Biola UniversityThis week, Sean and Scott discuss:
- New Study on Gender Affirming Surgery – A major peer-reviewed study finds increased psychological distress post-surgery, sparking discussion on long-term mental health effects and the importance of pre-surgical mental health assessments.
- The Future of Faith in America – Pew data suggests the rise of the “nones” (religiously unaffiliated) has plateaued, but experts predict continued secularization due to generational shifts.
- The Nature vs. Nurture Debate Evolves – A look at sociogenomics, a new field exploring how genes and environment interact, raising ethical concerns about genetic selection in reproduction.
- Listener Question: Does the Bible Actually Forbid 1st Cousin Marriage?
- Listener Feedback: Are Adoptive Parents Heroes? – A listener challenges the idea of calling adoptive parents "heroes," prompting a discussion on the bittersweet realities of adoption.
- Listener Question: Shifting Pastoral Expectations – A pastor shares struggles with evolving church leadership roles, leading to a conversation on how pastors can navigate changing responsibilities.
Episode Transcript
Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] A new massive peer-reviewed study finds significant psychological distress for those with gender dysphoria who undergo surgery. Even though the, quote, "nones have plateaued for the past five years," studies show that the share of those who identify as religious will continue to drop. And a new scientific study emerges, rooted in the debate over nurture and nature, that has massive implications for individuals and for culture. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we will also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.
Scott Rae: And I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.
Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, we keep saying this, but stories related to politics and Trump are dominating the headlines, but you and I were talking off-air how we were really pleased and thrilled with these stories that are important to stop and think biblically about, so we're gonna focus on those. So this first one is not so much a breaking news story, but it's a study that somewhat surprised me, but also somewhat didn't. It surprised me to see this in peer-reviewed secular literature, 'cause I think there's pressure against publishing things like this, but it didn't surprise me, the findings themselves. And this is a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine from 2025, and they start off by saying, "Transgender individuals who experience a mismatch between their gender identity and sex assigned at birth face a heightened risk of psychological distress and related challenges, incude- including suicidal tendencies." This in... This is interesting. They say, "This risk is thought to arise partly from transgender individuals' heightened exposure to stigma-related stress, often referred to as minority stress." Now, they say it also might be linked to the fact that they're, they're not receiving gender affirmation care after the surgery, which is interesting. We'll come back to that. So one distinction is g- when someone has... Not everyone who's transgender experiences gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is the discomfort or distress that comes from when someone is transgender and has that disconnect between, say, their body and their mind, so to speak. They do point out that the long-term effects of the kind of interventions like surgery are unknown. That in itself should give us pause, Scott, and say, "Wait a minute, we've kind of launched into this, procedure and public [chuckles] way of addressing these individuals who are hurting without knowing the long term?" That should give us pause. Now, I don't wanna go in too much depth, but the difference here is a lot of studies before apparently were based on self-reporting. This is a massive study with over 100,000 people that seems to have objective metrics that are diagnosed, not just somebody's, personal experience that they report, so to speak. So the kind of surgery... So for trans men, this might be a mastectomy. For trans women, it would be things like breast augmentation, tracheal shave, or vaginoplasty. These are real, like, significant surgeries we're talking about in this study. It was from 2014 to 2024, and this was all on adults, all on adults, and they studied them two years after the surgery. Couple findings here that really jump out is, this really got me, Scott. It said, "Those who were male patients with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, those with gender affirmation surgery were significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders." So male patients with gender-affirming surgery had a 25% rate of depression versus males with gender dysphoria who didn't undergo that surgery. Also, 4.8 times the risk of anxiety. Females with gender-affirming surgery had almost 23% rate of depression, compared to nearly 15% of those without it, but also increase in anxiety, suicidal ideation, et cetera. Now, they do make one important point here, is they say, there's certain areas where there's not increased disorder, so to speak. So they include a couple spots where they say, like, "Body dysmorphic disorder did not increase." Okay, fair enough. I appreciate that balance. At the end, they basically say, "The findings of this study underscore a pressing need for enhanced mental health guidelines tailored to the needs of transgender individuals following gender-affirming surgery." So I wanna know your thoughts on this, Scott, but apparently, this study did not make at least those who write it remotely reconsider whether they should perform such surgery, just, "We gotta better care for those after they have surgery." Now, there's more in this article, but give me your take, if you will.
Scott Rae: Well, there's a, there's quite a bit in here that, I think is worthy of our comment here. Sean, my first reaction to this was not so much what the study included, but what it didn't include. And I wanna make sure we're not getting the causal cart before the horse.... Because the, even in the introduction to the study, they are pointing out that the, some of the main causes of stress and anxiety for people who are considering gender-affirming treatments has to do with the way that it's, that the trans movement has been stigmatized, what they call, they call minority stress.
Sean McDowell: Yep.
