Ch 4 The Gender Equation in Our Practice

At the very opening of this study, I noted the genderizing influences early in my life to be ‘just a girl’, and that I disliked the designation of ‘daughter’. My experiences were very common for females; that is, growing up by the old gender algorithm and its gender equation shaped me into a reduced person with fragmentary relationships, just like everyone else. My mother told me more than once that she just wanted us (kids) to have what others kids had, in order to not feel different (read less). Despite her good intentions and efforts for the latter, I grew up feeling as if I were less. Both of my parents could only reinforce the old gender algorithm because that’s all they knew, and which, like genes, they passed on to us.

Thankfully, this narrative wasn’t the determinant for my life. I decided to follow Jesus at the end of my junior year of college. This choice set me on the journey of discipleship that has increasingly challenged and corrected my old gender equation, a journey that continues even as I write this study. Discipleship (based on Jesus’ relational terms) is without question inseparable from growing as paragenders, that is, integral to growing in wholeness as persons and in relationships in the image and likeness of the Trinity. Throughout this chapter, I share from my experiences as Jesus’ disciple, from being greatly reduced by gender to becoming whole in paragender. The paragender narrative of discipleship is now defining for my life.

The previous chapter discussed the theological essentials for paragenders, but enacting them in our practice is made difficult by unseen roadblocks and potholes—for which our theology alone is insufficient to navigate this relational path. These include, again, assumptions and biases that determine our practice—even against our good intentions (as Paul illuminated, Rom 7:14-25). The purpose of this chapter is to further integrate our discipleship with our practice as paragenders, because they are, inseparably, about our identity and function as persons created in the image and likeness of God. And we need to continue to be consciously involved in reciprocal relationship with the Spirit, in the relational process of discovering and understanding matters vital to the transformation of the gender equation in our practice.

Redemptive change for inner-out transformation must involve the old dying (deconstructed) so that the new can rise (redeemed new and whole). Below is a brief narrative, followed by a discussion of the old algorithm and evolving gender equation needing to be deconstructed—areas directly affecting our identity and practice.

Try to imagine a group of humans all over the world who discover that, except for some of their physical differences, they are exactly the same, with the same genes from the same source of origin. Some would consider them clones that aren’t really human, perhaps aliens. Others might consider them stunted humans whose differences never evolved to the existing human stage of diversity today, and thus who are some peculiar species having no significance for human life and development.

As it turns out, however, this uncommon group of humans comes the closest to distinguishing the common origin of humanity. As different as their identity appears, their function reflects the image and likeness of the Creator of all human life. Therefore, on the one hand, their primary identity and function are beyond gender, just like their Creator. One the other hand, their secondary identity and function live beside one another in gender in the primacy of relationship together both equalized and intimate, just as their Creator, the Trinity, live in the primacy of relationship. This uncommon narrative emerged whole from the beginning, but it has since been common-ized by the human contexts all over the world. This process of commonization has been reducing and fragmenting human persons to secondary distinctions for their identity and function throughout human history. The consequence has been a genderized narrative that has prevailed over human life—countering the whole-ly narrative of paragender, and giving primacy to our genes or the distinctions connected to genetic makeup.

Biological sex was created in the structure of the human genome. One’s interpretive lens of this human reality, however, ascribes specific meaning to gender in the eye of the beholder. The first persons saw each other’s sex in its most basic form and “were both naked and were not ashamed.” By their own lens, they beheld each other and this was their interpretation; God didn’t tell them about bôsh, nor that their sex had this specific meaning. While the first persons didn’t dismiss their sex, they didn’t pay attention to their secondary genetic makeup because their whole persons emerged as paragenders. The person they each beheld gave meaning to what was primary and who they were in the image and likeness of God.

Yet, after their interpretive lens shifted from the inner out to the outer in, they beheld their biological sex in a totally different way. Just as Satan lied to Eve, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,” (Gen 3:5), what happened was “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked” (3:7). Now their nakedness had a reduced meaning that fragmented their relationship, thus their persons were no longer beheld as primary and their gender became the most prominent in the eye of the beholder. As long as our interpretive lens operates with the same limits as theirs, only this gender equation will unfold in the eye of the beholder to determine our practice regardless of what our theology states. We also need to understand more clearly what it meant that they now knew “good and evil” because this will further clarify the relational primacy of our discipleship as paragenders.

When Eve and Adam’s eyes were opened—a two part condition of both reality and illusion—they now had first-hand experiential knowledge of the “evil” that God warned them about: “you will be reduced” Gen 2:17). They didn’t physically die, which is the referential reading that diminishes the scope of the consequences. But in being reduced, something essential did cease for them; this point of cessation involved their identity and function as paragenders, because ‘naked without shame’ no longer composed the wholeness of their persons and their relationship together. Gender became primary in the eye of the beholder. Thus for all human life ever since, gender is in the eye of the beholder. This reality of our interpretive lens dominates our genderized condition. Furthermore, ‘gender in the eye of the beholder’ epitomizes the “evil” that stands in contrast to the “good” that is whole in relationship together in God’s relational context and relational process. Yet, this is not the “good and evil” promised by Satan when our eyes are supposedly opened. How to understand ‘good and evil’ becomes a critical issue, especially in light of assumptions we make about good and evil, often settling for vague and variable meanings.

In OT Hebrew, “good” (tôv) includes a range of meanings, notably righteous, correct, delightful, joyful, fruitful, and precious. In the Genesis narrative, “good” signifies God’s relational design and purpose for human creation (Gen 1:31) that distinguishes the primacy of whole persons in whole relationship together in the image and likeness of the Trinity—nothing less. Thus, this relational primacy and purpose constitutes tôv, and thus shapes the correct, even precious interpretive lens for the eye of the beholder.

‘Good’ goes beyond moral goodness (as contrasted with moral evil), which invariably gets reduced in our thinking to following a set of ethical rules likely having no relational significance to either God or us. ‘Good as moral goodness’ may be useful for keeping societies’ from falling into chaos and destruction, but the limits of this moral goodness often become constrained, distorted, or abused by the variable definitions of interpretive lenses. Consequently, this common perception easily gives the illusion of good because it seems right, but it lacks theological clarity according to God’s terms. Therefore, not all good, even promoted by Christians, is adequate to have relational clarity and significance in our practice as whole persons in whole relationships together.

Likewise, evil needs to be understood as nothing more than sin, which challenges the view of sin in the eye of the beholder. So, on the one hand, as sin, evil goes beyond the more extreme expressions commonly perceived as evil (e.g. war, genocide, human trafficking, sexual abuse), and, on the other hand, this sin (and therefore evil) encompasses various forms of what’s commonly considered “good”—that is, any illusion of ‘good’ that in reality has negative consequences on persons (e.g. self-determination, preoccupation with work or the internet). This understanding counters the ‘good and evil’ from the primordial garden that Satan composed by only reductionism. That is, Satan composed illusions of ‘good and evil’ (originally defined only in God’s relational terms) that persist today, not only in secular thinking, but also among Christians. Indeed, these illusions of ‘good and evil’ dominate Christian teaching in churches and in the academy. Therefore, if our view of sin isn’t the sin of reductionism, we will continue to sustain Satan’s version of ‘good and evil’.

In the narrative of the primordial garden, evil signifies the opposite of tôv (as discussed above). The OT Hebrew for “evil” (ra’) signifies the inability to measure up to a standard. That is, ‘evil’ is the reduction of the wholeness of both persons and relationships, and includes the substitutes persons present of themselves instead. We can state unequivocally in God’s whole relational terms, then, that ‘evil’ signifies whatever reduces persons and relationships, including the counter-relational dynamics of the deception involved in the presentation of gender as a mask to cover up the bôsh of gender distinctions.

