Theology in the Raw - 628: #628 - Preston a Libertarian - Modern Israel - Polyamory

Episode Date: January 12, 2018

Today's questions are:  Is Preston a libertarian?  How did the early church act toward the LGBTQ Community?  As Christians should we support modern day Israel?  What is the next issue that Christians should be thinking about pertaining to gender and sexuality? What are genders? What is Polyamory? How do Christians develop thoughtful and thorough answers to these questions? 

Am I a libertarian? How did the early church treat LGBT people? How can non-paid pastors have time for training and ministry? And should Christians support the modern state of Israel? I'm President Sprankle, and you're listening to Theology in the Raw. Hello, friends. Welcome back from down under to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am your host, Preston Sprinkle, and it is 2018. And I am excited that you joined me on this podcast. We have several awesome questions to get to. And again, my Patreon supporters are the ones voting for these questions.

So if you don't like them, you can blame them, not me. A quick thank you and shout out to my Patreon supporters for choosing the questions because in looking at them, there was about, I think I listed 17 or 18 different questions. And I selected five of these. And a lot of them are really good. I was really anticipating which ones you're going to vote on because there's a lot of really good ones. But there were definitely a few that stood out to you guys. So thank you so much for taking the time to vote on those questions. If you are not a Patreon supporter and would like to be, you can go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Raw, and you can support this podcast if you

are finding any benefit from listening to me via iTunes or whatever platform you're using. I have a few speaking engagements coming up in the spring. I just want to list these off in case you are in a city where I will be speaking on January 27th and 28th. I'll be in Nashville at the Bad Christian Conference. You can go to badchristiancon.com, I believe, or if you just Google Bad Christian Conference, it should come up. And I'll be speaking there for a couple days in January. On February 8th, I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona for a one-day leaders forum through the Center

for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender. On February 27th, I'll be in Portland for another one-day leaders forum. And both of those events, the registration's open. You have to go online at centerforfaith.com. Go to Programs, Leaders Forums. And if you get that far, it should be a cakewalk from there to find the registration page. You do need to sign up. And I would say sign up really quickly because these events do tend to fill up very soon,

especially the Phoenix one is just a couple weeks away, a few weeks away. So you definitely want to sign up for that one ASAP if that is of interest for you. Also, the Portland one is actually filling up really fast. So if you're interested in attending the Portland one, definitely sign up for that sooner than later. I'll also be in Salem, Oregon at Corbin University on February 28th. I'll be in Spokane, Washington at the Greater Than Conference in Spokane, Washington on March 2nd. I'll be in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Free Methodist Church Annual Meeting. I'm not sure if that one is open to the public, but it's on April 12th to the 13th. I'll be in Dyer, Indiana on April 14th at Faith Reform Church. I'll be in Zeeland,

Michigan, just outside Grand Rapids for another leaders forum on April 16th to the 17th. And I believe that is going to be a closed event for RCA pastors and leaders. I believe we haven't solidified that yet. May 10th, I will be back in my hometown in Boise, Idaho for a one day leaders forum. I haven't advertised that one at all yet. So if you're listening, if you're one of the very small handful of people that listen to this podcast from Boise. May 10th, mark your calendars for May 10th. We're going to do a one day leaders forum. I'll probably start promoting that maybe later this month. I typically, you know, two or three months ahead of time, like to start advertising it. And then I've got other events that are kind of brewing and several in the fall that already solidified. But who knows,

gosh, by the fall, I don't know if I'll be a Christian by then. So we'll, you know, come back to my page later on and see if those events are, see what those fall events are. I'm just kidding. Hopefully I'll still be a Christian, God willing, by fall 2018. But if you go to my website, PrestonSpringle.com, and go to my schedule, you can see all these events and links and information if you want more information on how to register or what these events are all about. OK, so let's jump into this podcast. I'm going to try to tackle five of your top questions that you voted on. Number one, am I libertarian? If so, why?

The questioner says, you have mentioned several times that politically you lean or that you are libertarian. Do you have any theological basis for this? I've been thinking that way for a long time because I think that many of the changes that people, especially Christians, have tried to influence on society have been through government when it should be through local or the global church. I think the rise of the religious right has done more harm than good in society because it's siphoned money and resources toward political ends instead of actually helping people. Ouch. I also have been leaning towards government getting out of the marriage business and leave it to churches and the government using civil unions for legal purposes. I would love to

hear your thoughts on this intersection of church and state. I know it could swing too far in the other direction, and I wonder what that other direction could look like. Okay, so if I have said that I am libertarian, then that would have been too strong. I wouldn't say I am libertarian as if I identify with their libertarian party, the way I word it is I have libertarian leanings, or I like some of the principles of libertarianism more than the available options. I mean, if someone was going to say, what's your political identity? I'd probably say I'm independent. I don't want to associate really with any political party. And to me, secular politics, and I do, I think it's important to say secular politics, because I believe politics as a general category is, does have many religious connotations. I don't like making a stark distinction between

Christianity and politics per se, because I think the idea of politics, who you give your allegiance to, where you draw your values from, and so on and so forth, how you fight against injustices. And there's just too many overlaps between what Christianity is about or should be about and what politics are about that I don't like to just erase the category of politics, but it's in terms of secular politics, how to run, you know, America or Australia or North Korea, whatever country you're living in, listening to this, well, you're probably not listening from North Korea, but whatever country you're living in, as far as how do we, how does that country run itself aside from religion? To me, that's just, it's very's an uninteresting question to me as a as a Christian.

