Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
SEX (10 Words to Heal Our Broken World Series)
Sex and its definition are powerful, literally bringing life to individuals, marriages, and families. Meanwhile, false definitions of sex abound and lead individuals and society into incredible confusion and pain. Let’s look at popular definitions today and compare them with a definition of sex founded on biblical principles and consider why the difference matters.
The world says SEX is (1) Synonymous with gender, a social construct; a person’s subjective sense of their sexual identity, without regard to biology or anatomy. (2) The ultimate source of personal identity and meaning. (3) Any form of recreational sexual activity done to give pleasure.
Biblical principles teach us that SEX is (1) The God-created male-female division. (2) Sexual intercourse between a man and a woman; a comprehensive one-flesh union of heart, mind, spirit, and body, often bringing the gift of children. Sexual intercourse is a gift from God exclusively for the uniting of husband and wife in marriage.
Words and definitions matter because they shape the way we think and feel. These, in turn, determine our choices and actions, which shape the cultures we live in, for better or worse. One of the primary desires of the Sexual Revolution of the 1950s and '60s was to radically redefine the word sex. The Sexual Revolution has accomplished its goal of turning the word sex on its head. But ideas have consequences, and as we have seen over the last 60-plus years, everything these new definitions of sex touch has eventually led to despair and destruction. Why has this happened? Because once again, whenever humans try to take a God-given word and twist it to mean anything besides its original definition, we're simultaneously twisting ourselves away from God's perfect design for us.
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- Find out more about the book by Scott David Allen, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World: Restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words at 10wordsbook.org.
Marriage is God's design and sex is exclusively for marriage. I know people just hate that nowadays. They've just so rebelled against that. But here's why Because sex is so powerful, it has the potential to bring forth a new life, and there's only one kind of context where that power can be safely channeled, and that is in marriage. Anything other than that it leads to the destruction of life. Hi friends, this is Scott Allen, president of the Disciple Nations Alliance, and I want to welcome you to another episode of Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Episode of Ideas have Consequences the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Scott Allen:As we prepare to launch my newest book, 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meaning of Our Most Important Words, we wanted to go through each one of these 10 foundational words that are highlighted in the book, discussing their true meaning as well as how they've been fundamentally redefined in our contemporary culture. Now you might be asking why do words matter? Well, it's because words and definitions shape the way we think and feel, and that, in turn, determines our choices and our actions, and that shapes the kind of culture that we live in, for better or for worse, and that shapes the kind of culture that we live in for better or for worse. And so if you want to work for a positive change in culture in society, it has to begin by restoring the true meaning of our most important words.
Luke Allen:Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and that's it today, because God only created male and female. Genesis 127. Thank you for joining us here on. Ideas have Consequences. My name is Luke and I will be your host today, joined by Dwight Vogt, and in this mini-series for the upcoming book, we are going to be interviewing my dad, scott Allen, because, as you just heard, he is the author of the new book called 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meanings of Our Most Important Words.
Luke Allen:If you're new to this podcast or this mini-series and you're wondering why do words matter so much? Why are you guys talking about words, then to answer that question, I would recommend going back to the first episode that we did in this series about 10 words and starting there by listening to that episode. That one came out on July 17th and is simply titled Introducing 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, and you guys might be wondering what are these 10 words? So, just to get us started today, these 10 words are truth, human sex, marriage, freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love.
Luke Allen:Today we are going to be talking about sex. So, as we've done to launch every one of these words, why don't we just start by hearing the two definitions of this word, the first one being the true biblical definition and then the second one being the false hijack definition. That, unfortunately, is the more commonly understood definition of the word today, the definition that you would probably hear. If you just went out on your street right now and started conducting some street interviews and asking people what does the word sex mean, you would probably hear some variation of this false definition. So, dad, why don't we just start out with hearing those two definitions?
Scott Allen:Sure Luke, thanks, yeah. Well, first of all, yeah, and I'm looking forward to discussing in greater detail these two. But the true definition of sex as we see in the Bible really has two closely overlapping meanings. The first is simply the God-created male-female division, and then the second is the coming together of male and female in sexual intercourse, a comprehensive one-flesh union of heart, mind, spirit and body that often issues in the gift of children. Sexual intercourse is a gift from God exclusively for the uniting of a husband and a wife in marriage. So that's the way God, or the Bible, puts forward the understanding of sex in a very concise way.
Scott Allen:That's been I think the best word to say here is completely deconstructed in our current cultural moment. So today sex has been redefined. It is synonymous now with gender, which is a social construct, that is, it's a person's subjective sense of their sexual identity, without any regard to either their biology or their anatomy. And really you know, beyond that, there's two other closely kind of related meanings that sex has today. Sex as it's been redefined today has. The second is it's an ultimate source of personal identity and meaning. Sex has been elevated almost to this spiritual kind of level of salvation.
Scott Allen:This is talking about sexual intercourse. And then, third, any form of recreational sexual activity that's done to give pleasure. So this is kind of we're not talking here about salvation, we're just talking about recreation. So anyways, those are three different ideas on the redefined sex. The first, again, has to do with gender identity, the sex has to do with the ultimate source of human meaning and identity. And the third is any form of just recreational sexual activity that just is something we do because it's fun or whatever it is so, yeah, you have to, I think, take all three of those into account, okay.
Dwight Vogt:Thanks, Scott. It's a good start. You've already started to unpack these a bit just in that description explanation, but I'd like you to go a little further, especially with the first, in terms of the male-female distinction. That's so confusing and that's really the topic of the day. We know it's global now. Everybody's talking about it. So what are the key aspects of the word in that respect?
Scott Allen:Yeah, absolutely, dwight. I mean, you're right. This is probably the most controversial word topic that you can talk about today. It's hotly contested in our Western culture and the people that are pushing redefinition are pushing it actively and hard around the world. They're very much missionary-minded and are wanting to change the way everyone around the world thinks about sex as well. So these are hot, controversial subjects and hopefully today we'll take it seriously and respectfully.
Scott Allen:But yeah, going back to the original definition that we see in the Bible, the first is that God created human beings with a male and a female distinction, and it's just super important to say that. You know, our bodies that God created us with are not just meaningless matter, evolved, they are. We are creations, as we talked about when we discussed the word human. We're creations. That's the first and most important thing that we can say about what it means to be human is that we're created and we are not just created in some haphazard way. God created us with a male-female distinction for a purpose. God deliberately created male and female to demonstrate, actually, the fullness of his image and likeness, or something of the fullness, something approaching the fullness. And that's the second thing that you know. When we talked about human. We talked about how humans are created by God and were created uniquely in his image.
Scott Allen:Let me just go ahead and read the verse, because we see this right away in Genesis 1, 26 and 27. Then God said Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. So, right away, god created man in his image, male and female. So what does this mean? It means that your sex, either male or female, is really essential to who you are, and it's a gift. It's a gift that God has given you. It's a gift you receive, it's not a choice you make. I really love this book that came out a couple years ago by Todd Wilson. He's the author of Mere Sexuality and in that book he says it well. He says your most basic vocation is to joyfully embrace and to faithfully embody your sexuality, whether male or female, for the good of others. And you know, I think to understand this at a little bit deeper level, you have to go back to God himself and the fact that God is one.
Scott Allen:God but he's also three persons Father, son and Holy Spirit. And so God demonstrates unity and diversity. Unity in that he's one God, but diversity in that there's three distinct persons, and that's just so powerful. Nancy Peercy calls that the kind of the Rosetta Stone. The most basic thing that you have to understand about sociology is this unity and diversity that comes from God himself. And so when God creates man in his image, he can't just create this kind of unitary monad, I guess, or whatever you want to call it. There has to be a reflection of this unity and diversity, and that's what he does. So he creates man, male and female, of this unity and diversity, and that's what he does. So he creates man, male and female, and there's a unity there. Right, we're both human and yet we are—there's a diversity. We're male and female. And of course there's other elements of diversity as well, but that's the most basic one.
