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.
Dear Truth Exchange Podcast, I'm a social studies teacher and I have played some of your episodes. In my class recently. We had a discussion about assisted suicide and the Christian worldview. Would you talk about assisted suicide versus pulling the plug in a situation where a loved one is on assisted living in a vegetative state? I was discussing this issue with the class and a student suggested that y'all tackle this one.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Well, that's really neat to hear, and it's really good to hear that unlike the usual stuff that's crammed into social studies curricula, they're actually dealing with real issues and they're trying to get to real solutions, invoking real truth concerning it. So we're grateful for that. So let's. Let's talk about a couple of categories. One is we often hear this notion of a vegetative state or a persistent vegetative state, relying upon on largely science. But let's make no mistake, we're dealing with humans. They are not vegetables in any sense. They remain imago dei, and we ought to have our ethics flow from that. I understand the vocabulary. It's descriptive. The trouble is, it can become metaphysical. Oh, they're only a vegetable. Well, that's not true at all. So let's be careful there. The next thing to recognize is the scriptural ethic is very clear. The Scripture promotes life, and that means from conception until natural death. And so we're talking about end of life kinds of scenarios. And the question ethically is, may one hasten one's own death either through physician assisted suicide or some other means that we see in Europe, you know, the death pods and all those sorts of things.
And the flip side of that is often one of, hey, compassion, let's eliminate suffering. This is needless and so forth. A couple of thoughts there.
When we consider the notion of suffering, let's be very careful. Theologically, just as salt and pepper go together, just as peanut butter and jelly go together, so does suffering and glory go together. The whole first Epistle of Peter makes this connection abundantly clear. And so we have to be careful that we don't shortchange glory by eliminating suffering. We want. Now, aren't we to ameliorate situations, make people comfortable? Yes, but are we then to take their lives, which, remember, assisted suicide is the intentional killing of another human. Now, the scripture justifies killing other humans, for example, capital punishment, or in self defense or defense of others. But just to take it away, a life away because of suffering would be an unchristian thing to do.
Now, with respect to end of life issues too, we have to understand that, that there is no moral duty under scripture to do whatever we can to maintain someone's life, that there remains an autonomy of that person to refuse certain kinds of medical care. In other words, you don't have to optimize these kinds of issues. Someone may come to the conclusion and say, you know what? I've ran the good race and just make me comfortable and I will pass into glory. That's very different than saying we're going to hook you up and just, just, you know, force oxygen down you and pump your blood and all that sort of thing just so you can do it, when in fact the body's telling itself that it's shutting down and it's dying.
So I think there's a, there's a definite line there. But to our social studies class, the intentional killing of another human can only be done if it is justified. So time of war, capital punishment, justifiable self defense, those kinds of issues, none of which is within the camp of assisted suicide. I hope that was not as clear as I wanted to be, but I think I drew the right lines.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: I think so too. I think so too. We have another listener and reader of our content, Dr. Ventrella. She writes, I have. This is a mother. I have a child who, who has recently come out saying that he is really a girl and has always felt that way. As I read the most recent dicta about Mark, I felt like I was reading my own experience, though my husband and I have not sought help yet and I don't know where to begin other than our pastor and local church.
Who would you recommend for resources? I sense this will be an uphill battle with little hope of victory.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Well, thank you for that question. It's touching, it's personal, and our heart goes out to you. And let's be clear that there is in fact real children who really do encounter this confusion and it often leads to suffering. The questioner didn't tell us the age of this child, if the child was three or four. The reality is people go through. Young people like that, go through situations where they are imagining things, they're pretending, and it just, you know, carries on. However, if they're close to puberty, it may Be something that is really requires detailed attention. And so what we want to do is that we want to bring their thinking and more importantly, their emotions in line with how God made them. In other words, their physicality. This is a creational norm. And so one way to do that is through godly and informed talk therapy. Your pastor may be equipped to do this, he may not be equipped to do this, but there are licensed caring providers, biblical counselors, we might call them, that can address these kinds of issues and help work through that.
We also don't know whether the young man wants to maintain his masculinity or is actually pursuing. So there may be influences in his life through social media or through these algorithms that push kind of this. It's really a gnostic impulse. Hey, we can show you what real happiness is like. Hey, here's the real truth about who you are. Follow your heart, follow your feelings. If that's the case, then he has to be weaned off of those kinds of influences and has to be affirmed, cared for, loved, and then receive good godly counsel. And again, there might be, I hesitate to use the word therapist. That has many connotations, but there are people who are dealing with this and that can help them overcome these kinds of overwhelming emotions. And that's really what we're talking about here. We're talking about the heart, we're talking about desires, and we're talking about great confusion. And it hurts, provides suffering. And so oftentimes in our culture, the solution is, oh, well, you're just, you know, in the wrong body, which of course is not a Christian position whatsoever. But we do have compassion and we want to be able to help people walk through that. The good news is, depending on where they, where they are, there may in fact be protections for counselors to roll up their sleeves and really talk to people and really help them. But what you really want to do is to draw a line on any aspect of so called gender affirming therapy, like change of names, change of pronouns, change of costuming or dress.
Those things are all part of what the LGBTQ entity calls therapy. And that's down the wrong road because that will ultimately lead to things like puberty blockers, then hormone suppressants, cross sex hormones, and all the rest, and then ultimately to mutilation and surgery, and so which leads to horrific dependency on pharmaceuticals and of course, makes one sterile. So these are horrible outcomes. And I would say you talk about the hope issue, let me just say the best sociology and the best psychology studies we have, and it's overwhelming tell us that most of these children, like 93% around, around that many people actually come out of it even without they just outgrow it. It's an outgrown thing. So you should have hope. I would encourage you to obtain some of the popular resources out there that explain the context. Ryan Anderson's book When Harry Became Sally, Miriam Grossman's book. She's a psychiatrist. She's not a believer, but she knows this area quite well. Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey really provides all a better worldview context for understanding these kinds of situations that have occurred.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Excellent. We have Ella from the Philippines. She writes. I just learned about your website and ministry through the teaching at Ligonier. I've been searching for a direct counter argument to the statement gender is a social construct. I'm currently a graduate student. I'm also a believer. I'm very thankful for your ministry. The Lord bless you all.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so what you're talking about there is an application of critical theory, and it goes back, you know, about a century really. And the idea of gender being a construct is a recent annotation. I believe it was.
