Episode Transcript:
Hey, friends, welcome to the Life Renovation Podcast.
We're your hosts, Glendie Loranger and Elizabeth Morrison.
And together, we're breaking down the walls that divide us through meaningful conversations around faith, family, and sexuality.
Morning, Elizabeth.
Good morning, Glendie.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm a little short of breath.
We've been having a little bit of giggles going on here.
Yeah, we have fun.
We have a fun guest here today, too.
We're going to be talking about the state of sexuality.
In our last episode, we talked about the state of the church.
And so we've brought in another guest to just talk about what sexuality is like in today's culture.
So, Glendie, tell us who we have.
Yeah.
Well, hey, everyone.
I want to introduce you to our friend, Joanna Hyatt.
Good morning, Joanna.
Good morning.
It's a privilege to be here.
It's a treat for us to have you.
It's a really fun conversation we're going to have.
I'm admittedly quite excited to talk about sex.
I don't know that I hear many people say that, but okay, this is going to be great.
If anything, it'll be entertaining, but hopefully also informational.
Hopefully, everyone's had a cup of coffee before we dive into this.
This will get your morning going.
It'll get you going.
Joanna, I would love for our listeners to get to know you a little bit.
How long have you and I known each other?
It's been a minute.
At least a good five or six years.
Yeah.
I've been back here in town now eight years.
So I think we probably met right around the time you came on with Life Services.
Yeah, and I've been here seven years at Life Services.
So I think we've known of each other.
Joanna is an incredible host.
She hosted our Renovation Conference.
And of course, this is the Life Renovation Podcast, kind of spurring off of that conference.
And you were such an amazing hostess.
We got so many comments.
It's like, okay, we put a lot of work into the content, but everybody's like, we loved your host.
She was amazing.
It was fun.
You guys were brave to trust me with two days of basically stand up improv comedy hour.
Pretty much, yeah.
It was amazing.
Around really heavy topics.
I mean, so I appreciate that.
We didn't totally blow it.
I don't think we blew it.
It's so fun to have you back here, though.
Would you just tell our listeners just a little bit about Joanna?
And what makes Joanna tick?
Joanna.
So Joanna, I like talking to the third person.
This is great.
We have a pastor at a church, so when he preaches, he talks about himself in the third person.
It's one of my most favorite things.
So I am, first and foremost, a woman.
I feel like that's important to state on a day we're talking about sexuality.
I'm very clearly a woman.
Thank you for that.
But made in the image of God.
And then I'm, you know, known by my relationships.
So I am a wife.
I have been married 13 years now to a man who is incredibly patient to be married to me.
And we live here in Spokane, but we travel a lot.
My husband's a filmmaker.
He's a screenwriter, director.
And so we will go as a family whenever he's filming a project.
And then I'm also a mom.
I have five kids this side of heaven.
Five.
I know five.
Let's just stop on that number.
If you told 18 year old me, I would have been like, what?
I also would have thought I did something wrong because I married a man who's got a full sleeve of tattoos and like facial hair.
And I would have thought, did I marry a drug addict?
Where did I go?
Sorry, Andrew.
She loves you.
We know she loves you.
I've come to realize like, I love this.
I love the tattoos.
But you know, it's just funny how your things that you think are so important at 18, grow and adapt as you grow.
So five kids, I have four girls.
And then we were surprised with a little boy.
I know how we got the little boy because I'm gonna talk about sex today.
But so that wasn't a surprise, but it was just such a delight to suddenly think, oh, we're having a fifth girl.
And God had a totally different plan.
And then I'm a sister.
I have five younger brothers.
I'm the oldest, which explains some of my kind of fiery personality.
And I'm a daughter, so my dad is a pastor here in town.
And close relationship to my parents, they live five minutes away.
But that's just sort of me.
What makes me tick, I love to stand at the intersection of controversial issues.
And I've just decided to own that and to try to do it in a way that is calling people to the heart of God, pointing them to truth because truth sets us free.
And so, by simply avoiding the uncomfortable, we don't actually help anybody, but standing in that place and yelling in the marketplace of culture also doesn't accomplish anything.
So trying to stand in those places to speak those hard truths, but do it in a way that is loving and gracious and winsome.
And so that would be my hope, is that's what we get out of today's conversation.
