A Christian Dad Sounds Off on the Lies About Transgender People and Restrooms

(Shared from "The Good Men Project: goodmenproject.com)

A Christian Dad Sounds Off on the Lies About Transgender People and Restrooms

Bruce Pagano is a devout Christian with strong principles. He respects those of his faith with whom he may disagree. He has a tough time, however, with those who deal in complete falsehoods. That is what he sees in today’s current discourse. He tells us why.

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If you had to explain it to someone from another country, what would you tell them appears to be the biggest issues facing our country? Our economy? The millions of people who live in poverty? Our hard broken justice system? The fact that a crazy misogynist has grabbed the GOP nomination essentially unchallenged? Nope, nope, nope and nope. Oddly, you would likely be closer if you said our biggest issue, especially within the conservative Christian camp, is whether a person should be able to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. Realistically this has been a point of contention and debate in one form or another for quite a few years, with instances like bakers refusing to make cakes for same gender weddings, the push to legalize same gender marriage, local government officials refusing to execute their civic duty when it comes to issuing said marriage licenses and a myriad of other rights that members of the LGBTQ community are working toward gaining. And in all that, Christians have been some of the loudest voices of opposition.

No More Shut Doors

(“And they say, ‘The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.’” Psalm 94:7)

I wonder how many Christians actually live like this; going about our life as if God doesn’t actually see or perceive what we are doing. Oh, I don’t mean the usual drinking, smoking, drug addiction and other illicit activity we like to shake our fingers at. I do remember, though, from both parents and preachers, the “eyes of the Lord” being a big incentive to refrain from diving headlong into uncharted sins.

Share a Slice

Share a Slice

I wonder who would take me to task for asking
questions no one else asks (but is thinking).
I wonder would my words be rehashed over the
tiny backlash they caused, though the ship (is not sinking).

I wonder, if I held my tongue, and never disrupted
the party line, sung only the verses we all know (from memory),
I wonder, if the bell was rung, not to incite a riot
among the faithful; just to fill the space (sometimes empty).

I would share a piece of my mind, a slice of my brain sustained
from the 90% unused. It is kind to speak truth or (raise my hand)
when pieces don’t fit, when pieces are missing. I would share
a piece of velvet, a piece of cake; a pie, a muffin, (no lies stuffed)

In the middle of honest thought some fear is heresy.

No Glass Jaws

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is pure. That’s the most important thing about it. And that’s not all. It also loves peace. It thinks about others. It obeys. It is full of mercy and good fruit. It is fair. It doesn’t pretend to be what it is not.” James 3:17

I used to follows boxing quite a bit. For a peaceful chap, know as a hippie and growing up  in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970s, I’m sure this seems a bit incongruent! Truth is, I haven’t watched a professional match in over 20 years. But back then I did: Ali, Frazier, Holyfield, Foreman, Sugar Ray Leonard; I would watch any time a top ranked bout was broadcast.

Honest Song

Honest Song

(“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13)

Now the day played upon their porches like
southern homes and sprawling lawns. Each morning
was the same,
the songs all remained in collective memory; planets
circling the comet tail of unwritten history. Lyrics barely
changed, (a word, a name, he and she), and we always recognized
the melody. Thousands of players and heard it around
the same porches on days as long as these. Some tapped time
to the trains clacking by; others to the crickets hidden from sight.

The children were shy once someone caught their eye, yet,
unobserved, they cartwheeled and caterwauled, ringing the
aging apple tree and whirled like Jupiter’s moons; holding hands,
a human carousel, the laughter lifting above the music until
everyone fell with the dizzying ease of equal parts child and
invisibility.

The old phrases take us home, the unwritten melodies, better
live
than recorded,
are the ones that have courted our hearts to love meadows
more than avenues,
and
maypoles more than
altitude.

With less knowledge than the perfected players,
the sheer truth of honest song presses kisses on the forehead
and grass stains on the knees.

The Christian's Motivation

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 2 Corinthians 5:14,15

It’s been said many, many times over. The thoughts are not original to me at all, but it is important that we keep this topic up front and center. “The love of Christ” is the nucleus of Christianity, the circumference of Christianity, and the unchanging premise of Christianity.

Light...not Smoke!

“He will give light to those who live in the dark and in death’s shadow. He will guide us into the way of peace.” Luke 1:79

A Barna Research Group poll conducted in the summer of 2013 found that atheists commit fewer crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than Christians. According to the survey, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists. Those professing no faith were tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate.