Scott Rae: What they don't say is anything about the mental health issues that might give rise to gender dysphoria in the first place. And this is the part that the Cass Review in the UK, that we've talked about, you know, several months ago, I think made so clear, is that in many cases, gender dysphoria is a symptom and not the root cause, and other mental health issues that often go unexamined were seen as more fundamental. Now, I'm not, I'm not suggesting here that anything's wrong with the report, because the stresses they-
Sean McDowell: Sure
Scott Rae: ... Point out are real- ... And they do contribute. And they, the study was only studying the mental health effects of the participants after the surgery, not before. So I mean, I commend them for sort of staying in their lane on what they attempted to study and not making other conclusions. But it was, it... I think to fill out the picture, we would suggest that we had before, that a thorough mental health assessment be undertaken, not only after these interventions, but before irreversible bodily changes are undertaken. I would've, you know, I wish they would've mentioned something about that. In fact, they said in the study that they excluded participants with pre-existing mental health diagnoses, which I'm not exactly quite, not sure quite what to make of that. Because in my view, the emergent mental health issues that come following surgery can't be disconnected from mental health issues that already existed that may have contributed to the desire for trans surgery in the first place. So I think some of the findings suggest that the surgery didn't solve the underlying problems, but they exacerbated them. And I think for particularly the suicidal ideation part, there's a higher percentage of that among the participants who did it- did undergo the gender-affirming surgeries, as opposed to those who did not, which I think puts... May, I think, hopefully put to rest the notion that if you, if parents don't go, sort of follow the gender-affirming treatment regimen, once their teenage son or daughter expresses that desire for tho- these kinds of treatments, we're just, you know, sort of the contrast between, "Well, what would you want? You want a trans child or a dead child?"
Sean McDowell: Right.
Scott Rae: Because of the suicide. But that, I think, the study, in my view, has put to rest that false dichotomy. So I think this is, in my view, a very, alarm- it continues, I think, to sound the alarm, about the being premature. I think the study, I think, is right to point out that we just don't know the long-term effects of this. This sort of... This may be a little strong, Sean, but it sort of strikes me as though we're sort of, we're building the airplane while we're flying it at the same time.
Sean McDowell: [laughing]
Scott Rae: So, and I, again, I don't want to underestimate or understate the stress and the anxiety and the stuff that, gender dysphoria causes, 'cause that's real, and that deserves our compassion. But I think what the studies are beginning to show, and the Cass Report in the UK revealed this as well, that if we, if we don't have some sort of mental health assessment before we go down this road, especially for minors who have not finished puberty, we're, we're not-- we're just, we're running the risk of performing bodily, altering surgery and not really solving anything.
Sean McDowell: That's, that's a good, helpful response. I would throw a few things in here. So if twenty-five percent of men who undergo this surgery, who had gender dysphoria, feel depression, that means that seventy-five percent don't. [chuckles] Like, we've got to keep that in mind and say: Why don't they? What does that number mean? Now, with that said, of course, if you have a certain level of depression before, and it goes up, and those who don't have the surgery have less, significantly less likelihood of depression, then this surgery is not scratching, so to speak, where the itch is. So the loving thing to do, even if it causes some pushback or criticism at times, is to be bold enough to say, "Okay, what's at the root of this? What's broken here, and how do we help this group of people, made in God's image, experiencing flourishing in their lives?" And we should invite that question and not be threatened by where the supposed science may lead if the science is done well and careful and unbiased. A lot of it has not. This seems like a study in the right direction. Now, what fascinated me about this is you talked about the Cass Report, which of course is from the UK. The UK has been pivoting away from this. I wonder if this is the first time that I'm aware of, we see such a significant study like this. Don't pivot away, but if it's a step in the direction of that being a part of the conversation in six months, two years, five years, that maybe we're moving that direction, or at least... I mean, it just surprises me that at least they don't ask the question: "Hey, maybe we should revisit the science about the effectiveness of this or not," and not just assume that it's a certain care afterwards that is the reasoning those people suffer. That's an assumption built into this, and that's an assumption that at least needs to get challenged.
Scott Rae: Well, they did cite some of the limitations of the study, and they were pretty-
Sean McDowell: They did
Scott Rae: ... Forthright about-... You know, this is not a, this is not, it doesn't answer all the questions. But that's a, that's a limitation that you mentioned that they did not.
Sean McDowell: Agreed.
Scott Rae: And I think
Sean McDowell: That's right
Scott Rae: ... That would've been, that would've been very helpful, I think, just to pose the question, you know, maybe, you know, maybe the surgery is not the cure-all that we, that we have been led to believe that it actually is. Now, I'm, I'm, I hes- I hesitate to question you about some of the figures that you cite, 'cause you're the data nerd, not me.
Sean McDowell: [chuckles]
Scott Rae: But I think the... It does say males with surgery showed a 25% rate of depression versus 11% in the cohort that did, had had gender dysphoria but did not have the surgery.
Sean McDowell: Right.
Scott Rae: So there's a, there is a, there is a substantial difference, and I think that what we s- what the study suggests is that though we expect, the gen- the gender-affirming surgeries to minimize the level of depression and anxiety, it, you know, it do- it doesn't minimize it. It, it increases it- ... Versus the cohort that did not have the surgery but still suffered from gender dysphoria. So there's about a 15-point difference between those, which is a significant... That's a significant difference. And it, and it-
Sean McDowell: So-
Scott Rae: ... And it goes, so they're, they're compare, they're comparing this with the-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Scott Rae: ... People who had gender dysphoria but did not have the surgery.
Sean McDowell: So I agree 100% with that, and that's what a study should examine. Does it increase, or does it decrease? I just try to look at the study and say, "Okay, if there's still people with gender dysphoria, and 75% are not reporting depression, what does that mean, if anything?" That's all I'm asking is-
Scott Rae: Yeah, fair. A totally fair question to raise.
