I’m saying there’s something wrong with Christians pushing back against those in churches who just want to welcome in people as they are - how they were made - and yes; even including their sinful choices past and present. It has nothing to do with justifying evil choices.
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And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
So, no.
But there is a difference between welcoming broken people in their brokenness, and welcoming people by pretending they’re not broken.
Then why are you pursuing this line of argumentation? It comes across as incredibly insensitive in the context.
Why do you consider people with various differences “broken” not simply different? Why are the abilities or traits of your kind of “broken” humanity the definitive “whole” broken humanity?
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Perhaps because Jesus felt some of these “differences” worthy of healing?
Are you seriously suggesting that parents of a child with a congenital heart defect should not consider their child’s heart “broken” and seek “healing” to restore the child to the rest of society’s definition of “wholeness”, and rather they should let it die in order to celebrate its “difference”??
If not, then why do you consider people with various differences “broken” not simply different?
No, of course not. But you can be a healthy, thriving Deaf person, or person with Downs, or person on the autism spectrum, or person with an intersex condition. It’s not the same thing. It’s not an illness.
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And Jesus healed the deaf because… why?
Same reason some infertile couples conceived children. I think all the miraculous signs in the NT were about revealing who Jesus was and what his Kingdom was about. I don’t think it was because all deaf people need to be healed and all infertile couples need babies, or they have a sub-human, fundamentally damaged existence.
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Actually - it’s interesting that in this very example of yours, Jesus doesn’t just assume he knows what Bartimaeus wanted. He asked him!
Had Bartimaeus had the benefit of your modern insights here, he might have responded - “why I want to see, of course! What else could I possibly want! Do you think people are supposed to be blind?!”
…or alternatively… Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has made you well.”
One of those two above was altered, and one is the story as recorded. Can you pick out the difference?
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Well intersex is completely different from someone who has had their body altered to conform with the sex they feel themselves to be. It turns out that sex isn’t as simple as having XX or XY. From the second article I cited in the OP:
If you know a bit about biology you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX and you’re female, XY and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well…
Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “genetically male”. But is this “biological sex”?
Sometimes that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y without an SRY. What does this mean?
A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY) and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromsomally female (XX) and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer…
Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specifics areas on the body, and reception of those hormones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”??
“Hormonal male” means you produce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And…
…if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this…
Maybe cells are the answer to “biological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer.
What does this all mean?
It means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-binary call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female.
The take away for me is that what counts as “really” female or “really” male is complicated. One way I’ve heard the difference between trans and intersex described is that trans people more often seek out operations to change their apparent sex while intersex seek to stop operations with no medical justification before the person is of an age which permits an informed choice.
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Well that is the first time I’ve heard that name. Clearly Swyer syndrome is a portion of what we’re call intersex but how common is it, does it make up a large or small portion of the 1.7% of the general population with some kind disorder of sexual development?
@SkovandOfMitaze, I too feel more than a little surprised by all of this. But I have no reason to doubt it. There is much I don’t know, why shouldn’t this be one more? Still it is interesting.
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Yes, I suppose it is unfortunate that Jesus worked so many miracles healing the blind, lame, and deaf, not realizing the horrific implication he was making that those people were sub-human and needed healing. He should have stuck with the “nature miracles”.
For that matter, if there was nothing more or less “broken” about deafness than normal hearing, or blindness sight, then revealing who Jesus was and what his kingdom was about could have been accomplished just as well by having Jesus go around and deafen people who had had normal hearing, and blinding the sighted, no?
Not to mention you are conflating two ideas. No one is suggesting that because something is biologically “broken” and prevents the body’s organs of sight or hearing from working as designed that they are thus sub-human. People that come back from combat have damaged bodies. We call them “wounded warriors” for goodness sake. But no one I know would suggest in any manner or use any words remotely implying in any way conceivable that being genuinely damaged implies they are “sub-human” in any way whatsoever.
