1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:09,980 One of the commonplaces of our culture is to distinguish between sex and gender. 2 00:00:10,280 --> 00:00:16,070 I can still remember filling in forms way back when that asked me for my sex—whether I was male or female. 3 00:00:16,580 --> 00:00:21,110 But now forms ask me for my gender, and they often give me more than two options. 4 00:00:21,860 --> 00:00:28,310 But I was fascinated to learn in my conversation with today's guest on the Centre for Christian Living Podcast that 5 00:00:28,490 --> 00:00:35,420 even the word "gender", as applied to someone's sexual nature or expression or identity, is a very recent invention. 6 00:00:35,990 --> 00:00:39,290 We only really started doing that in the late 1950s and 60s. 7 00:00:40,100 --> 00:00:48,860 And the introduction of the idea of gender and its separation or decoupling from the concept of sex, so that we now have two potentially 8 00:00:48,860 --> 00:00:56,085 different things—sex and gender—it's one of the extraordinary features of the story of Western culture over the past 30-40 years. 9 00:00:56,824 --> 00:01:01,474 In today's episode, we hear the story of how that happened, why it's had such a massive 10 00:01:01,474 --> 00:01:07,595 impact on our society, and how it all relates to God's theory of sex in his word. 11 00:01:22,414 --> 00:01:23,045 Well, hello again. 12 00:01:23,045 --> 00:01:23,854 I'm Tony Payne. 13 00:01:23,854 --> 00:01:26,475 Welcome to another edition of the Centre for Christian Living podcast. 14 00:01:26,495 --> 00:01:28,355 It's great to have you with us again. 15 00:01:28,715 --> 00:01:32,045 And sitting opposite me today here at Moore College in our studio is Rob Smith. 16 00:01:32,135 --> 00:01:32,705 Hello, Tony. 17 00:01:32,765 --> 00:01:33,815 Nice to see you, Rob! 18 00:01:34,205 --> 00:01:37,085 We've known each other for a long time through various different things. 19 00:01:37,085 --> 00:01:39,485 We were on the board of EMU Music together for a while. 20 00:01:39,485 --> 00:01:40,595 For a while, yes. 21 00:01:40,775 --> 00:01:42,245 On the Doctrine Commission for many years. 22 00:01:42,335 --> 00:01:43,505 Indeed, we have been. 23 00:01:43,505 --> 00:01:46,325 And many of our listeners will know you from your music, of course. 24 00:01:46,325 --> 00:01:50,340 We've sung your songs over the years, and just hearing your voice kind of makes me 25 00:01:50,340 --> 00:01:53,610 think of those recordings of "Undivided" and "Let Your Kingdom Come" and other things. 26 00:01:53,610 --> 00:01:56,580 Are you still writing much music and doing much of that stuff these days? 27 00:01:56,759 --> 00:02:02,550 Well, I did put my music on hold, in many ways, for a number of years, while I was trying to write a PhD, which as you know, is all-absorbing. 28 00:02:02,825 --> 00:02:03,270 Indeed, indeed. 29 00:02:03,270 --> 00:02:03,360 Yes. 30 00:02:03,509 --> 00:02:11,695 Uh, but since finishing that, I have began to reengage with my music writing and recording, and so there's some things in the works. 31 00:02:11,725 --> 00:02:12,774 Oh, look forward to that! 32 00:02:13,015 --> 00:02:16,345 What else do you do with yourself these days—just to orient people to who you are these days? 33 00:02:16,465 --> 00:02:19,885 Yeah, look, I'm on the faculty at SMBC: Sydney Missionary and Bible College. 34 00:02:19,885 --> 00:02:24,265 I teach theology and ethics, and occasionally, music ministry when that comes around. 35 00:02:24,990 --> 00:02:29,910 And while I was there, 20 years part-time before, in 2022, I started there full-time. 36 00:02:29,910 --> 00:02:37,770 So that's a great privilege to serve there and to be preparing students for work in God's harvest, uh, all over the place. 37 00:02:37,830 --> 00:02:38,370 Indeed. 38 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:45,570 Wonderful job to do, and especially glad to be chatting with another member of the Noble Order of Ethics Lecturers. 39 00:02:45,750 --> 00:02:46,020 Absolutely. 40 00:02:46,020 --> 00:02:51,155 There's not many of us, so it's lovely to have you here and to talk about your book, which we're going to come to in a minute. 41 00:02:51,424 --> 00:02:56,885 You mentioned a PhD just a few seconds ago that you've been working on, and really, that's the basis for this book. 42 00:02:57,364 --> 00:03:03,964 Your PhD was about transgenderism—about considering and thinking about transgenderism from a biblical perspective. 43 00:03:03,964 --> 00:03:08,915 And that's what this book is about: The Body God Gives: A biblical response to transgender theory. 44 00:03:09,815 --> 00:03:12,545 I guess the first question to ask you is why this topic? 45 00:03:12,695 --> 00:03:17,105 How did you get interested, or what was the motivation for you in pain and suffering that a PhD 46 00:03:17,105 --> 00:03:21,424 involves, and that obviously has come out in this book—the enormous amount of scholarship that's in it? 47 00:03:21,665 --> 00:03:22,445 What got you started? 48 00:03:22,685 --> 00:03:23,375 What got me started? 49 00:03:23,375 --> 00:03:28,299 Well, I had been putting off doing a PhD for many years, partly because I was only for teaching part-time. 50 00:03:28,720 --> 00:03:34,090 But also I was just never really found the topic that I knew I would—would need to absorb me, to engage. 51 00:03:34,630 --> 00:03:39,490 Now, when this topic presented itself to me, perhaps it would be a way of saying it—in fact, you were there 52 00:03:39,490 --> 00:03:44,989 at the time, Tony, 'cause we were, together, working on a report for the Diocese of Sydney on human sexuality. 53 00:03:45,260 --> 00:03:45,290 Mm. 54 00:03:45,619 --> 00:03:50,600 And I remember drafting the shape of the report, and there was a chapter there on kind of, "Where are we? 55 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:54,200 How did we get here?" In my head, I thought, "Right, that's a chapter for Tony to write." 56 00:03:54,589 --> 00:03:57,500 But as it turned out, it was a chapter I ended up writing and— 57 00:03:57,559 --> 00:03:57,769 And 58 00:03:57,769 --> 00:03:58,609 you did it very well. 59 00:03:58,670 --> 00:03:59,540 Well, thank you for that! 60 00:03:59,869 --> 00:04:05,959 But part of what I realised in the process of researching for the writing of that chapter was that the whole transgender phenomenon 61 00:04:05,959 --> 00:04:12,260 was kind of waiting in the wings, or to use a different metaphor, kind of coming like a freight train down the tracks, and here 62 00:04:12,260 --> 00:04:18,740 we were, perhaps, not paying it much attention, because we were very much focused on same-sex relations and same-sex marriage. 63 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:25,970 And so, I remember starting to gather materials and making lists of things and bibliographies and thinking, "Who do I give this 64 00:04:25,970 --> 00:04:32,960 to? Do I give it to Tony? Or do I give it to someone else?" Like, who's got the skills—the interests—to run with this ball? 65 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:38,135 And after a while holding the ball, I realised, "Hmm, maybe I'm the one who's meant to run with it." 66 00:04:38,195 --> 00:04:38,525 Yeah. 67 00:04:38,795 --> 00:04:41,465 So that did then morph into the PhD. 68 00:04:42,095 --> 00:04:47,015 But you've written other things as well, haven't you, on the—this is almost almost like your second or third publication on this topic. 69 00:04:47,615 --> 00:04:47,885 Yes. 70 00:04:47,885 --> 00:04:52,415 Well, early in the PhD process, Don Carson asked me to write a, I guess you called it a long 71 00:04:52,415 --> 00:04:58,800 essay—17,000-word essay—for an initiative over at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which then ended 72 00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:03,270 up being published by Lexham Press a little booklet called How Should We Think About Gender and Identity? 73 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:05,700 So that, I think, came out in 2017, maybe. 74 00:05:06,210 --> 00:05:09,840 Now, in some ways, that's a little bit of a sort of nutshell version of what later became the 75 00:05:09,950 --> 00:05:15,270 PhD—not that I didn't learn a lot in the years following that, which ended up in the bigger book. 76 00:05:15,780 --> 00:05:23,010 And then of course I helped write the book, The Gender Revolution with Patricia and Kamal Weerakoon, which again, was trying to 77 00:05:23,010 --> 00:05:29,780 show how science and Scripture are actually telling us the same story and singing the same song when it comes to these matters. 78 00:05:29,780 --> 00:05:37,070 So that was a book that's been very helpful, I think, to many, particularly 'cause it's accessible and just allows a wider range of people to read it. 79 00:05:37,700 --> 00:05:42,979 But this book, The Body God Gives, coming out of the PhD research you did, does something different. 80 00:05:43,219 --> 00:05:51,229 It does that very detailed work that we needed someone to run with and do, and that you've graciously and laboriously—I 81 00:05:51,739 --> 00:05:57,049 know it's—what a process it is, doing this kind of research and laying it all out—to not only trace how we got here, 82 00:05:57,049 --> 00:06:03,500 the historical perspective of how the transgender movement that is now such a prominent and such a common part of our 83 00:06:03,500 --> 00:06:10,479 cultural understanding today—how it got to be that way, but also how do we address it from a biblical perspective? 84 00:06:10,599 --> 00:06:14,500 And there's a lot of issues in Genesis and in all kinds of places that need detailed work, and 85 00:06:14,500 --> 00:06:20,409 you've done that work, which is an enormous service to the church and to our society, in my view. 86 00:06:20,950 --> 00:06:23,169 And we're going to dig into some of the aspects of the book. 87 00:06:23,169 --> 00:06:26,919 We're going to, in many ways, in those two kind of movements, we're going to talk about the history. 