lutherans elect first transgender bishop

Unless you left your feet in a mine crater in Viet Nam.
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I think that would still be para phusin, in that they would literally be acting contrary to nature, but just objectively in the lines of Rom 11.24 and not Rom 1.26 (that is, the allowed kind of rejecting natural order).

You know, and maybe this is just the heterodoxy that organically comes up from reading scripture at 2am that I'll think is awfully silly when I wake up in the morning, but re-reading Romans with 1.26 and 11.24 in the forefront of my mind, I think Paul is intentionally juxtaposing the same phrase in two contexts to tell us that we shouldn't be excluding unnatural things from the church. He condemns homosexuality for being unnatural, but then he blasts the Jews for wanting to exclude the Gentiles because making the Jews and Gentiles one is unnatural. Whether that's merely the tame approach of saying "gays can be Christians too!" or that extends to more radical forms of inclusion like same-sex marriages in Christian churches and transgender holy orders I'm going to have to sleep on. I'm really down the rabbit hole now.

 

Since the very first commandment in the Bible is "Go forth and multiply" I find it hard to find fault with your reasoning here, so I won't. However we know from observation that not every human being comes into the world with clearly defined genitalia. Are we to assume God has made a mistake in asignment for these unfortunate individuals or just accept that things sometimes go wrong in the process of gestation which may have long term effects for the unfortunate individual.

I don't think such individuals should be accused of violating the natural plan of creation though. Do you? I think that would be most unkind and unfair. In the case of physical departures from the norm, (six fingers on each hand etc), I think it is wrong to single out and persecute the sufferer. How about departures from the norm which are not so physically apparent though. Should a different, more judgmental rule apply to them or not?

What golden rule should be applied do you think?
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But you would agree, not sinful for albeit being unnatural. In fact we are called to be unnatural, since our natural state was dead in trespasses and sin, until we started living in the Spirit. 1 Cor.2:14.
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Yes. I said this earlier, it cannot be intrinsically wrong to do something unnatural, because Paul did something unnatural when he grafted the Gentiles to the tree of Israel. We need to determine each case on if it's the kind of unnatural Paul condemns (R0m 1.26), or the kind of unnatural Paul permits (Rom 11.24).

A man walking with no legs is clearly unnatural, but clearly not sinful.

 

I would not say that transgenderism is sinful, any more than schizophrenia is sinful... It is a mental illness, and the person should be pitied and assisted

But that does not mean that we should enable them to act on their illness, any more than in schizophrenia; in both cases they should be put under watch and restraint (if they become a danger to themselves and those around them)

So transgenderism, having six fingers, walking on hands, are not sinful; but celebrating and enabling them is blasphemous and dangerous. And us enabling them is sinful... So the trans person isnt sinful but potentially blasphemous; but if we enable them, then *we* become sinful

 

It is against the ordained order, however. You are conflating two separate things -- an accidental state of disorder (e.g., a deformity or sickness of mind or body) and a deliberate state of disorder (gender-changing, cross-dressing, homosexuality). If I am one of the unfortunate 0.01% of humanity who is born a hermaphrodite (XXY chromosome, for those who don't know), it is certainly no sin. But if one is of the 99.99% of humanity who is male or female, it certainly is sin to proclaim oneself other than what God created us to be. This should not be a controversial position for a Christian to take -- in fact, the burden of proof should be on those who take the opposing position.

We call the disordered -- whether accidental or deliberate -- to Christ so that they may be healed to the extent that God's will and human ingenuity enable us; we are most explicitly not to celebrate disorder and call it a "lifestyle". Otherwise we would likewise celebrate mental disorders such as pederasty, bestiality, necrophilia, and all other kinds of deviancy. A disordered person who remains disordered by choice or by inclination must be condemned as a sinner, as we would condemn someone who deliberately infects other people with an illness (for what else is this sort of thing but injecting sickness into the Body of Christ?). If the church is a hospital for sick souls, then the object is healing, not affirmation of the sickness.

EDIT: Just refer to the "fat acceptance" movement in the wider culture for an application of what I said above. Obsesity is not an "identity" or a "lifestyle choice". It is an unhealthy state of the body that leads to disease and early death. Whether the obesity is congenital (accidental) or the result of appetite (deliberate) hardly matters in the end. It is unhealthy and should never be encouraged.

 

It occurs to me that if it is routinely considered 'sinful' to have an operation to reverse one's genitalia; for consistency, it should also be thought sinful to have a facial wart removed because one considered it disfiguring. In fact any cosmetic operation could be considered 'sinful' on the grounds that it can be viewed by others to be unnecessary or disrespectfully altering the body they were given by God. This kind of reasoning could lead to a very draconian society if the religionists got full control.
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But who is to say that these states of disorder (particularly the mental ones) are deliberate. If someone suffering under such a delusion were to come for healing by the church, would you excommunicate them if your prayers failed to heal them of the 'delusion'? Would you blame them for having too little faith? Would you accept that God had seen no good reason to make any miraculous changes? Would you presume God's curse is upon them? There are so many options depending on your beliefs.

You see the problem?

If having had an operation they came back claiming to have been healed because they now feel at peace with themselves, with God and with their fellow human beings, in their changed state, would you deny that they had been healed and send them packing?

Would their claim be any different than a person who has had a disfiguring wart removed from their face which rendered them a total recluse, like the ugly duckling but now after the operation feel free at last to mix openly? What should the golden rule be in such cases?
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Rather than let them spread their disorder to others? At minimum I would remove them from the congregation (if not the Church per se). If they are mentally unfit to operate in society, they should be under professional care. If they are consciously choosing to remain disordered, then they have voluntarily left the Body of Christ and should be condemned as sinners.

You cannot live in and by and through Christ while at the same time flouting the Divine Order, Tiffy. You cannot willingly embrace a disordered state, call it a "lifestyle", and then demand that other Christians accept it. For as I said before: if you choose to accept this "lifestyle" designation, then how can you reject those who practice pederasty, bestiality, or necrophilia? Using your own definition, it would be the rankest kind of hypocrisy to do so.

EDIT: The issue is whether the disordered are aspiring to a higher, healed state, closer to the Ordained Order; or falling further away. If I have bad eyesight, I wear glasses to see better -- my situation is improved without inverting God's Divine Order. God did not damn me with bad eyesight; it was caused by my living in a fallen world, and I am seeking to repair the damage and become closer to the human ideal. A transgender person is consciously moving away from the Divine Order. They will deny being mentally ill; in fact, they insist that their state is closer to "reality".

Men and women who are gender dysphoric need pastoral guidance, counseling and mental health care, not "affirmation".

EDIT #2: How did Our Lord show his Divine nature? By healing the sick. He made the blind see, he made the lame walk, and he even raised the dead. He cast out demons (both literal and figurative). When Jesus healed, it was always to make the human body whole and in conformance to His original design.

 

Your genitalia are not "cosmetic" - they are part of the procreative function of your male or female body. A wart is a disfigurement because it is an aberration; a person's genitalia are most assuredly not an aberration. Good grief, Tiffy, who taught you this nonsense? I mean, seriously!

 

The point is that the individual concerned considers it to be a disfiguration, an aberation. (That may of course be their own unsound reasoning) And how dare you define a part of a human body as a disfiguration when at the same time insisting that God put it there. (Or are you suggesting that everyone should have unblemised, fair skinned, blue eyed perfection like Nazi babies). Are you saying that God makes genitalia but not warts, moles or freckles?

The point is that if a person is not permitted to change their genitalia on the grounds that they were made by God, then the same should apply to everthing which can be artificially 'changed' including beards, hair, moles, birth marks and hair colour, (all presumably according to your line of logic, made and decided by God). Moslems go in for that kind of extremism, Sikhs don't cut their hair and some orders of monks and nuns have rules about hair, make up, mirrors etc. I don't know.

What I'm not saying is that it is perfectly OK to have genitalia operations at the drop of a hat, just that it's probably not sinful, any more than cutting off your foreskin or that of your male children is sinful. Now tell me THAT would be a natural, genitalia operation, presumably because God not only said it was OK but actually told people to do it.
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One may consider murder to be a mercy to a terminally-ill patient; that doesn't make it any less heinous a sin.

