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Gender is back in the headlines this week in two noteworthy stories, each of which demand comment.  First, a Texas court on Tuesday ruled that gender is defined at birth and not be "reassignment" surgery:

Relying on a previous ruling that sex is determined at birth and not changed by later surgical procedures, a Texas court Thursday declared that the "marriage" of a man who led another man to believe he is a woman is null and void. The Alliance Defense Fund provided funding for the case. The summary judgment order came in the estate proceedings of Capt. Thomas Araguz, a Wharton volunteer firefighter who tragically died battling a fire two months after separating from the person he married when he discovered that person was actually a male posing as a female. Justin Purdue, who legally changed his name to "Nikki" in 1996, went to highly convincing lengths, including surgery, to make himself appear to be a female." A person's sex is a biological fact, not a state of mind, and altering one's outer appearance doesn't change that," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. "The court was right to uphold marriage by affirming the reality that a person's sex cannot be changed."

Doubtless, it is a troubling commentary on contemporary culture that a court must clarify whether gender is a product of biology or a sociology, but God's Word told us long ago what these judges affirmed earlier this week: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Gen. 1:27)  I particularly appreciate the quote from Austin Nimocks, a leader from the Alliance Defense Fund who funded the case: "A person's sex is a biological fact, not a state of mind, and altering one's outer appearance doesn't change that." A man is a man is a man and a woman is a woman is a woman because God has made them that way, surgical procedures notwithstanding, which is an accurate assessment of a second gender-related story to hit the news cycle this week out of Florida:

Just about every girl growing up dreams of being prom queen. Andrew Viveros had his wish become a reality when he was crowned McFatter High School's prom queen. So did Andrew Viveros, who had his wish become a reality when he was crowned McFatter High School's prom queen Friday night.  Viveros, who for the past two years has gone by the name Andii, is a transgender who fought to get his name on the prom queen ballot. He is the first transgender to be named prom queen at a public school in the United States. "I was in shock," Viveros said. "I was just smiling." Viveros received the most votes over 14 girls for the coveted title at the Davie, Fla., technical school. A few students didn't think Viveros should have been allowed to compete for the title and started a petition to get his name off the ballot for prom queen. Viveros, who is also president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, wrote a speech to explain why he had a right to run.

So, the bottom line here is this: a teenage boy was voted prom queen. Viveros may attempt to define himself otherwise, but by God's good design, the male pronoun will always apply when describing this tragically confused young man. This is a stark (and sad) illustration of the idolatrous exchange of Romans 1:22-27 in which fallen humanity disregards God's truth and swallows the lies of the evil one with a tragic net result: "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error." Pray for the young people of our country, that God's timeless truths will take root and their hearts and that the great exchange will be of a far more glorious nature: "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)

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Back in the nineteenth century, the British people were introduced to a fairy tale about "water babies" through a story written by Rev. Charles Kingsley. The water babies entered folklore, and generations of British children imagined the water babies and their story.

Now, out of Canada comes another strange story, but this one is not a fairy tale. Two Canadian parents have ignited a firestorm over their determination to raise their third child as a "genderless" baby.

As reporter Jayme Poisson reports, "The neighbors know [Kathy] Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don't pretend to understand it."

Well, the neighbors might take these parents at their word, but the very idea of a genderless baby is nonsense. This is not a baby with ambiguous genitalia, a defect that occurs in a very small percentage of births. The parents admit that this baby has a clear biological sex, but they do not want that to become the child's identity. They want the child to make that determination at a later date.

To no real surprise, these parents classify themselves on the political and ideological left. Their two older children are both boys, but the parents encourage the boys to act and dress in unconventional ways. So much so, that as the reporter informs us, many who see them assume they are girls.

The new baby, named Storm, is dressed and presented in a manner that makes no clear gender statement. Only the parents, the two older boys, and a close family friend know the truth about the child's biological sex.

As Poisson reports:

"When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?'" says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.

"If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs," says Stocker.

