ETS, Biola, and Transgender Identity
A Biblical Response to Andy Draycott's Proposed Theology
The Purpose for this Post
In 2018, there was an explosion of conversation around trans-identity and its compatibility with the Bible. The following is a lengthy analysis of Andy Draycott’s 2017 and 2018 attempt at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) to reconcile transgenderism with Scripture. My analysis includes audio from both of Draycott’s ETS talks along with commentary from Nancy Pearcey, Lydia McGrew, Sean McDowell, Preston Sprinkle, Colin Smothers, Scott Rae, and Denny Burk.
There are several reasons why this post remains relevant six years later.
First, Draycott is currently a full professor of theology at Biola University. In 2015, he was given the Provost Faculty Award for Excellence in Biblical Integration. Parents need to be aware that his views on gender are shaping the minds of incoming Freshmen. Draycott’s official bio reinforces his continued interest in gender studies. His full bio reads as follows:
Andy Draycott regularly teaches an undergraduate theology course focusing on how the Holy Spirit constitutes the salvation of Christians as a Church awaiting Jesus's return. He is deeply invested in the interdisciplinary integration of faith and learning, always seeking a diversity of voices, texts, and material expressions of evangelical theology to encourage students in their learning. He has worked or taught on issues as varied as evangelical social action in Brazil, theology of immigration, church and disability, and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His present research focuses on the theological, spiritual, literary and cultural legacy of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. He is at various stages of research looking at contemporary American reception of The Pilgrim's Progress on the internet, in bible studies, in graphic novels, in missionary outreach, in relation to gender, and race, in popular music, in online sermons, and in homeschooling curricula.
Second, my 2018 analysis of Draycott’s work has value because progressive Christians continue to argue that transgenderism is compatible with Scripture. The language has evolved so awareness of this history is critical.
Finally, many of the posts from 2018 including the official Biola response to Draycott’s advocacy have been scrubbed from the internet as some Christians try to hide their views from the public. At the time, I made multiple attempts to speak with Draycott and get my questions answered, but he refused to speak publicly. Consequently, this post serves as a faithful archive of what Draycott taught publicly in 2017, repeated in 2018, and still may be taught in some fashion today.
Given the contentious nature of this topic, I decided to restrict comments to my paid subscribers who are interested in a thoughtful debate without interference from the internet trolls.
Helpful Resources
Before you dive into the controversy, here’s a couple resources of my own that offer a way for Christians to engage on this issue while remaining faithful to the Bible.
Original Post On Nov. 30, 2018
I didn’t make the 2018 national ETS in Denver, but it did not take long for news of Andy Draycott’s talk to make the headlines from those who did make the trip. Draycott was (and still is) Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University (where I graduated with my Doctor of Ministry degree in 2011). As a professor at a university with a strong record of faithfulness to Scripture and apologetics, Draycott’s talk,“Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian,” takes on great significance.
Colin Smothers’ Summary
The first summary I read (which was for a time removed and has since been restored) was from Colin Smothers who wrote:
The paper argues for the legitimacy of transgender identities. It appeared in an “Evangelicals and Gender” section, which means that the paper was vetted by committee members before being accepted into the program. Every member of the steering committee except one is a contributor to an evangelical feminist group called Christians for Biblical Equality. This raises the question: does CBE now accept the legitimacy of transgender identities? In addition to this session, there is at least one article that suggests it might.
Andy Draycott, Associate Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, delivered the paper to a crowd of maybe thirty or forty. Draycott set out his thesis at the beginning of his paper in answer to the question, “Should we consider ‘transgender Christians’ as having a good self-understanding?” His answer was an unqualified yes, that “transgender Christians” do have a good self-understanding when they perceive themselves to be gendered opposite their biological sex.
Draycott suggested four analogies from Christian theology to help the church process and even support transgender people through their transition as they “wal[k] across gender in the Spirit”: (1) Adoption, (2) Baptism, (3) Gifts, and (4) Disability.
Draycott’s Apology
After reading Smothers’ summary, I was concerned about the direction Biola was heading with its ethics department. I contacted them via Twitter, and they shared with me Draycott’s public apology (this was not posted long and was removed in 2019), which, in part, read:
In the light of reports on my presentation at ETS in Denver, I wish to publicly apologize for the lack of clarity with which I expressed my thinking. It was irresponsible and a failure of duty to my audience this year, when discussing a contentious issue, not to clearly state my assumptions at the beginning of my presentation and not to be more clear in the development of my presentation. Many of those assumptions were explored in a paper at ETS in Providence in 2017, which I only obliquely alluded to, compounding my lack of clarity.
Drayton concludes his statement:
I continue to affirm each and every Article of Faith and Theological Distinctive that I have affirmed annually at Biola since my hiring nearly ten years ago. Throughout my project I have leant on:
The gender complementarity of human persons, created in the image of God, male and female.
A thorough-going account of the fall and human sin, such that fallenness could affect the very integrity of gender/sex harmony in the human person
The goodness of the human body, as demonstrated in creation and supremely in the Son’s incarnation and Jesus’ physical resurrection, promising those who are found in him on the last day their own resurrection bodies, which I affirm to be gendered/sexed bodies.
I invited critical feedback at ETS and I am grateful to many conversation partners, including Colin Smothers, for critiquing my presentation as that is the purpose of academic conferencing. I am very grateful for colleagues at Talbot/Biola, and an ETS context, where truth in prayerful submission to God and Scripture is continually sought. I regret that Biola and Talbot’s biblical integrity has been questioned because of my missteps.
I never had the opportunity to talk with Draycott in my time at Biola, so I want to accept his statement that his paper was simply poorly written. That said, I am not convinced the apology will end this discussion.
Denny Burk’s Response
The following response to Draycott’s talk by Denny Burk who seems to have also heard Draycott’s presentation first hand writes:
We are still seeing more presentations from ETS members that affirm LGBT identities. I noted as much three years ago in the immediate aftermath of Obergefell when ETS members expressed support for gay marriage during a particular session. Until this last meeting, I had not seen an ETS member advocate for transgender identities, but that has all changed now. Andy Draycott (a professor at Biola University) presented a paper titled “Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian.” Draycott not only argued in favor of transgender identities, he also argued that the symbolism of baptism supports such shifts in personal identity.
