This is a follow up on Dr. Randall, the U.K. Chaplain dismissed for telling the students under his charge that it was okay as Christians in a free society to respectfully disagree with LGBTQ+ teaching. No matter what you think of his viewpoint, this story should be disturbing to all who value religious freedom and freedom of expression.
For his views Randall was reported to the U.K. government’s terrorist watchdog, Prevent, as a potentially violent religious extremist and fired by the school, Trent College. In addition to that, the school also reported him to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) as a danger to children.
He is suing the school for discrimination and unfair dismissal. You can read the details in my post entitled, A “Terror” Sermon? There is also a link in my post to the “extremist” sermon which got him sacked.
Dr. Randall’s employment tribunal hearing scheduled to be held on Jun 14 has been delayed until September 2022! Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which is representing Dr Randall, said: ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’
If philosophical analysis is not quite "your cup of tea" as the Brits say, at least scroll down to the video below, take a look, and then come back to this. Or not.
Some people have been trained to make a virtue out of doubt. They ask questions like: Who can know? Who can tell? Who can judge? For that matter what can we know? These people will approach the question of Truth in a particular way.
If you believe in a supreme Creator who is trustworthy, incapable of deceit, and has been revealed to us in various ways, that is to say, a God who has not been silent, then you’re going to approach the subject of Truth differently.
See my post “But, I Love That Body” for additional detail about God’s knowable integrated creation. In the “Let’s Go Deeper” section of that fairly long post there is a relevant graph for you to think about.
Now let’s take these meditations right down the scale to the individual person. Harmony between our inner perceptions of the external world and the external world as it actually exists.22 How? Because our Trustworthy God created a world where the visible (the outer object) and invisible (our subjective ideas & impressions) can meet and know each other. Not exhaustively but truly.23
This quote above and the content of footnotes 22 & 23 touch on the “mind-body” problem I briefly introduced in my “Starting Again” post. In the post from last year, “But, I Love That Body,” I emphasized God’s intended creational harmony between, among other things, the mind and the body. God intends perfect alignment between our mind (soul) and body. The goal of human wholeness brings perfect alignment. Just like God intends perfect overlapping and interlocking alignment between Heaven and Earth. The central image here is marriage. (You’ll have to read my other posts discussing the Equal Dualism of God’s bi-natured world to get the bigger picture.)
God’s bi-natured creation was designed to be an integrated whole. Today’s gender ideologues argue against any divinely designed human integration and seek to “convert” biological fact so that it aligns with identity desires. The human desire to identify as a gender different than your biological sex takes precedent over God’s creational design. [Even if you are not a Christian you surely see the “conversion” logic at work here. See my last post and the section asking the question: “Who is the conversion therapist?”]. Of course, Christians know all of us humans have inordinate desires. But we don’t affirm those desires. We seek healing.
Now let’s look at the footnotes from the above paragraph. First reread the sentences where you find the footnotes.
Footnote 22 – “Philosophy students will recognize this addresses a long standing Epistemological puzzle.”
[Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, specifically addressing the questions; how do we know what we know? What are our methods for knowing, and what is the scope of possible knowledge?]
Footnote 23 – “For those of you interested in an important distinction, I subscribe to the biblical “hermeneutic of trust” and not the Postmodern “hermeneutic of suspicion.” God created an apprehensible world that may be known by persons created in God’s image and shared in common with other persons created in God’s image via a variety of communication methods, including texts. Again, not exhaustively, but truly. Our experiences as humans are not hermetically sealed and incommunicable to others. Or speaking more broadly, Gender, Ethnicity, Race & Culture do form patterns of experience which should be accounted for and respected, but in the Spirit of a Trustworthy Creator these boundaries may be lovingly crossed. I share the Postmodern critique of the pretensions of Enlightenment Modernity but if nothing can be taken on trust & everything is regarded with suspicion you have a philosophy that “eats its own tail.” Why should anyone trust a philosophy which says nothing can be trusted? Finally, I also share the excitement of Christians who believe the discoveries of Modern Physics, i.e. quantum theory, opens up new paths to explore theologically, for example, as it relates to genuine freedom in the Universe. And yet, we must refuse to worship at the altar of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. The words and deeds of a Trustworthy Creator argue otherwise.”
