Ephesians 6:11-13 says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”
When socially conservative fundamentalist Christians – evangelicals and Pentecostals, for example – speak of a culture war, many of these folk are thinking in terms of spiritually putting on the full armor of God to battle their spiritual enemies. And, many of these socially conservative Christians believe that LGBT community members are their spiritual enemies.
Verses 14-17 of that same chapter in Ephesians tell us what the pieces of spiritual armor are: “Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
In the recent discussions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) in red states across the country, we’ve heard discussions of whether these bills are swords to be used to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, or whether these bills are shields to protect someone from engaging in some behavior that causes them to violate a tenant of their faith.
In a culture war where the sword of the Spirit includes a number of Biblical passages interpreted to condemn “homosexual behavior,” and the shield is the faith that supports those interpretations, it only matters that the spiritual armor is worn for warfare against those perceived to be agents of the devil.
Well, in late March in Denison, Texas, a mother took a five-year old tomboy to Martha’s Miniatures to buy, from the boys department, an Easter suit. A representative of the store allegedly responded with disgust; a representative of the store allegedly stated that the mother was engaging in child abuse by allowing the tomboy to choose to wear a suit on Easter instead of an Easter dress.
If the store would have been in one of a number of the larger Texas cities, this would’ve been considered anti-LGBT discrimination. If an RFRA were in place that looked like the ones initially put forward in Indiana and Arkansas, then even in those large Texas cities their antidiscrimination laws would have been rendered void if faith were claimed as a reason why a business discriminated.
Deuteronomy 22:5 is a quotable reference: “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”
Given the context of the full armor of God, do we need to want to be in a position where we’re discussing with evangelical and Pentecostal Christians whether any law that allows a store to not sell a boy’s suit to a five-year old tomboy is a sword or a shield?
Well, without an RFRA that impacts dealings between two private parties, Martha’s Miniatures has turned a child into someone they believe is one of the forces of darkness; into one of the forces of wickedness. An RFRA wasn’t needed in Denison, Texas to discriminate against a five-year-old whose gender expression didn’t meet a store clerk’s standard for appropriate gendered behavior.
In fact, in Texas, Florida and Minnesota, where bills are in the legislative pipelines that are set to restrict transgender students’ use of school restrooms to the gender assigned at birth, our LGBT community’s trans children are functionally perceived as child soldiers serving the schemes of the devil.
And, of course, when these socially conservative Christians argue against marriage equality, it’s not just the couples themselves that these spiritual swords and shields are wielded against, but the children of our LGBT community’s same gender marriages.
This culture war of spiritually armored soldiers is not just an adult’s war, it’s a children’s war – make no mistake about it.
