I attended the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society last week in Boston. Readers may wonder why I take time to write an annual round-up of the goings-on at such an event. The bottom line is pretty simple. This is where evangelical scholars and theologians gather to engage one another in academically rigorous theological debate. These are the authors who shape the pastors who in turn shape congregations across North America. What starts at ETS often doesn’t stay at ETS but eventually makes its way to the pews. For example, I had my first debate about whether same-sex attraction is sinful at the 2014 annual meeting of the ETS. By 2018, a PCA church in Missouri was hosting the first Revoice conference. So that’s why it matters.
What follows is purely my perspective, which is by definition limited. But here are some items I found to be notable.
1. The Board of ETS Adopts New Gender/Sexuality Statement
Believe it or not, ETS does not have any doctrinal or membership standards that would prevent LGBTQ-affirming people from becoming members of the society or from participating in the annual meeting. The board of ETS has sought to remedy this problem by adopting a new standard on gender/sexuality, which was announced by Ken Magnuson during the business meeting. It reads as follows:
Human beings are created male and female and are called to affirm biological sex as gender identity in doctrine and practice. Human sexual activity is limited by Scripture to marriage, which is exclusively the union of a man and a woman.
As you can see, the language rules out sexual immorality (heterosexual or homosexual), transgenderism, and gay marriage. The executive director read a statement explaining the board’s rationale for adopting the standard. Among other things, the board explains that the statement sets forth a “biblical view of sexuality to provide guidance to the Society as needed, and to serve as protection in the case of legal action against ETS.”
This is a historic announcement from the board of ETS. It was ten years ago that I first heard an ETS member present making gay-affirming statements during an ETS session. I wrote at the time that this was a fork in the road for ETS. The precedent was being set for LGBTQ affirmation to be considered within the pale at ETS. Stan Gundry argued that the ETS should include members on all sides of the gay marriage question. So this is a really positive development that now, ten years later, the board has adopted a biblically faithful statement that clearly marks out of bounds those who would affirm LGBTQ.
2. A Second Woman To Be President
A year after Karen Jobes finished her term as the first female president of ETS, the nominating committee put forth another woman to be president, Dr. Gwenfair Adams of Gordon-Conwell Seminary. In his 2016 presidential address, Dan Wallace admonished members that the ETS is not the “Evangelical Complementarian Society.” He concluded, “I pray that we can get past our insecurities, and fears of other viewpoints, and ennoble our brothers and sisters who may disagree with us” (emphasis his).
Ever since then, there has been a concerted effort to have more egalitarians and women elected to the presidency of the ETS. Christianity Today reported in 2023 that the “ETS Women’s Networking Event” leads that effort and actively organizes to elect people to the presidential nominating committee. The group is led by Christa McKirland, a well-known writer for Christians for Biblical Equality and one of the editors of the third edition of the landmark egalitarian work Discovering Biblical Equality (IVP, 2021). ETS solicits corporate sponsorships for the group at a rate of $3,000 a pop. If I am reading the information correctly, ETS collected $3,000 worth of sponsorships in 2025 for the Women’s Networking group.
Their effectiveness can be measured by the fact that in the span of four years (2021 and 2025), they have managed to set two different egalitarian women on the path to the ETS presidency.
3. CBMW Banquet
Every year the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) hosts a small banquet the night before ETS to engage and encourage complementarian scholarship. It is always such a rich time of fellowship and discussion with likeminded brothers and sisters. I first attended one of these when I was a Ph.D. candidate myself many years ago, and I am pleased that we are still able to continue this event. Dr. Jonathan Master, president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, delivered an address confronting those (like Wheaton professor Amy Peeler) who are calling for Christians to address God as “mother” or “parent.” It was really well done.
4. Conference Theme
The conference theme this year was apropos for the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed (AD 325). There were many papers celebrating and defending Nicene Trinitarianism. This was certainly the case with the plenary addresses. It was also the case in the session where I delivered a paper on the ESV’s rendering of μονογενής in John’s writings. I argued that the recent trend toward rendering this term as “only” is a big mistake that has serious trinitarian implications. The term should be rendered as “only-begotten,” which is how the Nicene Fathers understood the term and which was the touchstone for the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation. Lee Irons delivered an excellent paper after mine arguing for the exact same conclusion but from another angle. It was quite the one-two punch. I hope the translators of the ESV will reconsider their rendering of μονογενής. We’ll see.
There were many other interesting sessions not related to the conference theme. Kevin DeYoung delivered a paper on historic revisions of the Westminster Confession—changes which implicate current debates about Christian nationalism. Stephen Wolfe was in attendance and had some pointed questions for DeYoung at the end of his presentation.
Also of note was a session debating the quadriga. Patrick Schreiner, Brian Vickers, and Ardel Canaday delivered papers and then had a panel discussion/debate at the end (I missed the fourth speaker filling-in for Craig Carter). Fascinating discussion about a salient hermeneutical question that is not going away.
There is much more that happened at this year’s conference. This post only represents the smallest slice of it. It’s impossible to recount all of the conversations and meals with friends an colleagues that I sometimes only see once a year at this event. It was a great week, and I’m already looking forward to next year.
