Dr. Darrell Bock:
Welcome to The Table. We discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Darrell Bock, executive director for cultural engagement at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. And our topic today deals with the... How can I say this? Probably one of the most discussed areas of cultural engagement that exists today, and that's the area of sexuality and particularly LGBTQ issues tied to the church. How should the church seek to minister effectively to people out of an LGBTQ background?

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And my guest today is Caleb Kaltenbach, who's written two different books: one is called Messy Grace, and he's followed it up with Messy Truth. So he's stayed messy, he just moved the target. The second book is Messy Truth: How to Foster Community Without Sacrificing Conviction, how to engage in relationships with balance in this area.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Caleb consults with Christian colleges and Christian churches around the country in this area. And he now is research pastor at Shepherd Church in Los Angeles, which means that he engages in sermon and staff support for the way in which the church both preaches the word and reaches out in issues related to cultural engagement. So he's kind of a kindred spirit in terms of what I do here.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Caleb, first of all, it's great to be back in contact with you. Our relationship goes back several years. I remember coming out to teach at Talbot and we are talking about this and riding around LA talking about these issues when you were just thinking about speaking into this. So for me to see this, more than a decade later, and to see you speaking into this is really great. So I appreciate you being with us.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate your ministry, not only in biblical studies, but more importantly in how to engage culture, because I think it's so necessary. And I'm also proud to be a DTS alum. So I remember I got to shake your hand when I walked across the stage.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Exactly right. It was a full journey. You did the full loop. So you've hit California and Texas, what else is there?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Not much.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So, my standard question, just to help people who may not be familiar with your background in ministry, is to always ask, "How did a nice guy like you get into a gig like this?" So how did you develop an interest in this area? And, obviously, I'm alluding to just the whole fascinating context out of which you've come.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. Yeah. I have the unique perspective of being kind of in both worlds. So when I was two, my parents divorced, they went into same-sex relationships, and I was raised, my whole childhood, by three LGBTQ parents, two of which who were activist-oriented; growing up, going with them to clubs and parades and activist events, and just seeing how some who profess to be Christians treated them just horribly. And I thought to myself, "I never want to be a Christian because, if Christians are this bad, I can't imagine how awful Jesus must be."

