How to Discuss Sexuality in a Post-Christian Culture

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Brett McCracken
Hello, thanks so much for being here. I’m just going to introduce each of us briefly and then we’ll get into it because there’s a lot to cover with this topic and not a lot of time. My name is Brett McCracken, I’m a senior editor for the gospel coalition. I’m also the author of a few books most recently the wisdom pyramid feeding your soul in a post truth world. To my left is Sam Albury. He is a good friend, a great guy. He’s a pastor, manual Nashville church, a globe trotting apologist and just a great thinker. Especially on this issue of sexuality. His books have been so invaluable for me. His little book is God anti gay is something that I recommend all the time when people ask me for what’s the best short resource I can give on this topic. So that’s a great book seven myths about singleness. Why Does God care who I sleep with? And what does what God has to say about our bodies, which is coming out in June pretty soon. So that’s that’s Sam Albury. And then Trevin wax. He’s general editor of the gospel project at Lifeway Christian resources. Trevin is also just a great thinker about culture and Christianity. He has a great column at the gospel coalition website that I’m just always so impressed with the volume of really high quality articles that he produces. And he’s written a number of great books most recently rethink yourself the power of looking up before looking in. And then the multi directional leader responding wisely to challenges from every side, which is one of the free books that you will receive, if you are TPC, 21. Attendee. So I want to start just by telling a story, just from my own experience that I think gets a little bit of the lay of the land in our post Christian culture right now with sexuality. I was at a coffee shop, I live in Southern California, which California is, you know, it lives up to its reputation of being kind of the avant garde in, in all things, but especially sexuality and sexual ethics. I was at a coffee shop with a couple of guys from my church, younger guys, and we were just having a conversation. And one of them works in Hollywood, he’s an actor. And he was telling me just about how afraid he is of kind of outing himself as a Christian in Hollywood, just as a Christian, who believes what the Bible says about sexual ethics. He but he believes Kancil culture, you know, could end his career, but before it really gets started. And so we were talking about that, and and talking about the reality of how it especially in LA, and in Hollywood, you work in certain industries, you really can’t say too loudly, what you actually believe, you know, you if you said that, if you didn’t kind of tow the party line on sexual ethics from Hollywood’s point of view you you’re kind of blacklisted. And what was interesting about this conversation is as we were having it, and you know, sometimes when you’re having conversations in public spaces, in coffee shops, you wonder like, what people are overhearing. And so all of a sudden, this person, too, are just like five feet away, I guess he had been listening in. He like, stands up in a fury in a huff. And he comes up to us and says, I cannot listen to this. This is the most hateful thing, and I have to leave. And so he just got his back and left. And we were all just like, what did we say? Like, I didn’t think we were saying anything, you know, overly hateful, we were just talking about this real experience this, this kid who’s an actor in Hollywood is a Christian is having. But it just struck me like this is this is the lay of the land. We’re in the this is the hostility that even a stranger who overhears Christians saying out loud kind of what their beliefs are. They can’t even it can’t be tolerated. They can’t even be near it. So yeah, I think maybe just to get started, we can talk about the big picture of like the culture and where we’re at, because I do think even in the last few months, we’ve entered maybe a new era in the US with regard to sexuality and the Equality Act. Many of you have probably heard about that. It’s looking like it’s I think it’s already passed in the Senate, or in the house and it’s being voted on in the Senate. There’s a the Assistant Secretary of Health, and the US is a transgender woman, Rachel Levine. So that’s a first. And it’s interesting that a transgender woman is kind of in charge of health, public health, which says a lot about where we’re at as a culture. And I came across this Gallup survey, which is really just startling. That one and 10 9.1% of millennials now identify as LGBTQ, and for Gen Z, it’s up to 16% one and six identify as LGBTQ and that I don’t know what the stats were 10 years ago, but they were significantly lower than that. So there’s this rapid progression happening. So I just want to ask you guys just to start, where do you see this going in the next five to 10 years? And how can Christians prepare? What should we be talking about thinking about? Yeah, just any initial thoughts from you guys. And I will also say, we were supposed to have our good friend Rebecca McLaughlin on this panel, she had to go home a bit early, her plans were, sadly had to change. So we miss her perspective, check out her books and her articles, though, because she’s a great voice on this. But it’s great to be with you, too. So anyone want to say anything?

