08/30/2025
As investigators continue delving into the background of the young man who shot 19 people at Annunciation Catholic School on Wednesday, the picture that has emerged is that of a troubled youth in desperate need of the forgiveness only found in Jesus Christ. He was angry at Christians, Jews, Republicans, and most of all himself. If only that anger had melted away at the cross!
“The Left has been telling us for a long time that the solution for gender confused kids is to transgender them,” said FRC senior fellow Jody Hice. “But it’s obvious to everyone that certainly did not help the situation yesterday in the deadly church shooting in Minneapolis.”
In fact, the shooter himself seemed ready to desist, if not for his pride. “I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself,” the shooter wrote in a manifesto posted online. “I only keep [the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans. … I can’t cut my hair now as it would be an embarrassing defeat.”
“This man was correct that he was brainwashed,” responded Maria Keffler, co-founder of Advocates Protecting Children, on “Washington Watch.” But “I don’t think he brainwashed himself. I think he was brainwashed by public schools, social media, [and] smartphones. A lot of private schools, unfortunately, are doing it too. … It’s throughout the culture. Any problem you have, they say you’ll be fixed by transitioning, which is not the case.”
“This is not a healthy path to put kids on. What we find is this really is cult-like,” continued Keffler, who wrote a book based on that premise, “Desist, Detrans & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult.”
Keffler argued that recognizing the cult-like attributes of the transgender movement equips parents to counteract its allure. “Cults do a number of things to recruit and retain their followers, and one thing is to vilify anybody who doesn’t agree with the cult dogma,” she said. “When you’re called names (transphobe, hater, bigot) — those are just thought-stopping devices to try to get you to stop thinking deeply about what the cult is doing.”
The transgender cult also acts like there are no other options, when better options held sway until recently, said Keffler. “For decades, ‘watchful waiting’ was the standard of care, where if a child thought they’d rather be the other s*x, you’d wait, help them get through puberty naturally, and the vast majority of these kids, when they go through puberty align with their birth s*x,” she explained. “There’s no data supporting the affirmation model, which I don’t even like to call it affirmation — that’s too positive of a word — it’s really appeasement.”
As a result of medical practitioners abandoning the “watchful waiting” model for the appeasement approach, tens of thousands of young people have “detransitioned.” That is, after once identifying as trans, they have reidentified with their biological s*x — but only after irreversible harm was done to their bodies. By Keffler’s count, one online forum for detransitioners was up to 57,000 users.
Unfortunately, the Minneapolis shooter fell one step short of a full detransition, possibly due to the enslaving effects of cross-s*x hormones. “I know I am not a woman, but I definitely don’t feel like a man,” he wrote. “I regret being trans. I wish I was a girl I just know I cannot achieve that body with the technology we have today.”
Instead, the troubled young man fell into self-loathing, negatively contrasting his own appearance to a superstar: “I like feeling s*xy and cute but my face never matches how I feel. I hate my face. … Maybe that’s why I like furries so much. You can give yourself a new body and face. I want to be that black face mask on Beyonce’s body lmao!” (As much as online media sets impossible body standards for young women, it appears the same is also possible for young men.)
The hatred this young man felt toward himself evidently turned into hatred toward others. His self-hatred ran contrary to nature (Ephesians 5:29), despising what God created to be enjoyed, including the image of God imprinted in himself. Once this bitter root took hold, it metastasized into despising the image of God in others, so that his hatred became a motive for murder (1 John 3:15). In particular, he seemed to hate anything related to Christianity, including the Catholic school where he formerly attended.
No wonder, then, that “in the notes left behind, we see a drawing of him looking into a mirror and having a demon look back at him,” reported The Post Millennial’s Libby Emmons on “Washington Watch.” We can’t know whether the shooter was possessed by a demon, but his actions clearly demonstrate that he was under the influence of spiritual forces of darkness, since the devil “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).
Under Satan’s rule, this young man felt trapped by shame, enslaved by anger and pride. His only hope of salvation from this bo***ge lay in Jesus Christ, who has power to “bind the strong man” (Matthew 12:29). Alas, whether through lack of hearing (Romans 10:14) or through a sinful refusal to hear (Matthew 13:15), he never realized what forgiveness and hope was available in Christ.
To the unstoppable power of God’s love, this young man’s mixed-up past would present no obstacle. All he needed to do was repent “(Matthew 4:17) and believe the words of the master, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Jesus invites “all who labor and are heavy laden” to find rest in him (Matthew 11:28). Instead, this young man was hardened in his sin.
This sad reality sharpens the duty of Christians — especially parents of children who struggle with gender identity — to lovingly affirm the truth of the gospel. “It’s hard on parents,” Keffler allowed. “The kids can be really militant, really angry. … [But] we’re talking about your child’s health. We’re talking about their future. We’re talking about their fertility.”
“As hard as it is to take a stand on truth, it’s always the right thing to do,” Keffler urged.. “As long as you are coupling it with, ‘hey, I love you. That’s never going to change. The fact that I disagree with you about this is not evidence that I don’t love you. In fact, it’s evidence I love you so much I’m not willing to let you hurt yourself.’”
“People who are doing this [pursuing a transgender identity], they’re hurting. They’ve got something wrong. Whether it’s autism, mental health issues, prior trauma — something’s wrong. And, when they latch on to this idea of gender ideology, suddenly nothing else gets looked at, nothing else gets treated. So, they need to have the real mental health issues taken care of,” she continued. “They need to be told the truth.”
Finally, speaking the truth in love must be combined with prayer. No matter how many times you tell someone the gospel, you cannot persuade someone into God’s kingdom. Even the most faithful witness cannot turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). That is God’s department. But God uses our faithfulness. So — and here I exhort myself as well — let us pray all the more earnestly for family members and friends who have wandered astray and been brainwashed by the transgender cult.
𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝐽𝑜𝑠ℎ𝑢𝑎 𝐴𝑟𝑛𝑜𝑙𝑑. 𝑃𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑.
