Tag: transgenderism

I Was Not Assigned

What is at stake with our words? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Last week, there was an announcement made at the chapel service here at NOBTS about free flu shots being given out for students. All we had to do was go to the student center and there would be some nurses there ready to give us our shots. Being one without health insurance now (Financial realities of being a seminary student), I decided to go and get one.

Now this was a Christian hospital organization that was giving out the shots and so they had to ask me several questions, which I understand. I get the legal requirements. I don’t blame them and I realize the sad reality of what many businesses are going through, but as an individual, I did take a firm stand.

So in the middle of the usual questions that I expect, I get the one of “What is your gender identity?” I consider this to really be a nonsense question. Identity has no purpose here. How I feel about myself does not affect what I am at all. I can feel like I’m a cat and it’s not going to change I’m a human. For a more realistic example, as one going through a divorce, I can feel numerous negative things many times. Those things are not true. Many Christians can struggle with feeling God doesn’t love them. Doesn’t make it true. The reason many people commit suicide is often connected with a negative feeling about them or their future that just isn’t true.

I am a man. That is it. I can take a look at my body and the way that I came out and realize that yes, I am a man.

My next question I was asked was “Were you assigned that at birth?”

At this I think my eyes glare, not in anger at the nurses. They have to do their job. It’s in anger that this question is on here. I gave a direct answer. “No. I was born a man.” I realize we could say I was born a boy who grew into a man, but the sex that I was born as was not something that was just decided. It was known when I was born.

I also realize some people can bring up people who are intersex, but intersex and transgender are two very different things. One is a very physical condition and we have never sought to change our laws and society based on this condition. The other, transgenderism, is a psychological delusion and we are changing our society and laws to play along and real people are being the victims.

Friends. This is a hill we cannot budge any on. This is about a battle for reality itself. I consider the far-left movement in our society to be in a war against reality and trying to eliminate any idea of male and female. It’s as if we are being pushed into a political monism.

The biggest aspect of this battle to watch is our words. I will use longer and clunkier terminology to avoid granting any grounds to the other side. I will not speak of a “same-sex marriage.” A marriage by definition is the unity of a man and a woman. No. Something like polygamy doesn’t change this, though it is wrong, as it is just one man with several women, but the man-woman aspect is there. The same would be for one woman with many men.

When you say “same-sex marriage” you are speaking of a contradiction. You are speaking of a man-woman unit that is not man-woman. If we also make the definition of marriage fluid, we can make it to mean anything and then it means nothing. Why limit it to two people? Why make it consensual? Why make it lifelong? The word marriage has to mean something specific.

I prefer to not even speak of a homosexual anymore. It makes homosexual more often an aspect of the person’s identity and surely that won’t change. It becomes something innate. I will easily instead speak of a person with same-sex attraction. What is central here is that this is a person.

We must absolutely watch people who want to control our words and tell us there are things we cannot say. We have seen part of this when any monitoring is done of questions about vaccines or the 2020 election. Even if you think both of those are crazy conspiracy theories, it would be better to have them talked about and the ideas discussed. Shutting down discussion on any topic convinces more often people who think there is a cover-up.

Keep in mind that in 1984, the goal of the editing of the language was not to come up with new words. It was to eliminate as many words as possible. Control the words people say and you can control the ideas that they are allowed to think about.

The language war is essential.

No. I was not assigned male at birth. I was born that way. I could jack up my body with as many hormones as doctors say and mutilate it with surgical procedures, and I will look like I am playing a part, but it won’t change reality. Barring the return of Jesus Christ, I will die a male. Nothing will change that.

There is too much at stake. Whenever you encounter language that is meant to shape what you think, do not give an inch to it. If you have to use long and clunkier phrases, that’s fine. I would rather do that and be minorly inconvenienced than give in to fake reality and be majorly inconvenienced.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Men And Women Are Different

Is it hateful to think men and women are different? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have said before that I am a gameshow junkie. As I sit here, I have my smart TV in my room playing Buzzr, which plays old classic gameshows. The one on in the morning for me normally is Supermarket Sweep, the original one from the 90’s. This one involves answering questions about various products found in a grocery store.

