The Internal Contradiction in Transgender Theories
It doesn’t take long to recognize the internal inconsistency between these two narratives. The first depends on maleness and femaleness being something real, for a binary must exist for it to be transgressed or transcended. The second questions reality altogether, falling for a radical skepticism that reimagines the world in terms of linguistic power plays.
One of the most remarkable women in history, Joan of Arc, has long been at the center of various conversations and controversies because, while no one can deny her significance, the meaning of her words and actions eludes easy explanation.
Was she, as Shakespeare cast her, a witch? Were her visions heretical, as church leaders at the time concluded, or was she the saint the later Catholic Church canonized? What do we make of her commitment to a shining chastity and her insistence on her physical virginity? How should we interpret the rationale for wearing men’s clothing while leading armies into battle? Was she a reluctant warrior who wished for an ordinary life or an ambitious girl who desired the spotlight? What do we learn from her martyrdom?
In First Things, Dan Hitchens reflects on recent attempts to enlist Joan of Arc for the LGBT+ cause. Many today want to reimagine her as a nonconforming, prototransgender revolutionary. Hitchens reclaims Joan for a conservative and biblical understanding of sex and gender, as opposed to the cultural trend that makes her a founder of trans identity.
The questions about Joan of Arc’s life and legacy fascinate me, but they go beyond my purpose here. Instead, I want to lean on Hitchens’s description of the most important yet often unnoticed contradictions at the heart of today’s transgender theories. He believes one of the transgender movement’s most remarkable achievements has been to conceal the internal division at the heart of gender theory. “There is no single trans narrative,” he says. There are two, “wholly incompatible and mutually destructive, which have somehow been fused into a single, all-conquering cause.”
“Wrong Body” Narrative
Here’s how Hitchens describes the first narrative:
The first narrative holds that there are two realities, maleness and femaleness, and that some people are tragically exiled from their true states. Jan Morris, in the opening lines of the only trans memoir written by an acknowledged master of English prose, puts it like this: “I was three or perhaps four years old when I realized I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl. I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life.” This kind of story is compelling at an emotional level: It speaks to the universal feeling of dislocation, of alienation, of longing for completeness, and at the same time resonates with the hope of the oppressed for justice, with the sorrows of every human being denied true flourishing by prejudice and fear.
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Homosexual Immorality Driving a World Health Emergency
There are consequences to sexual immorality. The most severe consequences are eternal for those who do not repent and turn to Christ. But there are temporal consequences as well, and diseases like Monkeypox are evidence of that.
Rod Dreher wrote yesterday about the hypocrisy of public health authorities in 2020 who mandated lockdowns for COVID but who made exceptions for Black Lives Matter protests. Our ruling class’s inconsistency during the summer of 2020 was obviously not being driven by hard science but by social concerns. If you belonged to a favored group (like a BLM protest), then you were allowed to gather. If you belonged to a disfavored group (like a church trying to gather for worship), you were not allowed to gather. While churches were being harassed by local governments for continuing to meet, enormous BLM protests continued apace. The entire spectacle demonstrated in spades that public health authorities are not always basing their guidance on “the science.”
To some extent, it seems like public health authorities may be at it again with their response to the Monkeypox outbreak. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Monkeypox to be a “Global Health Emergency.” The director general of the WHO overruled a panel of advisors to get this done—a panel that remains divided whether Monkeypox is an emergency. The director general explains his extraordinary decision, “We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little, and which meets the criteria” for a public health emergency.
Monkeypox is a disease that causes flu-like symptoms and causes excruciating rashes and lesions on the surface of the skin. It is spreading primarily among gay men through sexual contact. The Washington Post reports, “Infections in the ongoing outbreak are reported overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men, and experts believe close contact during sexual activity is a major driver of transmission.” Likewise, The New York Times says, “As of Friday, New York City had logged 839 monkeypox cases, nearly all of them in men who have sex with men, according to the city’s Department of Health.”
The New York Times continues:
Many patients in the current outbreak have developed lesions only in the genital area. Some — especially those who develop sores in the throat, urethra or rectum — have suffered excruciating pain.