Well, actually, you do - not in the crass and crude way that Mr. Stoker puts it, but in the virtually universal way that people ask of a baby: Is it a boy or a girl?

The controversy surrounding Storm is a sign of our times. Our rebellion against the Creator has now reached the point that we will deny the fact that our identity is not just our own personal project, but is first of all established in the Creator's intention - and part of that intention is the fact that we are male or female.

Storm's parents clearly believe that our personal identity is our own personal project. They lament even the fact that parents make so many decisions for their children. "It's obnoxious," Stoker says.

Well, the decision about gender is not something made by parents, but by God. At this point, the Christian worldview and the worldview of secularism run into direct collision. Nevertheless, the objective reality of the child's gender will eventually become a public issue, regardless of the parents' intentions. As even they recognize, at some point in the future, decisions about such things as which bathroom the child will use will force the issue.

The major issue at stake in this controversy is the objective reality of sex and gender. We are, in fact, what our genitals tell us we are. This is not because we are genitally determined, but because we were created by a holy God, whose plans and purposes for us are, inescapably, tied to our gender.

Gender is not merely a socially constructed reality. When the Southern Baptist Convention modified its confession of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message, in 2000, it added language that defined gender as "part of the goodness of God's creation."

Some observers wondered why that language is important. Now, you know.

(R. Albert Mohler Jr. serves as a member of CBMW's Council and is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This post was originally published on his daily blog at www.albertmohler.com)

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(Editor's note: This post originally appeared on Gender Blog in February as part of a series on heroes. It is appropriate to revisit the post on Memorial Day as we remember those who paid the ultimate price that we might be free to worship God according to the dictates of conscience.)

The young paratrooper stood at the open door of the C-47 transport plane. Wave after wave of angry wind battered his army fatigues with the ferocity of a category five hurricane.  He paused momentarily, double-checked his static line and leaped into the darkness below. Instantly, the darkness wasn't so dark any more. As he plummeted toward the earth, shells from anti-aircraft whizzed near him, visible like thousands of falling stars slithering across the night sky, sent skyward by German soldiers with deadly intent. Explosions illumined the terrain below. Drifting intentionally toward the hostilities below defied common sense, but the young soldier was on a mission far greater than even he understood in the moment. The young soldier was my father. It was 2 a.m., June 6, 1944. The hedge-infested landscape of northern France, largely flooded with water by Hitler, waited as my father and his colleagues in the 101^st Airborne descended to join the cataclysmic battle known to posterity simply as "D-Day."

My father, who died in 1991 when a leaky blood vessel burst in his chest, would tell you that God's mercy alone carried him through D-Day alive. Grace saw him through the Allies' Operation Market Garden (which didn't turn out to be the Allies' proudest moment). It preserved him through the Battle of the Bulge, where American troops won despite being grossly outnumbered, completely surrounded (it is the Airborne's job to be surrounded, my father told me) and deep-frozen in one of the coldest European winters on record. Divine mercy, dad always said, kept him alive to V-J Day and spirited him back to Georgia to marry my mom.

My dad's story is common among the American men who populated "The Greatest Generation." You know this if you've seen HBO's wonderful mini-series based on the equally engrossing book, "Band of Brothers." Thanks to the herculean efforts of these men, Westerners like us remain free to worship Christ in spirit and in truth every Lord's Day; we are free to publish and read newspapers, magazines, blogs, theology books, history books, novels and above all, the Word of the living God. We are free to raise our families according to the dictates of conscience, free to work, free to play, free to seek education, free to live as those who have been created in the image of God. But it all came at a staggering cost (more than 60 million killed in all) and required a level of courage that surely was not of this world.

