This article first appeared on the Christian Today website.
What Would Jesus Do – About Transgender?
It’s that moment you always know will arrive. You’re in the midst of an online discussion in which you are going against the general zeitgeist on a social issue (in this case transgender) and then it happens: someone comes up with what they think is a devastating riposte – ‘WWJD?’. The implication being that your response is not ‘Christlike’. Now apart from being pleased that non-Christians and atheists are so concerned about what Jesus thinks, how does one respond to this?
The first thing is that we need to understand where the question is coming from. It’s a kind of passive-aggressive intimidation – which in the current hysteria about transgender is far too frequently used. The argument is quite simple. Transgender people are being bullied; many are mentally ill and attempt suicide. We should want to prevent such bullying and help people be what they are. WWJD? Surely he would do the ‘nice’ thing and go with the flow?
It’s a tactic that is frequently used and its one that many individual Christians and Christian organisations don’t know how to handle. Some become aggressive and act like the bullies they are accused of being. But most just cave in and do the ‘nice’ thing. That’s why the Church of England issued its guidelines last week about boys being allowed to wear tutus and so on. Most of what was said was uncontroversial and common sense – but boys wearing tutus was never the issue anyway. This was in reality the Church of England mimicking the Tory party, by trying to avoid being called the ‘nasty religion’. The Church was in effect going along with the new Establishment thinking and being its spiritual echo.
So lets return to the question, ‘What would Jesus do about transgender?’
Some might say he would do or say nothing. After all he says nothing in the Bible on the subject – it has to be said that it is not particularly clear that this was a burning issue in 1st Century Judea (although Monty Python were decades ahead of the culture in suggesting that there might have been in this famous sketch from Life of Brian)!
Monty Python not withstanding there is of course a danger that the Church gets distracted from the Gospel and gets obsessed with what the culture is obsessing about. Whilst we must not do that, nevertheless we do need to speak into that culture, and we do need to speak truth to power, so…WWJD? Let me offer five principles.
1. Jesus would treat people with respect and kindness.Yes he got angry (at the money changers and the religious hypocrites), but ‘the bruised reed he would not break’. For that reason the church, and all Christians, must be totally opposed to any bullying or unkindness for any reason. We must never demonise or denigrate any person or group of people – even or perhaps especially when we fundamentally disagree with them. Of course Jesus is concerned about bullying. But it is precisely because he loves people that he wouldn’t just accept that brokenness and depression amongst trans people is because of bullying. Maybe it is because for some people being trans itself causes so much unhappiness? So in that case we need to ask, is it loving to encourage something which leads to so much unhappiness? Maybe doing the ‘nice’ and easy thing in this case, avoiding the hard and complex questions, is not actually the kind and good thing to do?
2. Jesus would treat all people fairly. There is a basic biblical principle of equality. Our society talks about equality but has no real basis for it. But as Christians we know that all human beings are made in the image of God.
As Genesis 1:27 says: ‘So God created mankind in his own image,in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’
Therein lies the basis of all human equality. We are all equally made in the image of God.
3. Jesus would reaffirm his Father’s teaching – Because therein lies the rub. He told us that we can’t just pick ‘n’ mix the bits we like out of the Bible. The very verse that establishes the whole basis of human equality is the verse that tells us that human beings were created male and female. There are two genders – not 57. And human beings are not ‘assigned a gender at birth’ by society. We are born that way. And yes I recognize that life isn’t always that simple and that there are those who feel as though they were born in the ‘wrong body’ and that there are a tiny percentage of people who are intersex and who need help because of that – but what we are talking about here is the ideology that says we can pick and choose and change our gender. Gender is not a societal construct but a God-given fundamental of humanity. Jesus, as the one through whom all things were made, is not going to go along with the idea that humanity can now re-make itself, without the plans and designs that God gave. What was wrong with the Church of England ‘guidance’ was not so much what it said, but what it didn’t say. The Catholic Church on the other hand has, as is often the case on social issues, been much more robust. Several years ago Pope Benedict made it very clear how important the issues at stake were – he rightly saw the current fad as a real threat to the future of humanity. ‘The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist.‘
4. Jesus would be especially hard on those who bring harm to children. He warned that the lowest place in hell was reserved for them. That’s why child sexual abuse within the church is such a hellish abomination. Its also why the Christian Church must stand up against the current fanatical ideology of the trans theorists who deny that biology and gender are connected and who think that we can just tell little children that they can choose their own gender. Many people have pointed out already (including those who have been involved in this field for many years) that what is now happening is in danger of becoming state sponsored child abuse. I have so many examples of the harm that this is now doing to so many.