So, yeah, in terms of secular politics, I'm not only am I not an expert, but I'm just not really interested in that as some separate entity. I'm also not interested in in forcing a Christian ethic upon a secular society. I mean, look, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. It's hard enough to obey Jesus with the Spirit of God. Try doing it without the Spirit of God. I just think it's not really helpful or even realistic to try to legislate Christianity into existence. And when people have tried to do that, have tried to use the government to further the kingdom of God. I think that typically hurts both the government and the kingdom of God, as we've seen in some sections of the religious right

and the religious left, I think, too. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm not really an expert in secular politics enough. I don't even know enough about the Libertarian Party to say yay or nay. I mean, from the little I have seen and looked at and heard people talk as they dialogue about different political things going on, typically, if there are several different political views being represented, typically, I tend to side with or appreciate the libertarian perspective more than the other one. So for instance, you know, I lean more towards a non-interventionist policy in terms of the military. Like, I think I just, I mean, this is, again, it's going to spill over into my ethical views as a Christian, but I just think that when we exert our military power on a global scale

and get messed up into the affairs of other countries, I guess from a, again, from a secular perspective, sometimes that does play out well for a number of people. It often plays out not so well. Sometimes it ends up backfiring. Oftentimes there's a lot of quote unquote collateral damage. And typically it doesn't really solve whatever problem is going on. I mean, you can just look at our involvement in the Middle East since in the wake of 9-11. And, you know, and then you look at now in January 2018 and see how the Middle East is doing as a result of our involvement. I guess you could argue, well, it would have been worse if we didn't get involved or maybe it could have been better. I just don't know. What we do know

is that our involvement has not solved many of the problems. And you could argue that it has created other problems that may not have existed before. So I do lean non-interventionist in terms of, I mean, again, as terms of any nation's military policy, I think that we should, I think it's typically, not always, but typically does more harm than good when we flex our military muscles in the affairs of other countries and cultures that we typically don't really understand. I think, again, we tried, I think we learned that the hard way when we tried to set up a sort of American-like democracy in Iraq in the wake of the Iraq war. And again, from the reading I have done, I am not an expert, but from the reading I have done, it hasn't gone so well.

And having traveled globally quite a bit, it is interesting when you go to places like various countries in Africa or especially in third world or majority world countries, when you get their perspective on kind of, you know, Western policies that have been tried to be, that have been, you know, that people have tried to force upon these countries that aren't Western and how that just doesn't work. So, yeah, also also I think I agree with the questioner here. I think that the government should get out of the marriage business. Marriage is a moral category, and I think that the government sucks at morality.

Just, yeah, as a general principle, the government sucks at morality. So I think that I think the government's job is to let me practice my morality with as much freedom as I can, as long as it's not hurting anybody else and let my Muslim neighbors practice their religion again with as much freedom as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. I'm a big fan of religious freedom. I think people should be free to practice their religion and shouldn't, you know, be persecuted for that and shouldn't be forced to conform to some secular ideals. And of course, we are seeing that especially when it comes to various marriage debates. And this is kind of a big statement, a bold statement maybe, but I tend to agree with this questioner that the

religious right has done more harm to the Christian witness. More harm than good. Has it done some good? Yes, perhaps. Has it done a lot of harm? Yeah, I think so. I think it's given Christianity a rather bad name. And some movements of the really strong religious right, when it gets wrapped up in the politics, I think it can lead to syncretism, where our allegiance to the state or our vision for the state becomes too wrapped up into God's countercultural vision for the kingdom of God. Look, Christianity is designed to occupy a place of public weakness, not public power, because our strength and our power is found in weakness and suffering. And when those two are confused, I think it actually hinders the kingdom of God.

When Christianity, as in the wake of Constantine and other periods of time throughout history, when Christianity occupies a place of political power, I think that that actually hinders the witness of God's countercultural kingdom. So that's all I got. I think that's, well, one more thing. It's never all I got. I think that, well, one more thing. It's never all I got, right? I think that in terms of church and state, I like the idea of having a very strong separation of church and state. I think the best way that the church can help the state is by embodying and exemplifying a better way to do society, a better way to do culture, a better way to do economics. So let's keep that

separation strong, but let's embody a generous ethic. Let's embody equality towards women and minorities and people of different social statuses or stati,es um all the things that the government is grasping for trying to make of society i don't think it's the church's job job to come alongside the government and and help them do that necessarily i think the better approach is for the church to embody these values within the church so rather than give tons of money to the government so the government can decide how best to help the poor i think think the Duke government generally sucks at coming up with policies on how best to help the poor. I think the church should embody radical generosity toward the poor. I think that's what it means to be the kingdom of God, a place where there is no poor among you, as Deuteronomy 14