88 00:06:27,070 --> 00:06:27,280 Mm-hmm. 89 00:06:27,280 --> 00:06:29,680 And we'll talk a little bit about the biblical material as well. 90 00:06:30,099 --> 00:06:36,495 But we are going to skate across, obviously, a lot of material that you've looked at at quite some depth, and I really 91 00:06:36,495 --> 00:06:45,135 encourage people, especially if you're a pastor or a theological student, if you're an MTS trainee, if you're a thoughtful 92 00:06:45,195 --> 00:06:50,925 Christian who wants to dig into the detail and the evidence and really wrap your head around it, it's all laid out here by Rob. 93 00:06:50,925 --> 00:06:59,984 And I don't know if you've ever read stuff by Rob before, but he writes in this measured, clear, lucid way that just lays everything out so clearly. 94 00:07:00,044 --> 00:07:03,734 And even though you can see it—as I was reading this book—you can see its origins 95 00:07:04,275 --> 00:07:08,445 in a thesis: it has a certain shape to it and a lot of detail, but it's readable. 96 00:07:08,445 --> 00:07:10,635 It's not as if it's impenetrable by any means. 97 00:07:11,354 --> 00:07:12,995 That's damning you with faint praise, isn't it! 98 00:07:12,995 --> 00:07:13,265 Oh no, thank you. 99 00:07:13,265 --> 00:07:13,815 It's not impenetrable! 100 00:07:13,815 --> 00:07:14,565 Thanks to the promo! 101 00:07:16,305 --> 00:07:16,880 Read this book! 102 00:07:16,965 --> 00:07:17,955 It's not impenetrable. 103 00:07:18,674 --> 00:07:22,395 But let's dig into the first aspect of it, which is the historical perspective. 104 00:07:22,760 --> 00:07:28,820 I was really surprised: I knew that the word "gender" or the idea of gender as describing our consciousness 105 00:07:28,820 --> 00:07:34,880 of our sexual identity or something—that that was a very common word in our culture, and it wasn't a 106 00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:39,320 kind of word we find in the Bible, or I couldn't remember sort of reading it much in Christian history. 107 00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:44,060 But I was kind of shocked to discover from your book what a recent invention it is. 108 00:07:44,270 --> 00:07:46,640 Yes, well, it really goes back to the late 1950s. 109 00:07:47,060 --> 00:07:50,780 It existed before that—indeed, comes out of it the French word "genre". 110 00:07:51,170 --> 00:07:53,539 But it was really just a grammatical term in English. 111 00:07:53,690 --> 00:07:58,460 Or sometimes you might say a kind of humorous synonym for "sex"—biological sex. 112 00:07:59,090 --> 00:08:05,300 But certainly coming out of, well, second-wave feminism, but it wasn't actually the second-wave feminists who coined the language. 113 00:08:05,325 --> 00:08:08,625 You know, Simone de Beauvoir wrote her book, The Second Sex, but she doesn't use the word "gender" 114 00:08:08,625 --> 00:08:12,975 in there, even though she's, perhaps, talking about what we now call gender the whole time. 115 00:08:13,425 --> 00:08:20,235 But it was some people in more than the psychological world—John Money particularly, and a guy called Robert Stoller—who started to use 116 00:08:20,235 --> 00:08:28,050 this language particularly to talk about aspects of both our experience and our expression that are different from our biological sex. 117 00:08:28,469 --> 00:08:36,360 That is, how we think about or perceive our own person, which now, of course, we tend to call "gender identity", and that indeed was one of 118 00:08:36,420 --> 00:08:43,705 Stoller's terms, but also the cultural sort of expression of being a person in the world—being a sexed person in the world: what is that? 119 00:08:43,735 --> 00:08:47,635 'Cause they're often—in different cultures, we do sex differently, you might say. 120 00:08:48,085 --> 00:08:51,655 And so, that often got talked about as sometimes "gender expression" or "gender 121 00:08:51,655 --> 00:08:55,535 roles", depending whether it was more to do with dress or to do with behaviours. 122 00:08:56,095 --> 00:08:59,155 And so, you got this sort of set of terms that came into being. 123 00:08:59,545 --> 00:09:02,575 "Sex" remained a term for biology. 124 00:09:03,175 --> 00:09:07,730 But then "gender" seemed to encompass gender identity, which is more the 125 00:09:07,730 --> 00:09:12,500 psychological dimension, and "gender role"/expression, which is more the social. 126 00:09:13,070 --> 00:09:18,770 So again, if you think in terms of bio-psychosocial, which is a common way of, I suppose, trying to wrap our minds around who 127 00:09:18,770 --> 00:09:25,400 and what we are in terms of having these different aspects and dimensions, okay, "sex" was the bio; "gender", the psychosocial. 128 00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:31,430 And so, yeah, that comes out of—and people call it the Money Stoller paradigm sometimes, or the gender identity paradigm. 129 00:09:31,430 --> 00:09:33,150 The feminist then took that up. 130 00:09:33,689 --> 00:09:39,300 They saw it as useful in the cause of minimising the significance of biological sex 131 00:09:39,300 --> 00:09:45,540 and maximising the so-called constructive elements of, again, being male or female. 132 00:09:46,020 --> 00:09:46,979 This rings bells for me. 133 00:09:46,979 --> 00:09:51,480 It's the kind of feminism, in a sense, I grew up with—the Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan— 134 00:09:51,500 --> 00:09:51,560 Yeah. 135 00:09:51,860 --> 00:09:53,450 —what we call second-wave feminism— 136 00:09:53,450 --> 00:09:53,510 Yeah. 137 00:09:53,510 --> 00:10:00,920 —of the 60s-70s—especially 70s—60s and 70s, in which, as you say, the drive was to say, "Yes, there are biological 138 00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:05,390 differences between men and women", and they were happy to acknowledge that and didn't want to challenge that. 139 00:10:05,450 --> 00:10:05,570 Yeah. 140 00:10:06,315 --> 00:10:10,365 But in a sense, they wanted to minimise the significance of those biological 141 00:10:10,365 --> 00:10:13,155 differences, in a sense, in terms of who we are and how we live in the world— 142 00:10:13,245 --> 00:10:13,365 Yes. 143 00:10:13,815 --> 00:10:19,575 —so that the socially and culturally constructed roles we adopt can be virtually 144 00:10:19,575 --> 00:10:24,380 interchangeable, because they aren't really connected with our biological sex. 145 00:10:24,380 --> 00:10:26,960 Our biological sex is as it is, and that's just the way it is. 146 00:10:27,110 --> 00:10:27,140 Mm. 147 00:10:27,390 --> 00:10:29,360 Men are men, and women are women in that sense. 148 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:29,450 Yes. 149 00:10:29,480 --> 00:10:31,400 Or males are males, and females are females. 150 00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:31,700 Yeah. 151 00:10:31,790 --> 00:10:34,730 But the way we express and live that out socially, culturally, can be 152 00:10:34,730 --> 00:10:39,290 constructed, really, as we wish, and it's been done in a way that oppresses women. 153 00:10:39,290 --> 00:10:40,550 So we need to change that. 154 00:10:40,610 --> 00:10:42,705 And that was essentially second-wave feminism, right? 155 00:10:42,705 --> 00:10:44,175 That's the revolution in a nutshell. 156 00:10:44,625 --> 00:10:49,665 Yeah, and that, again, it took a variety of paths and there was certainly a big push for androgyny in the middle of it all. 157 00:10:50,325 --> 00:10:50,835 Oh really? 158 00:10:50,865 --> 00:10:53,655 And then lesbian feminism came into the picture as well. 159 00:10:53,655 --> 00:11:00,555 And so the story is quite complex, and even though I've put a lot of detail in my telling of it, there's so much I left out as well. 160 00:11:00,555 --> 00:11:00,825 So. 161 00:11:01,365 --> 00:11:08,064 But yes, that part, it's, yes, shrinking down the relevance of biology really simply to the reproductive realm and the 162 00:11:08,064 --> 00:11:16,015 different reproductive capacities of men and women, and then everything else, yes, is socially imposed or socially constructed. 163 00:11:16,615 --> 00:11:17,605 That was the claim. 164 00:11:17,605 --> 00:11:20,215 Now, as I think we can now say, it's not that simple. 165 00:11:20,935 --> 00:11:27,324 There are definitely, it's—things that are socially constructed about gender: certainly in gender dress and so on. 166 00:11:27,535 --> 00:11:28,915 Different cultures do that differently. 167 00:11:29,025 --> 00:11:29,765 Yeah, they vary. 168 00:11:30,015 --> 00:11:34,200 And likewise, even expectations about certain jobs and tasks and so on. 169 00:11:34,860 --> 00:11:38,160 But I think we can now say more confidently that the biological plays a much 170 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:43,410 bigger part and influences a whole lot more than simply our reproductive roles. 171 00:11:44,100 --> 00:11:49,795 I think so, and we might come back to this after we sort of take the story a little bit further to talk about how we 172 00:11:49,795 --> 00:11:55,465 do think about the socially constructed nature of who we are and the fact that we are social beings and that different 173 00:11:55,465 --> 00:11:59,905 cultures do the—we'll come back to that, I think, because we wanted to sort of see how the story progresses from here. 174 00:11:59,935 --> 00:12:00,085 Yes. 175 00:12:00,115 --> 00:12:06,974 Because in a sense, what you're saying is that the second-wave feminist, building on this gender identity kind of paradigm from Money and Stoller— 176 00:12:07,075 --> 00:12:07,255 Mm-hmm. 177 00:12:07,885 --> 00:12:12,570 —we're saying, well, gender is a different thing from biological sex. 178 00:12:12,570 --> 00:12:15,140 There was a sort of a separation of the two, a— 179 00:12:15,210 --> 00:12:15,330 Yes. 180 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:15,850 —what do you call it? 181 00:12:15,850 --> 00:12:17,670 A decoupling of them, as you put it in the book. 182 00:12:17,790 --> 00:12:17,970 Yep. 183 00:12:18,180 --> 00:12:19,530 And that was the crucial move, right? 