Last week people kept asking me if I was going to weigh-in on the drama du jour generated by a salacious post at The Gospel Coalition website. My response was that there was no way I would be taking this dog by the ears (Prov. 26:17). As far as I could tell, this was “strife” not belonging to me, and there was no sense in making it mine for no good reason. Nevertheless, over the weekend it became clear that the conversation had taken a turn in a way that implicates not just me but all complementarians. So here I am now. The controversy concerns an essay that Joshua Butler…
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Answering Objections To Saddleback’s Removal from the SBC
I have seen a variety of responses to the news yesterday that the SBC has found Saddleback Church to be out of step with “the Convention’s adopted statement of faith” and now no longer recognizes them as a “cooperating” church (Art. 3, SBC Constitution). As many of you know, the presenting issue is Saddleback’s recognition of a variety of female pastors, including one of their new lead teaching pastors. Having female pastors contradicts our statement of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M), which says, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” As…
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Sprinkle Reconsiders His Views on Complementarianism
Preston Sprinkle is reconsidering his views on the debate between complementarians and egalitarians. If I’m not mistaken, he has claimed the complementarian label up until this point. But now he’s doing a deep dive on the issue and is processing out loud so that others can follow him on his journey. Recently, he released a two-hour video in which he talks his way through the exegesis of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 and especially of verse 12 (watch video below). He announces at the outset that he is not going to come to any firm conclusions by the end of the discussion. He is merely going to talk through the issues. I…
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Does the Bible Portray the Triune God as Feminine?
Last night I posted an item on Twitter that received a good bit of negative reaction from some readers. While reading through Chapter 7 of Herman Bavinck’s excellent book The Christian Family, I posted several quotations from the chapter. This is something I frequently do when reading material that stands out to me. You can look through my timeline and see clusters of quotations from books that I believed were worth sharing. But a quotation from Bavinck last night seems to have touched a nerve. Here’s what I posted last night from Bavinck’s work (in order of appearance on my timeline): 12:06am: “People and nations were very different from each…
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A Discussion of Issues Facing the SBC
Albert Mohler hosted a panel discussion about issues facing the Southern Baptist Convention in Southern Seminary’s chapel this morning. We discussed the conservative resurgence, woman as pastors, Saddleback, celibate “gay Christian” movement, and abuse reform. You can watch the video of our discussion below. If you prefer audio, here’s a link to the podcast. I’ll also embed the podcast audio below. P.S. I go by “Denny the Bruce” now. Podcast Video
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Saddleback Pastor Affirms Intention to Continue in the SBC
The new pastor of Saddleback Church, Andy Wood, told the Associated Press earlier this week that he intends to expand the number of women serving in pastoral roles. He highlights his own wife’s role at Saddleback saying, “My wife has the spiritual gift of teaching and she is really good. People often tell me she’s better than me when it comes to preaching, and I’m really glad to hear that.” These remarks of course raise more questions about Saddleback’s status as an SBC-affiliated church. The SBC’s statement of faith says the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture, and Saddleback’s practice obviously contradicts what our doctrinal…
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Why the SBC Should Remove Saddleback
Over the weekend, a friend sent me a post from one of Saddleback Church’s social media accounts announcing that their new female teaching pastor would be delivering her first sermon on Sunday, October 9. Her sermon streamed live yesterday on YouTube, and I took some time to watch it myself last night. If you are interested in watching it, this link is cued up to her husband’s introduction to her message, and her message follows immediately after. I don’t know either of them personally, but if you take time to watch the message, you are going to see a husband and a wife that seem as sweet as they can…
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Female Pastors and an Amendment to the SBC Constitution
As many of you know, the Southern Baptist Convention has been having an intramural debate over women serving as pastors. This has been sort of a surprise to many people because our doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith & Message, is so clear on the matter: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Clear enough, right? How could there be any controversy? Well, we have a number of churches who are now saying that women can indeed serve as pastors. There are multiple justifications given for this. For Saddleback Church—which has ordained women associate…
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Book Review: “The Genesis of Gender” by Abigail Favale
I just finished one of the most riveting and timely books that I have ever read. The author is George Fox University professor Abigail Favale, and the book is The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory (Ignatius, 2022). Even though I differ with the author on several important points (more on that below), her overall thesis is unassailable in my view. On some of the biggest and most contested issues of our day, this book is a breath of fresh air—indeed, of fresh, clean, Christian air blowing from the ancient past. In the Genesis of Gender, Favale exposes the philosophical and spiritual bankruptcy of what she calls the “gender paradigm” (p.…
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God Is the Sovereign Designer of Sex
“God is the Creator of the human being, and simultaneously also the Inaugurator of sex and of sexual difference. This difference did not result from sin; it existed from the very beginning, it has its basis in creation, it is a revelation of God’s will and sovereignty, and is therefore wise and holy and good. Therefore, no one may misconstrue or despise this sexual difference, either within one’s own identity or in that of another person. It has been willed by God and grounded in nature. It was then, and still is, willed by God; he is the sovereign Designer of sex; man and woman have God to thank not…