The final round that determines the winner is based on a race through the store. Up until that point, the questions have been based on earning time for the run. Then, each pair of contestants selects one of them who will run through the store and try to get as much in their cart as possible with some stipulations (No more than five of one item) and rack up the highest total. The winner goes on to have a chance at the prize of $5,000.

All things being equal though, if all players had the same amount of time, I’d generally give earning the most through shopping to the men. There are exceptions, but I generally expect that men will be more capable in this area. Why? Because men are usually the ones who by nature are stronger and faster.

Now in all fairness, I generally think that if it comes to strategy, many a woman might shop smarter. Many women know how to budget very well and how to do smart shopping and generally tend to enjoy shopping more. However, having a good plan doesn’t matter as much if you don’t have the same speed and strength to pull it off.

Unfortunately, in our day and age, it’s automatically assumed that what I have said must be sexist. Consider it like the professor several years ago who said women don’t do as well as men at certain mathematical skills. The outcry was tremendous and while I was not involved in apologetics yet, I remember having one question.

Is he right?

If that is what the evidence shows, then that is what the evidence shows and complaining about it won’t change it. You might say you want to live in a world where that is the case, but if that is not so then that is not so. Now if a woman can improve her skills in this area, that’s wonderful and she can do so if she desires.

Keep in mind also that all that I have said is generalities. There are many women I know personally who are brilliant in mathematics. When I was in high school, I nicknamed our calculus teacher the goddess of mathematics. On the other hand, I know that there are many women who are stronger than I am physically.

And if we’re talking about traits considered masculine and feminine, there are differences. Many men in the gaming sphere like I am in are usually very surprised to encounter a female who has a great interest in video games. Meanwhile, when I was learning to drive, my Dad and I always had communication problems as he would tell me to park next to the Subaru or pull out after the Nissan went by. I would say “What?” and then he would clarify with “The blue car” or something similar. To this day, I couldn’t recognize any of those cars.

The problem too often is that if I say men and women are different, somehow we get an idea in our head that that means one is better than the other and one is superior. There is definitely one area of superiority. Men are superior at being men and women are superior at being women. Unfortunately, in our day and age, we are getting close to the point where men are superior at being women as well.

Men are usually superior when it comes to physical prowess. Again, this is a generality and as has been said about stereotypes, they are always wrong and generally helpful. Women, however, tend to be superior at empathy and gentleness and are superior in beauty. This isn’t just me saying that as a man. Even women are more impressed with their own beauty than that of the male.

Many of us remember when growing up what parent we went to for what. If we fell and skinned our knee and needed someone for that, we went to Mom. Mom was gentle normally and would bandage it and hug us and tell us it would be alright. If we wanted to do something risky, we went to Dad who was more likely to agree to something like that.

We’re now in an age though that is starting to think that someone can change their gender just by changing their physical body, which is also a process of mutilation. Then, men who transition into women can engage in sports that are meant for women to participate in and lo and behold, somehow they seem to win. If this keeps up, we will see the end of women’s sports. Keep in mind I don’t say this as someone who cares for sports at all.

That’s because we now live in a world that wants to blur all the distinctions away. However, even if one does that, someone will always be superior in someway to another and inferior in someway to another. Even identical twins have their differences like this. True equality in that everyone is 100% alike is impossible, and thank God it is. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where everyone was 100% like me. That would be boring.

We are also sadly being moved into a position where the transgender movement cannot be questioned. This is odd since so many skeptics of Christianity think that many Christians grow up in a faith that they are not allowed to question. Sadly, in a large number of cases I am sure this is true. We should always welcome and allow questions.

Suppose we look at a scientific question like evolution. Many scientists will say that the question on evolution is settled. They could be right. However, I would hope that they would not say that the theory cannot be questioned. Where are we if any scientific idea cannot be questioned? The questions could be answered wrongly, but they will likely lead us to other areas of knowledge.

If transgenderism cannot be questioned, then we are in an area of a dogma, a more secular dogma. The left then has their own inquisition. If you dare question the dogma, then you are the heretic (Bigot or whatever other name you want) and have to be shut down. Your ideas are not allowed.

