Kolton Thomas: 0:02

Welcome to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast where we are helping men to rewire their brains and overcome the shame that often surrounds unwanted pornography use. I'm your host, colton Thomas, and today you're listening to episode 16 with special guest Jonathan Stormant. Now, I first heard Jonathan when I was listening to his sermon series online called Theology of the Body.

Kolton Thomas: 0:25

Now, theology of the Body is a series of writings done by Catholic Pope John Paul II, and I don't think that Jonathan identifies as Catholic, but these writings were so influential for him he did a series on them at his church. So I invited him on the podcast to talk about Theology of the Body, which means that today's episode is going to be more theological. We're going to be talking from the Bible, particularly the story of Adam and Eve, a lot, but the best way I can introduce Jonathan or explain why I've invited him onto the show is actually to show you a clip of him speaking in one of his sermons on Theology of the Body. So I want you to give this a listen. Who he's talking about here is Adam and Eve, and what he says here is basically what we're going to break down in the rest of the podcast episode in our interview we're going to go into more details, so check this out.

Jonathan Storment: 1:10

But this is the case of original goodness, and what it means is that, when they don't feel shame, it means they know they properly image God in every part of their body, and their body is a gift that they give to one another, because the body is female, is witness to creation being a gift and our origin being love. Adam isn't driven by instincts. He recognizes the goodness of her body, is an image of God and was compelled to offer himself as a gift to her, and she was compelled to offer herself as a gift to him, and together they reflect the inner life of God, this self emptying, self donating, always giving, receiving life of God. God revealed himself in Jesus and in your body, god.

Jonathan Storment: 2:02

Here's what this means, y'all, in a secular world where it's so hard to believe in God there are hundreds of image bearers of God in this room it's hard for me not to believe in God. God has revealed himself, and he's not some slave driver, he's not some tyrant, he's not some old angry man in the sky. God is an external exchange of love, and he made us to share in that exchange, in fact, your deepest romantic impulses, no matter what you do, whether you choose to be single and celibate or to be married and given your life as a gift to your spouse. Your deepest impulses are given by God and the way to happiness is by embracing the goodness of your body and welcoming that gift and imitating God.

Jonathan Storment: 2:55

Which means we have restraint. We are not like the animals. We can say no, we don't have to download that app, we don't have to go to that website, we don't have to go to that club. But the reason you're drawn to it is because the way men and women compliment each other physically is a way it shows the nature of God.

Kolton Thomas: 3:17

Wow, guys, I think that message is so true and important, and so, without further ado, here's Jonathan Stormant. We are going to unpack theology of the body. All right, jonathan Stormant, thanks so much for being on the Reclaim Podcast today.

Jonathan Storment: 3:31

Well, thanks for having me, Kolton.

Kolton Thomas: 3:32

Yeah, so glad to have you, man. We've connected for a number of reasons. You are actually local in my town and I have so many friends that are connected with you, that see you as a mentor. And you started doing your own podcast not long ago called Bonafide, and these are conversations about faith or individuals who are struggling with faith or have walked away from the faith, and there's these very authentic conversations. So I've been listening to your podcast.

Kolton Thomas: 4:02

It's got me thinking deeply, and then I've also listened to some of the presentations you've put together when it comes to theology and the body, and I just thought you did an incredible job with this, so I wanted to have you on the podcast and talk about how all these messages relate to the struggle and depravity that we're seeing in our culture when it comes to sex and sexuality and men struggling with porn. So do you want to start just sharing a little bit about yourself and also how you came about teaching and preaching on these particular subjects?

Jonathan Storment: 4:34

Yeah, sure. So I, born and raised in Arkansas, went to Harding, got a degree in ministry, then a pastor in Texas for 16 years and spent a lot of time with college students. So worked in a college town, worked as a college minister, and I noticed something in around 2003 that a lot of the people that had grown up in church, that went to Harding with me or that I'd known for years they were in ministry, were not just walking away from ministry but church and, in particular, faith in God. Some of that's because of 9-11, and often it was men who were bristling at the Christian kind of sexual ethic that was handed down to them. And some of that was very heavy handed, like purity culture, which affected men and women, but probably women a lot more. But anyway. So there's a reaction to that and over the last 20 years I've been trying to make sense of my friends and the world that we live in.

Jonathan Storment: 5:50

And so theology of the body, which is actually Pope John Paul II. What's interesting about Pope John Paul II this was in the 1970s is that when people hear Catholic talking about theology of the body, they assume, oh, another cranky old man get off my line, kind of thing. But he was not just responding to the sexual revolution, he was also responding to the Holocaust, because both of those things were done with a very specific vision of what a human body is worth, and the tone of the theology of the body is not wagging your finger at how, shame on you. It's more embrace your God given dignity. And I found it so compelling because I have for years been trying to figure out where is the grounding for human value and dignity.

