By Ray Yungen
Two authors from Great Britain portray a stunningly clear picture of New Age spirituality. They explain:
[T]he keynote of it appears to be a movement for synthesis derived from an understanding of the underlying unity behind all things and the sense of oneness that this brings.
This oneness of all life is the crux of the New Age movement.1
Catholic monk M. Basil Pennington defined the contemplative spiritual worldview in his book Thomas Merton My Brother. He related:
The Spirit enlightened him [Merton] in the true synthesis [unity] of all and in the harmony of that huge chorus of living beings. In the midst of it he lived out a vision of a new world, where all divisions have fallen away and the divine goodness is perceived and enjoyed as present in all and through all.2
The first viewpoint describes God as the oneness of all existence. In Merton’s new world, God is perceived as being present “in all and through all.” It certainly appears that the same spirit enlightened both parties. The only difference was Merton’s revelation worked in a Christian context just as occultist Alice Bailey predicted. Unfortunately, this context is now commonplace in Catholic circles, becoming so in mainline Protestant churches, and being eagerly explored and embraced by an ever-increasing number of evangelical Christians.
Evangelical leaders now debate whether such spiritual truths as resting in God are the same as contemplative silence. Based on documentations I have been presenting for many years, I believe contemplative prayer has no place in true Christianity. Scripture clearly teaches that with salvation comes an automatic guidance system—the Holy Spirit. Lewis Sperry Chafer, in his outstanding book Grace: The Glorious Theme, spells out this truth with crystal-clear clarity:
It is stated in Romans 5:5 that “the Spirit is given to us.” This is true of every person who is saved. The Spirit is the birth-right in the new life. By Him alone can the character and service that belongs to the normal daily life of the Christian be realized. The Spirit is the “All-Sufficient One.” Every victory in the new life is gained by His strength, and every reward in glory will be won only as a result of His enabling power.3
Richard Foster
Show me a Scripture in the Bible in which the Holy Spirit is activated or accessed by contemplative prayer. If such a verse exists, wouldn’t it be the keynote verse in defense of contemplative prayer?
None exists!
I want to emphasize what I believe cuts through all the emotional appeal that has attracted so many to teachers like Richard Foster and Brennan Manning and really boils the issue down to its clearest state.
In his book Streams of Living Water, Richard Foster emanates his hoped-for vision of an “all inclusive community” that he feels God is forming today. He sees this as “a great, new gathering of the people of God.”4
On the surface, this might sound noble and sanctifying, but a deeper examination will expose elements that line up more with Alice Bailey’s vision than with Jesus Christ’s. Foster prophesies:
I see a Catholic monk from the hills of Kentucky standing alongside a Baptist evangelist from the streets of Los Angeles and together offering up a sacrifice of praise. I see a people.5
The only place in “the hills of Kentucky” where Catholic monks live is the Gethsemane Abbey, a Trappist monastery. This also, coincidentally, was the home base of Thomas Merton.
David Steindl-Rast
Let me explain this significant connection. In the summer of 1996, Buddhist and Catholic monks met together to dialogue in what was billed the “Gethsemane Encounter.”6 David Steindl-Rast, a Zen-Buddhist trained monk and close friend of Thomas Merton, facilitated this event.
During the encounter, presentations on Zen meditation and practice from the Theravedan Buddhist tradition were offered.7 One of the speakers discussed the “correlation of the Christian contemplative life with the lives of our Buddhist sisters and brothers.”8
For these monks and the Baptist evangelist to be “a people,” as Richard Foster says, someone has to change. Either the monks have to abandon their Buddhist convictions and align with the Baptists, or the Baptists have to become contemplative style Baptists and embrace the monks’ beliefs. That is the dilemma in Foster’s “great gathering of God.”
Mystic David Steindl-Rast once asked Thomas Merton what role Buddhism played in his going deeper into the spiritual life. Merton replied quite frankly: “I think I couldn’t understand Christian teaching the way I do if it were not in the light of Buddhism.”9
Thomas Merton
Did Merton mean that in order to understand what Christianity really is, you have to change your consciousness? I believe that is exactly what he meant. Once he personally did that through contemplative prayer, Buddhism provided him with the explanation of what he experienced. But again the catalyst was changing his consciousness. This is what I am warning Christians about. Contemplative prayer is presenting a way to God identical with all the world’s mystical traditions. Christians are haplessly lulled into it by the emphasis on seeking the Kingdom of God and greater piety, yet the apostle Paul described the church’s end-times apostasy in the context of a mystical seduction. If this practice doesn’t fit that description, I don’t know what does.
You don’t have to change your consciousness to grab “aholt” of God (as Brennan Manning insists). All you need is to be born-again. What Steindl-Rast and the other Gethsemane monks should have been telling Buddhists is, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
In his book, Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning mentions that once Baptist Sunday school teacher, now New Ager, Sue Monk Kidd eventually came under the mentorship of Dr. Beatrice Bruteau who authored the book What We Can Learn From the East. Since that title is self-explanatory, it’s easy to understand why Dr. Bruteau would write the preface to a book like The Mystic Heart by mystic Wayne Teasdale. In the preface, she touts that a universal spirituality based on mysticism is going to save the world.
