The Goodness of Gender

The jarring “It is not good for the man to be alone” was not an “oops” moment in the creation story. Adam’s aloneness was underscored as he named the animals. There was no creature that corresponded to him, who glorified and enjoyed God with him, who communicated with him. Then, God gave him a helper who was equal but different, and their perfect complementarity reflected the glory of the ontological (pertaining to being or essence) equality and functional diversity of the three-in-one God. It was very good.

God gave man and woman the cultural mandate to be fruitful, multiply, and take dominion by extending the beauty and wonder of Eden into all the world. They were created for something bigger than themselves, but they believed Satan’s lies and lost it all. Then God gave the gospel promise that the woman’s offspring would crush the enemy, and Adam responded by naming his wife Eve, which means life-giver, pointing to the One who would give His life for and to His people.   Continue at Susan Hunt

Transgender Issues: Far From the Final Frontier

In a groundbreaking decision, a federal review board on Friday ruled that transgender people are now eligible to receive Medicare coverage for gender-reassignment surgeries.

The ruling by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Departmental Appeals Board amended a 33-year policy that required the government health insurance program to automatically deny coverage for such procedures. Under the new guidelines, gender-reassignment surgeries will be treated as an ordinary medical procedure and applications for coverage will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The board’s decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed last year by several national LGBT groups on behalf of Denee Mallon, 74, a biological man who identifies as a woman.

As Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal observes,

“Although the Department of Health and Human Services appeals-board decision involved a single case—a New Mexico woman who sought gender-reassignment surgery—it could have broad ramifications because private insurance companies and Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, often follow Medicare’s lead on coverage.”   Continue at Timothy Kleiser

Feminism: A Reversal of Biblical Standards

Satan delights in wreaking havoc on the church. He twists the truth on every issue, creating doctrinal confusion wherever he can.

He has been particularly successful in distorting the roles God has designed for men and women. Over the years, the cultural ideal of gender role equality has seeped into many churches—and Christians have bought into it. In many congregations, men sit back and relax while women preach the Word and lead the church. In fact, it is alarming to see how comfortable Christians have become with adopting the standards of the world.

Meanwhile, society gives hearty approval to the trend. In a chapter titled “To Hell with Sexism: Women in Religion” in Megatrends for Women, authors Patricia Aburdene and John Naisbitt show how modern culture celebrates feminism:

Women of the late twentieth century are revolutionizing the most sexist institution in history—organized religion. Overturning millennia of tradition, they are challenging authorities, reinterpreting the Bible, creating their own services, crowding into seminaries, winning the right to ordination, purging sexist language in liturgy, reintegrating female values and assuming positions of leadership. 

It’s safe to say, that trend in the church—noted more than twenty years ago—has become a settled reality, and it is dangerous on many levels. Feminist theology teaches that God is not male, God does not exist in a trinitarian form, Jesus was a feminist, and the true history of women was edited out of the Bible. Aburdene and Naisbitt assert that once women’s perspectives “attain greater power, [that] will signal revolutionary changes in church policies.” And for years now we have seen a surge in attempts to purge male terminology out of Bible translations.    Continue at John F. MacArthur

Four Further Thoughts on the Complementarian Conversation

Since my post three weeks ago on New Wave Complementarianism, there has been a, well, wave of responses, rejoinders, and surrejoinders. I won’t take time to link to them all; they are easy enough to find. I am grateful for the thoughtful reflections from my brothers and sisters.

  

I don’t have a lot to add, except to offer a few suggestions that perhaps may help the continuing discussion be a fruitful one.

One, let’s make sure we are all talking about the same thing. No one has trademarked the term “complementarian,” and I understand these labels can be quite fluid. But the best place to start by way of definition is the Danvers Statement. If we are all complementarians having this discussion, we should have some semblance of a definition of complementarianism. Historically (and I realize it’s not a long history), Danvers has provided a useful starting point. Complementarianism, as a definable “ism,” arose in response to a set of concerns (e.g., gender confusion, ambivalence about motherhood, physical abuse, women in unbiblical leadership roles, hermeneutical oddities) and a laid down a set of biblical affirmations (e.g., men and women are equal as divine image bearers, they have distinct roles, redemption reverses the curse of male and female sin, certain ministry roles are reserved for men, there are countless ministry opportunities in the world for both men and women). These concerns and affirmations are not the last word on complementarianism. But if we want to be sure we are talking about the same thing, they should be among the first words.    Continue at Kevin DeYoung

The New Spirituality - Dismantling and Reconstructing Reality

The New Spirituality is "neither an organized religion nor a systematized philosophy but a group of ideas and a network of communication." (1) Such an innocuous description is still somewhat typical-the New Spirituality is just one more option in modern day pluralism, about which we should probably be somewhat informed.  

I must disagree. 

While it is not an "organized religion," this spirituality is the reappearance of the massive system of ancient world paganism and, as such, represents the greatest threat to the church since the Greco-Roman pagan empire. The situation is urgent. 