We should ask the questions. Chesterton years ago said before you take down a fence, find out why it was put up in the first place. Why do we say men and women are different? What makes them different? What would happen if we really tried to erase those differences? What would happen if we tried to treat boys like girls and vice-versa?

Men and women really are different, and that’s a good thing. Men are generally stronger in some areas and weaker in others and vice-versa. There are exceptions as there are in most any area, but those are the exceptions that prove the rule. In the past, Gamaliel warned the Jews that by persecuting the apostles, they could find themselves fighting against God. We could find ourselves fighting against reality and that will turn out just as disastrous.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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Contrary To Popular Belief, Ellen Page Is A Woman

Is society wrong on gender? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today, I woke up and heard the news that Ellen Page, known for the movie Juno among others, has decided that she is a man. Of course, what hard data is there to present for this belief? None. I went to look her up when I got home to see what news there was and lo and behold, before too long, I found myself looking at Elliot Page.

And Wikipedia is already updated.

Elliot Page (born Ellen Grace Philpotts-Page; February 21, 1987) is a Canadian actor and producer. He first became known for his role in the film and television series Pit Pony (1997–2000), for which he won a Young Artist Award, and for recurring roles in Trailer Park Boys (2002) and ReGenesis (2004). Page also received recognition for his role in the film Hard Candy (2005), and won the Austin Film Critics Association‘s Award for Best Actress.

Page had his cinematic breakthrough with the title role in Jason Reitman‘s film Juno (2007), earning nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Critics’ Choice Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He also earned praise for roles in The Tracey Fragments (2007), Whip It (2009), Super (2010), Inception (2010), and Tallulah (2016). Page has also portrayed Kitty Pryde in the X-Men films The Last Stand (2006) and Days of Future Past (2014), produced the film Freeheld (2015) in which he also starred, and made his directorial debut with the documentary There’s Something in the Water (2019). Since 2019, he has portrayed Vanya Hargreeves in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.

Page publicly came out as a gay woman in February 2014 and subsequently as transgender in December 2020, announcing his new name as Elliot Page.

I also saw someone on Twitter commenting on someone posting about this and saying “It doesn’t cost you anything to use proper respect and the pronouns they want.” Well, yes. It does cost us something. It costs us reality.

Reality is too many women are going out even earlier in their lives and declaring that they’re transgender. This is also going against the trends. Gender Dysphoria is a real thing, but it usually happens predominantly among men. This is happening in greater numbers with women and often in groups and often after spending a lot of time on social media or hearing a speaker at a school.

The problem is this is based on how the person feels. We don’t do this in other areas. Suppose you’re a doctor and you have a girl come to you who weighs looking at her about eighty pounds or so. She to you is apparently skin and bones. She is telling you she is hideous because she is so fat and she asks if you can give her weight loss medicine. Are you going to do it? She feels fat. She really does.

Do it you and you could be responsible for her death and sued for weight loss. Anorexia is a serious condition and the person’s feelings do not match reality. They are in no way fat.

A person with Cotard Delusion is not really dead and we don’t treat them by putting a tag on their toe and sending them to the morgue. A person with Jerusalem Syndrome is not helped by declaring that they really are the Messiah. If someone believes that they can fly, we do not throw them off of a skyscraper to prove otherwise.

Yet here we jump right on board and say the person’s feelings are accurate when all the physical evidence we have from their body and DNA says “No.” We’re also told that this is the science of the day. If some people wonder sometimes why so many people are skeptical of science on topics like evolution or climate change, this is one reason.

This is certainly not to say that people who believe this are to be condemned or treated harshly. They are to be loved just as much, but if a person has a delusional belief, you do not show love to them by enabling them in that delusion.

We are also saying that a person’s emotions dictate reality. They don’t. You do not get to hold reality hostage by your feelings. Because you feel like you are the opposite sex, I should in no way be forced to agree with that belief. You can think you are the Messiah all you want, but I will not be forced to bow down and call you Lord.

