One of the most astonishing developments of late modernity has been the mainstreaming of transgenderism. In retrospect, the path to our current moment is clear enough (see Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self). Nevertheless, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing grown men in earnest behaving like a cartoonish caricature of an adolescent girl. And yet examples of this kind of thing are proliferating, and anyone refusing to go along with this risks all manner of social and perhaps even professional ostracism and recriminations. It is like Americans have gotten a really bad fever with no indication in sight that the fever will ever break.
The worst part of this social contagion is how it has impacted minor children. The purveyors of this ideology have aggressively gone after the most immature and most impressionable among us. Your local gender clinic is all-to-ready to shoehorn your child into a transgender identity upon any expression of atypically gendered behavior. Are you a young girl who likes “boy” things? You are no longer a “tomboy” female. No, you are no longer a female at all, but a boy. At least that is what the ideologues have been selling. As a result, there has been an explosion of minor children who have undergone interventions which have permanently damaged them, including sterilizing them for life. It’s really horrific.
That is why Andrew Walker and I have submitted a resolution to be considered at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in a couple weeks. Our hope and prayer is that the committee would take this up and bring it out for a vote and that Southern Baptists would make it known loud and clear that we are not going to go along with the madness. We will stand with our face to the wind and say “no” to destroying the healthy bodies of minor children. The resolution speaks for itself, and you can read it below.
_____________________________
ON OPPOSING “GENDER TRANSITIONS”
WHEREAS, the Bible declares that God created mankind in His own image as male and female (Gen. 1:27; Matt. 19:4); and
WHEREAS, the Bible teaches that the differences between men and women are complementary, rooted in God’s design, and most clearly revealed in the body’s organization for reproduction, and not in a self-defined, subjective, specious, and ultimately false notion of “gender identity” (Gen. 1:28; Psalm 100:3); and
WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 declares that “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation…The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love”; and
WHEREAS, God’s holy and good design for the complementarity of two distinct sexes is rooted in creation order and natural law and remains as an enduring creation ethic for all, including government, to acknowledge as the standard for relational cooperation within society; and
WHEREAS, God’s design for the sexual embodiment of male and female is a biological fact, determined at conception, and immutable; and
WHEREAS, Central to Biblical teaching is an honoring of the body and a rejection of any philosophy that denies the unity of body and soul; and
WHEREAS, the number of adolescents and young adults who experience identity or body-related distress or assert an identity at odds with their birth sex has risen to unprecedented levels, driven by cultural change, the promotion of gender ideology, and social contagion; and
WHEREAS, the number of medical and surgical interventions for purposes of “gender transition” has risen exponentially, including the use of puberty blockers (to suppress natural puberty), unnaturally high doses of hormones (to induce changes in bodily appearance and impair the body’s natural functioning), and surgical interventions (to amputate or destroy healthy organs and genitals); and
WHEREAS, these so-called medical and surgical interventions are not only spiritually destructive but also render otherwise healthy children sterile for life, impairing or destroying their fertility, reproductive organs, and capacity for sexual pleasure, and cause lifelong medical dependency and unknown long-term consequences; and
WHEREAS, Vulnerable children and teens are targets for psycho-social and medical interventions that induce and even coerce their participation in escalating, increasingly harmful “transition” interventions; and
WHEREAS, The Lord has ordained government for the purpose of executing justice and praising that which is good and punishing those who do evil (Rom. 13;1-7; 1 Pet. 2:14); and
WHEREAS, State governments throughout the United States have taken action to prohibit the promotion of gender ideology and “transition” interventions for children; and
WHEREAS, Tragically, other governments and municipalities throughout the United States have taken egregious action to promote “gender transition” for children, enable minors to bypass parental consent and obtain life-altering “gender” procedures, often through so-called “sanctuary cities” that provide “confidential” gender transition services to out-of-state-children; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, June 13-14, 2023, do condemn and oppose so-called “gender-affirming care” and all forms of “gender transition” interventions; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we oppose gender transition interventions as a direct assault on God’s created order and a futile quest to change sex (an impossibility); and be it further
RESOLVED, That we call on legislatures to reverse any law or policy that supports “gender transition” interventions, creates supposed sanctuary jurisdictions that facilitate harmful “gender transition” interventions for minors, and undermines parental rights; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we commend the legislatures that have undertaken just and praiseworthy action to protect children from “gender transition” interventions, have re-affirmed the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children, and defended the free speech and conscience rights of religious believers from government efforts to coerce them into endorsing gender ideology; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we condemn corporate medical services that promote harmful and often irreversible “gender transition” experiments on vulnerable minors and young adults, exploiting them for the sake of profit; and be it further
RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists call on any members of the Southern Baptist Convention who are actively performing, facilitating, or undergoing gender transition interventions to immediately refrain from doing so and to repent; and be it further
RESOLVED; That, recognizing that all persons are made in God’s image, we extend compassionate care, tender mercy, and the love of Christ to all persons, including those who experience identity or body-related distress; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That the Lord’s arm is not too short to save anyone who would call on his name for salvation, including those who are beset with identity or body-related distress, or who have themselves undergone “gender transition” interventions.
