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Check out this article written by Bobby Gruenewald, a pastor at LifeChurch.tv.
Last year, I wanted to reconnect with a good friend of mine who had taken an out-of-state job. I had not talked to him for years and heard that he and his wife had moved to somewhere in Europe. In the process of tracking him down, I was shocked to hear that “he” had gone through various surgeries and was now a “she.” I couldn’t believe it! I knew him very well, was at his wedding…and now I wasn’t sure if I knew her at all.
I prayed about how or if I should respond, and God clearly said “love her right where she is at”. That’s right…”love her“. It was pretty hard for me to get there at first…I was concerned that acknowledging the change would somehow condone the decision.
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You know, one thing about that story kinda stuck out to me. When the transexual woman said she was thinking about becoming a man again, it seemed to be heralded as something that God would want. How do we know God would want that? If she really was born transexual, then the choice of being a man or a woman is really up to them, right?
Anyways, I felt like the author was saying that the best possible outcome would be her deciding to become a man again…whereas I think the point should be that she wants to have a relationship with God now. Everything else is just details.
@Erik…
Interesting take. I don’t even know how to respond to that!
The main point that I took out of the story was that I as a Christian should love a person for who they are, where they are.
Thanks for the comment!!
Gruenewald certainly seems to reject that being a transsexual could be part of God’s plan; as someone who has multiple transsexual friends (at my church, no less) it seems to me that he is superimposing his own moral judgments onto God’s. It’s great that he didn’t let that stop him from forming a relationship with her, though. I just hope that relationship isn’t predicated on a desire that she revert back to being a man.
A Methodist pastor in my church conference recently transitioned from female to male and still leads that congregation. If you are interested in the story, NPR had a fairly well-balanced take on it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16572466
I’ve worked with several transsexuals (all male to female post operative transsexuals) and I’ve never really understood why someone would want that. Still, there’s is not my life and I’m not about to judge them for it. I’ve not known anyone from both sides of the operation though but I think the idea of being non-judgemental should still apply.
Now, I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that the bible is pretty silent on the question of transgendered people. What difference does person’s sex or even their sexuality have on how you treat them. Faith or not.
‘Condone the decision’ ? Where does he get off? It’s none of his business to condone or condemn. Who knows what sex his friend is better than his friend? The Pastor?
And now he’s happy because the other person might try and reverse their decision? Let me know when he’s just plain happy that she’s happy.
It is good that this person could act like a friend to his firend. But shouldn’t that go without saying? It saddens me that this person struggled over how to treat this person they used to respect.
I think Ben makes an important point, and I’ll take it one step further.
From the article:
To whom does he think he is condoning the action.
1) He clearly doesn’t condone the action (if not expressly stated it’s certainly in between the lines), so he’s not worried about condoning the action to himself. I know it’s a bit silly but a possibility.
2) His god is omniscient so if he knows he’s not condoning it then the big man knows he’s not condoning it.
3) He could worry that he’s condoning to the tranny that her actions are acceptable. This is where I would echo Ben and say where does he get off?
4) He could be worried that by associating with a transvestite he is condonig transvestite-ism (i’m sure that’s a word
) to other Christians.
Which would lead to the broader problem which is that as a community there is a belief that you have a say in how someone else lives there life. I could probably dredge up some verses (prooftexting?) to back the “love the person not the actions”, I could also dredge up some “stone the tranny” verses too.
I suppose we’re left with our own moral judgments about how to treat someone like this.
I don’t know what to say. I really hope she knows what she’s doing, but I must admit I would be more assured if that realization had come within a more neutral environment. Whatever you make of this, one of her decisions to change his and then her sex must have been arrived at overhastily, and I fear it might be the second one. I mean, her exclamation that “Satan has deceived her” might come appear normal to Christians, but me it gives the creeps.
I’m not judging the Pastor — after all, he reached out to her without expecting her to switch back, which is admirable. But the respectful thing to do here would be to give her some time to think the matter through, and outside of a church. Some counseling might help too.
Most of the comments to the story on his blog make me want to puke, though. I only refrained from commenting over there out of the fear of stirring up a hornets nest.
I would love hear a couple more Christians’ takes on this.