I could not have predicted the Revoice conference would become the catalyst for controversy that it has now indeed become. Debate about the celibate gay identity movement has been going on for years. Both in print and online, the controversy was joined years ago about sin, temptation, desire, concupiscence, etc. And yet, it has been a controversy largely ignored by many evangelicals. That’s why I couldn’t have predicted that a conference featuring speakers whose views have been widely known for years would somehow change evangelical indifference about problems within the celibate gay identity movement. Even last Fall when celibate gay identity proponents were some of the most strident critics of…
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Is it okay for the state to take your child away because you won’t affirm his transgender feelings?
A thought experiment: What if you had a child who experienced feelings of gender confusion? You are a Christian, so as your child grows you try to teach him what the Bible says about how God made us male and female and how the distinction between male and female is therefore a good thing (Gen. 1:31). You teach him that our maleness and femaleness is first of all biologically defined according to our binary reproductive capacities (Gen. 1:26-27). You also teach him that it is good and right to embrace that biological reality and the responsibilities and duties that go along with it. You love your child and wish to…
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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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Scholar says intersectional feminism is a cult
Christina Hoff Sommers studies the politics of gender and feminism as resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and she is the host of the “Factual Feminist” video series. Yesterday, Ben Domenech interviewed her for The Federalist Radio Hour (download here or listen below). Sommers defines her own feminist views over and against “intersectional feminism,”1 which she says dominates college campuses today. She says that intersectional feminism is like a “cult” which allows no dissent and silences all contrary views. It is heavily invested in identity politics, promoting a kind of “oppression olympics” in which there is a competition among students to prove who is the most aggrieved by perceived…
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Is the new head of the EPA a “climate change denialist”?
I know that climate change policy is highly controversial with ideological interests driving both sides of the debate. It is extremely frustrating, therefore, when news reports depart from “straight” reporting and delve into advocacy for one side or the other. I think we’ve already seen some of that in some of the reporting on Scott Pruitt’s recent nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).* Earlier today, I heard the personalities on “Morning Joe” discussing Pruitt’s nomination and expressing fears that Pruitt denies the reality of global climate change—the implication being that conservatives are “science deniers,” etc. Their discussion seemed to be based on The New York Times’s coverage, which…
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A must-read about the evangelical gender debate
Without question, 1 Timothy 2:12 is the most contested verse in the wider debate among evangelicals about women in ministry. The most contested clause within this most contested verse is “I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.” And the most contested word within this most contested clause is without a doubt authentein (often translated as “exercise authority”). The meaning of this term and even of its syntax has been the subject of no little dispute. And it has long been a crux interpretum among those engaged in the debate between complementarians and egalitarians. For two decades now, the most important book on…
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Alan Chambers says “sin is irrelevant.” Is he right?
Alan Chambers has given another very troubling interview in which he declares that “sin is irrelevant” for Christians. Chambers is the former head of the now defunct Exodus International—an umbrella organization for a number of different ex-gay ministries that support reparative therapy. In recent years, Chambers has repudiated his former support of reparative therapy and has apologized to the gay community for his former work. Chambers’s remarks in this most recent interview are riddled with biblical and theological error, and I am not going to attempt a comprehensive response. But I do want to comment on two items:
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Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice
I contributed a chapter to a new book just published by Crossway: Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice. My chapter deals with transgender, but the rest of the book deals with gender issues more broadly. All of the contributors are complementarian. John Piper waxes nostalgic in the Foreword to the volume. He writes: My amazement is that decades into this struggle, there is such a widespread and robust embrace of the beautiful biblical vision of complementary manhood and womanhood. This may strike you as an evidence of small faith on my part. Perhaps it is. But if you had tasted the vitriol of…
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What Jesus Does with False Faith
“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, beholding His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man.” –John 2:23-25 In verse 24, there’s a play on words that you miss in English translation. Literally, John says that even though the people were believing in Jesus, He was not believing himself to them. The idea is that even though they were trusting in Jesus, He wasn’t reciprocating. Jesus…
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Gay marriage is not merely a culture war issue
Timothy Dalrymple’s analysis of events this week involving World Vision may be the most insightful that I have read yet. He argues that it is wrong-headed to think of the gay marriage debate merely as a “culture war issue.” He contends that regarding it as such may have been what led World Vision into the tumult this week. He writes: The core of the mistake, it seems to me, is precisely in regarding [gay marriage] as merely a “culture war issue.” When Richard Stearns addressed the Q Conference in Los Angeles in April, he pointed to Westboro Baptists as an example of “angry Christians protest[ing] gay marriage.” He then admonished…