United Methodist high court sustains transgender pastor.

Reverend Drew Phoenix, a United Methodist pastor in Baltimore, was ordained as a woman. She is now a man. The UM high court recently let her-his appointment stand. It’s a curious situation. Transgender issues are on the rise and they raise perplexing questions like “If a man becomes a woman and continues having a sexual relationship with the original wife is it a lesbian relationship?” Or, “What makes us a man or woman, male or female—actual genes or the lifestyle?” In a denomination with congregational polity the local church would “vote” on their pastor and this would not so quickly become an “employment issue.” However, in a denomination like the U.M. church where pastors are appointed, it gets more sticky legally. The Methodist General Conference next summer will likely address the transgender issue along with their customary struggle with the issue of clergy homosexuality.

Of course, we “holiness folk” have come to expect this sort of debate among the Methodists. After all we’ve come to expect Methodists to have all sorts of strange things. But perhaps we shouldn’t chuckle too quickly. Last year Free Methodist Spring Arbor College got a curve ball when, after much prayer with his wife, John Nemecek decided to become Julie (and continue living with his/her wife). Spring Arbor dumped him-her and a legal suit is now pending.

I do not raise this issue to embarrass the Methodists (original or Free) but because I’ve been thinking about this subject as something more than joke material. I’ve been wondering what sort of rule a college would write to forbid this sort of thing. A Christian college can have such rules if we state them clearly and enforce them uniformly. We Christian Colleges are quite allowed to insist that professors practice total abstinence from adultery, sexual harassment, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, and a dozen other things if we state this clearly at employment and enforce these rules consistently.

Colleges can’t fire a person by offering some vague reason like “we require all faculty to live up to Biblical standards and you didn’t.” We’d get cleaned out in court. Besides, we really don’t really want secular courts deciding what he Bible forbids or permits. A Christian college that is owned by a denomination (like IWU is) has a bit of extra protection—we can legally stand on our denomination’s rules. For instance, if our sponsoring denomination does not permit its members to use alcohol or change their gender or live as the opposite gender we can enforce that rule for faculty members too, even those who are not members of the sponsoring denomination. I bet my denomination and especially my college will need to “write this up.” We’ll need a rule of some sort as an institution if want to stop men-becoming-women then living on with their former wife and visa versa.

So, what kind of rule would keep a male professor from deciding next Monday to put on a wig and skirt, squirt on some Estee Lauder, attach dangling ear rings then go to classes from then on as a woman? Or even going all the way and getting physically altered? Or, what sort of rule would stop a woman professor from cropping her hair, avoiding all make-up, putting on a man’s suit and teaching all classes from then on as a man? Could you write this rule? What would it say? Of course, it is an especially tough thing for denominations with a history of legalism about dress to write such rules. We spent decades getting rid of these kinds of rules. Are your ready to make some new ones? If so, how would YOU write such a rule?

So what do you think?

During the first few weeks click here to comment or read comments

Keith Drury November 6, 2007

WWW.TuesdayColumn.com