One of the most destructive forces in the world are words and actions that tear other people down. “You bleeping moron, you’re an idiot, you’re incompetent. You don’t belong here. You are wrong. You are disgusting, a disgrace. You are delusional.” In the church, when those words take on the power of social action to cast judgement on other people, to influence people within communities to cast their own judgments, often second or third hand, to incite gossip or retribution or undermine a person, and to cause others who are struggling and who see this to walk away from the God and his church altogether.
I don’t know if you’ve been following along with the Olympics and in particular, the story of an Algerian boxer, that has sparked world wide controversy. In short, a boxing association with sketchy credibility in adjudicating matters leaked that this Algerian boxer (and another Southeast Asian boxer) had failed what they claimed was a gender test. The boxing association claimed that the Algerian boxer had xy chromosomes and so was a man, yet was fighting against women.
There are four problems with this claim:
1) there is no evidence to actually support this claim and the only assertion about this is coming from an organization that was removed from adjudicating any rules of boxing for questionable conduct going back to 2010;
2) even if there was a gender test that revealed xy chromosomes, there are 26 intersex conditions, several of which can prevent someone with xy chromosomes from developing primary and secondary sex characteristics (so strength, power, speed, bone density, organ size, etc) that are typically male because they lack the capacity to produce or receive testosterone necessary to develop as a male. This is a plain biological reality;
3) being born in Algeria - a country that criminalises identification as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender - a person would not have the opportunity to be born a male and yet compete and socialize as a female;
4) the claim conflates those who identify as transgender i.e. those who have no known anatomical, hormonal or chromosomal variation from male and female norms, with those who have an intersex condition where they have a medically recognized distinction between aspects of their sexual development.
Yet lo and behold, not only did I see prominent politicians like Donald Trump, or business moguls like Elon Musk use this woman, Imane Khelif, to further their own agendas by erroneously calling her a man who should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports, I saw an unbelievable number of prominent Christians jump on board, going so far as to call her a degradation; a violation of God’s gracious creation, immoral, unethical, a disgrace. They lashed out at the Olympic committee, at liberal people in general, and at any Christian who dared challenge their assertion.
I don’t know if Khelif is religious or if so, what religion she follows. I do know that the commentary I read from far too many Christians - those called to speak humbly, and speak in love, and be open to the fact they might not be right in their judgment - stunned me. The first thing that stunned me was their arrogance in making an assertion without evidence, without checking facts or the credibility of the sources from where the statements came. Why trust the proclamations about God from such people? The second thing that stunned me was their ignorance of biology: chromosomes are not the sole factor in determining someone’s biological sex.
Chromosomes usually align with other factors to determine sex, but not always, in fact, not in 1 out of every 5-10 000 or so births. Do I have to ignore biology or science, to believe in God? The last thing that stunned me was the judgement on high came with intensive cruelty, not just in the initial judgement, but the fact that conflating transgender identity with an intersex condition is a mistake that could cost this boxer her life in a country that has violence, murder and imprisonment as part of its treatment of lgbtq people. Is cruelty and judgement an integral part of Xianity one might wonder? Must I condemn other people, be willing to speak words or act in ways that might lead to hurting them, even to their deaths to be a Christian? Crucify her, right? Crucify her!
This boxer has been hit hard by the false accusations and bullying she’s received. Yet she has continued on to the championships. It is the ripple effect of the cruelty from Christians that I speak to here, though, because this case is not novel. It is an excellent concrete example of how speaking evil and tearing down sows seeds of doubt that there is a God at the core of Christian witness. It suggests that when people thrive on ignorance, gossip and judgment of others, when they allow their lack of knowledge, their disgust, their fear and anger to control how they think, that the god they worship is in fact simply a god they invented to support their agendas. They fundamentally undermine God’s powerful presence in the world. And this indeed deeply grieves the Holy Spirit of God.
To open up to grace Paul says that people must “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” To be an imitator of God is to give up our claims so that we might encounter others where they are and help them know God. It is not to judge as God judges us; but to love as we have been loved. To seek, as we were sought. To rest in God’s judgment and give out of the abundance we’ve received so that others might seek too. AMEN
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