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Lost and found: God’s guiding hand in seeking and finding a missing girl

Just before going to bed on a Thursday evening in mid-September, Michelle Dykstra read a Facebook post by a mother whose six-year-old daughter had gone missing.

Earlier that evening, around 6 pm, Oaklynn Schweder had disappeared from her home on the Skin Tyee Reserve, an isolated community in northwest BC. Her mother, Gail Skin, shared the devastating news on social media as the RCMP called in a canine team to help find her.

“I felt for her, because she is only six” recalled Michelle, a mother of three who lives just outside of Houston, BC. “I couldn’t sleep very much that night.”

Not only is Oaklynn young, she is on the autism spectrum and is non-verbal. To make it even more challenging for searchers, she would sometimes hide in unusual places or up in trees. Adding to the urgency, nighttime temperatures around Oaklynn’s home dip below zero, and the surrounding wilderness teems with wildlife, including bears and wolves.

Oaklynn was still missing the next morning, and the updates kept coming back negative. Search and Rescue teams throughout British Columbia joined in, along with the Canadian Rangers and the BC Wildfire Service. In addition to specially trained dogs, the RCMP deployed thermal-imaging drones to try to spot Oaklynn’s heat signature in among the trees. As more help was brought in, media outlets from across the country picked up the story of the missing Indigenous girl.

Heart for the lost

Unable to stop thinking and praying about Oaklynn, that evening Michelle talked to her husband Tim about whether they could help. They had never been involved in a search before, but they lived just a couple of hours away and felt a strong pull to do something for Oaklynn. “I really did feel like it was definitely put on my heart” Michelle reflected.

Saturday wasn’t possible because Tim and their son Owen had to work all day, but they decided that if she was still missing Sunday, and if the search and rescue teams were open to volunteers, they would go out to help (even though they don’t normally miss church).

In spite of a team that grew to 600 searchers carefully sweeping the area, by Sunday morning Oaklynn was still missing. The searchers were professionally coordinated, using GPS plotting to ensure every part of the land was covered. By this time, hopes of finding Oaklynn alive were diminishing. Michelle was restless and eager to start searching. They filled a vehicle with Tim, Michelle, their children Owen and Morgan, along with Tim’s sister Mandy Jaswal and her two sons Mica and Carson.

Providential frustrations

In spite of their eagerness to help, they were frustrated by one snag after another. A forgotten coat resulted in a short delay, which resulted in a missed bus ride, which in turn resulted in a missed ferry across Francois Lake. By the time they got to the search area, they missed the team that headed into the bush and had to wait to be called. They spent the next three and a half hours eating bannock, drinking coffee, visiting, and helping out with things like hauling groceries to the search teams. And then a search coordinator passed their group over, as he was concerned that they weren’t experienced enough for the bush.

It was afternoon when they were finally called to search, and they were put under the lead of Glen Franz, a search and rescue volunteer from their home town. Two volunteer firefighters also joined their group. In their designated search area, they were to walk 5 meters apart from each other back and forth, to cover a grid over the land.

Only ten minutes in, they hit another snag. The search leader was having trouble finding his location on the map and realized that they had started in the wrong place on their quadrant. By this time, they decided to keep searching from where they were, in the hope of going back later in the day to get the area they missed.

The problems didn’t stop there. The devices that the search and rescue team was relying on to chart their progress had almost run out of battery. And there were strong winds gusting, with trees falling regularly.

It wasn’t until later that day that they began to see that all of these worries and frustrations were actually the means by which God was guiding them exactly to where they needed to be at just the right time.

Calming the wind

Although dogs, GPS devices, helicopters, drones, and about 1,400 searchers were all devoted to the singular goal of finding Oaklynn, Michelle turned to another “tactic” – going to God.

“I remember walking through the bush just praying, ‘Bring her out! Just show her to anybody. We've got hundreds of people out here. If she's hiding, just bring her out.’”

As they walked, they saw bear signs everywhere. Tim shared that some searchers even had to climb into bear dens to look for Oaklynn.

Although they at first felt they might turn around a corner and just find her, after hours of searching it sunk in to Mandy that:

“the only way that a kid is going to be out here, especially since she is only wearing socks and a t-shirt…is if an animal dragged her over here…. Your brain just goes somewhere else to try and prevent you from the pain of thinking of that.”

At 6 pm the organizers informed the searchers that it was time to call it a day and head back to the base.

