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Chapter 2

What the Bible Really Tells

Us About Trans People

Introduction

This chapter looks at several ideas simultaneously. It begins with a discussion of how the Bible is read. We have come to believe that this is the core of ‘the controversy’ regarding trans people and the many other sharp disagreements that exist about gender and sexuality within the Church.

The chapter also considers several theological tools that will help create a trans-friendly theology. First, we look at biblical characters who may provide inspiration to those seeking to find gender-variant people within the pages of the Bible. We then briefly summarise our chapter on Natural Law from Transfaith before exploring one of the controversies of the early Church, and what it can tell us about our arguments about inclusion today. Finally, we discuss principles that should guide any discussion of gender-variant people (or any people for that matter) no matter how the Bible is read.

While there is much variation between individual congregations, there are two dominant ways the Bible is being read in our churches today. These two ways of looking at the Bible are mutually exclusive and there is genuine puzzlement and consternation between the two different groups of people who see such different things from the same words on the same page.

A preference for one of these two different ways of seeing the Bible is not in itself an indication of intelligence, concern for humanity or genuine faith. They are the product of church tradition, personal preference and world view. Neither way of looking at the Bible is bad or mistaken.

The problem is that this divide has created situations where there is such bad feeling that it can be impossible to sit in the same room with both views being respected. Debates have stopped being debates and have weaponised scripture, to the point that biblical verses are being used to try to win the argument, no matter what emotional and spiritual damage is caused. As Chapter 4 shows, families are being literally ripped apart. The tragedy of the current Church is that many of us exist within our own theological echo chambers and hurl insults across this theological divide to no good effect.

These two different views have created two very different reactions to the recognition of trans people within the Church. In the middle of this is a society that is losing patience with a Church that is fighting a civil war that it neither understands nor cares about, but that it increasingly feels is mean-spirited and irrelevant.

The Bible as a jigsaw puzzle

The Bible contains many stories and sayings, philosophy and rules. It is a complicated set of books that is bewildering in its complexity and its own contradictions. For example, Leviticus 11.1–31 and Deuteronomy 14.3–20 have bewildering lists of what may or may not be eaten and include many things that we would eat today. Many modern churches have added to this fragmentation by using the lectionary (a set of readings that span the Bible but do not contextualise it or produce a coherent narrative). This makes scripture for many Christians a bit like jigsaw puzzle pieces.

Consider the story of Noah and the Ark for example. Countless Sunday schools have created art, plays and songs based on an engaging story of a man who put two of all sorts of animals within a boat and saved them when God sent a big flood to wash away a sinful humanity. The end of the story is often presented as Noah building an altar and God sending a rainbow to promise never to wash away humanity again.

Most of us would struggle to tell the second half of the story. Noah plants a vineyard, makes some wine and gets very drunk and naked. Something very odd happens in his tent with his son Ham. Noah curses Ham and condemns his children to servitude in perpetuity.

Even fewer people would be able to place it within the Genesis narrative as one of the four events of the first 11 chapters of Genesis: Creation, Fall, Flood and Confusion of Tongues. Fewer still would be able to locate Noah in the lineage from Adam and Eve’s third child Seth. Yet the whole picture is important if we are going to entirely understand the story beyond a cute Sunday school story.

If we view segments of scripture as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, scripture will give a very clear picture if all the pieces are laid down. Taking one piece of the Bible puzzle, such as the story of a man building a boat, gives us a very incomplete picture of the story of Noah.

Noah is not just a man who saves animals in a boat but also a man who will drunkenly curse his descendants to slavery for an affront to his dignity. God tries and fails to create a better humanity in Noah and his family. The richness of the story is that God continues to try to engage with all of humanity and continues to persevere.

Taking one piece of the puzzle out of the picture and insisting it is the whole picture also leaves the Bible open to being used abusively. Most people would be horrified to learn that the received wisdom during the 18th and 19th centuries was that Ham was the ancestor of all people in Africa from Egypt southwards. This was a theological justification of the slavery of African peoples. Indeed, one of the phrases used to describe enslaved Africans in the US was ‘The Sons of Ham’.

We believe that this is what is happening with trans people and other sexual and gender minorities today. There is no dispute that Genesis 1, 2 and 3 deal with two differing stories of creation, and that a binary of male and female appears to be mentioned. It is also true that they are told to procreate. But these are only pieces of a much larger picture which includes the later stories of other types of people. These pieces add more to the complex narrative, all of which need to be considered.

The jigsaw approach can be a successful and rewarding way of reading the Bible. It is a method of lifelong study and constant discovery. It requires the reader to engage with every piece of the puzzle and not just to discard a piece when it doesn’t seem to fit the picture. The point of any jigsaw puzzle is that you need all the pieces to make a complete picture. You cannot hold up a few pieces of the puzzle and announce you have the whole picture.