How the Church Can Engage Our Transgender Neighbors

by Ryan Smith | Mar 28, 2019

Real people. Real circumstances. Real prayers.

That’s what I see more and more as I read the Scriptures.

Real people struggling to understand and trust a holy God.

Real circumstances in which people try to navigate a broken and sin-soaked world.

Real prayers of those turning to God for truth and hope.

Imagine a person gathered each week with your church family. They are experiencing thoughts and feelings they don’t know what to do with. They don’t see themselves fitting the general gender stereotypes placed before them. They are confused and praying to God. Would they know how to engage you or your church family?

Imagine a person walking through your church’s doors for the first time. They’ve been invited by a friend, but aren’t sure what to expect. They have walls built up and have heard that Christians don’t like people like them. They’ve heard God doesn’t like people like them. They are afraid; perhaps defensive. Would they know how to engage you or your church family?

The transgender movement has been one of the most volatile social movements of recent decades. The church can easily feel ill-equipped, unprepared and unsure about how to handle our society’s broad acceptance of, and encouragement toward, a genderless or gender-fluid world.

This is the second article in a short series about transgenderism and the church. In the first article, “The Church and the Transgender Moment,” I attempted to provide definitions. Simply knowing what our transgender neighbors are thinking, experiencing and saying can hopefully help us enter the conversation with the mind of Christ.

In this article, I ask us as the church to evaluate how we can best love and walk in the Gospel with our neighbors outside and inside the church who may be struggling with transgenderism.

What Our Transgender Neighbors Need

What our transgender neighbors need is the same thing the pastor, the liar, the small group leader, the addict and the suburban soccer mom need: The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Transgender people don’t need a different gospel. Like all of us in a broken and fallen world, they need to turn from the kingdom of self, surrender to Christ as King and trust Him daily in new resurrected life. 

The good news for the church is that we know the Gospel. We have the Bible. We may not have a lot of training or a gender-studies degree from Harvard, but we can introduce people to Jesus. Could it be difficult walking through the Bible, wrestling with big questions and sharing the love of Jesus with a transgender neighbor? Absolutely. Frankly, it’s hard for me to walk through the Bible, wrestle with big questions and share the love of Jesus with myself! Ease is not our Gospel paradigm.

A hopefully helpful paradigm for our churches to adopt in engaging our transgender neighbors is simply this: be clear about the whole Gospel. As many have done before, we can attempt to explain the Gospel clearly as Creation, Fall and Restoration.

Creation

When we speak of creation, it’s important we talk not only about God as Creator, but also what He has created. In speaking of His creation, it is vital we not only address the “no” or boundaries, but the “yes” and what protection, provision and flourishing those boundaries provide.

Statistically, 80-85 percent of children or youth who identify as transgender will ultimately end up identifying with their birth sex. Gender confusion at this stage often can result from one not relating to gender molds placed before them. To engage a sexually questioning culture, we must affirm and uphold God’s design of male and female, but also ensure we are providing biblical definitions—not re-applying cultural definitions. It is true a lot of men like sports, the outdoors and the combination of meat with fire. There is nothing wrong with that. However, that is not biblical manhood.

We must be willing to ask: does our church have room for the man who doesn’t like sports or the woman who does? Do we clearly define, emphasize and celebrate the biblical man who faithfully takes the initiative in leading his home toward Christ, yet prefers an art brush to a rifle? Do our youth understand that what they enjoy does not define their gender, but can be used within their gender to create a wonderful spectrum of people God calls and uses in obedience to Him?

Are we a church that affirms and celebrates the single adult the way Paul celebrates them in his first letter to the Corinthians? The church must be the champion of God’s gender definitions and uphold the roles of biblical manhood and womanhood, but not first filter them through cultural ideologies. We must teach on difficult passages and champion those who follow Christ well in marriage as well as singleness.

Fall

While this is reductionistic, we could say the God of Genesis 1 created the genders of Genesis 2, and they were broken in Genesis 3 where we live today. It is important that we emphasize all three aspects of this narrative. We live in a world of distortion—particularly sexual distortion. Even some of the most instrumentally recognized people in Scripture displayed sexual brokenness—David committed adultery and let his eyes go where they shouldn’t. Rahab was a prostitute. Judah slept with his daughter-in-law whom he thought was a prostitute (not to mention Noah, Solomon, and others).

One of the biggest questions for people with gender dysphoria in our midst is, “Why would God make me this way if it is wrong?” Upholding what God created in Genesis 1-2 reminds us how we are created, but pointing to Genesis 3 helps us remember how we are broken. As the church, we must be those who embrace, sympathize and empathize with all who are broken and come together under the cross of Christ. The phrase, “It’s okay not to be okay, but it’s not okay to stay that way” must be the church’s refrain as we all come to grips with our condition.

Restoration

While we are all broken images—holding innate distortions of what we are meant to be—we must continually remind each other that the story doesn’t end at Genesis 3, but calls us forward to Revelation 21-22, when all things are restored and made new for those in Christ.

In the meantime, just as Paul exhorted the Corinthians in relation to their sin, sexual brokenness and dysphoria, we must also exclaim, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).  God may never change those desires, but God certainly is in the business of changing lives to be used for His glory and our good in the church.

Our transgender neighbors need to know we are all tempted by innate desires that run contrary to truth. It is not those desires, but what we do with them that makes us who we are. The Bible invites us to cast off our old way of life, lay down our desires at the feet of Jesus and walk in resurrected obedience to Him. When one comes to Christ, God doesn’t remove them from the sinful world. He does enable them, however, to recognize this world is not our home. One day, God will restore us and make all things new. We can all look forward to that day together.

