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Autonomy Gone Amuck
autonomy (ô-tŏn’ə-mē) n., 1. Quality or state of being self-governed 2. Self-directing freedom and especially moral independence The first definition seems to be in line with biblical principles (self-controlled and responsible). However, the second definition seems to be how our culture defines autonomy. The culture’s definition echoes the repeated phrase in Judges, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jud 21:25). The book of Judges displays the chaotic and evil outcome of everyone doing right in their own eyes…autonomy gone amuck! Several contemporary thinkers aid in discerning the issues involving autonomy. Philip Rieff(1922-2006) wrote of the triumph of the therapeutic self which is defined as when “the…
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Saying “Masculinity Is Toxic” vs. “Fight Masculinity That Is Toxic”
“Toxic Behavior Versus Toxic Masculinity.” That was a title I read on a press release in my in-box. And, normally I hit “delete” on email ads. But this one grabbed my attention, because I saw in it two things contrasted that were actually the same thing—because toxic masculinity is toxic behavior. And we should oppose that. So, I read further and found the release contained information about a new book by a well-known Christian author. “No doubt, men’s behavior can be toxic, or sinful if you want to put it another way,” the release said. I agreed. But then it went south: “Society’s answer to this dilemma has been to…
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Sexuality and Faith: Male and Female in God’s Good Design
Recently, a colleague and I brought together more than 20 seminary scholars, expert therapists, and researchers in specific areas of sexuality to form a written compilation that released this month from Kregel Academic. The title is Sanctified Sexuality: Valuing Sex in an Oversexed World. One endorser described each chapter as being like a “TED Talk” in each writer’s area of expertise. All contributors agreed to donate profits to the Institute for Sexual Wholeness. So, sales support a good cause. The book’s topics include a theology of the human body; gender; gender dysphoria; identity; same-sex attraction; adolescent sexuality; celibacy; cohabitation; contraception; human dignity; infertility; marital sexuality; divorce/remarriage; rape/#MeToo/#ChurchToo, how to have conversations with…
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What Does It Mean That Woman is “Helper” (Ezer)?
Some years ago, I was interviewing an elderly Old Testament scholar about the Book of Genesis. A brilliant man with decades of experience in mostly Baptist churches and seminary contexts, he knew Hebrew and Akkadian and Aramaic. And he had a solid grasp of ancient Near Eastern culture. When I asked him to comment on how Genesis delineates male/female difference, he looked surprised. “Difference? In Genesis?” The idea struck him as preposterous. Then he insisted, “The first two chapters of Genesis place an emphasis on how much the man and woman are alike.” He went on to stress that the humans share the same name, “’adam.” And when the female is…
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Paul and His Subversive Passage on the Family
In the first half of the Book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul lays out the Christian’s new identity in Christ. In the second half, he provides the “so what,” or the ramifications. As he outlines what Spirit-filled living looks like (Eph. 5:18ff), he envisions a community in which people show Christ’s love by serving one another. And one of the places where such service happens is in the household—where in his day he would have found spouses, kids, and slaves under one roof. People living in the first century under Roman rule would have been familiar with instructions for respectable families known as “household codes.” These codes outlined the ideal…
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How Bad is This Conversion Therapy Thing?
As pro-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) voices and values grow louder and more insistent in the culture, what about those people of faith who experience same-sex attraction and don’t want it? What are they supposed to do with feelings and desires at odds with their faith? How are they supposed to learn to reconcile their faith and their sexuality? The cultural narrative has become, “LGBT represents normal, healthy variations in human sexuality, so everyone should support and celebrate all forms of sexual diversity. And if you don’t, we’re going to punish you, shame you, and squelch your voice.” Part of the punishing and shaming includes outrage over “Conversion Therapy.”…
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Raising Gender Healthy Kids
Emotionally healthy children who grow up to be emotionally healthy adults are comfortable in their own skin, in the gender God chose for them. These days, when a child shows non-stereotypical gender behavior, people start to freak out, afraid that their child is actually the opposite sex on the inside. Good news! There are things parents can do to raise gender healthy kids, girls who are content to be girls and boys who are glad to be boys. Without resorting to artificial stereotypes, either. First, loosen up your expectations of what boys and girls should be like. A friend of mine now in college was recently exasperated when the instructor…
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Eight Views of Women in the Church, Home, and Society within the Inerrancy Camp
Lately, an old post I wrote about different views of women in the church and home has been receiving some airtime and critique. The post was designed to show the spectrum of views held by those who self-identify as holding to the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture. Biola’s Octavio Esqueda writing for Christianity Today rightly observed about my outline that, “Not all egalitarians would identify as feminists, and not all complementarians would call themselves extreme traditionalists or patriarchal. Therefore, although not perfect, this outline provides a useful description of possibilities within the broad main positions.” It’s true—the list is not exhaustive or perfect; yet it does give us some categories and a summary of rationales. Based on…
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What It Means to Be a Woman (Not for Women Only)
In a seminary Sexual Ethics course I co-teach, my co-worker and I have students survey churches' curriculum relating to manhood and womanhood. Consistently these students find that evangelical curriculum writers have gone to biblical instruction directed to the "wife" or "husband" and extrapolated from the spouse-specific commands to support their ideas of gender. But wife and husband are only subsets of man and woman. So we need to start at a different place. In this episode of The Table Podcast, I talk with Darrell Bock and Kymberli Cook about that place as we discuss gender, sexuality, maleness, femaleness, masculinity, femininity, and how men and women need each other. We end…
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Rebellion and Exponential Evil
“For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, (for while…