5. Jesus would speak the truth. In love. Real love. Sacrificial Love. He wouldn’t just go along with the culture so that people wouldn’t think he was nasty. He wouldn’t be concerned about preserving his ‘position’ in society. He wouldn’t be afraid of speaking the truth just because people would accuse him of evil. But neither would he speak with bitterness, frustration and fear. Having entrusted himself wholly to his heavenly Father, he would get on with proclaiming his word and seeking and saving those who are lost.
WWJD? I don’t think he would issue minority reports, panic or despair. I don’t think he would begin political campaigns. But neither do I think he would compromise at all on the truth of his word. Heaven and earth would pass away before that happens! He would continue his prophetic, priestly and kingly role. And we must do the same. We announce the word like prophets to our culture – whether they like it or not. We intercede with fervent prayers for the confused, hurt and broken people in our society, recognising that we are they. And we proclaim the kingship of Christ above all that the political leaders and opinion formers of our culture tell us is now the absolute truth. It is his will that will be done, not theirs. They are on the wrong side of His-Story. We work on – against the odds – but with the joy and peace that comes from knowing that in the end the Judge of all the earth will do right and that the creation will be renewed, not destroyed.
David Robertson is Associate Director of Solas CPC in Dundee and minister at St Peter’s Free Church. Follow him on Twitter @TheWeeFlea.
Since writing this article I came across this brilliant piece in the Spectator – Beware the Modern Day Heretic Hunters
WIJD
What is Jesus doing is more radical, more progressive towards His return and judgment?
Interesting. Enjoyed this. Check out nakednerves.com
WWJD?
What he always did, he’d get to the heart of the matter.
He didn’t come for the righteous. Those who are not sick have no need for a physician.
But often our diagnosis differs to his. Instead of appeasing us, he cuts beyond our symptoms and goes for the root cause.
A mans (or woman’s) life does not consist of his (her) possessions.
Our thinking cannot make our hair grow.
We cannot serve two masters, one will always get the upper hand.
Our worth is not determined by our thoughts or feelings, nor those of others.
Transgenderism is merely a further symptom of a society that has already abandoned objective truth, in exchange for the subjective thoughts and feelings of the masses. I.e. Husbands no longer ‘feel’ in love with their wives, but they do for their mistress.
We ‘think’ marriage is unnecessary, our ‘love’ for our current partner is enough to build a relationship.
Thoughts and feelings, subjective, trump reality, and has slowly eroded our reliance on objective truth. So if the thoughts and feelings of the adulterer, or fornicators are validated, then so are the thoughts and feelings of the LGBT community.
It’s not possible to deal with a symptom. I don’t see Jesus taking issue with the person suffering confusion over gender, just as he didn’t take issue with the tax collector or prostitute. They were symptoms of a bigger problem.
Will we live according to our own perspective, our own thoughts and feelings, or his revealed truth? And the question is placed firstly at the door of the church! Just as he did to the Pharisees.
Very insightful piece. Nice to see another blogger called David Robertson too! Haha
There are many of us!
Perhaps you could point me in the direction of this David Robertson bloggers club 😛
Although this is not new – I recall reading a short piece by NT Wright-trans and fluidity has been identified as present day gnosticism where the
“distinction between male and female should be rejected as it’s part of a useless created order. The ideal is androgyny – a synthesis of male and female, and so neither one or the other.
The outworking of this ranges from godess worship to saying women need to become men to be saved. But the common theme is seeing the male/female distinction as defective, part of the fallen world of death; we must escape it if we are to find true life.
The gospel of Thomas: When you make male and female one and the same,so that the male not be male nor the female female…then you will enter the kingdom.”
Cited from the fold-out pamphlet “Gnosticism” which traces gnosticism to the present time, produced by the Christian Institute- viewable online I think.
It was unknown to me a that Abaraxas is the Gnostic deity. In my complete ignorance I loved the music of Santana on disc of the same name.
