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Well, uh good afternoon, everyone. Uh Welcome to cultivating ideas. My name is Shawn Watkins and I serve as Associate Dean for lifelong Learning and we are asking for a very rare treat. We have

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Doctor David Jensen with us. Uh Now, if you got the opportunity to see this uh ideas webinar live the first time, then you will probably recognize it looks a little bit different and you're absolutely right

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. Uh We had some technical difficulties the first time we recorded this one. And so actually the first time we did this class. And so it was not actually recorded. And uh Doctor Jensen and his

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graciousness has agreed to do it again for us. So it's going to be the two of us uh after his lecture, having a little bit of a dialogue and discussion on this topic. So I hope

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that you enjoy it. And with that being said , uh Doctor David Jensen has been teaching at Austin Seminary since 2001. He was elected a full professor in 2009 and appointed to the Frierson chair position in

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2013 and appointed to academic dean here at the seminary from 2014 until 2022. Previously, he taught theology , church history and ethics at Manchester College in Indiana . Uh His teaching and research explored the interconnection between

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Christian theology and daily life. And this topic today is queering theology, gender trouble, and Christian faith , a very timely word. So, Doctor Jensen by all means, welcome and take it away.

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Thank you, Sean. Uh And thank you all for tuning in. I realize everyone has demands on their time and it's uh I'm grateful that you've chosen to spend a little bit of time with me on

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this important topic. And as I looked at the list of registrations, I noticed many names of former students, alumni, friends of the seminary, many of whom I haven't seen in a long time.

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And so it's great, especially to, to be with you who I've missed seeing. Um So the title of my presentation is Gender Trouble and Christian Faith . And let me share my screen here so we

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can get our, make sure we're on the same page. All right. So, um Queering Theology , Gender Trouble and Christian Faith. Now, uh a legitimate question you might be a asking is this

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, why am I teaching or presenting on this topic ? I'm of straight white cisgender male and that includes all the limitations of that identity. Um I can't claim to be something that I'm not, I can't

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claim experiences that I have not had. Uh but I am committed to a vision of the church that upholds the dignity and infinite worth of all persons, that is the heart of the gospel as I understand

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it. And that is why I am uh turn turning toward this important topic, which is very timely in our day. And that commitment to the flourishing of all people has led to some of my own

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work as a theologian in gender and sexuality uh subjects in which I've written and taught and in this process of research and teaching, I've really rediscovered some fascinating and in some ways, countercultural ways that Christians have

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understood gender over our 2000 plus year history. And of course, this topic is very timely, especially in Texas and in many parts of the United States where recent legislation has had pretty significant and in some

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cases, devastating impact on many, many lives, especially the lives of young trans people. So that's a little bit of an introduction. Why I'm doing this? Uh webinar, let me move on to

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the next screen and I don't think I can dance it. Why am I not seeing the? Oh OK, good. Um So there's a progressive way of looking at Christian attitudes towards gender and sexuality that

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goes something like this. The Bible, the early church and much of the classical tradition have very rigid , culturally bound ways of understanding gender and sexuality, things like fixed gender roles, fixed understanding of biological

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gender. And these rigid attitudes, many progressives say were due to incomplete, insufficient knowledge about the human condition. We moderns however know better and we are better equipped to question and revise the understandings of gender

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and sexuality that our foremothers and forefathers bequeathed us. And so our task, many progressives say is to get rid of these time bound, culturally specific understandings of gender and sex and sexuality and bring them up

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to date. So the spirit is speaking a new word to us. These winds of the spirit mean that we know better than our ancestors, at least on these matters. And it's up to us to

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revise the understanding of sexuality and gender. Now, that stands in contrast to a what is often called the conservative approach that goes something like this. The mainstream orthodox Christian understanding of sex and gender is given

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to us in scripture given to us by God, reflected in the classical teachings of the church. And these teachings are not culturally bound but are good for all times in all places. And they point to

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solid distinctions between the genders, strict rules about sexual behavior and they are not subject to change any attempt to revise them, amounts to betrayal of the word of God. Now, I've kind of um uh

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generalized here, but you've probably heard both of these approaches in one shape or form um advanced and there we go. Uh Now, here is the deal . Um I think both the progressive and the conservative

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approaches miss some of the depths of the Christian understanding of gender and that they're far more interesting and far more complicated and perhaps even more revolutionary than the progressives or the conservatives get. And so in this webinar

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, I want to unpack just a sampling of some of these really fascinating and in many cases, radical understandings of gender across the ages. So we'll look at some text from the Bible. We'll look at

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s a text from uh one of the first centuries of the Christian church. And we'll look at the contemporary movement of queer theology. And I think when we dig deeply into our traditions, we find some

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really surprising and rich resources. So here we go . Welcome to the journey. Now, first, let's talk about Paul. Paul says some very striking and it's sometimes conflicting things about gender. But at

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the heart of what he says is that all of our identities, our cultural identities, our religious identities , our, our economic identities, these are all relat and changed in the new life in Christ.