Lydia McGrew’s Response
Lydia McGrew who describes herself as “widely published analytic philosopher, home schooling mother, blogger, and the wife of philosopher and apologist Timothy McGrew,” has read the transcript of Draycott’s talk and the apology and presents some important questions that have yet to be answered. McGrew concludes:
I say unequivocally that no Christian theologian should be “exploring” such ideas. Moreover, Draycott’s speculations contain nothing that amounts to a biblical argument, the abuse of Scripture is simply shocking, and the postmodern babble is frequent.
To back up her point, she quotes from Draycott’s talk directly and his statement that Catholic theologians are “ahead” of protestants in accepting transgender identity:
Catholic theologians are ahead. This is just invariably the case for a lot of these matters. And there is some careful Catholic thinking about transgender issues, gender reassignment surgery, even the gender of the soul (a sex of the soul that is tied into commitments to a Catholic metaphysics that don’t particularly bind me but I find interesting and I could refer you to some of those papers later if necessary). The question that motivates my research is this: Should the transgender Christian, who understands themselves to be gendered in opposition to their physiological, biological sex be understood to be to have a good understanding of themselves? Or is that necessarily ruled out?
I want to explore the possibility that it could be valid self-understanding. To do that of course, I need to consult the words and experiences of those who do identify as Christian and transgender….So I want to explore some of the ways in which a life in the spirit, as mapped by our account of the church, is intimated in scripture in relation to the conversation around transgender.
One of Draycott’s analogies is that Baptism serves as an analogy for how Christians can accept transgender identity:
Baptism, I think, certainly does too in as much as baptism points us to our death in Christ and being raised to walk in newness of life. That’s what I think very poignantly seems a transgender Christian is invited into is a recognition of a death. A death of a life that they have sought, perhaps unsuccessfully, to sustain identifying and complying to the requirements of their sex identity from birth, to now live out a life in the spirit that it recognizes who they are, I might say, “soul-ishly.”
I did a kind of anthropological construction of what this might look like last year. I’m not going over that. But Rachel Mann is instructive on this issue. Rachel mann, she identifies her natal name. She’s a priest in the Church of England – Make of that what you will – She recognizes in her memoir that what she does as she transitions from male to female is kill that boy, that young man. And irrespective of that kind of being a personal, individual account. It’s clear that there is a death or dying reality that is pointed to in that taking up of the gender identity as one’s own identity before Christ in the life of the church….It might be that of course self-conception is a self-recognition of self-understanding. In which case it might be that as a transgender Christian I am called to live out my baptism by dying to that old conformity to self and living in newness without the church being desperately concerned about my genitalia. The church after all is called not to be concerned about my genitalia by setting aside circumcision. And baptism, precisely as a unisex marker of belonging that is not circumcision, means that the first question I ask of my fellow believers I worship with is not about the genitalia. And that’s going to be the case as anyone who is transgender wants to [and] desires to worship alongside me as members of the same body of Christ. I think baptism is suggestive for us here.
I can’t say I know what to make of all this yet, but for now I will take my lead from Collin Smothers who, in response to the official Biola apology, has written, “We are grateful for Dr. Draycott’s humility and collegial spirit, and we give thanks to God that “iron sharpens iron” in engagements like this one.” I will be continue to follow this with great interest to see where it leads.
Update on Dec. 1, 2018
I am still looking into the transcript of Draycott’s ETS presentation and hope to post something soon that reconciles his apology with the substance of what he originally presented.
Preston Sprinkle, Sean McDowell, and Scott Rae Respond
While I contemplate Draycott’s message on “Walking across Gender in the Spirit?,” I think it is important to note that I applaud Biola’s efforts to approach this issue with a biblically sound pastoral response. To help readers unfamiliar with the details of this important cultural discussion, I have selected a few bits from the podcast “Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture.” which included these three men:
Co-Host: Scott Rae is professor of Christian ethics and dean of the faculty at Talbot School of Theology.
Co-Host: Sean McDowell is an associate professor of Christian apologetics at Talbot School of Theology.
Guest: Preston Sprinkle who wrote People to Be Loved and a man McDowell describes as committed “to Scripture and theology, but also to loving people.”
Below I have selected just a few salient excerpts which give context to the ongoing discussion about Draycott’s paper. This first bit helps define what the term “transgender” means:
Sean McDowell: Preston, I want to ask you for a biblical view of how we should think about transgender, but first let me ask you one other distinction, just to see what you make of this. Some people make a distinction between transgender as a psychological condition that individuals experience, and transgenderism, which would be more of a political agenda tied to say, bathroom bills or education. Do you accept this distinction? How do you process when you hear that?
Preston Sprinkle: I think that’s a very helpful distinction. Obviously there’s going to be overlap so that the individual person who has a psychological condition may also be more of an activist and pushing for wider acceptance of a particular ideology, so there’s going to be some overlap there but man, yeah I often tell people there is what I would consider a very unhelpful, unChristian, and I would say even destructive ideology that is promoted and pushed by, I would … I mean I don’t have the stats on it, but I would say a minority, a loud minority of people who would identify as transgender; or even straight allies or cisgender allies who are also trying to promote a transgender ideology.
I agree with McDowell that in this discussion we must be careful to distinguish the experience of those who identify as transgender versus the political movement of transgenderism which does not represent all the people who experience transgender feelings. This second clip is important as it demonstrates the key idea that our theology must have a pastoral component. Our biblical theology of sex and gender must be shared in love toward the very real people facing a conflict between their biology and mind.
Sean McDowell: That’s a wonderful balance between the cultural issues and the pastoral approach Christians are called to take. So, let’s take a step back. Give us some biblical principles or teachings that help us understand the issue of gender that would relate to transgender.
Preston Sprinkle: Good, good. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff we can talk about here. The main thing I want to say is the Bible does present humanity as what I would call a sexual binary. There are male and there are female, there are males and females. Of course, there’s going to be, if you have any sort of view of the fall — or even if you don’t like the term fall, the fall — there’s some sense that things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be as one writer puts it, and any human is going to say, yeah things are kind of messy and people are born with different abnormalities and there’s … people are born with missing limbs, desires that are out of whack, so yes, things are … just because you’re born, doesn’t mean everything that you’re born with is exactly the way God sort of intended you.
