One of the topics that I am passionate about bringing Biblical teaching and clarity to is the issue of sexuality and gender. I’ll be writing more on it in the future, and I have already posted some stuff over at the RS Generation website in the past.
Here’s a recent headline that caught my attention and stokes my desire further to preach the Good News about God’s Good Design in making us male and female.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
“Swedish Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret”
Here’s an excerpt from The Local:
A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.
Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.
In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.
“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
The child’s parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.
Pop’s wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop’s hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.
Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop’s parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop.
“I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime,” said Pop’s mother.
This is a tragic scene. Gender a “social construction”?? Really? Is sexual androgyny (the belief that there are no distinctions in roles/function between the genders) really freeing?? Yet our culture would have us believe this is the path of and toward “enlightenment” and “freedom”.
Nothing could be further from the Truth. (“they exchanged the truth of God for a lie…”)
What’s frightening is the “passive wrath” of God described in Romans 1:18-32…. That God would “give them over” to a debased mind and to the built-in consequences of sin and its blindness.
Let us be clear: Gender deconstruction, ironically in the name of liberation, is destructive. And its an attack on the glory of God in whose image we were made “…male and female..”.
May He grant repentance and mercy before the Day of His “active wrath” comes…
And may we as Christians gladly and boldly display and proclaim the GOODNESS and BEAUTY and FREEDOM of God’s very good Creative design in preserving not only the physical distinction in our gender, but the role, relational and emotional distinctions as well.
For more on the subject of Biblical gender and sexuality, I strongly recommend The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
[HT: Tim Challies]