They were only half done their search area when it was shared that their GPS search devices were almost out of battery. They were given the option to end their search. Mandy reminded the group that they still needed to go back to the corner where they were supposed to have started. She insisted that they search there so it wasn’t missed.

The group agreed, but they also discovered it was the most challenging land in their area, with a steep gully and a lot of trees blown over that weren’t easy to cross. Recent rain made it all very slippery. “We all went up to the top of that gully,” Michelle said, “just so that we could all get together and then leave.” Given that it wasn’t dark yet, the group wondered if Oaklynn had been located. “The thought came to my mind that maybe they had found a body,” said Michelle. They later learned that the search was called because of the strong winds and the danger that falling trees posed to the searchers.

Michelle carrying Oaklynn out of the forest, with the team assisting

Then, for just two or three seconds, everything got quiet – the static on the radio stopped, and the wind fell silent. As Mandy explained, “All of a sudden were like, ‘Did you hear that? We heard something, Mom, it sounded like a kid!’” The others listened too, hoping it wasn't just an animal. When they heard the noise again they all started calling Oaklynn’s name.

That’s when they heard a response coming from the bottom of the gully. They all heard it.

None of the adults remember climbing down the gully, even though it had just been a major chore to climb through it. They said it felt like they were transported there.

“I just kept hearing ‘I see her, I see her,’ and I couldn't see her till the last second,” recalled Michelle.

“So I just kept running. I could not see her until I got around this bunch of trees, and then all of a sudden there was that log, and she was standing behind it, and then she sees me, so she took a couple steps, and I'm full on running, and I just grabbed her and then sat down on the log. It was like, what just happened? What happened?”

While Michelle held the little girl, the others rubbed her feet to warm her up, checked her for injuries, got her some warm clothes, and gave her something to drink. They were amazed to find that, other than looking dehydrated, being covered in berries and grime, and smelling like urine, she looked to be completely unharmed.

Tim described the occasion as joy all around. Michelle kept saying “thank you Lord!”

Their team leader used his radio to report “subject found,” to the disbelief of those at base camp. And then Michelle proceeded to singlehandedly pack Oaklynn through the forest, with the rest of the team holding back branches and helping her over trees.

They were so close to the base camp that they could even hear the cheer of the crowd when they were told that Oaklynn had been found and was okay.

Just twenty minutes later and they were back to where her mother and father were anxiously waiting.

The mom’s reunion with Oaklynn was caught on video and has been viewed on Facebook over 3 million times, in addition to the TV reports that used the footage around the world.

But what wasn’t captured was Michelle and the team that God providentially used to find Oaklynn.

Recognizing Providence

As Tim, Michelle, Mandy, and their children recounted the day’s events, they kept coming back to the same conclusion: God was orchestrating every detail, even the mistakes and frustrations, to allow for the joyful reunion of Oaklynn and her loved ones.

If they had started searching where they were supposed, to, they likely wouldn’t have found her because she was moving steadily and wasn’t even in their search area when they actually found her. They also thank God for the young ears of their children, who were the first to hear Oaklynn, even though she couldn’t speak and even though she was more than 100 meters away. Likewise, they praise God for calming the wind and radios so that they could hear her voice.

“So all these little glitches, all these little things, all the little breaks, all the perfect timing up to the point of the wind stopping. Like, Who stops the wind?” asked Mandy. “It's obvious, right?”

Confessing Providence

The previous Saturday, when Michelle was still at home folding laundry and thinking about Oaklynn, she recalled how so many Christians athletes who competed in the Summer Olympics used their platform to give glory to God. “I was thinking, if there’s any chance, I would make sure I would glorify God, right? Because you’ve got to do that.”

The day after Oaklynn was found they were invited to a feast organized by the local Indigenous band to thank the many people involved in the search. There was singing, drumming, and speeches, including a mix of traditional native spirituality and Christianity.

“The person at the mic asked ‘Does anybody else want to say anything?’” recalled Michelle. “And everybody else is quiet. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, ‘Wait, no, I do. I have to say something.’”

Although she is fearful of public speaking, she took the opportunity to share with everyone that it was God who orchestrated all of this. She recalled how she had prayed while searching, and how God directed everything to work together so that Oaklynn was found. Her testimony was shared on Facebook live, and part of it was quoted in their local newspaper.

