Sexual Identity and Loving Our Neighbor

Sam Allberry

As we begin, I want to thank our sponsor, the Good Book Company, are sponsoring this session. We’re grateful to them for their partnership for the resources that they produce. I want to mention one book in particular, Rachel Gilson was meant to be on this panel, but because of the pandemic and other things going on, has not been able to come. But she’s written an amazing book, published by the Good Book Company, called Born Again this way, coming out, coming to faith, and what comes next really wonderful book, do go and grab that and have a look at other resources from the Good Book Company. Thank you for joining us for this. My name is Sam Aubrey, and I’m joined by Rebecca McLachlan and Jackie Hill Perry, and we’re very glad to have you with us. We’re thinking about the issue of sexuality, identity and loving our neighbor. So I’m gonna ask, initially, just each of you has written on sexuality, each of you has written something about your own sexuality, what led you to do that, Jackie, we’ll start with you.

Jackie Hill Perry

So when I became a Christian in 2008, my testimony was something that I shared often, just out of, you know, the Lord has done this for me, and I want everybody that I ever meet ever to know about it. But as that happened, I started to get the same questions about sexuality and how to apply it to you know, my daughter is gay, my son is my husband is struggling, how can I help? And so I felt like, Man, I wanted to create a resource that I could just hand to people that they could be able to, you know, take what I’ve said, which I’m trying to point to Scripture, and just have it for themselves. And so that’s kind of how it started.

Sam Allberry

And your book is called gay girl. Good God. Yes. It’s amazing. I remember when that came out. It’s phenomenal.

Jackie Hill Perry

When people say it the wrong way they they’re charged with blasphemy.

Sam Allberry

I’m sure I’ve got it the wrong way around more than once. Rebecca, tell us about your own writing on this.

Rebecca McLaughlin

See, for me, when gay marriage was legalized across the US, I felt profoundly saddened by the fact that most churches didn’t seem to be speaking truth in a way that was authentic and compassionate. I saw broadly speaking two things, I saw churches that were empathizing with folks who experience same sex attraction and throwing out Christian sexual ethics in the along the way. And I saw churches that were kind of doubling down on more of a culture wars mentality, a very feminist approach to LGBT folk. And I wanted as someone who has always been attracted to women, predominantly, since as long as I can remember, I wanted to start sharing my own experience and voice in that conversation. But at that point, I hadn’t even talked to many any of my closest Christian friends about my experience of same sex attraction. So I had to do a bit of work myself, to get the point where I was even talking to my closest friends, in order to be able to then write on these issues.

Sam Allberry

Was there a reason you hadn’t opened up to anyone before?

Rebecca McLaughlin

Yeah, I had talked to my husband, you’ll be pleased to hear. But I was desperately afraid that if I told my Christian friends about my lifelong experience of same sex attraction, that they would all take just half a step back from me. I didn’t think that they would run screaming in the other direction. But I thought it would just be like, I need to just put in more boundaries with you now. And that was terrifying to me. Now, I think I was actually taking half a step back from them, by not talking to them about this area of like struggling in my life.

Sam Allberry

Jackie G spoken so many people. When did you start opening up?

Jackie Hill Perry

So it’s a strong echo? So I can’t even hear you, Sam. Can we just scoot closer or something?

Sam Allberry

When When did you first start sharing with other people about your own?

Jackie Hill Perry

Immediately? Yeah, I became a Christian in October 2008. Let’s say hypothetically, the Lord converted me on Tuesday. I got on Facebook on Wednesday, I changed my profile picture because if you know my story, I was the stud which in the black lesbian community is a woman who kind of projects a hyper masculine self. And so you know, I dress like a boy to a certain extent and so my profile picture represented what I represented. But when I became a believer, I was like, Okay, what is the one picture I have with a dress on and so I found my prom picture. I made my profile picture my prom picture, as if to say I’m new now. And so it was pretty quick. It wasn’t gentle. at all, it was kind of like a I was gonna go to hell and y’all are too. But the Lord has tempered that part of me.

Sam Allberry

What kind of responses did you get?

