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Living Faith vs. transgender people

Living Faith is an Australian Anglican pastoral ministry that encourages “faithfulness in sexuality.” They believe that “God’s creative purpose is that our gender is congruent with our sex.”

Living Faith encourages adherents not to make a gender transition, stating “The biologically-based binary distinctions of male and female are part of the creation that God described as good and so are to be embraced and guarded in the lives of Christian men and women respectively.” They encourage trans and gender diverse people to “seek options that maintain the integrity of your physical and mental unity, and which honour and preserve the maleness or femaleness of the body God has given you.”

Note: there are a number of religious organizations and churches operating under the name Living Faith in Australia and around the world. This profile is about the Australian Anglican pastoral ministry.

Background

Living Faith, also known as The Council for Living Faith, is a ministry of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia. The organization was formally established in February 2021 in response to the Victorian Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill. A similar independent organization called Liberty Ministries wound down at the time Living Faith was launched.

Because of Australia’s bans on conversion therapy, Living Faith states, “We do not practice or endorse any form of conversion or reparative therapy, which have been proven to be ineffective and distressing for those who have participated in it.”

Views and approaches

Living Faith holds beliefs that include the following :

  • “From the beginning, God created us male and female, two distinct sexes. This maleness and femaleness includes our sexed physical bodies, our sexual expression, our gender identity and our gendered relating to ourselves and one another. God’s creative purpose is that our gender is congruent with our sex.”
  • “The intimacy of sex is gifted by God for marriage between a man and a woman. There is value and dignity in sexuality being expressed in marriage with sex, and in singleness with celibacy.”
  • “Some people experience an incongruence between their biological sex and gender. Some people experience patterns of romantic or sexual attraction that include, or are exclusively toward, people of the same sex. With this experience, all of God’s people are still called to live according to the designed purposes of God.”
  • “While the experience of gender incongruence and/or various attractional patterns will look different for each of us, and for some might be distressing and impact day-to-day wellbeing, we look to Jesus’ teaching and example and the teaching of the wider Bible, depending on God in prayer through the Holy Spirit, to understand what biblically faithful expressions of our gender and sexuality will look like.”

They describe their approach in part:

  • “We work with Christians who hold to the historic Christian faith. This means the scope of our ministry does not include evangelising the LGBT+ community, or engaging in lobbying or political activities.”
  • “We seek repentance and restoration, wherever there is sin. We seek obedience and perseverance, wherever there is temptation. We seek patience and hopeful dependence, wherever there is suffering.”
  • “We do not practice or endorse any form of conversion or reparative therapy, which have been proven to be ineffective and distressing for those who have participated in it.”
  • “Because we see all people as made in God’s image and valued in his sight, we see all expressions of homophobia or transphobia as sinful and inappropriate.”
  • “Our goal is not orientation change, but to teach, encourage and support Christians who experience gender incongruence or attraction to the same-sex (and the people around them), so they we might grow in godliness as we face our particular challenges. As we grow to maturity in Christ, some may experience changes in their patterns of attraction and/or degrees of gender incongruence while others may experience no change. Some may choose to stay single, while others have chosen to enter into ‘mixed-orientation marriages.’”

Living Faith offers a one-hour program by Rob Smith titled “Pastorally supporting Christians experiencing gender incongruence.” Their overview outlines its aims:

Theology

  • “The biologically-based binary distinctions of male and female are part of the creation that God described as good and so are to be embraced and guarded in the lives of Christian men and women respectively, and expressed in culturally appropriate ways that conform with Scripture.”
  • “The reality and intensity of gender incongruence is something we acknowledge as part of the disruption of the world following the first sin. None of us is immune from the brokenness of the world, though we may experience it in different ways, and all of us need God’s compassion and his rescue from sin and its consequences that comes only in Christ.”

For individuals

  • “Seek options that maintain the integrity of your physical and mental unity, and which honour and preserve the maleness or femaleness of the body God has given you.”
  • “Share your struggles with some mature Christian people so you can receive Christian compassion and support, as well as accountability and encouragement.”

For churches

  • “Remaining faithful to the teaching of the Bible, including upholding the goodness of God’s design of male and female.”
  • “Rejecting all bullying, ridicule, mistreatment, and abuse of gender non-conforming people.”
  • “Differentiating between compassion for the person, including an understanding of the distress of their situation or condition, and agreeing with, celebrating, or validating any treatment protocol for transition.”

Recommended materials

Their list of other resources includes materials created by other groups engaged in similar work.

People

  • Peter Rodgers: Executive Director
  • Simon Swadling: Resource Creation and Teaching

Resources

Living Faiith (livingfaith.online)

Instagram (instagram.com)