Transsexual flights from reality

By Mark Tooley

United Methodist-affiliated Duke University in North Carolina will now cover sex-change surgery up to $50,000 as part of its medical insurance plan. It reportedly joins 37 other U.S. colleges in medically and financially facilitating America latest gnostic fantasy that gender is fluid and self-determined rather than a physical reality. The ancient Gnostics believed in mind over matter, in conflict with Judaism and Christianity, which have always asserted a concrete reality in God’s order of creation.

It’s been commonly claimed that America’s historically intrinsic offer of constant self-reinvention is itself gnostic influenced. Maybe, but this American promise was actually a reaction against static social and economic stratification in the Old World. American individualism offered upward mobility and the liberty to pursue adventure and even eccentricity. It has not until recently demanded that society must approve and subsidize new gender identities entailing elective, radically mutilating surgery followed by a lifetime of hormone treatments.

Duke’s new policy doesn’t necessarily fully implicate the United Methodist Church, whose Southeast Jurisdiction technically still owns the school. As with nearly all schools that emerged from old line Protestantism, Duke quit any practical fidelity to operative Christian faith many decades ago. In 2000, Duke’s famous chapel agreed to host same-sex unions, leading Duke Divinity School, which recognized United Methodism’s ban on same-sex unions, to create its own chapel.

Transgenderism naturally is permeating the liberal churches. Last year’s Episcopal General Convention officially affirmed transgendered clergy, protecting against “discrimination” based on “gender identity and expression.” One bishop celebrated with transgendered themed prayer: “Spirit of Life, we thank you for disordering our boundaries and releasing our desires as we prepare this feast of delight,” she began. “Draw us out of hidden places and centers of conformity to feel your laughter and live in your pleasure.”