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Cultivating a Regular Habit of Forgiveness

Cultivating a Regular Habit of Forgiveness

by | May 31, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

Written by Ashtyn Fair

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wisely said, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle…and have found their way out of the depths…Beautiful people do not just happen“. The path to “beauty“ or Christlikeness requires rhythms of regular forgiveness. Jesus is our example and his presence is necessary for forgiveness. The imperfection of humankind and accumulated hurts over the span of a lifetime necessitates the continual need for forgiveness. Without it the transmission of unhealed hurts is inevitable. The deep work of forgiveness will bear joy and peace in those who have courage to pursue it. As people of God seek to be transformed through struggle, the ongoing spiritual practice of forgiveness must be central to our Christian life.

 

Jesus: Our Companion & Example

Jesus is both our example for practicing forgiveness and our companion on the journey. From the very beginning God practices forgiveness toward his people with a relational vision of renewal (Genesis 3:16, 6:13, 8:21-22, 12). We do not forgive others by our strength alone. Throughout Scripture it is evident that offering forgiveness and mercy is one way we reflect God’s image to the world.  David Montgomery states in his book Forgiveness in the Old Testament, that the “sacrificial system foreshadows the vicarious suffering and atonement of Christ.” In the Gospels Jesus atones for the sins of the world through his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. In Christ’s perfection, he atones for the sins of his children in a single historical event and mysteriously, as he lives within us by the Holy Spirit, absorbs our hurt in real time which continually requires his forgiveness. Keas Keasler states in his lecture, The Art of Forgiveness: “On the cross we see God doing visibly and cosmically what every human being must do to forgive someone.” With this in mind, forgiveness is more than an action of the will—it is an ongoing journey.

In Colossians 3:12-13, Paul describes Jesus’ disciples clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, then instructs us to forgive one another. As disciples of Jesus we are to remain soft-hearted. The ongoing practice of forgiveness is the pathway to these soft-hearted and thick-skinned virtues Paul describes. The path of forgiveness is meant to be walked out in Christ. We cannot be any closer to God than we already are; instead, there is a deepening of our own awareness of intimacy and union in Christ that is our truest reality. Union with Christ has a profound impact on the practice of forgiveness. Christ in us takes the hit and can miraculously create something life-giving. Whether the blow is simple or complex, Jesus within us receives it, transforms it, and resurrects to new life. All that is unnatural must be practiced regularly, forgiveness being perhaps the most unnatural of all.

 

Your Responsibility to Forgive & the Generational Impact of Unforgiveness

Wounds become scars when we accompany Jesus as a companion in the process of forgiveness. “Any pain or tension that we do not transform we will transmit.” is a quote from Ronald Rolheiser, a Catholic priest, theologian and author. Experience, research, and neuroscience agree. Because no one is exempt from resentment and bitterness, it is essential for believers to engage forgiveness for the present health of relationships. Forgiveness walks at a slow pace, and it may take many laps until one can wholeheartedly forgive and be free.

It is common to be told to forgive based on logic, such as, “Jesus forgave you all your sins, now you can forgive others.” While this statement is true, it can ignore the many complexities of forgiving another person and sound simplistic. The trouble with, and ineffectiveness of engaging forgiveness as a one-time cognitive choice or act of the will, is that it spiritually bypasses what happened, the felt hurt, and the lasting effects. Spiritual bypassing, or avoidance and repression of hurt, is alarmingly found in churches and often masked as spiritual maturity. Spiritual bypassing is a poison perpetrated by Christains who have forgotten that lament is deep in the Church’s historical roots. Avoidance and repression of trauma lead to anger and bitterness that is then fed to children, impacting their spiritual formation and development. Neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel explains, “the predictor of healthy childhood attachment [is] whether the parents have a clear and coherent story about their lives and the traumas they have experienced.” Any wounding or unforgiveness that has not experienced Jesus’ touch will hinder the parent’s ability to create healthy and loving relationships with their children. Because past relational hurt that is unhealed and unforgiven naturally influences present relational dynamics and attachments, there is a weightiness to mastering the art of forgiveness, whether you are a parent or not.

