Inbox: Something to Think About

A few days ago I watched a couple of men argue on social media about the so-called “slippery slope fallacy”. One said it isn’t really considered a formal fallacy and may be a legitimate concern in many instances; the other claimed it’s entirely specious.

That’s wrong. The slippery slope is very much a real thing, especially when you are dealing with the radical Left. Give an inch, and they will take a mile. Give them a Pride parade, they want same-sex marriage. Give them same-sex marriage and they want to adopt and raise kids in their own likeness.

After that they are coming for yours.

Jesse Kelly Weighs In

I’m going to share the transcript of a clip sent to me by a reader that should really give us all something to think seriously about. Nationally syndicated talk show host Jesse Kelly has this to say about the growing ideological and political divide in the US over the promotion of the LGBTQ+ agenda:

“The reality is you now share a country with demons who believe children should be chopped up — and that’s the ones they allow to live through birth.

Why should I want to ‘heal’ with someone who believes a ten year old boy should be allowed to chop his penis off by a doctor? I want to be divided from that person. We’re not near divided enough!

This is why I talk about getting a national divorce. We should not be forced — you shouldn’t, and I shouldn’t — to occupy a country who believes that it’s okay to chop the breasts off a twelve year old girl. You shouldn’t ever have to live in that country and neither should I. I don’t want my kids to have to live in it. I don’t want their kids to have to live in it. These people are sick, demonic freaks, and I don’t have to act like it’s normal, I don’t have to treat you nice, and I’ll tell you something else: I’m allowed to hate you.

If you’re somebody — maybe you’re a doctor — and as part of your profession, you get paid to mutilate children, I hate you, and I hate what you do, and there’s nothing terrible that could happen to you that could make me feel bad. That’s how I feel about people who hurt children. And the fact that that can’t be a universal thing for all 330 million Americans tells me all I need to know about the ‘divide’ and ‘the healing of the divide’, and ‘coming together’.

I don’t want to come together with you. I hate your guts and you hate my guts, and that’s fine. Let’s live apart. Because I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to live together and — what’s that word they love that starts with a ‘C’? — ‘coexist’ — I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be able to coexist like this. This has become institutionalized across the United States of America. To allow this to happen to our children and to push it on children under the guise of it somehow will make things easier or healthier for them?

As long as the harm of children is mainstream in the Democratic Party, I don’t want to heal divides, so don’t ever say that word to me again.”

Love Your Enemies?

Now, how do Christians — steeped in a culture of loving our enemies — respond to that? I have several thoughts:

1. “Love your enemies” is not the same as “love God’s enemies” or “love those who are actively trying to destroy your nation”. The Lord’s command to his followers is concerning people whose ill-will toward you is personal (“those who hate you”, “those who abuse you”) and whose contact with you is direct and immediate (“the one who strikes you on the cheek”, “the one who takes away your cloak”). But God’s own hatred is directed against not just evil deeds, but against those who do them. The Christian obligation to show love to erring individuals does not extend to loving their faction or their agenda.
2. There is a legitimate problem with “healing a divide” with people you should not be allied with in the first place. Jehu the son of Hanani was sent to King Jehoshaphat of Judah to condemn his alliance with Israel. “Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the Lord?” he asked. “Because of this, wrath has gone out against you from the Lord.” How do people who regard children as a blessing, a trust and a gift from the Lord have any common ground with people who want to kill and maim them? “Coexistence” looks a lot like compromise to me.
3. Distinctions need to be kept in mind. Kelly rightly identifies the “sick, demonic freaks” as the enablers and agitators, not the poor, confused kids involved. There are several different types aiding and abetting this movement: (1) the virtue signalers who are more concerned about their own job situation, acceptance and safety than some abstract child they have never met; (2) the true believers who genuinely think they are helping; and (3) the profiteers and activists who have no interest in the children for their own sake but are exploiting their confusion for their own ends. If hatred is going to be directed at anyone, it should be the latter group. Also, persuasion and negotiation may work on members of the first two groups. They will never work on the third.
4. It’s not just the doctors. Christians in other fields are already under pressure to become part of this movement. Teachers and all kinds of health care professionals are being forced to make hard decisions about what they will do if promoting gender reassignment surgery becomes an obligatory part of their job. Next it will be Christians working in law. Those who identify as trans and want surgery are a relatively tiny minority right now, but we can already see that “education” has the potential to wildly increase the number of confused kids looking to make their situation better in some way by changing their self-identification. A fourth grade teacher in Austin, Texas proudly declares that 20 of her 32 students “have come out to me” and encourages greater activism. Does that sound like a public school system you’d like to put your kids in?

Thinking It Through

I don’t know if Jesse Kelly is a Christian. He is certainly conservative. Many of us would balk at using his language or taking the position he takes. But this is a real issue and it’s not going away. The daughter of a good friend is confused about her own sexual identity precisely because of the promotion of the LGBTQ+ agenda in her Canadian school over a period of years. The propaganda is having its effect, and we will only see more of this.

For Christians with young children in the public school system, the promotion of confusion and evil is already a concern. Their children’s unsaved friends are already pushing gay and trans rights as tolerant and compassionate. Christians in education and medicine have jobs and supporting their families to think about. Christians who do youth and children’s work are already encountering the victims.

Every Christian needs to think through where we are willing to draw a line in the sand. At some point, silence really does become consent. Kelly’s “How long can we coexist?” is a legitimate question.