So should I respond by pointing out those myriad accounts where Jesus healed people and there is no record of their requesting such healing? As the text has it, He healed the lame man to prove his authority to the Pharisees, it certainly appears. He certainly didn’t seem to ask permission of those people he healed of those conditions that had brought about their death, after all…
Maybe it’s worth stepping back to take a fresh look at just what it is we’re all dickering over before that gets too lost or buried. You’ve already said…
So we (or at least you, me and maybe some others here) have agreement on that. Very good. So what is it again that you are claiming? (or specifically what part of the following do you object to?)
To put my own developing conviction here in positive terms: I’m claiming that there are lots of things about people that are not within the norm (i.e. don’t match the majority experience), but that are nonetheless “baked in” to their (our) very fabric, so-to-speak. It’s part of who we are, and it is wrong for us to consign all these “non-norm” characteristics into the realm of pathology or victimhood, much less ‘sinful state’. I also suggest that every one of us has some things about us that are not within the norm - some are just more obvious than others; and many things we can do a good job concealing in our typical human quest to want to appear “normal” in nearly every way. Nobody here is saying that God can’t or won’t ever change something (even among these ‘baked-in’ things) according to our requests. As has been said, God will do what He will do. But he does seem to like it when we bring our desires to him. Paul did so three times about that mysterious “thorn in Paul’s flesh” that Paul so wished could be changed. It seems to me that God essentially responded to Paul that this was just part of what his flesh would have to learn to deal with, to be a reminder that God’s grace is sufficient for that, and (I think) with a likely subtext that actually, Paul was probably a better person for it. If we were all “perfect” (or whatever we imagine “perfect” is) we are more likely to become arrogant and would chase people away rather than be welcoming in Christ. Paul seemed to have a good grasp that Christ was actually most visible in his so-called “weaknesses” rather than his strengths.
So I’m just suggesting that our hasty declarations that “God made things this way and only this way” are not so definitively authoritative and accurate (much less righteous) as some here would have us believe. We can fully embrace, as Christ taught, that God “made them male and female”, while also accepting that this does not limit God to our particular perceptions of how those categories must always work. Christ also taught that “some are eunuchs by compulsion, some have chosen it for themselves (or even for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven!), and yet others are that way from birth - let those accept this who can.”
If you are not among those who can, I guess that’s not surprising. But don’t pretend that just because it’s outside your norms of experience that it therefore must be outside of God’s creative purview. And certainly don’t stand in the way of others who wish to welcome and worship with all God’s children, not just those who look and think in the same ways as some ostensible majority. Maybe they (we) wish some given condition of our own to be changed in some regard; maybe not. That’s the prayerful prerogative each of us is granted. It isn’t given to anybody else to impose some “norm” on us against our grown and informed wishes.
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I’m “claiming” that if someone is blind, or deaf, that something is indeed biologically broken. No less or more than when I had broken bones in my hand. Something was not working as designed. In general parlance, we call that “broken.” And bringing such “broken” biological features back into “normal” functioning or operation, whether through time, medicine, or miracle, is usually given the term “healing.”
If it cannot be fixed, we indeed learn to live with these broken systems, and trusting God, we thank him that in his providence, and we glorify him in our weaknesses, and we recognize often that such weaknesses indeed prove to be of great benefit, and insight, and blessings. The story of Joni Erickson is always inspiring in this manner. But no one to my knowledge disputes that parts of her nervous system are indeed “broken” and not functioning as intended.
This all should not be controversial in the least, but apparently it is. That is what I am claiming. When some biological organ or system does not function and accomplish its intended result, it is “broken” or “damaged”, and the practice of bringing it back into regular, yes, “normal” operation, if possible, is rightly given the name “healing.”
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Now all that said above, of course God can use our physical brokenness and injuries and defects in all myriad of ways… we glorify him in our weaknesses, and Calvinist as I am, I recognize God’s plan and purpose in how he uses all such things.
But however much someone might recognize that , for instance, Joni Erickson’s life glorified God tremendously through her paralysis, and how full, complete, real, and fully human she was and is and will remain, that she is not “sub-human” in the least, and that she is not defined by this injury, etc etc… it simply does not follow that this injury is not an injury.
However part of God’s plan this injury was, however much it was God’s intent and design that she sustain this injury… it is still an injury, and her nervous system remains “broken.”
