The God of the Bible sacrificed himself for their sins, but the god of gender wants them to sacrifice themselves for “gender.” The God of the Bible offers a path to happiness and flourishing, while the god of gender offers them a life of self-loathing and pain. Most importantly, the God of the Bible wants to forgive them, whereas the god of gender wants to harm them. That’s the kind of truth that can save a person from the clutches of false religion. 

As US embassies around the world wave the Pride flag, there is no denying that LGBTQ has become the American culture’s center of gravity. Twenty years ago, the main American religion was prosperity. Now it is the LGBTQ movement. 
How do pastors respond to the LGBTQ worldview? Or, more particularly, how do pastors shepherd their people to think rightly about the issues this movement raises? Here are five practical ways pastors can help their congregations navigate the LGBTQ culture:
1. Treat It like Another Religion
Twenty years ago, the LGBTQ movement was about individual autonomy. They trumpeted individual rights (such as visiting a partner in the hospital, sharing insurance plans, etc.). I fear that too many Christians—especially those who have been in ministry for a few decades—still perceive the LGBTQ world as being concerned with those issues. It isn’t. 
Today the LGBTQ movement has grown from concerns over individual rights to a full-on attack on Christianity. It is a rival religion. It has its own god (self-identity), its own language (that of critical theory and intersectionality), and its own priests (schoolteachers and university professors). There is a conversion rite (coming out), confirmation, and the taking on of a new identity. There is even penance for previous sins. The only thing missing is forgiveness. 
Pastor, ask yourself: How do I preach about other religions? Whatever your answer is, apply it to this issue.
Look, we make doctrinal distinctions in our preaching all the time. We often separate Catholicism from Christianity by highlighting justification by faith. We challenge the Mormons’ and Jehovah’s Witnesses’ views of Christ. We contrast the Trinity with Islam. These are likely normal practices in our preaching. 
The truth is, LGBTQ is more prominent in our culture and  worldview than those other religions. It occupies more cultural space.  But the LGBTQ religion is less about justification. Thus contrasting faith and works doesn’t adequately address this movement.
I encourage pastors in their preaching to draw attention to texts that highlight the nature of mankind and describe who we are and why we are here. Then contrast today’s identity culture with what the Bible says about identity. 
Of course, part of this new religion is sexual ethics. Pastors should be very clear about what the Bible says about sexual ethics, homosexuality, and gender. But the heart issue the LGBTQ worldview presents is that of identity—the question it raises is who makes man? Draw attention to that. 
2. Be Familiar with the Worldview this Religion Presents
Pastors can sometimes shy away from understanding the LGBTQ world because of how dark and sinful it is. Distance from its practices is a good and holy desire. 
But ignorance of the dominant worldview in our culture is not sustainable. A good place to go is Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Trueman’s book sheds light on the worldview behind the LGBTQ movement, helpfully showing its history and tracing how it came to occupy center stage in our world.
And here a point of contrast is in order. I watched a recent Christian evangelistic video from a ministry I love and saw how it critiqued the LGBTQ worldview. It treated it like it was a form of relativism or post-modernism. It went after it for its claim that “what is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me.”
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The movie is based on the account of Tim Ballard, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, who for 12 years helped arrest pedophiles who downloaded child exploitation material. Despite arresting 288 criminals, he had not been able to rescue many children who were victims of the atrocity. “Sound of Freedom” depicts his crusade after he dedicated his life to rescuing children from sex traffickers.

