In this sermon, the speaker addresses the challenge of the attack on the family and its impact on Christians and their witness. The speaker discusses the transformation of intimacy claims in today's society, where sexuality has become more accessible and diverse. Drawing from Augustine's work, the speaker presents four Biblically sound theological reasons for asserting an essentialist view of human sexuality. These reasons include the record of creation, where God created Adam and Eve as embodied spirits, and the promise of bodily resurrection and eternal life in an embodied state.

I really appreciate you being here, and we have a very important topic to talk about. This is a terrific conference addressing the, I think, most critical area of social challenge, moral challenge, and religious witness challenge in our culture. That is the challenge, the attack on the family and how it affects what it means to be Christians and our witness as Christians. And I would like you to listen, obviously, very closely to what I say. Now, it's a bit of a challenge for this way. Now, this conference is made up of a number of different kinds of presentations, both the plenary sessions and the workshops. And some of them are presented more on the popular presentation, and others are challenging more intellectually. And I certainly think this is interesting. I will present it as interestingly as I can, but it is probing very deeply at an issue that couldn't be more relevant. So please stay with me and listen. It will probably take about 40, 45 minutes to get through, and then we'll have plenty of time for some dialogue and interaction. And I really would appreciate your response. There are some copies of the paper there on the back table that you can have. My apologies. I've done some editing on the flight in this morning, and so what I'm going to give you will have some variation if you're reading along. Maybe it would be better just to listen. But think with me, if you will, on the subject of eternally fixed sexual being for an age of plastic sexuality. Now, the idea of plastic sexuality might be easy enough to understand. Obviously, for Christians this would be something very foreign. The idea that who we are as sexual beings, our sexual identities, are things that, you know, something that is malleable, something that can be changed and shaped, something under our own control. It can be anything we want to be. That idea, plastic sexuality, in contrast to the idea that who we are as sexual beings is something fixed, in fact, so fixed that it is intended by God and planned by God to last eternally. So the abstract, the basic idea of what we're going to spend this next hour and a half talking about is this. That plastic sexuality is the idea that sexual identity has no fixed meaning. So anyone can shape their own sexual identity any way they might happen to choose, and by rejecting fixed sexual identity this view now sweeping our universities denies any possible basis for affirming gender roles. Christians must prepare to resist such thinking by clarifying biblical evidence for the doctrine that human sexual identity is, in fact, eternal. Now, Christians have always believed that the meaning of human sexual identity involves something more than biological reproduction. Even outside the church, few have disputed the idea that who we are as sexual beings involves something more than physical form. Yet when we start looking at what this something more might be, our ability to agree breaks down rather rapidly, usually because we find there are different opinions on whether or to what degree sexual identity is fundamental to actually being human. This will be clear after asking a few simple questions. Just think about them with me for a minute, if you would. Is sexual identity something basic to humanity itself, or is it simply peripheral? Do sexual differences matter even at the most fundamental level of human existence, or is sexual being ultimately irrelevant at the core of human identity? Does basic human identity lie beyond whatever differences divide men from women and women from men, or is the division between male and female humanity essential to who we are, essential to who we are as human beings? Put in theological terms, the issue has to do with whether differences in sexual identity will characterize human existence eternally, or will they someday come to an end? Will sexual being remain when we are raised to a state of sinless immortality at the return of Christ, or is it going to pass away along with pain, suffering, and death when the present order is replaced by a new heaven and a new earth? Have you thought about that before? Have you thought about the implications? After commenting on the relevance of an opposing way of thinking now arising in contemporary Western culture, I'm going to present arguments to support why I believe Scripture teaches there is an eternal dimension to the difference that distinguishes male from female human beings. These arguments will also serve to explain why I think this particular biblical doctrine is pivotal for Christians right now as we battle the culture over the meaning of male versus female gender identity and the morality of gender-based roles in relationships between men and women. First of all, a look at the contemporary relevance of something called plastic sexuality. Today, the essential or fixed nature of human sexual identity is under fire, mainly because it stands directly opposed to the social and moral deconstructionism that