I’m angry because people are hurting and you don’t seem to care. I’m angry because you’re afraid to speak up for those who love Jesus but are different than you. I’m angry because “fitting in” and having your nice group of friends at church is more important than calling out those around you, even the leaders of your church for not embracing those who seek community with you. I’m angry because you don’t want to get your hands dirty, you come up with excuses why you won’t have those difficult conversations with your own family, you don’t want to be uncomfortable and yet you’ll allow people to suffer in quiet anguish.

As “Christians”, we’re supposed to be disciples of Christ, not just people who believe He was a real person. Satan believes Christ was a real person for crying out loud. Some of Jesus’ last words before ascending into Heaven was “… go and make disciples of all nations,…” Webster’s definition of a disciple is “one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another”. The Oxford dictionary says “A follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.”

NO ONE is being educated and taught—and people die.

Just going to church on Sunday doesn’t make you a Christian. Hanging out with other Christians doesn’t make you a Christian. Jesus wanted people who would be like the twelve who had just spent three years with Him.

How different would you act had you been a student of Jesus for three solid years, day and night? How would you look at people after seeing how Jesus looked at people? Who would you be a cheerleader for? The ones who see Jesus for who He is and struggling to survive in this world, or the ones so intent on following the rules that they don’t really care what happens to those who struggle?

I personally know of one pastor who chose comfort over the challenge of loving like Jesus because I recently left his church. I also have family either afraid to defend me (as a person) or won’t admit I exist to people they know. But there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people like that just in the U.S., and that’s who I want to talk to.

I want to be with God, and no longer want to be on earth

Is there one church-going person reading this who would say that “everyone is welcome” is NOT said (or the inference) at your church? And yet people leave because they find out the truth, that “officially” they are not welcomed and claiming Christ as their Savior apparently isn’t enough. Sooner or later they are disqualified because of who they are, and yet no one questions if “everyone is welcome” is really true.

As an administrator of a Facebook group of almost 800 Christians who are transgender, I far too often see someone write about the pain they feel not being welcomed at their church, or worse they can’t find ONE church where they live that would accept them! Not everyone lives in a large urban or suburban area. A lot of people live in small towns with only a few churches and driving two hours one-way just to go to church isn’t a solution.

Sure there are online services, but that’s not community. That’s not connecting with other people. That’s not sharing life, online church is simply religious broadcasting. The bigger churches have multiple cameras switching every 5 seconds, and fancy graphics. They were doing that in the 70’s when I grew up. People are conditioned to be entertained when watching a screen, that’s the mode people go into. People need connection. We have more screens than ever in the world and yet survey after survey says that many people are lonelier than ever. Technology is nice but it is not connection, it’s a faint perception of connection.

How different would you act had you been a student of Jesus for three solid years?

So when someone in my group says “I await God to take me home. Still selling all my belongings. I want to be with God, and no longer want to be on earth” because she faces nothing be rejection—AS A CHRISTIAN, from people around her including her church, I get angry. I can’t help it.

It’s not her fault she’s transgender. She didn’t choose to be transgender. The Lord doesn’t care that she’s transgender because He loves her just as much as He loves you. Yet other Christians (perhaps LIKE you) have led her to believe God doesn’t approve of her. That somehow the fact that she’s transgender supersedes her love for Christ and desire to follow Him. She could be willing to DIE for Jesus but because she transgender, she can’t be part of the “Christian” community.

I can’t count the number of ways this is wrong. She may know people who secretly support her, but their fear of rejection by their “peers” prevents them from speaking up. They certainly don’t dare question their pastor, because “he’s the pastor and he’s been to school”. The founding pastor of Westboro Baptist Church was ordained by the Southern Baptist Church, but I personally don’t know a single Christian who would agree with them not allowing women to speak AT ALL in church (nor are they allowed to cut their hair), that God HATES people, that only 144,000 Jews will go to Heaven. Just because someone is an ordained pastor doesn’t mean everything they say is correct (and sometimes you have to glean what it is they HAVEN’T said).

Another person wrote today how they’ve heard Christians quote from 1 Corinthians 5:13 that says “Expel the wicked person from among you” referring to the “sexually immoral” among several other things.

Being transgender is not being “sexually immoral”. It’s not being sexually anything! It’s about who you are—period. It’s NOT about having sex or who you love. It’s not about another person in any way shape or form. It’s looking in a mirror and knowing (at least for most when they’re young) that what you see is not who you know you are. DNA determines much of how your body turns out, but how your brain develops can be dramatically affected in the womb contrary to what the DNA would otherwise dictate.

I don’t care that you feel guilty for what you haven’t done, it’s what you do going forward

And while y’all are thinking about excuses as to WHY you haven’t told that person that you’re standing beside them, WHY you haven’t addressed this with your family, WHY you haven’t talked to your pastor about it, people are dying. They are literally killing themselves because their only hope was God, and all they hear from Christians is that they are condemned. They don’t hear otherwise from their friends, they don’t hear otherwise from their pastor. NO ONE is being educated and taught—and people die.

There are some who would say people who are transgender should be celebrated—I wouldn’t be one of those people. People (Christians) who are transgender shouldn’t be treated any differently than anyone else.

I’ve been AMAZED at how many churches with white pastors found a black person and maybe even a black pastor to come speak at their church the last couple of months, as if to say “see, we’re not racists here—we care”. I guess they’re not willing to say “we support Christians who are transgender” because they don’t seem to care what happens to them, if they did they would engage with them. It’s easier to defend racism in the Bible (not that anyone should) than being against someone being transgender, yet even with virtually no scriptural reason, Christians in a mostly passive aggressive way are happy to condemn them even when they claim Christ as their Lord and Savior.

That’s it. I’ve had my say (for now). Maybe you feel a little guilty when reading this, good. But frankly I don’t care that you feel guilty for what you haven’t done, it’s what you do going forward that I care about.

I really believe there are going to be a lot of Christians who will stand before the Lord and discover that they were in part responsible for the suicide of another believer that they didn’t even know simply because they didn’t saying something to a friend or pastor when they should have.

I hope it won’t be you. I can’t change the church or the mind of your pastor. It’s you “cis-gender” folks (born and happy with the body you’re in) that can do that. And for that I hope it WILL be you!

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