[The word “hermeneutic” in note 23 above is about our method of interpretation. In this case, the “hermeneutic of trust” is an interpretive method that extends trust to the “author” of a “text” (text could be any form of communication). We trust that authors are not consciously engaged in subterfuge designed to mask another intention which may be to exercise some level of control over us, the readers. Rather we believe that they are genuinely interested in discussing what is True. They may in fact not be trustworthy for various reasons. But we don’t assume that upfront. Unfortunately, the “hermeneutic of suspicion” suspects all communication is engaged in subterfuge. For appearances of texts are deceptive and explicit content hide deeper meanings or implications. The hermeneutic of suspicion draws its philosophical inspiration from the “masters of suspicion”, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche.]
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I put these comments above in footnotes because I wasn’t sure many readers would be interested in this information. And you still might not be! I know if you haven’t studied these issues before, it can be more than slightly opaque. But let me briefly unpack most of footnote 23.
God created a knowable world. The pinnacle of God’s creation, God’s image bearers, are capable of apprehending that world as it truly exists and speaking meaningfully to one another about that world. Put very simply, all mentally healthy individuals know the difference between ‘up’ and ‘down’, for example, or ‘male’ and ‘female,’ at least they should once the terms are properly defined. I know, I know, at the Quantum or Sub-Atomic Level we find, we think, an element of randomness and unpredictability from which, in my opinion, many unwarranted philosophical conclusions are drawn. But I still have faith in a God who created a knowable world. Not exhaustively, but truly knowable. Mysterious at times. But that’s okay. Up here where we human’s live, communicable knowledge and real shared values are possible for God’s Image Bearers.
But today the postmodern “hermeneutic of suspicion” counsels you to interpret every communication with suspicion. There are hidden meanings and intentions underneath. Although philosophical skepticism is ancient, ironically doubt as a method got renewed emphasis in the Western world with the work of a Christian thinker by the name of Rene Descartes (1596-1650). In fairness to Descartes he was trying to develop a philosophical system to tackle the problem of doubt. He failed. But he did succeed in setting us on the philosophical road to human autonomy with the ultimate result being alienation, first and formost from God, but also the alienation of mind from body.
It’s a long story but it ends with the ruling assumption among many of our elites and the teachers of our future generations, that objective reality is finally unknowable and incommunicable. All we are left with are subjective interpretations of our world.
Subjectivism is the doctrine that “our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience.” So as a practical matter, from Elementary school to our institutions of Higher Learning, our young people have been taught you have “your truth” and I have “my truth.” Radical Individualism is one expression of this worldview.
Also taught in our institutions of learning is a less radical worldview which says my group has its truth while your group has a different truth. The worldview animating many parts of the Anti-Racism movement taps into this less radical view of “group truth.” This view can lead one to understand the world as a never ending struggle of competing “interpretations” or “narratives.” To use the common coin of today, it is sometimes seen as a conflict pitting oppressors against oppressed (a dichotomy borrowed from Marxism). For example, Whites vs People of Color, Rich vs Poor, Male vs Female, Binary vs Non-Binary. Since it is assumed group truth is largely inaccessible to members of other groups, especially dominant groups, struggle for group supremacy is inevitable. Revolutionary actions are warranted for those who take a more Marxist view of the conflict. Critical Theory (1930’s) from which we get Critical Race Theory (1970’s, developed by Derrick Bell of Harvard and others) are two theories that draw nourishment from the seed beds planted by the “masters of suspicion” Marx, Freud and Nietzsche. Perhaps you may be somewhat familiar with these less radical worldviews. They’ve been “hangin’ round the house” lately in case you haven’t noticed.
The fundamental teaching is that all Truth is relative and either individuals or groups are the final authority regarding normative questions. There is no universally valid or normative Truth. Of course all Christians recognize, or at least we should, that Truth in some areas may be difficult to ascertain, therefore humility is advised, but this is not the same as saying any universal claims are illegitimate. But that is what our young people are being taught today. And it has real world consequences. [See the video at the end of this post.]
