Transcript of CS#107: Jason Evert Theology of His and Her Body

Transcript of Interview with Jason Evert about Theology of His and Her Body. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

If You Really Loved Me and

Theology of Her Body and Theology of His Body at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1001137/Theology-Her-Body-Theology-His-Body/

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1004415/If-You-Really-Loved-Me/

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Chris Cash: Welcome to Catholic Spotlight. This is the Catholic Spotlight, the show where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I’m your host Chris Cash, director of E-Commerce from catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.

And today in the Spotlight we have Jason Evert of Catholic Answers who is going to be talking about his new book, Theology of the Body â€“ Theology of Her Body and Theology of His Body, as well as the revised addition of If You Really Loved Me. As well as any other thing that comes up. So, you know welcome Jason.

Jason Evert: Thank you for having me on.

Chris Cash: And you know I just have to mention that Jason is one of the pre-eminent speakers to teens on all issues of sexuality. And you know I’ve been to a couple of your talks Jason and every time I see you talk, it is just inspiring in so many ways. So, I have to thank you first and foremost for everything you do to help inform and educate our teams about true and authentic sexuality.

Jason Evert: Oh, thank you for saying that Chris. And a lot of people think it’s a difficult job to try to sell chastity to teenagers, but I think it’s a relatively easy one because how hungry they are for love. So, it’s easier some people I think.

Chris Cash: Well, you know I – just a few minutes ago, I have â€“ I work from home, so I have a babysitter out in the other room who is taking care of my four year old at the moment. But she is â€“ she just graduated from high school, and I mentioned that I was getting ready for an interview. And I said, “You know Jason Evert.” She’s like, “Oh, yes, he’s come to our school twice. He is cool.” Soâ€¦

Jason Evert: So, tell her I say hello.

Chris Cash: I will, I will definitely tell her, but you know usually I mention who I am interviewing; she is even coming from a Catholic High School. She is just like oh, okay.

Jason Evert: Yes, yes.

Chris Cash: But you definitely struck a cord with her, so you know you’re doing a good job. Keeping â€“ being memorable.

Jason Evert: Well, thank you.

Chris Cash: So, which book would you like to talk about first?

Jason Evert: I think we can do â€“ what’s that?

Chris Cash: And I think the more popular one right now is definitely the Theology of Her and His Body, so.

Jason Evert: Yes, we can start there.

Chris Cash: That sounds like a great idea. So, tell me what was it that made you want to put this book together? Especially being in such kind of a unique format where you got the flipped cover, you know the one side is for girls and the one side is for boys. But obviously you are looking for both to read both sides, right?

Jason Evert: Yes. And I figured it would be inevitable anyway. Its sticking together and the guys would rather read about a girl’s body than their own. Anyway, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone and stick them together. And the book is really an offshoot of their curriculum that we created for Ascension Press called Theology of the Body for Teens. That was the first product that came out and it was followed by a DVD and parent books. And I want to kind of supplement for the guys and girls a lighter reading so to speak, because John Paul IIâ€˜s Theology of the Body is pretty heavy stuff, and so it comes from a 129 Wednesday audiences, the Holy Father gave at the beginning of his pontificate. And its pretty sex theological and philosophical stuff. And so, we try to break it down as much as we’re able and theology by for teens. And I kind of wanted to take in the next level of really taking some creative applications of what he had to say, and applying into the life’s of the teenagers and what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, and how that’s revealed in a way that God created our bodies.

Chris Cash: So, what’s the response you’ve been getting from this book?

Jason Evert: I found it to be very positive, because it was very enjoyable because you don’t have to focus on a lot of the stuff that normally comes up during chastity related issues of having to deal with lot of sexually transmitted diseases and peer pressure and this and that. Its more of a refreshing way to look at the human body, because I think what has happened in the culture is that sexuality has been divorced from spirituality. And we â€“ it is this mentality that we need to keep sex as far away from religion as physically possible, and that’s a healthy way to look at life. But it really isn’t, because God is the author of our human sexuality. He is the one who created us both male and female. And so, it’s a refreshing way to look at the body and sexuality, but you don’t have to keep it alienated from the divine from the sacred, but if you look at through that lens it makes a whole lot more sense.

