Gender is so big a topic, so big a part of who we are, one needs many venues of investigation to understand it. So, The Gender Revolution, written by Australian sexologist Patricia Weerakoon teamed up with her pastor son, Kamal Weerakoon, and theologian Robert Smith (2023), takes a multi-pronged approach to the subject, thus making a welcome contribution to understanding it.
The book takes our Western cultural categories full on and engages with them, informed by Weerakoon’s long career and the team’s wide reading. I found the fourth chapter, “Embodied and Binary,” describing the biology of human development, especially helpful, as it roots the gender discussion in biological reality (They recall the refreshing definition of Phillip K. Dick: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”). God gave us the biological reality of our bodies, a stream of general revelation, to help us interpret the gender teachings of Scripture. So, science must always be a partner in rustling up a Christian anthropology.
For example, as I wrote about recently, we should all be aware of a potential developmental hormonal contribution to same sex attraction. Again, this contribution is not determinant (as in, ‘born this way,’), but one of several factors.
Sociolological review can also help us comprehend the gender tried. For instance, we learn how nearly one third of adolescents “do not fit the expected or stereotyped behaviors for their sex.” Though it would be good to see more specific measurements there, the reporting helps us see why the current trans train conductors are able to lure so many of our young people onboard.
Yet, the biology and sociology in the book are marked by theological interlocutions yielding good pastoral advice:
“The only way to answer the question, ‘Who am I?’ is to first settle the question, ‘Whose am I?’ And the Bile’s answer is clear. We are God’s by creation and Christ’s by redemption. ‘For it is the Lord ‘who made us and we are his” (Psa 100:3) and we have now been ‘bought at a price’ (1Co 6:20, 7:23)—the blood of Christ.”
“The final element of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is self-control. This virtue will often require us to abandon chasing after what feels good or seems right.”
The book ends with a great section offering counsel for different situations, which every reader likely faces or will face. The question everyone always asks, “Should you use their self-assigned pronouns? How about their changed names? The authors come to same place I would on most points, albeit expressing a little less hope for change than what my experience suggests.
Bringing together these different disciplines is necessary, even if it makes for a disjointed presentation at times. Many streams of inquiry must come together to carry us to truth on large issues. Rivers like this book’s brings the church that much closer to her needed theology of gender.