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Do Transgender Name Changes Follow God’s Example?

A subset of Christians is intent on enlisting Scripture to justify transgender ideology. Their latest strategy is to point to the many instances where God changes people’s names. For example, God changes Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel. The new names reflect a new identity, purpose, or relationship. In Abraham’s case, “Abram” means “exalted father,” but “Abraham” means “father of many nations,” which represented Abraham’s new status and covenant with God. God’s renaming of Jacob to Israel is particularly relevant for the transgender movement. Since “Israel” means “struggle with God,” transgender advocate and author Austen Hartke notes that the imagery “is incredibly familiar to transgender Christians who have spent a portion of their life grappling with their faith and their gender.” Many people who identify as transgender pick a new name for themselves as part of their social transitioning. From their perspective, it reflects their new identity. Typically, they choose a name that aligns with their “gender identity” or self-perception. Hartke writes, “When a transgender person changes their name, they often work within these same categories: either taking on a name that highlights something true and established about their personality and their connection to others, or embracing a name that shows the world how they’ve changed and who they aspire to be.” The Human Rights Campaign agrees with this sentiment. In their article “What Does the Bible Say About Transgender People?” the authors explain how God set up a pattern for others—especially for those who identify as transgender—to follow: “The Bible establishes a precedent that name changes can be either an uncovering of who God has always seen a person to be, or as the recognition of a new identity and a new beginning. These too are important principles at play for many transgender and non-binary people in being able to affirm their gender identities with themselves, with their communities and ultimately with God.” Since God gives new names, it’s inferred that we can give ourselves a new name as well. What’s the problem with that? First, it’s true that Scripture doesn’t prohibit name changes. I’m not troubled by the practice either. Why? Names are a matter of convention. They are neither inherent nor an essential part of a person. Rather, they’re arbitrary labels that function like a tag or pointer. While some parents choose a child’s name because it has meaning for them, it’s still just a name that could have been something else. Therefore, changing your name is permissible, even if it entails going from a very feminine sounding name like Sophia to a more unisex name like Taylor. Having said that, I’m opposed to changing one’s name to an obviously opposite-sex name for the purpose of signaling a transgender transition. That’s because that kind of a name change is part of an entire transition process outlined by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). According to WPATH’s most recent standards of care (SOC Version 8), people who identify as transgender can be (and often are) encouraged to transition according to a three-stage process: social, hormonal, and surgical. Changing your name is part of the first step of social transitioning. I can’t endorse a decision that partakes in the first transition step because it makes me complicit in the three-step process that can lead to self-harm through surgical alteration and/or amputation of healthy body tissue. Second, while it’s true that God changes people’s names, he never once gives a new name that is incongruent with the person’s biological sex. He never renames Abram to something like “Rebekah” or Sarai to something like “Isaac.” There is zero precedent for a cross-sex name. Every new biblical name marks a new role, character, or covenant while preserving the name’s connection to the person’s sex. Therefore, while name changes are permissible, there are still boundaries rooted in God’s created order. Third, this argument ignores the broader biblical teaching about sex and identity. Scripture teaches that our identity is not detached from our body. Our souls are embodied in a physical form that God declares “very good” (Gen. 1:31). Crossing sex-specific boundaries is always sin (e.g., Deut. 22:5 and 1 Cor. 6:9), so it’s hard to imagine God would condone changing to an opposite-sex name since that would contradict what he’s taught in Scripture. Attempting to enlist the Bible as an ally of transgender ideology isn’t going to work. The precedent God sets with name changes has nothing to do with the modern notion of “gender transition.” It’s anachronistic to attempt to impose the latest gender theory onto the ancient biblical text. Names are important, and name changes are certainly permissible, but there’s no precedent set by God for the kind of change that transgender advocates desire.

5 days ago

Give Greg a Call Tuesday

Give us a call Tuesday 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. (PT) with your question, comment, or challenge for Greg. He will be taking calls during both hours of the podcast. The number to call during the live program is (562) 424-8714 in the U.S. Outside the U.S., call (562) 424-8229. Listen live online. The episodes are posted Wednesday and Friday.

6 days ago

Unraveling the IVF Confusion

Things that were science fiction only a few years ago are fact today. Human life can be “manufactured” outside the womb. Wombs can be borrowed or bought. Embryos that have been in frozen suspension for decades can be implanted into an adoptive mother’s womb, which can often mean the developing child has existed longer than the woman who is carrying him to term. As a pro-life apologist, I fielded questions about in vitro fertilization (IVF) occasionally for years, most often in private conversations following a pro-life training event. Since 2024, however, I am openly asked about IVF at every pro-life event. The IVF ethical suitcase—biblical foundations, individual intents, procedures, and consequences—must be unpacked. The stakes are high, because when it comes to this technology, tiny image-bearers can be both the joyful products and the tragic victims, which leads us to the quintessential question: “Just because we can, should we?” A few key factors are driving the recent uptick in controversy surrounding IVF. With a growing demand for access to the technology comes pushback from the pro-life community about the morality of IVF, a response that’s creating confusion in the culture. It’s as if the nation is looking at this conundrum, saying, “Wait! You’re the pro-family crowd. Why all the pushback against a technology that helps people have more babies?” Because the pro-life community consists of more than Christians, a myriad of views surround IVF and other artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs). For pro-life Christians, though, there’s a narrower spectrum of views—from those who oppose IVF outright for theological or moral reasons to those who might permit the technology within strict biblical boundaries. Even for Christians who find more conservative uses of IVF morally acceptable, conventional IVF practices frequently push past those biblical boundaries. Though the pro-life community is certainly in favor of having babies, the means used to bring new lives into the world matter. To form a thoughtful, careful approach is not inconsistent but consistent with the pro-life argument that every human life is unspeakably valuable from the moment of conception. For the church to be able to navigate our cultural moment on IVF well, we must know what it is, consider the events that have sparked growing dialogue about it, and walk through various views held by the Christian pro-life community regarding it. What Is IVF? “In vitro” simply means “in glass.” With in vitro fertilization, the mother’s egg is fertilized in a lab, and the resulting embryo is inserted into the uterus through the vagina in hopes it will implant and result in a live birth. IVF is fairly new. The first “test tube baby” was Louise Brown, born in England in 1978. As many as 12 million IVF babies have been born since Ms. Brown. ARTs, like other forms of progress, are a morally mixed bag. IVF helps infertile couples bear children of their own when just a few decades ago the only alternative was adoption. However, as with so many advancing technologies, bioethicists have been slow to carefully consider the consequences of the means being used to bring about the desirable end: a healthy birth; and we still do not yet know if there are long-term effects for those children or their progeny as they age. The pro-life view finds its happy home in the clear and beautiful doctrine of the imago Dei, which means that all human beings are endowed by their Maker with immeasurable worth. Reproductive technologies, through God’s grace and human dominion, can and do limit the impact of evils like infertility; but the same technologies can also attempt to supersede God-given human limits with disastrous, painful results. To say we need Christian voices at the table is an understatement. Why the Latest Hubbub? Three recent events have propelled IVF to the forefront of “life” conversations in the last couple of years: an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that sent shockwaves through the nation, an initiative from the Trump administration, and a California insurance mandate. In February 2024, an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine recognized embryos created through IVF as full-fledged children. The ruling was issued nearly four years after a rogue patient in a hospital wandered into the fertility clinic storage unit through an unsecured door and removed five cryogenically frozen embryos from a storage container. When the subzero temperature of the smaller storage tubes burned the patient’s hand, he dropped the embryos and they were killed. The couples who lost the embryos sued for wrongful death under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. The clinic claimed the act did not apply to embryos outside of the womb. The case was dismissed by a county circuit judge whose ruling was later overturned by the Alabama Supreme Court. Justice Jay Mitchell called the wrongful death act “sweeping and unqualified,” stating, “It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation.”[1] The cultural backlash was immediate and aggressive, though the humanity of the embryos was never in question since that had already been acknowledged by Alabama voters when, prior to the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2023, they adopted a constitutional amendment directly aimed at protecting all unborn life. The LePage decision simply—and justly—applied the wrongful-death ruling to those embryonic children located outside of the womb when they died. The ruling rippled through conventional media and social media like wildfire and resulted in a frenzy of immediate—and uninformed—reactions. A few fertility clinics in Alabama even canceled services temporarily, worried that the ruling might expose them to similar lawsuits because of the risk involved in handling embryos, fresh or frozen. In response, the Alabama legislature passed a law granting civil and criminal immunity for IVF clinics. However, questions about the morality and legality of IVF still abound, and rightly so. If embryos created through IVF are full-fledged members of the human community, it is inevitable that practitioners be scrutinized and held accountable for human lives injured or lost, even though the technology helps couples conceive and deliver children who are biologically theirs. The Trump administration stepped into the fray and, in October of 2025, released a two-part initiative to increase access to IVF and other fertility services. The president promised to lower the costs of popular fertility drugs and encouraged companies to include IVF coverage for employees. The targeted project was in part meant to alleviate the decreasing birth rates in the U.S.,[2] as well as the rise in infertility. According to a White House report, as many as one in eight couples is unable to conceive, and many of those are unable to afford IVF.[3] In January of 2026, on the heels of the Trump initiative, California passed an IVF Insurance Mandate (SB 729), which requires fully insured health plans to cover the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. As for IVF, eligible California plans are obliged to pay for as many as three completed egg retrievals and unlimited embryo transfers, as well as any necessary fertility preservation, such as freezing eggs or sperm prior to cancer treatment. The coverage extends beyond married couples who are struggling to conceive and includes single individuals, LGBTQ+, and others who cannot conceive for non-medical reasons. Naturally, the ability to create human life in a lab is inextricably connected to other major ethical concerns. In a secular society that has systematically taught that we can and should exercise god-like control over nature, we are steadily working to conquer human nature. As C.S. Lewis concluded in The Abolition of Man, “The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?”[4] The true story of reality tells us that humanity, marriage, sex, and natural rights are real and purposeful and were set in place by an almighty Creator. We cannot expect to alter them without catastrophic results. Is IVF Wrong? Technologies that aid in procreation didn’t exist for women like Rachel and Hannah during Old Testament times. As Christians think through how biblical principles apply to ARTs, or whether they even should be used at all, there are bound to be understandable disagreements among those committed to biblical authority. Some pro-life Christians are opposed to IVF outright for either theological reasons, moral reasons, or both. The traditional Roman Catholic view takes issue with all forms of ART because they remove the procreative element of the husband/wife sexual union from the unitive element. By God’s design, my Catholic friends argue, sex between a husband and wife unites the couple both physically and metaphysically in a true one-flesh union and must include the possibility of new life. Their opposition extends to many forms of contraception for the same reason. By surrendering the procreative activity to scientists in a laboratory, God’s design for married sex is violated. Many non-Catholic, pro-life Christians agree with the Catholic position. Many argue the other side of the same coin—that by placing such emphasis on making a baby, ARTs strain the unity of the married couple and marital intimacy suffers. Still others oppose IVF on moral grounds. The ends may not justify the means, they say, especially as IVF is commonly marketed and practiced. Conventional IVF raises a number of ethical alarms. On average, having a child by IVF costs between 20,000 and 75,000, depending on medications, the possible use of donor eggs or sperm, and specialized procedures and/or testing that might be required. Since children can only be conceived by egg-and-sperm fusion, collecting those gametes is the first step. Though it’s possible to extract sperm surgically, most often it’s collected in a sterile container through masturbation in a private room at a clinic or at home. Pornography is commonly promoted in fertility clinics to achieve “better” outcomes. Extracting a woman’s eggs is more complicated. During normal ovulation, an ovary releases one mature egg. For conventional IVF, a woman is given strong fertility drugs that stimulate her ovaries to bring more eggs to maturation for release when she ovulates. Those eggs are typically collected surgically while she is sedated or under anesthesia. They can either be used “fresh” for an IVF cycle or frozen for later use or donation. It is not uncommon to see advertisements on university campuses asking college-aged women to consider egg donation for money, especially if they possess certain traits or abilities. Since the average global success rate of IVF for all women is only 38–42 percent (approximately 55 percent for women below age 35 and as low as 5–8 percent after age 42), and because the process of creating embryos in the lab is costly, conventional IVF practitioners advise couples to produce as many embryos as possible. The reason is obvious. The more embryos, the more likely one might survive to birth. Once the embryos are produced, they undergo quality “grading” and are classified into roughly three categories: the strong, the average, and the weak. The strongest are chosen for transfer first. Many of the weak never make it that far. There is no legal limit to how many embryos can be transferred to the uterus at once, but the American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends no more than one to three depending on the patient’s age and other factors. Transferring more than one embryo can lead to risks and complications associated with carrying multiple babies such as premature birth, lower birth weights, or recommendations for selective termination (i.e., abortion) to decrease the number of fetuses in the womb during pregnancy. If IVF can be pursued in a morally sound way, each step of that process must fall within biblical boundaries. Biblical Boundaries for IVF and Other ARTs Christian bioethicist Scott Rae writes about “biblical fenceposts” that provide boundaries when considering technologies that aid infertility.[5] The first involves a theological perspective on technology. We have been creating and developing technologies since the garden to assist us in our dual mandate to rule and to cultivate. Since the fall, those technologies, when wielded wisely, can be good gifts that limit the impact of evil. ARTs that operate within biblical boundaries can reverse infertility, which is no less a result of the fall than heart or liver disease. A second biblical fencepost is the unquestionable imago Dei status of the unborn. Scripture tells us that every single human being bears God’s image. Embryology, the branch of science dedicated to the study of embryos, establishes the humanity of the unborn from the moment of conception. Philosophy bolsters the science. There is no morally relevant difference between the embryos we once were and the adults we are today that would have justified killing us back then but not now. These lines of reasoning form the basic structure of the pro-life argument. Their implication for ARTs, including IVF, is clear. Any technology that intentionally harms or kills an innocent human being is wrong. Once embryos have been created, they ought not be “graded” as more or less valuable. All should be allowed to be carried to term. None should be discarded, because God’s image-bearers are not disposable, even when they’re small. Selective termination, which is nothing other than abortion, is not permissible. Given the way it is normally pursued, conventional IVF is out of the running, leaving only more conservative approaches for Christians who are not altogether opposed to ARTs for theological reasons. Minimal stimulation IVF results in the production of fewer embryos. If a couple decides an IVF route is viable, they should not produce more embryos than they are willing and able to carry to term. Finally, there is natural cycle IVF, which only creates a single embryo from the egg a woman releases during her normal ovulation cycle. A third fencepost is the biblical understanding that procreation is intended by God only within the bounds of marriage. Covenantal marriage is marked by exclusivity (one man and one woman), permanence (one lifetime), and sex that is oriented towards procreation (one flesh). This doesn’t mean that every time married individuals have sex a baby is conceived, but it does mean that, by design, sex between a man and a woman is naturally oriented toward the possibility of new life. This boundary means that third-party (or donor) gametes are not a morally permissible option for any couple. Same-sex couples, whose union is sterile by nature, cannot produce a child without donor sperm or a donor egg and a surrogate. Additionally, in each of the latter scenarios, at least one “parent” is biologically excluded. This fencepost excludes pornography altogether. A fourth fencepost deals with the way ARTs impact how we view children. Children are not commodities, and no one has a “right” to a child. The ability to create life in a lab automatically comes with the risk of commodifying the “products.” The more the technology progresses, the more technicians assume mastery over nature and demand the ability to manufacture children on their own terms. The fertility industry is big business. Paired with a society in which the average age of marriage has increased startlingly in just a few decades[6]—and with it the average childbearing age—more men and women are delaying having children until they’ve established their educational and career goals. Their biology betrays them, though, especially with women. The likelihood of having a baby decreases greatly in their later 30s and 40s. Additionally, with the ability to freeze genetic material and create embryos for anyone able and willing to pay for the services (or have their insurance policy do so), a perceived “right to children” increases. Single women or men who want a baby but not a spouse are able to arrange having one. Same-sex couples who want children but are unable to create them naturally claim a right to have a family like everyone else. Nowhere in Scripture do we read that anyone has a right to have children. They are gifts, not commodities for sale. As an addendum to this fencepost, there is a clear ethical difference between adopting an existing child in need and creating a child for the sole purpose of adopting him or her out. There are millions of children who do not belong to a family, born and unborn. One consequence of conventional IVF practices is that at least 1.5 million embryonic children exist in a state of frozen suspension. For each of these children, adoption must be viewed as a legitimate rescue mission. Organizations like Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program have addressed the real problem of “leftover embryos”—embryos created through IVF that couples would not or could not carry to term for a variety of reasons—by developing means to adopt embryos in storage. In these cases, adoptive mothers receive their adopted children in the womb and give birth to them. Finally, there must be a fencepost that keeps God’s goodness and sovereignty in clear view even in the midst of brokenness. If it becomes clear it’s not possible to have a baby that is biologically yours, that reality must be accepted with grief and with grace. The pain of infertility is real and is often suffered privately. Even within the church, couples who have not been able to have a child tend to feel that pain acutely when children are spotlighted on Mother’s and Father’s Days, annual Christmas pageants, baby dedications, etc. While the church can do more to care for couples who struggle with infertility, it’s clear that when individuals decide to have a baby no matter the cost, a good desire has become disordered. Idolatry is a sneaky sin, but it is real, nonetheless. Final Thoughts These biblical boundaries are unbending and rightly so. Valuable human lives hang in the balance. Given this reality, many Christians are learning more about IVF and speaking out about the very real risks, the tremendous loss incurred when at least half the embryos created through conventional IVF never make it to birth, and the hubris of creating more children than a mother can bear only to freeze them indefinitely. Even informed Christians who advocate more conservative forms of the technology are hesitant to recommend it at the outset. When it comes to IVF, your voice is needed more than ever to graciously inform others about what’s at stake with our God-granted, imago Dei status. [1] Howard Koplowitz, “Frozen Embryos are Children, Alabama Supreme Court rules in couples’ wrongful death suits,” AL.com, February 22, 2024, https://www.al.com/news/mobile/2024/02/frozen-embryos-are-children-alabama-supreme-court-rules-in-reviving-couples-wrongful-death-suits.html. [2] In 2024, the U.S. had an average birth rate of 1.6 children per family, much lower than the 2.1 children per family necessary to sustain the population. Rachel Walsh, “Does the U.S. Have a Fertility Crisis?” John Hopkins University, January 6, 2026, https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-declining. [3] “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Lower Costs and Expand Access to In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and High-Quality Fertility Care,” The White House, October 16, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/10/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-lower-costs-and-expand-access-to-in-vitro-fertilization-ivf-and-high-quality-fertility-care/. [4] C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001; first published 1944), 59. [5] Scott Rae, “Ethics at the Beginning of Life, Part 2” in Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics, 4th ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2018), 165–200. [6] From 21 for women and 23 for men in 1970 to 28.6 and 30.5 in 2022. Brad Wilcox and Alan J. Hawkins, “The Marriage Paradox,” Institute for Family Studies, August 30, 2024, https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-marriage-paradox-.

