Today’s world says a lot about gender. Our world values gender very differently than one hundred or even twenty years ago. Nowadays, we can change it, swap it, and redefine it with very few lasting consequences.
Many of us grew up hearing our parents tell us that we could be whatever we wanted to be. We have taken this to heart as we apply this to more than our career paths. More and more it is applied to our identity as humans as we eliminate what we don’t like and swap out what we do – even with things that could be considered permanent like gender.
This way of viewing gender is clearly unbiblical. Many churches will agree about this. Many churches are even adjusting policies and document wordings to reflect this as words are continually redefined by culture. But this is where it stops. Churches affirm that the culture’s view of gender is unbiblical, but that is often as far as the discussion goes.
Here’s why that is a problem. Our youth grow up in an ever changing culture that the Church is not always ready to combat. We often teach children and teenagers what is wrong and what is right, but how often do we connect the dots between those two? We can pretend all we want that we are immune from adopting cultural views on these things. But the reality is that no matter how spiritual we are, we are never immune to believing lies, especially when we come face to face with those lies six days a week, and only combat them on the seventh.
“…the reality is that no matter how spiritual we are, we are never immune to believing lies…”
Cultural lies are much more complex than one phrase that we identify as either true or false. They seep into our everyday thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and philosophical frameworks. So if we want to combat them with truth, we have to do a whole lot more than just shut them down as ridiculous.
The truth is, the simple lie that gender is interchangeable seems a whole lot less ridiculous when you have already accepted the philosophical framework of our culture. This is why our discussion surrounding gender in the church needs to go deeper and further.
Not long ago, I started wrestling through what gender means. I felt very strongly that it was not only connected to my reproductive body parts. I felt that there was a spiritual and emotional side to gender as well. But I also came up against the fact that so many of my ideas about gender were deeply influenced by cultural values and ideas. What, I wondered, would the Bible tell me if I began to study this topic? So I did.
The problem that I came up against is that we, the church, are very comfortable talking about gender in relation to reproduction and gender roles within marriage, but beyond that the topic of gender gets a bit foggy. I am all for a healthy view of gender within marriage, but as a single adult woman, that is not my main concern. I began to realize that I had been taught how to be a Christian wife more than I knew how to be a Christian woman. So I began to do research for a ten page paper on the theology of gender. I wanted to share my findings. Because I grew up in the church and was surrounded by Christian education, and I still had questions about the meaning and value of gender. I assume that you do too. Because the church doesn’t address this side of gender often, I decided to start the discussion.
“…I had been taught how to be a Christian wife more than I knew how to be a Christian woman.”
Our Key Verse
When looking at gender, Genesis 1:26-27 has a lot of valuable information to look at. So this is where I started in my research. The verse says,
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
I always just skimmed over this verse acknowledging that is stated that God made two different genders. But when we look a little deeper, this verse has a lot more to give us.
Let’s start with what we already know. God made everything. He made humans. He made all living creatures. He placed humans over all living creatures. And he created Adam and Eve with two separate and distinct genders, in His image.
When we dissect the verse even further, we can see that there is a plurality of persons within the Godhead. God said, “Let US make mankind in OUR image.” This makes reference to the Trinity. There are three persons within the Godhead; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each has distinct features and a distinct role, but they work in unity as one God to accomplish the will and purposes of the Lord. This will always be a somewhat confusing concept for our feeble minds to grasp, but it is amazing. It is something we should revel in and something that should cause us to be all the more in awe of our God.
Why it Matters
The Trinity was always a concept I was aware of, but I was never aware of the intense implications this concept had for me as a human. You see, the verse says that God created mankind in his image. This is a unique feature that we have from any other living creature. We were created in the image of God, to reflect his nature and being through how we interact with the world. It is already an amazing fact to note that God made us IN HIS IMAGE! However, the implications of the remainder of the verse are what put me in awe.