Caleb Kaltenbach:
But then I ended up joining a Bible study to try to disprove the Bible. That worked out real well, as you can tell. And I realized that Jesus was not like a lot of his followers. I realized that he had very, very deep theological convictions, but he also had very, very real, authentic relationships with people who are nothing like him. And so I ended up becoming a Christian.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
My parents disowned me for a while when I came out to them as a Christian, but then eventually I went to Bible college, seminary. When I was living in Texas they both moved down closer to be with our family and at the ages of 69, 70, they became Christian.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
I've held positions as associate pastor, senior pastor, and I feel like I have kind of a glimpse into both worlds. So whereas there are a lot of people who talk about the academic aspects, cultural aspects, or even apologetics, I feel like I kind of come in and talk more about the practical ministry side of how do you create ministry systems in churches that allow people to belong, but also honor the organization's beliefs. And then at the same time, I deal a lot with families and relationships.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Well, that's really important. And I often say in these difficult areas that are related to cultural engagement - I have a template that I talk about - there's what you believe, but then there's the relational element of how it works, and how you need to work through the relational element. And if you get either one of those wrong, you've got a problem.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And so it's very important to have... I like the way you stated this in the subtitle of the book; on the one hand, you have your convictions, but thinking about how you foster those relationships, how you foster community, how you move towards people so that they are open to and will consider the gospel, is a very, very important part of this conversation that often gets ignored.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And sometimes the static that we create in the midst of defending our convictions gets in the way relationally of how we interact with people. And in the process, we actually cut ourselves off from the goal that we have, which is, hopefully, that the spirit will use that relationship to draw people to Christ. So this is an important discussion, in many ways.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So when you think about this and you think about the balancing of community and conviction, talk a little bit about what you find yourself regularly doing when you walk into a church space and they're trying to wrestle with this. How do you have them think about that space and get them to wrestle with what it is they need to be?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Well, usually there are a lot of churches who think to themselves, "I need to start some kind of special outreach or special ministry to reach LGBTQ individuals." And I tell them that's the exact wrong thing to do and it's even a little bit creepy at the same time. We don't want to do either.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And so what I try to get them to do is to be intentional about what they're already doing. Okay? Intentionality, I think, is the key, where you don't have to add a bunch of things, but you do have to think about who needs to be there, about who Jesus wants there, and about how to make it easy for people to find Jesus because it sure can be difficult to follow him.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And so that can be done by talking to churches and church leaders about trying to help them to understand that love is just as much about truth. We think about the love portion with the quote-unquote grace side, but I try to get them to understand that love is just as much truth, loving your neighbor is just as much truth as is how we live and how Jesus wants us to live.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Intentionality, as far as I believe that there should be places for people to serve in church no matter what, even if they don't believe in Jesus. Now, that doesn't mean they can serve anywhere. Nobody in a church can serve anywhere. I'm willing to bet, Darrell, that you and I would never lead worship at our churches. Maybe on the church's last day, we would, but they would never ask me to do that.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
But at the same time, when we get people who aren't following Jesus to start serving, they don't even realize it, but they're doing the work of Jesus. They're actually acting like him and they're surrounding themselves with other believers and they're getting that community.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And in the first book, Messy Grace, I try to help people to understand that loving your LGBTQ friends and family that you have personal relationships with does not compromise theology. Okay? But in this book, I'm trying to get communities to understand that loving people who are not like us and even people who are making really poor life choices or relational choices or that kind of thing, that really doesn't mean that we're compromising our theology.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
One of the things that I point as an example of this is in, I believe it is 1 Corinthians 14, when the apostle Paul is talking about speaking in tongues and he says when the whole church has gathered and you start speaking in tongues, if unbelievers are among you, won't they think you are out of your mind? And one of the things I point to is there's a hypothetical real-life illustration that is behind Paul's whole point on tongues, that the church was gathering and there were unbelievers there.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And I know there are different interpretations as to what the two words in that chapter for unbeliever can mean, but at the same time, these are still unbelievers. And you even have Paul in this sense saying, be intentional about what you do when you're gathered, based on who's there and who's not there.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So what I'm hearing kind of between the lines in you're saying this, is that when you make LGBTQ a special category and treat it distinct from everything else and your other relationships in the way in which you're trying to outreach, you're probably taking a misstep of one kind or another. That, really, what you're talking about is how to relate well to people of all sorts of different backgrounds who are outside the church who need Jesus, and LGBTQ is just one category of that kind of person. Am I hearing that right?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
100%.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Yeah. So-