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Here's a classic example from his letter to the Galatians . There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and or male or female. For all

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of you are one in Christ Jesus. Now, here, Paul takes three of the major dividing lines in the ancient world. The ethnic cultural dividing line , Jew and Greek. Uh the uh the socio-economic

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dividing line, slave or free and the gender dividing line, male and female. And what hes suggest , these are three major ways of dividing up people , three major fault lines if you will in the

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ancient world. And he suggests that all of these ways of dividing folks from one another are slowly, inevitably slipping away in our baptisms, our primary and maybe our only identity according to Paul is in Christ

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. Now, what about this and, or, or thing that, that, that you see in , in that um quote from Galatians, uh the Revised Standard version translates this passage is no longer male

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or female. The new Revised Standard version translates as no longer male and female. So there's some discrepancy in translations. Um Now, if you're, if you remember your Greek in seminary or um uh or

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at least I've heard of it. Uh The most ancient manuscripts have the, the word Kai, which is the Greek word for. And now I think some of the arguments about uh how to translate this

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passage passage are fascinating. Now, one way of grappling with the reading is that it's the pairing of male uh that our gender identities are slipping away in Christ that there is no longer male or female.

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Um But maybe what Paul is saying also is that this, it's the pairing together of male and female , the binary. If you will, the, the, the complementarity that you often hear voiced about

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the, the, the genders in marriage or something like that. So either way, interestingly, I think there are some fairly radical implications. Uh So either no longer male or female, the suggestion that

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gender identity is passing away or no longer male and female, the gender complementarity, the the whole binary idea of gender is passing away. Both of these claims I think are revolutionary. They were revolutionary for

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their time, they were revolutionary for our time as well. The Roman world was predicated on patriarchy um and rigid roles for males and females and the whole . So whatever whatever is going on here, Paul

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is suggesting some of these identities, some of these way of thinking about gender are slowly but surely passing away. Well, something happens as the Christian movement spreads to the gentile world. Maybe some of these

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more revolutionary understandings of sex and gender start getting questioned and let's face it maybe uh every, any religion is bound to reflect some of the cultural context where it finds itself. And so as the Christian church

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grows into the Mediterranean world, it begins to start reflecting some of the more dominant Roman assumptions about gender . And the best examples are in what are often called the Pastoral epistles, 1st and 2nd, Timothy

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Titus. Um These are letters that are more recent um according to most New Testament scholars, um many New Testament scholars claim that these letters were actually written after Paul's ministry by people who were influenced by Paul

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. And these letters contain what are are often called household codes, uh instructions for how members of a household uh are told to relate to one another. Um You know, I'll just give one of these

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examples. Um I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She is to keep silent for Adam was formed first, then Eve and you can read the other one. There,

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the, there are several passages like these in the New Testament. Uh Another one that you might have heard is goes like this wives be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the

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husband is the head of the wife, just Christ and the church. No, what's going on here ? Uh There seems to be some kind of rolling back of some of the implications of Paul's mess in

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Galatians. We can't answer for sure, but there does seem to be a muffling of some of the more radical implications of the gospel or maybe there's evidence of complicated and sometimes conflicting uh understandings about sex and

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gender in the early church. But I think this much is clear. Um The early church said many things about gender sometimes in ways that reflected Roman assumptions , sometimes in ways that overturned those assumptions. So

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to, to end our discussion of the New Testament here, the early church as outlined in the New Testament, didn't just say one thing about gender. It said many things and sometimes these things even conflicted

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. All right. Um one last example from the New Testament. And here you see a depiction of the crucifixion according to John. Um here you have the the beloved disciple who's often identified as John standing

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at the foot of the cross with Mary and Mary Magdalene. Uh So you have here a mother standing with some of her friends and a disciple of Jesus who is mourning the loss, the impending death of

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her son. And so this is what Jesus says to his mother uh from the cross, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother woman,

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here is your son. Then he said to the disciple here is your mother. And from that hour , the disciple took her into his own home. Now there's a lot going on here. We could

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spend the rest of the hour talking about this wonderful passage. Um This is the disciple who shows intimacy with Jesus. In John's narration of the last supper , John describes the beloved disciple leaning into the breast

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of Jesus leaning on Jesus at the supper. Um There is a unique relationship between Jesus and the beloved disciple in this gospel. But what is going on at this scene of the cross? I think it's

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fair to say that in some ways, Jesus is reworking, the whole idea of family here that the ties of bi biology in the end are not what ultimately makes a family rather it is the bonds of

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love and that the church, you might even see this scene at the foot of the cross as the beginning of the Christian church, the new family that God is creating on earth. Um That uh this

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, if this story is an icon of the early church's beginning, it might even be said to queer the whole notion of what family is, what makes a family. And what I mean by that is

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Mary finds a new son and the beloved disciple finds a new mother. Um There is a playing around with uh the biological distinctions, even the gender distinctions and so on. So the family, what makes

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the family is that is not biology, but the ties of baptism, the ties of love. And in this case, I think we can say that the beginnings of the Christian church are rather queer.

