Congratulations to Derek Carr, probably the most underrated professional quarterback, on his new contract with the New Orleans Saints. Carolina Panthers, you whiffed!
Neutering Nature?
A few weeks ago I listened to an episode of the Dishcast, a podcast hosted by the provocative journalist Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan interviews a range of public figures and intellectuals, including scholars, journalists, and more. In this interesting (and frustrating) episode, he interviewed Jill Filipovic, a journalist who often writes on feminism and related topics.
Given Filipovic’s background, the interview focused on the state of feminism, abortion, and other issues which have special bearing on male-female relations. There was more than one infuriating and incoherent part to Filipovic’s views of the world, but I think especially about one extended exchange (roughly the midway part of the interview).
Sullivan remarked about the fact that there were obvious biological differences in men and women which helped to explain the many perceived inequities and disparities in society. Such disparities include the types of jobs that men and women tend to gravitate toward, or the amount of sex men and women want to have. While Sullivan’s account of biology assumed the standard evolutionary assumptions that we’d largely reject, we'd take no issue with much of what he averred about men and women. Indeed, the social sciences bear out what he asserted.
Filipovic wasn’t having it. While she briefly gave lip service to some biological influences upon men and women’s inclinations, she mostly rejected that as a misplaced account of things. Rather, she argued that social construction and cultural assumptions explained most of these differences. For those new to this discussion, think nurture versus nature. Essentially, late modern Western culture—with its lingering patriarchal heritage (and throw in some “whiteness”)—has made it such that we tend to see some things as more inherently masculine and some as more inherently feminine.
Sullivan pushed back. He conceded that social and cultural assumptions and forces always shape the ways that gender differences are experienced and enforced. But he insisted that the profound biological differences between men and women are, at root, inescapable. In some ways, they ground the entire discussion. For example, one cannot ignore the ways that testosterone and estrogen impact the brain and body. Filipovic continued to insist that while this mattered, it was overstated.
One common line of argument often employed by feminists of this sort is the way that women have continued to move into what were traditionally seen as “male jobs.” This trend is one of many ways some have tried to say that workforce dynamics have placed an artificial distinction between jobs dealing with things (traditionally, male-dominated) and jobs dealing with people (traditionally, female-dominated). Sullivan reminded Filipovic that in the most egalitarian of countries (think Scandinavia), when government and private enterprise created the most opportunities, incentives, and freedoms for women to pursue whatever career they desired, they still overwhelmingly tended to enter careers traditionally seen as feminine.
The conversation really stalled on this biology versus culture point. Yet I appreciated the way Sullivan was willing to linger there. It led to other very meaningful questions. For example, concerning the transgenderism issue, Sullivan asked Filipovic, “What does it feel like to be a woman?” Now that’s quite a question!
Why We Care
While I do commend this interview as an example of the cultural and intellectual contradictions of a certain kind of feminism, I don’t want to overstate the matter. Sullivan asks good questions, but he’s not our ally in the larger cultural conflict.
Sullivan may be the single-most consequential advocate of same-sex marriage going back to 1989. He identifies as a type of conservative, but he’s a practicing homosexual who holds moderate-liberal views on a number of subjects. However, he is intelligent, open-minded, and concerned about the erasure of and outright hostility toward biological aspects in our present discussions of gender and sexuality. He has even brought Christian voices like Carl Trueman and Rod Dreher onto his podcast to discuss such issues. Small wonder this is one of the most successful podcasts (in terms of subscribers) on the market.
Discussions like this, regardless of who has them or where they happen, matter deeply to us. For all the ways Christians may differ on the usefulness of natural law and natural theology, we believe that nature (often expressed through the study of biology), is real. While “nature” is one of the most ambiguous words in the English language, it cannot be a category we sidestep. We must try to maintain a coherent, biblically based view that we can articulate. Particularly, we need to show that Christians aren’t the only people who have a stake in a coherent view of nature and biology. As we do so, we may sometimes find strange bedfellows along the way (apologies for the poor metaphor).
We do need to be careful in who we align with when it comes to defending claims of what’s natural. If for no other reason, the findings of biology are sometimes tainted by assumptions about evolutionary science which we simply cannot abide. And of course, scientific research is a moving target. Just consider how some claims very early in the pandemic about masking seemed to indicate that “proper masking” with cloth masks provided robust protection again the virus. Well, we’ve learned a bit more on that by now, haven’t we?
More to the point, Christians can differ with other Christians about how to work out gender differences in the church, home, and society. Even conservative complementarians like me sometimes are troubled by the way fellow complementarians draw the lines. Of course, I’m much more concerned about left-wing evangelicals who not only are egalitarian, but who adopt hermeneutical methods and assumptions which leave them wide open for compromise in the area of sexuality and gender.
