Dear Reader,
I didn’t hear from anyone beginning a writing project this summer in response to my “Telling Stories of Immortals” piece from last Friday, so I’m hoping that means you’re too busy getting started on your memoir! Of course, if you need inspiration, pick up a copy of Mako’s World (digital version out Tuesday!), and let me know if you need help getting started writing.
I confess I didn’t want to write on the topic of “Pride Month,” but after I got inundated all week, I figured most of you did as well and might be interested in thinking about it a little differently (you’ll forgive me, but I’ve been in a Stranger Things mood all week and it kind of bled over). As with anything I write, chew the meat, spit out the bones, and feel free to engage. I always appreciate hearing from readers. Thanks for reading Second Drafts.
Have a nice weekend,
Craig
PS: This week’s newsletter is a long one and Gmail clips emails at 102K, so you may need to continue reading it in your browser (just click “View Entire Message” at the end of the email).
Hot Takes
“Same-Sex Marriage Support Inches Up to New High of 71%” - Just one of several cultural institutions to take a hit in recent years, the sanctity of marriage continues to be redefined while the American populace seems to care less and less:
“Seventy-one percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriage, which exceeds the previous high of 70% recorded in 2021 by one percentage point. These data are from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 2-22.
When Gallup first polled about same-sex marriage in 1996, barely a quarter of the public (27%) supported legalizing such unions. It would take another 15 years, until 2011, for support to reach the majority level. Then in 2015, just one month before the U.S. Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, public support for legalizing gay marriage cracked the 60% level, and last year it reached the 70% mark for the first time.”
Here’s the chart:
The good news (if there is any) is that regular church goers are the only ones whose support has been slower than the rest of those polled (though it’s not receding):
“Americans who report that they attend church weekly remain the primary demographic holdout against gay marriage, with 40% in favor and 58% opposed.
Analyzing Gallup's trends since 2004, Americans who seldom or never attend church have always been mostly supportive of same-sex couples getting legally married. Among those who attend nearly weekly or monthly, support did not rise to the majority level until 2014.
Weekly churchgoers, however, have yet to reach a majority level of support in the trend. The current 40% among this group who support same-sex marriage is within the 39% to 44% range Gallup has recorded since 2016.”
Life in the “Upside Down”
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!” Isaiah 5:20-21
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
Perhaps like many of you, I’m a Stranger Things fan. For multiple reasons—the time period (so far, 1983-1986); the soundtrack (killer 80s tunes); the blending of genres (sci-fi, suspense—I wouldn’t call it “horror,” though they’re definitely pushing—with some comedy)—I love the world the Duffer Brothers have created and set in a small Midwestern town called Hawkins. The story is intriguing, the dialogue is clever, the characters are believable, and the production values are high for a television show.
Thus, it came as no surprise to anyone in our family this past Memorial Day weekend (especially since it was a nice, rainy affair), that we would hunker down and binge over the course of three days all seven episodes of season four, all the while making plans for the season’s final two episodes set for the July 4th weekend. We loved season one; two and three seemed a little scattered but were okay; but season four has been (with only a few hiccups that I won’t go into so as to avoid any spoilers) a return to form.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Stranger Things is “the Upside Down,” which, according to the official Stranger Things Wiki, is,
“…an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world. Most, if not all, flora and fauna present in the dimension are linked together in a hive mind controlled by the Mind Flayer, essentially forming an enormous superorganism. A key component of this hive mind was a species of humanoid predators, dubbed Demogorgons, which originated from the dimension.”
The entry continues:
“On November 6, 1983, during an experiment hosted at Hawkins National Laboratory, a child test subject named Eleven made inter-dimensional contact with a Demogorgon and unintentionally opened the Gate. Through this gateway, the Mind Flayer began using its dominion over the Upside Down to invade the town of Hawkins, spreading toxic biological matter presumably with the goal to eventually invade the entire Earth. However, this plan was stopped when the Gate was closed, supposedly severing the dimension's connection to Earth's dimension.”
But the connection wasn’t really severed; in fact, scientists continued to study it:
“According to the scientists of Hawkins Lab, the atmosphere was toxic to humans, hence why they wore hazmat suits to enter the dimension. However, it seems the atmosphere is only damaging after prolonged exposure, as Nancy entered for a brief moment and showed no signs of damage, whereas Will was exposed to the air for a week and became very sick. This toxicity appears to also extend to the dimension’s flora and fauna. When a series of subterranean tunnels extending from the Upside Down began to spread and grow beneath Hawkins, they caused several farmers’ crops to rot overnight. Trees in the woodlands in close proximity to the affected farms were also observed to have the same rot.”