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Indeed, let's move on to an important voice in the early church, Gregory of NSA. Uh you have his approximate dates right there. Um Gregory was one of the theologians who cemented some of the basics

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of Trinitarian theology and orthodox understandings of Christ's divine and human nature. But he also had significant and rather revolutionary understandings of gender. Uh And this occurs in his treatise, it's called on The Making of Humanity

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where he spends a lot of time interpreting Genesis one verse 27 let's read that verse a pivotal verse. So God created humankind in his image in the image of God, he created them, male and female

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. He created them. Now, what Gregory does is he splits this verse in, in portions. And for him, the second half of the verse is not really an explanation of the first half.

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Uh rather, it's a concession if you will. For Gregory, humanity's original creation and the true meaning of humanity in the image of God is to be without gender or without traditional gender. Um It's to

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be genderless, true human being is beyond gender, an existence of not being defined by gender. So the male and female stuff in Gregory's mind comes later in his interpretation of this verse, it's a concession

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if you will to the need for reproduction and in a certain sense, it's a concession to sin. But for him, the first creation where we are rendered like God in the image of God is to

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be without gender. And that is our true nature and that is our true destiny. Gender. He says is a departure from the prototype or in Christ , Jesus, there is neither male nor female.

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Further on. He goes and says this our whole nature extending from the first to the last is the image of God. The distinction and kind of male and female was added to God's work last for the

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sake of procreation. And what Gregory says in our redemption in Christ, um our existence in heaven. He says in that new life, gender will surely disappear. That is our destiny. That is our

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true beginning. According to Gregory, gender is something temporary. If we hold on to it too tightly , we become in a real sense, idolaters because gender passes away. And in this, in between

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time, we in a sense, perform our gender like actors on a stage. Now, in a compelling way, Gregory's idea actually anticipates some 20th, late 20th century developments in gender theory. And I'm

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referring here to the work of Judith Butler in a path breaking book called Gender Trouble, which was published in 1990. Uh Here is the cover of the original edition of that book. Now, the chief

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argument of this book is a rejection of gender essentialism in favor of gender constructivism. What on earth do ? I mean by those terms, here we go . Essentialism says that gender is fixed, it's static

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, it can't change. We have a gender that we are born with based on biological characteristics. This is what often swirls around in uh debates uh about uh uh uh transgenderism in uh state legislatures in the

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US. Um And often there along with gender essentialism emerges, this idea of gender compliment, charity, that's male and female complement one about. But Butler says that essentialism is elusive. It sees permanence where

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there really is no permanence and the reality of human life she says is that we are always changing. We are always on the way. And there are really if you dig down deeply. There are an

00:21:07.230 - 00:21:25.670

infinite number of ways of being male and female and ways of being that don't fit in to notions of what it means to be male or female. Gender . Butler says changes across cultures and throughout history,

00:21:25.680 - 00:21:41.190

it is performative gender is constructed. Um It is always on the way and what our cultures constructs, what it means to be male and female. And those constructions are always shifting. There are rules and

00:21:41.200 - 00:22:00.920

there are natures that are produced by societies and cultures . And so Butler says that we become male or female or something else through performance, through acting um by repeating countless gendered acts over time every day of

00:22:00.930 - 00:22:15.220

our life. That is what she means by gender constructivism. It is constructed by societies. It is constructed by history. It is constructed by us and we perform these constructions that is her stunning insight.

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And I think it has some rather fascinating commonalities with some strands of the Christian faith because Christian faith stresses that human nature is not something that is fixed, that it is that it changes that our whole being

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, our whole lives are constantly being transformed by grace . And the more we hold on to a certain notion of gender, the less we might become to be open to God's transforming race. Uh Here's how

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I as a Christian theologian incorporate some of Butler's insights . I think g uh a rigid gender and essentialism can even block our reception of grace. If I cling to a certain notion of maleness uh as the

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be all and end all rather than God's radical inbreaking into my life and remaking of all things. Um I might miss uh some of the transformative impact of , of salvation by grace in Christ. God's works

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in Christ to change us to transform us into the likeness of God and into communion with God. And I, I, I think that has some resonance with what Butler is saying in her path breaking book

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. Now I'm gonna conclude by offering an example uh of a recent queer theologian who draws on Butler's work as well as the rich history of Christian theology, including Gregory Nisa to think about uh transgender Christians and

00:24:00.180 - 00:24:17.010

transgender persons. Her name is S Susanna Cornwall. She's a British queer theologian who wrote an important book last year called Constructive Theology and Gender Variant. And in this book, she's offering not simply an argument

