How Yesterday's Fringe Becomes Today's Mainstream
AT a time when insanity is increasingly normalised, it’s smart to pay attention to the insane.
I used to dismiss acts of insanity as “freakish” and “fringe”. Not anymore.
The oddity you once dismissed as fringe is now mainstream, and the person you knew to be a freak is probably making policy at your kid’s school.
And so rather than immediately flicking past a Christian Post article on churches celebrating Gay Pride week, I paid attention.
I think you should too.
The story focuses on a New York church that invited two drag queens to help …
“Celebrate Pentecost, kick-off LGBTQ+ Pride Month, and come to Christ’s Table of Love.”
(It’s alright, I’ll pause while you pick yourself up off the floor)
Now, I am not suggesting drag queens in church are common. Nor am I suggesting they are coming to a church near you the Sunday after next, though I can’t guarantee anything beyond that.
And yes, these are fringe churches run by freaks in clerical frocks.
But the language they use is a sly mix of Bible, gender theory, critical race theory and virtue signalling. It’s designed to confuse and some people are very confusable.
United Church of Christ pastor, Rev. J. Gary Brinn, defended celebrating Pride Week with drag queens in church like this …
“Just as there have always been queers, and there has always been diversity in gender expression and affectional orientation, so there has always been diversity within Christianity.”
I might add that just as there have always been cannibals, and there has always been diversity in dietary requirements and taste bud orientation, so there has always been diversity within Christianity.
(Don’t miss our special Eat Thy Neighbour service next month!)
Ah yes, “diversity”!! We must have “diversity”. Diversity is in and of itself an inherent, inarguable good, didn’t you realise?
To argue against drag queen’s leading worship is to argue against diversity. And you’re not against diversity or inclusion, are you? Well are you?
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the woke animals the popular culture had made. He said to the woman, “Did the Patriarchy really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? That doesn’t sound very inclusive to me.” (Genesis 3v1-2)
Okay, that’s not really how the story went. But most of our young adults would probably believe it was an accurate translation.
And that’s my concern.
Whilst Rev Brinn’s argument is ridiculous, we have barely equipped this generation to recognise the ridiculous, let alone counter it.
Warming to his theme, Reverend Brinn goes on to accuse God of behaving like a pale, stale, male …
“(In a) church where older white men had absolute power, God acted like ... an older white man with absolute power and a shocking fragility.
“For, despite God’s supposed omnipotence, he was constantly offended that humans were not properly stroking his ego or following the rules he had implemented to micro-manage our lives.”
“The culmination of his rage was the ultimate act of domestic violence, conspiracy to murder his only child.
“Now if that version works for you, that god that small men created in their own image, great.
“Though if that version does work for you, I’m probably not the right pastor for you, for I find that God, angry and violent, disgusting and unworthy of my adoration and praise. That God is a monster, one that I abandoned long ago.”
Brinn’s method of argument is to arrange trigger words in sentences that our young adults - fresh out of university or fresh off TikTok - but let’s face it, what’s the difference these days - will have half swallowed before even thinking about it.
That Brinn’s argument makes no sense doesn’t matter. Sense was cancelled a long time ago.
This generation thinks with it’s feelings and reasons with its emotions. An emotive word salad is a sufficient argument these days to ban fossil fuels, pump children full of puberty blockers, legalise late term abortions and, if you want, have drag queens lead worship.
Reverend Binn described his “Worship is a Drag” service as …
“An extravagant welcome to the LGBTQ+ community, not tolerance but celebration.”
Let’s not just be welcoming (who doesn’t want to be welcoming?), let’s be “extravagantly welcoming”.
And we’re not talking about individuals here. We’re talk about “community”. God is into community. We don’t want to exclude an entire community, do we?
And let’s be "tolerant, but let’s be more than tolerant. Even sinners are tolerant. Let’s “celebrate” difference. Because the church should be a place of joy and love and celebration of people made in God’s image.
You get the idea.
It’s all silly, but only if you think.
Predictably, Reverend Brinn went on to speak about fighting racism, because everyone loves an anti-racist.
And finally he asserted …
“Our sin is not just in what we have done but also in what we have failed to do, and we are determined to sin no more.”
The woke share our vocabulary but use a completely different dictionary.
Tolerate means celebrate.
Accept means agree.
Inclusive means excluding objective truth
Diversity means different looking people who all uniformly think like woke progressive dolts.
You get the idea.
If we don’t start talking about this and boldly explaining truth, Grace Church in downtown Manhattan - where they recently held a special Pride Chapel for cheering Christian young adults - won’t be a freakish outpost on the fringe of the asylum. It’ll be mainstream.
According to The Christian Post, Trinity Lutheran Church in Greenville, South Carolina hosted an event called "Drag me to Church” on May 12 two years ago. The event featured a drag performer known as "The Lady Douche.” Well of course.
And this too is fringe, of course.
But if the past decade has taught us anything it is that fringe ideas - not contested because they seem too freakish to worry about - quickly become difficult to contest because they have become so mainstream.
When the progressive woke left, who own the language, are talking to Christians wearing little more than a fig leaf of theology, the ridiculous sounds right, the insane sounds sensible and the blasphemous sounds almost Biblical.
We need to reclaim language by clearly defining terms.
And we need to replace sermonettes for Christianetters with sound theology.
The alternative does not bear thinking about.
Thanks James, for stating the obvious. People perish for lack of studying the Word of our Creator. And sadly nothing has changed, for when we read the Bible, or generally look at the history of the world, ignorant people have always been easily deceived by 'wolves in sheep's clothes'. How we do need strong leaders in our churches, not watered-down feel-good religions! God will judge these perverts, but we need to be extra vigilant to protect children and simple-minded people from these evil distractors. There are plenty of other venues where people can be entertained in many 'diverse and inclusive' ways!
As I was reading this, it reminded me of David Wilkersons The Vision, which he saw quite some time ago, in it, he wrote of the church in the near future where there would be nude dancing in the church. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet, but just about everything else has. Brinn is on the brink!