“I was scared to use the bathroom actually,” said one recent patient, Gabriel Morales, 27, a part-time model based in New York City. “I can’t even describe it. It feels like broken glass.”
This is only the seventh time in the last 15 years that the WHO has declared a worldwide public health emergency with the most recent being the COVID outbreak in 2020.
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Preaching New Testament Instructions Without Moralism
‘Show hospitality’. Is there really much to say about that? Doesn’t showing hospitality look the same for everyone? Well, it depends on your definition. If you think hospitality is fundamentally opening your home and giving people meals (which is a great way to be hospitable) you have to ask how a believer who doesn’t have a home, or a dining table, or potentially any food, could achieve that? If they can’t, then perhaps the issue lies with our definition. Christ’s universal commands that apply to all believers everywhere must be achievable by all believers everywhere in some respect.
At church, we are fast approaching the end of our series in Hebrews. Yesterday, was the penultimate sermon covering the first part of chapter 13. In essence, the passage gave the instruction to ‘let brotherly love continue’ and then outlined four ways we are specifically to do that. Whatever else you might want to say about Hebrews 13:1-6, it ain’t a very tricky passage.
At least, it’s not tricky to understand. It is, however, a little bit tricky to preach. Not because the meaning is hard to convey (it isn’t), but because it is difficult to know exactly how best to preach a list of instructions without descending into moralism or a 30-minute guilt trip. It’s so easy to end up preaching a do-this-and-live style sermon – which really is not what these instructions are there for – or, if we avoid that, to basically make people feel guilty over these various things. I’m not 100% sure either is the most helpful. I’m not 100% I always manage to avoid these things. I suspect I probably don’t preach moralism, but I might well fall into guilt trips.
So, how do you preach lists of instructions without making your message moralistic or spending the whole sermon guilt tripping people about their efforts in these different areas? Here are some things that might help.
Be clear about context
Most New Testament instructions are not given in a vacuum. Usually, they come in the context of other theological points being made or other things going on in the wider context of the book. The particular instructions in Hebrews, for example, come off the back of the writer encouraging his readers to pursue holiness and serve the unshakeable kingdom of God as the only thing of any lasting and ultimate value. So, the instructions are not given as “four steps to Heaven”, but rather as outworkings of what it means to serve the kingdom that will last. If nothing but the kingdom matters, then do these things because they will have lasting value and worth on the last day. Knowing that context makes a bit of difference to how we understand the instructions. The same is true for any of the instructions in scripture.
Be clear about the gospel
If we know the gospel, we know that we are not saved by our works. If we know the gospel, we know we are not saved by faith but then kept by our works thereafter. If we know the gospel, we know that our holiness and justification are not a product of our works, but the work of Christ. I know it’s not it’s not rocket science, but when we are clear about those things we know that the approach to these New Testament instructions can’t be that we are made holy by doing them or that we are adding to our salvation through them. They must be achieving or accomplishing something else.
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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act at 30
RFRA and other religious liberty protections are a part of a larger set of cultural, legislative and legal efforts that will be required to navigate and resolve current conflicts over what it means to be human, created male and female. In that long-term effort, continuing to articulate and defend the rationale behind RFRA for the next generation is a good place to start.
Thirty years ago this month, the landmark Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) was signed into law. The enactment of RFRA was historic in a number of ways, from the broad coalition that rallied around it to the exceptional congressional resolve that passed it. But most of all, RFRA’s enactment was significant because of how the law contributes to practically implementing our first freedom and helping us navigate our differences as a society. Three decades later, that is more important than ever.
The basic principle behind RFRA is that when the government makes policy, it should not interfere with religious believers’ practice of their faith. The coalition that worked for RFRA’s passage brought together 66 diverse religious and civil rights organizations, from the Southern Baptists to the American Civil Liberties Union. Catholic, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, and many other religious groups participated in the coalition.
Then a member of the House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. was the lead House sponsor of RFRA and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., sponsored the Senate bill. Support was so high that the House opted to pass the bill by voice vote and the Senate voted 97 to 3 for passage. President Clinton remarked at the signing ceremony, “the power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen.”
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