Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to the Truth Exchange Podcast. This is a weekly program with Dr. Jeffrey J. Ventrella, where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics, and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is another edition of the Director's Bag.
Well, we are back for another Director's Bag, Jeff. It is a chilly 20 degrees here in South Carolina. We have had the first snow that we've had probably in about three years. So my children made snow angels and got completely muddy and soaking wet because it doesn't snow that much in South Carolina.
How about you in Arizona? I bet it's a nice chilly 78.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not. It's not 78. It's actually quite chilly. Had a freeze warning last evening and it's. I've got to turn on the electric heaters in the car and all those sorts of things because it is chilly. Even the dog doesn't want to stay outside.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Oh, goodness. Okay, well, we've got a couple of questions that are pertaining to the recent dicta that came out, which was excellent. Encourage our listeners to go back and check that out. There's some great points that Dr. Ventrell makes in it, but we do have some questions pertaining to it as well, as we had just some questions about the recent inauguration and participation in interfaith practices. So let's start with the questions pertaining to the dicta. Stephanie from West Virginia writes, Dr. Ventrella, in the recent dicta, you pointed out the worship of current idols in contemporary culture, specifically Mammon, money, Eros, sex, Mars, Macho Man. I had a couple of thoughts, questions I'd like to bring to your attention for the next podcast if you have time. Is, number one. Is Marx best understood only as a money issue? A lot of profs at school say it's about power, not money. Do you want me to read all three of them to you, Jeff, or.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Do you want to take a one stop after each one? Because. Okay, Stephanie, appreciate your insight there. These are informed questions and they are articulately put. And we're grateful that you find the dicta challenging and hopefully edifying. Yeah. How do we think about Marx? Well, Marx, of course, was a philosopher, not an economist, but his philosophy was really an entire worldview as I set forth in that Dictate. Essentially, Marx and Engels put forth a copycat of Christianity without any transcendence. And he believed that the real issue of the world, the problem was he's a materialist, and that really was the entirety of reality. And the problem was the means of production were controlled by those with wealth and they were exploiting the workers. And so he called for violent revolution to change that redistribution. He's utterly confused economically. But to your point, how do we understand him? Well, he was a philosopher that believed in violent revolution. But his categories, yes, they were oppressed and oppressor, but actually they were focused on the economic dynamics that was the root of all evil, not the love of money, but wealth itself. And so his theories posited ways to get rid of what he claimed to be inequalities and so forth. I think your allusion to your professors or people at universities, they have what we call neo Marxism. They have imbibed kind of the reformulation of the failed true Marx system and have used it to create neo Marxism, which is the idea that the world is in fact simply about power dynamics, about oppressed and oppressors. And that's both critical theory, but also the, what we call post structuralism of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who talked about these kinds of things as well, that it was really language, was power and all these sorts of structures. That's getting a little highfalutin and technical. But I think Marx fundamentally is an economic system, but his later devotees have universalized it to all of reality.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Is the power dynamic a reductionistic worldview or analysis? Is that also what I'm hearing when you talk about some about that as a categorization?
[00:04:51] Speaker A: That's a great point, Joshua. The same is true. And I should have added that with respect to Marx. He reduces everything to the means of production and the control of production. This is. A lot of worldviews do that. They are reductionistic and say aha, this is the key. If we only fix this as opposed to understanding there's a dynamism in how God created humanity and how we interact.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Right, Excellent point. Question two, Stephanie asks some of Freud's psychoanalysis has become old textbook. Go to methods. Could some of these practices be common grace?
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Hmm, that's an interesting question. So of course Freud common grace is going to be that which still reflects the truth of God. It just enables the non Christian to do things that cohere with what God would have us do. For example, the space program, not all the aeronautics people and engineers were Christians. But because God called us to have dominion, to understand the created order, to use it to his glory, their mathematics and so forth allowed them to do that. That would be kind of a common grace. Medicine would be a common grace. There are atheistic doctors who have Found treatments for, say, cancers and those sorts of things where the development is anesthesia. We're dealing with Freud, though. We're dealing with a very foreign worldview to the Christian faith. His view of the human person, his view that we are reductionistic with respect to sexuality. Man is reduced to being a purely sexualized being, that there are unconscious motivations that explain all these things, which, as I put in the dicta, cannot be verifiable, cannot be empirically tested. So it's really a pseudoscience.
