WAGNER: Forced conversion, progressive style

Recently, a player on the US women’s national soccer team named Korbin Albert issued a public apology after being publicly rebuked by the team’s former captain, Megan Rapinoe.

Albert had reposted some videos on TikTok. According to media reports, one video included a sermon that said being gay or transgender was wrong. In response, Rapinoe posted a message criticizing Albert’s actions, stating, “kids are literally killing themselves because of this hate. Wake, TF up!”

Rapinoe’s claim is that people who publicly oppose homosexuality or transgenderism are causing the deaths of children. In this case it was the public sharing of a Christian sermon.

Earlier, in a similar line of argument, a left-wing Calgary doctor publicly blamed Danielle Smith for the suicide of his 37 year-old nephew. Smith had announced that Alberta would be adopting policies limiting transgender medical treatments for children under 18. According to the doctor, this policy announcement contributed to his nephew’s decision to kill himself.

Again, the idea is that public opposition to the new orthodoxy of (sexual minority) ideology is the cause of people dying. Those who oppose that ideology are responsible for the suicides of gay and transgender people.

Let’s be clear: this line of argument is a form of intimidation. People who don’t publicly embrace progressive sexual ideology are publicly shamed for their traditional beliefs and blamed for tragic deaths. The message of the shaming is: embrace that ideology, or else.

The basis for most opposition to (sexual minority) ideology — or should we say support for traditional sexual morality — is Christianity. The historic Christian view has always been that sex must be confined within a monogamous heterosexual marriage.

Of course, since the 1960s, multitudes of heretical teachers in the so-called “mainline” churches have rubbished that view, but it is the Christian view nonetheless.

In 2017, the leftist Oasis Foundation of London, England published a report by Rev. Steve Chalke, Ian Sansbury and Gareth Streeter entitled In the Name of Love: The Church, exclusion and LGB mental health issues. This report openly blames Christian beliefs for the high-rate of gay suicides in Britain.

The report claims churches that embrace the Bible’s view of homosexual acts (i.e., that they are sinful) are causing mental illness among (sexual minority) people, leading many of those people to commit suicide. In other words, biblical doctrine puts lives at risk.

Therefore, Christian beliefs must be changed because they cause harm to other people.

Given that the Bible condemns all sexual activity outside of heterosexual monogamous marriage, it is not surprising that the report found “significant evidence to show that the Church is the biggest negative voice in the public, political and media discussion around the legitimacy of same-sex relationships.”

To the authors of In the Name of Love, it is the Christians’ fault that homosexuals engage in self-harm because genuine Christianity maintains that homosexual behaviour is wrong. This leads to “societal negativity” which causes mental illness in some homosexuals.

Accordingly, the implication is that Christians must repudiate the Bible’s teaching and instead affirm the progressive view that homosexuality and same-sex marriage are good. Otherwise, those Christians are, in some sense, guilty for the suicides of the homosexuals.

It seems, then, that what the report’s authors are offering is not so much an argument as a threat: “Change your doctrine or people will die.” Essentially, if homosexuals commit suicide, then the Christians are at fault.

By claiming that Christian beliefs cause homosexuals to commit suicide, conservative Christians can be blamed for those suicides and thereby be placed under severe social pressure to abandon historic Christian doctrine.

In their view, the only way to avoid this situation is for Christians to embrace progressive sexual ideology. By rejecting the Bible in favour of modern sexual ideology, lives will be supposedly saved.

So, repent, and believe the (sexual minority) gospel, or else be publicly condemned as a bigot and hater. To avoid such shaming, you must abandon Christian beliefs and conform your faith to progressive orthodoxy.

This is conversion by intimidation — or forced conversion, progressive style.

At various times in history, believing in true Christianity has come at a cost. While Canadian Christians don’t have to pay the cost with their lives, they may have to pay it in the form of public disdain. But disavowing truth to curry favour with the progressives is a cost much too high to pay.