An anonymous person (of course, they are always anonymous) sent me this message over on Tumblr. Normally I would ignore such things, but I felt that this one required a response.
I apologize for bringing this up, but my conscience wouldn’t give me peace. Are you familiar with the Bible? If you follow Christianity and are condemning Churches in their lack of response to the transgender agenda, I’m not so sure you have read the Bible cover to cover. Transgenders need Jesus just as much as the rest of us. However, you cannot ask Churches to accept and condone a lifestyle that does not agree with the Bible. This is a very dangerous thing you ask, instead pray for enlightment
Here’s what I said:
Yes. I am very familiar with the Bible. I have read it a couple of times cover to cover and sections of it countless other times. I have parts of it memorized. I have studied the Bible both for private devotion and for school for years. I have a Master of Divinity from one of the best theological seminaries in the world. So yes. Familiar is an understatement.
And it is precisely that familiarity that leads me to advocate for transgender inclusion in the church. Because I see in Scripture an entire arc of justice; from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation I see a movement of God toward inclusion, toward justice, and toward equity. It’s not just in the story of Jesus (though it’s maybe most blunt there), it is throughout both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
And I see a particular thread of inclusion for transgender people: from eunuchs being the salvation of Esther, to them being assured of their inclusion in Isaiah, to one of the first Christian converts being the Ethiopian Eunuch in the book of Acts.
I have prayed for enlightenment and I found it in the acceptance of myself and in the demand of God to work for justice for all people in the church.
I believe that the Kingdom of God is among transgender people and that if the Gospel is to be “good news”, it must always be good news for the most marginalized first.