A cool element for a television show, right? Indeed, in addition to the previous three seasons, the “Upside Down” plays host to some significant events in season four, with at least two episodes’ worth (and a fifth and final season) still to cross back and forth. The deeper the characters go, the more difficult it is to make sense of what’s true.
Without having to do too much imagining, the “Upside Down” also serves as a fitting metaphor for what’s going on in our world in 2022. The LGBTQI+ hive mind of activism, toxicity, and rot is in full effect in June, the month commandeered as “Pride Month,” with marches and parades (not to mention an endless amount of virtue signaling, corporate and otherwise) busting out all over. As a result, more and more people (as revealed in the Gallup Poll above), are losing perspective in this “Upside Down” alternative world, and many are going so deep that it’s doubtful they’ll return.
Love the People, Lose the Movement
When I speak of the “Upside Down” crowd, I am not talking about those individuals genuinely lamenting and wrestling with same-sex attraction in his or her life. I know and love these people (some of them are even subscribers to this newsletter), and theirs has been a rough road to hoe. They are smart, caring, conscientious friends who are trying to make sense of feelings and desires that go against their biological sex. They don’t understand it anymore than I do, but they are trying to figure it out.
On the contrary, the group I’m referencing with regard to the “hive mind of activism, toxicity, and rot” of the “Upside Down” are the militant, intolerant, LGBTQI+ movement members marching naked in “Pride” parades…or making presentations to children as drag queens…or seeking to do away with freedoms of speech and religion in the name of “equal rights” under the misnamed Equality Act. These people—riding (or, more accurately, being ridden by) the influence of godless elected political officials and underwritten by deep-pocketed corporate backers—are those that I and my aforementioned gay friends together shake our heads at when it comes to the less-than-becoming behavior and propaganda put out in the name of “LGBTQI+ rights.”
Corporate sponsorship of LGBTQI+ “Pride” Month has to be one of the most bandwagon-y public relations initiatives ever thought up. Sadly, though (and I don’t know who wants to be the one to break the news to the LGBTQI+ community), these “woke” corporations don’t really care about them; all these companies care about is their money, which (surprisingly) this McSweeney’s article captures in glorious satire:
“Happy Pride! If you’ve been paying attention to our social media, Bryant White & Company has been vocally supporting month-people—including Black people, AAPI people, and women—like you since our emergency re-branding meeting last summer. It’s been your turn this month, and we’ve been celebrating YOU by affirming that, as your family bank, we embrace your beautiful, inspiring money.”
All that said, what’s most discouraging is how so many Christians are either unable to recognize the difference between the two aforementioned groups, or unwilling to push back on the latter in deference to, as Carl F. Trueman writes in WORLD Magazine, the worshipful idolatry of “human autonomy and the sovereignty of individual desire.” Over the past 50 years, the modern, militant LGBTQI+ movement, has created a present-day “Upside Down” in which traditional views of human sexuality have become so confused that even feminists are lamenting “Pride Month.”
A Month to Mourn
Robert A.J. Gagnon, professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University, shared a short essay, “Why I Do Not Celebrate ‘LGBTQ+ Pride Month’ But Mourn It,” on his Facebook page on Wednesday. In it, he asks some pointed questions and makes what I think are very compelling points about the problems with “Pride Month.” He writes:
“Not only is pride a sin, but also there is nothing to be proud of in the so-called ‘LGBTQ+ Pride Month.’ Let us love persons with same-sex attractions and gender-identity dysphoria by rejecting that facet of their existence that dishonors the persons whom God has created in his image.
Why should one take pride in being erotically aroused by the distinctives of one's own sex, which is either narcissism or self-deception (viz., the failure to apprehend that one is already fully one's own sex)?
Should people also take pride in being erotically aroused by close kin (incest, i.e., attraction to a kinship same, akin to attraction to a sexual same) or by multiple persons concurrently (which Jesus rejected based on the logic of God's intentional creation of a sexual binary)?
Why should one take pride in rejecting the messaging of one's body as designed by God by identifying with a ‘gender’ at odds with one's biological sex? A complaint against one's Creator is nothing to be proud of, but rather an expression of idolatry.
