Emerging evidence suggests that “social transition” may interfere with the natural resolution of gender dysphoria and greatly increase the chances that a passing phase becomes the basis for lifelong and potentially harmful medical interventions. The Cass Review alludes to this possibility, emphasizing that social transition is “an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes.” The Review recommends consulting a clinician when deciding whether or how to facilitate social transition for children. The Biden administration’s ACF, in contrast, instructs state recipients to ensure social transition on demand, no clinical input required.

Ted Hudacko’s fate was sealed when his son’s court-appointed counsel, Daniel Harkins, wrote in his notes, “[t]hese parents have a choice, they can either continue to believe that they should be in total control of their child’s life or they can come to an understanding that those days are past . . . and give their children some independence and the ability to make some of their own decisions.”
The decisions in question? Whether to start Hudacko’s trans-identified 16-year-old son on a puberty-blocker regimen, followed by a course of estrogen.
As Abigail Shrier recounted in a 2022 City Journal investigative report, shortly after returning from a trip to New York with their two sons, Hudacko’s wife, Christine, told him that she wanted a divorce—and that their oldest son identified as transgender. During divorce proceedings, the presiding judge, Joni Hiramoto, granted Hudacko shared legal and physical custody of his youngest, but stripped him of all custody of his trans-identified son. Hudacko was concerned about administering experimental drugs and preferred to wait and see if his son’s gender issues might resolve on their own, as usually happens in such cases. To the California judge, this confirmed his unfitness as a father.
Hiramoto’s view is shared by a growing social movement bent on deeming parents “abusive” for declining to “affirm” their child’s “gender identity.” The idea that failing to endorse a child’s identity constitutes psychological abuse has spread across major American institutions and power centers and is reflected in recent court precedent, school “social transition” policies, journal publications, and several proposed state laws. Illinois’s House Bill 4876, for example, would redefine child abuse to include denying minors “necessary medical . . . gender-affirming services,” meaning parents who take a more cautious approach to their child’s dysphoria—an approach endorsed by a growing number of European countries—could become targets of investigation by the Illinois Department of Children and Families, with some even losing custody.
The Biden administration is seeking to entrench this redefinition of “abuse” with its recently published foster-care regulations. Guided by misleading characterizations and omissions of existing research, the new rules from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) enshrine activist talking points about what constitutes a child’s “best interest,” with dire implications for foster children and parents alike.
Under the new rules, state agencies must follow specific protocols when placing “LGBTQI+” foster children in residential settings. Given what the ACF describes as the “specific needs” of these children, the agency requires federally funded providers to qualify as “Designated Placements” to serve such youth. To obtain this designation, providers must undergo specialized gender-identity and sexual-orientation training, facilitate access to “age- or developmentally appropriate resources, services, and activities that support the [child’s] health and well-being,” and “commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity.” State foster agencies, to get federal funds, must develop and submit to the ACF case plans that ensure each child is placed in the most “appropriate setting available.”
Repeating popular activist talking points, the ACF claims that refusing to use a child’s chosen name and pronouns is linked with poor mental-health outcomes. The agency then follows a familiar pattern of citing self-reported survey data to show a supposed connection between “gender affirmation” and positive mental-health outcomes in trans-identifying kids. Surveys of this kind, however, cannot support the ACF’s conclusion that “significant mental health disparities” facing “LGBTQI+” youth “result from experiences of stigma and discrimination.”
One of the ACF’s sources, a research brief from the Trevor Project, claims that “LGBTQ youth” who say they have been in foster care had nearly three times greater odds than non-foster youth of reporting a past-year suicide attempt (notably, the final rules incorrectly cite the wrong Trevor Project survey for this claim instead of the correct survey cited in the proposed rules). The agency’s purpose in citing this study is to imply that youth suicidality is driven by how foster parents deal with the “gender identity” of those in their care. But the correlation has an alternative explanation: Youth who enter the foster system have more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) than do non-foster children, a fact linked to increased suicidality. It’s possible that foster youth with more ACEs and higher suicidality are also more likely to adopt a transgender identity as a maladaptive coping mechanism. This makes sense, given the weakness of the “minority stress” hypothesis and the mounting evidence of elevated rates of co-occurring, suicidality-linked conditions in trans-identified populations that predate their trans-identification.
The U.K.’s recent Cass report bolsters this view. In that review, foster youth were overrepresented in the first clinical cohort seen at the nation’s gender-identity clinic, with nearly a quarter of referrals having spent time in foster care.
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It is the Holy Spirit working through the Word, and not a priest or minister that makes the sacrament efficacious for believers. God is the active party (not even the “rememberer”), and this is why we must see the Supper and the elements of bread and wine as gracious gifts from God–manna from heaven, as it were–given to us by God to communicate to us the realities of the blessings of the covenant of grace, through the signs instituted by God. 

The Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper is grounded in a distinction between the “sign” and “seal” (the bread and wine) and that which is signified in the Supper (the forgiveness of sin through Christ’s shed blood, the “blood of the covenant”). There is also a sacramental union between the sign and what is signified as evident in our Lord’s words “this is my body.” This manner of speaking of the Supper comes from the words of institution given by Jesus to his disciples.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:26-29).

