The Sean McDowell Show - Understanding the Gender Revolution: Christianity and the Transgender Movement

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

What is the worldview behind the gender revolution? Is it compatible with Christianity? How should Christians respond? This video is a recent talk I gave at a church in Texas that is meant to clarify similarities and differences between Christianity and transgender ideology. READ: Chasing Love: Sex, Love and Relationships in a Confused Culture, by Sean McDowell (https://amzn.to/3TreU32) WATCH: An Ex-Feminist Rejects Gender Ideology (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMwOdP7B-SY&t=1547s) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Well, good morning. What a joy to be here with you over this weekend. The energy yesterday was incredible, so I'm expecting you to continue it through this morning. Fair enough? No, I'm kidding. You don't have to. Well, I've been asked to speak on what is arguably one of the most important, debated, and hot topics today. It's no secret that we're undergoing and we are in the midst of what many would consider a gender revolution. That we're kind of rethinking what it means to be male and female, boy and girl in sports, in education, and in many ways in the church. How do we respond best in this cultural moment in which we find ourselves? Well, almost a decade ago, when the Supreme Court ruling of Obergefell versus Hodges came down, legalized the same-sex marriage, all 50 states. I got a call from the head of the Southern Baptists in Southern where I live asking me if that evening I could be on a show on CNN to discuss the ruling. Wasn't going to work

with my schedule, but he asked me to call up one of the producers. I said, sure. So I got on the phone with one of the producers, figured out it wasn't going to work, and he said, hey, can I keep your number and then call you back if something comes up. I said, sure. Never expected to hear from him. Maybe an hour or two later, I'm driving my kids home from school and I see this LA number and I pick it up. It's this producer. He says, hey, we know you can't make it to be in studio, but we're having another show where we're discussing the Caitlyn Jenner, Bruce Jenner transition, would you be willing to call in and give your opinion? I was about to say no, but my son, who is 11 at the time, in the back said, do it, dad, you'll be on TV. And because I'm that dad, I said, sure. And the producer says, well, tell me your position.

As best as I can remember, I said something like, look, I'm a Christian. One thing I know is that Jesus loves people who are transgender. This is a hurting community and we've made it into a political issue. We need to slow down, find common ground and try to help individuals who are hurting. Long pause, he goes, oh man, I can't have you on. You're much too compassionate. I'll never forget that. First off, my thought was, man, I'm such a rookie. I thought they actually wanted to help individuals who are transgender. Rather, like many times, it's for ratings and there's a controlling narrative trying to paint Christians a certain way. And I didn't fit the narrative, so wasn't invited into the conversation. Friends, as we dive into this issue, it might be helpful to just get some clarity

on some concepts. So here's a way that might help with this. Transgender is psychological. Intersex is biological. Transgenderism is ideological. We have to be careful not to confuse these. Many individuals, if not most, who are transgender don't have some big hidden agenda. They're just trying to make sense of their life and deal with their struggles and want the same kind of relationship and freedom that you and I want. But there are certain power structures in people pushing a narrative today that we need to say time out and respond Christianly. Now what we mean by transgender is when an individual experiences incongruence between their gender identity and their biological sex.

So you might hear somebody say something like, I am a man trapped in a woman's body. There's a lack of congruence between their gender identity and between their biological sex. Now, intersex is a person born with atypical features in their sexual anatomy or chromosomes. Remember, intersex is a physical biological condition. Now, this is a minority position, but these are individuals made in the image of God who have atypical features in their sexual anatomy or chromosomes.

Now, despite what we often hear, less than 1% of people with an intersex condition have a sex that is ambiguous. 99% plus people with an intersex condition, clearly male, clearly female. Now, what follows from this? Because so often this is raised by people to say, look, gender's on a spectrum. Sex is on a spectrum. It's not male and female. Well, first off, some of the individuals who are intersex that I've had a chance to hear from and understand their stories say, we don't always appreciate being used as pawns in a political discussion. Fair enough. But think about it this way. This example came from an atheist. She said, imagine human beings develop with 10 fingers and 10 toes.

