Episode 109: Megan DeFranza - The Bible and Intersex Believers (REISSUE)
In this episode of The Bible for Normal People Podcast, Pete and Jared revisit their discussion with Megan DeFranza about what it means to be intersex, what the Bible has to say about gender, and how we can responsibly shape our theology in ways that include everyone as they explore the following questions:
- What is intersex?
- What’s the difference between being intersex and transgender?
- How has the church thought differently about sex and gender throughout history?
- What got Megan DeFranza interested in gender and sex difference?
- What does Augustine’s City of God have to say about intersex folks?
- What does Jesus have to say about sex difference and gender?
- Why is it important to look at the whole Bible (not just Genesis) to develop our ideas about sex and gender?
- What does the Bible say about people who do not fit into the sex or gender binary?
- What do ancient rabbis have to say about gender?
- How does the Bible continually push for inclusion?
- What sort of things has Megan DeFranza seen people in the church afraid of when it comes to sex difference?
- What do eunuchs tell us about the understanding of gender and sex difference in biblical times?
- What is faithful improvisation?
Tweetables
Pithy, shareable, less-than-280-character statements from Megan DeFranza you can share.
- "It doesn’t say, 'God made male and female and anything else is a result of the fall' and yet that’s a very quick theological move that many Christians make.” @MKDeFranza
- “We’re not called to be first century Christians in Rome, or in Corinth, or in Ephesus; we’re called to be twenty-first century Christians living where we live.” @MKDeFranza
- “I think we’re afraid of being outsiders ourselves.” @MKDeFranza
- “You don’t get to have solidarity with the marginalized and popularity with the powerful. It doesn’t work like that.” @MKDeFranza
- “If we’re not already having these conversations in our churches you will be next year or the year after that.” @MKDeFranza
- “We’re so afraid of doing something wrong that often times we do nothing.” @MKDeFranza
- “We have to do our biblical study and our thinking theologically about what it means to be human and what it means to be a faithful Christian in a way that includes everyone in the community.” @MKDeFranza
Mentioned in This Episode
- Book: Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God
- Book: City of God
- Book: The New Testament and the People of God
- Website: Megan DeFranza
- Website: Intersex and Faith
- Patreon: The Bible for Normal People
[bg_collapse view="link-inline" expand_text="Read the transcript" collapse_text="Hide the transcript" ]
00:00
Pete: You’relistening to the Bible for Normal People, the only God-ordained podcast on theinternet. Serious talk about the sacredbook. I’m Pete Enns.
Jared: And I’m JaredByas. Welcome, everyone, to this episodeof the Bible for Normal People.
Before we jump in, just want to remind you that we have acampaign going on. We’re trying to shootfor 1,611 patrons. One, we want to keepthe podcast ad-free, but two, we want to be able to transcribe this podcastjust so that people can have more access, people who need access and alsopeople who just want that access.
We’ve had that request over and over. We want to be able to provide that, not onlyinto the future and all future episodes, but we want to go back into thearchive and transcribe all of those episodes as well.
If you feel so inclined, head topatreon.com/thebiblefornormalpeople.
Speaking of archives, today, you’re in for a treat. We’re looking back at Season One with MeganDeFranza, the Bible and Intersex Believers. This is one of my favorite episodes from Season One and frankly, one ofthe favorite episodes that we’ve done. Alot of appreciation for Megan’s insights. I hope you enjoy this.
The Bible and Intersex Believers.
[Jaunty Intro Music]
Pete: Hello everybody! Welcome to the Bible for Normal Peoplepodcast. Our topic today is the Bibleand Intersex Believers and our guest is Megan DeFranza. She is a theologian and she’s currentlyserving as a visiting researcher at Boston University School of Theology. That’s pretty impressive, folks. Don’t know if I have to tell you that, but itis.
She’s written a wonderful book to sex difference in Christian theology. This topic, the Bible and Intersex Believers,what does that even mean? Megan’s gonnahelp us understand that. I know I canspeak for myself and for Jared a little bit. I’m 56 years old. When I was inhigh school, this wasn’t even on the radar.
Last year, this wasn’t on my radar screen. It wasn’t until Megan came to speak atEastern University where I teach, where she’s talking and I was like, “Oh. I didn’t know any of this. It’s really interesting. It affects people’s lives in ways that Ican’t even imagine.”
Jared: After shespoke at Eastern, Pete was telling me about it over dinner and I had to talkwith her. I got on the phone right afterthat and said, “What is this that you’re doing [laughter]? I don’t understand.” It is just very fascinating, so I was justreally excited to have her on the podcast and just explain it, even for me tobetter understand.
Pete: Right. It’s one of these issues that is all aroundus in the sense that it can be somewhat unsettling and uncomfortable and evendivisive among people because you have to engage the Bible at some point. That’s exactly what Megan does. All she does is engage the Bible and thehistory of the interpretation of the Bible and theology and all those—
Jared: The ancientchurch.
