Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Seth Price 0:00
What's happening? How are we doing before the regular show, so a minute of your time, in a few weeks, two or three weeks, you will hear an episode that I did with Adam Lewis Greene, who is the person behind Bibliotheca, which is a different version of the Bible. You'll find links to that in this episode, show notes. That's at bibliotheca.co. But I would encourage you to do that, because you'll want to know what the giveaway is. So in that conversation, and throughout the organization of it Adam had said, let's give one of these away to a listener of the show. And that's a big deal like A: it's an expensive version of the Bible of a B: it's beautiful. And C: it has become one of my favorite versions of the Bible, because I see things that I don't normally see that way because the verses in the in the chapters are just gone. So it's like I'm reading without interruption. And I'm not explaining that well, but you'll see what I mean. So here's kind of the rules for entry beginning with this episode and the next two. And so that third episode will be Adam Lewis Greene’s every time that you either rate and review the show on iTunes during this time period, or pod bean, or anywhere else that you do. And I don't know how I'll keep track of those, because I don't get alerted to those. So just let me know that you did that. Every time that you do that, I'm going to go ahead and put your name in the hat for the drawing. The easier way though, and I think the way that most of you will do it is to just share this episode or the next few. And so for those of you that already shared the episodes, congratulations, your name is going to be entered in the hat easily. But for those that don't normally share the show with others, just share the show, tag the podcast, you know, either on Facebook or Twitter, when you share it. And every time that that happens, I'm going to enter that name into a hat for the drawing. And so I'm really excited to see what happens I'm excited to see where it goes. So here we go into that begin regular episode.
Brandan 1:44
The gospel is liberation from patriarchy. That's the entire case (that) I'm trying to make. That from Genesis to Revelation there is a progression in Scripture where patriarchy in the beginning of the Bible is the assumed ordering of creation. And that by the time we get to Revelation patriarchy has been dismantled fundamentally; and that Jesus is the linchpin in the middle of the Biblical narrative that turns the entire direction of Scripture away from patriarchy and to liberation. And so, all of that to say, if you don't understand the cultural context of Scripture, and I feel like everybody in every tradition says this, but it actually takes a lot of work to dig in and do the hard study of the Biblical culture. But unless you do that, you really don't understand the Bible.
Seth Price 2:42
Hello, my family! I'm excited that you're here. I'm gonna make this one short and sweet because to be honest, I'm biased but man I just really liked this conversation. And so I want to, I really just want to get into it. So just a couple quick announcements. Just a minute ago, you heard the giveaway (already happened), do that share the show, do what you can to get the entries. I'm really excited for that to happen. And then next week, you'll hear the interview with Adam Lewis Greene, another fantastic conversation.
It is such a privilege to be able to do this. If you follow the show on Facebook or social media or anywhere else, you'll notice that recently, I, well, I probably bit off more than I could chew. But I went ahead and made a store for the show. And so if there's anything that you want on there, shoot me an email and be like, Hey, you know what I would like I would like to have “this” and I will do what I can to make sure that it happens. So I've made a few things. It is not really my skill set. And so I am sending out ideas to people that know what they're doing, but you'll find links to that at CanISayThisAtChurch.com you just hit the button for store and get yourself whatever you like. I mostly did it because I wanted to have a few of the things there and I figured if I'm gonna go to all that trouble. Let's do it. So give me your feedback. I'd love to have it.
Today's guest is Brandan Robertson. So we welcome him back to the show. Today's guest is a returning guest. And so, gosh, 40, 50 episodes ago, maybe 40 episodes ago, I had him on, we had a conversation about what inclusion looks like. What the gospel looks like, and how that matters when we talk about homosexuality. And today, we revisit that but we really dig in deep and a couple caveats about this conversation. So I intentionally did very little editing, because there is a part about two thirds of the way that I'm uncomfortable with but I needed to stay genuine. So it is what it is. And so I don't want to belabor the point. Really excited about this conversation. Here we go with Brandan Robertson.
Brandan Robertson, welcome back to the show. You're on a list of a small list maybe eight, nine people that people that have been on twice. And so A: thank you for having faith and trust in me twice. But B: welcome back man.
Brandan 5:12
Thanks so much. It truly is an honor and I loved the last conversation and looking forward to jumping into this one.
Seth Price 5:17
Perfect. So I will skip through because if people want to, I'm sure they can go down in the show notes or on the Google and they can find you kind of talk about, you know your story that brought you to the current version of Brandan. So I will save those 10 minutes so (that) we can talk about more formative things. But I am curious what has been going on since last time we talked and the last time we talked was right after True Inclusion came out, which is a fantastic book. I like the way it talked about the Kingdom of God and what that should look like. So what has changed you know in your life, what are the big things that have happened from A to B?
Brandan 5:53
You know, not a ton has changed. True Inclusion came out in September and it is now May. And so I have this addiction of writing now. And we just put out this new books the Gospel of Inclusion a couple weeks ago. And so really this has been a year of talking about this idea of inclusion, both from a Christian theological standpoint. And I have been getting back into my second love, which is this political, social organizing field and I've had some opportunities to be bringing people together in closed door meetings and trying to see how we can work to facilitate more inclusive platforms and policies both in the church and in society as a whole. So basically, just being a pastor talking about inclusion, and seeing how we can spread this message and this ethos of inclusion further.