That is the normal development of human beings. If somebody develops with more or less, they're no more or less human. They just have not developed biologically according to the normal pattern of human beings of 10 fingers and 10 toes. And it also doesn't follow that humans are not 10 fingered or 10 toed. The same applies to intersex. Now, what we're going to probe into this morning is what we might call transgenderism or transgender ideology. This is an ideology or a belief system that aims to transform cultural understandings of sex and gender. This idea, as you know, we're seeing promoted through the media, education, law, healthcare, and increasingly in many churches

today. How do we respond to this? Now, I found when we come across new kind of ideologies and culture, to ask the larger question, what do we mean by a worldview? And then we'll compare transgender ideology with a Christian perspective. So worldviews basically answer three questions. Every worldview has what's called an origin story. Where do we come from? Why are we here? That's our creation account. Of course, according to the Christian story, God made us in his image. Every worldview also has what you call predicament. What's wrong with the world? What's broken in the world? Why aren't things working the way that they should? Of course, as Christians, our answer is sin. And then the solution, how do we fix the brokenness in the

world? And of course, as Christians, our answer is, okay, like 10% of you got that. If you don't know the question to an answer in church, just say Jesus. My son is 11. When he was in first grade, the teacher was teaching him how to raise their hand or not blurt out an answer. And, you know, so you can have order in class. So she thought, I'll start easy. She goes, class, what's gray? It has a big bushy tail and climbs in trees. Nothing. She thought, well, this is strange. Raise your hand. I'll start easy. She goes, class, what's gray? It has a big bushy tail and climbs in trees. Nothing. She thought, well, this is strange. Raise your hand. I'm calling you.

Class, what's gray? It has a big bushy tail and climbs in trees. Nothing. She thought six-year-olds know this. Class, what's gray? It has a big bushy tail, climbs in trees. Finally, one of my son Shane's classmates, little Johnny, raised his hand in the back. She said, yes, Johnny.

He said, I'll say Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me. The Christian story, God made us, the world is broken with sin, and Jesus, by grace, through faith, offers us salvation. Now, that's why in Genesis 1, when we hone down in the creation part. It says God made us in his image male and female. Part of being human is our maleness and our femaleness. God could have made us asexual. God could have made three sexes, but he made us as intrinsically sexed beings. Now, I don't think there's marriage and sex in heaven, but I think our sexed nature, maleness and femaleness, since it's an essential part of who we are, will continue after the grave. This is a biblical view.

Hence, marriage is a sexed institution. So, the Supreme Court ruling did not expand the definition of marriage. It changed it to a genderless institution. Biblically, marriage involves male and female. Now, if you've traveled in these discussions, one objection here is say, wait a minute, the creation account seems to say day and night, right? Land and sea, but not everything in the world fits into this binary system. For example, we have not only day and night, but dusk and dawn. Not only land and sea, but frogs. So maybe it's not only male and female, we could have something in between. It's a spectrum. This is the argument. Well, the Bible does deal with dusk and dawn in passages like Genesis 15. And as you know,

the Bible also deals with frogs in one of my favorite stories in Exodus chapter 8. But whenever the Bible discusses and talks about human beings, it's always as if God made us male and female. In fact, Scripture seems to consistently condemn crossing gender boundaries. In other words, there's a maleness and there's a femaleness, and we're to live consistently with that. So, one passage, so much more could be said in Deuteronomy, is that a woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak. There's a distinction here. Now, why would this matter? Why would God care that we live out according to our maleness or femaleness? And the answer is because what it means to be human.

We are embodied souls. You are body and soul. That's what it means to be human according to God's design. So very interestingly, in Romans 12, it says, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. But then it says, offer yourselves to God. Why would it say that? Because your bodies are a part of who you and I are. Now, the problem is, is that we learn we're supposed to live out our maleness and our femaleness, but sometimes we import certain stereotypes from the culture onto what that means. So, I'm curious, just shout it out. Give me a biblical example of the most manly man you

can think of. David and Samson. Every time the top two answers. You know who nobody shouts out? Jesus. We kind of think Jesus was a little feminine according to the stereotypes, don't we? According to the stereotypes. But when was David acting manly? Of course, he cut off Goliath's head. He went to war. What else did he do? He played a harp and he wrote poetry. First Samuel 17 says David acted like a man when he killed Goliath, but a little girly when he wrote poetry. It doesn't say that in case you haven't read the story. He was a man who did both. By the way, according to the stereotypes, who's more masculine, Jacob or Esau? Esau, why? He's a hairy hunter, my goodness. Can you get more masculine than that, according to the stereotypes? Now, Jesus has what we might consider certain masculine characteristics. He goes to war in the sense that he comes riding a horse with a sword, but Jesus also wept over Jerusalem.