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That a broken hand (or broken anything) is generally in want of healing seems non-controversial enough. But what about something somebody is born with?
No parent wants their child to have mental or physical handicaps from birth - granted. Some children are born that way nonetheless. And yes - we would generally consider many things to be handicaps. But it seems to me that the issue gains its real traction over what all gets lumped into a ‘disorder’ category vs. what we should learn to accept as part of being human.
The constant sarcasm doesn’t make you sound spiritual or wise, it just makes you look like a jerk, by the way.
What is controversial is that you are making this claim in the context of a discussion of people who have not experienced injury, sickness, or damage of some kind. They don’t have something that can be “brought back into regular operation,” but rather they are people born with different genetic makeup than what is “normal.” You are pathologizing this genetic diversity to being something that needs healing. Someone with an extra chromosome as in the case of Downs or some intersex conditions doesn’t need healing. They aren’t sick. They have an extra chromosome. That is who they are. This very idea that “something isn’t functioning as God designed” is the idea we are arguing against by saying, no, wrong, in many cases of genetic variation, God designed them differently. Their entire self, with its genetic difference, is what God designed, even if this difference doesn’t fit with the norm of how God generally designs humans (24 chromosomes, clearly male/female, with two arms and two legs, neurotypical, etc.)
Will such individuals have challenges because they are different? Probably. Will some wish they were “normal.” Maybe. Are there sometimes medical interventions that can be taken to mitigate the differences and bring them closer to “normal”? Sometimes. But not all individuals will want to pursue them because they aren’t sick. And we can certainly as a church do better at treating them as God’s workmanship not God’s mistakes.
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Isn’t the verses about “ who can accept this” specifically about letting those who can accept the stipulations of marriage be married and those who can’t can choose to not get married?
For me I don’t believe that God actually designed us but instead we evolved through natural selection. So I don’t think God literally made them male and female, but instead as sex evolved , and got to our species he designed it originally around procreation, but as time went, because not all can procreate, he begin to highlight places where they can’t.
Part of evolution as we all know is mutations. All the chromosome mutations are just that. It’s not by design. It’s not some special goal. It’s a mutation. Some mutations are favorable, some are not favorable, and some don’t change very much of anything.
It also seems like some ideas over broken versus valuable is being merged. Being blind does not make you any less valuable. Having a mental fist order does not make you any less valuable. Being to have kids, or not have kids, does not change your value to God. It should not change your value as being a disciple either.
As for Down syndrome I don’t have an opinion on if they would rather be different or not. As time goes by, many seem to be just as functioning as the next. I’ve seen down syndrome people read construction blueprints and build houses, and I’ve seen Down syndrome people work cash registers, and I’ve seen videos of Down syndrome people licking above their head and breaking a board for a higher martial arts belt. I think also of the woman from , American Horror Story, with down syndrome who does a good job at acting. I think there was this mostly Hollywood influenced concept of what people with DS was like because they made lots of films throughout the 90s with them as these lesser people, and then I noticed a trend of them playing roles as these sneaky people who was pretending to be less as a way to take advantage of life and so on. All of it seems to have been quite wrong.
But as to if they wished they were different is similar to me about guys who are 5’4. I don’t think their height is broken, but do some of them probably wish they were taller? Sure.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a blind person who would have rejected having their vision restored if possible.
Indeed - marriage is the context in which Jesus brings the subject [about eunuchs] up.
To me it makes an instructive example of Jesus “gently acknowledging”, as it were, that we humans often have a difficult time accepting what is outside our perceived ‘norms’. And so, with that awareness (cultural sensitivity I would say) he gives his disciples an aside that essentially says “there are others here that may be beyond your own experience - but that doesn’t mean they are outside of God’s charge”, after which he acknowledges that this will probably be beyond what many can accept.
It is an example of yet another lost golden opportunity for Christ to double-down with “here are the hard and fast categories, and anybody or anything apart from this God-given ‘norm’ is in rebellion against God.” But Christ just never seems to go there, and so remains a lasting disappointment to those who wish to rush there in his name today.
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