This week we are talking with Rob Smith, a theologian who lectures in systematic theology and ethics at Sydney Missionary and Bible College in Australia. He approaches the topic of the transgender revolution as a biblical theologian, as a historian of the movement, and as a pastor whose own family has been touched by the realities and the tensions of gender dysphoria.

Rob, we Christians hear it all the time. Transgender is an issue of what someone wants to do with his or her own body. It's not abortion. It's not murder. It is the choice of a person who wants to change his or her own body. So what would you say to the transgender community that says to Christians, "Hey, leave us alone.

If you think we're hurting ourselves, we're only hurting ourselves. So be it. What I do with my own body is none of your own business." What is the proper Christian response to that opposition? Yes, this is a great question that I guess is a challenging one for many. We are really told to back off.

Even non-Christian friends of mine who, for example, just to jump over to the issue of same-sex marriage, who would say, "Look, I don't understand same-sex attraction and I'm not in favor of same-sex marriage, but who am I to, as it were, impose my view or stand in the way of what others would like to do?" And so similarly here, why not just let people do what they want to do?

Now I guess one way of answering that is to say, "Well, we care about you. One of our love of our neighbors is to desire their good. And if you think somebody is acting against their own self-interest, then we at least have, I think, a duty or responsibility to say something." Just as we have, I think, a duty and responsibility to do what we can to stop people self-harming, committing suicide or damaging themselves in some way.

Of course, we do it with all kinds of other things. I was looking at big adverts yesterday on the side of a bus saying, "Smoking causes cancer and smoking kills." There we are warning people not to engage in activity, even though it doesn't seem to stop some. So it is part of loving our neighbor to speak up.

But I think the other thing perhaps to ponder is that when a person hurts themselves, it does hurt others. It hurts those who love them. It affects their relationships. And again, I've certainly seen this with people who have, I guess, tried to resolve their gender dysphoria by transitioning. It puts, well, enormous strain on relationships, if not in some cases destroys them and tears families apart.

And I guess what's at the heart of that is you're watching someone you love go through, well, basically self-mutilation in an attempt to destroy the person that they were and replace that person with someone else, with another name. And that has a profound impact on relationships. Now, it doesn't have to destroy them.

And certainly in many cases where Christian people have hung in there and walked alongside those who've made some of these choices and said, "We don't agree, but we're not going anywhere. We're going to keep loving you and reaching out to you, and we want to be there to care for you.

But we still think what you're doing to yourself is actually tragic, and may well be something you come to later regret." And that's, I guess, a thing we ought to be aware of, that the instance of regret is astronomically high. And of course, those who take these radical steps of sex reassignment surgery, well, there's just so much that cannot then be undone.

You know, once things have been cut off, they can't be put back on again. And it's heartbreaking to see. So I guess that's how I would respond to that. Obviously, there are certain freedoms people have, and we can't in the end stop people who are of age making use of these sorts of things that are available to them, which of course raises another question, but they should be available to them.

But that's a harder question to answer, and perhaps that genie's out of the bottle, sadly. Yeah, I mean, we've sped right past the ethical medical question about breaking healthy bodies. But I'm thinking now of my next question. This is certainly not true of you, but what do you say to critics of Christians who imply that if you don't have a personal network of close transgender friends, you have no basis on which to oppose the transgender revolution?

Does that question make sense? Yeah, it does, and it's, I guess, again, a common challenge that's put to Christians on a range of fronts. And of course, not all of us do or can have transgender friends. You don't just go out and decide, "I'm going to get some transgender friends now." Those of us who do know transgender people, that's something that's just sort of happened under God's providence in life.

Now, obviously, if you do know those who are either suffering gender dysphoria or sought to transition from one gender to another, then that will perhaps give you a certain insight into, again, the distress at the heart of gender dysphoria and why some people feel driven to resolve that distress this way.

But even if you don't have those relationships, we all have the capacity to read and understand and to develop insight and compassion and have enough of a grasp of issues to speak to them and to raise our questions about them in an appropriate way, oppose them. So, yeah, look, again, I think it's just a way of trying to silence any objection, I think, to come at things this way.