Rejoicing and weeping

In Matthew 18, Jesus shares a story of a man with a hundred sheep, one of which goes astray. When he finds it “he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.”

The searchers shared how vehicles were honking on the ferry ride as they returned from the search, and how they received numerous texts and messages of joy over the news that Oaklynn had been found.

Although their children slept well that night, Michelle and Mandy shared how they both had a hard time sleeping, and experienced their share of tears in the days following.

By Wednesday, Michelle was back to doing laundry. “I find the sweater that I was wearing, and I pick it up, and it was just this strong smell of pee, like urine, and I just start crying like crazy. I completely broke down.” Later, she went “to bring laundry from the washer to the dryer, and I find the sweater again, and it doesn't smell like pee, and I'm crying again, and it's just a complete mess.”

The group admitted they had a hard time in the following days, feeling like a piece of them was missing, since they put their heart out for Oaklynn and now she is back with her parents and doesn’t even know who they are.

In many ways, that is exactly what love is.

Photos by Mica and Mandy Jaswal.



News

Saturday Selections – Nov. 16, 2024

Click on the titles to head to the linked articles...

How knock-knock jokes are a problem for evolution (14 min)

If you found a knock-knock joke carved on a rock in the forest, you'd know that it wasn't the result of natural forces randomly acting over time. And the origin of life is way more complicated than that!

This winsome Intelligent Design presentation also highlights 5 problems the evolutionary account can't surmount. (This is worth watching twice!)

The porn talk – 9 ways parents can lead children

The first might be the biggest: cultivate the conversation – don't avoid it, seek it out.

What two unbelievers got right about morality (10-minute read)

Tim Keller on how two unbelievers – philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and historian Tom Holland (1968- ) – still recognize that without God there is no basis for right and wrong.

The two-book fallacy... again (15-min read)

God revealed Himself to us in one book, the Bible, and in a second volume too, which we could call the "book" of creation (Romans 1:19-20, Ps. 19:1-4).

But some Christians buy into evolution because they think that this second book is every bit as clear and authoritative as Scripture. Practically speaking, that has them reinterpreting the Bible in light of what evolutionary scientists say they've discovered in Creation.

But in this article, Dr. Lisle rebuts this belief and a particular gentleman who holds to it. He writes

“If Shane disagrees with my conclusion that words are far superior in communicating truth than rocks and fossils are, then I would ask him to reply using only rocks and fossils – no words please.”

Why do even kids' movies take God's Name in vain?

Otherwise-family-friendly fare will routinely throw out an abuse of God's Name. Nobody blurts out Mohammad or Allah. No one drops an f-bomb. So why God's Name, so often? The folks at the Christian film review site MovieGuide.org offer their best explanation.

The bee-apocalypse: there's always another scare

Environmental groups have their apocalyptic bent, and reporters have their own "if it bleeds it leads" motivations, so when they pitch doom and gloom, we shouldn't just swallow their warnings. John Stossel is, of course, not free of his own biases, so caution is needed in ingesting his conclusions here too. But what he highlights that you probably didn't hear about before, is the human cost that comes with the pesticide bans that were pushed. In our fallen world, there is no perfect, negative-free solution – there are always tradeoffs – so we need to hear about the other side, which is on offer here (Prov. 18:17).


Today's Devotional

November 20 - The word of life (I)

“...concerning the word of life- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us” - 1 John 1:1-2

Scripture reading: 2 Kings 4:1-7

This chapter shows us four manifestations of the Word of Life, proclaimed through God's prophet, Elisha. We see >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

Our Security and God

Serving #667 of Manna, prepared by William Den Hollander, is called "Our Security and God".















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Apologetics 101, Sexuality

10 tales to help us clear away transgender confusion

We live in a time when the obvious is not so. How exactly can we explain to someone who doesn’t get it, that saying you’re a woman doesn’t make you one? Three thousand years ago the prophet Nathan faced the same sort of problem – how to effectively explain the obvious. Anyone who has heard the Ten Commandments knows that murder and adultery are sins and yet King David had done both and remained entirely unrepentant. So in comes Nathan, with a story about a rich man who’d stolen and eaten his poor neighbor’s only sheep (2 Sam. 12). David, blind to his own sins, condemned the rich man to death for actions that paled in comparison to his own. That’s when Nathan connected the dots for him: if you think sheep stealing is bad, then what should you think about wife stealing? “You are the man!” he thundered. And David’s eyes were opened. Transgenders and their allies need their eyes opened too. To help clear away their confusion, here are 10 news items and other illustrations. They can be used in back-fence conversations or in letters to the editor or to our elected officials, and come in three broad groupings: A. We shouldn’t encourage people to harm themselves B. People can be wrong about their own bodies C. Wishing doesn’t make it so These analogies are like warning signs that tell us “Turn around!” “Hazardous!” and “Do not go any further!” That’s helpful, but a “Wrong way” sign only tells us what not to do. It doesn’t really point us in the right direction. So it’s important to understand that while these analogies can expose the transgender lie, they don’t do much to point people to the truth. For that we need to share God’s thoughts on gender, that He created us male and female (Gen. 5:2), and that when we deny this reality bad stuff happens – then we arrive at a point where the cruel and the sadly comical are celebrated and encouraged. What follows are examples of where this reality-denying path leads. A. WE SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO HARM THEMSELVES The majority of transsexuals don’t undergo surgery, but many do. This involves cutting pieces of their body off. Why are we encouraging this self-harm? Lonely man wants to be a parrot Ted Richards likes parrots, and in an effort to look more like his pets he has had the whites of his eyes inked, feathers tattooed on his face, horns inserted into his skull, and his ears cut off. He has also recently changed his name to Ted Parrotman. One article had him saying he had only two friends. His loneliness comes out in other ways too – he has no regrets about changing his surname because: “I’ve not had any contact with my mother and father for years because we didn’t really get on – I don’t even know if they’re dead or alive, and I also don’t talk to my siblings anymore – so I felt no connection to having a family name.” When he appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show the crowd applauded when the host declared, “There’s nothing wrong with being different.” No, but there is something wrong with cheering on self-destructive behavior. Abled bodied man cuts off one arm In 2015 the National Post profiled “One Hand Jason,” a man who cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool.” According to the Post: His goal was to become disabled. People like Jason have been classified as “transabled” – feeling like imposters in their bodies, their arms and legs in full working order. Like the transgendered, transabled people feel they have been born in the wrong bodies, but instead of objecting to their genitalia, the transabled object to their limbs, or their hearing, or even their lack of paralysis. And like the transgendered, some seek to address this discomfort by cutting bits of themselves off. Woman blinds herself Jewel Shuping wanted to be blind ever since she was a girl. She bought herself a white cane at 18 and learned Braille by 20, and then, at 23, paid a psychologist to pour drain cleaner in her eyes. She told the British Tabloid The Sun: “I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born, that I should have been blind from birth.” B. PEOPLE CAN BE WRONG ABOUT THEIR OWN BODIES The previous three examples could also fall into this category, but Kevin DeYoung’s illustration that follows is especially good. Girl’s anorexia is affirmed In A Transgender Thought Experiment, Kevin DeYoung tells the fictional story of a young woman who at just 95 pounds still thinks of herself as fat. She asks her counselor for help and he reveals himself to be an affirming sort. Rather than address her anorexia the counselor tells her: “If you tell me you’re fat, I’m not going to stand in the way of you accepting that identity….You are fat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s who you are.