Kolton Thomas: 6:57

Explain what the theology of the body is as well for listeners. Is it a book or is it a series of articles that the Pope wrote? What is the theology of the body and what are the main points? What's the highlight?

Jonathan Storment: 7:09

So it's very much scripture based. So, for example, if you grew up in church or just in America, you're probably familiar with the story of Adam and Eve and the creation story. But if you pay attention to Genesis 2, there's some stuff that's happening there that I've never heard anybody talk about. So Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are two different creation stories. Genesis 1 is like a 50,000 foot view, genesis 2 is like a kind of close up. And in Genesis 2, god creates Adam, and that word doesn't mean male, it means human being. So there is no male and female at this point, it's just one human being. And as soon as God creates Adam, it's this weird story of like a discovery channel happens right afterwards. So God brings the parade of animals to Adam to find a suitable helper, which is like weird. So Adam is going to have Adam name the animals and look for a partner. Which?

Jonathan Storment: 8:12

have you ever heard a sermon on that?

Jonathan Storment: 8:15

It's a weird story, but what is happening in that is God is letting them see that they are different, that human being is different, that Adam is alone in the universe, he's unlike the animals, and the word for that solitude that we feel is person. You know, all of God's creatures deserve special respect, but God made human beings different. Scientists wrestle with, like human consciousness or whatever, but the distinction between human beings and animals is that we have freedom. We are free to love, to choose or not choose love. And then, after Adam realizes this, god puts him into a deep sleep and splits the Adam and makes them male and female. And when they first see each other this naked, two naked people in a garden Adam breaks into poetry like, starts singing and he says this is bone in my bone and flesh in my flesh. So what happens in the creation of male and female is now that word is that she is opposite and same, like she is my opposite, but yet we're complement one another. So here's a better way to say this A man's body doesn't make sense by itself. A woman's body doesn't make sense by itself. They were made for each other. Or to say another way, a man's body is complete in all systems except one. A female's body is complete in all systems except one, and when they come together, in the natural course of events, they create a third. In other words, the genders are not competitive, they are generative, and I use that word generate like genitals, generous generation. When a man and woman make love, they actually make something and in the natural course of events, these two come together and make a third. And this is where theology, the body, comes in, just like the three in one God that wethat made us. So when God says let us make human beings in our own image, who's he talking to? Well, christians have historically understood that to be kind of precursor of what we now consider the three in one God, a God who is always self-empting, self-donating, others, focused, pointing away. And what this means is that when a man and woman in a marriage covenant, when they give themselves to each other, they are imaging the very inner life of God. So that's theology of the body and there's a lot more to this. But like there's a goodness in the end of Genesis 2. It says in the man and woman were naked and they felt no shame. And I'm probably talking to people who have a lot of shame I have my own too. The reason we all have that instinct is because we know inherently our body is good and it's not meant to be used and so flip that. And that's what Adam and Eve are feeling. They know their inherent goodness of their body, that it images God, that it literally like their body. We try to treat all those sexual descriptions of Hosea and song of songs. We try to treat that like it's a metaphor. So your body is actually a way that you image. You literally image a divine reality. So there's an inherent goodness to your body. And the thing that I love the most about Theology of the Body is Pope John Paul would say repeatedly your body, and only your body, can make the invisible visible, and this is Scripture 1 John 420,. No one has seen God, but you have seen your brother or sister. How can you say I love God and hate your brother or sister? If you do that, then you're a liar, because your body images God and so it makes the invisible visible.

Kolton Thomas: 13:11

Yeah, I had a few thoughts from what you were sharing there. So what does this mean when we engage in something like pornography? What's it doing to this? We have this image that you just painted for us. We have this painting of how sex is about something greater than us. It's, like you said, because we're made in the image of God. There are theological things happening in the way that we interact and join with the opposite sex, and so, when we look at things that way, then what does it mean when we're using pornography?

Jonathan Storment: 13:45

Well, I mean, I think it means we're thirsty. I do think you know I'm a man too, so it's not like this has not been a part of my struggle and accountability groups and you know all those kind of things, so I'm not coming in as just some ivory tower expert at all. I'm doing this because of that, in my years of pastoring and in my years as being a man. What I think it does, though, is it slowly takes away the very thing it promises, like all idolatry. So you know, like you were talking about, you could find doctors to say all the social benefits of pornography. Well, I can give you one of them, and that's that the amount of teenagers having sex has gone down for the first time since they started measuring this in the last 100 years, and at first you're like, oh well, there's a revival, and then you're like, oh no, it's because a bunch of 18 year old dudes have erectile dysfunction, because they have been discipled in pornography. So let me do this. So the people who first read Genesis, when they first read it, when the serpent comes in and says, did God really say you would really die if you eat from this? The people who first heard that story and read that story would have thought at first glance that God was lying and that the serpent was telling the truth. We're so kind of into the story it's hard for us to read it with fresh eyes. But you see that right, like the serpent says, you won't die. They eat the fruit and then they don't die, like nothing really happens. They get kicked out of the garden but they don't die. And then decades come. Later, cain reaches up and kills Abel and all of a sudden Adam and Eve are the first ones to realize this universal truth.