184 00:12:19,620 --> 00:12:19,890 Yes. 185 00:12:19,890 --> 00:12:27,060 The distinction, firstly, which again, I think is valid to a large extent—distinguishing sex and gender, defined as they've defined them. 186 00:12:27,420 --> 00:12:34,110 But then the decoupling, that's another move, again, that really takes us out of second-wave feminism into, well, at 187 00:12:34,110 --> 00:12:40,980 least in some versions of third-wave feminism, but certainly then into queer theory, where sex has no bearing on gender. 188 00:12:41,675 --> 00:12:44,045 So that's kind of the next stage of the story. 189 00:12:44,194 --> 00:12:44,704 Yes. 190 00:12:44,885 --> 00:12:45,785 Tell us what happens there. 191 00:12:45,935 --> 00:12:47,255 Well, just that exactly. 192 00:12:47,255 --> 00:12:50,375 I mean, again, it has all kinds of antecedents, particularly in French 193 00:12:50,375 --> 00:12:54,724 Existentialism and the rise of postmodernism, and people like Foucault and so on. 194 00:12:54,724 --> 00:12:59,074 But even behind all of that, you can go back to Nietzche and his idea that was 195 00:12:59,074 --> 00:13:03,334 very much taken up by a number of people—that there is no being behind the doing. 196 00:13:04,444 --> 00:13:11,260 And of course, Sartre is famous for his phrase that we effectively create ourselves—that our existence precedes our essence. 197 00:13:11,530 --> 00:13:14,020 So we don't have a given essence that we then live out. 198 00:13:14,140 --> 00:13:20,350 No, we have just the raw fact of existence, and by our existence, we then create an essence. 199 00:13:20,350 --> 00:13:28,694 So all of these kind of things feed into queer theory, and certainly Judith Butler—who wasn't the first person to play around with ideas of 200 00:13:28,694 --> 00:13:36,704 queer theory, but certainly the one who popularised them—she is wanting very much to talk about sex and gender as being radically independent. 201 00:13:37,425 --> 00:13:41,685 And so, the fact that you have a certain type of body tells you nothing about your gender. 202 00:13:42,125 --> 00:13:46,915 You might have a typically male body, but that doesn't mean you're going to be a man, says, Butler. 203 00:13:46,915 --> 00:13:49,415 And likewise, a typical female body doesn't mean you're going to be a woman. 204 00:13:49,715 --> 00:13:51,305 So these are just radically independent. 205 00:13:51,335 --> 00:13:56,885 We might think they're connected, because perhaps in most people's experience, they seem to be, or we like them to be. 206 00:13:56,885 --> 00:13:59,314 But who knows if that's just being socially imposed, you know? 207 00:13:59,675 --> 00:14:03,005 But if they're not connected, then there's no reason they need to line up. 208 00:14:03,730 --> 00:14:09,819 Now, queer theory goes a step beyond even existentialism, because you never actually end up creating an essence in queer theory. 209 00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:11,050 There is no essence. 210 00:14:11,050 --> 00:14:11,890 No, there is no essence. 211 00:14:11,890 --> 00:14:12,790 It's just performance. 212 00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:13,810 Just performance. 213 00:14:13,810 --> 00:14:18,459 And so, yeah, one of the little, um, well definitions that a guy called David Halperin 214 00:14:18,459 --> 00:14:22,850 gives of queer theory is that the essence of queer is identity without an essence. 215 00:14:24,020 --> 00:14:26,840 So you just exist and you never actually become anything. 216 00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:27,680 Um. 217 00:14:27,710 --> 00:14:33,710 You just do, and you do in the way that does construct something and build something, but it's not something essential. 218 00:14:33,710 --> 00:14:36,470 It's something constantly shifting and evolving as you do it. 219 00:14:36,570 --> 00:14:37,420 Yeah, that's it. 220 00:14:37,420 --> 00:14:39,825 And it is all, in the end, performative. 221 00:14:40,335 --> 00:14:42,435 And you can change the performance at any point. 222 00:14:42,495 --> 00:14:50,055 So here's where ideas of, you know, gender fluidity come in—that gender is just this malleable thing that can chop and change at any point. 223 00:14:50,955 --> 00:14:56,805 And so number of lights went on as I was reading through your treatment of the history, and one of them was to 224 00:14:56,805 --> 00:15:01,790 realise that the explanation you've just given very briefly, and that you give much more carefully and fully 225 00:15:01,790 --> 00:15:08,569 in the book, kind of explains the different sorts of trans approaches and trans ideologies that we come across. 226 00:15:09,020 --> 00:15:12,560 You talk about a soft trans theory and a hard trans theory. 227 00:15:12,770 --> 00:15:12,800 Mm. 228 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:17,755 Just explain what those two things are and how, in a sense, they're kind of connected to the trajectory of this thought. 229 00:15:17,875 --> 00:15:19,045 Yes, yes. 230 00:15:19,375 --> 00:15:20,935 I struggled to find the right words. 231 00:15:21,025 --> 00:15:24,925 I went with "soft" and "hard" in the end, 'cause often we talk about soft postmodernism and hard postmodern. 232 00:15:25,045 --> 00:15:25,135 Yes. 233 00:15:25,225 --> 00:15:27,055 I think, okay, let's just use those terms. 234 00:15:27,055 --> 00:15:30,985 But there are, I realised, two quite distinct versions of trans theory. 235 00:15:31,375 --> 00:15:37,735 So that what I've called the "soft" version basically says, yes, your sex is determined by your biology. 236 00:15:38,370 --> 00:15:40,860 But your gender is determined by your gender identity. 237 00:15:41,610 --> 00:15:45,960 And so, if there's a mismatch there, well, your gender identity is the real you. 238 00:15:46,050 --> 00:15:51,660 And so, your biology is the problem, and it, in whatever ways, can be changed, should be changed. 239 00:15:52,020 --> 00:15:53,579 So that's what I've called "soft" trans theory. 240 00:15:53,579 --> 00:15:55,560 It doesn't sound soft, 'cause it's dramatic and— 241 00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:56,850 But that's the kind of— 242 00:15:56,850 --> 00:15:57,360 —revolutionary. 243 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:05,415 —that's the kind of theory where, popularly speaking, Bruce Jenner, who becomes Caitlyn Jenner, says, "No, I realise that, actually, I'm a woman." 244 00:16:05,505 --> 00:16:05,685 Yeah. 245 00:16:05,735 --> 00:16:07,605 Cliché: I'm a woman trapped in a man's body. 246 00:16:07,605 --> 00:16:08,025 Yes. 247 00:16:08,055 --> 00:16:09,015 My body is wrong. 248 00:16:09,195 --> 00:16:10,022 And so, I'm going to change my body— 249 00:16:10,022 --> 00:16:10,365 I'm going to change my body. 250 00:16:10,365 --> 00:16:11,925 —to look like a woman's body. 251 00:16:12,075 --> 00:16:12,345 Yep. 252 00:16:12,405 --> 00:16:16,905 And that will reunite me, in a sense, or make me feel like a whole person again, 253 00:16:16,905 --> 00:16:20,175 because, at least, there'll be some sort of match between who I really, truly am— 254 00:16:20,235 --> 00:16:20,475 Yeah. 255 00:16:20,535 --> 00:16:23,145 —my consciousness of who I am—and my body. 256 00:16:23,385 --> 00:16:23,745 Yes. 257 00:16:23,835 --> 00:16:24,975 And we're very familiar with that. 258 00:16:24,975 --> 00:16:32,225 That's a common trope, and you've call that sort of a soft trans thing, in the sense that it still has some reference to biology. 259 00:16:32,405 --> 00:16:32,585 Yeah. 260 00:16:32,585 --> 00:16:36,215 Even if it's, in a sense, saying that your gender consciousness, and who you 261 00:16:36,215 --> 00:16:40,565 feel and think you are, and how you think about yourself is what should define— 262 00:16:40,835 --> 00:16:41,045 Yeah. 263 00:16:41,105 --> 00:16:41,615 —those things. 264 00:16:41,855 --> 00:16:45,365 Whereas, the other form of what you call the "hard" trans theory goes a step further than that. 265 00:16:45,395 --> 00:16:45,875 It does. 266 00:16:45,875 --> 00:16:53,135 It basically says, "Your gender identity is not only the real you, but it's so determinative of not just who 267 00:16:53,135 --> 00:17:00,140 you are, but what you are"—that your body, as it is, becomes—well, let's say I have a feminine gender identity. 268 00:17:00,140 --> 00:17:02,990 Then my body, as it is, becomes a female body. 269 00:17:03,500 --> 00:17:08,240 I don't have to do anything to it; I just simply have to identify myself as a woman, 270 00:17:08,329 --> 00:17:13,579 and this body is now a woman's body, even though it doesn't have female anatomy. 271 00:17:13,940 --> 00:17:22,790 And so, this is why you end up, as has happened now quite a few times, with males being put into female prisons, and sadly, male rapists 272 00:17:22,850 --> 00:17:29,480 sometimes being put into female prisons, because they are simply identifying as women, even though they've had nothing done to them. 273 00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:31,850 They've not taken a drop of hormones of the other sex. 274 00:17:31,850 --> 00:17:35,900 They've not had any surgeries—uh, not even changed their clothing or, they just— 275 00:17:36,020 --> 00:17:37,340 Declared themselves to be women. 276 00:17:37,340 --> 00:17:38,480 —declared themselves to be women. 277 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:45,350 So often, this is called the self ID view: that is, if you just identify yourself, then you are what you identify as. 278 00:17:45,620 --> 00:17:47,450 So I've called that the "hard" trans theory. 279 00:17:47,450 --> 00:17:50,835 It's the more radical and, in some ways, the more queer version. 280 00:17:50,895 --> 00:17:55,455 But again, there's a saying out there, which most people have probably encountered by now, which is if when 281 00:17:55,455 --> 00:18:01,245 you've met one trans person, you've met one trans person who's—what they mean by whatever label they're using. 282 00:18:01,245 --> 00:18:04,395 Of course, it may not be trans at all; it may be non-binary or something else. 283 00:18:04,395 --> 00:18:07,845 But what they mean doesn't necessarily mean what the next person means. 