Jackie Hill Perry

Um, I think, shock in like good for you. I think one of the interesting things is I had a conversation with a friend that I used to be close with, because I kind of distanced myself from a lot of my friends because I needed to, I needed to be in a community of Christians and believers to kind of help me and shaped me and disciple me. And one of my friends says, I was waiting on you to come back, which you never did. And I don’t know. So I think that’s one of the things is that there was a level of skepticism that this is mere, a status a caption, a picture, a change in your picture, but five years, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years, 10 years. It’s like, oh, she’s she’s preaching the same message.

Sam Allberry

Rebecca, when you started sharing with with friends, how do they tend to respond?

Rebecca McLaughlin

Do you know I was really broadly speaking, just very encouraged, actually, by how friends have responded, I spend a lot of my Christian life in, you know, Bible study groups with people where everyone was sharing their struggles. And I was like, the girl who didn’t have struggles. I remember when I first talked to a non Christian friend of mine, who had become good friends with it in grad school. And she said to me, she was like, Oh, I thought you just never had any issues. If I just had issues I wasn’t talking to anyone about I forget what question you asked me, I had people respond. Yeah. So I think my non Christian friends were like, I’m so sorry, you didn’t feel like you could tell us, which was on me, to some extent. my Christian friends, broadly speaking, have just been really gracious and loving. And you don’t know how much it means to a Christian who has grown up experiencing same sex attraction, knowing that this is not what the Bible caused them to. And feeling like they can’t talk about it, you don’t know how much you can minister to somebody, just by listening to them and loving them, and helping them to stand for the truth. I think people in our culture today often confuse genuine listening and loving somebody with affirming all of our instincts and desires. And what’s been beautiful and life giving for me is to have close Christian friends, who I can talk to you about anything that’s hard, and they can talk to me about anything that’s hard, but that I know that they will come to me with love and with truth, and that they will be on my on my team as like anybody else. You know, we all fight temptation.

Sam Allberry

So is there other more things Christians can do? To be the kind of person someone would be able to open up to where do we need to work more within the Christian community within our churches to be to make it as easy as possible for people to share whatever it is, they’re struggling with any thoughts from either of you on that?

Jackie Hill Perry

There’s always a lot of talk about, you know, safe spaces, or is not always, but recently, I think in the culture and society, it’s, you know, being safe. To a certain degree, Christians are not safe. Because we bring a message that is confrontational, a message that rattles with your idols, a message that beckons you to die, you know, to take up your cross daily and die and follow Jesus. But at the same time, we’re called to exhibit love and compassion and gentleness and kindness. And I think that balance is really what Christians have to figure out. I’ve, I’ve come to the point where I’m beginning to believe that the difficulty with finding the balance is that we are more cognizant of message message than we are with trusting the spirit. Let me explain. I feel like with the even this conference, it’s great, beautiful, awesome love being here, books, of podcasts. All of that is really helpful. But we have to get to a point where we’re just gonna trust God. We’re gonna trust that the Spirit is going to empower us in the moment to be able to confront and be loving. And so if there’s anything that Christians need more of, maybe it’s more messaging to trust the Spirit of God. I think that’s the thing that’s been on my heart in the last year. That’s a good word.

Rebecca McLaughlin

I think often we can just make the assumption especially in in Christian spaces, that nobody in this room, however small this room is experiencing same sex attraction. And the statistics are actually not in favor of that assumption. Um, there’s a woman named Lisa diamond, who is a professor at University of Utah, herself identifies as a lesbian activist. So she’s, she’s analyzing data, not from a Christian perspective. And according to the data that she’s analyzed, about 14% of women experienced same sex attraction. The only 2% are exclusively attracted to other women to where they could potentially be in a romantic relationship with a man. For men, it’s about 7%, who experienced same sex attraction and only about 1%, you’re exclusively same sex attracted. So if you think about your church, or your youth group, or your women’s ministry, or whatever it is, you know, if you have 100 women in the group, then you can expect that they’re probably about 14, who experienced some significant degree of same sex attraction. And they may be, you know, married with three kids, it’s, you can’t necessarily sort of pick people out of a crowd. And I think we need to be aware of that. We need to also be aware of the ways in which, in church spaces, we can sometimes sort of elevate marriage, at the expense of singleness to where, if we’re saying to somebody, do you know what, for you, as a Christian, you’re gonna have to deny yourself, take it your cross and follow Jesus in a very profound way of saying no to all of your sexual desires and romantic desires. If we create Christian culture in a way that leaves single people kind of on the outside, then we really are just abandoning those fakes. But that’s not the picture the Bible gives us. The Bible gives us a picture of a very rich community in love, and between believers of the same sex as well as in marriage and nuclear family context. And I think part of what we need to do to be a safe space for Christians who are struggling in any dimension, but especially when it comes to sexuality is to make sure our churches, the places where single people are loved and in community just as much as as married people.