God did not just create humanity as a whole in his image. He specifically created male and female as two separate and unique entities withing the larger structure of humanity, and he created each distinctly in His image. This means that because male and female are distinct entities of gender, God created each to distinctly reflect His image in unique ways.
What Does Gender Mean?
One of the challenges I faced when looking at the biblical view of gender was that I did not know who to look at as the example. Surely Jesus was a wonderful example of what it means to live out our humanity in relation to God. Surely the different godly men and women we see throughout the Bible are great examples of living in obedience (or disobedience) towards God. However, these examples vary so much.
A man named Miroslav Volf wrote an academic essay exploring this very thing. In his essay, he first starts by asking where we are to look to find a biblical model for gender.
He first starts by looking at the gendered terms and metaphors used for God. Will we find our role if we look to God’s sexed titles and roles? Volf eventually concludes that this will not do. Even a God expressed in gendered terms is still God, which is completely other than man. We cannot find what it means to be man by trying to be a gendered form of God. It just does not correlate. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Or apples and windows. They are completely “other” from each other.
Volf then asks if we should instead look to specific biblical characters to model manhood and womanhood correctly. However, after examining this option, He says, “given the diversity of male and female characters and roles that we encounter in the Bible, [biblical manhood and womanhood] are not divinely sanctioned models, but culturally situated examples; they are accounts of successes and failures of men and women to live out the demands of God on their lives within specific settings.” (Campbell, 170) Volf then goes on to conclude that the most effective model to look towards to inform our view of gender, is the Triune nature of God.
So if the Triune nature of God is where we are to look, then what do we know?
- There is one God.
- There are three persons within the godhead.
- The three persons of the godhead each have different roles to play.
- The three persons of the Godhead interact in complete unity. (Perman)
Male and female are designed to function similarly to how the persons of the triune Godhead interact. We are to have differences in our role and function, but not in our value. Just as the three persons of the godhead are different, but equal in value. And just as the three persons of the Godhead have distinct functions and roles, so do male and female.
“…just as the three persons of the Godhead have distinct functions and roles, so do male and female…”
The beauty in our differences is the way God designed those differences to work together. Not only are the three persons of the Godhead different, but they work together in complete unity. When differences are woven together with such unity and intricacy like this, beautiful things happen. We are called to reflect this aspect of God’s image by working together as male and female. We each have differences, but as we work together in unity, those differences get woven together into something greater.
So What’s the Difference?
This is where the discussion gets a little trickier. We can all agree that there is a very distinct difference in the physicality of man versus woman. We have different parts, different shapes, and different reproductive functions. When God created Adam and Eve, they knew they were different. He told them to ‘be fruitful and multiply’, which meant they had to come together. This act of coming together necessitates difference.
However, there are more differences than just in physicality. Even brain scans of each gender will show that we have a different chemical makeup and react to our world in emotionally different ways. But there is one difference that needs clarification.
We have all heard of the terms masculine and feminine. We have different ideas and roles that we might attach to each word. But the truth is, masculinity and femininity, while related to gender, and not the same thing as male and female. A man is not necessarily 100% masculine and 0% feminine. And vice verse.
A Necessary Distinction
This is where a lot of our discussion about gender can be confused. When we see men that have feminine traits and women that have masculine traits, we make assumptions because they don’t always fit within our categorical structures of man and woman. But the scale of masculinity and femininity is not a measure of how man you are or how woman you are. A man who likes art is no less a man. A woman who likes to build things is no less a woman. They are each expressing their masculine and feminine traits differently. But even if a woman had 100% masculine traits, I still believe it would look differently than a man who had 100% masculine traits.
Of course there is a healthy and unhealthy way of expressing these things. And the reason this paragraph probably makes you squirm a little is because the traits you’re thinking of are false expressions of the masculine and feminine. A woman who is expressing masculine traits does not mean she is trying to be a man. She might like building things, but she does not despise her female-ness. Those that attempt to become more and more like the opposite gender are falsely representing those traits because God did not design them to be anything but the gender they were created as.