Gender in the eye of the beholder epitomizes all the other human distinction-making based on the secondary genetic makeup of persons, the sum of which constitutes the human relational condition ‘to be apart’—encompassing more than merely “to be alone.” Just as Eve and Adam were the original persons, gender in the eye of the beholder is, I assert, the original ‘sin and evil’ reflecting the exercise of human self-determination beyond its common (even acceptable) practice down to its depth and breadth.

The far-reaching implications of ‘gender in the eye of the beholder’ as the original ‘evil’ seem to be confirmed by the cryptic narrative later in Genesis (Gen 6:1-7). In this short narrative, the focus centers on ‘gender in the eye of the beholder’ (“daughters…were fair”) and the egregiousness of the relationships between males and females—possibly including male abuse of females (“took wives of all they chose,” v.2,4). God was angered by “the wickedness of humankind” and “grieved…and his heart was filled with pain” (v.6) to such a depth that God wiped them all out (except for Noah and his family). It’s important to understand that the behaviors of those persons can only be speculated, yet the condition represented an extension of the good and evil from the primordial garden. Therefore, apart from the drama, we can understand that the Trinity so loved human creation that violating the created tôv has deeply aggrieved the Trinity up to today (cf. Isa 63:10; Lk 19:41-42; Eph 4:30). As we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to God’s pain, this helps us get in touch with our own and any related bôsh in our gender equation.

The norm-alized illusions constituting ‘evil’ today preclude the root sin of reductionism underlying gender distinctions. As a consequence, the subtle evil of gender distinctions has become so norm-alized as to seem even innocuous, for example, as compared to the overt evil of human trafficking. This reductionism is a strong bias that influences what we don’t pay attention to, in particular God’s grief over the lack of wholeness in all of us. Thus, while churches and the academy have, over recent decades, necessarily taken up the worthy fight against human trafficking (which affects women and children), there is an incongruent lack of outrage or grief over subtler forms of gender discrimination of females that by necessity involves the heart of God’s family and its whole-ly nature. God holds church leaders and the academy accountable, as discussed in Chapter 2 (Mt 18:1-14; Ezek 34:1-10).

In continuing to examine the gender equation in our practice, the gravity of ‘gender in the eye of the beholder’ and consequences on human life must be understood and even deeply felt, as God does. The discussions that follow are meant to help us think further about gender in our own practice individually and corporately as church. Just as God warns and admonishes his people in so many ways to distinguish between the uncommon of God’s whole relational ways, and the common referentialized and fragmentary ways (Lev 10:10), we need to pay attention to our practices and their implications for our own persons, for how we relate to others, and for our relationships in church. Our practice will either become congruent in uncommon function, or remain incongruent in common function. And God is affected one way or the other.

Understanding paragender (and its reduction to genderized distinctions) encompasses our human genome, since our genome determines our sex. Although research in genetics is fruitful for science and medicine, it is critical that we don’t oversubscribe to the human genome to explain human life—not to mention determine future life. Every person is no less than our genome (as created by God), but all persons are also more than our genome—that is, beyond our sex as created in God’s image and likeness. The influence ascribed to our genome varies according to our context, which shapes the priority and emphasis given to our sex. When our sex is made a primary distinction, our genome becomes the determining factor in our human development, taking precedence over who, what, and how we are in God’s image and likeness, thereby limiting and constraining our identity and function from going beyond what’s secondary for humans and insignificant to God.

The primary distinction of persons’ sex gives human genetics significance to our identity and function that God never intended for his creation. Yet, human genetics often prevail, such as in the belief held by those claiming that “my genes made me do it” (that is, I’m at the mercy of my genes)—which is a reductionist position. Gender sociologists today argue about whether the genderized differences of femininity and masculinity are due to biology (genome, nature), or socialization (nurture). Yet, the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate about gender cannot account for the whole human person created in God’s image and likeness. Evolutionary science only reinforces this reductionism.

In evolution, adaptation is necessary for the survival of a group. How well a group adapts determines their survival, with the fittest surviving the most to persist and prevail, for example, by the evolutionary concept of the survival of the fittest, where fittest is seen as better or best, or most evolved. Gender identity and function have been at the center of evolutionary adaptations in human evolutionary history, which helps us understand how the gender equation evolving from the primordial garden has persisted and prevailed, even among Christians.

Male prominence has adapted overtly and covertly throughout human history to maintain female subordination, whether their persons are considered unequal or equal. Adapting as such has allowed this gender equation to keep evolving, whereby it counters and prevents the paragender equation of creation from being established in human contexts. Yet, it must be understood that female subordination has also adapted in order to survive in the face of male dominance. Whether by default, frustration, or out of despair, females have reflected, reinforced, and sustained this gender equation over the paragender equation. Rendered in their bôsh, Christian women have complied in one way or another, thereby countering and preventing their whole person in God’s image from prominence.

The common denominator for both females and males is using the algorithm from reduced theological anthropology (illustrated in Chap. 3) to define their identity and function. Mary was different because as a paragender, she was no longer constrained, and her person was re-defined and made whole!

Another way to frame human life as a consequence of using the old algorithm (Gen 3:16-19) is with stress and anxiety, which amplifies the disappointment and discouragement (the shame of bôsh) internally experienced as allowed and acknowledged. This stress and anxiety then descend into inner depression, even in the midst of personal accomplishment, success, and related status and power—as prevails in everyday modern life.

For example, all of us experience the dual impact of gender, from outside us (gendered influences from family, church, cultures, and society), and from within us (what we’ve internalized and believed). The two-pronged experience of being nurtured and socialized in gender, together with internalizing genderized values instills in our innermost the same bôsh that emerged from the primordial garden affecting all humans—the shame of the gender equation.

Through most of my life I could only identify a vague feeling bad about my self, but I didn’t allow myself to admit feeling shame. Instead, I compensated for my insecurity about my person by doing what everyone else does, namely try to prove my worth from outer in. Much of these efforts involved trying to measure up to the feminine ideals of my various contexts.^{^[1]}

Ironically, the basis we use to feel better about ourselves (to compensate for shame) is the old gender equation, which amplifies gender distinctions. And the more “successful” we are at measuring up on a comparative scale to the feminine or masculine standards from human contexts, the ‘better’ we are, and the more entrenched we become in the old gender equation. This becomes “enslaving” in a circular process. The irony for females is that our gender makes us feel less, so in order to feel better we try to be ‘more’, but in genderized terms. Males often compensate for feeling shame (whether or not due to their gender) by demeaning females, even by simply not listening to them. Hyper masculinity (also known as toxic masculinity) is the extreme expression of this, especially by abusing and dominating females.

In other words, given the presence of the old algorithm, the created well-being and wholeness (shalôm) of the person and persons together are unattainable by human self-determination; the reality in conflict with any illusions about self-determination is that it counters their wholeness. This absence or lack of wholeness composes the inherent human need, which Christians and churches have inadequately addressed and thus ineffectively met, much less fulfilled, in themselves and for others.

When we examine our gender equation, we have to do the math in order to assess what the equation results in. For example:

These are the results of what composes our gender equation, and the math is inescapable and nonnegotiable.

At the heart of the old algorithm is the common denominator of human distinctions from outer in, of which gender is the lowest common denominator. This human condition will remain until redemptive change to the new algorithm, which requires our transformation to the paragender equation of the original creation—as in the narrative of paragender, above. The most common and obvious expression of making distinctions from outer in that we practice in everyday life is in the ‘presentation of gender’.

