Flirting With Abominations

“And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27).

A fairly brief doom-scrolling session on the social media platform of your choice will likely expose you to a plethora of voices that, each in his own way, insist that there is no fundamental difference between men and women except “the plumbing.”

Any apparent distinctions your lying eyes may observe are, of course, merely the result of a combination of two things: the conditioning of men and women to behave differently because Bronze Age shepherds said they should, and your own internalization of said shepherds’ bigotry which makes you see black and white where there is actually only gray.

At the same time, some “realities” you are expected to believe include the notions that, though our “plumbing” is the only real difference, men are still inherently oppressive and vile, and that women, whatever that means, are still inherently virtuous victims. No requests on your part to “make this make sense” will be tolerated; the mere asking is evidence enough that you are part of the problem. What you need to learn to do is see those five fingers O’Brien is holding up, and never mind that his middle finger is down, which is an especially ironic gesture, considering his whole attitude toward everything you hold dear. 

In the relativistic culture we have inherited, the pressure on Christians, and sometimes coming from Christians, is to see that the historical Jesus actually was teaching exactly what the regime today would approve of, like the sweet nothings Alan Ritchson shares on his Instachurch. Instead of theological meat, which has the potential to help babes become mature, we are expected to embrace Christoveganism, wherein even the milk of the Gospel is almond milk. The sincere milk of the Word (1 Pet. 2:2) is not to be preferred, since this milk may cause us to grow into unequal strengths and at unequal rates; and what with the overarching scheme of Scripture bending toward equality, we must admit that natural distinction is not a thing for which we should allow.

That is if the Overton Window is situated correctly in the Overton Wall. If not, some effort will need to be made on the part of the people of God to move that window back to where it belongs: somewhere to the right of the current position.

However we arrived at this point, we as the people of God have become quite too comfortable flirting with abominations. By this, I do not mean that Christians literally flirt with transvestites and corrupt judges, but that we have a very “letter of the law” approach to good and evil, and we tend to counsel ourselves and others to keep quiet when people in our lives are edging toward great sins but have not quite crossed the line and fallen off the cliff. 

When a brother shows up at church or some other gathering with painted fingernails, or a ponytail, or a cardigan, you can expect a “chapter and verse” request if you voice concern. Not only that, but most likely several women and other men in the church will affirm his self-expression and Christian liberty, then point out that the Bible does not define long hair, that the cardigan was in the men’s section at JCPenney, and that Korean men also paint their nails. When this kind of logic is applied to everything, an unfortunate result will be that the lines of distinction between men and women will be blurred in the area of public presentation. 

Today, passages even in the New Testament concerning the distinction of roles, behavior, and presentation are treated as incredibly difficult to understand or culturally irrelevant. Our generations have grown up swimming in egalitarianism to such a degree that the enforcement of any standard that restricts self-expression is viewed by the Left as oppressive, such that we on the Right have our work cut out for us in trying to prove that this is not the case. 

Though we have little to do with regulating the hearts and hands of outsiders (1 Cor. 5:9-13), the difficulty in giving an answer means that we will struggle to maintain cultural distinctives in our own congregations. Scripture is unambiguous that men's and women’s hair should be different lengths (1 Cor. 11:14-15), that men should not wear women’s clothes and women should not wear men’s equipment (Deut. 22:5), that men should provide and women should manage their households (1 Tim. 5:8, 1 Tim. 5:14), that men must rule and women must submit (Eph. 5:22-28), and so forth.

Yet within the Western church, there is a concerted effort to obfuscate those plain teachings. Rather than rejoicing in distinction and gladly accepting the instructions God has given, our desire too often is to question the clarity or relegate the instructions to a different people and time. Though we dare not ask “Did God really say?” we often ask “Did God really mean?” This makes more pragmatic sense when our objective is to retain the attendance of long-haired anklet-wearing soyboys with soft hands and softer feelings, but also makes our task of doing them any good much harder.

The trend in our culture, which is being followed by many Christian churches, is toward making the distinctions between men and women about as clear as the distinction between white and cream-colored paint, in that you will likely only be able to tell them apart if the lighting is good. There is, of course, a crossover in interests and activities between men and women: both can enjoy coffee, poetry, action movies, Lord of the Rings, personal grooming, and more and without these shared territories there would be a severely diminished possibility for affection or love between the sexes. But embracing a culture that posits the differences between men and women is like the differences between white and cream is embracing a culture of androgyny. Like shoulder-length hair, which from behind can increase the difficulty of identifying male or female, androgyny confuses rather than clarifies, in that androgyny is inherently a practice of blurring distinction.

If inverting distinction via men wearing women’s clothes or vice versa is an abomination (Deut. 22:5), embracing androgyny is flirting with abomination. Not only should Christians affirm the complementarity of male and female, but we should also counsel our own people and hearts and develop a culture that celebrates the distinction between male and female. Rather than white and cream, we should develop a culture where the difference between male and female is as clear as the difference between red and green. Surely there will be some out there who still cannot tell the difference, but that will be because they are colorblind, and that colorblindness is self-inflicted because they are wearing tinted glasses.

Though we ought not to take our cues from the secular world, we can examine with interest that transvestites are quite aware of the distinction between masculine and feminine. Their self-presentation belies an inherent knowledge of those distinctions, which is why men are not simply calling themselves women and continuing to wear suits and leather dress shoes, but are instead adorning themselves in purses and high heels. The self-presentation of transvestites, as there are no actual transgenders, is the direct analog of O’Brien’s hand with the four fingers. The pagan Left is utilizing this caricature to teach the culture to stop believing what is self-evident.

The church in America must then be in the business of having our women dress and behave in distinctly feminine ways, and our men dress and behave in distinctly masculine ways. The gap in physical strength, submissiveness and aggressiveness, length of hair, and style of dress ought to be wide and clear, leaving no question of who is who and no belief that either wants to be the other.

If we witness a married brother texting and spending time with a woman other than his wife, even if we are sure he has not committed literal adultery with her, we have the right and duty to urge him to stop because he is flirting with adultery by flirting with the woman. In like manner, the people of God need to quit participating in the perversity of androgyny, which is flirting with abomination.

SKYLAR BORSMAN
1689 Federalism | Post Millennialism | General Equity Theonomist
Skylar works as a machine operator at a metal shop in his hometown. He lives with his wife, Morgan, and their two children. Skylar graduated from the International ALERT Academy and earned his Bachelor's degree in Youth Ministry from Pensacola Christian College in 2020.