 

The Process & Fruit of Forgiveness

With Christ as the model and companion in the process of forgiveness, understanding that any hurt not transformed will be transmitted, we need to know how to forgive and what fruit it should produce in our lives. Desmond and Mpho Tutu give us one way forward in The Fourfold Path toward forgiveness: telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, and renewing or releasing the relationship. The one seeking to forgive must be specific when telling the story because the details are important—one can not forgive vague offenses. Here it is important to struggle, wrestle with God, and thoroughly lament the effects of the event and experience. Tutu explains the effects of engaging lament, “you discover that your pain is part of the great, eternal tapestry of human loss and heartbreak. You realize…that others have experienced and survived…and that you too can survive and know joy and happiness again.” At this point in the journey it may be helpful to ask Jesus what his heart is toward the one you are needing to forgive. Here you may recognize the common humanity between you and your transgressor, moving toward forgiveness and renewal or release in the relationship.

A Christian on the path toward forgiveness will inadvertently grow in trusting Jesus. Lasting forgiveness is impossible without drawing strength from God’s Spirit within you. In this relational reliance, the birthing of profound peace and joy may be found. Peace because you are free from resentment, and joy because you have engaged and honored your grief, releasing the weight of it. If joy and peace are fruits of the Spirit that are born through the process of forgiveness, then Christians would do well to make a regular practice of it. Not only for the monumental relational fallouts, the incidents that may take years to unravel, but also for the small things that pile up over time and look like resentment, cynicism, or disappointment.

Jesus commands us to love our enemies. An unforgiving heart can not do so. We witness to unbelievers as we pursue forgiveness when hate or appearing indifferent would be more natural. As disciples of Jesus we must be proactive in forgiveness, practicing it regularly because Jesus has not only embodied forgiveness and has forgiven us greatly, but promises to be our companion (Christ in us) on the journey. Rolheiser states, “As we age, we can begin to trim down our spiritual vocabulary, and eventually we can get it down to three words: Forgive, forgive, forgive!“

 
Additional Resources
Keasler, Keas. “The Art of Forgiveness.” Residency. Lecture presented at the Residency, September 29th, 2022.

Montgomery, David. “Forgiveness in the Old Testament.” Contemporary Christianity. 2013. 

Tutu, Desmond and Mpho Tutu. The Book of Forgiveness. New York: Harper Collins, 2015.

 

 
Memorial Day

Memorial Day

by | May 24, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

Written by:  Amy Franz

Ahhh, the end of May! What a joyous time! School is over. Summer weather has arrived. Days at the park and warm evenings are heralded by Memorial Day weekend. Picnics and pool parties dressed up in red, white, and blue.

As a child, my Memorial Day weekends included all this and a trip to the Leavenworth National Cemetery. The hour drive was like traveling back in time. We’d drive past the ranch that had bison out to pasture on the prairie. Bumping along brick roads in Leavenworth with its historic downtown buildings from a bygone era.

Just outside of town is the cemetery. I do not ever remember being afraid of this vast place, I only remember feeling a soft sadness. The grounds were peaceful. Expanses of freshly mowed grass, white headstones in neat rows gleaming in the sun, marked with small flags fluttering for every one of the fallen. My dad drove slowly through, pausing here and there as my mom quietly named each of the wars: the World Wars, Viet Nam, the Civil War, and a specially designated section for the renowned Buffalo Soldiers in the oldest part of the cemetery. We were quiet and reverent in the car, looking at so many graves they seemed to be uncountable. How could there be that many soldiers, mostly men, buried here? This is what history looks like. History that demands dignity and respect.

Leaving the cemetery, we drove past the Veterans Home. Men sat out on the lawn, each one alone. I didn’t understand their aloneness. Dad said that for some, the war stays even though it has ended. This was a place to help with all the different kinds of healing. We’d travel on to the military base, which was completely open to the public back then. The historic homes of officers were decorated with red, white, and blue bunting hanging from windows and porch railings. Here there was not only history but the present; men and women in uniform attending their duties even on the weekend.

Now, so many decades later, Memorial Day is so much more personal. As the wife of a Navy veteran with 20 years of service, I know the fallen. My husband and I remember where we were when we heard the news of each one. Those he served with, whose families we barbequed with. Our hearts break again each Memorial Day. For a long moment, we are quiet, feeling what was lost not just to us.