But that's the stuff I love.
I love to have conversations about abortion, about sexuality, about politics, school choice.
Like you name the thing you're not supposed to talk about in mixed company and I'm here for it.
Oh, you are speaking my language.
So speaking my language.
Elizabeth and I, you probably haven't heard this yet, but we always talk about being awkward and that we just embrace the awkward.
So many of the conversations that we bring up here, they just feel awkward or like you said, uncomfortable.
So love that that's part of your heartbeat.
I actually think more people wanna have those conversations, but we live in a culture right now that doesn't know how to do that because we've become so polarized.
And so you see it online where people are searching for things and they're Googling and they want to be able to engage and have a place to ask those questions.
But to do so publicly is to get just blasted if you don't have a clearly defined position, if you at any point wanna change your position.
So I love that Renovation Podcast is inviting people into those conversations to say this is a place where you can wrestle with the questions that you can look at the issues and say maybe I haven't thought about that or I haven't thought about it in a way that is as life-giving to me as it could be.
That's probably why I said yes to coming on, because the heart of this podcast is right where I wanna be.
Yeah, and I think that's kind of like our first question for you as we talk about the state of sexuality is like what is the culture around sexuality that you see?
Yeah, you know, I'm gonna sound like an old person.
I'm not even 40 yet.
But when I think of what the state of sexuality looked like when I was graduating high school, even 10 years ago, I think we have come, I don't wanna say so far in a positive way, but I do think we have seen such a dramatic change that if you're listening and you feel whiplash, you're not alone.
There's a lot of us looking around going, what happened?
Yeah.
You know, we went from, especially those of us who are millennials, we were the peak of hookup culture.
And that's what we were known for.
We were known for this sort of casual approach to sex.
You jump in and out of beds.
It's not that big a deal.
You can have a one-night stand.
You can have friends with benefits.
And that was our thing.
And then you saw those boundaries get pushed further and further and further.
Launched with the sexual revolution, that's a whole history itself back in the 60s.
And then we were the hookup culture.
And then you saw a push for normalizing and accepting and applauding sexual relationships that were not considered the norm.
So I would say same-sex relationships.
A push for gay marriage, Supreme Court, all of that.
And now suddenly we're standing in this place where even those who are in the gay and lesbian camp are in opposition to what is currently happening with the transgender explosion.
And so you're in this really odd time where you have unlikely allies on this sexual frontier.
And as a whole, we're seeing a culture that's trying to figure out, okay, we said for so long everything and anything was fine.
I don't think that's working.
And so you see these fights happening in anywhere from school boards, what kind of content is acceptable for our children to be reading, to policy, should children be allowed to have surgery and hormones on their bodies that'll forever change them?
And then of course the abortion fight is always and forever going to be there.
And so you have this frontier that feels really chaotic when it comes to sex.
And I'm sure we'll get into it later.
There's also, I feel like a whole reckoning in the church with the purity culture and what does it look like to be people who are righteous and pursuing God, but also loving and welcoming.
So the culture right now is just a hot mess when it comes to sex.
But to me, that's really exciting because that's an opportunity for us to stand in that place and offer answers, but in a way that again, invites into relationship versus repelling with our legalism.
And that's a hard place for the church to stand and we don't generally do that well.
Totally agreed.
You know, as I'm listening to you and I love that you just painted this picture for us, I love that you call it an opportunity.
It can look a little bit dire.
I'd love to know where your passion for knowing and investigating sexuality and like you talked about abortion, where the heck did that come from?
Because I don't hear many people still freely talk like you do.
Well, the irony is as a kid, I distinctly remember sitting on my bedroom floor, I was probably, gosh, 10 years old, and playing with Barbies and my mom's like, we should probably talk about sex.
And I shut that conversation down so fast.
I was like, uh, no, good, I'm good.
I learned everything I need to learn in school.
I went to a public school.
That should have terrified my mother.
Like legitimately, I'm like, how at that point did she not just sound the alarm with my father and be like, oh, we are in trouble.
Yeah, I know it all, mama.
As a kid, I had no interest.
It was so awkward.
Boys were awkward to me, I was friends with guys, but like, oh, let's not talk about anything else.
And so it is very fun to me that now this is where God has called me.
