Across the Counter
This podcast is a passion project where we interview a diverse blend of musicians, authors, podcasters, pastors, and thinkers about semi religious topics.
Instead of listening to respond or debate, we listen to understand through finding common ground and hearing our guests’ stories.
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Across the Counter
1946 | Sharon "Rocky" Roggio | Episode 56
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Join us as we sit Across the Counter from documentary filmmaker Sharon Roggio.
In this ATC Episode:
• Growing up as a queer individual in an evangelical family in South Philadelphia, Sharon Roggio, also known as Rocky, faced unique and challenging experiences. This episode uncovers her journey, from the origin of her nickname to navigating life as a lesbian with a pastor father.
• Through her award-winning documentary, Rocky reveals a possible mistranslation in the Bible concerning the word "homosexual," aiming to reshape the dialogue around LGBTQIA+ inclusion in Christianity. We explore her relationship with her father and the broader implications of biblical misinterpretations.
• We dig deep into the ancient contexts of biblical texts, questioning long-held interpretations of marriage, sexuality, and gender. The conversation spotlights the significance of eunuchs and highlights how "clobber passages" have been historically used to suppress marginalized groups.
Connect with Sharon:
Instagram: @rockyroggio
Website: https://www.1946themovie.com/?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaYBTiDjGUUvJGCh7awW_niHtxMo_dLlpTT2F83iANM6n_0LgAICf5FmXas_aem_0hXCGBro3X0q8_RlSHOFhw
Exploring LGBTQ Inclusion in Christianity
Speaker 1Hi, this is Grant Lockridge. I'm here with Jared Tafta and Sharon Rogio and pull up a chair across the counter. Your one-stop shop for a variety of perspectives around Jesus and Christianity.
Speaker 2Sharon, you shared a nickname with us, which is Rocky, and I love nicknames, so I'm going to be using that, if that's all right. And my first question is where did that nickname come from?
Speaker 3sure? Well, uh, my family's from philadelphia and we're south philly, italiano, you know, and uh, very evangelical, which I would say is kind of patriarchal. So I don't know where my dad got this idea, but he wanted to name one of his boys rocky. But unfortunately he had four daughters and I'm the closest to a boy that he ever got and so I adopted the name as a nickname a while back, just to kind of add some levity around this issue which I've been dealing with for a long time as a queer person in the church, and my dad's a pastor. So that's that whole evangelical kind of edge of the, you know, men lead, and Rocky's a great man name, you know. So I don't I who knows. That's just where I think it comes from. We'll have to ask Sal, my dad, what his side of the story is, and his name is Sal. Yeah, sal Roggio, yep.
Speaker 2All right, cool. All right, cool. Yeah, I mean just what you even there there's a lot of jam packed things, even in the beginning of that sentence, of the nickname and all of that. I know that Grant got connected with you through the documentary that you've done recently and brought to completion, and then he was inspired to not do a documentary like he was planning to after seeing how much effort went into that. And, yeah, I feel like you're ready to go with some of the things on your mind, even with what you just mentioned. So tell me more about the documentary and then tell me more about, like you said, that issue that's been prevalent in your life.
Speaker 3Well, definitely, documentary filmmaking is wildly underestimated and I underestimated it myself. I'm a filmmaker from los angeles and I also grew up in the church as a lesbian and my dad's a pastor. You know, those things don't don't mix. But once I wanted to do a documentary trying to affirm my reality with my non-affirming parents, learning how to re-examine the bible, look at passages differently, exegesis, you know, and all this stuff. I'm like, well, I'll just do a documentary I've done with my non-affirming parents, learning how to re-examine the Bible, look at passages differently, exegesis, you know, and all this stuff. I'm like, well, I'll just do a documentary. I've done narrative music video, you know, commercial, whatever you name it, and this was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life and yeah, but I'm glad we got through it and we made a wonderful film. We've won 24 film awards on the festival circuit at really great film festivals and the audience has been responding really well and we're changing lives. We're really making an impact.
Speaker 3But the film is about the first time the word homosexual appeared in the Bible and we have the evidence through translation notes pulled from the archives at Yale University that it was indeed a mistranslation and so we wanted to make an empathetic film that led with these notes, these translation notes, to get to how did this word come into play into the Bible and does it make an impact in our society.
Speaker 3And we were able to showcase that through a relationship with me and my dad and really get to my story which isn't really unique in this situation, but it's unique to me and be able to have an example of two people who wildly disagree on this issue and lay out what I would present is an indisputable fact so we can lead with, we can show from the notes what happened here and this isn't my opinion or my feelings, and so how can we have a conversation around it? So we wanted to make a conversational piece that affords us an opportunity to take a step back from what we've been told, where we come from, what we might believe, and at the very least recognize how we use or misuse the Bible and how it can be used to hurt people. And maybe we can do a little bit better. That would be the least that we can ask in making this film. So that's kind of my little bit of long elevator pitch.
