END TIMES SIGN: US STUDY SHOWS 14,000 CHILDREN HAVE UNDERGONE TRANS PROCEDURES

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The transgender industry has exploded from a trickle of young males seeking transition procedures to thousands upon thousands of minors who have filled the industry’s bank account with more than $100 million, according to a groundbreaking new report. This is a significant end-times sign. God will not countenance this happening to children.

The group Do No Harm has found nearly 14,000 minors have undergone transgender surgeries, puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormone injections between 2019 and 2023, generating almost $120 million in revenue. This is now big business and nothing but God stepping in will stop it. The report documents that during those years:

  • 13,994 children received transgender-related treatments 
  • 5,747 transgender “sex change” operations were carried out on children
  • “62,682 hormone and puberty blockers prescriptions [were] written for 8,579 pediatric patients”
  • “At least $119,791,202 made from sex change treatments performed on minors”

“This data release is really a nuclear bomb,” Dr. Miriam Grossman told guest host Jody Hice on “Washington Watch” Wednesday. “We are led to believe by politicians and many groups that these interventions are rare and hardly happening in this country. And that is simply not true.”

These experimental procedures have proliferated, partly because of money, but also because “the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association for many years have been taken over by a small group of activists who simply push their agendas forward and stifle debate,” Grossman noted. “And too many of my colleagues are simply spineless and unwilling to speak up against it.”

The study’s numbers, which tracked insurance data, “also are not counting any of the treatments that were paid for privately,” noted Grossman, a practicing psychiatrist. “While this data represents the tip of the iceberg, this is the first step in holding the medical establishment accountable for participating in, and often times promoting, predatory and unscientific medical interventions for vulnerable children,” said the chairman of Do No Harm, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb.

The procedures sometimes generated millions of dollars for the facility. according to the database, Boston Children’s Hospital raked in over $5 million. The group released its list of the “Dirty Dozen” hospitals that most profited off pediatric transgender procedures, which includes:

  • The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
  • Children’s Minnesota
  • Seattle Children’s
  • Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
  • Boston Children’s Hospital
  • Rady Children’s Hospital
  • Children’s National Medical Center
  • UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
  • Children’s Hospital Colorado
  • UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh
  • Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

“Some of these hospitals are actually activists; they are reaching out into the community and promoting their services,” Grossman told Hice.iws9

Yet not everyone has bowed “the knee” to the industry’s consensus. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) has refused to endorse “any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria” and acknowledged that “there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”

Still, the damage has been profound, experts say. Thanks to transgender activists, children are being permanently “physically disfigured. They’re losing the capacity to have biological children in the future. Many of them will have impaired sexual functioning, inability to have sexual pleasure, and many, many other medical and psychiatric problems,” said Grossman. “There’s so many mental health issues for many reasons. And, one big reason is that we are misrepresenting reality to these children, and we are leading them to think that they can just keep [allowing] each person [to] create their own reality. That is extremely destructive from a mental health perspective.”

The procedures often trigger lifelong regret. “We’ve had over 4,000 or 5,000 people that we’ve helped through our website, working with them one-on-one, who have come back and restored their life,” Walt Heyer, who lived for years as a woman before embracing his God-given sex, told a panel at the 2024 Pray Vote Stand Summit (PVSS) in Washington, D.C. last weekend.

Like many transgender-identifying young people, Heyer was psychologically, physically, and sexually abused as a child. Today, he says, he hears aspects of his own story in thousands of young people who speak with him.

“When people approach me and they say, ‘I’m a transgender. I transitioned and I have gender dysphoria,’ I always say, ‘Well, you’re not a transgender. You never transitioned, and you probably don’t have gender dysphoria,’” Heyer said. “That’s not gender dysphoria. That’s trauma.”

“It is categorically impossible to change your gender with hormones and surgery,” Heyer pointed out. “No one has ever changed genders. They’ve changed their persona.”

