\n<\/p>\n
00:00<\/p>\n
Pete:\u00a0 You\u2019re
\nlistening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on the
\ninternet.\u00a0 Serious talk about the sacred
\nbook.\u00a0 I\u2019m Pete Enns.<\/p>\n
Jared:\u00a0 And I\u2019m Jared
\nByas.\u00a0 Welcome, everyone, to this episode
\nof the Bible for Normal People.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Before we jump in, just want to remind you that we have a
\ncampaign going on.\u00a0 We\u2019re trying to shoot
\nfor 1,611 patrons.\u00a0 One, we want to keep
\nthe podcast ad-free, but two, we want to be able to transcribe this podcast
\njust so that people can have more access, people who need access and also
\npeople who just want that access.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve had that request over and over.\u00a0 We want to be able to provide that, not only
\ninto the future and all future episodes, but we want to go back into the
\narchive and transcribe all of those episodes as well. <\/p>\n
If you feel so inclined, head to
\npatreon.com\/thebiblefornormalpeople. <\/p>\n
Speaking of archives, today, you\u2019re in for a treat.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking back at Season One with Megan
\nDeFranza, the Bible and Intersex Believers.\u00a0
\nThis is one of my favorite episodes from Season One and frankly, one of
\nthe favorite episodes that we\u2019ve done.\u00a0 A
\nlot of appreciation for Megan\u2019s insights.\u00a0
\nI hope you enjoy this. <\/p>\n
The Bible and Intersex Believers.<\/p>\n
[Jaunty Intro Music<\/em>]<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Hello everybody!\u00a0 Welcome to the Bible for Normal People She\u2019s written a wonderful book to sex difference in Christian theology.\u00a0 This topic, the Bible and Intersex Believers, Last year, this wasn\u2019t on my radar screen.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until Megan came to speak at Jared:\u00a0 After she Pete:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of these issues that is all around Jared:\u00a0 The ancient Pete: \u2014the ancient church and ancient readings of biblical For us, today, people like me and Jared, for who it\u2019s new, This is an issue, like other issues (for example, gender We come at the Bible with our questions already Jared:\u00a0 And unearths Pete:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have this conversation with Megan.<\/p>\n [Jaunty Music<\/em>]<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 We\u2019ve done our We haven\u2019t done that yet.\u00a0 5:01<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 Welcome to the Megan:\u00a0 Thanks so much Jared:\u00a0 The topic Bring us up to speed on what it is we\u2019re talking about\u2014<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 If we don\u2019t Jared:\u00a0 Clearly.\u00a0 Clearly\u2014<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 That\u2019s the way Megan:\u00a0 That\u2019s really Jared:\u00a0 What would be Megan:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 \u2014where this Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 One of the most common kinds of intersex is But, at the cellular level, the cells can\u2019t process those You can also have the opposite with XX chromosomes and Pete:\u00a0 Thank you.\u00a0 [laughter] Yeah.<\/p>\n That\u2019s very helpful to distinguish intersex from other terms Megan:\u00a0 Yup.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014the alphabet Megan:\u00a0 Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 This is Megan:\u00a0 An older term Pete:\u00a0 You\u2019ve written To me, it raises a question of curiosity.\u00a0 What is it in your life that is driving you Megan:\u00a0 I started this That led me to research, to talk about, that there are not It was hearing those stories, the stories of individuals, particularly These surgeries have lasting harm, pain for life, for many It was really hearing their stories that led me to say, 9:58 <\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 As we get into How does that connect with the Bible for Normal People?\u00a0 Say more about how your story coincides as Megan:\u00a0 For me, the Getting into that history, the history of biblical Pete:\u00a0 Can you give an Megan:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014we\u2019re just You\u2019re saying it\u2019s more diverse and very early on\u2014<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 St. Augustine, Pete:\u00a0 Hmm.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 Here\u2019s Augustine Pete:\u00a0 With Augustine, Megan:\u00a0 He lives in Pete:\u00a0 That\u2019s a long Megan:\u00a0 It is.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Was there a Megan:\u00a0 In that Pete:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 \u2014just stating Pete:\u00a0 Not freaked Megan:\u00a0 Not freaked Jared:\u00a0 You say \u201cneutral.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to me\u2014what I heard you say Megan:\u00a0 Right. For Pete:\u00a0 That\u2019s Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Sure is.\u00a0 Pete:\u00a0 Just to fill Megan:\u00a0 Certainly, in One was a naturally-born eunuch, which they classified more They have another term, called the ilonite (SP?), which was They also used the term androgenos for someone whose right They had a fourth term, which was really something they They developed laws and rituals, religious laws to govern 15:00<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 Tying it to Megan:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 It is \u201cGod Megan:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 How does that Megan:\u00a0 That\u2019s where Certainly, we have the beginning.\u00a0 God creates them male and female in God\u2019s Now that we have this other language that I just mentioned He\u2019s being asked to weigh in on this ancient debate about Jesus quotes Genesis 1.\u00a0 Then his disciples say, \u201cWell, if we can\u2019t get out of Jesus says, \u201cNo.\u00a0 I like to say, \u201cLet anyone accept this who has any idea what The church has debated, \u201cWhat does this mean?\u00a0 What did it mean to make oneself a eunuch for We know a lot about the second category.\u00a0 That\u2019s the castrated men that I just This first category, the eunuch from birth, Jesus\u2019 is Here\u2019s Jesus, in the context of talking about divorce and That pushed me to think, \u201cHow do we take Genesis and give it That\u2019s what I was\u2014<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 This is beyond, Megan:\u00a0 The Jesus doesn\u2019t do that in Matthew Chapter 19.