There’s No Such Thing As Heterosexuality

What if the way we talk about sexuality is the very thing keeping us stuck? We trace the surprising origins of “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” unpack why those categories took hold, and explore how turning desires into identity reshaped culture, conscience, and the church. We draw from Michael Hannon’s “Against Heterosexuality” and Michel Foucault’s history of sexuality to show how an invented binary promised clarity but delivered confusion, shame, and pride.

We share why language isn’t neutral—names create lenses—and how the orientation frame quietly shifted moral questions from action and virtue to inner self-analysis. For those who experience same-sex desire, we acknowledge the weight of being told a label is who you are. For those who consider themselves “straight,” we challenge the complacency that excuses lust as normal and forgets that chastity is for everyone. Together, we re-center three layers: desires that need formation, behaviors that shape us, and an identity received from the One who made us male and female with purpose.

If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more episodes, and leave a review with the one question you still want us to tackle.

Resources from this episode:

Article reference: Against Heterosexuality - First Things by Michael W. Hannon

🗓️ Upcoming:

You’re invited to Regeneration’s Annual Dessert Fundraiser on Thursday, March 19, at 6:00 PM at Martins Valley Mansion. Join us for an encouraging evening of real stories and renewed hope as we celebrate how Christ is bringing healing and restoration in our city. Dessert is provided, and seating is limited. Learn more, register, or host a table RSVP

Free Resources to help you on your journey to Becoming Whole:

👉Men's Overcoming Lust & Temptation Devotional
👉Women 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Women overcoming unwanted sexual Behavior)
👉Compass 21-Day Prayer Journal & Devotional - (Wives who are or have been impacted by partner betrayal)

Transcript

Setting The Provocative Premise

SPEAKER_01 0:18

When radical left, queer theorists, and classical Christian advocates agree on something you've got to listen up. Here's what our cultural elites and traditional Christians both believe. There's no such thing as heterosexuality. So I'm James Craig. I'm a spiritual coach here at Regen. I'm joined by our executive director, Josh Glazer, who's going to help me unpack this. And today we're going to pull from an article written 12 years ago titled Against Heterosexuality by Michael Hannan. He did his uh PhD back around that time at Cambridge. Um, and the article will be in the show notes, so definitely feel free to check it out. But I just felt like we really got to unpack this on becoming whole because sexual orientation has not been around that long. So, Josh, I'm just curious, you I forget if I've already told you this or you know this, but do you know when the terms homosexual, heterosexual were invented?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

All right, I I want to, I wanna, we have to, I want to, as the exec director of regeneration, I just want to say right at the right now, like, hey, if you're listening and you're thinking, wait, has regen gone off the deep end? Are they going south? Are they like like just hold on, hold on. Like, we're we're gonna unpack. I know a little bit of where James is going here, and it's it's uh it's a good holy place. Yeah. All right. So, James, and answer your question, uh, I'm I'm thinking, from what I remember, depending on where you are in the world, it was late 19th century, maybe in France, where the where the spot on almost the the word so yeah, go ahead. You you got it.

Where “Heterosexual” Came From

Foucault And The Birth Of Species

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Well, the same decade that um that uh a few other things were invented, the 1860s, somewhere in Europe. I actually don't know exactly where, but but you're right that at the end of the 19th century in the US is when those terms first started coming into use. So this is these terms, friends, are not rooted in the classic Christian worldview that Josh and I hold to. 2,000 years of church history that has been unified until very recently, in part because of this exact topic, on what it means to be a sexual person. But we're gonna find some interesting um agreement for a little bit with some of the self-proclaimed. I'm not, I'm not using this term um radical left queer theorists, but self-proclaimed uh people in that kind of world, including some of you have heard of a guy named Michel Foucault. It looks like it's written Michael Foucault, but it's a French name. He's a 20th-century uh philosopher who lived with same-sex relationships. He was open about that. He points out that in the 1800s, the elite at that time, who by the way were no longer primarily Christian, at least in that part of Europe, the elite at that time chose smart-sounding, yet ultimately unscientific terms of heterosexuality and homosexuality. And here's here's a quote um in the article from Foucault. Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had become a temporary aberration. The homosexual was now a species. So we're gonna unpack in just a moment uh why this matters, how this is gonna affect those who identify with their same-sex attractions, those who identify as heterosexual. We're gonna unpack why we need to actually leave these terms behind, in our opinion. But Josh, what do you think about the fact that this term was invented so recently? And even someone like Foucault points to that and kind of bemoans the invention of this term, these terms of heterosexual and homosexual.