Jonathan Storment: 15:45

There is often a gap between the choice and the consequences, and so sexual liberation. I don't know of anybody who walks away from God, church, jesus or even their own like, conscious or morality. I don't know of anybody who doesn't. When they first get through that, there the universal feeling tends to be I'm free, I'm free, I can, you know, master of my fate, captain of my soul. But ideas have consequences, and consequences take a while to develop. And so there's a reason that the Christian sexual revolution, that the Christian sexual ethic was so appealing in the first century, and it's because the people who lived in that world were hungry for something better. And because we have largely taken the kind of Christian ethic for granted. We see it stodgy and oppressive. We can't see all the consequences that it has helped us save ourselves from. So and we were talking offline about- that.

Jonathan Storment: 16:53

Rahm and Roheiser quote about show me one culture in human civilization, ever, in any civilization, any society ever that got this right. You know when people are being pessimistic about the Christian ethic, you know I want to say just well, show me, show me where anybody got it right, ever right, because there's no evidence. You know, we have all these utopias in our head, but this is such a powerful thing inside of every one of us and the draw for this is so powerful, and so is the potential for it's kind of like nitroglycerin this can heal a heart below the bridge. It's very powerful.

Kolton Thomas: 17:33

Yeah, it's sexuality is nuclear and its effect. You know, I thought your point about porn slowly taking away the very things that it promises over time, more and more. I think that's a really profound concept that I think men who are struggling with this need to dwell on and to recognize that there's that gap. So they may not be feeling a whole lot of immediate pain and consequences now, but we know, because history has taught us and even our own experience has taught us, that those consequences from viewing pornography over years are coming, and so I think there's a healthy fear and motivation there. There doesn't need to be an enormous amount of shame Because, like we talked about, what you're really looking for is God. Your desire underneath it all is not something to be ashamed of that desire to search for meaning and comfort that's not evil in and of itself, but to recognize right now at all, yeah but recognize there will be consequences coming, and that porn will slowly take away those things that promises, I think, is a really great point.

Kolton Thomas: 18:38

So in wrapping up the episode, how do we get it right? Like what you know and I know there's so much that could be said here but like what's the greater vision? You know, you're just talking about the theology of the body and you were, you were hitting on that some. But like, yeah, what's better?

Jonathan Storment: 18:55

than pornography? Great question. So you know, pornography is just a poor substitute for actual sex, but sex itself isn't going to scratch that edge. So here's the answer to what I think you're trying to. You're asking me You've have to, in the words of CS Lewis, chase the sun beam back to the sun. Let's say you're just a stereotypical male and you feel so sexually attracted to a woman. Well, part of part of what that is and this is, you know, christian theology, the body 101 is you are looking for your eternal opposite.

Jonathan Storment: 19:40

Like there's this incompleteness in me and in you and you're looking for that and chasing that sun beam back to the sun. Okay, let me answer it like this. There's a parable of two bishops who are walking down the street. They see this scantily clad prostitute, and one of the bishop, when he sees her, he quickly turns his eyes, which you know, I was raised doing that. You know. Bounce your eyes, take custody of your eyes. Joe, make a covenant not to get looked less likely at a woman, right? So he does that. But the other bishop doesn't do that. The other bishop stares, and so the first bishop who turned his eyes, when he realizes that the second bishop is staring, he's like hey, come on Cheating. And then the other yeah, the other bishop actually turns back and he's got tears running down his face and he says it's so sad that such beauty is being sold to the lust of men. And that first bishop who bounced his eyes I think maybe a lot of us are in a season where we we need to do that but that second bishop had learned how to chase the sun beam.

Jonathan Storment: 21:00

And that story is not a parable. That's a true story of a guy named Saint Saint Nannis of Edessa, and the harlot was named Pelagia. And because of the way that Saint Nannis looked at her with love and delight. She noticed because men didn't look at her like that, and so she started talking to him, and today she is known as Saint Pelagia of Antioch. Wow, and you can't. You know, those kind of stories are inspiring, but you can't get there without the Holy Spirit and practicing the presence of God.

Jonathan Storment: 21:40

And so you asked earlier what I would say to somebody who is just in it right now. You know, my very first thing would be you need to fast from food. That's something from the desert fathers on. If you are struggling with human weakness and not being able to tell your body no, then you need to come at the sideways and fast. You know, learn how to practice self-control with the help of the Holy Spirit. So, you know, skip eating one or two days a week and just turn your thoughts and attention back to prayer, because you'll begin to be able to practice self-control. That's good.