I think what Stephanie's getting at is that there are some things when someone is seeking counseling that we're talking about talk counseling that may in fact resemble some of the interactions that Freud recommended to doing psychoanalysis. But I can tell you the current practice of psychiatry, both Christian and non Christian, reject the foundations of psychoanalysis as formulated by Freud. And also, let's remember, one of his early companions was Jung, Carl Jung. And they both have decidedly unchristian worldviews, and they use those unworld views to try to explain human behavior. And of course, they've eliminated the category of sin, that our problem is not ethical rebellion against our Creator. We haven't exchanged the truth for the lie and worship the creation instead of the Creator, but instead we have all these subconscious tensions in us that need to be released.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Yep. And the third one, third idol that she. That you mentioned that she's asking about on Mars, or the Macho man, as she put it. I don't really disagree, she writes, but I certainly. But certainly you must agree that there are real issues of gluttony, laziness and young men, amongst other things. And that the Ogden crowd and Right Response crew are trying to encourage the Christian audience with a similar message to that of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life book. Thanks for entertaining my thoughts and questions.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: It's another insightful observation, Stephanie. The reality is, yes, there are. The reason that people like Jordan Peterson, Jocko Willink and Andrew Tate are making traction among young men is because they are scratching an itch that does exist, but not all itches need to be scratched. And unfortunately, what we're seeing is proposed solutions that are equally. They go off the other side of the road in another ditch. So when we're talking about the Idol of Mars or the notion of powered, being powerful, being strong, it's very Nietzschean sort of a deal.
And should we be for physical fitness? Yes, we could. But the trouble with some of these folks, and we've written about this, is that it, again, is reductionistic, that the view of masculinity in mankind is only a view of a young, fit, buffed, chiseled, dominant hunter gatherer who dominates his enemies and that sort of thing. But of course, Jesus never told us to fight fire with fire.
In fact, Jesus always obeyed the law of God when it came to interacting and dealing with societal change and so on, so forth, and use the power of the preaching and the message of the resurrected and ascended Savior.
So I would grant to you that yes, there's a problem and that some people are trying to address it, but you don't address it, you don't give it an antidote to poison is not more poison, put it that way. And so what we're seeing here with respect to the two entities you mentioned are Rankinism adjacent to racism. You're seeing a degradation of women and femininity. You're seeing a reductionistic view of the human person, including masculinity. And we at Truth Exchange are going to be outlining very soon our next every square inch gathering where we're going to focus on this notion of masculinity. What is the biblical vision for this? As well as contrasting that with unfortunately some false visions that have entered into the the pews concerning this.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Excellent. Holland from sd Is that South Dakota? Is that San Diego? Tell me Holland, where are you from? You write Dr. Ventrella and scholars. I'm curious if you would like or if you would take some time to explain anthropology to me. I drive a truck, so I have a lot of time to listen. Lol. In the dicta recently you stated while biblically humans are sexed creatures, Freud sexualized them, meaning that a person's very identity and behavioral motivation stem from sexual desire, conscious and unconscious. This shift in understanding anthropology, anthropology provided a peg for destructive expressive individualism. And then he, Holland asked the question, doesn't our identity and behaviors come from our sex sexuality? Another question. What happens when we have behaviors that don't align with the sex, such as for people who have gender dysphoria or effeminate men or masculine women?
[00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good question, Holland. I really appreciate it. So, a couple of thoughts here.
One is we are again, as I said, sexed creatures. How do I know that? Genesis 1 male and female, he created them. And so we are immutably made in what we call sexual dimorphs. The human person reflects the image or is the image and likeness of God. And it that's expressed physically as male and female both together reflect that imago dei. And so that is where we get Our question of identity.
Now, that identity in the biblical context means we are either identified in Christ or we're identified in Adam. Those are the only identity categories that really matter in the Scriptures. Are you still in your sins in Adam, or have you been redeemed and walking in newness of life in Christ? Anything else, what happens is you are identifying yourself again in a reductionistic way based upon some part of creation, some aspect, some attribute of you, rather than in a relationship to the transcendent God who is the Creator. Are you in Adam or you're in Christ? The second thing I'd say, Holland, is that this notion of anthropology is absolutely crucial. I was reading just this morning in Carl Truman's newest work where he is giving a historical, dispassionate, historical overview of critical theory. And he says all critical theory is dealing with is wrestling with this foundational question, what is the human person? Is there a human person? Is there a human nature? If so, what is it? Does it change? That's what they were really wrestling with intellectually showing us that this question of anthropology is really on the forefront of what we need to be doing as Christians and really affirming a faithful scriptural understanding of the human person.