My Conclusions
After doing much research on this topic, I found that many scholars concluded that there is an undeniable difference between genders, but what that difference looks like is often unclear. We know that there is a physical difference. We know that there is a difference between masculinity and femininity. And we know experientially that there is a difference between many men we know and many women we know. However, it is very hard to draw a line in the sand and say ‘here is the specific difference’. Does this mean that my research was a waste of time, or that this topic is invaluable? Not at all!
On the contrary, my findings were of great value. What I found is that because men and women are different, we need each other. This does not mean that we need to exist with each other as separate men’s and women’s ministries. Yes, these things have their place. But what I mean is that interacting in unity with each other is a necessity to the church. Our witness and growth as believers will be stunted if we do not believe that we are missing out if we do not find unity with both our brothers and sisters in Christ!
“…because men and women are different, we need each other…”
In his book, A Passion for Christ, David Torrance states that the difference between men and women is more than just biological. “it affects their entire being. They think and feel differently so that their whole contribution is different but in such a way that is entirely complimentary to the other…” (Torrance, 99) If we believe that this is true, then we better live like it. If we believe that the contribution of our brothers in Christ is entirely different, but entirely complimentary to ours, then we need to include them in the discussion. If we believe that our witness and growth will be incomplete without the contribution of our sisters in Christ, then we better start asking them what they think. Unity between genders in the church means more than just coexisting in harmony. It means believing that the furtherance of the Kingdom of God would be completely and utterly lacking without the unhindered contribution of both!
“Unity between genders in the church means more than just coexisting in harmony. It means believing that the furtherance of the Kingdom of God would be completely and utterly lacking without the unhindered contribution of both!”
We are created in the image of the Triune God and called to reflect His image. An essential part of the image of the Triune God is that all three persons interact in complete unity. All three persons are an essential part of our one God, and we cannot separate them. The way we discuss gender and interact with both genders is a reflection of the image of the Triune God. Our theology is reflected in how we interact with others in unity.
God has both masculine and feminine traits, which is why He created male and female. Each gender reflects parts of God’s image that the other can’t. There are unique qualities of God that a woman can reflect that a man cannot, and vice versa. This is why it is so beautiful when men and women work together in unity for the furthering of the Kingdom. Then, and only then, is the full image of God reflected in a beautiful and powerful way. The church cannot afford to sell themselves short. Why would we want to reflect only a fragment of God’s image, when we could reflect a holistic and complete view of who God is through our unity and joy? When we limit our community and the voices within, we rob the church of what God created it to be.
When I look at the church today in relation to gender, I see division. We argue about all sorts of gender issues, and it causes disunity everywhere you turn. I believe that dividing the genders is one of the most effective ways the Enemy uses to keep the church from Kingdom work.
Fighting to live God’s way when it comes to gender has always been an uphill battle, especially since sexism is traditionally ingrained in our culture’s and the church’s history. Jesus fought that battle. He fought to have men and women work side by side in His ministry, despite the cultural norms of the time. We will always have cultural norms to fight against. But knowing the potential that there is if we just work together as brothers and sisters in Christ for His Kingdom, should have us scrambling to make it happen. Because if we had a church where gender was unified with one purpose, there is no limit to what could happen!
Sources cited in this article:
Perman, Matt. “What Is the Doctrine of the Trinity?” Desiring God. N.p., 23 Jan. 2006. Web. 27 Mar. 2017.
Torrance, Thomas F., James Torrance, David W. Torrance, Gerrit Scott. Dawson, and Jock Stein. “Marriage in the Covenant of Christ.” A Passion for Christ: The Vision That Ignites Ministry. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 91-111. Print.
Volf, Miroslav. “The Trinity and Gender Identity.” The Gospel and Gender: A Trinitarian Engagement with Being Male and Female in Christ. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2003. 155-78. Print.
