Nothing is ‘black and white’ any longer it seems. The lines have all been blurred. Even in places where the lines could never be blurred, they have been blurred: the sexes. I recently watched an interview of a lady—a psychologist no less—who was raising her child to be neither boy or girl. When the child would ask if he/she was a boy or a girl, the mother would reply, “Whatever you want to be.” We live in a time where gender-lines are as blurred to the point that you never know whether to say yes sir or ye ma’am. The gender-lines are so blurred that US magazine’s woman of the year was a man. No, it’s not the Twilight Zone; it’s the 21st Century. And, in many cases the church is not combating the problem, it is embracing the culture.
Wayne Grudem writes, “The church has been called to counter and bless the culture, not to copy and baptize it. All too often our churches reflect, rather than constructively engage, worldly culture.”[1] Christian Headlines reports that the Baptist church has ordained its first openly transgender pastor.[2] CNN reported in 2010, that the Episcopal Church had ordained its first openly lesbian bishop.[3] Writing in 2006, Grudem simply did not know how true his words were, and would become.
Homes are broken often leading to single parent situations where the child may not have role models of the sex opposite the parent with which he/she lives. Some children are brought up by two parents of the same sex. Television shows flaunt and glamour these alternative lifestyles. And the church, the lighthouse, the guidepost, for the world has all too often has bought into society instead of acting to show society a better. Little Johnny can be all that he can be, and he might just be doing it in a dress, with mutilated genitalia, in a church near you, unless the church steps up and teaches biblical manhood and womanhood.
While the Western church seems willing to allow societal norms to change its stance on many issues, the African church seems to be prepared to take a stronger stance. Father Raphael Adebayo from the Catholic church of Saint Agnes in the Nigerian city of Lagos asserts, “It is impossible for the Church to support something that does not please God. It is clear that homosexuality is an abomination.”[4] We needn’t read further than Genesis 1 to see God’s intended sexual order for his creation: Male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). And, in Genesis 2 we also see God’s intended picture of marriage: Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24, ESV). God created man and woman. And, they were created for each other.
God created both male and female. He created them for each other. And, he did not create male for male, or female for female. Nor did he create male to become female or female to become male. Yet, in western society there seems to be an abandonment of absolute truth in favor of a relative truth which allows that anything goes. Corradi writes that the new societal delusion is “that gender is a social construct rather than a biological fact. This is the notion that there are no biologically determined characteristics of either sex.”[5] Corradi goes onto to write, “In fact there are no ‘opposite sexes,’ only a gender spectrum between femaleness and maleness (hence the prefix “trans-” in “transgender”), and one may choose to identify oneself with any point on the continuum, or to remain undecided.”[6] Rubano argues that argues that a pastoral sensibility should take into account research into ‘gender creativity’—a term coined by Diane Ehrensaft, adapted from Wincott’s phrase ‘individual creativity’—which would allow for children places of worship to be better sanctuaries for authentic living. He writes, “One way this pastoral sensibility can be expressed is through a gender-creative reading of scripture as a model for advocacy on behalf of gender-nonconforming children.”[7] But, we abandon the created order and throw out biblical manhood and womanhood considering Romans 1:18: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth (ESV)? Do we change the word and give approval of such practices in light of Romans 1:32: 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 (ESV)?
What does this mean for the church? I worship in what most would call a medium size church, The Church of the Redeemer Anglican Church in Camden, North Carolina. To our east is Elizabeth City, North Carolina; and to our south, the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Both host gay pride events. So, while our church is not in some great metropolitan city, these issues knock at our door, as it knocks at the door of a good many churches. We handle it by making sure with our most vulnerable to fall to deceptive doctrine, we start early teaching biblical manhood and womanhood. Grudem writes, “If we write off, ignore, or distort the Bible’s teaching on gender roles, then we are bound to do so with everything the Bible teaches.”[8] In this era where gender confusion runs amok we cannot afford to do anything less. As schools become more liberal in teaching ‘alternative’ lifestyles and genders on a daily basis, the church has to step up and teach biblical lifestyles—through all of its flawed characters—on its one day a week. It is essential that while preach/teach the way of salvation there be discipleship among all the church members. And, we bring them all back to the order of creation.
Former Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright asserts, “The last scene in the Bible is the new heaven and the new earth, and the symbol for that is the marriage of Christ and his church. It’s not just one or two verses here and there which say this or that. It’s an entire narrative which works with this complementarity so that a male-plus-female marriage is a signpost or a signal about the goodness of the original creation and God’s intention for the eventual new heavens and new earth.”[9] Our teachings of the generations that will follow us has to be based on the goodness of the original creation. But, we have to be teaching and countering the teaching that comes from the world with the teaching that comes from above. As Wright wrote, “We need to let Paul remind us, precisely when major cultural change is upon us, that our confidence is not in the solidity of Western culture or the basic goodness of modern democracy. Our confidence is in Jesus and him alone.”[10] We have to teach as in many ways society has taken a head start in the indoctrination race.
We pray that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in Heaven,” but is the church acting in such a way that God’s will is being done? In our quest to bring more people into the Kingdom are we allowing the church to mirror society as opposed to changing the world to look like a Kingdom that operates by God’s will? To accept both the homosexual lifestyle and the transgender lifestyle into the church is to change God’s word and to change his bride into what God intended as sin. As these issues become more common place in society, and as the western world tries to change countries in the East to be more like the West, maybe it’s time for the church in the West to look to the church in the East for a biblical understanding of these not so tough issues.
Until next time May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You!
[1] Wayne Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), Kindle Location 173.
[2] http://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/baptist-church-ordains-first-openly-transgender-preacher.html
[3] http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/15/episcopal.lesbian.bishop/index.html
[4] http://www.dw.com/en/little-support-by-african-churches-for-gay-rights/a-16408405.
[5] Richard Corradi, “Transgender Delusion,” First Things 256 (October 2015): 17.
[6] Corradi, 18.
[7] Craig Rubano, “Where Do the Mermaids Stand? Toward a Gender Creative Pastoral Sensibility,” Pastoral Psychology 65 (2016): 822-823.
[8] Wayne Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), Kindle Location 178-179.
[9] https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/06/n-t-wrights-argument-against-same-sex-marriage.
[10] N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues (New York: Harper Collins, 2014), 185.
I have been reading exchanges concerning Pride Fest and the LGBTQ+ (I’m not exactly sure about the ‘Q’ and am totally clueless about the ‘+’) in my local newspaper—hopefully many of you still remember newspapers! As I read I notice the word progressive coming up and yet, this movement is anything but a progression; it is a regression to an ancient time. Embracing the Epicureanism of the Enlightenment, they have deemed the creator God to be some far-off deity that does not interact with his creation. So, His truths do not matter and whatever truth they decide to follow is their truth.
I’ll admit that I am old enough to remember the song, “Making Believe.” And as a kid I ‘made believe’ as much as did any other child. Yet, with age ‘painted wings and giant things’ make way for other things—hopefully real life. Yet, in our current society we are asked to make to make, well, make believe. We are asked to make believe that God’s creation doesn’t exist as God created.
Back in the 70s we all laughed as the margarine commercial claimed, “It’s not nice to fool mother nature.” Yet, now in the 21st century we are all agog to ‘fool’ Father God. We have all but forgotten the original creation, which was pronounced as good. We were taught to pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in Heaven. Yet, we have allowed, and even endorsed, everything but God’s will. As Christians we are called to counter the culture not embrace and bless it.
THEOLOGY FROM THE COAST 