Moral change seems to be one of the constants of the moral age. As a matter of fact, changes in moral judgment are one of the landmarks that separates the pre-modern age from the modern age, sometimes referred to as modernity. What makes the modern modern in so many ways are radical shifts in thinking, and one of the most important of those shifts, of course, has to do with morality. Now, here before we go any further, Christians need to understand a critical distinction. And that’s between morality in terms of how people actually behave and the moral codes of any civilization or society at the time, and morality as objectively real and established by God. Those are two different things. Now, of course, that means that our human responsibility should be to align our own moral judgments with God’s character, God’s law, the holy scriptures.

But we do understand that in the world around us, increasingly, the people who really have influence in the culture, they’re committed to the idea that morality is relative, that it changes, that what was a moral judgment in place, say a hundred years ago has been replaced with something else now. Now, here’s the other thing we need to know. The progressivist worldview, the basic liberal worldview in our society, holds that there is an arc of progress that goes in only one direction. So just imagine you’re at a marker board and you draw an arc and it’s from the past to the future. You put an arrow on the end of it. And so far as the modern progressivist worldview is concerned, there is going to be a change of morality. It’s inevitable and it is inevitably progressive. 

So this is one of the reasons why you look at the way that progressivists look at history. And what they see is the unfolding of liberationist ideas in such a way that, for instance, just let’s take the issues that oddly arrived in the cultural front lanes just about the same time. And that has to do with the LGBTQ revolution and the legalization or normalization of marijuana. Now, those issues are not particularly related except at the same time, the moral change in society affected both of those dimensions of issues. So for instance, on the LGBTQ array, you had an arc, an arrow. Progressivists were pushing for the normalization of L and G and B and T and Q and the plus sign. And they thought that history was inevitably moving in that direction. Then you had the issue of marijuana. And on the question of marijuana, you went from a situation in which the vast majority of Americans said they were against the legalization of marijuana to a significant majority saying that to one degree or another, they’re for the legalization of marijuana.

That tracks remarkably close to the trajectory on same-sex marriage. And we’re talking about a very short period of moral change, unprecedented actually in human history. Christians just need to look at this and take stock of it. If you were to go back to the midpoint of the second decade of the 20th century, you would discover that the vast majority of Americans, were against the legalization of same-sex marriage. Fast-forward a decade, the vast majority of Americans, almost the same percentages, by the way, just flipped, indicate that they now support same-sex marriage. That moral change has come so fast, that it has to include some of the same people. That’s not what is usually the case when you track moral change. You’re looking at generation after generation after generation. Now we’re talking about 10 years. That’s including some of the same people who were against it, now they’re for it.

All right. So where are we going with this? Well, the progressivist understanding is that the only way the arrow can point is towards further liberal progress. They developed elaborate theories as to why that is the case, that you have a progressivist direction in history. It is inevitable one issue, after another issue, after another issue. The entire world of critical theory and identity politics provides a seemingly endless list of such groups to be liberated from one moral judgment or another. And yet all of a sudden, of course, it turns out that in the third decade of the 20th century, the LGBTQ revolution really began to trip up on the T, on the transgender issue. We’re going to give that some attention today, but mostly in the context of the fact that something significant is happening. On Thursday of last week, the New York Times ran a very interesting opinion piece entitled “Americans Are Turning Against Gay People.”

Okay. Now that’s an interesting headline. It’s especially interesting that it appears in the New York Times, which is one of the most pro LGBTQ papers we can imagine. Tessa ES Charlesworth and Eli J Finkel, identified as research psychologists who studied bias and political partisanship have written this article. And it really is a stunner, and it’s a stunning thing in two ways. First of all, what it says and that it appeared in the New York Times. All right. Now, I guess the latter part you can say is at least in part an intentional effort to try to sound an alarm. Something has gone wrong. The inevitable arc of progressivist direction and energy, it has hit something of a speed bump, and it’s significant enough that they wrote this article. 

Listen to this, I quote, “The decades long rise in the acceptance of gay people in the United States peaked around 2020 and has sharply reversed since then.” They go on to say, “The popularity of a recent program,” I’m not going to name it very pornographic, it seems, “Is a welcome burst of enthusiasm for gay life in a new era of anti-gay prejudice.” So it is the popularity of a program featuring male homosexuality, and it’s one of those streaming programs. It has received a great deal of cultural attention. They say that’s a positive sign. But it’s in a darkening landscape. Here’s what they write, “This reversal stunned us. In the two decades before 2020, visibility, recognition, and legal inclusion of gays and lesbians progressed in lockstep. Larger and more prominent pride parades, rainbow lit landmarks, federal legalization of same-sex marriage.” They go on, “That progress translated into something remarkable. Americans’ bias against gay people declined faster than any other bias ever tracked in social surveys.”