Once led down the transgender medical pipeline of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and unnecessary surgery, these minor patients have no formal financial — and all-too-often, psychological — support. “We see a population that is vulnerable, that has been taken advantage of, that has no means of intervention, because once they go through ‘gender-affirming care,’ there’s no insurance to go through a detransitioning process. There is no insurance to cover the trauma that happens to someone who’s been told by the medical community, ‘This is the way you’re going to get better,” Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, told PVSS.

She continued, “If we know that trauma is high in a population, what we should be doing is including that variable in every piece of research that we produce, because it’s significant and we need to understand the population well, but not when it comes to the transgender research literature. They don’t include it. They’re not curious [about] why self-harm is so high in this population. And in fact, the very act of ‘gender-affirming care’ is self-harm, which is an expression of trauma.’”

Less than one-third of Americans say they support any kind of transgender procedures for minors in a Rasmussen poll. A strong majority (58%) of Americans oppose all transgender procedures — including supposedly reversible puberty blockers and hormone injections — for children under 18; 47% “strongly oppose” such procedures. 

“The stats in this database represent thousands of kids who are being treated like Guinea pigs for unproven, and sometimes dangerous, medical experiments. I hope politicians and parents alike use this database to see where these treatments are happening and protect their children from being rushed into irreversible, life-altering treatments,” said Do No Harm Senior Fellow and Patient Advocate Chloe Cole.

Thus far, the 2024 Republican presidential campaign has said little about the procedures. Instead, since August, the Trump campaign has focused on a $65 million ad campaign opposing transgender-identifying athletes taking part in women’s sports and taxpayer-funded transgender procedures for inmates in prison.

“If I had it my way, we would close every gender clinic in the United States and stop this nonsense. We need to get a backbone, and we need to stand up and say we are destroying lives. We are not helping people,” Heyer told PVSS.

Bauwens also noted that, according to federal election data, “92% to 96% of research psychologists and social workers” have “given to a liberal Democrat candidate” for office.

The most profound damage of the transgender industry comes in the mind- and soul-altering message of gender fluidity, which wars with the biblical view that God created us male and female, Heyer contended. “When we introduce a child or an individual to the idea that they can change genders, we devalue who they are in Christ,” he said.

The report’s full findings can be found at StopTheHarmDatabase.com.

Topics:Gender Identity, Gender Ideology, Children, Public Health, Health Care

GENDER TRANSITION SURGERIES DRASTICALLY INCREASES RISK OF SUICIDE

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An extensive study published last month entitled “Risk of Suicide and Self-Harm Following Gender-Affirmation Surgery” evaluated patient data from nearly 60 U.S. healthcare organizations, comprising millions of patients. The data analyzed covered a full 20 years, from February 4, 2003, to February 4, 2023.

Over 1,500 patients, called “Cohort A,” were “adults aged 18-60 who had gender-affirming surgery and an emergency visit”; nearly 16 million patients, called “Cohort B,” were a “control group of adults with emergency visits but no gender-affirming surgery”; while almost 150,000 patients, called “Cohort C,” were “adults with emergency visits, tubal ligation or vasectomy, but no gender-affirming surgery.” A fourth group, called “Cohort D,” were examined to “validate the results from cohort C.”

The study concluded, “Individuals who underwent gender-affirming surgery had a 12.12-fold higher suicide attempt risk than those who did not…” Those who had undergone gender transition surgeries were nearly five times more likely to attempt suicide than those who had undergone tubal ligations or vasectomies. The study warned, “Gender-affirming surgery is significantly associated with elevated suicide attempt risks, underlining the necessity for comprehensive post-procedure psychiatric support.”

The study’s findings align with the conclusions of numerous other studies. For example, research published in the BMJ Mental Health journal earlier this year found that gender transition procedures such as hormone drugs and surgeries have “not been shown to reduce even suicidal ideation, and suicidal ideation is not equal to actual suicide risk.” An extensive 30-year-long study from Sweden concluded that suicide rates increase after gender transition surgeries, rising to at least 20 times the suicide rate of the general population.

Countless other studies have shown that gender transition procedures are actually harmful, especially to children. A study published in March suggested that puberty blockers have numerous harmful effects on children, including an increased risk of cancer in boys.

What is driving this madness? The Bible gives us the correct answer:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-3

They are blinded to the truth by Satan “the prince of the power of the air“, “carrying out the desires of the body and the mind“. Godless people will make up their own rules to satisfy the lusts of the flesh regardless of the consequences.

Thankfully, because of Jesus, Christians have been given the Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth as our counsellor and teacher.

“But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace… and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility… For through Him, we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Ephesians 2: 13, 14, 16, 18-19

How wonderful it is to know God, our Creator. To know He loves us enough to send His own Son to pay the price for our rebellion against God brought about by our distant relatives, the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.

BIDEN BANISHES CHRISTIAN IMAGES AND CELEBRATES TRANSGENDER DAY OF VISIBILITY ON EASTER SUNDAY

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Late last week, the Biden administration prohibited children from expressing their Christian faith while redesignating Easter Sunday as the “Transgender Day of Visibility.” Biden literally banished Christianity from a children’s contest celebrating its most joyful holiday while exalting a radical and harmful ideology in its place.

The Biden administration’s revolution began where all revolutions begin: with children. The 2024 “Celebrating National Guard Families” art contest, which is part of the White House Easter Egg Roll, asks children of servicemembers to submit designs for Easter eggs — but not any that highlight the actual content of Easter. The contest’s flyer instructs children they “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.” The Biden administration banned religious imagery alongside “bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.”

These rules, overseen by the nation’s “devout Catholic” president, stigmatize the majority of Americans, who believe in God. They also prohibit the families of service members, who stand ready to deploy into combat at a moment’s notice, of the free exercise of their religion. The instructions ask children to depict “a favorite activity, scenery in your state, your military family, a day in your life, etc.” But what if the child’s “favorite activity” is exclaiming, “Christ is risen!” in church on Easter morning? What if a day in this child’s life does not go by without thinking about the empty tomb that gives them eternal life? The Biden administration has deprived them of the opportunity to share their artistic gifts and win a prize, funded by all Americans. (Forget the move’s hypocrisy: Presumably, in signing his Easter proclamation, Biden did not remove the rosary he has worn around his wrist since the tragic death of his son Beau in 2015. Biden told Megyn Kelly in 2017 that rosary “is my connection with him.” For some, such religious items connect them with a Higher Power — a power they also wish to symbolize, in public, on their religion’s holiest day.)

Biden issued the official statement on Friday declaring Easter Sunday, March 31, as the “Transgender Day of Visibility.” Biden actually previewed the shift to America’s new religion in the first of his two statements celebrating the 2023 “Transgender Day of Visibility,” in which Biden declared: “Transgender Americans shape our [n]ation’s soul.”

“Transgender Americans are part of the fabric of our [n]ation,” Biden wrote. Since people who identify as transgender “help America thrive,” they deserve the “fundamental freedom to be their true selves,” Biden’s 2024 statement states.

But how can trans-identifying people do for America what they cannot do for themselves? One study found, that the moment someone begins to identify as transgender, “the most common outcomes were worsened mental well-being (47.2%); worsened parent-child relationship (57.3%); unchanged or mixed grades/academic performance (59.1%); and a narrower range of interests and hobbies (58.1%).” A growing list of whistleblowers know what everyone who works in gender clinics quietly admits: Teens who identify as transgender suffer from an array of psychological comorbidities, including autism, depression, and bipolar disorder aside from their “gender dysphoria.”

Democratic politicians continually highlight statistics showing the mental suffering and fragility of trans-identifying Americans, but they, like Biden, chalk up innate depression to “bullying and discrimination.” In the Left’s bipolar world, the LGBTQ lifestyle is both a perfectly well-adjusted path to “trans joy” and a death sentence in an America whose heteronormative and cisgender bias rivals that of Pakistan.