… No one can tell you what’s right or wrong with your body. After all, it’s your body…. it’s okay if you don’t eat much for lunch. Weight is only a social construct. Fat is a feeling, not a fact.” C. WISHING DOESN’T MAKE IT SO Four of the examples that follow are actual people, but the best illustration is probably the last one in this grouping, where Joseph Backholm asks a series of hypothetical questions to university students. And if people don’t believe the hypothetical could ever become actual, real examples are plentiful. Woman says she is another race The Afro-wearing, dark-skinned Rachel Dolezal was the president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 2014 until June of 2015 when she resigned after it was revealed that both her biological parents were white. She later stated that she was “biologically born white to white parents, but I identify as black.” Man says he is another age Paul Wolscht is a heavy-set, six-foot tall, 52-year-old who wants to be a six-year-old girl named Stefoknee. In a video interview with the gay news site The Daily Xtra Wolscht explained that he has “an adopted mommy and daddy who are totally comfortable with me being a little girl. And their children and grandchildren are totally supportive.” “It’s liberated me from the hurt. Because if I’m six years old, I don’t have to think about adult stuff…I have access to really pretty clothes and I don’t have to act my age. By not acting my age I don’t have to deal with the reality that was my past because it hurt…” Wolscht has abandoned his wife of more than 20 years and his seven children, deciding that playing the part of a six-year-old girl is more to his liking than his role of husband and father. However, Wolscht has not abandoned caffeine or his car: “I still drink coffee and drive a car, right, even my tractor, but still I drive the tractor as a little kid. I drive my car as a little kid.” But, of course, six-year-olds really shouldn’t drink coffee, and driving is out of the question. So whether six or 52, Wolscht is not acting his age. One more thought to consider – Wolscht’s childish claims have been treated with respect by The Daily Xtra but what would they think of the reverse? As one of my teenage nieces put it: “Can I identify as a 22-year-old and order a drink at a bar? Can I identify as a 16-year-old and get my license?” Teens to get seniors’ discount? In April of 2016, the American department store chain Target announced that they would “welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity.” In May that same year, the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee came out with an item about how the store would now allow “grant a 10% senior discount to any person who self-identifies as age 60 or older.” Woman says she another species Nano, a Norweigan woman claims she is a cat. She wears cloth ears and will, on occasion, crawl around on her hands and knees and meow at people. In a video interview with reporter Silje Ese she says she was 16 when she first realized she was a cat trapped in a human’s body. She distinguished her situation from that of her friend Svein, who, she says, is a human with a cat personality in his head (one of several personalities he exhibits), whereas she was born a cat. They both claimed to be able to communicate to each other in “cat language,” a claim which the reporter did not, of course, put to the test. Man says he is “mythical beast” Richard Hernandez has had his scales tattooed onto his face, arms and body, his ears removed, his eye whites dyed green, and his nostrils trimmed. Why? So he can become a female dragon. On one of his many blogs he describes himself as: “…the Dragon Lady…in the process of morphing into a human dragon, becoming a reptoid as I shed my human skin and my physical appearance and my life as a whole leaving my humanness behind and embracing my most natural self awareness as a mythical beast.” Guy says he is another height, gender, race and age In a popular YouTube video called College Kids Say the Darndest Things: On Identity, the short, very white, Joseph Backholm asked Washington University students if he could be a tall Chinese first-grader. They told him to go for it. CONCLUSION These are fantastic illustrations of the insanity that results when we deny that it’s God who gets to define reality and not us. But the better the illustration, the stronger the temptation to rely on the story to do all the work for us. But like the prophet Nathan before us, after telling these tales we’ll need to spell out the transgender connection for our listening audience. What that might look like? Maybe a bit like this: Christian: Have you heard about the guy who cut off his arm because he felt like he should have been born disabled? Secular Sue: That is crazy! Someone needed to help that poor guy. He needed some counseling or something. Chris: I agree. But I got a question for you – some guys will cut off a significant bit of themselves because they think they should have been born girls. Do you think that’s crazy too? Sue: I think that’s different – gender is just a social construct, so if someone feel they are the wrong gender, then maybe surgery like that can help. Chris: So it’s crazy to cut off your arm but okay to cut off your…? Sue: Well…. Chris: Why the hesitation? Sue: Because when you put it like that it doesn’t sound quite right. Chris: That’s because it isn’t right. Self-mutilation is wrong. There’s a guy who was on a talk show about how, to become more like his parrots, he’d cut off his ears. The crowd applauded. Sue: Oh, that’s awful. Chris: I agree. But isn’t this just the logical end to encouraging transgenderism? If gender is changeable, what isn’t? And if all is changeable, how can we discourage anyone from trying to do just that? To each their own and all that. But Christians know that God made us male and female; we know He gets to define reality and we don’t; and we know that when we defy His reality, bad stuff results. Like people cutting off their ears to the approval of the clapping crowd. We’re not going to convince everyone, no matter how brilliant the analogy, so that mustn’t be our measure for success. Instead, we want to ask is, are we bringing clarity? Are eyes being opened? Is the world being presented with the choice they need to make? Do they realize they can either choose for God, male and female, and reality as He has defined it… or they choose chaos? This first appeared in the June 2016 issue. ...

