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Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture, and media from a Reformed perspective. Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.
Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.
Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is December 7th, 2020 and we are in the midst of the Christmas season. If you listened to the show last week, you'll know we spent five days counting down the greatest Christmas movies of all time.
And I'm still very thankful for those men who did the shows with me. Thankful for Sam Brown, thankful for Richard Roden and look forward to it because we're going to be having another set of caffeinated Calvinist round tables in about another week.
We're going to be talking about another very serious Christmas issue and that is the issue of Christmas music. Both hymns and classics of the Christmas season, we're going to be talking about that later.
But today we're going to be going back to some more serious issues and today is not Christmas related in any way. I want to ask a question because over the last few days there has been an event in the news and it's been all over social media, been placed on various news outlets and that is the transconversion, if you will, of a woman by the name of Ellen Page.
Now Ellen Page, for those of you who do not know, is an actor and she has been in several movies, some movies that I haven't necessarily seen them but I know of her and I know she was in the movie Juno, I think that's an older film now, been around a few years so several people may have seen that.
But the reason why she is in the news and why she is making the news recently is because she has come out to say that she is now wanting to be known as Elliot, that she is transsexual and that she is, or transgender rather, and she is choosing now to live as Elliot Page rather than Ellen Page.
And so I want to address this issue, the issue of should we call Ellen Elliot simply because that's the way that she now wants to be referred. And just to point this out because someone might say, well who cares, well this is a major cultural issue in the world right now and whether or not we believe it, whether or not we recognize it, this is going to affect the church at some point and it is already affecting many churches and some churches are just choosing to go with the culture and do what the culture says do and that is basically affirm this sexual position or this position on gender.
And some churches are saying don't affirm it at all, don't do anything and so the question is what should we do as Christians and again I know this isn't a Christmas topic and I've been kind of focused on Christmas things and not so serious things.
This is a serious issue and I thought because it's in the news it might be something important to address. Maybe you haven't thought about this, I remember several years ago I was teaching a class, I was teaching young people in a homeschool class and it was a Christian homeschool association that I was associated with and I was teaching public speaking to a group of Christian homeschoolers, at least homeschoolers from Christian families.
I don't know if all the homeschoolers were Christian but during the midst of one of the conversations one of the students mentioned about someone that they knew that was transgender and how they did not want to go by the pronouns that were associated with their birth gender or their birth sex.
So let's say it was a boy, they did not want to be called he or him but rather wanted to be called she or her. And interestingly enough, going back to the Ellen Page thing for just a moment, if you look up Ellen Page, if you just Google the name Ellen Page, the very first Google response at least as of today is Elliot Page.
The name has already changed on the Wikipedia page and it says Elliot Page is a Canadian actor and producer known as Ellen Page until December 2020. He first became known for his role in the film and television series Pit Pony for which he won a Young Artist Award and for recurring roles in Trailer Park Boys and Regenesis.
So there you have, right there, Wikipedia has already changed Ellen to Elliot, has already changed the pronouns from her and she to him and he. And if you go to IMDB, which is the very next link, it says Ellen Page actor, and if you click on it, or rather it says Elliot Page actor, it says where she was born and was the son of, but again, it doesn't say the son, it says Ellen Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha, talks about her parents here.
And ultimately though, what you see if you look at this is it's assuming already, even the picture that they have on IMDB is the picture of Ellen Page where the gender is very obscured, the hat covering the hair, the face.
If I looked at this picture and I knew nothing about it, I would say that it does look like a boy because she is attempting to make herself look like a boy, very, very obvious. And so again, getting back to my story about the class, I was with the students and we were talking about this person that they knew who was transgender and was saying they wanted to be known by the pronouns of their choice, not by the pronouns of their birth.
And so I was asked as the teacher, Mr. Foskey, would you call someone by the name or by the pronouns of their choice or would you not? And I surprised the class. I said I would not call them by the pronouns that they demanded, that I would call them by the pronouns of their birth sex if I knew it and it was obvious and it was something that was an indisputable fact.
This is a man. Even if he's dressed like a woman, this is a man. Even if he is trying to perform mannerisms that are effeminate, this is a man. I'm going to refer to him as he or him. And one of the students even said, I can't believe you would do that.
I can't believe that you wouldn't honor this person's choice, honor this person's request. You understand, Mr. Foskey, that's going to get you in trouble one day. And that was the student's assumption was I'm doing something that not only is it bad, but it's potentially dangerous.
If I continue going down this path, I'm going to be going down a dangerous road because I'm unwilling to say what this person wants me to say. And the question was, well, why? Why does it matter whether you call him him or her?
Why does it matter if you call him she or he? What does it matter? And my answer was, ultimately, truth is what matters. And when we call someone by a pronoun that we know is not the proper pronoun for their sex, then we are engaging with them in a lie, and we are engaging with them in supporting ultimately their sin, but also, I would say, a form of psychosis.
This is not healthy thinking. This is not biblical or godly thinking. This is not right thinking. And for a very long time in human history, this has been seen as perverse and psychologically as a sickness, as something that was wrong.
And they're wanting us to affirm this, and we just cannot affirm this as believers. We cannot affirm that a man is a woman or a woman is a man. Ellen Page is Ellen Page. She is a woman. Even if she takes drugs to give herself more testosterone, even if she has surgery to mutilate her body, she is a woman.
And she will always have the genes of a woman. And if in 100 years, if she dies and the earth is still around and her body is exhumed, at that point, if all they have to go on is the DNA that may still be found in her bones, or even the bone structure itself, let's say there's no way to get any DNA, but there's a bone structure, when the archaeologists, if by God's grace there are still archaeologists who can actually say men are men and women are women, they will look at the way her bones are structured and know that she was female and not male.
And so by engaging in the lie, I think that we are doing something that is unbiblical. Now I want to take a step back for a moment and say this. I know for many people this is a hugely emotional subject.
And for the sake of peace in the family, or for the sake of peace in a relationship, people have chosen to roll over on this and say, you know what, my friend wants to be called by their pronouns, whatever it is, man to woman or woman to man, and so I'm going to do this to satisfy them.
Or they say it's the Christian loving thing to do because this ultimately doesn't matter, it's just language. But here's the thing, it's not just language, it's lies and truth. It's a lie or it's the truth, and in this case we're dealing with a lie.
And even though we have to be sensitive to the emotions of others, we also have to be willing to speak the truth. And when I told the young people this, here's the scary thing, these children who were brought up in Christian homes, not just one of them, but a few of them were, wow, I don't think I could do that, I just have to go, I have to call them what they want to be called.
And now I have said this in the past, I want to clarify, I have said it at certain points, a name change is not as drastic as I think the pronoun change is. Calling Ellen Elliot is, for me, I wouldn't want to do it because I know that the reason for the change to Elliot is Elliot is a more masculine name, but I'm sure there have been girls who have been named Elliot.
Names are sort of oftentimes gender nonspecific. My brother's name is Bobby, but I knew girls growing up named Bobby. So there's Charlie, can be a boy's name, can be a girl's name. So in that regard, I think the name is less important as the pronoun because the pronoun, we are being asked to change the language completely, to get rid of pronouns.
And we're seeing that in certain places where they're saying we need to eliminate gender specific pronouns, he and she, and we need to go with something like Z, which is an X or is XI, and so this idea of lying, now again, the name thing, I would still call her Ellen and she doesn't know me, she doesn't care what I think.
I think that she is lying to herself. I think that she is continuing to go down a path of dangerous, going down a very dangerous path and I pray that God would grant her the gift of repentance. I pray that she would recognize that the sin of homosexuality, the sin of violating who you are, the person that God made us, and the Bible is very specific that men aren't supposed to dress like women, women aren't supposed to dress like men, we're not supposed to pretend to be something that we're not in regard to our sex and gender.
And as Christians, we cannot give up speaking that truth. It's hard, but we have to continue to say that it's true. The generation coming up, the younger generation are going to have an even harder time saying these things because the world around them is telling them, you just can't do it, it's too dangerous.
Mr. Foskey, you know that's dangerous to do that. And yes, it is. Even this podcast might be considered by some to be dangerous, who knows, it may even have to be taken off the air because what I'm saying is very, very unpopular.
But I want to finish with a story that's very interesting. I found out about the same time as I saw all the Ellen Page stuff come out, I saw something from Dr. John MacArthur and I just had to share it because it's on the same issue.
Apparently a few years ago, Dr. John MacArthur baptized a transgendered man who was dressed as a woman unknowingly, but he was suspicious. And basically the way Dr. MacArthur, and you can look this up, John MacArthur baptizes transgendered, it's he's telling the story, this isn't something I read or heard from someone else.
This is John MacArthur telling the story. And basically what he said was he had a person who came to him and he wasn't, I think the way he tells the story, I think he wasn't supposed to be doing the baptisms, but he ended up having to do it.
So he wasn't the one who actually took the person's confession of faith and he was basically just there to do the baptisms. He hadn't counseled with the person, which I'm sure in a big church that happens.
So he's ready to do the baptism and here comes what he described as a somewhat large, burly looking woman and had a very man like voice and yet described, used a feminine name and was dressed as a woman and appeared as a woman and was baptized.
And afterwards, John MacArthur told the people, I guess, whoever he's working with, I need to see that person immediately. The person was brought to his office and according to the story that he tells, he said, are you a man dressed as a woman?
And immediately the person began to defend themselves, I'm transgender, whatever, whatever. And MacArthur called that person to repentance and said, you cannot do this. You cannot continue to live in this sin.
If you've truly come to Christ, you must repent of sin. And this is not a battle with sin. This is you've given into the sin. You're living in the sin. You're wearing the sin literally on your body as a cloak.
And the person ended up leaving and going to another church and were welcomed into that church and based on what he said, they never came back to grace. So ultimately the point I'm making is this is already coming into the churches and this is an issue we will have to face.
And my question is this, will we roll over and accept what the culture says and that's it's just too dangerous to say anything or will we speak the truth? It is my prayer and my continued prayer that we as the people of God will continue to speak the truth no matter what the consequences.
So that is my thoughts on this latest issue of this latest controversy to come out of the news media on the subject of transgenderism. Thank you again for listening today to Coffee with a Calvinist. We'll be back tomorrow and we hope to see you then.
May God bless your day.
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As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. All who come to Him in repentance and faith will find Him to be a perfect Savior. He is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.
May God be with you.