I had many requests over the last two weeks to review a ‘sermon’ by Chris Oberg, titled Make it Pink! Make it Blue! Among them was a taunting email by a ‘Professor’ who loved the sermon and agreed with it. He accused us of having a “utopian binary condition for gender that is predicated on fantasy and blissful ignorance.” It sounds like the professor didn't think we were too bright. At least me, anyway.
I don’t believe that I have met Chris Oberg. We probably don’t frequent the same circles, and I doubt that she knows anything about commercial roofing. Or dirt bikes. Or carpentry. Or the polyurethane molecule….but I digress! She claims to love the Seventh-day Adventist Message and that’s good enough for the benefit of the doubt. So I put my feet on the desk and watched her presentation with high hopes.
My first impression was that her demeanor came off as a bit arrogant, but I continued watching the thing.
Her subtext was “It’s simple until it’s not.” Well.….not exactly profound, but I was here to listen. Her point was that gender is simple until it ain't.
My response is that gender was created by a complex omniscient God, and like the principle that underpins His creation of man and woman—the gender binary (male and female) is wonderfully simple and simply wonderful. It is profound. And it is completely adequate for our happiness in both marriage and family. Gender is pretty simple, until a person gets all confused about it.
The speaker then points to The National Geographic gender edition and states “This the world God so loves” (a reference to John 3:16). At least we got some Scripture in there. Then she plays a Disney movie clip – complete with witches (or sorcerettes) fighting over changing a dress to pink or blue. This sets the tone for the rest of the presentation, a wonderful expository excursion into the relative merits of righteousness by Disney.
Then she calls her husband up who introduces himself as the "wife of the pastor." He was probably just nervous. I felt bad for him, calling himself a wife'n all.
Kerby
He (the husband) launches into a scientific treatise of embryonic development, to set the stage for genetic justification of gender dysphoria. I thought it was interesting when he admitted that a gonad becomes either a testes or an ovary during the development of a baby. That’s God’s gender binary right there. Either male or female. The child doesn’t become Bi-Dyke, Camp, Fetishistic Transvestite, Genderqueer, Pansexual, Polygendered, TrannyFag, Stem, Shape Shifter, Two-Spirit or Ze in the womb (a few of the 'recognized' gender distortions in our sinful culture). That all comes later.
I agree with Chris Oberg that the gestation pictures are “very beautiful.” They are. Her comment was an auto-developed condemnation of abortion–albeit probably unintended. Here, I also point out that the “born that way” sleight-of-hand excuse for homosexual deviancy, presupposes intent and design. Ironic that the folks most likely to justify homosexuality as a viable lifestyle choice, also insist on a woman’s right to choose.” Out here in the country, we call that “liberal.” Or just plain “dumb”, according to Grandpa.
More Kerby
This was right interesting. In his ‘explanation’ Kerby draws an unwarranted distinction between systemic gender and local gender. This leads them (wife and husband) to conclude falsely that gender on the “inside” (Chris Oberg’s words) can be different from the outside. This is to create a “born that way” narrative out of a tiny fragment of abstract biological examples.
This is even more revealing. Kerby estimates that reproductive discontinuity is about 1-5% (depending on which study they look at). They then take the high number (5%) and multiply that to arrive at 370 million people on the planet with “gender discontinuity.” The 5% number is assumed as fact, and then they establish a 20-1 ratio of Adventists to Gender Discontinuity people worldwide. That’s really bad math, even for a country guy. Why assume a 500% elevated incidence over the smaller number? Because they wanted the number of potential Gender Discontinuity to look as high as possible to buttress the point they are trying to establish. “Hey it’s a LOT of PEOPLE, people.”
“None of us are God’s ideal.” This is Kerby’s summary contribution to the sermon. In the context of the gender binary, this statement embeds the thought that there is no dual gender binary. I wonder if Kerby believes in macroevolution. Then Kerby goes back to his seat, or home to fix lunch (because his wife asked him what was for lunch before he left the stage).
To finish the sermon, Chris Oberg then says identifying sin is announcing hate – on people different than ourselves. The context is homosexuality and gender dysphoria and blurred binaries. You can’t call that sin, anymore. She also says they don’t stand in the pulpit and “dish out sin and call sin down on people” — odd stuff. No one does that, nor should they. It’s a straw man argument to avoid calling sin by its right name. We can’t call sin by it's right name because THAT would fill the greatest want of the world — men who are true to duty as the needle to the pole. That really upsets them church feminists. She then uses Jesus to justify her unwillingness to rebuke sin. I give her a pass on that, because she's a WOman, and don't know about the needle and pole thing.
She says “These people suffer from a script that isn’t like yours or mine.” I assume she is referring to homosexual folks, and transgenders, wheeling them into the church on the backs of a .0035 % Trojan Horse anomaly. By the way, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Paul makes a lot of sense.
Andrews University
Oberg says the NAD is beginning to talk about LGBTQ – and she is glad that they are. But it’s not just talk – it’s paving the way towards acceptance. Of course. The NAD pushed so hard on the gender membrane to try and force WO, that they broke through into a binary-bereft vacuum.
Oberg then says that Andrews University (in tandem with NAD) just released a study of the impact of family rejection on LGBTQ millennials in SDA church. I surmise that the NAD requested this study. That’s a good way to leverage the issue. You appeal to folks’ emotive senses and get the church to accept homosexuality to make up for some rejection that homosexuals have experienced through their wrong choices. That way, we don’t have to help folks resolve and renounce homosexuality, repent of the sin and walk by faith. It’s quicker, I guess.
Emotives
Chris Oberg says three transgender Adventists are “changing her heart on this topic.” That’s significant. There is no appeal to Biblical precept or principle, or even understanding. By her own admission, this is an emotional issue for this WOman.
Summary
It is alarming to me that in the audience of this sermon, there are impressionable youth hearing Chris Oberg advocate for acceptance of LGBTQ. Make no mistake, many young people will be changed by this talk. For the worse.
Chris Oberg refers to gender dysphora as “their truth” (34:45 minute marker). This is a segment of postmodern thinking that believes truth is an internal construct, different in every person because no two people are alike. We call this subjective thinking. And La Sierra is pretty good at subjective thinking.
I am told that La Sierra's Associate Provost is in a semi-open lesbian relationship. I am also informed that when Cal Baptist expels their gay students they come to...wait for it... La Sierra.
Chris Oberg laments that SDA churches are only 10% safe for LGBTQ to “tell their story.” "Telling their story" is a euphemism for declaring people righteous in their sin. How many of you doubt that this ten percent is also wildly in favor of Women’s ordination? Anybody? Anybody?
Chris Oberg states that a huge number (of people) struggle with a “script that is different than ours.” This makes the assumption that her audience is straight. I guess to rectify the situation, the audience must go out and bring in the gender dysphorics. And hurry. We need it to prove we aren’t legalists!
She calls for the Church to protect the most marginalized, bullied group in the United States. I agree, we should stick up for conservatives once in a while. She also says that to be like Jesus we must accept these LGBT people in the church as members (35:00-36:00). She uses Westboro Baptists as example of what not to do. I agree. We shouldn’t be like them Westboro Baptist crackpots.
And, we shouldn’t be like Katherine Jefforts Schori either.