It seems that all these people want a better world. They do not seem like sinister conspirators like those out of a James Bond film. Yet, it is their niceness that rejects the reality of the fundamental separation between Man and God. It is their sense of compassion that feeds their universalism. It is idealism that makes Manning so attractive and causes him to say that Dr. Bruteau is a “trustworthy guide to contemplative consciousness.”10
The irony of this is that Manning is completely correct in his statement—Dr. Bruteau is a reliable guide to contemplative awareness. She has founded two organizations, the Schola Contemplationis (school for contemplation) and the very Christian-sounding Fellowship of the Holy Trinity. With the latter, she is promoted as “a well-known author and lecturer on contemplative life and prayer.”11 Both of these organizations incorporate Hindu and Buddhist approaches to spirituality. This should come as no surprise because Bruteau also has studied with the Ramakrishna order, which is named after the famous Hindu swami Sri Ramakrishna.
The Ramakrishna order is dedicated to promoting the vision of Sri Ramakrishna. He was known for his view that all the world’s religions were valid revelations from God if you understood them on the mystical level. He was an early proponent of interspirituality. According to the book, Wounded Prophet, Henri Nouwen even viewed him in a favorable light and esteemed him as an important spiritual figure.
Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees) became enamored with contemplative spirituality while attending a Southern Baptist church. We could possibly dismiss that and say she was just an untaught member of the laity who was spiritually lacking in discernment. Maybe her spiritual dryness was a result of her not being grounded firmly enough in the faith. But what about the leaders and pastors whom so many look up to and who are considered trusted individuals in the church? Surely they are able to discern what is spiritually unsound. It seems safe to make this assumption. Right? Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
Endnotes:
1. Ursula Burton and Janlee Dolley, Christian Evolution (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, GB: Turnstone Press, 1984), p. 101.
2. M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Merton, My Brother (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996), pp. 199-200.
3. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Grace, the Glorious Theme (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 1977 Edition), pp. 313-314.
4. Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1998), p. 273.
5. Ibid., p. 274.
6. Credence Communications Catalog, Gift Ideas Edition.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Frank X. Tuoti, The Dawn of the Mystical Age (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing, 1997), p. 127.
10. Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1994), p. 180.
11. Virginia Manss and Mary Frohlich, Editors, The Lay Contemplative (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2000), p. 180.
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NEW BOOKLET: TRANSGENDERISM and Our Children by Maria Kneas and Lois Putnam is our newest Lighthouse Trails Booklet. The Booklet is 18 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Our Booklets are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of TRANSGENDERISM and Our Children, click here.
TRANSGENDERISM and Our Children
By Maria Kneas and Lois Putnam
Marilyn, a 70ish grandmother, walked through the international airport in Denver, Colorado, thinking about the flight she would be taking in less than an hour. She noticed a young couple up ahead and saw that the man had a baby in a front pack. The baby looked to be around six months old and was peering out at the moving crowd of people. Marilyn stopped when she reached the couple (she never could resist babies) and said, “What a darling baby that is. Is it a boy or a girl?”
The father looked Marilyn in the eye and said, “We don’t believe in gender labeling for babies, so for now it is just “baby” until it is old enough to decide whether it wants to be a boy or a girl.” Marilyn was speechless and shocked. She looked deep into the man’s eyes, hoping for some understanding. She tried to respond, but her words were frozen. As she walked away, still in shock, she pondered on the future of that little child and knew she had just witnessed a tragedy. This true account is unfortunately indicative of the times in which we live.
Transgender
By Maria Kneas
The Bible says, “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Therefore, anything that promotes it is in opposition to God and His ways. If you want to see some serious confusion in action, then look at a photo of a bearded man wearing a dress and high heels.1
In the Bible, God makes clear distinctions between light and darkness, good and evil, male and female, adults and children, animals and humans, plants and animals, living and inanimate. These distinctions or separations are clearly important to God, and anything that attempts to destroy these distinctions is trying to undermine foundational principles that God established. Such efforts constitute rebellion against God, and the end result is attacks against Christians who try to live according to biblical principles and morality. This is part of what Dr. Henry Morris calls “the long war against God.”2
The transgender movement is a prime example of this conflict because the stated goal of transgender activists is to “burn the binary.” By that, they mean making people become incapable of thinking in terms of male and female. In an article titled, “We’ll Win the Bathroom Battle When the Binary Burns” written by Riki Wilchins (an activist who has gone through sex change surgery), he describes this as being the “dominant, hetero-binary structure of boy vs. girl.”3
This kind of thinking can make your head spin, but you did read that correctly. There are some people out there who literally want to get our society to the point where we become incapable of thinking in terms of male versus female. They don’t want us to be able to tell the difference between boys and girls (and definitely not to say it publicly), and they want to train children to think like that at early ages. They also want to punish Christian parents who try to protect their children from this. In reality, the transgender movement has made Christianity and what it stands for its sworn enemy.
