IT MAY be one of the most emotionally charged issues the church will face in the next few years, and most of us didn’t even realize it existed until very recently. The transgender movement, the “T” in LGBT (which, I have learned, is now LGBTQQIAAP), has picked up on the recent suicide of a 17-year-old boy who wanted to be a girl and made it a focal point for their cause.
Walt Heyer, author of A Transgender’s Faith, shares his story as a transgender who experienced the emotional abyss of realizing that surgery was not the answer to his problems. He discusses how he came to accept Christ, disturbing statistics that show his post-surgery regret is not unique, and why he says that a sex change is a change in name only.
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This man is very compelling when he speaks about the underlying basis of the problem and the need for Christ’s love. But the problem is that the issue isn’t about individual people as much as it is about an aggressive movement which demands not just acceptance but complete societal and individual sanction for their behaviors. And if there’s confusion between homosexual attraction and transgender issues, it’s largely because this movement has linked all of these things together – LGBT isn’t a label Christians dreamed up. It’s their own designation. If people with those problems acknowledged they had problems as this man does, it would be easy to minister to them. But there’s the rub. It’s worse than politically incorrect to suggest there are mental health issues that need treated as such. It now causes even legal backlash to express anything other than one’s belief in the normality of any of these behaviors. That makes it problematic to deal with them. God does judge societies – not for individuals who sin but as societies who adopt perversions or gross sin as legally accepted and encouraged ‘alternatives.’ That applies to any gross sin, not just homosexuality, but try to express that when discussing this issue with someone bound in such a sin. It’s futile. In such a discussion on ‘Christian homosexuality’ I once tried to say that celibacy is demanded for any single person – homosexual or straight. I was talking to myself, and that’s typical. They don’t even hear what you say because they’re so focused on their demand that you not judge their behavior as sinful or sick. That sets up an impossible situation for ministering, even if you’ve approached the subject or the person in love.
You hit the nail of the problem right on the head. So the question becomes this: Since we cannot avoid the issue, as it will be forced on us by activists, how do we address it in a way that, at the very least, we avoid becoming an obstacle to a unique individual, such as Mr. Heyer, experiencing the love of Christ?
If you have a good answer to that question, I’d like to hear it. I’ve tried various approaches but never have succeeded. Even when citing my own struggle with celibacy as a straight, single Christian, my words failed to break through the insistence that sexual desire is normal, and therefore, acceptable for expression, even if it is contrary to God’s Word. Yet God does fill that void; but getting them to understand that fact is our problem, as long as they remain adamant that their particular immorality isn’t a sin problem, but instead is natural and good, and must be accepted as such. So sadly, because there can be no forgiveness or salvation without acknowledgement and repentance, they remain closed off from the grace they could receive – the grace we long to share.
A fantastic and much needed interview DG. This one will really be a difference maker in people’s live. Very practical advice.
In Paul Washer’s warning speach he makes the point that as Christians we are going to be seen as the bigots, and the ones hindering man’s progress (as Alice Bailey also hinted at). In fact we already are, and as Washer says, this is how the prophets were treated. Not as heroes.
My niece wants to be a man, and when society tells her she can, the I and anyone else that try to warn her that she can’t be a man, no matter how many operations she has, then we are the ones that look like we are stopping her happiness through bigotry and small mindedness. I live in the UK and our popular culture and media has weaponised language to such an extent that soon people marrying their pets will be seen as an expression of righteous freedom. I’m serious.
The challenge for the church is the same thing that has always been the challenge; to be relevant to a spiritually starving, and lost people, who do not see that they are lost. Paul told us to be “all things to all men” in regard to sharing the word. He was correct, and I feel sometimes….well most of the time we do not practice this extremely valuable skill.
yep.. it’s a bit like that saying “one has to walk a mile in the others shoes to understand them” ..only these days, people are encouraged to be anything they want…
collectively, we’ve strayed so from the foundation the way back seems impossible & unappealing to many, and that’s where all these ‘change agents’ like lady gaga & friends enter the equation.. it’s all in those taxil letters and elsewhere