The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 91 – Christopher Yuan

Episode 91: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Jeff interviews Dr. Christopher Yuan at Summit Ministries about his personal story and his theological framework of holy sexuality. Dr. Yuan recounts his journey from a gay lifestyle, drug dealing, and imprisonment to his conversion to Christianity. He introduces his concept of holy sexuality, defining it as chastity in singleness and faithfulness in marriage, arguing it should replace the secular framework of sexual orientation.

Dr. Yuan critiques trends within the church, such as the “gay Christian” identity and the idea that biblical sexuality is an issue on which believers can agree to disagree. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the distinction between sex and gender, and how a biblical worldview informs that issue by connecting being male and female to the image of God.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast. This show’s available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Liftable, Edifi. Check out those last two channels because they’re Christian oriented, some great content there, but whatever the platform, would you please take a moment to go review the show. Positive reviews help get the word out. More people can get the good news. Why is that important? Because on this show, I’m interviewing major thought leaders to show how our worldview changes everything.

My guest today is one of the favorite speakers at Summit Ministries, Dr. Christopher Yuan. He wrote an amazing book about his story of redemption coming out of a gay lifestyle. The book’s called Out of a Far Country. If you haven’t seen it, you might want to get that. If you know someone who’s struggling through issues of sexual identity, Chris’s book, Holy Sexuality, is an award-winning book that is really important for our time. Please welcome Christopher Yuan onto the show. Dr. Christopher Yuan, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show podcast.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (01:05):
Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:06):
I’m so glad we can do this in person because we’re here at Summit Ministries in the Mike S. Adams Memorial studio. We’re recording right across the street from where you just finished giving presentations and doing a Q and a answering students’ questions about sexuality.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (01:22):
Yes. Yep, yep. Love it, love it. And so thank you for the opportunity each year to do this and partner with you guys for something that I just so passionate about is helping kids and youth to understand, embrace, and celebrate biblical sexuality. So yeah, thank you.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:37):
In the introduction to the program, I talked a little bit about your books and about your journey, and so I think those who are watching and listening right now, maybe already a little familiar with what you do, but maybe just by way of introduction, for those who aren’t familiar, can you just tell us a little of your story? Like every single Summit session.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (02:01):
Yeah, like 50,000 foot shot over it. So my story is starting out, not Christian, parents from China, raised in an unbelieving home, didn’t go into church, but I wrestled with my sexuality. I didn’t come out of the closet until my early twenties. I’m from Chicago originally, then had at that time moved to Louisville, Kentucky. I came out, I was pursuing my doctorate in dentistry. Came out to my parents. Amazingly God used that crisis to bring my mother to faith. And then my father did as well, went the total opposite direction.

While in dental school, I was partying, doing what all my other friends were doing, my own believing friends. I started selling drugs. I eventually was expelled from dental school and then I moved to Atlanta, Georgia from Louisville. And there I kept doing what I knew how to do best, which is have fun and party. And I began not just selling drugs, but supplying drugs to other dealers.

My parents had no clue, but they knew that I needed to know Jesus. They came to visit me one time. I kicked them out. My dad gave me a Bible. I threw it in the trash can. I wanted nothing to do with God, and they just knew that I was hopeless. Praise the Lord. They didn’t focus upon hopelessness, but upon the promises of God. And my mom enlisted over a hundred prayer warriors. She fasted every Monday for seven years, and they prayed for a miracle.

(03:21):
That miracle came with a bang on my door, and I was arrested. 12 federal drug enforcement agents found myself in jail. And then while I was in jail, a few days after that, I was walking around the cell block, passed by this garbage can and there was a Gideon’s New Testament on top of the trash. I took it back to my cell and began reading it. And that was kind of the beginning of the Lord using his word to help reshape my mind to the mind of Christ and give me a new heart. I was not saved walking into prison, and I walked out as a follower of Christ.

But it was a process in prison of understanding who is God, understanding who is Jesus Christ, understanding what is the gospel, meaning that I’m a sinner in need of a savior. And that just took time. But also I was wrestling with my understanding of sexuality. Is heterosexuality the goal? And realizing even as I was thinking about it logically, and even reading through the Bible, I was like, well, there are some sins that God considers that are heterosexual but still sinful. And I realized that cannot be the right goal, too broad. It includes sinful behavior. And so I realized it has to be holiness.