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News

Feminists vs. transgenders? Why the Left is turning on itself.

In Judges 7 Israel is faced with a fearsome foe, and God decides to use that foe's strength against it. Gideon and his 300 get to watch as "the Lord set the sword of one against another even throughout the whole army." Might God have something similar in mind for today's liberal Left? Consider the case of Gabrielle Bouchard. This past December, Bouchard made news, and drew the ire of a small number of vocal feminists, when he became head of Québec’s largest feminist group. Bouchard is a man who identifies as a woman, and the group he now heads, the Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ) has the typical feminist stands: abortion is good, capitalism is exploitive, the patriarchy is evil. It's on this last point – men running too much of the world - that the FFQ is getting attacked. Diane Guilbault, the head of a rival feminist group, told the National Post that she doesn't appreciate a man being in charge of a feminist group because:  “the experience of a woman who is born a woman is completely different from the experience of a man who decides one day to present himself as a woman.” While the protest against Bouchard has been limited, it has garnered some favorable coverage from a mainstream press that isn’t sure which side they should pick when one leftwing group takes on another. A month earlier a similar sort of conflict occurred south of the border. An American white man, Ja Du, publicly identified as a Filipina woman and the mainstream press didn’t know how to handle that either. The liberal Huffington Post decided to accept he was a woman, but wasn’t yet ready to do the same for his transracial claims. Their headline read: “Filipinos aren’t happy with this white woman claiming to be a Filipina.” Their hesitancy is puzzling: once you grant a man can become a woman, what logic prevents us from acknowledging a white man can become an Asian woman? Why is that a bigger leap? Of course we knew it wasn't going to be long before "transracialism" was going to be embraced too, and this past week the National Post's Barbara Kay reported that the State of Delaware is going to allow students to self-identify not only their gender, but their race too. But the more the Left embraces this craziness, the sooner the infighting is going to get serious. The conflicts we see here – one feminist group vs. the transgender head of another, and the liberal media picking transgenders over transracials – might not seem to matter. But the problems these groups have with one another are only going to grow. Why? Because at their core, feminist, transgender, and transracial views contradict. And it's only a matter of time before these unnatural allies turn on one another. Are the differences real or not? The divide between feminists and transgenders comes down to how each answers this question: are the differences between the sexes real? The typical feminist is going to answer with a "no." They'll acknowledge reproductive differences only because those are impossible to overlook. But when asked why there are far fewer female CEOs, or why the overall average wage for women is lower than that for men, the standard feminist line attributes the difference to discrimination. It is most certainly not a result of men and women having different interests, or different strengths and capabilities – after all, anything a man can do a woman can do too! To put it another way, the predominant feminist take is that the differences between men and women are only outward and insignificant - we look different, but we aren't actually different. Meanwhile when a man like Gabrielle Bouchard claims that, despite how he looks, he feels like a woman then he is, unavoidably, attacking the feminist position. After all, he's implying that there is something, outside of the outward appearance, that makes a woman different than a man. In making his claim to be the other gender, Bouchard is acknowledging that there are differences between the genders that are both real and significant. What exactly those differences are, isn't generally discussed. That's where Christians need to press the issue and ask: what does it mean to feel like a woman? What does that feeling involve? Imagine if a man said he knew he was actually a woman because he felt more sensitive and emotional, liked dresses and the color pink, and felt so very nurturing. What would feminists think of that? It doesn't really matter what differences a transgender might point to, feminists are going to either deny the differences are real, or that they are important. So we can see the rupture already starting. We can tear it wide open if we press that question: what exactly does being female or male mean? Are the groups fixed or not? When it comes to transracialism, it might seem surprising that even a liberal-leaning publication like the Huffington Post is slow to embrace the idea. Why would any on the Left have a problem with accepting that a person can swap ethnic identities? Maybe it's because, on some level, the Left understands that transracialism (along with transgenderism) undermines identity politics: minority groups pressing for preferential treatment to compensate for past wrongs (real or supposed) done to their group. After all, what happens to identity politics when it becomes possible to switch groups? What happens to demands for preferential treatment when a white man can be acknowledged as black and female? What happens to hiring quotas when an applicant can choose to identify as whatever combination of special identities a company is looking to check off? It becomes hard to pit one group against another when the lines between them are being erased. The tipping point Christians might be discouraged at just how fast our culture is embracing ideas that, only a few short years ago, would have been dismissed as crazy by just about everyone. But there is a bright side to the speed at which the Left is adopting one incoherent idea after another: the more craziness they stack on their shaky foundation, the sooner the whole mess is going to tip over. We can hasten that tipping point by asking questions that highlight that incoherence, like: Are the differences between the genders real and significant? What does it mean to feel like a woman, or feel like a man? What does it mean to be of a different race? And if I can be a different race, can I be a different age? Or a different height? How about a different weight? Or socio-economic status? Why, or why not? We can also point our culture to the one worldview that's built on a firm foundation. We can begin by teaching them that God made us male and female, and that can't be changed (though our feelings about our gender can be). We can share that gender-based differences do exist and they are significant, but they aren't scary, and don't have to be ignored or diminished. We can explain that acknowledging men are physically stronger than women isn't an attack on women's worth, because our worth doesn't come from our muscle size, or any other ability. We can point out that there is only one way in which we are all equal, and so, only one basis for any claim to equality: we are all made in God's image. We can clarify that while there are all sorts of ethnicities and cultures, there is just one race – the human race – and the denial of that truth has led to untold discrimination and persecution. And we can explain that the reason this all makes sense in a way that their secular worldview just doesn't, is because it is God's truth, and it is trustworthy because He is. Ryan T. Anderson has a similar, longer take, titled "Transgender ideology is riddled with contradictions. Here are the big ones." available here....