Jackie Hill Perry

I’d love to hear your answer to that question. Yes.

Sam Allberry

I can remember the question was,

Rebecca McLaughlin

how can we be a safe space? Yes, that’s right, people.

Sam Allberry

Yeah. So Amen. To all of to all of that. I think one of the things that will make a difference is if we speak about these kinds of struggles in a way that recognizes they exist inside the room, and not just outside. I know, for me, I was, I was quiet about my own wrestling with with sexuality simply because for many years, the only references I heard were to do with the big bad world out there. And I was never given any kind of indication that there was permission if you like, for this to be something Christians might wrestle with. So I think, as we teach as we disciple, as we speak about these things to do so in a way that that recognizes some of us wrestled with this. It’s not just an outside the church thing. One writer, your comment about singles just reminded me of this, there was one writer who said that, that intimacy is a lot like food. And he says, if your only choice was between starvation, and eating really bad food, you choose really bad food because you’ve got to eat something. And he said, if if the choice in church is no intimacy, or unbiblical forms of intimacy, you’ll end up going with unbiblical forms of intimacy, because we need intimacy we’re designed to be known. So have have deep and rich interactions with each other. So therefore, we need to provide healthy biblical ways of experiencing intimacy in our churches.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And just to build on that it’s I think, it’s so important. A woman came up to me after a talk that I given about this a few months ago, and she said that she also had always experienced same sex attraction and the way that she had responded to that she’s now married with kids, she was like, I have basically made sure not to get close to any women, because I’m terrified that I might start feeling things or things might get complicated or difficult. And I totally understand that instinct. And I think it’s completely the wrong approach. Because, exactly to your point, if we are starving ourselves of what God has given to us the right to genuine intimacy, especially actually were those of our same sex within the church. Then we’re going to be grabbing for the the junk food, I think we’re actually in the steps that we may take thinking Honestly, we’re pulling ourselves away from potential temptation, we can actually end up more vulnerable to temptation because we’re not having our legitimate relational needs met.

Sam Allberry

I think we need to recover a biblical vision of friendship, and just the richness of friendship. Identity, where does where does all this fit into identity? Jackie, do you have a sexual identity? If so, what is it? How do you think about that whole side of this discussion?

Rebecca McLaughlin

It’s like a spirit animal.

Jackie Hill Perry

For me, I’ve always landed on the side of not identifying myself, according to my temptations, simply because I think that it can become unhelpful. And I’m, I’m trying to be careful with my words, words, because there are Christians that I know that love Jesus and are honorable, that would identify as gay Christian, right. And so I’m trying to be sensitive to the possibility of that being somebody’s path. But I guess for me it I think it confuses or leaves more room for people to make assumptions about the Christian faith. That if you don’t have the time to explain or walkthrough why someone names themselves, according to that, it just could be unwise. And so for me, I’ve just always kind of been like, Yeah, I’m a Christian black girl, that deals with same sex desires. But that’s really not the center of who I am, I think my primary identifier is that I’m an image bearer of the living God, because to see myself through any other lens, for me, personally gives more credit to my temptations than they just deserve. So that’s why I think

Sam Allberry

they’re so great agreement. Rebecca’s similar position. Yeah,

Rebecca McLaughlin

I land in a similar space to Jackie. But she and I were talking a little bit earlier about this, I think it can feel different for a Christian, you know, like me, who’s always been a follower of Jesus has always experienced same sex attraction, and for much of their Christian life has felt like this is something they couldn’t talk about. It feels a different if you’re in that position than if you’re like, Jackie, or like my friend, Rachel, he wrote the book that Sam was mentioning earlier, he became a Christian out of same sex, sexual relationships. So it was like, written on her head as she entered the Christian community. She didn’t carry shame, actually, in the same ways that those of us who’ve grown up in the church experiencing same sex attraction kind of carry shame. And I think sometimes, in folks who have had more of my story, will find themselves wanting to use more language or like saying, I’m a gay, Christian, or having language that speaks that more loudly.

