Show Notes
On this episode of Nuance, Case is joined by radio host, author, and cultural apologist Carmen Fowler LaBerge to discuss how Christians should engage social issues in the public square. Under the broad categories of life, liberty, and happiness, they explore particularly challenging topics such as abortion, IVF, end-of-life care, racism, and pronoun use. LaBerge challenges us all to remember the importance of biblical anthropology and the centrality of the Gospel in every conversation.
Episode Resources:
www.carmenlaberge.com
Speaking the Truth: How to Bring God Back into Every Conversation: https://carmenlaberge.com/book/speak-the-truth/
Mornings with Carmen LaBerge https://myfaithradio.com/programs/mornings-with-carmen/
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://collaborativeorlando.com/
Get to know Case: https://collaborativeorlando.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
So what’s a public square? Really? I mean, really, you’ll hear me open our podcast here with visual images of beautiful European plazas where there’s a fountain in the beautiful shops all around. Certainly, a place we all love to go when we get a chance, but it is a metaphor, and in our modern day engagement, the public square is represented in so many ways. Elon Musk buying Twitter and turning into X, he talks a lot about wanting to be a voice or the place for public square conversation. Well, certainly journalism, books, even moments like this on podcasts, are where we bring thought leaders together to speak to social issues, and that’s our conviction. Here at the Collaborative, we prepare discipleship resources and experiences for Christ-centered professionals in the public square. And so Nuance is one of the many ways that we do that. Well today, friends, I am very honored to have a friend of mine through many years now of ministry. Carmen Fowler LaBerge. Carmen, thanks so much for being with us.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Hey, Case, great to be here. Thank you.
Case Thorp
And so Fowler’s your maiden name?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Yes, that’s why I put it in there, because I figure there’s a lot of folks that know both of us who know me as Carmen Fowler, but everybody in my world now knows me as Carmen LaBerge. So there you go. Just put it all in there.
Case Thorp
Well, that’s what I still have in my phone for contacts. And so you know, I need to let you grow up and move to another phase of life. It’s okay.
Well, to our viewers and friends, welcome to Nuance, where, as I said, we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp, and I want to encourage you, like, subscribe, share, our numbers have really been strong, and we want to make them stronger. So by you doing that, it helps us to fulfill our mission. Well, let me tell you a little bit about Carmen LaBerge. She is an ordained pastor, and that’s how our paths have intersected. For many, many years, she was an ordained pastor, until 2011 when she asked to be removed from the ordered ministry.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
So I’m a layperson. I’ve been a layperson for a long time now.
Case Thorp
Now, see, I knew you weren’t a member of the presbytery, but I guess I mean that, would you say defrocked?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, you’re only defrocked if they took the action to do it and and anticipating that I might be going that direction, I asked to be removed from the ordered ministry, and so they complied.
Case Thorp
Yeah, well, okay, so you’re not Fowler and you’re not a pastor, but you’re still my friend. She has also grown tremendously in her career now to be an author of several books, nationally known speaker, the host of a Christian talk radio show called Mornings with Carmen LaBerge. It is on radio stations in 34 cities, but also heard around the world through the website myfaithradio.com or you can download the Faith Radio app. That’s right, and I just think it’s cool. There are hundreds of thousands that are driving to work each morning, and you are engaging with them. She also calls herself a conversational apologist. We’re going to dig into that a bit more. Her work equips real Christians with real talking points for real life in the real world, and so her most recent book, Speaking Truth: How to Bring God Back into Everyday Conversations, is a good one, friends, and I want to encourage you to pick it up. Carmen is a graduate of the University of Florida down here in the sunny state, Florida, go Gators, and she earned a Master of Divinity from my alma mater, Princeton Theological Seminary. She now lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Jim and family, and the farm.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I spend a lot of time doing farm-related things. It totally keeps you grounded. I think I better understand so many of the things that Jesus talked about, because I’m out there in it, in the afternoons and evenings. So yeah, living on a farm is great.
