The Reality Wars

Stefonknee Wolscht doesn’t look like most six-year-olds, even when wearing frilly dresses and pigtails, and carrying a pink teddy named “Strawberry.”  This is because Stefonknee is a 6 ft. 2 in., 60-year-old male who identifies as a female and who sometimes feels the need to identify as a six-year-old girl.

In 2016, after 23 years of marriage and seven children, Paul Wolscht, a Canadian mechanic who had struggled with gender dysphoria and depression for years, decided to opt out of adult life and become a six-year-old girl. His wife had previously asked him to choose between his transgender desires or their marriage, and he had ended up in a homeless shelter and suicidal. A couple found his story online, “adopted” him, and helped him explore his new identity as six-year-old Stefonknee.¹

“I can’t deny I was married,” said Wolstch in 2016. “I can’t deny I have children. But I’ve moved forward now, and I’ve gone back to being a child. I don’t want to be an adult right now. I have a mommy and a daddy—an adopted mommy and daddy—who are totally comfortable with me being a little girl. And their children and their grandchildren are totally supportive.”²

Seven years on, Stefonknee still uses playtime as a six-year-old girl to cope with the stress of an adult world but states that it happens a lot less than it used to.³

Has The World Gone Mad?

Twenty years ago, Stefonknee would have been diagnosed with delusional thinking and treated for a serious mental disorder. Today we are told that people like Stefonknee are “working through their own truths.” What has changed?

What has changed is that society is losing its commitment to objective reality. We are asked to affirm people’s feelings of reality when to do so requires acceptance of obvious contradictions and the denial of common sense.

A society can’t function without shared objective truths. We rely on universally shared truths to think and communicate clearly. Imagine the chaos and disorientation that would result if we could independently determine the length of a mile or the direction of north? And in the realm of basic biology, notice how disorienting it has become as contradictory definitions of a woman are promoted.

In trying to make sense of the confusion that subjective reality causes, it’s not uncommon to hear statements like “That’s true for you, but not for me” or questions like “Does truth really exist?”

Perhaps we need to ask a more basic question: What is truth?

So What Is Truth?

Paul Copan shares that “at its root, truth is simply a matchup with reality.”⁴ We know things are true when they accurately reflect reality. We can judge statements like “the moon is made up of green cheese” or “the earth is flat” based on our shared understanding of reality. We agree on colors because we share an objective standard of reference for “the sky is blue” and “the grass is green.”

All functional societies have shared common facts. But the statement that you are merely expressing “your truth” or supporting others who express “their truth” undermines the concept of shared truth. So does the statement “that’s true for you but not for me.” We may each have opinions and feelings about truth, but we cannot claim those feelings and opinions as “truth” if we want to have shared common facts. Neither can we state that there is “no truth,” for this very declaration is a statement of fact! Choosing not to believe in the fact of objective reality is as consequential to a society as disregarding the law of gravity.

To summarize, there are universal truths and shared common facts that all functional societies must agree on. To believe otherwise is to contribute to confusion, the breakdown of society, and lawlessness.

Don’t Judge Me!

Whether they’re willing to admit it or not, one of the main reasons people claim that truth is relative is that they don’t want to be judged by an objective standard of morality. Many would prefer to live by half-truths and outright lies than to be held accountable to any moral authority.

In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul describes what happens to people who ignore undeniable evidence from nature that a divine Creator exists who runs His universe with both physical and moral laws. These moral laws are basic principles of behavior that even primitive societies understand, like children must obey their parents, we should not steal from others, liars can’t be trusted, murderers are evil, and sexual promiscuity brings sorrow and generational tragedy. But if we don’t want to believe that a moral Authority higher than a human court of law will one day call us to account for our actions, we will find elaborate explanations to deny His existence. Paul explains that in the process of eliminating God and His truth from our minds, we develop reprobate minds—minds without a conscience and capable of shocking lawlessness. See Rom. 1:18–32.

When whole societies reject God and live by lies, they become corrupt, depraved, and violent. This is how the Bible describes Noah’s generation: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. 6:5. A case could be made that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached a similar state of wickedness. See Genesis 13:13 and Genesis 19.

A number of prominent Protestant denominations with worldwide memberships have recently splintered on the issue of biblical sexuality—that sexual relations are reserved for one man and one woman within the sacred covenant of a monogamous marriage. Cultural progressives within these denominations have promoted the non-biblical view that as long as two men or two women are in a committed monogamous relationship, why not offer them the covenant of marriage?

Where Christianity is newer and truer to Scripture have stood surprisingly firm against these non-biblical viewpoints promoted from countries that first sent teachers with God’s Word to their shores.

I am reminded of the story of the South Pacific trader who happened upon a devout islander reading his Bible.

“Why are you wasting time on that book? In my country only the ignorant still believe its fairy tales and outdated advice.”

“Is that so?” replied the Christian in surprise. “You should be thankful that we treasure the truths of this book, because without it, we’d still be cannibals!”

If our culture can accept transgenderism and transageism, what’s next? Pedophilia? It’s time for you and me to take a firm stand on the objective reality of truth. We cannot afford to do otherwise.