So what happens when that gets distorted in some way? So. And he talked about some of the deviations we've seen with respect to perceived sexuality. I think I'm a, you know, a woman trapped in a man's body or something along those lines, as it's often put. So I would. Let's change it a little bit. There's. There's a woman who has a digestive system.
She looks into the mirror and says, wow, I'm fat. I've got to continue to starve myself and purge my food. What we do there is, we understand. We don't say, hey, yeah, you're right. I'm going to affirm your identity as an overweight woman, even though you're skin and bones and you're suffering from anorexia and bulimia. We would never do that. That would be harmful and wrong. Instead, what we do is we recognize that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are material, and we're also immaterial, that is to say, our thoughts and desires and so forth. And so what we want to do is to help someone align their thinking with their physicality. Well, the same is true when you have gender dysphoria. We don't sit there and say, oh, well, if you think you're a woman, but you're clearly anatomically and on a cellular, molecular level, a male. We don't say let's just suppress that truth in unrighteousness so you can feel good about yourself. That would be completely wrong and cruel. We don't use cosmetics, chemicals and carving to try to align someone's body with their desires. Rather we take their desires and help them be redeemed and align them with their body. That's the true biblical anthropology. Because anthropology is just not the physicality of the human, it's the integration of the material and the immaterial. And sometimes they go wacky. If I break my leg, what do I need to do? I need to heal my leg to bring it back into physical conformity with its design. Well, in the same way, when I think wrong thoughts, I need to have those thoughts brought into conformity with real reality. I hope that helps.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Alan, last question. Dr. Ventrella, I want to thank you for taking the time to hear this question out. I have been asked recently to participate in an interfaith event. I am a minister of the gospel and I noticed recently in the inauguration it was quite interfaith as they had people from various religions praying on the microphone. They also had our brother in the Lord, Franklin Graham participate in that. What is your take on participating in those types of events?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: That's a very important question and it can be misunderstood. I think in a lot of ways it's easy to be a lightning rod. So I would say a couple things. I think we have to have to un unearth this question of what does it mean to participate.
We certainly in our daily life as we interact with people, we may come across various invocations and so on, so forth that are not Christian. Well, if we're in a civic setting and it's a solemn occasion, we can be polite and not be rude and we don't have to affirm anything that's being said in that way. That's one idea. Now we can take it one step farther or further I guess would be the grammatical word. And if we're talking about say a same sex so called wedding ceremony, then I think we can't participate because a wedding is a witness and you're actively participating. So you've got the question. Even as a witness, being present is a participatory component of that sort of a thing. But if it's a civic ceremony and there are a variety of people up there, that's not necessarily an interfaith ceremony. It's a ceremony that reflects the diversity in our civic ethos. So you may be able to be there. Now, if you're a minister of the gospel, as you said you were, and I believe that, then the question is if you're invited to give an invocation there, well, that's a ready audience. Seems to me that taking that platform and praying to the triune God in the name of his only Son allows you to have a voice not condoning these false religions, but actually being light in the midst of that darkness. So that may be another aspect of what it means to participate. I think you can also. I've been in situations where there's been some really wacky pagan things happen.
And so I just excused myself and left the room. There was a native religionist doing this weird stuff in the name of Christianity.
And I just said, yeah, I just. I don't want my presence there because I'm not, you know, public intellectual, but I'm known in certain circles. I just really don't want to see that as an endorsement. So you've got to consider who's watching you as well. But I would never flinch. You know, Paul became all things to all people. And if he had a chance to talk, even against advice, I mean, if you look at the Book of Acts, hey, Paul, you need. We need to leave here. No, no, no, no. I want to go back there and. And deal with it. So to me, that sort of boldness, there is a place for it. It may not be everyone's cup of tea. One more point on that. If it's truly an interfaith worship service, then I think that's frankly a form of paganism and you ought not to participate or even be present. That's a very. We're coming together because all truth is truth. Well, that's true, but if you say all gods or all religions lead to the true and living God, then we have a problem. And so if it's an actual constituted service, that's a problem. Now, on the inauguration, I didn't watch that, so I'm just speculating. But typically these are ceremonials, typically rather than actual worship services. And the participants there are participating as officers of the United States, not as individuals. So there could be an argument made that says, look, I'm simply there in the capacity of the president and vice president, and because of that, I am the president and vice president of all the people, and I am respecting that during this ceremonial solemnization. Perhaps that's the argument there.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: This concludes a recording of the Director's bag. For more resources from TrumpExchange, please visit us online at www.truthexchange.com you can follow us on X as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to TrumpExchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the Director's Bag. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is the Truth Exchange Podcast.
