Forefront Conversations with Austen Hartke

There is a freedom that comes with the realization that you are not who the world says you are -- but there is also destabilization. Like many of you, Austen grew up in a church environment that had narrow views on what men and women look like and how to interpret the whole "created in His image" thing. When he realized that his gender identity didn't sync up with either his birth certificate or what the church believed, there was a certain existential quake that reverberated through his life and faith, but that deconstruction led to a reconstruction into a more full and beautiful concept of how being created in the image of God is not limited to an inflexible dichotomy. It's these experiences as well as biblically based scholarship that Austen presents in the latest edition of his book, Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians to help usher readers into a vision of a more inclusive Christianity.  ABOUT AUSTEN Austen is the founder and Executive Director of Transmission Ministry Collective, an online community dedicated to the spiritual care, faith formation, and leadership potential of transgender and gender-expansive Christians. He is a graduate of Luther Seminary’s Master of Arts program in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Studies, and is the winner of the 2014 John Milton Prize in Old Testament Writing from the same institution. From 2015 to 2018 he created one hundred videos for the Transgender and Christian YouTube series, which sought to share parts of the Bible that relate to gender identity and the lives of transgender individuals. Purchase Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians.