There has been an elephant in the room for too long.
I listen to podcasts and constantly hear savvy Christians beating around the bush, pretending to address concerns without stepping on anyone’s toes in the process. Yesterday it was a conversation between two pastors that had me cringing as they debated outward versus inward-facing churches. I wanted to voice a third option, but it wasn’t offered. What about Jesus-facing churches? We worry an awful lot about people and “being the change we wish to see in the world.” In public, we Christians are typically flighty or abrasive, wavering between ultra sensitive and permissive or boldly speaking truth (to heck with those who disagree!). Jesus confounds us because He balanced love and truth perfectly. The scale was in his hand and it never once tipped to the side. We want to represent Him, but our ever-present human nature hovers just behind the curtain, threatening to thwart our sincerity. I wonder if I remain too silent or if I speak too loud, will be misunderstood? Maybe it’s better to shut up and mind my own business. But then I think about those who have spoken into my own life. I think about those who looked at me and considered me worth enlightening. Nevermind my first reactions to truth. Did I hate what they were saying? Did I ever see their point? Did they wrap their message with love and compassion? Should they have kept quiet?
And I always conclude it was better for them to open their mouth. I was always better for having listened, because it sent me off, clue list in hand, to search the Scriptures for real treasure.
With this in mind, I want to look at people–all people–and continually regard them as my people. Outsiders, insiders, creeping-around-the-edge-’siders. I have many, many friends who do not hold the same beliefs as me, but they know I am relentlessly, unashamedly in pursuit of Jesus. I think God’s word, the Bible, is infallible. It is worth listening to, it is worth proclaiming from the rooftops. As a mother, I feel there is a natural platform, specifically suited for raising children–my own–and speaking into their lives. One might pity such a platform, but I think it is the greatest honor. It is deeper and more enduring than any name I hope to make for myself. God gave me four biological children–living, breathing, eager students that long to be shaped, molded, loved. I wonder about the giants they will face in their lifetime, and I spend a lot of time pondering how to prepare them for the battle. My own parents were a steady do-as-I-say-and-don’t-ask-questions sort of team–I silenced a thousand questions as I grew up. But the giants evolve and loom over every phase of life. Even if my folks slayed them years ago for me, there are new ones popping up on the scene every day. And these of today seem more sinister, trickier. They deserve some explaining, they deserve questions and answers. We cannot be Christians who make our lives a game of Two Truths and A Lie, leaving our children to guess what is real and what is made up. For me, for my kids, for my people who seek truth in today’s world–we must examine the evidence.
Now let’s talk about that elephant.
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Imagine if you were about to get married. You found the partner you’ve been praying for and you can’t wait to tie the knot and settle down.
The problem is, you don’t want a big wedding, don’t care for the showy, planned-to-perfection details. You don’t care about your mother’s guest list, professional invitations, a beachy versus mountain setting or flowers. You’d rather not waste your money on a special dress, and you really don’t even like cake.
Would you be wrong in wanting to get married? Would there be something deeply wrong with you for not wanting to throw a massive party, not wanting to invite all your second cousins?
Imagine another scenario: you are thinking about taking a trip. You’ve heard tales of world wide adventures and you can’t wait to blaze your own trail. But you don’t know much about geography or other cultures. You’ve never learned another language and you’ve never flown before. Matter of fact, you don’t have the funds, no suitcase, no plane tickets, no passport. You simply aren’t prepared to go anywhere.
Would you be a fraud for expressing your interest in travel? Would anyone blame you for putting the dream off for a few years?
It seems unconscionable to force a wedding party on a person who doesn’t want one. It is disconcerting to put the pressure on an unprepared aspiring traveler. Indeed, we would think it damaging to exert our opinions in these particular situations. Who cares? It’s their business, after all. They’ll figure it out someday. No need to rush things. Yet we are placing a burden on a young generation to do what they have never asked, desired, or prepared to handle. I am speaking of an all too familiar social and political agenda that is bent on sexual revolution, seeking to indoctrinate the youngest and most impressionable among us.
We are evolving into a culture that, as a whole, is sending unique, beautiful, naive, immature children and young adults down a path of forced sexuality. Hear me now: we are enslaving ourselves and our children by giving them early, unfiltered access to a topic that is too heavy for them to bear…All in the name of freedom, knowledge, acceptance, love.
Look around at all the access points. We hand our children phones with the internet, where just opening an app exposes us to junk mail and advertisements that we cannot unsee. Books, television commercials, shows, movies all normalize mature sexual promiscuity and morally questionable adult behavior, including the LBGTQ agenda. Pride parades, counseling, curriculum are all designed to buy a young person’s attention and approval. PBS programming, deemed entirely appropriate for preschool children, is advocating same sex relationships. Instead of helping kids become aware of their intrinsic value as a human being (hello, Mr. Rogers!) as they develop physically and mentally, it is becoming commonplace to encourage bizarre questions relating purely to sexuality. Do you identify as a boy or a girl? (I’ve seen this question on an elementary school worksheet for a nationwide young inventors’ contest). Explore yourself–don’t be limited to XX and XY chromosomes. I’ve seen tampon commercials for men (how am I to explain this to my twelve year old girl, let alone to myself?) and drag queens featured on the covers of magazines as I pay for my groceries.
Back when we homeschooled, my kids took part in a shared schooling situation with other students. In the kindergarten and first grade room there was a sixth grade “helper” in the room. She was no more than twelve years old, hair chopped to look like a boy, wearing baggy clothing, her head permanently down, eyes fixed on the floor. I longed to wrap my arms around her and love her back to herself, back to the little kid she was before, unaware of the pressures of “finding oneself”. But someone (or no one) left her on her own to doubt, to ponder an open-ended question without ever giving her an answer sheet. They made reservations for the post-wedding banquet, they put her on the airplane with nothing more than a wave of the hand– “You’ll figure it out! Have a great trip!” Meanwhile, my own kindergartner left class bewildered– “Mom, is Daria a boy or a girl?”
We know that, biologically, sex is designed (in every species) for reproduction. Sex makes babies. Somehow our culture has turned this into a very hush-hush, birds-and-bees, embarrassing sort of conversation, as though the facts of life are (of all things) to be put off or loathed. Ignoring the scientific, the very math that determines man plus woman equals offspring, we skip right over age-appropriate introductions in a rush to expose them to variations on sexuality. We are unashamed to point kids in the direction of sex exploration and acceptance. We encourage gender confusion and paint such “progressive thinking” as a mile marker of how far we’ve come. Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner was very publicly awarded an auspicious award for his “bravery” in transitioning from a man to a woman, though his body will never present XX chromosomes–the primary, elemental proof of legitimate womanhood. I am no scientist, but I fail to acknowledge this news as anything but absurd. It seems to me we ought to be questioning many of our revelations.
Nothing will skew our children’s view of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness like the incessant, early message of sex deviation and the general acceptance of promiscuity. In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes the argument that if a person indulges in food, his appetite will eventually be satiated, and he will stop eating. But the sexual appetite is subject to a thousand perversions that will never satisfy, never be the cause for satisfaction. Take a look at the past thirty years–have we come so far to think we are actually freer, more enlightened? What of the porn industry and sex trafficking? Alarmingly, there is more talk of sex and perversion than there has ever been before. By encouraging people to “come out of the closet” we have opened a floodgate of insatiable, perverted sexual appetite.
Fine, you say–we are adults! Let us do as we please! But in the evolution of people becoming controlled by sexual craving, the majority of the public has deemed it necessary to bend morality in their favor, to create flexible boundaries. And this is where nature and nurture collide. A child who has naturally developed an inner dialogue which identifies and discriminates between man and woman must be taught to quiet their better judgment. This, of course, is why children must be indoctrinated, silenced, at an early age.
Before I go any further, let me be clear. If you are an unbeliever, if you have approached Jesus and chosen your lifestyle over Him, you are not a slave to God, but a slave to sin. It doesn’t matter what any church doctrinal statement adds or leaves out–your sexual emancipation condemns you before a righteous God, just as I am condemned if I consider myself a better person than you for not pursuing that lifestyle. Without Jesus and his death on the cross, none of us have any hope for redemption or healing. Let me repeat: I am nothing more than a self-righteous idiot if I condemn you and elevate my own opinion. Our sins weigh exactly the same and I have no right to judge you.
It is your choice, as an adult, to live promiscuously or pursue same sex relationships, to perceive yourself a gender-bender, just the same as it is your privilege to choose to vote.
But children have no rights to vote. They are still learning to think, to speak, to take a meaningful thought and express it out loud. They are, without question, in need of grownups to make choices for them. If we are indiscriminate in our distribution of freedoms, consider a child who holds equal value to you as a human being. Consider their right to remain unexposed to sexual rhetoric until they are fully mature. Imagine what this is saying to our children as we rally behind the efforts of a pro-LGBTQ platform. Our rights matter, dear children, our bodies above your minds...To love, to lust, to disturb, to destroy. Your rights, my children, do not matter.