00:24:17.020 - 00:24:32.560

for why trans persons should be included in the church or even welcomed into the church that work. She says that work I say is important and it is really needed desperately, especially when so much of the

00:24:32.570 - 00:24:53.360

rhetoric surrounding transgender persons in places across the country. Um equate um transgender persons with deviancy or even criminality or, or things like that, that it's a threat to society or whatever the demonization of trans persons

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is a real pastoral issue and countless people have been damaged by the laws that some states in our country have enacted and sometimes people have died because of it . Suicide rates among trans persons, especially trans,

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you youth are astronomically higher than the wider population. So clearly, something has to change if our society and if our churches are to really nurture the well being of all Children of God. But what Cornwall's

00:25:25.030 - 00:25:40.920

work does is move beyond mere arguments for inclusion. If all we do is offer arguments for inclusion. We're not listening to our own traditions, resources on gender, on salvation in Christ. And God's promised

00:25:40.930 - 00:25:57.850

redemption and communion for all creatures in Christ. Arguments for inclusion really do nothing uh to shift our understanding of gender in more Christian ways. So she asks , how do some of our basic Christian beliefs about

00:25:57.860 - 00:26:12.890

Christ about uh creation about eschatology? How do they shift our understanding of gender and how do the lives of trans people help us live into those beliefs? I'm just gonna summarize two that she mentions in this

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book, uh Our Faith in Christ. And what we mean about eschatology, the end consummation of our life. First Christ. Um She looks at second Corinthians five verse 17. Let's read that if anyone

00:26:33.850 - 00:26:48.730

is in Christ, there is a new creation, everything old has passed away, see everything has become new. Now, what we see in Christ, of course, are many things. But what Cornwall

00:26:48.740 - 00:27:04.740

singles out is how Christ holds together, what seem initially to be opposites. Uh fundamentally, of course , this is the divine and the human which are gathered together harmoniously. In Christ. Jesus holds divinity

00:27:04.750 - 00:27:19.630

and humanity together. Noncompetitive. It's not as if the divine overcomes the human or as if the human overcomes the divine. But what we see in Jesus Christ is the coming together of humanity and divinity in

00:27:19.640 - 00:27:37.240

harmony. They are made for one. And what seems to be opposing forces or things are held together in beauty. And this holding together is what Cornwall says is in store for us as well as our

00:27:37.250 - 00:27:52.010

lives are changed by Christ. Everything that seemed to be in opposition to one another, one culture over another one gender, one economic status, whatever is healed, held together and changed. Everything old has

00:27:52.020 - 00:28:10.480

passed away, everything has become new. And we see in Christ that humanity is marked by diversity and difference, there is not just one way of being fully human. Jesus Christ disrupts the dichotomies and the

00:28:10.490 - 00:28:26.170

fractures that we construct about what it means to be human. Our appeals, she says advance to the next screen. Our appeals to absolutes, to origins , to the people we once were and perhaps wish

00:28:26.180 - 00:28:41.560

we wanted to be again, our appeals to shifting ephemeral fanta. I love that sense. They're like the handful of light that we try to grasp. Even as we realize it was just dust floating on

00:28:41.570 - 00:29:02.450

a Sunbeam. Christ, changes things and changes gender and shows us there are a literally an infinite number of ways of being gender. Lastly, let's turn to eschatology, the consummation and fulfillment of all things

00:29:02.460 - 00:29:15.840

in Christ. One of the things that she writes here in this section is that gender is for humans , not humans, for gender right now on this earth, you and I are living in, in

00:29:15.850 - 00:29:33.460

an in between time and in this, in between time, gender identities are slipping away in Christ. Everything has changed. But Cornwall in the end doesn't really argue for doing away completely like with uh uh

00:29:33.470 - 00:29:49.830

a gender in some ways, she's a little more measured the Gregory of NSA in this regard, maybe at the far horizon of our life, communion with God, maybe gender disappears. But we don't really

00:29:49.840 - 00:30:04.210

know if we're honest about it. Um In the meantime, you and I live in a world that's not yet fully redeemed and gender remains here. And now she writes here, gender must mean something both

00:30:04.220 - 00:30:21.060

because so many people, including many trans people understand it as an irreducible and fundamental mental aspect of their self identity. And because if gender is ultimately meaningless , and there may be so little continuity between creature

00:30:21.090 - 00:30:42.840

life in the ESCA to in God's future and creature life as we know it now in this realm, gender is anticipatory. She says what she does next . She says this gender calls us to connect if

00:30:42.850 - 00:31:00.430

we could understand gender diversity beyond the binary as a possibility rather than a threat. We could understand something about our human propensity to seek connection. The Christian life ultimately calls us to connect, to connect with

00:31:00.440 - 00:31:22.710

others different from ourselves, to connect fundamentally with the living God, gender diversity, gender, nonconformity fosters all kinds of possibilities for connection among human beings. And so gender may pass away ultimately, but vestiges

00:31:22.720 - 00:31:37.960

of it remain here and now maybe Gregory was right , maybe he was wrong. But whether he was right or wrong cornwall suggests that part of what we witness in gender nonconformity and in trans persons life.

