Beyond The Basics

Earlier this week my wife and I watched the Matt Walsh documentary What Is A Woman? (watch it here for free through the weekend – I highly recommend it, especially if you have kids). It’s taken me a few days to gather my thoughts on many of the very disturbing elements in the film.

First of all, I tend to avoid political pundits because I feel that their primary goal is to stir up anger. I used to listen to a lot of conservative talk radio and stopped listening when I felt the Lord tell me, “Turn it off.” When I did, I noticed the anger I had towards the left turn to compassion and I noticed many things in the Bible that contradicted my conservative beliefs and I had to come to terms with those things. I wasn’t familiar with Matt Walsh before watching this film but I was familiar with the Daily Wire and how decidedly right-wing they are so I was somewhat skeptical before watching the film that it would be heavily biased.

I was very wrong. The strength of the film is that he simply asks questions of both sides of the transgender issue and just lets them talk without interjecting too much commentary or opinion. I was astounded at how quickly and willingly the surgeons, professors, and pediatricians that were interviewed offered up information on the disturbing, abusive and criminal practices in which they are engaged.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not surprised that fallen, imperfect human beings do evil things. If even Christians sin with regularity then it not only should not be surprising that those who don’t know the Lord sin but it should be expected. We shouldn’t be put off by that. Humans gonna human.

I’ve been reading through the book of Genesis a lot recently. That shouldn’t come as a surprise either, since I’m doing an entire podcast series on it (which you should totally check out as well, BTW). Something that I notice is that there is a cycle in the book where people become increasingly wicked to the point where it threatens all humanity so God needs to deal with it and perform a reset or reboot of the human race. This has happened over and over throughout human history but one day God will allow wickedness to reach its peak (Matthew 13:24-30).

I have no idea if we’re approaching that time or not. It sure seems to me like we are but I’ve also only been alive for a minute of human history so I don’t have any long term perspective. But if we are? How will we respond?

My son will turn 18 months old this week. I have a daughter on the way. I have a while before I send them off to school but that day is coming much quicker than I think. Do I send them to public schools knowing that in an average classroom, at least 5 of their classmates will identify as LGBTQ+ and at least one of those students will identify as transgender? Do I really want them going to school and coming home confused about the reality of biological sex at the age of 6 years old? How do I even have that conversation with them?

But the reality is, this conversation is coming. Whether I like it or not. This is the world they live in now.

I’m not afraid of what’s coming. I know who wins in the end. And despite what this post will likely be labeled as online, I’m not afraid of transgender people. They are just normal people trying to get through life the best they can, just like we all are. Any sort of sexual deviancy, whether it’s porn addiction or gender dysphoria, comes from brokenness anyway. And guess what? We’re all broken. So if you say you’ve never struggled with any sort of deviant sexual desire, I would have a very difficult time believing you.

It’s not regular people that concern me.

What causes me to consider my next steps very carefully when it comes to raising my children is the politicians, the pharmaceutical companies, the universities and educational institutions, the physicians and physician associations, the media, all those in power that have an agenda that are forcing their agenda on people despite legitimate differing viewpoints. What kind of lasting damage will it do to my kids when they are inappropriately sexualized in school and forced to view disgusting images of adult sexual acts long before they are ready? And then when they need to sort through the deep sexual trauma they endure at school and wherever else they encounter this stuff, where do I take my kids to see a psychologist that isn’t going to shove more disgusting crap down their throat? Do we just completely withdraw from the world? Sounds tempting.

That’s exactly where the issue lies. As Christians, we are both salt and light (Matthew 5:13-14). If my family withdraws from society and stays in our own little Christian bubble with our Christian homeschool associations and our Christian health insurance and our Christian owned businesses, how are we ever going to be salt and light to those around us? Put it this way – would we be contributing to the increase of wickedness around us by removing our light from the surrounding darkness?

Thankfully, I find this comfort in Scripture:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10)

This is nothing new. These questions that I and other parents are asking have been asked by parents for generations past. Somehow, by God’s great mercy, the human race is still here and functioning. My kids are going to face really difficult questions that are well beyond my pay grade to answer. But you know what? Every generation of kids has faced that. This is nothing new. It’s just different. Maybe I will need to spend a little extra time fasting and praying than my parents did or than their parents did, but my guess is, maybe not. They probably did far more than their share of that. And this is how it will go until wickedness reaches its peak, and then Jesus will come.

One of the most repeated prayers in the Bible is the cry of “How long, O Lord?” How long will the enemy revile Your name (Psalm 74:10)? How long will you look on and do nothing (Psalm 35:17)? How long before you will avenge us (Revelation 6:10)?

I don’t know how long God will wait to do something about what seems like a significant increase in wickedness on the earth. But I do know that wickedness has an expiration date. God will not wait forever to deal with it.

I have a lot of questions. I know a lot of other people do too. I don’t know that there are a whole lot of good answers other than trust God, pray for wisdom, and pray that Jesus comes back before this mess gets a whole lot worse.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.