(04:30):
The opposite of any sin is holiness. And as I often talk and I talk to the youth, the opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality. It’s the right direction, but not the right goal. The opposite of homosexuality is holiness. So that was really transformative for me. I got out of prison. I was called to ministry. I applied to Moody Bible Institute, was accepted, and then got my master’s in exegesis and then doctorate.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:55):
Those who recommended you to the program were your prison chaplains.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (04:58):
Prison chaplain, a prison guard, and other prison inmates. They probably didn’t have too many people there. That was the first time.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:04):
These are his recommendations.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (05:05):
And amazingly, miraculously, they accepted me. But then I wrote the book with my mom, Out of a Far Country, our testimony, our memoir, and then my newest book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, which I’m now really excited. And I’m turning that into a curriculum for teens, which will work great with knowing the Times, which is more a full year. And so this is kind of a short little 12 lesson video for Christian schools, but also we’re pushing it for parents in the home.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:38):
So the Christian schools would use it with say, high school age students. But when you say your parents are going to use it, what?

Dr. Christopher Yuan (05:44):
Yeah, it’ll be for parents with teens because not every Christian parent is able to homeschool or send their kids to Christian school. Maybe they can’t afford it. But this is just for any parent, any Christian parent who see my mom, dad, and I really believe for the past several years that the primary place that biblical sexuality needs to be taught is in the home.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:07):
Right?

Dr. Christopher Yuan (06:08):
Christian school, that’s good. Youth group, that’s good. The church, that’s good. But that should only be supplemental and secondary. The primary place needs to be the home. So we’re creating this curriculum as a resource to help parents to do their God-given job, to teach about sexuality in the home. And many parents don’t know where to start, and basically all they need to do is press play and have this.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:30):
Right, right. Yeah, I know. Well, for children, I know the difficulty of those conversations, and the reason you’ve got to do it in the home is that when you talk about sexuality, you are conveying a worldview.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (06:45):
Exactly.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:46):
If you are not intentionally conveying a biblical worldview, you are conveying some other worldview.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (06:53):
That’s right. That’s right. Yep. Everything that we do fits into the big meta narrative and every decision we make, everything that we say in our workplace, even what we’re doing with our work, our priorities convey our worldview. And you’re exactly right. If you’re not teaching a worldview, we are definitely living a worldview. And that’s communicated to our kids. And so that’s really important.

And biblical sexuality fits into a Christian worldview, what God communicates through his word of how we understand not only God and Jesus Christ and spiritual things, but how do we understand the world? How do we understand very practical things of how to live? All of that is filtered through this Christian worldview.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:46):
So when your book came out, and I don’t remember if I saw it before it came out or if I just got an early copy of it, I might’ve seen the manuscript.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (07:53):
Yeah, I think we did send you an early copy.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:56):
Yeah. I just could not believe a title of a book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, because, and not because I was mistaught about sexuality. I mean, the people who were influences in my life did the best they could with what they knew at the time. But that holy and sexuality are not two words that usually end up in a sentence together.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (08:21):
Oftentimes in the church. That’s right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:23):
So why not? What do you mean and why don’t they appear and why should they appear together?

Dr. Christopher Yuan (08:28):
Good question. Yeah. I mean the whole purpose of that, and you’re right, it doesn’t, oftentimes all of our discussion on sexuality, especially in the church, it’s usually more of a negative connotation of sexuality. Not necessarily saying that sex is bad, but with all the issues that we see today as your watchers and listeners and students, and as you know that with all the confusion that we have around sexuality and gender, there’s a lot of negativity to talk about. So you’re right, it seems like a dichotomy, the holy sexuality.

But my purpose of using this phrase, it’s a new phrase, but the concept just comes right out of scripture. So the concept is not new. Essentially, holy sexuality is looking at what is God’s standard for us when it comes to holy sexuality? And my frustration was that we’ve pigeonholed ourselves into the wrong framework. Heterosexuality, bisexuality, homosexuality, and we think that’s the only way to think about holy sexuality or I’m sorry about sexuality.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:26):
So we’re doing it as a spectrum.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (09:28):
Simply as a spectrum. And so we say, okay, homosexuality is wrong, bisexuality is wrong, so therefore heterosexuality is right. That’s kind of the logic. And my point is this framework is not correct. It’s too limited or it does not get precise enough because we shouldn’t just judge ourselves simply according to the direction of our attraction.