1 week ago

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Does Evolution Square with Christianity?

[The following material is adapted from Greg Koukl’s article in the CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students.] Can a Christian believe in evolution? The troublesome thing about this question is the word “evolution.” It means different things to different people. For example, evolution can simply mean change over time. When the word is used this way, no one raises an eyebrow. A more controversial definition includes the idea that all living things have descended with modifications from common ancestors reaching all the way back to a universal common source, the first living cell. This descent with modification is driven by a specific process now called neo-Darwinism. When an organism’s genetic code changes (mutates), it produces offspring whose bodies differ from those of other members of the species. Nature then “selects” (natural selection) the offspring that have modifications better suited for survival and reproduction, enabling the new variations to dominate and proliferate (survival of the fittest). Over time, this struggle produces the vast array of life forms we observe on Earth. According to Darwinism, these modifications are accidental, not designed, the result of what Oxford evolutionist Richard Dawkins calls the “blind watchmaker”—unguided nature—rather than an all-knowing, purposeful God. So, how does this kind of evolution square with Christianity? Scripture teaches that God created the world. He not only created the stuff of the universe, like molecules, for example. He also formed that stuff into individual things, like people. Since this change took place over time (even in Genesis things change radically from the first creation “day” to the last), there is an “evolution” here, of sorts. We also see descent with modification in the biblical record, at least in a limited form. All humans have descended with some modification from Adam and Eve as the gene pool changed over time, though each is still human. Is there a way to make the neo-Darwinian, blind watchmaker kind of evolution consistent with Christianity, though? I think not. According to Darwinists themselves, nature—the blind watchmaker—is the designer, not God. Darwinian “design” is random and purposeless by definition. By contrast, creation is directed and purposeful by definition. They are opposites. It does little good to say “God used evolution” unless you are very precise about what you mean. For example, natural selection—which we do observe working in limited ways—could theoretically be used by God to direct the descent and modification of living things. By making adjustments from time to time that increase the fitness of an organism, God could guarantee its “selection” by nature for survival. But this isn’t Darwinism. It’s a form of intelligent design. The real question regarding Christianity and evolution is what (or Who) directs the change. Virtually every authority in the field of evolutionary biology makes it clear that Darwinian change is mechanical, unguided, and purposeless. “Whatever we think of God,” wrote Harvard evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, “his existence is not manifest in the products of nature.” In Christianity, God is Creator of the original stuff in the universe and a purposeful designer of the individual things in the universe. The historical step-by-step process of how that happened is a matter of debate. That he is the designer is not. Darwinian evolution, therefore—according to its standard scientific definition—is un-Christian. Keep in mind, though, that it is still possible to be a Christian even if you mistakenly believe some things that are inconsistent with Christianity. One’s trust in Christ is the crux of salvation, not any particular view that person has on the nature of creation.

