Our ex-LGBTQ+ community and Charlie Kirk’s murder

By Elizabeth Woning, Voices Contributor Tuesday, September 23, 2025A Holy Bible lays on rainbow flags. | Getty ImagesCharlie Kirk’s assassination sent a shockwave through our offices at CHANGED Movement because we daily confront LGBT politics in the public arena.One particular recent post stood out — a conversation between Megan Basham and Seth Gruber comparing Kirk’s approach to Timothy Keller’s. These two men engaged culture from very different perspectives, not to mention different generations. I am a long-time admirer of Keller; however, he embraced a middle ground that has empowered the LGBT movement’s rapid rise from the shadows to the center of American politics, creating profound new challenges for the Church — challenges that demand both wisdom and courage as we strive to remain faithful to Christ. Charlie Kirk’s assassination is calling Christians to boldly recall what it means to be Christian in America’s pluralistic society.  The LGBT movement has successfully framed sexual orientation and gender identity as civil rights issues that demand a complete transformation of how society understands marriage, family, sexuality, and ultimately, human nature itself. This shift affects far more than individual choices. The expansion of activist organizations into broader progressive causes has fundamentally altered the basic assumptions our culture makes about reality. For many Americans, especially younger generations, LGBT affirmation is now seen as a basic requirement of human decency.This cultural transformation has created a genuine crisis for the Church. A biblical view of sexuality — based on Scripture’s teachings about marriage, celibacy, and God’s design for human well-being — now conflicts directly with cultural orthodoxy. The temptation is to either retreat into defensive isolation or to adapt by abandoning historic Christian doctrine. Both approaches miss the point. I identified as a lesbian and went to seminary within the LGBT-affirming church movement until Jesus radically changed my life and redirected my path. Today, my husband and I stand amidst extremes. Denominations that fully embrace LGBT ideology as I once did — ordaining practicing LGBT pastors, blessing same-sex marriages, rejecting biblical sexual ethics — have faced steep declines in membership and have lost their unique witness. In contrast, Churches that respond with condemnation are quickly marginalized and dismissed as hateful. Christians must not respond to the modern transgender movement as we did during the AIDS crisis — by withdrawing and demonizing the victims. Our failure to represent Jesus during that time must never happen again. Opposing the gender ideology movement and transgenderism will require wisdom and prayer.The LGBT movement itself exposes the instability of any worldview based solely on human experience. We’re already witnessing divisions within the movement as LGB activists clash with trans ideology, and as younger generations adopt increasingly fluid and contradictory sexual identities. Without a foundation in transcendent truth, movements built solely on self-definition inevitably fragment and collapse. Yet many churches, eager to appear loving and inclusive, have adopted this same unstable foundation into their theology. When we base our doctrine on cultural trends rather than God’s unchanging Word, we invite the same confusion and division that afflicts secular society.  The greatest tragedy would be for the Church to reduce Christianity to mere moral rules or political activism. Christians mustn’t retreat from politics and its role as a voice of conscience, but we must not confuse that effort with worshiping Jesus Christ. The Church’s most faithful response is neither a complete retreat from culture nor total assimilation, but faithful presence. We need to build communities where the Gospel’s power to transform lives is clear — places where struggling people find hope and renewal in Christ, not condemnation. When Christ is truly at the center of our community life, when we are growing in holiness and love, and when we experience the joy of God’s presence, this becomes our most powerful witness to a watching world.The politicization of LGBT identity presents both challenges and opportunities for the Church. The challenge is to stay faithful to biblical truth in a culture that is growing more hostile. The opportunity is to show that life in Christ offers greater fulfillment than anything culture provides. Our ultimate confidence is not in political wins, but in the promise that Jesus Christ is building His church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. We are in a key moment in time to prove Christians can look beyond LGBT politics to offer Christ’s loving call to a new life. If you’re given an opportunity to “cross the aisle” or engage other ideologies, remember that Christians are called to be different: to represent Jesus’ love to a nation that doubts and to stand out by walking humbly with authority. Let’s not miss this chance.Elizabeth Woning is co-founder of the CHANGED Movement, an international network of men and women who have left the LGBT subculture and identity to follow Jesus. She earned her master’s degree from a PCUSA seminary while openly lesbian and ministered within the LGBT-affirming church movement. A radical revelation of Jesus led her to a different path. Today, she is a licensed pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, where she lives with her husband, Doug.changedmovement.com | equippedtolove.com | elizabethwoning.com | @changedmvmt