When Jesus speaks of the bread as his body and the wine as his blood, we take him at his word without resorting to confusing the sign (bread and wine) with the thing signified (Christ’s body and blood). Nor should we insert words such as “this represents my body,” as in the case of those who believe that the Lord’s Supper is essentially a memorial meal and that nothing is received through partaking of the bread and wine. As Paul calls “Christ the rock” (1 Corinthians 10:4), so too, the bread is Jesus’ body, not because the sign is miraculously changed into the thing signified (as the Roman Catholic church erroneously contends in transubstantiation), but because Christ can speak of the bread (the sign) as though it were the thing signified (his body) using the language of sacraments as Jesus does when instituting the sacrament (Matthew 26:26 ff).
Following John Calvin, the Reformed have tried to keep in mind both the reality of Christ’s ascension, wherein Christ’s human nature is now in heaven awaiting his return (Acts 1:9-11), and the real presence of Christ in the sacrament (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). Although Christ’s human nature is in heaven, the believer receives all of his saving benefits, because, through faith, the Holy Spirit has united the believer here on earth to Christ in heaven.
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Dear reader…[do not be] deceived or pressured into instinctively or uncritically taking a side in this current conflict, whether emotional or political, by the blowing winds of competing propaganda….Do not get swept away into any lie that would lead your soul into danger, let alone your body. Second, the believer need not be afraid. There is a sovereign and divine hand governing each tremor that rattles either soul or city. Take comfort that “the way of the wicked He turns upside down” (Psalm 146:9).

Since October 7, 2023, the events unfolding in the Israel-Palestine region have captivated minds and dominated headlines. Similar attention was given to the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war that began in earnest in February 2022.[1] What makes the present conflict unique is the perceived theological significance assigned to the geo-political entity known as Israel. This has only inflamed the present discourse instead of moderating it. The purpose of this article is a pastoral one as I discuss seven principles I believe Christians need to know concerning war in general and this conflict in particular. If people outside Christianity take heed to it, so much the better.
1. Christians must stand for peace.
As those bound to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, Christians must be exceedingly reluctant to throw their support behind any war. Now let me be clear: Christians must not to be pacifists. The command you shall not murder requires the lawful use of force and even taking life when justice necessitates it. Nevertheless, it also requires us to exhaust every option in the effort to avoid taking life unjustly (See Westminster Larger Catechism 135 and 136). That said, the Christian instinct should be toward peace. Our Savior said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9). James 3:18 says, “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” Therefore, our hearts should burn with longing for the nations of this war-torn world to transform their weapons of destruction into implements of the cultivation, and that they might walk in the light of the Lord (Is. 2:4-5).
Allow me to apply this more pointedly. While some war may be necessary, all war is undesirable. While some war may be just, all war is unimaginably destructive. War historian and ethicist Henrik Syse wrote, “War is dangerous because it poses a huge challenge to the soul that strives to live virtuously. A war can hardly be imagined in which cruelty and lust are not given far too free reign. Therefore, even just wars should be regretted, as the truly just man would much rather avoid the necessity of violent fighting than resort to arms.”[2] War is not a football game where you can take sides and expect only emotional victory or defeat. War is a terrible judgment of God which all Christians should help to prevent.
2. Fallen humans inevitably drift toward violence and war.
The rulers of this world who are insufficiently instructed by Christians and the word of God will remain largely unchecked in their drift toward lawlessness, violence, and war. This is  because unbelieving men and nations are at war with Jesus Christ. It follows that the violence of war is the demonstration—not the cause—of the awful capacity of the sinful heart of man.[3] God says this about lost sinners: “Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:15-18). This spiritual cross-section of the unbelieving soul is a massive reason why Christians are called to bear salt and light witness in this dark and putrefying world. Ultimately, nothing less than the love of Christ revealed in the gospel by the Holy Spirit can teach those who are “living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” to pursue lasting peace (Titus 3:3). While we bear witness to Jesus Christ to bring Him honor and to see sinners saved, it is also an act of love to neighbor to teach them the way of peace and perhaps keep nations from war.
3. Fallen humans lie, especially when they govern nations.
The Bible places violence and deception in close proximity with one another, “For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is destruction; their throat is an open tomb; they flatter with their tongue” (Ps. 5:9, cf Ps. 36:1-3, Is. 59:2-3, Rom. 3:13-14). It should come as no surprise that one of the clearest tactics used by rulers and governments at war with Jesus is deception. This is true across the political and societal spectrum, for propaganda does not discriminate. It just deceives. In the interests of obeying our Lord’s command to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, all Christians must come to grips with this.
Christians must stand for truth. In our day of competing narratives, this requires careful discernment. Related to this, what the Apostle John said theologically has political and societal application, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 Jn. 4:1). In other words, consider your sources. Is what you are hearing accurate? Is what you are reading true? Be mindful of the ubiquitous nature of propaganda, which is just a fancy word for publicly and widely told lies to gain ideological advantage. This does not mean the truth is inaccessible, but it does mean that, just as digging for buried treasure requires work and patience, sifting through the noise to find the truth requires careful thought. This is all the more vital today due to the technological capacity to manipulate images and even video.
As far as possible, our responsibility is to “live not by lies.” This good counsel comes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
Our way must be, ‘never knowingly support lies.’ You may not have the strength to stand up in public and say what you really believe, but you can at least refuse to affirm what you do not believe. You may not be able to overthrow totalitarianism, but you can find within yourself and your community to live within the dignity of truth. If we must live under the dictatorship of lies, then our response must be, ‘Let their rule hold not through me.’[4]
The particular lie to which I desire to apply this general principle is the lie that you must take sides in the present conflict; you must support one or the other. This is both false and dangerous. I will expand on this more below.
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