Sprinkle goes on to conclude his answer with this thought:
Preston Sprinkle: So, as far as the Bible’s concerned, you’re born male, you’re born female, and of course through the fall, maybe there would be some people who would have a mental disconnect or some incongruence between their psychological identity and their biological sex, and that’s where the pastoral moment needs to come in. How do we walk with somebody who is experiencing that particular [inaudible 00:18:29] of the fall.
Scott Rae: Preston, if that’s true, about what the Bible teaches, and I think that’s pretty clear from Genesis 1 and 2 and about … I like the point you make that there aren’t really categories in Scripture for the kind of gender fluidity that is so popular in the culture today. What do you do pastorally with a high school or a college student who is wrestling with gender dysphoria and just feels out of place in their body?
Preston Sprinkle: That is the million dollar question, and I would say, this discussion is really new to society, and very new to the church, so we’re really … there’s no proven right answer to that that has been widely accepted and tested. We’re at the cusp of figuring that out. I would say this. Statistically, according to all of the scientific studies, there’s 11 main ones that I’ve seen, that trace gender dysphoria in children into adulthood, anywhere from 50 to 85 percent of children who experience some level of cross gender behavior, cross gender identity, or interests, mannerisms, whatever, 60 to 85 percent end up identifying with their biological sex by the time they’re 25. In fact, we now know from [inaudible 00:19:52], he can, hopefully he can change [inaudible 00:20:00] mind. Our brains aren’t actually fully developed before we’re 25, ’til then we’re searching for identity, we’re searching for who we are, there’s a lot of fluidity from both preadolescent and adolescent state….
Another thing that I’ve seen that is often helpful, is oftentimes the dysphoria, or the disconnect or the incongruence can be shaped by cultural stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. This is where there’s a really good psychologist, Leonard Sax. Leonard Sax has written a lot on this. His recent book called Why Gender Matters. He talks about these … the pressures of these stereotypes, and how for instance if you have a teenager who just doesn’t … a teenage boy who doesn’t, isn’t interested in sports. Maybe they’re interested in art or music or poetry and they’re kind of, they’re kind of being treated by other people as being less masculine, less of a boy, that can create a lot of confusion.
What Leonard Sax says, and I think he’s right is if you can expose that person to different types of boys that don’t all just flow from the stereotype, that can actually help him realize that there’s different ways of being masculine, different ways of being a boy. Just because you don’t match up to these cultural stereotypes doesn’t meant that you’re transgender, or that you’re a gender different from your biological sex. So, breaking down stereotypes I think has been incredibly helpful for a lot of people….
Those would be some kind of basic things. I will say transitioning medically, from the Christian perspective, I can’t justify that, but even from a scientific perspective, it has not been shown to sort of solve all the problems. People still experience depression, anxiety, they still can experience gender dysphoria, five, ten years after they’ve medically transitioned, and there is a growing number of people who are now de-transitioning, because they’re like, I just didn’t, it didn’t work like I thought it would work. Now, I’m not saying in every case, that happens, but it is not, that is not the sort of magic answer to gender dysphoria, even from a secular perspective.
Here again, I agree with Sprinkle in making these very important distinctions between what the culture says defines sexuality versus what the Bibles says makes men and women unique. Many young people struggle with the cultural definition of what it means to be male and female (e.g. men must be tough breadwinners and women must be demure and wear pink dresses). However, what seems clear to me is that the folks at Biola are working to refine the understanding of sex based on a clear biblical distinction of male and female as designed by God. Finally, the guys deal with one very controversial issue… the use of gender preferred pronouns.
Sean McDowell: That does make sense in terms of the content and the spirit in which you say it. Let me ask you a final question, which is kind of the elephant in the room. Should Christians use the proper pronoun for someone who is transgender? What principles or guidance would you give us even approaching that issue?
Preston Sprinkle: Oh, yeah, I’m looking into this a lot right now. I would say use the pronouns of somebody’s choice. I would say that. Let me put it the other way. If you want to immediately cut off a relationship with somebody, which is ending all opportunity to embody and share Jesus with the person, then don’t use the pronouns they want you to use. It is an immediate relational killer. And you know what, you have an interesting passage in Acts 16, where Paul refers to the gods of the Athenians, remember he’s preaching on Mars Hill, and he talks about, hey you have this unknown god, and he’s quoting these Greek pagan poets, and he actually uses pronouns to refer to gods that don’t even exist. It’s almost like he talks in such a way that almost gives the impression that these fake gods actually exist. Like, you worship that god, and this god, and the poet said talks about Zeus, and he does this and he does that.
He’s not affirming the existence of those gods when he’s using their pronouns, he’s simply meeting them where they’re at and attempts to build a bridge. I think that’s the direction we should head pastorally. It’s meeting somebody where they’re at, so that we can build a relationship to hopefully help walk with them toward where God wants them to be.
Here, I happen to agree with Sprinkle’s controversial conclusion about using gender pronouns and I have discussed this very thing in my Ethics courses. When building a Gospel-relationship with individuals who experience transgender feelings, I have no problem using their gender pronoun of choice. Do I want the government to punish people who don’t share that conviction? No. But as a free choice, I have no problem addressing people on their own terms. Even if I disagree with their viewpoint, I still want to (as much as possible) respect their human-sacredness so I can keep the conversation moving toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Now, back to Draycott’s paper and ensuing apology. Since McDowell and Rae are Draycott’s colleagues at Biola, one must wonder, was his paper reviewed by either of these men before he presented? How much of the dialogue here served as a backdrop for Draycott or does he have his own distinctive transgender theology?
Update on Dec. 2, 2018: A Summary of Draycott’s Talk
I spent some time yesterday listening to and reading a transcript of Draycott’s talk, “Walking across Gender in the Spirit? The Vocation of the Church and the Transgender Christian.” I still hope to talk with him this week, but in the meantime I wanted to present a summary of what he argues in his ETS presentation.
