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Safe Passagesupport for those struggling with homosexuality
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What's Masculine And Feminine? - Foundations
1. The issue of gender can become connected with so much pain and distortion precisely because of its depth and profoundness--we simply come to the Cross acknowledging how cut off from His heart we are; there are entire areas of our humanity in which we don't know Him yet.
2. Understandable but harmful defenses leave us detached, mistrustful, distorted, even contemptuous towards our needs (hating our own vulnerability to being affected by sin more than we hate the offenses themselves). Through the way of the Cross (His crucifixion and resurrection wherein He lifts the weight of sin from us), the Lord beckons us to His life--showing us that there is so much more than what we have known
3. Definitions/ descriptions.
Persons (male and female): gender identity is a mysterious combination of both the Masculine and the Feminine--a reckoning with these two within men and women necessary for whole personhood and relating. Gender complimentarity implies some mutuality, for in order for the pieces fit together into a larger whole, there must be a deeper if less explicit commonalty. Men and women are neither the same nor the opposite; they are two angles of the same image!
Sexuality: intended as an expression of profound connection in which humanity can relationally reflect His image. We echo God's intent to reclaim His image in us and to reveal through us the awesome realities of gender--Feminine and Masculine--and thereby an essential part of His very nature.
The Masculine and Feminine
1. Centrality of gender: more than biology (physical), God's "image"
2. Masculine and Feminine: a fulness in male and female image-bearers; more real and solid than any fallen form.
3. "Eigenvectors" -- irreducible elements themselves not visible, manifesting, via some complex combination, as two "observable states". In pure form not visible. Example: Resistance, Capacitance, and Inductance (R,L,C) are characteristics of electronic devices. Yet no physical device possesses purely only one of these characteristics -- real (observable, tangible) devices are a combination; yet R,L,C are the most useful descriptors. So the eigenvectors are the Masculine and the Feminine, and the observables are Male and Female.
4. Integration: painting analogy (Illustrations of the Masculine and Feminine; and of personality integration)--the Artist as Restorer
"A portrait, once damaged, must be restored from the original, for as when the likeness painted on a panel has been damaged by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must come once more to enable the portrait to be restored on the same wood." (Athanasius, 318 A.D. "On the Incarnation of the World", quote from The Nicene Fathers)
5. Differentiating Characteristics: it is truly impossible to capture these transcendent realities in words. Nonetheless, the value in the following "table of essences" is in offering at least some alternative to traditional, role-oriented caricatures that have little to do with the beauty of the Mystery hinted at in Genesis 2.
Characteristics of the Masculine |
Characteristics of the Feminine |
initiation |
response |
Healing
1. Shifting reality; enlarged heart (Rv 3, Mat 5, Is 6, Ps 119) buttoning analogy and repentance/ reinvesting--response and reclaiming of whole symbols; restructuring and deepening of personhood: grieving the loss, reclaiming lost areas of soul, regardless of state or longevity of struggle
2. Relational shaping: same-sex and opposite sex; Christian community: giving and receiving--redevelopment
3. Outworkings of salvation: cleansing, forgiveness, inner healing/ vow-breaking, reordering through worship; fullness of quietness (Luke 2) and persevering (Matt 11)
4. Love incarnate; His image in us (II Cor 4) Love of union with Him transcending pursuit of recovery, yet leading to wholeness; Abiding in His Presence: revelation and resymbolization through worship, listening prayer, journalling, and others
5. Testimony: see the following Bulletin Board thread from Bridges-Across for a partial description of my own journey with regards to gender identity, shared in the context of personal discussion with a man struggling with his own sexuality.
| Scriptural Pictures of the Masculine |
Scriptural Pictures of the Feminine |
Books for Reference (indirect but powerful) |
| Phillipians 3:13-14 Genesis 32:24-26 Psalms 18:31-42 Isaiah 52:1 John 1:43 Romans 1:7 Romans 13:12 Phillipians 4:13 Hebrews 12:1, 4 Revelation 3:21 |
Isaiah 30:15 Psalms 23:2, Psalms 27:4-5 Psalms 32:8-9, 46:10 Psalms 147:10-11 Proverbs 1:20 & 8:1 Isaiah 46:3-4 Luke 1:38, &13:34 John 14:26 & 5:5 II Corinthians 12:9 |
Till We Have Faces C.S. Lewis (Harvest/HBJ Publishers, 1956) The Wounded Heart Dr. Dan B. Allender (NavPress Books, 1990 The Healing Presence by Leanne Payne (Crossway Books, 1989 |
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