Chris Cash: Now, in the book how frank do you get with the questions about sexuality here?

Jason Evert: Well, what we do is we look at the body. Like what does a mans body reveal, what does the woman’s body reveal, because man, God made us male and female for a reason and he created our bodies as he did for a reason. He is the artist; he is the man doing the master piece. The designer, the architect, so to speak. And so, why does he create a mans body as he did. And so, when I get into the book is well look at the male body. You know what does it reveal, what does it show, what do you see when you see the man’s body? And I point out three characteristics that are obvious in the mans body. First is strength, and that a point that’s not simply the physical strength to protect sacrifice, but also an interior strength, a virtue. I also point out in the mans body you see stamped into the males body, there is a call in us to initiate the gift of life, to initiate the gift of love. This is stamped into out bodies. Whereas with the female body, a couple of things that will pop out to you when you see a female body is one there is a beauty there, a beauty to be unveiled is also a mystery. . A mysterious element about the woman’s body.

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand once pointed out that, “A woman’s intimate organs are hidden. They are inside the body.” And what’s hidden often it points to something that’s mysterious. Also women are really built for relationships. They are very relational beings and all these things we can see revealed in their bodies. So, our call to masculinity, femininity, fatherhood and motherhood. If we ever loose sight of who we ought to be, what my book tries to do is to remind you by looking at your body, who God created you to be. And so, as a man, God’s calling you to initiate the gift of love. Not to be passive when it comes to relationships, but to actively initiate love and not as counterfeit which is lust. Also revealed in your body, the call to be a father. And unfortunately today I think we have a greater absence of authentic fatherhood than we have received in the world. We have deadly dads; you know guys dragging their girlfriends do an abortion in clinic and so many young men growing up without fathers at all.

And one high school kid, whose dad had a eight divorces already. And when we live in this culture, I think the young people are really looking for something that they can grab on to. That’s true and good and beautiful, John Paul’s Theology of the Body that they provide this with it.

Chris Cash: Now, I think one concern for some people is going to be what age will this book really be appropriate to give to a teenager? Because you know we don’t want to reveal too much to early and to young, but we don’t want to wait till it’s too late either.

Jason Evert: Yes. And I would recommend high school you know. And this isn’t a birds and the bee’s book. So, it’s not graphic or pictures or you know how baby’s are made kind of stuff. It’s basically look at just at the body in general, and things that are very obviously revealed. So, it’s written in such a way that an 7th, 8th grader can read and not be scoffed for a life or anything. But it’sâ€¦

Chris Cash: No, it’s not going to be scandal.

Jason Evert: Yes, you don’t want them to be scandalized at all, but its more intellectually I think appropriate for someone who is more in the high school level. I think they’ll be able to grasp some of the theological content better than maybe a 12 or 13 year old would. So, I would say its pretty much ideal for a high school student, college student and all the way up.

Chris Cash: So, this would be a book that you’d want to present after the birds and bees talk and further reading?

Jason Evert: Absolutely. Yes, no absolutely. This isn’t something to give the 4th grader or 5th grader, because I think they’ll get lost a little bit in the theology. And that the struggles that we present in the book that young people are facing, you aren’t as applicable to someone who is barely at the dawn of puberty. So, I think it’s really designed more for teenagers, college students and even parents, priests, religious. And we’ve got some feedback from religious sisters that have really you know helped them to see you know their own vocation standards of body. It’s called a motherhood, it’s called to give life and things like that.

Chris Cash: So, this book is also appropriate for adults then?

Jason Evert: I think it’s very appropriate for adults. One reason is because a lot of adults haven’t received a great deal of Catechists when it comes to topics of the churches teachings on human sexuality. And so, when they face with teenagers asking some serious questions well, how come we can’t do this or how come the church *** [09:26]. It’s very important to parents and the teachers, the Catechist be prepared to give a solid reason that’s going to be convincing for the young people. The young guys and girls today are extremely skeptical, and I think they have a right to data. I think they’ve been lied to so frequently by the world or media, and so they’ve got a lot of tough questions. So, I think parents need to equip themselves with solid answers for them.