1 month ago

Live Son or Dead Daughter?

There’s one question that would stop a parent in their tracks: “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?” In other words, would you rather help your daughter “transition” to a boy or have her kill herself? That’s the calculus being imposed on some parents. It’s a simple, visceral, and impossible question to answer without responding the way transgender advocates want. Push back even slightly, and you’re branded a monster. But this slogan—and the “choice” it pretends to offer—is a manipulative sham. It’s emotional blackmail masquerading as compassion. After all, what parent wouldn’t move heaven and earth to save their child’s life? But the presumptions in the statement are misleading, dangerous, and manipulative. Here are five concerns with the slogan. A False Dichotomy First, the slogan presents a false dichotomy. A parent doesn’t have only two choices—affirm the transition (leading to life) or reject the new identity (leading to suicide). That’s dangerously simplistic and manipulative. The best available data suggests a third option where parents unconditionally love their child and prioritize her wellbeing. In other words, nurture your relationship with her, listen carefully, express love and care, seek qualified help, and make wise decisions. In essence, this says, “We love you. We’re not going to leave you. We want to walk with you through this. Help us understand what you’re experiencing so we can carefully figure out what’s best for you.” So, the issue isn’t a choice between affirmation and death. Rather, it’s about responding with love, care, and protection. Rejection Alone Can’t Explain Suicide Rates Second, rejection alone can’t explain elevated suicide rates. Other demographic groups that have faced even more vigorous and systemic rejection than anything experienced by transgender-identifying youth don’t show markedly elevated suicide rates. African Americans in the antebellum South, for example, were devalued and treated as chattel property. Yet their suicide rates—even as slaves—were not markedly higher than the general population. In fact, the suicide rate for whites was higher than blacks in 1850, and that disparity remains true even today. The Nazis likewise dehumanized Jews as worthless parasites in need of extermination, yet we don’t see patterns of elevated suicide among them. Researchers have specifically noted surprisingly low suicide rates even inside concentration camps. Therefore, it’s hard to believe that being rejected as a person—even to the extreme degree of chattel slavery or extermination camps—can alone account for markedly elevated suicide rates. The evidence points to other contributing factors. An Unfair Oversimplification Third, suicidality is rarely caused by a single factor. It’s almost always multifactorial, involving biological, psychological, and social factors. To suggest that a parent’s refusal to consent to “gender-affirming care” will directly cause a child to kill himself reduces a complex phenomenon to a single causal trigger. It’s an unfair oversimplification of suicidality causes. Unaddressed Co-Occurring Mental Health Disorders Fourth, people who identify as transgender often have other mental health problems that likely contribute to suicidality. No one denies that being “misgendered,” “deadnamed,” or rejected is emotionally difficult. But it doesn’t explain why someone would kill himself. Something else must be going on. According to studies, transgender-identifying youth have mental health disorders that often go undiagnosed but still contribute to suicide risk. In fact, almost all people who attempt or die by suicide experience mental health problems. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 90 of people who die by suicide experience a mental health disorder. A national study published in JAMA Psychiatry (one of the most prestigious psychiatric medical journals) reports 96.1 of adolescents who attempt suicide have at least one mental health disorder. If almost everyone who attempts suicide is suffering from a mental health disorder, it seems reasonable to conclude that transgender-identifying youth who attempt suicide are also suffering from some mental health condition. Indeed, studies confirm they experience even higher rates of co-occurring mental health disorders. The journal Pediatrics published a study where, as the lead author explained, “We looked at mental health in transgender and gender-nonconforming youth retrospectively between 2006 and 2014 and found that these youths had 3 to 13 times the mental health conditions of their cisgender counterparts.” In addition, a 2020 review of 37 studies discovered that 40-45 of transgender-identifying adolescents have psychiatric comorbidity. The landmark Cass Review, published in 2024, also corroborates this assessment. The independent systematic review concludes that the majority of youth referred for “gender services” had higher rates of co-occurring mental health conditions. More alarmingly, “diagnostic overshadowing” occurred, where clinicians focused on treating gender dysphoria while comorbidities were often unaddressed. Clinicians weren’t properly diagnosing all the mental health conditions that these struggling youth had. This was tantamount to medical malpractice. Evidence Points in the Opposite Direction Fifth, the evidence does not show that supporting a transgender identity prevents suicide or that rejecting the new identity increases it. This is a contradiction of the main premise of the “affirmation or death” slogan. In 2020, the American Journal of Psychiatry published a study where the authors concluded that “gender-affirming surgeries” improved mental health outcomes. After numerous critics and letters to the editor raised issues with the statistical methodology, the journal issued a correction article clarifying that “the results demonstrated no advantage of surgery in relation to subsequent mood or anxiety disorder-related health care visits or prescriptions or hospitalizations following suicide attempts in that comparison.” That was just the beginning of a wave of research refuting the slogan’s premise. The previously mentioned Cass Review also dealt a decisive blow to the alleged benefits of “gender-affirming care.” Specifically, the review stated the following: “Some clinicians feel under pressure to support a medical pathway based on widespread reporting that gender-affirming treatment reduces suicide risk. This conclusion was not supported by the [Cass] systematic review.” In fact, evidence points in the opposite direction, indicating that gender confirmation surgery leads to increased risk, harm, suicide, and mental health problems. A 2025 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that “those undergoing surgery were at significantly higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and substance use disorders than those without surgery.” A 2026 study in the Finnish publication Acta Paediatrica found that “among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8 to 60.7 in feminizing gender reassignment and from 21.6 to 54.5 in masculinizing gender reassignment.” The evidence against the slogan’s premise is mounting with every new published study that contradicts outdated beliefs on suicide risk. The bottom line is that the evidence indicates it’s overly simplistic to explain suicidality solely due to rejection. Other mental health factors are at play. Plus, the Cass Review and other studies all point to the slogan being propaganda. “Gender-affirming care” doesn’t reduce suicidality, and rejecting it doesn’t increase suicidality. The slogan, therefore, is not compassionate, but coercive. It’s emotional blackmail. The choice it offers is no choice at all. Rather, it leverages parents’ fears, pressuring them to surgically alter their child’s body while ignoring the true triggers of suicidality.

