Culture: November 2019 Archives
For 11 Years, She Lived as a Man - Daily Signal
An interview with Kathy Grace Duncan, who desisted from living as a man after 11 years.
"Growing up in a dysfunctional family, I believed that women were hated, women were weak, women were vulnerable, and I didn't want that. I didn't want to grow up and be those things....
"I think rather than addressing that symptom--because really that's all it is, is a symptom of a deeper something that's going on--it's trying to look past and asking the why. "Why do you want to live as a man? Why do you think that that's better? Why do you think it's safer? Why is your gender bad?"
"And exploring what [are] the ideas around that and then addressing those things. Because usually it's a place of trauma, or perceived trauma, for them that says, 'Oh, this is not good. Who I am is not good.' And detaching from that and actually becoming hateful of your own self. And that was one of the things I really had to deal with was deep, deep self-hatred just because I was a woman....
"Well, I guess my question for [legislators] would be, 'Have you considered the emotional health? Have you looked at these kids emotionally?' Yeah, they're saying, 'This is what I feel,' but your feelings can lie to you and I can tell you that they lie to you. The way you feel is not always the truth. They need to look underneath all of that.
"'I feel that I'm a boy.' OK. 'Why do you feel that you're a boy?' I would encourage them to look at, do you have the data around the emotional health of that child?
"And looking at the data for those who have already gone through that and have the regret and the emotional trauma that they've gone through, and now they can't really change back necessarily or fully change back.
"So I would encourage them, you need to look beyond the symptoms and you need to get to the cause. What is the root cause of that before you pass any laws about gender identity and boys going into girls' bathrooms?"
Podcast: The Benedict-Kuyper Option - Break Point
John Stonestreet, speaking at the Touchstone conference, applies the insights of Calvinist philosopher Abraham Kuyper to Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. (Audio.)
The Sorry State of Evangelical Rhetoric - Sovereign Nations
Stephen Wolfe writes:
"The social justice talk in evangelicalism is remarkable for the absence of systematic thinking on the pertinent questions of justice. One rarely encounters precise and detailed theories of justice and careful applications.... The actual moral conclusion or determination precedes the moral principle. So their reasoning has a two-step sequence:
"1) Have a negative, moral reaction to something, a reaction that one is socialized to perform (perhaps on social media) upon encountering some event.
"2) Christianize the moral impression by confidently stating an extremely broad principle or statement from the Bible ('love your neighbor') or some other Christian-like statement without any attempt to make distinctions or qualifications or systematize or consider competing goods....
"...it is irrelevant that a consistent application of the principle would lead to all sorts of absurd outcomes, policies, actions, etc. For example, if one were to react to a restrictive immigration policy by affirming, without any distinctions or nuance, "the universal dignity of all people" or by saying that Christians ought to "love your neighbor," then how can any immigration restriction or even the illegality of border crossing stand up to the demands of Christian morality? But the logical consequences of the supplied principle are irrelevant, because it doesn't function in their reasoning as the determinate of their moral conclusions....
"...It is effective and expedient rhetoric, but wholly unprincipled. Even worse, it forms habits of thinking among evangelicals that are bad for them. Indeed, it is an abuse of the mind. The social justice evangelicals use and enforce rhetoric that harms people...."
"The two-step process of evangelical moral reasoning does very little, and perhaps nothing, that enables evangelicals to resist the world's moral influence. They will shift and progress with the moral doctrines of the world; and the superstructure of christianizing devices, which are extremely broad in the possibilities of their application, will always fulfill its purpose, regardless of the impression--it will always christianize and elevate moral conclusions into Christian morality. "
Pastor Steven Wedgeworth offers a pithy summary, a pattern I've noticed in articles that seem aimed at dislodging Christians from their support for conservative politicians:
"1) Decry a position that no one holds, 2) Affirm a position everyone supports, 3) Declare that this proves a different, more contentious point."
What's 'Incredibly Damaging To The Gospel,' Joshua Harris, Are Your Lies - Katy Faust
Katy Faust of Them Before Us writes:
"The denial of sexual and marital norms by believers is often adjacent to a rejection of the core tenets of the faith. That's because to arrive at these 'inclusive' and 'affirming' positions on marriage, Christians must exalt intoxicants such as emotion over uncompromising scripture, tradition, and natural law. Once you shift the authority from sola scriptura to sola feels, it's only a matter of time before every other orthodox teaching finds itself on the woke chopping block....
"There are many areas in this Christian life where honest believers can disagree. Sex and marriage is not one of them. No amount of textual contortions can land you in a place where God affirms same-sex marriage because in scripture (and law), marriage is connected to parenting. Redefining marriage, in a Christian or cultural context, redefines parenthood in a way that makes mothers or fathers optional in the life of a child. That's a problem because Christians are repeatedly commanded to protect the fatherless, not create them.
"That's why biblical prescriptions on sex and marriage result in safeguarding the rights of children. Adults directing their sexual appetites into lifelong heterosexual union sets children up for success. When we fully understand the transformative nature of the gospel, adults have the power to conform their lives to God's good design, and children are the primary beneficiaries."
"At one time, the elite at least attempted to conceal their boundless enthusiasm for population control from the general public, but now they aren't even trying to hide it anymore. On Tuesday, an alarming new study that advocates global population control as one of the solutions to the "climate emergency" that we are facing was published in the journal BioScience. This document has already been signed by 11,258 scientists from 153 different countries, and it openly calls for a reduction in the human population of our planet. This has always been the endgame for the climate change cult, but now a big push is being made to make the public believe that there is a "scientific consensus" that this is necessary."
Auburn student newspaper attacks professor for views expressed on his personal Facebook account. Authors Anthony Esolen and Robert A. J. Gagnon weigh in in the comments section. Esolen writes:
"Professor Murray has the same kinds of things to say about boys who sleep with their girl friends. And about men and women who divorce. And about men and women who commit adultery. He says what people until the day before yesterday pretty much all accepted: certain kinds of sexual behavior are wrong. They hurt the actors in the very act, as all wrong actions do, and they hurt the society roundabout. That is the turf on which the arguments must be conducted. You do not get to say, 'Oh dear, how horrible it is that somebody believes that X is wrong,' when, first, X has met widespread disapproval and not just from our own culture, and when the somebody gives reasons why he believes so, reasons that are based on observation of human realities (children need a married mother and father committed to one another for the very long term -- really, for life) and on the religious faith that is the foundation of his culture itself.
"Grow up, people. Make your case. Men fight in the arena of ideas. Fight, then. No tears allowed. Appeals to fear are out of bounds -- this man has NEVER had a single complaint against him. Or do not make your case, but live your lives and take the consequences, but do not expect the whole world to go along with you."
