I’ve had it about up to here (picture my hand knifing across my forehead showing where “up to here” is) with all the personality-trait and gender-difference pigeonholing that’s been going on in the church for the past 15 to 20 years. I’ve kept quiet about as long as I can. But since I’m a right-brained, high-D, choleric male whose love language is primarily words, is it any wonder I’ve finally erupted?

Is anyone else just a little perturbed over how the modern social sciences have parsed human behavior and reduced human beings to mere collections of measurable chemical urges and neural synapses?

I predict that in the not-too-distant future there will be a science — perhaps called volimetry — complete with axioms, syllogisms and proofs (much like geometry) claiming to predict flawlessly any human being’s choices and actions.

Anyway … that’s where we seem to be headed. And the Christian community is being dragged along in the wake of all this sophisticated science.

“Oh, I’m the way I am because I am a ‘high I’ on the DISC profile.”

“She acted that way because women are nurturers by nature.”

“You’ll never have a decent conversation with him, because guys are all about logic and principle. They don’t understand feelings.”

How do I put this empathetically? That’s baloney!

Now before you all run quickly to your bookshelves and dust off your college textbook, Human Personality, Edition Five; and before you whip out the printout of your DISC profile which nailed your personality with amazing accuracy; and before you appeal to Tim LaHaye’s foundational treatise on the four temperaments — please hear what I am saying.

I am not saying there aren’t interesting characteristics shared commonly by lots of men, or that there aren’t some standard personality/temperament categories. That’s not my point. My point is — so what?

So what if my personality bends me instinctively toward aggressiveness?

So what if your personality tends toward shyness?

We act as if our personality or gender excuses us from obeying the Lord when obedience requires traits we aren’t naturally inclined to have.

Did Jesus say, “Do not worry … unless of course you’re the nervous type?”

Did Paul write, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice … unless you’re a melancholic personality?”

Are only the high-D personality types supposed to leave everything to follow Jesus?
Or climb out of the boat to walk across waves at His bidding?

No. God makes no distinctions of this sort. And neither should we.

If my high-D maleness makes me more ready for aggressive action, so much the better for me in cases when aggressive action is called for. But if my high-D maleness makes it very hard for me to show compassionate gentleness to someone who is struggling to be godly, I still must demonstrate a nurturing heart.

In other words, your innate personality provides you with certain pieces of the “holy person” puzzle you get to start with. Now the goal — for the rest of your life — is to accumulate other pieces of the puzzle that don’t come naturally until you are a complete person with all the traits of godliness. Rather than committing the classic naturalistic fallacy — the way things are is the way things are supposed to be — a Christian should always be oriented toward “the way things aren’t.”

“I’m not naturally very gregarious, so I need to learn to enjoy being around people more.”

“I don’t tend to be very patient, but I won’t use my high-D personality as an excuse. Lord, teach me a patience that’s contrary to my personality.”

That’s why — and please don’t worry about me as I say this — it has been my goal for many years to become the best woman I can be. I mean it. If my high-D maleness leaves me less capable of nurturing, then a focus of my life needs to be learning the supposedly more feminine traits.

Don’t get me wrong. I am very pleased to be an aggressive, logical type. Those traits have served me well. But they have also hurt in many situations. Like trying to use a hammer and nail to fix a broken handle on a glass pitcher.

And finally, this brings me to the ultimate “that’s-just-the-way-I-am” explanation for behavior flaws and foibles. It goes like this: “I’m only human.” That’s code language for “I don’t expect (and you shouldn’t either) anything else (or better) from me, because the way I’m behaving right now is quite natural for human beings.”

Those who believe in the sanctifying power of God must spurn this naturalistic fallacy. We must experience and declare His power to redeem our fractured, incomplete humanity from its fallen condition. After all, that’s what God does. It’s just His personality.