Contributed by VBC staff member, Liz Tvedt.
When the world was introduced to Caitlyn Jenner yesterday, my curiosity was piqued more than I thought it would be. I read all about the Vanity Fair cover shoot and looked through a dozen glamorous photos of the former Olympian with new feminine features donning beautiful dresses. I went on to read a few commentary articles about the transition, in which some called it “heroic” and other’s severely criticized it.
Until the official “introduction” yesterday, my only real reaction to the Bruce saga was my frustration that once again the media was worshiping a clearly confused man. Even yesterday I initially found myself rolling my eyes and thinking “who even cares”- after all, isn’t this what we’ve come to expect from perverted and provocative Hollywood? And then I read the following excerpt from the USA Today article:
“Bruce always had to tell a lie,” Jenner said in a video released by the magazine. “He was always living a lie. Every day, he always had a secret, from morning till night. Caitlyn doesn’t have any secrets.”
“As soon as the Vanity Fair cover comes out, I’m free.”
For Jenner, the “Call me Caitlyn” cover reveal means liberation from a life of lies. It’s about shutting the door on a painful past and opening a door to a new future. It’s about confusion ending and confidence beginning. It’s the exchange of one identity for another.
I want you to ask yourself the same questions I now sit here considering; “Who wouldn’t want all those things? Who wouldn’t want to be free?” FREEDOM is the very thing that every person is looking for. Freedom from guilt, freedom from the past, and sometimes even freedom from ones self. Jenner has given the world a vivid example of the desperate measures someone is willing to take to escape from their reality. Perhaps creating Caitlyn is really an attempt to create a new true self, a new identity.
Let me clarify that I am in no way condoning or justifying Jenner’s decision to embrace the transgendered lifestyle. I am shocked that our culture is so supportive of this choice but that’s not the conversation topic for today. What I AM doing is asking my fellow believers to get over however repulsed they might be by the sin around them and let their ears hear our culture’s cry of desperation, the cry for identity. It’s louder that it’s ever been before.
Let’s talk about calling her Caitlyn. Did Jenner succeed? Did he find the freedom he was convinced he’d find on the other side of a transgender transition? Does calling Bruce by the name Caitlyn solidify the transition into a true identity? Maybe the real question is, do any of humanity’s desperate attempts to escape the lies and limitations in life ever truly succeed?
The apostle Paul describes that sense of self-loathing and internal discontentment as being a slave. When we have no sense of identity, we have no sense of purpose. When we have no sense of purpose, we never feel like we are accomplishing what we were meant to accomplish. We are powerless to change the pain in our lives. What’s really interesting about Bruce Jenner’s reaction to the discontentment in his life was that he is completely right in that he needed a new identity. A new identity is the ONLY freedom from being a slave to sin, a slave to regret, and a slave to confusion.
I love what Paul says in Galatians 4:7: ” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” The identity exchange that is made available to every person is to be a child of God, to be adopted as an heir. When a believer realizes what sonship really means, everything changes. Romans 12:2, which is Paul again, says ” Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Our nature changes as a child of God- we are transformed. And it’s out of that transformation that we can recognize the perfect will of God for our lives- our purpose. It’s what makes the most confused and desperate people realize there is hope.
So when you see #CaitlynJenner trending for the next few weeks, don’t let it frustrate or repulse you. Instead, let it be a reminder to stop and listen for the cries of desperation in the world around us. Who is hurting? Who is living in confusion? Who feels overwhelmed with the lies in their life? Who needs freedom?
Who needs a new identity?