Welcome to Colorful Colorado | Aaron & James Podcast

Hello, my name is James Rathman.

And I'm Aaron Neff.

And this is the Aaron and James Podcast.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, for sure.

What's the um uh topic for the day?

You can introduce it, Aaron.

Yeah, I mean, so we are talking um about the Colorado House Bill.

So House Bill 251312, is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

I got the numbers right.

Yep.

I wanted to talk about and use that as kind of a jumping off to talk about what is the disposition that the church can have towards the moment that we're in amidst an uh adversarial culture.

Yeah.

And how is it that the church has acted throughout history and what can we glean from that?

How can we get a sense of bearings uh for ourselves now and for what the church um uh uh has done in the past?

Yeah.

I think this topic's actually pretty interesting because we've been if you've been following along with the podcast, yes, we've been trying to tackle um cultural lies.

Right.

In the topics that that we've been covering, whether it's the sovereignty of God or just Romans chapter one.

Yeah, totally.

And I think this is a unique instance where uh we we're actually being confronted with a cultural lie.

Yep.

That maybe seems obvious, but then as you start to peel back the layers, there's all these things that we've maybe just been taking on through osmosis over the last several years that have actually brought this to fruition.

Yeah, I mean, uh like one of the ways to think about this, and the I feel this in myself, is like it's like the frog in boiling water type of analogy.

Like, if you were to go back to uh 2014 and that's before the Obergfell decision at the Supreme Court level, which um made gay marriage the law of the land.

Right.

If you were to go back before then and say gay marriage shouldn't be the law of the land, you probably would have been able to just hear that and understand it as a as a Christian uh operating in the uh operating in the world.

Would have just been part of um you know your your memory back to just you know you you're within the same administration of a president who ran saying that same thing.

Sure.

That gay marriage shouldn't be the law, that marriage should be a respect institution between one man and one woman.

And there's no visual reaction or exactly.

Yeah.

But I want you to imagine now, amongst a group of friends or whatever, or of co-workers, saying gay marriage should be outlawed again.

Yeah.

And it's like, what are you talking about?

Right.

Now, what changed?

Did the law of God change?

Did the definition of marriage as understood in scripture change?

No, it didn't change.

But we've but you acclimatize to new norms, and it can be very easy to get disoriented.

Yeah.

So now uh I want to kind of tell the story of this particular Colorado bill that's activated a lot of energy, and it's really drawn the church into action, just like the church across denominations and um uh yeah, different uh kind of like all kinds of churches, like small reform churches like ours to big you know, mega churches like Flat Irons have all made statements opposing this bill.

Um uh and those are uh so I want to kind of tell the story of how that's happened and what's happening and just kind of lay out a frame of like, oh yeah, we're this is a uh a different way of ministry taking place than I think that we've seen or experienced, and want to give some language and encouragement around it.

Okay.

Um so the House Bill 1312 is the one that's gotten all this energy and activation.

You know, it it probably should have been earlier, it probably should have been this sort of energy and activation from the church when abortion was made a part of was made a uh state constitutional right in Colorado that uh to our shame it was not that did not activate the church.

Yeah, but this one has, and that's good.

Uh it's late, but it's good.

And I I'm I'm late too, you know.

Um, but it's good to see this uh deep sense of care.

And I think that the reason it did is because it uh uh even the abortion legislation feels like it's something that's happening out there, but the initial iteration of House Bill 1312 was something that went straight into your own family in your own home, yeah, and potentially your own speaking to your own kids.

And that really activated the church and it activated me as well.

Yeah.

Um, of like, oh man, this and I think it was so resonant for pastors to sort of gain this this momentum around because uh it was like, hey, we've we know these families, we love these families in our church.

This uh we're calling them to live faithfully and to raise their kids faithfully to God, and this is legislation which is designed to uh criminalize that very action.

Yeah.

So the uh the original language of House Bill 1312, uh it's it uh framed uh it's called the the Kelly Loving Act, which is still what it's called, what it was passed under, and it's framed around transgender rights.

And uh it said this in section two.

It said section two provides that when making custody decisions and determining the best interests of a child for purposes of parenting time, a court shall consider dead naming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual's gender-affirming health care services as types of coercive control.

A court shall consider reports of coercive control when determining the allocation of parental responsibilities in accordance with the best interests of the child.

Yeah.

So that that's like about as explicit of language as you could possibly imagine.

What it's saying is misgendering and deadnaming.

Now, this is you've got to put on like your Orwellian filter because misgendering means referring to somebody by their given by the gender that they've been given by God.

Right.

Their biological gender.

Right.

And deadnaming refers to you as the parent referring to the child by the name that you gave them.

Yeah.

Which is pretty wild.

And those would be considered acts of coercive control by the state in custody decisions.

So this was extremely activating language.

So what it what what that means is that uh the state had determined that the category of the transgender child is a uh a real and protected type of class.

And this real and protected type of class needs to who is a child needs to be protected from their parents who would seek to teach the child that they were not born in the wrong body, that they are not some mistake, that they're uh but rather to reaffirm them in the role that God has placed them in by creating them male or female.

Right.

And so that was really activating.

And uh myself and some other pastors began texting with each other of like, man, this seems like this is a uh a direct type of threat to uh what we'd want our families and our churches to be able to do, uh, which is be able to teach our kids the norms of scripture.

Yeah.

And and catechism.

Yeah, how could we catechize them uh in doing this?

And you know, some so at any given point in this, it can always be said, like, yeah, but does it really, you know, because you what you can say is like, yeah, but you're not getting divorced, are you?

Or you're not getting it in this is just in custody issues, isn't it?

And it the answer to that is maybe.

Like maybe you're not getting divorced right now, yeah.

But you might be.

Yeah.

And the uh the shape of, you know, I don't think my kid's trans or my kid's gonna go through anything like that.

Well, maybe.

Right.

Uh and i if they do, do you want to be uh uh fighting the uh pain and difficulty of the spiritual reality uh that is now armed with uh the uh weapons of the state to remove your child from you?

You know, uh these when when these difficulties come into families, it's always a hostage negotiation because you are seeking to hold to the truth and maintain a relationship with these uh family members, children, parents that you love.

Right.

And the state is saying we'll make that decision for you based on a uh sinful reading of the world in a way that denies the categories that God has placed into the world.

Right.

So it was it's very extreme language, and it would likewise define misgendering and dead naming as uh discriminatory acts in the Colorado Antidiscrimination Act.

And that applies to what are called all places of public accommodation.

Okay.

Places of public accommodation, you've probably been to them.

They are any business.

Restaurant, restaurant, hospital, store, school, school, think any small business.

Church.

Yeah, or or large business or whatever it may be, that means that the Christian who is a worker at those places, owner, um, employee, uh would be required by law to uh uh affirm the chosen gender identity of uh uh a customer or or anyone else who works in that place.

And what that means is that they would be required to affirm a lie by participating in the in that ideology.

And that's uh uh it's compelling I mean I think there's just no other way to say it.

It's the it's compelling by legal force the Christian to affirm a lie.

Yeah.

To call a uh a he a she.

Yeah.

Which which is a which is a lie.

Yeah.

And if somebody if somebody asks you to lie to them because it would make them feel better, it it doesn't make it not a lie.

Right.

Suddenly.

It it also makes you a liar.

It also makes you a liar.

Yeah.

Which is not good.

Right.

And and to go back to your question, is like, has the law of God changed?

The this law is the do not bear false witness against your neighbor.

That's right.

Um and you know, in in Isaiah 5 20 it says, Woe to those who call evil good and and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

That's right.

That's right.

So that so uh because of these principles, the um uh subsuming of the responsibilities of the parents by the state in this original reading of the law, and the requiring uh by legal force compelling the bearing of false witness uh by uh of Christians.

I think it was uh so plain, and even in a way that abortion isn't, even though it ought to be for us, but even in a way that abortion isn't, uh I think it activated the the church in Colorado where they're just like, oh man, we we have to say something.

Yeah.

Um and the reason to say something is because we we desire to uh live out our religion in peace.

Yeah.

Well, and see it seems like this is also a like a clear example, one of what we see in scripture, and and two, we've talked about this in the in the Westminster Confession series last summer.

Um but when Herod was married to his brother's wife, John the Baptist, spoke out um against that kind of breaking of the law of God.

Yeah, that's right.

Um, and so he in that in doing that, he gave us an example of kind of what the church is is supposed to do.

Yep.

Um, but also in the way that um is it the chapter on civil magistrate, yeah where it defines the duties um and responsibilities of the church as well as the responsibilities of the state, and one of those duties is for the the church to be like a prophet and to be like John the Baptist and and to call the state out whenever you know there's overreach against the law of God.

And uh that that's why like the the church does not have the sword.

Yeah, it has not been given the sword by God.

The state does have the sword, it has been given the sword by God.

So the tools of the church are declaratory.

We make declarations, yeah.

And that is the limit of what the church can do.

Sure.

We can we can make declarations that say no, say that's wrong, don't do that.

Male and female.

Yeah, male and female.

Yeah.

And uh that and what we're saying is like that part of scripture, Genesis one, is true.

Yeah.

And we will not deny it.

Yeah.

And we will not live out of we will not be compelled to live out of accord with that truth of scripture.

Yeah.

In our in our speech, in our actions, in our relationships, you know, the the truths of scripture are binding on the whole of our lives.

Yeah.

And the state's actually going outside of the bounds of even what the confession would list as its responsibilities and duties, correct?

Yes.

Certainly, by by its in particular encroachment on the uh the government of the family.

Yeah.

And so this really rallied Christians.

And a group was formed, um, which I helped with called Fight 1312, and um some pastors just started standing up and speaking out against it.

Okay.

And a real, you know, grassroots movement formed for the church.

Yeah.

And so when this when it came time for this bill uh for folks to be able to speak for and against the bill, which any citizen can come and do, there were uh hundreds and hundreds of people, Christians from all over the state, uh, from all kinds of churches, and to be honest, especially charismatic churches.

Like yeah, they just rally.

And I think I can't remember who I heard say this.

Um, but it's like if you if you're speaking in tongues, you don't care much what people think about you anyway.

Yeah.

So hey man, to their credit.

Um, but really rallied uh to speak out, speak out against this.

Yeah.

There were testimonies from fathers who had lost their children, from uh uh legal precedents like this before.

There were um testimonies from psychologists and teachers demonstrating that the path of affirming a child's chosen gender identity has devastating consequences for the child down the road.

That it it's it's if we were doing just like evidence-based interventions, yeah, we would not be doing this.

Yeah.

Um and the way that it was uh organized, which was actually by uh the head of the co of the committee to organize it, is a Democrat who is actually the representative for our district, the district church our church is in.

Um uh who I emailed, you know, she didn't get back to me.

Just left me on read.

Send her another email today.

Yeah, maybe.

Um but that was a uh um uh the the testimonies were organized.

There was such uh a vast proportion of people who came to testify against as compared to the people that came to testify for.

Yeah.

Um that w what she decided to do was to give equal time to each side to testify.

Classic.

And so it was really not representative of what the testimonies were.

And then the bill uh in its state then in that committee, it passed on party line.

Okay.

Um uh so all the Democrats voted for it, all the Republicans voted against it.

That's the that's the shape of this now.

Yeah.

And the um uh so the bill then I think seeing the opposition that had really rallied against it, um they they took it to the chopping block.

And all of the language around child custody was removed.

The words dead naming and misgendering were were removed.

They I think they got some very clever attorneys to say, how can we make this palatable?

Um and then they represented the bill, it faced another hearing with those similar um uh although more people testifying against it, but similar strategy.

And this neutered bill, I think if you were to just read through it, you would think like, man, this was basically just victory of the church.

They used their voice, and the all of those horrible things that initially activated folks were removed.

But the reality is that they they just got more clever in what they were able to pass.

Serpent was the wisest of all the creatures in the garden.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And so it uses it uses very deceptive language and emphasizes um um much more minor considerations, uh such as changing how many times you're able to change your gender on your driver's license.

Yeah.

Move from one to three.

Okay.

If we had if that that was what the original legislation was.

Yeah.

Um uh but the important thing that they uh passed are the definitions.

Uh let me pull them up here so I can uh read them accurately.

So it's the definitions of chosen name and of gender expression, which are now working definitions in the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, okay, which applies to all places of public accommodation.

Now, there's specific language says this doesn't apply to churches, but it's very vague because uh churches, if they if one of the play if one of the ways that they're able to afford uh being in that building, which is common for churches in Denver, is to rent out the space throughout the week, well, now it's a place of public accommodation.

Yeah.

And so the church would then not be able to exercise oversight on um the Christian values that they would want to espouse, perhaps, in the way that they rented out the building.

They would be prohibited from doing that.

So It's it's uh um it's vague.

So so chosen name and gender expression are the important definitions that they got in there.

Um I can read them.

Chosen name means a name that an individual requests to be known as in connection to the individual's disability, race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, familial status, national origin or ancestry, so long as the name does not contain offensive language and the individual is not requesting the name for frivolous purposes.

Now it's a very vague language.

Yeah.

Very vague language around chosen name.

And you'll notice that there's no age uh difference here.

So any child could choose a chosen name for themselves, and this language would still be just as useful in, for example, a custody hearing as it would have been in its original form.

And the second is gender expression.

Gender expression means an individual's way of reflecting and expressing the individual's gender to the outside world, typically demonstrated through appearance, dress, behavior, chosen name, and how the individual chooses to be addressed.

So these are broad phrases which feel like they've been um uh sort uh doled.

Like the specifics have been taken away.