When outer garments were used in the primordial garden to cover up the shame of gender (Gen 3:7,21), it set into motion a human dynamic of ‘the presentation of self’ in everyday life.[2] This dynamic generates a self-consciousness centered on the outer-in distinctions of self rather than on the person-consciousness of the whole person from inner out. To one degree or another, we are all self-conscious, with such concerns varying from one moment to the next. The scope of what emerged from the primordial garden continues to pervade our everyday life in ways that may surprise Christians.

With gender as the prominent distinction of self, the presentation of gender has evolved and driven both feminine and masculine body type and fashion. While our genes may limit the size and shape of our bodies, how we present that self has been a historical phenomenon still evolving. We all have been influenced in some way by what is fashionable. We haven’t, however, understood well this human dynamic in our everyday practice. For Christians, fashion in the presentation of gender is used to create the images of gender—that is, the feminine and the masculine—which are essentially substitutes for their wholeness in the image of God that replace person-consciousness with self-consciousness.

As exposed in the primordial garden, such a presentation is used to cover up the bôsh (which most of us are unaware of in ourselves) of a person in order to appear better or more than one is. Jesus exposed this dynamic in its basic process of self-determination, in which persons present a favorable-fashionable self to gain a good self-image in other’s perception (Mt 6:1-7). A favorable self presented to others encompasses religious piety (the specific issue Jesus addressed), and other distinctions persons use to highlight and enhance their self-image: gender (femininity and masculinity), “knowledge/wisdom” (cf. Gen 2:17; 3:2-6), achievements (professional, academic, athletic). The primary issue central to such a presentation of a favorable-fashionable self is that the whole person is covered up, the real person is hidden by “fig leaves,” whatever form those fig leaves take today, and in this way a virtual person is presented to deceive others. This presentation and its counter-relational dynamic must be exposed in our practice and consciously rejected so that our persons and relationships can be restored to wholeness.

So, for example, when egalitarians present their gender in fashionable feminine ways (i.e. to create a female-stereotyped image) or men in masculine ways (to create a male-stereotyped image), they abet the genderized presentation at the expense of their whole person, thereby becoming enablers of the gendered reduction of persons and their relationships. This is how egalitarians’ practice exposes the lack of wholeness in their theological anthropology, and I believe this is a more widespread issue among women than men. It is important for females (starting with female church leaders and other role models) to be aware of how their fashion choices can be distracting by bringing attention to their outer-in appearance; and the same is true for males. Yet, the issue raised here also goes beyond sensuality versus modesty, and beyond ‘what to wear’ (as in ‘what to do/have’); that is, the deeper issue is women presenting an outer-in version of self in the misguided effort of self-determination to construct one’s identity and function.

This dynamic began in the primordial garden, and then further evolved in what appears to be a positive purpose in the narrative of the tower of Babel—the ongoing pursuit of persons functioning in self-determination to construct their own identity (Gen 11:1-9; cf. 12:2). We need to consider carefully the fact that from the opening of Scripture, the human shaping of human identity and function competed with God’s design and purpose for our wholeness in the primacy of relationship together on only God’s relational terms. Jesus reiterated this very same issue of competing sources for who, what, and how human persons will or will not be compatible and congruent with God’s original design and purpose.

Therefore, merely telling females to dress modestly so as not to be sensual and thus cause their brothers to stumble, can easily become a moral dress code to follow—which is the usual approach in Christian cultures, yet that appears to have lost favor among U.S. Christians. A dress code can be helpful if it encourages females to consider deeply the presentation of gender in light of the wholeness of their person created in God’s image. For the most part, however, the inadequacy of dress codes is that adhering to them is usually only an outer-in change (metaschēmatizō, to change the outer form, or suitably style, e.g. 2 Cor 11:12-15). To change one’s behavior from outer in can indeed help change brain patterns, as well as break some habits; but, more important, persons need to fully understand that the issue of masquerading behind the presentation of gender reflects their lack of wholeness, a qualitative condition which is only an inner-out function necessitating redemptive change from inner out (metamorphoō, to undergo an internal change, e.g. Rom 12:2; 2 Cor 3:18). An outer-in dress code by itself is an approach lacking substance and understanding, and doesn’t speak to females’ whole person created in God’s image.

The same dynamics apply to men and suits, sport coats, and ties, and more recent millennial attire. These gender-specific fashion choices project images of power, authority, or success, along with relevance. Notice how many male pastors and professors still wear these, apparently following tradition (namely the tradition of presentation of masculinity), and the recent shift to a relevant presentation. But, just telling men to dress differently (e.g. more casually) without the deeper understanding of the presentation of gender is the shallow approach of metaschēmatizō without the significance of metamorphoō for wholeness of male persons. And even if some men don’t enhance their self-image before others through fashion, they still practice the presentation of gender through other favorable means.

The presentation of gender by females was an issue for the early church. Paul addressed this for women in terms of fashion (1 Tim 1:9) as did Peter (1 Pet 3:3). The interpretation of these instructions using a referential lens sees these restrictions on females as inseparable from female submission (complementarian), or contextual issues (egalitarians). On the contrary, both Paul and Peter (finally) were addressing females’ susceptibility to the presentation of gender in fashion based on the old gender algorithm (the outer-in distinctions from reductionism), because it was in conflict with their wholeness as persons expressed from inner out (1 Tim 2:10; 1 Pet 3:4-5).

Paul also addressed the presentation of gender by males not in terms of what they wore, but how they presented their gender in their function. It appears that men (not women) in their worship-prayer gatherings were staying relationally distant, uninvolved, or measured in their participation, indicated by Paul’s admonition to “lift up holy hands” (1 Tim 2:8). At the same time, the men apparently were angry and argumentative, behavior which might have been more culturally comfortable for them (e.g. more masculine, domineering). This possibility can be backed up by Paul’s admonitions to husbands to “love your wives and never treat them harshly” (Col 3:18), and to fathers, “do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart” (3:21), and “do not provoke your children to anger (Eph 6:4). Children lose heart and become embittered when fathers are relationally distant and uninvolved, or when fathers are domineering, bullying, impatient, and abusive.

All this converges in the reality that the presentation of self in gender distinction is now the default mode for human behavior. This default mode pervades our persons and relationships until willful turn-around change is exercised; and it prevails in our practice until transformed from inner out (as Paul made conclusive). Therefore, in whatever ways persons present gender as their primary identity, the old algorithm is reinforced and sustained, and passed on to the next generation. If Christians continue in the old algorithm, the status quo will continue to prevail and the church will not provide hope for others, let alone those seeking wholeness in its midst. In this default mode, the church cannot be distinguished from the human context in its whole-ly identity as the trinitarian new creation family, but only remains in its self-determined common shape—although there can be ontological illusions of God’s family. Most consequential of all, the Trinity cannot intimately dwell within us, because the church cannot be anything other than common and thus incompatible with (and for) the whole-ly Trinity. Meanwhile, in our default mode, we’ll just keep having the complementarian-egalitarian debates along with seekers of compromise or middle way—whether with good intentions or without apology, nevertheless enabling the genderized presentation of bôsh and disabling the paragender identity, function, and equation.

Our brains become wired in certain patterns formed by repeated behavior and/or exposure to prevailing experience. These neural connections become habits that our brains process without our having to consciously think about—for example, how we clean our teeth, put on our clothes, access the internet.[3] Both how and what is experienced in daily life’s prevailing practices also form habits that our brains process without further thought about their validity or value; these neural habits then express a bias about that particular practice without our conscious awareness of engagement. Handedness—whether we’re left- or right-handed, or ambidextrous—is a good example, as discussed in the previous chapter. We have countless habits using our dominant hand. Yet we can teach our non-dominant hand to function in new ways and become ambidextrous, with a lot of resolute effort.