It needs to be much more specific as scripture is more specific, where what is called is when we are single, we’re going to be sexually abstinent. If we marry, and I’m just using the biblical definition of marriage, a man and a woman, if we marry, we’re going to be faithful to our spouse of the opposite sex. So quite simply, holy sexuality is chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage, and that is good news for all.

So that’s where I came out as it was a challenge to the framework of, it was breaking this paradigm of and switching it from a heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual kind of framework. And setting it aside, which this framework is a really secular Freudian framework, and using a biblical one of talking about sanctification and pointing in that direction as because if we just make heterosexuality the goal, that’s not really then focusing specifically on sanctification, on holiness, because even those who have opposite sex attractions also need to pursue holiness.

(10:59):
And so that was kind of the goal of my book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel. And I want to point to it’s the gospel that is actually the engine behind our sanctification.

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:11):
Well, Christopher, you speak to the students at Summit Ministries. You have, for many years, you’ve spoken to virtually every two week Summit ministry session that we’ve had, plus a lot of other events. We’ve got one event. I know that we’re doing this fall and there probably are others on the schedule. And I want to say thank you for that because you’re investing in the lives of these young adults.

Now, at the end of the session, I get to see all of their feedback on speakers they liked best. You are very often their favorite speaker. If you’re not the favorite speaker, there’s three or four people who are all just kind of vying for that same spot, which it tells me that in the amount of time that you have to come in and invest in them, it has a huge impact on them. Why do you think that is? I mean, what’s happening in their minds and in the culture that makes this topic, not just Marxism or the secular influence in schools or apologetics and some of the other things we talk about?

Dr. Christopher Yuan (12:24):
Well, and first of all, I mean, thank you for sharing that. And what you and Dr. Noebel have done over the decades have been so phenomenal. And there’s a few ministries that my parents and I really get behind and really verbally advocate. And this is one. And because you’re able to get some just stellar speakers to come, and sometimes I wish that as a speaker we can have more overlap, but coming in it’s like we come in and then we sometimes miss each other.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:57):
That’d be fun.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (12:57):
That would be fun sometimes. But I mean, I just so appreciate how you guys are seeking out some of the experts in the area. And it’s my privilege to be able to speak on this. And I think maybe some of the reasons why people, I find it sometimes maybe even more, it’s just the topic that it’s such a topic that people are just hungry to, all the other topics are so important, whether it’s abortion or whether it’s about politics. I mean, these are just the top five.

But we sometimes do hear about that in the churches and it’s talked about, but there’s a feeling of feeling ill-equipped by pastors and church leaders, and especially youth pastors where they’re like, I don’t know what to say. I mean, even in seminaries and Bible colleges, there really is not much on sexuality, maybe a lecture or two.

I mean, when I was at Moody, I taught an entire class on biblical sexuality. There’s not a lot of schools who did that, or when they did it, there was kind of a more theoretical kind of philosophical approach, abstract approach. But I tried to make it really practical coming from my own experience. And unfortunately, there’s not a lot of people who, with kind of a background as me identifying as gay and now no longer identifying as gay where they are at a place where they want to speak on it.

(14:31):
Because you already have people that maybe the Lord has gifted them to speak in a way and given them a mind to be able to communicate biblical truth in a way that people can grasp. And so that’s already limiting it. But also some people are just, I don’t necessarily want to be open about that publicly. They’re like, I’m open with my pastor and with some of my close friends. So that really kind of narrows the kind of playing field.