has, you know, leaned towards. You know, you look at the laws of Old Testament Israel, and I think a lot of the values driving those laws are the values that should be driving the attitudes and perspectives within the church today, that the church should care for its own radically so, that there should be no poor Christian on the planet because there is an abundance of wealth within the Christian church that can and should be no poor Christian on the planet because there is an abundance of wealth within the Christian church that can and should be redistributed with wisdom, not flagrant enablement, but redistributed with wisdom and empowerment to those who are poor within the church. Okay, so I think I've spent enough time on this question. So again, just in short, I do have libertarian leanings. I do think it is probably one of, if not the best

approach to politics in terms of political parties. But I personally, because of my strong separation between church and state, I don't really want to jump all in with any sort of political party. If people ask me who I am, what I am, I'm independent. If I vote, it is for the candidate that I think is, I don't know, exemplifies a certain level of Christian values and is best for the country at that time. But I'm never going to expect some candidate to sort of embody the totality of Christian values per se. So next question. I think this one will take just a couple minutes here. How did the early church treat LGBTQ people? The questioner says, you've mentioned that the modern church, while holding to God's standard for marriage and gender,

has had a terrible posture toward the LGBTQ community. You said that it needs to be much more compassionate toward those people and loving. My question is, what has been the posture of the early church up until now? Well, so that's, I guess we need to kind of reword that. Are you asking about the early church as the early church, like say pre-Constantine church or just church history up until now? Oh, you do say especially the pre-Constantine church toward LGBTQ people. What would be the posture of the people who were part of the Nicene Creed and the Council of Trent, who were part of the early Catholic church, et cetera? I know you've studied a lot of the early church and would love to hear what you have learned.

Well, I'm not really an expert in early church. I have dabbled when I wrote my book, Fight, A Christian Case for Nonviolence. I did read fairly extensively in, you know, kind of pre-Constantine Christian thinkers who were talking about violence and killing, have done a little bit of work in looking at sexuality throughout the last 2000 years in the church. But in no means would I claim to be an expert in church history or early church history. But let me just, a couple things here. First of all, people didn't identify by their sexual orientation until very recently. So while, let me be really

careful here, while there was an understanding that some sexual desires, including same-sex sexual desires, were innate and even unalterable, which would kind of overlap with what we mean by sexual orientation. Usually when we talk about sexual orientation, we're talking about something that's so deeply embedded within you that it's kind of just how you're wired. Maybe there's strong biological influences there. As far as people having same-sex sexual desires that were sort of etched into the fabric of your being, yeah, we see different philosophers and especially medical texts in the ancient world talking in those terms. They didn't use the phrase sexual orientation. And what they're talking about wasn't exactly what we talked about when

we talk about sexual orientation, obviously. I mean, anything talked about 2000 years ago isn't going to map completely on what we are talking about today in a post-industrialist, post-scientific world. But all that to say, going back to my original point, people didn't use their sexual desires as an identity marker. They typically would use their gender, masculine or feminine, as their primary identity. So you can be a dude who is the active partner in having same-sex sexual relations with people of a lower status than you, say a slave or maybe a prostitute. And as long as you're the active partner, even if you have an exclusive same-sex sex, you would be considered very masculine. You're the active partner.

You're maintaining your high status. The receiver is lower status, and you're not blurring those distinctions. But the second you become the receiver, then you're going to lose your sort of man card. Now flip it around. If you are only having sexual relations with people of the opposite sex, if you're a man having sex with only women, and yet you, let's just say, I don't know, say you default, you went AWOL from the military and you shaved your chest hair and you dress in soft clothing, silky clothing and you wear, well, you wear perfume or let's just say you wear cologne. You try to make yourself

smell good. These are very kind of feminine characteristics in the first century. And you would be considered very feminine, even if you only had sex with women, you would be considered more feminine than the dude who is having sex with other males because he's maintaining the sort of social status quo in that world. So yeah, I'm getting a little sidetracked here, but I think this is important to understand that identity markers in terms of sex and gender and sexuality, they do shift and change with different cultures and historical time periods, really. So it's almost impossible to answer the question, how did Christians or the early church treat LGBT people? Because those categories didn't exist back then. What we can say is that the early

church and medieval church and pre-reformation church and post-reformation church and their early church for 2,000 years historically has come down very hard against same-sex sexual relations because the church globally, historically, multi multidenominationally has always believed that same-sex sexual relations were not part of God's intention and design. And they should not be pursued. But that doesn't really answer your question. Because we can't simply conflate LGBTQ people with those who are having same-sex sex. For instance, as we find in the literature, I mean, people that were same-sex attracted, who were committed to celibacy, maybe they were committed to the priesthood,

maybe they were just, nobody even knew about their same-sex attraction. But we, you know, maybe we find it, some writings in their memoirs or whatever. I think that person would be, would be praised. He would be seen as a faithful steward of the gospel. Maybe. Maybe there's other Christians that would have viewed them very negatively. But again, the one thing we do know, well, two things, just to summarize, people didn't identify as LGBTQ. Those categories didn't really exist back then, so it's hard to answer this question. Number two, what we do know is that the church did, as far as church leadership, sorry, not every Christian, but church leadership did radically and very aggressively oppose same-sex sexual relations. Next question, how can non-paid pastors have time for training