Sean McDowell: The o- the only thing I would say about this, like, biblically, is, you know, I've mentioned this. I teach the class on the problem of evil, and I think it's the big question, and I talk about how almost every ethical cultural issue is a manifestation of this. So in many ways, somebody's asking, "Why does my gender identity, how I think about myself, not match up with my body? Why does this seem to be broken? Why am I depressed? Why do I have these kinds of feelings that are at play?" This is a manifestation of the deeper problem of evil built into the world. So we've gotta make sure we speak truth to this because it's truth that sets us free, but there's just so much in the Bible about speaking compassionately and kindly of people who are hurting, so it's received well. I don't want... I want the truth of this [chuckles] to get out there. That's really important, but I want it to be shared in a way that's humanizing and invites conversation with people. That's all I would throw out there, but of course, you and I would say, at the root of this, and not only this issue, but the fall itself, I think is the explanation we can't get away from, why the world is broken, including how we unders- stand ourselves and see the world, and all of us are broken in some fashion. And ultimate healing comes through the person of Jesus and His grace, the power of the Holy Spirit, the strength of the Church to live out according to the design that God has built into our bodies. That's where I think real freedom comes in.
Scott Rae: Amen. I think that's a, that's a drop-the-mic moment there.
Sean McDowell: All right, so you sent me this article, Scott, and I'd actually seen it, but I'm glad you reminded me, to come back to it, and this was, this was from The New York Times. An opinion writer, a millennial-
Scott Rae: [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: ... Who starts by saying, "Our generation has been blamed for s- ruining so much," and I read that, and I'm like, "Welcome to the club." I'm a Gen X-er.
Scott Rae: [laughs]
Sean McDowell: Everybody blamed us for a while. Everybody blamed the boomers, so I get it. Fair enough. "But in the long run, we might be credited with destroying American religion." Before we go any further, I would say I'm actually not gonna blame millennials. If this is the generation that becomes less religious, I wanna know who failed to pass on the baton-
Scott Rae: That's correct
Sean McDowell: ... To that generation.
Scott Rae: Yes. That's right.
Sean McDowell: That's where I would put the responsibility first, and I think Scripture does, too. But let's keep going. There's a new massive Pew poll, and it indicated that the increase in the nones has plateaued since 20, about 2019, 2020. So we've seen this increase since the '90 in the group of those who don't have religious identification, and then for five years before COVID, it seems to plateau, which seems like good news, at least [chuckles] to you and me. They said that, since 2007, the share of Americans who describe themself as Christian has dropped from 78% to 63. Now, what this article doesn't point out is if you go back to the early '90s, it was actually 90% of Americans who would describe themselves as Christian. But they argue in this article, according to the data that comes, again, from our friend Ruy Texeira, that there might be a plateau in five years, but this is a, the past five years, but this plateau is temporary. As the silent generation, boomers and X-ers, become smaller and smaller share of the population, this younger generation, that although it's plateaued, is less religious, will become a greater percentage of the population. So if things stay as they do, and they argue in here that it's likely to be the case, just by generational replacement, our culture will become more and more secular. This point from Texeira was pretty striking. He said, "For every six Christians who left the faith, one joined. It's the opposite for the nones."... Now, as you get to the end, one, I guess one other quick thing is Christian Smith, who's just a wonderful sociologist- [chuckles] ... We've had on, who attests to leaving the faith. Some of his work is some of the best stuff. He has a new book out that we need to discuss called Why Religion Went Obsolete, and he basically says with this new generation, religion is just, it exists, but it's not relevant to the way they live. It doesn't matter. It's not important to them. He uses the word obsolete, kind of like an electric typewriter, that some people still use it, but it's not significant in the way that they live. Now, they shift to why in this article, which is a separate question, but tell me what you make of this trend.
Scott Rae: Well, fun- that, Sean, that last point you made, I think, is the big takeaway for me. [clears throat] And, you know, we don't, w- you know, we're not where we were, you know, years ago, where, Protestant Christianity was just part of the air people breathe. And we're not at the place where we were, I think, even, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago with the new atheists, where there was just this open hostility to Christian faith. Now, there still is some of that, but I think overwhelmingly it's indifference. And just faith is not, it's just not an issue. It's not something to oppose. It's sort of, it's sort of your thing, and it's your s- it's your subjective, sort of like a hobby. And it is something you're into, but I'm not, and it's relevant for you, but not for me. And the first thing I thought about is that, is that this reflected my USC doctoral experience, where I did, I did not... I mean, SC's as secular an environment as UC Berkeley, but I did not experience any hostility to my Christian faith. But I, what I did experience was indifference to it. It was just, it was, it was considered my thing, but not relevant to anyone else outside of my own particular faith community. And even academically, Protestant Christianity was considered my starting place, and we had... I mean, Sean, we had all sorts of diverse folks. I mean, we had, we had Buddhists, we had atheists, we had-
Sean McDowell: Wow
Scott Rae: ... Liberal Catholics, we had, Reform Jews, we had conservative Jews, and C- I mean, everybody, we were all over the map. And it was j- it was just, where you started was just considered your starting place, and nobody, including there were a handful of evangelicals in there, too, like myself, nobody got grief for their starting place. What you had to do was be consistent with where you were starting. Now, in my view, that indifference has given way to hostility again, both in the academy and in the culture around, as we've talked about repeatedly, is around issues of marriage, sexuality, what the culture calls reproductive freedom, and in particular, not siding with whatever the current neo-Marxist oppressed group is in vogue at that time. There, in my view, there's a v- just a much more hostility than in previous decades. Because in the past, as y- as you know, as y- as your dad knew from the amount of speaking he did on college campuses, there was openness and opportunity for discussion and debate. Today, that's not true, where disagreement today, as we've talked about, is tantamount to hatred, and it's an assault on someone's identity when you disagree with them on some of those things that they consider so central. So that, in my view, that was the big takeaway from this. And as Os Guinness put it in his book, The Gravedigger File, that "faith is seen as privately engaging, but culturally and socially irrelevant." And I think today it's even seen as privately irrelevant as well.
