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Transgender Right to Teach at Christian University?
The Christian Diarist ^ | October 6, 2013 | JP

Posted on 10/06/2013 1:57:42 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST

For 15 years, Heather Ann Clement was a faculty member at Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian school in Southern California.

But that changed last month, with the start of Azusa’s new academic year, when Heather came out as a transgender. The professor of theology began referring to herself as Heath Adam Ackley. And she even started to develop a more masculine appearance.

The professor of theology formerly known as Heather demanded that Azusa officially recognize “his” new name and gender change. So university administrators sat the prof down for several “thoughtful conversations.”

After hearing out Heather/Heath, it was abundantly clear to Azusa administrators that the evangelical Christian university’s long established “views on the theology of sexuality” were decidedly different from those of the transgender faculty member.

So they decided “it would be best for Dr. Ackley to pursue professional endeavors elsewhere.” And, by “mutual agreement,” he resigned this past Friday.

But not without becoming the latest cause célèbre among crusaders for LGBT “rights.” Indeed, said Ackley, he has garnered an “overwhelming amount of support” from his former students at Azusa, from fellow university professors, and from sympathizers on social media.

“We stand in solidarity with Adam,” declares an online petition, posted by Alyson Thatcher, an Azusa student.

She and her likeminded classmates, “strive to create a safer environment for students and faculty who have been marginalized by APU’s conservative policies, as well as those who have been victims of spiritual violence on campus.”

But what, pray tell, did young Miss Thatcher expect when she enrolled at Azusa?

That the Christian evangelical university would be no different than your typical Godless, socially-liberal institution of supposed higher learning?

That LGBT profs like Heather/Heath would be welcomed on Azusa’s God-fearing, socially conservative faculty? That students would spend their four years on campus partying like the last days of Sodom and Gomorrah?

And, as to the newly unemployed professor of theology formerly known as Heather, she/he obviously was deluded in thinking she/he could “reinvent” herself as a man, and her/his abomination before God wouldn’t get her/him kicked off the Azunsa faculty.

The transgender didn’t violate any of the university’s policies, her/his attorney, Paul Southwick, told NBC4 in Los Angeles. “The only code they have is homosexual conduct,” Southwick argued, “but Adam hasn’t (engaged) in homosexual conduct.”

His client is just a man trapped in a woman’s body.

Well, Heather/Heath’s gender-identity issues may not be a problem at secular universities – in fact, it probably would be celebrated as example of the university’s commitment to “diversity” in even its most perverse manifestations.

But no truly Christian institution would knowingly and willingly subject its young and impressionable students to an unabashed, unrepentant transgender professor.

Are Asunza administrators “homophobes” or “bigots” or “haters,” as they’ve been accused by supporters of Heather/Heath? Absolutely not.

They have responded with grace to the former prof’s gender confusion. “We appreciate Dr. Ackley’s past service,” read a statement from the university president, “and pray God’s best for the journey ahead.”


TOPICS: Current Events; General Discusssion; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: academia; azusapacificu; christian; christiancolleges; evangelicals; hadamackley; highereducation; homosexualagenda; transgender
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
Here is the telling point:
.. After hearing out Heather/Heath, it was abundantly clear to Azusa administrators that the evangelical Christian university’s long established “views on the theology of sexuality” were decidedly different from those of the transgender faculty member. ...
She lost the job over ideological differences, not discrimination against "transgender".
21 posted on 10/06/2013 4:17:14 PM PDT by Salman
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To: Travis McGee

Hmmm.

As an aside, ever read Neil Smith's alternate history Roswell, Texas? As part of everything going a bit differently after the Texas war of independance, the Brits take over the Third Reich in the 1940s.

An afternoon's amusement.

22 posted on 10/06/2013 4:18:10 PM PDT by Lee N. Field ("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means.")
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
...expect...That the Christian evangelical university would be no different than your typical Godless, socially-liberal institution of supposed higher learning?

She expects that the Christian evangelical universities will be forced to become typical Godless, socially-liberal institution of supposed higher learning.

23 posted on 10/06/2013 4:34:28 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: plangent
I’m surprised that research into this phenomenon hasn’t been more widely discussed...if it, in fact, exists.

I think the studies have been done, they expose what we suspect and they have been suppressed. Mustn't be a hater.

24 posted on 10/06/2013 4:40:23 PM PDT by upchuck (nobamacare must be stopped before it can live down to our expectations.)
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To: livius

A religious school should not be compassionate to such a one by keeping her teaching their charges. “Compassion,” as in keeping her on the job, would be something very different for her students. False compassion for one sinner that contributes to the damnation of many others is kind of questionable, I think.


25 posted on 10/06/2013 4:49:06 PM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

This worked as good as possible.

Azusa Pacific University did what they needed to do.

Heather Ann Clement/Heath Adam Ackley went on her merry way when asked.

