To reach such lows in America today, it was necessary for truth to be minimized and a new foundation to be established: there is no God.
In order to understand how bizarre behavior is accepted and celebrated today, we need only look to the decision makers today in the fields of education, entertainment, media, and government. They are the ones shaping public opinion; Christianity no longer guides our culture. They are the ones – like many of us – who grew up in a country embracing moral relativism and in a government school system immersed in Humanism where man is god and there is no absolute truth.
Now here comes the transgender movement with Bruce Jenner leading the way. The cover of People magazine proclaims Bruce is “Living as a woman every day – and feeling elated.”
The whole thing is sad; he needs help and we should pray for him, not give him applause. By not speaking up, we continue giving our approval to the absurd. To have chosen this path, Jenner must be a tormented soul, and now his is the face of change. I feel sorry for him and angry at his enablers.
Most of us understand no man-made modification can remedy our sin problem and only through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ can any of us be saved. We can change our names, our physical features, add transplants and put on make-up; but we can never truly change what God designed.
Rather than acknowledge God’s authority and pray, “Thy will be done,” the way of man is to say, “my will be done.”
We live in an A-B-C culture: anything but Christ. In the same way the Left has successfully normalized homosexuality for over forty years, they will also attempt to normalize those who want to change their gender. This at a time in which the Supreme Court is deciding whether to redefine natural, God-ordained marriage in favor of counterfeit marriage.
Jenner claims he is still heterosexual in his attractions, but wants to be called “Caitlyn” from now on. Confused? The children of this generation are also confused as they watch the cultural circus known as “anything goes except God.” What if someone identifies as half man and half animal? What then?
We are all sinners in need of redemption, and there are answers for every possible human concern, question, and problem in Scripture.
A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 22:5)
Bruce Jenner was a gold medal-winning Olympic athlete and sports are a form of entertainment, but make no mistake; the liberal sports media in America does have a political agenda.
Case in point: Jenner was announced this week as the 2015 Arthur Ashe Courage Award winner and will receive the award at the ESPY’s because of his brave journey. (Some call it a transition from man to woman; others call it physical mutilation) The list of award winners includes former pro tennis player and lesbian Billie Jean King, former South African president and communist Nelson Mandela, and 2014 winner and Canadian Football League’s Michael Sam, who came out as being gay shortly before the 2014 NFL Draft.
Saturday, June 6 is the anniversary of D-Day. Brave men stormed the beaches of Normandy only to succeed after thousands died serving their country. That is courage. Disabled Veterans are courageous. We are blessed to have a military fighting for our freedom at home and abroad.
Conforming to this world and going with the flow of pop culture is not courageous; courage is telling the truth in the face of evil and accusations of hate. Courage is living counter-culture for Jesus Christ and sharing the gospel with people because we love them.
True courage is a child fighting a terminal disease; it is being a caregiver for the elderly or handicapped. Courage is choosing to have the baby; it is the single Mom, it is a couple fighting to save their marriage. Courage is protecting and serving citizens as a police officer despite the lies and propaganda of the Left. Courage is Christians refusing to deny their faith in the midst of persecution.
Bruce Jenner is not brave and his actions are only news because he is famous and it fits the liberal agenda. It is a sad display of the effects of a moral decline in which so-called reality TV rules and sets the standard for behavior.
On Monday, The Hill reported the fact that even though there are less than 700,000 transgender adults in the country, OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) said employees whose gender identity is different from the sex listed on their birth certificate should have access to the restroom that corresponds to their desired identity.
Only God can heal the human heart. If, as some suggest, Bruce Jenner has a mental illness, then we should have compassion toward him remembering every one of us will soon stand before the Maker of all hearts. Let’s see how courageous we are on that day.
Dave,
You may not know this, but someone you used to be close friends with in Los Angeles is a male to female transgender woman. This person used to house sit for you, take care of your dogs Ginny and Digger, attend the bible studies you held at your home, went on a mission trip with you to Tijuana, Mexico to visit children in orphanages and moved back to New York the same exact week you moved back to Wisconsin.
Who is that person? That person is me.
The entire time I knew you I was secretly dealing with transgender issues. I was terrified of telling anyone in my close circle of evangelical Christian friends about what I was struggling with. I knew that it wouldn’t be received well and I would likely be judged, condemned and abandoned. So I kept up the front that I was just a regular guy and delayed my transition until it got to the point where I knew that if I didn’t begin my transition to live as a woman that I was going to kill myself.
