By Blake Alverson 

Dear reader,  

Oh no, here we go again. First, Caster Semenya, and now, Imane Khelif have shocked the American public and provided rich fodder for emotional assumptions about gender. Men are competing in women’s sports. Jwanna Mann has become art imitating life. So, here we are and now we will hear all about it. Sigh. Surely from the pulpit too. Double sigh. Whether obliquely or directly, it must be addressed. We must all fear the horror of gender-bending and the inevitable dangers of moral relativism.

What a shame. Here are two ambitious athletes making salacious headlines and these armchair philosophers cannot seize the opportunity to preach about the dangers of ambition, or the folly of self-glory, or the false promise of nationalism. Here our guides have a great opportunity to stand astride a chaotic world and offer a dynamic God-centered vision during a wholly secular spectacle. Instead, and sadly, we will be subjected to ivory tower droning and fearmongering. If this is not addressed, we will become totally unable to read a basic moral compass. How dramatic. No wonder those inclined will shy from preaching on ambition. They think they can save us all from ourselves as they enjoy another cup of tea up in their glistening ivory tower.

Down here, on Earth, these are not philosophical test-cases ideal for proving the reality of gender. No, these are just two human beings living their own lives. Their gender is a God-given, all-natural occurrence happening in conservative societies to conservative-minded young women. Semenya calls herself a different sort of woman and rejects western notions of intersexuality. Khelif became a boxer because she had to dodge the punches of the bullies who attacked her. No doubt she also learned to ignore slurs and taunts. The only people who think these women are men are complete strangers who do not understand the societies in which they were raised, much less the two societies from which Semenya and Kalif hail, respectively.

Have the high-minded, overwrought and overeducated philosophers considered, logically, what if Semenya and Kelif are women? Women made by God. What if they represent a small but significant population of people? Which they do. Now, before you react in emotion and condemn me, the messenger, consider that God might be testing you.

Consider. If they must conform to your strict definition of gender and they are unable to do so through no action of their own, then God must have made them like this for God does not make mistakes. As God does not make mistakes then the mistake must be your own or theirs. Have we considered that the mistake might be ours? Perhaps it is not our mistake. It could be that God made them such to humble them. But it could also be that God made them such to humble you. In loving God, as I have been blessed to do, you will come to understand that nearly all that happens it is designed to humble all of us.  

As we each confidently assert our beliefs in the name of God — be it “anything goes” or “God made two genders and only two genders” — remember to acknowledge the fear that arises in your voice. That fear in your voice is your subconscious soul seeing through your arrogance and insisting, we are on thin ice. If one cannot confidently understand the simple slice of creation of which we are a part: humanity, then what can we really know of the universe God created? That doubt is not an invitation to unfaith but an invitation to embrace the love and peace of the Alpha and Omega itself. He is A to Z and everything between. At the end of the day, as humans on earth, we must each choose: will I live in peace? Or will I live in fear? Peace can only come from trusting in and loving God; and loving God means acknowledging that he is always trying to humble all of us.

May God bless you and may God continue to bless the United States of America. 

Blake Alverson is a millennial from Atlanta and self-taught theologian who hopes to use his talents to help others come to love God as he has.