Sean McDowell: That's a strong takeaway. I remember on some of the earlier studies that Christian Smith had about millennials, kind of when they were coming to age, about the age Gen Z-ers might be now, and he said, "If you ask this generation, how important is religion?" I think it was two-thirds or three-quarters would say important or very important. But if you shifted the question and asked, "What is most important to you?" Religion rarely came up. That's what we're see-
Scott Rae: Didn't even make, didn't even make the list?
Sean McDowell: It, it wasn't one of the top keys-
Scott Rae: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... That people would point towards consistently. We see the same thing with Gen Z. This is some of the studies out of Barna. They might define themselves by their profession, by their family. Faith is not sexual orientation. Faith is not one of the primary ways that people see themselves and identify as it maybe was in the past. Now, how do we think biblically about this shift? I have so many thoughts about this. People have been talking about people leaving the faith. Really, it kind of started, as far as I'm aware of, kind of with my generation, with Gen X, and maybe it goes back earlier. That's where we started to see the nones increase and the internet hits, and it just felt like some of the studies trace back to that time. That's kind of when I was in high school, so it's nothing new. There's always some new study about how secular America is getting and beyond. The older I get, the less [chuckles] the more I realize I have little control about where culture seems to go. But I can build relationships with my kids. I can love my wife. I can try to be faithful from the bottom up, and I actually think that would be our most powerful testimony. Part of this article that really jumped out to me, Scott, is it talks about... Again, this would have to be defended, but it argues that the sex abuse scandals and other financial scandals are at the root of the loss of credibility among evangelicals. And this week, I'm not gonna mention their names, but two massive names of evangelicals came out that they were both unfaithful, and every time I hear that, it's just a gut punch.... I didn't wanna stop and focus here, but I thought about, like, where do we talk about this? I mean, hugely influential evangelicals that we both know, at least by distance. The world sees this.
Scott Rae: One, one of, one of them I know personally.
Sean McDowell: Oh, gosh, I'm sorry, Scott. That's, yeah.
Scott Rae: Yeah. Anyway.
Sean McDowell: That's painful. And they talk about it, they said, "These scandals destroy religion's credibility," and this is a millennial saying, "And led millennials to no longer believing that religion could be a glue that holds America together." And she says, "People start to realize if this is the case, you can be good without God." So it tells me, interestingly enough, a couple things. Number one, we've lost our witness, maybe because we've become politicized, maybe because of scandals, maybe some of this is the way people perceive us. I don't know, but there's gotta be a lot of truth that we don't distinctly live differently in a way that's attractive to the outside world. That is a piece of it, and underneath, there's also a sense that she says, "Millennials want to be good." There's a spiritual yearning. That's not gone, so maybe some of the trappings will consistently be taken away and just a rebirth. This is [chuckles] what I pray for, people saying, "I just wanna follow Jesus in our cultural moment with my kids and with my family," and that's a testament to those who are around us. So the older I get, the more I think less top-down, although that's important, and I just think bottom up, and I think that's what Jesus said. You know, at the end, it's like, will God say, "Well done, my faithful servant?"
Scott Rae: That's a great take on that, Sean. I appreciate that a lot, and I think, I think at the end of the day, that's precisely how the early church turned the first-century culture upside down.
Sean McDowell: Amen.
Scott Rae: They did- they had no political power. They had, they had no... You know, they could not run for office. All they could do was be salt and light in the particular areas of influence that they had in their families and where they worked and in their communities, and they were faithful to that. And now, granted, in the first century, being faithful to that meant some really radical things that they, that they were called to do. And that's in part what turned the, you know, turned the culture upside down in the first century. But I think that's right, because God calls us not to be successful, but to be faithful-
Sean McDowell: Amen
Scott Rae: ... And to cultural... It's just, I mean, in fact, it's just like in evangelism, that God calls us to present the gospel faithfully. It's His job to change people's hearts and to bring them to faith. In the same way, it's our job to live out our faith in public faithfully, but it's His job to change the culture, and that's... I get, I get nervous when I see people trying to, trying to do things on their own power that I think the Scripture outlines as God's responsibility. And I do think one of... Just one comment on the sex abuse and financial scandals that the article points out, and, now, the response of the church has been frequently to circle the wagons to, quote, "protect the reputation of the church," when in reality, it's done precisely the opposite of that. And I think the, and the numbers of churches that operate with integrity, that do great work in their community, they're just not newsworthy, and we don't hear much about that. But I suspect that with the majority of churches in our country, if they closed their doors, it wouldn't take long for the community around them to notice that they're gone. I tell, and I tell my students- ... If you, if you, if you, if you could consider closing your doors, and you would wonder how long it would take for your community [chuckles] to notice that you're gone, you have a serious problem-
Sean McDowell: Wow
Scott Rae: ... That has to be addressed. Now, one other thing that I think was missing from this, and I mentioned it just a little bit, the trend toward faith being pr- simply a private matter, which that's been going on for the last 40 years-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Scott Rae: ... Is people moving more and more in that direction, I think makes it easier for faith to become irrelevant- ... Because it can be considered- ... Something like, just like a side pursuit or a hobby that you're into. But in the Scriptures, genuine faith is not just a private matter. As we've emphasized before, it's a relationship to Jesus, it's a set of ideas, and it has a social, a public component to it, too. It's not just a private matter. And you know, Sean, you know, when the prophets prophesied about the kingdom, individuals come to faith, and societies get turned upside down. And when the Lord comes back, we'll have a proper ordering of society in addition to every knee bowing at the name of Jesus. And then the, you know... And in the meantime, I think we have an obligation to both the individual and social components of the kingdom mandate, but not political. It's social, but it's not partisan- ... In that way.
