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.
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Okay, CT has this whole long article quoting both anti-LGBT and pro-LGBT people who assert the Bible has nothing to say about transgender people and they never once mention eunuchs? The whole story of Esther would fall apart if it were not for the surgically altered gender variant eunuchs. But beyond eunuchs, there are plenty of other individuals that good Biblical exegesis reveals as gender variant. Ah, there is work to be done to help Christians read this Bible they think they know so well. Not only are there trans folks in the Bible, but they serve as the most… Read more »
I’m a Christian woman who happens to have formerly been a male to female transsexual. Sadly there is much prejudice against persons like us. Often individuals will try to use the Bible and Christianity to support their prejudices and to discriminate against us based on those prejudices. They say it is a sin for a person to change gender, yet there is no scriptural basis for saying so. There is nothing in the Bible that opposes my being a woman, so it is not a sin for me to continue living my life as the woman I am. I am… Read more »
Hi Jenni,
Unfortunately what you say is so true. I think the remarkable insight in your comment is ‘They say it is a sin’. Them, not God. They say lots of things are sins, but that doesn’t make it so.
Thanks for jumping on this so quickly, Vanessa. The one good thing that might come from CT’s sadly predictable article is the broader conversation it will generate in evangelical culture. Your voice is one of the first in that conversation!
From a Christian perspective are trans gendered people ever going to be accepted? I don’t think so. I have been struggling with this issue off and on for years and I have studied it extensively over the past two years. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The whole book of First John gives us a really good indication as to what a saved person looks like versus the unsaved. 1 cor 6:9-11 is brutally honest about how things are in Gods economy. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of… Read more »
Dear Bill, Thank you for sharing your struggle. As a married man, I too struggle with wanting to be a girl and to dress as one. In secret, I have done so and acted as a girl. But then God seems to remind me that he made me a man for a reason. As a girl I would have the following: messy periods, men constantly wanting to use me as a sex toy, the fear of getting gang raped; th possibility of ucomforatbly getting pregnant for 9 months (but also joy), and the pain of childbirth. That helps me to… Read more »
Transsexualism is not a sin. Here are my reasons: In OT law we do not follow most of the 613 laws laid out by moses and the early rabbi’s. If we did follow the transvestite rule women cannot wear pants. Not to mention clothing is subject to culture. Secondly I am Bi Polar, God did not make me have it, it is a result of sin in the world. There are hermaphrodites of the body, why not the mind? To assume God makes people with mistakes like downsyndrome is blasphemous. Sin is always an issue of the heart therefore if… Read more »
Regarding Christians and crossdressing, it seems that the area is very grey. Unfortunately, that grey area is where Satan likes to play the most; where he can easily make a mess of our lives through half truths and strong emotions. Like everyone else on here, I imagine, I have felt an encredibly strong desire to be female ever since I was a young child. I have bounced back and forth my whole life with crossdressing/transexual desires. Like many of you, I just couldn’t see how God could create me with the wrong body (male) for my mind (simingly female) and… Read more »
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
I came across this website by accident and just wanted to put in my feelings. I’m a straight, male, Christian.The fact that people are dedicating themselves as Christians is surely the only point here? We are all welcome. We can get into long and destructive arguments on scripture or we can look at the words of Jesus himself: 29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your… Read more »
I just need to be clear on something: Imagine a world were science has no solution to sex change. What would happen to a woman who wants to be a man or vice versa? I’ve read that some would take their own lives if they couldn’t live in the body they so desired. I don’t want to judge anyone but I just don’t understand it. The bible which is our manual as christians lets me know God is light, there is no darkness in Him. He is always right; Psalm 139 tells me how He formed me in my mother’s… Read more »
I feel the strong frustration, anger and deep pain of non-acceptance to a faith based community where all you want to do is praise our Lord and love others as we are commanded to do. I just want to offer you all my love and Im sorry you must deal with this. I see how emotionally hard it is on your hearts. Love can conquer all if given a chance✨