Pete: —the ancient church and ancient readings of biblicaltext to show a rather surprising story that intersex is not a new issue. People have been thinking about that andcommenting on it for a long time.
For us, today, people like me and Jared, for who it’s new,where we’ve been, we were never taught this in seminary. I never really thought through it and neverhad to, because it wasn’t brought to my attention.
This is an issue, like other issues (for example, genderequality or same-sex marriage), it’s so potentially volatile, it actuallyforces you to go back and re-examine your own thinking, your own theology andthe biblical text. You actually can’tget around that once you start listening to people who actually know the topic,how much there is in the Bible that can help us think through some of thesekinds of issues that sometimes lay buried or sidelined, because it’s not wherewe are.
We come at the Bible with our questions alreadypremade. What these issues do is theyforce us to ask different kinds of questions we would never have thought up onour own.
Jared: And unearthsour assumptions. I appreciate how whenyou look at the Bible through a particular lens, it helps you understand thatyou’ve been making assumptions all along that you didn’t even know.
Pete: Right. Right.
Jared: Good. Let’s have this conversation with Megan.
[Jaunty Music]
Megan: We’ve done ourtheological reflection. We’ve done ourbiblical study, only thinking about these idealized versions of male andfemale. That’s not good enough. We have to do our biblical study and ourthinking theologically about what it means to be human and what it means to bea faithful Christian in a way that includes everyone in the community.
We haven’t done that yet. Let’s start a new conversation.
5:01
Jared: Welcome to thepodcast, Megan. It’s very nice to haveyou.
Megan: Thanks so muchfor having me.
Jared: The topictoday is the Bible and the Intersex Believer. This term, neither Pete nor I had ever really come into contact withthat term before we met you, Megan, last year or a few years ago.
Bring us up to speed on what it is we’re talking about—
Pete: If we don’tknow what it is, nobody knows about this—
Jared: Clearly. Clearly—
Pete: That’s the wayI look at it. Enlighten us all—
Megan: That’s reallycommon. The reason it’s new is becauseit’s a fairly new term for a very old phenomenon. Intersex is just a broad umbrella term thattalk about bodies that don’t fit the medical definitions of male andfemale. There’s a mix of male and femalecharacteristics in the same body and that can happen in a lot of differentways.
Jared: What would besome common things, just concrete examples of—
Megan: Sure.
Jared: —where thisterm might be appropriate for people?
Megan: Yeah. One of the most common kinds of intersex issomething called androgen insensitivity. You have a baby that’s born with XY chromosomes, which is your typicalmale pattern and they make the gonads, which are neutral in the first few weeksof gestation, go and become testes and starts secreting the typical level ofmale hormones.
But, at the cellular level, the cells can’t process thosemale hormones. The body defaults tofemale. On the inside, it looks likemale anatomy and on the outside, it looks like female anatomy. That’s a fairly common kind of intersex.
You can also have the opposite with XX chromosomes andovaries, with extra production, or higher-than-typical production of androgensthat can make a female body look more masculine or anywhere in-between. Something called congenital adrenalhyperplasia. All these fancy medical terms,which is why we use the generic “intersex” most of the time.
Pete: Thank you. [laughter] Yeah.
That’s very helpful to distinguish intersex from other termsthat float around like—
Megan: Yup.
Pete: —the alphabetsoup. Right?
Megan: Mm-hmm.
Pete: This issomething that is a new term that people are maybe beginning to see and maybecome to terms with, for the sake of a population that probably feels, I wouldimagine, rather isolated and misunderstood.
Megan: An older termwould be hermaphrodite or androgyne. Butthose are mythological creatures that have full sets of male and femaleanatomy, which is humanly impossible, which is one of the reasons we’ve movedaway from that language towards stuff that’s more precise, to the particularvariations of individual people.
Pete: You’ve writtena wonderful and tremendously scholarly and well-researched book, Sex Difference in Christian Theology,and you have a website that is just very informative. It’s a wonderful thing to visit if people—ifyou want to know anything, folks, that’s where you go.
To me, it raises a question of curiosity. What is it in your life that is driving youto be passionate and supportive of the intersex community?
Megan: I started thiswork because I grew up in a very conservative church, where being a woman witha mind was a problem. I started studyinggender and sex difference and biblical scholarship and history and all of that,to try and figure out how I could serve God and not sin, because I happened tohave a female body.
That led me to research, to talk about, that there are notjust male and female in the world, that there are all these intersex variationsas well.
It was hearing those stories, the stories of individuals, particularlyrecent medical history, where with our advanced technology, we here in theUnited States and Europe and elsewhere, have tried to fix intersex. Doctors come in to a baby that is born withambiguous genitalia. They’ll say, “Wecan figure this out.” They’ll do plasticsurgery on the genitals of a child to make them look more typically male and female.
