The Murky Waters of Insanity

"Anthropology is the enemy of reductionism, be it naturalistic explanations of human skin color variation, the ascertainment of human presence via exclusive archaeological arguments or the belief that linguistic classifications are only skin deep."-- German Dziebel

Alice C. Linsley

Biblical Anthropology has helped me to detect the deficiencies and falsehoods of Feminism, Process Theology, and religious reductionism, for as anthropologist German Dziebel has said, "Anthropology is the enemy of reductionism."

Reductionism take various forms, but all attribute religious beliefs to non-religious causes. Some view faith as a by-product of human evolution. In this view, religion enhances survivability for members of a group and so is reinforced by natural selection. Others reduce the religious impulse to susperstition, as a way to explain the inexplicable. When it comes to morality, some reductionists view divine law as merely Man's attempt to determine conceptions of right and wrong.

There is also the psychological view that religion is a way to cope with our anxieties. This view has some basis in Scripture because all the evidence suggests that the priesthood emerged among Abraham's ancestors out of a need to address blood guilt. The primitive principle is one we recognize as animal sacrifice; blood for blood, and the sacred law that already existed among Abraham's ancestors, pertained in large part to blood; for life is in the blood. In the Biblical worldview, blood both pollutes and makes clean. Ancient law codes, such as the Law of Tehut, which existed long before the code of Hammurabi, addressed transgressions of boundaries between God and Man, and between the individual and his neighbor, and between the individual and his community.

One of the errors of reductionism is that it blurs the distinction between God and Man. The creation is not perfect and changes. God is perfect and immutable. There is a boundary between God and Man that no mortal can deny. God alone knows all things. The lie posed to Eve was that eating the forbidden fruit would make her like God, knowing good from evil. This blurring of the distinctions between God and Man, between life and death, between good and evil, between male and female, and between black and white is pure hubris and plays out to its logical end in the recent stories of two deluded individuals: Bruce Jenner and Rachel Dolezal.

Sadly, many have rejected the Biblical worldview in favor of pseudo-psychological explanations. People can be whatever they want to be. There is no fixed reality of male-female. Instead, there is a gender continuum which requires the State (as here) to recognize bisexual, transgender, unspecified, indeteriminate, and gender diverse, etc. There no longer being a fixed reality, our grip on permanent virtue is lost and we slip beneath the murky waters of insanity.

I am reminded of something G.K. Chesterton wrote in The Ball and the Cross:

Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. ...The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue.

Related reading: Ethics and Binary Distinctions; Understanding Binary Distinctions; Levi-Strauss and Derrida on Binary Distinctions; Blood and Binary Distinctions; G.K. Chesterton on Drawing the Line

Rethinking Gender Equality

Alice C. Linsley

The egalitarian doctrine held by feminists has made significant inroads in the churches. In this view women and men are equal in function, opportunity, and potential. On this basis women are ordained priests in some Anglican jurisdictions and even elevated to bishop. The gender distinctions observed in the order of creation and recognized in the canonical texts are overthrown.

It does not matter that not a single priest named in the Scriptures was a woman. Apparently, even Evangelicals who claim to uphold the authority of Scripture have fallen into the egalitarian heresy. The Evangelical complementarians accept the ordination of women to the priesthood, but illogically reject having female bishops since this contradicts their headship principle. It would serve them well to consider the difference between their complementarianism and the binary reasoning of the Bible.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and that is certainly the case with these pictures that serve as additional clues as to the error of the complementarian and egalitarian doctrines.

Writing about "Priestesses in the Church" C. S. Lewis describes such an innovation as a "wanton degree of imprudence." Imprudence was personified in the person of Ann Holmes Redding who served on Sundays as an Episcopal priest at St. Clement's of Rome Episcopal Church in Seattle while also dedicating her life to the study of the Quran with a Muslim group.