But it does, I suppose, put the onus on Christians to at least get as good a grasp on things as we can, whether or not we actually have personal contact or connection with transgender friends. And one of the things, of course, it's good to do. I mean, if a person really wants to understand these issues better than they've never, ever spoken to a transgender person, well, there are obviously ways of making contact with people or asking a friend of a friend and say, "Look, I'd just like to sit down and hear your story and understand what it's like to be you and how you got to where you got to and just listen." That itself can be a useful thing to do, not as a way of just changing your view.

And sadly, I think, I guess this is one of the ways that, again, Christians can be silenced or have our views muzzled. It's by saying, "Look, who are you to deny my story? Or if you listen to my story, then that will cause you to back off." Well, I think, no, we need to listen to stories and make sense of those stories in the light of Scripture, and where appropriate, respond and advise or what have you.

Yeah, tough love. And with tough love, I think you bring a very warm pastoral tone whenever you talk about this issue, as listeners, I think, can tell in this conversation. This is true of your lectures as well. I want to commend you for that. Well, thank you. Yes, certainly.

I mean, tone is huge because Christians engage in what seems to be two different conversations. So keep talking about this. How do we as Christians winsomely confront the profits of transgender revolution in our culture, especially in the political realm, while not alienating those who are more quietly wrestling with transgender impulses and loving them pastorally?

How do we pull both of these things off well? Yeah, this is one of the challenges because we're not dealing with a one-size-fits-all situation. We've got, on the one hand, you've got advocates, activists, ideologues, experimenters who are really determined to reconstruct society and deconstruct gender and destroy the concept of a gender binary.

That's a dangerous ideology, I think. It's already reaping havoc in Western society. And so, yeah, that does need to be challenged. It does need to be opposed. Of course, anything we challenge or oppose, we need to do that with, as Paul says, with graciousness and seasoned with salt and, as Peter says, with gentleness and respect.

So we need to engage with civility and we need to know what we're talking about. We've got to be careful we don't overstate and overreach. We need to be on top of sometimes facts and figures and if we're going to engage meaningfully and helpfully. So there's a whole manner of engagement there, but we need to engage.

Now, on the other hand, of course, you've got the pastoral context that you mentioned, people who are genuine sufferers with whom we are trying to build relationships and provide love and care and support and what have you. And so, yeah, juggling those two things is not always easy. And, well, just to perhaps give you a little personal insight, I suppose, you know, sometimes when my wife and I have spoken publicly on these issues in a certain forum and we've wondered whether people we're talking to personally might become aware of that lecture or even listen to it, we've sort of given them a heads-up on that and said, "Look, we just want you to know we're going to be speaking about these issues just so there's no surprise there." I suppose even just to think in terms of, say, a pastor who decides to preach on this.

He's got somebody he knows in the congregation with whom he's already in conversation who is struggling with agendas for a very right and appropriate to go to them beforehand and say, "Listen, I'm going to be preaching about this on Sunday. This is not a way of getting at you.

It's not my way of trying to say things to you that I'm too afraid to say to you face to face. This is for the benefit of the congregation, and so I just want you to know that up front." Again, there are ways, I guess, of just managing that tension between saying what some may perceive as harder things in a public sphere and softer things in a private context.

But at the end of the day, the truth is the truth. Our message is the same, and I guess our political engagement and pastoral practice can't be two completely separate things. It's the same understanding that's generating both. It's the common love of neighbor that is generating both. It's a concern for individuals and society that's generating both.

So I think you can juggle, but yeah, I think we just got to work with that tension. Yeah, we sure do. Thank you, Rob. Rob will join us again tomorrow, and we will tackle a very somber topic in this discussion, and it concerns the high suicide rates among transgender folks who feel the brokenness of life, especially painfully.

So do sex change operations curtail suicide rates, and what do the stats say? There are seasons when this podcast is heavy. This is one of them. But thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with guest Rob Smith from Sydney, Australia. For more details about the podcast, to subscribe to the audio feed or send us a question of your own, go to our home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

I'm your host Tony Reiki. We'll see you tomorrow. you you you