11/14/2023
It’s time to jump into the deep end of the pool. So, grab your floaties, swimsuit, and whatever else you may need, because the following message needs to be said, even if not all receive it.
The deep end to which I refer is the issue of human sexuality and the rise of gender confusion. Yes, indeed, we are entering the deep end of the pool.
And why swim in such dangerous waters? Because we need to rescue people who are going under. This is not about judgment but love; not about condemnation but salvation. Sometimes we need to be saved from false ideologies, sometimes from cultural or group pressure to conform, and always from our own sin. And that last point applies to us all.
First, without question, this is a complex issue, and a simple blog post cannot plumb the depths of this pool. However, we cannot hold back from jumping in the pool to rescue the drowning just because we don’t want to be seen as fools. Regarding another matter, the Apostle Paul wrote, “We are fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10), and sometimes I have kept silent over controversial matters because I don’t want to be judged a “judger” or simply be seen as a fool. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Second, the issue of transgenderism continues to spin out of control. Our culture tells people you can be whoever you want to be, and it affirms everyone’s self-identification as truth. Behind that affirmation is the believable lie that we are being kind, non-judgmental, and supportive of however people feel about themselves. The problem, however, is that in this culture of acceptance, we are propelling people into greater pain, darkness, and psychological and spiritual despair.
Consider the testimony from Johns Hopkins University distinguished professor of psychiatry and behavior science, Dr. Paul McHugh. McHugh states that mental health professionals succumb to “psychic contagion” where the tide of popular opinion changes the current of diagnoses and treatments regarding mental stress related to one’s body and sense of identity. In the Wall Street Journal, McHugh wrote, “Policy makers and the media are doing no favors to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention” (WSJ, 06.12.14). From this statement alone, one can only imagine that Dr. McHugh hasn’t recently won any “psychiatrist-of-the-year” awards.
Other psychiatric crazes have come and gone, according to researcher Abigail Shrier, but “one key difference between past issues and the present transgender epidemic seems primarily induced by peers and the media and schools. Today’s teens don’t wait to talk to a therapist to find out what’s wrong with them. They simply park themselves in front of a screen, Google `Am I trans?’ and self-diagnose from the list of symptoms. If anything, therapists are merely exacerbating or encouraging problems already begun” (Irreversible Damage, 142).
Third, whatever your opinion may be regarding the science, let’s not forget the Bible speaks to our gender as a gift from God (Genesis 1:27). People may be broken, confused, and in turmoil over their struggle with sexuality and gender, but that brokenness confirms there was an original picture painted by the master Painter that somehow has gone wrong. That picture may now be stained, torn, or disfigured, but the solution is not to affirm the discoloration but to allow the master Painter to restore the painting to its beautiful design.
Amazingly, that is the promise of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “And such WERE some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The answer to the problem of transgenderism is not condemnation nor affirmation but genuine transformation that comes only through the power of Jesus Christ. So, let’s be willing to jump in the deep end of the pool, not only in theoretical discussion, but in practical application of helping our neighbors who may be drowning in the waters of cultural confusion with the hope, love, and truth of our identity in Jesus Christ.
