Book Reviews,  Christianity

Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice

I contributed a chapter to a new book just published by Crossway: Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice. My chapter deals with transgender, but the rest of the book deals with gender issues more broadly. All of the contributors are complementarian. John Piper waxes nostalgic in the Foreword to the volume. He writes:

My amazement is that decades into this struggle, there is such a widespread and robust embrace of the beautiful biblical vision of complementary manhood and womanhood. This may strike you as an evidence of small faith on my part. Perhaps it is. But if you had tasted the vitriol of our audiences in the 1970s and 1980s, you might understand.

In the late seventies, we were called “obscene” for suggesting that God’s Word taught distinct, complementary roles for men and women based on manhood and womanhood, not just competency. Therefore, the breadth and maturity and creativity and joyfulness of the complementarian crowd today triggers happy amazement in me.

Here’s a list of contributors and their chapters:

Table of Contents

Introduction: How Does the Gospel Shape Manhood and Womanhood?
Owen Strachan

  1. Being a Man and Acting Like One
    Jonathan Parnell
  2. Masculinity Handed Down
    Joe Rigney
  3. The Happy Call to Holistic Provision
    David Mathis
  4. The Feminine Focus
    Trillia Newbell
  5. The Nature of a Woman’s Nurture
    Gloria Furman
  6. What Is Submission?
    Christina Fox
  7. Every Day Godward
    Tony Reinke
  8. Discipline for Our Good
    Andy Naselli
  9. Training Our Kids in a Transgender World
    Denny Burk
  10. Good News for the Not-Yet-Married
    Marshall Segal
  11. Purity We Can Count On
    Grant and GraceAnna Castleberry
  12. My Recovery from Feminism
    Courtney Reissig
  13. Immature Manhood and the Hope of Something Better
    Brandon Smith

Afterword: The Glad Conviction
Jonathan Parnell

Order the book here.