As a recovering transsexual myself...
As a recovering transsexual myself on staff in a large church, I read more and more about churches falling into sin. As the director of Care Ministries and responsible for a variety of recovery, grief and counseling groups, I read stories about a new trend in other churches who ignore recovery for the sake of the "tolerance" and "acceptance" movement. In my studies of the Lord’s word this is sin on top of more sin. But this is the church, how can this be?
Christians who struggle with complex gender issues all too often follow the world view and turn their backs on Jesus Christ, when it is Jesus Christ who can and will restore them if they turn away from the world view. Churches, for reasons I cannot understand, appear to ignore the power and grace of Christ. Instead they support the supposedly “quick fix” of sex change surgery. Surgery is not the way to recovery but a personal relationship with Christ is, and that comes by turning your life over to Jesus and then placing your identity in Christ, not by giving your life to some surgeon who is done and gone once he gets your money.
The struggles we all face—and we all face struggles, whether it's gender, alcohol or other addictions—were given us by our creator as proof how much we need him, but it was not the Lord’s intention for us to be consumed by the struggles and addictions with sin, but for us to be transformed and healed from sin. Our sin nature will always tug away at our most vulnerable weakness by turning our eyes away from our Lord and savior. The seduction of sin can, and sadly too often will, keep us from a healing personal relationship with Jesus.
It is troubling to see the church moving so fast at becoming the enablers and co-dependents in partnership with the sin of transsexualism and homosexuality. The church has as its purpose to "transform" us from sin. The church was never intended to become a safe place to engage in sin. Jesus Christ can remove your sin desires and restore you as he did me to sanity, even removing the desire to be transsexual or homosexual.
The world wants so much to transform and hijack the church, but it is Christ whose purpose is to transform the world. Now it is time to go to battle, my friends of Jesus Christ. We have been on the sidelines long enough.
Walt Heyer, author of Trading My Sorrows
