The intent of this text is to forbid men from identifying as women and women from identifying as men. It is a reaffirmation of the creation ordinance that God created both male and female. Creation of mankind is binary, and this text adds the additional tenet that our sex-identification at birth is permanent.  

“A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God (Deut. 22:5).”
The transgender movement has created another victim class in America.  Bruce Jenner (who dresses like a woman and goes by the name Caitlin) recently became a regular contributor on the politically conservative Fox News Channel.  Richard Levine (who dresses like a woman and goes by the name Rachel) is the Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of Health. He, with his closet of dresses and cosmetics, publicly represents my country and sets policy for me and my health. He was recently declared a “woman of the year” by USA Today magazine. Will Thomas (now known as Lia Thomas) is a man who competes with collegiate female swimmers and wins every race.
The consequence of transgenderism is far-reaching.  First, in our day, any discomfort of Christians with transgenderism is considered prejudice, if not sinful.  Secondly, the study of modern history teaches us that within a generation, a victimization class will quickly evolve into the mainstream ethnos of a culture.  Nationally-known individuals become role models of acceptable behavior, especially with the imprimatur of the media and civil government. The abnormal becomes normal. Thirdly, it is also generational. Young people are being challenged today on social media (and in some public schools) to examine themselves to see if they also need to transition from one gender to another. Mere exposure leads to curiosity which leads to experimentation, and this often results in a type of addiction. Without the rudder of biblical ethics, our youth are the most vulnerable targets of this crusade.
As expected, this movement is bleeding into the church.  As if Christian parents do not already have enough to worry about!  Now they must fret that Johnny may come home one day and tell them that God made him the wrong sex. He may say that he feels like a girl trapped in a boy’s body. The road to gender change is fearful. It may begin with only a name change, but it can move to other stages such as 1) wearing dresses, 2) hormone therapy or, even more radical, 3) gender transition surgery.  For most evangelical parents, this would be like a Richter ten-point mega-earthquake hitting the house.
The Book of Deuteronomy speaks very clearly to the issue of transgenderism. “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God (22:5).”
Prior to verse 5 in this chapter, Moses tells us how to love our neighbor.  He gives several practical examples.  If our neighbor loses anything, and we become aware of it, then we are to help him to recover his loss.  This may require safe-keeping if we do not know to which neighbor it belongs, or if our neighbor is away from home. Negligence here is considered sinful (Deut. 22:1-4).
Mother birds who are nesting must be protected from death so that we may prolong not just the life of the mother-bird, but also our own — “so that you should prolong your days” (v.7). Compare this promise of long life with Paul’s words regarding the 5th commandment promising long life: “Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise) that it may be well with you and that you may live long upon the earth” (Eph. 6:2-3).
Fences do in many cases actually make good neighbors, especially when there is potential danger on our property (v.8).  We don’t grow corn, cotton, and soybean in the same field (v.9).  It’s impossible to pull a load with a donkey and an ox hitched together (v. 10).  Mixing wool and linen together only makes sense when both are pre-shrunk (v. 11).  Tassels on clothes were to remind the Israelites of the commandments of God (v. 11; Lev. 15:39); although, since we have the written word of God today, we do not need such reminders.
In the midst of all this wisdom and exemplary acts of kindness, there is verse 5.  Our approach to it should be the expectation that it too instructs us as to what constitutes both wisdom and kindness.
First, it should be noted that the text is not simply about the style of clothing.  It says nothing about what is fit for a man or a woman to wear. It’s not about women wearing pants or men wearing pink shirts.  It’s not about humorous school skits where boys dress up as girls. The style of clothing will change from culture to culture over time (even though I still cannot in good conscience wear a pink shirt). A Scottish kilt is not clothing designed for women.  It is the apparel of a man which signifies patriotism as well as giving advantage in movement skills, especially during war. The concept of the freedom of conscience allows both men and women considerable latitude in clothing style in a variety of particular social venues.  The most important characteristic of dress for women is modesty (1 Tim. 2:9).
The intent of this text is to forbid men from identifying as women and women from identifying as men. It is a reaffirmation of the creation ordinance that God created both male and female. Creation of mankind is binary, and this text adds the additional tenet that our sex-identification at birth is permanent.
What is prohibited here is dressing daily as the opposite sex (within the boundaries of a particular culture that has adopted a certain dress code) so as to nullify the biological sex that God gave you.  This text forbids one sex from seeking to transition into the other – or identifying as the other after God has made you what you are.
It is an abomination to God. It is something that disgusts God because it is contrary to his character and his creation ordinance. Because it is disgusting to God, it should be disgusting to us.  This is wisdom, and actually it is kindness too.  It is a call to repentance and faith in Christ. To uphold this truth is love.  It may be tough-love, but it is love nonetheless.
The evangelical church tends to be far behind the curve in dealing with moral issues as they arise in society. We tend to appoint study committees which take years to come to a conclusion.  We tend to write reports in language that only few people can understand, and with too many words like “therefore” and “nevertheless.”  We need to be bold and clear in dealing with this matter because the Bible is bold and clear. The future of our children depends upon it.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.

