Reality Check Pt. 2

The 39% lost in the "metaverse"

Perhaps you saw the recent report from Foundations of Freedom titled “Millenials in America”. George Barna, who now does cultural research at Arizona Christian University, laid out his findings regarding this generation which comprises roughly one third of our nation’s adult population. You might find the results concerning.

The one stat that catches my eye is this: 39% of those aged 18-24 identify as LGBTQ. How did this happen?

Some would say this has always been the case, but now that the culture and Church are more accepting, there’s a new-found freedom to come out. But I believe it has much more to do with where we find our clues as to what is true and real.

Last week I posted thoughts gleaned from Steve Seamands’s book The Unseen Real: Life in the light of the Ascension of Jesus. In Chapter One, he poses the following question: “What Old Testament verse is either directly quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more than any other?” The answer will surprise you.

No, it’s not from Isaiah 53. Nor is it about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22). The verse that is directly or indirectly referred to twenty times is Psalm 110:1: “The LORD says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” (NRSV)

As I stated last week, those who saw the heavens open and Jesus rise to take his place at the Father’s right hand began to live and die with that reality firmly fixed in their minds. Their rallying cry was their creed: “Jesus is Lord!”

For them, heaven was the greater reality. This brief life was to be lived while fixing our minds upon what is above (Col. 3:1-2). In fact, disciples of Jesus should judge all elements of this world by what has been revealed from the next world.

We interpret the struggles, sorrows, conflicts, stresses, and other phenomenon as the Apostle Paul did—in light of the “eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” This is why he urges us to “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen . . .” (2 Cor. 4:17, 18 NIV).

Good parents, I believe, keep toddlers from watching horror flicks. They just don’t have the equipment on board to conclude, “Hey, it’s only a movie. It’s not real!”

OK, even as an adult, I don’t always have the equipment on board! I can find it difficult to detach myself and say, “Get a grip, Mark. It’s just a flick! There are no flying monkeys with little caps! Witches can’t really ride brooms!”

So go with me one step further. Now we have Virtual Reality. Not just those goggles you can wear to visualize yourself swimming with sharks. The entire internet has become a virtual reality. It is difficult to discern what is true or real from anything we find there.

This is especially true when unbiased media has all but vanished. CNN and NPR have become extensions of the DNC, and Fox is a cheerleader for the Republican right. How can we know the facts anymore?

Last week’s drama was the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. One news source made him sound like a racist vigilante who had crossed state lines to cause chaos. Another source assured that he was a misunderstood young man with honorable intentions, even if misguided.

And so each of us process what we find in the news and on social media, deciding for ourselves what is real.

This, of course, has accelerated the polarization among us. But for younger minds, it has created chaos with sexual matters.

In May through July, I wrote a number of posts about the Trans craze among teen girls. Around 2012, when cell phones were becoming glued to the palms of teens, adolescent girls (mostly middleclass and white) began to identify as Trans. Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage blames the podcasts, YouTube celebrities, and chatrooms, all of which urge girls to understand their inner adolescent anxieties as symptoms of gender dysphoria. These progressive propagandists urge them toward altering their bodies and shunning their parents.

This is tragic enough. But imbibing social media via cell phones has also fueled the rise in teen suicide, bullying, and other maladies. There just isn’t the ability to discern online“virtual reality” from reality itself.

Antonio Garcia Martinez, posting on Bari Weiss’s Common Sense blog, makes the case that increasingly, people are taking the “metaverse” of the internet as the lens through which they interpret life around them. Note what he writes:

I used to think that online life constituted the shadows in Plato’s allegory of the cave, and those craning their necks into phones all day were the poor souls chained down and forced to watch the meaningless digital flickers of reality . . .

Now, everyone is a cultural in-betweener, living a somewhat dissociated life between the mental world they’ve constructed with the aid of screens and algorithms, and the physical world that both feeds them and imposes a legal framework. If you look closely, every major debate in the culture war is over which narrative to pluck from the virtual realm and use as a guide for the ‘real’ world that is now downstream of the digital version.

Techies will literally invent an entirely new plane of human existence rather than offering to fix the pressing problems of the ‘meatspace’ world. The problem, once again, is that we’re all willing to follow them there, and make the real world subordinate to the metaverse one. 

This brings me back to the 39%. Prior to 2012, reliable research found that 6% of men and 2% of women experienced at least some degree of same-sex attraction. As for an indelible orientation to the same sex, it was 2% men, 1% women. Instances of gender dysphoria were far fewer.

But now we are inundated with commercials, TV shows, movies, and myriad internet sources which make it seem sexual fluidity ebbs and flows continually. In more progressive states, there’s a push for this in K-12. Is this a passing fad? Or will we see the percentage of young adults exceed 50% in ten years?

OK, enough hand-wringing. What do we as followers of Jesus do?

First of all, recognize that we are in a mission field. Continue to figure out the best way to make disciples in your context, urging believers to get a firm grip on the scriptures. YouTube clips and text message prayers are devotional fast food. Set the table for them.

Remember the Bereans? As Paul and Silas taught about Jesus, they “examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:10). They were determining what was real by searching God’s revealed word.

Include in your discipleship a theology of sexuality. Not just a few verses here and there which forbid certain behaviors. Explain God’s design. Give the big picture of what we believe.

Increasingly, I find it necessary to discuss a theology of sexuality with some of my counselees. There is so much idolatrous confusion infiltrating the Church. And so I make them read the chapters on theology found in my book Into the Light. There are certainly many other resources available today, but I believe what I’ve written is comprehensive, readable, and easy to understand.

And finally, look for ways to be equipped to help people with deep sexual brokenness. As a new generation is plunged beneath the Sexual Tsunami, we must become more skilled in how we offer prayer ministry.

More on this stuff later. Keep your surfboards ready!