#sogie stuff

And then I came to see sex as having been historically intertwined with societal facets such as power, domination, authority, etc.

I suppose I’ll get to my point. As Christians, is it our responsibility to maintain these cultural/societal views of sex and gender? To persist in the gender essentialist approach that we so often conclude by simplistic reading of Scripture?

Does Scripture demand we continue to place those cultural meanings of sex (ex. where men are supposed to be strong, leaders, women are caretakers, emotional etc, homosexual sex = forever sin without exception) or has there always been room for flexibility and change and that there was a much deeper, more grounding point to all of this? In other words, is there anything in the text that directly points to keeping up this gender essentialist approach despite the fact that how we see sex is now super varied and different among cultures and we’re now aware of our pluralistic society?

Because when you look at the text, I’d argue there’s nothing really universally, anachronistically prescriptive about that. Scripture never demands that women and men should be this or that for all time (otherwise, we wouldn’t be having things like women’s rights). The text we read is more often laws or instructions based on their contemporaries (like the Law books and Paul’s letters to specific churches in the Roman world)and the views of sex that had already existed in their time. Otherwise you see stories of people messing up because they did not honor their fellow imago dei and therefore God (eg Bathsheba, the widows, the woman accused of adultery) or people overcoming or challenging typical gender expectations often to either humble success or triumphant tragedy (eg Deborah, Ruth, Esther, Jael, Mary Magdelene, David & Jonathan, Hosea, Jesus Christ, etc).

Honestly, did authors like Paul and those compiling the Bible ever consider the possibility, for example, that our fight for women’s rights would be a thing and that we’d be debating over whether women could become pastors?

There are obviously universal themes to how we approach sex and gender (namely things like “no female or male under Christ”, passion in Song of Songs, doing right by your partner etc., also linked to themes surrounding the rise and fall of worldly powers like government and religion), but otherwise, are we meant to maintain the views of sex inseparably associated with power and domination (ex gender roles, penetrator vs penetrated, strong vs weak, same vs different) that our forefathers maintained?

Or are they products of the world as well?

Gosh idk if I’m making sense. I guess I’m suggesting that perhaps we ought to view sex from a far simpler and more world-challenging lens: The way we treat the imago dei, as universally demonstrated throughout all of Scripture. We make the judgment based on whether it is the injustice of selfish and harmful hedonism or stringent, equally harmful legalism, or honoring the partner as a precious image of God.

Instead of the typical crap like “oh you’re not married, oh you’re same sex, oh why is the woman calling the shots,” that sort of thing. Cuz it really does feel like we get obsessed with the details rather than the main picture and we’ve been doing it since time immemorial.

Because this world already sees your “worth” based on what you were physically born with, what you can bring to the table, merit, social/economic status, name, influence, success, etc. To focus on the preciousness of the imago dei is a challenge to all of that.

Words can’t erase the reality that these ideas are what lead to hate and discrimination.

And what’s even sadder is that their reach/influence is much bigger than those calling for living out the Kingdom, being peaceable, being welcoming, compassionate and overall being Christ-like.

…at the expense of other important health concerns…