Intentionally, I do not use the platform that God has given me at Cornerstone Baptist Church as a bully in the political process. I have deeply personal views on the state of our nation and who our next president should be. However, I recognize that the issues facing this great nation are complex and that people of faith regularly fall on different sides of the political aisle. With that said, there are certain policies that are directly handled in Scripture and, though we may be diverse in our political beliefs, it is the responsibility of God’s people to stand together and defend those policies or fight against such policies that stand in direct contrast to our faith.
Often times the faithful religious are not vocal in our response to public policy. We do not often speak about policies that do not directly relate to our living. While I will not argue the merit of such response this morning, this past week a directive was issued which will directly impact my life, the life of my children, and others. This past week, the President, whom we should pray for regularly and not criticize with the fervency we often see, directed all public schools to allow students to use the restrooms of their choice, based upon their gender self-identification.
Let me be abundantly clear, Cornerstone Baptist Church loves our transgender brothers and sisters. They are due the same grace, hospitality, love, and respect as any other of God’s creation. With that said, we believe that the transgender agenda is in direct opposition of God. In the beginning, God created mankind to be His image bearer. That is, God created man to mirror Himself to the world. In accordance to this image, God created mankind both male and female. It requires male and female working together to adequately portray the image of God and to eliminate one piece of the equation is to dishonor the image of God, as He created man. As our society moves into a “gender neutral” people, we have abandoned God’s call to reflect Him. Further, gender self-identification devalues human life and does not appreciate the beauty of God’s creation. When we do not celebrate our differences, we do not exalt in the God who made each of us distinct and special. It is Genesis 3 played out in 2016. In Genesis 3, man decided to make himself other than what God had created him to be. Man was created to be an image bearer – Adam decided to be the Image himself. To reject our gender, as appropriated by God, is to reject God’s purposes and plan for our life. It is a willful rejection of God as creator and controller of the universe and life.
Further, Cornerstone Baptist Church loves our public schools. We support them, cherish them, and pray for them regularly. We are thankful for the countless administrators, teachers, and workers who invest in our children. My family and our church are personal friends to many of the areas public school administrators. We recognize that this directive did not come from them. It was written and given through authorities above them.
However, it should be clear that the faithful, concerned people of Cornerstone Baptist Church will support our local schools in their rejection of this directive. The schools cannot stand by themselves, they need the support of the community to fight such decisions. I will stand with the schools as they fight this directive.
As God’s people, it is our duty to be respectful. Our conversation and speech must be thoroughly seasoned with salt. But our position must be firm. We should take the responsibility to respond to such a directive in a loving, compassionate, controlled, and unwavering manner. That response should begin at a local level. I would encourage each of you to write a simple letter to your local administration informing them of your plan to stand with them in opposition to this directive. We should also let our local legislator know, calling upon our state senators, representatives, and governor to reject this directive. After that, we should express our position to our national representatives, calling our congressmen and women.
Our position is not of strife. It is not our desire to unduly orchestrate a response which is not consistent with the character of God. However, our nation’s leaders refuse to learn from history. We are moving steadily to a lawless society, where we will once again be like the people of the book of Judges, of whom it is said, “Every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
Some will say that this is purely a theological matter… While this is certainly a theological matter for me, it is not solely a theological matter. We desire unity. But we also desire order and not chaos. We desire for the rights of all to be recognized instead of the whims of a vocal minority. The ramifications of this directive are broader than the local school. For example, if self-gender identification becomes the norm, men who are arrested and sentenced to prison will identify as women to be sent to female institutions? Coaches will recruit boys to play on girls teams to gain a competitive advantage. Public universities will be required to house transgender students with members of the opposite sex. The list is endless…Make no mistake about it, the innocent always suffer from evil and this will be true in this case as well. We should as faithful people of God draw our line in the sand here. We do not desire to be contentious, we desire for our nation to be blessed and our children protected.
Therefore, we ask for our local schools to exhaust every possible measure to reject this directive and pledge our support for them in the battle that may be ahead.
Held by Grace, Pastor Chris