\u00a0 The text doesn\u2019t tell us that.\u00a0 That\u2019s a theological reading we\u2019re bringing I asked, \u201cAre there ways that we can read Genesis that make Megan:\u00a0 We could read 20:14<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 When we look at other parts of These are the three categories of animals that God But I\u2019ve never heard an Old Testament scholar like yourself, Pete:\u00a0 Hey.\u00a0 That\u2019s my next blog post.\u00a0 That\u2019s my next blog post.\u00a0 [unintelligible]\u2014<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 You\u2019re Pete:\u00a0 What you\u2019re This is something I can imagine people, as sort of a Megan:\u00a0 The canon But fast-forward up to the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 56, he God says, through the prophet Isaiah to them, in Isaiah 56, Then he speaks to the foreigners and says that they\u2019re But God is saying, \u201cDon\u2019t worry.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to give you a place.\u201d\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t say to the eunuch, \u201cI\u2019m going to Pete:\u00a0 No talk about Megan:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014a product of Megan:\u00a0 Nope.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 That\u2019s the 24:50\u00a0 (Producer\u2019s 25:53<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 That\u2019s a Megan:\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Right now, the only difference between There are some intersex people whose experience is like that At puberty, she didn\u2019t develop one way or the other and Sometimes, these terms overlap and sometimes, they Jared:\u00a0 Where they Megan:\u00a0 At this point, Jared:\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s an important piece of the Megan:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 [unintelligible] Megan:\u00a0 Yup.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Megan, you\u2019ve Megan:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 You don\u2019t think Megan:\u00a0 Sure.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 You get this Megan:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 Here I\u2019m thinking of Revelation Chapter 7, where there\u2019s a 29:56<\/p>\n It\u2019s a story that gets bigger and wider and God\u2019s redemptive There are trees in the beginning and at the end.\u00a0 But they are not the same trees.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that we don\u2019t think that we\u2019re Pete:\u00a0 It\u2019s like the Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 It is.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 You\u2019re not Megan:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 It\u2019s something Megan:\u00a0 It\u2019s called Pete:\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s new.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Megan:\u00a0 It\u2019s not Jared:\u00a0 I appreciate, Megan:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 Then, from Megan:\u00a0 You know Pete:\u00a0 You took the Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 There\u2019s the Holy of Holies.\u00a0 As he\u2019s reading the prophet, Isaiah, God sends Phillip to I have read that passage my whole life, but until I studied Pete:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 Here he\u2019s Pete:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 Am I gonna be Pete:\u00a0 Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 Is there a Pete:\u00a0 I\u2019ve always Maybe the Bible\u2019s surprisingly not uptight.\u00a0 [laughter] Go figure.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 God does tend 34:48<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 I\u2019m wondering\u2014I Is there a case to be made in terms of reading and how we What would you say?<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 First, I would Jared:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 Everyone who\u2019s Jared:\u00a0 They\u2019re Megan:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Throughout Israel\u2019s history, they were Jared:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Megan: \u2014communities, so they were the minority.\u00a0 You could really read that two different Even though the rabbis made space for naturally-born They are this minority group has more to do and it\u2019s harder Pete:\u00a0 Let me ask you Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 I want to ask Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 The Bible, even Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014that is also Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 I gather you\u2019re Megan:\u00a0 It\u2019s not\u2014I was We have only the first few pages of the script in the New We\u2019re not trying to get back to Ancient Israel.\u00a0 He keeps saying, \u201cIf we\u2019re going to put on Pete:\u00a0 Right.<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 \u2014our part Pete:\u00a0 I would add to 39:53<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 That\u2019s not a Megan:\u00a0 We\u2019re so Pete:\u00a0 Why is Megan:\u00a0 \u2014to do what Pete:\u00a0 We should get a Jared:\u00a0 [unintelligible]<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014are people Jared:\u00a0 In the Pete:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 \u2014what are Megan:\u00a0 There\u2019s so Pete:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Maybe you\u2019re putting the nail on the head Megan:\u00a0 It\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Yeah\u2014<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 I was going to Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard.\u00a0 Jared:\u00a0 That\u2019s a good Pete:\u00a0 Which brings me Megan:\u00a0 [laughter] Pete:\u00a0 \u2014which has a Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 It\u2019s not easy\u2014<\/p>\n Megan:\u00a0 It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 Living life is Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 \u2014which is a Megan:\u00a0 But you do Pete:\u00a0 Yup.\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Jared:\u00a0 Which is that Megan:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n Jared:\u00a0 \u2014within the Megan:\u00a0 I don\u2019t have Pete:\u00a0 Right.\u00a0 Being quiet.\u00a0 Megan:\u00a0 It is 44:58<\/p>\n Pete:\u00a0 [laughter] Megan, I appreciate the In closing, tell us where people can people find you on the Megan:\u00a0 Thanks.\u00a0 You can find me at www.megandefranza.com<\/a>, pretty easy to