In the year 2000, Congress passed a law for a National Moment of Remembrance at 3:00 PM local time on Memorial Day to pause for a duration of one minute to remember those who have died in military service to the United States. It was passed in the hopes that Memorial Day would be remembered for more than “the day the pool opens.”

This year will you pause for that moment? A prayer could be offered, a minute of silence held for reflection, a hymn sung, or a poem or Scripture read. Then, yes, we can return to families and fun. Yes, to making new memories and feeling the warm sun on your face. Yes, to enjoying the extra freedoms summer brings!

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

by | Mar 22, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 1 comment

Dip, downstroke, cross.

“From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Dip, downstroke cross.

“From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

A murmured thank you.

Dip, downstroke, cross.

“From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Crouch down, dip, downstroke, cross.

“From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Every year, the Ash Wednesday service is one of my favorite Christ Community services. In the words of our campus pastor, “It’s sadder here,” and he’s right, it is. Beautifully sad. Ever humbling. Sorrow-stirring. 

This year I felt it in my hands first. We had been given gold-painted rings with tags attached and were asked to reflect and write down “treasures we cherish more than Jesus.” Oof. The mental inventory took less time than I’d have liked, and returned more than I hoped for. Confessions of misordered loves and misplaced affections, time misspent, and hopes misplaced swam forward and weighed heavily on my mind.

Moments before, the congregation proclaimed “He is worthy…of all blessing and honor and glory.” We had declared Jesus “holy, holy, holy,” and yet I had a lap full of contrary confessions. Sitting confronted with the hypocrisy alive in my own heart, the weight of the ring in my hands grew. It felt an awful lot like 30 pieces of silver.

I felt it on my shoulders next. Asked to stand, each side of the room was then asked a simple question. Using the same words asked of  Peter the disciple, echoing from thousands of years ago, a voice prompted “Church . . . Children of God . . . Sons and Daughters . . . Do you love me?” As we were addressed, each group in turn clutched our frail golden prize, holding our confessions close, and silently turned our backs. 

Away from the voice.
Away from the cross.
Away from the call of Jesus.

I think this is the most visceral way I’ve wrestled with my fallen nature in a while – which says more to my acceptance of it than anything. Facing my chair, grasping a representation of goods made into gods, the truth hung heavy; while I wish it wasn’t, rejection was the truest expression of my heart. 

What can you do with this weight other than let it consume you? Repent.  Looking guiltily at our hands and the sanctuary walls, we begged, “Come thou font of every blessing,” we offered, “Here’s my heart Lord, take and seal it.” Grace met our cries, and the weight lifted as mercy made tangible invited us to once again turn and face the symbol of our salvation, the cross. 

While normally this portion of the service would bear enough emotional weight to make me pause and ponder, this year I had also been asked to help impart ashes. I knew when I was asked that I was honored, but after touching the foreheads of a quarter of my church family, I can honestly say I had no idea how honored I should be. 

It felt holy. Standing in the corner of the room, thumb gritty and oily with the ashes, offering fellow congregants a soft smile, a black cross on the forehead, and some of the least comforting words I can think of, “From ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” 

It felt brutal to say those words over my older brothers and sisters in Christ, and there were more than a few of them. I crouched down to one woman’s forehead. Moved wispy silver bangs off another’s. My thumb brushed the wrinkles of a grandfather’s forehead. Crosses made of ash drawn where hairlines used to be. 

It felt brutal to say those words over younger brothers and sisters in Christ. I help with student ministries, so I saw students that I knew come through my line. I crouched down to a child’s forehead. Moved the brim of a baseball cap off another’s. My thumb brushed teenage acne scars. Crosses made of ash poked from beneath well-styled floppy hair.

This practice stirred remnants of the invincibility of youth that I didn’t realize still dwelt deep within me. While I wasn’t surprised that the sentiment felt true to say over those who’ve walked this globe longer than I, it was a sinking shock to realize it rang as true for those who have walked less. 