Sam Allberry
I’ll have a go. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here. In terms of where we’re going, it’s I you know, back in 2016, I remember thinking, Okay, I think this is where things are going to go. And I was completely wrong. And so I’m sort of now nervous of making predictions. One of the things I’m I’m beginning to see is, I think, Western culture, I’m thinking largely US and UK where I’m from, things are moving quickly, but in more than one direction at the same time. And so whilst there is the very trend you just mentioned, I’m also seeing at the same time, something of a fairly worldly reaction to that very trend as well. We’re seeing more indications of anti trans kind of things, anti LGBT as a general type things, I think we’re going to see more of an ugly response to the trend that you’ve mentioned alongside the trend itself continuing. And I think one of the challenges that will give us as Christians is how do we not be with those guys without looking like we’re with these ones? And making sure that our own questions concerns, disagreements are not seen to be siding with what I think is going to be a very aggressive and godless reaction to those things. So being willing to to critique both of those trends as we as we see them to a met that may make life a little bit lonelier, actually, because I think each side is going to assume if you’re not fully with us, you must be with with the others. So we’ll get caught in the middle, I think. And I think we’re just going to have to, to live with that.

Trevin Wax
I’m like, Sam, I, I’m always a little skeptical when anyone says exactly how things are going to play out in the next five to 10 years, because there really is no inevitable trend toward anything if you believe in a sovereign God who upsets and appeals trends all the time. So what the some of the signs that Sam was talking about, where there has been something of a backlash when it comes to the there’s a with the transgender subject in particular, those theories require an ontological shift, and actual shift in its overall cosmology, which the whole LGBTQ conversation requires that as well, if we’re discussing marriage and other things, if you can see it back there. It’s actually a, a different cosmology. That’s, that’s at root. And, but but the the, the transgender one is one that feels immediately more costly to to ordinary people. So the question about women’s sports, for example, and, and things like there’s going to be a lot of, I think there will be a lot of conversation about that in the next few years. And like Sam said, some of it is not going to, it’s going to be a worldly pushback. So it won’t be there won’t be the fragrance of Christ without and I think that’s one of the areas where Christians will need to stand out both from the LGBT queue push, but as well, from from some of that backlash will not be the way that Christ would would have responded. So. So that’s a that is something for for sure that I think we will, we will be wrestling with. But the bigger issue is that we that we face as a society and we face in our churches, I think, is that because of this shift at the worldview level cosmologically we are going to have to start way back in our discussions of this in our discipleship efforts at we should just go ahead and expect that the young people growing up in our churches will not know why we believe what we believe about marriage, about sexuality, it will there it is unlikely to make sense. And for there to be a plausibility around it, because of the new environment that you’re seeing with some of those polls, the sort of sexual fluidity. And we can point out the incoherence and the inconsistency all day long and they In the, in the sexual revolution, it’s, it’s all over the place. I mean, if you really look for it, and we could get into that a little bit later, maybe in the conversation but people live with incoherence and inconsistencies in their worldview all the time. So just pointing those out, won’t necessarily change minds. But I think from a discipleship standpoint, it’s going to be really important for us to do two things to assume and not be surprised when young people growing up at our congregations and our families have questions and don’t understand exactly where we’re even coming from as we present a biblical worldview, but then, secondly, helping our own kids navigate. How do I respond to people who have fundamental irreconcilable differences with that perspective? And what it’s going to look like for them to hold to that perspective, in a world that’s increasingly hostile to that view? What do you think?

Brett McCracken
Yeah? Well, I think tremens absolutely right about the there’s issues behind the issues here that need to be addressed. Because I have a lot of contacts with Christian higher ed and my wife works at a Christian college in Southern California, and just seeing the internal kind of shifts that have happened with just students today versus 10 years ago, they’re, they’re just being shaped in a culture where it’s unthinkable to be against, you know, any and every sexual expression. So. So what are the issues behind the issues, and I think one of them, you’ve written about quite a bit treatment, it’s just the concept of the self, and how, really the one of the core ideas here is that we have a self idea, an idea of our self that should be we should be free to express it. However, we whatever truth that is, right, we should be able to freely express it in these days, your sexuality is very much bound up within that somewhere along the road, your sexual expression, and what you do with your body became fundamentally fundamental to your selfhood. And so any rule any sort of external institution that tries to put boundaries around that is seen as the most hateful possible thing, because it’s, it’s a denial of your selfhood, an immutable, supposedly part of your selfhood. So how do we counter that idea, because if that’s what we believe about the self, that your sexuality is fundamentally who you are, then it is a horrible, hateful thing to try to put constrictions around that