and ministry? This question, it's such a good one. And if you're listening out there, the person who asked this question, then I just want you to know, because I'm not going to read your, you know, it's a pretty long email here. I just want you to know that I have been wrestling with this, your exact question extensively recently. And I'm pretty sure we're probably on, I think almost maybe the same page here with your questions, concerns maybe, or pushbacks. Pushback, maybe even too strong. I don't feel a real pushback tone here, but just kind of raising a really good question. Let me try to summarize this question. You say, I'm a pastor and I love the We Are Church model.

However, there are a couple of things that I just don't understand how they work. And I'm curious how they actually play out in the real world. First of all, even though the gatherings are relatively small, I'm wondering how a pastor can balance their time between ministry work and working another job so that there's no support given to the pastor's salary. And you go on and talk about, you know, how does a pastor prepare a sermon, which can take hours, maybe 10 hours a week, maybe more. prepare a sermon, which can take hours, maybe 10 hours a week, maybe more? How can he also have time to meet with people and do the work of ministry and hold a full-time job and raise a family? It's a great question. Number two, the second thing I'm wondering is how you find the right people to lead or pastor a new gathering on a regular basis. Because how do you, and just again, I'm summarizing your question here. How do they get trained?

If there's no money going into the ministry itself, then how does somebody go get a seminary degree? Maybe they go off and work another job and get a seminary degree. But then when they come back with a master of divinity, what kind of job in the real world are they to work in so that they can pastor for free? And most people go and get a master's degree and they're able to do that because they're going to in some way make some living off of the field of that master's degree. So I just want to tell you,

this is the exact thing I'm wrestling with. Let me give you, let me try to describe what I know from what Francis and his team have done in the We Are Church model in San Francisco. They've been doing it for about five years, and it is, quote unquote, working pretty well from what I can see. And I say quote unquote because there's always going to be messiness and failures and problems and stuff.

They're like, oh, man, I think that didn't work out or whatever. But on the whole, they are raising up leaders who are pastoring churches and they're reproducing and disciples are being made. The gospel is being preached. People are deepening their faith. They're in the word. They're telling people about Jesus. They're training leaders.

And the core ingredients of what church can and should be, I think, are happening. They do devote a good amount of attention to training other leaders. So I do know that the leaders, say the elders, spend two hours every Sunday meeting, I think this is public knowledge, meeting with all the leaders or future leaders or people they're raising up. And they talk about three areas. Number one, theology. Number two, ministry. Number three, spiritual formation in their own life. You know, kind of the three ingredients of leadership, if you will. I believe I got those right.

And so they're doing that weekly. And that's not the only. I mean, and then the people who are leaders are also reading a lot and studying a lot during the week. And then they come together on a Sunday morning early and they talk through these things. So there is kind of grassroots training going on. I think that the leaders of We Are Church might be. I think I would lean a bit more toward the value of traditional theological education. And as you pointed out in your email that I've even made a big plug for that, which sounds very contradictory. How do you do this house church thing and also plug for formal theological education?

But so again, if you remember when I did make that plug for theological education, I didn't, I did say that it's not that if you can replicate traditional theological education, then do it. It's not about getting the degree. It's not even about the institution. It's about being in a communal environment where there's people much wiser than you, much smarter than you, where you are learning together and critiquing each other. And you're not just in some echo chamber, reading the same stuff, saying the same things. That's not really healthy. But I do think that pastors, for the most part, should know the original languages. Or if you're a pastor and don't and refuse to learn the original languages, I guess the burden of proof rests on you. You need to prove to me what gives

you the right to stand in the gap between a Greek and Hebrew text and God's people and say, no, I don't need to know those languages. I'm not saying you can't be a pastor. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying the burden of proof will rest on you to say, I don't need to know these languages in order to faithfully stand in the gap between a text written in two languages that I don't know and God's people. So they do do a lot. A big focus is on organic grassroots, yet vigorous, and I would say holistic theological and pastoral training. I also, kind of again, giving a justification for this model or maybe a positive thing, I just, I wonder how much, got to be careful here, how much attention we give to sermon preparation that is demanded by our current church model and not the actual need of being a faithful teacher.

When I prepare, say, a sermon to preach in front of a thousand people, much of my preparation is given towards the rhetoric of giving a monologue, a polished monologue in front of a lot of people. And I don't say that negatively. I think there is absolutely a place for that and it can be effective. But in this model, I mean, you have in, you know, in the We Are Church model, everybody is reading through the Bible once a year. So yeah, maybe this would help. In a sense, half of the sermon preparation is done by the people. So, for instance, if they read through Genesis 1 to 25 that week, everybody is in the Word.

