Proclaimer Blog
Transgender – [Vaughan Roberts]
This is a very short book (67 pages) and aims to “give you an accessible introduction to the many questions that surround the transgender issue, as we hold our questions up to the big story of the Bible: the story of creation, fall, redemption, and glorification.” It is written for Christians and is highly accessible and readable.
The book is essentially structured into three parts.
The first two chapters deal with what ‘transgender’ is, the problems people who have gender dysphoria face, and how our culture responds to it. It has useful facts, figures and the outcomes of studies. Roberts was careful to express love and sympathy to the LGTBI community and encourage people not to judge. He is also very careful to say that having these sorts of feelings are not a sin in themselves. These chapters also tackle the swift move of our culture to being completely about the individual. It discusses how we are pushed to just ‘be ourselves’ and ‘define our own identity’. In light of this the reaction of our culture will always be ‘yes!’ to people who want to be their ‘true selves’, such as people who have gender dysphoria.
The second part of the book (chapters 3-5) is an overview of the bible. It explains creation, the Fall and then rescue by Jesus with passing references to gender dysphoria and same sex attraction. This is the majority of the book. It is right and vital for us to use the Gospel as a way of explaining and shining truth on every difficult issue.
The final part is the last chapter, titled ‘Wisdom’. I thought this chapter was the best and I would have loved more, it was very brief. It is about how to apply the bible overview to specific situations lovingly and without putting people who are transgender in their own special category.
There were some parts of the book that I was not totally at ease with. I thought the binary response of Yuck or Yes to transgenderism was slightly insensitive. I also longed for some wisdom about how churches could set about loving and serving people in their turmoil would have been helpful.
Overall, if you know very little about the topic and would like a brief introduction that is sound and biblical this is the book for you. These 67 pages are a wonderful introduction and an excellent starter on what is a complex topic that we need all the help we can get to understand and respond wisely to.
Useful for: Anyone who wants an introduction to this complex topic.
Reading level: Very accessible and easy to read.
Price: RRP £2.99
ISBN: 9781784981952
Publisher: The Good Book Company
Rating: *****