We need a theology of getting fired, suspended, kicked out of locker rooms, and refusing to submit to “re-education” efforts. We need a theology of being labeled controversial, and a theology of helping each other through the professional, reputational and personal fallout that comes with that label.  

The girls’ volleyball team at a rural Vermont high school was banned from their own locker room when several players reported feeling uncomfortable after a male teammate, who identifies as transgender, was allowed to join them in the locker room and watch them change clothes. When the girls said they’d prefer to not share this private space with a boy, they were told that, by law, they had to. 
The school also suspended one of the female volleyball players for allegedly “harassing” her male teammate by calling him a “dude.” The girl’s father, a soccer coach at the school, was suspended without pay for the rest of the season because he called the student a boy on Facebook. After the father and daughter filed a lawsuit on free speech grounds, the school walked back its disciplinary actions against the girl. Her father remains suspended, and her team remains barred from their locker room. 
This kind of story isn’t as rare as it used to be. Thanks to the Biden Administration’s creative new interpretation of Title IX, which was meant to protect female athletes, many school officials believe they have to allow boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms if asked to do so. As a result, kids are being put into dangerous situations, like the two girls who were allegedly raped at school in Loudon County, Virginia, last year when a boy who said he was a girl was granted access to the girls’ restroom. 
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You don’t need “extraordinary revelation” to know that you are a child of God. Through the ordinary means of grace—listening to God’s voice and using his ordinances—true believers may “be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Only Jesus’s blood shed for us gives us the confidence to enter the holy places (Heb. 10:19).

People who believe in Jesus and want in all things to please God can still struggle with assurance of salvation. Circumstances like the transition from childhood to adulthood, major trauma, and the imminence of death can trouble believers with spiritual doubts and fears.
But Scripture urges us to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). To truly combat our doubt and gain rich confidence in God we have to be clear about what Scripture means by “assurance of faith.”
Assurance Is Different from Presumption
To presume is to take for granted that something is the case; to suppose without reason. One might presume that they have sufficient funds to write a check—that presumption could be false, and result in sad consequences. Many people, instead of experiencing genuine assurance of grace and salvation, simply “deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in favor with God.” The presumptuous put more stock in their own righteousness than in the righteousness of God which believers receive by faith. The self-deceived fail to reckon with God’s absolute holiness and human sinfulness. But God is holy. And we are sinful. It is the extremity of folly to simply declare yourself a child of God without warrant. Fabricated dreams of salvation will perish when hypocrites meet God.
And genuine assurance of salvation and mere presumption have different fruits. Hypocrites talk religiously, but lack the power of new life. Lacking a new heart and the Spirit working in them they continue to produce bad fruit, no matter their religious façade. Not so with real believers who gain true assurance. Contrary to the old objection proper assurance does not “[incline] men to looseness.” Instead, it results in “peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience.” Only by an assured faith can we know that our labors in the Lord are not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).
Presumption is not assurance. A deep awareness of God’s holiness and our sinfulness will enable us resist taking grace for granted.
Assurance Is Possible
Scripture gives examples of believers who experienced genuine assurance of salvation. Job knew that his redeemer lives and that he would see God after he died (Job 19:25–26). Paul knew whom he had believed. He was convinced that God would guard him safely until he entered glory (2 Tim. 1:12). The Bible is written so that we “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God … and have life in his name” (John 20:31). “And by believing you may know that you have eternal life (1 John 5:13). Scripture also calls us to pursue assurance. “It is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure” (cf. 2 Peter 1:10).
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We truly do live in a “trans” world. Not so much the trans of the LGBTQ movement but rather the trans of 19th-century philosopher (and harbinger of postmodern anarchy) Nietzsche’s so-called transvaluation of all values. Once the foundation of traditional values has been destroyed, there is, Nietzsche declared, a need for such transvaluation: That which was once deemed strong must be exposed, while that which was once considered weak must be lauded as strong. 

In an article for Canada’s National Post, Jordan Peterson announced he is no longer a tenured professor at the University of Toronto, having resigned and moved to emeritus status. At the age of only 59, this is an unusual move for an academic. Peterson likely has few financial concerns, given the success of his books and lectures. Nevertheless, he is not retiring because he can afford to do so but because he no longer wants to work in a professional culture dominated by the ideological program that goes under the banner of diversity, inclusion, and equity.
Peterson writes with his usual brio and hits all the usual suspects: corrupt university leadership, politically motivated leftist academics, cowardly professors, and, more recently, corporate elites who are destroying sound business practices just as progressives are dismantling academic standards. His article contains nothing new for the Peterson-watcher but is still worth reading, just to be reminded of how fast, how comprehensive, and how damaging these changes are. At the end, he leaves the reader with a clear picture of how Russian President Vladimir Putin looks upon the emergence of the new, effete West.
We truly do live in a “trans” world. Not so much the trans of the LGBTQ movement but rather the trans of 19th-century philosopher (and harbinger of postmodern anarchy) Nietzsche’s so-called transvaluation of all values. Once the foundation of traditional values has been destroyed, there is, Nietzsche declared, a need for such transvaluation: That which was once deemed strong must be exposed, while that which was once considered weak must be lauded as strong.
Peterson points out that higher education has for years pursued active policies to hire candidates from diverse backgrounds. I, for one, think that is a laudable aim, with the same going for student recruitment, as long as it is simply removing non-academic barriers to such.
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