Some advocates of women in the priesthood have completely lost their grip on common sense. Susannah Cornwall argues that women can be priests because Jesus was a woman! This is her way of confronting "discrimination against women" which she believes "is based on the tradition of Jesus having chosen only male apostles." Of course, this is not the rationale for the all-male priesthood as it is revealed in the Bible, nor is this view supported historically, theologically, or anthropologically.

None of the apostles were priests. The three priests who were followers of Jesus were James the Just, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Hari-Mathea who was called "bouleutēs" which means honorable counselor. All were men and all were of the Horite ruler-priest lines. The Christian priesthood emerged from the pattern of the Horite priests. In their worldview male and female were not regarded as equals. This was based on their observation of patterns in nature. It is clear that males are stronger and larger than females. They are the best equipped to protect, fight wars, hunt, and sacrifice large, powerful animals. This is the nature of the blood work of males. It mainly concerns taking life so that, through the shedding of blood, life can be sustained.

Females, on the other hand, are created to perform a different kind of blood work: one that concerns giving life. Their work involves the shedding of blood in first intercourse, in their monthly cycle, and in childbearing. In the binary reasoning of the Bible the blood work of males and females speaks of the distinction between life and death.

The male principle involves insemination, protection of the weaker, expansion and uprightness. It is symbolized in the ancient world by meteorites and iron seeds covering the surface of the earth, by the Sun's rays shining down, the lengthening of shadows, and the strength of mountains and pillars. The female principle involves receptivity, birthing, nurturing, fluidity and softness.

In the ancient world of Jesus' Hebrew ancestors, bloods were never mixed or even present in the same space. Men were not permitted in the birthing hut. Women were not permitted where animals were sacrificed. When blood was shed there were priestly rituals for the purification of blood and relief of blood anxiety. Melchizedek performed this for Abraham (Gen. 14). He came to Abraham after a great battle in which Abraham incurred blood guilt. The ritual involved bread and wine. In Church tradition women waited 40 days to return to church, following the ancient custom of purification after shedding blood. The practice is still observed in the Eastern churches.

The biblical view of gender distinctions reflects how the ancients understood what is universally observed, but contemporary dualistic and egalitarian views distort that reality. The distinction between the male principle and the female principle has become blurred so that none consider it odd that women serve in combat or as priests. Mothers kill their babies. Fathers abandon their children and abuse their wives. Men have sex with men. God is cast as goddess, and the fact that Jesus was born a man, the Son of God, is dismissed. All of this begs the question: Who are these women serving? It is not the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture and in the Word made flesh.

Before the ordination of women priests, Anglican orders were more highly regarded by the hierarchs of both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches. This innovation devalued Anglican orders in the view of those churches and continues to be an obstacle to wholeness within catholic Christendom. The innovation reveals confusion about the nature of the priesthood and infidelity to the received tradition which was embraced by the early priests of the Church. The ordination of women as priests is an accommodation to a culture that does not understand blood covenants or the distinction between the blood work of males and females.

When Anglicans contemplate reception of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist, it is appropriate to see before them a masculine form. Likewise, in contemplation of the Annunciation and Incarnation we would properly have before us an image/icon of Mary, not a masculine form. To place a female form at the altar unravels the fabric of the Messianic tradition. It tells this story: The ewe who gives birth, and nurtures with her milk, is sacrificed, offering herself for the life of the world. It simply does not work! The ewe is a timid creature who stays with her young and seeks protection from the ram when threatened. She embodies feminine virtues and her self-sacrifice is at odds with the order of creation. From the Biblical perspective, a woman at the altar is equivalent to the boiling of a baby goat in its mother's milk, something repeatedly forbidden, because this practice blurs the distinction between life and death.

Here is the message delivered when the female stands at altar: The one who saves is the daughter of God. The divine council agrees to take the life of one who is divinely designed to give life. We no longer have the Gospel. We have a pagan tragedy!