Summary of Draycott’s Theology
Draycott begins his talk by affirming he does not himself identify as transgender so his presentation is made “with some trepidation” as he does not want to offend those who are transgender by speaking out on this issue. He spends some time detailing all the things he will not address:
Sexuality
The impact on raising children or medical procedures related to children.
Marriage (although he does say Oliver O’Donovan has taught him much on this topic)
Transition surgery
Cross-dressing
Sports
Bathrooms
Draycott’s concern in writing this paper is the Evangelicals rely too much on the doctrine of creation and too quickly dismiss the validity of the transgender experience. He is also concerned that Evangelicals use the doctrine of creation without proper consideration of how eschatology can help validate transgender identity.
While Roman Catholic theology is not binding, says Draycott, it is still far ahead of Evangelical scholarship in answering the key questions: “Should the transgender Christian, who understands themselves to be gendered in opposition to their physiological, biological sex be understood to be to have a good understanding of themselves? Or is that necessarily ruled out?”
The purpose of Draycott’s talk was, in his words, “to explore the possibility that it could be valid self-understanding.” Draycott recommends two books for their theological and biblical sophistication are Austen Hartkey’s, Transforming the Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. And Rachel Mann’s, Dazzling Darkness: Gender, Sexuality, Illness, and God. A book from the Evangelical realm Draycott recommends is Mark Yarhouse’s, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture. Particularly, Draycott likes this book because it offers a disability paradigm which is better for understanding transgender ID over and against the created male and female paradigm (more on this analogy below).
Draycott is concerned that the church has not allowed those who experience transgender feelings into fellowship where they can help bring genuine unity. He concludes:
That’s going to be case particularly relation to the fact that we understand that the church is a body into which we incorporated by the spirit. We might say the church is the body Whose members in Christ are given to each other. We are re-membered as we are made members one of another as Romans 12:5 tells us by the Spirit’s grace for ministry of worship and mission. And that’s gonna be the case if I understand myself to experience gender dysphoria, to be a transgender Christian, as it is any other Christian.
Draycott seeks to resolve this problem by offering four analogies: adoption as sons of God, Baptism (alongside circumcision), spiritual gifts, and disability.
Adoption
Catholic theologian, David Albert Jones inspired Draycott as an important way to help us rethink transgenderism. Our adoption is a rejection of biological connections. Adoption is a legal identity that is independent of biology. Adoption shows us “a way of belonging apart from the biological fruits in parenting.” Therefore, if the church can live together in adoption which exists apart from our biological identity, we should be able to accept the transgender ID which also exists distinct from biological identity. For a person who comes to a transgender identity later in life, Draycott believes Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians to either live in singleness or get divorced provide a healthy pastoral response.
Baptism
Although Draycott does not define weather he means Baptism in the Spirit or Baptism in water, he states that baptism points to our death and resurrection in Christ which is an invitation to the transgender Christian. Draycott says, “That’s what I think very poignantly seems a transgender Christian is invited into is a recognition of a death. A death of a life that they have sought, perhaps unsuccessfully, to sustain identifying and complying to the requirements of their sex identity from birth, to now live out a life in the spirit that it recognizes who they are, I might say, ‘soul-ishly.’” He cites the example of Rachel Mann who in transitioning from male to female had to “kill that young man” to take on their new gender identity given by Christ for their new life in the church.
Whereas the Nashville statement wrongly interpreted the phrase “self-conception” in transgenderism to mean “I create an identity for myself that’s contrary to who I actually am.” But, Draycott thinks the better way to think of transgender “self-conception” is as follows:
It might be that of course self-conception is a self-recognition of self-understanding. In which case it might be that as a transgender Christian I am called to live out my baptism by dying to that old conformity to self and living in newness without the church being desperately concerned about my genitalia. The church after all is called not to be concerned about my genitalia by setting aside circumcision. And baptism, precisely as a unisex marker of belonging that is not circumcision, means that the first question I ask of my fellow believers I worship with is not about the genitalia. And that’s going to be the case as anyone who is transgender wants to [and] desires to worship alongside me as members of the same body of Christ. I think baptism is suggestive for us here.
Gifts
Draycott believes that when the Spirit indwells Christians the “gifts” he gives are not the manifestations one thinks of in the biblical lists, but we (the individual Christian” become the gifts God gives to one another. The church must therefore be willing to accept the gift of transgendered people and a refusal to accept them as gifts is a rejection of what it means to be the church. “So that the reason to welcome transgender Christians,” says Draycott, “may well be to prophetically challenge their testimony and prophecy before us. But that’s precisely what the church is called to do. We won’t do that by barring entry.”
Disability
Draycott says it is wrong to think transgenderism is analogous to an eating disorder where the person has a wrong conception of their body image. The problem i that Evangelicals get too fixated on interpreting the body of the transgendered person which forces them to oppose the validity transgenderism. Draycott is comforted that David Jones backs up his own understanding that identifying as the gender opposite biological sex is not a self-destructive disability like an eating disorder. In fact, if we see it this way, the church could become “the place whereby that transition could be healthy. And that would be a challenge for us.”
Transgender ID is not a mistake made by God. Rather, “it is possible to be as a body-soul at unity of the human person to be disordered in relation to one’s body, in one’s soul, and that not to be God’s fault.” The person may not be able to fit into the conception of male and female in creation, but they can have an eschatological hope that in the future God will give them a new body in line with their preferred gender identity. Gender dysphoric or transgender Christians are not denying male and female, they are just not yet aligned with the true identity God has for them in the resurrection body. Draycott concludes, “If the body is good. And we are given the body such as to live out our gifts, our dying to self through our baptism or adoption into Christ family, then the body I think that is most important for us to focus is the body of the church, not the medicalized body of the individual believer.” The ultimate goal here is just to worship together.
I think that would allow transgender Christians to get beyond what they, at least in Austin Hartkey’s terms, want to get beyond, which is an apologetic for their existence. To allow us into worshipping spaces together. To pursue what it means to be Christian disciples loving one another in the frailties, the complexities, and even the tragedies of our bodily life. And by bodily, I mean our communal life as the church and then our body the lives in our individualized senses.
