The Church’s Silence is Hurting Young People by Michael Brown for Ask Dr Brown
For the last 40 years, with rare exception, I have been teaching in (and leading) ministry schools on a weekly basis, having the joy and privilege of pouring into the next generation of leaders.
I now spend 5 days a month in Texas, teaching three days at a school in Dallas and two days at a school in Fort Worth. This week, after speaking about the church and LGBTQ+ issues and people, one of the deans made a striking comment to me: “The church’s silence has hurt these people.”
She was absolutely right.
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I devoted the class this past Monday to the subject of the church’s calling to make a positive impact on society, to function as salt and light.
On Tuesday, I spoke about our calling to reach out to the LGBTQ+ community with compassion while resisting the agenda with courage.
And on Wednesday, I took questions from the students, about 600 in number and coming from more than 40 different nations.
Unfortunately, I was not able to respond to all the students, since so many had important and relevant questions to ask. So I stuck around for a few minutes afterwards, interacting with them one on one.
A young woman said to me, “I came out of the very things you have been describing. I was gender-fluid, omni-sexual, and polyamorous.”
When I asked her age, she said she was 18. That is the world we live in today.
An older man said to me with pain in his voice, “Please pray for my daughter. She now identifies as a man. She has changed her name, she is taking hormones, and she had her breasts removed.”
He told me she was 23 years-old and had the mastectomy at the age of 21. Can you imagine how this father feels?
With his wife, he welcomed their precious daughter into the world, probably bouncing her on his knees and singing songs to her when she was a baby, only to see her make these tragic, self-destructive choices.
She was once their precious little girl, perhaps wearing cute frilly dresses for fun. Now she has mutilated her body and identifies as a man.
I encouraged him to watch the In His Image documentary that I had the privilege of hosting for American Family Studios. It gives hope to family members praying for their struggling ones, as well as hope to the struggler. And he gave me a piece of paper with her name on it, asking again for my prayers.
