Gender and Gnosticism

The early Church had to deal with philosophies that did not line up with Scripture. For instance, to address the Gnostic view, separating soul from body, Paul describes us as a holistic being, comprised of a spirit, soul, and body, according to 1st Thessalonians 5, which says:
21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
22 Abstain from every form of evil.
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

People are struggling these days with being in the "wrong" body - so, they attempt to change their look or even try to change their biology.  People claim to have been "assigned" a gender at birth, even though their biology tells a different story.  We are made in the image of God, with a spirit that longs to be with Christ, a soul that can be brought into submission to the will of God, and a body which has been created in order to please God.  When these areas are in line, in obedience to Maker, we can experience the contentment He wants to bring us.

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In 1st Timothy 6, Paul issues a stern word of warning, which is applicable to our world and the Church today - he writes:
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge--
21 by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.

"I don’t know anybody like me..." Those are some of the opening words of an article at The Tennessean about someone who appears to be a biological male, but who identifies as female and "uses gender-neutral pronouns."

In fact, the writer of the article, rather than use biological reference, falls into the journalistic trap of using pronouns describing "him" as "they;" for instance, it says: "Yet, it was only recently when Henderson-Espinoza, 45, got to know their self better..."

The article goes on to say that Robyn Henderson-Espinoza...

...an ordained Baptist minister who has a Ph.D in philosophy — knew for many years they were transgender, but didn't explore what that meant to them until 2017 when they moved to Nashville from California. Henderson-Espinoza found a Vanderbilt physician who is overseeing Henderson-Espinoza's hormone therapy.

The article's first sentence says, "Robyn Henderson-Espinoza is the only Nashville-based transqueer Latinx neurodivergent public theologian that they know." And, "Robyn" is on the autism spectrum, so he claims that, "It never occurred to me that my brain worked differently," adding, "I realized that my socialization in the church and academy had been through neuronormative people who didn’t understand my body or my mind and had curated such a disconnection from my body!”

Henderson-Espinoza says, "We can’t shift the future in the direction we want it to go without first shifting our cultural understandings of bodies."  In a ReligionNews.com article, he is quoted as saying, "I want to wake up each morning in a body that I know, but even that is up in the air as I imagine what kind of body I long to have..."  He also says, "It’s important for me as a trans person, as Latinx, to take place and to bear witness, that even someone like me can follow the ways of Jesus and maybe imagine another possible world."  It sounds to me that the Robyn Henderson-Espinoza is saying that his spirit, or soul, is in the wrong body.  But, he also seems to derive his identity by his outward appearance, demonstrated by the body in which he lives. I don't think you can have it both ways.

Henderson-Espinoza admittedly is someone who exhibits a deep-seated confusion and has a toxic mix of unbiblical ideas at play.  He is also someone, like all of us, who is in desperate need of a Savior.  People who are not satisfied with whom God made them to be are searching to change, to the extent that they attempt to make their bodies conform with whom they believe that they really.

This body-soul separation is nothing new - in the days of the New Testament, it had a name: gnosticism.  Ryan Anderson, writing at the Heritage Foundation website, said, referring to "transgender activists:"

On the one hand, they claim that the real self is something other than the physical body, in a new form of Gnostic dualism, yet at the same time they embrace a materialist philosophy in which only the material world exists. They say that gender is purely a social construct, while asserting that a person can be “trapped” in the wrong gender.

They say there are no meaningful differences between man and woman, yet they rely on rigid sex stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real, while human embodiment is not. They claim that truth is whatever a person says it is, yet they believe there’s a real self to be discovered inside that person.

They promote a radical expressive individualism in which people are free to do whatever they want and define the truth however they wish, yet they try ruthlessly to enforce acceptance of transgender ideology.

Dr. Andre Van Mol, who has served with the American College of Pediatricians and Christian Medical and Dental Associations, wrote at the Public Discourse website:

Gender dysphoria is a serious mental health issue with an enormous rate of desistance. But transgenderism is a belief system that increasingly looks like a cultish religion—a modern day Gnosticism denying physical reality for deceived perceptions—being forced on the public by the state in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Children are being railroaded into treatment protocols lacking proven long-term track records of safety and efficacy. Transgender ideology is an intolerant creed, and its dogmas demand the sacrifice not only of conscience rights but also of desperately needed care for dysphoric children and adults.

According to a piece at BibleStudyTools.com: "The germ of Gnosticism in the Christian church made its appearance in the apostolic age, and is referred to by Paul in several of his epistles, notably in that to the Colossians and in the Pastoral Epistles. It is also referred to by the apostles Peter and Jude; references to it are found, besides, in the Apocalypse, the First Epistle of John and the Gospel of John."

The article points out that in 1st Timothy 6:20, "Paul warns Timothy against 'the gnosis, which is falsely so called...'" It states, "...its leaven was actually working, as will immediately be seen, and constituted a most serious peril in the apostolic church."  Jesus taught about recognizing the leaven that corrupts.  We have to be aware of departures from Scripture in our midst and hold to Biblical views regarding our Creator and who He has created us to be.