Ignatius of Antioch adjures, "Be diligent, therefore, to use one eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup, for union with his blood; one altar, even as there is one bishop, together with the presbytery and the deacons who are my fellow-servants, to the end that whatever ye do, ye may do it according unto God. (Philadelphians 4.1).

Related reading: What May Christians Safely Disbelieve?; Why Women Were Never Priests; The Paradox of Feminism; The Question of Patriarchy; Blood and Gender Distinctions;  Levi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida on Binary Distinctions; God as Male Priest; The Bible as Woman's Story

More Revisionist Scholarship

Biblical Archaeology Society is marketing a lecture series with "new interpretations" of sex and gender in the Bible. These really are not new, but they are popular.

Sex, Gender and the Bible

In this compelling lecture series, new interpretations of sex and gender in the Bible confront traditional Judeo-Christian understandings of human sexuality and identity. In addition to highlighting the Bible’s often explicit celebration of sex, these lectures tackle critical questions that are still debated today, including the Bible’s views on homosexuality and the appropriate role of women in society. They even challenge our received assumptions about God’s gender and ask how and why “God the Mother” was erased from the Jewish and Christian faiths.

DISC 1:
“Sex in the Bible: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in This Legacy We Cannot Escape”
J. Harold Ellens, Theologian and Psychologist (43 minutes)

“Homosexuality in the Bible: The Case of David and Jonathan”
J. Harold Ellens, Theologian and Psychologist (48 minutes)

DISC 2:
“He Will Rule Over You: The Status of Women in Biblical Times”
Michael D. Coogan, Harvard Divinity School (47 minutes)

“What Happened to God the Mother in the Trinity”
April D. DeConick, Rice University (36 minutes)

From here.

Related reading: Bunk from BAR

The Question of Patriarchy

Alice C. Linsley

While some feminists consider the Bible outdated and chauvinistic, through the lens of the sciences of anthropology and psychology it appears to be quite accurate in its descriptions of human behavior. Due to their bias, feminists miss some significant details that serve their cause of elevating the status of women. Bible scholar Jane Schaberg (University of Detroit Mercy) finds the Bible to be a source of valuable information about the role and experience of women during Biblical times and she is a feminist.

Feminist scholarship, writes Schaberg in her Biblical Views column for the November/December issue of BAR, aims to turn the old, male-dominated understanding of the Bible on its head and thereby reveal new insights into the lives of often-marginalized women in the ancient world.

Likewise, while feminist scholarship on the Bible does not necessarily aim for complete objectivity, which Schaberg calls an "impossible ideal," it does aim for fairness in assessing the scriptural texts. Feminists also focus attention on issues that have often been sidelined in biblical studies, like slavery, gender equality and sexuality.

It is assumed that the ancient laws were enacted to subordinate women and Genesis 3:16 is often quoted to support this view. "Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband and he will rule over you." This relationship of subordination is not established by Horite Hebrew Law, though Horite Law recognizes this arrangement. The subordination of the female to the male is a direct result of fear, the first emotion described after the Fall. When men are fearful they become aggressive and defensive of their turf and family. When women become fearful, they tend to get "clingly" and surrender their wants/needs in order to preserve the relationship.

Feminists argue that patriarchy is the result of universal oppression of women by men. They want to make men the oppressors, and ignore the effects of fear on males and females. In the biblical worldview patriarchy came as the result of fear entering the male-female relationship after disobedience (Gen. 3:10).  Because of fear, the woman's desire is for her husband and he "rules" over her (Gen. 3:16).  In her seminal book, In a Different Voice, Harvard psychology professor Carol Gilligan demonstrated through her research how this is so.

The feminist worldview and the biblical worldview are contradictory.  This is especially evident when addressing the question of patriarchy.  Patriarchy is the universal norm.  Feminists will argue that this isn't true by pointing to soft patriarchal societies where line of descent or rights of inheritance are traced through females.  A true matriarchy is characterized by the following conditions:

* line of descent must be traced through the mothers
* rights of inheritance must be figured through the mothers
* political power must be vested with ruling females
* females must have the final say in deciding matters for the community

It is a matter of fact that, after eighty-five years of ethnographic studies, no true matriarchal society has ever been identified by cultural anthropologists.

