Back in college, long before I became a Christian, I worked in a bookstore. It was one of my favorite jobs, despite the pain the lights caused, and constantly being overstimulated by noise and interacting with people. Why? Because I was around books all the time, and I had coworkers I liked. It’s hard to beat that.
One of my coworkers was a young man, a few years younger than me. We’d gotten to be friends. Over time, he shared that he was gay, and it had been difficult for his family to understand. (They hadn’t been unkind at all, but it threw them for a loop.) I thanked him for telling me because I knew it wasn’t easy to share. We kept talking and working as we always had.
A few weeks later, he mentioned that he was grateful for how I responded. I hadn’t made a big deal out of it, which isn’t what he expected. When he asked me why, I told him, “Because you’re more than who you’re attracted to.”
Two ways of coming to the wrong conclusion
It’s been around 25 years since that conversation. Social mores have changed dramatically. While the personal ramifications are real, within broader society, identifying as LGBTQ+ is hardly controversial. For teens, the sense I get from listening to my teenagers is that it’s almost expected that they’ll be somewhere on this spectrum. And the pressure placed upon Christians to redefine our historic teachings on sex and marriage has only grown (Genesis 2:24; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Ephesians 5:19-30).
But even as public support for pro-LGBTQ+ policies and practices has grown, a counter-movement has grown alongside it. This movement, complete with its own set of social media influencers (some of whom have been charged with human trafficking), elevates a boorish caricature of masculinity, particularly around sexuality. A “real” man in these circles is one who sleeps with as many women as possible—or at least brags that he does. This movement, too, pressures Christians to redefine our historic teachings, not only on sex and marriage, but on women’s dignity and value as God’s imagebearers and coheirs with Christ (Genesis 1:26-28; Ephesians 1:5).
But what many of us miss is that these two movements share the same problem. They are two ways of coming to the wrong conclusion. Both aim to redefine human beings by saying that who we sleep with or who we’re attracted to is most important. Both offer a vision for humanity that is too small.
Why think so little of yourself?
June is a weird month. Major corporations engage in performative virtue signaling, rolling out their rainbow logos and Pride-themed products to make a profit show their support. Some professing Christians take the opportunity to follow suit as they speak into an echo chamber. Others go to the opposite extreme, shouting “bold,” abrasive, and sometimes outright sinful takes into an echo chamber of their own.
(The less said about the manosphere-adjacent faux-Christians, the better.)
As one who unashamedly believes God’s design for sexual intimacy—and God’s design for personhood—is best for humanity, I feel the pressure from both sides. I know and love several people who identify as LGBTQ+. But to get around the Bible’s condemnation of any sort of sexual practice that falls outside of that design requires an extraordinary degree of eisegetical gymnastics and historical revisionism. I can’t do that. Likewise, to be abrasive in how I express my commitment violates Christ’s commands to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39), and our ideological “enemies” (Matthew 5:44). I can’t do that either.
But what I can do is this: I can see people for who and what they are. As men and women made in the image of God, even if they deny he exists. To uphold their dignity and value in the best way that I can—by seeing them the way God does. As people who are fearfully and wonderfully made. People who live in a broken world and experience that brokenness in a profoundly different way than I do. As people who are more than who they are attracted to, or the disconnect they feel between their biology and their interior life.
People who need to hear someone ask, “Who told you to think so little of yourself?”
Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash
Thank you! Your article is well written, and just what I needed to see.
It’s similar to how pornography doesn’t show too much of a person, but too little, because the person only shows their physical bodies but humans are so much more than mere fleshly bodies, for each person is an entire world, with their own unique longings and desires, thoughts and memories, emotions and feelings, mind and consciousness, created in God’s very own image. We are more than the sum of our bare bodies.
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Thank you for this article; especially the last paragraph. I continue to have my existence denied by my 17 year old granddaughter who claims to be trans. We had loving and thoughtful conversations with my focus on Imageo Deo, but she has cut me off from her life for the past 4 years. I’m praying for her to someday know the real love of the Saviour.
I am great, God created me and everyone in his Image.