Did I ask to be born this way and have transgender feelings since childhood? No! When I realized as a child I was transgender I knew I was in for a hard life and immediately made the decision to try and kill those feelings. It wasn’t easy for me to go against the grain of myself and try to be someone I wasn’t. I felt like such a fraud. I internalized the world’s hatred of transgender people and grew up with low self-esteem, major depression and nearly non-stop suicidal thoughts. When I was 17 I joined the U.S. Army and served as an infantry soldier in the 101st Airborne. I had multiple reasons for joining the Army, but one of those reasons was that I hoped to be killed in combat. That way I wouldn’t have to face the hell of coming out as transgender and would be remembered by society as a hero…not as some kind of sinful, perverted freak!
At the age of 40 I was tired of a lifetime of being tormented. While returning from a trip upstate, I decided that as soon as I got back to my apartment in New York City I was going to put my affairs in order and hang myself. The decision didn’t set well with me and I asked myself a hard question: “Have I done absolutely everything I can to avoid killing myself?” My answer was no, I had not! I had never tried to transition. Even though I knew that I didn’t have any money for expensive surgeries to transition properly, I figured I had nothing to lose by giving transition a shot. I started by simply growing my hair long. About a year later after tons of therapy and visits with a Veteran’s Hospital psychiatrist, I was diagnosed with gender identity disorder (now known as gender dysphoria) and began hormone therapy.
I soon found myself in an awkward stage where I didn’t really pass as a man or as a woman. I was called a faggot and spit at a half dozen times. I had a lit cigarette thrown at my head. I was constantly laughed at to my face. I dreaded walking down the streets and stayed in my apartment as much as possible. I was also afraid that if my landlord figured out that I was transitioning she would throw me out of my apartment, so I tried my best to avoid her.
Eventually I faced the daunting task of coming out to the people closest to me in my life. I was still terrified of being rejected by everyone I knew. I finally got the courage to tell my immediate family members and I received a mixed reaction. The best reaction was from my mother who immediately gave me a hug and told me she loved me and the worst was from my younger sister who to this day still refuses to talk to me. Then I finally got the nerve to tell one of my Christian friends from my LA days. He was a Wycliffe Christian missionary who had moved to Detroit to work with Muslim people. He told me he did not understand what being transgender was, but he was open-minded to learning more about it. He did not judge me or reject me. He never clobbered me with condemning bible verses or told me that being transgender is a sin. He even started calling me by my new name. I respect him for that and to this day we are in regular contact.
Months later I finally got the nerve to tell the person who had been my closest friend for 15 years. He still lived in Southern California and had become a Calvary Chapel pastor. I had always been especially terrified of coming out to him because I knew his anti-LGBT stance. I was too scared to tell him over the phone, so I sent him an e-mail telling him I was transgender and living as a woman. His response was just as I expected. He said that being transgender is a sin that I could overcome and I needed to repent of it. He also said that he could no longer maintain a friendship with me now that I was living a sinful “lifestyle.” I do not believe being transgender is a sin, and in my e-mail I told him I didn’t want to get into a scripture war with him that neither of us would win. In spite of my request, he hit me with an out of context clobber verse and we haven’t spoken since.
So here I am at the age of 45 living as a transgender woman. I am glad that I made the decision to transition and know that I did the right thing. It is a huge relief for me to no longer have an enormous secret weighing me down. I no longer live in fear of people finding out the truth about me. I don’t have to act like a phony and pretend to be someone I’m not just so I can stay in the good graces of society. I found out who the people are in my life who really love me and the ones who don’t.
I wish I could say that transitioning has solved all of my problems, but it hasn’t. I still suffer a lot of hardship. In New York State we don’t have legislation that protects transgender people from the most basic forms of discrimination. In some cities, you can still be fired, not hired, denied medical care, denied use of the restroom or get kicked out of your apartment just because you’re transgender. It’s also hard to find a job when you’re transgender and many of us, including myself, live below the poverty line. I am unemployed, broke, deep in credit card debt and on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness. I’m still unable to afford the surgeries I need that would resolve my intense gender dysphoria. All of this added together causes me severe depression and I continue to struggle with thoughts of suicide. I have even made a half dozen quasi suicide attempts, but thank God I did not follow all the way through with any of them. I wish I had the resources like Caitlyn Jenner has, but I just don’t.
I’m also grieving the loss of my mother. She died of pancreatic cancer last year and I deeply miss her! She was a great person and even though she was never really understood or approved of my transition, she never stopped loving me. I had the blessing of being alone with her when she passed away. What I witnessed in the moments right before her death were miraculous and I truly believe I watched a saint of God go to heaven!
Spiritually, I have made peace with God. I believe that God made me the way I am for a reason and that he loves me just the way I am. I am saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. I believe the clobber verse Deuteronomy 22:5 used against transgender people is taken out of context and under the law which I am not required to keep. I find comfort in the words and actions of Jesus, and in particular his empathy towards eunuchs (castrated males). Jesus said, “For there are some eunuchs, who were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, who were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” (Matthew 19:12). If God could make eunuchs, why couldn’t he make transgender people too? He makes intersex people who are born with both male and female chromosomes and male and female genitalia so it doesn’t seem like that big of a leap.