Why Language Shapes Our Reality

SPEAKER_00 4:07

Yeah, so I'm I'm curious about Foucault's reason for it, but the what pops immediately, and this is, I think, important for our listeners to know, like why are we talking about this? Is this just an academic exercise and kind of the development of language? The the reason it matters is because language matters. Language shapes how we think, language shapes how we perceive of what reality is. And so the idea that that there was no, like, so to use common day language, there was no or current day language, uh, kind of category for gay and straight as an as an identity or as a kind or a type, or as Foucault says, a species of person. Uh, I mean, you can even pause for a moment and imagine like what would it be like if you erase those as categories of personhood or or categories of identity in our culture today? Like there is no such thing as gay or straight. What would that change as far as how people understood themselves and each other? So this is why it matters. So yeah, it's kind of I'm I'm I'm curious about where Foucault's going. I'm curious about where the article is uh Hammond that wrote is going.

The Binary Backfires

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, let me let me share one more direct quote, Josh. And this is going to begin to get into what you were talking about. The original orientation essentialists, so those who were inventing these terms heterosexual, homosexual, could not even offer a principled reason to prefer heterosexuality over homosexuality, which was the linchpin of their position. They were trying to say heterosexual good, homosexual bad. That's what they were trying to do, but without a Christian worldview. So continuing the quote, left with nothing but inherited sensibilities and arbitrary fiat, their heteronormative measure failed, where its procreative predecessor had succeeded for centuries. So the Christian mindset that had succeeded for centuries, almost almost two millennia, um, or at least maybe a full millennia, if you will, uh, gave sound reason for these rules. But the new mindset of we can't have this Christianity, but we still believe heterosexual, like we still believe opposite sex actions are good and same-sex actions are bad. So we got to give them these new terms. So let me finish the quote here. The orientation essentialist structure, this binary of heterosexual, homosexual, which was meant to be a surefire defense against homosexual debauchery, thereby became the strongest weapon in its arsenal. So part of what I think he's saying at the end there, Josh, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, is that when the sexual revolution picked up a century later in the 1960s, there's now this very strong vitriol, especially as it continued, you know, in the 80s and 90s and to where we are today in the in the 2020s. There actually came the use of those who want, who wanted same-sex behavior to be normative, right? People who are like, hey, we should be able to do whatever we want with our bodies. Um, there's there's no procreative reason for sex, it's just about pleasure. Those people actually grabbed hold, people like the the radical queer theorists that we're we're citing, we're going to be citing even more. They grabbed hold of this binary and said, Who's to say that heterosexual is good and homosexual is bad? Like we should actually kind of topple that hierarchy. And so they actually used the language created 100 years ago to hold on to the old school mindset against it. Because the the the original old school mindset, if you will, the classical Christian view was removed. And so they had to try to find something that would actually hold on to their arbitrary values at that point.

From Procreation To Pleasure

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Yeah. Well, and let me point out something else too, because this is not, it wasn't just about a social movement. It it was also about uh and is about real real people wrestling with, hold on, if if there is a a better and worse version of sexuality, um, and I find in myself an orientation that is that falls into the the less good or the bad, that that what does that mean about me? That sends me to a place that's really negative. And so for them to pick up on and and try to use that the new way of thinking, you know, homosexual, heterosexual as kind of a category, categorical description of certain kinds of people, it makes total sense that that folks would say, like, I I because nobody wants to be less than. Of course, of course. So part of what we're trying to get after, and I'm not sure I'm explaining that very well, but part of I think where we want to go in this podcast is by getting after that the the Christian worldview, which is rooted in biology and rooted in in the reality that we are created with intention and design, actually esteems every individual, regardless of their desire, regardless of their um their proclivities or the quote-unquote sexual orientation. It esteems every individual uh more powerfully and more thoroughly than the break the that break from biology and the break from understanding ourselves as designed creatures. Um beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Absolutely. I mean that so that's actually what I want to get into with the meat of this episode, Josh. There's been a cost to this. There's been a cost to those who hold to the classical Christian viewpoint, and there's been a loss to our culture as a whole. So for us as a whole, by losing what uh the author of this article, actually, I'm not going to throw in the extra philosophical terms unnecessarily, but basically the classical Christian view was marriage integrated spousal union. So you come together as spouses and it for a rearing of children, or sorry, spousal union for bearing and rearing of children. And so when we lose that kind of view, we're left with a pretty much sexuality is all about self-expression and pleasure, not about union, not about creation, co-creation with God and bearing children, and not about fathering and mothering, which is, I love that Jesus' main term to describe the father is father. I mean, like there, there's something about fathering and mothering that these terms seek to strip. There's something about co-creating with God of childbearing, and there's something even about true union between a husband and a wife that these terms are coming against, because part of what the author points out, even heterosexual was used back in the late 1800s to sometimes talk about deviant sexual behavior, but with the opposite sex. But even that became blurry because if all you care about is basically masturbating, no matter, you know, just getting your own type of pleasure, no matter who it's with, that even eventually devolved into further behavior with anyone. I mean, it could have been the same sex, could have been the opposite. The point is when we take out the spousal union, when we take out the childbearing and the rearing of children, we actually begin to lose out on what sexuality is all about.

