Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rustin, president of NC Family. And each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. Thank you for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters.
I'm Mitch Prosser, Vice President of North Carolina Family, joined by our Director of Research and Education, Adama Manfra. Welcome to the eighth episode of The Truths We Hold. In honor of America's 250th birthday and NC Family's 35th anniversary, this year we're taking a deeper look at the foundational values that have shaped our country and continue to shape the work we do right here at NC Family. Today, we're going to take a deeper look at the truths we hold regarding the foundational truth that we hold here at NC Family regarding health and sexuality. And so this could be a hot topic.
This could be one of those things where it's like, oh, I think we're going to cover it today in a way that will be very careful, very sensitive, and very informative for you as you listen to this episode.
So Adamo, let's start literally at the very beginning. Genesis 1.27. You know the verse well. God created two. More specifically, he created male and female and he created them in his image.
So let's unpack God creating Adam and Eve. Yeah, male and female, he created them. And so when we approach both health and sexuality, the concepts of both. of those are found in that one line. And so all of these words are very important.
So male and female, so that's going to get really at the sexuality piece. And then he created them, meaning this all comes from God. Much like the Declaration of Independence, endowed by their Creator, that's how far back we're going with this issue, that God created man, God made man, both body and soul. And so the way he made our body is the way we want our body to work. And then he created them.
So then the male body will have different functions. functionings and different workings than the female body. And so when we talk about health and sexuality, starting with the health piece especially, what is often lost these days is seeing medicine as the effort to get the body to work properly. Yes. Meaning we can look at and study the human body over time and an individual person throughout their age, but across all humans and see that the body is supposed to work this way.
The liver is supposed to do this. The kidneys are supposed to do this. And so medicine is meant to restore those things.
Well, it's almost as if a creator designed. All that we know, and even, yes, one of the most intricate of those creations, our bodies with a purpose in mind. And each of those functions, I remember learning in science class about vestigial organs, even those organs have a function and a purpose. And it's important for us to understand the concept of the watch having a watchmaker. There is design and purpose as the creator intended it to be.
And I think there's this notion, if you will, Adamo, that it's only in the last 10 years or 20 years or maybe even 50 years that people have been bucking against. The authority of God's design? And the answer to that is no. It's been since the beginning that people have questioned. I go to the garden, did God really say this?
Of course, Satan is not necessarily calling into question the design of the body, he's calling into question design and creation as God, as you so perfectly put it a moment ago, as He intended it to be. That has its tendrils in every portion and part of God's design, more specifically, and possibly most importantly, in who we are and our bodies.
So, as we walk through that, there are some things today that people are paying attention to that they're focused on that they're calling into question God's design. Notably, among those today is gender dysphoria and the transgender movement and ideology. Let's unpack that for just a couple of minutes. It seems like there's been a little bit of a pullback in the last couple of years. What is happening today, and what can we, as believers in the Creator and Jesus Christ, do about that?
I want to take one step back first. You brought up going back to the garden, I think that's really apropos to this.
So, right, the temptation that the snake tempts Eve with is that by eating from this tree, you'll be more like God.
So that's man, human, choosing to put the creature in the place of the creator and go from the design to the designer. And that's exactly sort of the umbrella concern here with medicine is that we're saying God designed me this way, but if I were the designer, here's the design I would want.
So let me now have you in the medicine field, instead of looking at the original design and repairing it, look at how I would design it as the new designer and satisfy that somehow. And that's precisely what is happening with gender dysphoria. And there are other conditions, whether it's anorexia, bulimia. There are in fact people who suffer from thinking they've lost a limb that they haven't. I always forget the term for that.
But these people are perceiving or desiring some different design or at least some different current form of the body that they have. And they're going to medicine in some cases to have medicine affirm or manufacture or artificially alter the creature that they are to fit their personal design for this. And it's interesting.
Sometimes, if you get into the historical, philosophical background on things, you'll kind of look at Descartes and I think, therefore, I am. And part of his own thought process that starts some of this trajectory is he's acknowledging, well, I'm not my own creator, because if I were my creator, I would have made myself differently.
So he then, to give him an ounce of humility, then surrenders being the creator. But now, centuries later, we're not retaining that humility. And we're saying, well, then I want to be the creator and the designer and now make all of this do whatever I think it should do instead of how it's designed to work. There has been a temptation and a tension throughout all of human history to try at least to wrestle authority away from the creator, from God Himself. And I also want to speak a little bit of compassion and clarity into this as well.
Many of the people who are struggling with gender dysphoria and other Other things that would harm their bodies, they are struggling with a clinical diagnosable condition or a disorder. And literally, I don't mean that in any pejorative sense, literally going against the order as the creator God designed it to be. And so, there needs to be compassion, there needs to be care and love, but there doesn't need to be a sense where we lean into that and say, oh, well, you feel that way, you think, therefore, you must be. And I think even as compassionate Christians, we have to be careful that we don't fall into that snare as it I believe has intentionally been designed to pit certain of us against one another. The transgenderism and the transgender movement has taken a life of its own in recent years.
And I think it's important for us to understand that there are a lot of spheres of influence and contexts that we find it, whether it's libraries, whether it's books, whether it's women's sports and intimate spaces, locker rooms, bathrooms, all All of these places are places where the transgenderism movement has found itself with people struggling with gender dysphoria. I want to, for just a moment, walk through gender reassignment, and I think for all people, but specifically for minors, a couple of years ago, the state of North Carolina passed a bill and it is now law that protects children from this. It's the Help Not Harm bill. And it basically says, no, we're not doing that here. I think that's extremely important.