I think one of the worst lies we tell people, and particularly young men, is that real men don't cry. Real men do cry at the right way at the right time. What does the Bible teach about gender and sexuality? I think we can sum it up in three things. Number one, scripture teaches and assumes that humans are intrinsically sexed beings. Maleness and femaleness is an essential part of who we are. And second, males and females are called to live their gender in congruence with their bodily sex. Their gender mean the way they express and live themselves out is to reflect their biological sex. But scripture offers little biblical specificity as to what this universally looks like. So can a man wear a skirt? Well, if you move to Scotland and call it a kilt,

I guess you can. Can a man wear a dress? If you go to Fiji and you call it a wrap, I guess you can. My point is there's maleness and there's femaleness, but we have to be very careful to not take cultural stereotypes, read them onto the Bible, because what this ends up doing is doing damage to many people who don't feel like they fit the stereotypes. And then they start to buy the narrative. Well, maybe I'm not actually a girl. Maybe I'm not actually a boy.

Rather than saying there's a range of ways to live out your girlness, a range of ways to live out your boyness, so to speak, still consistent with the bodies that God has given us. Now, how might that compare and contrast with what we would consider a transgender narrative? Well, let's go back to our three questions, origin, predicament, solution, or what we would call as Christians, creation, fall, redemption. The creation account, you might say, is that humans are not made in the image of God as essentially sexed beings. So if you pushed most people who promote transgender ideology far enough, probably most would embrace some kind of evolutionary worldview. But the key is

that biological sex is not something inherent and essential and intrinsic to who and what we are, according to transgender ideology. So Ann Travers, who wrote a book called The Trans Generation, says, and listen very carefully, the very fact of the two-sex system is an ideological rather than a naturally occurring phenomenon. Did you catch that? I want to make sure this sinks in. Travers writes in the book The Trans Generation that the idea that humans are male and female is not built into the universe. Rather, it's something ideological. We read into our bodies and we read into society.

So it's not something we discover. It's something we create. Now notice, even as Christians, when we look at the natural world, what do we think? Both Psalms 19 and Romans 1 tell us that God has revealed himself in nature, and we can look in nature and discover truths about God. Transgender ideology says, no, we're not discovering truths embedded within nature. We are reading stuff into nature. You see how different

that is? That's why you can hear somebody say, this was my sex assigned at birth. If it's something we merely assign, then it's subjective, and we could have assigned something else. So, sex is not something we discover on this narrative. It's something we create. It's something we choose. That's how radically different it is. So, that's the origin story, is humans are not essentially sexed beings. Now, what's wrong with the world? Of course, it's not sin. What's wrong with the world are gender expectations cause suffering in the lives of transgender kids and harm all society. So, the problem is that we have certain cultural assumptions about what it means to be male and what it means to be female, and this hurts society. Now, it's one thing as Christians to say,

yes, there's unhelpful stereotypes. We need to be careful. It's another thing on this to say the even idea that males and females are different and should live differently is the source and root of the problem itself. So, Travers writes, it is not being transgender per se that increases the likelihood of self-harm and suicide among trans kids, but rather cultural and social prejudice that does the damage. Does everybody see what's going on here? Every worldview identifies something as the source of why the world is broken. Some say it's externally in society. Some say it's internally in human nature.

So Marxism, for example, would say capitalism, which creates the haves and the have-nots, is the source of greed and all the problems in society. So if we fix external society, then we will have a just utopia on earth. Marxism identifies the problem out in society. So does transgender ideology. They're saying it's not being transgender, something intrinsic to human beings or individuals who experience this phenomena. It's social and cultural prejudice that brings the harm. In other words, do you know what the root of the harm is to transgender individuals? Pull out a mirror and look at it. It's you and it's me according to this narrative.

Because you and I would actually say, no, no, you're made male and you're made female. And God wants you to live out your maleness or your femaleness. That is the root of the problem according to this ideology. Do you see why it's so difficult to just simply say, hey, culturally speaking,

let's just agree to disagree and let's get along. We are bumping up against fundamentally different worldviews and understandings of reality. That's what makes this so difficult. Now, one study, this is an exaggerated study, but you'll see this floating all the time. One study found that 41% of people who identify as transgender will attempt suicide at some point in their lives, compared with 4.6% of the general population. This is a narrative that we often hear. Now, I have asked some experts on this, and they'll say, I think that's exaggerated, but we still see significantly more depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicidality within the larger LGBTQ community. Now, let's think about this. If the reason there's greater suffering in this community is the non-acceptance of society, then we have a way of comparing and contrasting that diagnosis,