How The Lens Changed Identity

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Okay, so let me let me let me slow down here a little bit. Like um, I wanna, I wanna uh I want to dumb this down a little bit so I can grasp kind of where we are in this conversation a little bit. What you're saying is that at some point for for most of human history, and certainly in in in the history of Christianity, so first century up until late 19th century, the uh the exclusive or at least predominant understanding that that everybody had, or that Christians had at least, of what it means to be a human person, including a a human person who is sexual, was completely tied to um uh a maleness or femaleness connected to, to borrow Christopher West's words, how you generate. Like your gender is related only to how you generate new life. The next generation is about how being generated from the gender of the mother and the father. And so to be a male and to be a father and uh a person's under well, let me say it this way, a person's understanding of of their quote-unquote sexuality was all wrapped up in and had everything to do with only their biological sex and how they could be involved in the the generation of new life through a male-female union. It had nothing to do with their sexual desires, their um or at least uh exponentially more to do with uh less to do with their sexual desires, whether they be um for uh uh various heterosexual act activities or homosexual activities or uh sex with self or sex with an animal or what like that wasn't a part of the equation of like a person's understanding of of themselves. And then at some point they began to be introduced either intentionally or unintentionally for uh social activist reasons or academic reasons or um just personal sense of well-being reasons. They were introduced to this idea of like, let's stop defining our our personhood around maleness and femaleness, let's start defining our personhood more around, or at least include in the definition of what it means to be a person, uh the include in our sense of identity, how how you're attracted, like in in what in what way you are sexually drawn to others. And we're gonna make that a lot of identity.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, remember how I think it was Foucault we were quoting earlier, who says something about like we've created like a species, like you're either part of the heterosexual species or the homosexual species. I mean, just think about the pressure that that puts on people with same-sex desires who would be part of quote unquote the homosexual species, which obviously doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

But burden here's one with it doesn't exist in not that not that people don't exist who have same-sex attractions and desires, but rather that that it's but this class, this way of classifying humans into a species of this and a species of that, that's not that's not um gotcha.

The Weight On Young People

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yep, good. Um, so one of the things that this does is it it it means it and you see this especially with young people today, they're taught from a young age to do a deep, not truly deep, but like look really deep within and and figure out what do you desire most and and what what words most align with that? What how do you categorize your desire? And so this actually puts people who who deal with same-sex attractions or or trying to figure out do I uh does that mean I'm a homosexual or something like that? Um we actually recognize that that puts an incredible weight on young people. This article was written 12 years ago, Josh, but I think this has only gotten way more intense in the last 12 years. I mean, in fact, this article was written when I was uh, I think about leaving high school, heading into college. And I remember there'd be times in high school where I'd hear about uh, you know, uh someone who had what they'd call a gay dar, which was like their ability to uh figure out if someone might want to hook up with them in a in a same-sex kind of way. And I just remember one of the one time that left me wondering, like, wait, do I have these attractions? Like, how do I analyze that? What if they picked up something in me that would set off their gadar? And what would that say about me? Do I so we put an incredible pressure actually on young people? We're trying, it's in the name of self-expression, it's in the name of the idea of freedom, but it's actually, I'd say, bondage because our desires change all the time. Our desires are up and down and left and right, and they're shifting sand. And I'm not saying we don't want to cultivate desires. That's actually one of the most beautiful things we can do is cultivate a desire for Jesus. That's what we call virtue, is uh is desiring what God desires. So I'm not saying we should throw out the term desire at all. I'm just saying when we're taught to do this deep analysis all the time of our own desires, that puts an incredible weight. And then, especially I maybe in the Christian world, if we bind those with these kind of inclinations to their inclinations, we say, hey, you're same-sex attracted, therefore you're a gay Christian, that's another burden of, oh, we're saying this is who you are. You're part of this species, and you can't act on that. Or if you're part of a affirming church, you might say, and and you can act on that. But but for kind of classical Christians, they might adopt this language, Josh, but but then they put that burden on people like this is who you are. There's nothing you can do about it, and I'm not going to help you do anything about it because there's nothing you can do about it. So what I'm trying to say is these terms actually put an incredible amount of weight on young people, on people who experience same-sex attraction to whatever degree, and on those who historically have been called homosexuals.

unknown 18:09

All right.

Hope Beyond Desire-Based Identity

SPEAKER_00 18:09

So, so James, a couple of things kind of lines you're talking. One, one is right out of the gates, I think, um, not right out of the gates, because we're well into this conversation, but I know there are people listening who are just this, they're they're thinking, this is so wrong. I'm talking about Christian people who are listening to this going, This is this doesn't make sense. Like, um what like you're using this, you're talking about like the idea of a homosexual, heterosexual as being a kind of a species. Like, I don't understand that. I mean, there are people listening going, like, wait, like, but but people are gay or straight. Like, how like what do you this doesn't make any sense? Like, you guys can't you can't ignore that. We have to meet people where they are. But you're I mean, what you're saying, what we're saying is um we are living in a world that that has that worldview. We see the world through that lens that includes some people are gay, some people are straight, some people are bi, some people are trans, some people are this, some are that related to their internal experience of the world. But we're saying is that lens through which we're seeing the world is is not any any an eternal lens. It's not, it's not, it's only been around for a couple hundred years.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, it's not even a 170-year-old lens. It's it's a very recent lens in the grand scheme.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

And and we're also trying to make a case, and you're leading the charge on this, that that the lens is it ultimately has has put an added weight on people and kept people stuck where before they had not been. So, James, what would you say to the person? So let me just pause there for a second and just invite our listeners to, again, to kind of take in the idea of like even if you if you're kind of confused, can you at least ask the question and consider like, well, what what if our our view of the of people through a lens that includes sexuality is a as a key marker of their identity, what if that is a is just a lens? What if it's a veil? What if it's a pair of shades that you've been you've grown up with and that everybody you know wears, but that the Lord actually wants to remove, to open our eyes and to to help us to see something, to see reality differently than we've been taught is real. That's kind of mind-blowing on the one hand. James, what what would you say? So let me just let me get a point. What would you say to uh somebody listening who who experienced the same sex attraction here's what she says and and and is wrestling a bit with like, well, wait a second, like it helps me to understand that I'm not alone, to know that there are other people like me. It helps me to have something to call my experience. It helps me to know that that this isn't um uh you know just some one-off something, but that this is a substantive, and it also helps me to be able to acknowledge that this is not easy, that it's actually real. I you know, you talk about taking a pair of lenses off, but like I can't just take this off. Like, like how how does taking this lens off ch meet that person?