These surgeries have lasting harm, pain for life, for manymany people. Hearing their stories ofphysical pain, of feeling unsafe to share their stories in their own faithcommunities, pastors saying, “Thanks for telling me, but please don’t tellanybody else,” really drove me to realize that my questions about gender and myfrustrations as a woman in the church were small in comparison with my intersexsiblings in Christ, who had all of these added complications.
It was really hearing their stories that led me to say,“We’ve got to do something about this.”
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Jared: As we get intothe topic, it’s just interesting to me the contrast that some of our listenerswill have where you’re using lots of medical terms and you’re talking about thetechnology and the science of a lot of things here.
How does that connect with the Bible for Normal People? Say more about how your story coincides asyou became aware of all of this within the church community. When did you start thinking about how theBible fits into all this?
Megan: For me, theBible was the place I started. Readingscriptures about women’s place in the church led me to go back and look athistory and realize that in Christian history, we’ve thought about genderdifferences very differently over the last 2,000 years, since the birth ofChrist.
Getting into that history, the history of biblicalinterpretation, really was the thing that moved me to say, “Wait a minute. If we’ve thought about this differently inthe past, that gives us opportunity to think differently and maybe in freshways in the present about differences that, actually, the ancient church wasquite familiar with, but we’ve lost that language and knowledge, even thoughour science is more sophisticated.”
Pete: Can you give anexample or two? I can imagine peoplelistening, saying, “What are you talking about [laughter]—
Megan: Sure.
Pete: —we’re justhaving this conversation about gender and we thought what we think today iswhat people have always thought,” which is a typical response, “what I think iswhat the church has always thought.”
You’re saying it’s more diverse and very early on—
Megan: St. Augustine,in the City of God, talks abouthermaphrodites. He says, “As for hermaphrodites,also called androgynes, they’re certain very rare, but every culture has peoplethat they don’t know how to classify as male or female. In our culture, we call them by the bettersex. We call them men.”
Pete: Hmm.
Megan: Here’s Augustinesaying, “Oh yeah. Everybody knows abouthermaphrodites. We assign them on themasculine side.” In the ancient world inRome and Greece, there were laws for men and laws for women and laws forhermaphrodites and laws for other categories of people that we’ll talk about aswe continue here.
Pete: With Augustine,for example, he lived around when?
Megan: He lives inthe third, fourth century in the Christian Era.
Pete: That’s a longtime ago, right—
Megan: It is.
Pete: Was there atone of judgment in reading Augustine about what we call intersex or was hejust matter-of-fact about it?
Megan: In thatpassage, he’s very matter-of-fact, actually—
Pete: Okay.
Megan: —just statinga fact that everyone’s aware of.
Pete: Not freakedabout it.
Megan: Not freakedout. He’s much more concerned aboutcastrated eunuchs and their place and pagan religious cults. He speaks very harshly of them. But he’s very matter-of-fact and fairlyneutral when it comes to hermaphrodites—
Jared: You say “neutral.” It’s interesting to me—what I heard you sayand maybe I misheard—“we have this category of people and we as a communityassign them to the male side of things.” Actually, it seems like there’s some social consequences to that. It would be a more of a place of privilege atthat point.
Megan: Right. Forhermaphrodites, Augustine is giving them the male privilege, whereas, it’sinteresting—castrated men, men who had their testes or crushed or cut off orbirth and who developed differently or who maybe did that later on in life, hesays of them, that they are “no longer men,” even though they were born whole.
Pete: That’sconfusing.
Megan: Yeah. Sure is. [laughter]
Pete: Just to fillthings out for the benefit of people listening, can you point to something elsethat might be instructive for us, another example or two from this ancientchurch period or from other cultures, perhaps?
Megan: Certainly, inthe Jewish culture, there was a recognition of more than male or female. The ancient rabbis came up with fouradditional categories between male and female.
One was a naturally-born eunuch, which they classified moreon the masculine side, but not all the way over to the male.
They have another term, called the ilonite (SP?), which wastoward the feminine side, but not always to the edge.
They also used the term androgenos for someone whose rightin the middle. They didn’t know how toclassify them one way or the other.
They had a fourth term, which was really something theysaid, “We’re not sure what we’re dealing with now, but we’re pretty sure theirsex will become clear over time.”
They developed laws and rituals, religious laws to governthese various persons and would debate those throughout the centuries.
15:00
Jared: Tying it tothe Bible itself; we have the ancient church and we have this Jewish tradition,where Augustine and the rabbis recognized different categories, often theargument or the conversation when it comes to the Bible goes back to Genesis.
Megan: Right.
Jared: It is “Godcreated them male and female.”
Megan: Right.
Jared: How does thatsquare with this conversation?
Megan: That’s wherewe all start, right? This is where it’simportant to recognize that the Bible’s a big book and that Genesis is not thewhole of the story.