Sean McDowell: Well said.
Scott Rae: I got a lot-
Sean McDowell: Oh
Scott Rae: ... I got a lot more to say about this, but maybe we might-
Sean McDowell: I know you do
Scott Rae: ... We might need to move on.
Sean McDowell: Let, let me make one-
Scott Rae: Sorry
Sean McDowell: ... One quick point. The article talks about this virulent strain of Christian nationalists, that respond to this 'cause they're losing ground. I think that's overstated, but the caution here is, if Christians feel like they're losing ground, will we respond with defensiveness and anger and fear? 1 John 4:18 says, "Perfect love casts out fear." Our job always has been and always will be to glorify God and love our neighbors. So when fear is selfish and self-focused-... Love is selfless and other-focused. So if Burge is right, and this is rooted in assumptions we don't know, people said, for example, and I'm not even saying if this is good or not, but people said, "The Democratic Party's gonna win forever when minorities come in, and it's gonna shift things." [chuckles] People have been saying this forever. Now it's like, "Oh, actually, that didn't happen." So some of these models, we don't know for sure what we're told is inevitable, even though this seems reasonable. Our job is to trust God and be faithful and keep moving forward amidst this. But our job here, Scott, is to keep informing people and keep talking about what's going on, which brings us to this next study, which really is in your lane, and I'm super interested in your thoughts on this. This jumped out to me, and the title is "A New Scientific Field Is Recasting Who We Are and How We Got That Way." So right away, this is a question about: What does it mean to be human? Where did we come from? These are the big worldview, biblical, theological questions that, by the way, the Bible starts with, in a sense. So there's been this debate about nature versus nurture, and according to this author, there's a new field called sociogenomics that basically says it's both, and that it's kind of a cyclical pattern where our nature's affected by our environment and vice versa, and it goes on and on. It's not one or the other; it's both. And he writes, "The field is in its infancy, but its philosophical implications are staggering." I would add theological implications as well, tied to what it means to be human. So it gives an example of somebody who's born with a certain gene, that's genetic, that maybe makes them run faster. Well, their environment, they're encouraged by people because they see the success there in their environment to run, lean into it, they get praise, and you have this interaction of nature and nurture, which, by the way, strikes me as somewhat obvious. With that said, goes forward, and he says the part that blows him away is that the environment, the genes in the environment of people affect us. So now once we look at individuals as not just bundles of genes, but genes that are shaped by their environment, we see that we are affected by people, their environment, and by their genes. That's kind of the way he's encouraging us to think about it. There's this new way, he says, since 2009, I guess it is, where it's called a polygenic index, where you look at all these genetic factors, I guess up to, like, you know, there's 6,000 studies that have identified them, like sleep habits, extroversion, left/right-handedness, et cetera. They're not crystal balls, but give us deep clues about how we behave, who we are, where we came from, et cetera. He says, "Now, this is where things get dizzy. Like, imagine sperm and egg donor banks optimizing genetic profiles based on what a customer is willing to pay, rooted in their genes. What about elite schools using PGI to screen applicants?" Like, he gives all these possible ways this study could be used or potentially misused. And he describes how when he goes in to get IVF, which is a separate conversation, [chuckles] obviously, you and I have had, he was like, "What if we could use this kind of technology to just screen out, say, autism and schizophrenia?" So these aren't just looking at embryos and being able to tell that one is maybe not functional. This is looking at embryos and trying to determine these future kind of behaviors and characteristics that it might have. So he asks the question: "What if we could conceive the world's first PGI-optimized baby?" Which that question alone just scares me for so many different reasons. Now, he comes full circle at the end, and here's one thing he writes, and I want you to weigh in here. So he kind of pulls back on this and says, "You know what? I should let nature take its course, so to speak, and not try to manipulate the IVF process too much." But then he comes later, and he says, "If I screened my kid and learned he was off the charts for innate musical potential, I would start him on piano lessons from toddlerhood. If I found out he had a risk for opioid addiction, I would maybe have medications and pain management to help early on," which raised questions for me. I thought, "Okay, wait a minute. At what point does a child decide and we respond, versus we look at a child with their genes and then try to craft this perfect environment for them to be the outcome that we want?" A million questions here, but your thoughts on this, Scott.
Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I'm, I'm so glad you didn't, steal my thunder here about the ending.
Sean McDowell: Oh, good. [chuckles]
Scott Rae: Because the c- the conclusion to this is staggering, uh-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Scott Rae: ... Because basically, he, when he, when it came to their, his own child, they didn't do any of this stuff.
Sean McDowell: That's right.