It just happened in high school.
God started to put in me just sort of this desire, like I wanna talk about abstinence.
Now, don't all of you just repel.
The big A word.
Yeah, everybody just had a freak attack and PTSD and I grew up solidly in the purity culture.
And I was one of those kids that I think, well, I had some dysfunctional views out of it.
God used it to protect me.
Now, we can talk about how I went to the other extreme, but in that moment, I could see like, yeah, you're right.
Sex isn't working when it's just freely given.
And so he just started to stir me a desire to see my generation have a better perspective on sex because I could tell this thing is destroying so many people.
You can have a terrible job.
You can have kind of a boring existence.
But if your relationships are going well, everything else is fine.
But if you're messing up your relationships, if your sex life is a disaster, it doesn't matter what kind of a job you have.
It doesn't matter how popular you are.
And you guys have talked about this on your other episodes.
It is heartbreaking because it is so intimate.
And so God has just, for me, put in a desire to see my generation, the ones behind me, to capture it the way God designed it to be so that it could be both freeing and fulfilling.
Whether you are single, whether you are married, whether, you know, whatever stage of life you're in, sexuality is a part of who we are.
And so I think that's where my passion comes from is to say, I don't want to see my generation and the ones behind me being chewed up and spit out.
Sometimes it comes from anger.
I watch what's happening.
I think you're lying to people.
You are flat out lying to these young people.
And so that's where I just wanna keep saying, hey, there's a better way.
And it's not one that leaves you broken in body, soul and mind.
Holy cow, if you can't tell this woman has passion.
Yeah.
And I have my sexy voice today, cause I have a cold.
Could you imagine if I had all guns blazing, friends?
Well, we're gonna break in just a minute, but before we do, let me just ask you a quick question.
Because of this passion that you have for God's design for sex, do you believe that purity is actually possible?
Yes.
All right.
We're gonna just leave you easy.
Hell no.
With that, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll come right back with Joann Hyatt.
Thanks for joining us today.
Life Renovation is sponsored by Life Services Spokane in Spokane, Washington, the Christ-centered organization offering professional medical care, truth and support to anyone impacted by unplanned pregnancy, helping them to choose life and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Life Services Spokane has been bringing hope to life since 1991.
Find out more at lifesservices.org.
That's lifesservices.org.
We're back on Life Renovation Podcast here with Joann Hyatt.
And before we broke Joanna, you mentioned purity culture.
Do you think it worked?
I think y'all missed that part.
It was in the commercial.
Do I think purity culture worked?
It depends how you define success.
If you define kids who chose to wait until marriage to have sex, yeah.
If you define success as kids building and sustaining a healthy perspective about sexuality that serves them in singleness and marriage, no.
I do not think purity culture worked.
And I grew up thick of it.
Every February, we had a purity talk.
Every camp, there was a message.
I had a purity ring.
And I got married as a virgin.
And I know that people listening, you could be one of two camps, right?
You also got married as a virgin.
Or you got really close, or you had sex.
And purity culture kind of puts you in two camps.
You either didn't have sex, but you maybe like me came to just totally shut that portion down because it was just easy.
Like, oh, this thing is bad.
Great, done.
Sexuality off, interest off.
The problem is one day when you get married, you suddenly have to have sex.
You get to have sex actually.
And trying to switch 10 plus years of this is bad, this is bad, this is bad to this is good in a moment is impossible.
And so if you were one of those people, you know that there is then a lot to work through in your marriage.
And beauty culture did not prepare us for after I do.
It just was like, don't have sex.
You're like, okay, but now I'm married, now what?
We don't know, good luck.
It's rainbows and unicorns though.
It's supposed to be wonderful, enjoy it.
But it was really bad five seconds ago.
Or you were the other side, you had sex or you maybe didn't have full sex, you crossed the line, whatever it was.
And you felt like with impurity culture, well, then I'm damaged goods.
I mean, oh, the amount of analogies of like, you are a flower and the petals have, I hated those, foil that can never be smooth.
Yeah, glue, paper.
And I've used the glue paper one on the oxytocin brain thing.
And thankfully we serve a God of grace.
But unfortunately it then left you feeling, oh, then I guess I'm already messed up, so I might as well keep going.
And that's not helpful.