Sam Allberry
was a guy I’ve known for several years recently kind of came out on Instagram. And it was interesting, looking at the various comments and responses people made, almost all of them were along the lines of thank you for sharing your truth. It wasn’t even you know, thank you for sharing your, your feelings or your your identity, or it was your truth. And if you know earlier generations, I think, therefore I am, we seem to be I sexually feel, therefore I am. That seems to be the sort of grounding of our sense of what it means to be a person. And so thank you for sharing your truth was exactly right within that framework of thinking, that’s the sort of the primary starting point for so many people. And I think as we try and understand that and unpack that a bit we’ve we’ve got to have, we’ve got to have a better vision of what it means to be human. If we can’t simply evangelize through negation and saying, no, no, that’s wrong. And so trying to show people actually, where’s the partial truth, the partial truth is, you know, human sexuality is a is a very distinct, telling part of what it means to be human, whilst also saying, there’s so much more to you than just your sexual feelings and the type of person you feel attracted to. And trying to give people a more dignified, rounded view of what it means to be a human being, I think, is something I’m trying to do.

Trevin Wax
Yeah, the, the, the whole question about the self is, is one of these deeper questions that sexuality has now been mapped onto. So one of the challenges that we face I think, in the church is, if if we are, if we are in congregations where many people in our society believe the purpose of life if you look at the surveys, including those who go to our churches, they believe the purpose of life is to look deep within themselves to discover their deepest desires and then to look around to express themselves to the world. That I mean, you see the surveys, you know, call it expressive individualism, or whatever you want to call it in, rethink yourself. My book I say it’s the look in approach to life, you determine who you are you define your destiny, your identity. There are a lot of people who would not identify as gay, who still believe that. And one of the challenges that we face in the church, I think is if we basically allow that sort of mindset and you to run rampant in our congregations are to go unaddressed. And then we suddenly call out sexuality. We’re being arbitrary. I was, you’re talking about Christian college, I was talking to a professor from a Christian college on the west coast to just a couple of weeks ago, who said that one of their more mature Christian students is like going on mission trips, believes the Bible, you know, was St. was sharing why she found it hard to share the gospel with a gay friend of hers, because she said, I just she’s like, I don’t know, it feels like too much to you know, for for Mita, for me to say, you know, Jesus asked him to give up their identity. And I thought, Jesus asks all of us to give up our identity, and to rediscover it in him right like it whoever would lose their life will gain it, those who hold on to their life will lose it like this is like the fundamental understanding of conversion and repentance and what it actually means to follow Christ for everybody, not just for a gift, but the fact that someone who actually has Bible knowledge it was still was was feeling like that was asking too much, is an indication that we have perhaps not been as clear as we need to be on the overarching cost of discipleship in our in our society. So the questions about the self that are underneath the sexuality debate, those are issues and challenges that we face in our congregations. Whether or not you actually are dealing with anyone who is is is acknowledging same sex attraction or is struggling with gender dysphoria or something to that effect, those issues of the self are the bigger ones, and they’re mapped on that sexuality is now mapped on to, to that.

Sam Allberry
I just had two quick things that Kevin’s book is excellent. Rethink yourself, it’s, it’s such a clear way through this. And actually a level you could use what Trevon is saying in his book, to explain this to young children, about how you understand who you are. So that’s one thing just to commend that book. The other thing I think, in the light of all this is, in earlier times in earlier generations, we were living in a more of a moralistic framework. And one of the sort of tasks in evangelism is to try to show people actually, you’re a sinner. So that all these people who think they’re good people got to show them they’re sinners so that they then realize they need their need for Christ. And a lot of our evangelism began in Genesis three, we have to begin in Genesis one. We don’t live in a moralistic age where we need to prove people to be sinners, we live in an anxious age, where we need to prove to people they’re worth something. And start with Genesis start with this, this high view of humanity and the unique dignity God gives us as His image bearers, and begin to to cast a vision of what it looks like and means to be a human being. That actually, in the light of which our culture’s understanding will then appear very shriveled and actually dehumanizing.

