Recently a photo I uploaded onto social media was flagged as “content containing false information.” The photo mentioned that, “according to science and religion there are only two genders, and that Nothing will ever change this.” This was Africa Check’s response to my post:
We’re not all uniformly XX and… We’re not all uniformly XX and XY. Intersex people exist, and that’s not likely to change (Published on 29 August 2022.) “ACCORDING TO SCIENCE & RELIGION THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS,” claims a graphic circulating on Facebook in South Africa and elsewhere online. “Males have 1 X and 1 Y chromosome,” it reads above a photo of what appears to be a muscled man. “Females have 2 X chromosomes,” it reads above a photo of what appears to be a diminutive woman. (But appearances can be deceptive.) The graphic then quotes from the Christian bible and Jewish torah: “Male and female he created them …” It ends with: “NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE THIS.” Religion can’t be fact-checked. But on the science side, the graphic is wrong. Gender – or biological sex? By referring to the X and Y sex chromosomes, the graphic is talking about biological sex, not gender. Gender is understood to be a social construct: the norms, roles and behaviours associated with women and men. These can change over time as societies change. Sex, on the other hand, describes anatomy. It’s incorrect that, “according to science”, people exist only in the two distinct chromosomal flavours of XX and XY. More than this, not all people with XY chromosomes have a typically male anatomy, and not all people with XX chromosomes have a typically female anatomy. Differences in sexual development. It’s estimated that 1.7% of people across the world don’t fit into the traditionally strict biological definitions of female and male. Some estimates go as high as 4% of the global population. These people are sometimes described as intersex. Intersex is an umbrella term for a wide range of conditions variously called differences in sex development, disorders of sex development or diverse sex development, all shortened to DSD. Another term is variations in sex characteristics. Nearly 8 billion people live on our planet. If the 1.7% estimate is accurate, more than a million people are intersex. And if the larger 4% estimate is right, it adds up to about 320 million people.
But the numbers don’t matter. The fact is that intersex people exist. They are people, like all of us. Denying their existence could cause them harm. For more information, see the plain language explanation of DSD by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.
My response, in appealing Africa Check’s flagging of my post as “containing false information,” was as follows:
According to Africa Check, religion cannot be fact-checked. But in the case of Christianity (a religion consisting – according to Google – out of 2.38 billion people), we have enough historical evidence to believe that Jesus truly lived, truly died, and truly rose from the dead. We also believe that He was who he claimed to be – the Son of God – and He Himself quoted saying that God created only two genders, male and female. As a fundamental Christian minister of the Gospel, I believe that Jesus was not mistaken when he equated biological sex and gender as one and the same thing. And as a Christian with more than one university degree, albeit not in Biology, that was what I was taught when I went to university. I understand that you believe this NOT to be true. And I’m also respecting your view on this matter. But I’m asking you very nicely to also respect mine, and my right as a human being to believe in and voice what I believe to be true. I’m NOT trying to offend anyone, or attacking anyone, I’m simply stating openly in what I believe to be true. Respectfully, unless you can disprove the historical evidence for Christianity, your claim that religion cannot be fact-checked, is fundamentally untrue and I find it incredibly biased. As a Christian I cannot agree with your opinion, and as a result I’m respectfully left with only one of two choices, (1) I renounce my religion in favour of being socially and politically correct, or (2) I stand by what I believe, since I’m more than convinced that I will one day be judged according to what the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah says. If we’re not allowed to respectfully agree to disagree, then humanity in itself is being forced into a form of censorship in favour of a social science which as far as I can remember wasn’t seen as an exact science when I was still in university. Respectfully, when I entered university, Theology was seen as one of a few Human Sciences. History, I believe, uses the scientific method at every stage, namely, while looking for collecting evidence, examining the evidence and while putting it together – when required – help is also taken from other sciences. That is why, history is considered to be a scientific discipline. In other words, just saying that science cannot prove religion, in itself, is problematic. And according to Africa-Check, 320 million people can be harmed, meaning that – according to Google – a religion that consists out of 2.38 billion people cannot be harmed, even though our existence and believes are being denied. In other words, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the post, and ask you respectfully to respect our views, just as much as we are being asked to respect yours.
If anyone can predict his own death, and resurrection, AND pull it of, I’m going to believe him/her. And Jesus managed to do exactly that, according to history might I add. Now this Jesus, whom I happened to believe to be the Son of God, quoted from the Bible, and said in Matthew 19:4-6; “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And also in Mark 10:6-8; “… from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.”
We live in a society where as long as what you say is not considered to be social or political correct, then you’re spreading false information, and you’re offending people. Jesus said that the time is coming, and I believe that time is here and now, when Christianity and the message of reconciliation with God will be seen as hate speech. Unless Christianity starts to twist, panelbeat, and censor, the Bible’s content. Unfortunately we cannot do any of that. The moment we start messing with what’s written in the Bible, and fundemental Christian Theology, we don’t have the right to call ourselves Christians any longer. If we do that, we’re but a breakaway group, who happened to still call themselves Christians, even though we’re nothing but a sect. A group with a new found religion. A group who reduced God to a god, a god conformed to their social and political beliefs.
This in itself however is not new, even Paul spoke about this. And therefore I leave you with His words. Romans 1:18-25; The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 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.