I've heard that so many times, Joanna.
I think somehow we got lost in the church when we talked about grace, that grace could cover everything but our sexual sins.
As though that was too much.
Jesus got really uncomfortable when you went and did that.
So his sacrifice on the cross did not pay for it.
No, it covered all of it and still covers it.
It covers the porn addiction.
It covers the unhealthy views about sexuality that have created distance in your marriage.
And so purity culture to me, I understand what they were trying to do, but it didn't work.
And unfortunately, we have an entire generation living that out.
And some have taken that and said, then I reject the whole thing.
Like I followed the rules.
Elizabeth, I listened to your episode.
And if you haven't yet go back and listen to hers.
It's like you did all the things right.
And still it did not go as you expected.
And I think we had this misunderstanding.
If I follow these things, I will get this outcome.
And that's not true.
And so we didn't actually equip our people to say, okay, what does it look like to embrace my sexuality as a single person?
Which means that there are constraints to it.
Because I believe that purity benefits my mind, my body and my soul.
I believe that when God has put parameters around it, it's not as a means of limiting, it's actually as a means of freedom.
But then, one day, if I get married, there will still be parameters around my sexuality.
Turns out, you're still not limited to one.
You didn't get married to the entire planet.
And so if you think of it as an only this or only, it messes you up versus my sexuality, our sexuality is a part of who we are.
It is not the most important part, but it is a part of who we are.
And so our whole life will be about learning how to live that out in a way that is God honoring, that is life giving to ourselves and to the people around us.
And I do think we, again, have an opportunity to say, okay, this didn't work over here.
Not all of it was bad, but we want to raise our kids.
We want to speak to our friends.
We want to do our relationships a little bit differently based on what we learned having lived through that.
Yeah, now you have the millennials that grew up in purity culture are now becoming parents.
And like, okay, well, I don't want to do that.
What do I do?
How do I translate this so that I'm not doing the same thing to my kids?
That's a whole other conversation.
I'll come back.
How do we talk to our kids about sex?
Yeah, so we've talked about purity culture.
We've talked about sex, but can we talk about the other issues that revolve around sex like porn, abortion, trafficking?
How do those influence the cultural narrative regarding sexuality as they all come together?
Absolutely.
So if you view sexuality as a piece of you that has to be fulfilled in a certain way, then things like pornography and abortion, even trafficking, sleeping around, all of those things make sense.
It's all about how you view what is the role and importance of sexuality.
So for instance, if you know, hey, I have to drink water, right?
I'm gonna die.
You will figure out how to get water.
That is a necessity.
You will die.
No one has ever died not having sex.
Like I know maybe a teen boy made you think that he was going to die if he did not have sex, but that is a misunderstanding in cultures that sexuality as expressed in sexual activity is as important to our wellbeing as eating and drinking water.
And so if that's the view, like this is a necessity, then of course you're going to need pornography because if somebody's not available for you, then you're gonna have to deal with that.
And of course, when you've separated then sexuality from its intended roles of unifying a man and a woman, of possibly procreation, abortion is actually just an answer to the end of the conveyor belt.
Abortion is just saying, oh man, this is still not working for us, so we're just gonna solve this again for you because sexuality is a need you have to meet and this pregnancy is getting in the way of that.
If that is your narrative, all of those things in there are meant to serve the self.
And so the problem even in the church is that we have this emphasis on purity as you can see on the outside.
And so behind closed doors, any number of things can be happening.
And great, I may not be having sex and you're gonna never see me get pregnant, but I've got a massive porn addiction because I don't know how to take these very normal desires and interests and live them out in a culture that is super sex saturated.
If you're a woman, I mean, we are growing up in a pornified culture.
So ladies trying to be in relationship with people, if they're expecting sex, their perspective of sex is probably in some way being built by pornography, which is affecting the way we then engage in sexual activity and the expectations.
Even the things we dress in, I mean, you probably don't think that, but porn has gotten into so many areas.
It's become almost an expected like, oh yeah, that's just a part of life.
We're gonna see a little bit of this, a little bit of that, it doesn't bother us.
So we live in this pornified culture that basically has sort of assumed porn is good and healthy, and what it's not telling anybody is actually, porn's incredibly damaging.
Porn, of course, we know objectifies.