Speaker 1That was pretty good, yeah, I mean, it's almost like you've said that a couple of times.
Speaker 3Maybe I've only been doing this now. We're in our sixth year now with our impact campaign and really going out, and I've been meeting church communities all over the world, literally. So I just got back from Singapore. We were in the Netherlands earlier. We just got the film into French subtitles how Fancy Are we? And we're going to be doing Paris Pride, we're working on two different Chinese dialects, we're going to be doing Taiwan Pride and then working to go to Hong Kong, and the list goes on. So we're making a wonderful impact here at home, which is completely necessary. But our goal is also global influence as far as how we again use or misuse not only the Bible but ancient texts, and how we're treating one another in the world. So yeah, I've been doing it a little while, but it's fun, oh yeah.
Speaker 1When I was watching to me there was a ton of interesting story arcs as far as you guys actually going to Yale and finding all the documents and looking through pages and pages and pages and finding what you wanted. That was kind of cool. But my personal favorite and the most interesting thing that happened in the film to me was you bringing your dad into it, whose evangelical pastor wrote a book, or it looked like he wrote a book. That's basically the opposite direction of why this is not okay in the church and that was just super interesting to me as far as, like one, you included that in the film, which I thought was really cool and super interesting just to be able to show both sides of that. It wasn't like, hey, what we're doing is 100% on par. It was like, hey, there's this side too, and kind of working together so that you guys could love each other a little better was really cool. So that was my personal favorite part of of the film.
Speaker 3Yeah, thank you. I'm sure a lot of people struggle with that and one of the takeaways is we're not going to change everybody's mind. This isn't a Hollywood story. But we also wanted to make sure and my dad put a lot of trust into being in the film that his words would be used properly and well and he would get equal representation with all the other experts in the film. He is an expert in his field and he deserves that respect. And so again, yeah, we wanted to, you know, do our best to have an academic, journalistic approach, and I'm so grateful that my dad said, yes, he might now have a different opinion.
Speaker 3No, I'm just kidding, he's a very funny guy he's. If you ask him how he got to be in the film, he'll say he feels he got tricked. But you know, honestly, that's what he said at the world premiere. But he keeps showing up. He's there, he shows up and he is convicted, and that's one of the things that I admire about my dad. So we knew where he was coming from and we wanted to lay that out in the most honest way that we could To that end. There is a lot of helpful information in there and we hope that people will be able to recognize the contextual history that was laid out, the context in the history around the biblical verses that we're talking about, to potentially move with us in a direction that is more affirming and is more accepting of the LGBTQ community, understanding that what's going on in the Bible is very different from our understanding of homosexuality today, and we continue to learn more. So there's a hopeful ending. It's not a Hollywood ending.
Speaker 1So what is just? What would you say is the best argument? We're not a debate podcast, so we're not going to debate back and forth, but I don't know another way to say it. What would you say?
Interpreting Ancient Texts and Patriarchy
Speaker 3your best argument for LGBTQ inclusion in the church would be Well, besides the fact that I think it's what Jesus would do, I really don't see him condemning queer people, as a matter of fact, in Matthew 19, I see him affirming the sexual minorities of his time. When he was asked about marriage, he slyfully says well, you know the verse, you know what it says, and then he quotes it and then he's like but you know, I'm going to tell you something and it's only for those who are able to receive it. There are eunuchs who are made eunuchs by choice, eunuchs that are made that way by the kingdom of God, and eunuchs that are born that way. And it's just a really interesting thing for him to say, in a sense, where you know he didn't have to talk like where did this come from? You know, it just seems to me that he was saying we're all welcome in this kingdom of God. And how? Why are you using, why are you proof texting to me almost so that's how I look at that. But besides that, that's an interpretation for me.
Speaker 3If we're looking at the scholarly consensus of what the film argues in the sense of the six clobber passages, what's going on and what was going on in the ancient world was sex was something you used to do to somebody, not with somebody, and so you were able to penetrate, no pun intended, you know, nevermind if you didn't. I didn't use a pun there. I usually I usually do and now, spoiler alert, I won't be able to use it later on in the podcast but you could penetrate pretty much essentially anything you wanted, as long as they were of lesser value than you. And so these high society men were doing these acts to animals, to boys, to slaves and prostitutes. Now we don't see a lot of abuse or written abuse about young women in the text. We do see a lot of examples of what we can assume would be pederasty, especially in the New Testament texts. But when you think about it, the men couldn't spoil the women. They were doing this to other agencies or other objects because the women had to be virgins. And so once you start really putting yourself into the mind of a person from the ancient time of what was really going on there, they were letting out their acts in other ways and there was definitely not a biblical view on you know, the biblical view on marriage is all over the place, and they were not one man, one woman, it was one man, many concubine, and then they were seeing these acts and doing these acts, and so that's what they were trying to get a handle of.