Cutting my hair does not alter the functioning of the body God gave me (and, to make the point even more explicitly, my hair will grow back). Moles and warts are defects, products of our fallen nature on earth, and not part of the perfected bodies we once had (and will again, we pray). Surgically altering your genitalia in service to a mental illness is horrible on every possible level: theologically, morally, ethically, even practically (just read up on some of the horrendous health problem surgically altered transsexuals undergo; and how many regret the procedure afterwards).

For the record, I am against tattooing, piercing, and other forms of bodily modification on the same ground. Your body is the temple of God here on earth.

You are in dire need of a re-reading of 1 Corinthians, Tiffy. Particularly 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

Your body is not your own, Tiffy. It belongs to God. When you destroy it, you destroy something that belongs to -- and was created by -- God himself. God does not make mistakes with His creations. If He made you male, that is what you are. If He made you female, that is what you are. From everlasting to everlasting.

EDIT: You make a valid point as to circumcision (though you probably didn't realize it), but also miss the point that Christ rendered this practice -- along with the other ceremonial Laws -- unnecessary. Circumcision also does not change the function or design of the male organ (unless the mohel makes a terrible mistake, God forbid). Acts Chapter 15 is your go-to Scripture for this discussion, and the epistle to the Galatians.

 

That is it right there. It is why one cannot commit suicide, although under natural law you could and many noble non-Christian philosophers in fact had (Socrates, Seneca). The Christian worldview overturns many things which naturally seemed to be another way.

 

Never mind genitalia and whether it develops naturally or whatever. Male and female are clearly identified by DNA chromosomes.

God the Father (called so by Jesus, who tells us to address Him as our Father) is undeniably a male-pattern, masculine Person. Jesus is likewise male. The relationship between Jesus and the church is that of bridegroom and bride. The head, the leader, is the male. The church is often portrayed in the Bible as God's servants, so the church (the bride, female) is most definitely below and subservient to the male figure in this relationship, God. This pattern of portrayal was reflected in the Jewish leadership throughout the O.T., for the priests and Levites (the spiritual leaders who represented the people to God and interceded to God for the people) all were male. This pattern continued in the N.T. church for nearly two thousand years.

1Co 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

1Co 11:8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
1Co 11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

How can we even be questioning the clear and definite pattern set before us by God? Authority figures, particularly those leaders in the church, should be men because they present to the watching world the pattern defined and set forth by God. Are we not to to follow Him? Female priests imply: follow her.

As for "transgender" individuals, obviously they are also practicing transvestites. The men dress like women, and the women like men, in their desire to be perceived as a different gender than that which their DNA specifies. What does the Bible say about that?
Deu 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

Transgender men don, not just the clothing, but even the hairstyles, mannerisms, and artificial hormones (and whatever else) of women.
Transgender women don, not just the clothing, but even the hairstyles, mannerisms, and artificial hormones (and whatever else) of men.
The Bible says it is an abomination to God. Such people are not "of good report," they are not "blameless," they do not exhibit "good behavior," and their consciences cannot be clear.
Placing any such person in a priest's role in the church is beyond abominable. It should be totally unthinkable! And yet here we are, debating it???

 

This is why I prefer Paul's use of the Greek physin for "nature" rather than homoiopathes. When Paul argues that something is "against nature", he is not simply saying that it goes against God's plan for our fleshly bodies on the material plane; nor just that it goes against man's instinctual (and fallen) wants and desires (his fallen "nature"), which is what homoiopathes would mean. Paul instead uses para physin to describe something contrary to the created Divine Order itself. It is a fundamental and profound break with God's divine Will as expressed in his creation (kosmos).

You cannot describe the Jewish ritual of circumcision as para physin because God ordained the ritual himself as a way for Jews to exhibit membership in his Covenant. The ritual did not overturn or invert God's plan -- God himself decreed it. It is impossible for God to act against his own design. When Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law, the old Law of circumcision no longer applied (something we learn about in Acts 15, and the after-effects in Paul's troubles with the Jews in Galatian churches). But the replacement of the Old covenant with the New did not render circumcision retrospectively bad or evil; it simply rendered it unnecessary because the only price for entry into the new Covenant is faith.