So we will wait and see what Ellen Page does to mutilate her body if she goes that route, but remember the old question. How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Answer. Four. Counting the tail as a leg does not make it a leg. You can call Ellen Page whatever you want, but it will not change reality. She is and always will be a woman. The more we find ourselves trying to push against reality, the more it will push back until one day it breaks. I dread seeing what will happen when it does.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/14/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It used to be that if you were filling something out and it asked what gender you were, there were two options. You were male or you were female. We all understood that. However, now we live in an age that seems to call everything into question including basic facts of biology.

Now we have boys who claim to be girls and vice-versa. We have an Olympic athlete who has undergone an operation so he can become a woman. Transgenderism is a major new item today and terms like non-binary are showing up more and more.

A great concern is about the possible medical dangers involved with transgenderism. It’s problematic enough to many of us to think that you are a member of the opposite sex. It’s something else quite different when you put hormones in your body to bring about a change. It’s even more concerning when small children who are incredibly impressionable are led down this route and even take puberty blockers and begin a transition. These are kids who have a hard time deciding what to wear to school the next day and yet make major life-altering decisions like this.

But what are the medical side-effects of this? We have drugs that could help people overcome cancer that aren’t released yet, but we seem to want to do something of this extreme level without understanding the circumstances. Are we playing a dangerous game? Could we be damaging children in a way irreversible by scientific means?

To discuss this, I need some help. Obviously, I’m not a scientist or a doctor and I don’t play one on TV. I need someone knowledgeable on this. I need someone like my guest this weekend. Her name is Michelle Cretella.

So who is she?

Dr. Cretella is Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds). She was elected to the Board of Directors in 2005, and served two terms as president prior to being hired as the executive director. Dr. Cretella previously chaired several committees which enabled her to become one of the ACPeds’ chief researchers, editors and spokespersons. Her article Gender Dysphoria in Children and Suppression of Debate was published in the 2016 summer issue of Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Following this, she became one of the world’s most outspoken critics of gender ideology in pediatrics. She is regularly consulted by many media news outlets. 

Dr. Cretella serves on the Advisory Board of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice, and is Chair of the Gender Identity Subcommittee for the Catholic Medical Association. She is a peer reviewer for the journal Issues in Law and Medicine, and also for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Cretella received her medical degree in 1994 from the University Of Connecticut School Of Medicine. She completed her residency in pediatrics in 1997 at the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut. She completed a fellowship in College Health through the University of Virginia in 1999. After 15 years of group practice in rural Connecticut and Rhode Island she left clinical practice to devote more time to family and the ACPeds. Dr. Cretella and her husband are the proud parents of four children.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed that episodes are now going up. We hope to be caught up soon. Please be watching your feed for this and other upcoming episodes.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Transgenderism on The Good Doctor

Was the right diagnosis made? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Generally, my wife and I enjoy watching The Good Doctor. It’s a great new series about a surgeon who is a savant and who is autistic. What is most interesting is not the diagnoses per se, although it is interesting to see the symbology that shows that he’s thinking about the case and picturing it all, but how he relates to others and how he speaks and understands messages around him.

In the latest episode called “She” the team starts to investigate a young girl who was brought into the hospital by her grandmother. As they start to check out the pain the patient has, they have to uncover her lower regions and lo and behold, they notice that she has male genitalia. Shaun Murphy, the good doctor, says that most everyone should know immediately.

The patient is a boy.

Now some might say that the person who is autistic does not understand how society works, but on the other hand, we could say that person is going to be less clouded by political correctness and such. Over and over, Shaun will regularly refer to the patient as he. Other doctors will correct him, but he will insist that this is the case.

Of course, every other doctor and even the president of the hospital and all involved from the hospital’s side are wanting to be politically correct. The patient says he’s a girl, so by golly, he is a girl. (Please note that that sentence doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. It is crazy to even have to say he is a girl unless you’re talking about someone doing an acting job.) The parents also have been going along with this since the patient, Quinn, decided years ago that he was really a girl.

The grandmother in this episode normally plays the role of the villain. Why? Because the grandmother in this episode is guilty of the awful heresy of telling the truth. She is guilty of saying that Quinn is really a boy. I think I once read a quote from Chesterton about how a madman would be one day someone who stood on top of a tower and proclaimed that two plus two equals four. The rest of the world would gasp at such a claim.