Yeah, the specifics, it feels like they've been doled because the specifics have been taken away.

But we must recognize that when an argument uh becomes more all-encompassing, that argument is becoming stronger.

Yeah.

It's not becoming weaker.

Yeah.

So they they've actually strengthened the nature of the usefulness of these uh of uh this uh ideology around gender.

Um because it's uh it says how the individual chooses to be addressed.

So that's addressed femininely, addressed masculinely, um uh which which means that for the Christian, we uh uh do not merely have the horizontal relationships that we participate in.

But all of the horizontal relationships that we participate in are nested within a hierarchy which is God at the top.

Yeah.

And ultimately, everything that we do, all the words that we speak, the truths that we tell, or the or the truths that we don't tell, or the lies that we tell, or the lies that we don't shed light on, uh, the Christian understands to be before the face of God.

Yeah.

And to be lies or truths told before him, irrespective of the uh preferences or desires of the person who is requesting us to tell those lies.

Um and so the Christian isn't is i these are principles which Christians would be required to violate.

And we don't want to break the law.

We want to obey the law.

So we want good laws.

We want good laws.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What what's interesting with this is it it seems like there's you know, when when you take this and you try to relate it back to the law of God or the Ten Commandments, um at first you can I think what's reminding me of is is if you break one part of the law, you break all of the law.

Yeah.

Um, but it almost seems to be that type of way with just the laws themselves.

So maybe at first this just seems like bearing false witness, as um we're just gonna affirm and agree to this lie.

But what's happening then on the other side is is especially in the transgender movement, is they're they're trying to murder the self that they've been given by God and create their own new self.

So now you we've created there's another um commitment we've broken.

Um and we're doing they're they're doing this because they've set sexual identity up in place of God as the authority, so that would be you don't have any idols before me.

Um so like we could kind of go down the list, isn't you're not honoring your father and your mother, um in in the name that they've given you.

Um so you you quickly see that this kind of this breaks the entirety of God's law.

It's not just a simple what maybe what people think is simple, just like affirm um or let them well let them do what they want to do as long as it doesn't affect me.

It's it's transgressing to everything.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

And so there are so there's one more, so so it what I just read with the chosen names and the gender expression, those are the things that did pass.

And I think the I think it is good that they felt compelled by the resistance to the law in its former form to neuter it into this type of language.

I think it's bad and um subtle.

Yeah.

Uh that they are they created a tool which will allow them to um weaponize the same ideology against Christians.

Yeah.

Um, so it's just it's just as useful to their purposes.

And we don't have to wonder what their purposes are.

Right.

Because they showed us the first form of the law.

You know, if it had happened in reverse order, which praise God in his providence it didn't, yeah, you know, where the final draft was the first draft, then we we might say, oh, well, this isn't gonna go any further.

Um, but we uh uh that would be uh plainly negligent to think that now.

Um uh now there's one other thing which I also brought up on Sunday, so I wanted to um make reference to it as well, because it's in it's also in Colorado.

Um and this is updates that were made to child care facility licensing rules and regulations, okay, which is overseen by um the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, uh, which is a division of early learning licensing and administration.

LLC.

Exactly.

Um so this is uh the lawsuit that I drahaji is facing.

And there's another Christian camp as well that's facing this in Colorado, but I don't have information on that one.

Um but the uh I wanted to share the language that is in the um licensing rules and regulations that um this camp, this Christian summer camp, uh has threats of losing their license, therefore not being able to operate in the state of Colorado as Christian summer camp anymore.

Yeah.

For violating these regulations.

Um it says uh the same toilet facilities must not be used simultaneously by school-age children of all genders.

And toilets for school-aged children must be separated by partitions to provide privacy.

Not bad.

Uh subsection.

School-age children must be allowed to use the toilet facilities that correspond with their gender identity.

So that means boys, if they say that they're a girl, must be permitted to use bathrooms with girls.

Girls, if they say that they're a boy, must be permitted to use bathrooms with boys.

Yeah.

Which is no bueno.

So the Christian camp.

Um just in case there were any questions about that, that's not good.

That's not good.

I don't know if you remember going to Christian camp.

We used to have this rule called no purple.

I never heard of that role.

You can't have pink and blue in the same room.

Yeah.

Okay.

Same cabin.

Yeah.

Okay.

There you go.

Um Zach went to Christian college.

I'm pretty sure he had that too in college.

Yeah.

Which is hilarious.

It's funny.

I went to see you boulder, so we had boys and girls on the same floor.

Look how that's turning out.

Yeah, it's great.

Um, so in terms of activities, one of the regulations on activities is children must not be restricted to specific gender roles.