\npodcast.\u00a0 Our topic today is the Bible
\nand Intersex Believers and our guest is Megan DeFranza.\u00a0 She is a theologian and she\u2019s currently
\nserving as a visiting researcher at Boston University School of Theology.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty impressive, folks.\u00a0 Don\u2019t know if I have to tell you that, but it
\nis.<\/p>\n
\nwhat does that even mean?\u00a0 Megan\u2019s gonna
\nhelp us understand that.\u00a0 I know I can
\nspeak for myself and for Jared a little bit.\u00a0
\nI\u2019m 56 years old.\u00a0 When I was in
\nhigh school, this wasn\u2019t even on the radar.<\/p>\n
\nEastern University where I teach, where she\u2019s talking and I was like, \u201cOh.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know any of this.\u00a0 It\u2019s really interesting.\u00a0 It affects people\u2019s lives in ways that I
\ncan\u2019t even imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nspoke at Eastern, Pete was telling me about it over dinner and I had to talk
\nwith her.\u00a0 I got on the phone right after
\nthat and said, \u201cWhat is this that you\u2019re doing [laughter]?\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand.\u201d\u00a0 It is just very fascinating, so I was just
\nreally excited to have her on the podcast and just explain it, even for me to
\nbetter understand.<\/p>\n
\nus in the sense that it can be somewhat unsettling and uncomfortable and even
\ndivisive among people because you have to engage the Bible at some point.\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what Megan does.\u00a0 All she does is engage the Bible and the
\nhistory of the interpretation of the Bible and theology and all those\u2014<\/p>\n
\nchurch.<\/p>\n
\ntext to show a rather surprising story that intersex is not a new issue.\u00a0 People have been thinking about that and
\ncommenting on it for a long time.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nwhere we\u2019ve been, we were never taught this in seminary.\u00a0 I never really thought through it and never
\nhad to, because it wasn\u2019t brought to my attention.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nequality or same-sex marriage), it\u2019s so potentially volatile, it actually
\nforces you to go back and re-examine your own thinking, your own theology and
\nthe biblical text.\u00a0 You actually can\u2019t
\nget around that once you start listening to people who actually know the topic,
\nhow much there is in the Bible that can help us think through some of these
\nkinds of issues that sometimes lay buried or sidelined, because it\u2019s not where
\nwe are.<\/p>\n
\npremade.\u00a0 What these issues do is they
\nforce us to ask different kinds of questions we would never have thought up on
\nour own.<\/p>\n
\nour assumptions.\u00a0 I appreciate how when
\nyou look at the Bible through a particular lens, it helps you understand that
\nyou\u2019ve been making assumptions all along that you didn\u2019t even know.<\/p>\n
\ntheological reflection.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done our
\nbiblical study, only thinking about these idealized versions of male and
\nfemale.\u00a0 That\u2019s not good enough.\u00a0 We have to do our biblical study and our
\nthinking theologically about what it means to be human and what it means to be
\na faithful Christian in a way that includes everyone in the community.<\/p>\n
\nLet\u2019s start a new conversation.<\/p>\n
\npodcast, Megan.\u00a0 It\u2019s very nice to have
\nyou.<\/p>\n
\nfor having me.<\/p>\n
\ntoday is the Bible and the Intersex Believer.\u00a0
\nThis term, neither Pete nor I had ever really come into contact with
\nthat term before we met you, Megan, last year or a few years ago.<\/p>\n
\nknow what it is, nobody knows about this\u2014<\/p>\n
\nI look at it.\u00a0 Enlighten us all\u2014<\/p>\n
\ncommon.\u00a0 The reason it\u2019s new is because
\nit\u2019s a fairly new term for a very old phenomenon.\u00a0 Intersex is just a broad umbrella term that
\ntalk about bodies that don\u2019t fit the medical definitions of male and
\nfemale.\u00a0 There\u2019s a mix of male and female
\ncharacteristics in the same body and that can happen in a lot of different
\nways.<\/p>\n
\nsome common things, just concrete examples of\u2014<\/p>\n
\nterm might be appropriate for people?<\/p>\n
\nsomething called androgen insensitivity.\u00a0
\nYou have a baby that\u2019s born with XY chromosomes, which is your typical
\nmale pattern and they make the gonads, which are neutral in the first few weeks
\nof gestation, go and become testes and starts secreting the typical level of
\nmale hormones.<\/p>\n
\nmale hormones.\u00a0 The body defaults to
\nfemale.\u00a0 On the inside, it looks like
\nmale anatomy and on the outside, it looks like female anatomy.\u00a0 That\u2019s a fairly common kind of intersex.<\/p>\n
\novaries, with extra production, or higher-than-typical production of androgens
\nthat can make a female body look more masculine or anywhere in-between.\u00a0 Something called congenital adrenal
\nhyperplasia.\u00a0 All these fancy medical terms,
\nwhich is why we use the generic \u201cintersex\u201d most of the time.<\/p>\n
\nthat float around like\u2014<\/p>\n
\nsoup.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n
\nsomething that is a new term that people are maybe beginning to see and maybe
\ncome to terms with, for the sake of a population that probably feels, I would
\nimagine, rather isolated and misunderstood.<\/p>\n
\nwould be hermaphrodite or androgyne.\u00a0 But
\nthose are mythological creatures that have full sets of male and female
\nanatomy, which is humanly impossible, which is one of the reasons we\u2019ve moved
\naway from that language towards stuff that\u2019s more precise, to the particular
\nvariations of individual people.<\/p>\n
\na wonderful and tremendously scholarly and well-researched book, Sex Difference in Christian Theology,<\/em>
\nand you have a website that is just very informative.\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonderful thing to visit if people\u2014if
\nyou want to know anything, folks, that\u2019s where you go.<\/p>\n
\nto be passionate and supportive of the intersex community?<\/p>\n
\nwork because I grew up in a very conservative church, where being a woman with
\na mind was a problem.\u00a0 I started studying
\ngender and sex difference and biblical scholarship and history and all of that,
\nto try and figure out how I could serve God and not sin, because I happened to
\nhave a female body.<\/p>\n
\njust male and female in the world, that there are all these intersex variations