There are also other movements which are trying to destroy the distinctions that God created. For example, there are attempts to legalize pedophilia.4 This denies the differences between children and adults. There are efforts, which confuse animals with humans, to legalize bestiality,5 to give animals the right to file lawsuits,6 and to combine human and animal DNA.7 There are even attempts to erase the distinctions between living creatures and inanimate things (e.g., New Zealand has given citizenship to a river,8 and Saudi Arabia has given citizenship to a human-looking robot named Sophia9).
Thus, the transgender movement is part of a broader, more far-reaching attempt to make people become unable to rationally relate to the world God created. This deliberate denial of reality is opposed to reason, biblical morality, and common sense. Transgenderism is especially harmful because it results in undermining the sanity, faith, and morals of children, starting at very young ages. A growing number of American public schools are pushing transgenderism on five-year-olds in kindergarten.10 In England, this is being done to two-year-old children.11
The Williams Institute is a public policy research institute and lobby group based at the UCLA School of Law. It was created to promote the LGBT agenda. One of their scholars wrote an article saying that three and a half percent of American adults identify as being lesbian, homosexual, or bisexual, and 0.3% of adults identify as being transgender.12 That means that less than one-third of one percent of adults identify as being transgender.
How can such a small group have such a huge impact on our culture? What are the goals of these activists? And how is this going to impact Christians?
Kaeley Triller Haver is the Co-Founder of Hands Across the Aisle Women’s Coalition. She says that the transgender movement is “religious indoctrination of a cult-like nature.”13 That makes sense to me because I have a friend whose brother got trapped in Scientology. The level of intensity, delusion, and propaganda involved with transgender activism reminds me of the kind of heavy-duty pressure and brainwashing that my friend’s brother went through in Scientology. He tried to get out, but they were able to force him to stay.
Jane Robbins is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. She says that the transgender movement is creating social chaos by undermining families, parental rights, and “the very foundations of human existence.” She calls it “a diabolical but ingenious way of remaking society.”14
As we will see below, transgenderism is the beginning of a kind of denial of reality that expands to include race, age, and species (human versus animal). Eventually, it winds up with people who claim to be things that don’t even exist. Once upon a time, people who seriously denied reality like this were said to be delusional or mentally ill. But now, some people are trying to normalize such delusions and make them become politically correct.
We all need to develop the ability to deal with painful realities. For example, I’m a cancer survivor. Years ago, I had radical surgery, followed by chemotherapy. That was a painful process to go through, but it saved my life. If I had decided to “identify” as being healthy instead of taking care of that very real problem, then I would have died a slow and painful death.
When people deny reality, the loving thing to do is to help them deal with it in realistic ways—not go along with their delusions. Having us agree with their delusions may make them feel better for the moment, but the long-term results can be catastrophic. Truth trumps feelings.
A Continuum of Denying Reality
TRANS-GENDER: When men imagine they are women (or vice versa), that is transgender. Instead of trying to get their thinking to line up with reality, these people try to force reality to change in order to line up with their imagination. This starts out with wearing different clothing and eventually can wind up with people getting sex-change surgery and taking hormones in order to try to look like what they feel like. But “trans” goes even further than that. For example, some people think they are an animal trapped inside a human’s body. And some people have found other ways to try to re-define themselves.
I’m going to describe some very strange things. You may want to see them with your own eyes, so I have provided all of these with endnotes giving Internet articles and links. If you go to these articles, you will be able to see lots of photos.
TRANS-AGE: A married man with seven children decided he is really a six-year-old girl. He left his wife and children and has found an older couple who took him in.15 A grown man with children believes he is a child, and in order to live out his fantasy, he has abandoned his wife and seven children.
TRANS-RACE: Rachel Dolezal was born white, but she identifies as being black. She used to work for the NAACP, but when it was discovered that she was really white, she lost her job. She is calling for “racial fluidity” to be accepted.16
The state of Delaware is proposing an education regulation that allows children to self-identify their gender and race without the knowledge or consent of their parents. That includes attending gender-specific classes about sexuality and participating in sports as members of their self-chosen gender.17 In other words, a white girl can formally claim to be a black boy (or vice versa) and act accordingly without having her parents know anything about it.
TRANS-SPECIES: The early stage of trans-species can be seen in “human pups.” These are people who dress up like dogs. They can take this to extremes such as sleeping in a dog training crate. There are thousands of “human pups” in England alone. “Furries” carry this a step further and take on the persona of the animal. This can include sexual behavior. A “fur” convention in Reno, Nevada drew 3,000 people, 700 of whom were in “fursuits.”18
With the “fur pups” and even with the “furries,” there is strange thinking and behavior, but it is reversible. If these people change their thinking, then they can take off their costumes and go back to a relatively normal life. However, there are other people who make drastic changes that cannot be reversed. We see that with the transgender people who get sex-change surgery. Clothing can be changed, and hormone therapy can be reversed, but the surgery is permanent.
