These are notes that may be of interest to those who have heard my message for June 4, 2023 in the hot topics series. In this message I address the topics of biological sex, gender identity, and sexuality. I referred to several resources in the message and will link to them here.
I have read, referred to, and been influences by several works by Mark Yarhouse in this portion of the Hot Topics series. The books I found helpful include Homosexuality and the Christian and Emerging Gender Identities which Yarhouse co-wrote with Julia Sadusky. Yarhouse leads the Wheaton College Sexual and Gender Identity Institute which provides other resources that may prove useful.
I showed a picture of Franklin Roosevelt as a young boy to illustrate changing notions of femininity and masculinity. There is a Smithsonian Magazine article entitled When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink? It discusses notions of masculinity and femininity across the generations.
The study of how people categorized the fruit of the spirit from Galatians 5.22-23 is on page 32 of the book My Brother’s Keeper: What the Social Sciences Do (and Don’t) Tell Us About Masculinity by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. I read about it in Debra Hirsh’s book Redeeming Sex.
I highly recommend several talks by Sarah Williams, Research Professor of Church History at Regent College. These include:
- Sex in the Post Modern Story – I have linked to Sarah Williams’ three-part talks at Corban University in the past. They are really terrific and relatively easy to follow in spite of tackling big issues. In the first, she shares some powerful personal experiences. In the second she addresses not only issues of sex, gender, and sexuality but a vision for what it means to be the body of Christ! These are available on SoundCloud.
- A Sexual Reformation? Marriage and Sexuality in the Contemporary Paradigm – This is a very accessible one hour talk on the invention of “sex” as something apart from covenant or producing children. It was given as part of the Christian Thought and Culture class at Regent College.
- Marriage, Sex, and Family in Historical Perspective – This is a 16 hour class from 2019 given at Regent College considering cultural understandings of gender, sexuality, marriage, and family from the early church to the present day. It’s one of the most helpful classes I’ve ever worked through.
- Sexuality in the Modern Paradigm – This is a two-hour evening public lecture at Regent College on how private moral decisions have important public implications.
- Mapping Gender is an 18-hour course taught in 2010 at Regent College around questions of identity, gender, sexuality, and theology. It is massively informative and helpful.
This is the 1930 Lambeth Conference, Article 15 pronouncement by the Church of England.
The National Learning Community on Youth Homelessness offers a downloadable PDF entitled LGBTQ2S Terms and Definitions. The LGBTQ2S Learning Community also offers a number of related training resources.