\nas well.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nrecent medical history, where with our advanced technology, we here in the
\nUnited States and Europe and elsewhere, have tried to fix intersex.\u00a0 Doctors come in to a baby that is born with
\nambiguous genitalia.\u00a0 They\u2019ll say, \u201cWe
\ncan figure this out.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019ll do plastic
\nsurgery on the genitals of a child to make them look more typically male and female.<\/p>\n
\nmany people.\u00a0 Hearing their stories of
\nphysical pain, of feeling unsafe to share their stories in their own faith
\ncommunities, pastors saying, \u201cThanks for telling me, but please don\u2019t tell
\nanybody else,\u201d really drove me to realize that my questions about gender and my
\nfrustrations as a woman in the church were small in comparison with my intersex
\nsiblings in Christ, who had all of these added complications.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got to do something about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthe topic, it\u2019s just interesting to me the contrast that some of our listeners
\nwill have where you\u2019re using lots of medical terms and you\u2019re talking about the
\ntechnology and the science of a lot of things here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nyou became aware of all of this within the church community.\u00a0 When did you start thinking about how the
\nBible fits into all this?<\/p>\n
\nBible was the place I started.\u00a0 Reading
\nscriptures about women\u2019s place in the church led me to go back and look at
\nhistory and realize that in Christian history, we\u2019ve thought about gender
\ndifferences very differently over the last 2,000 years, since the birth of
\nChrist.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\ninterpretation, really was the thing that moved me to say, \u201cWait a minute.\u00a0 If we\u2019ve thought about this differently in
\nthe past, that gives us opportunity to think differently and maybe in fresh
\nways in the present about differences that, actually, the ancient church was
\nquite familiar with, but we\u2019ve lost that language and knowledge, even though
\nour science is more sophisticated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nexample or two?\u00a0 I can imagine people
\nlistening, saying, \u201cWhat are you talking about [laughter]\u2014<\/p>\n
\nhaving this conversation about gender and we thought what we think today is
\nwhat people have always thought,\u201d which is a typical response, \u201cwhat I think is
\nwhat the church has always thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nin the City of God<\/em>, talks about
\nhermaphrodites.\u00a0 He says, \u201cAs for hermaphrodites,
\nalso called androgynes, they\u2019re certain very rare, but every culture has people
\nthat they don\u2019t know how to classify as male or female.\u00a0 In our culture, we call them by the better
\nsex.\u00a0 We call them men.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nsaying, \u201cOh yeah.\u00a0 Everybody knows about
\nhermaphrodites.\u00a0 We assign them on the
\nmasculine side.\u201d\u00a0 In the ancient world in
\nRome and Greece, there were laws for men and laws for women and laws for
\nhermaphrodites and laws for other categories of people that we\u2019ll talk about as
\nwe continue here.<\/p>\n
\nfor example, he lived around when?<\/p>\n
\nthe third, fourth century in the Christian Era.<\/p>\n
\ntime ago, right\u2014<\/p>\n
\ntone of judgment in reading Augustine about what we call intersex or was he
\njust matter-of-fact about it?<\/p>\n
\npassage, he\u2019s very matter-of-fact, actually\u2014<\/p>\n
\na fact that everyone\u2019s aware of.<\/p>\n
\nabout it.<\/p>\n
\nout.\u00a0 He\u2019s much more concerned about
\ncastrated eunuchs and their place and pagan religious cults.\u00a0 He speaks very harshly of them.\u00a0 But he\u2019s very matter-of-fact and fairly
\nneutral when it comes to hermaphrodites\u2014<\/p>\n
\nand maybe I misheard\u2014\u201cwe have this category of people and we as a community
\nassign them to the male side of things.\u201d\u00a0
\nActually, it seems like there\u2019s some social consequences to that.\u00a0 It would be a more of a place of privilege at
\nthat point.<\/p>\n
\nhermaphrodites, Augustine is giving them the male privilege, whereas, it\u2019s
\ninteresting\u2014castrated men, men who had their testes or crushed or cut off or
\nbirth and who developed differently or who maybe did that later on in life, he
\nsays of them, that they are \u201cno longer men,\u201d even though they were born whole.<\/p>\n
\nconfusing. <\/p>\n
\n[laughter]<\/p>\n
\nthings out for the benefit of people listening, can you point to something else
\nthat might be instructive for us, another example or two from this ancient
\nchurch period or from other cultures, perhaps?<\/p>\n
\nthe Jewish culture, there was a recognition of more than male or female.\u00a0 The ancient rabbis came up with four
\nadditional categories between male and female.<\/p>\n
\non the masculine side, but not all the way over to the male.<\/p>\n
\ntoward the feminine side, but not always to the edge.<\/p>\n
\nin the middle.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t know how to
\nclassify them one way or the other.<\/p>\n
\nsaid, \u201cWe\u2019re not sure what we\u2019re dealing with now, but we\u2019re pretty sure their
\nsex will become clear over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthese various persons and would debate those throughout the centuries.<\/p>\n
\nthe Bible itself; we have the ancient church and we have this Jewish tradition,
\nwhere Augustine and the rabbis recognized different categories, often the
\nargument or the conversation when it comes to the Bible goes back to Genesis.<\/p>\n
\ncreated them male and female.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nsquare with this conversation?<\/p>\n
\nwe all start, right?\u00a0 This is where it\u2019s
\nimportant to recognize that the Bible\u2019s a big book and that Genesis is not the
\nwhole of the story.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nimage and blesses them that way.\u00a0 But
\ndoes that mean that\u2019s all God created or all God intended?<\/p>\n
\nfrom the ancient rabbis, we can look for other language in Scripture and that\u2019s
\nwhat I was so delighted to find in my research is actually none other than
\nJesus speaks about intersex people with one of these categories that the rabbis
\nmention in Matthew Chapter 19, verse 12, where he\u2019s being asked about whether
