Open Mic: The Question of Transgenderism (pt.i)

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine shot me a facebook message asking me for a Christian perspective on, of all things, transgenderism. For many reasons that will be explained later, this will be a topic of increasing pertinence that the Church will have to give a theologically-informed account for at some point. We need to have answers for questions like: “Did God make them that way?”, “Are they just confused?”, “Should we support many people’s desire for surgical alterations?”,”What hope for ‘healing’ can we expect in this life?”,”Is it something that needs to be ‘healed’ in the first place?”, “Is it a sin?”, “What does a Christian with transgender issues look like?”, “Is that even possible?”, among others.

To be honest, I don’t feel like I have a rock solid answer to any of these questions. Every time I feel like I do, I talk to someone and they show me a new dimension I hadn’t seen before. So, I’m very open to ideas, which is why I’m writing this on the blog. I would love everyone’s feedback and opinion as to how one should answer these questions.

But first, what are we talking about? Technically speaking, transgenderism is different from transexuality. A person is considered “transgendered” when their personal gender identity does not match the gender that was assigned to them at birth–that’s it. A person is considered a “transexual” when they actually seek to change their physical gender through surgery or hormone therapy. Individuals can be transgendered based on genetics (genetically they’re one gender; physically they’re another) or psychology (their gender identity does not match the gender role assigned to them by culture and society based on their physical gender; they don’t “feel” like the gender they physically are). I’m not sure if my friend was asking about both these issues or if they were in fact, drawing a distinction, but many of the same issues are involved in both.

By the time I was done writing out my whole response to these questions, the essay was about six pages long. It’s done, mind you, I just don’t want to throw all of that at all of you at once. So I’m going to spread it over the next three days in three separate posts. Then, next week, I’ll probably put them back together into one long article and post it on Reform & Revive. But please respond to this post and this series. I would love all of your thoughts. Below you’ll find the schedule and topics to be addressed. Look at what I’ll be talking about in the next couple of days and see if your comment or question might be more appropriate in the days to come.

• Today: The Questions of Transgenderism
  • some questions, definitions, and all of your thoughts
• Tuesday: A Prolegomena of Transgenderism
  • how others have approached this and what we need to remember (but often forget) when trying to address this
• Wednesday: A Theology of Transgenderism?
  • a brief theology/history of gender and sexuality and how do we deal with this theologically and practically in the Church?

Your Turn

So, what are your thoughts on this? If you’re not a Christian, how do you think Christians should approach this issue? How have they not done a good job in the past? How do you approach it? If you are a Christian, what’s your immediate gut reaction to this issue? Is it reasonable? Does it follow the other aspects of the Gospel that you know? How do you think Jesus would approach this? How were you raised to approach this topic?

John Piper on Porn, Wives, & Marriage

I try not to bash pastors that I know have good intentions.  Those pastors that have demonstrated a desire to be biblically sound and pastorally sensitive, usually get the benefit of the doubt from me, even when I don’t think they are at the moment being biblically sound and pastorally sensitive.  I also know that well-known pastors probably get far more useless and inane criticism from young twenty-somethings that think they know everything (myself included, far more often than I’d like to admit).  But this went a bit too far.  Tonight, John Piper put up the following tweet:

Really?

First, the medium.  You’re really going to put up — of all means of communication — a tweet?   Not knowing how many women might have sat down at their computer after having been told of the marital infidelity of their husbands in front of a computer screen for the millionth time, you’re going to tell them that if they watched a movie recently where there was nudity in it, they shouldn’t complain?  Using 140 characters or less, with no space to add nuance or pastoral care,  you’re going to make a statement that will inevitably make many women internalize on themselves the feelings of hurt they may be feeling?  To make such a loaded statement over such a “micro” platform is the height of thoughtlessness, callousness, and insensitivity.