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As a Christian, I believe there is a unifying center to reality and that center appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. It is a center that allows all who accept the Lordship of Christ to come together as God’s single family in the Temple of God, Christ’s Body, the Church. As Paul said:
For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. [the promise of God's worldwide flourishing human community on earth.] - Gal 3:26-29 (NRSV)
Ideally, this family unit won’t be characterized by conflicting power relationships, but by mutual love one to another. Ideally this community will be characterized by patient receptivity not suspicion. We will “read” each other through the kind lens of charity, what I like to call the “hermeneutic of love.” But for this to work, we have to accept each other as family. Not groups pitted against one another. We won’t prejudge anyone based on skin color, for example, or any perceived social status. And, as a Christian, I would argue this community only becomes possible by the power of God’s Spirit. For it won’t be easy. And it cannot be coerced.
There is a single grand narrative, a single Truth. It is the story of a creative, loving, Triune God. And the outworking of God’s purposes from the beginning. Before anything was created, there was Loving Community. That’s our model. We all are part of that story.
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Hopefully, after my musings above and viewing the video below you will see how today’s gender ideology draws “nourishment” from and grows out of the philosophical position known as subjectivism and its variant, group identity.
We can only know what we as individuals know, or less radically, what our group knows. Tolerance is regarded as the highest virtue by many, but not all, some remain intolerant revolutionaries. Those involved in Class Struggle or Race Struggle are typically not concerned with Tolerance of every group. Subjugation of perceived oppressors is an ethical imperative for them.
But for most people this perception of human limitations teaches them to be accepting of what others know and believe to be true. So as long as they are not hurting anyone with that belief, it is said, we should tolerate different perspectives.
Which leads me to a classic YouTube video filmed at the University of Washington.
Links from this blog to online resources don’t necessarily mean I support everything the organization producing these resources might believe. But this video is certainly on point about the “no lines, no boundaries” Western world our young people currently live in.
Our students did not learn this on their own. Adults taught them to think this way. You can certainly see how in a “no boundaries” world anxious, dissatisfied, depressed young people might feel at liberty to explore identity options, and in the process disfigure their bodies. Especially when so many of their online “friends” say this is the secret to personal happiness. And you can also see how a worldview like the one on display in this video would affirm any choice an individual makes. Likewise you can see how the many young leaders of Facebook would feel comfortable listing 56 gender options to accommodate the subjective truths of those holding this “no boundaries” worldview.
Tolerance is a fine virtue, still I hope you find this video troubling. Because tolerance of absurdity leads to ruin. There are real world consequences to a “fluid” worldview.
Is this the world we want to live in? We better come up with some answers quick. Things are moving swiftly.
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I ended the last post with a stat from Facebook. That statistic came from 2016, so perhaps the number is even higher today.1I just found out the number is over 70 today! Of course, this is Facebook. Young people left Facebook a long time ago (in internet time). Tumblr, Reddit, Tiktok, YouTube, Instagram & Snapchat are more their style. And the gender categories celebrated there are head spinning. Let’s just say “gender fluidity” is the norm. Here are a few:
Agender
Asexual
Bigender
Binary
Bisexual
Cisgender
Gay
Genderfluid
Genderqueer
Lesbian
Non-binary
Pansexual
Polysexusal
Third gender
Transgender
Transexual
Trigender
Two-spirit
Facebook, today’s hangout for “ole fuddie duddies” had 56 of these in 2016.
56.
Staking out your territory on the gender map has the feel of a competitive sport. Young people have always tried to carve out a niche for themselves, even though, truth be known, they tended to fall into congregational coolness. But today, because of the Internet, their potential universe of “friends” has grown exponentially with increasing variety. Finding someone “just like you” on the Internet is relatively easy. In the past, as a group young people weren’t all that different. Just different from their parents. But today the difference is dangerous in a way that a tattoo, a piercing, or the “Goth” look never was.
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I do want to be clear about this. Gender dysphoria2Gender Dysphoria — formerly known as “Gender Identity Disorder” is characterized by a severe and persistent discomfort in one’s biological sex. is real. A very small number of people suffer from it. They need all the help we can give them.