Brett McCracken
That’s a good segue to a question I wanted to ask, which is, what are the unexpected opportunities for the church? In this landscape? You hinted at the kind of beauty of the dignity of humanity that scripture provides us in a dehumanized age. That’s, that’s an opportunity for us to really pinpoint that. And other one that I was thinking about Trevin, as you were talking is the actual beauty of self denial. I’m kind of an advocate for like, let’s make self denial cool again. My book uncomfortable was kind of all about that. And I think it’s true though, because if once you get to this libertine critical mass, in a culture, where everything is okay, and following your heart to wherever it leads, is the way it just doesn’t lead to happiness. It doesn’t lead, it’s not the answer people are looking for. And there’s lots of stories that I’ve been reading about people who have been on transgender journeys and have gone through surgeries and, and they don’t become happier. You know, most of the accounts you read, like they think that’s going to solve their mind anxiety and their mental health and all their challenges that they’re facing, but it doesn’t. And it just shows you that these all these things we do to kind of find happiness by looking within ourselves and following our heart don’t actually lead to happiness. So maybe there’s something To boundaries and kind of external guardrails that is good and denying yourself as a path to flourishing.

Sam Allberry
Yes, and particular boundaries, not just, you know, find someone somewhere to give you constraints in your life. But actually what we what we know as believers is that as we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus as we lose life. For him, we receive life. One of the beautiful things in Christian discipleship is as we deny self, we don’t become less who we are. As we deny self and follow Jesus, we actually become more the people. God made us to be in the first place. If you take just the three of us as a starting point, and each of us denies ourselves, and seeks to become more like Jesus will all become more like Jesus without becoming more like each other. We will actually become the people God thought up in the first place. So follow, follow your heart, won’t get us very far follow his heart, will actually get us to where we truly are. So I don’t think we always articulate the positives, in that, in that process. I don’t think we sufficiently articulate the negatives either, but we must point people to the positives as well.

Trevin Wax
You asked about the opportunity to in that. So there is an opportunity to reclaim the whole self conversation with, with what Sam just said that you are more like yourself and more like Jesus, that’s ultimately where we’re all headed. Those of us that believe what the glorified saints going to be like, but when it comes to sex in general, our culture has tried to have it both ways. Sex is nothing sex is everything. Right? Sex is nothing. It’s all casual, it’s recreational. As long as it’s essential, that’s really the only constrictions around it. And how dare anyone say that? That’s not fine. It’s really nothing, right? It’s it’s, it’s, you know, pleasurable. And that’s what it is. But then at the same time, sex is everything. It’s my identity. How dare you question are my choices in this in my behaviors, or my attractions, because this is who I am. So our culture is trying to have that in both ways. And what I think the opportunity for the church is, is to actually speak a prophetic word that counters both of those wrong assumptions. We believe sex is important that it is something it’s not nothing. That’s why there are restrictions around it boundaries around it, because of something beautiful and precious that it is. But at the same time, we also don’t believe it’s everything. It’s not the end all of life. It’s not the, the it’s not even, I mean, think about the people throughout human history, who have demonstrated an amazing sense of human flourishing that have never been sexually active at all, or like we don’t, this is something that comes through in all wings of the Christian church, and has for millennia. So there is a as Christians, we have the opportunity to raise sexuality away from the sort of it’s nothing casual sex is fine, as long as it’s consensual, to raise the value of what sex is, and to show the preciousness of it, while at the same time demoting it from those who would make it their sole identity or would find their identity intertwined with it to an extent that actually reduces them as a human being. It’s reductionistic. To define yourself, in your most fundamental being by sexuality, that’s actually a reduction is the cute part of a vision of humanity, that the Bible actually gives us a better and stronger sense of the value and worth of humanity that transcends anything, anything like that. So I do think we have an opportunity to stand out in this environment, but it will be it will be a challenge. And I wonder what other challenges you you see Brett, as well on the horizon? Yeah,

Brett McCracken
I mean, I think the biggest challenge honestly, is just the navigating between compassion and truth. I think for most young Christians, that’s what they struggle with. Because most of them, even my generation, like most of us, have friends, close friends who are LGBT. And it’s like, how do you balance faithfulness to the gospel in Scripture, but also compassion, especially in a culture where compassion can only look like one thing? full acceptance and affirmation. So what do you guys have any thoughts on that? Like, what would you say to young young Christians, particularly who are in classrooms with LGBT friends and who are struggling with how do I live a witness of faithfulness to God’s truth on this without Just being completely, you know, coming across as hateful.