Scott Rae: Here's, here's what he says. I lo- I love the way this goes: "Every night as my son snuggles up to me for a bedside bedtime story, I'm grateful we let fate take its course in that Petri dish." "I wouldn't trade any detail of who he has become for the chance to maximize some slight statistical probability," right? "My son's future, it won't be fated by a biological FICO score, even though it may be subtly guided by his genes as they shape his environment." He basically said, "I'm so glad we just did this without any of this stuff," and here's the reason. He didn't say it, but I think even, Sean, even non-believers will say this about their kids, that they acknowledge that they're a gift. They may not be able to acknowledge who the giver is or know much about that, but this, I think, is such a good example of somebody who said, "No, at the end of the day, my children are a gift to be received open-handedly and gratefully and without specifications attached."... I just, I just thought that was so interesting [chuckles] how he sees- he said, "All this great stuff that could be available to us, yet when it came to my own kid, I'm so glad we didn't do any of this screening. We, you know, we didn't, you know, we didn't do any of this stuff. We just accepted our child for who he is, and sort of let nature take its course." and shaped by environment, that's true. But I think that's, you know... He said, "It'll be an unpredictable, surprising, choose-your-own-adventure-
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm
Scott Rae: ... Just as it should be." And I think that's absolutely right, and I think he's just, what he's essentially saying is that children are a gift. It's okay to have hopes, but expectations based on genetic screening, maybe we'll take a pass on that.
Sean McDowell: That's a great take. In some ways, it's a biblical take that we find here at the end, and I did not expect the article to go there. So it's-
Scott Rae: Oh, I was completely caught off guard by the, by the way it ended. [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm. It was almo- it almost reads like a kind of confession. Like, he walks through his eagerness and his kind of just, "Let's look at this scientifically," and then walks it back when he's a dad and is like, "Oh, maybe I was cer- trying to manipulate things with science that I should not manipulate," and we naturally know that children are a gift. So it's a really good article that's worth reading. I appreciate the went- where he went, even though he, of course, doesn't directly bring in biblical principles. You know, two other things jumped out to me on this, is he says, "I see a brighter possibility. I believe that knowing how our environment shapes the expression of our DNA gives us a chance to change our genetic pathways." Well, this sounds very different than the narrative, born that way, that you cannot change your genetic pathways, and it's dangerous and harmful and hurtful to do so. This is saying that their environment shape us and genes shape us, but we have a certain level of agency here about how we live and act and behave. We can't be reduced down to just a genetic bundle, so to speak, a materialistic system. And what you read, Scott, the very end, it's like, "It'll be an unpredictable," which has to do with epistemology. We can't know what direction this is going. "Surprising, choose your own adventure, just as it should be." In other words, we have agency. This is what makes life beautiful, is that we have free will, and we have choice. It can make it painful when people make choices we wish they wouldn't, and that's the pain of being a parent when we can't stop our kids from doing so. But you can't have the joy and goodness and love without that possibility, and that fits right in line with the Christian worldview that children are a gift, but God has given them free will, and that's what makes life beautiful. So I love this shift away from this materialism, reductionist understanding of what it means to be human, more in line with what I would argue is a biblical anthropology.
Scott Rae: Yeah, what's, what's new here is that not so much that genetics and environment both contribute to who we are, but that they are mutually reinforcing.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Scott Rae: And that I think is the new insight on this, 'cause we've been, we've been talking for the last 20 years, Sean, since the Human Genome Project was completed, that knowing more of your genetic information could really help you maximize your health over the long term. So say if you had the genetic disposition to heart disease, you know, I c- I could say, you know, "Eating fries and Big Macs is bad for everybody, but for you, it's especially bad for you because of your genetic profile." And what this, what this is doing is going a step further than that and saying, in essence, what we t- we tend to... Our, our genetic, our genetic endowment doesn't always, express itself in the same way for each person that has that same genetic, you know, genetic endowment. So just because you have a genetic, component, i- the same people could have that same genetic component and express it in slightly different ways. And he-- I think what he's saying here is the environment can actually impact how we express some of the things that are in our genetic code. And that's, I think, that's a really helpful new insight. And I think what it-- the downside to that is that it's, it helps us, as the article points out, we tend to separate ourselves and, go into groups that have... With people who are more genetically similar to us. And so spouses, for example, they say, genetically resemble- ... More like first cousins, genetically speaking. Though they're not, they're not blood relatives, of course. But, what this could do is actually exacerbate some of the inequalities that we have in the culture at large, this is a concern that he raises in the piece, by sort of cementing them in our, in the way our genetic code is being exemplified. So that's, that's, I think, a concern. It could make economic mobility more challenging. It could-- but it could also change the way that we alleviate poverty, for example- ... In some of these really challenging communities.
Sean McDowell: H- Are, are you aware of sociogenomics before this? Was this a term that was new to you in your field?
Scott Rae: This is a new, a new term.
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Scott Rae: And I would tell our listeners, if you want to impress somebody at a dinner party over the weekend-
Sean McDowell: [laughing]
Scott Rae: ... This is the new term to throw around.
Sean McDowell: I love it. Fair enough. Well, maybe I'll get his book and see where the research goes, but it's a new field that's burgeoning.... We got some great questions, Scott. Let's jump in and take a look at these and see what we thought. Now, this first one I think is probably for me, but I'll ask you first to see if you have any take on this one.
