If you have been reading these posts for a little while, or have had contact with this website through a talk or article, you might be wondering, “Why is he doing this?”
Perhaps then you would be served by a statement of purpose, to clarify what AffirmingGender is doing. (In fact, I would be helped by this too!) So let’s answer a few big questions:
What have been the critical problems I’ve seen that drove the need to launch AffirmingGender?
Increasing numbers of people who have…
- Struggles with same sex attraction, submission, gender dysphoria, relationships…
- Marriages that are stagnant, rife with strife or collapsing
- Conflict and heartbreak with close ones who are coming out as gay or transitioning to another gender.
- Struggles with the Bible’s words on submission or on women or on relationships
- The experience of being attacked for believing that gender is real
- Questions about what it means to be a single man or a single woman.
These difficulties and others cascading from them are only going to increase because when you lose gender in relationship, you lose gender. In this cascade of gender destruction, God’s gift is berated and God’s name is not hallowed.
So who is this ministry here for?
People who struggle with, or need to understand, gender issues (a real man, a true woman) for themselves or close ones, and leaders who need to teach on the same.
I do not hear many other voices speaking a Christian answer for such folks. So what do I do?
I make a way to answer pressing gender questions (regarding, e.g., same-sex attraction, what the Bible says about women and men, transgenderism) and provide practical guidance on overcoming gender troubles. I am helping gender-questioners, gender-strugglers and those around them to resolve their troubles and recognize God’s gift.
How are these probl
ems solved?
By helping people to build a theology of gender, to experience gender as, not a cultural construct, not a recipe of essential ingredients, and not a list of prohibitions, but as God’s beautiful gift to cultivate intimacy and fruitfulness among us, a precious present deeply revealing of God’s Self.
What do people get?
A Christian way to answer these most pressing gender questions, which in turn gives practical guidance on resolving gender troubles, both for ourselves, and those we care about.
What are the results I see so far in people?
- Confidence-To understand the culture and their loved one.
- Hope-To see how things could be different for them and their loved one.
- Ability-To deal graciously and wisely with those they care about. This is not only without sacrificing biblical truth, but because of biblical truth.
- Relief-At being able to be faithful to God.
These results are why we are here. Making A Real Man. Awakening A True Woman.
But, honestly, the thing that keeps me going is the promise of knowing God through recovering the gendered Image. To understand and pursue gender is to enter into the deep mystery of God’s Self. What greater quest is there?
A Gift. An Identity. A Challenge. Would you Affirm Gender with me?