Can you see it? We are pushing the party when we haven’t even been invited to the wedding! We are throwing the unprepared traveler onto a plane and singing bon voyage. We aren’t putting their needs before our own. We aren’t even following a version of the golden rule. We are saddling our kids with ambiguous love-everybody vibes at a point in their lives where they are developmentally still figuring out how to sit still in class. The tools that were once regarded as a sound mind and good judgment–things we used to encourage our kids to exercise–are being tossed into the garbage as questionable and ugly.
Friends, we must look deeper. I’m afraid it is too easy to cite the “love” chapter in the Bible (1 Cor. 13), claiming to err on the side of love, keeping our lips sealed, when the same passage says very clearly, love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). We all have blindspots, but do we let our one major blindspot run the show? No! We seek wisdom where we have little so we might see more clearly. This tepid water of culture is deceptively dangerous for growing children. It doesn’t threaten to scald, doesn’t threaten to freeze, so we splash around in it thinking no harm will come our way. But friend, a lion is on the prowl seeking to devour (1 Peter 5:8).
Kids must be kids before they can understand more mature material and adult matters. There must be clear expectations and standards when raising kids so their development might not be hindered. Proverbs says, “Discipline your son, for there is hope! Do not be party to his death” (Proverbs 19:18).
In other words, pay attention. Notice the world around you. Look at your kids. Equip them, model appropriate, sober behavior. Point out the inconsistencies, the two truths and a lie. Train them up in the way they should go, that they might not depart (Proverbs 22:6). The world is itching to determine their pronouns and stick on labels. Do not leave your precious child doubting their worth, their humanity, their identity.
Love wins. If there has ever been a phrase I’m more sure of, I haven’t found it.
But when we water down love to hands-off parenting, elevating self-care, mocking traditionally held roles, or a lusty type of sexual preferences–I can no longer get on board with the movement. Love is so much more. Jesus said we must realize our abject poverty when it comes to love–we are essentially devoid of anything resembling love. When we come to terms with our stone cold hearts, that is when He can fill us up with the real stuff. Real love is fascinating to behold. Real love is real freedom.
As Bob Goff writes, “love does”! It doesn’t sit off to the side, a spectator hoping for the best. We are to look at people–children, teens, young adults, single, married, middle-aged and elderly–through the lens of love–seeking their best interest above our own (Phil. 2:3-4). Love is characterized by the setting aside of my agenda for the pursuit of another’s wholeness. For a child, wholeness is discipline, structure, the warmth of home. A mom and a dad–two sides of the same coin that express the love of God in equal portions and perfectly balanced. Parents that listen and tenderly redirect. We set a firm foundation and let them dream and play and learn. We show them God’s word as a light unto their path (Psalm 119:105).
We are slow to speak–but we still open our mouths. We are slow to anger–but we still glean wisdom and discernment from intense life experiences. (James 1:19)
We love…because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Would you–being in favor of a love that always wins–open the door to God’s perfect, unchanging love? Would you pave a path so the lost might find their way back home? We must not become stumbling blocks–a one-sided, clanging gong, narrow-minded in our mission to accept progressive thinking while mocking others who don’t land on our side. On the other hand, we cannot be so conservative as to shut the doors to the lonely, the abused, the confused, the sick, the love-impoverished. Just as we all stand before God condemned (Romans 3:23), hope and open heart surgery has been paid for on the cross–one man dying for all men (2 Cor. 5:14). Love Himself bought our peace and secured our identity. The most effeminate of men, the most masculine of women, the unsure, the easily swayed–all can find a solid foundation in Christ who has purchased us with his own blood.
For me, nothing seems more possible, more wide open and thrilling than the future my kids hold in their hands. The weightless potential! The fragility and hope in one life! But their life now must be guarded and filled with truth that they can access when they reach maturity. As a parent, I will defend their right to be a child as long as they are a child. I am determined to set them free one day, equipped with every good thing I’ve had to offer. I want them to taste liberty and pursue happiness even as they stand firm on the truth that God’s excellent plans will far exceed ours every time.
We are tender, we see people as people, our people, not projects or politics. We examine our motives. We tell the truth–no lies, no half truths.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in us. It is light exposing the darkness, setting our feet on a sturdy path.
It is love, loud and proud.
Love wins.