I know mortality is one of the great equalizers. Counter to the side of the human coin imprinted imago Dei lies our finitude. I just haven’t been confronted by it in a while. My life is largely insulated from reminders of it nowadays; my family is currently healthy, and my Facebook feed misleadingly free of CaringBridge pages. But Ash Wednesday wrestles the rose-colored glasses from my face. It demands me to see clearly. To see clearly the presence and cost of sin in my heart. In my life. In the lives of my fellow congregants. In the church. In the world. To see the death bought by our behavior.

That’s Ash Wednesday’s gift. For only from the right, corrected sight can the growth God invites us to come. Only from the admittance of brokenness can come repair. Only from confession can come forgiveness free from shame. Jesus promised the kingdom of God to the mourners, the meek, and the poor in spirit. Ash Wednesday is a means to get us there. A funeral to our pride, a shrinking of our egos, and a preaching of our fallibility over ourselves. Let it be the water that washes me meek and mourning, for the glory of God and the good of my soul.

Amen.

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

by | Mar 14, 2023 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

 As Christians, we are called to be stewards — stewards of our faith, of our loved ones, and of the things in our lives that God has blessed us with. Estate planning is a meaningful way to care for yourself, your family, and the communities and ministries close to your heart. 

For many Christians, this critical life task can be an important way to put their faith into action and create a lasting legacy that upholds their values and beliefs for generations to come.
 

Why Estate Planning?

When you make a will, you have the opportunity to contribute to the people and causes you love on your own terms. Just as God’s love sustains us and unites our communities around a shared purpose, estate planning can sustain your personal faith today, tomorrow, and for years to come. You have the power to communicate your wishes and steward your resources with care, purpose, and compassion. 

In the New Testament, we read that the early Christians were known for their radical generosity, using their resources to care for their community and some selling property and giving the proceeds to be used for those in need (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-37). 

This trajectory is rooted in the history of the Israelites setting aside the edges of their fields for gleaning by widows, orphans, the poor, and the needy (Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:19-22).

Today, the seeds of generosity have been planted for you, and you can pull from these deep-rooted traditions to create an estate plan that sustains a legacy of selflessness. 

 

Your Faith, Your Family, Your Legacy

Estate planning is also a powerful way to communicate with your loved ones and your family. When we think of what it means to be a steward of everything God has entrusted to our care — our families, careers, and finances — it is easy to forget about the final act of stewardship we have after we leave this earth. 

How will our lifetime of stewardship impact those we love after we are gone? Creating a will empowers you to pass your faith forward and steward your resources in ways that continue to support what matters to you. You can communicate important financial, healthcare, and end-of-life wishes in your estate plan and through your last will and testament to support your family and those who may be charged with your estate. 


Getting Started with Christ Community 

 As a member of the Evangelical Free Church of America, our purpose is to serve you and your loved ones in your faith, influencing our community and world for Jesus Christ. That’s why we have partnered with FreeWill, a secure online estate planning resource that allows you to begin building one element of your legacy of faith – at no cost to you. 

This simple, self-guided platform offers step-by-step guidance on how to direct the use of  what God has given you in ways that honor the word and work of the Lord. 

No single generation builds a church. The beauty of Christ Community is in all of us who take up the cross, build lives around the Bible, and love the church. 

Resources:

Generosity Paper

Visit FreeWill.com/cckc to get started today

Living a Generous Life: Planning a Lasting Legacy

Carrying the Cross of Gender Dysphoria

Carrying the Cross of Gender Dysphoria

by | Nov 2, 2022 | Featured, Headlines | 0 comments

The second of a 4-part series titled, “Gender Dysphoria & the Question of Distinctly Christian Resources,” this blog originally appeared January 21, 2018, on the website of the Andreas Center at Dordt University in a publication titled “in all things,” and was written by Mark A. Yarhouse, Psy.D. & Julia Sadusky, M.A, We repost this blog by permission in its original format. Visit in all things website to read all parts of this series.