Scott Allen:Just one more quote, dwight. I know I'm kind of rambling on here, but Elizabeth Elliot you know, she the famous wife of Jim Elliot, and she talks a lot about this in her wonderful works over the years. She says that men and women are two creatures that are amazingly alike. And you know, we're human with equal dignity, equal worth, both created in God's image. So we're amazingly alike but we're wonderfully different. And there's a cardiologist, paula Johnson, that talks about how we're different all the way down to the left, you know, across our organs, our brains, our hearts, our lungs, our joints. You know way down to the basic genetic level. And so, anyways, that's God's design. You know I could go on, but I'll stop there and we can just pick that up. I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of that. The fact that God created male and female, these two both with image, his image and likeness, that's your sex. Yeah.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I do have another question. We'll follow up, um, but you just triggered some thought there and and I you were talking about the cardiologist and it reminds me of daryl's book grand design, and he uses the, the comment quote I don't know what noted or what, but there are 6 000 markers that differentiate male and female, and and I thought I was looking for that the other day, thinking where did Daryl get that from? And I went and looked, I Googled you know what are the markers? And I had to. I went through 10 pages, scrolling down through Google to see who was talking about it and no one was. Everyone was saying it is basically a myth that there are markers.
Scott Allen:Oh, Google is so bad on this right now.
Dwight Vogt:And I just kept looking, and looking, and looking, which leads me, you know. Then the question is well, how does this true definition or false definition shape culture? I mean, that's kind of exhibit A, but what do you have to say about that, scott? What kind of culture will we create if we get confused on this word sex, especially when it comes to male-female I mean?
Scott Allen:well, we can talk about that. We're just now beginning to kind of see the ramifications culturally for this. You see it in things like we just saw this last week at the Olympics right, where you have a biologically male XY chromosome guy in the ring with a female Obviously just looking at him you know he is much more muscular, he's got testosterone and he's beating her up and we have to kind of act like that's okay and I mean this is all brand new. There's never been an Olympics where that's happened until now and that's just one example of what happens culturally or socially. You know it's just destructive at so many levels. But I do want to come back. Dwight, you were Googling, you know what are those different Biological markers yeah, the biological markers.
Scott Allen:And I think it's just so remarkable. Again, it shows the unity and diversity in that, both male and female, we have all the same organs, except for the sexual organs that are different. But we have hearts and brains, and those are all things that we have in common, but they're all different too. So there's just such deep unity and diversity. And you know again Todd Wilson I think he says it so well the opposite sex, he says, isn't some strange creature from another planet, but it's God's gift to you as a complement, whether you're male or female. In other words, god made male and female different, but together to complement one another and to kind of demonstrate something larger together. Which really then brings us to the second definition of sex in the Bible. That has to do with the coming together of male and female. But yeah, just this idea that we're not some strange, odd creatures but we're complements to one another, that's God's design. It's really beautiful, it's very powerful.
Luke Allen:And there is a difference. I just chat GBT'd this while you were talking there. Uh-oh, I asked is there a difference between sex and gender? You know the big question. Yeah. And I didn't like the answer, dad, what do you think is a difference between sex and gender? You know the big question, yeah, and I didn't like the answer. Dad, what do you think is the difference between sex and gender? How would you respond to that if someone asked you that?
Scott Allen:Yeah, it's complicated because gender has a kind of a historic meaning. That isn't necessarily wrong. It's the way that people express their sex male and female and it could be in things like the kind of clothes that you wear or things like this. So there is a gender expression and it is culturally different, right? So it may differ a little bit from culture to culture. So to me that's gender. There's a subjectivity to it. But I think what's happened today is that the sexual revolutionaries have lobbed onto the subjectivity of that and said that's all there is. In other words, they've discounted the idea that there's these two distinct categories of male and female and they've said everything is on this spectrum of subjectivity. There is no such thing as male and female. Now, there's just a gender identity. So I know that's probably not a very clear answer, but, yeah, gender has to do, I would say, with how male and female historically anyways, male and female have been expressed. Dwight, what are your thoughts on that? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Dwight Vogt:I'm wondering what Chad GBT says.
Scott Allen:Well, who cares what Chad GBT says? These are all programmed by people and their algorithms are written by people who have fully bought into the false definition, so that's what you're going to get. He raised the question.
Luke Allen:It's not actually terrible. It says sex refers to biological differences between men and women, so that's accurate.
Scott Allen:That's biblical.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's the case, but then it does say, yeah, that gender is referring to. Gender can be. It is subject. It is prone to subjectivity in the fact that it is displayed through behaviors and activities and expressions.
Scott Allen:Right, it's more of a cultural thing.
Luke Allen:Yeah, but then, your identity can override your biological sex, if you want it to.
Scott Allen:That's where it goes too far.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, that's where you cross the line, because there's an all-out war on the subjectivity of of expression, yeah, on biology, and I, yeah, they're saying that, they're you know there is.
Scott Allen:They just discount that all together such that when you know children are born now, doctors aren't supposed to declare male or female. You know, we've got to give the kid a chance to determine his or her own identity, you know, and then that becomes and eventually you have to have physical mutilation. Right, right, right, crazy, crazy, it's crazy.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, I was thinking of my grandparents on my dad's side, and my grandpa was super nurturing and my grandma wasn't. It's like, well, what was that about? You know, because in that day and age that you know, grandma had to be nurturing and grandpa wasn't, you know. But but uh, I didn't ever confuse them as not being male and female Grandpa was grandpa and grandma was grandma, and I love both of them.
Dwight Vogt:So we've always had this fluidity in terms of how you express yourself how you live that out right exactly how you live that out, but the idea of confusing the biology of it and the life-giving nature of those biological differences, that's just why, I just you know, I have to ask why.
Scott Allen:Well, I think, dwight, to me it's pure postmodernism in the sense that you know, modernism said you know, when it came to kind of defining reality or what is true, it said, well, there is no God. We can't refer to God or theology or the Bible in terms of what's true. But we can refer to you know, they wouldn't use the word creation, nature, right, and science. We can at least agree on what nature and science tells us is true, but postmoderns have gotten rid of that one as well, and so you can't, you know, you can't. There isn't anything that we can say that unifies truth anymore. It's not God, it's not the Bible, it's not any kind of religion and it's not even human biology at this point, or science, things like XY chromosomes.
Scott Allen:It's all in your mind, right? It's what you believe. That's pure postmodernism and that's that. You know. This gender expression is a pure kind of distillation of that. You know, you are what you believe you are, without any regard to your body. Some people have described it as kind of Gnostic, in the sense that the Gnostics had such a low view of creation and including the body. Right, and that was profane, you know. And so this new movement is kind of that way. Right it's. You know, you are what you think in your mind, without any regard to your embodied. You know self, so.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's, you're referring to Nancy Piercy there in her book Love Thy Body and the.
Scott Allen:Mind-Body Separation. Great book on this, yes.
Luke Allen:Yeah, the Mind-Body Separation, which is kind of a Gnostic view of how we can separate those.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Luke Allen:And which?
Scott Allen:And postmodern I mean postmodernism does the same thing.
Luke Allen:Yeah, it separates the truth of biology with the subjectivity of identity. Yeah.
Scott Allen:We're kind of jumping ahead down here. We're getting a little ahead, I agree.
Luke Allen:Dwight, get us back on track.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I'm just thinking about the cultural ramifications of misunderstanding the word, and they're just so obvious and they're so tragic. I mean you've got a boxer beating up a woman in the Olympics which we should all just scream arrest that man. Instead of applauding the Olympian, we should arrest him in any other situation of life. Yeah, I've reflected on my own response to that.
Scott Allen:There's an anger there, and I think I've noticed that a lot of other men feel the same way. There's something that's so deeply wrong and it's interesting to kind of think about. Why is that? Why is this such a violation? And I think it's because, again, god created us as men to protect women. That's part of what it means to be a man is this protective instinct. Again, we're complements to each other and women complement men with this nurturing aspect. Again, there's a range of the ways that that can be expressed, but generally men have this protective instinct towards women and towards children, and I think that's what I was reflecting on. That's God-given, that's kind of deeply implanted, and when you see that it's a vibe, something inside of you just goes. You know, I just want to beat that guy up, right, you know.
Dwight Vogt:So yeah, and it's interesting because my reaction is the same and, and I think of all of you know, we think of post-modernism and its effects on society and culture in general in lots of areas, but this one seems to be the most troubling to me this idea that that there's sexual confusion, dysphoria and ends in mutilation. It ends up in men beating up women in the boxing ring. It ends up.
Scott Allen:It's just so tragic and I wish it wasn't so Well, I think it's important. Dwight, you mentioned the word dysphoria. I do think there is a in our fallen world. There is a real condition that people do struggle with, but it's relatively small and that needs to be differentiated or distinguished between what we're being taught today, which is there is no distinction between male and female, and you are whatever you believe you are and that needs to be expressed, you know.
Scott Allen:You just feel free to express that in any way you wish, and everyone else around you has to. You know, affirm that. And if they don't, there's, you know there's this kind of emotional blackmail, right? You're harming that person, you're potentially leading to their suicide or whatever it is. You know so.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, my point is just that I think there's strong cultural ramifications that are hurting us really strong.
Scott Allen:Well, huge, I mean just huge.
Dwight Vogt:Huge, huge. They're all brand new. What?
Scott Allen:happens when you erase that distinction? You know you have to get rid of things like male-female locker rooms, male-female bathrooms, male-female sports, male-female everything. And what happens when you do that? I mean, we're just living through some kind of wild experiment to see what happens and it's not good when you get rid of that distinction. And, let's be honest, you know who suffers the most. It's the weakest. You know women and children suffer the most. You know when this thing breaks down.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, so there's a cultural impact.
Scott Allen:Well, we can keep talking about that for sure. But I'd like to come back to just the true definition of sex, because I put forward the two closely related ideas. One is that sex is the male-female distinction that God created, but then you know that's closely followed up by the fact that he created the male-female distinction, you know, in order for the second kind of definition to come forward, you know, which is, you know, male and female coming together in marriage to become one flesh. And you know that's kind of the understanding of sex is intercourse, intercourse between a man and a woman. And you see that in Genesis 1.28, god blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply. And so God created both men and women, male and female, with this extraordinary capacity to be fruitful and multiply and to bear and to raise children and to form families and cultures and nations.
Scott Allen:And sexual intercourse is right at the headwaters of all of that. Because you know, as you guys well know, it's biologically impossible for two men or two women to procreate. It requires two distinct sets of sexual organs, one male, one female, to create the unique and priceless human being which will live for time and eternity, which will live for time and eternity. So it's an amazing thing, you know, when you consider that all of our organs are— I don't need a female organ to survive, right, in any way. Right, I'm self-contained as a male, or you're self-contained as a female, but there's that one—the sexual organ is the only one that's created, such that it needs the other, you know, in order to fulfill the purpose that God gave it, which is to bring forth.
Scott Allen:This is just incredible, but life, new life, which is just, it's something that's so common at one level, right, you know, all around us, people are getting married, having children. It's another thing to just step back and just kind of be in awe of it at the same time, and just that, this is something that God made. It's very powerful, it's very good so.
Dwight Vogt:I was listening to a podcast, I think Discovery Institute. Somebody from there was talking about the reproductive system and just some small aspect of it. I don't know what it was, but the complexity of it and the fact that all of those complexities had to come together and I was thinking this just had to do with, maybe it was uh, uh, maybe it was sperm travel or something like that.
Dwight Vogt:But then I thought, you know, then there's the egg, there's the ovaries, there's the womb there's just a thousand and one things that have to go right for a human being to come into the world, and then the very creation of a human being from a tiny zygote that becomes you and me, with all of our. I'm just going how. I mean, it's such profound proof of the creation of God, and it seems like this one area is so magnificent I mean, we think the sun's cool too and we think gravity's cool, but male-female reproduction is mind-blowing. It is mind-blowing, it's just mind-blowing.
Scott Allen:And Luke, you can relate to this as a new father. I remember when you were born and the other kids were born right away, when that doctor placed you in my arms, I looked down and there was nothing more complex, more beautiful, and it was nine months and I just thought, kim and I didn't create this, just thought, you know, kim, and I didn't create this. This is amazing and I'll never approach anything as magnificent in my life, in terms of what we produce right, than this right. This is something that is just invaluable and it's true it goes on. It has a beginning, but it goes on for eternity. I mean, just think about that.
Scott Allen:You know, for a moment. So yeah, it's unbelievable and it's God's creation that male and female come together in marriage. And I just want to talk about that for a second too. Marriage is God's design and sex is exclusively for marriage. I know people just hate that nowadays. They've just so rebelled against that. But here's why Because sex is so powerful, it has the potential to bring forth a new life, and there's only one kind of context where that power can be safely channeled and that is in marriage. Anything other than that it leads to the destruction of life as we're seeing through abortion, and you know it, you know all these different things to the destruction of life, as we're seeing through abortion, and you know it, you know all these different things.
Scott Allen:So a couple quotes Tim Keller. I like this quote. He says sex is God's appointed way for two people to say reciprocally to each other I belong completely, permanently and exclusively to you. So it's this God-intended uniting for life of a male and a female, and it bonds, and this is super powerful. It bonds a husband and wife together for the purpose of bonding them to the offspring that that relationship then produces them, to the offspring that that relationship then produces. Okay, the social ramifications of that are massive, right, and that's God's design. So the children that come from that union are bound together, just as the husband and wife are bound together, and that's the most basic unit, kind of cell of the social you know know unit, and when that cell starts breaking down as it does, as it has today, everything falls apart.
Luke Allen:Yeah, yeah, it's. Uh, I love what you're just saying, dad, about that moment when the baby's handed to you, it's, it's my. One of my first thoughts was I don't deserve this. You know, I can't believe that this nurse is handing me this baby and saying you're this new human's dad. You know it's like being handed. You know, if I was handed the keys to a Ferrari, an island and a yacht, I would say I don't deserve this. But I'm handed a new human life. You know, not even comparable.
Luke Allen:I know and you know you have the potential to raise this child and this kid could grow up to be your best friend. And you know, a full life and the impact of a life is now in your control. It's like whoa. That's absolutely miraculous and it's so good and beautiful and it's a gift from God. And the more beautiful a gift is, the more ugly it is when we destroy that as humans. Yeah, well said, you know the more evil that can come from that.
Luke Allen:So it's so incredibly beautiful and yet if we tamper with it, if we mess with it, if we take it out of God's design, it's absolutely destructive.
Scott Allen:Absolutely.
Luke Allen:And it's so sad to see, but you know that's what you get, for a large amount of responsibility is the potential to mess it up in a large way.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and Luke the Bible. It doesn't mince words. It treats sexual immorality by sexual immorality meaning simply any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage. It treats it super seriously. And you know why is that? Because it has this enormous power. Somebody likened it to me like a river. You know, a river has enormous power and it's a beautiful thing. But it's got to flow within those bounds, that proper channel, and when it goes over, spills over the channel and floods, it's very destructive. And I thought that was a good analogy. Todd Wilson, again in the book I earlier referenced. He has great quotes in that book on this. He says sex isn't a toy, it's not a plaything. Sex isn't a toy, it's not a plaything, it's a sacred and sovereign power that's strong enough to bring new life into being. And then he goes on and he says our sexual capacities are too powerful to be used anywhere outside of marriage. They need a safe, stable environment that comes with a till-death-do-us-part kind of commitment. So, dwight, any thoughts for you on this aspect of sex.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, interestingly, I was reading the opinions with World News the other day and Shane Morris of Colson Institute had an article and it was titled Looking for Happiness. Research is really clear about who is truly joyful and I thought, well, that's another happiness article and I opened it. It was really interesting and it was about marriage. It was about the research that's been done, even in the last year or two. He quoted somebody from the Institute of Family Studies myth of sexual experience and they were talking about just illicit sex and how that impacted marriage, happy marriage, stability and marital happiness. And anyway it impacted marriage, happy marriage, marriage stability and marital happiness. And anyway, it's just once again all the evidence. If you really dig into it it says God's plan actually works best.
Dwight Vogt:That's how people flourish at a time and time and time again.
Scott Allen:So especially in this area. Yeah, there's so much destruction when we discount God's design, you know, for sex, male, female and sexual intercourse within marriage is so destructive. I think one more thing, though, has to be said about sex, and that you know we're living at a time today where sex has kind of almost become an idol. You know that I can't live a full human life apart from sex, and the Bible says no, that's not right. So sex is a good gift and it's very important. You know, for all the reasons we've been talking about, but it's also not fundamental in this respect that God created a series of relationships at creation, and the most basic, the most important, is our relationship to God himself, our creator. And then, you know, secondary in nature, is the relationship that we have to one another as human beings, and that's, you know, that secondary area is where this sexual, you know distinction comes in, but that's not the primary. You know, the primary relationship is a relationship we have with our Heavenly Father. And so, all that to say, you can be single, you can live a full, meaningful, purposeful life without ever having sex. Jesus himself, right, was, you know, not married and never had sex, and you know he was the most perfect human being to ever live. So I just think that's really important to say in the time that we live right now, because there's a lot of confusion about just how, on one hand, sex is so demeaned, just kind of a form of recreational it's like watch a movie, you know what's the Netflix and whatever it is. You know what's the Netflix and whatever it is. You know it's something to do when I'm bored on Friday night. But on another hand, it's like it's the ultimate meaning in life. You know, margaret Sanger we'll talk about her in a second had that view and it's not. It's not. So I just think that needs to be said.
Dwight Vogt:I don't know you guys have thoughts or reaction to that mother? Theresa, thanks you for saying she felt like her life was quite meaningful right, right yeah deborah just finished her biographies.
Luke Allen:Yeah, no, it's, yeah it's.
Luke Allen:I mean, I remember when I was a kid and I first started learning about the horrors of abortion and when you're a kid, you tend to be a little bit more based, you know, you just kind of say it as it is and I was like, okay, so women are all about their right to choose right, and they call it their right. You know, like it's a human right that I need to, you know, have intercourse, uh, and I was just like, if you don't want a baby, then don't make a baby in the first place. You know, just, if you don't want to have to worry about abortion and choosing whether to kill a baby or not, then don't make a baby in the first place. Just, we have some restraint, you know, and in a kid's mind that's so simple. And yet when you ask people that they're like, oh no, it's my human right, you can't take away my human right to. You know, go next. You know, yeah, no, it's a basic make a baby with whoever I want, whatever right yeah, that Right, yeah, that's right.
Scott Allen:And, Luke, you bring up another good point that you talk about sex as a choice. But that's denied today. People will deny In fact, the material that is taught in our public schools today about sex denies that that you can make a choice, that this is a matter of will or volition. It's going to happen, it's natural, Just let it happen. And I think that the reason that choice or volition is taken away is that it goes back to Darwinism.
Scott Allen:You know we're animals. You know we've talked about that. If humans are animals, then it's all instinct, it's all you know. It's just heat, you know, and you have no say in the matter. But that's not how God created us actually. He created us as human beings. We're not like animals. I mean, we are in one respect, but we're not and we're image bearers of God with choice, with his freedom. You know, and that's completely discounted today, especially in this area of sex. But, as you said, God didn't create us that way. We can make choices about this. Actually, I mean hard, hard. I mean we have strong sexual drives and instincts, as us guys know well, but still, it's an area of choice, because that's how God created us, it's what makes us human, exactly, but it's denied today. Actually, it's just, yeah, Right, Am I right on that? Do you guys see that? I mean it's just. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Scott Allen:You don't have a choice, you're just going to do it.
Luke Allen:It's a weird one because it's always this caveat A lot of these kind of macho men rising up. Today. You know the red pill movement and everything. They're all about discipline and improving yourself and getting rich and getting you know strong and working out.
Luke Allen:A lot of self-discipline right there you know I'm thinking of like a guy like Andrew Tate. And yet when it comes to this area sexuality they're just like oh, there's no discipline there. You know just, you have to. You know, you just, you can't have any restraint there. There's no way you could make that decision. Oh my goodness, you're way too weak-minded for that, right.
Scott Allen:Just have safe sex.
Luke Allen:Dad, I'm looking at your true definition here, the biblical definition as you lay it out in the book, and you say that sexual intercourse between a man and a woman is a comprehensive one-flesh union of heart, mind, spirit and body. Why did you specifically choose to lay it out in that manner? The heart, the mind, the spirit and the body.
Scott Allen:Well, I just think it's a reflection of how God has created us. We're holistic beings. Again, the Darwinian idea denies that. It says you're basically a biological machine. But we're not. We're not just machines, computers, mechanisms. We are image bearers of God and part of what that means is that we have soul. We have spirit, we have this whole entire element to us that goes beyond just the workings of our physical body, and those things are so tightly tied together it's hard to draw lines right. You can't separate those.
Scott Allen:So when we're talking about sex, we're talking about something that's much more than just the hardware of a woman and a man coming together.
Scott Allen:We're talking about two human beings coming together. And this is why I remember when I was in college I was a RA and it was a very secular college here in Oregon and you know there was kids were sleeping around with each other, you know, all the time, and I saw the destruction that it brought in the lives of these people, especially women, because they recognized that this kind of hookup culture. You know they couldn't be emotionally unattached from that. They could just wake up the next morning and go, that's okay, you know, it was just fine. Like they were broken spiritually and emotionally, you know, and so to me it proved yeah, you know, it just was evidence that this isn't just some, you know, two machines coming together. This is two human beings, and there's great destruction when it's done outside the bonds of that committed relationship. You know, and I don't know much more I could say about that. But, yeah, I welcome your thoughts on that whole thing too.
Luke Allen:So yeah, they've. They've done a lot of studies on that now on, you know, the the results in people's lives of sex within marriage compared to sex without marriage, and just a couple of points on that. I'm just looking here at um some of the results from some of those surveys Right here. It says sex within marriage leads to healthier, long-lasting relationships. You know.
Luke Allen:Obviously, Sex within marriage leads to better sex and more frequent sex. Sex within marriage promotes more individual human rights. Sex within marriage promotes and protects all men, women and children All of them. And then, on the opposite side, sex outside of marriage leads to instability and violence. Sex outside of marriage leads to increased levels of poverty. It also leads to more single mothers and more fatherless children, obviously. So there's a lot of research out there today on this. It's just coming out more and more.
Scott Allen:God's design actually works. They're broken spiritually and emotionally in so many ways because they're misusing it. It's not what they suppose, that it is, some just recreational activity. This is a comprehensive union. It's super powerful in terms of bonding two people together way more powerful than we realize. And then, of course, it comes with this incredible capacity to bring new life into being as well. So sex is incredibly powerful, and it's just treated as if it's not, like it's just nothing at some level.
Dwight Vogt:Oh, my goodness, I just think of—sometimes I wonder if God knew what he was doing, because of the damage that sex does outside of God's plan, and even reading about pastors and church leaders that have just made mistakes, you know, and it's destroyed their careers.
Dwight Vogt:It's not destroyed, it's destroyed their families, and these are men of God. Quote unquote. You know that got sideways and I thought, wow, you know, it's just. The destruction is strange, it's a lot. Well, I think, if you're, but God did it, I mean, I'm not being, I don't know what to say, I'm being down on it in the sense that it's so strong, so powerful, but also it's the beauty of God in creating something magnificent. So it goes both ways. If you want magnificent, you have. Power, you have beauty.
Scott Allen:You have beauty. Yeah, I think that the incredible destructiveness of, of, of the abuse of sex, is points to the power of it and the beauty of it. You know, on the other side, dwight, and I was thinking about your wife who's?
Scott Allen:a. You know she's a a counselor, and you know you've mentioned to me more than once how much brokenness that she hears about on a daily basis because of this area. Right, you know, and so it just—that's not talked about. You know we're not—there's certain things nowadays you just don't want to talk about, you can't talk about, you can't talk about all of the brokenness that comes. But, boy, we need to. You know we need to because we care, you know we care about people. We don't want them to experience that tragic brokenness. And this is also the loss of life. I mean, let's be honest, how many lives have been lost through abortion, killed?
Dwight Vogt:So that's the abuse of sex and it goes on. But I think that contrast you drew it out again again that the contrast of the power and the beauty is is what makes it so destructive.
Dwight Vogt:But that contrast really is. And I I think about uh, you know how much we love marriages, or the marriage marriage ceremony. Uh, you've had a daughter get married recently and I've had a my daughter's getting married and I'm thinking she's going to come down that aisle. There's going to be hundreds of people there. There's going to be this huge celebration and it's about a man and a woman coming together and we're making the biggest deal in the world. It's one of the biggest events of my life, you know, and it's about this. It's about the grandeur and the beauty of a male and female coming together and creating a family. Yeah, you know, creating a life together.
Scott Allen:Just on that, dwight, you know we think of sex sometimes as private, but it's not at all. I mean, and the marriage ceremony?
Scott Allen:the marriage ceremony is part of it, you know it has massive public consequences, and the reason is it's the beginning of a new family. I mean, sex is not private because of one word children. Gk Chesterton once said that sex is an instinct that produces an institution, the family, a small state or commonwealth. So it's not—this is, you know, this is that's why we have marriage ceremonies and we celebrate the beginning of this new thing that's never existed before a new marriage and then, lord willing, a new family and all that comes from that, just the ripples through generations that come from that. So it has, you know, massive public consequences. So I want to just you know, while we're talking about the truth about sex, I just want to talk about the impact that it's had culturally over the years. I think we take these things for granted, but we ought not to. We ought to go back and just kind of recount how radical, positive this biblical, true view of sex has been.
Scott Allen:You know the ancient pagan cultures of the world. Before this true biblical understanding of sex emerged, they had no limits on sexual behavior, and so when the biblical truth about sex emerged, it really did work a cultural revolution of sorts and it did this by restraining and channeling sex into, you know, monogamous marriage, and that had huge benefits. It had benefits for women, because no longer did women have to compete with others for their husband's love, and it had massive benefits for children, because children then were bound to the two people whose biology created or produced them, and all sorts of research has been done that show that there's just such massive positive outcomes for children raised by their biological parents. And so this didn't exist in culture after culture around the world prior to this kind of the Bible, this biblical understanding of sex and marriage and family coming into being. It really was in some ways the most radical and powerful thing that shaped cultures today, and it's being lost. Today we're kind of reverting back to this kind of pagan, you know, this pagan form of sexuality.
Luke Allen:Yeah, one of the most obvious examples of that is when Christianity came into the Roman Empire. Yes. Because the Roman Empire had a very pagan understanding of sexuality. Right.
Luke Allen:And, as always happens in those types of societies, not always, almost always happens in those types of societies is men dominate and women and children suffer. And then here comes Christianity and the Christians with an extremely high view of women. And it was such a black and white contrast in the way that women are treated inside of the Christian and Jewish circles at the time of the early church. No kidding.
Luke Allen:Again, at the beginning of this discussion, we lined up the two definitions and unfortunately, the biblical definition is no longer the predominant definition, at least in my culture, as well as many cultures around the world, and instead it has been replaced by a false definition. Dad, why don't you just read that false definition again? And then let's talk about the types of cultures that that definition creates, which is easy, because those are the types of cultures that surround most of us who are listening to this.
Scott Allen:Sure, yeah. So today's sex has been redefined in kind of three ways. The first way is it's become synonymous with gender, which is viewed as a social construct. So sex is now a person's subjective sense of their sexual identity, without regard to biology or anatomy. So this is a whole LGBTQ, et cetera, et cetera, string of alphabet. This is a whole LGBTQ, et cetera, et cetera, string of alphabet. And then, secondly, sex has been redefined as the ultimate source of personal identity and meaning.
Scott Allen:You know, this gender identity or having sex is required for any kind of fulfilled, meaningful human life. And then the third one is just sex as recreation, just any kind of recreational activity that's done to give pleasure, and it really is nothing more than that. It's just pure something to do because I'm bored, I want to have some recreation, or whatever it is. So I think all three of those are active today. All three of those overlapping kind of ideas are what are dominating our culture today.
Scott Allen:Um, sex really has, um in in our current time, uh, been you know where. The Bible it kind of has this beautiful mosaic where sex is connected to procreation and children and families, and it's all part of one beautiful package. Today, sex has just been decoupled from all of those things. It's decoupled from marriage, it's decoupled from procreation, it's decoupled from children, it's decoupled from all of those things. It's decoupled from marriage, it's decoupled from procreation, it's decoupled from children, it's decoupled from families. So it's just there's this kind of reducing and decoupling of sex that we're experiencing today, and I think that's because of the rejection of God. You know, we've rejected God, we've rejected the design that he had for sex, rejected God, we've rejected the design that he had for sex, and that's part of this larger package of things that are being rejected. The social consequences of this, again, as we've said, are just enormous.
Luke Allen:I think all three of those, I would say, are the predominant and most mainstream understanding of the word sex. But in more Christian circles, I think, sex is also just defined as um, at least for a lot of young, young Christians. It's uh, stay away, it's gross, it's uh, you know it's bad, you know I, I, I, the purity culture promoted that a little bit. It was kind of an overreaction to the sexual revolution and the fact that it was like do not even think about this until the right time.
Luke Allen:And uh, I think that was also a wrong definition. That was uh harmful to some people growing up in Christian circles. Um, not as dominant of a definition as these ones, but uh, a lot of people who thought that way for a long time um, which is sad, because then when you get married you still they have to kind of reprogram their brain to think oh, now this is good, you know, whereas before it was bad and it was just a wrong way of explaining this to young people of it's great the whole way, you know it's it's great, but wait, you know not it's bad until so.
Luke Allen:Great, but wait, you know not it's bad until so.
Scott Allen:And that might have just been, you know misunderstanding from young people, or it might have been bad messaging from people speaking to them. Well, it's a good point, luke. I think within the church, the sexual revolution that started in the 1950s in the West and has just continued to spiral out of control. It's just created this wasteland, honestly, around this topic of sex in our day, and so the Church has struggled to react to that. I think you know how do we respond to that, and the purity culture that you mentioned is one of those responses, and the problem when you're responding or reacting to something that's happening in the culture is it's easy to get into kind of excesses of different sorts.
Scott Allen:And, yeah, so sex can be viewed as this. Yeah, this I don't know. Like you said, I don't know. It's interesting for me to hear you talk that way, because that was a movement that I wasn't really a part of, even though, as a homeschool dad, I was aware of it, you know, and I know it's. You know, and I guess when I first heard about it, I thought, well, this is good. Yeah, we should emphasize this idea that sex is for marriage and should be protected until then, but the negative side of it is it's this kind of yucky thing, I don't know.
Dwight Vogt:I wasn't aware so much that that was part of it, but maybe it was. No, I think that's the problem. I think it took. Sex is bad, sex is bad sex is bad.
Scott Allen:Oh, you're married, sex is good. Okay, got it, dwight. And all at once you have to switch your mind. Don't talk about it, don't think about it. Yeah, exactly. Which leads to this idea. It's now good and beautiful.
Dwight Vogt:Wait, it was always good and beautiful, it's just no. I think that was it. It was too much of a contrast.
Scott Allen:Well, yeah, because it was the emphasis on how sex is being misused and abused in the culture. So it gave this emphasis on it being bad.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah yeah, I remember my grandma. She didn't think pregnant women should go to church because it showed they had sex. How embarrassing.
Scott Allen:Yeah, it was embarrassing, that something happened here.
Dwight Vogt:I thought, grandma, it's okay, it's okay, children are born.
Scott Allen:Good point, I know.
Dwight Vogt:Too much information. I'm sorry, I know. Yeah, I just think— Too much information.
Scott Allen:I'm sorry your grandma's a long time yeah it's so much better when we just talk about it. Let's just talk about what it is and we can be honest about how it's—. Yeah, I think the right way to talk about it is this incredible, beautiful, powerful thing that comes right out of Genesis 1. It's right at the beginning of creation. It's who we are, it's how God made us, but it's totally abused today. Totally. We've rejected God's design for it, and so it's become such a dark thing, it's true, such a source of so much brokenness. So you have to deal with both of those things at the same time. Yeah, Hmm.
Luke Allen:Yeah, um back to Nancy Piercey's book love that body.
Luke Allen:She says that when you have a mind, body separation, um, and she she says it essentially leads to three main categories of destructive outcomes, one being abortion, the next one being the whole gender identity confusion of today, with the homosexuality and the LGBTQ movement, and then the third one being pornography. And then inside of those, there's a lot of consequences and there's a lot of different categories, but what she says is important to keep in mind is a lot of times it's easy for us to pick the category that we're the least inclined towards and say that one's the worst, almost as a virtue, signaling one. But pornography is not as bad as the whole gender identity issues, transing, the kids that's the worst Pornography's not as bad.
Luke Allen:Well, maybe that's because you struggle with pornography, or something like that they're all wrong. Definitions of sex.
Scott Allen:Yeah, exactly right. Well said, luke, they're all messed up in all sorts of different ways. I think it might be good just to look at them a little bit separately too, these false definitions.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that'd be great, and.
Scott Allen:I want to start with the first one. Well, not the first one, actually. I want to start with the one that says sex is central to our identity. It becomes kind of an idol, and I think you can trace this back to Sigmund Freud. Obviously this is going to oversimplify it a little bit, but Freud was really the one that taught the West that your sex drive needs to be unhindered and that any form of hindrance on that sexual expression is really at the root of all sorts of psychological disorders. So if you're struggling with any kind of problem mentally, you know it's because of you know you're this kind of sexual repression and you know, I think Margaret Sanger was really big on that. She was the founder of Planned Parenthood and I think for our listeners who aren't familiar with this it's really important to know this.
Scott Allen:Margaret Sanger was an American sexual activist but she viewed sex kind of in the same vein as Freud, as this kind of ultimate good and really even a sense of earthly salvation. So then the problem became children. Right, because sex produces children. And you know, if sex is this source of kind of salvation, or I've got to have unbridled sexual experience or I'll be messed up. You know, children become a problem. So her whole life was devoted to creating a way that would separate sex from procreation and she dedicated her life to that and she was the founder of the pill and all sorts of things that separated sex from procreation. Now we live in the world that she created. Like we come into this world today and that's all out there. That's all seen as something that's good even, and it's hardly talked about in churches. But I think it's important to recognize where it came from. It came from people like Margaret Sanger who said we've got to live a full human life, you've got to have as much sex as you possibly can have and you've got to therefore take care of the problem of children. We've got to limit children, separate sex from children. So that's still with us, by the way. I mean that idea is really the dominant idea that's being taught to our kids in public schools when they teach sex ed. Idea is really the dominant idea that's being taught to our kids in public schools when they teach sex ed.
Scott Allen:And today, when people talk in our culture about abortion, they talk about it as quote-unquote essential health care and I think it's rooted in that idea. We've got to have sex in order to, as Freud said, be, you know, fulfilled human beings, and you know so. Abortion, then, is cast not as a murder of an unborn child but essential health care for my well-being, if you will. It's really dark, very demonic, because it leads to the death of millions of people every year. I mean, again, we think about the horror of the Holocaust, but abortion actually has a much higher, you know, death toll, and it's right in our own country, right here, right now, on our watch, so to speak. So all of these ideas have consequences, really dark consequences.
Scott Allen:And I think in the Church you even get some of this because, again, the Church, we're reluctant to talk about birth control or just even understand this history, first of all, to talk about birth control or just even understand this history first of all. And then, secondly, you know, like you were saying, luke, there's this kind of weird kind of ambivalence on pornography even. You know, yeah, you know it's not good, but you know what can we expect? And it's, you know, people have got to express themselves sexually. So you get mixed messages, even on pornography today in the church. So that's one thread, this whole kind of Freudian Sanger, sex as essential, kind of thread. That I think, the consequences being birth control, abortion, pornography, all that really dark stuff today.
Luke Allen:Yeah, a lot of it can be driven back to that Sanger was a contemporary of Hitler too, which is weird or makes sense, I guess. Both fans of eugenics. Yes eugenics. I believe she died in 1966, so she witnessed all of that and was still a fan of eugenics, even after the war.
Scott Allen:Yeah, so she, like Hitler, I mean took Darwinism completely seriously. Eugenics is just animal husbandry applied to human beings, but it's this idea that we've got to cull the population of weaker groups right. And in her view, the weaker groups were blacks, and you know she had her. You know. So consequently, yeah, the Planned Parenthood clinics that popped up in the United States around that time were in black communities. It was eugenic, you know, in its expression. We didn't have to cull the population, she was very dark. Same ideas that Hitler had. In fact, hitler actually went back and said he learned a lot of this from people in the West, like Sanger, who were pushing these same ideas that you know rooted in Darwinism and Freud.
Luke Allen:Another one of your three false definitions of the word is it's just recreation, it's just an activity done for pleasure. This one's confusing to me because, on one hand, the one we were just talking about is it is my identity, which unfortunately makes it really hard for Christians to talk about loving manner, with grace and truth, as we always should be doing, because people you know it's it's so rooted to who they are. It's not like you're talking to someone who struggles with alcohol and is an alcoholic, because that's not who they are Like. They don't identify my identity as being an alcoholic. They they usually recognize. I don't want to have this as part of my life and I want to get over it and you can talk to them and kind of lead them through those steps To this one. It's I am, you know, non-binary.
Dwight Vogt:And if you challenge that as if it's you know a sin struggle that they have.
Luke Allen:They're like no, but this is me. How am I going to not be me? You know it makes it really difficult.
Scott Allen:Exactly, luke. Let's just talk about that for a second. So you know, today, for those people, you know again, there is no God and what defines them, kind of at the highest level, is their sexuality. So the Christian would say, no, you have to understand, there's the primary relationship, our relationship with our Heavenly Father. That's the most important one, that's the one that really defines you. And then there's relationships to one another, including sexual relationships. They're important but they're not ultimate. But if you get rid of God, then sex does become kind of ultimate. It's what defines you.
Scott Allen:So when we're talking to people that believe those set of ideas and we say, well, sex is a choice you make, you know they would say, no, it's not. This isn't a choice I make, this is who I am. Like. It's their deeply held identity, you know now, is wrapped up in their sexuality. So it does make sense in this worldview that so when you're saying to somebody you're challenging them if they're homosexual, you shouldn't, you know, behave in a homosexual manner, you know what you're attacking there. It's essentially the equivalent of saying it's attacking their very humanity in that view. Yeah, so we can go on and talk.
Scott Allen:But yeah, let's come back to the idea of sex as recreation. I think, luke, you see this in the hookup culture, right, and we've got all the dating apps now and the hookup apps that are out there, and so this is still very prevalent. It's more prevalent now than it ever was, probably. In some ways, yeah, it's just a form, it's a devaluing of it, though, to just a form of recreation, and you know, again, there's no harm in doing it, you know, it's just what you do, you know, and pornography, hookup culture, all of this stuff. So that's very real and very, very destructive. So it, you know it, views sex in this radically individualistic way. It's what I get out of it, right, and it doesn't matter what the consequences are for you know, for the person that I'm having sex with, the social, emotional or the reproductive results of it None of that is considered in the equation. So it's so radically destructive.
Luke Allen:And it's yeah, like we said before, it comes with consequences. They've done a lot of studies on people that have sex before marriage and outside of the constructs of marriage and it leads to a lot of harm down the sex before marriage, um, and with you know, outside of the constructs of marriage, and it leads to a lot of harm down the road in marriage um which makes a lot of sense.
Luke Allen:It's just you're, you're, you're framing your mindset of this, this thing, as just no big deal, but then, as soon as you're married, it's, it's a very big deal and you can't exactly just switch overnight Like, um, you know people that say, uh, you know, I don't want to get married yet, so we're just going to live together and just try this thing out.
Luke Allen:That mindset of the. This is just a temporary kind of you know. Just we're testing it out. You're not going to just change that mindset overnight because you have a ring on your finger.
Dwight Vogt:You're still going to carry that mindset into marriage.
Luke Allen:So you shouldn't you shouldn't treat it that way it's. It's that you're just, you're just forming your brain to treat it as no big deal and that's not going to just stop overnight and, as such, you're going to probably have a broken marriage because of it.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and people just aren't even getting married now, because when you decouple sex from marriage and procreation, as we've done, then you know why would you get married? You know, you just have sex, right, you know, and it's this again, radically autonomous individual thing. So, yeah, we're seeing marriage rates plummeting in the West and rates of reproduction also plummeting, and again, the social consequences for that are just, you know, some people have called it cultural suicide. You know, when you destroy that basic cell that's built around, that's tightly coupled around, sex, marriage, procreation, family, when that thing comes unraveled, as we've done, it just everything falls apart. And so, yeah, god created those things to be tightly connected together and not, you know, they work together in a harmony and we've just completely again separated them.
Scott Allen:Let's just talk a little bit about the last aspect, because this is such a. You know, we've not only separated sex from, you know, marriage and from family and procreation, we've separated it from male-female. Now, right, so I mean, that's the last kind of deconstructive step that we've taken here, you know, and we've said male-female don't even matter and people can't even define what those things are. Now, and now, you know, it's just we talk about sexual or, you know, we don't talk about sex, we talk about gender. We talk about gender identity, and that is not limited to anything you know beyond your human imagination. So this idea that we can have 50 gender identities is foolish, because there's really no limit, right, it's as limitless as the human imagination. And try building a society around that, you know. But we're trying right now and, yeah, we're seeing again.
Scott Allen:We've talked about this earlier, but we're seeing the consequences of that, you know. So, you radically autonomous individual, you determine your own gender identity and then everyone around you is expected to affirm that. Your parents are expected to affirm that, and if they don't, by the way, we can pull the kids out of the home. I mean, california just I think it was just about a week ago or two weeks ago passed laws that said that in the public schools, the kids will be taught to explore and to identify their own gender identity, including transgender, and then to express that, including, you know, through hormones and radical surgeries. And parents get no say in the matter.
Luke Allen:And you know if parents reject that, then they can be pulled out of the home.
Scott Allen:Yeah, go ahead, luke. What's that?
Luke Allen:Yeah, I was just saying they purposely try to hide it from parents because they know that parents will speak reason into the kids.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and so you're. Expect you. You are not only expected to affirm whatever somebody's gender identity is. You will be coerced into doing it through emotional blackmail. If you don't, then you're complicit in suicide. So it works. I mean, people are guilted into this. Um, in churches, you get, you know, people really messed up on this one. So, yeah, so you know it's, this is such a dark road to go down, but this is the road we're going down right now, with men you know biological men and women sports locker rooms, and you know it's and women sports locker rooms, and you know it's actually not even going to stop here. There's really nothing that stops the degradation. The next step beyond this is, of course, pedophilia, which is coming, and then it goes on and on and on and it just creates unbelievable brokenness.
Luke Allen:It's interesting because when you do talk to most people they will draw the line somewhere. You know, on this kind of stuff it's like oh you know, they always do Right. Because at some point we are made the image of God and we think things are just too crazy when we when we pull it so far out of his design.
Luke Allen:So you know, a lot of people will say like, oh, you know, oh, homosexual marriage is fine, Maybe even adults who want to be transgender and do whatever they want, no problem, they're adults. But no, you cannot have pedophilia, and I'm like you're just drawing the line at a different place.
Scott Allen:God draws a line at male and female. Exactly who draws lines right? If you think there's a line when you get rid of God when it comes to defining sexuality, you're fooling yourself. Anything is possible now and it will be possible. So it's dark. We are living in the wasteland of the sexual revolution. It's just been all torn apart and people's lives have been broken as a result, and our society is paying the price.
Dwight Vogt:So it's really dark time that we live in with this right now.
Scott Allen:So, scott, what's the solution? Don't leave me in this dark place.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, you wrote the book. You wrote a book to say, if we recapture the 10 words, we can bring hope and help to the world.
Scott Allen:Yeah, well, I think the key is understanding both. You know, understanding both quite clearly. What is the true definition of sex? How is it that God created it? You have to understand that, talk about that. You know really love and cherish that and then understand how it's been so radically destroyed today. And you have to see that kind of open your eyes and see what you see, see the brokenness of all of that. And here's how it turns around.
Scott Allen:I think, dwight, is that this is something that we all make choices about. This is something we can do something about in our own marriages, in our own families, in our own lives. So just making intentional choices to say I am going to follow God's design. He's the one who made this, he knows how it's best for not only my own personal flourishing but for the flourishing of a society. He knows best, he created it and I'm going to push into that. I'm going to live that way, and that means saying no, saying no to pornography, saying no to sex outside of marriage, saying yes to the way God created sex, saying yes to the tightly connected unity of sex, marriage, family, procreation, all of that you know, and you know living that out. I'm going to make some choices to really, to the best of my ability, with the help of other Christians, turn away from sin in this area, live this out.
Scott Allen:And yeah, not only that, but as we have opportunity to speak out right in society and in culture and here you can be expected to pay a heavy price, right, when you push back on this one, there's going to be a price to be paid. But this is where, again, I think of—I always go back to that famous picture, that image in my mind of Tiananmen Square, right and the tank right. This is the onslaught of the regime pushing its agenda and the one guy that walks out in front of the tank and stops the tank right. You know, I think we have to be the person walking in front of this tank that's rolling down the road right now, and you know and expect to pay a price for that. But do it for the good right, the good of your family, of your community, of your society. Thoughts from you guys on this one of how we turn this around.
Luke Allen:Well, a lot of us have probably heard that interview that Elon Musk did with Jordan Peterson recently, and you know we need to start speaking the truth out on these things because it hurts people and in Elon Musk's case, it hurt his son and it hurt him.
Luke Allen:Uh, elon Musk, one of his sons, you know, during I guess it was back during COVID um came out as transgender and, uh, the doctors or the psychologist told Musk that if you don't affirm your child's gender new gender, um, you know. And, uh, you know, let him go on these hormones and sterilize himself and whatnot. Then you are, you know, potentially uh endangering your child of suicide. Um, so musk went along with it, uh, under intense pressure, and now he says that he lost his son and he is.
Scott Allen:It's just so, so sad to see it radicalized him, didn't it, luke yeah?
Luke Allen:talk about this because it hurt him and you know we need to. We need to speak up now or you know the consequences the evil consequences of this wrong definition of sex will hurt people around us, and just let that motivate us to speak out. You know we're not doing this because we're bigoted. We're not doing this because we hate people. We're not doing this because we want to appear more righteous than other people. We're doing it because we love these people and we want the best for them and if you, love someone enough.
Luke Allen:You want the design that God has given to them for their life, for them to live in that design. The worst thing you can do is not push them towards that.
Luke Allen:The most unloving thing you can do is to not speak out for them. Nancy Piercy has a quote about how much just this whole argument doesn't make sense. She says why is it considered acceptable to carve up a person's body to match their inner sense of self, but bigoted to help them change their sense of self to match their inner sense of self, but bigoted to help them change their sense of self to match their body?
Luke Allen:It's like let's start there, let's help these people change their inner sense of self to match their body, you know, help them change their minds you know because their minds are warped, or you know accept and embrace their embodied you know, selves, you know right Instead of immediately jumping to the most radical possible solution, which is, you know, sterilizing people and literally carving up their bodies. It's extremely evil. Let's, let's start with helping them just change their minds.
Scott Allen:It is evil and to compound the evil of it, you know, it's become a huge money-making thing. I was listening to that the other day, and just how much people pay for that kind of surgery. And then, of course, it messes up their bodies so much that they have to go back and continue to get treatment their whole lives. And our medical industry has kind of encouraged that, because it becomes a cash cow. When you separate medicine from God right and medicine just as a means to enrich yourself, that's also just compounding the darkness of this whole thing, isn't it? But yeah, luke, absolutely I really love what you said. These are choices that we make for the good of people because we love them and we don't want to see all of that destruction that we know is going to come from this. Elon Musk is such an interesting character. He's not a Christian? I don't think so. I think he doesn't uphold a Christian view of sex.
Scott Allen:He hasn't lived that out. I don't believe in his own life, but boy on this one area.
Scott Allen:He feels the brokenness of it, you know, and it's radicalized him, you know, with his own son. So good for him for speaking out, which he's done, you know. I hope he keeps moving towards the light in all of the areas here. Dwight, what are your thoughts on this in terms of how we turn this around? You know, I do think it's important to realize we're way down the road on the sexual revolution. I mean, we are living in the wasteland. It's not going to go away anytime soon. We just have to. There's a level that we just have to kind of accept that reality. It's a dark, dark time, but it doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do, right, you know so.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, Well, and I just think of you know it goes back to scott, that in the dna we talk about transformation in a community and it starts with the individual and you've you've already said, that starts with us, and I'm thinking, oh, you know what? Do I do with me and myself? And and then, how do I support clarity and truth in my family and uh, then with others, my neighbors, my friends, you guys, this podcast.
Dwight Vogt:Where it gets a little challenging is what do you do to change the world? The global, you know, and that one's a little more hard. How do I change the world?
Scott Allen:I wish I could, I think you know, at some level you have to leave that in God's hands too.
Scott Allen:you know I mean there's things that you can do, and there's things that go beyond what you can do, you know.
Dwight Vogt:Exactly, and I know that. One thing I can do is recognize that it's also the hand of deception of the Satan working in our world and in our culture and to pray against that for people that they would be liberated from deception, whether that's you know a movie star, a politician, a friend, you know, yeah, I can do more than that too, but I have to start with praying God, help them, free them.
Scott Allen:So good. Dwight Prayer is so important, you know, because behind all the brokenness is a spiritual battle and is an enemy.
Scott Allen:you know the evil one, you know who wants to kill, steal and destroy, and he's done just an incredible job through sex the breaking down of sex, and because it's a spiritual battle, we do need to pray, and you know we need to pray for our friends and family members. You know that God would just open them up to the truth. Yeah, I just. I've often thought, though, as society breaks down, you know, it's kind of, you know it's one thing and then it's another. It's first of all it's gay marriage, and then it's transgenderism, and then it's pedophilia, and it just goes down this dark, dark hole. At some point, right, Won't people kind of go enough is enough, and I think we are kind of seeing that a little bit right now. Do you guys agree? There's been pushback on transgenderism and transgender surgeries in a way that what there wasn't, let's say, against same-sex marriage. So I'm kind of heartened by that.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I'm seeing it also in the discussions around pornography and you see secular scientists saying this is messing up our kids' brains and messing up their physical bodies and maybe we should stay away from this. It's kind of like when people realized smoking was bad. It didn't take a Christian to recognize that. It's just no, physically this is bad. No, that's right, luke.
Scott Allen:That's a good—yeah. There's secular people, non-believers, who are coming to that conclusion, you know, with pornography and starting to push back, so yeah, so I think there's just some level that the brokenness has gotten so bad. You know that people are going okay and they've been shamed, right, like if you don't accept people's lifestyle choices and sexual choices, then you're a bigot, like at some point. That's kind of run its course. You know, you can only call me a bigot so much, right.
Scott Allen:So Well, let's keep doing our part, guys, and I think part of that is just, you know God has given us the answer in his word. You know he's graciously taught us what this is, sex is, and you know it's an incredible, powerful, beautiful thing and let's uphold that. And you know, I think this is something that has to be talked about in our churches. It's part of basic discipleship. At this point, you know it needs to be and it needs to start with the truth, the goodness, the beauty, the power and how it's so tightly tied to again this broader mosaic of just life, of just healthy, flourishing societies, so that all needs to be understood and then we can. Yeah, I think we can go from there.
Luke Allen:Yep, yeah.
Luke Allen:today's word of sex is the perfect example of why words really matter and why, as Christians, we need to stand up for God's true definitions if we want to fulfill our command to go and make disciples of all nations, as all of us here on the podcast are very passionate about. So, yeah, again, this is the podcast series where we are preparing for the upcoming book launch of the 10 Words book. Again, the title of that book is 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World, restoring the True Meanings of Our Most Important Words. And again, those words are truth, human sex, which we talked about today. During the next, those words are truth, human sex, which we talked about today. During the next episode of the series, we're gonna talk about marriage, and then freedom, authority, justice, faith, beauty and love. I'm so excited to continue through this series with you guys. So, yeah, we are so thankful for you and your time today in joining us. I hope that you will help us as we continue to promote this book and get ready for the book launch.
Luke Allen:In the next few weeks, you can expect to see more information about this book come out besides this podcast, including a video series that goes through each one of these words and, just like we're doing here on the podcast, explains the true and the false definitions, but in a little bit of a more concise manner. So I'm excited for those videos to come out. We also have a study guide that's going to go along with the book and so much more coming soon. You can expect to hear more about the book anywhere that you can find the DNA online, including on Instagram, facebook and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciplenationsorg. In a couple of weeks, we're going to have a landing page that you can go to for this book specifically and find out all the information you want about that book. So, again, make sure to let you guys know about that as soon as I have that. Thanks again for joining us today, guys. Dwight, dad, thank you for your time today and we'll catch everyone next time here on. Ideas have Consequences.