underlies hard-line feminism and homosexual militancy. The essentialist view of human sexual identity is the view associated with traditional Christian morality. It refers to thinking there is some objective reality that establishes a fixed, unchangeable meaning to the difference between men and women. It involves the conviction that while men and women share a common humanity, there is something fundamental about human sexual identity that is not the same when men as men relate to women as women or as compared to women as women. And not only is this difference real, it also is terribly important because it is rooted in nature or in creation or in the will of God. That's the essentialist view. But in recent years, a growing number of social scientists have started promoting a very different view concerning human sexual identity. This view, sometimes referred to as the constructionist view, is based on the idea that human sexual identity is something conditioned entirely by the social and cultural history of a people and by personal choice. Constructionists claim that there are no fixed features that define or restrict who we are as sexual beings, and so of course there can be no moral boundaries that depend on thinking sexual differences are actually real. Constructionist scholars now writing for academic journals and books are promoting the idea that human sexuality is plastic, by which they mean individuals are free to shape their sexual identities any way they choose. As described by Adrian Thatcher, plastic sexuality is the idea that human sexuality is something malleable, something, quote, able to adjust to changing circumstances, that a person's sexual identity is something in his or her control. Thus social scientist Milton Diamond says a person can, quote, develop and express his or her potential in any direction, on all levels of sexuality, without attaching a negative value to any variation just because it's different. To give a few more examples, Andrea Dworkin in her book, Woman-Hating, argues that the categories man and woman are in fact, quote, fictions, caricatures, or cultural constructs, which are, quote, demeaning to the female and a dead end for male and female both. John Stoltenberg in his book, Refusing to Be a Man, even says the physical biological differences we think distinguish male from female and female from male are in fact culturally determined. And Anthony Giddens in his book, The Transformation of Intimacy, claims, to quote him, Sexuality today has been discovered, opened up, and made accessible through the development of varying lifestyles. It is something each of us has or cultivates, no longer a natural condition which an individual accepts as a preordained state of affairs. Somehow, in a way, that has to be investigated, sexuality functions as a malleable feature of self, a prime connecting point between body, self-identity, and social norms. Now, logically, such thinking naturally requires that one reject fixed gender roles. In fact, the logic of plastic sexuality mandates deconstruction of all normative standards, be they moral, cultural, or even biological, that depend on thinking that differences between male and female are actually real. Of course, whatever sexual ethic comes from such thinking has to wreak havoc with all efforts aimed at generating or maintaining deeply human relationships between men as men and women as women. Any ethic based on the idea of plastic sexuality must naturally despise the notion of complementary difference and sexual union, and it must ridicule evidence that good might result from cooperation between fixed differences and sexual identity. This means the idea of plastic sexuality, in the end, destroys the social and moral foundations upon which the institution of marriage depends. So proponents of plastic sexuality actually praise the demise of traditional marriage as if it were some kind of moral goal. Instead, what they seek is realization of an ironic notion of sexual equality. The notion is ironic because while motivated by desire to improve human sexual relationships in the name of equality, their goal, if realized, actually dehumanizes human sexuality by reducing sexual identity to distinctionless monolithic sameness incapable of sustaining any meaningful relationship. Ultimately, the sort of moral thinking that arises from a plastic notion of human sexual identity must be characterized by intentional self-conscious rebellion against God. Why? Because any moral perspective set on denying the reality of meaningful difference between men and women has to result in an ethic that disdains the will and work of the Creator. Yet even as the non-essentialist plastic view of human sexuality grows more popular in the culture, ability to justify the position must always remain weak. No anthropology that rejects the essential nature of human sexuality can explain the mystifying depth involved in relationships where men as men relate to women as women. Nor can it explain the persistent power for both good or evil generated by interaction between the sexes, a power that very obviously persists even where biological reproduction is completely out of the picture. Universal human experience is inclined another way, and common experience alone should warn Christians that perhaps we ought to examine more closely what the culture is now so busy rejecting. Although many in our churches are today drifting with the culture beguiled by the silent song of teachers now promoting the sort of sexual equality that is produced by