Chris Cash: So, what are the tough questions that are addressed in this book?

Jason Evert: Well, the Q&A book is more of a â€“ you know the If You Really Love Me book. That’s more of a 100 questions and answers. This is more an invitation to the young people to look at life through a whole new lens. Through looking â€“ you know to make the connection in the minds of the young people for love and purity and chastity, these things are not separate. A lot of people think that if you follow the churches teachings on sexuality and chastity, it’s really going to rob you of freedom and rob you of love. But what this book kind of points out that if you ultimately want there is love for what you have made; you don’t have to run away from God and the churches teaching on sexuality. In fact, what the church had to say about sexuality is really everything what the human heart longs for.

That’s one of the things I love about the writings of Pope John II, he doesn’t argue from the outside in. You know here are 15 rules you need to follow. He argues more from the inside out. What is it that the human heart truly longs for? So, that’s the perspective we try to take in this book of â€“ what is it that the human heart longs for? And what does it mean to be made creative males and females. And so, we try to resonate and that level of human experience to draw for the churches teachings.

Chris Cash: All right, well, we’re going to take a short break here to hear from our sponsor, and we’ll be back in just a minute to talk more with Jason Evert about If You Really Loved Me. This is the Catholic Spotlight.

[BREAK]

Chris Cash: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight talking with Jason Evert about Theology of His Body and Her Body as well as If You Really Loved Me. So, Jason this – If You Really Loved Me is a little bit older book, but it’s just been revised and updated. So, let’s start off by just talking about the original version. And what’s included there? You said it’s more a question and answer book, right?

Jason Evert: Yes, the book â€“ originally when I started giving chastity presentations at high schools about 10 or 11 years ago, the students would come up afterwards and ask any number of questions. And after you know hundreds and hundreds of these encounters of the teens, I realized you know it probably be a good idea to make a little book on for these teens to give them just common answers to the questions they have. And so, I wrote a little book it’s called Pure Love. You know as time went on, I had found that it didn’t answer all the questions the kids were having, so I did a thicker one, which is called If You Really Loved Me. And what that is, is a top 100 questions to the most common questions teens – 100 answers that 100 most common questions teens have dating, relationships, sexual purity. Questions like how far is too far or you know what’s the problem in pornography, nobody is getting heard or why is the church against birth control, what about homosexuality, when shall I start dating, how do I say no to a guy without hurting his feelings you know if he really loves me. All those kinds of questions that teens commonly ask with the answers in there. And the answers that I offer them are based on these encounters I have with the teens. I spoke at a high school in New York and afterwards told the kids, if you want to hang out and talk one-on-one, I’ll be here afterwards if you need me. And the students formed a line that was 7 hours long. And I would sit there and they would come and say you know I have said this to anyone before, but you know I’m addicted to this or I am amused or you know this is going on and my girl friend cheated on me. And they pour the hearts out and have so many questions. So, this book is really a response to the ache of the teenagers that are longing for solid answers when it comes to dating relationships and sexual purity.

Chris Cash: Now, what went into the revised version then?

Jason Evert: Well, what the revised version is probably an additional and more than 80 pages information, a lot of it has been updated or revised medical and scientific statistics. From peer reviewed scientific journals we have probably closed to a thousand references in the book now. Pointing out how science, medical technology actually all backs up the churches teaching about human sexuality, information on birth control, sexually transmitted diseases. I did an incredibly a lot of research going into the second book, so that it can basically be almost a handbook to anyone who wants to teach chastity, any high school teacher, catechism parent that any question on the map, you’re going to be able to find not just my opinions or a couple of teenagers I talked to, but scientific journals backing all this stuff up. So, when a teenager comes to me with a question saying well, is it everybody doing it, you can look right there and see that centers so that these control teaching but now the majority of American high school students are virgins and sexual activity rates are going down for over a decade. And so, we’ve got the statistics, so if someone has a more skeptical mind, they’ll be able to look back at the primary source and realize that this isn’t simply the churches teaching, this is backed up by science as well. And so, all that scientific medical research I think goes a long way, it helps sure the credibility of what the church has to say.