284 00:18:08,055 --> 00:18:14,625 They may be just declaring a self ID view, or "hard" version of the theory, or the "softer" version, or something else. 285 00:18:14,955 --> 00:18:21,380 Would you say that they have in common, though, a decoupling of biological sex and gender? 286 00:18:21,590 --> 00:18:22,010 Yes. 287 00:18:22,190 --> 00:18:24,650 And the prioritising of gender over biological sex? 288 00:18:24,650 --> 00:18:25,070 Correct. 289 00:18:25,130 --> 00:18:29,000 Yeah, that is the common denominator: that your gender identity is the real you. 290 00:18:29,690 --> 00:18:34,250 So again, either that entirely should change your body, or it actually reclassifies your body. 291 00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:36,350 But yeah, that's the common thread. 292 00:18:37,070 --> 00:18:41,270 What you said is very helpful, because I've often been really puzzled how, at one level, 293 00:18:41,270 --> 00:18:45,110 queer theory—you meld all these things together in your head and you see them as one thing. 294 00:18:45,230 --> 00:18:45,440 Mm-hmm. 295 00:18:45,500 --> 00:18:52,460 And so I've always been puzzled as to how someone could have a kind of a queer theory approach—that is, that there is no essence to us. 296 00:18:52,460 --> 00:18:57,770 There's just the construction of ourselves personally and socially—how having adopted 297 00:18:57,770 --> 00:19:02,629 that position, you would say, "I know deep inside I am this thing called a woman." 298 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:02,840 Mm-hmm. 299 00:19:02,990 --> 00:19:04,790 Which is a much more essentialist kind of— 300 00:19:05,210 --> 00:19:05,540 Totally. 301 00:19:05,540 --> 00:19:06,230 —statement, right? 302 00:19:06,230 --> 00:19:06,320 Yes, 303 00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:06,600 yes. 304 00:19:06,605 --> 00:19:09,260 Where it says, there's some little inner thing in me that is— 305 00:19:09,350 --> 00:19:09,560 Yeah. 306 00:19:09,650 --> 00:19:12,170 —in some way, female, or some ways, a woman. 307 00:19:12,260 --> 00:19:12,500 Mm. 308 00:19:12,740 --> 00:19:15,170 And I've always struggled to see how those two things hold together. 309 00:19:15,890 --> 00:19:17,510 Well, and I don't think they really do. 310 00:19:18,530 --> 00:19:26,090 It is one of the ironies and one of the self-contradictions in so much of this way of thinking that these ideas don't coexist, ultimately. 311 00:19:26,090 --> 00:19:30,774 You know, to say, "I feel like a woman" when a woman is a person with a female body, 312 00:19:30,774 --> 00:19:33,715 but I don't have a female body, how can I feel like a person with a female body— 313 00:19:33,750 --> 00:19:34,370 If I don't have one? 314 00:19:34,370 --> 00:19:34,495 if I don't have one? 315 00:19:35,304 --> 00:19:37,885 And indeed, how do I even know what it feels like to be a woman? 316 00:19:38,395 --> 00:19:41,544 I mean, I say I don't even know what it feels like to be a man. 317 00:19:41,574 --> 00:19:42,955 I just know what it feels like to be me. 318 00:19:43,405 --> 00:19:43,885 That's right! 319 00:19:44,304 --> 00:19:45,625 I don't know what other men feel like. 320 00:19:45,625 --> 00:19:48,165 So, I mean, how would I know what it feels like to be a woman? 321 00:19:48,345 --> 00:19:52,230 Usually what people are simply saying when they make those kind of statements is—well, 322 00:19:52,250 --> 00:19:55,910 it could be a number of things: that I identify with this group, which we call women. 323 00:19:56,270 --> 00:19:57,380 I feel more at home with them. 324 00:19:57,380 --> 00:20:02,060 I feel like I belong to them more than I feel like I belong to the group we call men. 325 00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:09,020 Now, why then, if you dig into that, and we say, "Well, why is that?" Well, maybe 'cause you just have more female typical tastes. 326 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:15,550 Or perhaps you look at the cultural boxes, the gender boxes and the things that supposedly indicate that one is 327 00:20:15,550 --> 00:20:22,720 a man or a woman and think, "Actually, I don't like footy. I don't like going to meat barbecue events." You know? 328 00:20:22,725 --> 00:20:23,470 Yeah, yeah. 329 00:20:23,470 --> 00:20:24,909 I much prefer to listen to opera. 330 00:20:24,909 --> 00:20:27,010 Or I think, "Okay, well, I clearly can't be a—" 331 00:20:27,260 --> 00:20:32,784 "—can't be a man." Which is a strange kind of stereotypical view of man and woman, isn't it. 332 00:20:32,784 --> 00:20:39,965 It's an unusual—like, it's taking a set of traits or kind of common clichéd characteristics and identifying them as men, and. 333 00:20:40,715 --> 00:20:47,945 So would you say that it's really more the soft trans version of the theory that regards or sees an essential womanness that 334 00:20:47,945 --> 00:20:55,054 I feel inside, whereas the harder trans version just says, "Look, it's all up for grabs, and I can be whoever I want to be."? 335 00:20:55,175 --> 00:20:55,294 Yeah. 336 00:20:55,594 --> 00:21:01,199 "And so, don't try and nail me down into any particular gender or any particular set of clichés." 337 00:21:01,639 --> 00:21:01,760 Yes. 338 00:21:01,760 --> 00:21:05,060 "I will just construct myself as I see fit." And that can be any mix of anything. 339 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:05,419 Yeah. 340 00:21:05,449 --> 00:21:06,929 Would that be a fair characterisation? 341 00:21:06,980 --> 00:21:07,760 I think that's spot on. 342 00:21:07,850 --> 00:21:08,449 That's spot on. 343 00:21:08,659 --> 00:21:13,620 And this is why, again, with regard to "soft" trans theory or the more typical or traditional, the second-wave 344 00:21:13,639 --> 00:21:18,765 feminists are up in arms, 'cause for decades they've been trying to dismantle these kinda rigid, narrow, gender 345 00:21:18,765 --> 00:21:25,155 stereotypes, and suddenly, they're back with a vengeance and being imposed on people in the most unhelpful of ways. 346 00:21:25,155 --> 00:21:26,835 And this is what happens to kids, right? 347 00:21:27,105 --> 00:21:29,595 He's a boy who doesn't turn every stick into a gun. 348 00:21:29,595 --> 00:21:33,225 Or a girl who loves rough and tumble and climbing trees and getting dirty. 349 00:21:33,225 --> 00:21:36,525 And well, once upon time we would say, "Oh, she's a tomboy", and that's fine. 350 00:21:36,525 --> 00:21:37,305 That's not a problem. 351 00:21:37,305 --> 00:21:37,965 Whereas now— 352 00:21:38,025 --> 00:21:39,945 There's a certain way to be a girl that's like that. 353 00:21:40,125 --> 00:21:40,905 Yeah, yeah. 354 00:21:40,905 --> 00:21:44,960 Now, so, oh, okay: "she's trans" or "he's trans", right. 355 00:21:45,020 --> 00:21:45,409 Wow. 356 00:21:45,409 --> 00:21:46,340 Look, this is fascinating. 357 00:21:46,340 --> 00:21:53,090 So the development of third-wave feminism into these different versions of trans theory, that also explains 358 00:21:53,090 --> 00:21:57,770 something that I've observed a lot and been puzzled about, and that is why more traditional feminists are often 359 00:21:57,770 --> 00:22:05,330 so much at odds with current feminists or third-wave or trans theory people, and it's got to do with two things. 360 00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:13,040 It's partly that the old male and female stereotypes are being reconstructed all over again in order to determine people's gender. 361 00:22:13,340 --> 00:22:13,460 Mm. 362 00:22:13,490 --> 00:22:15,080 If I like trucks, I'm a boy. 363 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:21,100 If I like dresses, playing with dolls, I'm a girl, regardless of my body. 364 00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:24,679 And so in other words, men and women, male and female, now just becomes totally 365 00:22:24,679 --> 00:22:28,880 constructed on cultural stereotype, which is anathema to feminism, right? 366 00:22:29,210 --> 00:22:29,450 It is. 367 00:22:29,450 --> 00:22:34,610 But also, with the "hard" trans theory, you've got a dissolution of gender types and all, so that 368 00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:41,390 the very category of woman disappears, which is also kind of anathema to a second-wave feminist. 369 00:22:41,390 --> 00:22:41,780 It is, yeah. 370 00:22:41,780 --> 00:22:49,250 A second-wave feminist is sex realist, and as one organisation has it that a lady called Helen Joyce heads up, Sex Matters. 371 00:22:49,580 --> 00:22:54,195 Now, she likes to say sex doesn't always matter, but when it does matter, it really matters. 372 00:22:55,665 --> 00:22:58,095 And now we're seeing that, you know, in sports for example. 373 00:22:58,095 --> 00:22:58,155 Yeah. 374 00:22:58,544 --> 00:23:05,625 It really matters in sports, and it really matters in prisons, and it really matters in all kinds of arenas and domains of life. 375 00:23:05,625 --> 00:23:07,004 So that is different. 376 00:23:07,004 --> 00:23:10,360 Now, there's an irony in all of that, and I don't point this out with any glee. 377 00:23:10,379 --> 00:23:13,625 But this is kind of the revolution eating itself, right? 378 00:23:13,955 --> 00:23:16,775 Or the snake eating its own tail, or whatever image you prefer. 379 00:23:17,075 --> 00:23:20,355 And many pointed this out—many secular thinkers have pointed this out—that 380 00:23:20,375 --> 00:23:25,535 feminism gave birth to this craziness, even though it now regrets where it's gone. 381 00:23:26,105 --> 00:23:30,875 Do you mean by that move of decoupling gender from sexual biology so thoroughly? 382 00:23:31,070 --> 00:23:32,375 Again, the minimising of it. 383 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:32,700 Yes. 384 00:23:32,855 --> 00:23:35,375 And paving the way for the decoupling of it. 385 00:23:35,855 --> 00:23:40,770 And again, the expansion of the idea of social construction: that we can, apart from, again, 386 00:23:40,770 --> 00:23:45,090 those small biological differences that I want to say, everything else is social construction. 