Questions Remain
Even with Draycott’s apology, the talk leaves unanswered quite a few questions about his exegesis and application. So what questions does this raise for you? If I get the chance to speak with Draycott, what questions should I ask?
Update on Dec. 3, 2018: Analysis of Draycott’s Talk
I was pleased to get some positive feedback on Twitter from Professor Nancy Pearcey on the what I have written above about Draycott’s talk.
Joe, thanks for your careful treatment. This phrase is revealing: “The church is called not to be concerned about my genitalia”–which means, why care about the body? But the question is not just about one small part of the body. Every cell has a sex. https://t.co/0wEjPaNWqP
— LOVE THY BODY (@NancyRPearcey) December 3, 2018
Draycott Hides Behind the Biola PR Department
I was hoping to advance the positive discussion today by talking to Draycott, but the number given to me by the Biola representative was to their marketing department. It appears they consider any outstanding questions about Draycott’s talk to be matters of marketing and PR, and not theological in nature. I can only hope that is not the attitude shared by others. I did eventually leave a voicemail for Draycott and sent him a follow-up email… we’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, I wanted to share a very brief analysis on the talk I summarized yesterday. This should give a small insight into why I still have questions that are left unanswered by the official apology and affirmation made by Draycott.
The Presentation Style & Structure
While maybe not the most important thing to discuss, after listening to Draycott’s talk I do think it is helpful to make some observations about the presentation style and structure which are mentioned in the apology.
The Official Biola Apology
In the light of reports on my presentation at ETS in Denver, I wish to publicly apologize for the lack of clarity with which I expressed my thinking. It was irresponsible and a failure of duty to my audience this year, when discussing a contentious issue, not to clearly state my assumptions at the beginning of my presentation and not to be more clear in the development of my presentation.
After reading the transcript alongside the audio, I agree with Draycott that his presentation was poorly done. It is often rambling and disjointed and I found it difficult to follow his thinking at several places. I was a bit taken aback by all the “umms” and “ahhs” that are usually not a part of someone reading a paper at ETS. My guess is that Draycott did not actually have a written paper, but was simply “thinking out loud” through a series of prompts on notecards. This lack of preparation could have certainly lent to some of the confusion to those listening. Take for example the following quotes:
If we consider well what are the fruit of the Spirit for the transgender Christian, of course the answer is the same as for every other Christian. We might say that life in the spirit very much challenges ways in which gendered lives might be orchestrated in other ways.
and
That scripture encourages us relativize the claims of overly strong and stringent and gender differences that might be more culturally among us for the sake of our unity in worship.
His response to one of the post-talk questions about how he interprets Romans 12 is almost incomprehensible:
Thank you. So, yea. So, offer your body as worship and the renewing of your mind. So Cartesian dualist accounts of humans are problematic. And many who write on issues of gender sexuality, in particular the transgender experience, are desperately keen to not buy into a “I’m a mind floating in a body and the body is wrong.” They don’t want to do that kind of simplistic anthropology. I think that where the mind, if indeed pointing to consciousness right, the seat of who I am, and my identity as that’s lived out through time irrespective of what’s going on with my body, and then that give me a body-soul unity at least for from my anthropology. Such that, as I’m being renewed in my soul, in my mind, my body is living that out. So, it’s very clear to me that one of the dangers the Corinthians and maybe falling into is neglecting to care about what their bodies are doing, just so much as they think they are experiencing in the spirit certain gifts. Whereas I think the correction is, for the Romans the Corinthians, is that bodies are essential for worship, and while some ways of rending the transgender experiences over the body is just a play thing that you can do what you want with—and that’s what trans-human thing—and that’s around and that might be going on but at least as Yarhouse reports transgender Christian experiences, they’re not wanting to make the body just a tool for a kind of enhancement or change just for fascination. And so, I want to say that there’s important reasons why we want to respect our body-soul unity and not think that just because something’s going on in my mind therefore I can do to my body whatever I will. That’s precisely, I think, why the reason of pursuing questions is transgender in the inclusive community of the church to discern is the better place to do the thinking rather than saying “Well we’re the church and you’re the people who are outside and we’re not sure about you.” Particularly if they are desiring to follow Jesus Christ. Thank you for the question.
I am truly surprised at the lack of clarity and refinement at a national ETS conference proceeding. I would expect more form a Biola professor and from ETS in their vetting process.
Putting aside the confused nature of the presentation, the more significant challenge of the apology is that it does not substantially address all of the issues raised in Draycott’s presentation.
Created Male and Female
Many were pleased (and rightly so) that Draycott’s apology affirmed the goodness of God’s created order (humans as male and female). While I appreciate the need to affirm this, I never thought Draycott’s ETS talk in favor of accepting transgender ID was a denial of the created order… and least not how he defined it.. Let’s compare these two things:
Quotes from the apology
Dr. Draycott unequivocally affirms that God has created humans as male and female and that gender dysphoria and transgender identification is a manifestation of human fallenness.
and again
I assume, but was not clear in explicitly affirming, the plain Scriptural teaching on the goodness of created humans as male or female.
My thoughts
These affirmation of orthodox theology are not, in my reading, violated in Draycott’s talk. However, what is also clear from the talk is that Draycott believes the physical body may reflect the fallen part of nature and thus, he argues, the psychological state of the person should be considered as the true self.
Transgender ID
The apology affirms Draycott’s view that transgender ID is not a “good” thing.
Quotes from the apology
Transgender identity is not a good. It was not my intention to, and I do not, advocate for transgenderism or transgender identity.
Quotes from the paper
This relates only tangentially what is argued in the paper.
I wonder if the church would provide the place whereby that transition could be healthy.
And
Should the transgender Christian, who understands themselves to be gendered in opposition to their physiological, biological sex be understood to be to have a good understanding of themselves?… I want to explore the possibility that it could be valid self-understanding.
My thoughts
The talk, as I understand it, never denied male and female, nor did Draycott argue that Transgenderism is a “good.” So, this theological affirmation does not really address the substance of Draycott’s argument which was that transgender ID is a result of a fallen biology that will be reconciled in the resurrection. Draycott never argued that transgenderism was “good” but rather it was a reflection of a corrupt biology which would someday be corrected by God who would assign a new body to match the the mental state.
