Turn this into an opportunity, Christians

I read that the US House passed the Equality Act today, which is not surprising. Also today, Senator Rand Paul asked some excellent questions about the harm resulting from the insane practice of giving hormones and puberty blockers to teenagers and even younger children, or subjecting them to surgery, and even without the consent of their parents, a practice supported by Biden’s nominee for assistant Health and Human Services secretary. The nominee gave no good answers to Paul, because there are no good answers to give.

A couple comments if I may:

1. The one benefit here is that there is a growing opportunity for Christians to make our case, and I mean our very basic case. The basic case is not “this will let men into the women’s locker room”, although that might be true. The basic case is - reality is a thing. Words point to objective truths about that reality. The universe was created good and with purpose. Human society cannot and will not sustain the idea that all that is, is just a social (or an individual) construction of some kind, always revisable. Nobody wants to or could live in such a world for long.
   
   When it comes to the sexes - the words “man” and “men” mean something rather than nothing, and they mean something good. The words “woman” and “women” mean something rather than nothing, and they mean something good. Masculinity is a real thing and it is to be cultivated in men - that is good. Femininity is a real thing and it is to be cultivated in women - that is good. Men and women are not interchangeable and were never supposed to be - that is good.
   
   Churches too should be willing to be very countercultural. I would not be the first person to notice that even many good churches, when they talk about the distinctions between the sexes, the sermons sometimes sound first like a list of the twenty things the Bible is not saying - we don’t want to be sexists now after all - and then maybe after all that you can get some acknowledgement that men and women are not intended to be the same in all respects and that’s OK. We would probably do well to invert that emphasis in our day. People don’t need us to blur even more the lines between men and women, they need to know what it means to be a godly man and what it means to be a godly woman.

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2. The hearing with Rand Paul reminded me of when a friend and I spoke before the East Lansing city council against a ban on “conversion therapy” which was passed by that council in a 3-2 vote. The one councilmember (a psychology professor) who might be said to have professional expertise on the topic was one of the “no” votes; he also seemed to actually care about what I was saying. As to the yes votes… many of our political leaders today neither understand nor particularly care about all the consequences of the laws they are passing. They want to be the good progressive people. Passing that law over there shows that they are the good progressive people.
   
   The caution I would give to Christians is… many of us are still, even now, led around by politicians and journalists because we don’t realize how disingenuous they are. Or we think “OK yeah, on that topic they’re lying and manipulating and being awful”… and then topic #2 comes along that we know less about (like COVID-19, say?) and suddenly we act like those very same people are now trustworthy and competent and have our best interests at heart. No… they’ve pretty well demonstrated that they don’t deserve your trust actually. Don’t forget that just because the topic changed and the manipulation is now harder for you to personally detect. Listen to them with the conscious skepticism that they deserve.
   
   

   Hans Fiene @HansFiene

   thefederalist.com/2021/02/25/ran… President Biden told you he would support this barbarity and insanity. If you found a way to turn a blind eye to this, you will turn a blind eye to anything.

   

   thefederalist.comRand Paul Blasts Trans Biden Nominee For Backing Sex Changes In KidsWe’re “normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent the biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics,” Paul said.