The habit of gender is one of those prevailing experiences in daily life that we are all exposed to, and that forms patterns in our brains to shape our thinking, feeling, and acting. Like all other habits, the habit of gender continues until we consciously exercise a different or contrary way for our brains to function with new habits, namely the new habits to form our practice as paragenders. If we don’t commit ourselves with relational resolve as God’s new children, then our practice (if not our theology) will continue to be determined by the gendered society, church, or any other influential human context—functioning by default. Habits (default function) passively rely on the patterns in our brains.

It is helpful simply to ask ourselves at times, such as while we are getting dressed, going shopping for clothes, grooming, or simply behaving certain ways that perhaps feel shallow: Why am I doing this? Why do I smile and laugh so much? Why do I comment on females’ appearance? Why do I interrupt females when they’re speaking? We have a great many genderized habits that reinforce and sustain gender distinctions in ourselves and in others. Even comparing ourselves to others is often habitual in our everyday practice—a self-consciousness that seems normal. Many Christians are aware of the comparative-competitive process and know there’s something amiss. But merely trying to not get into comparing and competing with others is inadequate; the underlying reduced theological anthropology of defining ourselves by what we do and have from outer in has to be recognized, addressed, and rejected, and God’s relational grace received and affirmed as sufficient to define our person in wholeness from inner out.

Like becoming ambidextrous in handedness for those of us who have a dominant hand, changing habits takes resolve, self-control, and self-discipline. Both Paul and Peter stressed the importance of taking everyday life matters seriously, and to work together with the Spirit to change (e.g. Acts 24:25; Gal 5:16-18,23-25; 2 Tim 1:7; 1 Pet 1:13).

Our habit of gender is our responsibility as Jesus’ followers, for which we are held accountable. Having habits of gender might have originally come from outside us, having been socialized in gender distinctions. But habits are perpetuated by our choices, and that comes from within ourselves in our presentation of gender; we are the only ones who can change them. On a deeper level, habits expose the addiction of gender, which is not a disease but compulsion (stronger than habits) from self-determination (including self-justification).

Are you free from the limits and constraints on your person from your gender? I wasn’t, but I didn’t believe that I wasn’t. Just like those above would-be disciples, I have insisted that I was already free from the lies of gender, because as an adult I “denied” the lie that I was inferior on account of my female gender; but that was just a delusion. For many years it would come up for me (through feedback) that I would still ‘fight for my life’—that is, react to negative feedback, which included blaming others to reverse the feedback! How many more of us suffer under the same delusion? This delusion was a cover for what amounted to the addiction of gender. How many of us think they don’t have a gender problem? Denial that we have the problem of gender distinction-making—by individuals (both males and females) and collectively as church—is a formidable barrier to transformation for our identity and function to become whole-ly, in the whole-ly image and likeness of the Trinity.

If you haven’t paused enough to recognize the dominating influence of technology on everyday life today, then you are unaware of the pervasive addiction to technology (namely to the internet and social media) growing among us, between us and in us. How our persons and relationship have been reduced and rendered fragmentary by technology can be attributed to an addiction to efficiency and its resulting convenience, which is assumed to make our lives better. This assumption is certainly not a modern phenomenon; the history of technology goes back to the earliest tools made by humans to help them do things more efficiently and better for survival.

The current addiction to efficiency and convenience is also predated by the analogous dynamic influence of gender. As with technology, if we don’t recognize the dominating influence of gender on our everyday life, then we are unaware of the prevailing addiction to gender existing among us, between us, and in us. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between gender and technology at all. It is reasonable, then to ask: How do efficiency and convenience make gender an addiction, and why is it a bad assumption that we use gender as technology is used today?

There are two sides of the same coin underlying our addictions to both technology and gender. Our addiction to gender (as with technology) has these effects:

1. It reduces our person and relationships with a theological anthropology that shifts our focus to the outer in, thus quantifying us by the extent of what we do and have.

2. Accordingly, it is defined in a comparative human process, the measure of what we do and have is enhanced and elevated by as efficient a process as available, which would require a path of least resistance for the most convenient way possible; the end result is assumed to yield ‘more and better’ over ‘less’, and ‘good’ over ‘bad’ on this human scale.

These two sides reflect the same coin of reductionism—the sin emerging from the primordial garden by which the original humans made outer-in distinctions. Now giving primacy to outer-in distinctions—the most obvious being their physical sex differences—this condition made it difficult, stressful, and fearful to be the whole of who, what, and how they were created, that is, to be vulnerable (not distant) with their true persons (not apart). They were naked and burdened with bôsh (shame, disappointment, and dissatisfaction).

Genderized definitions of femininity and masculinity emerged and remain as the prevailing human distinction that we use to make our daily lives easier, more efficient and convenient, rather than face the stress and fear of being vulnerable with our whole person. These genderized definitions are religiously embraced and enhanced—to better define our identity and function—in the outer-in terms of what we have and what we do, thus making it easier to navigate comparisons and ascend its comparative process. Yet, this addiction to gender distinctions only masks the shame our gender bears, from which we are freed only by redemptive change.

The addiction of gender is tightly bound together with the presentation of gender and fashion (discussed previously), more so for females than for males, yet not excluding males in this addiction. The outward presentation of femininity is a consuming project for females, who compulsively spend huge amounts of effort, time, and money on appearance. The stereotype that women love shopping certainly has some truth to it, but it is not something to joke about (as I’ve heard a few times from male preachers about their wives). I can look back on my compulsions about my presentation of gender, and understand that fashion was indeed an efficient and convenient means to construct an identity for the purpose of masking my bôsh. Consider how true this is for so many females you know, pre-teens to elderly women, how common this near-obsession to go shopping that essentially enslaves females—not to mention the economic consequences. It is also deeply troubling to witness even younger girls being socialized into this trap so early in life—such as beauty pageants for little girls. Yet, girls are also presented in front of church gatherings with similar emphasis. ‘Cute’ has become a common substitute for bôsh.

Over the past few decades, it seems to me that males have quickly become nearly as involved in their presentation of gender in fashion terms. Whereas decades ago I thought boys and men were much less concerned about appearance in fashion terms—even free from it. Yet the matter of presentation of self for men has long been there. “The clothes make the man” accurately expresses the addiction of gender.

If you take notice in churches and other Christian contexts, it becomes obvious that many Christians are just like everyone else when it comes to fashion. Going to church in “our Sunday best” still applies in many churches. Of course there is a matter of propriety and respect when we go to church to worship God, but such a concern isn’t about God; in primary terms God only looks at the heart (clearly stated in 1 Sam 16:7 and conclusive in Jn 4:23-24). And the concern isn’t just about how others perceive us; what we wear also influences how we feel about ourselves.[4] For example, why would a guest preacher in a hot climate still insist on wearing a suit coat and tie, even when invited to take them off to be more comfortable? Or why does the egalitarian female senior pastor wear low-cut blouses, which she has to keep adjusting throughout her sermon, and boast about wearing stilettos (which damage feet)?

I have no doubt that Jesus included the addiction of gender when he said that “it is not those who are whole in righteousness who need a doctor, but those who are reduced by and enslaved to outer-in distinctions (Mt 9:12, NIV). He was referring to persons who were considered to be less by the prevailing religious context that judged persons according to human distinctions, who undoubtedly were more aware of their bôsh than the Pharisees were. The point for us is that our practice in everyday life must see genderized distinctions in their negative consequences on persons (our own and others’) and on all relationships, just as Jesus does. This is nonnegotiable for Jesus’ followers and the church to be distinguished from the common that began in the primordial garden.

