Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi friends. Welcome back to Unpaying Christianity. I'm as Whitmer and I'm reviewing my book live free right now. So if you've missed, we're already in chapter four. If you missed the first, I think we've done three or four videos already or the intro of why I'm doing this. Go ahead and click the link below. It'll take you to the library of all the videos that I'm taking, one video each day and reviewing a chapter for the next 20 days. Here in November, we're celebrating the four year anniversary of publishing live free, also preparing for the release of the audio version. So that's kind of what instigated going through this. But also a big reason why I'm doing this is that there are things I would say differently. And in this chapter we get into one of the things, or kind of one of the conversations.
Speaker 0 00:00:49 I'm not sure if I'd write anything specifically different, but I want to ask you guys about it, especially those who have read it. This chapter's called like Wild Bowls, Cotton Nets. This chapter four is the last chapter of part one, where we're looking at not being free and like Wild Bulls, cotton nets. It's taken from a passage in Isaiah where the sons, nobody can defend Jerusalem because all the sons of Israel are lying at the head of every street, like wild bulls, cotton nets. And so that's a word. Picture is actually, uh, someone in a conversation once brought it to my attention in comparison with men struggling with, with sexual impurity and sexual addiction. And it's a just a vivid word, picture in that a net, you, you don't think of a bold being able to be held back by a net, right? You need a big steel fence.
Speaker 0 00:01:46 But here they are bound by nets and their wild bulls can't, can't do anything even though is, uh, Jerusalem is coming under attack. They can't get up and defend because they're, they've laid down at the head of every street because of their compromise with other nations and other gods. And so we as men have a strength. My initial working title of the book was Naked Strength. I thought that sounded provocative. I thought it was. And I, and I, I really wanted to bring out the, the goodness of our sexuality instead of it being this dark, dirty conversation. So I, I ended up scrapping that. It was like, I, I, in the meantime, I, I went through this writer training that talked about how you should title things. Don't try to be clever over clear. If you can be clear and clever, that's great, but skip the cleverness and go for clarity.
Speaker 0 00:02:44 And so I went for Live Free. I'm still not so sure about my subtitle, making sense of male sexuality. Cause I don't know, like there's a lot about sexuality. We don't discuss <laugh>. And so I don't know if it's entirely, I was just like, how do I encapsulate, I'm not gonna be like the only book you need for freedom or whatever, but just like, Hey, it's a conversation. We're trying to make sense of our struggle with lust. Um, anyways, so I would probably do the subtitle a little differently if I had it to do over again, it was self-published, so I didn't have a necessarily professional editor who's got a lot of training in this. I hired, uh, I had three or four editors working on it throughout the process. And they're, they're editors, they're trained editors, but they weren't working for a publishing company or anything.
Speaker 0 00:03:34 But I'm glad I didn't go with Naked Strength. In this chapter, I bring out the strength. We as men have a strength to go out and to, to conquer. I kind of foreshadow that concept. One of the things that I am rethinking or processing the, the older I get, and the more I, the more experience I get, the more I study also and kind of even just some academic and and scientific study of gender and sexuality and so forth. I am rethinking our stereotypes about like purpose based on our gender. We have this notion that men go out and fight. Women are supposed to be home bodies and, and take care of things. And there's, there's a couple things. This, this I'll just reveal to you. The one thing that I know I would definitely say differently is how I talk about gender roles throughout this book.
Speaker 0 00:04:37 And I get into it a lot more in some of the later chapters. But that is the number one thing I think I would also talk differently about. Uh, I kind of forget what I say, so I'm, I'm looking forward to reading it again. But as far as like singleness and, and how sexuality plays out or even purpose plays out as single people, I think I would, I think I would temper that a little differently because my memory, again, it's been a few years since I've reread the book or even this section of the book, but my memory is that I think I probably ended up playing a little bit to the idea that like, a purpose is to go be husband and care for your family and all that. And, and there it, it kinda a hollow, I don't know what the word is. Um, for, for someone who, who doesn't have that maybe they want that they're, they're not getting it, maybe they don't even want that. And so like, is that wrong that they, that you know, are there other things that provide purpose? Are there other things we're made for beyond solely having kids, having sex with your wife, having a family. And I think
Speaker 1 00:05:56 Not only has our culture sexualized relationships, but I very strongly feel the church has as well, like, we have idolized marriage and I am all for marriage. I'm married, I have four kids. I love my wife, I love my kids. I love <laugh> having sex, if I can say that. And, but I've been challenged a lot and, and yeah, I'm trying to think where I, cuz I could go on for about 30 minutes on something here. But one, one of the things that has made me rethink this is that I've gotten to know a lot more people who face same sex attraction. And so if I believe that marriage, God's design for marriage is just between a man and a wife for life, then I am my, what am I gonna say to them? My ex to them, my advice or counsel to them is gonna be, you gotta be single.
Speaker 1 00:06:57 Like you can't, or you gotta enter into a relationship that's maybe even repulsive to you. And so it really boils down to they need to be willing to enter into a journey where they're dying to a very core, fundamental desire of their being. But then that confronts like, is there anything that I'm doing that in? Like, does that just mean I can go have sex whenever or are there things that God has called me to, called us to as humans, as mankind where I have to lay down things as a, as a white straight man in the Christian world, I literally can almost have and get whatever I want. But is that right? Like, is are there things that I should be dying to myself? Um, you know, definitely like, I think some of the ways we view gender roles or roles in marriage, um, allow men to kind of run over their wives to a certain degree.
Speaker 1 00:08:05 And, and that's something I've been trying to learn and, and kind of un unpack some of the, the layers or conditioning that maybe we've grown up with so that my wife can have a joint leadership role with me in our family. I don't, I don't want to trigger anything cause I'm not trying to get a debate about gender roles going, rather, I'm trying to unpack how my upbringing or stereotypes about gender roles has affected the way I talk about purpose and about things that have to do with finding freedom in life. So I think that's one of the biggest things that as I, as I read this chapter, I was just kind of constantly mulling over and thinking over, I believe sexuality, whether it's male sexuality or female sexuality is very good, very beautiful, and is a strength for good. God wants to glorify, be glorified and into, to display his beauty and goodness throughout the earth, through our sexualities as men and women.
Speaker 1 00:09:19 How that manifests itself may happen in a variety of ways. And and that's kind of the, the conversation we're getting into a little bit. But I would love to hear what are your thoughts? Have you read this book? Did you have, did you have any questions specifically in chapter four? Did you have any questions or comments? Feedback on what I just discussed about men being the strength to go out there? We have a strength and I, I believe, I believe both men and women are commissioned to, to go forth and to, um, fill the earth with not only more of themselves, but also through, through human propagation, sexual propagation, but also to fill the earth with, with artifacts and, and elements of creation and, and imaginative creation that we develop books, uh, buildings, services like that we provide that reflect the beauty and the goodness of God.
Speaker 1 00:10:24 All men and women are designed to do that. We're also all designed to be in a relationship with each other. Like that's not gender specific, not if you are faithful to the creation story. So it's not like we should, we should be careful that we don't fall into these, and this is what we'll get in, in later chapters, but fall into these traps of like men or for the purpose of going out and working hard women or for relationship. Um, we're, we're all jointly needing to be in communion and relationship with each other and we're all jointly going forth into the world. What thoughts do you have kind of along that we're just kind of foreshadowing that part of the conversation in the next chapter. We begin part two that looks at getting set free. And in a lot of this, I'm, I'm quite certain that I won't feel a lot differently as far as how I present it.
Speaker 1 00:11:18 It'll be interesting to read through it again and see what I think or how I've changed. But do you have any feedback on what you've heard so far? I'd love to hear either drop a comment, send me a message. If you are listening to this on Apple Podcasts or, or any podcast platform that allows you to rate and review the podcast, I'd love if you could drop a radio review. It could be good. Obviously that's what I would love because then it, it helps get the podcast more visibility, but it can also be bad, uh, if that's the honest one. I'd rather you do that because that allows me to know, uh, how I can better serve you as, as the audience and, and the, the broader community at large. Anyways, in the next chapter we'll be reading chapter five. Again, I don't know these chapters by memory Chapter five.
Speaker 1 00:12:08 Let's see, Uh, I don't think it's Fig leaves quite yet. One of 'em is Fig Leaves Drinking from a, Well, that doesn't satisfy. I, I, I learned that whole concept of not being clever over clear and then I redid the title and then I had to go back through all my chapters like, Hey, am I, am I trying to be clever or clear? And I was like, well, the, these are chapters. It's not the book title. And so I kind of mixed trying to be clever and clear together. Um, I'll tell you more about drinking from a while. That doesn't satisfy in the next video tomorrow.
