Happy Father’s Day! Courtesy of Igniter Media.
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Why surgery is not the answer for transgender
This should be the last item on transgender for the week, but it is one that readers will want to pay very close attention to. Dr. Paul McHugh is the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he has penned a revealing column for The Wall Street Journal opinion page. In short, he challenges the notion that sex-reassignment surgery is good for transgendered persons. His data are very compelling. He writes:
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10 ways to love your transgender neighbor
On Tuesday, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution “On Transgender Identity” that calls for Christians to “love our transgender neighbors” and to “seek their good always.” But what does that look like in practical terms? In light of that question, I thought it might be useful to post some reflections on how we might love our transgender neighbors. I’m sure there is more that might be added to such a list, but here are ten ways to love your transgender neighbor.
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The Daily Beast says SBC resolution is “harmful to the idea of democracy itself”
At The Daily Beast, Jay Michaelson excoriates the resolution on transgender passed by Southern Baptists earlier this week. His article is riddled with factual errors, not the least of which is the fact that he seems not to have read the actual resolution. Instead, he quotes from an early draft containing elements that did not end up in the final resolution. To wit, there’s nothing in the resolution about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but Michaelson criticizes it as if there were.
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Happy Belated Birthday to… Napoleon Dynamite
How could I have missed it? I do not know, but I did. Yesterday, Napoleon Dynamite turned ten years old. Happy Birthday, Napoleon. You are an American treasure. Now go back to drawing some Ligers.
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Good: The Joy of Christian Manhood and Womanhood
Desiring God Ministries and CBMW have just produced a new book celebrating biblical manhood and womanhood. It’s edited by Owen Strachan and Jonathan Parnell, and it’s titled Good: The Joy of Christian Manhood and Womanhood. I’ve got a chapter in it on transgender, which you can read here. John Piper penned a nostalgic forward to the book that takes a look back at just how much has changed among evangelicals since he and Wayne Grudem first edited Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood twenty-six years ago. Grateful for the fruit of that work, Piper concludes with this: I commend this book to you, and pray that the beauty of the vision,…
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Southern Baptists pass resolution on transgender
Last week, I wrote about a resolution that I proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention (along with my co-sponsor Andrew Walker). This morning, the resolutions committee included a revised version in their slate of resolutions for 2014 annual meeting. I think they did a fine job with it and offered many helpful improvements to the text that we sent them. The final draft of resolution #9 titled “On Transgender Identity” is printed below. The messengers just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution. In fact, I couldn’t see a single ballot raised against it.
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The future of evangelical reflection on same-sex orientation
Last week, Matthew Vines had an extended interaction with Sam Allberry’s review of God and the Gay Christian. Vines digs his heals in and defends the main thesis of his book while critiquing Allberry’s book Is God anti-gay? Those who have read my own review of Vines’s book will not be surprised that I find much to disagree with in Vines’s remarks. He continues to argue that same-sex orientation is a morally neutral—and even praiseworthy—category of desire. I won’t rehearse all my reasons for disagreement but simply direct the reader to my earlier review. It’s worth mentioning, however, that I find myself in agreement with Vines about one thing (though…
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A movie that makes abortion funny
Louise Melling describes the new movie “Obvious Child” as a romantic comedy that tries to make abortion sympathetic and funny (view trailer here). Melling writes: In it, main character Donna has an abortion after a drunken one-night stand. But unlike most other characters who grapple with this question, Donna doesn’t torture herself. She makes the decision without angst, guilt, or extenuating circumstances. And like millions of American women, Donna follows through, then moves on with her life. A movie about an experience this common – nearly one in three American women will have an abortion in their lifetime — shouldn’t feel so revolutionary. But it does. Melling goes on to…
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These are the boys of Pointe Du Hoc
Today is the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Above is President Ronald Reagan’s iconic speech commemorating the event on the 40th anniversary.