to you, perhaps…
i believe the bri’s point is that because gender reassignment surgery doesn’t actually resolve anything, i.e., it doesn’t provide real functional genitals to anyone, it is best to “find wholeness and healing by learning to live” with the original genetic situation…that is, the incongruity felt by transgendered persons may be best addressed by treating the mind, as opposed to ineffectually altering the body…
The church is making judgements far beyond its intellectual, moral, and theological capacity. I am reminded of an episode in the later prt of WWII. When in no action we grunts occupying six man tents. one of my tent mates returned from a sexual encounter. he announced to the tent, That he had just has inter course with a 13 year old girl. Her farmer father had sold her to him for 5 Pesos. he then comment on what a low scum the father was. my reply was–“The farmer and family were starving, what is your excuse?” (our tanks had just ruined his entire rice crop). Tom Z
In Transgender Persons, Psychological and Physical Wholeness go together.
Physical Wholeness has imperfection built into it, that is true, But certain cosmetic changes to a persons body allows for the creation of features that help to approximate what the brain perceives that it is.
Since it is the BRAIN who is the REAL Person, is it a sin against God to change the Vehicle which transports the Brain Around?
Stephen Bauer says YES, Transgender persons, and the Medical Staff assisting them are engaging in great sin.
Cosmetic Wholeness can just include hormonal therapy, which produces minor cosmetic changes. Again, the physician who provided the hormones would, by Pastor Bauer’s standards, be committing sin.
Come on guys. This is a very restiected and dificult topic (trangender issues). It is not “near the unpardonable sin” to take a position, and the BRI does not have the final say. Do you disagree? Well, you have stated your cases. I would not get so riled, as there will be further discussion etc. I am a bit distrubed by your rather severe condemnation on an issue that is not the easiest. Give these guys a bit of slack, something you might desire for yourselves some day. Wow.
Tom, I am glad you have recovered from your recent illness, a rather stark one, and are well enough to comment. But I am not sure of the pertinenece of your story. Are you saying that BRI is like the soldier who bought the girl? If so, how? Perhpas I am just too dense to get this one, but I am unclear.
Best to you, and I hope you have as quick a recvery as you seem to have had.
BTW, I have not seen comments by Babuzza(?) recently. Is he ill?
Jude 7 "strange flesh"
Is there a “simple” answer to what this is? Or, is the answer a complex answer that is known to those to whom it was written?
So Tom Z are you better qualified to make those judgments than those in the Biblical Research Institute who have wrestled with these doctrinal Biblical issues and come to their conclusion? It seems that if you are no longer a Sabbath keeper and a member of the SDA church then what do you use for your basis of authority if not the Bible and the condemnation that the Bible expresses towards homosexuality? You really sound like you are setting yourself up very pompously claiming that you are far superior “intellectually, morally, and theologically” to anyone who disagrees with your judgments on the issue. Since you so stridently disagree with the theology of the Sabbath and now the position of the leaders of the SDA movement on homosexuallity perhaps it is time for you to move on and stop hovering around the movement. You certainly are entitled to disagree with any doctrine that SDAs hold that you care to, but I doubt that it is intellectually honest to always be sniping at the decisions of the movement’s leaders while you are standing on the outside and looking in. It seems to me as a convert to SDA-ism that if I were no longer a Sabbath keeper then I would walk away from the movement and not look back. There must be something that keeps holding you to the movement and are unable to let go. There must be something that I am missing in these discussions that is beyond me intellectually and morally and theologically since I agree with the conclusions of the BRI and for me the Bible is clear on the issue. Perhaps the homosexual individuals should look for another denominational home that would be more open to their lifestyle, such as the Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, or the United Presbyterian Church where they would be accepted. This would also apply to those who want to abandon the historic doctrinal positions of the SDAs on creation, evolution, and the vicarious atonement of Christ on the cross. Just my opinion for what its worth.
My point was obtuse, unfortunately. the idea of finding sin in others rather than in self was the intended point. One could take the same scripture and demonstrate great sin in men. I don’t understand their reasoning at all. There has not been a minister or president of the General Conference who was not or is not a sinner. Sin is not gender specific. Thus the corpus of their argument is to please Ted. for Shame. Tom Z
Bill. I feel a great responsibility to correct My zeal in recruitment and support of the Adventist position. Yes I believe that Seveth day Adventists will be saved. BuI have also seen Adventists be destroyed out of despair, fear, or self loathing. Rather than seeking Biblical truth, they chuck the entire proposition of Biblical truth.
