Well, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
You remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy’s house crashes after the tornado had spun it around in the sky. She opens the front door and outside is not the drab black-and-white world of a farm in rural Kansas, but the brilliant Technicolor world of Oz. She is now in a dazzling new world of munchkins, wizards, and witches. This stark visual transition in the film from back-and-white to color is quite effective in helping the audience understand the sea-change that has occurred in the narrative. We are leaving a simple story about teenage angst on a farm in Kansas and are now in the fantasy world of Oz where anything is possible.
That’s where we are today in terms of sexuality—we’ve definitely left the black-and-white world for a fantasy one where seemingly anything is possible (though certainly not desirable). To be clear, sexuality hasn’t changed significantly since Adam and Eve left the garden. It is an important dimension of our humanity (though not our total or even our primary identity). What has undergone a sea change is not our sexuality, but our “understanding” of it.
- We have organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood telling us that men menstruate, get pregnant, and have babies. “There is no one way to be a man.” And we are expected to speak this way ourselves to accommodate them or we will be labeled “haters” or some kind of phobic. Respectful disagreement is not an option.
- There’s Drag Queen Story hour—something heavily promoted by the American Library Association, where men come in dressed as women and read stories to children promoting the LGBTQIA+ lifestyle.
- You may remember Oprah did a show on a “man” being pregnant. (Of course, it was a woman who had altered her appearance to look like a man. She had taken some male hormones and had something of a beard. But chromosomally and anatomically she was a woman, and she knew that. She had been inseminated and became pregnant. It was her plan after her child was born to have sexual reassignment surgery).
- One popular social change group had on the What We Believe portion of their website (it has since been removed but with no new statement or explanation), “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” (Note there is nothing said about fathers).
- They also said, “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise). The beliefs also mentioned “cisgender privilege” and “patriarchal practice.”
- A nine-year old boy was brought forward at a political event where there were 4,000 people in attendance. He went on stage and asked the candidate if he would “help me to tell the world I’m gay?” The candidate, who is in a same sex relationship, encouraged the boy in his decision.
- Hallmark—the bastion of chaste movies—where the couples don’t even kiss until the end of the movie, now has movies about people in same sex relationships.
- There are commercials with men kissing.
- An activist group hung a sign on the Christ of the Ozarks statue that says, “God Bless Abortions.”
- Schools in Scotland have instituted a policy that all students will be recognized as being whatever sex they decide they are. The youngest students are 4 years old.
- The daughter of a well-known movie director entered the porn business. A friend said, “I think we’re living in a really changed world when it’s becoming accepted and celebrated in many ways. . . if she wants to do this and live in her truth and her authenticity, and she loves sexual performing, go do it!”
While the enthusiasm behind that comment probably nauseates you, it nonetheless is an accurate assessment—we’re living in a really changed world. Notice also the words, “live in her truth and her authenticity” because that’s the lever behind it all. For more on living authentically, click here.
Many disciples live in bubble where we’re somewhat insulated from this—and there’s a sense in which that is fine—even the way it should be. But we do have a responsibility as parent, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, etc., to know what our children are being exposed to—what kind of world is it that they face. How do we protect and prepare our children for the world that’s out there? That’s just some of what I’ll be dealing with in this series.
Stay tuned.
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 