If you know someone with gender dysphoria, or even if they just think they have gender dysphoria (most), you should become their friend. Don’t avoid. Embrace. I have atheist friends who are, in my opinion, mentally and morally confused about God. And they know that I believe that about them. We are still friends. Unlike what happened to Rev. Randall, they won’t report me to the authorities because my view of their Atheism makes them uncomfortable. Or attacks their dignity. Or their sense of self-worth and well-being. I still treat them with respect. I still love them. And they know it. They think I’m wrong. And I think they are wrong. But we are still friends. I embrace but I don’t affirm.
Now, of course, gender dysphoria is psychologically debilitating for those who really have it. And, unlike my Atheist friends, someone with gender dysphoria suffers mental anguish. They need a different kind of help. But, as a Christian it would not be loving to affirm what I believe is mental and emotional confusion.
I can love someone with anorexianervosa3An emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive desire to lose weight by refusing to eat. (another dysphoria) without affirming her body destroying behavior. It would be wrong of me to say, “you’re looking good girl, keep going! I affirm your desire to be more comfortable with your body.” It would be wrong and unloving to do that. She hates her appearance and is slowly killing herself. No matter how strongly she feels about it, I will not affirm that belief.
But also as a Christian it would be wrong to exclude her from my peer group simply because she is suffering and different. Exclusion may be more “comfortable” for me and my peers but it would be unloving. We must lovingly include her and ask God for practical wisdom as we live together. There are few “hard and fast” rules here. Reaching out and embracing is the overarching rule. The details of how we interact will no doubt vary from situation to situation.
Still a Christian mustn’t lie. A “trans-man” is not really a man. A “trans-woman” is not really a woman. But you don’t need to say everything all at once. Presenting a “solid argument” to someone who is hurting won’t work. Putting your arm around them, walking with them, listening to them, ironically, offering your embodied self to them will work much better. Paul’s great chapter about love in 1st Corinthians, the one you hear at weddings all the time, describes love first and foremost as “Patient.” And then “Kind.” So, by all means, a Christian should patiently, prayerfully embrace. It won’t be easy. But it could work wonders.
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The comparison between anorexia nervosa & gender dysphoria is appropriate because “transitioning” via puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatment and sex-reassignment surgery does real physical and irreversible damage to the body. Believing in a Creator should keep Christians from affirming those who deny the body God gave them. We certainly can’t affirm their desire to do damage to that body. There are some clinicians and surgeons, Christian and non-Christian, who are getting out of the specialty they trained for because they can’t advise or perform double mastectomies on perfectly healthy breasts. This is not what they “signed up for” they say. They entered their professions to be healers.
Some conscientious professionals who subscribe to the Hippocratic oath, “first do no harm” are being asked to go against their conscience or leave their chosen professional field. Surgeons in the Western world are being told that if they perform double mastectomies on cancer patients then they must perform the same surgery on the perfectly healthy breasts of a young woman who claims she is a man trapped in a woman’s body.
I repeat the question from my post about Rev Randall. Is this the world we want to live in? We need to come up with some answers quick. Things are moving swiftly.
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A sword of Damocles hangs over many heads now. Professionals are being told they must agree with the patient’s self diagnosis. Those who counsel otherwise, and advise young patients to “wait and see” may lose their license or be fired. I’ll blog about one notable person soon. They are wrongheadedly called “conversion therapists.” Some 19 U.S. states at last count have banned mental health professionals from engaging in so-called “conversion therapy” at the risk of losing their license. The U.K., Canada, and Australia have anti-conversion therapy laws. Conversion Therapy has been used in the past to “convert” homosexuals so the concept packs quite a rhetorical punch when used by Transgender Activists today. However, homosexuals don’t deny their biological sex. This is different.
There are more than a few adult homosexuals, some professional clinicians, who openly thank “their lucky stars” that they were not born in this generation. Had they been, their “gender non-conformity” may have taken them down the Trans path of irreversible bodily alteration.
Apply your practical wisdom to this question, who is the conversion therapist?
