PMW 2022-069 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D.

The postmillennial hope is rooted in God’s word, not man’s world. Postmillennialism expects ups-and-downs as history unfolds. Though eventually the advances will far outweigh the declines. However, currently we are witnessing a downward trend in our cultural situation.

Our culture is now in such a state of rebellion against God that it cannot even tell the difference between male and female, such is the blindness of unbelief. The postmillennial hope involves a deep and abiding commitment to God’s word and his law to shine a light on our path forward. Unfortunately, so many Christian churches have become so invested in fun and entertainment instead of worship and study that Christians are confused in how to respond to our collapsing culture.

In this article I will focus on one of the most remarkable moral errors of our day: the affirmation of transgender ideology. We must understand its error in order to critique it, rebut it, and move beyond it.

Gender Identity is the latest rage among postmodernists. Especially since the June 2015 transformation of Bruce Jenner from a male to the female Caitlyn Jenner, transgender discussions have exploded on the scene. And many Christian leaders and laymen have gotten on the politically-correct bandwagon. But what does the Bible have to say about this phenomenon? Much, in every way.

The Creation Expectation

In Genesis 1:27 we read: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” This statement most clearly presents God’s creation design for the human race. He established gender as a binary distinction within mankind. He established them as two distinct kinds.

The word “gender” is derived from the Latin genus, which means “kind, type.” Thus, God established two kinds of people: male and female. And then he declared this (and all else that came from his creative activity): “very good” (Gen. 1:31).

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This truth is re-iterated later in summarizing man’s creation. Moses introduces the first genealogy in Scripture, which traces Adam’s multiplying in the earth (per God’s command, Gen 1:28). And there we once again hear his declaration: “He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created” (Gen . 5:2). Then follows the genealogy of the early human race from Adam to Noah.

We must recognize that this genealogical development is essential to redemption. For this genealogy begins unfolding throughout the Old Testament, reaching into the New, leading to the birth of Jesus. His birth would have been impossible on either a homosexual or transgender principle, for birth requires opposite genders. The whole story of redemption requires a seed, and in the God-created order, seed requires gender distinctions.

Jesus himself confirms this original creation order when he declares: “from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female” (Mark 10:6).

Gender identity is a part of the creation order and lends itself to a strong creation theology which arises from Genesis 1–2. The further we depart from God’s creation design, the worse things will go for us. Man cannot shake his fist in the face of God with impunity. In this regard we should remember God’s rebuke of Job. God issues a thundering challenge to his stumbling servant: “Then the LORD said to Job, ‘Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it’” (Job 40:1–2).

We live in a God-designed and God-created world under God-appointed laws. Rejecting the divine order can only lead to our peril.

Our Current Predicament

Sin complicates matters; life is not simple with sin present Sin disrupts all of life’s activities, causing broken marriages, crime, war, and more. And today sin is even complicating the most basic identity of man as male and female.

Until fairly recently, all agreed there were two genders. And if you check any obstetrics ward you will find two genders represented there. But sin elevates the subjective over the objective, desire over reality. And the Bible calls this elevation: lust.

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Genesis 1 speaks of two objective, actual, God-ordained genders. But recent, avant-garde psychology does not. We are now hearing that gender identity is a subjective experience. The American Psychological Association defines the matter thus: “Gender identity is a person’s private sense and subjective experience of their own gender. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female or something else.” It continues by noting that gender “expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice or body characteristics.” (http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx)

In 1984 Dr. N. W. Fisk was the first professional to diagnose “Gender Dysphoria.” The word “dysphoria” is based on two Greek words: dus (“difficult”) and pherein (“to bear). “Gender dysphoria” is one’s unhappiness, unease, or dissatisfaction with his or her biological sex, which makes one’s personal life “difficult to bear.”

Previous to our times, one’s sexual identity and role was understood to be one of two particular, non-overlapping characteristics: male or female. But today, the increasing rejection of God and morality has encouraged sin’s integration downward into the void. As sin “gets its act together,” it moves more rapidly into destruction. Tragically, many today are arguing for multiple genders, and unlimited blended continuum.

This recent approach to gender is not simply a bizarre annoyance. It cannot be written off as a sad situation. It is impacting society, especially in education and law — with enormous cultural consequences. As our nation moves further and more rapidly away from God, things will trend more quickly from bad to worse.

We see gender corruption in education. Our northern neighbor Canada has progressed further down this path than we have. The British Columbia Teachers Federation’s Handbook on Gender Education, notes that “Gender is a product of the mind…. Being transgender or gender-non-conforming is normal and healthy.” It warns of “outdated and oppressive views of gender-continuity that circulate in our everyday understanding of what it means to be human.”

And how does this Handbook recommend guarding against oppressive (God-ordained) views? It recommends “access to safe restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to one’s gender identity.”

But American liberal educational theorists are not to be outdone. Redwood Heights Elementary School in Oakland, California, has appointed “gender coaches” to teach young children that “you can be a boy or a girl, or both.” In fact, the United States National Education Association president recently stated at a national convention: “comprehensive sex education is the only way to combat heterosexism and gender conformity. We must make these issues a part of every middle and high school student’s agenda. Gender identity express and sexual orientation is a spectrum. And those opposed to homosexuality are stuck in a binary box that religion and family create.”

We see gender corruption in law. A January 2014 California law “guarantees students in K-12 the right to use the school restrooms and to participate in the sex-segregated activities that correspond with their expressed genders instead of their school records.”

Such laws exist in Massachusetts and Connecticut. And they even go further. According to the February 25, 2014 Huffington Post: “Some school districts take the law as a mandate to evaluate sleeping arrangements for overnight field trips and activities such as choirs and recreational sports where girls and boys are often separated.”

A slightly earlier Huffington Post article (January 31, 2014) stated: “School officials violated state anti-discrimination law when they would not allow a transgender fifth-grader to use the girls’ bathroom, according to a ruling by the highest court in Maine.”

In Maryland a similar 2014 law was rightly complained against. According MSNBC: House Minority whip Kathy Szeliga sated: “We should be very concerned about the safety of women and little girls, because what this allows is that possible predators and pedophiles can go in our women’s restrooms.”

We hear much today about school bullies. And bullying is a sad situation. But how is the law responding to this social problem? What are they recommending? And who is pushing anti-bullying laws?

A June 4, 2011, WND article noted that “The anti-bullying bills being passed in haste across the country force a range of draconian fixes on public schools. The main force (and funding) behind this national push has been the homosexual and transgender movements.”

A CBN News release on May 24, 2012, reported that Illinois state senator Kyle McCarter helped stop a bill in 2012. McCarter warned that “there are anti-bullying programs that have an agenda: to only protect one class of individuals. Some of these programs are very good. They indeed encourage kids not to bully. But there are program throughout the United States, used in some high schools and universities, that really have just a pro-homosexual agenda, and nothing but that.”

But now what does God’s word teach us about the matter? That is the question to be settled in my next article.

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Tagged: God's Law, morality, transgender