In addition to a drastic decline in the traditional Christian practice of morality, there has been a deliberate corruption of official church doctrine, through the influence of big liberal NGO type of grants handed to ministers, priests, bishops, and religious institutions in order to change them. When the various church jurisdictions decided that 'gender didn't matter' when it came to appointing women clergy, then gender didn't matter when it came to marriage (two of the same gender could marry). Eventually, now, gender doesn't even matter on an individual level. People can just 'choose' what they want. We must remember that a lot of this began because religious leaders were corrupted by money from the top down. It is now even happening in the last bastion of Christianity, the Orthodox Church. The faithful laity need to criticize many of the clergy, hungry for more income,
At that point, it would be very little we can control as they can move totally free from our influence. So, as Saint Porphyrios and Elder Thaddeus would say: "pray"
Ben, I just watched the YouTube video “Trapped in the Wrong Body?” It paralleled this article in many ways but I was jotting down all of the references you give and you mention two that interest me a great deal in addition to the ones you mention here --Metropolitan Ierotheos’ book on spiritual medicine and Bishop Trader’s book on CBT, now both on my list to read. I am reading The Rise of the Modern Self right now. The political, cultural, scientific, and theological perspectives on the trans movement are interesting and important. My sub is unique I suppose because it is none of those. It’s just a first hand account of how this is affecting my family and my faith. That’s all I’m equipped to do but thank you for the work you’re doing!
Thank you for writing this 🙏 As the mother of a teenage girl who started to dabble in this craziness at the age of 12-14, heavily guided by social media use (that I should have been monitoring more closely), this hits close to home. We've worked it out, and it was hard, but thank GOD she's doing a lot better now.
All of these difficult years got me thinking a lot. For us as Orthodox Christians, we don't believe that God makes "mistakes" nor that biological sex or gender are arbitrary. In fact, by going just an inch deep into our theology you find some really beautiful profound understanding of gender and of masculine and feminine. But we NEED to make sure that we are not being reactionary towards individuals who might turn to the church for help. Really I've wondered how we can make people realize the church IS where they need to come for help. I truly understand that we cannot and should not "affirm" the line of evil, destructive crap these poor people have been fed their whole lives and I shudder when I hear people talking about Christians accepting all this LGBTQIA+/trans nonsense. We cannot. We also need to make sure that we never ever turn away from individual PEOPLE who were made in the image of Christ who need our help and need someone to be the light of Christ in their world.
How do we do this? This is what has been on my mind. How do we as Orthodox Christians, who truly cannot and should not affirm any of the lies these people have been fed, show them that we love them? That Jesus loves them? That they are more than a walking image of an ideology? It's really like walking on the edge of a knife, because everything these people are being told by these online communities is that 'people like us' (traditional Christians and the like) hate them and want them to die. No! We might hate the ideology that has harmed them, sure! But we want them to come to know Christ. Then they'll begin to see some of their other issues in a different light. How do you affirm a person, whose personhood is real and valuable and worthy of love, when that person is essentially brainwashed into believing that he or she is an embodiment of this evil ideology, that the ideology itself is inseparable from the individual? Whatever said ideology it is, whether it's queer or trans or whatever, you're absolutely right to say that this weird movement towards individuality being tied to sexual actions or feelings is having a profoundly negative effect on a lot of people. This has all been gnawing at my mind for a while now. How do we help victims of this insanity, particularly young people, see that they are more than that?
What is pernicious about this, with regards to Christianity, is that this dangerous nonsense is shoved on churches by playing on a strong sense of Christian guilt and compassion. The repeated accusation insisting on reality is also "wanting people to die" automatically puts people on the back foot. Their instinctive response is always going to be "No, of course I don't want that..." but by the time you get that out you're already on the rhetorical defensive (many ideologues use this tactic quite often when they doesn't want to actually debate a point - accuse opponent of a strawman rather than defend their own points). People just get worn down.
Thanks for this excellent article Ben :) Would you say the Church allows for the possibility that, whilst rejecting the "gender identity" ideology, a small minority of people may need to act as if they are the opposite sex, essentially as a treatment for a mental health condition? I feel like when we admit that gender dysphoria is simply a mental health problem, one which is usually solved by talk-therapy and CBT (and of course prayer and the life in Christ), then we must also admit the possibility that a vanishingly small percentage of people suffering from gender dysphoria, may actually benefit from a "trans-sexual" lifestyle. Hope that makes sense!
So I'm a little confused. Are you in support of watchful waiting? Because if you're taking a transmedicalist position then I think this is all fairly solid, but if not then it feels like there's a few fairly glaring gaps in the argument.
