Ex-Evangelical Apologetics: "There Are Only Two Genders" + "Pronouns?"
Brad continues the Exvie Apologetics series with a retort to those who would say that there are only two genders and that the idea of pronouns is a leftist invention.
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What's up y'all?
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
Today we're back on ex-evangelical apologetics, and I wanted to talk about Two things you might hear from Uncle Ron or on your timeline, and that is the idea that there's only two genders and that this whole phenomenon of pronouns is unbiblical and unwarranted and just leftist, woke propaganda.
So, one of the things that you're going to hear quite often when people talk about there's only two genders, excuse me, is that in the beginning God created Adam and Eve, man and woman.
And gave them the mission of becoming one flesh.
Okay.
All right.
So for me, that's one of the things that I think is a strategy to address this, is to say, hey, that's great.
That's where things began.
But why don't we look to where things end?
And we might get a vision of, you know, the entire picture if we actually look at how the end of the world happens, rather than just basing everything on the very beginning.
Because, as we know, original sin And a covenant with the Israelites, and then a new covenant through Jesus Christ happened.
And so, you know, it doesn't totally make sense, I don't think, to base our entire interpretation on the very, very beginning of the book of Genesis.
You know, I don't think it's smart when you're watching a basketball game to think you know who's gonna win after three minutes.
You kind of have to wait until, you know, the fourth quarter and check in on the score at that point, rather than making a Some sort of prediction.
So, if we look at the end of the Bible, the very last chapter, as it is organized in its modern form, is Revelation 21 in the New Testament, and in that chapter we see the sort of vision of the new city.
The New Heaven and the New Earth.
And in that vision, what we see is that Christ returns, and it says explicitly that His Bride is ready for Him.
And this is just one of the instances in the New Testament when Christian people in the Christian community are referred to as the Bride of Christ.
Now, this of course leads to a whole set of discussions about pronouns and about gender, because it really does seem that if you are a Christian and you are in a relationship with Christ, then you are Christ's bride.
It seems as if, if we take the sort of, you know, context of what a bride and a groom mean in this setting, that the bride is a woman.
If we're assuming a heterosexual relationship, which if you're talking to somebody who sees there's only two genders and Blah blah blah, that's probably what they're gonna do.
Then we have a situation where Christ is the groom, the male, and the masculine man, and we have the bride, who is the woman, and the one who's assumed to be feminine.
Now this kind of brings up a lot of questions, right?
Because as many of you know, the Bride of Christ metaphor is used throughout the New Testament.
The Apostle Paul uses it, and there's this sort of image of the Christian soul in the Christian Church as Christ's bride.
Okay.
So if we only have two genders, um, there's kind of a question here because it seems there's some fluidity.
It seems like if I'm a man, so let's just take me, Brad, I am, uh, you know, assigned, uh, male sex at birth.
I've been socialized as a man.
I identify as a man and I identify as male.
Okay, so let's just take me.
If I am the bride of Christ, it seems like, when I'm in the world, I'm identifying as everything I just said.
But when I'm in relationship to Jesus, I am a bride.
It seems like I am she.
It seems like my position in the relationship is as the feminine and as the what would be assumed to be the female bride.
So what does that mean?
It means spiritually, I take on a different identity and it seems like a different set of pronouns.
Now, one of the classic retorts to this is that the Apostle Paul says there is no, you know, Jew nor Greek, male nor female in Christ, okay?
So there's no male nor female.
So when we're talking to the person who says there's only two genders, we've reached a critical juncture in the debate, okay?
So we can go one of two ways is what I will tell them.
Hey, if you want to do that, that's totally good.
That's fine.
But if there's, in reality, spiritually, there is no male or female, then I think what that means to me is we need to drop any pretense of male leadership, complementarian marriage, any notion of patriarchy.
That we have to admit a full, egalitarian, and inclusive understanding of what it means to be A Christian.
So, we have to drop all gender sort of roles, all gender regulations.
So, women can be leaders, pastors, preachers.
There's no idea of the man as the head of the household.
The whole James Dobson family values, focus on the family, family research council, that whole ethos needs to go out the door.
If you really want to stick where there's no male nor female, if that's the way you want to go, I'm happy to do it.
I'm just saying I can see down the road And down the road it looks like, if we really want to stick to this, not only do you need to stay with me and say, all right, there's no male nor female, we're mature Christians, we're in the church, we of anybody are going to recognize, regardless of what the world does,
That your assigned sex at birth, the makeup of your body, your anatomy—none of that matters, because in reality there's neither male nor female in Christ.
I mean, you know the next step, right, is we're going to apply this to God, because God is God.
God is not bound by human limitation.
And so it seems like if there's neither male nor female on earth, With human beings, there certainly cannot be with God, right?
And so it seems like we're getting to this place now where, hey, I mean, we can say God the Father, but shouldn't we say God the Mother?
Shouldn't we say they when it comes to God?
I mean, we should really start getting creative because we don't want to have linguistic idols, do we?
Do we really want to be idolaters?
who use human attributions for God?
Shouldn't our theology go beyond that?
Shouldn't we take Paul's cue and say, well, neither male nor female, God is beyond that.
So, hey, at times we'll just do our best to talk about God, but that might mean they, it, she, him, who knows, right?
Okay.
Now, you don't want to go down that road, Uncle Ron.
I can see it in your face.
You're already regretting suggesting we do that.
Let's back up.
Let's go down the other road, okay?
The other road is, The idea that, okay, male and female, and yet I am a bride of Christ even though I've been sexed male and I identify as a masculine person, I perform a masculine sort of social identity, and so on and so forth.
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