People often ask me for recommended reading on transgenderism. I always have trouble answering that question, not because there are no Christian books on the subject but because there isn’t very much written that is both pastorally and biblically faithful. I am happy to report, however, that my inability to make a recommendation has now ended. Vaughan Roberts has written a really helpful little book titled Transgender. It is published by The Good Book Company, which also published Sam Allberry’s popular work on homosexuality Is God Anti-Gay? Just as Allberry’s book has been a must-read resource on homosexuality, so also now is Roberts book on transgenderism. This book will be…
-
-
The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption
Book Notice: For those of you following recent discussions about the Trinity, you may remember that I have been pointing to the covenant of redemption (a.k.a. pactum salutis) as a potential rallying point for those on opposite sides of the trinity debate. In that connection, I recently recommended J. V. Fesko’s 2016 book: The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception, Reformed Historical Theology. In addition to that book, I would also recommend Fesko’s newest work: J. V. Fesko, The Trinity and the Covenant of Redemption, Mentor (Fearn, Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2016). Whereas Fesko’s earlier book is a scholarly history of the doctrine, this most recent book is…
-
Hillbilly Elegy lives up to the hype
Today, J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis officially earned the top rank on The New York Times bestseller list, and deservedly so. I finished this book yesterday, and I think it lived up to the hype. There are already many capable reviews out there, so I won’t offer a full review here. Nevertheless, I would offer a handful of brief reflections. It would be misleading to say that the book is about the plight of the working poor in America. It is not nearly so abstract. The book is actually a searching, introspective look at the author’s own troubled childhood in the…
-
Is disagreement about homosexuality an “intra-evangelical” discussion?
Zondervan will be releasing later this year a new book on homosexuality in their Counterpoints series—a series I appreciate and have recently contributed to. This new volume features two writers who believe homosexuality is not sinful and two writers who do. I have not read this book yet, but I am eager to see it as soon as it is available. Having said that, here are a few things to be watching for: 1. Framing Sexual Immorality as an Evangelical Option – The publisher’s description has a section that caught my eye: Until recently most books fit neatly into two camps: non-affirming books were written by evangelicals and affirming books…
-
An unseemly troll but a fine review
Several weeks (months?) ago I received a package in my faculty mailbox at work. I was so taken aback by it that I snapped a photo of it (at right). It was obviously a book mailer, but the label on the outside said this: “Are Conservative Evangelical Men More Likely To Abuse Their Wives?” I didn’t even know what was inside the package, but I already knew that this was a transparent troll—a marketing ploy. They send out a book to a bunch of conservative evangelical men, and then they put a label on the outside of the package with an ugly insinuation about conservative evangelical men. The publisher wasn’t…
-
A must-read about the evangelical gender debate
Without question, 1 Timothy 2:12 is the most contested verse in the wider debate among evangelicals about women in ministry. The most contested clause within this most contested verse is “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.” And the most contested word within this most contested clause is without a doubt authentein (often translated as “exercise authority”). The meaning of this term and even of its syntax has been the subject of no little dispute. And it has long been a crux interpretum among those engaged in the debate between complementarians and egalitarians. For two decades now, the most important book on…
-
Held in Honor: Wisdom for Your Marriage from Voices of the Past
Matt Haste and Rob Plummer have put together a little gem of a book on marriage titled Held in Honor: Wisdom for Your Marriage from Voices of the Past. I’ve never seen a book like this. It is an anthology of statements on marriage from major figures of church history. Some of the material is theological (like the entry from John Calvin). Some of it is deeply personal (like the poem Anne Bradstreet wrote for her husband). The book is formatted as a devotional and has a practical orientation. These voices from the past are marshalled to help marriages in the present. Each reading has three parts: (1) a brief…
-
Boycotting gay weddings? A distorted take on an important book
Albert Mohler appeared on the front page of The Louisville Courier Journal yesterday next to the headline “Mohler: Christians should boycott gay weddings.” The story was later picked up by USA Today which ran a similar headline Baptist leader: Christians should boycott gay weddings. Since then, it has been featured in news outlets across the country. It turns out that the report is about Mohler’s new book We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong. This book tells the story of our particular moment in American life in the aftermath of the sexual revolution. And yet if all…
-
Transforming Homosexuality: What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change
I am happy to announce that my new book that I co-wrote with Heath Lambert has just been released. The book deals with issues that readers of this blog have seen me discussing for a long time—sexual orientation and change. In fact, the title of the book says as much: Transforming Homosexuality: What the Bible Says about Sexual Orientation and Change (P&R, 2015). This book is different from other Christian books about homosexuality. First, the book isn’t focused on the ethics of homosexual behavior but on the ethics of homosexual desire. Some people believe that homosexual behavior is sinful but that homosexual desire is not. For that reason, they believe…
-
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…