Ideas Have Consequences

Is It Important That We Overturn Same-Sex Marriage? | Katy Faust

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 3 • Episode 2

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 56:16

Episode Summary: 

Almost every cultural and political battle we face eventually lands on the shoulders of children. Modern culture talks endlessly about rights but often overlooks the rights of children. If children truly have rights, then marriage cannot mean whatever adults want it to mean. In this episode, Katy Faust argues that when marriage is redefined, parenthood is rewritten, and children are the ones who lose. She shows why defending God’s design for marriage and family isn’t merely a religious conviction, but a natural law argument with profound implications for society as a whole.

We explore a child-centered framework for marriage, IVF, surrogacy, and sexual ethics grounded in general revelation, social science, and the biblical vision of human flourishing. The Obergefell case legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. and had profound ripple effects on identity, parenthood, and a growing commodification of children. 

As a culture, we are becoming more aware about how redefinitions of marriage have harmed children. Do you feel at a loss for how to meaningfully think about this and talk about it? Join the movement to grow in clarity, courage, and meaningfully protect the voiceless in the coming generation.

–

How well do you understand the implications of gay marriage and its impact on children? Quiz: https://greaterthancampaign.com/


Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/


🎙️Featured Speaker: 

Formerly the picture of a peacemaking pastor’s wife, Katy Faust is founder and president of Them Before Us, a global children’s rights non-profit. Between soccer carpool and church duties, she’s a mom on a mission against the progressive overreach—a globe-trotting speaker, hand-shaking policy influencer, and regular contributor to a variety of conservative outlets. Katy testifies and publishes widely on controversial topics such as “men and women are different” and “children should not be bought and sold.” She helped design the teen edition of the Witherspoon Institute’s CanaVox, which studies sex, gender, marriage, and relationships from a natural law perspective.


📌 Recommended Links

     👉 Greater Than: Join the Movement to Protect Kids | Greater Than Campaign

     👉 Them Before Us: Home - Them Before Us

     👉 Truth Rising: https://youtu.be/XXc5IhgSZkg?si=yV2EKvacvGJEKRRB

     👉 Recommended Episode: What’s the Harm of IVF? With Katy Faust - Disciple Nations Alliance

     👉 Book: 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World by Scott Allen


💻 Follow Us:

     📲Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/disciplenations

     📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disciplenations

     📽️YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DiscipleNationsAlliance/


Episode Webpage

Katy Faust

If you believe that life begins at conception, then the baby making industry of IVF is a greater victimizer than the baby taking industry of planned parenthood. Marriage does have to do with children, and we know it because all the different places that have legalized gay marriage have simultaneously and sometimes instantaneously revised their parenthood laws. The Christian worldview, especially as it relates to the dignity and rights and protection and well-being of children, has something distinct to offer. Imago Day is at the beginning of that, and we need to take it into the biblical and historical expression.

Introducing Katie Faust And Themes

Luke Allen

Hey everyone, thanks for joining us here on Ideas Have Consequences for another episode. We are so excited for today's episode. We are joined by Katie Faust from Then Before Us for actually the third time here on the podcast. She is always so much fun to have with us on the show. But before we introduce her and hop into the interview itself, I just want to tell you guys a little bit more about this show. As Christians, we all know that our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. However, our mission, the Great Co-mission, also involves working to transform our cultures so that they increasingly reflect the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected this second part of her mission, and today many Christians are having little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God. And that is exactly what we talked about today in this episode with Katie Faust. Today I was joined here on the podcast by my dad and co-host, Scott Allen, and we're also joined by Tim Williams joining us from North Carolina. And I am Luke Allen. I am the producer and one of the co-hosts here on the show as well. Dad, before we get going into the interview, uh could you give people just a quick highlight of what to expect in this episode?

Scott Allen

Yeah, thanks, Luke. It was so good to have Katie on this week in particular, just because last week was the big kind of public revealing and announcement of this special movement that she's right at the center of called Greater Than, a movement to overturn the Supreme Court ruling of Obergafell on same-sex marriage, it which effectively redefined the biblical definition of marriage in the broader culture, in law and curriculum and whatnot. So such a wonderful movement. Um, and uh we had a chance to ask her about it and how we can support her and be a part of that. And we got into several other things that were I thought just super uh uh eye-opening and insightful as well, and uh just so appreciate her passion.

Luke Allen

Yeah, so uh without further ado, let's hop into that discussion.

Scott Allen

Well, hi Katie. Thank you for joining us again. It's great to have you back on Ideas Have Consequences.

Speaker 3

It's great to be with you. Thanks so much. I love people who are equipping people to do the work of God.

The Big Question: What Is Human

Scott Allen

Well, good, Katie. And um, Katie, I feel such a connection to you both uh for the fact that we are trying to make a difference in the Pacific Northwest, you up in uh Washington State, Seattle area, uh well beyond that as well, but uh, and uh us down here in Oregon. But also we had uh we came out with books on kind of woke social justice almost at the same time. Uh, and uh I I feel a connection to you, and I'm grateful for your work on that. Uh, just a brief introduction. Katie Faust is the founder and president of Them Before Us, which is a global children's rights nonprofit. Uh, she is a mother on a mission. She's uh been so active recently, testifying and publishing on a wide variety of uh controversial topics, such as men and women are different and children should not be bought and sold. Those are actually kind of controversial topics these days, Katie, as you know. Um she's recently helped to design the teen edition of the Witherspoon Institute's Canavax, which studies sex, gender, marriage, and relationship from a natural law perspective. If we have time, I'd like to hear more about that, Katie. And then most recently, Katie, and we will want to ask you questions about the new initiative that was launched last week that we saw, the Greater Than initiative. So we'll want to hear more about that. But uh we thought we'd start with this clip that uh Luke brought to my attention last year when you were on Jordan Peterson's podcast. I just thought it was so powerful and spoke to the things that we're so passionate about here at the DNA. So, Luke, why don't you play that?

Speaker 3

We're talking about the population crisis. We're talking about, you know, all of these reproductive technologies and these different forms of family. Ultimately, they all have the same source. It's the same question. It all comes down to the same thing. And the question is, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human? And honestly, like a word for the Christians out there, you are the ones with the right answer to this. I mean, the humanists did not get it right, the postmodernists did not get it right, the evolutionists don't get it right. You, the ones that understand the Imago Day, you, the one that understands who gives and who takes life, you who understands that we are made in the image of God, male and female, He created them, you who understand that Job, Isaiah, and Jeremiah were all set apart in the womb, you who understand that Christ came incarnate as a child, as an infant, and said, Let the little children come to me. And if you want to attain the kingdom of heaven, you have to become like one of these. You who understand that God has devised serious corporal punishment if you cause one of these little ones to stumble. You are the ones, Christians, who have the right answer to what it means to be human. And the world is desperate for us to take that truth into all these conversations about marriage, family formation, death with dignity, abortion, IVF, reproductive technologies, asrogacy, marriage, transgenderism, every single thing, every hot button topic, everything that gets you canceled on Facebook, and everything that gets you banned from Thanksgiving dinner ultimately comes down to what does it mean to be human? And that is a life-saving answer. That is a child protective answer. It's a civilizational defending answer. So you need to increase your knowledge and then increase your voice in the public sphere. It probably is the thing that is going to save the nation.

Scott Allen

Katie. Katie, did you it was was that off the cuff? That's amazing.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, yeah, off the cuff. But um, you know, but I talk about I talk about these things, but I also listen to a lot of incredible thought leaders and people that are working in the space to um combat doctor-assisted suicide and um, you know, follow the people that have been harmed by transgender ideology. I mean, it's like I follow enough people in all these different spheres. And then I follow, you know, the Carl Trumans and the Dr. Mollers and the John Stone Streets who put it all together. And so not a whole lot of like original Katie, just like tightly packaged KD there. And um, it cracks me up because a couple weeks after that interview came out, I read all like at the time, 2000 comments. And um, because you learn so much from the comments and and you hear the stories of you actually find incredible stories in the comments, but I would say the overwhelming um, if there was a dominant like aggregate represented in the comments, it was I really get what she's saying, but could she stop yelling? And I'm like, fair, fair, like, and you really got a very like yelling clip there.

Children In History And Christian Reform

Scott Allen

Well, listen, it was very very passionate. Passionate. Yeah, and it was um, I don't know, it was amazing how many really important ideas you put into that. I thought it was, yeah, it was inspired. Uh you you did imply though, Katie, um, I mean, you were talking to the church, right? You were saying, church, you have the true answer to the question, what does it mean to be human? It's life-giving, it's civilizational building, it's the, you know, it is the true answer. But you were implying that we're not as bold or as clear in speaking that and defending that as we ought to be. Is that fair? Yeah. And why do you go ahead? And why is that if that's the case? Because that I I you know, this is a a discussion I want to have with you right at the beginning about the church, about us.

Activism Costs And Courage

Speaker 3

Um I think that there's there's two big reasons why. And there's probably more, but these are the ones that I think are the most dominant. Number one, we have reduced the gospel to something that is completely impotent, and it is love, God, love people. Like I've seen that on numerous church buildings and church signs. I've heard it over and over. What is your mission? Love, God, love people. And I'm like, okay, that's nice. Uh, but a lot of them by love, they mean non-offense. Um, but if you want to biblically define love, that's perfect. Like grace and truth for God, like you know, from God and grace and truth towards people, if you want to take it that way, that's fine. Um, justice will be a part of that. If you look at both biblical uh, like the biblical lexicon and the historical examples, what you have is justice infusing the church. And you can really look at it on a child specific level, that since the dawn of the church 2000 years ago, in a pagan anti-child, child victimizing culture, what you see is the church having a very distinct impact on the status of children, right? Like they exposed their infants, aborted their infants, sold their infants, mutilated their infants, sexually abused their infants, had so much sex outside of wedlock, they created fatherless infants. And like it, children were victimized in every way you could be victimized. The Christians came in, and because of the Imago Day, because of the strong admonition from God that if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, he himself has corporal punishment devised for you and will execute it on you. Um, and because we had the sexual ethic that directed uh sexual activities only within marriage, Christians just live totally differently towards children and it infused all throughout the Roman world. We changed the culture because of the Imago Day, our understanding of that children were part of that and the Christian sexual ethic. But that's not the only time that Christians have gone in and didn't love God love people. They said no. There's some very real applications here of our worldview that might piss off some people, and they did. Christians piss off people wherever they go, whether it's Amy Carmichael who is stealing kids out of Hindu temples that are servicing people in the name of idol worship, or whether it's Christian missionaries who are saying we're not going to go along with the child footbinding thing, or if it's Christians throughout the Islamic world saying we are going to save children and rescue them and keep them from having female genital mutiling surgery. Like the threats against children change all around the world. The Christian response doesn't. The Christian response is, I am willing to sacrifice some level of social acceptance to protect children. So, like I would say that the Christian worldview, especially as it relates to the dignity and rights and protection and well-being of children, has something distinct to offer. Imago Day is at the beginning of that, and we need to take it into the biblical and historical expression. So, number one, I would say it's because um we misunderstand or we misunderstand what it is that the church is supposed to be doing in terms of interfacing with culture. I will say the other thing is like when my husband was in seminary, he there was such a huge emphasis on apologetics. Like you need to be able to defend the word of God and uh explain the Trinity and understand the contradictions in scripture and make sure that you can communicate why Jesus is the only way to heaven and like understand, totally important. What those all really are questions about what is the nature of God? And like that's a really important question. It was the question that was debated among uh the first couple centuries of theologians and historians, and and even the apostles were fighting against some of those bad ideas about the question of what does it mean to be God? That's not actually the major question that the culture is asking today. And so we like to answer the question, what does it mean to be God? It actually costs us less to answer the question, what does it mean to be God?

Scott Allen

Answering the question, what is internal debate within the church, not with the broader culture, right? Yeah.

Speaker 3

And my kids at their public high schools in Seattle, if they say Jesus is my Lord and Savior, their friends will be like, Yeah, whatever, I don't care. But if they say, I reject gay marriage, it's a violation of the rights of children. People will be like, oh, we're not friends anymore. So it's much more costly to speak up and defend questions of what it means to be human rather than what is the nature of God. And I think sometimes Christians do it because they misunderstand what their role in culture is. Sometimes they do it because they really don't want to pay the social price, which can be very, very steep.

Scott Allen

I'm so glad you brought up Amy Carmichael. She's a hero of mine. And I often, when I teach, I bring up uh an incident that happened with her because it's really reflective, I think, of the church today. You know, she was out there working with um, you know, with uh children who were caught up in prostitution in India, and she was she had this broad, kind of very holistic ministry. She was sharing the gospel, but caring for people, their physical needs, upholding human dignity. And missionaries came at that time, new missionaries came and said, all this work that you're doing to help the poor and whatnot, uh, child prostitutes, that's nice, but it's not essential. The essential thing is to get them saved. And she had a comeback kind of like, well, I think people are, you know, souls are more or less attached to bodies, and this kind of separation that you're trying to do doesn't make any sense. That was, you know, that was in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And I think that mindset is still prevalent today, you know, just to underscore what you're saying, we don't think of our faith as a worldview so much as a message of personal or individual salvation and connecting to getting people into heaven. And it doesn't have a lot to say with the here and now and culture and issues in the culture. I think that's such a huge problem, uh, Katie. It sounds like you agree with that.

Speaker 3

So yeah, well, and you know, if you're spending any time, any amount of time in the Old Testament or the New Testament, there's an awful lot of guidance on how it is that we should live and interact with the outside world beyond just save their soul.

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 3

A lot of it does have to do with what is our conduct like towards them? What kind of conversations that might be confrontations should we be having? Why do we need to contend for any why why contend? Why? Um, because these ideas matter, not just in the spiritual realm, but they actually matter as to whether or not a 14-year-old might get an elective double mastectomy. Like those ideas actually matter. And so we have to be contending, not just for saving her soul. I kind of think we should save her breasts too.

Scott Allen

Amen. Katie, two questions here for you. First of all, just in a nutshell, describe your passion and mission, the mission of uh them before us. And how have you seen, since you've been advocating so effectively and God's really been behind you, obviously, the Spirit of God, but how have you seen change since you've really taken up the mantle of advocacy uh around that area of passion and calling that you that God has given you?

Speaker 3

I am generally very, very nice. If you like met me at the grocery store or if we were just like chatting, it does not matter like what your background or your religious conviction or your sexual identity, I'd be like, I mean, literally within five minutes, I'm like, we should go out. Let's hang out for coffee. I just want to be with you. I just want to know you. Like, I am actually so much more of a grace giver than I am a truth teller. So the fact that I'm involved in this tells you that the culture has gone very far astray for somebody like me to be involved in something like this. And the passion has never died, and it's actually something that I don't control, especially the rage. Like when children are victimized, I totally see red. And God help me, I want to destroy you. At minimum, I want to destroy your arguments. Um, and so I have to make sure that the rage is focused in the right place and in the right way. But um, there is just something in me that when an adult says, I think it's okay if this kid sacrifices for me because I just need to go live my best life. Or I just feel really called to be a mom, even though I'm 40 and I don't have a husband. Um, you know, I just really feel like I this is my opportunity to be a mother and be pregnant. And like, okay, so you're saying that your need for a biological child is more important than that child's need for a biological father. Is that what you're saying there? I mean, I I don't have a lot of patience for arguments that victimize children and hopefully can moderate the frustration. But that is an injustice. All of us should be incensed by injustice. And it was very hard the first few, well, not the first few years, but really like when I first started vocalizing all of this publicly, I never hid my convictions from people at all. But when you start talking about it publicly, you'll pay a price. You will very quickly understand who wants to have a conversation and maybe be friends, even if they disagree, and who will not be friends with you unless you disagree. And every friend lost was painful. I wanted all of those friends, even though they hated me and didn't like me. It's when I tell people I understand there's a social cost, I understand there's a social cost. And and even now, when somebody says, Oh, even you know, somebody, my children or their friends, I just saw an interview of your mother. Your mother doesn't think that gay people should be have should be able to have kids. I'm never coming to your house again, and then my kid has to pay for that. I'm just like, Lord, no, please, no, not again. I mean, like I hate it. But there is something about speaking the truth even when it is costly. It is something that is going to save individual lives and save civilization. I am very grateful that I have a bit of a rage response because I think that if I went on my if I defaulted to peacekeeping mode, I would probably con I would probably convince myself using compelling scripture that I didn't need to say anything.

Scott Allen

Katie, d but to the second part of that question that I want to because I Luke, you brought this up as we were talking before Katie came on about how you've sensed with your own friends that she's really moved the needle and her organization and the people who are speaking so passionately in the church, right? There's been a lot of confusion in the church, particularly on issues of surrogacy. You may be pro-life, but you were okay with surrogacy. And that that discussion has now changed in a real positive way. Do you agree with that, Luke? And uh I don't I don't want to put words in.

Luke Allen

I I I've I probably noticed it because I'm in, you know, the stage where all my friends are having kids nonstop. And so we're having these discussions, and you know, in the stage where some of our friends are having a hard time having kids too, which is sad. So these discussions come up. And a few years ago, I never heard anyone say anything um uh critical on a moral level of IVF. Um but now those conversations are coming up left and right, and I can't help but think that that's probably you know your influence uh playing playing a part and moving the needle. So I've noticed it. Um have you noticed it on a broader level, Katie? Just discussions changing, interest changing, people being open to the discussion the way they weren't a few years ago.

IVF And Surrogacy Through A Child’s Lens

Speaker 3

Yeah. I um when I started them before us in 2018, I was talking about IVF and I was talking about surrogacy, and um people would get up and walk out. I mean, they still do. You know, I'll speak at different places and they'll get up and they'll leave. Um, there was no pro-life organization that would talk about IVF at all. It was just abortion. And um I don't think we are solely responsible for that, but I do think that we mainstreamed the conversation and now they all address it. I mean, Lila Rose has done multiple um podcasts about it. Ali Stuckey is probably tip of the spear as it relates to large platform talking about IVF and surrogates. You should done multiple episodes on it. Kristen Hawkins has addressed IVF. I believe they talked about IVF at the March for Life last week. So I do think that um our way of understanding that both of these things are two sides of the same child commodifying coin and doing what we can to reveal that if you believe that life begins at conception, then the baby-making industry of IVF is a greater victimizer than the baby-taking industry of planned parenthood. Um that kind of information, it it rings a bell that you can't unring. And so I do think that um especially around reproductive technologies and surrogacy, we have been able the and it's not them before us, it is the child-centric framing. When you look at these, if you look at any of these issues, abortion, IVF, surrogacy from the perspective of adults, they're all justified because it all meets a desire, a longing, maybe what they would consider to be a legitimate need, maybe even a God given need. All of these things can be justified if you're looking at the adults and their perspective and their wants and their needs. If you look at any of them from the child's perspective, you get incredible clarity on exactly why none of these things should be supported and encouraged. So it's really just helping both Christians and conservatives and even pro-lifers just turn this around and look at it from another perspective. That's that's really the power here is swapping out the victims. Like half of what I do, literally half of my job, is watching a trending news story where this heterosexual, no, this homosexual couple desperately wants to have a baby, but they weren't able to find a woman that placed that would place their child with them, even though they were in the adoption pipeline for five years. And then their sister, she didn't want to serve as a surrogate. So instead, they had to pay $150,000 and go to Ukraine. Ukraine. They had to go to Ukraine and then they had to stay there because there were problems getting their children home. Because the UK government said this looks suspiciously like a trafficking situation. And now they've burned through all of their time off and they have to dip into their savings. All because they wanted a family. Okay. So that is how almost everybody talks about marriage and family. They have this huge sympathetic backstory for the adult that wants something. And whoever is the victim, they'll get the policy. So we always say, nope, the adult who is sad or unhappy or has a backstory or a longing or desire, they are not the victim. The child is the victim. And then as much as possible, we share the child's perspective, the kind of struggles they are going to have in a motherless home, the kind of commodification they will feel if they are purchased that has been designed and sold. And we say you need to look at it from the child's perspective. So it's that, that is what the power is. That is why I think we have been able to shift the conversation on a lot of these topics, because we have shifted the focus away from adults and onto children.

Greater Than: Overturning Obergefell

Scott Allen

Yeah, no, that's that's been really strategic, Katie. And thank you. I'm just so grateful to see what God has done through you and your passionate convictions on this and the way that others have picked up the mantle and are now, yeah, it's really, I would say, moved the needle, and I'm excited about that. I'm so grateful. I want to have you talk a little bit about the new initiative that we uh saw launching last week, the Greater Than Initiative. Could you talk about that? It seems that you're at the center, or at least one of the people at the center of that movement. What is the movement? What's it about? What's it trying to accomplish?

Speaker 3

No big deal. We're just gonna overturn gay marriage.

Scott Allen

Okay.

Speaker 3

That's that's what we're doing.

Scott Allen

Okay, so it's about it's about overturning Obergefeld in the United States Supreme Court. Okay.

Speaker 3

That's right. You know, there's been 38 countries across the world that have legalized gay marriage, and no one's even tried to roll it back. And yet, all 38 of those countries simultaneously and necessarily weaken children's claim to their mother and father. These two things cannot go together. You cannot say children need their mom and dad and say, I support gay marriage, because this one always cancels this one out. They will never coexist. And so you have to choose: are you going to defend children and their right to be known and loved by the two people responsible for their existence, the two people who grant them their biological identity, the two people who are the statistically the safest, most connected to, most invested in, most protective of them, the two who will maximize their development because both halves of the human family are going to be represented in their home every day. Do you want that? Or do you want superficial adult equality? The two don't coexist. So what we've seen over the last 10 years, since the Supreme Court mandated gay marriage on the entire nation, is they have stripped children of their legitimate need to be raised and known by both their mom and dad. And we are going to overturn it on behalf of children.

Marriage Definitions And Children’s Rights

Scott Allen

That's so powerful. You know, this really hit home to me many years ago when I think it was when we were having the debate uh prior to a Burgafell, you know, prior to that Supreme Court decision. How many years ago was that? It's like a 10 years ago or something like that now. Anyways, I was looking up the definition of marriage in Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary of the American Language. And he's got, you know, he he's one of our American founding fathers. He rooted his definitions in the scriptures. And if you look at what he how he defined marriage, it's rich and it's it's there's all sorts of facets to it, including children. Children are mentioned, um uh, you know, the the caring for the needs of the offspring of the marriage. I mean, it was it was a whole cloth that included uh not just the husband and the wife, but the children that would come from the marriage and their care, their upbringing, their nurture. It was all there. And then I looked at the definition that was um embedded in my laptop. You know, uh my word processing software has a an embedded dictionary. And, you know, this would probably be the one that would come up if you asked Chat GPT. Children were stripped out of the new the new definition, had nothing to do with children. There was no mention of children. And uh I that really struck me. This we we've we've now redefined marriage in the culture. We're teaching this to our children in public schools, and children have no uh place to play in it. It's a completely adult-centered uh institution.

Speaker 3

So uh Well, you can't redefine marriage to a genderless relationship unless you say it's totally disconnected from children. Right. So that's what they did. That's what they did.

Speaker 5

They said, That's right.

Speaker 3

Marriage has nothing to do with kids. This is just about you know, adult bonds and our tax breaks and our ability to visit each other in the hospital. So they passed gay marriage on the grounds that it had nothing to do with children. And then they immediately turned around and said, now give us kids because we're married. Give us kids. And that's how it worked. Two years after the Supreme Court, um, Arkansas, the Arkansas Supreme Court um uh approved of the Pavon decision, which legally allowed two married women to put themselves on the birth certificate because that's part of the constellation of benefits that Justice Kennedy promised them in his concurrent, you know, in his um Supreme Court opinion. So marriage does have to do with children, and we know it because all the different places that have legalized gay marriage have simultaneously and sometimes instantaneously revised their parenthood laws. Marriage functions as the sun at the middle of the solar system of marriage and family. And we swapped out a procreative understanding of marriage for a definition that validates adult identities, and all the planets have realigned.

Scott Allen

Katie, I I wonder if this is a place to bring up this uh subject of natural law. You you were involved with the Witherspoon Institute there at Princeton University, I believe, isn't it? Uh Robbie George and some of those great people there. Um when we talk describe a natural law. What is natural law? What is the natural law argument for what you're advocating? And why is it important? Because I'm thinking it ties into any kind of argument that's going to happen before the Supreme Court, right?

Speaker 3

Yeah. And the greater than the then before us work, the greater than campaign, you can go to our website, you can go to greaterthancampaign.com, and you will not find any Bible verses. And it is not because I do not think that scripture is my highest authority. It is. What I am saying is that I recognize that it is not a authority that my countrymen recognize. Right.

Scott Allen

So instead of the Supreme Court and make those cases based on the Bible. Yeah.

Speaker 3

Right. Totally. So we want to appeal to a common authority, a universal authority, um, more of a general revelation authority versus a special revelation. Um, our first book, Then Before Us, Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement, in chapter one, we go through what is a natural right. And my co-author, Stacey Manning and I, neither of us are natural lawyers. Before we started writing about all of this, we were just moms, moms that like to like listen to the news and read articles. And I mean, like, we're not scholars, you know, neither of us have advanced degrees. And but we came up with something that that was helpful for us because the problem these days is everybody will claim that what they really, really want is a right. You know, I have a I have a right to government-funded birth control, I have a right to housing, um, I have a right to marry, I have a right to choose, like whatever it is that an adult wants, they will conveniently frame as a right. But there really are actual rights, and those rights matter because it's supposed to be something that the government protects. So that designation is really important. So we laid out in chapter one what we call our three rules that make it a right test. So you can apply this criteria and see whether or not someone's claimed to have a child's transgender identity hidden from them at school, whether or not that's really a right. So, what is a right? Number one, it's something that exists pre-government. Your ability to speak existed before the government existed. You have a right to speech. You it um is not something anybody has to provide for you. So if you have to dig it up from the ground and bottle it and ship it and label it and put it on a shelf, it is not a natural right. It might be something that you need. You might even die without it. Just that does not make it a natural right. The third is a natural right is equally naturally equally distributed. Everybody in this window of um Zoom, we all have the same ability to open our mouth and make sounds. All of us. We choose to use it to different degrees, but we all have the same ability to make words. All of us, everybody listening, we all have exactly the same allocation of life. We get one. And so you if it if it varies in degree or distribution, like a GED or a PhD or a dorm room versus Mar-a-Lago, it is not a natural right. So you can look at things like right to life, and you can say, oh, exists pre-government, nobody has to provide it for you, everybody has the same amount. You can look at children's right to their mother and father. Oh, it exists pre-government. If you're alive, you also have a mother and a father, and everybody has the same distribution. Everyone has exactly two. So that's the basis, the sort of natural law reasoning that gets you to the place where children have a natural right to life. You can and right to their mother and father. You can also point to things like the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has about five different articles that speak to children's right to both parents. And when they were writing it in, you know, the late 80s, both meant their mom and dad. It was not whatever state assigned them, whatever adult the state assigned. So, like it's pretty actually widely acknowledged in the natural law world and actually in the global community that children have a right to both of their parents, um, even though it sounds a little bit strange to our ears sometimes.

Equipping Churches And Next Steps

Scott Allen

Aaron Powell That's really helpful for me, actually. And you're tying that um uh into general revelation, and special revelation actually kind of rang a bell for me in a way that it hasn't before, Katie. That's really helpful. And just for those of you who are listening or aren't familiar with those categories, so when we're talking about special revelation, we're talking about God revealing himself, his truth, through the scriptures, right, through the Bible. Um when we're talking about general revelation, we're talking about God's revealing of himself through creation itself or just the way that he made us as human beings, the way that we are, because we're creatures made in God's image. Um so everyone has that awareness or knowledge, even if you don't have access to the Bible, right? That's that's what and and so when you're talking, this is helpful for me, Katie, because you're talking about how Christians sh can make natural law kind of arguments. It's important for us to do that, even you know, even without appealing to the Bible, even though we believe that's the ultimate kind of foundation of authority, the Bible and God Himself, the reality of God. But when you're in a public square, a public setting where people don't agree with that, you have to appeal to natural law or this special or general revelation. So that's very helpful. Thank you for that.

Speaker 3

Um Well, it's not not all Christians love it. I know they don't. No, I know.

Scott Allen

It's it's it's confusing. Well, yeah, go ahead, explain, keep talking.

Speaker 3

Well, just you know, they feel like uh you need to, you know, especially when we launched our greater than campaign, there were a lot of Christians that are like, I understand you're making a case that children are victimized by this, but why don't you make the biblical case that God is against it?

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 3

And I'm like, well, here's the thing. We are going to make a case based on the world of God that he made, the general revelation, what can be understood based on what we are observing. And the amazing thing is it's going to perfectly reinforce the word of God.

Speaker 5

Right.

Speaker 3

The world of God and the word of God come together with beautiful overlaps. Why? Because they have the same author. It's like I've heard other people say there are two books of God. Right. There's the Bible and there is nature. Right. There is the world that's out around us. And both of them testify to who he is and even his moral guidance. And so that's what we're doing. We're making a strategic decision to win the more by appealing to the word of God, the world of God. Right, right.

Scott Allen

No, I think I think the the fact that they go together seamlessly is really important for people to understand. It's not this or that. And, you know, the the the wisdom to know when to apply, which argument is important in what conditions or and you know, in what uh um circumstances. So, Katie, how can people learn more about the movement, the greater than movement? Where can we go and how can we be involved in it? That's my question. What can I do?

Hosts’ Debrief And Takeaways

Speaker 3

Thank you. Um, you can go to greaterthancampaign.com and sign up. Okay. Just follow us. Just sign up. We'll do our best to equip you. We're going to send you. You probably have some questions about like, well, what about the Respect for Marriage Act? And does that mean that you're against adoption too? And just come, let us equip you. You can go to the website, it has lots of different answers, but we'll keep you up to date on like um happenings in culture, maybe policy developments, policy wins that are going to move us closer to a place where we retake marriage and have a definition that actually includes children versus excluding them that have laws that value and protect them versus commodifying them. So come and let us equip you. One thing that we're going to be revealing, uh releasing probably near summer is materials for the church. We've got Protestant and Catholic leaders who are working to create some materials to help the church do what we just talked about. Understand that they actually have a critical role to play in child defense as it relates to this conversation and this topic. So there will be materials for you to work through individually with a small group as a Sunday school teacher. Um, and that's going to be coming too. So if you sign up, you'll really be able to actively participate by going through that material. You totally should go and get on all of our social media um handles: Twitter, um, X, Facebook, Instagram, it's all Make Kids Greater. All of our handles are Make Kids Greater. Um, and like there's also going to be some great content there where you're going to be able to see how do you respond to certain objections. You know, we've gotten a lot of pushback from a lot of high profile people over the last week, and we will respond. And that's a great way of saying, oh, when they say you're trying to erase my existence, here's the thing that you really should say in response. So we want to really equip you for that. And then I will also say, pray your guts out, because the kind of forces that we are going up against is uh unreal. Like we've already had four or five hit pieces uh, you know, targeting the campaign. And we certainly are in for a lot of legal battles as well. Um, a lot of this, you know, the the verse that is absolutely governing this whole process for me is from Nehemiah, where he says, the God of heaven himself will prosper us, therefore, we as people will arise and build. So it is like we are going to build. We are going to, we're we're gonna have a trowel in one hand, we're gonna have a sword in the other, but there's an awful lot of this that the God of heaven himself is going to have to accomplish. So if you would just pray that we would have the wisdom to go in the directions that he wants us to go, turn, stop, listen, fight, advance, I would, I would be so grateful.

Scott Allen

Oh, thank you. Well, we will. And uh I'm grateful for you, Katie, and for the movement because uh, you know, I wrote a book here recently called Ten Words to Transform Our Our Broken World. And marriage, the word marriage is a load-bearing word. I mean, in a culture, right? It's at the very foundation because it's it's the at the foundation of family and the care of children, as you so passionately understand. It's been redefined, right, in the broader culture, in our curriculum, and our policies at the Supreme Court. Um, we, as the people of God, we can't just sit by and go, oh, well, darn, right? I mean, I if we care about being salt and light and loving our neighbors truly, we have to fight, right, to recover this definition, this true definition of what marriage really is and its connection to children. So, anyways, it's yeah, no, thank you. Thank you. And yeah, thanks for giving us all an opportunity to be a part of that. Uh, Tim and Luke, any final questions as we wrap up here today with Katie?

Luke Allen

Nope, just thank you for your time. Really appreciate it. That was great, super helpful.

Speaker 3

Great. Always a joy to chat with you guys. Thank you so much.

Luke Allen

God bless you, Katie. Thank you. All right.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks.

Luke Allen

Yeah, that was that was a great episode with Katie Faust. I always so appreciate her coming on the show because she she has the passion that um Francis Schaefer was talking about when he said the demise of the church in the 21st century will be our desire for personal peace and piety. And if we get too comfortable, we're not gonna make an impact in this world. And that's what he was recognizing as the West continued to grow in its economic and just ability to have a cushy life, right? Christians can so easily live the the comfortable life. But we're we're not called to that. We're called to pick up the sword in one hand, like Katie ended with, and the trowel in the other hand, build God's cultures in this world and also defend uh defend his word and his mission in this world. So as far as just uh general takeaways, guys, I want to have a little uh post-how recording here. What were some what were some things that stuck out to you guys, highlights, things that you're still thinking about? Just to resonate with what you were saying, you know.

Practical Actions And Closing

Speaker 2

I mean her her courage and her passion, and with that same verse, you know, she's talking about um you know, God is gonna be the one to accomplish this. So, you know, she's not uh passionate about her own strength and her own ability to accomplish it. You know, she's trusting God as she as she goes out courageously. So I really appreciate that. Um I think I I'm kind of in in awe of Katie and impressed uh with her and and her work, and I appreciate her her passion for the children, for the weak, for the vulnerable, for the victimized, um and uh convicted by by my time hearing her and being around her. Um I think in my own experience as I have uh seen times uh where I I do feel like children have a right to their to their mother and their father. Children are being victimized, children children are are growing up in in confusion and and uh pain and preventably. Um I'm so grateful for the way that she has you know reframed the conversation, not how do we convince adults about their desires differently, but how do we put the child at the center? I'm just so grateful for it. And and even so, like in that space, um I've kind of felt like, okay, now I have these feelings. Now what do I do with them? Like I just feel a little bit helpless. Like it feels like such a big um shift for our culture. And and once again, I'm just incredibly encouraged that uh it seems that that there's been you know prayer, insight, wisdom, revelation to uh to see okay, here's another step that we can take. Um and we can take it um based on a general revelation, based on uh as as it was said, uh the world of God, which uh resonates perfectly with the word of God. Um but the world of God is embraced by more people. I mean, more and more people uh don't see the world as it actually is anymore. There's actually not really congruence on, you know, what is it that we see and experience and feel and what is good and right, um, what is reality. I mean, we will debate at those most basic levels, but um it's it's hard to to look at children and to hear the the the testimonies uh of children growing up and debate that and see it differently.

Luke Allen

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and the studies are out now too to back it up, you know. Obviously when we're talking about natural law, the world that God has made, um, the biblical worldview, right? The univie, the only worldview that actually works and comports with reality makes sense in this world. Um if you look up sociology, anthropology, psychology, biology, they'll all have studies now showing this fact that children do the best when they're raised by their biological mother and father. And that's what she's pointing to, them before us. Let's let's look at those studies. Let's course correct, and let's let's live for them before us. And, you know, science can prove it, the world can prove it, the Bible can prove it, choose your pick. You know, they're all pointing in the same direction. We should listen.

Scott Allen

Yeah, I thought she uh she helped me in this interview um quite a bit, you know, get my own thinking kind of straightened around on the subject of natural law, which I frankly have found always a little bit confusing. And uh and sometimes I think, oh, God, natural law, that's what Catholics talk about. And, you know, we Protestants, we don't talk about natural law. We talk, you know. And um, anyways, it's always been slightly confusing, but I thought when she framed it as special revelation and general revelation, that helped me a lot. That was very uh eye-opening and and something I'm gonna take away from this. Um, natural law is uh associated with God's general revelation, because God is the God of all creation. Uh the apostle Paul says that everyone, all people, whether they've read the Bible, that's God's special revelation, whether whether they've read the Bible or not, have a knowledge about God from his creation. He says that in Romans chapter one. That's general revelation. And it's people can deny it. You can push yourself back and say, no, I'm going to live against that special revel, excuse me, general revelation. But as the uh Cecil B. DeMille, the uh the famous director of the Ten Commandments, put you, you don't break God's laws as natural laws. You break yourself against them. You're just gonna harm yourself. There is no breaking them because we live in God's world. And furthermore, there's not a disconnect between natural law and uh, you know, biblical law. They're they're the same. You know, they're just it's just how they're revealed. And so, and you have to, in the public square, when we're debating these issues, you can't go in and open up the Bible and say, Thus saith the Lord. You have to appeal to um uh an argument for people that don't accept that as the source of authority, right? You have to you have to go with this natural argument if you're gonna go into before the Supreme Court as the Greater Than movement is seeking to do to overturn Obergefeld the same-sex marriage um um decision at the Supreme Court, which is really an audacious goal.

Luke Allen

Um, one thing I always come back to with these discussions, and my wife reminds me of this because she's a much more soft-hearted person than I am, is in these discussions, it is true that the individual cases, the individual people we're talking about here, um, whether it's IBF or whether it's um people with same-sex attraction, or whether it's um people um are stuck in the transgenderism um lie right now, they're real they're real lives, and it's it's there's you know, a lot of this is really sad, a lot of brokenness. Um, whether it's sin or just um the sin of the world affecting us, um, there's people hurting, and because of that, you know, uh us as Christians, we want to kind of stay away from those arguments because we don't want to hurt people. You know, we don't want to, like she was saying, it's a lot easier for us as Christians just to talk about general apologetics and theology because no one's really there's no controversial cultural battle going on there. Instead, you know, the the battles are around these issues of homosexuality and transgenderism and you know, um abortion and whatnot, and those are the hot ones. Those are the ones we kind of want to stay away from. But we also want to stay away from, I think, as Christians, because we have this kind of empathy, you know. Maybe it's misguided empathy, I would say it probably is. But um, we look at the individual cases and we just we feel sorry for them. We feel sad. And I think that's that's fine. But as we always teach here at the DNA, you have to pull yourself back from the individual cases and you have to look at what's really going on behind all of this. And we have to look at the full human and say what's best for this person.

unknown

Yeah.

Luke Allen

In totality. And when you do that, it really helps clarify these cases. So we that's why we always say the four P's of um worldview. You have to start with the paradigm, you have to start with God's truth, as revealed to us, then you have to then you have to pull out the pract the principles as revealed in his word, and then you you you you dive into the area of the politics and the the policy and the laws and the rules and how to actually order our lives, and then we get to the practice level. And if you don't do that and you just look at the practice level of someone's uh someone's life, it's very confusing, it's emotional, it's broken, it's messy, but you have to look at the the the bigger principles here, the bigger paradigms. Like as adults, one of the things that we're called to is to look out for um for our children. That's a paradigm. Now, how do we actually live that out?

Scott Allen

And that and allow that to be the guide for your empathy. Empathy is a good thing. Exactly. But if it's not being guided by the deeper truths, um, you know, then then it's all about just affirmation. If your friend is a homosexual, I just want to empathy. I'm so sorry, you know. Let me let me affirm you in that. Um, as opposed to the deeper, you know, this is not how God made you, and your life isn't gonna go well, you know. And if I truly care, you know, I've got to go down to that deeper level of how did God make you, how did he design you, if I really care to see you thrive and flourish, right? I can't just leave you in your brokenness, even though that feels right, you know, at one level, anyways.

Luke Allen

Yeah. Again, ideas have consequences, that's why you got to start the level of ideas. Um on that element of the discussion. I mean, that's kind of where we started, right? When we were asking like why do Christians have such a hard time talking about these things? Why Christians, we have the answer for what it means, what does it mean to be humans, you know, in the clip from Jordan Peterson. Um, what'd you guys think about Katie's response to that segment of why do Christians have a hard time talking about this?

Speaker 2

Yeah, one thing that stood out to me from her conversation was uh talking about the social cost um and how many lost relationships she's experienced personally, and then even her family, um, her children. Um uh and you know what I didn't see in Katie in that was I wish I hadn't spoken up. I wish I hadn't said the truth. I wish I hadn't advocated for children. I didn't see I saw pain, but pain without the regret of I made a mistake. And um yeah, I I again convicted, inspired, encouraged to uh live in a similar way.

Luke Allen

Yeah, and if you guys are curious to learn a little bit more about Katie's story there of deciding to step up and start speaking into such a hot topic, um they uh go over that really well in the recent documentary Truth Rising, um, which uh the Colson Center and um what was the other group dad that made that uh Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family. Focus on the Family. Yeah, it's on YouTube, Truth Rising. Uh Katie's story is um highlighted in that in that documentary. It's it's uh it's cool to see it.

Scott Allen

Yeah, I thought our I thought her answer was was good, was right. I think she basically said we don't think in terms of worldviews, and we we tend to separate our faith from culture. I think those are both things that we say a lot in the DNA. We have a very privatized faith, and it's about our personal salvation or your personal salvation. It doesn't really touch on much of anything else. Even if it gets into the issue of what does it mean to be human, even that is kind of narrow, you know. Well, it means that human life has uh, you know, has uh value, you know, is is uh it has immeasurable value, that's true, but it has to go beyond that, you know, like into issues of do children have a right to be raised by their biological mother and father? You know, I mean that that's a little bit of a different issue, but um, so I think she's right. She's she's saying we've kind of lost that understanding of our faith in the church as a worldview and not just as a message of salvation, and a worldview that answers all of these big questions, including in its fullest sense, what does it mean to be a human being? So that's got to be recovered. That's why we exist at the DNA to help the church kind of recover that so it can go out and be salt and light and do exactly what Katie's trying to do here on this issue, what God, you know, is helping her to do.

Luke Allen

So yeah, exactly. Um, and I mean, like she said, the Bible talks a lot about that though. Yes, which is it's crazy that we've overlooked it because there's a lot of the Bible that talks about how to live this life practically as Christians after we come to know Jesus. It's you were saved to do what? Yeah. And that's uh there's a lot in the Bible that talks about that. That's right. And um it applies to all areas of life. And uh we need to make that connection more clear.

Scott Allen

Yeah, not just for our own lives, but for the for the well-being and the life of the culture and the civilization that uh that we're a part of, you know, that uh you know that God cares about. God cares about people, he cares about nations, he wants to see nations flourish and thrive. And that's why, in a sense, we're here to be that kind of salt and light. So yeah.

Speaker 2

And and loving people isn't boiled down to living in a non-offensive way. Yeah. Loving people includes truth. Right. It includes justice.

Scott Allen

Um absolutely right.

Speaker 2

Because if you and it upsets people because because we're speaking out against the humanistic, hedonistic desires and selfish desires that we know are you know breaking people born into humanity. That's right. Yeah, within every one of us. Yeah, exactly.

Luke Allen

Yeah, the most loving thing we can do is encourage people to live according to the life they've been designed to live, the one that actually works for them the best. Um, telling people that doesn't tend to go over well, like you just said, Tim, but it's still that's the most loving thing we can do for people ultimately. And uh hopefully we can tell them that before they break themselves, like you were saying, Dad, against God and his design to a point where it's it's hard for them to come back. Hopefully we can tell them before then.

Scott Allen

Right, right.

Luke Allen

Uh practical takeaways, guys. Uh what can we do? You know, there's obviously resources we can look into, books, them before us, Greater Than, Truth Rising. Um, Carl Truman talks a lot about natural rights. He's an excellent resource on that if you're curious to go in in more depth in um in natural law and natural rights. Um anything else, practical takeaway-wise?

Scott Allen

Well, I just would encourage all of our listeners to jump on board the bandwagon of um of greater than. I think this is a really important movement. And um, it's not just about overturning a precedent in the Supreme Court, it's really about doing our part to defend the truth about family, marriage and family. These are really, really foundational truths. And not just, again, as I said at the end of the podcast, not just shrug our shoulders and say, oh, well, we lost that one. No. Uh we've got to, we've got to stand strong at this moment and do our best to defend the truth for the good of the culture. It's such a foundational pillar, right? Like this one is so foundational. So yeah, I would that would be my practical takeaway. I think another thing, Luke, and you can speak to this, especially with people that are your age and having children, and the whole question about IVF and uh in in vitro fertilization and surrogacy, if you're not clear in your own thinking about these things um morally or truthfully, uh I think the a real practical application is to avail yourselves of what Katie and uh um them before us, they're they're they're really making the great case on that, and you need to listen to them carefully.

Luke Allen

All right, yeah, great. Um with that, uh thank you again, everyone, for tuning into this discussion today. I hope this was helpful for you, and uh thank you just so much for your time joining us. And as always, we hope that you can join us again next week here on Ideas Have Consequences.

Head Shot

Scott Allen

Host
Head Shot

Darrow Miller

Co-host
Head Shot

Dwight Vogt

Co-host
Head Shot

Shawn Carson

Co-host
Head Shot

Tim Williams

Co-host
Head Shot

Luke Allen

Producer