There is a man who believes he is a tiger trapped inside a human body. He has gotten his entire body and face tattooed to look more like a tiger. He has had surgery and dental work done so that his face and teeth look more tigerish. He has gotten false whiskers implanted into his face.19
Another man identifies with his pet parrot so much so that he got his ears cut off in order to look more like him. He also got his face and eyeballs tattooed, and he wants to get surgery in order to make his nose look more like a beak.20
TRANS-REALITY: There is a man (who became a transgender woman) who believes he is a female dragon trapped in a man’s body. He has had his ears and nose removed in order to look more like a dragon. He has extensive tattoos, including eye coloring, and he has a forked tongue.21 This man also has a child, a beautiful little boy. I can’t imagine what this must be doing to his son.
Who Defines Reality?
According to the Bible, God created everything. Therefore, God is the one who defines reality. The oldest sin in the book is to want to be like God (Genesis 3:5). That is what led to the fall of Adam and Eve, and it’s also what caused Lucifer to fall.
When the Bible describes a time of lawlessness and apostasy in ancient Israel, it says that “every man did that which was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6). The problem was that men were trying to define right and wrong for themselves instead of accepting what God has to say about it.
Have you ever noticed how many times in the Bible God tells people what is right and what is wrong? The point is that we don’t see the really big picture; only God does. And therefore, only He is qualified to determine what is right and what is wrong. Our job is to take what God says to heart and try to live by it. God told us:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Most transgenders (and trans-speciesists, etc.) probably don’t realize it, but when they try to define who or what they are themselves, instead of accepting the way that God created them, they are trying to play God. They are setting themselves up above God. That is a recipe for moral and spiritual disaster, and it can have devastating practical consequences.
For example, what will happen to children in Delaware who try to change their gender and/or their race without telling their parents? What will happen to that little boy whose father claims to be a female dragon? Is that his daddy or his mommy? Or is he living with a dragon? And what will happen to the children of that man who now claims to be a six-year-old girl? That level of rejection and abandonment must be devastating, and their father’s example of denying reality could set them on the path for tragic events in their lives.
People who are afflicted with such problems need our prayers. The loving thing to do is to try to help them overcome their delusions and become what God created them to be.
God knows what He is doing. When He created us, He did not make a mistake. He knew what we should be. Our job is to come into agreement with God.
Weaponizing Sexual Anarchy
Like humanism and communism,22 sexual anarchy23 activists want to destroy Christianity and undermine Christian morality. Sexual anarchy of all kinds is being used as a weapon to attack Christianity. The transgender activists seem to be especially adept at creating a lot of chaos in a short time.
With communism, we can look at their goals to see how they overlap with those of the transgender movement. On January 10, 1963, a congressman read 45 communist goals into the Congressional Record. These were excerpted from Cleon Skousen’s book The Naked Communist. They include the following:
Undermine cultural standards of morality
Make LGBT behavior appear to be “normal, natural, healthy”
Infiltrate churches and undermine belief in the Bible
Discredit and undermine the family
Reduce parental influence over children
Take control of the psychiatric profession and use it to control people24
The Bottom Line
When God set boundaries for our identity and our sexuality, He did that in order to protect us. What people have been doing makes it all too obvious that fallen human beings need God’s protection. We need to do things God’s way, as described in the Bible. If we don’t do that, then we will self-destruct, and we are likely to harm others in the process.
The sexual anarchy movement is producing “experts” who want to tell us what to think and how to live. However, God knows more about us than such people do. Therefore, we need to trust what God says in the Bible instead of falling prey to the delusions of self-proclaimed “experts.”
“I Am Jazz”
By Lois Putnam
In Sacramento, California at the Rocklin Academy charter school, a kindergarten teacher read the transgender picture book I Am Jazz; and after reading it, she presented a little boy to the class as now being a little girl. You can imagine how perplexing and unsettling this incident was to these little ones as well as to their uninformed parents.
A board meeting at the school caused a huge confrontation between upset parents and a defensive teacher and school board. In the end, the board boldly asserted that topics dealing with “gay, lesbian and transgender issues” are open for discussion at Rocklin and that parents may not always be notified before such discussions occur. The board also maintained that opting out of these discussions promotes a “discriminatory environment . . . prohibited by law.”1
On December 7, 2017, nationwide “Community/School Readings” of I Am Jazz took place in schools, libraries, LGBTQ centers, houses of worship, and homes.2 The book is the true story of transgender Jazz Jennings written for ages 4-8 filled with LGBTQ indoctrination. It is written to sanction the idea that one can be born with what is known as GD or “Gender Dysphoria” and that “coming out” and choosing your own gender can be done even at a preschool age. Inside I Am Jazz’s cover jacket, it reads, “From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body.” It continues, “She loved pink . . . and didn’t feel like herself in boy’s clothing.” It ends, “This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who diagnosed Jazz as transgender and explained that she was born this way.” These three sentences concisely spell out what the book hopes to teach.