Certainly, we have the beginning. God creates them male and female in God’simage and blesses them that way. Butdoes that mean that’s all God created or all God intended?
Now that we have this other language that I just mentionedfrom the ancient rabbis, we can look for other language in Scripture and that’swhat I was so delighted to find in my research is actually none other thanJesus speaks about intersex people with one of these categories that the rabbismention in Matthew Chapter 19, verse 12, where he’s being asked about whetheror not, you can divorce your wife if she burns the toast.
He’s being asked to weigh in on this ancient debate abouthow bad does the infraction have to be for you to divorce your wife.
Jesus quotes Genesis 1. He says, “Don’t you remember God made them male and female.” He quotes Genesis 2, “For this reason, a manshall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shallbecome one flesh.”
Then his disciples say, “Well, if we can’t get out ofmarriage, maybe we shouldn’t get into it, since our parents are typicallychoosing a spouse for us.”
Jesus says, “No. No. No. You’re not understanding what I’msaying. There are those who’ve been eunuchsfrom birth. There are those who’ve beenmade eunuchs by others. There are thosewho make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”
I like to say, “Let anyone accept this who has any idea whatJesus is talking about.” [laughter]
The church has debated, “What does this mean? What did it mean to make oneself a eunuch forthe sake of the kingdom?”
We know a lot about the second category. That’s the castrated men that I justmentioned, very common slaves and very expensive slaves, luxury items, statussymbols and sometimes even sex slaves in the ancient world. Castrati were very very common. We know a lot about that.
This first category, the eunuch from birth, Jesus’ isdrawing on this ancient rabbinic of the eunuch, of the sun as it is in Hebrew,from the day the sun first shone upon the child, we knew this one is different.
Here’s Jesus, in the context of talking about divorce andcertainly affirming Genesis, he throws in these other categories and he doesn’tdo it with any criticism and he doesn’t say, “But God didn’t mean for it to bethis way.” He just lays it out there.
That pushed me to think, “How do we take Genesis and give itits place in the cannon at the beginning, but also recognize that we have tofind a way to read Genesis in a way that fits with these words of Jesus?” So how do we do that?
That’s what I was—
Pete: This is beyond,then, that all parts of the Bible are equally ultimate and we read verses andthey tell you what to think. You’reactually describing a dynamism in the Bible that we have to take all this intoaccount somehow and make, not to put words in your mouth, but to maketheological decisions on the basis of this grand conversation that’s happeningin the Bible. Is that a fair way ofputting it?
Megan: Thetheological decisions are how to interpret the description that God made maleand female. It doesn’t say, “God mademale and female and anything else is a result of the fall.” Yet, that’s a very quick theological movethat many Christians make. “If there’snot male and female, then anything else must be a result of sin.”
Jesus doesn’t do that in Matthew Chapter 19. The text doesn’t tell us that. That’s a theological reading we’re bringingto the passage. Does it say that?
I asked, “Are there ways that we can read Genesis that makeit fit with the words of Jesus and with the larger canon all together?” I think that there are ways that we can. We could read Adam and Eve as the parents atthe beginning of the story, rather than the pattern for all people.
Megan: We could readthem as the statistical majority. Mostpeople are clearly male or clearly female. But just because they are the statistical majority doesn’t mean they arethe exclusive model or the only way that God allows humans to be born.
20:14
Megan: When we look at other parts ofGenesis 1, we recognize that there are all sorts of things that aren’t named inthe creation account. There are threedifferent types of animals. There arethe “fish of the sea, the birds of the air and the creatures that crawl uponthe earth.”
These are the three categories of animals that Godcreates. But we all know that there arecreatures that don’t fit into those categories. Penguins are birds that don’t fly. There are other things in the sea other than fish. There are things that crawl, but they live inthe water. There are amphibians that areboth water and land animals.
But I’ve never heard an Old Testament scholar like yourself,Pete, say, “Hey look. Frogs. They’re proof of the fall,” [laughter] because they don’t fit into thethree categories of creatures—
Pete: Hey. That’s my next blog post. That’s my next blog post. [unintelligible]—
Megan: You’rewelcome.
Pete: What you’resaying is exactly right. I think theresponse would be, “In the Old Testament, in the Pentateuch, when you haveclean and unclean animals, some of these in-between things, “You don’t eatlobster.” They’re sea animals, but theyalso have legs. They don’t fit. They’re unclean. You don’t eat them.
This is something I can imagine people, as sort of acounterpoint to what you’re saying, to draw on that. How might you navigate that particular issue?
Megan: The canongives us the way to do that too. Even ifwe see them as outsiders. Lobsters areoutsiders. Bees are outsiders. Frogs are outsiders. Maybe this other category of people who don’tfit into male and female. Certainly, inthe Old Testament, we have, laws for men and laws for women and it doesn’tleave a lot of place for anyone who doesn’t fit those categories.