Related reading:  The Paradox of Feminism; The Bible as the Woman's Story

Response to Fr. Behr's Talk on Women Disciples

Alice C. Linsley


I listened to Fr. John Behr's talk on Women Disciples and laughed (a dismayed laugh). How true it is that there is nothing new under the Sun! As a friend said, "After one has heard this stuff for so long in TEC it is now amazing to hear it cropping up in the Orthodox Church."  She's right.  I too hear echoes of Episcopal clergy who abandoned Holy Tradition 25 years ago in Fr. Behr's ruminations.

Here are key points of his argument:

1.The early Fathers don't say much about what it is to be Man and Woman. - False.

St. John Chrysostom says volumes about man and woman and the importance of a right relationship in marriage. His sermons are very deeply grounded in Scripture, unlike the message of Fr. Behr. He doesn't want to talk about praxis, only theoria. That means he wants to set aside the clarity of Scriptural teaching on being made Male and Female!

2. Times have changed. Understandings of science on "sexuality" require that we adjust our view of Male and Female. - False

People who lived in Abraham's time knew about homosex and condemned it as a violation of God's order in creation. As people of the Bible we don't accomodate the biblical worldview to pseudo-science. There are only two genders - Male and Female and these were created by God at the beginning. There is no continuum of sexuality. That is a myth perpetuated mainly by gay/lesbian activists. Male and Female are an aspect of the fixed order of creation. Those born with gential confusion are less than 1% of the world's population and most of these know which gender they are and can be helped through surgery. Homosex is regarded as a disease in many countries, like addiction to pornography. India's Minister of Health made this comment last week. He said that homosexuality is a disease introduced from the sex-obsessed West.


3. The focus should be on what it means to be Human "after the stature of Christ." - False.

The Gospel is about the Son of God who came into the world to save sinners, to crush the serpent's head, to make void the curse, to set Eve free, and to restore Paradise. He did this as the "Son" of God. His being male is of great significance. Only a son could receive a kingdom from his Father and Jesus' kingdom is an eternal one, as we recite in the Creed.

This view that Jesus Christ came to perfect a genderless Humanity is nonsense and demeaning to both men and women. At the day of Resurrection we will rise in our bodies as male and female, not as genderless angels.

The Eastern Orthodox churches historically have resisted modernism and egalitarianism. Orthodox resistance was heartily demonstrated at the 1978 Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission in Athens. Here the Orthodox delegates soundly rejected all possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood. However, Church of England clergy, feeling pressure from their Episcopalian cousins in the United States, were ready to discuss the question and opened Pandora's box.

The Orthodox are again under pressure to accommodate to the world. While most are standing firm on the Church's teaching, St. Vladimir Seminary wavers. Some seminarians at St. Vladimir believe that women should be ordained priests. It is a good thing that I have no authority there. I would dismiss every seminarian of this mindset, seeing that they do not discern the foremost necessity for a Priest, which is to preserve Holy Tradition.

The seminarians hardly can be blamed when their professors and their Dean encourage them in this waywardness. Bishop Kallistos is credited with opening the door. Thomas Hopko wrote in the Forward to Woman and the Priesthood (St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1999) that Bishop Kallistos “has moved in the direction of greater tentativeness about the possible ordination of women as priests and bishops in the Orthodox Church. He demonstrates less conviction about the authority of the traditional Orthodox practice on the issue, and questions his own rather firm arguments against the ordination of women…” (work cited, p. 1)

Personally, I'm not impressed with the way things are heading at St. Vlads. If such nonsense isn't headed off now we'll be fighting to preserve the true Faith in Orthodoxy. As one who has been through "the Anglican wars" I don't relish the prospect of more battle wounds.

