Brian Beatty

Hello and welcome to Restoring the Soul. I'm your producer, Brian Beatty. This summer we're revisiting some of the most important conversations from 10 years of the Restoring the Soul podcast. And this one belongs near the top of the list. Dr. Dan Alender has spent over 30 years pioneering the work of healing from sexual trauma and abuse. In part one of this two-part conversation, he and Michael talk about why every person is sexually broken in some way, what lust actually is, and why shame, as painful as it is, may be what drives us back to God. Here's part one, and your host, Michael John Kusick.

Michael John Cusick

Dr. Dan Alander, thank you very much for making time to talk with me today. Welcome to the program.

Dan Allender

A delight to be with you, Michael.

Michael John Cusick

Our relationship goes back, I counted the years, 29 years, since uh we first met in Akron, Ohio at one of your wounded heart conferences. And then uh two or three years later, I was uh gifted with studying with you and then training under you. So it's really, really good to be talking with you.

Dan Allender

Well, I thank you for uh aging us both.

Michael John Cusick

Yeah, indeed. I'm sorry I missed you in Hollywood. Uh and kudos to you for your work in the Heart of Man movie. Uh I was part of the premiere there with a lot of the folks in it, and that was so fun. But your contribution to that was really significant, both in the formation of the movie and and what you offered. What was that like for you to be part of it?

Dan Allender

Well, I it it was sad to not be there. Uh I had a Monday class that uh, you know, the the reality of having a day job can be very complicating. Uh but somebody has to do it, right? Somebody has to teach. Uh it was an honor. I mean, just an extraordinary honor. I think I was literally the first interview they did. Uh so from that moment to the point of production, I just think the kind of labor that they endured to create the product that they did was staggering. Uh I mean, the idea from the beginning was very compelling, but the number of iterations that they have gone through, I think would be overwhelming for most people to hear. That was, I think uh Jason told me later, it was about a seven-year project to create. Uh, and very few people would be that faithful over that length of time to create something that beautiful. So it was an immense honor to be part.

Michael John Cusick

Yeah, I don't think Schindler's list took seven years, uh, but the the fruit, the fruit of it was uh pretty remarkable, and it's already going around the world and touching lives. And so that leads me to the topic of sexual brokenness. You've you've devoted over 40 years now as a minister, as a psychologist, and as a theologian to really working with writing and teaching about how people change and transformation. And at the end of our conversation, I want to get a little bit more into how you've evolved in your thinking to include inner healing and warfare and things like that. But um, would it be fair to say that most of your career has been uh around the area of sexual brokenness and the soul?

Dan Allender

Uh it has. Uh, I think that in in one sense, the more particular way of putting it uh certainly has been sexual abuse. Uh, but I noted right from the beginning that evil seemed to delight uh in bringing about harm to our sense of what it means to be a man or a woman, and that nothing, nothing affects the human heart more uh than our sexuality. And so, in that sense, sexuality has always been I think the primary means, not the exclusive, but the primary means that evil uses to distort, to damage, to in many ways degrade the nature of what it means to be made in the image of God. So if that's accurate, then sexual brokenness needs to be seen in the larger purview of what it means to engage God as human, to engage others as human. So, in that, yes, absolutely brokenness has been at the core.

Michael John Cusick

And though you've worked with sexual abuse, especially in your practice and in your teaching, and in fact, the very first time I met you was at a sexual abuse seminar in gosh, 1989, when I began to enter into my own story, um, and my life was forever changed by that. But you also talk about, because I've heard you say this dozens of times, that we're all sexually broken. You don't have to have experienced incest or molestation or other kinds of sexual violations to be among the sexually broken.

Dan Allender

No, I I mean, let's just state it as bluntly as possible. Um, our sexuality is always deviant from what God intended. Now, how you know severe that struggle will be, there's always going to be an element to which uh our inner and outer world struggles with the reality of conformity to his righteousness. So if that's accurate, again, nothing touches the human heart. I mean, we know from research currently that you know when sexual images of any sort uh are put before male or female, the brain lights up in a way that it lights up for nothing else. I mean, nothing else. It doesn't light up for winning the lottery, it doesn't light up for the uh, you know, the return of your dearest friend that you haven't seen for years. You know, any level of uh of uh exciting, uh excitement uh of the brain, nothing parallels the role of sexuality. And if that's the case, then it's back to that simple premise that um uh our our common struggle opens the door to deeper conversations with one another.

Michael John Cusick

Aaron Powell So how do you respond to the man, and also I'm sure the woman, but but probably more often men, who comes to you in your office or who you're just having a casual conversation with and they say, Well, what do you mean? I'm not sexually broken, I'm not addicted to porn, I don't I haven't had affairs.

Dan Allender

Well, you know, if your comparison is another human being, uh you always have the opportunity uh for some form of decimation or some form of self-righteousness. I mean, uh, you know, you're in a you know, let's just again be very blunt. The bell-shaped curve pisses me off. Um, I mean, it's true with regard to height, it's regard to intelligence, uh, and in some ways, I think it's rather true with regard to even this whole concept of maturity. Um, and most of us are pretty much in the middle and maybe one standard deviation above the norm. But that leaves a lot of people who are a lot lower, a lot higher than whomever, wherever we are. Uh but we compare ourselves not to one another. We compare ourselves to Eden, we compare ourselves fundamentally to Jesus. And when that comparison is made, um, everyone uh shows uh a significant um wellm for maturity.

Michael John Cusick

Aaron Powell Let's go back to uh the question of what exactly is sexuality, because I've always taught that uh sexuality is not about what set of genitals we have or what kind of chromosomes we're assigned, but rather this idea that you referred to about the image of God. Right in Genesis 126 and 127, God says, let us, there's the plurality of the Trinity, right? Make man in our image, and then let us create the male and female. So there's something inherent to our sexuality that's deeper than genitality. Can you comment on that?

Dan Allender

Well, uh yeah, I I would agree with you so fully that you know, where we return to is the foundation of our very creation, and that God has pleasured Himself to create difference, uh, and difference that's vast, and not just vast male versus female, but vast within this whole realm of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman. Uh and, you know, in some ways, uh, let me deviate from perhaps where you were going, but you know, you know, we've got so many cultural, um uh in many ways, suffocating points about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman. From, you know, women wear makeup in a particular way. Men don't wear makeup. And I'm not commending that men begin wearing makeup, but I also would press to say even that category is so culturally constructed that what we conceive as male and female uh never gets fully defined in the scriptures. Never, in other words, we've got to do theological work that isn't culturally bound to do the work of determining what's the nature of what it means to be male and female. But whatever it means, he meant for there to be a difference. And that difference is meant to uh give a taste and fragrance to the complexity and richness uh of the God who created us in his image.

Michael John Cusick

And so remaining true to the biblical text, and yet in a in a pluralistic postmodern culture, how do you speak about maleness and femaleness and that vast difference?

Dan Allender

Well, I I I think honestly, this is an arena of uh of a lot of change, even in the last five years for me. Thinking in terms of how I might have named it, uh I probably would have felt that there was something about the nature of strength that was there with regard to maleness and something of tenderness that was there with regard to femaleness. And I still hold that to be true, but I know so many men whose tenderness exceeds what many women tend to offer. And I certainly know strength in women that uh exceeds uh what often is found. So I would say both are meant, strength and tenderness are meant to be part of both of who we are as male, as female. So, in that sense, I would go back to the category that there is one core uniqueness, and that is women give birth, men don't, uh, which means that there is uh a difficult beginning category, is to say women are more like God. Um, women are more like God in they have the capacity to create in a way that a man cannot, uh, and that is to create from the very literally sinews, right from the cellular standpoint of their being, which is why I think there is so much misogyny, so much uh, and again, to say the word hatred of women is not untrue, but what I would say is envy of women, uh envy of the of the intimacy, envy of the creative power and the imagination and the tenderness, so that when we begin to name that a woman uh for good lord, for millennia, um have been uh abused in the way that you know we're seeing currently in the the the uh hashtag me too, um the Weinstein and that you start looking at almost this long history of powerful men, um, the idea that women are far more susceptible to abuse. Um and I don't think that can be simply called lust. Uh I think that has to be seen as more violent uh than just desire gone mad. Uh it is desire gone mad with a vengeance against. Uh and that's been part of my work over many, many, many decades is again just to ponder why is there such misuse of women? Uh far more than there is so-called misuse of men.