And I am so passionate about desiring to equip the church, and I’m really passionate about empowering our youth that I want to communicate what’s the most important thing. And I’ve been telling this, and I kind of started this a few years ago about really pointing because there’s so much that I say through sessions. There’s a lot that I want to say.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:22):
And for those who are watching or listening right now in just a couple of sentences, Christopher does a couple of things. You dig into scripture, a biblical view of sexuality. And it’s pretty detailed, right? It’s pretty dense.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (15:38):
It’s a lot of information.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:42):
The original language is built in there. There’s a lot of stuff built in there. But you do that, you nest that in the context of your personal story, your experience, which students can identify with, oh gosh, this guy struggled with his sexuality. I can trust him. So it’s kind of those two things, the personal testimony, but also the deep scriptural weaving together. And what you’re saying is sometimes people just get the scriptural part, but there’s no personal interaction with it.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (16:14):
And I also try really hard to, as I’m giving, and it’s a lot of stuff, I’ve never, some of these students maybe never met someone who came from prison, which is maybe a good thing or never met a drug dealer or a drug supplier, all of that, or a gay man. And so that’s really important. But I also try to nest it in the broad narrative of God’s work in his people. And I always end my testimony with this.

I said, I tell the students, you probably never heard a story like this about a man who used to identify as gay and now no longer does. I would tell them, but that’s not actually how I would best summarize my testimony. This is how I once was blind, and now I see; I once was lost and now I’m found; I once did not believe, and now I believe in the Son of God and his name is Jesus. I want the kids to see that this is actually in the broader scheme of things, not really just a story about sexuality or my talks are not just on sexuality. It’s about following Jesus, denying yourself, picking up your cross and following Jesus. And so that’s what I’m hoping.

And I try to say that throughout my talks. It’s like I’m going through all of this really deep stuff, but I ended it with, it’s about following Jesus. All this is important, but actually that’s almost secondary to this number one thing. Follow Jesus.

Dr. Jeff Myers (17:48):
Yeah. This is so good, Christopher. And I just love the way you approach this, and your mom comes with you.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (17:58):
Yes, she does. When you speak, I have a policy. Yep. I don’t travel alone.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:00):
You don’t travel alone. And your father passed away recently, and we loved Leon. What a great heart here. This man with two doctoral degrees.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (18:14):
I call him a paradox.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:15):
Paradox and happy to do the dishes or book airplane tickets or whatever needed to be done for your family’s ministry to go forward. So it’s such a privilege to be able to serve with you in that way. I know sexuality comes up a lot in different Christian circles, but not at all from the perspective that you are addressing here. And this is not my goal. The goal of this show is not to call out people, call names or anything like that, but very often sexuality.

So let’s say same sex attraction is proposed as a legitimate expression of sexuality in the church. That the idea that you would need to be rescued by Jesus from your same sex attraction is not, that’s far outside of what is now becoming kind of the evangelical mainstream. There are even people out there now whose ministry involves going into churches, talking to pastors to try to get them to change their theology, to accommodate non-biblical kinds of sexuality as normal.

(19:44):
I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this question. I just felt like, man, this has got to be on the table because you are often under attack for the way you approach sexuality biblically, because there are a lot of people out there who don’t really believe that Jesus came to save us from our sin, but they talk about Jesus all the time. It’s all about Jesus. And if you ask him, well, what did Jesus come to earth to do? You get this impression. Well, Jesus came to earth to affirm me, to help me speak my truth, to be my universal Christ or whatever. And you realize.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (20:22):
To be an example of how to be good and love mothers or something like that. Love the marginalized.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:27):
Christopher, we’re not even talking about the same Jesus. Right?

Dr. Christopher Yuan (20:30):
Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (20:31):
Well, I wonder if you could comment on that a little bit, because I know pastors, if they address holy sexuality, they’re going to get pushback. And I wonder if you would just talk a little bit about what’s happening in the church.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (20:46):
Yeah. Well, and this has been going on for a bit of time, maybe not so much of the counter evangelism, of trying to evangelize people to change them to reject biblical sexuality. Of course they wouldn’t say it like that, but essentially that’s what they’re doing. I don’t like to say, affirm same-sex relationships. I like to just call it what it is. It’s rejecting biblical sexuality.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:11):
Right. Good.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (21:12):
And so these individuals, what it comes down to is not, oh, we just need to agree to disagree on this specific doctrine because when an issue is in the realm of morality, it’s no longer considered, oh, well, this is just kind of an issue of doctrine, theology. This is a moral issue. And specifically when it comes to an issue of sexual immorality, reading the whole Bible as a whole from Genesis revelation, there’s basically two things that are elevated.