Scott Rae: I think, well, you know, the one thing I noticed about these questions-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Scott Rae: ... Is that they all, that most of them came from the discussion you and Thad had together last week. So if you need me to come in and help sort of clean up some of the stuff that-
Sean McDowell: Oh [laughing]
Scott Rae: ... You guys did last week, I'm happy to do so. [laughing]
Sean McDowell: That's, that's totally fair. Thad's not here, so I'll weigh in. Did not have a chance to ask him his thought. This says, "Last week you discussed first cousin marriage. My question is whether the Bible actually prohibits it. Leviticus 18:7 says, 'None of you shall approach any blood relative of his to uncover nakedness.' Blood relative could be nearly anyone at all, so we should look at subsequent verses to define what it means." I agree. "Amoral relationships prohibited, first cousins and first cousins are not among them. We have been taught that such relationships are incestuous, but it doesn't seem that the Bible prohibits this. Can you point to the other scripture that do so?" And he also, or this writer, also says that, "The Catholic Church has at times, although it forbids it, allowed it. That seems to lessen the severity." I don't know why the Catholic Church does prohibit it now or why they allowed it in the past. I'm not Catholic. I can't weigh into that. I think the key is to go to Leviticus chapter 18, that he's referencing, and this passage, it is listed out, I think verses, gosh, verses 6 all the way through verse 17, listing out incestuous relationships. And I won't read all of it, but it's very clearly like your mother-in-law, half sister, grandchild, sister-in-law, aunt-in-law, daughter-in-law, sister, close relatives. It lays... In fact, even mentions grandchild. It lays out close relatives. I think it gives us so much detail because when you just say incest is wrong, you've got to provide some barriers for this. So I think the question is fair. My question, is this list meant to be exhaustive? And if it's not-
Scott Rae: Exactly
Sean McDowell: ... Explicitly mentioned, therefore, do we find that it's okay? And I realize there's some fuzziness here, that it's not as explicit as I would like, but I don't think we have to teach most people naturally, for one, that a cousin would be considered incest. I think most people intuitively pick up on this. Probably when you get to a second cousin, there's a sense of like, "Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Now we're far enough removed." So I think there's an instinct. I realize that's not biblical, but there's an instinct. But if I take, for example, the one that rules out verse 10, "Do not have sexual relationship with your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter," that would be your grandchild. Could I infer that if you live old enough, it'd be okay to have sex with your great-grandchild? It doesn't mention it. It's not explicit. I think it's pretty obvious that that's still within the same realm of incest. Not explicitly stated, I would argue that the nature of the closeness of a cousin, biologically and family, and our natural sense of this, that a cousin falls into that realm. But admittedly, I appreciate that this person pushes back [chuckles] and says it's not explicit in the Bible. That's my take. Do you resonate with that, Scott, or do you see it differently?
Scott Rae: I do. I do. In fact, my first, my first response to this was that what suggests that those specific things that are listed are intended to be exhaustive? And you've cited a couple of examples that I think suggest that it probably is not intended to be exhaustive. Now, he raises a good question. I think the approach is generally right, that when the Bible makes a general statement and then follows with specifics, the specifics normally spell out what the general statement means.
Sean McDowell: That's right.
Scott Rae: And, and what that evo- And that's just a, that's a sound interpretive principle. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the things that are listed are necessarily... They exhaust that category.
Sean McDowell: Um-
Scott Rae: So I would say the other reason is not so much biblical, but it's more scientific, that the genetic risks of these incestuous relationships we've discovered over the years, are real and have, and have to be, have to be addressed. That's one of the reasons why I think there is the societal taboo against these incestuous relationships that still f- goes on today. I do think, just one comment, I think the reason the Catholic Church allowed those examples of it were more in the Middle Ages-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Scott Rae: ... When you had, when you had royalty often in, often marrying incestuously in order to keep the royal line- ... Intact, and not have it, not have it, not have it compromised by people outside the royal line. I think that may be one of-- may have been one of the reasons why the Catholic Church allowed it.
Sean McDowell: That's really interesting. Good, good feedback on that. Appreciate the [chuckles] great question from a listener. Let, let me ask you this one. I'm gonna skip to this question that says, "I'm writing to respectfully ask you to stop referring to adoptive parents as heroes." I don't know if that's you or me or both of us, I don't recall, but nonetheless-
Scott Rae: Oh, I've done, I've done that. I've done... I've-- 'cause I call adoption a heroic rescue.
Sean McDowell: Okay, all right. Fair, fair enough. All right, good. Then this is on you, not just me, Scott-
Scott Rae: That's right
Sean McDowell: ... Just for the record, since you said it was all me. [chuckles] Kidding aside, it says, "We are not heroes. We do not want to be. The only way I describe adoption is bittersweet. Sweet for the parents because the privilege of parenthood, raising a child to love the Lord. Bitter for the child because they've lost a family that shares many similarities. They struggle with the question, 'Why was I abandoned or given away?' As adopted kids grow and learn about the difference between adoptive and biological parents, the world tells how lucky they are and how grateful they should be. This only adds guilt and pressure to an already difficult situation. If there is a real hero, it is the birth mom who chose not to abort."... And the question is, would you take this into consideration? Now, Scott, before you weigh in, my sister, who also went to Biola about 10 years after I did, she's adopted, one of my sisters. So I called my mom really fast. I said, "Mom," I got 15 seconds just to get her quick take. [chuckles]
Scott Rae: [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: I said, "You- do you find it offensive," or no, how did I frame? I said, "Do you consider yourself a hero for being an adoptive parent?" And she's like: "No, it's a joy. It's a gift." And at the end, she actually said, "It's actually..." She used the word offensive to her, and I thought, "Wow!" Now, this is a sample of two, so I don't wanna read too much into it, but the listener says, will you take this into consideration? And my answer is absolutely. I'm gonna ask more people this question and just see how they process it and understand. So since we're not supposed to give a biblical response, but take into consideration, I'd say absolutely. This is really helpful to me. What's your take, Scott?