Pride And The “Winning” Camp

SPEAKER_01 21:16

And I'm not joking for one, no, no, for one, uh this was written again uh 12 years ago, but but the the author argues that if the elite queer theorists are holding this view, we're gonna have this view as a culture by the time, you know. So give it a couple years is one thing. Like part of part of why I'm saying that is because the elite queer theorists recognize that things aren't actually people don't actually tend to hold to these desires necessarily as strongly as we once thought, or as once seemed even current day feels like the consensus, like you're born with this desire. You've had, but actually the the top of the top, you know, the ivory tower people who eventually their ideas trickle down to the culture, they're actually recognizing that's not the case. When this article was written, there was a, I guess I don't know, I haven't heard this term, so maybe this is out of, out of um, it's no longer in use really, but there was a mayor of New York with a wife who called herself a Hasbian because she used to identify as a lesbian and now she was married to the male mayor of New York. So the point is we bel we've seen this in our Christian context, where God takes our desires and reforms them in all kinds of ways because we all have desires that are not aligned. And by the way, I'm gonna get to that in just a second how this hurts the quote unquote heterosexuals in some similar ways, actually. So hold hold that thought for just a second. But so we've seen this in Christian spaces and in this kind of elite queer theorist space. They're like, look, these desires aren't actually as binary and set in stone as we Once believed as a culture. And so consider that. I mean, consider that if there's this kind of consensus of we believe God does all kinds of stuff with our desires. And even the elite of the elite in academia believe that these things aren't binary. Maybe there's actually going to be a shift in our view of these things. And so I think right now we're cresting the wave, Josh, or maybe in the last five years, we've been kind of cresting the wave of this binary identity framework. And by the way, if if the Ivory Tower queer theorists get what they want, that's not going to be good. So I'm going to I'm going to explain why that is, because their alternative is not hopeful. It's a nihilistic alternative, actually. The Christian alternative is beautiful, full of hope. But one of the key things here, Josh, is that if you look back at Leviticus, right? It prohibits sodomy, male or female, by the way. It prohibits sodomy. That was an action that one could do or not do. You could want to do it and not do it. Or you could, you know, want to do it and do it, and then you'd be breaking the action. But the point wasn't whether or not you wanted to. And that's what's so interesting about some of the Mosaic law. There's an element of so many of the things are actually very tangible things you could see yourself doing or not doing. And ultimately what God wants is to write the law in our hearts so that we actually desire Him and desire what He desires. That's part of what growing in Christian maturity is all about. But but this prohibition, way back when in Leviticus, didn't have the concept of, hey, are you uh homosexual? If so, that's really bad. No, it just actually had this action-based law where if you do this, you're in trouble. If you don't, you're not. And so I actually think that we put a greater burden by making everything about like, where's my psychological world at at this moment? Where are my desires at?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah, okay. So so I think we're you're just starting to crack the door open on on hope related to the the removal of this lens of seeing seeing uh of uh so again the lens includes the the cultural lens includes this idea that that an in a part of my identity, my being, includes something about my sexual proclivities, my sexual attractions, my sexual orientation. So the if we're removing that lens, then you're you're naming the first bit of hope there, which is because I think one of the one of the criticisms we hear in in the Christian church so much is that the church Christians hate gay people. Christians don't want them, don't want gay people in their in their midst. Like so many churches today wrestling with how do we how do we walk with people who experience same-sex attraction? How do we how do we um welcome and uh and make room for them in our congregations and make them feel comfortable here, um while while not approving of of this the the sin. Um and so the the the door you're cracking open here is uh if there's no difference between this man who feels this kind of sexual attraction, this man who feels this kind of sexual attraction, this man who feels this sexual attraction, or the corollary on the female side, uh, then some of those questions automatically go away.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Uh and and it invites us all into it, Josh. This is this is where the heterosexuals have been missing the boat just as much. The article points out that this whole binary of heterosexual good, homosexual bad just stokes pride in the winning camp, the heterosexual species. Again, that's the folk Foucault's word speaking against this idea, but we actually we actually can fall into this pride of oh, those people have bad stuff that they do and bad desires and all this kind of stuff. But hey, I'm good. I'm I'm a man married to a woman. No, one of our favorite parts of working at Regen is we are all on the same boat here, guys. We all need help. There's no, there's there's no invitation here to pride, which for Aquinas and Augustine was the the chief of all sin. Um there can be no pride here because this pride is actually hurting us from it's stopping many men historically. I think this is changing, but it stops many men from deep reflection on where do I need to grow in chastity, which is that old word of sexual integration. Where do I need to enter into God's vision here?

Chastity For Married And Single

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So I I I imagine many of our listeners or many people in the average church wouldn't say, I don't feel pride about my heterosexual. I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I'm straight, quote unquote. I'm grateful I don't struggle with same-sex attractions for those who don't. Um, but at minimum, there's a there's a comfort and a and a blasoness about about it. Like because I am quote unquote am because I am straight. Again, that and then and you're arguing against that kind of reference point. 100%. Um because I am that, I don't need to work on this part of my life. I don't need to worry about my attractions. They're the way they're supposed to be. And I want to just jump in right there because there is there is a a lie that has gotten under the door that has seeped through so many churches right now. So and because it's in our world right now, around around that is it's if if you if we accept the the faulty notion that uh uh same-sex attraction's bad, other sex attractions good, then then suddenly we're like we're we're living with men all around who are kind of like, um, well, yeah, I mean, of course, because I'm straight. I I notice women everywhere. You know, of course I'm attracted to women that aren't my wife. Of course I find them sexy. Of course I I you know I would think about sleeping with them. Like, you know, I don't, but I, you know, I feel that. I think there was there's just a pastor recently who was called out online for just some very flippant comments about that. I don't know him, his story, anything about that. So I'm not trying to make judgment there, but like, um, but I think there's so many Christian men who don't examine their heart posture towards women or towards even their their wives in this in this way because they've been given a faulty pass about what chastity is. They thought, you know, I don't need to be chaste, I'm married. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The ancient Christian church for 2,000 years would say like that absolutely false. Like you need you need chastity just as much, if not more, than than every other person on the planet.

