Mt 19:12 – “There are some eunuchs who were that way from birth, and some who were made eunuchs by others, and some who became eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who is able to accept this should accept it.”
How, if at all, does Jesus’ teaching inform modern debates about gender diversity?
Justin Tanis writes:
…‘Clearly Jesus knows that some people are born outside the binary gender system and people whose lives lead them beyond it.
It all began with the publication, on the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) web site, of an article by ‘non-binary’ author and FFRF fellow Kat Grant titled, ‘What is a Woman?’
After rejecting biology-based definitions, such as ‘a woman is someone with a vagina’, or ‘a woman is someone who has (or lacks) certain chromosomes’, Grant concludes that ‘a woman whoever she says she is’.
This article prompted a response, on the same web site, from distinguished biological scientist Jerry Coyne. …
55b “The eunuch should not say,
‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’ ”
56:4 For this is what the LORD says:
“For the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths
and choose what pleases me
and are faithful to my covenant,
56:5 I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument
that will be better than sons and daughters.
I will set up a permanent monument for them that will remain.”
The issues to be explored here are (a) whether this inclusion of eunuchs among the people of God represents a change of mind from earlier biblical teaching, and (b) whether this signals the inclusion of other groups who might be considered similar to eunuchs (especially transgender persons).…
Are you willing to ‘stand with the LGBTQ+ community’?
Mike Starkey responds by saying that the question is incoherent, because the very concept of ‘the LGBTQ+ community’ is itself incoherent.
In general terms, the ‘acronym’ LGBTQ+ is too fluid and too diverse to be meaningful. In the 1980s, the first three letters (LGB) sufficed. Stonewall add the ‘T’ in 2015. The versions of the acronym exist today, with LGBTQ+ being currently approved by Stonewall. The ‘+’ stands for a growing number of additions.…
Sara Parks makes some interesting observations about ways in which *Jesus often used both male and female examples in his teaching.
Jesus often taught the same lesson twice, using male- and female-oriented examples:
In some of these pairs, no people are mentioned at all. …
Based on Gregg Johnson, in Recovering Biblical manhood and womanhood, ch. 16. 1997. Available online.
1. Ethological observations
Among most higher social mammals males
Females:
From anthropological studies:
It would be amusing, if it were not so distressing, to note that evangelicals are by no means exempt from the danger of misrepresentating one another.
One such instance involves Andrew Bartlett, author of Men and Women in Christ: Fresh Light From Biblical Texts, and Sharon James, in her review of that book.
…‘According to James: “Throughout his book, Bartlett uses ‘patriarchy’ … as a smear word”. But I don’t use the term “patriarchy” at all.
Vaughan Roberts, in ‘Together in Faith and Love?‘:-
The difference between the moral instincts of contemporary society and the traditional teaching of the Church flows from two different worldviews, both of which could be called gospels, because each claims to present good news which offers an alternative path to freedom and fulfilment. The gospel of ‘expressive individualism’, to use the sociologist Charles Taylor’s term, prizes authenticity as its core value. Jonathan Grant has expressed it well:
…‘Modern authenticity encourages us to create our own beliefs and morality, the only rule being that they must resonate with who we feel we really are.
1 Corinthians 11:3 reads:
‘But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.’
The statement ‘God is the head of Christ’ comes in a context which deals with the expression of gender roles in public worship. Does it then provide a basis for gender complementarity on the basis of the immanent Trinity?
Most evangelical egalitarians, such as Kevin Giles, answer with a resounding, ‘No!’ …
Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, is the most high-profile counter-signer of Steve Chalke’s letter to the Prime Minister, which calls for the inclusion of trans people in the proposed ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’.
There is one sentence in particular which has aroused interest:
‘
To be trans is to enter a sacred journey of becoming whole: precious, honoured and loved, by yourself, by others and by God.’
Andrew Bunt has pointed out how this places a Christian veneer over a thoroughly secular outlook.…