Now we are in the position that we believe in such claims often as assigned sex. It is as if the doctors see the baby coming out of the womb and look at the body and just say to each other “Well what do you think? Is it a boy or a girl?” It’s as if there’s no objective criteria to tell what someone really is. (You know, things that normally don’t change like DNA and genitalia.)

“But what about intersex?” Yes. I know about cases like that, but for the overwhelming majority of these cases, there is no problem with the DNA and genitalia. We’re not talking about intersex here. We’re talking about someone with no ambiguity in their bodies, but ambiguity in their feelings.

The story also goes on to say that Quinn due to his condition tried to commit suicide rather than live like a boy. The parents had then put him on puberty blockers which the grandmother was horrified to learn of. (We can think the grandmother is a person obviously still living in the past and not aware of how progressive we are.) Yet one has to wonder, are we going to say that because one person tried to commit suicide, their reasoning for it was right?

Let’s be clear. People who think that they are the opposite sex of their body do need compassion and understanding. Yes. Bullying is always wrong. On the other hand, so is coddling and giving in to demands. If an alcoholic was wanting to commit suicide rather than live without alcohol, that would not mean we freely give them the bottle.

The episode also dealt with if the patient should have both testicles removed or just one due to a cancerous growth. In the end, only one was removed unless the mind was changed later on. Let’s keep in mind that people think a decision like this should be given to a teenager when many a teenager has a hard time even deciding what they’re going to wear to school the next day.

I find it amazing in the field of apologetics how much we have to defend today and how much we have to defend is that which is often the most obvious. I thought it odd enough when we had to defend that marriage is a man-woman relationship. Now we have to defend that the man is a man and the woman is a woman.

Unfortunately, many of our people are going to be educated through pop culture rather than think through the issues themselves. It is another reason why Christians need to learn how to use the mediums that we have today to better communicate the Christian claim instead of just preaching to ourselves. At this point, I wonder how long it will be before future historians will look back on some of the things that were defended in the popular culture and ask “What were they thinking?”

In the end, Shaun says he is working on understanding. By all means, try to understand what is going on when a boy thinks that he is a girl. Try to understand the person and what they’re going through and how to help them. Don’t try to understand the boy being a girl. You might as well try to understand 2 + 2 being 5.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Love Thy Body

What do I think of Nancy Pearcey’s book published by Baker Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Nancy Pearcey’s book is a must-read. It is a nuclear missile of sorts going into secularism and a powerful argument that needs to be dealt with. At the same time, it’s a simple argument. It starts with a basic premise that all of us can immediately see and goes from there.

That premise is your body is something that shows who you are. If you want to know how you look publicly to the world, all of it comes through your body. We might say we live in a world that values the body. After all, you can find fitness videos to no end at the video store and there are TV programs about weight loss and everything else related to the body.

It can still be that we don’t really value the body that much. We can idolize it without really understanding it. Do we really care about the body itself or about the image we portray with the body? Is the body something truly good in its own right?

Pearcey uses this claim to get to arguments about numerous areas. You will find the hook-up culture, living together before marriage, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, and transgenderism addressed in this. All of this leads to giving more power to the state. If only she had written about something that people are talking about today….

Pearcey says that in each of these items, we are making a false statement about the body. Sex is a powerful expression two people make with their bodies for one another. It is really giving all that you can to another person. We speak about it as a grand finale. We go all the way. We hit a home run. We score.

Instead, our culture often reduces sex to just a hobby. We have this idea that you can have sex with no strings attached, but you can’t. Your body knows what you’re doing and that’s why bonding chemicals are released during the act of sex, including chemicals for a man. Your body is forming a bond with this other person in the act of sex.

Porn does the same kind of thing training your body to respond to a lie. The body you see on the other end is not a real body, but it is more fake. It is the result of a lot of make-up and such made for just that occasion. The person on the other side of that camera doesn’t care about you. They don’t even know that you exist. You will not get the joy of undressing them before your eyes and getting to run your hands over their body yourself. There’s a reason why many men today are in their 20’s and having to take Viagra. A real woman can’t get them to respond any more because porn makes them need more and more.