And without overstating the obvious, why is something like that so important?
So the key word that you brought up and you highlighted it as well is disorder here.
So gender dysphoria as a clinical condition is in sort of the field of psychology and psychiatry, right? And so going back to the umbrella concept, many psychological conditions or diagnoses include the word disorder. And ironically, if we won't accept that there is an ordered way for things to be, we can't define anything as disordered. And one of the many bad fruits of that is precisely this. that in fact, instead of seeing gender dysphoria as a disorder, that there is a mismatch with the order of the way things should be and the perception of the way they could be or are perceived to be, because we abandon that acceptance of an ordered way, we then turn towards surgical or chemical or other medicinal fields and ask them to accommodate a blank slate, kind of, because if there isn't a right way, then it's sort of here.
Now, well, then you just have to accommodate what I want. And so what we will see is with the design designer concept, when a thing is designed, it has an intended way to be used. Absolutely.
So if you take medicine, it comes with a whole book of information, the most important part being the directions. Here's how you're supposed to take this, because if you take it a different way, it won't have its intended results. It could be very bad for you, could be ineffective.
So you want to read the way it was intended to be used so that you know how to benefit from its value. Similarly, you want to know how the human body is. Meant to exist and flourish and thrive and be healthy in order to help the person thrive and be healthy. And so, when we see a person with a male body or a female body, you ignore the disorder of misunderstanding that and instead say, Oh, the problem is your body.
Well, now you're messing with that design and you will never be able to thrive and be healthy because it is impossible to make this design into that design. This will not be that. Like, you can't transform a Camry into a monster truck. But the point here is that by doing that, even adults, when they pursue this, they're going down a path that cannot lead towards happiness because they're being put in a direction that is contrary to the design itself. And so, even more so with our children, and I know you've got boys a little older than mine, so I'm still in the, my kids are exploring with, why can't I be a boy?
Why can't I be a girl? Like, what does that mean? What does a mommy do? What does a dad do? Why can't I be Spider-Man?
Yeah, because you can't. It's impossible. Yeah, it's an issue. It breaks their heart. Yeah.
Boy and girl, I know you have all boys. My oldest son and daughter also sometimes are like well I wish I could marry him or her and it's like because they just love each other and it's us as parents and as adults to take those natural curiosities and educate them into the ordered form of reality so that they come to learn what isn't necessarily intuitive. And if you don't do that, it abuses and denies them the ability to flourish and thrive when we let them walk down a confused, disordered path. Absolutely.
Harken back to our last episode where we broke down the Declaration of Independence and this Jeffersonian, these three among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We talked about the pursuit of happiness and what that is. I mentioned the idea that it's aspirational, that it's the level playing field whereby we have the opportunity to be who God designed us to be. What we're talking about is, in fact, yes, it's life, yes, it's liberty, but it's also the pursuit of happiness. God designed you to be exactly who he designed you to be and you to be who you are, me to be who I am.
And he created us in that beautiful Patchwork and that framework where each one of us have a specific purpose in mind. And we have the opportunity to go along with that and pursue that calling in happiness, or we can live, as you said, in a perpetually miserable existence trying to pursue something that will never happen. And that's ultimately heartbreaking. Let's walk through just a couple of other things really quickly before we wrap up. There's a lot of push today to be happy with other medicines, if you will.
And this goes a little bit into the health aspect, whether it's hallucinogenics, whether it's some of the new age medicine, mushrooms and things like that. Is it ibocaine? Is that what it's called? Ibocaine. Thank you.
Or marijuana, or we're hearing a lot about kratom, hemp-derived consumables, all these things. Let's talk overarchingly, really quickly. Why in the world would anybody want to consume ibocaine? Yeah, well, so if we're on that one specifically, there's lots of sort of panisaic suggestions and hopes and dreams for that. But speaking in more the abstract, especially, it again, comes back to the idea that we want the human body to flourish the way it was designed to be.
And so when we're evaluating things like this, whether it's ibogaine, other hallucinogenics, marijuana, kratom, pick your thing, all of these things should be evaluated from, are they helping the body be restored to its original design and functioning in a healthy way? Or are they being used to cause the body to function in a way contrary to its design, but sort of at the behest of the individual or at the goal of some other benefit? If these drugs are trying to go in sort of the transhumanist route, which is effectively the sin of the fall, if it's that kind of thing, well, if I took this drug, then I'd be a better human.
Well, no, you're human and you need to stay human, but you need to function correctly.
So if there's something wrong with you and we can understand that this drug will fix that and restore you to a healthy human, that is potentially or hopefully good. I'll bring one more thing up as we round out this episode. There are some that would look at marijuana. Hemp or cannabis. And they would say, Well, God made it, so it must be good for me.
And I heard a friend of mine one time, he said, Well, God made poison ivy too, but you don't see people rubbing that all over their bodies. There is something about a sin-cursed, fallen world that we have to pay attention to. And so, not everything in its present form is necessarily good for us, and it is not necessarily restorative in nature to put us back where the body is properly functioning.
So, it's important for us to note that there are certain things, while they may be from the ground or God-made, they may not be good for us. And that's important for us to note.
So, as we round out this episode, what should those who are listening know about our position here at NC Family? Oh, the easy questions.
Now, again, it comes down to we want to look at health and sexuality as living through our bodies in the way that God designed it, as the creature, having the humility to be, this is my body, the way God created it. I want to be healthy in that body. And that means exercise, too. Yeah. Living in a way that causes us to live a flourishing human life.
Jesus Christ didn't incarnate as human to make us into some other creature, and so we shouldn't be trying to do that either. Very good. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review. To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org.
That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
