By Randy C. Davis
President & Executive Director, TBMB
Ever been to Disney World? Surely you have. Virtually everyone has gone at some point. One of the highlights for me has always been the nightly fireworks show shortly before the park closes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” boomed the announcer triggering the anticipation for the upcoming spectacle. Well, that’s what he said for decades anyway. Not so any longer. Now the show fizzles to a start with the politically correct, gender-neutral, “Dreamers of all ages.”
It is difficult to comprehend how sexual identity has become such a consuming ideological agenda in the public square. News stories reporting the fluidity of human sexuality are ubiquitous in our culture. As a society we are creating confusion where there is biblical and biological crystal clarity, and the implications have massive theological consequences. Did God not “make them male and female,” as Genesis 5:2 declares?
Randy C. Davis
If He did not, then there is no God (which there is). And if He does exist – which He does – rejecting His intentional design of men and women rejects Him as Lord and attempts to render Him irrelevant. And yes, I used the masculine personal pronoun to refer to Him as “our Father.”
Is there a clearer example of mankind denying God, rejecting the obvious revelation of God in human sexuality and suppressing divinely revealed truth in favor of a humanistically fabricated lie as Paul describes in Romans 1? Surely our present situation began in one of hell’s strategic planning sessions.
Our increasingly confused culture desperately needs to grasp the reality of biologically defined males and females. However it seems more intent to embrace a frenzy seeking to annihilate the very image and presence of God.
While some states seek legislation to slow the tsunami, it is alarming that at least one state will begin this fall allowing teachers to speak with second graders about gender identity. That conversation may even begin in first grade with, “You may have girl parts or boy parts but feel differently.”
Thinking about anyone other than parents having those kinds of discussions with a 5- or 6-year-old is inappropriate at best, and illegal at worst. Frankly, it’s just plain creepy.
Those advocating for laws at the state level banning anyone in schools speaking with small children about sexuality issues should be applauded. At least there are some with a modicum of common sense.
There is a desperate need of some biblical sense to be infused into the conversation as well. So how do parents and churches speak into this culture from the child’s house and the church house instead of just the statehouse?
First, pastors need to preach the Word with equal parts conviction and compassion when it comes to sexuality. Allow the Bible to say what the Bible says. Do not water down the truth, avoid it or ignore it. This world is starving for a clear, authoritative Word. Be prayed up and prepared, then “speak the truth in love.”
Churches must also have in place a systematic methodology of making disciples from preschoolers to adulthood: Equip students and adults to understand how God created them. Teach them to kindly, compassionately and redemptively give reason for the hope that is in them.
We also need to begin at home, as parents. Make your home the primary place where intimate discussions of biblical sexuality take place. Public schools have your children for up to a third of their day. But the impact of parental influence cannot be measured by a clock.
Talking with your child and not at your child teaches them it’s ok to talk with mom and dad about tough issues. That means you listening without freaking out. Don’t react with fear and panic when your child brings up the S-E-X subject. The Bible frequently admonishes parents to teach their children the truth of Scripture, and one of those topics is the truth about God’s design for who He made them to be as boys and girls.
But we can’t stop with the home and the church. Our world is desperate for engaging, compassionate non-judgmental, truth-saturated conversations about human sexuality. On the surface this appears to be a political war, but, it is a spiritual war for the souls of ladies and gentlemen, and boys and girls of all ages.
It is a joy to be on this journey with you.
