- [Sam Allberry] The message of
Christianity is vital as we think about
the whole transgender issue, and for many
reasons, but two, primarily. The first is
that we can uniquely account for how it is
that someone could end up feeling so
un-at-home in their own body. For people
who experience gender dysphoria,
people who feel as though their assigned
biological sex is not the same as their
own gender identity. Actually, we can
account for how someone could feel
that way because we understand, as
Christians, that the physical creation
has been subjected to frustration.
It's out of joints,
it doesn't work as it should do.
And that includes our bodies.
Our bodies have been subjected to that
same frustration, and so none of us has a
straightforward relationship with our
bodies. That includes health issues,
that includes body image issues,
and it would also include those who
don't feel, in some way, that
they belong in the body that
they have. I think we can account for that
in a unique way given our understanding
of creation and our bodies within that.
Which should mean, therefore,
that Christians are naturally the most
compassionate and understanding people
there are when it comes to this
issue. That should be the case.
So, I hope we can offer unique
understanding and unique compassion.
But more than that, we can offer a unique
hope. We know that our bodies are broken
in different ways. All of us experience
some measure of bodily brokenness.
But we know that the ultimate answer to
that brokenness doesn't lie within our
own bodies. It lies, actually, within
the ultimate broken body of Jesus.
That is the case for all of our bodily
brokenness. The solution is in Him, and
not in us. And so, therefore, the
ultimate hope for those who are
transgender is not going to be found in
their own body, and in what they can and
can't do with it, and all the procedures
that are available today.
The ultimate hope is in Jesus because the
ultimate dysphoria was when He who had no
sin was made to be sin for us.
That is the ultimate feeling of being
in the wrong flesh. And it is in that
that we all have our ultimate hope.
That in his ultimate brokenness, actually,
we can find the true solution to our
own brokenness, the true
hope of the Gospel.