Sam Allberry
I think it’s very, very challenging. And I mean, we can avoid obvious mistakes, like, you know, don’t be a jerk will help, obviously,

Brett McCracken
let’s start.

Sam Allberry
But the fact is, even if you were to say, all the right things in the very best kind of way, and at the right, wise kind of moments, you may still be written off as hateful. And so part of part of discipleship, I think in this area is not that we’re looking for rejection, or we’re looking for trouble. But we’re, we may need to hold lightly to how we’re seen by other people. And that may include by the people who employ us, in some cases, and to be Hold, hold those things loosely, not because we don’t care about them, but because we’re prepared for the Lord’s sake for him to take them from us. If that if that is what being faithful to Him entails. Not wanting that not looking for it, not trying to provoke it. But being willing to be rejected. You know, if if Jesus was rejected, and perfectly embodied grace and truth, and we’re still rejected for it, then we we mustn’t think well, as long as I kind of gracious and get things right, then it’ll all work out fine, it might not. And actually, sometimes that is part of the longer term plan for how the gospel is going to be fruitful, is that there may be seasons of rejection and difficulty, whilst at the same time not being pessimistic. Because however bewildering this this cultural environment may be for us, God’s not freaking out. Jesus is still on his throne, His Word is still powerful. The gospel is still transforming lives. And I think part of how we respond is even if people are rejecting us, we’re not rejecting them. And making it as easy as possible and non embarrassing as possible for people to come back to us. Anytime that they feel like they can.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I want to tell a quick story about her friend Becca Cook, who I think some of us know, because I think what you’re just saying it’s so true, you know, if we’re just faithfully living as Christians, you not ashamed of what the Bible teaches on sexuality, but not like publicly, you know, shouting it with a megaphone either, but waiting for people to come to us who have gone down that long road of look within and found out it unsatisfying, so this guy Beckett Cook, some of you might have seen or heard about his story, he I interviewed him for the gospel coalition a few years ago, and he told the story. And it’s a fun story, because it’s a coffee shop story, like the one I told at the beginning, he was at a coffee shop. So he he was a gay man living in Hollywood, living kind of the excess of all things Hollywood knew everyone in Hollywood, all the actors, he was a production designer. He was just living a very hedonistic, you know, life as a gay man in Hollywood, and he was in Paris for Fashion Week. And he the way he described it is just he just like, he came to this existential crisis where he, he just knew this was empty, there was emptiness here, and that he had there had to be something more. And he came back to LA after that trip, just with a really soft heart to something more and he was at a coffee shop, intelligencia coffee and Silver Lake, which I actually love, and I go there a lot. And we I did my interview with Beckett in this coffee shop. So it was fun to hear him tell this story, which is kind of his conversion story, which was catalyzed in this coffee shop in Silverlake. So he was just sitting there having coffee and he saw a group of Christians with their Bibles open having a Bible study just faithfully present in public reading their Bibles. And it was enough for him to kind of be curious like this is Silverlake. This is like a hipster, very secular part of LA. There’s some Christians who have their Bibles open. So we just asked them, you know, who are you like, what are you doing and then starts engaging in conversation with them. And in that first conversation, I believe he asked them like, look, I have to know what do you believe about being gay? Because I’m gay. And to these Christians credit, they were there at reality church in LA. They they didn’t shrink back from it, and they were honest with the hard answer that they knew would be really hard for Beckett to hear. But Beckett heard it and respected them for being honest. And they invited him to church. And he came to church that Sunday to reality LA, in Hollywood, and he was converted, he became a Christian and turned away from his his gay lifestyle completely. And, and he, in his words is never looked back. It’s, you know, totally behind him. And I think that’s just such a powerful story of how we as Christians, one way we can approach this is just by being faithful, being willing to answer questions, honestly, and seeing what God does with it. And like you were saying, Just wait for the Holy Spirit to move people towards you. And don’t be a jerk.

