Video Transcript - Critical Gender Theory

Steve - All right, Henry, topic two.  

Henry - Well, you thought topic one was but now we're going to get into critical  gender theory.  

Steve - So feels heavy. I Are we really going to there's a lot of controversy over  this, but I think there's also just a lot of confusion, and so we don't have the tools with which to talk about it.  

Henry - You know what I don't like. I'm just gonna be transparent. I don't like this, where you can't talk about this in a curious way without people leaving the room. Well, I don't get that. I mean, like we grew up and you talk about anything and  everything more. There's more. But today, it seems like difficult to even be  disagreed with without somebody canceling you and but  

Steve - I think what's happened, and we'll talk about that in several sessions, is  these things are the if this is your only identity, if this is where all of your self  esteem rests, and now you poke at the one thing that I have, then I'm not very  gracious. I'm not I, because you just you took the legs from under my feet,  whereas maybe in the past, we're just talking about a topic that is just one of the many things that define who I am. And if you totally destroy this one topic. I still  have my self esteem intact right where now everything rests on this thing, and  we're poking at it so and  

Henry - how intensive are you to do that?  

Steve - So here critical gender theory is same thing with the race thing.  Everything relates to gender. Now, genders with the power use their power to  keep their power over other genders inequality. Let's just talk a little bit about  that. So, you know, the whole patriarchal society kind of thing, where men have  used their gender there and they're the ones in charge. They were, you know,  because most of culture, you know, if you go back far enough, was about  strength, and they were stronger, so they dominated, and they used their power, and they set up laws and structures that helped them keep the power. And the  females would not get that power, right? So now that is being extrapolated to  almost every area of society, whether it's, well, we'll talk about where it shows up to current social manifestations. You have gender equality. You've got LGBT,  which is lesbian, gay, bi and trans. You've got the whole self identify. You can  you identify your own gender? We've got the bathrooms and sports. You know,  what do you do with that? And you know the pronouns he, she, they and then  others. 

Henry - So, yeah, this seems like a mess.  

Steve - Well, you know, and from from people that are fighting for these things,  their identity is these things, they feel like the world doesn't, you know, if you  didn't feel like the world understood you and accepts you as you are, then  maybe you'd fight tooth and nail as well. So it seems like there's a lot at stake,  and I think that's why people have a hard time talking about these things. You  know, I might talk about it, but it's not the biggest issue in my life, right? But I  might be talking to somebody that it is right, and we're going to have a hard time if I say any one, it's like a in the book Madness of Crowds, he talks about, you  know, like, you know, in a war, they put these trip wires, and if you trip over the  wire, the grenade goes off, right. And, but you don't know where the trip wire is  right. So it seems like, right now, in our culture, we have all these trip wires out  there. And if you accidentally, unintentionally trip over one, you could lose your  job, you could lose your social connection. You could lose a friend, family  members, a marriage, a son or a daughter. It's it's tough out there,  

Henry - and it's a struggle, and every family maybe understand that I have a son who transitioned as a woman my oldest, and I love her and their family, but it  was very difficult and to see How the culture went through this and to see my  own family culture and to see choices and to see the way social sciences and  counseling has gone. You know, through the years 2012 and 13, 14, our family  struggled. We learned a lot, right? And we learn that these topics are relevant,  and we hold to the biblical worldview of gender to this day. But even within our  family, this is a controversial issue, right?  

Steve - And it's, you know, I suppose what's hardest is it's difficult to just talk  about it, right?  

Henry - I mean, bring this up. Are you going to go there, Henry? Are you going  there? And I you know God must fix those things that are broken, and ultimately, we rejoice in what God is doing. But all these issues are into play. This is not just for some people out there, Steve. 

Steve - No, yeah, we're all connected to this problem.  

Henry - I mean, you know my family. You've been around and, and, and we  know, all of us know families, 

Steve - but within churches, every church is dealing with this, every school  system is dealing with this. It's a big subject, and this was the big subject. So 

what is gender? Is it biology? Is it a social construct? You know, that's are being  argued in our culture right now?  

Henry - Yeah, let's talk, you know? So the biology side is that your gender is  assigned at birth.  

Steve - Yeah, it's your DNA. It's so many chromosomes, and that is this or that 

Henry -. And then the social construct is that that society through history and  things like church and family and patriarchy and, you know, advantages and  disadvantages that your gender was constructed right now, I find that very  interesting, because studies from even Stanford University that I read clearly  identify that there is a differences in gender, right?  

Steve - So there is a biology thing, but then people say, well, then the  construction part maybe overrides it, yeah. So anyway, there's a lot of  discussion, and we're not gonna, you know, don't have time to go into all of that  the Bible, Genesis, 1:27, so God created mankind in his own image. In the  image of God, He created them, male and female. He created them.  

Henry - So that is the biblical worldview, a biblically constructed understanding  of gender right now,  

Steve - that doesn't mean people don't feel one way or another, or that there are people I know, some who are born with like two different genitalia, and the  doctors are not sure which male or female, right so there is these gray problem  areas that we are not sure what what to do. So we're not especially  

Henry - our sexual ethics class, a three credit class where tape or college  professor talks about a lot of these issues, you know, in terms of like, what is  that? How does that fit? And the second thing to mention to me is that we really  live in a pot post, fallen world. Yes, that the worldview of male and female is the  worldview that God created us all to be. But now we still even on these subjects, we struggle and we reach for God and we,  

Steve - becomes more complicated in the world, right? Yes, it does. So we have  a problem of conflicting rights. So one person's right to identify one's own  gender as one pleases. So that's kind of what our culture is saying, versus  another's right to not believe in it.  

Henry - That's interesting. I before we What are you talking about there? 

Steve - Well, you know, people can identify as something, right? But then how  does that impact? You know? So I get to identify, I get to do what I want. It's my  body, it's my life. I can do what I want. And that's true, unless it hurts someone  else. See, that's that's where there's a conflict or a dilemma. Is people are out  there saying, I want this. This is who I am. This is what it is. But they don't  always see how you getting what you want stops someone else from getting  what they want. 

Henry - Okay. So what happens then is a theory is absolutized or really  reduced, and then everything is seen from that version of reality,  

Steve - and everyone has to accept that when that isn't the case, right? Okay, so the LGBT version of reality, for example, versus the parents right to teach their  own children a different version of reality. That becomes a conflict, because now in schools are starting to mandate certain things about all this acceptance and  all these things. But doesn't a parent have the right to have a different view of  life, right, just as much as you have a right to your own version, someone else  has their right to their own version, and therefore we're going to have this  conflict.  

Henry - So there's a breakdown of the agreement of some essential things, male and female, even agreeing that there is even male and female is not agreed  upon. No.  

Steve - So then there's the problem of relativism and the loss of objective  agreed upon truth, right, right? You know, we live in a world where everyone  makes their own decision about what is what. And although, again, what I'm  saying is, you know, the the one group has the can decide what they want, but  then if you disagree, you're not allowed to do that.  

Henry - So we're in dangerous waters. Dangerous waters. Yeah, so when one  person's right to identify as whatever gender negatively affects others. What?  Could that happen?  

Steve - Yeah, when does one person's right to identify as so we'll give some  examples. So, so example in the whole sports world,  

Henry - yeah, this is a hot topic right now. I read a story yesterday out of like  Connecticut or somewhere out east that, I mean, there's gonna be lawsuits 

Steve - right, because one person identifies, I was born a man, and now identify  as a woman, and now I go into women's sports, fine, and that's great for me, 

because I finally feel like I'm part of what I supposed to be, identify with. Yeah,  yeah. But then the women who now have to compete with a person who was a  man, and they're like, hold it. You know, you have an advantage that that I don't  have. And now you know what about my rights to compete in the world that I live in and have known  

Henry - so social sciences have cisgender, transgender. Cisgender is the  gender you were born with and that you identify with, and transgender is not the  gender you were born with that you do not identify with, right? So now we have  two worldviews, two worldview Driven Views of gender, fighting themselves out.  But the real fight is flesh and blood, people who are having their dreams taken  away from each other.  

Steve - So both are saying, my dream is being taken away. I don't get my way.  Yeah, right. So another example, what if someone identifies themselves as,  

Henry - okay, so you're talking about this could be anything, yeah, it could be  any. So I could identify myself as a seven year old girl and went to your first  grade or granddaughters, right? You know, first grade class,  

Steve - yeah, and how would I feel about that? Because you look like a 60 year  old man to me.  

Henry – I just turned 60. But then somebody say, Well, you can't say that. Well,  then why can't you?  

Steve - Yeah, where's the line? Where's the thing that I can't identify with? Very  interesting. So why are we obsessed with things like race and gender. Why?  Why are we getting, you know, why has this become such a place in the weeds  where we find ourselves  

Henry - so Genesis 32:1, when the people saw that Moses was so long in  coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, Come,  make us gods who will go before us.  

Steve - Right? So what happened there? God and Moses disappeared, yep, just for a moment. I mean, they just went up, they went up the hill. And what  happened? All of a sudden, there's no God. So what do we got to do? Fear,  something. Fear sets in. We gotta find something that is the replacement for  God, and isn't that exactly what has happened? So what's the answer to some  of this 

Henry – Critical Grace Theory, critical grace So we're back to that theory again.  We introduced it, but we're gonna go deeper. Let's see  

Steve - everything relates to grace. Those with the grace share the grace with  those who do not have grace. 

Henry - So one thing is, notice that word Deacon, servant to be great, you must  be the servant to receive the grace of God that saved you and me from sin, from death, then it's to give it freely, when it's in our power to do so. I mean, that's  radical, deep. It's radical.  

Steve - The saved by Grace identity, it's that same verse we read under race. So in Christ, Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. For all of you who are  baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There's neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for you are all one in  

Christ, Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs  according to the promise.  

Henry - So in some ways, it's not about gender at all, although gender becomes  like that lightning rod point, yes, it's about Jesus Christ, right?  

Steve - It's the Bible's not against gender, right? Okay? And it's not about, you  know, your identity and your self esteem wrapped up with gender. You know, I  was born a male, and I, you know, I was into sports and feeling good about  myself because I was doing these things. The Bible isn't against all of that,  right? But what's happened is, is that Moses thing, Moses and God went up the  mountain, and now we've made a God of gender, like, like, this is the only thing  that says I am somebody and therefore don't discriminate, you know, and why  we all are holding on to it so tightly. And if someone questions any nuance, I  mean just even a nuance of what we think or believe about it, all hell breaks  loose, because we don't have that identity in Christ. If I'm in Christ and then you  don't like my hair or something like that, I can roll with that a little bit, because I  am not my hair, I am not my gender, I am not my race, I am not these things.  These are all part of me, but I am a child of God. I am one in Christ. That is my  number one identity, right?  

Henry - You know, Jesus in the gospels once talked about not getting caught up. And you know whether someone was born a eunuch by choice or by birth. But  then he goes back to the worldview of male and female and he is very  passionate. I think, in the ministry, when we are ministering in the end, we put  that Minister hat on that our goal is not to win some argument about these  arguments about the day, but to point people Back to Christ and know that God 

has a plan, and we don't know. I mean, we're not old enough to see how the  spirit and then this becomes this. And then, you know, the Holy Spirit allows  we've had a pandemic. It's changed so many things, and it feels scary right now, but this, I remember you saying 25 years ago that that there's deserts times, and then there's times where we enter into the promised land, and maybe  sometimes just happen to live in the desert era, and that's okay and stay close  to Jesus Christ.  

Steve - So I think you know a little word to those trying to minister. Maybe you're talking to someone who has strong views about this whole gender issue, and  you're trying to convince them of your view or the biblical view. That is one  strategy, right? Another strategy is to get them connected to Christ, yes, see if  Christ became their number one identity, see, then they might loosen hold of  some of these other things. So discussions, yeah, so if you're trying to get them  to let go of their hold on their views of gender before they become Christians,  see, then you're doing it the hard way. Why not get them connected to Christ,  where now I am one in Christ. And now these other things don't become so big  and so important. Now maybe we can talk about it. 

Henry - and if you have a child who has left, how you raised them, and I  understand that, maybe it's about just loving them here, caring about them, and I know being perfect, but be in Christ with them, and they could cut you off or but  don't cut them off, right? Have that door open, because in the end of the day, it  is Jesus Christ, and He is our salvation. Yes, he is our everything. Yes.