Speaker 3Another way to look at it, too, is when you're a person of that high status and you're really a man, you're on top. The last thing you would want to do is give up that right in society, and so if you were essentially acting like a woman and being the penetrated, you're now no longer a man in that society. You have given yourself up, even if it's not consensual, even if it's not like a prostitute situation, which is what we were seeing going on there. The pederasty, the prostitute, the slave, or well, that's pretty much it, because that would be the child. So, even if they were not agreeing to this, they were still then cast aside because they lost their value. They were shunned. And we still see the shunning today in society. We see it through shaming, rape. Shaming happens in our culture. We still see it in other cultures where women will be shunned and or killed if they've been abused, because they've brought shame to the family.
Speaker 3And so it's like why would the Malakoi in our film now I'm getting into the words which you haven't seen the film. There's a lot that goes on there. There's the passive participant and the active participant in this sex act, and if the passive participant is an innocent person in this, why would they be condemned too? And it's about the purging of this land and the purging of this act. That's like feminizing men and the Malakoi. It's interesting that the actual word means soft or like a coward, and we still do this today. You hit like a girl, you're a pansy, you know. And so it's about.
Speaker 3It has everything to do rooted in patriarchy, misogyny and feminizing men, and even though their ideas of sexuality and the objects and not really sex with somebody in a love situation, their ideas were different, these ideas of patriarchy and misogyny still run deep today, if that makes sense, which is why the rabbi's joke in the film which isn't really a joke, but he makes a joke about FU he's like why do we still use it? In a way, it's like FU, it's a derogatory term and it's because and it's what we see in the Sodom texts it's about using your power over someone you know. Otherwise the FU would be like oh, thank you very much for the sweet blessing. You know, I haven't had a wonderful sexual experience in a long time, so I would.
Speaker 3That's what the film argues is to start looking at those themes. We know it's not a homosexual, because that's a group of people. We're looking at an act that has two different participants in two different different situations, in a contextual, historical context that is very different than today. You could have a homosexual orientation and have never had a sex act. If you can just start there, maybe you can start to peel away the other layers. I know that was a lot.
Speaker 1He's written a page of notes over here. We call it Jared's page of notes a lot he's.
Speaker 2He's written a page of notes over here. We call it jared's page of notes. Um, what, what is pederasty? He said that word a few times.
Speaker 3I'm not familiar with that word so pederasty is an something that was going on in the ancient world and it was different in roman culture and greek culture and in these acts that they were doing, um, but essentially it was sex with young boys and they would have the sex with the boys until they hit puberty. And in Greek culture they would use the boys as almost a way to. If you were of a lesser class, the mothers would essentially groom their young boys for this horrific act to be used in such a way by Greek elites to hopefully get a role in society, to be able to be placed in a good role in society and have a chance for a better future in the world. They weren't doing that so much in the Roman culture, but they were still participating in these acts. They were participating in the temple prostitution acts, but pederasty was very prevalent and very rampant in the ancient world.
Speaker 2I'm kind of tracking with you, but I just want more clarity. When you mentioned and thank you for clarifying that I know what you're talking about. I just didn't know the name for that. So when you're sharing about the patriarchy and feminizing men, those don't completely click together in my head. As far as like why and what Like why do you perceive that that was taking place? Or what was the purpose behind that? And like what was the desired outcome in that taking place? Does that make sense?
Speaker 3Well, I mean, the only thing that I can say is that is what the scholarly consensus would has taught me in regards to way that they interpret these texts, that that's what's going on there in in these contexts, and there's research out there that I wouldn't be able to say. I just mean even understanding.
Speaker 2I don't know that I was understanding what that meant, like when you said the, like the feminizing of men or the patriarchy, and like those being the roots, like I felt, like you were saying you had an understanding of, like the direction of that, or like a whether it was like a political or governmental, or like a reigning. Was it to hold power? Was it to? Does that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, that's one way.
Speaker 3it's used today, you know that's one way it's used today to hold power, you know, and to keep men on top and women submissive. And we see that even in some Christian doctrine, like, for example, when we look at some Bibles that are produced and the committees that put them together. They've put them together in a way where they support things like the Nashville Statement, which is a modern document made by evangelicals to again make sure that the church understands the role of a man and the role of a woman. As soon as women started to get their rights, the church needed to make sure that they're getting a handle on these ideas, these ideas. So this is an example of people using the text in a way that is manipulating.
Speaker 3For what you said power I don't know what the ancient authors were actually thinking of the time. The only thing we can look at is we know it's not a homosexual, because and here are some of the examples of what it could be and then another way to even look around it is like when you look at the Levitical passages 18, 22,. That is the one where it says man shall not lie with male as he does with a female, for it's an abomination, and that word male there encompasses all men. They use a car, which is a really interesting choice, but that's a whole nother thing. And then, in 2013, they give the death penalty.