 

This is false, God can and does act against nature, God is not bound by rules. That's not to say circumcision is para phusin, although rational thought would indicate it is, but Paul literally calls an act of God para phusin, with that precise wording, so therefore it must be possible for God to act against the natural order. To deny that is to deny the literal words of scripture, not an interpretation, but the explicit words in Koine Greek. Your problem here is that you're assuming all breaches of the natural order are wrong. This is not true. When you accept some breaks of nature are permitted then it becomes a lot easier to reconcile that some things that are clearly unnatural are, or were, encouraged.

Para phusin is not God's order, it's nature's order. God made our nature, but God also made man. We can all observe man can create an order distinct from God's order, that's what this thread is about, and so can our natures. That's not exclusively because we are fallen, Adam was not an automaton prior to the fall, otherwise he never would have fallen. Our natures are not programmed either, they're wild by design. God is a gardener, a shepherd, not a puppeteer. God steers the flock, but the flock can stray. God has shown he will tend to his garden to redirect the natural state of things to what He wills it, he does not leave our natures alone and that's because our nature is not in perfect alignment with God's will. To break with the natural way of things could be to break with God's design, or it could be to fulfil God's design.

Just to be very clear on the etymology of this term - it's not an exclusively biblical term. It's used by Homer, Plato and Thucydides, all in detailing a state of nature absent the will of their gods. Euripides (in the Phoenician Women) uses it to describe the lot of an exile who cannot speak his mind - "Yet to gain our ends we must serve against our nature". It was not against the will of Zeus to not speak his mind, it was against the personality of the exile. Para phusin has no inherent association with God, it's only about describing the natural order, the way things are absent civilisation, and the base emotions we yearn to fulfil regardless of circumstance. To the Greeks, and likely Paul, Christian chastity would be para phusin, to deny our lustful impulses. There would be no negative connotation there, the Greeks valued virginity as well. A violation of nature is not always synonymous with a violation of God's will.

On circumcision I would argue (although not with confidence) that circumcision is contrary to our nature. But doing so fulfilled the Jews covenant with God, so therefore it was good to break the natural order in that case.

 

Not only was circumcision 'good', it was, and still is, even sacramental, because of what it symbolised and, along with baptism, (which has relaced it), still does. The fact that it is no longer necessary does not effect the powerful symbolism it still embodies. Nevertheless it is still a mutilation of the natural body which God has made and St Paul was forcibly forthright on that issue. Gal.5:9-14.
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This is an inversion of what God is and what nature is. God is outside of nature (and space, and time). The kosmos is his creation, whole and entire. He is not bound by his creation; His will is entirely free. He is without constraint or limit. Creating the kosmos did not increase him; destroying it would not decrease him. It's not possible for God to violate his own sovereignty. God's intents, purposes, motives, actions, and ends are perfect. The natural order is what God decrees it is, no more and no less.

This is just proof that many Christians don't understand the concept of a truly sovereign God. We are creatures bound by space, by time, by circumstance, by convention and law and natural processes. Though we have volition and agency, our will is not truly free as God's is. We are of nature; God is outside of it.

This whole conversation is a good example of why Christians need to study theology more than they do. Too many people still visualize God as an avuncular bearded old grand-dad who lives in the clouds and fidgets around with human beings like a little boy playing with tin soldiers. We do not appreciate how incomprehensibly vast God is, how unbounded He is. We are too small and limited to understand his ultimate motives or ends; in a sense we only know what He allows us to know. His Will and Ends (telos) are perfect, but we cannot perceive their fullness because we are his creatures; we were made as his agents to act in this physical kosmos He made, and to carry out his commands. We are bound by the laws of his creation since we are his creatures and were built to live inside His kosmos. God is not in any way at all bound by the same constraints. He alone holds the power of creation and destruction, of life and death.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying God can do what He wants, when He wants, how He wants, and it cannot go against the "natural order" because the natural order is what God says it is. And we only know what God says by reading the Bible, which is his revealed word to us. Unless we hear otherwise from God himself, the strictures in that book apply to everyone and for all time.

 

You seem to be saying then, that the 'natural order' is whatever God decides at the time, not a fixed thing, immutable. So circumcision would presumably have been against nature until God decided that it wouldn't be. So it isn't. Is that right?

And we can be confident that through your extensive studies of the Holy Scriptures, that you know exactly what God has decided, is or is not, against nature. Is that right?
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