Volume 2: Issue 2
September/October 1997
Can You Be Transgendered and Christian?
Table Of Contents
Cover Story: Transgendered and Christian:
Being a transgendered Christian is in many ways similar to being a gay Christian. We face a number of the same issues, and some different issues as well.
When the Apostle Paul describes how our being one in Christ through our
Baptism breaks down the normal human boundaries that we see as barriers, he
is very explicit in including gender as one of these now irrelevant
conditions.
John 3:16
-- By:
Barbara Jean Jason
How can we be a Christian and be transgendered/gay, or both? The answer is
pretty clear in John 3:16.
For the last ten years of my life I've been on a rather amazing journey of
self-discovery--a spiritual quest, if you will. My goal was to find out if
my intrinsic transgendered orientation and corresponding behaviors were
compatible with faith in God through Christ Jesus.
And just as clearly as I ever heard any voice, I heard
Him say to me, "Becky, this is your way out."
Perhaps in the
expanded community of believers, ELCA churches of the Lutheran World
Federation, uniting with other Reformed brethren, will renew their
commitment to "justification by grace through faith" -- hopefully
abandoning any discriminatory or voyeuristic focus upon sexual and gender
content of constituent families and homes.
Gay people who love God have a tough time reconciling the two concepts.
This is not because of its 'paradoxical nature', but rather due to the
brainwashing we have to endure from childhood.
It was only after actually screaming out loud one night with tears
streaming from an honestly bleeding heart to God to take away my
infliction of homosexuality that I was at last able to be released from
years of secret torture.
Ironically, the one place that I was not free to be myself was in the church. Ironic because Jesus spoke of honesty and integrity.
Ever since I have heard the term "ex-gay" it has troubled me. Those who say they have left homosexual behavior and feelings behind brandish the label proudly.
"Choice" -- and how both gay and religious leaders perceive it -- is a key
word in today's noisy national debate about gay rights.
The overwhelming majority of people believe that homosexuality is
immoral. I
do not. I believe that homosexuality is amoral and that homosexuals
individually are either moral or immoral.
He said he can be gay and Christian without relying on possible evidence
of same-sex unions performed in the early church.
God's Gay Tribe
by M.R. Ritley: A Groundswell of Gay Spirituality
--By: Scott Isebrand
"Being gay is not an accident . . . it is a calling."
Proving others wrong can be addictive. It can lead you to believe you are always right, about everything. Even when you are wrong you continue to try to prove others wrong, knowing you are right, no matter what.
Being bisexual does not mean equal attraction to both
sexes, which is the first misconception of bisexuality.p>
Fundamentalists in Jesus day were no more open minded than they are in our day, and there is a bit of the fundamentalist in
us all.
Throughout his life Jesus, again and again, performed crazy dog stunts. He ate with tax collectors, spoke to prostitutes, walked among the lepers, the poor and the sick. He dared to ask if a rule was more important than God's people. Do you get the picture? God is calling us to be crazy dogs!
To include spirituality in the discussion of the sexuality is to claim our wholeness: our bodies are not separated from personal maturity, from meaningful
commitments, from fears and friendships and from our interdependence with the rest of the natural world's web.
John 14:6 -- Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me."
The Road of Life
Posted with permission -- Author wishes to remain Anonymous
When I met Christ, it seemed as though life was rather like a
bike ride, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the
back helping me pedal.
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