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Theology

Criticizing like a Christian

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do” – Dale Carnegie ***** In his bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie begins with the story of “Two Gun” Crowley, a famous killer from the 1930s. When authorities tracked him down: …150 policemen and detectives laid siege to his top-floor hideaway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the “cop killer,” with tear gas. Then they mounted their machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of New York’s fine residential areas reverberated with the crack of pistol fire and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Shortly before, Crowley had been parked along a country road, kissing his girlfriend, when a policeman had walked up and asked to see his license. Crowley responded by immediately shooting the officer several times, grabbing the officer’s gun, and shooting the now prone man with his own gun. He then fled to his hideaway where he was soon discovered. Though completely surrounded Crowley shot back incessantly, but also found time to write a letter, addressed “To whom it may concern.” In this letter Crowley described himself as a man with “a weary heart, but a kind one – one who would do nobody any harm.” When he was finally caught, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair he continued to think highly of himself. Instead of admitting this was the consequence of his sins he said: “This is what I get for defending myself.” The moral of this little story? Even when our guilt is clear, we will find ways to justify our actions and convince ourselves that someone else must be to blame. Or as Carnegie puts it “ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don’t criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong may be.” A solution? Carnegie has it exactly right. It is human nature to try to elude criticism, and when we can’t manage that, we will at least try to spread the blame around. After all, we know we’re good, so if we did something bad it must be someone else’s fault. “…but you made me lose me temper!” “They had it coming.” “You wouldn’t believe what she said first…” We are all prone to presenting “the devil made me do it” excuses and justifications as if they were valid reasons for our behavior. Carnegie concludes that because we all hate criticism, and pay so little attention to it, “Criticism is futile.” He suggests that, as a general rule, we “Don’t criticize, condemn or complain” and instead focus on the positive and the praiseworthy. God’s thoughts on criticizing Most of us could benefit from taking a large dose of Carnegie’s advice. But does it work as an absolute rule? Should we never criticize? While Jesus spoke against quick, thoughtless, and hypocritical criticism (Matt. 7:1-5), He also called on listeners to “repent and believe” (Mark 1:15), which is a decidedly critical message. It demands that people stop and turn from the evil they are doing! In fact, God says a dividing line between the righteous and the fool is in how they take criticism. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid. - Prov. 12:1 A wise son hears his father’s instruction, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. – Prov. 13:1 A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent. – Prov. 15:5 A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool. - Prov. 17:10 Clearly, if taking criticism is a mark of wisdom, then there is a need also to give it – for Christians it is not a matter of whether we should ever criticize, but instead when and how we should go about doing it. When we look to the Bible for guidance, we find at least four questions to consider. 1. Is criticism needed...or grace? To those all aware of their sins and already sorry for them, further fault-finding isn't needed (though some who say they are sorry for their sin are simply sorry they were caught). If a person is already broken, then we can make them aware of our Saviour – we can skip the criticism and get right to grace! It is only those who don't know the bad news – who as Carnegie puts "don’t criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong may be” – that we need to first bring to Moses, the law, and the evidence of their sinfulness, before we bring them to Jesus. 