00:31:37.630 - 00:31:51.600

Is it an expression, an ex an extension of the ways in which we connect with one another? And at the end of the day, that is a deeply Christian thing to connect to be changed,

00:31:51.730 - 00:32:05.670

to be transformed by grace so that you and I might flourish together with one another, drawing life from the living God, the giver of all gifts. That is what it means to live the Christian life

00:32:05.680 - 00:32:21.410

. And I think we've seen some examples from throughout our history, how we might address some of these contemporary disputes. I must change my, stop sharing my screen and have a little conversation. Thank you

00:32:21.420 - 00:32:30.250

, Doctor Jensen again for a very helpful webinar. Uh I feel like uh both I get to cheat and hear it twice. And so even hearing it the second time I just learned so much and just

00:32:30.260 - 00:32:40.230

appreciate your scholarship, your thoroughness um and uh your attention. I think to advocating for this community. Uh I've got three questions for you. I think as we talked about before and to kind of give

00:32:40.240 - 00:32:49.740

you a framework, let you know where we're going . Uh I'm gonna ask you a personal question and then I'm gonna ask one about the present and then one kind of a of a future forecast if you

00:32:49.750 - 00:33:04.710

will. And so I think um both uh yeah , both iterations of you talking about this amazing content , you framed it really in a posture of humility of being a cisgender, heterosexual uh white man uh

00:33:04.720 - 00:33:14.410

really in Texas, I think, talking about these issues. And so you already know where I'm going with this. So I think kind of the realities of those things we live in the state capital and

00:33:14.420 - 00:33:25.790

typically um men who live at the intersections of those realities are very much on the politically and theologically conservative side of this type of a conversation. Talk to us about your journey uh And not sure where you

00:33:25.800 - 00:33:37.130

started theologically. And were you both as a Christian and also as a professor? But talk to us about your journey of arriving at someone who's at the intersections of those realities, arguably the most powerful seat

00:33:37.140 - 00:33:50.250

of power in the list to make someone who's white and male and C G to being someone who not only um is learning about uh sexual orientation and queering theology, but clearly is an ally and an advocate

00:33:50.260 - 00:33:58.660

for that, talk to us about that journey and how you've arrived. That's where you are now. Happy to thank you. Um You know, I , I, I, I grew up in the

00:33:58.670 - 00:34:07.770

church. I'm a child of the church though no one in my immediate or extended family uh were uh in positions of leadership in the church, at least in our gain capacity. I will say that my

00:34:07.780 - 00:34:21.080

, my grandmother was actually the first female elder ordained in the Presbyterian church in the State of North Dakota . Wow. So, so she was actually a path breaker in some ways. Um You know,

00:34:21.090 - 00:34:31.020

so that the church nurtured me. Uh and I received a lot of messages in the church uh about gender and sexuality, not, not in a very direct manner, but I heard enough kind of through

00:34:31.030 - 00:34:45.260

the grapevine through certain youth group activities and so on . Some of it is great, some but not so great. Um It was really when I got to college that uh I felt some of these things

00:34:45.270 - 00:35:02.600

were awakened for me. Um I took a very uh significant class uh from a uh lay Catholic lesbian woman. Uh It was a class in feminist theology and that was the first class that it, it

00:35:02.610 - 00:35:19.770

de centered me in a very important way that was absolutely necessary for my growth as a Christian growth as a person. Um uh I don't think I've been taught enough in my life to listen. Uh and

00:35:19.780 - 00:35:30.500

uh that was a class uh where it was very clear that I, I needed to listen to experiences that were not my own to expand my understanding of what it means, meant to be a child of

00:35:30.510 - 00:35:52.070

God. And then around that same time, um a couple key members of my family, extended family came out uh and uh experienced some pain uh related to that in wider communities. Uh And I wanted

00:35:52.080 - 00:36:06.120

to be uh I, I, I, I , I, I wanted to be an agent of um how do I say it of expanse expe more expansive understanding what it means to be a loving uh

00:36:06.310 - 00:36:19.490

child of the living God. And so those, those, those two early experiences that happened during my college years really propelled me in many ways to seek further theological education. And I just, I love

00:36:19.500 - 00:36:30.450

to, I, I love to learn, I , I love to um be in places um that shake me out of my comfort zone. And um I just think the world is a heck of a

00:36:30.460 - 00:36:40.100

lot more interesting if you do that. Otherwise it's , it's, I mean, more of the same is, is monotonous. And I think that is , that is one of the most beautiful things about

00:36:40.910 - 00:36:57.440

being a Christian at its best is that in at least the table fellowship that Jesus practiced all are welcome and there's always room for one more at the table no matter what. And so I just think,

00:36:57.610 - 00:37:07.960

you know, I, I have it. I , I just find that, um, enormously exciting and then, you know, that I, I guess I didn't claim my Texan this, um,

00:37:07.100 - 00:37:15.530

I am now, I've now lived in Texas longer than anywhere else. I've lived in my life so I am a Texan and, you know, a lot that's going on, uh down the street,

00:37:15.540 - 00:37:25.530

you know, several blocks from here. It's, it's, it's alarming e especially when so much of it is uttered from the lips of those who uh articulate the same Lord and Savior that I do.