2 months ago

Rapid Fire – Part 5

This issue of Solid Ground is our final one featuring “rapid-fire“ responses to frequent challenges you’re likely to face regarding Christianity and biblical ethics. “Intelligent design is just religion disguised as science.” This challenge is based on a linguistic misstep. The informal fallacy in play here is the fallacy of equivocation. When a key word in the broader context of this issue is used in two entirely different ways, it creates confusion and muddled thinking. The culprit in this case is the word “science.” It actually has two distinct definitions in common parlance, which makes it vulnerable to the subtle linguistic sleight of hand present in this challenge. The first definition is the most well known. “Science” can refer to a precise methodology—observation, experimentation, testing, etc.—that helps us discover facts about the physical world. Any explanation of the natural order that is not the result of the proper methodology is considered unscientific. Consider the difference between astronomy and astrology. The charge that astrology is not science is based on the lack of methodological rigor required for it to be considered “scientific” in the same way that astronomy is. The second definition of science adds to the first definition a philosophic requirement—the philosophy of materialism. According to materialism—also referred to as naturalism and physicalism[1]—nothing exists but the physical world governed by natural law rigidly determining every event in the universe. In Carl Sagan’s words, “The cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.”[2] Based on the metaphysical assumption of materialism, matter, energy, and the laws of nature must ultimately be adequate to explain everything in the world. Any account of some feature of the natural realm that doesn’t conform to this naturalistic philosophy is summarily disqualified as unscientific and labeled irrational by this standard. Note an important distinction between the first definition and the second. The first dictates the method required for any enterprise to be considered scientific. The second dictates the kinds of explanations that will be allowed. Note American evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma: “Science insists on material, mechanistic causes that can be understood by physics and chemistry.”[3] Though these two definitions usually go hand in hand—most physical phenomena are best explained by an appeal to natural processes—they’re not always compatible. Unique events like the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life, the origin of consciousness, and the irreducible complexity of the biological world by their very nature resist a naturalistic accounting. Instead, they bear every evidence of intelligent design (ID). Here’s the problem. Even when the proper scientific methodology is meticulously adhered to, if the results suggest transcendent intelligent design, the second philosophic definition of science is invoked to declare ID unscientific. Here one encounters the cardinal rule in the game: No matter how compelling the physical evidence is, if conclusions consistent with sound scientific methodology (first definition) conflict with naturalistic, materialistic philosophy (second definition), the philosophy always trumps the methodology. Evolution is a case in point. At first blush it seems that Darwinism is about scientific facts keyed to a sound methodology, and intelligent design is not, relegating it to the same category as astrology. This is not the case, though. ID is summarily disqualified as “religion disguised as science” not because sound scientific methods weren’t in place (first definition), but because the philosophical implications are unacceptable (second definition). The equivocation occurs when the definition of science as methodology is subtly exchanged for the definition of science as philosophy to dismiss the legitimacy of ID, ergo the fallacy. This move is the illicit linguistic sleight of hand I mentioned earlier. Consider this analogy. When a dead body is discovered, an impartial investigation of the scene might indicate foul play and not accidental death. In the same way, evidence could, in principle, indicate that an agent was the one orchestrating biological development rather than chance. This is not faith vs. evidence, but evidence for intelligent agency vs. evidence for natural causes. It’s precisely the way forensic pathology is done. If we’re really interested in the truth, doesn’t it make sense to simply follow the evidence where it leads in an unbiased way, just like detectives do in criminal investigations? That does not make sense, apparently, to those who are committed to philosophical materialism. For them, any evidence for supernatural special creation—no matter how compelling on its face—is summarily tossed out of court. Further, no independent thought regarding the fact of evolution is permitted, either. Any denial of Darwinism simply cannot be countenanced as “science” since it is the ruling paradigm dictated not by facts, but by philosophy. The evolution/design controversy is not about proper scientific method. It’s about the power of an academic elite to enforce a philosophy. If it were not for philosophical strong-arming being done in the field of science, Darwinism would have become a historical curiosity long ago. “No good father would ever treat his children the way the God of the Bible treats his children.” This challenge has popped up frequently lately as a hybrid of the broader complaint concerning the problem of evil. Even if God does exist, the charge goes, if he’s anything like the God of the Bible, then he’s not good. This objection often surfaces regarding biblical sexual morality. Given the “You do you” sexual license that’s characteristic of the cultural moment, any infringement on one’s sexual freedom is unthinkable, a malevolent act by definition. The verdict extends to the acute human suffering happening all around us, to the severe judgments that the God of Scripture visits on entire cultures in Scripture, and to the eternal conscious torment of Hell awaiting nonbelievers. “How could any good father allow that to happen to his own children?” the lament goes. The simple answer to the charge that the biblical God seems a failure as a good dad is that, biblically speaking, it’s a mistake to think that God is a father to those he created in exactly the same way that we are fathers to our own children. There is a parallel here, to be sure, but the analogy is not precise. This point applies to virtually every metaphor the text uses to describe the way God relates to humankind. There are two reasons we need to be cautious of pressing this comparison too far. For one, God is so radically different from us that no “relationship with God” can ever be understood simply in terms of the relationships humans have with each other. The best we can do is to carefully identify biblically sound parallels between human relationships and one’s relationship with God and stop there. Second, according to Scripture, God stands in more than one kind of relationship to members of the human race. For example, God can be a father to his spiritual children, an image invoking a picture of compassionate care, but he is also a sovereign who reigns over his subjects—many of whom are in active rebellion towards him. This relationship is governed by an entirely different dynamic—not filial and benevolent, but governmental and judicial. God is also the maker who wields complete authority over whatever he has made. He is the potter; we are the clay: Who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay? (Rom. 9:20–21) Christians are also servants of the Lord their master. They are to faithfully carry out the tasks that have been entrusted to them until he returns. Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. (Luke 12:42–43) Keep in mind one final and critical point regarding this challenge. The father/child relationship is not one the Bible applies equally to every human being created by God. Nowhere in Scripture do we find the notion of a great “brotherhood of man” carefully being watched over by a doting divine father. A number of biblical references make this clear. John writes, “But as many as received Him [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). Again John writes, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called the children of God; and such we are” (1 John 3:1). Yes, a good father probably wouldn’t allow his own children to be subject to many of the things God decrees for humankind. However, a good sovereign is different since he rules over subjects, not children. A good master manages servants differently than he does his family. And a skilled potter fashions his clay as his purpose dictates. “Evil proves that God doesn’t exist.” The irony with this challenge is that the problem of evil proves just the opposite. Agreed, the problem of evil has kept multitudes from believing in God and has shipwrecked the faith of countless others. Not only is everyone familiar with it, but at one time or another virtually everyone has raised the question of the compatibility of a good, powerful God with the mind-numbing evil and suffering we see in the world. Regardless of what one thinks of possible solutions to this difficulty, the problem itself is instructive to help us see what kinds of answers are even plausible. I want you to think for a moment about what must be true for such an objection even to be raised. When someone asks, “How can a good, powerful God exist when there is so much evil in the world?” the question is meaningful only if there actually is evil in the world, as it were. If there were no genuine evil, there could be no objection. Note that only objective evil will serve this complaint. Evil has to be real—“out there,” in some sense, as part of reality—for the protest against God’s existence to gain a footing. A relativistic “ice cream” morality won’t do because it reduces the problem of evil to the trivial “I cannot believe in a God who allows flavors I don’t personally like.” The problem of evil, though, is not trivial, but supremely weighty. Here’s the first problem for the atheist. The existence of genuine, objective evil—the only kind of evil that provides traction for the complaint—falsifies moral relativism. If morality is simply “up to us,” then evil disappears into the relativistic mist, and the objection against God based on evil vanishes with it. If, on the other hand, our indignation against evil is well-founded, then our objection against God is at least intelligible (though not necessarily sound), but moral relativism then becomes the casualty. One cannot have it both ways. Relativists cannot help themselves to the complaint about evil in the world, yet they frequently do. They cannot do otherwise because objective morality is undeniable. The universal awareness of the problem of evil makes this clear. But it gets worse for the atheist. Since the problem of evil is real—objective evil actually exists in the world—how does the atheist account for it? How does he explain the genuine morality that must be in place for the problem of evil to even be coherent in a world where all that exists is matter in motion? No appeal to Darwinism will help here since, at very best, all that evolution is able to account for is relativistic morality, not the kind of objective morality necessary to ground the problem of evil. Simply put, biology can’t make rape wrong.[4] It’s going to be hard for an atheist to make sense of objective, transcendent moral law without a transcendent moral lawgiver whose laws are broken, resulting in the problem of evil. Don’t miss the simple calculus of this line of thinking. If there is no God, there is no moral lawmaker. If there is no moral lawmaker, there are no moral laws. If there are no moral laws, there are no broken moral laws. If there are no broken moral laws, there’s no problem of evil. However, there is a problem of evil. Therefore, there are broken moral laws. Therefore, there are moral laws. Therefore, there is a moral lawmaker. Therefore, there is a God. The atheist has two options here, it seems to me. First, he can retain his relativism, but then he has to abandon his objection to God based on real evil in the world. However, denying real evil is going to be difficult for him because he knows that the world is overflowing with evil, ergo the complaint. Second, he can go with the facts and affirm the problem of evil, but then he must surrender his atheism since it can’t make sense of one of the most salient features of reality: genuine evil in the world. What the atheist can’t do is have it both ways if he’s intellectually honest. “It’s misleading to say that, for moral relativists, ‘anything goes.’ Even if morals are not absolute in some sense, people still must live by rules.” If no transcendent moral laws govern the universe and morality is simply based on individual preference, then it seems that relativism amounts to an “anything goes” approach to conduct. Some relativists, though, object to this characterization. Within certain frameworks, they say, there is a genuine distinction between right and wrong even when the system is relativistic. It’s simply not true that “anything goes,” they say. Every community has rules people must live by, even if they do not claim that what is right for them is right for every other group. A simple illustration is adequate to answer this charge. Let us pretend that you want to play the classic board game Monopoly. Like every other game, Monopoly has rules. There are standards, a framework of right or wrong of sorts. According to the rules of the game, for example, you cannot have houses and hotels on the same piece of property. That is not allowed. Parker Brothers, the inventors of the game, said so. Relativism is like Monopoly. In one sense, it’s not the case that “anything goes.” Rather, standards set by the community provide guidelines for behavior. These laws are “true,” though, in an entirely different way than, say, the laws of gravity are true. They are not true because of the way the world is structured, but because of the way human beings (subjects) have arranged the game. If you don’t like the rules, you can change them—variations that are sometimes called “house rules”—or play a different game, or play no game at all. It’s completely up to you. You can’t do that with gravity. If you don’t like the laws of physics, too bad. Adapt or die. Reality will punish you if you don’t take it seriously. Yes, even in relativistic systems you can get punished by the group if you break the rules and get caught. But I think you can see this is a contrived sort of “punishment” based not on transcendent standards, but on mere human conventions (“Go directly to Jail; do not pass Go; do not collect 200”). In the final analysis, if morality doesn’t have the same authority over our behaviors that gravity has over the physical world, then, as I said, anything goes. That’s always the case with relativism. If you are a moral realist, you think moral rules are real things, not individual whims or social conventions created by culture. They are like gravity, not Monopoly. If you are a relativist, then you are playing Monopoly with right and wrong. Of course, this would not make relativism false. It might be that, given the nature of reality, all we are left with when it comes to ethics are human conventions. But I do not think this is so. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” This guideline was popularized by the late astronomer and planetary scientist Carl Sagan. A version of this view was also shared by empiricist philosopher David Hume. The dictum is repeated frequently by skeptics to summarily disqualify foundational claims of Christianity—specifically, belief in the God of the Bible and the miracles recorded in the text, especially Jesus’ miraculous resurrection. The chief flaw here is that no clarity is given to what “extraordinary” in either sense—claims or evidence—actually means. Sagan was a naturalist whose self-professed agnosticism bordered on functional atheism. For him, empirical science was the final measure of truth, and the question of God was the kind of question naturalistic methods couldn’t directly assess, ergo his intractable skepticism on the issue. I don’t mention Sagan’s de facto atheism to discredit his opinion, but rather to give you a piece of information that’s relevant to his challenge. What any given person considers an “extraordinary” claim is going to be dictated by background assumptions. Given Sagan’s naturalistic convictions, the idea that God exists and was responsible for the kind of miracles recorded in Scripture would have been extraordinary to him, requiring extraordinary evidence to justify belief. What, though, is extraordinary about belief in God or miracles performed at his hand? The answer depends entirely upon one’s starting point. Where one begins in his understanding of the nature of reality will determine what kinds of options are plausible and what kinds are outlandish on their face. Sagan starts with naturalism—the world governed by natural law moving physical things about in a particular fashion, all quantified by the science that measures such things. If one is a priori committed to natural causes to explain everything, then nothing other than natural explanations will suffice. Yet, theistic claims are only extraordinary in light of the unyielding assumptions skeptics characteristically bring to the discussion. Here is the irony. Scientific naturalists believe a host of things that are patently extraordinary to any fair-minded observer. What of the assertions that the universe popped into existence with no cause, for no reason, without any meaning? Or the claim that conscious minds emerged from unconscious matter? Or the presumption that dead stuff must have spontaneously given rise to living stuff? Yet naturalistic scientists cling to each of these ideas without blushing. Why? Because they comport perfectly with the philosophic assumptions of their metaphysical naturalism. Where is the extraordinary evidence justifying these claims? These assertions rise to no bar of verification at all—certainly not the bar of “extraordinary evidence.” They are simply dictated by the philosophy that scientists impose on the question. Curiously, their philosophic naturalism itself rises to no such standard of justification. The simple rejoinder to the so-called “Sagan standard” is that with any kind of claim, all that’s required for justification is evidence adequate to the claim. The “extraordinary” adjective is not helpful—for the reasons I mentioned above—and simply muddies the waters. If, for example, credible witnesses testify to a bodily resurrection and then put their lives on the line for the claim, that seems to be prima facie compelling evidence that the claim has merit. For Christianity, evidence like this abounds, including certain types of scientific evidence. Forensic pathology uses science to determine whether the cause of an individual’s death is a result of accident or intelligent agency (“foul play”). In the same way, scientific assessment using the principle of inference to the best explanation can determine if an intelligent agent better accounts for unique features of the universe—like those mentioned above—than a purely naturalistic explanation. Any attempt to dismiss such evidence as not “extraordinary” enough is simply self-serving. It’s also circular since the skeptic’s starting point has guaranteed his conclusion. [1] These words are not exact synonyms, strictly speaking, but I’m treating them as such for our purposes. [2] Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, Steven Soter, “The Cosmos: A Personal Voyage,” PBS, 1980. [3] Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates Inc., 1983), 12. [4] For a thorough treatment of this concern, see “God, Evolution, and Morality,” parts 1 and 2 at str.org. See also “Good without God?” in Gregory Koukl, Street Smarts (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023).

