Romans 14:14-23

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Continuing our examination of Romans 14, Paul turns his attention to his own position on Christian liberty, as well as practical application of the principles he outlines in verses 1-13.

¹⁴I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.  ¹⁵But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.  ¹⁶Let not then your good be evil spoken of: ¹⁷For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. ¹⁸For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. ¹⁹Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. ²⁰For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth with offence. ²¹It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. ²²Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth. ²³And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

In verses 14-20, Paul lets reader know where he stands (and how he has been “persuaded by the Lord Jesus”) on the topic of whether or not there are unclean foods, what the kingdom of God is concerned with, and what things are acceptable to God.  First of all, “there is nothing unclean of itself” (verse 14).  Second, the kingdom of God is concerned with righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  It is not concerned with food and drink. (verse 17).  Finally, serving Christ faithfully is what is acceptable to God (verse 18).

Yet interwoven with these verses until the end of the chapter are two themes that guide us in how we are to walk, both regarding our own conscience and in relation to other believers, especially those who are weaker in faith.

Over and over again, it is stated in various ways that we should not use our Christian liberty to cause a weaker Christian to stumble.  What happens if we do something in front of another Christian that he or she considers wrong?  At the very least, it will sadden that Christian.  It may cause him or her to depart from the fellowship of other believers, or even from a Christian walk, if only for a season.  At worst, it will cause the weaker Christian to go astray in sin.  That person may feel compelled to copy our action, contrary to his or her own conscience.  Or there may be a giving into temptation in some area.  While it is understandable that we would want to defend our right to exercise our Christian liberty, framed in this way, we can see that God never intends for us to use it in such a way that it would hurt one of our fellow believers.

The other point that Paul makes in various ways is that if a weaker Christian believes that something is sinful, if they do it while holding that belief, it is sinful for them, even if by itself it is not sinful.  Let’s take a hypothetical situation where a Christian believes it is sinful to eat pork.  He goes to a church picnic, and when he finds out that the hot dogs contain pork, he states that he can’t eat that and asks for some barbecued chicken instead.  Now let’s say that a Christian who knows that there is no prohibition on eating pork overhears this conversation.  In response, he teases the abstaining Christian.  Not wanting to appear foolish he gives in and eats a hot dog.  But since he still believed in his heart that it was sinful to do so, to him it was sin.  And the stronger Christian also sinned by putting the stumbling block in the way of the weaker Christian.

On the other hand, let’s say the stronger Christian takes the weaker Christian aside and shows him Acts 10 & 11, Romans 14 and 1^st Corinthians 8.  If the weaker Christian receives the teaching and no longer believes in his heart that it is sinful to eat pork, then he may do so freely.  He does not sin if he eats pork at this point.  And the stronger Christian did not sin.  He taught and encouraged his fellow Christian.  In this, there is no sin.

Particularly in verse 16, Paul also admonishes the stronger believers in a matter that expands upon 1^st Thessalonians 5:22, which states “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”  Do you use your Christian liberty appropriately?  You do well.  But if you lord it over your weaker brother or sister because of your Christian liberty, then you are inviting that which should have been seen as good to be spoken of as evil.  Doing so, you bring judgment and condemnation upon yourself.  Even worse, you might be leading others to speak badly of Christianity itself.  We cannot stop malicious people from idly and falsely condemning Christianity.  But giving them reason to do so is another matter entirely.

More to the central theme of my blog, noting the way the belief of many in the church is evolving on the issue of gender, I can picture Paul writing: “Some of you believe transsexuals are born that way and others of you believe that it is a choice, but whichever you believe, if your fellow Christian believes the other, continue in fellowship and don’t get into arguments over it.”

Now one might look at Romans 14 and my commentary on it and say that they are offended by me (and others like me) transitioning so that whereas I once lived as a male, now I lived as a female.  And therefore, since they are offended, I ought to have restrained myself rather than transition.  It is a point worth looking at.

First of all, to me who believes that I was born this way, if no one is offended, I clearly have the Christian liberty to transition.  But what if someone is offended?  Am I required to reverse course for the sake of that person?  Let’s look at why I believe the answer to that is no.

First of all, the offense that the other Christian takes is based on my identity, not on my action.  My action is living as a female consistent with normative female behavior within the culture in which I live.  If that is sinful by itself, then every Christian cisgender woman is sinning just by the very act of being her female self.  And of course, this is not so.  Females do not sin merely by acting female.