So that's pretty broad, but children must not be restricted to specific gender roles.

Now, when I send my kids to Christian camp, which I'll do, I want them to be taught gender roles.

Yeah.

That's one of the reasons I would send them.

Seems helpful.

I want them to be restricted to particular gender roles.

That okay.

Uh the sections on uh toilet and bathing facilities.

Uh in a resident camp, there must be a minimum of one toilet for every 20 or fewer campers for which the resident camp is licensed.

Now that's just ridiculous.

No, I'm just kidding.

That's fine.

Uh campers must be allowed to use the gender-segregated toilet facilities that are consistent with their gender identity, with toilets separated by partitions to provide privacy or private toilet facilities.

It's basically the same thing, but it's in another section.

Uh now regarding showers, campers must be allowed the use of gender-segregated showers that are consistent with the gender identity, with showers or bathtubs separated by partitions to provide privacy, or private showering or bathtub facilities.

Now, they are required uh to have uh I mean uh a boy could then say that he's a girl and uh shower with the girls.

Yeah.

A girl could say she's a boy and shower with the boys.

Yeah.

No good.

That's not good.

That's not good.

Um in terms of uh lodging, campers must sleep in the same room or tent with individuals whose gender identity is consistent with their gender identity.

In gender segregated facilities where undressing in the process of others occurs, resident camps shall make reasonable accommodations to allow access to areas for undressing consistent with an individual's gender identity.

So it the camp the camp cannot segregate by boys and girls.

Uh it's an overnight camp.

And they could lose their license from the state by running an overnight camp, which keeps boys and girls apart in their private spaces.

Honestly, well the weird thing is if you would read those rules, apart, say apart from the law, like if you were just looking up summer camps and the summer camp was describing the way that it it operated and it had this list of things in there, you you would not think it's a summer camp.

You would think it would be the the Playboy Mansion or something of that nature.

It's it or brothel, like it's not um yeah, it's it's interesting.

It's almost like the the house bill kind of goes after the parents.

Yeah.

And then this one's is going after the kids.

Yes.

Um, in a way that um is yeah, it's uh it's very sneaky and manipulative.

Um and I I'm I've just been thinking as as you've been talking about this, is in you know, in Deuteronomy, it talks about you know parents should teach the kids about the law of God when they get up, when they walk about the way, and when they're eating, and um, you know, if if we're not doing that as parents, and then our kids go out and participate in these things, things like this, or they have they're required to be in camps like this, um you know, and we're talking about culturalizes, pretty soon this is gonna be one of those things the next generation just thinks is okay.

Yeah, you can't, it just like it's only been 10 years.

Yeah.

And it's already so hard to imagine outlawing gay marriage.

Yeah.

Uh just at like a visceral level.

Just like Carl Truman uses the phrase social imaginary, you know, which kind of forms uh the norms for for us.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, these would be these would be normed completely.

Yeah.

And then you and look, like the way the way things are now, like, I already sound insane teaching a marriage series like this, you know, that's seeking to describe how the Bible describes marriage.

Yeah.

How much more insane?

How how much less of Tim Keller's phrase of a plausibility framework will our culture have to be able to have any any sort of plausible structure to where the gospel might make sense?

And you you can uh you can imagine saying, like, look, yeah, these are these are politics is crazy, but look, these are not gospel issues.

Well, I hope, you know, like if you've been part of our marriage series, you know, listening through it over these past four sermons, or just three, I've written the fourth, so it's done to me.

But then you'll uh I hope that you'll see that like when we're talking about men and women, when we're talking about the structure of marriage, when we're talking about the uh structure of creation, that these are all laid out by God in a way to so that we can grasp and participate in and receive the truths of the gospel.

Yeah.

That if we don't understand marriage, then we lose our understand our ability to understand what exactly took place when the the true husband lays down his life for the true bride.

Yeah.

You know, these are these um uh they're they're all nested together into into the same story.

And so this is the um uh point at which there's real um uh you know legal adversity for the Christian uh seeking to live out their faith in in honor before God in the um in the world.

Uh I think I said this on Sunday, like look, I I can preach whatever I want, you know, and not fear basically anything.

Um and so that's described in our culture as religious freedom, because like you can preach whatever you want.

Right.

It's like, but you know, when I when I leave and go participate in the world the rest of the week, uh I want to do so Christianly.

And when and I I am by far the exception in our church because everybody else goes and works in places of public accommodation.

Yeah.

And when the people in our church leave, they want to live Christianly.

Like I know us.

These the Christians in our church are not faking it.

You know, this is not just like a fun thing to do on Sunday mornings, it's not another activity among among many.