Seth Price 6:53
So to break apart that tangent, before we dive in. I hear you talking about you know, social and Political behind closed doors trying to make people talk about inclusivity. I feel like that has to be frustrating. Do you find it frustrating? Like, what does that actually look like? Because I think if I tried to do it, with the circles that I try to include, I feel like it would be similar to just running into a chain link fence over and over and over again.
Brandan 7:20
(Chuckle)
Totally. Well, for me, like, I feel like there is this crazy group of people that are called and anointed to use spiritual words, to do reconciliation and inclusive work. And so from very early on, I've had this bridge building spirit. And for me, I think I've done it long enough now; I've been kind of in these closed door meetings with stakeholders on the other side, so to speak, for about eight years now. And this past year has actually been really amazing. And just one example is one of the big projects I've been working on is bringing 10 evangelical mega church pastors into a room with 10 LGBT Christian leaders. And we did that a couple months ago in New York City. And the amount of change work that was done in a one day span was just incredible. That this entire group, you could literally watch hearts and minds changing before your eyes over the course of a day of spending time together. And that group is about to get back together in September, I believe. So I’ve finally gotten to a place where I think we figured out how to do this, at least with these two particular groups. And it's really encouraging and exciting to see change happening. And this, like I said, this “gospel of inclusion” spreading in ways that I hope will actually make a change in people's lives and in our world.
Seth Price 8:48
I'm going to try to overgeneralize that. So you're telling me that when people that disagree, come together in good faith, fellowship together, and try to hear the other person's point of view that people actually listen to each other‽ Oddly enough, I feel like that's what the church should be. So I'm probably over simple like, over simple, simple. I don't know what the word is. I'm over, over reducing—that is still a bad metaphor. I'm overdoing it. But I like that. I like that a lot.
I think if more people did that, there'd be a lot less shouting. And possibly, the world would actually just be better. Talk to me about so your most recent book. So the Gospel of Inclusion is, well, I wasn't really sure how big it would be. Then when I got it. I'm like, well, this is really small. And so I read it really quickly, because I just read fast and then as soon as I was done, I started again. And I know I've said on social media, like I just finished my third reading of it, partly because it's easy to read, but partly because like it's it's addictive. Dr. Gushee at the beginning basically said, you know, like, this is a text that takes a different approach. then most of the texts that you'll read, including some of your prior work, you know of, we're just going to flesh out this out really, really, really theologically. But you take a different tack. So what are you trying to get at with the Gospel of Inclusion, specifically with this piece?
Brandan 10:12
Yeah, for me, I've always hated reading really long books. And so the first part of what you asked, I kind of made this vow to never write super long books, especially long theological books. So let's see how long I can keep sticking to that. But yeah, this book was really it had a two fold purpose in the world. One, I kind of felt like I cheated in writing this book, because it was just my master's thesis essentially fleshed out a little bit more. But this is what I spent three years studying and paying lots of money to dig in and do the research on in grad school.
But it came out of this passion when I realized that as I was trying to reconcile my own faith and sexuality, I really realized that in order for me to do that it required a complete deconstruction of my evangelical faith. That it wasn't enough to change my mind about a few passages of Scripture. I actually was suspect of my inherited conservative theology.
And so I started doing this work of digging into the culture and the context through which the gospel originally emerged to try to see the nuances of what Jesus was actually getting at; who the historical person of Jesus was, and what his message actually looked like in the first century Greco-Roman world. And I realized really quickly, that it's not a stretch to say that the entire purpose of what Jesus was trying to do in his socio-political context was to tear down an oppressive system and show there's a different way of ordering the world that would lead to human flourishing. I think that's one level of the gospel definitely. And so this book, really is my attempt to in a very brief way, show how things like the crucifixion and dig into the layers of meaning that were available there to see how Jesus, even in going to the cross, was performing a symbolic action of deconstruction of patriarchy and hatred of women and that was my goal in this book. (I wanted) to bring the reader to a point where by the end of it, they at least have their appetite whetted enough to begin digging deeper into the Gospels and the message of Jesus and seeing what else might lie beneath the surface that could help us create more Just in general, a more equal church and world.
Seth Price 13:05
So the problem with that though is those books are long books when they dig into that. So I'm sitting here while you were saying that thinking, you know, right, so if you don't want to write long books, but there's enough in this master's thesis, I didn't know it was your master's thesis, but there's enough in here that I think you could flesh it out into a tome. And so all you do is you take this big, huge star on the front, and you rotate it to the left. Just change the cover so that as you line them up, you know, as you finish from, you know, Volume One to Volume 12 it's the full star on the binding of the book. So you can take that you can run with it, they're all short, but you read them together as a huge thing. There you go. I that's what I think you should do. That give it away to somebody else. I don't want it so donated to somebody that needs it let me rephrase it. I would love to have it and I do need it but give it to somebody that makes it more.
Um, so you talk a lot in the beginning. Getting in this comes up often or at least it came up a lot at the beginning of the show for me — a definition of uncleanliness. And so I hear a lot of people say, you know, it's unnatural, it's unclean. People that practice homosexual acts are just “unclean”. And you break that apart briefly at the beginning.
And so I feel like that is necessary because our fear of other is related not just to LGBTQ, it's related to anyone that doesn't look like us. And oftentimes LGBTQ I think is just an easy target. Because culturally it's a target in many cultures. And so it's the one that we can all point fingers at, as opposed to to take a bad metaphor of the NFL like, it's it's the jersey we can route against, even though the teammates on my jersey we don't really look at until I'm done beating the Browns. So how would you definition of what most people call unclean? And then how do you kind of reframe that?
Brandan 14:58
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is that and I tried to, again very briefly, trace this in the beginning of the book. That this whole idea of clean and unclean emerges in the Hebrew Bible out of a culture in which purity-this ritualized sense of purity-is something that was very important not just to the Hebrew people, but to people in surrounding societies. They had their version of what made them ritually pure and clean. But the thing that we failed to understand even though the Christian scripture the Christian Bible has plenty of writing of the Apostle Paul and Peter, and Jesus himself, saying this way of organizing the world is outdated and it's not true. It doesn't originate from God. It comes from humans. For some reason, we as humans seem to have this propensity to want to create this sense of in group and out group this clean and unclean.
And I think you're right in Western culture at least modern Western culture, homosexuality is easy to use as the unclean. Primarily because I think that a lot of heterosexual people just have this inherited “ick” factor, where gay love, or LGBT sex and love, is something a lot of heterosexual people don't spend a lot of time thinking about. And so when it's brought up, a lot of people's minds jump to that. And it's easy to demonize something you have no experience with and that you find personally unappealing.
And I think that we see that throughout the book, actually, as I tried to outline and in the first century Greco Roman world, there was a lot of separation and demonizing and marginalizing the people based on not just sexuality, but sexual practice itself. What role you played sexually in a relationship was how your identity and values socially was defined in ancient cultures. And as much as we think that we've evolved today, I still think we, in 2019 United States of America, still have this idea in our subconsciousness that says, if somebody is embodying something sexually, that we don't understand, or we don't find appealing that they are unclean and impure. And then we begin adding religious definitions to that and saying, God says they're unclean and impure, and sex and propensity to divide and label in and out. It's just a really powerful way to gain power and organize society. And yet, I don't think it's the way that God created or intended the world to be, even though the church itself has spent so much energy and time and still so much blood, frankly, defending this structure of clean and unclean.
Seth Price 17:59
And so this is what I found myself keep coming back to as people walk through the clobber passages and I don't want to flesh those out A: because we don't have enough time and B: because they're just low hanging fruit that anyone can Google just google clobber passages and just get after it. You talk about its relationship between patriarchy like a lot of those passages are deeply related to the cultural context. And in fact, you quote somebody, and I forget where to find it. You quoted a different person. Come on page…flip for me, Dr. Christopher. How do I say his last name one young? You? Yeah, I did it wrong. Both times. Dr. Christopher Yuan always said, quote,
…context isn't just King it's the whole deck of cards.
But I know that as I'd necessarily, you know, talked with people or read about it. I had never really connected the dots between the patriarchal aspects of those little medical and other biblical passages that people use to demonize people that do same sex form of relationships. How does that relate like so if someone's listening and they're like, Okay, so what does the quote unquote patriarchy because we use those words differently today. I think, you know, feminism, patriarchal, like how do we frame that in a way that as we go back and we reread the text, we're like, Okay, I see what you're getting at here. And then once I see what you're getting at here, why does that matter? Like, what does that change for me?
Brandan 19:22
Yeah, no, totally. I would say that the entire message of the book, at least in this particular iteration is that the gospel is liberation from patriarchy. That's the entire case I'm trying to make. That from Genesis to Revelation, there is a progression in Scripture, where patriarchy in the beginning of the Bible is the assumed ordering of creation. And by the time we get to Revelation, patriarchy has been dismantled fundamentally, and that Jesus is the linchpin in the middle of the biblical narrative that turns the entire direction of Scripture away from patriarchy and to liberation. And so all of that to say, if you don't understand the cultural context of Scripture, and I feel like everybody in every tradition says this, but it actually takes a lot of work to dig in and do the hard study of the biblical culture. But unless you do that, you really don't understand the Bible. And I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I sympathize a bit with the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period, when it had the idea that we shouldn't give the Bible to lay people. Because it can be become really distorted very quickly if you're not doing the deep study that's necessary to understand the text.
Now, I don't believe we should take the Bible away from people, but what I am saying is that it took me three years of intensive study in seminary about one portion of the culture and context of Scripture to a see all that I've begun to sees in this particular conversation. And that opened my eyes suggests how important it is for us to realize, as we read the Bible, what we assume we understand, we should always immediately assume that we actually don't understand, and that there's layers upon layers of meaning.
And so, when you're reading the Old Testament, when you're reading the Hebrew Bible, and you're seeing these copper passages, which say things like,
a man shall not lie with a man, as with a woman, for this is an abomination.
On the surface, you might just take that for what it says, “oh, clearly, this is a condemnation of two men having sex, it's an abomination to God.” And that's the end of the story. Well, there's actually 15 layers of meaning beneath that. And when you begin to understand that patriarchy, which was the ordering of the ancient world, was built on three pillars and those pillars were the oppression of women, the oppression of ethnic and economic minorities, and the oppression of a effeminate men or men that were not living up to the culturally idealized standard of manhood. Those three pillars were how the ancient people in the Near East, ordered their society. And like most cultures, they used religion to justify their bias.
And so they took this culturally defined idea of pressing these three groups of people saying that women, economic and ethnic minorities, and effeminate men were lower than the dominant cultures cisgender heterosexual male. They began to encode that in the writing of Scripture and say, actually, this isn't just our bias, it's God's bias. This is how God ordered the world.