I am merely living in accordance with my inner identity (which I have shown in other posts to be of greater importance to God than identity based on external appearance).  Furthermore, I am doing that which is in my power to do to alter my outer appearance to avoid, as much as possible, offending other people, including my Christian brothers and sisters.

Now there was a time when white people in many churches would have been offended if a black person wanted to come into their church to worship.  Was it right for them to be offended?  Absolutely, not.  It is was their own sinful prejudice that caused them to be offended, not the black person’s honest and understandable desire to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ.  That black person does not sin based on the circumstances of his or her birth.

In the same way, the body of Christ no longer excludes people from participating in the congregation based on certain “blemishes” (i.e., bodily defect) whether from a birth defect or acquired later in life.  So if you are blind, or lame, or flat nosed, or have extra fingers or toes, or permanently lack the use of hand or foot, or are hunch-backed, or are a dwarf, or have a blemish of the eye, or scurvy, or scabbed skin, or stones (testicles) that are broken (see Leviticus 21:17-21), you may freely come before the Lord, fellowshipping and worshiping with the rest of the body of Christ.  And if you are unsaved and have any of those conditions or other serious body defects, you may freely receive the free gift of salvation as is available to any other person.

On what basis are those who were once excluded no longer separated from the rest of the body?  On the same basis in Acts 10 that declares that no longer are there any unclean foods: “what God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.” (verse 15)

Are you saved?  Wonderful!  I have received that same free gift of salvation.  I did not choose Christ.  He chose to pluck me out of the miry clay and save me while I was still unwittingly at enmity with Him.  I trust in that same blood poured out for me for the propitiation of my sins.  I place my trust in Christ alone, and not on any work that I have done, lest I should boast.  My salvation is a gift of God for by grace am I saved through faith, a faith that God bestowed upon me.

The 66 books of the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, are my sole authority for all things spiritual or moral.  I neither add nor subtract anything from that authority.  And as much as lies within me, I do all for the glory of God as He is the only one worthy of our worship and to be the recipient of whatever glory we can give.

I became aware of my female gender identity when I was seven years old.  It was not the result of abuse or neglect or tragedy.  I just knew and I went on with my life for a few years before it became problematic as I began to enter into puberty and be in regular contact with both male and female teens when I moved from fifth grade to sixth.  I was not born again until age 36.  But when I became a new creature in Christ, my female identity was not taken away.  In fact, eventually it became stronger, not to lead me into sin, but away from it as my pretense of trying to live as a male which was a lie, was causing me to move more and more into sexual sin.  To God be the glory, when I finally began to embrace my true female identity, the sins which I struggled with for years and were getting a stronger and stronger hold on me, began to dramatically fall away in a matter of weeks.

I could have transitioned before I was saved.  Even when I was first saved and a babe in Christ, it would have been relatively easy to do so without my conscience being pricked.  But I did not do so.  Why?  There are many reasons but a significant one is that I did not know for sure where God stood on the issue.  It wasn’t that I knew it was sin.  I knew that many in the Church were making that claim, but for those many years, my eyes were veiled as to what Scripture said on the topic.

As long as I had doubt, though I might search and consider and explore the idea (and sometimes pray that God would take away this gender incongruence to end the conflict between my identity on the one hand, and my body and the world on the other), I did not move forward without an understanding from Scripture that it was not sinful for me to do so.  God, in His perfect timing, chose when He would unveil my eyes to the Scriptures that apply to this topic, as I have shared elsewhere on my blog.

Now do you doubt my identity?  On what basis?  Have you seen my naked body?  Have you opened me up and examined my internal organs?  Have you swabbed my cheeks and tested to determine whether I am XY, XX or some Intersex variant?  Have you read and interpreted my brain scan, comparing it to normative male and female patterns?  Do you know my heart better than I or the Lord?  Or are you basing your opinion because of one man’s judgment made when I emerged from my mother’s womb: a judgment made based quickly on only one piece of evidence and without the benefit of much that we have learned over the past sixty years.  Furthermore, it is a judgment that you have no way of confirming its accuracy.

One more point: how have I offended you and in what way I am I causing you to stumble into sin by revealing myself in this way?  Are you being tempted to change gender even though you deep down know that your body and gender identity match?  I don’t advocate that you do so.  In fact, I would counsel against it.  And I would be happy to discuss it with you privately to help you turn away from such an action if you choose to avail my help.

