Is transgenderism a threat? A disease? Something beautiful? What does our church believe? As part of our Culture & Christianity series, Pastor Steve Yates leads a conversation about identity, gender, and the realities of our broken world, in light of the good news of Jesus.

This week, we started out the wrap-up of this series by answering a few questions that had been previously submitted. We then considered a final ‘lens’ to look at transgenderism through – ‘disability.’ Specifically, we considered the various things that play a role in our sinful decisions, including people’s pain and suffering. Through a look at the biblical definition of eunuchs and the experience of Jesus as a suffering servant, we reminded each other to suffer and hope well with each other as we also are called to holiness.

For this week’s handout, click here.

Is transgenderism a threat? A disease? Something beautiful? What does our church believe? As part of our Culture & Christianity series, Pastor Steve Yates leads a conversation about identity, gender, and the realities of our broken world, in light of the good news of Jesus.

This week we looked at our second of three lenses, “divinity,” the lens concerned with the sacredness of God and his world. We again affirmed the biblical stance of two genders but discussed the difficulties in asking, “Is trans a sin?” due to various understandings of both transgenderism and categories of sin. We looked at our theological space for gender incongruence as a possible result of creation’s corruption in Romans 8, and ended with a practical discussion of varying views on using one’s preferred pronouns informed by 1 Corinthians 8.

For this week’s handout, click here.

Is transgenderism a threat? A disease? Something beautiful? What does our church believe? As part of our Culture & Christianity series, Pastor Steve Yates leads a conversation about identity, gender, and the realities of our broken world, in light of the good news of Jesus.

This week we began discussing the first of three “lenses” people look at trans issues through: “diversity.” We discussed how our culture has largely shifted to a worldview valuing personal choice and agency, and how with this in mind, it makes sense that our culture wishes to promote expressions of this such as trans movements. We also analyzed how we as God’s people have reacted to this shift with negative emotions, leading us to conflict instead of love.

Discussed during class – Starbucks India Ad “Arpita”

For this week’s handout, click here.

Is transgenderism a threat? A disease? Something beautiful? What does our church believe? As part of our Culture & Christianity series, Pastor Steve Yates leads a conversation about identity, gender, and the realities of our broken world, in light of the good news of Jesus.

This week, we start with a discussion of various terms such as trans, transgender, intersex, transition, cisgender, and biological sex. We finished with a discussion of gender, that Scripture does root a defense of two genders in the image of God and possibility of marriage and procreation. However, we also emphasized that because expressions of gender are culturally influenced, our call should be to encourage each other to God-glorifying expressions of gender that clarify and focus people on his image instead of modern stereotypes of gender norms.

For this week’s handout, click here.