One thing we have seen as a successful method of coping for gender dysphoria is offering oneself in service to others. This may seem counterintuitive at first. Isn’t it draining to invest in other people, especially in the very moments when a person is struggling immensely? But, one biological female who uses she/her pronouns and describes herself as transgender shared otherwise: “Helping other people—focusing on the problems of others. I was created to love God and love people. God made me generous and empathic and that’s what matters” (Yarhouse & Houp, 2016, p. 58). This is not as surprising a conclusion as it might seem, at least not when taken in light of the many Scriptural references to receiving much in giving of one’s self (Proverbs 11:25; Matthew 10:8; Luke 6:38; 2 Corinthians 9:11; Galatians 5:13). In fact, we are told that the greatest among us will be servants to others (Matthew 23:11), and that the mission of Jesus was “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:27-28). Thus, the transgender person’s generosity with her time and talents is a beautiful response to Christ’s call to follow His example. In the midst of her own struggle, she can offer a powerful witness of Christ-like love and humility in serving.Perhaps the greatest contribution from Christianity has to do with our experience of enduring hardship. A discussion of hardship and pain in the life of a Christian is often Christ-centered, as it entails uniting with Jesus in His suffering. Certainly, it is true that Christ invites each person to follow Him through concrete acts of charity and service. After all, the ultimate expression of God’s love for us, the greatest expression of love and the most radical act, was His suffering and death (John 15:13). His suffering, once for all, won our salvation. But still He commanded that we pick up the daily cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24-26). In Paul’s words, the task for us is to identify with His suffering. But why? Why would a loving God command the embracing of a cross? If He loved us, wouldn’t He carry the burden for us? What is the value of Him carrying it with us?

 

Because He knew what we do not always remember. Death is the door to Resurrection. Encountering our weakness is the path to experiencing grace beyond human comprehension. It seems that we would be much less aware of our need for God if we were not brought face-to-face with crosses that are too heavy for one person to carry alone. Grace makes possible what certainly is, apart from grace, impossible.  If you are hyperaware of your weakness, your lack, and your inability to cope, precisely there is the place where your childlike need for a Savior is discovered. Jesus, perhaps, is able to unite more fully to us in those moments, and to work more fully within us when we come to Him as children, desperately in need of Him.

Uniting suffering to Christ involves a conscious choice to embrace the cross and share it with Him. We can fight the cross, drop the cross, look away from the cross, compare it to that of others, but it will still be there. How are we to respond to the cross? Surely God knows our desire to distance ourselves from it. Why then does He call us to “Come”? Again, he knows that which we easily forget. Embracing the cross is a prerequisite to Christian joy. Whether it be minor inconveniences, temporary pain, chronic illness, or death itself, the freedom that is promised to the Christian is discovered in a willful assent to the pain of the present moment. Rather than fighting it, which brings its own challenges, accepting the cross is liberating. And in this freedom, we can face the cross that we fear most, and enter into joy beyond all telling.

Every person longs for joy, and the early Christians wrote less about pleasure than they did about joy, according to Servais O.P. Pinckaers’ book Morality: The Catholic View (2001). We are fully alive when we are most joyful. This reveals the supreme human calling to endless joy: that is, eternal life. But joy, properly understood, is associated with enduring hardship. Joy is tied to pain that is endured, and, as a result, joy itself is enduring:

Joy is lasting, like the excellence, the virtues, that engender it. Sense pleasure is individual, like sensation itself. It decreases when the good that causes it is divided up and shared more widely; it ceases altogether when the good is absent. Joy is communicable; it grows by being shared and repays sacrifices freely embraced. Joy belongs to the purity and generosity of love. (p. 78)

Too often, we long to find life for ourselves, but we find ourselves less drawn to the way by which this life and this joy comes—by risking or even losing one’s life for Christ’s sake (Matthew 16:24-26). We are much more comfortable praying for healing than for the grace to suffer well. And perhaps as a result of our constant exposure to hedonic goals of the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure, we easily forget that the Christian faith stands in opposition to an easy life, even going so far as to say that Jesus on the cross embodies an absolute rejection of the notion. His embracing of His cross with absolute consent of His will reveals an altogether different goal for the Christian, and a potential pathway when faced with enduring conditions.

Christian history demonstrates rich examples of embracing suffering. Many Christians before us have walked this path, and we stand on ground soaked with the blood of martyrs who were witnesses of the fruit of this embrace of suffering. In suffering, though, they did not lose sight of Christian hope. Their hope was the root of their joy. Theirs was not a grim-faced suffering, or a begrudging acceptance. At the same time, the saints certainly were not superficial or naively optimistic. Rather, their hope was a grace itself, sufficient for their present difficulty. It was a hope that did not disappoint, we are told.

