The Beginning of the Bible

When you open your Bible to the first chapter of Genesis, you read in verse 27:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

As if that mattered, God repeats this in Genesis 5:1-2:

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

Male and female.  That’s it.  God created male and female, two different sexes.  When I read scripture I notice also two different genders for mankind, communicated by he, him, his and she, her, and hers.  “It” never refers to a member of mankind, only the masculine or feminine genders.

God Designed

Furthermore, God designed distinction between the sexes.  He gave each a distinct kind or type of body and emotional make-up.  God also differentiated a separate, distinct role for each sex.  Each role complements the other.  According to this truth, God forbade same sex coital activity and marriage.

God also mandated the preservation or keeping of the designed distinctions between male and female.  He banned or outlawed masculinity for women and effeminacy for men.  God never rescinded any of that.  He repeated the regulation in both the Old and New Testaments.  God also instructed on it with varied statements intended for compliant application.

The fall of mankind in Genesis 3 resulted from abrogation of the male and female roles.  The curse of sin on mankind then instructs also in Genesis 3 concerning the future disorientation of sexual roles.  God prohibits men and women from changing or exchanging roles.  He also requires them to preserve clear symbols or marks of distinction in appearance.

Rebellion

The rebellion against God starts with the man abrogating headship.  It continues with the woman usurping male authority.  Mankind perverts the God designed and created hierarchy.

Mankind follows role rebellion with role and then sex confusion.  A person becomes his sex at conception.  God ordains parents to train the conceived and then born male to continue a man in every way; likewise the female to be a woman in all manners.

The animus between male and female in Genesis 3 continues.  People must support God’s design.  They must also oppose all manner of role confusion.  God especially demands this of true churches.

Long ago churches began relinquishing their responsibility to distinguish between sexes.  The world started this decline, but churches followed.  Churches accommodate role rebellion now in numbers of ways.  Some churches take some stand against the decline, but nearly every church capitulates in some manner out of fear, convenience, or pragmatism.

Rick Warren and Southern Baptist Convention

In a very obvious, public way, the Southern Baptist Convention battles right now who can lead their churches.  Will they be men or men and women?  So-called “America’s pastor,” Rick Warren, fights for the egalitarian, role confusion in the Convention.  He threatens the departure of thousands of “purpose-driven” churches from the convention over the issue.

Transgenderism, surgical sex changes, and gender neutral bathrooms make the headlines.  This ship started sailing long ago.  Conservative evangelical John MacArthur preached a standard exposition of Ephesian 5 on the two distinct marriage roles.  Women in mass rose and left the auditorium in protest.

Sixty to seventy years ago, every woman wore a dress or skirt in church, let alone at home.  Of course, every man wore pants.  This was (and still is) the only symbol of sexual distinction.  It’s why transgender “women” wear dresses like Kaitlyn Jenner.  It’s also why transgender “men” wear short hair and pants.

Anecdotal

In the first month after my wife and I moved to Indiana, I went to a junior boys basketball game at the elementary school.  A blue jean wearing woman coached the boys team.  She stomped and yelled like Bobby Knight on the sideline.  No one flinched at her antics.  Just another day in rural, red-state Indiana.  This, my friends, is the new normal.

The next night my wife and I went to an ice cream place and started up a conversation with some professing Christians there.  We continued in pleasant interaction.  Then I told the story of the junior boys game, its four overtimes, ending with sudden death.  I described the coach something like in the previous paragraph. They met my story with no response.  They went mute silent with pained expressions on their faces.  After an awkward moment of hearing the crickets in the background and feet shuffling, subject changed.

For the Future of Churches and America

Maybe at one time in the United States, leadership fires a woman for behaving like a man.  Today, leadership, maybe even female leadership, fires a man for criticizing the woman.  This fits into the contemporary battle of first amendment rights.  According to the Declaration of Independence, these inalienable rights come from God.  The country banishes God from public conversation.  Government and society in general prevent speech from and about God.

If you visit a business promoting transgenderism today, you could say the following.  “I will be back when you stop pushing your left wing religion on me.”  It is a very dogmatic religion established by the state today.

Churches will die with concession on sexual distinction.  The Democrats famously booed including the name of God in their political platform in 2012.  Will churches boo sexual distinction?  Have we reached a moment when this is even an unwelcome subject matter?

To stop American decline, judgment must begin in the house of God.  Churches must stand on the designed distinctions between male and female.  They may say they support supernaturalism and young earth creationism.  Will they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator?  If creation means anything in a practical way, it means male and female created He them.