Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Wesley on Bruce Jenner


"What would John Wesley say about Bruce Jenner’s professed transition, by hormones and surgery, to become a woman, appearing scantily clad, on the cover of Vanity Fair?

Wesley was certainly aware of cross dressing, which Deuteronomy 22:5 precludes:
A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.”

Cross dressing was perhaps most identified in Wesley’s time with the decadent rich, like the
infamous colonial governor of New York, the Earl of Clarendon, who reputedly strutted about Albany in a dress, telling colonists he dressed like a queen so as to represent their Queen.

Wesley commented on Deuteronomy 22:5 in his Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible:

Shall not wear – Namely, ordinarily or unnecessarily, for in some cases this may be lawful, as to make an escape for one’s life. Now this is forbidden, both for decency sake, that men might not confound those sexes which God hath distinguished, that all appearance of evil might be avoided, such change of garments carrying a manifest sign of effeminacy in the man, of arrogance in the woman, of lightness and petulancy in both; and also to cut off all suspicions and occasions of evil, which this practice opens a wide door to." JE/Mark Tooley