President Obama during a news conference at the White House
It’s been another tough week to be a Christian in America. Lately, there seem to be more and more such weeks. It gets to be a bit tiresome. But more than that, it can get to be downright depressing.
I’m referring, as you may have guessed, to the latest example of our federal government calling good evil and evil good, this time in the form of “guidance” to educational institutions about how to handle issues concerning transgender students.
The guidance was released on Friday, 5/13 in a letter signed by officials from not one, but two cabinet level departments, the Department of Justice and Department of Education. You can read the full text of the letter here.
The practical result of the guidance from the Obama administration, if it is applied, is, among other things, to open to open what are currently women’s only restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams to transgender women (a transgender woman is a person born male but who identifies as a female, a so-called woman trapped in a man’s body).
To put it more bluntly, the Obama administration believes that men should be able to use the women’s restroom.
Obama, it would seem, is willing to pay any price and bear any burden in the unrelenting pursuit of dumping as much moral filth on America as possible before his term expires.
And from all appearances, he’s succeeding admirably.
But how did it come to this? How is it possible for something so manifestly wrong to seem like the very height of wisdom to many in our society?
Philosophically, it would seem that the groundwork for this was laid in the 19th century. Soren Kierkegaard famously located truth in the “infinite passion” of the individual believer rather than in any objective standard outside of him. From this we get the popular notion that it matters not what a man believes, so long as he is sincere.
Twentieth century existentialists bear some responsibility here as well. According to existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” In other words, what we are is not a matter of how God created us, which is the Christian view, but instead a result of the choices we make.
This is a prescription for madness. It’s also complete nonsense.
In our sinful, fallen world, it is an easy thing to find people who sincerely believe all manner of nonsense. One man imagines he’s Julius Caesar, another that he’s Napoleon Bonaparte. But so what? There’s no great movement to accommodate such individuals. We may humor them. We may pray for them. If they’re a danger to themselves or to others, we may commit them to an institution. But there is no reason to take their claims seriously. And almost no one does.
But there’s an even better tool for refuting the claims of those unfortunates under the sway of the erroneous notions of contemporary gender studies.
The Word of God tells us plainly that God created man male and female. Further it states in plain language that homosexual and transgender behavior is sinful. It doesn’t take a Luther or a Calvin to understand this. Any ordinary, honest Christian with a Bible can prove it.
The Bible alone is the Word of God and it has a monopoly on truth. And all the incessant talk about the supposed civil rights of men trapped in women’s’ bodies or women trapped in men’s bodies is, to borrow a Biblical turn of phrase, imagining a vain thing. There are no such persons.
I doubt not but that there are those in the transgender community who sincerely believe their own rhetoric. As Christians and fellow sinners, we ought to pray for them. We ought to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Perhaps God in his grace will save some. But there is no compelling reason to listen to them, or to those in government who seek further to push the ungodly transgender agenda on our nation.
Lux Lucet 
Well, it’s rare, but it isn’t just rhetoric. It’s science, a matter of fact, just like realizing some people are gay from birth, never any possibility of another preference. I don’t know many trans people but I do know a few. One was in one of our newcomers groups at church. Perhaps if you took the effort to learn more, you might see things differently. You could drop by your local LGBT advocacy center to get some info, or ask your family doctor.
I’ve never found this issue to have any relevance upon my ability to pursue my faith. So, at least in my case, it’s no tougher to be Christian now than at any other time.
Science doesn’t furnish us with truth; science provides opinion only. And its opinions constantly are changing. Science provides no authoritative word on what is right and what is wrong.
There are moral dimensions to some branches of science. I was a medical assistant, a medication aide in a dementia care facility, and a radiologic technologist. Now that I’m retired, I train service dogs for those with disabilities, which also requires a lot of science. Our efforts in the hospitals and clinics where I worked were to fight diseases and repair injuries. Methods for doing that do change, but not the intent to help anyone we could to get better. You may have forgotten one of Jesus’ companions on Earth, the author of a Gospel, was a physician.
I was primarily responding to your blanket statement that “There are no such persons.” I know for a fact there are.
You wrote, “I know for a fact there are [transgendered persons].” How do you know this?