Speaker 3But if you look at the verse right after that, it's man shall not lie with animal as he does with a woman, for it's an abomination. Both shall be put to death, and we know the animal is not consenting to this act to death, and we know the animal is not consenting to this act. This is again about just you could penetrate anything you wanted. Their ideas of sexuality were not in alignment with where we are today, but the data does suggest that there's definitely misogyny and patriarchy involved in there. And going back to the Sodom and Gomorrah stories, we see all throughout the Bible, even and we've seen it all throughout the world where men essentially will rape other men after they've conquered a village, and so this is all about power, dominance and shaming someone else, and so we do have to recognize that some of those notes would and could possibly play into the intention of, potentially, the act. Maybe not necessarily the authors, you know. They might not have had those deep thoughts of it at the time.
Speaker 1So is this oversimplification? Because I like to kind of keep things to where I can understand it a little bit. So it's not. It is a question of homosexuality, but it's more to you, a question of consent is the bigger question, basically.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean. No, it's not about homosexuality, it's again about an act, and so their understanding of what a homosexual would be.
Speaker 2they wouldn't have had an idea of what a homosexual was, so there wasn't even an understanding of that being a possibility.
Speaker 2This is all the possibility that it was.
Speaker 2You know, yeah, because what I'm hearing you say, and even when you use like Jesus's words of representing like a eunuch, or like the act of non-consensual, or man lying with man or lying with beast, like I recognize that you're basically saying like they weren't describing by the data an identity, correct, correct.
Speaker 2So I hear you and like like okay, I recognize what you're saying, like it was, this is an act and this is an act and that is an act and these are approved, not approved, and then we can get into translations. But even when you use like um, when you were talking about like unix and things like that, like I think of that as those who have like with the translation, I understand that to be speaking to is those who have chosen not to participate in sexual acts, either by force or by choice or by nature of birth. And then the secondary thing you said is you can have a I'm rephrasing but you can have a homosexual paradigm and I've never committed a sex act or something like that. So like historically, I hear you saying, like, the data does not highlight an identity, it's talking about acts.
Reexamining LGBTQ Identity and Orientation
Speaker 3Well, it actually only talks about one act particularly, which is anal penetration. So, if we want to get really specific, it's only talking about that one act. And so the Bible technically never talks about lesbians and lesbian sex and lesbianism would be 100% okay. And so, to that end, there are men that I know that live in Christianity, that will be in a relationship and do everything but that one act, because the Bible says and that's the only thing that the Bible says, is that one act. I still think that that's not a proper assumption of what the ancient authors were writing today and our understanding of who homosexuals are, and I still think the Bible and we can affirm the queer community period in our society. But, yeah, technically that would be correct, you are completely tracking, but then you, you know lesbians are off the hook, uh, but then that doesn't let.
Speaker 2yeah, well, that's kind of my two questions. So, like you, you presented another question which and I'm not my my genuine, my singular, genuine desire in life is to know what is true. Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2I don't, I don't, I don't have ideologies or paradigms that I am bound.
Speaker 2They're not bound to my identity, like I know that if I show up in a room I'm probably the most wrong, and so I think a lot of times our pride, it gets in the way of us believing that the paradigm we have is most right, and so we don't have the ability to have vulnerable conversation and learn.
Speaker 2But to me, the danger there is that every time someone says, well, I stand here and someone else says I stand here, we then paint a picture of what that means that person believes, and then I paint a picture of what that means I believe. And so now we're both stationary in objection to one another instead of discovery-oriented in the ability to grow toward truth. And so I don't love that and I find it hard to get away from, because it even happens in the Christian historical paradigm of Calvinism and Arminianism. It doesn't matter If you say something that somewhat aligns with John Calvin, and that means you believe all the things he believes. Or if you say something, or if I say I disagree to some area, it's like, oh well, you must be the right or you must be the left, or you might and I feel like like part of my issue in any area is, I think we're oversimplifying what an identity of a human being made in the image of God is.
Speaker 3Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2And so the difficulty there is. That means having vulnerable conversations where you say I disagree and the other person says I disagree would mean that you could like share that and not mean I disagree and therefore I know that I'm right and you were wrong, but there's some point of conflict and so to come. I actually believe one of the hardest things in life to do is come to actual agreement, like a hundred percent agreement, and marriage probably never will right.
Speaker 2Right, because we are not all knowing. And so the reason I'm asking the questions I'm asking is not because I am looking to be in a corner and you be in a corner or any of us have different opinions. I just want more understanding of Christ and what is true and what is loving. And I agree with you. I believe that Jesus would love the LGBTQ community. I don't know that we agree on all stances of what Jesus would do, but I know that it would not look.
