Here are some helpful articles on some important current issues:
The FAQs: What You Should Know About the Pro-LGBTQ Equality Act – Joe Carter (TGC)
Inside Planned Parenthood’s Gender Factory – Abigail Shrier
Why Are Young Adults Increasingly Identifying as Bisexual? – Joe Carter (TGC)
A New Pastoral Problem – Carl Trueman
The Book Amazon Does Not Want You to Read – Justin Taylor
Here are some helpful posts on some recent books related to abuse:
Rachael Denhollander: Abuse Does Not Get the Final Word – Justin Holcomb (TGC)
What Is a Girl Worth? – Tim Challies
The Creaking on the Stairs – Tim Challies
The topic of burial versus cremation came up in my sermon last Sunday. Here are some good posts to help you think through the choice:
The FAQs: What Christians Should Know About Cremation – Joe Carter (TGC)
To Bury or to Burn? Cremation in Christian Perspective – David Jones (TGC)
What Should Christians Think about Cremation? – Richard Phillips (ref21)
A Biblical Theology of Burial – Nick Batzig (TCC)
Should Christians Cremate Their Loved Ones? A Modest Proposal – John Piper (DG)
No Cremation — But Should I Gift My Body to Science? – John Piper (DG)
Here are some important posts to ponder regarding the recent Equality Town Hall:
Beto O’Rourke’s Plan to Destroy Churches – Joe Carter (TGC)
The #EqualityTownHall Was Loud and Clear: The LGBTQ+ Community, Beto, the Equality Act, and Evangelicals – Ed Stetzer (CT)
Democrats Are Going to Regret Beto’s Stance on Conservative Churches – John Inazu (Atlantic)
The Cultural Left Bares Its Teeth: An Open Threat to Churches and Christians Who Hold to Biblical Conviction – Albert Mohler
Here are some good posts to help parents think about their children and smartphones. You may not agree with everything, but these posts address some important issues and possible approaches.
Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? – Jean Twenge (Atlantic)
Should Teens Own Smartphones? – Tony Reinke (DG)
Twelve Tips for Parenting in the Digital Age – Tony Reinke (DG)
Here are some good posts on the intersection of ideas and identity:
Why Transgenderism Is a Problem for Secularism – Bernard Howard (TGC)
The Ancient Heresy Driving Modern Identity – Akos Balogh (TGC)
The Gospel Is the Only Stable Source of Identity and Value – Melinda Penner (STR)
Delaware’s Department of Education has proposed letting all children choose their own gender and race. They would then be able to use the bathroom of their decided gender, play on the sports of their decided gender, and be able to expect everyone around them to use the pronouns of their decided gender. All without informing their parents.
Nine observations:
Children simply do not have the cognitive ability to be making these decisions.
No one has the ability to make these decisions as they are defined by genetics, anatomy, and, in the case of race, family ancestry. Physical reality matters. Your body matters – it is an essential part of who you are.
The policy itself encourages identity confusion. I grew up knowing I was a boy in part because my anatomy is male and my culture supported this physical reality. This policy tells children to distrust their physical reality. Our culture’s ideology no longer agrees with anatomy. How many otherwise unconfused children are we confusing?
The policy is quite frankly insulting. It would be highly insulting to women everywhere for me to claim to be a woman, as I have no idea what it means to experience life as a woman (as many a wife has told her husband whenever the subject of giving birth comes up). It would be highly insulting to African-Americans for me to claim that I am black, as I have no idea what it is like to experience life as a black person.
We should beware of forcing new untested ideas (that past generations would have immediately rejected) on the next generation. These are unchartered waters, and we have no idea what we are doing.
Safety must come first. There is a reason we have separate bathrooms and locker rooms for girls and boys. This policy can so easily be abused by predators, as any boy could claim he is a girl to gain access to the girls’ locker room.
Once again parental rights are being trampled, as if the cultural elites know better how to raise our children.
I understand that some people struggle with their identity. But the loving answer is not to encourage them to live in a self-made fantasy world. Rather, the loving answer is encourage them to embrace their physical reality.
These are important issues that require rational consideration and discussion. And these issues relate to real people who on all sides deserve love and respect.
For another helpful look at some of the issues see here.
Here are some good posts in response to the flood of recent scandals in Hollywood and beyond:
Hollywood, Capitol Hill and the Human Heart – Nick Batzig (reformation 21)
It’s Past Time to Rethink Modern Sexual Morality – David French (National Review)
Sexual Consent in a Confused, Confusing World – Tim Challies
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood recently released the Nashville Statement. The statement declares the Biblical teaching on human gender and sexuality. It is helpful summary for the church today living in the midst of our culture’s confusion about these issues – confusion that has invaded the church. You can read the statement here. And then follow up with several insightful posts on why it is needed and why different people signed it:
CBMW Releases Coalition Statement on Biblical Sexuality – Matt Damico
Why the Nashville Statement now, and what about article 10? – Denny Burk
Rosaria Butterfield: “Why I Signed the Nashville Statement” – Rosaria Butterfield
When Calling Yourself a “Christian” Isn’t Enough – Adam Parker
Why I, Peter Jones, signed the Nashville Statement on Sexuality – Peter Jones
Here are three posts on how we might help those affected by the hurricane:
From the Flooded Grounds of Houston – J.A. Medders (TGC)
Praying in the Middle of a Storm – Mike Ayers (FTC)
Samaritans Purse: Donate and Volunteer
Brian J. Mikul 