Rebecca McLaughlin

Because they’ve had to be quiet about it for so long. And I can understand that that instinct, I think, you know, I probably learned in a similar space to Jackie that I think that there, you know, there’s, there’s wisdom issue there. I don’t think it’s kind of black and white, we have to do the Christ heretics anyone who was holding to Christian sexual ethics, but using a different label than than we might do. But I do think it’s a it’s a wisdom issue, and one where the more that we can actually listen to each other as brothers and sisters, I feel like one of Satan’s best lies against us is to say, your temptation is the thing you can’t share with your friends. Right just to make it to keep us isolated, and to make us believe, if you were really a good Christian, you’d be able to battle temptation all by yourself.

Rebecca McLaughlin

Like that’s what real Christians do. It’s only that there’s a weedy kind who need people to help, right? That is so not what the Bible says. The Bible says we are one buddy together, we are designed for need each other. I pull courses friend and SMS is very hard. The level of intimacy of the languages in the New Testament between believers, not sexual intimacy, but real intimacy is is such that it would be embarrassing to us in our culture, if we use that language. So I think we need to, especially as we’re walking alongside friends, or if it’s our own situation, who are trying to articulate their sexuality and their sexual patterns of temptation. In light of Christian orthodoxy, I think we need to have a lot of humility and care and compassion in that process.

Jackie Hill Perry

Could I add something really quickly? Um, I’m glad we’re having this conversation. Because I think sometimes in with the Christians that I interact with, there’s this assumption that if someone labels themselves Gay Christian, that that automatically makes them an unbeliever. And I think having such a black and white kind of binary understanding of sexuality is really unhelpful when it comes to discipleship, friendship and evangelism, you know, where I think it would be more helpful for us one to understand that there’s so much nuance in these categories, but also just to become more curious. So if you meet someone that says, I’m a gay Christian, instead of saying, Oh, I got the gospel, it’s explained that to me, you know, it leaves room for you now to gather context instead of judging or assuming where they are with God based on a label. And so I’m glad we kind of …

Rebecca McLaughlin

and that to be clear, is not because we don’t think this is Something like salvation in peril, like any unrepentant sexual sin, you know, you go and have an opposite sex affair, and unrepentantly continuing that you’re in a bad space for with the Lord, if you are engaging in any kind of sexual relationship that is outside covenant, male, female marriage, you’re in a serious space when it comes to the Scriptures. And at the same time, I think you’re absolutely right, Jackie, that we need to be listening to people understanding what they’re actually saying. And relating to them accordingly.That’s good. clarification.

Sam Allberry

I appreciate that. I think another another dimension two, this is one of the ways I think about it, if in as much as I have a sexual identity, I think the Bible would say my sexual identity is, I’m male. I think that seems to me to be the primary way in which the Bible, if it uses that kind of category at all, our sexual identity is less to do with our attractions and more to do with our biology. In which case, I’m not primarily to see myself as one someone who experiences same sex attraction that may be true. But actually not to see myself biblically as a Christian man, first and foremost, and to take my, my cue from that, rather than to take my cue from my, my feelings. And I take it, that that’s part of my eternal identity. When I’m when I’m resurrected, I’ll be resurrected as a male. I won’t be resurrected with the same sexual feelings and temptations that I experienced now. Thank God. And so my, my biological sex is part of who I will always be in a way that is not true for my, my sexual feelings. And that would be the case for for all of us.

Rebecca McLaughlin

Yeah. Yeah. And I think for all of us as well, I mean, if I were to say, raise your hand, if you have ever been attracted to somebody you’re not married to? Right, like, unless there is an infant in this room, which there probably is, all of us are gonna be waving our hands. So the question is not are you ever attracted to somebody you’re not married to you? The question is really submit those attractions to Christ. And that’s regardless of what they are. Amen.

Sam Allberry

So if someone is either watching or is or is in the room, and they’re aware that this is an area of personal confusion to them, they’re aware that they may be attracted to people or the other sex or people of both sexes. And they’re thinking, okay, so it sounds like I need to let some other people in on this and have other people journey with me. That’s, that’s really wise advice. Where do I start? Who do I go to? Any advice for? How to start opening up on these things? What’s a good way of doingthat?

Jackie Hill Perry

I guess the first thing is, are you a part of a local church, being a part of a church where then you have older women or older men, that you can watch and observe and look at their lives? And if you notice, you know, oh, they are godly? Go ask them, Hey, I’d like to chat with you. But it doesn’t even simply have to be about sexuality. The woman that discipled me, I remember one of the first thing she said to me, she said, Jackie, sexuality is not your primary issue. It’s your heart. If anything we need to deal with how arrogant and prideful you are. And so what she did was she discipled me holistically, and taught me just how to love Jesus with my whole heart, mind and soul, right? Which will reach and pour into my sexual sexuality and all these types of things. But I don’t think yeah, I don’t know, just find somebody that’s gonna teach you to be like Jesus. And it sounds easier than I’m saying it but I think it’s much more holistic than we’re making. That’s great.

Rebecca McLaughlin

I’m British, so I’m instinctively very reserved. And when I’d written confront Christianity, and I needed to tell my parents about what I was saying in that book, before I sort of published it to the world, including my history of same sex attraction. I had a conversation with my mum who’s lovely and delightful. And I said, statistics show that about 14% of women are attracted to other women. And I think I’m probably in that category. And she said, Oh, that was a conversation. She had afterwards she said, You know, I love you, darling. I’m very proud of like, after reading my book, we sort of had an email exchange to clarify these things. I’m only telling you that to say for some people in this room virtually or otherwise, it may be really hard for you to open your mouth to anybody. Even if you know that they love you and say This is something that I legitimately struggle with.

Rebecca McLaughlin

But it is worth doing that. And one of the redemptive things that I found in this process with with friends, is that me opening up to them about the things that are most tender in my heart in the places where I’m most vulnerable, has actually given them space to open up to me more about things. It’s easy to feel like Oh, I’m just, I don’t know placing a burden on somebody or, or is sucking their energies away or something. Often, actually, when we’re truly honest about our struggles, temptations, vulnerabilities, tenderness, whatever it is, it invites another person to be like that with us. So that encourage that I think the one kind of caution there will be decides it’s really easy for someone who experiences same sex attraction to think okay, I understand that the Bible says that you can’t have a sexual relationship with somebody I’m not married to.

Rebecca McLaughlin

But I could probably create a sort of Bible kosher, exclusive relationship with somebody of the same sex, who I would call my friend, but like, really, that’s my exclusive relationship person. And I don’t think that’s what the Bible is calling us to. And if you’re someone like me, who you know why you’re not a Christian, that’s probably the place you would be, it’s really important to actually have more than one person you’re talking to impressing with, and building that intimacy with you not because you don’t deserve intimacy, or because your friendship is not important and precious, because you actually like I think all of us actually need a handful of people. Rather than just this one relationship.

Sam Allberry

There’s, there’s something about the architecture of friendship, that means it doesn’t need to be exclusive, every friendship will be unique. Because every every person is different. And there’ll be certain things you get from each different friend that is particular to them. But friendship doesn’t require exclusivity. And I know, I know, for me, it can be one of the the early warning signs in my heart that a friendship might be at the very beginning stages of becoming unhealthy where I just want only wanting to ever be the two of us.

Sam Allberry

I love some of the things CS Lewis has written about friendship and about how there was him and Tolkien and Charles Williams and when I think it was when I can’t remember which one of the two of them died. But Lewis thought, Oh, well get Tolkien all to myself now. But he realized, actually, there was, there was something in Tolkien that only Charles Williams drew out when the three of them were together. And so marriage, by definition has to be exclusive.

