“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked…”
Ephesians 2:1-2A
Introduction
Recently, Australian news sources have been abuzz with plans for a bill outlawing conversion therapy to be passed in New South Wales. Though I do not think that we have any direct access to what the Australian bill contains, looking at our (New Zealand’s) conversion therapy act passed in 2022 will surely do some good.1 I will briefly provide an overview of the bill in this section, list two objections against our bill in the second section, and then address a deeper issue, namely the fundamental conflict of the Christian Gospel and conversion therapy bills.2
The explicit aim of the New Zealand conversion therapy bill is twofold: to “recognise and prevent harm caused by conversion practices” and to “promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” A conversion practice is defined as a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that “is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” and which is performed “with the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
“Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.'”
Exodus 1:15-16
“You are the child,” said Mr. Tumnus. “I had orders from the White Witch that if ever I saw a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve in the wood, I was to catch them and hand them over to her. And you are the first I ever met. And I’ve pretended to be your friend and asked you to tea, and all the time I’ve been meaning to wait till you were asleep and then go and tell her.”
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
I do not believe Lewis’ mention of the White Witch’s command against any “Son of Adam” or “Daughter of Eve” was arbitrarily chosen. Namely, when the White Witch commanded Tumnus to catch any child of Adam or Eve and give them to her, it was not merely because of her general malice. She, like her real-world analogue Satan, has a specific agenda against children. In addressing this agenda, this article will be split into two parts. The first part addresses why this agenda is the case. The second part discusses specific cultural manifestations of this agenda. However, before all this, a few preliminary comments on supernaturalism must be made.
Supernaturalism simply refers to belief in the supernatural. The supernatural is stuff outside the natural, things that cannot be accounted for through empirical evidence or scientific experiments. The supernatural includes God, demons, Satan, angels, and so on. Though these supernatural entities exert influence on the natural world, they themselves are not part of it. God is spirit (Jn. 4:24), angels are called “ministering spirits” (Heb. 1:14), and demons and Satan, on account of being fallen angels (Rev. 12:7-8), are spirits too.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
EPHESIANS 2:1-3
The Irony of Christ’s Trial1
The soldiers plunged the crown of thorns into Jesus’ head, undoubtedly rendering a skin-piercing agony. They placed Him in a scarlet robe, handed Him a scepter, and with malicious sarcasm, they hailed Him. They struck Him and asked Him to prophesy who had done so (Matt. 27:27–31; see also Mk. 15:16-20; Lk. 22:63-65, 23:9-11; Jn. 19:1-16). Later, on the hallowed ground of Calvary, Pilate hammered the sign above Jesus’ head that read “’Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’”. When asked to change what he had written to something less offensive, perhaps something less prone to misinterpretation, Pilate did not oblige (Jn. 19:19–22).
All of this harmonious cacophony served as a terrible yet joyfully juxtaposed irony. Those involved in Jesus’ trial knew not what they did, as our Lord prayed with dying breath (Lk. 23:34). But what they did was, in one sense, accurate. They crucified the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8) but also crowned Him. They placed Him, the true King of kings and Lord of lords, in a scarlet robe (Rev. 17:14). The one prophesied to be the ultimate and true Davidic King who would shatter rebels with a rod of iron was handed a scepter (Ps. 2). The one asked to prophesy who had struck Him would be in a little while struck by His Father for the sins of His people (Is. 53:4). The one who hung on the cross as bystanders walked by and gazed at the sign above His head will, at the end of time, be rightly hailed as the King of the Jews by knee-bending humanity (Phil. 2:9-11).
Therefore, even in the depraved mocking and evil actions of wretched mankind, there shone this peculiar divine irony of what was to be: salvation for mankind, wrought by no other than the King of kings. Based on this wrought salvation, if the soldiers had faith in Christ, as the centurion presumably did (Matt. 27:54), then this irony became actuated in their lives in glorious salvation, in the transfer from the arena of darkness into Christ’s kingdom (Col. 1:13-14). If the soldiers did not, then their actions only furthered their condemnation. The incarnate Word, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14), stood before them, and in their blindness, they rejected His gracious figure.
