The Boniface Option--Deuteronomy 22:5
Day 6
Karen and I talked at length yesterday about why Andrew Isker’s dystopian take of our society in The Boniface Option might not be aimed at us.
Well, whatever passes for length of conversation on college football game day. 🙂
(I’m sure being a sports fan is covered in one of the chapters as another pagan idol I should chop down).
But, we’ve sort of been here already and made our determinations for how to live out what remains of our Christian lives.
Neither of us are in the workaday world anymore, so we don’t have to put up with people (much) who don’t share our values.
I was one of the very first people I know of that was canceled in my career for writing about my conservative beliefs way back in 2013.
That was really on about 10 years ago, but, as far as a sea change in how I live my life now, it seems like a century has passed.
Isker’s book, I think, is aimed at younger people, maybe even unmarried folks, or young parents who are in it NOW.
Desperately trying to figure out which way is up and what fits and if they say what they see and know and believe, will they get fired?
If I held my position now, that I held then, I would have chewed the insides of my mouth away already.
But even if neither of us are swimming against the societal current in our work lives anymore, we still exist with family and friends who hold different values than we do.
And that’s hard enough. 🙂
Isker details the current-day zeitgeist of the glorification of LGBTQ+ and transgenderism and concludes:
“Our modern, transhumanist world believes it has so effectively cast down the Almighty and has triumphed over His created order so decisively, that His very image, man and woman, this thing that He has fixed from the very beginning is now permanently abolished.”
Has God’s holiness been improved upon somehow with transgender story hours for children in public libraries?
Isker continues:
“What we currently live in is the product of generations imagining they can re-create the world in our own sinful image. Transforming the glories of the woman into the shameful things of the man is not an accident. It was done by design.”
For folks of my generation, the blurring and changing of physical sexes is perplexing and downright horrifying.
We don’t get it.
And to be honest, we don’t care to get it. Trying to make us get it won’t be fruitful, either.
Stephen Gardner writes in The Eros and Ambitions of Psychological Man:
“Eros must be raised to the level of a religious cult in modern society, not because we really are that obsessed with it, but because the myth of freedom demands it. It is in carnal desire that the modern individual believes he affirms his “individuality.” The body must be the true “subject” of desire, because the individual must be the author of his own desire.”
This formulation strikes me as true–the further our society gets from God, the more exalted the self becomes.
And as we all well know, we are all flawless in our judgment!
No wonder younger people espousing today’s godless values can be so nauseating at times. 🙂
Isker references Deuteronomy 22 in an off-hand way at describing the egalitarianism of women in political and cultural warfare:
Deuteronomy 22:5 “A woman shall not wear a man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.
This simple Old Testament regulation is incongruously plopped down between helping your neighbor pick up his fallen donkey (v.4) and not destroying a bird’s nest and its young (v.6).
I think this verse is why women didn’t wear pants for the longest.
Deuteronomy 22:5 certainly seems relevant today, though, doesn’t it?
Isn’t today’s society hard enough without having to sort out genders–by dress, hairstyles, and by PRONOUNS?
Going godless is confusing.
I think God, in Deuteronomy 22:5, is trying to protect the social and moral propriety of His people.
And, as some interpretations suggest, (including Isker’s), women shouldn’t pick up swords and armor and fight AS men would–either in reality or metaphorically by enjoining battle in the cultural and political arenas.
Unless the very real differences in the nature of our sexes are discarded as old-fashioned and no longer relevant, that is
.Most, but not all, of my older generation has already discarded this current irreligious societal formation as unworkable.
P.J. Harland writes in Menswear and Womenswear: A Study of Deuteronomy 22:5:
“The purpose of the laws was the maintenance of the living relationship not to impose arbitrary restrictions, but to guide Israel to the fullest enjoyment of life.”
Fullest enjoyment of life–what a concept.
I’m glad I’m retired. 🙂
Lord, help us to understand the importance of respecting and embracing the distinctions You have created between male and female.
Lord, we pray for those who may be struggling with issues of gender identity or expression. Help bring comfort, understanding and support as they navigate their own journey. May they find their true identity and purpose in You.
Amen.