Christianity Today attempts to address how Christian leadership should treat the transgendered, but fails both in their compassion for people who are transgendered, and their interpretation of God’s Word. They begin by describing the situation John Nemecek found himself in - a former Baptist Pastor and long time dean at the Spring Arbor University had struggled for years with his gender identity. When he finally accepted his identity as a woman and found peace, he was fired from his job.
They demonstrate very clearly their lack of understanding by deriding what they term “liberal religious groups”, and say that “transgender impulses … don’t match up with the Christian sexual ethic.” I’ve been a Christian for most of my life and have no idea what the “Christian sexual ethic” is. Is it perhaps the ethic that rails against interracial marriage, or is the one that ensures woman are kept in their rightful place at home? It seems to me that the ‘Christian sexual ethic’ is conveniently defined to be whatever the conservative Christian community feels comfortable with this century.
Despite the paucity of their understanding of what God’s Word says about the transgendered, they do accurately recognize that a church community is likely to feel tension between welcoming us into their church, and keeping the peace with long standing church members. This is the unfortunate reality that we live in today.
I honestly think it is disgusting for conservative organizations to comment that we’re “wacky” and “radical”. I know very few transgendered folks who didn’t struggle for years to “be normal”.
“The transgender lobby is following the example of the homosexual lobby in that they are co-opting the language of the civil rights movement in order to push their own radical and wacky agenda,”
We are not a “violation of natural law” as some conservative Christian’s would have you believe. I do strongly believe that God can do anything, and should He choose to make us feel whole in the body we were born with, it is well within His power.
I am deeply angered by self righteous Christian who claim to know God’s word, yet they only choose to obey the commandments they conveniently self-selected.
Addendum:
After reading many of the comments on their website I’m heartened by the love, compassion and understanding so many of their readers have shown. I remain hopeful that if we would give it a chance, the love of Jesus Christ would shine through us all.
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of s
when I awake, I am still with you. ”
Excerpt from Psalm 139.
Really America, what’s going on with you guys? Maybe you need to visit Africa to get in tune again with what’s important and what’s not. That sex change you pay for would do wonders for some impoverished kids down here…
God bless.
Hi hon,
I welcome discussion and differing opinions. I noticed you posted the above 4 times. I deleted 3 of them, and left this one up [glitch in commenting system?]
God gave me my gender. I’m blessed (cursed?) to have two, and to experience life as both a man and a woman. Despite all the hardships, I believe this was the life journey I was meant to take. I have learnt much and grown tremendously as a person.
Africa has many issues. It breaks my heart when I see gay people tortured and maimed. I weep when I hear about ‘corrective rape’ even in the most developed country in Africa, South Africa. Africa has it’s share of hate, poverty and desperation. There are also many in Africa suffering from gender dysphoria (I hear there cries for help often on this website).
To your comment about money for sex change being used to help people in Africa, you should also tell the person who bought a $2m house, or the family that lives on junk food and requires $100K in surgeries because they didn’t care for their diabetes, or the smoker who burns $100s a month and requires expensive care for their lung cancer. We all have a choice how we invest our money, but aligning our inner and outer gender is the difference between life and death for many.
I urge you to consider your own generosity before you judge others.