Here are some new book reviews. I received complimentary copies of these books from the publisher. My reviews are honest.
A. Karin Maag. Worshiping with the Reformers. IVP Academic, 2021. Go here to purchase the book.
Karin Maag has a Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews and teaches Calvin Studies at Calvin University. This book is one, among other, companions to IVP’s excellent Reformation Commentary on Scripture series. As the title indicates, the book discusses and describes how the Protestant Reformers, including Anglicans and the Puritans, worshiped in church assembly. Among the topics addressed are preaching, prayer, baptism, communion, the visual arts and music, and worship outside of the church (i.e., pilgrimages, family devotion).
Many of its details are not salient in my mind right now, but here are some prominent things that I got out of this book:
—-Church attendance was mandatory throughout Europe. The rationale was that God would bless the region if people there attended church and possibly curse it if they did not. An Old Testamenty concept, for sure. Church affiliation was by region, so you could see, say, a Catholic attending a Protestant service, performing his Catholic rituals during them. The Reformers considered this to be a problem.
—-There were different views among the Reformers about whether Jesus Christ was physically present in the communion elements. Many already know this, but Maag’s description of a prominent Calvinist view stood out to me. Calvinists largely rejected the “real presence,” on the one hand, and treating communion primarily as a memorial, on the other. For Calvinists, the Holy Spirit was present at communion, so it was a spiritual experience, not a mere memorial of the past.
—-People wanted to be buried underneath the church. A question that occurs in my mind is whether the Reformers sought to reconcile this practice with the Levitical desire to strictly separate the holy from death. Reading this book in conjunction with the P-parts of the Torah generates those types of questions.
—-Protestant sermons could last an hour-and-a-half.
The book has an engaging prose and draws on primary sources.
B. Mark A. Yarhouse. Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture. IVP Academic, 2015. Go here to purchase the book.
Mark A. Yarhouse has a PsyD from Wheaton and teaches psychology and mental health practice at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Gender Dysphoria is a clinical term for people who feel alienated from their biological gender and identify more with the opposite gender, or who feel alienated from the gender spectrum, period.
Some thoughts and observations:
—-Yarhouse does not believe that transgender people choose to have the feelings that they have. He goes into various scientific attempts to root Gender Dysphoria in biology. Yarhouse promotes a compassionate approach on the part of the church and believes that, unfortunately, conservative churches have fallen dramatically short of this.
—-According to Yarhouse, there is diversity among people with Gender Dysphoria. Some may identify with the opposite gender, in areas, yet choose not to undergo surgery in an attempt to change their gender. Others have issues with the idea of gender distinctions, gravitating towards gender fluidity.
—-Another topic that Yarhouse engages is how people categorize Gender Dysphoria. He relates a case study about a transgender person whose sister sees the Gender Dysphoria as a disability deserving compassion, whereas the transgender person embraces a “diversity” and “identity” model that treats the Gender Dysphoria as part of the rich diversity of life.
—-Reading and listening to right-wing media (e.g., David Limbaugh, Ben Shapiro, etc.), one gets the impression that psychological and educational professionals rush to change a child’s gender at even a hint of gender confusion. They tell anecdotes and maybe this happens—-I do not know. Yarhouse denies, however, that “we”—-by which he probably means psychological professionals—-rush to do so. (UPDATE: This book was released in 2015, so the situation may have changed since then.) In terms of dealing with Gender Dysphoria, as far as Yarhouse is concerned, there is a spectrum between surgically changing one’s gender, on the one hand, and leaving the person with Gender Dysphoria to suffer in silence, on the other.
—-Some conservatives, or professionals conservatives interview, point out health risks that come from changing one’s gender. Yarhouse weighs in on this in an endnote, saying that taking the medication poses little risk but provides space and time for people to make a decision.
—-Yarhouse attempts to relate to the Bible with subtlety and nuance. He is hesitant, for example, to relate the “effeminate” in I Corinthians 6:9 to transgender people. At the same time, he also appears hesitant to render the Bible irrelevant to contemporary Gender Dysphoria. In discussing the Torah’s prohibition on cross-dressing, he acknowledges that the author may be criticizing pagan practices, yet says that the author may also find cross-dressing to be an insult to God’s created order.
—-Something that I wondered about in reading this book, and I do not know if I got this from Yarhouse or it was swimming in my mind in response to what Yarhouse was saying: there is talk about giving estrogen to biological boys who want to be girls, and testosterone to biological girls who want to be boys. Could not one use a similar approach to treating the Gender Dysphoria: give the testosterone to the boy who wants to be a girl, for example, and that may enhance his masculinity? On a side note, Yarouse, overall, appears optimistic that Gender Dysphoria can be treated.
—-In terms of where Yarhouse lands, he wants churches to welcome people with Gender Dysphoria while still upholding what he considers to be biblical standards on gender, and he distinguishes biblical standards from cultural standards. He is not overly specific about what this would look like. Presumably, the effectiveness of such a model would depend on how receptive the person with Gender Dysphoria is to conservative Christianity: does the person with Gender Dysphoria see it as a disability to be rejected or as an aspect of diversity to be embraced? If the latter is the case, then the person may not find conservative Christians’ “acceptance” (i.e., we accept you, but you must repent before you truly are part of us) to be that accepting. If the person is an adult, then that person can simply choose not to attend a conservative Christian church. If the person is a child with conservative Christian parents, or even an adult with long-standing conservative Christian connections, then the person will probably have more of a struggle.
—-In one of the anecdotes, Yarhouse refers to a conservative Christian who told a transgendered person that the person may find God in an unconventional way, and that encouraged the transgender person, who previously thought that the only option was to choose between transgenderism and God. This caught my eye. One may ask how the conservative Christian roots that view in conservative Christianity, however.
The book is informative, particularly about the scientific attempts to root Gender Dysphoria in biology. Yarhouse vacillates, somewhat, between being open and embracing a conservative Christian rejection of transgenderism.