Chris Cash: Now, do you have â€“ what was the most difficult question to try to address in the book or at least the one that’s kind of the most interesting in your mind I guess?

Jason Evert: I don’t know the most difficult one. I think well a more interesting one that oftenly pops up with the kids nowadays is the topic of internet dating. Dating people you don’t need to have an even met yet. This is sadly becoming more and more common with kids who come to me and they start telling me the relationship problems. And I’ve been dating this girl for a year and this is what was going on, and I don’t know if she is cheating on me and this and this. And then, those thing at passing you know, I haven’t actually met her yet, but â€“ you know, wait, wait what? And they’ll just have these internet dating relationships going on, where they live 500 miles from each other and they’ve never even met each other. And so, break and throw to the teens that hey, you know this isn’t a remarkably great idea to date someone who you actually don’t know. Seventh graders have even asked me, what do you think of online dating service? You know the kids twelve. And so, I think there is so much confusion nowadays when it comes to relationships and love, but I find that the truth is really the native language or the human heart. When the kids hear a blunt, straightforward answer that’s given with respect, humor, but at the same time reverence, I think the kids really respond to that. And so, I can’t say that I’d find any answer particularly harder to give than another one or a tougher question. But I find teens around the world, they’re all struggling with the same stuff, whether they’re some inner-city kid from East Chicago or there you know out â€“ go down to Idaho or whatever, they’re really all going through the same stuff. Broken families, you know self esteem, pressure, and securities, confusions, hormones, all going through the same stuff. So, this book tries to tackle some of the things they â€“ the questions that rise up within then, but they often don’t know who to ask for the answers.

Chris Cash: Now, one of the really hot topics recently has been sexting. Have you â€“ is there anything in there that specifically addresses sexting or you just kind of â€“ an extension of stuff that’s already in there?

Jason Evert: Yes, its an extension of the fact that chastity covers not merely you know what you do with your body, but it goes beyond that, your speech, the way you dress, your imagination, it extends the whole human person. So, you know as you said sexting is become really within the last several months, you know last 6 months or so, just this incredible phenomenon. And so, recently that a high school girl actually had the records from the cell phone company sent a â€“ send and received in the period of one month over 35,000 text messages in a single month. And if you break that down, it comes to roughly under 1 text message a minute. Every minute for an entire month is what is. And how is a parent to keep up with this? How do you monitor when your kid is sending 35,000 text messages and receiving within a single month. And so, what I try to do within this book is to help form their consciouses overall so that they’ll be able to realize that chastity goes beyond what you’re doing you know after a date. In extends to who you are as a human being, what comes out of your mouth, with your speech, your imagination, how you dress and how you act.

Chris Cash: Now, you mentioned some of the resistance that you get when you’re out there speaking. Are you finding that resistance growing or softening as time goes on?

Jason Evert: Well, I find the resistance is really more from adults than it is from teenagers. I spoke at a high school and the students came up after the presentation and they said well, we as bunch of guys in lettermen jacket. They said we â€“ when we are â€“ we’re having a chastity talk, we had a plan. And what does that mean? They said we’re going to eat you alive. I said what did you mean? And they’re going to throw things at me and make fun of the talk and be really disruptive, but they didn’t do anything. And I asked them well, how come you guys acted like a bunch of alter boys in there for an hour of 15 minutes. You didn’t do anything? And the kids said once we’ve just realized that you’re being real with us, you know we really respected you and your talk really hit us, so we just wanted to say thanks. So, with the teens I find it pretty easy to break through their defenses, the tougher nuts to crack are the adults.