I’ve met them in the course of patient care, at church, and it was part of my medical internships during psychology courses. I’m convinced.
So the basis for your contention that there are transgender women [women trapped in men’s bodies] is the testimony of those who make this claim.
But don’t you think that this could be problematic? After all, the Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” In other places it speaks about the “vain imaginations of men’s hearts.” Sinful men are quite capable of fooling both themselves and others.
Before I could accept the idea that there really are women trapped in men’s bodies, as opposed to those who simply claim this is the case for them, someone would need to furnish proof of this from the Scriptures.
There are some people who are now making claims for trans speciesism, the idea that certain individuals are certain types of animals trapped in human bodies. I assume you would reject this notion, as would I. But this claim differs only in degree, not in kind, from the claims of the transgender community.
From what you say, you have respect for and interest in science. Here’s a link to an article by a Psychiatrist with some impressive credentials in the field of gender dysphoria. He makes the scientific case against claims of transgenderism: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=290
It isn’t just testimony, Steve. I can’t break patient confidentiality, but there’s medical imaging involved with people during the surgical transition process. It’s a process of counseling and sometimes body modification (sometimes not) that requires years. Everyone involved wants to make sure it’s not some other type of psychological problem. I’m convinced by my own direct experience and observation, not because others wrote or talked about it. What I’ve seen for myself, I believe to be real. That’s not the only way I can be convinced something is real, but it’s one of several I rely on.
Trans-speciesism would require radical alterations in DNA, and since each species genome is unique at the chromosomal level, it doesn’t make sense scientifically. It would alter not only gender but general blood chemistry, making an inter-species being unviable. On the other hand, lots of species have intersex (hermaphroditic) expressions, and some switch genders, even go back and forth. Gender within species is more flexible because it’s only one chromosome, and there are humans with less, extra and altered ones from the norm.
There isn’t anything about the subject one way or the other in the Bible. I don’t believe there’s any relevant scripture regarding vaccinations, antibiotics, eyeglasses, hearing aids, x-rays, MRI procedures, photography, quantum mechanics, unmanned space travel or computers either. If that is the only criteria by which you measure and validate every reality, it will have to remain an area of knowledge closed to you.
The problems with sex reassignment surgery are enormous. Our sex is part of our genes. It is no more possible for a man to become a woman that it is for him to become a cheetah. Sex reassignment surgery is changes the appearance of a man, but does nothing to alter his chromosomes.
As Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Paul R. McHugh put it, “transgendered men do not become women, nore do transgendered women become men,” such people, “become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they identify.”
The Bible, in fact, does address the issue of transgenderism. Deut. 22:5 prohibits women to wear men’s garments and vice versa. In other words, men are not to pretend to be women, which is precisely what transgender women do.
In 1 Corinthians 6:9, Paul includes “sodomites” in his list of types of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God The word Paul uses here is malakois, which is Greek for “effeminate” describing the passive partner in a homosexual relationship. In other words, a man who impersonates a woman.
As Christians, we should always be ready to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who struggle with gender dysphoria. Remember, Paul, after listing those who would not inherit the kingdom of God to the Corinthians, went on to say, “and such were some of you.” There is hope for those struggle with the sin of transgenderism, but as Christians, we must call sin sin and not seek to normalize it.
To do so simply confirms simply confirms these unfortunate people in their destructive lifestyle. Further, to seek through the legislative process to force others to accept transgender practices as normal is to subvert the good order of society, call evil good, and court brining about hell on earth.
The Bible, not science, has a monopoly on truth. At its best, science rises to the level of useful opinion, not knowledge.
Does not Romans 1:28-32 say that those who reject God and His word (the Bible) God makes them stupid. “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
You are correct. Discernment is a gift of God. And there are several passages in the Bible that speak of God’s taking discernment away from those whom he intends to judge.
Here’s an example from Job, “He takes way the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the Earth, and makes them wander in a pathless wilderness. They grope in the dark without light, and he makes them stagger like a drunken man” (Job 12:13-25).
John Robbins wrote and excellent article on the subject of the lack of discernment and its cause. Here’s the link http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=290