erasing sexual distinctions, faithful Christians must resist such thinking by examining biblical and rational reasons that sustain the meaning of difference in human sexual identity. Moving on to a discussion of the importance of distinguishing being and function. Before looking at the evidence of scripture directly, we must set the stage with a bit of philosophical discussion. What I have in mind is something the language and thinking of the Bible presumes, but that we must make explicit in order to avoid confusing influences arising from our culture. So before looking at what the Bible says about the permanent nature of sexual being, we first need to look at the importance of distinguishing between the concept of sexual being per se and the functions of men and women as sexual beings. If we fail to see this distinction, we can easily misread scripture and might fail to appreciate how consistent the Bible is in all it says about norms that govern the way men and women relate to one another. Any serious examination of the essential nature of human sexual identity has to start by assuming that we can distinguish conceptually between sexual being per se and sexual functions that relate to specific sexual identity. It starts by understanding that there is a conceptual difference between our existence as sexual beings and our acting on the basis of either one of two specific sexual identities, either male or female. Indeed, one way to understand the basic division that separates complementarians, Christians who teach the Bible require respect for gender roles, from egalitarians, Christians who deny there is any legitimate basis for gender roles, is that egalitarians follow the culture in refusing to distinguish between sexual being and sexual function, while complementarians oppose the culture by insisting they are different. On this matter, egalitarians, indeed, egalitarians on this matter, side with the thinking of contemporary social scientists not promoting plastic sexuality, while complementarians do not. By the quote-unquote being of human sexual existence, we refer to men and women insofar as both sexes are centers of transcendent worth, are creatures uniquely privileged by the image of God, are moral beings each of whom is responsible for his or her own actions, and are, in the language of Immanuel Kant, persons with the dignity of being ends in themselves and never just means to an end. And by functions in connection with human sexuality, we refer to men and women insofar as each acts in ways shaped by his or her specific gender identity, and is assigned responsibilities in relations with other sexual beings that are specific to their gender identity. Sexual functions affect matters that go beyond the sexual being of mere individuals. They are what define human sexuality to the degree that it involves interaction and relationship between persons in ways defined by specific gender identity. These interactive functions, or relationships, shape the meaning of human sexuality in the context of community. And they concern the meaning of human sexuality as it has to do with productive capacities, assignments, achievements, and goals, what the Bible calls being united and being fruitful. Because human sexual existence involves both being and function, and any way of understanding human sexuality that focuses exclusively on one and not the other, any way that fails to adequately distinguish one from the other, or that reduces the meaning of the whole to one at the expense of the other, must always be deficient to the degree it fails to involve both. And failure to accept both in complete harmony risks something more than mere deficiency. It also invites perversion, not just because someone might dislike the results, but because it tends to dehumanize human relationships. On the one hand, ways of understanding human sexuality that emphasize function over being lead to the perversion of slavery. Slavery is abhorrently perverted precisely because a person's inherent worth as a human being is denied, and he or she is valued only in reference to function. On the other hand, understanding human sexuality in a way that focuses on sexual being, while ignoring or denying the importance of functional differences, leaves relational aspects of human sexual existence, fruitfulness and union, shallow, barren, and eventually inoperative. As a result, failing to distinguish between sexual being and function, and focusing on one at the expense of the other, can only lead human sexual relationships into social, moral, and spiritual confusion. If nothing defines functional differences between male and female, then relationships involving gender identity are perverted and quickly become a struggle for power. While distinguishing between sexual being and sexual function helps us to guard against slavery and relational confusion, it also removes potential objections to the essentialist view of human sexuality. If we can distinguish being from function, then there is nothing at all inconsistent with thinking that sexual being may endure while functions may change. Sexual being can be something fixed, even if some specific sexual function ceases, for example, the functions of marriage and procreation, and others might be modified, perhaps the function of headship. So now let's go on to biblical evidence for the doctrine that sexual being is in fact eternally fixed. Having set the stage by clarifying the difference between sexual being and sexual function, something the Bible just assumes when it