My care for all people
Is born of God’s image in all people.
Find out why we at Comenius believe this Truth of Scripture (full text follows).
Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), teaching at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis, and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat
FULL TEXT
One semester at public university I had a transgender student, two gay men, and three lesbians in my class of 24. I knew how these young people identified because they constantly wrote about their sexuality in their papers. My response to students no matter who they are or what they think over 40-plus years of teaching is the same: I treat everyone as bearing the image of God. In our last class of the semester, the transgender student approached me and said, “I can speak for everyone in our class. No professor has treated us with so much care as you have.”
My purpose in telling the story is not self-congratulation but to explain how we at the Comenius Institute understand the concept of “sexuality and identity.” From a biblical point of view, our identity does not depend on any human definitions of sex or gender. Our identity is based in the Hebraic-Christian teaching of the imago dei – that all people made in God’s image. Ethnic, national, class, or gender categories are not the basis for how people should be treated.
The first chapter of Genesis is clear: God made women and men as separate genders; but everyone, no matter how they identify, is made in God’s image. However, if my identity is mine to decide, now I have an infinite number of possibilities to create my own reality. And if identity means I can define who I am, happiness comes from deciding who I am rather than accepting that I am a unique person. The Bible is clear: we first discover our unique identity by being made in God’s image.
My students know I care for them as individuals. And I will make this categorical statement: I will not identify you by age, ethnicity, class, or gender but as a fellow human person, made in the image of God. For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, president of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking Truth wherever it’s found.
I appreciate this. My son is a transgendered person. Sadly, Christians who have judged and vilified him during those fragile adolescent years are a big part of why he rejected a God who “created him in a way that will send him to hell.”
So I am always hold my breath when a fellow Christian writes on the subject….in fact, I usually don’t read them. But you, being you, I had to. Glad I did. Thank you.