“Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.”
1 Peter 3:15-16 NLT
As soon as the Olympics opened with a celebration of transgenderism and overall weirdness, the heat of the culture war intensified. And make no mistake, it’s indubitably a war. A Great War. The greatest war. It’s the war of antithesis; the culture against Christ and the desire to create heaven on earth without God and the cross. Many hymn singing folks don’t feel comfortable with the war language but it’s assuredly not mine, but the Bible’s. Christ brings a sword of division between believers and unbelievers in one way, be sure. He’s the antithesis for the simple reason that He’s Lord and all Christians that intend to follow Him will invariably smack head long into the syncretism, unbelief, and outright idolatry of the world around them.
But this war isn’t political although it has ramifications there. We ‘tear down strongholds” not through bombs and bullets but through careful reasoning and gospel-drenched logic. That’s right! The Bible calls us to reason with the unbelieving world, not dominate it through force and/or regulation. In fact, it’s through this simple test that we discover who’s right and wrong in all disputations. Which side allows for the other to go about its business? Which side truly lives out freedom – that is, the freedom to allow others to go their own way? Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there’s true liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17); the Father sends His sun on the just and the unjust even as you read this (Matthew 5:45). This is a critical point to know and yet, sadly, we who have Christ are ignorant. It’s like we’re an army of soldiers, given our guns and ammo and we keep loading the magazines backwards, so they won’t fit. Thus, we run into battle yelling, “pew, pew” and wonder why no arguments are dropping dead.
The transgender movement is built upon the secular lies of liberty and tolerance. Like all ideologies of mankind, they’re wonderfully crafted counterfeits of the real thing. It’s God who has true tolerance and the ceremony was graphic evidence of man’s attempt to counterfeit all things that He does. Think about it: the Father knew they were planning this all along…He watched as they practiced the performance in private long before we saw the absurdities with our own appalled eyes.
And He let it go on.
Why? Because He doesn’t care? No! But because He’s a patient God who desires that they be saved (2 Peter 3:9). And how will they be saved unless they repent? And how will they repent if they don’t hear the gospel? And how will they hear the gospel if we’re too busy caterwauling about how damned they are instead of, you know, actually preaching to them? And the preaching is easy in this case – it’s a slam dunk, so to say – if only we understand the root of the issue. The entire movements of wokeism and transgenderism are based on philosophical premises that humanism can’t account for in the first place. Remember: all reasoning that raises itself up against Christ must counterfeit biblical ethics. There’s simply no way to be logically consistent in one’s reasoning aside from Christian theism! So, instead of getting all bent out of shape with the transgender stuff, simply ask a few easy questions.
“Why is it wrong to condemn transgenderism?” They’ll reply that it’s a display of intolerance. This implies that intolerance is immoral, which leads to the next question: “How do you account for moral law in a materialistic universe? As an atheist who doesn’t believe in a transcendent, personal and moral God, as we do in Christ, how do you make sense of moral law being true and applying to persons?”
Upon this point, all non-Christian epistemologies are hemophiliac. Scratch them, as Robert Reymond once opined, and philosophically they bleed to death. This provides us two great things. We’re able to help the non-believer see the absurdity and arbitrariness of their reasoning AND bring them to Christ who is the personal Lord of all. This masterfully avoids “brush fire” argumentation that winds around a political minefield and never ends at the cross and a call to repentance, which should be our perpetual goal.
Second, explain that God has already shown true tolerance of sin but calls them to repentance. The Father will not overlook their rebellion forever and the universal fact of death proves this. Thus, in His divine forbearance and “common” grace, which He lavishes upon them even now, He means to bring them to repentance through gratitude. This is – Christ is – true beauty and true tolerance. His ambassadors bring this message of reconciliation by reasoning alone and, moreover, in Christ and because of Him, we advocate for their (all atheists) political liberty. We put no hindrances in their way and in Christ believe that they have the same civil and political rights as everyone else because God – and God alone – has given them these rights. God is love and in that love He sends great blessings on even those who currently mock Him. The apostle Paul once persecuted His people and yet God saved him. Likewise, Christians believe in political liberty for all – the freedom from physical force and fraud – so that everyone may pursue their lives as they see fit. The gospel of Jesus Christ is never spread through force or coercion and anyone who tries that is clearly and unequivocally sinning in doing so. Christ died on the cross for our sins and He did this freely. He set aside His divine prerogatives and allowed hateful men to crucify Him. This and this alone is our standard.
This should be shouted from the rooftops: only Christianity provides the metaphysical-epistemological-ethical chain of reasoning for why atheists, and in this case, transgender persons must have their equal political rights preserved. The civil magistrate is, by God’s order (Romans 13) an avenger who carries out punishment on any/all who use force or fraud against another image-bearer of God – including unbelievers. Only the gospel makes men right with God; the government punishes them for crime, not sin. This is an incredible blessing from our all-wise God and should be made known. Confusion over the role of the state and church obliterates the perfect beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We preach the gospel to them. If they repent, we rejoice; if they refuse, we weep and pray for them. But never, never, never do we advocate for or use any force or coercion against anyone. In this, Christ is glorified because He alone is Judge and, for that matter, rejecting the gospel is a judgment.
By explaining this to those who preach love and diversity, we demolish the argument that Christ is evil (which is their premise). Atheists claim that it’s hateful and unloving to disagree with them, but this standard can’t be applied consistently because it would mean, of course, that they hate Christians by virtue of disagreeing with them. True tolerance is seen in Christ alone who patiently endures rebels and sinners in this present age. His kindness and forbearance are meant to lead them to repentance (Romans 2:4) and it’s for this reason that we preach the gospel.
By making atheists and transgender advocates explain the premises of their ethical system, we literally demolish their argument. Make them account for their own systematic and assiduously avoid debating politics which are downstream of philosophy. If we’re cosmic accidents, after all, why does morality exist. If this is a world of survival of the fittest then “tolerance” isn’t a virtue but a serious and deadly vice. And even if it’s a good thing in some contextual cases, that would only mean that it’s a matter of practicality, not actually moral at all. When atheists are forced to present their arguments without “borrowing” Christian premises, their entire worldview comes crumbling down. This we know: unless Jesus Christ is Lord there can be no ultimate truth that’s personal. The universe is either completely accidental OR it’s governed by some kind of impersonal absolute. Either of those options make personal moral arguments (which transgenderism is built upon) logically impossible.
Remember a few tips:
Don’t assume a neutral stance (1 Peter 3:15) but sanctify Jesus in your heart/mind. They aren’t neutral and you shouldn’t be either.
The proof of Jesus Christ is that we literally can’t make sense of anything without Him. All competing worldview counterfeit biblical philosophy. In all lines of argumentation, therefore, make the critic/atheist stand on their own premises consistently.
Doing this will allow you to bring all lines of reasoning to the cross and a call to repentance!
Recent Comments