The reality we ongoingly face from the primordial garden is that the presentation of gender has relegated the secondary over the primary in our practice (cf. the boasts of the secondary and the primary in Jer 9:23-24). The reality now confronting us is that our practice has become preoccupied with the secondary, embedded in it, and enslaved to it—all at the expense of God’s primary design and purpose for persons and their primary function in likeness of the Trinity.

The secondary will continue to prevail until it is subordinated and integrated into the primary. This integration, however, unfolds only with paragenders, whose whole persons are vulnerably involved in reciprocal relationship together with the Trinity.

The issue between the secondary and the primary is the key for our gender equations. Jesus clarified and corrected the difference between them in his ongoing interactions, which helps us distinguish our competing and conflicting gender equations from his paragender equation.

The interactions in the narrative about the Samaritan woman at the well (highlighted in Chap. 3) reveals two competing and conflicting gender equations between Jesus and his disciples:

1. The disciples “were astonished that he was speaking with a woman” simply because for a man to be speaking alone with a woman went against the established norm of their time. The disciples held to, or at least observed, this norm-alized gender equation, which then competed with Jesus’ gender equation that was not shaped by the social and/or religious norm. Martha also competed with Jesus’ gender equation (Lk 10:40). But their gender equations not only competed with Jesus’ gender equation.

2. The disciples were also astounded because she was a Samaritan, who were discriminated against and marginalized even by Jewish women. This reveals how gender equations not only compete but also generalize into other human distinctions. This process both amplifies the competition and generates conflict between and within gender equations. Jesus was in conflict with both the norm and generalization of these gender equations.

Our practice unavoidably engages in competing and conflicting gender equations. The critical question for us is whether we function like the disciples, or “just as” Jesus was relationally involved. Moreover, by holding to the old gender equations, those disciples missed the depth of Jesus’ relational involvement with their own persons (cf. the depth of relationship that Mary experienced with Jesus, as discussed in the previous chapter).

The outworking of our gender equation by Christians involves the vital practice of our discipleship. Discipleship is inseparable from our gender equation, wherein the latter either allows for a diverse expression of the former, or is determined by an irreducible and nonnegotiable involvement for following Jesus. Paragenders don’t have latitude to be diverse since Jesus is definitive in his relational terms (e.g. Mt 7:13-14,22-23). To be congruent with Jesus’ relational terms means that discipleship on his terms determines our gender equation, and not conversely. In other words, for Jesus’ disciples to follow his whole person by nature is to be nothing less than paragender. Anything less creates relational barriers or distance in the primacy of relational involvement for discipleship distinguished by Jesus’ whole-ly terms.

What are the Word’s whole and uncommon terms? We come to whole understanding of his terms solely as our experiential reality and not by referential teachings, therefore only in the relationship of following Jesus on his theological trajectory and intrusive relational path. That is, Jesus’ whole-ly terms go beyond referential terms of information to inform our correct doctrine, and deeper than a rule of faith to have correct Christian ethics; moreover, Jesus’ relational terms for discipleship are neither limited to serving nor constrained by sacrifice. And Jesus’ relational path is intrusive because he challenges us out of our comfort zones, and makes us vulnerable to die to more than we feel comfortable about, and then is relationally involved to love us uncommonly, beyond what we can even imagine! Furthermore, without idealizing his love, Jesus unequivocally requires his followers to be vulnerable in the relational involvement of love (not as sacrifice) “just as I love you” (Jn 13:34).

The unavoidable reality facing us at this point is this: the gender equation we use determines the discipleship we practice, and the discipleship we practice determines the depth or shallowness of our relationship with God. How we function in following Jesus and in our everyday situations and circumstances are both shaped by our gender equation. The interactions between Jesus and his disciples (notably with Peter, the other disciples, and Martha) revealed a variable discipleship shaped by either competing-conflicting gender equations, or the paragender equation compatible with Jesus (notably with Mary). The former equations maintain relational distance with Jesus, but the latter equation is intimately involved in reciprocal relationship together.

The relationship of following Jesus is foremost about females and males being restored to wholeness as paragenders, therefore persons (1) not defined by any secondary human distinction, (2) as created in the whole image and likeness of God, and (3) taking their place in God’s new creation family. That is not to say that gender is the only issue in discipleship, yet gender is so basic to reductionism in the human context that the wholeness of Christ must involve resolving gender distinctions and its bôsh—just as Paul made conclusive our wholeness (Eph 2:14-17; Col 3:15).

Following Jesus on his uncommon relational path and on his relational terms are neither negotiable nor subject to compromise to our common terms, because they are whole, incomparably distinguished from the common, and transforming: “if you hold to my relational terms, you are really my disciples” (Jn 8:31, NIV), and “those who love me will keep my relational terms,” and the relational outcome is “my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (14:23)—which means that any other terms by which we practice our faith have no relational significance to God. Of course this contingency challenges our competing and conflicting gender equations that give primacy to what’s only secondary to God. Even though the early disciples could not have known what was awaiting them when they first began following Jesus, he certainly kept disclosing his relational terms for discipleship. And after three intense years together, likely the most intrusive relational act on Jesus’ part came with his footwashing.

Have you let Jesus wash your feet? This might sound odd at first, but to let Jesus wash your feet signifies in relational language this essential message: the vulnerable relational response of submission to Jesus’ relational terms, which requires rejecting our identity and function based on our terms, notably including our gender equation. What Jesus enacted by washing the disciples’ feet is necessary for each of us in order for our relationship with Jesus to go further and deeper, and to more fully understand the new algorithm for the paragender equation. As Jesus prepared to wash the disciples’ feet, John’s Gospel notes that “Having loved his own…he now showed them the full extent of his love” ((Jn 13:1-8, NIV), illuminated here:

While Jesus demonstrates his humility (as the Teacher, Lord, Messiah) to assume the footwashing work himself, even more significant is “the full extent” of his relational involvement (signifying his family love). Nothing less and no substitutes of Jesus’ whole person than he personally assuming this footwashing would be sufficient to constitute his relational involvement of family love—that is, as the embodiment of God’s grace. Furthermore, grace demands nothing less and no substitutes of persons to constitute the intimate relationships of family…. Likewise, in relation to his disciples no household servant could substitute for Jesus and nothing less than Jesus’ whole person could make evident this family love….

Footwashing doesn’t represent so much how far (or “low”) Jesus is willing to go, as much as the feet are symbolic of the depth level of relational involvement Jesus engages with them. In other words, no level is too deep or beyond any limits for relationship together, which reductionism resists and tries to redefine. God’s grace demands this and constitutes this intimate relationship of God’s family. This not only makes Jesus’ whole person vulnerable but also makes his followers’ whole person vulnerable.[5]

Jesus demonstrated that he did not define his person by any secondary distinction, such as the role of (male) teacher, nor even the role of servant leader (a notion popular among evangelicals). In his vulnerable presence and intimate involvement with them, Jesus enacted with the disciples what was necessary for them to be made whole from inner out; he presented his whole person—not the presentation of self with distinctions—to each of his disciples for them to reciprocally respond vulnerably without any of their secondary distinctions. That is, Jesus enacted the depth of God’s relational grace for each of them to experience this relational reality in face-to-face relational connection together, not as mere referential information for their rule of faith. And their reciprocal response would signify how Jesus’ disciples function on his whole uncommon terms of being vulnerable with their whole person, without shame, no hiding behind “masks” from the secondary (including their presentation of gender), and trusting his whole person face to face.

This pivotal relational interaction is the necessary reciprocal response made with the resolve (steadfastness) of accepting God’s relational terms as the psalmist declared (as in Ps 108:1; 119:112), and that Mary exemplified (Jn 12:1-7; Mt 26:6-13). Nothing less and no substitutes compose this relational response of submission to Jesus—that is, the vulnerable submitting of one’s whole person to Jesus’ whole person.