And you actually see it emerge in the Bible, you begin to see it from Genesis Chapter 12. And Abraham setting himself up as this patriarch, literally this leader, over his family and his people. But even from the very beginning, when God appoints Abraham to be the leader of the nation of Israel, he also says, and my actual plan here is for all nations to be blessed through you.
So we see at once, how the Hebrew people, in the writing of Genesis, were trying to elevate this idea of patriarchy. And yet there was this divine spiritual wisdom from the very beginning that was saying, actually, this ordering that you're trying to establish right now is not where all of this is going. I'm actually trying to create a world where all people, all nations, all tribes, tongues, colors, genders, sexualities will stand on equal footing. I think you really have to grasp how patriarchy emerged in ancient cultures in order to begin understanding the clobber passages and anything the Bible says about sexuality or gender identity.
Seth Price 23:52
Yeah, so this might not be a fair question, but you've done much more research on it than I have. So the way that you know the Western culture or just Christianity would use those passages does that also happen in…Does the Jewish current Jewish culture or the ancient Jewish culture do they have the same hang up that the western church does? And B, do the other Abrahamic faiths have the same hang up for the same reasons or not at all? Is that not even really a good question?
Brandan 24:24
Well, it's a great question. And it's really damning to the conservative Christian Western movement, and the Roman Catholic Church, that Judaism has been way ahead of us on these conversations by far. Because, and I think I talked about this, I can't remember whether it was this book or the last one, but in the beginning of one of them I talked about the Midrashic way of reading the text and the way the Hebrew people come to the Bible, is understanding that it has multiple layers of meaning. And that we're not going to take it literally, but we're going to see what it says for us, in our culture and in our context. And so the Jewish people, by and large, have been affirming of LGBT people and our relationships for generations. They've been affirming of women in leadership roles for generations. Now, of course, there are other sects of Judaism, the ultra orthodox for instance, that would look a lot more like a fundamentalist Christian in these ethics. But by and large, I mean, look at the State of Israel who is run by Jewish people who believe in following the rules of Torah. It's also the only society in the Middle East that is fully inclusive of LGBT people where marriage is legal, where LGBT people hold the same rights.
So I would say Judaism as a whole kind of condemns the way that Western Conservative Christians have misused and taken texts from the Bible and not understood their culture or context and tried to apply them in some literalistic fashion.
And Islam is a whole different story, right? It emerges from a patriarchal society, just like Judaism and Christianity. And in the Islamic world, I think you have the best image, if you want to see how patriarchy manifested in the time of Jesus, look at the modern Islamic world, and how in ultra Islamic countries, there is a really encoded patriarchy even in the operating of society today. But I think the difference for many Muslims, in at least the Middle East, there is still the belief that that is of God and that is what God has dictated from the very beginning. I think if you look at Western Muslims, it's a very different story, just like us progressive Christians. I think most Muslims, in the Western world, are open minded and willing to Give up this literalistic interpretation of their Scriptures and start moving towards them anti-patriarchal direction as well.
Seth Price 27:25
I spoke with someone recently and they had asked me kind of my hermeneutic of when I read Scripture. And I was like, you know, I run everything through a lens of Jesus didn't talk much about it, then what do I hear him talking around it? And then how does that kind of informed my heart. Like, you know, I'm gonna err on the side of Jesus every single time.
And so, to talk about like an inclusive lens or an inclusive interpretation, you talk about a theologian called William Webb, positing something, and I wrote this down and I can't read my writing. And so if I get the name of it wrong, correct me. But uh, a hermeneutic of redemptive, no…redemptive movement hermeneutic, something like that. What is that and kind of how does that work? And then how should that change the way that I read Scripture?
Brandan 28:10
Yeah, I mean, this is the thing that I when I discovered it was like pulling the brick out of the bottom of my foundation of theology and everything fell apart. And if Dr. Webb heard me say that you'd be mortified, because he's still a conservative evangelical, and comes to different conclusions than I do by far. But basically,he's not the first but he's probably the first major evangelical scholar to posit the idea that kind of what I've said, from the beginning of Genesis till the end of Revelation, there's a trajectory in Scripture, and that that's what God was always all about—revealing truth progressively over time. And so, William Webb posited that God didn't reveal all truth at one point, but was slowly revealing it. And as God revealed more truth he raises the ethical standard because that's what humanity is able to bear at various periods in our evolution.
And so just the example that I use all the time, an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth was an ethical innovation in the book of Leviticus, because surrounding cultures taught that justice look like if you killed somebody in my family, it was right for me to slaughter your whole village. Well, the Hebrew people come along and say, actually, our God says, if you kill someone in my family, I can only kill someone in your family. And that was an ethical innovation.
But by the time we get to Jesus, Jesus says,
you have heard it said eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, I say to you, bless those who curse you, turn the other cheek and love your enemy.
