A bearded man in a pink skirt walks into your church one morning and sits down. Perhaps he strikes up a conversation with your wife… your kids. He claims he’s a Christian, he knows Jesus, and he’s saved. Of course, God accepts him just how he is.

How do you respond? How does your church respond?

Well, the ERLC says to welcome them. And doing what they’ve been doing for years, they start off by adopting the world’s categories and treating this issue as though it’s just a mere hospitality problem with the church rather than a sin problem. And that seemingly small distinction affects everything that follows.

Watch:

Dr. RaShan Frost, Director of Research and Senior Fellow for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, just put out a video asking the question:

Do you know how your church members would respond if a transgender woman who is a biological male showed up to your church on a Sunday morning?

There it is, “a transgender woman who is a biological male…”

First of all, Scripture does not recognize “transgender woman” as a legitimate ontological category. A man cannot be a woman, and calling him such immediately grants him his self-identification. The problem here is that words communicate meaning, and Scripture does not allow us to communicate falsehood.

Secondly, as previously stated, the ERLC treats this primarily as a hospitality problem rather than a serious sin issue, or even a truth issue.

The dominating theme throughout the video is preparation. It’s about preparing church volunteers, policies, greeting and welcoming. Almost nothing is said about repentance, God’s created order, the nature of rebellion against God, and certainly not the call for sinners to deny themselves.

It’s framed as though the sinner’s greatest need is to feel comfortable in the pews rather than to be reconciled with God.

Even worse, he goes on to normalize “transgenderism” by comparing it to other categories like race or class. “Just as we would want our members to be welcoming regardless of appearance, race, or wealth…” he says. But race, appearance, or wealth are not inherently sinful.

Rebelling against God’s created order and presenting yourself as the opposite sex, or some other made up “transgender” identity, most certainly is.

This is obfuscation designed to give the appearance that this is the church’s problem.

For years, as long as I can remember, the ERLC has consistently began ethical discussions by adopting the world’s categories. Instead of asking the question, “what does God say about this?” they instead ask “how should we respond to a transgender person?” This framing immediately places the church inside a secular conceptual framework.

But the biblical framework starts in an entirely different theological framework. A man cannot be a woman, therefore, the church is not dealing with a “transgender woman.” The church is dealing with a rebellious sinner who believes something false about himself.

That is a profound difference in starting points and that should not be ignored.

There is a serious problem with how the ERLC and its like-minded organizations have consistently balanced compassion and truth—there is no balance. Compassion is front loaded while truth is consistently sidelined as something that comes later…maybe…as long as we don’t make this person feel bad.

But we’ve never seen Jesus separate the two. Yes, Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. But he also looked them in the eye and told them the truth about themselves. He didn’t hold back the truth until he thought they were comfortable enough to handle it. He told them the truth, and some received it while others departed.

The woman caught in adultery was not just welcomed. She was confronted with her sin, and told to repent…go and sin no more. The rich young ruler was confronted, and he went away sorrowful. Jesus showed compassion to the Samaritan woman, yet He immediately exposed the reality of her sinful relationships.

Biblical compassion and love are never separated from truth. There are times where it might be appropriate to allow a sinner to sit in the pews, and in fairness to the speaker in the clip, he acknowledged that there are times where they may simply be there to cause problems. But the reality is that a sanctuary is called a sanctuary for a reason.

The church is the body of believers who gather regularly for corporate worship, prayer, and commission. Evangelism was given to the church, but repeatedly in Scripture, we see that it happens outside the gathered body. So no, I’m not saying we should turn away every sinner, but the sanctuary is a sacred place where certain moral standards are to be upheld. The apostle Paul was very clear about this.

God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” —1 Corinthians 5:13, (emphasis mine).

Once they’ve stepped into the gathered body and present themselves as unrepentant, rebellious, and in need of truth, the only appropriate response is to give them the truth. Not to make them feel comfortable. Plenty of people will feel comfortable all the way to Hell.

The reality is that they need to be made to feel uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Not with our own disdain, but with the Word of God. The truth should be repeatedly showered upon them, and it should be clear that their only acceptable response to it is repentance and faith.

The issue is not hospitality, it’s anthropology. The issue isn’t whether or not we should welcome to outsiders into our church buildings. The issue is whether or not the church should adopt the world’s vocabulary and tactics for treating people whose greatest need is salvation. The ERLC would say so.