REGENT COLLEGE

DEVELOPING A BIBLICAL RESPONSE TOWARDS THE

2015 REVISED ONTARIO SEXUAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM

AN ESSAY PREPARED FOR

THE RCSA ACADEMIC SYMPOSIUM 2020

BY

JONATHAN FUNG

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA

6 MARCH 2020
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In 2015, the Ontario provincial government revised the Ontario Health and Physical

Education (HPE) curriculum for grades 1-8 students from the older 1998 version. In teaching

grade 8 students Human Development and Sexual Health, the updated curriculum uses three

categories to describe human sexuality: gender identity (e.g., male, female, two-spirited,

transgender, transsexual, intersex), gender expression, and sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual,

gay, lesbian, bisexual). As defined by the curriculum: “Gender identity refers to a person’s

internal sense of feeling of being male or female, which may or may not be the same as the

person’s biological sex [i.e., male or female]. It is different from and does not determine a

person’s sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s sense of affection and sexual

attraction for people of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both sexes.” 1 This paper argues that

the biblical vision of human sexuality – which exclusively affirms heterosexual monogamy – is

in opposition to the non-binary description of human sexuality taught in Ontario’s updated HPE

curriculum and its implications that children should consider conforming their biological sex or

sexual orientation to their gender identity. Furthermore, this paper also argues that a biblically-

principled Christian response towards the curriculum should in principle support the

curriculum’s intention to minimize discrimination while in reality also taking action to protect

children against an intolerant gender politics agenda in the society. Therefore, fighting for the

rights of parents to withdraw their children from sections of the curriculum in search of

alternatives is a suggested Christian response.

1.
Ontario Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Health and Physical Education. Rev ed.
Toronto: Ministry, 2015, 216; In the latest revision of the curriculum in 2019, the majority of the curriculum's
teaching on human development and sexual health remains the same with minor changes in the examples and
categories given for gender identity and sexual orientation: "gender identity (e.g., male, female, Two-Spirit,
transgender)… and sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual)." Ontario
Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8: Health and Physical Education. Rev ed. Toronto:
Ministry, 2019, 282.
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The biblical view of human sexuality is found right from the beginning of the biblical

story. In the creation account of Genesis 1-2, humans are described as created male or female –

distinct, complementary and bearing the imago dei together (Gen 1:27). Miller explains that,

Maleness and femaleness, whatever that may consist of – and one notes the story does not
seek to spell it out at all – are not hidden or even secondary in the creative purpose. They
are prominent. Furthermore, it is not the man by himself or the woman by herself. That
is, it is not woman and man separate or individually or as distinct but separate genders. It
is women and men in community to whom the divine blessing and the human task are
given.2

Furthermore, Genesis 1-2 affirms: i) reproduction as good, ii) sex as good, iii) marriage as good,

and iv) male and female to be counterparts.3 Therefore, God’s design for human sexuality is

understood within the context of heterosexual monogamy which is clearly stated in Genesis 2:24

and affirmed elsewhere in the Scripture – both the Old Testament (Prov 5:15-20) as well as in

Paul and Jesus’ teachings on marriage (Eph 5:21-33; Matt 5:27-28; Matt 19:1-9). Consequently,

any expression of sexuality contrary to heterosexual monogamy, such as homosexuality, is a

“denial in practice of the good instituted by God from the beginning” because its primary focus

is personal fulfillment instead of responsibility towards the wider human community and its

procreative family model.4 Such expressions of sexuality are condemned and prohibited

throughout Scripture.

Within the Holiness Code of the Old Testament, homosexuality is prohibited in Leviticus

18:22 and 20:13 to set apart covenantal Israel from the pagan practices of surrounding cultures

such as those of Egypt and Canaan. While the cultural norm in the Ancient Near East was highly

2.
Patrick D. Miller, The Way of the Lord: Essays in Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007),
310–311.
3.
Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 1995), 43–45.
4.
Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? 48–51.
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tolerant of homosexuality, “biblical tradition moved the cultural norms on homosexuality from a

significant amount of tolerance and acceptance to non-tolerance and non-acceptance within the

covenant community. Scripture thus sets a clear direction in terms of foreign movement on the

homosexual issue.”5 While these prohibitions cannot be read hermeneutically as the final and

binding moral word about homosexuality, they “can be instructive for developing an ethic of

sexual relationships.”6 When read within the canonical context of other biblical passages such as

New Testament condemnation of homosexuality as ungodly (Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9-10 and 1

Tim 1:10), it is clear that the Scriptural pattern consistently condemns homosexuality just as it

supports heterosexual monogamous marriage as the model for human sexuality.

