The Baptism of the Eunuch. Rembrandt. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The False Gospel of Gender Diversity

on May 12, 2015

In a recent conversation with a friend, we discussed a First Things piece by the Editor, Mr. Reno. He was not opposed to homosexual activity, marriage, or adoption and argued that the position espoused by First Things was inconsistent. My friend suggested that to be consistent in opposing non-procreative sexual activity (that using contraceptives or inherently sterile same-sex activity), First Things could only be consistent if it opposed marriage where one or both parties was sterile. If this understanding of marriage did not oppose sterile heterosexual couples from marrying or adopting children, how could they oppose marriage and adoption for sterile homosexual couples?

Here, the logical failings of the non-traditional argument are relatively obvious – my colleague used the physical defect of infertility to argue for the abandonment of the marital norm of procreative union in order to validate unions that are non-procreative not from defect, but in their very nature. The traditional marriage argument is able to understand this essential distinction between defect and nature. Understanding that infertility is both an evil (a non-moral evil like sickness) and a defect allows traditionalists to uphold the dignity of infertile marriage unions without denying the truth of the Church’s biblical and historical teaching about marriage and sex. The same sex couple’s lack of procreative potential denies the meaning of marriage while the infertile couple’s frustrated potential affirms it. The faithful infertile couple can be an icon of the love between Christ and his Church; the non-traditional argument would destroy that icon by attacking the inherent meaning of marriage.

Rachel Held Evans made a point similar to my friend’s in a November 2014 blogpost entitled “The False Gospel of Gender Binaries.” . She gives the story of her friend, Adrian, who said “I’m intersex, Evangelicals don’t have a category for me, so there’s no real place for me in their church.” Evans then castigates the Church for attempting to fit intersex, transgender, gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons into “rigid gender binaries.” Her argument relies heavily on the feelings and testimonies of the intersex and LGBT persons she has encountered, and she argues that gender, sex, and sexuality ought to be understood as a continuum rather than as polarities because “People do not typically choose their sexual orientations or gender identities the way one might choose to wear a watch or to take cream in their coffee.”

Evans argues that the Gospel must affirm these differences. She asks, “But what sort of gospel is only good news for the majority? What sort of gospel leaves people behind just because they are different?” She dismisses my criticism of building theology around exceptions with the logical leap (or freefall?) of asking, “But if Jesus started with outliers, why shouldn’t we?” She gives the example of the Ethiopian eunuch (who under the Old Testament law could not be a priest)  as one such outlier who was accepted by the Apostles. She concludes her post saying, “If the gospel’s not good news for Adrian [her intersex friend], then it’s not good news.”

Evans argument, however, simply does not work the way she wants it to work. What Jesus did when he “started with outliers” was affirm their precious worth and human dignity. He recognized the damage sin had done to them and commanded them to “go and sin no more,” while reminding others that they too were not without sin. Jesus’ affirmation was not to deny the sin of those who were publically shamed, but to call everyone to repentance. Similarly, the blessed Apostle Philip recognized both the inherent human dignity of the Ethiopian eunuch and his faith and baptized him. This did not entail that the eunuch’s castration was somehow good. Rather, our Lord and his holy apostles taught that whatever the damage sin and evil had done to a person, that person could find grace, redemption, and healing in Christ’s death and resurrection. Those who stand with our Lord in teaching that God has created man male and female, and that this sex and gender complementarity has meaning for life, marriage, and sexual activity are able to affirm the inherent dignity of each and every human person without having to affirm the ravages of sin and death unleashed by our first parents’ sin.

Interestingly, the website of the Intersex Society of North America Evans provides for our education, also discusses Intersex as a condition, rather than an identity. Thus they discuss children and adults “with intersex” rather than “Intersex children and adults.” This society does not think children with intersex (i.e. those with abnormal or ambiguous sexual anatomy or mosaic genetics) should be raised without a gender or as a third gender. Instead, they argue that people with intersex should be treated, given education and counseling, and be provided with peer support. “Newborns with intersex should be given a gender assignment as boy or girl, depending on which of those genders the child is more likely to feel as she or he grows up…. Surgeries… should not be performed until a child is mature enough to make an informed decision for herself or himself.” This response notes the genuine questions and difficulties surrounding the intersex condition, but recognizes the reality of gender binaries, that physical conditions do not negate metaphysical categories; Rachel Held Evans, apparently, does not.