As mentioned, the most idolatry and sexual immorality, there is absolutely no wiggle room around whether this is just, you have your view, I have my view, whether it’s baptism or spiritual gifts. I mean, there’s all these things, women in ministry, those are things that are kind of more doctrinal issues. But when we’re talking about moral issues, specifically idolatry and sexual immorality, that’s not in the realm of agree to disagree. Absolutely. If you don’t agree, you’re outside the faith.

(22:31):
From Genesis to Revelation. That’s the only way to view that. And there were very harsh words for people who would try to kind of condone. And ultimately, you’re getting at the core is that when you have a wrong view of something, it’s going to impact other things as well. So when these individuals who say, God bless the same sex relationships, it’s actually misunderstood. That’s my whole talk about an hour of just going through the text and refuting it, going to the Greek and Hebrew. And the reality is it’s going to impact your other views.

Specifically, the most important thing is the gospel. So the gospel is no longer like you’re saying about Jesus, who’s the savior, come to save the world of sin. It’s become do good, be good. Affirm me. I tell this all the time to the kids, the world is saying, I am so happy. I’m finally who I really am, and I’m able to embrace who I really am. And I tell the kids, God actually isn’t so concerned about our happiness. He wants us to be holy.

(23:47):
And scripture never ever calls us to embrace ourselves. Rather it’s, deny ourselves. Rather it’s, I’m crucified in Christ. Rather it is, pick up your cross and follow me. And so it’s not, embrace yourself, but it’s, deny yourself and embrace Christ. And that’s really important that we need to communicate to our youth and communicate to those around us. So that’s the core issue. But we’re seeing more and more within evangelical churches where there’s views of people who would say, okay, I’m not gay Christian. I’m a gay celibate Christian, where it’s gay is okay, just don’t act on it. And I think there’s two issues.

One, it’s misunderstanding what the whole term gay means. It’s not necessarily meaning someone who’s having sex, but it could be someone who has these same sex desires. And we need to realize that it’s being tempted and having a desire is different. Sometimes the attraction term is a little bit nebulous and ambiguous. And I like to use biblical terms. I always prefer biblical terms. Temptation or desire. Being tempted is not sin, but desire is. And if it’s not, that desire turns into lust, but actually wrongly ordered, desire is lust. And who am I then to say that I’m identifying by my sinful desires.

(25:15):
So that’s one issue is not, is why in the world would any Christian choose to identify by their sin? If there’s a student that came up to me and said, I’m a porn watching Christian, I’m a porn struggling Christian. I would say in a loving way, repent. I am a coveting Christian or I’m a gossiping Christian. Repent. You might not be acting on it, but if you’re having these desires that are sinful, those need to be repented as well.

I’m not talking about being tempted because we all are tempted. Jesus Christ was tempted in every way, but he was without sin. So that needs to be the focus. So that’s kind of the one, don’t identify by your sin struggle. Two is, kind of, within this movement they’re seeing this view. They’re like, I believe that same sex marriage is sin, but they’re viewing that it’s something that can be agreed to be disagreed on.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:17):
Oh, okay.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (26:17):
And so even leaders are saying, well, I can belong to this denomination where the majority of them think it’s okay. And it’s, and this is where we’re not seeing the way that scripture communicates, that sexual morality isn’t something just to agree or disagree, sexual morality. It’s sin. And we can’t then just be okay with sin. We need to, in love, point them to the gospel and point them to repentance.

Dr. Jeff Myers (26:42):
Yeah. So asking the question then what about us? Does Jesus transform? Does that include our sexuality? Because I think even people who say that same sex attraction is okay or same sex relationships are okay, not even talking about attraction now, just same-sex relationships are okay that God blesses is what you often hear. God blesses same-sex marriage. I don’t know any of those people who would say there’s no such thing as sexual brokenness.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (27:16):
They just place the line. And they would even say elsewhere, sexuality is a gift. Broadly every aspect of sexuality is good or a gift, and that’s not realizing. So transformation to add you, of course, transformation is key to the gospel. And transformation is you cannot be saved and not be transformed. But what does that look like? And does that mean that a transformed born again Christian is no longer tempted?

That’s where then Christians, we misunderstand that, oh, I’m still tempted. Does that mean I’m not transformed? We need to remind ourselves Jesus was tempted in every way. So the difference is we are now transformed and we’re now no longer slaves to sin. We used to be slaves to sin. Now we’re slaves to Christ.

