Can a Transsexual Be a Good Christian?
Jason Kuznicki on May 24th 2007
Seth Zirkle of In the Agora offers some doubts:
St. John United Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, has a new minister…or the same minister with a new identity. The former Rev. Ann Gordon is now the Rev. Drew Phoenix. The change will be discussed at the upcoming Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, but is not the first time the Baltimore-Washington Conference has dealt with gender identity. Back in 2002, a male minister underwent a sex change operation, ultimately leaving the ministry of the UMC. Beyond the poetic imagery of St. John’s pastor rising from the ashes of her former gender, the UMC is faced with a fundamental question: What does gender mean in a Christian, and more particularly Methodist, understanding? As Mark Tooley at IRD suggests, a conception that gender is merely one choice among others in life would require a reconsideration of an omniscient Creator and soteriology.
In the comments, he adds,
[T]he orthodox understanding [is] that the created order was known before the foundation of the world. This was espoused by both Origen and Augustine, and even Calvin picks up on this in Bk 2 of his Institutes… I warmly suggest St Gregory Nazianzus’ Oration 38 (On the Theophany), which discusses the orders of creation and the proper role of man as created in God’s image. It also discusses man’s composition and the imposition of Law “as a material for his Free Will to act upon.” Under Gregory’s explanation, man’s identity before the Creator is inextricably connected to not only God’s Will in creating a specific individual, but also that this created being would act under the Law, which was also “hardwired” into man. Any attempt to make an argument that homosexuality is permissible because the Creator screwed up and you came out the wrong sex fails under this.
I’m not a Christian, of course, but this makes no sense to me.
I wonder, following Zirkle’s argument, if the creator “screwed up” when he created viruses? Should true Christians not alter their bodies with vaccinations, because it implies a contempt for the created order? What about anesthetics? Pain is very clearly an intended part of nature; it even says so in the Bible. And yet we take drugs to get rid of it. What about shaving? Tattoos? Ear piercings? Surgery? Organ transplants?
It’s worth recalling that many parts of the transsexual experience are shared by entirely nontransgendered people. “Normal” women have been known get breast reductions simply because they found their breasts too large. Normal men have had body hair removal. Asthmatics, women on birth control, and those who suffer from a wide variety of other conditions regularly take synthetic hormones. Facial plastic surgery, breast augmentation, hysterectomies, voice-deepening treatments, and genital alterations round out the list.
There seems a double standard in here somewhere: Only some types of body modification are “unnatural,” while others, which can scarcely be distinguished, get a free pass.
Also, I think Zirkle really fumbles on the issue of transgender and homosexuality. The two are most emphatically not the same. A transgendered person can potentially be attracted to members of either sex or both, and this is true before as well as after treatment. Thus a homosexual person may also be transgendered, but most are not. Most gay men wouldn’t take gender reassignment even if it were free, without risk, and perfectly effective. I know I certainly wouldn’t. To say that transgendered people are just looking for a way to make their homosexuality acceptable is to misunderstand both homosexuality and the transgendered experience.
Filed in The Belfry, The Boudoir
Seth Zirkle’s citation of Origen as authority on this particular point is deliciously ironic. For tradition holds that Origen castrated himself the better to glorify God - - inspired by the words of Jesus Christ himself:
“Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” Matthew 19:11-12 (NRSV).
As for Jason’s question about for tattoos and piercings, it may be noted that Orthodox Jews generally believe them prohibited by Leviticus. For it is written:
“You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:28 (NRSV).
Peace be with you,
Eric Alan Isaacson
Some, of course, may recall St. Paul advising the Galatians that “there is no longer male and female; for all of your are one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 2:28 (NRSV).
Peace always,
Eric Alan Isaacson
Employing the term “transgender” begs the question, of course.
I have to agree with Eric, but go further. The hardwired law as refered to is called “Natural law”, which according to the more orthodox Christian Theology is written upon/in the soul. The human person is an embodied spirit created in Gods divine image, the human has thus not only these two but a mind and conscience. The human person can not know ones self fully if the body, mind and soul are not in union or agreement with one another. Because being created in the image of God humanity reflects the creator who is Three persons in Unitity as one, and God is only a trinity because of unity of the relationship of the Father, who is Father because of the Son, and the Son, is Sone because of his relationship to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the spirit, because of the relationship of the Father and the Son is so real an so strong it is love an is a person. The same logically holds true for us, if body, mind and soul are not in union, then we can not truely see ourself reflection of God until we are in union with ourself.