Sam Allberry

Friendship, by definition doesn’t. And actually, the more you kind of open out friendship and fold in other people, it actually enriches it, it can deepen it, it can open up new dimensions of it. Someone you’ve been friends with for years, when another mutual friend kind of joins a friendship, you suddenly CSI to your your friend, you’ve known for years, you’ve never drawn out yourself. So there’s There’s wisdom in in kind of spreading some of the friendship load across more than one person. Now, no one person can bear the full burden of carrying your entire soul other than Jesus, He is the one who can be everything to us, no other earthly friendship can deliver that.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And I think just above that, I think we make the same mistake with marriage if we think that you get married and that person then fulfills all of your relational, sexual, romantic, social, everything needs all at once. Like there are certain needs that only that person is meant to fulfill. But actually, we’re not meant to be putting all of our emotional load on another individual even if we’re married to them. In fact, we are designed for multiple intimate close relationships and I love when Jesus says Greater love has no one in this and he lay down his life for his friends. So if we think in our marriages up here, friendships kind of down there like a nice to have. But Jesus says Greater love has no one than their city laid on his life for his friends.

Sam Allberry

Striking in terms of loving neighbor, which is part of the the kind of discussion that we’re having, obviously, this has become such a highly charged part of our, our kind of conversation and our culture. How do you talk to, to gay friends? How do you begin to try to witness to people where this may be a very, very tender area of life to be speaking about? Any, any things that have helped you along the way to do that?

Jackie Hill Perry

I don’t know why these questions are so hard for me as if I hadn’t written a book about it. But I think it’s because the more I spend time with people, the more complicated it is, and so I just feel like I don’t have any exact pretty neat answers. I guess what I could say is, I’ll talk about one conversation or one relationship I have with someone who she is a lesbian, she is married. And we met on some terms where we were talking about, you know, my Christian faith. her, she believes that she’s a believer, her relationship, etc, etc.

Jackie Hill Perry

And so we kind of met where our positions were explicit, you know, which is always a really good thing, actually, to kind of leave with, this is where I am about it, you know, I think is when Christians want to tip toe around what they believe that makes stuff weird, as if people don’t have the eyes to see that you are fearful and hiding something, you know, I know what you believe about me just say it. And so that helped. I think, too, I really did come with a genuine curiosity, where my engagement with her was not simply because I wanted to give or fulfill the Great Commission, my engagement was that I saw that I was sitting across from an image bearer who also has something to teach me.

Jackie Hill Perry

And so me asking her questions about what she believed and how she was raised. And what is her favorite color? And what do you think about Christians that come to gay pride protests? What do you think about Christians when they leave with I’m saying this in love, she hates it hates it, by the way, she was like, it just feels like the fakest thing in the world to me. And what do you think about like, I asked her all of these questions, which it just became a really natural situation that wasn’t about one of us, one upping each other, or about me giving her like this gospel mic drop, it was simply about us just sharing that space. And what has happened because of it, is that we exchange and talk with a, like a liberty that I don’t think we would have otherwise had if we weren’t honest with each other upfront. I don’t know if that even answers your question. But it’s just just just talk to people. You know,

Sam Allberry

and actually, part of what you’re saying is, is listened to people? Yeah, as and we got to know who we’re talking to. And I love that point about that there’s not a single image bearer on this planet, whose story is not worthy of our careful attention, right? Everyone’s got a story, everyone is amazing in some particular way. And I’ve always found that the more I’ve listened to someone got a sense of where they’ve come from, what their ups and downs have been, it just begins to give me a sense of where I might start in, in sharing Christ with them.

Jackie Hill Perry

Because I think, which is said, I think non Christians have an assumption that Christians are not learners. We know our Bibles, but we don’t learn our neighbors. And so I wonder if like our humility and our posturing ourselves as people that want to learn, that’s it. That’s, I think that’s an act of hospitality, to watch you and learn you so that I can actually know what you need now, because I’ve paid attention to you. So I can now discover, oh, this ain’t even really about your feelings, per se. This is about you. You know, somebody told you some about God. 10 years ago, that wasn’t true. So what I’m here to do, actually, is to deconstruct that false belief that’s keeping you from trusting God, but that comes through my sitting, my watching my learning, and then my challenging.

