“Underhanded”: School Invites Students to Observe LGBTQ Day Without Parents’ Knowledge
Emailing students an invitation to participate in a pro-LGBTQ rally, and sending them a slideshow with a political message without parents’ knowledge “seems underhanded to me,” the mother said, “especially if they’re going to ask kids to basically participate in … political engagement.” She wonders whether administrators at her son’s school “would be equally willing to support student activism to protect girls sports for biological females,” the mother said.
Whether you know it or not, your child’s school may have observed a “Day of Silence” on behalf of the LGBTQ movement.
The advocacy group GLSEN invited schools across the country to hold a demonstration Friday to show support for LGBTQ students and their allies.
GLSEN encouraged participants to “take a vow of silence to protest the harmful effects of harassment and discrimination of LGBTQ people in schools,” according to the group’s website.
The Day of Silence would end, the group said, with participants holding “Breaking the Silence” rallies and events “to share their experiences during the protest and bring attention to ways their schools and communities can become more inclusive.”
One parent, whose son attends a private high school in Connecticut that has no religious affiliation, told The Daily Signal that her “suspicion” is that “a lot of schools, especially private schools, were participating in this.”
The mother, who asked to remain anonymous, said her son received an email from school administrators inviting students to wear rainbow colors last Friday and participate in a “Day of Action” to “support our LGBTQ+ community.”
The private school in Connecticut sent the email to students and faculty, but not to parents, the mother told The Daily Signal.
The email to students referenced “over 220 laws” that the school said targeted LGBTQ Americans this year, and included a link to a slideshow discussing some of the laws and the significance of the Day of Silence.
One slide tells students that “many states are trying to pass, or have passed, laws that prevent transgender youth from receiving gender affirming health care.”
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The Trinity Is Not a Team
Written by Matthew Y. Emerson and Brandon D. Smith |
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
The point is clear: the single, perfect, pure communion of love between the persons is poured out on us, as we are loved by the Father because of our union with the Son, whom the Father loves. The love of God is poured out on us by the inseparable work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.Trinitarian Unity in Communion
The word communion might bring to mind the Lord’s Supper that Jesus instituted before his death and has been practiced by Christians ever since (Luke 22:7–23; 1 Cor. 11:17–34). For now we will discuss the idea of communion more generally. Here is a simple working definition for communion in Christian theology: the sharing of fellowship among God and his people.
The eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit is the grounds for our communion with him and one another. Our triune God, simple and perfect for all of eternity, has always been the one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Scriptures witnessed to the incarnation of the Son and the sending of the Spirit long before these events were made manifest in time and space. The Father did not “become” a Father at some point in time when he decided to create the Son with some unnamed heavenly mother. No, this would insinuate that the Father changed at some point, which would deny Scripture’s claim that God cannot change (Mal. 3:6). Further, this would insinuate that the Son was created, which would deny Scripture’s claim that he is the Creator, not a creature (John 1:1–3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 13:8). Rather, the Father and the Son shared a communion of love with the Holy Spirit in all eternity—indeed, “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
If God truly is one (Deut. 6:4), then we cannot treat the persons as a “team” of disconnected beings or three “members” of a “divine dance.” This way of speaking hints strongly at three divine beings who are one only by virtue of agreement or a unity of will.
This is basic anti-Trinitarian Mormon theology. Instead, it’s more fitting to speak the way the Bible speaks: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This verse is simple and yet packed with rich Trinitarian theology. God is love. He’s not a collection of entities or beings who simply love one another, however deeply, which leads them to work together as some sort of heavenly taskforce. He doesn’t love sometimes and not love other times. He doesn’t wrestle between fluctuating emotions. No, it’s much deeper than that—unfathomably so. The best we can make sense of this is to say with John that Father, Son, and Spirit just are the one God who exists in an inseparable communion of love. God loves us as an outflow of his very nature—the one who loves perfectly and eternally.
This one God who is love exists as three persons who fully and truly are the loving God. Do the three persons love one another? Yes. But we say this only insofar as the Scripture gives us language to distinguish the persons from each other. However, if we exaggerate the oneness, we deny that there are three persons who exist in a perfect and pure life of inseparable, mutual love.
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Faithful Interpretation
We interpret and apply Scripture based on the words of the text as well as on the inescapable principles and necessary applications of the text. This is one of the most important hermeneutical principles for Christian life and doctrine, and it is precisely how we see Jesus Christ and the biblical authors approaching Scripture.
