LGBT+ and the Church

Chapter III. God's Design

To approach a topic relating to gender and sexuality, namely in the Christian context, it is significant to start from the very beginning of human history: The creation of the first people by God. The reading of this begins in the book of Genesis.

After relaying the creation of the universe and the world, verse twenty-seven says: "So God made man; in the image of God He made him; male and female He made them." (Gen. 1:27) In Hebrew, this is:

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

The words of significance in this are the following:

(1) נְקֵבָ֖ה

This is neqēḇāh, meaning "female" and "woman".

and

(2) זָכָ֥ר

This is zāḵār, meaning "male" and "man".

The latter term, zāḵār, is more often well-known in arguments relating to a verse I'll cover later, but here we can see it clearly referring to the creation of Adam (as it is the person it alludes to in the creation of man). It is a term linked intimately to biology, and, as such, it is often used to describe the sex of animals (e.g., Ex. 12:5; Lev. 1:3) and also young male children. For example, in the book of Jeremiah, 20:15, it is used for "son" in the expression "A child is born to you, a son!". The same applies to that of neqēḇāh in its Scriptural usage for females.

It is at times used expressly for a man under the term "male". It is used to describe the warriors killed as they went out from Egypt (Joshua 5:4) and that of the male priests (Lev. 7:6). It relates to male biology, used commonly in discussing descendants, of the firstborn, in a census, and related matters.

The same occurrence for neqēḇāh. It is used in the context of women in the book of Jeremiah, 31:23, and in an inquiry from Moses in the book of Numbers, 31:15-16. He says: "You have kept alive every female? Behold, these women caused the Israelites, by the word of Balaam, to be in apostasy against YHWH..."  In context, we can see this referring to an adult woman under "female". It is also used to describe the female sex of animals.

These terms are biological terms, the "sex" terms. Despite this, it could be used as "gender". I think this is significant to note in this discussion as the Sacred Scripture did not shy away from making them at times interchangeable. The expression made no difference and made the two—gender and sex—intimately linked.

With this in mind, the description of how the two should behave sheds further insight into the idea of biblical gender. In the book of Deuteronomy, 22:5, it is written: "A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God."

There is a solid distinction between the two — if the Bible held to a notion of gender equating to expression rather than its intimate link to biology, there'd be no foundation for this form of a commandment. Instead, it states clearly that one gender cannot wear the garments of the other. And further, there is not a position where a person is neither gender nor is there a case where they are both.

The early Christians understood this also. In 397 A.D., St. Ambrose of Milan wrote on this verse: "If you consider it truly, there is an incongruity that nature itself abhors. For why, man, do you not want to appear to be what you were born as? Why do you put on a strange guise? Why do you ape [definition: mimic] a woman? Or why do you, woman, ape a man? Nature arrays each sex with its own garments. Men and women have different customs, different complexions, gestures and gaits, different sorts of strength, different voices."