Everybody's pouring over the Word. Everybody's praying through the Word. Everybody's familiar with the text. And so all you need is, usually it's a couple people who are a bit more ahead of the rest of the people. Maybe they read a few extra things that week. Maybe they're in the theological training thing on Sunday morning where they're learning from Francis and other of the elders about what, you know, some insights into Genesis 1 and 25. They're wrestling with that so they can help lead a discussion, but a discussion where

people are coming not as blank slates, but they're coming with a running start, having spent all week in the text. And so, yeah, this model can only work if the congregation is very actively involved, not passively sitting back and receiving. So again, that is another big difference between the model as a whole. You can't, yes, you cannot just map a traditional church model onto this very different We Are Church or house church model and expect it to work. This model only works if everybody is exercising their gifts extensively throughout the week so that a lot less actually falls on the pastor or the person teaching that week. So the teaching is very dialogical,

is very discussion-based. It is not, you know, giving some sort of polished monologue. Here is where, so that's kind of my plug for it saying, hey, I do think that it can work. So again, I think you have to push back hard against this idea that's just kind of etched into the fabric of traditional churches that most of ministry kind of falls on the pastor. The pastor, I mean, according to Ephesians 4, you know, is to empower people to do the work of the ministry. And everybody has the Spirit of God and has amazing gifts. It doesn't, it shouldn't fall on just the leaders. Having said all that, that's easy for me to say. I mean, I spend, I probably spend maybe an hour to two hours a week preparing my teaching for the days that I teach. And I teach 50 to 75% of the time at our church.

It's only going on for a couple months, a few months, so it's hard to say in the long run. But I typically wake up, I typically reflect on whatever we're talking about through the week, look up some passages, kind of just dinking around in the text and different passages or themes that we're looking at. Sunday morning, I wake up a little bit earlier, which is like six in the morning. And I, you know, put together some thoughts and some notes to lead a discussion. And that's really it. Now, having said that, that's a little, that, I can't expect that to be reproduced because I did spend, you know, two and a half years in full-time Bible college, taking nothing but Bible classes and three and a half years in seminary, doing nothing nothing but Bible classes and three and a half years in seminary doing nothing but studying the Bible and three and a half years doing a PhD in Bible in the

next eight years, teaching the Bible over and over and over in a college setting. So if I can't walk into a room with no preparation to have something to say about the Bible and something's seriously wrong, I mean, what if you had like a 55 year old-old plumber, okay, no, maybe not. Let's just say a 42-year-old plumber who's been a professional plumber for 20 years, week in, week out, 40, 50 hours a week has been doing nothing but plumbing. And you invite him over for dinner and you say, you know, I think my sink's kind of clogged. Can you speak into this? Can you give us some guidance on this clogged sink?

And if your plumber says, oh my gosh, well, I didn't know I was supposed to do this. I need to go back and prepare for 30 hours to really come up with the answer for your sink. I think you'd say, well, wait a minute, aren't you been doing this? You literally have nothing, no running start here, nothing to say. Or if you invite somebody over to dinner, who's a brain surgeon and you say, hey, I'm having headaches. Do you have any sort of diagnosis for my headache? And'm like, oh, I need to prepare for that. He's like, well, haven't you been doing that for the last 20 years? So I think what I'm saying is I think that, and this is kind of a critique of this model, when this model is led by people like me and my ministry partner, Rock Brown, he's in his late 50s, has tons of ministry experience,

has a seminary degree. It's a little bit unrealistic to say because we can kind of make this work that it's therefore reproducible for people that may or may not have a PhD in Bible or tons of ministry experience. That's my biggest question. My biggest question is not, can we, in our specific context context make this work? Because even apart from me and Rock, there's a few people in our really, really small church who have seminary degrees and ministry experience. My biggest question is, how can this model be reproduced where there may be nobody with a seminary degree?

And that's where I'm really thinking and rethinking. I'm really rethinking the whole no finances going to the ministry model. I'm very eager to have no finances given to ecclesiological concerns that don't help discipleship, that don't further the mission. I'm very eager to not give any money towards the building or give any money to all these things that churches can often spend money on that aren't directly relevant for discipleship. But as far as releasing people for ministry, a good friend of mine, Sam Choi, a former student, has raised this very question. He's doing a church. Sam, if you're listening, what's up, dude? He's doing a church. Sam, if you're listening, what's up, dude? He's doing a church that's similar to this model, but they are, I believe he said, they're paying pastors.

And he's kind of raised this very question. I think he's got great questions to raise. And I'm really rethinking this as well. I think that the Bible clearly says pastors can get paid, 1 Timothy 5, 1 Corinthians 9. 1 Corinthians 9 is even really passionate about it, even though Paul ends up saying that he chose not to receive a salary. So yeah, great questions. I'm wrestling with that. And I am all for paying pastors and paying pastors well. I think we're exploring the possibility. Could it work effectively without doing this? And I'm not sure what my answer in the

long run will be to that. Maybe it will be, yes, we can make it work. We, our church, seems to have done that really well. Or maybe my answer will be, you know what, let's give away 80% of tithing money, but let's reserve 20% to release people into ministry. I may go that route too. Next question, should Christians support the modern state of Israel? If by should you mean must, then no. I, well, I'm going to lay my theological cards out here. I don't think there are biblical reasons that for Christians supporting the modern state of Israel. Now that's, I'm making a theological assumption there because there is a whole movement of Christianity called dispensationalism,