Friendship, Intimacy, And Healing

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Um and chastity, by the way, is an old word, but it basically just means sexuality ordered toward God in righteousness and wholeness. That's why our tagline in this podcast is called Becoming Whole. Chastity is is the old school word to describe the wholeness that we're after in the sexual realm. And I gotta throw this into Jessica. There's another place that this whole binary has stunted us all: friendships. Because especially those, um, especially men. I mean, this podcast is for men and women, but this is especially true for men that chaste intimate friendships feel sometimes questionable. Like, can I really go this deep with this person? Can I really have uh out of chaste appreciation for the beauty of my own sex? That's an interesting one. Because a lot of people who believe that they're um, you know, they're defined by their same-sex attraction, they're like, man, I look how attractive that guy was with the six-pack running on the side of the road. But actually, any guy can notice that, no matter where your desires or inclinations line up, like there can actually be a chaste appreciation for that. That's part of why probably there's so many statues, even throughout Christian history, of the male and female body, is there's meant to be a chaste, again, integrated, healthy, whole, non-lustful, loving appreciation for the beauty of one's own sex and for deep friends. We're meant to have deep friendship. Josh, we're not just meant to die for our spouse as much as Jesus uses that imagery of Christ dying for the church. Historically, there's actually a robust sense that friendship meant costly intimacy as well. Not in the same way, not in a sexual connection type of way, but costly intimacy nonetheless. And so when we hold this binary that's that's dominated our culture for 150 years, we actually can miss out. And we've seen the fruit of this, right? I mean, I remember my old mentor at our intervarsity conference said, guys, raise your hand if your dad has more than five friends. You know, maybe one or two guys raise their hand. And basically you got down to like one or two friends. And most of our dads, we could identify no more than maybe one, maybe two friends. The point being, not to dishonor if my dad's listening or whatever, but but this type of dynamic is part of what has fed in to the I'm a lone wolf thing among men, which by the way, sets up men for addiction more than almost anything else. And that's part of why we spend so much time in groups here and encouraging groups and encouraging being part of your local church. And because we actually need male-to-male chaste, loving relationships to heal, no matter where our desires are, including those who have same-sex attractions. This is an invitation to maturity. We're not saying, hey, everyone's stunted, that's great. We're saying, hey, we're all stunted, and that's an invitation to grow in Christian maturity, to grow in this chastity.

Desire, Behavior, Identity Reframed

SPEAKER_00 32:25

You know, one of the things that I'm I'm eternally grateful for, uh, so 20, let's see, no, almost 30 years ago. Not quite 30 years ago, uh, I learned about this ministry called Regeneration. And I learned about it as a ministry that helped men deal with uh sexual addictions. And after I came and started getting help here, I learned that the the really the main thrust of the ministry was helping men and women who were dealing with unwanted same-sex attractions. So mostly a group of Christians who were like, hey, I I feel attracted, sexual attraction to the same sex. And from them, in their discipleship of me, so from Alan Menninger and uh uh Jeff was on board here then, and Bob was on board and others who who had experienced same-sex attractions. That's a part of their story. From them, I I was learned, I was learned, I was discipled to begin looking at at myself through the lens of being a man, not through the lens of the struggle that I had. And it was it was hard because I was so drenched in shame about the behaviors that I was doing that words like pervert, um, sex addict, um I don't know what else at that point, but I I think I mean I remember hearing someone recently even refer to themselves as I felt like a monster. I remember referring to myself as like I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And and the reference point was really more rooted in kind of the way that I saw myself. And I I so I wouldn't have told you those things were true about me, but that's just how I felt. I carried those things. And so they began helping me to unpack like you're you have an idea, you're carrying a sense of yourself, a sense of your identity that's rooted in some of your negative behavior, and it's not serving you well. And I and I learned that from them because they had to fight hard for it because they were in a world that was saying, you are gay, this is who you are, and they were saying, It's not, this is not who I am. They broke it apart for me this way. They said, I have uh desires, I have behaviors, and I have an identity. And the world, the world is coming at me saying that my desires inform, they tell me, they're they they're the uh the ID card revealing to me who I am. So my desires reveal my identity, and my identity tells me how I should behave. And they said that's all upside down. And so so we have to we have to uproot this this idea and start with just this you have desires, you have to deal with those desires. And you're talking about like how do we grow in virtue in in managing our desires and directing our desires in God's way. Um, we have behaviors, and you were identifying before the Mosaic law is all about behaviors. It's not it's not rebuking you for what you feel, it's not rebuking you for what you notice, it's rebuking for what you do. Yeah. Um and an identity comes not from my own internal sense of myself or my internal sense of my desires. It doesn't even come from what I do. My identity comes from only one place, from the the one who made me and who alone knows who I am. And so that that framework for me was so helpful in breaking free from my unwanted sexual behaviors, even though they weren't same-sex attractive. But but I was so grateful to the to the men and women who went before me dealing with same-sex attractions, who had they had to do the hard work of kind of parsing those things out, and it was a gift to me. And I think it's still a gift to the to the church today. And I think that's part of what you're getting after in our conversation.

