Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere might be happy.
(H.L. Mencken)
All of my field research strongly indicates one thing: The longer you let a self-identified “Christian” do the talking, the higher the statistical probability that they’ll confidently inform you that, because the first man indulged the first woman’s mystical impulses, therefore all their descendants [1] are, from their incubation, plagued by all manner of pain, illness, death and a posthumous mock-“trial” in which their immortal soul [2] will, by default, be sentenced to an eternity of hell for something they didn’t do [3] (an injustice that’s bound to accentuate hell’s agony all the more). And, as strange as it may sound (and as largely un-Biblical as it actually is), the only way out of this looming kangaroo court date to which the Grim Reaper waits to shuttle us all, is if you, at some point during your present incarnation, repent of your ancestors’ sins as well as your own and . . . and this is the part where they can’t keep their stories straight but always manage to entertain the seasoned enquirer.
But let’s just stop the tape at the part of the Christian sales pitch I’ve boldfaced above. Because here’s where things get even weirder. See, for all these unspeakable setbacks that are, by Western Christians’ constant and loud profession, our ancestral curse for having committed the original sin of essentially independent thought (aha), most Christians are just as confident that no one is born with homosexual much less cross-gender tendencies, never. Yes, you definitely come into this world with the juridical cards stacked against you, and you could even be stillborn (in which case you’re screwed both here and in the hereafter [again, this doesn’t come from Jesus but from later empire-friendly “fans” of his like Augustine]) as well as born with all kinds of debilitating diseases, deformities, whether from your chromosomes, from your formation or from the birth process—but the only thing you magically cannot inherit from anyone from Adam and Eve down to your birth parents is gender ambiguity/fluidity of any kind.
Same-sex attraction and opposite-sex identification, among all the “sinful” tendencies a.k.a. “concupiscence”, is, we are supposed to believe, completely arbitrary and man-made, having nothing to do with natural urges. Even though the Bible says nothing of the kind. Even though other primates perform acts of “sodomy”. Even though all common sense says otherwise. (Because that’s faith!)
Don’t know what to make of all this? Well, here’s my take on it. (And I grant you that the élite almost certainly pull shady stunts that promote such things for population control [to include lifespan reduction].) With a few weird exceptions, systematic theology and evangelistic scare tactics have always involved aggressively misapplying “God’s word” and other mystical inspirations for political (read hypocritically abusive) goals, rather than seeking logical consistency, let alone a deep personal understanding of divine ways.
And this example, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is the smoking gun that should signal to the discerning mind all that’s wrong with most evangelism. So if your brain is convicting you tonight to confess your hypocrisy and stop sounding like a complete nut, I would invite you to ask the Lord to show you a better way that doesn’t involve absurd mental gymnastics and extra-Biblica judgment of others that fill you with a Pharisaical type of pride because “you’re not like the others”. Jesus says “be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves”, so the exact opposite of “be a loudmouthed simpleton”, which aptly describes most Christians you meet. The best answer of all is to move from discursive “prayer” (talking at God) to meditation (listening to God, who speaks within the heart). Blessings.
________
[1] Descendents of Adam and Eve are, unbiblically, presumed to include all members of the species homo sapeins.
[2] Their afterlife bodies will stand “trial” reincarnated in Superman-type bodies.
[3] This hypothetical hell is a place that you just have to use your imagination to imagine as being even more excruciating and insufferable than the idiocy you are witnessing.