I don’t want to review the Bruce/Caitlyn saga any more than necessary in order to say what’s on my mind this Monday morning, but it’s amazing to me that we’ve come to a point in America at which our president takes time out of his busy schedule to applaud the courage of one who should be the object of our pity: a transvestite. A transvestite, only a few years ago, was one who could appear nowhere in society except in some shadowy and seedy venue—a dark street corner in a bad part of town or a gay brothel. But now, he is on the cover of Vanity Fair. His new twitter account, launched to announce the change, one-upped President Obama to become the fastest account ever to reach the one-million-followers mark, “achieving” that status in only five hours.
There are doctors in some areas of our country who administer puberty delaying hormones for children who show early behaviors that are imitative of the opposite sex—just in case the children later want sex change operations. (Delaying puberty, they say, might render the sex change less “onerous.”)
In other news this week, an entire audience in Colorado came to its feet to applaud a class valedictorian who “came out” in her graduation speech. The sexual perversions of homosexuality and transgenderism have been around for ages. The applause of the sins are relatively new in American culture.
Jenner can tweet photos of himself, dressed in leggings and arm in arm with women, but that doesn’t make him a woman. It makes him a feminized man. Liberal media outlets can refer to him as “she” till the cows come home, and he will still be a man. Putting on an extreme costume does not alter who he is. The truth is, when we promote transgenderism, we encourage mental illness. When homosexuality gets a standing ovation, courage is not the object of that applause. Romans 1 still calls the object “vile affection.” The Word is the truth that sanctifies His people (John 17:17). It sets us apart. And it is really doing that these days.
I find it very interesting to notice statistics showing that when children show signs of imitating the opposite sex at very young ages and those signs go ignored and “untreated”, the symptoms “go away”—just vanish—in 70 to 80 percent of those children by the time they reach adulthood (http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change). These stats obviously fly in the face of those who, like Bruce Jenner, claim that transgenderism is “just who I am.” The separate, but collaborating, studies were administered by both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic. Dr. McHugh, the psychiatrist who reveals these stats and calls transgenderism a “disorder,” similar to a thin anorexic person looking in the mirror and believing she is fat, also says that when we affirm and encourage transgenderism—when we turn it into a civil rights issue—we promote mental illness. Dr. McHugh, himself, comes with some pretty substantial credentials. He is the former Psychiatrist-In-Chief of Johns Hopkins University and the current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Hopkins. He’s authored six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles.
I hope you can take the time to listen to the lesson below. Although it addresses a broader picture than transgenderism, and focuses on the homosexual marriage issue, I believe Christians need this. We need to be prepared to meet the challenges about homosexuality that the devil is imposing on us in 2015 and beyond. We need to prepare our children to meet the devil, head on, about sexual sin of all kinds. We need to stop saying we are opposed to homosexuality because it is “gross”. We need to stop saying we are opposed to homosexual marriage because we are of some particular political party. We need to say we are opposed to the sin of homosexuality because we believe the truth of the Bible, the inspired word of God.
It may mean persecution. We need to prepare our children for that, too. We cannot shrink back from believing and teaching truth because we are fearful. We have to remember that persecution is a token (one evidence) of our salvation (Phil. 1:28). We continue to pray for peace and the ability to cling to truth in a climate in which our freedom to do so is protected. But we must prepare for persecution because we very well may face it (some already are) over the defense of the truth of Romans 1:24-32. Courage, in our culture, is not being the mighty “emperor” of homosexual acceptance. Courage today is saying that the emperor has no clothes. It is being truthful about the sin, even when tolerance and applause of the sin is expected and, in more and more cases, demanded.
Be sure to follow this blog for one more upcoming video message about the Christian’s response to an increasingly morally depraved culture. I’m praying today for parents who are readying their children for the battle, including the basic training units in my very own family.
