Last week, two things caught my attention—both strange in their own ways, and both pointing to how weird our world is getting when it comes to understanding who we are.
1. A “Queer Lectionary”?
The first was a book that’s about to be released: A Queer Lectionary: (Im)proper Readings from the Margins—Year A. Sounds intense, right? Basically, it’s trying to mix queer theory—a field of thought that pushes back against traditional ideas about gender, identity, and how people “should” be—with Christianity.
Now, I’m all for asking hard questions, but here’s the deal: queer theory is about breaking categories apart. It’s intentionally confusing, often uses complicated academic language, and tries to show that things we think are “normal” are actually just made-up power plays. On the flip side, Christianity is built on the idea of stable truths: things like “men and women are made in God’s image,” and that worship shapes people to live a certain way.
So, trying to jam the two together feels like mixing oil and water. If you’re tearing down categories like male and female, but Christianity depends on those categories to tell its story about God, people, and salvation—how does that even work? It’s like trying to build a house while pulling out its foundation.
2. A Real-Life Dire Wolf (Sort Of)
On the same day I saw the queer lectionary, I read an article about a company claiming they brought back the dire wolf from extinction. You read that right. Think: science fiction meets real life. The reality’s a bit less dramatic than cloning an ancient beast, but the tech behind it—gene editing—is real. And it’s powerful.
This isn’t just about making cool animals. It’s about humans having the ability to change what’s natural. At first, that might sound awesome—like curing diseases or fixing genetic problems. But it also raises a huge question: What does it even mean to be human?
The Big Picture: The Fight Over Human Nature
These two things—queer theory and gene editing—might seem totally unrelated. One’s from the world of ideas, the other from science labs. But they’re both asking the same big question: Can we change what it means to be human? Should we?
That’s where things get even more complicated.
Take the transgender movement. It’s pushed society to rethink gender in heretofore unthinkable ways—sometimes at the cost of things like women’s sports, private spaces, or parental rights. But it’s not just about LGBTQ+ issues. It’s also part of a much bigger idea called transhumanism—the belief that human limits (like biology) are problems to solve instead of realities to live with.
And who’s driving that idea? People like the “Tech Bros”—the ones behind the world’s biggest companies and boldest inventions. They’ve got money, power, and the tools to change what it means to be human. Think Elon Musk and others like him. Sometimes they say the right things (Musk has spoken against parts of the trans movement), but are they doing it for the right reasons—or just because of personal drama in the family (Musk)?
So, What Now?
We’re living in a time where ideas and tech are coming together in ways no generation before us has faced. And while some of these changes might seem exciting or even helpful, others could erase what makes us, well, us.
Trans activists want to rewrite gender. Scientists want to rewrite DNA. And somewhere in the middle, regular people like you and me are trying to figure out where the line is.
That’s why the question, “What does it mean to be human?” isn’t just for philosophy class. It’s for anyone who cares about the future.
Because if we lose the answer to that… we might lose ourselves.
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Stay Human
