I Prayed have prayed
Lord, we pray for Caitlyn Jenner! God, would you reveal yourself to her and have her life be forever changed. Would the testimony bring many lives to Jesus!

Conservatives are lining up behind Caitlyn Jenner. Jenna Ellis, former senior counsel to Donald Trump, says that Jenner’s campaign for the governorship of California shows “how non-inclusive and intolerant the leftists really are.” Paul Gosar, the firebrand Arizona congressman, approvingly notes that the “left is triggered” by the candidate. John Fund, the national affairs reporter for National Review, tweets: “Caitlyn Jenner’s new video for CA governor is SUPERB. As a Californian, I actually cried.”

It should not be surprising that conservatives have come to regard Caitlyn as stunning and brave. Despite its residual reputation as the party of family values and Yankee modesty, the GOP has long relied on celebrities who deviate from established standards of taste and propriety. Donald Trump, with his gold-plated aesthetics and “locker-room talk,” is only the most recent example.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger ran his populist campaign to become governor of California, an old interview surfaced in which he bragged about drug use and group sex. He shrugged it off and so did voters. He was accelerating the trend begun by Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood star turned governor of California and the first divorcé to win the presidency.

In this sense, Jenner’s candidacy is less novel than it may seem. Jenner wears makeup. Reagan did too, at least professionally. Jenner has reshaped his body and taken hormones. So did Arnold. Keeping up with the Kardashians is vulgar. So is Conan the Barbarian, and so is the governor’s mansion Reagan built, as Joan Didion memorably observed.

Behind these superficial resemblances stands a basic fact. Conservatives have been banished from elite institutions. Their views are treated as deviant by polite society. So they must look elsewhere for leaders. Because of their name recognition and ability to generate free press, celebrities can reach a wide public without the support of the power elite. They will tend to understand, even share, popular tastes. But they are also more likely to live the kinds of lives you read about in tabloids than the kind documented in the class notes of Harvard Magazine.

One need not be overly concerned with respectability to regret this dynamic. Divorce, which Reagan did much to normalize, has produced untold agony. There is no reason to be more optimistic about Caitlyn Jenner’s campaign to normalize transgenderism.

For that is just what he has embarked upon. In his 2017 autobiography, Jenner writes, “What I am trying to do, what I am doing, is to ultimately make the mainstream public comfortable with us [transgender people].” He believes that he is uniquely situated to change opinion on the right: “I believe that we desperately need conservatives like myself who have a platform and can use it to enlighten fellow conservatives, reminding them of the Golden Rule—that trans people should not be judged on moral or religious grounds but rather treated as fellow human beings.” Jenner is not just trying to win the governorship. He is trying to change American attitudes.

Yet his own attitudes are more complicated than might be expected from an avatar of the transgender movement. Under the new orthodoxy, anyone who uses the wrong name or pronoun risks being cast out of respectable society. Jenner takes a more tolerant view. He wants the transgendered to be accepted on their own terms, but he seems uncomfortable when that aspiration leads to the policing of speech. After Joy Behar was denounced for referring to Jenner as “he” on The View, Jenner told her not to worry: “I’m not about cancel culture. I know where your heart is. California has bigger issues than pronouns.”

Jenner himself has run afoul of the new orthodoxy. After his transition in 2015, he gave an interview in which he expressed only the most reluctant support for gay marriage. “I’m a traditionalist,” he said. “I kinda like tradition and it’s always been a man and a woman … [but] if that word—‘marriage’—is really, really that important to you, I can go with it.” Outrage was widespread. More recently he shocked progressives by saying that biological boys should not be allowed to compete in girls’ sports. . . .

Despite this tension, Jenner shares the basic convictions of transgender activists. Jenner visited the parents of one transgender teen who had committed suicide and reflected on his death. “It wasn’t just depression and repeated cyberbullying that made life such hell for him,” he writes. “It was also adults who refused to accept Kyler or address Kyler by the correct pronoun.” When a transgender woman wrote to Jenner saying that a bill in South Dakota limiting transgender bathroom use was harming her, Jenner concluded that “she was right to think the atmosphere was toxic.”

In Jenner’s view, the transgender movement is guilty of inconsistency. But it is hard to see how his own beliefs about transgenderism are compatible with the freedom he seems to prize. If misgendering is the cause of transgender suicide, we need restrictions on speech. If socially conservative bills harm people who would otherwise be healthy, then social conservatism must be stamped out. Jenner’s easygoing instincts are winsome, but they cannot be reconciled with what he has come to believe about his identity.

