Ron Belgau is one of the founders of the Spiritual Friendship blog, and he has released a long letter on Rod Dreher’s blog expressing his disapproval of The Nashville Statement. Over the years, Ron and I have had many back-and-forths over these issues, and I have always found him to be a really powerful and generous interlocutor. His remarks deserve a fuller response than I am going to give right here, so some of the engagement will have to wait until later. But before getting into disagreement, I would highlight one part of Ron’s letter that I completely agree with. Ron points out that many Southern Baptists have totally capitulated…
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Ten ways to show truth and love to your gay neighbor
No doubt you have already read the news about the release of The Nashville Statement earlier this week. My staff at CBMW and I have been working hard on this effort for many months now, and we are grateful to the Lord to see it finally come to fruition. It is a statement that is faithful to scripture and, hopefully, one that may serve as a standard and guide for many years to come. In light of the statement’s release, I thought it might be helpful to review ten practical ways that Christians can show love to their gay neighbors. 1. Be a friend. And by that, I mean be…
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Seminaries across the country are shutting down
Ian Lovett at The Wall Street Journal tells the story of what is happening to theological education in the mainlines. The schools are going the way of the dodo. Mainline Protestant seminaries are facing an existential crisis after a decade of mounting red ink. Enrollment has fallen by nearly 25% over the past decade, according to the Association of Theological Schools, an accrediting agency. Mainline churches, where membership has been falling for decades, can support fewer full-time pastors than in the past. Denominations are pulling back their financial support for seminaries, while the cost of educating students is still going up. As a result, some of the oldest and most…
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A time for moral clarity
Like you, I’ve been watching with dismay and disgust as events have unfolded in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. There has been a naked display of racism and white supremacy. If ever there were a time for evangelical Christians to speak with biblical conviction and moral clarity, now is the time. In doing so, no one should be taking their cues from the president of the United States on how to do this. Both this weekend and in his campaign, he has not shown moral clarity or leadership in this area (although as I write, there is an update). Rather, we should be taking our cues from scripture, which is…
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Albert Mohler comments on North Korea and Just War
On Friday’s episode of “The Briefing,” Albert Mohler offered comments on Just War theory and how it applies to the President’s authority to wage war against North Korea. Mohler argues, The comments made by Dr. Robert Jeffress have engendered a lot of conversation. But without just looking at those comments let’s look at the larger questions and how Christians have fought through these issues consistent with Scripture throughout the centuries. In the first place we need to understand that the Bible is clear about the role of government. In Romans chapter 13, government, as established by God, is one of God’s gift to humanity in order to establish order in…
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Poll: Is it ever right to be angry at God?
We have good reason to be angry at God… — Denny Burk (@DennyBurk) August 12, 2017 Last Spring, I posted a tweet and a blog that turned out to be more controversial than I ever anticipated. In both postings, I made the case that it is always wrong to be angry at God. Many readers disagreed. I am conducting an informal poll to find out how controversial this question really is among readers. Please weigh-in above.
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The de facto “affirming” church
Wesley Hill has waded into the discussion about the proper deployment of the term “orthodoxy” when it comes to current controversies about sexuality. I won’t rehash the whole debate here. But to summarize, James K. A. Smith and Alan Jacobs have recently made the case that those who affirm homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage can nevertheless be “orthodox” Christians. An affirmation of untraditional sexual behavior need not nullify an affirmation of the creeds. Hill basically agrees with them about this. Hill is always thoughtful and reasonable, and his post yesterday is no exception. He also has been a consistent opponent of homosexual relationships and same-sex marriage, and I am very…
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Are evangelicals becoming more open to gay marriage?
I wrote an article about seven years ago on what the bible teaches about homosexuality. That essay begins with a discussion of Brian McLaren’s then recent affirmation of committed homosexual relationships. It is strange to read that essay now and to consider in retrospect how quickly McLaren faded from evangelical view. At the time, the “emerging church” still had some purchase within the evangelical movement. Now that entire project is defunct and so are its major proponents. They pushed the very edges of the leftwing of the evangelical movement until they pushed themselves right out of the movement. Many of them did so by adopting unorthodox positions on sexuality. The…
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N. T. Wright offers brief commentary on transgenderism
N. T. Wright penned a letter to the editor of The Times of London this morning expressing his thoughts about “gender-fluid” children. Responding to articles about gender identity confusion–and even trans-speciesism–in children, he writes: The confusion about gender identity is a modern, and now internet-fuelled, form of the ancient philosophy of Gnosticism. The Gnostic, one who “knows”, has discovered the secret of “who I really am”, behind the deceptive outward appearance (in Rifkind’s apt phrase, the “ungainly, boring, fleshy one”). This involves denying the goodness, or even the ultimate reality, of the natural world. Nature, however, tends to strike back, with the likely victims in this case being vulnerable and impressionable…
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Four stages of “evangelical” affirmation of gay marriage
There is much confusion among evangelicals about what the Bible teaches about sexuality and marriage. And yet, these are precisely the issues that are most contested in our day. As a result, many evangelicals are caving to social pressure to accept gay marriage. I have noticed a pretty consistent progression among those who eventually embrace gay marriage. It goes like this: (1) Oppose gay-marriage: Every evangelicals starts here, or at the very least they appear to start here. (2) Oppose taking a stand on the question: Persons in this stage are becoming aware of how offensive the traditional view is to those outside the church. Their initial remedy is to…