Strange Menus

“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!” Matthew 23:24

People are fond of pointing out the hypocrisy among church-goers. On a recent Family Feud broadcast 100 people were asked, “Where would you be most likely to find the most sinners?” The number one answer was “the church”, with 29 people giving the response. Nine answered, “in hell”. I’m sure a few viewers sighed, huffed, or threatened to boycott the game show. I am certain many other were quite tickled and laughed out loud.

Of Pride and Paying Attention

“Listen, and pay attention! Don’t be arrogant. The Lord has spoken.” Jeremiah 13:15

It really is the same old story; our mouths are what get us into a world of trouble. I was recently in a meeting where a committee member commented on a line item in the budget. His comment was obviously wrong, based on a misreading of the item. But, even after being shown the correct reading by more than one committee member, he continued by saying, “I know what it says. This has actually been an issue for a long time.” Instead of saying, “Oh my, I see that, I misread it”, he insisted he was correct with the evidence right in front of his nose.

Enjoying God's Ways

“Comfort me and let me live. I enjoy your teachings.” Psalm 119:77

Every serious follower of Jesus will come upon deep struggles of the soul from time to time. We may discover that some long-enjoyed activity is outside the realm of God’s blessing. I remember the time, early in my Christian walk, that I discovered passages that forbade reliance upon astrology. That didn’t create a very long or deep inward struggle as I always had a fairly rational view that the placement of stars light-years away held little sway over the activities of my miniscule life. But imagine if I had been a true devotee. I would have perhaps struggled a bit more.

Table for Two, Please

(“Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20)

A long-standing discussion starter is the question, “What person, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with?” Sometimes the question asks for the “top six” people, or asks you to put together a dinner party from five to 10 of your favorites. When asked as a poll question, Jesus Christ invariably ends up in the top 10, usually in the top five.

To Tell the Truth

“Moreover, the Eternal One of Israel will not lie or change his mind, because he isn’t a mere human being subject to changing his mind.” 1 Samuel 15:29

Truth; perhaps the most foreign concept to most of us. We like to think we are honest and we want to come off as truthful people, but we usually spend more energy maintaining an image than allowing our true selves to be found out. That is why so many relationships lack much intimacy or satisfaction at all. We never are sure whether others are being “who they are”, and we spend the same amount of time buffing up what we hope people will think about us.

Family DNA

“’But he said to them, ‘These people who hear the word of God and do it, they are my mother and my brothers.'” Luke 8:21

These words of Jesus are shocking. But I think the shock comes from how they sound, and not so much from what Jesus means. At first glance it seems Jesus is rejecting His family by blood and adopting family from an entirely different set of people.

To Tell the Truth

“An honest person has respect for the Lord. But a person whose paths are crooked hates him.” Proverbs 14:2

Whenever my mom suspected I had lied but had no confession forthcoming from her oldest son, she would almost always say, “You can keep it from me, but God knows if you are telling the truth or not. And, your ears always turn red when you lie.” I had to agree with her about the God bit; it was reasoning that I could not escape. The red ears I still wonder about, though. Whether or not they turned color when I lied as a child, I am exquisitely aware when I feel their blush now, all from her attempts at motherly interrogation.

He Healed Them

He Healed Them

(“Moving away from there, Jesus went along the sea of Galilee, climbed the hill and sat there.” Matthew 15:29)

We bring limps and aching, words we wasted,
fantastic thunder we thought was ours for the taking.
We bring our latest, our untasted seasons flavorless
for all our hot explanations.

We bring our tears and breaking, feuds we blooded,
brothers and sisters flooded by our dogma, our determination
to force the joints into place before You could touch them true.

We bring our sight and blindness, knots we tightened,
abrasive blindfolds we put over pretenses of kindness.
We bring our boil or freeze; we bring our luxury and ease,
We bring cuts and sharp; we bring dreary, we bring dull,
We bring our unfinished; we bring our diminished
proofs signed by the same ghosts You’ve named from
the beginning.

We bring our ending, we bring up the rear,
we bring up the past, we ring up the clear notes
we hope prove us innocent at last.

Who do You see, on the hill, under the tree,
as we elbow our way, morning to finally?

Who do you heal but the sick and maimed,
and why do we submit certificates of health: claimed, certified, insane.

We bring our innocence, broken at last;
we bring our signature, erased at last;
we bring our only hope, emptied at last.