presents the equality of men and women that goes right on discussing gender roles without any sense of contradiction, we now will consider direct evidence in the biblical record that lends very strong support to the essentialist view. Specifically, we're going to find that the gender identity aspect of sexual being, the identity of men as men and women as women, is something so profound, so very important to God, it is going to last throughout all eternity. And if God says the gender identity aspect of human sexual being is eternal, then it cannot be something culturally relative or plastic. Instead, it must be something very real that must, of course, remain fixed throughout life on earth. Looking at what the Bible teaches about human sexual identity and whether it will cease or not is not an entirely new question. At least we should not think we are the first Christians to examine scripture for answers. Augustine in the 4th century studied the question and he concluded from the Bible that both men and women will keep their sex-specific gender identities beyond the resurrection and into eternity. In his case, Augustine was responding to some who were saying women would cease to be women after the resurrection. To quote him, there are some, he said, who think that in the resurrection all will be men and that women will lose their sex. For my part, I think that those who believe that there will be two sexes in the resurrection are more sensible. End of Augustine. How did Augustine reach this conclusion? Using Augustine's work for a guide and expanding upon his initial efforts, I will now lay out and explain four biblically sound theological reasons for asserting that God in the Bible clearly gives us an essentialist view of human sexuality. Two of these reasons come from the record of creation and two come from the promise of bodily resurrection and future eternal life in an embodied state. First, in the record of creation, we understand that when God created Adam and Eve, he created embodied spirits. God did not first create non-material beings and then in a second separate act place them into material bodies. Rather, each was created whole in a single act of creation. Thus, the being of each is presented as something we might call materialized spirit. In other words, the creation record teaches that men and women are beings who exist spiritually and physically at the same time. Quote, God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. Genesis 2.7 Also, quote, the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man. Genesis 2.22 Not only is human existence spiritual, it also requires embodiment in order to be whole. So if embodiment includes sexual identity and if embodiment is essential to being human, then sexual identity must be essential to human existence. Put another way, it is only logical to assume that because God in creation made sexual identity essential to embody human life, then absent specific revelation to the contrary, we must assume that sexual identity will always remain essential to embodied human existence. Second, the Bible supports an essentialist view of human sexuality because when God created Adam and Eve, he demonstrated the fact that human sexual identity has absolutely nothing to do with sin. Of course, what we now experience of human sexuality certainly is affected by sinful human nature. But human sexual identity has as such never actually depended on being sinful. Indeed, Augustine saw that since Adam and Eve were sexual beings before the fall, we have to conclude that sinful sexual desire does not have any necessary connection with what it means to be a sexual being. And because human sexuality existed without sin before the fall, we have no moral reason to think that anything having to do with sexual being will be left behind when God judges and does away with all moral corruption and death produced by the fall, and when the entire created order, including human beings, is finally released from the curse imposed because of human sin. Third, the essentialist view of human sexuality is presumed in the biblical hope of bodily resurrection because there is a promise of restorative and not just a reconstructive purpose promised in bodily resurrection. In the resurrection we will experience a continuity of being and personal identity that links the new with what was old. We are told that we will be changed, but it is we who shall be changed. The subject remains the subject. At the resurrection, quote, the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. 1 Corinthians 15.52.53 But here again, there will be those same beings who once were mortal who will at that time will clothe themselves with immortality. And since we know there will be continuity of personal identity, and because sexuality has always been part of that identity, Augustine says he then who created both sexes will restore both. Now what Augustine saw was that because human sexuality existed before the coming of mortality, Genesis 2.17, and the fall, Genesis 2.25, we know sexual being is not incompatible with human life in a state of sinless perfection. But that is not all. We also know from the record of creation that human sexual identity not only is sinless, it also is created for the purpose of achieving something good. In other words, it makes possible the achievement of some specific good that can be achieved no other way, not even in the relationship between human beings and God. When God created the sexes and separate acts, he focused attention on some good