Case Thorp
Well, I would encourage folks, become her friend on Facebook, and she posts a number of videos describing farm life, right? It’s Green Acres.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I took people on a ride on the tractor the other day and taught them how to bush hog. And my sister, my sister was like, I didn’t even know you had hogs. I’m like, no, it’s a kind of mowing. I’m like, did you not even watch? She’s like, no, I heard you say bush hog. And I’m like, no, okay, are you doing the bush hogging I did the other day?
Case Thorp
Well, I knew you were a person of many talents, but you’re a beautifully refined woman who takes on the world. And so imagining you bush hogging is a stretch, but I’m glad to know it’s very therapeutic.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
You can actually, like, see what you’re accomplishing, which is not always true in, you know, sort of like spoken word ministry.
Case Thorp
So well, I don’t know if I’d quite use the farm word, but we have chickens and ducks and three dogs, two parakeets, the fish finally died. We have three kids. And so just the organic energy on my city lot is a little much for me, but it’s not too much for my wife.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I love that she’s a kindred spirit. That’s pretty cool.
Case Thorp
Yeah. Well, so what else did I miss in your bio that you might want people to know about?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I think one of the things that I bring to the conversation that sometimes is missing for other people is: I’m Jesus first. I’m all in. It’s harder for me to come up with things to talk about that aren’t God-related or Jesus-oriented, than it is for me to come up with things that are like, Oh, I can see the divine perspective on that, or I can see how, you know, there’s a miracle weaving its way into what’s going on. And so I’m not operating first out of a perspective that is maybe vocational or even relational in terms of my own family or geographical in terms of where I live. When I see what’s happening in the world, or when I hear people talking, my first inclination, not my last inclination, or not one that I have to add on, but my first inclination is, okay, God’s operating in the midst of that. Let’s identify what He’s doing, and let’s figure out how to bring that perspective to bear in the conversation, and that seems to be very encouraging to other people who aren’t quite either there yet on their own journey of discipleship or literally don’t see it, no matter how hard they look. So I think that’s passion. Yeah, I think that’s one, one thing I would say.
Case Thorp
I hear you, that is my passion and guides a lot of my work to try to help Christ followers, but also to show this reality for the non-believer of how we look through that filter of God and Jesus first. Ryan Laberge is a sociologist at Eastern Illinois University and has done a lot of work on de-churching, on the statistics with the decline of religion. And he was on the PBS NewsHour just the other night with Judy Woodruff, and he talked about how, in his research, that the average American up until the 70s or 80s first used the filter of faith, and then they got to their political alignment. And that the data shows that has flipped. That first we have this political filter that then leads us to particular churches, perhaps that align with those political filters. And that, that was a great way to put it.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
And it scares me a little, I think that the filters that people have used over the course of time have changed. And so when we talk about being Christians in any any particular time and space, we have to recognize that the filter that we’re using, which hopefully is a filter that is scripture-informed and totally spirit-saturated, like hopefully, those are the those are the filters through which we’re looking at the world and everything that’s going on in it. Other people are not operating with those filters at all. In fact, it’s not just that they have a biblical ignorance. They are like, contrary. It spikes their adrenaline when they hear something that sounds too Jesus-y or sounds like it’s derived from scripture, especially if we tell them so. And then, you know, we are, as Christians, operating out of the opposite spirit of the world, like there is a spirit operating in the world, and it is very contrary to the gospel, to the character in the ways of God, and so as a Christian, I just have to recognize that I can’t be surprised by hostility. I can’t be surprised that people who are not in Christ are behaving in ways that are contrary to the gospel. Like none of that should surprise me. In fact, I should come to expect it. I do not live with the expectation that people of the world are going to live as if they are people of the kingdom. I am representing Christ in the generation that God has ordained that I live in, and that’s a privilege and an opportunity to represent Christ every single day. Through the conversations that I engage in, and through whatever else is going on in the world, recognizing that everybody around me, virtually everybody around me, is operating with a different worldview or a different lens to things than the one I have.
