Confusion...and Every Evil Work

A Practical and Concrete Reflection

Expressive Confusion

When I recently asked a young man about his reasons for thinking that bisexuality, homosexuality, and transgenderism are not inherently evil, he began to speak about his need to act in accordance with his feelings and, thereby, “be true to himself.” Like a true expressive individualist, he did not look outside of himself to justify his immoral beliefs.

At least not at first.

You see, it was only within a matter of a minute or so that the appeal to his supposedly “true” self was abandoned in favor of a more “community” based appeal. Homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism, and transgenderism were identified as good because they made other people happy.

These two ideas, I explained, are contradictory to one another. For on the one hand, if what makes my behavior good is based on the perceived positive affects of my behavior, then how other people are affected by my behavior is only important insofar as their negative subjective experience negatively affects me. While most people will have a negative experience at seeing others have a negative experience, for all he knows I could be a sadist whose experience of seeing others harmed and humiliated is very much positive and empowering. What gives people the right to keep me from being happy in my sadistic treatment of others?

This rules out the belief that it is the positive experience of others that makes my behavior good. I could be one of the most compassionate and kind people he knows, and such behavior could be identified as immoral by other people who are sadists — and I would not be able to protest that identification because doing so would negatively affect the sadists. Either my subjective positive experience justified my actions, or the subjective experiences of others justified by actions.

Either/Or — Getting to the Root

Given the young man’s own thinking, there is no third option. Nevertheless, this led him to offer yet another justification for his sin which contradicted his original supposedly “expressive individualist” answer, which indicated to me that the young man was, more than anything, confused. I pointed out his logical errors, as well as the negative affects his thinking would have on himself and others. And this is where reason became the enemy, revealing the source of his confusion to be the postmodernism-inspired thinking that those who would diagnose this young man’s problem as “expressive individualism” have foolishly — and in some cases it seems, assiduously — avoided discussing.

Whereas he began by speaking about himself as having a true core, an essence almost, toward the end of our conversation he was denying that moral matters are so “black and white.” They are, he said, “more nuanced”; there are many gray areas that defy traditional moral and identity categories. This isn’t “expressive individualism”; it is postmodernism being applied in real time. It is the rejection of any belief in an overarching (or underlying) unity to all things, the rejection of any fixed categories of being, and the rejection of any notion of essences and, therefore, fixed identities — be they epistemological, moral, social, or bodily.

By asking questions, pointing out inconsistencies, and demonstrating logical absurdities entailed by his proposed justifications for his immoral beliefs and practices, I saw that the root was not “expressive individualism” but his sinful adaptation of the postmodern ideology that surrounds us in the West. He had drunk deeply at the wells of the world’s thinking, and done so defiantly against the revelation of God given to him by virtue of being God’s image bearer, and by virtue of being raised by Christian parents.

The Practicality of My Encounter

It may be hard for one to believe, but this logical analysis of the young man’s thinking helped raise a mirror to this young man’s heart. Rather than dealing with him on the basis of assuming that he is an expressive individualist, I dealt with him as an individual whose words were expressing something deeply embedded in his mind and character. By the grace of God, I was able to clear away the brush of self-deception that this young man had placed over the very mouth of hell. I had cleared the way to speak the truth in love to him — declaring him to be an enemy of God, one whose thinking and acting can only be changed by the grace and power of God.

Assuming that this young man was an expressive individualist would have only hampered my discussion with him. However, reasoning with him, within his own prescribed limits, allowed me to direct him to the truth of his condition. He is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness, grasping at straws to justify his thinking and behavior, and he is without excuse before God. Understanding that the overwhelming majority of Westerners have been thoroughly impacted by postmodernism as it has made way into virtually every cultural and academic institution helped me look past his initial remarks about authenticity and being true to himself, and thereby gain understanding what is really going on in his heart/mind.

—h.