don't we? Let's look at societies less accepting, and we should see more psychological difficulty. Let's look at societies more accepting, and we should see greater psychological flourishing. That is exactly what we don't see. Friends, if you go to countries like Sweden, and I document this in my book, you actually find some of the most affirming countries in the world and roughly the same level of poor psychological outcomes within the LGBTQ community. This doesn't tell us what the root of that suffering is,

but it tells us what the root of that suffering is, but it tells us what the root of that suffering is not. So if you actually love and care for LGBTQ people, with graciousness and kindness, you need to have the willingness to speak the truth that will actually bring freedom. Poor psychological outcomes exist for transgender individuals in the most accepting cultures in the world. So again, transgender ideology says what? We are not essentially sexed beings. The root of suffering are gender norms and expectations in society. So what's the solution? You know the answer to this.

Abolish gender identity and allow people to identify as the gender of their choice or even apart from gender entirely. If gender expectations and assumptions are what bring harm, then let's get rid of gender expectations and assumptions and we'll have a good flourishing society. This, in a sense, is the worldview. Now, so far, this might seem ideological to you, but here's where the rubber meets the road. Here's what Travers says. The appropriate focus for schools should be on transitioning the school

community away from the binary system of gender and finding other ways to interrupt and change other oppressive dynamics. So if you walk into a school and they have male and female bathrooms, that is fostering gender stereotypes that there's a difference between male and female and harming transgender kids and all of society. If you break kids up into male and female sports, you are fostering this narrative that boys and girls are essentially different and harming all of society. Now, this is a side note, but as you know, probably in the state of Texas, I think it was a 14U club team in your state, beat our women's U.S. national soccer team in a match. Now, that definitively and decidedly does not make boys better than girls. If you hear me saying that, you have clearly chosen not to listen. Why am I so dramatic? Because I get these emails from people.

I'm like, can you just go back and listen to what I said, please? It means boys and girls, males and females are different. In some ways, the mere fact that I have to say this in church is a sign of the times, isn't it? I interviewed an expert on my YouTube channel who did his doctoral dissertation on the biological differences between males and females in track, and he said there are roughly 6,000 markers of difference as a whole between males and females. So let's sum up maybe, this will be helpful. I came up with this chart,

contrasting kind of a Christian worldview with transgender worldview. So what's the creation of Christians? We are made in the image of God as male and female. Transgenderism, we are sexless beings. What's the fall? Sin. What's the fall in transgenderism? Gender expectations are the root of the problem. Notice that Christianity, sin is internal, expressed in systems. Transgender ideology, the root of it is in the systems themselves. Christianity, redemption is grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

In transgenderism, it is to abolish gender norms and provide self-determination. You do you. Follow your heart. Truth is within, not without. Now, how do we respond in this cultural moment? One thing we need is lawyers defending religious liberty. We also need people to tell stories because beautiful stories of marriage and the difference between male and female helps shape our worldviews. All I'm going to talk about is how might we respond as individuals in our lives and in our relationships. By the way, we also need to get involved in schools. Where I live, there was a story we covered on our weekly cultural update where these satanic temple clubs, after-school clubs, came into a local elementary school near where I live. And some Christians weren't happy, understandably. One of my responses was, if we were involved in the school board and engaged,

things might have been different. That's why Christians have to get involved from the top down. That's important. But how do we respond as Christians? This answer is almost so silly it needs not be said, but here's the reality. Love transgender people as you would anyone else. Love transgender people as you would anyone else. Our response is love. Our response is not to separate and throw rhetorical bombs. Our response is not to attack on social media.

Our response is to lean into this tension and love individuals who are made in the image of God. A number of years ago, I was at a conference with John Stone Street from the Colson Center. We wrote a book together on marriage and we were taking questions. We were speaking on sexuality. And I remember, it's best I can remember it.

I wish I had a video of it. A lady said something effective. She goes, I don't know what to do, how to protect my kids because every time I take them to Disneyland, it's gay day. How do I protect my kids from kind of the filth of culture? And John gave a great response. And then when it came to me, I said, you know, now that you mention it, I live in Southern California.

I think I'm going to find out when gay day is and intentionally take my kids on that day. Now, it's not sponsored by Disneyland. There's some organization that rallies the LGBTQ community. Twice a year, they show up and have gay day. And she looked at me like I was nuts. I said, look, these are people made in the image of God. They see the world differently. I want my son to know that these are human beings. And this will give me a chance to talk with him and my daughter about what it means to love people who are different. And she goes, well, what happens if your kid says something mean or insults them or does something wrong?

