By Jaime Nava –
According to this 2011 report, 0.2 to 0.3 percent of Americans consider themselves transgender. As percentages go, that’s not a big number. Our country loves to lift up the strong minority for the sake of some cause or another. Since gay marriage has passed, folks are now clamoring to support a new and shiny minority. I’m not saying that transgender people don’t face their issues. These are people who feel what is tangible isn’t really real. Anorexics feel the same way, too. They have their struggles and need support as anyone who feels that their body isn’t their reality. Interestingly, many feminists are finding issues with the transgender movement, as well.
With this fractional minority of people in the US, they sure are getting a lot of attention. Someone smarter than me (a throw’s stone, really) can write up a piece as to that. Advocacy for the little guy isn’t inherently bad, but how it’s done can be nauseating. When I read and see articles tidal waving over the internet about transgender this or that, it gets tiring. When it’s pushed in television shows and when courts do their judicial activism, I roll my eyes and wonder what is going to happen next. I should know that. Video games, of course.
The Sims, the game where you care for simulated people, has come out with a new feature. “For more than 16 years, The Sims franchise has empowered players to express themselves through open gameplay and endless customization. That’s why we’re so excited that today’s free update to The Sims 4 features an expanded Create A Sim mode with new gender customization options and gives our players even more ways to play with life.” Oh, frabjous day! Now the 0.3% can be pushed into my face with a video game. Although the comments seem to have been turned off, when I saved this Sim website, the comments were very much on. The first comment was a female who was so pleased because she was dysphorically living as a man. The second was nearly the same. An ironic aside, I wager one first has to choose a gender to be dysphoric about, but I haven’t played it so I could be wrong. Maybe “It” or “;vujase;vuib” is an option.
I’ll be honest. I haven’t really played The Sims for almost two decades. That’s not the point. Where does advocacy end? Was it at the random gay police chief in the TV show Gotham because nothing says gritty DC TV show like pointing out a bit character’s sexual preference? I guess Christians are just as guilty. They’ve tried to make their own crappy video games like the Left Behind game where you had to proselytize people to save them from eternal destruction. But the truth is, this is far above that. Christians can make crappy movies and crappy video games, but they’re not taking an actually successful franchise and insert their political agenda. They’re just totally uncreative. Can you imagine if The Sims offered people to choose if they go to church on a Sunday morning? I wonder how all the millennial females sitting around the table in the Huffington Post would react to that.
Folks, we are completely immersed in thinking that is so far left that feminists are now considered too far right. Do you think our children don’t notice? Do you think they aren’t the target? As Rev. Fisk calls it, they are being catechized into the culture. Adults are as well, but it has greater impact on the children. Here’s a quote from The Lutheran Witness, which quotes Rev. Daniel Preus, “Parents, it is optional to teach your children chess or sewing or how to change a tire. It is not optional for you as a parent to teach them about Christ. It is not the Sunday School teacher’s job. It is not your pastor’s. It is your duty. And to be able to make a good confession, you must study and learn good theology. Start by going to your pastor’s Bible study. He is there to help you.”
Now more than ever, Biblical teaching should be done at home. Now more than ever, families should be working through Luther’s Small Catechism. Now more than ever, we should be going to church and Bible Study. Now more than ever, the culture is teaching your children what and how to think. If our kids are reading The Small Catechism for the first time in their catechism class, then odds are we have set them up for failure. Passing on the faith means reading it as a family. It means talking about it. It means dealing with how to love someone who is homosexual or transgender from a Biblical perspective.
The Word changes us. It kills us and makes us alive. It breathes life into us. It sanctifies us. It is everything. The world would have you too busy and exhausted for church. Sports don’t compare. Other programs for the kids don’t compare. Anything you can find that will help your children grow will not compare to what they receive when we go to church together, when we go to Bible study together, or when we are catechized and grow by God’s Word together. It is critical because, if you don’t teach and go to church, there’s plenty of teachers on the internet and now in video games which are filling that void for your children. If you aren’t doing it, the culture already is with a very, very large catechism.
