The Pope on Gender and the end of Western Civilization

Every year in December, the Pope delivers an address to the Roman Curia. The annual speech has been dubbed “The State of the Union” for the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope gave this year’s address earlier today, and it is already making waves—for all the right reasons.   

News reports and punditry have focused most of their attention on the speech’s implications for gay marriage—namely that the Pope opposes same-sex unions of any kind. Nevertheless, the focus on the legal question of gay marriage is a rather shallow analysis of the speech. Make no mistake. The Pope’s words are nothing less than a broadside against any notion of same-sex marriage. But what he said actually goes much deeper than that.

He argues that there is a “crisis” threatening the very foundations of the family in the western world. The crisis is not merely about a particular social construct, but about what it means to be “authentically human.” The family is in crisis because mankind in the western world has forgotten what it means to be created in the image of God as male and female. The Pope takes on not merely homosexual marriage, but the entire foundation of modern gender theory—the idea that gender is something that you choose, not something that you are. I think it’s worth quoting him at length on this point:   Continue at Denny Burk

Purity, Power, and the Missing Mark of the Church

Arguably the best general description of the effect the New Testament Church had on its society is given by Luke in Acts 17:6. When an unruly mob could not find Paul and Silas — the source of their irritation — they dragged other Christians before the city officials and declared, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). What was intended as a damning criticism, however, was actually an unintended accolade because unbelievers were admitting that the early Christians were having a substantial impact upon society, a society characterised by polytheism, gladiatorial combats, sex outside of marriage, divorce, infanticide, and abortion. This account sounds just like life in early twenty-first century Western civilization, doesn’t it? Well, it does, except for the bit about the church turning the world upside down.

Our postmodern, pluralistic society is not far removed in essence from first-century Graeco-Roman society. Ungodliness is still here, immorality is still in evidence, and the life-is-cheap attitude still pervades. But society in the West does not really notice or take seriously the church. Why? Could it be because the reality of the living God is not being seen in the Western church? Could it be because there is no attention-grabbing evidence of the transforming power of the gospel? Could it be because, to some extent, the sign ichabod is metaphorically hanging over the doors of many sanctuaries and around the necks of many Christians? And if all this is the case, why is it the case? Could it be because, generally speaking, Christians in the West are simply not as devoted to the Apostles’ teaching as we should be? I am increasingly convinced that this is the case.   Keep Reading>>>