So he raises the standard, but it took 2000 years from the time Leviticus was revealed or 1500 years to when Jesus raised the standard again. So all of that to say it's this fundamental belief in progressive revelation that God is calling us forward and that continues beyond the Bible. And so William Webb posited in his book, Slaves, Women and Homosexuals, that slavery and the equality of women weren't achieved in the New Testament, but that the New Testament was pointing us in that direction. And that the women's suffrage movement and the civil rights movement, took the direction of Scripture, and took it to its logical conclusion. Which was full liberation and equality for women and people of color. Even though the Bible itself doesn't say that. It's the idea that the Spirit of God is definitely pointing humanity in that direction in the pages of Scripture. And he has this beautiful quote that I'm gonna butcher but it's in the book and it's something like, “to stop where the words of Scripture stop on these ethical issues, is to fail to understand the movement in the heart of God”. That God wasn't calling us to institute slavery and keep that system. No, we see from the way that the Hebrew Bible talks about slavery to the way Jesus This talks about slavery, and incredible ethical movements. And we need to move beyond where even Paul gets to, but it's like a big sign. It's an arrow pointing forward. And I would say the same thing you see with sexuality.
From the Hebrew Bible, you see very strong prohibitions. When you get to the New Testament, you see loosening prohibitions, and the way that I would say, homosexuality is not even addressed in the same way that it was addressed in the Hebrew Bible. And in the book, I talk about how Jesus himself in the way he subverted patriarchy in his own life. And the way he dealt with eunuchs and other sexual minorities point us in the direction of assuming that God's heart and God's desire is to liberate and include LGBT people into the life of the church as well.
Seth Price 31:45
So if the trajectory of Scripture and I just want to be real clear, Brandan, I agree with you, if the trajectory of Scripture is basically everything is inclusive. That leads me to question or does lead others to question me when I try to badly paraphrase you. Is there even a role for clean and unclean sin and unsin? Because most of the time, the pushback that I get is if you keep moving the line in the sand, eventually you're just standing in the ocean. Nothing is unclean, nothing is inherently evil.
And so if we're thinking about Scripture that way, and the gospel that way in the the story of Christ in a way that everything is being included and and reconciled, is there still a reason to call anything unclean? Like does that term even hold wait anymore, you know, for the years to come?
Brandan 32:41
Yeah, I think I'm glad you asked that question because I think you highlight a mistake people make which is unclean and sinfulness are not the same thing. The idea of clean and unclean is purely ritualistic, it has no moral connotation at all. It's all about there is a God in heaven who has determined these standards about what is clean and unclean to him. And it's not apparent to humanity. And so we need to listen for revelation from God. Otherwise we wouldn't know what's clean and unclean. It's these arbitrary standards that I think very clearly in the New Testament, Paul says, get rid of this. Peter has his vision and Acts chapter 10, where God says nothing that I have deemed to be clean shall be declared unclean.
Now, that doesn't mean that there isn't sin and not sinfulness. But our understanding of sin needs to move outside of this category of ritualized purity codes and into what is morally right and what is morally wrong. And this goes into a much bigger conversation, which is actually the topic of the next book I'm working on, where I dig into sexual ethics more deeply.
But our whole idea for instance, around sexuality as Christians, so many of our prohibitions are, again, arbitrary. We prohibit premarital sex, primarily because we say it's not pleasing to God. But I think the New Testament abolishes that arbitrary standard, how do you know what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to God? Instead, our sexual ethics should be rooted in what is healthy and whole for us because God's desires that we would live hold and abundant lives.
And I think if we started thinking of sexual ethics, that way, we might get rid of some of these arbitrary purity standards that say, sex is only for the confines of marriage alone, because the majority of culture is going to have sex outside of marriage, and it's not going to be harmful to them and it's not going to pull them away from God and it's not going to cause them to live unhealthy lives. That was just the purity idea!
Rather, we should be calling people to commitment we should be calling people to healthy behaviors, and self control. Those are the things that are actually moral; that actually cause you to live a more abundant life. And I think everything we can see in the person of Jesus…Jesus was not concerned with these ritualized ideas of what is good and what is bad. He was concerned with what is right in the here and now what will help people's lives be better and more abundant and in the flow of shalom today, not what's making this arbitrary God in the sky angry if we don't do it. But there's so much there, we could talk for that for an hour.
Seth Price 35:27
We, we could but two things is the book under 100 pages because if not, I'm gonna shoot you some form of an email and it has to it has to be based on the rules, the arbitrary, self imposed rules from earlier.
Brandan 35:37
(Laughter)
I'm trying to get to 175 or 200 it would be amazing just like something that makes me look like a legitimate author, but other than that…
Seth Price 35:48
Alright, so that's the first thing second thing when I hear you say all that, I hear a lot of that, but I'm gonna be real honest. That is a struggle for me because I have two beautiful daughters and when I hear you talking about that, like they're small now, but they won't be in a decade. And that thought, just the thought of it is terrifying. But like everything of my faith over the last decade, it's also been terrifying. Like, I'm, yeah, there's so many places my brain goes, I’m just gonna put it that way that makes me uncomfortable. But usually when I'm uncomfortable, I grow. But that terrifies me.
So what would you say to a dad like that's listening to that right now? That's going alright. Yeah, I actually ordered your book, I was going to read it Brandan. And then I'm hearing you say that this is okay. Or I hear you say that you're researching, I think, what do you say to the person in the background? That's like, you know, eyebrows going up? What did you just say? I feel it you talked about earlier, you know, talking about the Roman Catholic Church might get you in trouble. I think that one might more. So what I will do, how do I assuage fears a bit, and I say that, personally.