But fast-forward up to the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 56, hetalks about two categories of outsiders, one being the eunuch and the otherbeing foreigners, Gentiles. They’re complaining,“Hey God, it’s not all that easy to be a eunuch or a Gentile and live inancient Israel. The system isn’t set upfor us.”
God says, through the prophet Isaiah to them, in Isaiah 56,“Don’t let the eunuchs complain that I’m only a dry tree. For to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath andobey me,” and there’s a long list of things, “I will give to them within myhouse a name, an everlasting name that’s better than sons and daughters, a namethat will not be cutoff.”
Then he speaks to the foreigners and says that they’reofferings will be accepted on his altar for “my house will be a house of prayerfor all the peoples, “ (Isaiah 56:8), which we’re much more familiar with. That’s in the context of God folding inoutsiders, who didn’t fit in earlier chapters of the story.
But God is saying, “Don’t worry. I’m going to give you a place.” He doesn’t say to the eunuch, “I’m going toheal you and make you into the categories I intended, either male and female.” He says, “I’m going to give you somethingbetter than sons and daughters. I’mgoing to bless you in a way that a Jewish man or a Jewish woman could everimagine being blessed. I’m going to giveyou an everlasting name.”
Pete: No talk abouteunuchs being a product of the fall any more than foreigners would be—
Megan: Right.
Pete: —a product ofthe fall. There’s nothing in Isaiah—I’mjust curious now because I haven’t studied this as closely as you have—butthere’s no indication there of how they came to be eunuchs.
Megan: Nope.
Pete: Okay.
Megan: That’s thechallenge is that intersex is this broad umbrella term for many differentbodily variations. This term eunuch was an umbrella term for many differentthings. Sometimes, it’s hard totell. Does this mean a castratedeunuch? Does this mean a naturaleunuch? Is this a position in the court? We have to do careful scholarship to see whatthey’re talking about. It’s notparticularly clear in Isaiah and yet,[MUSIC STARTS] there is this idea that however these people came to beeunuchs, God’s blessing them as they are, not requiring them to becomesomething they’re not and healing them into some creational category that wefind in Genesis Chapter One and Two.
24:50 (Producer’sGroup Endorsement)
25:53
Jared: That’s areally good point. One thing I’mthinking as you guys are talking about the categories and we keep coming backto the words and how that there’s different variations—I want to make sure thatwe’re being clear—how is intersex different than say transgender which is becomingmore and more a conversation, politically and otherwise? What’s the difference and where does that fitin this conversation?
Megan: Sure. Right now, the only difference betweenintersex and transgender people is that transgender people cannot point to amedical diagnosis. I know trans peoplewho have said, “I wish I were intersex, because then people wouldn’t think I’mcrazy.” They would be able to say, “Ohno. Some of their cells are XY. Some of their cells have just one X. No wonder they’re body is developingdifferently or their gender identity is developing differently.” They don’t have that luxury.
There are some intersex people whose experience is like thatof a trans person. I work with LeeAnnSimon, who’s a wonderful Christian woman and author and she has what I justdescribed. Some of her cells areXY. Some have just one X. Her gonads are part ovarian tissue, parttesticular tissue.
At puberty, she didn’t develop one way or the other andchose to, though she was identified as a boy at birth, it wasn’t a fit for her,as an adult, chose to identify as female and to live, to transition. Her experience is intersex, but it also couldbe understood as transgender. That’s notthe majority of intersex experiences.
Sometimes, these terms overlap and sometimes, theydon’t. We have to be [unintelligible]—
Jared: Where theydon’t, what I hear you saying is there’s not a chromosomal or biological thingthat you can pinpoint.
Megan: At this point,where our science is. It may be that asneuroscience advances, we will be able to pinpoint other things, but we can’tat this point.
Jared: Good. I think that’s an important piece of theconversation, that we don’t—
Megan: Sure.
Jared: [unintelligible]It’s kind of a Venn Diagram overlap.
Megan: Yup.
Pete: Megan, you’vethought so much about this. We’ve talkedabout Augustine a little bit and rabbis and Jesus’ own words. And Genesis and how that all fits intothis. And Isaiah. People still come back to Genesis. Because it’s first, it’s therefore determinativeof everything else.
Megan: Sure.
Pete: You don’t thinkthat. Help people walk through why it’sokay not to think that. It’s at thebeginning of the Bible.
Megan: Sure.
Pete: You get thiswrong, you get everything else wrong. Plus, it’s all good.
Megan: Right. Exactly. It is important and it does set the stage for the beginning of God’sgreat redemptive story. But it’s not thewhole of the story. I see its pride ofplace is as the opening chapters. But,at the end of the story, we find a vision of heaven in the book of Revelationwhere people are included in the worshipping community who don’t fit in thegarden.