which believes that there are certain passages in Ezekiel and Hosea and Romans that do say that the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, or, you know, you can maybe even add 1967 to that, was a fulfillment of divine prophecy. And so this is a work of God. It is etched into the biblical text and the divine plan that the nation of Israel today is a fulfillment of prophecy and therefore Christians should support it. If I can be blunt, I used to hold that view. I used to defend that view early on in my Christian years, but having studied the Bible more, I have departed from that view. And I think looking back, I do think that the interpretation of Scripture that is used to support that view is pretty torturous. suggestions in passages like Ezekiel 37, 38, 39, or even 40 to 48, or Romans 11 and Hosea 1 to 3,

and other passages that take these prophecies over Israel's restoration and map them on modern day political things going on in Israel. I just don't think that is a responsible interpretation of those texts. But many people disagree with me on that. Let me back to many people in America disagree with me on that globally. I mean, I think most people would agree with me on that. You know, maybe some Christians in Israel would still disagree with me. But globally, I mean, it's really dispensational. It's not really known unless it's been exported from America through missionaries to other parts of the globe. But for the most part, this is not global Christianity doesn't interpret the Bible that way. And for good reasons. So now here, I do want to make a distinction between biblical

prophecy with regard to the land of Israel and with regard to the people of Israel. I want to make that distinction because the land promise in the Old Testament is rarely, if at all, even mentioned in the New Testament. There seems to be some fulfillment within the church or fulfillment within God restoring his whole creation. restoring his whole creation. And so if I can give kind of a 30 second biblical theology, I think that God has a creation wide plan for this earth, Genesis one or two, and that plan gets narrowed throughout the old Testament to, to, to have some sort of deposit in the nation of Israel, sorry, the land of Israel, the strip of, you know, we refer to it as a strip of land we refer to as Palestine. And that's why the conquest was so important. This was the sort of space that the down payment on the greater vision of restoring all of creation, but through the

death and resurrection and future hope of Jesus Christ, that land promise will extend once again to a creation wide promise in fulfillment, not say, Genesis 12, but in fulfillment of Genesis 1 and 2. Okay. So I do think that the land promise is still there. I just think it's fulfilled in creation as a whole, a new creation in the new creation, not in simply restoring the plot of land in Israel and with no care for the rest of creation. So does this mean there's no plan for Israel, no fulfillment of Israel? Well, you do have one passage that just can't get around in Romans 11. Romans 11, 36 and following, does seem to suggest some futuregathering of ethnic Jewish people into the church or into the kingdom of God. And Paul talks about those who were disobedient will be obedient. Those who didn't

know God, who rejected Jesus will come to faith. Seems to be a very future-oriented thing. Now, from Paul's perspective, I don't know if he's thinking 50 years, 100 years, or 2,000 years, but there does seem, I've read that passage so many times through different lenses, you know, is this, you know, all Israel will be saved? Is this a first century thing? Is this applying to the church? Or is it actually focusing on ethnic Jewish people? And the weight of evidence that the most compelling reading, if you kind of go with those two different possible readings, it just seems that he is talking about ethnic Jewish people who have rejected the gospel in the first century, and God will open up the gospel to them in unique ways in

the future. Not apart from Jesus, but through Jesus Christ. I think that's really crucial in that reading. But that's referring to people, not a restoration of the land of Israel. I don't think the restoration of the people of Israel necessarily demands restoration of the literal land of Israel. So all that to say, no, I don't think there is a biblical demand that Christians must support the modern state of Israel. If you want to support the state of Israel for political reasons, go ahead. uh support the modern state of israel if you want to support the state of israel for political reasons go ahead uh yeah but or if you want to reject it that's that's for political reasons

that that's fine too i think there's well i'm not going to open up the can of the israeli palestinian debate here because i just would not i'd probably make a fool of myself speaking into something that i just don't know much about last question what is the next issue in sexuality and gender that the church should be prepared for? This comes from a questioner who attended an event that I was at here in Australia, still in Australia, by the way, in Mike Bird's house. And I spoke at a church, Gateway Church in Melbourne on December 14th. And this person attended that event, was very grateful. I met them in person. If you're listening, I do remember you, totally remember meeting you with your American wife. And you raise a really good question here. You say, yesterday, referring to that event,

in response to someone's question about the LGBTQI community and the Christian or church's response, you said, quote, we should have been having this conversation 10 years ago. My question is, what issue or cultural changes do you see coming down the line in the future that we as Christians in the church should start thinking about now rather than just reacting when it hits? Hopefully this makes the podcast be really great to hear from you and your thoughts on the cultural shifts in the future. Great question. I wish more people were asking this question. We are always playing catch up.