Dismantling Labels Without Nihilism

SPEAKER_01 36:03

So beautiful. And I I'm like, oh, that's where I learned that identity desire behavior thing that you know, some things I think I invent, Josh, and I've pretty much just learned it a decade, you know, half a decade ago from you, or you learned it from Alan, or that's right. But we we gotta land this plane. And so what I want to invite us into is the way forward. And I think on one hand, we need to continue to be a people who can confidently dismantle this worldview. And there's something so liberating about being like, hey, we've got this bizarre ally thing with the queer theorists. We're about to split from them. Let me get to that in just a second. But we do need to begin in our own hearts, in our own churches, trying as much as we can. And this doesn't mean we become the world word police. This doesn't mean that we need to call this out from the pulpit if you're a pastor or overtly say this all the time as a parent or something like that. But we need to begin dismantling in our own hearts this divide, dividing people into heterosexual and homosexual or whatever other labels we're we're wanting to use. Because we actually, um, and this actually calls for also a little bit of humbling of ourselves who have been in the kind of stronger position of the heterosexual. So we I don't think this is as applicable as it was 12 years ago, but the article says that there's actually a need for us to recognize, hey, I've benefited from the system. Like I've been in the norm if I'm a heterosexual. And so there's a there's a sense in which we're giving up some of our, I don't know, power or whatever. But I think at this point, things have the scales have tipped in such a way where regardless of how we identify, I'm not sure how much there is or isn't still a clear power thing. There probably is, but we should be removing that. And so that leaves us with two major options. Do we go with the queer theorist, nihilistic anything goes ethic? Because why they're dismantling this is not because of virtue. It's not because of chastity, it's actually a stronger sense of anything goes and nothing matters and do whatever you want sexually because nihilism, nothing matters. There's no, there's nothing worth really living for besides anything goes, pleasure. We want to actually invite you into the deeper classical Christian teleological view. And I want to use that word. I know it's a big word, but Josh, you defined it so well earlier, and I noted it down. Teleological just means intention and design. God designed us with intention. We're his, we're created in his image. We're designed for God, for union with God. And so teleological just means what are we for? What's the what are we pointing toward? Um, what's the telos? What's the purpose of us? And so the teleological view within the classical Christian theology is our passions ought to be evaluated against nature rather than vice versa. In other words, nature, who we are, created male or female, is meant to define us as children of God, you know, made in the image of God as male or female. And if we're Christians, children of God, sons and daughters, we evaluate everything else, all of our desires, all of our passions against that. Basically, that's what defines us, that's who we are most fundamentally. And if we desire things that don't actually bear fruit, literally, I mean, if I desire uh sexuality that is non-fruitful, and you might want to unpack that in a second, Josh, what I'm kind of alluding to there. I want to be actually reoriented toward God. And I want us all to be reoriented. This is not a, hey, homosexuals need to be reoriented and heterosexuals don't. We all need to be reoriented into who we were made to be and how to maturely express the gift of self in love.

