Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch, and in today's episode, we're asking the question, are we being loud enough? And this is prompted by a horrific article I read in the Wall Street Journal recently by Soren Adalco about Soren's own life, called what I Suffered being, quote, unquote, transgender. At age 11, Soren Adalco began identifying as transgender, heavily influenced by online forums and peer affirmation. At 17, she was being prescribed cross sex hormones within 30 minutes by a nurse practitioner. You're right, 30 minutes. But between beginning the conversation with the nurse, she was taking so called medicine. By 19, she had an elective double mastectomy. After the surgery and the bodily mutilation that comes with that, complications were ignored by her original care team. And only later did she receive actual emergency care and begin questioning the, the ideology that led her there. In other words, she was the only one saying, my body is negatively, responding to this. Is that a problem? Through education and self reflection, she began to realize she had not been born in the wrong body and saw her story as really one of coercion. In fact, now at 23, she is suing her medical providers, arguing basically that they went against their own training and doing no harm and, and instead did incredible harm to her, when actually what she needed was counseling and mental and emotional health support to keep her from making bodily harm decisions based on a wrongful ideology. Now, I bring this up because for a long time, Christians, evangelical Christians, were saying that the, transgender ideology was horrific and evil and terrible and harmful. And we were being called all kinds of names, transphobic and hateful, homophobic, all kinds of names. We were the problem. We were the evil ones. We were causing people to harm themselves. But it seems like the opposite was true, at least according to Soren Adalko, who herself experienced both the ideology and its effects. I think what Soren is saying is, where were the adults in my life speaking louder, saying to me, don't do this. This is not good for you. This is not okay. She's saying, I went to professionals who should have known better, and because of this ideology, they didn't. I can't help but hear the words of the Apostle Paul here from Ephesians 5:11, who says this. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Listen, I think society is coming full circle on the issue of gender Dysphoria and transgender thinking, at least as it relates to minors. Increasingly people are realizing that when a 14 year old says, I'm in the wrong body, they might just be a, confused 14 year old. And maybe we shouldn't do irreparable harm to their bodies because there's increasingly a, likelihood that at 20, they say that that was just a phase. I think people are realizing that. But what maybe we're not realizing is that we need Christians to speak up and to speak out about the crazy things that are happening in our world. Gender dysphoria is one issue. Transgender ideology is one thing, but there are other things out there that our society is preaching that the Bible tells us are wicked. And when the Bible tells us something is wicked, it's not just saying it breaks a rule, it violates a principle. It's saying it will destroy people's lives. Remember that God made a world that was good and he gave it to us. All he's ever wanted for us is that we would flourish under his leadership, under his watchful care. He is in Psalm 23, the shepherd who leads us to green grass and takes us to still waters. When we reject him, we reject our own health. When we reject God, we reject our own prosperity. So Christians must be loud on issues of destruction. Of course, the problem with that is, is you're going to get called names. That is what's going to happen. In fact, this is not even a podcast for a larger society. Hey, listen to us Christians. This is a podcast for Christians. You're going to have to get comfortable being labeled things. I remember when I started, wake up, look up. I asked my wife if she was okay with me doing this. I said, there's a good chance we're going to be at a restaurant or a grocery store and someone's going to call me homophobic, transphobic, or whatever the name du jour is of that given week. Are we comfortable with that as a family? Well, we have to be, because people are hurting themselves. People are leading themselves and their children and their families and their friends to destruction. You know, in Ezekiel, God tells Ezekiel to be the watchman on the wall. He says, if you tell them what's coming and they don't listen, that's on them. But if you don't tell them, that's on you. We gotta stop being afraid. We gotta stop being worried about what we get labeled. Because people like Soren will eventually come to their senses and be saying, where were you? Church? Where were you? Christian friend, family member, neighbor when I needed you most. The time to speak up is now. Kindly, lovingly, compassionately, but loudly. We don't fear their labels. We fear God Almighty. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app, where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.

Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!