I am four square for Christianity and have minimal high regard for denominationalism. I see in Adventism as it slides into LGT as among the most diabolical. I respond to the BRI report as a product of an administrative agenda.and not serious exegesis. The Bible reveals the depths of man and the heights of God.
To have rendered a balanced report the BRI should have stated that those women did not sin alone. recall Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone,"
the men all faded away.
Yes I believe in vetting. but I don’t believe gender is a part of the process. Furthermore I believe It be a tactical error to render a report that linked WO and homosexuality etc. We all need to meet at the foot of the Cross. Note, that we put Christ there. Then at the Empty tomb, to learn that death could not hold him, Then accept His Invitation to come boldly to the throne of Grace, to find the help we all need. Tom Z
Ok, I understand where you are coming from in your remarks. I agree that we have all sinned and that we all continually fall short of the glory of God. Well, I may not agree with all of Ted Wilson’s opinions on other rather minor doctrinal issues, but this issue is one which involves where to draw the line in regards to openly practicing willful high-handed sin and living a sinful life style and still be considered for membership in the SDA denomination. After all that is where this is all leading isn’t it, i.e., when does the church leadership and its members have to step in and remove a member from membership if one is practicing open sin. The apostle Paul had to make such a ruling in the church in Corinth and the leadership of this church will have to make similar very difficult decisions with great tact and wisdom. All of the major Protestant denominations have had very similar doctrinal difficulties and are still having them. My old Reformed Congregational denomination split over doctrinal issues just as your Presbyterian church has. The same thing will probably occur in the Adventist movement: an open split and a regrouping of doctrinal adherents. But the basic teachings of the SDA movement will be preserved such as the Law of God, the Sabbath, biblical creationism, non-immortality of man, justification of repentant sinners by God’s unmerited grace through faith in the sinless life and atoning death of our Lord on the cross, the post tribulation second coming of the Lord to translate the living and raise the dead to eternal life, the millenium in heaven, and the final destruction of Satan and the lost after the millenium.
Also it seems that what you were saying was that these men at the BRI are not being intellectually and morally and theologically honest in the conclusions that they reached regarding homosexuality and the homosexual life style and that they have reached their conclusions in order to please Ted Wilson. That is a real stretch for me to accept as the reason that they reached their conclusions. I think that they looked at the bible and the evidence was overwhelming and they made public what they found.
I would add, that the report is built upon the same excuse platform form as was Adam’s first response when confronted–“The woman that thou gravest me, did --” Tom Z
I quite agree… there is a LOT that you are “missing” in these discussions. And yes, when it comes to questions that involve interpersonal relationships and the application of Biblical principles to the complex situations and issues in our modern life, Tom Z is MUCH more qualified than either you or those who sit in their ivory towers of academia and the denominational headquarters and make their decisions without knowledge, care, or compassion for those whom their decisions impact.
TomZ
Regarding the matter of women as ordained pastors my position which I have taken on this is arrived at from close examination of the Old and New Testament is that God has in His wisdom ordained that men should be the leaders of the church just as they are to be the leaders in the home and family. Ellen White considered herself a “messenger” not a pastor. She usually submitted to the authority of her husband and the leadership of the SDA movement but she was not a perfect person either. As I have stated before, “When the women begin to rule, the men will begin to walk.” This happened in mainline Protestant denominations and now they are mostly all ecumenical and liberal and non-credal. This should never happen to the SDA movement. If the liberals take over the SDA movement it will die on the vine. It is the conservatives who are preaching to the masses not the liberals. It was not a liberal who knocked on my door in Pittsburgh and told me about the gospel and the change of the Sabbath. The Seventh-day Adventist movement is the greatest thing that ever entered my life. I know that you have had a lot of problems with the politics and personalities in your involvement with Adventism, but those problems should not have run you off from the basic truths of the Adventist movement in my unsophisticated and naive opinion. My whole family rejected me when I became an evangelical SDA, but I would not go back to that life style for a minute.
I have know idea what genitals Chaz has or anyone else. Anyone doing any honest research into the area understands that sexual reassignment surgeries are not necessary nor is it chosen by trans all trans people.
They most certainly didn’t wrestle with anything. They skimmed some prior work by others with whom they agree and put together their conclusions without even attributing their sources. The Transgender statement is a hack job of the highest order and deserves no weight at all. It is ill informed, poorly researched and scientifically unsound. I have no respect for the authors of the statement because they have shown in their work a complete disregard for the truth.
Hmmm. “Bille” you don’t know me or anything about me, my life experience, education, what I did for a living for the last fifty years, my character or my personality so your ad hominem attacks don’t mean a thing to me. If any of the apostles were alive today and leading the SDA movement you would be the first one to attack them as ignorant and insensitive and intolerant. Your response is typical of liberals. You think that you are “open-minded” and allow a full “Spectrum” of opinion in your groups but when someone states an opinion that you view as intolerant of your opinion then that person is called an idiot and a buffoon and other insults. The fact is that your views will never succeed to be the dominant view in the Adventist movement. The liberals will walk away because they can’t stand dogma and doctrine that marginalizes them and they will leave for the more ecumenical Unitarianists, the World Council of Churches. Sola Scriptura and the word of God and truth will be triumphant with or without you and me.
Bongo,
That’s your opinion and you are entitled to it. But your opinion will not prevail in the SDA movement. So far all who disagree with the BRI statement have made personal attacks on the members of the committee and any one who agrees with them. The fact is that the ordination of women as pastors and also the homosexual agenda will not succeed in the Adventist movement.
I have not personally attacked anyone, I commented on the product of their work which has been put in the public record. I assume it is there to be read and as a research body their work should be up for comment.
The very real problem is hermeneutical. The BRI and many others read the Bible as PRESCRIPTIVE authority of how all humans should behave and relate to others. Those who read it as DESCRIPTIVE, understand that the Bible writers were limited in their understanding of human nature and the world and could only write with the knowledge that they had at the time.
To regress in human understanding to almost stone age mentality as the early Bible writers, we would have to forget, somehow, all the great human discoveries of our world and the mental and emotional behaviors of which we now know as compared to light years later. We cannot return to the eras of the very limited knowledge that those writers were capable of and allow them to be our guide and direct us in today’s world.
Biblical principles are timeless and universal; the specifics could only be based on their limited knowledge at the time. To revert to their life would be to go backward in time more than four or five millennia ago. It is impossible, and the BRI does not have that capability of backward time travel as much as they try. We today know that such regressive thinking will only make of the church a laughing stock to the world if those ideas are put into doctrinal form and expected behaviors.
Just what we need, another batch of statements. These latest ones only go to show that it’s all an exercise in futility. The quagmire only gets more murky and nuanced, saying more and more about less and less. The BRI should never have even dwelt with the issue of transgender, because the entire subject is rampant with misunderstanding, and I believe no one can understand it all, including the person who finds themselves in such a situation.
Maybe the BRI could tell us why God blessed the children of Israel, descendents of the sons of Jacob. They were born of four different women, but all fathered by one man. Two wives Rachel and Leah , not the ideal one wife, bore a total of 8 sons, and the other 4 were born of Leah and Rachel’s maids, two each for a total of 12. I’d like to see them chew on that awhile and give us an answer.
My point is that things aren’t as cut and dried as we might think. If the folks who are so sure of themselves about following God’s ideal than they darn well better look what God’s ideal for the human race was in the beginning, and quit insisting that men rank above women in God’s order for service. Yes men and women are unique and different in many ways, and i don’t think that either is enhanced by trying to level it all down to a uniform sameness. Men for the most part men are physically stronger than women, and are less prone to emotion. But women are far superior to men in intuititon , and provide a softer gentler touch for the most part than us men, who often charge ahead like bulldozers. Both qualities are needed for leadership, and oftentimes you will find gifts in each that are even opposite the usual characteristics of their gender. This calls for shared and co-equal leadership in my opinion.
In the final analysis, I believe the church is spending far too much energy spinning it’s wheels over this endless debate over who is basically going to be boss, the men or the women. Jesus said, the first will be last and vice versa. So men, unless we want to end up being last in line, I suggest we move over and let the ladies share a hand on the helm so the ship can quit going around in circles trying to determine who is going to steer it.
The Bible says that God is no respecter of persons. The last time I checked a woman is considered a person. What more proof do you need?