Okay, wait just a minute. This is interesting in so many different ways. First of all, it was not just our perception. It was not just Christians. It was not just conservatives in the culture who thought this was going faster than anything else. Here you have two apparently pro LGBTQ social scientists saying, no, it’s just a matter of fact. The revolution in this moral landscape happened faster than on any other issue. 

Now that’s interesting. Of course, the whole point of their article is this has gone into something of a reversal. “Research led by Professor Charlesworth and published in 2022 detailed this decline, drawing on 7.1 million responses from Americans collected from 2007 to 2020. The researchers tracked both explicit bias, that’s how people answer questions like, to what extent do you prefer straight people over gay people, and implicit bias, more automatic responses inferred from how people rapidly associated words such as straight with good and gay with bad.” Now, this is, again, reading from the article, “Across every US state and demographic group, anti-gay bias plummeted by roughly 75% on explicit measures and 65% on implicit ones on average.” “Forecasting models suggested that at that pace, anti-gay bias could hit zero as early as 2022.” All right, so what is going on here? Well, for one thing, it tells us that these social scientists were absolutely convinced that the acceptance and even celebration of LGBTQ was going to be nearly 100%, nearly unanimous, by 2022.

It didn’t happen. Now, let’s just step back for a moment and say, this was incredibly unrealistic. As a matter of fact, conservative Christians, just to take one group, just simply weren’t going to disappear and I can assure you weren’t going to change their minds. The scripture hasn’t changed. The Christian judgment here can’t change. And so I guess they had some sense of cultural coercion that would be so strong that conservative Christians would just have to cave, but that didn’t happen. But the problem they are now detecting for their side is that things are even worse than they expected. There’s actual regression. There is an actual retreat they argue when it comes to the support for gay rights. Not only did it not move forward such that opposition to homosexuality and moral terms was over by 2022. Obviously didn’t happen, but they say things have now gone into reverse.

All right. Now remember, the progressivist worldview holds that everything has to move in one direction of inevitable progress in their view by their definition. So this is a shocking realization that things aren’t quite working out that way. Now, I’m going to argue that conservative Christians ought not to see this as some kind of overwhelming reversal. We know that’s not the case. It’s not the case at all. But it does turn out to be a very interesting conversation point here. Now, let’s look at something else. Those who provided this article, the two authors, they also argue their theory of why the pattern as they trace it could have happened. “What explains this decline in tolerance?”

Notice again, the language that’s used, “decline in tolerance.” That’s the way they frame it. “At the moment, we don’t know, but the evidence suggests that we can rule out two common hypotheses. The first is that the anti-gay trend is a side effect or spillover of the backlash against the movement for transgender rights. If that were so, you would expect increases in anti-trans bias to be meaningfully correlated with subsequent increases in anti-gay bias, which the research does not show.” Now, I don’t know how seriously to take that because I think most Christians looking at the scene would say that the T in LGBTQ is clearly the main point in which you have pushback. Even some of the people who have said avidly they’re with L and G and B, they’re not with T and that’s simply because it’s crossing a barrier they’re not willing to cross when you put boys on girls’ teams and girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms and all the rest.

But nonetheless, it’s really interesting, and this is the most significant issue for us for The Briefing is the fact that these social scientists evidently do think that things are either halted in terms of the inevitable progress they had expected or have actually moved backwards at least a bit. They offer a second hypothesis, “That the anti-gay trend reflects the rise in moral panic language about sexual grooming, the notion that gay adults are recruiting or influencing children to become gay, but they say the research shows no evidence of spikes in grooming discourse.” Again, they’re looking at how often words appear in the media and all the rest. But they go on to say that they think the cause of all this is what they call social instability and that they root this in COVID and all the rest. Just hold it. It’s an interesting theory.

They go on to say, “The second factor which would explain the rise specifically in anti-gay bias is anti-establishment sentiment. The sustained social disruption since 2020 has fueled a resentment and loss of confidence in institutions perceived to have failed. Governments, corporations, the broader establishment. By 2020 support for gay and lesbian equality had become an establishment position.” And they’re suggesting that what you see now is a pushback. Okay, that’s fascinating. In worldview terms, really fascinating. Again, their first theory that this is basically something that is social instability. Well, the problem is social instability could explain anything. It could explain anything in terms of going one direction or the other here. That seems to be a real stretch. But the second thing, anti-establishment judgment or a lack of confidence in the elites, I think they’re really onto something here.

I think this is an incredible admission that the cultural elites, the powers that be had decided they would simply settle the LGBTQ issue in favor of the entire set of LGBTQ claims, and they believe the vast majority of Americans would simply have to go along because that’s what the elites always think. They believe they have the power to force all the rest of Americans, for instance, to conform. 