Community of Reconciliation
The role of the church, and pastors, in learning to better love people who struggle with transgender ID is of clear importance to Draycott… and I would agree this should be a big concern for every Christian, every pastor, and every church.
Quotes from the apology
By speaking of Christians, I assume a life of discipleship in submission to Scripture whereby fallenness and sin is respectively acknowledged and repented of within the community of the church, with hope of bodily resurrection in Christ on the last day.
My thoughts
Again, this aligns fully with Draycott’s presentation. This does not necessarily change anything he argues for in his talk. The problem remains, how does Draycott defines discipleship and submission to Scripture? His argument in the talk is that the physical body may not be in line with God’s resurrection body and, therefore, the transgender feelings are the right reflection of the person’s true sexual identity. The apology still allows for this argument.
The Resurrection Body
This particular part of the apology is probably the most important as it does speak directly to what Draycott argued in his talk.
Quotes from the apology
The eschatological resolution of these phenomena would present the only way that a transgender identity might hope to be valid. This speculation informed the exploration in my presentation, but was not made explicit to my hearers, for which I apologize. By its nature this eschatological speculation is unverifiable. Recent conversations in response to these speculations show me that this train of thought was wrong. The entertaining of this speculation is at the root of every error that I subsequently committed. Where this speculative question fails, subsequent argument and analogy fail in tow.
which relates to this affirmation:
The goodness of the human body, as demonstrated in creation and supremely in the Son’s incarnation and Jesus’ physical resurrection, promising those who are found in him on the last day their own resurrection bodies, which I affirm to be gendered/sexed bodies.
Summary of my thoughts
This part of the apology is important is it directly rejects—as unfounded speculation—Draycott’s original premise that eschatology is the better foundation for defining sex and gender because God will “reassign” a person’s resurrection body to match the earthy mental gender. This is a positive step. However, the apology does not actually address Draycott’s exegetical method for reinterpreting the biblical analogies of water/Spirit baptism (alongside circumcision), adoption as sons of God, spiritual gifts, and disability.
I am still gathering questions from various sources (some of whom do not wish to go public with their concerns). I will continue to explore the possibility of an open dialogue with Draycott before I make those questions public. Meanwhile, please feel free to post or email me your own questions you think have yet to be addressed by Draycott and/or Biola.
Update on Dec. 10, 2018, A Summary of Draycott’s 2017 Talk
While I have yet to hear back from Draycott or anyone from Biola looking for a serious conversation, I decided to go back and review Draycott’s 2017 talk also given at ETS. His talk was titled, “Evangelical Ethics and Transgender: A Critical Exploration” and it sheds some light on Draycott theology which he developed over, at least, two years of study. This 2017 talk does not answer the questions still outstanding, but it does illustrate his 2018 talk was not “misunderstood” or “poorly framed” but was grounded in several years of study. You can listen here and decide for yourself.
Update on Jan. 4, 2019: 11 Unanswered Questions about Draycott’s New Transgender Theology
It has been more than a month since I first contacted Biola and emailed Andy Draycott who initially said he wanted to engage in conversation about his new theology of transgenderism. It appears all parties are on lockdown and hoping the official apology issued by the University will end the controversy over Draycott’s ETS proposals. Since they chose to remain silent, I decided to post the 11 questions that remain unanswered.
Question #1
Dr. Draycott, what drove your interest in reconciling transgenderism with your Christian theology? Was it purely an academic exploration, or are there personal connections that drove you to this study?
Question #2
Dr. Draycott, how has your theology of transgenderism—since you began this research—entered into your classroom discussion over the past two years?
Question #3
Dr. Draycott, Biola has some of the leading apologists in the country who have spoken out on transgenderism. Given how quickly you abandoned your proposal for a new theology after the public became aware of your views in November 2018, should those of us looking at this from the outside assume that you never discussed your ETS talks from 2017 and 2018 with any of your colleagues?
Question #4
Dr. Draycott, in listening to your ETS talks from 2017 and 2018, I took your thesis to be that Evangelicals rely too much on the doctrine of creation (male and female) and consequently err in dismissing the validity of the transgender experience. You expressed concern that Evangelicals use the doctrine of creation without proper consideration of how eschatology can validate transgender identity. Do you still have these concerns that Evangelicals rely too much on creation theology to shape their view of sexual and gender ID?
Question #5
Dr. Draycott, your apology published by Biola affirms that God created two sexes: male and female. This appears to be more of a clarification than a change as both of your ETS talks make clear that transgender discussions already assume a binary sexuality. However your talks imply that a binary sexuality is not the only way to interpret non-biological gender. So, while you have consistently affirmed God created biological male and female, do you still leave open the possibility of more than two genders?
Question #6
Dr. Draycott, there was a lot of confusion about your arguments. In listening to both your talks it was clear that you never denied God created us male and female nor did you argue that Transgenderism was a “good” or healthy experience. Your argument was that transgender ID is a result of a fallen biology that will be reconciled in the resurrection by giving the person a body in line with their “spirit-affirmed” gender ID. Consequently, your Biola statement addressed some of the Evangelical outcry, but it did not directly address the substance of your argument. To that point, how has your view of “spirit-gender” in eschatology changed (if at all) since issuing your public apology?
Question #7
Dr. Draycott, the strongest part of your apology was this affirmation:
“The eschatological resolution of these phenomena would present the only way that a transgender identity might hope to be valid. This speculation informed the exploration in my presentation, but was not made explicit to my hearers, for which I apologize. By its nature this eschatological speculation is unverifiable. Recent conversations in response to these speculations show me that this train of thought was wrong. The entertaining of this speculation is at the root of every error that I subsequently committed. Where this speculative question fails, subsequent argument and analogy fail in tow.”
How does this fundamental shift in your theology reshape your exegesis of the biblical texts which you argued were analogous to transgenderism? Specifically, how has your admitted error changed your understanding of adoption, baptism, spiritual gifts, and disability.
