You’re probably aware of the experiment in which a frog is placed in hot water and immediately jumps out. But if you put it in cool water, and slowly raise the water’s temperature until it boils, the frog will remain and, of course, die. Now, why anyone would ever do such a thing begs concern about their mental and/or moral health. Nevertheless, the analogy holds that, over time, one can become acclimated to a cultural or moral climate to the point where it becomes too late to escape. I am afraid that for many in our society, even for many in churches, the frog of Christian discernment is dead. And so is a whole lot more.
As a caveat, I am not a big fan of so-called “discernment ministries,” even “Reformed” ones. There are way too many people on the Internet trying to sort out everyone else’s faults. Theological nitpicking has gotten way out of hand with attacks upon churches, for example, over COVID-19 responses, accusations of being “woke,” and of being adherents of intersectionality and critical race theory. Not long ago, our church was so labelled by a couple of “discerning” pastors. Apparently, we no longer preach the gospel. But that’s for another article. Anyway, there is plenty of reason to be discerning about the “discerning.” However, we must beware of throwing out the baby with the bathwater (another strange euphemism—who would do that?) for Christians are called to be discerning in a world that is hostile to God. Christians are to be discerning about, among other things, ideological departures from God’s word. Departures like the transgender movement.
Rather than adhering to God’s creation gift of two genders—male and female—rather than celebrating Gods’ gift of heterosexuality to be expressed only in a covenantally committed and consummated marriage between a natural born man and a natural born woman (that is a necessary mouthful of words replacing the simple word “marriage”), today we have the long acronym, LGBTQI+ to cover society’s confused moral rebellion. And sadly, and increasingly, Christians are decreasingly disturbed by this.
For many so-called Christian churches, the frog of fidelity to God’s truth is dead, boiled to death by the devilish heat of ideological lies. And this contributes to the death of faithful parenting as children now rule the roost, including their choice of pronouns. After all, if it makes them happy—and easier to live with—then Mom and Dad are happy. Even though God is very unhappy. How did we get to this, and how can we avoid it?
First, we got into this because of unfaithful pastors who are more concerned about being popular than with pleasing to the Lord.
Second, where the word is faithfully proclaimed, unwise church members choose the counsel of the world rather than faithful counsel from the word. Consequently, these parents fail to appropriately shelter their children from the evils of a culture set on destroying them. In fact, some parents seem to think giving shelter is a bad thing.
I have always been bemused (not amused) by critics of home-schooling saying, “If you home-school then you are sheltering your children from the world.” Well, respectfully, “Duh.” That is the point! Such criticism makes about as much sense as criticising parents for putting a net over their pool because they desire to “shelter” their children from drowning.
Home-schooling aside, the issue to grasp is that the frog of the godly, disciple-making family is being boiled to death in many Christian homes because parents are not taking seriously the existence of threats to their children. Such parents need to wake up and feel the rising heat of a reprobate worldview, one that is slowly producing a boiling and destructive outcome. All parents need to be immersed in Scripture, to be influenced by godly counsel, and to pay attention to their children’s proclivities and temptations. And, make no mistake, many others are also studying your children aiming to draw them in to their godless social experiments. That cell phone in your child’s hand is not as innocent as you might think.
And so, as much as we should be repulsed by someone boiling a frog to death, how much more should we revolt against those who seek the spiritual death of our children.
Doug