Case Thorp
Well, if you truly have that biblical worldview that like you say, should not be surprising, because the Scriptures tell us, don’t be surprised. This is why we’re different. Now, for the non-believer who’s listening, talk to them, why? I can imagine somebody sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, these people are fanatics.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I’m a total fanatic. Let me just go right out there and tell you if you are listening right now, I don’t even think of you as a non-believer. I think of you as a not yet believer, and that may be even more offensive to you. You might be more offended by the fact that in my heart of hearts, I recognize you as a not yet believer, because scripture says the day is going to come when every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, which means that someday, according to God’s own word, you’re gonna be a believer. So right now, you’re just not yet a believer. You’re not a non-believer. You’re not lost. God knows exactly where you are. He knows what you’re up to. He knows the influences that have led you to believe what you believe right now, and for whatever reason, he thinks it’s a good idea for you to be hearing this. So consider this your invitation to consider Jesus, because God loves you. And if you only hear me say one thing today, that’s the thing I want to be sure you hear me say, God sees you, and He loves you. He made you on purpose and for a purpose, and he wants you to come into a restored relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus.
Case Thorp
Well, I like the term, especially when I’m preaching someone who’s not yet confessed faith. So I’ll say in our worship services, especially when we do the prayer confession, for those of you who have yet to confess faith in Christ, and I’ve gotten feedback that that’s a helpful differentiator. So you use the term conversational apologist. Unpack that for us.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
So we engage in conversations every day, sometimes even in our avoidance of a conversation, we’re communicating a lot. And so, every single human being is engaging or disengaging intentionally, you’re either leaning in or you’re leaning out.
Case Thorp
I leaned out from two friends on Facebook recently because, my goodness, they’re annoying. But go ahead,
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Okay, but that’s a good example. That’s a really, actually, I post stuff on Facebook, but I don’t spend any other time there. Yeah. So I think that there are environments where we can engage in healthy conversation, and then I think that there are environments where it’s unlikely that you’re going to have a healthy conversation. And so that’s something to keep in mind. In the midst of this, a conversational apologist just means that I recognize that in any conversation where I find myself, so a conversation with my 10 year old granddaughter, a conversation with my 86 year old mom, a conversation with, you know, the neighbor to the right or the neighbor to the left, the conversations that I have on air, and the conversations that I have, like at the grocery store, which you know, so all of those are sort of different categories of conversations. Some of them are personal, some of them are professional. Some of them are really, really low, low in terms of engagement, I am probably not making a full proclamation of the gospel to the person who’s looking at onions alongside me at the grocery store. But I might be so. So I think that a conversational apologist uses whatever is already happening in the conversation to find a way in you’re just looking. You’re just looking for…Let me find the word I could play with, or the idea, or the image, or, Hey, I know I have in my heart, something that God just brought to mind. That’s a related story that I could tell. And I’m not even going to wrap it all up with a bow at the end. I’m not going to do, you know, the Romans road, but I am going to allow the power of the Holy Spirit to to like generate within me ideas and conversational threads that invite people to consider eternal things. That’s it. That’s not. It’s not. You know that I have the expectation at all that I’m going to be leading people to Jesus, but I hope that I am representing him in a way that might surprise them, that is positive, and that leads them to ask a follow up question. Okay, that’s not what I thought a Christian was like, like she’s kind of surprising. Like she’s joyful and happy and she, you know, and she has chickens. Like, I’m a regular person.
Case Thorp
Well, I don’t know. I don’t know. Are people that have chickens regular people? That’s where I struggle. But apologist is like a $10 word, so you’re saying I’m sorry for your faith. What do you mean?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Only what my mom asked me, Case. So that’s a really good question, and you’re not the first. So an apologist really is just a person who has a ready defense, I mean, in a non-defensive way. So do you know the hope that’s within you, and can you articulate it? So the gospel is looking for spokespeople today. You mean we want to be advancing the gospel every day, in every direction. And for me, the gospel is a redemptive reality. It’s not four points in a poem. The gospel is what God is doing in the context of redemptive human history. So how is that going to get a voice in the culture today? And that’s what apologists do. It’s not standing up on the stage debating with an atheist.
Case Thorp
But people do that, and they have those gifts.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
But for every day, most of us, most the vast overwhelming majority of us, are not going to ever do that, right?
Case Thorp
Well, now you hit the word worldview. So in your book Speaking Truth, for those of you on YouTube, I’ve got a picture here for you, and want to encourage you to go get Speaking Truth, the sub line there, How to Bring God Back into Everyday Conversations. So with your book, you say the redemptive worldview is desperately needed in the cultural conversations of our day. Now, for somebody who doesn’t get, what do you mean by redemptive worldview? And then what is that? And how does that connect to conversations?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Sometimes we think of the gospel as very individualistic, which it is, about your personal salvation. But it’s not only about your personal salvation. Yes, God wants a redeemed relationship with you through Jesus Christ and the gospel is that hope of salvation, right? We talk about the gospel in that way. That’s kind of the learned way we have talked about it among evangelical Christians for the last generation. But all creation, I mean all creation, and all of time, all of human history, the world and everything in it, the universe itself is in the process of being redeemed. Because at the Fall, everything fell, not just, you know, individual human beings. And the scripture says, All creation is groaning, eager, longing for man’s creation. So you mean, like, all the flowers, tornadoes, hurricanes, if your dog has ever growled at you, I mean, like, right, the growling that goes on out there, the travail of childbirth. I mean, it’s all covered. It’s all covered in the redemptive conversation, chickens, storms. Now I’m not saying that every chicken’s going to heaven, they could have a different gospel conversation. It’s a big…there you go. It’s a size issue. Is it personal? Yes. Is it also universal? Yes. That does not mean I believe in universal salvation. It does mean I believe God has one redemptive plan for all of human history, and that is Jesus.
Case Thorp
You say, all of human history, politics, the banking industry. I mean, help me understand when you say, all, what do you mean by al?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
All, every square inch would be my very Kuypernium answer to that question. So I’m an every square inch girl. I don’t think there is a square inch of me, nor a square inch of you, nor a square square inch of that sheet of paper on your desk, a square inch of that screen that you’re always looking at, a square inch of anything. There’s not a square inch of what you do, what you see, what you say that Jesus is not interested in being Lord over well.
Case Thorp
And this is from the famous quote from Abraham Kuyper, who was a pastor, theologian, and even Prime Minister of the Netherlands, who said that there is not a square inch over which Christ does not claim as mine. It’s mine, and that helps us realize, wow, it’s more than just my personal salvation. But of course, nature, but all the world, the banking and education and medical community, the broken presidential politics, my goodness, all of it. Yeah, I like that. I’m a Kuypernium girl. Ooh, that should be the title of your next book.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, or I’m just a Farm Girl. That’s the other option that I’m working with.
Case Thorp
I’m a Kuypernium Farm Girl. That’s good. Now you lean into, and this is what I love about your work and an interest of mine, but you lean into the biggest topics that Christians are dealing with right now. You don’t shy back from the hard stuff, and that’s part of my conviction behind the work we do at the Collaborative, to lean into the hard issues. Sometimes churches, and for various reasons, avoid such things, because they’re trying to build unity and peace, and yet, then people are left. I don’t know how to deal with certain things that come up when I’m at the water cooler at work. So what would you say are the three biggest topics? What do you hear out there Christians are talking about that they are curious about most?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I’ll use the term life because it’s broad enough to encompass a lot of subject matter areas, but it’s also narrow enough that we can put a frame around it, because we know, we know the dates that end up on those, you know, on those tombstones, right?
Case Thorp
Life is narrow enough.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Life feels pretty big to me, right? But that’s my point., I would pick a word, like the word life, or like the word liberty, because you can have a million conversations under either one of those headings. There’s not something that you could be dealing with at home or at work or out there in the world, that wouldn’t fall under just a handful of categories. So I pick three that resonate really easily with people. One of them is life, and that includes everything from, Yes, what just came into your mind, which is the debate related to abortion, but it also encompasses conversations about IVF or birth control, conversations about end of life care euthanasia. It encompasses conversations about the welfare of widows and orphans, we would get foster care conversations under the heading of life, we I mean, on and on and on and on and on. So there’s, I mean, racism, the entire conversation about who is made in the image of God, and what that means for us as people in the world, men and women, all of that falls under the life category. And then there’s the Liberty category. And another word you could use there would be the word authority. People don’t necessarily like the word authority, because then it leads to a conversation about submission, which is, of course, what it leads to, for Christians, a conversation about submission to the authority of God. And in the culture, the word that is like the mirror of that is the word autonomy, that as if I’m it’s my body, it’s my choice, it’s my mind, it’s my life. And so I think that all of those authority, autonomy conversations we can have under the big heading of liberty, also, obviously the place where a conversation about the politics of the day might come. And then the third one is you might see where I’m going here, life, liberty. I’ll let you fill in the blank, the pursuit of happiness. Yeah, so when the framers wrote that sentence, the big debate was what word to use.
Case Thorp
I’ve read about this. Yeah, the other options, it’s virtue, the pursuit of virtue. Wow, that would have been so much better.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, it would have been a lot more meaningful in today’s conversations, right? But just imagine how quickly you could turn a conversation by introducing that topic. When somebody’s like, oh, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and you’re like, Hey, did you know that originally, the idea there is about the pursuit of virtue, like, what does it even mean to pursue virtue? What is virtue? Who’s pursuing virtue today?
Case Thorp
Do you know why it didn’t make it?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, because for them, the words meant the same thing. And you know, it’s a little bit like, you know, why did your mom give you your middle name? Because it matched up nicely with your first name. Like it rolls off the tongue a little more easily, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Case Thorp
Well, I appreciate that. Those are very telling, especially for our time. And when I hear the word authority, I agree with you there is that debate is the authority with the government or my own individual expression, which is so radical and out of control today in so many ways, we forget the responsibility side of things. So Simone Veil is one of my favorite theologians, and she was tasked with writing a new French constitution during World War Two, the Allies knew they were going to win, and so the French government was trying to get ready to take back over, and she wrote it completely based on responsibilities and obligations, not on rights and radical different right. But of course, they completely laughed at her and rejected it because they had a different idea in mind. And I’m not necessarily suggesting that is the best way for government, but it really made me think, wow, our conversations in America, particularly as evangelicals get so focused on rights and freedoms, but we we fail to recognize it’s held intention that the flip side of that coin is both authority and then responsibility. That’s so good, we’ve lost that.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Yeah, that ordered part of ordered liberty.
Case Thorp
Ordered liberty, I don’t know if it was James Madison. Somebody mentioned that the form of government we had come up with in the Constitution would only work for a virtuous people. And that has really resonated with me in the last couple of weeks, as I see so many things happening in our culture that are just not virtuous. And it worries me.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
So the happiness conversation, in relationship to virtue. So if you connect this back to Scripture, you know, people imagine that, you know, if you pray something in Jesus’ name, it’s like putting a, you know, it’s like putting a quarter in the slot, and then you’re going to get whatever you want, a magic bullet. Yeah, really, this is about whether or not the desires of your heart are actually aligned with what God wants. And so the pursuit of happiness, or what makes you happy? If indeed you are a person who is not only pursuing virtue but living a virtuous life, you are happy because you are living a life that is aligned with God’s design, his character and his ways. And you and I both know when you’re living out of alignment, this disalign from, you know, from God’s good intent, then your life, is it? I mean, there’s a wreck, there’s chaos, it’s dark, it’s bleak. I mean, on and on and on. And so when we talk about the relationship between the pursuit of virtue and the pursuit of happiness, and actually, what defines happiness for people today, I think, for Christians, bringing that conversation to the fore and acknowledging that I am blessed and I am happy when I’m right with God. And how do you get right with God? Well, again, now we’ve circled back around right to the conversation about Jesus.
Case Thorp
Well and you mentioned authority, I will say I purposefully put myself under the authority of Scripture. It’s not necessarily this major revelation that God speaks to me in the middle of the night. My Bible is the word now, I believe it is, and I have had the power of the Holy Spirit speak to me in and through it. But as I’ve watched people grow in their discipleship, there is often that step of you know what? I don’t have to fully understand it or maybe even agree with it all, but I’m going to put myself under its authority as it requests, as the church rightly asks and does itself, hopefully, and therefore, there’s implications for that. It’s different. So you talk about life and all the different ways in which that is controversial, abortion, euthanasia, racism, I lately have been on this kick in my own head, and I need to write on this more. I’ve actually been appointed to a denominational writing committee that is really going to have to spell out a biblical anthropology. Now that’s another $10 word. What I mean by that is, I don’t think we as Protestants, I think the Catholics do better understand what is a person? What is a person not? What does it mean to be made in the image of God, what? How do all those pieces fit together? And when we don’t have a clear understanding of that? Well, then, of course, we come out in so many different places in the church on these social issues, the Gay Agenda, and the way in which it has torn up so many different denominations. So I appreciate you saying that. Okay, so I say all that to lead to I hear a lot of people struggling with the pronoun conversation. When people say, oh, you know, he him her or sorry, he him his. And I get emails and people have that in their footer. And some people intentionally do it. Some have their companies make it, do it. And so I want to put an example before you Carmen and get your insight. Okay, so you and I went to Princeton seminary, and we weren’t there at the same time. Were we?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I was there 90 to 93
Case Thorp
okay, I was there 97 to 2000 so a little bit of gap there.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, I know it’s because you’re like a child, but it’s okay.
Case Thorp
This is LaBerge. That’s not fair. Okay, so our fair alma mater just announced a new appointment to the Charles Hodge Chair of systematic theology. That is, like one of the top chairs one I lived in…
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I lived in Hodge Hall, did you Yeah? Well, there you go.
Case Thorp
Yeah, that’s good place. The rat dance. Dog magic, the rat dance in your day,
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Oh yeah.
Case Thorp
Oh yeah. So any Princeton alum listening, you can think back to the rat dance. Okay, so they just announced a new individual named Dr Hannah Reichel. I believe that’s correct, Rachel to this role. And this individual is apparently one who is called a gender queer scholar and uses the pronouns of they and them. And so, of course, if I don’t have a very clear biblical anthropology. And understanding of what is and isn’t a human and how they interact with the world and relationships and sexuality. I’m gonna run into this and be confused. The announcement I just felt, was a bit of Orwellian double speak, and so it says, We are excited to announce Dr Hannah Reichel’s promotion to full professor and appointment as to Charles chair system at Theology at Prince seminary, their groundbreaking scholarship, the plural there, rather than his or her, dedication to theological education and commitment to community engagement will continue to enrich our academic spiritual discourse. A warm congratulations, Dr Reichel on their appointment, and honestly, my mind went to multiple personalities who are the plural senses of self. And I’m sure Dr. Reichel is a lovely person. I don’t mean to bespeak this individual, but the pronoun thing, helps some of our listeners who are in workplaces where this is real, put their minds around this.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
It is real and unreal at the same time.
Case Thorp
It feels like Orwellian double speak.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
It is real. We live in a world where this is now part of the conversation, part of the requirement in some places of work. But it’s also unreal. And I think that for Christians, the ability to hold, hold that right here all the time, this is both real and unreal. This is being required of me, but in reality, I do know the truth that does create this internal tension that we live with all the time as Christians. When I was a student at Princeton, the big conversation was and the requirement of us as students, which was new for me was that we had to use non-gendered language for God. Yes, right. So the you know, God, the Father, was the issue at the time. Now, the conversation has morphed pretty dramatically. But once you lose sight of who God is, you’re going to lose sight of who people are. So say that again, once you lose sight of who God is, you’re going to lose sight of who people are, why and well, because behind every issue, in this case, behind the issue of pronouns, is the issue of God, and whether or not God is the creator of man and woman. Did God really say, Let there be light, and then from there? Did God actually make human beings male and female in his image? Does Genesis 1:27, hold up in 2024 right? And that’s ultimately the conversation now for people who have come to a belief system that says that people are absolutely just an accident of the combination of time and chemistry and matter that we don’t know where it came from, right then you just emerged from the primordial ooze. You are nothing more interesting or special than a goat or a river or a soybean. So if, on the other hand, you actually believe that God has revealed himself and the truth of who he is, and that, because God is God and we are not, this is how he chose to create. First of all, that he chose to create is amazing. He didn’t have to do it. God didn’t have to create anything. God was perfectly happy as Father Son and Holy Spirit in perfect communion and and out of love, like out of the desire to love, because this love is who he is. He made the world and everything in it, including you and including me. And God is the one who has the authority over life and death, and God chose to make us male and female, this unique pattern in which there is this complimenting of the male and female, and when joined together, becomes this mysterious indication of what it’s going to be like to be in union with Christ on the other side of this life. So all of this is wound up together. It’s not just about me and my body and whether or not you call me by these pronouns or those pronouns.
Case Thorp
And then on the flip side, it’s more than mere politeness or radical acceptance that leads me to come to my biblical convictions. I’m not saying be rude, and that’s where people find themselves tripping up.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
I think the question that we come to as Christians on this in this conversation, so we have theological certainty with humility. That’s sort of the first order strategy of cultural engagement. Like, you do need to develop some theological certainty with humility. I mean, right? I am not a know it all, but I do seek a full knowledge of the one who does know it all. So, theological certainty with humility, moral clarity, right? That’s actually lived out. Yeah, and then this cultural flexibility, like, I would use Daniel here as my best example. Right? If you feel like you are living as a Christian in an exilic reality, like you are in Babylon…
Case Thorp
Okay, exilic reality, what do you mean there?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
So you’re not living in the Promised Land in Jerusalem. You’re not living like in the cozy environment of some sort of Christian nirvana. No, we live in the real world, and the real world is broken and fallen. And I’ve read the end of the book, and things get really bad before they get ultimately better.
Case Thorp
And you’re making the parallel there that Daniel was taken to Babylon in a foreign environment with a very different worldview.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
And he lived there for 70 years as a faithful, faithful representative of God. And he had to be culturally flexible. Did Daniel compromise his faith at any point? I don’t think so. Did he have to make some adjustments? Yeah, absolutely. So where are those points of cultural flexibility in order to stay in the conversation, to win the right to be heard, to be close enough to the fire that one might be snatched out? I mean, those are all sort of biblical images of why Christians stay engaged, why we don’t just disengage and go live together in some sort of communal existence outside of the city. Why are we in the city, engaged over every square inch? And then how do we remain there? Well, you’re going to have to eat with sinners. Here’s the good news. Every meal Jesus ever ate, he ate with sinners.
Case Thorp
Well, even if they were just with the disciples, they were saying…
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
That’s my point. So if you ever think you’re going to be like, I’m going to create an environment where my life is free of all the other bad people out there. No, because all the people are bad, including you. Right? I think that, Case, we want to be gentle, we want to honor people. We don’t want to do something that’s going to compromise our ability in the future to be the safe person that they can turn to and talk to. Because a lot of folks who live in confusion about their identity are one day going to wake up and then you and I, as individual Christians and we as the church collectively, need to be a place where they can come to Jesus.