Selfless sacrifice and uncommon valor won this freedom.  And these efforts provide us with a glorious illustration of a true hero. Why? Because they paint for us, on the canvas of history, a clear depiction of the blood sacrifice 2000 years ago that won a cosmic conflict, one whose first volleys were fired long ago in Eden. The sacrifice of my father and his colleagues puts in bold relief the courage it took to walk the Via Dolorosa and it displays the blood-stained realities that typify a radical others-centeredness of the sort which defined God's rescue mission in Christ Jesus. Just as dad and thousands of other men leaped toward certain death at Normandy, so Christ set his face like flint toward Jerusalem with full knowledge that a kangaroo court and a sentence of death awaited in that city. This is the stuff of true heroism. Genuine biblical manhood requires radical selflessness and profound courage. It is why my sons, who were born many years after my father's death, know the story of their grandfather well. I tell them that this is what true manhood looks like, because it looks like Christ.

Part I of this series is available here: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Of-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-I

Part II: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Orf-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-II-A-Hero-is-Marked-by-the-Grace-of-God

Part III: http://www.cbmw.org/Blog/Posts/Orf-Fatherhood-and-Heroes-Part-II-A-Hero-is-Marked-by-the-Grace-of-God

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One month ago today, I watched aghast as an F-5 tornado rampaged through my family's new community, Birmingham, Ala., with the strength of thousand marauding Godzillas uprooting giant trees as if they were Tinker Toys, crushing houses as if they were paper machete and pulling up pavement as if it were penny ribbon. My family emerged from the basement unscathed, our house untouched, but watching it cut its deadly path north on live television left my stomach with the same indescribably sick feeling that took up residence in it on that deceptively beautiful September morning 10 years ago now known to posterity simply as 9-11.

On Easter Sunday, just three days before the storms came, I had preached my inaugural sermon at Philadelphia Baptist Church. My family had lived here a mere 19 days. Now, I was faced with ministering to a congregation whom I barely knew in a city I knew even less. By my best estimate, I had a firm-ish grasp on the names of about 25 people in the church, less than one-fourth of the attendance on a typical Sunday. What was I going to do? My instincts as a Christian man and a rookie undershepherd screamed at me from the depths of Ephesians 5: "Your new family in Christ is hurting, you must rise up and lead, provide and protect."

In the weeks following that moribund afternoon, this biblical instinct has overflowed in humble godly service by the men of my own congregation as well as those in local bodies and those from other regions that are far too numerous to count. What has emerged from the rubble has been a profound display of vigorous biblical manhood in action. Every day here in the battered cities of Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and in smaller town along the storm's gruesome path, the air hums with the sound of chain saws, the streets buzz with trucks hauling logs, tree limbs and the shattered pieces of houses and businesses. Truckloads of food and supplies are pouring in.

Everywhere, I see men from evangelical churches volunteering to serve hour upon endless hour. And among them, I see deep joy in the arising from their service. I see them encouraging those who had family members swallowed up by the killer storm, weeping with those who weep, applying the healing balm of the Gospel to their profound wounds. I see them boldly and lovingly sharing the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the love of a good and sovereign God with those who are asking the question: "Where was God in the whirlwind?" On April 27, 2011, I witnessed one of the great nightmares of my 44 years of living in my Father's world, but in the weeks since, I have seen biblical manhood at its finest on display in men of God serving others and loving them as Christ loves His church.

I pray that I will never again witness this kind of devastation in our new community. But in my early days in carrying out the solemn task of shepherding a local flock, the godly men in my own congregation and in dozens of others have encouraged and edified my family by pointing us to Christ with their selfless deeds of Gospel-picturing love.

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In 1 Timothy 2:9, the Lord provides three guidelines that help Christian women figure out what and what not to wear: "She adorns herself with respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control." Let's examine these three guidelines to help us ensure that our looks are in good order, properly arranged, and ready to display Christ. 

Is It Becoming or Unbecoming? 

Kosmio is the descriptive form of the Greek noun kosmos (to put in order, trim, adorn, or decorate), which is related to our English word cosmos-the universe. The Greeks regarded the universe to be an ordered, integrated, harmonious whole. Kosmos is the opposite of chaos. So when Paul told women that their adornment should be kosmio, he meant that like the universe, all the parts should be harmoniously arranged with the other parts. It should be "becoming"-that is, appropriate or fitting. Given the context, I believe Paul was implying that our adornment ought to be becoming on a number of different levels.

