#3: From Trans to Trans: Getting Involved in the Transformative Activity of the Gospel

In the midst of the messy times in which we live, I have so much encouragement to pass on to you today! Let the exclamation point communicate anticipation and excitement!

(Confident in their Creator, these tall irises transform our front yard.)

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This is the third in a series dealing with certain, current social issues and some needed, biblical responses. I began with a contrast between the trans movement of today and the ancient, biblical trans movement of Christ-transformation. Then, through my father’s poem, “Suppose,” we considered what life would be like if Jesus had never entered human history, observing that the world in which our children live today is rather like that “suppose He never came” world. For many, such supposing is so. Sigh.

But Christ did come, fulfilling Old Testaments promises and bringing us hope.

I concluded the previous post by reminding us of Jesus’ proclamation in the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry when He read aloud from the Isaiah scroll:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Luke 4:18-19

Closing the scroll, with all eyes fixed on him, Jesus explained:

 “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (verse 21).

 I concluded:

“Today. Today is the worst of times; today is the best of times. Today is the “favorable year of the Lord.”

Let us seek Him.”

In this worst-best of times, I ask in today’s post, how can we help hurting people find Him who is seeking them?

Hope When Deeply Sad Meets  Richly Glad

How sad I was (deeply pained) to hear the counsel of Whatevermike (as reported two posts ago and repeated below). Here is a person, guy-trans-whatever-liquid fluidity, whose beliefs echo and imaginatively rival the serpent’s counsel given our first parents in the Edenic garden: “Did God say?…You will not die…You will be as gods, knowing….” Whatevermike applies this worldview through his culturally informed, imaginative “knowing”:

“Y’all really wanna try to say there aren’t trans kids. Let me tell you what there aren’t. There aren’t CIS kids, okay. Hey, you telling your child, oh you’re a boy, you’re a girl; this is a child. This is a free spirit that has not learned any of that @## but you forced it on them. So Cisness is the wound. Cisness is the delusion. Cisness is the lie. Cisness is the place of pain. Transness is the healing. Transness is the growth. Transness is the truth. Transness is what we actually are. We are fluid. We are 70% water. We are God. God is change. God is trans. We are trans. You are forcing your kids to be boys and girls. We’re saying be whatever you are, baby. Be free. Be water. Be light. Be sky. Be god. Because, guess what? That’s what we actually are. What we actually are is trans, is change, is love. We’re not the ones doing the forcing.” A  chime, probably from a phone is heard in the background, so Whatevermike concludes, “And see, god chiming just on time.” *

“Cisness” (heterosexuality) is the wound, delusion, lie, the place of pain while transness is the healing, the growth, the truth. We are fluid; we are God; God is trans; we are trans. All this, Whatevermike believes, applies, and evangelistically proclaims. “We’re saying be whatever you are, baby.”

It is true that who we are, our identity, is based upon who our Creator-God is. Knowing our God anchors us. Whatevermike is anchored in his idol-god of human (and demonic) making. It is also true that humans can change! That is why transformation is possible.

Sanguine yet regal irises have transformed our back yard as well as front yard this season.                                                                          Smiles from heaven.

Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden saved them from eating of the tree of life, which would have preserved them in eternal, fallen sinfulness: no trans possible. God’s seeming cruelty, forcing them out, was one among many primal acts of grace — safeguarding for them His patient favor and enduring love. Why was this important? Because God designed the human race to image or reflect Him — His nature: moral, conscious, creative, personal, and relational (and more!). As God created everything out of nothing, now God would exhibit his breath-taking prowess through re-creation: transforming brokenness into wholeness, wickedness into righteousness, and ugliness into beauty. His trans-power: transformation. Metamorphosis. In God through Christ we find our true identity. And we get to participate in this Christ-formative transformation within ourselves!

If you know the Scriptures, you know this and much more. But Whatevermike does not know this. He supposes that this Christ he has probably heard of is legend and myth. “Suppose Christ never came.” To Whatevermike, Jesus never came. There is no Messiah. “We must save ourselves.”

Sigh. It is as A.A. Hodge predicted back in 1887. You remember I quoted him last year, and his prediction of what would happen to our country if we implemented a public education system in which religion was separated from schooling. He said this:

“I am as sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social, and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.

It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the States has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or the agnostics may be. It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States’ system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen.”