2 months ago

Beauty Stirs a Longing for Heaven

One late summer evening, I was driving along the Pacific coast as the sun was setting over the sea. It was a breathtaking sight. I decided to pull over so I could take it in. As I did so, I noticed something else. Many people—families, individuals, groups of friends—were doing the same thing. People were walking over to a grassy hill overlooking the sea to gaze at the sunset. Some were taking photos, and others were simply taking in the view. Even firemen in their large fire truck pulled to the side of the road and got out. It struck me that all of us were gathering here, taking a moment to pause from our normal duties of the day, to stare at this beautiful scene of the sun setting over the ocean. We all recognized the beauty of this moment. But we also knew this beautiful scene would not last forever. In a matter of minutes, the sun would set and the brilliant colors in the sky would be muted. The beautiful moment would be gone, and a part of us would be left longing for more. Beauty stirs a longing in us. A longing for something more. C.S. Lewis said, “Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.” He continues, Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after deathI must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. Beauty stirs in us a longing for Heaven. We can appreciate the beautiful things of this world, but they don’t fully satisfy. They are merely echoes of the true, lasting kingdom. A longing for Heaven, for our “true country,” has been written on our hearts. We are, after all, image-bearers of the one who made us. “And what know we of the country to which we are bound?” Charles Spurgeon asks. A little we have read thereof, and somewhat has been revealed to us by the Spirit; but how little do we know of the realms of the future! We know that there is a black and stormy river called “Death.” God bids us cross it, promising to be with us. And, after death, what cometh? What wonder-world will open upon our astonished sight? What scene of glory will be unfolded to our view? No traveller has ever returned to tell. But we know enough of the heavenly land to make us welcome our summons thither with joy and gladness. The journey of death may be dark, but we may go forth on it fearlessly, knowing that God is with us as we walk through the gloomy valley, and therefore we need fear no evil. We shall be departing from all we have known and loved here, but we shall be going to our Father’s house—to our Father’s home, where Jesus is—to that royal “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This shall be our last removal, to dwell for ever with him we love, in the midst of his people, in the presence of God. Christian, meditate much on heaven, it will help thee to press on, and to forget the toil of the way. This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country: this world of woe is but the stepping-stone to a world of bliss. One day, we’ll be with the very source of beauty itself. As I’ve said before, we’ll be with our Maker, “the one who created all the pleasures and all the beautiful things of this world. All the colors, animals, plants, mountains, and galaxies.” And we’ll find, as Lewis put it, that Heaven is just “the beginning of the real story.” The beautiful things of this world are only a small foretaste of the things to come. May we, along with all the saints, remember that we have “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” awaiting us at the end of our journey (Heb. 11:16).

2 months ago

Do Eunuchs in the Bible Signal an Endorsement of Transgenderism?

It’s surprising, but some Christians attempt to support the transgender movement using Scripture. They can’t legitimately use the Bible to bolster their position, though. Instead, they try to force the text to fit their narrative. One common approach is to claim the biblical passages about eunuchs signal a trajectory towards transgender inclusion. Jesus mentions three kinds of eunuchs in Matthew 19:12. The first kind includes eunuchs who were “born that way,” a type of intersex individual with congenital atypical sexual anatomy. The second are eunuchs who were “made eunuchs by men,” meaning they had been castrated, a procedure often done by royal officials to protect the harems. The third are eunuchs who “made themselves that way,” referring to men who forsook sexual relations and renounced marriage to serve God with undivided attention (e.g., 1 Cor. 7:32). So, how is it alleged that eunuchs provide support for the transgender movement? First, transgender advocates believe the Bible’s references to eunuchs signal a biblical trajectory towards inclusion of “sexual minorities.” For example, while the Old Testament Mosaic Law prohibited eunuchs from entering the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:1), the New Testament records an Ethiopian eunuch accepting the gospel and getting baptized (Acts 8:26–39). The Human Rights Campaign, a pro-LGBT civil rights organization, writes, “This story of a gender-expansive person of color welcomed as one of the first Christian converts is a powerful part of our spiritual history.” Second, eunuchs with atypical sexual anatomy are accepted into the kingdom in their altered physical state. Nowhere does Scripture suggest they need to change. Though Jesus healed people with physical ailments (e.g., the lame, blind, and bleeding), he never healed a eunuch. Christian transgender advocate, Megan DeFranza, believes this indicates that surgical transition isn’t as problematic as modern Christians make it out to be. She writes, “What is enlightening for our discussion is that the outrage many Christians today express over the surgical alteration of genitals, of castration, when done willingly by some transgender people was not shared by many of our Christian ancestors who saw service to God as a eunuchas having higher value than conformity to male gender.” These Christian transgender advocates believe the biblical data about eunuchs makes a case for people who identify as transgender today. Is that true? No, and here’s why. First, while it’s true that the Ethiopian eunuch’s condition was not a barrier to getting saved, it’s wrongheaded to draw conclusions from this about God’s attitude towards surgical alteration of sexual anatomy. What matters to God is what Isaiah said was necessary for eunuchs: “Hold fast My covenant” (Isa. 56:4). The covenant in force in Acts was the covenant of grace, received through faith. Anyone—whether intersex or not—can put their faith in Christ. But the fact that God accepts the faith of a eunuch does not imply his approval of castration. Second, although the Ethiopian eunuch likely had atypical sexual anatomy, nothing indicates he identified as anything other than a man or was—as is said today—transgender. That the Bible mentions eunuchs or that Jesus extoled the virtue of eunuchs (Matt. 19:12) is not evidence for transgender ideology. Being a eunuch (or intersex) and identifying as transgender are two different things. The former is someone with a physical alteration, whereas the latter is someone who holds a self-perception that is incongruent with their biology. Scripture doesn’t suggest the Ethiopian believed he was anything other than a man. Third, advocates of transgender ideology often use the term “gender” when describing biblical accounts of eunuchs. DeFranza refers to “conformity to male gender,” the Human Rights Campaign talks of a “gender-expansive person,” and Linda Tatro Herzer (another Christian pro-transgender author) says Jesus recognized “gender variance.” This is, at best, confusing and, at worst, intentionally misleading. The Bible describes people as male and female and doesn’t delve into a eunuch’s self-perception (what is described as “gender identity” today). Using “gender-expansive person” or other similar expressions to describe a eunuch in biblical times is anachronistic and attempts to force a modern category on an ancient text. The biblical authors did not have these ideas in mind. In fact, virtually no Jew or Christian since the first century believed the Bible taught that God created people who were neither male nor female. Why? Because such a notion is foreign to the text. This idea doesn’t come from God or Scripture. Rather, it’s a destructive anachronism that attempts to import an alien meaning into God’s Word. It’s unfortunate that Christian scholars and authors try to harmonize modern gender identity theory with Scripture. It’s evidence of culture’s seductive draw. The church—in every generation—has been tempted to capitulate to culture. Unfortunately, in this instance, these authors are also trying to import new and faulty meaning into Scripture.

