The historical Christian creeds were formulated to combat specific heresies. The Nicene Creed of 325 was an answer to the heresy of Arianism (of which the modern incarnation is Jehovah’s Witnesses.) The Chalcedonian Definition of 451 sought to correct various heresies regarding the Hypostatic Union of Jesus Christ.

The 2017 Nashville Statement on Biblical Sexuality was produced by evangelicals in response to the existing confusion espoused by transgender ideology. The statement affirms at the outset that “As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being. By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life. Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female. It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences.”

The statement offered the following five affirmations concerning transgender claims: first, “that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing” (Art. 4); second, “that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female” (Art. 5); third, “that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture” (Art. 7); fourth, “that it is sinful to approve of … transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness” (Art. 10); and fifth, “that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender self-conceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female” (Art. 13). The statement also contains the following five denials that likewise bear on transgender questions: first, it denies that differences between male and female “are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome” (Art. 4); second, it denies “that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female” (Art. 5); third, it denies that adopting a “transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption” (Art. 7); fourth, it denies that the approval of transgender ideology “is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree” (Art. 10); and fifth, it denies that “that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will” (Art. 13).

The statement is worth reading in entirety and should be our guide to understanding what it means to be in the image of God as revealed by Scripture. I am in firm agreement with the Nashville Statement.