Brandan 36:56
Yep. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to calm anyone’s fears because what I'm going to say is why why do you feel that way? Like this is a deep dive into our spiritual psychology now because it's we've inherited culturally and religiously patriarchy. Like this idea that sexuality needs to be controlled and confined, is literally the way the church keeps power. This is literally the way, right now we're watching, the evangelical churches gain influence in this country because the Trump administration, for instance, has all of these policies that are anti-trans pro abortion, these are all sexual questions. This is how patriarchy works. And I believe patriarchy is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so when we begin to have these fears, I always say when fear arises in us, we know we're not moving from a place where God is because I really do believe the presence of fear is the absence of God. I think we're not moving from a place of love and liberation. And that's not to condemn you or anybody else because I have those same impulses of fear. But the question is the call to deeper reflection, why does it make us feel uneasy to think of, for instance, your daughter's being in relationships that might not be marriage relationships, but they might have intimacy with somebody else? That's a hard question for a father, or anyone, to begin to think about. But it's also reality. It's also what happens for most people in our culture today.
And so I just think that's the call to begin rethinking and reforming because it's just what is happening by and large, almost every survey and study shows that a majority of people will engage sexually outside of marriage. And if you asked the majority of those people if they experienced a broken heart or if they are feel like an unclean withered flower, all the other bad youth group analogies that we were told, and it's just not experientially true.
And so, if our theology I say this all the time, and I think I said it on the last podcast, if theology and reality don't align your theology is the problem, not reality. And there's something really wrong with the way our patriarchal sexuality doesn't match up with what people actually experience in their day to day lives. And that, for me, is what I want to explore. And like I said, I'm at the very beginning stages of writing this book on sexual ethics, but it's definitely worth exploring because experience says that our theology is wrong on this.
Seth Price 39:39
Well, I think and I don't know why. So I've had this conversation at a high level with friends of mine that are in my peer group and age group. But I've never actually and I don't know why when you said it, like, I inherently thought of my kids, probably because I'm right underneath her. And that you're right. It is more about me, and I don't know what that is. Probably won't sleep tonight. And so thank you.
So, I asked Serene…Serene? Gosh, I can't think of her name right now. Jones, yeah from Union Theological. You what what the things are that matter for seminaries that are training pastors for the for the coming years. She didn't necessarily list that one, but it's definitely on the list, you know, LGBTQ concerns, the way that we treat others, you know, immigration. But also, you know, the view on marriage matters and premarital sex also matters. But I think for me, it hits too close to home. And so from there, I'm going to hit pause, and I'm going to pivot back to your book, because I am if you could see me, I'm squirming.
And I'm not going to edit any of this out because I'm going to try to be as transparent as possible.
So there's a chapter, I think it's chapter five, leveling the ground in a moment. To quote you a bit here, if that's all right, so you talk about
Jesus's very behavior and social position within the Roman Empire also would have caused him to be viewed as feminine when contrasted with the citizen men of the Roman Empire.
I've never heard anybody say that. And so what do you mean by the way that he postures himself, the way that he presents himself, the way that he I would argue preaches presents him in a feminine mentality. Because then you go further and talk about the crucifixion as a form of emasculation, which is also something I've never really broached. But when I read it, I found myself nodding like, yeah, this makes sense. I've never heard this before. But yes, this makes sense.
Brandan 41:41
Yeah. So that's my favorite part of the book, and not to toot my own horn here, but I think like that's the part I'm proudest about. Because I began to discover that this is deep in the scholarship and I like that part of the book the best because I quote so many amazing people who say groundbreaking, mind blowing things. But again, understanding the culture that Jesus was in. Once you begin to unpack it, you're like, this guy was really radical! Like not just in some weird political way, like, the way he lived his life would have caused anyone who saw him walking down the street in the Greco-Roman society to raise their eyebrows and say what is this freak doing! He's different. And it's the Jesus, the way he held himself. First of all, as somebody who preached against Empire period, that enough is to say he's anti-status quo. He's anti-patriarchy, because he called out the powers that were in the powers were all cisgender men who tried to be sexually dominant.
Jesus, as far as we know, unless you're Dan Brown and The DaVinci Code was unmarried. Jesus spent his life calling men away from their families to follow him calling women away from their families to follow Him. And the way he presented himself in the Empire calling for the deconstruction of power structures, that posture itself is feminine in Greco-Roman consciousness. Because in the Greco-Roman world again, your status in society was literally tied to what you did with your penis-to put it very bluntly. And if you were going to be a powerful, influential, person in society, you were a dominant sexual penetrator and also a militant penetrator, you would have fought in the Army or at least been in high powers of government that would have allowed you to have penetrative influence over society.
And Jesus was not that. He resisted that, in fact, he hung out with the people that were the worst of the worst in Roman society. And I think something I didn't spend a lot of time in the book looking at, but it's worth deep deep study for anyone interested in this, is how Jesus when he speaks about and hangs out with eunuchs, eunuchs are the worst of the worst of the worst in Roman society. Because these are men, who either by choice or as a punishment or by birth, gave up their ability to use their sexual organs in the penetrative way which was what made you powerful and manly in the Roman Empire. So these were men who literally became lower than women in the status quo of the Empire.
And Jesus comes along and says some amazing things about eunuchs becoming eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom and being first in the Kingdom. Like that kind of language would have made Jesus, and this is not meant to be a shock jock overstatement, like a radical queer theologian in the midst of a Greco-Roman society. You don't say that about a eunuchs and you don't identify with a eunuchs. And we could keep going down this path I actually think Jesus, the crucifixion aspect, is actually where Jesus most profoundly becomes an image of somebody who's emasculated and queer and in solidarity with women and people of color and LGBT people, But in his life, he definitely used his position of privilege as a male and he gave up a lot of that privilege that society would have bestowed on him, if he would have allowed it.