Now, as Christians, let’s just pause for a moment and understand, this is what we should expect. In a fallen world, we should expect that when you have these kinds of elites that define themselves in very progressivist terms, they’re going to see themselves as the educated ones, the wise ones, the aware ones, the sensitive ones, and they’re going to see the vast majority of Americans as, well, backwards and mired in prejudice. They’re going to see their role as liberating the vast majority of Americans from outdated moral ideas such as those, well, clearly established within Christianity. 

Now, this particular article, interesting as it is, really doesn’t conclude on any particular judgment other than in their view, it’s lamentable things are going as they are going and they can hope that things can turn around. I think for conservative Christians, it’s important in worldview analysis for us to see the kinds of arguments that appear here. Also for us to understand, once again, and we know this, we just need to say it regularly, we don’t get to develop a morality.

We receive the commandments and the Law of God. We receive the moral teachings of Scripture and we receive the revelation of God concerning how we are to understand all of these issues and how we are to order our lives. That is not up for debate, negotiation or compromise. At the same time, we know that if you are living in revolt against all those things, then there is no stable moral position whatsoever. That’s one of the reasons why the progressivist worldview is one of never ceasing change, never ceasing, always moving to the left, inevitable. And this one, something like this on the T, and I think they get this entirely wrong. I think the vast majority of Americans just say, look, putting boys on girls’ teams in girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms is just wrong, period. I don’t think they are leaning back on any sophisticated argument. I don’t think they’re creating some kind of massive moral structure. I just think they say that’s wrong and it ought not to happen, period.

And by the way, Christians understand in that kind of judgment, they’re right because we believe that the conscience, that God has put in every single human being, actually knows these things. And thus, this is not just a moral judgment that comes out in what the liberals think is prejudice. This is actually a moral knowledge implanted within us by the creator. And by the way, affirmed all throughout creation. All you have to do is look. If you have homosexual behavior, if you revolt against heterosexual patterns and marriage, you, by the way, don’t get babies. That’s just one very clear message from nature. And of course, we understand that that means a very clear message from the creator.

Okay another generally liberal newspaper ran a very interesting article just in recent days. This was by Megan McArdle. The headline is “Transgender Sport Cases hit a Wall at the Supreme Court.” Now, of course, this had to do with the oral arguments recently before the Supreme Court having to do with challenges from two states where you have states saying that biological males cannot compete on female teams, whether at the college level or the school level. Anyway, it goes back, this article goes back to the oral arguments and to a specific exchange. The exchange was between Justice Samuel Alito and Kathleen Harnett, who is the attorney representing Boise State University and a runner there. And again, this is a biological male who is demanding to compete as a female, or at least at the point this case originated was demanding to compete as a female there in Idaho and also in other states. You had the response of the legislatures to say that it’s not going to happen. And then that’s one of the cases that was before the court.

Okay, so Justice Alito asked the attorney representing this cross country runner from Idaho, “What does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?” Okay, so that’s a straightforward question. We have seen this before. We saw it recently in terms of a Senate hearing with Senator Josh Hawley pressing the question, but now we’re looking at the record from the Supreme Court’s oral argument. And I think Megan McArdle’s onto something when she concentrates on that one simple question, what does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman? The important thing to see is that Kathleen Harnett, the attorney, responded by saying, “We do not have a definition for the court.” Okay, wow. There you have a situation in which a lawyer, who is trying to supposedly make the case representing this transgender individual when asked, what is the definition that the law should use when it comes to boy, girl, man, woman? The response is, this attorney doesn’t have a clue. “We do not have a definition for the court.”

Now, here’s where McArdle writes, “It was a moment made for social media and it attracted immediate ridicule,” but she writes, “It was only one of several such exchanges, none of which helped the trans inclusion cause.” “As Alito asked in his follow-up, ‘How can a court determine whether there is discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?'” Well, as Megan McArdle points out, that is an answer that trans rights activists have avoided rendering for years. It’s very interesting that McArdle writes later, “The public was not receptive to the idea that females should step back and give males more opportunities to win athletic competitions.” That’s a fascinating sentence. I think it’s very clarifying in moral terms. It’s very interesting that it appeared in the Washington Post in this context. I read it again, “The public was not receptive to the idea that females should step back and give males more opportunities to win athletic competitions.” 