It reduces an individual to the one basic thing, what they're doing in that moment as it relates to sex, and how it fulfills you, it dehumanizes.
You are no longer looking at that person on the screen thinking, that is a child of God.
That person is a woman who has a father, who has a brother, who has a sister.
We can't think about that, because then it would really kind of mess with that moment.
And we've gotten so accustomed to, I mean, you have accounts on Instagram, like OnlyFans, where it's guys thinking they have a relationship with this gal, but you've still paid for her to take her clothes off.
And somehow we're thinking this is more empowering because now she's directly getting paid for it.
She's still being limited and reduced to one piece of her.
You don't care what her opinions are on anything.
You're not discerning whether or not she might make a good mother.
You don't even want to know if maybe she has some kids that she's trying to support.
And so when we're telling people, especially I think in the church, like, well, just don't have sex and don't get pregnant, it all becomes about how do I keep up that image and that perception?
And abortion's part of that, right?
If you find yourself getting pregnant, oh no, then everyone's gonna know I had sex.
So I'll go get an abortion and we'll just keep that under wraps.
I mean, we all have stories about how churches have handled that well and not handled that well.
And what we miss and what the world misses is they look at the Christian perspective on sex and they don't see God's heart on it.
And God's heart is that he actually desires for us to walk in freedom.
And his freedom, we often hear about it growing up is, wait, what are your boundaries?
Boundaries give you freedom.
And I was like, that's like a straight jaguar.
Nobody ever got excited about, ooh, my boundaries.
And so I've tried to shift it when I talk to people about what are your guard rails?
Because we all get that when you're driving down a canyon road and there's a guard rail on the side, no one's like, oh man, I'd have so much more fun if that was if I went over.
Yeah, you're like, if I could just be free.
Be right over there.
Yeah, you know, that tells me at that point, I fall off a cliff.
And that's what God is speaking to us in scripture.
He's saying, these are the points where you fall off a cliff and I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt.
Now, the amount of risk will vary.
Sometimes it's a little bit, sometimes it's a lot, but we miss that.
And the world says, freedom is in expressing every desire that you have, but actually it turns us into prisoners.
So good, Joanna.
What I'm hearing, if I could kind of summarize, is that our world is really centralized, our sexuality.
Like everything that we are, who we are, how we express ourselves, all has to do with our sexuality, rather than viewing this as a beautiful gift, first and foremost, that God gave us, or reviewing this in a relational capacity.
And God gave us this gift of sex.
One of the biggest purposes was creating this intimate knowledge of another person, really feeding into the relationship with our spouse.
And that's a picture of the intimacy that He wants to have with us.
And so from the relational aspect, we've taken the relationship piece out of sexuality.
And yet we've kept it central to so much of who we think we are and how we operate.
And it gets twisted so fast.
Well, the prevailing identities right now are all about your sexuality.
It's interesting, right?
Because the identity is, how am I relating to other people, and yet sexuality is not meant to be about connecting with other people.
And yet it's all driven about who are you attracted to, who are you having sex with, what is your role in that relationship?
And it's giving an entire generation such a shallow, and it's always been that, but such a shallow perspective on sex.
Like you are multifaceted.
When I say at the beginning of the episode, I am a woman, that tells you one thing about me.
But how I live out that expression of being a woman is different from the other women sitting in this room.
And yet they all interrelate to define what is a woman.
And it's pretty incredible.
But we have a whole generation growing up without any definitions, trying to also create these identities that are massive.
And the implications for some of them are irreversible.
And it's heartbreaking.
And you want to say, Oh, God actually has called you into a better way.
And whether or not you get to ever have sex is actually not the whole point of all of this.
It's how to live out masculinity and femininity with our sexuality interwoven.
But your greatest identity is whether or not you are a child of God.
Thanks for joining us today.
It can be hard in our culture to know what you believe about life and abortion, where to go if you were to face this choice, or even how to talk about it.
But at Life Services Spokane, you don't have to walk these paths alone.
Our Unexamined Life Workshop is designed to help you navigate conversations around life, choice, and abortion that are all respectful and accurate, equipping you to know what you believe and why.
To find our next free Unexamined Life Workshop, visit lifesservices.org.
That's lifesservices.org.