The ‘queer’ lifestyle is one marked by disproportionately high rates for sexually transmitted disease and higher numbers of sex partners (especially for homosexual males), as well as higher relational turnover and increased mental health problems (especially for homosexual females).
These risks correlate with known male-female differences; expected results when an intimate relationship lacks true sexual counterparts or complements. Same-sex unions don't moderate the extremes of a given sex; they ratchet them up; don't fill in the gaps, but widen the breach.
Scripture views homosexual practice and transgenderism as abhorrent sexual immorality (‘abominations’) that can get unrepentant offenders excluded from God's kingdom. Such behaviors assault the foundation of sexual ethics as defined by Jesus himself, his Scripture, and his apostles.
Moreover, the ‘LGBTQ+’ political agenda is the most illiberal and hateful agenda in politics today. It is characterized by efforts to stifle free speech and the free exercise of religion. It is the greatest threat to these freedoms in the Western world today, and has been for decades.
No political lobby has concentrated more on canceling and censoring others, indoctrinating school children, and even mandating compelled speech (the hallmark of totalitarians).
People’s jobs are being put at risk who dissent from ‘LGBTQ+’ dogma: teachers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, florists, photographers, small business owners, lawyers, corporate executives, etc. Children are being directed toward chemical castration and mutilation surgery.
Men identifying falsely as women are invading women’s restrooms, locker rooms, sports, shelters, and prisons, even being celebrated with misogynistic awards declaring them to be better women than real women. The very idea of faithful Christian education is being put at risk, with calls for tying federal student loans, grants, and accreditation toward lock-step compliance with ‘LGBTQ+’ ideology.
Science is suffering at the hands of a movement that teaches that men too can have periods and give birth. A gnostic spirit pervades the land, declaring entrapment in bodies not designed to express their sexually immoral desires.
This is not a month to be ‘proud’ but rather a month to mourn. Mourn the moral rot pervading our country. It has harmed not only the nation as a whole, but especially those who in their self-delusion celebrate what is injurious to themselves, and to their relationship with others and God.
As Paul told the Corinthians, they should not be ‘puffed up’ or ‘inflated with pride’ over their ability to tolerate an egregious act of sexual immorality (there a case of adult-consensual incest). To support the ‘queer’ life is a manifestation of functional hate, not love.
Therefore, I choose rather to love, to love truly, those who identify as ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘bisexual,’ and ‘transgender,’ rejoicing in the truth rather than in the lie, whatever the cost for doing so.”
As Gagnon observes at the beginning of his essay, it’s revealing that the word chosen as representative of and central to the heart of the LGBTQI+ movement is “pride.” As a friend remarked to me just yesterday,
“It’s amazing how many of my sins stem from pride and require my confession of it. And now we have an entire movement built on hubris as if it’s some kind of virtue?”
Welcome to the “Upside Down.”
Back Through the Gate?
In Stranger Things, an entrance to the “Upside Down” is also an exit from it. In other words, just because we’ve gone through the gate doesn’t mean we can’t come back through it; we just have to have the will and know the way to do so.
Now, in the context of the discussion here, I’m not naïve enough to think we’ll see a mass militant LGBTQI+ contingent drop their rainbow flags for a biblical view, but I have prayed that those more tenderhearted individuals who are same-sex-attracted would hear the Lord calling them to himself to embrace a life of celibacy.
As I knew June (with all its LGBTQI+ shenanigans) was coming, I started reading Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality by my friend, Greg Johnson. Last year around this time, I wrote about Greg (who is a gay but celibate pastor in St. Louis) in the context of where my church denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, might come down in developments pertaining to ordaining gay but celibate men as pastors and elders. I’m only 50 pages into Greg’s book, but it is wonderful in its Christian call to those who are same-sex attracted, as well as to the church that is called to love them. He writes:
“[Late British Anglican priest John] Stott set out to cast a positive vision for homosexually oriented people. He spoke of the gay person’s life of faithfulness as a calling from God. He pointed to the encouragement and support the church will have to offer as people like me [Greg] live out lives of fidelity to Christ. He then pointed us all to faith, hope, and love. By this, he meant the faith to accept both God’s standards and his grace. It meant the hope to look beyond this present life of struggle to our coming future glory. And it meant love—specifically, love from churches that have historically failed to give such love to believers who aren’t straight. Jesus, Stott charged, is calling his church to love its nonstraight members.”