I Am Jazz’s final page is titled, “TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation” and states, “TKPRF is committed to the premise that Gender Dysphoria is something children can’t control, and therefore, society needs to embrace them.” It insists, “Families need to support their children and allow them to grow up free of gender roles.” This page’s purpose is to convince readers of the need for transgender acceptance everywhere. Nowhere does it tell how a growing number of doctors, psychologists, and other professionals are challenging the claims that people are born this way. Nor does it tell about the abusive drug cocktail of hormones trans children later take or the dreadful surgeries that complete the “transitions.”
Because I Am Jazz is being used to propagate the transgender movement, particularly to young children, let’s take a closer look at this book, the so-called “essential tool for parents and teachers.”3
I Am Jazz Co-author—Jessica Herthel
Jessica Herthel, the book’s co-author, is a Broward County, Florida mom of three and an all-out advocate of the transgender agenda. Herthel, having met Jazz’s mom at a community function, soon formed a friendship with her and her little boy who became “a trans girl” renamed “Jazz.” Herthel then went on to co-write the book with Jazz, telling what it is like to be a trans kid.
As a result of writing I Am Jazz, Herthel has become a recognized LGBTQ advocate on many fronts. It began with her volunteering for the Florida Broward County Schools (sixth largest district in the USA) where soon she was designing inclusive lesson plans and purchasing diverse books for elementary classrooms. Later, she became the primary content editor of “Broward County’s LGBTQ Critical Support Guide” presented to all district administrators in 2014. After, Herthel worked as the Education Director at the Stonewall National Museum and Archives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which is a nonprofit that shares the culture of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and the role they play in society.
Beyond Florida, Herthel travels nationwide spreading the trans-kids agenda using I Am Jazz as a jumping off point. This message has taken her to such diverse places as: Mt. Horeb Public Library, Mt. Horeb, WI (the Mt. Horeb School System refused to allow her to read I Am Jazz in a public school setting, so it was read in the public library); Temple Bat Yahm, New Port Beach, CA (welcoming Jewish congregation for all including the LGBT community); and The Human Rights Campaign “Time to Thrive” Conference in Dallas, TX. (HRC partnered with the National Education Association and the American Counseling Association to reach out to LGBTQ youth.)4
The Human Rights Campaign considers Jazz Jennings their foundational “Youth Ambassador.” HRC has a website called www.welcomingschools.org with lesson plans to aid in creating LGBTQ-inclusive schools. Its “Top 10 Books for a Welcoming School” includes I Am Jazz and an accompanying lesson. I would urge you to check out this site to view this invasive school agenda; while it gives the appearance of being about safe schools and stopping bullying, much of its material is about other causes.5
I Am Jazz—Its Transgender Agenda
I Am Jazz is designed to be read to preschool through grade three, introducing them to transgender ideas. Herthel begins by presenting Jazz as a “girl” whose favorite color is pink and who likes girly things like drawing, dancing, and putting on make up. Most of all, Jazz is mesmerized by “mermaids.”
Now, Jazz’s best friends are Casey and Samantha with whom Jazz plays dress up in high heels and princess gowns. They also do fun things like turning cart wheels, or jumping on trampolines. However, as a “sad-faced Jazz” says, “But, I’m not exactly like Samantha and Casey.”
To explain, there’s a page of kids’ drawings showing a very unhappy Jazz. Below this, Herthel unleashes these troubling sentences, “I have a girl brain, but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way.”
Herthel records Jazz’s transition saga as a two-year-old boy starting with Jazz’s mom saying he was a good boy, and him correcting her as he retorted, “No Mama. Good GIRL!” Herthel also writes, “At first my family was confused. They’d always thought of me as a boy.”
The next pages show Jazz’s brothers and sister. His brothers comment that his dress-up antics are “girls stuff” while his sister comments that his girl thoughts, dreams, and ambitions made him “a funny kid.”
Whenever he went out, the text continues, his parents had him wear his “boy clothes” which made him mad! One then reads this startling thought, “Pretending I was a boy felt like telling a lie.” Talk about confusion. Just imagine a child’s puzzlement to this thought.
Then came “an amazing day” when all was changed; his parents took him to a doctor who asked many questions. There, says the text, he heard the word “transgender” for the first time. His parents heard the words, “Gender Dysphoria.”
