Gender confusion

We call it sexual freedom but it's sexual anarchy.

The torrential push to make sexual identity and gender identity something fluid, dynamic, and changing will not bring about idyllic tranquility. It can't. Freedom without form is chaos.

A couple recent stories in the news about how fast and how far things are getting pushed:

• A biological boy demands access to the girls bathroom at Hillsboro High School in Missouri.
• A Washington State University professor banned offensive terms in her classroom, terms like 'male' and 'female.'
• Did you know that there are new pronouns out there? 'Xe,' 'xem,' and 'xer' are being debated right now as proper gender neutral pronouns at the state level in Tennessee because of "gender offense" in UT Knoxville.
• Target stores have removed the gender tags in its toy departments. No longer will you find "Boys Toys" or "Girls Toys," you'll just find "Toys."

The last one is not much of a problem as you will still have Barbie in a different section than the Avengers, but the others create much bigger issues.

• Must girls who believe they are biologically female and who desire a discreet location in which to change away from one who is biologically different be coerced to abandon their discretion?
• In the case of terms and pronouns, if all is fluid, will professors have to determine your gender of the day to tag you with the proper pronoun? Or will the students have to guess which way the professor is feeling today so as not to get a mark against them?

The one place reality continues to hold sway is athletics. Because of basic biology (male and female), women cannot compete with men at the same level. If they could, they would be integrated (see golf, football, hockey). 

Men's gymnastics cannot be women's gymnastics and vice versa. The beauty and grace would be stripped of the women's events and the titanic strength would vanish from the men's.

Should we add 100 lbs to the male hockey players so that the women can compete at an equal level? But then is that equal? Or are we just highlighting the differences we all know exist? And what would become of the game with the speed slowed down?

If male golfers had to compete with shorter clubs or heavier clubs, we would miss the spectacle that is men's golf. And rather than heighten the accomplishment of women, those accomplishments would be asterisked like a Barry Bonds home run.

The clash of world views could not be more pronounced than in discussing gender and sexual identity. One side says "I determine." The other side says "It is what it is." The former is the direction the country is hurtling. The latter is the stuff of our history and our past.

The God-given forms of manhood and maleness and womanhood and femaleness are not something invented. They are inherent in every cell of your body. They cannot be changed. That form has provided form to the family: father, mother, husband and wife. It provides form and clarity to our language. It certainly provides form for the Olympics and other athletic ventures.

And from the move afoot in our halls of higher learning and of government, one of these ideas will not be permitted to exist.

The stuff of stars

August's dying day proved a delight in Madison, Wisconsin as my brother and I enjoyed a patio on Capitol Square drinking coffee and catching up on the last year.

During one of the seven-minute lulls, a card carousel just inside the coffee shop caught my eye. "You are made from the stuff of stars," it declared. 

Indeed, there is truth to the claim. The stuff of the cosmos is the stuff of your cells. The sun churns hydrogen into energy and as you are mostly hydrogen and oxygen in their moister mix, you are the stuff of the sun. The minerals within your bones and muscles are in the mix of the Moon, calcium, iron, and magnesium to name a few.

Being an edgy coffee shop the card no doubt intended to boost its receiver from the muck and mire of life. You're not ordinary. You're not plain. You're the stuff of stars after all.

Ah, the romance. As bright as the stars shine so, too, can you shine. Can't you just see the Hollywood movie? The protagonist doesn't die, they just dissolve into the stuff of stars.

The Bible declares the same thing, in a way.

God tells Adam in the third chapter of his book to humanity, "Dust you are and to dust you shall return" but God doesn't tell the cream of his creation this tidbit to bolster his brooding heart. Adam had just rebelled against his Creator (I've often wondered how long it took for that to happen), and God was fulfilling the promise he made in declaring that such rebellion would lead to Adam's death. 

Being created with and returning to the stuff of stars wasn't man's ultimate end nor his ultimate good. The essential substance of man is of much greater value, and therein lies the sanctity of all humanity from the greatest to the least.

It's not that God created man of dust that makes him unique--he did that with all of the animals, after all (Genesis 1:24)--man is unique because God created him in his image (Genesis 1:27, 9:6). It's not the material of man, it's the immaterial that matters. The fact that we are of the stuff of stars doesn't highlight that point, rather it highlights our fragility. Knowing we will all die touts the truth that we stand hostile to the God who crafted us in his image for dust we are and to dust we shall return.

And yet, there is a reconciliation. Man couldn't do it any more than a broken computer can fix itself. God reconciled man to himself when he took the same dust to himself and died the death that men deserved (Romans 5:6-10).

I never saw the platitude that adorned the inside of the card. It should have read, "And still you will die," for that is the sobering truth we must each swallow. Will that turn us toward hoping to the stars our hoping in the One who crafted the stars and crafted each one of us in his image?

Willing

Wade these deep waters.

"Jesus has always many who love His heavenly kingdom, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who care for trial. He finds many to share His table, but few to take part in His fasting. All desire to be happy with Him; few wish to suffer anything for Him. 

"Many follow Him to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the chalice of His passion. Many revere His miracles; few approach the shame of the Cross. Many love Him as long as they encounter no hardship; many praise and bless Him as long as they receive some comfort from Him. But if Jesus hides Himself and leaves them for a while, they fall either into complaints or into deep dejection. 

"Those, on the contrary, who love Him for His own sake and not for any comfort of their own, bless Him in all trial and anguish of heart as well as in the bliss of consolation. Even if He should never give them consolation, yet they would continue to praise Him and wish always to give Him thanks.

"What power there is in pure love for Jesus -- love that is free from all self-interest and self-love!

"Do not those who always seek consolation deserve to be called mercenaries? Do not those who always think of their own profit and gain prove that they love themselves rather than Christ? Where can a man be found who desires to serve God for nothing? 

"Rarely indeed is a man so spiritual as to strip himself of all things. And who shall find a man so truly poor in spirit as to be free from every creature? His value is like that of things brought from the most distant lands."

Thomas à Kempis