Question #8
Dr. Draycott, in your ETS talks you suggest that Christian theology should take no consideration of genitalia in worship. This implies two things: first, that our biological sex has no significant part to play in God’s plan for living together as the church. Before looking at the second implication, let me ask, is this a fair characterization of what you intended to say and, if so, is this still what you believe now that you have revised your theology of gender and sex?
Question #9
Dr. Draycott, the second implication of your assertion that genitalia is of no importance in church life, is your assumption that sexual ID is determined solely by genitalia. However, as Dr. Paula Johnson argues in her TED Talk:
Every cell in the human body has a sex, which means that men and women are different right down to the cellular level. Yet too often, research and medicine ignore this insight — and the often startlingly different ways in which the two sexes respond to disease or treatment. As pioneering doctor Paula Johnson describes in this thought-provoking talk, lumping everyone in together means we essentially leave women’s health to chance. It’s time to rethink.
In addition, this new 2018 study show that biological sex is influenced by more than just genetic makeup, but by what was once thought to be “junk” DNA:
The sex of a baby is determined by its chromosome make-up at conception. An embryo with two X chromosomes will become a girl, while an embryo with an X-Y combination results in a boy.The Y chromosome carries a critical gene, called SRY, which acts on another gene called SOX9 to start the development of testes in the embryo. High levels of the SOX9 gene are needed for normal testis development. However, if there is some disruption to SOX9 activity and only low levels are present, a testis will not develop resulting in a baby with a disorder of sex development.… Importantly, we identified XX patients who would normally have ovaries and be female but carried extra copies of these enhancers, (high levels of SOX9) and instead developed testes. In addition, we found XY patients who had lost these SOX9 enhancers, (low levels of SOX9) and developed ovaries instead of testes.
In light of the best science, do you think your reductionist view of sex as just the genitalia has adversely influenced your now admitted confusion of transgenderism and the your view of the role of biological sex in church life?
Question #10
Dr. Draycott, how would you define transphobia? A word you use in your 2018 ETS talk, but never define? Do you consider transphobic anyone who accept the scientific and theological position that biological sex defines, and or limits, gender?
Question #11
Finally Dr. Draycott, Neither of your ETS presentations on transgenderism over the past two years addressed any of the practical ministerial issues that pastors might face. Given your new position, how would you as an ethicist advise a pastor to respond to a person enters the church identifying as a woman, is biologically male, and want to sleep with the women on a women’s retreat? How should pastors respond to this same person who wants to use the restroom they feel represents their gender ID? How should pastors respond to this same person who wants to disciple a group of teenage girls?
Summary of Draycott’s 2017 Talk
Draycott begins his presentation by asserting his purpose is offer an “imaginative exorcise.” I suppose this means his paper makes no effort at biblical exegesis or theological acumen, but the exact meaning is unclear. The questions Draycott is seeking to answer are these:
Can a female soul be born in a male body?”
Or, can a male soul be born in a female body?
And, if transgenderism is a result of the fall, then is it possible that the resurrection body given by God will align with the person’s soulish-gender rather than their birth-sex?
Finally, what would need to be the case for evangelical theologians to accept the transgender identification as a reflection to the gospel?
Draycott affirms that sex is not a “mythic construct” assigned by culture. God created male and female. Given this premise, transgenderism means the change from one sexual dimorphism (male to female or female to male) to another stable mental state of identity which is better than the biological sex “ascribed” at birth. Draycott hopes to build his case relying on Mark Yarhouse’s book Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture. His goal for the talk is to engage in reflection with compassion.
Standard Evangelical response
First, Draycott gives a summary of what he believes is the standard Evangelical position. The doctrine of marriage affirms male and female. Sexual embodiment and the goodness of sexual difference is affirmed even after the fall. Bodily resurrection affirms this because even Jesus’ was given a new male body after his resurrection. Thus, for the Evangelical, the goodness of sexed-embodiment is affirmed in both creation and the resurrection. Their theology assumes a unity between body and soul with the exception the intermediate state between death and resurrection where the soul awaits a new body. Based on these theological assumptions, Evangelical theologians see transgenderism as a choice of self-identity that denies the created good of sexual-embodiment and denies design of the biological states. Most important to Draycott’s theology is that Evangelicals wrongly assume that transgenderism is a rejection of the hope of restored identity in the eschaton where the body and mind are restored into a unified whole between biological-sex and soulish-gender.
Draycott’s Rebuttal to Evangelicals
In contrast to what Draycott calls, “ the rigidity of the Evangelical response,” he invokes Yarhouse’s disability framework as a way forward. Here, gender ID is not a moral failing or sin, but a result of a fallen world. The condition itself does not make a person morally culpable, but their actions may still bring moral consequence.
If God “knows me from my womb” and if there is continuity in my self-conception of gender identity then does God “know me” as male or female? Evangelicals who hold to sexual dimorphism would say yes. This affirmation, for the Evangelical, is more important than allowing the individual the ability to self-define their concept of gender. And while it is true that hormones may influence gender ID, outside of one’s biological sex it may be that the soul has its own gender.
The problem for the Evangelical scholar, says Draycott, is that if they deny the concept of soulish-gender, then sex is reductionist—purely biological. Draycott asserts that if sexual dimorphism (male and female) is assumed as a purely biological condition then it is meaningful only in marriage for the purpose of sexual satisfaction and procreation. However, outside of marriage male and female would have no meaning for human interaction (14:21). Minimally though because of the fall, Draycott says, one should still not be in a sexual relationship outside of one’s spouse. However, if marriage is only about the physical, this reductionist-Evangelical view eliminates the spiritual aspect of sexual union and so it might be better to recognize that gender is connected to the soul.
Robert Song, who assumes the soul is gendered, uses this line of thinking to conclude that any monogamous marriage relationship is of equal value regardless of biological sex. Draycott says, “we may not want to go this far.” But, if gender does not exist, then as long as men and women satisfy the purely utilitarian function of biological sex, then other actions such as cross-dressing to satisfy the immediate emotional need of ones soulish-gender ID may be an acceptable pastoral responses to gender dysphoria (17:00).