In addition to a drastic decline in the traditional Christian practice of morality, there has been a deliberate corruption of official church doctrine, through the influence of big liberal NGO type of grants handed to ministers, priests, bishops, and religious institutions in order to change them. When the various church jurisdictions decided that 'gender didn't matter' when it came to appointing women clergy, then gender didn't matter when it came to marriage (two of the same gender could marry). Eventually, now, gender doesn't even matter on an individual level. People can just 'choose' what they want. We must remember that a lot of this began because religious leaders were corrupted by money from the top down. It is now even happening in the last bastion of Christianity, the Orthodox Church. The faithful laity need to criticize many of the clergy, hungry for more income,
and protest.
So, what can a parent do when their child gets wrapped up in the cult of transgenderism at the age of 20+ and is no longer living at home?
At that point, it would be very little we can control as they can move totally free from our influence. So, as Saint Porphyrios and Elder Thaddeus would say: "pray"
Ben, I just watched the YouTube video “Trapped in the Wrong Body?” It paralleled this article in many ways but I was jotting down all of the references you give and you mention two that interest me a great deal in addition to the ones you mention here --Metropolitan Ierotheos’ book on spiritual medicine and Bishop Trader’s book on CBT, now both on my list to read. I am reading The Rise of the Modern Self right now. The political, cultural, scientific, and theological perspectives on the trans movement are interesting and important. My sub is unique I suppose because it is none of those. It’s just a first hand account of how this is affecting my family and my faith. That’s all I’m equipped to do but thank you for the work you’re doing!
I will be writing a bit about it here
https://open.substack.com/pub/kimmariehancock/p/the-great-disconnect?r=8nyuo&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thank you for writing this 🙏 As the mother of a teenage girl who started to dabble in this craziness at the age of 12-14, heavily guided by social media use (that I should have been monitoring more closely), this hits close to home. We've worked it out, and it was hard, but thank GOD she's doing a lot better now.
All of these difficult years got me thinking a lot. For us as Orthodox Christians, we don't believe that God makes "mistakes" nor that biological sex or gender are arbitrary. In fact, by going just an inch deep into our theology you find some really beautiful profound understanding of gender and of masculine and feminine. But we NEED to make sure that we are not being reactionary towards individuals who might turn to the church for help. Really I've wondered how we can make people realize the church IS where they need to come for help. I truly understand that we cannot and should not "affirm" the line of evil, destructive crap these poor people have been fed their whole lives and I shudder when I hear people talking about Christians accepting all this LGBTQIA+/trans nonsense. We cannot. We also need to make sure that we never ever turn away from individual PEOPLE who were made in the image of Christ who need our help and need someone to be the light of Christ in their world.
How do we do this? This is what has been on my mind. How do we as Orthodox Christians, who truly cannot and should not affirm any of the lies these people have been fed, show them that we love them? That Jesus loves them? That they are more than a walking image of an ideology? It's really like walking on the edge of a knife, because everything these people are being told by these online communities is that 'people like us' (traditional Christians and the like) hate them and want them to die. No! We might hate the ideology that has harmed them, sure! But we want them to come to know Christ. Then they'll begin to see some of their other issues in a different light. How do you affirm a person, whose personhood is real and valuable and worthy of love, when that person is essentially brainwashed into believing that he or she is an embodiment of this evil ideology, that the ideology itself is inseparable from the individual? Whatever said ideology it is, whether it's queer or trans or whatever, you're absolutely right to say that this weird movement towards individuality being tied to sexual actions or feelings is having a profoundly negative effect on a lot of people. This has all been gnawing at my mind for a while now. How do we help victims of this insanity, particularly young people, see that they are more than that?
This is a great question! I'll be thinking more about it as well…
I have read that Ishtar, and her priests, had the power to change their followers' gender.
This deception has ancient roots, imho.
What is pernicious about this, with regards to Christianity, is that this dangerous nonsense is shoved on churches by playing on a strong sense of Christian guilt and compassion. The repeated accusation insisting on reality is also "wanting people to die" automatically puts people on the back foot. Their instinctive response is always going to be "No, of course I don't want that..." but by the time you get that out you're already on the rhetorical defensive (many ideologues use this tactic quite often when they doesn't want to actually debate a point - accuse opponent of a strawman rather than defend their own points). People just get worn down.
Thanks for this excellent article Ben :) Would you say the Church allows for the possibility that, whilst rejecting the "gender identity" ideology, a small minority of people may need to act as if they are the opposite sex, essentially as a treatment for a mental health condition? I feel like when we admit that gender dysphoria is simply a mental health problem, one which is usually solved by talk-therapy and CBT (and of course prayer and the life in Christ), then we must also admit the possibility that a vanishingly small percentage of people suffering from gender dysphoria, may actually benefit from a "trans-sexual" lifestyle. Hope that makes sense!
So I'm a little confused. Are you in support of watchful waiting? Because if you're taking a transmedicalist position then I think this is all fairly solid, but if not then it feels like there's a few fairly glaring gaps in the argument.
I believe watchful waiting is far superior model to gender affirming care
Alright. I wasn't trying to entrap you or anything there, hopefully I didn't give that impression
You're good! No worries :D