Romans 1:18-2:1 is a particularly instructive passage in the New Testament for

understanding the Scriptural reason for condemning homosexuality. Paul indicates that because

of people’s idolatry against God, “God gave them up to degrading passions… women exchanged

natural intercourse for unnatural… men, giving up natural intercourse with women… men

committed shameless acts with men” (1:26-27 NRSV) and even though they knew God’s decree,

they practiced such acts (1:32) and thus are “without excuse” (2:1). While some have suggested

that the term παρὰ φύσιν (“unnatural”) in 1:26 is morally neutral and hence homosexuality is a

purity issue instead of a moral one,7 Paul’s contemporaries and other Hellenistic Jewish writers

such as Philo and Josephus undoubtedly used it with negative connotations.8 Furthermore,

Paul’s framework for understanding “natural” as a religious Jew would obviously be found in

God’s created order as described in the Hebrew Scriptures; hence his condemnation of

5.
William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis (Downers
Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 82.
6.
Miller, The Way of the Lord, 289.
7.
Louis W. Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for
Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 114.
8.
Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? 79–80.
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homosexuality would be consistent with the Old Testament moral laws in Leviticus 18 and 20.9

This reading is further supported contextually since “the root of the problem […] is a rebellion

against God in unrighteousness, and idolatry and homosexuality are manifestations of this

rebellion.”10 While Paul does not use the word “sin” or “unrighteousness,” Romans 1:24-27

contains “eight terms to connote sin, together with additional features of the context that

contribute to the sense that homosexuality is sinful.”11 Romans 1 thus condemns homosexuality

as a violation to the created good and martial union between male and female just like the rest of

Scripture; hence “those who defend the morality of homosexual relationships within the church

may do so only by conferring upon these warrants an authority greater than the direct authority

of Scripture and tradition.”12

While Scripture does not contain the modern language of gender identity and sexual

orientation, the same biblical principle behind condemning homosexuality can also be applied to

the negative moral evaluation of other non-binary expressions of sexuality since they, too, are in

denial of the good instituted by God in creation. Furthermore, the biblical understanding of

“identity” is drastically different from the Ontario HPE curriculum description of gender

identity. “Identity” in the biblical perspective is rooted in the imago dei – male and female

created in the image of God (Gen 1:27). This divine image-bearing identity is intrinsic to every

human being as it is given by God instead of self-defined or self-identified. Furthermore, this

image-bearing identity remains, albeit being compromised in our fallen condition.13 In light of

9.
Evan Lenow, “Exchanging the Natural for the Unnatural: Homosexuality’s Distortion of God’s Design,”
Southwestern Journal of Theology 49 (2006): 31-47(40).
10.
Lenow, "Exchanging the Natural for the Unnatural", 36.
11.
Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? 84.
12.
Richard B Hays, “Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to J Boswell’s Exegesis of Rom 1,” Journal of
Religious Ethics 14 (1986): 211.
13.
Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Waco:
Baylor University Press, 2014), 81–82.
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the Christ-event, the New Testament further affirms a believer’s identity as redeemed in Christ –

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male nor

female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Paul’s argument in Galatians is not

that the “matter-of-fact” categories dividing up the whole world’s population – such as male or

female – are no longer existent, but that a believer’s ultimate understanding of identity should

not be primarily described with those categories, since a more overarching redemptive identity of

being in Christ is now given to them.

Furthermore, the Bible indicates that one’s sexual orientation should conform to one’s

biological sex and one’s inner sense of feeling is not to be trusted since “the heart is deceitful

above all else” (Jer 17:9). In Romans 12:1-2, Paul not only urges believers not to be “conformed

to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is

the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” but also to “present your bodies as a

living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” For Paul, both one’s desires and the practices of

one’s body are to be conformed to God’s ways. After all, “Scripture does not shift between

biology and morality; it views them together, just as it views body and soul together. That is, we

humans as embodied souls must serve God with our bodies… and the activities of our bodies

must agree with the way we were made.”14 Therefore, the Bible is in favor of one’s gender

identity and sexual orientation conforming to the binary biological sex that God created him or

her to be instead of conforming one’s biological sex to socially constructed gender identities.

In recognizing the Bible’s disagreement with the curriculum’s view of human sexuality,

how should Christians respond? A biblically principled response should begin with

understanding the potential impacts that the curriculum has on our children. The history of

14.
Schmidt, Straight & Narrow? 47.
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sexual education in Ontario has shown that this 2015 update to the curriculum sought to address

the prevalent issue of Canadian LGBTQ youths being particularly susceptible to suicide as a

result of being bullied.15 Therefore, in principle, Christians adhering to the Bible’s affirmation

that all human beings are created in the image of God should certainly lend our support towards

education initiatives that seek to protect the lives of the vulnerable despite our disagreements.

