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You need to read this article. You probably need to read it twice. The world has changed and it will affect you. It’s not just that headlines now require double takes: “Man gives birth to gender neutral child.”[1] And it’s not just that Facebook offers a dizzying array of gender designations or that we are overwhelmed by new vocabulary: transgender, cisgender, gender fluid, genderqueer, and non-binary; and gender-neutral pronouns: ne, ze, hir, zir, ve, xe. 

It’s not just that we are awash in confusion and contradiction, being told that sexual orientation is fixed, but gender identity is fluid and that a biological male must be addressed as a female, if he believes he is. It’s not even that we are told that “male” and “female” are meaningless terms, but a male can become a female and vice versa, and we’re supposed to find that meaningful.  

It’s that all of these troubled streams are flowing in one powerful torrent that threatens to swallow all who dare to stand against it. Under the handle “trans,” this movement has quickly gained not only far-reaching influence, but startling power with strong totalitarian overtones. Through media, courts, councils, boards, departments, and legislatures the trans agenda is moving forward – and confessing Christians are in the way. 

The following is but a glimpse of the trans movement: 

• California recently passed a spate of gender identity laws to force compliance with the trans agenda. Long-term care facility employees can now be criminalized for “misgendering” residents, i.e. for using the wrong gender pronoun. And facility residents will now be able to use the restroom of their choice. State residents can now more easily change the gender on their birth certificates and may now designate “non-binary” for their gender on state documents. Further, California employers with 50 or more employees are required to mandate training bi-annually on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation harassment and employees must display posters detailing special transgender rights that entitle trans/non-conforming gender individuals to tax-payer funded programs.    

• The Delaware Department of Education has proposed a new state regulation that would enable public schools to bypass parental consent for students wishing to change their expressed race, gender, or sexual orientation when schools deem parents unsupportive, i.e. not on board with the trans agenda. In fact, parents who affirm their child’s biological sex and race can be considered a “non-ally,” and could even be labeled discriminatory and abusive. Further, the proposed regulation would allow students to use the locker rooms and to join school sports in line with their gender identity or expression. 

• New York has outlawed therapy to help individuals change their sexual orientation and their sexual identity, unless it’s in line with the trans agenda. In other words, people can seek counseling to transition from heterosexual to homosexual and from male to female, but not from homosexual to heterosexual and to back to their biological sex. 

• And the non-profit advocacy group, Athlete Ally, that helped NCAA schools write LGBT-friendly policy suggestions, is now publicly rating/shaming schools on their LGBT friendliness (much like the Corporate Equality Index does for businesses). To earn high scores schools must have schoolwide nondiscrimination policies, openly LGBT-staff, pro-LGBT resources for student-athletes, LGBT interest groups, promotion of LGBT pride events, partnership with LGBT organizations, and policies that include transgender athletes. Those who score low are publicly shamed. 

The message is clear: affirm the trans agenda or be demonized, even criminalized. Christians, take note. Families, take note. Both are in the way. 

The message is clear: affirm the trans agenda or be demonized, even criminalized. Christians, take note. Families, take note.

Christians are in the way because we confess these three foundational, but increasingly counter-cultural, truths: 

1. Mankind has been created in image of God.

2. Mankind has been created male and female.

3. Male and female were created for each other.[2] 

In other words, mankind exists in two distinct sexes: male and female,[3] which were designed for each other. Our biology (lovingly designed by God), which informs our identity, affirms this. Every organ in the human body can complete its function without partnering with another body except the sexual organs. They need their complement from the other sex to complete their function. 

Only these two sexes (because they are the only two sexes) can unite in this way and every one of Facebook’s 50+ genders falls into one of these two sexes. Yes, there may be many different ways to live as male or female, but there is only male and female, and male and female were clearly created for each other. The trans agenda ignores this in favor of an agenda that runs contrary to the Creator’s design and intention, an agenda that ultimately impales people on the rocky shoals of reality. Reality has edges and lives lived on those edges suffer, as studies are increasingly showing (despite the media’s unwillingness to cover the findings).[4]  

Families, defined as father, mother, and child(ren) are in the way because they declare that children originate and thrive with a father and a mother. In fact, as social science is continually showing, every measurable characteristic of well-being is boosted by what Christianity has promulgated from its inception: Husband + Wife + Children = Good.[5] It’s not only that the institution of family is good, it’s that it is good for us, all of us.
 

Husband + Wife + Children = Good

But it doesn’t matter that reality is on our side; the trans agenda is about redefining reality and this is why you need to take note. It will affect you. It will affect your children. One author explains, “This gender-neutral scheme obliterates the template for the family as a unit. And if the family is no longer accepted as a union that originates through the union of male and female, there is no real basis for the State to recognize any family as an autonomous unit.”[6] 

In other words, if male and female cease to be seen as objective sexes that must join to procreate, and if this male and female union in marriage ceases to be seen as the ideal situation for raising children, the family falls. And if the family falls, the state rises. And an empowered state may claim the right to regulate our personal relationships, to control our child rearing, and to limit our speech.
 

If the family falls, the state rises.

In fact, Ryan Anderson, author of Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom, made this point to our church body’s national convention in 2016: “If man-made laws don’t mirror natural law/Divine ordering, then government will have to refashion human nature and reorder the dissenters.” The trans agenda is attempting to unmoor humanity and our laws from reality, and dissenters like the Christian Church and the Christian family, will need to be reordered. 

So what do we do? 

1)                  Strengthen marriage and strengthen the family.

Invest heavily in these institutions. These are the cradle of culture and the bedrock of civilization and the greatest defense against an intrusive state. Support and get involved with groups that undergird marriage and family. Start with your church and then check out www.lfsiowa.org, www.hausvater.org, www.frc.org, thefamilyleader.com, www.lcms.org/social-issues/marriage, www.lcms.org/lutheran-center-for-religious-liberty. Invest heavily in a local married couple. Intentionally pray for them. Support them. Encourage them. Strengthen your marriage and your family.  Zion is offering two opportunities in February (see pg. 19). 

2)                  Invest heavily in your church.

Get involved. Make the church the hub of your life, the hub of your family’s life. Worship together faithfully. Learn how to think like a Christian. Find out why we confess what we confess. Understand why it is good and why it is worth publicly confessing and defending. And then talk about it as a family. Practice in the family what you will need to confess in public. Help your children practice at home what they will need to confess outside the home. 

3)                  Insist on family time.

Turn off the screens. Cancel unnecessary appointments. Limit extra-curriculars. Eat supper as a family. Read a book out loud to your children. Play a board game as a family. Talk to each other. Anchor identity in the family. Sitting separately in front of screens is not being a family. Eating separately is not being a family. Enrolling children in multiple extra-curricular activities so that they spend more time outside the home than in it is not being a family. Those things fragment the family and fragmented families leave children adrift with no shore in which to cast the anchor of their identity. And the current of the trans agenda will sweep unanchored youths away, a sight we are growing accustomed to seeing on college campuses as youths from fragmented families adopt the trans agenda in search of a meaningful identity. Insist on being a family. 

The situation is serious. Our response must be significant. For further ideas or to continue the conversation, come talk to me. Email me (revconner@mmctsu.com), call (655-2352), or stop in. Marriage and family need your support and involvement. It’s time to get involved. – Pastor Conner