And at last as first Your touch is birth and life,
we bring our claims and bury them,
our boasts and surrender them,
newborns breathing as first.

Mark, Who?

“Many will say to Me on that Day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Thy name and in Thy name cast out demons and in Thy name do many wonderful works?’ Then I will frankly say to them, ‘I never knew you! Get away from Me, you mischief workers!’” Matthew 7:22, 23

I admit it, names sometimes escape me. I’m not talking about the second cousin of a passing acquaintance who I met once leaving the coffee shop. The names I forget are people I connect with week to week. I’ll be talking to my wife and saying, “I really like the way…” Blank! No kidding; in place of the name in my memory there is a big black hole. Hopefully I can remember the last name, or the spouse’s name. Like, “Barrett…oh yeah, Jim and Joanne Barrett.” “Honey, I really like the way Jim Barrett sings. It reminds me a lot of…uhm…oops”. That’s right; I have to conjure up another forgotten name.

It really is quite embarrassing, especially when the time it takes to access the person’s name in my brain is a telltale sign I’ve forgotten them. Sometimes I can give myself a little more slack in the rope by adding modifiers and phrases to the sentence. “I really like the way, the beautiful way; he sings those parts in the choir that are lower than the other men’s parts. His singing is like a well-tuned foghorn. (whirr, zzzzip, ccrackle…the gears in my mind finally access the name) Don’t you like Jim’s singing too?” Honestly, I don’t think I fool anyone.

What will be more embarrassing, though, is to have Jesus say, “I never knew you.” Jesus never forgets a name, or a face; so what is this all about? The problem is all the tactics we think we have to use to get Him to take notice. Yes, Jesus plans to be forgetful, but not about our names! Doesn’t God tell us that He will “be merciful to their iniquities and remember their sins no more”? (Hebrews 8:12)

But still we show off, “prophesying in His name” and then looking around to make sure someone noticed how spiritual we are. We see demons behind everything from the common cold to hurricanes and tsunamis, and hope people hear how much authority we take casting out said demons. We claim miracles, but want the credit. All the while Jesus wants something entirely different from us.

As a matter of fact, He calls these people “mischief makers”. People who are so focused on grandstanding can easily miss the simple requirements Jesus makes. We want to cast out demons, He says “Love your neighbor”. We want to miraculously cure the sick, Jesus says, “If someone demands you walk a mile with them, go two.” We want the focus on us while we make great spiritual pronouncements when Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room privately, and you will be rewarded by Your Father who sees in private.”

On the other hand, there are a whole class of those who call on Jesus’ name that want to simply tack His name on to whatever current lifestyle they live. Jesus doesn’t make a difference, He makes them comfortable. Jesus doesn’t challenge them, He is supposed to coddle them. Jesus doesn’t demand transformation, He doesn’t tell the rich young ruler to give all His money to the poor and follow Him. He doesn’t tell the woman at the well He knows about her five previous husbands and the one she is living with now. He doesn’t insist the thief quit stealing, the adulterer quit being unfaithful.

For these people, Jesus makes them feel good, and they talk about feeling “blessed”, but hardly every talk about obedience. None of us ever will live up to the perfection of God’s holiness. That is why we needed God’s grace through Christ. But, Jesus calls us to changed lives, not excuses. He calls us to be holy, different, a light in the midst of darkness. Instead, many sit in the same darkness and just are glad that “Jesus is here with me.”

Either way, showing off for Jesus, or sloughing off, Jesus may very well say, “Who are you?” And it won’t be because of a lapsed memory. It will be because we never thought about what was really important to Him. We remained unchanged. Oh yes, our language changed. We talked about being blessed, and about miracles, and about demons and such, but our core remained focused on self. We either wanted to continue living our old life and just talk about Jesus “being with me”, or we did ok with the moral side, but still wanted the same attention we craved before we came to Christ.

And what about Jesus, what does He want? Maybe it’s time to stop trying to impress Him and simply read the gospels to discover what He truly wants from those who follow Him. Maybe it’s time to stop justifying behavior we know is disobedient to Him, and act as if we truly trust Him. Jesus couldn’t have said it clearer when He said, “If you love me, you will keep My commands.”

I want Him to know my name. I want, at the end of the age, to be able to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. I want to stop playacting Christianity. I want to bring everything; thoughts, emotions and actions into obedience to Christ. No, we will not be perfect this side of heaven, but we must at least be moving forward in maturity and obedience until He returns.