The Wrath of Dragons
Why We Hate to Love Our Heroes
This article will address our fear of standing against the world, our love-hate relationship with knights who do stand firm, and practical ways we can start to take up the truth and do battle with the monsters that seek to devour us.
Sleep a little longer…
It is undeniable that we are in a world where evil prowls. All men know this to be true, despite rationalizing away the personification of evil. But being the self-preserving creatures that we are, we seek to hide from this evil for as long as we can. But when it raises its head, we are forced to recognize that reality is full of monsters and monstrous men.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. (Eph. 6:12, NET)
But we forget this as we are lulled to sleep by the comfort the the world offers. They show us the “kingdoms of the world” and beckon us to worship at the altar they call a cubicle. But someone has to take their money, right? When the dragons awake, we are forced to make a judgment about the trades we have made. Do we wake and ready ourselves to suffer, or do we ask for 5 more minutes of that sweet sleep? What’s that, take my neighbor’s son? Sure, it’s not mine, what is it to me? Just let me know his pronouns so I can keep my job and status.
The Dragons are Awake
The shooting that we saw in Nashville is the tip of an iceberg. It’s the beginning of something…what people have to understand is that…these trans activists are incredibly vicious, hateful, violent, they believe they are entitled to do whatever they want to do — whatever they feel like they need to do — to people that oppose them. — Matt Walsh1
On March 27th, 6 victims were gunned down by a shooter with gender dysphoria. What should have been an out pouring of sympathy to the CHRISTIAN victims of the Nashville shooting, was instead met with leaders and institutions celebrating “Transgender Day of Visibility”. One such post came from the POTUS account on Twitter in which he uses Christian language to affirm transgender ideology.
The president is slanting the meaning of the words “Imago Dei” as if being made in the image of God permits you to change your gender. It doesn’t. This is a logical fallacy, known as slanting. “Slanting is when a term is used to 'slant' a statement or description in favor of your position without justification.”2 Transgender ideology is wrong precisely because it denies the biological connection between the Imago Dei and biological realities. To deny our biological gender is to deny God, and for Biden to twist God's words around while his Christian brothers and sisters are suffering is disgusting.
These are the kinds of behaviors that lead to persecution of a people group. As Solzhenitsyn says of the Communist Russians, they are experts at killing two birds with one stone. If you speak up against the transgender community, you are a bigot and you deserve what you got. If you are silent, then more trans violence against the Christian community is permitted. This kind of sophistry was used regularly by the communists, and Solzhenitsyn goes into great lengths to point this out. Once you read Solzehitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, you realize that it is highly unlikely that your government is working hard on your behalf.
So what do you do in response to this kind of garbage? For most of us, and I will be the first to raise my hand on this, we put our heads down and pray that our employers, churches, or schools will not put us into a position to take a side. We hope they will let us go about our work so we can keep our nice house, insurance plan, boat, and pay for the kids’ private school. After all, it will all blow over. Right…right? Wrong. When the government and the culture are venerating communities after a their representative has slaughtered children, it’s extremely unlikely this will just blow over.
Dragons, Knights, and Cowards
Do you know Billboard Chris? No? Allow me to get you up to speed. Billboard Chris travels around with a billboard hanging from his neck. The sign around his neck denounces transgenderism by proclaiming that real parents protect their kids from gender ideologies. He is a sort of street preacher of biological reality, and the dragons do not like him (as you can see in the video below). Despite the violence against him, he continues to go to work.
“He’s just one guy. It’s not like he’s making a difference.” This is the trope of the doubter in virtually every inspirational film. In my own life, every major accomplishment I achieved was preceded by someone, often a close person, telling me I wouldn’t succeed. I’m sure that Billboard Chris has experienced the same. But why do people do this to those who are fighting dragons?
When I see someone like Chris stoically facing a sea of monsters by himself, I’m forced to ask the question, “What happens if this keeps moving and we lose the fight on gender?” Answer: your children and my children will become temple prostitutes in the religion of gender ideology. That is the dragon and it spares no child.
Chris is a hero. So what does that make those observing him and others in the world’s coliseum? Observers? Witnesses? Cowards?
What we desire is for people like Chris to be a superhero and solve the problem for us, or we want him to fail; whatever happens, we don’t want to feel his success is dependent on our actions. If he succeeds, we can say “Whew…see, he didn’t need my help.” If he fails, then we can justify our gutless decisions as “trying to be compassionate”, or we can chalk our decisions up to wisdom, anything but cowardice. If heroes like Chris, Matt Walsh, Moms for Liberty, James Lindsay, Jordan Peterson, Michael Knowles, etc., do in fact fail, then why the hell should we speak up and try to make a difference?
We all know that there are dragons in the world, but when the knights “go to work”, we must ask ourselves: what’s expected of me in this fight? What role do I play?
Grant Us Courage
There are many practical things we can do, but the one practical thing we must do is speak up when friends or family are going along with the narratives surrounding gender ideology or any other form of LGBT ideology. As an example, you could follow what I’m doing with Solomon’s Corner. I write and I make pens for other intellectuals and try to encourage a life that seeks the good, the true, and the beautiful, also known as The Intellectual Life. One of the reasons I started Solomon’s Corner, was not because I thought it would shift the tide or become an overnight success, but because I thought it was something God wanted me to do.
This is nothing like what Chris and others are doing, but it’s what I can muster at this moment. I hope you will do the same—that is, discern what you can muster in this moment. I will write more this week on practical ways we cowardly knights can get involved in this fight. Subscribe to get the update. For now, seek what is good, true, and beautiful, and be inspired by guys like this…and #KeepThinking:
Matt Walsh, DailyWire Backstage. (2023, April 4). The LIBS’ New Plan… Indict The Right. Daily Wire. Retrieved from https://www.dailywire.com/episode/the-libs-new-plan-indict-the-right-v at 29:30 mark.
Fun fact, I googled the definition of Slanting and found one of my old articles on the subject from back in seminary: https://ses.edu/logical-fallacies-101-slanting/
This article reminds me to take heed of the words of the Serenity Prayer. I often fail on the courage and wisdom parts. But I'm praying for both in such a RMS as this.