Speaker 2He did not hate minorities and he did not come in and condemn those that he disagreed with. Actually, you see, the Son of God show up on scene and have a lot of tenderness for those that were outcasts and those that felt like they didn't fit or didn't have a place in certain societal settings. So the the line of question there earlier where you said like it's not highlighting an identity, see to me like I agree with you. And then the like current standard of the lgbtq community is, um, it it seems deeply oriented toward an identity around sexuality, and so I would think orientation is probably a better word is that is you know you can't really saying like yeah, I understand what you're saying, but maybe just for semantic purposes and just for clarification, because an orientation is something that you're, you're, you're born with essentially, or an identity might be.
Speaker 3I clearly identify as a gay, whatever you know like, and some people may and some people may not, and they still might be have an orientation, you know so okay, um, so orientation being the better word, um, what you're saying is is something that it's like written into code.
Speaker 2It's not something that you choose as much as like a way that you're in nature, way that you're born.
Navigating Religious Beliefs and LGBTQ Inclusion
Speaker 3So, if we go with that um definition, it sounded like you were saying the the text, statistically, weren't looking at at, at orientations, they were just looking at acts and then yeah, totally, you know, and to that end, you know, like paul paul was really part of a stoic society and when he was writing, even like just talking about lesbianism, really quickly going back to that, uh, everybody would be like probably listening to this podcast. But what about Romans one? So it's only been for the last couple hundred years that church, the churches, have been using Romans one as an attack against lesbians. But prior to that, church fathers never used that verse as an attack on it. They didn't look at it as the women exchanging natural use for one another. The natural use was their idea of sex, was the only appropriate sex act. So this is where heterosexuals are in trouble.
Speaker 3And you know there's only six verses that condemn homosexual acts, if you want to call them that same sex activity acts in the Bible. But there are over 200 in the Bible that condemn heterosexual acts. The only acceptable act was, you know, for male and female, for the purpose of procreation. And so With a marriage, yeah, with a marriage, I mean, you know, but it was really just, you know.
Speaker 3But even Paul believed that Jesus was coming back in his time, so he thought all of this was just a waste of time, you know. So he was really just looking into his culture and seeing what was going on and writing about that. He wasn't writing about women having sex with one another and writing about that. He wasn't writing about women having sex with one another. If you look at the text, it says and their women exchanged. The women were owned by the men and they were doing this in a group together, and that's what Romans 1 was always looked at prior to. It became convenient to start targeting it toward what we are seeing in the culture and put it toward lesbian sex.
Speaker 2So when you earlier you said the Bible never talks about lesbianism, and that would mean that it's 100% allowed, and regardless of lesbianism. The thing that struck me in that is so we may differ on this in some way.
Speaker 3I don't actually read the Bible as a rule book, and so I don't either I'm really just using the language of the, of the church and the language of yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2That's what I was going to say is like that to me seems like a uh, like a uh, a very dangerous way to read the text, because it's not like just because it doesn't say something doesn't mean that like a hundred percent all right.
Speaker 3So when we were, I was like no, no. When we were making the movie.
Speaker 3You know, we're really, really wanted to think how would my dad think? How, how are people really thinking about these things? And really, you know, in a sense with, with great compassion and sensitivity, because not only do I see how much it's impacted the queer Christians who have grown up and have or have not made it through, because they've, they've, they've decided to leave this world, because the, the trauma is too much, you know. Uh, so we really wanted to make sure that we were, um, empathetic in that way and really listening to both sides, to put together something where we could communicate through to everyone. It was a very challenging assignment.
Speaker 1I could see that that's so interesting you just trying to get in the head of someone who is completely disagrees with you. That's to me a incredibly valuable exercise that I try to do, that I'm not very good at, because it's really hard, because you, you know, grown up your whole life Like I'm from Greenville, south Carolina, right, so like you know, and that's kind of my paradigm, or at least from where I'm from, so that it comes with a lot of evangelicalism, that comes with a lot. We have a church on every corner that sort of thing.
Speaker 1So I just grew up in a lot of that, and me trying to actually think about things in a way that I wouldn't normally is actually a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Like when I'm interviewing you, I'm trying to think, like, what is she trying to say? Not because it's like it took me 30 minutes to understand how to get talking ish in the same language, if that makes sense. It's a. Do you get what I'm saying though? Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3I never thought I would make a movie about this and a documentary about the Bible, and even just using the word exegesis, I didn't know what that meant four or five years ago. You know what I mean and so which is taking a text and then looking at other texts to try to get to an interpretation of what it means. You know, and really doing deep dives into these things. So all of this, you know, I'm becoming more and more familiar and learning every day and so grateful to the scholars and the people who've done the work before me, and I just have an opportunity to be able to share it in this format. And I just have an opportunity to be able to share it in this format not only on the podcast, but through the film.
Speaker 3So thank you for having the tough conversations and I think it's really important.
Speaker 2Yeah, we're not afraid to be wrong and we're not afraid to listen to things that we disagree with or even love people that we disagree with or that they disagree with us. I think that what's difficult is you. You kind of said at the beginning like we're not going to change everything everybody's mind. I think sometimes, relationally, we believe that the goal is to like fix everybody's wrong opinions, and there's just not a good way to do that, because which one of us is right, which one's the fixer?
Speaker 3How do you?
Speaker 2determine who would be the ruler. And so I think that's the reason that you need the cornerstone of Christ, you need the plumb line of Jesus himself, of God himself, of his, his character, his morality. That I do think it's the reason that Paul said, like I chose to know nothing except for Christ and him crucified. Because, like when you, when you get into a place of depression or a losing of your identity in struggle or pain, you really, in my experience, I guess, for me, like you, begin to grasp at straws of like what do I know? Like what do I know? That I know, that I know, and the roots of that, for me, they go deeper than and this is my personal opinion like deeper than just orientation or sexuality, or like the or the way that I view the world. And and they go down into like can I be known and is there a God that I can know? And so for me, like the deepest root of the thing that I know, that I know, that I know, is that I'm beloved, and so, like, if that, like that would be my anchor point. And then I'm beloved because he promises that I am before I began and after, and so I feel like that's a better place to begin conversations in an honorable way, in a respectful way and also knowing that, like I don't know what God's going to do next and I don't know what His I don't know Revelation is a funny thing.
Challenging Gender Norms and Identities
Speaker 2We've all had a revelation of something where we believe one thing to be true. Then we had a revelation, and then God revealed something to you that you didn't know before, and then now you completely let go of that previous paradigm. It's almost paradoxical how quickly it breaks off of you and in the Lord, you repent of it and it doesn't matter. But you could not have known your whole world didn't perceive truth in the way that you perceive it just off of that one revelation. And so I feel like it's pretty arrogant as human beings to come to a table and think like, okay, I've got this nailed down and I don't need anything from Rocky, I don't need anything from the person sitting across the table because I have this put together. Would you say that you've met a majority of flack in the Christian community from your documentary? Have you met anyone other than your dad that, even if they disagree, is willing to just like sit at a table and have like open, loving conversation?
Speaker 3Yeah, actually we met someone who wrote three hit pieces on our film, two before the movie was out, one after the movie was out, at a conference in Georgia. I knew I recognized him and then I saw his name tag and then we just started talking and he it comes from a different place. He still does, you know, he thinks he, we, both. It's as you said, it's like who's right in the in this, Um, but he shows up. He showed up and he was at that conference to see what was going on and, uh, learn a little bit more. Um, but most of the pushback, I mean it's, it is, uh, it's, it is one side's right and the other side is wrong.
Speaker 3My advice to anybody listening to this podcast if you might be non-affirming and you, you, you're, you're not convinced, I would say one of the other takeaways of the film is relationship, and so if you don't know any queer people, or especially queer Christians, go to a church maybe that might be inclusive, not just welcoming in your community and go talk to some LGBTQ Christians and start relationship. And that's where you're going to be really most surprised sometimes to go up and see those people in real life that have written things. And again, this person did it in his grace. I'll say his name, His name's Alan Schleman. He's with Biola University, and to be able to see each other face to face it's a little nerve wracking, but then to be able to show grace and he's coming from a genuine place, we're coming from a genuine place. You know he's coming from a genuine place, we're coming from a genuine place.
Speaker 2And so I would just say to anybody again watch the movie and continue to just dig a little bit deeper and I will continue to do the same and put myself in those situations and maybe go visit Alan's church, because we're not too far away, we're both in Southern California, Okay, so I want to practice some vulnerability in a kind of a paradigm that I've had in my mind but I haven't said out loud because I haven't been at a table with someone that is of your perspective, and so I would just like to hear what your thoughts are because, for all intent and purpose, like I just have my own experience, if that makes sense. So when I look at the world, when I look at the majority of like nature and even like I think about trees a lot, there's a significant majority of nature that has masculine and feminine in the way that plants work, in the way that animals work, in the way that human beings work, and the roots in my mind of masculinity and femininity are a lot deeper than sexuality. They are tied more to the concept of a role of authority and then a role of submission. The deepest roots to me actually are tied to the stronger and the weaker, and I think that in my mind, god not needing anything and then speaking life into creation was like speaking the weaker into creation, that we were in need of Him, and so, like that's, I often think of Him as like the ultimate, like masculinity, but a lot of times in our culture, like if there's anything masculine, it's tied to something that is like evil and patriarchal and so, like if there's any power or authority, it can be perceived as abusive, and so that's one caveat, but it's not really the question.
Speaker 2The question I had is to me, when I think about identities being rooted in sexuality or orientation being rooted in sexuality, I feel like sometimes we've had really really terrible fathers and really terrible brothers and really terrible cultural examples of what it looks like to be a man made in the image of God and what it looks like to be a woman made in the image of God.
Speaker 2So, like you mentioned that earlier where you said, you know, like, if, like, for example, my, if I, if I wanted to learn to paint growing up, like my dad might say, like what are you? Are you gay? Or if I wanted to have any type of participation in something that was more soft or write poetry, like there's a Southern man perspective of just a fear of any type of femininity, and then it's kind of altered in similar ways with the other perspectives. So I guess my question is do you find that sometimes we lean toward an identity in sexuality when there is there a possibility that we also just have a culture that has, like, choked out the creative life that could be available in masculinity and femininity, and that not having to just be like I am this way or I'm that way. Am I making sense at all?
Speaker 3I mean, yeah, I think culture has designed a heteronormative reality that has obviously hurt men as you've just like, because men have this. You know, I'm so sorry that your dad would say, what are you gay? And not let you play with the toy you want to play with. And that's one of the major problems in our society. Like, playing with something doesn't make you gay or straight. This is a society issue and it has nothing to do with having the right, you know, man figure in your life. That's going to turn you one way or the other, because now we're excluding single parents and we're excluding children who are raised by grandparents, you know, we're excluding so many different types of other families that aren't even LGBTQ families, and then, you know, maybe it's two aunties that are raising someone because somebody's parent died, you know, and so there's a lot of mixed orientation families out there and I think that we have a huge society problem, and so people are like why do you have a pride parade, you know? And it's like well, I saw an example the other day. It's the same reason why you don't I can't think of a good example now why you know to, you know, we, we need this as a way, because we don't way, because the whole world is not designed for us, it's designed in the other way. But then for men who are told they can't play with certain toys, they can't live up to their own manly roles in society and actually June is also Men's Health Awareness Month, I want to mention and we see more men die by suicide, especially in my age group, in their 40s, than any other group, because they can't live up to the society of providing for their family, not in today's economy, not in America. It's a false reality and so we're feeding these ideas into young men and it's hurting men, you know.
Speaker 3So I really would challenge people to look at how we teach people, what we teach people, what is important, what's not important. You know, I would think that and really, when we look at the Bible and we look at inerrancy and we look at what the Bible commands, there are more commandments about taking care of the poor and the needy and you needy than anything else, and we're missing the mark in so many different ways and we're able to pick and choose which verses we amplify because it supports our society, that we built, and which ones we're going to marginalize. And a good example of that is in the New Testament. We're demanded, more than anything, to greet each other with a holy kiss and we're able to say, well, that's cultural, because we don't want Tommy on Sunday mornings kissing everybody at the front door, you know, and we're able to push that aside.
Speaker 3So all of this is designed, all of this has been by designed, and we're all victim of it. And I don't like to use the word victim and like, oh, I'm a victim, you know what I mean. We've all been been played it and fooled by it, I think, if that makes sense. So I hear you and I think that I'm going to think of some books I might be able to send your way, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2I think I'm just processing the idea even of when I thank you for the kindness of even you know the conversation and the topic, so I'm processing the idea sometimes of like even we lean toward now culturally say like if, if a young man isn't, doesn't feel that he is masculine because he's around, fathers and brothers who speak femininity over some of his giftings or things that he enjoys, or say that he's not masculine because he writes poetry, or say that he's not masculine because he looks a certain way or his voice is a certain pitch. It seems like there is a, a bandwagon to some degree that would say like well then, he's definitely homosexual. Like, it seems like it's.
Speaker 2It can often be held as a, as an either or like there's only one area to go versus a voice saying what if? What if we also just have a really, really shallow view of masculinity and femininity? What if there is more creative discovery available in the fact that we've actually just neutered men and women? And when we say like, oh, it's just a masculine, authoritative tyrant. And then women, like femininity is only a submissive, weak, barefoot in the kitchen perspective, like it seems like you only hear these black and white perspectives versus like we're made in the image of God and we are actually significantly more than our sexual orientation. It would be like the perspective that I hold, but it feels to me like that conversation isn't really prevalent, would you? What do you think about that?
Biblical Misinterpretation and Gender Equality
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean this is you know. It's just a shame that we are even just talking about this idea that the society puts women as weak and that's so not true. And we have so much work to do, honestly, and even the translators throughout the time have been doing this to the scripture to manipulate our ideas of our roles. I saw a TikTok recently and I don't know it enough to quote the exact play of the Bible verse, but it was about the use of the word rib, when they took a rib out of Adam to make the woman, and I'm going to have to do a little bit more research on it. But the word for this, this word rib, was really more about equal, but this is the only place in the Bible where they use it and define it as a rib and not like an equal participant in this, which is very convenient. So I'm gonna have to do a little bit more research on that.
