Before everyone in my home state completely loses their heads over HB2, North Carolina’s birth gender bathroom legislation, may I say a word to my fellow Christians?
Transgender people are people, too.
I get that we may not understand how or why people are transgender.
I get that we may disagree with their notion of “gender identity.”
I get that we may not even like that there is such a thing as “transgender.”
I don’t fully “get” what it is to be transgender. I grew up in a time when gender was static.
What I do “get” is that people are created in God’s image. God loves people. He so loved people that He sent His only son to die to save us. (John 3:16) Save us from what? Whatever would distort the image of God in us. And He didn’t wait until we “got it.”
“God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 my emphasis)
Gender wasn’t always a general topic of conversation. Need I say that times have changed? At my house, we do talk about gender and sometimes late into the night. Frankly, we don’t always agree.
Convinced that being transgender is not new, my spouse doesn’t know why we suddenly need a bathroom law. My 20-something former gender studies student offered a primer, adding that this is not an abstract notion. My 20-something actually knows transgender people who have been rejected by family, especially their church-going relatives.
What is missing from most Christian discourse about being transgender is any mention of the love of God, the mercy of God, the patience of God. Have we forgotten our condition when Christ found us? Overcome by deception, drunkenness, greed, lying, sexual dysfunction and perversion etc. “Such were some of you, but you are washed.” (I Cor 6:11)
There are Scriptural reasons to disagree with a host of recent societal shifts, but no Bible passage promotes being hateful in the name of the Lord. God is not eager to condemn people. God is for people, and He keeps the conversation going.
In Genesis 4, to my surprise, God is still talking to Cain, who committed the first murder recorded in Scripture. This guy had whacked his brother Abel after inviting him out for a stroll. Premeditated, unprovoked killing. When God inquired about Abel’s whereabouts, Cain gave a smart-mouthed reply: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Yet, God didn’t punish Cain with immediate death. He didn’t allow anyone else to kill Cain either. Cain lived to marry, father children, build cities. God’s grace, mercy, love.
Let’s not allow HB2, or whatever else may come along, to pull us off message. The gospel is Good News, a message of love shared by loving people. Christ is not glorified by angry talking heads or screaming picketers carrying banners bearing hateful slogans. The fruit of His spirit is love; and love never fails.
“Whoever does not love, does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8)
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