Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Garry Ingraham: Coming Out Of Cultural ‘Christianity’ & LGBT Identity

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Garry Ingraham: Coming Out Of Cultural ‘Christianity’ & LGBT Identity · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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  Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in.
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  God bless you.
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  We appreciate your support of the podcast.
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  Very important topic today, and the book that we will be discussing is called M.I.Gay.
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  It's by Gary Ingram, and the subtitle is Coming Out of Cultural Christianity and LGBTQ
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  Plus Identity into Authentic Faith in Jesus Christ.
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  So Gary and Melissa Ingram founded Love and Truth Network in 2013.
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  It's a national ministry that equips pastors and Christian leaders to develop environments
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  of both safety and transformation, restoring relational and sexual wholeness, as well
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  as biblical identity.
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  Prior to launching, LTN Gary served as a pastor of Soul Care Ministries on a pastoral
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  team at large, at a large church in upstate New York for 12 years.
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  Gary and Melissa came out of identity confusion, met in 2004, married in 2007, have two incredible
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  boys, they live in Phoenix, Arizona, and Melissa runs her Christian counseling practice
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  and homeschools their children while Gary serves as executive director of Love and Truth
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  Network.
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  Praise God.
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  Thanks for your time today, Gary.
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  Good to have you on the podcast.
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  Thank you, David.
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  I appreciate being here.
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  All right.
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  So let's talk about how you guys met.
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  Give us a little more detail on that because it sounds like you both came from very broken
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  disjointed backgrounds, and I would just love to hear a little bit more of that story.
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  Let our viewers get to know you a little bit.
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  Sure.
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  When Melissa and I met, it was in 2004.
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  I was already on staff at the church that I was working at and worked at for 12 years.
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  And we met at a living waters training put out by Desert Stream Ministries.
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  And yeah, we've, we met there and it was a couple of years later that we seriously started
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  dating and we were married in 2007.
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  That's awesome.
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  So she councils now, that's, that's incredible because it sounds like her background.
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  She had to overcome a lot just like you have.
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  Can you share a little bit more about that before we dive into the book?
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  Yeah.
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  So Melissa had been involved in several long term relationships with guys and those were
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  sexually broken as well.
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  She really was kind of giving herself away just to have the emotional connection.
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  And then later broke off an engagement to a guy that she was engaged to to be married
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  and got involved with a woman and felt like this is what she'd been looking for her whole
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  life.
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  And so yeah, both of us and for me, I dealt with same-sex traction, you know, pretty much
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  from as far back as I can remember, early childhood exposure to pornography, early sexualization
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  and even some sexual abuse by similar neighborhood boys.
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  And that coupled with lack of connection to my father, really over identification with
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  my mom, my one sister, just never feeling like I fit into the world of boys and men.
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  All of that kind of, and other things too, but all of those things kind of congealed
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  into this ultimately leading into this confusion around my gender and am I a boy?
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  And I was attracted to guys rather than girls.
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  And so all of that, in all the while going to church, by the way, you know, and the church
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  having no answers on these topics back when I was wrestling with it.
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  Well, let's talk a little bit more about that.
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  It's important because we'll get to chapter three in your book and talk about fatherlessness
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  and the benefit of having a father in the home, which is huge.
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  But I think I read somewhere early on in your book, it may have been that chapter, maybe
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  in the introduction where your family was in church, right?
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  You went all the time.
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  You were there, but that doesn't mean that everybody was really taken care of.
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  You were having, you know, problems and, you know, just share a little bit about that.
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  We can be busy with maybe good things, maybe ministry, but at the sacrifice sometimes
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  of family, can you share a little bit more about that?
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  Yeah, well, the tagline is you read the subtitle is coming out of cultural Christianity
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  and LGBT confusion, right?
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  So the need that I had was to really just break free of this environment that I've grown
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  up in that was more cultural Christianity.
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  And I think there are lots of Christians around me.
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  My parents certainly were two of them that really love Jesus.
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  But most of my growing up years were spent in my dad, particularly, but my family and
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  then our church environment being that which focused on behavior management and focused
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  on the outer image and how we were maintaining it.
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  If everything looks good there, then it was assumed that everything was good.
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  Well, me, like countless other people grew up in church very early, beginning to live
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  just split off lives, beginning to live double lives, looking like the good Christian
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  boys or girls on the outside, but inwardly dealing with all kinds of stuff that we didn't
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  feel safe coming to the church and already been talking with our parents about oftentimes.
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  Not because they were horrible people, but just because there was, there was, there was
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  a lack, when you talk about fatherlessness, there was a complete lack for my dad to even
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  know that my heart needed to be shuppard in.
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  He just thought behavior needed to be managed.
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  I needed my dad to connect with me at a heart level and really help share his faith
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  with me in a relational kind of way and that didn't happen until much, much later in life.
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  I think I hope most people understand what you just shared as far as the importance of
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  connection, that word.
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  I like the way you put that to, you know, behavior needed to be.
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  What did you say?
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  Behavior needed to be.
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  Well, we focus so much on behavior management and like Jesus blasted the Pharisees for
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  cleaning the outside of the cup versus dealing with the inside, right?
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  And that's where so often Christian parents go awry is only looking at the outer and
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  really not knowing how to connect and bond with their sons and daughters at a heart level.
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  So is that in part what you mean by when you when you talk about that, we are profoundly
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  impacted by the environments we grow up in?
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  Is it much of a broader scope or are you really focusing on that relationship with parents?
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  Well, that certainly is huge.
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  I think primarily relationships with parents and then particularly because I think relational
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  connection happens more easily for moms and their children.
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  That doesn't always happen, but it tends to happen more easily.
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  It's dads that wrestle either with not being in the home because we have a divorce culture
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  that we live in, even within the context of the church, oftentimes.
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  But even when dads are physically present in the home as mine was, oftentimes they are
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  completely emotionally absent or largely emotionally absent.
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  And that does have a scarring impact on kids too.
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  So one of the questions I like, what do you want parents to know, just just make sure
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  we get this out early in the interview today to know and understand about how their parenting
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  impacts choices that their children will make later in life.
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  What do you want today's young parents to know?
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  Well, two things I want parents to know is for those who have made mistakes to understand
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  that the direction their child has gone and as I did, their involvement is not determinative
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  that their child is going to be gay or any of those things.
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  We make our own choices, but to understand how critical our role is in helping to form
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  and shape the direction of a child, especially for young parents or for those who are not
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  yet parents who want to be parents, there's a whole, we do a whole lesson now on prevention
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  as well as recovery for parents.
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  And we really want to get with younger parents or those who want to be parents to really
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  help them understand, especially dads, man, your role is vital from the very early stages
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  of life, especially for boys around a year and a half to two years old and beyond.
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  But you have a vital role to play in the formation of your child.
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  And also dads are kind of an icon into who we understand God to be as we become teenagers
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  and we become young men and even young women.
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  By the way, friends, I don't, I think I gave the website, but I want to make sure that
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  you have it love and truth network.com, love and truth network.com.
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  And I did not mention that the book, am I gay, it is available on Amazon.
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  You can check that out at amazon.com.
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  So a quote here that I want to just get you to expound on a little bit and I agree completely
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  anything outside of God's design for sexual expression does damage to the people involved.
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  The damage is our soul, whether we realize it immediately or years later, talk to us
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  a little bit more about that Gary.
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  Well, the verse I think that really unpacks that and describes it is when Paul tells
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  us in 1 Corinthians 6, 18 to flee from sexual immorality.
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  And then he goes on and says every other sin that a man commits or woman commits is outside
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  the body.
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  But the ones who sin sexually sin against their own body, whatever you believe Paul is
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  trying to communicate there, he is certainly communicating that sexual sin, sexual immorality
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  has a particular kind of consequence of particular kind of damage to the person that is unique
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  from all other sins.
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  I mean, it's worse than every other sin, but there's a kind of damage.
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  And so I felt it and I believe we feel it at a soul level with sexual sin.
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  And again, whether we feel it, we may not feel it immediately, just like Adam and Eve,
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  they went from being eternal beings to dying, but that death didn't happen immediately.
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  There's a spiritual death and inward kind of death that happened, but then their bodies
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  decayed over time.
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  The same is true when we sin sexually, there's a kind of damage that starts to set in that
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  we oftentimes don't realize until much, much later in life.
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  So friends, we're speaking with a Gary Ingram in the book is called, Am I gay?
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  You can get it at various places, the website on Amazon.
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  There's a lie about, we've heard this so much in the last probably decade or two, live
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  your truth or just be your authentic self.
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  And you say, authentic hope is not found in discovering and living your truth, rather
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  there is one truth and that comes from God alone.
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  And quote, of course, Jesus said, I am the way the truth in the life.
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  No one comes to the Father except through me.
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  But this what you're saying, what you're saying here is actually goes counter to culture
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  and what's the lies out there about, you can just live your truth, I'll live my truth,
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  live and let live.
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  Share a little bit more about that.
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  Well, it really describes the broader issue of how language has been shifting over time.
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  And not only is this idea that there's her truth, his truth, my truth, your truth,
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  which is completely untrue, but rather God's truth, but also the even the phrase, love
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  is love.
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  What that is meant to communicate is no matter what someone is drawn to attracted to, no
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  matter whether it's someone of the same sex, and ultimately, polyamory is coming to the
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  courts.
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  It's going to become legalized with marriage.
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  I have no doubt of that probably in the next five years, if not sooner.
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  And so where does it end?
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  This idea that love is love from a biblical perspective as from Paul, again, in 1 Corinthians
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  13, we know that is the love chapter, but in verse six, he tells us something very important.
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  He says, love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
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  So we as Christians need to understand that anytime we start affirming things that are
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  that are called sin in the scriptures, and we think that we're being loving by doing
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  that.
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  We need to walk in this balance in the tension of love and truth, which is why we named
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  our ministry that when you take truth out of love, it is no longer love in any way, shape
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  or form.
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  Love to be truly biblical must be imbued with genuine truth.
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  It's interesting how you don't hear many people say truth is truth.
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  It's always love is true.
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  Love is love.
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  Yeah.
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  What they're saying is just leave me alone.
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  Love is love.
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  It's whatever I define it or determine it to be, that's okay.
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  That's my truth.
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  Love is love.
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  Anyway.
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  But people fall for it.
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  People don't know how to respond to that.
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  So Gary, do you think a good response because you hear that a lot would be, what do you
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  mean by that or how do you define love?
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  What do you think about those responses?
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  Yeah, those are great responses.
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  I think questions, genuine questions are a great response.
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  I also recently had a conversation with someone where I was asked about conversion therapy
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  and what I immediately asked somebody who asked me that is, well, what do you understand
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  that to be?
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  Because nobody understands what that is even talking about.
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  And so if it's torture and shame, hey, I'm all against that too, but that's not really
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  what we're talking about.
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  So I think it is good to define terms and make sure that we're talking about the same
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  thing, rather than kind of getting painted into a corner.
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  And one of the reasons Christians acquiesce to the whole love is love phrase is because
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  it is easier to just kind of go along rather than saying something and working out the tension
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  of, I need to share this truth with you, but I want to be really loving and gracious about
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  it.
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  Those things are not mutually exclusive.
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  They can be both and they should be both in the same conversation.
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  I've heard a pastor say, if you truly love someone, you will tell them the truth.
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  And it's not up to you how they respond.
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  It's up to you how you deliver it with the heart of compassion and sincere concern for
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  their soul.
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  That's right.
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  So we approach it with that with, we love people.
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  They're not our enemies.
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  Satan, the father of lies, the author of confusion, he's our enemy.
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  But anyway, Gary, I know I'm preaching to the choir, Gary Ingram, the website love
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  and truth network.com.
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  We've got to take a brief pause.
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  When we come back, we're going to talk about fatherlessness and the importance of having
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  a father in the home, particularly in the youngest of ages right back on World View Matters
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  in just a minute.
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• 15:06
  You can go to the website, of course, worldviewmatters.tv.
• 15:10
  Our guest day, Gary Ingram, and the book, MIGay.
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  I want to ask you, before we dive into a little bit more about fathers, Gary, you mentioned
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  you had same-sex attractions, and you write that you were not gay.
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  What did you think that you were if you had these attractions, but you weren't gay?
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  Can you explain that?
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  Sure.
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  That's a great question.
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  I thought, when I wound up leaving Bible College and finding my first gay bar and embracing
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  that life and having wrestled, having memorized tons of scripture, having tried to find
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  help and support within the church with the things I was dealing with, and really finding
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  no answers with regard to LGBT, for sure, but even general sexual brokenness, I wound
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  up finding my first gay bar and feeling like, this is who I am.
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  I finally found my people, and it was really for it for a period of time.
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  I went from feeling shut out of everything and shamed and ridiculed as a kid to now really
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  being wanted and accepted in the LGBT community.
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  It was a whole new experience for me, and so I fully embraced that.
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  I believed that I was a gay man.
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  I rejected God altogether, didn't want to have anything to do with him or the church
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  anymore.
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  But eventually, my book is really about coming to genuine faith at 23, but when I write
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  at the end of the book, and the conclusion is, no, as I look back on my life, there's
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  all kinds of things we can get caught up in, and identities we can believe to be true
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  about ourselves.
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  But ultimately, every human being, every man and woman, and we're binary, it's male
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  or female, not a bunch of other different options.
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  But we are made in the image of God, male or female, according to Genesis 1, 26 and 27.
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  And then secondarily, and of equal importance, is that our identity is connected in our
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  union with Christ, right?
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  And so those two things are our identity as human beings that set us apart from everything
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  else that ever created.
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  And so everything else we deal with, all of those strong feelings, all of those powerful
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  emotions, those are those are temptations, they're powerful emotions, they're a number
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  of things, but they're not our identity.
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  And that's what the conclusion that I came to about myself, I still deal with some
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  same-sex attraction.
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  The hundreds and hundreds of people I know that come out of that world, my wife, we still
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  deal with some levels of same-sex attraction.
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  I think we know two people who have had a sudden reorientation and God just miraculously
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  showed up.
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  Of course, we all wanted that, right?
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  But God has called most of us on a journey of discipleship like every other person on
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  the planet, every other heterosexual guy, every other, which I consider myself to be heterosexual.
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  But everyone who's never struggled with LGBTQ, he is called all of us in this journey of
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  discipleship.
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  And I don't wrestle anymore with wanting to jump in bed with a guy, I don't wrestle
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  with those things, but I wrestle with sometimes it's still kind of an envy or a fallen self-hatred
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  or whatever.
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  Those remnants can still trigger same-sex attraction.
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  And I don't want anyone to think that God just showed up and poofed everyone.
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  This is just going to be fixed and taken away.
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  But it is something I can absolutely surrender to him and walk in obedience.
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  Love my wife well, be a good gift to my boys without this getting in the way of that.
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  And that's an important thing to know.
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  Well, it sounds like a temptation and we are all accepted by something.
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  And I think the dividing line is whether you act on those attractions, temptations, things
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  that are not of God, is that accurate to say, do you think?
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  Well, sure, absolutely.
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  And also, there is a whole group of a whole stream, I guess, in the LGBT space that would
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  say, well, we believe in what the Bible teaches that sex is between one man and one woman
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  in marriage, but we're still gay Christians.
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  And what we would say is, even when we have our identity, it's referred to as side B or
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  syllabic gay Christianity, that is hugely flawed because if we believe that is our identity
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  and we're marrying it to our Christianity, something that if we were to act on would be
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  sin and we're somehow trying to make it holy, somehow sanctifying it by connecting it
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  to our Christianity, that is also a flawed foundation to stand on.
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  So homosexuality is mentioned in the scriptures.
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  So is adultery.
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  And to say, I'm an adulterer as Christian or you can't have that.
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  You can, anyway, I know I'm preaching the choir.
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  There was something else.
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  Okay, before we get to the fatherlessness, I know we're running out of time quickly.
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  We mentioned community and I think of coin and E, I think of communion that we can have
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  with Christ and we have in the fellowship of our church, our brothers and sisters, our
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  church family and a lot of people that have come out of the LGBTQ lifestyle have said
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  community is what really drew me in.
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  How can the church be better in ministering maybe to those with same sex attraction, to
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  the LGBTQ to minister to them and give them community?
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  I find that to be a problem.
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  I don't think we've really gotten to the bottom two or the bottom one.
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  Well, I agree with, yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly, David.
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  And I think the first thing that we need to do within the body of Christ, we are typically
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  living pretty tepid relationships with one another in the general biblical space or
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  Christian church space.
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  We, most people present as having a far more together than they actually do.
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  Very few people are living out James 516 confessor since one another and pray for each other
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  that you might be healed.
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  Most people are posturing in the church.
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  And so if you want to minister to the LGBT community, we have to learn how to get real
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  and honest and vulnerable about some of our most shameful, difficult areas of struggle,
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  not because we just are airing our dirty laundry, but because accordingly to the scriptures,
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  James 516, 1 John 1, 7, Hebrews 3 and a bunch of other places.
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  We need to be encouraging one another and we need to be pouring into one of those lives.
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  It's almost as if community is a conduit through which God pours his grace into our lives.
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  And when we refuse to let people know who we are, we are eliminating that aspect of the
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  power of God and the grace of God in our lives to bring healing to those places.
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  And so that's the beginning of it.
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  The church needs a start getting far more real with one another than it is.
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  And in doing that, then, they are equipping themselves even to minister to those of us
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  coming out of the LGBTQ space.
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  That's an ongoing challenge, authenticity and transparency being vulnerable.
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  And it's hard to do that on a Sunday morning when you've got 30 seconds before you walk
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  in or a minute, hey, how you doing?
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  You can't.
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  You know, so you've got to either maybe hang around after you have to provide more opportunities.
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  Anyway, Gary, over on page 29, 30, 31, you talk about the benefits of having a father
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  in the home.
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  And as role models, I love this.
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  You talk about problem solving, decision making, a father can help children in these
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  ways, resilience, faith building.
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  You also talk about the issues of child poverty, preventing crime, the numerous benefits
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  of fathers in the home.
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  Can you just share a little bit more about that in the last couple of minutes here?
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  Sure.
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  And I would say it's not just fathers in the home.
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  It's engaged fathers in the home.
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  And it's also salient fathers.
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  So what I mean by salient is this idea of salience is this idea that dads, fathers can be both
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  strong, but also tender, that there is a warm and loving and affectionate side to dads
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  that they're going to show and express toward their sons and their daughters and of course,
• 22:41
  toward their wife too.
• 22:42
  They're going to show that in a way that combines strength and gentleness.
• 22:47
  Nancy Piercy has written a book, I think her most recent one is called The Toxic War
• 22:51
  on Masculinity.
• 22:52
  Yes.
• 22:53
  And she's really unpacking.
• 22:54
  Yeah.
• 22:55
  We don't need fewer masculine men.
• 22:56
  We need that salient.
• 22:57
  And we need strong men.
• 22:58
  And we need strong fathers to lead their homes well and serve their homes well.
• 23:02
  Yeah.
• 23:03
  We've had her on and we were talking about that book.
• 23:05
  And she's been on the podcast.
• 23:06
  It was a wonderful.
• 23:07
  She's amazing.
• 23:08
  She is.
• 23:09
  She is.
• 23:10
  Incredible.
• 23:11
  And so let's talk about the role of a father.
• 23:13
  I think our society, and I don't know.
• 23:16
  You might know maybe you've done more research on this than me.
• 23:19
  I looked back to the 1960s and the federal government ballooning and the welfare and mothers
• 23:29
  getting money for having a baby, but not with the father in the house.
• 23:33
  They were penalized.
• 23:35
  Right.
• 23:36
  That was the Lyndon Johnson.
• 23:37
  Thank you, great society.
• 23:38
  But talk a little bit about some catalysts and where this went wrong.
• 23:44
  Like I said, I think we talked about it earlier.
• 23:46
  The African American community is up to I think 75 plus percent of families do not have
• 23:54
  a father in the black community.
• 23:57
  That's horrible.
• 23:59
  So just share on that in the last couple of minutes here.
• 24:02
  Sure.
• 24:03
  So Candace Owens talks a lot about this from the from the black community perspective
• 24:07
  for sure.
• 24:08
  And I think along with right along with the great society stuff that was being pushed
• 24:13
  by government at the same time or around the same time, maybe toward the end of the
• 24:17
  50s, you also have Alfred Kinsey coming on the scene.