I hope you notice something there. You don’t have boy, girl, man, woman there, but you do have male and female. And a very clear statement that the vast majority of Americans don’t want to create a context in which males can win even more competitions at the expense of females. Okay? So that means that male and female are supposed to be immediately recognizable, fixed and objective categories, which by the way, Christians understand they are. One of the interesting aspects to this is that you can’t even write an article like this about this debate without acknowledging one way or another that the trans ideology is just nonsense on stilts. That’s exactly what it is. You can’t even continue a coherent statement. And when a Supreme Court justice asks you for a definition of the basic categories at stake in the case, boy, girl, man, woman, your response is, “We do not have a definition for the court.” In legal terms, before the Supreme Court of the United States, that’s basically a context in which the sound you hear is the deflation of the tire. The air is leaving the tire. The argument is going flat fast.

So I want to go back to that New York Times article by the two academics looking at what they trace as at least some degree of regression or reversal on the issue of LGBTQ acceptance. And I want to say, I think they’re absolutely wrong when they say the T has not affected all the rest. I think when you look at this situation, you look at this column, this argument in the Washington Post, I think Megan McArdle is absolutely right. I think the T, to extend her argument beyond where she goes in this article, I think the logic of what we see here is that Americans in terms of the T have awakened to the fact that if that argument is nonsense, then the nonsense is probably not limited to the T in LGBTQ.

And so I’m going to take that argument and press it further and say, I think that what you see right now is at least some Americans rethinking the political correctness, the group think, that had created that massive shift of moral judgment between say 2010 and 2020 or 2015 and 2025. Something that happened at that speed is probably not as comprehensive as those driving it think it is.

Now, I am not offering this as unvarnished good news for conservative Christians. I’m not suggesting this is leading to any kind of comprehensive recovery of moral sanity. I am saying I think this presents an opportunity. I think it presents an opportunity for Christians to remind ourselves of the arguments we need to make and summon the courage to make those arguments and just be ready to give an answer grounded in reality, in truth, in, well, let’s just say it, biology and anatomy that makes sense to Americans.

And if Americans can recover sense on the T, even just some of them, then that offers the opportunity to recover sanity on L and G and be, well, you understand, the entire array. By the way, as Christians, we understand that we’re not saying we’re talking about a multiple choice question and our hope is that we can get some of those answers right. Now, for Christians, consistency and a comprehensive understanding of biblical revelation, the law of God and God’s purpose in marriage and sexuality in making us male and female, we need to press for a comprehensive recovery. And that means first of all, we have to press for that recovery in the church, but there is an opportunity for public witness here, and I hope we don’t miss it. It’s something that represents an opening that I think we all know may not last. And furthermore, we understand that the progressivist understanding of just pushing these issues further and further, they really see this as a temporary pause. They intend to go fully in advance as soon as they have the opportunity.

Finally, on this issue, there was another very interesting article that recently appeared, an argument presented in the Wall Street Journal. Colin Wright, who is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and is identified as an evolutionary biologist. Okay, hold onto that. That’s important. He wrote an article entitled The Transgender Sports Deception. And Mr. Wright’s entire point is that, when you have people saying that the Supreme Court is considering laws in these states that prohibit transgender athletes from participating, he comes back and says, that’s not true. That’s not true at all. As a matter of fact, as he says, “Truth and clarity matter, these laws don’t ban transgender people from sports. They reserve female sports for women and girls. Women’s sports,” he says, “can’t survive if we pretend that sex is irrelevant or invented.” This is important because here you have someone coming back to say, look, watch the language, watch the language very carefully.

Don’t allow people to say that what these states are doing is preventing transgender athletes from competing. They’re not doing so at all. They’re simply saying males on male teams, females on female teams, biology matters. You can call yourself transgender, whatever. You just can’t be a biological male and compete in the female space and presumably vice versa, but just given all kinds of reasons, that’s not really a problem. All right. But there’s something else I want to point out, which isn’t his purpose at all, but it’s our purpose. Again, he’s identified as a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and he is also identified as an evolutionary biologist. 

Now, let me just remind you that oddly enough, all the sudden, all of a sudden, some radical feminists and some evolutionary scientists have decided that, let’s just put it this way, they are willing to keep company with conservative orthodox biblical Christians on this issue. Not for the same reason, not for the same reason at all. But it is really interesting that whether it’s Richard Dawkins, who’s been the world’s most famous evolutionist for years, or it is this man that is to say Colin Wright, who’s identified as an evolutionary biologist, they do understand that their entire theory as they observe, let’s just say mating behavior, it requires reproduction and reproduction requires a male and a female, and that means in just about every single case, a male who shows up as male and a female who shows up as female. As a matter of fact, that’s downright universally necessary. 

All right. One of the signs of our times is that so many issues like this, they come together, they congeal, they appear at just about the same time, just within the period of a few days. Some of these arguments just emerge and we need to take note of them when they happen, and we’ll have to follow them as these issues develop over time, which as Christians understand, assuredly they will.