thing that can be achieved only because human life is sexually differentiated. Quote, the Lord God said, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him, Genesis 2.18. In this statement, God revealed that human sexuality not only is a good thing in itself, it is also for something good. It realizes some good thing that does not exist apart from a relationship that consists of unifying the sort of corresponding differences involved in human sexual identity. This point adds support to the principle we noted earlier that absent specific revelation, to the contrary, we should assume that human sexual identity is eternal. If God says human sexual identity is necessary to realize something he declares good, and if he reveals no reason to think any good thing will be left behind, then surely the resurrection must include the specific sort of good for which God says complementary differences in human sexual identity are intended. Of course, human sexuality might rise to some higher level of significance and completion, but it would not be logical to think that it could ever be less. It may be enhanced, but it can never become worth less. The argument that God's promise of bodily resurrection presumes the essential nature of human sexual identity has additional scriptural validation in the record of those who recognize Jesus after his resurrection, and a special revelation of a direct link between present sexual activity and the bodies we look forward to having after the resurrection. Following Jesus' resurrection, the disciples recognized the same male human being they knew and loved before their crucifixion. Peter boldly declared that, quote, God has raised this Jesus, in other words, the very same man, to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact, Acts 2.32. And after his resurrection, angels also testified to his continuing male identity when they said, quote, this same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven, Acts 1.11. These accounts suggest that all who saw... These accounts rather strongly suggest that all who saw the resurrected Jesus after his resurrection assumed that he remained a male human being. But this evidence from eyewitness accounts is indirect, and we have direct evidence that is even stronger in the writing of Paul. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.13-15, the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Of course not, or never. Here, by divine inspiration, Paul links sexual sin involving the bodies we have now with the moral purity that must characterize the physical bodies we will have after the resurrection. The logical connection Paul makes between our pre- and post-resurrected bodies makes no sense unless human sexual identity continues to characterize human embodiment on through the resurrection. Fourth and last, the essentialist view of human sexuality is expressed in the way Jesus answered a group of Sadducees who did not believe in a physical resurrection and who thought they could stump Jesus with a question about seven brothers who were each married to the same woman, one after the other. That's given in Matthew 22, 23-32. Whose wife would she be after the resurrection? If human sexuality is limited just to this life, then Jesus would only have had to explain that their question was irrelevant. If sexual identity ceases after the resurrection, then the question is irrelevant because marriage and any other sort of relationship involving sexual identity will simply be impossible. But Jesus didn't respond that way. Instead of saying that marriage relationships would become irrelevant, he only said marriages would cease. In fact, the form of his response actually underscores the continuing relevance of human sexual identity per se. The form of the reply given by Jesus is the same as though he had said there'll be no more toll booths in heaven. That sort of answer would affirm the continuing presence of roads while denying the use of toll booths. In similar fashion, what Jesus told the Sadducees affirms the continuity of human sexual identity while denying the practice of marriage as a human institution. Augustine, who was arguing against some who thought female sexual identity might cease, said, quote, Jesus even affirmed that the sex, i.e., female human sexual identity, should exist by saying they shall not be given in marriage, which can only apply to females. Neither shall they marry, which applies only to males. There shall, therefore, i.e., after resurrection, be those who are in this world accustomed to marry and being given in marriage. Only they shall there make no such marriages. Final section talking about plastic sexuality now and the egalitarian position building of what we have just considered. We have considered a new way of thinking that's now emerging in our culture that promotes the idea that human sexual identity is not fixed but is instead malleable or plastic. I, in turn, have argued that Christians must prepare to resist such thinking by studying reasons in the Bible for believing that human sexual identity is something so deeply profound and important to God it will last through eternity and if it is eternal, then it certainly cannot be culturally relative or plastic. I have also noted how the idea of plastic sexuality reconfigures sexual ethics and is especially opposed to gender roles. And in doing this, I have also pointed out how egalitarians and the advocates of plastic sexuality share a common view of equality one that fails to distinguish between sexual being