Cedarville Magazine, Summer 2018

CHAPEL NOTES If you detach love from truth it becomes inauthentic, but we can proclaim the truth in a way that’s disconnected from love. The challenge for us: How do we put those two things together? What is the role we can play to help people feel comfortable in their own bodies as God created them male or female? A young boy was being bullied by the other boys in his class. They were calling him names because he wasn’t the stereotypical masculine macho rough-and- tumble boy. As a way of coping, the boy had developed close friendships with girls in his class and convinced himself he was actually a girl trapped in a boy’s body. The therapist suggested three things for the parents: remove your child from this toxic environment; keep bringing your child to see me so we can continue discussing what it means to be a boy — we need to help him develop a more mature and nuanced understanding of masculinity; lastly, find your son a peer group of boys like him, so he can make friendships and won’t have anxiety about being a boy. After the parents did this, their child was readily identifying as a boy again after a year or so. In another example, the therapist asked a young boy, “What is it about being a girl that you find attractive?” The child said, “Mommies love little girls more than little boys.” The therapist started meeting one-on-one with the mother. She revealed she had been raped earlier in life and had developed an aversion toward men. The therapist started working with the mother to provide her with healing and wholeness she needed so she could be fully affectionate and loving with her son. A year after this, the son was readily identifying as a boy again. What can we do to present the truth about the human person in a charitable and accessible way to people who might not share all of our underlying convictions? How can we speak in a language that will be accessible to others and obvious that we’re coming from a perspective of genuine care and concern? There are very real human costs to getting human nature wrong. The challenge for us is how do we respond in both truth and love to prevent some of those human costs in our own cultural moment. Ryan Anderson is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and the founder and editor of Public Discourse , the online journal of the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, New Jersey. He is also the author of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Responding to the Transgender Moment The following is an excerpt from a March 29, 2018, chapel presentation by Ryan Anderson as part of the Staley Lecture Series. Listen to his full remarks at cedarville.edu/chapel . What is the role we can play to help people feel comfortable in their own bodies as God created them male or female? Join the University family in chapel each day via the livestream broadcast ( cedarville.edu/chapellive ) or Facebook Live ( cedarville.edu/facebook ). Past messages are also archived at cedarville.edu/chapel . August 28 Ray Ortlund Pastor Immanuel Church Nashville, TN September 5 Jason Elam Former NFL Placekicker, Author Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons Sitka, AK September 12 Jason Allen President Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Kansas City, MO 20 | Cedarville Magazine