00:37:25.540 - 00:37:37.990

And I just, I mean, it's, it's uh too often. The loudest Christian voices are the ones that um uh I think have a more limiting understanding of what it means to be a creature of

00:37:38.000 - 00:37:50.870

God. And I think there is, there are other ways of talking about that the world desperately needs . Uh Right now, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, I'm fascinated by

00:37:50.880 - 00:38:00.690

that. I appreciate you sharing so openly and vulnerably as well too. Um Yeah, I grew up uh Black Baptist uh and not traditional Baptist, like we didn't wear the gloves or kind of any of

00:38:00.700 - 00:38:08.920

those things. We always had women in positions of leadership. And so I didn't realize that there were , you know, different subsets of the Baptist tradition . So I moved from Houston to Austin. Uh

00:38:08.930 - 00:38:21.720

And then my own spiritual formation was through Varsity Christian Fellowship. So very much. They planted a ministry for black students on U T S campus across the street. And so my uh invitation to discipleship really

00:38:21.730 - 00:38:30.940

was through an evangelical lens in a lot of ways . And so what's been fascinating to me, all of my friends that have for lack of a better word, switch sides. Um precisely what you mentioned

00:38:30.950 - 00:38:40.750

. Uh precisely what you said, it's both of those things. One there was someone in their family that came out and so it ceased to be a theological statement. It ceased to be a political statement

00:38:40.760 - 00:38:51.330

. It was humanized, it was a person. And then the second thing was again, 100% what you said, there was a guy, there was a teacher that came at the right time that forced

00:38:51.340 - 00:39:00.290

him to decent themselves. And as a consequence, they learned something that was staring them at the face , but they saw it from a different perspective and it changed your life entirely. And so that's just

00:39:00.300 - 00:39:10.050

fascinating to me, those two motifs always appear. It's very interesting to see how they appear in people's lives, which is absolutely wonderful. Thank you for sharing. Um You all, you stepped on it

00:39:10.060 - 00:39:21.010

a bit. So it's gonna be an easy segue for you. So, these are softballs today. So, uh my second question really is around um precisely as you were landing there. Why is there

00:39:21.020 - 00:39:31.910

so much fear around clearing theology? Um Why did the church has struggled so much, I think, to apply the gospel to gender and the sexual orientation . Um Do you think it's generational? Do you

00:39:31.920 - 00:39:40.860

think it's geographic? Do you think it's cultural that all of the above or is it something else? It just seems that, um, so for example , uh and I'll, I'll overshare for a second

00:39:40.870 - 00:39:52.000

so you can gather your thoughts. Um, uh Mark Knowles, a Civil War is a theological crisis is an excellent, excellent book. It is a dry, dull read, but I'm a historian and

00:39:52.010 - 00:40:02.190

therefore I love it, but he talks about how The Witness of the Church was the most important influential um institution in the United States. The Danbury Baptist that live as they wrote to Thomas Jefferson about separation

00:40:02.200 - 00:40:12.730

of church and state. It was that the state would not interfere with the church, not the other way around the church was that instrumental? But the church during that time period, they did not know

00:40:12.740 - 00:40:21.390

what to do with nonwhite people. In other words , uh indigenous or native American folks and African Americans . And they did not know what to do with the institution of slavery. And because they could not

00:40:21.400 - 00:40:30.380

solve that problem, that theological crisis led to a war, the civil war. And so as a consequence, now we don't solve our problems through the churches. Witness we solve our problems through war and

00:40:30.390 - 00:40:45.100

through politics. And so it seems like this issue of queering theology of sexual orientation and gender. It again is creating, it's adding to this polarized environment that we find ourselves in the United States right now

00:40:45.110 - 00:40:55.780

. Why do you feel like or what are your thoughts around? There's being so much prevailing fear around hearing theology. It's not even that um We're misunderstanding each other. It's like there's, people don't even

00:40:55.790 - 00:41:06.990

want to engage in the conversation. And like you've demonstrated for us, you defined your terms, you provide a theological and biblical evidence of that and you're an invitation, you're inviting us on an invitation to

00:41:07.000 - 00:41:14.640

a conversation, but there's so much fear present that folks won't even dialogue about that. Why do you think that it is? Where is that fear coming from? Why is it so prevalent in our society

00:41:14.650 - 00:41:24.780

around fearing theology? It's an amazing question, Sean , excellent question. And I'll try to answer it the best that I can. Um I uh I think there's, I think a lot going on why