Biden warned darkly that “extremists are proposing hundreds of hateful laws that target and terrify transgender kids.” Extremists? In reality, 71% of Americans agree “there are two genders, male and female”; 64% of Americans support legislation barring talk of gender ideology in elementary school; and 68% believe minors should not be subjected to transgender hormone or surgeries. But in the Left’s Permanent Committee to Repeal Reality, if a same-sex relationship can be a marriage, and a man can become a woman, then 32% can be a majority.

Biden did not speak for his administration alone. Praising the new holiday became, in the Left’s Orwellian-sounding parlance, a “whole-of-government” exercise. Vice President Kamala Harris gushed, “On Transgender Day of Visibility, we celebrate transgender and nonbinary Americans,” adding, “We won’t stop fighting for you.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has seldom missed an opportunity to wage war on America’s allies, vowed to “continue to fight for a world” that aligns with transgender political priorities. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said without proof that “our country’s great transgender, nonbinary, and two-spirit leaders … epitomize resilience, progress, and joy.” Even the secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, praised the “vibrancy of the transgender community” before highlighting “our shared fight for justice.”

Christian politicians, and those not committed to the social revolution, took Biden to task for redefining Easter weekend. “It is appalling and insulting that Joe Biden’s White House prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art event, and formally proclaimed Easter Sunday as ‘Trans Day of Visibility.’ Sadly, these are just two more examples of the Biden [a]dministration’s year-long assault on the Christian faith. We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” said Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. “This is the left’s new religion. They want people worshiping the trans flag instead of God,” said Donald Trump Jr. Contrasting Biden’s commitment to transgender visibility and Chrisian erasure, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter — which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

The Left attempted to counterpunch, claiming the real offense is not Biden’s banishment of Christian themes from the White House but since “[t]he date of Easter moves each year, while Trans Day of Visibility is always recognized on March 31,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the CEO of the LGBTQ group GLAAD, accused “right-wing politicians and talking heads” of “using the coincidental timing to overshadow the hope and joy that Easter represents.” But Transgender World — which touts itself as a source for “queer news, debate, and resources” — posted on social media that “the Transgender Agenda’s final goal has finally been achieved: holding Trans Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday. That’s right, folks: we got ’em.” 

The Biden White House tried to portray Biden’s endorsement of gender confusion and mutilation as less offensive than President Trump endorsing and encouraging people to read the Bible. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit,” lectured White House spokesman Andrew Bates.

By replacing Christianity with a new holiday celebrating transgender ideology (which, one must concede, relies entirely on faith), Biden has become the new Jeroboam. When Israel made a decisive split, Jeroboam made himself king of the northern 10 tribes of Israel. To keep his people from returning to worship at the Jerusalem Temple during annual Jewish feasts, Jeroboam “made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (I [III] Kings 12:25-33). While Israel coasted for some time on the fumes of its former fidelity and God’s mercy, the decision brought destruction to the nation.

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand

In Australia, Netball, NSW Swifts star shooter Sam Wallace-Joseph, a devout Christian has outraged fans. On Easter Sunday, she reposted US President Joe Biden’s announcement of March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility. This year it coincided with Easter Sunday.

Wallace-Joseph shared the post with the words: “The disrespect is crazy. Don’t play with GOD.”

Despite the post being deleted, Wallace defended her opinion to fans online via X. She responded to one fan who said her “opinion was hateful and wrong” with “I don’t owe people on the internet any explanation”. She told another fan “My opinion still stands”.

Netball Australia insists it is “committed to embracing diversity” as the sport grapples with the fallout to the controversial social media post. It will be interesting to see what they do.

ANOTHER PROPHESIED END TIMES SIGN

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“Up until recently,” mass shootings were “almost exclusively men. But something’s changed,” said Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, host of “Washington Watch.” “Something’s changed,” agreed Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at FRC, “and it’s been in conjunction with the rise of transgenderism.”

