(LifeSiteNews) — On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon speaks with Jojo Ruba, a Canadian activist and Christian apologist, about how to navigate a pro-LGBT cultural, political, and legal environment that is very hostile to traditional Christian teaching on sexuality.
Founder of Free to Care, Ruba says his Calgary-based ministry gives Christian pastors, leaders, and activists the confidence to proclaim a biblical worldview in an age where the Canadian government cracks down against “hate speech” and “conversion therapy.”
LISTEN: Canada’s ‘conversion therapy’ ban violates the Charter of Rights: Christian activist
“We have to help the church go back to the understanding that the biblical worldview in all of its teachings is both true and good,” says Ruba. “When it comes to the Christian worldview, this issue is not about sex or sexuality. This is about whether or not we can trust that all of God’s commands are good for us.”
Ruba explains that our identity is based on “how God feels about us,” namely that He loves us. Our identity is not based on our attractions, desires, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.”
“You may not choose your attractions, but you can choose your identity,” he says. “And so at the end of the day, I think the primary sin here isn’t even the gender confusion. I think that’s brokenness. But the primary sin here is being able to choose, and encouraging people to choose, to make their sexual and their gender feelings the most important thing about us.”
Ruba also explains how Canadian “conversion therapy bans” are a “chill effect” to make pastors fear the law and threat of punishment if they try to help same-sex attracted people overcome their wayward desires, porn addiction, etc.
Unfortunately, these bans are having the intended effect. But Ruba believes that Christians have a duty to speak with “grace and truth” about these issues.
“We have to be ready to be prosecuted and persecuted. We have to be ready to push back on laws. We have to be ready to have protests at our church,” he says. “And I think if we can do it in a winsome way, we can speak with grace and truth, those men and women of peace that Jesus said that we ought to talk to in every town, we can begin to engage with them and show that it’s actually our worldview that will help all of society.”
“Because what we’re saying is we are much more than just our sexual attractions. We shouldn’t be pigeonholed into those attractions and identities. At the end of the day, Christ offers a better identity. That’s the Gospel.”
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