And we're back with the Life Renovation Podcast and our guest, Joann Hyatt.
We've been talking about the state of sexuality, this culture around sexuality, and it's a bit of a dark picture.
Joanna, can you give us a picture of what the Bible says about sex and bring us up a little bit?
Let's do this in two minutes.
You ready?
Two minutes, boom.
Because purity culture ruined it, world has ruined it, but it's time for Christians to have a new position on sex, not in sex, you can think about that.
Okay, so in the beginning, you have Genesis.
God creates the male and female.
He intentionally creates them to compliment one another.
One is not better than the other, but they serve different purposes.
And God was not awkward with the fact that he created them to enjoy sex.
He gave Eve to Adam.
Had he not wanted sex to be pleasurable, he could have had you like stick your elbow in someone's armpit and boom, baby.
But he didn't do that.
He did not do that.
And we could get into a whole episode on how the female body is created for sexual pleasure.
Wow, amazing, right?
So Genesis, you see God creating this thing that is good, but of course, sin infects everything and it gets twisted and all messed up.
And so you move through the Old Testament and you see, man, sex misused over and over and over again.
The people of Israel do it, they're immersed in cultures that do it.
Daniel growing up in the Babylonian culture, that was a sex excessive culture.
Do not think that the Israelites were somehow set apart.
If you think our culture was bad, go look at Babylon.
And yet Daniel is in that culture, living out a radically different way of life.
Talk about purity being possible when the world around you is a hot mess.
You look at Song of Solomon and you see the Shulamite woman dancing for her husband.
She is taking delight and he is taking delight in her body and the sexual expression of that union.
Now Song of Solomon, nobody likes to preach on that because it's incredibly awkward, because it is so overtly sexual.
That is a husband and wife, which tells us this is a good thing that God created, but there's a context for it.
And you keep fast forwarding into the New Testament and you have Paul talking very clearly about the parameters of sexuality.
He says, look, any other sin that a person commits is outside of the body.
But the one of, he calls, the word uses pornea, but sexual immorality is one that is committed against the body.
And that's a whole conversation on why does sex affect us on such an intimate soul level when some other things might not.
Sin does affect us, but there's something unique about sex that is so intimate and so personal that Paul makes a point to call this out and say, this thing here, man, you better be careful with it.
But also he says, don't withhold sex, right?
Don't be using this to bludgeon your spouse.
This is a good thing.
If you're not gonna be having sex, you should be praying.
He's encouraging husbands and wives to have sex in a way that is mutually respectful and delightful and enjoyable for both people.
And so when I take the whole of scripture, I see a God who said, I gave you this as a gift, but every gift in order for it to be thoroughly and properly enjoyed is not going to be given to everybody.
And it is not gonna be used for any possible way.
There are still guard rails to that in order for it to flourish as I intended it to be.
And so if you're wrestling with, okay, what does God actually want me to think about this?
I have these conflicting views.
Go back to scripture, read the whole of it, look at all of it and ask the Holy Spirit to give you a right perspective that will work in whatever season you're in and into the next one.
The Holy Spirit absolutely will come in and heal those places that are broken.
And He wants to call you not into sexual freedom as the world defines it, but really freedom as God shows us over and over again in scripture.
I just want to challenge you right now to kind of pause this podcast, rewind just a little bit and go back and actually look at the scripture of references that Joanna was just giving you because that's a really powerful picture for why God created sex, some of the purposes behind it and beautiful expressions of sex that you can find in scripture.
Well, Joanna, I know we need to wrap up our time with you a little bit.
Would love to just have any encouragement that you could give us for how do we talk about sex, especially in Christian circles.
Have you seen it done well in the church?
There I go asking two questions and one again.
But I know you can handle this.
And maybe I'll just answer a third that you didn't mention.
That'll just be my answer.
You know, here's the thing.
It's like, how do we not make this political?
How do we not make this controversial?
It's going to be controversial for some.
It just is.
And you can say it in the most loving, kind way, and it will hit because there is something about sex that's deeply personal in our sexuality.
So to a certain extent, you have to understand that anything less than a wholehearted endorsement of the world's current stance on sex, anything less than that, is going to be seen as judgmental by some.
And that is just part of us being people of the cross in a world that actually hates what the cross is about.