First and foremost, your clothing ought to be becoming, fitting to, and consistent with your character as a child of God. But it also ought to be becoming to your body type, becoming to your femininity, becoming to your husband, becoming to the other clothes you are wearing, and becoming to the occasion and place you intend to wear it. There's a tremendous amount of guidance in that small word, becoming. It challenges you to evaluate your clothes, shoes, purses, makeup, and hair from multiple angles as part of the harmonious, integrated whole of your life-to line up the seen with the unseen and the temporal with the eternal. It challenges you to bring a cosmic perspective to bear on your everyday decisions.

I like the word Paul chose. It has enormous implications. Kosmio means that a Christian woman's "look" ought to be consistently put together, inside and out. This challenges those who put an undue emphasis on external appearance as well as those who neglect their personal appearance. It's a corrective to women who dress extravagantly. It's a corrective to those who dress seductively. But it's also a corrective to those who think that "holy" means frumpy, ugly, unfeminine, and out of style. Becoming indicates that running around in baggy jeans and T-shirts all the time is just as inappropriate as being obsessed with stylish clothing. It means that a woman's appearance ought to be put together nicely. It ought to be pleasant and attractive-on the inside and the outside. 

Is It Decent or Indecent? 

The second word, aidous, is based on the Greek term for shame and disgrace. The word is a blend of modesty and humility. When I think about a word picture that personifies this concept, I think of approaching God with eyes that are downcast. 

It involves a sense of deficiency, inferiority, or unworthiness. It suggests shame, but also a corresponding sense of reverence and honor toward rightful authority. It's the opposite of insolence, imprudence, disrespect, or audacity. Downcast eyes are the opposite of defiant eyes. 

So does dressing with your eyes downcast mean that you are self-conscious? No. It means that your clothing tells the truth about the gospel. Your clothing shows the world that Jesus covers your shame and makes you decent. Your clothes cover your nakedness as the clothing of Christ covers your sin. 

Dressing "with eyes downcast" means that you choose clothes that are decent in His eyes . . . not clothes that are provocative, seductive, and that honor nakedness. When you dress decently, you recognize that God ordained clothes to cover, and not draw attention to, your naked skin. You cover up out of respect for Him, the gospel, your Christian brothers-and out of respect for who He made you to be. Decency means you agree with the Lord about the true purpose of clothing and set aside your self-interest to dress in a way that exalts Christ. 

So in that dressing room trying on that skirt, take time to sit, bend, and stretch in front of that mirror, and ask yourself, Is this skirt decent? Does it do what it should do? Does it properly cover me up? Does it showcase my underlying nakedness-or exalt the gospel of Christ? 

Is It Moderate or Excessive? 

The final thing to ask yourself about clothing is whether it is moderate or excessive. Paul uses the Greek word sophrosunes. It means "of a sound mind; curbing one's desires and impulses, self-controlled, temperate." The word indicates that our adornment should be reasonable and not crazy. We ought to rein in our impulses and avoid extremes in fashion, hairstyles, and makeup. We also ought to avoid spending crazy amounts of money or stuffing our closets full of crazy quantities of clothing. We ought to govern our wardrobe choices with a sense of moderation, simplicity, and self-control. If the outfit is crazy extreme, crazy expensive, or if it's crazy for you to be buying another one, then you ought to pass it up. 

Understanding the purpose of clothing and asking yourself the three questions, Is it becoming? Is it decent? and Is it moderate? will help you figure out how to dress. And don't forget to include your "Helper" in the process. The Holy Spirit is an invaluable source of assistance when it comes to figuring out whether or not your appearance glorifies God. If your heart is right and you seek His guidance, He will be your personal wardrobe consultant and teach you what and what not to wear.

[This post originally appeared on the Girls Gone Wise blog at www.girlsgonewise.org. Mary Kassian is the founder of Girls Gone Wise