3 months ago

How to Navigate the Slippery Slope

Slippery slope arguments are a form of reasoning that links one way of thinking to an unintended consequence that’s likely to follow. With moral issues, if a behavior seems justified but “slips down the slope” in some way to something more drastic, it calls into question the morality of the initial behavior. Some such appeals are faulty, of course, but some are valid. I want you to know the difference since you’ll likely encounter them. If you claim, for example, that doctor-assisted suicide will lead to involuntary euthanasia or that abortion liberty will lead to infanticide, you’ll likely be dismissed with, “That’s just the old slippery slope fallacy.” Slippery slope concerns, however, are legitimate factors when thinking through the consequences of moral practices. There are fallacies of this sort, of course, since some acceptable practices don’t lead to extremes. Some do, though, simply by the force of the moral equation built into the issue. Those are the ones to be concerned about. There are actually two distinct kinds of slippery slope appeals: a causal slippery slope and a logical slippery slope. The nature of each often becomes obvious after looking closely at the underlying circumstances related to the actions in question. With a causal slippery slope, if some action thought to be morally acceptable leads to a result that’s morally questionable, it casts a shadow on the initial action. Simply put, if some consequence B is wrong, and permitting A will cause B to occur, then A is wrong, too. Driving fast isn’t intrinsically immoral, but because it’s dangerous and leads to human harm, the wrong of the effect “slips over” into the cause, making it wrong, too. Some think pornography is acceptable, yet if it can be shown to cause violence against women, then pornography becomes morally suspect for that reason. Unfortunately, many people find doctor-assisted suicide defensible. They often don’t realize, though, that the practice has unintended consequences. Euthanasia starts out as voluntary, then becomes non-voluntary—patients in a coma are euthanized—then becomes involuntary when older, ailing patients are killed against their will. This actually happens in countries like Holland that have liberal doctor-assisted suicide laws. What needs to be shown to avoid a causal slippery slope fallacy is a clear causal relationship between what some consider morally acceptable actions and the consequences that are morally suspect. Logical slippery slopes work in a similar way, with one important difference. The relationship between the idea in question and the behavior that follows is logical, not causal. When the rationale justifying one behavior is applied consistently to another behavior, the acceptability of the one “slips over” to the other. So, if A is accepted as morally justified, and action B is logically similar to A, then B will probably be accepted, too. For example, many abortion advocates consider late-term abortion and even partial-birth abortion (PBA) acceptable according to the logic of privacy and personal autonomy (“choice”). In each case, though, the baby is completely developed, and in PBA, the baby is almost completely delivered. If these abortions are justified on the basis of choice, then by that logic what objection can be raised against infanticide since the baby’s location is a trivial element in the moral equation? The logic that justifies the first seems to equally justify the second. A logical slippery slope can slip in either direction, by the way. If one act is morally unacceptable—infanticide—and another act is logically similar to it in a morally relevant way—abortion—then the second becomes morally unacceptable, too. Here’s an example of a logical slippery slope that fails. Some think capital punishment is logically similar to murder since both involve killing a human being. Consequently, capital punishment is immoral, too. You probably caught the problem. Since there are morally relevant distinctions between murder and capital punishment—namely, the guilt of the one punished vs. the innocence of the one murdered—the attempt falters. This appeal, then, is an example of a slippery slope fallacy. The key question in any logical slippery slope claim is whether the two situations are similar in a logically relevant way. If the analogy fails, then the attempt is fallacious and the argument falls apart. Here’s the lesson. Don’t let critics flippantly dismiss slippery slope concerns that you raise regarding moral issues. Both causal and logical slippery slope considerations are legitimate when constructed properly, and both play a critical role in providing clarity on weighty moral issues.

3 months ago

No One Suffers More than One Person’s Pain

When trying to make sense of how our perfectly good, wise, and powerful God can coexist with all the evil and suffering in the world, we can easily be overwhelmed by looking at all the evil in all of human history all at once, but that is not a fair way of looking at the issue since no person will experience all of that pain. Randy Alcorn reminded me of this in If God Is Good, saying, “There is no sum of human misery, only individual misery. Despite the horror of disasters, we must understand that suffering does not have a cumulative nature. All of us remain limited to our own suffering.” He points to this helpful quote from C.S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain: We must never make the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the ‘unimaginable sum of human misery’. Suppose that I have a toothache of intensity x: and suppose that you, who are seated beside me, also begin to have a toothache of intensity x. You may, if you choose, say that the total amount of pain in the room is now 2x. But you must remember that no one is suffering 2x: search all time and all space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone’s consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it. When we have reached the maximum that a single person can suffer, we have, no doubt, reached something very horrible, but we have reached all the suffering there ever can be in the universe. The addition of a million fellow-sufferers adds no more pain. No one suffers the sum of suffering. This doesn’t negate the suffering one person suffers, of course, but it does keep the suffering that is actually experienced by human beings in perspective. Obviously, there is much more to consider when we’re thinking about the problem of evil and suffering, but this is one element of the answer that I don’t hear mentioned often enough.

3 months ago