A Teleological Way Forward

Parenting, Formation, And Orientation

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Yeah, that's beautiful. So um I'm thinking again about our brothers and sisters listening who for whom their their only experience of of themselves as sexual creatures, sexual beings includes this discovery at some point from for many of them in early adolescence of a same-sex attraction, not other sex attraction. And um and I I I long for them. Uh let me let me pause for a second, because you're also saying, okay, we're not just thinking about them, we're also thinking about the the guy or girl who at early adolescence, as they became aware of their their sexuality, began to feel ignited, excited, and and movement in one way or another towards a world, a world's perception of what this means about them and what they should be doing, whether it's viewing porn, um, dressing a certain way to draw the attention of others, um uh feeling good about their bodies, feeling bad about their bodies, uh, having sex. Um you're in some ways, I I wish we could rewind and somehow uh be fathered or mothered by good, wholesome people in that moment who could help us to to explain and unpack and and and better understanding those moments. So, like for the person who discovered, wait a minute, I'm finding myself drawn to other guys' bodies as a guy, I gotta get quiet about this, or this means I'm gay. Like I I I wish we lived in a culture where that that guy had had good fathering in his life to learn what do I do with this? What does this mean about me? Does it mean anything about me? Um and is welcomed with that experience into the world of men. Yeah, this is this is something that some men deal with, some men experience these kinds of attractions. Um and yet this is what your sexuality is designed for. Likewise, the guy who, like, hey, I I'm I'm coming alive sexually, and I've found online there are all these videos, and it is fired me up. And a loving father who could say, like, hey, yep, this is what some guys deal with. Let's um let let's learn how to walk with that. Because as you're as your our sexuality is meant to point towards something, it's it's meant to be directed. And our my old colleague Bob Reagan um used to say, uh, the only orientation I'm concerned about is my orientation towards God. Am I oriented towards him and towards what he wants for my life, or am I oriented somewhere else? And so whether it's so well said straight by whatever, all the other categories that of quote unquote orientation that people kind of pick up as these ultimate expressions, he's like that it's those are all minor keys at best. They're all small, uh, small things people have to deal with compared to what's my orientation towards towards the Lord. Um beautiful. Man, I I hope, I hope as we're talking about this, that I mean, even you know, like you and I have had conversations similar to this in the past, James. And you shared the article that you're referencing with me months ago, and I remember reading it. And um so but even with that, like my brain swims with this stuff. Like, wait, how do we how do we hold and articulate these things in ways that we can how do we articulate and understand these things in ways that we can really hold to and so that it makes a difference on a day-to-day, because we don't want to just be about kind of like these intellectual exercises, but but but we are speak for yourself. Well, I mean you and I, I think I think on it like that's why I appreciate this. Yep. But on a on a day-to-day level, like we we actually do live in a culture that that that has put up in front of all of us some faulty ideas of of who we are and what sex is about and what sexual desire is about. And so we do have to exercise these muscles so that we can see through these lenses and not and not have the specks get in our eyes in the same way. We can remove the lenses and and see the world differently. I I dream of a world where among Christians at least, uh, there are men, there are women, there are guys, there are girls. And that truth is is firmly rooted in our biological, the biological reality of who we are. And we learn to be good godly men, good godly women. Whatever that means, whether it's you know, whatever our personalities, like I you're more sensitive and want to read poetry like me and my dad, or you're more rough and tumble and want to play football and love sports, like you know, most of the other men at my church, or or whether you're a a girl who who loves to knit and sew and wants to stay at home with kids. Or you're a girl who wants to take the world and you've got a capacity to lead like nobody's business, like Joan of Arc. You know, like um like that the all of us would aspire, whatever, whatever our personality, whatever our the nuances of our desire, we would understand ourselves as beautiful men, beautiful women who need to aspire to be more like Christ if He were us. Right? Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah, that's exactly what this is about. So, listeners, um, thanks for for sticking with us if you're still here. Uh, hopefully we spoke in a clear enough way, but we also recognize look, these are complicated topics. These words are ingrained for hundreds of over 150 years, in this case at least. And so if if there's anything that you're like, hey, I'm not sure if you guys were quite on point or I have a question about this or whatever, let us know. Uh the show notes always has a way to contact us with questions, and we want to keep this kind of conversation going because we believe this is this is ultimately meant to be a blessing to all men, all women. And so um please let us know. But uh Josh, with that, would you be wanting to pray us out?

Vision: Men And Women Made Whole

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yeah, yeah. Father, um, you are the one who made us, each one of us, uh, uniquely and and um and specifically according to your design. But would you break through the darkness, help us to know ourselves as you know us, that we might lift our heads high as men among men or women among women, and in all our relationships with men or women alike. Or that we might, as Dallas Willard put it, um, be more like Jesus and live like Jesus would if he were us. Oh Jesus, we need your salvation in this area, maybe as much as any other in this day and age. So move in power according to your life, your death, your resurrection, and ascension. We ask it for us. We ask it for every man and woman listening. In Jesus' name. Amen.