Second, the message itself.  The Bible is sexually charged at times.  Sexuality can be beautiful, even necessary, to push forward a narrative (as we see in the Bible).  This means that there are movies where sexuality (yes, even nudity) can be beautiful, purposeful, and not simply gratuitous acts to keep men engaged.  So just the simple act of watching of these movies is not tantamount to navigating your husband to a porn site and then telling him to have fun.  Does the same go for art?  Would Piper say “Wives, if you see art with him containing bare breasts and fondling, don’t complain when he does porn by himself”?

Also, nudity and sex scenes (that are gratuitous and unnecessary) are found in nearly every movie adults watch nowadays.  You can try and filter the bad ones out, but inevitably a few will get in.  Should the wife “not complain” if her husband does porn after that? I’m sure Piper’s not saying this.  It’s just that this is subtle legalism at work, where the problem with the sin and the struggle is something that they’re doing.  Struggling with porn? Stop doing this, doing that, and start doing this, doing that.  It’s a subtle works-based system of sin and righteousness.

He has probably counseled countless couples struggling with this very issue.  Surely he doesn’t say this in counseling sessions, does he?  There has to be better ways to say the little bit of truth in this: Perhaps, “don’t be surprised when he…”; “try and help your husband by not watching movies containing…”; “if he does porn by himself, ask if you two are watching movies with…”?  These are more helpful ways of saying the kernel of truth in there.

Ever since becoming increasingly theologically egalitarian (I’m not all the way there.  I call myself a “progressive complementarian”), I have struggled with the hardcore complementarians out there like Piper and Driscoll.  I’m quite confident that it’s bad biblical exegesis, but I have really tried to believe that it doesn’t inevitably lead to chauvinism and insensitivity toward women.  And I know Piper doesn’t advocate for that.  But this tweet scares me.  I’m angered by this and I hurt on behalf of all the women out there that should be appalled by this.  There should be no circumstance that you should not feel the freedom and right to justifiably “complain” about and hate the sin of your husband for his online marital infidelity toward you.  It is not your fault in anyway that would remove your right to do this.  I really hope Piper gets a lot of criticism over this, such that he is able to publicly apologize for this.  He’s done it before for other things he has said.  I hope this is one of those times.

What do you all think?  Was Piper off-base?  Why or why not?  How would you phrase this differently?

The Good Motivations of the Heart: God-merica, pt.IIIb [REPOST]

[This is a repost of the last in a series of articles I wrote about a year-and-a-half ago exploring my struggles with the idea of America as a "Christian Nation" (it is not; read more here)and how my Christian faith should influence my politics.  Where I ended up is a very helpful place, I believe, for us Christians struggling with these things.  In the first post, I show how America has many similarities with Ancient Rome that lend itself to helping us in this discussion.  In the second, I discuss the motivations and limits of imposing a Christian worldview on a post-Christian society.  In the third, I laid out the wrong motives that seem to drive most of Evangelicalism's attempts to take over the country, and their historical and philosophical roots.  In the post below, I pick up right where the third one ends and give a biblical foundation for a possible framework we can use to discern our political action as Christians.  Tomorrow I'll have a really interesting little post for all of you to chew on.]

My exploration of motives for Christian involvement in politics began to shift when I realized that the same Paul and Peter that preached a political worldview of simply obeying the laws were the same Paul and Peter that when told by authorities not to preach, they refused to obey.  What’s going on?  Apparently there’s some other principle at work that creates a depth, complexity, and dynamism within this issue: God and His Nature, Christ and His Glory.  More on this in the next post.

I then started looking not just for Paul’s statements about politics but also how he politically viewed himself in a political world.  Paul was a Roman citizen, the ancient equivalent of being an American citizen.  It came with the same privileges, rights, and disdain we as Americans experience today.  So when did Paul pull the “Roman Citizen” card?  In short, when it furthered his preaching of the Gospel.  He pulled the card a few times in the latter part of Acts, each time to talk to a successively higher authority in the Roman government.  Acts ends with Paul waiting in prison to talk to Caesar himself after using his citizenship to appeal his charges to the emperor.

