Is THIS the FUTURE? Will EVERYONE be queer? | Pastor Reacts

The Cultural Claim That “All Roads Lead to Queerdom”

All roads lead to queerdom. The T and the Q must inevitably devour the L and the G and the B. But this is where it gets interesting for us as Christians. So check this out. Welcome back to Wise Disciple, where we're helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

My name is Nate, and I'm very glad that you're with me. If this is your first time here, definitely avail yourself of the resources and videos that are for you. They're designed to bless you and to get you thinking.

Probably the most popular series right now on the channel is the Debate, Teach, React series that is designed to raise the level of discourse with regard to Christian and non-Christian. So I encourage you to check those out.

Why Carl Trueman’s Article Matters for Christians

Today, I've got a fascinating article that I think you and I need to go over and think through together. This article is from World Magazine, which is a Christian news-oriented organization. They have an article from Carl Truman entitled All Roads Lead to Queerdom?

Now, Truman, if you don't know, wrote one of the most important books to come out in the last few decades. In my opinion, it's called The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. This is a must-read if you are at all interested in diagnosing what specifically is wrong with our current iteration of society and how we got here.

I've drawn from Truman's writings many times to give lectures and make videos, and he has shaped how I view the issue of self and self-idolization in our Western culture. And I think that he is an important person to read.

Well, today, Truman writes this article. Actually, May 9th, he wrote the article. And what I want to draw attention to is the question of how we should respond as Christians, particularly as pastors and church leaders.

What should we do? What should we say? How should we navigate the culture that we find ourselves in that appears to be deeply subservient to the LGBTQ agenda? So let's go through the article here. It says, 12 months ago, Baylor University granted an official charter to an LGBTQ group identified as PRISM.

At the time, I commented that such a group would be unlikely to remain just one more club on campus. LGBTQ activism is distinct in its claim to exclusive rights over who is allowed to opine on sexuality, on identity, and on what it means to be an acceptable member of society.

Criticism is not a sign of intellectual dissent, but of moral reprehensibility. Now, if you haven't seen it, I reacted to atheist Peter Boghossian articulating the woke agenda in a previous video. I encourage you to go back and watch that because he explains why this is the case, why clash in our society right now is considered unacceptable.

And it's essentially because woke ideology exists in a paradigm of what's called power dynamics. So either the ones that are in power will keep power, or a new group will come along and take the power away from the ones who have it.

This is Game of Thrones, you know, you win, lose when it comes to furthering the woke agenda, and much of this power exists in speech. So when you start thinking about things like dissent, I mean, you know, I'm Gen X, so it was still cool when I was growing up to say, I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Does anybody remember that? That was a noble ideal to hold to. Now that is morphed into, I disapprove of what you say, so let's take away your right to say it. This explains the idea behind speech is violence.

You know, I mean, think about it, like, how can anything as benign as audio vibrations in the air, which is what speech technically is, how can that have any causal powers whatsoever to create violence?

Well, it's because you begin by adopting the ideology of power dynamics. Speech is power, and so therefore to speak out against my beliefs is to do work to take away my power. So then the thinking goes, I should take away your power first.

That's what's going on here. To be fair, Baylor's broader situation is scarcely unique. There is likely not a single college in the United States where there are not LGBTQ students. The question of how address the LGBTQ phenomenon at the level of official campus culture is going to be a pressing one for administrators, teachers, and other students for many years to come.

And the need to be pastoral with regard to individuals, but firm with regard to moral principle and political lobbying is going to prove very tricky terrain to negotiate. This is why I wanted to talk to you today.

The Moral Consequences of Official LGBTQ Sanction

But let me get there. When Baylor chartered PRISM, it was thus really offering itself as a test case for where such official endorsement of an LGBTQ group might lead. The advocacy of queer sex education makes two things obvious.

First, once official sanction is given to a body such as PRISM, the moral core of the institution's approach to sex is effectively eviscerated. An astounding step for a Christian institution. The anti-Christian philosophy of sex, a self-expression that underlies the sexual revolution, surely finds its most dramatic expression in queer ideology.

And what Freud referred to as polymorphous perversity has now become mainstream as queer theory. In layman's terms, this means that anything goes and any restrictions, any attempts to define normative sexual codes or relationships are inherently oppressive.

In short, Christianity with its set of sexual taboos and restrictions is about as opposed to queerness as it is possible to be. C .S. Lewis spoke of the abolition of man. That is what you have when you abolish sexual codes.

Yet a Christian university now sanctions this. So the abolition of man was C .S. Lewis's defense of objective moral values and his case, so to speak, against moral relativism. And Truman is saying that when you abolish sexual codes, you do so on the basis of moral relativism, on the basis of denying objective reality.

And when you do that, anything goes. The problem is, if you are the type of person to adopt an anything goes sexual mentality, along with the idea that those who disagree with you must be silenced, then the question becomes, should you be given power in our society at all?