Here I’m thinking of Revelation Chapter 7, where there’s agreat multitude worshipping before the Lamb from every tribe, and nation andlanguage, people group. If we thinkabout Genesis, we don’t have multiple tribes. We don’t have racial difference in the Garden of Eden. We don’t have different languages representedat the beginning. There are many ways inwhich this story that starts with these two ends up in full, moving throughAdam and Noah and Abraham and all the way through and then folding in theGentiles and folding in others.
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It’s a story that gets bigger and wider and God’s redemptivelove goes out. He blesses the Israelitesso that they could be a blessing to all the nations. It’s this narrow story through these few forthe benefit of all, which is why I think we see many things in the book ofRevelation that echo things in the Garden.
There are trees in the beginning and at the end. But they are not the same trees. It’s important that we don’t think that we’retrying to get back to the Garden of Eden. Yes. It has pride of place at thebeginning of God’s story. But it seemslike God’s story gets bigger and more complicated, but also more beautiful andmore welcoming than what it is in the first chapters.
Pete: It’s like theGarden reimagined at the end of the Bible—
Megan: Yeah. It is.
Pete: You’re notactually returning to the Garden. It’smetaphorical language anyway.
Megan: Right.
Pete: It’s somethingthat is meant to evoke those memories, but then also to go beyond that tosomething that—
Megan: It’s callednew, right? It’s called new creation—
Pete: It’s new. Right. Right.
Megan: It’s notparadise lost and regained, like we’re trying to get back. It’s a new—God is doing something new at theend of this grand story that is going to have some continuity with what camebefore and some differences.
Jared: I appreciate,Megan, what you said about the—you talk about Isaiah and as the story unfolds,it’s interesting that we may start with a garden, but this narrative ofinclusivity, of folding more and more people in, really starts just a fewchapters later with the start of Israel, with Abraham’s story.
Megan: Right.
Jared: Then, fromthere, we just start including more. Ijust appreciated the point about how Israel was then adopted to be ablessing. Through that, the blessing isthis inclusivity. It’s interesting, inthis conversation, that early on in the prophetic literature of Isaiah, thatthe eunuchs are included pretty early in on that conversation before even—
Megan: You knowwhat’s even more radical than that? Ifwe look at Acts Chapter 8, at the first foreigner whose baptized?
Pete: You took thewords right out of my mouth. Goahead. [laughter] Let’s talk about theEthiopian eunuch—
Megan: Yeah. Exactly. This is the Ethiopian who is a eunuch, who is the very fulfillment ofthe prophecy in Isaiah, that as the gospel is going out from Judea, throughSamaria to the utter ends of the earth, as Jesus said to His disciples at theend of the book of Matthew, and we see these significant baptisms in the bookof Acts. The first foreigner whosebaptized is an Ethiopian eunuch, whose made this many-hundred-mile trek toJerusalem to worship. Even though he’san outsider on many levels, he knows there’s only so close he can get toGod.
There’s the Holy of Holies. There’s the Court of Men. Outsideof that is the Court of Women. Outsideof that, is the Court of Gentiles. There’s only so close you can get to God as a Gentile and as aeunuch. He knows that, but he goesanyway.
As he’s reading the prophet, Isaiah, God sends Phillip tohim to interpret the Scriptures, to open them and to share with them the goodnews of Jesus. This Ethiopian eunuchsays to Phillip, “Look, here’s water. Isthere anything preventing me from being baptized?”
I have read that passage my whole life, but until I studiedthe place of eunuchs in the ancient world, I never understood the significanceof that question.
Pete: Right. Right.
Megan: Here he’sasking, “What’s my place gonna be if I follow this rabbi Jesus?
Pete: Right.
Megan: Am I gonna bea second-class citizen like I am as a non-Jewish believer?
Pete: Mm-hmm.
Megan: Is there aplace for me in this new community? I’mjust so frustrated that we don’t have the answer given to Acts. [laughter] We don’t know what Phillipsaid. But we know that one of themcommanded the chariot to stop. They bothgot out of the chariot and Phillip baptized him.
Pete: I’ve alwaysread that instinctively, “Is anything preventing me from getting baptized?” as“We’ve got some time on our hands. Let’sjust do this now.” Not like they’reactually socio-cultural-religious—there’s a matrix there of this.
Maybe the Bible’s surprisingly not uptight. [laughter] Go figure.
Megan: God does tendto surprise us at every turn.
34:48
Jared: I’m wondering—Iwas just thinking about this connection, this phrase of “foreigners andeunuchs” and how that goes throughout the Bible. In some ways, do you feel like “foreigners”is clearly throughout the Bible representative of the marginalized throughout,as we get to the Gentiles and others. Is“eunuchs” also—I’m channeling my upbringing where I want to take thatliterally, “I’m willing to—you raise some good points, Megan—I’m gonna allowfor eunuchs as part of this, but now, I’m going to still exclude others,because it doesn’t say it literally and specifically.
