Having the Right Answers

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27

In any era, the changes in the female body marking the end of childhood and the slow transition from puberty into full blown womanhood can be confusing, disturbing, and at the same time, exciting as there is a heightened awareness of one’s identity and sexuality. As a young girl of 13, taller than most in my class, still too round in the middle, and generally unhappy with my appearance, I complained to my mother one day that I felt like an ugly duckling. Her answer was slow in coming (which in itself was telling). Finally Mother said, “Well, Karen, you are stately.” Stately! What 13-year-old wants to be stately? I’m not even sure I understood the meaning of the word.

In this era, when sex (sexual identity, sexual perversion, etc.) seem to have taken center stage, it’s even more important that parents have the right answers when their teens are asking questions or testing the waters with some off the wall comments about sexual identity, etc. In a recent article in World magazine,* Jamie Dean described a trend she referred to as “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” or ROGD, in which teenagers–usually girls–pressure parents to consent to life-changing hormone treatments and even mastectomies, because they feel they’ve been given the wrong bodies. Born biologically female, the girls are convinced they are male.

Citing research done by Lisa Littman at Brown University, Dean reported that “nearly 70% of the parents interviewed suspected their child used language they found online to explain their “transgenderism,” and many of them had spent an excessive amount of time on the internet before declaring they were transgender. 60% of the parents interviewed felt their teens’ declaration of trans-genderism increased their child’s popularity at school. Because of the pressure from LGBT activists and peers and to counter what they perceive to be even worse psychological consequences for teens, some in the medical field, counselors, and some researchers are reluctant to speak out against the trend.

While our responses to sensitive issues like sexuality and gender require a listening ear and a lot of grace, as Christians we understand that God is the Author of life; He has assigned us an identity and through His Word we can find the answers to life’s biggest questions.

I would commend for your reading Nancy Pearcey’s Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions About Life and Sexuality. Dr. Pearcey offers an uplifting perspective of the wonder of God’s design. She begins by describing the fallacy of the fact/value split—facts being knowledge that are validated by science; values (morality, theology) are reduced to matters of personal subjective opinion. “That may be true for you, but not true for me.” The core of the argument is that we should take our identity from our minds, feelings, desires, and choices, not our bodily design. Essentially what is being said is: “Why should my body inform my identity?”

In a recent interview with World magazine,** Dr. Pearcey noted that this is a profoundly disrespectful view of the body. It is as if the mind is at war with the body; there is a disconnect and self-alienation within oneself. It is a low view of the body—bodies created in the divine image to be temples of the living God.

Dr. Pearcey commented “To fight the secular ethic, we have to recover a teleological view of nature, from the Greek word telos, which means goal or purpose. It’s evident to observation that living things are structured for a purpose, that eyes are for seeing, ears are for hearing, fins are for swimming, and wings are for flying. The smoking gun is DNA: Every cell in the body is governed by a genetic code, which is language and information. Our bodies are not raw material that we can use ‘as we see fit’.

“Nature has an order, a plan, a purpose, a design, and we are happier and healthier when we live in accord with that design—when our biological sex, gender identity, and sexual desire are in harmony.”

The age-old question, “Did God really say?,” continues to reverberate through the airwaves today. Where will you find the answers to these life-defining questions? And how will you share them with others?

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ps. 139:14