These are real Christians that really want to honor the Lord.

And uh we want to do that in peace, yeah, with governing authorities.

Yeah.

And this is a direct assault on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and uh I think uh what one of the things I took away from so far from the marriage series was in your uh sermon on the creation of marriage, we're basically even before the fall, Adam and Eve are a picture of Christ in the church.

Yes.

Um and so when we mess with these things, we're messing with the doctrine of Christ, um, with who he is, what he does, what he accomplishes.

Yes.

And so you know, it seems like as Christians, we can't just sit back and say, hey, this doesn't really affect me, um, or we can't say you do you, um, because in in doing that we're professing what we actually believe about Christ.

Right.

Um, and so if if we are as a church gonna going to be real about what we you know and live what we confess, um, it seems like there's this is gonna affect how we live.

Yes.

Yes, it will.

And it just because it's happening in the political realm, uh, does not mean Christians are no longer able to speak about it.

Um and it this is the way that the steering of Christians will take place.

Just last night on Kyle Clark um uh on Nine News, which I'm sure we all set our watches by.

Um, but he was showing clips of pastors um uh uh who I know personally who were sharing speaking out against this.

And he called them, he said, a group of MAGA pastors.

Yeah.

Now what he's saying is that look at these Christians, they're and I know these guys, they are they are Jesus pastors, yeah.

They're Jesus pastors, yeah.

But the what he's trying to do, and this is the strategy, is to frame their primary allegiance as political because they're speaking out against something that happens to be taking place in the political realm.

Yeah.

But then any it as long as you as long as the political realm is able to encroach into a place, if the church always has to say then, oh well that's politics, we can't touch that.

Yeah, then the whole the whole world gets subsumed by the political.

Yeah.

And the church has no place in it.

Yeah.

And that's the church in retreat like that is just not the Great Commission church.

Yeah.

Uh we are we have the commission to baptize nations and teach them to obey all that Christ commanded us.

Yeah.

Uh the that's the that's the call.

Yeah.

So we we can't we can't retreat from spaces just because they've been subsumed by the political.

Yeah.

Uh and and Christ Himself says, if you love me, obey my commands.

That's right.

Yeah, this whole thing, it it really seems like it's an inversion of the of the promise in Genesis.

Go on.

Um of where like Christ crushes the head of the serpent.

Um and in this, it it it seems like we have we have two ways of living uh presented before us.

We can live our lives under the gaze and direction of God and Christ as our head, uh-huh.

Or we can live and who who defines what's good for us, gives us our laws, uh, and we live and we operate out of those.

Um, or we can allow the state to come in and usurp the power and authority of Christ and act as the head.

So, or the serpent, uh, if you want to take the state as a an image of the serpent.

Yeah.

Um like Pharaoh.

Like Pharaoh.

And um and and we live our lives under the gaze of the state um and uh operate out of that uh what the state says is right and wrong, what's good and bad.

Yep.

Um it's kind of like two different ways of living, two different ways of operating, but we're we're we're we're getting the opportunity to decide who's gonna be the head of our lives.

Yeah, that's right.

Um that's right.

And uh I you know, when when uh in the narratives of scripture where we see things made that stark, they're around deliverance stories.

And so we can have a hope amidst this that, like, oh, there's probably some glorious deliverance coming.

Yeah.

But part of those deliverance stories is holding fast to the Lord and saying, Lord, deliver us.

Yeah.

Um, and it's not a uh it's not a retreatist just thinking about what's best for the Christian.

We uh have a hope for our neighbors.

We uh don't think that the law of God just happens to suit our uh ability to express or fulfill ourselves.

We think it is the law of God, which is good for all people.

Yeah.

And uh that it the the true expression of it is that it draws us to our need for salvation in Jesus Christ alone.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think you're exactly right.

It is like an inverted garden story.

It's like uh because if if we allow the gov the state to be our head, then it's like it's like the serpent crushing the head of the church, which is Christ.

Yes.

It's yeah, it's a complete inversion of that.

So the uh so one of my favorite books that I've read, kind of about uh the advancement of gender ideology in our culture, the the seemingly rapid advancement of gender ideology in our culture um is Carl Truman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

Okay.

But he starts like 500 years ago, yeah, and so and basically says, like, this isn't rapid, this is an inevitable conclusion of trying to create a uh pure secularism which denies the existence of God as uh um uh which which denied God which denies God as any locus of reasoning in the public square.

Um and then you lose all of God's categories.

Yeah.

Um well at the end of that book, if there's one critique of the book, it's that like he doesn't, it's like that great story, what do we do?

And he ends the book with just like two pages on what we might do.

Okay.

