When you begin a discussion about transgenderism, with all of the various nuances of the science of “gender”, you should be aware of the knee jerk reactions that will inevitably take place. I fully expect threats, condemnations and even loss of friendship. I hope not. But I am used to it.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that the bible alone is my ultimate authority both for faith and for practice. That, by itself, is meaningless, I know, without the filling of the Holy Spirit, for everyone claims the “bible alone” – even those who wouldn’t know what it taught even if it bit them.

I only mention the “bible alone” because I am not an expert on science, or on gender, or on biology or on constitutional law. But I do know a glimmer of what the bible says, even when that knowledge is only “in part”.

Most of those who are quick to condemn transgenderism will say that a transgender person is denying how God made them. Then they will quote Jesus saying, “He made them male and female.” This seems like a slam dunk – so much so that those who condemn a transgender person will use that same person as an example of the worst sort of immorality. In fact, the transgender debate played a large role in the last election. “People don’t even know what bathroom to use…” and so on.

In the list of sins normally presented in an evangelical church, you can be prepared to hear “sodomy, transgenderism, abortion” and almost no mention of racism, abuse, cruelty and assault. But that is another topic.

But if you look at the whole passage that Jesus is quoted in, you will see that it is not nearly the slam dunk that our opponents believe it is. Here is the passage in full:

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ v 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
10 The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”
11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”  Matt 19:3–12.

It is important to notice that the questioners were testing him. They were looking for something to either turn the people against him OR turn the Romans against him. “Yes or no? Is it lawful to get a divorce”.

For this reason, I am leery of questions that begin with “Yes or no??”

“Yes or no, is transgenderism a sin??”

“Yes or no, can you tell me what a woman is?”

“Yes or no, do you know what bathroom to use?”

When questions are put like this, they are rarely asked with good motives. In my experience, every time I am asked a question like this, there is a trap in play.

So let’s look at Jesus’ response.

I have written on the passage several times before: Here, for example.

But not specifically applying in to the transgender discussion.

Jesus did say, “He created them male and female”, but then he goes on to talking about the “hardness of heart” which God did NOT create.

God’s original, beautiful design was marred and corrupted and twisted by sin and death. Now, please do not stop here and think that I am saying that transgender persons are living in sin. That is not the point. Hold on for just a minute.

The fact is that sin is like a cancer, or a leprosy, that effects everything and every person. The brokenness of sin and shame and misery lie in every human heart. We are cast out of Eden and we all feel that in our very bones. We all long desperately for the beauty of God and the acceptance of our Shepherd.

Decades of Wesleyan perfection have infiltrated the church, though, including on the subject of transgender. Wesley, and more particularly his follower Charles Finney, taught that sin was merely a choice that someone makes. That you can choose to do good or choose to do evil. Like Pelagius, they thought that talking about sin as a cancer was just an excuse. That people could be moral if they just decided to be moral.

So when we talk about acceptance, our knee jerk reaction is that if we start choosing to do right, then God will accept us. And so we divide the whole world up into US – those who choose to do right. And THEM, those who make bad choices and deserve the outcome.

We sing about “only a sinner, saved by grace” but secretly harbor the sneaking suspicion that God accepted us because we are a little bit better than those drag queen who actually want to read to children.

But when you say, “The Bible alone”, you also need to condemn yourself, just as Paul wrote in Romans chapters 1-3. The “bible alone” leaves us all subject to sin and death.”

This is a deep subject. I am not simply saying “Yes, you are bad too”. That would be caving to Finney’s view of sin. Instead, look at it this way:

All of us are east of Eden, alienated from life. All of us have mental disorders, physical disorders, cancers, graying hairs. All of us are one car crash away from permanent brain damage. All of us are one accident away from living in a wheel chair. All of us have twisted views of God, twisted views of ourselves, twisted views of our neighbors.

Instead of viewing sin as a series of behaviors, the Bible views sin more as a cancer – the result of living outside of Eden, missing the mark of the glory of God, living outside of his embrace. Everything else is a RESULT of sin. Behavior, shame, guilt, terror, and everything that plagues mankind, up to and including death. We don’t need to make better choices. We need redemption. We live in a world of death and misery, in bondage to the kingdom of darkness and pain and misery.

And all of us try to manage the absurdity and brutality of life in destructive ways.

Some are drunk on alcohol.

Some are drunk on porn.

Some are drunk on their hetero-cis-genderism.

Some are drunk on pride

Some are drunk on their spiritual superiority.

Look deeper than “bad behavior.” Human behavior isn’t nearly as simplistic as you want it to be.

There is a spot in our brain, for example, that controls executive function. That is the function that we use to successfully organize, plan and execute a goal.

