Blogsphere confessional: I struggle to be nice to positions and/or people I passionately disagree with. I’m sorry about that. I know that more fruitful conversation and movement can happen when we figure out a way to engage each other somewhat more dispassionately.
But sometimes I just get so flummoxed that the screed appears to be the only available response. The things that Christians do in the name of their Christianity easily flip me from Dr. Jesus to Mr. Paul (I’d say from Bruce Banner to Hulk, but I have looked at myself in the mirror recently and the latter… well… it’d be a stretch).
Scraping off the Trans
My justice meter pegs out when I hear that Christians are using Jesus as an excuse to treat other Christians like so much shit to be scraped off their shoes on the way back into the house. Back inside the closely guarded house. Where no “unclean” thing can enter. Where no prostitute or sinner would even be found at table.
In this case, the tightly guarded “Jesus” fortress is the Christian college. And those treated like proverbial excrement are young transgender Christians.
“Christian” Transphobia has to stop.
Imagine if you will this paradox: a person with gender dysphoria who is so passionate about their faith that they choose to go to a college aligned with the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities. Imagine someone so passionate about following Jesus that they are willing to step into a place that may well devour them for their gender identity because, despite the possible abuse, this is still family. These are still the brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers who share in the family of the common Father.
I can hardly imagine that kind of grace, that kind of courage.
And how does the “family” respond?
The “family” creates some bogus theological commitment out of thin air, ensuring that it has the right to keep this beloved child of God out of the carefully weeded greenhouse of pharisaical pseudo-piety.
Title IX
This week The Column reported on a rash (pun intended) of Christian schools seeking Title IX waivers.
Here’s the allegedly Satanic instrument:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefit of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
So in the name of Jesus we need to start excluding, denying benefits of education, and/or otherwise discriminating on the basis of sex.
What’s the problem?
The problem is that last year this provision was interpreted to “claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity.”
That is to say, you can’t deny educational benefits to someone because s/he is gender queer or transgender.
And God knows what would happen to our precious “Christian” institutions of higher ed if they had to provide full access to conservative evangelical transgender students. People might learn to love people who are different than they are. They might have to discover that their hearts truly are full of a fear that only love can cast out. They might just learn that someone’s gender (or, gasp!, sexual) identity is not the clearest indication of how faithful someone is to the way of Jesus.
Christian Theology?
Biola’s request for a Title IX exemption articulates its desire that we all walk about like white-washed tombs, conforming externally to the (culturally established!) gender norms associated with our possession of penis or vagina, regardless of what’s inside.
The demand that we live up to the notion that God created us “male and female” ignores two very important moments in the story: (1) the “fall,” which disordered everything, and (2) the beginning of the new creation in which there is “no longer male and female” (Gal 3:28) and in which, ultimately, people will “no longer marry or be given in marriage.”
We are not the first creation image-bearers of God, we are the new-creation image-bearers of God. A new creation in which all are sons of God in Christ Jesus, a new creation in which all are part of the bride of Christ, a new creation in which the New Adam was born without a human father to give him a Y chromosome and was reborn with the Spirit defining the substance of his eternal body.
Can We Love?
But even if you disagree with all of those ramifications of the gospel, there is still the command to love. The command to love as Jesus loved us and laid down his life for his friends. The command to love our neighbors as we would be loved ourselves.
Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. He sneered at the notion that we would only love those who are “our people”–even the gentiles do that!
Oh how we obey Jesus! We do not do what the “gentiles” do! Oh no. We don’t even live up to their standards. We cannot even bring ourselves to love and to bless our own tribe, our own children, our own sisters and brothers.
Christians, let’s put away your pleas for Title IX exemptions. Extend the rights and privileges of your “Christian” education to our transgender and gender queer siblings, and let’s learn together the tricky business of loving our neighbors as ourselves.