\nor not, you can divorce your wife if she burns the toast.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nhow bad does the infraction have to be for you to divorce your wife.<\/p>\n
\nHe says, \u201cDon\u2019t you remember God made them male and female.\u201d\u00a0 He quotes Genesis 2, \u201cFor this reason, a man
\nshall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall
\nbecome one flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nmarriage, maybe we shouldn\u2019t get into it, since our parents are typically
\nchoosing a spouse for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nNo.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 You\u2019re not understanding what I\u2019m
\nsaying.\u00a0 There are those who\u2019ve been eunuchs
\nfrom birth.\u00a0 There are those who\u2019ve been
\nmade eunuchs by others.\u00a0 There are those
\nwho make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.\u00a0 Let anyone accept this who can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nJesus is talking about.\u201d\u00a0 [laughter]<\/p>\n
\nthe sake of the kingdom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nmentioned, very common slaves and very expensive slaves, luxury items, status
\nsymbols and sometimes even sex slaves in the ancient world.\u00a0 Castrati were very very common.\u00a0 We know a lot about that.<\/p>\n
\ndrawing on this ancient rabbinic of the eunuch, of the sun as it is in Hebrew,
\nfrom the day the sun first shone upon the child, we knew this one is different.<\/p>\n
\ncertainly affirming Genesis, he throws in these other categories and he doesn\u2019t
\ndo it with any criticism and he doesn\u2019t say, \u201cBut God didn\u2019t mean for it to be
\nthis way.\u201d\u00a0 He just lays it out there.<\/p>\n
\nits place in the cannon at the beginning, but also recognize that we have to
\nfind a way to read Genesis in a way that fits with these words of Jesus?\u201d\u00a0 So how do we do that?<\/p>\n
\nthen, that all parts of the Bible are equally ultimate and we read verses and
\nthey tell you what to think.\u00a0 You\u2019re
\nactually describing a dynamism in the Bible that we have to take all this into
\naccount somehow and make, not to put words in your mouth, but to make
\ntheological decisions on the basis of this grand conversation that\u2019s happening
\nin the Bible.\u00a0 Is that a fair way of
\nputting it?<\/p>\n
\ntheological decisions are how to interpret the description that God made male
\nand female.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say, \u201cGod made
\nmale and female and anything else is a result of the fall.\u201d\u00a0 Yet, that\u2019s a very quick theological move
\nthat many Christians make.\u00a0 \u201cIf there\u2019s
\nnot male and female, then anything else must be a result of sin.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nto the passage.\u00a0 Does it say that?<\/p>\n
\nit fit with the words of Jesus and with the larger canon all together?\u201d\u00a0 I think that there are ways that we can.\u00a0 We could read Adam and Eve as the parents at
\nthe beginning of the story, rather than the pattern for all people.<\/p>\n
\nthem as the statistical majority.\u00a0 Most
\npeople are clearly male or clearly female.\u00a0
\nBut just because they are the statistical majority doesn\u2019t mean they are
\nthe exclusive model or the only way that God allows humans to be born.<\/p>\n
\nGenesis 1, we recognize that there are all sorts of things that aren\u2019t named in
\nthe creation account.\u00a0 There are three
\ndifferent types of animals.\u00a0 There are
\nthe \u201cfish of the sea, the birds of the air and the creatures that crawl upon
\nthe earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\ncreates.\u00a0 But we all know that there are
\ncreatures that don\u2019t fit into those categories.\u00a0
\nPenguins are birds that don\u2019t fly.\u00a0
\nThere are other things in the sea other than fish.\u00a0 There are things that crawl, but they live in
\nthe water.\u00a0 There are amphibians that are
\nboth water and land animals.<\/p>\n
\nPete, say, \u201cHey look.\u00a0 Frogs.\u00a0 They\u2019re proof of the fall,\u201d\u00a0 [laughter] because they don\u2019t fit into the
\nthree categories of creatures\u2014<\/p>\n
\nwelcome.<\/p>\n
\nsaying is exactly right.\u00a0 I think the
\nresponse would be, \u201cIn the Old Testament, in the Pentateuch, when you have
\nclean and unclean animals, some of these in-between things, \u201cYou don\u2019t eat
\nlobster.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019re sea animals, but they
\nalso have legs.\u00a0 They don\u2019t fit.\u00a0 They\u2019re unclean.\u00a0 You don\u2019t eat them.<\/p>\n
\ncounterpoint to what you\u2019re saying, to draw on that.\u00a0 How might you navigate that particular issue?<\/p>\n
\ngives us the way to do that too.\u00a0 Even if
\nwe see them as outsiders.\u00a0 Lobsters are
\noutsiders.\u00a0 Bees are outsiders.\u00a0 Frogs are outsiders.\u00a0 Maybe this other category of people who don\u2019t
\nfit into male and female.\u00a0 Certainly, in
\nthe Old Testament, we have, laws for men and laws for women and it doesn\u2019t
\nleave a lot of place for anyone who doesn\u2019t fit those categories.<\/p>\n
\ntalks about two categories of outsiders, one being the eunuch and the other
\nbeing foreigners, Gentiles.\u00a0 They\u2019re complaining,
\n\u201cHey God, it\u2019s not all that easy to be a eunuch or a Gentile and live in
\nancient Israel.\u00a0 The system isn\u2019t set up
\nfor us.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\n\u201cDon\u2019t let the eunuchs complain that I\u2019m only a dry tree.\u00a0 For to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath and
\nobey me,\u201d and there\u2019s a long list of things, \u201cI will give to them within my
\nhouse a name, an everlasting name that\u2019s better than sons and daughters, a name
\nthat will not be cutoff.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nofferings will be accepted on his altar for \u201cmy house will be a house of prayer
\nfor all the peoples, \u201c (Isaiah 56:8), which we\u2019re much more familiar with.\u00a0 That\u2019s in the context of God folding in
\noutsiders, who didn\u2019t fit in earlier chapters of the story.<\/p>\n
\nheal you and make you into the categories I intended, either male and female.\u201d\u00a0 He says, \u201cI\u2019m going to give you something
\nbetter than sons and daughters.\u00a0 I\u2019m
\ngoing to bless you in a way that a Jewish man or a Jewish woman could ever
\nimagine being blessed.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to give