I know a person whose executive function was destroyed by a virus. She would be called lazy, unmotivated, and sinful by some – and has been. But human behavior is not that simple. Choice and will are not that simple.

There is a spot in our brain that gives us our identity as either male or female. We know ourselves as gendered persons because of a function of our brain.

And no, I am not talking about the soul right now. That mysterious self that lies beyond our science. I am not a materialist. But I believe that we are one, body and soul. One affects the other.

There is a place in our brain that floods our body with adrenaline. It is supposed to go off when we are attacked by bears or lions. It senses danger and prompts the body to act.

There are hormones, there are nerve endings – and all of this functioned perfectly when God created them male and female.

But then there was catastrophe. Sin entered the world. We became spiritually alienated from God and our bodies, our environment, our relationship to ourselves and our neighbor were all affected.

The brain started flooding the brain with danger signals when there was no danger. We became depressed, neurotic, prideful, even hateful, or contemptuous – as many different responses as their are types of persons.

People forgot who they were. We lost so much we can’t even fathom it. We can’t imagine a world without sin and death and pain and misery. We can’t imagine living without shame or guilt or fear. We can’t imagine living with a healed brain and a healed soul. We can long for it, but we can’t imagine in.

As I write this, my shoulder is cramping up and my knees hurt so badly I have to get up and stretch them out. I cannot imagine a day without pain.

If I believed in a simple “bible alone” response, I would say, “I can’t run the race. I can’t even walk across the store.”

And I know that there will be those who think I can be fixed by “their doctor” or by making better choices. Maybe. Maybe not. Life is far more complicated than better choices.

Sometimes the place in our brain that gives us our gender identity is messed up by abuse, by birth, by trauma, or simply by “I have no idea”. To me, it is simply a part of being a fallen human in a fallen world, longing for redemption and deliverence from the pain of existing.

So, is a transgender person sinning?

I cannot find even one passage in all of scripture that would apply. There is a relatively obscure verse in Deuteronomy that is pulled out like a weapon, but is it talking about a transgender person? Not really.

In fact, the church cannot be dogmatic about how to apply the law of God at all. Is it meant to be normative? Is all of the case law given in Deuteronomy supposed to be followed to the letter? What about that place in Numbers where a woman accused of adultery is supposed to drink water mixed with dust from the temple floor. We don’t have a temple any more. What are we supposed to do.

Here’s the verse I am referring to:

5 “A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God. Dt 22:5.

But what does it mean? The rest of the passage seems to deal with not mixing seeds, not mixing threads, and not mixing birds and eggs. Is Moses speaking of a thousand case laws, or is he teaching Israel that God has called a people for himself, and makes a difference between his seed and the serpent’s seed? I would lean to the latter, but what do I know? Do we need to throw away all of our garments that are made with mixed thread?

When Paul said, “Be anxious over nothing” was he speaking about those whose brain floods their body with adrenaline without a reason? Where someone is triggered by a smell, a sound, a phrase and goes into fight or flight mode? I think not.

I do know that Jesus said not to search the scriptures looking for a zillion rules, thinking that life would be found there. But look to scriptures as a testimony to Jesus.

So here is what my pea brain offers.

Wherever you are, whatever your coping method is, whatever gender you identify with, whatever your sexuality, whatever your background…

Whether you can’t remember if you turned of the stove and it ruins your whole day

Whether your executive function is damaged and getting up to do the dishes is the hardest thing you’ve ever done

Whether your gender switch is different that mine and you truly don’t know which bathroom to use

Whether you don’t see yourself as either male or female and don’t even know how to answer that question

Whether your anxiety is through the roof for no reason

Whether you lose the battle against your sins today, yet again

Jesus came just for you.

He didn’t come to make you a good slave.

He didn’t come to make you straight, or cis, or male, or female, or white, or republican

He didn’t come because he is sick and tired of you screwing up all the time and you better get it right…

He came for only one reason. Because God loves you, and God hates that cancer that is making you miserable.

He is in the business of restoring everything and making you beautiful. And making me beautiful. And you have a glimpse of that beauty in you right now.

Exercise that beauty that is in you. Do justly. Love faithfulness, and walk humbly with God.

He is coming and everything will be restored. He is longing for your embrace even more than you long for his, believe it or not.

And in his arms, everything will be made right.

As for my part, I am so tired of the impulse to tell everyone what is wrong with them. It does not good. It solves nothing. And I am not nearly smart enough to act as a judge.

Unless you are hurting someone less powerful than you. Then I have a problem.

Be faithful; be just; be humble. That’s the whole of everything.