and sexual functions. As we close, I will add some comments about similarities I see and about which I think we should all be deeply concerned between egalitarian teaching in the Church on the one hand and the promotion of plastic sexuality in the culture on the other. In view of a biblical doctrine concerning the eternally fixed nature of human sexual identity promotion of plastic sexuality amounts to a wager that erases sexual boundaries at the cost of real significance and meaning. It promises freedom from moral limitations at the price of perpetual shallowness. And although Christian egalitarians continue to proclaim faith in the authority of Scripture and although they have never been so extreme as those who openly espouse plastic sexuality the egalitarian position takes on this same wager. Egalitarians also sacrifice the meaning of sexual difference for the sake of monolithic sameness. The idea of plastic sexuality with its ethical ramifications is really the inevitable result of humanistic thinking when thinking about sexual identity is cut off from objectively defined boundaries as to function or purpose. If the meaning and definition of human sexual identity is intentionally severed from any fixed reference and is subject only to arbitrary personal choice we should not be surprised when advocates claim that human sexuality is arbitrary. Ironically, the idea of plastic sexuality involves a profound commitment to thinking there can be nothing profound about sexual identity. Plastic sexuality is sex without fixed purpose which means it is also sex without moral limits other than the one requirement that every moral standard be deconstructed or rejected. Christian egalitarians still say that human sexuality has purpose but they so reconstruct what they say of its purpose the idea of sexual difference is made completely irrelevant. For example, egalitarian Stanley Grenz writes that, quote, the basic purpose of our existence as sexual creatures is related to the dynamic of bonding and he claims the main problem for which E was created to be a solution was Adam's, quote, unquote, solitude. But relational bonding and human companionship or friendship do not require the reality of sexual difference. Defined this way, human sexuality can fulfill its purpose whether sexual difference is present or not. Thus for egalitarians, sexual difference is marginalized to the point of meaninglessness. And so, in this way, egalitarians end up arguing for a position not so very different from that taken by the advocates of plastic sexuality. Whether it is social scientists advocating plastic sexuality or Christian theologians defending egalitarianism both are beguiled by a vision of sexual equality, quote, unquote that has no place for meaningful distinctions within human sexual identity. Both pursue a vision of equality that rejects the concept of complementary equality. Neither allows a sort of equality that has room for corresponding sexual differences that do not compromise the equal value of sexual being. Both insist on an idea of equality that focuses exclusively on monolithic sameness. But if gender differences within human sexual identity really do not matter if in fact what we think are differences are actually just transitory, cultural, or perhaps even unreal then the idea of difference based on separate sexual gender identities can sustain no real moral value either. Then the idea that gender based sexual differences sustain or define any sort of normative behavior have to be rejected and perhaps even vilified. So, it turns out, a way of thinking that leads egalitarians to reject gender roles is the same process of thought used by advocates of plastic sexuality to deny there is anything normative to heterosexual marriage. Defense for or opposition to convictions about the reality of enduring meaningful difference in human sexual identity is one so profound it can define and sustain normative moral relations between men as men and women as women. This lies at the center of a colossal social, ethical, and ultimately religious struggle now straining American life and culture. If the idea of fixed permanent differences in human sexual identity is ultimately unreal then the God of the Bible is a deceiver and the perpetrator of enormous evil. But, if sexual differences are fixed and real then the God of Scripture is true and teachers in the church must stand their ground against the cultural tide no matter what the cost. Scripture cannot be interpreted to accommodate plastic sexuality and there is no place for plastic sexuality in the teaching of the church. Thank you. All right. I appreciate your listening. We have some time now for discussion and questions. Phil, how much time exactly do we have? Twenty minutes. Okay. I hope I can come out from behind the lectern and respond a bit more informally to you. Do you have any comments yourself or any questions? Please, if you would, state your name when you do so. Well, the point is that obviously we are men and women. Whatever gender identity we are we are as fully human as each other. And I have written elsewhere and Bruce Ware is giving a presentation right now in the room next door on male and female image of God. And he would argue and I would argue that men and women, that gender difference is irrelevant to the degree to which we bear the image of God. That we bear the image of God fully and equally and not just equally in the sense of equal value but equally in the sense of the same way. That's where I would argue. That we bear