BOLIVAR – Denny Burk serves as professor of biblical studies at Boyce College, located on at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and as president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW).
Burk will speak in Bolivar, Feb. 19-21, at Southern Hills Baptist Church and Southwest Baptist University, in conjunction with a conference highlighting biblical views of marriage, gender and sexuality. To learn more about the conference – called “The Gender Choice: Whose is it?” – visit www.thegenderchoice.com.
I interviewed Burk via email late last month about the impact of the LGBT movement on culture and how Missouri Southern Baptists should respond.
Benjamin Hawkins: To begin, could you consider the LGBT issues from a 30,000 foot level? How is it the case that our society is dealing with issues that little over a decade ago would have been unimaginable to most people – and especially unimaginable a century ago? What happened?
Denny Burk: A worldview called expressive individualism drives much of the cultural change that we’ve witnessed over the last several decades on issues of sexuality. “Expressive individualism holds that human beings are defined by their individual psychological core, and that the purpose of life is allowing that core to find social expression in relationships. Anything that challenges it is deemed oppressive” (Carl Trueman). This notion of the self has deep roots in the western philosophical tradition. In the aftermath of the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, however, this idea really took off and today functions like religious dogma among secular people. The result is that many people in our culture really do believe that their sexual desires and self-concept of their gender comprise their deepest and truest self.
Thus, the purpose of life is to express those “identities” no matter how much they transgress biological realities. If a man’s body says “male” but his mind tells him “female,” his mind wins. Not only that, he must have everyone else accept and affirm that self-identity no matter how much anyone may disagree with it. Any failure to affirm his fallen self-identity is considered oppressive and even abusive. Decent people do not wish to be an oppressor or abusive, so there is tremendous social pressure to accept sinful sexual and gender identities. Our culture has largely bowed to that pressure, and the collapse has happened rather quickly over the last 10-15 years.
Hawkins: It seems that the LGBT conversation has, in recent months and years, taken a turn to transgender issues, in particular. Is this correct? Why have we seen this emphasis now on the T in LGBT?
Burk: After the 2015 landmark Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage, LGBT-rights proponents immediately began to focus on the “T.” It was as if they had achieved their main goal for the “LGB” in the legalization of gay marriage. Now they were ready to demand social acceptance for transgender people, as well. It all began to take shape with the splashy cover story of Bruce Jenner transforming himself into Caitlyn Jenner. Since that time, the transgender revolution has been in full swing in the United States.
Hawkins: Where do you think the LGBT movement goes from here, and how can Southern Baptists be better prepared for what we might face in the future?
Burk: LGBT advocates continue to press for the normalization of transgender expressions, and that effort shows no signs of letting up. There are some signs, however, that even some secular folks are beginning to realize how destructive this movement is. It is no longer Christians alone taking issues with the transgender revolution. With the explosion of cases of adolescent teenage girls identifying as transgender, many are beginning to suspect that transgenderism is less of a psychological condition