2. Are we doing it in love? There are so many wrong reasons to criticize – because we are angry or frustrated, because we want to feel superior, because we want to defend ourselves and don’t want to listen to someone’s criticism of us. That’s why when we are going to criticize it is important to question our motivations. Do we want to build this person up, or tear them down? Are we doing this out of annoyance, or out of love? A good rule of thumb might be that, if we really want to criticize, we probably aren't doing it with the right motivations. But the reverse is also true. If we see a friend, our spouse, a brother or sister, or our children, heading off down the wrong path and we don't want to speak up, that's also a good time to question our motivations – are we being apathetic and cowardly, and, consequently, unloving in not going after a straying sheep? Now, in 1 Cor. 13:4-7 we read that love is patient and keeps no record of wrongs. And 1 Peter 4:8 communicates a similar thought – love overlooks a multitude of sins. If we are to lovingly criticize one another this means we will only speak up about something substantial – something that matters – and won’t keep a running tally of petty grievances. Criticizing lovingly also means doing so inclusively – a matter of coming alongside rather than lecturing from high atop our pedestal. As Paul Tripp puts it, we need to make it clear we are “people in need of change helping people in need of change.” How might this look in practice? Street preacher Ray Comfort, when confronted by a homosexual, will talk first about the sins they hold in common. He will ask whether the man has ever stolen anything, ever lied, ever hated someone in his heart. By starting with the sins they hold in common, rather than the sin they do not, Comfort makes it clear he has no delusions of grandeur. He knows he is in need of this same promise of forgiveness he’s preaching. 3. Are we criticizing with care? We should criticize with care. In Matthew 7:1-5 Jesus condemns how quick we are to judge others by standards that we don’t measure up to ourselves. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. This rules out casual critiques. We too easily evaluate the faults of those all around us, and know just what they should do to fix their hair, their wardrobe, their children or marriage. But this sort of flippant evaluation isn’t done out of love. We aren’t looking to help our neighbor; we point out their flaws so we can feel superior to them. It also rules out reactive criticism. Jesus wants us to consider our own problems and sins – the “plank in our own eye.” So when these problems are pointed out to us, it is may be human nature to respond in kind with a snap assessment of our critic, but that isn’t the godly response. There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. – Prov 12:18 4. Have we tried it privately? Whenever possible, we should offer criticism privately. In Matthew 18:15 the first step in correcting a sinning brother involves a private meeting “just between the two of you.” This is the approach Aquila and Priscilla used when they wanted to explain the “way of God more adequately” to Apollos, who “knew only the baptism of John.” They invited him back to the privacy of their home to talk and teach. None of us like to be criticized but we especially don’t like to be criticized publicly. In the spirit of doing unto others as we would like them to do unto us we should offer our criticism privately. This is just as true for our children. We clearly have to criticize and correct them – that is a parent’s God-given role. But we can try to do this in private as much as possible. Spankings can be administered in a room far from guests or other children. Talks, too, can be done behind a closed door, away from the ears of their siblings. Matthew 18 also makes it clear that not all criticism can be done privately, but when it is possible it is best. Conclusion We should criticize carefully, lovingly and privately, but we most certainly should criticize. God has put us together in a community so that we can “teach and admonish one another” (Col. 3:16). Sometimes there can be a temptation to stay quiet, even when we have some godly wisdom to offer a brother having problems. We can even fool ourselves into thinking we are simply “minding our own business” (and that our silence has nothing at all to do with cowardice). But minding our own business isn’t exactly a Christian virtue - we are our brother’s keeper and we must be concerned with his welfare. So if we love him, and he is in need of correction, silence is simply not an option. “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death…” – James 5:19-20 A version of this article originally appeared in the February 2012 issue. **** Postscript: How should we receive criticism? As Carnegie notes, it is human nature to bristle at criticism and ignore it, but human nature is sinful, so the way we do react might not be the way we should react. God tells us that it is simply stupid to hate correction (Prov 12:1). We know we are far from perfect, and clearly in need of improvement, so we should “listen to advice and accept instruction” (Prov. 19:20). So how do we overcome our defensiveness? How can we learn to welcome criticism? We need to ask God to make us want to be wise, rather than foolish. We need to pray for a growing awareness of our own sins, and our need for correction. It is only when we understand how needy we are that we will embrace the help that is offered. That doesn't mean listening to every critic – many are fools. But it does mean we need to recognize that criticism of the godly sort is a precious, if not always pleasant, commodity....