387 00:23:45,150 --> 00:23:48,990 And that's really just opened the doors for where things have gone. 388 00:23:49,470 --> 00:23:56,640 Now again, often the revolutions in thought and other aspects of life don't intend to bear the children that they do. 389 00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:01,080 And so, we can't blame all this on second-wave feminism exactly, any more that we can blame 390 00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:05,340 it on Descartes, you know, as if the subjective turn somehow is responsible for women. 391 00:24:05,340 --> 00:24:06,090 It was all his fault. 392 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:07,140 Well, most things are his fault. 393 00:24:07,470 --> 00:24:08,700 I just blame things on the Enlightenment. 394 00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:08,760 Yeah. 395 00:24:10,205 --> 00:24:11,425 It was all the Enlightenment's fault. 396 00:24:11,655 --> 00:24:12,065 It's easy. 397 00:24:39,180 --> 00:24:45,330 Every year, the Priscilla & Aquila Centre, a Centre of Moore Theological College, holds a conference 398 00:24:45,330 --> 00:24:51,480 that focuses on the application end of Complementarianism in order to encourage women in ministry, and in 399 00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:57,065 order to think more seriously and creatively about how men and women can work better together in ministry. 400 00:24:58,264 --> 00:25:04,504 In 2026, plenary speaker Simon Flinders will be exploring the concept of the church as the family of God. 401 00:25:05,044 --> 00:25:10,294 What can we learn from Jesus' teaching about family, as well as other familial language in the Bible? 402 00:25:10,715 --> 00:25:13,235 And how do we apply this as siblings within God's family? 403 00:25:14,435 --> 00:25:22,115 Find out more at the Priscilla & Aquila Centre Annual Conference on Monday, 2nd February, 2026, held at Moore College. 404 00:25:22,565 --> 00:25:32,044 To view the program and to register, visit the Priscilla & Aquila website: paa.moore.edu.au. 405 00:25:32,445 --> 00:25:36,014 That's paa.moore.edu.au. 406 00:25:36,455 --> 00:25:46,070 Please note: Rob Smith will be speaking on the topic of gender at an evening seminar hosted by the Priscilla & Aquila Centre on 9th September 2026. 407 00:25:46,530 --> 00:25:51,320 Please visit the Priscilla & Aquila website next year for further details and to register. 408 00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:56,879 That's paa.moore.edu.au. 409 00:25:57,300 --> 00:26:00,820 That's paa.moore.edu.au. 410 00:26:01,490 --> 00:26:03,560 And now, let's get back to our program. 411 00:26:03,650 --> 00:26:10,010 That really brings us to your critique of this history and to how we should or could think about social construction. 412 00:26:10,010 --> 00:26:13,429 We mentioned this just briefly earlier and I'd like to come back and finish this part of the conversation— 413 00:26:13,429 --> 00:26:13,610 Yeah. 414 00:26:13,939 --> 00:26:14,719 —on that point. 415 00:26:15,050 --> 00:26:21,139 Given the fact that we are socially constructed beings—we influence and shape each other in all sorts of ways culturally, and we are not 416 00:26:21,139 --> 00:26:26,540 only aware of that just personally, in terms of our groups and in subcultures we're part of, but just obviously more generally in the 417 00:26:26,540 --> 00:26:36,060 world—how do we think about the power of social construction vis-à-vis biology in a way that doesn't overwhelm the realities of biology? 418 00:26:36,149 --> 00:26:37,360 Yeah, or undermine. 419 00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:37,710 Mm-hmm. 420 00:26:38,310 --> 00:26:38,700 Yes. 421 00:26:38,700 --> 00:26:43,919 Well, this actually leads us right into Scripture, which I know is where we want to go, because I think we learn 422 00:26:43,950 --> 00:26:51,179 fairly clearly in Genesis 1 and very early in the Scripture that we are not only created, but we're created to create. 423 00:26:51,179 --> 00:26:59,300 We are given a—people often call it a "cultural mandate", which means we are called to construct, and we construct all kinds of things. 424 00:26:59,300 --> 00:27:03,200 We construct buildings and homes and ideas and all sorts of things. 425 00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,880 Now, I do think there is an appropriate task of, you might call gender construction. 426 00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,250 But how do we do it appropriately? 427 00:27:10,250 --> 00:27:11,240 How do we do it faithfully? 428 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,500 How do we be, well, stewards of our sex? 429 00:27:14,890 --> 00:27:21,100 And so, here's where I've argued in the book that at least one way of talking about that is that we're called to work with the grain of what God 430 00:27:21,100 --> 00:27:29,650 has made—what God has given—and not to work against it—not to overwhelm it, undermine it, deconstruct it, but we are to build on that foundation. 431 00:27:30,260 --> 00:27:34,280 And so, I do think, yes, we are called to, well, think rightly about who and 432 00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:39,020 what God has made us to be, and then express that coherently in the world. 433 00:27:39,500 --> 00:27:42,800 And that is in some measure in our hands the way we do that. 434 00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,580 And that's, as we said, different cultures will do that in different ways and decide, okay, 435 00:27:46,580 --> 00:27:49,730 in our culture, this is going to be masculine dress; this is going to be feminine dress. 436 00:27:50,210 --> 00:27:58,455 But all that is simply a way of presenting our sex to one another truthfully so that we can read each other clearly. 437 00:27:58,905 --> 00:28:02,115 And so, this is where I think, you know, when Scripture prohibits cross-dressing and 438 00:28:02,115 --> 00:28:06,915 things like that, it's really just saying that this is to confuse what God has made clear. 439 00:28:07,335 --> 00:28:08,895 This is to go against the grain. 440 00:28:09,254 --> 00:28:11,024 This is to disguise reality. 441 00:28:11,024 --> 00:28:12,735 This is to deceive others. 442 00:28:12,764 --> 00:28:16,340 No, if you're going to be a faithful steward of your sex, you want to present that. 443 00:28:16,950 --> 00:28:23,070 Do you want to do gender in a way that is congruent with your sex so that others read you rightly? 444 00:28:24,180 --> 00:28:29,010 It's very helpful, Rob, because it's affirming that we do exist as social creatures, 445 00:28:29,010 --> 00:28:34,590 and we communicate and shape each other and relate to each other socially. 446 00:28:34,590 --> 00:28:40,200 And there's an enormous variety of ways in which that gets configured historically, culturally, 447 00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:45,365 interpersonally, communally as we seek to express and relate to the reality that's there. 448 00:28:45,365 --> 00:28:45,455 Mm-hmm. 449 00:28:45,455 --> 00:28:50,195 Because the reality that's there is complex, and it's a set of materials you can 450 00:28:50,195 --> 00:28:53,855 configure and work with and develop and cultivate in, in all sorts of different ways. 451 00:28:53,855 --> 00:28:53,945 Mm-hmm. 452 00:28:53,945 --> 00:28:55,895 That's what's so marvellous about God's creation. 453 00:28:55,945 --> 00:28:56,165 Yep. 454 00:28:56,555 --> 00:28:58,715 Yet it still has a certain shape and a certain nature. 455 00:28:58,715 --> 00:28:59,555 It's real. 456 00:28:59,645 --> 00:28:59,975 Yes. 457 00:29:00,275 --> 00:29:02,225 There's something there to work with. 458 00:29:02,285 --> 00:29:02,465 Yeah. 459 00:29:02,645 --> 00:29:07,055 Whereas the complete social constructionist view, in a sense, there's—there's really nothing to work with. 460 00:29:07,055 --> 00:29:07,235 Yeah. 461 00:29:07,235 --> 00:29:08,405 It's a wax nose, yeah. 462 00:29:08,465 --> 00:29:08,855 It is. 463 00:29:08,855 --> 00:29:10,085 It's just us talking. 464 00:29:10,295 --> 00:29:10,535 Mm-hmm. 465 00:29:10,655 --> 00:29:16,965 All there really is is us developing ideas and imposing them on this kind of blank canvas, this neutral 466 00:29:16,965 --> 00:29:22,004 sort of mass of plasticine, and shaping it into something that we've decided it might look like. 467 00:29:22,274 --> 00:29:22,395 Yeah. 468 00:29:22,395 --> 00:29:25,544 And so, it's a—social construction is all there is. 469 00:29:25,605 --> 00:29:25,905 Yes. 470 00:29:26,264 --> 00:29:30,794 And one of the nice points you make in the book is that in the end, it just collapses in on itself. 471 00:29:30,794 --> 00:29:31,605 It does, yeah. 472 00:29:32,044 --> 00:29:35,645 Because if all there is is social construction—if all there is is talk— 473 00:29:35,705 --> 00:29:35,945 Mm-hmm. 474 00:29:36,095 --> 00:29:39,514 —then my talk about social construction is also just talk. 475 00:29:39,605 --> 00:29:40,745 Yes, yes, yes. 476 00:29:40,985 --> 00:29:41,885 There's no foundation. 477 00:29:41,885 --> 00:29:42,095 Right? 478 00:29:42,544 --> 00:29:47,225 I mean, the very notion of construction implies constructing on what? 479 00:29:47,225 --> 00:29:47,524 You know. 480 00:29:48,155 --> 00:29:48,845 Or with what? 481 00:29:48,875 --> 00:29:49,595 Or with what. 482 00:29:49,595 --> 00:29:51,615 Yes, and, but we construct on a foundation. 483 00:29:51,675 --> 00:29:51,975 Yeah. 484 00:29:52,004 --> 00:29:57,195 So if you lay a foundation of a building, you can't suddenly then construct on that at that sort of 45 degree angle. 485 00:29:57,615 --> 00:29:58,995 It's going to all come apart. 486 00:29:58,995 --> 00:30:06,325 So faithful construction will pay very close attention to the order of things, uh—creation order in particular—and 487 00:30:06,345 --> 00:30:12,435 the God-given foundations that enable us to, well, to use the term everyone loves today: to flourish. 488 00:30:12,675 --> 00:30:12,915 Yeah. 489 00:30:13,185 --> 00:30:17,085 To build on a solid foundation and to use good materials as we build on it, we might say. 490 00:30:17,175 --> 00:30:17,355 Yeah. 491 00:30:17,475 --> 00:30:18,685 Echoing 1 Corinthians 3. 492 00:30:18,855 --> 00:30:19,215 Absolutely. 