Resisting the temptation to be quiet

Last week, I talked with John Stonestreet of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview about the public’s reaction to Olympic athlete and reality TV star Bruce Jenner’s surgery and name change to Caitlyn. Attorney David French, who writes for National Review, closed an online piece about the topic by saying, “[Jenner] is a man created in God’s image, yet a man experiencing deep anguish about his very creation. He needs our prayers, not our applause.”

I asked Stonestreet how he would be praying for Jenner.

“My prayer is that, first of all, he will find his identity as created and as redeemed in Christ,” Stonestreet said. “I also pray that he will realize and his eyes will be open to the others that are impacted by his decision. … What we know from history, what we know from personal experience is that the sexual act is private, but our sexual decisions have public consequences.”

In his article, French pointed out the temptation many Christians to feel to stay silent, particularly in the face of intimidation or public shame about their beliefs. Stonestreet elaborated on that temptation: “We don’t have to choose between speaking the truth and being loving, but that’s what we’re being told. That you can only do one or the other. You can only speak, or you can be loving, you can’t love and speak. … Both truth and love find their existence, their foundation, their grounding in the person Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate expression of both truth and love.”

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