“You MUST NOT Change”:  Romans 1:32 and The Gagging of Grace

“[D]o not nullify the grace of God”¹

“[W]here sin increased, grace abounded all the more”²

“[S]uch were some of you.”³

“[Do not] trample underfoot the Son of God . . . and outrage the Spirit of Grace.”⁴

Decisions, decisions!  Coke or Pepsi?  Diet or sugared soda?  Caffeine or caffeine-free?  Fries or fruit?  Cream and/or sugar?  Bacon or sausage?  Boxers or briefs?  Nike or Adidas?  Gas or hybrid?  iPhone or Android?  Laptop or Mac?  And on it goes.  Nearly endless choices [literally] litter our culture⁵ – we are at times drowning in options and not just about consumer goods.  As President Obama – remember him? – once [falsely] promised, “If you like your health plan, you can keep it.”⁶  It’s hard to imagine in this option-rich era that celebrates choices, that some seek to quell choice, especially when it comes to deeply personal choices like mental health care solutions aimed at addressing disorders affecting “personal identity”.  How so?  Let’s get to the gist.

In this world of sexual anarchy and chaos,⁷ one mantra seems to dominate:  “love is love” and therefore, every person must be free to choose their “gender” and thereby compel everyone else to celebrate and enforce that choice:  from pronouns and puberty blockers to pubic piracy and pseudonyms.  Yet, if you believe the Left, this liberty to self-define and choose should only exist to support and sustain certain ideological viewpoints.  Some choices, they contend, MUST cease; they are verboten and must be canceled.  To those struggling with gender dysphoria who desire real relief instead of costumes, cosmetics, chemicals and carvings, grace is told to “stay away!!”   Why?

Paul tells us that when the truth is exchanged for the lie, idolatry results:  creation instead of the Creator is worshipped.⁸ This produces unrighteous practices.  Theology – disordered worship – correlates with ethics – disordered life.  But sin’s impulse does not end with “doing what’s right in his own eyes”.⁹  Rather, those practicing unrighteousness seek to have those practices approved.¹⁰ Their choices must be favored in culture and law.  This means correlatively that those seeking such approval and dominance, also seek to limit, mute, silence, or eliminate – “cancel” – any view that opposes their “approved” unrighteous practices. This is not “mere theory.”

Consider this fictional scenario:  Mark, a 10-year-old boy, struggles with his self-image.  He’s had a challenging, but not abusive upbringing.  His parents love him dearly.  One day Mark emotionally senses that praise extends to his sister more than to him.  He begins to “act out” a more feminine persona.  Yet, he recognizes that he’s not a girl, but emotionally he remains confused and troubled.  He experiences deep hurt.  Mark confides in his parents.  Mark acknowledges he’s a boy and deeply wants to remain male, yet he struggles in handling these confusing emotions.  And social media algorithms provide him a steady flow of “advice” confusing him further by driving him to “transition.”  He wants help.

After doing some research and seeking referrals, his parents locate a faith-based licensed “talk counselor” who specializes in working with minors who experience “gender dysphoria.”  Through talk counseling this counselor – who enjoys a track record of success – works with similarly troubled and hurting minors in a way so that their emotions will match their bodies. 

This is really no different from treating young adolescent girls experiencing eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.  Talk counselors help these patients align their view of their bodies with their minds.  A good counselor would not “affirm” that a anorectic girl is “too fat” and encourage her to purge and otherwise starve herself.  That would not only be absurd, but it would also be dangerously harmful.  In the same way treating gender dysphoria by affirming the patient’s confused delusion would likewise spawn further disorder and irreversible harm if the patent “transitions.”¹¹

In this case, Mark, the patient, his parents, and the counselor all agree that Mark’s mind needs to be aligned with his body.  The “war” between mind and body must be healed by alignment, not by fostering greater enmity between them and then irreversibly marring the physical to appear – and only appear – to be a different sex.  Harming and neutralizing heathy tissue and biological systems – “transitioning” – is no real answer.  This makes perfect sense and should be unremarkable – except in a world dominated by Gender Ideology.   Gender Ideology seeks to cancel Mark’s choice and make it extinct.  It seeks to withhold grace from him.  Again, why the hostility?