We need to stay looped into both the wider church’s discussion about biology and culture, but also the world’s. We’ll better understand where the fault lines lie, what the questions are, and what good and bad arguments sound like.
“Hope and Help is On the Way”
This past week I attended the Missouri Ministers’ Retreat in Rocky Mount, Missouri. I always look forward to this gathering of pastors, church staff members, deacons, and denominational representatives. A special feature of the last two retreats has been the participation of a group from Randall University.
President Bob Thompson brought a small group of students to the 2022 retreat, then a much larger group of around 10 this year. It’s a very unique type of experience to see and interact with such young men. I remember being a student at Welch College 20 years ago. I vividly recall the preaching trips to various churches that groups of pastoral students would take multiple times throughout each school year. More than once was I able to preach, represent the school, or sit under the teaching of a visiting pastor. These experiences were highly formative for me and other students. We still reminisce about them today.
I think sometimes we forget what it was like to be that age. We forget the anxiety surrounding the pursuit of a spouse, submitting the exegesis papers on time, and wondering if we’d end up in a decent church situation. We occasionally forget that some of our good friends in ministry today were people who we never really hung out with while in college together. In truth, perhaps we didn’t think too highly of them in those days. That’s not even beginning to consider all the things about God, the Bible, and ministry you just don’t have a clue about when you’re 19. The question is, “How will you get a clue?”
An obvious way we learn is by doing. Eventually we’re thrust into the fray. We sink or swim—though sometimes we figure out how to swim after swinking a few feet into the waves. Sometimes this is just God’s intended way of growing us into the men and ministers He desires us to be. Sometimes, however, I can’t shake the thought that it needn’t always be this way.
It’s probably the case that we can always be just a little bit better prepared for the waves—even if we still need to feel them to understand them. And it’s certainly the case that we’d be better able to keep our heads above water if we had good men who’d been there before who we could call upon. This is one reason why I’m so grateful for the presence of these young men at our Missouri retreat.
I had been previously acquainted with a few of them from prior situations, but I met new ones also. It was really enjoyable to learn about their background, present situation, and future plans. As trite as it sounds, those days seem like they weren’t that long ago.
But one recurring thought I had was how I hoped that just rubbing shoulders with men who had been in their churches for decades would encourage them and even instruct them in some ways. No one’s ministry has been smooth sailing all the way through. Can we help them understand that before their first ministry disappointment? Just as importantly, can we form some relationships that God might use later to bless them?
I never would have guessed in 2004 or 2005 where my journey would lead. Yet around that time I took a seminar entitled, “Adapting to the First Year of Pastoral Ministry.” It was taught by a capable younger pastor named Ken Simpson. Little did I know that my first lead pastor experience would be in Arnold, Missouri, six or seven years later. Fenton is the neighboring city to the west, where Ken lives and pastors.
We can call this providential—and it is, in so many ways. But this was a direct result of certain educational and professional decisions made by more than one party. And we desperately need these kinds of situations to be more common. Pastoral work is simply too challenging for us to have someone read a couple of dozen books, then send them off into the wilderness.
As the retreat neared its conclusion, we had the Randall students and President Thompson come forward so we could pray for them. Thompson’s final words ring in my ear: Hope and help is on the way. By God’s grace, he’ll be proven right. These ordinary, awkward, sometimes goofy young men will become those who lead our people the next leg of the journey. That’s humbling and exciting.
Pray for the students at our Free Will Baptist colleges but pray also for all men everywhere who God is preparing (and intends to prepare) to shepherd His people.
Follow-Up:
I appreciated this recent article at the Gospel Coalition on a challenging parental situation: having a child who wants to attend a different church’s youth group. Part of what undergirds some of these situations is the fact that we have often cultivated our children to have a consumer, self-centered mentality. Looking for the greener pastures becomes inevitable. I address this (tangentially) in an earlier article, “Just Use Your Funny Voice.”
Currently Reading:
Catch-up week
Quote of the Week:
Some people say that because some homeschoolers don't do an adequate job, it is therefore in the state's interests to ensure that they do. Let me first grant the initial point, which is that some homeschoolers don't do an adequate job. How is that an argument for bringing in “quality control” from the king of all educational inadequate jobs—the state?
And having granted the initial point, let me propose a little contest—let us compare SAT scores of all homeschooled California seniors and all government school California seniors. Or, pick your state, depending on who is demanding accountability. Whoever loses has to agree to be regulated by the other entity. If the homeschoolers lose, then the law stands. If the government schools lose, then we turn over the California Department of Education to a select committee of homeschooling moms. Ask them to fix it, or throw it away if it is beyond repair.