There is a Dark Power at work….
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Blue Ridge Style & Beyond
In a culture that increasingly confuses affirmation with compassion, we risk ignoring some very disturbing truths.
Last week, court documents revealed that Nicholas Roske, the man who plotted the assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, now identifies as a transgender woman named “Sophie.” Roske was arrested in 2022 outside Kavanaugh’s home, armed with a gun and burglary tools. He admitted to targeting not only Kavanaugh, but other justices, in response to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
This isn’t just an isolated incident. According to the Justice Department’s sentencing memo, Roske had spent months researching, planning, and preparing for the attack. He looked up how to break into homes, strangle someone, and escape prosecution. He studied the anatomy of the head and neck. He searched mass shooting footage and sniper techniques. All to eliminate jurists whose legal opinions conflicted with his ideology.
This was a politically motivated assassination attempt—by someone immersed in pro-abortion and transgender-affirming circles.
Unfortunately, Roske’s story is not unique.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed a growing number of violent incidents involving individuals either identifying as transgender or deeply embedded in trans-activist ideology:
These are not mere outliers. Each case represents a violent collision of grievance-based identity politics with moral nihilism. Each involves individuals who had become deeply politicized in the context of gender identity or allied ideologies. And in each case, the targets were Christians, conservatives, or children.
When violence is repeatedly justified or rationalized on the basis of perceived “oppression,” it becomes clear that we are dealing with more than mental illness. We’re dealing with an ideological deformation of conscience.
These violent acts raise urgent questions about the psychological and spiritual consequences of building one’s identity around inner feelings detached from truth, nature, or moral law.
When people are told that their subjective sense of gender is sacred—and that opposing it is tantamount to violence—we should not be surprised when violence becomes their chosen response to disagreement.
When political movements elevate personal identity over public morality, and self-definition over objective truth, they create the conditions for extremism. They reward victimhood with moral license. They justify hatred of anyone seen as standing in the way of “liberation.”
This isn’t compassion. It’s chaos.
And it’s being fueled—unwittingly or not—by cultural elites, academic theorists, corporate sponsors, and even church leaders who confuse mercy with moral surrender.
There was a time not long ago when political violence was uniformly condemned—regardless of the source. But we now live in a moment where leftist rage is often indulged, and even celebrated, as “understandable” or “justified.”
When pro-life groups are firebombed, or Christian schools are targeted by shooters, or conservative justices are hunted in the night—too many remain silent. The media covers it reluctantly. Activists deflect. Politicians equivocate.
But violence is violence.
The attempted assassination of a Supreme Court Justice is not a form of protest. It’s terrorism. And when it comes from someone driven by a radicalized view of gender and justice, we should stop pretending this is a coincidence.
As Christians, we must be both compassionate and clear. Those who struggle with gender confusion deserve our prayers, our care, and our truth-speaking—not our silence.
But compassion does not mean complicity.
The gospel calls us to affirm that we are not self-created. We are made in the image of God—male and female. To reject that creational truth is to invite disorder into the soul and body, and eventually into the world.
Christians must be prepared to name this disorder—not with hatred, but with courage. Because love without truth is just sentiment. And truth without love is just noise. But love with truth? That is the medicine our world desperately needs.
If you’re wondering whether this trend of violence will continue, ask yourself: are the cultural forces driving it slowing down?
Until the church finds the courage to speak plainly about the dangers of identity idolatry, and until society recovers a moral center rooted in something higher than self-expression, we will continue to reap what we have sown.
And the fruit will not be peace.
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“Grace and Truth Came Through Jesus“
(John 1:17)
Originally posted Oct 2021 (but still relevant.)
In exclusive interviews, two prominent providers sound off on puberty blockers, ‘affirmative’ care, the inhibition of sexual pleasure, and the suppression of dissent in their field.