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Go ahead, go ahead.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
No, 100%. And I think that we create these special categories because, number one, our mind hates ambiguity. And so you think about how many decisions do we have to make in a single day? Thousands upon thousands. And our mind wants to go on autopilot so that it doesn't take much thought for us to pick up the toothbrush and brush our teeth, to decide to take a shower, to decide what to wear or decide to go to work or that kind of a thing. These just become automatic in our head.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And I think that our mind naturally wants to create categories and it's easier for us to just boom, boom, move on to the next thing. And we have to train ourselves not to do that with people because we end up glossing over them. However, unintentionally, we end up glossing over them. And we can't treat people like we do our minuscule, everyday decisions. We've got to train our mind to think differently about people.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And so in the midst of thinking about what that involves, it's important to wrestle with relating to people in a healthy kind of way. I actually think that one of the reasons you create special categories, or people create special categories, is because it's awkward and they don't know what to do and there's a little bit of fear and indecision about how to step into it.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Right. I agree.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And so in the midst of that, what you do is you create a category that kind of walls it off in a certain way. And you're really oftentimes dealing with your own uncertainty in terms of how to go there, as opposed to, or in addition to may be a better way to say it, in addition to not understanding where someone else is coming from and having convictions about it.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So that combination works like a huge static in the relationship that prevents you from pursuing it in the way you might if you were just talking to your neighbor and were just meeting them for the first time; they just moved in, you don't know anything about them, and you're just trying to build a relationship with them.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
I agree. One of my favorite definitions of fear comes from one of my favorite authors, the novelist, murder-mystery novelist Agatha Christie. She says that fear is a lack of knowledge, and I think she's absolutely correct. Because when you think about it, we naturally fear what we don't understand and what makes us feel out of control.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Some people say fear is a bad thing. I totally disagree. I think that it can be bad. God gave us the capacity to feel fear for a reason. If you and I are hiking, Darrell, and we see a mountain lion, I'm going to be a little afraid. I really am. And that little emotion is telling me to back away, or push you forward while I back away; one of the two.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Thank you. I appreciate that.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah, no problem. Just trying survive, okay?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
But here, when it starts to control our relationships or prevent us from really seeing the dignity and worth and humanity of every person, then that becomes toxic. And I think that's the kind of fear that we're talking to. And I think the key is two things: number one is trusting God who has all power and knows everything and is unconditionally loving. So when we feel out of control or we don't understand things, we lean into our relationship with him. And then as you just kind of painted a picture of, I think that we need to be empathetic. I think that we need to lean into the relationship with the other person and get to know them. And empathy is not the rejection of a person, and empathy is definitely not agreeing with every life choice that they've made, but empathy is acknowledging their reality. And I think that's part of the answer as well.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So that's interesting because I do a lot of discussion of difficult conversations, difficult spaces if you will. And one thing that I like to say is that, when you're confronted with a difficult space or what you perceive to be a difficult space, there really is three possible responses. You can push back, okay, you can withdraw and just say, "I'm not going there," or you can work through it, you can push through it.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And I think what the scripture calls us to do, I think the essence of the great commission is go into the world and make disciples. It isn't go into to the church and make disciples because they're already there, or at least theoretically. And so the gospel calls us to engage with people who are in a different place spiritually and calls us to engage and get to know them, et cetera, so that relationally we're moving into that space.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And then another thing I like to say is there's a difference between moving towards understanding where someone is coming from and agreeing with them.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Absolutely.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And sometimes we mix those two and we think that because we reach out a hand or show empathy or develop an effort to understand someone, in some cases maybe even develop some compassion for what they've been through or where they are, that somehow we're agreeing with them. No, we're connecting with them. That's different. And in the midst of connecting with them, we're building the relationship so that we can get to more substantive kinds of conversations that might allow for the differences to actually be sorted through and sorted out. And that isn't a quick process, normally. That takes a lot of time to build that trust. But to do that is the way to walk in.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So with all that as background... This is a terrible question because it took me forever to get to it, but what advice do you give to communities about how to think through this space? I mean, one principle you've already given us, I think, is just try and relate normally to the person who walks in. Help them to be... How can I say this? Be open to having them be in association with your community so they can be exposed to what your community is. Is that kind of the core or at least one of the core principles you're trying to discuss?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Absolutely. That's one of the core principles I'm trying to discuss in there. And the book is really divided into three different parts: convictions about God's words, compassion for anyone, and conversations with everyone. And actually, I quote you and Michael quite a few times in the conversations piece in the last one-third of the book.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And so one of the key elements, I think, and this may seem simplistic to some who are listening. It seemed simplistic to me until a few years ago when I really, really started thinking through this and really studying this, is that we need to learn how to ask better questions because if we are going to be empathetic and get to know somebody you need to be able to ask really good questions. And I don't think most people know how to ask really good questions. There are researchers that do.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
My wife is a therapist, so she has to know how to ask good questions. If you're a litigator and you're in court, you have to. But a lot of Christian leaders, we feel like we're trained more to tell people what to do. But asking questions is different. And I love Howard Hendricks' quote where he says that, "If you want to understand a passage, you've got to bombard it with questions."

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And I think in a similar way, if we want to understand people, we need to learn how to ask really good questions that are pointed, that are solution-focused, and questions that really help us to understand where they're coming from, what they've been through. Because when we understand that, when we ask them questions, it engages a different part of their mind. And I really, really believe that in those moments we start to earn influence with them. Because that's really the whole goal. The goal is not orientation change. The goal is not, "Come and be just like us." No, the goal is life change, helping them to find Jesus. And so I think asking questions is a key element that many of us underestimate.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And when you ask those questions, how you respond to those answers also becomes important. I tell people that when you're engaged in moving towards a relationship with someone who you know is coming from a different place, worldview-wise, that it's really important that you put your doctrinal meter on what I call mute. Okay? I say, don't turn it off. Okay? You can't do that anyway. Your mind is going to react to what you hear. But put it on mute, which means that your goal, initially, is not to engage in a debate, but to get what I call a GPS-reading on the person, to just get to know them, to understand who they are, where they're coming from, let them tell you their story, all those kinds of things that say, "I'm making an effort to connect to you and to understand who you are and what drives you." Not at all in a hostile kind of way but just in an informative kind of way.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And hopefully, those will give me signposts about values, experiences in the past, or whatever, that the person has had that will allow you to connect with them. And then once you show them that respect, which is what that actually involves... Being a good listener is a sign of respect. Once you do that and you've built that relationship, then you've laid the foundation for having more substantive conversations down the road. Is that a decent map for what we're talking about?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you're spot on. And I think, as you already touched on, when you think about these interactions, conversations, whether individually or even as a church community, you can either choose to win a debate or earn influence. Winning a debate; pretty easy, comparatively. I mean, you can do different things. But earning influence, that's difficult. That takes the death of ego. It takes putting your theology on mute. I love how you say that. You don't turn it off. You never turn it off, but you put it on mute. You realize that this is not the time to flex your theological biceps. This is a time for you to get to know the person.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
I even think about Jesus. When Jesus engaged the woman at the well, and you look at him, he didn't go there and flex his theological biceps. He actually met her where she was at. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 9: I've become come all things to all people. That's what the apostle Paul says.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Earning influence is key because here's what it comes down to. When I think about my kids, I want to have enough influence with them so that if life ever hits the bottom of the barrel, if they just get punched in the face by life over and over again, I want to make sure that I've earned the right to be one of the first calls or the first texts that they're going to make.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And I think that when we think about our LGBTQ friends and family and people that we want in our community, we need to do, short of sinning, short of denying Christ, whatever we can to earn the right to be one of the first people that they call when life hits the bottom of the barrel. Because sometimes those are the pivotal moments in life. Those are the God-ordained moments where we will have the influence and our words will carry a lot of weight and we're able to point people to Jesus. And so, yeah, I would rather fight for influence than to try to win a debate.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
You know, what's interesting is... as you say that, what comes to mind is the story of Christopher Yuan, who I'm sure you know, who in the midst of pursuing a gay lifestyle, et cetera, eventually got arrested. And when you get arrested, you're able to make one call. The person that he called was his mother who had been praying for him, who was a Christian, who was a believer. He knew she didn't agree with his lifestyle, but when he hit bottom, that was the one person he realized he needed to call and connect with. That's a great, great illustration of what we're talking about.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Let me shift gears a little bit because we've been talking mostly individually. The challenge is, and this is harder I think, how do you move communities to have this feel around them? I mean, I can do it as an individual and I can teach individuals to do it. And obviously one of the corporate responsibilities is to encourage people to have this mindset and approach on an individual level. But what else needs to be done at the community level to make that environment possible?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. I think, obviously, what you just said. There's teaching that needs to happen. And that can happen in a variety of ways, whether it's from the pulpit or in webinars or seminars or Sunday School classes, small groups, Bible fellowships, you name it; obviously, that's there.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
But there's some other things that need to happen. For instance, the leadership of the church needs to own it. And when I say the leadership, I mean the elder team or the elder board and the staff team, they need to own this, they need to be on the same page. Because if you have the staff on one page and the elders on the other page, it's not going to work. Or if you have the elders up here and the staff are over here, it's not going to work. So there needs to be alignment. And then there needs to be alignment with volunteer ministry leaders, such as small-group leaders, ministry-team leaders. Really the key main ministry team leaders, there needs to be an alignment that we are going to be a church that is accepting of everyone, but we're not agreeing with just anyone. And there's a difference between acceptance and agreement. So there needs to be that alignment.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Another thing that needs to happen is I believe that there need to be pathways for LGBTQ individuals to get involved. And again, we're talking about people who are coming to your church. We're not discussing here people that have been caught doing something, and they've already been in your church. We're talking about people who are coming and trying to engage society and people who are not following Jesus. So how can we get them into small groups? How can we get them into Bible fellowships? What does it look like for them to volunteer? Where could anybody volunteer? Where can they not volunteer?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Obviously, you would not want somebody who holds a different belief about marriage or relationships teaching a class or something because you don't want to put somebody in a position where they have to teach something they don't believe. That not only hurts the integrity of the church, but it also harms them and it hurts their integrity, and it will eventually push them away from Jesus.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And so that even requires a level of intentionality. Obviously, not a teaching level, but trying to figure out where in the church can people serve because we do live in a very justice-oriented society. And so I think volunteerism in the church can actually be a way to engage unbelievers and unchurched people, and even de-churched people and people who have been hurt by the church or had bad experiences with Christians.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So when you say, "Have them be involved," I'm assuming that you're talking about things like guest services, helping with... sometimes there's parking and direction that goes on. Sometimes the support services of the church are a good candidate, I'll say it this way, are a good candidate for that kind of involvement, that kind of thing. Are there other spots in the church that you think are open for this kind of involvement?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. And I think that you start by not trying to figure out what's open for involvement, but what's not open for involvement.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Okay.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And so one of the things I try to help churches to understand is that, again, you don't want to put somebody in a position where they have to teach something that they don't agree with, or they have to teach something that they're not living out in their life. And so for some people, for some churches, most churches, that's usually anything having to do with teaching, anything having to do with spiritual responsibility, anything having to do with worship leading. So those three areas are usually the main areas.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And then we have all the other areas that we can look at. Once we say, okay, what ministries fall under spiritual responsibility or spiritual influence in somebody's life; what areas fall under worship leading, what areas fall under teaching. And then you look at what's left, which is usually a lot in the church. And you're like, "Okay, how might these be open? Is this a good place? Is this a good place?"