Related reading:  Women Priests by E.L. Mascall; Should St. Vlads Confer a Degree on Rowan Williams?; The Paradigm Shift in the Orthodox Priesthood; Luther Was Wrong About the Priesthood; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; Passing Conversation with Priestess Kaeton; Ideologies Opposed to Holy Tradition; God as Male Priest; Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview

Passing Conversation with Priestess Kaeton

Alice C. Linsley


While doing research on the recent history of the Episcopal Church I came across this blog hosted by a well-known Episcopal "priestess" who is also lesbian.  She proudly lists many of the men and women who each in their small way contributed to the demise of the Episcopal Church in the USA. (I include myself, since I too consented to being ordained and spouted the party line for far too long.) Elizabeth Kaeton did the research for me. The main characters are all listed at her blog. I should have copied the list and moved on, but I took a moment to comment and that led to this passing conversation. Perhaps readers of Just Genesis will find it interesting and instructive.


Alice: These women are "priests" in name only. I'm sad for them, not celebrating.


Elizabeth: You may not like the fact that they are priests, but that doesn't change the fact that they are priests, Alice. I'm sad for you.


Alice:  Okay. We'll be sad for each other and let the Lord sort it out. However, as the priesthood is based on an unchanging celestial pattern which presents God as male priest from time immemorial, there is certainly reason to investigate the nature of their "priesthood."


Elizabeth: Investigate all you want, my dear, but a fact is a fact. You can be sad about that fact. You'll excuse me, however, and millions of others, as we rejoice and give thanks and praise to God who never limits the power of the Holy Spirit to call those who are equipped for the ministry of ordained service in the Church beyond barriers of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation.

Alice - I'm assuming you are from Lexington, KY (checked my sitemeter). Bishops Sauls, right? Very supportive. You must either not be Episcopalian, or you are in one of the schismatic Anglican-wanna-be churches from the Global South or you are Roman Catholic.

So, what's a nice "orthodox" girl like you doing in a place like this? I mean, what do you expect?

If you need to feel "sad", then I suppose you could come here and 'tut tut' but why waste your time? Why not invest it in being the best orthodox woman you can be - and be happy?

God's peace and joy to you on the eve of the Second Sunday in the most joyous season of Easter.


Alice: I was ordained to the priesthood by Allan Bartlett in the Diocese of Pennsylvania and personally knew Geralyn Wolf, Barbara Harris, Mary Glasspool and many others. I knew these women to be caring and sincere people. This isn't about their (or your) character. It is about historical, anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological evidence.

Bishop Sauls was my bishop. He was far from supportive. He doesn't support those who disagree with him, and you know that.

Do you ever get lonely out on that limb? You think that there are so many who hold your view, but it is a very small club. I never realized how small until I left TEC and began to explore the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

May the rising of the Son of God shine on your heart and illumine you.


Elizabeth: So, Alice, have you renounced your priesthood, too? If you have, I'm so sorry. If you haven't, why haven't you? I'm really curious to know.

Do you really doubt that God called you to ordained service because of "historical, anthropological, linguistic, and archaeological evidence"? Do you really doubt that the Holy Spirit can't work through all those human-made and human-defined barriers?

God called Esther and Ruth and Judith to leadership in community. They weren't ordained because of ancient, cultural misogyny.

Why else would Jesus choose Mary Magdalene to be the first to reveal himself after the resurrection, and make her the first evangelist?

No, I'm not lonely. At. All. I was, when I was RC and knowing that "the boys" had it all wrong. What looks to you like a limb is really a very strong branch of the tree of apostolic faith.

And, no, I don't know "that" about Stacy Sauls. I find him to be eloquent and articulate and strong defender of the faith.

See also: not lonely.


Elizabeth: Alice - never mind. I just googled you and now know who you are. Gave up your orders when +V Gene Robinson was ordained.