And I wanted to share the points that he makes in these because I think they're really helpful for us as a church.

You know, this is this bill I want us to think of as like smelling salts of like, this is really happening, we're really here, this is really the shape of the culture.

We will be called names for doing this, um, and the church has been here before.

Yeah.

Uh and though okay, so here's um so wither the church, what should the churches do?

Um he suggests three things that should mark the church as she moves into the future.

And I think we should take these to heart for our church.

The first is that the church should reflect long and hard on the connection between aesthetics and her core beliefs and practices.

Now, that's a lot of jargon for some words that he's done a lot of work around throughout the book.

But basically he says that most of the moral reasoning that takes place within our culture now is really aesthetic reasoning.

Okay.

And it isn't uh held to core beliefs and practices, certainly not the core beliefs and practices of Christianity.

But the aesthetic reasoning is uh based not on the demonstration that uh being lesbian or being gay or being trans or bisexual or uh that these are not reason reasonable positions, which could be derived from natural law.

But the way that we've been compelled to receive them as legitimate categories is by aesthetic experiences.

So we've heard people's stories that sounded like liberation stories uh of their finally coming out.

Oh, they seem so much happier now.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And those those sorts of narratives have shaped our understanding of these categories so that we have um not by like a rational move, but by an emotional appeal, received these categories as legitimate.

Yeah.

Um so what he is saying is uh the church needs to reflect long and hard on the connection between aesthetics and her core beliefs and practices.

Meaning, we should recognize that the the core beliefs that we hold are doctrines that are given to us in scripture, and that there is no story so well told which ought to be able to compel us to deny the truths of scripture.

Yeah.

He says if sex as identity is itself a category mistake, then the narratives of suffering, exclusion, and refusals of recognition based on that category mistake are really of no significance in determining what the church's positions on homosexuality should be.

This is really important.

Because the claim of Scripture is that the notion of sex as identity is itself a category mistake.

Yeah.

It's a that's a false equivocation.

Sex, sexual preference is not an identity.

And identity is not the type of thing that can be bestowed on ourselves by ourselves.

Yeah, it's a false gospel.

Exactly.

And so once we accept the categories of the LGBTQ movement as legitimate categories, we've already lost the frame.

And we've already abandoned the ability to recognize its denial of the core truths of our faith.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think I think one of the things that um maybe it doesn't get conveyed enough in the church, but is how strongly the Bible warns us and reminds us to actually hold on to the things that we believe.

Yeah.

Like Paul says, if anyone comes to you and preaches to you another gospel, whether it's an angel or anybody else, yeah.

Yeah.

Let them be accursed.

Um, and then there's a a passage in in Deuteronomy that says, you know, if your mother or your son or your wife um or anyone comes to you and entices you secretly saying, like, let us go serve other gods.

Um you're you're not supposed to yield to them or listen to them, nor should your eye pity them or spare them or conceal them.

But you you should be the first to kill him and put him to death.

Yes.

You know, and we're not we're not putting to death um physically anymore.

Um you know, Christ is a fulfillment of that law.

But it it's kind of that same sort of thing where um you need to understand the importance of your beliefs, the importance of holding on to those um and really sticking by them.

Yes.

Yes.

Um, how do we do that?

Well, I think this goes that dovetails perfectly into his next point.

He says if the church is to avoid the absolutizing of aesthetics by an appropriate commitment to Christianity as first and foremost doctrinal, then second, she must also be a community.

So we we have to be a true community of people.

That means in person, embodied, knowing each other, loving one another, encouraging one another, not discouraging one another away from the truths of Christianity, but encouraging one another to hold fast to them.

Yeah.

He says if the struggle of Christianity is the struggle for the nature of human selfhood, then it is worth noting that Hegel's basic insights, so compellingly elaborated by Taylor, probably shouldn't be reading this, it's all insider language at the end of the book.

That's but he basically says selves are socially constructed and only come to full self-consciousness in dialogue with other self-consciousnesses, self-consciousnesses, is of great importance.

Each of us is, in a sense, the sum total of the network of relationships we have with others and with our environment.

We possess a common human nature, but that nature has expressed and does express itself differently in different eras and cultures.

But his point is that uh our ability to hold fast to these things is not something you just do by muscling up within your own person.

Yeah.

Like the encouragement to be able to do that, to know your beliefs and to know what you hold fast to.

You must experience and share and enjoy and celebrate and sing about and recite and hear and eat those beliefs together with your community.

We must truly be that community together.

Uh otherwise, we will drift into the community that we are also a part of, which is just the world that the God has placed that God has placed us in at this time.

Yeah.