And Paul's the great example, as the last thing I'll say, of somebody who even as a Jewish person used his patriarchal power in his life before Jesus, and he was a dominant male who went around killing and had the blessing of the Empire and the religious establishment. And then when he comes to find Christ, lots of scholars would assume that the Apostle Paul may have been married and he left his wife and that's a whole…I'm opening up so many cans of worms there…and went and followed this celibate rabbi which is such a queer thing to do.
Seth Price 46:08
You said there's a last thing to say but I'm gonna ask you to say more. So how is the cross then, how is the crucifixion itself an emasculating symbol? Basically so if I want to, if I'm going to oversimplify it, like the cross for me would equate to a public lynching…you know, 60-70 years ago here in America. So how do those two emasculate?
Brandan 46:39
This is the stuff that really got me jazzed because it's so so eye opening. The information about the cross is always right in front of us like this is not hidden deep knowledge. But nobody ever told me this and it makes so much sense.
The reason that cross was such a profound, and horrific, means of execution was not just because it was a painful way to die. But if you read the crucifixion account of Jesus, it actually mirrors what they did to anyone who was crucified. From being stripped down naked before the council that was judging him and being mocked and dressed in feminine clothing; which was this robe that they put on him in this crown of thorns. This whole process, this whole drama is literally meant to be taking the masculinity away from the person they're about to crucify.
So they're taking Jesus from being a man to being less than a man parading him through the city as this powerless. The word that Diana Swancutt uses, they took this man who was being proclaimed King of the Jews, and they made him a “queen”. Like this idea that he was this powerless little thing that the Empire was penetrating with its power, and then they put him on the cross and the reason Romans used nails was because in this hyper patriarchal culture penetration, it was all sexual. It was meant to symbolize that he was literally being to put it crassly raped by the Empire, that they were dominating him. And so Jesus goes to the cross and is pierced in his hands and his size and his brow. And this is all symbolic of him being destroyed by the Empire-emasculated.
And the other thing that was really eye opening is that every account of crucifixion outside of the account of Jesus, it's really clear also that the Empire physically raped the person they were about to crucify. And when you begin to think that Jesus likely was physically raped by the Roman Centurions before he was crucified, that adds a whole other layer to one: how profound the love of God is for abused and for those for survivors of sexual assault. That God in the flesh, the incarnation of God, literally was put through some of the most horrific forms of abuse that has also been perpetuated by the church, by the way. That our, our Savior went through that. That's profound! And it also says something when we believe in our theology that Jesus undertakes this willingly. That's the power here.
That Jesus goes to the cross, knowing that he's going to go through this emasculating process, and he does it willingly as the act of Salvation. And if that's true, then the resurrection is the ultimate subversion, and victory, and the humiliation of this entire patriarchal system. The most powerful empire that ever was tried to crucify Jesus tried to emasculate him with their patriarchal power and the risen Christ comes back still penetrated still bearing the wounds as the Risen victorious lamb. Not through crucifixion, not through dominating his enemies, but through the power of forgiveness, grace, and love. And, again, there's so much I could dig into that, but it's just such a beautiful, profound image.
Seth Price 50:19
I want to push that further because as you're talking in I think this is in the book, I'm certain that it's not. So how then does that feminizing of Christ relate to you know, at Easter which we all will Christians celebrated recently…I'm not entirely certain when this will air. Where you know, you have if it weren't for women, you know, the gospel, you know, that it's the women that are coming to get the disciples and the Apostles it's the women that are yelling out, no, come and see, like, it's, it's empty! So, how do those two relate that, you know, that the Empire has, you know, feminized him and then it's the matriarchal voice that pushes it forward.
Brandan 51:02
Yeah, I actually have not really thought deeply about that. But it is really a interesting thing to think about. As Jesus is emasculated, it makes sense on one hand that the men would be more afraid than the women. And so the men leave Jesus at the cross and go and hide. nd it's his mother and Mary that are standing there weeping watching this happen. It says something about the power of femininity. It's a beautiful statement about men not being always the most powerful or the ones that are the bravest. But like you said, it was the women who stood by Christ at the cross. It's the women who took his body to the tombs. It is the women who were there when he rose again. And he rises again as Christopher who I quote in the book says, the image of the Lamb of God in Revelation risen is this beautiful image in the ancient mind of masculinity and femininity in perfect balance because you have the penetrated and pierced one but also the one standing in dominance and victory. And I think that's what God desires for the church and for the world. This equality and balance and equilibrium of masculinity and femininity as culture and sexuality all standing equal in the beauty of diversity.
Seth Price 52:23
Towards the tail end of your book and a promise I'm wrapping this up Brandon. So towards the tail end there is appendices after appendices. I think there's three appendices. I like those because as I read through them, like, oh, I've read some of these before. And then I realized we're just different things that you'd written in the past that all kind of feed into this. But I found some of the logical questions that I would have more easily answered there.
But something that I didn't see or I missed, or I glanced over, and you talked about it at the very beginning, I think in chapter one, or maybe in the introduction of the risk of psychological and physical-but really-psychological harm to those that are classified as “other” as “unclean” as unworthy, as unredeemable by the at least the church in the country that we live in. And so I want to try to end with that.