Rebecca McLaughlin

I think people often confuse a lack of theological clarity, with that kind of loving posture that Jackie’s talking to us about so people often think, you know, how do I love my Christian neighbor who struggles with same sex attraction? Well, if I, if I start doubting what the Bible says, then that’s showing more love and empathy to Dan No, it’s not. That’s like cutting the legs out from under them to start doubting what the Bible says. And when I’m talking to non Christian friends, I tend to say to them, actually, the Christian view of sexuality is weirder than you think. It’s about this extraordinary metaphor, of Jesus’s love for His people.

Rebecca McLaughlin

That is why from a Christian perspective, that’s why God made male or female primarily, it’s why he made sex and marriage and romance and sexuality and attraction and all of these things, is so that in the very best human romance, we might get a tiny little glimpse of how much Jesus loves us, you know, justice in the very best human falda we get the tiniest little glimpse of God’s fatherly love just isn’t the very best human friend, we get the tiniest glimpse of Jesus’s sacrifice and love for his friends. So in the absolute best human romance, we get this tiny anchorages is not for us. So Christian sexual ethics is much weirder than people realize. And I tell you what breaks my heart. I fairly often hear Christians say I used to think that the Bible was against same sex marriage And then I met a gay guy at work.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And he was a really nice guy. And he seemed to be in a really loving relationship with his his boyfriend. In fact, their relationship seems better than a lot of sort of heterosexual relationships. I know. So now I’m not sure. I’m thinking, okay. The basis for what we’re saying that the Bible says is not that sort of gay people, or in some generalized sense, not nice people. You should not be surprised if your gay friend is caring and generous and kind and a trustworthy person and a good member of society. You If you’re wondering about that you may have been raised with like legitimate homophobia, like fear and suspicion of gay people. don’t repent, like repent of that, but don’t repent of what the Bible says. Because actually, if you do, you’re only offering people death instead of life.

Sam Allberry

Tim Keller wrote a an article a few years ago, where he kind of referenced people who who say that very thing that, you know, I changed my mind because I met some really nice gay people. And he said that actually, all you’re repenting of is bigotry. Yeah. It just shows that your your views are based on bigotry, not based on what the Bible actually says. It’s a really, really key point to make. We’ve got a few minutes left, you’re both mothers of young kids. A lot of parents in the room, children are beginning to be told things about what sex they’re going to choose to identify as, and all these kinds of things. How do you? How do you teach your children? What to think about what the Bible says about all of these things? When do you start having those conversations? Any advice for parents?

Rebecca McLaughlin

I think there’s a big mistake that that we Christian parents have often made, which is to say, I don’t want to talk to my kids about sex until I kind of have to, like I want to protect their innocence. So I don’t even want to talk to them about what this whole deal is. If you want to read the Bible with your kids, you have to talk to them about sex. Like Mommy wants a prostitute, that question is going to come at you pretty soon if you start reading the Bible with your kids.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And if we have a mentality, which means we literally can’t read the Holy Scriptures with our children, because we’re sort of trying to protect them from something that we think that they’re not old enough to have any understanding of, then I think we need to sort of question whether we’re really trusting the scriptures to speak life to them. So what I’ve done with my kids from the ground up, is I’ve told them about sex. And I’ve especially told them that the point of human marriage is at its best to be a picture of Jesus’s love for His church, like I built that metaphor in from the ground up. And I’ve explained to them that God’s people live differently than people who are not followers of Jesus, they go to the local public school.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And in the last month, both my girls who are eight and 10, have come back with stories of their teacher walking through the gender unicorn, for example, or my eight year old saying that her teacher was talking about Black Lives Matter. And then suddenly, as she put it sort of randomly started talking about how girls could identify as boys. But because we’ve already had a lot of these conversations, my girls aren’t sort of blindsided by this. I think, honestly, we have a gospel opportunity with our kids if we talk to them about the meaning of sex and marriage, from the ground up.

