By Pastor Stephen Hess –
Back in 2010, one of the top movies of the year was a film called “Inception.” The story is about a thief who steals corporate secrets through the use of dream-sharing technology. Eventually he is given the daunting task of planting an idea into the mind of a CEO by entering multiple levels of his dreams. If you are confused just by this plot description, then you are in good company. The film is a mind-bending story that leaves the viewer disoriented and often unsure whether they are watching something in the dream-world or the real-world.
One of the main characters in the film was played by an actress named Ellen Page. A few years after “Inception” was released, she “came out” by revealing publicly for the first time that she was gay. “I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission,” Page declared at a conference for LGBT youth. “I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered, and my relationships suffered. And I’m standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of all that pain.” This news came as a surprise to many who had watched Page’s acting career up to that point and had no idea she identified as gay.
But the surprises didn’t end there. In 2020, Page announced that she was not only gay but also transgender. She wrote on social media: “Hi friends, I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot. I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life. I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.”
I would argue that Ellen Page’s story encapsulates the immense shift that has taken place in our culture. In a matter of just a couple of decades we have experienced a radical redefinition of marriage, sexuality, and gender. This enormous change in such a short period of time has left Christians feeling a bit like viewers watching “Inception”—completely disoriented and not sure where we are or how we got to this place. We might even feel like someone is trying to plant strange new ideas into our minds!
It is not an overstatement to say that Christians today are living in the midst of a cultural revolution. As theologian Al Mohler writes, “Christians are not facing an isolated set of issues that cause us to be merely perplexed and, at times, at odds with the larger culture. We are instead facing a redefinition of marriage and transformation of the family. We are facing a complete transformation of the way human beings relate to one another in the most intimate contexts of life. We are facing nothing less than a comprehensive redefinition of life, love, liberty, and the very meaning of right and wrong.”
How are we to live in the midst of this cultural revolution? We must start by recognizing that although the world has changed, Scripture has not. The Bible is still God’s unchanging and infallible word, which teaches us who we are and how God created us to live. Therefore, the only way to get our bearings in our confusing and upside-down world is to return to Scripture and ask what the Lord has said about these issues.
That is precisely what we are going to do in our upcoming sermon series called “The Bible and Our Bodies.” Starting on November 5th, this 4-week series will explore what God’s word says about marriage, sexuality, and gender. My hope is that this series will help us understand these issues through the lens of a Biblical worldview so that we would not be conformed to the patterns of this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2). In the midst of the shifting sands of culture, God’s word is the only firm rock upon which we can stand.