Michael John Cusick

You're you're so uh I'm so glad you brought this up because especially in today's culture where you know every day we're reading in the news about another man or another handful of men dropping like flies. And of course, my story is one of sexual exploitation of women and sexual harassment of women. Um and the antidote is is really humility and stepping into and through shame, which I definitely want to talk about. Um but so many men, since we're talking about the misuse of women and misogyny, um don't know what to do about that. And and at best, oftentimes in the Christian community, we use euphemisms like working on your purity, or uh, you know, someone had a moral failure, which of course can be you know, not serving the poor is a moral failure. But but how do we how do we step beyond, quote, working on purity and step into our stories and our brokenness in a way where not only we would be transformed and restored, but that that would be part of the restoration of the world and the kingdom come?

Dan Allender

Well, it's a it's a beautiful question. And the question itself is so indicative of the nature of the work that you do with people. Um, and that is the assumption that there is more to our struggle than the fact that we struggle with lust. And again, I I've tried to say that I think lust is desire gone mad. Um, it's a kind of consumption, a uh a rage to fill uh uh that core emptiness that exists within all of us. That's I never want that to be minimized. That's always a factor in our exploitation, not just of women, but our exploitation of ourselves, our exploitation of the earth. I mean, all forms of misuse rather than honor. So if we contrast misuse violation to the word honor, um, why are we dishonoring ourselves, others, uh uh the earth, and ultimately God? Well, I I always come back to this second category of anger. So Jesus talks about sin in the category of lust and anger. What's the anger involved in pornography? Well, it's the joy of degradation. And that is a very, I mean, we're at least as a culture closer to being able to acknowledge the powerful role of lust. Um, but we're still deeply reluctant to face that there is a part of us that wants to make someone pay. So, in that sense, uh, to to make a shift that will feel too severe for most people, uh, but to say, no, I mean, for a man to face the way he misuses women requires him to deal with his first woman. Um, and that's not your first date, it's not your first sexual encounter, it's your mother. So when we open the door to the complexity, particularly of a boy with his mother, that uh, you know, I the pushback I get uh to this day uh is like, don't you mess with my mother? Uh, you know, I mean, you can look at war films and see men dying on the battlefield. Uh, seldom, uh, and maybe never do they cry out for their fathers. Um, and so the relationship we have with our mother uh is intimate, uh, it's complex, uh, and it's highly, oh my god, highly defended. So to begin that process to say, no, every man engaging pornography is to some degree, and again, that's back to the bell-shaped curve, to some degree, some way less, some way more, but everyone on that continuum is addressing something with regard to their mother. Uh, and so that warfare, that war of what will I do with the younger parts of me that feel uh embedded, uh feel in many ways enmeshed or feel lost and abandoned with regard to my relationship with my mother, that becomes the place where you begin with misogyny in the first core relationship, and that's mother-son.

Michael John Cusick

Yeah. Wow, there's so many questions and directions I could go with that. But the first thing that comes to my mind is that why in the world would we begin to face that unless there is a good and merciful God that's better than we even imagine, with whom we can come before and say, I misuse women or I have been misused by a man or another woman. Um and I can bring the very worst of who I am, my shame, even this joy in degrading others, which is a brutal, brutal truth to admit, right? But that's the the paradox of of Christianity in the heart of God is that when we when we face the ugliness, we see who we really are, uh and we see who God really is.

Dan Allender

Well, uh again, I don't carry a gun. Uh uh I don't know. Any anymore, right? Well, anymore. But uh, you know, somebody cut me off uh on the road the other day, uh, and I sort of put my face up against my window and mouthed words that if it had been uh, you know, if it had been captured uh by an iPhone, uh uh something of my current work would be highly questioned. Uh and I'm going, what in the name of God is going on? Like you got inconvenienced for three seconds, uh, and you're willing to virtually risk your reputation and your presence in the kingdom of God for what? Uh and in some ways, uh that that level of I wanted that particular car and driver to pay. And it wasn't just for the insult or for you know the mere small threat that they posed by cutting me off. Uh in some ways, it was the voluminous rage I've not addressed over scores uh of smaller, bigger uh uh insults. Uh just again go back to one core category. We all know we're angry. Um, how angry? Uh and particularly white males angry. Um and so when you begin to frame that and to say, let's let's take the awareness of what scripture says and what we know about ourselves into the realm uh of exploitation uh of women, it becomes a very, as you put it brilliantly, humbling. But again, shame divides, but eventually shame exasperates uh to a point where um you literally have such a deeply divided inner and outer world. Uh that I think that sense of you are far from whom you were meant to be and who you were most meant to be with. Uh, I think in some ways shame is what drives us back to God.

Michael John Cusick

I'm saying this uh not to be funny. And uh as you talk about the as you talk about the road rage, I'm going, yeah, I get that. And then I want to say, gosh, Dan, I I thought you would be beyond that by now. And I say that because it's so cool to hear you. You're 62, 63 years old. W what I wish, uh I'm I'm well into my 65. Okay, congratulations. Uh so we all have this illusion that someday, you know, as we get older or something, that these core struggles inside of us, especially the things that we don't seem to have any control over, our reflexes, our impulses, that that, you know, thank God, is an ongoing process so that the pressure is not on us to have to somehow resolve that. But how have you come to a place where you're both horrified at what you've done in describing it now, and yet there's a non-judgmental acceptance and a compassion that I hear uh about that as well. How do you walk that line?

Dan Allender

Well, I I think uh be it well or not, I I've done a lot of pondering uh of myself and others. You know, my job is pondering. Uh reading, I get to read a lot. Uh people pay me to read, people pay me to write and think, uh, and in that sense. I get to just sort of do what a lot of people don't have the privilege to do. And that's to sit back and go, what in the name of all that is good, true, and holy would provoke such a response in that context? And uh it's not excuse making by any means. Uh it's it's a it's a a willingness to say, look, I get cut off. Look, driving in Seattle is not uh a piece of cake. Uh so it's not like it's rare. Why would this in this moment provoke me? And seldom is it the event itself. It's more what's stored, uh, what's stored from that hour before, two hours, day, several days. Uh, and a lot of it, at least for me, has to do with entitlement, uh, which is, I think, the understructure for all forms of narcissism. Uh, a kind of I've done what should be done and look at what my life still is. Why am I not richer? Why am I not more famous? Why am I not more happy? Um, why does my world not work? Um, and that, you know, as naive and perhaps uh as um immature as it may seem, and I do believe it is, there's a part of me that feels the same as you to go at 65, having been in Jesus literally for a little bit more than four decades, I would never have thought uh that my wars would be as broken as they are. Uh so that standing back and being able to go, no, there were two or three things that had happened that day that I had not addressed. Uh, and I can argue because I was busy or because many things were intervening, uh, but it basically boiled down to uh I had taken some blows that I didn't feel like were fair or honorable, uh, and I didn't address them well in the moment or after. Uh and so, you know, the poor person who cut me off got my face of rage, uh, got the cumulative work of that day uh uh in a way in which I don't even know if they saw my face. And I'm grateful that at this point I'm I'm unaware that anyone videoed me. But we do live in that world where you go, I don't know how even mature it is that I struggled as much as the thought that, oh my gosh, uh if this had been in a more public setting and somebody had taken my rage and put it on to a camera, um uh people would be doing just what I'm doing right now, shaking their head, going, I I knew he was such a fake, such a poser, such a, and it's like in that moment, uh, it's worse than being a poser. I'm I'm I'm a I'm a contradiction to what it is I will long to be. And yet I'd go back to the framework of grace. Um, I'm also revealing what it is that Paul put words to when he says that he's the chief of sinners. Uh and I make no claim to be the chief, but I'm not far behind him. Given that, uh, then how will I tenderly, because I don't believe Jesus engages my rage with rage? Um, how will he tenderly uh engage those very, very young, broken parts that really want the world to be magical uh and and resolvable uh and uh and on my side? Um how will he tend to that? Will I let him tend to it? Will I name that I need him to tend to those young parts of my heart? Um that that I think begins to change rather than just to flagellate myself for being so foolish or to further blame um Seattle drivers uh to self-justify. I mean, those are really ultimately are only two passages blame others or blame ourselves. And when we choose uh to mitigate blame by at least saying, I need help, uh, I need help right now, uh I think that changes um the flavor uh of what our hearts are available to and certainly change how Jesus is free to engage.

Brian Beatty

So we've wrapped up another episode of Restoring the Soul. We want you to know that Restoring the Soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, our intensive counseling programs in Colorado allow you to experience deep change in half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more, visit restoring the soul.com. That's restoring the soul.com.