I’ve been working toward a review of Ryan Anderson’s forthcoming book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (Encounter Books, 2018). It really is a fantastic, must-read work. I will resist beginning the review here, but I do want to share a passage from it that extols the virtues of motherhood and homemaking. Anderson writes: G. K. Chesterton praised the vocation of mother and homemaker as greater than paid employment in the modern marketplace, noting especially the broad range of responsibilities it involves. In her own domain, a home- maker is like the Queen, “deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays”; she is like Whiteley, the great retailer, “providing…
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Kiss the Wave: Embracing God in Your Trials
Yesterday, I received a copy of Dave Furman’s new book Kiss the Wave: Embracing God in Your Trials. Dave is a husband, father of four, and a pastor at Redeemer Church of Dubai. I just received the book, so I obviously haven’t read it yet. But I wanted to share a little snippet from a letter that Dave wrote describing what the book is about. He writes: One month into our ministry in the desert, everything fell apart. The nerve pain in my arms went from bad to extreme and the accompanying depression was unbearable. I was (and still am) unable to drive, shake hands, and lift more than a…
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A gut-wrenching afternoon thinking about child sexual abuse
I want to share with you two things that have been occupying my attention this afternoon, one of them expected and the other quite unexpected. First, I spent early afternoon completing a training program designed to help protect Christian ministries from child-predators. The program is the second one I have completed in the last month, and both programs are pre-requisite for serving in ministries that I am involved with. I am so very grateful for both programs. They were informative, helpful, and practical. But they were also gut-wrenching. I learned so much. Both programs describe how child predators single-out and groom children. Both programs explain how predators manipulate “gatekeepers” to…
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A mere complementarian reading of the most contested verse in the evangelical gender debate—1 Timothy 2:12
Evangelicals seem to be more divided than ever about the issue of gender roles in the home and in the church. On the one side, you have the egalitarians. They believe that Christ came to abolish gender norms. For them, true equality means that both men and women can serve in whatever roles they feel called to within the body of Christ. If a woman wants to be pastor, great. If she wants to preach the Bible to men, no problem. As long as the person is gifted for the work, then it doesn’t matter what the gender of the preacher is. At least that’s how the egalitarians have it.…
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Who can teach in a seminary? Men, women, both?
Last night Desiring God posted a new episode of the “Ask Pastor John” podcast in which John Piper answers the following question from a listener: “Dear Pastor John, I’m a seminary student at an orthodox but interdenominational school in the United States. I share your complementarian understanding of God’s design for male and female roles and relationships in the home and church. On that basis, I have recently doubted whether or not my seminary ought to allow women to teach pastors in training. What do you think? Should women be hired as seminary professors? What is your best case?” In response, Piper makes the case that women should not be…
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A feminist describes her abortion… and sadness
Just three years after Roe v. Wade passed, feminist writer Linda Bird Francke wrote about her abortion experience. Her story originally appeared under the pseudonym “Jane Doe” in The New York Times but was later published in a book of essays under her own name. Her experience and feelings afterward are still so very common today. In her own words:
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Should Christians take one another to court? (Short answer: no)
Jesus says that the world will recognize his followers by how his followers love one another. If people look at us and see us resolving our disputes and putting one another’s needs before our own, if they see us trying to outdo one another in honoring one another, if they see us weeping with those among us who weep and rejoicing with those among us who rejoice; if they see that, they will know that we love one another. And they will know that we are who we say we are—disciples of the King Jesus. But if they see us fighting with one another, gossiping about one another, complaining about…
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Is there a Christian justification for visiting prostitutes?
I’ve been preaching through 1 Corinthians at my church over the last year, and last week’s message was on 1 Cor. 6:12-20, in which Paul confronts men in the Corinthian church who were not only visiting prostitutes but who were also defending their right to do so as Christians. These men were rationalizing their sin by appealing to Christian freedom and to what they perceived to be the purpose of their physical bodies. Paul confronts their self-justifications with three truths. I. Christian Freedom Has Limits (6:12).II. The Resurrection Has Implications (6:13-18a)III. The Body Has a Purpose (6:18b-20) This passage is a case-study in how we tend to rationalize and excuse…
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The Last Hot Take on “The Last Jedi”
I know, I know. The last thing you need before the new year is one more hot take on The Last Jedi. Well, don’t worry this isn’t a hot take. This is a slowly-steeped-seen-it-twice-read-a-lot-and-pondered-it take. And yet, it will be short and sweet nevertheless. It is incredible to me that so many viewers seem to think so little of The Last Jedi. One thing is clear about the sharpest critics. The most disappointed viewers are the superfans. In short, they are the Star Wars uber-nerds. The following tweet exemplifies what I’m talking about:
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Top Ten Posts of 2017
I want to thank all of you who have read and interacted with this site over the last year. I am grateful for every one of you. For those of you who are interested, I give you the top 10 blog posts from 2017. This blog is a combination of content creation and content curation, which means that I sometimes write original material and that at other times I pass on to you items that I find interesting from elsewhere on the interwebs. Both kinds of posts appear on this list, but the vast majority are original pieces. This year’s list includes a lot of material dealing with gender and…