Friday, October 27, 2017

The Nashville Statement: Sexual Heresy

For the sake of clarity, let me preface my argument by stating that I am a cisgendered evangelical Christian male married to a cisgendered evangelical Christian female. I have no need to oppose the Nashville Statement for any personal gain, but only oppose it for the cause of supporting right doctrine within Christianity.



This is my final argument concerning the Nashville Statement, I believe, because I feel confident it will prove there exists an inevitable logical choice between two options: (A) The Nashville Statement is logically inconsistent, or (B) Christianity is morally inconsistent. I will of course choose option (A).

The Nashville Statement (hereafter "NS") makes a number of statements I take issue with, but here I address only four:
1. Same-sex marriage is a sin. (NS Article 1)
2. Transgenderism (i.e. choosing a gender identity that does not match your biological gender) is a sin. (NS Article 13)
3. People who do not have an easy-to-identify biological gender must conform with the binary gender paradigm, and act as though they are the gender their genotype would suggest or they are in sin. (NS Article 6 and quote below)
4. Disagreeing with any of the above (or any other part of the NS) causes one to be in a state of sin. (NS Article 10)

As evidence, I put to readers that there exists a medical condition known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (hereafter "AIS"). People with AIS are genetically male, having the sexual genotype "XY", but without genetic testing are almost impossible to differentiate from a sterile female. In fact, while I cannot prove it to be so, I suggest it to be laughable to deny that at various times in the past (and even present) men have married and had sex with (although society has always considered them "women", Denny Burk, one of the main authors and #1 signer of the NS would tell us they are "men"*; remember that according to NS Article 10, you cannot disagree with this assessment) who have AIS. This includes couples in which both partners were professing Christians.

Here is the logical/moral dilemma. If these are men with AIS, then these were/are same-sex marriages. The NS tells us that this is sin, and therefore...what?

If engaging in a same-sex marriage is an unpardonable sin no matter what, this implies that God had to send these people to Hell for committing a sin without knowing they were doing it. Result: God is not just.

If the fact that they did not know they were doing it excuses them, that implies the sinful nature of same-sex marriage is a subjective matter and same-sex marriage is not a sin if you don't believe it is. Result: The NS is wrong about same-sex marriage.

If this was not same-sex marriage because the man with AIS identified as a woman, then either transgenderism is acceptable, or intersex people do not have to conform to the gender suggested by their genotype; possibly both. Result: The NS is wrong about transgenderism, intersex, or both.

If there is a fourth possibility that saves both the just nature of God and the integrity of the NS, I cannot imagine what it is, but I am open to discussion. Note that I am not denying the truth of statements 1, 2, or 3, but since they cannot all be true at once, I suggest that one or more of them must be rejected, and one must certainly by all means reject statement 4. Good Christians can and indeed should disagree with the Nashville Statement.

*"Try to determine as soon as possible the chromosomal makeup of the child. If there is a Y chromosome present, that would strongly militate against raising the child as a female, regardless of the apperance of the genitals or other secondary sex characteristics." Denny Burk, What is the Meaning of Sex?, page 81,