Baptists Invented Transgenderism?

Good morning, everyone. I just want to make a quick response to this video, which is trending right now on Twitter.

Individualism, Institutions, and the Modern Self

He actually talks in there about the difference between the older way of viewing institution was that the institution existed to form and shape us, but now with this individual expression idea, we've turned institutions into platforms upon which we express ourselves.

And really, we've done that kind of with the sacraments. We've done that with... It's all exists to serve me. Yeah, it all exists. It's all a chance for me to kind of express who I am. We've done that with our corporate worship.

Yeah, think of the definition that you've heard of baptism most of your life, right? It's an outward sign of an inward truth. It's a way that I stand up and say to the world, I'm a Christian now, right?

That is a new modernist understanding of our selfhood that we're coming into the world. And the world said, hey, I can run with that definition of selfhood and they've been running down this road a long ways.

And now because of the paganism, getting to the point where you need a phallic symbol to latch on to, for your identity, this is what we run into. But the reality is, this is just American Baptist theology secularized.

There's another issue too. So you have the individualism thing that you're talking about.

Why the Baptist Theology Claim Is Silly

Here's another clip. On the show, but didn't get the chance. You know, let's say I'm Baptist wrench. Yeah. And you just said what you said.

I know. David gave me permission.

You came out and said that my view of waiting till my child is ready to confess faith in our Lord and then baptize him is related to the identity crisis found in transgenderism.

Yeah. And I didn't say related to, I said is the cause of. I was trying to be nice.

Trying to give you an out. This may be one of the sillier things I've heard come out of a Christian's mouth. If you're familiar with Carl Truman's rise and triumph of the modern self, Jason Farley actually makes a similar argument.

Carl Truman links expressive individualism to the sexual revolution. If someone is trying to find their true authentic self, they must dive deep down inside the inner recesses of themselves to find it, despite what society, biology or theology have to say.

Farley goes the extra step of linking expressive individualism to Baptist theology. Because Baptists believe one is not qualified to participate in the ordinance of baptism until they have an inner assurance of salvation and are ready to express this truth to the world.

They are somehow similar to transgender people coming out about their real selves. One wonders why Farley didn't use other examples such as membership in a voluntary association or marriage itself to prove they, in fact, are responsible for leading to transgenderism.

After all, one does not join a bowling league or professional organization without first individually affirming that one belongs and proving it by some external action. Marriage likewise represents a covenant between two people who inwardly make a decision to change something about their own identity.

Why cannot voluntary marriages or democratic elections, as opposed to the divine right of kings, be the basis upon which transgender philosophy was erected? Because such connections would be rather silly.

The problem is that expressive individualism is not so much to blame as anti-structuralism. If gender is simply a social construct, then it's not the real, authentic, ontological self which invented transgenderism, but rather the experiences produced by social forces.

People think they are non-binary because of experiences they undergo. It's because they are born into a social fabric that defines them. If gender is rooted in nothing deeper than the interwoven tapestry of social forces, then it isn't the discovery of the self that produces transgenderism, but rather the erasure of the self.

This can be seen in more than gender theory. Race is also a social construct, so the postmodernists tell us. One only has to recount the list of black voices who are deemed to be inauthentic simply because they lack what the sociologists call the black experience.

You see, it's not enough to have genetics or to think oneself is black. One must be socially constructed through experiences of oppression in order to be truly black. Similarly, one can be oppressed and white but still maintains white privilege simply because they supposedly experience benefits accrued from the rest of society.

Social forces then erase the individual in favor of an external self-producing power structure. If this is true, would not Presbyterianism, which asserts that one is born into a covenant community regardless of their choice, be a better candidate for what produced transgenderism?

After all, look at the mainline Presbyterian denominations and whether or not they have pride flags flying outside their churches. Of course not, because this logic is silly. Neither Presbyterianism nor Baptist theology produced transgenderism.

Sin, the World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Scripture says that evil comes from three basic places, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Could it be that transgenderism is rebellion against the Creator's laws in the natural realm? Could it be that people have traded the truth for a lie?

Could it be that if society was more Baptist or more Presbyterian in the orthodox sense, there would be less transgenderism? This comment is silly and I do hope it's retracted.