However, if soulish-gender is real, then Evangelicals might need to reconsider their theology. This would positively impact other male and female relationship outside of marriage. This leads to the idea that God “knows us” as both a sexed-body and gendered-soul. This translates to the eternal state of the soul which has a sexed-body. Thus the soul, after death, awaits its new resurrection body that will conform to the transgendered-person’s self-conception (19:47).
Gender expression for male and female in the NT defies cultural norms of aggression and sexual appetite. Therefore, just because transgenderism defies cultural norms, does not mean it is unbiblical. Draycott says that sexual identity can now be reinterpreted, not from the lens of creation, but from the lens of Christ’s resurrection and through the life of the church (20:53) This reinterpretation of soulish-gender ID, says Draycoot, is affirmed by Oliver O’Donovan who affirms that the new eschatological identity gives hope that gender dysphoria will be resolved through a new anthropology that supports transgenderism.
Draycott says he is not trying to refute the Evangelical commitment the created order of sexual dimorphism. However, because of humanity’s fallenness we must allow for discordance between soulish-gender and biological-sex. Some people, assuming an Evangelical theology, will see gender dysphoria as a misalignment of the gender with the biological sex. Yarhouse’s disability paradigm shows a way forward, says Draycott, because we know our bodies do not always reflect the eschatological ideal. Sometimes society discriminates when people do not fall into biological norms. Other forms of mental disorder—such as an eating disorder—are improperly treated as an analogy to transgenderism.
Is there an overweight soul in a thin body? Will the resurrection body satisfy this by assigning an overweight new body?
This analogy fails, says Draycott, because male and female is not a disorder, they are two equal choices. Therefore, in considering transgenderism one should not assume the soul is broken, but that the union between soul and body is broken such that it is possible that the soul has the proper conception of gender and the sexed-body reflects the fallen state (27:00).
Draycott mentions concern that his line of thinking could fall into gnosticism. Transgenderism, however, is not a denial of the goodness of the physical body. Yet, if we assume the body-soul unity and that the soul is causative, might not gender dysphoria reflect a state where the gendered-soul is suffering because of an ill-formed sexed-body (30:00)? Draycott says he wants to play the “eschatological card” to suggest that Evangelicals are missing the possibility that the resurrection may be a validation point for the transgendered-christian where the gendered-soul will be reassigned a new sexed-body by God that is different from their former biologically-sexed body.
Is it possible that intersex persons are a genuine witness of the non-non-gendered state of the resurrection where there is neither male nor female? Draycott says he does not want to take this too far and “untether” biological reality from resurrection reality. He closes by commending the line of thinking that seeks to reconcile the transgender experience with the life of the church which already acknowledges the hope that every Christian will receive a resurrection body that reconciles the identity between body and soul.
A Short Response to Draycott
I won’t spend a great deal of time in critique of either the theological or biological errors which infuse Draycott’s presentation. However, Rob Smith’s in his article, Responding to the Transgender Revolution from the Gospel Coalition opens the discussion with a solid point of agreement with Draycott:
In light of such a divide, and the social, medical, political, and legislative changes being wrought by the widespread acceptance of transgender claims, Christians have an urgent need to search the Scriptures carefully and prayerfully to see how God would have us think about and respond to such revolutionary developments. The main purpose of this essay is to begin such a search and to outline such a response. However, before we embark on this task, it will help us, firstly, to clarify a number of key terms that are a basic part of the current discussion and, secondly, to probe a little more deeply into contemporary gender theory and where it is taking us as a culture.
This is a conversation the church needs to have and I think an examination of our theology is certainly needed. In light of this shared goal, here are some additional points of agreement between Draycott and myself:
I would affirm with Draycott that God made humans male and female.
I would affirm with Draycott that the fall had an impact on sexuality.
I would affirm with Draycott that the fall may result in some people who suffer from gender dysphoria.
I would affirm with Draycott that culture has many destructive concepts of “gender” that harm both men and women in their self-identity.
I would affirm with Draycott that we must consider the person (body and soul) holistically. Sexuality is a both/and relationship between body and soul, not an either/or ontology.
Now it is these very points of agreement which demonstrate why the “apology” statement released after Draycott’s 2018 talk do not properly answer the questions raised through his theological speculation. Draycott’s entertainment of a dichotomy where the gendered-soul is the reflection the true identity—which may be in conflict with ones sexed-body—is not denied by any one of these affirmation, yet, his proposal deforms what the Scripture says on this issue. Here again, Smith gives an fair summary:
Otherwise put, and without wanting to minimize the reality of the psychological distress experienced by sufferers of gender incongruence, there is simply no space within biblical anthropology for the kind of ontological mismatch that is sometimes claimed. The soul is the soul of the body, as the body is the body of the soul. As David writes:
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them, the days that
were formed for me when as yet there was none of them. (Ps. 139:13–16)There is, then, no person or soul or spirit that has been created independently of the body and then placed in the body (or perhaps in the wrong body). As the Lord knit my body together in my mother’s womb, “I was made in the secret place.” The sex of the body, then, reveals the gender of the person.
Did the fall negatively effect human sexuality? Yes. However, this does not in any way open the door for Draycott’s theological-imagination about female or male souls being born into male bodies as a viable biblical theology.
Moving Forward
As this conversation moves forward, I want to affirm that the integration our theology into a pastoral context is key. This has not been done well in the past decades and many who experience gender dysphoria have been hurt by the Church. In some cases, our theology has reflected more of the culture than the Scripture. So, even if his theology of gender and understanding of biological sex is a mess, I appreciate Draycott’s passion to help those who are suffering distress. Finally, I think Smith offers some good pastoral questions that do not suffer from the theological errors made by Draycott:
“How do we teach and encourage those who are conflicted and confused by the social changes going on around us?
How do we counsel and care for those who, through no obvious fault of their own, experience a profound sense of gender incongruence?
How do we effectively evangelize gender non-conforming people?
What does repentance mean for someone who has transitioned gender?
What does Christian discipleship look like for someone who battles ongoing gender dysphoria?”
I hope we, as Christians, can do a proper biblical exegesis, resist the urge to conform to culture, and put together an answer these questions without falling into the trap of vain speculation which Paul warns us to avoid. If you want to follow this conversation, bookmark my post on Draycott’s 2018 ETS presentation where I will post updates.