The subject of today's review is an interview that the TableTalk Magazine people had with Rev Chris Gordon (click here and look for the information on Rev. Christ Gordon). The subject of the interview was Rev. Gordon's was his recently published catechism on Human Sexuality (click here for the interview and there for information on Rev. Gordon's catechism). In writing that catechism, Rev Gordon was following in the Reformed tradition of using catechisms to teach what is regarded as true.
In the interview, Rev. Gordon expresses a more than appropriate concern with how Christians, especially those who of school age, are responding to the changing views that our culture has on sex and gender identity. Here we should note that unbiblical sexual desires are strong and alluring enough for us even if we lived in convents where it seems that everything that hasn't been considered in the past, goes. And so when we add to that peer pressure and other influences, we see the need for Christian resources that help us to establish what God has said in His word about sexual orientation and gender identity.
At the same time, after reading through the interview and looking at how Rev. Gordon has borrowed a method from the distant pass to communicate what we need to know, one has to wonder whether the past has too much of a hold on some of Rev. Gordon's ideas.
Rev. Gordon is rightly concerned over the compromises he sees many Christians making regarding sexual behavior and gender identity. We should all be so concerned. We should also be wary because we are not approaching this subject as an unaffected bystander. Rather, most, if not all, of us face many of the same pressures and temptations to compromise Biblical standards accommodate our sexual desires and gender identities. And some of us also face the confusion and temptation of gender dysphoria. For example, a friend of mine confided in me that she knew of an adult person in her church who was transitioning.
So what does Rev. Gordon tell us about in the interview besides the need for Christian sources to help us fend off our temptations?
The fact that Rev. Gordon is using a catechism to convey these truths tell us about the ties to the past that he has. In the movie, 13 Days, we hear President Kennedy talking about how, in WW I, yesteryear's tactics were being used to fight a then modern war filled with new technologies that made the mass killing of soldiers easier. It's not that Rev. Gordon should not have written his catechism to address the issue of the new and increased sexual temptations we face because of the current sexual revolution, it is that this is apparently Rev. Gordon's only approach to the problems we are facing. This points to my view of one the problems that traditionalists have: they rely too much on the past to interpret and respond to the present.
Next, we should take special note of the following quote from Rev. Gordon
Who we are as image bearers of God is not to be defined by our sinful desires.
Who we are and how we are defined is more complicated than is recognized by God's redeeming work in us. Why? It is because despite God's wonderful work of redemption, we will, until we die our earthly death, be both a redeemed saint and a sinner. As James said, we all stumble in many ways and will continue to do so until the end. Here, we should be reminded of how great Reformed saints from the past stumbled in terms of racism. People like Jonathan Edwards and J. Gresham Machen held racist views. Rev. Billy Graham, who was not reformed, gave evidence of also having a problem with racism (click here and there) though maybe not to the same degree.
We Christians will have at least two identities for as long as we live this life. We are redeemed in Christ and made new creatures. But we will also be sinners like the tax collector from the parable of the two men praying (Luke 18:9-14). To deny the former identity denies the work of Christ in us. To deny the latter identity of being a sinner means that we no longer need to confess our sins and beg for God's mercy. To deny the latter identity is to embrace the identity of the Pharisee from that parable.
The denying of specific instances of the latter identity has become a controversy in some Reformed churches. Side B Christians, for example are now prohibited from holding in church offices in the PCA Church. A Side B Christian is a person who struggles with Same Sex Attraction (SSA) but remains celibate. The rationale for such a prohibition is the unfair and inconsistent expectation that some of the old guard in the PCA have with Side B Christians as not giving enough credit to God's grace for changing them.
Rev. Gordon seems to see the cause for homosexuality is sin and only sin. In addition, Rev. Gordon takes a Genesis 1:27 approach to gender identity. That God has created us male and female with nothing in between. The problem is that some are born as being indeterminant in terms of being male and female. And there are a number of physical causes for this condition. That means that while Gordon sees people as being either male are female, there is a small percentage of people who are truly neither male or female, but that they have parts of both biological sexes in them. Such people are classified as being intersex.
In addition, for some who experience gender dysphoria, they happen to have the kind of brain structure, and yes there is a male structured brain and a female one, that belongs not to the biological sex they were assigned to, but to the biological sex of the gender they are identifying as.
And thus, what we are hearing from some scientists is that if we must have a binary classification of sex, it isn't a discrete one where one is either male or female but not both. Instead, we have people who have characteristics of both sexes.
Recognizing more than 2 biological sexes by counting intersex as a biological sex or by recognizing that some, though legitimately classsified as either a male or female still have parts of them that belong to the other gender should have been addressed in Gordon's catechism.
Likewise regarding sexual orientation, there are many species in which Same-Sex Behavior (SSB) has been witnessed. For some species, SSB contributes to the well being of the species. Since we don't attribute such behavior in animals to sin, it would seem that there are at least some biological factors that contribute to SSB in animals. And that is with animals, it is certainly not unreasonable to accept the possibility that at least for some people, SSA is due to some biological factors.
Its not that this scientific information should cause us to compromise biblical standards, but such information should at least change our tone when speaking to those in the LGBT community about the biblical standards for sex and gender identity. In other words, updating our knowledge about sexual orientation and gender identity can cause us to reform our approach to those in the LGBT community without necessarily changing our standards.
In addition, none of this information about those with SSA or gender dysphoria contradicts Genesis 1:27 as some fear or anticipate it would. That is because while Genesis 1:27 is stated before Adam's sin and the fall of man, nature also fell when Adam's sinned.
But, from the interview, it seems that Rev. Gordon is either unaware of the possible physical causes to SSA and gender dysphoria, or he thinks that such information is irrelevant. That because he has the Scriptures, the only way to respond to SSA and gender dysphoria is to quote the Scriptures about sinful desires.
All of that leads us back to a trait that Rev. Gordon shares with the same previously mentioned weakness of traditionalists: they rely too much on the past to interpret and respond to the present. And so there is no updating for traditionalists. And because there is no updating for them, there is no reforming them either.
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