Jonathan Storment: 22:27

I would also think and I'm sure other people have talked about having accountability, maybe some intense accountability, but what you're trying to do is be able to redirect your own soul, to be able to attend to the world properly and to see people properly and it really is the best way to joy and outside of all the negative consequences of porn and the personal and social consequences of it. I mean people who aren't even believers, like the no-fap group on Reddit you know these straight edgers or whatever. They're seeing that. But I'm thinking Jesus is calling us to a much more robust, joyful way of living that properly sees what we look at when we see ourselves in the mirror and properly sees Grandma Betty and Pamela Anderson with the same kind of like glory to God, my eternal opposite, who is a full image barrier of God and deserves great dignity, honor and respect.

Kolton Thomas: 23:40

Yeah that's good. Yeah, how to get thought there and I lost it. But, yeah, you're talking. So you're talking about accountability groups and I don't think we've talked about this a whole lot, but I run an online accountability group. It's a. It comes with like a 10 week program. There's videos, there's a course, and then I do some coaching. I'm in counseling. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's.

Kolton Thomas: 24:16

There's also like this online community aspect. But I've heard of regeneration that you guys are doing at your church and I think for some men that doing it in person, getting like in person accountability with people who are really in your community that you're doing life with, can be huge, and so anyone listening, if you're looking to get you know serious about accountability, look for options like that at your church. And then also there are online opportunities, like reclaimed, that you can get plugged into as well. There's just a lot more out there, a lot more resources out there than what a lot of men realize you just have. You need to start looking for them. You need to be resourceful, take initiative, but they're out there for you, and I appreciate your advice that you gave to you about considering practicing self-control in some other ways. So if you're struggling with self-control in this way, start practicing some self-control in another area of your life, such as fasting, where you can build some confidence and realize that, like you said, with the help of your faith, the Holy Spirit, that it is possible.

Kolton Thomas: 25:25

And these online groups, like NOFAB groups I mean a lot of their motivation for quitting porn is just productivity and time efficiency. I don't want to waste my time looking at porn and doing other things that are better, but when I can be having real sex right, that's the motivation. For a lot of guys in those communities, or for a lot of them, it's building muscle. They're saying like when I stop looking at porn, I look better in the face and I feel all this muscle. And what we're saying in this podcast is that that should be the tiniest fraction of motivation compared to. There's a much bigger picture. There's so much bigger joy to be had when we seek out a whole and healthy sexuality and when we're able to choose with self-control, choose to live lives without viewing porn and instead seeing people the way that they're supposed to be seen, the way that God sees them, like you're saying, the theology of the body, living our lives, as we can see the theology in the body of every single man, woman that we meet, encounter in our day-to-day lives. So, yeah, really powerful.

Kolton Thomas: 26:31

Thanks so much for being on, jonathan. I really appreciate it. Thanks, bill, yeah, man. So, jonathan, how can people find you and your podcast out there? Because I'd love for people to listen to what you're doing with these conversations that people are having about faith between Christians and non-Christians. It's so authentic and just really great content. How can people find you out there and support what you're doing?

Jonathan Storment: 26:53

Well, Bonafide good faith conversations with Jonathan Stormant. You can search that on Apple, Android, Google, wherever you get your podcasts. And there is bonafidesubstackcom, which is me and this guy I went to school with, who was in ministry and is now an atheist, but we're friends and so he has all the admin permissions that I do and we kind of write and that is a project that is just launching, but it's kind of a long-term project where we kind of engage each other. And then also I'm at Pleasant Valley Church of Crest in Little Rock, if you live in Central Arkansas.

Kolton Thomas: 27:39

So yeah, come visit Jonathan, come visit his church, support his show, leave him a review. I've been listening to it. It's really benefited me, whether you're a Christian or not a Christian. So guys, check out more of what Jonathan's doing. So, anyways, thanks again so much, jonathan, for being here and being on the show today. You left us with so much good wisdom and, yeah, hope to do it again sometime.

Jonathan Storment: 28:01

Thanks, colton, it's great being here.

Kolton Thomas: 28:03

All right, guys, and there you have it. Theology of the Body with Jonathan Stormant. I will leave a link in the show notes if you want to go check out Jonathan's podcast. I would highly recommend it if you want to hear honest conversations between atheists or agnostics and Christians, and also be on the lookout for a second episode I will release with Jonathan where we dive even further into Christianity and history and how Christianity has shaped sex ethics over time. It's a fascinating conversation and it has a lot of relevant, practical information we can use if we're struggling to overcome pornography in our lives. So thanks again, guys, for listening to the Reclaimed and Unashamed podcast. We'll see you in the next one. Have a great day.

Kolton Thomas: 28:48

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