Will You Use Target's Transgender Bathroom
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Thanks for listening to another week
00:00:06.940 | of the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:08.560 | We get a lot of really good questions via email
00:00:11.000 | and you can send those to us at
00:00:12.100 | askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:00:15.140 | As you can imagine, Pastor John,
00:00:16.340 | we have a lot of questions in the inbox
00:00:17.860 | about Target's new transgender bathroom policy.
00:00:21.120 | Shoppers are now encouraged to use
00:00:22.920 | whichever gender bathrooms they identify with.
00:00:26.400 | The Target corporate headquarters
00:00:28.180 | is just a short walk away from your house,
00:00:30.160 | so this is pretty close to home.
00:00:31.800 | On the principle of boycotts,
00:00:34.160 | I think we've addressed this back in episode 430
00:00:36.560 | on corporate policies when we talked about
00:00:38.240 | Apple, Subaru, and Target back then.
00:00:40.880 | What are the logistics though
00:00:42.200 | of Target's decision for Christians?
00:00:44.320 | If you're shopping at Target,
00:00:45.640 | you go to the bathroom and a woman
00:00:47.760 | identifying as a man walks in,
00:00:49.720 | are there any biblical principles at play here?
00:00:53.880 | Would you use a gender open restroom to begin with?
00:00:56.080 | Even if it says men on the door,
00:00:58.900 | how do you untangle this question?
00:01:01.060 | - Tony, the way my mind went on this
00:01:05.700 | may not be exactly where the question is going,
00:01:10.700 | although I'm gonna end precisely
00:01:12.660 | answering the question of what I would do.
00:01:15.100 | But let me take you on the trajectory of my thought
00:01:18.820 | and trust that the Lord brought it to my mind
00:01:21.380 | for good reasons.
00:01:22.820 | Strange as it may sound,
00:01:24.220 | the first thing that comes to my mind
00:01:26.200 | as I hear the question
00:01:27.600 | is how parents are going to train their children
00:01:33.560 | in a culture where profound evil and deep corruption
00:01:38.420 | and God ignoring perversion is pervasive
00:01:43.420 | and accepted and defended and assumed
00:01:46.700 | and de-stigmatized and statistically normal.
00:01:50.720 | That's just so front burner for me right now
00:01:54.000 | in conversations that I'm having.
00:01:56.920 | For those of us who grew up
00:01:58.940 | where different standards were assumed
00:02:02.180 | and where some, at least external biblical patterns of life
00:02:07.140 | were normative, there is a built-in revulsion
00:02:11.600 | at some things that ought to produce revulsion.
00:02:14.900 | But our children are not growing up in that world
00:02:19.540 | and they will not have the same instincts.
00:02:23.780 | So how, that's my question,
00:02:25.640 | how are we gonna raise them and train them
00:02:29.080 | so that they will feel the exceeding sinfulness of sin
00:02:34.080 | and be willing to take stands that are extremely unpopular,
00:02:41.220 | maybe even costly or dangerous?
00:02:44.520 | And I think part of the answer to that question
00:02:48.420 | is whether we have a big enough doctrine
00:02:52.380 | of human depravity.
00:02:54.380 | Are we able to take our children to the scriptures
00:02:58.020 | and explain to them in terms that are shocking enough
00:03:02.820 | where the evils of our society are coming from?
00:03:07.140 | The children are going to be told by the Supreme Court
00:03:11.100 | and by their teachers and by their friends
00:03:14.260 | that the world is a different way,
00:03:16.820 | that the words of the Supreme Court Justice
00:03:19.860 | Anthony Kennedy are true.
00:03:22.780 | Here's this sentence, I'm gonna read right now,
00:03:25.820 | I think is probably the most destructive sentence,
00:03:30.400 | whether it's transgender or so-called gay marriage
00:03:34.220 | or abortion, this sentence from 1992,
00:03:37.940 | Justice Anthony Kennedy is probably
00:03:40.720 | the most destructive sentence that the court has ever spoken.
00:03:43.820 | It'd be my guess, I've not read them all,
00:03:45.420 | but he said, "At the heart of liberty
00:03:48.140 | "is the right to define one's own concept of existence,
00:03:53.140 | "of meaning, of the universe,
00:03:57.740 | "and of the mystery of human life."
00:04:01.540 | Now, that view of human autonomy,
00:04:05.020 | defining one's own existence, is so widespread
00:04:08.860 | that unless we have a deeper, stronger,
00:04:12.140 | more compelling view of human nature
00:04:15.020 | that explains where such sentences come from,
00:04:17.980 | our children will simply be swept away
00:04:21.340 | and along with the culture.
00:04:23.380 | So that's the first thing that comes to my mind.
00:04:25.420 | I think just my first reaction when I hear another instance
00:04:30.420 | of the kind of application of Justice Kennedy's sentence
00:04:36.420 | is that the depths of the human heart's depravity
00:04:42.500 | must be built in profoundly to our children.
00:04:47.660 | The second thing that comes to my mind
00:04:50.700 | is just to make sure that we have
00:04:52.740 | our terminology right in these days.
00:04:57.980 | So Target has now put in place a policy
00:05:02.980 | and it goes like this.