On Independence Day I went to see the movie “Sound of Freedom.” I was hesitant because I knew the movie was about human trafficking, making it hard to watch. That wasn’t really the frame of mind I wanted to be in when celebrating our nation’s birthday, but I’m glad I did.
There have been many faith-based movies that were well worth seeing, some largely because of the message they expressed but not necessarily because of the quality of the movie. That is not a shortcoming of “Sound of Freedom.” Produced by Angel Studios, the production quality was equal to any movie from a major studio. It was free of hokey tropes, low-grade, computer-generated imagery (CGI), poor writing, or bad acting. This is reflected in the ratings the movie has received, including an 8.6/10 on IMDB, as well as an 87 percent positive score from critics and a 99 percent score from audiences on the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie is based on the account of Tim Ballard, an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, who for 12 years helped arrest pedophiles who downloaded child exploitation material. Despite arresting 288 criminals, he had not been able to rescue many children who were victims of the atrocity.
“Sound of Freedom” depicts his crusade after he dedicated his life to rescuing children from sex traffickers.
At the end of the movie, text appears informing the viewer that not only are over two million children trafficked each year, but that the United States is one of the primary destinations for sex trafficking. It also tells viewers that more people are enslaved now than when slavery was legal.
Actor Jim Caviezel, who portrays Ballard, delivers a special announcement to those watching in which he encourages them to participate in a pay-it-forward campaign to purchase tickets for those who may not have the discretionary funds to go see a movie.
The studio warns that while no graphic sexual content is depicted, the first half of the film is a “difficult watch,” adding, “We would strongly recommend parental discretion.” There were many times I found myself shaking my head in disgust or even turning away for a moment, sickened, not by a movie studio who depicted anything graphic, but by the horrifying reality that there are people who would do such things to children.
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Christians have every right to appeal to the governing authorities to uphold their own standards of law and justice. Please don’t miss this point. We should. Can we ever appeal to them for our own advantage? Certainly. But Paul thought of others first, recognizing that they might be taken, by Jesus, for a time, to save a jailor and his family. If Paul thought appealing to his rights would be beneficial for the church, he would would use his rights to help them in the cause of the gospel. The point is that Paul strategically appealed to rights to use them for the advantage of others in hearing the gospel.

One of the crucial questions in our current moment of governmental overreaches has to do with how we understand our rights as Christians living in this world. Many of our current discussions evidence a great misunderstanding of our calling as believers in this world in times when the culture or governing authorities begin to oppose us. For some, if social media evidences at all the current trajectory of Christian thought, their sole purpose in our turbulent times seems to be to stand up for their rights against governmental overreach.
Little reflection appears to be given to the New Testament data in how the apostles thought when they faced the trampling of their rights in this world. There are, of course, rights that are afforded to the people by the constitutional laws of the governing authorities, but all Christians should recognize that the freedoms we have and the rights that we enjoy in this life are under God’s sovereign discretion.
We were told way back in the Old Testament that governing authorities have the propensity to trample rights and take from the people (I Sam. 8). But when someone becomes a Christian, there is a distinctive perspective one is to have in how rights are used in this world. When we came to Christ, we surrendered all of our rights to Christ who sovereignly governs our earthly lives for a much greater end than our own happiness. Christ may certainly give us to enjoy earthly rights in our time on this earth, or he may, in his providence, allow them to be taken from us for a cause that is much greater than us. The question is how the biblically inspired writers handled themselves when their rights were taken.
On the Loss of Rights
Of great importance to this question is something that is said in Hebrews 10:34: “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” Notice carefully how these believers were commended for their faith by joyfully accepting the confiscation of their earthly belongings. I confess, this is a hard statement for me to read. These early Christians were facing unlawful seizure of their property due to official actions by magistrates for the reason that they were Christians. Yet, they joyfully accepted such abuse?
We know that in A.D. 49, Christians faced expulsion from Rome and many had their properties seized. What is remarkable is that the inspired author praises their joyful reception of this seizure precisely because they lived by faith believing that they had “better and permanent possessions” to come in the new heavens and earth that was promised to them.
In this great chapter celebrating the faith of God’s people, often under persecution, these Christians are specifically commended for living as those who recognized that earthly possessions and rights are temporary in great contrast with, as Lane observes, “the permanent possessions Christians enjoy on the basis of their relationship to God through Christ.” These early Christians lived trusting in the promises of the future and were able under persecution to lay aside living for these earthly rights when they were unjustly taken precisely because that had a better perspective of their better inheritance that awaited them.
As I read the current discussions of some believers in our present time, one would gather that the great end for which many have come to live is to oppose the government for the sole retaining of earthly blessings and rights. Maybe Carl Trueman gets to the heart of the issue:
Surely it is time to become realistic. It is time to drop the cultural elitism that poses as significant Christian transformation of culture but only really panders to nothing more than middle class tastes and hobbies. It is time to look again at the New Testament’s teaching on the church as a sojourning people where here we have no lasting home.”
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