“This is an alarming trend,” Bauwens added, “that we’re seeing these young women who don’t fit the profile … commit these heinous acts.” On Sunday, a 36-year-old woman opened fire at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. In March 2023, a 28-year-old woman killed six people at Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn. A female shot nine people at a Colorado charter school in May 2019, and another female shot three people at her Maryland workplace in September 2018. In all four cases, the female shooter identified as transgender.

“A good researcher would say, ‘What is going on here? And why is it that these women are also connected in some way to the transgender ideology?’” suggested Bauwens.

One factor is the presence of mental health issues. Bauwens acknowledged that there was “a mental illness issue with shootings across the board.” Police revealed almost immediately that the Lakewood Church shooter was mentally ill, and the Covenant School shooter wanted to die.

However, Bauwens added, in the case of the Lakewood Church shooter, “You have to wonder, was there more going on than just her baseline mental health distress?”

Mental health issues are often caused by “adverse childhood events,” said Bauwens, and as a result they have unprocessed trauma. As a former clinical researcher of trauma patients, Bauwens has studied how trauma can manifest in other areas of a person’s life. Whether recognized or not, childhood trauma can often lead to the mental health issues so often linked both with people with gender dysphoria and those with a propensity toward mass shootings, Bauwens explained.

Another overlap between the two groups is a “susceptibility to suicidal ideation or committing suicide,” Bauwens continued. She was “not saying that everyone who has a suicidal ideation is going to commit mass murder,” she clarified, but anyone with suicidal ideation is already fantasizing about “committing murder of yourself,” making the leap to contemplate the killing of others that much more likely.

While these relationships have been well established by research, Bauwens contended, the recent change, which corresponds to the rising trend of trans-identifying female mass shooters, is the advent of cross-sex hormones and a worldview of victimhood. If “there’s already mental health distress, and now you’re going to throw the wild card of hormones into the mix,” Bauwens observed, “it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“We’re not talking about, in some cases, [a female] just identifying as a male,” Perkins agreed, but the increasingly widespread “experimental use of drugs and surgery. So, if you’re a female and you are wanting to identify as a male, you take male hormones. And if you have an underlying mental illness, … this is like a concoction that is just so volatile and dangerous.”

Even a healthy person would be negatively impacted by hormone treatments, Bauwens contended. “If you take someone who has great mental health, and then you pump them with higher levels of male or female hormones,” she posited, “how can you expect a good outcome? … That’s not rocket science. It’s not normal.”

If you “take a woman and you pump her full of testosterone,” Bauwens argued, it would introduce even more psychological variables. “Now she’s having to socially adjust to the fact that her body is changing to look more like a male,” she said. “That’s introducing all kinds of other mental health issues with the possibility of greater levels of bullying, etc.” On top of that, Bauwens added, the woman would “have all these new emotions to deal with,” such as rage, an increased sexual drive, and other effects of testosterone.

Bauwens pointed out the absurdity of mental health professionals affirming a woman that this volatile situation is normal. If a woman takes testosterone because she wants to identify as a man, said Bauwens, she will “have a mental health community that’s surrounding her saying, ‘This is great. This is the answer to all your problems.’”

Bauwens also warned about the influence of Marxist ideology that encourages a person with gender dysphoria to adopt an identity of victimhood as a member of an oppressed minority. “You have this framework that says, ‘You are a victim, and there are these other people — Christians, others who believe that sex is binary — [who] are keeping this vital treatment from you,’” said Bauwens.

“So, you can see,” Bauwens concluded, “just how some of the circumstances in our society have set up the belief system that Christians are the problem.” Police have not officially released the motive for the shootings at either Lakewood Church or Covenant School, but both incidents involved female shooters who identified or may have identified as transgender, and who attempted to inflict mass casualties associated with Christianity.

“There is a convergence of transgenderism, drug treatments, and violence,” Perkins summarized, at a time when “both mental health [problems] and attacks on churches continue to rise.”