Women struggle enough as it is with self-image in the area of physical beauty. It doesn’t help them that they now think they have to struggle with countless women seen in porn. I say this also realizing that women today will also watch porn and will face similar struggles though different in some ways I’m sure to the men.

Abortion shows this struggle as well. Abortion downplays the body in that science is not the decider of whether that is truly a human. An artificial category is made up so that something is human, but it is not a person. There is no scientific test for such a thing. It is an ad hoc claim made to justify the killing of the innocent human person in the womb.

Homosexuality is also such a case of lying with one’s body. It is saying that one has the body of a man or a woman, but they will deny this. They will instead treat their body like it is that of a woman or a man. Again, the problem is a downplaying of the body and it is because feelings take precedence. One feels a certain way so forget what the body says. It is overruled by the emotions.

Transgenderism really demonstrates this. One believes a lie so much that one is willing to have one’s own body mutilated rather than work on changing the feelings. We live in an age where one can deny the body so much that one will undergo surgery to make it subservient to the feelings.

All of this also gives more power to the state. The state has to step in and change things. Marriage is no longer about a physical union, but it is about the feelings the people have for one another. Under many a secular definition, two roommates living together can be married even though they have no romantic feelings towards one another and will never have sex together.

The state will step in and redefine terms and then it will have to defend those terms and those who resist are enemies of the state. The ultimate target is the family. The family is a threat to the government since the family does not depend on the government for its existence. It’s a pre-political reality. The charges are serious and the cause is serious.

Get Pearcey’s book. Read it. Learn it. Open your eyes to what is going on around you. Pearcey’s book is a must-read for anyone interested in debating in any of these areas.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 1/27/2018: Nancy Pearcey

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We live in an age where people are really enthused about their bodies. You can turn on TV and see many fitness shows. You can go to the library or the DVD store and you can find plenty of fitness videos. Of course, we live in an age also of rampant sexuality which means that we really want to appreciate those bodies all the more.

In this, we have a book come out called Love Thy Body. Obviously, this is a book about working out and taking care of yourself. No? It isn’t? What is it about? It’s about in an age where people claim to love their bodies and be fascinated with them, we really don’t listen to them and pay attention to them. With our fitness regimes, we treat the body as fundamentally important. With our philosophies, we treat it as highly secondary. Perhaps it could be that we don’t really love our bodies.

This plays out in a number of areas in our lives. It plays out in abortion, pre-marital sex and the concept of living together prior to marriage, homosexuality, and transgenderism. (You kind of wish the book could have talked about something relevant to today don’t you?) In all of these areas, we deny the truth of the body and put that truth below something else, most notably, our feelings for the most part.

I’m very pleased to have on the author of this book. This is a lady with a razor sharp mind and as I have gone through the book I have often asked, “Why is it that I didn’t put two and two together like this before?” The book I really think is a bombshell on the whole culture war and one that should not be ignored. The author is Nancy Pearcey. So who is she?

According to her bio:

Nancy Pearcey is the author of the newly released Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality. She is professor and scholar in residence at Houston Baptist University and editor at large of the Pearcey Report. Her earlier books include The Soul of Science, Saving Leonardo,Finding Truth, and two ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winners: Total Truth and (coauthored with Harold Fickett and Chuck Colson) How Now Shall We Live? Hailed in The Economist as “America’s pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual,” Pearcey has spoken at universities such as Princeton, Stanford, USC, and Dartmouth.

I hope you’ll be listening to this show and I hope this is a book you’ll also want to get your hands on. Pearcey gives some powerful arguments that will help with debates you get into concerning homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion, and pre-marital sex. Not only that, she often writes with a pastoral heart on the need for compassion for people struggling with many of these areas. Please be watching and please also consider going on iTunes and leaving behind a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast. It’s always good to know that you are enjoying the show.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Are Our Churches Teaching?

Are we really being equipped in our churches? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently on my show, I interviewed Clinton Wilcox, a pro-life speaker. He spoke about how if the church got really serious, we could end abortion. This was in the middle of a discussion about why this kind of topic is not normally talked about in churches. I realize there are some that do teach on such serious topics, but the majority I am afraid do not, at least in America.