I said, great. Then you teach your kids how to apologize. Friends, I think we don't do this because in many ways we live more out of fear than we do out of love. If you ever just take a step back and examine the evangelical community, honestly, it feels like sometimes we respond out of defensiveness and insecurity and fear. Fear of a certain political party, fear of a certain religion, fear of a certain sexual identity.

What does the Bible say? 1 John 4, 18 says, perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love casts out fear. You know, fear is selfish because we think about ourselves. It's self-focused. One of the greatest fears people have is public speaking. It's like death, heights, public speaking. Why? Because everybody's looking at you. You don't want to look stupid. I get it. One of the things I tell speakers, they say when they're aspiring to be a speaker, rather than focus on yourself, just ask yourself, how do I love my audience? And then that shifts the focus from yourself to others because fear is self-focused. Love is other-focused. What if we just shifted our posture and leaned in to love people who see the world differently. What if when people were asked to describe Christians

or evangelicals rather than talking about politics or what we're against, they're just say, that's a community that loves people who are different. You might understand when I say this, there can be a different definition of love. Sometimes in our culture, love means to affirm. And if I don't affirm, I'm hateful. I'm not saying this is easy. We have, love means to affirm, and if I don't affirm, I'm hateful. I'm not

saying this is easy. We have to love according to a biblical standard and trust that it is God's love and God's grace that will bring people to repentance. One way to do this is simply just to listen to people. Just listen to people. One of the things I do on my YouTube channel is I bring people on with a lot of different worldviews. And I don't always feel the need to win an argument and prove that people are wrong. Sometimes we debate issues and I have opinions on things. But a lot of what I do is just to try to understand and get clarity on what somebody believes and where they're coming from. My dad said to me one time, he said, son, it's more important to understand

than to be understood. It's more important to understand than to be understood. What if somebody was wrestling with generatist for you and they just said, I need to find a Christian because a Christian is going to lean in, understand me, and care for me. What if that were their response? Friends, let's lean in as messy and difficult as it is and love. But second, when we lean in, hopefully we get the opportunity to then have conversations with people in the right time and in the right way about truth. One point I want to make about this is here's the deal. We have reality on our side. We have truth on our side, and we have common sense on our side. Let's graciously lean into this. Now, I'm going to show you a video from a friend of mine. This is probably a year or two before COVID, and he went, you remember like the bathroom bill debates in Washington.

Well, he was living in Washington during this time. So he decided to go on to the University of Washington campus and simply ask questions of students about their worldview. So notice he doesn't preach. He doesn't make any statements. All he does is ask questions, kind of wondering, if you say your worldview here, how far will you take that worldview? Take a listen, and then we'll talk about it.

There's been a lot of talk about identity lately. But how far does it go? And is it possible to be wrong? We went to the University of Washington to find out. Are you aware of the debate happening in Washington State around the ability to access bathrooms, locker rooms, spas based on gender identity and gender expression? I think people should be able to have access to the facility. I think bathrooms could and potentially should be gender neutral because there doesn't need to be a classification for differences.

I think people definitely should have the ability to go into whichever locker room they want. I feel like at least public universities should do their best to accommodate for those who do not have a specific gender identity. You know, whether you identify as male or female and whether your sex at birth is matching to that, you should be able to utilize the resources. So if I told you that I was a woman, what would you respond to me? Good for you. Okay.

Like, yeah. Nice to meet you. I'd be like, what? Really? I don't have a problem with it. I'd ask you how you came to meet you. I'd be like, what? Really? I don't have a problem with it. I'd ask you how you came to that conclusion. If I told you that I was Chinese, what would your response be? I mean, I might be a little surprised, but I'd say, good for you.

Like, yeah, be who you are. I would maybe think you had some Chinese ancestor. I would ask you how you suddenly came to that conclusion and why you came to that conclusion. I would have a lot of questions just because on the outside I would assume that you're a white man. If I told you that I was seven years old, what would your response be? I wouldn't believe that immediately. Uh, I probably wouldn't believe it, but I mean, it wouldn't really bother me that much to go out of my way and tell you, no, you're wrong. I'd just be like, oh, okay, he wants to say he's seven years old. If you feel seven at heart, then so be it. Yeah, good for you.

