{"id":30454,"date":"2023-01-25T11:49:17","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T19:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30454"},"modified":"2023-01-26T20:34:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T04:34:23","slug":"did-god-really-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/did-god-really-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Did God really say?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Dr. Abigail Favale dives into the topics of gender theory including feminism and gender dysphoria, offering a perspective on a biblical framework that has developed out of her personal experiences. She writes of her conversion to Catholicism and how profound an impact it had on her worldview in teaching gender theory at a Christian university. She shares her transformation story and the moment that she realized in the curriculum she was using with her students that she had been \u201ccareless with their minds, and most disturbingly, their souls.\u201d[1]<\/a> As she wrestled with how to move forward given her recent shifts in thought and theory and unclear on next steps, she was clear that she \u201cdidn\u2019t want [her] endgame to be confusion.\u201d[2]<\/a> Favale then dives into different perspectives and types of feminism, the Creation story, and her ongoing discovery of the importance and role of the created, integrated person.<\/p>\n

While addressing various topics of sexuality, I found Favale to continually circle back to the goodness of the created person. The inherent good and value that every person was formed with by the Creator. She shares many anecdotal conversations she has had over the years in which some who have medically transitioned identify the trauma that was more so the root of the confusion they had about their gender and sex. While I found this book to provide a new lexicon that will hopefully allow me to engage in these conversations more intentionally and thoughtfully, I find myself sticking to her questions posed in the discussion on the role of blame towards the body for underlying pain. She asks, \u201cWhat would it look like to approach a person in the depth of his complexity? In the fullness of her dignity?\u201d[3]<\/a> While specifically addressing those suffering from gender dysphoria, I feel as if these questions ought to be the foundational approaches regardless of the context.<\/p>\n

While I do not have a personal history of gender dysphoria or ever having the feeling that I should have been created as a man, Favale did provide an example I resonate with that allowed her to have more understanding and empathy and compassion towards those that do. Favale shares her experience after giving birth \u2013 the physical and hormonal changes, the feelings of her body not being right, and a desire to hide away. Having had the opportunity to birth two children in the last three years, I easily identified with her experience. Add in the physical, emotional, and hormonal complexities of cancer treatment coupled with this, there have absolutely been times I have felt my body has betrayed me. Again, while not the same as those experiencing gender dysphoria, this was finally an analogy that gave me a sliver more understanding into what it must be like for those that do.<\/p>\n

What I noticed it stirred in me while reading this week was how often our struggles, confusions, pain, and trauma can go back to the Garden and the question, \u201cDid God really say\u2026?\u201d posed to Eve by the enemy.[4]<\/a> Regardless of the topic, how often can my own sin, insecurities, or challenges point back to questioning God and my identity in Him? How often to I rely on my feelings to guide my decisions and actions rather than truth found in scripture? Do I tend to focus on the inherent good or the perceived lack? Specifically in my vocational context working with college students, these core questions are often at the root. Regardless of who I may be sitting across from, their specific context or challenge, I more often than not find the Holy Spirit guiding the conversation towards their identity in Christ. While Favale\u2019s work specifically targets the topic of gender, I found it to have wider applications in her approach to addressing hard conversations, being comfortable with being misunderstood, and a deeper context for the often mis utilized \u2018truth in love\u2019 phrase.[5]<\/a> This will likely be a book that I need to ponder and process longer, but I have found it to provide a thoughtful address to the topic of gender within a Christian worldview.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Favale, 13.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 14.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 198.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Genesis 3:1<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Favale, 206.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Dr. Abigail Favale dives into the topics of gender theory including feminism and gender dysphoria, offering a perspective on a biblical framework that has developed out of her personal experiences. She writes of her conversion to Catholicism and how profound an impact it had on her worldview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2543,868,2004],"class_list":["post-30454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-favale","tag-gender","tag-lgp11","cohort-lgp11"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30519,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30454\/revisions\/30519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}