\nyou an everlasting name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\neunuchs being a product of the fall any more than foreigners would be\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthe fall.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing in Isaiah\u2014I\u2019m
\njust curious now because I haven\u2019t studied this as closely as you have\u2014but
\nthere\u2019s no indication there of how they came to be eunuchs.<\/p>\n
\nchallenge is that intersex is this broad umbrella term for many different
\nbodily variations. This term eunuch was an umbrella term for many different
\nthings.\u00a0 Sometimes, it\u2019s hard to
\ntell.\u00a0 Does this mean a castrated
\neunuch?\u00a0 Does this mean a natural
\neunuch?\u00a0 Is this a position in the court?\u00a0 We have to do careful scholarship to see what
\nthey\u2019re talking about.\u00a0 It\u2019s not
\nparticularly clear in Isaiah and yet,
\n[MUSIC STARTS]<\/em> there is this idea that however these people came to be
\neunuchs, God\u2019s blessing them as they are, not requiring them to become
\nsomething they\u2019re not and healing them into some creational category that we
\nfind in Genesis Chapter One and Two.<\/p>\n
\nGroup Endorsement)<\/p>\n
\nreally good point.\u00a0 One thing I\u2019m
\nthinking as you guys are talking about the categories and we keep coming back
\nto the words and how that there\u2019s different variations\u2014I want to make sure that
\nwe\u2019re being clear\u2014how is intersex different than say transgender which is becoming
\nmore and more a conversation, politically and otherwise?\u00a0 What\u2019s the difference and where does that fit
\nin this conversation?<\/p>\n
\nintersex and transgender people is that transgender people cannot point to a
\nmedical diagnosis.\u00a0 I know trans people
\nwho have said, \u201cI wish I were intersex, because then people wouldn\u2019t think I\u2019m
\ncrazy.\u201d\u00a0 They would be able to say, \u201cOh
\nno.\u00a0 Some of their cells are XY.\u00a0 Some of their cells have just one X.\u00a0 No wonder they\u2019re body is developing
\ndifferently or their gender identity is developing differently.\u201d\u00a0 They don\u2019t have that luxury.<\/p>\n
\nof a trans person.\u00a0 I work with LeeAnn
\nSimon, who\u2019s a wonderful Christian woman and author and she has what I just
\ndescribed.\u00a0 Some of her cells are
\nXY.\u00a0 Some have just one X.\u00a0 Her gonads are part ovarian tissue, part
\ntesticular tissue. <\/p>\n
\nchose to, though she was identified as a boy at birth, it wasn\u2019t a fit for her,
\nas an adult, chose to identify as female and to live, to transition.\u00a0 Her experience is intersex, but it also could
\nbe understood as transgender.\u00a0 That\u2019s not
\nthe majority of intersex experiences.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\ndon\u2019t.\u00a0 We have to be [unintelligible]\u2014<\/p>\n
\ndon\u2019t, what I hear you saying is there\u2019s not a chromosomal or biological thing
\nthat you can pinpoint.<\/p>\n
\nwhere our science is.\u00a0 It may be that as
\nneuroscience advances, we will be able to pinpoint other things, but we can\u2019t
\nat this point.<\/p>\n
\nconversation, that we don\u2019t\u2014<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s kind of a Venn Diagram overlap.<\/p>\n
\nthought so much about this.\u00a0 We\u2019ve talked
\nabout Augustine a little bit and rabbis and Jesus\u2019 own words.\u00a0 And Genesis and how that all fits into
\nthis.\u00a0 And Isaiah.\u00a0\u00a0 People still come back to Genesis.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s first, it\u2019s therefore determinative
\nof everything else.<\/p>\n
\nthat.\u00a0 Help people walk through why it\u2019s
\nokay not to think that.\u00a0 It\u2019s at the
\nbeginning of the Bible.<\/p>\n
\nwrong, you get everything else wrong.\u00a0
\nPlus, it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n
\nIt is important and it does set the stage for the beginning of God\u2019s
\ngreat redemptive story.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not the
\nwhole of the story.\u00a0 I see its pride of
\nplace is as the opening chapters.\u00a0 But,
\nat the end of the story, we find a vision of heaven in the book of Revelation
\nwhere people are included in the worshipping community who don\u2019t fit in the
\ngarden.<\/p>\n
\ngreat multitude worshipping before the Lamb from every tribe, and nation and
\nlanguage, people group.\u00a0 If we think
\nabout Genesis, we don\u2019t have multiple tribes.\u00a0
\nWe don\u2019t have racial difference in the Garden of Eden.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have different languages represented
\nat the beginning.\u00a0 There are many ways in
\nwhich this story that starts with these two ends up in full, moving through
\nAdam and Noah and Abraham and all the way through and then folding in the
\nGentiles and folding in others.<\/p>\n
\nlove goes out.\u00a0 He blesses the Israelites
\nso that they could be a blessing to all the nations.\u00a0 It\u2019s this narrow story through these few for
\nthe benefit of all, which is why I think we see many things in the book of
\nRevelation that echo things in the Garden.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\ntrying to get back to the Garden of Eden.\u00a0
\nYes.\u00a0 It has pride of place at the
\nbeginning of God\u2019s story.\u00a0 But it seems
\nlike God\u2019s story gets bigger and more complicated, but also more beautiful and
\nmore welcoming than what it is in the first chapters.<\/p>\n
\nGarden reimagined at the end of the Bible\u2014<\/p>\n
\nactually returning to the Garden.\u00a0 It\u2019s
\nmetaphorical language anyway.<\/p>\n
\nthat is meant to evoke those memories, but then also to go beyond that to
\nsomething that\u2014<\/p>\n
\nnew, right?\u00a0 It\u2019s called new creation\u2014<\/p>\n
\nRight.<\/p>\n
\nparadise lost and regained, like we\u2019re trying to get back.\u00a0 It\u2019s a new\u2014God is doing something new at the
\nend of this grand story that is going to have some continuity with what came
\nbefore and some differences.<\/p>\n
\nMegan, what you said about the\u2014you talk about Isaiah and as the story unfolds,
\nit\u2019s interesting that we may start with a garden, but this narrative of
\ninclusivity, of folding more and more people in, really starts just a few
\nchapters later with the start of Israel, with Abraham\u2019s story.<\/p>\n
\nthere, we just start including more.\u00a0 I
\njust appreciated the point about how Israel was then adopted to be a
\nblessing.\u00a0 Through that, the blessing is