Or are you trying to stand in the gap for some other person who you are afraid may “fall” for what I am teaching.  I have no desire to persuade anyone that their gender identity is different from what they already know it to be.  What I teach is that if a person already knows that their gender identity does not match their sexual organs, that they are free and can be at peace and that no one ought put a stumbling block in their way to prevent them from seeking the Lord.  And if a person is not sure or conflicted as to their gender identity, then they need to resolve that with the help of unbiased counsel, both from the mental health community and from a pastor or other qualified Christian counselor.  To remain in conflict is painful.  To receive biased counseling that persuades a person to be something that he or she is not can lead to tragedy.  And so it is my fervent prayer that my words will help those who are in a position to serve as a Christian counselor, to do so with an unbiased mind if the situation arises to counsel someone with gender conflict or clear gender incongruity; to search the Scriptures for yourself as I have to see whether these things are so.

God bless,

Lois

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Comparing Christianity and Transsexuality

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born again, born transsexual, Christ, Christian, Christian identity, Christian salvation, Christianity, deathbed conversion, gender discrimination, God, Jesus, John, John 3, Kingdom of God, Martin Niemöller, martyr, new creature in Christ, Nicodemus, persecution, Pharisee, religious discrimination, risk, salvation testimony, TDOR, Transgender, Transition, Transsexual, transsexual identity, Voice of the Martyrs

I apologize for the long delay before this post.  I was partially done with it weeks ago.  Then we started to get snow, and my tax clients started to make appointments and send me their information (they seem to be contacting me sooner this year than last, which is good in the long run), then there was more snow to shovel and then a touch of the flu and then, for good measure, more snow. I am told that my area has had about 3½ times its normal average snowfall for the year, and we still have nearly two months when we could get significant snow.  And now, the long awaited post:

In my previous post (Importance of Christian Unity on 2/3/14), I discussed Christ’s prayer and desire for unity in the church.  I made the claim that unity springs forth from loving one another.  And I quoted two of many Bible verses that command brothers and sisters in the church to love one another.  Human nature being what it is, love is most likely to develop when we first see what we have in common with someone else.

There are some Christians and transsexuals who would be aghast at the idea that they have anything in common other than being part of humanity.  That very division, that so many of them would see each other as being on opposite sides, is a major reason why I started this blog.  Therefore this post will focus on what the two groups have in common.  Having found a way that both are able to co-exist in me without conflict, I am in an advantageous position to see and discuss the commonalities.

Perhaps the single largest area of agreement within the transsexual community is that we are real, our condition is not a figment of our imagination or a delusion. However, in terms of interests, beliefs, talents, occupations, ethnic background and so on, we mirror the spectrum of these things in the cisgender world.  And just as in the cisgender world, there are wonderful transsexuals, there are some who at the lower end of the moral spectrum and many in between.  What we have in common is that we believe that it is possible for people to be born with body of one gender and the mind of the other gender, because we have experienced it first-hand.  It cannot be changed and persisting in the attempt to do so is dangerous to the mental health and wellbeing of a transsexual.  This is what gives us our identity.

Identity is the first significant connection between Christians and transsexuals.  It is the fact that both are identities, not that there is much in common about those identities.  Just as there is a wide range of personalities, lifestyles, quality and beliefs among transsexuals, Christians are also associated with a very big tent.  Christians can be found among every defined race, almost every if not all ethnic groups, from the very poor to the very wealthy, throughout the functional IQ range, from conservative to liberal (whether related to theology, politics in general or any particular issue).  I have met or know the testimony of Christians who were born into families that were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, new age and so on.

In fact, one of the basic tenets of Christianity is that you cannot be born a Christian from your mother’s womb.  In contrast, the only way a person is truly transsexual is to be that way from your physical birth.  You cannot become a transsexual.  And despite those who think we choose this path, that is impossible.  Unfortunately, because I and so many transsexuals of my generation felt the need to repress and deny our true identity, it can appear that we are making a mid-life change that came out of nowhere.  But if we are truly transsexual, that change came from deep within us, from a knowledge that we became aware of in childhood.

And yet, both identities come from birth.  In the case of Christians, however, that birth is spiritual, not physical.