Acts chapter 8 records one of the first conversions to Christianity. Interestingly, this man was a eunuch—one who had been physically altered to embrace a dis-gendered existence—someone who might be referred to today by the transgender definition, “Gender Queer.” The Holy Spirit led Philip directly to him. What was of interest was not his sexual status or capabilities, but his question—“What does this Scripture mean, and who is the Messiah?” He was a real person in real circumstances with real prayers.

Let those of us in Christ remember that we share the same baptismal waters that called to that eunuch. We share the same confession of Christ’s lordship and look forward to a renewed day, secured by the resurrection of Jesus. The Gospel extends hope, joy, family and redemption beyond what often fits the definitions we are used to. Let us do the same.

The Church and the Transgender Moment: Part 1

by Ryan Smith | Mar 21, 2019

In a recent interview, Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Sam Smith revealed he considers himself to be non-binary sexually and has considered a sex change. He stated, “Maybe I’m not a man, maybe I’m not a woman, maybe I’m just me.”

What is your church prepared to do with this?

What Sam is offering is an embodiment of our cultural transgender moment. The church has largely been at arm’s length from transgenderism. Many would assume, or prefer, transgendered ideologies to be outside the purview of the church. A problematic question, however, presents itself: Is transgenderism outside the purview of the Gospel?

This topic can be extremely uncomfortable for many within the church. Discussing definitions and asking difficult questions about transgenderism must come from within the church and be to the glory of God and for the edification of the church. To this end, I intend to offer a short series of articles outlining our transgender moment and how the church can respond with Biblical faithfulness, Gospel compassion and an offering of hope and truth through Jesus Christ. This is part one of the series and hopefully offers a helpful definition of transgenderism.

What is Transgenderism?

The native tongue of gender across religious and cultural boundaries for millennia has been a language of male and female distinction. While this division has adopted various forms and expressions, the idea that there are boys, girls and differences between the two, has been the dominant opinion and observation. However, a new language is presenting itself whose echoes and accents are becoming more prevalent in our common dialogue – unbridled by distinctions deemed “traditional.”

Transgenderism is a term many Christians have heard, but could likely not accurately define. Basically, transgenderism is expressed when one feels one’s biological sex and gender are incongruent. Transgender activist Chaz Bono explains the concept and belief: “There’s a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they’re mismatched. That’s all it is. It’s not complicated, it’s not neurosis. It’s a mix-up. It’s a birth defect, like a cleft palate.”

Historically, one’s sex and gender have been identified at, or before, birth based on one’s chromosomes and anatomy. However, this biological identification of gender, in some cases, can conflict with one’s inner feelings of being male, female, neither or both. This conflict is known as gender dysphoria. Studies suggest that between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 13,000 males and between 1 in 20,000 and 1 in 34,000 females identify with this condition.

A primary contention of transgender advocates is that gender is in the mind, not the body. Whereas one’s bodily sex may be determined by biology, transgender individuals believe thoughts and feelings determine one’s gender. According to a 2016 statement from the American College of Pediatricians, “No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept, not an objective biological one.”

A second assertion of the transgender community is that gender is fluid. Since individuals may fall anywhere along a continuum in identification with sexual constructs, a gender binary system is considered rigid and restrictive. In her book Gender Trouble, transgender activist Judith Butler concludes, “It is only through the mediation of (a) series of social practices that the body becomes gendered at all: the body…is not a ‘being’, but a signifying practice within a cultural field of gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality.”

Transgender advocates also contend that one’s sex, gender identity and gender expression are each unique in form and function. Since gender expressions are considered merely cultural, one may choose to adopt a gender expression that is either congruent with their biological sex, their perceived gender, neither or both. A person born with male chromosomes and sexual organs may identify as a gendered female, but still choose the gender expression of maleness – adopting culturally male garments, styles, and physical features. Likewise, a person born in a traditionally female body may identify as a gendered female but express herself culturally as a male. In recent times, she may be referred to as a tomboy.

For transgendered individuals who desire congruence between their biological sex and perceived gender, medical procedures are increasingly encouraged to help bridge the gap between gender identity and sex. Traditionally, this has included a four-step treatment process of social transition, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender reassignment surgery.

The transgender movement has moved with shocking velocity in recent years. In less than two decades, transgenderism has progressed from being a perceived mental disorder to a protected community under the banner of civil rights. Transgenderism as a viable, socially acceptable, even celebrated way of life has been one of the most powerful shifts in modern social history.

The Church and Transgenderism

How then should the church respond to our transgender moment? First, the church must understand the moment and its definitions. Second, the church must understand what it believes about human sexuality, why it matters and what the Bible openly discusses in relation to male/female realities.

The church must be willing to ask questions of itself and our transgender neighbors. While not agreeing with the assertions of transgender activists, the church may need to engage channels of dialogue previously unopened. Followers of Christ historically have been surprised at where Jesus’s footsteps have led them – or more accurately, whom they have led them to. Jesus’ disciples often found themselves in the homes of tax collectors, in the company of prostitutes and in conversation with those they considered beneath their attention. Why? Because that’s where Jesus went.

The church must also recognize that there are those within our fellowship who find themselves wrestling with the fact that their feelings and the gender models placed before them do not line up. They are filled with questions and need an outlet for discussion. Where will they go to have this conversation? Our world has already created the dialogue and has answers that lead to a community with open arms. What will they find in the church?

To be clear, the church does not need to embrace the transgender moment – but we may need to consider the way we embrace transgender people. The blood of Christ does not stop at a levy of sexuality. While we need not give our affirmation, we need to be conversant with the issues of our day in order to introduce the Gospel. We must know and speak the truth, but do so in love as those who like everyone else have no hope apart from Jesus Christ.