“With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” 1 Peter 4:4-5
Near the Muskoka cottage where we spent our childhood summers, there was a spot along the river known simply as “the rapids.” Wide eyed and terrified, we were seldom allowed even a dip of our toes into the raging current. Stories of young adults swept into the whirlpools and never seen again were more than adequate to keep our little feet high on the rocks and out of the whitewater. If you got too close, if you somehow slipped, you could easily be washed away, never to be seen again.
This is not a post to reprove the reprobate masses, which at this point would clearly be “pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). My goal here is a breath of biblical oxygen for people still fighting the deluge of dissipation and debauchery trending constantly in our culture. Let me prayerfully attempt 5 Bruce Jenner Facts—for pastors preparing to preach and ministry leaders forced to converse on what the media pressures us all to think about.
1) Bruce Jenner is a man.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
A man has physical characteristics. Back in 1976 many of us saw him run, jump, and throw at a world-class level, winning Olympic gold in the decathlon. He may be a hurting, frustrated, confused man, but he is still a man. He can amputate his genitals and amplify his estrogen, put on a dress, paint his face, and wear hair extensions. But just as kids going door to door on halloween are not actually witches and warlocks, Bruce Jenner is not a woman simply because he has worked hard to look like one. If I had a surgeon attach a long gray hose to the center of my face and hang wide gray, leafy lobes from the sides of my head, I would not be an elephant. Ask a healthy heterosexual man if he could ever be sexually intimate with Bruce Jenner—not one will say yes, not one. He is a man, not a woman.
2) Bruce Jenner is a fallen man.
“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours…” James 5:17
Bruce Jenner has a fallen, sinful nature like the rest of us. He is tempted by lust, doubt, selfishness, and pride. He is inclined away from God and toward stubborn independence that seeks to resolve his personal pain and guilt apart from the One who made him. Just as the accolades of the adoring crowds drove his disciplined pursuit of Olympic glory, so now the applause of reprobate culture appears to fuel his effort to mask his fallen condition. Deep inside, Bruce knows that yielding to his personal proclivities does not procure him peace. Experience has taught him that more sin produces more shame. Incredibly, though, the hardened heart seldom slows, and actually accelerates, as the cliff approaches. That is why this fallen man did a radical thing in search of some relief from his personal misery, but does anyone really believe he has found it?
3) Bruce Jenner is a frustrated man.
“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14
Being a man is not easy. Biblical masculinity is hard work. It is authority questioned, responsibility laden, frequently unpopular, always burdensome work. Manhood, expressed in a Christlike manner, crushes your flesh, exhausts your capacity, and induces total dependance upon our heavenly Father. As heads of our households and servants in our churches, we are always under scrutiny, never without temptation to laxity, and continuously offered leisure as a substitute for needed leadership. In a day when weakness is applauded and certainty is derided, it is tough to take a stand and declare ‘thus says the Lord,’ yet this is what God’s men are commanded to model.
It is not masculine to verbally assault or insult Bruce Jenner, nor is it loving to condone what his own heart condemns. Where are the real men, speaking to him in love? Courageous enough to tell him that the cavity in his soul will not be filled by retreating from the weight of manhood? His much-publicized family of worldly women appears to have widened the wound he claims to have carried for a very long time. It is not the unresolved wound that is wrong, but the solution he has wandered into. As with all temptation, the answer to Bruce’s longing to be a woman is not to yield and run as far as he can in that direction. Relief of temptation is in refusing the lie of what is promised and finding by faith the refuge of Christ (Matthew 11:28-30). In a world where darkness grows by the day, it won’t be long till men want to be wolves and walruses, too. “LORD, teach us to number our days, that we might gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
4) Bruce Jenner is man at risk.
“Ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established.” Proverbs 4:26
I cannot begin to know the forces that have fueled Bruce Jenner’s retreat from manhood, but faux femininity will not give the freedom he has fantasized about. Even a tiny bit of research on Bruce Jenner reveals the heartache of a man cross-dressing beneath his sweatsuit during Olympic gold interviews. A victory Porsche given to the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ ended up taking his brother’s life in a tragic accident, even as Bruce Jenner appeared on boxes of Wheaties in grocery stores everywhere . . . failing at marriage and failing at fatherhood . . . a man who had given all for victory, longing for an escape from defeat, but he peaked early and never seemed able to reach those heights again. Instead Bruce Jenner became a man increasingly preoccupied, then addicted to, and finally consumed with his own narrative—true narcissism, had encroached and ultimately engulfed his life.
Immediately following sex-change surgery, accelerated to appease the producers of his upcoming reality show, Bruce Jenner reported immense doubt about such a radical, irreversible procedure. Study the stats on suicide (attempted by 41%) following such butchery. Listen to his regret in his interview with Diane Sawyer, even as he muses about the “roller coaster ahead” and where this journey will end. Is anyone listening to this poor man? Is no one in the media able to predict the crash coming to center stage of this circus? I feel great compassion for such a heartsick man, who is still a man though marred more than ever by his own self-absorption.
5) Bruce Jenner is man in need of the gospel.
“Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Luke 7:47
It was Augustine of Hippo who said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Bruce Jenner is an unhappy man in search of a soul satisfaction that can only be found in Jesus Christ. He needs what we all need—the love of God, the forgiveness of Christ, and the comforting peace of the Holy Spirit. And now more than ever, Bruce Jenner needs it so very desperately. Let us pray for Bruce and the countless masses currently wandering the same broad road in search of something they cannot find. Let us redouble our efforts to reach for Christ those less known but equally lost. Sins can be forgiven, souls can be satisfied, salvation can be secured through repentance and faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
The whitewater is racing around Bruce Jenner and rising so fast it will soon sweep him away to perdition. That reality should grieve us. For though his depravity is on display for the world to see, this man needs what we all have needed so badly—he needs the Lord.
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