This excerpt is from Dr. Hodge’s work, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes.* What a warning. Of course, the public educational system which developed since then (which is modeled after the 19th century, Prussian system of educating its military and people, to make compliant, manageable people) has not made us all thoroughgoing atheists. It has undermined the vision of our founders. (Each sentence here could be the foyer into another study!) Our school systems K-12 and high education have purposefully segregated the sacred from the secular, having elevated a material view of existence over and with disdain toward religious and biblical/Judeo-Christian views and ways of living.

By “protecting” America’s youth from biblical teaching, our educational system has promoted a practical atheism. Believe (privately) in God if you insist, but it is obvious that we get along better without such distractions and the irritating, inconvenient convictions that such belief entails. And so, many public school educated Christians may love God and want to grow in Christ, but they have imbibed and inhabited thought and action patterns that are very secular. (Discussion needed here. Ask yourselves and each other some probing questions regarding how you live out your faith. “How well marbled together are your “spiritual-biblical thoughts” and your daily choices and living?). A shallowly lived out faith weakens our ability through the Spirit to be increasingly transformed in Christ, to be “salt and light” in our culture, to be credible sharers of the gospel with our neighbors.

We are where we are. What do we do now? Just observe and complain?

Here comes a glad side of this sad story.

Check out Bible2School.com

I’ve recently discovered these two opportunities: Bible2School and LifeWise Academy. These are “released time,” legal programs that offer us opportunities to bring Bible teaching to public school students. Back in 1952, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of “released time” religious education for public school children, with three requirements: 1) parents must give written permission; 2) instruction must be off school property; and 3) public funds cannot finance these classes. How does this work? What does it look like?

First, let me say that my father taught released time Bible classes in Ohio for, I believe, eleven years back in the 50s-60s. For the rest of his life he ran into former students who told him they learned about Jesus through him, became Christians, were continuing in the faith, and they thanked him for his delightful teaching. Dad loved children and taught them enthusiastically. What a hoot he was.

So, when I heard on our Christian Radio station (Bott Radio, which I recommend that you check out online), about Bible2School, my ears perked up. Paul and I are looking into what they are doing in our community and we may get involved. Check out Bible2School  (note below), and see if God would want you or others you know to get involved.

Whatevermikes of our communities need to be taught the Word from people who love the Lord and His Word. Whatevermikes may be Whatever because they’ve heard very little about the God who created them, designed them, loves them, has a clear identity for them, through Jesus who gave Himself for all the Whatever-ones of the world. Pray. Hope. Do.

Bible2School is for elementary grades thus far.  LifeWise Academy, I believe has curriculum and programs for both elementary and  high school, but on their website I only see an elementary program (which is a five year program to take children through the entire Bible). Paul and I just heard about LifeWise from a pastor here in Fort Wayne who is looking into his church getting involved in this program.  He thinks that through their high school classes, teens may be able to earn both high school and college credit for some of the courses. This interests me. I have lots to learn about these two opportunities. Let me know what you know or learn.

I know that I often feel useless. I often feel deeply sad as I observe that so many people, young and old, are deeply lost in a wild wilderness . But I am richly glad that committed Christians have strategized to amend the gaping, dangerous cultural hole that secularism has dug. The transforming gospel of Christ, supported by prayer and God’s serving people, needs to be set free to be proclaimed.

Suppose. Suppose that the Christ we know becomes known by lost generations. And a new trans movement is born. In Christ the poor in spirit are fed. The captives and the downtrodden are set free. The blind see. Caterpillar becomes Chrysalis. Chrysalis becomes Butterfly.  Metamorphosis — to be transformed. In Christ. This is my prayer for Whatevermike and all the Whatevers who are really Whom-somebody-loves.

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*Dr. A.A. Hodge (1823-1886) was a professor at Princeton for many years and was its third principal, following in the footsteps of his father, Charles Hodge (1797 -1878) who preceded him as a Princeton Bible scholar and professor, as well as Princeton’s second principal. 

Bible2School:

Bible2School.com

See A Bible2School Program in Action

LifeWiseAcademy:

Lifewise.org

A Quiet Revival Is Happening in Public Schools

Elida Virtual Tour

Also, explore videos about Bible2School and LifeWiseAcademy programs and experiences on YouTube.

Bott Radio Network