Those who uphold Biblical and traditional understandings of sex, gender, and marriage also understand that the brokenness of sin has touched every child of Adam and Eve. None of us are able to cast the first stone because we are all touched by sin. We also recognize that the sicknesses, disorders, and problematic conditions that plague so many of us are the result of that same evil. We are able to affirm that temporal healing can be found with doctors, therapists, counselors, and medicine, rather than insist that these things are good and valid expressions of human identity. We understand, finally, that complete healing can only come through union with Christ and obedience to his command to “go and sin no more.” Our Lord affirmed that physical exceptions and moral defects do not change the norm of health; we must do the same.

  1. Comment by Uber Genie on May 24, 2015 at 7:09 pm

    Procreation arguments seems like the wrong argument in regards to the “Why Not Same Sex” debate. While I think your handling of their counteragrgument was apt, why go there?

    It seems that God’s will on the matter of procreation was to fulfill an early command, namely populate the whole Earth. Just as many of the Levitical laws were eliminated once their purpose was fulfilled, and the purpose of the Law itself was,to point us to Christ (Gal 3), a case can be made that the Earth “IS” populated allowing Christians (Protestants anyways) to marry and NOT procreate. On this view not procreating would not be violating God’s law and Homosexuality would be violating His law because the first (procreation) is conditional and has been fulfilled and the latter (homosexuality) has to do with design for human sexuality while they have human bodies ( assume people agree that Jesus taught that there won’t be sexual relation or marriage).

    There is plenty of good scriptural support ruling out the practice of sexuality in all contexts except between one man and one woman in marriage.

    On my view the procreation argument enable red-herrings that lead us away from the discussion of God’s clear rather than ambiguous design for sexuality and it plays into the LGBT arguer’s hand.

  2. Comment by P Johnston on May 26, 2015 at 12:43 pm

    What’t the point of the design if not reproduction — at least in some sense? I gather you oppose SSM because of the “design for human sexuality.” But what is the point of that design? The argument only has traction if there’s something essential in the union of a male and a female that is missing in other unions.
    For example, there are may ways tires differ, but only some of those differences are essential to the nature of a tire. Some tires have white sidewalls, others don’t, but that difference is trivial and has nothing to do with the nature of the tire. Some tires have treads designed for all season usage, and others are designed for extra traction in winter conditions. Those differences matter because they relate to the purpose of the tire. And all passenger tires have some kind of tread because without it the tire won’t function.
    In a similar way, all marriages differ in some ways. The argument for SSM is that male-female marriages differ from others in the same way white sidewall tires differ from others: an external appearance that some find attractive, but doesn’t affect the core purpose of a marriage. The argument against SSM is the difference is more like tread: something that determines the ability of the marriage to fulfill the core purpose of marriage. But what is that purpose if not the possibility of creating new life? A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one new flesh. Is that simply a metaphor? Or an understanding of reality? And what is the reality it illustrates, if not the generation of new life?

  3. Comment by Athena on November 13, 2019 at 1:40 pm

    Heterosexual sex within marriage is not ideal under Christianity. It is a lesser evil. We are all called to be celibate by Paul. He understands that we are unable to be perfect in that regard and grants us marriage because “it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Cor. 7:9). It is interesting that that line alone, to Paul, is the ONLY justification for marriage and that for Christians to avoid sex is for Christians to be more Christ-like. Yet nobody supporting an asserted “Biblical ethic” for sexuality is advocating for everyone to be celibate. In my estimate, if all sex is sinful, then heterosexual sex within marriage is “technically” a sin.

    So can someone then explain to me how sexual ethics in the Bible is black and white if Paul himself is dealing with gradations of gray?

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