\nthis inclusivity.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting, in
\nthis conversation, that early on in the prophetic literature of Isaiah, that
\nthe eunuchs are included pretty early in on that conversation before even\u2014<\/p>\n
\nwhat\u2019s even more radical than that?\u00a0 If
\nwe look at Acts Chapter 8, at the first foreigner whose baptized?<\/p>\n
\nwords right out of my mouth.\u00a0 Go
\nahead.\u00a0 [laughter] Let\u2019s talk about the
\nEthiopian eunuch\u2014<\/p>\n
\nThis is the Ethiopian who is a eunuch, who is the very fulfillment of
\nthe prophecy in Isaiah, that as the gospel is going out from Judea, through
\nSamaria to the utter ends of the earth, as Jesus said to His disciples at the
\nend of the book of Matthew, and we see these significant baptisms in the book
\nof Acts.\u00a0 The first foreigner whose
\nbaptized is an Ethiopian eunuch, whose made this many-hundred-mile trek to
\nJerusalem to worship.\u00a0 Even though he\u2019s
\nan outsider on many levels, he knows there\u2019s only so close he can get to
\nGod.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nThere\u2019s the Court of Men.\u00a0 Outside
\nof that is the Court of Women.\u00a0 Outside
\nof that, is the Court of Gentiles.\u00a0
\nThere\u2019s only so close you can get to God as a Gentile and as a
\neunuch.\u00a0 He knows that, but he goes
\nanyway.<\/p>\n
\nhim to interpret the Scriptures, to open them and to share with them the good
\nnews of Jesus.\u00a0 This Ethiopian eunuch
\nsays to Phillip, \u201cLook, here\u2019s water.\u00a0 Is
\nthere anything preventing me from being baptized?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthe place of eunuchs in the ancient world, I never understood the significance
\nof that question.<\/p>\n
\nasking, \u201cWhat\u2019s my place gonna be if I follow this rabbi Jesus?<\/p>\n
\na second-class citizen like I am as a non-Jewish believer?<\/p>\n
\nplace for me in this new community?\u00a0 I\u2019m
\njust so frustrated that we don\u2019t have the answer given to Acts.\u00a0 [laughter] We don\u2019t know what Phillip
\nsaid.\u00a0 But we know that one of them
\ncommanded the chariot to stop.\u00a0 They both
\ngot out of the chariot and Phillip baptized him.<\/p>\n
\nread that instinctively, \u201cIs anything preventing me from getting baptized?\u201d as
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got some time on our hands.\u00a0 Let\u2019s
\njust do this now.\u201d\u00a0 Not like they\u2019re
\nactually socio-cultural-religious\u2014there\u2019s a matrix there of this.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nto surprise us at every turn.<\/p>\n
\nwas just thinking about this connection, this phrase of \u201cforeigners and
\neunuchs\u201d and how that goes throughout the Bible.\u00a0 In some ways, do you feel like \u201cforeigners\u201d
\nis clearly throughout the Bible representative of the marginalized throughout,
\nas we get to the Gentiles and others.\u00a0 Is
\n\u201ceunuchs\u201d also\u2014I\u2019m channeling my upbringing where I want to take that
\nliterally, \u201cI\u2019m willing to\u2014you raise some good points, Megan\u2014I\u2019m gonna allow
\nfor eunuchs as part of this, but now, I\u2019m going to still exclude others,
\nbecause it doesn\u2019t say it literally and specifically.<\/p>\n
\nread the Bible for taking foreigners and eunuchs as almost representative of
\nthis is a narrative of inclusion.\u00a0 You
\ncan\u2019t really accept the eunuchs and exclude transgender people.\u00a0 You can\u2019t really take this group and exclude
\nthat group, because it\u2019s really representative of this radical inclusion.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nsay that in some ways, Gentle or foreigner is not category of the marginalized,
\nif you think just statistically.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nnot a Jew is a foreigner.<\/p>\n
\nusually the majority.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\noppressed by these majority\u2014<\/p>\n
\nways. \u00a0But definitely, with the eunuchs,
\nwe\u2019re talking about people who have been oppressed in many different ways and
\nexcluded in many different ways.<\/p>\n
\neunuchs, castrated eunuchs couldn\u2019t go to worship in ancient Israel.\u00a0 Naturally-born eunuchs could.\u00a0 But they, in some ways, had a double
\nreligious duty, because the rabbis are pulling from the laws for men and the
\nlaws for women and wanting to make sure all of their bases are covered.<\/p>\n
\nfor them.\u00a0 I do think that category is
\none that certainly stands for the outside and the marginalized and those have
\nbeen excluded, whose voices haven\u2019t been heard, who\u2019ve been considered unclean
\nand not welcome in the worshipping community.<\/p>\n
\na question here, Megan.\u00a0 I want to try to
\narticulate this clearly.\u00a0 Following on
\nwhat Jared just said about eunuchs and the poor and the oppressed, marginalized
\npeoples, you see in Isaiah and then in the New Testament in Matthew 19 and Acts
\n8, you see a hint, a trajectory of\u2014<\/p>\n
\nyou if you agree with this.\u00a0 If yes,
\ngreat.\u00a0 If not, fine.\u00a0 Tell me why.\u00a0
\nIt seems like the New Testament itself is not the end of the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s trajectories.\u00a0 That\u2019s an important thing to talk about for
\npeople who take the Bible seriously.<\/p>\n
\nthe New Testament, does not settle all these questions for us, but is itself
\npart of a moment\u2014<\/p>\n
\nmoving, right? \u00a0And so\u2014<\/p>\n
\nagreeing with that, so regalias on your opinion [laughter].<\/p>\n
\nhelped in this regard.\u00a0 I remember in
\nseminary reading N.T. Wright\u2019s book, The
\nNew Testament and the People of God,<\/em> where he likens the Bible to five acts
\nin a Shakespearean play, where the fifth act is unfinished.\u00a0 He sees creation as Act One; the fall as Act
\nTwo; Israel, Act Three; Jesus is Act Four; and the Act Five is the Church.<\/p>\n
\nTestament, but we are not\u2014we are called to finish the story.\u00a0 We\u2019re called to live our parts.\u00a0 We\u2019re not called to be First Century Christians
\nin Rome or in Corinth or in Ephesus.\u00a0
\nWe\u2019re called to be 21st<\/sup> Century Christians living where we
\nlive.<\/p>\n
\nthis play,\u201d back to the analogy with Shakespeare, \u201cwe\u2019re not just going to
\nrepeat lines from an earlier part of the story.\u00a0
\nWe\u2019re going to study the whole story.\u00a0
\nWe\u2019re going to see the direction it\u2019s going.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to pick up on those hints that