You have the courage of your convictions and took the high road. Good for you.

If you are comfortable with your decision, why come over to blogs like mine? Why read an essay about ordained women? Why did you feel it necessary to comment - and take a pot shot about "being lonely"?

Sounds like things are not completely settled in your soul. I will pray for your continued strength and discernment, my sister.

_______________________________

Dear readers, do you see the flaw in her logic? She begins by asserting that women priests is a new thing to which the Episcopal Church was guided by the Holy Spirit. If this is so, why try to establish precedent by listing women: Esther, Ruth, Judith, and Mary Magdalene, none of whom were priests. Not a single female can be found in the Bible who was a priest. Neither can a woman priest be identified in the history of the Church, despite frantic theories about "Junia" and "Presbytera."

To be fair to Elizabeth, I suggested that she might want to respond to this. I wrote:

Elizabeth, I've responded to your questions here...

See the links under "related reading."

You might want to respond to this at your blog. I'll link my post back to your response. That would make a fair hearing for your readers and mine.

Best wishes,
Alice


Here is her response:

Thank you, Alice.

I've already read lots of your stuff. Well, enough to know your position, which is nothing new. It's the same-old-same-old tired stuff I heard when I was growing up in the RC Church and among Greek Orthodox in my neighborhood.

They (and now, people like you who hold to this position about WO) will argue something like the 'fact' that TEC is not keeping the "proper tension" between Scripture and Tradition.

And, I will argue that you are not keeping the 'proper tension' between Scripture and Tradition and the on-going revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, I would argue that your argument is a testimony to spiritual cowardice, hiding behind a wall of scripture and tradition because you are so afraid of what the Holy Spirit still has to reveal.

So, we'd volley back and forth like that, to what end? This conversation is over, having been decided by the church for going on two generations in the church. Even the folks at SFiF will not allow a discussion of WO. Why on earth should I give you a forum for your position, outdated and irrelevant to the life of this branch of the church as it is?

I wish you well, Alice. I can only believe that this request for conversation on my blog comes from the heart of one who is in a place of desperate spiritual loneliness and in deep need of affirmation for what must have been - and continues to be, obviously, from your request - a difficult and painful decision based on a 'reaction' (vs a 'response') to the consecration of +VGR.

I pray for your eventual healing, your acceptance of the consequences of your decision, and the joy of your new relationship with God in Christ.


In other words, she won't engage the issue; again proving that Dialogue with Revisionists is Impossible.



Related reading:  Response to Elizabeth Kaeton's Comments; What is a Priest?; Why Women Were Never Priests; Growing Consensus that WO Must be Addressed; What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; Telling My Story: A Priestess Comes to Repentance; The Bible as 'The Woman's' Story; Women Rulers in Ancient Israel; Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview; All Isn't Well in TEC; Why TEC Hates the Nigerians

Gender Bending in Australia

Babette Francis


In the beginning there was male and female. Soon there was homosexuality. Later there were lesbians, and much later gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers. But anyone who thinks LGBTQ is the full count of contemporary sexualities is sadly out of date. For example, the transgendered have for some time been divided into those who are awaiting treatment, those have had hormone treatment, those who have had hormones and surgery, and those who have had hormones and surgery but are not happy and want it all reversed.

Enter the Australian Human Rights Commission with some exciting new developments. In an extraordinary document entitled Protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sex and/or gender identity, the AHRC has come up with a further list of “genders” which they require us to recognize, and on whose behalf they want our federal government to pass anti-discrimination legislation. To date (by the time you read this, the AHRC's family of sexualities may have increased and multiplied) these are: transgender, trans, transsexual, intersex, androgynous, agender, cross dresser, drag king, drag queen, genderfluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, third gender, third sex, sistergirl and brotherboy. (No, I don't know what “neutrois” means).

