LifeDate Summer 2024 – Made For Life
by Pastor Michael Salemink
We need to exhibit courage and extend compassion.
Conflict about sexuality and gender is raging. From pronouns to bathrooms to athletics, truths and faiths about the human body are competing for authority and acceptance. Neighbors are experiencing confusion and distress about the foundations of their identity. And Christians have concerns about how best to care for loved ones struggling with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria (a feeling of disconnection between one’s male or female anatomy and one’s sense of masculinity or femininity).
Sex designates a biological reality. It has a binary structure (male or female) that depends upon genetics. Our Almighty Maker defines it at fertilization and delivers it with the gift of body. No one else can assign it or change it, because it resides in and constitutes every cell.
Gender refers to a psychological or social reality that derives from sex (masculinity or femininity). In Lutheran parlance, we recognize it as a vocation. The Lord God clearly intends for sex and gender to correspond closely:
“He who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4).
Some bodily disorders can make it difficult (but not impossible) to determine sex. Certain inaccurate and ungodly assumptions and stereotypes about masculinity and femininity have caused unnecessary harms. Vulnerable neighbors—especially adolescents turbulently learning about bodies and relationships or sufferers of physical deficiencies and interpersonal traumas—fall prey as pawns to cultural forces advocating sexual license. And the sinful human nature does exploit sexuality and gender to assert one’s own pride and to abuse one another.
We have the obligation to exhibit courage. We also have the opportunity to extend compassion. The forgiveness, resurrection, and unconditional acceptance of our Savior Jesus relieves and heals our most profound brokennesses. Speaking God’s truth to oppose current transgender ideology as deception and immorality, and showing Christ’s love to uphold sex, gender, and identity as blessings from heaven, Lutherans For Life’s Board of Directors offers the following official position statement.
Transgenderism
WHEREAS, God created man in His image as male and female, with complementary vocations, especially with regard to marriage and procreation (Genesis 1:27, 2:18; Matthew 19:4); and
WHEREAS, God personally designs each person (Psalm 139:13; Jeremiah 1:5; Ephesians 2:10), bringing together a sperm and an egg of His choosing from father and mother and genetically selecting the sex of each at fertilization; and
WHEREAS, Sex refers to the configuration of the body for procreation as male or female, and gender refers to the carrying out of one’s vocations as male or female (with masculinity or femininity); and
WHEREAS, God connects gender directly to sex (Deuteronomy 22:5); and
WHEREAS, Gender dysphoria, which consists of significant and persistent tension between one’s sex and one’s sense of gender, may develop in response to relational trauma, disorders of sexual development, mental health impairments, and social pressures; and
WHEREAS, Trangenderism is a false and idolatrous belief system that insists that individuals determine their own identities in defiance of created reality and demands that others affirm this sinful pride (Genesis 3:5); and
WHEREAS, Neither hormones nor pharmaceuticals nor surgical mutilations change the biological sex our Almighty Maker gives from the moment of fertilization (1 Corinthians 6:19-20); and
WHEREAS, Reliable research concerning “gender-affirming care,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and reassignment surgeries, remains lacking; no studies currently and conclusively demonstrate achievement of desired “benefits;” and the repercussions of these measures are serious, life-threatening, and often irreversible (including infertility, cardiovascular disease, emotional distress, and increased risk of suicide or other self-destructive behavior); and
WHEREAS, For most young persons who experience gender dysphoria, it resolves as they continue development into adulthood, and their sense of gender corresponds to their sex; and
WHEREAS, We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), including with reference to sexuality and gender, and even within the realm of heterosexuality; and
WHEREAS, Our Savior Jesus Christ was crucified and resurrected to atone for, forgive, rescue, redeem, and relieve all the weaknesses of the flesh, including gender dysphoria and other sexual deviance, and God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4); therefore be it
RESOLVED, That Lutherans For Life affirms that one’s sex and its corresponding gender are given by God from the moment of fertilization as one of the blessings of abundant life; and be it further
RESOLVED, That Lutherans For Life opposes hormonal and surgical manipulations intended to change one’s sex or gender, while affirming that neighbors suffering gender dysphoria need appropriate spiritual and psychological care to help them to appreciate their bodies and lives as God’s gifts to them; and be it further
RESOLVED, That Lutherans For Life advocates for research into possible medical or psychiatric etiologies of gender dysphoria, with the goal of appropriate therapies to treat any underlying causative conditions; and be it further
RESOLVED, That as Gospel-motivated voices For Life, Lutherans For Life takes these positions out of love and strongly condemns hatred and physical violence toward these individuals; and be it further
RESOLVED, That Lutherans For Life affirms that neighbors experiencing gender dysphoria, along with advocates of transgenderism and the rest of humankind, are sinful creatures to whom God extends grace through Jesus Christ, that God’s forgiveness is for them, and that they may avail themselves of this Holy Absolution; and be it further
RESOLVED, That even under pressure from the devil, the world, and the sinful nature, Lutherans For Life affirms that “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
Adopted 20 February, AD 2024