I mean, it's just when can Christianity be, rather than responding to something that has kind of already moved in culture, can we get up to speed and anticipate some things that are going to be major issues in the church down the road? Yes, I do have some thoughts on this. First of all, obviously right now, I mean, the gender conversation is incredibly important, especially questions related to non-binary gender identities. Is there a difference between sex and gender? If so, how many genders are there? Are male and female the only options, et cetera, et cetera? These kind of questions in gender are incredibly important right now.

I mean, like three or four years ago, really, but it's still very hot right now. So I know you're asking about things down the road, but for some Christians, I think this might seem down the road, but it's not. I mean, if you have anybody who goes to college today, I mean, this is going to be the air they breathe. I mean, and you can go on YouTube and look up, you know, people like, oh, gosh, Blair White or Roaming Millennial or, oh, gosh, what's her name? Lacey Green, I believe. And many, many others. And just look at their popular YouTube channels among young people. And every other thing, every other YouTube thing they gave is on gender. And it usually gets the most likes and the most debates.

And, yeah, I mean, hopefully I don't need to prove my point here. But the gender conversation is incredibly important. It's been important for the last few years. It's incredibly important right now. So the first thing I think churches should do, Christians, is to dig into this and wrestle with it. If you want a good intro, a good intro of where culture is kind of at, the way it's thinking. I think it's still free. You can Google Time Magazine Beyond He or She. Time Magazine Beyond He or She. Last time I checked, it was free online. And it's a great article that summarizes how people, especially younger people, are thinking about non-binary gender identities and how the weight of culture believes that while there might be two biological sexes,

even that's being questioned, there are hundreds, if not an infinite number of genders. And if you're a Patreon supporter, I just recently did a Patreon-only podcast where I gave a 45-minute overview of sex and gender and non-binary gender identities and transgender experiences and gender non-conformity and all those things. So if you want to listen to that, I guess you got to become a Patreon supporter and you can get a long overview of those issues. I also think sex outside of marriage is also a big one. I know for many Christians, this is kind of a no-brainer, something we don't even need to think about because, of course, sex outside of marriage is sin, but that, of course, is not, and of course, for a lot of Christians, again, especially younger Christians, it's a very

live question and something that's being challenged very extensively right now. And then some people, it's even moved beyond challenge. It's kind of like, well, of course sex isn't just for married couples. So don't just assume you think you know what you know. I think it's time to cultivate a robust, compelling vision for sex within marriage. If you do believe that sex is still designed to be within marriage. Um, I think we need to really think through that and have a faithful, intelligent, thoughtful response to that question, because it will come up if it hasn't already in your house, in your home and in your churches. And if you think about it, I mean, once you separate sex from procreation, then why does it need to belong within marriage? Because I think most people,

most people, even secular thinkers would say, yes, children should be raised within a marriage where two people are committed or at least a committed household. Yes, that's healthy for children to be raised in that environment. I mean, the science on that is pretty indisputable. But once you separate sex from procreation, then I think that opens up the door, right, to, well, if kids aren't involved, I mean, that really was the main argument for sex within marriage from just an intuitive or secular perspective, or even a religious perspective, I think. But we have severed sex from procreation, made sex a completely different thing, procreation totally optional. And we now have the medical means of doing that almost, you know, in a fail-proof way. And so I think

we haven't really thought through the implications of that, of separating sex and procreation, which is one of the reasons why I've been revisiting that question, thinking I think the Catholics may have been onto something here. I think that we have dismissed the relationship between sex and procreation a bit too haphazardly. The biggest one for me that's going to be coming down the road and is really already here in some ways, it's not in every church, but it's in some churches and it will be in many churches. It's not most churches in the next few years. And that is polyamory. Loving more than one person at the same time, for lack of better terms. Polly means many, Amory means love. This is, and I'm not talking about just swinging. I'm talking about having more than one consensual,

I'm not talking about adultery. I'm talking about consensual partnerships between more than two people where you may have a husband and wife who agree to have other romantic partners in addition to their marriage and yet still remain faithful, remain committed to their marriage partner. This is not as uncommon as you may think. I'll never forget last summer, a friend of mine, a social media friend, who was really raised in a very conservative church environment, came out as poly last summer, him and his wife. I mean, it's very public, but I still don't want to name names because I don't

want to make it sound like I'm slamming on them. But him and his wife came out as poly. They both agreed to date and have sexual relationships and romantic relationships with other people in addition to their marriage. And they have kids and everybody seems to be fine with that. I would, I don't know him. I haven't talked with him. I haven't sat in their living room or around the dinner table. Uh, but I, I just, I just don't think that that's sociologically healthy, let alone theologically, uh, accurate and healthy and so on. But, um But this is a really, this is a live question. This is not some thing that is like, oh, that's just a slippery slope. Or, oh, you just think that once you give on marriage, it's going to lead to polyamory. And that's just, you know,

lame. No, look, four to five percent of the population in America has been or is in a consensual non-monogamous or polyamorous relationship. Look, that's slightly higher or very close to the percentage of people who identify as LGBT. So if you think the LGBT conversation is important, then the polyamorous question is just as important. Here's a few other things. As early as 2011, a scholar argued in a peer-reviewed law journal that polyamory is a sexual orientation. Look, if you can prove that polyamory is a sexual orientation, then it's all downhill from there. Because once you say it's a sexual orientation, then people say, well, that's the way people are wired. And religious people say, well, God, if it's an orientation, God created them that way.