493 00:30:19,245 --> 00:30:23,205 You've mentioned the biblical work, and the careful way you then go into look 494 00:30:23,205 --> 00:30:28,125 at Genesis 1 and the creation of mankind in God's image as male and female. 495 00:30:28,335 --> 00:30:28,425 Yeah. 496 00:30:28,725 --> 00:30:34,365 And then Genesis 2, the making of the man and the building of the woman out of the man's side and so on. 497 00:30:34,485 --> 00:30:34,544 Mm. 498 00:30:34,784 --> 00:30:39,405 You look at these passages in great detail, and it's extremely helpful how you've drawn together 499 00:30:39,405 --> 00:30:43,285 the scholarship on those passages, and there's been so much of it over such a long period. 500 00:30:43,285 --> 00:30:49,555 It's a wonderful piece of work you've done, especially in then contrasting at that with the other readings of those passages. 501 00:30:49,975 --> 00:30:55,495 In some ways, I really enjoyed reading these chapters and working through the scholarship as you present it and 502 00:30:55,495 --> 00:31:02,525 argue it really, really carefully and well, is that you've gone to an enormous amount of effort and laboriously 503 00:31:03,025 --> 00:31:07,585 proven that the straightforward reading you would have if you just read it the first time is the correct one. 504 00:31:07,825 --> 00:31:07,915 Yes. 505 00:31:08,004 --> 00:31:12,350 Did you find that frustrating, having to sort of, in a sense, deal with readings of the 506 00:31:12,350 --> 00:31:18,050 text that, on their face, are incredibly tenuous and unlikely and a bit nuts in some ways. 507 00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:18,110 Mm. 508 00:31:18,110 --> 00:31:22,265 And yet showing that that's the case takes a great deal of time. 509 00:31:22,685 --> 00:31:23,615 It does take time. 510 00:31:23,615 --> 00:31:30,435 And I mean, I, well, quite deliberately worked very hard to listen carefully to contrary voices—to 511 00:31:30,605 --> 00:31:35,480 other interpretations—'cause I think we've always got to ask the question, "Have we got this wrong?" 512 00:31:35,540 --> 00:31:35,660 Yes. 513 00:31:35,665 --> 00:31:38,810 Have we—have we just been assuming we've understood this and perhaps not? 514 00:31:39,290 --> 00:31:43,400 If we're committed to the authority of Scripture, we've got to allow ourselves to be corrected by Scripture. 515 00:31:43,850 --> 00:31:48,710 And so, I wanted to really give a careful hearing to some of these other interpretations. 516 00:31:49,130 --> 00:31:53,000 But yes, I just found again and again and again, you blow on them and they fall the pieces. 517 00:31:53,390 --> 00:31:55,669 But again, I just didn't want to be dismissive. 518 00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:56,959 I wanted to do the job. 519 00:31:56,959 --> 00:31:58,580 Like I just—like I just was. 520 00:31:58,580 --> 00:31:58,820 You know. 521 00:31:58,899 --> 00:32:02,360 No, wouldn't you—you have to be when you've got a only a sentence to do it, but. 522 00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:03,110 That's true. 523 00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:03,469 Yeah. 524 00:32:03,469 --> 00:32:06,230 I, I mean, I had planned to write a chapter on Genesis 1 and 2. 525 00:32:06,250 --> 00:32:08,490 I ended up writing three chapters on Genesis 1 and 2. 526 00:32:08,510 --> 00:32:08,659 Mm-hmm. 527 00:32:08,719 --> 00:32:09,860 And could have written more. 528 00:32:10,129 --> 00:32:11,659 So that was one of the revelations to me. 529 00:32:11,659 --> 00:32:13,459 It was just—so much to say. 530 00:32:13,820 --> 00:32:16,939 There is so much to say and so much we could touch on, and we don't have the time. 531 00:32:16,939 --> 00:32:24,295 I'm just going to ask you two aspects of what you dealt with—not so much in your very careful refutation of alternative readings, for example, 532 00:32:24,295 --> 00:32:30,985 that try to say, "There is no man and woman in Genesis 1 and 2, for example, in readings like this, and you deal with those very well. 533 00:32:31,435 --> 00:32:38,095 But as you dig into Genesis 1 and the image of God and the image of God as male and female, I really appreciated 534 00:32:38,095 --> 00:32:43,845 your treatment of what's often been a vexed question for us, even well before and outside this particular issue. 535 00:32:44,025 --> 00:32:44,055 Mm. 536 00:32:44,385 --> 00:32:48,765 Is how we think of men and women being in the image of God and what is the image of God? 537 00:32:49,305 --> 00:32:54,585 And I especially liked the way you kind of didn't put all your eggs in one basket. 538 00:32:54,735 --> 00:32:59,385 You showed that there was something about the image of God that reflects something about who we are— 539 00:32:59,565 --> 00:32:59,595 Mm. 540 00:32:59,625 --> 00:33:01,125 —as well as what we do. 541 00:33:01,125 --> 00:33:04,515 Do you want to explain very briefly what you were saying there? 542 00:33:04,515 --> 00:33:05,175 That's hard to do. 543 00:33:05,175 --> 00:33:05,505 I'm sorry. 544 00:33:05,505 --> 00:33:05,940 It's hard to do. 545 00:33:05,945 --> 00:33:06,165 To do. 546 00:33:06,165 --> 00:33:07,485 Hard to do, uh, briefly. 547 00:33:07,785 --> 00:33:13,545 Yes, the image of God is a very complex question with a long history of, well, confusing ideas. 548 00:33:13,545 --> 00:33:15,825 And some complimentary, some contradictory. 549 00:33:16,395 --> 00:33:24,005 But one of the questions that certainly has been asked in the last century is to what extent, or how significant 550 00:33:24,035 --> 00:33:32,645 is male and female made he them—that statement in 127C, how significant is that to being the image of God? 551 00:33:32,885 --> 00:33:34,535 Is it kind of irrelevant to that? 552 00:33:34,535 --> 00:33:36,435 Or is it actually central to that? 553 00:33:36,975 --> 00:33:40,385 Now, there are certain people like Karl Barth, for example, who think it's central. 554 00:33:40,865 --> 00:33:45,005 And then others who've said, "No, he's misreading the text" and it's really just preparing 555 00:33:45,005 --> 00:33:50,135 for "be fruitful and multiply in", in verse 28, and that it's just about reproduction. 556 00:33:50,135 --> 00:33:51,695 It's not really about the image. 557 00:33:52,055 --> 00:33:55,085 Now I've argued the case I think it's about both. 558 00:33:55,685 --> 00:33:56,945 But it is complex. 559 00:33:56,945 --> 00:34:02,360 If you want to say, and to some extent, I'm happy to say that there is some analogy 560 00:34:02,750 --> 00:34:08,720 between who God is in in himself, and the unity and polarity of the human race. 561 00:34:09,170 --> 00:34:11,779 You've got to be careful how you say that, because it's not a neat analogy. 562 00:34:11,779 --> 00:34:18,634 I mean, God is three persons in one divine being; humanity is one race, but coming in two sexed forms. 563 00:34:18,634 --> 00:34:22,264 So it's clearly not a tidy analogy in that, numerically speaking. 564 00:34:22,775 --> 00:34:27,995 But there is some common feature here of unity and diversity, I think, that is 565 00:34:27,995 --> 00:34:32,465 in God himself, and not just in humanity, but in creation and in the church. 566 00:34:32,465 --> 00:34:35,945 I think 1 Corinthians 12, for example: I mean, God is a God of unity and diversity. 567 00:34:36,335 --> 00:34:40,985 And so, it's not surprising that his image is going to be, in that sense, rich, and. 568 00:34:41,264 --> 00:34:45,225 Now, of course, we know beyond that, that man and woman, husband and wife particularly, 569 00:34:45,225 --> 00:34:49,215 become an image of the gospel, and God and Israel, Christ and the church, and so on. 570 00:34:49,574 --> 00:34:51,764 And so, Scripture will do various things with that. 571 00:34:52,275 --> 00:34:56,115 But I do think Karl Bart is onto something, even if he goes a bit too far with it. 572 00:34:56,534 --> 00:34:56,715 And— 573 00:34:56,715 --> 00:34:58,665 Something that could be said of Barth in a number of areas. 574 00:34:58,665 --> 00:34:59,355 Well, exactly! 575 00:34:59,355 --> 00:35:02,295 He tends to go a bit far on a few things, or not far enough on other things. 576 00:35:02,295 --> 00:35:05,415 But I think he's right to see that there's significance here. 577 00:35:05,715 --> 00:35:05,925 Yeah. 578 00:35:05,985 --> 00:35:07,455 Now, none of that stops. 579 00:35:07,545 --> 00:35:08,665 It doesn't, even for Karl Barth. 580 00:35:08,685 --> 00:35:13,090 He's often misunderstood as if he's denying that individuals are the image of God. 581 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,260 He's not denying that individuals are the image of God, and he's certainly not denying that Christ is the image 582 00:35:17,260 --> 00:35:22,840 of God, because in, well, Scripture makes very clear, he's the ultimate image of God and he's the true human. 583 00:35:23,645 --> 00:35:33,245 But clearly, the human race is, well, again, not just a social reality, but it's a reality that only grows because of the two sexes. 584 00:35:34,235 --> 00:35:39,515 And even though not every human being participates in that—that either because they don't marry or can't have 585 00:35:39,515 --> 00:35:45,945 children—the sexual dimorphism or the sex binary is just characteristic of who and what we are as a race, 586 00:35:46,335 --> 00:35:53,295 and testifies to the richness of the image of God and the world that God has made and indeed to God himself. 587 00:35:53,295 --> 00:35:58,935 And so, there's something very deep and profound and beautiful there that, again, I think is worth appreciating. 588 00:35:59,325 --> 00:36:02,355 Now, we can take this in a number of directions and I try to do that in the book. 589 00:36:02,445 --> 00:36:03,285 Very helpful, Rob. 590 00:36:03,285 --> 00:36:04,515 Yes, we could talk about this for ages. 591 00:36:04,515 --> 00:36:06,345 I'll just say especially what I found useful in that— 592 00:36:06,345 --> 00:36:06,465 Okay. 593 00:36:06,465 --> 00:36:10,855 —is that I've often kind of lent towards a more functional view of the image of God. 594 00:36:11,375 --> 00:36:11,705 Right. 