{"id":31947,"date":"2015-06-17T00:45:12","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T03:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/?p=31947"},"modified":"2016-11-25T00:03:52","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T03:03:52","slug":"transgender-soldier-cites-christian-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/17\/transgender-soldier-cites-christian-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Transgender Soldier Cites Christian Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Springs Gazette <a href=\"http:\/\/gazette.com\/becoming-patricia-a-combat-veterans-story-of-transgender-life-in-the-army\/article\/1553689\">covered<\/a> local Fort Carson Soldier Staff Sgt Peter\/Patricia King, who was born biologically male but now presents himself as female. In one respect, this is becoming so common that it almost isn&#8217;t newsworthy. On the other, the media attention is understandable given the US military&#8217;s current &#8220;transition&#8221; on transgender issues.<\/p>\n<p>What make&#8217;s King&#8217;s story notable, though, is his constant reference to his religious faith. As cited in the article [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Being transgender doesn&#8217;t make me a pervert. It doesn&#8217;t make me a fetishist. It doesn&#8217;t make me a bad person, a bad soldier, a bad parent, or <strong>a bad Christian<\/strong>.&#8221; &#8211; from Patricia King&#8217;s blog&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s a father, a soldier, <strong>a Christian<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The hardest part of King&#8217;s journey may have been balancing her gender with her beliefs. A church-going Christian, King worried that her <strong>internal conflict with manhood was also a conflict with God<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In faith, though, she found shelter. At Vista Grande Community Church, <!--more-->she&#8217;s welcomed as a woman.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s wonderful,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>King said she&#8217;s teaching Sunday school&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sin does not make a person a &#8220;bad&#8221; Christian; every Christian is guilty of sin. The question of whether one is a &#8220;bad&#8221; or &#8220;good&#8221; Christian is itself almost nonsensical, as it recalls Jesus&#8217; admonishment that<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>No one is good&#8211;except God alone. &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/biblehub.com\/luke\/18-19.htm\">Luke 18:19<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>By the same token, the Bible indicates that one is known by the fruit he bears. There is right and wrong; truth is truth, whether or not we believe it or &#8220;ascribe&#8221; to it.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Al Mohler described it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.albertmohler.com\/2007\/05\/30\/a-transgender-pastor-in-the-pulpit\/\">this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Christians have believed that the body is a gift from God, for believers the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Despising the body to the point of <strong>repudiating birth gender is a posture in direct conflict with the Bible<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>There can be no question that some persons suffer excruciating gender confusions. But the answer to this must be the embrace of birth gender as a central dimension of God\u2019s will for the individual. Christians must understand that gender \u2013the sex of an individual \u2014 is a part of God\u2019s glory in creation. God\u2019s own verdict on the creation of humanity as male and female, both made in His image, was that is was \u201cvery good.\u201d <strong>The transgender temptation is a repudiation of God\u2019s own verdict on His creation and His plan for humanity<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Without dismissing the emotions people feel on the issue, the fact remains that God created men and women as men and women. Advocates for sexual liberty denounce this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Transgender advocate Fiona Dawson said people have a hard time understanding the difference between anatomical gender and the gender people embrace mentally.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gender is between your ears, not between your legs,&#8221; said Dawson&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If one wishes to stick to biology, it would be more accurate to say gender is in your <em>chromosomes<\/em>, not between your ears. Allowing for the occasional abnormality, XX and XY remain XX and XY, even despite hormone treatment or physical surgery.<\/p>\n<p>The intent certainly isn&#8217;t to dismiss any person&#8217;s anguish over their perceptions of their gender, but Mohler makes the point of saying society is trying so hard to be accepting it is reluctant to draw <em>any<\/em> boundaries [emphasis added]:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The therapeutic revolution has deluded modern Americans into thinking that <strong>patterns of basic rebellion against God are means of self-liberation and therapy<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The sexual revolution has led to a society fixated on sex and reluctant to draw any clear boundaries. A worldview of nearly absolute non-judgmentalism leads the larger society to consider sexuality and sexual issues to be beyond the bounds of common concern.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ultimately , the &#8220;sexual revolution&#8221; is a product of the morality of the modern culture, and the results, as one person expressed it, shouldn&#8217;t surprise any Christian.<\/p>\n<p>As to the US military, it seems likely that it, too, will soon embrace service by openly transgender individuals, which may explain the near <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonblade.com\/2015\/04\/10\/army-soldier-becomes-first-openly-trans-person-in-u-s-military\/\">competition<\/a> to be the &#8220;first openly transgender&#8221; in the US military.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, King&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vgcc.org\/\">Vista Grande Community Church<\/a> is a United Church of Christ congregation that proudly describes itself as &#8220;open and affirming.&#8221; It is led by the Rev Clare Twomey, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vgcc.org\/main\/pastor.html\">who says<\/a> she is married to another woman.<\/p>\n<p>It seems the theology he hears on Sunday will align quite well with what he wants to hear.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-like\" data-share=\"true\" data-show-faces=\"true\" data-size=\"small\" data-action=\"like\" data-layout=\"standard\"><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><strong>ADVERTISEMENT<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- blogpost --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display: block;\" data-ad-format=\"auto\" data-ad-slot=\"2728423835\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6450825356098669\"><\/ins><script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Colorado Springs Gazette covered local Fort Carson Soldier Staff Sgt Peter\/Patricia King, who was born biologically male but now presents himself as female. In one respect, this is becoming so common that it almost isn&#8217;t newsworthy. On the other, the media attention is understandable given the US military&#8217;s current &#8220;transition&#8221; on transgender issues. What make&#8217;s King&#8217;s story notable, though, [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[600,96,5200,5199,463,2,5197,3390,10,171,1278,5198],"class_list":["post-31947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-albert-mohler","tag-christian","tag-clare-twomey","tag-fiona-dawson","tag-fort-carson","tag-military","tag-patricia-king","tag-peter-king","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-transgender","tag-vista-grande-community-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}