There once was a man named Nicodemus.  He was a Pharisee, one of the Jewish religious rulers, and he was an adult contemporary of Jesus.  Unlike most of the Pharisees, he acknowledged that the miracles that Jesus performed were evidence that He came from God.  Nicodemus wanted to know more about Jesus, but for fear of the other Pharisees’ censure, he visited Jesus at night.  When Nicodemus greeted Jesus, here is part of the dialogue that ensued:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?  Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. – John 3:3-7

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God; he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  One must be born again to become a child of God, adopted into sonship as a joint heir with Christ.  This is what makes someone a Christian.  There is absolutely no wiggle room on this point.

The sad irony is that some of the same Christians who whole-heartedly embrace the fact that a person can make such a drastic mid-life spiritual change from fairly early in childhood to an elderly person’s last few breaths, refuse to understand and accept all the growing evidence that transsexuals are born this way, cannot change it, and have every right to make a mid-life transition to their true gender identity.

You will not find anyone who loves to hear a Christian salvation testimony more than I do.  For over twenty years, I was a member of a ministry whose sole purpose was to bring the Gospel to the nations so that the power of the Holy Spirit combined with God’s Word could save men, women, boys and girls.  We delighted to hear testimonies of how God used our ministry as part of His salvation process in a person’s life.  It was a great encouragement to us to continue in the work.

Far be it from me that I should question any person’s salvation testimony.  God knows their heart and it is not my place to judge.  And especially in the case of a deathbed conversion, I would always side on the side of hope, for the sake of that person’s loved ones if nothing else.  And yet from a dispassionate point of view, which is more questionable, a deathbed conversion where the dying person has nothing to lose and no chance to demonstrate the authenticity of their conversion (and no chance to fall away), or a mid-life transition in which a person may risk some or all of the following: the love of family members, the loyalty of friends, career, status, finances, position in their community, and health?

I am not saying that I doubt the deathbed conversions, but that there is even stronger evidence to believe those people who have risked so much to transition.  When you add in the fact that most transsexuals have been vetted by a gatekeeper and the vast majority have demonstrated a successful, satisfying life in their “target” (i.e., authentic) gender, there had to be something very powerful and real to bring a person to the point where they risk all to take the path of transition.  Indeed, it is very similar to how James and John and Simon Peter and Andrew walked away from successful fishing enterprises (James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are recorded as having servants or employees), and Matthew and Zacchaeus walked away from lucrative (albeit despised) positions as tax collectors.

Why am I so quick to accept any salvation testimony?  Because I have experienced it myself.  I know first-hand what an amazing, life-changing, spiritual event it is.  And rightly so should it be called “born again”, because it is a spiritual rebirth: one who was spiritually dead is now alive.  “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2^nd Corinthians 5:17)

Having been born transsexual and born again a Christian, I can testify to two things: the first survived the second and neither one can be changed.  And if either of them could be successfully changed, then that identity wasn’t true about me at all.  Whether it was wishful thinking or a delusion or whatever it might have been, it wouldn’t be real.

At this point it must be noted that many of those who are born again do risk a great deal to make it known publically that they are now Christian.  And this leads us to the second major connection shared by Christians and transsexuals: our experience in living out our new public identity.  Here, the commonality runs deeper.  There are many places in the world where it can be dangerous to be known as a transsexual.  And there are many places in the world where it can be dangerous to be known as a Christian.  There are some countries where Christians are a small minority that if a member of the majority religion converts to Christianity, both the person converting and the person accused as the instrument of that conversion are guilty of a crime punishable by death.

If we visit websites such as persecution.org (Voice of the Martyrs) and transgenderdor.org (Transgender Day of Remembrance), the stories are similar.  People are murdered for being Christian.  People are murdered for being transgender.  Sometimes it is official policy, sometimes death sentences are handed down by a court, sometimes it is mob action and sometimes it is the result of hatred by an individual or a few.  In every case, it is reprehensible.  To take our understanding of the common experience a step further, there are some countries where it would be a tossup as to who is more undesirable, Christians or transgenders.

In addition to murder, members of each group also face official and unofficial discrimination in many places.  At any time, both Christians and transgenders around the world face the real possibility of long term imprisonment, torture, beatings, loss of job, loss of one’s business, loss of property, even loss of their own home.  Christian churches and meetings are attacked; so are LGBT rights’ offices and demonstrations.

German pastor, Martin Niemöller, spoke or put into print a number of variations of his oft-quoted poem.  According to a 1971 interview, this was his favorite version of his self-indictment for his failure to speak out against the Nazis:

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

I pray that someday, more Christians and transgenders will speak up for each other.

God bless,

Lois

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