I Was Blocked by "The Gospel Coalition"
trans kids, bullies for Jesus, and speaking truth to power
Hey Friends,
So I was blocked by “The Gospel Coalition” on social media the other day for pushing back (hard, I admit) on an article they released the day before Thanksgiving regarding God’s displeasure with Trans kids. Picking on kids really sets me off - straight kids, Trans kids, white kids, black kids … just leave kids alone.
Here’s the article if you want context, written by an “anonymous” father.
More on that in a moment, but first - The Parable of the Talents. You know the story, right? If not just click the link and get a quick refresh.
But.
Anyways.
The Master - the Master in the Parable of the Talents wasn't a mean dude, was he? I mean, he entrusted his servants with (literally) a lifetime of cash.
Have you ever heard of a billionaire going on a road trip and entrusting a massive part of his fortune to a few employees until he got back?
Me neither.
And so I really don't think the Master was an angry, bad guy - he seems pretty laid back and chill to me.
The 3rd servant, though?
For whatever reason, he had a misconception - he assumed that the Master was mean and angry and bad to the bone, which ended up creating a world of torment for himself.
Hm.
My great sadness is that the Church in America has painted God to be a mean, angry, bad to the bone task master who expects us to believe certain things and act in certain ways so that we can (hopefully) narrowly escape the flames of torment when we die when in reality God doesn't seem to be anything like that at all. It's a message that is preached from pulpits, written in books, shouted from Tweets, and is creating a tormenting hell for the world around us.
God's not angry, my friends. God's not mean. God's not out to get us.
BUT.
When we assume God is all of those things. Well. We end up creating a world full of torment and miss out on the opportunity to invest our lives into the great task of making this world a more heavenly place.
This is what The Gospel Coalition did with their article regarding Trans kids the day before Thanksgiving. They operate under the assumption that God is especially ticked off at LGBTQ people and that if our kid is LGBTQ then God expects us to love God more than our kid and make our kid feel the full brunt of our dissatisfaction so that we can remain in God's good graces while our kid (likely) gets tossed into torment in this life and the next.
God is a mean Master and so that gives us a license to be a mean Master too - to our kids or anyone else who dare test our allegiance to the things God expects us to believe, the ways God expects us to live.
That belief and that article created hell at the Thanksgiving table for countless Trans kids who already had to deal with sitting across from family members who refuse to accept them. Posting that article the day before Thanksgiving was a calculated move of evil that forcefully put forth the idea that we serve a mean Master - an idea that created hell for many Trans kids on Thanksgiving and will continue to fan the flames of torment in our world towards LGBTQ people.
And rather than respond to people's comments, The Gospel Coalition (who is against "cancel culture", mind you, and for "free speech") "hides" people's comments, deletes them, and freely uses the block button while they hide behind a few out of context Bible verses that they use as a license to be Gatekeepers for God and bullies for Jesus.
Hopefully they'll take the post down, but past experience with them tells me that they won't. Even so, to my LGBTQ friends - you are safe with me, but more importantly: you are safe with God ... regardless of what The Gospel Coalition has to say about it.
Keep speaking truth to power, friends - all the more so when people’s well-being is at stake; AND EVEN MORE SO when the well-being of our children is at stake.
Peace.
Glenn || SUPPORT