So know that if you're trying to not offend anyone, you're going to end up compromising on Scripture, is what will happen.
So Christ told us they hated him.
How much more will they hate us?
You're like, oh, no one told me that.
They didn't tell me about purity culture.
They didn't tell me that when I signed up to be a follower of Christ, I could get just destroyed.
And Jesus says, yes, it'll be wonderful because I'll be there with you.
So you could offend, but how could we still in that space talking away?
And of course, let's take Jesus for his example, right?
He never minced words, but his harshest words were for the people already in the church.
They weren't actually for the people outside trying to figure it out.
His harshest critique was for the people who were meant to be shepherding and they were blowing it, right?
And so then he came alongside and we see this time and again, this story is used, the woman caught in adultery, right?
And he tells her like, is anyone here to accuse you?
No, go and send them more.
And that I think is our approach, right?
We're not coming in guns blazing when we have a conversation with someone of like, let me tell you all the ways you're doing this wrong.
I find the most effective method is to ask questions.
Ask the questions that help them start thinking about, is this working for me?
Do I like this?
Am I where I actually wanna be?
Am I happy?
No, I'm not.
I'm actually not happy.
Okay, because all of us have these things, these emotions under the surface.
We just don't often pause to think about it.
And so our questions can help somebody have that moment of introspection and draw that out.
But then also when you're asked, like Paul says, be ready to give an answer.
Be ready to one, give an answer for the hope that you have.
How are you choosing to walk this thing of purity and you actually seem happy?
Well, let me tell you about what that looks like, but let me also be honest about where it's complicated and confusing.
And let me point to scripture to say that God loves you and God wants what's good for you.
And if what you're choosing isn't doing that, maybe consider a different route.
And I've worked for organizations and there's different approaches, right?
I worked for an organization called Live Action and they have more of a straightforward in your face, this is what abortion is.
This is how sexuality has messed things up.
And there is a place for that in the sense that we always have to be reminded of the truth.
And sometimes the truth is really uncomfortable.
The civil rights era came about because we were reminded of the uncomfortable truth of what was happening in the South and we needed that.
Hiding the treatment of our brothers and sisters who were trying to vote, who were trying to live, blacks, that was not a good move.
We needed to see it however uncomfortable it made us, however political it felt.
So there is a place in knowing this is what abortion is.
This is what it looks like.
If you allow a child to have transgender surgeries, these are conversations that have to happen.
But now I work for an organization called Life on Bel-A and their mission is making pathways from brokenness to the father's heart.
Two sides of the same issue, but saying, okay, we actually see these moments of brokenness as sacred opportunities to enter into relationship with you and ultimately point you to Christ.
And I think in all of our conversations to ask ourselves, right now, am I trying to win a point?
Am I trying to change a heart or simply just offer a different perspective?
And it will change the way you converse.
If you're trying to win a political point, you talk one way.
If you're trying to hit them with the truth because you think that's going to change their heart, you're going to talk a different way.
And if you're trying to just walk alongside them, then it'll be a third way.
And God will give you that discernment of what that looks like.
But if you come from humility, remember that all of us are a work in progress and that the Holy Spirit is working on all of us to improve our understanding and better live out our sexual ethic, then we'll hold grace for the people we're talking to and He'll tell us, do you need to come on strong?
And do you need to ask a question?
Or do you just need to sit with them for that time when they're ready to talk?
Winning the person, not winning the argument.
And that's what I hear you saying, Joanna.
Thank you, Glendie.
Well, we have so enjoyed having you.
If people want to hear more from you, Joanna, where do they find you?
They'll find me in my kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
No, you can find me online, joannahyatt.com or on Instagram at Joanna Hyatt, whenever I'm not, you know, boycotting social media, because that happens a lot.
Yeah, I'm stupidly easy to find.
Yeah.
We covered a lot in this episode, and we're going to be breaking down purity culture and some of these other topics in full episodes after this.
So if this brought up a lot for you, we're here for it.
We're going to stick with you through it, and we're going to talk about it, so it's okay.
But for today, Joann Hyatt, she's joined us to talk about the state of sexuality.
And after this, Glendie and I are going to start debriefing what this conversation was, give you some practical tips to how you can use this in your own life.
So thanks for joining us today.
See you, bye.
Bye.