Right? Because we're seeing the consequences of these kinds of folks being given authority. And it's led to the freedom of a very select few and the oppression of everyone else who disagrees. Second, it shows that in our current culture of sexual identities and free expression, all roads lead to queerdom.

That the course is specifically for queer sex ed rather than gay sex ed or lesbian sex ed is not coincidental. The T and the Q must inevitably devour the L and the G and the B, because those three initials at least recognize the authority of the sexed body at some level.

The T and the Q deny that, period. That is why gay men, such as Andrew Sullivan, can be decried as transphobes for making the once rather obvious point that gay men are sexually attracted to other men, not women pretending to be men.

We're going to talk about this in just a moment, all right? Stick with me. The alliance is philosophically incoherent and must either break apart or homogenize. And the process of homogenization inevitably tilts queer.

Once you start playing the game of category destabilization based upon an attenuation or denial of biological reality and upon claims to marginalization and victimhood, it becomes very hard to stop. Queerness, the repudiation of any and all stable categories, is really the only possible outcome.

Are you following this? Because I'm about to get to what this means for us as Christians and how we should respond. By the way, I'm trying to do a lot to earn the right to speak into your life, so if I have done that, if I've done some work to do that, then please consider liking and subscribing to the channel.

It just helps me to get the message out, and I think more and more Christians need to hear what we're talking about today, amen? So the point is this. The acronym LGBTQ cannot sustain itself. Why? Well, because two of those acronyms, all right, the T and the Q, must inevitably devour the rest.

And when that happens, the future for them is going to be everyone queer. Remember the old, what is it, Herbert Hoover had a quote from, you know, the 1920s, every chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.

Remember that? This was a promise that Hoover made during his presidential campaign. Well, now it's a Q in every pot and two Ts in every garage. That's essentially where this is all headed, according to Truman.

And I don't know if he's exactly right, but I suspect that he's pretty close. I suppose the other axiomatic element that must be considered as well is the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And so in that sense, I see the coherence of the LGBTQ acronym remaining strong, perhaps longer than Truman does, but, you know, I could be wrong about that. But this is where it gets interesting for us as Christians.

So check this out. And there lies the challenge to us all. Whether churches, colleges, or other institutions, all congregations and campuses, no matter how conservative, will have young people struggling with or committed to the ideas and identities represented by the LGBTQ movement.

And all congregations and campuses have the moral obligation of pastoral care for such. All have to provide an environment in which individuals are treated with kindness and respect. These are not the points at issue.

Okay, a moment ago, I read a line from this article. Let me bring us back there one more time. And the need to be pastoral with regard to individuals but firm with regard to moral principle and political lobbying is going to prove very tricky terrain to negotiate.

So in other words, how should we? It's not just pastors, guys. It's all of us as Bible-believing Christian worldview-affirming Jesus followers. How should we navigate what the future is going to look like?

Because the bottom line is, I agree with Truman, no matter how conservative they are, all young people will struggle with either identity issues themselves or affirming those who struggle. Why? Because the vast majority will have adopted the LGBTQ worldview.

By osmosis, I suppose. Now, Truman has his own answer, and so do I. So let's hear Truman's answer first. But in doing these things, there is also the absolute non-negotiable need to maintain a normative view of what it means to be human, and therefore of what the moral shape of a life well-lived should look like.

That too is part of our unavoidable moral obligation as Christians, and that is prior to and foundational for how we understand what it means to be kind and respectful. To be Christian in any meaningful sense, Christian pastoral care must be shaped by Christian doctrine, not vice versa.

The road to queerdom rides roughshod over such, and no Christian institution can therefore afford to grant queerness official sanction. So, Truman is saying a few things. First, we need to understand what it means to be a human being.

We need to understand what it means and be able to articulate that to everyone around us, which means, and I've said this before, we need to create a space in church for difficult conversations. I think a lot of churches, just from my own experience with churches around the country, a lot of them have adopted a general stance of avoidance on cultural hot-button issues.

Maybe you've heard your pastor say something like this before, but it's often accompanied with phrases like, you know, at this church, we're not here to be political. We're here to preach the gospel, okay?

You ever heard that one before? It sounds great, but very often what that does, in effect, is to compartmentalize the gospel into something that should not be disconnected from the rest of the world. I've heard it said like this, there is no sacred-secular divide.

All things are subject to God and his kingdom, and therefore, all things connect. They are interconnected to the Christian worldview as shaped by the scriptures. Does that mean the Bible tells you specifically who to vote for?

No, but it certainly does not let you off the hook in being a Christian and thinking as a Christian when you go to vote. So what does that have to do with this article? Well, we cannot believe that being human and the study of what it means to be a human somehow never intersects with what the Bible teaches or with the gospel message.

To be fully human is to embrace the gospel. Why? Why do I say that? Because to be human is to live according to our purpose as humans, which brings us back to our relationship with God and our obedience to his design for us.