Um, and so we have to become a real thick community that holds fast together to the doctrines that we've been given.

Otherwise, we won't hold fast to the doctrines that we've been given.

Um, it's not a solo project.

And then lastly, he says Protestants need to recover both natural law and a high view of the physical body.

So Protestants in particular, we can be pretty thinky-speaky.

And that's good.

Thinking and speaking are good.

Um, but we can uh adopt the same sort of mind-body distinction, which allows for the phrase, I am a man trapped in a woman's body, to be sensible.

Yeah.

But that phrase before God is an utterly senseless phrase because you are not distinct from your body.

You are your body.

Right.

Jesus does not resurrect into some spirit form, his body resurrects.

Jesus does not bear the punishment of our sins uh when he is crucified, it it happens to his body.

He does not bear them just in his mind.

Yeah.

Thinking about it.

He had to come and suffer and die in the flesh.

Yeah.

Because that is the type of creatures that we are.

And so the bodies that the Lord has placed us in are uh true and real, and they need to be honored as such.

Um, and that's a doctrine that's worth holding to.

Now, the last thing that he says, which is beyond his four points, is he looks for a historical precedent for the church in the modern age.

Okay.

And he offers up the second century church.

And he says this, and in the second in the second century, the church was a marginal sect within a dominant pluralist society.

I think that's true, perhaps not true of the church in the United States, but it is true of the church in Denver.

Yeah.

It's true of the church in Colorado.

It's true where our church is.

She was under suspicion, not because her central dogmas were supernatural, but rather because she appeared subversive in claiming Jesus is king and was viewed as immoral in her talk of eating and drinking human flesh and blood and expressing incestuous sounding love between brothers and sisters.

Now that wouldn't be the particular uh attacks on Christianity today, but they are attacks of immorality, of hate speech and uh and of being hate groups.

And that Kyle Clark segment, for example, he had an attorney on and he said, um, those pastors are able to spew whatever hate they want from their pulpits.

Uh so just conveying this principle of these biblical principles is you're spewing hate.

Yeah.

Um so it's just like the second century, the claims were not the thing those people claim are false.

It's the thing those things those people claim are immoral.

So he says, this is where we are today.

The second century world is in a sense our world, where Christianity is a choice, and a choice likely at some point to run afoul of the authorities.

He continues, and he says, it was the second century world, of course, that laid down the foundations for the later successes of the third and fourth centuries.

And she did it by what means?

By existing as a close-knit, doctrinally bounded community that required her members to act consistently with their faith and to be good citizens of the earthly city as far as good citizenship was compatible with faithfulness to Christ.

I think that's just a great sentence.

Yeah.

So we exist as a close-knit, doctrinally bound community that requires our members, requires of each other, to act consistently with the faith and to be good citizens of the city as far as good of the earthly city as far as good citizenship is compatible with faithfulness to Christ.

I think that's what we should seek to do.

Um, and that's why I want to bring these things up and name them because they're confusing and we're in a cultural whirlwind, and we want to provide clear guidance for our church in the place that we actually are, and hold fast to one another, hold fast to our true doctrines, encourage one another to do that.

Uh and uh uh seek to be good good citizens as far as we can.

Yeah.

But understand that there will be a cost.

Yeah.

Well, and I think that's the interesting thing about having the second century church as an example, because it likely didn't get better in their time, it got better in the third and fourth centuries.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, and and Jesus says in um in Matthew, he's like, Blessed Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Yep.

Um or blessed are are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

Uh for they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Yep.

And I think especially being you know Presbyterian Reformed Church is uh something that is helpful for me had been has been helpful for me to learn how to do, but it's just holding on to the promises that God has given us.

And this is one of those where um if you if you hold on to this and you're persecuted for him, yours is the kingdom of heaven.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

We should celebrate when it happens.

Yeah.

Celebrate when you get called names.

Don't be the names that you're getting called.

Yeah.

You know, like don't spew hate, but if you are getting called spewing hate because you hold to the truth, because you're holding to the truth, celebrate.

Yeah.

Same thing happened to Jesus.

If we're gonna be like him, how could we expect that it wouldn't happen to us?

Right.

So uh another phrase that came to mind when you were talking was one I heard in a John Piper sermon a long time ago, but it says he says, when you have the choice between loving someone or making them feel loved, always choose to love them.

And I think that that is sort of like the main point where I think we'll experience this.

And that's what we want to hold fast to.

Do you want to so that and there's a difference there between loving them and making them feel loved?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

Cool.

Thanks, everybody.

Um, hope this is helpful and have a great have a great time.

I hope you have a great time.

Wherever your time is.

Wherever your time is.

Thanks.

Bye.