Trevin Wax
I think that I love that story, because it’s also such a key thing Do I think one of the questions we all have to wrestle with as, as people in this particular moment is, do we truly believe in the power of the gospel to change? To change people? And to to, to change lives in ways that are that, that that have, that are in all kinds of all kinds of different immorality? I mean, I was reading an article not that long ago about, you know, the the question that many pastors and church leaders, many of you in this room have had this conversation with, you know, couples in the congregation that are cohabit, you know, already living together before they’re married and having to have the conversation. Well, I mean, we even aside from the LGBT LGBT conversation there, there are hard questions and hard things about sexuality and just in general, and that this in a permissive culture, like the one that we’re in, that we will, we will have to have, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is, do we really believe in the power of the gospel? Do we really also believe in the beauty of Christian truth, God’s revealed truth about human sexuality, the human person and the human body? Even? I think those are our key things. Do we believe in the goodness, the fundamental goodness of what has been revealed in Scripture on this? I sense in a lot of circles, that an almost a sort of sheepish, almost an apologetic? Well, I have to believe this, because the Bible teaches that but almost aware, you’re granting that it may not be great. When when confronted about this, and I, I’ve even seen it, you know, in circles, where there’s a lot of anxiety and angst around this. And I think the I think the motivation that some pastors want to show, or some church leaders or even Christians that are speaking to this issue, they want to show that, you know, they’re wrestling with this too, and that this is hard for them as well to talk about it. And almost as a way of showing this, you know, authenticity of wrestling with the hard passages of Scripture. And and I get that impulse, the impulse of wanting to say, Hey, I, I understand your objection, I feel the weight of your objection, I understand that impulse. But ultimately, I don’t think that that’s actually as attractive to the world as someone who with winsomeness, with confidence, will will acknowledge what it is that they believe but but not with a sort of angsty, anxious. I know this is so tough, this is so hard, but but almost the recognition that acknowledges that it may be tough, but that actually believes at the end of the day, and gives off that that impression that this is fundamentally true. And it’s fundamentally good for the world.

Sam Allberry
I was just going to add to that main Taste and see that the Lord is good. And I don’t think people are gonna care whether what we say is true if they don’t believe it’s good. One one other components in this going back to the particular question is obviously the church, the church. If we’re doing church in a healthy way, should be an embodied answer. To that whole predicament of what how can you love someone without affirming them? Because church as you should be a community of people where there isn’t unconditional affirmation, but where there is a depth of love and commitment that actually, we don’t see anywhere else. So I’m hoping that actually that that dimension, I think, will be key to all of this as well. It’s a form of community where people are not going to agree and think everything you do and say and think is amazing. And actually, it’s an expression of love, not an expression of rejection. When we when we challenge each other.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, that’s that’s a good segue to I want to get practical, just with some time we have left for church ministry and pastors and leaders in actual churches because more and more there are people in our congregations who are struggling with same sex attraction or gender dysphoria or just any number of things related to sexuality. So what do you recommend? And for just approaching How do you disciple these people? What’s the best approach to loving them? You know, not affirming everything that they might want to be affirmed. But yeah, what? What have you seen just maybe any personal examples that’s worked well, to kind of move someone towards Jesus who’s dealing with these issues, and not to turn them away?

Sam Allberry
I think for me, one of the things I’ve I found helpful both on the receiving end as someone being discipled, but also then as I’ve sought to commend Christ to others, is constantly showing how Jesus puts us all on the same boat. Some of the harder things we find in Scripture, I think we receive more easily when we realize we’re not the only people who were being challenged by, by Jesus. So often, if I’m, if I’m talking to LGBT folks, for the first time, my rule of thumb is don’t say to someone, what you can’t say to everyone. So I want people to see how the challenge of the gospel lands on all of us, even in the area of just of, of sexual ethics. what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, if we understand him, rightly, deeply challenges every single one of us. And then I think if people can see, can see that as being a sort of a universal thing, that particular ways in which it may challenge them individually, become easier to receive, otherwise, they feel like well, I’m being singled out and treated differently to everybody else. So going back to the point earlier about the cost of discipleship being something that is, is visible everywhere, I think will help us on that.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think one of the reasons why the Church has lost a lot of credibility on this topic is because we haven’t, we’ve singled out certain sins, that we are asking people to deny themselves about where we’ve looked the other way with things like cohabiting before marriage and other many other things. So I feel like that has to figure in to the church as witness going forward is an equal opportunity kind of call to self denial again, make self denial, cool, again, make it beautiful, again, for all of us, we’re in this together as Christians, and the cost of discipleship is a beautiful unifying thing. Yeah,

Sam Allberry
I think we’ve we’ve realized the spirit has come to convict of sin. And the dangerous we feel very, very convicted about other people’s sins. And it’s very easy within a given church context, to excuse the majority sins, and to focus on the minority sins, particularly when it comes to sexual ethics.