Case Thorp
Yeah. So we did a six part series on the gender revolution, the sexual revolution, in particular the workplace. This was last year. And so you can go to collaborativeorlando.com, and find that series, and in it, Andy Crouch used the same example of Daniel and went further to talk about how he willingly changed his name and or accepted when his name was changed for him, as well as with his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. And I think it’s interesting that that’s always one of the Bible trivia questions. What were their Hebrew names when we read about their Babylonian names and so Andy Crouch builds on that to say there are some secondary things, non essentials, where we are, as you say, culturally flexible, and yet there were moments where Daniel clearly would not compromise, like worshiping the idols. And that takes wisdom, I think, and discernment, to be able to walk through life and discern those things.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Well, that’s a submission conversation as well. So there’s this like submission to the authorities of the day, right? I’m praying for those who are in positions of power and authority over me, and all kinds of strata of culture has to do. And I’m voting my conscience like, right? I’m not going along with whatever you know, the majority thinks is right. I am going to vote my conscience as a Christian and, you know, and I’m going to bring the power that I do have to bear. But I also recognize that, if you’re listening right now, somewhere in the world where you don’t have the right to vote, your voice and your vote don’t count because you are a Christian, you are as equal a citizen of the kingdom of heaven as I am. And the way that you use your voice and your life to bear positive witness to who God is, right where you are, is no less influential or powerful than the way I use mine. And so I want brothers and sisters in Christ to know we are in this together, not just here in the United States at a particular point in a specific election cycle, but we are in this together as brothers and sisters in Christ around the world.
Case Thorp
So good, so good. Carmen, in our closing few minutes, I want to read from your book and have you tell us the rest of the story and your point here, and part of this is, I want the listeners to get a sense of your good writing. So you say, I remember one particular game of hide and seek. When I was a child, my hiding place was superb. I would be sure to win. The seeker would never think to look where I hid. I would never be found. That, in fact, turned out to be true. All the other kids were found. Eventually the seeker gave up, and they all moved on to a game of kick the can and the cul de sac on rocksmere Road. I don’t remember how long I waited to be found, but at some point I peeked out and realized what happened. I was mad and my feelings were hurt. How could they just quit? The game was hide and seek, not hide and wander off when you get tired of looking, how could the seeker have just given up on finding me? Tell us the rest.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
So the game of hide and seek starts in the Garden of Eden. And so there’s every chance that you’re still hiding today from God in some way. And I think the question is, are you ready to be found? And Jesus comes to seek and to save the lost. And he never gives up. He never gives up. In fact, one of the things I love that I’ve learned about the game of hide and seek, I thought growing up that that what was said at the end, you know, if they didn’t find you, what they’re supposed to say at the end, is this is the way I heard it as a kid. Ollie Ollie oxen free. Now, I don’t know who ollie or ollie or the oxen were, but that’s what I heard Ollie Ollie, oxen free. And in fact, it’s all in all in all in free. And so that’s, I mean, that is really the good news of the gospel. And you can use a game of hide and seek with your kids, or you can use the fact that somebody has a hidden sin or is trying to hide something from others, and it’s peeking out because what’s done in the dark always comes to the light, right? So if you’re tired of hiding, today, I’m just going to issue the invitation, all in, all in, all in free. Jesus has come to seek and to save the lost, and we would love for you to come home.
Case Thorp
What a good cultural apologist you are, Carmen. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. And you know, I want to encourage anybody listening or watching. If you feel convicted on this gospel offer or you want to process it more, reach out to Carmen. Reach out to me. Nothing would give us more pleasure than to talk through this in a loving and respectful way and help you to understand Jesus, you would agree?
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
Absolutely. Thanks, Case.
Case Thorp
Well friends, go get Speak the Truth, Carmen’s book. You can find it on Amazon and also on her website. Carmenlaberge.com. Mornings with Carmen, her radio show is every morning at 6am.
Carmen Fowler LaBerge
6am Central, so seven to nine Eastern. Yeah, a little better for the people on the East Coast.
Case Thorp
If you live in one of those 34 cities where it is on the radio, or you can get the Faith Radio app, Carmen, thank you so much. Well, I want to thank you for joining us. Remember, like, share, give us a comment. It really helps us get the word out. You can go to collaborativeorlando.com, for all sorts of good content. We have a 31 day faith and work prompt journal that helps you work through the theology and the deeper questions of integrating your faith and work. Sign up on our website and we’ll send you a copy for free. You’ll find us across the social media platforms. Don’t forget Nuance Formed for Faithfulness. This is our weekly 10 minute devotional for the working Christian that follows the Christian liturgical calendar. Want to thank our sponsor, the v3 Family Foundation. I’m Case Thorp, and God’s blessings on you.