I was speaking in England a couple of months ago and one of the priest said to me oh, you’ve got the high school to speak at tomorrow, good luck with them. And I was at a conference speaking to all the educators in the diocese, probably 200, 300 high school teachers. And I said to the priest, I said frankly that the teens are the easy ones, the adults that are harder to break through to, so lot of the adults even though they maybe teaching in Catholic high schools are not living in accord with the Catholic Church’s teachings on human sexuality. And they tend â€“ I find have a less open mind to looking at the concept of chastity as it applies to them in their daily life. â€˜Cause you might have a guy you know teaching high school, but living with his girl friend you know or even teaching theology yet practicing contraception within his own marriage. And so, people like that, I find tend to have more area so to speak, defenses that they are holding up against the churches teachings. Whereas a lot of the teenagers frankly haven’t heard the message before, so I find they tend to have sometimes the most open hearts to it. And a lot of the schools that bring in typically will be the ones that’ll have more of a welcoming faculty and teens with a message, where the schools won’t open it, wouldn’t invite me in the first place. So, it’s a bit of a *** [21:42] in my favor. I would say, but you know in every school regardless of how solid the theology is the teens are still going to be struggling and they need to hear the message.

Chris Cash: Now, do you see any science of hope? I mean the secular media would have you think that abstinence education is a complete failure and we need to throw all of our money back into condoms? But do you see any science of hope in a growth in this movement again?

Jason Evert: No, I absolutely do. And one thing I should point out on listeners there – the media coverage of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of abstinence education is an absolute joke. There has been over 30 scientific evaluations done and some peer reviewed science journals showing that abstinence does â€“ it does have a beneficial impact that teens who *** [22: 29] virginity pleasures are I think 40 percent less to have an out of wedlock pregnancy, that is successful in delaying the debut of sexual activity. They have more positive life outcomes. Like there is so many positive thing that have shown that abstinence in education is effective. Teen sexual activity rate as I had mentioned have been going down for over 10 years. There is a lot of really good news, I’m finding teens starting up chastity clubs, college students are doing this. There is chastity clubs now in Harvard, at Princeton, and Auburn started chastity club. And these are popping up not just domestically, but even internationally. I got a call yesterday from a gentlemen in Australia. He said oh, I’ve started a new chastity clubs down here and the kids are really liking it. I got a call from a â€“ a e-mail from a woman in India who said we are having a chastity rally out yearly, will send us some free chastity books and mail some out, so there’s a lot of good stuff going on. And I’d invite our listeners, if you’ve heard any of these attacks against abstinence education, go to our Website, which is just chasitity.com and in the research section of the Website, you can read reviews of these attacks against abstinence education and see how biased they all are. Because ultimately the people who are behind this attack on abstinence education are the ones who just want money poured back, you know comprehensive sec. That programs which has been in a dismal failure, and we have all the research in the world to back that up. But you’re never going to see that put on the mainstream media headlines.

Chris Cash: Well, is there anything else you wanted to share with our listeners before we head out?

Jason Evert: One thing I want to *** [24:07] is this there are prayers for the people who read these books, for the students that we speak to on the topic of chastity. I’ll be speaking this coming weekend at a high school conference at west Palm Beach, Florida to a couple of thousand teenagers is â€“ I’d ask prayers for all the students we ever speak to about this message in their hearts to be open, specially to those who most need Gods mercy.

Chris Cash: Well, thank you so much Jason for coming on and sharing with us. For all of you listeners out there at the Catholic Spotlight, please go on over this week and vote for us, podcastalley.com. Help us to reach out to more listeners and get this message out in front of more people by getting us some of the rankings there. We also could use positive reviews over at iTunes for those of you who are on that engine. I’m also getting ready to start up a twitter feed for Catholic Spotlight to help you try to keep up a little better with us as far as when we’re planning on doing interviews, and I know we haven’t got many questions for the authors likely, but that’s probably more my fault for not letting people know far enough, ahead of time to think about â€˜em. So, in an effort to try to make the show more interactive with our listeners again, I want to get a Twitter feed up and let you know what’s coming up and where you can find information on our upcoming interviews. And so, anyway, that is it for this week. Thank you so much Jason and God bless in your ministry.

Jason Evert: Well, thank you very much. Keep up the great work yourself.