This book by Austen Hartke was a breath of wonderful fresh air after reading a totally different book on the same theme. Discerning readers may well write this off as basic confirmation bias, where I read a book about a thing and it argued for a conclusion that I wasn't entirely comfortable with so I discounted it and read another one which argued for something that I was more comfortable with, so I took this one to be better - and you may well be right. I'm not infallible, gender is complicated as fuck, and I've been on the fence about coming out as non-binary for the best part of a year.
But in all honesty, Hartke is a better authority on this issue than Vaughan Roberts, given that he has experienced first-hand the community and theology alienation from evangelical Christianity that Vaughan is all too keen to say 'yes well this is not ideal' but then makes the kind of theological points that keep transgender and non-binary people from actually feeling comfortable in church; he has also approached the issue with much more than a cursory intellectual rigour - and draws on perspectives from church leaders, churchgoers, trans and otherwise, as well as a rich variety of scientific and social theory, but all grounded very much in a contextual and generous reading of scripture,* considered through the lenses of everything from the ambiguity of the Creation narrative poetry to the person and ministry of Christ and its carrying by his apostles to the varying significant re-namings in the Bible to the gender-bending roles eunuchs played and how they were still very much included in the early church.**
Ultimately this a highly affirming and challenging book about the sovereignty of God, the fluidity of Creation, and the necessity of unity in the Church - an absolute must-read for Christians who are personally experiencing transformational elements in your life and gender identity, and should also be compulsory reading for anyone with any speck of pastoral responsibility, as there are guidelines on how to be meaningfully inclusive given as an appendix which go far beyond most of what I'd seen before.
* Even given my own views and latent identity, the depth of the tendrils of evangelicalism I've grown up in made me feel somewhat uncomfortable at parts of his argument. Though I suppose this could be a good thing, as it has maintained and renewed my vigour to not just settle for 'an answer' but to keep reading and exploring. That said, the general points Hartke makes are probably the best Christian perspective on the issues around gender fluidity that I've read so far.
** Transphobic Christian readers will do well to note that Philip didn't even demand the Ethiopian to grow his cock-n-balls back before receiving salvation!***
*** It was only upon googling this passage that I noticed for the first time that another Ethiopian eunuch features in the Bible, and pulls Jeremiah out of a dunghole.
No comments:
Post a Comment