Our times are crazy, as you’ll agree if you have been following the news. Just recently, an “expert” witness was testifying before a congressional committee and refused to give a definition of a woman. In the mindset of those who embrace the idea that people can self-identify as either male or female regardless of their biological birth, the question seemed like a political trap. Upon further questioning, she was asked if a man can become pregnant. The witness answered, “Yes.” This wasn’t a trap but a simple effort to force the witness to put the cards entirely on the table, out in the open. This took place in a congressional hearing in the United States.

Activists will try to make a case for differentiating between a person’s sex assigned at birth and a person’s gender, which only they can decide for themselves. The sex/gender debate has become a struggle over who controls the narrative and the word definitions. Laced with nuance and shibboleths, the arguments effuse an arrogant sound of cultural superiority but, in reality, bring our culture not just to the edge of absurdity but to full immersion in it.

How does one not respond to the statement that a man can become pregnant? Trying to understand how otherwise intelligent people could make such a statement without laughing at the ruse, I did a bit of research. To them, it is not a ruse, not a laughing matter. One source framed the answer with caveats like “a cisgender man living like a man cannot be pregnant.” The term “cisgender” means living according to the biological sex you were “assigned” at birth. Notice what is being assumed in this switch of terminology: sex is assigned. That is a passive statement, but we must ask the active question, “Who assigned the sex at birth?” The parents don’t make that choice; God does. Opponents would quickly retort that nature makes the assignment, but even the concept of assignment means there is some intelligent person or process involved. But this moves the discussion into inconvenient territory, namely that the universe reflects intelligent design. Activists would sidestep this by asserting that it is a non-sequitur; the argument, to them, is irrelevant and does not affect the “greater truth,” the assumed belief that human choice trumps the assigned design at birth.

But then, the activists would assert that “a transgender man can become pregnant, provided he still has his ovaries and uterus.” So much is assumed in this statement that to challenge it expands into an unending debate over terminology, rights, self-identifications, etc. Yet, what could be more fundamental to the reality of human life on earth than that humanity is made of men and women, male and female, differentiated in many ways, not the least at the chromosomal level? No amount of verbal qualification changes what has, until now, always been taken as indisputable fact. It is almost embarrassing to think we have to make this point.

But the ultimate issue is not about the terms, rights, surgical advancements, or hormonal therapy. Scripture takes a much clearer view; the problem is the rejection of God’s truth, which is the determiner of reality. The Creator is the most authoritative voice for defining the narrative of how we should talk about His creation. Remember, we were created by Him; we are not our own. A so-called right to self-identify is a patent lie against the truth, against reality as God defines it. Only someone blind cannot see that.

I am fully aware of the opposing so-called “biblical support” by those trying to save their faith in the Bible while embracing the prevailing media-supported and media-promoted distortions. But those arguments involve wholly inadequate treatment of Scripture, bending it to mean something different from the text’s plain reading.

Our present-day rejectors of truth are simply one manifestation of what happens when people reject God. They must come up with a worldview that gives them the autonomy and self-rule they desire above all else. The axiomatic problem is that ultimately, they have replaced faith in God with confidence in their own human reasoning. When taken to its logical conclusion, the result is the embrace of absurdity.

Listen to what the Holy Spirit says to us in the book of Romans, chapter 1 (selectively gathered here for emphasis), about how people come to have such a distorted view of reality.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men [Greek: anthropos, referring to humanity] who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. … so that they are without excuse. … became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools …  For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie …. For this reason God gave them over to … that which is unnatural … And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper … (Romans 1:18-22, 25-26, 28)

What can be done? Try harder to win the argument in the political realm? Some are called to do that, but laws won’t change the underlying problem. Isaiah the prophet would probably repeat to our generation what he said to his generation twenty-six hundred years ago:

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.” (Isa. 1:18)

Let us pray for spiritual conversion of the greatest voices of distortion, the loudest rejecters of truth, the most absurd deniers of creation reality.

O Creator God of the universe, who sent Your Son Jesus into this absurd distortion of reality we call life. Though our sin was great, Your grace was greater; I pray You would extend that grace to all sinners, just as You did to me.