This is just another confirmation that we are living in the prophesied end times before Jesus returns.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5

THE WORLD CONTINUES TO REJECT GOD AND CREATION AND TEEN MENTAL HEALTH WORSENS

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Article by Sarah Holliday in the Washington Stand, February 13, 2024.

Sarah does not mention the key factor that is impacting the mental health of teens. It is the teaching of evolution as a fact in schools, even Christian schools. The Big Bang and Evolution remove God from His creation and make the Bible a book of fables and myths. It also removes any purpose or meaning to life. There is no hope or knowledge of the God who loves His creation and has provided a way back into a right relationship with Him.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

A recent study conducted by Common Sense Media (CMS) found that America has a teen mental health crisis. Yet, with the way social media has plagued the younger generations, is anyone really surprised by this? But it goes beyond technology, as many factors contribute to the decay of younger generations and their mental health.

“The negative effects of social media on young people’s mental health is a top concern, including across party identification,” CSM reported. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a survey in 2021 that noted the roles “risky sexual practices, illicit drug and alcohol use, and bullying at school” play in this analysis. We are also seeing a rise in broken homes and fatherlessness, and many researchers suggest the pandemic worsened the mental health crisis that was already present.

And at a time in history when the world is warring over the topic of identity, how are developing youth supposed to know what to believe about anything? Marlo Slayback, national director of Student Programs at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, shared with The College Fix that over time, “the culture surrounding Gen Z [has changed]. It’s a recipe for despair, hopelessness, nihilism, disaffection.” She described it as a “decaying culture” that causes young people to “feel alienated and lost at sea.”

While many societal factors could be considered, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University conducted a survey that found children between eight and 12 years old, preteens, are increasingly denying biblical truths. Is this a coincidence amid the growing mental health crisis? I don’t think so.

According to the results, only 21% of preteens agreed that “there are absolute truths — things that are right and things that are wrong, that do not depend on feelings, preferences, or circumstances.”

Only 27% of preteens believed “the main reason to live is to know, love and serve God, with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And only 17% felt a successful life was connected to obedience to God.

George Barna, the director of Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center and Family Research Council senior research fellow, said these results only reflect the lack of biblical worldview present in the lives of many today. He added, “[W]e are on the precipice of Christian invisibility in this nation unless we get serious about this crisis and invest heavily in fixing what’s broken.”

Barna explained, “Children are intellectual and spiritual sponges in their preteen years. They are desperately trying to make sense of the world, their identity, their purpose, and how to live a meaningful and satisfying life.” As such, it’s obvious how toxic social media and other issues have caused mental health problems among this group. But it’s also worth emphasizing the spiritual aspect.

As Christians, we know the only true life is a life lived for Christ. Upon conversion, we are spiritually reborn into a new creation that has a desire to follow and obey Jesus and His word. Our eyes are opened to the truth of this world as laid out in Scripture. And once our eyes are opened, we can see how the world has so greatly abandoned these biblical truths. And what follows? Disorder and destruction; confusion and hopelessness.

When I was growing up, life wasn’t as crazy as it is now, but I still had to face the realities of its brokenness. And it was my biblical worldview that allowed me to persevere through any hardships growing up. Young people now are growing up in a society that believes men can become women and vice versa. They are being raised to believe that marriage has nothing to do with God and that sex (specifically outside of marriage) has no consequences. Truth is subjective, and children can carve out their own reality as they enter adulthood. This is detrimental to physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.

No wonder these children feel lost and in a constant state of unrest. They’re being fed lies around every corner — physical or virtual. Approaching this crisis, Christians “should respond with brokenness and a realization that much of our discipleship efforts in the church geared towards young people has failed,” said David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview.

He explained how we are at the “highest rates of biblical illiteracy and the lowest of biblical worldview” since it’s been measured. “It’s not good,” he said, “but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.” And a lack of biblical worldview does factor into decreased mental wellness. Why? Because anything other than a biblical worldview is “a deficient worldview,” Closson noted, and sets “people up to fail very early.”