the image of God the same way and completely and fully. Irrelevant or irrespective of whether we're male or female. But that what I'm distinguishing between being and that's a matter of being. But distinguishing being and function that the gender identity is something that is essentially related. Essentially connected. That is, you cease to be human human beings as God has created you if you cease to be a sexual being. And you cease to have your specific gender identity either as male or female. That there is no such category as being human and not being either male or female. Okay? I don't want to go into the animal life thing because there are certainly forms of animals and so forth that there isn't sexual distinction or they switch back and forth and all that sort of stuff. But I'd like to stay on the biblical ground. And I do think human life is unique. Yes? Is it a strategy question you're asking or a process question? Yeah. Very good question. First of all, let me just challenge the premise that it is a feminist culture. Now, obviously, well, first of all, feminism isn't a monolithic thing. There are many different ideas that sort of get, and everybody isn't buying everything. But neither is Washington or the culture are completely overrun with the full ramifications of feminism. So there are going to be, I think the challenge would be whatever the context with whom you might be relating to sort of identify where they are. Certainly there are, just in terms of public life, in the introduction, Tim Berry just mentioned the issue of women in combat. The great majority of people in Washington, political people or folks that might be on staff or whatever, but I think probably the vast majority of people in America and in other walks of life, I think still view that as, this is radical. This is something, there's something different about women that ought not to be erased, and they were crossing some sort of a line here. It is the last bastion of public life that is, for which the government, you know, managing the affairs and directing and disciplining and defining relationships and so forth, standards of behavior, that is specifically a government responsibility, that military life is sort of the last bastion of what we call traditional moral values. And it's precisely because of that that the feminists can't leave it alone. That's why they're attacking it right now. And tremendous things are at stake if that is lost and I think ground is being lost, but it's also the easiest to defend and argue against. We just need people with backbone who are willing to stand up and argue. Because it really, most women don't really want to be drafted, you know, be treated as though their sexual identity is completely irrelevant, so they ought to be subject to a draft, taken away from their family responsibilities, deployed worldwide on a moment's notice, and so forth like this, which is what you're supposed to be in the military, if you're in the military profession. They want to be able to choose it, but they don't want to be able to be forced to go in voluntarily, which is what you would do and so forth. So they'd like to view it as a job, but they don't want to view it as a matter of personal sacrifice. And of course, anyone who understands the military culture, its effectiveness, unit cohesion, military discipline, depends very much on building very intense loyalties with the other people in your unit. Bonding, in that sense, which is a fraternal, type of fraternal love. Men usually, you know, men in combat die for their buddies. They don't really die for their country. It's too abstract. They don't want to let their buddies down. They don't, you know, who are counting on them. And so that's, you know, that's what ends up being the most basic thing that keeps units together from fracturing and splitting up. If you start putting sexual tensions into that mix, it destroys it. You create jealousies, you create rivalries, you create, you know, you avoid, you know, you have intimacy is possible between, you know, where there's no sexual interest involved, possible in a way that builds fraternal love. But you start creating, you know, sexual interest and all of a sudden you've got to keep your distance. You've got to create a private space and so forth. That interferes with the kind of, with trust relationship. And suddenly somebody's unique and somebody else is not and so forth like this. It destroys the most basic foundation of building effective military combat game. And everybody knows this who's in the military. You can't pretend that sexual differences don't matter, just have strong rules. It doesn't work. If you try to make it work, it's foolish. Well, business environments are going to be a bit different and so forth. Another, I think another way that we have into the culture is exactly what this conference is about and it's family life. You know, even the ones who sort of try to have these egalitarian marriages where, you know, sexual difference doesn't matter don't really live that way. You know, somebody's got to make the decisions. Somebody's got to be finally responsible. Somebody's got to give direction or the two are going to stay together. Well, the idea that it's the way you're born, it's fixed, it's innate and so forth is really a rhetorical ploy. If you talk to the homosexual advocates, that's not real. That's just to persuade the heterosexual public to come their way. What they really want is free choice no matter what it is. And to, you know, this is the next step