Scott Rae: I... Yeah, that was my first response. I am totally happy to take this into consideration. And I think the bi- the birth mom who chose not to abort, I think that woman deserves heroic status. Because I think the pro-choice movement often will, I think, use adoption to score points on the pro-life movement by saying, "You don't-- you have no idea how hard it is for a birth mom to give her baby up for adoption," and that's true. I acknowledge that, but the question that we, that follows from that is, well, what makes that so hard for the birth mom to do that? And it's the fact that she bonds to the baby that she's carrying. She's not carrying a thing or a clump of tissue or a, you know, or a bag of cells. She bonds to a person, not a thing, and so that, I think, adds to, I think, the things that we need to consider in this. But yeah, I think that most adoptive parents, I... You know, our colleague, Erik Thoennes, has four adopted kids. And I think, I don't, I don't know if he, they were all adopted from overseas. I'll ask him, when I see him, if he considers-
Sean McDowell: Yeah, let me know
Scott Rae: ... Himself heroic for that. I suspect he would say something similar to your mom-
Sean McDowell: [chuckles]
Scott Rae: ... That they consider those kids a huge gift to them, and that's God's way of providing for something that they couldn't do on their own. And so I appreciate this listener's comment. I totally take-- I totally hear this. Your point's well taken, and we'll be happy to take this into consideration going forward.
Sean McDowell: And by the way, if you're listening, just shoot in an email and tell us what you think. If you were adopted or if you have adopted kids, just shoot an email, tell us your quick take. We'd love to hear from a few more, and if we get enough answers, maybe we'll come full circle and give our thoughts on this one. Scott, maybe just give your quick take on this one. There's a question about the shifting roles in pastoral leadership expectations. And this pastor describes entering a church 'cause he wanted to preach the Word and make disciples, but the church expectations shifted, and he just feels like he's now in a position he's not gifted for. How do you na... Like, he wants to know, do you see this happening with other people, and how do you navigate that shifting expectation?
Scott Rae: Well, this is a great question, and I, my heart goes out to this particular person because, you know, I, you know, you and I, in our seminary education, you know, we were trained to do a lot of things well for the pastorate, but w- there was a lot of stuff I didn't get- ... In mine, that, you know, my four or five years as a pastor, you know, I learn, I had to learn completely on the fly. So I totally get this. And my... You know, I remember my, [chuckles] my mentor used to say, "If you know, if you get burned out on being a pastor, if the job description is too much, then go do something a little less challenging, like brain surgery." [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: [chuckles]
Scott Rae: Because his point was that the expectations on pastors today constitute an impossible job description. They are, they are... Pastors, I think in general, are asked to do too many things and be experts in too many things. And so my advice to navigate this, I would suggest to utilize your elders for some- ... Of these areas of expertise that you don't have and to hire staff specifically for some of those functions to make up for some of the areas in which you're not gifted. I still think the, maybe the main thing that a pastor has to do today to be successful in the local church is to regularly and faithfully be able to deliver the Word of God to his people with biblical accuracy and with relevance to where people live. I think if people, if people do that well, then there are the re- there are re- other resources around to help run the business of the church, which they are-- most pastors are not trained to do that, Sean, and I think that's a fair point. But I think the resources are there to help pastors, help do some of these things that maybe they not, maybe they might not be gifted to do, but to focus on the thing that they are gifted to do, which I think, I think is still the most important component to pastoring well today.
Sean McDowell: Great take. One thing I would say is there is... You know, the Bible doesn't have a job description for the modern-day pastor in America and beyond, but sometimes I look at the qualifications, like, say, in 1 Timothy, just for church leaders, and we can ask, how much does this apply to the modern pastor? And you see things like able to teach, like you said, but hospitable, self-controlled, not a lover of money. These are not often on the job requirement lists, so this is an encouragement to go back. Sometimes it's, like, somebody who can be on stage and social media and lead the way we lead businesses. Let's make sure that our qualifications are really biblical. But I'll say this, just a reminder for somebody either switching pastoral positions or getting, be, wanting to become a pastor, to find out those expectations ahead of time and get it in writing so you know that your job, in a sense, is tied to it. And if the church shifts, and you have to adapt, sometimes you have to do that for different reasons, but that clarity up front, I think, can help avoid, not always, some of the confusion downstream. But our heart is out to this pastor. We really appreciate you listening. Scott, as always, this is great. Looking forward to our next conversation together.
Scott Rae: Me too. Good stuff.
Sean McDowell: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. As you know, if you're a listener, we have master's programs in theology, Bible, apologetics, Old Testament, marriage and family, philosophy, spiritual formation, online and in person. Please send in your comments. We got a lot of comments from my conversation last week with Preston Sprinkle, part one, a lot of comments [chuckles] or ask your questions at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Please take a moment and give us a rating on your podcast app and consider sharing this with a friend. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you Tuesday, when part two of my deep dive discussion, friendly debate with Preston Sprinkle airs about whether Christians with same-sex attraction should embrace a, quote, "gay identity." In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]