595 00:36:11,735 --> 00:36:18,335 That is of, of men and women—that to be God's image is to be his representative, his vice regent who 596 00:36:18,335 --> 00:36:23,150 rules and has dominion and who rules the world under God's authority, "Two Ways to Live"-style, okay. 597 00:36:23,150 --> 00:36:27,050 So I think that's an important stream of what the image of God does in the world— 598 00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:27,170 Yes. 599 00:36:27,170 --> 00:36:29,870 —of who we are as God's image, where God—we're rulers like God. 600 00:36:29,870 --> 00:36:30,200 Yes. 601 00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,510 But I think what—what your treatment showed me quite helpfully is that there's no need to draw a distinction or make a choice 602 00:36:35,510 --> 00:36:42,140 between seeing that as an essential element of what it means to be in God's image—that we are given to rule like God does— 603 00:36:42,140 --> 00:36:42,380 Yes. 604 00:36:42,710 --> 00:36:49,175 —that that means that if that's going to be our function, if that's going to be what we do, it must also say something about who we are— 605 00:36:49,265 --> 00:36:49,655 Yeah, yeah. 606 00:36:49,655 --> 00:36:53,900 —and what sort of beings are we such that like God— 607 00:36:54,230 --> 00:36:54,560 Yes. 608 00:36:54,620 --> 00:36:56,450 —we fill and multiply and rule. 609 00:36:56,930 --> 00:37:02,090 And I think your treatment helped me see that it's maybe a false choice there: to say it's either the 610 00:37:02,090 --> 00:37:08,390 relational nature of humanity in our dimorphism has something to do with it, or it's that we rule the world. 611 00:37:08,450 --> 00:37:10,160 I think those two things obviously go together. 612 00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:11,120 Yeah, yeah. 613 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:13,730 There's a lot of false choices to get forced on us sometimes here. 614 00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,620 But the other thing to add onto is what you're saying there—is that yes, the image of God clearly has a function. 615 00:37:19,220 --> 00:37:20,000 Let them rule. 616 00:37:20,060 --> 00:37:20,810 That's our task. 617 00:37:20,810 --> 00:37:22,430 And have dominion and be fruitful. 618 00:37:22,910 --> 00:37:26,360 But what the image does, I don't think, tells us everything about what the image is. 619 00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:26,420 Hmm. 620 00:37:27,470 --> 00:37:27,860 And— 621 00:37:27,860 --> 00:37:28,430 That's a fair point. 622 00:37:28,490 --> 00:37:35,460 —I do think that Genesis 5, in fact, actually gives us a real key to understanding a little more of what the image is. 623 00:37:35,790 --> 00:37:40,380 And without going into the detail, but certainly Gavin Ortlund, I think, has made this point very 624 00:37:40,380 --> 00:37:44,880 powerfully—that that notion of sonship is really at the heart of what it means to be God's image. 625 00:37:45,510 --> 00:37:52,230 Which certainly is there in Genesis 5, but it also takes us straight into Christology and the fact that the true image of God is the Son of God. 626 00:37:52,860 --> 00:37:57,180 And so, I think if we're asking, "What does the image do?", that's one thing, but "What 627 00:37:57,180 --> 00:38:01,839 is the image?" Then, I think, we—Scripture's actually pointing us in this direction. 628 00:38:02,109 --> 00:38:04,180 And that connects with rule, of course, and kingship. 629 00:38:04,299 --> 00:38:05,140 Yeah, absolutely. 630 00:38:05,410 --> 00:38:05,830 Totally. 631 00:38:06,129 --> 00:38:11,470 And there's a connection between sonship and rule and authority that you see tracing 632 00:38:11,470 --> 00:38:15,490 knots running through Israel and through the kings of Israel, but on into Jesus as well— 633 00:38:15,490 --> 00:38:15,549 Yeah. 634 00:38:15,549 --> 00:38:20,230 —and on into, in a sense, the authority and rule and kingdom that Christians share. 635 00:38:20,230 --> 00:38:20,290 Yeah. 636 00:38:20,770 --> 00:38:22,330 We could just talk about this for the rest of the time. 637 00:38:22,335 --> 00:38:22,404 Yeah. 638 00:38:22,404 --> 00:38:22,605 This is— 639 00:38:22,720 --> 00:38:22,990 Yeah. 640 00:38:23,105 --> 00:38:24,665 But I feel like—it's really useful. 641 00:38:24,665 --> 00:38:25,835 But I feel like we should press on. 642 00:38:26,195 --> 00:38:32,925 The other thing in your biblical material that I found very interesting and helpful was your treatment of Genesis 2 and the making of man—of 643 00:38:32,925 --> 00:38:42,605 Adam—from the ground, and then the taking and building of Eve out of his rib or out of his side, as you suggested should be translated. 644 00:38:43,265 --> 00:38:49,855 What significance does that have for how we think about the sexed nature of men and women and who we are as men and women? 645 00:38:50,004 --> 00:38:50,395 Yeah. 646 00:38:50,725 --> 00:38:52,375 Well, many potential answers here. 647 00:38:52,794 --> 00:38:57,855 One thing we discover in Genesis 2 is that—well, in Genesis 1, we have the terms "male" and "female" , right? 648 00:38:57,985 --> 00:39:02,915 "Zakhar uneqevah", which are again, are physiological terms: they can apply to animals as well as humans. 649 00:39:03,575 --> 00:39:05,645 Genesis 2, we get human-only terms. 650 00:39:05,705 --> 00:39:10,565 "Ish" and "ishah": man and woman, which I—sometimes I speak of them as gender terms. 651 00:39:10,565 --> 00:39:12,845 They're not really gender terms; they're just human sex terms. 652 00:39:13,595 --> 00:39:15,305 A man is an adult human male. 653 00:39:15,305 --> 00:39:17,015 A woman is adult human female. 654 00:39:17,555 --> 00:39:19,325 But they are specific to humanity. 655 00:39:19,775 --> 00:39:22,805 And they are really all about the body. 656 00:39:22,835 --> 00:39:28,634 So God creates the body of the man—creates the man from—the Adam from the Adamah. 657 00:39:29,055 --> 00:39:31,625 But he's a man even before he gets the breath of life. 658 00:39:32,525 --> 00:39:36,665 So what determines his manhood is the particular body that God has made. 659 00:39:37,235 --> 00:39:45,205 And so, that tells us straight away, contrary to one of the, again, false claims, that he's not a kind of bisexual being who's a half-man, half-woman. 660 00:39:45,774 --> 00:39:47,845 Waiting to be split in two, kind of thing. 661 00:39:47,845 --> 00:39:48,325 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 662 00:39:48,325 --> 00:39:51,084 And that is a view that a number of scholars have put forward. 663 00:39:51,535 --> 00:39:55,595 Even people who have really helpful things to say somehow get caught on this—that 664 00:39:55,615 --> 00:39:59,625 he's this kind of dual sexed being, and then suddenly, boom: made into two. 665 00:39:59,685 --> 00:40:03,165 No: a separate creation takes place with woman, right? 666 00:40:03,225 --> 00:40:08,085 Now, again, I think the Hebrew is quite clear: it's a part of the side of the man that is taken in his sleep. 667 00:40:08,085 --> 00:40:15,260 And "built" is the term, which is quite a significant Hebrew verb, because it's one that's often linked 668 00:40:15,260 --> 00:40:19,730 up with the creation of sacred architecture and things and—in the tabernacle and the ark and so on. 669 00:40:20,030 --> 00:40:24,890 So again, that's telling us something about the specialness of her body, but also the discreteness of her body. 670 00:40:24,890 --> 00:40:26,480 She is woman, not man. 671 00:40:26,750 --> 00:40:29,330 Yes, she's bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. 672 00:40:29,780 --> 00:40:34,760 But she is a—the Hebrew expression is a "kenegdo": like opposite, right? 673 00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:36,290 "Ezer kenegdo": helper. 674 00:40:36,290 --> 00:40:36,770 Like opposite. 675 00:40:36,770 --> 00:40:43,190 That's what he needs and that's what God makes: one who is like him in his humanity, but opposite him in her sex. 676 00:40:43,670 --> 00:40:45,470 He gets all the animals paraded before him. 677 00:40:45,470 --> 00:40:46,200 He names them all. 678 00:40:46,250 --> 00:40:48,530 But none of them are a ezer kenegdo, right? 679 00:40:48,530 --> 00:40:49,600 None of them are a like opposite. 680 00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:54,050 The male animals, uh, well, they're not even like; they're unlike same. 681 00:40:54,050 --> 00:40:56,630 The female animals are unlike opposite. 682 00:40:56,960 --> 00:40:58,400 But neither are like opposites. 683 00:40:58,815 --> 00:41:02,765 And nor would another man be a like opposite; another man would be a like same. 684 00:41:03,085 --> 00:41:04,815 So God makes a like opposite. 685 00:41:05,325 --> 00:41:06,465 And again, it's the body. 686 00:41:07,365 --> 00:41:10,975 The title of my book, which I didn't come up with; it was the marketing people at Lexham, I 687 00:41:10,975 --> 00:41:15,595 guess—I think says it all: The Body God Gives is what tells us whether we are man or woman. 688 00:41:16,225 --> 00:41:18,625 And that's what we see in Genesis 2 very profoundly. 689 00:41:19,315 --> 00:41:24,475 Look, maybe on another day we'll come back and talk further about all the implications of that, 'cause that's massive, isn't it? 690 00:41:24,805 --> 00:41:25,255 It is. 691 00:41:25,315 --> 00:41:25,884 It is. 692 00:41:26,365 --> 00:41:30,895 It runs right through, then, the Scriptural narrative—that if you've got a male body, you grow to be a man. 693 00:41:31,285 --> 00:41:37,165 And every other role in life is determined by that, whether you're a husband, father, brother, uncle. 694 00:41:37,495 --> 00:41:41,424 Go down the line and we could tease out all the implications from there. 695 00:41:41,565 --> 00:41:44,694 Yes, well and look, I'll tease that conversation that we may have at some stage. 696 00:41:44,725 --> 00:41:44,815 Sure. 697 00:41:44,815 --> 00:41:45,955 And it'll be good to follow it through. 698 00:41:46,464 --> 00:41:52,285 I like the way you, just in passing, talked about a fairly common scholarly view—that there's a significance 699 00:41:52,285 --> 00:41:57,935 in the fact that Adam is taken from the ground and works the ground and is returned to the ground— 700 00:41:58,024 --> 00:41:58,174 Yep. 701 00:41:58,174 --> 00:41:58,234 Yeah. 702 00:41:58,295 --> 00:41:58,935 —in judgement. 