Trevin Wax
And along those lines, Jesus his harshest words were for Pharisees, not for repentant sinners. So I think, if the way of Jesus is what as we discuss issues like this, even in our own congregation, it’s it’s to, to certainly to stand on the truth of God’s word that’s unchanging, Have you not heard it said from the beginning, right, but at the same time, there’s the I, the extended arm is there, even if it’s met with hostility, the extended arm of of Christ is there that’s the beauty of the Gospel is that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. I think recognizing that we’re all in the same boat is, is obviously very important. And it also in the kind of culture that we live in right now, one of the one of the things that I think is important to remember is that the, the first and greatest commandment is to be true to yourself, right? And then the second is like it to affirm whatever self your neighbor decides to be true to. You rather understand that when you challenge both of those commandments, you are the center in the eyes of the culture, and scripturally biblically speaking, we know that the response to sin is repentance, but in the kind of culture where Be true to yourself as the greatest commandment, the response to the challenge to your identity is reassertion. So we have a fundamental difference in the way that we’re even viewing the world where we see repentance as Yes, it is self denial, and it’s cool in a lot of ways, but that repentance, rightly understood, is not the prophet who is holding the sign, repent or turn or burn that kind of thing. It’s actually a refreshing thing, because you’re actually inviting someone to turn from one path to another. And it’s the call to repentance is not is not a negative thing. There’s a negative in service of a positive joy. On the other side of that repentance, the the turning around is transformation. And so recapturing the beauty and the need in the have the understanding of repentance, not merely for sexual sins not merely for these kinds of sexual sins. But that’s the the beauty of the Christian life. Martin Luther was the one who said all of the Christian life is, is summed up in repentance that this is what this looks like in Romania, where I did mission work the Christians there, the Evangelicals were known as Polka at reenters. That’s how we were known. We are the people who are repenting, repenting, and I went, I do think that, that brand label if we were to be known for repenting ourselves, of all sorts of things, as much as we were also known for calling others inviting others into this way of repentance, I think that would transform some of these conversations.

Brett McCracken
That’s a good word Absolutely. In in California, in my circles of secular friends, that’s the real sticking point. They’re not going to listen to evangelicals on sexual ethics, if we’re totally hypocrites and looking the other way, with all sorts of things in politics and whatever. In terms of immorality, that doesn’t register for us. But LGBT immorality is a big deal, supposedly. So consistency is huge. Repentance is huge. Sam, any final thoughts from you, we have just a couple of minutes left.

Sam Allberry
I just think of a line I heard Ray ortlund say once riches that the church shouldn’t expect to see repentance in the world, before the world is seeing repentance in the church. So if we’re, if we’re modeling the very kind of repentance, we’re talking about, awestruck by that comments about the Romanian situation, and the gospel gives us a certain posture, doesn’t it? Whereas I think the the thinking of the culture that as we’ve expressed, it so far, gives a very different kind of posture. It’s a very aggressive, assertive, refusing to be wrong kind of posture. I think a gospel shaped posture that is, is humbled and joyous, at the same time, will itself be quite compelling. People might might not like what we’re saying, but there’ll be intrigued by what we’re believing is, is doing to us as people.

Brett McCracken
Yeah, I think, I think in closing, I would just kind of summarize, with both of my coffee shop examples, that we’re called to live faithfully on this issue as Christians and faithfully in public, this shouldn’t just be a private thing that we kind of are afraid of, to your point travel and that we’re slightly embarrassed of. But sometimes being public with this as Christians is going to be met with the guy who said, I can’t listen to this, I have to leave. And sometimes it’s going to be met with the Becket cooks of the world who are prepared by the Holy Spirit to meet you and hear from you can be changed by the truth that you have. So in both cases, I think it’s Christians being faithful the president, you know, as much as they can be, but you never know how their response is going to be. And that’s up to God. So our part is just to be faithfully present, and to kind of see the beauty in Scripture and not be afraid of it and not be embarrassed by it, even though it’s going to be increasingly hard. So, thank you guys. Thank you, Sam, and Trevin thank you all for being here. It’s been a great conversation.