Pastorally supporting Christians experiencing
gender incongruence

Theology

Pastoral Guidelines

 In considering how to help our brothers and sisters in Christ who experience gender identity issues, we take into account that – 

• All those who have faith in Christ are loved by God and belong to the body of Christ, including those whose personal trials and afflictions in this life include gender identity issues or gender dysphoria.

• The biologically-based binary distinctions of male and female are part of the creation that God described as good and so are to be embraced and guarded in the lives of Christian men and women respectively, and expressed in culturally appropriate ways that conform with Scripture.

• The reality and intensity of gender incongruence is something we acknowledge as part of the disruption of the world following the first sin. None of us is immune from the brokenness of the world, though we may experience it in different ways, and all of us need God’s compassion and his rescue from sin and its consequences that comes only in Christ.

• God gives to his people the resources necessary to live faithfully as a disciple of Christ in the midst of our brokenness, including his word, his Spirit, and the loving fellowship of his people.

• God has compassion on the struggling and vulnerable, and is able to bring healing to the experience of gender incongruence, however in his sovereign wisdom, that healing might not be fully experienced in this life.

• The promise of the gospel is that all who trust in Christ are assured of existential peace and wholeness in the resurrection life of the new creation.