We're right about transgenderism, but...
Enough playing defense
I’m excited to announce a new project starting this Thursday in the postscript below, but first, here’s today’s post:
Something about the trans movement stirred up a resistance in Bible-believing conservatives that seemed to go dormant following 2014’s Obergefell gay marriage ruling.
Maybe it’s the targeting of kids.
Maybe it’s the devaluing of womanhood.
Maybe it’s that relativism is finally reaching its breaking point.
Maybe it’s that the absurd visual of men pretending to be women and vice versa has reminded us of how abnormal all of this is.
In any case, a resistance is rising. But will it be a worthwhile resistance?
There’s one way we can know in advance:
it will be a worthwhile resistance only if a fully-formed alternative is offered.
When you’re trying to decide what to eat for dinner and your spouse or child responds to every option with “Ew, not that, not that, not that either” but never says what they want, eventually exasperation leads you to make the choice for yourself.
Christians have been playing this exact game with LGBT issues.
Homosexuality? Not that.
Civil unions and gay marriage? Not that.
Bisexuality? Not that.
Polyamory? Not that.
Transgenderism? Not that.
All good choices. But what are we advocating instead?
Functionally, we’ve shrugged our shoulders and said “uhhh, I don’t know.”
As long as you don’t do one of those things or a couple other sexual sins, God basically lets you chart your sexuality and masculinity/femininity for yourself. Or, so we’ve taught.
We give them one man, one woman, for life—a wonderful, foundational principle, to be sure—and refuse to build up any understanding of what a man is, what a woman is, and why they should come together for life.
We can’t explain why marriage is a good thing to be pursued, and singleness is not God’s ideal for mankind. And, in accommodation of the spirit of the age, we’ve agreed to totally leave out “be fruitful and multiply.”
We acknowledge that the body parts are different but refuse to extrapolate any data from Scripture, biology, or plain intuition why they were made differently.
We refuse to appreciate how testosterone and estrogen levels make us functionally different people from the inside out, and not the outside in. Our brains aren’t even wired the same.
In our accommodating, soft complementarianism, we hold that the only functional differences are that women aren’t allowed to preach or be elders, and, if push comes all the way to shove, the husband gets to make the final decision in the home (as long as it’s one that keeps momma happy, of course).
In our feminist, “anything you can do, I can do better” culture, we’ve turned women into men and men into women.
Somehow we have the gall to mock the LGBTers who use the wrong bathroom while we raise up “girlbosses” and soft boys.
If we continue to raise our boys and girls as functionally the same, with the same purposes as they grow into adulthood, and the same basic design, we won’t win this battle.
The church remains highly complicit in this, as we’ve largely been absolutely terrified of the women in our pews. There are plenty of church leaders who will tell you that homosexuality and transgenderism are a sin. There are far fewer who will tell you that feminism is, too.
Not many will explain that God demands of women a quiet and gentle spirit (1 Peter 3:4), and how that puts them at odds with what the culture teaches them to be. Not many will tell you what it actually means for a husband to rule over His house well (1 Timothy 3:4), with both gentleness and firmness.
Instead, we keep telling the world what God doesn’t want to see while refusing to say what He does. We can tell them what’s wrong, but refuse to tell them what’s right. We know what we’re against, but not what we’re for.
Go find out why God created a man and built him the way He did, and why He created a woman and built her the way He did.
Go find out what the man was put here for, and why he was insufficient to accomplish it alone, without a woman’s unique qualities (Genesis 2:18).
Go find out why children matter (Genesis 1:28).
Go find out why God made man the head—not just of the home, but of the church and of the society, too (Isaiah 3:12, 1 Timothy 3:1ff, 1 Peter 3:1-6).
Go find out all the reasons why Jesus is the analogue for the husband, and the church for the wife (Ephesians 5:23).
If you want to fight the LGBT agenda, you have to be able to both tell them what’s right and show them by your life.
The only weapon we have here is the Word of God. Use it. All of it.
Updated from a post first published June 2023
Notes
Two notes today:
Revelation!
I’m starting a Revelation study series this Thursday night! Each session will be 20-30 minutes, live on Facebook and YouTube.
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Jack, you have written many excellent and informative articles, and for me, this article hits the proverbial nail on the head! When we read of the life of Christ, we see His example of how not to live, and we see His example of how to live as we let our lights shine in a dark world. I find myself again at a familiar place when it comes to your writing…thank you so very much!
Jasck, this is all well said and documented.......but... You are analyzing the problem well and offering a well-reasoned, suggested dialogue. But you and we are not alone in that: the Catholic Church has a library of written arguments, as do the other denominations and even the Muslims.
But it is not that we lack proper materials that are completely Biblically sound. Rather, that we have rendered ourselves as irrelevant to the society around us and the world in general. We fear as a group, as a brotherhood, to proclaim the Lord and these commands. In a crisis, otherwise known as an opportunity, when the ignorant, but searching, public is desperately looking for leadership and direction, we are nowhere to be found. We are probably at the building attending a class, a singing or a prayer meeting, avoiding all possible confrontation that could upset our comfort zone.
When a potentially harmful legislation is about to be enacted, whose passage supports evil and which will generate more evil offspring, we don't have a John the Baptist, or a Nathan, or a Jeremiah or Peter and John to stand before the current Caesar, and tell him that it is wrong.
In fact, none of the sermons that our designated preacher(s) delivers ever touch the current issues, and no congregation makes definitive plans to become visible to the public as a force of good against evil. After all, we might even get attacked for that.
One elder, at a church of Christ in the Northwest, even gave the following answer to a brother asking a question regarding the church speaking against homosexuality. He laughed and said "Brother, I don't want to become a lightning rod." Just the kind of answer I might have expected from Peter, John, Paul, Steven, Irenaeus, Polycarp, and such, right? That congregation boasted a membership of about 250 people, and they were sensitive about offending their "higher" level members who worked for certain companies, in case they lost them. We see the same thing when someone speaks out about the spiritual dangers of other things, such as public schools. We aren't supposed to talk about that because they (or even their non-believing relatives) work as teachers, and "might offend" visitors to the assembly. The idea of standing up for these commands of God in front of a town council or school board is beyond the pale.
Perhaps the Lord did make His followers to be lightning rods!