I really appreciate this testimonial from Jen Pollock Michel, who calls herself “The Accidental Complementarian.” Writing for Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog, she writes: Misunderstandings about complementarians abound. At a recent women’s conference, I heard a speaker describe her egalitarian upbringing, saying it wasn’t until college that she recognized the breadth of theological difference on this issue. “I was shocked. And to be honest, I was heartbroken. It had never occurred to me that in this day and age, so many people just like me were being sidelined,” she said. Her implication? Complementarianism was theology that should have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Like me, the closet complementarians in the…

Egalitarians often claim that gender roles are a result of the Fall of man into sin. They might agree that the husband appears to be the “head” of the wife in some biblical texts but that those texts are reflecting an imperfect situation. Male leadership in marriage is not rooted in the order of God’s good creation but in sinful human pride. For example, Rachel Held Evans has written, In the biblical narrative, hierarchy enters human relationships as part of the curse, and begins with man’s oppression of women—’your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you’ (Genesis 3:16). But with Christ, hierarchical relationships are exposed…

Earlier this week, I contributed a piece to the Canon & Culture blog titled “Is homosexual orientation a sin?” I argued that homosexual orientation describes one who experiences an enduring sexual attraction to persons of the same-sex. Because the Bible teaches that it is sinful to have a desire for illicit sex, homosexual orientation is by definition sinful. So yes, homosexual orientation is a sin. Since publishing the article, I have received a good bit of feedback—some positive and some negative. By far, the most frequent response has been with respect to temptation: “Are you saying that all temptation is sin? Wasn’t Jesus tempted like us yet without sin (Heb.…

It just so happens that Dennis Hollinger has an article in the most recent issue of JETS on the issue of contraception: “The Ethics of Contraception: A Theological Assessment.” Hollinger’s article focuses on the differences between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals on the propriety of modern contraceptive technologies. Evangelicals tend to allow for the use of birth control devices by married couples, so long as those methods are truly contraceptive and are not abortifacient. Roman Catholics, however, oppose all use of contraception—even those methods that are not abortifacient. Hollinger gives a brief but helpful history of why Evangelicals and Roman Catholics have differed on this issue. Hollinger also sets forth a…

John Piper preached a special message in Southern Seminary’s chapel last Thursday titled, “Don’t waste your theological education!” It’s vintage Piper. If you are a student of theology in any setting, I highly recommend it to you.

Tom Schreiner and Sam Storms have both published essays this morning at The Gospel Coalition discussing whether the miraculous gifts are still in operation today. Tom Schreiner argues the cessationist position–that miraculous gifts have ceased. Storms argues the continuationist postion–that prophecy, tongues, and the rest continue. I think both essays have a constructive tone even as they straightfowardly disagree with one another. The essays are too short to cover the issues exhaustively. Nevertheless, I think that Schreiner has the stronger argument. For me anyway, the arguments for the continuationist position continue to fall short biblically. At the end of the day, this all comes down to what the Bible teaches,…

Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist, has a lengthy blog post expressing her disagreement with Candace Cameron Bure. Last week, Bure was in the news for defending a complementarian view of gender roles. Bessey argues that Bure’s decision to submit to her husband is both unbiblical and harmful to women. Bessey’s remarks are pretty standard egalitarian fare. There’s nothing really new at all in her critique of complementarianism. Nevertheless, there was one line in her post that jumped off of the page at me. It stood out not because it is new, but because it is “Exhibit A” of what is wrong with egalitarian exegesis. Here’s the sentence: