#104: Healing Sexual Brokenness: Why is Our Culture So Sexually Broken? | Christopher West
Our world is very sexually broken. The examples are endless: Pornography use, sexual compulsions, addictions, hookup culture, paying for sex, infidelity, sex trafficking, and much more.
But how did our world become so sexually broken?
That’s the topic we tackle today with famous author and speaker Christopher West. If you’ve wrestled with sexual brokenness or noticed an ache inside that you that nothing seems to fill, this episode is for you.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
It's no secret that a world is very sexually broken. I mean, we can think of pornography, sexual compulsions, addictions, hook up culture, paying for sex, infidelity, sex trafficking so much more. But how did we get here? How did our world become so sexually broken? That's a topic we tackle today with famous author and speaker Christopher West. And so if you've wrestled with sexual Brokenness or wondered how our culture became so sexually broken. Keep listening. Welcome to the restored podcast. Helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents', divorce, separation or broken marriage. So you can feel whole again, I'm your host, Joey Panelli. This is episode 104. This episode is also part five of our series called Healing Sexual Brokenness. So, on this show, we feature stories and expert interviews about how to heal from the trauma of your parents', divorce and broken family or how to navigate the pain and the problems that stem from it. And one of the biggest problems that often stems from your family breakdown is unwanted sexual behavior. Like the things I mentioned at the start of the show, pornography, masturbation, hookup culture, paying for sex infidelity and so much more. In fact, one expert found that almost 90% of those who struggle with sexual addiction come from a broken family. And so in this series, you'll get tactics and resources to overcome unwanted sexual behavior so you can find freedom and trigger warning. This is obviously a mature topic. So we recommend putting in earphones or at least not listening around Children with that. My guest today is Christopher West West is the author of more than a dozen books, including Word Made Flesh, Theology of the Body Explained Theology of the Body for beginners and good news about sex and marriage. His work has been featured in the New York Times on ABC news, MS NBC and Fox News and on countless Catholic and evangelical media platforms. His global lecturing best selling books, multiple audio and video programs and popular podcasts. Co-hosted by his wife Wendy have made him into one of the world's most recognized teachers of Saint John Paul, the second theology of the Body. He is the president of the theology of the Body Institute, but of all his titles and roles. He is most proud to call himself a devoted husband and father. Now, in this episode, we talk about God and faith and if you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. Anyone listening for a while knows that this is not a strictly religious podcast. So wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. And if you don't believe in God. My challenge for you. Is this just listen with an open mind, even if you were to skip or take out the God parts, you're still going to benefit from this episode. Also, if you're listening on audio and you want to see the images that Christopher references, just go ahead and click on the links in the show notes. And now here's my conversation with Christopher West Christopher. Welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here. Thank you, Joe. It's a pleasure to be with you and your audience. We're honored. There's so much sexual Brokenness in our world. I think everyone listening would agree. I mean, the examples are endless. We have pornography, sexual compulsion, addiction, hookup, culture, paying for sex, infidelity, sex trafficking, and so much more. I think we all desire better, but so many people feel stuck, they feel alone and they feel hopeless. But before we get to the remedy, I think it's helpful to go back in time. How in the world did we get here? We got here by misdirected desire. I think one of the most fundamental and important principles of a proper theological understanding of the world is, is this that the devil doesn't have his own clay? Uh What does that mean? It means the only clay that exists is God's clay, right? And God looked at the clay that he created and said, behold, it is very good. I I do this visual often with my, my audience is I'll take a piece of paper which hang on a sec. Uh Here I actually have, I'll take a piece of paper like this. And I'll say, I, I want you to imagine this is the most beautiful painting you've ever seen in your life. And I say, what is it? What's the most beautiful thing that, that there is? And I say this is man and woman just as God created us to be naked without shame. There's nothing more beautiful in the universe than this painting. Male and female. He created them. He blessed them and he said, be fruitful and multiply. They were naked without shame. That whole mystery of human sexuality and the call of the two to become one flesh so that life might come into the world. This is the most beautiful painting there is uh but there's an enemy who hates this painting and he hates this painting because this painting reveals the heavenly mystery of who God is. God himself is not sexual, but God himself is an eternal exchange of life, giving love, right? Uh A communion of three persons. And in the normal course of events, the union of the two man and woman leads to a third. And so we have a, we have an image here, a bodily representation or representation of the life-giving exchange of beauty itself, of, of the divine. And that's why the enemy hates this painting and his goal from the beginning was this. And this is exactly what has happened to this mystery of human sexuality in a fallen world. It gets all twisted up and, and this is what this is the classic mistake of spiritual people. And, and all of this is an answer to your question, Joey. But all of this has to be laid out to understand how we got in this mess, right? The typical response of spiritual people. And I put that in quotes because this is false spirituality, a false spirituality thinks you have to live a spiritual life ruptured from the body. And it's just not authentic spirituality. It is certainly not Christian spirituality but falsely spiritual people look at this crumpled up painting and, and what does it appear to be? It, it looks like trash, right? So spiritual people will say that's bad, throw it away and, and this is what you would call a puritanical approach to human sexuality. Spirit, good body, bad. Well, I find this fascinating in, in 1953 Hugh Hefner starts Playboy Magazine and this is what he said in 1953 he said I started Playboy Magazine as my personal response to the hurt and hypocrisy of puritanism in my strict Christian upbringing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So Hugh Hefner in 1953 pulls this crumpled painting out of the trash and says to the modern world, hey, people, you shouldn't throw this away and guess what Hugh Hefner was right on this point. He was right that we shouldn't throw this away. But where did he get it wrong and wrong with horrific consequences, all of which you named and were living through and we still are reaping the horrors of Hugh Hefner's mistake. Now we can't pin it all on Hugh Hefner. But I turned to him as, as kind of one of the main architects of the, of the sexual revolution and and more aptly, it's a pornographic revolution, right? I don't want to surrender the word, surrender the word sexual to the enemy. Sexual sexuality is a good word. Remember the enemy doesn't have his own clay, right? God created sexuality. He created us male and female. And he called the two to be fruitful and multiply. Sexuality is a wholly sacred reality. It's gotten all twisted up. Hugh Hefner's mistake was that, that he left the paper, the painting in its crumpled up form and he started reveling in the crumpled up version of the story, right? And he started saying to the modern world, don't you want to look at this? Don't you want some of this? And because most of the culture was puritanical in its approach to sexuality, when Hugh Hefner started saying, hey, you can have this. We jumped in, we we dove head first into this crumpled up version of the story. Here's another metaphor I use, right? We all have this hunger. We all have this yearning, this, this, this desire for love, for union, for affirmation, for beauty, for goodness and the proper name for that longing. The church herself uses this language borrowed from the Greeks. The proper name for that longing is, is eros. We all have this erotic longing for, for, for love, for union, for beauty. But here's the problem. Most of us grow up when it comes to that fundamental hunger. And I, I count myself on this list. Uh Most of us grow up with what I call the starvation diet Gospel, which is basically your hunger is bad. You need to repress all that. But follow all these rules and you'll be a good upstanding Christian citizen. Again, that's a puritanical approach, right? This is not authentic Christianity, authentic Christianity. I learned uh in my twenties, I'm now in my fifties. So this was 30 years ago, I learned from Saint John Paul. The second that Christianity is not a starvation diet. Christianity is an invitation to a wedding feast, a banquet of life giving love. But if you don't know about that, if you think Christianity calls you to starve erotic longing, then you're gonna become a quick convert. As I did in my teenage years, I became a quick convert to what I call the fast food gospel. And the fast food Gospel is the secular culture's promise of immediate gratification for that hunger. And that's what this crumpled up painting is. This is the fast food approach. Hugh Hefner started saying to the modern world, don't you want some of this? Look at these greasy chicken nuggets, you know you're hungry. Come over here, I'll give you what you want. And yeah, don't lie to me. The chicken nuggets taste good going down, especially when you've lived that starvation approach to things. But if that becomes your steady diet, fast food, eventually the grease and the sodium is going to catch up with you, right? And that's a picture of me in my college years, the grease and the sodium caught up with me, so to speak. And I was sick inside and it put me on my knees saying God in heaven, if you exist, you better show me why you gave me all these desires because they're getting me and everybody I know into a hell of a lot of trouble. Do you have a plan? What is your plan for sexual desire? And long story short that put me on a journey that led me to discover Pope John Paul, the second's theology of the body and, and Joey, I find this fascinating. This is all looping around to answer your question, how we got in this mess we got in this mess because we thought the only two choices were starvation or fast food. That's how we got in this mess. And if those are the only two choices, the chicken nuggets are much more appealing than the starvation approach. But here's what I discovered from John Paul the second, as I've already said, Christianity is an invitation to a wedding feast. And I find this absolutely fascinating. Right. At the same time, Hugh Hefner pulled this out of the trash can, this crumpled up paper painting and, and started saying to the modern world, hey, don't you want some of this? This is what you're looking for. Right. At the same time, a young Polish priest named Carol Voila who would many years later become Pope John Paul the second, who would many years after that become Saint John Paul the second. At the very same time, Hugh Hefner pulled this out of the trash can. He also did, he was responding to the puritanical error in the modern world and he pulled this out of the trash can and said to the modern world, you mustn't throw this away. But he did something Hugh Hefner didn't do by reflecting on God's original plan when they were naked without shame. And by reflecting on how the paper got crumpled up in the first place. And more importantly, how Christ came into the world. A a male born of a female, precisely to redeem masculinity and femininity. This young Polish Saints started un crumpling the painting for us so that we could rediscover the original beautiful, wonderful plan of God for making us male and female naked without shame. This is the true sexual revolution. It's the un crumpling of the painting. It's not reveling in the crumpled up version of things like the pornographic revolution, the true revolution, we could call a redemption of the body, a redemption of sexuality. That's the path of Christianity, not repression, redemption. How did we get in this mess? Because we confuse the fast food for the banquet, right? We are hungry. God created us with this hunger and starvation is not gonna cut it. There must be something else. There must be another way, there must be another place to take the hunger. And Christ says, come to me, all you who are hungry, come to me, all you who are thirsty. I will redirect your arrows towards the wedding feast. That's the true path to sexual wholeness. That's the true path to sexual fulfillment. That's the true path to human fulfillment. But when we don't know that true path we fall for when we don't know the banquet, we fall for the fast food. And that's why we're in the mess we're in. Wow, beautiful, incredible. And I think it's so helpful to have that historical foundation. And I remember just at different points in my life when struggling with, you know, pornography and just feeling that emptiness that you described that just getting so sick, feeling like can any good come out of sexuality? Like I truly wrestled with that question because I looked around and saw I'm like, man, this is just so broken and that's the danger, right? There when we indulge in this twisted crumpled up version of the story and we start to feel sick because we've done. So the danger is once again, what do we think this is evil in itself? And we think how can any good come from this? And we throw it away? And that's why I go back. I said the fundamental principle in all of this is the devil doesn't have his own clay. There's nothing that is evil in itself, right? Evil is always the twisting, the distortion of something good and true spirituality. True faith is, is never to throw the evil away. It's to let God come into that evil, to redeem it, to untwist it to restore us redemption. The very word redemption means AAA restoration, right? A restoration of an original good. And when we don't understand, there is a redemption to be had we see the good twisted up and we just think it's evil and we, we toss it away. That's how we got in the mess we're in. Wow. Wow. Wow. And when you say the word restoration, I think of maybe an old piece of furniture that's so valuable that's lost. Maybe some of it's flare its beauty. But if in the right hands of a wood smith like that can be restored, it can be brought back amen to its original beauty. Maybe not exactly as it was, but there can be so much beauty and we can also think of a church being restored right? When it's all the paints chipping, the marble looks horrible. We can take that away and resort back to its original beauty, I think. And I think this is apt uh I think of the Sistine chapel and, and over 500 years, all of the soot from the incense and the candles just caked this dark layer like a a cloud over the original pristine colors of Michael Michelangelo's human figures. And and John Paul, the second ordered this restoration project where these layers and layers of soot and grime were removed. And even art historians were in disbelief at the vividness of the colors because for, for however many hundreds of years, we just saw it covered in soot and we thought Michelangelo was kind of dim and dark in his portrayal. Oh no, no rightness, vividness and, and even more so to just make an apt connection. Uh John Paul the second, also in the restoration project of the Sistine Chapel, ordered the removal of many of the loin cloths that previous Popes had ordered to be painted over Michelangelo's original nudes. John Paul the second said, take them off, why take them off in the name of Christian purity? And then he said in the in when he dedicated the restored Sistine Chapel, he said, Michelangelo allowed himself to be guided by those evocative words of Genesis that the man and his wife were both naked and felt no shame. And then he dedicated the restored Sistine chapel with all these vivid colors in these original nudes. He he dedicated it as the sanctuary of the theology of the human body. Our bodies are not pornographic. Our bodies are the, they reveal the mystery of God. Our bodies are theological. They tell a divine story. They tell the story that God himself is an eternal exchange of life, giving love and we are destined to participate bodily in that exchange of life-giving love. And that's why the enemy hates that beautiful painting. And that's why he wants to twist it up so that we no longer see our bodies as the graphic uh uh uh an image of God. We rather see them as pornographic, an image of, of, of something twisted and distorted and base, incredible, so beautiful. And I remember Jason Everett in his book on John Paul the second talking about something Michelangelo said. I can't remember the exact quote, but please uh jump in if you remember it where I think some of the cardinals and bishops at the time were scandalized by the way, he was depicting the human body just in all its glory without any lo cloth. And I, do you remember the line? He said to them, I, I can, I can recall it but it was something, it was something to the extent of like the body isn't bad and dirty. The world has made it and it's just something bad. And yes, it's, it's the point he was making is that the body itself is not impure, but we are projecting our own impurity onto it. There you go. Right. And Saint Paul says it this way to the pure, all things are pure but to the impure, nothing is pure. And what does that mean to the pure? They're seeing the world as God created it to be. And God looked at everything he made and said, behold, it is very good, right? The only clay that exists is God's clay. All that impurity does. It takes God's clay and twists it up. So when we're coming to put it this way in this crumpled up painting those who are pure can see even in what is impure, this crumpled up version of things what's still in there, Joey, what's still in there? The original pure beautiful plan of God is still within this crumpled paper and those who are pure can see it and tease it out, right? But even for the impure, even when the painting is un crumpled, they're still projecting their own impurity onto it, right? That's what Saint Paul means. When he says to the pure, all things are pure but to the impure. Nothing is pure because they bring the impurity is in the way we see the world. It's not in the things of the world, it's in the way we see it. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see the mystery of God revealed through the human body, through a tree, through a waterfall, through a sunset, through all of God's creation. We come to see the mystery of God revealed and the pinnacle of God's creation is male and female. He created them and he blessed them and he called the two to become one flesh to be fruitful and multiply. They were naked without shame because in the beginning, they saw the world purely because their erotic longing had not yet been crumpled up and God gave us erotic longing. God gave us arrows to be the very power to love as he loves. In the beginning. Eros, we could put it this way in the beginning before sin, Aros expressed agape. What's agape? Agape is sacrificial divine love. Eros is meant to be the human expression of agape. But with original sin, eros ran out of agape. Aros got cut off from agape and when Eros is cut off from agape, Aros becomes inverted becomes a selfish thing and and the male is now looking at the female and vice versa as an object for my own selfish pleasure. Right? Shame enters the world right here, right? Shame enters the world. When Eros becomes inverted. When Aros gets cut off from agape, shame enters the world and shame is not saying the body is bad. In fact, shame is the recognition that the body is good, but you're looking at it as if it's a thing you're treating me not as a person made in the image of God. You're looking at me as an object for your selfish pleasure and Eve covers herself, not because her body is bad. She covers herself because her body is so good and she knows because of the goodness of her body, she's not meant to be treated as an object for Adam's kicks. Adam covers himself also because the the shame goes both ways. Eve is also looking at Adam now with a a manipulative distorted arrows. But here's the good news of the gospel. Where does Jesus perform his first miracle, Joey at a wedding? And what does he do? Changes water and so on? Why? Ok, we got, we gotta press into this. If we want to find the real cure or what ails us. We gotta press into the first miracle. Running out of wine is a symbol. John Paul the second tells us of of the original sin. What what is wine a symbol of in the Bible? It's a symbol of divine love and divine life poured out for us, right? Running out of wine is a symbol that eros has been cut off from agape. So what does Jesus do? He restores the wine in super abundance? In other words, he restores agape to arrows in super abundance, right? What is the goal of the Christian life? From this perspective? It's to get totally plastered. It's to get totally intoxicated on God's wine, right? Nothing of Christianity will make sense unless we understand it as this invitation uh for arrows to be intoxicated by agape, the commandments will make no sense unless Aros is intoxicated by agape. Nothing. The church teaches about sexuality will make sense unless Aros is intoxicated by agape. This is the first miracle because this is the first result of original sin. The first result of original sin is Aros gets cut off from agape. Aros runs out of wine. So the first miracle has to be the correction of the first consequence of original sin. And that's why the first miracle is the restoration of agape to eros. In other words, the first miracle is the un crumpling of this painting. This is our faith. This is Christianity. Wow, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. And I think if people really knew that it's so it's so attractive. And so we really knew this. We wouldn't take our hunger to the fast food. So this brings us back to your original question. How did we get in this mess? And I said we got in this mess because of misdirected desire. We, we thought that the fast food was the answer to our hunger. Well, put it this way, if the content is between starvation and fast food, well, who wins? The fast food will always win. But if the contest is between a banquet and fast food, which one's gonna win the banquet, the bank. Because that's what we're made for. What does Jesus say? Go out into the main streets and invite everyone to starve to death. No, that's not what he says. Go out into the main streets. What does that mean to real human life? Where people feel this hunger? Go out to the hungry people and invite them to a banquet. Invite them to the feast. My brother, you know, and I know that taking our hunger and our thirst to pornography, it's like drinking salt water, right? There's a semblance of OK. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was so parched. I was so thirsty and and there's water in my mouth now and, and now my tongue is loosened from the roof of my mouth. It feels like I'm quenching my thirst, but there's so much salt in that sea water that it's going to, it's going to increase my thirst in such a way that I drink more and more saltwater. And then I kill myself from the levels of sodium in my blood, right? So it's the semblance of satisfaction of my thirst, but I'm actually killing myself, right? You can, you can die from starvation, but you can also die from food poisoning, right? You can die from thirst and you can also die from drinking something that will kill you. We have to take our hunger and our thirst to that, which truly satisfies. And this is why the gospel is good news come all of you who are hungry, come all of you who are thirsty. I will give you bread from heaven. I will give you living water. So good, so good. And I think it's, it's so free too. Just to hear that the desire is not the problem. The twisting of the desire is the problem. And I think it's so interesting to look out in our world, you know, years back. And even to this day, there's this phenomenon of like 50 shades of gray and this whole kind of perversion of sexuality. But I think even underneath that, there's something so good and so beautiful, right? Not in itself all that 50 shades of great stuff. But underneath that, it's like this desire to be loved, to be wanted to be, you know, cared for, to be seen like all that good stuff. It's there, that desire is there. And like you're saying, behind every twisted crumpled up desire, there's something good that got twisted up and crumpled up. And this means there are three choices we have with erotic longing. We think there's only two. We tend to think there's only two indulge it or repress it, right? And if those are the only two options, which one looks more. Holy repress, right? We think repression is the answer to our indulgent. No, no, no, no. There are three choices. Don't indulge, don't repress open to redemption. And here's, here's a visual of what I mean, this is repression. We hold it all in, this is indulgence. We aim that longing at the pleasures of this world, right? And this is redemption where we learn to open those longings to the infinite at its root. Erotic longing is a desire for infinite truth, infinite goodness and infinite beauty, right? That means Aeros as Pope Benedict the 16th tells us eros is man's longing for God, only God is infinite, only God is infinite truth, goodness and beauty, right? And as John Paul, the second says the gospel does not invite us to repress Aeros. The gospel invites us to the fullness of Aeros, which implies the upward impulse, the upward impulse of the human spirit towards the true, the good and the beautiful. So that what is erotic says, John Paul the second also becomes true, good and beautiful. This is the path. Another name for this journey is prayer because prayer is nothing other than holy, the holy expression of arrows. Prayer is nothing other than becoming a longing for God. I like to put it this way. It's an analogy I often use, I like to say God gave us erotic longing to be like the fuel of a rocket that has the power to launch us to the stars, to infinity and beyond, right? But there's an enemy who doesn't want us to reach those stars. And his goal is to invert those rocket engines. That's why so many of us go out into the world. We're, we're looking for love and happiness. But when we launch with inverted rocket engines, it all backfires on us. Christ came into the world not to condemn those with inverted rocket engines. He came into the world to redirect our rocket engines to the stars. Beautiful and so inspiring and so hopeful and shifting gears a little bit. I think when it comes to this idea of like men and women, masculine and femininity. So often the Brokenness that we carry, whether it's sexual or not. But so often the sexual Brokenness we carry is rooted in a broken experience of the masculine or the feminine of men or women. For example, maybe a girl who was abused by her father might throw herself into the arms of men in a, you know, casual hook up just to feel that comfort that being wanted. She might also throw herself into the arms of women because she's scared to death of men and men. Yeah. Absolutely. Which I would totally understand or, or maybe it's understandable. All of our distortions are understandable when we have a sense of what happened to the human heart when we ran out of wine. And you're exactly right, Joey. It goes back to an identity crisis of masculinity and femininity. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? The original blueprint is Genesis, right? In the beginning, they were naked without shame. And, and here John Paul, the second begins his entire theology of the body with the discussion of the, the the saying of Jesus where Jesus is talking to the Pharisees and the Pharisees say, is it OK for a man to divorce his wife, Moses allowed us to divorce. What do you say, Jesus? And Jesus says, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart. And then he adds, but from the beginning, it was not. So Jesus points us back to the beginning as the blueprint of what it means to be male and female. If we don't go back to the beginning, then our starting point is going to be the crumpled paper. Yeah. Good. Exactly. And you know what? We're gonna conclude, we're gonna conclude that masculinity is toxic in itself. We're gonna conclude that femininity is toxic in itself, right? And we're gonna throw away the painting because we haven't gone back to the beginning. Fall in masculinity and fall in femininity are toxic, twisted, masculinity, twisted femininity are toxic. But we must remember those words of Jesus in the beginning. It was not so. And the good news of the gospel is that Christ came into the world to restore creation to the purity of its origins. This is our hope, this is our hope. And what do we learn about masculinity and femininity in the beginning here, I want to point out two Hebrew words that are used in the book of Genesis that shine a bright light on the authentic meaning of masculinity and femininity. We lose this entirely in the English. But in Genesis chapter one, when it says male and female, he created them, the Hebrew words are Zakar and Neva Zakar and Neva Zakar is Hebrew for male and neeva neqebah, but the B is pronounced with a V sound, Neva Zakar and Neva, he created them Zakar and Niva mean in Hebrew they have a, there's a happy homonym kind of a play on, on the word and Zakar means male, but it also means to remember the deepest identity of the male according to the pattern of genesis is for the male to remember divine love to the female. That is the identity of the male, that is the mission of the male to remember divine love to the female, right? Saint Paul will say this when he says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church, you must remember divine love. That's your identity. Neva means female in Hebrew. But the happy homonym is that Neva also means to open. Now, notice, look at the male and the female body, the male body has the member that allows him to remember divine love. Uh This is shocking to many people and I'm I'm I'm not trying to be crass at all. I'm trying to reveal the holiness of the original blueprint, right? Do you know where we get the word testicles, Joey, I do not, I can't say I do. The word testicle shares the same root as words like testify, testimony, testament. What is the purpose of the male body? Right? Females don't have testicles, they have ovaries, right? What is the distinctive purpose of the male body? It is to testify to the eternal love of the father. It is to give testament and testimony. It is to remember the love of the Father Zakar. Look at the anatomy of a, a woman's body. She is literally designed by God to open, to receive divine love, to conceive divine love and to bear it forth to the world, right? So the body of the man is designed to remember divine love. The body of the female is designed to open to receive divine love. We see this ultimately fulfilled in Jesus and Mary. What did Jesus say at the last supper to restore masculinity? There were 12 men gathered around him and he said to each and every one of them do this in remembrance, remembrance of me. Do what? Love the bride as I love the bride by saying this is my body given up for you. Well, there is no more mad arrows. Pope Benedict the 16th tells us than the arrows that led Jesus to the marriage bed of the cross. Have you ever seen this depiction of the crucifixion from you? Yes. Yes. So what happened at the cross was the consummation of a marriage Christ is saying to his bride symbolized by the woman at the foot of the cross, right? It's absolutely critical that there's a male on the cross and a female at the foot of the cross. This is the absolute definitive revel revelation of what it means to be male and female. What's he doing? He's remembering the love of the father. What's she doing? She's opening to receive that love. And what happens? She becomes the mother of all the living. What does Jesus say the real man to the real woman? When he remembers the love of the father to her? He testifies to the love of the father. And he says, woman behold your son in reference to the beloved disciple, right? The beloved disciple is the mystical offspring of the mystical marriage happening through the union of the hearts of the New Adam and the New Eve at the marriage bed of the cross. And people think, OK, that's a little weird. Isn't that his mother at the foot of the cross? Yes, in the flesh, she's always his mother. But in the spirit, she symbolizes the church, she symbolizes the bride. It's right in the catechisms of the Catholic church that Mary symbolizes the bride of Christ, right? So this also Zakar and Neva to remember and to open, that's our deepest identity. But sin itself is a direct attack against male and female identity. If the mission of the man is to remember divine love. What's the antithesis of his mission? What's, what's his sin going to be? What, what's the opposite of remembering? Forgetting? He's going to forget who he is. He's gonna forget divine love and he's not gonna be able to give authentic testimony. This is what happens when the man runs out of wine. He forgets divine love. And now that initiation of divine love becomes domination and control of the woman. And if the man forgets, what's the woman gonna do? Her true identity is to open? But if he forgets, what's she gonna do? Close up? And she, if the man forgets, she has to close to protect her own dignity. That's what this crumpled paper is. The crumpled up painting is a car and Neva having forgotten and closed to divine love. Fascinating. So good. Yeah. What's the restoration? How do we hear men must remember? Right? Do this in remembrance of me and how, what enables Mary to be the open one? What enables Mary? The woman, the quintessential woman, the New Eve? What enables her to be forever open? What if she was saying her, her in her magnificat, the Lord has remembered his mercy. It's the fact that God that Christ has remembered that the Lord has remembered that enables her to remain ever open. Even though that takes her right here to the foot of the cross, she still stays open. This is the path for us. This is the redemption of masculinity and femininity. We must all because in a very real sense, we're all first feminine in relation to God because we're creatures, right? We're all the bride in this sense, right? And sometimes that wigs out men. They're like, ah, I don't like that imagery of being the bride. Ok. Choose something else that still puts you in the receptive posture and I'll say Jesus is the quarterback and you guys, you're the wide receiver, right? And what does the wide receiver have to do? He has to get himself open, right? So whatever image works for you just get yourself receptive and open. If we're gonna use the bodily image, that means we're all bride, right? We have to open to receive divine love in order to give it men, we cannot be men, the giving of that divine love, the remembering of the divine love. We can't give it if we haven't first received it. And here Jesus himself is the ultimate model of masculinity. How was he able to remember divine love? Because from eternity, he was open to receiving the love of the father. And so he was able to give it right? We as men, if we are to remember it, we have to open and this means Joey, we have to expose to Jesus all of our twisted up, broken, mucked up pornographic diseased humanity, right? We have the temptation to just bury this like I'm not gonna look at that. I'm not gonna look at it. It's dirty, it's evil. It has to come out into the light. We have to open this to God's mercy so that he can come into it so that it can get un crumpled. Jesus says it this way. He says, make sure these are the words of Christ. Make sure that no part of your body remains in the darkness, bring your whole body. He says into the light and make sure no part of it remains in darkness. This is Luke chapter 11. Uh It might. Yeah, Luke chapter 11, I'm pretty sure bring your whole body into the light and make sure no part of it remains in darkness. And then he says your whole body, your whole body will illuminate you like a burning lamp with its brightness. The problem is we prefer the darkness to the light, right? The only way to healing here is to bring what is dark in you into the light. He will not shame you. He will not scold you, he will not condemn you. He will come into all that is crumpled in you with his healing mercy and you will open up and you will be restored and the grime and the soot and the loin cloths, the fig leaves will come off those paintings and you'll be restored in your splendor. Now, it's not an overnight thing. It's take up your cross daily and follow me in this life. There's always gonna be some amount of leftover grime, right? It's not gonna be pristine in this life, but we gotta take up our cross every day and follow him and we will become more and more the men and women. We are created to be beautiful Chris. Thank you so much. I could talk to you forever. I know we're at the end of our time now, but I just want to make sure if people want to go deeper into all of this. Tell us about your books, your courses, your resources, how can people get those and how can people follow you online? Yes, I am the president of the Theology of the Body Institute and we're based in Pennsylvania, but we are a global mission and our mission is really to lead people on this path of sexual healing and redemption so that they can live a restored life uh so that they can live a redeemed life. Not that we are perfectly redeemed in this life, but we can journey on this path in a much deeper way than most of us realize. So that's why we exist. And we offer courses both online and in a five day in person format. Uh We, we have a very active youtube channel. You can learn about us there. My wife and I have a, an active podcast. It's called The Ask Christopher West show, hosted by Wendy West. And uh we've answered more than 600 questions on that. Podcast over the course of about over 200 episodes. So you can look in the back catalog there and plug in, you can go wherever you listen to podcasts. Uh Just go to theology of the body dot com. That'll take you to our main website. You can learn more about who we are and what we do there. Uh That's the main place to go. Yeah, we'll make sure to link all of that in the show notes too to make it easy for you guys to, to find those resources, Christopher. I wanna give you the last word. What final advice or encouragement would you give to anyone listening right now? Who's really struggling with sexual Brokenness? You are loved as you are, you are loved where you are. You need not be afraid to open up the darkness as it is and as you experience it to the light, but you are loved so much as you are and where you are that the Lord doesn't want to leave you as you are and where you are, he wants to lead you into the banquet and the journey of conversion from the fast food and the starvation approach to the banquet is long. It is arduous. Uh It's not a straight uphill climb. There are setbacks and we fall but you are loved thoroughly in and through it off. Do not be afraid to take all of your desires as you experience them to the one who loves you as you are and where you are and let that love lead you to where you are meant to be. That's the journey knowing we are loved as we are and that, that love will take us where we're meant to be. Wow, that was profound, so much to learn. I love his main point that at the core of our twisted sexual desires are good, true and beautiful desires. And if you want to learn more from Christopher, go ahead and pick up his books at the Theology of the Body Institute or TOB Institute dot org or just click on the links in the show notes. Now, speaking of sexual Brokenness so often at the root of sexual compulsion is trauma, but before you can heal it, you have to stand in our free mini course on trauma titled Why You Feel Broken consists of five short videos by a trauma therapist that answers the questions. What is trauma? What impact does it have on your body? How does it affect your emotions? What does it do to your mind and how does it impact your relationships again? Once you understand what trauma is and how it affects you today, then you can begin to heal and build the life that you long for and so to get the course for free again, it's free. It's really easy. Just go to restored ministry dot com slash broken again. Restored ministry ministry is singular dot com. Slash broken. Sign up for free and begin watching the mini course again. Go to restored ministry dot com slash broken or just click on the link in the show notes that wraps up this episode. And if you know someone who's struggling from their parents, divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them seriously, take like 30 seconds right now to message them this episode and then closing. Always remember you are not alone. We're here to help you feel whole again and break the cycle of dysfunction and divorce in your own life. And remember the words of CS Lewis who said you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