703 00:41:59,165 --> 00:42:03,694 The woman is taken from his side and becomes the mother of all the living. 704 00:42:03,694 --> 00:42:03,785 Yes. 705 00:42:03,845 --> 00:42:06,815 Becomes the generator of life and of community and relationship. 706 00:42:07,085 --> 00:42:07,145 Yeah. 707 00:42:07,295 --> 00:42:13,955 And that these two aspects of the man's body and the woman's body, their very nature as created beings— 708 00:42:13,984 --> 00:42:14,315 Mm-hmm. 709 00:42:14,705 --> 00:42:23,270 —says something about the shape, the general shape, or the focus of their activity—the focus of their manhood 710 00:42:23,270 --> 00:42:28,010 and their womanhood, their maleness, their femaleness—as it gets socially constructed in different ways of lots 711 00:42:28,010 --> 00:42:33,920 of varieties, but there will be a difference and the difference will be seen out of those things, for example. 712 00:42:33,980 --> 00:42:35,090 Yes, I think that's right. 713 00:42:35,180 --> 00:42:42,379 Now, one thing as I say in the book is I don't think this necessarily takes you down into a kind of rigid, separate spheres ideology— 714 00:42:42,379 --> 00:42:42,799 Exactly. 715 00:42:42,799 --> 00:42:43,009 Right. 716 00:42:43,220 --> 00:42:46,310 —as if men, therefore, ought to work outside the home, women inside the home. 717 00:42:46,339 --> 00:42:46,730 Exactly. 718 00:42:46,730 --> 00:42:52,580 But I think it does tell you that, well, in fact, no, both male and female, men and women, are given the same cultural mandate— 719 00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:52,819 Yep. 720 00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,930 —to be in it all together, and fathers to be in the home, not just outside the home. 721 00:42:57,410 --> 00:42:59,390 But we're going to be different in those spheres. 722 00:42:59,390 --> 00:43:04,279 So we'll be in all the spheres, but we'll do things differently in those spheres, not just with 723 00:43:04,279 --> 00:43:08,500 our different personalities and different skill sets, but by virtue of our different sexes. 724 00:43:08,649 --> 00:43:15,069 Our different sexes and our different bodies, in that sense, will determine who we are and will shape who we are in all sorts of ways. 725 00:43:15,129 --> 00:43:15,279 Yeah. 726 00:43:15,310 --> 00:43:21,160 It's to receive that with thankfulness, as Paul says—to receive that gift thankfully and joyfully— 727 00:43:21,220 --> 00:43:21,430 Mm-hmm. 728 00:43:21,580 --> 00:43:28,299 —and to construct and build with it, in a sense—to do something with it faithfully under God—is the calling, really, of what it 729 00:43:28,299 --> 00:43:34,940 means to be a faithful creature: to receive the body God gives and to do something with it for the sake of others in the world. 730 00:43:35,150 --> 00:43:35,330 Yeah. 731 00:43:35,690 --> 00:43:35,990 Amen. 732 00:43:36,209 --> 00:43:36,519 Hmm. 733 00:43:36,549 --> 00:43:37,169 Amen to that. 734 00:43:37,399 --> 00:43:39,170 Look, Rob, thanks for talking about all this. 735 00:43:39,290 --> 00:43:40,670 There's a lot we haven't covered. 736 00:43:41,029 --> 00:43:42,170 I suspected that would be the case. 737 00:43:42,830 --> 00:43:45,200 I suspected so too, but our time is well and truly up. 738 00:43:45,620 --> 00:43:50,240 And I just want to express my gratitude on behalf of the Christian community to you for this work. 739 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:56,270 It's a long and laborious labour to go through all these arguments in such detail, especially when, in some senses, the 740 00:43:56,270 --> 00:44:03,510 simplest person can look at a number of these concepts and say, "That just sounds completely implausible and nonsensical to me." 741 00:44:03,630 --> 00:44:03,720 Mm-hmm. 742 00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:05,550 And in many respects, that's the case. 743 00:44:05,550 --> 00:44:09,810 But as with many ideas that are put forward like this, it's easy to put forward the ideas. 744 00:44:09,810 --> 00:44:14,070 It takes a long time and a great deal of care to refute them, as you've done. 745 00:44:14,130 --> 00:44:15,180 And thank you for doing that. 746 00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:22,100 I suppose very briefly just to finish, this book is really not at all about how we should interact with or deal 747 00:44:22,100 --> 00:44:29,900 with or pastor or minister to people with gender dysphoria, or for whom this is a personal issue in their families. 748 00:44:30,380 --> 00:44:31,819 I guess that's your next book. 749 00:44:32,089 --> 00:44:33,680 It is, yeah, absolutely my next book. 750 00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:35,480 This book lays the foundation for the next book. 751 00:44:35,870 --> 00:44:42,904 I say the front of this book, "This is a book about ideas, not so much about people", although of course, you can't prise those too far apart. 752 00:44:42,904 --> 00:44:50,165 But yeah, I do want to now write a pastoral care book, and that's my plan in the back half of this year to, "Okay, well, how do we walk alongside 753 00:44:50,165 --> 00:44:57,455 somebody who is wrestling with deep gender questions and struggling with the sex of their body and perhaps experiencing gender dysphoria? 754 00:44:57,754 --> 00:44:58,955 How do we care for them well? 755 00:44:58,955 --> 00:45:00,245 How do we guide them? 756 00:45:00,245 --> 00:45:01,115 How do we love them? 757 00:45:01,205 --> 00:45:05,734 How do we counsel them?" That's the book that needs—what, that I want to write next. 758 00:45:05,734 --> 00:45:08,425 Others have had goes, and hopefully there'll be many more. 759 00:45:08,425 --> 00:45:10,855 But I need to put some work into that. 760 00:45:11,365 --> 00:45:16,075 Thanks, and in many ways, as I was thinking about that aspect of it, towards the end of the book, it 761 00:45:16,075 --> 00:45:22,345 occurred to me that there is a difference between—almost in a sense, this almost analogously, how Jesus 762 00:45:22,345 --> 00:45:28,705 responds to sinful, broken, struggling people: the compassion, he shows them the care, he shows them. 763 00:45:29,035 --> 00:45:30,475 The truth, he still speaks to them. 764 00:45:30,955 --> 00:45:33,865 Like that woman caught an adultery kind of idea. 765 00:45:34,315 --> 00:45:42,020 And yet he is very strong, very clear and scathing at various points to those who are teachers. 766 00:45:42,170 --> 00:45:42,290 Yeah. 767 00:45:42,290 --> 00:45:51,065 And who propose ideas that are harmful, twisted, unfaithful, erroneous. 768 00:45:51,605 --> 00:45:58,415 Uh, if you contrast his stance towards the sinful broken women and men he deals with, and the Pharisees and 769 00:45:58,415 --> 00:46:05,805 scribes who are pedalling a dangerous and destructive ideology and teaching, they're different sorts of stances. 770 00:46:05,825 --> 00:46:06,635 Totally, totally. 771 00:46:06,665 --> 00:46:13,025 Yeah, we need to take a strong stand against poisonous ideas that are ruining people's lives, and then be very tender 772 00:46:13,025 --> 00:46:20,900 and gentle with people who've been misled, afflicted, got themselves confused, done things that they can't undo. 773 00:46:21,529 --> 00:46:29,900 That's where we need to come alongside and—arm around the shoulder or sit down, listen, pray, be patient. 774 00:46:30,410 --> 00:46:30,770 Thanks, Rob. 775 00:46:30,770 --> 00:46:33,140 Thanks for modelling that twin approach for us. 776 00:46:33,140 --> 00:46:37,720 And this book is more the formal: it's more engaging with erroneous and dangerous ideas. 777 00:46:37,780 --> 00:46:37,930 Yeah. 778 00:46:38,050 --> 00:46:42,160 And doing so very graciously, though very carefully and very, as you say, with 779 00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,310 a great deal of care to represent people's views accurately and carefully. 780 00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:46,060 You've done that. 781 00:46:46,450 --> 00:46:52,690 But you've refuted and argued with those ideas very helpfully, and we're really grateful for you for doing it. 782 00:46:52,750 --> 00:46:56,480 And thanks for being here today with us on the Centre for Christian Living and sharing things with us. 783 00:46:56,540 --> 00:46:56,900 Thank you. 784 00:46:56,900 --> 00:46:57,470 It's been a pleasure. 785 00:47:12,620 --> 00:47:17,390 Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of the Centre for Christian Living Podcast from Moore College. 786 00:47:17,870 --> 00:47:22,490 For a whole lot more from the Centre for Christian Living, just head over to the CCL website: that's 787 00:47:22,490 --> 00:47:30,910 ccl.moore.edu.au, where you'll find a stack of resources, including every past podcast episode all the 788 00:47:30,910 --> 00:47:37,390 way back to 2017, videos from our live events, and articles that we've published through the Centre. 789 00:47:37,660 --> 00:47:41,410 And while you're there on the website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a 790 00:47:41,410 --> 00:47:46,229 tax-deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre here at Moore College. 791 00:47:46,859 --> 00:47:54,509 We'd also love you to subscribe to the podcast and to leave a review so that people can discover our podcast and our other resources. 792 00:47:55,139 --> 00:47:59,429 And we always love and benefit from receiving your feedback and questions. 793 00:47:59,669 --> 00:48:06,370 Please get in touch: you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au. 794 00:48:06,600 --> 00:48:12,359 Many thanks to Karen Beilharz from the Communications Team here at Moore College for all her work in transcribing and 795 00:48:12,419 --> 00:48:19,829 editing and producing this podcast; to James West for the music; and to you, dear listeners, for joining us each week. 796 00:48:19,889 --> 00:48:20,729 Thank you for listening. 797 00:48:21,209 --> 00:48:22,049 I'm Tony Payne. 798 00:48:22,470 --> 00:48:23,014 'Bye for now.