So if I wanted to enroll in a first grade class, do you think I should be allowed to? Probably not, I guess. I mean, unless you haven't completed first grade up to this point and for some reason need to do that now. If that's where you feel like mentally you should be, then I feel like there are communities that would accept you for that. I would say so long as you're not hindering society and you're not causing harm to other people I feel like that should be an okay thing. If I told you I'm six feet five inches what would you say? That I would question. Why? Because you're not. No I don't think you're six foot five. If you truly believed you're six five I don't think it's 6'5". If you truly believed you're 6'5", I don't think it's harmful. I think it's fine if you believe that. It doesn't matter to me if you think you're taller than you are.

So you'd be willing to tell me I'm wrong? I wouldn't tell you you're wrong. No, but I'd say that I don't think that you are. I feel like that's not my place as, like, another human to say someone is wrong or to draw lines or boundaries. No, I mean, I wouldn't just go like, oh, you're wrong. Like, that's wrong to believe in it. Because, I mean, again, it doesn't really bother me

what you want to think about your height or anything. So I can be a Chinese woman. Sure. But I can't be a 6'5 Chinese woman. Yes. If you... Yes, she said yes. Did you catch that? Now what on earth just happened? First notice, all he did was ask questions. Jesus asked 339 questions. He was asked 183 and he only answered three, by the way.

We have 262 questions Paul asked in his letters. All he does is ask questions and let this worldview unravel. So the root of the question is, what would you say if I said that I was a woman and he's a middle-aged white male? And of course, half of them or more are like, good for you, I'm fine with that. So if you say that a biological male can be a woman, you're saying biology is irrelevant to your identity. But then he decides to take it further and says, what would you say if I said

I was Chinese? It's like, well, maybe you have some Chinese ancestor, which would mean it's a part of his biology potentially. What would you say if I said I was seven? Now there seems to be some hesitation, even though the one guy is going to allow him to go to first grade. And then finally they all agree he's not six foot five. Now, do you see the tension that's going on? If biology doesn't matter, then he can be a 6'5", 7-year-old Chinese woman. If biology does matter, then he's not 6'5". He's not 7. He's not Chinese.

And he's not a woman. Do you see the brilliance of the way this video was done? My question is, why do feelings determine the reality on questions of sex, but not anything else such as race, height, or age? Does biology matter or not? In conversations, in the right way, helping people see some of these contradictions and tensions in the worldview is the way to set somebody free from some of these harmful ideas. Now, how can we encourage people to listen and remember? It's a kind word, the Bible says, that turns away wrath. A soft word breaks a bone. It's your kindness that leads to repentance. In all of our political posturing and debates today, our job as Christians is to lean in and listen to people, to love to people, to be present with people with the hopes that we

can speak truth. Amen? Last thing I want to encourage you to do is to teach a worldview to the next generation. This generation has more challenges than ever, mainly coming through smartphones. What's called rapid onset gender dysphoria is this huge trend. And a huge factor in this is sometimes the educational system plays a role. More often than not, it's YouTubers and TikTokers and other on social media. I'm not saying don't ever watch that. I'm saying wisely and in relationship. You know what studies show about passing on your faith? If I was going to sum it up, if you care about passing on your faith to your kids, it's three things. Number one, model a faith worth emulating from your kids. If you say one thing and do another,

they're not going to listen. Second, build intimate, close relationships with your kids. And third, have spiritual conversations with them about issues that matter. That's why I wrote the book, A Rebel's Manifesto. This presentation was one of the chapters in the book. I got the 25 most thorny, difficult issues that this generation is facing for parents and for students, so you can read it and talk about it. Issues like race, issues like transgender, issues like immigration. How do we think about this and approach this Christianly? So that may be a resource that helps, but when it's all said and done, what matters more than trying to discuss sexuality with somebody is talking to them about Jesus.

In some ways, sexuality is downstream from who we think Jesus is. My father and I wrote a recent book together called Evidence for Jesus. And the best part is it's short and it's quick and it's to the point. How do we know Jesus rose from the grave? How can you say Jesus is the only way? How do we know Jesus fulfilled prophecy and is really God? To equip you, to equip your kids so we can be ready like 1 Peter 3 15 says, sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts. Always be ready with an answer and give it for the hope that we have.

Give with gentleness and give it with respect. You and I might not have chosen the moment that we live in, but God wants us to be faithful. He wants to lean in in our increasingly secular culture and love our neighbors around us. I'm going to seek the book table. Would love to say hi. Would love to shake your hand, answer a question. Thanks for having me, and congrats on some of the baptisms that are coming up. God bless.