Have you ever been stopped at a traffic signal, just blissfully listening to the radio and thinking about your workday, or the milk and bread that you need to pick up from the store on your way home, when you suddenly get the sensation that you are moving? You quickly press harder on the brake, because it could be catastrophic to roll into the middle of a busy intersection. What is the next thing you do? You look outside of your car to see if you are really moving. But what do you look at?

You could just look at the vehicle next to you but ( you may be ahead of me here) you may not find the truth there. Why? Because it is a subjective rather than an objective measurement. It may lead you to a false and even dangerous conclusion. Let me explain.

If the car next to you appears to be going backwards, you may actually be creeping forwards, in which case you are in danger and must act immediately. However, the other car could actually be rolling backwards, in which case you are safe but need to warn the other driver. If it appears to be still, you may both be stationary. However, you could both be creeping in either direction at the same speed, which will give you a false sense that you are safe. How can you tell what is really happening?

What you need is a fixed point of reference. An objective standard. Something unmoving against which you can measure. Then you can know the truth and act accordingly. What we are describing is a principle that is not only necessary for negotiating traffic, but absolutely imperative for navigating life, and never more so than in this present age.

A World Gone Mad

Have you ever read the headlines or watched the evening news and wondered if the world has gone mad? It seems an inescapable conclusion, just panning across the current culture, that people have lost their tether to reality. Objective truths which for long ages have been widely known and commonly understood now elude our modern, highly educated, and enlightened thinkers who, "Professing to be wise, ... became fools..." (Romans 1:22).

The instances supporting this assertion are legion, but for the purposes of this article let's examine one current example to illustrate the point.

Male or Female?

Stretching back across all of recorded history, people have recognized and acknowledged the differences between male and female. It's a distinction which is obvious even to little children who know the difference between a mommy and a daddy. By the time that a child can utter their first words, they know whether their sibling is a brother or a sister.

Even without advanced degrees in biology, anatomy, and physiology, people from ancient times were somehow able to easily and successfully distinguish between the sexes. Our largely agrarian forbearers would simply point to the birds and the bees to instruct their little ones about these fundamental truths so obvious they were literally called "the facts of life."

As concrete evidence for whether those "primitive" people of ages past were calculating correctly, I would point you to the fact that we are here. That means that men and women successfully discerned the difference between male and female thereby producing fruitful marriages which eventually produced you and me.

Objectively, a person is male or female based, not on feelings, but biology, anatomy, and physiology. There are clear distinctions between people who have two X chromosomes (female) and those who have an X and a Y chromosome (male). These differences, though unseen by the naked eye, produce the manifold and more visible differences in male and female anatomy. Even more subtle differences in gender expression such as task versus people orientation, verbal versus visual affinity, linear versus non-linear thinking, can be largely if not entirely explained by physiological differences in male and female neurological (brain) development.

Until quite recently, if a person's subjective feelings did not match their objective biology, i.e. a biological male felt as if he were a woman trapped in a man's body, they would be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, a dysfunction of perception. The goal of their treatment was to work towards correcting their subjective feelings to correspond to objective reality. This is akin to helping a person who has body dysphoria (say, believing that they are fat when they are dangerously thin) to retrain their perception so that what looks and feels like a healthy body to them corresponds to what actually is objectively a healthy body.

Man, I Feel Like a Woman!

In today's post-modern world, however, we have elevated subjective feelings above objective reality. Those presumably better educated and more "enlightened" thinkers from psychiatrists to surgeons have cast off the arcane restraints of objective reality and proclaimed that you are whatever sex you feel like you are at the moment. If your feelings are contradicted by objective measures such as biology, anatomy, and physiology, then the objective measures must be chemically or surgically altered to correspond to your feelings. Reality must be manipulated to conform to your feelings.

Of course, such cosmetic alterations cannot eradicate a person's biological sex. A man can be made to look like a woman, but he will still have an X and a Y chromosome. His brain will still be structurally and therefore functionally, male. He will not ovulate, nor be able to conceive and bear children. So that after multiple surgeries, prescriptions, and hundreds of hours of therapy costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, a person will still be the same sex they were before. While scientific advancements can make a man a clever and perhaps convincing imitation of a woman, it actually has no power to change a person's sex.

What is more shocking than medical professionals with strong financial incentives choosing to profit from supporting an objectively false delusion, is that all of society has immediately and indeed enthusiastically decided to play along. Perhaps feeling that they too are intelligent, enlightened, and well educated, professors, newscasters, actors, and legislators alike have decided that we must heartily praise the courage of those who bravely cast aside objective reality in service to their subjective feelings. A person is, they with one voice affirm, whatever sex they identify as, and anyone who does not acknowledge and indeed celebrate those feelings to be reality is a hateful, intolerant, bigoted transphobe.

Why Stop There?

But if subjective feelings are really the ultimate test of truth, and relying on objective measures to confirm reality is genuinely hateful, intolerant, and dare we say it, wrong; then why should we stop at applying it to gender identity? Why shouldn't we apply our enlightenment consistently?

Imagine going to a job interview for a neurosurgeon's position at Johns Hopkins and demanding to be hired because you identify as the most qualified candidate and you feel like a highly skilled surgeon. Never mind that you have had no medical training and are not board certified, that sort of objective reasoning is hateful and intolerant. Should you be given the job? Would you want that kind of "surgeon" to perform your procedure?

What if you go to the bank for a home loan to finally buy that Beverly Hills mansion you have always wanted? Would your banker be wrong for denying your loan on the basis of your negative account balance, poor credit, and complete lack of income? "But I identify as a billionaire. I genuinely feel like I am filthy rich!" you loudly protest in your moral outrage. Would you give a person like you that loan?

Or let's say that you were pulled over for reckless driving and explained to the officer that you identify as a good driver and feel like you were obeying the speed limit. Would he be wrong or hateful for pointing out that his radar clocked you going 30 mph over the limit? Should you get a ticket?

Of course these examples are patently absurd, and that is precisely the point. We already know that feelings are subjective and transitory and often don't correlate to the real world. We would be as foolish to navigate life by them as we would to negotiate traffic by them. What we need in making moral decisions as we do in our opening traffic signal example, is a fixed point of reference. An objective standard. Something unmoving against which we can measure. Then we can know the truth and act accordingly.

Jesus Is The Truth

Jesus made the boldest and most profound statement ever uttered. The magnitude of His claim is equaled only by the evidence He gave us of its unimpeachable veracity. "...I am the way, and the truth, and the life..." (John 14:6). Not only did Jesus claim to tell the truth, but to be the truth in His nature and character-the literal embodiment of truth. He challenged the hypocritical Pharisees who insisted on a sign (with no intention of actually conforming their lives to even irrefutable evidence) to test that claim by the evidence of His then future resurrection. "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and {yet} no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40).

He also confirmed His disciples' faith by reminding them of the prophecies about Him, particularly the resurrection."...Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be handed over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again" (Luke 18:31).

So Jesus, far from insisting that we rely on subjective feelings, pointed to the objective evidence of the ancient prophecies which were perfectly fulfilled in Him and the fact that He would physically rise from the dead to confirm our faith in Him and His claims. For any one of us, His empty tomb, and the detailed prophecies concerning His life, are readily available for us to examine. They are some of the most scrutinized, studied, and widely confirmed facts in all of history. The One who is the truth, showed us the way, and proved He is the life by conquering the grave. He gave us every reason to trust Him. Concerning the two sexes, Jesus said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?" (Matthew 19:4) Gender is a creation of God.

But How Can A Person Be The Truth?

Simply stated, in order for a person to be the truth, they would have to be God. Every created thing within the universe, and in fact the universe itself, is temporary and changing. This is the very definition of subjective, and the reason why subjective reasoning is unreliable. Only the One who created all things, who is unchanging and eternal, can be in His very person the objective measure by which all subjective things can be accurately known. Only the omniscient One can make detailed prophesies thousands of years beforehand and then fulfill them to the letter. Only the Author of life has the power to conquer death and raise Himself from the grave. That is who Jesus is.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was the life, and the life was the Light of men" (John 1:1-4)

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:15-17).

The Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever

As God, Jesus is a fixed point of reference, eternal and unchanging. There is literally nothing else- not ourselves, not our feelings, and not the prevailing opinion of the day- by which we can safely navigate moral intersections of life. In His example and His Word alone we find a solid, unwavering foundation for living. "Jesus Christ {is} the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father (Creator) of lights (stars in the heavens), with whom there is no variation or sifting sand" (James 1:17).

We Are All Choosing A Standard

Ultimately, we are all basing our decisions concerning not just what is male and female, but what is good and evil, what is wrong and right, on some chosen standard. We can choose to be our own standard, which is the moral equivalent of looking inside your own car while navigating in traffic- how often have we seen that lead to accidents? We can look to the prevailing opinion of society, which is like driving with your eyes on the cars next to you- of course if they are careening towards a ditch, so are you. Or we can fix our eyes on Jesus, a true and unchanging standard, which is like keeping your eyes on the road- a proven way to arrive safely at your destination. What are you choosing?

So What Is Your Foundation?

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it did not fall for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall" (Matthew 7: 24-27).