Okay, one more thing I need to address before I wrap this up.
In order to understand where people are coming from and gain a better perspective, I read a lot of anti-transgender articles online. One of my favorite things to do after I read an article is to read the comments section below. That way I can know how the general public really feels about transgender people. The amount of bigotry, ignorance, intolerance and hate is staggering. It’s no wonder transgender people have such a high suicide rate. For those who are professing Christians I have to wonder where’s the love? Why is there so much judgment and condemnation towards a group of people you don’t understand? Jesus preached to not judge, to not condemn and to love our enemies. Jesus was on the side of the poor and the oppressed. He hung out with the outcasts of society and loved them unconditionally. The only group of people he seemed to have a problem with were legalistic, self-righteous religious people. If I have one message I would like to give to anti-transgender people it’s to please have empathy towards us! We need it badly!!!
Dave, thank you for writing your blog post and for providing a comments section. You are clearly passionate about your views and I respect that! I’m surprised you haven’t run for a political office yet. The next president of the United States could be Dave Fiorazo with his first lady Rosanna Fiorazo. I think you could win. If either you or Rosanna want to contact me please feel free. I would be happy to hear from you. Take care!
Though my heart breaks reading your story, it’s SO good to hear from you after all these years. Lots to talk about. I’ll encourage you as much as I can however, as you know, we will have to disagree on what the Word of God teaches. I would never put you down for what you are going through and yet I am compelled to believe Jesus Christ and trust the Lord in His sovereignty – even though there’s plenty we do not understand. I do know God still loves you and at the same time, He cannot contradict His Word. I too, respect your views. In fact, I’m looking forward to catching up as you do not appear to be in the camp of activists whose agenda is to completely eradicate the Judeo-Christian ethic and its followers from the country. It is a war against the truth meaning a war against Christ. Anyway, let’s continue this discussion over email or phone, okay? We are sinners loved by the God who created us; our help and hope must be in God, not man. To be continued…
At the beginning of creation God in His perfection created perfection. When sin was released into this world because of man choosing, through his God-given free will, to go his own way. Ever since then there is nothing new anywhere. The energy, the mass that exists throughout just keeps being recycled. The old saying, nothing new under the sun. What was perfect in the beginning has steadily been degrading. One can see this when man chooses to go against God and have relations with a close family member. Any genetic flaws are accentuated in their offspring. Whether it takes place due to natural decline or accelerated by environmental influences it none the less is degrading. When we do not treat our bodies as temples of God’s creation through honoring, respecting, and taking care of them we can see a direct link to the rapid decline in our health as well as a severe impact on our offspring. Drugs and alcohol cause permanent damage to the fetus and affect that person the rest of their lives.
The human mind is also greatly impacted and influenced by the world around us. Look what happens to a war vet returning home after being in intense action, look what happens to children raised in an abusive home or if they have been molested. Oh I am sure you can find exceptions, but the vast majority leave permanent scars. Unnatural home life, whether broken families or unnatural relationships create stress and confusion in the minds of the children. That is a proven fact. No different than the examples I have already mentioned and many many more that could be discussed.
There are also many conditions that affect the human mind beyond physical or drug induced. (part of the natural decline from perfection). These defects cause people to do some crazy things or think some very dark thoughts. Look how the drug craze of the 60’s caused people to say that is the true way to find nirvana!, until many of their friends died from overdose. God’s word doesn’t change people do and people want God’s word to change to fit their desires so they can feel good about the changes they are making. That doesn’t make them less damaging or painful. God tells us to love all people, but maybe he is also placing before us a challenge to work with those individuals to see why they feel these tendencies and why they want to act on them. We all have ideas that should never come to life and some we fight with to keep them where they belong. In today’s society we push for doing whatever you feel like. Everything and anything goes. Are we creating an atmosphere where we begin to act out every thought we have? I think that is where God knew he needed to step in.
In Christ we find love and guidance and so much more!
Good points, Lee. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment in such detail. Culture is ever changing; but Truth is eternal and God’s Word is unchanging. We are here for such a time as this. The message of hope – because it deals with sin – is not popular. I hope true Christians are preparing to respond in love to the attacks and questions that will come. Our purpose remains the same; know Christ, grow in Him and make His gospel known. Thank God we have a hope that can never be shaken. Keep encouraging others and sharing the best news in the universe; it’s up to God who receives it and who rejects it. Jesus is Lord.
What a difficult topic. We have to go to the Rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ, The Living Word. We are all sinners, but some of us are saved. We are saved by turning from our sin, not indulging it. Your old acquaintance needs to repent. It is the old story of seed sown but not taking root. He needs salvation. He masqueraded as a Christian without true salvation.