So we might still be tempted, and we are transformed because we’re no longer slaves to sin. We have a new identity. That’s another thing. That’s why I do not identify as gay. I also don’t identify as ex-gay, identify as a follower of Christ. I’m a Christian. That’s who I am. So there’s definitely that transformation.

And then these people who say they’re Christian, they’re doing, they’re limiting what transformation is. It’s about maybe everything else but my sexuality. And they’re kind of keeping that in a compartment. God can’t touch that. And God, I even hear people know I could never change. Or they’ll say, oh, I tried. I tried for years.

Dr. Jeff Myers (28:48):
They view it really. I mean, some people view it as immutable. You’ve got brown eyes, I’ve got brown eyes. Somebody who’s blue eyed might say, I hate brown eyed people. I just think that’s really freaky. I don’t believe in that. And you would look at that and say, well, you’re being intolerant. Our eyes are what they are. That’s how people see it. So they put sexuality in that category of immutable nature.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (29:14):
Right? Yeah. And what’s so fascinating too is actually when you read some of the most current queer research from queer scientists and queer studies even.

Dr. Jeff Myers (29:25):
This is a feminist term. You’re not using this as derogatory.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (29:28):
This is actually, I mean, there’s queer studies. It’s schools that have queer studies now in classes on queer theory. So yet not at all derogatory because it was 20 years ago before I was a Christian, queer was very derogatory. I would never use that term, but it’s now been kind of reappropriated to be positive. I don’t view it as positive.

But a lot of the research today from non-Christians, people who are totally embracing queer theory and feminism and critical theory, they’re showing that actually sexual orientation is not as fixed as we believe. Lisa Diamond is a researcher and she’s done a lot of actually very, very interesting research that’s showing, especially among women, there is what she calls sexual fluidity. So this whole misunderstanding that’s coming from Christians as well, it’s like Christians are saying this, first of all, it’s not biblical. Second, it’s not even backed up by research.

(30:31):
That doesn’t mean that we can just flip it on and off like a light switch doesn’t mean that it’s easy or it’s something that we can just, it’s willpower. But we need to realize even if we didn’t have the research backing it up, our God can do the impossible. And I believe in miracles, and I believe that God is able to do whatever. Doesn’t science say you can’t bring someone from dead to life. My God can do that. And I think a lot of these Christians, they have a small God.

(31:03):
And the God that you and I worship as a mighty awesome, powerful, sovereign, all knowing God that loves us, loves you and me as sinners, and that’s the God that I worship and I love and that I call Father. And so I’m going to hold to that and that transformation for me, I wouldn’t identify as straight because I don’t think that’s helpful for me to identify by any sexual desire or any desire for that matter. I’m not saying that I am gay. I may be tempted by same-sex temptations, but Jeff, there’s a whole slew of other things that we could go on for hours talking about all the other sinful temptations that I have, that I have to fight daily, a sinner.

And by God’s grace, I’m no longer slave to sin, praise the Lord, and I’m able to fight those temptations, not make that identity, not act on those, not make that my reality, not have it turn into desire. But I do believe in transformation, but I’m not focusing on becoming straight, but becoming holy, which means chassis and sin or faithfulness in marriage. And I say that because I’m open. I’m open to marriage, I’m open to whatever is God’s will. I tell the youth, think about your future like this. An open hand.

(32:20):
Don’t be like this. And actually 20 years ago when I first came out of prison and I did that, I was like, I could never get married. It could never happen. Then God was like, let me pry your hands off of this idol or this misperception, and that’s how I live now. It’ll have to be a miracle, but I believe in miracles, but I’m open to not do what I desire, but do what is God’s will. Because if it is the Lord’s will for me to marry a woman one day, he’s going to move oceans and lands and mountains to make that happen. That’s my God. And he’s going to move my heart in that direction and help me to do all that I need to fulfill that covenant relationship if it is God’s will.

Dr. Jeff Myers (33:04):
Yeah, I just love how you express the hope of the gospel in everything that you do. We’ve got three or four minutes left. There’s so many questions I want to ask you, but I know a lot of people who are watching and listening face this thing, this issue. How does the holy sexuality framework deal with the distinction that people in our culture today make between sex and gender? That you could be sexually a male, but gender, you could be a woman.

