by Christopher Talbot
(Editor’s Note: This is the fourth and final part of a series which are based on the annual Theological Trends seminar at the 2024 National Convention. Read previous installments on the Commission website.)
The Confused Culture
We certainly live in a time in which ethical concerns about the human body are prevalent. Books like Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality or J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae’s Body and Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in Ethics, or any number of other books on the subject, are demonstrative of the cultural confusion in which we find ourselves. That said, humanity has always struggled with rightly understanding our own theological anthropology. One does not have to go far in the records of Scripture to see that even the Church has struggled to rightly understand what it means to be human. As Hoekema states, “the church must be concerned about the whole person.”[1]
One prevalent example is gnostic thinking in the Corinthian church. Timothy Tennent notes that Gnostics had a joke that that “the soma is a sema.”[2] Or, that “the body is a tomb.”[3] Gnostics thought that the body was at best unimportant, or at worst, evil. They did not celebrate the goodness and beauty of the human body. Looking to the Church at Corinth, one begins to realize that much of their sinful practices are related to poor or sinful understanding of the body. Their sinful eating practices, or their sexual sin, relate to this truncated and twisted teaching of the body. They failed to understand that God made our bodies, that our bodies were intended good, and are and will be part of who we are eternally. When Paul tells the Corinthians that our entire faith hinges upon Christ’s bodily resurrection, he is doing more than simply giving emphasis to the Gospel. Paul is directly opposing Gnostic teaching on the body. Moreover, he argues that we too, who turn from our sins and confess Christ as Lord, will participate in bodily resurrection. For Paul, the goodness of the body is not an ancillary doctrine, but central to our immediate faith and our eternal hope.
We are informed by Scripture how we are to think of and engage with those caught up in a non-Christian view of the human body. Nancy Pearcey states, “A biblical worldview grants value and dignity to our identity as male or female. Gender theology is rooted in creation theology. What God has created has intrinsic value and dignity.”[4] There are any number of views of the human body that reject this biblical worldview. This includes, but is not limited views that treat the body as a tool to be used for hedonistic pleasure or views that treat the body as not fundamental to one’s fundamental identity.
While I believe that we should apply this biblical and theological view of the human body to a variety of bioethical issues, I think a prominent one for our particular culture moment is transgenderism. Transgenderism generally refers to “an umbrella term that refers to many types of people whose expression of gender, in one way or another, does not match their birth sex.”[5] Given that transgenderism has birthed its own subset of academic studies, I tend to treat transgenderism, as I do most “isms” as an ideological viewpoint rather than a mere description.
What is of particular interest concerning transgenderism is it’s faulty understanding of the relationship between body and soul. For one, it disconnects the two. Transgenderism very plainly seeks to argue that you are not your body, but instead something else—maybe a mind or soul. Interesting enough, transgenderism seems to borrow metaphysical capital. That is, transgenderism seems to want to say that there is something immaterial about me that is distinct from my body, and yet it does not, as an ideology, seem to possess the necessary framework to offer anything other than raw materialism. As a symptom of the sexual revolution and an extreme personal autonomy, transgenderism seem to want to identity the person with something other than their body, but their biological body is the only ontological reality they possess. Thus, whereas Christianity offers an immaterial substance in the soul, but believes the body to also be fundamental to one’s identity, transgenderism denies both, but fails to offer anything to ground identity in. Put another way, for transgenderism, if I am not at last in part my body, then what am I?
Moreover, this view treats the body as a construct—something you or I can change or redefine according to our autonomous self. If biological realities, like our bodies, are actually nothing more than social constructions, it makes all the more sense as to why we might now be asking absurd questions like “what is a woman?” or “can men get pregnant?” As Pearcey notes, “Reducing sex to a cultural construction is… hugely demeaning to the body.”[6] The body because something malleable, not a concrete reality. The Christian view, on the other hand, argues that the body is a good gift from a good God. Even more, it is not something we can change to suit the will of our sovereign self, but instead is something we are. As Christians, we stand upon God’s good design as it relates to who and what we are.
To note, there is a difference between transgenderism (an ideology) and gender dysphoria (a psychological sickness). Because we live in a sin-cursed would, it is very possible that you may interact with people in your church that suffer from gender dysphoria. These are real people, made in the image of God, who struggle from day to day with their own thoughts. We must be prepared to “demolish strongholds” and take “every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5). Even so, we must do so with compassion for those deeply injured by these lies about anthropology. As Pearcey states, “Loving God means loving those who bear His image in the world, helping to liberate people who are trapped by destructive and dehumanizing ideas.”[7]
However, gender dysphoria is not an “identity,” but rather an experience an individual may struggle with for a brief time or the majority of their life. Often times, these people are at a higher at a higher rate of mental health issues. Including depression, and suicide ideation.[8]As with any socio-moral issue, there are multiple variables at play. Transgenderism is not a problem only because of a poor view of the human body. Issues like hyper-individualism, the rise of the sexual revolution, and other tributaries certainly play into the rise of this ideology.
