Comments Which Conservatives Block From Their Blogs For November 9, 2022

 Oct 17

To R. Scott Clark and his article on lamenting the passing of Christendom and whether we should work for and want a restoration of some version of that Christendom. In that article, Clark describes in positive terms how there is a nature-grace divide here where we should want natural law to govern society while grace rules over the Church. This article was posted on Heidelblog.

Over all, the above article has good points to make. But there are false accusations made about certain groups, such as the ones made against libraries, school boards, and sexual revolutionaries.

There is no New Testament basis for restoring Christendom to America, I fully agree with Clark on that point. If only he had stopped there. For there is also no basis to so neatly  divide and group civil life with nature and  church with grace especially when both are concerned with morality. That division and grouping were made by past theological heroes who grew up and  lived in European Christendom; we don't see that division in the New Testament. But even with that morality, some who are claiming to be against the restoration of a past Christendom are promoting a Christendom-lite when it is the Church's understanding of nature and natural law that they desire to impose on civil life. In fact, some call imposing natural law, which for some Christians is the second table of the Law of Moses, 'Christian Nationalism.'

So let's talk about nature for example. Homosexuality violates the Biblical view of nature and how God designed it; but homosexuality is prevalent in the animal kingdom. Is that to say that homosexuality is in accord with nature? We should note here that same-sex behavior is exhibited in animals from anywhere between a few hundred species to over 1,500 species. If sin is not an issue with animals, then is it nature that is telling animals to practice same-sex behavior?

What we Christians who live in democratic societies must be fully aware of are the implications that come with concepts of democracy and freedom which we claim to cherish. Democracy is not just majority rule, it is a system where the majority exercises self-restraint so as to not oppress the minority nor to deny them their equal rights and status. And Freedom carries with it the same strain of self-restraint because Freedom - Equality = Privilege. Because of the influence of the free market on democracy and the penchant for authoritarianism by us religiously conservative Christians, we lack the full understanding of the self-restraint implied by those two terms.

We need to distinguish when we can promote certain rights in the context of a democratic and free society from when we should discourage or even prohibit those same rights in the Church. Just as we can promote the freedom of religion in society while prohibiting the worship of false gods in the Church, we must learn to distinguish between promoting the freedom to engage in certain sexual practices and relationships in society from prohibiting those same practices and relationships in the Church and in our evangelism.

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Oct 28

To Heidelblog and its article that quotes Felice J. Killer's letter complaining about a regulation that prevents parents from being involved in the school's response to those children who are suffering from Gender Dysphoria.

Felice J. Killer's entire letter can be found at:

    https://pitt.substack.com/p/re-administrative-regulation-259

Felice Killer's letter, part of which is quoted in the above article, shows the discrepancy between what some, especially many religiously conservative Christians, believe about gender identity and what actually exists. Yes, parents have the right to raise their children in the way they see fit, but that right is not absolute especially when the safety of a child is in question.

Because of how we approach the Scriptures, many of us read Genesis 1:27 in ways that unnecessarily contradict the real world. How we read Genesis 1:27 where it says how God made man as male and female is a prime example. That statement was made prior to the fall of both man and nature. What we see today are a variety of ways by which a person could be born as being intersex. Being intersex could include being born with mixed genitalia where the external genitalia is not in accord with the internal genitalia. Or being intersex could involve where the external genitalia are not pronounced enough to determine the gender. One can have the the normal chromosomes of a male or female and still be be intersex. Or one can either have one sex chromosome or 3 sex chromosomes. And so we are not just physically born male or female after the fall.

The assumption made by many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians about gender identity is that even with those who are not intersex but are male or female, that what we know from the external  genitalia is the only message nature is giving to people. But considering what we know about those who are intersex, we can no longer say that for sure. And thus, we can't assume from what we can observe from the chromosomal makeup of a person and one's biological sex what nature is actually saying to a person.

And then again, there are the psychological and social factors that go into gender identity. What we can't afford to do that both the LGBT community and many fellow religiously conservative Christians do is to conflate biological sex with gender identity while being faithful to the Scriptures. Thus, we must recognize one's biological sex and their gender identity as two separate entities. And just as one's gender identity cannot change one's biological sex, one's biological sex cannot be forced onto one's gender identity.

Here we should remember the Church's failure when it came to recognizing Heliocentrism. Many Reformed and Roman Church leaders not only initially rejected Heliocentrism, they attacked it with a vengeance because of how they read the Scriptures regarding creation and the earth's relationship with the sun and the heavens. And lest we think that gender identity issues are peculiar to Western Civilization, we should realize that some Native American tribes recognized up to 5 different genders. So the question becomes, when it comes to biological sex and gender identity, are we doing to gender identity issues what the Church did to those who promoted Heliocentrism?   Our challenge as Christians is to be willing to relearn what we thought we knew about biological sex and gender identity while remaining faithful to the Scriptures.

Some other things are true regarding gender identity. Gender Dysphoria can be experienced by children as young as 3 years old. And that the devastating effects that can occur to those who are experiencing Gender Dysphoria are associated with family and peer reactions to those people to the extent that it can cause depression and even produce suicidal tendencies. Thus, those are safety issues when it comes to responding to those with Gender Dysphoria.

I don't know what the correct balance is to the competing issues of helping children with Dysphoria and parental rights. But I do know that many of us religiously conservative Christians have a too simplistic view of the relationship between one's biological sex and one's gender identity. And that too simplistic of a view can make us feel persecuted as we wrongly respond to those with Gender Dysphoria. Remaining faithful to the Scriptures should not prohibit us acknowledging the complexity involved when it comes to Gender Dysphoria.