Caleb Kaltenbach:
And again, a lot of these are based on conversation, too, because you could have somebody that attends your church or starts going, they want to get involved. They say they're gay, but what they don't tell you, and what you don't know if you don't have a conversation with them, is that they are actually celibate out of their theological conviction, but they still refer to themselves as gay. That's different than being in a same-sex marriage. Does that make sense?

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Yes, it does. So we've got time for one more question. Let me ask you this - it's an objection I could hear someone saying, let's say - "Well, if you place these people in visible locations, ministering alongside in the church, are you compromising the convictions of the church or - I'll give you an alternative just making the question easier - are you doing some prioritizing that's really important in saying, "We value relationships and we value connections with people and we want to work alongside people and this is part of the way that we have them participate in our community and come to understand who we are." I can see the objector saying, "This would be confusing to someone." How do you deal with that objection?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. Well, first of all, I would say that number one, we already put sinners in areas of volunteerism, already, on a regular basis, every single weekend, in every single position. And I understand the objection and I've heard it many times, but if we're going to draw a line with not putting sinners in volunteerism, we're not going to have any volunteers. I mean, it's just going to be a shortage because nobody is going to be there. And if somebody thinks they should be there, that's not the person you want there.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So it's the backhanded thing of creating that special category, in other words?

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Yeah. Yeah. And here's what it comes down to. When we're talking about issues that go against the sexual norm of what churches believe theologically about sexuality, when we talk about those issues, we are going to have probably more people, more heterosexual couples, who are living together and not married, than same-sex couples attending church. There are places where more same-sex couples will attend church, but we're not just talking about same-sex couples, we're talking about anybody who wants to find Jesus and that kind of a thing, whether they're living together not married, whether they're atheist or whatever. And it doesn't mean they always need to be in a visible position of service, it depends on the person. But this is not just an LGBTQ thing, this is a trying-to-bring-everybody-to-Jesus thing.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Well, Caleb, our time has flown by here. So I want to thank you for helping us kind of introduce this area. And I want to thank those who are listening for joining us on The Table today.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
Please do subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast app. Leave us an honest review; this helps people to discover these conversations. And we also hope that you'll join us for a more in-depth look that we're also going to give to this topic, that comes in some of the bonus episodes that we're now creating off The Table.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
So Caleb, thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate... even though this was a brief... and I almost feel like, "Man, we flew through this exercise." Very, very helpful, I think, in terms of the basic tone. So I thank you for joining us today.

Caleb Kaltenbach:
Thank you for having me.

Dr. Darrell Bock:
And we thank you for joining us on The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture, and we hope you'll join us again soon.