Volume 2, Issue 2

Can You Be Transgender and Christian?

Cover Stories

Transgender Christians, Gays and Our Common Bond
By Robyn M. E. Shanor, Ph.D., M.Div.
Being a transgender 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.

Transsexual Theology
By Starchild
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 transgender/gay, or both? The answer is pretty clear in John 3:16.

Happily Christian, Openly Transgender and — A Seminary Student?
By Vanessa Sheridan
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 transgender orientation and corresponding behaviors were compatible with faith in God through Christ Jesus.

The Way Out
By Becky Allison
And just as clearly as I ever heard any voice, I heard Him say to me, “Becky, this is your way out.”

From a Chapter on the ELCA Today: Transdenomination to Transgender
By Carol Stabel
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.

Homospirituality

The God I Came To Know
By Alden Möller
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.

Coming Out = Born Again
By Darren McDonald
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.

True Freedom
By Parker Allen
Ironically, the one place that I was not free to be myself was in the church. Ironic because Jesus spoke of honesty and integrity.

Ex-Gays

Am I Ex-Straight? Ex-Gays and the Ethics of Labels
By Candace Chellew
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 in Sexual Orientation: The Sword That Cuts Both Ways
By Patricia Nell Warren
“Choice” — and how both gay and religious leaders perceive it — is a key word in today’s noisy national debate about gay rights.

Do Homosexuals Need To Be Healed of Their Homosexuality?
By Joseph Adam Pearson, Ph.D.
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.

Features

“The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology”: Young Author Challenges Historian Boswell’s Conclusions
By Gip Plaster
He said he can be gay and Christian without relying on possible evidence of same-sex unions performed in the early church.

Book Review: “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.”

Inerrancy and Insolence
By Candace Chellew
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.

Dual Attraction
By Sunchild
Being bisexual does not mean equal attraction to both sexes, which is the first misconception of bisexuality.

From the Pulpit

Being Fundamentalist
By Rev. Michael S. Piazza
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.

Being a Crazy Dog for Christ
By Rev. Paul M. Turner
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!

Sexual Ethics for All of Us
By Rev. Thea Nietfeld
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.

Bible Study and Inspiration

Living the Way of Truth
By Candace Chellew
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
By 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.

Holy Humor

Top Ten Things That Would Be Different If the Twelve Apostles Had Been Gay Men

The Thermodynamics of Hell