This Week’s Good Reads

Here’s some of the more interesting and challenging things I read this week online, check them out:

1. Issues with The Nashville Statement

The leaders of The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood spearheaded a document on Biblical sexuality about a week ago. Its signatories include a list of who’s who in contemporary Evangelicalism, especially Reformed Evangelicalism. There’s much about it that can be appreciated, and affirmed. Yet I would have reservations about signing it. Others have expressed perhaps better than I, some of these issues. Consider these posts:

“On the Nashville Statement and My Signing It” by Alastair Roberts

Roberts signed the statement, but points to 5 things he wished that it had done better, and an additional 10 things that he believes complicate its credibility.

“A Few Questions About the CBMW Statement” by Aimee Bird

Bird is pointed in her pushback, citing CBMW’s indirect support of poor Trinitarian theology and its impact, then, of their view of gender roles. Her argument, essentially, is that you can’t promote poor stereotypes and poor Trinitarian doctrine and still be the key voice on what is termed as Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

“Why I Won’t Sign the Nashville Statement” by Matthew Lee Anderson

Anderson’s criticisms are more related to what the NS doesn’t say. He was disappointed that there seems to be a lack of self-awareness on the part of the authors in terms of Evangelicalism’s own sins and complicity in the sexual revolution. If all his critiques don’t hold up for me, I think he still presents another perspective worth sharing.

“The Benedict Option and the Nashville Statement” by Ron Belgau

Ron argues that the statement is framed in such a way as to continue the pointed aggression against Gays that Christians need to repent of. Ron writes as a celibate Christian who has struggled with a same-sex attraction for years and so his perspective is most welcomed.

2. “Self-Examination Speaks A Thousand Lies” by Jared Mellinger

While God call us to self-examination the reality is that there are many who can use self-examination as an opportunity to obsess and condemn. As Mellinger writes, “But when that introspection makes us self-absorbed instead of Christ-absorbed, we undermine our faith.”

3. “Reading the Gospels: Do You Know the 7 Differences Between Galilee and Judea in the Time of Jesus?” by Justin Taylor

Taylor quotes commentator and New Testament scholar R.T. France in identifying the seven differences that distinguish the Norther part of the Jewish people and the Southern people of the Jews. A short and yet insightful look at some of the important geopolitical distinctions.

4. “America’s New Dads are Older Than Ever” by Ronald Klatz

An interesting look at the rising age of new fathers. This quick look at the matter identifies both strengths and concerns to rising ages among new fathers.