Agender or a Gender?

All of the major doctrines of the Christian faith are based either directly or indirectly in Genesis 1–11. I point this out in my talks all the time. One result of rejecting God’s clear words in Genesis has been a rejection of many other biblical doctrines. Because the world and, sadly, much of the church has rejected Genesis as historical, we’re seeing many of these other doctrines that are based on Genesis being done away with as well. Not only that, but compromising one part of the Bible opens a door for compromise in regard to the rest. It’s not just undermining the book of Genesis when people compromise the Genesis account—it undermines the Word of God. It’s a biblical authority issue. The modern church has largely given up its foundation beginning in Genesis, and the result is a collapse of Christian doctrine and morality, even within the church.

In Western society and to some extent even globally, the battle being fought right now is a rejection of a distinction between genders. I’ve been pointing out numerous examples from across America on my blog recently, but this newest example comes from the UK. A high-end department store known as Selfridges is reportedly testing the option of doing away with “its separate men and women's departments and will instead have three floors of unisex clothing” and “is set to stock its shelves with unisex clothing.” The Huffington Post adds that Selfridges is also leaving behind male and female mannequins and will “revamp its beauty products and accessories” to make a more gender-neutral environment. Apparently the department store is making this decision because, "We want to take our customers on a journey where they can shop and dress without limitations or stereotypes. . . . A space where clothing is no longer imbued with directive gender values, enabling fashion to exist as a purer expression of ‘self.’”

Now, Selfridges is a secular company, so we don’t expect them to make their decisions based on a biblical worldview. In fact, understanding the fallen nature of man, we should not be surprised at how the world behaves. After all, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). But this does illustrate the ongoing trend of the (previously somewhat Christianized) Western world to do away with God-ordained gender distinctions. This is the direct result of a society which has rejected God’s Word as its foundation. Instead of basing its thinking on God’s Word, our society is increasingly “doing what is right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25).

In reality, when Selfridges creates a unisex space, it is not creating something neutral. What they are really doing is discriminating against those who wish to shop for distinctly male and female clothing. There is no neutral ground! And yet, our society is desperately trying to become supposedly neutral and nondiscriminatory, but all that they are accomplishing is creating a society that does what seems right to them and that discriminates against or even punishes those who choose to stand up for biblical values and principles. When the secular world cries tolerance, they are actually crying intolerance against the Christian worldview.

As Christians, we need to stand firmly on the authority of God’s Word from the very beginning. There are distinct genders—male and female—because God created humans in His image and “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27); “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6). Gender is not a man-made construct that we can just do away with if society so decides. Gender is a creation of God’s and therefore God—and only God—has the right to define gender. Therefore, any culture that does not accept this will suffer all sorts of negative consequences, as the family unit disintegrates.

We need to be bold in proclaiming the truth of God’s Word from the very beginning. We can trust the history of Genesis and therefore we can trust what the Bible says about gender as well. I encourage you to stand on the authority of God’s Word from the very beginning and encourage others around you to do the same.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.