Review of
“God and the Transgender Debate”
By Andrew T. Walker
(Published by The Good Book Company)
Reviewed by Ken Stroud
A.W. Tozer said “it’s easier to fall in with the march, than to ask where the march is going”.
The Church is under tremendous pressure to conform to the political correctness of our Godless society and to come in line with the “sexual revolution which is fundamentally restructuring our cultures’ collective understanding of family, society and the very meaning of life.”
I found this book to be informative, practical, compassionate and challenging. The author says “transgenderism disagrees with thousands of years of consensus regarding gender and human identity”. He also goes on to quote Keven De Young as saying “dividing the human race into two genders – male and female – one or the other, not both and not one and then the other – is not the invention of Victorian prudes or patriarchal oafs – it was God’s idea”. For Walker it is not “….whether you and I have the right to speak into this debate, this is a question of whether the Creator has the right to speak about His creation – the sexual revolution poses challenges that are not simply going to disappear. The church must be ready to meet the challenge with biblical fidelity
and Christ-like compassion. The central question here is how to think and how to speak ‘good’ when
it comes to the Transgender Debate and the real people and the real pain that are part of this debate.”
He defines gender identity as “a person’s self-perception of whether they are male or female,
masculine or feminine”. He also gives a helpful definition of gender-dysphoria – to feel that your body is one sex and yourself a different gender. Gender-dysphoria of itself is not wrong. It is wrong when you let your feelings rule to feed that feeling so that it becomes the way you see yourself and the way you identify yourself and the way you act. Walker gives a very informative quote by Paul McHugh. McHugh serves as the University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the John Hopkins Medical School and was formally Psychiatrist in Chief at the John Hopkins Hospital. He quotes “….in fact gender-dysphoria – the official psychiatric term for feeling oneself to be the opposite sex – belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Its treatment should not be directed at the body, as with surgery and hormones, any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction. The treatment should strive to correct the false problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psycho-social conflict provoking it”.
I found this book challenging regarding my pre-disposed attitude towards this painful issue and those who suffer from gender dysphoria. He calls for Christ-like compassion and action towards those who suffer. A very good read which is informative and provocative.
The Church is under tremendous pressure to conform to the political correctness of our Godless society and to come in line with the “sexual revolution which is fundamentally restructuring our cultures’ collective understanding of family, society and the very meaning of life.”
I found this book to be informative, practical, compassionate and challenging. The author says “transgenderism disagrees with thousands of years of consensus regarding gender and human identity”. He also goes on to quote Keven De Young as saying “dividing the human race into two genders – male and female – one or the other, not both and not one and then the other – is not the invention of Victorian prudes or patriarchal oafs – it was God’s idea”. For Walker it is not “….whether you and I have the right to speak into this debate, this is a question of whether the Creator has the right to speak about His creation – the sexual revolution poses challenges that are not simply going to disappear. The church must be ready to meet the challenge with biblical fidelity
and Christ-like compassion. The central question here is how to think and how to speak ‘good’ when
it comes to the Transgender Debate and the real people and the real pain that are part of this debate.”
He defines gender identity as “a person’s self-perception of whether they are male or female,
masculine or feminine”. He also gives a helpful definition of gender-dysphoria – to feel that your body is one sex and yourself a different gender. Gender-dysphoria of itself is not wrong. It is wrong when you let your feelings rule to feed that feeling so that it becomes the way you see yourself and the way you identify yourself and the way you act. Walker gives a very informative quote by Paul McHugh. McHugh serves as the University Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the John Hopkins Medical School and was formally Psychiatrist in Chief at the John Hopkins Hospital. He quotes “….in fact gender-dysphoria – the official psychiatric term for feeling oneself to be the opposite sex – belongs in the family of similarly disordered assumptions about the body such as anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphic disorder. Its treatment should not be directed at the body, as with surgery and hormones, any more than one treats obesity-fearing anorexic patients with liposuction. The treatment should strive to correct the false problematic nature of the assumption and to resolve the psycho-social conflict provoking it”.
I found this book challenging regarding my pre-disposed attitude towards this painful issue and those who suffer from gender dysphoria. He calls for Christ-like compassion and action towards those who suffer. A very good read which is informative and provocative.