Rebecca McLaughlin

And the other thing that I want to build into them as they kind of go out into the world is you know, a, this is a picture of the Gospel be don’t expect to be liked by your friends or your teachers, for holding to Christian sexual ethics. And see, I will be as proud of you. If you always remain single and you follow Jesus with your your whole heart as if you get married and have 15 children.

Rebecca McLaughlin

People of my generation typically who were raised by, you know, loving Christian parents were raised with a mentality of you know, I’m praying for your future spouse, I can’t wait for you get married. There are lots of really good things about that. I’m not saying this to denigrate marriage at all. But actually biblically and sounds very good on this. The Bible commands singleness, even over marriage, right, Paul, who thought so highly of marriage that he said it was a picture of Jesus lovers church stoked by singleness even better. So let’s not bring up our children with this idolatrous idea that marriage is the real thing. Jesus is the real thing and marriage is just like a little signpost.

Sam Allberry

Rebecca, what I what I love about that approach is you’re you’re giving your your kids a positive vision of human sexuality is not simply telling them what the prohibitions are. You’re actually showing them what human sexuality is about giving them a positive framework for it. So that When they come across different viewpoints when they come across biblical, biblical prohibitions, they’ve got a framework into which to place these things. Rather than just hearing negative messages when the world seems to have positive messages, that’s really lovely. Jackie, any thoughts?

Jackie Hill Perry

So my children are six, two and six months. So I am literally clueless. I do think though, speaking at enough, you know, universities and whether or not teenagers and college students, I’ve started to think through how I think I really want to be intentional about raising my children to distinguish between their feelings and their identities. Because when I talk to students, it seems as if when they get a certain age, and they they start to feel a certain way towards the same sex that they’re caught off guard by it. And the messaging from the world is because you fill it, that’s who you are. And I just wonder if their parents ever equipped them to actually know the difference between the two. And so some of what I plan to do with my daughter’s is to say, you’re gonna feel a whole lot of ways.

Jackie Hill Perry

One, you’re in a body that is just weird. You’re about you, you’re gonna have puberty, which is just just weird. Then you have the flesh and the devil, like, you have a lot of things working against you when it comes to your emotions, and your feelings, and your heart. But what you need to know is that you have to trust God’s word, even if it contradicts how you feel. And so you could do that when it comes to anger, you can do that when it comes to sexuality. You can do that with gray, you can do that with all types of things. But I just, I just want to lay a foundation so that as they grow, and they start to feel these temptation towards these things, they don’t believe the world when the world says, ah, that’s your identity, that’s who you are, they’ll know that their identity should be found in the person of Jesus Christ. That’s my hope.

Sam Allberry

We have two minutes left any final nuggets of wisdom from either of you, Rebecca, you must have nugget of wisdom.

Rebecca McLaughlin

I think we have the most precious thing that the world needs. And that is Jesus. And Jesus, his body is in this room right now. We need to live as if what the Bible says about the church is true. Which is that we are brothers and sisters that we are one body together that we’re comrades in arms. We need to live into that sense of community and intimacy. But actually, often folks associate with the LGBT community. Instead of non traditional family, only people who aren’t in a nuclear family are biologically raised each other who truly love each other and show up for each other like family. That should be what people say about the church. So let’s make that real. And then what we have to say about sexual ethics will not sound like a kind of barren wilderness of hate, but a lush and beautiful landscape of love.

Jackie Hill Perry

Oh, a few things, but I’ll keep it short. One is that what one thing that James says that is relevant to this conversation is that if you ask God for wisdom, he’ll give it you know, we need wisdom desperately. These books and podcasts, again, are helpful. But we need the wisdom to know how it applies to the person standing in front of us. But to I had a conversation with someone last week, that was really interesting. And she was saying she’s an older woman. She was saying that so many of her friends who are her same age, baby boomers are loosening their grip from biblical orthodoxy. And I said, Why do you think that is in regards to sexuality? And I said, Why do you think that is she was like because they’ve made their idol, their children’s happiness, their idol. And so I guess that’s what I would say is guard yourself from loving your children more than you love God. Because that will keep you from being willing to read something or believe that the Bible was saying something that it doesn’t to appease your children. Love God more than them.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai