In this episode Trent sits down with Pastor Brandan Robertson to discuss whether Bible-believing Christians should accept or reject homosexual behavior. In part one they discuss the “fruit” of this teaching and its impact on people who identify as LGBT.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent: And welcome to another episode of the council of Trent podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. We’re continuing the series here on the podcast where we dialog with people who disagree with aspects of the Catholic faith, both people who are Catholic or identify that way, and more often than not though people who are non-Catholic. Today we’re going to talk about the issue of homosexuality and LGBT. Normally when you think of these issues, we usually imagine two actors, two sides on these issues. On the one hand, there are Christians who hold what the Bible says, what church tradition, natural law, holding that homosexual behavior is sinful. On the other side of the equation, we usually imagine those who are critical of that view are those who are not Christian and in fact, many prominent atheists are very critical of the church’s teachings on sexual morality in general.
Trent: There’s another group whose voice I think needs to be heard, is not heard as much in the Catholic world, but as a growing voice in the Protestant world. I think it’s one where we can have very fruitful dialog and that is the voice of Christians who hold to the authority of the Bible, hold to the authority of God’s revelation, but believe that homosexual behavior is not sinful. And joining us today to talk about that is Brandan Robertson. Brandan is a noted author, activist and pastor working at the intersection of spirituality and social renewal. Robertson speaks to audiences across the globe and has been an honored speaker at renowned institutions like The White House, Oxford University, The Peace Corp and the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He teaches seminars at San Francisco Theological Seminary and is a consultant and facilitator with Auburn Theological Seminary.
Trent: He currently serves as the lead pastor of Mission Gathering Christian Church in San Diego, California and serves as the executive director of Metanoia. He is the author of several books including the one we will discuss today, The Gospel of Inclusion: A Christian Case for LGBT+ Inclusion. Brandan, welcome to the council of Trent podcast.
Brandan: Thanks for having me. It’s so good to be here.
Trent: One thing I would like to add also as part of my introduction that our podcast listeners may not catch, but our video listeners may see is that I don’t know if you get this a lot. I get this a lot in my line of work. People saying, “You’re pretty young to be doing all this stuff.”
Brandan: Yeah. I get that almost every week at my church. So 27 years old though so I feel like I’ve crossed the barrier into the age where I can be doing this stuff.
Trent: It never really changes actually, until you look old enough to people you never really seem old enough to people. Now I feel old because I’m, I’m 34 actually and so I’m married, I have two children, but I think no matter how many children I have or how many books I’ve written as long as I look like a kid, people will say I’m a kid.
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: So I think that’s-
Brandan: I think pastoral ministry is going to give me gray hair pretty early though so I’m expecting to look older quickly.
Trent: And I have children, they may do that, but I have sons. I’ve actually noticed with my friends that it’s ones who have daughters that tend to have gray. They tend to cause much more worry in their fathers than sons. So what do I want to talk to you about today is the book you wrote, The Gospel of Inclusion: A Christian Case for LGBT+ and this growing movement, and as I said before, we hear it a lot more. There are people in the Catholic world who’ve argued for this. I have a large library of them in my library, in my office. Daniel Helminiak is a former priest whose written on this subject. John McNeil is another. They’re voices you don’t hear as much, but the Protestant world is one where there’s more diversity of opinion than in the Catholic world.
Brandan: Totally.
Trent: It’s kind of the nature of the game. Right?
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: So tell us a little bit about this view, pro LGBT+ view in the Protestant world and how you eventually became a part of it.
Brandan: Right. So this view has been around in the Protestant church for a very long time, but it really gained prominence in the 1960s and I came to this … I grew up as a Fundamentalist Baptist. As somebody who believed homosexuality was a sin. I used to be a street preacher in Baltimore, Maryland, where we’d go down and preach about abortion and homosexuality on the streets to people. Then when I was about 13 or 14 I realized that I struggled with same-sex attractions and so I spent five, eight years, somewhere in between there trying to pray for God to take this away from me, trying to live a just, a chaste life. I had a girlfriend in high school, I did everything that I thought I should do. I went off to Bible college at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and during those four years-
Trent: Where Bible is our middle name.
Brandan: Exactly, and a school that has a very traditional stance. Would agree mostly with the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality. I was mentored by a guy named Christopher Yuan there who’s a renowned Protestant speaker who is ex-gay, and I just began wrestling-
Trent: He’s someone who claims to no longer have same-sex attractions.
Brandan: So he would actually say he lived a homosexual lifestyle. God called him to what he calls Holy sexuality and so he still has the attractions.
Trent: He doesn’t choose to engage in that behavior.
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: Okay. Because ex-gay has different meanings for people.
Brandan: Totally. Totally. So I was mentored by him, but reading the theology he was giving me and the broader theology I began to ask questions as I learned about the context of first century Greco-Roman sexuality and as I saw the wavy approach that Protestants were taking to these six clobber passages in the Bible. There are some really good arguments-
Trent: That refer to homosexual behavior.
Brandan: Right. Yeah.
Trent: Because that particular phrase, and we’ll talk about that in a sec. Our primarily Catholic audience, so not entirely Catholic. The podcast is growing. Even people that aren’t Christian have enjoyed listening and I’m glad that they listen and if you want to support the podcast and it allows so I can have great guests like Brandan on. So you’re talking about sexuality and I’ve already had Freudian and slip. That’s the first one right off the mark. I’m sure there will be others. If you want great guests like that, be sure to check out trenthornpodcast.com. So we use the phrase clobber passages. That refers to the traditional five to six passages in scripture that deal with sexual behavior between people of the same-sex in some form. So your journey of understanding what a Christian should believe about homosexuality dealt with theology, these passages and other sources I imagine.
Brandan: Yeah, totally. So we had, of course, as an evangelical Protestant, we had a less emphasis on tradition and more on what these six passages say, and that was the basis for the whole argument against LGBT inclusion. And again, as I studied these passages and I eventually went off and got a master’s degree where I spent three years specifically studying this topic I found out that some of the non-affirming arguments were good. There are some really … I think Leviticus, for instance, we’ll talk about this later. I think the author probably meant what he said, “When a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman.” But then when you get to the Apostle Paul I think there are some unique cultural context things that most Christians and Bible readers aren’t doing the deep study to know.
Trent: Right.
Brandan: And if we knew that it would actually help us understand what Paul was actually getting at and as a-
Trent: And your term non-affirming would be those who hold to the view homosexual behaviors sinful.
Brandan: Yes.
Trent: Okay.
Brandan: [crosstalk 00:07:16].
Trent: Because there’s different terms that people use and a common one I’ve seen is affirming versus non-affirming. Though it’s always hard when you come up with terms to describe where people disagree about something because the terms can always be weighted to be against, you know? So that one side has the term like well, who wouldn’t want to pick that term in the discussion? So for example, there’s that, I guess I might lean more towards the view of traditional versus revisionists.
Brandan: Sure.
Trent: In the sense that there it’s just there’s a way that the teaching has been always understood and a new way of looking at it. So there’s different ways to look at that. When did you change your mind on this subject? When did that happen?
Brandan: It was essentially after I graduated Bible College. I was in this place where I didn’t know what I believed anymore because it was really an oppressive theological environment. Moody, for instance, you had to sign a doctrinal statement going in and signed the same statement going out in order to graduate, which to me felt like they were saying, “No education or growth is meant to happen. You’re just supposed to be indoctrinated.” And the exact opposite happened for me. I came in with traditional evangelical theology and I left with more questions than answers. Moved to Washington DC and during that period of prayer and study I decided to say, “I couldn’t figure out a reason why my faith would condemn this homosexual attraction.” In all my prayer and ministry I felt like God was saying that I was okay to live into this identity that he created me with.
Trent: Now, clarify this for me because I’ve seen in other interviews and things that you’ve revealed for yourself. You’ve used different terms to describe your own sexuality.
Brandan: Right.
Trent: Queer, bisexual. What term do you use now?
Brandan: Queer, bisexual, gay all work because I initially came out as bisexual. Bisexual means that a person is attracted to both genders, male and female. Queer is a word that’s used in the progressive world at least to mean fluid sexuality in general and gay is the … I would say I live a gay lifestyle primarily. I’m dating men primarily these days. However, my attractions are still queer/bisexual. So sexuality is complicated and we can talk about that more.
Trent: Well, that’s something I certainly agree with you that sexuality in and of itself, just the different kinds of attractions and feelings that we have can be complicated for people emotionally, psychologically But I do believe morally there are some simple rules we live by and I think all people, including yourself, we have particular black and white do or die sexual norms. So the question here is how do we determine what those norms are and in particular determining what makes a sexual behavior sinful or not sinful? Which we’ll get into here. I want to bring up another name before we continue on because I was introduced to the [inaudible 00:10:00] back in 2000 I think it was 14 when Matthew Vines wrote his book, God and the Gay Christian.
Brandan: Right.
Trent: And that one lit up the charts. A lot of people were writing responses to it. I wrote a response to it that’s on our website at catholic.com and engage these … These are arguments that I had dealt with a long time ago with people like John Boswell. Hadn’t heard much since then and I think Vines helped to bring it back to more of the younger Protestant evangelical mindset. So I don’t know how that played into your work and also if you have differences here and you can help me if I’m … I haven’t followed the news completely. Vines, my understanding, and he’s a young guy like us and has this view. Has a very high view of scripture. [inaudible 00:10:43] Word of God. I don’t know if he believes in biblical inerrancy, but I think he does.
Brandan: Yeah, he would.
Trent: Yeah. So he’s a very high view of scripture. So he holds to the view that sexual behavior is not sinful if it’s in a monogamous committed relationship, whether it’s two men, two women, or a man and a woman. Does he still hold to the view that has to be a monogamous relationship?
Brandan: Right. Yeah, he does.
Trent: Do you hold to that view?
Brandan: I’m less convinced.
Trent: [crosstalk 00:11:10].
Brandan: Yeah. Me and Matthew, we emerged on the scene at the same time. I started an organization called Evangelicals for Marriage Equality right when God and the Gay Christian came out. So we’ve been walking this journey together, but I’ve come to disagree with the general what’s known as the revisionist approach. I just don’t think it’s super convincing at the end of the day. I appreciate his work and I know it’s helped a lot of people.
Trent: How would you characterize that approach of people like Matthew Vines?
Brandan: I would say it’s more traditional revisionists. It’s saying, “These six passages have been misunderstood throughout Christian history and here’s how you should understand them.” I say, “Maybe that’s true, and I think there’s a broader biblical case to make for an ethical trajectory throughout scripture that points to a greater vision for inclusion, not just for LGBT people but for all people.” That’s the argument I tried to make in my book.
Trent: So I would say that among Protestants there’s two different views here. Those who would be, “Affirming or revisionist.” That there’s the one view that St. Paul, Jesus, if they were alive today would not condemn committed modern same-sex relationships. Our condemnation comes from a misinterpretation of their words, but then there’s another view which I think is closer to your view, which is that, “Oh, they would but they would condemn them for the wrong reasons and for reasons that don’t apply today.”
Brandan: Close. I would-
Trent: I try to get close to where I disagree with someone. I believe it’s important to understand what someone believes before you set out to disagree with it.
Brandan: Totally. I think Jesus being the incarnation of God probably would … I think my theological point is right, and I think Jesus would probably affirm it even 2000 years ago.
Trent: Okay. So you would hold a view of that Jesus, the divinity of Christ, fully God, fully man.
Brandan: Absolutely. And so St. Paul May maybe not because he is in a different cultural context and we can dig into that later, but yeah.
Trent: Well, let’s go through a little bit of the book and some of the arguments you make. Now, you’ve written several books. I see you brought another smaller one here. I don’t know if that’s an adaptation that went into this-
Brandan: This was created to be a pamphlet to hand out to people.
Trent: Let me see that.
Brandan: It’s called Gay Christian, No Contradiction.
Trent: I see. Yeah. So Gay and Christian, No Contradictions your earlier pamphlet and then did that turn into a book, The Gospel of Inclusion?
Brandan: Yeah. Well, this actually came from my first book, Our Witness, which had my first shot at the theological argument and then The Gospel of Inclusion is actually, I kind of cheated with publication here. It’s just my master’s thesis that I put a cover on.
Trent: That’s quite all right. I have three master’s degrees so I’ve learned the art of repurposing content. For me, I feel just fine doing that. If I wrote something for school and it’s just sitting in a bin and it’s not doing anybody good, I have no problem re-purposing that to-
Brandan: Totally.
Trent: And if I have a duty, if it’s got a good argument and you think you have a good argument you should put it out there. What is the summarized, the main thesis of your book?
Brandan: So go through three different movements. The first movement that I be in all these conversations is Jesus says that good theology, good Christian life will bear good fruit and there is abundant evidence that says non-affirming non-inclusive teaching produces psychological harm in people. So I always begin there because I think that’s something most Christians don’t know and most pastors that are non-affirming don’t know. That their theology actually has and has been studied to have psychological harm that increases suicidal ideation, increases youth homelessness. So I spend a good portion, the three books I’ve written about this talking about that in the beginning. Then we jump into the clobber passages and I kind of say, “Here’s where I think the revisionist approach is good, and here’s where I think it’s a little a week.” And then the main argument is that from Genesis to Revelation in the Bible there’s a consistent trajectory away from a patriarchal understanding of the world. So in the beginning of the Bible, you have Abraham as the first patriarch and establishing this patriarchal norm in scripture, but by the time we get to Jesus, we see Jesus acting in ways that was subverting what was understood both in the Hebrew world and the Greco-Roman world of what patriarchy should be.
Brandan: Jesus being a celibate man, that alone is a subversion generally of patriarchy. That was a very uncommon thing in first century Greco-Roman world, especially among Jewish people. The way we see Jesus interacting with Unix and women and those who are taboo according to the religious tradition of the day is subtle subversions of patriarchy and then by the time you get to the Apostle Paul we start seeing this ethical and moral loosening that I believe goes across the spectrum from women in ministry to sexuality, to how slaves were treated. A lot of my argument came from an earlier book by an evangelical scholar, William Webb called Slaves, Women and Homosexuals.
Trent: Yeah, he wrote that back in 2001. Another one I have in my office.
Brandan: Right, right. And I think his redemptive trajectory, that was so compelling to me. To see-
Trent: He believes it applies to slaves and women, but he does not believe it applies to … So you would disagree with Webb, he doesn’t think it applies to a loosening of morals on homosexuality.
Brandan: Right, and I think both Webb and a couple of other scholars, we can talk about them later.
Trent: Sure.
Brandan: I question their scholarship when it gets to the homosexual argument because it seems rather common sense that if you’re using the argument, and almost … And most conservatives actually agree with me on this. That his argument against women or for women in ministry and against slavery, that same hermeneutical argument, if you’re consistent and you apply to homosexuality it should lead to the same conclusion. Women can be in all levels of church leadership. Slaves should be liberated. Homosexuals should be liberated.
Trent: Consistency is an interesting theme that comes out in the book. I don’t want to jump too forward ahead. I want to go through the book systematically, but you made a passage in there that I thought is interesting that there’s always a lot of arguments and what’s funny is Andrew Sullivan, who is a man with same-sex attraction, married to another man, but he’s much more very conservative in his politics. He once wrote an op-ed a while back saying to Christians, “If you’re going to be against so-called same-sex marriage then you need to go whole hog and be against no-fault divorce and be against these other things.” And my thing has always been if there is inconsistency that consistency itself is not a virtue in and of itself, because you could be just consistent and wrong. You could just be a consistently wrong person.
Trent: But for me, like you wrote in the book that there’s a lot of Protestants who see no problem with non-procreative sex between men and women, oral sex, anal sex, divorce and remarriage. I think you actually make a very compelling point there but for me, it would go in the other direction. Not that, well, we should endorse same-sex behavior but that the opposite sex couples need to clean up their own backyards first. So you see where I could see that that it’s like, “Oh, you could go on one or two directions.”
Brandan: And that’s where I’ll say, this will probably be the only time I’ll say this. I think the Catholic Church is better than Protestants on this in the sense that the catechism is really clear on all of these issues. I disagree, of course with … I think divorce and remarriage, I think we should have a more open approach to but for the sake of moral consistency I think the Catholic Church has the upper hand and I think a lot of conservative evangelicals are now looking at the Catholic Church and saying maybe we need to take that stance as well. So you’re seeing people like Dr. Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist convention saying, “We need to take a firm stance on divorce and if we have divorced people in our church they’re not going to be ministers anymore.” And all of that.
Trent: Right. Because seeing you need to say, “What are the ultimate standards that you’re using to make your theology?” Right. If it is just a narrow reading of just a few Bible passages without an overarching worldview then you can have these different consistencies. Let’s go through the different arguments then that you make in the book. The first one is the argument from fruits, and this is a similar one that Matthew Vines also makes.
Brandan: Right.
Trent: That Jesus says, “You shall know a tree by its fruits.” And so a good tree can’t bear bad fruit. This is in Matthew 7:15 through 20 and also scripture refers to other things with false prophets and fruits and things like that. “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.”
Trent: And to summarize what you said earlier in the book, your argument is that teachings that say sexual behavior between two men or two women, teachings to say that is sinful produce bad fruit because people who hear them are more likely to have mental illness or have suicidal ideation, and you think that’s evidence that the teachings themselves or are false?
Brandan: Yeah, I think it cuts both ways. I would say that the non-affirming arguments do … Every study that I list in there, and these are peer-reviewed academic studies that show conservative Christians just have a higher rate of having youth suicide, having youth homelessness, having youth mental illness among LGBT youth. Then the other side of it is gay Christians, people like me and my church. If you were to come down to San Diego and see our community, it’s filled with people whose lives are being transformed by Jesus Christ, who are committing their lives to follow in the way of Jesus, who are seeking to conform their life to scripture. When you see that it’s hard for me to have conservatives look at our church and say, “Well, that’s bad fruit.” Because we’re producing, I think the same fruit that a conservative church who’s sharing the gospel is.
Trent: Right. “We are producing good fruit. How can you say our theology is wrong? Look at the effects of your theology. It’s bad.” So there’s a good fruit element and there’s a bad fruit element.
Brandan: Right.
Trent: Let me address both of those. One, on the good fruit element say, “Well, we believe even if our theology is incorrect, look at the fruits of the Holy Spirit. We have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness.” The problem I have with that argument, I see that these fruits are necessary conditions that if I see a church that completely lacks them I’m going to question if it’s Christian at all or if it has a sound theology, but I don’t see it as a sufficient condition their mere presence. Because you find these fruits even among non-Christian groups. You have atheists who get together who go out and do charitable work, and have their own Sunday assemblies and they can exhibit many of these fruits as well but that doesn’t mean they’re overlying theology or lack of theology is correct. It just may mean that God has blessed them and has choosed to work with the dispositions that they have. So that’s why for me, the good fruit argument is not as compelling. You see where I’m coming from here?
Brandan: Right. I think it’s because we have a theological difference here as well. I’m a universalist. So I believe we’re all getting in and I believe God is working not just through Christians, or the Catholic Church, or the Protestant church, but through everyone always. So I would say evidence of good fruit is there’s lots of theologians who have said that Christ is at work even with people who don’t know that Christ is at work in them.
Trent: Sure.
Brandan: And that’s what I would argue on that side of things.
Trent: Right. So then for you, we’re looking at theology. So as a universalist you don’t think that anyone will be eternally separated from God and hell?
Brandan: Right.
Trent: That of course, that’s a subject maybe I’ll have you back on for that. I just had Randal Rauser on who is a defender of conditional immortality. The idea that the damned are annihilated, but that hell does still exist. So there’s three views. There’s the traditional view on hell, the annihilationist view, and then the universalist view. We haven’t had that on the show yet, but here then just so then just because someone has good fruit that’s no way for us to determine … Because you would agree that atheists are incorrect about the existence of God even if they’re going to heaven?
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: So then their position on a theological question like does God exist or not would not be connected to the good fruit that they do. Their good fruit doesn’t prove or disprove whether that theological position they hold is true or not.
Brandan: Right. But ultimately I believe that theology ultimately is humanity trying our best to speak of the unspeakable as C. S. Lewis says. We’re all aiming at the thing that we can never articulate or accurately describe. So I’m thinking that all of our theology, I wouldn’t say that the catechism of the Catholic Church is completely correct. I think that’s a group of people’s best attempt to describe God. I think this is my best attempt to describe this particular issue and the way I understand God, but I think we’re all falling short all of the time and I think we’re all going to be greatly surprised when we stand in the presence of God. So my consistency is I’m making this theological argument because I’m a Christian, because I’m in this tradition but I wouldn’t say Christianity holds the supreme corner on truth. I think it does for me. I think I want to bring people into it because it’s what works for me and what has transformed my life, but I’m not willing to say that Christianity is the only way.
Trent: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you’re making more of a pragmatic argument then for why someone should be a Christian. If it works for you, become a Christian, but if not don’t worry about it.
Brandan: Yeah, because I believe God is present in all things and Christ is present in all things. I’m mentored by Richard Rohr, in his new book, Universal Christ, he talks very beautifully about how Christ is present in all different paths, all different people at all different times. So I would lean in that direction.
Trent: And I would not lean in the direction of what Richard Rohr says. And that’s, of course, something for an entirely different podcast. But let’s talk then about the bad fruit element here because there’s two things that I would disagree with you on. Well, first about the bad fruit and then about just this as overall argument that I think it’s a misinterpretation of scripture. On the bad fruit end, just because a teaching or an action has … Even if it has a negative effect, that in and of itself does prove the teaching or action is false or bad.
Trent: So for example, it’s statistically proven that when people have higher rates of education they’re more likely to commit suicide. The more society spends on education and values it and the more people attain higher degrees, suicide rates tend to go up. That’s not controversial. But that in and of itself would not prove that education is a bad thing. All it would prove is we’ve got some unfortunate connection between those who are intelligent and those who are well learned and suicide that we have to find a way to mitigate somehow. So for me, even if it were the case that these teachings, when people hear them they’re likely to consider suicidal thoughts that would just show an unfortunate unintended connection that we would have to try to mitigate. That wouldn’t show the teaching is false.
Brandan: Sure. And I would gently push back on it, but also say that this is not the foundation of the argument. The point of this argument is simply to say, “Most Christian leaders aren’t willing to grapple with our culpability in causing harm.” [crosstalk 00:25:58].
Trent: Oh, no and I agree with you because for example, if it is the case that homosexual behavior is not sinful, if it is the case, then people who preach that it is sinful do grave harm. I agree with you there.
Brandan: I think I would even say though, and this is … Next week, for instance, I’m going to Miami. I’m meeting with a off the record gathering of 10 evangelical pastors trying to talk to them to bring them to just this point. If-
Trent: What point?
Brandan: This point that if homosexuality is sinful you still need to at least … We need to be focused on harm reduction. This first argument is about the way we’re communicating your message of a non-affirming theology that is actually harming people and I hope … My first step for any non-affirming community I’m working with is to reduce harm. For instance, I do think the catechism’s language is fundamentally harmful when they say homosexuality is intrinsically disordered. I was just reading the language.
Trent: 2357, right?
Brandan: Yeah, under no circumstances can it be approved. You know what it says. But it’s really intense language that I think … I think Pope Francis has done a great job of, at least in his statements, putting a little softer edge to what the church is trying to say.
Trent: But here’s the thing, and maybe you can help me with this. The message I want to communicate with people is that it is a grave matter to use our sexual powers if you will. That’s the [Tomest 00:27:25] element to me. We talk about the natural powers that people have and sexual powers are one of them. To misuse our sexuality and to engage in it outside of a marital context between a man and a woman, and those who do that risk their souls and risk eternal separation from God. So for me, if I were you and held to the view that no one’s going to hell. So that harm is off the table and the only harms are negative psychological wellbeing in this life, then that view makes sense. But for me, how do I communicate? Because I’m not changing my mind about the fact that sexual sin can lead to eternal separation from God. How do I put that gently to people?
Trent: There’s harsh ways you can talk to people, but sometimes some things are just harsh. Like if I tell somebody smoking causes lung cancer and what lung cancer means is you’re going to be coughing up blood and hacking up your lungs, and it’s a horrible way to die and I don’t want you to get lung cancer. It’s like I’m not a bad person for viscerally describing the consequence of smoking. Why would it be the case of the consequence of sexual sin?
Brandan: Again, the case that I’m trying to make at least in the first argument because again, this is a passion point for me is to say I’m not necessarily saying that the argument itself leads to suicide. I think that’s a really hard case to make in any field.
Trent: Sure.
Brandan: But I am saying the way you communicate the argument can lead to mental distress. So if a preacher’s getting in the pulpit and saying-
Trent: Absolutely.
Brandan: “You’re an abomination to God.” Well, what is a youth supposed to do in their preacher and their parents are telling them that they’re an abomination based on this thing that they didn’t choose.
Trent: Right. And that’s a stupid way to go about it and that’s why for me, I don’t use terms either gay, straight, LGBT, homosexual or heterosexual. I don’t like using those terms. I just say there are people who have same-sex attractions, people have opposite sex attractions and people have multifaceted attractions like the way you describe yourself. So that a person like the word [foreign language 00:29:26] in the Old Testament refers to abomination. It refers to actions, not people. And I agree with you, there is a bit of hypocrisy where … And that’s another reason I gravitate the Catholic Church that we will have this anger towards one particular sin, but then if Frank divorces Jane and gets remarried and we all act like it’s not a big deal I could see a homosexual teen … Sometimes you use the terms of course for convenience and brevity. Who sees that we treat one particular sexual sin differently than others.
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: Totally agree with that. That’s going to create an undue psychological burden, but for me the answer is just to be fair in our discussions to distinguish people, and I think this is where you and I might disagree. People made in the image and likeness of God and the attractions they have, whatever they may be.
Brandan: Sure.
Trent: From the behaviors they voluntarily choose to engage in. I think it’s important to separate those two things. To not get them too tightly wound up together.
Brandan: As I’m thinking about it now I don’t think I necessarily disagree with that. One thing, this might be out of left field, but it’s just something that I noticed on your comment of not wanting to talk about homosexual and labels. It’s interesting though that the catechism uses that which it says homosexual persons.
Trent: Yes, it does.
Brandan: Which seems to describe in the way us progressive’s talk about sexuality. It’s they’re identifying the person as homosexual, which I just found … I’ve never noticed that before and it seems … That’s taboo in even conservative Protestant circles.
Trent: Yeah. There are some Catholic documents, some documents. The catechism uses that language, which I think is unfortunate. There’ve been some other later ones though that actually make a point against that. So for example, I’ll bring this up here really quick. This is from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That’s the highest teaching office representing the magisterium of the Catholic Church. It says this, “The human person made in the image and likeness of God can hardly be adequately described by a reductionist reference to his or her sexual orientation. The church refuses to consider the person as a heterosexual or a homosexual.” Even there they use terms like the homosexual person. To make not just a homosexual, which I think is … Even church magisterial documents of the catechism don’t just lump it in. It’s funny, you’ll hear people in your own discourse say, “Well, the homosexuals.” Like, “Well, no one says the heterosexuals.”
Brandan: I say that. No, I’m kidding.
Trent: That would be like saying, you know, it’s like, “What the blacks think.” I’m like, “Guys, that’s not kosher. That’s not …”
Brandan: [crosstalk 00:31:55].
Trent: So for me, the language that I use I think it should be very person-oriented, but I want to get to another point about the fruit argument you and Matthew Vines use before we go onto the clobber passages.
Brandan: Totally.
Trent: I think that this is a misunderstanding of what Jesus is trying to communicate in Matthew 7:15 through 20. That the argument is not you will know if a teaching is true or false based on the effects of the teaching, but rather you will know if a teacher is valuable based on the teaching that they espouse. Because you could see someone that here he’s talking about false prophets, he’s talking about teachers and he uses this agricultural metaphor about figs and thorns. That [inaudible 00:32:44] you could see a tree or a brush and it looks like it’ll give you fruit, but you go up closer and you look at it and the fruit it produces is inedible.
Brandan: Yeah.
Trent: Much the same way you could see a teacher, someone who you know a Greek rhetorician or even a rabbi who has always got all these people following him and he seems so confident. Like “Oh they’re so winsome and affable.” But then when you look at their teachings, the teachings give away that they’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In fact, in second Peter two one through two it says, “False prophets also arose among the people just as there’ll be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them. Bringing upon themselves swift destruction and many will follow their licentiousness and because of them, the way of truth will be reviled.”
Trent: So for me, and no offense but we can trade with each other. I would see someone could look at you and say, you’re young, you’re intelligent, you’re a good speaker, you seem like you’re speaking the truth here but then I look at the fruits that come from that and not just the approval of sexual behavior between two people, but also openness to polyamory, rejection of the existence of hell. That for me, the passage is more for someone to say, “Well, this may be a charismatic teacher or preacher, but look at the teachings that flow from them.” Do you see where I’m coming from?
Brandan: Yeah. And I don’t disagree. I just think that argument cuts both ways because I would just say the same thing back to the Catholic Church or to a non-affirming person and say, “You’re teaching something that looks good and you claim tradition that this is how it’s always been, and yet I don’t think that the teaching is bearing the fruits based on my interpretation of scripture and my understanding of the context that the fruit that it’s bearing is good fruit.”
Trent: Thank you, guys, so much for listening to this episode of the podcast. My discussion with Brandan has actually gone over three episodes. So be sure to listen to parts two and three on the next episodes of The Counsel of Trent podcast. So thanks so much for listening and hope you have a blessed day.
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