• 24:20
  You've got a hustler magazine and all this other garbage being pushed the sexual male
• 24:25
  and then later five years later, I think he wrote the book on this sexual woman or female.
• 24:30
  And all of this garbage is getting pushed in terms of what freedom really looks like.
• 24:35
  And we're buying into the lie that, you know, the more partners I have, the more, the
• 24:39
  quote unquote, free I am, the better I'm going to feel and be.
• 24:43
  Well, you look at our society now, there's been, we haven't lived in a time when there's
• 24:47
  been more counseling going on.
• 24:48
  And yet at the same time, more suicidal ideation, more anxiety, more depression, really, it
• 24:55
  is a matter of turning back to the Lord.
• 24:57
  And fathers play a huge role in a child's understanding.
• 25:01
  Fathers are really kind of an icon into who we as children begin to understand at an unconscious
• 25:06
  level, which is very powerful, who God actually is.
• 25:09
  Is he available?
• 25:10
  Is he does he love me?
• 25:11
  Is he near or is he distant and aloof?
• 25:14
  And or is he even present at all?
• 25:16
  I think dads, again, are that icon into the window or our window into the spiritual and
• 25:21
  to how we kind of transfer a relationship on to God.
• 25:26
  Thank you for going back into history a little bit because we need a better understanding
• 25:29
  of how we got here.
• 25:31
  Also what we can do now, but Alfred Kinsey before that was Margaret Sanger.
• 25:36
  And the radical feminist movement and she had a birth control review cover with a woman
• 25:42
  on her knees with chain to a big black cast iron ball.
• 25:47
  And on that ball, it said unwanted babies.
• 25:49
  So there was messages being sent out.
• 25:51
  This was 100 years ago.
• 25:53
  And then in the 40s and Alfred Kinsey, Indiana, you've actually still has a bronze statue
• 25:58
  of Alfred Kinsey.
• 25:59
  So to the left of the media, yeah, and they were doing experiments on young children
• 26:06
  and it's horrific if you look into that.
• 26:09
  But anyway, that that all this and the sexual evolution in the 60s, it just brought us to
• 26:15
  where we are.
• 26:16
  Now the broken is I'm glad you are doing something at love and truth network.com, just your closing
• 26:21
  thoughts.
• 26:22
  And we just have a minute left, Gary, I'm just encouraging people to share the truth
• 26:26
  lovingly and just just help people who are hurting.
• 26:29
  Well, my wife and I are full of hope is we travel the country as we speak and teach
• 26:35
  and churches.
• 26:36
  We have moms and dads, we have struggles, we have church leaders and sometimes church
• 26:41
  leaders are struggling in a variety of ways to pornography or whatever.
• 26:44
  And but there are people who are craving and desiring hope and transformation in their
• 26:48
  lives and they're responding to the message.
• 26:51
  The gospel is the best news that we've ever heard.
• 26:54
  The transforming work of Jesus on the cross wasn't just to get us out of hell and into
• 26:58
  heaven one day.
• 26:59
  That's glorious.
• 27:00
  But what's even more glorious is we don't have to live under the chains of sin and bondage
• 27:04
  and addiction in our own lives today.
• 27:07
  That can change.
• 27:08
  That can change over time.
• 27:10
  And so the church really has the answers here.
• 27:12
  I would encourage people to find a good Bible believing church that is going to preach
• 27:16
  the word and is not going to leave out issues of identity and sexuality.
• 27:20
  Those are centerpiece issues in our culture and the church needs to learn how to address
• 27:23
  those well in an open and vulnerable way.
• 27:27
  Yes.
• 27:28
  Thank you.
• 27:29
  The whole council of God.
• 27:30
  Don't sugar code it.
• 27:31
  God address these issues.
• 27:33
  People's literal lives, not their salvation, but their lives are at stake.
• 27:37
  Gary Ingram, God bless you brother.
• 27:38
  Thank you for the book.
• 27:39
  Thank you for all you're doing and yeah, we appreciate your time today.
• 27:43
  Thank you.
• 27:44
  All right, guys, again, the book am I gay, check that out Amazon or again, the website
• 27:48
  love and truth network.com God bless you and as always, keep speaking the truth about
• 27:53
  things that matter.