00:05:05.700 | It aims to give freedom to, quote,
00:05:07.980 | "transgender team members and guests
00:05:11.920 | "to use the restroom or fitting room facility
00:05:15.280 | "that corresponds with their gender identity."
00:05:19.580 | Now, there's the new term, gender identity,
00:05:22.460 | and it's just so important that all of our listeners
00:05:25.180 | get this, that's a new code word.
00:05:28.680 | The word gender is now used not for biological reality
00:05:33.680 | of maleness or femaleness, but for desired identity
00:05:39.580 | of so-called male or so-called female,
00:05:44.700 | even if the biological reality is the opposite
00:05:49.280 | of the desired identity.
00:05:51.880 | So gender identity can mean a male
00:05:55.860 | declaring himself to be female
00:05:58.020 | and a female declaring herself to be male.
00:06:01.660 | That is what gender identity means.
00:06:05.700 | And it's the most recent application
00:06:08.400 | and perhaps the strangest of Justice Kennedy's principle,
00:06:13.420 | liberty is the right to define
00:06:15.620 | one's own concept of existence.
00:06:17.920 | So we're gonna talk about polygamy one of these days
00:06:22.620 | and my wife was saying last night,
00:06:26.420 | "Well, that probably isn't coming."
00:06:28.060 | I said, "There's not a leg to stand on.
00:06:29.580 | "Once you have put this sentence in place,
00:06:33.960 | "polygamy will come."
00:06:35.300 | And I mean, the worst has already come.
00:06:38.580 | Polygamy is a piece of cake.
00:06:40.420 | That's coming, except that it's probably
00:06:41.940 | legally so complicated for inheritances
00:06:44.980 | and life insurance policies and everything else
00:06:47.160 | that maybe there'll be some breaks on it for a while anyway.
00:06:50.060 | So this principle, for it to hold,
00:06:53.400 | liberty is the right to define one's own existence,
00:06:55.960 | God must be excluded from the picture
00:06:59.300 | because what it means to be God
00:07:01.420 | is that God defines for us the nature of our existence.
00:07:06.380 | And so the recent developments
00:07:08.380 | to presume we can define marriage
00:07:11.620 | any way we please and our sexual identity
00:07:14.220 | any way we please are manifestations
00:07:16.820 | of the human usurpation of divine prerogatives.
00:07:21.820 | This is not new, not a new thing.
00:07:24.740 | This has been going on for a long time.
00:07:28.280 | The correlation between biological maleness and femaleness
00:07:32.140 | and self-identification as male and female
00:07:34.580 | is rooted in numerous ways in the Bible.
00:07:38.500 | It's rooted in God's creation as male and female.
00:07:41.260 | It's rooted in distinct roles
00:07:43.540 | assigned to male and female in marriage.
00:07:45.380 | It's rooted in the biblical prohibition of homosexual acts.
00:07:49.580 | So in answer to the last part of the question,
00:07:53.580 | would you, John Piper, use a gender open restroom
00:07:56.260 | even if it says men on the door,
00:07:58.880 | my answer is if I were there, and if I had to, I would,
00:08:03.820 | just like I would stop on the highway if I had to,
00:08:07.820 | but I wouldn't if I didn't have to.
00:08:10.580 | And the reason I wouldn't is because I want there to be
00:08:15.580 | a small act of protest and life consistency
00:08:21.660 | that may have no impact at all on the powers
00:08:26.180 | that make such decisions, but that keep my conscience clear
00:08:31.180 | and acknowledge God in practical affairs
00:08:35.500 | and give a consistency to my life
00:08:39.060 | that does, I think, help overall
00:08:42.140 | in showing the way of Christ to the world.
00:08:47.420 | And I would perhaps maybe say just one other thing.
00:08:51.500 | I think we should spend most of our creative energies
00:08:55.980 | on constructing in our minds and in our hearts
00:09:00.780 | and in our families great and beautiful
00:09:04.060 | and glorious alternative visions of reality
00:09:08.140 | than the ones we're being offered by the world.
00:09:11.020 | If we give most of our time to bemoaning
00:09:14.020 | and criticizing the world for acting like the world,
00:09:17.780 | our vision of God and his glorious future for his people
00:09:21.420 | will become smaller and smaller,
00:09:23.380 | and that could be a greater tragedy
00:09:26.320 | than the one we're living in.
00:09:28.460 | - Wow, yes, that is a critical point to end on.
00:09:30.980 | No doubt there are follow-up questions
00:09:32.380 | from listeners on this.
00:09:33.300 | You can send those in to us, and of course,
00:09:34.760 | you can search our archive of hundreds of episodes,
00:09:37.480 | download our podcast app, subscribe to the podcast,
00:09:39.940 | or even send us a question of your own.
00:09:41.260 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:45.580 | Tomorrow we talk about polygamy, as Pastor John alluded to,
00:09:48.860 | and a listener in Africa wants to know,
00:09:50.740 | can I have two wives?
00:09:53.260 | It's an important question we cannot and should not ignore,
00:09:56.000 | and that is tomorrow.
00:09:57.360 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:58.220 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:10:00.260 | with John Pfeiffer.
00:10:01.340 | (upbeat music)
00:10:03.920 | (upbeat music)
00:10:06.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]