You see, I can easily predict what you’re hearing in churches most often. Here’s how you deal with guilt. Here’s how you get along with your neighbor. Here’s how you become a better spouse. Nothing wrong with these messages to an extent, but they’re also nothing really unusual to the church. You can get a lot of these from self-help books.

What you can’t get from those is the Gospel. I mean more than just the forgiveness of sins, as great as that is, but also what difference does Christianity make and why is it true? These are questions that are asked every day in our culture. All we are doing often is presenting Christianity as if God is a means to be a better person or a means to get to Heaven.

Let’s talk about some examples. There’s a saying that one in three men in the church struggle with pornography. If you’re a man and you look to the right at church and see a man and he’s okay and to the left and see another man and he’s okay, you could be in trouble. A number of pastors even struggle with pornography. Question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on the sin of pornography and overcoming it?

Along those lines, we live in a culture where more and more young people are living together before they get married. Even older people getting divorced now are doing that. Question. When was the last time you heard a sermon on a Christian view on sex and marriage and why it matters and how you know it’s true?

Go even further and you have issues of homosexuality and transgenderism. This is being spoken of on the news most every day. So what of it? When was the last time you heard a sermon that tackled these issues?

Some could say that with abortion, some pastors could be scared because some women in the congregation have had abortions. Sure. You teach it anyway. Of course, how you teach it matters. A good pastor when teaching will indeed preach on the wickedness and evil of sin and won’t sugarcoat abortion. Yet at the same time, he will teach the awesomeness and greatness of grace and that healing and forgiveness are available for all.

What about other belief systems. It used to be that most people would never encounter an atheist. Now most all of us encounter them and if we don’t, we certainly see them in the media. Are you being told why you should believe that God exists? What difference does it make that He does? Are you being told about the historicity of the New Testament?

What about other belief systems. Now this could depend on your area to be fair. If you are a pastor in Utah, you had better be informed and preaching on Mormonism. It might not be the same in the suburbs of Detroit, but you do find whatever your congregation is most likely to encounter and speak on it.

All of this is simply discipleship. It’s helping us learn not just what we are to do but why we believe we do what we do. Do we do good just to do good? Is Christianity just about being a good person?

We live in an age where and more of our youth are going to college and falling away and more and more people are encountering objections they can’t answer. The church meanwhile is just becoming a social club. You go on Sundays because, well, that’s just what you do. It’s more of a tradition than an actual commitment to Christ.

Yet what if what Clinton said is true. What if we could end abortion if all the churches in America got serious? Is it worth it? Is it worth you getting serious? It’s great to have goals you want your church to accomplish, but what do you want to do yourself even if the church doesn’t go along?

Maybe you should do that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Book Plunge: Beauty, Order, and Mystery

What do I think of Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This book is about a Christian view of human sexuality based on a pastor’s conference on the topic. At the outset, I think it’s awesome that pastors are meeting among themselves and having serious talks on these matters. Now if only we could convince those pastors in the pulpit to start also talking about this material to their parishioners.

The book is a series of essays each dealing with a specific topic. Not just marital sexuality is discussed, but also homosexuality and transgenderism. How is the church to deal with these kinds of issues today? Each of the writings goes in-depth in making the case that it does.

Wesley Hill’s is one that I want to touch on. Wesley Hill is a celibate homosexual Christian who is an assistant professor at the Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. Hill wants to remind us that not everyone who identifies as a homosexual or someone on that spectrum has some innate hatred for Christianity. Many of them would like to be Christians. Of course, there are some that are anti-Christians, but we should not paint with a broad brush without knowing the person first.

Hill’s essay answers the question of who do homosexuals love. He argues against the idea that marriage should be redefined and then the answer is a really simple one. A homosexual should love their neighbor as themselves. Sex is not the only way to love someone as we all know.

Joel Willitts essay was especially moving as he deals with the dark side of sexuality. For him, it is more of a curse than it is a blessing and this is said even as he is a married man. Willits writes about being abused when he was growing up and how that has damaged his sexuality from that time forward. We should all realize that when we’re in the church, there are a number of people who have been hurt sexually.