That night, relates Jazz, for the first time his parents told him, “Be who you are.” This caused him to smile and smile as he went to bed dressed in a girl’s nightgown. Do what you want, and whatever makes you happy is the sense one gets here, making one think of Judges 17:6 that reads, “. . . every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
The book fast forwards to Jazz at school. Here, like Jazz’s family, his friends and teachers were “confused.” Upset with his teacher, Jazz found it hard to have to use the boy’s bathroom and be on the boy’s teams. Jazz longs to be with Casey and Samantha. Finally, the teachers change their minds, allowing Jazz to use the girl’s rest room and to play sports with the girls.
At this point, Jazz shares how mean some of the children are. “This,” says Jazz, “makes me feel crummy.” Here, of course, the teacher would stop and talk about not bullying or making fun of someone who is different. The children listening to I Am Jazz are made to take sides with Jazz because “being different like this is special!” The book ends with a beaming Jazz who declares, “I am having fun. I am proud. I am Jazz.”
I Am Jazz—The Celebrity
What has been the result of reading and sharing this innocent looking, but oh so influential picture book? Well, Jazz has been promoted as one super star—one courageous reality star (TLC TV)—one influential teen (Time Magazine)—one true to myself person (I Am Jazz)—one amazing LGBTQ activist (Human Rights Campaign)—one honorary co-founder (TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation)—a trans-kid poster child. And I must add—one exploited young person!
How sad one feels for a child such as Jazz, whose parents, believing they were doing this in love, allowed him to become a trans kid following the world’s upside-down transgender ideology guidelines, and how much more should the reading of this story make us mindful of the children suffering because of it. It should make us want to do all we can to stop others from following in Jazz’s footsteps. A wonderful verse to memorize and share with children is found in Psalm 139:14 which reads, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”
I Am Jazz—The Consequences
This picture story is meant to tug at one’s heart. Its story leads its readers to believe the lie that children can be born with gender confusion and that if such behaviors are sanctioned by a doctor, as in Jazz’s case, even young children can identify as a trans kid. But this book is only part of the story. For as a transgender child gets ready for puberty, harmful hormones must be taken, after which comes invasive surgery. To understand these procedures, please read quotes from the article referenced below.
Dr. Michelle Cretella is the President of the American College of Pediatricians. A July 3, 2017 Daily Signal article, “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large Scale Child Abuse” lays out some facts. Dr. Cretella begins by commenting that transgender ideology not only has infected our laws ( e.g. bathrooms) but “has intruded into the lives of the most innocent among us—our children.”6
Dr. Cretella says there’s a “new normal” where doctors in gender clinics are “affirming children who are distressed by their biological sex.”7 This condition, she writes, once dubbed gender-identity disorder, was renamed “gender dysphoria” in 2013. Now, these doctors, as did Jazz’s doctor, “tell parents to treat their children as the gender they desire, and to place them on puberty blockers around 11 or 12 if they are gender dysphoric.”8 And if by sixteen, they insist they’re trapped in the wrong body, cross-sex hormones are then given. After, teens as young as sixteen may have “bottom surgeries” or “sex reassignment surgeries.” As of a recent piece I read, Jazz is now at this frightening point.
In her article, Dr. Cretella lists eight basic facts about transgenderism including: twin studies that show no one is born “trapped in the body of the wrong sex;” puberty blockers have not proven safe; cross-sex hormones are associated with dangerous health risks; neuroscience shows youth lack adult ability for risk assessment; and transition-affirming procedures haven’t solved transgender suicide. She states that the transition-affirming movement, said to help children, is inflicting a grave injustice on them, adding:
These professionals are using the myth that people are born transgender to justify engaging in massive, uncontrolled, and unconsented experimentation on children who have a psychological condition that would otherwise resolve after puberty in the vast majority of cases.9
Dr. Cretella finishes with these sobering words:
These harms constitute nothing less than institutional child abuse. Sound ethics demand an immediate end to the use of pubertal suppression, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies. It is time for our nation’s leaders and the silent majority of health professionals to learn exactly what is happening to our children, and unite to take action.10
How about the silent majority of Christians? What are we doing?
Parent’s Response
In the case of the Rocklin Academy reading of I Am Jazz, parents banded together to confront the board. When the board declared they would not necessarily notify parents prior to using such materials, nor could parents legally opt out of these presentations, many parents pulled their students out from Rocklin. Parents must work toward having the right to opt out their students should gender-related materials be presented just as they now can opt out when sexual materials are used.11
Fearing harsh reaction to their stories, two Rocklin parents anonymously went to Fox News’ Martha MacCallum to tell of their children’s reactions to the academy incident. The first parent told how her daughter, after being present at that kindergarten reading, while bathing caught a reflection of herself with her hair slicked back, and tearfully cried she had changed into a boy. The other parent told how her daughter (now a first grader) on the playground greeted the “trans girl” that had been presented in the kindergarten that June day by his male name and was promptly reprimanded by the principal for “misgendering his new name.”12
In sum, Christian parents must be active at their schools, be informed of transgender issues, be able to talk with their own children, be into the Word so as to be able to stand for truth, and be into prayer for their children, family, and schools.