(33:38):
So how does that framework help people who are thinking, well, gosh, I’m not really a football player type, so maybe I’m not really a man or I really like sports, so I can’t really be a woman. It’s all these cultural stereotypes that get all mixed in here.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (33:55):
And so my book, Holy Sexuality and the Gospel, I touch on it because that was in 2018 when I was working on it. So transgenderism was there on the horizon, but it wasn’t as huge as it is now in the first couple, 2, 3, 4 years. But in my curriculum, I do address it in a lesson on sex, gender in the image of God.

So I think it’s important for us as Christians to know how sex and gender used to mean the same thing. Now, no longer. It means different things. Sex is an objective binary classification of being male or female. Gender is no longer an objective reality. It has now become a subjective self-perception of what I feel about myself. I view myself, I feel that I am male or female. So it’s subjective.

(34:41):
They’re no longer meaning the same thing. But there’s a third category that sometimes is confused and that’s norms. It’s masculinity and femininity. And as you said, yes, culture shapes our understanding of that. Sometimes in incorrect ways, men can’t cry or only women are artistic, who says that that’s not even biblical. Jesus wept. Many of, all the musicians in the temple were men.

(35:06):
So we see that actually our norms, masculinity and femininity. I think we need to challenge that. This is where we have a more biblical category of biblical manhood and womanhood. What this means is that men and women, we are equal in God’s eyes, created equal, but there are different roles for men and women in marriage and in church, et cetera. So I think that’s important for us to know the distinction and the gospel does speak into this, that we’re all created in God’s image.

And it’s so interesting because in Genesis 1:27, there’s a lot of discussion, as you know, when we read the All Legends historic theology, historical theology about what is the meaning of the image of God. And a lot of times I don’t see a lot of discussion on what is in Genesis 1:27. In the third line of that poetic parallelism that we have in Genesis 1:27, which says male and female, he created them with all that we have about the image of God.

(36:04):
The biblical writer was actually connecting sex, male and female, to this close correlation with being created in the image of God. And I think this means a couple of things. First of all, that just as being created in the image of God is essential to being human, being male or female is essential to being human. Also, just as being made in the image of God is an eternal reality, male and female is an eternal, and also not just a biological reality. Sometimes it’s Christians, we only limit sex to male or female as a biological reality. And it is, but it’s actually more than that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (36:53):
It’s even an immaterial reality as well. It’s not just one or the other.

Dr. Christopher Yuan (36:56):
Yes, it’s a spiritual reality that our spirit is male or female. The world likes to separate, right? Very kind of gnosticism. But actually from this passage, Genesis 1:27, I think those are a few things that we can glean. There’s this clear correlation between being created in the image of God and being made female. So it’s an eternal reality. It’s a spiritual reality, and it’s essential to being human.

Dr. Jeff Myers (37:20):
Okay, we’ve got to do another show on this sometime. We just have to do it because, and I mean, if you are interested in this, if you’re watching or listening, and if we could do a show on the biblical aspects of man and woman masculinity, feminity, male, female.

(37:38):
That can bring a lot of clarity to where people are in our society right now. If you’re watching or listening, you think that’s a good idea, send me an email. I just go to summit.org. You can find, well, if you know that summit.org is my website and my name is Jeff, you can figure out my email from there. But just reach out and you can, if that’s something that you think we ought to talk about, would you be willing to come back and do that sometime? Yeah. Okay. We might have to do it virtually, but I’d really like to see us cover that topic. Oh man. Christopher, thanks so much for being on the show today. Thanks for having. Thank you so much.

(38:09):
Thank you to my guest, Dr. Christopher Yuan, for joining on the show today. You’re going to want to find out more, and you can do that at christopheryuan.com. It’s all in the spelling. YUAN is how you spell the last name, christopheryuan.com. You can also find him on Twitter at Christopher Yuan. The apostle John said that Jesus has come to give us understanding so that may know him who is true. Jesus is the truth. And as Christopher Yuan points out, by knowing Jesus, then we can really truly know who we’re. Thanks for joining the show today. It’s been fun to have you. We’ll see you next week.

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