So if we add these genders to the LGBTQ list we get 23 in all, not to mention the divisions within the transgendered group. For PR purposes, however, the “gendered" community now identifies itself as LGBTQI (the "I" stands for "intersex".) Rather than abbreviating I think they should add all the other letters of the alphabet, then we would all feel protected and not discriminated against. Being Indian by birth and having married an Australian of Anglo-Celtic origin, I am all for diversity, but I am not going to commit to "neutrois" until someone tells me what it means.

Once the government passes proposed legislation, presumably businesses will be required to provide designated toilets for each gender, and Equal Opportunity Gender Identity (EOGI) units will ensure compliance with federal legislation.

In October last year the Australian Human Rights Commission held public consultations in Sydney and Melbourne during which interested citizens were given the opportunity to express their views on the gender discussion paper. In her introductory remarks at the consultation in Melbourne which I attended, the Hon. Catherine Branson QC, chairman of the AHRC, said that the commission was relying for its approach to gender discrimination on the Yogyakarta Principles. (No, Yogyakarta is not another gender identity, it is a city in Indonesia where a group of human rights activists met.) Branson said that while the Yogyakarta Principles were not in themselves binding, they are an "interpretation of international binding agreements to which Australia is committed."

I pointed out that not only had the Yogyakarta Principles not been accepted by the UN, they had been rejected every time "sexual orientation" was debated at the Commission on the Status of Women meetings I attended in New York. Possibly Branson had not expected that anyone at the consultation would have actually attended UN meetings in New York -- she seemed a trifle deflated after my comment -- but she will cheer up with the news from Canada where Bill C-389 protecting Gender Identity and Gender Expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act is being fast-tracked through the House of Commons.

There was the usual debate about the meaning of “gender” at this year's Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York in March, from which I have just returned. The term is used liberally in every CSW document, past and present, but during the latest CSW session the Holy See (Vatican) -- which often speaks for other nations (mainly from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean) in presenting a more traditional view of morals -- insisted it be defined. As a result, many paragraphs in the "Agreed Conclusions" document were modified either by adding "men and women" or ensuring that the context in which the term "gender" was used in the paragraph would not easily lend itself to be understood as anything other than male and female.

The fact is that in international law the only binding definition of gender is contained in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which states: "…the term 'gender' refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term 'gender' does not indicate any meaning different from the aforementioned definition.”

During negotiations, the European Union and its supporters simultaneously claimed that gender is a fluid social construct but also tried to reassure old-fashioned countries that “we know what the definition is.” One delegate rebuffed the EU explanation retorting, “If it’s really not a problem, then why can’t we plainly state what it means [i.e. male and female]?"

Debates about gender are perennial at the UN even though the women of the world have more urgent needs -- such as a clean water supply, good roads, electricity, and maternal health care. This year's debate gave me a feeling of deja vu as I recalled an incident at a CSW meeting in New York some years ago. The delegate from Nicaragua refused to accept any definition of "gender" other than male and female. The Swedish government threatened Nicaragua with the withdrawal of aid unless Nicaragua sent home its recalcitrant delegate. Nicaragua is a poor country, dependent on foreign aid, so the hapless delegate was ordered home and a new delegate was sent to New York. When the debate on "gender" resumed, the new Nicaraguan delegate innocently said: "But in my country, gender is male and female.....", so Sweden was back to square one. This is but one example of the way wealthy countries bully third world nations into accepting their sexual fetishes.

When the Australian Labour Party won the federal government benches in 2007, it established policies for monitoring prices (and the movement of whales and Japanese whaling ships in the southern ocean). The government did not have much success with these policies; prices rise in response to market forces regardless of who is watching. But, not learning from the futility of Fuel Watch, Grocery Watch and Whale Watch, Julia Gillard's government is now proposing a "Gender Watch". Medium and large businesses will be subject to spot checks on the numbers of women they employ with penalties for non-compliance. Not to be outdone, Joe Hockey, Opposition Treasury spokesman, kicked an own goal by announcing that if corporates did not increase the number of women board members, quotas may have to be imposed. He stated that Australia ranked second-last among OECD countries on the numbers of females in senior executive positions. (This may be why Australia has survived the global financial crisis much better than any of the other OECD countries… Okay, I'm joking.)