One of the most important yet often most neglected fields of study in the church is hermeneutics, or the study of the interpretation of literary texts. As Christians, we are focused especially on the proper interpretation of sacred Scripture, for the lack of a sound, consistently applied hermeneutic results in poor interpretations and applications of Scripture. Many people in the church today base their hermeneutics on their feelings or impressions. As an example of this, small-group Bible studies often ask, “What does this verse mean to you?” rather than the more appropriate question, “What does the author of this verse mean?”
Hermeneutics must be based on established principles, not pragmatics or emotions. To that end, the pastors who drafted the Westminster Standards provided the church with the most concise and helpful summary of Scripture and its interpretation ever formulated. Chapter 1 of the Westminster Confession of Faith is perhaps the most important.
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After Tragedy Strikes
Not only should we lay aside or put off sin, but we also should read our Bibles carefully in order to hear from God. Once we hear from God, we want to obey what the Bible teaches us in the midst of or after our suffering. In this way, we position ourselves to become Christlike through the suffering – which is one of God’s purposes in it.
All of us go through times of tragedy. Hard. Shocking. Life-changing. Miserable. Devastating. Tragedy strikes all of us. The question is what about After tragedy strikes?
What about after tragedy? When tragedy hits, how do you handle it? What do you do?
In Part One, we considered the context of tragedy. In that article, we helped set up the tragedy of first century Christians who initially lived in Jerusalem. These Christians, under persecution, waited frustratingly upon the return of Jesus Christ. The angel had promised. Everything seemed to have been going so well until Peter and John had been imprisoned twice and Stephen martyred. After this, all the Christians began running for their lives. They wander about in very small groups. They have very little money or food. Rich people are abusing them in various ways as they try to make enough money to live.
Although it is beyond the scope of this two-part article to give you every way you should respond to tragedy, please allow me now in Part Two to help you get in the right position to handle it. Maintaining your spiritual stability in the midst of tragedy and after tragedy strikes is critical for your overall response to it.
The Dilemma After Tragedy Strikes
As we explained, the first Christians, to whom Pastor James writes who are scattered across the near ancient Middle East, needed help responding to their personal tragedy. With life upended, these followers of Christ were not responding well to their tragedy. Some were angry at the rich people who oppressed them. Others were confused, discontent, and suffering under the relentless burden of disappointment in their circumstances. Some were angry at God and accusing Him for tempting them to sin, or worse yet, causing them to sin. In many ways, they were hopeless.
These first century Christians were much like today’s Christians whenever we work our way through a tragedy. They each suffered on their own pathway consisting of a variety of intermixed responses. Confusion. Disappointment. Discontentment. Disillusionment. Anger. Blame shifting. Hopeless.
How does their loving pastor help them respond? What position does he put them in in order to respond well? How does he help them to overcome their tragedy rather than be overcome by it? How does he position them for victory in the midst of and after tragedy?
The Strongest Position to Handle Tragedy
Pastor James explains the purpose of suffering, how to identify our own sin in the midst of it, and the strongest position to handle it. In an abbreviated way, let me summarize the first two issues and explain in some detail the strongest position to handle tragedy.
Regarding the purpose of suffering, James explains that God never allows suffering providentially in our lives without purpose in it. Although there may be many things God accomplishes through our suffering, we can know for sure that He intends through our suffering for us to grow in our spiritual maturity. The pressure of suffering functions to develop us toward Christlikeness (cf., James 1:2-5, 17-18). As followers of Jesus undergo various pressured-filled situations, God uses the totality of that process to help us become complete or mature as disciples of Jesus. As we go through the pressure, one of the purposes of the suffering is spiritual growth.
Knowing that we often do not respond perfectly in the midst of suffering, Pastor James provides an explanation for our sinning while we undergo various pressures. He explains that we respond sinfully to our pressure whenever something we desire in the midst of the pressure controls our hearts in the suffering more than honoring God through the suffering. In other words, we sin because something we want possesses functional control over our inner man as we bear the weight of our suffering (cf., James 1:13-18).
With these things in mind, Pastor James then addresses our strongest position to handle our personal trials and tragedies well. He highlights four strategies or steps to maintain the strongest position to respond well in and through suffering.
Your Anger Only Produces More Suffering
Pastor James initially addresses our whole-person response of judgment to our pressure or tragedy – our anger.
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