Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom
Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom

Fracturing God’s Image: Denial Leads to Multiple Distortions

Karen VanTil Gushta, Ph.D.

Olympic gold medal-winner Bruce Jenner’s announcement that he was going to assume the name Caitlyn Marie and live as a transgender woman should have prompted an open discussion about “gender dysphoria,” a psychological condition in which a person identifies with the opposite sex and feels discomfort with his or her own biological sex. Instead, the newly minted “Caitlyn” was celebrated for “her” courage, touted as a role model, featured on the cover of Vanity Fair, nominated for person of the year by TIME, and Jenner now has his own reality television series, I Am Cait.   

While the media and popular culture are determined to act as if Jenner’s story is “normal,” the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) recently came out with strong cautions to educators and legislators to “reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex.” “Facts,” said the ACP, “not ideology—determine reality.”

The problem is that our culture and society seem determined to act as if it were the other way around.

Regardless of how hard we try, we cannot escape the reality of our creatureliness. We are created in God’s image as male and female (Genesis 1:27). God has expressed His image in humankind through two distinct biological sexes, and try as we might to blur the distinctions between the sexes, there is no escaping the fact that from the moment of conception, our DNA determines whether we are male or female.

Even feminist author Camille Paglia, who describes herself as a “transgender being,” recognizes this truth. In an interview in October 2015, she said, “You can define yourself as a trans man, or a trans woman, as one of these new gradations along the scale. But ultimately, every single cell in the human body, the DNA in that cell, remains coded for your biological birth.” Paglia broke step with many of her liberal cohort, arguing that the emergence of transgenderism signals the end of Western culture. The “efflorescence of transgender phenomena,” she says, “. . . is a symptom of cultural collapse.”  

Transgenderism is only one outworking of the general denial in Western culture God’s image in mankind. That denial, prompted by the rise and acceptance of the doctrines of Darwinian evolution, has also led to the killing of close to 57 million unborn babies in America since 1973. Every abortion is a rebellious refusal to acknowledge God as the creator and giver of life and denies His purpose and plan for that baby.   

By denying the personhood of the unborn, the Supreme Court in essence made babies in the womb the property of their mothers, just as it declared slaves to be property of their owners in its infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. When presidential candidate Hillary Clinton denied that babies in the womb have a “right to life” as human beings, she referred to the unborn baby as a “person.” Legally speaking, a “person” has certain rights and status, which the law protects. However, in an incredible instance of doublespeak, Clinton, nevertheless, denied that as an “unborn person” the baby has any constitutional right to life—echoing the Court’s reasoning in Dred Scott.

The increasing acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia is another outworking of the denial of the image of God in humans. Colorado is considering a bill that would make it the fifth state to legalize assisted suicide, along with Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and California. Western society has never condoned suicide, but now proponents are euphemistically calling assisted suicide “Death with Dignity.” In the Judeo/Christian view, we are stewards of our lives as given to us by God. As Dr. D. James Kennedy taught, “Suicide is the murder of ourselves. The Bible makes it plain that we have no more right to take our own life than to take the life of another. When we do, we take the very gift of life that God has given us and fling it back in His face.”

Other examples of efforts to deny God’s image in humans include both Planned Parenthood’s selling of baby body parts, and its suit against the state of Indiana to prevent a law from going into effect that bans abortion doctors from aborting an unborn baby if he knows the mother wishes to abort the baby because of a diagnosis of Down Syndrome or any other disability. The Indiana law also disallows abortions due to the baby’s race, color, national origin, ancestry or sex.  

As believers, we must continue to speak the truth in love and be unrelenting in our proclamation that every human life is precious in God’s sight and bears His image. The father of lies is still at work promoting the lie that humans are no different than animals and that we do not have an eternal soul. Therefore, we must not grow weary in challenging his lies with the Truth of God’s Word and in offering His free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.