So, as for conclusions, here’s where I’ve landed (at least for the time being).  God’s concern for the political actions of His People does not ultimately rest upon what is done.  Rather, He is concerned that His Bride act from transformed hearts that effect why they are doing, voting, advocating as they are.  Paul used the rights and privileges offered him by his nation to further enable his continuing work and service of the Gospel.  Not to create external structures that do this work for him.  So, I’m all for advocating and seeking legislation that furthers our freedom to do the work of the Church.  I think there’s an absolute Biblical precedent for seeking the support and freedom for the individual to do the work of a Christian.  Our defiance to the laws of this land begin where this freedom ends.  Where the laws and statutes in place hinder us from doing the work that Christ has called us to, that is when our defiance starts.

Jesus said that his Kingdom was not of this world, and that if it was, then his followers would fight to free Him from Pilate.  His Kingdom is a spiritual, not temporal reality, hence our weapons to usher this Kingdom are spiritual and not temporal.  Laws, states, and politics don’t do it; rather love, service, and preaching do.  This being the case, all our political maneuverings should be to free us to do those things.  We will do them regardless, mind you, but it is (or is meant to be) in the interest of the prosperity and stability of a country to support and free Christians to act like Christians – not push them or even create incentives for them to, but create the welcoming environment in which they can serve, love, preach, and suffer for the benefit of those around them with no hindrances.

So what frees us to do the service of the Gospel?  I think this is where personal leadings, preferences, discussion, and discourse come in.  Perhaps making gay marriage unconstitutional will actually ultimately hinder our work as Christians rather than facilitate it.  So what if it “made a statement”?  At what cost?  Perhaps being in favor of the war would hinder your evangelism to Muslims.  Perhaps being against the war would not free you to take advantage of the new open environment there now is for missions work in Iraq.  Perhaps (and I really stress the “perhaps” on this one) making abortion illegal would hinder our freedom to act like Christians.  I will unpack all this in my last post.  Don’t freak out over that statement.  I just want the conversation opened up and founded upon the biblical basis for our activism: putting the weight on ourselves to be the Church rather than on the country to reflect the ideals of the Church, because Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world.

I know I have overstated my case.  I have repeated myself and rephrased myself in more ways than perhaps necessary.  Some of that stems from all this being fairly fresh in my mind, and it probably comes out in my writing.  The rest of it though comes from my conviction that this worldview is essential for so many reasons.  The American Church is impotent today and has little impact on the culture it finds itself in.  Much of this comes from the recent fanaticism of Fundamentalism in light of post-modernity becoming the reigning philosophy of the day.  Fundamentalism just doesn’t work anymore.  The rest of the watching world has already filed Evangelicals away as completely out of touch and irrelevant in today’s modern world.  Historically, the Church has been a small movement that has toppled nations.  Now it is a massive creature with absolutely no impact whatsoever on the people, communities, and cultures around it.  Remove the Church in America and very little would change.

Conclusion:
Our goal in our legislation should be this: we should seek and advocate for any legislation that give us the Church more freedom to do what the Church was always meant to do (heal the sick, feed the poor, clothe the needy, teach the uneducated, love the outcast, and accept the foreigner). We should strive to free ourselves to be and act like real Christians that in doing so we serve the people, communities, cities, and nations around us to such an extent that they would suffer without us.  We don’t try and make them act like Christians or have a Christian worldview when they’re not, in fact, Christians.  We must fight for the freedom to be the Church.  And it is in this that the watching world will see a Gospel that proclaims that there is a God through Whom all things were made and find their sustaining life so that this God has a just and rightful claim on the lives of His creatures.  They will then see that this God has moved upon individuals on the basis of this claim to change them radically to love those around them in a way that no one else does.  And it is by seeing this that they will behold our Beautiful Christ and Savior who loves His Bride to love His world so that His world might love Him as it was always intended, and will surely be.  And the country will change.

I hope this helps.

What are your thoughts?  Is this helpful?  What do you think this looks like in practice?