Teacher’s Response
Christian teachers too must prepare themselves for the time that they will be required to read such a book as I Am Jazz. Do your research now. Prayerfully prepare for a coming day when one must either comply with the godless demands of the public schools or leave one’s job. As Daniel of old, in whom was found “an excellent spirit,” one must stand up, and as the old song “Dare to Be a Daniel” challenged, “Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone!, Dare to have a purpose firm! and Dare to make it known!”
In today’s world, there are many who want to silence “God-fearing upstanders”—school systems and pressure-group organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign to name a couple. How is this done? By taking away rights to stand up for beliefs and by labeling these upstanders with all kinds of names. And as some do, “shouting you down!” One such eminent doctor, Dr. Paul McHugh, now 85, has been maligned and mocked and called a “transphobe.” Why is this? Of “transgender” children, Dr. McHugh dared to write such things as this:
Misguided doctors at medical centers . . . have begun to treat this behavior by administrating puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex surgeries less onerous—even though the drugs stunt the children’s growth and risk causing sterility.13
Your Responsibility—Be An Upstander, Not A Bystander!
Whether or not you have children or grandchildren in the public schools, you as a Christian must stand firm in your convictions. Whether or not the transgender agenda has yet to come to your school or your school system, you as a Christian must not be a bystander! Get busy, become familiar with the transgender movement, and be an upstander—that is one who is not afraid to stand up for something in which he believes—in this case, the plight of little children of whom our Lord Jesus said in Matthew 18:6:
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
The transgender agenda is already being practiced in some schools and is soon coming to schools nationwide. For the sake of our children, we cannot be apathetic; we must stand up for truth. Remember Paul’s admonition in Ephesians 6:10-11, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)
To order copies of TRANSGENDERISM and Our Children, click here.
Endnotes For Maria Kneas’ Section
1. Alasdair Glennie and Jennifer Newton, “Before She Had a Beard” (Daily Mail, May 11, 2014; this has several photos of him with a beard wearing fancy women’s clothing and high heels, www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2625866/Winner-whisker-Austrias-bearded-lady-conquers-Eurovision-Russias-rage.html).
2. Dr. Henry Morris, The Long War Against God (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, April 2000).
3. Riki Wilchins, “We’ll Win the Bathroom Battle When the Binary Burns” (The Advocate, April 29, 2016, www.advocate.com/commentary/2016/4/29/well-win-bathroom-battle-when-binary-burns).
4. Jack Minor, “‘Gay’ Laws Set Stage for Pedophilia ‘Rights’: Psychologist Claims ‘Minor-attracted Persons’ Normal as Heterosexuals” (WorldNetDaily, July 18, 2013, www.wnd.com/2013/07/gay-laws-set-stage-for-pedophilia-rights).
5. Pete Winn, “Senate Approves Bill That Legalizes Sodomy and Bestiality in U.S. Military” (CNS News, December 1, 2011, www.cnsnews.com/news/article/senate-approves-bill-legalizes-sodomy-and-bestiality-us-military).
6. Arin Greenwood, “Chimpanzees Sue For Their Freedom (With a Little Human Help)” (Huffington Post, December 2, 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/02/chimpanzee-lawsuit-personhood_n_4369377.html).
7. Rob Stein, “In Search For Cures, Scientists Create Embryos That Are Both Animal and Human” (NPR, May 16, 2016, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/05/18/478212837/in-search-for-cures-scientists-create-embryos-that-are-both-animal-and-human).
8. Kathleen Calderwood, “Why New Zealand is Granting a River the Same Rights as a Citizen” (ABC, September 6, 2016, www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayextra/new-zealand-granting-rivers-and-forests-same-rights-as-citizens/7816456).
9. Chris Weller, “A Robot That Once Said it Would ‘Destroy Humans’ Just Became the First Robot Citizen” (Business Insider, October 26, 2017, http://nordic.businessinsider.com/sophia-robot-citizenship-in-saudi-arabia-the-first-of-its-kind-2017-10).
10. Margot Cleveland, “The Transgender Agenda Hits Kindergarten” (National Review, September 4, 2017, www.nationalreview.com/article/451047/transgender-agenda-schools-some-wont-even-let-parents-opt-out).
11. Liam Deacon, “Teachers Warned Not to Say ‘Boys’ or ‘Girls’ as It ‘Reminds Pupils of Gender’” (Breitbart, November 23, 2017; this involves two-year-olds in England, www.breitbart.com/london/2017/11/23/teachers-boys-girls-reminded-pupils-gender).
12. Gary J. Gates, “How Many People Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender?” (The Williams Institute, April 2011, http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/census-lgbt-demographics-studies/how-many-people-are-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender).
