So now the church is ordering people to forget all that pesky sciencey crap about human bodies and just focus on the soul believe Gender Dogma.
Church of England set to issue advice telling teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’ around biological sex as critics argue new guidance is pushing gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth
Church of England advice for teachers has been criticised for pushing the gender ideology that a person’s sex is ‘assigned’ at birth rather than a biological fact.
Guidance set to be issued to thousands of schools states that a transgender man is someone ‘who was assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man’, and a transgender woman ‘was assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman’.
The statements are in the document Flourishing For All, which is backed by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and tells teachers to challenge ‘outdated terms’.
Outdated terms like “god” and “soul” and “sin” and “blasphemy” you mean?
About a million children attend 4,630 Anglican schools.
That random remark seems to imply that Welby’s “advice” is to Anglican schools as opposed to all schools, which you would think the Mail would say explicitly instead of hinting.
C of E chief education officer Nigel Genders presented the draft anti-bullying document, which is out for public consultation, at the General Synod on Monday.
Wait. Nigel who? Genders? Is this a joke?
He said it was in response to the Government’s trans guidance for schools and a review of NHS children’s gender services that found transgender treatments were based on ‘weak evidence’.
But Ms Marsh and Ms Davies-Arai said the guidelines actually conflicted with the Department for Education’s draft transgender guidance, which says pupils must not be taught about the ‘concept of gender identity’.
Oh not be taught. Oops! Our bad! Sorry!
Comments
12 responses to “See also: blood into wine”
That’s rich. Try “Flourishing For Some”, or “Flourishing For a Tiny Minority”, or “Lording it Over Everyone Else”, or “Give Me What I Want, or I’ll Kill Myself”, or “Do as We Say, Bigot”.
Wait. I’ve got it: “Flourishing For Everyone But Girls”. Because that’s what it will be.
The war on the Enlightenment rages on.
What you need to understand is that Christians are, by definition, Cartesian dualists. And dualism is adjacent to the notion that a soul can be put into the wrong body. So, it’s not surprising that those denominations that are not wrapped up in fundementalist dominionism are prone to gender ideology.
Where is Elizabeth Loftus now that we need her again.
YNnB: I would be just charmed by the retro-Blairite Flourishing for the many, not the few!
rick – but if a soul can be put into the wrong body that means Mister God can make mistakes. I’d think god-botherers would be put off by that.
Never underestimate the rationalizing power of the god botherers. Where else did we get the entire theological discipline of theidiocy.
“Dualists”? I do not think so. See for instance 1 Thessalonians 5:23:
And no, I am not a Christian. But I do not think Christianity is best challenged by making inaccurate statements regarding mainstream Christian beliefs.
I think Welby &co are simply jumping on a bandwagon – rather late. They may find that genderism’s hold on popular fantasy is starting to crumble. I hope so.
Re NightCrow @7
I had not considered otherwise (that is, I too would have said that Christians are Cartesian dualists), and I thank you for pointing out how that might not be the case.
I went searching for more information and found quite a few references. One was a helpful essay at Southern Evangelical Seminary and Bible College:
Substance Dualism Is Not The Only Option For Christians
This article and others clarify that many but (importantly!) not all Christians are Cartesian dualists; there are other ways to believe in a soul besides thinking the soul is a completely separate thing from the body.
I would add that people who believe it’s possible to upload a “mind” into a computer are probably accurately described as Cartesian dualists, although probably less likely to be Christian.
Again, thanks for the prompt.
Most of the Christians I’ve known seem to be dualists, but not. They believe the soul is separate from the body, but they believe they will have their body again…younger, stronger, healthier, and prettier…in heaven. I presume the idea is that God will recreate the body, and your soul will hop in…or something.
It seems to me that the concept of ensoulment of a fetus would require a certain dualism. I don’t know if anyone really believes that, or if it’s just a handy argument against abortion without having to think too hard.
Opelia, my comment was put in moderation. Sorry. I just had to replace my computer and some of the stuff wasn’t copied correctly. (Geek Squad has a lot of mess to answer for; I’ll blame this on them too.)
No problem. I tweaked your address.
Sackbut @ #8
Thank you for your comments. I owe my knowledge of the Bible (which is fairly extensive) to my ‘fundamentalist’ Christian parents. I learned to interpret it critically from one of my Religious Education teachers at school, and later from a friend at university who was studying theology.