Who are you to deny them the right to act on the way God created them? Is God evil? Why would he create something this way? Yada, yada. And the idea that polyamory is not just a desire, not just an activity, but an orientation is growing significantly in popularity. 2012, a popular commentator and gay activist, Dan Savage, who has an uber popular blog called Savage Love where he gives, I mean, answers people's questions primarily about sex and sexuality. Somebody said, I was asking about polyamory and what if you're poly, what if you're a poly in your orientation? And Dan responded very kind of flippantly saying, look, dude, polyamory is not an orientation. You just want to have sex with more than one person. In 2012, this very left, not even leaning, but just left commentator got slammed by the, quote, poly community. Like this is six years ago.

And they were like, how dare you say polyamory is not an orientation. I felt this way from the time I can remember. And they get this whole narrative about why it's an orientation. And he got raked under the coals for that. There's a new movie coming out called Professor Marston and the Wonder Woman about the creator of Wonder Woman, who apparently was in a polyamorous relationship. And that was 70 years ago, right? Back in the 50s or 60s and whatever that was going on. So, I mean, this, and I've talked to pastors in pretty progressive cities, like in Seattle or in some places in Colorado and other progressive cities where they're like, oh, yeah, no, we have polyamory couples coming to church.

And some are asking about membership, some don't stick around. And, you know, this is a really live thing in their context. So just because you're living in, you know, some, you know, rural city in the middle of the Midwest where you may, you may not have polyamorous couples coming to your church, don't think that this isn't happening now in many churches and is right around the corner in all churches. So yes, I, here's another, just to throw more wrench into the engine. engine. Yeah, let me end with a bang here and say, I want, well, it's, there is more biblical justification for polyamory than there is for same-sex marriage. And I'm going to get some emails for that. But now, I mean, you have, look, I think that the biblical vision for marriage is monogamy. Absolutely. Genesis 1 and 2, Matthew 19, and there's many other verses I can quote there.

First Timothy 3, I think you can bring in there. I think Ephesians 5, absolutely, and other passages. But you do have actual polygamous couples tolerated and in some cases endorsed in the Old Testament. And I think there is an argument to be made for why that was an Old Testament thing that God regulated, but wasn't God's vision for marriage in the long run. I think that's a fairly easy argument to make. However, you do have verses that identify polygamous couples, which is slightly different than polyamory, but I mean, polygamy is polyamory, but not all polyamory is polygamy. Um, but you do have verses that seem to support it. And so you could, somebody could build a case from the Bible by using these verses

wrongly to justify polyamory. Whereas in the case of same-sex marriage, you don't have like same-sex married couples that were sort of tolerated in the old testament and adores but yeah given the greater vision of the old of the bible as a whole it doesn't seem to be god's ultimate vision um i mean you just don't have any examples of any same-sex relationships being spoken of positively whenever they're talked about in the bible that it's always in a negative way and marriage is always between sexually different people and And so I think you have less evidence for same-sex marriage than you do have for polygamy in particular, even though, again, I think it's a very easy argument to make that polygamy is not God's ultimate vision. But

I think that presents an even greater problem. You will have, as I mean, my friend who came out last summer, I mean, he's a very sharp biblical scholar, might be a little too strong, but he's very smart biblically. And he has all kinds of biblical arguments for his view. So that would be one of the main issues that is also here, but may not be here as strongly as, you know, the gender conversation and sex outside of marriage. But it will be here on your doorstep very shortly. So Christian leaders, pastors, thinkers, and students, you need to interact with polyamory and you need to understand what the Bible says and doesn't say about it so that you can respond to the people that will be asking about it if they haven't already. I'm Preston Sprenkel. You've been listening to Theology in the Raw. Again, if you want to support this podcast, go to patreon.com forward slash

theology in the raw. I would love your support. If not, that's cool too. Thanks for listening, and thanks so much for sending in your questions. Met a ghost of a king on the road when I first fell Fire burning to my knees, to my knees I fell Met a ghost of a king on the road Words of fire He said, you are a lonely soul With a heart of stone that rakes against your thirsty bones Such a lonely soul I'm sorry. Thank you. Make you well So I followed the ghost of a king with every step

I tried to see beyond for a trace of the riverside But restlessness was my prize And then we came upon a golden shore But the voice of fire wasn't coming from a ghost no more My heart of stone came alive When my eyes were opened up And I saw that I had come Where no cherry

Can take you Where the river Meets the sand There is water That can quench your thirsty bones There is water in the river That can quench your thirsty bones And make you well Make you well

So I knelt beside the river And I drank until I drank until I drank until, I drank until, I drank until I died There's something in the water must have brought me back It brought me back, it brought me back to life Where no chariot can take you Where the river meets

the sand There is water there that can quench your thirsty bones and make you ill Where the river can take you where the river meets the sand. There is water that can quench a thirsty bone to make you out, make you one Thank you.