Educating children and youth about the harms of pornography is also key. Such education could teach children how to react when they see pornography and who they can turn to for guidance and counsel. One study found that only 57% of children reached out to someone after exposure to pornography, leaving many youth to grapple with the experience alone. Research supports the importance of parent communication and framing when it comes to understanding sex. Thus, parents and teachers should be supported in teaching youth about the negative effects of pornography and pointing them to accurate and appropriate resources that will help them.  

Most of us probably have people in our lives who struggle with an addiction of some kind, whether it be to smoking, using drugs, gambling, or other vices. An addiction develops when changes in the brain and body cause a person to “feel compelled to continue using a substance or partaking in an activity, even when doing so may cause harm.” These substances or behaviors activate motivation and reward regions in the brain, resulting in an altered dopamine system. The thing about addiction is that oftentimes, the younger a person is when they are first exposed, the higher their risk for developing a serious addiction that can dominate minds and bodies, numbing them to the environment around them. This reality creates a strong motivation for parents, grandparents, schools, and lawmakers to focus on protecting children by preventing or delaying exposure to harmful substances and behaviors until their brains are more fully formed and their risk for developing dependencies is lessened.
One addiction that is becoming more normalized is viewing pornography, defined as “sexually explicit videos, images, or writing with the intent to cause sexual arousal in its viewers.” Creating pornography is a huge billion-dollar industry. This is troubling because pornography is increasingly impacting children and youth in negative ways. With technology and the internet as a crucial and necessary part of life, pornography has never been more easily accessible to children: 93% of boys and 63% of girls report being exposed to internet pornography before the age of 18, with the average age of first exposure being 12 years old. Today’s children are growing up in a sexualized cultural environment. As adolescents mature, it is natural that they search for information that they do not know. This includes searching for information about dating and sexual relationships, which may often lead to pornography. Thus, it is important to understand the ramifications when exposure to pornography starts at a young age.
Consequences Among Youth
Pornography proves to be especially detrimental to children and adolescents. According to many researchers, early exposure to pornography is connected to negative developmental outcomes, including a greater acceptance of sexual harassment, sexual activity at an early age,acceptance of negative attitudes to women, unrealistic expectations, skewed attitudes of gender roles, greater levels of body dissatisfaction, rape myths (responsibility for sexual assault to a female victim), and sexual aggression. Children’s brains are not equipped to process the adult experiences depicted. Early exposure to pornography also increases the likelihood that depression and relationship problems develop.
Sexual risk taking is another common problem associated with being exposed to pornography at an early age. This includes more sexual partners and not using birth control. As Gustavo Mesch found in a 2009 study: adolescents who use pornography “appear less socially integrated and more socially marginal. They express less commitment to their families, fewer pro-social attitudes, and less attachment to school…” This could be the case simply because youth are so enveloped in what they are viewing and how they feel about it that they lose touch with their environment and the people around them.
Another key issue is that an individual’s first exposure [and general exposure] to pornography may lead to mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, particularly among adolescents, and that the earlier a child was exposed, the more mental health problems they faced later in life.
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The modern West is post-Christian in the same sort of way that it is postindustrial. Neither Christianity nor industrialization have been truly left behind, for all that our use of “post-” language implies they have. Their cultural footprints remain enormous, even when the churches and factories have been turned into flats. What has happened, rather, is that society has been so irrevocably shaped by their influence that we can think of their legacy as secure and begin to contemplate moving “beyond” them into a wide variety of new possibilities, according to the demands of the market.

In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking him to edit the Declaration of Independence in time for a meeting the following morning. “The inclosed paper has been read and with some small alterations approved of by the committee,” Jefferson explained. “Will Doctr. Franklyn be so good as to peruse it and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?”1
Franklin was at home recovering from gout and made very few changes. But one of them would have epochal significance. Jefferson had originally written that “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.”
Franklin crossed out the last three words and replaced them with one: “self-evident.”2
It was a portentous edit. Jefferson’s version, despite his theological skepticism, presented the equality of men and the rights they held as grounded in religion: they are “undeniable” because they are “sacred” truths that originate with the Creator. By contrast, Franklin’s version grounded them in reason. They are “self-evident” truths, which are not dependent on any particular religious tradition but can easily be grasped as logically necessary by anyone who thinks about them for long enough.3
To which the obvious response is: no, they are not. There are plenty of cultures in which it is not remotely self-evident to people that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, let alone that these rights include life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the prerogative to abolish any government that does not preserve them. Most human beings in 1776 did not believe that at all, which is partly why the Declaration was required in the first place. (This accounts for the otherwise inexplicable phrase “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” as opposed to saying simply “these truths are self-evident.”) Some of the founders had not quite believed it themselves just fifteen years earlier. Billions of people today still don’t.
The fundamental equality of human beings, and their endowment with inalienable rights by their Creator, are essentially theological beliefs. They are neither innately obvious axioms nor universally accepted empirical truths nor rational deductions from things that are. There is no logical syllogism that begins with undeniable premises and concludes with “all people are equal” or “humans have God-given rights.” The Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov expressed the non sequitur at the heart of Western civilization with a deliciously sarcastic aphorism: “Man descended from apes, therefore we must love one another.”4
Many of us find this unsettling. We are inclined to see equality and human rights as universal norms, obvious to everyone who can think for themselves. But in reality they are culturally conditioned beliefs that depend on fundamentally Christian assumptions about the world.
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