beyond that. And they'll admit it if you get them in a private moment, the leaders. It's just a way to get the laws changed so they can go the next step beyond that. I mean, you had in the 1990, was it 1995, 1996, March on Washington, 1995 March on Washington, you know, when Clinton was first elected that you had groups marching down Pennsylvania Avenue chanting recruit, recruit, recruit. Does that make any sense? If it's innate and it's not a choice? How can you recruit if it's something you can't help and it's no choice? They know it's not about innate. For them, it removes the moral barriers. I get to choose and make up whatever I want. Any new light? There never has been any light on it, I don't think. There's a lot of effort to confuse it. There is a huge body of scientific evidence that is not being focused on by the media and being ignored in the public statements even of a lot of scientists who are being intimidated by the homosexual agenda that is on the side of understanding homosexuality as pathological and deviant. That it is by and large an acquired condition. Sometimes that might be a matter of your own personal responsibility. It might be because of abuse and other sorts of things. It doesn't necessarily mean that the person who is struggling with that is completely responsible for the position that they're in. What they do about it, certainly, is their responsibility. But, for instance, there is all sorts of evidence that shows that the rate or incidence of homosexuality varies tremendously, very significantly, according to education, according to religion, according to culture. That's impossible if you're dealing with biologically fixed features. Race, education, these things would be, let's take race. This is biologically fixed. It doesn't matter what your culture or what your education or what your religion is. It's not going to change your race. It's an irrelevant category. But with the incidence of homosexuality, it's something that varies hugely with these things, which would say that it's primarily a matter of conditioned behavior. Primarily. Well, it's very much a part of the homosexual agenda. It's part of the feminist agenda, too. And what I'm pointing out here is that it's at the core, it's at the center of what the egalitarians deny. I mean, there's a direct connection here. Denying the sexual difference has any true meaning. In the name of a sort of equality that is monolithic sameness and no place for difference, sexual difference in the back. Well, you probably best talk with a medical expert in that field because certainly there are biological abnormalities and so forth like that. But usually it's primarily, I don't know, in all cases, it's usually primarily one thing or the other. And what you want to do is try to define it as best you could in a corrective way so that it's definitely one or the other. Now, possibly someone could make a mistake. But those cases are very, very rare and it's never wise to make general moral norms on very rare circumstances which are obviously exceptional. Exceptions are by definition not the norm. Yeah. Their response, well, their agenda is to dismiss those as either reinterpret, reconstruct them, redefine them and to do so in a way that says that those things are conditioned. They aren't naturally that way. It's the culture that teaches girls to play with dolls and the boys to play with guns and that sort of thing. They say even the physical differences are just really not real. I'm not going to defend them. But it's so radical to the point that they even want to try to deny that physical differences aren't real. Now, we have about, actually, I might want to watch about eight minutes more. Let me just make a comment here. We might have time for one more question after that. But coming back to the difference between egalitarians and complementarians, those who teach in the church and study the Bible, interpret the Bible, those who, like Stanley Grintz, who is an egalitarian, argue that there are no gender roles in the Bible, and those who are complementarians argue that there are. What has impressed me and concerns me very deeply and really is the reason for this particular presentation is that egalitarians will not admit any place for meaningful sexual difference. It's not to say, well, under these circumstances, but nowhere. It's that the difference doesn't matter anywhere. Just give me a little ground. It doesn't matter anywhere at all? No, it doesn't matter anywhere at all. Well, in that case, what are you saying? It really destroys marriage. In the name of sort of, this is sort of resultant, better marriages, because they argue that if you believe that men should be the head of the house and these things, that that turns people into bullies and they're nasty and they start beating their wives. And so you've got to be egalitarian in order to have a good marriage. That's just foolishness. Not yet, but I'd be happy to put it on there. They're probably going to ask me that as soon as we finish. Right, David? Okay. All right. Well, thank you very much. Oh, one more. Yeah. The basic reality, the reality doesn't, they want to redefine reality. And so they're very interested in artificial semination. They're really excited about the idea of cloning. It would make sex irrelevant and that would just help them get rid of, you know, sex-based gender roles. That'd be wonderful. See, look, we can, yeah. It would just be recreational, that's it, yeah. And however you do it, and you can, you know, reshape it, whatever.