Both Scripture and biology provide objective standards for understanding our sexuality
By Dr. Ryan Smith
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…”
From Rudyard Kipling, “If”
Kipling’s insight is nowhere more evident than in the news that St. Philip’s College in San Antonio, Texas, fired Dr. Johnson Varkey for, among other things, teaching that chromosomes determine one’s biological sex. In other words, genetics ultimately determine a person’s gender.
This is not the stuff of right-wing, conspiracy theorists.
Varkey is a devout Christian who has taught biology and anatomy at St. Philips for twenty years. According to the college’s statement, St. Philips fired Varkey because he “pushed beyond the bounds of academic freedom with personal opinions that were offensive to many individuals in the classroom.”1 Apparently, students protested the claim that biological males have an XY chromosome and females have XX. One’s genetics thus determine his anatomy, and changes to anatomy do not change that DNA.
Professors are not the only target of this cancel culture. In Ohio, a student was penalized for using the term “biological woman” on a project proposal. The New York Post reported that a University of Cincinnati professor allegedly assigned this student a zero for using this “exclusionary” term.
These colleges’ actions are symptomatic not of a biological crisis, but of an epistemological one. (In other words, how and what we know to be true.) Typically, modern thought has purported that theological and philosophical ideas fall within the realm of the subjective,2 while disciplines buttressed by the scientific method (e.g. biology, chemistry, and mathematics) are objectively true. That is, until recently.
When I was in college, the trope, “You have your truth; I have mine,” remained primarily isolated within the realm of theology. But now, it seems to apply to everything. Even science must validate one’s feelings about himself, or he can disregard it. Case in point: these attempts to deny or alter fundamental human sexuality.
Adjudicating biological facts based on one’s worldview has consequences. College education at schools like St. Philip’s becomes meaningless when it offers nothing of substance. Theologically weak churches spiral into entirely subjective, godless existence; liberal Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians functionally become Unitarians whose gospel is simply, “be nice.” And mental health needs are skyrocketing because people’s grasps of reality are too incoherent to cope with life’s difficult demands. In fact, CNN recently released a ground-breaking report from Denmark that “those who identified as trans had 7.7 times the rate of suicide attempts” of the broader public.3
Indeed transgenderism is the current battleground for this nihilistic worldview, and it was likely an impetus for persecuting Dr. Varkey. Companies such as Bud Light, Target, and Disney have recently attempted (and failed) to give transgenderism broad societal acceptance. Apparently Hollywood and corporate America believe that society should celebrate this aberrant phenomenon.
My first interaction with a transgender student occurred years ago when I taught at another institution. One midterm, I received a paper from a student whose name I did not recognize. I asked the class incredulously, “Who is this person named Cain?” They replied that Cain, who was absent from class, was actually a female classmate who considered herself “gender fluid.” That is, some days she felt like a man, and other days she felt like a woman. Apparently when she wrote her paper, she was feeling masculine.
It is ironic that she named her male alter-ego after history’s first murderer. Those who undergo the knife and so-called hormone replacement therapy commit a type of self-murder rooted in hatred of both God and self.
The foolish revolution to which “Cain” belonged has not relented. Just last year, Matt Walsh’s excellent documentary, What Is A Woman?, exposed the lunacy when someone buys Satan’s lie that womanhood is undefinable despite science, biblical teaching, and, perhaps most devastatingly, common sense. As recently as March 2023, our newest Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, could not define womanhood in her confirmation hearings.
In this climate where people have lost their heads, Dr. Varkey lost his job for teaching the basic grammar of biology. The college fired him not because of his incompetency, but because the offended students’ worldview is entirely based on their feelings.
Our society’s crisis is due to the rejection of a biblical worldview, not because of scientific discoveries. A correct worldview affirms God’s declaration of very good immediately upon creating both man and woman in His own image. God designed our sexuality at the core of our identity, and it remains part of His very good design.
Centuries ago, John Milton’s Paradise Lost expressed Adam’s discontent with his Creator’s prerogative to make him: “Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me man?” The transgender movement echoes this complaint. They protest their Creator.
Yet this tendency is not simply a problem within transgenderism. Anyone can despise the way God made him, including features that go beyond one’s sexuality. Height, weight, or temperament come to mind. Christians must diligently guard themselves from the temptation to disdain the way that God created them.
The cure for affirming our God-given design is to turn our thoughts constantly toward Him. John Calvin frames The Institutes of Christian Religion with this sentiment: “In the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.”
More pointedly, King David provides a creed in Psalm 139:13-14 that every human should sing and affirm:
For you formed my inward parts;
Psalm 139:13-14
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
My soul knows it full well.
These words are good news for the broken and confused. We need no philosophy treatise, but plain truth from the Scriptures. Our Creator created us very good down to the cellular level. Even our DNA testifies that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Well done, Dr. Varkey. We applaud you for not losing your head. May we also keep ours.
1 “Biology professor says he was fired for teaching sex is determined by X, Y chromosomes,” by Yaron Steinbuch. https://nypost.com/2023/06/27/professor-says-he-was-fired-for-teaching-that-sex-is-determined-by-chromosomes/ (June 27, 2023). It is worth noting that other students in the same class signed affidavits that contradicted the accusers’ narratives.
2 I am not suggesting that theology and philosophy should be considered subjective; it is simply an observation about society’s values.
3 Jen Christensen, “Transgender people face significantly higher suicide risk, Danish study finds” (June 27, 2023). https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/28/health/transgender-suicide-risk/index.html.
Dr. Ryan F. Smith is the Executive Officer at New Aberdeen College. He holds a D.M.A. in Music Performance and a M.A. in Biblical Studies.