Remember Romans 1:32 – idolatry presses unrighteous practices to be approved.  This approval can occur culturally, but also legally.  That is exactly what we are seeing today.  Colorado, as have some other “blue” states, has enacted laws designed to stifle, mute, and censor talk counseling that seeks to dissuade troubled and confused youth from “affirming” their gender dysphoria disorder, even if the minor desires –  and chooses – to seek that solution.  This statute punishes private confidential speech, speech to which both patient and counselor consent:  The hurting boy wants this, his parents want this, and the counselor is willing to provide this.  Colorado says that choice is off the table.  Grace must be gagged.  But this is no mere hypothetical “what if” scenario.

Next term,¹² the Supreme Court will hear Chiles v. Salazar.¹³ Alliance Defending Freedom, who represents a talk counselor, summarizes the situation this way:

Colorado’s law violates Chiles’s freedom of speech by prohibiting licensed counselors from having any conversation with clients under age 18 that “attempts or purports to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Significantly, the law only prohibits counseling conversations in one direction. For example, it allows counseling conversations that aim to steer young people toward a gender identity different than their sex but prohibits conversations that aim to help them return to comfort with their sex when they desire that. The law threatens severe penalties, including suspension and even revocation of the counselor’s license. This one-sided censorship comes amidst a growing national mental-health crisis and prevents many Colorado children from obtaining the counseling that they desire—and that science says is likely to help.¹⁴

This law uses unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination¹⁵ to censor private speech (as well as religious exercise).  This is what occurs when pagan spirituality – whether acknowledged or not – is permitted to flourish.  Did Colorado legislators “call upon” pagan idols when fashioning this law?  Doubtful.  Yet, the pagan ethos runs strongly in such schemes.  Intending to “do good” they actually erect and enforce evil.  They thereby nullify grace.  Solomon summarizes it well:

      There is a way that seems right to a man,

            but its end is the way to death.¹⁶

At risk of sounding boastful, only TxC’s approach contextualizes today’s headlines into God’s eternal narrative.  TxC analyzes the deep theological roots –  “the why” – not simply barks into a loudspeaker to wring hands over “the what.”  We don’t seek greedy clicks; we seek gracious change.  This is why the voice of TxC is Serious, Scholarly, and Scriptural.  Stand with us as we continue to supply meaningful worldview commentary. Pray for – AND donate to – our work.  Only in this way can we faithfully Inform the Public; Equip the Church; and Protect the Future.

1. Gal. 2:21 ↩︎
2. Romans 5:20 ↩︎
3. 1 Cor. 6:11 ↩︎
4. Heb. 10:29 ↩︎
5. Observers have begun to understand the dark side of possessing too many choices:  Too Many Choices:  A Problem that can Paralyze, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html and also, Why do we have a harder time choosing when we have more options? [addressing “choice overload” – capitalization in original], https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/choice-overload-bias, and Choice Overload – How Having Too Many Options Can Shut Down Your Brain, https://insidebe.com/articles/choice-overload/ ↩︎
6. Obama’s “You Can Keep It” Promise Is “Lie of the Year. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/13/250694372/obamas-you-can-keep-it-promise-is-lie-of-the-year ↩︎
7. See Dicta editions, March 3, and March 10 – Jeffery J. Ventrella, Gender Ideology:  The Neo-Pagan Blurring of Biology and Justice, https://truthxchange.com/ ↩︎
8. Romans 1:25 ↩︎
9. Judges 17:6, 18:1, 19:1, and 21:26 ↩︎
10. Romans 1:32 ↩︎
11. Both errors reflect Gnostic neo-pagan dualistic notions, claiming that the physical and the material are not “real” compared with the immaterial “inner” person. ↩︎
12. Which commences the first Monday in October. ↩︎
13. https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/chiles-v-salazar/ ↩︎
14. https://adflegal.org/press-release/supreme-court-to-decide-can-colorado-silence-counselors-who-dont-push-gender-ideology/ ↩︎
15. “Viewpoint” discrimination occurs when the State permits speech on a topic but only allows one perspective (viewpoint).  In other words, the State puts its coercive finger on the scale and favors one view and disfavors another view.  To illustrate:   If the State permits discussion about pizza in general, it cannot exclude talk about pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza nor limit or confine the discussion to only pepperoni pizza. ↩︎
16. Proverbs 14:12 ↩︎