That is what the gospel brings us back to, ladies and gentlemen. It's all interconnected. And so that means that we need to be Christians who understand just as much about what it means to be human as we do the gospel.

And we need to be able to articulate these things to our other brothers and sisters in our church families, particularly those in the next generation, because they are the ones who are being confronted with this ungodly ideology on a regular basis.

That's the first thing. The second thing is, we need to be shaped and led and guided by Christian doctrine, which means we need to know the fundamental tenets of our faith and we need to understand the fully developed categories of the doctrines that we hold to.

We need to be better students of church history and we need to gladly stand on the shoulders of those giants of the faith who came before us and paved a path so that we could walk in confidence in the face of challenges just like the ones we're looking at today.

The Image of God, Human Desire, and Christian Anthropology

For example, there is a category of Christian doctrine devoted to what's called the Imago Dei, being made in the image of God. What does that mean? Lean in because I want you to hear this. Do you realize, if we answer that question well, if we understand what, say, Irenaeus had to say about it or Augustine, if we inform ourselves of the answers the church has delineated over the last couple thousand years, we'll be able to know what it means to be human because humans were made in the image of God.

So to know the Imago Dei is to understand what it means to be human. What's fascinating is, if you look at Adam's name in Hebrew, right? I don't want to go off too much on a rabbit trail here, but let's just explore this just for a minute longer, okay?

You have three letters, Aleph, Dalet, and Mem, okay? This is in Hebrew. If you look at the last two of those letters, Dalet and Mem, those two letters are the word for blood. Did you know that? Well, what is the Hebrew understanding of blood and its function, right?

Blood is the place of the passions, and your blood is where your desires live. Now, what is Aleph by itself? Aleph is a word all by itself, which means to teach, it means to lead, perhaps to rule, okay?

So what happens when you put the word for all of these letters for man or mankind, when you put all of those things together, you get this idea of leading or controlling your desires. And so when you get to Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, and it says, then God said, let us make man in our image, then we can see that to be a human made in the image of God is to be a creature that controls our desires.

And if we can grasp that, then we can begin to see a clear contrast between the world's notion of what it means to be human and following after our desires, and the Bible's notion of what it means to be human and controlling our desires, right?

I mean, think about the world, you know, like what it's trying to tell us for so many years now. How many movies tell you to follow your own heart? How many stories and songs tell you to do what you feel is good and right and true, and to not even simply let those desires control you, but to define you and to shape your entire identity, right?

That's what the next generation is struggling with. Don't you see, guys, the clear connection between the creation of humanity in the image of God, the fall, which was essentially the serpent, you know, convincing Eve to let her desire overtake her and to eat the fruit that she desired, and then Jesus teaching all the way in the Gospels to pick up your cross and die to your desires, to die to self and to follow him.

Jesus said in Mark 8 34, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. It's all interconnected if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. We need to understand what it means to be human.

As Christians, we need to let our own doctrine and theology shape our understanding, and we need to be able to articulate this to our brothers and sisters, especially the next generation. That means bucking against the current trend in church, which is to avoid difficult conversations, to avoid controversy, to avoid depth of teaching with regard to doctrine and theology, but instead to invite clash, to create a culture in our homes, neighborhoods, and churches, where we invite those around us to wrestle critically with big ideas, to set a culture at the pulpit.

Pastors, I'm talking to you now. To set a culture at the pulpit, because that's where church culture is typically set, where we inspire our congregants to prepare themselves as if for battle, because let's face it, this is a war for the hearts and the minds and the souls of those around us.

And to put our heads in the sand and pretend that we're somehow safe from the onslaught of the lies designed to undermine God's creation and humanity itself is foolishness. And if you're not a church leader or a pastor, that just means in your home, in your school, or in your workplace, or wherever you are, just getting into the habit of being a person who asks way more questions than making speeches.

You're going to get tired of me saying this after a while, but take a look at my First Aid Evangelism series. It will get you started. I'll leave a link for it in the notes. We need to stop taking for granted the things that we hear, but instead ask clarification questions, ask justification questions for the claims folks make around us.

And let's start asking leading questions to evaluate and expose the flaws that we see in other people's worldview. Let's get into the habit of challenging bad ideas by asking the kinds of questions and seeking the truth wherever it lies.

Because as you and I know, if you are a believer in Jesus, all truth is God's truth. Well, anyway, those are my thoughts and ramblings for this particular video. And thank you so much for watching this.

Be encouraged. Let us go out now and live by the truths that we have just considered, okay? Definitely check out the article in its entirety. I'll leave a link for that in the notes below. Now it's time to hear from you.

How exactly do you think that we should respond in the face of all roads leading to queerdom? Do you even agree with Truman that all roads will eventually get there? Let me know in the comments below.

I'd love to interact. As always, I've got more videos for your consideration, but in the meantime, I'll say bye for now.