The only downside is that some students need more learning.


26 posted on 10/06/2013 4:51:36 PM PDT by upchuck (nobamacare must be stopped before it can live down to our expectations.)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Religious institutions, like Azusa Pacific, should prepare themselves for battle over religious freedom.

***
Definitely.

And this person was a professor of theology? Lord help us.


27 posted on 10/06/2013 5:02:53 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Let me hear what God the LORD will speak. -Ps85)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
How does one argue Biblically against a series of surgical operations intended to be a therapeutic approach to a disorder now known as "Gender Dysphoria" for which the "cure" is supposedly transsexual conversion?

I would approach it as, well, God made man and God made woman, and He was pleased with His creation the way it was. God didn't mess up, change His mind, and take either one back to swap parts around like you would a Mr. Potato Head.

There was a bumper sticker around several years ago that said "God doesn't make mistakes" -- and it seems to me that Genesis is pretty clear about this.

Just my $.02 - YMMV.

28 posted on 10/06/2013 5:06:06 PM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (A moral wrong is not a civil right: No religious sanction of an irreligious act.)
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To: plangent

It is definitely a mental illness. And it needs to be treated as such and not encouraged.

I remember seeing a piece on TV about a man who thought he was some sort of big cat — tiger, I think. He had tattoos, plastic surgery, and dental work to make him look like a tiger. (I do not understand how any doctor or dentist could do such work.) Anyway, next time I heard about him was a few years later when the news came out that he had killed himself.


29 posted on 10/06/2013 5:07:58 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Let me hear what God the LORD will speak. -Ps85)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Right to teach? Yeah, that comes right along side my right to not have health insurance. Liberals sure are funny.


30 posted on 10/06/2013 5:09:10 PM PDT by Hoodat (BENGHAZI - 4 KILLED, 2 MIA)
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To: Fast Moving Angel
OK, that's a good start, and I was to reemphasize that I think transsexual surgery is wrong.

But I press on with the argument. You say God doesn't "mess up," and yet you know that people ARE born with disorders that require surgical and medical intervention, some of it extensive. For instance, babies are born as conjoined twins, and the surgeons have to reconfigure their "God-given" bodies. They can't live happily with their conjoined bodies as given by God. They need to be reengineered, and radically, to give each twin a body they can live with.

Trannies, we might hypothesize, have a similar radical problem. They bodies they were born are out of synch with their minds and emotions, their personalities. They need to be re-engineered to have a body they can live with, so they can be their "best selves." It's just like a baby born with one arm and one stump, will eventually get a prosthetic, maybe even a bionic arm.

Both the psychiatric profession and the gender-specialist surgeons will back them up on this, as well as, increasingly, courts and laws. Isn't it cruel to deny them the help and healing they need?

(Keep in mind I am posing this as a hypothetical question needing a Biblical answer.)

31 posted on 10/06/2013 5:43:13 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (“I do not understand myself; all that I hate I am become” St. Paul (Romans 7:15).)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

A good read for everyone. . . . in winning the war for Eternity. We are all in a spiritual battle. . pure and simple. Jesus vs Satan. Not taking a stand for Christ automatically puts you on the losing side.

http://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Angels-Heaven-Winning-Eternity/dp/0764211218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381105729&sr=8-1&keywords=unseen+graham


32 posted on 10/06/2013 5:50:12 PM PDT by Maudeen (Proverbs 3:5-6)
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST
She and her likeminded classmates, “strive to create a safer environment for students and faculty who have been marginalized by APU’s conservative policies, as well as those who have been victims of spiritual violence on campus.”

Oh puke.

She thinks that's bad, she should wait till she experiences *spiritual violence* at the hands of God, who will not be mocked.

33 posted on 10/06/2013 5:54:12 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith....)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Good question, Mrs. D. Maybe the solution lies in the difference between a mental and a physical malady. In the case of conjoined twins, that's a physical issue that surgeons can correct. Same as if a baby has a club foot or the one who was born with a stump instead of an arm - surgery and prosthetics. Physical ailment, physical cure.

But the person who "thinks" s/he was born into the wrong gender body - that's different, that's a mental issue. I don't believe it could be corrected through (physical) surgery because you can't alter physical DNA. If their bodies are out of sync with their minds and emotions, then their minds and emotions have to be re-engineered to fit their existing body, not mutilate their body to fit their minds and emotions. For that reason, I don't think it's any more "cruel" for them to stay in the body in which they were born, than for me to demand to have feathers implanted all over my body because I "think" I was born a bird and I "self-identify" as such.

I'm no theologian (obviously). However, Jesus healed the man with demons - presumably manifesting itself as mental illness - by casting the demons out into a herd of pigs. This is the only Scriptural reference I can think of right now where He dealt with mental illness. So in today's world, the person would be sent to a psychiatrist to cure the illness caused by the mental (figurative) "demons". Any shrink who aids and abets transgenderism is simply pandering to their illness ... same with agreeing that I'm entitled to a feather implant.

