Because evil is militant, the homosexual community continues to force upon the public a radical way of living. A funeral director in Michigan was forced to go to court in order to protect his business from having to employ a transgender individual. Target has succumbed to the homosexual agenda rather than face expensive litigation. A sympathetic media encourages and promotes the cultural rot of the advocates of moral perversion reflected in the homosexual community. The Washington Post, in its Lifestyle section, posted an article on line on August 26, 2016 under the title, “Where in the Bible does it say you can’t be transgender? Nowhere.”
Accord to Eliel Cruz, “There is not a single verse in Scripture that discusses transgender identities.” In order to make this assertion, the author defines what being a transgender means. “Being trans is not cross-dressing. It is embodying a gender that does not align with the one that was given at birth.”
In other words, being trans is a state of mind. A person’s sexuality is not something that is determined objectively by biology and science.
On one level, it is hard not to pity the stupidity of such thinking that is divorced from reality. As an undergraduate at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, during the 1970’s, I had a professor who thought she was someone from the Middle Ages, literally. When she was not thinking in that frame of mind, she was a gifted history professor.
Once, there were two professions that could help poor souls in their mental states of confusion. The first was the church. The second was the psychiatric community. Unfortunately, the latter profession has rewritten its mental health manuals to embrace the nonsensical and irrational beliefs of its clients. It is easier, and extremely more financially lucrative for people in the mental health industry to affirm the various lifestyles of perversions, and states of mind of individuals than to actually help them adjust to reality, and live an integrated and healthy life.
Fortunately, the Bible has not been rewritten, though much of its message has been interrupted by unscrupulous clergy in a contemporary way. When a local church caters to the homosexual community by affirming the evil practiced, and the harm that is done to self and others, Christ is shamed, the gospel of redemption is lost, and individuals remain in darkness. The light of truth is shut off, and men are left in their mental and moral darkness.
The church should be telling the homosexual community in general, and trans in particular, they do not have to continue to walk in moral darkness and mental confusion. By divine grace they can acknowledge the truth that God makes individuals male or female. God does not make a male think he is a female. Nor does God make a female think she is really a male. Sin does that.
I do not believe Eliel Cruz is wiser than Jesus Christ who affirmed the divine creation. “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4).
Eliel Cruz dismisses the simplicity of Scripture with a tortured logic, while assaulting faithful Christians as having a “laziness in interpretation.” With that broad assault Cruz begins to read into the Biblical texts what is not there, a justification for trans.
This is known as eisegesis, or the process of interpreting a text or portion of text, in such a way that the process introduces one’s own presuppositions, agendas, or biases into and onto the text. Eliel Cruz, is a bisexual, and so wants the Bible to say what her own biases are. By doing this she does not allow the Word of God, the Bible, to stand in judgment upon her. Rather, she simply changes the eternal truth of Scripture.
Do not miss the irony. Cruz accuses Christians of being lazy in their interpretation, while she uses her vivid imagination to read into Scripture what is not there. No major doctrine in the Bible is ever built on silence. I think the faithful Christian could counter Eliel Cruz’s charge of being lazy with their own accusation that she is too lazy to understand what the text of Scripture actually says, not in isolation, but within the whole counsel of God. Cruz is too busy engaging in eisegesis to exegete the Bible faithfully.
For those who truly want to study what the Bible says about the transgender, the position adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention is very helpful.
On Transgender Identity
WHEREAS, All persons are created in God’s image and are made to glorify Him (Genesis 1:27; Isaiah 43:7); and
WHEREAS, God’s design was the creation of two distinct and complementary sexes, male and female (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6) which designate the fundamental distinction that God has embedded in the very biology of the human race; and
WHEREAS, Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles as ordained by God are part of the created order and should find expression in every human heart (Genesis 2:18, 21–24; 1 Corinthians 11:7–9; Ephesians 5:22–33; 1 Timothy 2:12–14); and
WHEREAS, The Fall of man into sin and God’s subsequent curse have introduced brokenness and futility into God’s good creation (Genesis 3:1–24; Romans 8:20); and
WHEREAS, According to a 2011 survey, about 700,000 Americans perceive their gender identity to be at variance with the physical reality of their biological birth sex; and
WHEREAS, Transgenderism differs from hermaphroditism or intersexualism in that the sex of the individual is not biologically ambiguous but psychologically ambiguous; and
WHEREAS, The American Psychiatric Association removed this condition (aka, “gender identity disorder”) from its list of disorders in 2013, substituting “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria”; and
WHEREAS, The American Psychiatric Association includes among its treatment options for gender dysphoria cross-sex hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery, and social and legal transition to the desired gender; and
WHEREAS, News reports indicate that parents are allowing their children to undergo these therapies; and
WHEREAS, Many LGBT activists have sought to normalize the transgender experience and to define gender according to one’s self-perception apart from biological anatomy; and
WHEREAS, The separation of one’s gender identity from the physical reality of biological birth sex poses the harmful effect of engendering an understanding of sexuality and personhood that is fluid; and
WHEREAS, Some public schools are encouraging parents and teachers to affirm the feelings of children whose self-perception of their own gender is at variance with their biological sex; and
WHEREAS, Some public schools are allowing access to restrooms and locker rooms according to children’s self-perception of gender and not according to their biological sex; and
WHEREAS, The state of New Jersey prohibits licensed counselors from any attempt to change a child’s “gender expression”; and
WHEREAS, These cultural currents run counter to the biblical teaching as summarized in The Baptist Faith and Message, Article III, that “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation”; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, June 10–11, 2014, affirm God’s good design that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception—a perception which is often influenced by fallen human nature in ways contrary to God’s design (Ephesians 4:17–18); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we grieve the reality of human fallenness which can result in such biological manifestations as intersexuality or psychological manifestations as gender identity confusion and point all to the hope of the redemption of our bodies in Christ (Romans 8:23); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we extend love and compassion to those whose sexual self-understanding is shaped by a distressing conflict between their biological sex and their gender identity; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we invite all transgender persons to trust in Christ and to experience renewal in the Gospel (1 Timothy 1:15–16); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we love our transgender neighbors, seek their good always, welcome them to our churches and, as they repent and believe in Christ, receive them into church membership (2 Corinthians 5:18–20; Galatians 5:14); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we regard our transgender neighbors as image-bearers of Almighty God and therefore condemn acts of abuse or bullying committed against them; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we oppose efforts to alter one’s bodily identity (e.g., cross-sex hormone therapy, gender reassignment surgery) to refashion it to conform with one’s perceived gender identity; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we continue to oppose steadfastly all efforts by any governing official or body to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy (Isaiah 5:20); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we oppose all cultural efforts to validate claims to transgender identity; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That our love for the Gospel and urgency for the Great Commission must include declaring the whole counsel of God, proclaiming what Scripture teaches about God’s design for us as male and female persons created in His image and for His glory (Matthew 28:19–20; Acts 20:27; Romans 11:36).