Greg’s book (or at least that which I have so far read of it) gives both a review of a positive evangelical history (who knew, right?) as well as a powerful prescription for a return to the evangelical church’s roots in caring for same-sex-attracted people. I plan to review the full book at the end of the month (see Peaches’ Pick below), but what I take from it now can be summed up here:
“All of these Christian leaders [Lewis, Schaeffer, Graham, Stott] held to the historical understanding of the biblical sexual ethic. This certainly meant committing to life in line with God’s creational pattern, his design. Not one supported romantic or sexual unions for believers outside of a monogamous marriage between two people of complementary sexes. But they approached gay people from a posture of humility.
Their vision did not flatten us into our unwanted sexual urges. Instead they recognized that a same-sex-oriented believer’s biggest struggle may be not with sexual sin but with the ability to give and receive love. So in their teachings, they emphasized the need for the community of the church, for deep, long-term friendships, for brotherhood, to be known even in celibacy. Stott explained, ‘At the heart of the human condition is a deep and natural hunger for mutual love, a search for identity and a longing for completeness. If gay people cannot find these things in the local ‘church family,’ we have no business to go on using that expression.”
Amen and amen. One last excerpt:
“Lewis, Schaeffer, Graham, and Stott viewed the homosexual condition not as a cognitive behavioral challenge to be cured but as an unchosen orientation with no reliable cure in this life. They showed great concern for the emotional and relational needs of gay people. They were sensitive to the ways in which the church has been complicit in marginalizing them. They were wary to engage in political activism targeting gays. Yes, with Schaeffer we realize that churches might have to fight to protect their right to enforce their internal discipline, including with hired ministry staff. But with Graham we see a hesitancy to weaponize politics at the expense of the gospel’s reaching gay people.”
Here and now in the “Upside Down,” the militant LGBTQI+ crowd will march in their parades and be protected and sponsored by government and corporate institutions pretending to care for them. But for those same-sex-attracted believers wanting to leave the “Upside Down,” let’s hang out at the gates and be the church in which they are loved and held up as models to follow in repentance and obedience to Christ.
Peaches’ Pick: Still Time to Care by Greg Johnson
We’re glad to be reading Greg Johnson’s new (December 2021) book, Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality, for June:
“At the start of the gay rights movement in 1969, evangelicalism's leading voices cast a vision for gay people who turn to Jesus. It was C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer, and John Stott who were among the most respected leaders within theologically orthodox Protestantism. We see with them a positive pastoral approach toward gay people, an approach that viewed homosexuality as a fallen condition experienced by some Christians who needed care more than cure.
With the birth and rise of the ex-gay movement, the focus shifted from care to cure. As a result, there are an estimated 700,000 people alive today who underwent conversion therapy in the United States alone. Many of these patients were treated by faith-based, testimony-driven parachurch ministries centered on the ex-gay script. Despite the best of intentions, the movement ended with very troubling results. Yet the ex-gay movement died not because it had the wrong sex ethic. It died because it was founded on a practice that diminished the beauty of the gospel.
Yet even after the closure of the ex-gay umbrella organization Exodus International in 2013, the ex-gay script continues to walk about as the undead among us, pressuring people like me to say, ‘I used to be gay, but I'm not gay anymore. Now I'm just same-sex attracted.’
For orthodox Christians, the way forward is a path back to where we were forty years ago. It is time again to focus with our Neo-Evangelical fathers on care—not cure—for our non-straight sisters and brothers who are living lives of costly obedience to Jesus.
With warmth and humor as well as original research, Still Time to Care will chart the path forward for our churches and ministries in providing care. It will provide guidance for the gay person who hears the gospel and finds themselves smitten by the life-giving call of Jesus. Woven throughout the book will be Richard Lovelace’s 1978 call for a ‘double repentance’ in which gay Christians repent of their homosexual sins and the church repents of its homophobia—putting on display for all the power of the gospel.”
Pick up a copy and read along with us. Book review to be published Saturday, June 25.
Fresh & Random Linkage
“If the Ancient Romans Had Google Maps” - If you have any interest at all in the ancient world, you don’t want to miss this. The Romans were good at roads.
“Top-Paid LA Lifeguards Earned Up To $510,283 In 2021” - I’ve got nothing against lifeguards making a living, but good grief. Time to find my Speedo?
“California Court Rules that Bees Are Actually Fish” - Can’t make this stuff up.
Until next time.