Jesus didn't cast out demons from the blind man - He made some mud and put it on his eyes so he could see. Again, physical ailment, physical cure.

Hopefully someone with a better knowledge of the interpretation of Scripture can answer this better than I could ... sorry about that.

34 posted on 10/06/2013 6:55:35 PM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (A moral wrong is not a civil right: No religious sanction of an irreligious act.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 1:27

God created you as you are. He did not trap Adam in a woman's body or vice versa. He made them in the body of the gender HE wants you to be.

Further, if you are a woman and mutilate yourself - are you attracted to men? Then you are obviously biologically a woman still.........or you are willingly attempting to become a gay "man." - and directly thumbing your nose at God

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Leviticus 18:22

---

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?

He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. Matthew 19:4-8

---

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.Romans 1:24-32

---

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. I Corinthians 6:9-11

35 posted on 10/06/2013 7:09:28 PM PDT by Repeat Offender (What good are conservative principles if we don't stand by them?)
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To: Fast Moving Angel; Mrs. Don-o; Repeat Offender

Mrs. Don-o, I have to agree with FMA here to a large degree. This is not a physical affliction which can be treated medically without it being a moral issue.

One area that I would disagree with, is that it is a mental illness condition. It could be. Likely the person suffered much abuse of some kind in the past.

But that would then lend itself to the possibility that there is a spiritual aspect involved. I could see demonic oppression playing into it.

Mutilating yourself is not the answer.

Just posted.....

‘Painless death’ or ‘precipitous cliff’? Transsexual chooses euthanasia after failed operation
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3075776/posts


36 posted on 10/07/2013 12:46:51 AM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith....)
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To: metmom; Repeat Offender; Fast Moving Angel
Hello all of you, It's 5:45 a.m. I've got to get this off quick, I've got an appt. this morning.

I want to reiterate AGAIN (re-reiterate!) that I'm against transgenderizing or gender-blenderizing surgery. The reason I asked the question as I did, is I was looking to see how people would respond with a specifically Scriptural argument. And I thank you all for your good Biblical answers.

I would absolutely agree that it is wrong to use drugs or surgery to maim one's inbuilt healthy sexual characteristics. Yet --- think this through with me --- almost ALL Christian religious groups are OK with contraception and sterilization, which, specifically and intentionally, maim or directly deliberately disable inbuilt healthy sexual characteristics. One never hears the counter-argument that, Biblically, God gave these procreative, generative powers, and it's wrong to try to "re-engineer" yourself with drugs, devices, and surgery.

Yet that's what the transgender person is doing: reshaping the function of sexual organs (and additionally altering their gender identity.)

So, would all of you agree that contraception sterilization --- which alter one's sexuality via surgery and/or hormones --- is against God's law, just like transsexual surgery is? And on Biblical grounds? Thank you for your patience and thought. This really is valuable to me. See you later in the morning.

37 posted on 10/07/2013 2:59:38 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, / Praise Him all people here below.)
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To: Maudeen

Have you read the Fran Peretti books This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness?

Good stuff!


38 posted on 10/07/2013 4:58:10 AM PDT by jodyel
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To: CHRISTIAN DIARIST

Sweet little Alyson should be shown the door as well.


39 posted on 10/07/2013 6:32:44 AM PDT by fwdude ( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
So, would all of you agree that contraception sterilization --- which alter one's sexuality via surgery and/or hormones --- is against God's law, just like transsexual surgery is? And on Biblical grounds?

It probably is - with a literal reading of God's command to "be fruitful and multiply", then any contraception or sterilization would be against God's law. However, I also believe that God gave us technology and surgical skill to use, so that, say, if a woman has 10 kids already and for whatever reason can't handle any more, then contraception or sterilization is definitely an option. I don't think God would command this woman to have more kids. And, chemical castration is used on repeat sex offenders, sometimes by the offender's choice, to keep him from offending again - a positive use of technology and skill.

It's my understanding that even the Catholic church condones the rhythm method for contraception (if this is incorrect, someone please enlighten me), so there's at least some religious approval for it.

But all this differs from transsexual surgery, in that the post-op transsexual STILL isn't capable of reproducing via his/her "new" sexual organs. So the bottom line is, the transsexual can't reproduce, even if s/he wants to, while the person using contraception/sterilization could reproduce but doesn't want to. Either is an exercise of a person's God-given free will, and either would be disregarding the command to "be fruitful and multiply".

Interesting, thought-provoking discussion :-)

40 posted on 10/07/2013 11:33:47 AM PDT by Fast Moving Angel (A moral wrong is not a civil right: No religious sanction of an irreligious act.)
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