Is there a case to be made in terms of reading and how weread the Bible for taking foreigners and eunuchs as almost representative ofthis is a narrative of inclusion. Youcan’t really accept the eunuchs and exclude transgender people. You can’t really take this group and excludethat group, because it’s really representative of this radical inclusion.
What would you say?
Megan: First, I wouldsay that in some ways, Gentle or foreigner is not category of the marginalized,if you think just statistically.
Jared: Right. Right.
Megan: Everyone who’snot a Jew is a foreigner.
Jared: They’reusually the majority.
Megan: Right. Throughout Israel’s history, they wereoppressed by these majority—
Jared: Yeah.
Megan: —communities, so they were the minority. You could really read that two differentways. But definitely, with the eunuchs,we’re talking about people who have been oppressed in many different ways andexcluded in many different ways.
Even though the rabbis made space for naturally-borneunuchs, castrated eunuchs couldn’t go to worship in ancient Israel. Naturally-born eunuchs could. But they, in some ways, had a doublereligious duty, because the rabbis are pulling from the laws for men and thelaws for women and wanting to make sure all of their bases are covered.
They are this minority group has more to do and it’s harderfor them. I do think that category isone that certainly stands for the outside and the marginalized and those havebeen excluded, whose voices haven’t been heard, who’ve been considered uncleanand not welcome in the worshipping community.
Pete: Let me ask youa question here, Megan. I want to try toarticulate this clearly. Following onwhat Jared just said about eunuchs and the poor and the oppressed, marginalizedpeoples, you see in Isaiah and then in the New Testament in Matthew 19 and Acts8, you see a hint, a trajectory of—
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: I want to askyou if you agree with this. If yes,great. If not, fine. Tell me why. It seems like the New Testament itself is not the end of the story. It’s trajectories. That’s an important thing to talk about forpeople who take the Bible seriously.
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: The Bible, eventhe New Testament, does not settle all these questions for us, but is itselfpart of a moment—
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: —that is alsomoving, right? And so—
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: I gather you’reagreeing with that, so regalias on your opinion [laughter].
Megan: It’s not—I washelped in this regard. I remember inseminary reading N.T. Wright’s book, TheNew Testament and the People of God, where he likens the Bible to five actsin a Shakespearean play, where the fifth act is unfinished. He sees creation as Act One; the fall as ActTwo; Israel, Act Three; Jesus is Act Four; and the Act Five is the Church.
We have only the first few pages of the script in the NewTestament, but we are not—we are called to finish the story. We’re called to live our parts. We’re not called to be First Century Christiansin Rome or in Corinth or in Ephesus. We’re called to be 21st Century Christians living where welive.
We’re not trying to get back to Ancient Israel. He keeps saying, “If we’re going to put onthis play,” back to the analogy with Shakespeare, “we’re not just going torepeat lines from an earlier part of the story. We’re going to study the whole story. We’re going to see the direction it’s going. We’re going to pick up on those hints thatyou just mentioned. If we’re going toput on this play, we’re going to have to improv.” He uses this term, “faithful improvisation,”where we’re trying to see where the story is going and how do we live in—
Pete: Right.
Megan: —our partfaithfully, yet without a script.
Pete: I would add tothat Fifth Act, analogously, is that you see that in the Bible anyway becausepeople are winging it. [laughter]
39:53
Pete: That’s not abad way of putting it. In the OldTestament, you have shifts and changes and new perspectives on things. It seems inescapable. To help people to say, “It’s okay to thinkresponsibly and theologically and biblically today about an issue that maybe wehave to address in different ways than previous generations.”
Megan: We’re soafraid of doing something wrong that oftentimes, we do nothing. We give the apostles permission to thinkcreatively. We give Calvin and Luther permissionto think creatively, to do something different. But we rarely give ourselves permission—
Pete: Why isthat? What are we afraid of—
Megan: —to do whatthey did.
Pete: We should get atherapist [laughter]. What do youthink? You’ve experienced thesethings. What—
Jared: [unintelligible]
Pete: —are peopleafraid of?
Jared: In thecongregations that you’re teaching and educating people—
Pete: Yeah.
Jared: —what arefears that you find?
Megan: There’s somuch censure in our communities, right? If you put a toe out of line, there’s shame that’s brought on by thecommunity. There’s exclusion. All of these things. We don’t want that. We don’t want to put on the outside. We don’t want to be cast out like theseoutsiders. We better keep in line. We better follow the script. We better recite the confession in whateverversion it’s in and dare not think differently lest we become an outsider. I think we’re afraid of becoming outsidersourselves to our very community—
Pete: Yeah. Maybe you’re putting the nail on the headthere. The head on the nail rather. [laughter] Who wants to be an outsider?
Megan: It’s hard.
Pete: Yeah—
Jared: I was going tosay—and not to be too theological, but it seems like that’s exactly whatsolidarity is about, right, is taking that step in saying, “I’m willing to riskbecoming an outsider in order to be in community with the outsiders.”