Peter had difficulty submitting to Jesus’ terms in this relational choice, not yet willing to let go of his presentation of the secondary. Peter still functioned in his bôsh, and rather than submitting to Jesus’ relational terms, Peter still elevated Jesus the Lord in the role of teacher, thus as ‘better’ and therefore shouldn’t be lowered to wash Peter’s feet. Consequently, what could still not emerge at this point was Peter’s whole person in the qualitative image and relational likeness of God. This equation is the relational choice each of us are faced with also in our discipleship, which will require examining the theological anthropology underlying our presentation of gender.

After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus communicated further in relational language: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have embodied for you the whole relational terms of paragender without any distinctions from the secondary, so you also ought to function with one another…. If you know these things, you are blessed if you function by them” (Jn 13:14,17). Notably, then, Jesus was taking his disciples further and deeper for their wholeness, enacting the “full extent of his love” with and for them. Unfortunately, we miss the “full extent of his love” for our own persons because of the shallow misperception prevailing in discipleship today about ‘servant leadership’, which focuses primarily on distinctions of serving (what to do) that subtly makes the primacy of relationship secondary.

There is a significant connection between Jesus’ footwashing and Mary’s own prevenient involvement (in her whole-ly paragender identity and function) just earlier in John’s Gospel (Jn 12:1-8), as noted here:

Jesus’ footwashing directly overlaps both with Mary’s footwashing as the relational action of intimate involvement in family love and with the ex-prostitute’s footwashing as the relational act of love emerging from the experience of God’s grace. Contrary to reductionism, their involvement is the relational function of intimately engaging Jesus’ whole person in his relational context of family and by his relational process of family love. In that upper room with his disciples, Jesus functions with the same relational involvement to intimately engage these future leaders of his family with his relational context and relational process.[6]

In his intrusive relational path, Jesus’ person evokes the who, what, and how persons are in their most vulnerable condition. Our discipleship either relationally responds to his whole person in the primacy of relationship together, or resists his vulnerable involvement by deflecting the focus to secondary matter,even centered on his teaching or example (cf. the disciples in Mt 26:8-9).

Along my journey of following Jesus I have been reluctant, even resistant to letting Jesus wash my feet, that is, resistant to being vulnerable with him face to face due to what amounts to my bôsh. Thus, I readily relate to Peter’s refusal of Jesus. In Peter’s inner tension underlying his presentation of self to Jesus, Peter deflected the focus to norms composing his gender equation. He imposed the secondary on Jesus, thinking that it would resolve this conflict between them about what was acceptable in their relationship. Yet, as Peter learned, it is nonnegotiable for each of us to submit to Jesus’ relational terms by letting him wash our feet; otherwise, as he told Peter, “you have no part with me” (v.8), the deep significance of which is illuminated here:

Jesus is making evident to Peter that to “Follow me” is a function only of
relationship, not of confessions of faith or of serving, however devoted or well-intentioned. He told Peter his washing was necessary for Peter to have a “part with me” (Jn 13:8). “Part with” (meros meta) means to “share with me,” which involves the relational function of communion together. This is about ongoing intimate involvement in relationship together, not about forming the beginning of a relationship (cf. “in me”)—nor about so-called communion activity, which is how Holy Communion tends to be observed in church. “Follow me; and where I am, my [disciple] also will be” (Jn 12:26). Jesus’ whole person was vulnerably involved with Peter in this relational act; and that’s where Peter needed to be to participate in Jesus’ life, and how it was necessary for him to function in order to have intimate involvement together.[7]

We know that Peter eventually changed from inner out, and experienced the depth of God’s relational grace to transform his theological anthropology. Peter’s letters attest to his transformation by “a new birth into a living hope” to uncommon identity and function (1 Pet 1:3,14-16).

If, however, resistance to Jesus’ relational terms prevails, then there will be various results for would-be followers to experience. The first is to stop following Jesus, which happened with some would-be disciples (Jn 6:22-66). The second consequence is to actively turn against Jesus (Jn 8:31-36,59). The third is to create illusions (intentionally or unintentionally) of being Jesus’ disciples, or simulations of following him; but God isn’t fooled by our illusions or simulations, because God is the knower of our hearts and holds persons accountable, as Jesus made definitive (Mt 7:21-23; Acts 1:24; 15:8).

This puts the participants in the gender debates—complementarians and egalitarians—on notice for any illusions and simulations they perpetuate by giving the appearance of seeking what’s best for persons and speaking for God and God’s design for human persons. Yet, their prescriptions must always be put into the deeper context of discipleship; and their respective gender equations determine their discipleship. However their disciples may be described in referential terms, only Jesus’ relational terms distinguish the reality of discipleship from illusions and simulations.

Jesus promised some would-be disciples that “if you continue in my word communicated in relational language, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the experiential truth, and this experiential truth will make you free” (8:31-32). In response to Jesus’ statement, those persons declared that they were Abraham’s descendants and thus not slaves to anyone—implying they were free persons. Jesus then contrasted their being slaves to sin of reductionism as being incongruent with relationally belonging in family (the significance of “household”), thereby pointing to the Trinity’s relational context of family and relational process of family love.

Those would-be disciples claimed to be Abraham’s descendants, but they could do so only on the referentialized basis of their human ancestry. However, to Jesus (and Paul), to truly be Abraham’s descendants means that persons function in the relational righteousness of being involved with God with nothing less and no substitutes for their whole persons (Gen 17:1-5; Mt 5:20; Gal 3:6-9,29)—that is, being vulnerable like the original paragenders in the primordial garden before any human adaptations.

As Jesus’ disciples, all church leaders and those in the academy (who prepare future church leaders) are especially accountable for letting Jesus wash their feet and have their theological anthropology redeemed from reductionism—like the descendants of Abraham. Then the relational outcome of the whole gospel unfolds, so that their newness as paragenders can emerge, flow like new wine, and thereby, and only thereby, be able to love “my sheep” just as Jesus loved “his own”—which was Peter’s pivotal challenge in his discipleship (Jn 21:15-22). Such leaders and those in the academy need to address their old gender algorithm and prevailing gender equation, with the understanding that their own presentation of gender and other secondary criteria are relational barriers in their discipleship, the terms of which only Jesus can define.

Many persons will resist the either-or relational terms that Jesus presents; it offends persons’ self-determination. Yet these either-or relational terms have existed from the beginning when God first communicated with the original humans at creation. God’s commands, statutes, ordinances, and all those words from God are all relational language (not referential words of God), understood rightly only in the terms distinguishing the holiness (uncommonness) of God from the common of human contextualization (as in Ps 119:130). To embrace the whole-ly relational terms of God, therefore, also necessitates our submission by first letting Jesus wash our feet, followed by “be vulnerably involved as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15).

The tension between genders can only be resolved and reconciled by persons in the primacy of relationship together, enacted by the relational involvement of love. Love, however, even God’s love, has been misperceived, misrepresented, and distorted by the secondary, and thus has been common-ized. The uncommon relational involvement of love requires the vulnerable submission of persons, not about gender, in order to relationally respond without the distinctions of secondary aspects of persons. In other words, uncommon love cannot be expressed with self-consciousness in the presentation of self, which is how much Christian love is expressed.

Jesus embodied and enacted this submission by the relational involvement of his whole trinitarian person, not merely as the Son who submitted to the Father. Anything less than this, or any substitutes from Jesus would not have fulfilled the whole of God’s relational response of grace and love (the trinitarian relational process of family love) to our human condition. Jesus submitted to the Father as a full subject, not a passive object who simply does what someone in authority orders others to do; that is, his submission was the vulnerable submission of his whole person in the relational involvement of love, nothing less.

Our submission to each other is based on Jesus’ submission to the Father, and enacts our relational posture and involvement of trust and obedience—that is, trusting God as subjects with our whole person. This submission involves the vulnerability of the whole person from inner out, just as Jesus told his disciples they must “change and become like children” (Mt 18:3); and vulnerability of one’s whole person hinges on being humbled to the truth of one’s inner-out person (v.4; cf. the first Beatitude “poor in spirit,” Mt 5:3).[8] These are relational dynamics that get to the depth of our theological anthropology, to not only what defines our identity and function, but more importantly, who defines the terms.

Only on this relational basis can we respond to Jesus’ relational terms to “do as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15), which Paul reiterates as “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21). In other words, submission is a function of the same love which Jesus’ disciples have received, “the full extent of his love” as discussed above. Our submission is solely by Jesus’ whole relational terms and determined in likeness to his vulnerable submission, which conflict with the common’s notion of submission characterized by gender distinctions and slaves. Submission to the relational involvement of love takes all gender equations further and deeper than they are designed to function.

Think about Mary or the former prostitute, females for whom submission might have sounded too norm-alized and demeaning had they still been functioning by the old gender equation. However, they were free from the old, and free to be vulnerably involved with Jesus’ whole person—and the outcome for them was their integral experiential truth and relational reality of intimate relational connection with Jesus, the depth of love which the male disciples had yet to experience at this point in the Gospel narratives.

In congruence with Jesus’ relational terms, only paragenders submit their persons to each other in this relational involvement of love just as Christ loved. Persons who aren’t redeemed from their old gender equations still think of submission in narrow terms of subjugation based on gender, because they haven’t yet experienced the relational trustworthiness of the embodied Word. Complementarians insist that the wife “graciously” submits to the husband’s leadership and the husband “honors and respects” the wife; but without addressing theological anthropology and the sin of reductionism (which they don’t), their position can only be lived out in the relational distance of some degree of hierarchical relations—no matter how much complementarians try to mask their hierarchy with their lovely words. Egalitarians, who affirm “mutual submission” on the basis of the notion of equal personhood of women and men, also don’t address theological anthropology and the sin of reductionism, and therefore their focus tends to be on what married couples “do” (e.g. share chores and decision-making) without realizing that they still function in a comparative process of better and less. Both approaches and their equations diminish the significance of submission and limit or constrain love to secondary expressions in direct conflict with Jesus’ relational involvement of love. In this subtle process, both sustain in their discipleship practice that “you will never wash my feet.”

If all of us, females and males together composing God’s new creation family, are to learn to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ,” we have to take up the ongoing relational work to be reciprocally involved with the Spirit in order for our persons to mature in wholeness from inner out (as Paul outlines, Rom 8:6,11-16). Our essential identity and function must undergo the turn-around change that redeems and reconciles us in transformed relationships, both equalized and intimate—freed from the bôsh of our gender distinctions—to be vulnerably “naked and without shame” together in the original created and re-created primary gender equation. These are all relational matters that need to take primacy over all secondary matters and integrate personal and corporate relationships together, and church ministries and programs. For the relational outcome to be our relational reality, our persons must vulnerably submit in order to “let the wholeness of Christ’s person rule in our hearts” as the only determinant for our identity and function as paragenders integrated as the Trinity’s family (Col 3:15).

At the heart of the primary gender equation (distinguishing as paragenders) is the relational dynamic of love. Love is common in many gender equations, which should alert us that something is lacking in understanding love.

The psalmist states that “great wholeness have those who love your terms for relationship together; nothing can make them stumble” (Ps 119:165). How so? We easily stumble in the dark, which is caused by a theological fog. The psalmist also declared, “The unfolding of your words give light; it imparts understanding to the simple” (i.e. the childlike, Ps 119:130; as in Lk 10:21). The embodied Word—not referentialized—unfolded in only relational language to clarify and correct our understanding of God’s terms for relationship together. The Word summed up God’s relational terms with the relational dynamic of love, the primacy of which has two integral dimensions: (1) love God with your whole person, and (2) love others likewise (cf. Lk 10:26-28). Using Jesus as our example, this love is typically defined as sacrifice, and/or some type of caring for others. While these actions may be included in love, they are only secondary acts that don’t define and thus involve the primary response of our whole person. Why not?

The Word clarified the words from God’s relational terms for relationship, which correct the words of God used merely as reference to inform our practice. He illuminated two nonnegotiable terms primary for the relational dynamic of love:

1. “You, your whole person, love one another. Just as I have loved you with my whole person” (Jn 13:34; Jn 15:12). This relational term is also irreducible because it is based on the relational reality of experiencing the relational response of Jesus’ whole person. This relational reality cannot be a referential assumption or it becomes merely a virtual reality, which may be at the center of our belief system but really has no relationally significant practice. Christian practice of love may emulate what Jesus did in love, but this relational term is not a ‘how-to’ learned from Jesus’ example. Rather, it involves what is received from Jesus directly in relationship together, thus neither by indirect implication nor by informed assumption. “Just as” (kathos) by nature requires that our love be congruent with Jesus’ love. How does this congruence become a relational reality?

2. “Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Be relationally involved in my love. If you keep my terms for relationship together, you will be relationally involved in my love” (Jn 15:9-10). Based on the relational involvement of love disclosed in the Trinity that is extended to us, his second primary term corrects reduced understandings of love as sacrifice or merely some care. What is primary for love is the depth of relational involvement engaged by the whole person, without anything less and no substitutes for the whole person (both trinitarian and human). “Did the Word really say that?” Yes, indeed, and he vulnerably disclosed his intimate involvement of love in relationship with the Father. How is their relationship the basis that clarifies and even corrects our practice of love?

The relationship between the Father and the Son functions on the primary basis of their relational involvement with each other, with their titles and roles always secondary. The Son enacted obedience to the terms (“commands,” 15:10) for their relationship together. These relational terms are the only way that the Trinity does relationship together, both within the Trinity and with others (cf. Jn 14:31). Yet, those terms of relationship didn’t define love by sacrifice or care, as if the Father needed such action for himself. The only term for relationship that has any meaning and thus significance for the trinitarian persons is the depth of relational involvement that their whole persons have with each other. This relational involvement of love by nature required their whole person, not merely some function or role that each has to respond to us with the gospel of salvation. The depth of their whole persons relationally involved with each other relegated their distinctions as Father, Son, and Spirit to a secondary function, the distinctions that didn’t define their primary ontology and function as the whole of God, the Trinity. Without their secondary distinctions, as the Word embodied and enacted, “the Father is in me and I am in the Father (Jn 10:38)—they are ontologically One—and their oneness constitutes their identity without distinctions as Father and Son, so that “whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9, cf. 12:45). And their One identity without secondary distinctions is integrated by their whole persons in the vulnerable depth of function only distinguished by their intimate relational involvement of love, which integrates their persons together as the relational Whole to constitute the ontological One integrally revealing the Trinity.

These relational terms essential for the Trinity are the only terms that give congruence for the relational dynamic of love essential for human persons to be in likeness to the “just as” of Jesus’ person. Persons without distinctions make up the primary gender equation, and the depth of their relational involvement of love as whole persons is the only relational dynamic that has the following irreducible and nonnegotiable outcome directly from the Word: “they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you…so that they will be one, as we are one…so that the world may know that you have sent me on our relational terms and have loved them on the basis of the same relational involvement as you have loved me” Jn 17:21-23).