However, quotas and separate toilets are not enough for true equality. Australian activist, Katrina Fox, who in 2008 co-edited a book Trans People in Love, wrote an emotive piece for the Australian Broadcasting Commission recently entitled Marriage needs redefining. In it she clarifies how all the gender boundaries surrounding marriage must be removed. “A more inclusive option,” she begins, “is to allow individuals to get married whatever their sex or gender, including those who identify as having no sex or gender or whose sex may be indeterminate.”

"Indeterminate"? Can't everybody fit into one of the 23 genders the AHRC has listed so far? But, happily, Fox does have some boundaries. Further into the article she writes: "I'm not suggesting we go as far to sanction people marrying inanimate objects, like the German woman who married the Berlin Wall and was utterly devastated when her ‘husband’ was destroyed in 1989...."

I never realized that someone actually loved the Berlin Wall and that when President Reagan said "Tear down that Wall, Mr. Gorbachev," he was trying to wreck a marriage.


Babette Francis is the National and Overseas Co-ordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc., a pro-life, pro-family NGO which has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN. This article is published by Babette Francis, and MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons licence

Sweeping Away Gender and the Biblical Worldview

Alice C. Linsley

What is at the heart of attempts to sweep away the gender distinctions? As unpopular as it may be to say this, this comes from the fallen nature which resists God and God's purpose.  The arrogance of the human heart which pushes against the boundaries and distinctions that God has established. How foolish! We are humble clay imagining ourselves to be gods who can make the Sun rise in the west and can conform reality to our sinful desires. Here is a perfect example:  Gene Robinson on the Bible. The following news report is another.

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Norrie, a 48-year-old born in Scotland but now living in Sydney, was allowed to list "sex not specific" on his government-issued "details certificate" last month. However, news of this achievement flew round the globe and the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages of the state of New South Wales told him that the certificate would be cancelled.

The Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, said: "Advice from the Crown solicitor is that the registrar may only issue a recognised details certificate or new birth certificate following a change of sex in either male or female gender."

Norrie, who was born male, but lives an androgynous existence after a sex-change operation, was outraged. "I felt killed. It's a hideously humiliating position to find myself in and makes a mockery of my human rights. I feel completely violated by the [NSW] Attorney-General's office," he told ABC News. He has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Perhaps unaware of the reversal of the decision, Oxford bioethicist Julian Savulescu applauded it as "a step forward for respect for personal autonomy and for human enhancement". He went on to explain, "The old binary categories are falling - tall and short, talented and untalented, smart and stupid, male and female. Human life is incredibly diverse. All states and talents affecting humans occur in shades of grey. We should make our choices in recognition of the shades of grey. And it makes sense to make decisions not based on crude categories but fine-grained realities." ABC, Mar 18;C-FAM, Apr 1


Note how Savulescu dismisses all the ancient wisdom with thee two words "Crude categories. It is apparent that Savulescu doesn't understand what binary distinctions are. Of his list - talented-untalented, smart-stupid, tall-short, male-female, etc.- only one is a binary distinction: male-female.

To what "fine-grained realities" is Julian Savulescu referring?  The binary distinctions are as fine-grained as one can get. They are observable as the pattern of nature and have been the basis for Law and Ethics for at least 12,000 years. The grey areas of which he speaks always represent anomalies in nature. In Law and Ethics they are a nightmare!

When we attempt to sweep away gender distinctions we are saying to the Creator that we know better. When we overthrow gender we overthrow the biblical worldview.


Related reading:  What's Lost When Women Serve as Priests?; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; Blood and Binary Distinctions; Genesis on Homosex: Beyond Sodom; The Biblical Worldview is Binary