Megan: Yeah. It’s hard. You don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to have solidarity with the marginalized and popularitywith the powerful. It doesn’t work likethat.
Jared: That’s a goodphrase—
Pete: Which brings meto the entire New Testament—
Megan: [laughter]That’s a good place to go.
Pete: —which has athing or two to say and we could throw the prophets in there as well. It strikes me, Megan, that this issue is oneof several issues that the Church is either dealing with or going to have todeal with that really raises to the forefront—I don’t want to put itnegatively, but the complexity even in the ambiguity sometimes of theologicaldecisions.
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: It’s not easy—
Megan: It’s not.
Pete: Living life ishard enough. [laughter] To think youhave to have all the right answers all the time makes it that much harder, butthe life of faith may be not as clear as we think and we’re doing the best thatwe can, and for some people, and you’re one of them, and I think Jared and Iare the same, if we’re going to err, we’re going to err on the side of peopleand lives and their experiences and not a system that we think is immovable andunchanging, because oddly enough, the system, which comes from the Bible, isitself a changing, moving thing—
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: —which is agood model for us. It’s not going togive us the answers to any particular question, but it is going to drive us tothink about—you don’t get off the hook by quoting Bible passages. Life ain’t like that—
Megan: But you dohave to study them and see where they’re pointing—
Pete: Yup. Right. Exactly right—
Jared: Which is thatfaithful improvisation, which is a nice connecting. The faithful is that rootedness—
Megan: Yeah.
Jared: —within thetext, which your articulation today—I appreciate this conversation of rootingit in these texts and then still saying—but there is still some creativity thathas to happen, some improvisation. Thatfifth act is up to us on how we’re going to be faithful to that.
Megan: I don’t haveit all figured out, but what I’m trying to do in my book and in my work is tosay, “Okay. We’ve done our theologicalreflection. We’ve done our biblicalstudy only thinking about these idealized versions of male and female. That’s not good enough. We have to do our biblical study and ourthinking theologically about what it means to be human and what it means to bea faithful Christian in a way that includes everyone in the community.” We haven’t done that yet. Let’s start a new conversation where we letmore voices come and be at the table and it means voices that have been at thetable need to be quiet for a while and listen and see if there’s something newto be learned, new perspectives to be had.
Pete: Right. Being quiet. That’s hard.
Megan: It ishard.
44:58
Pete: [laughter] Megan, I appreciate theway you put that. That’s very wellput. Unfortunately, we could talk forhours about all this. [laughter] So muchstuff. We’re just handling theBible. That always comes up in thesekinds of conversations. We’re coming tothe end of our time.
In closing, tell us where people can people find you on theworldwide interwebs. What projects areyou involved in, if you are writing another book? Make sure you tell us about the book that youhave written and make sure people know what that is.
Megan: Thanks. You can find me at www.megandefranza.com, pretty easy tofind. You can see the books that I’vewritten there, chapters, and other books. The main one we’ve been talking about today is Sex Difference in Christian Theology. The subtitle is Male, Femaleand Intersex in the Image of God, where we spend lot more time talkingabout all these things.
You can find me there. One of the things I’m most passionate about is that I just started anon-profit with my colleague, Leann Simon, who I mentioned earlier and we havea website, www.intersexandfaith.org,where we’re working to educate faith communities about intersex, providesupport for intersex people of faith and advocate for the inclusion of allGod’s people.
One of the things we’re doing, what I’m really excitedabout, is we’re in the process of making a documentary film, which right now isentitled Stories of Intersex and Faith,where people of faith—right now, we have Christians and Jews sharing theirstories about being intersex and being people of faith and the good parts ofthat, the helpful parts of that and the difficult parts of being intersex andin a faith community.
We’re hoping to create that as a full-lengthdocumentary. But I’d also like to usethat footage to create a series for churches that will be an educationalcurriculum, that’s video interviews and others, so that we can have betterconversations in our communities. Because as you said, if we’re not already having these conversations inour churches, you will be next year, or the year after that.
Pete: Or your kidswill force them.
Megan: Right.
Pete: Right.
Megan: I want to helpprovide some resources for churches having these conversations.
Pete: Some videoclips are on your website, already, of—
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: —you hope tohave the longer documentary eventually.
Megan: Yeah.
Pete: Okay. That’s good.
Megan: Thanks.
Pete: Listen, Megan,thank you so much. We had a great timetalking to you. Very informative. Let’s do this again sometime.
Megan: Thanks fordoing what you do. Appreciate youinviting me.
Jared: Absolutely. Bye.
Megan: Take care.
[Jaunty Exit Music]
Jared: Thanks againfor listening to another episode of the Bible for Normal People. Again, if you feel you want to support thepodcast and what we do, you can just go to patreon.com/thebiblefornormalpeople.
Otherwise, we hope you enjoyed the episode and we’ll catchyou next week.
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