There is thus, in principle, no reason why Christians should not support an up-to-date sexual

education curriculum that addresses the key issues that threaten the health and stability of our

society.

However, the counter-narrative of the curriculum’s potential damage to our children’s

sexuality must also be carefully weighed. Given that there is strong evidence that one’s sexual

orientation is fluid right into the adult years,16 the curriculum’s encouragement for grade 8

students (average age of 13) to choose a gender identity or embrace a certain sexual orientation

would certainly contribute to potentially serious physiological and psychological confusion at

that age.17 While on paper, the curriculum seems to simply present neutral options for students

to make a choice with the support of teachers, parents and health care professionals, the reality is

that the choices are not neutral. Verbey convincingly argues that “choices, including presumably

innocent social choices to maximize freedom by increasing options, shape our life and our

common life. They affect the determinate features of our existence, and they may eliminate

15.
Michelle Hutchinson Grondin, “A Century Long Debate over Sexual Education in Ontario,” Active History, last
modified February 9, 2016, accessed November 28, 2019, http://activehistory.ca/2016/02/a-century-long-debate-
over-sexual-education-in-ontario/.
16.
Carly Cassella, “Here’s More Evidence Sexual Orientation Is Fluid Right Into Our Adult Years,” Science Alert,
May 6, 2019, https://www.sciencealert.com/sexual-orientation-continues-to-change-right-through-our-teens-and-
into-adulthood.
17.
Jordan Peterson, “Gender Politics Has No Place in the Classroom,” National Post, June 21, 2019,
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-gender-politics-has-no-place-in-the-classroom.
 7

certain options in the name of increasing freedom.”18 In the case of the curriculum, the

introduction of the options is to be understood within the aggressive rhetoric of gender politics in

Ontario, where policies such as Bill C-16 strongly favor a liberal view of sexuality, resulting in

intolerance towards those holding a traditional view of sexuality.19 Such intolerance has already

threatened to deny the specific treatment options (such as reparative treatment, prayer or

counselling) that have been shown to help those struggling with same-sex attraction to change.20

While reparative therapies have yielded at least some positive results for individuals struggling

with same-sex attraction to change their sexual orientation, the society has been denying gay and

lesbian people the choice of such treatments.21 Furthermore, prayer and counselling, which are

certainly good options for Christians struggling with their sexual orientation, are now also being

threatened. Unfortunately, both the curriculum and the teachers are caught up in “the complex

ways that adult’s politics and desires become imbued in our theories of what is good for

children.”22 Therefore, while the curriculum seems neutral, the societal reality is dominated by a

bias towards conforming one’s biological sex to a self-identified socially constructed gender

identity instead of the opposite approach (which aligns with biblical teaching); hence our

children are experiencing increased biological and psychological confusion with increasingly

biased options of how to process the confusion.

18.
Allen Verbey, “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” in Must We Suffer Our Way to Death? Cultural and
Theological Perspectives on Death by Choice, eds. Ronald P. Hamel, Edwin R. DuBose, and Park Ridge Center
(Ill.), 1st ed. (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1996), 226-64 (258).
19.
Jordan Peterson, “The Right to Be Politically Incorrect,” National Post, November 8, 2016,
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-the-right-to-be-politically-incorrect.
20.
“CPA Policy Statement on Conversion/Reparative Therapy for Sexual Orientation,” Canadian Psychological
Association, accessed on December 5, 2019, https://cpasogii.com/policy-statements.
21.
Michael Cook, “Can Sexual Orientation Change? Yes, According to a New Study: Why Shouln’t Gay and
Lesbians Who Want to Change Be Allowed to Try?” MercatorNet, August 21, 2018,
https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/can-sexual-orientation-change-yes-according-to-a-new-study/21629.
22.
Hannah Dyer, “The Contested Design of Children’s Sexual Education: Queer Growth and Epistemic
Uncertainty,” Gender and Education 31, no. 6 (August 18, 2019): 754.
 8

Such threats to children demand a strong thoughtful biblical response which calls for

practicality instead of utopian ideals. One area that a Christian response must play out is in the

family and in the Church. The Bible consistently affirms the importance of the family model

(both immediate family and the broader family of God’s people) in the social, economic and

theological realms of the community.23 Christian parents and the Church should, therefore, take

responsibility in protecting our children from the threats of the curriculum. While loving our

fellow image-bearers – despite some of them being seriously wrongheaded – certainly should

require Christians to minimize discrimination against the LGBTQ community, protecting the

well-being of our own children as well as protecting the civic rights of our neighbors who hold

the traditional view of binary sexuality must also come into consideration. Therefore, a realistic

biblical response, as recommended by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, is to fight for the

right for any parents with differing convictions to withdraw their children from sections of the

curriculum, and look for alternative means of educating our children on sexuality.24 In pursuit of

this cause, Christians are likely to find common allies who are also seeking to protect our

children, such as parents from other religious communities or those who hold to traditional

family values.

