Christmas Season and Gender Theory | Bill Maguire | CWR blog
The pernicious ideology of so-called “gender theory" is a rejection of the gift of our bodies and, ultimately, a rejection of the Giver
At the dawn of salvation, it is the Birth of a Child which is proclaimed as joyful news. . . . But Christmas also reveals the full meaning of every human birth, and the joy which accompanies the Birth of the Messiah is thus seen to be the foundation and fulfilment of joy at every child born into the world” — Pope St. John Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)
With those striking words St. John Paul II invites us to rediscover in our celebration of the Christmas season the profound dignity and meaning of human life. In almost every generation, however, the Church must face heresies or ideologies which attack the dignity of the human person and threaten to distort our very understanding of what it means to be human. Our generation is certainly no different.
One of the most pressing and pernicious ideologies in the West today is so-called “gender theory.” Like other dualist heresies the Church has faced, gender theory separates the body from the soul. While the proponents of gender theory may not use the terms “soul” and “spirit,” they nevertheless isolate the spiritual faculties of the soul—self-consciousness (reason) and self-determination (will)—from our physical bodies. Moreover, they believe our identity is located in and determined by the former without any necessary link to the latter. In other words, they believe that we can choose who we are without any necessary reference to our bodies.
The following quote from feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir will help us to grasp the anthropology at play here: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
While certainly not her intention, de Beauvior’s quote could be read in a way that is compatible with Christian anthropology: our lives are given to us as a task and a responsibility; whether we become an authentic woman or man is based on the various choices we make in our lives. In other words, there is an objective standard that determines what it means to be an authentic woman or man. And, as persons endowed with reason and will, we can either fail or succeed in our journey to become who God created us to be.
Gender theorists would, however, strenuously object to such an interpretation of de Beauvoir’s quote.
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