I think it was John Money actually clear back when, you know, John Money was a physician who, who really pioneered this idea of quote, quote, sex change and all this sort of thing. And he believed that this, there was a distinction between sex and gender and so on, so forth. What were you gonna say, Joshua? There's other people who popularized it.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I was gonna say Butler. Judith Butler Bass.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Yes. The founder of queer theory. Judith Butler, very much. She's the one that talks about all of these things are performative and thus their constructs all the way up and all the way down. That, of course, is nonsense, but it sounds like you're being sophisticated when you make those kinds of ideas. And so I would encourage you to look at some of the critiques of critical theory because that will undress a lot of the arguments there. But just rest assured that as a Christian, the creational norm of the fact that humans are created, as, here's a technical term, sexual dimorphs. They are immutable sexual dimorphs, meaning that we're male and female. That's the nature of the human person. And that is demonstrated by the fact that no human has a reproductive system. Rather, every human has one half of a reproductive system. And consequently, that's not constructed. That in fact, is embedded in our basic biology of what it means to be a human person. And so the, the notion of gender being a construct is again, a gnostic move. It's a form of dualism saying that our biology is irrelevant or in fact it's bigoted.
That just clearly takes us down the wrong path there. So there's a number of resources there. But first of all, develop moral clarity so that you can develop moral conviction in this area, which will then lead to the moral courage to articulate it and address it.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Yes. And Ella, I will in our show notes when this episode goes out down below. When you click on this episode, I'll put some links to some of the content that Dr. Ventrella has written, as well as P. Andrew Sandlin, who's one of our Truth Exchange scholars. And I also believe Dr. Peter Jones.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Excellent, excellent.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: The founder of Truth Exchange has written on this issue as well.
Last we have a young man from Sacramento, California. He writes Dr. Ventrella. I'm a sophomore in high school and I listen to your podcast and love the videos on your YouTube channel. I recently became a Christian a couple of years ago through the outreach that my church put on. My desire is to be a pastor and I really love to read my Bible and read books on apologetics. I have a couple of Dr. Jones books and I read your dictas when I can.
I have two lesbian parents and have struggled with being a Christian at home and finding a way to honor and even obey them. I would appreciate your prayers.
[00:14:08] Speaker A: Thank you so much trusting us to be able to integrate and assess these questions in a way that is gospel oriented. So first of all, let me commend your church that is outreaching some people, you know, and I've come across them as recently as December in California from Sacramento, people saying, well, California is done. Forget about it, get rid of it, let's move out of state. Which is of course ridiculous. It is a key mission field, the Gospels for all of life and all of geography. So your church needs to be commended. Second of all, if you tend to get frustrated or discouraged, understand that angels rejoiced over your conversion, that this is a wonderful thing and you have been resurrected in Christ to new life and that gives us a certain hope for the future.
Now, with respect to your living situation, I think what you need to recognize is a couple things. We are to honor our father and our mother, but those are not absolute. Why do we know that? Jesus said, recall that I did not come to bring peace, but to bring a sword and that he will separate.
And one of the examples he gives are brother and sister, but also parents and children. So there are lines to be drawn. You can be Respectful, you honor the position of those in your household, those that are caring for you, providing for you, taking care of you medically, those kinds of things. But to any extent where there is an indiction or an urging or a nudging for you to disobey a clear warrant of Scripture, you have to respectfully decline to do that, and you will need a community to help you do that. It sounds like you have a community that can assist you to do that in a respectful yet gracious, yet firm particular way. You didn't tell us of any particular struggles, but I can only imagine having lived in the Bay Area for a number of years. So whether or not these folks are activists, you know, in the movement, or whether they're just kind of rolling down the river of life and this is kind of what they. The choices they've made, reality is, and you should know this, and I say this as pastorally, but you should know this, statistically, the most unstable relationship that sociologists have found is two females living together. There is often a great difficulty there. There's often chemical abuse, there's often physical abuse. But having said this, I will tell you that for many years, one of my wife's primary care professors in college, at a Christian college was a closeted lesbian. She came out as a lesbian, lost her job, and kind of lived the lifestyle. And interestingly enough, because of a ministry of a church, she ultimately realized, and she was an alcoholic and had other issues, crutches really, to deal with this situation, the stress of the same sex relationship. But she repented and she came to Christ in a very real and tangible way, and it radically affected her life. And of course, we have the situation with our good friend of Truth Exchange, Rosaria Butterfield, who lived for many years and was a college professor and very strong advocate of LGBTQ and so forth. And then the kindness of the Lord led her to repentance. And so for all these reasons, you should have hope, you should continue to pray. And the reality is that such were some of you is exactly true. Never let someone articulate that, oh, it's always going to be this way. That's not true. Because we are new. God's mercy is new every morning. And we have been given resurrection, life and power by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So be encouraged. Let us know if we can help you further either in resources or. Or any other things. And, you know, when I travel a lot, you know, kind of watch what we do at Truth Exchange, and we'd love to meet you personally, if I'M on the road, or Joshua's on the road, or one of our colleagues is on the road.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: This concludes a recording of the Director's Bag. For more resources from Truth Exchange, 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 Truth Exchange. 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.