\nyou just mentioned.\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to
\nput on this play, we\u2019re going to have to improv.\u201d\u00a0 He uses this term, \u201cfaithful improvisation,\u201d
\nwhere we\u2019re trying to see where the story is going and how do we live in\u2014<\/p>\n
\nfaithfully, yet without a script.<\/p>\n
\nthat Fifth Act, analogously, is that you see that in the Bible anyway because
\npeople are winging it.\u00a0 [laughter]<\/p>\n
\nbad way of putting it.\u00a0 In the Old
\nTestament, you have shifts and changes and new perspectives on things.\u00a0 It seems inescapable.\u00a0 To help people to say, \u201cIt\u2019s okay to think
\nresponsibly and theologically and biblically today about an issue that maybe we
\nhave to address in different ways than previous generations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nafraid of doing something wrong that oftentimes, we do nothing.\u00a0 We give the apostles permission to think
\ncreatively.\u00a0 We give Calvin and Luther permission
\nto think creatively, to do something different.\u00a0
\nBut we rarely give ourselves permission\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthat?\u00a0 What are we afraid of\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthey did.<\/p>\n
\ntherapist [laughter].\u00a0 What do you
\nthink?\u00a0 You\u2019ve experienced these
\nthings.\u00a0 What\u2014<\/p>\n
\nafraid of?<\/p>\n
\ncongregations that you\u2019re teaching and educating people\u2014<\/p>\n
\nfears that you find?<\/p>\n
\nmuch censure in our communities, right?\u00a0
\nIf you put a toe out of line, there\u2019s shame that\u2019s brought on by the
\ncommunity.\u00a0 There\u2019s exclusion.\u00a0 All of these things.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want that.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to put on the outside.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to be cast out like these
\noutsiders.\u00a0 We better keep in line.\u00a0 We better follow the script.\u00a0 We better recite the confession in whatever
\nversion it\u2019s in and dare not think differently lest we become an outsider.\u00a0 I think we\u2019re afraid of becoming outsiders
\nourselves to our very community\u2014<\/p>\n
\nthere.\u00a0 The head on the nail rather.\u00a0 [laughter] Who wants to be an outsider?<\/p>\n
\nsay\u2014and not to be too theological, but it seems like that\u2019s exactly what
\nsolidarity is about, right, is taking that step in saying, \u201cI\u2019m willing to risk
\nbecoming an outsider in order to be in community with the outsiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nYou don\u2019t get to have it both ways.\u00a0
\nYou don\u2019t get to have solidarity with the marginalized and popularity
\nwith the powerful.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work like
\nthat.<\/p>\n
\nphrase\u2014<\/p>\n
\nto the entire New Testament\u2014 <\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s a good place to go.<\/p>\n
\nthing or two to say and we could throw the prophets in there as well.\u00a0 It strikes me, Megan, that this issue is one
\nof several issues that the Church is either dealing with or going to have to
\ndeal with that really raises to the forefront\u2014I don\u2019t want to put it
\nnegatively, but the complexity even in the ambiguity sometimes of theological
\ndecisions.<\/p>\n
\nhard enough.\u00a0 [laughter] To think you
\nhave to have all the right answers all the time makes it that much harder, but
\nthe life of faith may be not as clear as we think and we\u2019re doing the best that
\nwe can, and for some people, and you\u2019re one of them, and I think Jared and I
\nare the same, if we\u2019re going to err, we\u2019re going to err on the side of people
\nand lives and their experiences and not a system that we think is immovable and
\nunchanging, because oddly enough, the system, which comes from the Bible, is
\nitself a changing, moving thing\u2014<\/p>\n
\ngood model for us.\u00a0 It\u2019s not going to
\ngive us the answers to any particular question, but it is going to drive us to
\nthink about\u2014you don\u2019t get off the hook by quoting Bible passages.\u00a0 Life ain\u2019t like that\u2014<\/p>\n
\nhave to study them and see where they\u2019re pointing\u2014<\/p>\n
\nExactly right\u2014<\/p>\n
\nfaithful improvisation, which is a nice connecting.\u00a0 The faithful is that rootedness\u2014<\/p>\n
\ntext, which your articulation today\u2014I appreciate this conversation of rooting
\nit in these texts and then still saying\u2014but there is still some creativity that
\nhas to happen, some improvisation.\u00a0 That
\nfifth act is up to us on how we\u2019re going to be faithful to that.<\/p>\n
\nit all figured out, but what I\u2019m trying to do in my book and in my work is to
\nsay, \u201cOkay.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done our theological
\nreflection.\u00a0 We\u2019ve done our biblical
\nstudy only thinking about these idealized versions of male and female.\u00a0 That\u2019s not good enough.\u00a0 We have to do our biblical study and our
\nthinking theologically about what it means to be human and what it means to be
\na faithful Christian in a way that includes everyone in the community.\u201d\u00a0 We haven\u2019t done that yet.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start a new conversation where we let
\nmore voices come and be at the table and it means voices that have been at the
\ntable need to be quiet for a while and listen and see if there\u2019s something new
\nto be learned, new perspectives to be had.<\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n
\nhard.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\nway you put that.\u00a0 That\u2019s very well
\nput.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we could talk for
\nhours about all this.\u00a0 [laughter] So much
\nstuff.\u00a0 We\u2019re just handling the
\nBible.\u00a0 That always comes up in these
\nkinds of conversations.\u00a0 We\u2019re coming to
\nthe end of our time.<\/p>\n
\nworldwide interwebs.\u00a0 What projects are
\nyou involved in, if you are writing another book?\u00a0 Make sure you tell us about the book that you
\nhave written and make sure people know what that is.<\/p>\n
\nfind.\u00a0 You can see the books that I\u2019ve
\nwritten there, chapters, and other books.\u00a0
\nThe main one we\u2019ve been talking about today is Sex Difference in Christian Theology.\u00a0
\n<\/em>The subtitle is Male, Female
\nand Intersex in the Image of God<\/em>, where we spend lot more time talking
\nabout all these things.\u00a0 <\/p>\n