He added, “Since most people are not thinking rightly about the world, we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re not going to be thinking rightly about other things. Not just theological matters, but they won’t be thinking rightly about themselves, their place in the world, body image,” or anything under the sun. Ultimately, Closson concluded, “[W]e need to be [more] intentional in our discipleship efforts” in reaching younger generations.

For resources to reach young people go to http://www.answersingenesis.org and http://www.creation.com.

WE ARE IN AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN AGE NOT A POST-CHRISTIAN AGE

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REVIEW of Rosaria Butterfield’s ‘Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age’

Butterfield’s offering comes in the form of fresh, unadulterated truth — the kind that’s not afraid to step on the toes of those caught in deception. Hurt toes are a small price to pay for walking in the truth, even if you do end up with a limp. Limping or not, staying on the path beats falling into the abyss any day.

Lies that lead us astray have only multiplied since the serpent in the garden suggested, “Did God really say?” There are plenty to go around, but Butterfield narrows her focus to five. The lies she sees as particularly plaguing today are:

  1. Homosexuality is normal.
  2. Being a spiritual person is kinder than being a biblical Christian.
  3. Feminism is good for the world and the church.
  4. Transgenderism is normal.
  5. Modesty is an outdated burden that serves male dominance and holds women back.

Butterfield’s five lies may not be top-of-mind for everyone, but nearly every North American Christian is affected by them. Take the lie that homosexuality is normal, for example. The ubiquity of homosexuality portrayed in media and advertising lends credence to the notion that it’s just another part of everyday life — even to the point of infiltrating the church. Sure, progressive churches have long accepted and celebrated homosexuality, but its normalization has affected more conservative churches as well. Butterfield speaks specifically against the ideas of homosexual identity and the so-called gay Christian movement. She doesn’t mince words: it is sin, and those involved with it are in need of repentance.

Butterfield’s biography plays heavily into her narrative. She once identified as “a women-centered, pacifist, lesbian vegetarian” who “hated everything to do with the Bible.” After meeting Christians who patiently, thoroughly, and lovingly explained the gospel to her, she was converted. She walked away from that identity at great personal cost. But her biography is most certainly not her rationale — it’s merely supporting evidence.

Butterfield’s solutions aren’t novel — in fact, they’re demonstrably old. The solution to these lies, of course, is truth. But it’s not truth found only in experience, rather it’s the revealed truth given to us in Scripture. For Butterfield, these lies aren’t prickly cultural nuances. They are sin. The solution to being shaped by lies is to be transformed by Christ, to repent from sin, and believe the truth.

Particularly helpful is the characterization of our current age as “anti-Christian” versus the oft-used “post-Christian.” After all, we Christians are still here, and Christ’s church still stands. But our age is increasingly negative toward Christianity. Where faith may have once held prominence, it’s now an object of derision. Derision leaves no room for complex nuance, hence Butterfield’s simple, repent-and-believe-the-truth approach to dealing with lies.

Butterfield’s motivation is found in the latter part of the book as she sums up a quote by church reformer John Calvin. She writes, “To a Christian, the rage of the whole world is nothing — nothing, that is, compared to the grace and power of God.”

And maybe that’s the simplicity in Rosaria Butterfield’s approach to our anti-Christian age. The world can rage all it wants against Christ and his truth, but all its rage is no match for his grace. Make no mistake: this book is ultimately not about lies. Sure, the reader will walk away with a sharp assessment of these lies (perhaps with some sore toes). But it’s the truth of God’s grace that Butterfield gives that will keep the reader free from the enemy’s web of lies.

Review by Jared Bridges. He is editor-in-chief of The Washington Stand.

The good news is that Jesus told us beforehand that prior to His second coming the world will reject God and His Word, the Bible, and hence hate Christians who uphold Jesus and the Bible.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:9-13