Thomas Merton 20th Century monk wrote: ” Man can not grow until he knows himself, as God knows, him”.
yes this is deep…
I’m afraid that the discussion of viruses, tattoos, and vaccinations omits a necessary predicate to any discussion of theodicy - original sin and man’s fallen state. While some of us may dismiss the doctrine outright, addressing St Gregory’s conception, or indeed any orthodox conception, of man’s creation requires some considered appraisal of the issue. In so doing, your question of the presence of viruses in the world and the presence of pain in the body would be answered, as would the misstatement that God “created” both. It has always been understood that the fallen state of nature is not the active product of God’s creation, but the passive result of sin. This distinction of the efficient cause of sin’s presence in man is important. Aquinas’ approach to the issue of theodicy was much like Augustine’s; both regarded the fallen state of man as a result of man’s fallen nature - his original sin of pride - and not a result of God’s active hand: “This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good” (ST 1.2.3.r1). Thus, your statement that “some” modifications are “unnatural” while others “get a free pass” is entirely correct, but for entirely different reasons than you insinuate.
I’m afraid that we are two ships passing in the night on the semblance of homosexuality and transgendered individuals. My consideration of the transgendered pastor proceeded from, again, the efficient cause of the pastor’s desire to change her sex - a fallen state - and was not in any way an insinuation that she was attempting to maker her homosexuality acceptable. It may very well be the case that the homosexual inclination is not at all the same as Rev. Gordon’s desire to become the Rev. Phoenix from an experiential vantage point, but in the discussion I attempted to frame, within the bounds of orthodox moral theology, the experiential (second cause) must be framed by its efficient cause, sin, and how a fallen humanity responds to this.
And, again, Eric, if the apocryphal story of Origen’s castration is indeed true, it was to avoid the temptation of fornication as he tutored women, so I’m afraid that the irony is lost. Also, St. Paul’s admonition to the church in Galatia was in regards to disparate treatment of Gentile Christians and their widows by the Jewish Christians; it was not a condonation of giving up natural desires for unnatural (Rom 1).
This makes no sense at all to me. In Genesis, God actively invokes a curse. This may have been transformed along the way into a “passive” causality of some sort, but it certainly does not read that way in the original, and throughout the Old Testament it is repeatedly emphasized that God punishes those who transgress against his commandments. Not that they suffer inevitable consequences, but that God actively intervenes.
In any case, Christianity clearly has a difficult time understanding or dealing with transgendered individuals. But the experience of being transgendered does not necessarily equal a rebuke to the order of creation or to God. After all, couldn’t a transgendered person simply take your causal mechanism — that the world is damaged through sin — and say that one of the effects has been that people end up unable to live as their birth gender? If this is the case, then correcting the problem would be no more (and no less) theologically problematic than taking morphine to treat pain.
If this makes no sense, Book I of the Summa, as well as Basil’s commentary on Genesis and Gregory Nazianzen’s latter orations (31 especially), are a good place to find clairfication. I would also suggest Thomas More’s essay “Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation.”
You’re right that the experience of being transgendered does not rebuff the created order of God; indeed it affirms the reality of man’s fallen nature in a world wrecked by sin. One should certainly say that the world is damaged through sin, but it is one’s response to this reality that is dispositive. And it isn’t “my” causal mechanism - it is the causal mechanism that Christianity has understood as being the normative, orthodox expression of the Faith.
I’ve read Aquinas. I simply think that applying his thinking here can be done either well or badly, and that it twists the meaning of the Old Testament beyond recognition to claim that God does not actively intervene in the punishment of sin. This is a repeated and very consistent claim, as I am sure you are aware.
Meanwhile, I did not mean to imply that you had invented the Thomist understanding of sin and its effects . I am well aware that it can be found throughout orthodox Christianity. It doesn’t matter, I still reject it.
And after all, if Christians are allowed to take steps to relieve pain (understood to be an effect of the Fall), then why may they not take steps to relieve gender dysphoria (also understood to be an effect of the Fall, and not a flaw in God’s creation)? It seems to me that you never really provided an answer to this question, which was the original one I posed above.
Correct, this is how I view it. God intended you to be female (or male) but though a flaw, caused by the Original Sin, you got a birth defect and poof you are the wrong sex for your hardwired gender. Birth defects happen all the time, from small minor unnoticable like, say, you got 4 fingers instead of 5, to major ones that cause stillborns, or require newborns to under go life saving surgeries immediately after birth. We under go plastic surgery all the time to fix these flaws in us caused by the Original Sin.