00:41:24.790 - 00:41:39.960

there's so much fear and I think I can name a couple of things. Um Number one, this disrupts certain understandings of power and who has power and who uh uh and, and you know, I

00:41:39.970 - 00:41:53.130

think it was king who Martin Luther King who said that something to the effect in the letter to Birmingham jail, that history will reveal that, that the powerful, very rarely willingly give up power. And

00:41:53.140 - 00:42:05.180

so so, so, so, so at, at one level, this is about power and who has the, the most significant or loudest voices in the room. But I think it's really more than

00:42:05.190 - 00:42:15.700

that too. I think there's also, when, when you're talking about gender identity, when you're talking about sexuality, it's, it's also this is the human person in many ways that they're most vulnerable.

00:42:15.710 - 00:42:30.220

Right? I mean, that, um, you know, um it's, uh, and, and we're afraid of that kind of vulnerability or at least many of us are, you know, um um

00:42:30.230 - 00:42:43.570

and uh you know, so I think that's going on too, but I think, you know, the, the Christian faith at the end of the day actually is an invitation to become vulnerable. Um

00:42:43.580 - 00:42:57.280

um What we see in the ministry and message of Jesus Christ is a, is a ministry of kind of ultimate moment that is costly and that is painful . And so, and that's pretty darn hard to

00:42:57.290 - 00:43:12.560

do. And so, um yeah, any, any conversation about gender sexuality queerness, it's gonna involve vulnerability. Um So those are, those are two things that leap out and then there's also just a

00:43:12.570 - 00:43:27.480

lot of current of misinformation, right? That's just swirling about. Um And I think as you said , what, what, what two other things. So the misinformation spread is, is very real.

00:43:27.780 - 00:43:42.820

Um And it's a similar kind of misinformation um um spewing that was happened in the early stages of uh gay and lesbian rights. OK. The one of the arguments against gay and lesbian inclusion was that they

00:43:42.830 - 00:43:54.990

were grooming young people to be, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's the same thing is being kind of spouted now in discussions of transgender persons. Um And then

00:43:55.000 - 00:44:02.810

, oh, I forgot what my last point was . I had one other thing that was swirling around . But um but that those are, those are some things that I think are, are, are

00:44:02.820 - 00:44:15.480

at the root of some of this fear. That's , those are excellent, excellent points. I agree with you. Uh completely wholeheartedly. It feels like it, it really is a discipleship issue and it's

00:44:15.490 - 00:44:27.720

um I think it was a General electric uh 70 years ago. You can still see the ad on youtube and they talked about their most important product and uh they said the most important product was progress.

00:44:27.730 - 00:44:37.370

Uh not the iron, not the microwave, not the stove, the refrigerator, the light bulb, the television, the radio, any of these things that we use. Now, they said progress was

00:44:37.380 - 00:44:45.900

the most important product. And that's fascinating because the thing is you're mentioning a progress is great. If you're on the right road, if you're on the wrong road, the further along you go, the

00:44:45.910 - 00:44:54.070

further away you get from what's really important. And so, yeah, I think I remember as a child growing up, I think, um, you know, especially in the African American tradition. Uh

00:44:54.080 - 00:45:04.300

If you had a gay uncle, his friend always came around to the picnics, but it was never really acknowledged the uncle was gay in capacity, but that was the mainstream information that was going around the

00:45:04.310 - 00:45:12.100

news, right? That they were grooming Children, that was very dangerous. Same thing has happened, I think with transgender folks, like you said, are you guys, I can look at the laws

00:45:12.110 - 00:45:22.320

in the United States around interracial marriages and dating, right? There was this definite fear, there would be a contamination of culture and the preservation would disappear . And so there's always been this reaction, this

00:45:22.330 - 00:45:32.570

reactivity uh that really is rooted in an uns unsubstantiated fear. So I, I agree with you wholeheartedly there. Um And so finally, again, these are all kind of interconnected, I think to be

00:45:32.580 - 00:45:44.510

able to land the plane. Um uh It's, it's a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, uh who's come out as queer and is at an evangelical seminary. And he's talked about this notion of

00:45:44.520 - 00:45:55.810

embodied violence that the violence that is being poured out of marginalized communities, both in terms of ethnicity, uh and gender and sexual orientation. Uh That, that violence is really the only way in which we've

00:45:55.820 - 00:46:07.550

been able to get uh the mainstream people's attention in terms of things. So, uh Ma Aubrey and George Floyd, uh Rene and MCR, uh it was their murders that really helped. Uh I think

00:46:07.560 - 00:46:15.310

in the last few years, people to realize there needed to be a racial reckoning happening despite all the things in the past and the same thing goes for the LGBT Q community, right? There has been

00:46:15.320 - 00:46:25.230

this heightened sense of violence poured out on transgender people that people are like, oh wait, this is , they're not actually just making these things up. They are very serious about this. These people are