A must read interview of two top Trans doctors by ‘my gal’ Abigail Shrier. It’s all about the inappropriate medicalization of dysphoric youth. And although Shrier doesn’t say it, I will, this and other recent developments1In May the Karolinska Institute, the same institute that awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine, advised its hospital to stop hormone treatments and surgery for young people under 18! vindicate the thesis of her book.
Here are a few quotes from the piece and some comments from me in [brackets] & bold italics:
(the) new orthodoxy (affirmative care) has gone too far, according to two of the most prominent providers in the field of transgender medicine: Dr. Marci Bowers, a world-renowned vaginoplasty specialist who operated on reality-television star Jazz Jennings; and Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist at the University of California San Francisco’s Child and Adolescent Gender Clinic.
[Both of whom are Transgender “women.” Bowers has built or repaired more than 2,000 vaginas, the procedure known as vaginoplasty.]
Earlier this month, Anderson told me she submitted a co-authored op-ed to The New York Times warning that many transgender healthcare providers were treating kids recklessly. The Times passed, explaining it was “outside our coverage priorities right now.”
[What! With many in Europe questioning the Dutch Protocol and halting the distribution of puberty blockers and hormones to anyone under the age of 18,2In May the Karolinska Institute, the same institute that awards the Nobel Prize in Medicine, advised its hospital to stop hormone treatments and surgery for young people under 18! the NY Times says the issue of dispensing puberty blockers to children is “outside our coverage priorities right now.” Unbelievable! You can read about what’s happening in Europe, here and here. When one of the leading trans-surgeons in the world says gender clinicians are being “reckless” that’s not a story to tell? ]
The problem for kids whose puberty has been blocked early isn’t just a lack of tissue but of sexual development. Puberty not only stimulates growth of sex organs. It also endows them with erotic potential. “If you’ve never had an orgasm pre-surgery, and then your puberty’s blocked, it’s very difficult to achieve that afterwards,” Bowers said. “I consider that a big problem, actually. It’s kind of an overlooked problem that in our ‘informed consent’ of children undergoing puberty blockers, we’ve in some respects overlooked that a little bit.”
[Can you say lawsuits? To all those clinicians and surgeons who assured children and parents that puberty blockers were “totally reversible” the trial lawyers are lining up.]
I asked Bowers about the rise of detransitioners, young women who have come to regret transitioning. Many said they were given a course of testosterone on their first visit to a clinic like Planned Parenthood. “When you have a female-assigned person and she’s feeling dysphoric, or somebody decides that she’s dysphoric and says your eating disorders are not really eating disorders, this is actually gender dysphoria, and then they see you for one visit, and then they recommend testosterone — red flag!” Bowers said. “Wake up here.”
[If you follow this Planned Parenthood link you will see they boldly advertise “Planned Parenthood staff may be able to start hormone therapy as early as the first visit.” Look below the section telling you about their locations in Texas.]
Wake up indeed.
The part in the story about world famous celebrity Jazz Jennings (male to female transgender “woman”) is illuminating. And heart breaking. Even after all “her” celebrity and financial compensation in the millions, Jazz admitted in 2021 to an eating disorder where “she” gained over 100 pounds in two years. It looks like “her” transition is not going smoothly. As you read that part of the piece and the parts about surgical procedures, ask yourself the question: Who is the Conversion Therapist?
Shrier’s piece is one of the best articles you’ll read on the subject. So…..
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If you’ve just found my blog and are intrigued about this issue, and want to learn more, I highly recommend a book by Abigail Shrier.
Shrier is a graduate of Columbia College who went on to earn a bachelor of philosophy degree from the University of Oxford and a JD from Yale Law School. Her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters was named a “best book” by The Economist and The Times of London. [2020, 2021]
Full disclosure. I recently became an Amazon Affiliate. So I will receive a very small percentage of the sale of any books I recommend on my blog. Just so you know.
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As a Classic Christian I encourage everyone to “Embrace, Don’t Affirm” those with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria). Please read this post for more details.