He is not the only one who suffers from this confusion. A number of well-intentioned writers have protested the illiberal effects of transgender activism while insisting that we should affirm transgender identity. They suffer from an acute form of the illusion that freedom need not be tied to some idea of the good and the true. A society that regards transgenderism as normal and healthy will inevitably sanction those who disagree. Caitlyn’s rise shows that we are confused not just about gender, but about the nature of liberty.

What are your thoughts on conservatives supporting Caitlyn Jenner? Let us know your thoughts and prayers for America in the comments below!

(Excerpt from The American Conservative. Article written by Matthew Schmitz. Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for IMDb)

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Pauline
July 16, 2021

I don’t understand something. In the prayer above, you are referring to Caitlyn Jenner as “her.” HE IS NOT A “HER.” God made him a man!! This is very concerning to me, and I’m wondering why you referred to Jenner as a “her?” I cannot, in good conscience, pray for “her” at all! However, I CAN pray for him to be set free and become the man God planned for him to be. There is no “gray line” on this issue for me and I’m guessing, for most believers. God’s Word is VERY CLEAR, He created a man and a woman, period!!!

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    Carmen McCage
    July 17, 2021

    I am praying for BRUCE Jenner, as he needs to know the Lord!
    I am sickened that any Christian would support him. He has body dysphoria, which up until a few years ago was considered a mental problem.

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Laura N
July 16, 2021

Lord, we all have fallen in the lies and illusions of the enemy and pray for Jenner as we pray for each other, that you would set us free from the lies to see the truth. Help Jenner recognize that every cell in his body declares he is a man, just like God designed him. Set Jenner free from sins of pride and rebelliousness because of his denial and bring him to acknowledge the truth.
Protect our nation and our children from believing these lies promoted by Satan and deceived people and from following the gods of this world. The enemy has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but you have come to bring life. Thank you for your mercy and grace. Forgive the sins of our nation and save us. Help us to raise up leaders that will acknowledge truth and fear God.

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Susan CC
July 16, 2021

Oy vey…

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JESUS is KING!
July 16, 2021

When you really love someone you don’t lie to them!! First of all this person is a man and we should not call him otherwise because then we would be validating a lie. He needs Jesus and needs to be delivered from the demons lying to him about his identity so he can reach the destiny God has for him! We have to call out his true identity, not be politically correct! Lord come and touch these people with Your power and set them free so they will know You and know who You created them to be! You came to set the captives free Jesus, fill us with Your Holy Spirit and fire and the anointing that breaks the yoke of sin and darkness so we can truly be Your hands and feet! May You God have mercy on his soul and all those who have been used and abused by the devil! We pray for this MAN’s salvation and deliverance and any others in like bondage in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ!! Give them back what the devil stole from them Daddy God, we love You!! Amen!!

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Rosalie Skwiers
July 16, 2021

Father God please help me, this is just too weird for me, just way too far out there. Help me to pray right now this is making my stomach hurt it is hard to breath. I remember seeing him on Life cereal boxes. I thought he was handsome. He displayed himself like he was proud to be a man. Here I am concerned after signing the consent form for cataract surgery on Wednesday. This guy had a beautiful he man body and had doctors chop it up like it was nothing. Lord forgive our nation. Creator, Father God let other good conservatives run for office in California. Heal our land, heal the minds of people in our land. Lord have mercy on us. Jesus you are the Anointed One the anointing destroys bondage. Lord turn the mind of our nation away from this distruction of bodies that you created beautiful. Lord intervene I plead do not let this become a standard for a government official. I plead the blood of Jesus over this work of the flesh. I pray for the people of California bring renewal, revival, an awakening the shakes up California like no earthquake ever could.Amen

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Judith
July 16, 2021

Father, Conservatives come and go, May Your children be true to You. We don’t want to blow in the wind. Our house is built on the Rock. You empower us and equip us as we are squeezed on all sides in Babylon. Holy Spirit help us REMEMBER the Word and follow our King. We can no longer blend in; thank You that You strengthen us to stand. In the name of Jesus, Amen

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    Rosalie Skwiers
    July 16, 2021

    Rosalie

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    Rosalie Skwiers
    July 16, 2021

    Judith, That’s right we can no longer blend in ! Amen to that, great prayer Judith.

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Martha Jayne
July 16, 2021

I watched Mr Jenners announcement when it was initially broadcast. I,and my sister, both pleasantly surprised and yes, encouraged that there could be hope for California after all. I can’t go against God’s word and embrace Mr Jenners chosen identity. If he was a female he would have no need to take female hormones for the rest of his life. Now I might have missed that truth in the article if so I stand corrected.
My prayer for Mr Jenner is that stating truth come naturally and be of God. It’s time for hate to be called out for what it is. Jenners voice could carry God’s message if he chooses to be a vessel for God. Let’s pray it be so.

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