My hope is that we not only have the true answer when people ask questions, but that we would offer those answers with rich compassion. I remember, over ten years ago now, being at a North Carolina State Association meeting, wherein the State Association renewed their stance on homosexuality. At this meeting, which took place shortly after Obergefell, a veteran evangelist asked a question that was deeply moving: “Can we clarify that we hold this position with tears in our eyes—knowing that sin is destructive and that we serve a God of grace?” This, truly, is our stance and response. Even more, it is a biblical response. It is not with high judgment and an iron fist that we disagree with a transgender lifestyle, but because we know too well the schemes of Satan and sin’s eternal effects. However, we also are deeply aware of God’s gracious love that marks every page of Scripture.
We should always proclaim our position about the human body, which stands in opposition to so many ideologies of the world, while simultaneously inviting our audience into God’s family. For we were all once desperately wicked, left to our own devices destined for eternal destruction. It was only the act of an infinitely gracious God that broke the bonds of wickedness in our lives. We should not and cannot hold a view on homosexuality that posits that we are somehow inherently morally superior. To do so is to be biblically untrue.
Moreover, we need to be able to offer a positive vision, and not just a negative one. Although he discussed the topic of sex, Matt O’Reilly is correct: “evangelicals tend to be known for what we are against rather than for what we are for.”[9] Allow me to borrow heavily from O’Reilly here, because I believe he is correct in both his assessment and prescription. He writes, “Our reputation is one of critique, not celebration.”[10] He continues, “we must not only set forth logical and moral arguments; we must also set forth a vision of such stunning beauty that nor argument can be raise against it… Beauty is a delight, brothers and sisters, and because it is a delight, it is also deeply persuasive.”[11]
O’Reilly is right; we must offer a more beautiful vision of the human body and gender than the secular and pagan world seeks to posit. Thus, when we talk about the human body in our pulpits, in our classrooms, and in our homes, we must encourage a better, truer, and more beautiful picture of what it means to be human—to be made according to the image of God.
Put another way, God gave us a gift when he made the human body. All that it is entailed in our embodiment can rightly thought of as good and beautiful, even when we live on this side of the Fall. It is good for me to male. It is good for me to have boys, and to be married to a woman. There is a beauty in seeing these things played out in every day life. When I kiss my wife in the morning as I head to work, or as I wrestle with my boys in the evening, the goodness of the body is on display. When we share a meal together, and quite literally belly laugh, the goodness of the body is on display. When I stand next to my family on the Lord’s day, and I can hear the vocal chords move as they sing an old hymn and they hold my hand, the goodness of the body is on display.
We must strike a balance in our rhetoric and reasoning as we think and talk about the body. We live in a sin-cursed world, and yet we note God’s good created order. We receive the gift of embodiment, knowing that we have yet to experience it as fully as we will. For this reason, we can rejoice about the goodness of God’s gift on one hand, and weep about how sin scars the body. This includes areas like disability and physical trauma.
Nancy Pearcey states, “Christians should be on the forefront of creative thinking to recover richer definitions of what it means to be a man or a woman. The church should be the first place where young people can find freedom from unbiblical stereotypes—the freedom to work out what it means to be created in God’s image as wholistic and redeemed people.”[12] In a confused culture that often abuses or neglects about wonder and magnificence of the human body, we as Christians can state confidently from Psalm 139:14: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” We know that sin has had an effect on any one of our bodies and souls, and yet God has intended it for good.
Therefore, we should move forward with three conclusions/resolutions. First, having a right understanding of the human body and soul has numerous ethical implications. We must get this right theologically if we are to rightly navigate ourselves and our people through the confusion of our culture. Second, we must stand resolutely on the truth. There is no reason for us to move an inch on God’s good design of the human body, which includes being made distinctly male and female. We should defend this doctrine and refute false ideas. Third, we should equally commit ourselves to practice deep compassion for those around us. As Pearcey puts so well, “The body of Christ must also become a place where casualties from the sexual revolution can find hope and restoration.”[13] We should care for those negatively affected by wrong and destructive views of the body, and live out in our everyday lives what a right understanding of the body might look like.
Conclusion
Now, more than ever, Christians must not only think more biblically, but also live more biblically. We must allow the truth of God to change our actions. We must have the mind of Christ, but also allow that to change our behavior. As our society continues to make drastic changes as it comes to the way in which we understand gender and sexuality, let us remember that we depend upon and worship a God who does not change (Mal. 3:6). Because of that, we can enjoy God’s good gift and endure the spirits of this age.
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[1] Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 222.
[2] Tennent, For the Body, 120.
[3] Tennent, For the Body, 120.
[4] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 200.
[5] James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy, eds., Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 242.
[6] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 210.
[7] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 216.
[8] Andrew T. Walker, God and the Transgender Debate: What Does the Bible Actually Say About Gender Identity? (Charlotte: The Good Book Company, 2017), 32.
[9] Matt O’Reilly, “What Makes Sex Beautiful? Marriage, Aesthetics, and the Image of God in Genesis 1–2 and Revelation 21–22,” in Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality, ed. Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017), 197.
[10] O’Reilly, “What Makes Sex Beautiful?,” 197.
[11] O’Reilly, “What Makes Sex Beautiful?,” 199.
[12] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 218.
[13] Pearcey, Love Thy Body, 224.