Higher Things much to the disservice of adolescents everywhere last year published an apologetic of sorts by an LCMS clergyman for his lifelong desire to be a woman which they later apologized for. Higher Things didn’t endorse the man’s lust – that is what it is – for what God had not given him. They struck more a note of sympathy. I am mildly surprised that they didn’t go for the “higher” ground C. S. Lewis established when he said that he wouldn’t write against homosexuality because “I will not indulge in futile philippics against enemies I never met in battle” (Surprised by Joy, 101).
This muddy-headed thinking is not new to me. You see it in the guy who argues this way, “Since I don’t know what I would do if my daughter turned up pregnant by rape, I can’t oppose abortion without being a hypocrite.” Likewise, since I don’t know what it is to have an uncontrollable desire to be a woman, I can’t speak to that issue without being hypocritical.
First of all, we all have lusts; we all desire things God has not given us. A woman can lust after the ministry; a teen can lust after the authority his parents have. Heterosexual lusts are no less powerful that homosexual ones. An adult male’s lust to be a woman is no more powerful than an adolescent male’s lust to be 6 feet tall or the high school quarterback. The problem is that all things homosexual have been psychobabbled to the point that you are only allowed to speak of them in psychological terms not Scriptural.
Second, we don’t live by our wisdom or experience; we don’t go by what may or may not happen in the future; we go by the Word of God. The Word of God clearly says that abortion is sinful. Therefore, we will not abort the unborn or aid those who do. The Word of God clearly says that He knit everyone us together in the womb and that He made us male or female.
I can speak to the lust for being a woman or the lust for the same sex with the same authority I can speak against abortion. The Word of God gives me that authority. I am to reject homosexuality with the same certainty that I am to reject bestiality. I am to identify a man wanting to be a woman or a woman to be a man as a lust with the same certainty that I know any desire contrary to the Word of God is a lust.
More painful than the role confusion evidenced by that pastor’s panegyric was that of Higher Things. To the group that is at the height of insecurity in regard to their sexuality, Higher Things thought it would be a good idea to have a middle-aged pastor vent his spleen about his lifelong struggle with his lust to be something God had not made him, to have something God had not given him. But they didn’t even make it clear that this was what was happening. No, they thanked him for sharing his struggle meanwhile planting in the heads of more than a few kids the thought: Maybe there is a God-given reason that I am not attracted to the other sex or that I like cars or musicals, etc, etc.
Had Higher Things dealt with this subject as adults 1) They wouldn’t have put it on the internet for all to read. 2) They would have shown the flaws in the pastor’s assumptions. As it stands (And it still does, see the Higher Things article of October 23, 2015 “Sex, Gender, and identity”), psychology has carried the day and many a poor child is left with far more questions about this ungodly lust than he started the day with.
I’m confused; I thought Higher Things role was to help kids.