The incredibly beautiful "Temple of Humankind"-secretly under construction since 1978, 100 feet below ground, inside a mountain near the northern Italian city of Vidracco-provides the right terminology. Its builders say the temple is not a place of prayer, but "a place for contemplation of the divine within the self." Their work, they say, is not for a religion but for "a new civilization." (2) 

Our culture is reaching a tipping point of momentous implications where the "New Spirituality" may well represent the next phase of the faith and practice of modern autonomous humanity, whose goal is nothing less than the construction of a new Sodom and Babel.

Few were expecting this. Most merely saw a cloud the size of a man's hand appearing on the Western horizon. That marginal "hippy" revolution of spiritual and sexual experimentation would quickly dissipate. The real threat was secular humanism. The fact is this New Age "cloud of unknowing" has morphed into a perfect storm of latter rain that intends to irrigate the entire planet with the Aquarian "living water" of integrative monistic oneness.

Perhaps we are beginning to "get it," especially when it affects our children. In 2007, California governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 777 into law, making it illegal for teachers and children to use terms like "mom" and "dad" and "husband" and "wife" in public schools. Already in England using such terms is now officially called "bullying." (3) Montgomery County, Maryland, allows people to use public restrooms based on who they think they are sexually; and in San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors will now issue municipal identification cards showing name, birth date, and photo, but no gender. 

The cloud has become a tsunami; the Sixties' sexual liberation was not a mere dream of hippies who had opted out of public life. In fact, in a long march through the institutions, the "Flower Power" children cleaned themselves up and became the "establishment" them-selves. They have demonized the patriarchal society of Western and biblical civilization as the greatest expression of human evil, and replaced it with a radical egalitarianism that knows no gender roles and believes that the murder of unborn babies is not only settled law but vital to the emancipation of women. (4) In one generation, this sexual liberation has become public policy. The ideas behind these social changes are deeply and spiritually pagan-as even a cursory examination of Romans 1:18-28 will show.  Continue at Peter R. Jones

Wives Speak Out

Can we be anecdotal for a few moments? To be clear, TGC and the women represented in this article believe what they believe about marriage not primarily because of experience but fundamentally because of God's Word. But I've been impressed lately by a host of strong, gifted married women who actually, joyfully, and productively give witness to the beauty of Scripture's pattern for marriage---headship and submission and all!

Complementarians often hear that women's gifts are being ignored or unused. Certainly in some cases this is true. However, in an effort to soften or eliminate biblical distinctions between women and men, women's hardships are too often blamed on those distinctions rather than on sinful human hearts that---whether they lean toward complementarianism or egalitarianism---so easily pursue selfish gain rather than the other's good. Might it be possible that the gospel lived out in marriage can by God's grace restore to the headship and submission of husbands and wives their rightful, Christ-reflecting beauty?

The following words from women are not proofs but glimpses of such grace. The focus here is limited, as we peer briefly into the lives of a few married women---acknowledging that such stories of grace, strength, and productivity emerge from all kinds of lives, married or not. But marriage has been on our cultural minds lately, in many ways, not just in the church. All the forces battering this institution have actually brought it vividly onto the public stage for a hearing. Because of these cultural battles, but especially because of the way the Bible talks about it, marriage is a crucial subject for all of us no matter what our relational status.  Keep Reading >>>

Male and Female on Purpose

As promised, I plan to post a few excerpts from Kevin DeYoung’s message “Who Am I? Humanity in the Eyes of the World and the Christian” from the 2011 Next conference. Here’s the first excerpt, on gender roles, personal identity, and why husbands must not be dictators or doormats:

The world says you are free to create yourself. God says, “You are created to reflect my image.”

What does it mean to be in God’s image? It means we have a certain resemblance to God with our intelligence, our appreciation for beauty, our rationality, and in our capacity for worship and language. It means we represent God, that we have dominion over creation as rulers, as stewards, as those called to cultivate. It means that we are relational beings, interacting with God and with each other so that the image of God consists in these relational virtues of knowledge and righteousness and holiness.

Listen to Colossians 3:9–10: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Likewise, Ephesians 4:24 says, “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” So the restored image of God shows us what sort of image bearers we are. We are those who have the righteousness and holiness that is characteristic of God himself. Keep Reading...

I’m a Complementarian, But…

Let’s just dive right into this.  I believe and joyfully accept what the Scripture teaches about the equality of men and women as creations of God in His own image with differing roles according to gender in the home and the church.  I’m a complementarian.

Some men shrug at the notion of gender roles, while other men get combative.  The biblical vision of complementarity only excites a few men, and that breaks down to some extent along generational lines.

But nearly every woman grows intense and agitated on this issue.  And here’s why: How we think about complementarity and how we practice equality between men and women with differing roles affects pretty much every woman in our homes and our churches.  The self-interest of women is good, right, and necessary.  The disinterest of men is at best benign neglect, and at worst a failure to consider and love half the human population. Continue Reading>>>

Boys Wearing Skirts to School? What’s Going On?