Comments on: Sex, Gender and the Bible

By: Evolution, Creation and Christianity « Thoughts of Resurrection

Evolution, Creation and Christianity « Thoughts of Resurrection — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:00:19 +0000

[...] 13 05 2008 I got another great question from Nelson who had previously asked about Sex, Gender and the Bible. I must say some good questions all around. So here [...]

By: Andrew Conard

Andrew Conard — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:16:33 +0000

jmeunier – I think all three of the categories that you address could be included in my original assertion of God’s creation in Male and Female.

NCK – I think that you may be right, however I do think that there is value in thinking about these things – to a point though. You raise a good question about God creating categories… I will have to think about it some more and may post later on this topic. Thanks!

chuckinisrael – Thanks for the making the distinction between love and holy love. There is an important difference. I do find difficulty at times discerning between the two.

Ben – Identity. This is one of my favorite topics of Christian understanding and I did not think to include it here. I think that you are right on. What other ways of identifying with the God’s story as told in scripture do you think may be helpful?

By: Ben Hanne

Ben Hanne — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:43:55 +0000

Interesting videos – for me the question of intersexuality and the church is one of identity. For most of us our sexual characteristics and our gender orientation seem to be in harmony.

For us the search for identity within the pages of scripture becomes a non-issue, are we the King David, tempted towards adultery? Do we find expression of our passion with our spouses in the words of Solomon? Intersexuality in some ways reveals that we are skipping a step.

For those whose sexual organs are ambiguous, the task of finding identity within the Bible becomes much more complicated. Whose story do you relate to when one of the most basic identifiers we can have is “up in the air”?

Andrew’s points are excellent, yet I wonder if by merely identifying such persons as beloved children of God is in some way depriving them of the richer experiences we’ve had in our own searches for relational identity within the Bible.

By: Chuck Russell

Chuck Russell — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:33:18 +0000

I agree Andrew – and want to remind all of us that our calling is not primarily to an ethic of Love…but one of Holy Love. The qualifier is important because what we call love in modern society tends to be a type of sentimental permissivism that in no way approximates the kind of love Jesus called each of us to exhibit. The most loving thing we can say in many of these situations is, ” Your sins are forgivin, Go and sin no more”

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:38:25 +0000

Hey Andrew! Thanks for the blog message. If you send me your email, I’ll definitely get you a copy of my book… and also, if you’ll explain to me how I can change my FeedBurner feed, I will certainly do it… I’m not sure how it got that way in the first place… ugh…

By: NCK

NCK — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:11:24 +0000

Couldn’t it be simple?

Aren’t we the ones who complicate genetic abnormalities like XO, Kleinfelter’s and AIS? The smarter we become, the more we discover and create theories, postulates, classes, orders and layers, etc. But don’t our discoveries lead us to begin over-thinking these situations?

I don’t think God created categories. We did.

Andrew said it well that we are “called to perfect love of God and neighbor.”

By: jmeunier

jmeunier — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:16:03 +0000

This quickly gets into questions about the meanings of words. When you affirm that God created humans male and female, what does it mean to be male and female?

Is this a matter of anatomy?
Genetic code?
Self-identification?

Science indicates that there individuals who do not fit neatly into any pair of boxes (male and female) that you create using these three standards. There are people born with more than one set of parts or “ambiguous” parts. There are people without a simple XY or XX genetic code. There are people who identify with a different gender than their anatomy or genetic code would indicate. There are people who don’t identify with either or whose identification changes over time.

I applaud you for trying to sort this out in a loving way. It is not simple.