeing it and they were disagreeing with it so anyway this is this is huge the largest gender clinic in the UK was closed um and so we we have we have hope yeah here we have hope right and that's what Jordan Peterson was even predicting it's this is all going to go to court this is all going to get settled in the courts like this is where this is heading and you mentioned Scott and I said they because I couldn't remember if it was a male to female or female to male but if anybody has watched the what is a woman documentary by Matt Walsh Scott showed her arm where the muscle was removed for the surgery and it's I mean it's just so sad to see things like that where people are being mutilated and not taught to love their bodies which hopefully people will read your book and learn to do that very thing so love the body that God gave them well Nancy we're about out of time but I would love to just give you the last word is what would you like to leave our audience with what kind of encouragement for Christians that are living in this particular cultural moment wow um we did we did cover an awful lot yeah um is there anything left that I we that we didn't cover well we didn't really talk about because in the in the in the thumbnail we we mentioned how transgenderism hook up culture abortion and how they're all connected so maybe you can kind of tie that up for us and and how those are all kind of connected from and come from the same worldview good point yes because that's what's really unique about the book like I said there are some Catholic thinkers who applied it to abortion um you know some people we tend Frances Schaefer actually said this once he said we tend to deal with each issue individually you know we are we argue we uh memorize the arguments for this issue and we memorize the arguments for that issue and he said what we failed to do is address the underlying worldview and so that's what I that's what's most unique about the book is I do show that all of them end up with the meaning of the body so abortion um we touched on it already but it's the idea that professional bioethicists agree that biologically physiologically genetically the fetus is human the evidence from science from genetics and DNA is just too strong to deny it so how do they get around that and support abortion they say well the fetus is human but it's not a person so that's where that split was first applied was the abortion issue and of course euthanasia it's the same reasoning just in reverse you know they say you know if if you lose a certain level of cognitive functioning then you are no longer a person and at that point uh there's one bioethicist says you are only a body I thought that was an interesting way if you are only a body and if you only a body if you're merely biologically human then of course your organs can be uh your organs can be removed your food and water can be discontinued your treatment can be stopped you can be unplugged so again the the whole issue rests on you know be being human well being human is not enough for human rights so that it it has undermined the whole notion of Human Rights because being human when here are people who admittedly human the safetist or whether it's in you know the euthanasia admittedly human and yeah we're being told that that gives a normal standing that gives them no no rights that gives them no legal protection so the whole it topples the whole notion of Human Rights and so that's kind of the bigger issue that's impacted the hookup culture um I deal with people who basically um I have a lot of quotes in there from um from college students who basically say the only way I can participate in the hookup culture is to separate my mind from my body this uh young college student named Alyssa who says um the hookup culture is very scripted this is her these are her words very scripted you learn to tune everything off except your body you make yourself emotionally invulnerable so there's you know essentially they're training themselves in the body person split and there's a quote from a college student who's quoted in Rolling Stone magazine who said the mistake people make is they think that there's two different dimensions that can be separated you know the sexual side of the relationship and the emotional side of the relationship and they pretend that there are clean lines between them actual words so you can almost visualize that little diagram that you that you saw in the book by Body person here it's sexual versus personal relationship there's a Christian College psychologist who said the two most prescribed medications on the college campus today our birth control pills and antidepressants wow and she said that's not a coincidence yeah so the hookup culture is another expression of you know I can separate who I am as a person from what I do with my body and then homosexuality some people find that one a little bit harder it's not as obvious as transgenderism because you know transgender activists argue very explicitly my identity is not my body but think of it this way with homosexuality um even my homosexual friends agree that physiologically biologically anatomically males and females are counterparts to one another that is how the human sexual and reproductive system is designed to embrace a same-sex identity is therefore to contradict that design you know it's to say well why should I take my identity from my body why should I live in a chord with the obvious design of my body why should I why should my moral choices be restrained in any way by my biological sex as male or female so it really is a denigration of the body um uh we're back to we're back to that Camille poglia quote which you know as Elizabeth she was still a lesbian when she wrote that you know when she said you know why not Define nature who cares and and that's totally logical if there is no God if we are products of blind material forces with no purpose why should you be restrained by your body I mean I would feel the same way if I was not a Christian That's The Logical implication now technically even then is that is that healthy even the non-Christian should be able to say see that it's not healthy to live in that sort of fragmented dichotomy between my mind and my body it's not healthy to be fragmented and fractured and divided in that sense um but but the logic is there so in other words every issue at all of these issues surprisingly enough and uh uh hinging on your view of the body and that's why it's so important for Christians to recover a holistic worldview where instead of having the sacred secular split you know where we kind of say oh well the material world is not what's important you know what's really important is the spiritual realm no we have to go back to Genesis back to Creation because all of creation comes from God's hand all of creation has meaning and dignity because it was created by a loving God who intended it to be the way it is very good well I want to thank my guest Nancy Piercy what a gift to have her on the podcast today please like And subscribe if you're watching on YouTube click the Bell icon to be notified every time we release a new video and again if you're watching on or you're listening on audio platforms it helps us so much when you rate and review we have so many great reviews on Apple so much appreciate that it helps get the word out and get this into the hands of more people if you want to go deeper into topics and you're looking for a place to do some higher education I can't recommend Southern Evangelical Seminary highly enough they are the Seminary that I am currently a student at I'm taking my philosophy class and if you're looking for great education ses.edu Elisa you can download a free ebook there I just love SES you guys know that I talk about it all the time but in the meantime let's remember as we pursue Christ to keep a sharp mind a soft heart and a thick skin we'll see you next time

Channel: Alisa Childers

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Id: Zy30xz83xH0

Length: 99min 44sec (5984 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023