This item cut and pasted from social media for sharing:
American College of Paediatricians: Gender Ideology Harms Children
http://www.acpeds.org/the-c…
3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.
4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.
5. According to the DSM-5, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.
6. Pre-pubertal children diagnosed with gender dysphoria may be given puberty blockers as young as eleven, and will require cross-sex hormones in later adolescence to continue impersonating the opposite sex. These children will never be able to conceive any genetically related children even via artificial reproductive technology. In addition, cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.
7. Rates of suicide are nearly twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBTQ – affirming countries. What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?
8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics” where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.
Nice piece, I like your writing style. I’m Rach From Proud to be trans site. Could you send me a link to post on my site? Good work….
Jesus would do what all good people do when he doesn’t know the answer. He would talk to God and leave the answer to Him. This was my grandmother’s approach when I came out to her. Her prayers and deep love for me have provided me with a blessed, peaceful existence.
I am transgender and a Christian. It is my belief that my soul was placed into this body with intent that I experience dysphoria and transition so that God might work through me to build bridges between His children. God has recognized the needless suffering inflicted upon those with dysphoria as well as the cornucopia of violence and abuse inflicted upon women especially due to gender roles/stereotypes and myself and people like me are here now to end all of that.
Thanks for getting in touch and replying. I appreciate where you are coming from and that you suffer from gender dysphoria. I also agree entirely about your comments concerning violence and abuse against women especially. But I cannot agree that promoting transgender is in the long run anything but harmful to people. It adds to the confusion. I think we are better to stick with the Bible teaching because surely God knows best?
As I see it, you’ll find God everywhere. The Bible is but one place to find Him and it certainly isn’t the clearest place to look because the words in the Bible have been re-written and re-translated so many times by the hands of men that I don’t feel we can entirely accept it to be God’s word any longer, but you can still hear it elsewhere if you listen.
Sorry but that is precisely my point. The Bible is Gods Word…it has been preserved and we don’t get to pick ‘n’ mix which bits we like and don’t like. You rely on your feelings…I dare not…I rely on God’s Word. Your feelings would take away God’s word from me and create hell on earth!
I’m afraid you’re quite wrong there. Let me ask you: Have you studied ancient languages or read any of the Bible’s original texts? Or have you read it in the English language only? If you have read it in English, you have not read a preservation, you’ve read interpretation into a different language. Oh, and let’s not forget mankind’s everso violent history of burning books and rewriting histories. The Bible has been subject to that as well.
I’m here to tell you there is great value in the stories you will find in the Bible. The true intent is still present in many of those words but in many parts, the Bible has been infused with intent that certainly don’t belong to God that serves the will of men instead.
I bring only Heaven to Earth, sir. You can ask any of the many whose lives I’ve touched what sort of world I would will into being if I could. It would be a world of harmony and peace for all God’s children. It would be like the world I have lent my hand to creating in my part of the world.
If you’re scared of people like myself, I would implore you to talk with me with the hopes we might build bridges to understanding as Jesus would want us to do. Please don’t judge. Instead, just converse with me and then take our conversation back to God and allow Him to guide you.
My grandmother, did this exact thing when I came out to her. She sought the Mote and the Beam, of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount:
1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
— Matthew 7:1-5 KJV (Matthew 7:1-5)
And she chose to leave my judgement up to God as one should. She asked Him that if my reasons for transitioning weren’t pure of intent to serve God then to stop me.
God did not stop me. In fact, God encouraged me at every turn. My grandmother’s prayers have granted me a blessed existence. I’ve lived in peace and harmony among a heavily traditional Conservative/Christian community most of my life and transitioned without any form of rejection of discord with them. My transition has greatly improved every aspect of my life and has allowed me to exercise my will with the intent to best serve God as my grandmother had prayed for. God smiles on me and knows that my feminine soul is no longer imprisoned by masculine flesh and instead can be free to serve Him.
Yes – Have studied ancient languages – biblical Greek and Hebrew. I’m amazed and somewhat amused that you seem to know what the original intent was and which parts are bad! Where did you get such knowledge?! As for your plea not to judge…you do realise that your post is full of judgements? Interesting that you left the next verse our of your quote from MAtthew.
It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? The Bible has been traded through one man in power after another throughout history. These men have destroyed God and replaced God’s word with their own. It is no small mystery that these men have demanded we not only refer to God by male pronouns, but that we capitalize them to render unto God ultimate male superiority. God’s word has been lost to such men.