Willitts takes a look at addiction and pain then and I shared many of his thoughts with my own wife. He suggests looking at addiction not so much as a curse, but more of an indicator that something is wrong. There is a problem that needs to be worked out. It doesn’t mean that you give in to the addiction. It means you see what it is pointing to and work on the root of the problem.

Daniel Brendsel also has a chapter on selfies and how the world lives in a day and age where we too often market ourselves and think that knowing someone on Facebook tells you all that you need to know. At times, the selfies have got so extreme that there have been a number of fatalities. The other dark side is that a lot of teenagers are doing what’s called sexting, where they’re sending sexually explicit photos of themselves. Of course, it’s more women who are doing this, but I think this is not because women are more perverted, but because women are by far, even to other women I don’t doubt, much more appealing to the eye.

This touches on pornography which is talked about a number of times. Pornography has damaged our culture so much that women can often think they have to do something like sexting to compete. Many men are no longer turned on by real women because they have been looking too much at fake women in pornography.

The book ends with Matt O’Reilly’s essay on what makes sex beautiful. I have to say that while I do agree with the great theology in the essay and he brought out aspects I had not yet considered, I found this one a bit disappointing. Yes. Sex is very theological, but why does the average man on the street think that sex is just so awesome and the woman’s body especially is so beautiful? It is not because he is thinking about theology, but because something in the sex itself beyond what it points to. I think this is something the church needs to seriously think about. What do people want when they want sex? They don’t want it just for the sex, but for some other reason, be it pleasure, intimacy, etc.

Regularly also it was said in the book that the church needs more than just a negative message on sex. We need a positive message. We give so many messages of do nots that we don’t give any messages of when to do and why to do. Our view of sexuality is extremely negative and we don’t embrace the joy and beauty of sex like we should.

Anyone who is interested in areas relating to Christianity and sexuality would be blessed by reading this book. Churches who have pastors who are addressing these topics are indeed blessed. In an age of extreme confusion about sexuality, hopefully we’ll heed the call to have more serious discussion and in our own marriages, more serious enjoyment of sexuality.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 5/14/2016: Walt Heyer

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Target. Say the word and immediately the thoughts of boycotts comes into your mind. Why? Because of a bathroom policy. Women who identify as men are allowed to use the men’s room and vice-versa. This has led to many protests by others. There is a fear about predators taking advantage of the law, but something that is not discussed often is the people themselves who are claiming to be transgender.

This is a concept that strikes most of us as something that doesn’t make sense. We are living in an age where you cannot tell a woman that she must be a woman. If she identifies as a man, well that’s okay. Many of us are stunned that this is even being seen as a debate today, but lo and behold it is. What are we to do about this?

Why not have someone on who knows about the transgender viewpoint? In fact, we could say he knows about it so much because he was a transgender and then with  the surgical reassignment became a transsexual. That’s why this Saturday I am going to be interviewing Walt Heyer.

WaltHeyer

Walt Heyer is an author and public speaker with a passion to help others who regret gender change. Through his website, SexChangeRegret.com, and his blog, WaltHeyer.com, Heyer raises public awareness about the incidence of regret and the tragic consequences suffered as a result. Heyer’s story can be read in novel form in Kid Dakota and The Secret at Grandma’s House and in his autobiography, A Transgender’s Faith. Heyer’s other books include Paper Genders and Gender, Lies and Suicide.

So we are going to be talking about what so many of us really have a hard time wrapping our heads around. Are we really going against the scientific establishment? What is the cause of suicide in the cases of transgender people? Is the condition really a mental illness or is it something bona fide and the only way to help these people is to have them alter their bodies to become a person of the opposite sex?

What was it about Walt’s experience that brought him to this realization? What was it like to “become a woman” and then go back to being a man? What does he think should be the best approach to helping people who are struggling with thinking that they are the wrong sex. If his case is a negative one, is that just an isolated incident while most cases seem to work out for the good of those involved?

This is a big issue that is going on and I do believe that there is more at stake than just using a bathroom. We are calling the very identity of male and female into question. Perhaps I am mistaken in my approach and Walt can show that or perhaps there is in fact more than just the surface level debate that is going on.

I hope you’ll be listening next Saturday either way as Walt Heyer joins me!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

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