Cis or Trans Christianity

Thinking about an old problem in a new light...

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Cis.

Trans.

Terms from the subject of gender identity.

Cisgender refers to a person whose gender identity matches their biology at birth.

Transgender refers to someone whose gender identity differs from their biology at birth.

So, CisChristian could mean a churchperson whose actions match their talk and a TransChristian one whose actions differ from their talk.

In the Church of God movement days, there can be no doubt. John Winebrenner and the men and women who shared his radical, prophetic, sin-challenging, grace-proclaiming, empowered-by-the-Spirit, incarnational, world-transforming ministry were CisChristian. They talked big and, in the Spirit's power, walked, if anything, even bigger.

And, that's a way of thinking about the difference between our body in its movement days...

...when the Lord of all authority and power and blessing empowered and blessing, blessed us...

...and the CGGC today, limp and lukewarm,...

...which continues to decline and decay.

They were CisChristian. We, today, are TransChristian.

They were empowered and blessed and we...

...well, ain't.

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A recent example:

Lance's recent eNews face-stomp on a person, or persons, who wondered why no one from the mountaintop, including Lance himself, has expressed outrage, or behaved with outrage, over New York's new late-term abortion law.

Lance claims to, and, I really think, does, believe that Christ still does give, to the people of the Kingdom, apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for works of ministry.

Yet, when he's given the chance to act, I've never known Lance to live this belief.

As seems clear from his recent bristling over the call for a strong response to the New York abortion law, Lance is a TransChristian who thinks APEST but actually opposes it when someone wants him to put it into action.

I wrote to Lance about this.

I noted to Lance that prophets are the stewards of outrage in the body, as were the men and women of our movement era.

And, I noted, to Lance, that, in this case, he failed to live APEST. He failed to empower prophetic ministry in the body. In fact, Lance threw a wet blanket...in many, many words...on the prophet impulse in our body.

In his eNews article, Lance argued with careful reason, to stifle a prophetic impulse from the CGGC.

To be honest, Lance not only failed to live APEST, Lance, actually, argued against APEST, attempting to justify a response that is not prophetic, and to condemn the prophetic impulse.  

Sadly, this is par for the CGGC course. It's not only Lance.

But, if Lance ever leads in action, it's in his TransChristian approach to APEST.

Oh, for the good old Church of God, CisChristian, days!...

...the day when we thrived in the Spirit's power, and our words and actions matched organically and seamlessly.

Today, we are TransChristian.

We must repent.