Is it the one who is trying to help a person align their thoughts and feelings with the body they were given at birth or the professional who disregards the body and proposes irreversible radical surgeries combined with life-long hormone treatments in hopes of aligning that outer body with a patient’s inner desires?
Who is the conversion therapist here?
Quite an Orwellian twist, don’t you think?
Increasingly the only acceptable approach is the real conversion therapy resulting from the “affirmative care model.”
We are told we should begin our interactions, whether social or professional, with the conclusion. And that conclusion must be that a person has gender dysphoria if they say they have it. Using this “affirmative care model” clinicians are placing our teenagers on an irreversible path after a single counseling session. I’ve lost count of the stories I’ve read or seen in the last 9 months of young people who have come to regret their decision to transition (they are called de-transitioners). They tell stories of how after a single session, a one hour meeting(!) with a clinical therapist they were prescribed puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones. As I mentioned in my last post, Oregon’s “age of consent” for certain healthcare services means a self diagnosing 15 year old girl can walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and receive a dose of Testosterone 40 times the natural female level. A note from a therapist or mom is not required. She just has to sign a consent form (which no doubt has been cleared by lawyers in case a 15 year old regrets her decision and thinks about suing later in life.) After taking “T” for three months her body is forever changed. Double mastectomy is the next step of her transition, halted only by legal-age requirements which are country and state specific.
For natal females in almost every case the combination of puberty blockers to halt natural biological development and treatment with Testosterone causes infertility. And often an inability to experience orgasm in the future. There will be no going back. This is lunacy masquerading as “compassionate patient-centered care.” How many young people do you know who could wisely decide something as monumental, as life altering, as this? But parents are letting them make this choice at earlier and earlier ages because they are being told by health care professionals that their child’s well-being depends upon it. [See this post which rebuts the Suicide Myth.]
Because of the affirmative care model co-morbidities of depression, severe anxiety, autism, are largely ignored and prescribed medical treatments (testosterone or estrogen depending on the natal sex) begin these patients down an irreversible path. This is not how medicine and therapy have ever been practiced.
De-transitioners, those who regret their adolescent choice, and the body disfiguring path they’ve been on, are beginning to cry out. Like Cari. They need to be heard. Sometimes they are mocked by the online Trans community as never being Trans in the first place. Mockery is an art form on the Internet, even by those who claim to be the most tolerant and open to difference. But in spite of the obvious embarrassment of having made such a life-altering decision, de-transitioners courageously step forward to tell their updated story. I’ll highlight some of them in a later post.
We need to listen.
For it is heartbreaking.
I believe most young people claiming gender dysphoria are simply misdiagnosed. And this mad rush toward transition is disfiguring our confused young people. It is hurting them beyond physical repair. For their sake we desperately need to pay attention. Embrace. Don’t affirm.
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Here’s where I put on my Christian hat again (actually, I never took it off).
Virtually every parent that contacted author Abigail Shrier about their concern for their daughters would self identify as “progressive” or “liberal” on the political spectrum. In telling their stories Shrier hints at the possibility that a lack of boundaries, that is to say a certain “post-modern fluidity” may contribute to their daughter’s initial confusion. She only hints at the possibility. I would do more than hint. Teenagers test boundaries. They press limits. They need guidance from the adults in the room. Unfortunately for some confused teens
What they lack in life experience, they make up for with a sex-studded vocabulary and avant-garde gender theory. Deep in the caverns of the internet, a squadron of healers waits to advise them. - Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage.
They need guidance and healing from their Creator in the bodily form of those who know and represent that Creator.
Let me finish with a quote from an influential non-Christian. 20th century Psychologist & Psychotherapist, Carl Jung, discovered the consequences of a fluid outlook on life. Here’s how he puts it:
“I have treated many hundreds of patients, the larger number being Protestants, a smaller number of Jews and not more than five or six believing Catholics. Among all my patients in the second half of life [that is, over 35], there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age had given their followers and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook” (emphasis added). --Carl Jung, Swiss Psychologist and Psychotherapist.
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Jung’s practical wisdom aligns itself with a Classic Christian’s understanding of our Created yet broken world.
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