“For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." (Matthew 19:12 NIV)
In the early 20th Century, the ‘one-drop’ rule of racial classification was codified into law in many regions of the United States. It upheld the belief that any person with even ‘one drop’ of black ancestry was considered Black. Back then, the concept that a person could be biracial was not accepted. One was either White or Black--not both. Like other societies that considered one race superior to the other, the U.S. applied the principles of hypodescent--automatically assigning mixed race people to the ethnic group with the lower status.
Fortunately, our country has come a long way in our non-binary thinking--at least on the subject of race and ethnicity. However, many of us are still stuck in dualistic paradigms about other issues such as gender identity. Biblical literalists contend that God made Adam and Eve, male and female, and nothing in between. Jesus reminds us that eunuchs and other marginalized people have a place in society. He taught us to accept those who are in-between.
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