00:46:25.240 - 00:46:37.760

being harmed in a very visceral way. Um N T Wright talks about uh what he calls a generational snobbery. He says that we always uh look back in the past on previous generations and say for lack

00:46:37.770 - 00:46:46.310

of a better term, my paraphrase, they're dumb as a bag of rocks. They really missed it . And I'm so glad we're here because we're gonna get it right. Uh And it seems like every

00:46:46.320 - 00:46:58.850

future generation kind of looks back and says, what were y'all thinking? Um as you have talked to us today about clearing theology, uh the fear that's so prevalent in your own journey, both in having

00:46:58.860 - 00:47:08.340

the right teachers and then also having family members uh expose a different subset of their heart which changed yours . Um Let's say, for example, that we are in the future that you're absolutely right. The

00:47:08.350 - 00:47:23.490

gender does disappear. That the uh equality that's being denied to the LGBT Q community actually is realized. How do you think future generations will look back on us as we struggle with not only affirming and accepting

00:47:23.500 - 00:47:35.430

, but also including the LGBT Q community. What are your thoughts on how they'll look back on us right now and how can that be an impetus for us to lead differently as theologians and as pastors?

00:47:35.980 - 00:47:49.930

Yeah. Again, that's a wonderful question. Um You know, in a way, I think um part of what I tried to do in this uh uh presentation is both kind of outline some ways the

00:47:49.940 - 00:48:02.200

Christian church and, and our broader society might grow and move forward and progress. Yeah, but do so actually, by even looking backward in some ways at some of the, some of our foundational documents

00:48:02.210 - 00:48:22.280

. So I think, you know, um going forward also always involves looking back and seeing um you know, some of the really radical uh gospel of love and um transformation that is at the heart of

00:48:22.290 - 00:48:30.970

our tradition. So, so I think it's, you know, it's always, yes. And, and the, the example I was given my intro class is that, you know, the Christian always

00:48:30.980 - 00:48:43.510

stands on the shoulders of those generations who have gone before us and, and we're part of a family and, and when you're part of a family, you learn from what your ancestors said and you can

00:48:43.520 - 00:48:53.690

also laugh with them or laugh at them even at sometimes. And so I think the next generation or , you know, several generations from now is gonna look back on us to laugh at some things.

00:48:53.700 - 00:49:07.120

They'll kind of shake their heads. Why didn't they get it? But they'll also, I think hopefully , um see how we are engaged here, we that we are trying to live out the gospel in

00:49:07.130 - 00:49:19.620

the present moment on issues that matter, uh many issues of life and death. And so, you know, I think, I think at one point you said early in your question, uh might have

00:49:19.630 - 00:49:34.410

been the first question that too often we forget that we're dealing with people, right? You know, we can easily abstract a discussion of transgenderism into some kind of anonymous threat to our Children or whatever.

00:49:34.860 - 00:49:45.980

Let, let, let's talk about people, let's talk about people trying to live their life to the fullest in the ways that God's calling them to be . And so don't ever forget the pe this doesn't

00:49:45.990 - 00:49:54.560

mean, of course, we can't argue but, but, but don't forget the people who are at the heart of these discussions. And so I hope that at our best, the next generation sees that

00:49:55.200 - 00:50:07.950

we tried to uphold the dignity of all persons. We didn't live fully into it, but we've, you know, and I think every generation has to realize there's something that the next generation is gonna notice

00:50:08.030 - 00:50:20.080

that we didn't do that we should have done. I love it. Uh Yeah, I agree. 100%. I'm a historian by trade. And so I'm always curious and looking back, I think that

00:50:20.090 - 00:50:30.220

the past and the decisions that were made politically, theologically, culturally, socially, all the leads, all the categories and then you come to the president . Uh I'm 41. And so I think as

00:50:30.220 - 00:50:38.110

I've told you before, uh outside of the space , I thought that I would be older before. I think I saw this nation and the world change in a level in which I didn't recognize and it's

00:50:38.130 - 00:50:49.060

changing so rapidly. And so my question just becomes that I'm holding in front of us, what future generations think of this. And I think it kind of becomes a driving force for me in terms of

00:50:49.070 - 00:50:55.410

how I live and how I love and how I approach people. And that was, I think there is some kind of my own journey of becoming affirming as well too. It was like when we look

00:50:55.420 - 00:51:02.770

back in history, like what side are we going to be on? Are we on the side that did the harm of the side that helped to heal and to be welcome in human. So again,

00:51:02.780 - 00:51:13.690

Doctor Jensen, thank you again for an amazing uh webinar for the second iteration. I think it was just as good as the first one. And so I greatly appreciate you for that. Uh Join us

00:51:13.700 - 00:51:22.690

this Thursday. Bobby K is going to be sharing some reflections from our conversations with alumni from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And we look forward to seeing you then. So take care, everyone. Have a