There exists an elegant creational dance witnessed daily. The sun rises and sunsets. And underneath the surface of things, below the dance floor, the part we don’t see, green pigment chlorophyll gathers energy from the sun to empower the greening of the planet. All around us we see a living, breathing, beautiful embrace, and the fruitful coming together of difference, a union seen and unseen, dancing above ground and beneath. We witness daily the mystery of life. In God’s more complex life forms, we observe the give and take between male and female. At the pinnacle of creational complexity, we humans dance to melodies and harmonies which produce ever deepening companionship, complementarity and, of course, children.
Where would we be without that dance?
I believe God created both Heaven and Earth, Spirit and Matter, Soul and Body, invisible and visible things. I believe God designed us humans for body-soul integration. If you are a person who values God’s good creation and also believes God intends the bi-natured world to exist in loving harmony, as a integrated creation, with an overlapping and interlocking existence, mirroring the life of our Triune God, then you may be assigned the label “bigot” in this fluid world full of endless imaginings.
Why? Because you don’t believe that inner desire trumps biology. Or that the mind can be fruitfully separated from the body. Rather you believe in an inherent creational structure ordained and blessed by God. At the human level, you believe God created us male and female. And those are the only options. You also believe it is illicit to do irreparable harm to the body in service to one’s gender identity.
(It must be admitted that some Christians have reimagined the Faith and have expanded this project into reimagining our anthropology as well.)
We each, male or female, possess half of a reproductive system. So the long term purpose and intention, if humans want to remain a “going concern,” is the uniting of two into one flesh so that they might become three. This Trinitarian pattern of two becoming one that then becomes three, father, mother, child, echoes the existence of Classic Christianity’s Triune God.1I realize twins and triplets, etc…break the analogous pattern, but the coming together of difference to create life remains valid. Of course I won’t deny the mystery of the Trinity transcends this basic pattern of earthly existence, but I believe this particular “trace of the Trinity” in our created order speaks wisely & soberly to us.
At least it should.
To frame today’s most important debate as purely a question about loving people is insufficient. It is necessary but not sufficient if your main desire is to lead broken humans to wholeness. Jesus, as John tells us, was full of Grace & Truth2John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”.
You are not loving a person if you affirm their delusions. No matter how sincerely held those delusions might be.
“Love” separated from Truth is infertile, it cannot create life. It can’t make us whole. And that is what God desires for us. Fruitful, flourishing, wholesome life.
From the beginning.
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As a Classic Christian I encourage everyone to “Embrace, Don’t Affirm.”
Individuals with a Gender Identity Disorder (Gender-Dysphoria) need Truth-filled Love. Please read this post for more details.
For anyone interested in an extended review of the Gender-Critical Pro-Creation argument presented on this blog, but without having to scroll through every post, please visit the Menu at the top of each page and click on the Top Posts link.
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I’m a Classic Christian and think Gender Ideology is anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.
"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]
If you would like more detail on how my Christian worldview informs my understanding of Sex and today’s Gender Ideology please read the following posts.
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Love refuses to affirm confusion.
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