This paper argued that Ontario’s updated sexual education curriculum teaches sexuality

that is fundamentally in conflict with the biblical view of heterosexual monogamy as the

exclusive context for sexual expressions. Scripture teaches that one’s desires (gender identity

and sexual orientation) should conform to one’s biological sex – not the opposite. While a

23.
Christopher J. H Wright, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011),
337–61.
24.
“Hands Up! Identifying Parent’s Rights in the Education System,” Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, October
1, 2010. https://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/Resources/Documents/Hands-Up!-Identifying-Parents%E2%80%99-
Rights-in-the-Educa.
 9

Christian response towards the curriculum should in principle support the intention of

minimizing LGBTQ discriminations, it must also recognize the curriculum’s role in the biased

gender politics of Ontario that threatens children’s biological and psychological development

and increases confusion in their understanding of sexuality. Therefore, Christian parents and the

Church should fight defend the right for all parents to withdraw their children from the

curriculum.
 10

Bibliography

Canadian Psychological Association. “CPA Policy Statement on Conversion/Reparative Therapy

for Sexual Orientation.” Accessed December 5, 2019. https://cpasogii.com/policy-
statements.

Cassella, Carly. “Here’s More Evidence Sexual Orientation Is Fluid Right Into Our Adult
Years.” ScienceAlert. May 6, 2019. https://www.sciencealert.com/sexual-orientation-
continues-to-change-right-through-our-teens-and-into-adulthood.

Cook, Michael. “Can Sexual Orientation Change? Yes, According to a New Study: Why
Shouln’t Gay and Lesbians Who Want to Change Be Allowed to Try?” MercatorNet.
August 21, 2018. https://www.mercatornet.com/conjugality/view/can-sexual-orientation-
change-yes-according-to-a-new-study/21629.

Countryman, Louis W. Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their
Implications for Today. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.

Dyer, Hannah. “The Contested Design of Children’s Sexual Education: Queer Growth and
Epistemic Uncertainty.” Gender and Education 31, no. 6 (August 18, 2019): 742–755.

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. “Hands Up! Identifying Parent’s Rights in the Education
System.” October 1, 2010.
https://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/Resources/Documents/Hands-Up!-Identifying-
Parents%E2%80%99-Rights-in-the-Educa.

Hays, Richard B. “Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to J Boswell’s Exegesis of Rom
1.” Journal of Religious Ethics 14, no. 1 (1986): 184–215.

Hutchinson Grondin, Michelle. “A Century Long Debate over Sexual Education in Ontario.”
Active History. Last Modified February 9, 2016. Accessed November 28, 2019.
http://activehistory.ca/2016/02/a-century-long-debate-over-sexual-education-in-ontario/.

Lenow, Evan. “Exchanging the Natural for the Unnatural: Homosexuality’s Distortion of God’s
Design.” Southwestern Journal of Theology 49, no. 1 (2006): 31–47.

Miller, Patrick D. The Way of the Lord: Essays in Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2007.

Ontario Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Health and Physical
Education. Revised edition. Toronto: Ministry, 2015.

———. The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1-8: Health and Physical Education. Revised edition.
Toronto: Ministry, 2019.
 11

Peterson, Jordan. “Gender Politics Has No Place in the Classroom.” National Post, June 21,
2019. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-gender-politics-has-no-place-in-
the-classroom.

———. “The Right to Be Politically Incorrect,” National Post, November 8, 2016.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-the-right-to-be-politically-incorrect.

Provan, Iain W. Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It
Matters. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014.

Schmidt, Thomas E. Straight & Narrow? Compassion & Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate.
Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995.

Verbey, Allen. “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” In Must We Suffer Our Way to Death?
Cultural and Theological Perspectives on Death by Choice, edited by Ronald P. Hamel,
Edwin R. DuBose, and Park Ridge Center (Ill.), 226–64. 1st ed. Dallas: Southern
Methodist University Press, 1996.

Webb, William J. Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural
Analysis. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Wright, Christopher J. H. Old Testament Ethics for the People of God. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP
Academic, 2011.