It is not humankind’s place to judge as we have not been endowed to know truth. We don’t have the capacity for it, only God does. This isn’t judgement, it is to render unto God that which is God’s.
As to the next verse, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”
You dare to judge me to be a dog or a pig now?
Let’s skip the verses on asking, seeking, and knocking for now, though we can go back to those later if you would like.
“15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
The fruit I bear is ripe and sustaining. My branches which did not bear fruit have been pruned by God to bear perfect fruit. My soul has been freed to project God’s will into the world and to offer it my fruit. The truth of my fruit is inherent in the goodness I have brought to the world. I would invite you to take a walk with me around my community and to be shown this yourself.
But you havn’t answered how you know. You have set yourself up as the authority over the word of God. You feel free to quote some verses but don’t like the context (and please don’t be silly – I never called you a dog or a pig). You have a breathtaking arrogance – thinking that you bear perfect fruit and that you can overturn Gods word. I suggest a little humility and rationality..as well as submission to the Bible as the Word of God….just don’t make things up and then say its God!
That isn’t at all what I said. My fruit comes from God and serves God. I uphold the actual word of God by rendering judgement to God and not to people who would put their words in the mouth of God.
It is precisely what you said – you spoke about your ‘perfect fruit’. And you do precisely what you condemn others for. You refuse to accept the Bible as the Word of God and instead replace it with your own words.
I do no such thing. I have only said render unto God that which is God’s.
As Jesus’s parable says, we can recognize false prophets by the fruit they bear. Your message is one of division and dischord with people judging people. Mine is one of harmony and togetherness with people shedding their judgement for one another and leaving it to God, to instead work together and to build bridges to common grounds in spite of our differences.
I wish that were the case! Anyone reading your posts can see what you have said. Your version of harmony is harmony only people who agree with your point of view. You can’t have common ground without the Scriptures. Your dismissal of them is about as divisive as you can get!
Judgement is only God’s to grant.
Do what you will. It is God you must answer to, not me.
Again – I totally agree! It is not for you to judge me or to think that my upholding of God’s word about what it says about male and female is somehow abusive or wrong.
Its fruit is rotten.
Just look at how many women and children are being abused in society and pay careful attention to the types of people who are their abusers .
Views granting a certain type of person superiority is abusive and wrong and this is a problem that permeates western society, largely due to men believing they are god.
You are saying that the fruit of the word of God is rotten?! Wow….does your judgementalism and arrogance know no bounds? Are you claiming to be superior?
I’m claiming that I can see, as Jesus tells us, that we can know false prophecy by the fruit it bears.
I’m saying to look at the vast numbers of women and children being abused by men and to know that it happens because men have been wrongly placed into the position of God by powerful entities who have corrupted God’s word.
Which is more beneficial to the world? The idea that we are all made in God’s androgynous image or that men are made in God’s masculine image and women/children are inferior derivatives?
Oh and let’s not forget the bad fruit God’s image as a white man in particular has also done to other races. Ask any white supremacist where their authority comes from and they will tell you it comes from God.
I come to you before you humbly and with no judgement but to say leave judgement to God and look at the fruit of any tree of knowledge to know the truth of prophecy.
The fruit you offer is rotten.
You still havn’t answered the question….and you still have a breathtaking arrogance – boasting of your humility and lack of judgement whilst your posts are laced with judgement is breathtaking hypocrisy. The Bible is corrupt and you alone know what the Bible really says (which astonishingly just matches your own views!) You also lie and misrepresent the views of those who don’t agree with you (was I arguing that women/children are inferiors? – I don’t think that at all. And where did you get the white supremacy stuff? I’m sorry but your arguments are wicked lies and from the pit of hell. You are no bridge builder. Your fruit is obvious…
Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of his good store of treasure, and the evil man brings evil things out of his evil store of treasure. But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
Wonderful. I totally agree. Glad to see that you are quoting the word of God!
Part of the problem is that the adherents refer to this as trans-genderism which it is not. Gender is genetically determined apart from a very tiny minority. LBGT- whatever alphabetically defined- is instead a variant of sexual identity to which kids are particularly susceptible as they try to sort out their identity, and is consequently a pernicious misdirection.