I was on the phone briefly with a client of mine today. I just finished setting up a laptop for her and was double checking her address in Houston before shipping it off. She lives in a nice retirement community but is pretty much restricted to her apartment with no visitors right now with the Coronavirus threat still a part of our lives. Before hanging up I told her “I’m looking forward to seeing you when you make parole” since I can’t personally deliver the computer to her these days. We had a good laugh and said goodbye.

I was then reminded of an email I received earlier in the day from someone who read my book. She said that her faith is being shaken right now. I wondered what happened that she’s now struggling in her relationship with God. Was is because of the Coronavirus? No. Had she lost her job and was bordering on homelessness? No. Did a family member needless die in an accident with a drunk driver? No.

What has shaken her faith, what led her to contact me, was her church.

Let that sink in for a moment. Someone who loves Jesus is struggling in her faith, because of her church!

Christians who are transgender are so often treated as “less-than”, “not-the-same”

I don’t know how long she has attended this church, only that she loves the teaching and the people there. But, and it’s a big but, they won’t allow her to serve. She has a heart to help serve the youth at her church, but she’s not allowed to. Why? Because she’s transgender.

Christians who are transgender are so often treated as “less-than”, “not-the-same”, “different than the rest of us”, an “almost the right kind of” Christians.

100 years ago if you were black you had to go to your own church with your “own people” (because it was okay for them to be “less-than”). Today thankfully only a very small handful of churches would refuse a black person belonging to their church.

Likewise 100 years ago most churches wouldn’t allow a woman to preach or be a pastor. I think we’ve actually made more progress with the black community than with women when it comes to this. The largest protestant denomination in the United States refuses to allow women to be pastors in their churches. If you’re a black man, you can be a pastor there, but breasts will disqualify you because “the Bible says so” (well, perhaps not in those words).

If you’re transgender, you may feel like you’re in some kind of jail at your church. Maybe you go to a church that doesn’t know you’re transgender, whether you’ve transitioned or not. You’re totally welcomed and accepted FULLY into their community now, but fear if you let them know you’re transgender, you’ll be ostracized or maybe simply told to leave (based on what you’ve heard from the pulpit).

Are you willing to let Satan fill the silence you won’t?

Or maybe they know (or at least those who NEED to know know) that you’re transgender. And you’re “welcome” to worship with them. Maybe you’re even allowed to serve either in an area where you have considerable expertise or in an area when they have a need. BUT, you still need to be careful because the church hasn’t openly said that if you’re transgender, you’re just as welcome as anyone else, and can serve in any capacity as anyone else might. Telling people you don’t know that you’re transgender might be like setting off a hand grenade in the middle of a church service, but you don’t know for sure.

Either way, you find yourself in a type of ecclesiastical jail. The limits that you can express yourself, go into other areas is defined by your jailer, in this case, your church.

Granted, some jails may be more like the low-security prisons some white-collar criminals go to that are more country club than prison (aka “club fed”). As long as you don’t rock the boat, the skies are blue and you’re welcome to breath the fresh air and look at the snow-capped mountains from within the gates of the prison.

But make no mistake, they are still a prison and God is not the warden, but people who think they have a book that gives them the right to treat you like a “less-than” person.

When Jesus said He came to give us life, and more abundantly in John 10:10, He didn’t mean “kind of” “sort of”. More or less. He said MORE abundantly! Yet some Christians think taking away the MORE ABUNDANTLY is their job when it comes to Christians who are transgender.

I think what’s worse are people who know they don’t have the right, but do it anyway for fear of friction with others. The contention may come from “overseers” of the church, or perhaps it comes from people who attend the church and happen to be “big-givers” in a monetary sense. I think money influencing the church is exactly why Jesus drove everybody out of the temple in Matthew 21:13, the money had become more important than doing the work of God, and the spiritual “teachers” of the day became indignant. I feel pity for Bible teachers, pastors, church leaders who seek what God truly wants them to do, yet just can’t say the words for fear from those they’ve given power to (and perhaps are subjected to) here on Earth.

If you’re a Christian who is transgender and a prisoner of your church, I can’t tell you what to do. Change in the church will only come from within, but that’s a tough struggle that not everyone can endure. You may need to find safe haven, and there is a church in almost every community that if you look, will offer that to you as well.

Meanwhile, you Christians who refuse to speak up. You who continue to say nothing while others literally are spiritually suffering, you who leave it to me to say something are just as guilty of cruelty to another Christian as that SOB Satan himself. Don’t you know he’s whispering into the ear of Christians who are transgender saying “see, even God’s own people won’t accept you”. “See, they speak for God, and He doesn’t love you either”.

Are you okay with that?
Are you willing to let Satan fill the silence you won’t?

I can’t tell you how many Christians who happen to be transgender I’ve communicated with that love their church, but are afraid of it at the same time. THAT’S JUST WRONG!

If you’re transgender, only you know how much battering you can take. If you’re at an affirming church, God bless you. If you’re not, you can try to help change how they feel, but don’t do it to the point that it damages your own relationship with the Lord, that’s NOT your calling. Find a church home you can serve and grow in your faith in God.

When people are struggling with their faith, the church should be a place of HELPING and HEALING for people in that struggle, not condemning them. There is no defense for that.

Church, let God be God. Have FAITH that if someone claims Jesus as their Lord and Savior, that the same Lord you say you trust will work with them with whatever problem YOU think they have, and leave it there, with Him as you should. The Lord doesn’t need to hear it from you again, He heard it the first time—I promise.

And if you’re the RARE Christian, tell the person that happens to be transgender that you’re sorry for all the church has brought upon them, and ask how you can help them in their journey with Christ. It will take people like you to help change the Church. The Church was wrong on slavery, the Church was wrong on women in ministry, the Church is likewise wrong on people who are transgender. You can choose to be on the right side of this or the wrong side. History will judge (as will God), but I suspect you feel the answer in your heart right now. The choice is yours. Are you one who keeps a prisoner, or are you one who frees one?

-Blessings

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