Anything less and any substitutes for love have these consequences: reduces the Trinity, thus reduces our persons; renegotiates the relational terms essential for the Trinity together, thus renegotiates the gender equation and its terms for defining our identity and determining our function—all with the relational consequence of persons and relationship together without wholeness, therefore no longer living in the primary significance of the image and likeness of the Trinity. Therefore, is it any mystery or even surprising that Jesus made his relational terms imperative for love, and nonnegotiable for discipleship?

A further word is in order to definitively correct the misleading notion of love as sacrifice, since Christians simply assume this. Certainly Jesus did sacrifice his life for us; but in John’s Gospel, when Jesus made his paradigmatic statement that “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13), Jesus wasn’t commanding them to sacrifice themselves for each other. That would contradict his statement that “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13). Contrary to this entrenched assumption (creating theological fog about God’s love), Jesus defined “lay down” (tithemi, to set, place, put, lay down) just seconds earlier with “love one another just as I have loved you.” To lay down one’s life in Jesus’ whole relational terms is to willfully make vulnerable one’s person to the primacy of their relationships together, with nothing less and no substitutes, such that not only could God count on their whole persons, but also so they could count on each other to be whole persons together in relational likeness of the Trinity. This uncommon practice of love is enacted by persons who are distinguished as paragenders and whose discipleship flows from the paragender equation embodied by Jesus.

“Do you love me in the primacy of relationship together?” After his resurrection, Jesus continued to lovingly pursue Peter, for Peter’s whole person, in order to focus Peter on the primacy of relationship together and away from secondary distinctions composing Peter’s gender equation (Jn 21:15-22). Even in this interaction, Peter functioned with the inner tension of his presentation of his self, evident in his responses to Jesus, most notably when he again deflected the focus elsewhere, this time in a comparative process (“Lord, what about him” v. 21). To this Jesus stated more emphatically “You follow my whole person!” so that Peter would change and become the person whom Jesus could count on to be relationally involved reciprocally, thus on his whole and uncommon relational terms.

As Jesus challenged and confronted Peter’s relational involvement of discipleship, I also experienced the palpable Word’s intrusive involvement in my discipleship journey—helping me to integrate the secondary into the essential priority of the primary. For God and others to be able to count on me for my whole person as a paragender—without secondary distinctions composing my old gender equation—this is my desire and commitment. To that end, I share a personal matter that the Spirit brought up earlier while writing this study, in hopes that you will be encouraged and edified. Just recently I had to face my own gender bias (again), because whenever certain men were covered in national news—men who have been accused of sexual assault/misconduct, and men in power who boast about themselves and put others down—I would have a visceral reaction of deep disgust. My reaction to these men was in part residual anger toward males in my past (notably my dad and brother) who treated me as less whether on the basis of gender, or by secondary criteria of what I did and had. Needless to say, my residual bias also still emerged as my over-reactions in interactions with my husband in our relationship over the years, which he didn’t tolerate (for which I’m thankful). All of this personal “stuff” had to be put into the primary context of following Jesus as a paragender; and that always clarified, confronted, and challenged my need for further transformation from inner out (not the mere outer in of metaschēmatizō).

Being Jesus’ disciple (which includes being my Father’s daughter) necessitates vulnerably facing my biases and underlying causes. Integrally, Jesus’ gospel of wholeness that I claim and proclaim, and being a worshiper of the whole-ly (whole and uncommon) Trinity also require me to deal with my biases. Why? Because these are issues of (1) the gender equation that defines my person and other persons (i.e. theological anthropology) and (2) the underlying sin of reductionism. Individually, this depth of involvement with God is about relationship together on his relational terms of ‘nothing less and no substitutes’ for my vulnerable person, without the limits and constraints of distinctions, just as the Samaritan woman learned face to face with Jesus; that is, vulnerably face to face with God is our involvement “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23-24), constituting the worshipers the Father seeks.

In the past I’ve also had a negative gut reaction to liberal biblical feminists and post-Christian feminists who, for example, reshape Jesus to a female Sophia (Wisdom), who call Jesus’ death on the cross child abuse by the Father, or who dismiss Scripture as hopelessly androcentric, and thus prioritize women’s experience as the interpretive lens necessary to critique Scripture. These positions distort the words from God communicated for the primacy of relationship together. Being Jesus’ paragender disciple on the journey to wholeness has helped me to distinguish between those feminists legitimate concerns (e.g. patriarchalism and androcentrism in biblical studies and church tradition) from how they interpret the words of God in referential language resulting in distortions of God. I deeply appreciate the Spirit’s involvement in reciprocal relationship to correct and sharpen my interpretive lens; and the palpable Word’s ongoing relational involvement of love needs to be counted on for us to grow as paragender in likeness.

Although God has healed my heart over the years about this, the recent negative reactions indicated to me to again reject the lies of gender distinctions that I’d internalized, and further affirm the relational reality of God’s truth of who I am as one created in the image and likeness of the Trinity. My experiential truth and relational reality deepen increasingly with understanding and knowing the Trinity. Accordingly, I find myself also increasingly grieving with the Word over the reductionism of human life (not just about me) due to the pervasive distinction-making among Christians and in churches that conflicts with the Trinity’s whole design and purpose for all human life—the original evil from the primordial garden.

Therefore, it is clear and undeniable that in reciprocal relationship with the Spirit, we must consistently use a hermeneutic of suspicion in our practice to distinguish the referential language of anyone’s claims about gender (and other human distinctions), just as Jesus did (e.g. Mt 18:1-3). We need to begin by challenging our own biases and assumptions, and vulnerably receive the Spirit’s correction as integral aspects of our discipleship—why, because these are necessary for our transformation to wholeness, which in turn is integral to knowing and understanding the Trinity in relationship together on the Word’s relational terms (Jn 4:24; Jer 9:23-24). Without vulnerably addressing these primary issues, we remain preoccupied with the secondary—with the relational consequence “and you still do not know me?” (Jn 14:9).

What is primary in our gender equation determines what is primary in our practice of discipleship. What is primary in our disciple practice determines the level of depth in our relationship with the Trinity—all of which unfolds conversely. Not surprisingly, then, if we listen carefully, we will continue to hear the Word asking for clarification and confirmation: “Do you still love me?”

[1] Eight years ago I wrote an essay about my ongoing journey as Jesus’ disciple, in which I expanded on addressing some of these gender issues in my life: “My Ongoing Journey to Wholeness in Christ” (Essay on Wholeness), available online at http://4X12.org. Since that essay, I’ve come to even further understanding of the issues involved for me and, I believe, for all of us.

[2] A classic sociological account of this human dynamic in modern times is found in Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959).

[3] Neuroscientist Ski Chilton shares the problems of brain activity in his personal experiences and what has been necessary to change his patterns of life. See Dr. Ski Chilton, with Dr. Margaret Rukstalis and A.J. Gregory, The ReWired Brain: Free Yourself of Negative Behaviors and Release Your Best Self (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016).

[4] For a short interesting study on this topic, see Jordan Gaines Lewis, “Clothes Make the Man—Literally:

What we wear affects how we perceive ourselves” posted Aug 24, 2012 on the Psychology Today website at https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-babble/201208/clothes-make-the-man-literally.

[5] T. Dave Matsuo, Sanctified Christology: A Theological and Functional Study of the Whole of Jesus (Christology Study, 2008). Online at http://4X12.org, 64-65.

[6] T. Dave Matsuo, Sanctified Christology, 64.

[7] T. Dave Matsuo, Sanctified Christology, 66.

[8] The Beatitudes aren’t discussed here, but they are essential to the identity formation of disciples on Jesus’ relational terms. For a full and helpful discussion on this, see T. Dave Matsuo, Jesus into Paul: Embodying the Theology and Hermeneutic of the Whole Gospel (Integration Study, 2012). Online: http://4X12.org., 221-242.