Still, how can we be sure, lest we find ourselves expecting good things to come and left wanting? We only have to look back to the reason for our hope. Hope certainly did not disappoint the first Christians when they found an empty tomb and came to know that our Lord had risen, just as He had said (Matthew 28:6). Hope did not disappoint when the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room, soon after Jesus had promised He would send the Advocate. Hope did not disappoint when thousands were converted and baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as He had told them.

Certainly Christ loves us now with as much love as He loved His other disciples. He will give hope in our own dark nights and raise us into newness of life, just as He said. This brings us back to the reminder that it is in suffering well that the beauty of life in Christ is made manifest. We rejoice in our suffering precisely because it is through our hardships (and handling of those hardships) that God is glorified. This joy is not exhibited primarily through a smiling face. Sometimes it is through tears and open hands that might feel empty. Suffering in these moments, especially, is an act of worship, in which believers unite their suffering to Christ.

Gender dysphoria is painful and real. The question is, is it possible to validate the reality and depth of the suffering and invite one another to pursue Christian joy in and through this particular hardship? Or will this only ever lead to trivializing another’s pain? Can we discuss sanctification without moving the entire discussion of gender dysphoria into the realm of morality or moral categories of sin?  With our transgender family, friends, and neighbors, we as Christians have not always done so well. This could be because we have been less vocal in calling one another to be sanctified through suffering, while shouting down those we have labeled “uniquely sinful” (perhaps the phrase “uniquely wounded” is more appropriate in these cases). Thus, we have missed the opportunity to recognize the real place for exploring what sanctification could look like in the lives of transgender Christians, and all other Christians.

That such a perspective is counter-intuitive to the American Christian makes it difficult to apply it to gender dysphoria. This is a countercultural move that requires a more substantive shift in perspective. This shift would necessarily include a discussion of gender dysphoria, but wouldn’t focus on it exclusively, while maintaining hedonic presuppositions for others of maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain.

Only if we agree that we all are in need of embracing suffering fully, of being sanctified through our crosses, can we begin to find unity, rather than division, when we discuss gender dysphoria. Before any discussion, we must first acknowledge that we struggle to love well when another is suffering. Too often, we have abandoned one another to carry these painful crosses in isolation, masking our departure by quoting Scripture verses as we walk out the door. Next, we must resist the urge to avoid our own pain and the pain of others. In Christian communities, we have gotten quite good at praying for miraculous healing, but there is also much to be gained in praying for the grace to suffer well, even praying for the desire to want to suffer for love of God and love of one another.

It is certainly natural and good to ask for healing, to beg Jesus to give us reprieve from the weight of the cross. And sometimes, Jesus does give reprieve through miraculous healing, whether it be physical or psychological, or the timely support of another person. Sometimes, we have to think to ask, what is our response when the cross is not lifted? Can healing take the form of spiritual healing as we receive the grace of God in the presence of our real and enduring psychological and emotional distress?

Links to other parts of this series, Gender Dysphoria & the Question of Distinctly Christian Resources:

Part 1: Introduction to Gender Dysphoria
Part 3: Sharing the Burden of Gender Dysphoria
Part 4: Continuing to Seek Answers for Gender Dysphoria

 
References

Antonio Guillamon, Carme Junque, and Esther Gomez-Gil. A Review of the Status of Brain Structure Research in Transsexualism. Archives of Sexual Behavior 45, no 7 (October 2016), 1615-1648.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Whatever You Did Unto One of the Least, You Did Unto Me. An address at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 3, 1994. Retrieved from https://www.ewtn.com/library/issues/prbkmter.txt

Pinckaers, Servais O.P., Morality: The Catholic View. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001.

Mark A. Yarhouse, Understanding Gender Dysphoria: Navigating Transgender Issues in a Changing Culture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015.

Mark A. Yarhouse & Dara Houp, D., Transgender Christians: “Gender identity, family relationships, and religious faith.” In Sheyma Vaughn (Ed.), Transgender youth: Perceptions, media influences, and social challenges (pp. 51-65). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2016.