13. Dr. Susan Berry, “Parents and Students Stand Up to Forced Gender Ideology in Schools” (Breitbart, November 24, 2017, www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/11/24/parents-students-stand-forced-gender-ideology-schools).
14. Ibid.
15.Kate Ng, “Transgender Father Stefonknee Wolscht Leaves Family in Toronto to Start New Life as Six-Year-Old Girl” (The Independent, UK, December 12, 2015, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stefonknee-wolschtt-transgender-father-leaves-family-in-toronto-to-start-new-life-as-a-six-year-old-a6769051.html).
16. Lucy Pasha-Robinson, “Rachel Dolezal: White Woman Who Identifies as Black Calls for ‘Racial Fluidity’ To Be Accepted” (The Independent, March 27, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/rachel-dolezal-white-woman-black-racial-fluidity-accepted-transracial-naacp-a7653131.html).
17. James Barrett, “Proposed DE Education Regulation Allows Children To Self-Identify Gender and Race—And Without Parental Consent” (The Daily Wire, November 22, 2017, www.dailywire.com/news/23874/proposed-education-regulation-allows-children-self-james-barrett).
18. Chris Summers, “Secret Life of the ‘Human Pups’: Weird World of the Grown Men Who Enjoy Dressing Up as Dogs in Roleplay Craze Sweeping the Nation” (Daily Mail, May 21, 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3602177/Puppy-play-definitely-not-sex-TV-documentary-sheds-light-barking-mad-men-enjoy-dressing-dogs.html).
19. “Cat Man—the Human ‘Tiger’ Who Enjoys Climbing Trees and Eats Raw Meat Every Day” (Daily Mail, September 6, 2008, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1052934/Cat-Man–human-tiger-enjoys-climbing-trees-eats-raw-meat-day.html).
20. Jimmy Nsubuga, “Parrot Man Gets Ears Cut Off So He Can Look More Like a Bird” (Metro, October 16, 2015, http://metro.co.uk/2015/10/16/parrot-man-gets-ears-cut-off-so-he-can-look-more-like-a-bird-5443835).
21. “Transgender Former Banker, 55, Has Her Ears and Nose Reformed to Transform into a ‘Dragon Lady’ With Scales, a Forked Tongue and a Horned Skull” (Daily Mail, April 5, 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3524063/Transgender-woman-Eva-Tiamat-Medusa-ears-nose-removed-dragon-lady.html).
22. See my book How to Prepare for Hard Times and Persecution to read about the effects of these belief systems. Also see Berit Kjos’ website, www.crossroad.to, for extensive documentation on humanism and communism.
23. According to the Urban Dictionary, the meaning of “sexual anarchy” is: “A school of philosophy and other thinking that believes that anyone should be free to have sex with anyone else from one’s relatives, minors, or any other person etc. and that marriage should be abolished because it is too restrictive”; https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sexual%20anarchy.
24. Donna Calvin, “The 45 Communist Goals as Read Into the Congressional Record, 1963” (April 2011, http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/watchwomanonthewall/2011/04/the-45-communist-goals-as-read-into-the-congressional-record-1963.html).
Endnotes For Lois Putnam’s Section
1. One of the news stories that covered the Rocklin Academy story is Bradford Richardson’s “Rocklin Academy Doubles Down on Transgender Lessons for Kindergartners” (Washington Times, September 19, 2017, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/19/school-defends-transgender-lessons-kindergartners/).
2. Human Rights Campaign, “National ‘I Am Jazz’ School and Community Readings” (https://www.hrc.org/resources/i-am-jazz-a-guide-for-parents-educators-and-community-advocates).
3. From the publisher’s website: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/315643/i-am-jazz-by-jessica-herthel-illustrated-by-shelagh-mcnicholas/9780803741072.
4. http://jessicaherthel.com.
5. Also check out the HRC’s I Am Jazz guidebook: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/IAmJazz-EventGuide.pdf.
6. Michelle Cretella, “I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large Scale Child Abuse” (Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2017/07/03/im-pediatrician-transgender-ideology-infiltrated-field-produced-large-scale-child-abuse).
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. “Rocklin Academy Doubles Down on Transgender Lessons for Kindergartners,” op. cit.
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DPTqzb8dLE.
13. Peter LaBarbera, “LGBT Activists Slam ‘the Most Important Psychiatrist of the Last Half-century’ Because He Debunks Transgender Ideology” (Lifesite News, May 15, 2017, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/lgbt-activists-slam-the-most-important-psychiatrist-of-the-last-half-centur).
To order copies of TRANSGENDERISM and Our Children, click here.
Other Lighthouse Trails Books & Booklets in This Series:
Six Questions Every Gay Person Should Ask by Michael Tays Carter
The Message “Bible” – A Breach of Truth: How Eugene Peterson’s The Message Omits Homosexual Sin & Other Strange Deletions, Additions, & Alterations by John Lanagan
The Color of Pain: Boys Who Are Sexually Abused and the Men They Become by Gregory Reid
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