Speaker 3But when you look at the Hebrew language, words can mean many different things. There's not a lot of vocabulary, so it just would be interesting if that was a deliberate switch. So, and here we are having this conversation in 2024. And here we are actually at the on the brink of women could potentially, you know, and this is not radical, but could be going backwards, our nation could be going backwards and it could go down to I mean, no fault, divorce is one thing, women's reproductive rights is another, but the next line would be one house vote. So women are going to. You know what I? I mean? Like it it, just where do you? Where does it go? So we need to be really careful about these things and really paying attention on what's going on in, again, how we're using or misusing the Bible in our culture.
Speaker 1Something you said that I thought was and this was a while back, but you said that the person that you disagreed with you could tell was genuine. Oh, that's going to stick that's going to stick with me for a while.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, A hundred percent. He's coming from a genuine place, Just like my dad, like he's not out to hurt anybody. You know, Um, and there are, you know. So what do you do?
Speaker 1You know, uh it's so much harder, harder, but it's a harder place to be than this person. I don't like him very much and that's that it's like genuinely, they are being genuine and they're trying to care about me the best they know how yeah and yeah that's a much. It's, it's harder, it's easier and harder at the same time. I don't know how to describe it, but that's going to stick with me for a little bit.
Speaker 3And his ministry. You know, some of the things he talks about I wouldn't agree with and I'm like, oh no, he's teaching kids this. And then we follow each other on Instagram. He just saw our story the other day and I'm sure he's like, oh no, they're still doing this. That he just saw our story the other day and I'm sure he's like, oh no, they're still doing this. That 1946 team is leading all these kids astray. So I'm sure that's what we're thinking of, each other, and we're just going to keep doing it and keep showing up and keeping an influence.
Speaker 1And I'm sure I'll see him again at another conference and I'll take it from there. Well, we usually like to keep it around 45 minutes to an hour or something like that, and I know he has a hard stop. But is there anything that you wanted to share with our audience, Unless Jared has something?
Speaker 2else, no, no, yeah, thank you for the conversation.
Speaker 3Yeah, thank you for the challenge and thank you for allowing me to talk about this in potentially, an audience that might not be fully on board. You can watch the movie on our website, 1946themoviecom, and then send us an email If you have an opinion. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1Even if it's a bad one.
Speaker 3Even if it's a bad one. 100% Listen. This is how we learn from one another and we did 100% apply from every audience, not just a Christian evangelical audience or a gay audience, but from an atheist audience. I mean, we heard from so many different people around this through our focus grouping and our campaigning to put this out, to make sure we were doing the best we could.
Speaker 1Well, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on. That was a lot of fun, actually pretty refreshing for me, because I definitely do disagree in the sense of that homosexuality wasn't in the Bible at 1946. I do disagree with that. But also, you've done a ton of more scholarly research than I have. First of all, so that's really cool. Have first of all, so that's really cool. And second, you know, just the idea that we can disagree and we can come together and have a good conversation, like I had a good time with this good.
Speaker 3Do you guys know who dan mcclellan is? I would. I would follow dan mcclellan on um, I think. Grant, are you following on the social we have? We DM'd before. Yeah, I'll send you Dan's stuff. But he's a Mormon who is a biblical scholar, so he's a scholar of the Bible and religion. So he looks at the data over. Dogma is basically his stick and he doesn't talk about his religious beliefs, he just does the pure scholarly work. But he's pretty fascinating and I think he's pretty mind opening so I would recommend looking into him.
Speaker 1I've been wanting to interview a Mormon for a while. Do it. They're just not Christians. Just throw them out.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1People say that all the time.
Speaker 3He might not talk about his religious beliefs, so set it up. But who knows?
Speaker 1I'd be like, so, dogma, but what's the heart? And it'd be like, well, the scholarly research? No, I'm just kidding, I love it Genuinely. Thank you so much, rocky. That was a lot of fun. Thank you, and we'd love to do you know, obviously. Part two, round two, if you are willing to do that?
Speaker 3Where are you guys located?
Speaker 1We're in Greenville South.
Speaker 3Carolina. Oh, we're in South Carolina. Okay, we're not going to make it there. We're doing a road trip across America. We're going from California all the way around the South and then back, hitting 14 cities in the deep South Are you going to Charlotte maybe?
Speaker 3No, the furthest we're going that way is Birmingham. We're going to go to Pensacola, sarasota, birmingham, then up to Memphis, then Springfield, then head back. It just was. We're paying for this Quest for Biblical Truth is my company, and so we're paying for this out of money we've made from the screenings and donations as we go. So it's very expensive, as you can imagine, but we're trying to utilize the film as a tool for civic engagement. It's a voter drive, but it's a nonpartisan. We're not going to tell people how to vote, we're just going to pull out the ways we feel the Bible is being misused in politics and give them permission to rethink the verses. So I'll send you our latest newsletter so you can at least know about it, and if you wanted to know more, let me know. Cool, thank you so much, rocky. Awesome guys. Thanks a lot. Have a good one.
Speaker 1Thanks for listening to the Across the Counter podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars, wherever you got this podcast. Thanks, y'all.