Regular readers will know that I have embraced CS Lewis's term and concept of 'things coming to a point' as characteristic of these times in The West. In general terms, this means that the challenges of the mainstream, dominant mandatory atheistic Leftism have created a situation in which good and evil are separated further apart and with clear water between them.
Discernment is, in a sense, easier than ever before; nonetheless the majority have already embraced evil, and this time in a situation where evil entails value inversion - the reversal of good and evil.
One way this happens, is that the corrosive scepticism of modern thinking (sooner or later) strips all issues down to the level of fundamental metaphysical assumptions; and ruthlessly reveals any incoherence or lack a full conscious endorsement of the assumptions upon which we base our living.
In practice this means that most people are deeply uncertain about their convictions, such that they lack the motivation and will to resist the corruption that is imposed upon them as carrots and sticks, as inducements and punishments, as feel-good attitudes and harsh coercion.
The trans agenda is perhaps the major current example. The situation now (and this developed rapidly over just a few years) is that adherence to the trans orthodoxies about sexual identity has become a litmus test of social status, and enforced by the weight of government, the law, the media and a licensed mob sustained by these.
Now, the claims of the trans agenda fly in the face of both common sense and personal experience (of the overwhelming majority of human beings throughout history and across the world) - but that makes no difference. The trans agenda wins.
The claims of the trans agenda are refuted by a vast mass of biological, medical and psychological science, over many decades - but that makes no difference. The trans agenda wins.
The issue of the difference between a man and a woman has therefore been driven all the way down to the level of fundamental conviction - that is of metaphysics. And, at this level, most people, including most Christians, find themselves confused and uncertain - or else in agreement with the trans agenda. At the metaphysical level, most people are weak, unsure, malleable when it comes to men and women being different.
This arises mostly because metaphysical assumptions are unconscious, denied or misunderstood by nearly everyone. Therefore most people are helpless in the face of false metaphysics when it is backed-up by overwhelming social pressure; by propaganda and force.
Most people in this situation reach for 'evidence' only to find that any and all possible evidence falls to pieces in face of assumptions that deny the validity of evidence as such. This happens because it is the metaphysical assumptions that determine what counts as evidence and shape what strength evidence is allowed - so that when assumptions are contradicted by evidence, it is the evidence which gives way.
Yet even among Christians who are aware of their own metaphysical assumptions, and endorse them - the discovery is often that the trans agenda is consistent with the ultimate beliefs derived from their theological understanding of the human condition.
Because mainstream Christians do not really regard sexual differentiation into men and women as a fundamental aspect of reality. It is of mortal significance only; and in the infinity of time after mortal life, as resurrected Men in Heaven - for the mainstream Christian sex has essential no role or significance - it is mostly a matter of memories of our mortal life.
In my opinion, the trans agenda strips reality down and back to the dichotomy where sex (the distinction between man and woman) is either regarded as 1. a fundamental attribute of ultimate reality - or else 2. sexual identity is ultimately unfounded.
Among churches, I think only the Mormons (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) have a theology that takes the position that the distinction between men and women goes all the way down; begins with an eternity before mortal life and continues through the etermity of post-mortal life.
(Roughly) We began as primordial intelligences of two kinds, and this continues through becoming children of God, incarnation, death and resurrection (or whatever comes instead for those who cannot or will not love, or otherwise reject Heaven).
Sexuality - the division between man and woman - is an ultimate fact of existence.
For Mormons, Man is dyadic - the unit of full-personhood is a man and women - potentially (among those with highest spiritual development) bound for eternity in celestial marriage by love, but always as a two - never separated and never fused - like a binary star.
If not in detail, then in essence something like this Mormon view is - I infer - the only alternative to an ultimate and eventual spiritual capitulation to the trans agenda in all its incoherent and evil extremity.
And as such, here we have an example of the way that modernity is acting upon Christians like a refiners fire, burning away all that used to be fudged or held on superficial grounds (such as 'evidence' from science or common sense, or by obedience to external authority).
We are forced into a situation in which we either make a self-aware statement of fundamental belief - or else (by our lack of conviction, our confusion, our cognitive dissonance) we get swept along by the modern agenda - which is the agenda of satanic evil.
We are her in this mortal life to learn from our experiences; and this is one of many ways in which God has used evil triumphant to provide experiences that may - if people are honest and chose well - lead to growth towards a higher divinity.