So the marginalization of LGBTQ and that entire community causes just some massive damage. With suicide and with homelessness and with so many other things. And so for those listening that are like, you know, I can do better in my church, I can do better in my community. I can do better in my family, possibly, depending on who's listening. Where would you send people to that to try to do better because unfortunately the church always seems to follow way too slow. Like we're being guided by the Holy Spirit. We're definitely not listening. We're being dragged, but we need to be leading this. So how do we begin to repair the psychological harm that our culture, that our proof texting in our literal flat reading our “Flat Stanley” reading of the Bible has caused?
Brandan 54:02
Yeah, that is a good and important question. I think you said something really profound and it's something that it's hard to see from the inside of the church. But it really God always, I think God gives the the message to God's people first. And the pattern that we see throughout the Bible and in the modern era, is that God's people generally reject the message and it's always the outsiders or the unclean, so to speak that get it first. And I think culture has is doing far more and far better than the church at reducing harm and addressing psychological damage. And because of that, most of the resources that exist…(call drops here with a loud clatter)
Seth Price 54:57
(ringing Brandan…humming)
Brandan 55:00
Hello…
Seth Price 55:01
I lost you.
Brandan 55:00
How long ago did you lose me?
Seth Price 55:02
Well, it sounded like your phone literally dropped to the ground. The last thing that I heard was because of that most of the resources that we have are outside...
And then it sounded like glass shattering. So I hope you didn't drop your phone.
Brandan 55:18
(Chuckles) No, that was must have been…it's the judgment of God coming down.
(laughter from both)
Seth Price 55:26
Okay, (still laughing) are you able to…(still laughing) are you able to pick up where you left off there?
Brandan 55:30
Yeah, most of the resources that exist, are outside of the church. It's organizations like the Trevor Project in the Tyler Clementi Foundation, and Faith in America and GLAAD these organizations are doing great work to receive the youth that we're pushing out of the church and that are being rejected from families and they're giving them resources that they need to heal and find restoration and renewal. So I would definitely point people, first and foremost, outside of the church, to things that are actually going to help the psychological healing of LGBT youth and LGBT people in general that have been hurt by the church.
But for those who are within the institution, for evangelical people in general, I would say the most important first step that you can take and that you need to take to reduce harm is to begin by changing your rhetoric and posture. There are some things that we just cannot say and cannot preach and cannot believe anymore because they're so discredited; they're so untrue. And certain ways of posturing ourselves, the fruit that it bears is just too clear, it's damage, it's death.
And so those things are, we've got to stop telling people that their sexuality or gender identity is a choice and that having a queer or different sexuality or gender identity is fundamentally broken or an abomination. You don't have to change your theology and believe all the crazy heresy that I said on this podcast, you don't have to ever embrace that. That's fine. But stop telling people that their sexuality is something they can choose or not choose! Because the distress that causes in somebody's mind to know that they're not actually choosing this, and yet, they're being told they need to stop choosing it, that creates such a cycle of despair, that leads people down the path of self-harm, self-hatred. And not only does that cause them physical and psychological trauma, that makes them not want to buy into this whole Christian thing because, again, experientially they know it's not true. And like I said earlier, when your theology and reality come clashing together, it's the theology that needs to change.
So I would consider it a victory for all of my work is if we could just stop getting Christians to stop telling LGBT people that their sexuality, their gender identity is fundamentally broken and that it's a choice. If we get rid of that rhetoric I think we would see such a decrease in hostility between our two communities. Because LGBT people, and gay Christians, the reason that so many of us are so afraid and so against so much of the church is because they keep saying these things that we just know, that the world knows are fundamentally untrue, and are causing harm. And if the church would just take a few steps to change its posture and tone and heart. I think we would have a different conversation moving forward.
And so that's what I would say. And then, like I said, point people to resources that are outside the church that are really helping to bring healing and hope to LGBT people.
Seth Price 58:56
Yeah, yeah. Good. Well, where do we point them to get to you now the book is everywhere and it also be in the show notes from I believe is it is it cascade which what's weapon stock, but it's the same thing. But how do they get in touch with you? How do they hear you preach? Because I'll be honest, like when you get on Twitter or not Twitter when you get on Instagram and you preach like, I just I'm sucked in like, I just lie. I like to hear you preach. So how do they hear you? How do they get connected with you and some of the stuff that you're doing?
Brandan 59:22
Yeah, well, if you go to BrandonRobertson.com; I have links to the church website where we have YouTube, all my sermons and books and blogs and all of that fun stuff. So that would be the best way.
Seth Price 59:37
Perfect, perfect. Well, thank you again for coming on. We're gonna have to do it again.
Brandan 59:43
Yeah, I would love to.
Seth Price 59:45
Next time though don't scare me. Don't scare me.
Brandan 59:46
I’ll try not to and thanks for staying up late. I hope you can get some sleep tonight. (laughs)
Seth Price 1:00:01
I've really struggled with how to in this one really have. And so I just want to say, just very little words, but the issue of homosexuality is not going away. Gender binaries is not going away. The way that we view sex is not going away. And human diversity is full of such a wide range of things that are loved and beautiful and created by God. I really hope you enjoy today's conversation. If you have not yet consider becoming a patron supporter of the show. I'll talk with you all in a week.
Talk to you soon.
Bye.