Administration Of Genesis 1:27 today

Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic resource that offers news, essays, resources and community for LGBTQ Catholics, their families and friends, and those who minister to them in the Catholic church worldwide, has recently published some articles that may help us see that God’s plan for human sexuality is more than we may have previously considered.

Listening and care

Father Charles Bouchard, O.P., Dominican friar and the senior director of theology and sponsorship at the Catholic Health Association of the United States, suggests that the U.S.C.C.B.’s Administrative Committee may have wanted to say as little as possible. They urge that we employ “all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who struggle with gender incongruence.” This tells us to focus on what we can do for trans patients. 

We can listen, we can promote scientific research, we can provide pastoral and spiritual care and we can care for families. (It is noteworthy that the document uses the term “gender incongruence” while other parts of the Note seem to suggest that it is not a real medical condition that requires intervention.) 

Trans people are teaching us that human sexuality is more varied and complex than we might feel comfortable admitting. The bishops’ Note may open the door for serious discussions of the questions transgender experience raises. It may help us see that God’s plan for human sexuality is not entirely binary after all. Maybe we will discover that God is glorified by creation in more ways than we thought possible. (Bouchard, 2023)

Father Richard J. Clifford, S.J. , a leading Old Testament scholar, founding dean of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and the former dean of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology from 1983 to 1987, concludes that the expectation that this single verse (Genesis 1:27) can adjudicate modern controversies about gender is thoroughly misguided. There is no hint that the ancient author knew anything about the modern issue of gender identity. And the text gives no hint either. To use “male and female he created them” against (or for) contemporary discussions of gender is to read into the biblical text rather than read the biblical text.

Genesis 1 responds to the community’s doubts about their future by showing how God arranged that all animate beings would continue through their offspring. The text does this, in a strikingly original way, by affirming that God implanted in every living creature a seed (in Hebrew, zera‘) from which future generations will come. The word “seed” appears six times in the text, all occurrences referring to plant and animal life in Genesis 1.

God’s generous commitment to support human life is the proper context for interpreting “male and female he created them.”

For humans, however, the text uses an alternate expression to make the same point, “male and female he created them.” “Male and female” thus means that humans, by divine will, share the life-potency of other life forms on earth. God’s generous commitment to support human life is the proper context for interpreting “male and female he created them.”

In its context, it means that human beings have the same “seed mechanism” that assures them they will continue by begetting descendants to replace the generations that have gone before. Genesis 1:27 assures every human being, not only Israel, that God has implanted in them the means for continuing the future existence of the human race. (Clifford, 2023)

Pope Francis, in the encyclical “Laudato Si”, urges us to adopt a kinship relationship with nature.

Preference for Kinship

Our scientific study helps us to better understand the complex and wonderful role we have in the understanding and supporting all of Creation.

References

Bouchard, C. (2023, April 24). Catholic ethicist on U.S. bishops' directive: Transgender people teach us that human sexuality is "varied and complex". Outreach.faith. Retrieved June 25, 2023, from https://outreach.faith/2023/04/catholic-ethicist-on-bishops-directive-transgender-people-teach-us-that-human-sexuality-is-varied-and-complex/ 

Clifford, R. J. (2023, June 25). Richard J. Clifford, S.J.: Using "Male and female he created them" to adjudicate gender controversies is "thoroughly misguided". Outreach.faith. Retrieved June 25, 2023, from https://outreach.faith/2023/06/richard-j-clifford-s-j-using-male-and-female-he-created-them-to-adjudicate-gender-identity-controversies-is-thoroughly-misguided/ 

Christian climate advocates and skeptics

The Book of Genesis is a starting point for gaining a Christian view of our relationship with Creation.

Christians in tension on climate change

Dan Horan, OFM, has found three models of Creation, based in Genesis and discussed in the 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si” issued by Pope Francis to invoke attention of people to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Amy Erica Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science as well as Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Professor, Iowa State University has found that among Christians in the United States, evangelicals are least likely to believe that climate change is real and human caused, according to public opinion polls and academic research.

A challenging ticket

This is not the case in Brazil. There, evangelicals and Pentecostals – who make up about 30 percent of the Brazilian population – are just as environmentally concerned as other religious groups, public opinion surveys show.

Brazil ticket

In fact, some surveys find that church attendance actually boosts Brazilian evangelicals’ environmental concern.

My own research on politics, religion, and public opinion in Latin America reveals that many conservative Protestants in Brazil don’t just believe in climate change and think of it as sin. Some even see environmental destruction as a sign of the coming Apocalypse. The Catholic Church recently held a global meeting addressing the climate crisis in the Amazon. And Brazil’s former environment minister, Marina Silva, a member of the Pentecostal Assembly of God, has voiced horror at the recent fires consuming the Amazon.

Silva leans left, but most Brazilian evangelicals are politically conservative. So their environmental beliefs aren’t necessarily reflected in their voting records.
Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, won 68 percent of evangelical and Pentecostal voters in last year’s presidential election. Bolsonaro, a climate skeptic whose policies have dramatically accelerated the rate of deforestation in the Amazon, appealed to evangelicals and Pentecostals with his deeply conservative views on gender, sexuality, and religion’s role in society....1 

The Interfaith Power and Light website has curated Religious Statements on Climate Change.

Most religious communities have released statements on Climate Change and the need to care for Creation. The following list (organized alphabetically first by religion, then by denomination) demonstrates the unity within the religious community on these important issues.
Please let us know if there are any additional statements you would like to see included.2 

Emma Frances Bloomfield has determined that understanding Christians’ climate views can lead to better conversations about the environment.

In 1967, historian Lynn White Jr. argued that Christian beliefs promoted the domination and exploitation of nature, and therefore were incompatible with environmentalism. Almost half a century later, polls showed that fewer than 50%  of all U.S. Protestants and Catholics believe the Earth is warming as a result of human actions.
There are notable exceptions, such as Pope Francis, who called for action to slow climate change in his 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si’.” Another prominent advocate for action is U.S. climate scientist and evangelical Christian Dr. Katharine Hayhoe. A growing number of Christians are joining the Creation Care movement, which combines Christianity and the environment. But as recently as early 2018, they were outnumbered by Christian climate skeptics.3 

The principle of the Common Good is cited by Dan Horan, OFM, as a concept that underlies Catholic Social Teaching. It is the sum of all conditions of social life that allow groups and individuals within the group to relatively thorough and ready access to resources for their own fulfillment.

The responsibility Christians have to care for Creation and be our brother’s keeper is first stated in Genesis

Cry of the earth: cry of the poor

and is a foundation for action to deal with the climate emergency.

References

1	(n.d.). In Brazil, Some Evangelicals are Fighting for Environmental .... Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://sojo.net/articles/brazil-some-evangelicals-are-fighting-environmental-rights
2	(n.d.). Religious Statements on Climate Change. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from https://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/religious-statements-on-climate-change/
3	(2019, August 5). Understanding Christians' climate views can lead to better .... Retrieved November 18, 2019, from http://theconversation.com/understanding-christians-climate-views-can-lead-to-better-conversations-about-the-environment-115693